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Facebook is in a hiring freeze, crypto is crashing and Uber says it’s going to "treat hiring as a privilege" as a way to cut costs. What, us worry? Hell no. Deel, Rippling and iCIMS are raising money, enjoying some rare, unicorn air and in the news this week. Aspiring unicorns are raising cash too, and the boys play a little buy-or-sell with Manara, Certn and HireLogic. Lucky for them, Chad is enjoying his new digs in sun-filled Portugal, so Buy ratings are aplenty in contrast to Cheese's middle-American bitterness. What the boys can agree on, however, is recent commercials from Mod pizza and Upwork. What's more? This week's shoutouts are particularly entertaining, so don't skip the intro, kids. 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 (22s): Oh yeah. Facebook is in a hiring freeze. Crypto is crashing and Uber says it's going to treat hiring as a privilege, as a way to cut costs. And speaking of privileges, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "party's over said the girl" Cheeseman. Chad (42s): This is Chad "good vibrations" Sowash. Joel (44s): And on this week's episode, Rippling says it's kind of a big deal. Symphony Talent finds a new Mastro and a fun game of buy or sell everybody. Let's do this. Chad (57s): I'm giving it good vibrations. Joel (1m 3s): This is going to be the most friendly, happy Chad ever. When we're playing by or sell. So be ready for the buy ratings everybody Chad's in a good mood. And why are you in such a good mood Chad? Chad (1m 16s): After buying a condo here in Cabanas, Portugal? We've been searching for a while. We actually, I guess it shouldn't say a while, we actually started the house search after we found out where we wanted to land in December. So that's a pretty quick turnaround, we signed the deal today and we got the keys and who that's a big weight off my chest. Joel (1m 39s): Very nice, very nice. As your co-host and friend and hearing about this, I, for one am relieved that the long, strange trip has finally ended and that I now have a vacation home whenever needed and Portugal. Chad (1m 55s): You do. Joel (1m 56s): By the way, all Americans, you heard him say how easy it was. So everybody go to Portugal. Have a good time. Chad (2m 3s): No, no, no. Did I say that I meant Slovakia? Yeah. Silvacia yes. Joel (2m 9s): The health care, great food ocean living. Go to Portugal everybody go to Portugal. Chad (2m 14s): I can't wait to cut this out. Joel (2m 19s): The hour long show is 32 minutes. Should we get to shout outs then? Chad (2m 26s): Shout out, shout outs. Joel (2m 28s): So I got Qualifi. friends here in Indianapolis. Chad (2m 34s): Qualifi? Joel (2m 34s): Darian yes. Qualifi koala. The Firing Squad survivor has added Phil Daniels as a member of its board of directors and Doug Berg as a strategic advisor. Daniels currently serves on the board of Spring Buck, a healthcare company, and is also president of JDA worldwide, a full service marketing agency and friend of the show, Doug Berg, a little known fact our first sponsor, is the guy behind techies.com Jobs to Web and Zap Info who sold to Indeed where Doug is still an advisor. Qualifi making shit happen. Shout out to Darrian and team. Chad (3m 11s): Very nice, very nice. Also a little bit more news industry news from a shout out standpoint, shout out to Symphony Talent. There's some writing on the wall kid. So Kermit Randa. That's right. You heard it right. Kermit Randa is the new C E O at Symphony Talent. While current CEO Rupesh Niar steps into the Chief Product Officer position. So if you know anything about the PE firm that owns Symphony Talent, it's Symphony Technology Group. STG. Well, I say that they've had a pretty checkered past in recruitment and tech. Chad (3m 52s): This has not been a cakewalk for them. About 10 plus years ago, they had a disparate brands, including Findly Bernard Hodus and a bunch of others with little to no vision. And then STG cracked the whip, they brought in Rupesh to pull everything together under one single brand. And to try to do the same with tech. Well, apparently that phase has completed because they brought in a guy like Kermit, yes Kermit. That is a purely a growth guy. I mean, that's his background. So what does this actually mean for Symphony Talent kids? Well, I feel like there's going to be a lot of trimming the fat that's happening. Chad (4m 35s): If there is any to cut it all and doing nothing but driving revenues and prepping for sale. This PE firm has had these organizations for a while, and they finally got them together. So it looks like that's what's happening. We've also just received word that head of strategy, Debbie Tuel will be leaving after eight years, which once again is another indicator. Joel (5m 4s): So Kermit is one of those names that he must've gotten before Sesame Street was a thing or the Muppet's were a thing. It's like people named Adolf before 1939. Like it clearly shows his age. Cause if he's younger than e 60, and his name is Kermit I feel for him, I feel for him. Well, one of your favorite restaurants, Chad. Chick-fil-A is in one of my shout-outs. Chad (5m 27s): It's it's Jesus' chicken. Joel (5m 29s): Oh, that's in my summary, Chad don't steal my thunder. So while $17 an hour salaries for food service workers today doesn't seem totally crazy. Four years ago, it was downright revolutionary to pay a living wage. However, a Chick-fil-A franchisee went for it. The result, a retention rate of around 76%. Owner operator, Eric Mason summed it up best when he told Entrepreneur Magazine quote, "it's surprising how we won the war on turnover. I know a lot of other franchisees hiring 10, 15 people a month, we might only hire three, four or five people in a quarter. Joel (6m 9s): Our average employee tenure was over four years" end quote, shout out to Jesus' chicken, Eric Mason, and the living wage. Chad (6m 17s): Imagine that paying people something that they can live on, you get, it might help with retention. Who knows? Joel (6m 23s): If they're giving out free chicken sandwiches that may have something to do with the rettention. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Chad (6m 30s): Oh, going from chicken to job search a shout out to Doug Monroe and Adzuna. They won. And it continues service agreement with the government of the United Kingdom on their Find a Job platform. It's pretty much a white labeled version of Adzuna tech. I mean, it's good for cash credibility. They actually beat Monster out I think just a few, few years ago on this deal. And I've got to say that working with government, especially in this space is never easy. I have the experience and scars to prove it. So shout out to Adzuna good. Good work guys. Joel (7m 9s): Oh yeah. Adzuna show sponsor showing once again, that gold just rains down on companies that touch the Chad and Cheese podcast. My next shout out goes to Ian Goodfellow, who the fuck is in Goodfellow? Ian is director of machine learning at Apple and he recently resigned because of Apple's hybrid back to work policy that called for three days in and two days out, Chad, the man was in a boiling pot of water and he jumped out word, is it Apple? They're just working their way to that five day workweek and Mr. Goodfellow saw the writing on the wall and said I'm out. Chad (7m 49s): Yeah, well, so did other Apple employees, there was an open letter from Apple employees and quote, "how can we expect to convince the best people to come work with us if we reject anyone who needs the smallest bit of flexibility? How can we expect them to do their best work, but don't trust them to know how to do so?" from the employees. Again, Mr. Goodfellow, there's more than just him, who is his bucking, this boiling the frog. So, and hopefully we'll see more of it. Joel (8m 22s): We just had Kermit and frog talk in the same shout-out segment, I think that is a first. Well kids f you haven't signed up for free shit, what the hell are you doing? You got to head to Chad cheese.com, click the link, give us your information. We're talking free shirts from Emissary. We're talking free beer from our friends at Pillar and we're talking free whiskey from the folks at Textkernel, head to Chadcheese.com today, registering is totally free and you can't win unless you register everybody. Chad (8m 51s): Too easy. Joel (8m 51s): Free shit from Chad and Cheese. And let's talk about some birthdays, Chad, because we missed last week while we were nursing, that that hangover from Belgian. We've got a few birthdays celebrating this week or recently Jeremy Langham's celebrating birthday. Matt Kaiser, Dave Lefkoe of former Jobster fame and bacon salt. Chad (9m 15s): Bacon salt. Joel (9m 16s): Remember that? Ward Chrisman. Ed Newman. Oh, Jennifer "don't call me Jenny" from the block rut. We asked Annie Jarvis. Amy Buchko. If you haven't heard the interview with her, go back in the archives. Chad (9m 30s): Big names. Joel (9m 31s): Huge names, huge fans of Chad and Cheese. Glen hill. Garvis Sharma. Jerry Frank and Peter Sheree all celebrating another trip around the sun. Happy Birthday kids. Chad (9m 46s): All right, well, we just came from an event. We had a blast and if you didn't get FOMO from listening to the shows, I don't, you didn't listen to the show, man. It was great to be back live. We had an amazing time in Belgium, but guess what kids? Unleash's coming and remember Vegas. Remember when we used to go to Vegas when there was no COVIID? Joel (10m 9s): Come on now. I remember Vegas. Chad (10m 11s): Get ready. Cause May 25th and 26 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Chad and Cheese's actually going to be on stage with, believe it or not EEOC commissioner Keith Sonderling. That's right. We're going to be talking about, should you trust hiring with AI? And I also have a last minute addition that I'm not going to talk. It's going to be a surprise. This is a good one. She's going to be amazing on stage with us. And again, Commissioner Sonderling. Joel (10m 43s): And we are destined to get the director of the EEOC fired for this commitment. Anyway, Chad (10m 53s): Possibility. Joel (10m 56s): Excited to see Keith in Vegas. Chad (10m 59s): Topics. Joel (10m 59s): Topics. All right, kids, the unicorn, decacorn, Octahorn, whatever the hell we're calling it today is is the parade is still going strong. All right, let's talk about Remote hiring company Deel. That's D E E L they've raised $50 million at a, you ready for this Chad? Chad (11m 19s): No. Joel (11m 19s): At a $12 billion valuation. This is according to an Axios report signing anonymous sources. The raise means that DEEL has more than double its valuation since it's $425 million raise back in October, when it was deemed to be worth $5.5 billion. The company has said to be planning to use its new capital toward hiring product enhancement and M and A. Chad this is a three-year-old company, kind of a big deal. Wouldn't you say? Chad (11m 51s): So bad. So you just said they raised $425 million last October. So is this just to keep their like virtual fridges stocked or something? I mean, I don't get it. So why another raise already after the Monster raise and why only $50 million? None of this makes sense. Then you take a look at the $12 billion valuation, really $12 billion? What kind of ARR are they pulling in? It was $50 million last December with a pretty amazing revenue growth trajectory. I mean, that's one of the reasons why they hit unicorn before, like at five times unit court rate because of their growth trajectory, but what the actual fuck kind of trajectory, doubles, evaluation like this and this to me, we've been talking about bloated valuations. Chad (12m 46s): We've been talking about so much money that's out there and we've been waiting for the sky to fall. Oh my fucking God, this is not falling. Okay. Joel (12m 54s): Are you calling writing on the wall, Chad? Well, maybe? Chad (12m 58s): It's gotta happen. It's gotta happen. I don't see it happening with DEEL to be quite Frank, but it's definitely gonna happen, but I just can't see these types of these valuations. I just, it doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand, how do they equate this? Look, they ARR look at that. I get their total addressable market. I get the opportunity, but that opportunity doesn't mean real value. Okay. Yeah. Anyway Fuck. Joel (13m 30s): Yeah. Yeah. They've also doubled clients. I think in the year's time since October 21, really for me like just plug in whatever I said about Remote and Oyster in past shows. I mean like right time. Right place. People just throwing money at this shit, you know, believe it, believe the hype I guess. This also it does seem to be a strong business DEEL reportedly sees more than 20% month over month growth and they're operating a very low burn rate. That's according to TechCrunch in 2021 sources share that DEEL burned right under $10 million. That number is expected to increase some this year as the company continues to scale but with so much cash raise, it appears that DEEL's margins are in the 82 to 85% range. Joel (14m 14s): If you're looking for the Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper of the remote work solutions, I'm going to put it Remote as Coke. I'm going to put DEEL as Pepsi and Oyster is that tasty Dr. Pepper that no restaurant serves, but you tend to get it every now and then at the Kroger, or maybe not you at Kroger cause you're still boycotting Kroger, but I tend to sometimes grab a Dr. Pepper. But Remote and DEEL seem to be in the cat bird seat to own the work from home, remote work marketplace. Chad (14m 45s): Yeah. I'm spending more time at the Spar nowadays than the Kroger. Joel (14m 49s): The Spar is accurate. Is that food store at Portugal? Chad (14m 52s): Yes. Joel (14m 53s): Fun. All right, Chad. Well, let's go from one big deal to another one. Get it? All right. Let's talk about Rippling. We talked about previously from one mega unicorn to another. San Fran based Rippling has raised $250 million valuing the company at $11.25 billion. Listeners might remember they reached a $6.5 billion valuation back on October. Founder Parker Conrad who drove Zenefits into the ground years ago, proves people love a good comeback story. Over the next 12 months, Conrad says Rippling plans to launch seven new products, an aggressive expansion plan for sure. Joel (15m 43s): Chad, your thoughts on Rippling? Chad (15m 45s): Nearly $700 million in funding. Connor became a poster boy for Silicon Valley's billion dollar startups when he raised 500 million to give Zenefits evaluation of $4.5 billion before getting kicked to the curb about six years ago. Does any of that sound familiar by the way? $500 million, 4.5. Yeah. I mean, Jesus. So Parker raises money better than most and yet I don't feel investors have learned their lesson. I mean, fool me once before me twice? It's like Jason Goldberg with Jobster and then Hem or whatever the hell they called his last crash company. Joel (16m 22s): Fab, baby fab. Chad (16m 23s): Fab. Yeah. He also had Hem too. So I mean, yeah. Yeah. So to me the most important set of cogs in any system is the leadership team and I personally wouldn't trust Parker as far as I could throw him. Great idea. Awesome tech, but untrustworthy leader. I would pass again. You know, if you don't trust the captain of the Titanic, the biggest, best ship to ever float and sink, then you know, you don't, you can't be a part of something like this. It's hard for me to see something like this so close. I know it's been six years, but still so close after Zenefits. Joel (17m 3s): Yeah. And with the new raise Rippling is worth two and a half times what Zenefits was worth at its peak. Chad (17m 12s): Loaded valuations kids. Joel (17m 13s): Yeah. Well, while Rippling started out selling to small and mid-sized businesses in the past six months, it has begun to bump up against HR and finance giant Workday in selling to large enterprises. I do think there is a large anti Workday story here with the rise of Rippling. I don't hear a lot of good things about Workday for people that use it. This might be driving a lot of people over to Rippling. According to an internal PowerPoint, Rippling says it has 80 companies they think that they have the potential to displace. So what everything about Parker Conrad, the disdain for Workday is possibly much than the disgust that people have for him. Joel (17m 54s): And by the way, people have pretty short memories in this space. By the way, if you want to know more about Mr. Parker Conrad and his past company, Chad (18m 7s): Google, Joel (18m 7s): Just Google, Zenefits sex in stairwells, and you're welcome. And you're welcome. We'll do another company that we know pretty well and talk quite a bit about iCIMS announced this week that TA associates, a private equity farm will invest in the company alongside existing investor Vista. Vista and TA will maintain equal economic ownership in iCIMS and we'll partner together to further accelerate global growth and product development expansion. Additional financial terms were not disclosed, but people familiar with the matter said the latest financing value the company at about $3 billion, including debt that's according to Reuters. Joel (18m 52s): Chad, why raise money if your iCIMS? Chad (18m 54s): This feels like a slow moving kind of cleaning of the house and preparation for IPO money, you know, kind of relationship. Buy down some debt, do a little cleaning up with a balance sheet. I mean, I don't see this as much more than that, to be honest. Again, slow moving, be smart, take a look at again, the ZipRecruiter's of the world or some of these organizations who have gone IPO. Doesn't feel like a great time to do it. So take your time, do it right and you know, do everything that you can do to get your house in order. In the meantime, that's what it feels like to me. Joel (19m 31s): It feels weird to me, Chad, it feels weird to me. Chad (19m 36s): It feels weird. Joel (19m 38s): The bullish case, I guess, is what you said and also maybe if you agree that that tech companies are hurting a little bit with Roku, PayPal, Lyft down 70, 60, 70, 80%, that a lot of companies are going to be for sale in the next 12 months. And why not raise some money, get your powder dry, go gobble up some more CandidateIDs, you know, while you're waiting for that IPO market to heat back up. However, I will quote Bill and Ted when I say "something is amiss at the Circle K" just feels off. They had filed for initial IPO in August of last year. Joel (20m 20s): However, the IPO market has virtually come to a standstill this year. Chad (20m 24s): Yeah. Joel (20m 24s): Forcing them to abandon their listing plans. They just acquired CandidateID, which we both applauded, but I think there are cracks in the pavement. One Glassdoor reviewer said this week, quote, "when Collin stepped down, it was no longer the same company" end quote. And that common is surrounded by a lot of similar disenchantment from internal voices. Mostly bad vibes or what I'm feeling around iCIMS as I read this story, Chad, I don't want to go on a limb and say hiring a marketing software guy was a bad idea, but things just seem a little bit out of sorts with one of our favorite ATS providers. I'm going to keep my eye on this one. Chad (21m 7s): Yeah. Wait, you can't expect an organization, which again was built by Colin and a leadership team to stay the same. I mean, you just can't and it was handed off because of obviously Vista and their want and need to grow the business and go IPO. Right? So to have the expectation that it's going to feel the same and be the same and grow into this big monolith of a tech company? I don't think those are, those are real expectations. That's one of the reasons why we move and we go to different jobs. If that's what you're looking for, there are plenty of startups out there. I understand that, but guess what if you've been on board since way back then I guaran-fucking-tee you, it doesn't feel the same. Chad (21m 48s): Go find another startup. That's the only thing I can say, man. I wouldn't expect it to feel the same. Joel (21m 55s): I just, unless we're inside, we just don't know. It just seems strange to go IPO on a timing basis. I understand part of that, but if you're a really good company with strong growth and prospects, like going IPO shouldn't necessarily be a timing issue. I also think that the pressure that they're getting from the Remotes, the DEELs, the Oysters, a lot of the other companies that are getting a lot of money and funding are putting pressure on the business. So anyway, I think all ATSs, are feeling a little bit pressured by all the new platforms that are supporting remote work and getting a lot of the oxygen from the funds and the venture firms out there. Joel (22m 36s): So, anyway, it's interesting. Chad (22m 38s): I see then tortoise and the rabbit on this one. Joel (22m 39s): Yeah. I mean, you know, we don't talk about it much on this show, but I mean, layoffs are in the news quite frequently, these days. Obviously, historically, when people lay off and don't hire that affects our industry quite a bit. So I just writing on the wall, Canary in the coal mine, whatever analogy you want to use it feel the whole industry feels a little bit weird right now going into summer. Chad (23m 4s): Yeah. There's going to be some type of a bottom that drops out. Hopefully not too big of a bottom, but it's got to happen. It has to happen. And we don't want to see it. We don't want to see people lose their jobs. It's a cycle. It's a cycle of the market. Joel (23m 18s): Chad does not want to see a big bottom kids. And with that, we will pay a few bills and come back and play some buy or sell Chad (23m 30s): Fat bottom girls you make the rocking world go around. Joel (23m 32s): I'm not touching any of this bottom dude, none of this bottom. All right, let's play a little buy or sell, you know how we talk about three companies that got funding and we either buy or sell that bitch. I'll read a summary. Chad will grade it. And then I will go after Chad. Let's talk about Certn, C E R T N. Yes. Canada based Certn, a company that provides AI powered background screening solutions to enterprises this week announced it has raised $50 million in a Series B round of funding. Total raised is now $84 million. The company conducts real time, comprehensive background checks and ongoing risk monitoring for employees, contractors, and tenants around the world. Joel (24m 18s): Chad, how certain are you about buying this company or are you ready to sell it? Chad (24m 22s): So everybody knows I'm pretty much in a buying mood today. I don't know if you listened to the first part of this? Joel (24m 29s): So if you sell life insurance give good Chad a call this weekend, he's ready to sign. Chad (24m 34s): So everybody loves Canada first and foremost, but I went to the websites and just to, to start to dig into some of the messaging and taking a look at possibly some of the product, those types of things in messaging, right on the website, quote "built for the best candidate and recruiter experience, reduce your time by hire 80% and give results and get results in minutes," end quotes, clean and simple, which really got my attention. Now. I said, okay, let's check out the big dog. So I went to Sterling background checks, and this is the first thing that Sterling says. "Sterling background and identity solutions help you find a foundation of trust and safety for your employees, customers, and partners around the world." Chad (25m 23s): End quote. Certn seems to understand exactly what a company needs, where the industry leader Sterling sounds like a corporate word bomb. So right out of the gate, I loved the simplicity. Background checks are slow and messy, but if a new challenger brand, which boasts, client reviews of experiencing 144 times faster service than that of their previous provider, well damn, I got to pay attention! Simplicity plus speed, quicker background checks and a better recruiter and candidate experience. I say, Hey, Checkr, get that checkbook ready and write Certn a check. Chad (26m 6s): This is a big buy for me. Joel (26m 8s): All right. If we're talking about an acquisition target, I like Certn, but to me, they've just raised too much goddamn money at this point. The number of buyers, even if Chad (26m 17s): For a background checker company? Good God, those guys are fucking printing, they're printing money. Joel (26m 22s): Let's assume this is a close to a billion dollar valuation, we can agree on that. Right? $800 billion, probably. So if Checkrs valued at $7 billion and Sterling is $4 billion. I mean, that's a huge, huge bite to take for a startup. So, so I am not buying Checkr's Sterling, writing a check in this scenario, you, you can buy that all you want. I'm not buying it. That means they need to be eyeing an IPO liquidation event, or selling to some crazy ass tenant background check. They do that shit or some sort of a mass anyway, probably eyeing an IPO and I think they're a fringe player at best. Joel (27m 5s): At this point, Sterling is Coke. Checkr is Pepsi and the best Certn can shoot for is Dr. Pepper. This makes Certn to me, less than a certainty. So my friend, this is a big sell for me. Big sell. Sorry, Canada. Sorry, Canada. All right. Chad (27m 21s): You're the bacckground check guy. I'll go with you. Joel (27m 23s): I'll go with me on that. Yeah. I was in the business for like six months I paid attention for too. Anyway, HireLogic. Chad (27m 32s): Okay. Joel (27m 33s): The company announced a $4 million seed funding round this week based in beautiful Reston, Virginia, which I've never been to, but I'm sure it's beautiful. HireLogic's platform aims to create a structured hiring process with features that include guided video interviews, online assessments of candidate based on a client's company culture, as well as skills and a dashboard that allows users to view candidates by assessed ratings and scores. Sounds impressive. Chad would buying this company be logical or is it an emotional mistake? HireLogic buy or sell? Chad (28m 6s): Oh, I gotta say it's a two words that people can spell. That's good right out of the gate. I agreed with just about everything HireLogic is pitching here. We need better processes baked into our technology, especially around interviewing, because again, interviewing sucks, not just for recruiters and managers, but for the fucking candidates, right? So this is an area we need to get better. We love this. HireLogic is looking to actually use the funds to continue expansion of the platforms, capabilities, including machine learning and listen up, integration to video conferencing platforms and applicant tracking systems and establish go-to-market activities based on product led growth. Chad (28m 54s): I love that kind of focus, right? Not to mention the leadership has industry roots and there's plenty of room for challenger brands in this space. No question. I'm sure core talent platforms will be targeting platforms and leadership teams like this for an acquisition. We talked to iCIMS about what they look for in a startup? Leadership teams was one of them was really their main priority along with obviously the tech, but leadership teams. For me, this is a buy for me Joel (29m 27s): And what's in that water in Portugal? It's got you happy as hell. All right. Chad (29m 31s): Oh, that's good. Joel (29m 31s): All right, Chad, this one feels too much like a knife in a gunfight to me. They want to be a platform, but only have 4 million in funding so far are their pricing is really low. I don't know if you checked out the pricing page, which means to me, there'll be stuck in SMB land for the foreseeable future, which is a seven layered hell omelet. I don't see a deep understanding of our space within the leadership team. Therefore, this one, in my opinion is a big sell. sfx (30m 5s): Oh Hell no. Joel (30m 6s): All right, let's go to Manara. Maybe it's Manara? I don't know. It's a platform that aims to train and place tech talent from the Middle East and Northern Africa. They announced that $3 million funding round TechCrunch reported students do not pay a fee up front, but we'll pay 10% of the salary in their first two years of employment via Manara. The company says it has placed workers at tech firms in Europe, in the U S including Meta and Google. Chad, don't call it marinara. Are you a buyer sell on Manara? Chad (30m 41s): You're making me hungry. Okay. So first off two female founders! Love it. Love it, love it. Not to mention more of the female founders are getting, they're not getting enough awareness, but they're getting more. So, so this is good especially doubling up. A quote, "86% of its trained engineers receive job offers within five months of graduating while others get up to a 300% pay hike after the training" end quote. You said that there's students don't don't pay tuition although they do kind of like on the back of that, they pay 10% of their salary for the first two years. Chad (31m 25s): I would rather the company pay the freight, but we're getting closer kids. We're getting closer. So we're almost there. This is simple Europe needs tech talent and they are building talent pipelines for those needs because hiring companies are either too damn lazy or too damn stupid to build it themselves. I've been saying for years, that staffing firms should be leading these types of talent initiatives, but until they do Manara, it's a buy. I want these ladies on the show. I want them on the show ASAP. Joel (31m 56s): All right, man, I saved the best for last for me. Yes, Africa and south America to me are prime to be the birthing ground for tech talent. Thanks to remote work. Thanks to technology. Thanks to globalism. The number two though, this is what I find interesting. So, so I've used Upwork and Fiverr for a long time. And a big challenge using Upwork is individual freelancers aren't all that reliable. They kind of flake. They kind of leave. They kind of answer you back or not. And agencies where they work, churn candidates like nobody's business. So there's a real issue with retention and reliability. Joel (32m 36s): What Manera is looking to solve is this retention and it's through their educational process. So I think a lot of employers are going to love this model and jump on board because they're basically saying, we'll teach you how to do this shit. And then you're you, we own your ass for, for two years at least while you work within our system. That's a great thing for employers who need people and what reliability that these folks are gonna stay around. And they're working through Manara, to make sure that the skills are right, the customer service's there. So in other words, the freelancers can focus on doing the development work and Manara can work on the service, the selling, the handholding and the care and feeding. Joel (33m 18s): So I love this. I think similar to Andela, who we've talked about out of India. I think this to me is a strong, strong buy. Chad (33m 28s): There we go. Joel (33m 29s): 3 buys from Chad, two sell and one, buy from me. That's a damn good buy or sell. Keep drinking that water Chad and we will be right back to talk more food and advertising. Chad (33m 41s): Pizza. Joel (33m 42s): All right, Chad, no OnlyFans this week, no strippers or porn stars. There's just not in the news. It's just too dark around the world. Chad (33m 50s): Pizza though. We're talking pizza dude. Joel (33m 54s): Talking pizza and moms. What could go better together? So a couple of commercials caught our attention this week. First was Mod, which I'd explained is kind of a Chipotle for pizza. You get in line and tell him your toppings, they throw it in the oven and then serve it up nice and hot, right? They have an employment branding ad running in the, in the states entitled all pizzas welcome. Most interestingly, the ad features an employee with an ankle monitoring device, obviously highlighting someone on house arrest. One online critics said, quote, "the marketing here is that their pizza is good because they employ dangerous criminals" Joel (34m 36s): in quotes. I think we probably both disagree, but then you also have Upwork whose ad campaign challenges corporate America to hire back moms. Launched on Mother's Day weekend the campaign raises awareness about the value working mothers bring to the labor force. The campaign includes a 60 second video featuring real moms, having moments with their families during the height of the pandemic, each highlighting translatable skills to the professional world. I frankly teared up a little bit watching the ad. Chad, what were your thoughts? Pizza and moms Whats you got? Chad (35m 12s): Pizza was pretty awesome. I did read some of those posts in the forum. It was in Texas and they don't even have a Mod Pizza in Texas so they can fuck off. But overall, I mean, this is about inclusivity, right? This is about including everybody, whether you've made mistakes, you've not made mistakes. You still have to feed your family. Right? And not to mention they had an individual with this disability. They had, you know, different, different races, different genders. I mean, it was inclusive. And I actually put it out in a couple of Facebook groups. I won't mention who actually wrote this, but I thought this was brilliant. "Brands are figuring it out. Chad (35m 52s): One company, one brand," and it needs to speak to customers, potential customers, current talent, perspective, talent, all. And they're going for the fringe. Brands win in the fringe. Well, fricking done. I agree. And we've talked about this with cult brands. You're going to piss some people off. That's great. They're not your customer. Fuck them. Right? Go after the people that you want to go after. You can't, you cannot own the entire market. So guess what? Pick your lane and own that lane. Mod Pizza's, owning the lane. On the mom's thing, man. It's interesting because it's like, Hey, it's not like the moms don't want to come back to work. Okay, come on Upwork. Chad (36m 32s): It's not that they don't want to come back to work is because companies like Apple are doing stupid shit and they're boiling the frog. Women do want to come back to work. That has nothing to do with that. They need the flexibility and the benefits from companies to be able to work with them. Right? It's about being more human and the flexibility of what we had and hopefully we will continue to have during the COVID time proved that we can be incredibly productive, even more productive and spend that time with our family that we all deserve. Joel (37m 10s): Well, a little side note, Chad, all pizzas welcome is not just a slogan. It's a way of life for, for me. So I found that particularly, particularly Chad (37m 19s): The lane baby. Joel (37m 20s): Right there, man. There's to me, I had to do a double-take when I saw the ankle monitor on the ad. I just thought, fuck yeah, they were that ballsy to do that. Keep in mind, these are consumers that watch this stuff too. So to me that was just fantastic that they took the risk to do that and I certainly applaud whatever marketing team. By the way, if anyone out out there is from Mod, please, please hit us up. We'd love to talk more about this ad campaign and how you guys came up with it. Women accounted for 63% of job losses between '20 and '22. According to U S department of labor. 1.6 million mothers left the workforce in 2020. Joel (38m 2s): And to me, so the Upwork ad really spoke, I think, to them to get back out there, to maybe use the Upwork platform and still have, I think the value of Upwork is like, look, you make your own hours. You know, the flexibility of it, I think they were speaking to mothers, just say, Hey, come to Upwork. We're here for you. We're here to provide the flexibility that you need as a mother, yada, yada. I mean, yeah, we don't have healthcare and some other shit, but Hey, Hey, you know, they play to their strengths. And we know from past interviews, 70 million Americans have a criminal record, go check out 70 million jobs for more information on that. Joel (38m 43s): And if not all have trouble finding employment after incarceration. Look, there's a talent crunch in this country. So it doesn't surprise me that employers are taking some risks and putting, you know, employees with ankle monitors in their ads to get more former criminals in their workforce. And I applaud it. And I think to see this stuff on commercials on major networks deserves a huge applause. And I would love to see more employers take this tone in there. Chad (39m 14s): That's inclusivity, baby. Joel (39m 16s): Inclusivity. Well, dude, I'm let you get back to the Portuguese party that we interrupted to record this show. You're back next week and then we are in Vegas after that. So the party does not stop. Chad (39m 30s): That's right. Joel (39m 31s): And you come back to the states and with that, another one in the can. Chad and Cheese (39m 38s): We out. OUTRO (40m 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. 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.

Hangovers and jet-lag be damned! The show must go on. That's why the boys connected after the conference in Ostend this week to chat a little Euro news and breakdown the week in Belgium. Adecco was in the news for bringing on a new CEO. Losing 50 percent of its stock value probably wasn't a good thing for the guy he's replacing. Jobandtalent has embraced acquisitions as a way to spend its hundreds of millions in investment. This time, a Norwegian staffing firm is on the menu. And yes, as promised, the boys wrap-up the conference with takeaways, teaching and teases for next year. Enjoy, and pass the Alka-Seltzer while you're at it. 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 (8s): 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 (30s): Oh yeah. Hung over jet lag and confused about what day and time it is. Wait, who am I? Why am I here? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe kids. I'm your cohost Joel, "the 848 out of Amsterdam" Cheeseman. Chad (46s): This is Chad "take it easy" Sowash. Lieven (49s): And I'm Lieven "missing Ostend already" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (53s): On this episode, Adecco replaces it's CEO JobandTalent goes Viking on Norway and the long awaited E-recruiting Congress wrap up. Let's do this. sfx (1m 4s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 7s): So where is everybody today? I'm back in America. Chad (1m 10s): You're back in Amerka you got there and you don't know what time it is. I know how that feels. Joel (1m 14s): I don't know. At six o'clock my body time. It's noon. Real time. Yeah. I went to bed at 3:00 PM Eastern or European time and I don't know what that gone. And I'm jet lagged to shit and I'm still hung over on Belgian beer. So you will not get my A game today, guys. Sorry. Chad (1m 33s): Well, so Lieven your back at home, where is home? We know it's Belgium, but where's home. Lieven (1m 38s): There's a saying in Belgium. Home is where my Stella is or something Stella is a kind of beer. So that's where home is. Joel (1m 46s): We say heart is in America. It's where my beer is in Belgium. Chad (1m 51s): I like that better. Lieven (1m 54s): cozy, little town and Belgium. Chad (1m 57s): That's awesome. That's awesome. So it's funny because we had tickets to fly out just a direct to Farro here in Portugal here in sunny, beautiful Portugal. Joel (2m 8s): Asshole. Chad (2m 9s): So Julie looks at the looks at the airport and it's the most Southern airport. So taking the train by itself, wasn't an option. So we were on the train for about 20 minutes and then we were on a bus for about two and a half hours. So then we got on, and what is up with Europeans and loving queues. It's like they go from one queue to create the next queue, to create the next queue and air travel. It's it's like, it's crazy. But anyway, we're here and we're enjoying it. So we're here. Joel (2m 42s): I think that's a line for those in America who don't speak Europe like Chad does now. All of a sudden football is now soccer and soccer is I don't even know what's going on. I need a translation tool with Chad. Lieven (3m 0s): Stop whining Joel. Joel (3m 1s): Stop, stop whining about your steak. It's perfectly fine. Chad (3m 5s): It didn't have the grill marks. It didn't have the grill marks. Joel (3m 12s): Where's the sizzle man? Lieven (3m 13s): I don't like Belgian steaks. Joel (3m 16s): There's a reason. There's a reason. Stick with the fish Chad (3m 20s): What a spoiled bitch. I swear Joel (3m 21s): Everyone listening is like, what in the hell? I'm outta here. I'm on. Chad (3m 24s): I think they all get it. Joel, Joel likes his steaks a certain way. And that's Amerkin. Joel (3m 29s): I like what I like, what are you going to do? By the way I read it was Mother's Day in Europe too. Right yesterday. Lieven (3m 37s): Yeah. Joel (3m 38s): So did you guys celebrate any special, you know, special things for Mother's day? Lieven (3m 42s): Well, it'd be mostly celebrate mother's on Mother's day. Joel (3m 45s): Like, did you take your mom? Alright. A-holes my mom passed away a couple of years ago. So you guys still have your mother so laughing about it is not cool whatsoever. Chad (3m 55s): Now you've got to pull that out. That's not even cool. That's not even cool. Joel (4m 1s): Is your mom passed? Lieven (4m 1s): No. Joel (4m 1s): Oh, well then how do you feel my pain? Lieven (4m 5s): I don't pretend to feel your pain. Joel (4m 8s): Chad's really good at that. I brought my wife, who's a mother back Belgian chocolate. And I can tell you there's no better gift for someone who loves sweets than Belgian chocolate. Chad (4m 19s): No, not at all. Not at all. Yeah. Okay. Shout outs. Joel (4m 23s): Shout outs. So let's get into it. I'll go first. So my shout out is to Kharkiv. I think the second biggest city in the Ukraine, Chad, you remember pretty famous photo from the Vietnam era where a a hippie puts a flower in the gun barrel of, I think a reservist gun, an incredibly powerful photo and sort of encapsulated the moment and the time. Anyway, the same thing continues to happen in Ukraine. In spite of being in a war this past week, I believe the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the mayor ordered or encouraged the planting of tulips throughout the city. Joel (5m 7s): So as you go through sort of bombed out Kharkiv, the city has made a statement of defiance by planting tulips throughout the city, which I think is sort of a really beautiful and effective F-you to Putin in that all this war stuff isn't going to defeat us. We're still going to make our living environment beautiful. And you can't do anything about it. So anyway, my shout out to Kharkiv, particularly the mayor and the people there that have made a small, but I think effective defiant message to Russia and Putin. Chad (5m 45s): Sunshine, flowers and smiles. Smack in the face. Yeah. Lieven (5m 48s): Ah, my shoutouts go shout out, goes to the 24 professionals. He has go teams who today started to shoot each other just for fun. Cause the counter strike world cup started to interrupt, you know, I'm back into e-sports so I'm following it. And I think Putin should take an example. Shooting people for fun is fun when it's a game. Chad (6m 10s): Yes. And what he's doing is definitely not a game. No question. Lieven (6m 13s): No fun at all. Chad (6m 14s): Yeah. Well my shout out goes to a little bit less somber, Easy Jet. This one from the BBC kids, Easy Jet plans to remove seats on some of its planes this summer. I just actually got off an Easy Jet flight to come here so that it can operate flights with fewer cabin crew. And I can hear the leadership meeting now don't come up with your staffing problems. Alison what's your solution. Yank out some damn seats Johan. sfx (6m 45s): Oh hell No. Chad (6m 46s): It's like, there it is. I mean, you, you, you gotta continue to do business and EasyJet is finding a way to do business. So, so shout out to Easy Jet. Lieven (6m 55s): It's creative. Joel (6m 56s): I hope they're expanding the current seats because after being on a plane for eight hours yesterday, they're not very roomy at all. And my ass still hurts. So Chad (7m 10s): It's called a diet Cheeseman. Joel (7m 11s): I'm big boned. Okay. I'm big boned and I have a genetic disorder that makes nachos tastes delicious. But what are you going to do by the way, Ryan Air Ryanair and EasyJet. Like, are they competitors? Is it the same thing? Like what? What's the difference? Chad (7m 27s): Yeah. They're both budget airlines. Joel (7m 29s): So it's like Frontier and whatever the other one is. Okay. All right. Happy Mother's Day everybody. Nothing else to report. No mystery guests, no travel report. Let's get to everyone's favorite actually I should say Chad's favorite. Chad (7m 47s): No it's topics. TOPICS! Joel (7m 49s): All right. Let's start with Adecco Group last week announced a new CEO in help me with this, Lieven, Denis Machuel. Lieven (8m 1s): Sort of, Denis Machuel. Joel (8m 2s): Denis Machuel? Lieven (8m 3s): Denis Machuel. Joel (8m 3s): Okay. Who will take over the top job from current CEO Alain Dehaze. Oh, that's not bad. Chad (8m 11s): You're getting good. You're getting good. Joel (8m 12s): I'm getting better, man. I'm getting better on that. This will happen on July first of this year, the announcement came as the company also reported Q1 earnings Machuel most recently served as group CEO of Sedexo. The new CEO will be based in Zurich, Switzerland. Gee, that sucks. However, while the company focused on the new sheriff in town, the bigger news might be why the soon to be ex CEO was shown the door. Guys. Any insight here on what's going on at the Adecco Group? Lieven (8m 43s): One can only assume of course, but you must admit Adecco hasn't been doing very well to recent years. I mean, in a market like this, not growing, it's kind of pathetic and they haven't been growing. I mean, Randstad is the biggest one now think it used to be the biggest one. So I guess it's like in football when the team isn't performing as they should in the end they change the trainer. So that's probably about happened here, but I don't have any real formation. It's just my idea. Chad (9m 14s): Yeah. You're right`, if you're in this landscape and you are not blowing the numbers out, there's a problem. And if you're, if the challenger brand in this case, Ranstad takes over as number one, then you definitely have a problem. I thought it was interesting though, Lieven that the current CEO is the Dehaze, his background seemed more impressive as a political positioning type of individual. He didn't look like he was CEO material for at the time, the biggest staffing company in the world. So is there a lot of political positioning that needs to happen from country to country? Why do you think you pick a guy with this type of background. Chad (9m 56s): We'll get to Denis here in a minute, but why would you pick a guy like the current CEO? Lieven (10m 1s): If you look at his dedication, he used to be our Estella's of course and an engineer, commercial engineer, which is kind of a good start to BCU. I mean, I think, our CEO is also a commercial engineer. So his background is definitely good. And I think he has done some great stuff during his career. No idea what went wrong at Adecco. I know some people, but we are polite enough not to ask these kinds of questions. So I'm not going to ask my former colleagues who are working at Adecco now, people why are screwing up like this? Joel (10m 34s): Well he sure as hell spent money like a politician, a slew of acquisitions followed his CEO tenure. Just a few of them. I'll rattle off here. AKA technology, Brussels engineering, a consulting firm, QAPA - Q A P A, a sourcing and matching tool out of France, BPI group, Hired and you remember Hired, invest or acquired Vettery last year or two years ago. All of this was big vision stuff. That was a lot of money that simply didn't pan out as the company had planned and Lieven you mentioned in terms of the company isn't doing well, that's an understatement. Joel (11m 16s): If you look at the stock performance, the price per share 12 months ago for Adecco was roughly $33 a share. And now it sits just south of $17 a share. If my math is right, that really sucks. So you can't survive. You simply can't survive as a CEO. If you make these bold moves, write a bunch of checks and see your stock go down in half and survive. And to me, that was sort of like the crux of the issue is that the dude had to go cause it wasn't getting done. And that's how public companies roll. And that's how Adecco has done it. And now Machuel has the reigns and I imagine the acquisitions will pause for awhile. Joel (12m 1s): There'll be some cost cutting and trimming the fat. And hopefully they'll get things back on track, but yeah, not a good, not a good tenure for Mr. Dehaze. Lieven (12m 13s): But you have to give the guy some credit. I mean, probably each company has lost a few lots of money the past year, but the problem with Adecco is they have been losing stock value the past five years. And that's not normal. If you look at the last six months, probably each list of company has lost something, most of them. But if you have been losing like for five years, and if you look at a stock, the share price five years ago, it was about 80 euros. How much is it today? Joel (12m 47s): 17. Lieven (12m 47s): 17? Joel (12m 47s): It was 33 a year ago. So we're talking 80 to 17 in five years? Lieven (12m 51s): Okay. Okay. But wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm looking at the, you're probably talking about dollars. I'm talking about Swiss francs. They're less than in their own currency. So it was 80 or something some time ago, five years ago and now it's a 33. So now Joel (13m 14s): It's still bad. Still not good. Chad (13m 15s): Swiss francs. It's not good. Joel (13m 16s): Not good. Chad (13m 16s): Okay. So let's take a look at the new guy, Denis. Denis. He has 18 years, or I'm sorry, 14 years. He has been the CEO and also chief digital officer over at Sedexo. Again, we're talking about an organization that is not in staffing. They do deal with people obviously, but it's not staffing, as much. Why go outside the industry? I mean, you did comment that, you know, Rika had the same kind of education, but she's also been, she's somewhat grown up in this industry right? I don't see that happening with the CEOs that Adecco is choosing. Chad (13m 56s): Do you think this is a good thing or that's just what they look for? Lieven (14m 1s): The guy has been a CDO, chief digital. That's a start. That's always a good start. Chief of Digital. Chad (14m 11s): Coming from the CDO of House of HR. Lieven (14m 13s): That's strictly a coincidence, purely coincidence. No, no, but he's also, he studied back in the days, I think somewhere in the eighties, he's a bit older than I am, but he used to study computer science in those days already. So the guy has some technical backgrounds and he has a lot of experience and it's always a good start. Joel (14m 35s): Yeah. I mean, Sedexo has 400,000 employees, in 56 countries. Chad (14m 38s): Big fucking country. Joel (14m 39s): He has definitely gotten his feet wet in terms of being able to handle a company like Adecco. It'll be fun to see, to see it pan out. Chad (14m 46s): So let's talk real quick about like tech they've bought. They bought Vettery for a hundred million dollars, right. And then they bought Hired, Vettery bought Hired, but I mean, really the Adecco group bought Hired a little bit later and Hired Joel (15m 2s): Was it the other way around? Chad (15m 5s): No Vettery bought hired. Joel (15m 6s): Okay. Chad (15m 7s): So, I mean, you're pretty much taking a look at a technology Vettery and then you have Hired, but you paid a hundred million dollars for that, for that piece of tech. And now Vettery's gone now. It's pretty much the Hired the platform. Do you think that that a hundred million dollars just kind of was a kick in the nuts as well for shareholders and board members? Lieven (15m 31s): Not very enthusiastic about it. Joel (15m 34s): That hurts in any currency. Lieven (15m 34s): Yeah, it's, it's a lot, but I'm not sure ever to have such a bad idea to, it was a bad idea to buy Vettery if you look at what it's now, but the idea was probably not even that bad. I mean. Chad (15m 49s): Yeah. Great idea. Joel (15m 50s): Bad execution maybe. Lieven (15m 52s): Execution. Chad (15m 52s): Well, they finally found what they wanted obviously, which was hire.com, which they pretty much scrapped with Vettery and Hired is now the platform. So that's interesting, but they just a lot of differences for Adecco and obviously in a market that should be booming for Adecco they are seeing losses. Lieven (16m 11s): Yeah. But if you, it's probably we're just looking at our competitors. If you look at RGS Staffing, they have Indeed. If you look at the Randstad, they still have Monster. And I guess Adecco wanted to do something stupid as well. Chad (16m 29s): That's a perfect segue for an advertisement. Joel (16m 33s): It is a perfect segue. And from one company falling apart to one kicking ass from all accounts. sfx (16m 39s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (16m 47s): All right, guys, here's that time in the show when sfx (16m 50s): Pink happy Unicorn music. Joel (16m 52s): Unicorn JobandTalent, based in Spain, the digital temporary staffing platform announced that it has acquired Jobzone, a staffing firm based in Norway, according to LA informacion, the price of the transaction was estimated at approximately 50 million euros. Jobzone. Headquartered in Oslo was founded in 2002 and describes itself as the largest Norwegian owned staffing company. Jobzone has over 40 local offices with a total of 150 employees in Norway. Guy's JobandTalent seems to be going full on Viking throughout Europe with an eye on the rest of the world, your thoughts? Lieven (17m 31s): Ah, Norway. I happened to like Norway and it's really small. It's small, it's like 5 million inhabitants. So I looked at the numbers and I thought, okay, if they are the biggest one in Norway, that's pretty small. I mean, 40, 40 offices isn't that big. If they were sold for 50 million, there may be, have an EBITDA of six, 7 million I guess, something like that. So there isn't really, if they are the biggest then probably are really fragmented or it's just a really small market. The funny thing is Norway is an extremely rich country. There are smaller, only 5 million people, but the number one on the people happiness ranking, of 5 million off happy Norwegians, they are extremely rich. Lieven (18m 16s): They have gas, they have oil, they are feeling a bit embarrassed by the three billion extra euros they may it's because of Russian invasion of Ukraine. Joel (18m 25s): And like Sweden and Finland, they have that Bulletproof vest called NATO. Lieven (18m 29s): Yeah, they have, they were actually finding partners of NATO and I can imagine why. They also border Russia in the north somewhere. It's a really thriving country and it's really small and they have lots of mountains, lots of lakes, lots of snow. So it probably, isn't very easy to travel around and that could explain why agencies aren't bigger there. Joel (18m 51s): So early this year, we talked about the fundraising that our friends at JobandTalent did. Chad (18m 59s): 2.3 billion dollars. Joel (18m 60s): Valuation of $2.35 billion for our, your listeners. That's 2.05 billion euros. It's also been reported that the company plans to go public. When you got that kind of dollars, when he got that kind of money in this point, over $500 million dollars, you go shopping, you go buy some stuff, you go gobble up, some market share. And that's clearly what JobandTalent is doing in this market. No one is safe. And the economic conditions maybe tell us that companies are currently or will be on sale. Certainly if a publicly traded companies like, you know, Spotify, PayPal, or Uber, et cetera on sale. I'm sure a lot of companies in our industry that are private are going on sale and might be looking for buyers. Joel (19m 43s): Someone like JobandTalent is going to continue gobbling up market share in Europe, as well as I think, get an eye toward the U S of A and start maybe making acquisitions over here. But these guys are a great white shark and the feeding frenzy is just beginning. It'll be a lot of fun to talk about these guys in the months and years to come. Chad (20m 4s): Yeah. I think it's one of those things where we talk about taking too much money. That's that's one piece that I'd like to point out to me, $1.3 billion US is just fucking ridiculous. They did say in their March press release, we are in a great position to launch our platform in the US and offer a great value proposition to workers and employers there. The thing that I'm just getting incredibly confused on is tech companies, buying staffing companies. There's a lot of overhead. Yes, there's definitely profit. But when you're talking about, and we talked about this with job.com, the exact same conversation. When you're trying to build the next evolutionary step of staffing, why do you go by fucking staffing companies? Chad (20m 49s): We've seen this week with House of HR, you guys are looking to like break from within to be able to evolve from within, but to go and buy a new staffing organization or new staffing organizations. And I think they just bought one in the U S earlier this year as well. To me, it just doesn't make sense. And, again, we talk about focus for many founders, right? To be able to have this much money, to literally have no focus whatsoever, I think this is a bad thing for JobandTalent. I had high hopes for them at one time right now. I'm just not sure. Joel (21m 24s): It's such a downer. It doesn't make sense on one level, Chad, we talked about how tough it is to get clients in this market. And it's really tough to sell to HR and employers and if you buy a staffing company, you get customers automatically. So I think from that perspective, you're seeing a lot of staffing companies getting gobbled up because they have portfolios of companies that are already spending money. And if you can cut some fat, get them create efficiencies and get them onto your technology then maybe it makes sense. But I do agree, like it is very counterintuitive to think that these tech companies and these high growth businesses are buying these old dinosaurs but I do think that the customer acquisition maybe makes it worth it. Chad (22m 6s): Yeah. Well, we'll see you again. We're going to step back and watch, but I see no focus here whatsoever. We're going to the U S oh, wait. We just bought Norway. You know that, okay. Lieven (22m 16s): Yeah, you haven't done. Norway happened to be for sale, so. Chad (22m 19s): It might also be a Jedi mind trick. They might never come to the U S and just, you know, go after everything they can eat in Europe. Right. Joel (22m 28s): It may just be, here's a bunch of money now go spend it. This just happened to be in the classified section that they were looking at. All right Lieven and we talked about the Congress for weeks, months, and we finally had it finally completed it. How do you feel and what are some of your takeaways? Lieven (22m 48s): I guess, people listening a little bit glad it's all over. So we don't keep promoting it. Joel (22m 53s): Well, at the end of this, we're going to talk about next year so we can already start talking about 2023. Lieven (22m 59s): Try to fix a date as soon as possible so we can start relaunching. Takeaways. Let me think for me, it was now an opener to see Jim Carroll, the futurists saying 70% of current students will be working in jobs that don't exist yet. I thought it's hardly believable, but I started thinking I'm 45 myself now. And when I was young, the jobs we are doing didn't exist either. So it's probably always been like that. Yes, the future is coming and it's taking its time to come and it's taking its time and suddenly the future is there. And that's the reality. It's true. And from time to time, we have to just think about how are we going to adapt to what's coming? And it's coming so fast. And we always think five years is a long time to go, but suddenly it's there. Lieven (23m 42s): So that's one thing we need to prepare for what's coming. You need to hire people for jobs that don't exist yet. You need to hire people to rescale them for skills that don't exist yet. And I believe to a certain extent, it's true. The guy also said something about don't steal my powder. He was talking about a snowboarder and the snowboarder was an engineer and he got a great offer. And yet he refused the offer. Yeah. And the director was surprised, why would you like not to take this offer? It's a good offer, dude. You're messing with my powder because the guy was supposed to be in the office during daytimes, but he wanted to go snowboarding in the afternoon. And that's the reality to post COVID. Lieven (24m 22s): People don't want to go back to the office. I just write an article about some hot shot at Apple who resigned because now he had to come back to the office at least two times a week. And he thought it was too much. And then the fun part is, if you look at the offices of Apple, they are wow. And the big circle, the flying saucer and I'm sure you've seen. If you definitely have seen the pictures, it's impressive. But even with an impressive office, people don't want to go back. And that's something you have to take into account too. If you want to hire people and you want to keep them hybrids, at least that's something to keep in mind. Yeah. And then digital presence, that's something I'm always pushing for. Lieven (25m 2s): You have to have a great digital presence and it has to be everywhere. It's in the way you have zoom meetings. And it's of course the website and search engine marketing, et cetera. But digital presence are digital employer brand. It's something most companies just don't do enough with today. I'm more interested in how you thought it was because you can compare to American things like Unleash and Las Vegas, et cetera. How did we do? Chad (25m 30s): I'll tell you what, first and foremost, it is amazing to be back at live events. I mean, it was wonderful. The content, being able to connect with some great people, some incredibly smart people. The location was amazing. The auditorium was amazing. The content was amazing. And obviously the beer was amazing. The e-sports to me, sent it over the edge to be able to start to and again, not all the answers are there yet, I think for, for e-sports, but I think it is so incredibly interesting when we're starting to talk about how do we actually get into the heads of some of these individuals, these kids, and how do we get them to think more about our brands, about opportunities in more than just playing games. Chad (26m 19s): Right. So I thought that was amazing. And I could, I ran out and got my food as fast as possible because for all the listeners, we were in an auditorium watching two teams, a Dutch team, and a Belgian team go after each other, e-sports style for the house of HR or the cup of, or was it the house of HR cup? Lieven (26m 40s): Finals of HR Cup. Chad (26m 41s): The cup, the finals of that. Now how many teams did you actually have doing this? Was it just those two at the end, the finals? Or did you have other teams playing too? Lieven (26m 49s): There were many teams, but we sponsor the final. So the idea, so it's a student cup, you have the student leagues in Belgium and in the Netherlands and it's university leagues. So all those university students play against each other and the best two teams were invited the best Dutch one, the best Belgium invited to play on stage at our Congress. So Belgium against the Netherlands. It's always fun. Yeah. Chad (27m 11s): Yeah. Well, I love, cause we're always talking about VR and AR and the metaverse and all those things. And here is like sports that are actually bigger than the super bowl. Yes. They have more people watching than the Superbowl. How can companies perspectively, you know, be a part of that and not, you know, in a genuine, in a genuine way. And I thought House of HR did an amazing job being incredibly genuine in actually hosting it during a conference, you had 400 people that were actually there who had an opportunity to get some food, come and watch it. That was to me was incredibly fun. And again, it was something that you're not going to see at any other conference this year. Lieven (27m 50s): And that is the whole idea. I mean, everyone can put all he can stage or anything. Yeah. And it's a safe bat, you know, putting something about e-sports on a Congress around recruitments, it's something else. And it is a bit of a gamble. I mean, I won't know how people really get real reacts, but I'm sure it's important. And we want to share these kinds of insights with our clients, with our own colleagues, with everyone. Joel (28m 20s): What I find so interesting about your conference, is the conferences typically happen in really big cities. They're put on by companies that frankly do this for a living in most cases. So there's a lot of pomp and circumstance. There's a lot of sort of general interest and a lot of the topics remain the same. Granted we haven't traveled in two years, but I'm guessing like a lot of the same things that we're talking about in 2019, we're going to still be talking about this this summer and fall in 2022. What I love about what you guys have done is, is you've taken sort of a global view, but in a localized event setting. So no one's going to have a show in Ostend no one's going to have a show in Ghent typically, but because that's your guys' backyard and it's where you guys play, you're able to put shows there in a unique way. Joel (29m 9s): And really, I think, talk about stuff that you guys just want to talk about. You're willing to go outside the box, you know, like this is my second show. That's, it's only your third total, but I can remember in the second show, when you had, you actually had a hacker onstage that was like infiltrating databases or how to do that and grab people's email addresses and passwords, and that was pretty, pretty dangerous shit. And you guys took a chance on showing how that's done and this show, obviously the esports, no, one's even thinking about that. No, one's even really thinking about, okay, how do we sponsor? How do we advertise? How do we engage with this audience? And just the fact that you guys sort of have the blank check, because it's your show and you're a company that makes your money elsewhere, that you can throw, you know, flyers out there and see what sticks and get real sort of feedback and engagement. Joel (30m 0s): They're not for me, that's how you're different than most of the shows that Chad and I go to, and we go to quite a bit. In regards to sort of some takeaways from me, here's my bullet point list and I'll get to a bigger point, a few things that quickly stood out. Monster is still a thing. Apparently one of the presentations had sort of the most popular job boards in the two areas, mainly the Netherlands and Belgium. Yeah. Monster was listed, which was kind of funny and interesting. Lieven (30m 33s): It was less than the last one, 26% if I remember correctly of the people consider maybe using Monster when looking for a job. So it wasn't really flabbergasting. Yeah. Joel (30m 44s): You just don't see Monster's logo in presentations much anymore so that was kind of fun. Government job boards are very influential in Europe. In both instances, the government job site was sort of the most trafficked, which you don't see in the U S at all, really. No one knows who's ZipRecruiter is which didn't really surprise me, but that was, that was confirmed. Europeans have better eyeglasses than I do. The incredibly stylish. I don't know where the hell they buy this stuff, but you just can't get it here. At least not where I shop. Chad (31m 15s): And that's for you, Elka. Joel (31m 16s): Stay away from Belgian rib eye steaks. I did learn that. That wasn't really the conference, but I thought I'd throw that out there again. And then overall, like Chad and I, and we talked about this at the conference with Rika, you know, Chad and I've been doing this for almost 25 years now. And there was a time where Europe wasn't even like, talked about right. If it was Europe, it was like, okay, Monster's, going into Europe, all these companies are going to Europe to conquer it. Right. Yep. And then, and then the great recession happened and then you started to see sort of these little seedlings of companies and ideas start coming out of Europe. By the time we started thinking about this show, we could see where the trend was going. Joel (31m 58s): We could see where the puck was going. We could see ideas, startups, money just start trickling in to Europe, which has only accelerated in the last two, three years that we've since done the show or think, you know, thought about doing something in Europe. And I think for me to actually go to Europe after two years of not going anywhere really, and being on the ground, talking to people in the marketplace, talking to companies and startups that were at the show. I mean, to me, Europe is just ready to bust and grow in immense ways and have creativity, aside from like, you know, the Russia, Ukraine or Ukraine thing, just totally going out of control. Assuming that, that piece is eventually realized in that area. Joel (32m 42s): If we're not talking in 2023, about some of the most exciting, biggest companies with a lot of admits funding going into the employment sector in Europe, I will be really shocked because I just think this thing is trending upward. I know the European economy from a, you know, a Wall Street perspective is really challenged right now. But I think if you, if you settle down Ukraine and Russia and peace comes to Europe, you're going to see this space as well as others just really blow up. And it's exciting to sort of be back and this conference for me, sort of encapsulated where Europe is and where it can go. And it's really exciting. Chad (33m 20s): Amen. Lieven (33m 21s): Amen. Joel (33m 22s): So Lieven any teasers for next year? Lieven (33m 23s): Okay. So we could be doing this in Paris or in Berlin, but I'm kind of lazy and it's much easier for me to do it in Ostend. So I think I agree so we'll be doing it Ostend again, we'll see, but no, no seriously. So I'm already thinking about some new topics. I'm not going to say anything about it, but we want to be at least as creative as we used to be. I'm still not sure if the location would make such a big difference and maybe we're just going hybrids and stream everything in as professional possible way. But I kind of like meeting people in person, as you also said, it's nice to be live again. Chad (34m 2s): Yes. Joel (34m 2s): Amen. Oh, it was good seeing you guys. It was good seeing you guys and getting out. Lieven are you going to join us in, in London for Rekfest and a couple of months? Lieven (34m 12s): Probably and Rika is doing something Las Vegas and you're always making fun of Lieven Las Vegas. I'm going to Las Vegas. Joel (34m 27s): You're coming to Vegas. Yes. Oh shit. It's on now. Lieven in Vegas. Chad (34m 30s): Excellent Yes. Joel (34m 30s): All right. Lieven (34m 30s): I'll be there. Joel (34m 33s): That's it. I'm going back to bed and Chad's going back to the beach and Lieven's going back to work. Chad, Cheese and Lieven (34m 43s): We out. OUTRO (35m 29s): 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.

Recording live from Ostend, Belgium, ahead of the House of HR conference, the boys are in the kind of zone only a pint of Chimay can inspire. LinkedIn loses again and Comparably says it’s probably time to stop thinking Glassdoor is vulnerable (and chalk up another acquisition where terms aren’t disclosed). The boys then play a little buy-or-sell with BarRaiser, Valence and Pando “Don’t Call Us Logical.” Nike vs. Airbnb wraps up the show making us question which WFH policy will rule the future (hint: it rhymes with “hairbnb”). Oh yeah, and you gotta about the boys wild Amsterdam adventure with sponsor Textkernel. Cheers! 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. Joel (22s): Oh Yeah, we are recording live from Ostend, Belgium so the next round of waffles is on me. Hey kids, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "sexual healing' Cheeseman. Chad (34s): This is Chad "I wish I knew how to get on a train" Sowash. Joel (38s): And on this week's show, LinkedIn loses again. Chad (40s): Oh no. Joel (41s): Pando raises the bar and ZoomInfo go shopping. Let's do this. Little Sexual Healing, so little known fact, Marvin Gaye for the kids out in the audience that don't know arguably the greatest singer of all time in popular music. Chad (56s): Yes. No question. Joel (56s): If you haven't heard of his rendition of the national anthem, do yourself a favor and YouTube that one from the all star game. Chad (1m 4s): Aand then Jimmy Hendricks after that. Joel (1m 6s): So anyway, Marvin spent some time here in Ostend, Belgium. Lived here. Chad (1m 11s): I had no clue. Joel (1m 12s): No clue, right? I Googled things to do and Ostend, and he's got an actual tour called the Digital Love tour, which is appropriate now. Yes, he lived here. There's video footage. There's a documentary of him hanging out with some Belgians and having a good time, but he apparently read and or recorded Sexual Healing right here in Ostend. Chad (1m 34s): Really? Joel (1m 34s): So I'm feelin' the love. Chad (1m 36s): Wow. Joel (1m 36s): So I'm Joel "Sexual Healing" Cheeseman for this this week. Chad (1m 39s): Very nice. My favorite Marvin Gaye song is What's Going On? Joel (1m 44s): And album as well. Chad (1m 45s): Oh my God. That song I can listen to it like on repeat all day. Amazing in the guy's voice. I mean, Heard it Through the Grape Vine. I mean, he's got so much good stuff, but anyway, yes, Joel (1m 56s): Much, much great greatness from 1971. That song and album was released. Chad (2m 3s): Yes. Joel (2m 3s): 50 almost one, two years ago. Chad (2m 5s): Years ago. Yes. Yes. So we are in, obviously Ostend, every time Lieven says it, it sounds like you saying Austin, like Austin, Texas. Joel (2m 17s): That's what I thought it was at first, Austin. I thought, well, that's a weird place for a European conference. Chad (2m 26s): Belgium conference. Joel (2m 26s): I've seen it spelled many different ways as well. Chad (2m 29s): Yeah. Well we're not just in Belgium, kids. We, actually took a train yesterday to Joel (2m 38s): Amsterdam baby. Chad (2m 38s): Joel's first time in Amsterdam. Joel (2m 40s): Amsterdam Virgin. Chad (2m 41s): And we didn't hit the red light district. I know we're going to, we need at least the whole weekend for that. Joel (2m 45s): My wife tracks me on my iPhone. So I can't be caught in the red light district. Chad (2m 48s): That's why you keep it in the hotel. Joel (2m 52s): Does that work for you? That doesn't work for me. Chad (2m 54s): She doesn't track me so I don't have to worry about that. Joel (2m 57s): So beautiful city. Chad (2m 58s): Yes. Joel (2m 59s): The most chill artsy fartsy place I think I've ever been. Chad (3m 2s): Gorgeous. Joel (3m 2s): I felt like I was in a Willy Wonka sort of art deco movie from the seventies. Chad (3m 9s): Oh my God. Joel (3m 11s): Great architecture, great history and great company. We met up with our friends at Textkernel Gerrad, Samantha and Chris, all friends of the show. And it was great meeting them and having, having some quality time with a sponsor, eating good food and drinking good beer and having good conversation much of which will be off the record Chad. We will do that for odd requests. Chad (3m 34s): Not to mention the beer just tastes so much better when somebody else is buying it. Joel (3m 38s): I got a question though, is the beer alcohol content on some sort of metric system here in Europe? Because it seems a little higher than it does back in the states. So I don't know if that's a metrics thing or what? Chad (3m 50s): yes. The ABV percentage is on metric system. I don't, I don't know. We'll have to look that one up for later Joel (3m 55s): I know a guy we can ask. Chad (3m 57s): We can. One thing that we need to do, though, I've got to cover this quick is I, we didn't get home till 2:00 AM last night asked we had so much fun and Amsterdam. No, no. Chad fucked up the train. Joel (4m 10s): I'm just going to let you sink on this one. I'm going to stay quiet over here, drinking my Chimay, man. Chad (4m 15s): It's really fucked up in Joel was actually pointing at the train saying, Hey, I think this is our train. I'm looking at the board, which hadn't updated yet. And I'm like, no board said this isn't our train. Are you sure this isn't the train? He asked like 10 times I'm like, and the board doesn't say it's the train. So it's not the train. Yes, Joel (4m 32s): It's right behind this one. Chad (4m 34s): As soon as it left the board updated and I went, oh shit, that was our train. So, you know, that was not good. So Joel (4m 42s): As a side note, I saw no bar in the airport, so we were doubly screwed and that we had to just sit there and just take it. No, no medicine to help take wash down that pill. Chad (4m 56s): We have a Congress tomorrow. Joel (4m 58s): We do. We actually have to work on this trip. Chad (4m 59s): If you want to call that work. Well, we Joel (5m 1s): Definitely work. Chad (5m 2s): Have to work. What? Classify that. Joel (5m 3s): We have to throw fruit from a balcony at people. Yeah. We are a full on the E-recruiting Congress put on by our friends at House of HR love though, if you haven't listened to the European podcast and gotten a taste of Lieven's, sarcastic knowledge of the industry and the continent, you gotta tune in for that. Chad (5m 23s): So good. Joel (5m 23s): But they invited us to come in and sit in the balcony, which allegedly there's a bar and it's totally entrapment. I feel bad for the last few speakers that are going up, but we're gonna heckle and interview and get some good content for you guys. Excited about what's going on in Europe. Tons of money, tons of startups, tons of cool stuff going on here. And I'm really excited to see some old friends, meet some new ones and get some good content. Hopefully deliver that to the listeners of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (5m 57s): Planes, trains, and bird scooters, got us to the House of HR. Joel (6m 1s): Love me a bird scooter, baby. Chad (6m 3s): E-recruitment, Congress. I cannot wait. Then the next week I get to actually go back to my new home. Hopefully knock on wood. We get to close on a condo. Joel (6m 13s): Podcaster in Portugal, by the way on bird scooters, a lot less fun here in Europe, because they actually have lanes for bikes and scooters. In the states you got to ride the snake baby. It's a wild ride. So it was a little less, less exciting riding, the bird scooter. Chad (6m 29s): You might get Christine on a bird scooter here. Joel (6m 32s): I could she loves Europe for so many reasons. I could maybe do that. Chad (6m 35s): I had taking a header in Paris is not a good reason. Joel (6m 37s): Yes. Paris is a little snake-ish. That's a little more dangerous than Belgium apparently. Chad (6m 44s): And we should do some shout outs. Let me go ahead and throw the first one out there to Darrian Mikell, you might know this kid. He was on Firing Squad, the CEO founder of Qualifi. That's the weird Joel (6m 59s): the koala. Chad (7m 0s): Yeah, the Qualifi, but it's spelled weird. Anyway, anyway, he won the Rising Entrepreneur Mirror award during TechPoint's 23rd annual Mirror Awards gala honoring the best tech in Indiana. One of the things that I think really drives me crazy about our industry is when people say, oh, you're from Indiana. Motherfucker the industry literally was born in Indiana. We have so many like tech Recruitment Tech, HR Tech, TA tech, experts in this space in Indianapolis and around Indianapolis in Indiana. To have the Mirror Awards and have a guy like Darrian, who by the way, got I think a double applause on Firing Squad, which I think the Mirror Awards actually listened to and that actually helped him win. Joel (7m 49s): Really everyone that touches our show has huge success. Whether it's acquisitions, awards, whatever you need to be on the show because good fortune will follow you. By the way, there needs to be a Wikipedia page on Indiana's contribution to the online employment. Can we get somebody on that? Chad (8m 4s): No Shit. Joel (8m 7s): Anyone want to do that? That'd be Great. Yeah. Chad (8m 11s): Jerry Crispin, maybe. I don't know. Joel (8m 13s): From New Jersey. Yes, Chad (8m 15s): But seriously. Well, he cares about history though. Joel (8m 19s): That's history. Chad (8m 20s): But seriously congrats Darrian and the team over at Qualifi for winning the Mirror. Joel (8m 25s): Well Chad an event that is not in Indiana, but very close on the shores of Chicago. I got to talk about Perks Con. Perks Con is a thing happening May 11th. Chad (8m 36s): Is this porn? Joel (8m 37s): Nope, perks like employee perks. Chad (8m 39s): I know, but you never know these days. Joel (8m 41s): Depending on the employer, we've talked about the wank room or the wank pod. So I don't no word if the wank pod is going to be at Perks Con, but who knows since Perks Con happening in the windy city features quote "the best and employee perks and benefits", but that's not all Chad. Chad (8m 59s): Yeah. Joel (8m 59s): This year Perks Con is pulling out all the stops from a signature champagne toast to a full metaverse experience. But wait, that's not all Chad. Chad (9m 12s): What? Joel (9m 12s): Perks Con is also introducing its own NFT quote unquote "golden tickets" this year where 20 randomly selected attendees will have their digital event ticket transformed to a valuable NFT offering lifetime attendance at Perks Con. Chad (9m 29s): Stop. Joel (9m 30s): Holy hell conferences are taking it up a notch. Everyone pay attention. If you're not doing it, Perks Con style, you're just not doing it right. Chad (9m 36s): Yeah. You said, pull out and then taking it up. And I thought you going to say taking you up something else. A big shout out to Joel (9m 47s): That's a perk Chad (9m 48s): Big shout out to Facebook who is pulling podcast, their podcast app out. They're pulling out of the podcast platform. Podcasting is hard, man. I mean, I don't know how many podcasts. They're like a million podcasts that are out there. And like 70% of them have six episodes. And that's it. And people, I mean, they just stop because it's not easy. It's really hard. Let's put it that. I'm saying this from the shores of Belgiun, by the way. Joel (10m 15s): Pulling out. It's really hard. We got it Chad. Chad (10m 18s): But Facebook, obviously they couldn't handle it. And this is interesting to me because the content that they would be able to pull in could have been amazing. Right? Why do you, why do you see them pulling out with something like this? Joel (10m 31s): Well, they've got their hands full with this whole metaverse thing. So I think just like pulling out jobs, they're cutting some fat and maybe took a lesson from our friends at CNN and said, you know, packing up shop and pulling the cord is maybe not the worst thing in the world. Chad (10m 49s): Gotcha. Joel (10m 49s): What's interesting to me, as well, as you might remember, bulletin that they launched a few months ago, maybe a year ago, which was their content play. Chad (11m 0s): Yes. Joel (11m 0s): They paid high-profile thought leaders to add content. Yeah. Everyone's have sort of forgotten about it at this point. I don't even know if it's still alive, but bulletin and may get it's plugged polled soon as well. And I'll add Chad, you might remember LinkedIn launched its podcast thing of a jiggy Chad (11m 20s): Shit. I forgot Joel (11m 21s): Which eeryone has already forgotten about it. That was back in February. So I wouldn't be surprised if LinkedIn takes a little cue from Facebook and shuts down it's podcast offering some relate to stories that had no business getting into either. Chad (11m 36s): It's not easy kids. It's not easy. Joel (11m 38s): Pat ourselves on the back real quick. If we can do it, everyone can do it. Shout out to Sonic Chad Chad (11m 45s): Sonic. Yep. Joel (11m 46s): What goes with a great beer? What goes with a good beer is a great burger. Sonic has been producing them for a long time. Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. The great American hospitality LLC company, ASonic licensed Z we're in Europe. A lot of people don't know Sonic, but they serve up good burgers, I think fast food style. Chad (12m 8s): Greasy. Joel (12m 9s): They have partnered with Daily Pay to provide an on-demand pay functionality to its employees. Through this partnership hundreds of Sonic employees can now access their pay immediately after completing a shift. Why isn't everybody doing this, Chad? Chad (12m 22s): Because they like holding on to cash? That's why. Yeah. I mean it, there's no question if you want to provide perks to your employees and hopefully get them off the payday fucking loans and shit like that, just give them the fucking money, man. I mean, we, in the U S we have a huge issue with payday loans and people just digging holes, and I'm already talking about low wage-earners. Right? So we've gotta be able to do something to be able to help them get cash faster. Maybe pay them a better wage too? Fuck I don't know. But anyway, this is a great move. Joel (12m 54s): Great morality. Great thing to do, but also good business sense, Chad, because paying your people the day of is probably a good retention and recruiting tool. I know that if I was in that line of work, I would probably gravitate toward a company that paid me the day that I worked, as opposed to waiting two weeks. Do people still do two weeks? Right? Chad (13m 13s): They do. Joel (13m 14s): Good Lord. Well, think of that for nursing. I mean, for everything seriously. I mean, it just makes good sense. The other shout out to Recruit CRM's marketing department. Okay. So we had Recruit CRM on the show. They did firing squad. They did very well, but for most companies that's enough. They do the show and maybe the CEO shares it on on LinkedIn/ companies should really take this kind of content marketing to the next level and Recruit CRM to their credit, they did an actual image of your mug with my mug and it's a cartoon animated head. Joel (13m 56s): And then they did the same with their CEO. So it was a consistent cartoon kind of thingy. Created, you know, listen to the podcast. Here's our company, yada, yada, and marketed that on social media. And I just think it's that little extra something that not enough marketing departments do. And I just wanted to point it out. Like this is not a big company. Right? But they, they went the extra mile and we appreciated it. And we thought enough to say something on the show that marketing people do better. Chad (14m 25s): Content, baby content. Joel (14m 27s): So many great tidbits from not just our show, but other other times you're on podcasts or like. Chad (14m 34s): So easy! Soundbites. Joel (14m 34s): Soundbites, visuals. Yeah. A lot of stuff that you can be Chad (14m 37s): Like, oh yeah. Joel (14m 38s): Don't just, don't just give money to Facebook and Google and call it a day. Think outside the box a little bit. Yes. Chad, let's talk about free shit real quick. Chad (14m 46s): Free shit. Joel (14m 47s): Got to talk about it. All right guys, if you love free shit and who doesn't. Chad (14m 57s): I love these free olives that we got at the bar. Joel (14m 59s): Starburst cracker things. Delicious. Chad (15m 1s): Awesome! Joel (15m 1s): Yeah. Who knew? So, everyone loves free shit, but you gotta register to win. You gotta take a little extra step than most people. Chad (15m 9s): It's easy. Joel (15m 10s): You gotta go to Chadcheese.com, click on the link, put in your information. We're talking about free t-shirts and not some crappy Hanes beefy tee, we're talking about tri-blend, comb cotton. Like we spare no expense Chad (15m 25s): Comb cotton, Joel (15m 25s): That's thanks to Emissary, who's sponsoring that effort. We also have beer from our friends at Pillar and solid quality whiskey. I'm kind of in a scotch mood here that we're in Europe, or maybe Cognac or something we might have to throw out this month. But anyway, if you like whiskey, you have, you had a chance to win that. Just go to Chadcheese.com, click on the free link and register today. Chad (15m 51s): Excellent. Joel (15m 52s): And with that. Chad (15m 52s): Topics! Joel (15m 53s): All right, Chad, LinkedIn is in the news again. Remember last week they were suing HighQ? Chad (16m 2s): Yeah. Joel (16m 2s): The media seemed to think was a big win for the industry. It was a little win for LinkedIn's legal department, for sure. Anyway, LinkedIn, and the US Department of Labor have settled allegations that the business networking, social media company failed to pay its male and female workers equally. Chad (16m 25s): Booo. Joel (16m 26s): LinkedIn is required to pay the effected employees $1.8 million. So they looked in the couch cushion for that pay back. They paid back wages and interest. They're set to hold compliance, training and evaluate their pay equity over the next three years. I'm not sure why it's going to take three years? But anyway, the Serta ledges pay discrimination that denied 686 female workers at the company, San Francisco and Sunnyvale locations between March of '15 and March of '17. I know this kind of shit gets you fired up Chad. Thoughts? Chad (16m 57s): Yeah. I mean, that's back wages that they should have paid in the first place with interest, yada yada, yada, the EEOC, the U S government needs to be fining people. Okay. That's not a fine, that's the money that these people earned and they should have had in the first place. Right? So we're sitting in saying, oh, they're finally coming to the table and doing what they should have. Well, they didn't, they got caught. They should've got fined. They didn't get fined. So this is $1.8 million that they owed these people in the first place. In the statement on Monday, LinkedIn said it agreed to settle the matter, but denied that they paid the employees unequally. Chad (17m 37s): That is total complete bullshit in my opinion. Here's a quote "in 2021," this is something that they, you know, they did cause this was coming out and they knew this, this information was coming out on the settlement and they knew they were going to settle. So they had to do something. Here's a quote. "In 2021, we conducted an equal pay analysis and found that globally for every one dollar earned by men, our female employees earn 99 cents on the dollar, which is closer than the most, in the U S are employees of color earned a dollar for every dollar earned by our white employees," LinkedIn side. I love it. When companies share a fraction of their comp data, because you know, those are their best numbers. Chad (18m 24s): Now show us the worst. This is why full pay transparency is a must. Again, EEOC listen, PR firms and compliance pros believe that the crumbs are good enough, right? The employees, candidates and future employees all deserve that data out in the wild. Everybody should know how companies are paying. And this shouldn't be a, oh, wait a minute, the US government had to dig into this data, right? It should be out there for everybody. And this just demonstrates that a big company like LinkedIn owned by Microsoft, they still have a bunch of skeletons in their closet. Chad (19m 5s): They're only showing two pieces of data here. Joel (19m 7s): Yeah. Chad, I know you love pay transparency. Thank goodness government is taking the initiative to make this the law of the land because these fees that these companies are enduring. Chad (19m 23s): Ridiculous. Joel (19m 24s): Put that in quotes, just are not going to change the system. Chad (19m 30s): No. Joel (19m 30s): The feet of LinkedIn, this is for 686 workers. That's not like four workers, right? That's a significant number. You might remember Google was required to pay $3.8 million last year for a compensation and hiring discrimination suit that happened there. This is chump change to Google, LinkedIn, these big tech companies. So unless the fees are going to be legitimate and the rewards are going to be significant. Remember there are legal fees in this. There are. I mean, if you really cut down on how much is going in terms of the workers, I mean, I don't know if it's worth it to go through the time and energy and legal battles to make this something that you want to do. Joel (20m 17s): So long story short I'm glad to see state governments, local governments, maybe federal governments at some point, make pay transparency the law of the land. Because I think this case shows that the fines are not going to get it done. Chad (20m 30s): Oh no. Well, in this again, this is not a fine, they need to be fined. And you point out a great, great area that is not covered. So they cover $1.8 million. What about all the time and that taxpayer money that was used to be able to get to this point, right? They need to fucking pony up for that shit too. This is not just about the employees who got fucked. This is now about the American taxpayer who's getting fucked, right. So again, Hey, great point. Great point. Joel (21m 4s): Money Chad. It's these motherfuckers. So let's talk about getting paid only if the details of the transaction are not disclosed. Chad (21m 14s): Go figure, go figure. Joel (21m 15s): Glassdoor wannabe Comparably has been acquired by ZoomInfo, a public company that trades under the ticker ZI. For those who don't know, Zoom collects data on people and organizations to support marketing, sales and recruiting initiatives details were not disclosed. Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Jason Nazar, Comparablyy, he had raised a total of $13.8 million dollars. Comparably says it has 15 million reviews, enjoys 150% year over year growth, and saw more than 20 million visitors come to its employer review site last year. Nazar and the rest of the Comparably team will join ZoomInfo, which has 3000 employees and will also grow Comparably his team of just under a hundred people. Joel (22m 1s): The Comparably brand and product will remain intact. Chad, you got any thoughts on this deal? Chad (22m 6s): I'm finishing a cracker. Joel (22m 7s): They're so good. It's like a cheese garlic pepper explosion in your mouth. Chad (22m 10s): Gotta wash it down with here. Give me a second. Give me a second. Oh, that's good. I'm going to get a Duvel next to it. There's no question. Okay. So this is an interesting, because ZoomInfo is talking about attracting and hiring talent, number one and employer branding and recruitment marketing. I don't think those are areas that are really long-term and strategic wins for ZoomInfo, much like Google, Facebook and Stack Overflow. We've seen all those three organizations, big organizations jump out of talent acquisition and hiring and all that stuff. So I see ZoomInfo continuing to pull the data, for data's sake because they are a data company. Chad (22m 51s): I don't see them staying in the space at all, because I mean, if you think about all the different areas of business and business intelligence that they can actually go out and in rake in the cash, this is not one of them. Joel (23m 5s): There are two sides to this story from my perspective. So let's talk about the Comparably side real quick. The keyword there is 2015 founding. So if my math is right, 2022 minus 2015 is seven years. Seven years is typically the runway startups get by investors to have a liquidation event. And what did we have here? A liquidation event. So I think in large part, this deal had to be done in terms of the clock ticking from the investors. Chad (23m 31s): So a fire sale, you think? Joel (23m 33s): I don't know if it's a fire, it's a sale that had to happen, whether or not they took bottom dollar and we'll never know because the terms were not disclosed, but I have to think that it was not a hundred plus million dollar deal on this company. We can all agree that Comparably, he did not take down or really compete with Glassdoor in any significant way. They had partnered with ZipRecruiter late last year, which go to ZipRecruiter and try to find the Comparably data and reviews. Like it's not a real tight integration. Chad (24m 8s): Which is a failure for ZipRecruiter and Comparably. But I mean, but seriously, this because of ZipRecruiter really wants to compete with Indeed, they need to have the review data. I mean, a lot of that, that Glassdoor has in, I mean already integrated into Indeed. Joel (24m 24s): Yeah, I think so. There's, I don't know. Cause Monster a while back partnered with , for reviews, which they've since gotten rid of. So there there's some Chad (24m 34s): Is even around anymore. Joel (24m 34s): They're big in Europe, just like us Chad. So, so there's some disconnect with job boards thinking they can just plug in a little bit of data and I saw, I'm not sure what, what's the problem there, the disconnect there, but back to Comparably their founder is a serial entrepreneur guy. He, you know, founded a company before this one. So I think he was probably fed up with this whole employment business. He's probably got other ideas. My guess is he'll stick around for a year and then he'll become an advisor to the company and go start something else. So for Comparably, I think it was just, it was an attempt to take on Glassdoor, maybe, do it in a different way. Joel (25m 17s): It simply didn't work out. And I think that they found a buyer in ZoomInfo that made that work. Now let's go to ZoomInfo, the other piece of this commentary. So ZoomInfo, your member really started out as, almost a people search really early on. I can remember ZoomInfo where they would ask like send in business cards. And if you, if you put in people's info, you would get certain number of searches back. So there was sort of this crowd sourcing of data. So you you'd get a bunch of business cards put in their data and then you'd get a number of searches or credits or something. So anyway, they've evolved since then. They're a big company, publicly traded company and they have these three, three main segments that they targeted sales, marketing, and recruiting. Joel (26m 5s): Well, we talk a lot about the people search business and recruiting, becoming commoditized, right? We talk about Seek Out, Hiring Solved, Hire Easy, you know, all pivoting their businesses because it's becoming a commodity to search people online. So to me, if you were to argue why this works, it may be simply, Hey, look, if we can keep Comparably, separate, get employers to use that, maybe make it free, maybe make it like at least a loss leader, a lead funnel part of Zoom's business and say, Hey, you're using Comparably to build your brand, why not use ZoomInfo to source candidates and find people? Joel (26m 47s): So in that case it might work. Otherwise it feels a lot like putting a, you know, square peg in a round hole. It doesn't really make a lot of sense unless you think about, well, it could be a lead generator for the ZoomInfo recruiting business. So anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying like, this doesn't make a lot of sense. I think it was a startup that didn't quite make it, this story will be forgotten. I've already kind of forgotten about it, talking about it. Chad (27m 17s): I think Comparably will be forgotten in the next couple of years, it'll fade away and next thing you know, you're like, and I also think ZoomInfo. Won't go down the track of hiring and recruiting so it'll just kind of like disappear. Joel (27m 34s): Yeah. Okay. Well time will tell. Chad (27m 35s): That's where I'm at. Joel (27m 37s): Let's take a quick break and pay some bills and we'll do a little buy or sell. For sure. Chad (27m 41s): Love it. Joel (27m 42s): Might need another beer. Chad (27m 43s): All right Chad are you ready for a little buy or sell. I am always ready for buy or sell. Joel (27m 47s): Our listeners know how this works. We've got three startups who got money this week, and we're going to read a little summary and Chad and I are either going to buy or sell those startups. Number one is Bar Raiser, which makes me think of hell raiser, which gave me some nightmares last night. They tout themselves as "an interview as a service provider". That's clever. The company claims to be a quote, "groundbreaking AI enhanced smart interviewing platform" and has raised $4.2 million in seed money. Bar Raiser's, AI powered platform quote "schedules, candidate interviews around the clock, utilizes a global community of 800 plus recognized experts from leading companies to do those interviews" Joel (28m 35s): end quote. The funding will be used to expand the company's geographical presence and enable Bar Raiser to scale its engineering and data science teams. Chad are you ready to raise a glass to Bar Raiser or is this one a sell? Chad (28m 53s): So I'm a huge fan of interviewing tech. Anything to help expedite and scale the process during one of the worst bottlenecks in recruiting, which is interviewing. Interviewing sucks, but there are way too many questions when you're on the outside, looking in as a prospective client. Here's a quote from the press release "Bar Raiser's, AI powered platform, schedules candidate interviews around the clock, utilizing a global community of 800 plus recognized experts from leading companies" end quote. So is this platform all AI? They talk about AI a lot, right? Chad (29m 35s): No, there are 800 plus recognized industry experts for what? Are they doing the interviews or is the AI doing the interviews? Did the 800 plus experts help train the AI? And if so, who audits the AI? I mean, whether the 800 plus are experts or not, they're human and they hold biases. If the experts are performing the interview, then it's not AI. Right. And it's not scalable. And there's a lot of pay that has to go into that. Right? So too many questions, most around compliance, bias risk, and just an AI not incredibly scaled smoke screen, they're using AI a lot, but it feels like it's human powered. Chad (30m 20s): So this is an easy sell for me. Joel (30m 23s): All right. We don't have our soundboard cause we're live, but that's a sell for Mr. Sowash. So I like you, and it really enjoy video interviewing or interviewing technology. Sorry, there is video as part of this. I also think that companies hate hiring recruiters. I think if companies could streamline the number of recruiters that they have, maybe even making it zero, whether that's by automation or a tool like this, I think it makes a lot of sense. If I can have a team of quote unquote "experts" doing the interviewing and they're experienced with particular skill sets and asking the right questions and maybe getting just a feel for a candidate that I normally, maybe wouldn't, if I'm not a career recruiter in a specific skillset? Joel (31m 10s): I think this works where I think that it's a little tricky is these people don't work for the company. So how do you interview for a company and the first touch point with that company is a contractor pay to do the interviewing? Now I know that staffing and head hunting like that sort of normal in many cases, but I think it's just a little bit weird to have this person that is just sort of on contract to interview you. They may not know a lot about the company. So if you have questions about the culture, the benefits, et cetera, I mean, what do they say if they don't know? Oh, well, we'll get to that later. Or I'll send you a chat bot to talk to about benefits. Joel (31m 53s): So I think there are some disparate pieces that are a little bit in question here, but overall I think that the trend of replacing recruiters, reducing head count, having experts on contract to help you with the hiring process is a good thing. So for me, Chad, it's a buy! It's a buy. Chad (32m 19s): Really? Wow! Joel (32m 19s): Let's go company number two. Chad (32m 20s): Okay. Valance. Joel (32m 21s): Valance! This startup based in beautiful Toronto, Canada, don't call it Toronto Chad, cause that's not how the Canadian say it. Founded in 2017 describes itself as a set of tools for talent and development, specifically teams based coaching in an organization. Valanced lets managers track team performance by certain metrics. And if they deem it necessary, intervene with quote "guided conversations" end quote. Guided. The New York based company announced this week, it raised $25 million in a series. A round customers include Fortune 500 brands like, Ooh, Coca-Cola, Boston Scientific, Alumina and Applied Materials. Joel (33m 5s): Chad, are you ready to get down with Valance? Or is this one a dumper? Chad (33m 11s): So it's interesting because after years of working hybrid remote, you know, the whole COVID thing, companies are panicking about hybrid and remote. They've been doing this for years, but they're fucking panicking right now. So how will we ever manage these people? How will we drive and develop better teamwork? The sky is falling. I mean, this is chicken little 101 and that's what's happening in the market right now. So well Valanced provides somewhat of an easy button for a company to hit during panic season. It feels like a little bit of a spyware platform wrapped into a remote teamwork, kind of deal. Chad (33m 54s): But I think companies will hit the Valance easy button. And I see a company like this being a perfect acquisition target for a company like Remote, who has a ton of fucking cash, which would broaden their Tam and wallet share. So for me, it's a buy. Now one big point of advice for Valance, get a few industry advisors and to help them around, go to market at this point. Do it quick! Because this is the time, there's going to be a window. You have to get this done, but you, they don't have enough experience on their team. I believe to actually get this done quickly on a go to market side. Joel (34m 33s): And Chad and I are for sale. Just say you know Valance. Chad (34m 39s): Now I wasn't doing that, but why don't ya. Joel (34m 42s): Slide in Chad's DMS. Alright. Valance work look work from home has made conversations and engagement more important than ever. Plus retention and internal mobility are vital in light of quote" the great resignation" Chad (34m 55s): It is. Joel (34m 55s): Companies like Valance. It kind of feels old school unlike, I don't know, tracking biometrics where you can wear an aura ring and companies sort of find out how you're feeling, but maybe the world needs a little old school human interaction. And to me, that sort of what Valance is hoping to do. I think they play in that lane. I think they'll get a ton of competition and you've already commented on some of the burgeoning startups that are looking to compete in this space, as well as some of the big guys that are making inroads into the whole remote work from home. How do we keep it human? How do we keep people engaged? But I also like it as you do as an acquisition target for someone in the very near future. Joel (35m 39s): And I think the 25 million that they have make it affordable for a lot of companies. So for me as well. It's a buy. Chad (35m 49s): Man you're buying everything. Joel (35m 50s): Let's go to Panda, oh, wait for this, let's go to Pando, don't call them logical. This San Francisco based startup says it's an employee career progression platform that aims to make the insights gleaned from an annual review available year round. CEO, Barbara Gago said in a Forbes interview quote, "the biggest mistake that companies are making today is keeping employees in the dark about their future." end quote. The company is coming out of its beta period and launching with a $6.9 million in seed and pre-seed funding. The Pando platform allows employees and managers to continuously track competency scores on things like communication, project management, mentorship, community building, and other contributions to the workplace. Joel (36m 40s): Customers include our friends at Oyster HR, Shipwell and Fidelity. Pando, not to be confused with podcast sponsor, Pandologic currently targets businesses with 50 to a thousand employees. Chad, are you doing the Pando or you don't the Pando? Chad (36m 52s): This is an Amsterdam company! We're in close proximity. As a matter of fact, we were there yesterday. We could have met up with the founder, but the founder and CEO has a background, pretty impressive background with Greenhouse and Culture Amp, right? So I expect a lot from this, but Pando is selling employee progression. Have you heard that term during the current state of the market? No, no, no words like internal mobility, retention are selling right now, nothing on the homepage or the about page says anything about internal mobility or retention. Chad (37m 32s): If you understand this industry, which she should, you know, she was in marketing for these organizations, by the way. You know, those are the two topics that are incredibly hot right now. If a startup can't understand how to articulate the product, that's a huge warning sign. If the company brings in some industry experts, again, understands the industry problems and then wraps this new message around the brand, it might be a buy, but at this point they have no clue what the problem is in the industry. So it's a sell for me. Joel (38m 12s): Oh wow. That's two sells for Mr. Sowash. All right. Blame it on the millennials. Different than Valance's sort of deep conversations that I think they're trying to drive with employees, this is a continuous feedback loop that I think millennials have driven is something that they need and have to have an employment. No word on gen Z's opinion on this sort of stuff, they seem to be a little bit tougher, rough around the edges. I guess the time will tell on that. But to me, this has already been done. You mentioned Culture Amp, 15 five has been around for a decade. You have big players like Lattice looking into this sort of business. Joel (38m 52s): So two things there. One is if it's been around for 10 years, why hasn't it been a huge win? Why hasn't 15, Five gone public or been bought for a ton of money? Right? So to me, like there's no track record that this is a huge deal. Will millennials change that? Will it become that much more popular? Will they not go to the people with big dollars that are more platform related that can provide this service for companies. So from, to me, it just feels a lot like a knife in a gunfight. Chad (39m 23s): Oooo Joel (39m 23s): I don't think it ends well for Pando. I'm also not going to be surprised if a cease and desist from our friends at Pandologic make its way to Pando. I don't know. I think a sales person says, Hey, I'm from Pando. Although they do have pando.com, which is good on them, that they were able to get that for. But for me, this is like, it's been there, done that. They don't have the, the guns to come in fighting and be competitive. So for me, Pando, they are my sell for the week. Chad (39m 53s): To buys in one sell from Cheeseman, two sells and a buy for me. Joel (39m 57s): Sounds about right. Let's take a quick break. So let's come back and talk a little Nike and Airbnb. Yes. Chad, there's a leak I want to say. Chad (40m 8s): Is that what that sound was? Joel (40m 9s): There was a leak. Nike this week announced a phased return to US offices requiring most workers to return by May 3rd. What is today? May 5th. Oh my God they're already at work. Chad (40m 20s): Can they make up their minds? It's like, they're remote. There's a hybrid there. I mean, oh my God. Joel (40m 26s): So they're, they're going with a three, two hybrid model. An internal email back in December. Chad (40m 32s): Isn't that a defense. I think that's a defense. Joel (40m 35s): It sounds a little bit like a boiling pot of frog to me, but let's dig into this. Back in December a secret memo that leaked, revealed that only 54% of employees thought Nike's plan to return to the office back then gave them enough flexibility. Fast forward to today and Nike has changed his tune a little bit saying quote, "we are phasing our return over the coming months to give you the time space and flexibility to plan and prepare." That's what they told workers. Nike said in the message they quote, "embodied flexibility" Chad. Chad (41m 10s): Okay. Joel (41m 11s): On the other side of that coin, let's talk a little Airbnb. Chad (41m 15s): Please. Joel (41m 15s): In contrast our friends at Airbnb, a company that seems to do just about everything right? Am I right? Has taken a different approach announcing on their website, not a leak Chad, not an email leak. On their website from their CEO says that workers can basically do whatever the hell they want. Home, office, mom's basement. Airbnb don't give a shit. They've been more productive than ever. They found that working from home increases productivity, increases profits, and they are full on in board, not just the tip. The company CEO wrote quote "today's startups have embraced remote work and flexibility. Joel (41m 59s): And I think this will become the predominant way that we all work 10 years from now." This is where the world is going. Chad who really embodies flexibility again? Is it Nike or is it Airbnb? Your thoughts? Chad (42m 13s): Ooh, I think, I think Nike's lost their way, man, but before I get there, I gotta say, Brian Chesky is my fucking hero. Not because of this move, but because of his consistency or his constant focus on what is best for his employees, number one. Hosts and then the company, he understands that driving revenue doesn't happen without those stakeholders. There are plenty of old white dudes out there that will fund or become stockholders, right? But the most important humans are the employees and the hosts who live in bleed, AirBnB for the last 40 years, we focused on the old white dudes who have the money. Chad (43m 2s): Those are not the people who are actually making the organizations run. So as I had said, I feel like Nike is truly lost their way in comparison. In this email 40- 54% of employees thought Nike's plan to return to the office gave them. So an internal email that month revealed that only 54% of employees thought Nike's plan to return to the office gave them enough flexibility. Again, flexibility isn't a forced measure and it's not boiling the frog, which I think Nike's trying to do here. So when we are in such a tight labor market where you want the best and brightest, right? Chad (43m 42s): You're not going to be able to get it in a three, two scenario where people, it's transparent. What you're trying to do is force people back into the office for five days. That's all there is to it, right? So I think Nike is losing here. Airbnb will get much better talent, no question Joel (44m 4s): Two well-known companies. Two very different companies. Nike is a 50 year old business that makes a physical shoe as well as clothes and a bunch of other stuff. Making stuff lends itself to being with someone. And you and I have talked about, could the iPhone been made today in a work for home environment? Chad (44m 22s): I think it could easily. Joel (44m 24s): You say, yes. I have my doubts. We talk about remote work, getting messy, big banks, get your ass back to work. That's the culture. That's just the way I think that's going to be. Airbnb, tech companies. He's right. 10 years from now. I don't know if they'll have offices and if they have offices, it'll be, you know, barista serving coffee and entertainment and bowling. I don't know what that'll look like. Chad (44m 51s): Stand up comics at five o'clock. Joel (44m 52s): If your job is, you know, coding, selling, you know, dealing with funnels and, you know, cloud computing, like there's no reason to be in a physical office. Now. I think we both agree that it's going to take 10 years for everything to figure out like, okay, I want to work for JP Morgan. You know, I want to work for a big Wall Street firm and I know that if I want to do that, I have to go to work every day and I have to put on a suit and I have to meet with clients. And this is if I choose that route of work, that's what I'm going to do. If that's not for me, I have alternate. I have options, right there going to be people who want to make shoes or Teslas or pat Peloton bags that realize if I want to do that, I have to be in the office for a particular, you know, particular time to put my hands on the product, to make the product, to coordinate with other people that are making the product. Joel (45m 38s): So I think maybe things are going into like a three tiered employer, right? Like it's either you're here all the time. You're here kind of sorta, or we don't give a shit. And it seems to me like the big reshuffling will be the employees at Nike who don't want to go to work at all. They're going to go work for the Airbnb's of the world. Chad (45m 58s): There will be challenger shoe companies that will actually provide more, more flexibility that will actually drain that talent from them. And that's what we're seeing from the banking and Goldman Sachs and Jamie Diamond and whatnot. You're seeing challenger companies saying, guess what? Those assholes won't do it. We will do it. Joel (46m 12s): That's a great point. Because when you look at companies like Allbirds and up and coming shoe companies, which by the way, who would ever say, I'm going to make a shoe company, like why would you go after the dollars in brands that are in there? But anyway, people do it. I agree with you. I agree with you. And so the it'll come down to what percentage of people want to work whenever they want wherever they want, however they want. How many want to do hybrid and how many like want to just balls out, go to the office and do that whole game. I don't have an answer for that. And I don't think you do either, but I think both of us probably expect a greater number of people to want the flexibility, to do whatever the hell they want, wherever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want. Joel (46m 53s): So in that case, the employers that offer that, are going to get the best people period. So if you, as an organization, aren't thinking about how do we make that world happen? You're just going to lose. You're going to lose in the future. Chad (47m 10s): I agree. And last but not least for me, I think every company should look at Brian Chesky and his leadership and not his moves, but, how authentic he is. He is transparent. He is authentic when he fucks up, he says, he's fucked up. That to me, shows real true leadership. Joel (47m 33s): Tale of two companies. The Nike story was leaked emails from employees. Airbnb. I had to do a double-take because Chad (47m 41s): Everybody, Joel (47m 43s): This is on Airbnb's website and it's from Brian Chesky. Yes. Like that's a tale of two companies, a tale of two different times, in business and the future favors the Airbnb's of the world. Chad (48m 0s): Agreed. And we're going to enjoy a tale of two beers. Joel (48m 4s): What's going on. Hey, what's going on? Chad (48m 7s): Going finish our and get a . Joel (48m 10s): We're on a beach in Belgium drinking beer. Life is good. Chad and Cheese (48m 13s): We out. OUTRO (48m 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.

Employment branding is hotter than ever. Thanks Great Resignation! However, as our special guest James Ellis, host of The Talent Cast podcast and senior manager at Recursion says, "We're all just figuring it out as we go along." That's why we brought him on this episode of the Cult Brand series with RecruitmentMarketing.com's Julie Calli. We dig into the state of the profession, how Covid changed everything and what role technology plays in building a strong employment brand. 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 (2s): 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. What's up everybody. You know who it is. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. The Chad and Cheese podcast. Another episode of the Cult Brand Series. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always by Julie, going back to Cali we are Sans Chad Sowash today, Julie, if you didn't know, is president of recruitmentmarketing.com. And today we are just giddy like school girls to welcome James Ellis to the podcast. If you don't know, James, have you been living under a rock? He's the Senior Manager of Employment Brand at Recursion and also host of a little podcast that competes with ours called the Talentcast. Joel (1m 5s): James, welcome to the show. James (1m 7s): Are we calling that competitive? I mean, I think my readership and your readership are really different. Joel (1m 12s): We're both on, we're both on Google play. I think, I think we're both competing for airspace on Google. So for those that don't know you, what did I miss in the intro that you want our listeners to know? Give us a Twitter bio poetry? Walks on Lake Michigan? What's James all about? James (1m 29s): Yeah. And by the way, I heard that you were in Chicago this weekend and didn't say hi, so what's up with that? But we'll talk about that separately, when your ass' off the line. I am James Ellis. I got a podcast. I wrote a book called Talent Chooses You. I've got a newsletter called Employer Brand Headlines. You can go to a playerbrand.news and sign up, it's free, every Monday and get a little smarter about employer brand. But right now my big focuses is getting season 2 of the Talentcast, which is an audio book version of Talent Chooses You. So that's really kind of where my big focus is right now. Joel (1m 57s): So you got a lot of free time on your hands is what you're saying, what you're saying. James (2m 1s): Yeah, that sounds right. Joel (2m 1s): By the way James, I was in Chicago on a little getaway with my wife. No kids, no kids allowed. So I hope you'll forgive me by not bringing you into the date if you will, of my trip to Chicago, which was a lovely weekend for one day of it, the other two days were rainy and cold. Speaking of sunny with spots of rain and cold. Julie (2m 25s): Sounds forgettable. Joel (2m 26s): Your everything, employer branding, you wrote a book about it. You got a podcast on it. I'm curious as someone who doesn't live and breathe this like you and Julie, what is the current state of the profession? Is it on life support after the pandemic? Is it rising like a Phoenix? Is it stable? How would you describe the profession? James (2m 46s): And I think we were, we had been kind of clawing our way as a profession, kind of planting our flag saying, Hey, we're a valid function of branding and marketing. We are part of recruitment's kind of evolution away from post and pray and just transactional butts and seats sort of recruiting into something more. And then the pandemic hit and it just exploded. So right now you've all heard about the great resignation. That's really where we live. That idea that first off, if you think about employer brand as purely, how do we attract talent? That's a way of looking at it, but real great employer brand is not that I'm going to include myself in that list. They see both sides. If they see that employer brand is a means by which you attract great people, but it's also the reason why you compel people to stick around thus limiting the impact of the great resignation. James (3m 32s): So for a lot of companies who had invested well in employer brand, they're not seeing the kind of seismic shifts of the great resignation. And there are the companies who are thriving and I think that's led to a very, very strong job market for employer branders. A lot of trends, a lot of movement, a lot of people shaken up a lot of people jumping to the next role and companies really realizing that it's not just this nice to have thing. It's an incredibly powerful means by which they can avoid the really ugly stuff, really ugly parts of the great resignation. Joel (4m 1s): And my assumption is they're in the minority that most companies, from my perspective, like the employment brand folks were the first to go when the shit hit the fan with the pandemic, is that your contention as well? And did, were companies really quick to hire those same people back, you know, six months to 12 months later when they realized, oh shit, this thing might be over sooner than we think. And we might actually need to have a brand to bring people back to work. What's your take on that? James (4m 30s): If you look at the macro trends, but the businesses that really kind of shuttered the first couple of weeks of the pandemic, you're talking about hospitality brands. We're talking about restaurants, you're talking about theaters. Those are places, employer brand didn't have a very strong foothold anyway. Larger companies tended to hunker down, they maybe froze hiring. They may be froze some of their processes, but they didn't do mass layoffs. You know, much like a restaurant would. So employer brand wasn't, didn't have a big shake up that way. I think what's happening is that everybody who's got a couple of years experience doing this and have a good couple of good stories to tell about what they do and how they do it. They're just looking for the next step up. And you're seeing a lot of people come in from content marketing, from recruiting, from marketing specialists who realize they can take their skillsets and kind of move into this space, which is hyper-focused or hyper specialized around the recruitment marketing relative industry. James (5m 16s): Though, you know, we could talk all day about how it's connected with the rest of the company and saying, this is a great space for me to kind of plant my flag to really focus my energies, because it's a part of marketing that hasn't been incredibly prescribed, incredibly defined, right? You go to school and you learn, you know, in marketing the four Ps and all the other standard marketing stuff. And it means that marketing on the corporate side tends to be a little paint by number, which is, you know, that's a little unfair, but it's still pretty, Hey, everybody has the same education. Everybody's leveraging the same kind of resources and ideas. Employer brand doesn't have that. The best people doing this stuff are making it up as they go along. To be fair the worst people doing this are making it up as they go along too. But that's the thing is we're all making it up. James (5m 56s): So there's so much kind of room. You're watching people say, Hey, my focus on employer brand is all about working with comms teams to talk about and connect advocacy internally. Or some people are saying, it's all about how do we get, you know, review sites up and running and how we get to shine on those spaces. For some people it's how do we tell our story via video? There's so many different avenues to do it. There's so many opportunities to kind of dive deep. And I think you're finding people saying there's so much room let's just dive in and see what we can do. Julie (6m 23s): I love how you just said there were two pieces there and like why employer brand was so valuable right now, right? It's the attraction to attract new talent, but also the retention that people are trying to address right now, people are now seeing that employer brand as a solution for that. And there's a demand for it. Do you feel like since the pandemic and since, you know, we've had the great resignation that there's been a bigger cry for it than before? James (6m 51s): Oh yeah. I mean, you look at Harvard Business Review, which to me is like, it's a very lagging indicator, but it's the middle of the industry saying, Hey, this is what businesses think. This is the pulse check for business. And you're hearing so much about retention. You're hearing so much about culture. You're hearing so much about values. You're hearing so much about work and employee experience. These are phrases that were fuzzy bunny two years ago. They were just highfalutin or they were, yeah. Yeah. That's nice to have. That's what that weird B Corp over there is doing. Not only now, the big companies are doing it and investing in it. And they're realizing we can't treat people like automatons. We can't treat them like human resources, that they're actually people, right. They're actually human beings and they have thoughts and feelings and cares and their entire world is complicated. James (7m 33s): And we have to kind of build around them. That's really becoming more of the norm because I just see it in the places where I'd expect that's the, you know, where the old thinking might be. Joel (7m 43s): So it's hotter than ever. But how has it changed? We're working remotely more often, we're working with contractors and gig workers more often, we're working with a global workforce. How has the profession changed? James (7m 57s): It's gotten so much more complicated. Great employer branding is so, you know, I worked with Talent Brand Atlanta. We put together a nice long article about the 16 core competencies of an employer brand, which sounds crazy, but it's accurate. It's this idea that great employer brand is know how to do vendor management and stakeholder management and content development, and understand that the HR and TA tech stack and they know all these different things. Of course, that's impossible for one person to know all these things. What happens is you end up focusing and you say, I'm a great storyteller. I'm great at the politics style. Like I know people who and I won't name names who are great employer branders because they excel at the politics side. That's not something I kind of stick my, you know, you know, that's not where I live. James (8m 39s): I'm more on the content creating side. So every there's so many different ways to succeed. Everybody's finding avenues to do it. So as you get into this space where the market itself, what everybody expects employer brand to do, everybody's kind of looking and figuring out if they go along. If you go back four or five years, employer, brand and recruitment marketing, we're almost overlapping circles of a Venn diagram. There was so much similarity, was just buy ads, get on Glassdoor, make sure your ads are going to the right place, make sure your jobs are going to the right place. Give it some polish. Now it's about how do we get a thousand people inside our company to sing our praises in an aligned and structured way against our larger either it's EDP pillars, whether it's values, whether it's culture, whatever it is, however your architecture works. James (9m 22s): How do we get everybody to sing those praises? How do we build content at scale? How do we make sure that the CEO understands that their impact on the employer brand, along with the recruiters and the hiring managers so much has opened up. And it's fascinating to watch people dive into these tiny little niche spaces, having success and realizing that there is no one way to solve their employer brand problem. Joel (9m 44s): So let's talk about the how there for a second. And one of my favorite interviews is, are the ones that we do with Douglas Adkin, who literally wrote the book on marketing, right? And when we talked about the state of the world with the pandemic and how it would impact culture of organizations, and he hates the remote work phenomenon. He's a big fan of get people in a room, rub them together till, until they become sticky and that's how culture is created. So from the how, in your perspective, companies that are used to getting together, having social functions and creating a culture, how do we do that today? James (10m 23s): Yeah, there's a lot to be said for the power of physicality, the power of being in-person and proximate to each other. So my job is, you know, remote, but every couple of weeks, I fly out to Salt Lake City to be in front of my team and work with that team and get to know people. And it's incredibly powerful. And I don't think you need to be a hundred percent, you know, on, you know, boots on the ground. You don't need to be a hundred percent in the space, but building a culture does have a sense of proximity. It does have a sense of, you know, that is the friction of that. But I think the economy is starting to shift that. I think you're starting to see a lot of people, even in the employer brand space, see that they can be very, very good at their job. Even if they take kind of a freelance approach where it feels like, Hey, I'm just good at making video. James (11m 6s): I am just good at writing job postings. I am just good at this one piece. I can work across the field to anybody. And that's where remote work really kind of excels where you don't have to be in the place. You're a specialist, you have an incredible set of skills. And you're there very, very naturally focused in that area. But given an employer brand impacts every part of the company, because every part of the company impacts employer, brand people who are in-house do need to have some time spent in the building in headquarters, going to offices, rubbing shoulders with people because that's how they connect. That's how they engaging and it kind of bang the drum of this is how employer brand works. Employment is very, very abstract. It's a very hard to explain idea where the employer brand doesn't exist on a piece of paper. James (11m 49s): It doesn't exist in a deck. It exists in some stranger's minds, what they think it must be like to work for you, where that expectation comes from is a function of everything the totality of what a business does. So being in the building, connecting with all those people, to let them know that, Hey, your customer service, your policies, your product selection, your channel selection, all that has some sort of impact on employer brand. That really is hard to happen in a remote space. That said, I think there's an interesting space where more and more companies are building, not remote as a response to the pandemic, but more companies are going fully distributed. Not because of the pandemic, because they just realize that they can connect better talent from around the world into one spot. James (12m 33s): I think that hasn't been well-documented yet places like automatic, 37 signals, they're fully distributed. There's an opportunity to build culture fully remote, fully distributed. There's just not enough examples of it yet to say, ah, someone's cracked the nut. Julie (12m 47s): You mentioned before about the politics and employer branding. What kind of politics are people facing? James (12m 53s): That is a great one. Cause I'm not, the joke of course, is that I have a poly-sci degree. That's where I spent my time in school thinking about. I'm horrible politics sfx (13m 3s): buzzer James (13m 3s): I know. Right. Who went to college? Boo higher education, I guess is what Joel just said. Joel (13m 10s): Politics. James (13m 10s): Yeah. Okay. That's better. Here's the deal. The organization, when you put it together, everybody has separate agendas. Everybody has something things they want to achieve. And in most organizations, in my experience, those agendas do not line up a hundred percent of the time. That's just how humans are. Everybody wants their bonus. Every wants their team to shine. And if it happens to happen in a way that kind of, you know, nixes is somebody else, that's just how the cookie crumbles, right? That's just a cutthroat world. That's the dog eat dog situation we're in. That means that if you're looking for buy-in budget resources, that requires a political kind of hand on the tiller. You need to be in a place and you need the skill set to say, I know how to talk to a recruiter, to get them excited about what I'm about to do. James (13m 52s): I know how to get talked to the TA VP to get them excited by what I do. I need to talk to the marketing VP or CMO to get them excited by what I do. You need to get the business excited by what you do. You need to get leadership excited by what you do. Everybody has to come together to say, we are willing to change even slightly, our way of doing business, our messaging, going out to align to a broader idea around employer brand. That is not something you can just make happen. Because employer branders, I don't care what your title is, have no authority. They are influencers. And we say that in a positive sense and not in the Kardashians sense. They are there to influence the conversation. They are there to influence people they have no direct authority over. James (14m 32s): I can't tell my CEO, you have to do this or, you know, this is going to fail, it's going to break. I don't have that authority. I don't have that power. I can't make anybody do anything. But what I can do is educate. What I can do is excite. What I can do is amplify. What I can do is really kind of connect what I'm trying to do to their agenda, to show how it's helping me serve them. That's the game of politics. That's all it is. Doing that really, really well opens doors across the organization. It opens budgets across the organization. That's where a lot of people find incredible power. Julie (15m 2s): Check it. Do you have to do internal campaigning before you can create a campaign externally? James (15m 7s): Exactly. Yeah. It seems kind of crazy, but that's, you know, the people I think about when I think about who does it, well, they are so good at getting people internally excited by the idea and the prospect of an employer brand. They understand what to get out of it. I think employer brand still talks about the concept of what we do. Very loosely, very abstractly. It's like, oh, it's great for great, for a strong brand. What's a strong brand worth? It's great for a strong brand that you, you know, you run away and you hope that conversation never happens. Great people who are great at politics really understand how to take that idea and connect it to someone else's agenda and say, this is going to help you hire this person, keep you from losing people, you know, change the culture of how you do business, increase optimization of the process of how you do your work or how you onboard people. James (15m 54s): It's going to give a culture shift so that more people are engaged with the work and that you're really extracting more value out of each person and that the team as a total. That is a magical ability. It requires the understanding of what a brand is, but also what those elements of the business are, what that other person's agenda is. And no one walks around with a sign that says my, you know, my agenda is that I want to become CEO one day. No one has that sign, so politics says, I understand that you're a VP of blankety blank and one day you'd like to be CEO. How do I give you some value that gives you half a step in that direction, whether it's here or someplace else, because when you do that, you helped me. That's the game of politics. Joel (16m 33s): And, in light of some political tug of war, I'm curious your opinion on the state of, I guess, holistic brand versus employment brand. Obviously there's an argument that you don't even need an employment brand if you have a strong holistic brand like a Nike or, you know, something culturally relevant. But in a world that we're living in now where the workforce is more global than ever, remote work, you know, there used to be a time where a local employer would hire local people and there would be a local brand that they can all rally around that everyone knew and had some gravitas. Well, if you're a local brand and you hire someone, a thousand miles away that holistic brand in your local market has zero meaning. Joel (17m 16s): So I guess you could almost argue that employment brand, some of the advantage is going to that and building that brand online and what that looks like, what's your take on holistic versus employment brand is someone gaining in the world as it is? Is someone losing? What's your take on that? James (17m 32s): So I'll take it a step further and say, ultimately, even if you don't invest in your employer brand, you have an employer brand. You just aren't intentional about it, right? If you choose to not manage the message and understand what you're trying to say to the world, people are going to read things on Glassdoor and Comparably and Power to Fly and Fairy God Boss. They're going to have neighbors who work for you. They're going to see your stories in the news, whether they're good or bad, they're going to touch your products. They're going to use your products. They're going to try and return your products and engage in your customer service. All of that leads to the employer brand. You may not spend a dime on employer brand. You may not have anybody with a title of employer brand, but guess what? You got one, what an employer brander does is manage those perceptions as best they can. James (18m 13s): I would say you're a hundred percent, right? I don't think there are some companies with holistic brands. I think all companies have holistic brands. They just treat them holistically. You look at like a Spotify or a Delta, or there's so many companies where they, their focus isn't about we're going to create employer brand. It's about, we have a core brand and everybody, you know, think of the brand as a lens or prism and the employer brander looks through that lens to look at and talk to candidates or prospects. The investor looks at that same brand and looks at institutional investors. The consumer marketer looks at that same brand. It looks at potential customers. It's the same brand. That's where I think the power is like to me, the maturation model of employer brand starts by, I'm a bunch of recruiters putting butts in seats. James (18m 56s): And it ends up in this idea that we have a shared single sense of brand, that we are all working on collectively, that everybody in the brand team knows that when the employer does something powerful and showcases a person working, that's something that the consumer or investor or marketplace marketer can use to say, these are the people building these products so you can feel good about buying these products. The same goes that the other way around. The employer brand knows that when the consumer marketer goes and does a great job, it has a great commercial or a great ad, or the stock price goes up. They can say, look, we're a great company. Those things are completely interactive. They're collaborative. That's where companies are trying when the smart ones anyway, are trying to get to. I think a lot of companies are kind of stagnated on the, Hey, we have a great employer brand end of paragraph. James (19m 41s): Let's talk about our consumer brand as if they're unrelated and they're not, they are the same. It's just, how do you treat them? Joel (19m 46s): I love that you brought up Glassdoor and Comparably, obviously our listeners will know those, those players. And I think that that business is going through some tough tectonic shifts, is that right? James (19m 59s): Yeah. Joel (19m 59s): You went to college. You answered that one. So. James (20m 3s): Yes. Joel (20m 3s): So today, you know, we talk about on our weekly show about TikTok, right? That people are on TikTok, quitting their jobs live, right. Like recording it and posting it and talking about their experiences. Well, that stuff doesn't show up in Google, a Google search, right. It doesn't show up on Glassdoor. And I think the idea of sort of providing Yelp-like reviews on employers is a bit of an antiquated idea. What's your take on that phenomenon of moving to video and social media, as opposed to, I guess, the old standards of review sites and how does a company manage that? Joel (20m 43s): How do they monitor it? How do they kind of get their hands around it? James (20m 48s): Yeah, that's a great, I think you're probably right in that the idea of a Yelp-like site where people go to leave, their reviews is a bit of a and forgive, you know, and I'm almost 50. So when I say this, I cringed myself of a web 2.0, kind of methodology and mock modality. This idea that everybody goes in Google searches for the piece of information they need, they get the information, they do it, take with it, do with it, what they will that made a lot of sense five, 10 years ago today, less. So I'm not saying it doesn't make sense. I think there's plenty of data that shows people are still using those sites as data points, but there's a lot more data points. And there a lot more data points that, you know, to your point, that are not Googleable, they are the quote unquote "dark web" James (21m 28s): of, you know, how people find information. To me, the fact that the quitting happened on TikTok is interesting because that person was going to quit anyway, that person had friends there , and they're going to happily tell them an amazing story possibly while drinking of when I told my boss to suck it and dropped a cake and said, Hey, you know, my joke is always, if I ever wanted to quit place, I hated, I would just leave a cake that just says, eat me and I quit. And that's all I would say. And it would be like, I brought you a cake. It was a nice way of quitting. That would be an amazing video, but I still would've done it anyway. I still would have quit. I still would've made a big fuss to my own local network. The fact that it can go viral now is an interesting wrinkle. James (22m 8s): Ultimately, this all leads back to this idea that companies can't segment and compartmentalize their thinking and approach to employer brand. Employer brand has all the things you do, all the things you do becomes your employer brand. So if you're going to hire people poorly, if you're going to train them poorly, if you're going to make them feel like they have to become robots who have social security numbers. If you're going to treat them like, you know, and I, if you ever look at Reddit anti-worker channel, I highly recommend it. It is fascinating and hilarious all at once about people complaining about the stupid stuff their company's and bosses make them do the stuff that any sane human being would say that's laughable. And yet it's an everyday occurrence. Lots of businesses have not figured this out. James (22m 50s): That treating people poorly leads to people treating them poorly. It's just, you know, it's the golden rule, right? Businesses don't think they have to abide by that, a lot of them. A lot of them do, but a lot of them don't. So I think as this kind of information moves out of a Yelp model and into a more distributed model, it makes the job of an employer brander harder, but it also means there's more channels that they know are useful. Now, why can't an employer brander make a TikTok video about how great it is to work? Now, nothing so heavy handed, hopefully, but something like that use the weapons, you know, every strength has a weakness, every weakness is a strength. If this channel is hurting, you take over that channel and start to use it on your behalf. There's no winning that game, but it is about how do you manage that process? James (23m 33s): I will add, there's a really interesting idea that if people are going to be willing to quit publicly and sometimes live in the moment, why haven't we turned that around and say, do people search for jobs publicly and live in the moment? Why aren't jobs searches, entertainment? We shop for entertainment. We go, you know, whether it's QVC or Amazon or walking around a store, we shop for entertainment. Why can't we jobs for entertainment? Why can't we do it publicly? Why can't I open a Discord channel says, Hey, everybody, I just quit my job at blah, blah, blah. I want to look for a job, take a look, take a look at my resume, take a look at my LinkedIn profile, or what have you? Give me ideas and feedback and let's tell jokes while I'm doing it to make this horrible process of putting my information in ATS some more, a little bit more palatable. James (24m 20s): We can do it collectively and together. I think that's coming down the road, this idea of public and entertainment driven job searching. That's just my thoughts. Joel (24m 28s): Well, one it takes work. And two, it's hard to compete with someone dunking their scrotum into the ice cream machine as entertainment value. That's part of the reason. James (24m 37s): And that has its own entertainment value on some level. I'm sure. Joel (24m 42s): Only for people like me, James. Julie (24m 46s): Well, I know that, you know, people are, look at companies to say, Hey, what's going on in there with Glassdoor, but they're also looking for ways to connect, like social responsibility's become something that companies are investing in. They're looking for that both on the consumer side and on the candidate side, because people are searching to understand what does this company do to make an impact on the world? Would corporate social responsibility be something you would consider part of the responsibility of an employer brand? James (25m 16s): I don't know if the word was responsibility is the right word, but I definitely know they're connected. I definitely. So in my own job, I work hand in hand with the comms team that runs the ESG reports and they do all that work. It helps me tell my story. They tell their story. Then we leverage each other's resources. We connect the dots. I think the problem is, and, I'm going to go ahead and beat up on an ATSs in general as an industry you'll excuse me I imagined because no one likes their ATS much like no one likes their cable company. No one likes their ATS. Everybody thinks there's a better one out there. There isn't. They all are hard and painful. Anyway, moving on. I'm sure there's some companies out there who would love, love to tell me how I'm wrong. Joel (25m 53s): The point of view has changed on ATSs. That's that's refreshing, that's refreshing. James (26m 1s): But this idea that the ATS has forced recruiting to say recruiting is all about shoving people through a funnel, as fast as humanly possible. It process-itizing, optimizing, all this idea that how do we remove the humanity from the concept of looking for a job and as much as, and honestly, as much as I'd like to dump on ATSs. Let's be fair. Corporations in general have been doing this since the fifties, you just have to look at the man in the gray flannel suit and the organization, man book. It's been happening over time. You can go back to tailorization. Anyway, that's a history lesson we don't have to get into, but we've been forcing people to remove their humanity a little bit every single day. And this has been a big swing to say, you know what? James (26m 42s): Maybe we've taken this way too far. Maybe there's value in leveraging our employee's humanity. And take humanity to me whenever you want the things they care about, the things they sweat about, the things they are passionate about. Don't you want employees who are passionate about the work you do. If the work you're doing is about, and you can take it to saving the whales, saving the planet. But if the work you're doing is about making a stack of cash. If they're passionate about it, aren't they better at it? Well, you can't bring the passion if you feel like you're completely disconnected from your humanity. Just look at if you've watched severance first off, if you binge watch it, you will have weird dreams about your work. I will promise you that my wife and I were both like, are you having weird work dreams? Like, yes, I totally am. James (27m 23s): It's an amazing show, but it's this idea that how do you remove the humanity from work and what are the after-effects? Totally Philip K Dickey. And it's amazing. Yes. I said Dickie and it's okay. It's a word. But this idea that humans can pretend to be non-humans. They can pretend to be cogs. It's gone. We're done. People want to be people. That's where the great resignation is really all about. It's this idea of people saying, I want to give my humanity. I want my, my moment, my life to have some meaning and the reasons businesses exist and when's the last time you heard anybody say this is so that a group of people can achieve more together than they could individually. That's literally the reason why businesses started. James (28m 3s): It doesn't feel like that's why businesses exist anymore. It feels like businesses exist so we can make the owners of the business richer. And it doesn't help me. The more businesses realize that they can are there so that each individual participant, each employee, each contract, or each vendor is there to do more than they could individually. The more they lean into that idea, the less they're going to have to worry about resignation, the less they're going to have to worry about bad reviews. The more people are going to connect to their humanity and who they are. And that turned into a real kind of rallying cry of fuzzy bunniess on my part, which I don't think I personally expected, but here we are. Joel (28m 39s): So let's keep the dunking competition on ATSs and technology going, or maybe not. We reported recently a study that 92% of people, job seekers who actually click on the apply button, 92%, do not complete the process. James (28m 58s): Yeah. Joel (28m 58s): What can employment brand do about that? We see technologies come along that say, you know, chat bots can cure it because nobody exits and it's a ghost killing machine kind of thing. I'm always curious how we don't treat, apply to a job similarly to how we use shopping carts online. If I abandon a shopping cart, I get an email, you know, the next day saying, Hey, did you forget something and inviting me to come complete the process? I don't think that happens with jobs, but it should. I think you'd probably agree. What's your take on that? How do we fix it? Does employment brand have any hope of working with technology and fixing some of these or is it just simply hopeless? James (29m 41s): I don't think it's hopeless. I'm going to leverage a Kanye story. If you wanted to listen to the roast recent Kanye album for a long time, you had to wait until Kanye literally showed up to your town in a stadium, bought a ticket, showed up in a COVID kind of situation and listened to the record with him. That was the only way to do it. Now you think, but I have Spotify. I can listen to 4 trillion songs. Why would I want to do that? It's because Kanye fans desired more Kanye songs. They had so much love for what he was doing. They were so desperate to hear more information. They were so excited by the idea of what the new song or the next album was going to be about. James (30m 22s): They went to frigging Soldier Field to listen to an album. No one should want to do that. What's my point? My point is that if you create enough desire for what you're offering, people are more than willing to jump through infinite hoops to get what they want. The problem is most companies don't think they need to explain why their job is amazing or what someone should get out of it. It's simply I have a job plus I have all the power, I will dangle it like a carrot in front of you, you just run and jump through my hoops the way we want. That worked 10 years ago, but it doesn't work now, where I have infinite choice of places I could work. If I have deeper understanding of what the business is really about, what the culture is really about. If a company knows and invests in how to create desire for their jobs, obstacles don't matter. James (31m 4s): You could use an ATS that simply write it down on a piece of paper, stick it in the carrier pigeon's butt, fly it out to our headquarters and they people will apply. It's not like Google gets so many applications, not because they have the best ATS, but because everybody wants to work there. The problem is a problem of desire. And if you don't stoke and invest in that desire, the easiest process are only going to collect people who are willing to, okay, sure I guess I'll apply. They'll apply to any job, not your job and what you want are the people who want to work for you. And they have a good reason. They have a compelling reason. They have data points to prove that case. They want that thing. The reason they want that car is because they see it every day and they see people driving it. James (31m 47s): It looks exciting and they've done their research and they want that car. They'll wait six months for it to come, to take delivery. They cause they want it. If you don't stoke desire, making an easier way to click apply and make it easy to apply it's just going to collect the wrong people you're looking for. So that's my take on how employer branding really can change the thinking around ATSs and say, look, it's an obstacle. It's a hurdle. It's a database for it for HR, not for TA, let's be fair. Don't you can't change it. So how do you get people to overcome it, to be willing, to take the steps, to overcome it. You stoke that desire. Joel (32m 21s): And I hope Taco Bell's listening cause if they just offer a Chalupa Supreme at the end of an application, they'll see a huge rise in the people that want to work at Taco Bell. James (32m 28s): And they tell and tell if they should tell a whole story around at the end of this process, there's a whole taco stand for you. And that's the stuff that people go cool. I want to be involved in it. And that's the creative thinking that employer brand should be more involved in. I think we're getting there. It's a slow process because these industries change slowly. But yeah, I think that's where we really have the most impact. Julie (32m 48s): You're making me want tacos right now. James (32m 50s): Who doesn't want tacos? Joel (32m 51s): What are you going to do? It's lunchtime actually every day, every time is lunchtime. James (32m 55s): It's always lunchtime somewhere. Julie (32m 56s): I may throw in this question. I thought this was a great one that I've heard you speak to before. But what is the biggest misconception that employers have when it comes to employer brand? James (33m 8s): Well, I've already talked about one, that is the idea that you already have one. You don't need to invest it. You already have an employer brand. The other one I think is most interesting that business, cause it's kind of forget is that employer brand doesn't have to be expensive. Places like Glassdoor spent 10 years convincing you that the second someone said, employer brand, you should cover your wallet cause this is going to be a five figure kind of investment. Just to start, they, you know, it became an act of pick-pocketing. It became an act of how do we extract as much cash? I don't know. Let's do strategy. I don't know if they'll dictate strategy. How about employer brand? Like that was the way, you know. Joel (33m 44s): You want to say black male. So James (33m 45s): I didn't want to say I'm glad someone else said it. I know I'm not disagreeing with it, but I'm glad I didn't have to say, Joel (33m 55s): Sorry. James (33m 56s): No thank you. But the trick is, and your employer brand is everything you do. There is no inherent tech stack to your employer brand. Your employer brand is affected by your ATS but is your ATS, your employer brand? No, your employer brand is affected by your product selection and where you're going to market, but is that your employer brand? No, all those things impact your employer brand. So if you want to shape the perception of your employer brand? One, you should talk to all the people in your company who are making the touch points and experiences that a stranger might have about your company. You want to make sure that when they call in to have customer service, they actually get service and not treated like a number or treated like someone, Hey, how do I shut this call off? They need to feel like this is what the company is really about. James (34m 35s): The employer brand is just a sense of what it must be like there to work there. So understand what that sense you want to instill is. Look around you in a complete 360 and say, what are all the ways someone might get that sense? And change. Then you look and say, how do I spark interest in this? Now I've made the joke before that, you know, what does an employer brand costs like? Well, I don't know what a sidewalk chalk cost. If I'm looking for Python developers, I go to Python, PY Con, which is happening yesterday or today and just write in sidewalk chalk in front of the buildings really interesting messages. Now the fact that I have no money, forces me to say, what is something compelling? I can say, what is a message that's going to matter to this specific audience is? James (35m 20s): Not to nurses, not to sales leaders, not to future CEOs, but to Python developers. What do they care about? What are their challenges? What are their pain points? Why would they love to work for me? To steal that, come up with a creative package that makes them go, huh? That is really interesting. I want to learn more, which by the way, is what employer brander's job is, is to make strangers go, huh? I had no idea. I want to learn more. That's the job. sfx (35m 43s): Applause. James (35m 43s): You can write an a couple of times in the sidewalk shop. I take the applause. I didn't, I don't think I invented that, but I'll take it. You write it and package it in sidewalk chalk or mimeographs some, you know, some flyers, right? How cheap can we get? Mimeograph. Joel (35m 59s): Smoke signals? James (35m 60s): Exactly. Whatever it takes. You know, if you can just hijack the microphone for 10 seconds and say something interesting, that's all it takes. It's not about the tech stack. It's about understanding who you are, understanding what your audience cares about. Connecting the dots in a compelling and creative way and putting it in front of them. None of that has anything to do with a website or Glassdoor reviews or a job posting or anything. It's about how do you want to make that happen? Taco Bell, they're best case for employer branding is a strong message at the bottom of every Taco Wrapper, right? There's a huge audience they want to reach. That's the audience they want to hire. It's a moment where people feel satisfied about Taco Bell, say something compelling to people who love tacos. James (36m 42s): There you are. What did that cost? You were already going to print that label anyway, already print that taco wrapper anyway, you might as well use it to say something interesting. So it doesn't have to be expensive. It just needs to be thought out. Joel (36m 58s): James Ellis, everybody. Speaking of saying something interesting. James, we appreciate the time for those that want to learn more? Buy your book. Listen to your podcast. Just generally connect with you. Where would you send them? James (37m 9s): So go to employerbrand.news. I think I linked to everything from there. It's easiest way to sign up for the newsletter to go look at the book. You can buy it on Amazon, but I made it open source and freely available as a Google doc from which I wrote it. So you can just go ahead and look at it. Just go to employerbrandbook.com. But I link to it from that, the podcast is the talentcast. I link to it there. We're super pumped that, you know, this is the, you know, we get to revisit the book by doing it as an audio book and kind of saying, Hey, I've learned a little bit in the last three years since I wrote it the first time. Let me add onto this book. So I've had a lot of people say they enjoyed the book, but getting to hear me talk about it, literally, as I'm thinking about, is it's a whole different experience. James (37m 50s): So hopefully it's useful to people. Joel (37m 53s): Always a pleasure. James. Julie, that's another one in the can. Julie (37m 58s): Wonderful. Joel (37m 59s): We out OUTRO (37m 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. OUTRO (38m 47s): 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.

Cynthia Owyoung is VP, of inclusion, equity, and belonging at Robinhood. She's also the author of a new book, "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion that Delivers Results." So, if you have to ask why we had her on the podcast, then you're not paying attention. The boys discuss the current state of DEI&B in America, implementing inclusive talent strategies, and how to measure success when implementing inclusion strategies. 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 (2s): 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 boys and girls. It's your favorite guilty pleasure the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman joined as always by the prince of Portugal, Chad Sowash and today we are happy to welcome Cynthia Owyoung VP of Inclusion, Equity and Belonging at Robinhood and author of a new book entitled ALL ARE WELCOME How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results. Cynthia, welcome to the podcast. Cindy (56s): Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Joel (1m 0s): You're very welcome. What your resume is pretty intimidating. What should our listeners know about you that I didn't touch on in the intro? Cindy (1m 8s): Let's see, I've been doing DEI work for the past 20 years in both tech and financial services, but I didn't start my career there. I actually am a marketer at heart. So before I got into HR at all, I spent 10 years working at advertising agencies, doing consumer research yeah and strategic branding. That was a lot of fun working on commercials, but it was a very burnout kind of industry. So, after about that decade, I needed to make a switch and somehow thought going into HR was going to be easier. Cindy (1m 54s): Yeah. Chad (1m 54s): Oh, you certainly would not have bigger budgets that's for sure. Cindy (1m 59s): That's right. No, not at all. And so, but you know, I've been lucky enough to be able to do this work in the San Francisco Bay area where I'm born and raised. And I still have family living in the house that I grew up in. You know, I think what's relevant for this conversation for people to know is that I embody a lot of different dimensions of diversity that really informed why I do the work that I do now. Chad (2m 33s): What are they? Cindy (2m 35s): Good question. I'm Asian. I'm also a woman. My parents are immigrants. They came from China with nothing. So we grew up kind of lower middle class. My mom worked as a seamstress. My dad went to community college and became a civil engineer working for San Francisco. And I grew up in a primarily black neighborhood. Chad (3m 1s): OK. Cindy (3m 1s): My brother, one of my brothers is gay. The other brother is developmentally disabled. My father served in the air force when he was young. And my mom, you know, as a seamstress, you know, it was primarily stay at home, but did end up working when we were like in middle school and up. So, you know, I've got all these different sort of influences in, you know, growing up. Joel (3m 30s): Bring your story to Hollywood. I know that's a side note, but good Lord that's a good story. Cindy (3m 38s): Thank you. Yeah, but you know, that's what that's part of what has made me, who I am and why I have such a passion for social justice and equity in the world. Chad (3m 49s): I love it. Cindy (3m 50s): Because I grew up watching, you know, people treat my family members very differently just because of who they are and not giving them sort of, you know, benefit of the doubt or time of day when they are fully capable of doing so many things. And that is always, you know, incidents where people would look at my brother who's disabled and not want to hire him or even interview him for a role. Right. Those types of things have stuck with me throughout the years and that's why I do what I do. Chad (4m 23s): Well, let's jump into the book right out of the gate, the book, ALL ARE WELCOME How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results. Now we all know research demonstrates that diversity is good for business. And over the past decade, we've seen little proof of hiring, retention and promotion outcomes that should be coming after all of this research demonstrates that it's good for business, but we're not seeing the actual outcomes. So it seems to me and you've been on this path for many years but it seems like to me, that corporate America really doesn't care. Am I right? Is that what we've seen we've seen more, you know, pretty much glad-handing? Chad (5m 6s): What's going on here and how can we change decades of inequity? Cindy (5m 14s): Great question. Joel (5m 14s): We start with the easy questions first. Cindy (5m 18s): I know. Joel (5m 19s): Start with the softballs first. Cindy (5m 20s): You know, it's just dive right in. Right. So, you know, I don't think it's that corporations or the people who run corporations more specifically. Right. I don't think it's that they don't care. They do care. That's why you have people in roles like mine, trying to drive change and lead progress in more diversity and inclusion and equity and belonging inside our organizations. I think the main issue has been a lack of understanding of what it takes to change. Chad (5m 54s): Who's lack of understanding though? Because we have those people in those positions, right. And we're spending billions of dollars on training. So it seems at this point, like it's been a smokescreen who, who needs to understand, is it the C-suite or is it actually the people in the positions who are supposed to be carrying this out? Cindy (6m 17s): It's both. Chad (6m 17s): Okay. Cindy (6m 18s): It is definitely both. How I kind of view this as a it's really, it's not just C-suites responsibility though, it's everyone's responsibility. So, you know, everyone who feels like this isn't work for them to do, like, that's part of what the change entails. That's why we haven't had progress. Everyone needs to see a role that they themselves play in whether or not we're going to, you know, have really diverse, inclusive teams. Right. So, you know, when I think about like leaders of an organization who are role modeling, leadership qualities and setting the tone of what they're expecting from people in their organizations, if they're not actually saying that more than just, this is important, but they're saying if they're not saying things like, here's what we expect you to do about it. Cindy (7m 12s): Right. Here's where we think it's more than just training cause to your point, you know, a lot of companies think that, oh, if I just invest in training, it's going to be the end, all be all and change everything and it doesn't right? Chad (7m 26s): No. Right. Cindy (7m 27s): And so, you know, we, we have these like misguided notions of what it takes and I think that we just haven't gone deep enough, both from an inner self person kind of like perspective, right? Like, can we all have to like, look at how we view things and where we have bias and how that tends to show up, to also looking at the systems and things that we've set up inside our companies. Right? Because they're based on those beliefs. And so, you know, in Silicon Valley, as an example, like there's a huge belief in the meritocracy. Chad (8m 2s): Yeah. Cindy (8m 2s): And if you work really hard and you're really smart, then you will make it. And people who don't just can't cut it. Right? Chad (8m 11s): Right. Cindy (8m 12s): And I think that's a myth. And I think those are the types of myths and beliefs that we have to blow up in order to make progress. Chad (8m 19s): But that sounds like the American way though. Right? It sounds like everybody's been programmed to believe in meritocracy that if you work hard enough and you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, anybody can make it. But at least over the last 40 years, we've seen a huge divide in socioeconomics. Right? So as we see that divide, how much harder is it, as you start to talk to the entire workforce and say, Hey, this is all our job. Well, you know, you've got a CEO who's getting paid 350 times that the mean of employees, the employees look at you and say, well, wait a minute, this isn't my job. Chad (9m 0s): How hard is it for you to be able to motivate those individuals, to be able to understand that this is important because this is a community. Cindy (9m 12s): Yeah. That is the crux of my role. That's the hardest, the biggest challenge, I think. Chad (9m 18s): That's not easy. Cindy (9m 20s): No, no and hence back to your original question, why we haven't made progress. Right. Because it isn't easy. I mean, people kind of think that, oh, all you have to do is just hire more people from different backgrounds. And if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Chad (9m 41s): Yeah. Cindy (9m 41s): But to your point, it's, you know, we have these very sort of entrenched beliefs, like what, you know, the American dream, like it's all based on meritocracy and research is one way to start to convince people, you know, and there's lots of research that tells us, like bias, plays a role, you know. Environment and social economic status are kind of huge predictors of whether somebody is going to be able to succeed or not. Right. The concept of privilege is real, but that's not enough, right? Because again, there's tons of research out there. If we all just read research, then you know, we would all be doing the things that we needed to do to make change, but it's not happening. Chad (10m 23s): We'd be eating our greens is what we'd be doing. Joel (10m 25s): I mean, for us, we we've been talking about this issue on the show, our show is about five years old, I'd say at least half of that, this has been a really big topic. I'm curious as someone that writes books about this topic, how would you describe the current state of inclusion in the workplace, in the US as well as maybe globally? How would you describe the current state of the issue? Cindy (10m 49s): Probably the most aware that we've ever been. I would say since the events of George Floyd's murder in 2020, the focus on racial equity has probably been, you know, probably the most heightened since it's been during, since the civil rights movement, right back in the sixties. And you know, now we have organizations that are not just like from the very large, but also from the very small and across many, many industries. Right who I think because of all of the social unrest that happened in 2020, know that they can't ignore this anymore because employees are asking about it. Cindy (11m 29s): Customers are asking about it, shareholders are asking about it. Right. So I think that it's not an issue that can be sort of ignored or swept under the rug anymore. And so I think you see a lot of companies trying to do things, but you also see a lot of companies who are doing things just for PR purposes, more so than I think before. Joel (11m 52s): So would you say it's fair to say it has passed sort of a stress because if you look at the pandemic, if you look now with, you know, the Ukraine invasion by Russia and it's still a hot topic, so it sounds like what you're saying is this is not a novelty. It's not a passing fad. It's here to stay and companies should pay attention. Cindy (12m 13s): Absolutely. Joel (12m 14s): And is that why I, you know, as a writing, want to be, I'm always curious about what the Genesis or the inspiration was to write a book for you and to write it at the time that you did. Was it the George Floyd murder? Was it something else like, why write this book and why write it now? Cindy (12m 31s): Oh, Joel, I feel like, you know, I'm going to give you a really like unconventional answer to a very thoughtful question, because I actually, wasn't thinking about writing a book back in 2020. The events of George Floyd happened and I was just like completely focused on, okay, how do I address this? How do I take this momentum and really drive change in the organization that I was at at the time, but then like an editor at a publishing house reached out to me and asked me if, you know, if I would be willing to write a book. And it's always been something that I'd sort of had as an idea in the back of my mind, but seriously, never thought that I would write a book about my work. Cindy (13m 18s): I always thought it was going to be something else. And so when this opportunity presented itself, I was just like, yeah, absolutely. And the more than I thought about it, the more than I realized that if I'm really truly trying to drive change in a way that I think is going to be effective, that I think a lot of other folks, especially within not just within organizations, but within HR could benefit from, like writing a book is one of the best ways to be able to scale the type of impact that I want to make. I decided to go whole hog into that process. And that's really sort of the key motivators. Joel (13m 55s): Well, I hope your publisher's aware of being you being on the show and that they better start making some extra copies cause that's the kind of traffic that we warrant on the show. Chad (14m 7s): So, Cindy from the outside of Silicon Valley, because that's where we are, it feels like a very bro culture brand. And as somebody who's in the position like you are in your you're working for tech companies, how do you fight that brand? Because it seems to be true or at least the perception is out there. And we all know perception is reality. It's the brand. So how do you work against that in your employer, branding efforts? What do you do? Do you use your ERG? I mean, what are the tips and tricks? Cindy (14m 41s): Yeah. You got to use everything that you've got in your arsenal to really change that perception. Right. So I think it goes through so many things in terms of, you know, sort of traditional branding, things like who are you showing in your branding, right? Like what pictures of people are on your website, right? What is your copy sound like? What is the impression that you're leaving? Right. All of those things will make a difference, but it only makes a little bit of a difference. I think if you, you, what really matters is if you have leaders at the company, particularly the CEO or others in your C-suite, who are actively out there and talking about this and saying that they're committed and that they're wants to make a difference and that their culture is different, right. Cindy (15m 32s): It isn't a bro culture. And then you have like all of those things to actually support that, right? From the types of benefits you have to the type of people that you have actually already hired into the organization to how you see your values and how you run the organization. Right. All of these things, I think really matter. And I give you the example of GoDaddy. Do you remember GoDaddy back when completely sexist bro culture, employer, brand perception, because they had these really bad Superbowl ads. Right? Right. And then they hired Blake Irving in as their CEO. Cindy (16m 14s): And he came in and he completely changed it like complete 180, because he was just like, look, we are not doing these ads anymore. This is not who we are as a company, this is not where we are, who we want to be, especially for our customers, 50% of whom are female. Right. And so we are going to change our values. We are going to, and he went to the Grace Hopper conference, which is the largest conference for women technologists in the world. And he got on stage. And when he got on stage, he was booed. Right. Because everybody knew about GoDaddy's sort of previous reputation, but he got up there and he's just like, look, I'm trying to change that and I need your help. Chad (16m 55s): Yeah. Come work for me. Yeah. Cindy (16m 56s): Exactly. And he totally did it and he really turned it around. And now, you know, I mean, he's hired some of the most respected women technologists in the industry that his company before he ended up retiring and leaving and now, you know, it's in other hands, but, you know, I think that's a great example. And I had the opportunity to work with Blake Irving before he went to GoDaddy when he was at Yahoo and everything that he like presented about himself was like authentic and true. That matters. Chad (17m 34s): So how is using workforce composition, hiring retention, promotion. Those have to be amazing tools, but when you get to an organization, you don't have those, right. So you have to start from ground zero. So when you get to an organization, do you automatically start taking a look at workforce composition, take a look for, at the retention rates for individuals who are more underrepresented and the promotions. Do you look at those things so that you can bring that to the C-suite? So they understand how does that all work so that you have a base to work off of? Cindy (18m 8s): First thing I do in any organization is I do an assessment or an audit of all of their demographics and data, as it relates to different diversity dimensions and looking at all their sort of systems and practices as well. So definitely looking at overall workforce composition from a representation perspective, hiring rates, retention rates, development, and promotion rates. Right. So all of those are the kind of like the hard HR metrics to look at. But then I always try to, I always couple that with just like talking to as many employees as possible, right? Cindy (18m 50s): Like, because the data will tell you one thing, but you will have to also get the stories, like what are the actual experiences that people are having at the organization and how does that differ across different groups. Right. And, you know, you can do surveys as well to give you some of that, but I don't think that there's any replacement for the actual stories that you hear on the ground. And then, you know, Lena, I think that all of that information needs to be paired with kind of just a more objective assessment of like what kinds of programs are in place, you know, what's missing from this mix. You know, how, when we look at your end to end hiring process or your end to end promotion process, like how do decisions happen? Cindy (19m 37s): How do they get made, right? And are there ways to make that more inclusive and or less biased? So those are all really important inputs. And, the way that I really get started in building the right strategy for the position. Joel (19m 52s): I want to jump to chapter four for a second. I'm entitled Implementing Inclusive Talent Strategies and we have a ton of TA folks who listened to the podcast. And I want you to just sort of go through some of the things in terms of talent acquisition. The first thing I want to talk about is your opinion of referral programs, because in your book, it sounds like you, you find them to be a good thing, but I've also heard devil's advocate saying, well, referral programs are just bringing in the same types of people into the organization. So there's a lack of diversity in referral programs. Did I read that wrong or what sort of your advice for companies who are implementing referral programs to be inclusive? Cindy (20m 34s): Yeah, generally I think referral programs can be great. It's just to that sort of criticism of them, you can't just rely on the majority of your folks referring in people, you have to also make sure that you're getting referrals from people who are from more underrepresented backgrounds, right? Joel (20m 55s): Should they increase the rewards for diverse referrals or do you do sort of suggest otherwise? Cindy (21m 3s): So I actually believe that you do what you need to do to get the talent that you want. Joel (21m 11s): Interesting ok. Cindy (21m 12s): And so I think, yes, if there are companies that have increased their referral bonuses for people from different backgrounds, because they treat that as a skillset or a perspective like any other that you're hiring for what you would. Right. So, I mean, if I'm already willing to increase my referral bonus for this really hard to find technical skillset, wouldn't the similar corollary be to also increase that for somebody who comes with like specific knowledge about a community that you may be trying to reach from a marketing perspective. Joel (21m 47s): Let's get into a job descriptions. And in many ways, this is sort of the first introduction or a messaging that companies have with talent. What tips would you give to writing unbiased job descriptions? Cindy (22m 1s): So many! I think there are a few key ways that you can reduce the amount of bias in your job description. So one is to research what inclusive language looks like and take advantage of different free tools that are already out there on the internet that can help identify more gendered or bias language in your job descriptions. Like there's actual like word engines that you can like put your job description through and it will highlight for you is that are either like highly masculine or highly feminine. And there's research that says that the more sort of gender neutral, you can get language in your job description, the more effective they are at attracting more diverse candidates. Cindy (22m 43s): So that's one key way. I think the other key way, and I'm sure both of you have heard of this where there's research that says that again, from a gender perspective, women tend to apply to roles only if they meet a hundred percent of the qualifications and men tend to apply when they meet 60 or less. Joel (23m 5s): Way less. Chad (23m 5s): Or 20. Cindy (23m 8s): Exactly. And so really having a critical eye toward, like, what are your job requirements? And are you putting in a lot of nice to haves as opposed to truly what is a need to have? Right. You know, I think again, sort of making sure that not only are you reviewing critically the number of job requirements that you have to encourage more people to apply, but also what is in those job requirements, which is the third thing. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of, and you know, I've done this, of course, like many people do this is like, I'll just like take an old job description for a new job. Cindy (23m 48s): Right. I'm trying to hire. Chad (23m 49s): Let's just google it. Cindy (23m 50s): Exactly. And I'll copy and paste, or I might modify in some ways, but like, is that truly what you need for your organization? And taking that role critical item, match it to the competencies that you want instead of like blankets saying, oh, like, I need somebody with an advanced degree in human resources for this like sourcing role that I might be hiring for. Like, is that really necessary? I'm not sure. Joel (24m 16s): And you're going to make us work, Cynthia, you're going to make us work well. And the last thing I have on the talent acquisition side is we talk a lot on the show about artificial intelligence and every week it seems like there are companies who say AI is going to save us from a DEI and B perspective. Where are you on AI when it comes to inclusivity? Are you pro, con, are there blind spots? Like talk about AI for a second. Cindy (24m 46s): I think AI can be great, but we have to make sure that we're doing it with an eye towards how do we actually remove bias in AI, as well, right. Because, you know, algorithms, artificial intelligence, like that's all programmed by human beings who come with our own biases. And if we're not careful and we don't put sort of checkpoints in place for that, then we're just going to perpetuate it through AI. Right. So we have to develop AI that works in a way that doesn't actually perpetuate some of those biases, but can mitigate against some of them. Right. I think, I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Cindy (25m 29s): Joy Buolamwini who leads an organization called the Algorithmic Justice League. Chad (25m 32s): Oh, no. Joel (25m 32s): Sounds cool. Cindy (25m 33s): Yeah, it's totally cool. Like she's done totally. I highly recommend you research it because she's done great research that look at, you know, like facial recognition software, and I'll, you know, lots of facial recognition software, especially in its earlier heyday could detect white faces, but not black ones. Chad (25m 58s): Right. Cindy (25m 59s): Right. And you know, and how, when we're doing, where we're creating the data sets for these types of algorithms, if we're not mindful of who's in those datasets, or who's giving us those data sets, right. Because they were primarily white faces in those datasets, hence you get the outcome of not being able to see like have facial recognition for black faces. So we have to like, you know, actually be mindful and then build for diversity when we're building AI. And that's when I think it can be beneficial. Chad (26m 31s): So there are so many excuses out there, Cindy, but one of the one excuse that we hear all the time from leaders, as they say that there aren't enough diverse candidates to fill the open roles out there. What do you say to that? Cindy (26m 48s): I say you not looking hard enough. I mean, at its most basic, like you're just not looking hard enough or you're not providing enough of an attractive package that people from those underrepresented backgrounds are going to want to work for you. Chad (27m 6s): Right. Cindy (27m 7s): So, you know, that's sort of a two-prong thing where there's a lot of great talent and underrepresented communities. Granted they're not as many in some fields as others, right. I mean, we take the example of like engineering right, and technical roles. And we know that a majority of folks graduating with technical and engineering degrees fall into the white male majority. Right. But that doesn't mean that there aren't like significant pools of like black, latinex, LGBTQ, like, you know, military talent with skill sets that can be transferable into there, who, or people who can, you know, who may have 80% of the experience that you're looking for, but could learn the other 20% if they needed to. Chad (28m 5s): It really seems like that we have the opportunity to go out and companies could actually get into underrepresented populations and they could create training programs that would build talent pipelines for now, and in the future. But it almost seems like we're waiting for the government, it's almost like corporate welfare. Right. We always get on welfare. Oh, it's so bad. But wait a minute, it's great for corporations. They're always waiting for the government to actually fix the problem. What should companies do now to be able to try to bridge those gaps? Cindy (28m 44s): Hey, they should stop waiting for government to do something. Right. I love it. They should really start to think about how to build that themselves and making the investment in it. And, by the way, not doing it just on their own either. I think this is one of those areas where companies have to stop thinking about just themselves and think about like, okay, what's better for the industry. And how do I partner with other companies in my space so that we can kind of pool capital, talent, resource, whatever, right together, to drive the change, that we need to see. I think that, you know, any time that we just try to do it all on our own, we're actually setting ourselves up for failure because it's not going to be just like one company changing the entire industry or, you know, changing the entire talent pipeline. Cindy (29m 39s): Right. There's going to be a series of steps and a wholesale movement in this area to be able to do that. And I just think that, you know, it's really hard for companies kind of think more broadly so that they can, you know, put the resources and make the investments that are needed to create these kinds of like apprenticeship or training programs and even just mentoring. I mean, just doing that is going to make a huge difference. Chad (30m 12s): Well, also hasn't the pandemic provided us with now the vision to start to think remote? Cindy (30m 17s): Yeah. Chad (30m 17s): And then to be able to get into more remote diverse populations, do you think that has helped at all? Or do you think that when really we get back to quote unquote "normal", we're just going to go back to our old routine and remote is not going to be as prominent as really we want it to be. Cindy (30m 40s): I do think that remote is going to continue to be a much bigger part of the working world than it has been prior to the pandemic. I don't think it's going to go away. I do think that companies will start to add a little bit back towards, you know, what you said, you know, kind of going back to like a quote unquote "normal", which is what they were doing before the pandemic, because, you know, we, as human beings tend to not like change. And we like to kind of go back to like things that we think were helping us, you know, be successful. So, you know, I think that there's going to be some swinging of the pendulum back. Cindy (31m 22s): I just don't think it will go as far back as it was before. I do think that having more remote first companies or companies that have much more flexible work arrangement and work location policies as a result of the pandemic will be companies that are able to attract more diverse talent and retain it, which is the other, like the super key part of this is not just bringing them in, but like keeping them, those companies are going to be the ones that are able to have to have more diversity in their ranks. I do really believe that. Joel (31m 56s): I think you've touched on some of this, but I want to, I want to jump to just a chapter seven, which is entitled Measuring Success. And to me, this is sort of the crux of how we sell this issue to corporate America. So how do you measure success? Cindy (32m 19s): Lots of different ways. I think that, you know, from a business perspective, the one metric that everyone looks at as a measure of success in diversity and inclusion work is, representation, right? And so do we have gender parody? Do we have racial equity and parody to available talent pools? And do you see that at all levels of the organization? So that's kind of the first measure. I think that the other measures are around inclusion and belonging, because it's one thing to have that diversity. It's quite another to have that diversity feel like it truly belongs right. Cindy (33m 1s): And are thriving and are supported in the company. And so I think it's important to look at things like your, you know, diversity surveys or inclined inclusion, climate surveys, to understand what is the sense of belonging and get those stories from people, right? Like if I hear from employees that they feel like they have as much opportunity to succeed as anyone else in the organization, especially if you're from an underrepresented group, then that to me is like, is part of how I define success. What makes me personally feel really gratified in this work is when I see people achieve the career aspirations that they've laid out for themselves. Cindy (33m 49s): And it's because I've done something to intervene, whether that's provided them mentoring or created a coaching program, or had them go through some sort of like training and development leadership program and seeing them kind of rise through the organization right, in a way that's like where they're still authentic and who they are. Like, those are the most satisfying moments for me, where I feel like I'm actually being successful in my role. Chad (34m 18s): That is awesome. Well, the book is ALL ARE WELCOME How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results. The author right here, Cynthia Owyoung. Cynthia if somebody wants to find out more about you or I don't know, maybe even buy the book, where would you send them? Cindy (34m 40s): They shouldn't go to my website cynthiaowyoung.com. I have all the links to Amazon, Barnes and Nobles indie bound, bookshop, right? Everywhere that you can purchase the book online. Let's say if they also want it to get connected with me, they can look for me on LinkedIn or on Twitter at Cindy Owyoung. Joel (34m 56s): By the way, Cynthia, my connection on LinkedIn is still pending. It's still pending. So I'm waiting to be connected to you. Chad another one is in the book, Cynthia, this was fantastic. Chad (35m 11s): Thank you so much. Joel (35m 12s): We out. Chad (35m 13s): We out. OUTRO (35m 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. 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.

Tired of hearing about unicorns in the recruitment space? Doesn't matter, because the parade of glitter-pooping horses continues this week with a double-banger that includes Oyster and Clipboard getting to that billion-dollar valuation. Next, two companies worth well north of a billion, Apple and Starbucks, are in the news, both dealing with unionization efforts from employees. What else? Hirevue passes the buck, California goes after A.I. in recruiting New York State says YES to transparency in monitoring employees. Then a few tequila shots end the show It's roughly 45 mins. you'll never get back. Sorry, not sorry :) 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. Netflix stock crash 35% this week. And our traffic spiked 350,000,000%! Coincidence? I think not. Hi kids you're tuned into the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "cheese is the new black" Cheeseman. Chad (41s): And this is Chad "never been to Disney World" Sowash. Joel (45s): And on this week's podcast, Oyster tells Remote to hold its beer. HireVue says buyer beware. And the days of secretly monitoring your employees may be coming to an end. Can you dig it? I knew that you could we'll be right back. Chad (1m 2s): Okay. So you, you've got to find it hilarious when reporters are talking about Disney World moving out of Florida, right? Is it just me? Joel (1m 14s): Is that a new thing? Is that new? I mean, I know that DeSantis is going after their, I guess, special status. Chad (1m 23s): Yeah. Joel (1m 23s): But I haven't heard that they're looking to move and where the hell would they move Texas? I mean, they're already got Disneyland in California. I don't know where the hell they would go. Chad (1m 33s): Yeah. They're going to have the same problems in Texas that they have in Florida. But I mean, Disney World has been their own like sovereign nation in Florida. And I mean, seriously, Orlando was nothing but a pit prior to that anyway. Right? Joel (1m 46s): A hot pit. Chad (1m 49s): Nasty fucking pit. But yeah, it's just, it's hilarious. I mean, it's nothing but spinning that we see out there, Disney World. I've never been to it, but many of my friends have, and they love it and they say it's gigantic. It's bigger than any city. Joel (2m 3s): You've never been to Disney World. Chad (2m 6s): No, for what? Joel (2m 8s): For fun. It's the happiest place on earth. You got to go to Disney World, man. Come on. Chad (2m 13s): I took my kids to Europe for three weeks. They liked that. Joel (2m 17s): This explains why you're so angry all the time. Just go to Disney World for God's sakes. Goodness, goodness. Yeah. Let's play political football with Disney. That seems like a good idea. Chad (2m 27s): It doesn't. It does not. Joel (2m 30s): All right. Should we get to shout outs or you want a small talk, some more? Chad (2m 33s): Shout outs. So let me start off with Lydia Hoefel, who tagged us in a LinkedIn post, where she shared a news clipping from the Cleveland Press in 1972, which talked about a local company promoting the four day workweek. Lydia found it interesting that today we think a four day workweek is a new concept. It's not. So thanks for sharing, Lydia and keep it coming. Joel (2m 59s): Nice. Cleveland Press. Yes. Highlight a paper that exists no longer. It's all about the Plain Dealer. I'm going to go tech on mine. I'm going to give a shout out to iRobot. sfx (3m 11s): Shall we play a game? Joel (3m 14s): The vacuum cleaner, Chad. Chad (3m 16s): Will Smith? Joel (3m 15s): As seen on television. Okay? Yeah, not the movie, not the movie. So in celebration of national robotics week, that was news to me too. iRobot has launched the Create Three Educational robot based on the robot vacuum minus the actual vacuuming. In so doing the company says it's delivering STEM tools to all levels of the educational community, empowering the next generation of engineers, scientists, and enthusiasts to do more enabling students, educators, and developers, to be in the driver's seat of robotics exploration, allowing them to quote "one day, discover new ways for robots to benefit society and quote, we're always talking about companies need to do a better job of integrating with schools, particularly high schools and iRobot is walking the walk. Joel (4m 3s): So shout out to iRobot. sfx (4m 6s): Shall we play a game? Chad (4m 6s): Yeah. Gotta love that. Every kid that that should actually be a toy under the Christmas tree. I mean, you have this almost, it was like an erector set when we were growing up. Right. We were building shit. Joel (4m 17s): Lincoln Logs. Chad (4m 18s): Same thing, dude. Same thing. Just more sophisticated obviously, also with software. So I mean you can actually program it. So you get the hands-on with the technical piece. And then also the development stuff. I mean, I love that. Joel (4m 32s): Shout out to iRobot. Chad (4m 34s): Shout out to Corey Kapner over at RecruitEx, he was on a road trip with his wife and he pinned me to have lunch last week as he was passing through. So it was great to sit down, have a beer, lunch, great guy from the industry and loyal listener, stopping by and paying for lunch. That was awesome too. I didn't mind that. Joel (4m 52s): Oh, that's nice. That's nice. Where'd you take him what? Chad (4m 55s): To Upland right on the river. Yeah. Joel (4m 57s): Okay. Beautiful. Yeah. You got to see Columbus. You take them around a little bit, see the architecture and all the highlights of Columbus. It's a lovely town. Chad (5m 4s): He had to unass the area they had to go to Annapolis. Joel (5m 8s): Gotcha. I don't know if there's Columbus, Indiana in the metaverse but there sure as hell should be. My second shout out, Goes to SOMNIUM SPACE. Hopefully I'm saying that correctly, Chad, you know the show Download Amazon prime, right? Yes. Chad (5m 23s): It's exactly what I thought of. Joel (5m 26s): Yeah, exactly. So well, SOMNIUM SPACE is developing a way for people to talk to their loved ones even after they die. They call it live forever mode live forever, one of Oasis's best songs, by the way, by collecting huge amounts of data on users, including the movements and sounds users make when interacting in SOMNIUM SPACE. You'll be able to engage with people, including family and friends after you've passed away. Yes. Rejoice. It's looking like our podcast will live forever, Chad. Shout out to SOMNIUM SPACE. Chad (6m 0s): That's scary as shit. Oh my God. So a shout out to Tina Lyons, our marketing friends from AMS Alexander Mann Solutions. Well she's not there anymore, she actually landed a new gig at Alero, startup. Alero. Okay. But it's kind of weird. I mean, we talked about Janette Leads coming into to AMS and Hourly. Quincy wins the 2022 Best Women in RPO list and then she's gone and now Tina is gone, one of their major marketing top guns. So, you know, we might have to reach out and see what's going on. Joel (6m 38s): Yeah. Be careful. What are you saying? Chad (6m 39s): I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. That's the problem. Joel (6m 43s): Something's a miss at the Circle K, I think is what you're saying. Chad (6m 47s): That's exactly right. Joel (6m 47s): We need to get Jeanette on the phone and see what's going on at AMS Hourly. Shout out to SellX. This got my attention. Cause it looks like sex. When you see the, the news item. So SellX provides access to on-demand sales talent who are empowered to work with anyone anywhere at launch over 150 companies, including Deel or utilizing SellX to reduce risks, cost, and time associated with building, managing, scaling, and retaining an in-house sales development team. Yet another reason companies don't actually have to hire people in 2022, shout out to SellX. Joel (7m 28s): And I think the contract sales team thing is a under-reported, under-appreciated opportunity. I expect more companies to follow SellX lead and create teams that people can just take off a shelf and sell their product. Chad (7m 43s): Totally agree. Which means you have to have a product that's easy to articulate. We'll talk about that later. My next shout-out believe it or not goes to Pabst Blue Ribbon, who would have fucking thought that I would give Pabst a shout out? Anyway Pabst Blue Ribbon Easter kegs. So instead of hiding, painted Easter eggs, Pabst hid pastel painted beer kegs, which their brand refers to as kegs, get it Easter kegs anywhere around Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Tampa, and Portland last Saturday, April 16th. Chad (8m 24s): Consumers obviously had to be age 21 or older, but if they found the keg, they could keep it. And all of this was pretty much worked off of social. You got the clues on social media. So this was an awesome marketing campaign, I think. Joel (8m 41s): Yeah. Giddy up to PBR, the best cheap beer in the world, by the way. By the way, for July, they put out their hundred case option for PBR. It's like a 10 yard long case of beer. Anyway, these were these actual kegs or pony kegs. Chad (8m 59s): I think they're actual kegs. Joel (9m 1s): Holy crap. Kegs are heavy, dude. Like you don't just pick them up and go, you got to like deal with a truck or something. Anyway. Great idea. Probably some great pictures while people were trying to figure out how do I get this thing to my house? Chad (9m 14s): Yeah. Joel (9m 15s): Shout out to PBR and speaking of beer, Chad, yes. Listeners. If they didn't know this can get free beer from Chad and Cheese or at least a chance to, that's right. If they just go to Chadcheese.com and we're giving away, get this Chad, we're giving away t-shirts from Emissary, beer from our friends at Pillar. And we're giving away whiskey from our homeys at Textkernel. So if you haven't got on that, kids go to Chadcheese.com and sign up for the chance to win free beer whiskey and/or t-shirts Chad (9m 46s): It's too easy. It's just too easy. Not to mention if you've been missing free. You probably you, I hope you didn't miss pods that happened earlier this week, we had Lee Henderson, AKA HR Manifesto on. And if you miss that interview, you got to check it out. She's a legit corporate HR leader who is killing it on TikTok, Instagram, and a bunch of different social media platforms. On TikTok alone she has over 450,000 followers and over 9 million likes. So check that out. It's called HR Manifesto. We also did the Europe show with Lieven of course, and guest straight out of an Irish pub Neil Dunwoody. sfx (10m 30s): I can make you rich. Chad (10m 34s): That's right, baby. We're talking handshakes, European expansion, economy and whack pods is a great one. That was a good one. Joel (10m 41s): Spank pods, rank pods, shout out to Pando. Our friends at Pando sent both of us a box full of goodies, which we always love to get even if it's not brown and drinkable, we still love the free deliveries. So shout out to Pandologic. Birthdays, not a lot, but let's highlight those real quick listeners. Matt Lozar, Steve Gilbert and Shama Hyde, who I think was a former direct employers keynote. Do I have that right? Chad (11m 10s): I can't remember. Joel (11m 11s): Okay. Yeah. We were all drunk and the aughts anyway, but anyway, shout out to them, celebrating a birthday this week, thanks for listening everybody. Chad (11m 21s): Excellent. So events kids. Okay. So if you haven't got your tickets for Belgium and you're in Europe, once again, what the hell are you waiting for? Not to mention Cheeseman have you seen where we're going to be set up in Belgium for the E-recruitment Congress? Have you seen the layout? Joel (11m 38s): I've seen the map, the blueprint, whatever they're calling it. Yes. I have seen it. Chad (11m 42s): We're in a balcony with a bar. Joel (11m 46s): We're the Muppets. We're the Muppets with beer. Chad (11m 47s): No, I was going to say those guys got nothing on us. Cause they didn't, unless they had flasks that we couldn't see, but yeah, no, we've got a bar and we're going to have a balcony. We're going to be from my understanding streaming alive on LinkedIn. Yeah. I think the E-recruitment Congress House of HR, Lieven, Rika, those guys have this shit nailed down. So I'm looking forward to that. Not to mention, did I not hear that we're going to be on a boat? Joel (12m 14s): We're supposed to be on a boat. We have verbal commitment that we'll be on a boat. And this I assume is not some fishing boat or a pontoon boat, but maybe yacht type boat from one of our favorite sponsors. So stay tuned for that kids. There may be a live show from a boat, which will break all precedent for Chad and Cheese and maybe peak Chad and Cheese and it's all downhill from that. Chad (12m 39s): Who knows? Joel (12m 40s): But who knows? Who knows? And by the way, Chad, not just a bar, not just a bar with beer, but a bar with Belgian beer, which I have to remind everyone is the best beer in the world. So yeah, this could spell trouble. Make sure we wear life jackets. Please make sure I'm wearing a life jacket on this boat. Chad (13m 2s): Well then, then we come back and we're going to Vegas for UNLEASH. So we'll have now have you seen the blueprint for where we're going to be on the Florida UNLEASH? Joel (13m 10s): I have. And I'm not sure we could be more in the center of everything at UNLEASH. That could be dangerous. Chad (13m 16s): Yes. Yes. The, the pot, the Chad and Cheese podcast pit is set up literally in the middle of everything, not to mention during UNLEASH this is like an after hours event. If you receive a VIP party invite from Pandologic or maybe directly from yours, truly Chad and Cheese, you'd be smart to RSVP. Just think Chad and Cheese in a speakeasy, no mics, no recording. Just great off the record discussion about the great things that are happening in the industry, the wrong things that are happening in the industry, talking talent, landscape, technology, industry, the whole kit and caboodle. So like I'd said, if you get an invite, make sure that you RSVP because space is limited by design. Chad (14m 2s): We want a small group. Joel (14m 3s): The rules are, there are no rules! Cats and dogs living together in a speakeasy. I'm pretty excited about Vegas Chad (14m 17s): Pandos got it. Joel (14m 18s): All right, Chad. Well, you know how we do? sfx (14m 25s): Pink Fluffy Unicorn music. Joel (14m 26s): Oh yeah. Oyster an HR platform aimed at remote workers, stop me if you've heard this one before, announced Wednesday that it has surpassed a $1 billion valuation after closing a $150 million Series C round. Notable backers include Salesforce Ventures and LinkedIn. Hm. The funding round comes less than a year after a $50 million Series B valuing the company at $475 million at the time. And just two years since it's January launch in 2020 Oyster has grown from 17 employees in 2020 to 500 employees in over 70 countries, women make up 50% of its leadership team and 60% of its employee base, which it was quick to highlight in its news release. Joel (15m 13s): Sounds like this oysters making pearls, Chad thoughts? Chad (15m 17s): So Joel (15m 18s): That's gold baby. Chad (15m 20s): We first, I think reported on Remote and Oyster together back in April of 2020. Remote came out of the barrel hot with simple to the point messaging and vision where Oyster was a nebulous blob of catchphrases. Back then, I mean, I was personally embarrassed for their marketing department back then, but today kids, a couple of years later, Oyster seems to have pulled it together. Their marketing pitch is quote, "hire anywhere, thrive everywhere". I love that. "We're your trusted partner for expanding your team across borders, higher pay and care for teammates across the globe" Chad (16m 1s): end quote. They've started to pull their messaging together, which is amazing. So that to me deserves an applause. They obviously heard the episode that, you know, we put out in April of 2020, but I think it's important to remember, especially for founders or those looking to become founders, you can have an amazing product, but if you don't have a tight vision and marketing message for your team, especially your sales peeps, even though you'd like to think your product sells itself, it never usually does. So you got to tighten your shit up, which Oyster did. And they did it in pretty quick fashion. Joel (16m 35s): Marketing one-on-one lessons from Chad Sowash kids. You didn't think you'd get that today. Did you? Chad (16m 39s): You're welcome. Joel (16m 40s): Okay. Let's summarize here for a second and look at the landscape Deel. That's D-e-e-l, has raised $629 million remote has raised a total of $496,000,000, Eightfold $396 million and Oyster is now at $224 million. When Remote raise $300 million earlier this month I asked who would be the Pepsi to it's Coke. I'm not sure, not sure Oyster can be the Pepsi, but maybe they can settle for being Dr. Pepper or Fanta, which are both perfectly enjoyable sodas. Their differentiator, talking about marketing, they talk a lot on their release about DEI and B and that messaging and imagery is pretty strong on their site as well. Joel (17m 25s): I think it's a smart position to take whereas most of the others are really high in tech and efficiencies. And I think it will be a factor in many prospects in terms of deciding to use Oyster over other competitors. Remote work isn't going away and all these companies have timed the market, whether on purpose or accidentally, just right and the money flowing into their businesses is no surprise. I feel like we'll be talking about these businesses a lot, the next five plus years. Where they all take their companies will be fascinating to watch and talk about. Minor prediction the MNA is going to be hot. I think these companies are going to be buying a lot of businesses to help grow their footprint globally. Joel (18m 5s): And that'll be fun to talk about on a podcast, like the Chad and Cheese podcast Chad (18m 11s): On a podcast. Joel (18m 12s): On a podcast, on a boat. Chad (18m 14s): One of the quotes that I saw for the press release was pretty awesome. It says "Oyster has created a vibrant team of 500 employees, with employees in over 60 countries, a diverse leadership team and an employee base that has over 60% female. The company enjoys one of the highest employee engagement scores in its class. Oyster is proof that companies don't need an office to create highly engaged culture. They just need a compelling mission, demonstrated impact and clear core values." Even though I hate Oyster's color scheme still, I think I'm falling in love for this organization because they are again, they came out of the barrel and they were cold. Chad (18m 57s): I mean, they were cold. You didn't know what they did. Now they've tightened so many things up and you know, hence I think this, this funding, the big question is, are they taking enough because this TAM for them is fucking humongous. So the question is, have they taken enough if they haven't? I'm sure there will be more funds available for another round, Joel (19m 21s): For sure. What do you like to call talent.com to indeed.com? It's the nice Indeed or the friendly Indeed? Chad (19m 30s): Polite Indeed. Joel (19m 31s): These guys feel like the polite remote solution. They feel like they're nice and warm and fuzzy. And I think that'll will appeal to a lot of people. A lot of buyers. Speaking of buyers, Chad, you might've heard the healthcare industry is kind of hot right now, which brings us to Clipboard Health, a San Francisco based marketplace that matches nurses with open shifts at nearby healthcare facilities. They announced it had raised $80 million over two unannounced rounds to $50 million series B round in 2021 and a $30 million series C round this year at a $1.3 billion valuation Chad. You know what that means? sfx (20m 11s): Pink Fluffy Unicorn music. Joel (20m 12s): I get to play the unicorn soundbite. Using the platform facilities can post shifts, they need to fill, and healthcare workers can book these shifts, managing their schedules via Clipboards mobile app competitors include Nurse Dash, Incredible Health, Intelycare, which we covered a few weeks ago. CareRev and Nomad Health. Chad, what are your thoughts on the gig economy? A little bit of that coming to the healthcare industry. Chad (20m 37s): I think it's interesting because we know that there's a huge problem here and there has been for decades, right? I think it's interesting the funding that they're getting or the funding that they're not getting, we're talking, we just talked about, you know, a group of that are getting, you know, half a billion dollars in funding. And these guys they're either so goddamn good that they don't need the money or they need, you know, some somebody pitching better. I'm not sure, but the healthcare talent market, it has been a mess, not enough talent for everyday lifesaving positions, which is why two weeks ago we talked about Intelycare, like you'd said, who received $115 million in Series C. Chad (21m 19s): Clipboard is on their Series C and they're under a hundred million. It's a real problem that needs solved being the whole, not finding enough talent, not having enough talent and not being able to position the talent that you do have in the right shifts. But to make it easier for those who are qualified yet, maybe even semi-retired or retired, it's got to get easier for those workers to be able to pick up shifts here and there where they want. Flexibility is the biggest key, I think. Joel (21m 50s): Yep. Chad (21m 50s): Think of it for like Uber drivers. They're bored. You're at home. You flip on the app and then you go and you pick somebody up, right? It's the same thing for this type of app, especially for individuals who might be working a regular shift, but they want to pick up more time at another facility that's local. The thing is though Clipboard is currently in 30 cities. This cash should be focused on building that out to 300 cities. They really need, because this is so hyper-local, they need to be partnering with nursing unions, nursing schools and those types of talent pools so that they can map the local markets. Chad (22m 33s): Because if they go to these local markets with the nurses already mapped into it, at least a good amount or a good start, they own the market at that point. Joel (22m 42s): Yeah. Chad (22m 42s): I think many of these platforms are going in trying to sell this as SAAS opportunity to healthcare systems. If you bring the pool and you bring the commoditized app with you, man, you just fucking won. Joel (22m 58s): Yeah. Look, you have, I think 77, 79 million baby boomers. They're not getting any healthier for the most part. Chad (23m 8s): Right. Joel (23m 8s): And if you don't have nurses, you're out of business as a hospital that needed to care for these folks. So this was sort of an easy prediction that these types of businesses that offered flexibility would come around. I, the Uber thing is interesting because I wonder if you'll get into some sort of like market driven salaries or opportunities. So in other words, if you work during the day, you make more than at night, or if you work during major holidays or when, when traffic is higher, like surge pricing. I wonder if that, that comes into play with some of these, but overall, I think you can almost copy and paste what I said about Intelycare a few weeks ago, you know, one in four nursing degrees actually practice nursing. Joel (23m 51s): That's a real problem. Flexibility will help get some of them back, particularly even ones that maybe have retired. Nursing has a tough job. And I think adding elements of the gig economy, those being flexibility, freedom, family time, taking care of elder parents, whatever, all paramount for folks. The companies like Clipboard, who can provide a hybrid between full-time brick and mortar work and the gig economy will thrive. I have a bit of a prediction though, as I'm basically regurgitating my Intelycare commentary, my prediction is ZipRecruiter will acquire one of these companies in the next 12 months. Joel (24m 31s): Why you ask? One. It's a good idea. And two, they need to juice their anemic stock price that's been going nowhere since its IPO, even though we're in the hottest labor market in 20 years. I think ZipRecruiter needs to get on the healthcare tip and buy one of these companies that are providing a gig economy perspective on nursing jobs. Chad (24m 50s): Yeah. Joel (24m 51s): But that's just me. We'll see what happens. Chad (24m 53s): I don't see that happening. I do see obviously, like you'd said the market, we saw this coming first and foremost, even before the pandemic. Then we had a pandemic. And the next thing you know, you have all these nurses and these healthcare workers who are burnt the fuck out, just trying to get, you know, normal Billy Bob to wear his fucking mask in the emergency room. I mean, they took enough shit right now. They want to breathe. That's fine. Give them flexibility. Give them the opportunity to at least come back. Because much, like you said, most of those nurses who are certified and they have degrees, they're not doing the job. Chad (25m 37s): It's the exact same issue that we're seeing in trucking. Joel (25m 39s): Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think those two professions are some of the most important in our economy, if not the world and anything that we can do, whether it be private market or public efforts is a good thing because it keepsn the engine running. Trust me. Yeah. Chad (25m 56s): Oh God yeah. Joel (25m 57s): And speaking of keeping the engine running, Chad, let's take a quick break and pay some bills and then we'll talk about privacy and HireVue. Chad (26m 7s): Those two things don't go together. Privacy, HireVue. Go ahead. Go ahead and tell me what we're doing. Joel (26m 13s): Oh, that's like a hair sandwich. That's just not tasty at all. All right. So Chad states are getting punchy. Those are your words, which I put in there. So let's start with New York State. New York, you know, is already making transparency in salaries, the law of the land and they're not finished. In New York, beginning on May 7th, which is right around the corner. All private employers in New York State will be required to notify employees of electronic monitoring in the workplace. Any thoughts on that Chad? Obviously, I think they know that their emails are monitored, but maybe some other things would be a little surprising to them. Joel (26m 53s): What do you think about this transparency? Chad (26m 57s): Yeah, I like that New York is really pressing transparency. New York City is looking for wage transparency. Now you have the state, who's looking to be transparent and basically just say, you know, dear employee, you work for a company that doesn't trust you and since you've been working from home, we feel like we've lost control. Right? And I think that's, again, we talked about this last week. Many of these companies are in that head space right now. This is something that is incredibly uncomfortable for them because they went through the ranks in the office. This is something that we had to do because of the pandemic. Now that we're all getting used to it. Chad (27m 41s): They need to find new ways to quote unquote "control" their people, ask them why they weren't on the phone from, you know, X, you know, this hour to this hour, or what have you, instead of providing true autonomy, right? If an individual is actually making their quota, they're making their goals. They're, they're hitting their phase lines on projects. Leave them the fuck alone. Right. This to me, I think again, it's transparency that everybody needs. Joel (28m 7s): It should be called the Jeffrey Toobin law. Just kidding. So you're basically saying that the frog, if it's being boiled should know exactly the temperature that it's being boiled at over time. Yeah. I think this is one of the more interesting news items that we sort of threw up for this week. Do companies have to disclose that they're using a service like Fama, for example, which reviews social media activity to employees and will employees care? I think it makes employers less likely to go outside of email and texts when monitoring employees. I mean, there are a lot of services that monitor Slack messages. There are services, not only social media, but it looks at your text messages and things like that. Joel (28m 47s): I think that will surprise a lot of employees. And I think that it will probably make companies less likely to go outside of the box in terms of how they monitor their employees. And also I think it will bring up the question in interviews, knowing that it's part of the law that interviewees will ask exactly how will I be monitored as an employee? And I think those are healthy questions that companies should have with prospective candidates. Chad (29m 18s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and if an individual takes that position, they should know that they're being monitored. I mean, that's just, it's fairly simple. Joel (29m 26s): Well, let's go fly over the Midwest and much of the west and go to California. A newly proposed amendment to California's hiring discrimination laws would make AI powered employment decision-making software, a source of legal liability. Chad thoughts on California, the initiative on illegal liabilities for AI recruitment. Chad (29m 49s): Yeah. So I mean, there's some things that I don't like and things that I do like. I'm going to start off with the things that I think are unnecessary. First off in most of the texts, they do point out problems that exist, hooray for them. But we already have regulations on the books and enforcement agencies like the EEOC and OFCCP that focus on these issues. What California should be pressing are the number of compliance audits for fortune 500 companies, not wasting paper and pandering. This to me feels more pandering than it does anything else. But what I did like is quote, "the proposed also specifically mentions that vendors must maintain records for each customer it trains models for". Chad (30m 35s): Why do I like this? Because it holds the vendors feet to the fire training data and monitoring the algorithm behaviors. You've got to do that. You can't just allow an algorithm to go Amazon. Joel (30m 51s): It went Amazon man and went full Amazon on that one. Chad (30m 54s): Yeah. Joel (30m 54s): Yeah. I think the question for California to me is what will constitute quote, "AI powered employment, decision making" end quote. That's a pretty gray area and it will be left up to the courts to decide. But as we know that HR's job is largely to keep the company out of court. What if every recruitment tech that touts AI is suddenly toxic to use in California, which makes all these vendors who tout AI a hot potato for potential buyers. And I think that could be a really devastating situation for a lot of companies that are using layers of AI in their products. Because even if it's legal, if companies feel like, oh shit, we're not touching that, it could be a real hindrance into buying those products. Joel (31m 42s): And speaking of devastating, you mentioned HireVue Chad (31m 45s): Yes. Joel (31m 45s): And hot potatoes. So let's jump to HireVue and what it could mean for that. So in light of the news out of California, HireVue is passing the buck to employers apparently, after getting in trouble in Illinois with their facial recognition, they now have an AI explainability statement on their website. It sounds pretty cool. Huh? I don't know maybe not, said Susan Scott Parker, founder of Scott Parker International and global expert and thought leader on disability. She said this on LinkedIn quote, "HireVue have clarified that buyers of their HR technologies must indeed be where it is HireVue's belief that it is the recruiting employer as controller of the data who will be liable, should a job seeker claim discrimination, not HireVue." Joel (32m 32s): Described as merely quote "the data processor" end quote. They state "that it is the employer not HireVue who decide to grant accommodations, including exemption from relevant tests" end quote. All right Chad thoughts on HireVue's deniability or I mean, explainability statement. Chad (32m 50s): HireVue customers are on the hook, not HireVue and they have been right? that's how the regulations are written. And I appreciate that. And I think that's exactly the way that it should be. But going back to the California proposed regulations that say vendors, AKA data processors, HireVue, you can call yourself whatever the fuck you want, AKA data processors they must keep their training data. And yes, they would be then on the hook. So it's not just important for the companies to understand their data. It's also important for the vendors to be able to understand their data. Chad (33m 32s): So let me just say this, any platform worth their salt. They're not going to be mad about this because they are already paying attention to the algorithms. They are already doing their due diligence to ensure that the algorithms and the behaviors that are being fed for the training data, that they aren't kicking the system out of whack, like Amazon's was. Right? So as I'd said, HireVue, if they have a problem with it, then you should have a problem with HireVue. Most of these AI platforms, they shouldn't have a problem with any of this. If they do have a problem that that is when you should go ahead, turn around and find another vendor. Joel (34m 12s): Yeah. Maybe it's time to buy stock in newspaper companies cause the classifieds are coming back. AI is having a moment and the world is kind of a little bit freaked out by it. I think which is, which is pretty normal. Part of me thinks they're taking a page out of the Zuckerberg doctrine and hoping to clean to some sort of section 230 type defense saying, Hey, we're the dumb technology, how you use it is on you, not on us. And I think savvy companies, like you say, will recognize that and not make errors and whether it's discrimination or anything else, when they recruit. However, I do think a lot of a large portion of the potential customer universe is going to be scared by all of this. Joel (34m 54s): And those companies will probably be dead in 25 years anyway. It makes sense that the lawyers in the room at HireVue said, let's have this statement. I assume someone has to sign something at some point when they take on customers to give them maximum, you know, leverage to say, it's not us. Don't sue us. Don't come after us. It's it's on the employer. So interesting evolution in terms of how companies are approaching AI and servicing companies, right? Chad (35m 20s): Yes. And in Vegas, just so that everybody knows we're going to be on the main stage, closing out day one with EEOC commissioner Keith Sonderling and we're going to be talking about this specific. Joel (35m 36s): I love me some Sonderling baby. Good stuff. Go Gators. Let's go to unions speaking big government. Chad (35m 45s): Are they still around? Joel (35m 46s): Yeah. So an Apple Retail Store in Atlanta has filed for a union election with the national labor relations board. That's the NLRB. The workers, which includes salespeople, technicians, creatives, and operations specialists would be represented by the Communications Workers of America. That's the CWA more than 70% of the group of about a hundred eligible workers sign the union authorization cards, according to a news release, the minimum required is only 30%. Chad any thoughts on Apple unionizing? Chad (36m 21s): Yeah. The people want it. It's fairly simple, right? I mean, and there's nothing wrong with this. It was funny when ` I was coming up through the ranks on the corporate side, I bought into the, you know, rugged individualism kind of mantra. And I automatically thought that I should be in charge of my own negotiating. Right. Well, I was good at negotiating. Most people are not good at negotiating. So why is it fair for me to be able to go and get a better salary doing the same work right? Than it is for somebody who's not good at negotiation. And again, that's just one example. There needs to be more of a collective bargaining agreement. Chad (37m 5s): So that fairness and equity starts to happen because in this country, that is not even, we're not even close to being fair and equitable with regard to work and wages. Joel (37m 16s): So we'll jump onto Starbucks another big brand as well. In December, a Buffalo location of Starbucks became the first among the 9,000 corporate owned stores in the United States to vote to unionize. Now Starbucks baristas are serving up union cards across the country. More than 100 locations have now filed for union recognition in over 20 states since the campaign started in Buffalo last fall, we also talked about an Amazon location in New York, filing for union representation as well. Unions are definitely having a moment, but they've been beaten up for 40 plus years. So I find it hard to believe it's maybe nothing more than some isolated wins. Joel (37m 58s): I don't know that it's a trend of unionization in America. You know, I think ironically, if the federal government, which is currently controlled by the Democrats, by the way, who are supposed to be championing, some of these issues, would work to like raise the minimum wage, provide some form of universal health care. And dare I say, provide a level of universal basic income, unions would be a thing of the past and companies wouldn't have to deal with these headaches. Obviously unionization is a bigger discussion, but it is a trend that's growing. I remember when Amazon lost or I'm sorry, the union or the workers lost in Amazon at Amazon. Joel (38m 39s): And I think Arizona or New Mexico that we were talking about, this is the death of unions. And that has not been the case. The question will be how much, exactly energy do they have, you know, going into the future. I think we're both sort of skeptical as to how influential unions can be. Would I be right about that? Or do you think it's a trend whose time has come and it'll grow? Chad (39m 0s): Yeah, no, I don't think it states time has come and gone. I don't, I think the time to evolve, it needs to be something different than what it used to be. And we were mainly manufacturing unions in this country for the most part. And, now we're seeing Starbucks, right? That tells you where our economy has gone. Right? We're more of a fast food economy than we are a manufacturing economy, which is a problem. It's a huge, huge fucking problem. But for me, this is a bad optics situation for Starbucks because the major grassroots organizers right now are women, non-binary people, queer women and people of color, particularly women of color, and with a workplace composition of 70% female, this doesn't send the right message, right? Chad (39m 51s): You're saying that we're a diverse workforce, but yet we don't want to pay you or treat you fairly or allow you representation to me from an optic standpoint. This is a non-starter. Joel (40m 4s): Sure. I mean, you know, a hundred years ago, the disenfranchised, where the uneducated, you know, the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, and a lot of the movements back then were based on those folks and the ones you just mentioned, women binary, et cetera, never got a voice, right. They never had their moment in the sun. And this in many ways is their voice or their time to speak up and unionize. And I think that's incredibly powerful as I was saying, my commentary, I kind of forgot childcare, right? Like that is something that wasn't thought about a hundred years ago. Now it's a huge part of, you know, family structures and being a prosperous country. Joel (40m 48s): So yeah, I, I do really appreciate that the folks that are leading this charge are the ones that were not heard 150 years ago when unions really had their moment in the sun. All right. Let's take a quick break, pay some bills and have some tequila. Chad (41m 9s): With the kids. Joel (41m 9s): All right, Chad, here we go. Our final story, baby. All right. We've heard about parents having a drink or five to take the edge off of well parenthood, but this is ridiculous. A kindergarten class in Michigan accidentally drank tequila during snack time. One of the kids brought a bottle of ready to drink Jose Cuervo margarita mix in her backpack. Several students drank it and one Kindergartener quote "felt woozy" end quote and a quote, "little dizzy" end quote, after having four or five sips from a Dixie cup. What better way to drink margaritas, by the way? Joel (41m 53s): What's worse. The kindergartener who initially brought the drink knew it was alcoholic Fox two Detroit reported in a statement, the school said, quote, "it's unfortunate that these types of adult beverages can be easily mistaken for child-friendly drinks" end quote. Makes me long for the days when we were kids and could embrace Joe Camel and smoke candied cigarettes. Those were the days weren't they Chad? Chad (42m 20s): They were. And it's odd because I mean, if you think about it, it's snack time, little Cheez-Its, little tequila, and then you roll right into nap time. It's perfect. Joel (42m 34s): And that's our campaign slogan going into 2024 kids when Chad and Cheese running for Monster president and CEO, once again. And with that, another episode is in the books. Chad. Chad and Cheese (42m 54s): We out. OUTRO (43m 43s): 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.

Coming down from the high of the recent iCIMS acquisition of CandidateID, former CEO Adam Gordon of CandidateID and Mike Wilczak, chief product & development officer at iCIMS, join Chad & Cheese for the "morning-after" recap of the deal. Included are tips for startups who want to be acquired, whether it's better to buy or build your next feature set, and what the future looks like for iCIMS and CandidateID customers alike. 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 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 it's a double dose of HR tech perfection. We've got Adam Gordon, former CEO of CandidateID, and now VP of Recruitment Marketing Automation at iCIMS as well as Mike Wilczak Chief Product and Development Officer at iCIMS. Boys. Welcome to the show from Fiji or Bora Bora or wherever you guys are at the moment. Mike (1m 4s): A lot better than where I'm at, but no, that's great. Chad (1m 6s): Dude, whatever you're in Paris, Adam is in Lanzarote. I mean, you're fine. Okay. Joel is in Indiana. Joel (1m 15s): Edison, New Jersey Edison, New Jersey is like the Paris of Jersey, right? Mike (1m 22s): Being a global company has its perks, I guess. Huh? Joel (1m 24s): Very nice. Do you guys have an office in Paris then? Mike (1m 26s): We do have an office in Paris, a pretty sizable office in Paris with a hundred plus people there now. Joel (1m 31s): Hundred plus. Chad (1m 33s): Hundred plus, nice. Joel (1m 34s): And offices where else? Mike (1m 36s): Yeah, so we've done a lot in Europe, in particular over the last couple of years. So Paris, Dublin, London, and now of course, Glasgow, Scotland. Chad (1m 45s): Very nice. Very nice. Okay. Who are these guys? Everybody should know Adam for God's sakes. The guy has been on the podcast enough, but Mike you've been around for a little while and you're responsible or at least you've led six different acquisitions in five years at iCIMS. Text Recruit, Jibe, opening.io, Easy Recru, Altru and now CandidateID beyond that, give us a little background about you. Mike (2m 16s): Yeah, definitely. So look, I mean, I've kind of spent my life doing acquisitions and strategy and product kind of work. Came to iCIMS eight years ago. At that point, we really hadn't done any M&A, had a pretty simple kind of business model and portfolio of products. Partnered up with the CEO at that time, Colin and thought through how we take this company and grow it in new and different ways, including acquisitions. So spent a couple of years just kind of really learning the company and getting a little bit more confidence, I guess, in where we should invest our resources. Did our first deal in 2018 and like you said, now with CandidateID, we've done six since then. So a lot of work over the last few years. Chad (2m 52s): So did those conversations also focus on equity partners? Because I mean to be able to have this type of acquisition power, you need cash and guys have a pretty substantial equity partner in your, I don't want to say back pocket, on your frontline. Let's say do were the discussions with Colin around that as well, because iCIMS had been known pretty much as a mom and pop shop until, you know, around the, around 2018 when they started buying stuff. Mike (3m 21s): Yeah, of course. I mean, I joined the company, right. Because I had been at prior founder led companies that had either been owned by or sold to private equity firms. So part of me joining was all around, like how do we take this business to the next level? How do we think about different PE firms coming in? Yeah, when I joined iCIMS actually, we already had sold a portion of the company, the Susquehanna Growth Equity. So there was already a private equity firm involved, but yeah, in 2018, when we did that transaction with Vista, I led that for the company to, and they've been a fantastic partner. I've loved every minute of it. Chad (3m 51s): Yeah. That's pretty big. Six acquisitions you've got, you led the Vista. Okay. Enough about Mike for a second. I'm getting too excited. Joel (3m 60s): Calm down, calm down. Chad (4m 1s): Come to, come to me, man. I know you're on an island, one of the Canary islands and all. You talk to us or at least you gave us a soundbite around why iCIMS was such a great partner for you guys. And this is important I think for most founders that are out there because, you know, being able to just throw your line in the water and take anything that bites, I don't believe is the right way to go. And I don't think you do either. What made iCIMS the right fish for you? Adam (4m 29s): I can't work out how to extend that analogy, but you don't just sell your business to the first person that comes asking to buy your business, unless they're the right ones. But, you know, we had a lot of approaches from different organizations from about 2019 onwards. We started winning awards and things in 2018, 2019 and we got approached by lots of different businesses, but we knew that what we were taking into the TA tech market had the opportunity to be really significant. And we intended to go on our own journey until the point where we thought we had to do something very strategic to take it to a thousand customers. Adam (5m 11s): And if that meant selling it, it would need to be selling it to a business with people that we liked. People with a vision that was in line with ours and people that already had a considerable customer base and team to help us to achieve our mission, to take marketing automation to mainstream within, within TA technology. And so iCIMS had all of that. Joel (5m 35s): So you guys know that that Chad and Cheese have ears and eyes everywhere. And I just want to let you know, we have some secret footage from actually the first time iCIMS went in to talk to CandidateID. Let's let's hear that sound clip real quick. sfx (5m 48s): Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's no Scottish it's crap. Joel (5m 53s): That was Adam. So I'm curious, how long did the deal take to sort of unfold and happen? And I'm interested from the crowdfunding perspective for founders and companies and startups that are looking to crowdfund versus a traditional road. Do you feel like the deal happened quicker because you went a crowdfunding route or do you think it would have happened or happened the same, no matter what kind of funding you would have gotten for the company? Adam (6m 20s): I think that the crowdfunding was part of us hacking attention. We never intended to go and raise vast amounts of money to build this business. We've heard you say many times on this podcast that taking too much money is the killer for a startup business and we absolutely agree with that. So we never intended to go, you know, take this mainstream by raising a hundred million dollars. Joel (6m 52s): Right. Adam (6m 52s): And so how, how would we get a new type of technology really well known within an industry? And that's guerrilla marketing, it's getting a megaphone out, it's wearing kilts abroad, it's posting stuff on social media 25 times a day. Joel (7m 13s): It's giving away very expensive scotch that's part of it. Adam (7m 16s): Giving away expensive scotch, being controversial, doing crowdfundings and things like that. And, you know, we did a lot of different things in order to get our message better known. And one of those was that crowdfunding that we did in 2019, we raised about $700,000 and we brought on board 550 shareholders to our company at that time. Now about half of those were in HR and talent acquisition and became immediate advocates for our business and our message and what we were trying to achieve to make recruitment better for employers. Adam (7m 56s): And so as part of that, we brought on board a chair, Doug Sores had been the CEO of Ceridian and joined us as chair. We brought on board advisors and advisory board people who were a TA leaders in either customers or businesses that had the same persona as a typical kind of customer for us. And we got to know lots of people in TA tech, who we didn't know. So it really did help us to hack our way into relationship we otherwise maybe couldn't have generated. Chad (8m 29s): Yeah. And your original goal was what on that crowdfunding? Adam (8m 33s): So we put down, we said we wanted to raise 50,000 pounds, which is about $70,000, something like that. And yeah, we 10Xd that the reason we did it, we weren't intending to do that as a major investment exercise. We raised like 600,000, about five months earlier from a guy called Andy, whose fund is called, Jacopo Invest in, in Germany. He's a serial kind of investor in TA tech businesses. I think we were his 19th investment in a TA tech business and we didn't really need the money, but we, we, we wanted to really bring on board a whole load of advocates and use it as a marketing exercise. Adam (9m 17s): We put that in the absolute minimum amount, which that you could do on Crowdcube, which was 50,000 pounds. And then we got to that after about 15, 20 minutes. And then by day two, we woke up and saw, we were at like, I don't know, 80,000 or something. We were way over. We decided to start actually marketing this more aggressively. And what happens is when you are, over-funding so much the algorithm on Crowdcube lifts you up to the very top of the page. So that the first thing somebody sees when they go and look at, what could I invest in is the ones that are over-funding the most. Adam (9m 59s): And we were up there at the top and yeah, eventually we had to just go like no more. We can't take any more when it got to a moment where we just thought, nah, this is we're giving it. We're selling too much of our business here. So let's stop during this now. Joel (10m 10s): So I assume you would, you would recommend that route for any startup. That's looking to raise money. Adam (10m 17s): There's pros and cons. If you are good at marketing, one of the things we did was we looked to everybody investing and, you know, if they were in our industry, we contacted them and said, you know, thanks for getting involved. If it was as little as 10 pounds or if it was as much as 2000 pounds or 10,000 pounds. Yeah. We still reached out to them and said, really want to find out why you got involved and also find out if you'd be willing to talk about it publicly, just on a sort of 60 second video with me. And a lot of people said, yes, a lot of well-respected people said yes. So that became part of our, you know, hacking our way into getting a lot of attention by that. Joel (10m 58s): So let's bring Mike into some of this. Probably my, I have an integration question. So historically iCIMS makes acquisitions a Text Recruit and opening.io or two that I am familiar with or come up top of my head, both of those URLs go directly to iCIMS.com. So they've ultimately sort of taken in the company and the brand and it's become an iCIMS product. Is that what's going to happen with CandidateID? How long will it be a standalone brand until it becomes iCIMS? Like, what is the plan for the integration of the product? What's the message to the customers in terms of what's going to change or not change. Talk about that. Mike (11m 35s): I mean, you'll notice already that the, if you go to the website for CandidateID, it says CandidateID an iCIMS company. Right? And so the first step for us is to just acknowledge that it's now part of iCIMS and our portfolio. But yeah, our intention is always to integrate, the time it takes us to, to replace the brand varies. You know, what we decided is that we're going to keep this CandidateID brand out there, but acknowledge it as an iCIMS company for the next several months. And then probably going into 2023, we'll look at, you know, how we go to market as a completely integrated iCIMS' branded company. Chad (12m 9s): Question back to you, Mike, I already asked Adam what he was looking for when you are doing these acquisitions. What are you looking for in a founder? Cause I would assume that, you know, there's, there's kind of like a prototype that, you know, will go well with the culture. It's not just about the tech. So what do you look for in a founder? Mike (12m 28s): Yeah. I mean, I think first and foremost, you have to be solving a big problem. Right? And a problem that the company has figured out how to solve in a unique way or in a better way than other companies that we've seen. And so, you know, when we started talking with Adam, when we started talking with Scott around what they were building with CandidateID, it was like, wow, this is really interesting. We keep talking about how recruiting is following sales and marketing and how candidates are becoming consumers. And companies need to think about targeting them in a different way and prioritizing right their sales efforts so to speak. Where they're targeting efforts on folks that are qualified, but also engaged, right? Mike (13m 9s): And so they have a qualified pipeline of candidates, not just a potential list of folks that could be interesting for them. And so when we started talking with Adam about what he's built and how he's thought about building marketing automation and measuring level of engagement, not just targeting blanket, you know, marketing kind of activities, it was really interesting. So for us, like it always starts with, you know, are you building something that is interesting to us? Are you building into thinking about it in a different way? Chad (13m 38s): Gotcha. Mike (13m 38s): I think the other thing we've only seen in just about like every company is there's this dynamic of a co-founder where you have someone that kind of plays the role of understanding and driving the product roadmap. And you have somebody that plays the role of understanding and driving the sales activities. We saw that with iCIMS, right with Eric and Jen, we saw with Altru with Ali Khan and Vinny. We've seen it in just about every company we've done, right? Folks are naturally good at one thing or the other. And just about every company for whatever reason we've invested in has had those kinds of personas as co-founders so similar kind of thing here with Adam and Scott in terms of the way they think about the world. Chad (14m 23s): Okay. I love that because there are so many founders that are out there that suck at certain areas of the business. If they have the actual ability to look themselves in the mirror and say, okay, this is what I'm good at. This is what I'm going to focus at on. And I'm going to have other co-founders or individuals on my team take over what I'm, what I'm not good at. That's a great way to be able to identify who might be good on the team. So that being said, switching it back around the Steve Lucas little platform called Marquetto for goodness sakes, marketing automation. It seems like nobody else in this space really gets, I mean, they get like a light touch to recruitment automation, to some extent, but CandidateID went deeper than pretty much everybody else out there. Chad (15m 13s): Was Steve being so close to marketing automation key to really understanding how this acquisition would be used and integrated into the iCIMS ecosystem? Mike (15m 28s): Yeah, no doubt. Right. So, when Vista invested in iCIMS back in 2018, we knew there was going to be a CEO transition. This was really smart about it, right? They had already known this guy, Steve Lucas, they were invested in Marquetto. They saw that the direction of the industry was to do more in terms of marketing driven kinds of products and strategies for recruiting. And I invited Steve to be a member of our board of directors. And so Steve was involved with, iCIMS, as you know, for a year plus, as a board member, just understanding the business and helping us think through our portfolio and the way we were thinking about our own products. And then obviously he had that opportunity to step in as the CEO of the company, he comes from that space of sales and marketing software, right before Marquetto, he was at SAP before SAP he was at Salesforce, just very deep on sales and marketing software. Mike (16m 19s): And so a lot of what he's trying to bring to the company is this forward vision around how do we enable not just recruiters, but hiring teams, companies to build a workforce and to do it in a different way than companies have thought about it before. So very much his fingerprints are on this acquisition. Joel (16m 37s): Adam, when you, when you talk to us about the acquisition, and I think you said something about being able to spread your wings, I'm curious from your perspective, does iCIMS coming in simply sort of supercharge what you had planned to build on your roadmap or does the roadmap change because maybe iCIMS has a different vision for what you want to build out. Talk about, I guess the future of the product, how it's changing with the acquisition, or maybe it's not changing at all. What are you building? Adam (17m 6s): Well, I remember when we were going through the sort of courtship process earlier in the year on this, I remember doing a meeting with the product leadership team at iCIMS and I asked if I could share my screen and I shared my screen and showed them a slide. And this slide that I put together was here's what we're doing today. And here's all the other different things that marketing automation technology can enable, right the way through recruitment through the recruitment process, offer management, onboarding, into internal mobility and then alumni and Peter iCIMS said, this is almost exactly what we've put together. Adam (17m 49s): And, you know, I knew at that point that our vision was completely aligned. So I believe it enables us to do things at scale, which we haven't been able to do until now. And it's going to enable us to accelerate the adoption of marketing automation technology throughout different parts of recruitment, that we've always known that, you know, are applicable, but now we can really create those use cases in a big way. Joel (18m 17s): Yeah. Mike, there's always a question at companies of whether to build a product or just go acquire somebody. Was there ever any conversation in iCIMS about, Hey, we could build this or was Adam so far down that road that acquisition made just that much more sense? Mike (18m 33s): You know, there's always that question of do we build, buy or partner, right? Is it easier for us to go build these things ourselves than it is to go acquire a company and then try to integrate their portfolio in with ours? Yeah, I think, I think the question is spot on. I think your answer is spot on. I think Adam was so far down this path already and building something that was differentiated in the market that it made way more sense for us to go invest in that company and acquire the company and now work on integrating our stuff in. The other thing, maybe just getting back to the last question you asked, like it makes absolutely no sense to us to go acquire a company because we love their product and then start bit of innovation. Mike (19m 14s): And so we very much are investing even more in R and D in resources to take CandidateID and the product portfolio even further than where it's at today. So great product accelerates our roadmap better than building it ourselves and investing even more going forward behind it. Joel (19m 29s): And I remember when we talked to you in an Eric at Text Recruit that the fact that they were in the marketplace and you could kind of see the engagement with their customers. Obviously, the Marchetto connection was a, sounds like a marriage made in heaven, but was there also some data to back up while the engagement with this product is really great from our marketplace data? Mike (19m 50s): Yeah. So, so here we didn't have a ton of marketplace customers. We had mutual alum partners using the product. I think one of the things that Adam was really upfront about was saying, Hey, look, here's our list of companies that use the product today, give them a call, see what they think about it. And so we did, right. We started calling down, you know, their list of customers, just asking about how they're using it and why they use it. And whether they think that this is different and every single company we talked to just raved about what the product does. They raved about how it's reduced their time to hire. They rave about how it's reduced their cost to hire, they raved about how it enables their teams to be more effective in targeting the right fit and the most engaged candidates and how that's just changed their landscape. Mike (20m 37s): So that may be, I don't know if that's a lesson learned for any founder, right? But the openness to have us talk to companies that were using the platform was a game changer for us. Chad (20m 48s): That's pretty damn big. So Adam and Mike, in your opinions, you've been able to watch the recruitment tech landscape from different vantage points. What have you seen as some of the founders' best steps that are out there? So you see this with this wide birth of, of these, these tech founders that are out there today. What have you seen that have been incredibly good steps? And then what have you seen that have been incredibly horrible, horrible steps because you know, founders are going to be listening to this podcast. So great steps, bad steps, Adam, you go first. Adam (21m 20s): Do, as I say, not, not as I do. I think it just depends what you want to achieve. If you're building a business, if you're building a business to make a load of money, you going go and copy other things that are out there and just make a slightly better version of other things that are out there. If you're actually trying to change the world in some way, find a problem that nobody's solved yet and work to solve it. Mike (21m 41s): Pretty similar, and maybe I'll add onto it. Right? So every company that I've seen that is, you know, become a bigger company, has started off by solving a very defined problem that everybody understands. We don't try to tackle too much, right. Find that thing, that is a gap in the market or that isn't being solved in a good way and solve for that. Try to keep the use case simple. And then you can expand as you get more customers and you know, over time. Make sure that that thing that you are creating, you don't wait until it's the finished product before it's out in market, because the reality is your product will never be finished. And the product that you think you're going to be building is way different than what the market values. So put something out, that's the whole definition of SAAS, right? Mike (22m 23s): Put something out, get feedback, iterate on it. Your customers in the market will drive you to the things that they value and are willing to pay for it. So don't sit there and try to, you know, spend millions of dollars at R and D to go put some fantastic thing out in the market that nobody buys. Start simple, put something out, get feedback, keep iterating on it. The other thing I would say, I've seen a ton of founders not sell at the right time. It's always a hard thing, right? It's the founder's dilemma when you exit the business. Chad (22m 51s): Yeah. Mike (22m 51s): But I've seen so many companies raise money at valuations that they're never going to catch up to and really their own, their own value in the business by taking on too much money at unrealistic expectations. So that's it. I mean, I always tell that to every founder that I talk to, you solve a real-world problem, get something in market and get feedback and know when you want to get out. Joel (23m 10s): So in light of that, I'm curious what features products are missing currently from the iCIMS platform and maybe not specific features, but are there themes that you guys are looking at to adding to the product set? And by the way, this is your chance to talk about the new metaverse product that iCIMS is launching. What is this like, what's missing. What's going to be added in the next few years. Mike (23m 35s): Yeah. That's for the last week talking about NFTs. Right. And how do we, Joel (23m 44s): Yes. Chad (23m 44s): Oh my God. Joel (23m 44s): Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Chad (23m 49s): Can we go back to blockchain please? Mike (23m 51s): Yeah. It's not about what's missing, right? It's more feature by feature. It's more about, you know, how are companies thinking about getting better at recruiting, right? And not just recruiting, but building their workforce. And I think for us, it's about how do we enable greater automation? Right. So how do we enable greater knowledge in the hands of the user at the right time, within the workflow so that they're taking sort of guided decisions or at least decisions based on information that we can give them based on the number of customers and use cases and industries and hiring types and everything else that we have access to because of our big customer base. I think it's about how do we enable companies to continue to engage with people and create those personalized experiences at scale? Mike (24m 33s): I think it's about how do we enable companies to understand not just the skills that somebody has, but how those skills are relevant to the roles that they're trying to fill and not just what ability somebody has today, but their potential to grow into a role. Because I think that's the biggest thing that's hindering just about everybody right now there just aren't enough workers in the world for the jobs that are open. And when you look at the workforce and the skills that are needed in those jobs, it just 10Xs the problem. There aren't enough skilled workers in the roles that people are trying to hire for today. And so everybody has to figure out how do I take an individual that may not have, you know, all of the different requirements, but they have that ability to do the role and learn the role and grow into the role. Mike (25m 15s): So how do I find that person? Right. And invest behind them and make a bet on them. Chad (25m 22s): Yes and that is the problem that we've had for decades and we need a solution for it there's no question. Well, that's Mike Wilczak Chief Product Officer and Development Officer at iCIMS, Adam Gordon, co-founder VP Recruitment Marketing Automation at CandidateID/iCIMS. Guys We really appreciate you coming on the show, not just talking about the acquisition, but also talking about the market overall. If anybody wants to find out a little bit more about iCIMS and CandidateID, where would you send them guys? Mike (25m 55s): Yeah. I mean, anybody can go find me on LinkedIn and send me a note directly, or you can send me an email to my email address. It's pretty straight forward. It's Michael.Wilczak@icims.com. Okay. Joel (26m 7s): Excellent. Chad another one in the can. We out. Chad (26m 12s): We out OUTRO (27m 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.

Beamery me up, Scotty and get that Delorean to 88 MPH! This show is heavy, and not because there's something wrong with the earth's gravitational pull in the future. No, it's because we have an acquisition of some company called Flux and an update on the HiQ / LinkedIn legal drama. Plus, Predictive Hire is changing its name and the boys play a little Buy-or-Sell with Crafty, Beatrust and Vivian (sounds like a party we attended back in '94). Anyway, it's another can't-miss weekly episode of HR's most dangerous podcast. You're welcome. 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 (21s): Oh yeah. Fast food restaurant Jack in the box is launching a pilot program that will test flippy two and sippy robots in a San Diego restaurant. Nothing says, stay classy like a Jimbo Jack cheeseburger. Hey boys and girls you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "ultimate jack" Cheeseman. Chad (41s): And this is Chad "he's not buying Twitter" Sowash. Joel (45s): On this week's show Beamery powers up to one point 21 gigawatts, HighQ scrapes by with another win and Predictive Hire has an identity crisis. Let's do this one. Chad (60s): Oh dude. So interesting sitting here in Budapest in still the biggest news other than Ukraine, obviously, cause I'm much closer to it, but it's still fucking Elon Musk buying Twitter. Do you think this is going to happen? Joel (1m 13s): It's going to happen? It's going to happen. Chad (1m 15s): It doesn't make any sense. Joel (1m 16s): He's got an out at a billion dollars. I'm telling you, I gave you my theory, conspiracy theory, but still a theory on the European show. He's going to buy Twitter. He's going to be a darling of the GOP. Fox news has already given him, you know, a hundred million dollars in free PR with the news, right? He's going to get Trump reelected or another Trumpian type candidate. Once they're in the White House, he's going to get a windfall of funds for EVs, deregulation, government contracts. He's going to make so much money off the government because of this, that he's definitely going to buy Twitter. Chad (1m 57s): So the hard part though, is shares a Tesla plummeted after investors began to worry about Elon Musk, having to perspectively sell shares in the car company. Right? So I mean, this could perspectively be a house of cards for some of his real businesses. I mean, shit that actually is going, Twitter's not going to change the world. Okay. Tesla could change the world. And in some of his other business, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It's weird. Joel (2m 21s): Definitely has a Waterloo feel to it. Like he may be, the hubris might be such that he's biting off way more than he can chew. And this is going to be a bad ending for Elon Musk, but the dude's got the Midas touch, everything he does seems to turn to gold. So I guess we'll see, it'll be fun to talk about. He's got a billion dollar out. So I fully would not be surprised if he's like, you know what? Fuck all y'all. I'm out. Like here's a check for a billion dollars suck it. Chad (2m 51s): Yeah. Well, here's the thing though. You know that, like I remember the first time I actually heard Eddie Vedder speak. I mean, I love the guy. I love Pearl Jam. Loved it. As soon as he got like so much attention that you started to learn kind of like who he was, especially back in the nineties, right? You're like, oh my God, is this really the guy? You know what I mean? I think that's what we're seeing at Elon. He is, he's a genius, no question, but he's also a fucking idiot in some areas. And I mean, we see that, but I mean, it's just it, I think we're just learning more about him and more, more obviously is going to come out. Joel (3m 26s): I was wondering where you going to go with that Eddie Vetter thing? That was full circle for you. I like that. Yeah. And Elon's a great dancer. I don't know if you've seen him like get busy, get jiggy with it at a corporate event. But yeah, he know he can dance. Chad (3m 42s): No. Oh my God. How about shout outs? Joel (3m 44s): Shall we get to shout outs? Yeah, I think Elon's getting enough free press as it is. He doesn't need more from us. I'm going to give a shout out to Miso Robotics. sfx (3m 53s): Shall we play a game? Joel (3m 55s): Don't call on me so horny robotics, Chad, we talk about all the time, but these bots are crushing it. I mentioned Jack in the Box using Flippy 2 for burgers and Sippy to pour the drinks, but these cats have signed deals with Chipotle, Panera, White Castle and BW Threes to cook the food we Americans apparently don't want to touch. And we don't talk about this company enough. They're making robots that will change your world. They are ahead of everyone else doing bots and kitchens by a mile Miso Robotics is making wings right now as I speak, shout out to Miso horny Robotics. Chad (4m 32s): Yeah. We don't want to touch it as it goes into the fryer, but we do when we, right before we put it into our mouths Joel (4m 38s): In my belly. Chad (4m 39s): Start to take a look at like, you know, spending much more time over here in Europe versus the US it is apparent that part of the issue that we have with wages and really monopolies to be quite Frank is around fast foods. You know, we have three McDonald's in a small town of like 20,000 people or some shit like that. It's just like, it's interesting, this is a huge problem. That the question is, will it stop? I, I don't think it will in the US. Joel (5m 9s): Well, the good news Chad. I don't know if you heard this news, Eli Lilly, a great Indianapolis company as a new obesity drug, that's crushing it. So obese people might be a thing of the past. Thanks to Eli Lilly. Stay tuned for that one. Chad (5m 21s): Yeah but you're still going to die from cholesterol though. Joel (5m 24s): They got drugs for that too. I'm on three of them. I should know. Chad (5m 29s): Force feed that shit to me. Shout out to remote work kids. That's right. Recent research published by ADP you might know, those guys shows that 65% that's right. 65% of the more than three, or I'm sorry. 30,000 people surveyed said, they'd consider leaving if they were forced back into the office. People still want their autonomy and there's no reason they shouldn't have it in when numbers are, are like that. Boiling the frogs going to continue to, as we've talked about on this show before, but we know what the sentiment is, right? Joel (6m 7s): The boy DJ Sol's not going to like that one. He's not going to like that. Chad (6m 10s): He doesn't care. Joel (6m 11s): Jamie Diamond is not happy reading that one. Chad (6m 14s): He doesn't care either. Yeah. Old rich white dudes don't care. Joel (6m 17s): Yeah. Speaking of reading fun things, let's move on from Miso horny Robotics to my LinkedIn poll, Chad. A few weeks before we talked about one of my polls. So many, many listeners will know CNN plus closed down in the first month of its existence. So I wanted to know which was the bigger failure CNN Plus, or Quimbee the short form mobile video company that went under, I think last year. Who do you think got the most votes for the biggest failure? Chad, Chad (6m 46s): I don't know who did, but I voted for Quimbee just because they didn't fail as fast as CNN Plus and as we've always heard, and we've learned if you are doing anything startup wise fail fast. And I don't know what has failed faster than CNN Plus? Joel (7m 3s): Ah, well, my network thought it was CNN by a 62% to whatever 62 minus a hundred is of the 145 votes. CNN is the bigger surprise to me because it's a brand name with like a lot of gravitas Quimbee was starting from nothing. But I agree with your commentary about fail fast. They certainly did. And there were some moving parts there with their new owner Discovery, I think, and saying like, we're the new sheriff in town? We're shutting this shit down cause they still have to pay the talent. Apparently, they had annual contracts with all of them. I think. So. Anyway, it's fucked up. It's over. We're moving on. Shout out to my LinkedIn. Chad (7m 45s): Shout out once again to HR Manifesto kids. Joel (7m 49s): On fire! Chad (7m 49s): That's right. Our interview with Leigh AKA HR Manifesto made Talentroo I didn't know, Talentroo even existed, but thanks. Talentroo made their podcast recommendation of the week. So if you haven't listened to HR Manifesto, go to Chadcheese.com, check it out. It should be right there on the homepage or wherever you listen to podcasts. Joel (8m 12s): And shout out to the cease and desist letter that Towel Ru probably sent to talent this week in light of their new light of their new, whatever content marketing way to go kids way to go. Shout out to Chi-town. Chad also known as Chicago and these parts of the parts of the country Chad (8m 31s): And very romantic. Joel (8m 32s): My Canadian in-laws were in town last week. So wifey and I escaped on a kid free weekend to the windy city. And it was just a great time at in a great town. Great food. Great cocktails. My man, Kevin from behind the bar served up a mean Old Fashioned. Wrigley field. Mostly nice weather. Can you tell I need to get out of the house by the way? Shout out to Chad (8m 54s): Glad you did it. Joel (8m 54s): Chicago and I'm coming for you Europe. I hope you're ready. Chad (8m 57s): That's next week, baby. We'll talk about that in a minute. Shout out to Appcast's, new Recruitonomics, I think that's how you say it, recruiting insights hub. We're seeing an amping up of great information and data with the launch of Recruitonomics from Appcast. And I believe last week, we also talked about Recruitex, launching recruitmentmarketing.com. So tons of great content coming from big names in the industry. Shout out to Recruitonomics and recruitmentmarketing.com. Good stuff. Go check them out. Joel (9m 34s): Is that like a Google analytics offering? Chad (9m 36s): No, it's an it's more of an economics, kind of like, labor market insights hub. So remember Andrew who we had on the show, he's kind of leading that effort. Joel (9m 46s): Okay. Gotcha. Quick shout out to my dad. A little personal note here, Chad. Chad (9m 51s): Oh Pops. Joel (9m 52s): We as a family, driven by my dad have done the mini marathon in Louisville, Kentucky for the last 15 or 16 years. Chad (9m 59s): Wow. Joel (9m 59s): It's been kind of a family affair. We all get together. We know every time at this year, we're going to connect unfortunately at 82, his age, his health, and sort of where he is physically. He's not able to do it. My sister and I will continue to carry the flame in the mini this weekend. So if you're in Louisville, hit me up. We'll go get some bourbon, but a shout out to my dad. I know it's killing him, that he can't be here. He doesn't listen to the show, but little personal note. It's good for me. Good for my health. Shout out to my dad. I hope I hope he's all right. This weekend, Chad (10m 33s): It's cathartic. It's cathartic. That's right. Shout out to Occupop that's right, Occupop. An article by Orla Doyle, which lists the Chad and Cheese as one of the top recruitment and HR podcasts, you should listen to in 2022, obviously you're already hearing this. So you're listening, but you know what? Your friends are probably not listening. Your family should listen to because they probably have no clue what you do. Let them go to Chadcheese.com or wherever they listen to podcasts and subscribe. Joel (11m 1s): Oh, I like that. And while they're subscribing Chad, they should sign up for some free shit. Chad (11m 6s): Oh good call. Joel (11m 8s): They can get t-shirts from Emissary, beer from Pillar and whiskey from our new friends Textkernel, who we're hopefully gonna see next week in Europe as well. If you haven't signed up for that, just head out to Chadcheese.com, click the free button and navigation, sign up and enter a chance to win all that shit. Chad (11m 26s): Yes. Joel (11m 26s): Maybe even more. Who knows we're coming up with new stuff all the time. Chad (11m 30s): You never know. Sponsors want to give shit away. They love it. They love giving away free shit and to your front door. That's the cool part. Joel (11m 39s): They have budgets for this stuff, Chad. Budgets, big budgets for free shit. Chad (11m 44s): So we also dropped two podcasts earlier this week. You definitely need to check out Firing Squad this week with Bryq's CEO and that's brick B R Y Q Joel (11m 56s): Y? Because they gotta. Chad (11m 58s): To their CEO, Markellos, that's right. And also a great interview that's entitled Recipe for Acquisition with newly acquired Adam Gordon over at CandidateID and M and A bad boy Mike Wilczak from iCIMS. You can find 800 plus episodes, Chadandcheese.com. Wherever you listen to podcasts, go check them out. Joel (12m 17s): By the way, the only guy I'm more jealous of than you, is Adam Gordon. That guy is living his best life right now. Chad (12m 22s): He should. Joel (12m 23s): God good. I don't even know, if he's our biggest fan. I don't know if he's listening anymore. I think he totally checked out in Bora Bora or Fiji or wherever the hell he is. Chad (12m 31s): Yeah. Actually messaged me this morning. He was like, I haven't gotten to our interview to listen to it yet, but I will. And I'm like, dude, just relax. You deserve it. Joel (12m 41s): Exactly. Nice. Nice. Well, speaking of deserving it. Chad (12m 44s): Yes. Joel (12m 44s): Let's get to some birthdays. Shall we? Chad (12m 46s): Go ahead. Joel (12m 48s): So I, boy D Woke at Adzuna celebrates a birthday. Lars Schmidt, Charlotte Adams, Joe , D. Mar Corning. I always like people that had the initial before their name. Glen Hill, Shawna Bertold, Keegan, our friend from Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Also our travel sponsor, which is kicking into high gear now, Stefan Jon, think I signed that correctly is my French accent. Chad (13m 17s): Sounds right. Joel (13m 17s): Gia Johnston all celebrate birthdays, Happy Birthday from Chad and Cheese. Chad (13m 20s): That's right. And if you're in Belgium kids next week, if, I mean, if you're in Europe, of course you're going to be in Belgium next week because it's the E-recruitment Congress has been talking about it forever. If you listen to the Europe show. We're going to be in Belgium and Ostend, Belgium right on the shores. Can't wait. We're going to be up in the balcony with a bar. I don't know that this could be any better. I'm excited. I'm excited to get there. Obviously I know you're excited to get the hell out in the US, it's been a while. Joel (13m 52s): It's a Muppet state of mind that I'm in for this conference, the old guys and the Muppets in the balcony. Chad (14m 4s): Then we're going to Unleash in late May kids. So Unleash, at least they're there a good amount of their people are here in Budapest. And just by chance, they had a staff all hands. So I was invited to drinks and dinner with Mark and the Unleash gang here in Budapest earlier this week. Joel (14m 24s): Oh nice. Chad (14m 24s): And do they are invigorated. They cannot wait to go to Vegas. And it was interesting because Mark said, raise your hand. If you've never been to the U S and there were more than half because I had never been to the US I'm like Mark, you're taking them to Vegas the very first time they go to America, it's just not right, man. That's not right. Joel (14m 52s): It sounds like you're saying Unleash is about to be unleashed. Chad (14m 57s): Yes. Topics! Joel (14m 58s): Beamery me up Scotty. Beamery, the talent engagement platform based in London announced this week that it has acquired US-based Flux. Flux describes itself as "an internal mobility platform that connects open development and work opportunities with best-fit internal talent, prioritizing employee growth and performance while propelling businesses forward." Financial details were not disclosed. Last year, Beamery raised $138 million with plans to use the funding, to continue building out more technology, as well as growing its business with, you know, like acquisitions and stuff. Chad, is this Flux deal ready to hit 88 miles per hour? Or is it out of time? Chad (15m 40s): Yeah, I don't think it's going to hit 1.21 jigawatts. Yep. I think Flux was a fire sale that will now allow Beamery to claim a new sector of business, internal mobility, right? Which increases their total addressable market. But my opinion is that this is an optics play. It's not as much of a tech play, of course it is a tech play, but it wasn't, it's not a company that we all knew. It's not a Gloat. It's not Fuel50. Yes. It might've been an up and comer, but I think this is a fire sale and it's about optics. It's brilliant. I think it's a brilliant move, but I don't see Beamery becoming an internal mobility hub anytime in the near future. Joel (16m 21s): Terms of the deal we're not disclosed Chad, which is usually a good sign of saying it could have been a fire sale. It could've been a fire sale also, possibly. In Burson's article he's quick to note that you might not have heard of Flux, but they're brilliant or whatever he said. So even he knows that he can't get away with saying that they're a big deal. I'm on board with what you're saying. Look, it's hard to find new customers in our space, like really hard. So companies with resources are doing everything they can to have you, the customer from cradle to grave if they can get away with it, that's why deals like this happen and will continue to happen. We're going to get you at the top of the funnel and we're going to get you when they come out of the funnel, for more money and more, more, more a percentage of your pocket book. Joel (17m 5s): Seek Out in our interview with them, talked about moving into internal and into the internal mobility business. Paradox once more of the enterprise pie, but where Seek Out, wants to build, Beamery I think is looking to buy and if they got a deal on this one, then, then so be it. There are unique challenges with acquisitions, but I think you have to endorse this strategy of keeping and getting as much out of a client as possible, as much of their wallet as possible. Owning the whole employee life cycle is the new black Chad, we're going to be talking a lot more about companies that are either buying or building to have more of the wallet share of the people who are actually just customers. There was an old adage when I worked in politics for a short period and that was, it's a lot easier to get money from someone who's already given you money, than getting money out of someone who's never given you money. Joel (17m 55s): So this strategy works everywhere. If somebody is already writing you a check, they might write you a bigger check. And that tends to be a better sales strategy than just getting new clients or getting clients away from their current vendor and choosing you as a new vendor. Chad (18m 10s): I do agree. I just, I'm not sure that they have a portfolio, being Flux to be able to extend it into portfolio, number one. And number two, I don't think that they are at the point of a Gloat or a Fuel50, right? So that they can actually say that they can take care of internal ability and internal mobility is not an easy answer. Right? So Beamery's still gonna have some work to do. And like I said, if they're increasing their TAM, they can go ask for more. Right. They can go ask for more money and they can perspectively start to try to build that out. But again, I don't see them, especially right now in the same ecosystem as Fuel50, as Gloat and definitely not Eightfold. Chad (18m 51s): That to me, I mean, what Burson is doing is kind of like when that new startup comes out and they say, we're going to take on LinkedIn. You know, they're trying to put themselves in the same orbit. It's just, it's not there. Joel (19m 4s): Yeah. There's a keeping up with the Jones's element to some of this. And when you see Candidate ID get acquired by iCIMs, it's like, we need to get a bigger boat or at least, put two rowboats together so it looks like a bigger boat. And I think this might be the case. They're certainly excited about it. If you go on LinkedIn and look at anyone, I think now that works at Beamery, it's like Beamery plus Flux, like they're really marketing this whole thing. So they at least want you to think it's a big deal. Chad (19m 34s): I think it's smart. Yeah. I think it's smart. Joel (19m 38s): Yeah. Chad (19m 38s): And if their CEO's not out there, like, you know, beating, I am, you know, Bible he's not doing his job. Yeah. Joel (19m 47s): Yeah. Well, moving on from, Beamery beating up, let's talk about LinkedIn beating up on a HighQ or maybe the opposite is true. This is a story that's five years old, Chad, by the way, LinkedIn is lost. LinkedIn has lost the latest round in the five-year-old data scraping case with a US appellate court affirming its decision to stop LinkedIn from cutting off access to its database by tech startup HighQ labs. This has been a long, hard fought fight for HighQ, but it's not over in a statement, LinkedIn spokesperson, Greg Snapper, great last name said, quote, "this is a preliminary ruling and the case is far from over. Joel (20m 29s): We will continue to fight to protect our members' ability" yeah, it's all about the members, "to control the information they make available on LinkedIn" end quote. Chad, this case is like my case of the VONC back in college, it just won't clear up. Your thoughts. Chad (20m 47s): You need a shot that's what it is. The question is did HighQ access data without authorization. According to the court, a computer hosting publicly available webpages quote "has erected no gates to lift or lower in the first place". So therefore the data's out there to be able to say that that your data is it's not even an argument because it's there for everyone. So to me, this is less about tech and more about who your data belongs to. The ruling to me says, since I made my data public it's fair game, and now everyone's data is fair game. Chad (21m 27s): So that, to me, that is kind of unnerving to some point, you know, because now what do we do? Our information is out there for the world to see. It always has been, it's nothing new, but people can use it. And we've seen companies come in, scrape LinkedIn for, you know, for bad reasons. Joel (21m 47s): Darkweb Chad (21m 47s): For phishing, for, yeah, for a bunch of different reasons. So, you know, we just have to get our arms around this. Joel (21m 55s): So in researching this story, it was all about how LinkedIn lost and they're gonna, you know, they're going to have to allow scraping. And then it talked about like the company, the other companies that are going to feel the pain of this Craigslist was mentioned, who's been, we don't talk about much, but they, they block all spiders or at least hope to do so. But no one ever to me talked about the main story, to me, look, I don't care what the headlines say. LinkedIn has won this legal battle and I'll tell you why they've kept HighQ in court for five years and HighQ is now a shadow of its former self. Their website is a ghost town. The date on their footer appropriately is 2018, right around when this case started. Joel (22m 39s): LinkedIn has sent a clear message, clear signal to startups that they're bigger than you they're richer than you and they will outlast you. The irony is online profiles are becoming more and more commoditized making this whole exercise kind of just sad and unnecessary. I'm not sure where things go from here, but I do know LinkedIn is a lot more valuable today than when this process started. And I can't say the same for HighQ, the apparent quote unquote "winner" in this case, that to me is the ultimate cause we know the HighQ folks and it's sad that this is sort of the state of the world, that a bigger company can just fuck you in court and kill you. Joel (23m 20s): Whether they win or lose. Chad (23m 23s): That's the state of business in America. As we talk about entrepreneurs and how we want to, you know, double down on small business and it's all bullshit, man, you take a look at it. Facebook is buying whoever they want. They're , there are no issues around that. They haven't made them them divest in anything. I mean, it's just, again, it's all pandering for political reasons. And yeah, that sucks. It really sucks because an organization like a HighQ or, or thousands like HighQ who want to be able to leverage public data, which is exactly what the courts say, this is, they want to leverage public data, so that somebody can actually buy into a product. Chad (24m 6s): It's I don't know if this ruling will give all those new companies an opportunity to be able to charge forward and then, you know, HighQ just dies on their sword. Joel (24m 17s): I think anyone who's thinking about crawling LinkedIn data is in, for a legal fight that they probably don't want any piece of, I don't think. Chad (24m 25s): They have all these rulings. Joel (24m 26s): LinkedIn has said, if you come, you better be ready for the smoke. Cause it's coming. Chad (24m 31s): These rulings are already out there. That's the thing. And they can just, they can just go ahead and align with the rulings from ninth circuit. Joel (24m 36s): And good luck with that. LinkedIn's going to continue to fight this case. We'll probably be talking about this a year from now. They'll still be in court, fighting this case. Chad (24m 48s): More than likely. Joel (24m 48s): Feel for the HighQ folks. Chad (24m 51s): I know. Joel (24m 52s): Unfortunate. Let's take a quick break, pay some bills and play a little buy or sell. Hell yeah. Buy or sell. We need some buyers sell sound bites, maybe some Kramer, like buy, buy, buy sell, sell, sell. All the time. Anyway, you know how the game works, kids, you know how the game works. We have three startups, all have gotten money recently and Chad and I buy or sell them based on a little summary about what they do. Let's start with Crafty. She's crafty, she gets around. Chad (25m 25s): She's crying Joel (25m 26s): Pasty boy moment. Crafty as a centralized platform for workplaces to manage food, beverage and supplies for employees, yes, that could include beer. This week announced its $10 million Series A. Since its launch in 2015, Crafty has expanded to 27 markets across the globe and manages over 260 customer offices and serves over 300,000 employees per month, both in office and most importantly, maybe remote. Snacks in the break room and at your front door. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Crafty? Chad (25m 59s): Okay. So this is a little outside of recruitment and more on the fringes of employee engagement. Joel (26m 7s): Engagement, retention. Chad (26m 8s): Yeah. Unless a company uses the service to send snack boxes to candidates, of course, right? The remote work angle, you know, work from home pitch. I'm not saying. I don't see this as a deliver meals to employees kind of like quote unquote "home service". Rather I find this as a way for companies to once again, entice people back into the office, which unless you're a young entry-level employee who thrives on an office interaction and free food, right. It won't matter to the rest of us. So I believe the timing is good. Bring your people back to work. Narrative is perfect for Crafty. And I think companies who are onboarding new employees will find that, you know, the Crafty box model, snack in a box or whatever it is, is pretty easy and smart. Chad (27m 0s): So send a box that's tailored of snacks to new hires. And instead of trying to maintain single user B to C relationships with a higher churn rate, like companies like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, this is a B2B model that has a much bigger side, right? So for me, it's a buy. I like it. I think the timing's right and I think they're going after the right whales. Joel (27m 23s): Interesting. I thought you were going the other way on that one. That's interesting. Yeah. Admittedly, you, and I know very little about this business. We kind of, we're kind of flipping this into like recruiting and retention and which, which it is, right. Like people love their snacks, people love their food. And I think that the work from home phenomenon has made companies think, well, gee, that whole Diet Coke, like in the fridge thing was nice for internal, like people that came to work, but what do we do for the folks that are at home? How do we make them feel special? How do we make them feel connected to the culture based on, you know, whatever the hell, make them feel like they're in the kitchen at the headquarters. Joel (28m 5s): And I think the timing was just right. This is a company that's been around for seven years and just getting their Series A now. So it's clear. I think to the investors in the business that the time to strike is now. My assumption is traditionally to fill the fridge it was like, send the intern down to Costco to buy some pop and some chips and like throw them in the kitchen. And you can't do that with a work from home workforce. So Crafty is positioned in the right place at the right time to deliver food to people, give them the experience, build that culture. So for me, yeah, this is a buy Crafty. Joel (28m 48s): Crafty gets a double buy rating. Let's go, she's crafty. Let's go to Beatrust. It's either Beatrust or beat rust. It's spelled B E A T R U S T. It's a Tokyo based company that has raised $6.3 million in a Series A funding round for major Japanese and foreign angel investors. Founded by two ex Googlers in March of 2020, where have we heard that before? Beatrust's mission is to visualize people's experiences and strengths and to create an environment where people can freely connect, collaborate and co-create, think of it as an internal LinkedIn. Joel (29m 32s): In addition to doing the usual Series A things, build outside sales and hire a developers, the company has an eye to growing overseas markets. Do I hear coming to America in the background Chad, in this company, do you Beatrust or is it a sell? Chad (29m 52s): So there's a total of 1.1 billion Japanese yen on this one for funding, AKA 8.4 million USD. You're right. That the founders have great resumes, but neither one of them have social media ties. I mean, they're both mainly BizDev sales and okay. So, you know, quote "a platform which visualizes people's information and accelerates autonomous collaboration and co-creation among diverse teams and talent members" end quote, that is a bunch of gobbly goop that is nothing but shit. I mean, you got to dig down deep, as you had said to see that this is just an internal LinkedIn and to be able to get your employees to fill all of this information out or hope that the AI actually fills it out, right for them, I think is a stretch. Chad (30m 40s): So, you know, there's really no need for anything like this. The timing isn't right. I don't think the vision or idea is right when we have open gates like LinkedIn now. So this is an easy sell for me. sfx (30m 55s): Oh, hell no. Joel (30m 56s): Sell from Chad, all right. I'll remind our listeners that AllyO was founded by two ex-Googlers. I think not that that's any relevancy to this conversation, but I think that to answer this question as a buy or sell, you kind of have to go to our first new story, which was Beamery buying Flux. In other words, companies with fat pot, deep pockets are looking to own the entire enterprise life cycle, right? So they're going to recruit you. They're going to onboard you and they're going to internally, you know, mobilize you and educate you and everything else. So I see much bigger companies with deeper pockets funding, this whole sort of like internal LinkedIn, how to find people, how to connect you with people and mentors and like-minded coworkers that maybe you didn't even know existed. Joel (31m 49s): And the data set of those companies is going to be far more than anything that Beatrust can muster. I will add a caveat that it's nice that they are in Recruit Holdings backyard in Japan. And we don't talk a lot about Japanese startups. So they are at least in the right neighborhood to get someone's attention that has a lot of money that might be able to buy them up. But for me, yeah, it just doesn't feel right. So I'm gonna to sell Beatrust in this one. All right. Let's get to our last and final buy or sell Vivian Health. Vivian Health, formerly known as Nurse Fly by the way, an IAC company is a healthcare jobs marketplace that announced a $60 million primary and secondary equity investment this week. Joel (32m 41s): Vivian works almost like a quote, "LinkedIn for healthcare" end quote. Founder Parth Bhakta says connecting clinicians with both staffing agencies, including eight of the nation's 10 largest and major health systems. Under IACS backing since 2019, Vivian has grown revenue by 45X facilitating 3 million plus job applications. More than 700,000 clinicians in the US alone are registered to use Vivian's platform to secure work. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Vivian? Chad (33m 16s): It's pretty impressive they have 700,000 registered clinicians, you got to say that right out of the gate. As we're seeing money dumped into the healthcare recruiting/staffing space, we're looking at a much different model than Intelycare, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. Intelycare works directly with 1600 healthcare systems, right? Where this is more of a job board model. They do work with staffing companies, but it's like Monster worked with staffing companies. You know what I mean? They can buy your shit, right? So I think, Intleycare is, is basically an evolutionary step in the staffing model itself where Vivian is literally just more of a job board. Chad (34m 1s): Here's the thing, no matter what here's a quote "The U S healthcare industry is on track to be more than 3 million workers short by 2026." So I don't care if you're competing platforms, whether you're Intelycare, you're Vivian Health. I think that this is a hot necessary area to be able to be spending money. And it's a buy from me. Joel (34m 25s): You stole all my thunder and what I was going to say, in terms of like the crisis, what these guys are doing, who backs them, the kind of money that they have. I mean, this is the wave to be on. Healthcare is going to be a theme for the next 5 to 10 years as baby boomers get older, the talent crunch isn't going anywhere. You're going to see robotics companies around robot nurses and shit like that. Like this is going to be a huge, huge category. We talk about Nomad, Intelycare, like every week, like we used to talk about AI companies for recruiting, healthcare is going to be what we're talking about. So future unicorn on this one, as my buys signal, this is, this is hot Vivian Health everybody. Joel (35m 10s): Keep that in mind and keep in mind whoever the ad is. That's following because our sponsors pay the bills. People there is no show without the sponsors. We'll be right back. Chad (35m 21s): Names they are a changin' Joel (35m 23s): The names they are a changing. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh, we're we're ending with a non OnlyFans porn or stripper story. Our listeners have to be totally confused. Chad (35m 33s): Oh, my God. Joel (35m 34s): There are so many OnlyFan stories about millionaires on that platform that it's just ridiculous at this point. It's no longer news it's like just normal. All right, let's get into our industry. Someone's going through a rebrand, a Predictive Hire, our friends from down under will now be known as Sapia, who can find them@safiya.ai. The name Sapia, this is from the company is a combination of homosapien, which is a human being, Chad plus AI, although it's Sapia and not safe so go figure that one on your own. Joel (36m 15s): CEO, Barb Hyman told us quote, "the change was to reflect the human centered and humanizing experience that they have built" end quote, Chad, you're a homosapien. How do you feel about the rebrand? Chad (36m 30s): It's interesting. You know, love Barb Hyman. She is incredibly smart, but this made me scratch my head because Predictive Hire was a.com, right? Not a dot.ai. Plus we're talking about two words that are common within the English language, predictive and hire. So you could spell it and he just put the.com on it. Right then you're coming into something like a Sapia. It's a new word. It's an entirely new word. And I want to flash back to the days when Recruit Soft became Toleo, they created a word, but the difference here is Recruit Soft was one of the big giants from applicant tracking systems back in the day, everybody knew who they were, which means they had to know who this new Taleo was. Chad (37m 16s): Right? Predictive Hire's not a, they're not a monolith in this industry yet. So now they're going to have to spend a lot more money, trying to get people to understand who they are, not to mention, just spell their shit right. And not go to a.com. The first thing I did was go Sapia.com. That's what I did. And it took me to like a construction site and I'm like, holy fuck. What's going on here? Right? Yeah. Joel (37m 37s): So like a construction site or a site under construction. Chad (37m 42s): No, it was, I think it was a construction site. I can't remember. I just knew it wasn't their site, but this is, I totally understand. They don't want to paint themselves into a corner just being hiring. They want to be more than hiring, but this is going to be, this is going to be a rough slog because being able to do any type of branding around words, that nobody knows that you've just conjured up out of nowhere. It's going to take a lot of money and it's going to take a lot of Barb in a lot of people's faces, which is not a bad thing. Joel (38m 18s): Yeah. Chad companies rarely change names for good reason. They've either behave badly and they don't want to be branded as that bad actor anymore. They want to provide cloud cover because the brand of Facebook has a bad reputation and they become Meta. In our space you got like Pillar that became a rebrand recently. And now Sapia, I don't think there's anything weird going on with trademarks or they're coming into a new market. And there's like, you know, Predictive Hire in Italy or something that they have to compete with. I guess if you're going to change your name, do it earlier, rather than later. I mean, they're still a startup. They're not like a 20 year company that's changing their name, but it's just kind of odd. Joel (39m 2s): I don't, you know, Sapia.ai over predictivehire.com. I don't, I don't see a huge benefit in doing that. Although Predictive Hire can be tough to type out, I guess, on your fingers if you're on mobile Sapia is a lot easier, but yeah, I don't know. There was clearly a big marketing meeting there and they decided to make this change. It's never easy so I hope they had good reasons to do it. I would only do it if it was totally necessary and I don't see any situation with Predictive Hire/Sapia or where it was totally necessary to do this, but they're Australian dude. They do weird shit. This is how it works. They drink Fosters for God's sakes. Chad (39m 38s): Hopefully they've got a big marketing group because they gong to need it. This is again a word that doesn't exist in the English language. So therefore they're going to have to build huge brand awareness around a new logo, a new word that doesn't exist and something that's not a dot-com. So, you know, hit it Barb. I can't wait to see what you're going to do next. Joel (39m 58s): And we know Barb's in Seattle so she's already spreading the word here in the US, by the way, Barb sponsor the show that'll build your brand, give us a call. Chad (40m 13s): Oh, good call. Joel (40m 14s): We out. Chad (40m 15s): We out OUTRO (40m 15s): 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 57s): 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 war in Ukraine continues to pull at the fabric of European economies and companies. That's why we invited Neill Dunwoody of Spryt and TechlinkUkraine.org to join the boys on his take and insight into what the war means for real people trying to escape the horrors of conflict and make a living. Lumped into Ukraine, we talk about how the war could be impacting Europe economies on a macro level, including companies who have to deal with employees in both Russia and Eastern Europe who take opposing sides. It's a messy world, but we're only getting started. Even messier, the episode veers into talking about a company offering "masturbation pods" for employees to relieve some stress. Yup, we went there. 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): 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. A new survey says 75% of HR workers believe human beings won't have to be involved in the recruitment process at all in the very near future thanks to AI. Enjoy the shit while it lasts people you are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "WALL-E" Cheeseman. Chad (50s): I'm Chad "happy socks" Sowash. Lieven (52s): And I'm Lieven "totally forgot about the middle name" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (57s): On this episode, Handshake has its eye on Europe. HeyJobs gives us a glimpse into the German labor market and Oreo makers want to double stuff their employers. Let's do this. sfx (1m 11s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 12s): I want to hear about Lieven skiing trip. Joel (1m 16s): Yeah. Lieven went skiing. Go. Lieven (1m 18s): Oh, I went skiing. We went skiing again. Last skiing trip. Last time it was, oh, it was work. You know, I was invited by, by Redmore thanks Redmore. So this time it was just fun. And we had fun! There was sun, there was snow, there were cold drinks and there was a Russian family and they tried to defend Putin's strategy and they claimed the whole war was necessary for Russian's safety. Chad (1m 45s): They were actively talking about? Lieven (1m 50s): Russia. Joel (1m 51s): Propaganda is a hell of a drug man. Lieven (1m 53s): I'm sure they were asked about it. They didn't start itself. But the rest of the bar they claim so it was Russia's rights to do something like that. And after that the bartender refused to serve them. And everyone started to play the bayraktar song under iPhones whenever the guy entered the room or anything so I don't think it was fun to be rich and Russian last week. Joel (2m 16s): When Chad and I were kids, every ad in a European ski lift had liked the Swedish bikini team there. Was the Swedish bikini team there, or was that just American advertising? Lieven (2m 26s): I've never, ever seen the Swedish bikini team in a ski resort. Damn I missed them. Joel (2m 32s): That's a shame. Chad (2m 33s): Yeah. You're killing my dreams, killing my dreams. Joel (2m 35s): All right. Let's get to our mystery guest shall we? Chad (2m 39s): History. Let's do that. Joel (2m 40s): He's Neil Dunwoody. He's from Ireland. He's the chief commercial officer and co-founder at Sprite, no legal issues there. I'm sure as well as the head of Techlink Ukraine, which we'll talk about, he has a certificate from LinkedIn on metaverse and NFT marketing. Chad (2m 58s): Oh stop. Joel (2m 59s): That's so exciting for me. He also says my blue spot is in the mail. We'll see about that, Neil welcome to the podcast. Neil (3m 7s): Well, how are you guys? About LinkedIn NFT and marketing, I was bored sitting on the toilet. So it was just something to do for 30 minutes. Joel (3m 14s): Oh, well, I don't know where I go from there, but give our listeners a little Twitter bio about you. Neil (3m 25s): Yeah. So Neil Dunwoody, 20 years plus in recruitment or recruitment in the middle of the pandemic. So decided I was going to set up a digital health company. And so I have to start up and we work with the NHS and some Antarctic healthcare providers, and then decided to set up Techlink Ukraine, which we're trying to help displaced Ukrainians find opportunities. And we're also trying to help people who are still in Ukraine find projects to work on, as the lads that are related to I'm a massive whiskey fan. I actually part own a distillery in Ireland. Chad (3m 49s): What?! Lieven (3m 53s): Nice! Chad (3m 57s): Oh, yes. That's what I'm talking about. Cheeseman how come we're not in Ireland for this, what's going on? Joel (4m 8s): I know Neil's got this going on. And the pandemic kind of squashed the whole, like I'm going to come to Ireland or we're going to come to Ireland and hang out. And he also allegedly mailed me some Blue Spot Irish whiskey, which has not shown up in two years. So somebody at the US postal service got some pretty good whiskey, but yeah, I'm open. The world's okay, man, the airlines don't require masks anymore apparently. So I'm ready. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to party. Neil (4m 38s): You can come over and do your podcasts from our distillery and we teach you how to make a bottle of gin you can bring it home with you. And we do a whiskey experience, teach you how to make cocktails, get you drunk. Chad (4m 49s): Yeah. That's exactly the type of experience we're looking for. But beyond that, tell us a little bit more about Techlink Ukraine. This seems to be pretty. This seems to be cool. How, how did you come up with this and what is it? Neil (5m 2s): Yeah, so basically it started with a girl walking into, I work in a coworking space here in Monon and she walked in, she went to reception. She said, look, she was looking for a job. She just came from Ukraine and just arrive in Ireland three days. And she walked all the way from Kiev to the Polish border and then got a train to Cracow and her friend who was living in Brian from Kracow brought her back. So when I asked her what she was willing to do, she said pretty much she'd do anything. I mean, I said, what was your background back in Ukraine? She was a graphic designer and an qualified lawyer. So in 24 hours, I'd find her a job here in Ireland and or she could work remotely from Monon for an employer in Dublin. Neil (5m 45s): And then I reached out to a few techie guys and CTO or CIOs that I know across Europe and the UK. So myself, a guy called Martin Carpenter used to work with me in United Health the area. A couple of other guys. We came together and decided, look, they're technologists. Then I had to build all the tech, in regards to trying to help these people in your Ukraine. I'm a recruiter so I have a lot of connections could ring around and get a lot of companies involved to see what they hire them. And I pretty much started from there. And we built a website. We partnered with a guy who I called from a company called talentpool.io. And he built out employUkraine.org. Neil (6m 27s): And which pretty much means that any company can advertise all the roles for free. They can video interview across the platform and Ukrainians can apply and apply for any role. Anybody can search their database of about 15,000 currently Ukrainian candidates matching them up against the roles. And if they want to remotely hire them, they can legally contract and payroll them via the system. sfx (6m 55s): Applause and cheers. Joel (6m 56s): Good for you man. Chad (6m 56s): That's awesome. Joel (6m 57s): Are these mostly remote jobs? Are people requiring relocation? Are they mostly sort of knowledge-based jobs? Give us sort of a sense of the flavor of what you're seeing. Neil (7m 6s): So we initially started with tech that was kind of the area like I'd spent 20 years in tech recruitment. So I was kind of very we started and then we slowly started to realize that the majority of the people that were displaced weren't from tech backgrounds predominantly, but 80% of those were female. So we have to open it to other areas and are potentially opening to top companies that may be hiring marketing, the HR, accounting, whatever the roles are a mix of in country. So if they come turn to Ireland or the UK to be hired there, or if they're say an Irish and UK, French, German company, then they hire them remotely in the likes of Slovakia, Poland, Romania, wherever the SMB, they want to stay in the 27 member states within the EU and the UK. Neil (7m 52s): But we've also had companies out of the U S reach out. We've had companies as far field as Vietnam, tech company in Vietnam. We have a companies in Australia and New Zealand, so pretty much anywhere that's willing to open up their doors to these people and help them. And my biggest ask is that if you're looking to hire these people, they don't have anything. So you have to be willing to potentially pay for rent, pay for flights, potentially give them sign on bonus upfront to help them settle on how do I would put it as not potentially if you're using a recruitment agency, you're saving that fee. So take part of that fee and give it to them. And that's the way we're really pitching it. Joel (8m 34s): That's awesome. And are company's open to that for the most part? Neil (8m 38s): Yeah. Like I was shocked. We have over 3000 companies have already signed up. Chad (8m 43s): Awesome. Neil (8m 44s): So it's insane. Joel (8m 45s): So far listeners again, how can they find out more? How can they sign up, get some jobs on that site? Where do they go again? Neil (8m 51s): If you sign up. So for all the listeners out there, if you want to sign up to www.techlinkukraine.org, and it's completely free. You sign up, you can post as many jobs as you like. If you're a large organization, you can actually have a lot of roles and you can, we work with different ATS providers. So there's an RSS feed. So you can basically feed them directly from your ATS directly onto the job board and you're good to go. Joel (9m 18s): That's outstanding. There are a lot of these. So I mean, hopefully the jobs and opportunities are getting to the people that need it. And I, for one, I speak for everyone on the podcast and everyone out there. Thanks for the work that you're doing on this. It's fantastic, it's fantastic. Thank you. Chad (9m 36s): techlinkukraine.org. Go there. Joel (9m 37s): Awesome. Chad (9m 38s): Excellent. Joel (9m 38s): Who's ready for some shout outs? Chad (9m 40s): Give it to me. Let's do it. Neil (9m 41s): So I'd like to give a shout out ITUkraine and they're the biggest IT association in Ukrainian. They called Constantine Volnyiv a hundred thousand members there, the best thing, but these guys are still trying to work in a war zone. And if anybody's a recruiter, I'd like to see somebody try and recruit in a war zone. Chad (9m 59s): No shit! Neil (9m 60s): Good luck to those guys and big shout out. Chad (10m 3s): Wow. Joel (10m 3s): For sure. For sure. And there in starts our first shout out, Chad. Chad (10m 6s): Yeah know, I'm going to hit the second one and we're going to Shout Out to out of office email. So I go figure they're all over the place. I saw a meme last week, demonstrating the difference between European out of office emails versus American versions and take a listen. You're gonna love this. And, I want the Europeans to kind of, you know, tell me if they think this is right. So first the European version of an out of office, email quote, "I'm away camping for the summer. Please email me back in September" end quote. And that's nice. Joel (10m 39s): I like that. Lieven (10m 40s): Sounds reasonable. Chad (10m 43s): It sounds reasonable. Yeah. So the American version quote, "I have left the office for two hours to undergo kidney surgery, but you can reach me on my cell anytime" end quote. Joel (10m 56s): That's not good. Chad (10m 57s): Is just about in line with what we're used to here in the US. Joel (11m 2s): The two Americans can say, that's totally on par with America's out of office. Yeah, that's totally it. So the Europeans is that right on? Lieven (11m 8s): I think I was away last week. I was skiing and I tried to remember what my out of office was, but I guess it was sort of like that it was only for one week, but it said something like you could mail me, but I won't read it so you might as well, not something like that, but only for one week not for the whole summer of course. Joel (11m 28s): That'd get you fired in America. You better answer those emails within 24 hours or else. Neil (11m 33s): The Irish version is slightly different. It's generally, if you can't reach me, please get my wife. sfx (11m 44s): I can make you rich. Joel (11m 45s): Awesome. My shout out goes to Jacque Paul, you don't know who Jacque Paul is. He's a 20 something from London. And if you're an avid TikToker, you may already know Jacque, but if not, he accidentally attached a copy of his sexually transmitted disease test results to his job application rather than a cover letter. Chad (12m 8s): That my friends that's transparency is what that is. Yeah. Joel (12m 10s): Yeah. How could such a thing happen? Well, multitasking, of course. He told the New York Post quote, "I was applying for this job while listening to music, checking the news. I was looking at COVID rates and doing something else on the side" end quote. The bad news he failed to land his dream job. The good news, his tests were negative. He landed another job and he found TikTok gold detailing the story and gaining tens of thousands of followers in the process. Do you believe in happy endings? Yes you do. Shout out to Jacques Paul of London. Lieven. Lieven (12m 48s): Shout out. My shout out goes to of course, still Elon Musk. Chad (12m 54s): Of course. Lieven (12m 54s): Keeping us entertained last week with his bidding on Twitter. So for those who went skiing like I did and didn't follow the news, just a quick updates, you know, a few weeks ago, Elon bought about 10% of Twitter. And then he announced he was going to buy the whole company with a 50% bonus. So a typical example of bump and dump and then Twitter announced they wouldn't let them buy the whole company. So he gave up on the plan, but his 10% certainly was worth like a lot more. So I think once again, the guy has proven to be brilliant and they'll probably sue his ass for manipulating. Joel (13m 29s): That's how big of a check is a House of HR writing to own a part of Twitter and go in with Elon? Or are you the only Ilon fan? Lieven (13m 36s): I think investing in House of HR is much more sustainable than investing in Twitter. So we're just going to buy around shares. Chad (13m 43s): That's a good call. That's a very good guy. Joel (13m 47s): Can I give you my conspiracy theory on this? No, probably not. Okay. So everyone's talking about he can't afford it. Why would he do it? It's a mess of a company. Tesla's so much more important. So my little conspiracy theory around this is he wants to buy Twitter. He wants to let Trump back on. He wants to get favoribility with the Republicans. He wants Fox news to talk about how great he is about letting free speech reign again. He's hoping that Trump gets reelected. And if Trump gets reelected, you're going to see deregulation on all the things that Elon is doing. You're going to see government contracts come to things like his boring company. You're going to see EVcar credits come to him. He's got a lot of money to make. Joel (14m 28s): If he can get ahold of Twitter and get Trump back on. That's my conspiracy theory. Who else is with me? No. Chad (14m 36s): I think he just wants attention that that's it. And any way that he can find attention, any megalomaniac out there much like Trump. I mean he just looking for attention. I don't think this is a long-term strategy. Neil (14m 48s): I think the fact that he admitted to couch surfing on his friends, coaches instead of maybe staying in a five-star hotel or actually buying houses in San Francisco. I generally just believe the guy is an attention seeker more so than anything else. So look, he'd probably get bored. I mean, it's like a child, so he's probably gonna turn his attention to TikTok next. Joel (15m 12s): And speaking of hogging and wanting attention, Chad and I are back on the road soon. We're going to be in Lieven's backyard of Ostend, Belgium on May 6th leaving tell the listeners. I can't imagine no one knows, but if they don't, what's going on May 6th. Lieven (15m 28s): We're getting close. Right? May 6th you're making me nervous. Joel (15m 30s): Yeah that show will be live. I think if my math is right. Lieven (15m 36s): Alrighty, it could be. Chad (15m 37s): We'll be in Belgium when we do it, we'll probably just be doing it at a bar. Joel (15m 42s): We're gonna try to be on a yacht. Chad (15m 44s): Good call. Joel (15m 44s): We'll see how that works out. But yeah. Tell him about the Congress Lieven. Lieven (15m 48s): Oh wow. You'll probably be doing it from Casino KURSAAL where the whole event will be. So it's the E-recruitment Congress. We've been talking about it for almost a year right now I guess. It's by far the biggest and the best congress on digital recruitment in Belgium, we have tons of speakers, many people who have been in the show, we are focusing on e-sports. We are focusing on virtual recruitments, all kinds of digital stuff. But if you want to be there, look at erecruitment-congress.com on Google and you'll find it. You can still buy some tickets. And if there was still a COVID thing, we would have been sold out by now because we reserved for 400 places in a room where you can set 2000 people, but now we don't need the space anymore so we can fill every seat. Lieven (16m 41s): So everyone is welcome. We have about 400 people participating already. So it's a big success. Yes. Belgian standards, of course. Joel (16m 47s): And Neil has agreed to supply the liquor for the event, which is great. Thanks. Lieven (16m 52s): Yeah. Are you able to meet Chad and Joel who will be giving a live comments on everything happening? Joel (16m 59s): And you can also find out more. I think it, Chadcheese.com where you can see all of our other travels within Europe over the next few months. Neil (17m 7s): You're only an hour and 35 minutes from Belgium to Dublin. So. Lieven (17m 10s): You are also welcome. Joel (17m 11s): Is there a bridge? Can I walk there? Is there like, can I get a bike or a Chad (17m 21s): You're not walking Joel (17m 28s): A visual submarines or Chad (17m 29s): A lime scooter he can take? Joel (17m 30s): Get me a lime scooter. That's nice. Chad (17m 31s): Topics! Joel (17m 32s): All right, guys, let's talk a little bit of news. Let's talk about Handshake, the platform for recruiting college students announced last week that it acquired Talent Space, a European platform or managing career fairs, both online and in-person. As Handshake's first ever acquisition Handshake says talent space will strengthen its suite of virtual offerings and accelerate their entry beyond the UK office and into continental Europe. What?! Talent space was founded in 2017 and will continue operating from its offices in Berlin, Germany. Quick reminder for our listeners, San Francisco based Handshake recently landed $200 million in funding and is valued at $3.5 billion. Joel (18m 22s): That's right. All right, guys, is Europe going to embrace Handshake's entrance into Europe? Or just say talk to the hand, do people still say talk to the hand? Lieven (18m 32s): I never said talk to the hand. Joel (18m 33s): Virtual. And in real life career events in Europe, what's the story. Lieven (18m 36s): I've been looking into this until I get it right. They are approaching a revenue of $100 million. I feel it, they started somewhere $100 million. They didn't state exactly how much it was, but approaching $100 million and they are valued over $3 billion. Joel (18m 54s): Yes, three and a half. Lieven (18m 55s): Okay. If I follow this course, this means House of HR, which has a revenue of $2.2 billion at my company or our company, 2.2 billion. We should be valued like 60, $60 billion or something. Joel (19m 7s): $60 billion Lieven (19m 8s): And I'm sure we are worth it, but I don't know about them. $3 billion with a revenue of approaching one hundred. Okay. Nicely done. Joel (19m 15s): So House of HR has a lot of companies. Do they have any that are focused on events, whether virtual or in real life, have you looked at companies that are doing this and have looked the other way? Like how big of an opportunity is it in Europe? Lieven (19m 29s): It's definitely starting to grow. And I mean, when I read the article, I saw Handshake and I taught this isn't the best name to use during COVID crisis. Because if there's one thing people want to avoid, it's a Handshake. But I understand, I understand. Chad (19m 47s): Fist bump. Joel (19m 47s): Well, fist bump was taken. Lieven (19m 49s): But it's, it's definitely a growing business and virtual events are cool and they're here to stay. I also think it's pretty easy to copy. So that might be a big problem for the investors, but it's a good business. Definitely, but still it's like so overvalued. But you asked about House of HR, we have just to give you an example, we have NowJobs, they're also approaching 100 million euros by themself and they're a platform also reaching out to students like a Handshake is doing. Joel (20m 19s): How are they doing it? I mean, I can speak for the Americans. You know, there's a career center at every college. Most colleges have some sort of a career event. They have staff that helps allegedly students get jobs. So what is the business model similar there? Is it a little bit different? Lieven (20m 35s): Well, in my opinion, it's easy to reach out to students because they're all looking for a job the moment they graduates. So under our events and you can enter those events. You can sponsor those events as a company, you can organize your own events to reach out to students. And if you're a big company, students are willing to participate. Most universities in Europe are organizing their own job events and they tried to doing it virtually and it never has been a big success. I've participated at some of them and the problem is it's very distant. I mean, people don't reach out to each other. There are possibilities, you can chat, but you don't do it. Lieven (21m 15s): I mean, it's so it's not natural. So I think most companies will try to make it real life again, as soon as possible, but some part of virtual world hang on and we'll stay there and start to stay, I'm sure. But a companies focusing on strict virtual, I'm not sure. Neil (21m 34s): Yeah. I suppose like even before the mentioned Handshake, there was actually a company that I remember 2015, 2016 called who were at Irish, German co-founded company, trying to do pretty much the same thing. And the issue is, and if you're a large company, you're going to attract people anyway. But when it comes to virtual events, it's so hard to organize it. You're talking to one person, I don't know thing where you do the speed dating kind of virtual event. You last for five minutes and you actually get into a decent conversation the person's cut off on. So then you're trying to track down that person. I think it's been done by multiple other companies, few different times or different iterations. Neil (22m 16s): Like in Ireland, we have GradIron which is a large in-person event with talent summit and a number of other events like that. And they tried to do them virtually during COVID. And you'd see at the start, loads of people would sign up. But within 20, 30 minutes, when they realized they were having to listen to talks and things like that, they all just started dropping off. It's hard to try and engage people. I just haven't seen a great iteration yet on this so we're going to bring it into the metaverse where you could potentially meet people in VR space, maybe. Joel (22m 47s): Oh shit. He said, metaverse. Have you had any experience in the deal with automated solutions where you're not actually in real life talking to people, but maybe they're chatting? Neil (22m 57s): We tried to build it in United Health. And we tried to build three bots. We were pretty unsuccessful and cost a lot of money, to be honest, where we might've had a hundred jobs in United Health and you might've had 2000 applications and you're spending weeks, just watching videos. Chad (23m 18s): That to me is, it's not efficient. It doesn't make sense. Right? Neil (23m 22s): No. Chad (23m 22s): I mean, you and Joel talked about it, I think in the intro, I mean, we're looking at systems becoming more automated. That's not automated. That's that's more time intensive. I mean, first and foremost, I predicted Handshake would be a dead unicorn because their product offering and total addressable market doesn't come close to their valuation, much like Lieven was saying, right. Seven rounds of funding, $434 million USD, 402 million euros. Series F in January, 2022. It's about time. They started acquiring companies that I think Talent Space gives them a foot into Europe where they tried coming into Europe or they've tried, let's say back in 2022. Chad (24m 11s): To me, it feels like advancement would be more on the chat bot side of the house, which is more automated in some cases and small, more process flow and RPA, this to me just seems so heavy on human interaction, which we don't have enough fucking recruiters right now. Joel (24m 32s): You know, Chad, you mentioned sort of the money and the need to acquire. And we talked about Checkr on our weekly show last week, who has surprisingly a similar valuation as does Handshake. However, whereas Checkr seems very focused on its acquisition strategy and growing into new markets. Handshake seems to be a little bit all over the place, their last round, they talked about taking on LinkedIn. Yeah. How's that going so far? So now it's sort of like, where can we grow? Where can we get a foothold? Obviously Europe is a very natural progression for companies. But I think that the point of career fairs are kind of a crappy business. Joel (25m 13s): Nobody wants to be in a space with human beings much anymore. The name is kind of ironic. That was great for Lieven to kind of point that out. And the virtual part of it hasn't gotten quite figured out yet. And somebody that actually does automation, right? Like a conversational AI company is probably going to win in that space and not a company that is just trying to like, you know, reignite the dead, you know, bring back the dead from, bring back the living. What the hell am I saying? Resuscitate a dead industry or dying industry to success to justify a $3.5 billion valuation. Chad (25m 52s): Yeah. Any founder today that you hear challenging LinkedIn is nothing more than a fucking Mirage for funding. That's all it is. Neil (25m 59s): Yeah. I think realistically to be actually any good at graduate recruitment, you have to get the student when they go in and force you. So when the first year in college like interns is the only way to go to get really good grads on bringing them up through the company and then potentially say, companies like a drone delivery company here. They're sponsoring courses in college. So they're basically cherry picking the grads they want. Joel (26m 23s): Can you say more about sponsoring classes in college? Neil (26m 26s): Yeah. So basically what they go pick a subject. So for example, when I was in United Health Optum, we try instead of going to the graveyards and digging up COBOL developers, we decided we started reinstilled Colbalt colleges. And we started to Coldwell course in Colbalt IT which was a technical college and donate all our headquarters or so on. That works mana, which is a drone delivery business. And they've realized that UAVs and drones like in Germany and Belgium and every other country in Europe, there's there is drone startups in the US and everything else, but there isn't a huge amount of grads because it's still in its infancy. Basically you're better off going on sponsoring, say electrical engineer and mechanical engineers or biotic engineers. Neil (27m 9s): React developers, different things like that. So you go in and you sponsor a protector type. Of course it could be a UAV engineering course or a Colby AI machine learning those types of courses and LP engineers. And if you, if you do, and you're, it's sort of like being you're the brand. So it's this machine learning course sponsored by Pepsi. Joel (27m 29s): Well, speaking of drones, we're droning on, let's get this show on the road, shall we let's take a quick break and pay some bills and we'll get to some more news from Europe. sfx (27m 39s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (27m 43s): HeyJobs, they're in the news. This comes from our friend co-founder and CEO of Germany's HeyJobs, Marius Luther. If you miss that show, check the archives at chadcheese.com, by the way. The company publishes a job report every month and we were curious what a month into the war in Ukraine would mean for Europe's largest economy. Here's the summary from Marius in a LinkedIn post quote, "There is little change from the previous month on both sides of the market. To date the war on Ukraine seems to have had little impact on the German labor market. Vacancies are at the highest level ever, but are hardly growing anymore. Active job seekers are at their lowest level ever for March, but aren't falling as hard anymore. Joel (28m 26s): Recruiting remains difficult" end quote. Sounds a little bit like business as usual, but are Germany and most of Europe whistling past the graveyard when it comes to Ukraine? Neil, I'm sure you have some thoughts as well as Lieven on what Ukraine could mean for the future of Europe's economy and employment outlook. Lieven (28m 47s): Definitely. And the sentence I like most about a little article was, recruitment remains difficult for us. We are in the recruitment business, it's our core business. So it sounds rash, but it's good for our business if it's difficult, because I'll give you an example. Our core business is recruitment and we are not going to start building our own cars just because we need cars. So car manufacturers, in my opinion, they won't be doing their own recruitment in a future. Their core business isn't recruitment. We are just better at it than they are. So for our business, it's good to when recruitment gets as difficult as possible and the others will have to start asking us to find their candidates. Maybe this sound a bit too commercial, but I really feel it's true. Joel (29m 29s): No, you're kind of on the front lines of this, the Ukraine conflict ultimately good, bad, or no change for the economies of Europe. Neil (29m 35s): I think where we are at the minute, it's not going to make a huge difference. I think in the next 4, 6, 12 months where potentially where more people would eventually on forced me have to come out of Ukraine. It will make a difference. So with give tech, as an example, there's just over 600,000 techies in Ukraine. They were just 25,000 tech graduates annually, and then wrote a 25% growth within tech in my country. So they're the second biggest producer per population of tech people in the world next to the states. And so that could potentially fill certain roles, but it made fill it all right on. I think it's not where if you, if you watch the news, it's predominantly, or there's, a shortage of skills in regards to tech or construction, but there's a huge shortage of skills in hospitality, teaching legal, accounting, everything, right? Neil (30m 24s): So it's not going to fix everything on. I agree with Lieven the companies will have to rely on recruitment experts. Chad (30m 30s): Neil talked about it. And in the last segment, I think the only way and Lieven, take some notes, buddy, cause you guys should start doing this. You should start building into programs for cyber or whatever it is so that you have those individuals, that new talent that's coming out on the other side that you can put into your client's companies. This isn't about having enough people into the specific jobs. For the most part, this is about a skills gap and we need a skills gap solution, not a people solution, a skills gap solution. You get the people you start to create these talent pipelines and companies like staffing companies like like Lieven's could focus more on building talent pipelines, as opposed to, again, we've always talked about swapping spit, trying to pull one from one company and put it in another. Chad (31m 23s): That's not gaining anything in the market. Build your own goddamn pipelines. I think that is the future. Lieven (31m 28s): Absolutely. And it's not only about pipelines. It's about career paths. We want, so there is a shortage of candidates, so we want to reach out to them and be, want to hire them before the competitors can. But also we want to keep them as close as possible and we want to prolong their contracts. And we want to not just to give them a job we want to be career guides. We want to keep them with us for the whole career, if possible. So we want to offer them kind of a career path and we want to tell them, okay, you're here today, but where would you like to be, let's say in five years? Okay, you want to become a chief information officer, nice, but you need this experience. You need to do these skills and you're like them, but we're going to help you. We're going to offer them to you. We're going to put you at this client for two years, at that client for two years and we're going to teach you or to upscale you to be proficient in whatever you need to be. Lieven (32m 18s): And this is the way our business is going to handle the shortage. We're going to tie the people to us. Are we going to try to make them stay for as long as possible? And it will be a hot war, but I think we are better equipped to when it's done other companies Chad (32m 33s): Very much. Neil (32m 34s): Like I know I've done a bit of work with a company called ProFinder skills, analogies, which are predominantly more for internal talent. But I think the job of the recruiter is going to switch. There's going to be certain recruiters that their role is to find skillsets within a company. So like a large organization, like one of the big four or one of the big multinational blue chips companies when they pitch for a project or they're about to start a new product line or whatever, they analyze the talent internally. But they also look at the talent that people who can be upskilled or reskilled to fill a need. I think that going into the future is potentially internal or talent is more important than I think it's that for example, automating recruitment events In my opinion, I think it's keep what you have an upscale it. Joel (33m 17s): I think undoubtedly, undoubtedly, this is bad for the economies of Ukraine and Russia. One is a brain drain by choice. In other words, we've heard about a ton of 100,000, some Russians leaving the country who are mostly knowledge-based workers. The other is brain drain by I guess, life or death. I think as NATO countries opened their doors to fast-track refugees, this means more people in those countries who can work, pay taxes and buy stuff, which is the engine of any economy. I think oddly, this conflict is a growth opportunity for Europe. I also think investment is scared to go into places like China and other authoritarian countries, which means more money into Europe for countries and startups to grow. Joel (33m 58s): Unless this war gets totally out of control, services like HeyJobs I think will continue to see success because the economies of Europe will strangely benefit from laser-focused conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Lieven (34m 12s): Might be cynical, but it's true. Neil (34m 13s): I think economies will also scale because there's quite a lot of startups in Ukraine and I've been involved in certain conversations, like taking the startups out of Ukraine and moving them to Ireland or to the UK or Belgium or wherever. So there's potential there for other new businesses and economies of scale and new industries to be created as well as in 5, 10 years, potentially the rebuild the Ukraine. Just huge opportunities for people to go in on that side and invest and try t rebuild the country. Joel (34m 46s): Let's talk about Oreo cookies. Shall we? This is from Reuters, Oreo maker, Mondelez Nestle and PepsiCo are facing pushback from workers in Ukraine and Eastern Europe who are angered by the company's decision to maintain some business in Russia. This is according to our internal corporate communications. An internal memo seen by Reuters shows Nestle has seen an unspecified number of Ukraine employees quit and others bullied on social media for remaining with a company doing business with Russia. There are specific examples for each company, but Nestle, who has employees in both Russia and Ukraine stand out. Reuters reported Ukrainian employees refusing to speak with Russian colleagues and an unnamed employee said, quote "on my team, we've stopped working with Russia and never want to work with them again." Joel (35m 33s): End quote. We frequently talk about the great resignation, but the war is putting a whole spin on reasons to leave an employer. Lieven I think you might have some thoughts on Nestle. Lieven (35m 45s): Not only on Nestle, on the other companies as well, but needlessly specific, they have a very bad reputation on everything that should be human. I mean just Google them, Google Nestle, they have a subReddit it's about an Nestle being evil to have a whole history of stupid things they've said and done. And I myself have said some stupid things, but I'm they are better at it. And I give you an example, but I was 17 years or something and I had a chemistry teacher and I only remember two things from his class. I wasn't the brightest crayon in the pack when it's concerning chemistry, he told me many things, but I remember two. Lieven (36m 26s): One, alcohol only solves everything, but problems. And I always remembered that one and the other one was Nestle is a disgusting company. And I listened and he explained to us that they are selling, you know, powdered milk to people in Africa, which can't afford it, and they don't need it, but they give it for free for a few months to those women. And then they stopped making milk from their own and they think they're giving their babies the best possible milk because it's powdered milk. And then suddenly they don't make any more milk themselves because they stopped lactating how they call it and then they start asking money for it. And that's when I heard it, I couldn't even believe it. I looked it up and apparently it's true. And that's the most evil thing I've ever heard. Lieven (37m 7s): And I think as a company, if you've done something like that, you will never ever be able to get a good reputation again. You can write as many reports on sustainability as you like, people wont to forgive it. And the same thing is happening all over again, in Russia, they are active in Russia and they stay active in Russia and their CEO said something about the Russian people should be able to buy their great products just as all the other people, because it's not their fault. Joel (37m 35s): I think the compromise that they're all going toward is okay. We need to be able to provide diapers and water and formula and sort of these necessities, the problem is they're still selling Kit-Kats and Oreos and things that aren't necessities. And I think, I think more and more companies are trying to rely on, well, they need necessities. We'll cut back on the other stuff. Hopefully this thing will all blow over and we can go back to the way things were and, and apologize. I think from a macro perspective and sort of taken a left turn here, but my whole life I've heard about globalism. Globalism is great and having countries that buy from you and sell you stuff is all very good. And I think it generally is a good thing, but I feel like there's a trend here of sort of the connective tissue of globalism tearing apart. Joel (38m 21s): And you're seeing, I think the world split into two different categories. You've got, I guess, the democracies and you have the authoritarian governments, and it's going to be a real question of companies going forward of do we do business with this country, but then also do we build plants and factories and warehouses in these countries? And I think more and more countries like Germany for sure are saying, should we buy our oil from a country that could wage war on us and more and more than countries are going to go away from that. And globalism is going to suffer from it. I think China is the big wild card here. You know, while China is hoarding food that they could potentially give to African countries, for example, that will need it because, it's not being harvested in Ukraine and Russia like it should be. Joel (39m 8s): And they're going to build relationships with those countries, with their money and their food to build alliances in the future. So I think the world is a really interesting, dangerous place right now. And this is just sort of a microcosm of that. Chad (39m 21s): It goes back to history. I mean, for God's sakes, this is history repeating itself. Hitler started by claiming Sudeten land from adjacent countries that he declared as lands of quote, unquote "German people," much like Russia did with Crimea and now with Ukraine. Now from Reuters Mandalay's European president Gruber responded to some, some posts from his employees by saying, quote, "our culture at Mondelez includes everyone who shares our values and calls for peace. We stand by our colleagues and not by the government/country decisions.' Gruber wrote. Chad (40m 5s): So, with something this horrific, you got to pick a side. companies in this age, have to understand that there are consequences for action and inaction. Action is picking aside. Inaction is picking aside. The problem is will the consequences be longterm and the cold hard truth that we keep talking about Russians deserve, you know, to have milk and so on and so forth. Each Russian ruble paid to the state budget in the form of taxes and salaries, helps the aggressor supply its army and kill even more Ukrainian people. It's pretty fucking simple, right? You want to break it down? This is not, this is not a gray area. This is black and white. Make a goddamn decision, pick a side. Joel (40m 47s): Yeah. A $billion dollars is still flowing in from Europe to Russia to fund this war. Neil (40m 52s): Yes, on Lieven's point on Nestle. Cadbury's in the past couple of weeks, we're still using child labor in Ghana to matter of fact, to basically harvest their CocoaPods pods with machetes. Right? So to be honest, when I hear stuff like that companies that doesn't really surprise me and whatever woke or sustainable reason that they gave for staying within Russia is fair enough. I agree to certain stages that you can't punish the civilians for the acts of their leaders, but at the same time, you have to show support for Ukrainian people. And what else would TechLinkUkraine.org? And we made the decision that we can't work and would not let any employer that has, is still actively working in Russia, advertise roles on our site. Neil (41m 36s): And so I would sound on the point that either shit or get off the pot. So it's, it's basically, are you pro Putin, are you pro democracy? Joel (41m 50s): Speaking of getting off the pot, let's end the show on a light note and talk about masturbation. Shall we? Chad (41m 58s): What? Joel (41m 59s): Adult website and social network StripChat based in Cyprus apparently wants their employees to really enjoy their workday. They are now providing masturbation pods where employees can take 30 minutes to truly, you know, punch the clown. Hoping to take advantage of that happy chemical rush to their brains after orgasm StripChat thinks this could help their employees be more productive while at the office. Dubbed quote "wank pods" end quote, they come with an Oculus quest and a 4k led screen for watching X-rated films, as well as lotion, lube and tissues. Chad (42m 36s): Any happy sokcs? Joel (42m 37s): Apparently this isn't the only company with a masturbation station and StripChat is even leasing out the pods to other companies. This is why calling podcast pods is a dangerous idea. Okay. Who wants to chime in on wank pods at work? Neil (43m 1s): 30 minutes? Chad (43m 2s): And we out. Joel (43m 4s): Oh God. All right. We're way over time on this one. Let's give a round of applause to Neil Dunwoody. Our guest host Neil again, people who want to connect with you, where should they go? And also give that Ukrainian URL out again to the listeners. Neil (43m 21s): If anybody wants to connect with me on LinkedIn or sprite.com, but if you're interested in helping the people in Ukraine, either displaced in Ukrainian or companies in Ukraine, you can sign up to www.techlinkukraine.org. Joel (43m 34s): Fantastic. It's a great, great cause. And anybody who wants to catch up on episodes on Europe that they missed, they just have to go to Chadcheese.com. Guys. That's been fun. Neil (43m 51s): Thank you guys. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (43m 51s): We out. OUTRO (44m 36s): 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 happens when you get HR's most dangerous podcast together with the industry's most popular TikTok celebrity? Yup, insanity! The boys bring on Leigh Henderson, A.K.A., HR Manifesto, to reveal the secrets of TikTok success for employers. We also dig-in to hear Leigh's story of how she went from Fortune 100 executive to social media darling. We'd write more, but you people apparently have no attention span whatsoever ... thanks, TikTok! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – 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. Joel (22s): Yeah. TikTok me, don't stop. What's up everybody? It's your favorite guilty pleasure. This is the podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always. It's the Chris Rock to my Will Smith Chad Sowash. And today we have a social media influencer. Please welcome Leigh from HRmanifesto.com. Leigh Welcome to the podcast. Leigh (48s): Hi there. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me. Joel (52s): Such an honor. Well, before we get into the heavy Q and A, as we do on this show, give us a Twitter bio of Leigh. Leigh (60s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't even remember. Well, how many characters Twitter is that? Now from a bio perspective. Joel (1m 5s): You must have a blue check so it's at least 280. Leigh (1m 8s): No, no. Right. But you know, I'm an HR professional. I've only ever done HR. I've got 15 years in corporate America. I've supported a handful of fortune 100 companies. And last summer I quit the corporate gig and I went out and said, Hey, I'm going to become an entrepreneur. sfx (1m 24s): Applause and bullhorns. Leigh (1m 25s): Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Chad (1m 27s): Thank you. Leigh (1m 29s): A yes. Yes. And I started this little thing called HR Manifesto. And HR Manifesto was a dream of mine when I was about two years into the HR work, the HR gig because you see so much horrific shit. Chad (1m 46s): You do! Leigh (1m 46s): And I was sharing all these stories and everyone says, God, you have got to write a fucking book one day. And so, you know what, one day last June, what was that 2021? All these years kind of go together now. I said, I'm going to start that fucking book. It's about time. And so I went on TikTok. I downloaded it the same day I posted a video. Yeah. There, HR manifesto was born. Chad (2m 10s): So you have a book? Because I found you on TikTok and I couldn't get off the TikTok cause I was watching and I was following. And then I saw that you had a YouTube channel and then I saw you had an Instagram channel. I mean, you have like, what is it like a hundred or 450,000 followers on TikTok alone. Leigh (2m 31s): Yes. Chad (2m 31s): So who is following you? Tell me it's all these old HR ladies who are using you as kind of like their spiritual animal. Leigh (2m 41s): Yeah. Well, when I posted HR Manifesto, when I started and I started it on the TikTok. Okay. On the clock app, I'm the oldest person on the TikTok, I think, well, maybe all are, but you know, I posted it to just test content for this book. Right. And so when I, I have this shtick, that's called HR approvals, right. Where I show like something horrific, most likely and then I come in and I say, whether it's HR approved or not. And you know, I started doing that and the whole purpose was to give the audience, you know, approachable coaching, right? So I'm testing content. I'm trying to coach people low key and boy people just clung to it. Leigh (3m 26s): But when I started doing that HR approval shtick, I made up this workplace survival guides in continuous employment. Okay. And it's HR Manifesto's Workplace Survival Guide for Continuous Employment, which is what the book was always going to be called, you know, even upwards of 15 years ago. So, it's an actual book. I get that question all the time, but I'm only halfway through that motherfucker because I started the TikTok. Obviously my brand expanded people want, you know, followers want content, content. I want to produce content because I'm creating a sale. And so now I'm like 10,000 words into this book. I haven't even touched it in a couple months and I need to, I need to you know, go on a sabbatical here, up in the mountains or something and just bang this thing out and finish it because I want to share, and that's the whole purpose of HR Manifesto, the entire brand, you know, it was to help coach people to help them maximize their success in the workplace utilizing my HR insights. Chad (4m 27s): Aren't you already doing that? I mean, you're doing that via TikTok. You're doing it via YouTube, Instagram. I mean, you're all over the place already doing this. You've got the background of, you know, being in corporate HR, in Caterpillar, GE, Lockheed Martin, Smith, pretty fucking names. But I mean, the question is today, do we even need to write books? Joel (4m 48s): Chad don't read good. Chad (4m 51s): And so there's so many different ways. No, I love reading books, but I even love listening to podcasts or going to TikTok or what have you, because you can get chunks of great information without having to spend hours. Leigh (5m 4s): Oh, I know. It's so true. I was even thinking, do I just take what I have now? And I just chunk it out into podcasts or into some "digital downloads," I'm doing air quotes. Y'all can say, it's like, digi downloads? It's like such a big thing, but you know, I'll tell ya. I mean, I am such a nerd though. I mean, I read the Pulitzers. I'm like 45 Pulitzers in, I love the old school feel and smell of a book, you know? And so I've done a lot of pivots. I've put a ton of content out there, but still something just turns me the hell on when it comes to writing a book. You know? So again, that's just my passion project. Will I ever get there? Leigh (5m 44s): Who knows? Because y'all just keep distracting me. Joel (5m 47s): Seriously, it sounds like your goal was sort of the traditional, I'm going to be a consultant. Let's make a webpage. And then you looked at social media as a way to build your brand. But I think one of the unique things about TikTok is that you don't need to generate, you know, a bunch of followers, right? The algorithm, if it works right, can get you tons of views. I mean, I have your first Tok, what do we call those? Your first TikTok? Leigh (6m 10s): I call them ticky tacks yeah. Joel (6m 14s): Your first TikTok was June 3rd, 2021 and two months later, you were having videos, one that you have, I think with the most is 9.7 million views. Chad (6m 25s): Holy shit. Joel (6m 25s): Since you've been doing this 8.6 million likes total on your videos, but you didn't have to grow the network it sounds like, it sounds like you just made a viral video and it took off from there. Talk about your response and if that surprised you. Leigh (6m 38s): Okay, so this is completely shocking and you actually got it wrong. Joel (6m 44s): Great. Leigh (6m 45s): Okay. So I, it was backwards. You know, you got it backwards, where you said, oh, it sounds like you wanted to be a consultant and a professional coach. And then, you know, you took it to social and tried to grow your business there. Absolutely not. If you would believe it, I started a TikTok as really just therapy for myself. Okay. So I've been in so many toxic workplaces and I love serving people. I consider myself a servant leader for sure. And I love sharing everything I do and know in my insights, my expertise, I have always coached and mentored so many people. And so I actually, after I left the corporate gig, I needed to recover. Leigh (7m 24s): You know, my goal was to take the summer off with my kiddos, I have two boys and you know, I'm just going to take a fucking break. I'm burnt out. Right? I mean, God, imagine the shit that I've seen in these, these organizations, you know? Chad (7m 39s): No, thanks. Leigh (7m 40s): So I know it's just like, it's hardcore. And then to be, you know, someone that's behind the scenes, a lot of times and coaching leaders and billion dollar business that is on, you know, decisions and whatever else, right. I mean, just this, you know, the politics, the cutthroat of it all. And I said, yeah, I'm going to take the summer off, but you know, I'm so artsy-fartsy, I just was raised that way. I'm a painter, I'm a singer, I'm a violinist, I'm all this artsy fartsy shit. And I turned it off when I went to business school. So the core of myself, my right brain. Right. I just like stopped it because I'm also a big dork and I'm super competitive and smart. So I was like, I just went to business school and then I did a bunch of professional shit. Joel (8m 23s): And modest. Leigh (8m 25s): Oh, I know that too. And so I just focus on that left brain for 15 years and when I finally paused it, I ran right back to my true self, which is the artsy-fartsy and so I started HR manifesto again, to give back as a vehicle for that. But as therapy for me, I made, you know, to like just put content out there and to share, but Ooh, art therapy. And so I was doing HR Manifesto for months, not even thinking about monetizing it, not even tying it back to any sort of business whatsoever. I was just doing it for free, like as a purist all of last year. Right. I wasn't making shit from it. Leigh (9m 7s): That wasn't the intention. It was just for me to enjoy and to get a cathartic release and to, you know, make people laugh. I just wanted to put edutainment out there. Right. Joel (9m 19s): That sounds familiar. Leigh (9m 20s): So it's so weird. It was very ass backwards. It's like, I'm not like the typical American. Joel (9m 25s): It had to have surprised you when you put out this thing just for fun and holy shit, tens of thousands, hundred thousand people are recognizing it. Did that surprise you? Leigh (9m 35s): Oh, it was shocking. Right. I never thought I'd be again, air quotes, you all can see like a "celebrity" right? I mean, people approach me on the street. They want to buy me drinks at the bar. You know, people know that it's me. They take pictures to me of public, which is weird as shit, you know? Chad (9m 52s): That's awesome. Leigh (9m 53s): I think HR manifesto just on TikTok has had 70 million views. Right across all the content. And so there's the followers, but there's the millions of others that like kind of tip toe in, or they just don't, you know, press the ad or whatever, you know, but they know that they feel, they know me. And so let's blow me away. Joel (10m 12s): So obviously people ask you what's the secret to successful TikTok account. Is that your answer? Like, oh, just fuck it. Just have fun. Or do you have you learned a few things and a few tips that you could share with the audience? Leigh (10m 24s): Oh, absolutely. And I even have a free digital download. I there's that word again on my website, theHRmanifesto.com because I get a lot of emails. I get a lot of comments. I get a lot. I can't keep up. I'm inundated now, but they asked me that, right? Like I want to do what you do. How can I do that? And so I did put a little something together if anyone wants to go check it out. But for me, what you see across my pages is my true, authentic self. And I think that that speaks pretty clearly and loudly, like this isn't fake. This is me talking to my screen, which is talking to myself. I'm an only child. I have a whole lifetime of just talking to a fucking mirror, you know? Leigh (11m 7s): So, I mean, I was built for this. Right. And it's easy for me to give my opinion because I've literally been paid to do that my entire career and to confidently do it. So it's taken me a back, but just know I never went into it for it to be a thing, but I am so honored and privileged that people enjoy it. I truly am. Chad (11m 26s): Well, let me ask you a question. So for the most part, it looks like your business is focused on consulting for job seekers. Is that correct? Leigh (11m 35s): So I do coaching. So that's the primary part. I've done some business consulting as well. Like some fractional CHRO shit, but it's mostly professional coaching. I think we mostly say an HR or you look at all the LinkedIn pages of coaches up career coaching, but what's fascinating is that the people that come to me primarily, and you'll see, I have this HR triage coaching session available. It's people that are in a bad spot. Right? So it's people that need help crafting an exit strategy on how to get out of that toxic workplace. Or my boss said this, what the hell does that mean? Could you interpret this? I just got on a PIP. Leigh (12m 15s): What does that mean? Right. So it's people kind of in dire straits. It's also a lot of HR professionals that are like, what the fuck do I do? Like literally, what do I do Leigh? I've never, I don't know what this is. What does this mean? But all the, my clients want me to do X. What is that? How do I, ah, right. They come to me, I've never done this role before. How do I even approach it? And so I coach a lot of HR professionals and I coach a lot of people that are struggling in their current work environments or they're looking for new employment. Joel (12m 46s): And is TikTok, the main source of, of those leads and business that you get. Leigh (12m 49s): Honestly, I have no idea. Like, I don't even ask. I'm a shit entrepreneur, I'm a shit business person I so am. So I don't track that. I should, you know, I can't tell one way or the other because of just the volume that's coming in. So I would need to like do a form or something behind the scenes on the website to like actually know. All they say is I've seen your content. Chad (13m 13s): Right. Leigh (13m 13s): And the reality is that I hate, I probably shouldn't say this. I hate IG. I love the people on it. I absolutely love the people on it. Like just the tone, the mood of Instagram is fantastic, but it passed me. Right. Okay. I know I went Facebook. The TikTok I passed everything like in between there from a platform perspective. So all I do is recycle the content on the Instagram. I love how Instagram does stories. And so I'll utilize that. And so people that want to get to know me a little better, they seem to go on Instagram and message me there because I've never had the DMs on, on TikTok. When I started it, I've never turned them on. So no one can reach me that way. Leigh (13m 54s): You can only reach me through email HRmanifesto@gmail.com or through my Instagram. Chad (13m 59s): So the reason I asked about job seekers being the main focus for content is that there are so many fucked up HR people that are out there. And I mean, some of it's their fault and some of it's not their fault because they've been brought up in a fucked up system and they need just common sense and guidance and I mean, the little things like, you know, you were actually giving advice to a job seeker around 4 cents per hour, right. Which is just, it's a rounding error for God's sakes. And if you're an HR person, Jesus Christ, would you quit fucking around and just pay the person for goodness sakes? If that, especially if that makes them feel better. Leigh (14m 38s): Absolutely. Chad (14m 38s): It just seems like we have lost all common fucking sense when it comes to HR. Why has that happened? I mean, you've been in some big brands you've experienced it. Why does that human come out of human resources? Leigh (14m 52s): Yeah. I mean, that kills me too. And it's all just indicative of culture and culture to me is just a collection of behaviors we accept in an organization. Right. And so you start with those high level leaders and guess what they're hiring the HR folks. And so light hires like, right. So if they're sociopathic narcissist for before, and it sucks, you know, they're more likely to hire people that, you know, will follow suit and just be as heartless and shitty as they are. And I mean, we know we cause you know, the three of us, we're all in, you know, the HR profession, we know how the HR field has just gone through, you know, such progression, especially over the last couple of decades, really, right. Leigh (15m 36s): From something more administrative and tactical to now, you know, more strategic and hopefully a value add. But you know, every on that different spectrum, you know, I mean, some folks were an office admin and became an HR professional and other people, they have MBAs and PhDs in this field and area. Right. So, you know, you have a whole competencies spectrum as well. What I love about HR Manifesto or some of the comments that I get that, you know, but people are so open. I love TikTok. Okay. Like TikTok is joy for me. People are so joyful, like 95% of my comments, they are positive as fuck. Leigh (16m 16s): And I just love it. Right. So it's a very like uplifting community. It's an empowering community for me. Whereas, you know, you go to Facebook, the fight in the comments, right. You know what I'm saying? Like you, you got to Facebook to let some steam off, but, but TikTok, you know, people are so great, but you know, the folks that are in the comments and they're like, I fucking hate HR, HR, you know, boy, they, you know, my HR is shit, blah, blah, blah. And then I met you HR Leigh, and then you changed my opinion, Chad (16m 49s): Those luscious lashes. Leigh (16m 50s): Those lashes. Chad (16m 50s): And that great voice in the common sense, which we just don't get. Joel (16m 54s): The face of HR. Leigh (16m 55s): Yeah, no. Oh yeah, yeah. Right. But, but I love that, you know, I mean that boy that brings me so much joy, you know, that I helped somebody realize that, Hey, HR professionals are employees too. That's why it sucks for me to like, you know, I'm suffering too. Fuck. I can't always, you know, influence your leaders, but boy, do I try? I've been fucking fired for it. Shit. I'll go to bat for you. You know, but holy shit, it's not, I'm the decision maker. I'm a support function. And you know, so even just bringing light to just the reality of what even HR is, you know, is so impactful, you know, for my audience, right cause then they know how to partner with them? Leigh (17m 36s): Right. And they know kind of what's going down politically in their organizations. Chad (17m 41s): You just said something. HR is a support function. And I think that's total bullshit. Because it's HR and talent acquisition, a company doesn't, doesn't run without the heartbeat of talent acquisition without the talent that is actually put in those seats without these salespeople, without the developers, without the engineers, without all of those individuals, that company doesn't fucking run. We're not support. We are the heart. We are the engine of every organization. And the problem is we have so many HR people who feel like it's a support function and that's, that's where we get taken aback. And we find ourselves in the fetal position in the corner. How do we get out of that? Leigh (18m 18s): I guess I should've said, I guess I should've said cost center because you know, I feel as on top of the world as HR, I mean, you know, with what I can influence from my leaders, but you know, we're not the core decision makers. We do not, you know, literally you know, the business and that way, you know, it is so hard working in HR to be brave because it's exhausting and it's overwhelming and it takes bravery. It takes fucking courage to be a great HR person. You know, I have been in my leaders faces, you know, I have stood. I stand up if they stand up to me, right. I mean, you have to kind of go to bat sometimes. Leigh (18m 59s): you have to, I'm not, I'm not encouraging, fighting or doing a, you know, Will Smith vs Chis Rock or anything. I can only think of two instances where I even raised my voice, you know, in my professional career. But you know, it's all about leaning in and creating, you know, just really deep partnerships with those clients so that you have that credibility and their respect to where they listen to you, right. To where you can get to a point in your relationship where you're like, that was fucking stupid. And here's why, right. Like you need to get that direct with them to help them improve so that they can effectively lead the business and its people. Leigh (19m 41s): But yeah, HR shit, we're going to be in the fetal position until HR professionals have the courage, you know, to stand up and be brave and, give leaders what they need, not what they want or not, you know? We're not yes sirs and ma'ams You just can't be in this field, right? Joel (19m 56s): Nope. We spend a lot of time in the past couple of years, talking about TikTok as a, I dunno, a tool to find a job almost to the point, even that TikTok has launched efforts to be a job finding center. What's your take on that? And particularly with TikTok resumes and people doing videos, is there a future in that or is it just, you know, kind of fun to talk about, but not real. Leigh (20m 20s): Oh gosh. Where I'm at now, to me, it's fun to talk about, but it's not real. And I hope it doesn't become real because I don't know about y'all, but you know, I've been on the LinkedIn and I say, you know, they ask, oh, do a two minute video, you know? And I'm like, fuck you. I'm not applying to that. You know? I mean, and shit, look at me, I'm a damn content creator that has like 400,000 videos out there or whatever it is. I don't even know. You know? And I, and I look at that and I'm turned off and I actually had that skillset. And that's what I don't like about it is that, gosh, you know, are you hiring for videographers? Are you hiring for cell phone tech people? Are you hiring for social media savvy folks then yeah, I do that as part of your hiring process. Leigh (21m 3s): But if not shit, you want an accountant, why the fuck would you have them go and do that? You know? So I don't think that's, you know, that's worth the time on either side. Imagine having the view that? Y'all as talent acquisition folks, you know what I'm saying? I mean, God, you have to watch 500 videos now for a roll, they're three minutes. It's like, what? I don't know to me, I just don't know that we have time or want that. And you know, I'm pretty old school. Like I, I don't want to apply to anything that's got that, you know, 20 question intake form. I want you to call me and I want to have a real phone screen discussion with you all. That's there where there's reciprocity, you know, and we can establish a relationship. Joel (21m 45s): So you're obviously bearish on TikTok as a job board, if you will. But I've had the contention past couple of years that sites like Glassdoor with employee reviews, where I think we're seeing a lot more people venting on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, I assume you agree. And if so, how should companies monitor, engage with, track things that are being said about them on TikTok? What tips would you give employers to, I guess, monitor what's being said about them? Leigh (22m 14s): Yeah. And you know, I don't know that I so much agree because I've had so many HR professionals reach out to me saying, oh, I've always wanted to do what you do, but I'm not, you know, brave enough or I think it's a conflict of interest or I think it this, or I think it's not. And you know, everything on HR Manifesto. So you'll see. I mean, I use, they're all fake names. Some of the incidents are all based on truth. Okay. But some of them are from my experience or my friend's experience or folks that, you know, things that have happened in my network. Right. You'll, you know, you don't know what's come out of any of my previous employers. I would never name that. And so I'm not the type, although I'll give an example of something. Leigh (22m 57s): I have a recent video where I shared, you know, somebody called me for a job or about a job. And I asked like about their hiring process and it was like 22 plus hours for the fucking hiring process. Chad (23m 11s): Fuck you. Leigh (23m 11s): Fuck you. Right. Oh my God. And I'm like, y'all are fucking tripping. They wanted a six hour case study that was a real call I had. And everyone in the comments, I mean, there's probably like a hundred comments that were like, call them out SIS, come on, queen. Like throw them under the bus. Well, that's not what I'm about because I already taught the lesson to y'all. Right. I already shared that. Hey, ask about the hiring process, ask about the time commitment. That's my goal. My goal isn't to run people through the muck. Right. And, I wouldn't do that to me. That is to me, for my brand and me personally, that that would be unprofessional for me. It works. It works for other people, right? I mean, it's hard not to, you know, look at some of those salacious videos and be like, holy shit. Leigh (23m 52s): You know, whatever brand, I can't believe you did that. But you know, my advice to companies and to brands is that you have to move along with this. So many of them, they want to ignore that this is our reality now. Right? You see that, you know that they, they, they don't want to be on the TikTok. They don't want to be on any social platforms. They just want to keep piling on social media policies, but guess what their employees are on all these platforms. And you can use those employees to help defend you, you know, on social and help promote you on social and recruit for you on social. I mean, this is our reality, you know? Leigh (24m 34s): So Joel (24m 35s): I hope Sherwin-Williams is listening to this. Leigh (24m 36s): Oh right. Oh my goodness. But yeah, lean into it would be my advice. Don't fear it. And if you don't know, or have that capability, then reach out to me, shit, partner with someone like me, that can be like, Hey, brand, you know, gosh, you know, here's what I would do here. And here's how this app works. Right. I mean, they just need to educate themselves and they need to lean into it. You know. Chad (25m 4s): That's right. Don't fear. The HR Manifesto. This is Leigh Elena Henderson, aka HR Manifesto. Leigh, if job seekers or anybody wants to reach out to you to connect, where would you send them? Leigh (25m 14s): Well, you know, exciting things on my side, I redid my website so it doesn't look like shit anymore because the first one, thank you. Chad (25m 22s): It's sexy. Leigh (25m 23s): The first one I did, and I don't know anything about that space. So you can imagine, but you can, you know, head to my website, theHRmanifesto.com. You can email me HRmanifesto@gmail.com. You can DM IG but yeah, anyone is welcome to reach out to me at any time. Chad (25m 43s): Excellent. Joel (25m 45s): Another one in the can, baby. Chad and Cheese (25m 47s): We out. OUTRO (26m 33s): 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 always a bigger fish. And with the recent acquisition of GoodHire, Checkr - valued at $4.6 billion - shows that it's got an appetite worthy of great white shark status. (Sterling, you have been warned.) And speaking of warnings, freeloaders on Talent.com should know there are no more free lunches on the Montreal-based job board. Canadians aren't so generous after all it seems. Next up, we talk a little remote work, and some recent LinkedIn data, a Google shopping spree, and how white men just can't say no to going back to the office. White men can't jump either, but that's a different podcast. Lastly, like most weeks, it's all about OnlyFans. The episode so nice, you might listen to it twice. 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 (20s): Oh yeah. Our long national nightmare is over. Chad is back in America, at least until he goes back to Europe in a couple of weeks. Hi kids. You're tuned into the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "living in America" Cheeseman. Chad (37s): This is Chad "back home in Indiana" Sowash. Joel (42s): And on this week's show you better Checkr yourself before you wreckr yourself. talent.com says gas, grass or ass. No one rides for free. And LinkedIn says remote work is where it's at, but Google says not so fast as well as white guys. Can you dig it? I knew that you could. Welcome back Dreams of you. What's up Chad? Chad (1m 7s): Welcome back Kotter. I love it. I got to say, I am excited to be back home. Believe it or not. My house, my bed, my dogs, an American washer and dryer, which is hard to find if you can. Yeah, if you can, in Europe. And I also found a bottle of single malt scotch from our buddy Oras Al-Kubaisi, the founder of jobdescription.ai. He was actually just on a pitch up presentation with myself and Louise over at UK recruiter. And this is the thanks I get. So thanks. Oras loved me a little 14 year old Balvenie aged in Caribbean Cask. Joel (1m 46s): Very nice. And how's, how's your keto Kaylin doing? Is he all right? Your health center. Chad (1m 50s): Wonderful, man, I can't, I can't get a better setup. That's all I got to say Joel (1m 55s): Time in Columbus, Indiana. What could possibly be better? The only thing better would be some shout outs. Chad (2m 1s): Amen. Joel (2m 1s): I'm going to go first. Shout out to Quincy, the queen of chatbots, Valencia, she's got a new gig, Chad. This is from a share on LinkedIn quote "I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as VP and research director, human capital management at Ventana Research. I'll be covering the entire vertical of HCM technology as an analyst for the firm. And I couldn't have joined at a more exciting time" end quote. Q was having a great year also you can remember she was named the 2022 influential woman in RPO. God she's winning #bigtime. I don't know who the hell have been Ventana Research is and apparently I should. Joel (2m 41s): So she's got to hit up my calendly and educate me on Ventana Research. Cause if I don't know them, they can't be that big a deal. Chad (2m 49s): She's been an RPO for way too long. She just launched Hourly what like 18, 24 months ago, something like that. I mean, there's been a lot going on not to mention, you know, she's making these lists so on and so forth. So good for her. This is awesome. Again, ride that wave while you're on top. Joel (3m 6s): Maybe ride it, ride it hard, Chad (3m 9s): Ride it. Oh, my first shout out is going to be fun. It's to Signal AI. It's a company who says they transform decision-making through augmented intelligence. That sounds important. They published an article entitled McKinsey in the top five companies for positive gender pay gap perception. Yes perception, not outcomes, not reality, but perception. So as you read the article, you start to understand that Signal AI is actually demonstrating right out in the open. We're starting to see a lot of this nowadays, how companies with deep pockets like Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Johnson and Johnson and Meta are using PR firms and spending cash to buy articles and perception. Chad (4m 0s): Not real outcomes aKA, you might remember this Cambridge Analytica. I couldn't believe they published this out in the open. So shout out to, to companies who act like they give a shit and really don't, that was sarcasm by the way. Joel (4m 17s): Yeah, everyone's doing it. Chad, is this the, is this the PR that Facebook had against TikTok that they were producing articles, anti-TikTok articles or is this something totally different? Chad (4m 27s): No, this is all around pay gap. Being able to, these big companies that I named are seeing positive perception in the market because of the number of articles that they're actually showing up in. Not because they're actually doing anything to be able to drive real outcomes, to start paying women, what white guys are getting paid, but the perception that they're doing something. It's all disinformation again, AKA Cambridge Analytica, just in a new wrapped form. Joel (4m 58s): Gotcha. Well, I'm going to continue my win streak in my shutouts and give a big shout out to Jobcase. Chad (5m 4s): Nice. Joel (5m 5s): LinkedIn for people who aren't on LinkedIn, for those who don't know they're on permanent offense, apparently you'll remember that recently the acquired our friends at Recruitology, also a sponsor and hired friend of Chad and Cheese Michael O'Dell we'll add another solid hire to the roster. Per Business Insider Jobcase has hired Paw Anderson, which is a great name as its chief technology officer, especially a guy named Paw as your chief technology officer doesn't get any better than that. Prior to Jobcase, Paw served as CTO for Metro Mile and spent many years in senior leadership at various tech companies, including ones you may have heard of Chad Uber and Groupon. Joel (5m 45s): At Uber he grew his team from 27 to 700 at a time when Uber was filling up to 10,000 new driver jobs a day. Chad (5m 54s): Wow. Joel (5m 54s): Can you say IPO, Chad, shout out to Jobcase and the winning with the big hire. Chad (5m 60s): Yeah. And just so that everybody understands, it's not Paw it's Paw it's P-a-w, right? Joel (6m 6s): Oh yeah. Like a Beverly hillbillies kind of shit. Chad (6m 11s): Like a paw. That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. Okay. So mine and my next shout out, I got to get your response from this because this is kind of interesting to me. So a tweet from the CEO of Zero to HOD, I have no clue. That's one of the worst names ever, but anyway, Joel (6m 27s): Another great name. Yeah. Chad (6m 28s): Here's the quote "We are running a fun health program at @zerodhaonline. Anyone on our team with BMI <25 gets half a month's salary as bonus. The avg BMI of our team is 25.3 & if we can get to <24 by Aug, everyone gets another ½ month as a bonus. It'd be fun to compete with other companies." Now there there's more, there are more tweets, but I'm going to stop there. So your thoughts on bonus by BMI what do you think about that? Joel (7m 4s): And BMI for the layman is Chad (7m 7s): Body mass index. Joel (7m 9s): Okay. Something I'm not real familiar with, obviously. Julie and, I have this conversation, your wife semi-regularly in that why aren't chubby/obese people part of DEI conversation To me, this sort of underscores the bias that the world has against fat people. And I think it's shitty. So I want to start a new trend of putting chubby people in the conversation of DEI and be in some form or fashion. Can, Julie can make that happen? Chad (7m 42s): You're not answering my question. My question is, what do you think about people getting a bonus because of their BMI? Joel (7m 49s): I think it's probably going to be a trend that we see. We talked to a startup recently that incentivize people to wear ora rings or Apple watches. And if they stay healthier, they obviously get rewarded for such healthy behaviors. It certainly costs the company less if people aren't in terms of healthcare costs and things like that. But I do think it is probably going to be something that happens, but I'm not sure that it's a good thing. Chad (8m 19s): As Americans, we're an obese nation. We need to do something about it. But the question is, is that the role of your company. Joel (8m 26s): Depends on the company. I guess. Chad (8m 27s): It's really hard, but I, I see body shaming perspectively happening. When can you imagine getting taped doing BMI or something like that? Anyway, I thought it was interesting just because the conversation itself, as you brought up before, and we've talked about before. we've never talked about BMI and that in itself is more slated to a person's body and their shape. But I don't know, this is a real hard conversation to have. Joel (8m 55s): It sounds like prejudice to me. It's just not what we typically think of as prejudice. Let's keep the winning ways with my shout outs going. This one is to podcast sponsor ThisWay Global another company that seemingly doing everything right announced this week that they aim to be the Stripe of HR tech. For those that don't know, Stripe is a payment software that people plug in and you probably use quite a bit when you buy stuff online. So how so are they going to accomplish this? Well they've partnered with IBM to streamline integrations for vendors into platforms such as Workday and Salesforce, and according to them any more coming now, instead of building on multiple platforms, companies, vendors, startups, et cetera, can build once on ThisWay Global and plug right into multiple platforms like Workday. Joel (9m 48s): That applause, you hear all the startups who hate building multiple integrations, by the way, this way's latest crowdfunding round is almost over at Wefunder. They're almost at $1.5 million disclosure. I own a little piece. Chad (10m 3s): A little piece. Joel (10m 4s): I'm getting my beak a little wet, maybe. So if you want to get on that time is the window is closing on that one over at Wefunder. But ThisWay Global is doing some good stuff. And I love the idea is how many startups have we talked to that hate building multiple integrations, getting into multiple sandboxes, paying multiple fees, multiple development, this way it's a one-stop shop into multiple platforms. So I think it's pretty cool that they're taking this initiative on. Chad (10m 30s): I think it's cool, but this is all going to be about execution. Period. We've heard so many companies talk about integrations and being the one-stop shop for integrations. It's never happened. So if they can pull this off and I mean, no, this is fucking blue chip style right here, but it's about execution. So I'm going to sit back, watch and get the popcorn for this one. Joel (10m 52s): Yeah. It'll be fun. Fun to watch for sure. Chad (10m 55s): Yeah. Last one for me. Don't miss this week's firing squad with Sean over at RecruitCRM. The guy has chops, but can RecruitmentCRM help fill the recruitment marketing automation gap? You'll have to listen going to chadcheese.com and click on firing squad or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Joel (11m 16s): Let's say one of my favorite episodes of firing squad of the year so far, although we're not very far in the year, it was a good time. Chad (11m 23s): Not that we're giving away our grade or anything. Joel (11m 28s): Speaking of exciting launches, Chad, our friends at recruitmentmarketing.com. It's open for business. Tons of good content, site looks great. Congratulations to them on a job well done. If you liked reading some good stuff, digesting some good content, get your ass to recruitmentmarketing.com. Chad (11m 45s): Yeah. And if you like James Ellis and you like recruitment marketing, he's got version two of talent chooses you. The audio version that is available there at recruitmentmarketing.com as well. So go check it out. Joel (11m 58s): Yep. And speaking of like, and winning Chad and we got. Chad (12m 3s): And free. Joel (12m 3s): And free sure. And we got some new whiskey and beer winners. sfx (12m 10s): Oh yeah. Joel (12m 11s): Nick Bradford. Remember Nicholas Bradford from Eight is Enough in the seventies. Sorry. I brought up another old time 80s shows. So Nick Bradford at VONC is our whiskey winner. sfx (12m 21s): Hell yeah! Joel (12m 21s): And also our free beer winner this month is Tim Warsaw from Hashi Corp. No, they're not a drug dealer. It's they do something. But anyway, HashiCorp and VONC represented this this month on free whiskey and beer. So congratulations. Congratulations to everyone. That's going around the sun for another year. Those people celebrating birthdays this coming week. We've got fans of the show. Amanda Hite, Lauren Berger, AKA the intern queen, Brian Moore, Carrie Noon, fan favorite, Berry Doctor, which sounds like a porn name or something but that is her name, I guess, Jonathan Godzilla, Duate, Mendoca, and Rick Kramer all celebrate birthdays. Joel (13m 12s): So have one on us. sfx (13m 13s): Happy Birthday! Joel (13m 13s): Another trip around the sun. Chad (13m 13s): It is a good life. And as you have a trip around the sun, well, why don't you have a trip to Belgium? Because that's where we're going to be. We're going to be in Belgium the first week in May at the Erecruitment Congress. I'm sure you heard about it. If you're in Europe and you're not registered for the Belgium event, go get it done. We're going to be there. Let's have some drinks. Let's let's listen to some good content. And after that, we're going to be flying to Vegas. That's right kids for Unleash, where we're going to be on the main stage with E O C commissioner Keith Sonderling talking about AI, hiring. Chad (13m 55s): He's going to be able to talk about just the compliance pieces of it. What is going to get you kicked in the nuts when it comes to AI and hiring? Well, you know what are you doing bad? What kind of guidance can they provide? It should be a good time. Joel (14m 10s): All roads lead back to chadcheese.com. If you want free stuff, you go to chadcheese.com/free. If you want to know where we're going, you go to chadcheese.com/events. Chad (14m 22s): No it's not! Joel (14m 24s): What is it? Travel. Chad (14m 24s): Just have them click on something. You make things to goddamn hard. Just Chadcheese.com. Click on free, click on events. There you go. TOPICS! sfx (14m 41s): fluffy unicorn song Joel (14m 43s): All right. Should I let's start with Checkr. Checkr announced this acquisition, its acquisition of Redwood City based Inflection in a deal worth $400 million, that's according to the Wall Street Journal. The 16 year old company was valued at just 30 million in a secondary deal last year, that's according to PitchBook. The transaction marks Checkr's largest acquisition to date and is a critical part of its expansion strategy and its fastest growing small to midsize business segment, San Francisco based Checkr, which emerged nearly eight years ago, as part of Y Combinator summer 2014, batch of startups processes more than 30 million background checks per year. This is one unicorn with one hell of an appetite Chad, what are your thoughts on Checkr writing some pretty big checks? Chad (15m 29s): Writing some checks. Well, it's pretty important to note that these HR back office outsourcing segments are so flush with cash that Inflection was started in 2006, they've taken $30 million in funding that was back in 2010. This is well before cash was being handed out like cheese sandwiches at Phish concerts. It's easy to get cash let's just say that. Anyway, this is a great competitor consolidation move by Checkr with the position really of Good Hire, who boasts a hundred thousand customers and they are focused on the small business side of the house. Chad (16m 9s): Inflection also gives Checkr solid APIs for somewhat instant background checking to integrate into HR platforms as well. What's the safest bet in TA HR platforms today it's back office outsource SAAS platforms like Checkr and Good Hire. So Checkr is mustering the troops to continue to take massive market share from heavy hitters like Sterling who's about 500 million in revenue where Checkr's about half that today. This is exciting to me because this is not an exciting space because background checks are boring as fuck, but nobody wants to do them. And you've got to love that there are two great domains that are actually a part of this too. Chad (16m 55s): inflection.com and goodhire.com. Would you, would you take the misspelled Checkr and move it and move it to Good Hire? Or would you just leave it where it's at? Joel (17m 3s): I'm an old school guy who loved Flicker. So every time I see Checkr, I think of the old Flicker. So you know what, whatever I think the Checkr brand is probably gonna stick around for a while. My question is, are they going to buy Fama or what? I mean, come on Ben Monez must be one hell of a negotiator. They need to add some background, check on social media to their portfolio. Okay. So Checkr has evaluation of $4.6 billion and, and Sterling, you mentioned a public company and the 800 pound gorilla has a $2.4 billion valuation currently. What does that tell you? Chad, either either buy some Sterling stock because it's way under valued or Checkr has some serious growth, aspirations and acquisitions are the best way to achieve that said growth. Joel (17m 50s): Seriously. If you own a background company with any customers, call the folks at Checkr today because they're in a serious acquisition mode to satisfy their lofty valuation. And they've got a checkbook with a lot of checks. Chad (18m 3s): Yes. Joel (18m 4s): So it'll be fun to get them to talking about their acquisitions. And I'm pretty sure that our European show, at some point we'll have some Checkr acquisitions in Europe. So background checks made fun thanks to big checks. Chad (18m 20s): Yeah. Thanks to nobody having to do them. They're automated through Checkr. Joel (18m 25s): Yes, that's right. Small business, big business doesn't matter. Doesn't matter to a lot of people are the people posting jobs for free on our friends at talent.com Chad. The artist formerly known as new view.com is scrapping free job listings. This is from our friends at Aim the company said it was making changes to its posted job product whose beta model was launched last year in order to improve the caliber of applicants. We got to blame the applicants Chad, the Canada based job board added that it was no longer accepting free job postings immediately. Free job postings already on the platform will remain until active until April 25th, right around the corner before being automatically paused. Joel (19m 11s): The company has gradually transitioning from predefined payment packages to a maximum budget per job model changes will be phased in over the coming weeks. Stop me if you've heard this one before. The free lunch is over. Chad, what are your thoughts? Chad (19m 27s): Yeah, the question is this quality over quantity or is it job board over aggregator? Or is it just, Hey, we're in a time of need and all of you guys need to start paying for the service. So that was a question that I actually asked to Lucas over at talent.com co-CEO. And this is his response "When we launched New VU in 2011, we did not start with a PPC model. And after changing six times our business model, until we had something that scaled. It's in our DNA to break walls, until we get something that will satisfy us. We are learning every day, we have all the right elements to make it happen, but we felt we needed to focus on quality/results for our candidates and employers at the smaller scale before we scale worldwide and maybe reintroduce free postings as well," Chad (20m 23s): end quote. So again, they're a moving target, right? It's like, whatever's going to work and we're going to try things out, right? This is the market where they're obviously making money hand over fist. I don't know anybody in their space that's not making money hand over fist so they can pretty much do whatever they want and they are. Joel (20m 44s): So I have three letters for you. I, P and O. Let's go over the checklist Chad. Spend millions on a URL check, raise $120 million check. Employ 400 people, one of which is a high profile CFO. Check. Open in 78 countries in 29 languages check. Now it's increase the revenue and clean out some of the crap check. Chad (21m 10s): Yeah. Joel (21m 10s): They are now the number seven traffic job site in the world, up from number 35, just two years ago. That's according to some AME reporting. To me, it's all prepped for the public markets, but I do think the spin on quality is true. 20 years ago, Craigslist started charging a small amount to post jobs just to keep out the spam. It worked then and it probably still works today. But to me, this is all about profitability. Getting the dollars up before we walked down Wall Street. Chad (21m 41s): Yes. Do you think this is going to harm their traffic at all? Having less content, being able to search engine, optimize, having a smaller footprints, those types of things. Do you think that will hurt traffic? Joel (21m 55s): I don't think so. Particularly if, if the jobs were crappy, if know, no one wants to be looked at as a cesspool of crap, you know, it's like going to go into a search engine back in the day and all the site that it linked to were junk. You just, you just kind of stopped using the search engine. And so I think having quality is the right idea. I don't know if part of the plan is backfill, programmatically partnering with somebody that can fill in jobs and make money on the clicks that way. But yeah, I don't think having quality is ever a bad thing. And I think too many job boards in our space sacrifice quality for the almighty dollar. And I think then talent.com is just in a position now where they have so much traffic, so many users, they have such a big footprint that they can afford to start trimming the fat and just having quality on the site. Joel (22m 46s): So I think they're doing everything right. Chad (22m 49s): Yes. The more polite indeed is being more polite in saying, pay for this shit. Joel (22m 52s): They didn't take our advice on that. We said it should be like really big on the homepage. The nice indeed, listen to us. And hopefully they didn't listen to us, but hopefully people are going to listen to the advertisements from our sponsors because that's how we pay the bills people. We'll be right back. Chad (23m 9s): It's like Botox, Joel (23m 11s): What's a Botox. And how do you pronounce this guy? Jobox jobbox Chad (23m 16s): Jobox Botox. Yeah, job box. I would say that's what I would go with. But Joel (23m 22s): Do you remember Joboxer from back of the day, the underwear company? So this company is kind of cool, but the new summary is Jobox a company that provides marketplace infrastructure for home service professionals is raised $42 million in a Series B round bringing the grand total to $56.7 million. The company founded in 2018 has offices in Florida and Palo Alto. They offer professionals such as locksmiths, carpet cleaners, and plumbers, a mobile based operating system that lets them manage their businesses from their homes. The platform also includes a marketplace infrastructure that lets them search for jobs that match their schedule, skills and location. I think of it as a private label TaskRabbit or Thumbtack, and instead of paying for leads, blue collar pros only pay when they get paid. Joel (24m 10s): Chad any thoughts on Jobox? Chad (24m 14s): That's the difference between this and Angie's list now, Angie? HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack? I mean, other than paying a chunk of what you make, right? I mean Angie's list. I mean, those are the ones that I mentioned. Yep. You're pretty much pay to play. Right? You're you're paying for a posting. So will the services, businesses need this platform? That's the big question. Joel (24m 33s): Yeah. So I read this and thought, what the hell do these guys do? So I kinda, I went to YouTube and watch some videos and it's pretty cool. So this is an industry that represents like $600 billion of opportunity. So it's a huge space to have a lot of different options. How I read that is, and there's a story about it on YouTube, about a company that's a customer. And this company has these kiosks that make keys, right? I don't know if you've got an ACE hardware or Kroger? Lowe's you don't go to Kroger anymore. But if you went to a whatever grocery store and you put in a key, then it makes a key equal to your house key or whatever. Joel (25m 16s): So this company was getting calls from people about, I need a locksmith, which makes perfect sense, right? We make custom keys and people are calling us about locksmiths, but that wasn't their business. So this company, I think it's called Minute Key. If you go to their website, there's a link that says locksmiths. And it's a whole like private label, white label site where people can schedule locksmiths and it's based on their location. And then, so basically Jobox is powering all the technology to put these contractors on the jobs for locksmith. So they're basically going to businesses that provide services and then find themselves needing other services that they don't provide and this enables them to have the middleman, to get the contractor to the work and they can step out of it and, and not have to worry about it. Joel (26m 12s): So, whereas TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, et cetera, that's direct to customer from Thumbtack. And what Jobox says is like, they pay a lot of money on leads that they get. And sometimes you obviously don't get the job in their business model. You always get the job and then you get paid when, you know, when the service gets done. So again, I don't know a hell of a lot about plumbing and this whole world, but I think if I were a plumber, this would be a place I would want to set up shop to get jobs, to come to me. I'd be in every other platform as well. But I think this is a really interesting take on bringing contractors, blue collar folks and customers together. Anyway. Chad (26m 48s): You don't understand that plumbers. The only reason I do is because I live next door to one. And if I'm a plumber, a locksmith or any type of craftsmen today, I don't need leads. Hell. My phone is ringing off the fucking wall as it is. My texts are blowing up. I believe this is a great model just not for an industry that's already in demand. As a business owner why give Job Box any of my money when people, they they've got too much business, they're actually sharing it with competitors. So, I think it's interesting because you have big names like Angie, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack in this space. Chad (27m 30s): But I came home and my refrigerator, my ice maker in the refrigerator, it was broken. So what did I do? I didn't even think I just went straight to Google and put in refrigerator repair. Right. And that's where I found my person. So from my standpoint, they're going against Angie, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Jobber, and Fusi, which is a numb two other platforms that are just like them. And they're competing with Google. So I personally don't think that an in demand industry, like this needs a quote unquote, "Uber for service industry." Joel (28m 8s): So Minute Key, this business has, they can either say, okay, you need a locksmith go to Thumbtack. We don't do that. Or they can say, okay, yeah, we provide that service, go sign up and yada, yada yada. And that builds their brand and hopefully client loyalty, et cetera. So you can at least see from their point of view, we're having a private label kind of solution beats, Hey, go to TaskRabbit. If you want that. We don't. Chad (28m 29s): Okay. So where does that even fit in? Because you're using this one hypothetical situation. Joel (28m 33s): It was the only one on YouTube. Chad (28m 36s): Of course it is because it's the only one that works when my fucking, when my plumbing goes down, is there, you know, a sticker on my pipes that say? Joel (28m 44s): Toilet makers that have people call them for plumbing stuff. I'm sure there are like. Chad (28m 49s): They do plumbing, Joel (28m 50s): But the company makes toilets. They don't do plumbing. They don't fix plumbing. They'll make your, Chad (28m 56s): I think, I think you, you were buying into a fringe incident. Joel (28m 59s): I don't think so, Chad. Chad (28m 60s): Yeah, I think so. Joel (29m 2s): And based on their investment, I can give you 42 million or 56.7 million reasons why it might be Chad (29m 6s): How many dumb asses are spending money in the market right now. You fucking kidding me. It's so bloated and crazy. Joel (29m 13s): Speaking of the dumb asses, let's go to the whole remote question. Cause we tackled that last week and it's still a thing apparently. Clearly LinkedIn thinks this is going to be a thing that's going to be here to stay. So LinkedIn reported this week, that remote jobs received 50% of the applications in February, despite representing less than 20% of the jobs posted. Let me read that again. 50% of the applicants and only 20% of the jobs. Companies eager to bring back workers to the office can risk losing them all together. The report states, if they don't offer remote options, Chad, you love data. And I love LinkedIn and the data says remote wins. You gotta be pretty happy about this I think. Chad (29m 53s): Yeah. We talked about this last week with Google boiling the frog, I think employers will promote and promise remote and hybrid work while slowly dialing it back as the labor market changes. And then when they start to gain control, well, it's all gonna change, right? So I don't see this as a long-term situation. Unfortunately. Now, some individuals like maybe developers or what have you, they might get an opportunity to stay out of the office, but I don't think it's going to be as big as we hope it will be. Joel (30m 26s): Are you saying a click and bait situation? Chad (30m 29s): Yes. Joel (30m 30s): Bait and switch, not clicking bait clickbait bait and switch. Chad (30m 31s): Yep. Joel (30m 32s): Everybody put remote in your job postings and you're going to have a lot more applications, even though you don't really mean it. And as you bring up Google, Chad boiling the frog. I got some more stuff that you're gonna, like Google said this week that they plan to open a new office in Atlanta. And will also make investments in a number of existing corporate hubs throughout Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington. They're doubling down on back to work. Google in recent years has been expanding its New York operations at a particularly quick pace. So I guess Google is smarter than everyone else, Chad Chad (31m 5s): Case and point. I mean they're showing what the strategy is, they're saying something and they're doing something entirely different. Joel (31m 14s): Yeah. Great point. And I'll add that Time magazine had a great article this week basically saying that white men are the only ones that want to go back to work. Apparently we have a pension for 1950s mad men scenarios and think thanks for all Don Draper, but it was a great article if you get a chance to see it. I do think hubris has maybe set in on Google when you've been told for 20 years that you're the smartest person in the room, you tend to believe it. And it reminded me also of the story that we read about people just being on Zoom calls when they do go back to the office. So I think Google is taking a real risk here by doubling down on brick and mortar office space and really risk having a, some sort of a dystopian workplace environment that really cuts down their brand equity as time goes on. Joel (32m 6s): Hubris tends to get all of us and we all pay for it eventually. Google is probably no exception. Chad (32m 14s): Yeah. I think, I think we're missing a main or the main reason why most companies, remember only 8% of the fortune 500 have a female CEO, remember that. That most companies are run by men and for a hundred plus years we've come into the office. So remote is outside the comfort zone of male leaders who got into leadership in the office. This is a total comfort zone and control issue. Guys, mainly white guys, but guys have been in charge. And part of keeping a power structure is control, which is hard to do physically in a remote environment. Chad (32m 56s): So men are uncomfortable with the thought of losing power. And that's why I believe even though remote has proven to work, this means getting back into the office ASAP. Relating once again to last week's Google and Laszlo Bock story on boiling the frog, this comes down to control and we keep talking about how, you know, white dudes are just dudes keep talking about, well, it's all about culture and we can't have a culture without being together. What they really mean is, this is uncomfortable for me. I need to maintain control. Joel (33m 31s): White guys are just the worst. Them and their electric bicycles. Hey, can you fade us out with some DJ Sol on this one? We're gonna pay some bills and come right back. sfx (33m 55s): music Joel (33m 55s): Chad, would it be a show without an OnlyFan story? Oh yeah, baby. Forget about the iCIMS IPO. Chad and Cheese fav OnlyFans is eyeing the public markets. This from Axios OnlyFan's has held talks with multiple blank check companies or specs, Google it if you need to, about a merger to take it public. The platform has millions of users and pays out billions to creators. But investors have stayed away because of its pornographic reputation. At one point it promised to ban adult content. You remember that, don't you Chad? Yeah, but the community rebelled getting them to reverse course. Joel (34m 35s): Anyway, they're hoping a spec could take them public. One spack, whose team includes Shaquille O'Neal NBA great as an advisor, ultimately couldn't get past the porn so far. No speck is biting. So OnlyFans wants to reposition itself less as a porn platform and more as a place for fans to connect directly with creators. Like a combination of Patreon and TikTok. Yeah. Good luck with that. Chad can OnlyFans shed it's naughty rep and find some love on Wall Street or is it forever banned to the back alley? Chad (35m 7s): I don't know why they want to go IPO in the first place. I mean, did Craigslist go IPO? They had a crazy amount of people on staff. I think it was like 50. Right? And they're making what? 500 million to a billion dollars. Joel (35m 24s): It's a lot. Yeah. They're projected at 2.5 billion this year. Chad (35m 28s): And again, this to me just feels greedy more than anything else. Be who you are, provide safe places for, you know, sex workers, women, men, whoever the fuck they are to do what they do and make money. Right. And provide better tech, provide better experiences. All those things. You can do that without going IPO. This to me is nothing more than greed or a badge? Right about I was able to IPO. So fucking what, how much money is enough money at this point? And that's the issue? Joel (36m 6s): How many yachts can you, water-ski behind to quote, Gordon Gekko Chad (36m 8s): How many lines of code can you do? You know, I mean, I just don't get it. Joel (36m 14s): Greed's a hell of a drug, Chad and Craig Newmark is an interesting cat. So according to an internal pitch deck compiled at the end of March 21 and attained by Axios, the company anticipated $1.2 billion in 2021 revenue in $2.5 billion in 2022, you can do the math on what 2023 probably looks like. OnlyFans creators have been paid a total of $3.2 billion with around 16,000 earning at least $50,000 annually. If it doesn't go public, it may just have to settle being the most valuable private company since Purdue pharma, who was also in the addiction business. And with that Chad another week is in the books. Joel (36m 55s): Glad to have you back in the USA, baby. Chad (37m 0s): Good to be here. Chad and Cheese (37m 2s): And we out OUTRO (37m 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. 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.

Who doesn't love a good David vs. Goliath story? That's why we invited RecruitCRM to come onto Firing Squad. This cocky startup run by Sean Mallapurkar thinks it can actually put a dent in Bullhorn's armor and grab a big piece of the staffing CRM business worldwide. Is there bark bigger than their bite, or should Bullhorn and the like be shaking in their boots? Gotta listen to find out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. Shark Tank 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. What's up everybody? It's time for another Firing Squad. It's your favorite podcast, the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel Cheeseman, joined as always by Chad Sowash. And today our latest victim is recruitcrm.io. We welcome Sean Mallapurkar, I said that wrong I'm sure. Sean (45s): No, you did it right. Joel (46s): CEO of the company, Sean, welcome to firing squad. Give us the correct pronunciation and I'm just going to call you Sean for the rest of the show. Sean (54s): Yeah, so my real given name is Shoanak Mallapurkar Joel (60s): That's fancy. Chad (1m 1s): That's pretty fancy. That's pretty fancy. It's a much more fancy than Joel Cheeseman or Chad Sowash. Excellent. Well, Sean, give us a little background about you. Who is Sean? You like long walks on the beach? What do you do? Joel (1m 17s): Give us some backhand undergrad. Sean (1m 19s): Yeah, I'll go back pretty early. I was born in Mumbai in India. Dad, was in the Indian army in the anti-terrorist squad. So growing up, we lived pretty close to the border a lot. Moved, switched 10 schools throughout high school. I did robotics in like 9th and 10th grade was on the Indian national robot Olympics team because we were national champions. Chad (1m 45s): Oh, nice. Sean (1m 45s): Played a lot of squash. I was on the under 17 and under 19, Asia Squash Federation ranking list. Joel (1m 52s): Is robotics pretty popular with the ladies? That's what I want to know. Sean (1m 56s): No, fuck. No, fuck. No. Chad (1m 59s): Yeah. I know he went from robotics to HR and talent acquisition and staffing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Sean (2m 6s): So HR was always in our life. So growing up from the time I was five till I was a teenager, dad was a India country manager for a company called Randstad. Chad (2m 16s): I've heard of them. Joel (2m 17s): Yes. Little company. Yeah. Sean (2m 19s): Cool. And then he ran the India business for a payroll company called ADP. And then that's sort of how we got into the ATS business. So I, and my dad co-founded with troop CRM five years ago and not just his bribe to get me back to India. Joel (2m 33s): And you're an Indiana/Stanford grad. Sean (2m 37s): No that was a summer program in high school. Joel (2m 39s): So you're in Indiana grad. Sean (2m 41s): Yes. And Indiana grad. Joel (2m 42s): Okay. Well, we like that. We like that. Chad, tell him what he's won by being on firing squad today. Chad (2m 49s): Oh, Sean, you will have two minutes to pitch recruitcrm.io. At the end of two minutes, you will hear that bell and then Joel and I will hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If answers are droning and you're getting boring, Joel's going to hit you with the crickets, which means tighten up your damn game. Joel (3m 7s): Move along, move along. Chad (3m 8s): At the end of Q and A you will receive one of these three ratings from Joel and myself, big applause. I'm feeling a little horny. That's right. We might have a unicorn in the making. Golf clap. It's cute like, a miniature horse, and going to need a lot of changes to be able to gallup with the unicorns. Last, but never leaves the firing squad. You certainly won't be joining the unicorn herd with this Philly call Sarah McLaughlin because this horse needs a new home or just to be put to sleep. Are you Sean (3m 43s): Yes, I am. Joel (3m 43s): All right, Sean, in three two. Sean (3m 48s): So, Hey guys, Recruit CRM is an ATS and CRM system, which is basically an applicant tracking system and a customer relationship management system for recruitment agencies. We've been around a little over five years. We serve 800 customers in 78 countries and we're sort of the highest rated recruitment agency ATS on Gartner, Capterra, G2 software advice and every other major software review website out there with over 150 reviews. And this is sort of because of our amazing customer service. Our average response time is like 73 seconds across like a thousand plus chats that come in every month. And more importantly, our product does everything a recruitment agency needs. The smallest customers we have are small agencies with a couple of folks, the biggest heads over 150. Sean (4m 33s): We've sort of just signed up Hayes for their Europe operations. Hayes is one of the largest recruitment firms on the planet. And some of the reasons they pick us is because we're sort of an all-in-one shop. We help you do reporting. We help you record calls with candidates and clients and store them on the platform. We help you record your emails, the emails your other colleagues are sending out. We help you visualize your sales pipeline and recruitment pipelines on Kanban boards. So you can sort of see cards of how candidates are going through different stages or deals are moving through different stages. And then for free with the click of a button, we help you send those Kanban boards to your clients. So they, without having to pay for anything can click on a link, move candidates across stages in the recruitment process and like give you live feedback. Sean (5m 19s): So we're all in one recruitment agency software system, like an operating system for recruitment agencies. We've grown from zero to over $3 million in annual recurring revenue with zero funding making over a million bucks a year, this year in free cash flow. And that's us, that's our story. Joel (5m 39s): All right, Sean, you have 800 customers. Sean (5m 44s): Yeah. Joel (5m 45s): You're making money And your domain is recruitcrm.io. Can you not gather up enough funds to buy the.com? Like what's going on with that? Chad (5m 55s): It's available. Sean (5m 55s): We probably could. It's just that like all, all our SEO credit stuff is built now on the IO. Because when we, when we did go to buy it, this was like five bucks and we just bought it and the other one was already owned by somebody else. And we didn't want to waste time, like trying to get like a dealer. Joel (6m 12s): 301 redirects. We can work on that. Recruit CRM? Do you think that name sort of hinders your growth into other things? Do you worry about being pigeonholed by only being a CRM? Sean (6m 26s): We only ever wanted to be a CRM, right? So long-term strategy is sort of not just to be an ATS and CRM system, but extended within the staffing domain to let people do contract work or management, time sheets and so on, which is sort of part of recruit CRM and then go back and do like building a second product, which would probably be a payroll product or something that plugs in. Joel (6m 46s): You're fine being in the box is what you're saying. You're fine being in that box. Got it. Sean (6m 53s): Yeah. Chad (6m 53s): Yeah. Jumping back to that real quick CRM and ATS are probably the most boring relic terms in this, in this industry today. We have so many more technologies that are achieving unicorn status, and they're trying to actually separate themselves from being a quote unquote CRM or ATS. Sean (7m 15s): Sure. Chad (7m 15s): Do you see yourself actually pivoting away and trying to get away from the. Sean (7m 21s): No. Chad (7m 21s): So you just, the boring in relic terms to you are something that you want to embrace moving forward, Joel (7m 28s): He likes the box, Chad. Sean (7m 29s): Let me explain this. Right. There's a lot of that unbundling on the non-agency side, right? We work exclusively with recruitment agencies, with the exception of a couple of companies, like Volkswagen that use us to recruit self-driving car engineers for Lamborghini and Porsche and so on. But in general, we work with recruitment agencies and they need a system of record, which is basically one main system that they go to work and spend three hours a day on. Our average user spends three hours a day on Recruit CRM. So we're not like one of their tools in their tool kit. We are the main like mothership and then everything else, like sort of plugs into us through APIs or Zapier. Chad (8m 7s): Right. So you're the core platform, the system of record. So being the boring piece, everybody needs boring is what you're saying. Sean (8m 16s): Yeah, exactly. Chad (8m 17s): Okay. So give me some ideas. How many employees do you guys have? Sean (8m 22s): We have 53 today. We'll be hiring 42 over the next few months. Chad (8m 26s): Nice. Where are they all located? Are they across the globe? Are they remote? Are they in a single location? Where we at? Sean (8m 33s): They're all remote, but right now they're all remote just across India because of the cost advantage here. But off the 42, 43 hires we're making in the next three months, we're making a bunch in Latin America because we have a lot of customers there and we need, you know, Spanish, native Spanish and Portuguese speaking folks. And also folks that don't have to work like in India. We have folks that work night shifts to cover north America and Latin America customer base. So now we want people that just work their regular days in Argentina to serve that market. Chad (9m 5s): Okay. So taking a look at 2021 growth, it looked like you had growth in many different countries. So are you currently saying that it's an obstacle trying to run everything right now out of India, which is why you need to expand or give me some idea over the last couple of years? Sean (9m 22s): Sure, sure, sure, sure. Sure. So over the last two years, we've grown about like 900ish percent. So like if we're at like $3.8 to 3.3 million, now we were at like $300 grand, 24 months ago. And in the last two weeks we've always been global, so like less than 1% of our revenue comes from India. So our first customer was in the UK, these are all people that have found us online. It's all inbound. We haven't really gone out and like called people and asked them to buy our stuff. The reason we are going international into hiring folks is more for finding native Spanish, French, and German speakers because some of our clients use our system because our system is available in three languages, but we don't have humans that can do onboarding and training and sales in three languages or four languages. Sean (10m 11s): So we're able to manage everything from India, just fine because on the support side, we have people working 24 hours across different shifts. Joel (10m 17s): Gotcha. I don't have to tell you that this is a crowded space. Sean (10m 25s): It is. Joel (10m 26s): Obviously Bullhorn, PC Recruiter, a few sort of well-known longstanding companies. When you guys get an inbound lead, cause you just said you don't do any sales and marketing. Unless I heard that incorrectly, we can cover that in a second. But so when you get an inbound call, what is the answer to, how are you guys different? We're using Bullhorn now, we're looking at changing. What can you guys do that they can't? What is that differentiator? Sean (10m 48s): About 25% of those 800 customers have moved to us from Bullhorn. I have three Bullhorn data migrations going on this week. So we at a very high level, right? If you try to raise a support ticket, even like just support, right? If you right, tried to raise a support ticket on Bullhorn, you're going to have to try to find where that place is. Where you need help from. Versus if you guys go to my website right now and go to the chat bot and ask a question, you'll get a response within the next two minutes. And that people give a shit about that. People give a shit about like, you know, especially two person agencies is they're like, Hey, how do I parse the candidate? They want a human or something to help them immediately. So I think that is a big differentiator. Sean (11m 27s): Speed. Joel (11m 28s): Okay. Little white glove service. Sean (11m 32s): That's one. The second thing is our product doesn't look like windows 95. Chad (11m 41s): What's the matter with Windows 95 aka Bullhorn? Joel (11m 42s): Zing. Sean (11m 43s): Yeah. It's ugly as shit, which is, which is why Wilderness tried to buy us a couple of times, just so you know. So we've had the PE fund that owns done, like Inside Partners, reach out to us and ask us if we'd like to be part of a larger platform in their language. That's what they call buying companies being part of a hundred platforms. And we were not interested. Joel (12m 3s): So service your site looks better. There's gotta be more than that. Sean (12m 6s): No, it literally it is. Joel (12m 10s): Is it pricing? Chad (12m 11s): Dude, look at the pricing, the pricing is cheap though. You take a look at it. I'm not saying that's bad, but I mean, to be able to gain market share off of Bullhorn. Bullhorn is a more costly product than yours is. Joel (12m 25s): That's gotta be a different. Sean (12m 27s): Yeah, well Bullhorn's 20 to twenty-five percent more expensive. Joel (12m 30s): Yeah. Sean (12m 31s): So that probably does make a difference to a lot of folks. And then another thing that people really get frustrated about is like, it's very clunky, right? Because it's old, it's harder to navigate. It's harder to do trainings on. So we literally have like three training webinars running every day on 3-4 different time zones. It's like a TV show. So you can like literally click into a chat bot and say, register in live you're on a zoom call with somebody from our team. We'll help you like customize your system, not just tell you where it's buttons is, but also help you set up automations or workflows for free. Joel (13m 12s): So you guys haven't raised any money. Sean (13m 14s): No. Joel (13m 14s): You've been around since 2017. Sean (13m 15s): Yeah. Joel (13m 16s): Are you looking to raise money at some point? Are you quite happy with the road that you're on? No, no interest whatsoever? Sean (13m 24s): No. Joel (13m 25s): And it looks like you have, is your co-founder your dad or someone? Yes, AJ? Sean (13m 30s): Correct. Joel (13m 30s): What's the relationship there? Sean (13m 31s): In terms of how Joel (13m 32s): Is he funding it? Sean (13m 34s): No, he wrote the initial a hundred thousand dollars, but we didn't need money after that. So we're just making money now. Joel (13m 40s): That's impressive. Chad (13m 40s): But the go to market on that, then a hundred thousand dollars to be able to start an ATS slash CRM, any type of technology whatsoever. Joel (13m 49s): Yeah. Chad (13m 49s): It's not a lot of cash, which is, which is awesome and good for you. You've bootstrapped it and you're not looking to take money. So when you take a look at all of the other platforms that are out there, whether they're Bullhorn or direct competitors, or not sure there's a lot of noise because of all the funding that's happening. And that is pretty much feeling the rocket ships. Joel (14m 13s): Sure. Chad (14m 13s): To be able to blast off. How do you see from a go to market standpoint, overtaking a behemoths like Bullhorn? Sean (14m 20s): Sure, sure. So, so you need one of to understand like how we built this, right? So we didn't like go out and like build out a super expensive team to get started. So I was sort of the product manager, myself, data and a bunch of domain expertise. And we went to India and we went to tier two, tier three colleges and basically hired folks fresh out of college. Like back then at like five years ago, when we just started out at like people literally making like four or five, $600 a month, right. As software developers and they weren't great back then some of them were let go or moved on. And then we have a couple of remaining who've become great developers over time and their consults like 10 X. Sean (15m 1s): But we were basically able to like build out a four or five person engineering team spending like $4 or 5,000 bucks a month and 10 months in, by the time we'd spent our first $50 grand, we had our first dollar of revenue. And six months after that, it was making like $8-9,000 bucks a month, which was paying the bills. And then as we scaled MRR, which is monthly recurring revenue from there, we just hired more people and just kept going. The good part was Toby got to about two 50,000 in subscriptions. We didn't do any ads or anything of that sort. We just did a little bit of SEO, wrote a couple blogs. And like, you know, we had people come to our website and say they wanted a demo. And then we showed them the product. And then we told them what the price was. Sean (15m 43s): They swipe their card and it worked. Chad (15m 46s): So are you going to stay on that line of marketing and focusing on SEO, not doing a lot of events. Sean (15m 52s): Now we don't just do that. We were spending about $80,000 a month on LinkedIn and Google search ads now. Okay. That's not, that's not super little anymore, but that's from cash flows. It's not this isn't money. Some investor gave us this is money or customers are giving us sort of the past few years. Gotcha. But the thing is the CAC on that is like super, super good, because like we spend 80. If, if I spend like say $90 grand or $95 grand in sales and marketing this month, that'll generate close to $300,000 in net, new ARR off, which about 30% is annual subscriptions anyway. So I just make my money back in like six weeks. Joel (16m 25s): You are the mothership for a lot of companies and you have a ton of features. I just want to dig in a little bit to each one and get sort of your take on what you do. So sourcing, you provide sourcing. Is that sort of a Seek Out competitor or Hire Easy? I mean, Sean (16m 41s): No, we don't compete with platforms like Hire Easy or Seek Out. We do have like a Chrome extension or if you go on LinkedIn or if you're in Germany, you go on seeing.com or Indeed or something, you can go to a candidate or a potential client and click on the extension and it'll scan that profile and tell you, if that person's already in your database or not, or, and if they are in your database, you can have notes and stuff like that. But we also, through Zapier, we integrate with tools like with Lucia and a bunch of other data enrichment slash sourcing tools, like one of Hire Easy's competitors, which is source fail. They've sort of built a native integration with us. Joel (17m 19s): Okay. Sean (17m 19s): So like if someone comes to us and they're like, Hey, I want a hardcore sourcing tool. We like push them to that tool, which integrates with us natively. Joel (17m 29s): Gotcha. So resume parsing, do you guys do that yourself? Or you partner with like TextKernel? Sean (17m 34s): Well, we do it ourselves, but we do also have some customers who bought like DaXtra and extras built in integration with us. Joel (17m 42s): Gotcha. And you have a pretty deep integration in terms of email, but I didn't see anything around SMS or messaging. Is that something that you guys are going to stay away from? Sean (17m 50s): No, we already have it. Joel (17m 52s): So tell me about that. Sean (17m 55s): It's powered by Toolio. So we've basically used Toolio's APIs to power phone calling, recording, and text messaging. Joel (18m 2s): Okay. And then lastly, as being a platform, I didn't say marketplace, maybe there is, I didn't see the SMS either. Are you guys looking to be a marketplace and have people build onto your platform? Are there any plans? Sean (18m 18s): Not yet, but cause right now the goal is sort of pretty like boxed out. We're growing 200% year over year, just serving permanent recruitment and contract recruitment firms. We want to start focusing more on the middle and back office piece, which is helping them manage time sheets, time sheet approvals from clients, you know, actual payroll calculations, which, you know, people have to do out if they have a thousand contractors, if it's a contract staffing firm. Joel (18m 42s): So what kind of timeline are we looking at to be able to do some of those things? Like a year or six months? Sean (18m 49s): No, no. Six months. So we've already started talking to some of our customers who use us just for the ATS fit, but also have a contracting business and want to move that to us as well, cause they're doing that in Excel now. And so we're talking to them, but probably, and that's what a lot of this engineering, the 40 people we're hiring, most of them are engineers. We're going to start building in Q3 and beta it in Q4, which is November, December sort of timeframe. Joel (19m 14s): And will the marketplace be free? Sean (19m 18s): At this point we don't even have like a thought on like what the marketplace will be. So, so right now I don't have an answer for that. Joel (19m 28s): Gotcha. Chad (19m 29s): So a couple of other pieces of core tech, you say that you have a background screening, is that through partnership or is that something that you guys actually did that Sean (19m 36s): It would be through Zapier? So if you, and then we don't, I don't think we write anywhere that we do background screening ourselves. Chad (19m 43s): It's on the website. It says you have background screening? But yes, go ahead and continue. Sean (19m 49s): If you, if you want to do background screening or verification, you would basically find either using our API or an existing, like background verification tool, like Checkr or something, and you'd plug it in using Zapier. So that whenever a candidate moves to a specific stage, you would trigger an API call because there's a different background verification tools in different regions. Right. So in Germany, it's not the same tool as say in the United States. Chad (20m 13s): Right? Same thing with interview scheduling. Sean (20m 14s): Yeah. You could do that within Recruit CRM because we integrate with your calendar. Chad (20m 20s): Okay. So that's more of a Google, gmail. Sean (20m 24s): Google and Outlook calendar. Chad (20m 26s): Okay. So let's talk about retention. You talk about growth, 200% growth that's awesome. Let's talk about what, what does retention look like for the last year? Sean (20m 38s): Sure. Net revenue retention is 119% after 13 months or 12 months is by. Chad (20m 44s): Okay. So you have a 19% increase in wallet share. Sean (20m 48s): Correct on the same cohort of customers. Chad (20m 52s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So what about growth going back to growth? 200% growth. Is that happening on the basic or the team or the enterprise level? Where are you seeing the most growth? Sean (21m 2s): Yeah, so we see the most growth in terms of new sales. About 70, 75% of new sales are on their team plan, but all, a lot of the expansion is basically people switching from the team to business like three, four or five months after coming in. Chad (21m 18s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So when you, when you're targeting new clients, is it just as easy as going out and doing Intel to see who's using Bullhorn and then just targeting them? Or how are you actually? How are you targeting new clients? Sean (21m 37s): Yeah, we just like, and again, right, we just, on the SEO side, have our marketing team writes blogs and content. And like, so we have articles on like, you know, how to build a remote recruitment agency and so on. So people can, people trying to build and scale recruitment agencies and firms can find us. Chad (21m 55s): Right. Sean (21m 55s): But in terms of like paid, we're mostly just doing LinkedIn ads to people that work or own recruitment agencies that have between one to 10 people or people that own or work in recruitment agencies that have between 10 and 50 people. That's mostly all the marketing we do. And then on Google search, we bid on certain keywords, like recruitment agency, software, or recruitment, head hunting, ATS and stuff like that. Chad (22m 20s): Okay. So where's your focus? Is it SMB because there there's a shit ton of them or are you really focusing heavily on enterprise? Sean (22m 31s): So the core focus is on SMB, like, cause our average customers like five users ish, right, with us. But like some enterprises just happened to come. So like, with this same inbound channel we ended up getting Hayes. Right. And Hayes is like a 25,000 recruiters across the world sort of recruitment firm. Right. But, like we didn't like we didn't go outbound and pitch them. Right. They found us and they did a demo. They liked it. They told their boss about it, that the boss did a demo. Then the boss called his head of Europe who did a demo and he liked it. So it's still pretty much, you know, bottoms up where versus us targeting accounts and going after them. Chad (23m 11s): Okay. Are you guys seeing this as a lifestyle type of organization, lifestyle company, it grows as fast as it grows and that's how fast it grows. Sean (23m 17s): No. We've always had revenue goals and we've hit our revenue targets more or less within a month of like what the target timeframe was. So we're a little over $3 million. Now we want to be at $10 mill by the end of 2023, which is like 24 months from now. And we want to do this while making 25, 30% free cash flow, which we are making at this point. So it's not like we have to expand margins, we just need to retain margins as we scale. And then we just want to keep rolling that and expand the product across the staffing lifecycle so in 6, 7, 8 years get to $100 million, do an IPO, but own 91% when you do an IPO. Joel (23m 57s): I love this guy's transparency. Chad (23m 58s): Fucking love it dude. Joel (23m 59s): So I was going to ask it a different way and say, how the hell did you say no to Bullhorn? Like is the goal? And the goal is, is to make this shit an IPO. Sean (24m 8s): Yeah. Yeah. And then the goal is to become a billionaire. Right. And, you can either, you can either become a billionaire by being a genius, like Zuckerberg or Elon, and like raising a shitload of money and owning 10% or building a hundred billion dollar company. Now I don't know if I can build a hundred billion dollar company, maybe. I don't know. But like I know for sure that if I keep doing this shit over the next eight, 10 years, I can go from being a 27 year old to a 37 or 38 year old that has a company and owns 90% of it. And it's worth like $1,200,000,000 or billions or something. Joel (24m 39s): Very cool. And are you, are you fine sicking in the staffing? Like, are you ex, are you going to expand to? Sean (24m 45s): We will only do staffing, right? We don't ever want to get out of this space. Joel (24m 49s): And there's enough money in that to build that kind of company? Sean (24m 51s): Yeah. Because like, think about it, if you do payroll ADP, which my dad was the CEO of, for their India business ADP as a hundred billion dollar market cap. So if you can do payroll and we do it well, and we do it for staffing companies, which sort of manage more than half of the contractors in sort of in the US we can build a company where tens of billions of dollars, if you truly become number one. But the goal is, Hey, how can we get into this market and become one of the top sort of three companies in this segment in 10- 12 years. And as long as that can happen, that could be a billion to $10 billion outcomes. Chad (25m 26s): Yup. Joel (25m 27s): Hey man. Don't don't lose that confidence, man. Don't lose that confidence. Are you ready to face the firing squad? Sean (25m 35s): Go for it. Joel (25m 35s): Alright. Chad. Get him. Chad (25m 36s): All right. Ooh, Sean. I got to say that first and foremost, and I'm sure you've seen this. You guys have been able to be patient, which is awesome. But SMB is generally a bitch when it comes to trying to hit those thousand points of light that are actually out there, right? It's you have to fish with a net. You see the ZipRecruiter's of the world or the Indeeds of the world who are trying to somewhat pivot to some extent or grow into the SMB market. Well, they have to spend shit tons of cash to do so. Their shareholders are obviously not as patient as you guys are. So it's great that you have great patience. First off, I got to say, I know you love it. Chad (26m 17s): I hate the name because it paints you into a corner, but you know what? It doesn't fucking matter. If you're actually getting the pointed leads, you're seeing 200% growth year over year, last year, 19% wallet share growth in current clients. And to be quite Frank, I love the balls and the no bullshit attitude and saying, look, Bullhorn sucks. We're better. We're cheaper. Come take a look at us. I love that. And I believe we don't have enough of that in our industry, which is one of the reasons why you're getting fucking big applause from me. Sean (26m 55s): Awesome. And about the scale thing, right? Bullhorn does about 350 million in ARR, which is annual recurring revenue and Bullhorns worth over $2 billion bucks. So if they could sort of do it and we can like keep flipping them over the next 10 years. Chad (27m 10s): Even, even more genius. Joel (27m 11s): Don't get too cocky at my friend. I still have to give you my grades. So, so my I'm only angry that we're just now learning about you and knowing you, because you are just a dude. I appreciate the transparency. I appreciate the confidence. Sean (27m 28s): Fuck yeah. Joel (27m 28s): I appreciate the bootstrap nature of your business. I appreciate how you're so sort of cavalier about the marketing. Like we put up a couple of blogs, you know, people came to the door like it's so cavalier because so many companies in our space are like banging their head against the wall about how to market and get people on the phone. And you guys just sit back and get calls apparently. So I certainly appreciate that, but I think your marketing is smart. I think, you know, pay-per-click, people are obviously looking for alternatives to the Big Mac and you were sitting there as in and out burger and ready to take that business. So I certainly applaud that. The vision I think is fantastic. Joel (28m 10s): I'm always shocked when we talk to new ATSs and new companies where there are established players and the initial thought is to say like, why the fuck would you do that? But your perfect case scenario of why you do that. Because a lot of these big players are failing their clients and you can be there in a business that's proven and take up the crumbs and hopefully make those crumbs into a big billion dollar cake according to your comments. I'll also add that you sort of painted over the reviews of some of these sites, but, I went out because you marketed it. And I was sort of semi expecting like, oh, I bet there's some, there's some seeded reviews, maybe some shenanigans going here. Joel (28m 51s): But every review I saw was thoughtful, was five star for the most part. I mean, you killed on the reviews. So you're clearly making your customers happy. You haven't taken a bunch of money so you have a ton of flexibility. You have a huge global opportunity and you have big players already hoping to give you money and buy the company. Chad (29m 9s): Love it. Joel (29m 10s): So I can't find a reason to hate the company. I don't love the name, but fuck it, whatever, a big applause for me as well, man, I, this is a real, this has been really fun and keep doing what you're doing. Sean (29m 25s): Thanks. Appreciate it guys. Thanks a bunch, it was awesome being here. Joel (29m 28s): Not a problem. Chad (29m 29s): Excellent. Joel (29m 29s): So for our listeners who aren't on Google or aren't reading blogs on corporate websites, like they want to buy your shit. Where do you send them? Sean (29m 39s): Just go to a recruitcrm.io. And you can either do a free trial or ask for a demo. 30% of people that buy us, don't ever talk to us. Joel (29m 50s): Yeah. Or just dig in your pocket for some spare change and you're probably be able to afford it. Chad another firing squad in the can. Chad (29m 60s): Love it. Joel (29m 60s): Sean. Thanks for joining us. Chad and Cheese (30m 1s): We out, we out, Shark Tank OUTRO (30m 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.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are still on the tip of many employers' tongues. However, things like a global pandemic and a world on the edge of World War III have stolen a lot of the spotlight in recent years. So, do employers still care as much as they did just two years ago? It's something to consider, and that's why Chad & Cheese have brought back Barb Hyman, founder and CEO of Predictive Hire. And that's just one topic. If DEI is important to your organization - and you know it should be - then this is a must-listen. 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 (22s): Yeah. Get out a cold Fosters and put a shrimp on the bar-b everybody there's an Aussie in the house. What's up? It's your favorite podcast, this is the Joel and Chad, oh my God it's 4 o'clock. Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my cohost, Chad Sowash and we have a mystery guest from down under Chad. Chad (49s): Did you have a gummy before we started? Joel (52s): Dude? Seriously at four o'clock I'm checked out. Totally. Chad (56s): I hear ya, I hear ya. Joel (56s): I don't even know what the hell I just said. Did I say that the Joel and Chad podcast? Chad (1m 2s): Yeah, yeah. Joel (1m 3s): Okay. This one's off to a great start. Chad (1m 5s): Let's not re-live that one. Let's not re-live it. So before we get into the mystery guest, you and I we're, we're pretty good at challenging the industry, we name names, we give our opinions and that's all just to get HR TA professionals and vendors to evolve, adopt, and just plain get off the fucking status quo. Well, in some cases, not enough, we receive a challenging and welcome retorts. And this one today, we're going to go to our mystery guests. Joel (1m 37s): Can you do that in Samuel L. Jackson voice is like? Shall I retort? Chad (1m 43s): Shall I retort? But seriously, I've been consistently ranting about tech platforms, slapping DEI on their marketing without truly having a DEI strategy. It's mainly just bullshit check the box PR stuff, but Barb Hyman, CEO of Predictive Hire doesn't believe that is quite fair. Welcome back to the show, Barb, how are you doing? Barb (2m 9s): I am awesome. I'm so excited to be back. And here to retort. Joel (2m 14s): Retort away, Barb. Get 'em. Chad (2m 17s): You were here on firing squad. Did really well. We had good, good ambience happening within the show. I hope we can continue that going. Hopefully you don't hurt me too bad. Joel (2m 27s): Aussie's are pretty feisty, man. This could go anywhere. Anything could happen on this. Chad (2m 31s): What did I say to get you so fired up? Barb (2m 35s): Yeah, look so, you know, we're all talking about diversity, right? And I think what you challenged was there are just way too many HR tech companies out there that are claiming they can fix it. Chad (2m 47s): Yes. Barb (2m 47s): The issue, like that's what we're trying to solve. We're trying to solve how do we finally fix it? You know, diversity is invisible now because it doesn't truly exist. When it finally exists we all stop talking about it and we can move on to another more interesting topic. Chad (3m 1s): Right. Barb (3m 1s): And you cannot see what you cannot see. So how do we fix it? Unconscious bias training does not work. Chad (3m 7s): No. Barb (3m 7s): You know, you send Tommy to unconscious bias training you haven't achieved anything. I also believe that targets don't work in my experience and I'm obviously female. I think women hate the idea that they're given the job because of their gender. They hate it, particularly young women. And when you get hired on a perception that it was based on a target, you're often undermined by other people in the organization. So it's almost like you created another ceiling for that woman to conquer. So how do we actually fix it? My view is you have to fix it through technology. And I do believe that the right technology, I obviously believe that our technology does that, can actually finally fix the lack of diversity in our organizations, at least up to a certain point. You know, you're always going to have a human who makes that final decision, but if you can use the right technology that removes all of those layers of bias, and it's got to be something that is in video. Barb (3m 58s): I know you guys have a view about video and video is sort of effectively, you know, productizing bias. You can actually fix diversity. So I think, reality is nothing that we have done has worked. Women is still what, 21% of the C-suite in the US. Women of color represent 4%. All the good intentions and money in the world hasn't made a difference. Technology can make a difference, but you gotta be really ruthless as a buyer to look closely at that technology. So that's kind of one tenant of if, you know, obviously what I believe around, how do you actually finally fix the lack of diversity in our organizations? Chad (4m 34s): Well, and there's no one platform that can do that because obviously, you know, let's say for instance, using your platform that is not going to dip into a diverse talent pool, is it? Or when I post a req, does it automatically go into your system and start programmatically targeting talent pools? Because first the basic issue that we have right now is that nobody's targeting anybody. They're not trying to look to become more diverse by targeting more diverse populations. And if you're not doing that, it's all for shit in the first place. Right? Barb (5m 8s): Yeah. Look, I completely agree that there's a very tight link between sourcing and selection. Right? You know, that if you, unless your sourcing is right, it doesn't matter how good the technology is that is trying to take out that bias through the funnel. But at the same time, you've also got to look at, you know, how are you engaging talent? Like, what is that process look like? And you know, who are you losing out on because you're using video, for instance, at the top of the funnel, you know, my son, he's 22, he's introverted. He's really good looking by the way, but there's no way he's going to go on video. You know, he will not turn on a screen and film himself. It's completely intimidating to him. So who are you losing out on because you're using a assessment or a way of engaging talent that people just don't like and don't trust. Barb (5m 51s): So I think, you know, you've got to think about sourcing, but you've also got to think about the journey that you're taking people through and what's going to be really fun. You know, how do you make applying for job fun? How do you make it something that everyone wants to do? Whether you're 15 or 50, whether you're male or female, et cetera. So I think all of those things need to be part of trying to solve for better diversity, you know, at the end of the day, Joel (6m 14s): Oh, I want to go back to what you said, and I want to make sure I get this right. You said the solution is technology, and then you said up to a point, correct? Barb (6m 26s): Yeah. Joel (6m 27s): So at some point the technology ends and the human begins. And until we stop the human begins part, can we really solve diversity issues and problems? In other words, doesn't technology have to take the ball all the way to the end zone, to use an American football reference that you probably don't understand. I don't know what the cricket equivalent would be, but you get my point, hopefully. Chad (6m 55s): Australia rules football. Yeah. Yeah. That's deep Cheeseman. That's deep. Barb (6m 58s): That's different to cricket by the way. So look, the, I absolutely agree that when you bring humans in that's when you start to lose the diversity piece and we see that in our software, our customers see it that up until the point where the humans making the decision, you know, you're basically marrying your funnel to whatever you started with in terms of the applicant side. And maybe organizations will get there at some point, you know, if they really trust the technology, they trust that everyone's given a fair go. That's a bit of an Australian-ism and that people are comfortable with the idea of being given a job without connecting with a human at all. Barb (7m 40s): I think, you know, I don't know how far we are away from being like that. I think Amazon's the only company in the world at the moment that goes from, apply to offer. Where we come in and this is my point around data. I think that I was challenging you on Chad. He said, you know, data does create that transparency around that human bias. So the ability to see as a CHR or head of talent, you know, where in the organization are we losing that diversity because at the last gate, someone is just preferring, you know, the white people or the men every time. And that transparency creates that accountability. And I think that's how you really drive change in behavior. Particularly if you make it somewhat public, you know, you can't hide from data. Barb (8m 23s): So there is the ability to firstly use tech and this is where our software operates, where you're stripping out all bias and you know, that means no CVS, no videos. And at the last gate you can see, well, you know, which state, which team, which leader is the one that's kind of letting down the team in terms of not hiring based on, you know, true fit, but hiring based on some other, you know, inherent bias. Chad (8m 46s): So we've had this data for decades. Too easy. We've already had this data, not to mention, if you walk into, let's say Ned's department and it's nothing, all white dudes, we don't need data, we can see it, right. We can see that there is a problem, especially comparing it to other departments throughout the organization. So we can take anecdotal and we can also take data that we've had to demonstrate that we are not even close to equity, let alone transparency. I agree a hundred percent when we talk about transparency. The first step I believe for paid equity is transparency. I also believe that transparency in this discussion is also necessary, but you as a vendor, how are you going to be able to drive that narrative? Chad (9m 36s): Because I'm gonna tell you right now, many companies out there that could prospectively be your client. They will not embrace that. Barb (9m 43s): In terms of the data transparency? Chad (9m 45s): Yeah. Barb (9m 46s): Yeah. Look, you know, it's a journey, I think for everyone to trust technology, to play a really strong hand in this space. Right. And it's hard to believe that the time is not here now, because really there has not been much traction. So the thing about transparency is you got to do it the right level. So we would never say that you would do it at the recruiter level, right. We don't reveal any data about the candidate in terms of, you know, their demographics when they're making that hiring decision and that's really important that it's as blind as possible. Yes. You know, the reality is that every board is reporting on this stuff. Like, I don't know if it's called the same thing in the US but ESG in Australia, which is the link now between capital markets, you know, what kind of interest rates you're afforded when you're, when you're borrowing money and also where the fund managers are gonna invest in you is absolutely linked to ESG. Barb (10m 37s): And, you know, the S side of that is really important. And so everyone's reporting on it at that level. Right. They have to. Chad (10m 45s): Yeah. But what's different between that and actually setting up goals because either way, if you're a white dude, all you're going to see is that there are less people like you coming in and they're going to focus on whether it's ESG or other goals that organizations have put in place. What does it matter? I mean, seriously, what does it matter what we use just as long as we press for hiring outcomes that are, that are more equitable, that are more diverse?` Barb (11m 12s): Well, so, you know, one of these companies in Australia, it's a super fund. They have an initiative called 40/40. They have on their website, all the metrics around percentage of women at the C-suite, at the board level, for all the list of companies yet, I'm sure there's something that's similar in the US right. That kind of transparency is what creates, you know, action on the part of boards. And it absolutely makes a difference when it comes to super funds investing. I think there are super funds now, you know, what is it called impact investing that make decisions purely based on how well you're doing against the environment, how well you're doing on diversity, Joel (11m 48s): Hey, Barb, it obviously provokes action, but does it also provoke tokenism? In other words, we've interviewed people that on and say, companies are just quote unquote, "swapping spit" at this point. So I'm an executive or shareholders of a company, and I say, Hey, we need someone on the board that's a woman, somebody, whatever, whatever the criteria is? Okay. Now recruiter go get someone from X company to put on our board, go get someone else to put in our C suite. And you're just swapping spit, as opposed to really making changes to your recruiting process or using your farm team to build your future executives that are of diverse caliber. Joel (12m 30s): So my question, I guess, is it real change or is it tokenism that you're saying? Barb (12m 36s): Yeah, look, I think at the board level, you know, that is the hardest place to get change. Whether it's male or female, they still all represent a certain demographic. That's where I'd say that you've got to start right at the bottom, right. Which is you're hiring. And then hopefully also your promotion, which is if you are hiring 10-2500 people a year, there's no excuse for you not to introduce a line in the sand in terms of technology that creates that maximum diversity, right? That's how you're going to change it over time. That's where you've got scale. That's where you can really shift the numbers. And we can see that with our customers, you know, who are hiring more than their fair share of the first nations of ethnic groups, of women, because you've stripped the human out of it. Barb (13m 20s): And, you know, we all know about that notion of diversity debt, right? If you're a startup and your first 10 engineers are men, you know, you're pretty fucked. You know, diversity debt increases exponentially. You know, when you have a team of four and you add an unrepresented candidate to that group, they represent 20% of your culture, 20% of your DNA going forward, they'll make 20% of your hires. They have an outsize influence on your group. You know, you have to start right from the beginning, right from the bottom. And, you know, fundamentally, I think we're both in agreement that the only way to do that is not through good intent. It's actually through the right technology. Chad (13m 57s): Well, and also data. I agree there, but the thing is, shouldn't this be a standard for all platforms to have and provide this data to their clients in the first place. I mean, if you are a VP of Talent, Acquisition, or CHRO, and you don't have this data today? I mean, what year are we in? This all seems to be fairly standard from a data standpoint. That does not equal again, the DEI easy button, which I am sick and tired of hearing about. That everybody says, you know, your DEI will be better by using this platform. No, it won't. It'll give you tools. Chad (14m 37s): I can screw in a better screw into the wall with my impact wrench if I want to, but that's not the right tool. Joel (14m 47s): Chad loves screwing screws, btw. Chad (14m 48s): Big fan. But I mean, if it's not the right tool, then what does it matter in the first place? Barb (14m 54s): Yeah, now you're talking et's all advocate for federal legislation to make technology like as mandatory at the top of the funnel, we're on a journey, right? Like this is where innovation can actually help. And I think it's about how do you get TA leaders and HR leaders to be smarter about asking the right questions on the technology they're using? Like, it frustrates me as I know it frustrates you guys that people are still watching videos and thinking that that's gonna fix diversity, right? Like you cannot remove the human bias. Cause guess what? Most of the biases unconscious. It's fascinating how, when we run webinars, we ask people, do you think humans can be trained out of their unconscious bias? Barb (15m 35s): Do you think there's unconscious bias? Like the answers don't correlate. So it frustrates me that people still see these CCVs as something that can be, you know, de-identified from a gender and ethnic perspective, Joel (15m 48s): Our resumes broken Barb? Barb (15m 49s): Yeah. Joel (15m 50s): Do we need to replace the resume? And if so, what is the replacement? Barb (15m 54s): Oh, I'd love to kill the resume. Joel (15m 56s): Okay. Then what's the replacement? Barb (15m 58s): Well, the replacement is, you know, what are you looking for? Right. It's a, you know, in our product, we can effectively replace the resume because we say, look, what really matters is in most of the roles where our tickets used is who you are, not what you are. You know, the resumes are proxy for advantage. That's all it is. It's not a proxy for intelligence or capability. It's just a summary of what you've done in your life. But how does that in any way, connect with that, you're going to be good in this role. So, you know, what do you care about when you're choosing someone to partner with? Someone in your team? You care about who they are, like, their values, their traits, you know, how committed they're going to be? Are they going to work well with people? Barb (16m 38s): Are they curious? Are they good thinkers? Like, that's what matters, right? You know, agnostic of that, you went to Yale or that, you know, you've got a certain GPA. So I'd love to kill the CV. You know, that's effectively ambition. Chad (16m 50s): It's pretty amazing that we're still using a piece of paper or a quote unquote "digital paper" to represent ourselves as opposed to more of identity dynamic and fluid profile that have our experiences, but also our certifications and you know, our backgrounds and those types of things. Why haven't we moved past the resume? Is it just because we are a lazy bunch of fucks or what? Joel (17m 17s): We've always done it that way, Chad that's why. Chad (17m 20s): Yeah. Why aren't we still riding horses then? That's bullshit. That's a bullshit discussion, Barb (17m 24s): You know, probably great. But I think that's, I'm going to be cheeky here and say that because companies don't know about us, right. Is that, you know, Chad (17m 34s): All come on, Barb! Barb (17m 35s): Seriously, what do you really want to do when you're hiring? You want to interview everyone. You want to get to know everyone. You want to hear what makes them, what's made them in their life. Right. So in the absence of that, what do you do? You look at a piece of paper, that's trying to tell you a story about who they are. So, you know, technology, innovation, and I'm sure there, you know, I don't want to just tap for us, but the ability to interview the universe, like there are 2 billion workers in the world. Like there's no excuse not to have diversity in the top of the funnel when your technology can do that for you. So, you know, that, I think we're on the journey to get rid of the CV. I honestly do. And I think, you know, the other thing about, you know, HR and making decisions like this, like ultimately this is a decision of risk when you hire someone, right? Barb (18m 18s): Is this person a good bet or a bad bet? And, you know, that's where I really believe in that objective dataset. Like, how do you bring objectivity to that decision? And in every other domain think banking, you know, you're applying for a loan and the bank is not going to bring you in and interview you and, and figure out are you a good bet or a bad bet? They're not going to get all the other tellers to have a chat and figure out whether you're going to be, you know, the right bet for the bank ride, like, banks would be out of business if they did that. And they certainly are going to come back to you in three weeks and tell you whether you got the loan or not. So, you know, I think it's an opportunity for recruitment to look at where do other sectors make decisions of risk? How do they do that? What do we learn from that? And it is really about objective intelligence. Barb (19m 1s): And that is not a CV. Joel (19m 5s): Speaking of the journey Barb, the diversity journey is not without its bumps and potholes. Chad (19m 10s): And bruises. Joel (19m 11s): And, you know, I would say 2020 or so, 2019 was sort of a watershed with the George Floyd murder and things were going on. And it seemed like there was some real strong momentum and really getting things done. And we saw companies committing budgets to making real change and companies making actions that were relevant and then along comes a saying called the pandemic, which kind of throws a monkey wrench and people's attention for a couple of years. And now we have Russia invading Ukraine. I'm curious from your perspective and talking to companies, is there a risk that this just loses attention and we move on to other things, or from your perspective, are companies still committed, even though we have some of these exterior shiny things that are taking our attention away from the ball? Barb (19m 59s): Yeah. Look, I think that there's from my conversations and this is, you know, we work with companies globally. There's even more of a drive to do it, but it's driven by something different. It's driven by the scarcity of talent, which is, you know, you can't just go and fish at the same ponds or lakes anymore. You actually have to go broader because otherwise you're not going to find people. So I think there's a, you know, certainly for consumer brands, what we find is there's a continued focus on diversity. And I think that's because they have to marry up to their external claims and marketing with what they're doing, you know, in their business. But the other big motivation is shit, where are we going to find people? Barb (20m 40s): You know, so you have to go broader and you have to do that in a way that's really, cost-effective, that's where technology is your friend. And in a way, I think that's going to drive faster impact on diversity then, you know, the DNI team locally trying to change people's mindsets. Chad (20m 58s): Okay. So let's talk about finding those people for the most part, companies have already found them and they have paid for them over and over and over because they're constantly posting jobs and they're not trying to re-engage the individuals that they already have in their database. Do platform was like yours, go in and re-engage those individuals to be able to get more information, to be able to provide a better profile, a better understanding, a more nurturing type of a scenario, versus just allowing that database to sit there and atrophy? Barb (21m 37s): No, that's not what we do. But what we do is we allow you to interview the world. I think there's a huge amount of talent out there that hasn't been noticed that it hasn't been tapped. I think Harvard Business Review quoted something like 10 million people who are great potential for roles that are open right now that have just been missed. So I think that that opportunity, you know, the opportunity set of talent is way bigger than more companies have engaged with. I think they're missing out on a huge amount of talent and the business that works it out and that's at a global level, right? Particularly the pandemic has allowed us to say, people can work from anywhere. So suddenly your pool of talent is truly global. So how are you going to reach them? You're going to reach them through the right technology. Barb (22m 19s): And it's got to be technology that people trust, that they engage with, that's human above all. So you maximize that diversity and you're not using people to source and do that interviewing you're using, you know, a smart interviewer to do that. In terms of tapping into your internal talent database. You know, I think that tokenism again, is a worry, like the last thing you want to do is reach out to all those that are from a minority group that you've already connected with and, you know, where are you at? And are you interested? I think you've got to have that authenticity right from the start and just treat everyone the same and be truly inclusive. But I think the opportunity right now is how do you interview the world? How do you do that in a cost-effective way? And how do you make sure that as many people as you touch actually want to go through to the end? Barb (23m 6s): Because I think, you know, the experience for most candidates right now is pretty shit, Chad (23m 14s): 92% eject from the last data that we actually just reported on last week, 92% eject. Joel (23m 19s): After hitting apply. Barb (23m 20s): Yeah. Yeah. And like, why is that right? Like, you know, what is it that is causing candidates to flee? Chad (23m 26s): The experience. Barb (23m 27s): Yeah. You know, and I think that's part of the challenge as well, which is you've got these big systems that are sort of not really built for, you know, low fire, fast crazy, consumer friendly experiences. So, you know, that's another challenge for recruitment is how do you work around that? How do you actually get people to do it without forcing them through a pretty sort of laborious process. Joel (23m 55s): Barb? Gem had a survey. Gem as in G E M, the company, in our space did a survey in January where they found that 59% of enterprises track diversity. Now, obviously that's a pretty small number for enterprises, but they also found that only 44% of smaller organizations track their diversity numbers. How do we get more smaller companies engaged with this metric? Or can we?? Barb (24m 21s): Yeah. I think you make it easy for them. You know, enterprise have resources, they've got big DNI teams, you know, there are different ways of driving at that tracking. I think that's where, you know, easy software, easy to implement, easy to use. It does it for you is how you get to that market. And, you know, fundamentally, that's what we're about, which is how do we make it so easy that it happens in the background. You don't need targets. You don't need to be going into your ATS and figuring out all sorts of stuff. Joel (24m 51s): Isn't education, a more important part of that? I mean, everyone can just buy software, but they have to be convinced to buy it. Right? So how, I mean, is there an effort to educate smaller companies as to why this is important? I mean, I feel like we're just trying to get enterprise level companies on board with why it's important. I don't, I think it's more than just technology, Barb (25m 12s): The point, I think enterprise, because there's more pressure top-down and, you know, capital markets led for them to do it. I think it's the reality of talent scarcity that's going to get them there. Like, I don't know what it's like in the US but in Australia, you've got some businesses that have just shut down because I can't find staff. So, you know, part of what our software solves for is just, you don't have the time, you've got way less time than anyone in a big company to go and source and interview. So technology will do that for you. And then it happens kind of easily and invisibly. And I think that, you know, if the driver for them improving diversity is because that's the only way they're going to get people to keep their business open. Like I'm okay with that. And, you know, then what you get is them hiring people that may be different to the past, but that's all they've got. Barb (25m 58s): Right. You know, you're forced to dip into different pools when you can't get what you need from your traditional pools. And I think, you know, simple software and I emphasize the word simple allows you to do that. Chad (26m 13s): Yeah. And let's just say, if we could actually infuse that into the job posting process and it all just becomes an embedded piece of the product itself. Damn. Do we have a great product? Barb (26m 26s): Yep. Chad (26m 26s): That's my, it might be for Indeed or one of these big platforms to buy you there. Barb, that's Barb Hyman, C E O of Predictive Hire. Barb, you and I both want to see the needle, move on this. I'm a little bit more pessimistic than you are. Hopefully we get there and hopefully we get there soon. If people want to find out more about you and about Predictive Hire, where would you send them? Barb (26m 53s): Just find me on LinkedIn, Bob Hyman. Chad (26m 55s): Too easy. Barb (26m 55s): I think there's only one, hopefully. Joel (26m 58s): Just drink more, drink, more Fosters, Chad and you'll have a much brighter outlook on life. Chad (27m 4s): God, I hope so. Joel (27m 6s): Another one in the can and some shrimp on the Barb-b. Chad and Cheese (27m 11s): We out. OUTRO (27m 56s): 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.

Did Chad and Indeed Just Become Best Friends? Think unicorn production is slowing down? Think again, because we not only have a new unicorn on this week's show, we have a triple-unicorn, baby! Welcome to the club, IntelyCare and Remote! And speaking of remote, it's a topic that makes its way into the show big-time this week, as does idiot execs at Taco Bell, Google "frog boiling," and slider-flippin', onion ring fryin' and shrimp nibblin' robots. Surprisingly, Chad speaks kindly about Indeed's latest customer update .. wait, did I say "speaks kindly," because we really meant "full-on tongue bath"? And we even throw-in "innovation" from Snagajob and Dice, with a game of who'd ya' rather? You're welcome, dear listener. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – 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. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. A new survey on teens says just 5% use VR daily and 48% are either unsure or not interested in the metaverse. Lies I say. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast, everybody. This is your co-host Joel "I weep for the future" Cheeseman. Chad (43s): And this is Chad "who's Zoomin who?" Sowash. Joel (47s): Oh yeah. And this week show IntelyCare goes, unicorn. Remote goes triple unicorn, Indeed embraces transparency and Flippy and sippy go to White Castle. Let's do this. What's up Chad, the prince of Portugal? Chad (1m 6s): Loving life. I'm going to be back in the states this time next week though. So yeah, for at least for a week and a half or so before we go to Belgium, which we'll talk about later. Joel (1m 17s): Yeah. There's snow in the forecast this weekend in Indiana. So you'll love coming back home. Chad (1m 22s): Wonderful, wonderful. Joel (1m 24s): It's like you'll never have left Indiana. Chad (1m 28s): Shit. Joel (1m 31s): Nah, for listeners out there, I have to deal with like Zoom calls with Chad, with sunshine, no clouds, sunglasses, and the most relaxed I've ever seen him look. So I hate him more than ever basically is what I'm saying. Hate him more than ever. Chad (1m 48s): Embrace the love. Embrace the Portuguese love. Joel (1m 50s): Were you able to see the national title game for basketball college, when you were in a Portugal? Chad (1m 56s): No, the cool thing about living here is that I can actually watch like the YouTube versions, which are 15 minutes long because they happen like, you know, at midnight or one o'clock my time. So like during NFL season, when we were here, I would get up after a Sunday. So the late games, and then I would watch all of the, all of the games, which you don't generally get to do unless you're watching red zone. Right. But I would watch all of them. So I actually get to see all the games they're just in their condensed 15 minute versions. And yeah. So, you know, I'm making a lemonade out of those lemons. Joel (2m 34s): So you're not going to miss the Masters and opening day for baseball there in Portugal is what you're saying. Chad (2m 39s): Yes. On the Masters. I'll definitely be enjoying that, but baseball, I have no patience for that game. Joel (2m 45s): Understood where you can cheer on Portugal in the world cup. Amen. Let's get to some shout outs. Cause we had a lot to cover cover today. And then we're going to have some fun with this one. We're going to give a shout out to innovation. Chad, Chad (2m 57s): I feel sarcasm. Joel (2m 60s): Our space is the center of all things in the universe of innovation. Okay. Our favorite innovators, I guess the Ladders isn't in this one, they might be our favorite. All right. Our favorite innovators, Dice and Snagajob are at it again, Chad. Deserving of a press release Dice now lets employers search candidates by time zone, whoa, time zone and not to be out done. Snagajob has launched two new mindblowing updates. Number one direct-to-interview allows candidates to schedule an interview right? When they apply to a job chat, holy shit. Joel (3m 41s): And number two, Easy Apply let's job seekers apply to positions using their Snagajob profile and who doesn't have one of those? Instead of redirecting candidates to an offsite application. Chad (3m 51s): What? Joel (3m 53s): I had to check the dates on these releases Chad to make sure they weren't actually from the future. Big shout out to innovation. sfx (4m 2s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (4m 4s): Two of our favorite favorite companies. So Chad let's play a little who'd you rather right? We've got Dice's time zone search. We've got Direct Interview Scheduling and Easy Apply with your Snagit job profile. Who'd you rather Chad? Chad (4m 21s): Okay. So first off Dice's dropping press releases every time Art Zeal, sneezes. I mean this is ridiculous and Snagajob, they invert like the process of how this even happens. It's Easy Apply then Direct to Interview. They have shipped backwards. So I'd rather, Snagajob no question because this makes a hell of a lot more sense and it's going to work better for their users. I just hope Art Zeal doesn't catch a cold anytime soon. Joel (4m 49s): To vote for Snagajob, big innovation at Snagajob. I'm going to have to go with Dice, Chad. I mean time zone search, who hasn't been begging for that for over a decade and who the hell knows all the time zones anyway? Like I know about four and they're all in the US the other one might be yours because I have to talk to you on the phone and do this podcast. Like who the fuck is searching by time zone? That just blows me away. So I'm going to go with Dice on this one, but let's admit all the innovation coming out of those companies is damn sexy. That's another game of who would you rather? Do you have a shout out for us? Chad (5m 29s): Amen. We've got a shout out to a Jobcase for hiring Michael O'Dell as their vice president of Channel. You can't get more sexy than Michael O'Dell. Joel (5m 42s): And is there an easier choice than Michael O'Dell? sfx (5m 46s): Easy, Peasy, lemon Squeezy. Joel (5m 47s): That's a slam dunk for our friends at Jobcase. And I make actually awaiting that schwag that a O'dell promised us, which is the only reason we gave him a shout out anyway. Shout out, shout out for me from Ben Mones a CEO and founder at Pharma. You know them as the background check company of the future, checking back, checking social media posts. They were an on my mind the other day, when we talked about, I think background checks. I talked about that people were going to start doing checks on who would be posting pro Putin, social media posts. So I went to Ben. I said, Ben are companies asking for pro Putin posts because I thought there would be a ton, but he tempered my enthusiasm. Joel (6m 32s): Saying, quote, "an employer would need a business specific reason to not hire someone because of their support of Putin and the invasion," which he thought that that would be a tough thing to get past to he did. Chad (6m 45s): That's a boo Joel (6m 47s): He did however say employer interest was increasing around care to take a guess? Chad (6m 52s): The Kardashians, I don't know. Joel (6m 55s): Fake news, fake news. So Ben said, quote, "the more interesting thing that's coming up as of late that's peripherally related, is companies asking about disinformation and whether or not their candidates/employees are promoting disinformation online." I thought that was interesting. Chad (7m 11s): It is. Joel (7m 13s): And a worthwhile comment to give Ben Mones a shout out. Chad (7m 17s): But yet he can't do the same thing for Putin. Okay? Whatever Ben. A big shout out to Amazon who gets a union on Staten Island. Can you believe this? Not only do you get free ferry rides to Staten island, you also get a union. I bet people are going to be moving to Staten Island in hordes. Now just to be able to work for Amazon. Joel (7m 42s): Staten Island's beautiful. Why would you not want to live and relocate? Why Portugal or Staten Island? I don't know what you're thinking, buddy. I don't know. I don't know what the hell you're thinking. Shout out to the unions at Amazon. I got a shout out for our European friends, sexiest billionaire, Elon Musk. Shout out for me. The billionaire now owns roughly 9% of Twitter helping the stock come out of its slumber and starting rumors that an edit button might finally become a big thing on Twitter. Now, Chad, speaking of high innovation. Yeah. Edit buttons at Twitter. Anyway, joking aside, I do think that Elon Musk's interest in Twitter will help with recruiting and retention. Joel (8m 26s): Twitter has a rep of being a bit stuck in the mud technologically. And this just might change that image. If you're a developer at Twitter, why would you not want to stick around? If you were thinking about leaving, knowing that Elon might be pulling a lot of the strings from now on. Shout out to Elon Musk and shout out to recruiting and retention efforts at Twitter, which I think will be improving. Elon has 80 million Twitter followers. He's going to have some influence. Chad (8m 56s): Yeah. And just shout out to megalomaniacs everywhere. sfx (8m 58s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (9m 3s): Just a quick update from our unicorn down segment last week where we talked about worker eyes that's right. Secretively shutting down specific verticals that went unnamed did have no clue why, but this week, the Aim Group, once again, they get the scoop. They've found that the unnamed vertical is construction jobs, which I find interesting because they just started up that vertical not too long ago. Maybe they were looking for some build back better infrastructure money and it didn't come. I don't know this. This seems more short-term thinking the long-term thinking. Who knows? Joel (9m 41s): Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I think they probably ramped up in anticipation for build back better. And the rug got pulled out from under them. Well, the rug is not being pulled out from our listeners Chad who sign up for free shit. Chad (9m 55s): Oh yes. Joel (9m 56s): Cause they're getting t-shirts from Emissary. Beer from Pillar and whiskey from our friends at Textkernel. If you liked that stuff, if you like it, when it's free, then you gotta go to Chadcheese.com/free to get on the list to get free stuff or a chance to get free stuff. So what are you waiting for? If you haven't done it. Chadcheese.com/free. Chad (10m 14s): For the fourth consecutive year WebAIM evaluated the accessibility of homepages of the top 1 million websites and 96.8. Okay, let's round up. 97% of homepages have failures. So listen to the Stubbs interview that we just did entitled Ignoring the Blind because corporate America, baby, you should be looking at this. You should be caring about this. This is a huge segment that you are not just missing from a talent standpoint, but also these people buy shit guys. You've got to do better. Chad (10m 55s): Accessibility go look for Ignoring the Blind on Chad cheese. Give it a listen. Joel (11m 1s): Like my sister says don't be bitter, be better. Chad, be better. And speaking of better, we've got some birthdays to celebrate. Some fans and listeners are celebrating another trip around the sun. Chad, I'm talking Sean Godfrey. I'm talking Steven Rothberg. Big fan of the show now. Happy Birthday, Steven. Todd Burns. Amy English. Holy shit. . Okay. I got that right I'm sure. Chad (11m 30s): I love it. Joel (11m 31s): Our, our, our, our friend, Patrick York from Hire Easy, he celebrates a birthday. Don Burke, our favorite Cleveland fan, who lives in the south. Go Guardians Don. They all celebrate a birthday this week and happy birthday to them. Have one on us. Chad (11m 47s): Excellent. Excellent. We have events kids. Don't forget early May going to be in Belgium. Late May going to be in Vegas. Oh, we're going to be in England. We're going to be in Paris. We're going to be all over the place kids. Go to Chadcheese.com, click on events, upper right-hand corner. Find out where we're going to be and come see us. If you're in Europe, you gotta be in Belgium. You gotta be at RecFest. You gotta be in Paris for God's sakes. If you're in the US, we're going to go to New Orleans this year, Joel, we're gonna go to Nashville. We're gonna go to Vegas. We're going to be all over the place. Check it out. Chadcheese.com, click on events. Get there. Register. Come to the event, buy us a beer or two. Joel (12m 28s): In short, go to Chadcheese.com and give us your information and check out shit that we're doing. All right, Chad, I'm going to play the news intro. Chad (12m 43s): Oh Jesus. Joel (12m 44s): I'm going to try to mix it with the pink unicorn. Here we go. Ready? Chad (12m 49s): Okay. Joel (12m 50s): All right. All right. All right. We got a remote block here. Everybody get ready. Okay. San Francisco based Remote founded in 2019, announced a 300 million Series C funding round this just eight months after the company announced a 150 million Series B round. Remote's platform enables companies to hire globally and pay workers in their preferred currency. The round values Remote at $3 billion. That's a triple unicorn, Chad. SoftBank vision fund to lead the round with participation from existing investors, including Excel, Sequoia, index ventures and others. The company said it has been, has seen 13 fold growth in ARR in the past year and a 900% increase in employees. Joel (13m 37s): Wow. With the additional funding, Remote will be able to build more products, including contractor and global payroll platforms. The company employs around 1500 people according to LinkedIn. Chad, what are your thoughts on Remote becoming triple unicorn? Chad (13m 58s): Dude, this platform was created in 2019. So now we know who actually has the flux capacitor. We know who is going back, into the future. So, luck and timing are two variables that are quite intertwined and Remote have both in spades. It's amazing. They just received $150 million in July of last year. Most segments, most categories in this, you know, in this space, I'd be asking why in the hell would they be taking so much funding? But this category, it's not one of them. Kids Remote has the opportunity in this category that stands on its own to capture global domination. Chad (14m 44s): If it has enough cash to accomplish that feat, it needs the cash, right? Why do they need the cash? Because even though their organic growth is fast, it's not enough to fund this type of growth. They need to dominate. They need more cash. And again, this is a category that existed before COVID, but it wasn't one that could stand alone. Now, Remote will not only stand on its own as a category, it will flourish because no other platform will want to take it on. What do you think? Joel (15m 18s): Yeah. You're going to need a bigger boat to cite another old movie you sighted Back to the Future. Dude talk about good timing and frankly, a great name and brand remote.com. Are you kidding me as the world's going remote? That's your brand, that's pretty good. Pretty good deal. So you mentioned founded in 2019, a year later the pandemic hits everyone's working from home. Companies are scrambling, trying to figure out how are we going to manage this? What the hell are we going to do? How are we going to manage all the government regulations and all these countries? And like, you couldn't have timed it any better. Chad (15m 52s): No. Joel (15m 52s): I mean, what, company is not going to take a sales call from someone at Remote? And they're not, right. I mean the inbound sales traffic for this company is probably off the chain. It would make old Monster employees back in the day, probably jealous for inbound sales calls. The only question now is really that they have the money to the brand and the timing is who's going to be Pepsi to their Coke. Is it Oyster? Is it Deel? Is it Lattice? Is it Eightfold? I don't know, but it'll be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Half a billion dollars buys a hell of a lot of beer. Chad and remote is in a really good position to own this bitch on a global scale. And damn, I mean, there's not much else I can say about that. Joel (16m 33s): They are there in the pole position and they've got laps and laps on the competition. Chad (16m 39s): Yes, it is amazing. And one of our friends has been on the show Dee Coakley from Boundless, as I'd said, I think I said a couple of podcasts ago. I go most can guarantee you, they get funding in a big way sometime soon. And I don't have the flux capacitor. I just see the trends. Joel (16m 58s): You know, who needs the flux capacitor? Let's go back to Snagajob and Dice crashed on a patient. Okay, man, this one was really funny to me who is Zoomin' who Chad? Is the question. More from the world of Remote. This is from Bloomberg with a story entitled "Employees are returning to the office just to sit on Zoom calls." Those accompanies pushing for in-person work are asking. What's the point if we're still meeting online? One back to the office employee said it doesn't make sense to force people into an office, especially if they're working with colleagues in other geographic locations, management is in another city so it will always be a Zoom call with my manager. Joel (17m 42s): You're trying to talk and you've got five or six people around you talking as well. It's a horrible experience. Chad, this seems like an unintended consequence of sending people back to the office. Stupid is as stupid does. What are your thoughts on Zooming alone from the office? Chad (18m 0s): I got nothing. I mean, seriously, companies are not thinking any of this through. All they're focusing on is control. They try to press everybody back into the office, even though they've been doing the job from home and they've been getting, obviously they'd been getting work done. This is all about control. And the ramifications are going to be very simply, motherfuckers are going to leave. Joel (18m 22s): Yeah. Instead of the open office, this will just be an office of offices and conference rooms because everyone's going to have to have their own office to do Zoom calls. You're going to hear echoes of other people. I've part of the story was like two people on the same call on different computers in the same room. People didn't think this shit through, obviously just come back to the office wasn't really thought through as we go to a more remote workforce. So yeah, I got nothing. This was, this was a funny article. Cause I hadn't thought about it, unintended consequences, but a consequence nonetheless and companies are gonna have to figure shit out. Chad (19m 0s): One consequence. That's not funny. And this is a great article in Forbes is remote works impact on communities. Remote work is changing where we work and where innovation happens. But there's a larger conversation that I believe is being overlooked. The longterm impact on our cities and communities. We used to believe that where we worked decided where we lived, that spurred a network effect that gave cities a compounding advantage. Cities, attracted talent, which gave companies more reason to move to those cities and more talent to go there. Places such as New York, LA and Silicon Valley became meccas for top tier talent and of the companies that employed them. Chad (19m 42s): As a result, we ended up with a concentrated body of talent and funding. However, we're seeing a shift, due to the rise of remote work over the past year, as an example, about 80% of venture capital was invested outside of the valley, which is a massive shift. Organizations like Facebook, Salesforce and Dropbox are going remote and/or hybrid at least part of the time. But by 2025, roughly 36 million Americans are expected to work remotely and 87% increase from pre pandemic times, according to the report by Upwork. Chad (20m 23s): How will this reshape our communities? Joel (20m 24s): He didn't even mention that the oligarchs can't just buy up all the real estate in New York anymore. That's going to be a real problem. Chad (20m 32s): Good point. Joel (20m 33s): No doubt. I mean, no doubt. And we we've talked about this for the last two years, how are city's going to evolve to be centers of arts and creativity and more restaurants. And how do you hybrid an office with a living space? And I mean, all of this stuff is going to evolve in really interesting ways. I think that where a lot of people were saying New York is dead. San Francisco is dead. New York in particular, I think is coming back stronger than ever. The humorous thing is you get people like your boy, DJ Sol, who makes statements like, well, you can come back to the office. Cause you're obviously coming back to Manhattan to go to dinner and go to a play and go to a movie. Joel (21m 14s): So Chad (21m 14s): Not quite the same. Joel (21m 16s): Totally different, but the environment of New York is much more about an entertainment mecca. It's about, it's just, you know, similar to Vegas in our lifetimes, right? Chad (21m 25s): Right. Joel (21m 26s): Vegas used to be like shitty hotels where you could gamble. And that was the incentive. As you could gamble online, you could gamble in other states. Well, Vegas is now show a showcase convention center, destination it's food. It's all that stuff to get you to come back to Vegas. And I think in a bigger way, these big cities that used to rely on corporate commercial real estate and employees coming in to keep things prosperous are going to have to rethink what is a city? What is our city and what are we going to have to do? I think there's going to have to be a lot more living space in cities, a lot more affordable living space and people are going to work, but they're going to work in their residence and they're going to go outside and go to restaurants and everything else. Joel (22m 7s): I think it'll probably be skew, a younger demographic in cities, where it hasn't been before. I think, you know, people with kids and dogs and shit like that are gonna probably gravitate towards the suburbs. The guy in the article said that he lived in Tampa Bay and he's got a tech company I think. And his thing was like, well, I just want to live in Tampa Bay. If I can live anywhere in the world and do what I do, I'm going to live where I want to live. So companies or cities and states are going to be in a competition to get that brainpower and those, those folks in cities where they haven't been before. I think it's pretty exciting on a lot of different levels. But what we're seeing, what we've talked about for over two years, I think come to fruition, it started to formulate into what I think we kind of predicted it would. Chad (22m 51s): Yeah, well, cities are expensive. So this could start to bring equilibrium to some extent, right? The country's divided, we've got blue on the coasts, red in the middle. This could perspectively start to blend that. Right. We could prospectively start to see purple pay for work, not by the location. Right. That's a huge shift we've been talking about that I would love to start seeing happen. It's about the work that you do, not where you live. Joel (23m 16s): Yeah. You know, I think Indianapolis, where we live as a microcosm of what's going on, the most prominent mall downtown basically is not going to be a mall anymore. It's going to be a living center with residents and arts and restaurants. And that's going to be happening on a mass scale in cities, all around the world. And I think it's generally good. I mean, instead of cities being like, oh, places where nine to five happens and everyone just leaves, they're going to be vibrant 24 7 places where people can walk and in my case, scooter to where they want to go and do what they want to do. Joel (23m 54s): So I think ultimately, it's a great thing for cities, particularly Midwest smaller cities that just are centers for commerce. And then people go home, people will stick around. And speaking of sticking around, we got unicorn sticking around on this podcast, Chad, all right, let's move, let's move from remote to healthcare, which we probably don't talk enough about on the show. I think it's going to be a trending topic in the year to come. IntelyCare, a Quincy, Massachusetts headquartered talent platform providing per diem nurses announced a $115 million series C funding round this week, the round values IntelyCare at $1.1 billion found in 2016 IntelyCare has over 30,000 nursing professionals working at over 1600 facilities across the country. Joel (24m 49s): Their website says, quote, "find the shifts that fit your life, work as often as you want and create a nursing career that doesn't make you choose between your paycheck and your personal life" end quote. What a concept, Chad, what a concept? Chad (25m 7s): So this is pretty amazing. The 30,000 nursing professionals working with IntelyCare at over 1600 facilities across the country. The messaging is awesome. Find a better nurse life balance. Remember that? And then also remember the old Monster you're calling US calling slogan. Well listen to this one. Your calling is now your call. Again, they're playing off the flexibility. Playing off the flexibility here. So all of the hard to fill positions that we're seeing are having to be more creative and flexible. Way out of the controlling culture conversation. DJ Sol over at Goldman Sachs would have a fucking coronary if he had to implement this type of flexibility. Chad (25m 51s): In this case, you don't have to work a specific set of hours, or you can work a specific set of hours and look for some added times to pick up, you know, at facilities near you, or maybe take an extended vacation, say three months in Florida and pick up shifts while you semi vacay. If you're in this space, if you're in the job space, the career space, check this app out because I think this is actually the future of how many of these positions are placed. Joel (26m 23s): Yeah. You know, healthcare and nursing in particular, we're already in a serious crunch and COVID accelerated, I think the problem of the talent crunch, but also stressed out a hell of a lot of nurses. And we've also seen the gig economy come into play where people work, you know, where they want to work when they want to work, how they want to work. Just ask our new friend, Brie Olsen in last week's episode, what's going on. And it's been hard because you can't really work from home and be a nurse. Like you kind of have to be there to take blood and take temperatures and bloo pressure and all that stuff. So how do you mix the best of the gig economy, but also have a job in healthcare? And I think IntelyCare and I think like NomadHealth, which we've talked about as well on the show are putting more power in the hands of nurses, as well as other professionals and hopefully bringing more of them into the workplace. Joel (27m 13s): I think it's a great recruiting tool for nursing to be able to have this flexibility. Also think it's going to be really interesting to see how many nurses that don't nurse come back to nursing. I want to say that it's like one in only one in four people that have a nursing degree are actually nurses. So if this can like lure nurses or degree nurses back into the profession, I think it could bring in retirees that would like to still work, but don't want to do it you know, as much as, as they typically would. I know my wife's mother is a former nurse and I think she'd like the opportunity to maybe like once or twice a week, come in and do some nursing shirts. Joel (27m 53s): I think this brings in the best of the gig economy, but also keeps you in healthcare and helping people and I think that's a great thing. And this is a trend that I think that we'll continue to see in Telecare and others like Nomad Health are going to be very successful and probably are deserving of their unicorn status. All right, Chad, let's take a break from remote work and healthcare to talk about one of our favorite companies. Indeed. All right. Let's talk about Indeed Chad. Who haven't we talked about? LinkedIn and we talked about them on the show yet. ZipRecruiter. I just said it. So we'll find, we'll show up in SEO. Joel (28m 35s): All right. Indeed wants a salary range on your job postings or else. An Indeed client and fan of the show recently shared an email with us. I won't read the whole thing, but here's the gist quote "by the end of 2022, we (being Indeed) strive to show a salary for every job on Indeed in the US. This is one of the most frequent pieces of feedback we received from job seekers and more and more states are requiring salary ranges to be disclosed at different points in the job process." Chad (29m 7s): Yup. Joel (29m 7s): Indeed goes on to say 34% of employers currently provide salary ranges to Indeed adding quote "in cases where jobs do not have an employer provided salary Indeed we'll estimate the job salary based on data points, like job title, location, and reported salaries." Chad, did you and Indeed just become best friends. Chad (29m 27s): Yup. Yeah. You're not going to believe it, right? I believe Indeed is spot on with this move and in a world where it's still incredibly hard to attract candidates, let alone get them to complete the online application. Remember more than 90% of candidates are not even completing the application. Remember that. Anyways, anyways, I cannot understand why talent acquisition hasn't just the salary transparency because it's not just necessary, it's the new standard. And this move by Indeed is saying, we're moving you out of the Jurassic ag, whether you like it or not. Chad (30m 9s): And I am a big fan of this move by Indeed. You've never heard that on this podcast before. sfx (30m 13s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (30m 14s): Chad in love with Indeed. I never thought I'd see the day. Not much to add. What's curious to me, governments are requiring it more and more. We've talked about New York City. We've talked about Colorado. Like this is going to happen. However, a lot of governments will never do this, right, Texas and Florida. I don't see them ever requiring salary ranges on job postings. What I want to see is who comes out with a marketing campaign saying, quote, "we don't require salary ranges." We are the anti Indeed because you know, Chad, there are a lot of marketing meetings happening right now, talking about that very strategy. Who's going to be the anti Indeed step up and let's see it and we'll talk about it on the show. Chad (30m 55s): We'll make fun of you on the show, just like we do everybody else. Joel (30m 60s): Can we applaud Indeed? Holy shit. Chad (31m 2s): Yes. Joel (31m 3s): Let's talk about Google for a second. This is from Bloomberg. Chad starting this week. Workers at Google are required to come into company headquarters three times a week. But according to Laszlo Bock, former chief of Google human resources and current CEO of Huma, Hulu, H U M U? I don't know. This hybrid model won't be around much longer. Bock says that after three to five years of flexible work models and hybrid plans, the normal in-office schedule will prevail at Google. Get your ass back in the office. He predicts this transition will happen over the next few years, telling Bloomberg it's the boil the frog method. Bock says he thinks workers will likely begin to want to come into the office themselves when they see bosses giving more promotions and opportunities to staff who are in the building over those slackers who want to work from home. Joel (31m 52s): The new power dynamic will likely force reluctant employees to get back to the office when trying to gain favor with their supervisors. Speaking of boiling, Chad, I'm guessing this one gets your blood a little hotter. Am I right? Chad (32m 7s): It's amazing how companies, you know, are either forcing the issue. Like again, Goldman Sachs or you've got DJ Sol or Jamie Diamond, right? And then you have companies like Google who are, as Laszlo says, they're boiling the frog or boiling the employee. So they are incredibly tone deaf and they don't give a fuck about what their employees say or care about what they want. I have a LinkedIn poll. I know, you know, I hate LinkedIn polls. Joel (32m 34s): You got a poll? everybody's got a poll on LinkedIn. Oh yeah. Chad (32m 40s): I've got a LinkedIn poll. This is actually Liz Ryan's poll. She posted, which is relevant to this discussion. Here's the statement and question, "many employers are allowing employees to work from anywhere, but other firms are ordering employees back to the office. Will it hurt them?" So at the time of capture the poll, it had 23,363 votes and 80% voted yes, good employees won't stay. 16% it won't hurt them. And 3% was other, please comment. And there was over 400 comments. This is a tone deaf moment for most of these organizations where one or two things. Chad (33m 20s): They're either being tone deaf, where they really think that, you know, well, we really need them back in or they just don't give a shit. I think it's probably the latter for the most cases. But I agree with Laszlo. This is a boiling, within the next three to five years. Some companies, many companies could be back to the grind in the office. Yep. Joel (33m 40s): So for those who aren't familiar, the boiling the frog is if you can cook a frog one degree higher at a time and they won't even notice that they're being cooked. But if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, they're going to jump out. So this sort of slow, methodical, evil if you will strategy by employers to one day, have people wake up and go, oh shit we're back in the office five days a week is I guess the end goal. The only shock that I have about the LinkedIn poll is that it was only 80% of people who think this strategy would hurt employers. Who are the people that don't think this is going to hurt employers. Anyway, there's a theme on our show, Chad, this shit's going to be messy. Joel (34m 24s): There will be unintended consequences. There will be personal preferences. There will be cats and dogs living together. There will be mass hysteria. I do have our believe there's a lot of legitimacy saying those in the office will see greater upward mobility and pay in their careers, which could eventually bring things closer to the way they were, than closer to what we think it will be or what it should be. I think the natural human condition of raises and upward mobility tends to lend itself to being face-to-face. I don't know how you get past that. So I do think there is some legitimacy. And if you want to move up. Chad (35m 3s): Court cases, that's how you're going to say it. Joel (35m 6s): Court cases. Yeah. That could solve it. That could solve it. Well, let's move on from that into some food. sfx (35m 16s): I want Chipotle. Joel (35m 17s): It's about lunchtime here in the US anyway, this is from the Business Insider an executive at American Franchise Capital, which owns 67 Taco Bell and 50 Applebee's Restaurants set in a leaked email that rising gas prices would mean more applicants and the opportunity to offer them lower wages. Wayne Pankratz, what an appropriate name for this Pankratz who serves as the executive director of operations of American Franchise Capital also known as AFC brands wrote quote, "most of our employee base and potential employee base live paycheck to paycheck. Any increase in gas prices cuts into their disposable income. As inflation continues to climb and gas prices continue to go up. Joel (35m 59s): That means more hours employees will need to work to maintain their current level of living" end quote. This led to the parent company, disavowing his comments and employees quitting or walking out, causing a temporary closure in some stores. Thankfully, I can still go to Taco Bell, Chad, knowing this was just a rogue element. Just kidding. I'm going to eat more Chipotle. Chad, what are your thoughts on this knucklehead? Mr. Wayne Pankratz. Chad (36m 23s): Yeah, this avowing Wayne Pankratz who's an executive, right? It's not like there was a fry cook and a fry cook posted something on Twitter. And they're like, yeah, we don't believe that. This guy is an executive. You know, they all are thinking what that dumb ass is saying. And what was the last time we got a fucking stimulus check? I mean, come on. So he's a massive piece of shit, right? And I bet this asshole didn't take a pay cut himself. How many fast food joints do we know are in one square mile, right? Chad (37m 4s): It might help America's cholesterol waist and need for fast food workers if we had less. This is what makes middle and low wage earners, purely despise executives, the utter disregard for human wellbeing. Joel (37m 15s): How many of these power structure executives would love for shit to go back to the way it was? Like, there's such a clinging on to like the past is coming back. Chad (37m 24s): This whole show. Joel (37m 24s): I don't think it is right. This whole show. So the old adage, which you said is, everyone's thinking it, this guy just said it or worse maybe he wrote it, right? Which left a paper trail where he's wrong in this and I think he should talk to our friend Brie Olsen again, from last week show is people have way more alternatives today to make money. Hello, gig economy than we've ever had. So whittling it down to quote, "oh, no more STEMI's and higher gas prices are instantly going to bring workers back" is probably wrong. So instead of hoping for external forces to bring things back to normal, why don't you get your own house in order and make your own house something that employees want to come work for and stick around. Joel (38m 14s): Or just invest in some robots, which we'll cover right after the break. Chad, more food, Chad, more food. All right. Chad (38m 21s): Wow. Joel (38m 22s): Well, if you're waiting to see which burger chain was going to bring Flippy in to make your food well, wait, no longer. It's White Castle. Actually seeing a robot put together parts of your meal might have seemed like a distant dream, which I typically dream quite a lot about. But guess what everyone it's actually happening. White Castle is rolling out a new fleet of 100 Flippys. Flippy Twos to be exact because Flippy One had some issues, Chad. Gradually within the next few years and these robots are specifically dedicated to the deep fryer station. I'm talking all your favorites, fries, chicken rings, chicken wings, fish patties, all the good stuff. Joel (39m 4s): If part of your lunch is taking a bath in oil before it gets to you, those 100 Flippy units, we'll be doing it all the time, all your cooking. Right now, there's only one Flippy model that's in live production, any of White Castle's brick and mortar locations, which happens to be in beautiful Merrillville, Indiana, Chad, just outside of White Castle's home base of Chicago, but make no mistake about it. Chad, our robot overlords are coming and they're bringing sliders, onion rings and shrimp nibblers. And I, for one, can't be more excited about that. Chad (39m 42s): Yeah. So what I said in the, in the prior segments obviously is never going to happen. We're never going to have less fast food, right? America loves its cholesterol and it's ever growing stretchy jean problem. So that being said, we don't have enough talent to be able to pick up and not to mention Flippy is probably not going to over cook your fries. Like you will get at a Burger King or a McDonald's where, you know, the teenagers busy looking at their Facebook or their Insta or whatever it might be. Joel (40m 18s): No. Chad (40m 18s): So, you know, this move part of your prediction by the end of this year, there's going to be a restaurant that is a hundred percent, you know, back, the back office, I guess you can say, is going to be robot. And I don't see why not. They're shitty fucking jobs. They're low paid jobs. You got to work with assholes like Wayne Pankratz for God's sakes. Stop it, get some robots in there and let's get these kids trained up in programming and shit that they are going to need to do long-term. Joel (40m 52s): And no more scrotums in the ice cream maker. Chad, that's what I'm talking about. Chad (40m 56s): Sounds like something you did. Joel (40m 58s): I can neither confirm nor deny that claim. Chad and Cheese (41m 2s): We out. OUTRO (41m 36s): 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 continues to be a hotbed of workforce news. That's why the boys brought on AIM Group's managing editor Pavel Marceux on the podcast. Pavel wrote a story entitle, "Metaverse hiring: A passing tech fad or future game changer?," so Boner Alert for Cheesman! Additionally, the boys discuss the state of Russian recruitment, Axel Springer taking a bigger stake of No Fluff Jobs out of Poland, Malt drinking up Comatch's milkshake and Hired increasing it's footprint by, oh, like, 100 countries. Listen up, and drink it up people! 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 (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): callrussia.org we'll randomly connect you with everyday citizens of Russia to help halt Putin's propaganda machine. It aims to make 40 million calls to help stop the war on Ukraine. If you speak Russian, check it out. CallRussia.org. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "jerkyboy" Cheeseman. Chad (52s): This is Chad "the US made the World Cup" Sowash Lieven (56s): And I'm Lieven "COVID finally got me" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 0s): And on this episode, Axel Springer is Europe's favorite fluffer. Malt milkshake brings CoMatch to the yard and Hired is coming to the old country. Let's do this. sfx (1m 14s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 17s): COVID what? Chad (1m 18s): COVID? First you get knocked off of Reddit. Then you get back on. Then you get smashed by COVID what the hell is going on Lieven? And you just it's like a house of cards over there. Lieven (1m 26s): It must be a complot. How do you say it in English must be a? Chad (1m 31s): A plot? Lieven (1m 31s): A plot is the word I was looking for. Joel (1m 33s): Putin is poisoning him. That's the answer. Putin is out to get Lieven. Lieven (1m 38s): I thought it was COVID but it's polonium. No, no, I got COVID, but it's overrated. Chad (1m 44s): It's overrated. Well, one good thing though, Belgium got an awesome draw in the World Cup, they only have to face Canada, Morocco and Coratia so they should be on to at least the next group. Joel (1m 56s): Canada, Morocco and Croatia. Yeah, that sounds like a doable bracket. So Chad, give me the soccer update. Cause you know, I don't watch this shit. So the US is in? Chad (2m 6s): US is in. Joel (2m 7s): Italy's out. Chad (2m 8s): Yep. Italy's out. Joel (2m 8s): Wow. Chad (2m 9s): That was a big one. I got beat by North Macedonia. Then a Portugal took care of them, but Portugal's draws Ghana, Uruguay, and Korea. And then the US's draw, we have England, Iran and we're waiting for the winner of Scotland and Ukraine who's going to play Wales for the spot. Joel (2m 28s): And who's who's favored? Like who is the top two or three teams that everyone should be looking out for? Chad (2m 34s): Well, we've got the top seeds, like Belgium and Portugal, but having Italy out of it? That's just, I mean, that's ? Lieven (2m 42s): That's weird. Joel (2m 42s): Brazil. Argentina. Are they being talked about at all? Chad (2m 46s): Oh yeah. Well Argentina obviously because Messi. Joel (2m 48s): All right, well that's our soccer, oh, sorry, football update for the week. Everybody let's get to our mystery guest shall we? Chad (2m 58s): Mystery guest? Joel (2m 58s): Super excited. This is our first reporter that we brought onto the show. Journalism alert. Right? Welcome Pavel Marceau to the show. Pavel is principal and managing editor at Aim Group. Chad (3m 11s): Love those guys. Joel (3m 12s): In my opinion, Aim Group is the gold standard of global reporting on our industry as well as anything classified, so real estate cars, et cetera. If you're an executive in this space and not a subscriber, get your head out of your ass and head to AimGroup.com today. He joins us from Cyprus, Pavel welcome to the podcast. Pavel (3m 34s): Right? Good intro. I like it. Very nice. Very nice. I like the football chat as well. As an Englishman. I appreciate it. Joel (3m 43s): You're in Cyprus. You have a nice English accent, like you have an interesting history. Give us the Twitter bio about you. Pavel (3m 51s): Oh God. Okay. So moved from Russia when I was about six years old because my parents were running away from kind of the Perestroika of '92. My dad got a job with the BBC so we moved to London and then pretty much in London until my late teens then kind of, you know, study moved all over the world, lived in Russia for a while. I lived in, just all over the world. I'd say, I'm Russian born, but I'm English as you can get, to be honest, even though I speak Russian fluently. I'm about as, I dunno, as Russian as John Gotti's Italian. Joel (4m 32s): And now is reporting on this space sort of like some sort of corporal punishment that you have to endure after crimes as a child. I don't understand why get into this space? Pavel (4m 42s): It appears to be so, yeah. Yeah. It's unique I guess. Right. That's a good thing. I mean, if you were kind of financial journalist, everyone's writing about that. If your a sports journalists, everyone does that. So kind of writing about classifieds and yeah, it's a very niche area and I can proclaim to be one of the very few people in the world who's doing this kind of analysis, so that's nice. Joel (5m 3s): That's a good point. And you were on the show because of an article that you recently wrote, and this is a boner alert for me. You wrote a story entitled, "Metaverse hiring a passing fad or future game changer?" So that obviously. Chad (5m 21s): Nothing but sex for Joel. Joel (5m 24s): That one got me going. So Pavel, for those who haven't read that story, what's your take on the metaverse and hiring? Is it the future or is it a passing fad? Give us a summary. Pavel (5m 34s): I wrote it a few months back and we've spoken to multiple, multiple recruitment companies and CEOs in the space about this fee. I know obviously was hot initially because the whole kind of metaverse buzz following Zuckerberg's announcement and the way Facebook has embraced it. And what we saw at the beginning when I was writing the article is that you saw a couple of companies, particularly in Asia, actually. I mean, they're very big on, on VR stuff, way bigger than Europeans and Americans are. And we saw instant kind of funding into these kind of VR projects in Japan and a few other Asian countries and a fairly big company, public listed co Inc in Japan launched pretty much immediately an app and metaverse app where kind of candidates can kind of scroll through the world. Pavel (6m 20s): Yeah. I mean like many things that are VR at the moment in the same way that, you know, cryptocurrency has been. These things come and go, it's usually a fad. It's usually a way to appeal to investors or sometimes to bring more employers abroad because you want to kind of show off your tech skills. And obviously a lot of people we spoke to said, you know, of course this is ridiculous. You know, there's no point. It's just a waste of time, blah, blah, blah. But I spoke to a Japanese guy and he made the really, really good point, which I really liked. And I didn't really think of, and he said, well, imagine you're like a 18 year old, 19 year old student, right? You're a Japanese guy, you've got low self esteem. You know, you might be on your computer, nine, eight hours a day. Pavel (7m 2s): You're not used to socializing. And even going on Zoom, let alone meeting someone face-to-face is like a real challenge, right? Because you know, it takes a lot of balls to do that for a young kid. And he said the way they found the success and the metaverse and where they see the future is for those kinds of people, you know, it was kind of socially shy guys who might be incredibly intelligent, especially in the kind of the tech IT space where you don't really need to be amazing at social interactions, it's more about numbers and, you know, being able to work and code well. So for those guys, it actually works really well because they get to choose their, you know, their skin, they get to choose the character, the avatar, whatever, and they feel way more comfortable in that space. Pavel (7m 42s): I think it's especially apps for Japan, right? Because I mean, you probably heard lots of social problems in Japan. There's like a whole social class thing. Right? So in addition to the shyness thing, it was also a huge class thing to overcome. So if you're, if you come from a kind of weird, lower social status, you might be really, really awkward when you have to meet some kind of big suits at a recruitment company or any other company when you go to work. So that example I thought was really, really brilliant in terms of showing how it can work. Joel (8m 10s): So in short, Chad, he's saying there's a chance baby. Chad (8m 16s): For in cells everywhere. Pavel (8m 18s): That's pretty much it. Joel (8m 20s): Introverts everywhere rejoice! The metaverse is here. All right. Thanks. Thanks, Pavel. All right. Let's let's get into some shout outs. Shall we everybody hit it up? Chad (8m 28s): Go Cheeseman. Joel (8m 28s): I'll go ahead and go first. Orka, Free Willy. No, wait, not that Orka. The Manchester based startup founded in 2019 has announced a 3 million pound investment in bitcher capital investor Praetura Ventures, Orka supports shift workers and their employers by helping them find temporary employment and allowing them to access 50% of their wages as soon they've earned them. Chad (8m 58s): Hello. Joel (8m 58s): In an average month, Orka helped 6,000 people source work, shout out to Orka. Chad (9m 6s): Excellent. Well, my Shout Out goes to the EU who is standing up to big tech. It's about fucking time somebody does. An agreement called the Digital Market Act establishes a series of prohibitions and obligations for companies, including Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon, and a number of smaller platforms that will likely include Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Also requirements for messaging services, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage will have to open up for smaller messaging platforms for group chats. So here's where it gets really interesting kids penalties for breaching. The rules can be up to 10% of annual worldwide turnover in the case of the first infringement. Chad (9m 54s): And even up to 20% in the case of repeated infringements. For me, this is where it actually matters because we in the US, all we do is we just, we have these little bitty fines that do nothing and they still continue to, you know, act bad. So hopefully the EU is going to actually take a stand and maybe the US will follow. We'll see. Joel (10m 15s): Yeah. Good luck with that one. Lieven. Lieven (10m 18s): My shout-out goes to who is the CEO of RedMart group. And he invited me to his famous skiing trip to Australia last week. So he see right. RedMart group and they have a company called Talent and Pro and they go skiing each year with about 300 people. And it's really a lovely trip. And he invited me. So I hope this will be an inspiration to all our other CEOs because we have 45 companies send our 52 weekend a years or plenty of time. sfx (10m 47s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (10m 50s): Is hot tub time machine. When I think of Lieven going for a ski trip. Lieven (10m 55s): Oh, I actually skied and I got COVID on the plane, but it's worth it. Joel (10m 59s): And the Swedish bikini team is in that hot tub by the way. Chad (11m 3s): Yes. Exactly. Joel (11m 3s): Exactly. Nice, nice Pavel. Our guest has a shout out, which is a rare treat. Pavel what you got? Pavel (11m 9s): My shouts out is to the Russian recruitment sector, which is tanking faster than, I don't know what would be a good us analogy? Then Biden's presidential approval rating. How about that? Joel (11m 20s): Lead balloon? Separate screen doors. Yeah. Okay. Pavel (11m 22s): Yeah. Yeah. It's going down faster. You had pretty much all the major foreign companies that were operating in Russia's recruitment markets. So you had Recruit Holdings with Indeed they're gone and you had the Jubal Ukrainian, obviously gone. A bunch of freelance marketplaces, such as, you know, Upwork, Fiverr, they're all gone. So all the foreign actors have left the stage. So you have a bunch of Russian companies. Some of them actually listed on foreign markets, such as a Headhunter Group, of course, listed on the London stock exchange. They are going to be facing a severe decline. And a huge stat that I saw was out of Russia's estimate to 300,000 IT workers, half that's half, 50% or expect to leave the country in the next six months. Joel (12m 4s): Holy shit. Chad (12m 5s): Brain drain that shit's happening. Joel (12m 7s): And are you seeing efforts by either countries or businesses to capture these exodus, exiting Russians? Pavel (12m 14s): Not yet. I think they think Russians are in trend right now, so there's not opening their arms too wide at the moment, but the Russian government is trying to keep them at home by giving them massive tax cuts and guaranteed higher wage brackets. Joel (12m 29s): Well, maybe they're escaping to Belgium, which is where Chad and I will be going May sixth. Lieven tell everyone about the eCongress. If they good God don't even know by now. Lieven (12m 38s): It's almost impossible not to know about the Erecruitment Congress, on May 6 in Belgium, but it's by far by far, the most important Congress on Erecruitment in Belgium, it's also one of the only Erecruitment Congress in Belgium, but it will be interesting. And the metaverse isn't on the speakers list yet. So Pavel maybe you should talk. Joel (12m 59s): Yeah. Pavel, if you want to come talk about the metaverse, that'd be a hell of a fun topic to come and talk about over some Belgian beers. Pavel (13m 7s): Let's go get some COVID in Belgium. Joel (13m 9s): Let's get some Duvel Duvel we'll clear that shit right up, right up. And I will also be a RecFest in the UK. Pavel that's maybe a little, you know, at least language closer to you. And if anyone knows about what's know more about Chad and Cheese's tour of the world, just go to Chadcheese.com backslash, Chad (13m 30s): But just go to Chadcheese.com, click on events. It's right there in the upper right-hand corner. That's how easy it is. Joel (13m 40s): Even a caveman can figure it out. Chad (13m 43s): Topics! Joel (13m 44s): Topics! Axel Foley, I mean, Springer has increased its stake in IT recruitment site, NoFluffJobs.com to 70% of the company shares up from 44% before the transaction. The value of the transaction was not disclosed. No Fluff Jobs was established in 2014 in Poland, Axel Springer first invested in the company in July of 2018. In October, 2019, the site expanded into Hungary and in the following years also into the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, and Ukraine. The investment will let Axel Springer take No Fluff Jobs to the next level of international development and build a strong platform with IT job offers in the dynamic and growing global market of IT professionals. Joel (14m 34s): That's according to Mark Deccan, CEO of Axel Springer in the news release that announced the transaction, No Fluff Jobs focuses specifically on listings for IT specialists. The site saw 842,000ish visits in February. That's according to similar web. All right, guys, who's ready for a fluffer job. And this is probably good timing considering all the Russian programmers getting the hell out of Russia, right Pavel? Pavel (14m 56s): And they're not in Belarus anymore, by the way. Joel (14m 59s): That's why we have reporters on the show. Pavel (15m 0s): Yeah. I think, you know why don't need to spell it out, but yeah, yeah. I've been following them for a while. Actually it's interesting. What's really interesting about that is the Axel Springer entry into Eastern Europe and the way that they're really trying to branch out, it's part of the kind of general effort in the region, but they're not, you know, they're not a very big site. I mean, usually niche sites like that, don't get a lot of traffic. They'll never be competing for the top recruitment verticals in any of these countries and the way they've modeled the site. I mean, it's really like a purely English offering for IT personnel in Western Europe. So let's see how it goes. You know, it's still early stage of development at this point. Joel (15m 41s): Do you think Axel Springer wants to acquire No Fluff at some point? Like what's the added interest? Is it an acquisition or it's just that good of a business? Pavel (15m 49s): I think it's part of the general trend because they're also big in real estate now they've acquired a bunch of real fast of the policy is, and I think recruitment is also part of that strategy. They want to have a bigger presence in Eastern Europe because it's new actually, if you look at it from a point of view of kind of these marketplace businesses, it's kind of getting ignored because you have process, especially now because you're going to process probably leaving Russia, right? It's kind of, they said they will. So it's probably going to happen. Belarus is another market going to be abandoned. Ukraine has obviously in chaos, so there's not too many competitors or major rivals. And there's a lot of companies to snap up in this new Europe. There's a lot of big kind of number one companies that are locally owned. Pavel (16m 30s): You know, they're not, don't belong to any big, giant corporate establishment. Joel (16m 34s): Are there any particular countries that you think are going to greatly benefit from the Russian exit, Belarus exit and the debacle in Ukraine like Poland is doing a very good job of housing Ukrainians. I mean, do you think there's going to be a Renaissance period for Eastern Europe as these developers sort of take flight in those countries? Or do you think they're gonna go to France and Germany and try to make their way to America? Do you have any take on that? Pavel (16m 60s): Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's going to be Western Europe for both Russians and Ukrainian developers. What people don't understand is Ukrainians even the opponents being really nice that they're taking on a load Ukrainians. Ukraine's don't feel a very homely in Poland historically. They've always been kind of opposed to each other. And I feel even though there's this kind of wave, of really positive wave of welcoming them in the long-term when I speak to my Ukrainian friends, don't really see a future for themselves in Eastern Europe, unless it's a home. Chad (17m 29s): Yeah. So really brass tacks. This is a job board. It's no fluff. It's stripped down that's job ads with pay transparency, but this could easily be duplicated. So it's not a Mayday. It's just interesting that Axel Springer would buy these guys number one, after StepStone backs out of France. Right. Which is the number two market in Europe. Pavel (17m 54s): We broke that Dane Grid broke that story. Chad (17m 56s): You did. Yeah. You and we talked about it cause you guys do the good stuff, but I don't understand why 70%, why two, two things first and foremost, just buy the damn thing. It can't be that expensive number one. Number two, if you are a founder, why hang on to 30%? If you have, if you don't have controlling interest, sell that shit. I mean, you're hanging on for a wing and a prayer is what you're doing. So that to me was really weird. Lieven (18m 25s): Yeah. But maybe Axel Springer just wants to keep the management on board. So they are obliged to keep a part of the shares. So they should try to make as much money as possible because there are still shareholders. Otherwise, if they would have some kind of an agreement like you will have to stay for five years, why should they work hard when the cashed already? I would do the same thing. Chad (18m 47s): Yeah. I'm just saying as a founder, you, at that point are cornered. So you either sell the whole thing or, you know, you don't give up controlling interest. Joel (18m 55s): I just want to be a fly on the wall of a sales call when someone calls a company and says there with No Fluff Jobs at what the response is. I know what my response would be if I were on the other end of that call, all right, let's take a quick break. And we'll have some, some milkshakes. sfx (19m 17s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. I drink your milkshake. I drink it up. Joel (19m 27s): All right, French freelancer marketplace Malt has acquired Berlin based CoMatch. The terms of the deal were not made public, but the acquisition has said to involve a mix of equity and cash. It's a match made in freelance heaven everybody! CoMatch is a marketplace for independent management consultants and industry experts and Malt has a reported 340,000 freelancers across Europe, matching freelance developers, designers, and other technical workers with companies found in France. It has since begun operating in Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland with offices in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Munich and of course now Berlin. Previously CoMatch founded in 2014, it raised a total of $14 million. Joel (20m 11s): While Malt founded a year earlier has raised almost $140 million. There's always a bigger fish! Who wants to chime in on this deal and how long before malt expands to the United States of America? Chad (20m 24s): First off, this is the European show so it's 122 million euros just so that everybody understands, right. Joel (20m 30s): It is still 340,000 freelancers though. I don't think that number changes. Chad (20m 33s): Well, yeah, and the question is that a lot of gig workers? Because when we first looked at this and the very first show, we did the very first European show, we looked at this number and we thought, eh, it's not too big. But then I went in, I took a look at Fiverr and again, they're a global organization. They have 830,000 gig workers globally. So I thought, you know, wow, that's a pretty damn good representation. If you are only in a little over a handful of European countries and you have 340,000, then you hook up with CoMatch and they have 15,000 freelancers, but these freelancers are across nine different markets. Chad (21m 20s): And they're more upscale, right? So you're talking about management consultants and industry experts. So this is an interesting acquisition from the standpoint of being able to up-level your candidate pool? The question for me is will they continue with the CoMatch brand or will this all just become Malt? And then Malt has more layers of individuals that you could go after? Consultants versus, you know, entry-level gig workers. Joel (21m 49s): Maybe it can be CoMalt. Lieven (21m 52s): Single malt. Joel (21m 52s): So say that again. So there are 800, some 800,000 freelancers globally on Fiverr? Chad (21m 59s): 830. That was 2019 numbers. Joel (22m 0s): Okay. So let's call it 900,000. Chad (22m 3s): Yeah. Yeah. And, but 25% of their revenues came from Europe. So, you know, it's fairly substantial, but again, you're talking about a global platform versus one, that's just a handful of European countries. Joel (22m 16s): Europeans be freelancing. It sounds like it's a growing phenomenon and malt is a position to a profit from that quite a bit. Lieven? Lieven (22m 24s): Yeah. The timing is perfect, I think. The freelance business is exploding right now. And we started a bit later than in the United States. You had to Reddit for a few years and reddit nuts still top of minds, they throw me out of Reddit. Now you had a Fiverr. Joel (22m 39s): Upwork Lieven (22m 40s): A couple of years ago, and now all the same thing is happening in Belgium and in Europe. So Malt is active in the biggest countries, I guess, are France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands. If I look at our company is doing the same thing. Since last year, they're actually growing very fast. It took some time to get launched, but now it's moving fast. So I think buying something in Germany is a good idea, because it's a very big market. The biggest one, it's still very fragmented. You have many, many, many small companies perfect for consolidation to do some acquisitions. I would do the same thing if I were them. Joel (23m 16s): You know, we talked to when we were talking about Upwork and Fiverr, leaving Russia, I remember we talked a little bit about freelance.com, which I think was also based in France and that they were not leaving Russia. So I thought that was an interesting move. Maybe that's changed since then, but you have, you have a really crowded market space for gig workers and freelancers in Europe. And obviously consolidation is going to happen. Whether it's on the Upwork Fiverr end of things, freelance, Malt, you've got obviously, you know, driver jobs, Uber's there, et cetera. And then consolidation is going to happen. So to me, this is as simple as a bigger fish, ate a little fish and whether it was going to be Malt or Freelance or someone else, CoMatch was going to be gobbled up. Joel (24m 6s): And it just happened to me Malt in this case. Pavel (24m 10s): It's interesting how everything has accelerated on the back of the pandemic. And I think the general understanding and the way investors view freelancer marketplace has really switched, right? Because before it was all kind of like, you know, low paid really basic staff, lots of poorly qualified freelancers looking to make a few bucks on the side. And I think what we see now is this real focus on quality over quantity. And I think the next stage that we'll see will be this hyper localized, hyper skill focused freelance marketplaces with even like a gateway on skills. You know, so, and I think that's going to be really in demand where you can have major corporates coming in and finding really high level, high pay freelances. Pavel (24m 50s): And by the way, it's so, Aim Group we would do recruitment annual and every year we were ranked the top 15 freelance sites globally by web traffic. Give you guys a guess, name me the top three freelance marketplaces by traffic, have a guess. Joel (25m 8s): Upwork. Pavel (25m 9s): That's number two. Chad (25m 9s): Fiverr. Pavel (25m 9s): Fiverr's number one. Number three? Joel (25m 15s): Probably somewhere in Asia or China that we'd never heard of. Pavel (25m 20s): It's a tough one. No, it is US site. Dribbble.com. Joel (25m 23s): Oh yeah. design work. Pavel (25m 24s): Yeah. And dribble. Very popular. Joel (25m 26s): That's interesting. Yeah. We learned something today. Chad (25m 27s): We learn something every day, every day. So here's the thing and you asked Joel, do you think that they're coming to the US? I think they shouldn't first and foremost, I think they there's enough to eat in Europe. Although here's one of the quotes from Crunchbase "following this acquisition, Malt has some ambitious goals. By 2024, the company expects to generate 1 billion euros in business volume." Just to kind of give you an idea of Fiverr is paced this year to be at $375 million globally in revenue. I mean, their eyes are big. I think to answer your question, they should stay in Europe. Chad (26m 8s): But with that kind of goal, they've got to go to the US because they can't find that much cash in Europe alone. Lieven (26m 15s): I agree. I mean, it's a big market. Okay. But how are these companies are already split firms going to differentiate between each other? And you could say, I'm a freelancer. I'm present at several platforms. And the one which is going to give me the best projects I will take, and they will make some money on me. So there are several possibilities. You could be a working the price, let's say at Malt, they charge about 10% on the first project you do for a client. And the second one for the same client, they charge 5%, which actually is cheaper than Fiverr. So that could be a to break into the markets. But I think it's something Pavel said as well. Lieven (26m 55s): It's about quality, all those big platforms. And they claim to have over three-hunderd thousand freelancers, they probably haven't ever met 10% of those. They didn't interview them or anything. So I think the best way to differentiate today is to have a smaller community of high quality freelancers, which you all know, which you have tested and which you guarantee are good. A bit like Fiverr has its business platform or something where you pay more. But the candidates are qualified by Fiverr, very small percentage of all those people. So this is something I believe in, you have a smaller initial with a community of people who know each other who know you, you know them, you've tested them and you put them in the markets. Joel (27m 39s): Quick question for the Europeans. Culturally, do you guys have an opinion on whether European countries are most comfortable with, Hey, get your ass back in the office, live close to work, relocating people from other EU countries to come live in the city of your headquarters or the office to come in, or is there a greater comfort in, okay, we're going to start working remotely. We're going to start using contractors all around the continent. Do you guys have a sense, culturally, what is sort of most comfort comfortable for companies in Europe? Is it a country by country? Is there a blanket statement you could make or no clue whatsoever? Pavel (28m 12s): Okay. I can give you an example. So I used to work with a big I'd like to name the company, but it's a huge, huge public listed company in the UK. And about four years ago, they started shutting down all of their freelancers because they started believing in this kind of workforce philosophy. So they're worried about data breaches security, and they basically wanted everyone in-house in the office and they cut off a bunch of thousands of freelancer contracts. Then the pandemic kit and their philosophy basically was left in ruins, right? Because they were left without this freelancer base to fall back on. And that is a good example of what companies are seeing as the risk now. Pavel (28m 54s): And I think in the UK, at least, freelancer model is being adopted very, very rapidly. It's completely normal now. Chad (29m 3s): Which is flowing nicely into the next hire.com expansion. Joel (29m 6s): Chad, you read my mind and that segue baby, let's talk about Hired. So Hired is a solution for finding tech and sales talent, last week, they announced its next milestone, enabling hiring on a global scale. While Hired focused on matching employers and candidates in the US, Canada and the UK in the past. Now companies can connect with job seekers for more than 100 companies following the platform shift to remote hiring worldwide. As part of the strategy Hired has partnered with global HR solutions, Oyster and Remote to help employers more easily source, hire, onboard and employ talent from anywhere. Through these partnerships, Hired customers have access to HR management solutions for international payroll, benefits, taxes and compliance among other needs. Joel (29m 54s): To date Hired founded in 2012 has raised $132 million. Chad, you can chime in on what that is in euros. Guys, I imagine a lot of vendors are figuring out how to scale internationally, thanks to the popularity of remote work. Any thoughts? Pavel (30m 11s): I think it's very difficult. There's lots of things to consider. There's lots of regulations on the regional level, you need a really strong payment system, right? That works globally, actually. So you need a huge investment to work on the global level. It's easier for the IT segment, I think generally speaking, because the volumes aren't as massive, but I think if you have a remote hiring platform, I think you've got to think internationally these days. I mean, if you can be, you know, restricted to one market. Chad (30m 41s): They're specifically looking at sales and IT, so in both those areas, I think, you know, remote is a pretty smart, right? It just makes sense but I'm wondering if Hired was waiting for a benchmark of validation from customers, like data points they shared, 60% of their employers and 90% of their candidates are open to remote work. I wonder if they waited to see those numbers hit like a certain benchmark before they actually pulled the trigger because they could have done this much earlier. And to your point, Pavel, the remote partnership is key for all of those payment systems and being able to work in all those different countries. Chad (31m 28s): So that's a great connection. And if they're using Oyster and Remote well, as sales generation leads through partnership, this could be huge for hired.com. At first I was not a big fan because it was Addeco and they bought Vettery. And I didn't think that they would be able to transition from the old style staffing model into something new. And it looks like they're starting to find their way. Lieven what do you think? This is your lane, man. Lieven (31m 57s): It's about time to start doing something, right? I guess. He used to be number one, they were past by a Randstad. I think you're totally right In this case. Joel (32m 8s): Something Pavel said, and I think something Chad said are pretty relevant here. Number one, overnight, the pandemic changed people's opinions on what was important and what wasn't. And overnight basically employers said, we need to be able to manage, recruit remotely. We need to be able to open the doors to more talent on a global level. And what happens when employers want something, they go to their vendors and say, how can you help us do this? How can you get us to a global footprint in terms of recruiting and managing these folks? Obviously Remote was in a great position. If you look at, you know, your tech team and say, okay, how do we this easily or quickly? Joel (32m 49s): Partnerships typically come to mind. Like who can we partner with quickly to be able to add, you know, this solution to our customers? And I think that was part of, I think, Hired's desire to sort of grow globally quicker than most of their competition. I do think you're going to see more and more companies, they want to be able to say to their clients, yes, we can help you globally. They don't want to say, no we're good with just the US or no we're just good with North America and the UK. They want to be able to tell people we can help you find people globally. It reminds me of Chad you'll remember this. When Jobs to Web came to market and said, we will do SEO for you. And we'll put a layer over your job postings and they'll all be SEO friendly, and Google will index them. Joel (33m 34s): Well all the employers started saying, why aren't my jobs SEO friendly? Why aren't they showing up in Google? So eventually every ATS said, oh shit, we better do this. And I think that sort of demand by customers is happening post pandemic with get us global, like get us global as soon as possible because we want our door open to talent everywhere. If the technology can support it. Chad (33m 55s): Yeah. Well, I gotta say, I'm not sure that Addeco has yet to nail it with Hired they're on the right path, I think, but they're sure as hell doing better than Randstad ever did with Monster. sfx (34m 12s): I drink your milkshake. I drink it up. Joel (34m 14s): All right, guys. Pavel thanks for joining us today that was great! For those who don't know you or Aim Group, where should they go to learn more? Pavel (34m 24s): AimGroup.com, not to be confused with the US logistics company Aim Group. Joel (34m 29s): And how much is a subscription to Aim these days? Pavel (34m 30s): It depends. We have very moderate subscriptions for our new service. We know you only need to pay a couple hundred bucks and you get access to our kind of news briefs. If you want a more in-depth subscription to our detailed reports, then you're probably gonna pay in the thousands. There's a reason why all the major tech companies and the major marketplaces businesses are subscribed to us. Joel (34m 53s): Highly recommended and it's tax deductible, I think in most countries, guys, if you want to hear more European goodness, head out to Chad cheese.com/Europe Lieven, Chad. Another one is in the can. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (35m 10s): We out. OUTRO (35m 11s): 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 (35m 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.

Resumes are dead. Sourcing is pointless. Applicant tracking systems have failed us. At least that's the opinion of Maya Huber, cofounder and CEO of Skillset, an Israeli-based job skills test platform. Is she right? Well, Chad & Cheese have some questions ... let's leave it at that. Have a listen and make up your own mind. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. INTRO (2s): 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 podcast the Chad and Cheese podcast. I am Joel Cheeseman your cohost joined as always by my partner in crime Chad Sowash. We're getting like deep, deep thought with a PhD. What's welcome Maya Huber co-founder and CEO of Skillset coming at us from Israel. Maya, welcome to the podcast Maya (49s): Hi guys! I'm so excited to be here. Joel (52s): Oh, you do sound excited. Chad (53s): She does yeah! Joel (54s): So for our listeners who don't know, you give us a quick little Twitter bio about you, and then tell us a little bit about your company before we dig into the topic. Maya (1m 1s): So hi everyone. I am the co-founder of Skillset, that we are two women co-founders that created a Skillset to reinvent sourcing and recruiting. Basically Skillset, just to keep it short, we are new job testing that from the connect companies and job seekers mainly on proven tested skills. No CV, that's it. Chad (1m 26s): No CV. Joel (1m 27s): I feel like you've practiced that before. Chad (1m 30s): And a double female founder. Wow! Can I get an applause for that? Come on. Joel (1m 35s): You can! You can get an airhorn too baby. Chad (1m 39s): Excellent. So, Maya, today we brought you on because you know, Joel and I have problems with assessments. There are so many gaps out there today. There's an assessment for this. There's an assessment for that. It seems like every it's just all over the place. So can you give us kind of like an idea of the problems that we're seeing today with assessments and then kind of give us a vision toward the future. We'll start to just start there. Maya (2m 2s): Yeah, sure. So as you probably, you know, see for ourself in all the industry recruiting became so complex in the last decade, right? There's so many platforms and solution are there fragmented the process, you know, there's each and every process for every step of the way, job interviews, ADS, job analyses, and you do background check and you do tons of interviews. And all of that, if I believe it's because the first steps still is CVR, CV sourcing, and you can apply to job based on your CVS and your stories. And I think that assessment today created to solve the bias aspect of CV. And I think this is not the solution. Chad (2m 43s): So what I'm hearing is CVs i.e. resumes are shit and assessments really were created because we are using the foundational data of garbage. Is that what I'm hearing? Maya (2m 60s): Absolutely. Do you know people, you know, try to do to deliver the real thing, but mostly, those are stories or real stories who doesn't really count. Ooh. You know, today, why does it matter why it can predict that the fact that you studied at Harvard or you're not, you know, and I hold a PhD and I'm still saying that. I think when you know, all of these stacks and solutions out there, trying to create a much more effective, you know, process it just because we are all dealing with stories along the way, and this is something we need to break. Chad (3m 37s): Okay. So that is assessments then. I mean, so here's the question. If assessments were created because the CV is garbage, then if we get rid of the CV, what do we do? Right. I mean, it's almost like, okay, I get rid of that. I know it's garbage, but I have no starting point now. Where's the starting point? What do I do? How do I do this? Is it soft skills? Is it hard skills? Is it testing? Is it? Where the hell do I start? Maya (4m 6s): So first of all, I think we need to look at what's happening now. People are talking, you know, all the industry's talking about skill based assessment, right? But when you look at those tools, most of them even, you know, all of them actually, are still focused on words. So you ask people about their skills. You provide them with, you know, a situation or a story or a test, and then ask them questions where they need to summarize their skills and to share those skills in a written way, not to show what they can really do. So for our perspective, and this is after you now we, me and my colleague, we spent 15 years of research and practice in the field of HR interviews? Maya (4m 50s): And we think that the only thing that counts is your proven results, your proven skills and how you will perform your job. So it's simple as that, no? Joel (5m 2s): Yeah. It's real simple Maya, but let's dig into this a little bit. So the CV is irrelevant. So is the job description irrelevant because people need to find these jobs and then they test for them. Is that kind of the idea and the idea of resumes and maybe sourcing and, you know, a $26 billion business like LinkedIn is irrelevant because it's basically just an online resume. Like help me get my head around an infrastructure that's existed for over hundreds of years is now obsolete. Help me understand that. Maya (5m 40s): I'm brave but I don't want to fight everyone. But I will tell you my perspective on that. I think` the fact that that CV is the only, and the first step is the thing that needs to be solved because we need to provide people with different ways to put their skills up front, sometimes CVs, and for specific position, maybe I believe that the more, you know, much high, maybe C-level jobs, maybe you need to take more of that into to consideration. I'm not sure, but when you look at, you know, the common people, you and people like me, if you will look at my resume three years ago, you will never hire me to be head of product. Maya (6m 27s): Never because you see an HR persona and you will say, wow, what why are CVs are here? And you probably just, you know, throw it away. Joel (6m 35s): I got the ear anti resume. I'm just trying to understand, okay, you're pro job description. You're pro get a job out there and promote it. What you're saying is that the system needs to be, if I'm Joe Schmoe and I see this job, and I think I'm ready for it, instead of submitting a resume, I take a test. And then that test tells you whether or not I can do the job. Is that what you're basically saying? Maya (7m 1s): Exactly what we're doing is that. Is we provide candidates with, you know, job experiences, smart simulation tests that provide people with opportunity to experience the job, the main core task of the job before applying for it. So those are pretty straightforward tests that allow you to get better perspective of what you're about to do and what's required. And if you're able to do to it or not. Chad (7m 26s): Well, here's the hard part though, in a market like we're in right now to be able to take a test, to prove that I know what I know, it's going to take 20, 30 minutes at least. I mean, we're talking about entry-level types of positions, even in customer service, let's say most people won't take that time today because companies are in such dire need that they'll pick anybody up off the streets. So how do you actually build a knowledge base foundational enough to replace the CV? Maya (8m 4s): So, first of all, I'm not sure that's right for all people out there because they're, as you know, they're underrepresented population, an untapped pool of job seekers out there who are trying to get into the workforce and do not find any success doing that. And those people are talented and qualified, and should be part of the workforce. And I think this is something all of us need to take into consideration, but not only that, what we do, our assessments are pretty short, but we look at, for us, this is a much broader perspective than just sourcing. We help companies better understand what is the best, you know, talent or what are the characteristics of the people they need to hire. Maya (8m 49s): So what machine learning does is collect the data about candidates performance, and then follow those results in team hiring and their life, inside organization. And then predict what is the specific type of characteristic in terms of skills of the candidate that should work. And we are talking about the companies that hire all the time, mass hiring scale. So they need this data to better understand what are the best qualification for their, you know, their job openings, because they need those people all the time. Joel (9m 23s): In one of the videos I saw Maya, you were pretty negative on ATSs. Chad (9m 29s): Isn't everybody? I mean really. Joel (9m 31s): I want to rephrase Chad's question a little bit in, in my own way in saying like we recently understood or reported that 90 plus percent of people that click the apply button, don't finish the process. They bail. So if they're not finishing the ATS, you know, job application process, what are you guys doing to make it so they don't ghost and, and eject on the testing. Like what's your completion rate? Are people actually taking these tests? Do they enjoy them? Are they short? Talk about your solution to the anti ATS, I guess. Maya (10m 3s): Yeah, sure. For us, this is, you know, for candidates using Skillset, first of all, it's fun. And because those are, you know, a simulation, you can do on your mobile, on your desktop. Those are pretty engaging tests or experiences. I think the unique experience people candidates receive from doing our simulation is that those simulation are really upfront. Those are not situation. This is not a questionnaire that is tiring. You're actually doing the job. So you are a customer care representative. You performing calls, you answer clients, you do whatever a customer care representative does or summarize call. And so the feedback we get is the experience of our simulation is respectful. Maya (10m 49s): People feel that for the first time, they can put their real skills up front and really expand the job. And, you know, sometimes we get responsible and candidates and say, you know what? I've just realized this is not for me. And we think this is a great success story because this specific candidate, even probably continuing the interview, and only on the timing, we'll get to the job, you will understand this job is not for him. Joel (11m 15s): So people dropping is actually a good thing in your system because they may realize like, oh, I can't do this job I'm out of here. I can't complete this test. Maya (11m 23s): Exactly what we were doing in those cases, actually, in all cases, we met them with our position that are suitable for them based on their results. So let's say your back office job was amazing. I will offer you to be a claims representative, you know, in insurance company instead of being the customer care representative. So the overall process is that fun. The time to hire is 50% faster so they get a faster response. They get a job opening and proposal by the end of the simulation. And this is what we get from the candidate, the great experience, respectful, transparent, and focus on what really matters. Chad (12m 6s): So quick question with regard to, let's just say a sales position, because for the most part, you know, I can't prove that I can sell in a test. It's a little bit harder than customer service. Usually you take a look at somebody's background and if they've hit goal and how long they've hit goal and how long they, what, what kind of experience they have, et cetera, et cetera. How can you do that through testing in a very subjective type of position like sales. Maya (12m 37s): So first of all, on the simulation, we do perform calls, okay, you see, this is the perspective, this is exactly what the job requires so this is what we do. So they perform calls. We collect their tone of voice and the content, what they say. And, you know, we provided with scenarios that some of them are customers are interested, some are not, and they need to, you know, to offer them to negotiate terms and to offer the unique proposal that the specific candidates and students see. So we tested that actually. And also we collect their ability during the simulation, during the process to improve their results and provide feedback inside the simulation itself about how they perform. Maya (13m 20s): So we do have the ability to collect the data. And I want to say, we are not here. And this is, you know, we are going back to our conversation about assessment. We are not a classic assessment tool. We are here to create a new job matching starter that enable and, or maybe straighten the line for all job seekers to be judged equally by their skills when applying for a job. You know, and in terms of sales, you will need to interview our candidates and make sure that they, you know, they meet with your needs, but you will know that at the basic level, they can do that and they can do a do good. And you can hear them doing that. Joel (14m 2s): Are all of your tests standardized? Are they customized? Like this feels like an industry that could be commoditized fairly easily. Am I, the testing itself could be commoditized, maybe analyzing it is a special skill. Like talk about how customized these questions are. Who comes up with the questions? That seems like a really a big challenge. Chad (14m 26s): Seems like more tasks than questions, I think. Maya (14m 28s): Yeah. First of all, yeah, those are tasks, different tasks, different scenarios on each and every position. We are. I'm not sure I mentioned I all the PhD, my expertise is the future of work job analysis. We are backed by professor Joseph Fuller. Chad (14m 47s): Not only, not only is she a doctor, that's what, she's the doctor of. Maya (14m 53s): Thank you for that. And we are backed by professor Joseph Fuller, he is the professor leads the future of work program at Harvard Business School. So our data and our database comes from the American labor market, from deep job analysis. We started with the data we have from, you know, from our researchers and the data comes from the American labor market database. And we match this data with the market. We know talking to companies, talking to HR influencers, make sure this, you know, the data is accurate, and is providing good reflection of the market. Maya (15m 33s): So this is where we start. The simulation are not adjustable. Joel (15m 37s): Those are standardized. Maya (15m 39s): Those are standardized. The way we create them and we do it with, we have our unique simulation creator that enabled us to create those pretty fast and to stand with the changes in the markets. So we do create changes and I can mention a few, but the simulation are standardized when you're uploading a platform, you will see, you know, a customer care representative, a sales, whatever. But if let's say there's a unique need for a specific, you know, customer care and insurance will be a bit different. Chad (16m 14s): Real quick though, when we're talking about being able to do simulations, and I want to hire them into my organization. Let's say, for instance, my sales and my customer service organization. I have a tech stack that's going to be different possibly than the organization across the street. So can you, I mean, should systems like this be able to pivot and utilize different systems like Salesforce or HubSpot or things like that. To be able to see if that individual can actually perform the duties inside those systems that our companies use every single day. Maya (16m 51s): So we do not this specific, you know, specific platform, but she, we do simulate those types of platforms, of the CRM platform commonly being used. So this is the same features, but we do not use Salesforce, you know, as a specific tool or Excel or whatever. But we test their ability of people to be a tech savvy and to learn fast new CRM and actually, this is one of the things of working with us there. It's all for everyone, you know, experience a simulation, our CRMs is new. So we test their ability to adjust quick enough have what we acquired them inside the simulations. Chad (17m 32s): Okay. So you have situations that you set up scenarios that you set up, which are really predicated on testing, troubleshooting, and problem solving. And that's what it sounds like we, because this might be a different system than what I'm used to using, but I still have a scenario in which I know what I should do. It might not be the system that I'm used to, but I can troubleshoot and problem solve through it. And that in itself, Is that like a big piece of what you're actually looking at through the assessment process? Maya (18m 5s): Not only that also, you know, the navigation inside and your ability to learn fast and to, you know, and manage a big data and, you know, learn fast new, we are, you know, we are sharing, this is stories about the new product you need to sell. So we, we test your ability to learn fast, but I think what we need to focus on our system focusing on the core tasks. So it will be your ability to work with a CRM, to answer clients to is your service orientation, your, the commutation skills and your ability to solve problems. Okay. So, you know, just for example, customer care. Maya (18m 47s): So it doesn't really matter what specific CRM using, as long as we tested those core skills that each and every common customer care representative was, is required to do. Joel (18m 58s): Let's talk about diversity for a second. And you guys obviously TA your product is everyone can take the tests. It has no mat, no bearing on your age, your sex, your color, et cetera. Talk about the product in terms of helping you recruit a diverse workforce. And at what, at some point, these folks have to get in front of an actual person where bias can come into play. Talk about that. Maya (19m 23s): So thank you so much for raising that because this topic is really meaningful for us. We are putting effort in diversity hiring. We have experienced in this particular space, and we also see that the companies are really interested in that space, so in terms of diversity, first of all, the fact that people can be tested based on their skills alone. This is the game changer for people with come from, you know, the various background or other representative relations, because they do not need to enter, as you said, need such as just a matter of sex or gender or gender or where they come from, or, but also, you know, those people have gaps in their CVs. Maya (20m 6s): Their credential are not full sometimes. So the fact that we only focus on that is as a great enabler for that. And we also put a lot of effort in working to partner with the NGOs and program that supports people that come from diverse background and implement our to inside their organization in order to pull this unique candidates into our pool of candidates. And the fact that the way we do it is not only focusing on skills, as I said, we also make sure that we are accessible. We ask people by the end of the simulation, if there's any specific accommodation or environmental factors that you want to highlight in terms of, you know, what will be meaningful for them will help them succeed in the job or in a training so we collect that as well. Joel (21m 0s): Touch on accessible for a second, because we did an interview recently with someone who was, you know, seeing impaired. Chad (21m 7s): StubsZ. Joel (21m 7s): Yeah. So does your testing solution sort of adhere to accessibility restrictions and do people with disabilities have a problem with the tests and how do you sort of conquer that or solve that? Maya (21m 23s): Talking and consulting with the accessibility expert to be able to have an opportunity to each and every person out there, no matter what is this disability to enjoy our part. So we do have a lot of work there, but we, right now, we are accessible for most of the population. We are using pretty simple tasks. We are using accessibility factor into our platform. We do training and provide extra data for the specific people in their organization where they, you know, get service in order to help them and get, you know, a more detailed process about how to use our simulation. Maya (22m 4s): But I must say at the end, we will test. We are committed to make sure that we source people and no, we provide companies with the best people to do the job. So we do see in companies working with us share that they do meet different crowd of people. We are working with Ascendant. This is one of the more, one of the biggest warehouse are companies in the US and they're all in about diversity and we're putting extra effort together. And also this is not just sourcing. We are working with a team leaders in order to make sure that the manager they will meet in the end. As you said a minute ago, this is natural about sourcing, they need to meet people that can interview them. Maya (22m 49s): That can be sensitive to the unique needs. So we are doing an end to end process with company in that specific space. Chad (22m 57s): Okay. So let's pivot real quick because there are a lot of warm and fuzzy, soft skills platforms that are out there where, you know, I think plyometrics, and I think that more than plyometrics, but they have like the balloon popping game, which again, I have no clue how that is going to let me know whether, you know, whether I'm going to be a great salesperson or not. But first and foremost, what are your thoughts on those platforms? And are those really just a product of a shitty system that we've had for decades? Give me a little bit more about those types of assessments, because they're all over the place and they seem to be getting money as well. Maya (23m 40s): No, I think this is the problem. We are all trying to find solutions that will help us better understand our candidates. For my personal opinion and I must say, I am NBTI certificate. I know how to do personality tests. I did it three years. I do not believe in that. I believe that the conversation a minute ago, this is absolutely not accessible. And I think that for us, as an HR tech experts, we need to make sure that we do not just sell products, but also provide value to both sides. And for me, as a job seeker, doing as he said, a balloon test, it's not providing value. This is not respectful for me. Chad (24m 22s): It sounds like you're not a big fan of the balloon test either. Is that what I'm hearing? Maya (24m 28s): Between the lines? Joel (24m 29s): Well, I met a company in 2003 that did something similar to this and Chad and I have been around for quite a while. And I've seen companies sort of come and go with varying degrees of success, but there hasn't been the big win, right? There's no public company that does this on mass scale. It just hasn't quite happened yet. Is that a question of timing? Is this thing just too difficult to understand for buyers? Like why hasn't a product like this sort of hit big yet? Maya (25m 3s): You know, we are dealing with that question, my answer. And again, you know, I'm not the expert in the market like you do. I'm three years interviewing street. I believe that there's couple of reasons for that. First of all, this is why we chose not to be another assessment company. And we took the sourcing, you know, part as well. And our vision is to create a new job matching startup, not just create an ROI tool. And I think this is one of the problems. So a lot of solutions out there look at, you know, one aspect of the market and do not look at the old picture. Maya (25m 46s): I believe we do. Hopefully I will be with Skillset will be one of the, there are great companies out there right now. And hopefully we will be between them and, you know, scale up. I believe that when you look at the companies, the last decade that did create change in other industries, those are, people that brought new perspective and sometimes a combination of, you know, what brought models from other markets, like marketing, like, FinTech, like, you know, I think the combination of industries is that will count and a much more realistic approach and not fragmented approach that we work with all the process. Joel (26m 33s): Well, speaking of different viewpoints, one, I was really hoping you were going to say VR and metaverse, we're going to make it successful. Chad (26m 42s): No, Joel (26m 42s): It's all spinning into this is VR. And the metaverse part of your roadmap in terms of what you'll be offering in the future with testing. And if not, why not? Maya (26m 52s): We started sourcing. We will not be able to, and we can to walk also inside, you know, influence the life of the employees. So to do retraining and 12 people find themselves inside the organization. Imagine, you know that you're a applicant will leave you within six months and after three months you provide them with a Skillset test or now a great opportunity inside the company or a couple of them. And you keep him inside because you know, he's a great talent that you can scale inside the company. So we are looking at not out in VR, but you know, let's see? Joel (27m 33s): It's something. I love it. I love it. Chad (27m 36s): All right, everybody. That's Maya Huber. She's the co-founder and CEO at Skillset. We call her Doc PhD. Maya, thanks for coming on the show. We appreciate it. Maya (27m 49s): Thank you so much, guys. Thank you for having me. Joel (27m 51s): And for those that want to know more about your company, where do they go? Maya (27m 56s): They can follow us on LinkedIn Skillset, or go to our website that's skillsetonline.com Have come looking for to you to see or hear from you guys. Joel (28m 6s): Love it. Chad, another one in the can, baby. Chad and Cheese (28m 10s): We out. OUTRO (29m 4s): 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.

By ignoring web accessibility, you're closing the door on millions of would-be applicants to your job openings. Companies both big and small drop the ball. That's why we invited Matt Stubbs, a leader in web accessibility, on the podcast to both educate and scare the hell out of listeners to get their accessibility house in order. Looking at you, JP Morgan, and around 90% of the rest of you. 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 (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 (21s): Oh yeah, our intro guys drunk today. What's up everybody? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always by Chad Sowash. And today we are really, really privileged and like Matt Stubbs to the show, Matt is a leader in web accessibility. So we're going to do some learning today. Matt, welcome to the show. Matt (45s): Thanks for having me. Chad (47s): Excellent. Matt, give us a little background about you. Who is Stubbs-y? Who is the Stubbs-y? Matt (50s): Stubbs-y is the disruptive change agent that's here to revolutionize accessibility. Chad (1m 2s): Oh, damn damn. Do you have like a PR department? That's good. So tell us a little bit about you. You are an individual with a disability. Go ahead, give us a background about you because we're going to dig into some pretty important shit today. Matt (1m 17s): Yeah. So I've got, I have a disability I'm blind. I've worked in organizational development and learning. I have a real passion for accessibility. I've participated in running a starter where I was passed for the leadership team that won an award for true grit and determination. Chad (1m 37s): Nice. Joel (1m 38s): Or have you been blind your whole life? Matt (1m 40s): Yes. I've been blind from birth. Joel (1m 41s): Okay. So, so Stubbs-y, before I asked my first question, what's going to get me canceled? What can I say and not say, and I think I'm speaking for a few people when they say like, what is off limits in terms of talking about the visually impaired? Can I say blind, for example? Matt (1m 58s): For me, nothing's off limits as long as it's done with respect and compassion and done to educate. Joel (2m 9s): Got it. So it's a pretty wide field in terms of what's going to get me in trouble. So I think I'm okay. Well, let's set the table here for our listeners. Chad (2m 17s): Yes. Joel (2m 18s): With the numbers. How many visually impaired people around the world, or in the US or Europe? Like what are the numbers around this? Matt (2m 27s): The numbers are, it's very hard to quantify some of the numbers because sight loss is such a spectrum. It's very hard to calculate where you, for example, we estimate in the UK that there is 2 million people who are registered blind, but that could be up as high as 4 million. Chad (2m 44s): Now that's just because they haven't identified themselves. What about a guy like Joel, who's blind as a bat without his glasses, right? I mean, is that technically visually impaired? Does he fit in the spectrum at all? Matt (2m 59s): You could argue yes. You mean by a medical definition? Probably not. Joel (3m 7s): I have never considered myself blind, although Chad probably does think I'm blind. Chad (3m 16s): Yeah, it was. Okay. So quick story. We're sitting in the hot tub about two weeks ago in Phoenix and Joel gives me his phone and he said that he doesn't have his glasses on. And he says, what does this say? Joel (3m 31s): I can't deny that story. That is true. But it's true from close-up it's hard for me to say, I'll give you that. Matt (3m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. But what was that? His glasses or was that the beer? Chad (3m 43s): It could have been a little bit of both. Joel (3m 45s): It was me. It was all me. So a little bit of context around the numbers. Do you have any numbers around websites and companies that provide, you know, digital services that aren't accessible? Cause I'm imagining that's a pretty high number. Matt (4m 1s): Yeah. There's a recent one done again here in the UK, looking at government websites where they found that 99% had some accessibility issue. Joel (4m 11s): Can you say that again? Chad (4m 12s): 99? Matt (4m 13s): Yes. 99%. Chad (4m 17s): Meaning just about every fucking website has an accommodation issue? Joel (4m 22s): A missed opportunity I would say. Chad (4m 25s): Jesus! Okay. So I mean, this is much bigger than I would have thought because when we take a look at our space, right, our little space it's growing rapidly, there's a lot of money that's going into it. But for the most part, most of these products and these new features and so on and so forth, they don't go through rigid evaluation or accessibility testing, if they do at all. Right. So I've heard, and I know that you've been going through a job search here in the last few weeks or so. I've heard that it's been a bitch. Tell us about that. Matt (5m 1s): Yeah, definitely. I would say probably anywhere between 25 and 30% of all jobs that I've applied for are inaccessible, the application process. I'll give you an absolute Corker of one. I applied for a job with a well-known global bank. This role was accessibility specialist. Chad (5m 27s): Who no fucking way. Geez, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Matt (5m 34s): Completely inaccessible to apply for it. SFX (5m 36s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (5m 41s): So what we are doing, and this is one of the reasons why, you know, I thought we should have this discussion is because we are leaving incredibly well-educated and great talent behind because they can't even access the jobs that you're trying to get in front of them. So I guess the big question is when you are looking day to day, you said 30% of jobs, you can't even access, are you seeing certain systems that are actually better than others? Are they all just pretty fucked at this point? Matt (6m 15s): Oh, we all know recruitment is pretty shit to start with business. Let's be honest. We all know that, but I would say definitely there are in some way or another, there is either an accessibility or usability issue around applying if you're blind, like me and you need to use a screen reader. Chad (6m 37s): Okay. Okay. Joel (6m 37s): I have some core competency around this from 20 years ago. Matt (6m 44s): Talk about back in the day. Joel (6m 45s): I might predate you Stubbsy. I remember the Bobby system where you would like plugin websites and they give you a score and do that. I assume that we've advanced from that. So what tools are there that people can use? What do you recommend? Should everyone put in a job description into sites to see if they're accessible? Like what kind of tips would you give on current day tools to help people be accessible with their web presence? Matt (7m 11s): I think it goes back to 101, basically that to follow web accessibility guidelines around coding and the tech stack from start. Joel (7m 25s): I mean, is there a checklist, like, Hey, make sure like all the images have alt tags, make sure? Matt (7m 33s): Guidelines called WAGC two point one of the most recent guidelines that web accessibility is meant to adhere to. Joel (7m 44s): Is webaim.org? That was one site that I found. Is that a reputable site? Matt (7m 49s): It's okay. Joel (7m 50s): Is there one better? Matt (7m 52s): There isn't I would say there are two out there. That is better. Joel (7m 55s): That's a fail. Matt (7m 55s): I think they all have limitations. And we're seeing, I would say shortcuts being tried by some organizations with our favorite thing, AI. Chad (8m 8s): So here's the thing. Joel is looking for a silver bullet, which I appreciate because that's exactly what talent acquisition does. And that's exactly what a vendor's going to do, is they're going to look for a silver bullet, a shortcut, some something, right. And there's nothing that is out there right now because of the rapid pace of development and how all of these systems are a quote unquote "bespoke," right? They're customized out of accessibility in some cases where the base model is tested and evaluated as good to go, right? But then they start making these changes, these customizations, et cetera, et cetera. And then it blows the whole thing to shit. Chad (8m 49s): So what I'm hearing and tell me if I'm wrong Stubbsy is that there is really no silver bullet. You need to have a person evaluate this. I'm sure there's some software that you can use as well to aid. Although it sounds like this has to be something that I don't know, maybe core talent platforms actually offer. Matt (9m 9s): I think it'd be a unique selling point if they offered it. Chad (9m 14s): So if they offered it, if they offered something like this, this would be more focused on being able to first and foremost, you're building out new products and features. You have to have a battery of tests to ensure that it works first and foremost, which pretty much every company does. The problem is they don't have that accessibility test blended into it. So as you're going through six Sigma or whatever the hell is your process, you add this as a layer in, and you have either an expert, which is a 1099, or if you're big enough, if you're an iCIMS or you're an SAP, are you one of these big fucking systems you should have at least that person dedicated or a team dedicated to this, right? Matt (9m 59s): Yeah, definitely. I mean, what goes back to is this. I think if we're going to move this landscape forward, I think it should be compulsory that people who learn coding and programming, one of their modules is around accessibility. And it's from the start. We build it from the start and not just have people test, but also have people on the inside of the loop of the development pathway. Cause that is one of the other issues is that we have people will be approached and said, oh, what do you need at the beginning and here's the end product. Chad (10m 35s): And for all you Americans out there compulsory means mandatory. Joel (10m 39s): This was the guy who said excess instead of access. Access is your sex life and so on. That's a different topic altogether. Chad (10m 47s): That's what I was thinking about. Let's talk about your application process first. I mean, it seems as if, when you're going through these different companies, that could be the same systems, you know, you could be using the same core talent platform per se, but some of them have different barriers or obstacles because of customization. Is that what you are finding or do you even know what systems that you're looking at? And you just know that the process sucks? Matt (11m 11s): You don't always know what the system is. Do you? Chad (11m 14s): Okay. Matt (11m 14s): It could be any of the big ones or the smaller ones, but I think one of the other challenges I think around it is the attitude around that HR tech companies have. I know some of those in the room with a whole pile of HR tech companies here in the UK and brought this subject up and their response was, it's not on our current roadmap. As people with disabilities, you'll just have to be patient until we get around to it. Chad (11m 45s): Wait a minute. So they said that this is not on our current roadmap, so therefore, sorry, Stubbsy. You're fucked until we believe that you're worth actually putting something in place. So how dehumanizing is that shit? Matt (12m 3s): It's extremely disheartening. I mean cause you sit there and they go back to the example I gave before about the accessibility specialist role. You mean? Yeah. What a slap in the face. You mean? Can you get more of a insults? Yeah. We want to make our product accessible, but you can't apply for it. Chad (12m 18s): Yep. Name, names, Stubbsy. Who's the bank. I want to know. Joel (12m 20s): He's too polite. He's not going to do it. Matt (12m 26s): I'll say it. JP Morgan Chase. Chad (12m 28s): JP Morgan Chase. Okay. You're you're in the fucking crosshairs, JP Morgan Chase, Jesus Christ. Joel (12m 37s): Stubbsy I mentioned I have some experience 20 years ago, which predates the iPhone and mobile. And just out of curiosity, like I kind of understand if you scroll your mouse over, you see, you know, like words, you hear words and things like that. How do you manage or maneuver around a mobile device? Because I think that's something companies don't even think about in terms of accessibility. Matt (12m 60s): Basically lots of mobile devices nowadays have what's called a screen reader, which reads what's on the screen. So as you drag your finger around the screen, it reads that out loud. Joel (13m 8s): That's pretty cool. And is that like, do you have a special phone or is that an iPhone? Matt (13m 13s): IPhones have it built in, so do Android, it's pretty standard nowadays. Joel (13m 20s): Very cool. So video resumes are gaining some popularity, obviously video interviewing and things like that. Is that cause for concern for your community, is it something that you are excited about? Because video is easier, like talk about the video component, that's gaining steam. Matt (13m 38s): Again, there are different inherent problems there. You mean? How do you know it? Like, let me, how do I know I'm looking into the camera properly or anything like that, to check how my presentation is? Because you know, when you look at a video resume, I mean, it's natural to be looking at the body language. Joel (13m 58s): So it's a net negative. Matt (14m 1s): I think it's from my personal perspective. Joel (14m 3s): Interesting. Chad (14m 4s): So what about assessments? Cause there are a ton of visual assessments that are out there today. And when you have an assessment predicated on being visual, you're kind of leaving out a good group of people. Am I right? Or do they have systems that are fairly accessible that you can use? And it's worthwhile. Matt (14m 27s): Honestly, in my experience, I've not come across one that is truly accessible. And if I think I would say they're more of a hindrance, because they don't make the playing field fair, whichever way round you cut it, it doesn't make the field failure. I mean, you can get accommodation. Chad (14m 47s): Yeah. Matt (14m 47s): You can try. Let me rephrase that, whether you get it is questionable, whether you'll get a response, if you email them, say, look, I can't do this. And I've been in that situation. I've emailed, saying, I can't do this personality test and explained it and basically been ghosted. Joel (15m 4s): Curious Stubbsy about, so let's go from mobile to SEO or search engine optimization. And we know that certain sites, if their speed is faster than most sites, that their rankings tend to be better. And we know if sites are sort of user-friendly, they're better. Do you have any experience or insight into sites being more accessible than others? Getting better rankings on search and because search is largely customized, do you find that because of your disability, most of the sites at the top of the rankings for you tend to be accessible and the ones on page three plus tend to be less accessible? Matt (15m 43s): No. I don't think there is a difference in my experience. Joel (15m 48s): So Google plays no favorites in terms of accessible websites? Matt (15m 52s): No it doesn't come into it. Joel (15m 52s): Interesting. Do you think it should? Matt (15m 55s): Again, I think that's a very subjective criteria to place and how do you code for that? That's going to become a quite complex coding. Joel (16m 5s): It's typically an accessible site has a cleaner code wouldn't you say? They take a little bit more care. Anyway, I know you're not a developer, so we'll, we'll move on to really the topic I wanted to get to, which is the metaverse. So the metaverse is obviously super hot. Does the metaverse scared the shit out of you as a visually impaired person? Is that exciting to you? Like just give me your thoughts on the metaverse it doesn't even have to be in terms of looking for a job. Matt (16m 33s): It's like any tool. I think it has potential to be useful, whether it will be? Time will tell and I do have my doubts because I think you can't take away from the personal aspect and I think it's a long way from being on that personal aspect. That interaction where you can read body language properly because body language, when you read it, isn't just visual. There is this kinesthetic aspect as well. I think you'd lose that in the metaverse because it's so artificial. Chad (17m 9s): It's so artificial Joel, did you hear that? Joel (17m 12s): Do you play video games? Matt (17m 15s): No. Joel (17m 16s): I have so many questions. Most of them are really stupid questions, so I will, I will stop. Chad (17m 20s): And this is a good, this is a good 101 for us and our listeners. But I mean, just to understand that, you know, again, JP Morgan Chase has a job for somebody with your background, for accessibility and the job isn't even accessible to be able to apply. I think screams, it screams just how bad it is, that a big brand. Joel (17m 45s): And this isn't some startup. It's a huge company. Chad (17m 48s): Right? Matt (17m 49s): You've got to go back to the fundamentals here that it's about attitude and behavior and how they see the world. Chad (17m 57s): It's about giving a shit is what it is. Matt (17m 59s): It is giving the shit, but yeah, we know, again a recent survey looked at, I think is about 2000 employers here in the UK 23% actively said they wouldn't employ someone who was blind, even though they knew would break the equality act. SFX (18m 23s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (18m 24s): All I got to say, Stubbsy is first and foremost, you're looking for a gig. There are so many tech platforms that are out there in our space and this is something we are not evaluating for. This is not a part of the actual mix of go to market evaluation for most of these organizations, not to mention any smart organization that's out there, tech organization, doesn't just look at their own shit, but they also do consulting for their clients. This is a revenue opportunity people because... Joel (18m 59s): Totally. Chad (18m 59s): Shit's fucked up. We're talking about 99% of websites. So if you're out there and you are one of those really cool unicorns with a lot of money or just a startup who gives a shit and that's the key giving a shit, you need to be looking for guys like Stubbsy. Ah Stubbsy that being said, I know you didn't think that we were going to put you up on a block here and try to get you a job. But if somebody does want to get ahold of you and just have a conversation or maybe even help you apply for their accessibility job, where can they find you? Matt (19m 38s): They can find me on LinkedIn. Chad (19m 40s): LinkedIn and that's Matt Stubs. Joel (19m 41s): Stubs Chad (19m 42s): In London. Joel (19m 42s): This was awesome. Thank you, Matt. Matt (19m 45s): No worries. Excellent. Joel (19m 47s): Other one in the can Chad. Matt, Joel, and Chad (19m 51s): We out. OUTRO (19m 49s): 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 (20m 36s): 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.

Marketers make great bedfellows. Who knew? Candidate.ID and iCIMS, that's who. The boys dig into the hottest acquisition news of the week, plus review HackerRank's latest funding round. What else? Layoffs at a unicorn, a "GPS for your Career" and a job-related URL that commanded a six-figure price-tag. Say what? Lastly, porn star Bree Olson breaks down The Great Resignation like only a porn star can. Huzzah! 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. Keep my co-host name out your fucking mouth. Whatever man. Bald jokes are always funny. Yo, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "and the Oscar goes to" Cheeseman. Chad (35s): And this is Chad "I love me some universal health care" Sowash. Joel (39s): On this week, show Candidate ID gets a rousing applause. HackerRank makes it rain and porn star Brie Olsen finally helps us break down the great resignation, like only a porn star can let's do this. What happened, man? It's it's been an interesting morning for you. Chad (58s): Yeah, it's been an interesting morning. So my wife is incredibly beautiful, but she's also clumsy as she is beautiful. And so the roads here in Europe, aren't quite as OSHA certified. Joel (1m 13s): Yeah they're 3000 years old. Chad (1m 16s): Yeah. Right. I mean you've had the same issue, right? I mean, with some, with some lime scooters in Paris. Joel (1m 21s): Now, come on now. Chad (1m 22s): You're a little bit different. He had, Julie found herself smack dab on the bricks. And so we had to try out the universal health care. We were in and out within just over an hour. They did X-rays really everything. We came to the attendant after and we're like, Hey, where do we pay? And she's like, oh no, we don't need your money. And I'm like, okay? Joel (1m 48s): Okay. And, it only took an hour. Chad (1m 50s): Yeah. It only took an hour. It was in and out, dude. Joel (1m 54s): I think most Americans have a vision of like, you know, skeletons with cobwebs in the corner, you know, waiting to get seen by Dr. So that's very heartwarming that a an hour in, no money, no cast. I mean the x-ray was fine. Julie's okay. And you guys will be hitting happy hour right after the show. I assume so. Chad (2m 15s): Amen. Amen. But it won't be the kind of happy hour that Chris Rock had. Give me your take on this. Okay. Like what's your take on the smack? Did you think this was real? Was this bullshit? I mean, tell me about this. Joel (2m 29s): So I saw it live and, and I did think initially that it was fake. Chad (2m 34s): Yeah, me too! Joel (2m 35s): But then when they started muting out Will Smith and sorta everything got jumpy, I thought, oh shit, that wasn't supposed to happen. And then of course it came out that it was real and everything came out. So I have a lot of it. I have a lot to say about this. Most of it has already been said in endless memes and blog posts and podcasts. I won't go too much into it. My worldview as parent one teenager, one tweener and one, you know, toddler basically is I look at the world through their eyes and how they might view this incident. And to me from that point of view, it was just horrible because number one, violence is never, right. Joel (3m 21s): Unless it's self-defense. So you have that sort of, one of their heroes, right. Will smell, you know, someone that, that they look up to, or at least have, have enjoyed from that perspective. So not only, you know, was, is it now, you know, he assaults Chris Rock. Yeah. And instead of being like escorted out of the building, or, you know, he got to sit there, he got to get his award, he got to go upstage, he got a standing ovation. And then he partied at the Vanity Fair, you know, shindig for hours on end and got celebrated. So, so one, you know, violence is never the answer. And when it, when it happens, you shouldn't celebrate people that do it. All in all it is horrible. Joel (4m 1s): It was a bad look for, I think America, there was very little good about it. Although I do think that Chris Rock. Chad (4m 12s): Yes. Joel (4m 12s): Deescalating of the occurrence and sort of, you know, turning the other cheek was admirable. And I think his stock is going to come out of this much higher than Will Smith's. Chad (4m 23s): That's my focus. My focus is how Chris Rock handled it. And that was the most mature of any adult in that room. So yeah, I think we should definitely focus on they're going to be assholes in the room. How do you handle them? Right. And that was very admirable. So yeah, I think we should definitely focus instead of all on Will Smith on Chris Rock and how he deals with it. Yep. Definitely team Rock. Excellent. And I'm team shout outs. So let's do that. Joel (4m 52s): All right. Shout out. So I'm going to double down on your Will Smith shout out. I'm going to give a shout out to Bruce Willis. Chad (5m 0s): Oh, okay. Joel (5m 1s): I don't know if you've read this being over in Europe and all, but he's been diagnosed with a disease called Aphasia, which I had never even heard of, but apparently alter speech and brain function. You string sentences together that have no sense whatsoever. And it's kinda hard to be an actor when you can't speak. So he is going to be retiring from the acting business. Clearly for you and I and our age group one of the most iconic actors, action stars. Heartthrobs for the ladies out there. I mean just a cool dude, Pulp fiction. One of my favorite movies. He's he's great. Joel (5m 42s): And all those. So shout out to him really sad, but he has left a great legacy. Pretty good. Particularly for people our age, who were super into movies in the eighties and nineties, and this guy's a rock star. So shout out to him, heart goes out to his family and hope that he lives a happy, healthy life for, for what's left. Chad (6m 1s): The best Bruce Willis movie Diehard, original Diehard. Can't beat it. Joel (6m 6s): No question. Chad (6m 7s): Amazing. Right? Another heartthrob that we're going to give a shout out to Anoop Gupta. Joel (6m 15s): There you go another heart throb alert. Chad (6m 18s): Nominated as a finalist for Geek Wire's C E O of the year, way to go Anoop. Joel (6m 26s): And sexy. Chad (6m 27s): And let me double down on that one. Quincy Valencia that's right. Kids, queen of the chatbots friend of the show. She is getting a big shout out for being listed as one of the top women in RPO for 2022. I'm going to tell you right now she is tops when it comes to RPO, when it comes to tech, when it comes to this industry, period. Joel (6m 52s): Did she get a gold chain for that, or a wrestling belt for that for winning that. Well, then it's bullshit. If she doesn't get any of those things. Chad (7m 1s): She should. Joel (7m 1s): Yeah. Shout out to business travel. This is from the Wall Street Journal it's back. Baby transactions are up significantly over the past nine weeks. According to SAP, Concor a travel and expense software providers, small and medium sized companies are driving much of the acceleration. The increase is driven by a host of factors. Workers are returned to the offices, sorry. Chad restrictions are dropping domestically and internationally the clients who want steered away from in-person meetings are once again, comfortable with face-to-face get togethers. And I, for one can't be happier. Joel (7m 42s): Business travel is back, baby. Chad (7m 44s): Yeah, it's all good in the business, travel hood, a big shout out to Jobvite's job seeker nation survey. I've got some points of information to share with you and the listeners out there. Great stuff. 45% of candidates are actively looking for a new job or plan to within the next year. So we keep talking about the great resignation. It's still happening kids they're planning for it to happen. 32% would quit a job without having another lined up. That was something you never did know back in the day, right? It's happening all the time right now, 30% have left the job within the first 90 days of starting 58% said, comp is the top factor in the decision-making process. Chad (8m 37s): 63% of candidates who have interacted with a chat bot, believe they have improved the experience. Did you hear that? Chat bots have improved the experience and last but not least kids, 56% of candidates preferred text or SMS interview scheduling over an email or a phone call. Again, we keep talking about how tech can help you have a better experience. Fucking use it people come on. Joel (9m 12s): Speaking of tech, shout out to industry veterans, Sanjay Sathe, founder of RiseSmart. He's got a brand new bag, baby. Succeed Smart, which claims to democratize executive search, whatever the hell that means, has secured $6 million in seed funding. This week, I first met Sanjay back in 2007 ish or so. He was like a three person company in Dallas, Texas, when he was starting RiseSmart. So I wish wish him the best. He's a solid dude. A nice guy. Shout out to Sanjay and suck smart. I mean Succeed Smart, fucking auto correct. Anyway, shout out to Sanjay! Chad (9m 51s): Shout outs. All right. Events, baby! Joel (9m 52s): Events, baby. We're back on the road. Business travel is back. Where are we going? Chad (9m 58s): It's happening? And we're going to be in Belgium May 5th. So if you are in Europe, come on, get a flight. It's just a quick and easy hop. Come to Belgium, go to Erecruitment-congress.com. Check that out and not to mention, get your tickets for Unleash. We're going to be in Vegas, the latter part of May. And to tell you what we are, our schedule is starting to get really tight, really crazy, really hectic. Go to Chadcheese.com, click on events in the top right corner. See where we're going to be. Join us there. Register. Can't wait to see you. Joel (10m 34s): Let's have a drink. Have a drink with Chad and Cheese. And while you're there, go to free, get some free shit. By the way, I got to mention, we got shirts by Emissary. We got beer from Pillar and we have whiskey from our friends at Textkernel. When you're at Chadcheese.com after you click on the travel schedule, click free, submit your information. We'll get you some stuff potentially. Chad (10m 59s): Delivered to your front door. Joel (11m 2s): I think everyone on the list has gotten something at some point. And speaking of getting something. Birthdays, real excited about this one, Jeremy Cheeseman enjoys a birthday today. Chad (11m 15s): Little man! Joel (11m 17s): Little man turns five. I think we we recorded our first show a week before he came, about a month early. So this show and my last child will be always connected at the hip, whether that's good or bad. Also celebrating a birthday is a fan, Megan Sharp. Dan Cheeseman, no relation whatsoever, at ZipRecruiter. James Holoman, Palo Barriga, Steve Levy. Mike Timkin no longer a member, he's retired, but he still listens to Chad and Cheese. Chad (11m 54s): Oh Joel (11m 54s): Geez. He knows what's up. Speaking of what's up Elin "Tengai" Martanzon friend on Sweden celebrates another birthday this month. Jessica Rush from Paradox. Hank Stringer from It's Big as well as a hire.com and Rachel Roberts all celebrate this week. Chad (12m 24s): Happy Birthday! Joel (12m 25s): Have one on Chad and Cheese. Chad (12m 29s): It's Topics! Joel (12m 30s): All right. Our first story, a little bit of news you might've caught a recruitment technology firm. iCIMs has acquired Candidate.id, a vendor of software that automates and personalizes recruitment marketing campaigns. The purchase price was not disclosed. Boo. Candidate IDs management and team of more than 20 people will continue to operate from their Glasgow, Scotland. As part of iCIMS Candidate ID founded in 2016, brings dozens of customers to the table. iCIMS has been on an acquisition spree in recent years, and we've talked about all of them. They've bought text recruiting solution, Text Recruit that's 2018. Joel (13m 11s): Recruitment cloud from Jibe 2019. Language processing firm and death match winner Opening.io that was putting money. iCIMS filed for an IPO in August. iCIMS boasts more than 4,000 customers, including 40% of the Fortune 100. Chad, good things happen to good people. Your thoughts. Chad (13m 28s): Damn straight. Well, I wanted to have Adam on the show, but you know how it is, he's going to have to be corporate now. So he's getting locked down. So I was like, okay, let me get one question. One question, Adam, why was iCIMS such a good fit for Candidate ID on this acquisition? So go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage. Joel (13m 52s): Sure, so here's Adam Gordon. Adam (13m 53s): Well, there's really two answers to that, but the first one is great. So just over two years ago, we saw an announcement from iCIMS that they hired a new CEO and we thought that was quite interesting. But then when we noticed that that person had most recently been the CEO of Marchetto and sold it to Adobe, Scott, and I just thought that's going to be great for us, for anybody listening that doesn't know who Marketo is. It's one of the thoroughbred marketing automation platforms that B2B sales teams would use. And we were just delighted because we knew it was going to shine a spotlight on marketing technology, marketing automation technology within the TA world. Adam (14m 35s): And so, you know, we kind of, we kind of wondered whether iCIMS might go and build it. So in marketing automation technology, and if it did, we knew that was going to be good for us, but I mean, we didn't necessarily know this was the way it was going to go, but, you know, we're pretty happy with it. Then the second reason was we got to meet a whole bunch of other people in the business like Diane and Laura Coccaro and Mike Wilczak and Peter Modica, and Al Smith. And we, you know, from summer, last year, right through till now we liked every single one of them. Adam (15m 17s): And what we noticed was their vision for what they wanted to do. And what we knew we could do was absolutely aligned, completely aligned. And so then we looked at the customer base at iCIMS and we went, wow, big customer base, lots of in demand talent being hired in healthcare, in tech and business services. And so there was a really good overlap on that. And, you know, we just got to the point where we thought we've really proven this, we've got a good customer base, Candidate ID, but if we want to get to like a thousand customers, we need have described it as bigger wings. We need bigger wings, and there's not really bigger in TA technology than iCIMS. Adam (15m 59s): So, you know, the fit for us was really obvious. Chad (16m 1s): Really obvious. And in full transparency, I was an investor and advisor so there's going to be a little bias from this side of the mic. It was very interesting for us because we got to see Adam and Scott. I mean, really not back in 2015 when they first started, but early on Adam was on the show. He was also on death match he's on the show multiple times. So we got a chance to really, you know, become friends, right. And to be able to also know the people at iCIMS, you know, Mike Wilczak and the gang over there and then have the conversations around, wait a minute, Steve Lucas is a Marketo guy, Jesus Christ, man. Chad (16m 41s): This could be perfect. And it, and it actually ended up this way, who would have known that it ended up this way. I'm glad it did at the end of the day. That that to me is awesome, but think about it and let's get into the market real quick. Jobvite just released their new evolve platform that unified all their tech, including their marketing automation. And now iCIMS plucks the best Marketo for recruiting platform off the board. I think, and you tell me what you think? Is this a holy shit moment for Phenom and Beamery right now? Joel (17m 17s): I would say, so. We talk about the platform wars quite a bit, and it looks like those companies maybe need a bigger boat at this point, need to find a suitor. But I had four things that I wanted to focus on, on this. If you'll, if you'll humor me, please. My first reaction to this was a little bit of sadness, actually, because I knew the odds of someone we both liked so much personally, Adam was probably on his way out of the industry. Eventually like Aman Brar, Shane Gray, Eric Kostelnik and others. Adam is likely to get the hell out of Dodge. Once his contractual obligations are fulfilled. Time will tell on that, I guess we'll see. Joel (17m 59s): But I had initial sadness. Like, it will be sad if Adam leaves the industry. My second, was I love that Candidate ID took note of Marketo's former CEO taking over iCIMS as an open door to get a deal done. So often we talk about the buyer being the one who finds the deals, whether it's maybe through their marketplace or something else. And sometimes it's the acquired company that initiates a deal. So there's a lesson there for startups out there if you see a window open, like jumped through it as soon as possible, and use this as a guide. Third, I wonder how this plays into the iCIMS IPO, which feels a little stalled to me at this point. Joel (18m 42s): I appreciate that timing may be, isn't great to go public with the market crashing, global conflict, et cetera, but acquiring a business before the IPO is a bit odd to me. Anyway, time will tell on that and, we'll see, but, lastly, you mentioned that, or you touched on, it was the crowdfunding strategy that candidate ID chose is going to be, I think, a future trend that we're going to see more and more of, particularly as you see success stories like this one. I know you invested, obviously I think others like Tim Sackett industry, folks were able to get in on a company that they've read about that they've researched maybe that they're actually using or recommending to customers. Joel (19m 22s): And I think that's exciting to think that you don't have to be a venture capitalist or have a certain amount of income or have certain licenses to invest in these companies is really, really cool. Side note Paradox is investing arm, took a little piece of Candidate ID as well. So they had a nice little payday. I think crowdfunding is going to gain steam in light of the this deal. I've grabbed a small piece of ThisWay Global last year there on we fund. I think they still are more than anything just to learn how the process goes. And I'd like to ask you, you know, did you get a check immediately? Like, they used like a European platform, right? Joel (20m 2s): You can talk about that if you want, if not, that's no big deal, but I think that would be an interesting lesson for the audience who want to get involved in crowdfunding. So a lot of facets to this deal, and I think it just begs a lot of thoughtfulness about what it means for the future, as well as sort of how it impacts companies in the present. Chad (20m 23s): Short answer. Money's already in the account. Okay. If you take a look at this, I mean, Candidate ID only took $3 million, right? We talk about unicorns all the time, but I think the real stories, the real platforms that make this industry run are the workhorses and Candidate ID was one of those work horses. You know, we do talk about, and I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give some shit to Beamery and freedom, because they are the bigger, the bigger platforms that are out there right now. But originally, you know, their messaging was around trying to be really good at marketing automation. Again, trying to be that Marketo for recruiting and trying to bridge that gap. Chad (21m 4s): But after receiving tons of cash, tons of funding, they had to broaden up their product offering to justify a greater Tam for investors. And then they lost focus and they never, ever got an opportunity really to become that Marketo for recruiting, just because they took so much money. So when we talk about all of these unicorns, it's fun, don't get me wrong. It is fun, but we can't forget about these smaller organizations who didn't take a lot of money, or maybe they're still fucking bootstrapping, or they turn down money. Right? We talk about a Hire Easy. If you, a few months ago, there was a lot more money than I think it was $26 million there to take, but the CEO said, guess what? Chad (21m 48s): I don't want that dilution. So, it's really interesting to see the path that organizations take. And this is just a great success story for a great team. Joel (21m 56s): Yeah. It's not too little money that thanks companies, it's too much money, which is a great segue into our next news story, assuming you're done with a Candidate ID and ICIMS. So let's talk about HackerRank and holy shit, we got a unicorn alert possibly on this one, although it's not official. HackerRank, a coding challenged hiring platform announced a $60 million series D funding around bringing its total raise to $115 million. Investors included the Randstad innovation fund and Recruit Holdings, owner of Indeed and Glassdoor. Isn't that interesting? Vivek Ravisankar, which I probably did not say correctly, CEO of HackerRank said, quote, it's never been more critical to hire the right developer with the right skillset" Joel (22m 44s): end quote HackerRank reported It has more than 2,800 customers, including more than 25% of the fortune 100 and a community of 18 million developers. It is based in mountain View, California. This is exciting news for our buddy Vivek isn't it Chad? Chad (22m 57s): It sure is. And can you imagine how Vivek and the crew over at HackerRanks felt when they heard Stack Overflow was pulling out of the jobs and talent market? Right. So, I mean, so think of this now Stack Overflow's exit in this market is going to create a vacuum that now HackerRank with this money can fill and that's now that's their job, right? They've got to take a look at what the market that Stack was going to have. They've got to fill that before somebody else does. So it's time to go aggressive and take hold of becoming the alpha male in the market that right now doesn't really have a dominant alpha, right? Chad (23m 37s): There are a ton of different organizations, a ton of different platforms, but there's no real alpha per se. And we all thought that GitHub was going to be a much bigger player after the acquisition, by Microsoft. And then obviously coupling strategies, not tech, but coupling strategies with LinkedIn, but that didn't happen either. So the pole position is there to be had, and hopefully Vivek and HackerRank can grab it. Joel (24m 4s): Yeah. And it's a great contrast to the Beamerys and the Phenoms of the world in terms of money raised, and time to do that. So HackerRank has been around for a long time. It was founded back in '09. Chad (24m 19s): '09. Joel (24m 19s): And up until now, they've been very conservative with the fundraising. This company has never felt like a flip. It's never, it's never felt like a get big and go, you know, go hard and then sell. And it's always felt like a community and not as much of a corporate entity. And I think that's just sort of the organic nature of how it's grown at this point. The number of potential buyers is dwindling. When you start raising this much money, remember Microsoft acquiring GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion. So I'm wondering if now HackerRank is eyeing an IPO? Which I really hope they pursue. Joel (24m 59s): I'm frankly, tired of monitoring Dice. Let's get HackerRank on the public markets and show a DAX and Zip, how it's done. I'll add that. GitHub is facing some community backlash. You can Google it if you're interested, but that could also be driving HackerRanks interest in sort of staying solo and not selling to a big Goliath. So I, as well as I think you are rooting for HackerRank and I would love to see them go public on their own and let the cards fall where they may. I think they'd have a lot of success based on what they do, which is fantastic work. And they've been doing it for a long time. Chad (25m 36s): Yeah, I agree. And definitely go onto Google and search Chadcheese and Vivek and HackerRank. We actually interviewed him a couple of years ago. Great guy, great guy. And one of the things he said that I thought was incredibly poignant was there are enough developers out there. We keep saying that there's a lack of developers. He totally called bullshit on that said there are enough developers, if you are looking remote and now, and this was before the pandemic, right? Guess what? Everybody's fucking remote. So, I mean, he was fashion forward. No question. Joel (26m 12s): We love us some good bullshit callers. Don't we Chad? Well, let's take a quick break and pay some bills and we'll talk about more startups and money and stuff. And we're back Chad (26m 21s): Back on the rise or not so much. Joel (26m 23s): There's gotta be a bad joke in there somewhere. A bad dad joke. All right, let's talk about Workrise a little less than a year ago. Austin start-up Workrise also known as RigUp, which has grown by linking businesses in the energy sector with needed workers raised $300 million. That was just a year ago Chad, in new funding this week, the company announced it is laying off some employees. The news comes less than a year after the company touted a pre-funding valuation of $2.9 billion. Chad (26m 59s): Unicorn. Joel (26m 60s): Executives couldn't immediately be reached for details on how many employees were impacted, but commenters on glass door and blind estimated layoffs will be in the hundreds. Chad, what do you make of this news? Chad (27m 9s): Unicorn down. Unicorn down. Like I said, you know, it's not all about the money, right? A lot of it has to do with go to market. It has to be on around understanding the markets. They talk about in very vague terms, verticals, shutting down verticals that are obviously underperforming. What fucking verticals are you talking about in the energy market? You know, there are some that obviously we want to try to get away from coal and petroleum, but I mean, where? What other verticals right? To me, this feels like a diversion. It's weird. It really is. I don't think it seems more like mismanagement than it does anything else, because this is when they should be fucking booming. Joel (27m 54s): Yeah. Chad (27m 55s): I don't know. But in a letter to employees procured by our friends over at the Aim Group so way to go aim group, the letter said, quote, "we will immediately right-size parts of our business and divert from others. We've signed buyers for one of our businesses and are exploring sales for the rest" close quote. So again, what the fuck is going on? Are you selling them off? Are you shutting them down? Again it seems like a diversion. We don't know what's really going on there. Joel (28m 25s): Yeah, I agree. This one's a hard one to break down because we don't know how the company is pivoting right there. They haven't been very transparent on that. You know, thanks to Russia jobs and energy and opportunities should be smoking hot right now. This should be a shit hot company. I have a hard time thinking that they're just ignoring that opportunity. Also wonder how the air ball that was the build back better initiative at the federal government level. Hasn't had a negative impact on companies like Workrise. Big federal checks mean a lot of opportunity and job postings, which isn't going to happen because that legislation got voted down. Joel (29m 8s): When you're valued at almost $3.3 billion, the rope gets really short and the room for error shrinks significantly. I'll say it again. Companies don't fail because they take too little money. They fail because they take too much money in. This might be in full effect with Workrise. The question going forward to me is this. Is Workrise, a Canary in the coal mine for all the unicorns we've been highlighting for the past 24 months? I say yes, but only time will tell Chad. Chad (29m 40s): I think it is the Canary in the coal mine for all of those organizations who literally have no focus and discipline. And that's hard unless you actually break down and understand their go to market. If you, if you can better understand that, then you can see where especially a startup's going to go awry, right? When they're going to go into his tail spin and they're going to fucking nose dive. That's the hard part though, to be able to actually get in. And, you know, as an advisor, in some cases, I get a chance to actually peak my nose in and see some of those things. And you do as well in this case. Is it good to market? Is it leadership? I mean, I can't see where it would be anything else because this is a shit hot market, but for the rest of the unicorns, I mean, they should, they should definitely be scared and they should be taking notes. Joel (30m 27s): Yeah. I mean, on a macro level, when you see, you know, Zoom and DoorDash, fill in whatever high flying COVID inspired stocks that you can think of are all down 40, 50, 60%. If you don't think that's impacting our industry, although these aren't public companies, you're dead wrong. And a lot of investors are looking at these. You're going to see a lot of down rounds. You're going to see a lot of layoffs. You're going to see a lot of bad news. I think coming out of these companies. And we'll be happy to talk about it here on the show. And speaking of happy about talking about it, let's get into FutureFit. It's a GPS for your career. Joel (31m 8s): Chad, FutureFit AI, a New York city-based AI powered career navigation platform provider has closed on a first funding round of $4.5 million. The investment was co-led by JP Morgan Chase and Acumen America. FutureFit AI says it is the market leader as the navigation layer of workforce development, seamlessly connecting multiple stakeholders and solutions in one comprehensive user journey. The platform uses "advanced labor market data and ethical machine learning algorithms to identify an individual’s ‘starting point’ in the labor market, recommend best fit career path ‘destinations’, and build a personalized roadmap of learning, resources, and work opportunities to successfully guide them from point A to point B." Joel (31m 52s): Chad, are you feeling FutureFit or is this one a little too baggy for your Baby Gap like frame? Chad (31m 59s): So this is a perfect example of what we were just talking about around discipline. These guys need to pick a fucking lane for God's sakes. They only have $5.5 million in total. Crunchbase is missing a million for some reason. They don't know whether to focus on users, corporate or government, right? And they're not big enough to be able to go after all of them. If you're trying to go after transactional. And you're trying to get everybody to actually download this fucking thing and use it for career track the GPS for your career, that is an entirely different model than going after talent acquisition. Right? And they have a very, very, very light touch on talent acquisition. I am kind of like all the talent management pieces on their website. Chad (32m 42s): So, I mean, again, they need to pick a fucking lane. These guys are way too early and way too small to be this broad in this fucking nebulous. This is the perfect example of what you shouldn't be doing as a startup. Joel (32m 57s): Sounds like a sell from you, Chad. I don't know. Sounds like a sell. I man, I hate companies like this GPS for your career, like fuck off. Give me a break. Chad (33m 11s): Tinder for your career. Joel (33m 12s): It feels predatory to me, like a resume writing service or the Ladders or Job Box. It's vaporware to help employers feel good about themselves for thinking they're actually helping their workforce. There's no transparency around the pricing of this shit or what, the product actually is. You got to sign up for a demo for everything they throw around big logos. Like, you know, they're the shit. They say they've been featured in the Economist, really the Economist, but I can't Google any proof that they've ever been in the Economist. I hate these kinds of companies and I'm a huge sell on it. And I'll echo your sentiments like future fuck fit, man. Fuck them. All right, let's move on. Joel (33m 53s): Let's not give any more oxygen please to FutureFit. Let's give it to cybersecurityjobs.com. All right. This is, from our friend of the podcast, Chris Russell, the mad scientist of recording technology. He says, quote "is a keyword based job domain for an industry niche worth $200,000." Well, the new owner of cybersecurity jobs.com thinks so. They just purchased it at auction via Sedo. The sale is the biggest jobs related domain purchase in quite a while. Niche domains like this, don't usually sell for six figures. Joel (34m 32s): Chad, what do you make of this "investment"? And I put "investment" in air quotes. Chad (34m 38s): So 2007 called and they want their exact match domain marketing back. That's exactly what I think. They're already way behind players like HackerRank and a domain won't fix that. Right? So this to me feels like pets.com. The, you know, the.com bubble, which is preparing to bust. There's way too much money being flushed into this market for stupid shit. Like a domain that is, I think what seven syllables. This is fucking ridiculous. Joel (35m 8s): Seven. I never thought of it as number of syllables anyway. So a quick history of URLs for the kids out there, there was a time when really only the.com mattered. So if you could, if you could acquire that good, good for you. There was a time when the SEO benefits of an exact match or exact key phrase domain was a good thing. You actually ranked well, when you owned Toledojobs.com. Those days are gone because Google has said, it's not that big a deal. Sometimes it still works, but it's not a slam dunk like it used to be right. And type in traffic used to be a real thing. People actually used to put in what they were searching for. Joel (35m 48s): And then just added dot com at the end of it and their browser, wherever it took them was wherever they thought they should go. Chad (35m 58s): Usually a porn site. Yes. Joel (36m 2s): Thanks. Yeah. Like the whitehouse.com.com anyway, go there if you'd like listeners. So what am I saying? Where did I go? Okay. So I can't see anywhere. Okay. So apps, app stores, marketplaces, and the dilution of TLDs i.e. like introducing hundreds of new top level domains have slowly chipped away at the value of keyword, rich domains. They're not as hard to get anymore, as long as you're fine putting a dot ai or a dot io at the end of it. So I can't really see a world where this is a good investment, unless Chad, this company has a budget to market the shit out of this URL. It's easy to remember. Joel (36m 41s): Cybersecurity is obviously hot and probably will be for years to come. But short of millions in marketing, this is dumb. They should have just bought a board ape NFT and I'm only half joking about that part. Chad (36m 56s): Yeah. Or cyberjobs.io or some shit like that. Right. But yeah, this to me again, 2007 called give it back. Joel (37m 3s): Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of giving back, we're going to take a break, refill my water glass, and coffee cup, and we'll be back with some porn stars. All right, Chad, we've been struggling with making sense of the great resignation for over a year. If only we had just asked famed adult actress Brie Olson for the answers. Listeners might remember Brie as one of Charlie. Sheen's love interests almost a decade ago, but who knew she could crystallize the issues plaguing employers all over in a single TikTok? No word, if she has the credentials, but she did apparently attend Purdue University for about two days, have a listen and make up your own mind. Brie (37m 49s): I'm watching 60 minutes. And they're like, where are the gen Z female workers going? That is like the biggest one besides boomers. Where, where are they? Like they're quitting their jobs and they're not coming back. And they're interviewing someone from LinkedIn. And they're like, well, what they're quitting the most is a service industry, jobs and retail jobs. It's like, have you all not heard of OnlyFans? Do you know the millions of women on there on fan Centro on all these other websites? Like finally now that sex work isn't stigmatized the way it was when I started, when I was 18, why go put yourself through 40 hours a week? When you can work five hours a week, and make even more like, why is this a discussion in the news still? Brie (38m 35s): Really? Why? Joel (38m 36s): Why Chad? Why is this still a discussion in the news? She, we joke, but she's got a point, right? Chad (38m 43s): Yes. She easily has a point. And as we've said on this show on several occasions that OnlyFans is a good way for a woman to be able to do her work without some old fucks slobbering all over her. Right. Not to mention the content that they make. They have loads of libraries of content that they can make money off of instead of just that one dance that happened in that moment. So, I mean, from a business standpoint, it makes a hell of a lot more sense. And again, we've done stories on individuals who are making anywhere from eight to $30,000 per month doing this. Why the fuck wouldn't they? Joel (39m 20s): Yeah. Her comment about why do 40 hours a week at a job you hate when you could do five hours of work a week and make more money. It all goes back to OnlyFans on this podcast. Chad, I love it. I do. I do feel like the S the sad stories are coming. I do think the regret is coming. I think we're going to start, and we have, but we're going to see more and more young, young women that have taken this route and have and will regret doing it. Whether it's future spouse finds out, family finds out, a future employer finds out, and there's going to be some remorse and regret, but she has a great point that if, if I'm looking at the down the barrel of 40 hours a week at a shit job, serving food to assholes, or just getting naked on camera, it never underestimate horny men, Chad, they will fund anything. Joel (40m 10s): They will fight wars. And at this point they might be helping out the great resignation, happening in ways that we hadn't thought of before. So I got nothing else, except that we'll continue to talk about OnlyFans and I can't be more excited and we should have more sandbox soundbites from porn stars, because that's just fun. Chad (40m 28s): I've got to say, you know, I think, you know, we're all starting to evolve our thoughts, especially in the US I mean, in Europe and other parts of the world, it's not a big deal, right? It's a big deal for us in the US because we have fucking tight sphincters. We are evolving our thoughts on many of these things. And, you know, if that guy finds out and he doesn't like it, and he doesn't marry her well, then fuck that guy. That's what it all comes down to. And we only get one of these. We only get one of these, you know, on this, on this crazy blue orb, you know, we got to enjoy ourselves any way that you feel like you need to, that isn't against the law. Joel (41m 12s): Which again is why we're launching the Chad and Cheese OnlyFans account. Chad (41m 15s): Nobody wants to see that Joel Cheeseman's gravy channel. Joel (41m 18s): Joel goes to Arby's next on OnlyFans, by the way, on the same show that we had a porn star soundbite, we had an Adam Gordon soundbite. I don't know if it gets any better than that, ladies and gentlemen, and with that Chad (41m 38s): One in the same. Chad and Cheese (41m 39s): We out. OUTRO (41m 36s): 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 (42m 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.

Quit rates have reached record levels and employees are making their voices heard. But how can a company change the narrative and retain employees through empowering their people? The lived experience of an employee working for Trianual is how founder and CEO Chris Ronzio defines culture and he's ready to bet $5,000 cash money that any aligned candidate will buy into his company and culture. Wait a minute, is this really power to the people or a cheap publicity stunt? The numbers do not lie and the mantra of "Hold Us Accountable" can help hiring companies as they peer into the organizational mirror seeking answers. Will this type of strategy help your company thrive? Trianual is thriving, listen to find out why. 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 (21s): Oh yeah, baby. It's the Cult Brand version. You know, what's going on here today? Kids, our friend, Julie Calli from a recruitmentmarketing.com. Julie (32s): Hi there! Chad (34s): Who do we have as a guest today? What's going on? Julie (39s): We have Chris Ronzio CEO of Trainual joining us today. Chris (44s): What's up everyone? Chad (45s): Good to have you on the show. So give us a little Twitter bio about you. Who is Chris? Then we'll get into the company, but we want to know who you are. Give it up. Chris (53s): So who am I, Chris Ronsey. Oh, I live out in Scottsdale, Arizona, married with two kids and I have been an entrepreneur my whole life. So started at my first business when I was 14, grew that for 12 years. Sold, it started a consulting firm and then Trainual was a software product that spun out of that consulting. So a lot of businesses need to package together their culture, their brand, their story, their people, their policies, their processes, and you call it a playbook. What's the playbook for our business. So that's what Trainual is. So it's a software to help you collect all that and to onboard and train your new people. Chad (1m 30s): Okay. So I was out at the Phoenix open earlier this year. Were you there? Chris (1m 35s): Of course. Chad (1m 36s): That thing is fucking crazy. I had no clue. You talk about a cult following, that thing, going to any PGA event, not even close, right. That is amazing. So you live there. So tell me a little bit about actually living there. How does it impact you as somebody who is local? Chris (1m 57s): Well, it makes my commute harder. It's like everyone, you know, from the whole country comes in to that little pocket of Scottsdale and I live walking distance from that golf course. So I'm like five minutes down the road. All the roads are closed. Everything, every field is turned into a parking lot. So it's like that two week period every year, we just, you almost want to like leave town, but it's a great party. Chad (2m 19s): You should, and Airbnb the hell out of your house because you'd make a ton of cash, right? Julie (2m 26s): Walking distance. Chris (2m 26s): A hundred percent. Chad (2m 27s): Anyway, this is not about golf. This is about a little publicity. You got some publicity in a January earlier this year about a pay to quit or a pay to exit program. Can you quickly tell us about the program and also are you currently offering it? Chris (2m 43s): Yeah, we're still offering it. So this is something that we started doing in May of 2020 after we had a developer, a new developer start with us and five days into his job, he approached us and said, you know what? I've kind of, I've met the team. I understand what my role is going to be. And I think I should have taken this other opportunity that I had so I want to gracefully bow out. It was the first time anyone's ever done that to me. And, we just kind of sat back and thought, wow, I wonder how many people after a few days or a few weeks know that this isn't their longterm opportunity, but don't have another job lined up or don't have the courage to really say that. So we started this policy initially it was $2,500. Chris (3m 26s): Where two weeks into your employment, we would give you this offer and send you a message through our platform. We'd send you a message and say, you know, you've been here two weeks. It's your time to make a choice. Either you can take $2,500 and walk away, you know, to try to ease the burden of finding your next opportunity. Or you can turn that down and opt in with us and say, yes, this is where I want to be. And so it lets them choose long-term is this the right solution for them? Or do they want to just back out now? So we had no one take it for the first year. So in 2021, we up the stakes to $5,000. We've we've still had no one, no one take this offer over almost 50 people that we've offered it to. Chris (4m 10s): No one's taken it. Julie (4m 11s): Really are you advertising this in your job or is this part of your onboarding process? Chris (4m 16s): It used to be a secret until all the publications picked it up. So now people know, but it used to be a secret. And it was a fun secret because we didn't want people to know they were going to get this offer. But after they've gone through an amazing onboarding experience, we make them the offer and say, you know, Hey, you're in the driver's seat. We want to empower you to make the decision and to make sure that you're kind of, you know, double opting in you chose to accept our job offer, but now that you're on the inside, do you still want to be here? Do you still want to work here? And so it's, I think a powerful brand thing, a powerful culture thing to say the choice is yours because really an employee could leave at any time. Chris (4m 56s): And this just gives them that the power from the very beginning. Julie (4m 59s): And no one has taken you up on this since you've raised it to 5,000? Chris (5m 4s): No. So maybe we'll raise it again. Maybe it'll go to 7,000 or 10,000, but we'll see how it goes. Julie (5m 14s): Yeah. Chad (5m 14s): We keep throwing the word culture out there that don't get all flowery on me and shit here. How do you define culture specific to your organization? Chris (5m 26s): It's the actual experience of being here. Chad (5m 27s): Okay. Chris (5m 27s): I don't know how else to say it. Julie (5m 30s): Oh, I love that. Nice directness. Chad (5m 31s): In some cultures you have kind of like bro cultures where it's very male. It's not, you know, a good mix, which is always bad, you know, obviously in the long-term. How do you take a look at your experience, right? Your culture itself and ensure that it is inclusive, especially when you're offering somebody an opportunity, Who could look a lot different than everybody else who's in the organization and they're like, oh man, I don't see anybody here like me. I'm going to go ahead and take the cash. Chris (6m 6s): Yeah. So, so how do we build inclusivity into what we do? Or how do we make people comfortable? I would say it starts in the hiring process. So we kind of think of working at Trainual, like, before you accept a job offer here, we sort of want you to test drive the car a little bit. We want you to meet as many of the people as you can. We want to, you know, get in a collaborative sort of work session with you. We have everyone do some form of like a sample project or something. So we can feel like what it would be, you know, working together. We shoot videos of everyone's bios and backgrounds that we send to people. We invite them into our platform, Trainual, where they go through a candidate training experience. Julie (6m 49s): I Imagine you have an advantage with that. Chris (6m 52s): Yeah. And so by the time they're getting an offer from us, we like them. They like us. They feel like they belong. They've heard, you know, gotten messages from dozens of our people on LinkedIn. They've met probably 10 plus people and had these long conversations and so we take that part of recruiting really seriously. And, so this, this offer at the end is really just a pulse check to say, now that you're on the inside, hold us accountable was everything that we told you upfront true? If it wasn't, this is a way for you to, you know, just back out and no hard feelings. You know, it's an offer we're going to continue making. But now that it's so public and we've had all this press about it, people kind of joke about it in their onboarding experience, like you guys better not mess up because you know, I know what it'll cost you. Julie (7m 43s): But here you are going out there creating almost a, you are a culture in yourself that you're creating an onboarding process that you're attracting people to your company, and they're not taking the offer is a Testament to how great the experience is through their onboarding, that they are feeling aligned with the attraction they're creating. So I feel like you're going to attract more people to want to come to your company, but you're putting on an experience that makes them want to stay. Chad (8m 7s): It feels like a power to the people kind of move. Chris (8m 12s): Totally. It puts the power in their hands, you know, because like I said before, the power is always in the employee's hands. You can always quit a job, but it used to be that employers felt like they had this leverage over people because you couldn't find a good job elsewhere. You couldn't find a high paying job. Now people can work for companies anywhere in the world. It's so easy to find opportunities. So the burden's on the company to be a place where people want to be. And so I think this is, you know, it's good for accountability that we're always asking ourselves, are we the best place for our people to be? Chad (8m 45s): So Zappos tried this back, I think it was like in 2008, Amazon Lob 18, Riot Games. I mean, they've all tried this idea and I don't think any of those organizations are offering this program today. So it automatically feels like a publicity stunt and I'm not hating because you got publicity, right. It feels like a publicity stunt. Is this a long-term strategy for you? Because for the other organizations, it didn't work out that way. Chris (9m 12s): Yeah. It's definitely a long-term strategy. So I think the difference with other organizations is they, first of all, the dollar amount was less and they were hiring positions that had more turnover. So call center type positions. And I think for them, it was an innovative idea. I got the idea from Zappos. I read Delivering Happiness, however long, you know, 10 years ago and thought, okay, I'm going to store that in the back of my head. So when we had that first person put in his notice, it felt like, well, maybe now's the time to do something like this. But for us, the average salaries that we pay here, a thousand dollars is not going to move the needle. Someone would rather just continue collecting their paycheck until they find their next gig. Chris (9m 52s): And so that's where we started at 2,500. That's why we raised it to 5,000 because we want people to actually feel like they're turning down something that matters. And so if we continue to raise it, it will be for the same reason. But you know, I'm not sure why they don't do it anymore, but for us in somebody's first two weeks, we're spending so much time and money on them, training them that this $5,000 is nothing. Julie (10m 18s): Great perspective. Chris (10m 19s): Yeah. If we found out that someone wasn't a fit in the first couple of weeks and they bowed out, it's saving us money to pay $5,000 rather than finding out four months later, when now our pipeline for that role is dry. We don't have any other candidates. We have to start the recruiting process from scratch. We have to spend another couple of months getting the new person to a hundred percent productivity. It's like, this is a savings. This is a cost savings. So I don't know why anyone wouldn't think it it's a long-term strategy. Julie (10m 49s): Yeah and those companies that you, you were bringing up, Chad like Zappos and Amazon, a lot of them did that to offer opportunity for people that were disengaged, right? Like existing employees that are disengaged, but so much happens with companies that are making that promise. Like we're a great place to work. We're wonderful. We have this great culture, very close, and then people arrive and they see that that's not true. And then doesn't feel like there's alignment. I love how they you're talking about there's the math, there's savings behind this opportunity about to continue to invest in the employee. But I feel like you have a great advantage that you, you know, you are a company that creates playbooks. Julie (11m 32s): So you probably in your culture, it's like, if you can't get in line with the playbooks that are created here, then you won't be part of our culture because that's what we do here. Chris (11m 44s): Yeah. It's, you know, companies have a culture, they have, you know, cultural norms of things that are okay and not okay to do here. And every business has this, you know, there's, is it okay to wear jeans to work? Is it okay to wear, you know, your pajamas all day? Is it, do we do formal calls? Do we, you know, is it okay to use slang language? Do we curse and swear around here? Like there's norms at businesses and when companies don't express those norms upfront and explain to their new people, Hey, here's exactly what we expect let's be aligned on that. Then they get upset when the employees are breaking the rules that they didn't even know about, you know? Chris (12m 24s): And then, so we're trying to accelerate all that and say upfront, let's agree on all the norms, all the expectations let's be aligned on values. And, because, if we're not being truthful, you know, if working here is different than what we say it is, they're going to leave anyway. So why not get it out of the way and get it all up front? Chad (12m 46s): Yeah. Good point. So that first engineer that quit, I think it's pretty amazing that you didn't just do what most companies do and say, ah, what a Dick, right. You looked internally and you said, how can we fix this? Now, other than offering, you know, at that point $2,500, but other than offering $5,000, what did you change? Was there a big change at that point? Or was it really just the cash? Chris (13m 13s): We changed our interview process of identifying, you know, talking about someone, not just the role that someone was going to be in, but their path in the company, their aspirations beyond the role that they were applying for. And so in that guy's case, he wanted to be the engineering manager. And didn't realize that we had recently promoted someone on the team and he felt like he was going to be capped. And so, he said, you know, if I'm not going to be able to get promoted in six months or 12 months, I should have taken this other opportunity. And so, we introduced that to the hiring process to talk about, you know, what do you see your next few roles looking like, and your timeline so that we understand is this a long-term fit? Julie (13m 54s): Hold on a second. You let somebody exit feedback, change your hiring process? So that you could better align culture? That is fantastic! Chad (14m 2s): Yeah. So that's what's supposed to happen. Let's just put it that way. Right? Chris (14m 9s): Yeah. And so, but funny story though, actually about where the $2,500 number originally came from, was in the correspondence back and forth of this guy, he wasn't local, he was a remote employee. We send everyone a laptop and, you know, a very nice Macbook Pro, everyone gets their brand new equipment. And it was in the weeks of trying to get the laptop shipped back from this guy that it was like, you know what, we could be out that money anyway. We might as well pay people, like have some sort of like, you know, offer, that's where the $2,500 originally came from. Chad (14m 46s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So from a TA or brand perspective, this could easily make the brand look kind of cheap because it's kind of like, you know, it's a throw away. Right. Well, you know, I could go there, try it out. It's it's almost like a throwaway situation. Throwning away the company, throwing away the talent. How do you guys focus on pushing a brand that doesn't look throw away, that this is more power to the people kind of scenario, right. How did you do that? How did you encapsulate something that was more positive as opposed to more cheap and transactional? Chris (15m 18s): Well, it's funny after all the stories, you know, went through the news cycles. I mean, it was popping up everywhere on, you know, Forbes and Entrepreneur and Inc and Fast Company. And my mom sent me a screenshot from people.com and, you know, I always hoped that I'd be on People for like the sexiest man alive thing, but that did not happen. But it was everywhere. And so the traffic to our career page literally spiked 30,000%. I'm not making that number up, like from Google analytics, it was 30,000 and change percent at the career page. And so we get all these applications, but you know, the burdens on us to sift through those and not make offers to the wrong people. Chris (16m 3s): And so I think if we were a really high volume, you know, kind of business where we're hiring hundreds of people, then maybe the brand thing could be tarnished by like, oh, just, you know, try and, you know, it doesn't work and whatever? For us, we're only extending offers to a handful of people that we think are absolutely all stars. We hire not, not just from the 30,000 cohort, but looking back in the last three or four years, we extend offers to something like one and a half percent of applicants. And so when we're really selective of how we go through that process, I think it's, you know, the person's excited to work here. Chris (16m 43s): They don't want to just take the money and leave. Julie (16m 47s): Like a culture curation. Chad (16m 49s): And one of the quotes from the business insider article says that, this program also holds the hiring team accountable because there's a cost to the business if they get it wrong. Two questions for me, who is seen from as you, from your view as the quote unquote "hiring team", number one, and number two, accountability is good, but what happens on the other side? What happens if they get it right? Chris (17m 14s): Interesting. So with our process, we see a hiring team as we have like a talent partner on our people ops team. And then we've got a hiring manager from the department that's going to be the whoever the person reports to. And then we've got other, you know, peers of the team that they're going to be on that participate in the process. And so it's really a team thing. And it's a different group of people for every different role. And so it's not like the accountability or the burden is going to fall on one single person. But as a company, we're measuring this because if we were paying out one out of four, people are taking this offer, then we've got to go back to the drawing board and say, well, what are we not screening for in the hiring process that they thought this would be a fit and it's not? Chris (18m 1s): Or what is the feedback they gave in the exit interview, which they have to provide the feedback to, you know, for the payment on their way out. What can we do to improve that onboarding process or the hiring process so that this won't be the end result. So I think it's just, it makes it tangible. You know, there's always a cost to turnover and nobody wants to have new hires workout, but when you've got that dollar amount in the back of your head, and you know, that those offers are getting sent to the four new people on Friday afternoon, it adds a little layer of accountability to say, hopefully, I hope we picked people that really want to be here. Julie (18m 40s): Yeah. Money where your mouth is. So what does the team look like in the structure to that causes that feedback loop? Because it sounds like you're constantly adjusting your playbooks for the types of talent you're hiring, versus how you're doing the onboard process. How do you make sure the right people are talking to each other that that loop happens? Chris (19m 1s): Good question. So, since the beginning of the company, we've done quarterly engagement service, which sounds corporate or something, but we ask really simple questions. Like, you know, what could we do better here? Do you feel comfortable? Do you have friends at work? Do you know a lot of these questions just about how we could improve the environment and they're all confidential. So we don't know who's saying what it's just kind of the collective answers. You know, managers also have great relationships with their direct reports on one-on-ones, that they're getting non-confidential feedback. And we celebrate when people are suggesting better ways that we can do things. So I think that's part of the culture, and especially at Trainual a company that makes software for best practices and things to be documented has to celebrate new best practices and innovation. Chris (19m 49s): And so every time people are giving us that feedback in a survey or in a one-on-one or a direct slack message to me, we can go back and make the change in the next all hands and credit that person and say, oh, you know, Lauren suggested that instead of, you know, having the same person from every department give updates every week, we invite different people in so you get to hear from different voices. That was a great suggestion. So today we're going to have this, this, and this person, and then people want to give that feedback. And they, because they know that they'll get credit for their good ideas. So short answer is just a continuous cycle of asking these questions and then of actually taking action on people's feedback. Chris (20m 32s): At every quarterly all hands that we do at follows those engagement surveys. We put screenshots of feedback up on the screen to kind of hold the mirror up to ourselves and say, this is something someone said, we're going to take this seriously and we'll report back on this at the next meeting. And then it's fun to see the changes that happen based on what people say. Chad (20m 54s): So where companies really screwed this up is when the grow right. Because many of these programs, they just can't scale. Right? You get a core group of individuals who really get it, they believe in it, but then you grow right. And it's hard to scale that. So how do you see the scaling within the organization as you grow? Chris (21m 14s): Well, first of all, so we do, OKRs is our big kind of strategic objectives for the year. And one of our OKR is for this, this year is called staying aligned, and we put it to the BGS song staying alive. So we made it like a top five company priority to continue to scale our culture as we grow, because it's such a special part of being here, you know, of the company. And it, I really feel like this, the group of people that we have, you could pivot to solve another problem and do just as well. But when you've got a really strong community and group of people that, you know, just get along and work well together, you can accomplish a lot. Chris (21m 56s): And so for us, you know, we're almost 90 people right now, we'll grow to 110, 120 this year. It's a huge focus. And every milestone in the journey for us to stay as open and transparent, and as good at communicating as we have been in the earlier years. Julie (22m 14s): But you're serving a much larger customer base, right? So the people that you're bringing in have to believe in not only your culture, but what you're providing, and that is right now such a needed service that so many people are learning how to do their job while sitting in their living room. You know, the remote adaption has been tremendous. I imagine that's put a lot of fast adaption for you as well to serve such a large audience. Chris (22m 46s): Yeah. It's been amazing. You know, we have the benefit, I guess, and the luxury to just experiment and then be able to show here's what worked for us, you know, as a company with playbooks and best practices and processes and policy is every time we figure something out ourselves, we get to a new level of growth, or we have some issue. Someone gets their laptop stolen. So all of a sudden we have like a, you know, a computer monitoring service that we put into place, and we've got a security policy. Now we can share that with the whole community, you know, 10,000 businesses or something that might have the same kind of challenge at business. And we say, this worked for us maybe you need this too? Chris (23m 26s): So it's been fun to be like, kind of a guinea pig for growth problems. And then share those out as marketing content, which is a cool cycle. Julie (23m 39s): You throw a great conference for what I was hearing about the playbook conference. Last year, you had Shaq at your conference last year as a guest speaker? Chad (23m 51s): Shaquille O'Neal? What? Chris (23m 53s): Shaquille O'Neal. You may not know this Shaq is like one of the most prolific business guys. Like he, if you look up NBA player, net worth or something, you know, his net worth is creeping into the like half a billion dollar range and I'm sure will continue to grow. He's had over 400 different businesses, like, you know, a lot of franchise locations and, you know, whether it's gyms or fast food restaurants or insurance, or, you know, and he knows how to create good partnerships and then use his celebrity to fuel those partnerships. And so it was funny. We have a slack channel that was like just a random things. Chris (24m 34s): And people started posting pictures of Shaq that they'd see around after Playbook and so we renamed the channel, Random Shaq Sightings, and now everybody's just like dumping Shaquille O'Neal stuff in there. But yeah, the conference is so fun. We had Shaquille O'Neal, we had Gary V, we had Daymond John last year, we've had like some incredible operators of, you know, businesses. And so we try to mix it up and teach people a little bit about scaling the foundations of each department, you know, like how do you scale your people operations? And how do you scale your marketing and your brand? And how do you scale a sales team and all these structural things that everybody's working on? That's what the conference is about is sharing playbooks. Chris (25m 18s): So we had just over 5,000 people last year and aiming for 10,000 in this fall. Right. Julie (25m 22s): Wow that's exciting. Chad (25m 22s): Excellent. So last question, Chris, you can breathe easy after this one. So you got a lot of press, right? And it was funny because I posted the press out in the Facebook groups and there were a lot of haters out there, man, Twitter, Facebook, just all over the place. So what do you say to the haters when they come at you and say, this is just Zappos 2.0, it didn't work for them. It's not gonna work for you. What do you say, man? Chris (25m 50s): Yeah. It's funny people that have time to hate on other people's stuff. What else are they doing? I got so many messages that were just kind of like. Chad (25m 58s): It's apparently it's a good business. Yeah. Chris (25m 60s): I have funny messages that were like, you know, here's my Venmo QR code. Can you just send me five grand so I don't have to apply. Chad (26m 10s): Let's cut through the shit right now just send me the five grand. Let's do this. Chris (26m 13s): Yeah. And then I got like sad stories of people that were like, you know, I've like my family is really struggling and like, if you're paying $5,000 just for someone to quit, like, can you donate money to me? And you know, and so people come out of the woodwork for when you, when you get press and you can't expect that it's all going to be good. So I would just say, you know, like if, if you don't think it works for you then fine, it's an idea. You know, people we're, all of us are just trying things, strategies, ideas, we're putting them out there. This works for me. It's not to get press it's something we actually have done for the last two years. We didn't make this up. So ask any of my employees that got this offer, what they thought. And, you know, we didn't talk about that part, but when you don't take the offer, you also have to describe why. Chris (27m 2s): And some of the stuff that we've gotten as positive reinforcement of our first couple of weeks of orientation has improved the orientation more than even some negative feedback could I think so. So it's been such a win for us. That's what I would tell them. Chad (27m 17s): Yeah. So Julie, in closing what Chris just said, I think it is poignant is that everybody wants to try to make it black or white, right? This is going to work or it's not going to work. You know, there's no gray out there. And I think many cult brands, all the cult brands that are out there, they found gray. They worked in the gray and they killed it in the gray. What do you think about that? Julie (27m 42s): I mean, people are going to hate, what's great. It's working. It sounds like it's working for Chris and his company and what his company's about and its purpose. Right? Put, be real clear with their playbooks, be real upfront. It sounds like the purpose that your company delivers is embedded in its culture and it's working for you. So that's fantastic. And I think it really should be inspiring to other companies. It doesn't mean you have to do this, but go find what aligns with your purpose and make that part of your onboarding and part of your attraction. That's cult. Chris (28m 18s): It's healthy pressure. You know, when you put something like this on yourself and you say worst case scenario, everyone that applies here, we have to pay out this $5,000 like that would be devastating. That would break the bank, you know, but, but the looming fear of that makes you not want that to happen. And so you behavior, correct, you know, to create a great experience that doesn't happen, so it's a healthy accountability. I think when I was consulting, I used to do something where I'd pay people $500 if they thought a coffee meeting with me was a waste of their time and never had to pay it out, but it was a great offer. And it put healthy accountability on me to create value at the meeting. Chris (28m 59s): Right? Chad (29m 0s): Yeah. I think there's a big message here. It's get out of the damn box, right? Everybody's trying to work in the box. And when people are getting out of the box with different ideas that you keep getting told, get back in the box. No, we've got to bust out of this. And if COVID, didn't teach us a thing about doing business differently than we haven't learned anything kids! That's Chris Ronzio, founder and CEO of Trainual. Well, Chris, if listeners want to find out more about you or they want to find out more about your organization, where can they do that? Chris (1m 9s): Trainual.com or ChrisRonzio.com. And I mostly hang out on LinkedIn and Instagram. Chris (29m 38s): So feel free to look me up. I'd love to connect with anyone. Chad (29m 49s): Excellent man. Really appreciate it, Julie, that's another one in the can. We out. Julie (29m 55s): Thank you. OUTRO (30m 40s): 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.

Automation in the interview space is smokin' hot, and Indianapolis-based Darrian Mikell and Qualifi is hoping the profit off the trend by providing automated phone pre-screening for healthcare pros, truckers, and more ... with the actual deep-dive interview done by humans. It's either a home run or a total face-plant, offering too little, too late in an ever-automating world. (What do you mean no video!?!?!) You be the judge. Actually, just let Chad & Cheese be the judge ... that's what they're here for anyway. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. Shark Tank 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. Let's do another firing squad. What's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. The Chad and Cheese podcast. I am your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my partner in crime, Chad Sowash. And today we're excited to welcome Darrian Mikell CEO and co-founder of Qualifi.hr Chad (40s): Straight out of Indy. Joel (42s): Qualifi HR. Straight out of Naptown. Darrian (44s): Straight out of Indy. Thanks for having me on guys. Joel (47s): You're welcome. You're welcome. Thanks for joining us. So give our listeners the Twitter bio about you. Darrian (53s): Yeah. So I live in the Indianapolis area, Noblesville specifically with my wife, who we met at Wesleyan and we have three young kids, six, three, and one. Chad (1m 5s): Nice. Darrian (1m 5s): And then in my spare time, I like to still play basketball. I'm a lifelong athlete. So yeah, that's what I like to do. Right. Joel (1m 15s): Listeners Darrian looks about 17 and has three kids. So it's a little bit unnerving when he tells you about his 3 kids.. Chad (1m 21s): Yeah. Not to mention how competitive were you growing up? It sounds like your, your older brother was, is he a lot older than you? Cause he played in the NFL. So competition had to be like hella competition. Darrian (1m 33s): Yeah. And you guys can see me. So I'm about 5'10" 150 soaking wet. My brothers I'm a little bit, like a half inch taller maybe than him, but he's like 206 and stacked. That's what his playing weight was growing up. So yeah, I mean in my whole family were athletes and so a lot of competition and yeah, just all that growing up. Joel (1m 54s): Well, speaking of competition, Chad, tell him what he's won here on the firing squad. Chad (1m 59s): Well Darrian, you have two minutes to pitch, qualifi.hr. At the end of two minutes, you will hear that bell and Joel and I will hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If you're slow to answer questions and you start getting boring, Joel's going to hit you with those crickets at the end of Q and A, you will receive these ratings either big applause, not since Dr. Dre, Snoop, Mary J, 50 cent and Eminem, have we heard something this good golf clap, much like Joe Burrow, you're getting there, but still need some work. Joel (2m 36s): Fix the line. Chad (2m 37s): But the last but never least during Firing Squad, this pitch feels like the Jacksonville Jaguars of TA tech. Fire the head coach, move cities, or just start up a BW3s franchise because this ain't your thing. Are you ready for firing squad? Darrian (2m 52s): I love it. Let's do it. Joel (2m 53s): For the record. Chad said Hela and 50 on the same podcast. All Darrian in three, two. Darrian (3m 1s): Yeah, absolutely. First thanks for letting me do this. So at Qualifi, we are powering the fastest phone interview experience in the world and that's because every year recruiters spend hundreds of millions of hours simply screening their candidates and at Qualifi, we've proven that there's definitely a better way. So many recruiting functions. They rely on standard phone interviews as their screening mechanism that goes just to step beyond the resume. But most people don't realize that this is the slowest bottleneck in all of hiring. The scheduling, the coordination, that one by one calls with hundreds of candidates, it really adds up and it can be costly in the competitive world of recruiting where every single day matters and not to mention, this is the least favorite aspect of a recruiter's job. Darrian (3m 44s): I mean, it's why I started this and I'm sure you guys have done it as well. And you know, it's, you know, painfully monotonous, super time consuming. So at Qualifi we help recruiters automate this so phone interviews are no longer a bottleneck and instead they become a competitive advantage. And the way that we're doing that is by capitalizing on the trend around audio, we let recruiters prerecord questions using their own voice to create personal yet standardized interviews. And then from there, they're able to scale by inviting and interviewing hundreds of candidates, even on the same day that those candidates apply. And for those candidates, they absolutely love the simplicity. Darrian (4m 24s): The convenience. It's dead simple from the time they received the email or the text invite, it takes them just a few clicks. And when they're ready, our system dials their phone and they can pick up and answer questions over a standard phone call. That means they can even do it over a landline. It also means that there's no apps, there's no internet issues that they have to worry about and even better. There's no getting dressed up to sit in front of a webcam. It's frictionless. It's easy. The majority of replies come back on the same day that the invites go out actually. And from there, the recruiters can listen and read responses with the transcriptions plus easily share with their hiring managers. So, Chad (5m 3s): Boom. Darrian (5m 3s): Boom. I think I got it all in! Joel (5m 4s): And uou can find out more at Darrian (5m 8s): Qualifi.HR qualifies spelled with an I instead of a Y. So Q U A L i F i.hr. Joel (5m 13s): All right. The name is fairly self explanatory. I won't grill you on that one, but I'm going to grill you on the koala bear. All right. What is up with the mascots? How'd you come up with that? I thought you were an Australian company when I first looked at it. Darrian (5m 27s): Fair, fair enough. So if you would've saw some of the previous logos that were truthfully my ideas, they were terrible. I was playing more on the audio waves and nothing was working, but we wanted something that people could gravitate to, resonate with, and inviting. And so koalas are just that. And then if you didn't catch this already Qualifi this, but like koalas is a play on the name as well. So some people don't catch it off the top. Chad (5m 52s): It's not spelled like koala at all. That's not how you spell koala. Okay. Darrian (6m 2s): When I send messages, I refer to us as koalas and I use the Q U. You know, Q U instead of a K Chad (6m 11s): Now that I'm totally confused. Joel (6m 13s): Yeah. Speaking of a gravitational pull of mascots, what was the gravitational pull of this idea? You don't come from the space in particularly? Like what was the journey to come to this business idea? Darrian (6m 23s): I don't know if it's the case for you guys, but a lot of the folks in HR and recruiting that talk to you kind of just stumbled into it. And honestly, that's what happened for me. I was at another company before this called Viral Launch. We were fast growing. The CEO, brought me on as employee number one. And we went from, he and I to over 70 people on the team in about three years. And my job was basically all of internal ops and that included HR and recruiting among a lot of other things. And so I just find myself busy all the time and then just notice this particular pain point, when it came to recruiting and specifically the repetitive nature of phone interviewing. Chad (7m 2s): So hiring sucks. And you said, I'm going to fix it. Darrian (7m 6s): Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's what happens with a lot of folks that, you know, that enter this space that, you know, they see these specific pain points and go to solve it. And so. Joel (7m 16s): So it's always as easy as you think it's going to be too. When you say that you spin your head. Darrian (7m 21s): Oh, of course. Chad (7m 22s): How many employees do you currently have? Darrian (7m 24s): Yeah, we've grown a lot over this last year where we'll be at 15 employees as of March 1st. We're currently 14 and just made a new hire. So it's been fun. Chad (7m 35s): Nice. Darrian (7m 35s): It's been fun. This last year has been fun. Like if you had asked me a couple of years ago we were definitely, we're still grinded, but it was definitely a grind to get to where we're at now. Chad (7m 43s): Okay. So what is your target market? Who exactly are you trying to hit? Are you trying to hit the SMB markets or are you trying to hit more enterprise? Who do you want to sell to? Darrian (7m 54s): The most general way I put it is volume hiring. And that honestly looks a bit different to, you know, depending on who you ask, like, we do have some smaller companies in our, you know, that we call customers that, you know, it's kind of like my position that I was in as like a founder or, you know, just a small business that has a lot of hiring and like just little people, you know, not a lot of people to do it, but more typically example customers that we really focus on are like hospitals, contact centers and just a lot of areas where there's a lot of turnover over. Where they're constantly hiring for similar positions. And it's very difficult to use just the application alone or the resume alone as their form of, you know, passing candidates so they have to do phone interviews and that's where we come in and really provide, you know, a lot of different value propositions and ROI for them. Chad (8m 44s): Gotcha. Okay. So not any specific industry, just high turnover types of positions that aren't a franchise burger flipping types. Darrian (8m 54s): Yeah, so we are currently focused on, you know, hospitals, healthcare networks, and then kind of industry contact center is an industry, but usually it's other industries that have contact centers and call centers as a key piece of their organization. So those are a couple of our focuses, but from the beginning we knew that this is a broad tool, but as a startup company, we wanted to niche down and prove out, you know, what we do, because it is pretty new for a lot of folks. So proving it out. Joel (9m 23s): How about trucking? Darrian (9m 24s): Yeah. Trucking is potential. And it's something that in the future that I think would apply really well to some of the things that we have planned from our product standpoint, but it's different in different industries. Trucking is one where it's like a shortage and like the phone interviews are more of a sales tactic as opposed to a screening tactic. And so we work really well when you're either exclusively screening or you're screening for some roles and have to spend a lot of manual time sourcing and others. And we can basically augment that screening side so you can spend a lot more man hours on the sourcing. Chad (9m 58s): So there's tons of tech that's out there. Who specifically, do you see as your biggest competition right now? Darrian (10m 7s): Yeah, our biggest competition is typically video interviewing more often than not. We are one of the first to market doing something with audio and phone specifically in the way that we're doing it, which is one of the reasons that I even wanted to start this was, I didn't see anything out there like that, like what we're doing now, or else I would've probably just signed up and use their solution. And so I was like, oh, here's an opportunity. But video is what is more prevalent in the market today. And it doesn't come up in every sales conversation, but some recruiters have experienced with video and some don't, but we're typically able to really solve a unique pain point for the customers that we're going after now and differentiate ourselves really well against video. Joel (10m 51s): So I'm not surprised you said video, but I am a little surprised you didn't say conversational AI companies like Paradox or even a company like Honeit, which I don't know if it compliments your product or what, so Honeit is essentially transcribing phone conversations and then creating notes and comments and things like that. Do you guys do that or do you work in conjunction with Honeit or sites like that or companies like that? And what do you think about conversational AI as a competitor? Darrian (11m 19s): Yeah. So if you mean he like conversation AI yeah In the terms of like chat and text-based forms. Yeah. We see those things being either complimentary or having their specific time and place. Usually those are like kind of the, the very top of the funnel, the front end, where you're engaging, getting them to, you know, apply or sign up or provide more information where for us it's after they've already applied. And typically, you know, a lot of our customers are small teams that have to hire hundreds of people. So they have thousands of applications. It's hard for them to sift through and know really who is the best person to spend more time with. And that's why they would typically do, you know, a standard phone interview. And as I mentioned, you have to reach out to those candidates, schedule, there are scheduling tools, but still the fact that you have to do at least 20 to 30 minute phone calls all day long, one, it's just hard to scale. Darrian (12m 12s): It creates, you know, recruiter, burnout, which we hear pretty often. And it's just not a great format of collecting information. Joel (12m 23s): So your tool as the pre-screening conversation, ask questions on the phone, they answer it, transcribes those answers, and then you can search and it matches to some degree, but once the deep conversation happens, do you, do you hand it off at that point or are they still in the platform to record that interview? Darrian (12m 40s): Yeah, so right now where we're at is really focused on that one specific step in the process, that screening step, like I said, it's the most, it's the biggest bottleneck and I personally like, I mentioned we've hired some folks and I just talked to one of our new hires and they were saying, one of the factors is that we were able to move a lot faster in our process. Cause we eat our own dog food and we're able to get to the offer stage a lot faster than, than potential competitors. And that's the same for a lot of the companies we work with. Joel (13m 10s): Let me through as a job seeker, how I engage with the product. Is it a link in an email? Is it a message because you have my phone number, like talk about as a job seeker, how you engage with the product. Darrian (13m 25s): Yeah. So the candidate, their experience is, they would have more than likely already applied to the position in most cases. And then either automatically, or at the recruiters discretion, the candidate will receive a text message and/or an email saying, Hey, we got your application and now we want to learn more about you. We want to make this really convenient for your schedule. So at your earliest convenience, click this link to read instructions and get started with your interview. It takes them to that instructional page. That page is branded to the employer and it's a really straightforward, their phone number is either already in that instruction page or there's a spot for them to type in that number. Darrian (14m 9s): They simply hit start, confirm, and then our system will dial their phone. And then they just pick up an answer to those questions. It's very conversational. It's familiar, like responding to voicemail, just with multiple questions that are baked in there. Chad (14m 24s): So we're talking a hundred percent mobile, really. You're not going to have many using desktop on this. Darrian (14m 30s): Yeah. And that's like one of the biggest, biggest values that we provide is that convenience, accessibility. I kind of touched on it with like the webcam. You don't need a webcam, you don't need a computer. You don't need to go to a place that's well lit and you know, a good environment. You can just hit start and do it wherever. So increases that accessibility, you know, or really big on trying to mitigate bias and allow more people to enter that best step in the process. Chad (14m 59s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So let's talk about go-to-market strategy, obviously from the standpoint of product, you know, product seems like, you know, it's maturing, right? You're hitting the roadmap. It's maturing. You have clients first off. How many clients do you have? Darrian (15m 13s): I don't like to get into the specifics of clients. I will say we have, like I mentioned, like small customers to the specifics, but we do have clients ranging from small companies up to fortune 500. Chad (15m 30s): How are you getting them? Darrian (15m 31s): So far it's been the digital version of, you know, beating on people's doors. We've been a pretty lean team up until this point. A lot of it was founder sales. So myself and my brother, my brother's one of my co-founders, we were leading the charge on the sales efforts in the early days. And as we started to scale the team, we leveraged different, you know, legions services that were still, you know, emailing people, cold calling people. And now we're focused on trying to scale through all the different marketing channels. So advertising partnerships and just generally getting our name out there in a broader sense because Joel (16m 15s): Integrations? Darrian (16m 15s): Yeah. Integrations are a huge thing, a huge initiative for us right now. We, we just kicked off a couple of partnerships that allow us to integrate a lot faster with all the major ATSs. So we're really excited about that and exploring what it looks like for us to partner with, you know, different, different folks that have the similar audience that we're going after, because yeah, like we're doing a good job on the outbound sales side, but I think we're going to really win on our brand and our ability to execute from a marketing standpoint. So excited about having more budgets to do that. Chad (16m 49s): So that's a direct, you're excited about the outbound direct sales that you're doing right now. Is that what I'm hearing? Okay. Because it sounds like you've got a lot that's going on, but mainly you're hitting the direct to client market. Darrian (17m 3s): Yeah. So right now we have a really, you know, specific audience that we're going for. I am excited about that, but I think we're going to win by our ability to increase the awareness. So that's not done just by direct cold sales. It's going to be through a larger marketing efforts. We would attend more conferences, get our name out there, you know through content and in digital advertising and partnerships as well. So that's a key focus this year. Chad (17m 30s): Okay. So Joel touched on integrations. Let's dig deeper into that. Where are we looking to integrate? Because there are all these different types of platforms that are out there where you could perspectively fit in. I mean, with around interviewing assessments, I mean those types of things, are you just going directly to core talent platforms for the most part, are you trying to get into some of the newer players are out there? Darrian (17m 53s): Yeah. So a little bit of both. So from just a customer use standpoint, obviously, their core system is ATS is. And so that's the main thing is we want to make sure that their questions are answered. We can, you know, solve their needs and that's by connecting their ATS to our system. So they don't have to jump back and forth between, you know, all their different tools that they're using, that they can just have a seamless workflow right there. Chad (18m 20s): Gotcha. Darrian (18m 21s): So that's definitely one, but then the next is other partnerships, whether it's assessments or we're still kind of in the exploratory phase of figuring out, you know, where does our tool tie in well? That helps us grow our business, but also provides unique value to those partners and also to their clients as well. So, so yeah, and this, some of the new players too, like the Fountain is one that comes to mind. They're a newer ATS, that's focused on high volume recruiting. And so that, you know, tools like that are, you know, highly aligned to what we're trying to do. Joel (18m 57s): So you were founded in 2019, you've raised a little over $3 million. I'm guessing most of that was a head count in marketing. You can add to that as well. But curious if you're looking to raise more money, should we be expecting a series A here in 2022? What's the plan? Darrian (19m 15s): Yeah. So I don't know when this exactly will drop, but we it's close enough to where I don't have to play it as close to the vessel. We do plan to announce the most recent round of funding that we completed. We'll be announcing that tomorrow, depending on when you're listening to this. And yeah, that's been focused on our product and our go to market. It's up in the air in terms of the next stage of funding. If you've ever raised money before, you know, it's not the funnest thing in the world, or the easiest thing in the world. So I want us to try to grow as much as possible. Let's see, you know, want to make it easier when I do have to fundraise again, cause it looks somewhat inevitable, but also to maybe push it down the road, if, if, Joel (20m 0s): And this will air after that announcement. So you, you can tell us amongst us girls, but if you don't feel comfortable with that, what do you plan to do with that money once you get it tomorrow? And I assume it's already in the bank account, but like, what are the plans in terms of that? Is there a global expansion? Is it just US-based expansion? Like, talk about that. Darrian (20m 23s): Yeah. So to that latter part of the question, we've already started to explore that we have some of the functionality online already in terms of internationalization and things of that nature, but really we're still in early stage, but what we've found is a product market fit. So now we're just trying to like keep driving that wedge and increase our growth obviously but from a product standpoint, differentiate ourselves more. We know that, like I said, we're one of the first to market with this sort of product but we don't want to just settle on that and we want to really expand on our capabilities, our differentiation, and, you know, our whole mantra is kind of like own the phone and really own this category. Joel (21m 8s): And how much has that series A round again? Darrian (21m 10s): So this round was our seed round and it's two and a half million that we just completed. Joel (21m 15s): On top of the three? Darrian (21m 17s): So the three, if you look online is already inclusive of that. And so we've been sitting on it for a little bit, so. Joel (21m 25s): Gotcha. So it's not news, we're not breaking anything that Crunchbase doesn't already know. Darrian (21m 29s): Yeah. Crunchbase knows, but we haven't done our formal PR stuff. So now we're getting the word out. Joel (21m 33s): Well, now it's out because of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Okay. Darrian (21m 37s): You heard it here first. Joel (21m 40s): So you mentioned globalization, some international growth plans. What, in terms of tech, can we expect from you, you mentioned a video as a competitor, should we expect video in the future? Chat components, SMS? Like what, what's the future hold feature-wise. Darrian (21m 56s): Yeah, we really love the lane now we're in. I would say kind of our focus has been this year is to just be undeniable. The integrations are a huge piece of that from a tech standpoint. Another thing that's really exciting is what we can do with the data that we've been capturing. And so all the fun buzzwordy data science stuff, we want to apply that in a really a unique way and meaningful way. Like I said, we really care about mitigating bias and just helping recruiters to not only be more efficient, but make quality decisions as well. And so I would say, expect to see, you know, more applications of, you know, data science, AI, NLP, things of that nature as well so those are some exciting things on the forefront. Chad (22m 44s): So quick question with regard to clarity around international, are you doing international? So that's the fortune 500 companies that you're actually hitting here in the US can expand, are you actually looking to try to invade different markets? Darrian (22m 58s): Yeah, I would say right now our focus is on US base and really staying, like I said, driving the wedge where we've had a lot of success, but it does come about occasionally where we do have US-based clients that have recruiting needs internationally. And so they need, you know, different transcriptions. They need their invitations and candidate facing information, you know, in that native language for their ability to recruit over there. And so we've built that infrastructure, but we see that as kind of one of the next stages of growth as we continue to expand here, I think that's will be a big differentiating factor for us in the future. Joel (23m 40s): This all sounds expensive Chad, I don't know. What do you think? Chad (23m 46s): What does, how much does this cost? Darrian (23m 52s): How much does what cost? Chad (23m 53s): Your product? How much does your product cost? Darrian (23m 57s): That's a good question. So how, what for the back, and this is not exactly what I say in sales conversations, but how much is it, how much does it cost to you to just even do it, you know, a phone screen right now, if you think about your recruiter salary, that 30 minutes on each call, it's usually around like 15 bucks to 17 bucks, just for a single call and not to mention, you know, you're missing out on other candidates, you're not able to hire fast enough. So we, we have a SAAS model. So we typically just give you unlimited users, unlimited jobs that you can apply for or recruit with. And then up to unlimited interviews, even depending on, you know, those packages and not a specific price, but it ranges depending on the organization and the amount of hiring that they do on a monthly basis. Chad (24m 50s): Size of the organization. Joel (24m 52s): He danced around that one. Chad (24m 52s): Where's the ding, ding, ding? Joel (24m 53s): I throw it back to them. How much does it cost you? Chad (24m 59s): How much do you want to pay? Where's my bell at? Darrian (25m 1s): I don't do it like that. And we have very transparent pricing when it comes to the sales conversations. Joel (25m 17s): And what is that? And what is that? Darrian (25m 19s): Are you looking to sign up? Joel (25m 21s): This is a sales conversation. Darrian (25m 21s): Are you guys hiring? Chad (25m 21s): C'mon Cheeseman where's the bell at? Joel (25m 23s): Chad, Get him, put him out of his misery. All right Chad. Chad (25m 26s): All right. Darian, I think move faster, hire faster is exactly what this industry, I mean, that's what everybody wants to hear, that's what they need. And for the most part have shitty processes and they need people to be able to lead them through. And this product just might be it. Recruiter burnout is an issue. Being able to pick up the phone and make all those calls all the time. They need automation to be able to help them do that. Focusing on the healthcare side, I think is incredibly smart. I think broadening out, once you start to really understand that sales message and, and getting better penetration into healthcare, I think is amazing, your answer to the international question. Chad (26m 8s): I'm glad you didn't get tripped up on that because everybody who gets money is like, ah, we want to go. We want to invade different countries. No, there's a ton of money here in the US although you do have to be flexible to be able to provide those organizations an opportunity to provide this to their different locations outside the United States. So, great answer on that. One thing I got to say is don't have a link on your site that says pricing if you're not going to give me fucking pricing, okay. If it has solutions and you tell them about the solution and at the end, it asks for, you know, would you like pricing? Or would you like to, okay, that's great. Joel (26m 51s): Chad hates to be teased. Chad (26m 53s): Overall. I'm not a big teasy guy overall. I'm a big fan. We loved Honeit a few years ago. Definitely love this. This is a big applause from me. Darrian (27m 2s): I appreciate that. I love it. And that's good for you. We just launched our website and we've taught, we actually talked about, is it plans or pricing? So I'm gonna talk to the team and see what we can do for you. Joel (27m 13s): All right, Darren, we're still talking here. Chad (27m 15s): We'll talk about that. Joel (27m 17s): Oh man, I'm up? All right. Yeah. When I first started digging into the company and the service, my initial thought was like, oh, this is, this is like, Honeit. And then when I dug deeper in terms of the automated piece, you know, I think you're a great compliment to that business. If you haven't connected with them, I certainly invite you to do that. I think the video piece as well for a lot of people is going to be uncomfortable, whether or not you go down that road, it sounds like you're going to stay in that lane and keep away from that. My initial thought also was that I thought you were 10 years too late or five to 10 years too late. And then I remembered how slow so many of employers are to adapt. And I think particularly on the healthcare side, that they are far behind in terms of most other organizations. Joel (27m 59s): So I think you're probably hitting a product like this at the right time, the automation piece for them, they're probably just getting their feet wet in terms of solutions around that. I think you have a great solution to do that for them. I think you're a great acquisition target. Someone could easily plug you in as a feature to some of their other existing components. I don't know exactly what your goal is in terms of, you know, I don't think you want to go IPO. It doesn't sound like that's the goal at the moment. You haven't raised your $50 million yet. So at this point, I think you're a great acquisition target as well. But in addition to that, I think you're a great service. I think a lot of companies will embrace the automation piece. The quote unquote, "start hiring seven times faster" Joel (28m 42s): that your website screams at me, I think is going to be impactful. So for me as well, Big applause back up the Brinks truck. You know, buy the rings. Darrian (28m 51s): If you know of anybody with $50 million send them my way. Well, we can have conversation. Chad (28m 57s): Let's have him buy licenses. That's what you want. Right? You want them to buy licenses? Darrian (29m 3s): Exactly. Chad (29m 4s): Excellent, man. Well, that is firing squad. You got the double big applause. Joel (29m 6s): Congratulations. Chad (29m 6s): Now you, yeah, you definitely owe us beers. We can talk about pricing over beers later. Joel (29m 12s): Hey this is payola Sowash. This isn't payola. We received nothing for the, oh, well, I just want to make sure people know. Chad (29m 20s): We're done anyway. Joel (29m 21s): We have such high integrity. I just want to make sure everyone knows. Darrian (29m 26s): Yes, of course. Chad (29m 27s): Thanks for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Cheeseman this is another firing squad in the books my friend. Joel (29m 35s): Darrian wait! Where can they find out more? Darrian (29m 39s): Yeah, you can find us Qualifi.hr. I think we have a special code setup. I'll make sure it gets sent your way, but I believe it's Qualifi.info/chadcheese. So we will we'll send that your way. Joel (29m 55s): The coupon code is qualified dot something, something, oh, Chad (29m 58s): It's a URL. Darrian (29m 58s): Make sure it gets in your hands one way or the other. You'll find us. Joel (30m 4s): And if you're listening and exercising, just go to qualified.hr and tell him Chad and Cheese sent you. Chad. Another one in the canned baby. Chad and Cheese (30m 13s): We out. FiringSquadOutro (30m 10s): 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.

This week's show is a wild ride. Sorta like a winding small intestine, it was all over the place and ended explosively. We go from European startups HeyJobs and Omnipresent kicking ass and taking names to a ruckus game of buy-or-sell featuring Rolebot, Bambee (our favorite stripper name, by the way), Learn In and Workramp. Turns out, Portugal is making Chad a big softie when it comes to "selling" startups. Then there's lots of Great Resignation talk and we end the show by poking Mother Nature right where it hurts. Not just the tip and no pulling out on this show. 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. SFX (0s): It smells nasty, but it's good for your health. INTRO (4s): 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 (25s): Oh yeah. It's the colonoscopy edition of our show, which means it'll be explosive gut wrenching and funky. And at the end you'll feel empty and a little violated you. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "dropping the Browns off at the super bowl" Cheeseman. Chad (42s): This is Chad "no Baker Mayfield here" Sowash. Joel (47s): And on this week show, HeyJobs hey. The great resignation is still a thing and a little buy or sell. Let's do this. Chad (57s): Okay, Joel. So the market answered your question from last week with Matt Ryan. That's who the Colts are gone with for their next starter as a quarterback. But we know it's not Baker Mayfield and that makes me excited! Joel (1m 13s): And Baker's still looking for a job. He may want to go to, HeyJobs. Chad (1m 19s): You shouldn't go to HeyJobs. If that's only, I don't know that he's essential though, that's the problem. Joel (1m 25s): And speaking of assholes, I get a colonoscopy tomorrow, which is fun. So as soon as I get off of this call, I'm going to be gutting my system. If you will, I'm going to be snaking the pipes. It'll be fun. It'll be a fun 24 hours for me. So as you listen to this, say a prayer. Chad (1m 41s): Yeah. All I gotta say is next time, you know, do the box. I don't care what they say. Just do the box. Joel (1m 48s): What is the box for those that don't know and aren't old and middle-aged like us? Chad (1m 53s): Yeah. The boxes. When you go to your doctor and say, Hey, have him send the box to my house, you shit in the box, you send it back. And then they tell you all the stuff, right? You don't have to go through like this crazy a day or two days worth of your system just being fricking eradicated or maybe it's good. I don't know. Maybe it's good that your system is eradicated from all the Chipotle you've eaten in the last year or so. Joel (2m 18s): I love that. You said Chipotle cause that's literally what I had yesterday. So I'm tempting fate. But anyway, folks, if you're old, if you're 50, get your colonoscopy. I have a family history, which makes me have to go to the doctor and not do the box. Chad does not have the history so he gets to be boxed instead of snaked, either way. Do it. Chad (2m 42s): Shout out. It's good to get the shots. Joel (2m 45s): All right, we're going to go. We're going to go north for, for some Canada shout outs. All right. Number one, we got Toronto in my shout outs. Toronto is now the third largest tech hub in North America trailing only San Francisco and New York City. Microsoft, Google Stripe, and others have recently opened offices in the area and Toronto's tech workforce is growing faster than any city in the US. You can probably thank Donald Trump and closing the border, building walls and not giving visas to educated people. So. Chad (3m 19s): Yes. Joel (3m 19s): Shout out to Toronto. Number two, Instawork, the shift work marketplace focused on blue collar jobs has expanded to the great white north. Its first market, outside the US, Toronto and Vancouver will open first where they have thousands of members already signed up. Montreal is coming soon. Apparently they got to get that French thing figured out first, but shout out to the great white north. SFX (3m 48s): Cucucukoo Chad (3m 49s): Very nice. So, as we were talking about football, I'm going to give a shout out to the Portuguese team who are playing Turkey today in a World Cup qualifier. If Portugal wins and Italy wins, they will be matched against each other for one slot. So what that means is that this World Cup will either be missing Italy or Portugal. And that's sad, but I hope it's not Portugal. I hope Portugal's in it. So here we go. Joel (4m 18s): Yeah. Is Rinaldo still on the national team? Chad (4m 21s): Yup! Joel (4m 21s): He's gotta be right. And he's a bad ass motherfucker, right? Chad (4m 26s): He is! Joel (4m 26s): Well, I'll root for Portugal, just for you, Chad, because I hate you so much. Chad (4m 32s): That's sweet. Joel (4m 32s): And your wonderful life. Shout out for me. This is a different one. There's a company called Island and no, it's not the island you're probably on an Airbnb right now. Island is an enterprise browser, which I've never really thought of before, but it sounds like a really good idea. They've announced raising $115 million series B at a valuation of $1.3 billion. So unicorn alert. Island offers a secure browser that aims to give enterprises greater control over their data. And with those pesky Russians poking around enterprise level companies, having a custom browser and not Chrome or Firefox or whatever else they're probably using now might be an interesting idea and enough people like it that they've made this one a unicorn. Joel (5m 18s): So shout out to Island, the browser you've never heard of. Chad (5m 22s): Yeah. Not to mention the corporate spyware, they can probably attach to it as well. My shout out next shout out, goes to Wedgie. Congrats to Matt Baxter, Firing Squad alumni for two new in funding and adding Rocky Howard, chief people officer and equity officer from the Mom Project to wedges advisory board. Great to hear smaller organization Wedge they're growing fast. I think this is their second fund in the last, at least six months. So great news. And if you haven't heard Matt pitch, Wedge and face the firing squad, just Google, chadcheese and Wedge and give it a listen or search the firing squad playlist on Spotify and they're all right there. Joel (6m 12s): And what better company than Wedgie to talk about on a show like today? And by the way, no one can milk the Michigan fundraising circuit like Matt Baxter, all of those companies are like the Michigan such-and-such and the Michigan such-and-such and the Ann Arbor such-and-such. Like yeah. Total route total funding for them is $4 million shout out to them. That's great. Next one for me is Lana Roads, rug bowl. No, it's not what you think, Chad. The popular porn star, Lana Roads, which Lana is anal spelled backwards if you didn't know that. Joel (6m 52s): She launched her own NFT enterprise on January 22nd of this year, the project raised a cumulative of about $1.5 million promising a profitable return on people who invested. Everything went smoothly until she decided to quit the project and vanish with all the money. The NFT project featured a collection of 10,000 cartoon images of the 25-year-old air air-quotes "influencer". One week after the launch Roads abandoned the project and disappeared with 509 Ethereum or $1.5 million. Wow Chad those investors talk about taking it in the ass from Lana Roads. Chad (7m 35s): Again NFTs not doing it. Okay. So next shout out. I posted an article about Dan Price, you know, the CEO of Gravity Payments on LinkedIn, the guy who paid all of his employees, including himself, $70,000 a year. Anyways, the article revolves around this tweet where Dan asks his employees where they want to work? 7% said they wanted to go back to the office full-time. 31% said they wanted office remote hybrid. And 62% said they wanted to work only from home. So Dan told them sounds great. Do whatever you want. Chad (8m 17s): As CEO what do I care? If you get the work done that's all that matters. AKA work from anywhere. The thing that gets me is the amount of people who are just haters, boggle my mind, because whenever somebody says, you know, they want to be able to give this kind of like, choice this freedom. Everybody's like, well, there's a scenario where hybrid doesn't work. Or there's a scenario where, you know, only work from office is gonna work. And it's like, well, yeah, but we have to be less stringent because before this, all we did was force motherfuckers into the office. What this is doing is allowing for the conversation where we didn't have it before. And that's what he just did. Joel (8m 52s): And by the way, for listeners that stick with us for about 30 more minutes, we will talk in depth about this topic. And oh yeah. Chad's boy DJ Sol just stay tuned for that one kids. But while you're waiting, if you want sign up for some free shit, Chad. Chad (9m 10s): Yes! Joel (9m 10s): We give away t-shirts. We give away beer and we give away whiskey. Shirts by Emissary beer, from our friends at Pillar and whiskey from our new buddies at Textkernel. But you got to sign up. You got to go to Chadcheese.com/free. If you want to win nothing, no costs to just a little bit of your time to win some free shit. So Chadcheese.com/free. Do it. Chad (9m 33s): Got to love it and gotta love it. Also events, baby early May. We're going to be at the Erecruitment Congress in Belgium. That's right. And from what I hear, we're also going to be on a boat sometime around early May in Belgium too. Then late May we're going to be at Unleash in Vegas, but the best way to see where we're going to be good to Chadcheese.com, click on events, check out all the events, register for all the events, go to all the events, because guess what? You've been locked up for too fucking long. You deserve to have a beer or a couple of shots of bourbon or some shit like that with Chad and Cheese. Joel (10m 17s): Boats and hoes, boats and hoes. Got to have me, my boats and hoes. We got birthdays. Chad. Chad (10m 25s): Excellent. Joel (10m 25s): Number one. My sister celebrated a birthday this week. So Happy Birthday, Holly! Holly, my sister, Tammy Bailey, who also wants some free shit. She's also celebrating with the birthday this week. Chad (10m 39s): Yes. Joel (10m 39s): Timmy Smith. I don't know many adults named Timmy, so I love it for you, man. Timmy Smith, Chad (10m 44s): Timmy! Joel (10m 44s): Temo Hillhorst. I'm not saying that right. I'm sure. Chad (10m 48s): Excuse me. Joel (10m 49s): Josh Winright. It's probably Wainwright, but he put it in the system is Winright? So Josh Wainright, Winright? Happy Birthday. Brian Barnes, Hayden Hughes, Audra night rock on. She celebrates a birthday. Jason Warner, Jamie Leonard and Steve Kraut. One of my favorite Philadelphians celebrates a birthday. Chad (11m 21s): Excellent. The Kraut! Joel (11m 21s): Another year around the sun, everybody. Chad (11m 24s): Topics! Joel (11m 24s): HeyJobs Chad (11m 25s): HeyJobs? Joel (11m 25s): Big one for our friend Marius Luther who guests hosted our European show back in August. If you haven't listened to that, check it out. The Berlin based, HeyJob's a startup building career platform for talent in Europe announced on Thursday that it has raised $47 million in its series B round of funding. The company reports that this is the largest financing round ever received by a career platform in Germany. Chad (11m 49s): That's Big. Joel (11m 51s): The company has doubled its head count in the past 12 months to 300 employees. HeyJobs says it's used by thousands of job seekers as well as over 2,700 employers ranging from small businesses to the largest of European employers. The customers have made over 10,000 hires. Founded in 2016, they have offices in Berlin, Cologne and Vienna, but will accelerate growth in Germany as well as Europe and beyond. But no talk of the US Chad. Total funding is now $62 million. Joel (12m 30s): Chad, what do you think about the HeyJobs news? Chad (12m 36s): Hey, boomer! Boomer retirement means Germany alone is losing over 500,000. Yeah, that's half a million workers annually. Soon, twice as many people retire every year as join the workforce. From a Marius LinkedIn post here's a quick quote "our big hairy audacious goal is to become the number one career platform for essential talent in Europe, literally changing millions of lives every year. It's crazy how we as a society have neglected the largest share of the workforce. 30 million alone in Germany, over 200 million essential talent in Europe for decades, they deserve better." Chad (13m 21s): And HeyJobs deserves a big applause because do this message is on fucking point, but do it gets better. They've also added Katrine Suitor as chairwoman of the HeyJobs board. And the first question is, eh, but this Katrine and have any real experience, you know? Yeah. She's a board member and chair in private as well as publicly listed companies, such as CloudFlare previously, she chaired the German digital council and was state secretary in the German Ministry of Defense. She was a senior partner at McKinsey and Company. And man, I think I've fallen in love with this move alone. Joel (14m 0s): Watch out when Chad falls in love. Yeah, dude. Nice win from Marius. Wow. He's a good dude. Enjoy talking to him a few months ago and look forward to seeing him hopefully in person when we're in Europe this year. Also thank God for browser translators. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to read what the hell was on. HeyJobs. HeyJobs. I think it looks a little bit to me like Netflix for Jobs that is it's a recommendation engine, with an ever improving AI behind it. This quote from Marius, I think is very telling quote" whilst five years ago, we could identify who is a nurse versus a driver our AI has now learned to identify who is a qualified intensive care unit nurse that seeks to do three night shifts" Joel (14m 44s): end quote. That being said, it's still a job board and they have their work cut out for them needless to say, especially if they want to grow outside of Germany. There's a little, little, little site called StepStone that has a lot of market share in that part of the world. And we've also talked about StepStone getting the hell out of France on the European show. So Europe has a bunch of countries in it and all of those countries have their own unique cultures. They have their own unique companies that service them, et cetera. So HeyJobs growing and succeeding outside of Germany is no slam dunk. But if anyone's going to do it, I'd say our boy Marius can do it. Chad (15m 27s): Yeah. Well I would say that every country outside of Germany or really in the world have essential workers and that's where their focus is. And that's where the big bulk of these jobs are in there. They're picking as their lane. They have a lot of numbers to actually prove obviously to get this type of cash, you know, $62 million in total. So yeah, we're pretty interested to see where this goes and it is good to have someone bump up against a brand like StepStone. Everybody needs competition. Joel (15m 57s): It's a competitive businessman. It'll be fun to watch. It'll be fun to watch. Well, speaking of hot businesses and European companies that are on a roll by the way, we'll talk about this in more depth on the European show as well. I'm excited to hear what the Europeans think about all these deals, but we have Omnipresent next up in the news. We have a unicorn warning, Chad SFX (16m 25s): Pink Fluffy Unicorn Music Joel (16m 26s): Now they have not publicly said unicorn or what their valuation is, but remote hiring remains red hot. Enter Omnipresent, a provider of tools for managing payroll and compliance for international teams. The London headquartered company pulled in $120 million in a series B funding round led by Kennebec AB and 10 cent, which I thought was interesting. Founded in 2019, Omnipresent has presided over exceptionally fast growth. In 2021, the company said its revenue grew 25X and its team grew by 10X and now employees more than 230 people distributed across more than 40 countries. Omnipresent handles just about everything needed for a company's HR team, including local employment, compliance, payroll, HR support and benefits for international teams. Joel (17m 18s): Proceeds from the current investment we use to help build out Omnipresent's new products and services, customer growth in geographic expansion. Total funding now is at $137.8 million according to CrunchBase. Chad Omnipresent go. Chad (17m 34s): Dude, I love the name period. I mean they're Omnipresent. They're everywhere, which is exactly Joel (17m 40s): And they have the .com right? Chad (17m 42s): Yes. And they have the.com! Anyways, in, prior to this Omnipresent had $18 million in funding. That's it. They got this huge raise this time. And after just hearing the negative workforce numbers from Germany alone, that we just heard about, HeyJobs and what Germany is facing. Then add names like remote.com who's raised 196 and they are a unicorn. This is further validation that remote work at the very least in Europe is a necessity. It's not a choice kids. It's a necessity. This has and will continue to be a necessity in the US as well. I'm looking forward to seeing Dee Coakley in Belgium in early May. Chad (18m 24s): I'm predicting BoundlessHQ who is in the exact same sector, gets a funding bump this year as well. Currently they're at $4.9 million US. Joel (18m 33s): Yeah. This thing is a juggernaut hitting things at the right time. Obviously the world in pandemic, work from home isn't going anywhere. We'll talk about that in about 20 minutes or so 50 minutes, but with Remote and Omnipresent, and you mentioned Remote raising $200 million, I mean these two companies are turning into like Godzilla versus King Kong with both coming out victorious in their own way. It also feels like they both have a huge headstart on anyone looking to really compete on a huge, a significant level. Unless DJ Sol has his way and we all go back to the office. Omnipresent is going to be in a good place to support companies everywhere. Joel (19m 17s): And I'd venture to say, I'm surprised that the Upworks of the world, aren't getting a little more into this space. Maybe they will at some point, but for the most part, it's pretty Greenfield. These guys have got a huge head start. They've lapped anybody that wants to get into this thing. So I think these Remote and Omnipresent are going to be the Coke and Pepsi of the remote workforce going into the future. Chad (19m 39s): Yeah. I think there are going to be firms like, you know, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs where they, I mean, it's just what they say their culture is. It's total control, right? That's what it is. That's our, that's our culture. We are totally controlling you and that's what you're going to have to do to get our name on your resume. Right? But the rest of the world is really going to have to focus on being able to fight for talent. Now will Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase will they have to do the same thing? I think they might be forced to, but we'll see. Joel (20m 13s): Yeah. And I mean, we spent so much time talking about the employee side of the equation. Look, there are a lot of employers who are quite happy to be able to look at a talent pool that's global being able to recruit people from all over the world. They just need the tools to be able to facilitate workers all around the world, deal with regulations and all the red tape that comes with that. And these companies are at the forefront of helping those businesses do that. So we talked too much about the job seeker side probably, but there are many employers that are quite happy with a work from home environment because their talent pool got a lot bigger. Chad (20m 51s): Yeah. Well, and it's the same way in the states. I mean, you have to set up for different taxes for different states, right? I mean, you have different setups, different onboarding, those types of things. So, you know, when you start to go global, it's just, it's more layers of bullshit that you have to go through to be able to get people to do jobs. Joel (21m 11s): Yep. And those people will be quite happy to pay someone else to figure out all that for them. Chad (21m 18s): Amen. Joel (21m 18s): Remote and Omnipresent are happy to cash their checks. Well, speaking of cashing checks, let's take, let's take a quick break to pay some bills and we'll play a little buy or sell. Chad (21m 28s): Yes. Joel (21m 28s): All right, Chad. Chad (21m 29s): It's that time! Joel (21m 31s): Buy or sell. My favorite game, probably yours. People love it. Let's do some buy or sell shall we? You know how it works? I'll read a startup that's recently got funding and we buy or sell it basically. It's pretty straightforward. First up we got Rolebot R O L E B O T. Sit back, relax and wait for calendar invites to populate your inbox, Chad. That's the promise of startup Rolebot who has raised $4.5 million from investors recently, including Jason Calacanis famous valley investor. The company says it uses AI to book interviews with candidates without the need for resumes, job descriptions or job postings. Joel (22m 19s): Clients include Snowflake, Randstad and the American Red Cross, as well as the University of Southern California. Total raised is now $5.8 million according to CrunchBase. And the company employs about 60 folks according to LinkedIn. Learn more at rolebot.io. Chad, what you got for Rolebot? Buy or sell? Chad (22m 40s): I'm going to start with some text straight off of the website, quote, "use robots, intuitive web interface, and provide a link to an employee in your company or in another that would make the perfect blueprint for the job, sources and schedules the interview without any human intervention." That sounds like heaven, right? Joel (23m 1s): Sure. Chad (23m 1s): Well, I don't know if this sounds familiar, but there was this little Amazon algorithm that did the exact same thing that was shut down because it turned heavily biased against females. When you start pointing algorithms at things and you allow them to do their work, you're going to end up with bias. I know that I'm always preaching scale and this is definitely scale! We've learned when you scale too quickly without human engagement, big problems, big biases occur. And when a company can't even get the D & I acronym correct on their fucking website, all I can say is that it's a sell. Joel (23m 40s): I don't know why they're even pushing the diversity play. To be honest. Chad (23m 43s): I have no clue. Joel (23m 44s): There's budget in companies to buy diversity shit. If they just sold this as put in a profile of a current employee or someone that you want and I don't know if it's, do you plug in like the LinkedIn profile? I don't, I'm not exactly sure what you plug in. There's a lot of mystery shrouded in this company. I felt like, how does this stuff happen? Where do they find the candidates and the profiles that they match? Is it like a Hire Easy thing where they already have the candidates? Are they pushing out the jobs? And then they send them to you. And then you as the recruiter kind of grade, like, okay, which ones do I like? So in addition to the algorithm part, you're now putting in human bias because now the humans are saying which ones they like and which ones they don't. Joel (24m 29s): And then once they select the ones they like, then I guess some sort of outreach message goes to the candidate. And then they say, yeah, I want to interview and then the calendar thing comes in. So I know they're pushing this as like, Hey, this is a breeze. Go take a nap and when you wake up, you'll have candidates scheduled. It certainly seems a little bit more complicated than that. On its surface this feels like a tool that you can use to like, fill your funnel? Industry, veteran Tim Cup calls it a top of the funnel, bionic arm for bandwidth, which was kind of entertaining. But if you look at it strictly as like, Hey, this is a tool in my recruitment marketing toolbox. Joel (25m 9s): I think it's a buy, but because they're pushing so much the diversity play and the unbiased recruiting, which I just don't get, I'm going to give it a sell as well. Unfortunately, if they fix that, I think I look at the company more favorably. That's two sells. Let's go to Bambee. B A M B E E no it's not just your favorite stripper name. HR compliance solution Bambee has raised $30 million in series C funding bringing total funding to $65 million. Bambee wants to use the new cash to introduce a new customer benefits, hire talent for its customers and HR management teams and increase its engineering teams as well as increased head count by 150 people this year at it's LA headquarters, as well as beef up its Nashville, Tennessee operation. Joel (26m 4s): Aimed at small companies that cannot afford their own HR manager, Bambee founded in 2016 by CEO, Alan Jones, a former CMO of ZipRecruiter grew its top line by a hundred percent in 2021 and is OnCourse to double again in 2022. It has nearly 10,000 active subscribers. Chad is Bambee one of those special organizations you invite back to the champagne room, or do you tell him you're just here for the wing buffet? Chad (26m 29s): Oh, Bambee kind of like her sister Cheree. I'm not going to be buying or selling this one, but let me tell you who should be buying this? Are you ready? Joel (26m 42s): I'm ready. Chad (26m 43s): The newly formed Employee, Inc. You know, Jobvite, JazzHR, and NXTThing RPO. They should acquire this company. Now all Bambee HR professionals would come equipped with JazzHR. And then when the client company grows and they need an FTE for HR, they lose the part-time Bambee HR rep and they get an FTE via NXTThing RPO all while the client keeps JazzHR in place. And then when the client grows again, enter Jobvite. This is a buy for me for Employ Inc. Joel (27m 17s): Take Bambee back to the champagne room. Chad that is a buy. All right, small companies hate HR. It's the last thing that they bring onto their company. And they probably don't want to do that when they do. Big companies say that too, right? But that's not the point. So if they can just automate HR while paying a small fee, to have a pro on call, like a doctors on demand kind of thing for $99 a month, then this thing is a total slam dunk selling to small businesses, sucks ass. And a lot of the customers will be out of business year after year. Joel (28m 0s): But those challenges also keep the competition out. Put your HR on autopilot, plus a dedicated HR manager from $99 per month. And go ahead and buy Bambee. That champagne room is getting crowded. All right, now to our third startup, Learn In, Learn In, Learn In. If you're from the Midwest, we talked about FindEm a couple of weeks ago. Now we got Learn In the platform that helps companies establish their own talent academies announced that it has raised $10 million in series a funding to promote companies solutions for helping employees build deeper skills, precisely aligned to company growth and success. Joel (28m 42s): Learn In's core features include a prepaid Learn In stipend card, a world-class program, marketplace and custom program builder, a tuition benefits manager and dedicated coaching. Chad buy or sell Learn In. Chad (28m 56s): Why are talent leaving jobs today? A recent survey by Prudential found that 80% of those switching jobs are doing so because they're concerned about career advancement. While 72% of these workers want to switch jobs to acquire new skills. The answer talent academies, that term should be standardized within the talent management space, because that's what we've needed desperately for decades. Providing companies solutions for helping employees build deeper skills, precisely aligned to company growth and success. That's great articulation of what employees and employers want. Chad (29m 37s): To me this is way overdue. This is a buy. Joel (29m 40s): This is what employers want to do, build talent academies. All right. The great resignation is real. As Chad said, and companies are freaking the fuck out. Our recent Gartner report said 59% of HR leaders have placed building skills and competencies at the top of the list of priorities in 2022. That's the good news for Learn In. The bad news, however competition, Coursera, LinkedIn, Google, online colleges, et cetera, seem like a safer, easier choice for employers to make. And I think Learn In is going to be the odd man out. When companies figure out am I going with a brand I trust or a bunch of hacks from Utah? This one is a big sell for me, Chad. Joel (30m 21s): Now let's go to work. Tramp wait, WorkRamp. Chad (30m 23s): Oh, I can't wait to see the line of Mormons at your door. Joel (30m 25s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. They come. So, so we had two companies in our feed this week. One was called Rant and the other one's called WorkRamp. And I got the one wrong that we were going to talk about. So I don't have a lot to say about WorkRamp, but I'll read it in here. So WorkRamp is scale learning across your business. The San Fran based WorkRamp is a provider of learning management systems, also known as LMS for the kids out there. They've raised $40 million in a series C funding round bringing total funding to 67 point million dollars. Joel (31m 8s): WorkRamp's platform enables companies to create in-person and digital training programs and measure their impact through analytics and reports. Chad, are you a buy or sell on WorkRamp? Chad (31m 20s): Cornerstones acquisition of EdCast last week totally up-leveled WorkRamps relevance in the LMS market, but that's not why I'm a big fan of WorkRamp. I'm a fan because they're going after the sales training and certification side of the house, along with customer service/customer education first, and then leaning into the workplace. Why? Because sales and customer retention is already a business case and those proven business cases can fuel an organization buying and adopting WorkRamp for then internal mobility, upskilling, reskilling, and driving employee retention. Chad (32m 5s): What's better than a great product? A great go to market strategy and WorkRamp might just have both. I'm thinking I'm buying everything. I'm buying. Joel (32m 14s): Living in Portugal is turning you soft my man. Portugal is turning you soft. I agree with everything you said, look, you don't get $67 million in funding unless you're doing something right. And you're sort of on a wave that is timed correctly. Companies are obviously concerned about learning management systems. Everyone is looking to buy one. It is becoming a competitive business. This company feels a lot to me like Zendesk for customers, partners, employees, and with a remote workforce being more important than ever I think that, that feature and that solution is going to be in high demand. Joel (32m 58s): I could see this really fitting nicely into Remote or Omnipresent in the future if they're ever looking to buy a company. So from that standpoint, it's really hard not to buy WorkRamp. All right. So that's all, I dunno, that's a bunch of buys and one sell, maybe. Chad (33m 16s): Rolebot, got the dump from both of us and then yeah. Then you dumped Learn In and so. Joel (33m 22s): We're still keeping it real for the listeners. That's nice. All right. So let's go to the great resignation. Shall we? Chad (33m 29s): It's still happening? Joel (33m 31s): It's still happening. 44% of employees are looking for new jobs this year. Holy shit. 44%. That's according to Willis Towers Watson, a continuation of the great resignation it keeps marching on. Nearly 20% of workers say they would take a new job for the same pay. Chad (33m 47s): What? Joel (33m 47s): Indicating factors such as health benefits and the ability of flexible work arrangements. There you go. Chad, could be driving decisions. Chad (33m 55s): Yeah. Joel (33m 55s): However, on the flip side of that, Goldman Sachs is now asking employees to return to the office five days a week. This is according to Fortune who interviewed your boy DJ Sol last week, the move comes five weeks after a botched attempt, which we talked about to get Goldman Sachs employees back to the company's headquarters in beautiful New York. When the firm reopened its office in on February 1st after closing for a month due to the spread of the highly contagious COVID Omicron variant only about half, half Chad, half of the 10,000 Goldman workers actually showed up. Joel (34m 35s): Solomon told Fortune quote "I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative collaborative apprenticeship culture, remote work is not ideal for us. And it's not a new normal" end quote. Dammit, Chad, this is going to get messy. Is DJ Sol on the right side of history or is his remix way played out? Chad (34m 55s): Yeah. DJ Sol didn't think that Goldman Sachs should be pulling out of Russia. And then there was too much pressure. And then he pulled out a Russia. I mean his heavy-handedness might work for a while, but if the rest of the market goes the other way, he's going to have to go with the market. The paydays, what I think is what matters in some cases. So it will be different strokes for different folks. Companies are just going to have to get used to that. If I want to control somebody, heavy-handed iron fist, I'm probably going to have an issue getting top talent. If I go the other way, I might have a control issue? Chad (35m 37s): Right there going, this is good. This is a feeling-out process. There's no right answer right now. Joel (35m 44s): Yeah. Yeah. I said messy. And it's going to get pretty messy. This is a massive reshuffling. And it's going to take years to play out. You'll have industries like banking, who all say in conjunction the Jamie Diamonds and DJ Sol's come back to work or else. And if you want to work in those industries, you suck it up or you get a new career, you do something else. And for a lot of folks putting a few years at Goldman Sachs is quite fine because then I can do other things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to do. Other companies will hybrid. Some companies will survey their workforce and accommodate, which I kind of think is a good strategy. Some people will go one way, get tired of that move and go to a company with a different set of values. Joel (36m 25s): There's going to be pressure from shareholders to go the opposite way when profits go down. Poaching will be easier than ever before, by the way, it's definitely going to get messy and we'll have a lot of fun talking about all of this shit in the coming years. On another note, if you couldn't get into Goldman before, it's going to be a great time to get in now. Chad (36m 54s): Yes. Joel (36m 54s): And listen to the sweet, sweet rhymes of DJ Sol. Chad (36m 58s): Spinning records in the cafeteria. Joel (36m 59s): Spinning records to the Mormons. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about poking mother earth. Yikes. Not just the tip. All right, Chad, I mentioned Island in my shout outs, which is a browser for companies, which I didn't even know existed and I thought it was brilliant. So I came across another brilliant piece of news. You're not as hip to this, but I'll read it out. The earth is in trouble Chad. Chad (37m 29s): Yes. Joel (37m 29s): We know this. While we look to wind, sun and nuclear to solve our impending doom, one promising source of sustainable energy remains largely untapped and underappreciated. That's geothermal energy. Chad geothermal energy comes from within the earth. You've heard of volcanoes, right? Slow radioactive decay produces a never ending supply of powerful heat. To access this clean resource A company called Quaise. Hopefully I'm saying that right. Q U A I S E not queef or quasi or queasy, which is kind of what my stomach is starting to do right now called quick Quaise plans to dig 12 and a half miles down, deeper than ever before into the Earth's crust. Joel (38m 12s): Kind of like my colonoscopy tomorrow. Less than 1% of the Globe's energy comes from geothermal sources, but the MIT spinoff, so these are smart people, Chad believe geothermal energy could provide 8.3% of global energy and power 40 countries fully. Quaise has raised $63 million in startup cash to proceed with the development of their technology. I expected you to be impressed with this, Chad, but you weren't. Why? Chad (38m 39s): So first off, why does this feel like Theranos to me? It's it just seems too good to be true. Right. And in not to mention with the advent of fracking, I know they say this isn't like fracking and it's more, but still it's like these, these are things that I don't know that anybody should be comfortable with. If we can actually get this to work. That that would be amazing because anything that we can do to get away from petroleum would be awesome. But drilling down to the core of the earth and killing it right now from the outside, with all of the shit that we have going on and then perspectively killing it from the inside dude. I just, I don't know, man. Chad (39m 21s): I just don't know. Joel (39m 22s): I don't know, man. It sounds scary. Chad (39m 24s): It sounds scary, man. Joel (39m 25s): When I read this and I, and we talked about it a little bit, I was reminded of a movie in the seventies, which you won't remember. It was called At the Earth's Core. And these people in the seventies that were dressed, like it was the 1800s for some reason, they went into the center of the earth. And of course there are dinosaurs. They're like, it's sort of like planet of the apes. There's slaves. So I agree who knows what the hell we're going to find when we go down there? But it makes total sense to say shit, we've got this magma down you know, 12 miles from us. If I don't have to look at windmills, if I'm gonna have to die from nuclear energy, if I'm don't have to see solar panels and everything, like I think it's pretty genius. Joel (40m 18s): It's pretty genius. But yeah, it's a little scary. When you start poking around into the Earth's magma, It could unleash volcanoes of epic proportions and kill us all. Chad (40m 31s): Magma. Joel (40m 31s): And speaking of volcanic, I got to start taking my laxatives for my colonoscopy tomorrow. And remember kids, if you're a, middle-aged get your colonoscopy. It's just good health, everybody. It's just good health. SFX (40m 45s): Smells nasty, but it's good for your health. Joel and Chad (40m 49s): We out. OUTRO (41m 25s): 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.

Acquisition, investment, and head-scratching aren't stopping when it comes to workforce news and commentary in Europe. That's what Lieven and Chad & Cheese bring Kelly's Tim Pröhm, VP, KellyX Digital Innovation Lab, to the podcast for insight into 1) Cornerstone OnDemand's latest deal, 2) Stepstone pulling out of France and 3) Circular's latest investment round (buy-or-sell alert!). Oh yeah, Elon might even make a cameo this week too. 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 (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 (29s): Oh yeah. Billionaire Elon Musk challenged Russian president Vladimir Putin to single combat on Twitter last week with the stakes being Ukraine. Inappropriate? Tone deaf? You bet, but that's kind of what we do on this show. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel, "no fly zone" Cheeseman. Chad (51s): This is Chad "final countdown" Sowash. Lieven (54s): And Lieven "totally back on Reddit" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (58s): And on this episode, EdCast gets Cornerstoned, StepStone says au revoir. That's my French. And the circular puts out the velvet rope for IT professionals. Let's do this. sfx (1m 13s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 15s): You're back on Reddit? Chad (1m 16s): Back on Reddit. How did this happen? Lieven (1m 20s): I asked and they allowed me. Joel (1m 21s): I wrote a check. I wrote a check. I gave them my credit card. Chad (1m 26s): You wrote a strongly worded letter. Is that what happened? Lieven (1m 30s): And I kept complaining until they tried to get rid of me, I guess. And I promised not to do it again. Chad (1m 37s): Okay. Well that's good. Your promises and yeah, you're Belgian so for the most part, you know, you're polite, so that's not, that's not bad. That's okay. Joel (1m 44s): Okay. And we have sidelined our European intro. You brought to our attention and we kinda thought about it anyway, that with the current state of Russia, Ukraine, that it was sort of tone deaf to have the intro that we had. So for the time being until the world goes back to somewhat normal, we will be using our typical Chad and Cheese intro. Chad (2m 7s): Until you build a unicorn one. Joel (2m 11s): The unicorn songs should be in there somewhere. So, we'll work on the intro folks until the world goes back to normal. Chad (2m 18s): We'll have fun. We'll have fun. So we've got somebody waiting in the wings out there. Are you ready? Joel (2m 24s): I'm ready. Mystery guest. Chad (2m 25s): Here we go. Straight out of Kiel, Germany kids. He's the VP of KellyX Digital Innovation Lab. Put your hands together for Tim Oliver Pröhm. That was great. Wasn't it, Tim? Tim (2m 41s): You're doing great Chad. Thanks for having me. It's really, really great pleasure to be here on the show. I think it's been four or five years in the making Chad. I think Kelly hit it five years ago. You and I met at HR tech in Las Vegas and like never really worked out to be on the show. I still remember that you and I hung out at the bar. And then I think Gary Crispin came along and talked about his experiences at Burning Man, which left me and you speechless. Joel (3m 3s): I think he's saying Germans like foreplay. Chad (3m 6s): Yeah. If you, if you spend five minutes with Gary, he's going to bring up Burning Man. Okay. And that's cool, but that's generally what's going to happen before we get moving, though. Tim, give the listeners a little bit more about you, springtime in Dusseldorf. What do you do? Give us the, the sexy part of Tim. Let me hear that. Tim (3m 25s): Yeah, absolutely. Honestly that's what I do all day and people truly believe it. So honestly, 20 is year in the recruiting industry started as a recruiter, kind of like in the agency space. Held several roles. with a big competitor of Kelly services, which is my employer now. I've been with Kelly for six years now. And what I do, I focus on innovation and digital transformation for the organization. So we have a kind of organized structure that we call the Kelly X Innovation Lab and the idea behind it is that we want to identify issues that our customers or the industry has in a more structured way, kind of like apply a lot of design thinking, a lot of ideation and do a lot of prototyping to make sure we get something tangible in front of our customers. Tim (4m 11s): And then eventually kind of build out full product solutions. And that's kinda like what I do in my organization with my team, you know, kinda like the staffing industry has always been very traditional. So you have an idea. Customer is asking about a specific kind of requirement they have you build something, but you really, really don't use a very structured approach to really identify customer needs holistically, you don't really think about experiences holistically and kind of like I think in our industry, it's very, very important is we interact with talent every day to really take a good look at how our consumer facing industries are working because that's uncomfortable. That's the experiences that kind of talent and also customers really require from staffing organizations, but also from kind of like internal HR or anything. Chad (4m 58s): Tim, you're the mad scientist over at Kelly, which is why they put the X after it is. Is that what I'm hearing? Tim (5m 4s): That's the idea. And finally quick anecdote, it kind like during one of the QPRs with one of our largest clients at Kelly, I was about to present on innovation and then kinda like the customer account manager from Kelly actually kinda like announced me as the mad scientist. So I dunno if I like it? Joel (5m 22s): Leave it to the German free to ask for a Twitter bio and he goes right into work. Normally I'd frown on that, but being a German work probably is your life. So we'll go with that. We'll go with that. Tim (5m 33s): This is what it is. I mean, everything else is boring. Joel (5m 35s): It is what it is. Tim (5m 36s): What it is if you're in Germany. Joel (5m 38s): Well, welcome to the show, Tim. We're happy to have you here. Should we get into some shout outs gentlemen? Chad (5m 44s): Shout outs! That's right. Joel (5m 45s): I'm gonna give a shout out to Europe. I know that sounds a little bit plain, but the Ukraine Russian situation, I've been so heartened every day with how much Europe is supporting the refugees, fleeing Ukraine. But a recent story in the New York times I think is worth noting and I wanted to bring it up and shout outs. According to the times, job boards are overflowing with offers dedicated to Ukrainian refugees as businesses and governments, fast track access to employment. German companies are touting thousands of jobs for Ukrainian refugees, Portuguese firms promise language training for Ukrainians looking for work and Lithuania businesses are providing onsite childcare to help Ukrainian women move seamlessly into the workplace. Joel (6m 34s): Apparently the speed and scope occurring is rare for the EU, but 3 million Ukrainians fleeing are being placed on a fast track for protection and employment as governments, waive visa requirements and provide almost instant access to labor markets and education while war brings out the worst in human beings. Sometimes it can also bring out the best. Shout out to Europe. Chad (7m 1s): Unification. Where's the big applause? sfx (7m 3s): Airhorns Joel (7m 3s): Airhorns that's what's up. Unification. Chad (7m 5s): So off, off of that, I've got to go ahead and give a shout out to Dennis Tupper who actually posted on LinkedIn earlier today. The following information from NASDAQ, Ukraine is one of the USAA's biggest partners of reliable and scalable offshore tech talent. In fact, the country is ranked fifth out of the top 25 global talent exporters. The market is worth 6 billion in Ukraine's economy and over 200,000 of their IT professionals are employed as offshore resources. Ukraine has over 130,000 engineer graduates per annum compared to the US's 237,000 graduates and the US is eight times larger. Chad (7m 51s): So you can see Ukraine is doing a hell of a lot of work on the IT side of the house, but we currently have a global supply shortage of IT professionals and this war ain't helping kids. So big shout out to Dennis and putting that information out there. And this demonstrates how it's impacting our industry and in the globe. Joel (8m 11s): Tupper in the house. Nice shout out. Lieven? Lieven (8m 12s): I also have a shout out to the European people, but more specifically, very young European people. Apparently people between Sorry, decent, but I heard people between 18 and 34 finally decided to quit their jobs. Apparently 50% is going to quit our jobs in the next year. And they're bringing the great resignation to Europe, which has of course a very good thing for our business. So thank you, young European people. Chad (8m 42s): Do they say why? Do they give any reasons why? Because in the US I mean, there are many reasons, but obviously wages, shitty jobs, being called essential, and then not being treated as essential. Joel (8m 56s): Childcare. Chad (8m 57s): Yeah. Childcare. I mean, so there plenty of these different reasons here in the US why are you seeing that in Europe? Does it say? Lieven (9m 4s): I'm sure I said it, but I didn't read it. So I don't know. Joel (9m 6s): I might be able to chime in on this Tim, the great resignation in Europe. Any thoughts? Tim (9m 11s): Yeah, honestly, I mean, I think that labor markets are really tight all over Europe. I mean, demographics are horrible when you think about kind of like new kids being born and new kind of like talent flowing into the marketplace. And I think there are just better opportunities out there. Companies are paying higher wages. So I think similar to the US you would see people who kind of just feel that they can kind of make a better cut when they leave. And I think also kind of what I see with a lot of kind like friends and also people I know here all over Europe, like we've been heavily focusing on remote work over the last two years. I mean, COVID restrictions were very, very tough all across the European Union. And if you work from home, then at some point in time, the question is, what's keeping you on the job, because realistically, if you work from home today, you could work for somebody else from home tomorrow, the only difference is that you could probably going to get another laptop delivered by UPS, but realistically kinda like the changes or the boundary to kind of move to another job has been lower than ever before. Tim (10m 13s): Think about it.So it's not just a big impact of work from home experiences and, you know. Joel (10m 19s): I've always been surprised and considering healthcare, like in America, big, big reason why people stay at employers is because they get healthcare. Whereas in Europe it's a universal situation. So I'm surprised the great resignation hasn't been an ongoing thing in Europe, just because the ability to move and still have healthcare has been there for decades. Chad (10m 43s): Agreed. Lieven (10m 43s): Just reading the article right now, 59% of younger workers claim they've missed out on promotions. So they feel a bit disappointed and they quit. I call it rage quitting and then a 66% feels it has something to do with COVID-19, but it's too much information, I'm going to skip this. 70% of these workers are thinking something else. So basically a variety of reasons, but once again, good for our business. Joel (11m 9s): It's like a topic that we might get into at the E-Congress in Ostend. Lieven, you want to tell the listeners about your upcoming event in May? Lieven (11m 17s): For those few people who don't know yet, May 6th, we have the biggest E-recruitment Congress in Belgium. We're holding it in Osten, Belgium. It's a series arts. We're going to be talking about e-Sports about all kinds of interface. We're going to talk about virtual recruitment, virtual employer branding, the impact COVID has on the great resignation in Europe et cetera. Joel (11m 44s): And don't forget, Chad and Cheese are going to be there everybody. Chad and Cheese are going to be there. Lieven (11m 50s): I keep forgetting, mentioning you, but of course you will. Joel (11m 53s): Well, you know, we're already on the marquee, so everyone knows what's up. But yeah, Chad and Cheese and many friends of Chad and Cheese will be at the conference. Chad (12m 1s): Not to mention we've got Recfest. We've got a bunch of different events. Just go to Chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right-hand corner, see where we're going to be and what you can buy us a drink. Sounds like a good time. Joel (12m 22s): Or two. Chad (12m 23s): Topics! Joel (12m 23s): All Right. Cornerstone on Demand, a leader and adaptive cloud-based HR software solutions. This week announced it is entered into a definitive agreement to acquire EdCast, a learning experience platform, commonly known as LXP. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in Q2 of 2022 are not disclosed. We never liked that together Cornerstone and EdCast said "they hope to accelerate value for customers with innovations and experiential learning content and skill building, and a unified and scalable talent infrastructure designed to transform learning into a connected engine of growth, agility and mobility for people in business." This acquisition is the first plan transaction by cornerstone, since joining the Clearlake portfolio in late 2021. Joel (13m 11s): Not sure this is all that exciting, but Chad's favorite industry thought leader, Josh Berson said about this deal quote, "while this may not be a huge deal financially, it will have a huge impact on the corporate learning market setting off reverberations for years to come" end quote. Is everyone else feeling the reverberations or is this deal a little overblown, Tim? Tim (13m 32s): No, honestly, I think it makes a ton of sense because when you take a look at LMS today, I think it's pretty lame. So realistically. Chad (13m 43s): Especially Cornerstones. Tim (13m 44s): Well, I'm not going to comment on that, but when you think about how HR departments are using LMS systems today, it's mainly to roll out global policies or global compliance training. Like have everybody participate in GDPR training once per year, but it's really following like the old school approach. You basically have a virtual instructor in front of you, everybody else is kinda like sitting in front of their screens and then they're following kind of like the content it, at some point in time, they need to complete a quiz. So it's not really a rich experience. And it doesn't really cater to the individual needs of the viewer or the talent that's kind of like actually using this technology. Tim (14m 26s): So, and I think kind of like, the learning experience platforms is something that's definitely changing, how companies and talent actually is consuming training. I think there needs to be better, something better out there than just kind of like catering the same content to everybody. And I think kinda like also a company like Cornerstone will feel under pressure from a lot of kinda like skill-based learning platforms out there, like Udemy or Coursera or EdEx that actually provide kind of high level content at a very, very cheap price point. So I think it's the natural move. I think it's something that Cornerstone had to do because I think at some point in time, LMSs, as we know them today will just die. Just my humble opinion. Lieven (15m 7s): I tend to agree. I've been following corporates, educational movies for over 20 years. I guess one thing in common they're utterly boring. So I don't think this is going to change a lot. I mean, the companies who have to provide the educational movies and the content, and if they provide something boring, no platform will change it. I'm kind of a big fan of LinkedIn Learning. I know it's not very happy to be a fan of LinkedIn Learning that they do have so much content. There's something for everyone. And I feel this might become a big competitor for Microsoft, for LinkedIn, but I have to see it's all about content. And I really don't know what content you have to offer. Lieven (15m 48s): Need to check. Joel (15m 48s): Yeah. I mean, a little context. Cornerstone is a billion dollar company. So this is not some scrub, you know, business on the sidelines doing some, some random deal. They tout more than 75 million users and manage the back office learnings of more than 6,000 companies. Also like all acquisitions, Cornerstone companies or customers are going on are now going to look at EdCast where they didn't before. And obviously all the EdCast customers are going to take a look at Cornerstone for their solution provider. So from that perspective, it's positive, but I kind of agree with everyone. This is no slam dunk. There's a ton of competition on both ends. Joel (16m 27s): And you've already mentioned some, but you know, you look at Degreed, WorkDance, Assess, Success Factors have their own solution. LinkedIn Learning, Google Career Certificate, Coursera, Tim mentioned it's a positive development and probably something that they had to do, but there are no reverberations that I'm feeling quite frankly. I think it's a kind of a snoozer for the most part. Chad? Chad (16m 51s): No good vibrations for you. Huh? Quick question though. How much do you think Cornerstone paid Josh Berson to have somebody else shadow write this article. I mean, seriously, you know, Josh doesn't have anything to do with these fucking articles. He throws it out to like another analyst. Somebody else writes it. Yeah. Anyway, anyway, I'm sick. I'm just fed up with seeing Burson all over the fucking place, knowing he's doing hardly any of this fucking work. Joel (17m 17s): Did Berson sleep with your girlfriend in high school. Like why is it? Chad (17m 20s): And he's like old enough to be my dad, I think anyway. Lieven (17m 27s): Did he sleep with girlfriend was the question? Joel (17m 32s): Yeah. Lieven (17m 32s): Walking around. Joel (17m 33s): Lieven wants to know. Lieven wants to know. Chad (17m 36s): It's a possibility. It's a possibility. Lieven (17m 37s): Yeah. Too old guys. IDK. Chad (17m 38s): Okay. Say so if you remember, I couldn't and I still can't get behind the brand spanking new cat anus logo that they just came out with, but I can, I can get behind this Cornerstone at its core is a learning and development platform. Period. Every other piece of tech is just an attempt to increase wallet share with L & D clients. So Cornerstone at its heart is not a core talent platform. It's L & D, which is why go figure. I like this. I think we can probably all agree that companies should be re-skilling and up-skilling current employees to drive retention through internal mobility. Chad (18m 19s): Well, Cornerstone's internal mobility product today is pretty much shit, but with new tech, like EdCast, it could evolve in capture more market share. Again, I'm a big fan of L & D company like Cornerstone upgrading. I mean, they're pretty much a dinosaur at this point. I can't imagine the amount of technical debt they're going through right now. If you get an opportunity to acquire new, fresh tech like this, you do it. And just remember beyond L & D it's really just the normal smoke and mirrors play, artificially build up talent, a total addressable market. So I love this because it's focused and they're owned by Clear Lake so they've got a ton of cash. Chad (18m 59s): I hope to see them doing more of this, to gobble up more on the L & D side, focus on these up-skilling and re-skilling, and actually give employers an opportunity to do something worth a shit in internal mobility. But because today, nobody is. Joel (19m 17s): Here's a question for the panel. How much of this is going to be driven by the actual job seeker slash employee. In other words, how excited am I as an employee to get expanded education from EdCast or a company that no one else has heard of versus I can get a Google Career Certificate, or I can go to LinkedIn Learning and get a LinkedIn certificate. You know, like I, I think that the consumer/employee is going to drive, what's going to be the most successful. I personally don't think that we were going to live in a world where, Hey, if I have an EdCast certificate that I'm going to see mobile upward mobility in my career. Joel (19m 58s): I might have upward mobility in the actual organization that gave me that education. But if I'm an employee and you know, the great resignation and all that, like I'm going to want to have a brand that people recognize, not brands that people don't know. Thoughts? Tim (20m 12s): Yeah. I agree, honestly, and I feel that kind of visibility of the new acquire talent is the most important thing. If you have like something I talked about EdEx kinda like, for example, in the beginning where you have something where you complete the degree, you have a one-click integration, you can upload your blockchain powered certificate on LinkedIn. Then everybody knows what you've completed. Where as if you have like an EdCast certificate that you can use internally, that's part of your kind of like digital file that's probably not so compelling. The bigger thing, however, and this, like one of the experiences I had over the last like 20 years is kind of telling them the employees, they need to have some of a motivation to go through these courses because realistically, like when I kind like hired people in the past, everybody's like, yeah, I want to up-skill yes. Tim (21m 0s): I want to develop myself. I want to take the next step in my career. And when you say, Hey, we have Skillsoft or any other platform, you can have free access, kind of go in, kind of do whatever you want. Just kind of focus on what you want to achieve. Then actually kind like after a couple of months later, you're looking and nobody's really taking the courses. So the question is always, what's driving motivation for employees to drive this forward. Is it like, Hey, if you don't do it, you're going to be out of a job or is it something that's really part of a tangible career development initiative within the organization. But if that's the case, then it's not only about the technology, it's more about the entire HR processes about kinda like, kinda like improvements in the overall retention process within the organization. Tim (21m 47s): So I think it's part of the bigger, bigger strategy that every company needs to go through. Kind of like better technology can go so far, but I think it's not only tech based. Lieven (21m 56s): I agree. And it's, I'm just going to give a small example. Last week, I had to give a lecture about bullying searches and I didn't have a presentation ready. So I thought I'm going to go to LinkedIn Learning. I'm going to steal a presentation from someone else and give it. That's what LinkedIn Learning is for. But then while browsing LinkedIn Learning, I found something about Logic Pro and I like making music. So I was interested in Logic Pro and that's the problem with these corporate, but firms, they don't offer something which isn't direct really related to the job. So I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn Learning because of finding some fun, something not strictly related to my job. Tim (22m 36s): So your vision is that actually companies allow people to kind of like educate themselves on music and stuff during work hours? Lieven (22m 44s): Yeah. why not it's like Google asks people to spend 50%, twenty-five percent of a time in something not strictly job related just to keep creative. So while working on Logic Pro I could make a Django for a podcast, for example. So there's always a way to get it related, but this is not something, not something HR will think about. There were only offer job related education and that's in my opinion, the thing which will not make it work. Chad (23m 13s): Yeah. Tim actually, you know, asked the question around motivation. I mean, and I agree there has to be some reason to be motivated to take these classes and it's called a promotion it's called, you know, pay raise those are the things that we're not seeing from internal mobility platforms today. When you start tying courses to projects and then also to the opportunity to, you know, get that new job. Maybe I'm in sales and I want to get into marketing or maybe I'm marketing and I want to get in sales. I can actually take a look at different projects, marketing projects, attach myself to that and take courses while I'm doing that project. We have to be smarter around how we up-skill and re-skill individuals. Chad (23m 57s): just being able to provide content that is in EdCast today without working with local community colleges and a lot of the online content that's out there today. That in itself, I think is just a total loser. I agree. I think this has to be something that is what is not just well-intended, it's something where the organization understands what they need, the skills, the bridging of those skills to get into those new positions. Joel (24m 24s): So it sounds like you're almost in favor of the company, not going with a brand like a Google or LinkedIn, because if it's a brand that they don't recognize, they're more likely to stay within the company and not take their shiny Google career certificate and find a job somewhere else. Chad (24m 39s): Well, if it's attached to a university that everybody knows and loves why not? Right? And, and again, you can take all of those and put them on LinkedIn, no matter whether it says EdCast or any of that stuff. So you can still put it out there. And I think that's what we're starting to see is that, you know, yes, Coursera and these other brands have brands, but I think in the future, it's not going to be as important. It's going to be all around the skills that you actually applied in that new job, whether you were upskilling to be in marketing and IT or whatever it was. Joel (25m 14s): And that's why we're launching the Chad and Cheese career certificate for the metaverse. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about some more cutting edge news in the industry. sfx (25m 25s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (25m 27s): All right, kids let's talk StepStone, something the Europeans, particularly the German might find really interesting. So this is from our friends at AIM Group. StepStone, the German based online staffing platform and part of German media giant Axel Springer announced that it has shut down its operations in France. The company had a small presence in the country via its stepstone.fr domain. In January of '21, the domain recorded around 300,000 total monthly visits, according to somewhere web. StepStone.fr Was never a major challenger to the country's dominant recruitment marketplaces, which include Indeed and the HelloWork Network of job sites. Joel (26m 10s): France is the second largest economy in the EU. So what's going on here? What's up with StepStone, Tim? Tim (26m 17s): Yeah, honestly, I think it's a smart move. And as every kind of non-French person can tell you, France, a very, very specific market. Obviously very, very focused on kind of specific local rules, regulations, legislation so it's always a bit kinda like tricky to do business there. But I think the most important thing from my point of view is if you're late to the game, if you're not really generating enough traction, then what's the point of staying there? They're kinda like local local sites. You have Indeed that's very dominant in France. So the question is always does it make sense to spend money on keeping your French operation up or kind of do you do it like GE used to do it under Jack Welch many, many years ago where he said, Hey, unless I'm like first or second in my market, I'm going to go and spend my money elsewhere. Tim (27m 6s): So I think it's a logical move from my point of view. And I also believe that kind of StepStone and Axel Springer, they have a much bigger plan because when you take a look at the acquisitions they've done over the last, over the last years, acquired AppCast acquired basically integrated Good and Co acquired Maya. You can see that they're rebuilding and they're rethinking their overall business model because I mean, probably we all agree, kinda like traditional job posts at some point in time might go away. They might not, who knows? But it's not going to be a growth engine for StepStone. Tim (27m 46s): So I think kinda like pulling out, bundling all the resources into things on new business models and kind of building out their own native platform makes a ton of sense for me. Joel (27m 56s): And the French hate the Germans. Lieven (27m 59s): Yeah. I think they both deserve each other. But it might be a logical step. But then again, France is after Germany, probably the biggest market in Europe, they have, if I'm right 65, 67 million inhabitants? So it's a big market and like Tim says, they're always kind of special people saw focusing on themselves, speaking French. But Indeed succeeded in becoming the biggest one so why couldn't StepStone do it? And it's right today, our business model is totally outdated, their software is outdated. It's in fact, they don't have any reason left to exist. So that's probably why they're leaving France. But my question will be where are they going to stay? Lieven (28m 42s): Because for the same reason they could leave Germany, they could leave. They sort of have left Belgium. They're still here, but it's not like they making many revenue. So I think where are they going to hide, the UK? Chad (28m 56s): It could be. Yeah, I think finally we have a pullout story that has nothing to do with Russia or Cheeseman and college. Anyway. I mean, what's the point, Tim? I think a market shares the point. You're talking about the second largest GDP in Europe. I understand France is a much different country, culture and business landscape than Germany, but France's GDP being number two in the EU, just ahead of the UK. I would have expected StepStone to double down and dig into the market either through acquisition or spending money to drive the brand deeper. I think acquisition makes a hell of a lot more sense just because again, if you buy a brand that's known in the markets and it's not a quote unquote "German brand", then you can, I think you can run with something like that. Chad (29m 42s): Not to mention Axel Springer operates the leading real estate marketplace in France. So you would think that there's some synergies that are there, that they could use. I'm kind of stepping back and hoping that StepStone is trying to Netflix, you know, reinvent their own model. But I just don't see how this is going to help. Joel (30m 0s): Yeah. This is a quote from the group when they said, quote, "StepStone took the decision to terminate business activities in France at the end of '21. As StepStone, we aim to be among the top players in the markets in which we operate. This position was not achieved in France. Therefore we decided to focus our resources on other growth markets instead". That seems really convenient to me as the second biggest market in the EU. They already have established some businesses in the country. So to me it seems way too convenient to just say, Hey, we're a big company. We didn't get our market share that we wanted so we backed out. Joel (30m 41s): But I think Tim brings up a really good point in that. StepStone has been acquiring these technology focused products and services such as AppCast and Maya. The question I guess, will be, did they back out as a job site, but they're going to go back in as a technology solution. Although the job board might've been a good springboard, if you will, to get people using their tech services. So to me, this is a really curious move. I agree that StepStone is big enough that they could have thrown enough money at this. I don't know if it's a cultural thing. The string of the competition is huge, but it doesn't seem like it can't be overcome by someone like StepStone. So to me, this is really curious and I think only time will tell exactly what's going on. Joel (31m 24s): I don't think it's just a straight up, we didn't get to be a top one or two or maybe even three solution so we're getting the hell out. I think it's gotta be something bigger in the future that will unfold itself. Thoughts anyone? Lieven (31m 38s): As far as I know, the biggest job site in France is Meteojob, which has a real name because Meteo is like the whether. So if you see Meteojob, you think about jobs at the weather forecast channel, whatever, but they have opened 2 million vacancies at the media job fair. Joel (31m 54s): And that's a government site, right? Lieven (31m 55s): No, it's a Joel (31m 55s): A private site? Lieven (31m 56s): I think so. I think it's one of those local initiatives. And as you always say, Europe has a bunch of countries and there are still so many small local initiatives, which stay bigger than Indeed, for example, because it has major jobs. You also have Indeed, you have Glassdoor, the global one, but Meteojob is holding and StepStone never succeeded. So why did Indeed succeed? Probably because they had a better, bigger, and a better business model. No more paper credits, but paper applicants. So if you want to conquer France, you'd have to come up with something shiny, I guess? Lieven (32m 37s): Yeah. Joel (32m 37s): There's also a lot of town talk about HelloWork, which is privately owned was founded 20 years ago. And now they're also out launching educational tools and looking at European expansion as well. I think they're arguably the number three recruitment business in France and are really popular. They made some smart acquisitions. Recently Diplomio and C Cube were recent acquisitions. So I think HelloWork probably is a major competitor for them as well, or maybe an acquisition that's in the works. And part of that acquisition was we'll get the hell out of France and put all the resources into making HelloWork, work. Joel (33m 18s): Time will tell kids, but speaking of time in the news is a stealth job board. That's out of stealth and they got some US money. Let's talk about Circular. Madrid based IT recruitment company Circular has emerged from stealth with $10 million that it raised as it enters the UK market. The company plans to enter additional European markets in the near future as well. Founded in 2018, circular provides companies with direct access to IT workers who have been vetted and recommended by in-house recruiters from other companies, interesting. Joel (33m 58s): Circular has facilitated almost 1000 hires since its launch and arranges an average of 20,000 interviews per year. The co-founders are also alumni of Spanish recruitment marketplace, Job and Talent, who we've talked about quite a bit on the show. The IT recruitment space is a crowded one. Who's buying and who's selling Circular? Tim (34m 20s): Yeah, honestly, my first reaction when I heard that, I'm like, well, good luck with that because I might sound sarcastic here, but I mean, there's, I heard the story I mean, 15 times over the last years. Companies say like, Hey, we kind of recruiters share talent and Hey, we have these recruiter marketplaces. And then in the US companies like Recruiting or Bounty Jobs and it all sounds great, but the question for me is always kinda like what's really in it for the recruiter? Because every recruiter, even in an agency in the staffing environment, they hide and they guard their talent. So I think they really need to have a good incentive tool to make sure they kinda like motivate other recruiters to submit their talent. Tim (35m 5s): And I'm not even kinda like talking about GDPR, how to make sure that everybody kind of agrees on the transfer of data and all that stuff. But the story is for me too good to be true. So if you guys are listening from, from CircleUp, please like reach out via LinkedIn. I really have want to have a deeper conversation around that because I think there is a couple of gaps that I don't see. It probably it's just just me. Lieven (35m 28s): For me, it would definitely be a buy. And I think it's a really interesting concept because it's not really a candidate sharing platform. It's a candidate review sharing platform and that's a big difference, like Tim said being canadidate sharing platforms for 20 years. But this time let's just say someone is entering my office, I'm doing an interview and I invest a lot of time. We give the person some testings and we be doing assessment, et cetera. So, but in the end it's not a perfect match, but it's a really good candidate. It's just not our perfect candidate, not for this job. So instead of just losing everything, I can put my material online and I can trade it for someone else's interviews. Lieven (36m 10s): And that's interesting. They have about 5,000 users now, mostly in-house stakeholders who are sharing information about candidates with each other. And that's something new. I never ever heard about something like that. So if I invest two days in one candidate, I can sweat this investment for someone else's investments. And that's nice. So maybe someone else has tested the language, knowledge about another candidate and we can just share the information. It's cool. Joel (36m 39s): One buy, one sell, what say you Chad? Chad (36m 41s): Yeah. I'm going to sell this one. I think everyone is going after the tech sector with old and new variations of models that we've seen over the years, the problem is we're just trading talent back and forth. This isn't fixing the actual supply problem at all. Circular being possibly hyperlocal in Spain that could gain traction. I, you know, I get that, but I just don't see where this helps and does anything new. We need to create new talents. Our demand is high, which means we need more supply. This doesn't create supply. This is what we've talked about for years. Chad (37m 24s): Joel, we're just swapping spit. And it's just, it's fucking ridiculous. We need to start talking about especially organizations. They need to start talking about actually building talent pipelines and pushing new talent that they've created into these jobs. Tim (37m 39s): So they should then buy Cornerstone? Chad (37m 40s): Yeah, if it's worth a shit. Yeah. That's the problem is that that HR can't get out of its own way and actually understand what the problem is, what the business problem is with our market today. All they want to do is continue to, again, this whole revolving door issue, it continues because HR doesn't know what the hell they're doing. Joel (38m 0s): So that's two sells on one buy, I'm going to push this sucker. For this reason, these guys are alumni of Job and Talent, who we've talked about, raising a lot of money growing into new markets And IPO. IPO means they're going to have to grow into new segments. They're going to have to acquire companies that help their growth prospects. And I think that these guys are trying to be in the catbird seat in regards to future acquisitions for Job and Talent, $10 million is a pittance. If you're going to make a dent in the IT recruitment world. So I though maybe raise another bit of money, but then Job and Talent will come along and pay them a lot more money than that. Joel (38m 45s): And for that reason, this is a buy for me. So we're going to push on Circular. Push it. And with that, I want to thank Tim Pröhm. Chad (38m 51s): Yeah. Thanks for joining us, man. Tim (38m 52s): Yup. Thanks for having me. Joel (38m 53s): Is he the first German? I guess he's the second. Chad (38m 56s): I don't think so. I think he was the second German we've got. Yeah, we've got to get our list together. See how many, how many Germans? We've gotta quota that we've got to fill. Joel (39m 5s): I think we need a, I need a European map with some pushpins to make sure that we cover all the countries. Tim, for people that want to learn more about you connect with you or learn more about your company, where should they go? Tim (39m 19s): Yeah. Go to LinkedIn, Tim Pröhm. Just go to LinkedIn connect with me and we can talk, so happy to connect. Chad (39m 24s): Does that, does it, do they have to have the umlauts? That's the question because that'll really screw everybody else. Tim (39m 31s): So like, if you can hit, if you have the umlaut on your keyboard, actually that opens the direct IM channel to me. So otherwise you need to go through the LinkedIn paywall. Joel (39m 46s): Little known fact about Tammy he still has a 99 New Luftballons or whatever, concert t-shirt from '83. Tim (39m 51s): I have honestly, and I'm proud of it. So don't call me out here in a negative way. Joel (40m 2s): And he's a big fan of Falco by the way. Tim (40m 6s): He's Austrian though. Lieven (40m 7s): Rock Me Amedeus right? Falco? Tim (40m 9s): Yes, exactly. Joel (40m 9s): And der Kommisar another Falco hit from way back. Chad (40m 13s): That was before After the Fire. Yeah. Joel (40m 16s): Jesus. We need an eighties podcast. All right, guys, for those listening, if you want more European goodness, go to Chadcheese.com/Europe, because that makes sense everybody. It's another one in the can. Chad, Joel and Lieven (40m 31s): We out. OUTRO (41m 15s): 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.

We're finally recording a show on St. Patrick's Day, which means Cheese is still in bed while you listen to this the day after. Anyway, the boys discuss Talent.com's recent funding round (and whether or not they're a unicorn), CareerBuilder's latest attempt at innovation, going back-to-work gone wrong at a major bank, the latest creative work platform that's caught the attention of NBA superstar Kevin Durant and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner ... and, of course, robots invading your favorite restaurants. It’s the podcast at the end of the rainbow, and yes, we are magically delicious. 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. sfx (0s): I've never hunted, done a leprechaun before. Do you think if I shoot it with my gun, lucky charms will explode everywhere? INTRO (8s): 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 (28s): Oh yeah. It's the podcast at the end of the rainbow. And yes, we are magically delicious. Slainte you boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast HR's most Blarniest. This is your co-host Joel "St. Patrick" Cheeseman. Chad (44s): And this is Chad "don't go stealin' my lucky charms" Sowash. Joel (48s): And on this week's show talent.com achieves unicorn status, or do they? CareerBuilder proves once again, they are the innovation king and Kevin Durant's slam dunks his way into the workforce business. Let's do this. sfx (1m 3s): I can make you rich. Joel (1m 5s): Happy St. Patrick's day Chad. Chad (1m 7s): Yeah, dude. I mean so much different than last year, the year before, but in 2019, we actually were able to celebrate St. Patty's day together in Cork, Ireland, which I thought was pretty amazing. And it was proper Irish coffee in an Irish pub. I mean, it was a blast man. So yeah. You're now in Indy getting ready to go to what the parade downtown? Joel (1m 33s): Yeah, the modest excuse for St. Patrick's day parade here in Indianapolis, but I've got my Canadian family in town. We were up drinking last night. It's eight o'clock in the morning, almost nine o'clock where I am recording right now. Mostly hungover on my second cup of coffee. So I'm going to try to get string some cogent thoughts together for this show, but no promises, everybody. I think this is the first time we've ever recorded on St. Patrick's day. Chad (2m 1s): I think it is. I think it is. Yeah. And in here I am sitting at almost 1:00 PM 1300 military time in Portugal. So yeah, I'm up. I'm ready. And this is going to be an interesting show. Joel (2m 14s): Yeah, don't expect too much for me people. Don't expect too much from me. Should we get to shout outs? Chad (2m 20s): Let's do it. Joel (2m 21s): All right. Mine have no industry relevance whatsoever. So there you go people. Chad (2m 25s): I love it. Joel (2m 26s): Number one, March madness. I know our international folks won't care about this, but March madness, the basketball NCAA tournament is one of the most fun and exciting, interesting engaging events I think in sport. Chad (2m 39s): Yes. Joel (2m 39s): And I'm looking forward to that last night. I don't know if you saw, you probably did not Notre Dame for the play in game won in double overtime against Rutgers, which is really exciting. So this is just some, you know, the sign of things to come. A lot of overtime wins. I want to see some Cinderella games. March madness is awesome. So shout out to the kids that dribble the ball. Chad (3m 1s): That's awesome. That's awesome. And in the state of basketball, being Indiana, it's a big fucking thing. My shout out goes to the EU. The EU who gave initial agreement for corporate board KPIs to have at least 40% women on non-executive director roles or 33% of all board jobs by 2027. sfx (3m 27s): Applause. Chad (3m 27s): So I guess if the corporate white male structure, isn't going to move fast enough, eh, they're going to force those motherfuckers. So shout out to the EU. Joel (3m 37s): The Eu, the job. Chad (3m 38s): Eu. Joel (3m 38s): And great job of taking in the refugees from Ukraine. I am inspired every day by what Poland and other countries in the EU are doing. And it looks like we're going to try in the U S to fast track visas for a lot of refugees and try to get them over to America, so. Chad (3m 55s): Pretty awesome. Joel (3m 55s): Okay. I'm going to set this set the stage here. A lot of listeners have seen your video from four years ago, featuring me. Chad (4m 4s): Baker Mayfield. Joel (4m 4s): Being made aware that the Cleveland, my beloved Cleveland Browns were taking Baker Mayfield at the time. I was like anybody, but Baker, I think I could deal with. And I was rather upset by this. Well, it looks like I may be proven, right? The honeymoon looks like it's over. So Baker Mayfield looks like he's out. The team went and met with Deshaun Watson. Baker, the drama queen that he is put out a tweet saying "goodbye, Cleveland." Although I don't know what's going on. I think they're over it. I think he's over it. The bad news is he'll probably end up in Indianapolis and I'm going to have to listen to fucking sports radio for the next two to three years about Baker Mayfield again here locally. Chad (4m 47s): Yeah, no. After Carson Wentz, I cannot even, even fathom that Baker Mayfield will be coming to Indianapolis. I can't fathom it. I don't want to talk about it. I'm moving on. Joel (4m 57s): Their options are not real good. No first rounder, no quarterback at the moment. Chad (5m 2s): Yeah. Joel (5m 2s): Right. It looks unless Jimmy G comes to town. My wife would be happy about that. Chad (5m 5s): He would be a good snatch. He'd be a good snatch. Joel (5m 9s): The dude wins. Chad (5m 10s): Yeah. Yeah. The guy wins. Guy wins. Good looking kid. Yeah. It's pretty not too shabby. Not too shabby. A shout out to the Talent Savvy podcast. This one is for you Cheeseman. Their latest podcast is entitled "Metaverse Job Fairs". That's right, baby. Not to mention, I want to tie this together. I also found where Second Life now lives. It was it's retired and now a cocktail bar in Monte Gordo, Portugal. It's amazing. Joel (5m 43s): You sent me that picture. I thought it was a gas station. sfx (5m 47s): I can make you rich. Joel (5m 50s): Oh my God. All right. My next shout out. So my grandfather, Joe Redmond is sort of my connection to the Irish ancestry and he was a salt of the earth. He was, if you can envision a farmer in overalls with two dogs in tow farming the land here in Indiana kind of envision what my grandpa was. Chad (6m 10s): Yeah. Joel (6m 10s): So anyway he was just a fun loving guy. And I have a picture of him in my office. He's drinking a beer, which is really indicative of him. He always drank Löwenbräu. I don't know why he had really bad taste in beer. He was always, he was always just a great guy. So every St Patrick's day, I think of him and little known fact about me. My two grandfathers were named Joseph and Elmer. So J O and E L is how my parents got Joel. So, I'm a combination of Joseph and Elmer. Shout out to Joe Redmond on the podcast today. Chad (6m 46s): Shout out to Joe. And I am doing a toast to him right now with my Super Bock. So toast to Joe. Joel (6m 56s): And SMI with my Starbucks grande, baby grande. Chad (6m 58s): So I'm going to continue my shout outs on the realm of podcasts, because on this week's Cult Brand podcast entitled Brand Exit, we talked about how exiting Russia impacts a brand and possibly their business for the good and bad. Good brand vibes, or maybe the state takes your business. Many things to think about for many different brands. Check it out again at chadcheese.com. It's called Brand Exit great conversation with our friend, Julie Calli. Joel (7m 30s): Julie Calli brought the A game this week. So it makes sure you check that out. Free shit. Chad, we gotta talk about this. So if you like free shit, Chad and Cheese, the most generous podcast in the world, we're giving away some shit. So we're giving away t-shirts by Emissary. We're giving away beer, sponsored by our friends at Pillar, and we're giving away whiskey, maybe Irish whiskey this month, sponsored by our friends at Textkernel. But you got to sign up to win. Chad, you got to go to Chadcheese.com/free. It's too easy. We want your address. We're not going to show up and bug yet. We're not going to come around on Halloween. It's all good. Give us your address. And we might send you some shit. Joel (8m 11s): Chadcheese.com/free. Chad (8m 12s): Yeah. And while you're there on Chadcheese.com, click on merch and then buy yourself a Chadcheese sticker. Put it on your computer by a ChadCheese coffee mug. It's all right there. Check it out. Joel (8m 24s): Did you say coffee mug? Chad (8m 26s): Oh Yeah. Oh yeah, baby. Joel (8m 29s): Very nice. Chad (8m 29s): I actually have one and it's pretty legit. Joel (8m 30s): And our faces are on it or is it the logo and our faces? Chad (8m 34s): It's our dumb cartoon faces with the new logo that Shaker did for us. Joel (8m 40s): Who wouldn't want to wake up to that every morning though? Chad (8m 43s): It's awesome. Thanks. Thanks to Nick and the crew over at Hone It for using their tech in creating podcasts snippets for the site and social sharing. If you're trying to do a better job, job interviewing at scale, check out, Honeit.com. They some really cool stuff. And again, just what they're doing for us with the podcast, you got to see what they're doing for recruiting and interviews for your team. Joel (9m 8s): Do you know if Nick is still in South America or has he moved back? Chad (9m 14s): He's in Costa Rica, baby. Joel (9m 16s): Of Costa Rica. Wow. Yeah. Chad (9m 18s): Yeah. He's in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. That man has the life. Three little girls and nothing but beach, man. I love it. Joel (9m 26s): Everyone I know is leaving the country. It's very, very eerie. Chad (9m 29s): Something behind that. Joel (9m 30s): Yeah. There might be some to that. So shall we get to some birthdays? Birthdays are great. All right. Celebrating a birthday this week. Mike Schaffer, Ashley Collins, Barbara Francillo, Craig Watson, Bill Fanning and Deb Andrychuk, did I say that right? Happy birthday, everybody! Chad (9m 56s): Happy birthday. We have an events. Don't forget kids in Belgium in early May E-recruitment Congress. If you're in Europe, you got to go to the Congress for God's sakes. Unleash America in Vegas in late May. And then we have in July, early July, RecFest at Knebworth Park. In many other events, we are going to be at just go to chadcheese.com, click on events, see where we're at. Register. Get your ass out there and buy us a beer. That'd be awesome. Joel (10m 34s): My liver is very scared of our upcoming world tour. Chad (10m 38s): Topics! Joel (10m 38s): Alright, talent.com. Chad. Chad (10m 39s): Hello. Joel (10m 39s): This may be preemptive. I don't know. The artist formerly known as Neuvoo has raised a pile of cash announced Wednesday Montreal based job search platform, talent.com announced it has raised 120 million in series B funding. The company which operates across 78 countries also recently raised 30 million in debt financing to fund its expansion. Total funding now is 150 million, according to Crunchbase, no word on evaluation, nothing in the news Chad about that, which is a little curious. I'm sure we'll talk about that. But in the meantime, we're going to give them a Chad and Cheese valuation of a billion dollars because we missed playing this soundbite if nothing else. Joel (11m 24s): The TechCrunch headline read talent.com raises 120 million to take on Indeed and ZipRecruiter. Chad (11m 27s): Duh, dun, dun! Joel (11m 28s): Chad, should the competition be shaking in their little leprechaun boots or not? What are your thoughts? Chad (11m 34s): Yeah, well, I think the non listing of the valuation kind of tells you something because talent.com has a more polite Indeed. I mean, they're Canadian. So Indeed is like a bull in a China shop. They crash and smash without regard, while talent.com won't even think of touching the good China. They haven't been as aggressive in the market as I would have liked to seen them. They smartly switched up brands from a word that nobody could say or pronounce or spell to talent.com. That was awesome. That's when I thought they were going to make the move and start smashing shit. Nope. Just polite with a new name. Chad (12m 16s): It's interesting because similar web has talent.com in the top 10, I'd say top five to be quite Frank traffic sites in our industry. Although Indeed and Glassdoor are one and two, both owned by Recruit Holdings. As we know, and Indeed is way ahead of sister site Glassdoor, according to similar web, Indeed is seeing about 600 million visitors per month and talent.com is about 35 million per month. So the big question is what are they going to do with this money? Well, one of the things that they actually said that I thought was interesting was scale their new solution for SMBs. Chad (12m 56s): But why in the hell would they do that when Indeed's Achilles, heel is more enterprise and SMBs are really a pain in the ass when it comes to trying to target and spend a shit ton of advertising and marketing money. So that to me was interesting that they would say that they're going down that rabbit hole as opposed to toward enterprise. Joel (13m 16s): We actually have some live footage from the meeting with the investors. Chad let's look, let's listen in on that real quick. sfx (13m 22s): I can make you rich. Joel (13m 25s): Okay, good. So I got a little nostalgic on this one. I got a little teary-eyed. So there's a scene in the movie, the Untouchables starring Kevin Costner and Sean Connery, where Kevin Costner says he has to get back to his wife because they're picking out tiles for the kitchen or something. And he says something along the lines of, they're still a part of the world that cares about the kitchen or what the kitchen looks like. So when I see a job board getting $120 million, I got a little teary-eyed for the past. Like those were kind of headlines that we used to see, you know, 10, 15 years ago. And now we're seeing at least one again. So I got, I got kind of teary-eyed about that. Joel (14m 7s): Let's be honest. This is a tough business. It's a traffic business. You've got, you know, a bigger gorillas trying to take the pie. You've got global competition, like my hats off to anybody who can raise money at any significant level and take a job board out into the world and try to compete. I mean, there's nothing particularly unique about what they're doing. It's not like Indeed versus Monster where there was kind of a clear differentiation in the marketplace. talent.com is just like head down, getting to work, you know, everyday punching the clock and doing the work that they need to do to be, you know, a high traffic, high value job board. Joel (14m 48s): So for me, you know, it's not as exciting as you know, some of the AI sites and companies to get money. Those are a little bit more fun to talk about in 2022, but Hey, for today, talent.com is kind of fun to watch. I'm rooting for him as I think most people are. I think most people want a little alternative to Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter and the other. So, you know, if you out there listening are sick and tired of those companies and their service and solutions, like take a look at talent.com. It might be a nice alternative. Chad (15m 23s): So how do you see talent.com eating away at ZipRecruiter and Glassdoor and Indeed's lead? How do you see that like in the future? I mean, I have ideas, but what do you think? I mean, you're obviously you're partly Canadian, so I mean, you're somewhat biased. Joel (15m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. My son's half Canadian apparently. So, you know, I think that, you know, when everyone is zigging and you zag and so for, to meet to me, job boards have become very transactional. They become kind of cold and corporate. A lot of it is just an algorithm game or a programmatic game. So I mean, if you can come along and have be an alternative to what people are used to, and I don't know, put a little Canadian flavor, a little politeness, I mean, customer service could be a way to stand out. But ultimately, you know, these are help wanted signs on the internet. There's really no clear way of distinguishing, you know, one job site online for the other. So, you know, how can you differentiate yourself? Joel (16m 21s): I think you go where Indeed is not. You have a human being, you have a touch, you have a heart a little bit. I think that would go a long way. But ultimately this as a traffic game, it's an eyeball game. And if you can do that better than others, and that's great. I mean, you and I both remember when shit, what was Talroo's, first name Chad (16m 40s): Jobs to Careers. Joel (16m 41s): Jobs to careers, right? Chad (16m 41s): It's still out there. Joel (16m 43s): Yeah. Still is. Yeah. I just didn't remember the old name. I want to say Jobs-to-Web, which is even further back, but I mean, you know, their whole thing was like, they just were better middlemen for the traffic and that's kinda how they were born. But that was a very technical way of differentiating yourself. talent.com. I just, you know, zig when everyone else is zagging. And so far, I think they're doing a decent job of doing that. Your thoughts? Chad (17m 14s): The only way I see talent.com making up ground is with competitor collaboration and/or aggressive acquisition in building an open ecosystem where Indeed as a closed ecosystem, they could go niche into areas like healthcare or high volume types of positions and try to steal an entire high paying performance market from Indeed, but trying to compete on a grander scale and choosing to fight on the SMB side just doesn't make sense to me. I think you're right. One of the things that Talroo did well. And I think they're doing well now is they're playing the niche side very well. I think if talent.com focuses on industries that are high paying CPA, CPC industries, and they go after acquisition targets and they start to create these external ecosystems, they boost revenue and you know, they start eating away at that huge, huge Indeed lead. sfx (18m 11s): I can make you rich. Joel (18m 13s): Speaking of nostalgia, let's talk about CareerBuilder. Chad (18m 15s): Do we have to? Joel (18m 17s): CareerBuilder is in the news kids. Glassdoor is certainly suffering some sleepless nights in light of this news, Chad. CareerBuilder is beefing up its content for job seekers, with the launch of a new feature called you ready for this: CoLab. Showing typical salaries, skillsets, and alternate career paths for various job titles, CareerBuilder CEO, Susan Arthur, who is always invited on the show if she's listening, wrote in the product announcement, quote, "candidates have been searching for a source of truth when it comes to understanding certain roles and specific industries," Joel (18m 57s): CareerBuilder spreading the truth, Chad. 2007 called and it wants its innovation back. Your thoughts? Chad (19m 5s): Sue, Sue, Sue, first off CoLab, what the fuck does that even mean? Seriously? You go to the CareerBuilder site and you hit the salaries and advice tab and one of the choices is literally listed CoLab. What the fuck does that mean? That literally means nothing to anyone. It's about as useless as their Pokemon for jobs app, which they are still pimping to job seekers. So how do you make this a user experience anyone can understand? Here's a great example, and I went around to a bunch of different sites to try to get an idea of how this actually makes sense. And, one of our sponsors Adzuna, on the homepage, they have it very prominently displayed "Value My Resume. Chad (19m 47s): What are you worth?" Okay, well, I want to know what I'm worth you. Click on the upload resume. Then it takes you to a page that makes a pretty gripping statement. Find out if you're being paid fairly. Well Fuck, I want to find out if I'm being paid fairly and then right there, you upload the resume. I got to say, Sue, what the fuck are you doing? The first announcement, was a new meaningless logo and colors. And how does that move the revenue needle? And now CoLab, this isn't strategic. It's amateur. It's catching up with 2010 initiatives. They were useless back then and they allowed Indeed to creep up on CareerBuilder and Monster and overtake your un-disciplined ass back then how do you think it's going to help you get ahead? Chad (20m 38s): I just don't get it. Joel (20m 40s): Truth, justice and the CareerBuilder way, Chad. Chad (20m 41s): Oh, damn. That's the new slogan. Joel (20m 44s): You like that? That's better than whatever the hell they're using now, which no one can remember. You stole my thunder a little bit with the Pokemon go comment. And I was like, at least Irena brings some crazy ass shit as a first statement. Susan's first statement is yeah, the stamp logo. And then now, Hey, searching for a source of truth? that's CareerBuilder. Totally lame, totally weak. The only reason this got any play whatsoever is it's CareerBuilder. If some other site launched CoLab as a source of truth for job seekers, no one would ever have paid attention, but because they're CareerBuilder and we haven't talked about them in a while, we thought we'd bring this one up. I have nothing else to say about this. Chad (21m 25s): No, I, I say we'd just go ahead and push ourself away from the table because I'm full of all of this bullshit. Joel (21m 35s): And you got some DJ Sol, you want to talk about? Chad (21m 39s): Yeah. Joel (21m 40s): All right, man. Let's take a break and we'll do a little dancing with DJ Sol. Chad (21m 43s): Okay. So on the Cult Brand episode, neither you or Julie knew who DJ Sol was. Now, do you know who he is now? Joel (21m 53s): I do now, but in my defense every Saturday night live has a musical guests that I have no clue who they are. So DJ Sol was had no chance of me of me knowing who he is. Chad (22m 7s): Yeah. He's like 170 years old. Okay. So we're talking about, we're talking about David Solomon, who's the CEO of Goldman Sachs. He also goes as DJ Sol and he spins records. I mean, he legit DJs, but the guy's a total asshole. Anyway, we're getting into this story. So from Yahoo finance, "fighting a strong trend toward hybrid work, Goldman Sachs CEO, David Solomon, AKA DJ Sol has repeatedly insisted that employees returned to the office full time, leaving no doubt that he views remote work as a temporary aberration." Chad (22m 51s): But on the day, the investment banker giant reopened in US only 50% of the 10,000 workers returned to its New York headquarters, despite receiving more than two weeks notice. So the question is, is this a revolt or are we just going to see companies who forced this shit to happen, start to have to back up because they need their people because they need the revenue. Joel (23m 16s): Yeah. So as I understand it was optional, but strongly encouraged kind of like those summer practices that we had, back in the day Chad, they're voluntary. But if you want to actually make the team you want, you want to show up. Chad (23m 23s): Yeah. Joel (23m 23s): So the fact that this was voluntary, but not really. I mean, when the boss says like, Hey, we'd like to come, but like you to be back in and half the people 5,000 people say, no, thanks. That's very telling Chad and this isn't like a high-tech company. I mean, they do tech, but it's banking and finance and what we've heard from Jamie Diamond and DJ Sol, Fresh Prince and whatever, so that would make an interesting to do it. So what they've said is like, you're going back to work. Like we're going back to the office. I don't give a shit. If, if you know the drive, the commute sucks. Like this is the way it is. And the first statement out the gate is half of us, aren't going to show up. So I think ultimately particularly in the banking sector, they're going to have to make it mandatory. Joel (24m 7s): I mean, they're going to have to say like, you're fired. If you don't show up, if they want people to show up. I think in tech, they're dealing with the same kind of issues. We talk about Google. We talk about Apple saying, you know, get your ass back in the office. Workers, revolts, Google bends and says, okay, we'll do three days a week, or I think Apple said three days a week. So we'll go hybrid. Can banking go hybrid? I guess, but now that's probably not what they wanted to do. I think ultimately like workers are making a statement that if you don't like it, we can go work somewhere else and you need to accommodate us or we're gone. And that's the end of the story. So I think companies, whether they like it or not are going to have to evolve and adapt to the worker's demands and make work from home and flex time and whatever else, the business as usual, the new businesses usual. Joel (25m 0s): So that's it, man. It's fun watching this thing unfold and watching the workers have the power. Will it always be that way? Chad (25m 13s): No. Joel (25m 13s): It looks that way. Chad (25m 16s): I don't know that it will, but I tell you what, it's interesting watching executives who are prioritizing abstract concepts, like culture, camaraderie, normalcy over flexibility, lost time, cost of commuting, childcare issues, and just spending more time with your fucking family. Man. Plus, I mean, in a tight labor market companies are going to experience higher attrition in low application rates. As they start to see this shit, companies are not going to want to be associated with that brand because they have gotten a taste. They got a taste man, and they know what it feels like. They know how their performance is. Some will want to get back into the office, offices and some will need to be, there's no question. Some of the younger individuals who need to be trained, who need to have the mentorship and the discipline and so on and so forth, there's going to need to be that. Chad (26m 6s): But companies are going to have to figure out that this is not an all or none scenario. This has gotta be something where you are much more flexible and it could be perspectively benefits in promotions or hitting goals or who the hell knows. But at the end of the day, it can't just be black or white you're in, or you're out. Joel (26m 24s): You know, you want to see a big employer, like throw the hammer down and say everybody back to work now to see what happens. I want to see what happens when a big employer says that, because that'll be very telling. My guess is it's going to be chase JP Morgan Chase with Jamie Diamond saying, get the fuck back to work. That'd be fun. That'd be fun. Why does the DJ Sol just, you know, sling in the hits and get people back in the office? It sounds like. Chad (26m 54s): Like during lunch. Joel (26m 54s): That's a party. I want to go to DJ Sol spinin the tunes, baby. All right. Chad (27m 0s): In the cafeteria. Joel (27m 1s): In the cafeteria. Free food, Baby. Why would you not go in the office for that free food? Okay, let's move on from DJ Sol. You can find his new music on iTunes if you're interested and let's move on to a Creatively. Interesting startup. Creatively, a jobs platform that allows creatives kind of like you and me, Chad, to showcase their portfolios digitally and offers collaboration tools, has raised $8 million in new funding. The latest seed round of investment includes contributions from NBA superstar, Kevin Durant, and former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner. The new investment will go towards boosting the New York based platforms, product and engineering teams and growth marketing and data tools as well as quickly debuting a planned same day payment feature called Creatively Pay, which is really creative by the way. Joel (28m 0s): The platform has raised 19 million in funding and says more than 2000 brands, including Nickelodeon, Comcast, and PBS use Creatively to find job candidates. I feel like we've seen this movie before. It was a two-parter called Working, Not Working and Communo the only difference is the names behind it. Your thoughts? Chad (28m 15s): Yeah, no question, and I think it's funny that you didn't hit creatively.life, which is the a domain and that's, Joel (28m 25s): I left it for you, man, a big meatball for you to just knock out of the park. There you go. Chad (28m 31s): Shitty domains. And it also has forced job seeker registration, another no-no, but let's be Frank right out of the gate. $8 million for this group is couch cushion money. I want to kind of step back for a minute though, because remember when Jeffrey Katzenberg sunk a bunch of cash into Quimbee, I mean, seriously, the guy knows the industry. It launched at the perfect time during COVID when screen time was exploding. And yet what happened, Jeffrey was out of his depth. He's a producer, a media mogul, but he did not really know streaming. This was an entirely new world that he thought was going to be the same as he knew. Chad (29m 15s): Well, what does Kevin Durant, Michael Eisner, co-founder Stacey Bendet or CEO, Grigory If know about how the rest of the world finds talent or finds a job. Yeah, they don't. But here's, here's where I see a big difference. You talked about If earlier and, and Working Not Working with Creatively versus Working Not Working, which you'll remember was acquired by Fiverr, by the way. The difference is hunger. None of these people are hungry. Unlike a guy like Gignac. And I like my startups to be hungry. I like them to be scratching and clawing for that next innovation. This to me, I've been in the platform, this to me does not scream innovation. Chad (29m 56s): It screams a bunch of rich people who want to throw a party online, for creatives. Joel (30m 3s): Yeah. It's a rounding error and a nice tax break for a lot of these people. Chad (30m 9s): Easily. Joel (30m 10s): In addition to the hunger, I like organic. I like some core competency. I like seeing passion. Certainly we saw that with Working Not Working and Camino as well. There's some love there around the creative space. So I agree. Now what I did find interesting was there same day payment feature. And I think Chad (30m 32s): In their portfolio, by the way. Joel (30m 35s): I think that's probably a trend we're going to see more of, I mean, we're saying like restaurants and fast food service industries having sort of same day payment and will we start seeing contract work same day payment? I don't know if Uber and DoorDash and those pay the same day or not, but it seems like that could be a trend that we will see more of. I mean, if either Fiverr or Upwork wanted to, you know, punch the other one in the stomach, they could offer, you know, same day payment for the work that's done and get some attention that way. So, yeah. I agree. Like, you know, the names on this, just like the fact that we're talking about CareerBuilder is it's CareerBuilder, probably only reason we're talking about Creatively as well as the other media outlets is that Kevin Duran, Michael Eisner, and some others are part of it, but otherwise it wouldn't surprise me to see this thing fade into the distance in the future. Joel (31m 23s): But I do think that the same day pay could be something that we see a lot more of in the future. Chad (31m 31s): They do have an opportunity to actually make this thing hum. And the reason being is entertainment companies that have already committed are big brands and big names like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith production company, Westbrook media, Jordan peals Monkey Paw productions, Scout productions, Butterworth. I mean there are these big names. And then they also have these big schools in New York and Paris. The Pratt Institute, the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, they have these different academies, fashion institutes, if they can get these big brands and then they can promise to creatives that these big brands will have jobs there, there might be an opportunity, right? Chad (32m 15s): They might actually make this work. The only problem that I have again, is that they're not hungry and the tech is just total shit. I mean, just for a basic job search, it is not intuitive. It's just a horrible experience. And they don't understand what they're doing. They really need somebody in the industry to help them from a UX standpoint, the UI is not bad. UI is not bad. UX is shit. But other than that, they've got the big names. If they can keep them on board and they can actually get jobs from those brands because how many fucking job boards have you been on that have big brands on the outside, but none of their jobs on the inside, right? Chad (32m 55s): If they can get those brands, it's one thing. But they got to get the jobs. Joel (32m 59s): Yeah. And I, you know, these aren't, you know, win/loss or winner take all industries. I'm sure a lot of creatives are going to join a lot of different sites in terms of getting business. But in terms of how much work comes their way through this outlet versus the others that they're already on. I mean, we'll have to see or because even if you're paid the same day, if there's no work there to be had or the jobs that are on there, aren't engaging and exciting. It doesn't really matter if you're getting paid on the same day or not. All right. Let's take a quick break and talk about robots. Joel (33m 38s): All right, Chad, no porn, no OnlyFans, no strippers. We're talking robots at the end of this week show. Chad (33m 48s): Ok. Joel (33m 48s): So we've talked about robots, making pizzas, making burgers and even wings, but a robotics company making servers is now in the news. SoftBank backed food service robot startup Bear Robotics, as in the animal, not the naked, has raised $81 million in a series B funding round bringing the total to $115 million. Man that's talent.com money, Chad. The Cali based company has shipped more than 5,000 of its "Servi" food service robots, which carry food and drink between kitchen and tables on layers of trays. They charge $999 monthly fee for Servi in the US which gives the robot a running cost of around $2 and 75 cents per hour Chad. Joel (34m 34s): It looks like robots will be serving our food in the near future. How do you feel about that? Chad (34m 40s): Well, it's interesting because that number is actually more than the subpar minimum wage that a waiter or waitress makes in the U S without tips. So that's interesting, but here's the thing we've got to think about. Remember when going to the grocery store meant, somebody else would actually check you out and bag your groceries. I can't, I can't remember the last time in America, I had somebody else checked me out. I always use the self-checkout, which means one staffer can watch over six plus different machines instead of just one. In this case, the food and drinks are brought to you by servi. Chad (35m 22s): Now either a staffer can serve you or I've seen in the videos, it's pretty self-explanatory they want you to serve yourself. So I think this is a huge novelty now. And people will visit restaurants that have these robots, just for the experience, kind of like Tengai, seriously, the little interviewing the robot head is fucking cool and a total novelty, but these novelties will become a standard because they offer scale and they do jobs that nobody really wants to do and it's shit pay. Joel (35m 56s): But they don't quit, Chad and they don't call in sick. Chad (35m 59s): That's right. Joel (35m 59s): So to me, there's some distinct differences in cooking the food and interacting with customers. Chad (36m 3s): Wait a minute. Are you going to, are you going to dig on Flippy? Joel (36m 8s): Oh, I love Flippy and Flippy has a new product. I'm going to talk about. Cause I'm so excited. So, so we'll flip is, is built by Miso Robotics. Chad (36m 15s): Yeah. Joel (36m 15s): So there's Flippy and Wingy, I think it does the wings. And now there's now there's Chippy. I'll just go ahead and jump to it. Cause you brought it up. So Chippy now makes tortilla chips and Chipotle, now has a contract with Chippy to make chips for Chipotle and actually make the chips sort of inferior. So they look like humans made, which is interesting, but that's like a whole. Chad (36m 43s): So they're not like perfectly cut or anything? Joel (36m 46s): Like that. I'm not sure how you humanize chips, but Hey, you got to feel organic when you're at Chipotle. So anyway, I think when you're talking about cooking the food that a much easier bridge than interacting with consumers. So yeah, if I order wings and a robot makes it, who cares and I can control that environment. It's the back of the house, right? I'm in total control and I can maintain that easily. When you start putting robots in with the customers and you and I have talked about, you know, Walmart janitors or patrols and like. Chad (37m 23s): Inventory. Joel (37m 23s): Like, taking a bat to one of these things like that. Shit's going to happen. And that's, that's just the malicious stuff. That's the drunken diner. Like let's beat up the robot situation. Chad (37m 33s): Denny's. Joel (37m 33s): Also like, oh my God, the plate was too hot and you let me handle it. So now I'm going to sue your ass or you didn't alert me that this whatever, right? Like once you put humans in this, there's a whole array of disasters that could happen. Now I think ultimately what will happen. And I do think where it does work is where the robot server is an augmented situation with servers. So if the server doesn't have to go back to the kitchen, get the food, run back to the table and keep sort of doing that and just sort of be amongst the customers and see Servi come out and then the server puts the food on saving time and money with running around. Joel (38m 14s): Like, I could see that working. Chad (38m 16s): A brand ambassador. Joel (38m 17s): But total, yeah, like a concierge, like bring the food or serve it to you and say hi and be nice and smile that I could see working. At least that would be a bridge to the dystopian like robots just flings food at you. Or you take it off the tray, but definitely like augmented serving. And you have fewer servers because you don't need as many servers because robots are augmenting, that job, like I see that happening. But the days of like robots serving food, Jetson style, that's a few years, decades away, but augmenting service. I could see that and cooking my shit, definitely. Joel (38m 58s): And I'm still holding to my prediction that a major brand will launch a robotics only restaurant in 2022, preferably wings if they could work that out. Chad (39m 6s): It will be bar food. Joel (39m 8s): It will be bar food. Chad (39m 11s): Oh yeah. It's too easy. Joel (39m 12s): Well, Chad Happy St. Patrick's Day. Chad (39m 14s): Happy St. Patty's. Joel (39m 15s): We're an ocean away from each other, but I know that we're both gonna have a good time and feel like shit tomorrow morning. Chad (39m 27s): You're always in my heart. Joel (39m 29s): When everyone's listening to this on Friday morning, just remember that Chad and I, or at least me is still in bed. Chad and Joel (39m 36s): We out. OUTRO (39m 33s): 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 15s): 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.

Have the days of companies solely serving shareholders flown the co-cos nest? Society expects companies to change. Is this "woke capitalism" or a major brand awakening? Julie Calli joins Chad and Cheese to talk brand impact during atrocities and war. 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 (22s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody. It is your favorite guilty pleasure the Chad and Cheese podcast. It's another Cult Brand series with Recruitment Marketing's Julie Calli. And today we're going to be talking about a little bit of Russia, companies pulling out what it means to your brand, retention recruitment. Let's get into it guys. We'll be right back after this quick break. Chad (47s): It seems like the days of companies saying they serve only shareholders are long gone and that society's expectations for companies have changed since co Coca-Cola sold soft drinks in Nazi, Germany and Heineken brewed beer in Rwanda during the genocide, there is this what we would classify as quote unquote, "woke capitalism", or is this a major awakening? Is this what cult brands are all about? What do you think, Julie? Julie (1m 16s): Well, I think the term cult is a group that is joined by shared or common beliefs. So yes, a brand is uniting people based on what they believe. That is how they bring both their employees together. And they get a consumer following as a cult brand. So yes, how they're responding to the humanitarian crisis in the Ukraine is a defining moment for a brand and companies are under pressure to make these choices right now. Chad (1m 49s): Yes they are. Joel (1m 51s): And many are bending to that pressure. As we've talked about in past shows about who's leaving Russia in light of the invasion of Ukraine, we're talking big tech, we're talking Google, Microsoft, Facebook, we're talking consumer brands, McDonald's, Coke. We're talking about even in our space, the likes of Upwork, Fiverr, Indeed, and Adzuna have all made statements about leaving the country. So the pressure is real and companies are really coming to terms with what their brand means in terms of the promise that they make to consumers, customers and the public at large. But we want to talk about a lot of things, but I think first, we might want to start about the impact on recruiting and retention that comes along with doing business in countries that aren't necessarily in line with our values. Joel (2m 42s): Any thoughts on that, Julie? Julie (2m 44s): Well, every company's making a choice. Are you in, are you out? And most of them are making the decision to do nothing, right? Paralyzed with choice. Which side do I stand on? What do I do? What are the pros and cons of this? But in recruiting, right? If we talk about job seekers and what they want today, they want to belong to an organization that's aligned with their beliefs. So how a company is responding, this could have a huge impact on their recruitment and them as an employer brand also what it says to their own employees, as their employees look to their employer to say, well, what are you doing about this? Julie (3m 25s): We have people there. We have business there. What are we going to do to, to show where we stand and our beliefs, you could lose employees over your choices. You could win new talent over the choices. So there's a lot at stake for companies to make this choice. Joel (3m 42s): No one wants to go to that cocktail party working for that company that's in bed with a dictator, I think is what you're saying. Right? Julie (3m 49s): Well, said. Chad (3m 50s): Listen to this. This is hilarious. So this is a quote from our friend, David Solomon, over at Goldman Sachs. He told a Time magazine quote "I don't think businesses are supposed to decide how global trade works in the world." And then good old DJ Sol drops a memo with this excerpt, quote "None of us can fail to see this for what it is, the invasion of a sovereign state. Then they pulled out of Russia". That is bending to the market. Now, the question is, does DJ Sol really give a shit about recruitment? Or is this really just shareholders? I mean, what's really forcing this to happen right now? Joel (4m 32s): And who the hell is DJ Sol? Should I know them? Chad (4m 36s): David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Joel (4m 40s): Oh, he's not a DJ? He's not actually a DJ? Chad (4m 42s): Is a DJ. He goes by DJ Sol. The guy's like 90 fucking years old. Joel (4m 47s): I'm saying he doesn't mix records. Is what I'm saying. Julie (4m 50s): He's good at tracks. Chad (4m 51s): I think he does. Joel (4m 52s): He doesn't have a fresh prince. Julie (4m 55s): Well, I would say David's probably not responsible for talent acquisition, recruitment or employer brand with a statement like that. Chad (5m 3s): If he doesn't have people though, he can't make the shareholders' money. Julie (5m 8s): Correct. Right? So the real challenge that, you know, people that are responsible for talent acquisition and talent attraction they understand that these are things that they have to face in the frontline with their employees. This is absolutely to do with motivation and retention of your existing workforce. I mean, when you look at it, you have to have a brand stance that you at least support the basic rights of humans. Right if you don't, then people are going to question you as an employer. You need to give material for them, your own employees, even to go home or somebody who you want to build excitement with that you want to come work for your organization. Julie (5m 52s): You want them to be able to go out on a date or sit down at the dinner table with their family and talk about what their employer is doing, or the company that they are interested in working for is doing, that's making a social impact. Joel (6m 7s): Daddy, why do you work for a company that does business in Russia? Chad (6m 13s): Why do you support Putin? Joel (6m 15s): Are we seeing job descriptions and/or like Glassdoor reviews yet around, you know, siding with Ukraine or we're, we're getting out of Russia. Are we seeing that or do you think we will if we're not yet? Julie (6m 29s): I'm seeing a lot of activity. If you just look at LinkedIn as an example. You're seeing a lot of activity of individuals who are proud of their employer for taking a stance for having some type of activity that they are doing to support the people of Ukraine and that that's real evangelism of your own people that they are telling the world. Not only am I proud to work for this company, I'm proud to tell the world that I'm proud of working for this company. And that creates opportunity for someone else to say, Hey, you know, I'm not happy at my company. It looks like you have found a place that really connects with my values. Julie (7m 11s): Can you introduce me to your recruitment team? That is where there is that potential to use this as a way to really say, who are you as an a brand and attract more people that are like-minded. That is cult status. Chad (7m 25s): So in what about the leaders in those industries? And let's just look at ours real quick. Okay. So Adzuna, at least from what we saw on LinkedIn, they dug in Adzuna pulled out of Russia first. Then Indeed followed then talent.com followed. But I mean, Doug, the CEO of Adzuna was very vocal in challenging the other brands to do so. Now that says a lot for that brand, for that organization, for that leadership vision. But those others that followed along, I mean, do they get as much credit? How does, how does this work and do you want to work for one of those followers or does it even matter? Julie (8m 6s): Yeah, I would say I really respect when someone takes a clear position because it's identity that is brand. Who are you? Right? When you take a clear position, then it's clearly understood. If you do nothing, then it's not known. Right. So it could be either, right. Are you in support? Are you for, are you not? So where companies are kind of positioning is, you know, they're either closing, they're pausing, they're condemning, right? Maybe they can't actually do the actions to close or to pause, but they can at least condemn, but to show support, like that's the minimum there. Like have support for the people who are going through a horrible experience right now. Julie (8m 52s): Doesn't matter where you stand Chad (8m 53s): As condemning enough. No, because if you think about it, so let's say for instance, Proctor and Gamble, who they've discontinued all new capital investments in Russia, significantly reducing product portfolio. I mean, they're doing a lot of stuff, but they are partially pulling out. If they fully pulled out, they risk more than likely Russia taking over that entire manufacturing facility, which serves 70% of all razors in Russia. So, you know, it's a big difference between Proctor and Gamble, 70% market share in Russia with manufacturing and Netflix who can just switch on the tech and switch it off. Chad (9m 36s): So again, how do you differentiate between those two? Julie (9m 39s): Yeah, this is tough, right? This is where companies really have to make decisions based on their values. There's so much risk in this. So I don't blame any brand or leadership team or company that's struggling right now to determine how to respond to this. It is a very difficult thing, but it doesn't always have to be all or nothing or in or out. You can take a position and still be careful about how that manages the risks that are associated with your business. There's lots of cons associated with, you know, taking a very firm position, even for leaders to speak out and condemn there's threat. Julie (10m 27s): There has been threat from Russian prosecutors that would arrest corporate leaders who criticized the Russian government. So that's a risk as a leader to speak what your thoughts and your views are. They're seizing assets if companies withdraw. So that example that you brought up with P and G, right, but also P and G is supplying goods to that market. By cutting that off, we're also cutting off the people, right? We're creating, we're adding to the humanitarian crisis by also punishing the people of Russia who are not the day to day decision makers of what's taking place. Julie (11m 9s): Nationalizing the assets of these brands, that is a real loss for a company. Like you brought up McDonald's. McDonald's has made a decision to close their stores. That's 850 restaurants. Now, if you think about that, that's 62,000 employees, they're losing about $50 million month to make that decision. And then they're also impacting the people of Russia where McDonald's was an affordable cost of food for many. And now in a time where they're financially crippled, that is cutting off an opportunity for people to get a daily meal. Chad (11m 45s): Yeah. I think you take a look at McDonald's that's about 3% of their operating income and about 9% of its revenue. So 9% doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. But I also have to think that, you know, we've heard about, let's say for instance, we did a story on OnlyFans shutting down their Russian content providers. Right. Then they started them back up because they said, well, you know, those people, it's not their fault. Well, you know what, it's not the Ukrainians people's fault that they can't create content now either because they're being bombed to shit. So the question is, you know, if we talk about the poor people of Russia, we're forgetting the poor people of Ukraine. Joel (12m 26s): By the way, we'll put, Julie's OnlyFans account in our show notes if you want to check that out. Chad (12m 33s): She does origami. You should buy. Yeah. It's great. Julie (12m 35s): Yeah. There are a lot of cons to be careful of. And then which people are you choosing to support the rights of? Well, it's all people, it's all people. Always right? The basic rights of people and their access to food and water and safety, that should never be in question and it doesn't matter who you are. So brands have a lot at risk, these relationships, this business that they've established in Russia, they've taken decades for them to establish. I mean, McDonald's did not open up 850 stores overnight. It took time. Chad (13m 13s): 30 years. Yes. Julie (13m 14s): You know, and what I would say is to any company or anybody who's looking at this and saying, oh, how is it possible that you could shut down activity all at once? How could you ever expect to restart? Well, we just did that in a pandemic. We shut down the whole globe and found ways to carry on. So I would just say, even if you look at the most impossible things that we face just recently with addressing, you know, COVID times we found a way to good move on, we will do the same in this case. So yes, it seems like there's a lot of risk out there associated with that. And every business needs to decide that for themselves. But what I would say is take a stance. Julie (13m 57s): You, you, you're better off saying to the world for the pressure that you're probably getting from your investors, the pressure you're probably getting from your consumers and your own employees that are looking to you to say, who are you as an organization? Because that's what I need to decide. Am I part of this? Where do you stand in this? Joel (14m 13s): What I love about this is we're getting into the nuance of this issue. And when it first sort of came to light, it was like, fuck Russia, let's get the hell out. They suck. But now that we're digging into it, we're, we're looking at things like, well, okay, there are franchisees who have agreements to open up, you know, a Papa John's or a KFC in Russia. There are certain legal boundaries that we can't cross. So to someone on the outside, it looks like, oh, well, Papa John's is still, you know, they're still in Russia. When in reality there's a franchisee agreement. So as an employer, how do you deal with that? I think those are really challenging issues. And also think of thinking about how many Russians are being impacted by this. Joel (14m 56s): We talked about Upwork and Fiverr, leaving Russia on the weekly show, how many contract workers, you know, young people or people with, you know, developers and programmers and designers that can't really get work anywhere else are now shut off from the world. This is the nuance that I think is great that we're talking about. But, but Julie, I'm curious for the companies that do have complicated agreements in Russia, and can't get out all the way. How do they spin to employees and perspective employees? Julie (15m 28s): Well, again, right. We bow every one company, every person should believe in support the basic rights of humans. So if your business, it has something that's involved with supporting those basic rights for humans, then that's what you should be leaning in on. What is it that you're doing that's essential to that? So, you know, if you're a company that has commitments to franchisees within that country, that then you have an agreement for that. You have to continue to fulfill that I'm not the right person to probably answer for what the best risk and the best political move is for that, for that business. But what I will say is there's going to be economic instability. Julie (16m 11s): That agreement that you have is going to be threatened in jeopardy because of the economic instability happening within there, within inside the country. The safety of your workers that's also something companies are going to have to consider if they're continuing to operate and they're continuing to support business in that area, there's also safety concerns of the workers in their families. So you have safety, you have financial, these are all things that are business decisions that go outside of just brand that companies really have to face and determine what is the best risk assessment for them. Joel (16m 41s): So, as I understand it, I just want to talk through this a little bit. If Russia, nationalized McDonald's can the Russian government operate McDonald's and keep employing those workers and just hope to hell that people realize it's not the real McDonald's because as I understand that McDonald's has little legal recourse. If the government of Russia wants to set up a bunch of McDonald's burger joints? Chad (17m 6s): They won't have the supply chain. Obviously. Joel (17m 8s): The product won't be near the same, but they can Chad (17m 10s): No, no, no, no, but they can do whatever they want. They can name it, whatever they want, Joel (17m 15s): That's going to happen. Chad (17m 16s): There's a good opportunity for it to. Julie (17m 22s): Well, this is where, you know, McDowell's comes into play. Chad (17m 25s): There it is. Nothing like a Coming to America reference. Julie (17m 25s): Yeah. The McDowell's we start seeing one of those on every corner. Well, there there's a lot of businesses at risk with this, right. You know, you, Chad, you brought up that example of P and G. They have a large operation there. And all of the companies that have, you know, manufacturing plants, that have a lot of facility set up. So not only are they at risk of losing the property. Chad (17m 50s): Assets. Julie (17m 51s): But they're also at risk of losing the people, right? Chad (17m 55s): Yeah. Julie (17m 55s): Those workers can be redistributed into a different way. Now that plant can produce something else and it could be another product and it could slap a new label on it and send it out. Companies are very exposed and have a lot of threat in that way. Chad (18m 16s): Well, now that you see this, right, and you are a brand, let's say you don't have a presence in Russia, but in five years, if you're a brand and you don't have any type of representation in Russia, five years from now. Do you go there? I mean, do you take the chance because there is an opportunity that McDonald's becomes McDowell's? Julie (18m 37s): Yeah. I mean, this is every company has to make that decision and it goes beyond just your brand in that case, their financials. There's risk assessment. Chad (18m 50s): Loss of assets. Julie (18m 51s): Yes. Loss of assets, and, you know, exposing too much of your own, you know, secret sauce. A lot of companies that have those operations today that are running very successfully have spent decades to create them. Now it can be easy to say, we quit. We walk away, but rebuilding, any of that, re-establishing that, from that is going to be a challenge. Is it possible? Yes. I don't think I'm probably the best person to speculate what the outcomes would be for companies, you know, provided everything just resets tomorrow and everything goes back to normal. Julie (19m 32s): I think that companies being impacted now that are looking at how there's a lot of geopolitical activity that can happen anywhere. And what does that do to business? A brand should be less geopolitical and always be more human rights that will never change. Right. For a brand, always believe in the humans, the politics will come and go like the weather, as long as companies are leaning in and always thinking about what's best for the people. That is what will make a difference for a brand, but for financials well, that is all different type of market. Chad (20m 15s): Yeah. Yeah. So on the weekly show, I believe it was a weekly show or the European show this year. We talked about it a couple of times this week, we talked about Fiverr and Upwork leaving and knowing that there is a large percentage of the work that happens on those two platforms is coming out of Russia. From a technical standpoint. Joel (20m 38s): 10%. Chad (20m 39s): The opportunity for brain drain here, because you can actually have all of these Russians leave for neighboring countries and perspectively not come back. The brain drain for Russia is high here. Don't you think? Julie (20m 50s): Yeah. We're already at a talent crisis and we're going to alienate an entire country of talent. That seems very frustrating. That frustrates me. Because again, it's not about the people. I don't believe that every individual person that is trying to make a living in Russia is, you know, having the power to make the decisions that are creating the crisis. I don't believe that. There are a lot of talented people in Russia who have the opportunity to fill in the talent gaps that we experience through a lot of these platforms like Upwork. Joel (21m 28s): Do you think Russians become toxic? Do people stop employing at a rate that they would normally, or, you know, if I'm looking for a contractor on Upwork after the dust has cleared on all this and maybe Putin's out of power, am I less likely to employ Russia? Or if Russia is decimated, am I more likely to now want to help and employ Russians? Julie (21m 50s): Well, I would hate to see that, right, because that starts to breed a whole new form of discrimination. You know, based on where you were born, whether or not you're employable. Chad (22m 1s): Yeah. We've seen it before. Right? Joel (22m 2s): It's gonna happen. Julie (22m 3s): Right. We would never want to see that to be the case, but could somebody's political views impact whether or not they're hireable? That is already true. And you can see that when background checks are done and people look at someone's activity on social media and how they're behaving in response to political activity and things, absolutely companies are making decisions on that in the review process. Joel (22m 32s): That's actually interesting. So companies like Fama that look at social profiles, do you think they're now going to start looking at any pro Putin comments or pro-Russian comments? I'm serious. Chad (22m 45s): Yeah, yeah. Joel (22m 46s): Like, just like if I make racist comments, if I make an pro-Putin comment, am I now out of the running to be an employee? Chad (22m 55s): Yes. Madison Cawthorne you are Joel (22m 56s): I don't know who that is either. You with the names today. Julie (23m 1s): You making racist comments on their, you know, their profiles that doesn't align with a company's cultural values then. Yeah. It's a disqualifier. I'm glad that it would be. Joel (23m 10s): So now they're going to put in pro Putin or pro-Russian right. Julie (23m 14s): So that's a big stance for a company to take, that I would say is geopolitical. That I have caution with that. But do you believe in human rights? That's where the emphasis should stay. That we believe that all people should have equal opportunity. Joel (23m 33s): Will someone get a job and then be fired because during this time they made a Pro-putin comment, that's going to happen. I promise. It's not a question. I'm just making a crazy statement. But I do have a question, Julie, we've talked about Procter and Gamble quite a bit and Old Spice, my father's favorite cologne has a commercial now featuring Ivan Drago, which was his old gen X-ers know was the boxer who took on Rocky and is sort of like the figurehead of the USSR in the eighties. Chad (24m 7s): Rocky IV. Joel (24m 8s): He's in a fricking commercial and the commercial is still running. Cause I saw it today and I thought, oh, they're going to definitely get this off the air. Does that have impact on, on recruiting retention and brand status if you're running Ivan Drago in an Old Spice ad during this time? Julie (24m 26s): I mean, I would hope that it would not. Right? We shouldn't cancel all of Russia. Joel (24m 30s): You're head of Proctor and Gambles marketing. Do you keep running that ad? Julie (24m 36s): I would say that P & G is in a challenging situation because of how much they have in Russia that they support 70%. Is that what you said, Chad? Chad (24m 47s): That was just for razors, just Gillette razors. Joel (24m 48s): Chad, would you run it? Julie (24m 49s): I haven't seen the commercial to be honest. I'm happy to get back to you with an opinion on that after I've seen it. Chad (24m 54s): I haven't seen it. Does he get knocked out? Because if he gets knocked out, yeah. Joel (25m 1s): It's really stupid because Old Spice commercials are really fricking out there, but basically like some guy's sweating and then Ivan Drago comes on. It's like the young Ivan Drago. So it's not even like the current Dolph, Lundgren, old guy. It's like actual young guy and he's got like sweat coming out of his pits. And then he puts on the deodorant and like, so there's really no sort of the Russian/ pro Russian or negative. It's just Ivan Drago. And I'm just, I'd pull it in a second. You guys haven't seen it. We'll get back to you if you do see it. But I can't imagine that the head of marketing at Procter and Gamble saying like, this is a good idea, let's keep running this Ivan Drago commercial. Chad (25m 39s): So Joel is a no. Okay. That's great. Joel (25m 44s): I'm pullin' out. Chad (25m 46s): Let's do this while everybody's pulling out, Julie's gonna give us the tips, Julie. Joel (25m 51s): The tips Chad (25m 51s): Julie you have, you have the tips for, you know, companies who let's say at this point right now, they haven't done anything. What are some of your tips from a marketing standpoint? From a recruitment brand marketing standpoint, for any company that's out there who really, I mean, maybe they're in the fetal position in the corner? Julie (26m 10s): So my advice to any company would be to do something. To do nothing is a statement, right? It does define who you are by doing nothing. Do something. Now that doesn't mean you have to be all or nothing. Or in and out. But again, how I said lean into the support of basic human rights. Now, why does this matter in talent attraction and recruitment? Because deciding where you stand gives the opportunity for people to stand with you. That's what you want to do. You want to evangelize your own employees to tell the world that they're proud of their employer. When they get out there on LinkedIn and they start talking to people at the barbecue and friends that they interact with, they are telling the people the story of where they work. Julie (26m 58s): Oh, I'm so excited my employer has made a decision, has made a donation and we're doing these things to be helpful and supportive to the cause. Most of their time is invested with their employers so how can the employer help them be part of that and stand together? So do something. Decide where you stand and if it isn't all in, then go all in. If you're out, because there's something that has a great risk associated with that, we'll then look at what other ways can you commit or how there there's always an answer that that can be uncovered there. But the worst thing you can do is do nothing at all. I'll get one more here on give your employees pride in your org, give them the ability to understand that you are a company that supports basic human rights and donate. Julie (27m 50s): Or give people an opportunity that you can support them internally. Do you even know? Do you have any employees who are affected by the crisis right now? Are they struggling? Are their families struggling? Can you do something internally to help your own people that might be directly impacted by this and give them pride so that they can tell the world about how proud they are to work for somebody who has made a choice of where they stand so that they can stand with you. It's less about being geopolitical and more about human rights. I would strongly recommend to donations to World Central Kitchen. If you watch the news, they're in the background of every shot because they are on the front lines, feeding people, wanting to help and support those things is the right thing to do for any person, for any company that is not something that's hard to stand behind. Julie (28m 40s): That's easy to stand behind. Joel (28m 41s): He be a proud boy, Chad. I think that's what she's saying. It's a complicated issue, Julie. We understand a lot better. Thanks for joining us as always. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast, Cult Brand series with RecruitmentMarketing.com's Julie Calli. Julie (29m 2s): Thank you. Chad and Joel (29m 5s): Yes, we out. OUTRO (29m 54s): 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.

This week, Jobcase gets an A in Recruitology, Jobvite gets unified and HireVue gets sued. Earnings from ZipRecruiter and a new podcast network from LinkedIn. Poor conversion rates for job seekers and PPC rates are skyrocketing. Luckily, OnlyFans is here to save us (again). 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 (2s): 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. Google says they'll stop letting most employees do their job remotely putting workers on a three days in the office routine. Back to work snowflakes. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "do no evil" Cheeseman. Chad (40s): And this is Chad "sanctioned, sanctioned, sanctioned" Sowash. Joel (45s): And on this week, show Jobcase gets an A-plus in recruitology, Jobvite gets unified and Hireview gets their ass sued. Let's do this. Chad (58s): Woo. Woo. How was your night last night? Joel (1m 1s): My night was fine. We did a Zoom tasting with whiskey that you conveniently couldn't make, which you'll get into here in a second. But yeah, it was a fairly slow evening of a whiskey drinking with Chris Conrad from Textkernel and Tammy Bailey from Boar's Head. Chad (1m 21s): Our winner. Joel (1m 21s): Our winner. And we're the actual winners because both you and I get a Boar's Head gift set. Chad (1m 26s): That's what I'm talking about. Joel (1m 29s): Filled with cured meats and cheeses. Awesome stuff. Chad (1m 32s): While you were doing that, I was doing the hard work of babysitting Tyler Weeks. See if everybody probably remembers Tyler was at Intel. He's now currently at HiredScore. We hung out last night in Indy. Julie, Tyler, and I that's why I couldn't be at the whiskey tasting. So we had, we had a great time and we'll probably see Tyler tonight as well. Joel (1m 52s): Oh, very nice. Chad (1m 53s): Yeah. Nice. Very nice. He needs some Cheeseman. Joel (1m 56s): Yeah. He needs some learning on where to get a hotel room because not only did that Chad (2m 4s): Eastside... Joel (2m 4s): Eastside like the meetings downtown everyone's downtown, he's on like the east side and he's got a big place, but that was not real well calculated. I'm not, I'm not sure Tyler's fit to do my engineering if that's his hotel reservation strategy. Chad (2m 19s): Shout outs! Joel (2m 20s): Shout out for me. I got LinkedIn every show is not complete without LinkedIn. Chad they've launched a podcast network. Chad (2m 28s): Oh, imagine my surprise. Joel (2m 30s): Featured shows produced by the LinkedIn news team. That sounds sexy as well as outside business figures, the shows are geared toward a professional audience and cover topics such as understanding tech, managing mental health and explaining the hiring process. To start there are 12 podcasts, four by LinkedIn news and the rest by outside hosts. Doubtful that you and I will be invited to join the network. Shout out to LinkedIn for launching another thing that's going to fail. Chad (2m 58s): They will be clamoring for Chad and Cheese by the time this thing's over. Big shout out to Doug Monroe and Adzuna. Adzuna has suspended commercial activity of the Adzuna.ru website in protest against the actions of the Russian army that invaded Ukraine. This is fucking awesome. Doug. I love that this is a sponsor first and foremost. Love to see this happen. When this popped up, I'm like, I hope everybody fucking does this. Joel (3m 29s): For sure. So I did a little bit of actual reporting and I tried to find like the top 10 largest Russian companies. And then I tried to see if they had ATSs that were run out of the free world and all the sites in Russia are down. Maybe they're blocked from me saying them, but my reporting didn't go very far. I was trying to be kind of cutesy, but good Fred and Adzuna and anybody else, I'm going to be curious to see if like Upwork and some of the gig economies deny service to Russian people. That will be interesting. Well, someone not doing business in Russia is ZipRecruiter. Joel (4m 10s): They had a pretty nice earnings report this week. So ZipRecruiter reported revenue growth during the last quarter that beat its own and Wall Street's expectations while also raising its forecast for the coming year. I guess you can thank Phil. The company stated in it's Q4 letter to shareholders quote, "since inserting Phil," that sounds naughty doesn't it? "We have increased the job seeker onboarding completion rate by 29%. Let's all bow down to Phil. Chad (4m 43s): I think they're giving Phil too much fucking credit. Joel (4m 46s): They really said it in a release "inserting Phil". That's nice. Chad (4m 50s): That's awesome. Big shout out to Airbnb. They're going to provide shelter to 100,000 Ukraine refugees. I love Airbnb. They are not like most American brands, who pitch pennies and they're not driven by fucking shareholders. Airbnb's brand and mission transcends the balance sheet. I love these guys. Whenever I go places, I generally stay in an Airbnb and shit like this will continue to get customers like me to do business with them. Joel (5m 22s): Warm and fuzzies with the Airbnb. Well someone that is concerned with shareholders, job.com gets a shout out this week. They announced the acquisition of QCI Healthcare. Chad (5m 34s): Okay. Joel (5m 36s): Yeah. I know. A grand rapids, Michigan based staffing agency, the deal marks job.com's fifth staffing firm acquisition. Good for them. Chad (5m 45s): Very good. Very good. Big shout out to Ian White founder and CEO of ChartHop, who was scheduled to join us on Firing Squad, but he must've listened to a few episodes and then turned tail and fucking ran. He literally backed out of Firing Squad, we have never had a CEO, a startup CEO, back out of a Firing Squad before. So this is a notch in the belt for the Chad and Cheese first and foremost. But if you're listening and you haven't listened to Firing Squad, go to Chadcheese.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, click on Firing Squad and you will have a bounty of startup shark tank type of love. sfx (6m 29s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (6m 32s): Doesn't he know the line to get into a Firing Squad and they deny coming on the show. Chad (6m 39s): I love it. Joel (6m 39s): And we're not even gonna get into the number of companies that have been acquired. Chad (6m 47s): Yes! Joel (6m 47s): Or cashed out because of their being on Firing Squad. But anyway, speaking of not afraid of Firing Squad, Dan Finnegan, former boss at Yahoo Hot Jobs, we're going way back in time on that one and Jobvite back when it was like ten people, announced on LinkedIn that he is now CEO of filtered.ai, a platform for hiring engineers. Along with Dan, they got $10 million in funding. So we're going to keep our eye on Filtered and Dan Finnegan. Shout out to him. Chad (7m 21s): Damn straight. You mentioned Google mandating Bay area workers getting back to the office by April 4th, to start quote unquote "hybrid working". This is a slow walk back to five days, 40 hours back in the office who you want to take that bet? Google is not going to allow remote work anymore. I can see this. Joel (7m 42s): No, there's a reason they bought up real estate when it cratered a couple of years ago. So yeah, and, and Apple will follow suit. A few of the ones we talk about will probably remain remote. But yeah, this is to me, the slow burn back to the office. Chad (7m 58s): But think about it though, man. Google's I mean, their rep has really been tarnished. I mean, they're not the cool brand anymore and developers don't, I mean, that's not a place where they see themselves. They're having to be dragged in, not just developers. I mean, just individuals and great talent. So the question is why the fuck put more obstacles in place when you're seeing great productivity anyway? That's what's been reported out from, I don't know how many fucking surveys we've seen that over the last few years. Why do this? You put yourself in such an amazing poaching position where your competitors will easily be able to say, look, brand's tarnished. They're fucking you by making the yeah. Chad (8m 39s): Yeah. You can get orange juice in the office. Who gives a shit. You want to come down in your PJ's. Joel (8m 48s): How dare you question Google. Chad, how dare you sir. Chad (8m 50s): Evil. Yeah. Joel (8m 51s): Proof will be in the pudding. If they go back to work and people start bouncing, they might have reversal of opinion on the hybrid model that they are creating for themselves. Chad (9m 1s): We shall see. Joel (9m 3s): Otherwise they're going to have to start writing some big checks to keep people around á la, Amazon, and Apple. Which Google can do, by the way, they can write some pretty big checks. That'll be interesting to see. Well, who else writes big checks, Chad? Chad (9m 16s): Who's that? Joel (9m 17s): Well, we don't really write checks, but we have free shit, which is almost as good. sfx (9m 22s): Hell yeah. Joel (9m 22s): If you haven't signed up yet, Chadcheese.com/free. We give away shit. People we give away t-shirts sponsored by Adzuna. We give away beer powered by our friends at Pillar and we give away whiskey like we mentioned earlier from our friends at Textkernel. So if you haven't done that yet, what the fuck you waiting for? Dude the world needs more free shit. And Chad and Cheese are here to deliver. Chad (9m 48s): Amen. Last shout out for me Fama. Remember Ben Mones. He was on the podcast, February, 2020, a social media background screening company gets $10 million in series B funding. How long do you think it'll take for one of these bigger Goliath background check companies to actually swallow these guys up? Joel (10m 7s): Yeah. Sterling went public recently. Some of the other ones, big ones are going to be going public soon. Checkr for example, I think that would be an interesting one, but yeah. Yeah. If they want to boost or bolster their stock price, a quick acquisition of a social media background check platform could be a good move to goose that stock price. So a Sterling I hope you're listening and I would not be surprised if they find a little couch cushion change, gobble up Fama. Chad (10m 40s): I want to see Checkr get in there and snatch them up. Checkr. Joel (10m 44s): All right. The wagers are out. We got Checkr and we got Sterling out there as the acquirers. Well, let's talk about birthdays. Chad (11m 1s): Birthdays. Joel (11m 2s): Celebrating a birthday this week Michael, the Tech Czar of Cleveland DeAloia celebrates a birthday. totally said that right. Chad (11m 17s): Nice. I think you did pretty good. Joel (11m 20s): Evan White, Colin Barker, Bas Van de Haterd your boy. Haterd Adam Chamber. Chad (11m 26s): Ooh. Joel (11m 27s): The Irish assassin. Slainte to him. He celebrates his 25th of life. And Bob Etheridge, old friend of the podcast he celebrates another birthday this week. Chad (11m 37s): Happy birthday, Bob. Joel (11m 37s): Happy birthday, Bob. And we're on the road again Chad. Chad (11m 41s): On the road again. That's right events kids. You can go to chadcheese.com, click on events. We have our entire schedule there, but really quick. Going to be at the E recruitment Congress Friday, May 6th. Join us in Belgium. That's right. If you are in Europe, you should be in Belgium for the E recruitment Congress that's E recruitment-congress.com and then Unleash America May 25th and 26th at the MGM Grand in Vegas. Stay tuned. We're actually working on bringing some pretty big firepower to this stage in Vegas. Chad (12m 23s): Pretty stoked about that one. Joel (12m 25s): Fire power people. Chad (12m 26s): Topics! Joel (12m 27s): And talking about firing. Damn, why can't I talk right now? I'm having a stroke apparently. Chad and cheese besties are in the news this week. Jobcase, AKA, LinkedIn, for those who aren't on LinkedIn announced the acquisition of recruitment marketing platform Recruitology on Thursday to bolster the company's ability to proactively match workers, to jobs. In a statement Jobcase highlighted that with these acquisitions, they're bringing together technology, employer acquisition expertise, and traffic capabilities to further scale the company's efforts to empower workers while matching members with employers at unparalleled pace and efficiency. Joel (13m 14s): Recruitology will continue to run as a separate business unit as part of Jobcase. And our buddy Roberto will remain as GM of Recruitology. Terms or not disclosed. Chad it's a marriage made in heaven, right? Chad (13m 28s): Yes. And I've got to ask how many of our sponsors have been acquired thus far? This is a great story. Chad and Cheese has a pretty good record. Go canvas.io acquired. Sovren acquired. Pandologic acquired. Recruitology now acquired. Not a bad batting average. Joel (13m 50s): Did you get a web clip drop? Chad (13m 53s): No, I didn't get the web clip drops at all. Joel (13m 57s): Our first sponsor. Chad (13m 58s): Yeah. Good one good one. So five and not a bad batting average as the only one that took a dump was Uncommon thus far. So we have five to one odds ratio. Welcome to Chad and Cheese. This acquisition is just incredibly smart. Go figure. Fred is an incredibly smart guy. Roberto is an awesome dude. This is a match made in heaven. How does this expand Jobcase's, total addressable market? Well, I mean really their total addressable market. I don't believe it does rather. I think it's going to expand wallet share dramatically because remember that more budget is spent on recruitment advertising and marketing than actual tech. Chad (14m 42s): So I see the same brands more into the Jobcase ecosystem, and that's a good thing, but it's going to be focused in the same areas, but driving more revenues on advertising in recruiting with those organizations, right? So it's always great to get a brand. It's always great to retain brand, but what's even better is increasing wallet share. And I think this is a great opportunity for Jobcase to increase wallet share in their ecosystem. Joel (15m 11s): Yup. A little context here combining with Jobcase, which brings the job seeker candidate side 120 million plus registered members and 20 million in monthly active users and Recruitology, which is focused on employers and channel partners allow the company to basically create a largest only after Indeed and Glassdoor in terms of large job seeker audience. So this is a fairly big idea. Chad (15m 38s): Yeah. Joel (15m 38s): Fairly big news. And I think that it primarily goes to the value of Recruitology is in the newspaper relationships. No, we have not gone back to the future to 2002, but newspaper relationships are an incredible way that Recruitology local focused marketing for job seekers. And that's kinda what Jobcase wants to do. They want to be able to put those small local employers and get them the job seekers that they need to apply to jobs and Recruitology plugs in. I mean, we're talking about Gannett, McClatchy first, pretty much any major newspaper in the country is now in play in terms of Jobcase, being able to distribute job postings and candidates into and to their job opportunities. Joel (16m 31s): So in addition to that, you have some fantastic programmatic job solutions from Recruitology that now they can plug into that at Jobcase. But to me the real muscle in this was around the newspaper partnerships and Jobcase, being able to tap into that. So great deal in terms of my position, in what I consider, and I think I'm glad that Roberto is going to be around. The dude's been a part of this industry for a long time. Chad (16m 60s): Yeah! Joel (17m 0s): Keeping the Recruitology brand is going to be important and popular for him and the people that support him. So all around. This is a major applause. Chad (17m 10s): Yeah, no question. No question. Hyper-local baby. Hyper-local. Joel (17m 14s): Hyper-local. Can you imagine we're still talking about newspaper partnerships 20 years after they were like a thing and how many people have gotten away from those newspaper partnerships? Chad (17m 23s): I remember when direct mail died and then it came back. Joel (17m 27s): That's true. That's true. That's true. Everything. Yeah. Let's get into it, everything that was old is now new again. All right. Let's go to Jobvite, you're in the know about this one. So what's going on at JobBite this week? Yeah. Chad (17m 44s): So last week, first we have a new umbrella org called Employee Inc with the three major brands next RPO, Jazz HR and Jobvite represented under that umbrella. So, you know, there's this new maturation process of, Hey, look, we've got to get our house in order. I love this, then this week we learn of the unification of products in brand, under Jobvites Evolve TA suite. So Roll Point, Telemetry and gocanvas.io. Those three brands have lived on in since the 2019 acquisitions are now blending into Jobvite as the Evolve TA suite. Chad (18m 25s): So you won't have no go canvas.io to kick around any more Cheeseman. Joel (18m 28s): Oh, that's a bummer. sfx (18m 29s): Oh, hell no. Joel (18m 30s): So my take on this kudos to Jobvite for being able to bring together pieces really in a complicated puzzle and put everything under one platform and brand. How many times did we see companies acquire other companies? They stay disparate and nothing ever sort of comes together. So first and foremost, I think congratulations to them for actually being able to create one brand, create everyone under that umbrella, and then create great services uunder that platform. And you and I talk a lot about one platform to rule them all. And it clearly looks like Jobvite is going into that realm of strategy. And to me, I like the Spotify versus Apple music example. Joel (19m 12s): You know, there's a large number of customers who want to use Spotify and all the, I dunno, the signals about doing that, looking like the cool kid, but there's a lot of other people in the audience that likes simplicity. They like being able to establish what the brand is and what Apple music. And it may not be as good. Some of it will be as good as Spotify, but they like simplicity. They like going to one company that provides all of these solutions. One umbrella, one brand that I think is as a strategy is going to work out pretty well for Jobvite. Chad (19m 47s): Yeah. Joel (19m 48s): Most people don't want to think, gee, I need SMS, but who really do I use to do that? I think they'd rather just provide, you know, buy one solution and just have SMS. They don't need to get Canvas or Text Recruit or anyone else. And this is the route that that Jobvite is taking. It also is a great way to control the process in terms of shielding startups from coming in and mucking up the system, for example. So if you have a texting solution that works really well in your marketplace and they get acquired by a competitor, well that creates a whole mess for you. Joel (20m 28s): It's much better to get people on your solutions, keep them in your ecosystem and kind of keep everyone out of the mix. So good for Jobvite. Chad (20m 41s): Unification aiss part of the natural maturation process for any ecosystem. So I like the separation of the three big brands, especially JazzHR, Jobvite, because keeping Jazz and Jobvite, siloed will guard against what happened to iCIMS and Taleo when they created SMB versions under the same brand. Both of those died. iCIMS small business died. And then the Taleo brands for the SMB died as well, because they were altogether really not siloed enough. Jobvite at this point has an organic lead machine with JazzHR. So I like what they're doing. Joel (21m 19s): Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, we mentioned Dan Finnegan in the shout-outs and you know, this was not sort of an overnight thing. I would go back to Dan Finnegan, you know, buying up Canvas and some others that this road has been formulating for a long time. So it's kind of cool to see it come to fruition, going way back to when Finnegan was running the show. Chad (21m 18s): Yup. Fun to watch. Joel (21m 37s): All right. Let's take a quick break. We are rolling on this episode and we'll talk a little bit about jeez PPC costs and lawsuits. All right, Chad, none of this will surprise you, but it continually is depressing. So some interesting data came out recently, our friend, Roy Mauer reported at Shrm that the candidate drop-off rate for people who click apply, but never complete an application is a whopping 92%. sfx (22m 18s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (22m 19s): According to programmatic solution app cast, it turns out job application flow has improved, but there's still too many steps involved in getting applicants to the finish line. Where have we heard this one before? Again, none of this is breaking news, but it also piggybacks nicely on another study that says cost per click on job applications has risen by 54%. Chad (22m 49s): Oh yeah. Joel (22m 50s): This data also comes from our friends at app cast who examined 165 million job ad clicks and 8 million applies spend over 50% more to see 90 plus percent of job seekers that click apply to go bye bye. Chad what's that definition of insanity again? Chad (23m 8s): Yeah. So here's the thing. And I got to point this out, cause you got suckered big time by Home Depot. Seriously, so you thought they grasped the brass ring with a chincy 24 hour offer, right? You fell for their marketing hype bro because Home Depot's application process is shit. And if you can't get the people to apply, guess what? You can't get them the fucking offer. So you got suckered on that one. Anyways, this is not, I repeat, this is not the fault of most tech stacks that are out there. This is an HR and TA department issue. They're known to the real world and it's kicking them square in the nuts. Chad (23m 50s): So this, as you, as you had actually said, this high rate of ejection is costing them more on the programmatic side of the house. So if you just got your fucking house in order and you made it easy for people to give you the information that you need, not that you want that take them through 5 to 30 minutes of an application process, then you wouldn't have to spend so much on PPC, right? You wouldn't have to spend as much on, on pay-per-click, on, you know, paper application, any of that shit. So, you know, this to me is again, talent acquisition needs to look themselves in the eyes, in the mirror and say, look, we fucked up our application process, which means it's costing us an arm and a fucking leg. Joel (24m 37s): Sure. And just clicks, not even the missed opportunities to hire people that could really impact your organization. So these aren't clicks to see job descriptions, by the way, these are people that are actually clicking apply. So there's a desire to like make a transaction here. These are people that want to finish the process. So this study to me helps confirm the fact that the process is obviously broken. I think a lot of it falls on the ATS in most of these cases. Now I agree that customers of ATSs have really created complexities that don't need to be there. And I think ATS has have been, I don't know, weak in terms of pushing back on companies to make things easier. Joel (25m 24s): They're more interested in keeping retention and keeping companies writing them checks. But ultimately like to me that there's no shock that companies looking to disrupt that system are gaining some steam in contrast to the ATS industrial complex. You have companies like Paradox who are touting application completion rates in the 90 percentiles. Chad (25m 43s): Yes! Joel (25m 43s): Right. So there, there seems to be an obvious divide here. It's either drop off of 90% or completion of 90%, which one would you rather be involved with? So to me, like, you know, chat bots continue to be the biggest threat to the traditional ATS infrastructure just for that reason. And it looks like it's being more and more supported by data every day. So it's really, is it just a matter of time before companies realize let's stop just spending money to try to figure out the problem and let's just make the process more organic. And it seems like chat bots are the, on the front line of making that happen. Chad (26m 23s): Yeah. That's process and engagement right? Entirely. And if you are dealing with a new, let's say for instance, core talent platform. I mean, Paradox is, is evolving from a conversational AI platform to a core talent platform. And we're going to see many others, like we even heard Anoop say that he's not going to do that. I call bullshit. I see SeekOut doing the exact same thing because they can actually get more applications through at a much higher rate, which means a couple of different things. First and foremost, you can leverage the candidates you've already paid for. Yeah. Remember those, the millions of dollars you spent for those assholes. Yeah. You can go after them first, who were in your candidate database, then number two, at that point, if your process is better and you're getting higher completion, then guess what? Chad (27m 11s): You don't have to spend as much money on trying to drag people in right now, talent acquisition should be smacked square in the face, fired, whatever it might, whatever it takes to be able to get their shit straight because it's not right. Joel (27m 25s): Amen. Amen. You know, the easier thing is to just spend more money, but it's also the laziest thing that you can do. And I call on companies to really dig into their processes and fix this shit and start saving a lot of money in the process. Chad (27m 42s): Well, and I want to point out. These hiring companies can point at programmatic vendors and say, these guys are charging us so much more, 43%, 54% increase from last year. But guess what? Assholes, if you had your shit tight, if your process was tight and you had less ejection, this wouldn't be a problem. You are your own problem. Stop pointing fingers. Joel (28m 3s): By the way, what's the over-under on number of years that you keep bringing up the Home Depot, I'm going to go three years, three and a half years over/under. Chad (28m 11s): You. Give me way too much credit. I don't have that much brain power to remember that shit. Joel (28m 15s): Yeah. Once you go to Portugal, you're going to be checked out on all this shit, which is coming soon. Apparently. Well, someone else who's going to be spending a lot of money it sounds like is our friends at HireVue? This one's a little old, a couple months old, I think, but it's not like there was a press release on this stuff. So video interviewing platform, HireVue faces a proposed class action lawsuit over its alleged practice of collecting job applicants biometric information, without first providing statutory disclosures and obtaining informed consent. sfx (29m 0s): Boooo Joel (29m 1s): Listeners will remember Illinois outlawed this practice. The law provides for statutory damages of 5,000 for each willful and or reckless violation, and alternatively damages of $1,000 for each negligent violation. The plaintiff applied for a job with Varsity Tutors through HireVue's platform in 2019, per the case HireVue violated the plaintiff's quote, "substantive state rights to biometric information privacy" end quote. Chad (29m 34s): Ouch. Joel (29m 35s): This one could really cost. Chad thoughts. Chad (29m 40s): So HireVue has a new slogan, "HireVue, the ultimate bias machine." So this one's from classaction.org quote, "HireVue has allegedly represented that facial expressions make up 29% of the job applicants, employability score" end quote. I find this completely fucking repulsive to think that an algorithm could standardize the entire human race through facial movements is fucking absurd. This to me is, again, an ultimate bias machine. Federal government really needs to step in because if you don't live in Illinois, if you're not a resident of Illinois, you are not going to be able, I don't believe you're going to be able to actually partake in this suit. Chad (30m 24s): And you know, more than just the residents of Illinois have been impacted by this bias machine. sfx (30m 29s): That was easy. Joel (30m 31s): So facial recognition and analyzing facial responses in the hiring process, it to me is officially dead now. No matter what happens with this case, which will likely be settled out of court, more states are going to introduce laws like Illinois, if not federal legislation. No vendor is going to want this smoke and no company is going to use such services for risks of lawsuits. Varsity Tutors, better hope that they don't get sued in this lawsuit and every company that is a HireVue client. It was a cute idea, I guess, initially that no one really thought through. And now it's well on its way to being dead and privacy advocates obviously are satisfied with this activity. Joel (31m 17s): And it probably is not the end of the lawsuits, but it probably is the end of this technology rearing its ugly head in the hiring process. Chad (31m 26s): Agreed. And again, the only thing that we can do at this point is try to poke and prod politicians to do something about this, to put, to put guard rails in place nationwide, to ensure that this shit doesn't happen again. It's fucking repulsive and it is literally the basis of bias. Joel (31m 44s): Let's take a quick break and bring the temperature down a little bit with some OnlyFans news. Oh Chad (31m 50s): Yeah. Joel (31m 50s): All right. Chad. Chad (31m 51s): Did you finally start your OnlyFans account. Is that what this is about? Joel (31m 58s): I'm waiting for the war to end. I'm a little bit too emotional about all that. So. Chad (32m 8s): I agree. Joel (32m 9s): On that note you've probably heard there is a war going on. Everyone hates Russia right about now, I guess. And, and company after company is putting the financial squeeze on mother Russia. Well add Chad and Cheese fav OnlyFans to the list. From the New York Post adult entertainers in Russia have been blocked from OnlyFans and mid financial sanctions imposed upon the country, following its invasion of Ukraine. One X-rated model claimed she lost over $8,000 US dollars amid the ban. Oh, the humanity. Fortunately Chad cooler and hornier heads have prevailed. Joel (32m 50s): We've seen this before. The OnlyFans confirmed on Monday that it has been able to quote, restore account activity for creators in all countries, following financial restrictions. Rejoice. I say, yeah, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, maybe Russian OnlyFans model bunny mommy. I'm sure that's not her real name said it best when she said quote, "blocking bank accounts of peaceful, Russian people blocking working pages and freezing income won't help Ukraine." Bravo, bunny mommy, Bravo. And in other OnlyFans news, Russia and model bad kitty, again, probably not, her birth name has said she'll have sex with any and every Russian soldier who defies Putin's invasion orders and said, quote, "new pricing on her site. Joel (33m 44s): One dead Russian equals one nude, one destroyed tank equals one video and one down jet I will sleep with you." New price guide for the war long live Ukraine as always Chad love prevails. Love prevails. Chad (33m 53s): Yeah. Yeah. Talk about bad marketing. Yeah. Send me pictures of dead Russians and I'll give you a blow job. I mean, that's just what the fuck dude? I get that those Russian ladies have nothing to do with the invasion, but what about the Ukrainian OnlyFans members who are on in the middle of a fucking war zone and can't create content and make money. You know, they're whining because oh, they shut us off. Well guess what? You're not being fucking shelled. Are you? I get it. But you take a look at the brands. OnlyFans is all about money, period. Right? Period. They shut down or they were going to quote unquote, "shut down" Chad (34m 33s): anything that was pornographic. And guess what happened? Yeah, there's too much money. So guess what? They turn that shit back on. I guarantee you, they looked at how much money was coming in from these Russian OnlyFans accounts. And this has nothing to do with those poor girls, right? This has to do with the bottom line. So unlike Airbnb, who doesn't give a fuck what their shareholders think because they're doing the right thing by their mission. OnlyFans is the literally the polar opposite. I think it's great that some of these girls have a safer place to actually make money instead of being groped by some old fuck. Right. But over overall, I mean, you've got to step up and stand for something and OnlyFans stands for one thing. Chad (35m 21s): And that's the fucking ruble. That's it bitch. Joel (35m 24s): What I'm hearing you say is don't hold your breath for the Chad and Cheese OnlyFans accounts. Is that what I'm hearing Chad? Chad (35m 33s): That's what I would say. Yes. sfx (35m 35s): That was easy. Joel and Chad (35m 37s): We out. OUTRO (35m 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.

We cover a lot of countries in Europe on this episode, which is why we brought Oana Iordachescu, a talent acquisition specialist at Wayfair - who's worked in just about every country while at places like Facebook, Booking.com and Criteo - on the show. Where to begin our journey? Of course, there's Ukraine and Russia, where a wide variety of corporations are pulling-out of Russia in light of the invasion. Then there's France, where Macron has started his reelection campaign, and to Germany where Zenjob has nabbed significant funding; then we head to the UK where they're humanizing the prison system and to Spain, where it's a tale of two cities, where the educated are happily employed, while the uneducated young are in dire straits. Want more? One of the cohosts has been banned on Reddit! ...and of course, Lieven continues his love affair for Elon Musk. INTRO (5s): Some podcasts, do it for the fun. Some do it for the fame, Chad and Cheese they do it for global effin domination. That's why bringing America to its knees was just the beginning. Now they have their eyes set on conquering Europe and they've drafted industry veteran Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze of Belgium to help them navigate the old country and bring HR's most dangerous podcast across the pond to trash-talk like never before. Not safe for work in any language. The Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. Joel (39s): Yeah. With war raging, a pair of Ukrainian civilian soldiers were married in Kyiv on Sunday, flanked by their fellow soldiers. A little light in the darkness, people that's what you'll find here. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "all you need is love" Cheeseman. Chad (58s): This is Chad "no fly zone" Sowash. Lieven (60s): And I'm Lieven "banned from Reddit" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 4s): And on this episode, the world embraces the pull-out method, a little less anarchy in the UK and more Ilon love from our favorite Belgian. Let's do this. sfx (1m 16s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 19s): Okay. I got, I gotta to know how did Lieven get banned from Reddit? Out of all of us! Banned from Reddit! How'd that happen? Lieven (1m 28s): I suggested that someone put a fire on the beard of one Chechen terrorist, and they claim that's asking for violence. And that's a reason to ban me from Reddit. sfx (1m 37s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Lieven (1m 41s): I mean, with a beard like that, he was asking for it, Joel (1m 45s): Our listenership just ten Xd on that news. That we have a co-host that's been banded by Reddit. That's fantastic for ratings. Lieven (1m 54s): Yup. Chad (1m 54s): Let's see what the mystery guests has to give us. I'm wondering if she's been banned from Reddit, Joel (1m 59s): She maybe gone at this point. Chad (2m 0s): Yeah. That's a good point. It's a good point. So today we have head of TA tech in the EU for Wayfair. Welcome to the show. Oana Iordachescu I know I just totally mutilated your name. Oana (2m 18s): Yes. I was Just going to leave because you didn't handle that one well. Chad (2m 23s): Damn it. I'm trying. Oana (2m 24s): In the practice folks he did pretty well so I give you that. Joel (2m 31s): The cash cow. Chad (2m 32s): Tell us a little bit more about you. Humbled beginnings and Romania. Tell us about Oana. Oana (2m 38s): Yes. Do I have to, I think I'm lucky with this type of job. It's a bit like developers you can go anywhere. So hi everyone. Oana Iordachescu here, indeed originally from Romania started in talent acquisition technology has been my bread and butter for the past 10 years. And then I managed to actually move to Dublin, Ireland where I worked with Facebook, moved to Amsterdam a bunch of years after with booking.com and had the opportunity to build an AI lab, a specific team in Paris. And I'm in Berlin working with Wayfair and building an amazing team. So thank you for having me on the show. Joel (3m 15s): Oana has some skills son. Chad (3m 17s): What's your favorite place you've lived thus far? Oana (3m 20s): People always ask me this and I do not have one, but I would say this, if you are a family, kind of, if you're going to have a family oriented person go to Amsterdam. Indeed, baby-making city. Right? For sure. But if you're like sports, go to Dublin, if you like fun then go to Berlin, Paris, like you can find your thing anywhere. Right. So find your thing. Chad (3m 47s): Yeah. Yeah. I didn't hear you say Portugal anywhere. Is that next? Are you going to go to Portugal next? Oana (3m 57s): Who told you that? Joel (3m 57s): Chad knows. Oana (3m 58s): No, I'm kidding. But to be honest, Lisbon is one of my favorite cities. Chad (4m 1s): Excellent. Well, Cheeseman, you want to get in to them? Shout outs? Joel (4m 5s): Speaking of sexiness, I got a shout out for everybody. My shout-out goes to Emmanuel Macron. Chad (4m 16s): Macron. Joel (4m 17s): Macron. Not since DeGaulle have Americans known of the French prime minister as much as him. So, last week, Emmanuel Macron announced he would run for a second term in April's French election, seeking a mandates to steer the Eurozone second largest economy through the fallout from Ukraine and COVID. If successful, he would be the first French leader in two decades to win reelection. I like his style. He's a bit of a pit bull on Putin. And he put the smack down on the non-vaxers by saying no café for you. French leaders are largely invisible to us Americans, but Macron has stood out. Good luck in April mon frere, shout out to Emmanuel Macron. Chad (4m 59s): Imagine that. So, Lieven and Oana, what are your thoughts of Macron versus kind of like the other European leaders? He has stuck out a lot, but is that not just because he's just a good looking guy, kind of like Canada, you don't really remember anything about Canada, but they get a good look in Justin Trudeau and then, you know, he seems to be everywhere. So what are your thoughts? Oana (5m 26s): Definitely beauty bias. We all know it's real. Right? Chad (5m 31s): It is! Oana (5m 31s): Do you remember who was before. Nobody knows. Right? Chad (5m 36s): Right, yeah. Oana (5m 37s): So to be honest, I am very curious because his competitors, I'm not a big fan of Macron, but I'm even a less fan of the others. I'll just close it there. Joel (5m 49s): Why are you not a fan of Macron? Chad (5m 52s): He's french. Joel (5m 53s): He's french. Oana (5m 54s): France is big and very diverse. Right. And I think his approach is very much we have this white, rich dudes, which I need to serve kind of situation and not the rest. Sorry. Chad (6m 8s): What about you Lieven that's that seems like it's gone right down your lane? Joel (6m 11s): You live next to Macron don't you Lieven? Lieven (6m 13s): Yeah, that's pretty close. I was in Paris last week. I didn't see him, but we don't frequent the same places I guess. The only thing I know about Macron is that he is into old women, that's mostly. Chad (6m 32s): Older women. Joel (6m 35s): Let's not piss off every demographic on this show. Oana (6m 38s): He likes to be taught some lessons. Let's put it like that. Chad (6m 41s): There you go. I love that. Joel (6m 41s): We all like to be taught some lessons. Chad (6m 43s): I don't know that we've had that sound effect, played that many times on a podcast alone just the intro. Joel (6m 51s): We've never had Oana under cash cow on your show. Chad (6m 54s): Lieven you got a shout out? Lieven (6m 57s): Yep. Shout out to Elon Musk. Of course. Chad (7m 0s): Go figure. Lieven (7m 0s): For getting a building permit today for his new factory. And a fun part is he started building three years ago saying, and I quote, "we can't wait for those German bureaucrats to give us a permit" end quote. sfx (7m 19s): Hell yeah! Joel (7m 19s): Ilon spreading his love all across Europe. I'm so excited! Lieven (7m 24s): I love him. Elon for president Joel (7m 28s): Of the world. Chad (7m 28s): Shout out to Zenjob, a gig marketplace platform, targeting students and others, looking for side hustles in sectors like retail, logistics, hospitality operating in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. They just received 46 million euros and series D taking their total funding to about 98.4 million euros. Zenjob says they will use the money to further expand into Europe. So we've talked about platforms like Job and Talent who now go figure have a shit ton of cash. Zenjob is literally another one of these types of platforms based out of Germany. Personally, I think this is the staffing industries operating system of the near future. Chad (8m 12s): What do you think Lieven? So you're in the whole staffing piece of the world? Lieven (8m 18s): Today. It's better to be a stuffing platform than a staffing company. It's good for the value of valuation how you say it? Is the higher value. Chad (8m 31s): Well, here's a great quote from the article on TechCrunch, "we have roughly 75% fully automated processes. And our aim is to get north of 95% in the near future" end quote. So this is what staffing looks like, right? I mean, tech to drive quick replacements, less head count and more margin, obviously. So, I mean, this is organizations like House of HR, investing in actually developing your own perspectively acquiring, this to me, looks like what every staffing company has to do. Joel (9m 4s): What's the valuation on those guys? Chad (9m 7s): Good question. Joel (9m 8s): Well, I'm getting tired of not plan the unicorn soundbites. So goddammit people let's get that cash register flowing again. Cause I'm missing the pink fluffy unicorns. That's just me probably. Lieven (9m 16s): Yeah, it just kind of catchy. Chad (9m 20s): We got events coming up, right? Joel (9m 22s): This is where Lieven it's time to shine, man. Lieven. You got some event coming up soon. Lieven (9m 30s): Ah, that already mentioned it erecruitment Congress House of HR's organizing on the sixth of May in Ostend, Belgium. We lost COVID, we got Putin, but you're still welcome. Joel (9m 41s): And Lieven if someone wants to sponsor that event, are you accepting sponsors at this point? Lieven (9m 47s): From time to time? I am, but I'm very, very picky. Chad (9m 50s): Did those cheapskates over at LinkedIn finally sponsor. I mean, this seems like a no brainer for them Lieven (9m 56s): Of course, because if you take into account a huge contract we just signed with LinkedIn you'd would be all over me trying to get me, offering them a contract to sponsor, but let's say they starting and do it and we might have a bigger one next year, but I'm welcoming them anyway. Thank you LinkedIn for sponsoring our Congress. Joel (10m 18s): Sorry. I got to ask we have a TA pro on the line. Oana give us your thoughts on LinkedIn? Are you a fan? Do you like it better than Macron? Like where are you on the LinkedIn spectrum? Oana (10m 36s): It does the job. Right? So while it it's becoming quite monopolistic, I would say, is that a good word? Is that a word? Joel (10m 42s): Very much so. Oana (10m 44s): Yeah. I mean, you can't debate it. Right? Many people use it, then everybody would be like, oh, but you should use anything else. Yeah. Yeah. We all need it. Joel (10m 55s): It's the drug they all need Chad. No, one's getting off it. Chad (10m 58s): It's the cocaine man. That's the cocaine. Joel (11m 0s): Life is good at LinkedIn. Lieven? Lieven (11m 3s): But I know I really liked LinkedIn. I mean, there's nothing as good as LinkedIn when it comes to a self-sustainable databases. So I must say thank you, LinkedIn. Your product is okay. It could be better, but every product can be better. And next time you will sponsor more but I'm happy you sponsor already. So welcome LinkedIn. Chad (11m 27s): Welcome LinkedIn. And we have July RecruitFest is happening. July 6th. Knebworth Park. Yeah. If you are in Europe and you're not going to Belgium for the erecruitment Congress, you're not going to RecFest, what are you doing? It's time to get the hell back out there. Let's do this erecruitment-congress.com or just type in RecFest 2022 into Google and get registered for both events. Topics! Joel (11m 56s): All right. Let's talk about Russia. Shall we that's come out in the news? I haven't heard this much about pulling out since my days at Sigma Kai. All right. We know governments are putting the smack down on Russia in light of their invasion of Ukraine, but corporations are going hard to the hole too. Here's a list of some of the most prominent boycotts impacting Russia. New today, as we record this on a Monday China-based TikTok said it was suspending live-streaming in Russia, Microsoft suspends all new sales, Apple said no more iPhones for you and blocked Apple pay as well as its streaming service. Joel (12m 36s): Electronic arts said no FIFA '22. I hear soccer's kind of popular in Russia. Ikea has closed its 17 stores. Russia is its 10th largest market so there's a little pain on that one. Chad's favorite Air Mez has closed all its stores. Nike has said no more Air Jordans. Netflix has gone black. Airbnb has taken away the welcome mat. Spotify has turned down the volume to zero. Mercedes BMW and Harley Davidson have sped away. Boeing and Airbus have flown the coop. Who are we still waiting on? McDonald's, Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Whew. Capitalism has stepped up everyone. What do you take away from this? Joel (13m 16s): And most importantly, who's ready to boycott the Big Mac? Oana (13m 19s): How do you see this from there? Right? You see all these massive corporations, which are chipping away a bit out their yearly budget, quite a bit here and there. Right? And as we, the sanctions, we just, I even hear like for me, I don't necessarily see how people feel or feel this impact, right? Like we don't hear interviews with them. I don't necessarily see a lot of communication from the ground. So in a way we will say we've done all these things, but are they done implemented today? What's the effect expected? Because in my opinion, a lot of people who shouldn't suffer from this are suffering from this. And I'm not sure if it actually hits Putin in any way. Chad (13m 58s): So I mean sanctions and these companies pulling out or like a boa constrictor doesn't kill its prey quickly, but ever so slowly. And then, you know, life has obviously squeezed out of it. The problem is the life being, obviously, those poor people in Russia because yes, Putin still getting fed, right? He still has the silver spoon, but the question is what can we do to be able to make it harder on him? And one of the things that I noted that that Joel didn't mention is that Disney and Warner Brothers are suspending their release of The Batman. Joel (14m 39s): Good point. Chad (14m 41s): Yep. Right. To Russia, US his biggest export is pop culture. Russia loves pop culture, US pop culture, right? Knowing that this is not bad for Putin. And Putin probably loves this because getting less Americanized is exactly what he wants. But yeah, but this is, this is again, trying to, I think, unsettle the mass population over there to actually do something about this. Joel (15m 3s): No Batman or Buzz Lightyear for you, Russia. Sorry about that. So, yeah, dude, we are connected more than ever before. Capitalism is a big part of that. Russians don't want to go back or at least younger ones don't want to go back to the days of the USSR. They want iPhones, they want Starbucks. And of course they want TikTok. If you're going to stop the war to me, it's becoming more evident that internal pressure may be the best way to ouster Putin. We're seeing this with protests in Russia, which is a huge risk to the protesters, by the way, a lot of them are in jail and probably some of them are dead. And watching businesses take a place besides government or beside government to me is real inspiring. You know, all oligarchs, losing yachts and football teams on this on one side, and then everyday Russians losing Nike's and Netflix on the other may prove more powerful than bombs. Joel (15m 52s): When all, when all of a sudden done in this. Lieven (15m 55s): Nope, I totally agree. I think it's double, you have the 150 million Russians who are getting annoyed because they come to whatever they were doing anymore. And you can be all the Putin you want to be, if 150 million Russians are annoyed, you better behave. Chad (16m 13s): Yes. Lieven (16m 13s): And then there are those 20 or something oligarchs, which are billionaires. And I can imagine it must be extremely frustrating. You've been stealing from the people for 20 years. And then at last you're a billionaire and you have to drive a Lada because Mercedes and BMW aren't delivering anymore in Russia, or you have a yachts and the people are getting your yachts chained. So it's no fun at all being a billionaire anymore. So I think those two groups of 20 billionaires and there are 150 million Russians, if they collaborate, Putin's got a problem. That's the whole idea. Oana (16m 43s): Do you think for the fans of Elon Musk. Maybe he'll pop in with a big offering, right? Like if all the big car brands are pulling out, he can make a lot of sales? But all in all, I think it's a very interesting sign of solidarity from this massive corporations that we haven't seen before in any other context at this scale. I think it will all be cool to watch for the next, hopefully not long, right? But I'm curious if this lasts for months, maybe a year, who knows, would they keep their position? Chad (17m 12s): Going to be a lot of pressure and it's not going to happen overnight. And in the US we are all, I mean, we're a part of the 24 hour news craziness. And it's like, you know, we look for things to happen too quick. This is a boa constructor in this case. But I have to say shout out to Grammarly. Their Ukrainian board and founders will donate all of their net revenue earned from Russia and Belarus since the war started in 2014, through 2022. So creating a $5 million fund, its founder said in a statement. Over the past week, Grammarly has already given $1 million to Ukraine humanitarian groups. Chad (17m 55s): So big names stepping up, either pulling out or giving. Lieven (18m 1s): Well, I think Putin called it's almost a declaration of war. All those punishments, all those sanctions. So it must be hurting in some sort of a way. And the Russian space agents said something like we won't sell you any more rockets, you can fly to the ISS space station on a broomstick. So it must be getting on their nerves some way or another. Yeah, but I'm sure Elon Musk will call us next SpaceX model the broomstick. So the questions will be right after all. Russians are trying to head back and just a few hours ago, they published a list of states they consider unfriendly and friendly towards Russia. And I looked at the lists and it's quite a long list of many states are unfriendly, but Belgium was not on it. Lieven (18m 48s): I mean, San Marino is on it, and Iceland is on it. Canadians are on it. Belgium is not on it. It's insulting. I think he should reconsider. Joel (19m 0s): If only you could take to Reddit to this Russia to get on that list. But unfortunately Lieven (19m 5s): I've been banned from Reddit. This is a great day. Joel (19m 10s): Real quickly too guys, obviously companies in Russia are feeling the pain from all this and just real quickly in our industry. Another frozen stock belongs to the leading recruitment marketplace in Russia, Head Hunter group. The NASDAQ listed company has not yet provided any official statements on the impact of the crisis on its current activities. Its share price however has nosedived around 67% since mid February. If you don't know Head Hunter, they run numerous recruitment sites across former Soviet bloc countries. However, they are not in Ukraine and its business may be affected if some of these countries decide to take punitive measures against Russian companies. Joel (19m 50s): So if you're a Head Hunter group shareholder, you're feeling a lot of pain around now. sfx (19m 53s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (19m 57s): All right, let's talk a little anarchy in the UK or in this case, a little less anarchy hopefully. The UK gets smart, it's about time, with its prisons. Britain's first "smart" that's in quotes, prison design with smart technology and with no bars on windows, windows opened recently, it's a project expected to drive down crime and create job opportunity. Or what else is new? Cells will be called rooms. Prisoners will be called residents and the 1700 capacity prison will also feature a gym, snooker table, you haven't played snooker in a while, table tennis and a computer tablet to help prisoners gain new qualifications and skills. Joel (20m 42s): This is the first jail in the country to have been designed with education, training and jobs for prisoners on release as its main purposes. Okay, everyone, is this the future of prisons or is the UK getting too soft on crime? Lieven (20m 58s): Go to your room. A whole new explanation. I'm kind of a fan. I like it. I mean, at House of HR we have a project that's a non-profit organization called job routes and we try to match inmates with companies and an actual job interview. Chad (21m 12s): Nice. Lieven (21m 12s): Yeah, it's really nice. I like it. And the job interviews are taking place in prison, when the people are still in prison. So the moment they get out, they have a job and we have some clients who are really open to this and who go to the prison to talk to those inmates. And it's important for a self-esteem or we can offer them a prospect. Some kind of future. Joel (21m 30s): How long have you been doing this? Lieven (21m 32s): A few years already. Do you have any numbers around it? I could check them out. I don't know them by heart, but maybe we should get back on this. I could invite the CEO of the project to have a talk. Joel (21m 44s): That's fantastic. Didn't know about that. That's great. Lieven (21m 45s): So yeah, I'm a believer. I think it's a good idea. And I know it's the American way to be as harsh as possible on inmates, but I don't think that's the way. I once saw a documentary, is that the name of a television show on jails in the United States? And there was the president of the jail. How do you call him the director? And he sat, he was very proud. He said, my dogs get $3 a day fruits and the inmates only $1 a day. And it made them feel really good indeed. And I thought, damn, that's not human at all. Chad (22m 22s): Welcome to America. Oana (22m 23s): Everyday, interesting project. And for Europe, European countries, we do see this quite a bit. A lot of countries are actually Sweden, even Germany, a bit, they start saying we actually don't have enough prisoners because the focus is so much on rehabilitation, reintegration in society. If we talk about let's say longer sentences and how you actually disconnect and dissociate. So this is interesting. What is this distinguishing this from let's say current other prisons, which I would say they're very social and again, focused on education. Is the smart thing, this, I didn't really get Chad like when Joel, what do they mean by the smart prison? Oana (23m 3s): Is it because there's more technology in it or I'm actually a bit curious there. Chad (23m 8s): Yeah. I mean, that's part of it. That's part of it. I mean, it's not just a smart prison because of the technology that they're using, but they are, it's also smart because they're training people to go back to work. And here's some numbers. In the UK, 75% of inmates re-offended within nine years of release and 39.3% within the first 12 months, the US has one of the highest recidivism rates at a 76.6% of prisoners who are rearrested within five years. And then you take a look at countries like Norway who are at 20%. Chad (23m 49s): Right. And we've got to ask ourselves, what in the hell are we doing wrong? Oana (23m 54s): Quite a bit. Chad (23m 55s): Yeah. Yeah. And I think in just to throw this out there real quick, if you go to Netflix, look for 13th, that is the documentary. It might've been the documentary that you saw Lieven. I've watched it probably three times and it is amazing, but it's called 13th. Lieven (24m 13s): Could be, I'm not sure. Oana (24m 14s): I'm not sure unless I'm bingeing now on a Netflix show called For Life. And, it has like the warden, then you were saying live in the, the warden in this prison. Lieven (24m 28s): Yes that is the word I am looking for worden. Oana (24m 29s): Is trying to push reforms and focus on act like it's a rehab processes inside the prisons, which usually are like a big drug consumption place, but education as well, and cultural awareness and everything like that. So yeah. Watch the show, read the article. It will be interesting to see a new era of treating this topic. It shouldn't be down to just correction and punishment, but reintegration and access to community. Right? So kudos to them. Let's say so. Joel (24m 59s): Yeah, this is going to be a European phenomenon for the foreseeable future. America loves its jails. America loves locking up people and with private jails, people are making a lot of money from having people in prison. So yeah, that, I think we look to Europe to kind of set the standard, but in my opinion, like this working is incredibly important. And if it doesn't work, it's going to derail humanizing prisons for decades to come. Whether it's in Europe or in America. They're launching six prisons in this experiment and they're spending, I think a whopping 4 billion pounds to see that this works. Lieven (25m 34s): That's a lot. Joel (25m 34s): The government hopes to create thousands of jobs for local communities while rehabilitating thousands of offenders and keeping the public safe. So to me, the stakes are incredibly high that this works. They're spending a lot of money, you know, they're choosing a lot of prisons to make this happen. So I'm certainly rooting for them. And I know everyone on this call as well, prisons need to be more human. We need to think more about, you know, drug abuse and mental health and things like that. It should be a goal for every community, but it's also a political minefield when you do this and people want to be reelected. And when you talk about the security of communities, that's kind of high on people's minds when they reelect their politicians. So there's a lot at stake here. Joel (26m 14s): A lot of minds that can be stepped on, and I'm hoping that this works out well for everybody. And this is a trend that, that continues in Europe and hopefully within the rest of the world and eventually to the good old United States. Chad (26m 31s): Yeah. Well, I think what we're seeing here is, is there's no question the US has the biggest population of incarcerated individuals in the world per capita. But as we talk to the CEO of his 70 million jobs project, he'd said, you know, we're getting to the point here in the US where, you know, when they become us. And there are so many people who are actually in jail and prison, incarcerated that we're starting to see the impact and the actual, you know, human beings here in the US who are not in jail we know somebody who were touched by this, right? So I think this is going to be a big change. Chad (27m 12s): And you know, the US obviously needs to watch this very closely since we are the worst country in the world, when it comes to prisons and recidivism. Prisons should be used as incubators for countries in helping retrain and place those citizens back into their communities. Lieven (27m 28s): That's right. Chad (27m 29s): Right? So all of these, these people who are quote unquote, "afraid" they've bought into this fucking boogeyman for too goddamn long, because politicians wanted to be able to make money on these private jails and prisons. Now, all that shit is touching regular Americans. It's starting to change, and hopefully we'll be able to change like the Europe in the UK. Lieven (27m 49s): Okay, true. And if you say it costs a whopping $4 billion, that's enormous. So at least they can try to give something back to the economy and to the community and retrain those people. If you're detained for, let's say three, four or five years, it's a perfect moment to study. So I'm not saying you should a rescale a burglar to become a locksmith or anything. Let's say the owner of a crack lab to become a pharmacist assistant. That would be cool. But it's just a perfect moment to give those people the opportunity to study and to make something out of their lives. Yeah. Joel (28m 24s): Yeah. I'm curious. Oana, you've worked for a wide variety of companies. Were any of the companies you worked for was their initiative to employ former prisoners, or was there any chatter or talk about doing that? Any experience with this from the employment or the employer level? Oana (28m 42s): Pretty much where I've been being in very focused tech companies? I think the only, let's say community driven where the impact was really high, where I more refugee reincorporation, reeducation, or even providing language, internships and so on. But I think when we talk more about the businesses that have, as we let's say, for example, Amazon, right? And I think these organizations are starting to launch some initiatives when it comes to more a manual jobs or things that require a different path, but there's so much opportunity there. Right? I think we just don't explore it enough. Oana (29m 24s): And from my experience, at least in this, for example, when the refugee, the municipalities and the governments are so poorly prepared to provide this bridge of communication. So incorporating I don't know even databases, figuring out how to interview people in this, it's such a cumbersome process. And I hope that would be worked as well because there's no way to reach and get an answer that would say, oh yeah, let's start this. It's always like, mm let's talk next year, or this is not ready, or we don't encourage you to do that, which is crazy. Right? Chad (30m 1s): So, I mean, in his quote from the NDTV article "with 24 workshops in a large number of classrooms, residents will take part in formal learning courses, qualifications, and on the job training in areas, including coding, car maintenance, forklift, truck maintenance, plumbing, and engineering." Now think of that. Those are all things that we need at least I know that we here in the US. You guys need them over there as well. Think of the opportunity to pivot as necessary to, again, to be able to teach these individuals a vocation that they can step right out and they can jump right into a job. I mean, that to me is important. And when you think about it, if an individual can't find a job after they've been incarcerated, they've done their time. Chad (30m 41s): They can't find a job. They have to put food on the family's table. They have to have a roof over their family. What are they going to do? They're going to go back to what they know, and that's going to put them back in prison. We've got to give them options and we're not giving them options. Joel (31m 4s): Amen. Well, from the UK, let's jump down to Spain. This is from the FT, that's the Financial Times, Chad, in case you didn't know. This was a headline, "the Spanish paradox, why jobs are booming as the economy lags". It's not just clickbait everybody. Like the headline reads Spain created more than a third of all Eurozone jobs created last year. That's pretty impressive, but the economy remains in the doldrums. On one side, more people are now employed by sectors such as health, IT, and social services than was the case when COVID-19 hit just under two years ago. So what's the problem? Joel (31m 44s): Well, tourism for one last year, the number of foreign tourists visiting Spain and the money they spent were down more than 60% on 2019 levels. Additionally working hours are down because of fear the economy won't ever improve and high unemployment among young people is a major issue with youth unemployment at 31%. All right, everyone, what do you make of this situation? What's the solution? And is it maybe a good time to go visit Spain and goose that decline in tourism? Oana (32m 18s): I just say "Wow" for the youth unemployment. That's very dangerous, right? Like what is happening? Because, I mean, I'm sure there is a chain reaction from education access in certain cities. I think Spain is going through what we've seen a bit in the UK or Germany. A lot of these new jobs are being created in just specific areas. It's been huge. Right. So if you don't, let's say balance out accessibility to interesting jobs or balanced through the level of education. A lot of these new generations don't necessarily get to those ones. Like Spain is now importing talent in some areas, when we hear this comparing to the 30%, I'm like what's happening? Oana (33m 1s): Right. Joel (33m 2s): Yeah. And I think, you know, I think it's a real wake up call for them. They've relied so much on tourism, obviously. And to employ those young people in restaurants and hotels and resorts, and when all those things closed down, there's no safety net for those young folks. If you don't have an education in Spain, you are screwed. So it's a huge wake up call. And my fear is that the government is just hoping that the tourism comes back and that everyone starts spending money and hiring again. But if that doesn't happen or if something, a pandemic or war or something bad happens again, they're going to be in the same place. But so they really do need to think about education and their young people, when things go bad on the tourist side of things. Lieven (33m 47s): I agree. And you said something about the COVID, COVID creating some kind of an economic crisis, but you have to take into account. Spain was hit very hard by a crisis in 2008 and real estate market which was huge in Spain, mostly for tourism was overextended that crashed. Banks got into trouble. It was almost as bad as in Greece. And we have lots of financial support from European Union. And with some, how would I call it a discipline, which is something Spanish people don't always have. They got out of it, they got over the crisis and now they are pretty stable. So when COVID was hitting them, there was a setback, but it wasn't like the financial crisis because they have their basics right now. Lieven (34m 29s): The deficit on the budget is not, it's not gone, but it's in our control and things are going better. So I'm not surprised that they created so many jobs. But you are right youth unemployment is a great, great problem. And it's the same thing in Brussels, for example, where you have lots of people with a migration background, there was also a youth unemployment number of 30 percent in those circles. And that's a ticking time bomb because people who don't have the money and who are bored, they get into the smart prison. Joel (35m 3s): Where they finally get educated and get a good job. Lieven (35m 7s): Indeed. So the UK is going to solve all the problems. Joel (35m 12s): That's the cycle. Chad (35m 13s): And we'll do our best, our place. And Portugal is about 30 minutes from the Spanish border. So we'll go over. We'll spend some money there. Joel (35m 22s): Way to screw over the Spanish economy, Chad, buy your house in Portugal. Chad (35m 26s): It would help everything. So here in the US though, we're seeing major job growth due to earlier than expected retirement, lower numbers of immigrants, especially seasonal immigrants, mothers, still not fully back in the workplace and the list goes on. Are either one of you seeing the same issues in Europe? Are they just mainly are those just factors that are impacting the U S Oana (35m 50s): Those sound quite US focused things. I don't necessarily see this here. I think what's stopping people now is this concentration of, let's say good jobs or high volume of jobs in certain areas and certain cities. This has always been an issue, but I think pandemic makes hiring, like we are hiring from all over the world. And the anxiety is super high, when we ask people, this is your dream job. And they're like, I agree, but I do not want to take the risk of moving now and maybe being stuck there, not being able to visit my family for a year or two or who knows. Right? So it's a high level of anxiety for actually even migrating for jobs, right? Like even if it's within the same country, people don't want to take the risk or it's just too much unknown. Oana (36m 30s): Right? So this will continue, I suspect. This is a signal I would say to a lot of the organizations and just think more broadly around where they can find talent easier. It's going to be cheaper for them. You just need to be a bit mindful. Lieven (36m 45s): Yeah. Mobility, our job mobility. Isn't really growing at all and you're off. And there are many reasons. I mean, there are the languages. If you cross borders, you have to learn different languages in most cases. So that's the problem. And also there is just a real mobility. I don't like spending too much time in traffic and remote work as a possible solution. And it will evolve in that direction. But we'll see, it's not like in the US where we will have one economy, one giant country, one language, it's a different situation. Chad (37m 20s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Lieven (37m 25s): That's right. Chad (37m 25s): So, is remote work going to be part of the bridge to help out here? We see work trends, research provided by Textkernel, the following data was between 2018 and Q2 of 2021 around remote work. Netherlands jumped from 1.1% of remote jobs to 4.2 Belgium under 1% to 3.5. Spain before the pandemic, the possibility of remote work was hardly even mentioned in job ads, but in 2021, the percentage of jobs was 13 times higher than that of 2018. So we're seeing this huge growth. Do we think that this could perspectively help out the Spanish people, not just working in Spain, but working in Europe from Spain? Joel (38m 11s): I think it helps out, but I think that a lot of those jobs that are remote require, you know, education and certain skills that a lot of these young people apparently don't have, and they're relying on tourism and sort of local jobs to fill that void. So I think it could, but I think there's a bridge between education that's not being met that would fill those remote roles from my perspective. Lieven (38m 36s): Exact and the one Spanish guy I know Escano, he's a chief financial officer of House of HR, a great guy. He is, I think I don't want to insult him, but reaching 60. I think he's a bit older than I am. He once told me that the biggest gift you can offer your children is to invest in their education. I'm so certain it's true. And in Spain, it's probably even more true than here because the best universities, the most famous, not considered the best, but the most famous universities aren't situated in Spain. Chad (39m 14s): Yeah. Lieven (39m 14s): You're almost obliged to study abroad, which has extra expenses, et cetera. Joel (39m 19s): Go visit Spain, everybody. That's the takeaway. Lieven your next conference needs to be in Spain, maybe. Lieven (39m 27s): Okay. Okay. I'll consider it, maybe LinkedIn wants to sponsor more if I do it in Spain. Joel (39m 31s): There you go. LinkedIn, pay for a conference in Spain. Goddammit Oana (39m 34s): I'll do a shameless plug here. I'll be in Spain at a conference in June, Hired Barcelona. So they're starting. I think they're catching on the wave soon. Joel (39m 44s): There you go. Oana's starting the whole process. She's getting it rolling everybody. She's getting it rolling. Chad (39m 50s): Always give me a reason to go to Barcelona. Please call me. Love me some Barcelona. Joel (39m 55s): Well Oana, thanks for joining us. This has been so much fun and you've added so much to the conversation. If anyone wants to connect with you, where would you send them? Here's another LinkedIn plug coming. Oana (40m 14s): Exactly. Just LinkedIn. Joel (40m 16s): Got it. And everyone else, if you want to hear more European goodness, just head out to Chadcheese.com/Europe. Lieven and Chad, another one in the books. Chad, Joel and Lieven (40m 27s): We out. OUTRO (41m 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.

Tired of hearing about "ghosting" yet? Too bad! It's a serious issue, and employers who engage in the practice are really screwing things up in a wide variety of ways for the company. That's why we brought Jeff Shapiro, Sr. Director of Talent Acquisition at Radnet, to talk about his take on this growing epidemic. Listen up, Casper, there are no friendly ghosts. 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. It's your favorite degenerates? The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman joined as always by my partner in crime Chad Sowash and today we are just giddy to welcome Jeffrey Shapiro, Senior Director of TA at RadNet and also he's founding member of Hacking HR and HR on the House Club. Jeffrey, welcome to the show. I was disappointed that RadNet was not some cool gaming company. It's radiology. So your days must be exciting. Chad (55s): It's only life-saving that's it? Joel (57s): Yeah. It's actually moneymaking what Jeff does. It's good. Jeffrey (1m 0s): I love that. We're triple up trivializing healthcare. So thank you. Joel (1m 6s): The jokes will still be a funny in hell Jeff. I promise. Jeffrey (1m 9s): Very true. Listen, I'm proud to be a degenerate today. I love to do it. Chad (1m 13s): Excellent. Well, a little bit about you, Jeff, the long walks on the beach, what do you like to do? Can we get a little background? How'd you get into Radnets, not to mention, have you been ghosted lately? Jeffrey (1m 25s): I was actually ghosted this week by a TA partner we extended an offer to. Chad (1m 33s): Wow! Jeffrey (1m 34s): I get it. They disclosed it was my offer and another, the other, was a unicorn organization that they had been wanting to work at their entire life. So I'm anticipating they got that offer, but the ghosting just disappearing without an answer, kind of shocked me. What do I like to do? So I have a one-year old golden retriever, two daughters that are nine and six and they dominate my wife and my social calendar. We basically are at their b`eck and call riding, driving them around to gymnastics, ballet, et cetera. So I do not lead a very fun life. I am a hardcore sports fan. My Braves won the world series this year, tuned out on the NFL this year and gave up the NBA a very long time. Joel (2m 17s): Fair enough. He loves baseball. Jeffrey (2m 18s): I do. Joel (2m 18s): Everything else can suck it. Chad (2m 20s): I love about you already. Jeffrey, Jesus. Let's get into today's topic. Today's topic being ghosting. And we're always talking about how candidates, especially right now are ghosting us, but where did they learn this from Jeffrey? Where did they learn this from? Jeffrey (2m 36s): I don't know that it's learned so much as part of upbringing. In general And then we'll go way off top of here. I just think human nature, the respect for others, respect for other people's lives in general is not what it used to be. And nobody thinks about like long-term repercussions. It's humans are selfish. I'm in it for me. What's in it for me. This doesn't fit my narrative. I'm moving on. Joel (3m 1s): In fairness it's an uncomfortable situation. Sometimes. Telling people no can be uncomfortable. I'm told no all the time. I'm sure it's uncomfortable. Chad (3m 10s): I'm sure it's uncomfortable. I don't think so. I think they're like, no. Joel (3m 13s): Yeah. So Jeffrey had a really hot LinkedIn take recently. I'll read it if it's okay for our listeners to get a real feel for what we're talking about. So Jeffrey posted on LinkedIn "ghosted candidates are not going to pursue opportunities with your organization in the future. They're also not going to be a customer of yours." This thing got 2000 plus likes and almost 200 comments. It was hot. Chad (3m 41s): So right now, Jeffrey, I mean, this is an issue because we have problems finding candidates, for the most part, right? This was also an issue two years ago when we weren't having problems finding candidates. So why is the topic surfacing now? Why does it matter now, when it should have mattered back then? Jeffrey (4m 0s): Agreed. It should always matter. I think it matters now more because recruiting, retention, engagement is at the tip of all C-suite executives lips right now. It is a focal point, there is more time being spent on it. There are more dollars being put into it and everybody's really just measuring anything and everything they can to just move that needle in any direction to become more competitive, to fill positions faster, to retain people longer, to get more people to apply. Even on the corporate TA side, the focus is shifting from not looking at how many people apply, but outbound recruiting, getting your corporate to your recruiters, more in the mindset of going out and pursuing people because nobody's applying anymore. Jeffrey (4m 45s): Everybody's going to kind of go back to basics and really cold calls, solicit and actively source, screen and recruit. Recruiters have to recruit. Now there's nowhere to hide. Chad (4m 56s): So the way that I see it, and I know it's not just one individual, but this is a leadership problem. Talent acquisition for years should have been able to fully understand the negative impact to the overall brand and business. Meaning that, you know, just first and foremost, if you treat candidates like shit and you ghost them, or they go into a black hole, then more than likely, they're not going to want to work with your organization or buy your stuff. Right? And I think that's very, it's a very compelling narrative and or discussion that you can have with your CRO, your CMO, your CEO, to demonstrate just how important talent is. Chad (5m 41s): First and foremost, you can't make the product or provide the service without having talent in those seats. I mean, that's number one and that's core to the business. But then also beyond that, if you start pissing millions of people off, they're not going to buy your product. So is this the time right now, where TA starts to collect their backbone and they start going into the C-suite and they start making their business case. Jeffrey (6m 7s): I hope so. I really do. I think the origin here probably comes from a business model, where business model would be bad customers are better than no customers. You have no customers you're not in business. You have bad customers you're still in business. But when you're on the talent side, a bad candidate is not better than no candidates. A bad candidate experience will equal no candidates. I mean, only you can measure infinite amount of things. I am cautiously optimistic that one of the responses to what is happening in the world now is more people will start to measure the actual candidate experience. Jeffrey (6m 50s): I don't think enough organizations are doing it. There's very easy, low hanging fruit ways to do it. But I think this is the direction that we are going down. We need TA to embrace the partner model, moving away from open rec Philly, open rec Philly, to have those difficult conversations with their partners and operations and let them know when you do this this is the downstream effect. The candidate gets mad at the recruiter. The recruiter wants to salvage the relationship with the candidate and hiring manager. Recruiter is not selling hiring manager down the river by telling the manager, Hey, sorry. It took them four days to get back to me. They're the ones saying, oh my God, I'm so sorry. You slipped through the cracks. Jeffrey (7m 30s): I forgot about you. It's my fault. Because you don't want to ruin that relationship, but we still need to teach hiring managers that these, at the end of it all, are all humans, the seeker, the human, and every single one of them are a potential customer for the business that you work for. Chad (7m 44s): Yeah, but what we need to do is we need to demonstrate how it impacts revenue, because that's how we're going to move the C-suite. So talking about how the nice fluffy way of how we treat humans. I mean, nobody gives a shit hiring managers don't give a shit. If they did, they would treat people better. But if we demonstrate how it's impacting revenue negatively and how that position open every single day cost money, whatever that number is, then we could have a much different outcome at that point. Don't you think? Jeffrey (8m 17s): A hundred percent agree. One of the things we have tried to quantify, it's still a work in progress is what is the cost or lost revenue of having that position open, starting with what, how many overtime hours your burning through? Going through your budget? You're you're paying 8,000 hours of overtime a month. Why don't we back when we pull that back, what's your FTE had count? Negative implication in my world so diagnostic imaging of not having let's pick a mammography tech, not having a mammo tech in that one site means 20 procedures per day, seven days a week is 140 procedures every week, which comes out to what, 560 procedures a month by that one person being missed on billing. Chad (9m 4s): There you go! Jeffrey (9m 5s): Like that's now, then you start you saying, what is the average reimbursement for a screening based on the payer mix. There's just so many different ways to look at it. But showing that type of data is what gets people accountable to, okay, had an interview, better follow up with my TA partner within 24 hours of this interview. That way they could get back to the candidate as quickly as possible. And now we're moving to the hiring philosophy. Like where are the pitfalls? Where are we slowing down? And I can tell anybody on this podcast right now, if you're measuring hiring velocity, you are never slowed down by a recruiter. It is never a recruiter. You want to talk to candidates. They want to talk to the hiring managers. Jeffrey (9m 47s): You are being slowed down by the follow-up from your hiring manager or the candidate having multiple offers bird in hand, Hey, I got your offer. I just interviewed here. I still think that I'm going to get another offer there. And then what do you want to do as an organization? Do you want to say, here's my offer. It's an expired, it's an exploding offer. If you don't respond within X amount of time, we're going to move on. What does that for an experience, but you still need to listen to the business. So do you be a human and say, okay, get back to me by the end of the day, Friday, like there's so many things that you need to measure and figure out. And there's no one size fits all. Every business, every industry, every organization, different sizes. But the one thing you've got to start doing is looking at how do you want to fix your experience? Jeffrey (10m 29s): Where are you going to do it? How are you going to measure it? And what's the plan to make it a little bit better? Joel (10m 35s): Well, we love recruiters and companies that walk the walk. So you touched on it here. And I, by the way, I love the fact that you're so focused on this and you're not a typical sort of service industry, right? Like you're not that customer facing like a restaurant or something of that nature. So what does RadNet do? What tools does it use? What protocols to make sure that candidates don't fall through the cracks and get ghosted. What do you do? But the mirror on you. Jeffrey (11m 4s): Our tools are very remedial. Our TA tech stack is horrible. We use ADP, my TA partners send me manual reports every week, every month, every quarter. We're in the process of RFP upgrading the TA tech stack, some other technology to sit on top of a new ATS CRM, but something we have internally is from our IT department they built something called Radar. So think about organizations in any industry that reach out to their customers in our world, patients with reminders to schedule appointments or target a sale. So that's what Radar is for us. We use Radar to NPS. We're not using it yet. It's coming out very quickly. Jeffrey (11m 46s): We're going to use Radar to MPS measure our candidate experience for those who don't know MPS has participated in before 10, how likely are you to X, Y, and Z? So we're coming up with a three question zero to 10 scales. You were 10 how easy was it to apply for your position? Zero to 10? How would you rate your overall interview experience? Zero to 10, how likely are you to recommend opportunities at this organization to friends and family members? So that is one thing we are going to start doing. My TA partners. Sorry, I can go on and on. Joel (12m 22s): Your stone age based on what we talk about on the show. So my question then is if you can do it with, you know, stones and rocks, anyone should be able to do it. Is it your sense with so much technology, so much automation so much out there to make sure ghosting doesn't happen? Is it your sense, particularly in the organizations that you serve in HR, do you think it's getting better or with all these tools? Is it still a horrible ghosting problem? Jeffrey (12m 53s): I think it's not getting better. I think it's still horrible. I think many people have a mindset that technology is the fix. Technology is not the fix. It's the human is the fix. Technology is there for the human. If the human is not using it properly or even using it, I mean, in reality, how many organizations pay for tools that never get used? So it's, you're a carpenter building a house, technology is just one of your tools to build that house. You still need the human. Candidates still want to talk to humans. So no matter what you automate, you still have a human to human interaction, no matter what. Chad (13m 28s): So let's talk a little bit more about the tech stack. I think we have the stones kind of like an arrows conversation on one side, and then we have, you know, way too much tech on the other side, where some companies are spending so much on point solutions that are layered in, they're not integrated, recruiters pay hell just to use all of the tools that they're provided. The question is what should an organization do to move forward, to ensure in a couple of different areas. First and foremost, you have a great recruiter experience, because if you don't have a great recruiter experience and it's a pain in the ass, you're probably going to have to be looking for new recruiters soon. Chad (14m 11s): Turnover is going to suck because their job sucks. And then on the other side, the job seeker experience out of your whole stones and arrows kind of scenario right now, what would you do differently if you could? What's utopia look like? Jeffrey (14m 25s): So the buzz term out there is an effortless experience everybody's using it. I want to know that it is as easy as possible for anybody that's interested in my organization to let me know. I think about all the different technologies out there for job seekers, where they have to register to then physically apply. Why? Like, why can't I just give you my LinkedIn profile? Why can't I just send my resume? Resume parsers are terrible. They never work. Make it as easy as possible. Talk to the person as quickly as possible. How great is it? Like everybody relies on automation. Automation is great. I acknowledge I've received your application. Great. I applied on the 14th and I got an email three minutes later, it's automated saying we got your application, but then nobody physically pick up the phone and called me until the 20th. Jeffrey (15m 11s): It's six days later, I'm not having a great experience. It didn't matter how easy it was for me to apply. Again. We need the human, we don't need the technology. Why didn't that person respond to me? So we got to start looking at, and it's really the recruiters. Is it time management? I think too many recruiters are thrown into the job without proper training. They're not given strategies and tactics. I think that when I stumbled into recruiting on day one, it was like, here's this list call as many people as you can. And don't leave until you've made your a hundred calls for the day and documented. Chad (15m 44s): Right? Jeffrey (15m 44s): No one really sat down until I was much further in my career. And I started admiring from afar, others asking questions. So no one really gives recruiters training. Like there's no college degree to become a recruiter. There's no certification course. It's just Chad (16m 1s): Trial by fire. Jeffrey (16m 1s): Right. Someone gets thrown into it. Someone stumbled into it. No one really sets out saying, I want to be a recruiter. And then recruiters are put in positions that are performance-based. We measure everything. I am obsessed with data. We measure everything. That we get so focused on the data that we often leave out the narrative. Like I made my call. I'm not even listening to this person because right away, the first thing they said was not interested. I'm not even going to get to the sell of trying to talk them in my value proposition, give them my elevator pitch because I need to make my 50 calls for the day. Chad (16m 35s): Right. Jeffrey (16m 36s): Everybody just needs to slow down and remember that every person we're interacting with is a human being. And then every single one of them is potentially a customer. If I have a bad candidate experience somewhere, how likely am I to then want to support that organization as a customer? Chad (16m 54s): Right. Jeffrey (16m 54s): So we all have unicorn organizations and I have a unicorn organization that I had a horrible experience with that they're no longer a unicorn of mine. Like forever I have had a dream of working at ordered organization X and based on one interaction I've had at organization X, I'm just done with them. They're no longer my unicorn. Chad (17m 12s): So how do we change this narrative and discussion? How do we take all of these data points? Because again, as everybody looks at all the rest of the organization and they feel like HR and TA's the redheaded stepchild, well, that, there's a reason behind that. It's because you haven't been able to make a case. You haven't been able to demonstrate how you actually impact the business. So the question is, how do we start to as a profession and maybe just as groups first, right? Starting, maybe it's grassroots, who the hell knows, but TA leaders, how do we get them to think more business-like versus transactional day to day making that your recruiters are in the trenches? Chad (17m 57s): How do we change this? Jeffrey (17m 59s): I mean, you said something super profound, more business like, and I would tell anybody in TA it is worth the time to take a day away from recruiting and sit in on meetings, really observe the business, learn what your company does in and out. Ask questions, talk to different department leaders. I think mentorship is phenomenal. I tell everybody that I've ever come into contact with, mentorship is amazing. The best thing you can do is find a mentor that has nothing to do with your job. A mentor that works for your company in a leadership role, that is not part of your department will have tremendous value on you. Chad (18m 34s): Well, and I think you have to do this real quick though. You have to, whenever you're sitting with those individuals, you have to understand how you are impacting, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, whether it's product, whether it's developers, right? How are you directly impacting those departments? And if you don't get great talent into those seats, how's that going to impact the bottom line, in all those different areas, right? That's not something that we think about. We look at numbers, we look at seats to fill, but we don't go past that into the actual business impact. Jeffrey (19m 13s): Yeah. This is turning behaviors into actions. Like you gotta be selfish. You have to be consumed with your world, but then with a lot of integrity and accountability, you need to speak up, raise that flag and talk against the bad behavior. And that's hard. It's really hard to be the voice of opposition in a room. But if you've built your brand, as in who you are, your behaviors dictate your personality. When you are raising that flag and calling bullshit on something. Chad (19m 44s): Yes. Jeffrey (19m 45s): The receiver should know that you are not attacking them so much as identifying a problem and trying to find a solution. I am not calling out manager, Jane Smith for consistently not giving feedback. I am reminding Jane Smith, hey, here's why I need that feedback. And then we're going to kick it to escalation, like if we're going to talk to Jane, one-on-one like we are coming to you without problems. If it remains an issue, I am going to be going to your leader hey, we've done X, Y, and Z. I need your help. I think you understand how important getting an interview feedback and scorecard in a timely manner is, but Jane Smith consistently is not giving it to me. Jeffrey (20m 27s): By the way, let's take a look at Jane Smith hiring manager, batting average, and she's losing more new hires than anybody else. Chad (20m 31s): Why aren't we more transparent though? The CEO should see all this to be able to demonstrate how all of this is actually creating a supply chain management fiasco. Jeffrey (20m 43s): People are just scared. Chad (20m 43s): Get a backbone, man. Jeffrey (20m 44s): Yeah. We start a bit by saying like somewhere along the line, we were talking about how saying no is difficult. Like saying no to someone you don't know, the job seeker is difficult. Imagine being in a room and like having to say no to somebody face to face, it's so much easier over a phone, over a text, over email. This is why it goes back to those behaviors. Integrity and accountability is huge. Like we need to physically speak up and say, we can't keep doing this quote Einstein and that definition of insanity, like how do you expect it to get better if we're not willing to do anything different? Joel (21m 20s): Speaking of backbone, can we talk about my poll for a second? Chad (21m 23s): No. You mean the poll that you've been writing for, I don't know, the last couple of weeks? Joel (21m 26s): We have so many polls to talk about, but I'm going to talk about a specific poll of a question I asked on LinkedIn, which was what percentage of employers deal with ghosting from candidates? Zero to 10, 40% of employers deal with ghosting. 10 to 25% of their candidates ghosting them, that was 35% of employers. 25 to 50, with 17% of employers and 50 plus getting ghosted is 9% of employers. My question is Jeff, with so much ghosting from candidates, and I know you're not a shrink, but is there something, something psychological with employers that make them say, well, if candidates don't give a shit, why should we give a shit? Joel (22m 13s): And if so, how do they overcome that mentality? Jeffrey (22m 16s): The mentality, I guess, I think you're right to answer your question. The mentality is kind of just I don't owe you anything, who cares if he ghosts me, that's how bad, like, I might remember who they are, it might impact them long-term. My bio so I will remember that you disappeared on me. Now I have my own bias. Does that really change if you could do this job or not. So candidates don't owe us anything. They could do what they want. The recruiter represented that organization. They can't just disappear on somebody because their actions have repercussions. They have downstream negative effects. Like if that candidate wants to ghost my TA manager, fine, that candidate's still going to find a job somewhere else. Jeffrey (23m 1s): But if my TA manager ghosts the candidate that's a much bigger problem than someone applying to a job, going on an interview and we can't get a hold of them to extend an offer, right? That happens. You also have people who accept an offer and then disappear. I call this "Phantom Attrition" accepted offers never started. That happens now more than ever. Chad (23m 20s): Wow. Jeffrey (23m 21s): Either either way, no matter what I would say, like to your poll, my answer would be who cares? The candidate doesn't owe me anything. Joel (23m 30s): Tons of people care about my polls, Jeffrey, tons of people care. Jeffrey (23m 36s): If I had to write in what percentage of candidates ghost you, don't care, that's what it is. Chad (23m 43s): Yeah. And you're saying pretty much what every female said in college. Joel (23m 47s): Oh, that's not cool. Curious on your share that you did on LinkedIn. Somebody brought up the point of sharing and it strikes me as something relevant that if you ghost someone they're going to tell friends and that bad experience is going to be compounded. Some studies say between 7 and 10 people that you tell is that your experience and you know, what words of caution would you say to someone that thinks, oh, it's just isolated to one person. Jeffrey (24m 18s): I think about, like myself, as a consumer. I how forget myself. Just think about Yelp and how the whole entire platform is given a voice to someone who doesn't want to have that awkward conversation in the restaurant. My hamburger was under cooked. I said nothing while I was there. But the second I got home, I went on Yelp and talked about how my hamburger was undercooked. I'm never going back there. And it's because it's just so much easier to hide behind that computer that has the difficult conversations. The whole thing is set up for negative has a much larger voice than positive. Jeffrey (24m 58s): So if you gave somebody a negative experience, you could almost guarantee they are shouting it at the mountain tops to anybody and everybody, Maybe go through four interviews and then they disappeared on me. I sent my application, the recruiter responded to me that he'd follow up by the end of the day, it was 10 days later, I haven't heard back! Like job seekers are now @mentioning, like cancel culture. Seekers are @ mentioning the recruiters on social and the organizations. There is a near and dear. I think everybody here knows Edie Miller. She was recently bashed and tagged by someone saying like, look at you spending all your company time at mentioning the company she worked for arguing with me on LinkedIn, I don't think your CEO would like that. Joel (25m 43s): Everybody's Dunkin. Chad (25m 44s): Everybody's dunkin. Well, I mean, in some cases, you know, Amy probably didn't give a shit to be quite Frank. You know? It's like her, she's not worried because she's doing her job and she's doing it well. But, there are consequences, so you can call it cancel culture, or you can call it consequence culture. If it is something that matters okay, great. If it isn't, it doesn't. So who gives a shit? Right? It's like, you're, I don't care, you know, box for me that's I don't give a shit. But what I do give a shit about is we still have recruiters that are out there and somebody actually posted on the flip side that if somebody reneges on an accepted offer by ghosting, they will most likely be put on a do not hire list. Chad (26m 28s): How can we, be so ivory tower that we treat candidates like shit and we throw them into a corner and feed them and feed them shit but yet when they treat us the same way, we have a problem with it. And we put them on a list. I mean, this to me is more of an ivory tower kind of scenario that we can't afford right now, or really ever. Jeffrey (26m 54s): It's definitely ego. Ego is definitely there. I love your do not hire list reference because I think about like hiring managers at what will say, Hey, I know this person. I know this person, I went to school with them at the beginning of our career, 10 years ago, not interested. And immediately, are you the same person today that you were 10 years ago? I'm not even the same person I was a year ago, let alone 10 years ago. We do not hire list. Can we, I know organizations use them. How often are you auditing them? Like, what's the statute of limitations when you're there? Is it permanent? Like if I go, if I declined your offer, you are so mad at me now that no matter what, you're never gonna think about me again. Jeffrey (27m 39s): Think about that as a candidate experience. Like I was a new grad out of college. I declined your offer because when I'm coming out of college, I'm chasing that money. And yet your position may have offered me better long-term career growth. But this other organization over $3 more per hour, of course I would have taken that. Now it's five years later. I'm no longer a new grad. I perfected my craft and I want to add to you. Like you are best in class at whatever you do as a company. And now you're not going to hire me because I said no to you that one time forever ago. That's just insane to me that people do that. Joel (28m 18s): Curious a little bit about definition. And I listen to people who listen to the show, know that my 15 year old son is applying to jobs. And we had an experience where we showed up for the interview and the employer was not prepared, was not ready, we weren't on the schedule to be interviewed. And we ended up waiting 30 minutes and eventually left. Right to me is that ghosted? Is that worse than being ghosted because we had actually had to make a trip down there? What's your definition of ghosting and is that ghosting? Jeffrey (28m 48s): I don't think that's ghosting so much as somewhere along the line, human error, somebody told him to show up at that interview. And then on the backend had some sort of brain blockage where they didn't throw it on a calendar. They never confirmed, like human error happens. But the fact that they missed on, you were there, they are hiring. you where an applicant to say, oh my God, so sorry, but this is where we go backwards, we talked about the recruiter source. If the recruiter is physically in the building, the recruiters come out, this is my fault. Do not blame the manager because most likely your manager just didn't want to interview that day, whatever it is. Jeffrey (29m 30s): But I don't call that ghosting so much as somebody made a mistake. Joel (29m 33s): The negativity is the same right? Jeffrey (29m 34s): Yeah, absolutely. Your son was the customer. Joel (29m 36s): Used to be. Jeffrey (29m 37s): If the customer who wanted to buy something, someone would have come out and apologize. Hey, we know that this was supposed to be delivered for in-store pickup, but we're not ready. We're sorry. We made a mistake. They would have apologized to them, a customer. Think of them as a customer. They let him sit there. They let you walk out. No one came out to check on you to apologize for the wait. That's just could have been handled so differently. Like who could have swapped in just to save face. This person here, they applied it wasn't on the calendar so manager A isn't available. Whereas the assistant manager, where's the lead? Where is somebody to spend time with this person to thank them for coming in? Jeffrey (30m 17s): And I'm glad you brought that up because it brought me a thing. I have the candidate experience tidbit of knowledge to share with anybody. Joel (30m 27s): Sure. Jeffrey (30m 28s): You know, we talk about candidates sometimes send thank you letters. And we can go on and on, on if that's a pro, a con, a net neutral, when candidates send thank you letters. You want to change your candidate experience. Why don't you thank the candidate 24 hours later via email, thank you for coming in, taking your time to allow us organization A and the opportunity to talk to you about the position and opportunities here at the company. Now they get your offer and an identical offer for just about identical money. Who are they feeling more warm and fuzzy about? I'm seen as a human at one place. The other place I have not, I will probably go where they reached out to me to thank me for my time. So start sending your candidates thank you letters. Jeffrey (31m 9s): Very easy, very human. You don't need technology. Chad (31m 13s): Be human and start building business cases. And last but not least talent acquisition leaders get a God damn spine and get into those uncomfortable places. Because guess what? Those are the conversations that happen in the C-suite. If you don't want to have uncomfortable conversations, then go ahead and turn it in a resignation because you're not the right person for that gig. Jeffrey Shapiro, senior director of talent acquisition at RadNet. Jeffrey we appreciate you coming on the show, man, if people want, I don't know that maybe they want to come work for you. Cause now they fell in love with you. Chad (31m 50s): Who knows? Where would they find you? Where can they connect with you? Tell them. Jeffrey (31m 57s): Basically any various social platforms. I go by Jeffery W. Shapiro. So you can find me at that. Chad (32m 3s): You go by W, that's awesome. Joel (32m 3s): W. Jeffrey (32m 4s): I grew up with another Jeffery Shapiro in my hometown. So somewhere along the line, my father beat it in me to just professionally use your middle initial and forever, I think it was if you don't have a college degree and your middle initial make you sound more professional, start using it professionally. I started doing that, then it just never went away. Like I'm not redoing all my social profiles. Joel (32m 37s): It works. Another one in the can, Chad. Chad (32m 37s): There we go, time for a beer. Joel and Chad (32m 37s): We out. OUTRO (33m 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. 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.

Pulling out is a common theme this week, so let's keep the ball rolling. Businesses in our space - notably Indeed, Upwork and Fiverr - keep abandoning Mother Russia in favor of standing up for Ukraine. Invasion aside, money keeps flowing into startups. This week, we cover new funding for Torc, Donde, Findem, Reejig and Instant Teams. No unicorns, and maybe that's a good thing. The show ends with talk about the future of recruiting conferences, featuring opinion on Jobg8, TAtech, ERE, Unleash, Recfest and HR Tech. 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 (21s): Oh yeah. Making sweet, sweet love to your eardrums. Since 2017. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast, HR's most dangerous. This is your co-host Joel "the Barry white of recruiting" Cheesman. Chad (36s): And this is Chad "undisclosed location" Sowash. Joel (40s): And on this week, show, life is hard for a Russian gig worker. Forecasts for recruiting conferences, cloudy with a chance of rain and a little buy or sell. Let's do this. How's life Chad? Chad (55s): It's good Joel (56s): Is it treating you okay. Right now? Chad (58s): It's okay. Sunny beaches. Those types of things. Joel (1m 1s): Sounds awful. So where in the world are you Mr. Undisclosed location? Chad (1m 5s): We are back in Portugal, trying to get a deal done, but that's all I'm going to get into right now because I don't want to fucking jinx us. Joel (1m 14s): Listeners will know Chad's been playing real estate mogul in Portugal. So there must be a deal in the works that he doesn't want to get into, but he will keep us informed. I'm betting before St. Patrick's day something gets done. I'm betting there's a celebratory St. Patrick's day at the Portuguese Irish pub that will happen next week. Chad (1m 35s): And you've got to remember, we are in Europe and nothing happens fast in Europe. We're in Portugal, which is incredibly laid back and cool, and such an awesome vibe. Again, knock on wood, not going to jinx it. Joel (1m 51s): But the St Patrick's day party at the Irish pub in Portugal is a sure thing though, right? Chad (1m 55s): Yeah, that's going to happen. Yeah. That's definitely happening. Julie and I've already been talking about what, what Irish pubs we should hit up while we're here. Joel (2m 3s): Yeah. By the way, I think this is the first year that our show recording happens on a St Patrick's day. Listener, be worn, who knows what the hell is going to happen in next week's show. Chad (2m 14s): I will be a few deep. There's no question. Joel (2m 16s): It might be a Wednesday night recording show, although that's late for you. I don't know. Chad (2m 21s): Yes. Joel (2m 21s): We'll see what happens, folks. We'll see what happens. But for now, we're here. It's another week and we have shout outs. Chad (2m 28s): Yes. And to get into not to get too somber, but Hey, it is what it is. Right. We are seeing atrocities daily in Ukraine. I mean, just yesterday, a maternity hospital was bombed. And most people, the ones who actually feel helpless right now, you know, they want to do something. They don't know how to do something. So how can we actually do something? I mean, we can't buy guns and ship them to Ukraine for God's sakes. If I could, I would have already at least put some money into a javelin missile, but there is something we can do. Well, let me introduce you to Andrew Stetsenko. He's the chief relocation officer relocate.me and Andrew a Ukrainian is on the battlefield today. Chad (3m 14s): He's an entrepreneur. He was once a recruiter, but now he's on the cold ass battlefield of Ukraine fighting for his country's freedom. So here's how you can help out their kids. Go to Chadcheese.com, click on the Ukraine flag. I put a big ass Ukraine flag on the homepage. Joel (3m 36s): Yeah, you can't miss it. Chad (3m 38s): You can't miss it. And it'll lead to Andrew's funding page where he's collecting cash to buy winter military clothing for every man, woman and in some cases, children who are defending Ukraine against Russian atrocities. That's Chadcheese.com, click the Ukrainian flag and give, give, give. I actually donated 200 euros yesterday. So that's the bar kids go meet it. And if you've never been on a battlefield and cold before, it is an entirely different kind of cold. Bone numbing, kind of cold, let's keep them warm so they can get done what needs to get done? Joel (4m 16s): No clue how I follow that and shout outs, but I'm going to give it a try. Let's go to Eightfold shout out. That's a good follow-up to that unicorn. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Chad, we give a lot of airtime to AI, mostly how it's just a label on websites to help separate companies from their money. But Fast Company thinks at least one company in our space deserves some love. Eightfold was named by the once mighty magazine as one of their 10 most innovative companies in the world saying quote, "based on analysis of a billion careers and a million skills Eightfold recommends mentors projects and internal jobs to each employee within an organization, helping to steer them in the direction they have to go, whether it's a promotion or a pivot into a new role" Joel (5m 3s): end quotes. So for what it's worth Fast Company thinks Eightfold has some real AI and put them in their top 10 list. Chad (5m 9s): Yeah. I think they should continue to write articles around something they know something about. Their suckers, which I mean, Eightfold, if Eightfold is good at anything it's marketing. They're awesome at marketing, they're fucking, they have the glitz, the glam, the UI, they've got all the u's. Right. But at the end of the day, yeah. I think that's just a boneheaded top 10. Joel (5m 34s): Yeah. It won't be a Fast Company's last mistake if it is indeed a mistake. I'm sure if you went back 20 years to their list of top 10 innovative companies, Theranos is probably in there, which is great. If you have Hulu, I'm going to give a recommendation that the Dropout about that there are no stories is pretty, pretty damn good if we're making recommendations there. Chad (5m 58s): And if you like podcasts, the Dropout, that's where the Hulu version actually came from the podcast itself Joel (6m 5s): I haven't heard the podcast have you. Chad (6m 7s): I started, yes, the actual, just the first episode. So it sounds good. So go check it out. Last week, we talked about Adzuna sponsor our friends over at Adzuna ceasing business in Russia. And this week's European episode is actually entitled. Get ready kids. The pull-out method, where we dig deep into big brands, pulling biz ops from Russia as well. Well, just this week, Indeed disabled their Russian site and also disabled all jobs from Russian military/state owned enterprises. So this is a shout out to Indeed. Thanks for joining the party. Chad (6m 48s): That's awesome. Joel (6m 49s): Very nice. Very nice. Well, a few more party goers, not in terms of pulling out, which by the way, got a lot of love from our fans for that title. Well done. Forbes has a list of best startup employers and a few of our friends made the list. So SeekOut , Touring and Deel, that's ee on Deel, made the top 50. Co-founder and CEO, our buddy, Anoop Gupta said, quote, "from the moment we started SeekOut people have been our first priority and foundation to our success" end quote. Shout out to the best startup list for employers on the Forbes. Chad (7m 29s): I'm a fan of all those three, really interesting that Eightfold didn't make that list. Joel (7m 34s): I didn't get past the top 100. They might be further down the list. I don't know. But top 50 is pretty good for three of our industry friends. Chad (7m 43s): Not too shabby. Joel (7m 45s): Also in that list because we love lists Chad, the TA tech top 100, what TA thought leaders is out. And for some reason, you and I are both on the list again, this year. sfx (8m 0s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (8m 2s): They're still using my pic from 2014. So I look marvelous. I look great. I look great. Thanks TA tech. Chad (8m 9s): Thanks TA tech. Is that it for shout outs? Joel (8m 15s): Nope. I got a Nationwide Insurance, Chad. For fine Columbus Ohio company. The company announced this week, it's raising its minimum pay to $21 per hour effective April 4th. The change will impact 600 employees and all new early career roles. The company had raised its minimum pay to $18 last year and had raised it to $16 in 2018. Shout out to them. And of course, Chad, we got a shout out to free shit. Yes, you haven't signed up for free stuff from us. You got to go to Chadcheese.com/free. We're giving away t-shirts from Emissary. Beer, from our friends at Pillar and whiskey from our friends at Textkernel. Joel (8m 55s): So this month we have winners. Our whiskey winner goes to Kristin Urban and our beer winner goes to Beth Dunlap. So ladies, thank you for letting us destroy your livers. Those shipments will be coming soon. Chad (9m 9s): Well, that's nicely done. It's women's history month. We've got a couple of females actually winning. So that's a good job. That's awesome. Joel (9m 18s): Yeah. Chad (9m 19s): Hopefully we'll see them at events. Don't forget kids. We've got the E recruitment Congress coming up, May 6th in Belgium. If you are in Europe, buy a ticket, get your ass there. And then also after that, later in the month, Unleash America, May 25th and 26th in Vegas. It's going to be a good time. And instead of just giving you a bunch of different URLs, just go to Chadcheese.com, click on events and all the info is right there kids check it out. Joel (9m 52s): It's simple for our listeners. Chad, keep it simple. And we have birthdays. Chad (9m 59s): Birthdays! Joel (9m 59s): Birthdays. Our buddy, Kyle Hager celebrates another year around the sun as well as yes. Chad (10m 8s): Our millennial listener. Joel (10m 10s): Yes. Our figurehead millennial generation, Mel Skatson, and celebrates a birthday. Yeah. Robert Williams, Tracy Morris, Riley Northam, my niece. I threw her in there. It's her birthday today. Leanne Chase, Dean D'Acosta Sourcing guru, Bruce Gee, Amanda Hahn at HireVue who I'm sure loved last week's show. Chad (10m 32s): Love it. Joel (10m 33s): That title and Ryan Estis formerly of NAS all celebrate birthdays. Congratulations. Chad (10m 42s): Love it. Joel (10m 42s): Congratulations to all of them. And thanks for listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (10m 46s): Topics! Joel (10m 47s): All right. Let's go back to Russia for a second. Chad (10m 52s): Okay. Joel (10m 52s): You mentioned Adzuna and Indeed in your shout-outs but Upwork, ticker symbol UPWK announced Monday that it is suspending business operations in Russia and Belarus. The move, which will fully take effect May 1st is starting with the shutting down of support for new business generation in each country, existing contracts with talent and clients and the region will remain open with final billing due May 1st in the quote, "web mobile and software development category, Russia and Belarus represent about 10% of Upwork's talent pool." The Washington post wrote this will impact tens of thousands of workers and just announced not to be outdone Upwork competitor Fiverr has pulled the plug on Russia as well. Joel (11m 37s): So much for Putin's career ambitions to be an app developer. Chad, your thoughts? Chad (11m 42s): Very simple. All of the work that Russians were performing no more. All of the money Russians were putting in their bank accounts for Upwork gigs, and now Fiverr gigs, no more. We talked about it again on the Europe show this week, it's a boa constrictor. As long as we continue to drop sanctions and companies continue pulling out, Russia will be financially brought to their knees. The thing is we have to continue to roll out sanctions. We have to continue the pressure and this, I think this type of pressure and then pressure that we're seeing from around the world. There's a unification that's happening right now. And it's pretty amazing to watch. Joel (12m 20s): Yeah, it was a, there's a Thomas Friedman article that came out I think yesterday, this is Thursday that we record this and basically said that we've dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb economically on Russia. And the hits just keep on coming. As you've mentioned, since our European show, McDonald's, Coke, Pepsi, I think Morgan Stanley or one of the biggest banks there is pulling out. Chad (12m 42s): Big banks. Joel (12m 43s): But so, so this to me is big news and it's in our space. And I was kind of wondering if these two companies Fiverr and Upwork would make the move? No disrespect to Adzuna or Indeed who pulled out of Russia. But Upwork and Fiverr are big also by the way, no word from France's freelance.com on what it'll do. But Russia, Russia basically has four industries, oil, steel, hackers, and hookers. They have a thriving community of developers that are really smart and really, really good that are making frankly a good living on gig platforms that they didn't have before. Fiverr and Upwork have been an on-ramp for them to have a better life. Joel (13m 27s): And that's gone now at least temporarily and maybe even longer in terms of fear of Russia grows, right? Like even if this is over, how likely are you to hire a Russian developer? Probably not any time soon. Fair or not I also wonder if this will drive more developers to attack the west in revenge. If I'm a developer that all my work has been pulled for me, do I suddenly feel an urge to like stick it to Western companies? But more importantly, I think it will lead to a mass Exodus of fantastic talent out of Russia, assuming they can get out and coming into Western companies. So from an employment perspective, particularly in Europe, I think there's going to be an influx of developers and tech talent from Russia that are really changed the landscape for a lot of companies. Joel (14m 15s): Frankly, you know, this to me, this isn't, McDonald's shutting down. This is much bigger than that. Even though it won't get nearly the play, you know, on the news and TV and whatnot, because this, you know, not being able to have a big Mac is one thing, but losing my livelihood in the snap of a finger is a huge deal to tens of thousands of people that frankly have nothing to do with this war, but now have to deal with the consequences. And I think that it's great that we're talking about it and I wish more people would be talking about it because it's, to me it's bigger than Coke or McDonald's leaving Russia. Yeah. Chad (14m 55s): Well, if you think of the developer community, perspectively, mass exiting Russia, because they can't make money. Right? Imagine that brain drain, I mean, that's a brain drain that Russia can not afford. They can't afford what's going on right now. But what if that talent actually leaves and it doesn't come back, right? I mean, so that's happening. And then number two, we talked about OnlyFans next week or last week where they said, they're going to pull a Russia. And then they're like, no, you know, we're not going to do that. Now they look like fucking idiots at this point because everybody big brands are actually saying, this is important, right? And now OnlyFans, once again, looks like a bunch of fucking idiots. Joel (15m 37s): Yeah. If you don't do it, you look like a real asshole. And in the world today where your employees, where social media and people call you out on this stuff, like, you know, companies are making hard decisions. In some cases, it's not that hard. Russia is a pretty small percentage of most company's revenue. But in terms of Upwork, there's a huge number of Russian developers and gig workers that are going to be going to be impacted by this. So my heart goes out to them and I hope that they find a better, better life because they have nothing to do with, you know, maniacal invasion. Chad (16m 13s): And depending on how this turns out, if Russia keeps any land whatsoever, right. Cause they've taken the land, you know, this can be a sedate land kind of thing. This could perspectively be something that these sanctions and these companies stay out for a much longer time. Joel (16m 34s): Yeah. And by the way, Ukraine is losing developers too. Which they can freely leave to Poland and Portugal, as you mentioned. I mean, everyone in Europe, I think hats off to them for taking refugees out of Ukraine, but that's going to be a lot of other developers that never go back to Ukraine because frankly, the whole place is bombed to shit that are going to flood into European countries as new tech talent to those areas as well. So yeah, interesting times. Chad (17m 3s): We saw signs for Ukrainian refugees at the airport yesterday. So yeah, that. It's happening. Joel (17m 9s): No word yet. Whether or not you'll open your new place to refugees, but that would be an interesting dynamic to your new place. Chad (17m 17s): Why not? Joel (17m 18s): All right, let's get into some more industry laid news, get out of Russia for a second. Findem an AI powered talent sourcing and analysis platform announced a 30 million series B funding round. This brings Findem's total funding to $37.3 million. Customers include Google, Adobe and RingCentral. The company was launched in 2020, said Farouk Ladha, general manager investor at investor Four River's quote, “Findem is applying AI to the candidate search process in a way the industry hasn’t seen before, and reinventing how companies find quality talent and build great teams”, end quote. Their website touts, quote "select a sample role, click the button and get your candidate list for free" Joel (18m 0s): end quote, too good to be true right, Chad? Chad (18m 5s): I really struggle with this right now and I'm starting to kind of like change position with regard to what's the most important tech that's out there for any organization last week. You remember from last week's show entitled Pretty Biased Machine that we talked about research demonstrating 92% of people who click on a job, eject from the shitty user experience of the application process. Will AI and matching solve this issue? No. Will AI outreach or even human outreach solve this issue? No, it might increase the number of candidates who complete the application, but that's not really sustainable. Chad (18m 49s): So overall Findem has some pretty big names, even a unicorn SeekOut . Then you also have Eightfold who has matching blended in a sponsor Textkernel probably the biggest name and matching when it comes to this space. They have a lot of competition and I'm not sure that they can actually fix what's wrong with the industry. The problem right now is you can give me as many qualified candidates as you can find, whether they're in my database or they're external, but I have to invite them to apply. They have to go through the application process. If they don't finish the application process none of this matters. Joel (19m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. But you love the name though. Right? Findem. They must be, they must be Midwesterners. Cause we were going to go Findem. Chad (19m 37s): We'll Findem. Joel (19m 37s): Chad, go Findem. Yeah. You know, I think the bigger trend here is really interesting to me and you pinpointed it with the, you know, 90 plus percent of people click apply, but never finish. People are spending more money than ever to get clicks on job postings. And the whole thing just seems like, you know, a hamster wheel of expense and pain and time. And then along comes this group of startups that say, Hey, we have 750 million profiles just post your job our AI will take care of finding these folks and bringing them into your funnel. A lot of it sounds like Crowded. Joel (20m 18s): Like if Crowded had evolved from when it like went to shit, this might be where it would evolve to. Chad (20m 23s): Yes. Joel (20m 24s): Companies are looking for answers. I'm not sure this is it. I agree. Like, you know, Crowded failed for a reason. And this model of like, Hey, we're going to do, they span 750, do they bring them to your door? But they're not necessarily active job seekers. So now you're going to bang your head against the ceiling, trying to convince people who don't want to move jobs to Chad (20m 44s): SeekOut's the same model. Joel (20m 45s): Yeah. I mean, it does it work? I don't know. But you know, people seem to be a little bit sick of the spin and blast and apply and drop and model. I think you and I kind of pinpointed like, Hey, if we could just fix the ATS apply situation, we might not need some of these solutions. Although some people probably like them, but yeah, I think, you know, where the SeekOut , I think hireEZ with their pivot sounds more like this model and where it goes I don't know? Their founder has no previous HR experience so I think that's a little bit of a strike to them. But the future of job postings is that in question. Does it become stronger if these guys fail? Joel (21m 27s): I think those are questions that will be interesting to answer in the next few years. Chad (21m 33s): Yeah. I think companies should be looking at tech like this, right? But the thing is that they should also understand that they need to fix the application process. There's only one company. I know who's doing it. Neither one of us, I don't believe are actually affiliated with them, but that's JobSync. JobSync actually allows this whole application process to just go in the wind. Right? They are really just the easy button for a candidate to apply to jobs. And if companies Institute JobSync because they can't just get out of their own fucking way and have a user experience that's worth a shit? Chad (22m 15s): Plug into JobSyn and then kids, this will probably be the best tech you ever buy. After JobSync, you buy tech like SeekOut or Textkernel or Findem something like this. Then it's worth your dime, right? It's going to be worth your dime, but you got to fix the apply process. And if you're too fucking lazy to do it buy JobSync. Joel (22m 38s): Nice plug for that Murphy. Murphy's going to send you another kozee but I have no affiliation with them just for the record. Well, someone who might be on the right track and a model that you might might approve of is our friends at Reejig. Chad (22m 59s): Wait a minute first we got Findem. And now we got Reejig? Joel (23m 4s): Findem and Reejig. That's right. Findem. Anyway, the Sydney Australia based Reejig announced a 2120 $1 million series, a funding round led by Skip Capital that sounds made up. The company basically brings workforce agility to your organization so that you can find move and up-skill. That's a good word. Reejig reports, its platform uses data from ATSs vendor management systems and other sources to create skills, profiles of workers. Current employees, as well as contingent workers, gig workers, previous applicants, interns, alumni, and referrals. Wow they covered the whole gamut on that. Reejig also extracts information on workers from schools, transcripts, resumes, and profiles on LinkedIn among other sources. Joel (23m 52s): In addition, Reejig named Jonathan Reyes as in-house work futurist. That sounds awesome to spearhead growth in the US. Reyes has previously served as global head of talent mobility and talent acquisition operations at Uber. The company was founded in 2019. Well, you can't get behind Findem. Can you Reejig them? Chad? Chad (24m 11s): Yeah. So a platform like this should sit inside of every human capital management system, which encapsulates data to drive talent management in internal mobility. So all that other fluff that was in that they, their PR department, their marketing department needs to keep it simple for all the stupid people out there who are buying shit. Right? Joel (24m 32s): Yep. Chad (24m 33s): Focus on the talent management piece, focus on the internal mobility piece. Yes. You can get data from all those different internal sources. Totally get that to build more of a fluid profile. I love that. The thing is you have to focus on one area that can actually get you into these organizations or into these platforms and perspectively acquired. There aren't really many great tech platforms that are out there today for talent management and internal mobility. Is this one? I don't know, I've never actually played with it, but I do know that every company that's out there today is talking about an internal mobility and they are shit at it. Yeah. Joel (25m 10s): To me, this, this sort of flips the other side of the coin of gee we're tired of people applying and falling out and we're tired of spending more money. So on one end you have with Findem like, Hey, we have 700 million plus profiles that we can tap into when you post your opportunity. And then on this end we have, Hey, dip shit you already have millions of people already in your ATS and already at your company. Maybe you should start tapping into those folks, which gee, that makes a lot of sense. And I think Reejig is trying to do that. They obviously don't, they're not for lack of competition. There are a lot of companies trying to do this, SeekOut for example, we know that their grand vision, talking to Anoop and if you haven't listened to that interview you should kids, talking about the grand vision of kind of cradle to grave with employees. Joel (26m 5s): We know that people like Paradox are looking to a more extensive relationship with onboarding and helping people internally. So this is going to be, I think, a really hot space to watch Reejig is maybe really right for acquisition here in the near term. Seek if you're looking for anyone to buy, this would make an interesting addition to your portfolio. So I like this company. I agree with you. I haven't sort of dug into it because they're in Australia, we don't talk to a lot of their customers here in the states that are using them. And they seem to still be fairly regional in what they're doing, but this money that they have now should enable them to grow into US and European markets. So yeah, on one end you have external, how do we capture that? Joel (26m 47s): And reReejig looks at, Hey internally, how do we get your current bench activated and into your open roles? So interesting sides of the coin there, Chad. Chad (26m 57s): Yeah. They're data companies. So they should be doing everything behind the scenes, integrating with applicant tracking systems, getting into their marketplaces, those types of things. That'll make it easier to be able to invade the US but, but I mean, because you don't need a shit ton of marketing behind it, you just need a great partnership team and you need great partnerships with those applicant tracking systems. So yeah, they have a chance because the model should lean itself to not having to spend a shit ton of cash in the US to be able to get here. Joel (27m 33s): Let's take a break and play a little buy or sell, which I don't think we've done in a while. I'm pretty excited about it. Chad (27m 43s): All right, Chad you ready to play a little buy or sell? Torc, me, baby Torc me, baby. Joel (27m 48s): All right. You know, this goes, we cover three startups that have recently gotten money. We read a summary and we both either buy or sell the opportunity. First up is Torc. T O R C. The cast of Jersey shore has a startup. Chad, these guys are quite a piece of work from their online photos and PR materials. Anyway, talent marketplace Torc this week announced its public launch and funding to the tune of $5 million in seed capital. Torc connects businesses with software developers based on enterprise demands and developer productivity money will be used to scale. Joel (28m 30s): The business said Frank D'Souza co-founder of investor recognize and Torc board chair, quote, "Torc differentiates itself in the talent matching space with its use of AI security and marketplace dynamics to identify the most talented and productive engineers in the world "end quote. Michael Morris is co-founder and CEO. He is an economic software development expert and former CEO of crowdsourcing marketplace, Top Coder. Chad you buy or sell on Torc? Chad (28m 60s): So talent marketplaces are a very big piece of the workforce now, and it will become a much larger proportion in the very near future, especially for these types of positions. Now, the biggest difference between all of these startups busting into the space is one thing. That's leadership and with D'Souza, Biederman and Morris, who did sell Top Coder back in 2016 as co-founders, to me, this is an easy buy. Joel (29m 31s): Easy buy. All right, well, Chad, you know, you know, I like a good wave. I've never surfed before, but if I'm riding a wave, if I want to ride a good wave of, instead of trying to surf a bad wave and it makes sense, space is just hot. It's smoking, look, you've got the talent behind it. You have people needing developers. They're spending money like mad. The timing in terms of this business and the wave that they're on is super, super juicy. So for me, this is an easy buy. I love it. I love it. It's a strong buy as a flip. I think they could take this 5 million and turn into 250 million or so. Joel (30m 17s): So as a flip, I love it. As a longer term business, I'm still going to buy it. Torc is a winner from the Chad and Cheese podcast. Now we'll go into Instant Teams, the remote talent marketplace platform that builds and manages remote teams from a 26,000 plus member database of, and this is important "military connected, remote certified workers" has announced a series, a funding round of $13 million led by our friends at Tiger Global. Founded in 2016, the Delaware based company counts Amazon and Walmart as customers. Joel (30m 58s): They provide quote "instant access to pipelines of remote skill, ready, talent in customer support, sales, data analytics, and operational support roles" end quote. The company currently employs over 500 remote team members across the globe and has seen 346% growth in the last 12 months. Chad, you know, a little thing about the military, are you buying or selling Instant Teams? Chad (31m 26s): Yeah. These ladies have mad skills. This was a very smart and very fast pivot from a basic military spouse job board. That site was actually called Mad Skills. And then about 18 months ago during the pandemic, they pivoted into Instant Teams. The workforce they originally focused on was incredibly niche, spouses, military, so on and so forth, but it looks like they're opening it up into an outsourcing platform for more than just military spouses and military veterans. I mean, anybody with the skill sets that it looks like that they're trying to target. So I think if they're looking to open that up, some, both of these, these co-founders military spouses and some of the greatest experience I've actually seen in my military, my military time were military spouses. Chad (32m 14s): There were some of the smartest freaking people that I've ever witnessed and probably because they had to be so adaptable because they were changing all the time. They were they're moving from location to location. Well, this allows them to embrace that remote dynamic and Carrie, you know, again kind of like an outsourcing slash RPO set up. So I love it. I think it's incredibly smart in their pivots and how quickly they pivoted it. Makes me want to buy this. Joel (32m 47s): And by the way, Chad, you work in recruiting. So, you know, a lot of smart people. So that says something that these are some of the smartest people. Chad (32m 52s): So, insert sarcasm here. Joel (32m 54s): Sarcasm here. So remember when Facebook was like EDU email addresses only, and then that was super successful. And then they said, oh shit, let's just open this fucker up to the whole world. You know, I think I thought of that when I read about these ladies and you're right, like companies want to use this service, they need this service and they feel good about it because they're helping out, you know, veteran families. And then now these companies, maybe they run out of database, maybe the people are like shrunk or whatever. But like, so opening this thing up with the tech that they have and the 13 million that they've just gotten. I think that probably some of that round was like, oh, we'll open it up to the world. And I think that it, you know, the ramp up to success is probably going to be pretty easy. Joel (33m 39s): I don't know how the fuck they employ 500 people, even though they're remote. That seems a little crazy to me, but that's probably a little bit skewed to short-term contractors or somebody made us a banner ad back in February. So we'll count them as an employee. So I'm not sure about that number, but overall, yeah. I mean, this feels like it grew organically. It grew out of sorta love for the military community. And now it's just taken on a life of its own. Chad (34m 11s): Prime time. Joel (34m 12s): And it's off to the races now. Let's get to our third and final participant in buy or sell, Dawn Day. Chad (34m 20s): Where? Joel (34m 21s): I think that's Kanye his new album, the Salt Lake City, Utah based platform for time off announced a $3.3 million funding round, that's seed funding this week. Dawn Day provides a platform for time off, which helps organizations attract and retain top talent with travel savings, accounts, proprietary, travel, bookings, technology, and tools to reward and bonus employees with experiences. Everybody loves experiences. Since launching its product in March of '21, the company has brought on 31 customers, including Traeger Grills. If you've never had a rack of ribs on a Traeger Grill, Chad, you haven't lived yet. Joel (35m 1s): The company intends to use the funds to introduce its platform to the wider market, got to love their slogan "Better time off means better time on" Chad, are you buying or selling Dawn Day? Chad (35m 12s): The name Dawn Day? You know what that means? Right? Joel (35m 15s): Where, yeah. Where in Spanish? In Portuguese too? Chad (35m 19s): Yeah, no, I don't know. Joel (35m 20s): Casa de Sowash. That's what I'm going to ask when I get off the plane. Chad (35m 25s): Man, I love this idea. The problem is employers keep saying they want you to take a vacation, but the lion's share really don't mean it, kind of like hiring diverse candidates or hiring veterans. Many just smile and say what you want to hear and then nothing happens. So most employers don't believe it's their job to make your time off awesome. And they really don't want you to take it anyway. So I love this idea. The problem is you're working with a bunch of assholes. So I hate the market. It's a sell. Joel (36m 2s): Ooh, all right. Well, blame millennials, obviously Chad that want experiences. Chad (36m 6s): I want experiences are you fucking kidding me? Joel (36m 9s): That's the new booking.com commercial with Ewan McGregor, where he's like, well, you really die eating a dinner TV. Now you want it. So I agree with that, but Chad (36m 21s): Yes. Joel (36m 21s): It's obviously huge with that generation. And I, to me, employers are smart to tap into that desire, right? To have these experiences, I think makes a lot of sense. The pandemic ending means there's a lot of pent up demand to get the hell out of the house. Maybe work from home engagement is partially bent upon companies, helping people get the hell out of their house and get the hell out of, you know, their dog whining and their cat howling at the moon. Maybe this is too close to home for me. But getting out and helping employees, I love the savings account thing. I dunno if it's like they can set up a tax-free savings account or something but that to me is genius. Joel (37m 5s): I think it's a brilliant idea. I think the timing is right. And maybe it's just because I want to get the hell of the house, but I am buying Dawn Day. Chad (37m 16s): Dawn Day. Joel (37m 17s): Donde esta Casa de Sowash. All right. Let's take a quick break. And we'll talk about the future of recruiting conferences. All right, Chad, let's talk recruiting conferences and you and I are excited to get back out there. But as we know, as we know, the pandemic put a serious monkey wrench in the recruiting conference business. Most made an attempt at virtual events, but I think we all mostly agree, virtual events suck. Most who went to HR tech last year, said it was anemic in attendance with mostly vendors that were there. Now with the pandemic mostly over, we're ready to get back out there. Joel (37m 58s): Right? Chad (37m 58s): Yes. Joel (37m 58s): Well, maybe not a while some shows like England's RecFest are looking good so far. Others like Unleashed, Jobgate and ERE look a little thin from our viewpoint. Unleashed moved its March event to the US to May. ERE is sticking with virtual events this spring without their usual who's who of sponsors showing only three sponsors for their April digital only event. We're not going to count this source Khan Academy because they own it. Speaking of SourceCon their digital event in March has a dozen sponsors, which is still kind of low for a SourceCon event. The number of dollars are going into the recruiting space. Seems like that should be something that they'd be interested in. Joel (38m 41s): And then we have Jobgate, the job board industry conference, that's known for its global presence. They have canceled shows that were to take place in London and San Diego in 2021 and '22 respectively. Chad it's not buy or sell, but where would you put your money on the future of recruitment conferences? Chad (38m 59s): I think there's no question I believe we're going to have to focus on the experience. It's gotta be different. It just can't be come into a room and listen to somebody talk, you know, when you, when you think about in Unleash, I mean, we went to Paris for Unleash. That was an entirely different experience. That was more immersive, really enjoyed that. We'll see what Unleash America looks like. I believe we will see more of that. Also Rekfest you're talking about like an outdoor, you know, it's like a concert type of a situation. You know what I mean? It's the experience? What are you going to do to create an experience that is incredibly immersive, so different, but something that is engaging as well? Chad (39m 40s): I'm not sure that Jobgate ever provided that before. I love the people that were over there, but it was, Hey, let's go to a really cool place and go into a room, you know? And it, and that's not, I don't think what people are looking for. I think we need to see an evolution of what events look like, and I'm not sure a lot of these companies can do it. So there's going to be a thinning of the herd, unfortunately. And when SHRM's main stage speaker and they're pushing this out there for everybody to know, is Tim Tebow what and that's a big fucking event, right? Chad (40m 23s): What the fuck does that actually say? Joel (40m 27s): Tim Tebow at SHRM. sfx (40m 29s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (40m 30s): So can we blame the millennials on this one too? Clearly? I think we're in uncharted territory. If a digital conference can make more from attendees than sponsors, then I guess that's one route that you can take. And maybe that's, you know, where ERE is headed. If companies don't want employees to travel, then it's advantage digital event. I think digital events suck. I think you do too. And everyone I've talked to thinks they suck. So advantage long-term to me is in person. I think vendors want to get back and we know they have the money to spend on marketing at these events. But the attendees to me is the big question, because you can't have one without the other. Joel (41m 12s): I mean, probably not anyway. Once we get to HR tech in Vegas and Unleash in Paris this fall, I think we'll have a much better idea of where conferences and the future of conferences is going. It may also be evident that conferences need to start appealing to younger audiences, to your point. Rekfset and Knebworth, which is basically a circus for a day. So the commitment's not huge. It's a party. It's a good time. You learn some stuff while you're there. That's not your granddaddy's conference, right? And the old timey events should take note of that. Conferences aren't dead. People still want to rub together and get sticky. As our friend would say, but they probably need to evolve and evolve to thrive. Joel (41m 55s): And that'll be tough for a lot of events, but I think that the Recfests and I think HR tech needs to crank it up a little bit in terms of creativity. Unleash in Paris is an experience, particularly for the US but conferences are not dead, Chad. And that's why we're launching the Chad and Cheese conference from Bora Bora in 2023, everybody. Bora Bora 2023. Let's do it. Oh, fuck that. Joel and Chad (42m 32s): We out. OUTRO (42m 32s): 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.

Software promising to screen and test the world's best tech talent tend to fall into two camps: Those who can actually do it and those who are totally full of shit. Enter Intervue.io a startup that provides live tech testing to go with its video interviewing solution. Cofounder Rahul Arora enters the Firing Squad firmly convinced that his company falls in the category of vendors who can actually do the job and aren't full of doo-doo. Does he come out smelling like a rose or not? Gotta listen. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Shark Tank 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. Two middle-aged white guys with itchy trigger fingers. What's up everybody. It's your favorite podcast the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my partner in crime Chad Sowash and today on firing squad we welcome Intervue.io co-founder Rahul Arora Chad (44s): Yeah! Joel (44s): Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast Firing Squad. Rahul (48s): Hey Chad. Thanks Joel. Happy to be here. Joel (52s): You're very welcome. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the, the show. Tell our listeners a little bit about Rahul. Rahul (1m 3s): Well, so hi. So Joel (1m 3s): This is the hardest question he's gonna get today. Chad (1m 7s): He did not prepare for this one. Joel (1m 9s): Oh boy. Rahul (1m 10s): Absolutely not, but yeah, I'm going to give it a shot. So yeah, I mean, you can call me a hustler. I've been an engineer for about eight years. now I'm the co-founder, but you know, started off my career with, you know, a startup, et cetera, and then joined this company where I worked in three roles. I was a business analyst as well as a corporate sales guy and then I shifted to being a programmer. My very first startup, I was not able to scale it technically because I did not know how to code. And that's why I became a programmer learn programming although I did not want to do a job. sfx (1m 56s): Crickets. Joel (1m 56s): Let's wrap this up Rahul this is a Twitter bio, not a War and Peace. Rahul (2m 2s): Sure. So been working with several companies from India to name a few Deutsch Telekom. I was an engineering manager before this very hands-on programmer. Yeah, I can code anything up. Joel (2m 14s): I can code anything up. Love it. Well, Chad. Chad (2m 17s): Yes. Joel (2m 17s): Let the guy who can code anything up. Tell him what he's won. Chad (2m 22s): Well Rahul You have two minutes to pitch Intervue.io. At the end of two minutes, you will hear that bell then Joel and I will hit you with rapid Q and A. If your answers are droning on and you get boring, Joel's going to hit you with the crickets, which means tighten up your game. At the end of Q and A, you will receive you'll receive these ratings inspired by Meatloaf. Big applause. You're going to go all the way tonight, tonight. You're going to go all the way tonight. Get excited because you're ready for paradise by the dashboard light. Golf clap. Let me sleep on it. Baby baby let me sleep on it. Chad (3m 2s): So the pitch sounds good, but I'll give you the answer in the morning. Last but never least the firing squad. You'll be praying for the end of time, because there are no paradise by the dashboard lights with this product. Are you ready? sfx (3m 24s): Oh hell no. Joel (3m 25s): Ready Rahul? Rahul (3m 25s): Ready Joel (3m 25s): You might be in shock after that. Alright buddy, you got two minutes starting in three, two. Rahul (3m 35s): Hi guys. I'm Rahul Arora. I'm the co-founder of Intervue.io. We basically are a tech hiring platform that helps hiring team be more efficient when they are hiring for technical roles. Prior to interview, I've been an engineer for about eight years, I've scaled technical teams in my previous organization. A typical process that every company follows it in an interview is an interview we're joined on a video call, they would ask the candidate to share their screen, give them a problem statement. The candidate would waste the first 10 to 12 minutes of their time preparing their runtime environment, opening a coordinator. And you know, it's worst when you have to ask a lot of following questions because in according interview, following questions are not sentences in English they're lines of code. Rahul (4m 17s): And you know, sometimes as an interviewer, I had to paste those lines of code over chat, which was even worse for the candidate. This platform helps you tape an interview very, very seamlessly because it has a built in code editor along with an integrated video call supporting 40 plus programming languages. Another use case after an interview ends is the interviewers hop onto another call because of the busy nature of their work. And you know, a lot of interviewers do not submit the feedback of the candidate on time, which delays the hiring decisions. And, you know, a lot of HRS have, or talent acquisition teams have to follow up with the engineers to submit the feedback and they offer granularity on interview. Rahul (5m 1s): Every interview is generally auto generates a playback for that hour long interview the playback only lasts for three minutes and the feedback form is embedded within the interview environment where the interviewer can fill the feedback while they're taking the interview, as opposed to filling it later, if you're using any other video calling platform. So interview would help you record that feedback, right? When you're taking that interview and the playback is auto-generated. After the interview is ended, the hiring manager gets an alert. They can see the playback, the HR teams also gets an alert and you know, they can bring that playback into a debrief session and watch the complete playback, which is just three minutes of an hour long interview and make the hiring decision. sfx (5m 48s): Ding, ding, ding. Joel (5m 49s): Thank you Rahul. Thank you. My first question. So your name is Intervue and it's spelled how? Rahul (5m 59s): Intervue Joel (5m 59s): And it's dot.io. So did you try to buy the.com? I know someone owns it, but it's not being used. Rahul (6m 5s): Yeah. I mean, it was already bought by someone else and I was already interested in dot.io domain because it's a bit more progressive and also, you know, signifies something which is, which has to do something with tech. So I was already inclined towards buying .io domain. Chad (6m 23s): It's a country code for Indian Ocean. Are you fucking kidding me? It's a country code. Joel (6m 29s): Hey man, that was, it was hot shit five years ago, everybody has done that. So was interview correct spelling.io taken. Rahul (6m 39s): Yeah. Intervue.io Joel (6m 42s): Was taken. Is it a competitor or ? Rahul (6m 44s): Intervue.io is with us. The correct spellings was already taken. It's not a competitor. It's not even live. Joel (6m 50s): Okay. Is that a sales problem? Rahul (6m 51s): Nah, not really. To be honest. I mean, a lot of, had we been B2B, B2C, I think it would have been, we are B2B directly selling to companies. So, you know, we approach a lot of companies, the companies, and you know, when you're working with a lot of people in the recruitment space, they are pretty well connected. So your name already goes a long way if you're doing a good job. Joel (7m 16s): Gotcha. Okay Chad. Chad (7m 18s): Excellent. So what is the basic problem? You're trying to provide a solution for? Rahul (7m 24s): The interviewers do not like take interviews, engineers don't like to take interviews because they are busy in their day job. Their task is to develop a product. Chad (7m 32s): Right? Rahul (7m 33s): Our product helps them be more efficient so that a one hour long interview can be wrapped up in 60% lesser time with the kind of tools we provide. So that's why I said we help hiring teams be more efficient when they're taking the interview. And then at the same time, we have connected it to a lot of pieces where hiring managers can view the feedback very, very quickly recruitment teams can, you know, bring it to a debrief session and make an informed hiring decision. So a lot of it is about collaboration and it mitigates a lot of back and forth between the interviewers and the talent acquisition teams and that's what the product does. Chad (8m 7s): Okay. So can I actually use the platform without myself being the hiring manager on video? Can I just send the link to somebody? They can come up on video, we can obviously see them in the recording and then give them a coding questions so that you don't actually have to have a human involved. Rahul (8m 26s): Oh yeah. You can do that as well. Yes. Okay. So you can actually create a link, a unique link, just like a unique link on a zoom call has a unique link. You can listen in on the candidate. You can share the link with me and that this link is preloaded with a question or maybe a bunch of questions and then ask to solve them all. And just because a playback would be auto-generated by the platform you later on can view it, take an informed decision whether to view it or not. Second is you can also engage with me in a live face to face session, which is again, under the same link we both can join. We can do a live coding session. We can collaborate. Chad (8m 59s): Gotch ya. Rahul (8m 59s): Yeah both the things can happen. Joel (9m 0s): You have a great background in terms of being an engineer at some big companies, what was sort of the genesis of this idea where you disgruntled in interviewing people at Deutsche telecom and said, there's gotta be a better way. What was sort of the spark that created this company for you? Rahul (9m 17s): Well, I was taking a lot of interviews. In a span of two years, I would have taken more than 500 plus tech interviews. I used to facilitate one or two interviews every day and hiring drive every Saturday, every alternate Saturday. And you know, it used to take a lot of my time, especially a lot of my team members who were taking interviews and I usually take the final rounds. They used to spend one, one and a half hour into the interview. And I was like, and the candidate, the candidates they use to pass on, they do not, they did not turn out to be good. And I was like, why can't you wrap up these interviews in like 15, 20 minutes? So I've been spending an hour, one and a half hour? I could sense that there was no standardization that existed. Rahul (9m 59s): And, you know, we, there was a lot of back and forth, you know, between the HR folks and my teammates as well because a candidate before reaching out, reaching to my round, the HR used to being a complete summary of what the candidate did in the previous rounds. And you know, that backend, I wanted to mitigate that back and forth as well. And, you know, save everybody some time so that they can focus on their own work, be more productive. And this continued to happen for like one and a half year. We use several tools that already exist in the market, but you know, none of them came to the rescue and hence Intervues launched. We started putting the platform up by while was working part tipart-timeme. Rahul (10m 41s): And by the time we made the platform, like we already had one paying customer. That's how we started. And then I was eventually full-time and we scaled the platform to where it is today. Joel (10m 54s): Gotcha. So you've you launched in '19, correct? 2019. Rahul (10m 58s): 2019. Yeah. Joel (10m 59s): Okay. And you've raised an undisclosed seed round. Rahul (11m 2s): Yep. Joel (11m 3s): I assume that raising more money is in your future or where you stand on that? Rahul (11m 7s): We are raising the next round. We have at least catered to a lot of known companies in India, especially some of the companies I've previously worked with that are now using the platform and a lot of other companies as well. So now, and there are some companies on the US as well from California and New York that are using the platform. We have seen some massive growth in the last six months I would say, and we are in the point of raising our next round. Chad (11m 33s): Excellent. So who are your major competitors? Rahul (11m 35s): That's a good question. I would say, but in the current landscape, there's no direct competitor as such, because what we are building... Chad (11m 46s): Oh, don't bullshit me, man. You literally have Hacker Rank, Coder Pad and Hacker Earth on your website, in the footer, under the heading that says compare. Rahul (11m 57s): Yeah. Chad (11m 58s): So if they're not competitors, why are you actually outlining them on your website? Don't bullshit us. Rahul, talk to us, man. Rahul (12m 5s): I'll tell you why. A lot of being on sales calls, a lot of HR ask us, Hey, how are you different from HackerRank? Because HackerRank is actually a recruitment platform and we get discussion a lot. We thought, Hey, let's just put it on the footer. The other reason being our platform is not just built for recruiters. It's actually built for engineers. If we talk about Indian companies that are today using the platform, we have their entire hiring teams on the platform. It's not just recruiters. It's the engineers. It's the hiring managers, which are actually using the platform day in and day out. Chad (12m 39s): Who's buying the platform though? Are they engineers buying the platform or recruiters buying the platform? Rahul (12m 43s): A lot of times, at the end of the day, it's the VP taking a call. VP of engineering or Director of engineering. You know what, let's just go ahead and take this platform. Chad (12m 52s): That comes out of their budget? It comes out of their budget and not recruiting's budget? Rahul (12m 56s): It depends on the companies. Guys, to be honest, if it's a mid-scale company, yes, it comes under the engineering budget, but they will definitely loop in the HR because they are the ones who have to schedule the interviews. So that's how it is. But the platform is actually built for engineers. The engineers get a grasp from the platform very fast, which is, which is actually the end tie, the HackerRank and the Hacker Earth's of the world is actually built for recruiters and not the engineers. So, Chad (13m 20s): Okay. So how do you break through all of the noise? There are tons of competitors in the space. We've named a few Hacker Rank there's Metal Woven Teams, Code Signal, even dinosaurs like HireVue have built in assessments that can scale, right? Plus Touring just received $87 million in funding, with over a billion dollars in valuation. So how do you break through all of that noise plus all of the other noise that's happening in recruitment tech today? Rahul (13m 51s): Well, I really think it's a tough one to ask, a tough one to answer right now, but you know, in India, especially, you know, we have answered a lot, especially one of the core proposition of the platform is the UX and the speed of the platform, which is very, very different. We have actually taken a modern approach towards solving the problem. It's actually explained more, better, more visually than verbally. But if I had to just, you know, give a short shot at it, I think it's the sheer speed of the platform. We are right now the world's fastest programming environment on the internet, the platform loads in one second, even the coding environment, along with the video call, any language script. If I were to take some language names, you can move from a Java script to a Java within a few milliseconds only. Rahul (14m 36s): And there is no platform that does it that fast. Even the companies, the engineers that use the platform are amazed by the sheer speed of the platform. So that's one of our bestsellers and, you know, it's actually has been a lot of, you know, engineers we get in touch with say that, oh, we have heard of the platform. We have used it before. And, you know, we have heard the speed of the platform before and that is what is helping us spread. And then of course the UX of the platform. If you get onto HackerRank today, there's such a barrier to entry because you have to understand the platform. It's such a, such a difficult platform to use and some of the names that you took around the similar lines, sorry, I'm being a bit bullish, but that's how it is. sfx (15m 19s): Crickets Joel (15m 19s): All right, roll. You, you have, you have some impressive logos on the site. I'll mention a few in Microsoft, Cisco, IBM and Walmart. How are those companies paying you? Exactly what are they doing? Is it the entire company that's using the service or just some rogue satellite office? Talk about your relationship with those big ass brands. Rahul (15m 41s): I'm going to be a friend and honest here. A lot of companies. Joel (15m 45s): Thank you. Rahul (15m 46s): Yeah. A lot of companies in these big companies, we have some teams using the platform, not the entire company, because we are still, we get to enter the US as I would say, scaling to the US but if I know about a lot of Indian companies like Zomato, Swiggy, and a lot of other companies that are using the platform from India, which are unicorns. Are our thesis, was to, you know, make it big in the homegrown and then move it to other other geographies. Joel (16m 14s): Yeah. So sales and marketing, I'm curious about, because it sounds like you're not selling directly into recruiting teams, or maybe you are, I mean, marketing is disparate at best, you know, your last Instagram post was a year ago. So clearly like social media outreach is not a focus for the company. So who are you calling? Who are you pitching? And how are you pitching them? What's the sales and marketing strategy? Rahul (16m 40s): I will answer the second one first. So we basically get in touch with the engineering leadership, depending, again, depending on the company size or the HR leadership in a company, we get in touch with them. We tell them, Hey, if you want to save your time with hiring come take a demo. And they, some of them are actually interested in the demo and that's how the process is. For the marketing side, a lot of people, they search for coding interview tools, and we are a SEO optimized there. We are the number third position on Google, if you search for the similar term. And there are many other terms, and then there are blogs that we write about that hiring that any engineer on HR I would search and we would get a sign up from there. Rahul (17m 23s): So that's how that's how we are placing it today. But tomorrow, you know, a larger strategy would be, you know, writing relevant content, helping a lot of engineers or design their processes, efficient team when they're hiring for particular roles and helping a lot of HRs, you know, design, designing the hiring rubric in the right way and, you know, building content at that level so that, you know, SEO plays its part and, you know, building vitality around content itself. Chad (17m 50s): Okay. So you're trying to go direct to client instead of creating integration partnerships. Is that what I'm hearing is that where your focus is you're trying to go direct to logos, big logos, and you're not currently working with a bigger hiring platforms? Rahul (18m 6s): You're right. We are currently going directly to the companies. We are open for channel partners as well, but we have, we have not yet tried any channel partners. For example, there was this growth strategy that we've just kicked off, but, and we are, you know, our hangup with few named VCs from the US and their portfolio companies would get access, exclusive access to interviewer, probably some discounted price, or maybe an extra feature in a lower plan. Chad (18m 35s): OK. Rahul (18m 36s): That's how we are aiming at it. But you know, who knows for the future, we might come up with 10 more strategies, but right now, given the team size, there's so much only we can do. Chad (18m 45s): Now, is that, are you talking about staffing companies that you could perspectively partner with? Is that part of the perspective partnership strategy? Rahul (18m 53s): Not a lot of companies. There are a lot of ATSs that HRs use. And, you know, we can just, with those ATS as they have their own channels where, you know, they can recommend if any companies, wants to do an interview or an assessment tool, they can, if they can recommend our name, we can integrate with this ideas and provide them a seamless workflow and that's how it's gonna work. Chad (19m 17s): Okay. So you, you talked about making sure that you focus on discipline of area, meaning, you know, at least India, I mean, it's cause that's a pretty damn big market. When do you feel like you will be ready to actually start invading the US? Joel (19m 32s): Once that series A clears. Rahul (19m 34s): And it'd be before that itself. I think it's just a few weeks down the line. We are already doing a lot of experiments, you know, learning from the data and what was, what does not work, I think just few weeks down the line, for sure. Chad (19m 50s): Okay. Talk to me about the number of employees that you currently have, and then also your growth strategy around that and the product. What does the roadmap look like? And does it differ from what the product looks like today after that funding? Rahul (20m 4s): Oh, wow. Great. That's a great question. So we are, I know a team of 10 people, a pretty small team doing a lot of work. We will scale to a 18 people team very, very soon, I think in about one and a half months time. So right now, currently the other product of, one of the features that I want to talk about relaunch recently is called consolidation. A lot of hiring data is spread out as different tools. Your assessment data might be on one platform. The enduring data might be on a Google form or an ATS interview brings it all together using this consolidation feature wherein if you were to have interviewed a candidate and this candidate has gone through like four rounds of interview with you. You would see all those rounds, even the assessment of the candidate and the questions that the candidate was asked under a single view, which is very, very powerful. Rahul (20m 50s): It'll help you. You save a lot of bandwidth as an HR because you won't have to collect that data manually in order to take an informed decision. So that's the feature that we have launched recently. Upcoming features. We are launching a universal search when you will be able to search a candidate by the name or even their previous company name. Now you might have interviewed a candidate from, let's say, I don't know Uber, and you don't remember the calendar's name, but you can simply put Uber in the search box. You would get a list of candidates that you would have interviewed from Uber. Even you can search by technology, et cetera, et cetera, such a feature does not exist anywhere at all. So we are building this universal search, which will help you, you know, bring that sexiness to the hiring platform. Joel (21m 32s): Sexiness. Rahul (21m 32s): Yeah, and we are launching a lot of features on the language support side when we are introducing virgining, let's say from, for even swift, for Java, bringing in more languages in packages, packet support to our platform, that these are some of the upcoming features. Joel (21m 52s): Gotch ya. Your website says that your product reduces bias, how? Rahul (21m 57s): See, or when you're doing a coding interview, it's mostly taking this core skill set. And it's a lot of hiring that happens across the board. A lot of people, you know, might be biased towards a particular gender, might be biased towards, I dunno, a lot of things that exist in the world today. There's a feature where you can mask all those things and just make, and you can even hide that resume if the candidate if you need. Secondary to reduce biases, a lot of companies that what they do is, and that's what the platform actually does is the companies will normally to share the previous round feedback with the current interviewer so that they are not biased. And the platform actually enables to do that as well. Rahul (22m 38s): The hiring manager would be able to see, or the admin would be able to see it all. And it's basically a flag which you can turn on and off. So. Joel (22m 50s): Gotcha. Well, let's talk about pricing and I love the fact that your site says, quote, "four out of five said, Intervue was not that expensive." It sounds like the old dental ads, four out of five dentists say, blah, blah, blah. Chad (23m 1s): Trident. Joel (23m 1s): So, you're pretty transparent with pricing. So I'm just going to give you a chance to discuss that, how you guys break down the cost of this service. Rahul (23m 13s): Got it. So if you, if you take into consideration an average software engineer salary in the US given the company, meaning it would be somewhere close to a hundred thousand dollars. And if you talk about the Uber's and the Twitters of the world salary would be 200,000 north of 200,000. If you break it down to a per hour salary of an engineer, it would be very, very high. When we say we make hiring teams become more efficient. When they're actually taking an interview, we would save you a lot of hiring time and that's man hours saved and you'll end up utilizing those man hours, building your product. And that's where, you know, we provide a range of plans or depending on the company size, starts at a personal plan, which starts at $135, which will give you access for 20 interviews, goes up the business plan, which comes out around $350 a month. Rahul (24m 6s): And we'll give you access to 120 interviews. Our pricing is not even, I would say one 10th of the number of man hours that you will save. And obviously time is money. So that's how the pricing is actually built and designed. Joel (24m 21s): All right? Speaking of efficiency, your answers need to be more efficient in the future. Chad, I think Rahul's ready to face the firing squad. Are you ready Rahul? Rahul (24m 31s): Sure. Go ahead. Joel (24m 31s): All right, buddy. Chad give him your review. Chad (24m 34s): Alright, here we go. So I've actually jumped on the site and I've gone through kind of some of the demos, and this is what screening, testing and interviewing should look like. Period. This is to me, exactly what should be embedded in every core hiring platform, talent platform that's out there, period. But here's where you're falling down Rahul, take notes. Your Series A won't be enough to invade the US. You think a couple of weeks, you start doing that you're going to get smacked square in the face. Your focus should be on partnerships and integrations, and there's plenty of money and less competition outside of the US right? Chad (25m 16s): So focus on the chunks that you can actually win, and then build up that war chest, get that series B, series C funding, and then maybe through acquisition shit who knows then come to the US. Right? On the marketing side. When companies are asking you about comparing to other vendors, that's a signal that they are your competitors, right? Or you need to do better on messaging. Now it's not bad from a validation standpoint, because Hacker Ranks a damn good name to be associated with, especially if you're better than they are. Engineers buying recruitment platforms. I think you're going to see that every now and again, but that's not going to be the standard. They're going to kick it back to recruiting because that's what recruiting does and they don't have time for that shit. Chad (26m 1s): They want to anoint it, but the money's going to go possibly more than likely through HR and recruiting. So don't think your fairy dust is going to get you directly out of unfortunately, slow adoption, HR and recruiting. You have a very heavy task in trying to break through some of the big name competitions that's out there much like yourself, right? The smaller companies like yourself. Plus there are so many different areas that are noisy as well. You have conversational AI, you have a matching, there's a long list, right? So you're not just fighting your competitors. You're fighting for top of mind awareness, right? Chad (26m 41s): You have a steep climb, but if you're disciplined and you focus on being able to create big growth where you are right now, and then when you have a war chest come to the US I think like I'd said, starting out, this is what code screening, testing, and interviewing should look like, but you've got a lot of work to focus on when it comes to go to market. That's why you're getting a golf clap. Joel (27m 9s): Just need some work Rahul. Just need some work, from Chad. All right. Here's what I really like. I like that you have a deep core competency in engineering and the interview side and I think that the company was born out of a legitimate need that has to be filled. I love the fact that you're targeting engineers and helping expedite that process and create efficiencies. I love how, you know, the video component and the coding live coding process works. I love the being able to do that from anywhere in the world, right? That you have the work from home movement in the US and the hot thing is how do we interview for competency and not have someone, you know, face to face with an interviewer? Joel (27m 49s): So you have a lot of things that I really like, and my guess is that, you know, you're a company of engineers and you're creating a cool product, and you're not really sure about how to market it. You're not really sure how to strategically take it to market. Who's the best client for this product? And so I'm really happy to hear that you're going to be raising a series A. I will echo Chad's sentiment of saying that coming to the US is going to be a very steep mountain to climb. You have well known competitors that have a lot more money that are already have a client base, et cetera. So that's going to be really tough for you, but I think the series A is at least going to start tightening up the corners around what's your messaging, what's your marketing. Joel (28m 31s): You know, who's sort of pitching this product. What's our target market? Doing SWAT analyses and all that good stuff. So I'm glad to hear that you're doing that. And I think that you'll get, you'll get a series A just based on the current product and what you guys are doing. So ultimately, I like the basis of the product. I like what you guys are doing. I think that your challenges that you have, you've brought a water gun to a tank battle, and you have to arm up in a big way, or seriously focus this product on a very limited number of companies, or at least a geographical footprint that you can get salespeople out there face-to-face and marketing it accordingly. Joel (29m 15s): So it's obviously not a round of applause at this point. It's certainly not shooting you down with the big guns. I'm going to side with Chad on this one sfx (29m 26s): Golf clap. Joel (29m 26s): And say, look the foundation is there, raise the money, build the product. I think you're an acquisition target for a lot of other companies. If you do the right things in the next two to three years, but Hey, get to work and build this thing up, man. Chad (29m 45s): Let me sleep on it. Let me sleep on it. Baby baby, let me sleep on it. Joel (29m 47s): Well, congratulations. We've got no emotional response from you. So I don't know if you're a just shocked. Rahul (29m 49s): I don't know if you could hear me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It means a lot. I think the feedback is also great. You're spot on there. There are a few of the things that we're launching, but there's only so much we could talk about given the length of the podcast. So I'm just happy I got to be a part of it. Joel (30m 7s): We hope you'll come back after you've raised your series F and you're a unicorn and a can have a nice reunion with us. Chad (30m 16s): We love having you on excellent. Joel (30m 17s): But until then, Rahul. Where can our listeners find out more about your company? Rahul (30m 22s): Oh, it's directly on the website. It's intervue.io. Joel (30m 24s): Thanks Rahul, Chad. Sometimes he's a man of many words. Sometimes he's a man of few words. You never know what you're going to get, but you know what show always going to get on the firing squad, entertainment and education. Joel and Chad (30m 39s): We out, we out. OUTRO (30m 47s): 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.

Maybe you've heard, Europe has some stuff it's dealing with at the moment. But the show must go on! This week, the boys are joined by head of talent and author Jan Tegze to tackle a slew of acquisitions by House of HR, a perspective IPO from Jobandtalent and - someone alert HR! - groping in the metaverse. We also highlight some recent startups that enjoyed an influx of cash recently, as well as give our 2 cents on the state of war in Ukraine. 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 (5s): Some podcasts, do it for the fun. Some do it for the fame, Chad and Cheese they do it for global effin domination. That's why bringing America to its knees was just the beginning. Now they have their eyes set on conquering Europe and they've drafted industry veteran Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze of Belgium to help them navigate the old country and bring HR's most dangerous podcast across the pond to trash-talk like never before. Not safe for work in any language. The Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. Joel (39s): Oh yeah. Europe's been pretty quiet lately. So I'm not quite sure what to say in the intro this week. What's up freedom fighters? You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "do Molotov cocktails come with whiskey" Cheeseman. Chad (55s): And this is Chad "send more Javelin" Sowash. Lieven (59s): And I'm Lieven "Putin you'll never make it to the show again" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 4s): On this episode, the house of HR rolls out the welcome mat, Job And Talent eyes Wall Street or whatever the European equivalent might be and groping in the metaverse, someone call HR. Let's do this. sfx (1m 19s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 21s): Mystery guest! Joel (1m 22s): We've got a mystery guest guys, very excited. Let's welcome Jan Tegze director of Talent Acquisition from the Czech Republic. Jan what else should our listeners know? You're kind of a secret guy. Jan (1m 37s): Hi everyone. Oh, I hope I'm not that secret. Joel (1m 40s): Not after this show. Jan (1m 41s): I hope so. So a few things about me. So I wrote the book Full-Stack Recruiter several years, I believe like five or six years so far. I'm trying to create a game for recruiters so you can find them on their sourcing build games. Joel (1m 58s): Is this like a card game, Jenga? What are we talking about? Jan (2m 2s): Oh my God. I wish so. It's more like scavenger hunt. So you, you have a sourcing question when you solve it there is another level and you've got for every game has around like 6,7 levels. You need to go at the end and there are like 30 plus games. So, but I will definitely try to create some next time. Chad (2m 28s): So what year did you write full-stack recruiter? Jan (2m 33s): Last, the full version will publish in 2020. I believe so. Yeah. Two years ago, but the first book full-stack recruiter the first version was published, I believe in 2015. Joel (2m 45s): Wow. Chad (2m 46s): Wow. Well, that's a huge difference when we're talking about tech stacks from 2015 to today. So I would assume correct me if I'm wrong. The book has to be majorly different in this version than it was the 2015 version. Jan (3m 0s): Well, it is different than it's got, like the first version has 415 pages. This one has 765, plus the extra content and I can stuff way more content there. So yeah, it's evolving car field quite quickly. Yeah. And I'm still a slow typer. Joel (3m 21s): Listeners should be excited. We have a director of TA we have an author and an entrepreneur making games, very exciting. Chad (3m 30s): Making games. Joel (3m 30s): Making money. Chad (3m 31s): Excellent. Shout outs. Joel (3m 32s): Yeah. Do you want to talk about Europe? Chad (3m 34s): Oh yeah, we're going to do some Europe shout-outs because Jesus, as we've spoken to Europeans over the last few weeks or so just about every one of them shrugged off this buildup by Russia. And it was more like, Hey, you know, Russia always plays these games. And I wonder if that was just a pretty much Jedi mind trick from Putin. You know, he was always on the Ukrainian border and he was always playing these games. But the next thing you know, he's not playing games anymore. I mean, they're going full tilt. Joel (4m 5s): Yeah. As Americans having two Europeans on the show, I'd love your guys' perspective on what's going on. Is there fear? Is there inspiration from what NATO is doing? What's the world look like from your viewpoint? Lieven (4m 18s): People are really angry. And this is the first time that Europe actually is more than a bunch of countries. Suddenly Putin realized the only thing he didn't want to realize making Europe one block. And for the first time in history, according to me, all those countries are working together against one enemy and it's heartwarming to see the reactions of all those people. It's great. But of course, for the people in Ukraine, yeah it's terrible. But the reactions from Europe is great and I think we'll get out better of this. Chad (4m 53s): When you see Sweden sending military in some gear. I mean that's saying something. Joel (4m 58s): Eventually helmets. Chad (4m 59s): And it doesn't matter when they send anything. Yeah. Joel (5m 1s): And send Tengai, the recruiting robot, that'll scare the shit out of the Russians. So Jan what do you think about the invasion? Jan (5m 10s): Well, first of all, its a tragedy because the country was attacked unprovoked. I know that there are different opinions on that, but I hope that this will end soon. And, you know, as Lieven mentioned, Putin basically helped to unite European Union and as we do not like bullies, I hope we will, you know, take more actions and help Ukrainian people. So. Joel (5m 36s): I agree with Lieven on the heartwarming thing. I think it's really inspirational, obviously a tragedy with war, but I've been really inspired by what I thought was a fragmented world coming out of COVID obviously the Trump years were pretty anti NATO years and to see the world, the free world, if you will join forces and take on Russia is really inspiring to me as well. Chad (5m 58s): And my shout out, my first shout out goes to the Javelin anti-tank missile. We need to get as many of these fuckers into Ukrainian hands as we possibly can. And I also saw, I think it was Turkish drones who was equipped with like some sort of some version of like a hellfire missile that was just blowing the shit out of the T80s as well. You start blowing those fucking T80 tanks away like that. They're they're going to fucking cut and run because they have to. Joel (6m 26s): And by the way, I know these, these guys can use it because if you look at any Ukraine fighter, they looked like they'd been fighting for 20 years. They're all like smoking cigarettes and coffee for breakfast. They look like they, I mean, they just looked like they'd been through the battle. So I have a lot of confidence in them. Lieven (6m 44s): They have been since 2014, they have been constantly in battle. So those people are rough. Joel (6m 52s): They're not manicured like the Belgians are they? Well, I'll go out a little less exciting, but there is still business to discuss in what's going on in Europe. So we have three startups recently that received money. I want to highlight some of those. So first up we have London based Sova Assessment. They closed a $9 million funding round recently bringing their total to just shy of $13 million. Founded in 2015, the company provides mobile friendly assessments. They service 120 organizations in over 20 countries. Next up we have Dutch based Equalture they raised two point 75 million euros for a total of 3.8 million euros. Joel (7m 33s): They help companies make unbiased hiring decisions. Founded in 2018 by sisters, two sisters, actually, with this funding funding Equalture plans to further grow its international customer base and expand its test library of game-based neuro assessments. Jan, you might be interested in them. And lastly, we have Munich based employee enablement platform, Zavvy they've raised $4 million in seed funding. Launched just last year the company intends to use the funds to invest in product development and not, no word of coming to America. So good for all of those companies. We've got two assessments. Chad (8m 13s): Smart. Joel (8m 13s): And one, I guess, onboarding company representing a myriad of countries in Europe. Shout out to those, those organizations. Lieven, you got a shout out or two? Lieven (8m 23s): Yeah, two actually. These are special times we need special shout outs. So the first one goes to President Zelenskyy for just being a one awesome president. Chad (8m 31s): Yeah. Lieven (8m 32s): I think he is what Putin always pretended to be. He's is one hell of a bad-ass and I think that Time's person of the year 2022 is known already. And I really hope the people of Ukrainia that they can hang on there until everything settles down. And the second shout out is something just breaking news I got to my mailbox, you know, Doha, the chatbots we had on the show recently? They launched a chatbot app to help refugees from Ukrainia to get the needed help, and to get in touch with organizations who want to help. Nice. And this is something I really like about this last days, Romania, the rise of a Romanian company. Lieven (9m 12s): There are really, yeah, that's been living under the Soviet Union before, so they are really in touch with everything and all those people are now sticking together and helping out to people in Ukrainia. And it's nice to see. I love it. Chad (9m 26s): And we were talking about prior to, to actually recording how everybody's just more connected now. I mean, there's the transparency that's out there when you know, President Zelenskyy gets on and you know, he's sharing shorts via social media on, you know, being in the streets, being with fighters. We're here. We're not running. We don't need a ride. We need bullets. Right. You know, we need ammo. I mean, this to me, this is what pulls it all together. And I believe Putin thought that he had it all pretty much taken care of because he could shut them down. Quote, unquote, "shut them down" from a social media standpoint. Chad (10m 6s): But that hasn't been allotted. Not to mention, I think your, your hero Elon Musk, might've had a little to do with this. Lieven (10m 16s): Yep. Starlink indeed. Zelenskyy asked on Twitter Elon instead of sending people to Mars country, you expand your Starlink network to Ukraine. And a few minutes later, Elon Musk replied on that once again, Elon my hero. Joel (10m 30s): So for those who don't know, Lieven Starlink is? Lieven (10m 35s): Starlink is a satellite network Elon Musk launched to provide basically internet all over the world without having to have a real connection. So it's a safe connection for the people in Ukraine without Russian being able to intervene. So it's a good thing. Joel (10m 50s): Good stuff. Well, Chad, you and I get to see firsthand all this heartwarming patriotism and NATO love when we get to go to Europe. Chad (10m 58s): Yes! Joel (10m 53s): This summer. So we got a couple of trips to talk about. Chad (10m 58s): In May! Joel (10m 58s): So May 6th, we have, I dunno, Lieven's got a little get together that day. Lieven you want to tell the audience about that? Lieven (11m 12s): May 6th is the best E-recruitment conference in the world, Ostend, Belgium. And I'll be glad to see y'all again in real life. It will be fun. Joel (11m 20s): The Americans are coming. Lieven (11m 22s): The Americans are coming indeed once again. Joel (11m 24s): There we go at the UK the week after the 4th of July holiday in the US so we have RecFest, which is awesome. If you guys are in the UK, we're going to, Knebworth, commonly known as the Woodstock of England. I guess we'll be there for RecFest. I know a lot of sponsors, friends of the show, contacts and people that we know and love will be there. So that's very, very exciting. Chad (11m 47s): It's going to be a blast kid. That's going to be a blast. One last shout out. You've got to hear this. It seems as if a Belgium is the new France in Europe, as they, they fully embrace the prospect of a four-day work week, straight out of the Washington post on this one, kids. "Belgium has announced it will allow workers to request permission to compress their work hours into four days," pretty soon Lieven will be taking two hour lunches and smoking. I have six smoke breaks a day. Lieven (12m 29s): Wait, why only two hour lunches? Used to have more! Chad (12m 33s): Topics! Joel (12m 33s): Speaking of Lieven having four day work weeks, his company leads off our news for this episode. So House of HR is taking the next step in its growth process with two acquisitions. First is the acquisition of SOLCOM the company headquartered in Germany as a leading IT service provider. They recruit experts in IT and engineering to accompany clients through projects. House of HR, CEO, Rika Coppens center released quote, "finding successful companies for sale in IT is not easy. It has been a part of our wishlist for a long time." But that wasn't enough they had another acquisition house of HR has also gobbled up Dutch company TMI one of the largest HR service providers for the healthcare sector in the Netherlands. Joel (13m 20s): TMI, which by the way, does not stand for too much information is responsible for the recruitment of profiles for hospitals, public care institutions, ambulance staff, and nursing homes. The profiles they work with include doctors, nursing, staff, psychologists, and pharmacists. The bank is open for business at the House of HR. Lieven this one's your lane, give us the skinny on these two acquisitions. Lieven (13m 47s): Yeah. Okay. TMI. Maybe it does stand for too much information because I had a meeting with the employees last week and basically a meeting because the meeting, but we had a fancy dinner in Amsterdam, I was surrounded by great people, mostly women. And I must say, they are Dutch and are very open-minded. I'm not going to share the topics because probably it isn't appropriate. Chad (14m 13s): That you're talking about in the metaverse I'm sure. Lieven (14m 17s): Great. And it's something the metaverse has developed a bubble for. You know, really nice people, but indeed it's a very interesting acquisition because healthcare, you can't go wrong with healthcare these days. And they have a group of about 4,000 professionals, healthcare professionals, and this is something you just can't copy easily. This is not a company you can launch overnight. They've been working on that for a very long time. Those people are very loyal and they placed them. It's search and selection and they place them at our clients. So it's a great company. Revenue of about 100 million growing fast. Lieven (14m 58s): We're going to help them to grow all over Europe now. Chad (15m 1s): When it comes to actually taking TMI, are you looking to try to expand outside of what I'm hearing is outside of the Netherlands? Have they've just been specifically in the Netherlands before. Yeah. Lieven (15m 14s): Okay. The Netherlands and also the Caribbean, which is actually quite fun, you know, I'm sure you have St. Martin and a few other islands in the Caribbean, which are still part of Netherlands. Chad (15m 25s): I feel a market trip coming on. Lieven (15m 26s): Yeah. He also said it we need to check it out. Of course we do. Joel (15m 33s): So when you get a bunch of healthcare people in Amsterdam for dinner, does the medicinal marijuana come out to play or not so much? Lieven (15m 43s): Not before dessert. Joel (15m 44s): Are you going to stay in Europe or do you have aspirations for either of these companies to come to America? Lieven (15m 50s): No, for now we're going to stay in Europe, still a bunch of countries in Europe in which we're not active so we're working on that, but never say never of course. Jan (16m 2s): Like the Czech Republic. Are you planning to go here? Lieven (16m 5s): Probably someday. You already are hiring people from Eastern Europe, but mostly to get them to work in the Western part. But we have offices in the Baltic states and Poland and Romania, not in the Czech Republic, I think, but we definitely could. Joel (16m 23s): Lieven where the terms of this deal published or not? Lieven (16m 27s): I've seen them. Joel (16m 27s): So just between us girls, can you tell us what the terms were? Probably not. Lieven (16m 32s): But not real terms, but something important and I was maybe and current CEO who was also the founder is going to stay on board and another guy probably is rich by now, but he will reinvest a big part of its into House of HR. And that's something we always try to do, that the founders and the CEOs are reinvesting and on group level. So they're helping each other out. We are a multibrand company. We have 45 brands now and all those are, most of the CEOs are still on boards and they are investing in the all of House of HR. So even though in some cases they can be competitors in some countries, they still are in need of helping each other because they are part of the same company. Lieven (17m 17s): It's not just multibrand it's multi brand, but with one big shareholders structure. Chad (17m 21s): Are they both pure play staffing organizations? Lieven (17m 25s): Yeah, I guess so a good call. It's pure stuffing. It's a on search and selection. So it's staffing. Chad (17m 32s): SOLCOM seems to have like a freelancer platform as well. Are you guys, is that something, one of the reasons why you guys actually targeted them because of the technology and being able to attract the IT side of the house? What was really the big push for SOLCOM? Lieven (17m 49s): Well, we really are into a digital land that's for sure. And that's one of the reasons TMI has chosen us because other people were interested as well, but TMI wanted our digital approach and we are known for our digital approach. And Solcom of course is an IT company so from them you can expect to have a more digital approach than TMI has. But our, I was really surprised by TMI because they are, for example, they are hiring nurses on LinkedIn, which is normal, of course, but they are very advanced on LinkedIn automation tools, which isn't really standard. So I was happily surprised when I was talking to my new colleagues last week during dinner. And I don't know, I thought I was going to have to show them a lot because we always share best practices, but they actually are pretty advanced and Solcom of course has a different story. Lieven (18m 42s): They have a revenue of 172 million. They're still growing rapidly and they are focused on engineering IT so you can expect a digital matureness from them. Joel (18m 54s): Well, we know LinkedIn loves good automation tools. Lieven (18m 58s): LinkedIn loves us to, and I do hope they're going to sponsor my Congress. Otherwise I'll make LinkedIn automation tools a topic at the conference. Joel (19m 5s): Always be closing baby. So House of HR seems like a house of brands. When you guys acquire a company, do they typically keep their brand name? Do they keep the team there or do you sort of integrate them into House of HR companies? And also, I know you guys are still on a buying spree. What other types of companies are you looking to add to the portfolio going forward? Lieven (19m 27s): We are definitely a multibrand company, because when we buy a company, we buy it because they are better performing than the others. We buy the best possible companies and then it would just make no sense at all to force them to be something they are not. So whenever we buy a company, we let them be. But we're going to try to help them to grow faster than they could alone. And we can help them by integrating them in our corporate structure, with the digital assets and financial assets, we give them money to grow faster. We can leverage them. We can help them grow on a European scale, et cetera. But basically we are never going to force a company into a corporate structure to keep their colors, they keep their logos, their spirits, but we also take care that their spirit is matching ours. Lieven (20m 16s): You guys always talking about the happy rebels. HR stands for happy rebels. We have been rejecting companies. We have been looking at the companies which looked great on paper, but just didn't have the entrepreneurial spirits that we are looking for. Jan (20m 30s): I'm just curious about when you mentioned that you are implementing those companies or providing some support and then technology pieces and everything around that. Are you also, do you have like your company ATS, that every company that you implement into your structure is using, or you let them to keep their technology or their ideas? Lieven (20m 50s): Yes, that's a good remark as well. We have our, at least our CIO, I'm chief digital. We have a chief information officer as well, and he has a list. Some things are mandatory. Some things, things are just advised. For example, if you are building a new website, we have some CMS systems, which we advise people to use. It's not really mandatory, but we like people to use Dropout or WordPress. Because if you are building one application, we would like the other companies to be able to use them as well. So in that case, it makes sense to start using the same structure, the same platform. But if one of our companies is using an idea system and he's happy, or they're happy with it, we're not going to force them to change. Lieven (21m 32s): We are working with some ATSs and we probably will advise the other companies if they are going to change, to choose one of those we are working with, but we will never forcing them. Joel (21m 43s): So Lieven, we have a lot of companies that listen to the podcast. What are some things that you look for in acquiring a company that they might say, oh, that sounds like us. We're going to give House of HR a call? Lieven (22m 1s): Sponsoring my Congress is always a good start. But not just to give an open answer. We are not Adecco. We are not Randstad. We have a 2.2 billion euros revenue, which is not small, but it's not the 25 of Randstad for example. We are buying companies. We have an avatar starting from 5 million, because even if a company is really, really interesting, if they are just too small, if they are promising, but nothing more than it's too expensive for us to integrate in the corporate financial structure, et cetera. So we're not really looking for startups. We are looking for companies who are ready to scale up. Yeah, like these companies, we're just talking about a 100 million year revenue, 170 million. Lieven (22m 45s): These are big companies, but not probably the corporate companies that Adecco is going to buy. Something in between. We are buying the most promising companies which have already proven they are better than the others, and they have a great business model. We help them grow even faster. That was the whole idea. Chad (23m 3s): What about from a funding standpoint, Lieven obviously acquisition a little bit different than funding. What do you look at for those startups? Those early stage startups are those series A's or what have you, are you looking to fill gaps? Lieven (23m 17s): We are very digitally oriented. So if someone has a great ID and even though they even have still have to start, they can always contact us. Of course. And we will even sign an NDA if necessary. Normally we built them yourself. We have our own ID. So we know this business so well, we know this industry so good. So in most cases, we just launched our own ideas, which for example, nowjobs a great digital platform will make 100 million euros this year as a revenue, as a platform we launched a few years ago, starting from zero. We do invest in companies, but not that much. Not that often we mostly launch around startups. Lieven (23m 58s): It's something we always make fun. After the big competitors, they are too big to be creative. We are not, we are still small enough to be creative. Joel (24m 5s): That's awesome, man. Well, I think we all think there's going to be quite a bit of M and A activity, and it's nice to have you on the show to tell us about the M and A that you guys are doing and we'll be doing in the future. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk a little Job And Talent and a little metaverse. sfx (24m 23s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (24m 26s): All right, guys, who's ready for a good old fashion IPO in the space coming out of Europe? I know I'm excited. Chad (24m 32s): I can't wait. Oh yeah. Just so excited. Joel (24m 37s): So a Job And Talent who we've talked about on the show before they're based out of Madrid and they are a recruitment marketplace and digital temping agency, they could opt for an IPO next year. This is according to claims by El Economista, the Spanish business newspaper reports that the company could choose to list on either a stock exchange in the good old US or a European burse. However, the paper added that the sale of the company has not been rolled out either. You're going to have to have a big checkbook to buy them though. In December of 2021 Job And Talent closed a $440 million euros. Joel (25m 17s): That's about $500 million in the US. A series A funding round, which valued the company at 2 billion euros, or about 2.3 billion US dollars. Job and Talent uses AI to match individuals to temporary work in warehousing logistics and light industry. Guys, whose buying the Job And Talent IPO next year? Lieven (25m 40s): That depends. Today, I would maybe invest in the American Stock Exchange, not in European things that aren't that stable for a moment. No, but I didn't know. Really, honestly, I didn't know they were that big. I know about them and they're active in Germany and then in France and in, I think Sweden some other countries, but they're not active in the Netherlands. They're not active in Belgium. So I haven't really gotten into them that much. I didn't know they were that big and I'm quite surprised and I'm pretty interested. So I'm going to look more into what they're actually doing because in my opinion, they were digitally. Yes. But not that spectacular really. I mean, it's just a temping agency with a website, so I'm not really convinced there. Joel (26m 21s): And pretty niche as well. I mean, sticking with warehousing logistics and sort of the light industries, I mean, that's, is that industry that big in Europe to be valued at 2.3 billion euros? Jan (26m 35s): Well, it is. And they just, you know, it's like focusing on healthcare, they are focusing on things that are super important and especially in warehouses, there, there is a huge demand for warehouse workers or drivers and those types of people. So I would, you know, if they are going to get the IPO and start selling shares I am definitely going to consider to buying some. Joel (26m 55s): We've got a buyer, everybody, I got a buyer, Chad, how about you? Chad (26m 60s): This is the future of staffing. And we take a look at it yeah, they do have a website, but they also have an app that allows it's like just in time, right? It's kind of like Uber for all these other different types of positions. And they start off on the easier side in being warehouse and logistics. And I say easier because it's more focused and it's easier to find out if somebody has a heartbeat or not right to work in a warehouse. To me, this is where most staffing companies need to move. They need to move toward technology and they have to have projects not to mention, if you take a look at it, Job and Talent is the employer so much like Dee Coakley in Remote. Chad (27m 51s): If you want individuals who are across borders to be able to do driving or warehouse work or whatever it might be, this makes it much easier for companies to engage without having to set up, you know, obviously in another country. So I think personally, I can't believe they took this much fucking money number one, Jesus Christ. It's a lot of money, but I still I'm still bullish on what they can do, not to mention their push. They have a shit ton of cash, which is one of the reasons why they're pushing toward the US. Joel (28m 24s): Sounds like a buy. Lieven? Lieven (28m 25s): And I'm also very charmed by the factor Spanish and just spreading all around Europe. It's not an American company. It's not a company based in UK. No it's some kind of a local startup. Chad (28m 39s): Madrid. Lieven (28m 40s): Yeah. Which it's good to see that the European countries can still deliver companies like this. Joel (28m 47s): Great. That's great. I think, you know, you mentioned Europe, but also in addition to Germany, France, UK, Sweden, Portugal, Mexico, and Columbia are on the list and here's the kicker they're coming to America. So when you look at that valuation, obviously a huge part of that is the US and if they want to go public in a US markets and Wall Street, having a US presence is going to be really important. I'm going to be on the lookout for Job and Talent ads for podcast spots. I think if we start seeing an influx of marketing to sort of lay the groundwork, going into an IPO next year, then I'll be intrigued by it. But we know, and we've talked about it on the show that companies outside the U S coming into the US don't have a great track record of success. Joel (29m 44s): So unless I see some traction by Job and Talent in the US for me right now, it's a sell. Chad (29m 49s): Queue up the Neil Diamond baby because they're coming to America. Joel (29m 51s): All right. So we have what we got three buys and one sell on the IPO for Job and Talent. Jan (29m 59s): But I'm pretty sure they are going to buy or acquire some company in the US that they are not just going there as a Job and Talent they will acquire someone. Chad (30m 9s): Ooh, I like that, Jan. Joel (30m 11s): Because no, one's going to buy them at that price tag. No. Can anyone see them buying Job and Talent? Recruit Holdings maybe? Like, I don't know, Randstad? Lieven (30m 20s): Randstad but Randstad maybe after they sold Monster. Chad (30m 28s): They're gun shy. They're gun shy. Yeah. I think you're, you're looking at more like a Main Capital, right? You're you're looking at organizations like that who were going to actually acquire. Jan (30m 41s): I believe LinkedIn will acquire them. Chad (30m 41s): Ooh, that's a good one. Joel (30m 42s): Microsoft. Jan (30m 43s): Damn Jan, that's awesome. Joel (30m 43s): It will because they've got the DHL, FedEx, all those huge companies and LinkedIn is covering full-time employees and those types of jobs. But then world is the world where the monies are. So they will definitely going to consider or at least that's my prediction. I believe they are going to acquire them at some point. There it is. Lieven (31m 1s): Nice. LinkedIn is an interesting ID, but Recruit would make more sense. I think, because they already have, Indeed, they have Simply Hired to have Career Jets, not Career Jets, Simply Hired and Indeed. So it makes sense to them to buy something like this. But if LinkedIn would try to grow, yeah why not? Joel (31m 17s): Job and Talent needs to just roll the dice and by ZipRecruiter, that'll give them a footprint in the US. Lieven (31m 28s): Joel, do you have shares in ZipRecruiter? You say too often. Are you a shareholder? Joel (31m 35s): Of ZipRecruiter. I am not. Chad? Lieven (31m 37s): Okay, Chad (31m 37s): No. Yeah, no. Joel (31m 38s): All right. Three buys and one sell on the show. All right, guys, let's talk a little sexual harassment in the metaverse. Okay. Is anyone anywhere else shocked that the worst of human behavior is rearing its ugly head in the metaverse already? I don't think any of us are. Chad (31m 55s): No. Joel (31m 56s): So someone call HR. Back in December, the Verge reported that a beta tester for Meadows Horizon World's functionality, which is its social media replacement in VR was groped by a stranger within the digital realm. Let me read that again. Chad (32m 13s): How do they know they were grouped? Joel (32m 16s): By a stranger within the digital realm. Then earlier this month, a woman said that she had been quote, "virtually gang raped" end quotes in the VR environment. Chad (32m 28s): Come on. Joel (32m 28s): How does that happen? And Facebook or Meta has been forced to implement a new, personal boundary for VR avatars saying quote, "personal boundary prevents avatars from coming within a set distance of each other, creating more personal space for people and making it easier to avoid unwanted interactions." Guys this is why we can't have nice things. What do we think about sexual harassment in the metaverse? What is HR going to do about this? Lieven (32m 53s): I really hope they're going to ignore it. There is no such thing as sexual. Yeah. There's no such thing as sexual harassments in the metaverse. I just don't buy it. You cannot say this avatar has touched me in an offensive way. I mean, just make your avatar walk away. It's totally stupid. But probably that's the European point of view. And in America you actually think it's a thing. I don't know. Joel (33m 19s): Well, from what I've seen in the Facebook, no one even has like below the belt, everyone is like floating from the waist up. So I'm not exactly sure what they're groping. Jan (33m 32s): And I personally believe that it's just like, it's hype and it's going away because if it's not like the simulation ready player wildly, that movie will be just boring. And I don't want to spend my time wearing VR helmet and checking, you know, chatting with my colleagues across the world if I can do that via Zoom. And I'm already bored and frustrated with the Zoom. So why pay extra money or do you know, the metaverse is the hype and it's going away within two years. Chad (34m 4s): The question is the functionality even available to grope someone? To take their clothes off? Because what you're really doing is you're just bumping pixels into each other. I mean, it's a horrible experience in the first place, if you've ever had to do to get into the metaverse. I like the four foot kind of like radius because that means you're not bumping into everything, but I just, the functionality in itself, I don't understand it. Now the bullying aspect I get. Right. And we should be able to shut bullying down much like we do on Facebook or chat boards or Reddit or whatever it might be. Right. But I just don't, I don't understand the whole functionality piece and actually getting raped in the metaverse. Chad (34m 49s): Cause I mean, if that is actually, I don't understand somebody help me. Joel (34m 53s): Oh, you can agree or disagree the metaverse of the future. But look, HR is going to have to address this at some point. You're going to see people at conferences talking about sexual harassment in the metaverse. Companies are going to be talking about what kind of policies do we have to make for our metaverse solution or whatever we're doing. As companies do this, HR is going to have to face it and figure out like, okay, what policies do we have? Just like they did with social media companies. Didn't want to worry about what people are saying on Twitter. Are they bullying or like? But companies are going to have to address this. And it's going to be a big fucking pain in the ass for them, whether they like it or not. Joel (35m 35s): Right? Jan (35m 36s): Plus there are so many, you know, it's a programming language that you need to use to create that world. And there are company, there are games like Grand Theft Auto, when you can implement or install some, some modes that will change the whole environment. So I'm thinking that people will be trying to hack that environment in some really mean way. And, you know, so we should probably wait to see more of those cases. , Lieven (36m 4s): And I think groping should be at least a paid option in the metaverse. Chad (36m 11s): They should actually have brothels. You choose to go into a brothel. sfx (36m 13s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (36m 16s): Then you have, you know, again, you choose to go into that. But again, I, unless it is a Grand Theft Auto kind of scenario, which is a great point Jan, I just don't understand how any of that even matters. And you talk about social media and the protocols and things that HR had to put in play. I don't know what's going to be different in moving those over to the metaverse. Joel (36m 40s): So if I'm in the metaverse and I'm an intern and the CEO hits on me, what do I do about that? Chad (36m 49s): What happened from the CEO hits on you in your office? Joel (36m 53s): You report it, but it's in the metaverse. So did it really happen? Chad (36m 58s): It's the same shit dude. And you cannot disassociate those things. Those actions are still actions, whether they are in a chat, on WhatsApp, in the metaverse or in your fucking office. So to try to find lines between that is just total bullshit. They're the same. Joel (37m 11s): And I think a jury is going to have fun, figuring all that out. And HR is going to have fun figuring all that out. Chad (37m 24s): That'll be easy. Lieven (37m 25s): In the metaverse there's no such thing as physical integrity. So Joel (37m 28s): The CEO says it wasn't me, someone put on my headset. That wasn't me. I don't, prove it. Lieven (37m 35s): Yeah. My profile had been hacked. Joel (37m 38s): All right, guys, another episode in the books. Let's say thank you to Jan for joining us. Jan for anyone who wants to connect with you, where would you send them? Jan (37m 51s): Definitely LinkedIn. That's the first option plus that's the place where all recruiters are, right? Chad (37m 55s): Yep. Joel (37m 55s): And buy his book for God's sakes, buy a sponsorship to Lievens conference. Lieven (38m 2s): It all starts with sponsorships. Joel (38m 6s): That's right. And if you want more European goodness, go check out Chadcheese.com/Europe. This has been fun. Let's hope that the world is still intact when we record our next show. And with that. Chad, Joel and Lieven (38m 20s): We out. OUTRO (38m 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.

Inflation is on everyone's mind right now, but is it nothing more than a boogeyman for companies to demonize higher wages? Why are we not talking about bloated margins? CEO, board, and executive pay? How about immigration and our broken supply chain? How will it impact the cost of doing business? What's going to happen with energy prices? Interestingly, history can tell us a lot about what the future holds. That's why the boys have brought back Columbia professor Suresh Naidu to make sense of the current state of inflation. 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 (21s): Oh yeah. 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 Chad Sowash and today we are just super excited to welcome back Suresh Naido Columbia professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs. Suresh welcome. Suresh (46s): Thanks for having me. Joel (47s): It's been a while. What you been up to, man? Suresh (49s): You know, I'm teaching we're back in person, so it's coming back. So it's good. It's good. It's really true that when you teach students and you're like in the room, the energy and everything is just way better. And I think it's convincing me that the university will not be replaced by like online classes anytime soon. Joel (1m 5s): Oh, don't get Chad started. Don't get him started. Chad (1m 9s): Yes. Okay. So with that being said, with everything that we're seeing since the pandemic, I'm sure you've been busy crunching numbers, citing things from history. What's kept you the most busy when it comes to this point in time and then looking back into history? Suresh (1m 26s): Well, one thing I've been really interested in is actually trying to find a business, ideally like a restaurant or retail chain, that's actually willing to take advantage of this period of both price and wage inflation to actually run an experiment where they're willing to, like, I dunno, like randomized wages across say a bunch of different like cafes or restaurants or something. And look at like the retention and recruitment of facts of that. Like who comes, who leaves, who, how quickly, how much better does service get? And the idea is that like, you know, so if anyone's listening out there that happens to like run a chain of businesses and wants, and is thinking yeah, this is, you know, the fact that like, you're probably going to have to raise wages in the next year. Suresh (2m 13s): Why not use it to figure out the ROI on wages? Like, would I actually make more money if I paid wage paid higher wages, right? This is kind of like the best time to figure that out because you're going to have to raise wages anyway. So why not like learn in the process? And so, you know, if anyone is listening out there, that's like interested in running this experiment, just send me an email. Chad (2m 34s): We might be able to reach out to a couple of people because we do know, and they we've had restaurants on the show before, at least on the hiring side. But before we get too deep into this, let's talk about, cause we're gonna talk about inflation today and obviously how wages impact that. But also some of the other areas that might actually have correlation to it. First and foremost, just the basic question. What is inflation? Suresh (2m 57s): Yeah. So inflation is basically adding up across all of the, like there's a set of products. They're like, it's a basket of goods. It's like your rent, your energy, your car. Yeah. You know, food. And what you basically do is you look at how much of a sort of average person's budget does each of these things take up and then you look at how much the price of each of those things went up over the last, you know, you'll see different numbers, you'll see month on month inflation, you'll see year on year inflation, generally. It's like, you know, the scary numbers have been the year on year inflation. So like inflation, you know, in March compared to the March of last year, it's like, oh, it's like 7-8%. You know what that is, is basically telling you that the average prices across all of these products have gone up by, you know, when you average over all of them have gone up by about 7% since a year ago. Suresh (3m 49s): It's important to recognize, I think, when thinking about that number, that it's A, it's an average over a bunch of goods. So, you know, a big chunk of that is purely, and I think you guys have probably heard this, other people that probably have also used cars and cars and some of it is also, you know, just even in the fact that used car prices have gone up. Like, I think it's the case that when, when we compute the CPI, like we don't account for the resale value of the car. So, you know, one of the things when you're buying a car, you're also gonna have the opportunity to resell it. But if you only count the price of the car, would that accounting for the fact that like, you're going to be able to resell out for more on the future, you're kind of getting this gross price of like a used car. Suresh (4m 34s): You're not kind of getting the net price cause you're be able to sell it for more later on. And so that's like, you know, even when looking at the used car prices, it's you know, there's like some, some decisions that get made in how, what number gets used that, you know, if that decision went a different way and you would get a different number. So there's not like some sort of law of physics around, like, what is inflation that sort of tells you what exactly how it is. It's calculated in slightly different ways in different countries, but it's kind of capturing this general idea that there's, you know, an overall increase in prices and that freaks people out because you know, both concretely, when they, when they think about going and buying a quart of milk and finding, seeing that the price has gone up, that freaks you out and you think about buying toilet paper or getting your essential goods when the price of those things starts increasing. Suresh (5m 23s): I think it just like has a psychological effect on people that's scary and understandably so. And particularly when you don't necessarily see your wages sort of like increasing at anything close to the same clip. And then you're like, oh, am I going to be able to afford all the things I thought I was going to be able to afford? And so, and you know, I think people are in fact changing what they buy at the grocery store because of the changing prices of meat and milk and things like that. Chad (5m 45s): Have we seen high rates of inflation in the past? If so, when did it happen and how did we deal with it? Suresh (5m 54s): Yeah, so we did in the seventies most memorably, although it's been kind of a concern, I think almost always in, in, when you look at opinion data, for example, going back to World War II was then another period of like kind of crazy price inflation because there's like shortages of everything. And, and so the price of basic goods is a lot higher. And people are during World War II are very upset about inflation. And that's one of the things that goes into a union demands at the time included kind of putting in cost of living adjustments into union contracts, for example, so that wages would keep pace with inflation. Similarly in the 1970s, there was another rash of inflation precipitated by the oil shock and the oil shock. Suresh (6m 39s): Plus, you know, people will definitely say that there was some, the fact that the federal reserve sort of like kept interest rates low, even in the face of this oil shock, probably amplified inflation. That's kind of the standard narrative. Although I'll say the evidence for this standard narrative is not what you, what you think is what everyone thinks is what everyone says, but if you sort of like dig deep into it, it's not, it's like, is that really what happened? How did Chad (7m 5s): It's sounds like propaganda? Suresh (7m 7s): I mean, the problem is there's like lots of things that are happening at the same time. It's like Nixon goes off the gold standard. There's an oil shock. There's like middle east crisis. There's then, you know, the wage and price controls as a response to the inflation. So it's just like, lots of things are happening and so it's just not clear, which is responsible for the inflation of the 1970s. So I think, I think we're going to see a lot of research on the 1970s in the next few years, just as like an attempt to understand that historical period of high inflation in light of like today's period of high inflation. Joel (7m 35s): So speaking of the 1970s, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal last week, talking about the fear of a wage price spiral. I could try to explain that, but you could probably do it a lot better. What would you say is a wage price spiral for our listeners? Suresh (7m 51s): Yeah. So here's the basic idea of a wage price spiral, right? So you see prices going up. And so then workers start asking for higher wages and then employers then take those higher wages and then pass them along as higher prices, forcing worker and then workers ask for higher wages. And then if it's a higher prices and then that leads to higher wages. So that's the spiral is that, you know, one of , this like ratcheting up of expectations kind of takes off for you. It's like everyone thinks that prices are going to be higher. So they're asked for higher wages now, and then that results in prices being higher next year and the process Joel (8m 25s): And around and around we go. So the Wall Street Journal speculated that there are a few things that are different from the 1970s. History, a rhyme sometimes, but this time it may be different. They cite an activist fed, which was not in place in the seventies. Less unionization today, and also imports, which I assume would be the supply chain issues. So each one of those separately, how do you see those playing out in current day inflation fears? Suresh (8m 53s): One of the big ones is unions because, you know, things that unions asked for and the contracts was in fact, these costs of living adjustments in the union contract, which would tell you mechanically the formula written into the contract would say that if inflation goes up, wages have to have to go up. And so that literally bakes into the cake, this wage price spiral with the collective bargaining agreement. So that's a very direct wage price spiral. That's very hard to get in a world without unions. I think like, because you know, workers in a decentralized way are like, yes, they would like higher wages. They would, you know, they're trying to keep pace with inflation, but it's not like locked into a contract the way it is with a union. Suresh (9m 36s): So I think the mechanism for getting you wage price spirals is just really attenuated with when you don't have a labor market, you know, where like the biggest sector is the most important sectors of the economy covered by collective bargaining agreements. The imports are interesting, although, you know, I would say that it's under appreciated how important oil is as like an input into everything else in the economy. And it's generally the case that I think that oil shocks do propagate into like when the price of oil is higher, that in particular pipes into everything. And I think that's also one thing that sort of happened in this particular round of inflation is that, you know, the recovery from the early shutdown of 2020, and, you know, I think China's kind of continued economic growth and just, you know, the world demand for energy got pretty high. Suresh (10m 26s): And, I think it does drive up the price of oil and that's as one of the contributing factors to like, I think the inflation in food and stuff probably comes from energy shocks like that. And then there's of course the supply chain issues, which you mentioned, and that's the, you know, so the, I guess the point is that like, we were less globalized in the seventies and that's true, but the point is today is that we're also somewhat less globalized because a lot of the structure, because we built these super fragile international supply chains that got kind of scrambled during the pandemic and unraveling them and rebuilding them is kind of what we're going through now. Suresh (11m 9s): So we're in some ways like less globalized again than we were even two years ago because of the pandemic and because of like the scrambling of the supply chains and that's kind of, you know, puts us again back in. So I would say it's like that thing of anything is more similar to the seventies because of the not because, you know, the policy, each trade is, the tariffs are lower, but now, but the supply chains are broken. Joel (11m 35s): You just break the dam on this supply chain gridlock, does this thing kind of solve itself? Or do we still have issues? Suresh (11m 43s): I mean, I promise you that inflation will come down in a year. On durables, I am absolutely sure of that, and that's the vast bulk of it, by the way, is the durable good inflation? Chad (11m 54s): Oh yeah. Suresh (11m 56s): Like what, how much it comes open question, but I'm reasonably confident it will come down as the supply chain issues, unravel themselves. Joel (12m 4s): If you're in the prediction making business. I got one for you. Are we headed for a recession? Why or why not? Suresh (12m 11s): So right now I actually think it's the Fed's move on this stuff. So it's like, you know, the fed has this dual mandate of fighting both inflation and unemployment. And to the extent that it sort of sees this, this rash of inflation as sufficiently scary, that it's willing to sort of trigger a recession to fight it, then we get a recession. But I think without the fed actively doing it, I think, you know, as we were probably still on track to at least have, you know, pretty high employment for awhile, but again, probably, and with some inflation, but probably not a huge amount, I guess, I guess that's sort of like my stance on it is like, boy, I really hope the federal reserve doesn't trigger a recession in order to curb inflation. Suresh (13m 3s): But that's, I think they're like right now, the player in the short run for this. Chad (13m 7s): So a couple of points first and foremost, we'll talk about price hikes and B because margins have been bloating for decades. I point to Kroger, the CEO saw a pay bump from 12 million to over 20 million because of the pandemic. Chipolte, Mexican Grill, Brian, CEO, Brian Niccol made 38 million in 2020, which is nearly 3000 times more than the median store-level employee. Then Chipolte raised prices across the menu about 4% in June of 2021 and blamed increases on worker wages. sfx (13m 47s): Oh hell no. Chad (13m 48s): So we're seeing CEO wages up from what used to be about 30%, correct me if I'm wrong by about 30% in the eighties today it's over 350% and a guy like Brian Niccol is just blowing it out. So are we really seeing this as more propaganda smoke and mirrors and gas lighting as opposed to around quote unquote "capitalism" as opposed to trying to drive more equity and raise wages? Suresh (14m 19s): I think it's complicated. I mean, so, it is true that like for the first time, since like the late nineties, the wages of low wage workers are growing faster than anyone else. Chad (14m 29s): That's because they were so low for so long. Suresh (14m 31s): Because there were so low for so long, but here we are. But it's also true that corporate profits are also very high and inflation is high. And so it's kind of, you know, this strange pattern of economic growth where it's like, we are seeing an increase at the bottom and we're seeing an increase at the very, very top. And then we're kind of seeing this decrease or stagnation and then in the middle. And I think that's, what's really politically problematic for the Biden administration, right? It's like that's, the median voter is kind of like looking at their wages, not seeing that those go up and keeping pace with inflation, but for low wage workers, like if you're in the bottom 40% of the wage distribution, you're probably doing better than you have been in a very, very long time. Suresh (15m 21s): But if you're someone on a fixed income, then you're not. That's and then the fact is that, that I will say that from what I've seen, most of the price increases are not in the sectors that are experiencing the wage increases. So if you look overall at services, including like restaurant and retail there, those are the places where wages are going up. It doesn't look like those are the places that are accounting for the big chunk of the, like their prices are going up, but that's not, what's driving like a 7% CPI increase. Chad (15m 52s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So here, quick question, does inflation and prosperity actually go together because when more people have more money, they go out and they spend more. And that's what we've seen, obviously during the pandemic where a government sent out checks to be able to sustain and help people, you know, pay their bills and get food and all those other things, but does press prosperity, drive demand and then demand drive for goods. And we'll get into supply chain here in a second. That's my next part. But does that does prosperity really drive inflation? So is it is inflation really bad ? Suresh (16m 27s): So, no. I think like, you know, a healthy level of inflation, like anywhere between, you know, two and 6% you can imagine is like pretty consistent with prosperity. I mean, inflation rates over the post-war period were generally much higher than they have been since 1980. So it's like, I don't have the number off the top of my head, but you know, it was much higher than 2%. And, you know, people are worried about inflation, but we have fast enough growth that it's like, okay, well people's incomes are growing or growing really fast. So I think, there is a real thing in which like, if we were willing to tolerate more inflation, we could probably have more prosperity. Chad (17m 3s): Tolerate inflation when everybody it's like a boogeyman, at this point. Suresh (17m 6s): It is a boogeyman. And, you know, there's an interesting way in which like inflation is it's, you know, it King's called that like animal spirits on both sides of the flip side is, you know, here's what a conservative would say is that, well, what inflation does is it actually also reduces the real return on investment potentially. And so, you know, high enough inflation is basically going to be a disincentive for people to save, for businesses to invest, and that will actually be like a drag on the economy. So that's like the anti Keynesian view, for example, on why inflation is a bad thing or there's ways around that. Right. Because you can imagine the return, even if you're a business, right? Suresh (17m 47s): You can always just charge the inflation rate and so you're not necessarily exposed to inflation. So then, and then you're just like in a world, like, why do you actually, why is inflation a bad thing? It's not something that we're sort of taught in economics or that we teach very clearly. It's like exactly why inflation is a bad thing. We're going to say something like the prices are all messed up and that's bad, but it's not exactly like a completely compelling case. Chad (18m 16s): Well, having a 99 cent hamburger for the last decade, let's say, right. Prices not going up. Maybe in that chain. Are Americans just spoiled? We want things 24/7, and we want them cheap. Since prices are rising, the boogeyman comes out. I mean, shouldn't, we expect a normal rate of inflation and we should also be able to expect a normal rate of wage increase. Suresh (18m 44s): So I have 2 answers to that. One is, there's like the perception of inflation, which is just that, like, even though the actual amount that you're spending on milk, let's say has only gone up a little bit. Like you, you notice it and you're just kind of get freaked out by it. Chad (18m 58s): Yeah. Suresh (18m 58s): And, that's like a real, or like the media keeps telling you that inflation is a bad thing. And so, you know, you guys are probably seeing this about how, like, if you look at polling results by political parties, like the Republicans think that inflation is way higher than it is then do Democrats, for example. Chad (19m 14s): And depending on where you are in the country, I would assume too. Suresh (19m 17s): It's true. It's but even, I think within the same place, just like partisan beliefs about inflation are really, are really strong things. So I think that's a real thing it's like in place part of inflation is in the mind and, in the like collective mind, but then the other part of it is that like, well, no, there's a real thing about, like, I can't buy the things that used to be able to but, and my wages, aren't keeping pace with inflation and that's like a real, that's not just in the mind, that's literally I can not get all the things I need and that's the kind of inflation we don't like. So that's, I think what's hitting, like if you will, the middle and upper parts of the wage distribution is like, oh, my wages, aren't going up but the prices of everything's going up that means I can't buy all the things I plan to buy. Suresh (20m 3s): I can't, I can't do all the things I want to do. And that's really materially costly. Joel (20m 10s): I liked you talked about perception. And I think that sometimes perception is more important than reality. So the, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index came out, I think Friday of last week, it dropped to 61.7, which to put it in context is the lowest level, it's been since 2011. 26% expect financial prospects to worsen, that's the highest since 1980. How do you solve that historically? Is it just the messaging from our leadership? Is it just better news that we watch every day? Like, how do we get out of that funk? Suresh (20m 46s): Like better news. I think if we get like, you know, six months of like very strong jobs reports and like inflation, doesn't sort of like, doesn't get above, like, let's say 6% then I think, you know, people's expectations will go up. I think if people are annoyed, upset that it does seem that like the recovery from COVID has maybe stalled a bit and that we're facing these price increases, but, you know, on the whole, I think it's funny. And I'd be curious what you guys think about this. It's like by the numbers, except for the inflation problem, like the recovery from COVID has been as good as it can. Well, not as good as it could be, but it has been okay. Suresh (21m 29s): Like we're almost back to an unemployment rate of where we were before and we're facing labor shortages because people have dropped out of the labor force, mystery about exactly what they're, what so many primates people are doing out of the labor force. Like, how are they paying the bills? Joel (21m 45s): They're driving Uber's in Arizona? That's what they're doing. Suresh (21m 46s): I would not be surprised about that. Chad (21m 47s): No they are. Suresh (21m 48s): I think there's a way in which like the gig economy wound up, like absorbing a lot of people, a lot of like workers during COVID. So I know, like in the construction sector, for example, in New York, a lot of the immigrant construction workers became delivery people on e-bikes and that's just and so they're not counted as unemployed, but then they're not counted as well, but, you know, they should be counted as independent self-employed, but they're probably just getting missed by the statistics, to be honest. Chad (22m 15s): Yeah. Yeah. So back to supply chain real quick, I want to hit this up. It seems like we are having big issues with supply chains, because we have a lot of workers who would immigrate to this country to be able to fill all many of those gaps in the supply chain, either driving trucks or are working on docks or what have you. And they stayed home with their family during the pandemic. So this has been, again, one of the points that I think we miss is that we don't have as large of a workforce as we normally do, because they stayed home. Now, do you believe that is one of the major impacts and if it is, how long do you think it will last? Suresh (22m 58s): So you're talking particularly because like, we don't have the same level of immigration that we did? Chad (23m 4s): Yeah. Suresh (23m 4s): That is probably definitely contributing to some of the shortages in agriculture I would imagine in particular. But you know, another side of this is that I think we had like over a million retirements, during COVID. Chad (23m 16s): Yes. Suresh (23m 17s): And so just people were just like, I'm checking out early. Like people that might've planned to work a bit longer, like I'm done and like retired. Chad (23m 26s): Screw this. Suresh (23m 26s): And so it's interesting actually like, you know, this is a grim stat, but like the social security trustees, you think okay all of the mortality from COVID should have made the social security look more money in the social security trust fund, because it's so many elderly people died, but it turns out because enough people like retired that's roughly even. Chad (23m 49s): Set off the balance. Suresh (23m 50s): Yeah. Chad (23m 50s): I get ya. Okay. Suresh (23m 51s): And so then I, so I think that's another component of the labor force shortage is just a lot of people were like, I'm done and retired. And, and so you can think about immigration was one of these margins. Retirement is another one, another one is the schools and the disaster of like, not having reliable childcare has kind of induced a lot of like women in particular to withdraw from the labor market. Chad (24m 9s): Yeah. Suresh (24m 10s): So I think it's, and you know, I think there's a lot of people that are just like scared of getting sick still for whatever reason and are like averse to coming back to the labor market for that reason. Chad (24m 24s): Right. Joel (24m 24s): We're in an election year as I'm sure you know. Suresh (24m 29s): Yep. Joel (24m 29s): And it should be interesting to say the least, I'm wondering what your take is on the election. Any predictions there? I saw something today said really, no, one's happy with Biden. No, one's really happy with Trump re Trump, if you will, for 2024. How do you see 2022? And particularly from a historical perspective, when we see times of great inflation, what happens politically? Suresh (24m 52s): So it's bad news for the party that's kind of blamed for the inflation, I think generally, but it's also, you know, in the historical thing, it's like the party of the president gets wiped out in the midterms is kind of like a reasonably stable, I think pattern. And so there's probably like given the margins of the Democrat majority in the house, that's like it will be shocking if they kept it. You know, I think all similarly in the Senate. So those are like, my that's kind of like my midterm projections is a combination of the inflation and just kind of this homeostatic reaction to the presidential party, you know, there's probably going to be, he's probably going to be governing a lot more with executive orders after next year. Chad (25m 37s): I would agree. Suresh (25m 38s): Which is really too bad, because like, you could, you could imagine a different world in which like a Joe Manchin and Sinema like were got with the program and you were expanding, you know, you were using government to expand the supply of everything enough to like make a dent in this inflation and really kind of deliver like lots of great paying jobs and stuff. But, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. And that's why. Chad (26m 6s): I think it's important, you know, that we as Americans continue to have these discussions around it, not just being one points, you know, this is there several layers that actually impact inflation, impact, wages, pricing, all of that, because it seems like we were getting a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Which is one of the reasons why we have guys like you on. That's Suresh Naidu, economist, professor extraordinary now over at the Columbia University, man, we appreciate you once again, taking the time if somebody wants to connect with you? Suresh (26m 44s): Yeah. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter at SnaiduNL. The NL stands for Newfoundland. And, or does that mean just to be emailed SN2430@columbia.edu. Joel (26m 56s): Thanks, Suresh. Chad (26m 57s): Excellent, man. Thanks you so much. Suresh (27m 2s): Thank you guys. Joel (27m 3s): I feel so much smarter Chad. Chad and Joel (27m 5s): We out. OUTRO (27m 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. OUTRO (27m 49s): 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.

Two idiot podcasters and an industry CEO walk into a brewery … No, it’s not a joke. Chad & Cheese threw back some brews with Pillar.hr’s CEO and Founder Mark Simpson last week, and luckily for you, the mics were on. Talkin’ remote work, employee culture and the power of Middle America to reshape the coasts. Cheers! 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. Chad (25s): Hello, Indianapolis. I've always wanted to do that. Joel (32s): You're not at the halftime show of the Super Bowl. I keep trying to tell you that. Chad (35s): I feel like Dr. Dre, you got Snoop Mark (38s): We're on a roll, right? Chad (40s): You got Snoop and you got Mary Jay. Right? Mark (44s): Is this my color or what? That's what I'm saying. Chad (47s): It's your color. It's your color. Excellent. Joel (50s): Can we get an applause for the free beer and food from the folks at Pillar? Chad (54s): Yes. Free beer and food. For all of those who were enjoying the free beer and food. Joel (57s): Whenever there's like, we didn't get any free fucking beer. Chad (60s): Free beer food. Joel (1m 1s): Can we do F bombs on a live show like this? Chad (1m 4s): Yes. okay. Alexa says we can F bomb We're in a brewery. Thanks. Hey, thanks again. Sun king. Give it up for sun king. Great Indiana beer. That's right. Kids. Joel (1m 15s): We're unveiling the Chad and Cheese lager tonight. Chad (1m 18s): The Chad and Cheese lager. It's a little sweet. It's a little sour. Joel (1m 22s): It's less filling though than most regular bears. And if you like free beer, including beer, that's sponsored by Pillar. Chad (1m 30s): Woo. Joel (1m 30s): Go to Chad cheese.com that got an applause. Chad (1m 34s): Delivered to your door, baby, delivered to your front door! Joel (1m 38s): ChadCheese.com/free to get free beer from Pillar! Chad (1m 40s): That's right! Joel (1m 41s): Then you can come zoom tasting with us. And this is Mark, the CEO. Mark. What do you want to say about the company yourself, your team, your lovely team there. Chad (1m 49s): I want to hear, I want to hear the deep dark secrets of Mark. Mark (1m 54s): I'm just scared right now. I like scared looking at YouTube thinking whats happening? Joel (1m 59s): Not since the revolutionary war has a Brit been so scared of a couple of Americans. Chad (2m 3s): That was a good one. Joel (2m 4s): With beer. Chad (2m 5s): I liked that. Mark (2m 7s): I was just saying I'm scared right now is a scary place to be next to you. You're professionals, you do this all the time. So I don't know what's coming up next. Chad (2m 18s): Total professionals. So a little background about you. You have like 27 exits not 12 kids, go ahead. Mark (2m 28s): I've started four companies. So what, this is my fourth company. I have two kids, a very, very understanding wife. And yeah, I love it. I love solving big problems. Joel (2m 42s): You live in New York, so welcome to Indianapolis. Mark (2m 45s): Thank you gentlemen but yeah. Thank you very much. Chad (2m 48s): It's the same thing. Joel (2m 48s): You live in Connecticut. Chad (2m 49s): Yeah, it's the same. Mark (2m 51s): I'm my heart is now in Indianapolis, now after coming here every month for the last year or so. Joel (2m 57s): Nice. So give us the Pillar elevator pitch for those who haven't heard it or are aware of the company. Not just an awesome sweatshirt. Chad (3m 7s): It's lavender. Mark (3m 8s): Pillar is an interview intelligence platform. We help people get more understanding of interviews. What happens within interviews for coaching and DEI purposes, but for hiring managers, we give them insight into who the right candidates are to hire with no bias faster and just in a better way. Chad (3m 25s): Let's take a look at current news and hiring. How do you hire in Ukraine today? Mark (3m 29s): Oh man. Okay. We said no current news than we are you, you just do current news. Well, I mean, I can't ask that question. I actually, one of my, one of my companies we did have about 200 or so people in Ukraine, we had people in Kharkiv. Ukraine is amazing. People I probably need to email a few people checking they're all right right now. But hopefully everything settles down in Ukraine. It's a great place, but Kharkiv is a great place to be right now. Joel (4m 12s): A bit of a theme on that, which is remote work. And everyone's dealing with a remote workforce. What advice would you give as a CEO and a builder of businesses in the new state of work from home, remote, remote employees, like tips or tricks you got for the audience? Mark (4m 33s): Avoid war and conflict. Joel (4m 35s): Good one. Mark (4m 35s): As ever in any company, whether it's remote or not. I mean, for me personally, it just comes down to being human. Like understanding your employees, putting yourself in their shoes, making sure that they get what they need out of life, you're getting what you need out of life. And just, I've always built my companies with, with a big focus on, you know, the team and building the team in the right way. And I think that goes, whether, you know, everyone has their own issues. People are in war zones, people are dealing with COVID. People are dealing with all kinds of things in their lives. And as long as you're human about it and set yourself up in the right way to help them, I think you'll, you'll always be successful. Chad (5m 10s): Going back to remote and staying in remote. This is the time where we, I think we've finally opened up to where we have to be more human. We have to have more human connections, not, I mean, not just with every day in our day-to-day interactions with employees, but with candidates. Right? So your thoughts, I mean, especially being a founder and having to hire people, but also working with organizations who have to hire, tell me this is something that is going to stay. It's not something that's going to go away. Mark (5m 43s): Yeah. I mean, I think everyone believes it's going to stay. I mean, I've hired thousands of people now over the last 25 years, I'm old. I mean, I think some of the fundamentals have always been the same, but there are new ways of just better understanding candidates, giving them a better experience. So they actually want to work for you rather than being forced it and giving more insight for the company itself to make sure you're putting the right people into the right roles. And I think actually the last two years have accelerated that movement by probably 10 years or so. And give us the opportunity to do the right thing both by the company and by the candidates. So, you know, a candidate should never get asked tell me about that job five times by five different people and have that repetitive situation. Mark (6m 27s): They should have a great experience as well. Joel (6m 29s): Okay, work from home isn't going anywhere, but settle an argument that Chad and I have. What are wages going to do in a work from home environment? Are you paying the same wages that a new Yorker would get to your Indianapolis staff? Are you paying Indianapolis wages and what should companies expect paying people no matter where they are? San Francisco, Toledo, Biloxi, Alabama, what's up, what's your view on salaries? Chad (6m 56s): Preach! Mark (6m 56s): It's easier for me because I'm not a hundred thousand person company with salary bands that I have to adhere to. And those strict rules, which hopefully you can have, which isn't a particularly human way of doing things. So look, I think we pay people probably slightly above what, you know, official market rates should be, but we do that on purpose. We want to hire really good people into our roles and you know, we'll do anything in our power to get the best people into the business. And salary is one part of that. But I actually think that career progression, happiness in their role, challenging people, letting them advance actually are way more important than salary when it actually comes down to job happiness, like the numbers are probably a little secondary to some of those things when people are actually enrolled, but yet you have to pay good things to good people, particularly in today's environment. Joel (7m 45s): So I know you're not in New York, but New York you may have heard is now requiring companies over 40 people to publicize what the salaries are for those jobs. Chad (7m 55s): Oh Lord! Joel (7m 56s): Is that something you're in favor of? And do you expect to see that more and more throughout the country? Mark (8m 0s): It's not something I've thought too much about. Like, it is what it is. Some things are in my control. Some things are out of my control and you've got to control the things you can. Am I in favor of it? I don't necessarily see a problem with it. Yeah. I don't mind. We run a pretty open culture, pretty open environment. If we have to publish things like that, we'll publish things like that. We'll deal with it. Chad (8m 21s): You've been a founder four times over. Is that what I'm hearing? Mark (8m 25s): That is true. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Chad (8m 26s): So let's get into some founder nightmares. What are some, Joel (8m 32s): What keeps you up at night? Chad (8m 34s): What are some of the biggest nightmares that founders see? I mean, because there's so many different aspects, you deal with funders, you deal with staffing, product roadmaps. I mean, where do you, I mean, I'm sure those are all nightmares, but where are your biggest nightmares? Mark (8m 51s): I'm going to answer that question, what does it take to get a beer in a brewery? Could I? Joel (8m 57s): Alexa, Chad (8m 57s): We need a beer double up. Make sure we have tequila in it. Joel (9m 2s): All marketing people shouldn't be named Alexa, so you can go Alexa, send that email. Mark (9m 8s): Oh, don't, don't do that to her. You can't do that. I'll have a Pachenga please. Or tequila. I love tequila. Joel (9m 17s): Yeah, no worries. No more free sweatshirts from Alexa. Mark (9m 20s): You're getting nothing now for you. Chad (9m 22s): But that was bad. Alexa. I did not like that Mark (9m 24s): Founder nightmares. Okay. So apart from tanks, rolling into the town which you employ a ton of people? Chad (9m 29s): Yes. Mark (9m 29s): Apart from that, I mean, as a founder, historically I'm things have changed over the years, right? So it used to be, it used to be funding and money. Like Jay genuinely, the thing that would keep you up at night would be. Chad (9m 42s): But not now? Mark (9m 42s): Not so much nowadays. No. I mean, it's a much easier sort of space to raise money in. And I know I'm going to be able to pay my team and you know, we're going to be okay. And I know we're gonna be able to invest in our product and that's going to be. Okay. Like genuinely, and not saying this because I'm on this podcast. It is people. It's like finding really good people has become so, so important. Not just for founders and growing company where, you know, everyone I hire from like zero to 10 people are gonna, you know, they're going to define the culture, the work ethic, the company that we have as we grow to a hundred people and they're going to do it as we grow to a thousand people. So fundamentally, you know, through every stage of founding a company like people are super, super important. Mark (10m 25s): I think the one thing that you see nowadays is even big companies are starting to realize this and CEO's have been saying this for years, right. CEOs go up and they stand on stage and say, people are the most important part of the business and they lie. Chad (10m 39s): It's total bullshit. Mark (10m 39s): They lie. It's just horrible. Chad (10m 41s): It's just like total bullshit. Joel (10m 42s): It sounds great though. Mark (10m 43s): It sounds great. Chad (10m 44s): It does sound good. Mark (10m 45s): But the amount that they have to Chad (10m 47s): Put that shit on a bumper sticker. Mark (10m 48s): Yeah. The amount they've invested in people is farcical compared to, you know, sales and customers and all these other things, which are supposedly less important than people that work for those companies. So, but now you actually kind of start seeing them realize that that lack of investment is, is hurting them. They're struggling to find really good people and you know, they're gonna have to do something about it. So, you know, I've only think it's just for founders. I now think it's for every company that people are the real sort of focus, the real thing that keeps me up at night. Joel (11m 14s): So I love how you say the first 10 people you hire are going to define the culture of the business. And I think most of our guests are beyond the 10 people, but I think in terms of culture to go back to the work from home, I think companies are struggling with, how do I build, maintain culture when everyone's at home? Do you have any tips for how to combat that? Mark (11m 36s): Yeah. Look, I think culture doesn't come from one person and we're past the 10 people mark as well. We we're growing quite nicely, but we still do. We're still very human about what we do. Ah, there it is. Thank you, Alexa. Oh, tequila and a beer. Wow. I'm spoiled. I'm spoiled by my team. Deliver that's culture right there. She knows. She knew exactly what I wanted. Thank you, Alexa. So look, we do a lot. I mean, just because you're at a distance, doesn't mean you can't be human doesn't mean you can't get to know your team. It may be takes a little more effort because you're not standing next to them in the office for us as a business, we get together very regularly once every six weeks or so. Mark (12m 19s): We'll all come together. We all do, you know, do our thing. Joel (12m 22s): Meeting in person, together. Mark (12m 23s): You'll get an in-person team onsite, team onsite. So, you know, even remote companies, I think, you know, you don't, you don't ignore the cost of an office. You spend that on getting people together and working together. Chad (12m 37s): Say that again, because I think many companies look past that and they think that there's a savings and that savings should actually be used to be able to bring people together. Now there's productivity in remote working from home, so on and so forth. But say that again. Yeah. Mark (12m 56s): I mean, there, I don't see those as any savings for a company in, unless you're maybe a huge use scale in people working from home because really that budget should be transferred into getting the team together, making sure the culture's there. Getting people, like we have social events, we're doing this, we, you know, all come together as a team to make sure that we know each other, get along with each other and can work hard and just have each other's back as team members, proper team members. So yeah, there's no savings. There's no money savings. Chad (13m 30s): So even before the pandemic just want to put this out there, Airbnb spent over a million dollars every year in bringing everybody into San Francisco to be able to do what Mark's talking about. These, these innovative companies, I think, is amazing. Joel (13m 44s): Which they'll easily make back with Chad's new Portuguese bungalow, by the way, just so everyone knows. Mark (13m 48s): That's just the commission on it. Joel (13m 51s): But yeah, that's just their take on that. We wanted to talk about Chad's take. You mentioned money and raising money and how easy it was. And it seems like Chad and I every week talk about another unicorn. We talking about another company getting tons of money. Is that sustainable? Like at what point does the back brake on the unicorn berthings or like, what's your take on that? Mark (14m 14s): That's an interesting question. You're putting me on the spot. I think the market is in a unique place right now, you know, can I see that being sustained for the next couple of decades? No. It strikes me that there's a lot of money pouring into businesses that won't be successful. I think at an early stage, the outset of taking tons and tons of funding is not a good idea because it distracts you from actually finding your true market fit and, you know, listening to customers and really building the business in the right way. You need focus and having a lot of money actually sometimes distracts from that focus in the early days. But as you scale the money, the money does help. When you found that focus and as you scale the business, it does help. But you need to get that proof first I think there are a lot of businesses that don't have that proof that are getting a ton of money that are going to collapse. Mark (15m 3s): No doubt about it. Chad (15m 4s): No, talk about that real quick, because we see unicorns taking a shit on a cash and you know, that's going to impact the roadmap. You know, that's going to impact the focus, right? What do you do as a founder to be able to ensure that you don't take too much money so that you don't lose to control too much control? I mean, that's gotta be hard for most founders, especially first or second time founders in this market. Mark (15m 31s): Yeah. Look, I think it's very easy to be as a founder to be complimented and distracted by big checks, but it's not always the right thing to do now. Big checks are the right thing at the right time of a business where, you know, you have a good customer base, you know, you're building the right thing and you just need to accelerate that business. But I think where the problem lies is where companies are getting funded, where they don't have that. They don't have the answers to all the questions yet, but they're still getting those big checks. Chad (15m 59s): Yeah. They've got great buzzwords. They've got AI. They've got DEI. They've got automation. Mark (16m 3s): Yeah. So does everyone. How do you apply it? So, so yeah, I mean, I think taking it to too early stages is a very big mistake. Building the company in the right way from the ground up early is right and then accelerating when it's the right time to accelerate is the right thing to do. And we'll see how the market shakes out. There's a lot of money still in VC. And it will take years, a decade more, maybe to realize some of the errors of our ways as it has done in finance, in, you know, over history as well. Yeah. Chad (16m 37s): So we know that you have a love for interviewing. Tech around interviewing what's your favorite tech outside of interviewing? Joel (16m 45s): Different kind of interviewing. Chad (16m 46s): What's your favorite type of tech outside of interviewing? What do you look at and think that's cool as shit? What can we do to purchase? Joel (16m 57s): Just say metaverse Mark (16m 58s): I was going say metaverse. You guys take a staple through my heart. Chad (17m 2s): Don't do it. Mark (17m 3s): We're going to build a metaverse for interviewing. There's no way. No, I generally, I look at things and I look at what got me into this space honestly, is I think there are big problems with the way companies deal with people and I want to solve those problems. And I think that, you know, bringing more humanity into the way companies treat people, bringing more humanity into the interview process where genuinely over the past few decades, I think candidates get a really crappy experience, I think is an exciting problem for me to go and solve. You did say outside interviewing, but I kind of brought it back to, did you like the way I did that? Chad (17m 39s): Very good. You could be a great politician. Joel (17m 41s): You're a Brit living in America. So I think you have probably unique take on the global, a global perspective. And Chad and I talk a lot about the rise of South America, of India and even of Africa. We have a European show. If you are interested in Europe, you should check that out, but we're talking a lot more and more about companies in Europe, getting money and wanting to come to America. Deveney any take on sort of the competitive landscape globally and how companies should look at that? Mark (18m 10s): Yeah. Is this going out in Europe? Because I don't sound anywhere near as intelligent in Europe. Joel (18m 13s): It goes everywhere, except Antarctica. Mark (18m 15s): Kidding. Look at, I mean, the world's a much smaller place and much more. It's much more a place now than it even was five years ago. You know, I remember, you know, I moved to America 12 years ago. I'm really, if I wanted to make my company big 12 years ago, I needed to come to America and I need to crack America and build a good business here. Now, I think with the way, even over the last couple of years, the way the world has shrunk, I don't think that's necessary. Like with a global workforce, you can do it. I do think the world is still very different in different markets and a big failing of many companies is not realizing that. Not realizing that even, you know, I'm from England, even the market in Great Britain is very different from the market in America even though we share a language almost and, you know, making sure that the product is right in each of the markets you serve, I think is absolutely crucial. Mark (19m 6s): Even more so when you're going into different cultures like India and South America and so on and so forth. Yeah. Chad (19m 14s): It has to be much harder in Europe than it is coming to the US although, most companies who didn't start in the US they started in Europe trying to invade the US from a tech standpoint, they have problems. Mark (19m 27s): They do. Chad (19m 28s): What's the big problem? Mark (19m 29s): So when I moved my company originally from the UK to the US, I was told it was a graveyard of UK companies, and I shouldn't do it because it's hard and you should, they were right. They were right. No, they were right. I see there was a lot of companies that had just failed and moving across. And it's all about listening to your customer. It's about listening to the customer, listening to your market, finding out what the differences are, and truly making a purposeful intention that you have to invest in the country, not just continue to invest in the product, how you always did it, because like truly there, there are different cultures and truly the product operates in different ways. Mark (20m 10s): It's different go to markets. You know, every part of the company is slightly nuanced and slightly different. And it's those nuances and differences that differentiate huge companies versus companies that fail. Chad (20m 23s): Do you see it as an advantage coming from Europe, which is a bunch of different countries? Joel (20m 29s): Only if you speak American. Chad (20m 30s): Into the US or do you see the other way around coming from the US and trying to penetrate into Europe? Where do you see the advantage? Mark (20m 39s): I don't think there is one. Why would there be an advantage one way to another? It's all about execution and how you think about the country, how researched you are about the country, and then making sure you execute in the right way that fits that market. Look, America has a very positive thing, in that it has scale. So you can build a good company. You can build a very profitable company relatively successfully in the US and use that scale, but you still need to adapt that company and that product for other markets. You know, it can, it doesn't necessarily need wholesale changes, but if you don't listen to the market, you will not be successful. Joel (21m 18s): So we have a few vendors here in the audience, and I'm curious, because I believe this is your first time selling into HR, TA employment. You're from a marketing background, right? Marketing SAAS products. What is your take on selling to employers versus marketers? Chad (21m 36s): Step lightly, step lightly. Mark (21m 37s): I'm scared to answer this question now, by the way. Fundamentally the basics are the same. If you're solving problems for your customers, they will buy your product. You know, it's not a hard sell, no matter what you do. I think there are differences. There are differences between departments, within organizations, marketing departments, for example, are very, very experimental. They'll go and experiment with something. And if it doesn't work, they'll never touch it again. Other departments are not quite so experimental. But I think that, you know, if, as long as we go about making sure that we add value to every user that uses our platform, we'll do just fine, no matter, no matter which part of the organization we sell. Joel (22m 13s): So Alexa, we can keep asking questions. I don't know if we want to throw it to the audience for questions. I'm happy to work the mic if you want me to. Any questions, or you just want to hear us keep talking and drinking? Chad (22m 26s): We actually have a really good LinkedIn poll as well. Joel (22m 34s): By the way, keep drinking because our show's a lot better the drunker you get. Any questions? Josh Akers. Chad (22m 40s): Big surprise. Joel (22m 40s): Do you want to say who you're representing here tonight? Chad (22m 42s): Okay. Oprah. Josh (22m 43s): Thanks so much Mark for coming as always, but here's the deal. Why Indy? Mark (22m 52s): I can't, I can't, I can't hear you. Josh (22m 54s): Why Indy? Mark (22m 54s): I think that they, in this space, Indy has a really vibrant scene, like genuinely. And we have the fortunate situation that, you know, our original backers, we're from Indianapolis, which got me into kind of researching kind of the HR scene here. And it's one of the stronger ones when you look at it through the country, like there's a lot of experts here. There's a lot of talent that we can pull on for Pillar. And I'm really looking forward to building out, you know, more and more of our team from here. So it's a great, great place to be. I honestly genuinely did not know much about Indy a year ago, but I've been here. Joel (23m 32s): Surprised, say it ain't so. Chad (23m 33s): Surprised face. Mark (23m 34s): Come on. I've been here. I dunno, 10 times in the last year or however many times it is. And I've really grown to, I think it's a great city and I'm looking forward to spending more time. Joel (23m 44s): He hasn't gone past Mass Ave, but it's a great city. Mark (23m 46s): I have walked all over Indy. I'm big on that. I do a lot of thinking while I walk. I've walked all over Indy. Joel (23m 53s): You my friend need a trip to Greenwood. That's what I'm talking about. You got a question. Sure. What's your name? And who do you represent? Claudine (24m 1s): My name is Claudine Sutton. I work for Calmer Clay Parks and Recreation. There was a lot of talk this week, I believe I saw a lot of articles about paying candidates for interviewing. I've seen a lot of people do interviewing where they have to do large-scale projects. That's very time-consuming. What do you think about that? Joel (24m 22s): Who's paying people to interview? McDonald's like who? okay. Yeah. They're there. McDonald's in Florida. They'll give you 50 bucks just to come through the door. Chad (24m 29s): We'll get into that in a second. Go ahead. Mark (24m 32s): Yeah. I mean, in my world, maybe that won't happen quite as much. I actually want people to want to believe in my mission rather than do something because they're paid to be there. There are maybe other parts of like other types of companies where that may work, but it's an alien thought to me because I believe that we are truly a mission driven company. We do want to solve some big problems and I believe the team that I've got now are all want to solve those problems as well. And anyone I hire certainly for the next few years, as we grow to hundreds of people and thousands of people, I want them to be bought into the mission, not interviewing with me because I'm paying them 50 bucks. Chad (25m 13s): Yeah. So I saw an article earlier this week from Jack Kelly in Forbes, that was specifically around that, whatever you do never read a thing that Jack Kelly writes. Overall one of the things that we have to understand is paying people to interview is not going to fix the problem. The problem is behind the interview, right? The problem is retention. If you pay a bunch of people to interview, and then they're out the back door in 60 days, how did that help you? We, as talent acquisition leaders need to find out what the problems are. Internal mobility. Childcare. I mean, there are so many things that we can do to ensure that we keep our people first and foremost, before we asked new ones through the door. Chad (25m 58s): We pay new ones that come through the door. So two things, there's a line item that we have to think about in paying those individuals And then also churn. Churn is going to rise after that. So we have payments and then we have churn. So we're doing nothing but raising the bar on the amount of money that we're spending and we're not fixing the problem. Joel (26m 19s): Do you know that it was Jack Kelly that she read? Okay. All right. Jeremy say who you're with and then ask your question Jeremy (26m 26s): Founder and CEO of DriverReach. Thank you so much for being here. The question is really about the applicant experience. I know that the demand for talent is really strong and a lot of opportunities, a lot of people interviewing. And what I hear from a lot of friends is the interviewing process by and large is really painful. Talking seven or eight interviews, a lot of the same questions being asked. I mean, how do we, as companies who are trying to attract that same talent, how do we improve that experience? Mark (26m 60s): My word, did someone from Pillar pay you to ask that question? Chad (27m 2s): Get that man a beer! Mark (27m 3s): Because I was just , I'm going to, I'm trying to ask that without pitching as too much, honestly, because this is, this is supposed to be a, you know, a fair unbiased program, but it is a legit problem. And there's a legit problem and the candidate experience has been ignored for way, way too long. And now everyone's fighting for candidates, people are starting to think about it. So I think there's a, there's a very pertinent question as well. I mean, for a start, nobody should be asked the same question four times in four interviews. That's just a terrible experience, but genuinely you need to get to know the candidates that you want to hire and show that you care about those candidates through the interview experience. Mark (27m 44s): Put yourself in the candidate shoes, I think, would you want to go through that, through that experience? I think having a structured coordinated interview process goes wonders. I mean, we've seen candidate acceptance rates up by more than 33% now, just by running an interview process where you truly understand the candidate, where you're running a structured process, you're not repeating questions. And then it's just making sure that there's some speed there right now. It's a fast moving market right now so anything you can do to accelerate that that process will help you know end. 24 hours. Joel (28m 16s): 24 hours, which is long, according to Chad. Chad (28m 19s): Not fast enough. Mark (28m 19s): Then you've gotta go through like, what else they get outside of the interview? Are they kept informed? Are they, are they truly receiving the experience that you would be proud to give them? The candidate is currently your customer. There's a lot, that's gone into a customer experience and there should be a lot that goes into a candidate experience as well. Chad (28m 42s): Yeah. And I think rebounding off of what you're talking about, if marketing understood the shit show that we put candidates through, they would go crazy because their brand is being dragged through the mud. When we take them through several interviews, right. Or we take them through an application process that takes more than half an hour, which is ridiculous. Right? So I think we need to think more of engagements and we have to care as opposed to think about more than experience, right? It's all about care and candidate care much. Like we hear from marketing and sales customer care, right? We need to care about candidates. Mark (29m 17s): There's a certain honesty through the process as well, that candidate, so going through experiences where, you know, companies think they need to sell to candidates, they need to sell on things. And it doesn't always work. There is no job that doesn't have some bad elements to it. I don't care what you say. There's no doubt that hasn't. So why wouldn't you be honest? I mean. Joel (29m 35s): I had to work with Chad. Mark (29m 37s): It was such a layout that was really right there. So, you know, just being honest about the good bits, the bad bits, the future progression you're going to get, not just the now. I think it's, there's a lot that you could think about and improve the process if you really sort of analyze it. Joel (30m 1s): Any more questions? Okay. One last for me, I sneak into Pillar HQ. I check out the whiteboards. Mark (30m 6s): Where is Pillar HQ? Where is that? Joel (30m 8s): You tell me, it's mythological. Chad (30m 9s): It's everywhere. Joel (30m 10s): On the whiteboards. What would I see in terms of what's next for technology at Pillar? Mark (30m 16s): Well, we actually had a session yesterday with the whole team on planning out some of the big things that we want to do. We're continuing with the themes of the business though, interview intelligence, making sure that hiring managers get everything they need to hire the right people as fast as they can. Interview coaching. We want to make sure that interviewers turn into pro interviewers. No, one's been trained to interview. There's a lot of mistakes made, and we wanna make sure that those are advocated as we go. And then DI, making sure that now we're seeing companies get a good pool of diverse candidates into that top of the funnel, as people say, but they're all getting knocked out at the interview stage. Mark (30m 55s): There are reasons for that. We need to solve that problem. So those are the big three things for us right now. Chad (31m 4s): You can't solve that problem on the DEI side, it's Ted, who's the racist hiring manager. Who's not hiring, right? So you can help. We, we keep looking for tech to solve these problems, and we have to understand that we have to solve the problems within as organizations, right? So how far can you go? Can you provide data to be able to demonstrate that that's happening? Mark (31m 27s): Ted can be made more aware of the problems that he's causing with it within an organization. And yes, we can provide coaching with the tech to make sure interviews are more inclusive. And there, the sentiment of those interviews are right for the candidates that are coming through the door. So yeah, absolutely. We can help with that. I think the whole problem historically over decades now is the interview has been a black box that no one's been able to see into and those days are gone. Like they they're gone and they're never coming back. So companies need to be aware of that and they need to be aware of what's what's happening. Joel (32m 3s): Awesome. Everyone give it up for Pillar. Mark, for those out in the audience that want to know more about Pillar, where would you send them? Mark (32m 20s): Pillar.HR we'll go Pillar.HR all day. Joel (32m 22s): Fair enough. Joel and Chad (32m 22s): We out, we out. Mark (32m 24s): Thank you. Joel and Chad (32m 24s): All right, More beer. We still have food, beer and tequila. OUTRO (33m 3s): 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.

Strike while the iron is hot! Lisa Zone, managing director at Dix & Eaton joins us to talk about how recruiting, hiring, engagement, and talent management is at the center of every board room conversation. But who is equipped and positioned to formulate the story and business case in building a strong employer brand? Another great show complete with Cult Employer Brand master Julie Calli. Seriously, you wanted the ear of your CEO and board. Now what are you going to do with the opportunity? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Lisa (0s): I can't remember in my 20 plus years at the firm any other time when the C-suite was as focused on this as an issue. So, you know, it's just a great time to bring up those issues and put some strategy behind them with some compelling rationale. And that's where, you know, your marketing partner could be a strong ally for you to help you put together that case. INTRO (27s): 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 (54s): Welcome back to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm Chad Sowash. Julie (59s): And I'm Julie Kelly. Chad (1m 1s): And today we will be talking about how marketing can help us attract the right candidates. We'll be right back. Julie (1m 11s): I felt like I should have done the oh yeah in Joel's absence. Chad (1m 17s): That's what I was gonna say. Can you just, can you tell who's missing? Yeah, we're missing a Cheeseman. So apparently he has it written into his podcasting contract that he needs a certain amount of naps. So he's actually napping right now. Julie (1m 29s): Wake up Joel! Chad (1m 32s): Seriously. Seriously. He's he's down in Texas with family, but today we're lucky enough to have a mystery guest. Who's waiting in the wings over there. Julie, Julie (1m 42s): I'm happy to introduce it. We have Lisa's Zone managing director from Dix & Eaton joining us today. Lisa (1m 49s): Hello. How are you both? Julie (1m 51s): Hello Lisa. So happy to have you today. Lisa (1m 53s): Great to be here. Julie (1m 56s): Lisa, I'd love for you to share a little bit of your background with the audience today. So obviously I'm Lisa Zone. I am a marketing and PR professional by background. I've been at D&E for a little over 20 years and when I'm not talking marketing and PR I'm listening to true crime podcasts and trying to find the best pizza in town. So that's how I spend my free time when I'm not at work. True crimes against the talent pipeline? Chad (2m 32s): Nice. So what's the best slice in Cleveland today? Lisa (2m 38s): I love an Edison's slice in Treemont, Ohio, which I used to get a lot more of when I was younger and would go out late at nights. But now I'm in bed by 10. So don't hit that place up as often anymore, but there are honestly, there's tons of great, great slices here. Chad (2m 56s): Yeah. This podcast is not about pizza. I know everybody loves pizza, so that should be a good at least for the first part of the podcast. But Lisa, you penned an article entitled three ways. Your marketing team can help you win the war for talent. So who was the intended audience for this? Was that marketing professionals, PR professionals? Who'd you write this for? Lisa (3m 17s): So it's interesting. Our by background, most of our clients and prospects are marketing PR professionals, but increasingly the more conversations we're having with clients and prospects, even when we're having conversations with people like that, we're hearing that their biggest challenges at their company are around recruitment and retention. So what we tried to do was think about how do we take what we already know how to do from a marketing communications PR perspective in reaching customers and other stakeholders. Lisa (3m 57s): And how do you translate that into how to reach prospective employees and, or build affinity among your existing employee base? Chad (4m 8s): Got ya. Julie (4m 9s): Do you find that they're trying to incorporate that with their consumer side, or are they looking at this as a separate initiative? Lisa (4m 19s): I think many companies are sort of, not quite sure where this lives, because historically this has been a function that lives in HR, but the more companies are having these conversations and, you know, certainly they're being elevated to a higher level because they are, in some instances at a crisis level, within some organizations or industries, the CEO, is paying more attention to this as an issue overall. So what has historically lived within the HR function? You know, I would purport if a company gets their marketing brains behind how to support the HR team, they're going to have a competitive advantage against the other companies they're competing for talent against. Chad (5m 11s): I personally don't think marketing professionals are ready for this line of thinking. Talent acquisition teams have pushed candidates and possible customers through horrible application processes and hiring experiences for decades. So why should marketing care now other than the CEO told them to care? Lisa (5m 32s): Right. Chad (5m 32s): You're talking about an entirely different skillset. One that's not really predicated on lead gen or selling widgets. It's more focused on process and the processes and the technologies that we have in place today for HR, talent, acquisition, talent management, et cetera, et cetera. Marketing has no clue what's going on under the sheets. So why, why should marketing even get involved? Lisa (5m 57s): Well, I think the fact that companies are facing these challenges in recruitment and, you know, even retention is a testament to the fact that this is a critical business function within an organization if the organization wants to be successful. So while the marketing function probably doesn't understand the ins and outs necessarily of the talent acquisition process, what they can bring to the table is an understanding of messaging of branding, of building out a customer journey map, and really using some of the techniques and tools that they've used for customers. Lisa (6m 45s): And just applying them in a different way. The challenge I think is that most companies are not structured this way. So it's going to take a visionary CMO or a visionary chief HR officer to go to the other and say, Hey, I think we could be a really good team If we figure out how to leverage each other's strengths versus pitting one group against the other, because that's, that's not gonna get you very far. Chad (7m 17s): No, I totally get that. I think from an HR and talent acquisition standpoint, they've been to the redheaded stepchild that's been outside of the C-suite for the most part. Whether you have a CHR or not usually recruiting and talent acquisition, they just don't get the time. And that is turned into a marketing blind spot and let me give you a great example when it takes half an hour to apply for a job on most of these fortune 500 company websites. I can buy a car online faster. That is a horrible experience for a brand number one. Number two, all of the rest of it. When we're talking about mission and vision and purpose and all those wonderful fluffy things that does generally drive more people who care, to apply, if you're driving them into that horrible experience. Chad (8m 9s): I mean, are we fixing the wrong thing here? Lisa (8m 12s): You know, I would argue that if you're driving customers into a terrible web experience, then you're also doing the wrong thing. So again, it's really thinking about the user experience in whatever platform you're talking about. And when you say user, are you talking about a customer or can you slightly switch how you think about it? And when you say customer, you really mean a potential candidate. Julie (8m 37s): And they could be both, right? Lisa (8m 39s): Yeah. But if you, you know, many companies, one of the first things we do when we're talking to clients is we go to the careers section of their website and yikes, you know, a lot of times it's just a laundry list of postings that you can't really tell what's what, and it's not, there's no story telling happening there. Julie (9m 0s): There's nothing that gets you connected to the brand or who this company is. You would never do that with a customer. So thinking about how do you extend what you do from a marketing perspective and just slightly adjust it so that your marketing, but to a potential employee, you know, we argue is the best way to think about recruitment marketing. Yeah. I love what Lisa is saying there. I have gone to websites and I've looked at this beautiful brand with this great website, well thought out well-planned and then you click on careers and it's like, you went to another universe and they do look completely different from each other. Julie (9m 46s): And you can tell that there's no connection between marketing HR, because they've been designed completely separate from each other. Yeah. And sometimes that user interphase may actually pop you out to a different website. You don't really know it, but you might be going somewhere else, but is that experience the same if you're looking on the main part of the website and then the careers section of the website? If it's not, then that's a really important place to start. And I love what you were saying about the storytelling that you see an absence of the story in the brand. Many companies come to you to support with their branding initiatives. Julie (10m 26s): And, you know, I saw in your article, 75% of hiring managers say it's easier to attract a candidate who recognizes the brand. So you're not a household name brand that makes it really hard, even harder. Lisa (10m 40s): I mean, there's the sexy brands that everybody wants to work at. And then there's behind them. There's tons and tons and tons of B2B businesses or manufacturing companies that people really don't know who those companies are or what they do or what they stand for. So, you know, it's easy to get excited about, you know, the sexy job posting from, you know, the brand that everybody knows and loves, but it's a lot harder to build affinity around a company that makes widgets. So, but many times those companies are great companies to work for, but they just, haven't been intentional about telling that story. Chad (11m 27s): When it comes to storytelling a there's one major reason that somebody's going to engage with your brand if they're looking for a job and that's a job description. They're not going to go directly to your website unless you're, you know, a big brand possibly in town, small town with a few small brands, it's the job description. You go to the job sites, you do a search and then boom, there it is. What we've seen throughout the years is a very piss poor time spent on job descriptions has been incredibly low. You can tell it's more of a technical document than it is storytelling or something that's actually created to draw somebody in. Chad (12m 9s): Have you seen a big change in companies looking at job descriptions or is it mainly just websites and making them have better UI UX? Lisa (12m 19s): So it's a great question. Have we seen a great change? Not necessarily. Should we see a great change? 100%? You know, if you think about companies that have strong consumer facing, whether it's a B2B or a B2C company, strong brands, they almost always are going to have a really buttoned up brand guideline, brand story that that really guides their voice and how they talk about the company when they're talking to customers or investors for public companies. But there isn't that equivalent many times on the employee or internal side. Lisa (13m 2s): So I would argue if your company has brand guidelines, there should be a section in there about how you talk about the company in recruiting in even in employee communications materials. And you know, if you do a newsletter or if you do town halls, all of those stories should be laddering up to the same overall brand story, just slightly adjusted through the lens of the audience you're talking to. So customers care about something different than an investor would care about, then a employee would care about, then a candidate would care about. Lisa (13m 43s): So really figuring out what are the things that those audiences care about and crystallizing those messages ahead of time. So that when you're building those job descriptions, they're built around some brand guidelines and brand storytelling. That's going to make your listing more compelling and it's gonna make you stand out from other jobs that, that the candidate you might want is looking at. Chad (14m 8s): Julie, you've been in this industry for a couple of years now. Julie (14m 12s): Just a few, let's not date, maybe a question for you because I mean, Lisa hit it spot on, but the problem is this is a decade old plus problem and we have not seen movement thus far. What do you think is going to move the needle with regard to, it seems incredibly basic job descriptions, but it is probably the foundation of how we attract the right candidates. How do we move the needle here? All right. Oh yeah. I had to lean away from my microphone not to make an audible sigh. When Lisa said, you know, there should be brand guidelines and there should be community, you know, comms, you know, direction given to your career and employee side. Julie (15m 2s): That's an entire communication group that should be considered when you're establishing brand guidelines, because that is part of your brand at your employer brand. What you say to the people that you hope to hire, what you say to the people who work at your company now, and what you say to the people who used to work at your company. Anyone in the world who has a potential to become a candidate. So I'll tell you how many times we've gone to build a career site for someone I've been working with, or we've tried to do some work. And we said, well, do you have any, you know, employer brand guidelines? No, the answer is always, no, I could say maybe, maybe one in a hundred would come to me with some kind of information around what kind of font they use, what colors they use. Chad (15m 45s): Because they didn't ask marketing. They didn't ask, they didn't want to go to marketing because if marketing knew that they were doing, that's a signal, right? It's like, wait a minute. Somebody is asking for brand guidelines. What the hell are they doing over there? Julie (15m 58s): Right? What are they doing? Yeah. So that sends a signal, right? I need those for a reason. And that's usually when marketing would poke their head out and say, well, what are you creating? What is going on over there? Right? There would always want to be an approval to whatever was created from that. And then they'd be like too much red, too much blue, too loud, not the voice we want to use, but that it had given me that direction in the first place, we would have been able to save time and money and nail it better for the brand. But that's where the miscommunication is. Is it just a job description? No, it's not. It is a story of opportunity. And you need to differentiate yourself in that story. Lisa (16m 38s): I didn't mean to trigger anything for you when I said that, you know, I think, I think it's easy. It's easy for me. D&E is an agency. So companies are hiring us to help them. I counsel them. So it's easier for us sometimes to see where there are disconnects from one group to another. And, you know, we view our job as brokering the relationship or connecting HR and communications in a meaningful way. We actually have had the pleasure of actually doing that on many client assignments. And I can tell you anytime we are able to bring both a marketing mind and an HR mind together in a conversation or on a project, the outcome is always better than if something's operating in a sideline. Julie (17m 33s): Yeah, I agree that the two need to work together. The challenge is who's responsible for what, and every company is struggling with this. Some have a better grasp of it than others, but it is challenging because it is a crossover point where talent acquisition is responsible for the budget and the outcome of acquiring talent. But marketing has to help facilitate that in the areas of where its strength is in its competencies. Chad (18m 2s): But wait a minute. So why does talent acquisition have to foot the bill for something that is definitely a marketing exercise? This is a telling this story. This is about a brand. This is either impacting the brand in a negative or positive way, right? Is that not marketing's job? Lisa (18m 24s): Well, I think it depends on whether your organization is centralized or decentralized in terms of how it manages budgets. You know, we have clients who have lots of lines of business and the marketing budget lives within each line of business versus at the corporate level. So to me, particularly in a decentralized organization, it does make sense for that budget to live within talent acquisition, because they're just another quote unquote business line. If you think about it that way, where it gets a little more complicated as it is when you have a centralized function and how much it's layout and to your earlier point, Julie ownership, you know, everybody's already got more than they need on the plate, both marketing and HR. Lisa (19m 12s): So now we're asking people to sign up for something more, but it's something that the CEO cares about right now. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any organization where the CEO isn't aware of hiring and recruitment challenges. And if that can get solved by a strong partnership between marketing and HR, imagine how powerful that would be. Imagine what kind of visibility that gives you to the CEO. It's just, it could be really powerful. It just is something that organizations are not structured this way historically, where you've got someone on the HR side, who's coming at it from a marketing perspective. Chad (19m 57s): Yeah.Julie, I know you felt it and I'm sure Lisa has too, but the pandemic has changed so many things. And I think this is one of them, and this might be the time for us in talent acquisition to definitely pull together a business case with our friends over in marketing to make these things happen. Because one of the things that we don't see as much as marketing or sales is a budget, even though we are the engine of the entire organization. Julie (20m 25s): Yeah. I also know that the big area that companies are going to face the challenge is branding makes sense to a lot of companies to spend on. When they think of marketing, when they think of talent, attraction and employer branding, they think that their brand is just transferable into the employer brand. And that's not the case. What you offer your employees is different than what you offer your consumers, and you need to have that story. So the employer brand piece is hard when you do branding. Like when you do out of home media and you take out a billboard and use, you know, wrap a bus and you run some podcast, sponsorships that you're hiring, you can't show the direct ROI of that. Julie (21m 9s): And now when you sit down with your budget and they say, well, what was my cost per candidate? It's very difficult to show that for all the cost of branding, but branding is an investment that needs to happen to tell the story. Otherwise you have no message that you should be spending any advertising on. Lisa (21m 27s): Well, and that's a place Julie, where you could lean on a marketer to help you think through what we call KPIs, you know, and what are those things that you can measure. So are you driving someone to a dedicated landing page that does allow you to check how much traffic you're driving? Or can you just look at organic search results for your website during the time that your campaign is running and see a spike in traffic? Those are all ways that you can quantify some of the things that you're doing in a way that a marketer would. And that allows you to have some of those tangible metrics that the C-suite frankly cares about. Chad (22m 9s): Well, I say what we do is we actually elevate past that because we are more powerful than that on the talent side. If you take a look at the, let's say for instance, an engineering position that's been open for six months, what's that actually costing the organization for that position to be open? If that individual can't code, if they can't build product, if they can't provide services, there's a cost associated to that either positively or negatively. Instead of thinking about, you know, the amount of people that actually hit our website, that's great, but what are we actually doing to impact the bottom line? If we start having those conversations? I think, you know, we can really turn this bus around much faster, moving past this to try to look for solutions. Chad (22m 54s): What do we need to do as an industry from the talent side of the house to ensure that we engage more with marketing and we have these relationships as opposed to trying to stay at arm's length and not ask for branding guidelines? Lisa (23m 8s): Well, I would, I would say the first step is to start building relationships with marketing. You know, so maybe it's an informal lunch or, you know, a networking outing, where you're just commiserating together about what the challenges, and you can sort of think about how to work toward an end goal together. The challenge from my perspective, again, working with a lot of companies is there's no built-in mechanism right now within how organizations are structured or most companies are not structured in that way. Lisa (23m 48s): So it is going to take a little bit of, you know, rolling up the sleeves and forging a relationship with the right person in marketing to figure out how can marketing support those needs. I would say there is no better time to do it than right now though. There's press every single day about the great resignation and recruitment challenges. So no, this is the right time to start having those conversations and elevating them up the chain, building the right relationships with the marketing function. And, you know, maybe the marketing function makes a hire that is specifically focused on supporting HR or HR makes a hire that is specifically focused on marketing. Lisa (24m 37s): You know, those are ways to think about building those connections for the greater good of the organization. This has to be the test to cross boundaries between marketing and HR. They're not separate. So if your organization isn't structured in a way to force those interactions, you know, you sort of have to step up and try to make that happen. Julie (25m 1s): A big area I know that a lot of HR teams struggle is to get support from the organization for their needs for branding, for employer branding. Do you have any tips for how someone might be able to say to their leadership, why employer branding is important and worthy of being invested in? Lisa (25m 24s): Are you talking from the HR perspective or from the marketing perspective? Julie (25m 29s): From the HR? You know, marketing understands the importance of branding and is strong at communicating why that's necessary. But I think a lot of HR teams often struggle to make that case of why they need employer brand investment. That's an area where they, you know, well I need to invest in my branding. Any tips on how they might be able to speak to the value of employer brand? Lisa (25m 52s): I think it probably goes back to some of what we were talking about earlier, which is putting some metrics against what are you really trying to achieve and if you're showing huge turnover. So we've worked with, we're working with a client right now, and over the past year, they've hired 20,000 people for 11,000 jobs. So that means they're churning and burning a lot, which means they're not recruiting the right people out of the gate, or when they get people in the door, they're not the right fit for the positions for them. Chad (26m 28s): Shitty bosses. You forgot about that one. Lisa (26m 32s): Maybe they're shitty bosses. So, you know, if you can't figure out, you know, if you need to find some metrics that are compelling, that make you say, wow, or make you raise your eyebrows. And my guess is almost every organization could do that right now in terms of finding talent to fill open positions and something Chad you were talking about earlier is, you know, having an open job for a long time, there are a lot of other disruptions that happen as a result of having a position open for a long time. The team that's already there begins to feel stressed, you know? So when there's a hole or worse, the wrong fit in a position that, that weighs on the team too. Lisa (27m 18s): So it's, you know, thinking about what are some of the metrics that you can use to make your story compelling to the C-suite. And again, just the timing right now, there's I can't remember in my 20 plus years at the firm any other time when the C-suite was as focused on this as an issue. So, you know, it's just a great time to bring up those, those issues and put some strategy to behind them with some compelling rationale. And that's where, you know, your marketing partner could be a strong ally for you to help you put together that case. Chad (27m 58s): I love it. Julie, I've got to say marketing is finally talking about HR and talent acquisition in a good way. The C-suite is engaged and this is the time. Lisa, thanks so much for joining us again. Lisa Aone, managing director at Dix & Eaton. Lisa, if listeners want to find out more about you, maybe connect with you on LinkedIn or more about Dix & Eaton, where would you send them? Julie (28m 26s): Certainly you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on most social networks @LZone Z O N E. And you can find D&E online at www.Dix-Eaton.com. Chad (28m 46s): Excellent. Julie, that's another one in the books. How you feeling? Julie (28m 51s): Wonderful. I just love this conversation. And so glad to hear that recruitment marketing is in the C-suite talking about it. Chad (29m 1s): Amen Sister. We out. OUTRO (29m 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. 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 seems to be a new $1B unicorn born every day in the employment industry, but only one has the distinction of being a Chad & Cheese 'Death Match' winner. Enter SeekOut and its CEO and cofounder Anoop Gupta, who recently closed a Series C to the tune of $115M and a $1.2B valuation, who joins the boys for a friendly chat. About what? How about international growth plans, diversity offerings, competing with Eightfold and Phenom (and just about everyone else), and much, much more. 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 (2s): 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. The Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your host. Joel Cheeseman joined as always by the Robin to my Batman, Chad Sowash and today we are just super excited to welcome newly minted unicorn. That's right. Anoop Gupta to the show. Chad (45s): Wait, we have Anoop coming on? Joel (49s): Anoop is here. Unicorn alert. There's Anoop and by the way, death match winner. Chad (58s): Yes. Joel (58s): From 2019. Chad (60s): Yes. Joel (60s): We know how to pick 'em, Chad. Chad (1m 2s): And you know how sexy that is when you walk into a funding meeting and you have a Chad and Cheese gold rope with a big medal. Dude, you know, that's how he got it. Joel (1m 13s): Global hands you blank checks. When you come in with the death match, gold chain. Anoop (1m 18s): You're giving them my advice, secrets to how to become a unicorn. Chad (1m 24s): The thing is the thing is Anoop that I think you and only two other companies have actually one death match. So therefore, you know that not many have actually gone through the hoops yet. So you're safe. You're safe. Joel (1m 37s): Yeah. Damn. That damn pandemic kind of screwed it up for everybody. So what do you, Anoop are you sitting on a pile of money in Seattle drinking some Starbucks, like what, what's your, what are your days like? Anoop (1m 52s): My days are exciting because you know, the team we have is exciting, but it's also a lot of hard work and it's fun. It's fun. What we do. Chad (2m 2s): What's fun? Tell me what's fun. Are you digging into the data and you just love that you're bathing in numbers. I mean, what's going on here that's fun? Anoop (2m 13s): No, no you know really. I got to tell you, my favorite meeting of the week is my all hands meeting. We got like 120 people out there. We talk about gratitude. We say, thank you. We introduced new people who have joined and it's an amazing group. So it's the people that we have and the interactions that we have even during these times of COVID is most exciting to me. You know, when we say, and this is place, not a call from a corporate and what we're trying to sell. When we say people are the most important asset for any company. Anoop (2m 54s): You know, they make you want to get up and come back and talk and do things together. That's most exciting. Numbers happen automatically, when you have a great team and I'm serious. Joel (3m 8s): Well Anoop. I don't know if I assume you're too busy to listen to the show regularly, but our most fun is talking about all the new unicorns in our space. Chad (3m 20s): Joel just loves the sound effects. Joel (3m 22s): For those that don't know, like give them the details on the latest series C, what's going on there. And then, and then we'll kind of dig into the nitty gritty of that. Anoop (3m 31s): Yeah. So, you know, just a couple of weeks we announced our series C fundraise, $115 million and brings our valuation to 1.2 billion in four years and 2.6X, you know what we did nine months ago in March, we raised $65 million. So, you know, it's been a fun ride and journey. A lot of investors. sfx (4m 1s): unicorn music Joel (4m 1s): Love it. Chad (4m 2s): Yes. Let's, let's make that the last one. Okay. That's great. So let's jump into this. You now have taken unicorn money. You guys are obviously, you know, you're on the launch pad. You're you're on takeoff, but the thing is you can't be a point solution at this point, right? You've got to broaden up, you've got to become that new, bigger system, right? So what's your vision for tomorrow. You guys started off as a sourcing solution. You become much more than that and I assume, especially with this cash, you're going to become even bigger and stronger and broader. Am I wrong? Am I right? Chad (4m 46s): What's going on over there? Anoop (4m 49s): You're always right, Chad. And that is, you know, genuinely trip. So do bring people along who are listening, you know, seekout is a talent acquisition platform today. You know, we help you recruit hard to find diverse talent. And we have expanded that for passive sourcing to, you know, candidate discovery in your applicant tracking system, you know, ranking inbound talent so that, you know, you have an easy job there, you have too many applicants. We help you with referrals and then give you contact information and communicate on diversity. Anoop (5m 31s): So that's where we are coming at from. The thing that we, you know, our customers very much made us aware of is, you know, there's talent acquisition but with the great reshuffle, with the great resignation there's a lot of interest in retaining the people that you have. So what we have done is we are expanding ourselves. You know, we say SeekOut is the best solution for hiring, retaining, growing, and developing your talent, right? So this is something we call enterprise talent optimization. Anoop (6m 12s): It is looking at the whole enterprise looking at who you already have and who you want to get from outside. Chad (6m 22s): So internal mobility. Here's the big question, I guess. How do you differentiate yourself from all the other core talent platforms that are actually out there to day? I would say that most of the newer platforms are more automation centric and help organizations scale in, in many different ways, whether it's on the IM side or it is on just the recruiting side, but how do you differentiate? Because that's, that's me looking from the outside in, how do you, and how does your team differentiate how you're different, when you're pitching a new column? Anoop (6m 57s): Yeah, no. So, so let me talk, start from an example. So if you look at a platform like Workday, you know, which helps, which has something called skills cloud, you know, that people can enter skills and they can suggest some jobs options, but they start with zero skills. And the first task that an employee has to do is to go on enter thier skills. And I'm Frank, if you were to say, I knew going into your skills, I wouldn't even know where to start or what to add, or not. Serious question and turns out, you know, from what we learned is maybe 10%, 20% of the people do it okay. Anoop (7m 40s): And even if they do it, you know, they do it in a very limited back. So our foundation for doing and differentiation is how we build the most comprehensive 360 degree profiles and views into internal employees. You already know when we go to Excel, talent and hiring, we have the public profiles, we have the get hub. We go and look at jobs. You said security clearance. We do a diversity. We infer lots and lots of things about them. So now what we are doing is we have combining that external data that we already know about the employees at the company, along with the internal data that might be there in a day, for example, you know, what's your level of job level internally? Anoop (8m 32s): What is your trajectory ban? We can go and look into the learning, the development systems. We can actually go into your internal GitHub, your corporate, private GitHub, you know, and find out what is the work that you actually done. So we will have the most comprehensive view of the internal and external data combined together of the people. Once you have that, you already have a lot of, you know, sophisticated ai matching and other technology that we have developed, you know, for Excel talent type position to say, you know, here are jobs that are relevant for you. All right, we can tell you, here are career paths other in the company have taken. Anoop (9m 14s): We can tell you about here are team members that you can Slack chat to. Right? So that is where the power comes. The power of the talent data platform layered on top with a talent intelligence platform, with a talent action platform so both the HR people and the employees can make great products. Chad (9m 43s): So you're gathering data, then you're contextualizing data. And then you're creating ontologies around that data to be able to plug it into several different systems. Is that correct? Anoop (9m 54s): Yeah. Yes. So basically the foundation is, if you've don't know anything, you know, it's garbage in garbage out, right? So you better have the right information that will inform your decisions. Then data by itself is not sufficient. You better get some insights and predictive insights on, you know, why somebody might leave or why somebody might stay and it's not only by just internal data, you know, it does external market around a person and their skills and experiences. And then insights by themselves are not sufficient you gotta be able to do something and we let you do something. Joel (10m 33s): Is there an engagement piece in terms of employees actually getting involved with the data or is this all sort of out of their purview? Anoop (10m 41s): No. No. So there is an employee portion that we called the courier hub and basically that's the place where the employee goes. You know, they can enter their preferences on any kind of thing they might do, but we'll tell you open jobs that might be highly relevant to them. They can choose something, they can find their skills gaps, and they can say, what are the skills I need to build up? So let me tell you another aspect of it, which is interesting. So Kathleen Hogan, she's the CSRO at Microsoft. She be send a email to 25 house and people managers saying, Hey, you know, retention is an important thing we care about our employees growth. Anoop (11m 32s): So for your team members, you know, start having career conversations. People, managers, they don't know what jobs you have. They don't know, you know, which areas are hiring. They don't know anything, right? So it is about employees. What they can directly do themselves. It is about people managers and the conversations they can have a bit, their team members. It is for HR managers and business leaders to understand who they have in the organization and how they can advance. Joel (11m 59s): So you recently told, I think George LaRocque in an interview that you are not trying to be an ATS or an HRIS system, which I initially sort of chuckled at and said, good luck with that. But, hearing you now, it seems more like the companies in your cross hairs are like an Eightfold® or a Phenom. Am I right on that? And if I am, what makes you feel like SeekOut sort of has a better shot at taking them on and succeeding. Anoop (12m 30s): So, you know, competition and companies are always there. It is a huge market out there for us to go and win. We believe that our strengths in talent acquisition very naturally extend to this new world you know, that'd be called talent 368, you know, for enterprise talent optimization. We have the right expertise of team members, you know, who know how to bring data together, then bring in talent intelligence. We have a data platform where we can integrate new sources of data very easily. And then, you know, we have a lot of AI and other people so we can do. Anoop (13m 14s): So I think we come from a unique place of the richest data already about employees. Chad (13m 25s): Quick question around system of record. Could you be a system of record for an organization who did want to kick their ATS to the curb? Because I think really, if we look at it, an applicant tracking system is just a Relic term, right? We are more focused on a tech stack, which is going to differ from company to company. So they'll need different plug and play options, modules, all that other fun stuff. The big question that it all comes down to is can you be the system of record for an organization? Anoop (13m 56s): So let me take an example and an analogy that might be helpful, you know, for your audience. If you look at service now, you know, there are a hundred billion dollar plus company and you say they are a system of record. They build on top of Salesforce, they build on top of Zendesk. They bring it up from many places together, okay. To provide insights and data and workflows so companies can get work done. Right? So similarly, okay. What our intent is to be that system on top off the HRISs, the ATSs, the LMSs, the internal spreadsheets where they might have information about, you know, these people have sold and go inside the Salesforce to go inside that. Anoop (14m 50s): So I believe that the power is not just in the system of record. The power is in the data, the insights and the actions that you can take. So I look at Workday as a partner, you know, I look at Smart Recruiters, Greenhouse as a partner. On top of which what ATS systems are about is a lot of, you know, Workflow and compliance and what are the, you know, regulations in each country and things like that. And we kind of want to stay above it. Chad (15m 23s): Yeah. I can understand that, you want to stay away from the red tape. So you are actually providing a, really, a lot of the glue. What would it be? The really the RPA and automation that works behind the scenes within those platforms, instead of being the platform that everybody logs into, where do you guys actually fit in that? Anoop (15m 45s): We could be sitting on top? So, you know, so again, we talked about, you know, if you are an employee, you want to know what's possible for you. Who you should connect to, you know, what career paths. So all of these things, you know, what should you learn? They will come directly to us. They don't go into any of the other systems. If an HR person is, you know, looking at either sourcing internally talent, or they want to understand, you know, between this group of division and this division, what is happening and what is the talent we have, they come to us. Anoop (16m 25s): If you say, you know, this group is disappearing and how do I want to redeploy the talent? They come to us and live on top of that. And then to make a change, you know, okay, this employee should move to this organization or whatever. You go into the HRS and do the needed stuff. Chad (16m 43s): Do you integrate so that you can deliver that experience into those systems? Or do they have to actually leave Workday or leave whatever core talent platform they're using and then log into your system to use it for that? It, how does it work fluidly? Because we all know that employees from an adoption standpoint, they don't want to log into a bunch of different systems. So, do you have the integration and delivery mechanisms in place to ensure that that happens in a core system so that you get prime adoption? Anoop (17m 15s): So I'm saying as a prime adoption, if you look in ATS system today and who can most HRI systems today, they are ERP systems. They are designed by the professionals and experts. They are not designed for the employees, not designed for a lot of, you know, the people. So we expect that a lot of work will happen in our systems and through API. Chad (17m 43s): Gotcha. Anoop (17m 43s): You know, the effect of a salary change, whatever else can happen in an HRIS system. Joel (17m 48s): Let's talk about people for a second, Anoop, I think you have roughly 120 employees now, is that correct? Anoop (17m 56s): Yeah. Joel (17m 57s): Give or take. Anoop (17m 58s): 140, yeah. Joel (17m 58s): Okay. So you mentioned in many interviews, that head count was obviously going to go up and I don't think anyone doubts that you have some huge brains at the company. Are you going to add more brains, a little bit more sales and marketing level type folks? Like what kind of increase in head count are we going to see? And also what kinds of people are you going to bring in? Anoop (18m 25s): We are bringing and people in all areas. So we have bringing, you know, salespeople, we have been in bringing in customer success. We had growing on marketing, we had growing up partner this thing, and we are growing our engineering and product and designers. So truly, it's actually been growth in all dimensions, you know, to grow the business. Joel (18m 50s): And is this a more of a global workforce? Where's the company in terms of work from home, a hybrid work? Like what does that look like? Anoop (19m 2s): Yeah, so we are around two thirds in this broader Seattle area. And one third, you know, mostly around the US we do have a team in India, you know, that is there. We are totaled flex work from home and hybrid. So we do have nice offices in Bellevue and in the Seattle area. And different teams operate differently, you know, based on what members want to do engineering, a lot of engineering comes into our office. You know, sales are very fast, small fraction comes in maybe 5% because they can work just as effectively from home. Anoop (19m 46s): What is important to us is, you know, the health of employees and their families. So we've been totally flex and pretty effective with that and pretty effective in, you know, maintaining our culture, which has said, gives me the most happiness and brings me joy. Joel (20m 7s): Are we going to be seeing an office open in Israel or Germany? Like what what's that growth plan look like? Chad (20m 18s): Portugal. Anoop (20m 19s): So, you know, clearly we will be growing internationally too. There's still a huge market in the US that we have not touched. We just last week, you know, announced the hiring of our Chief Revenue Officer that is Kristen Scott from Appian. So with her joining, that will give us the capacity to also go international in a very tactful way. Joel (20m 44s): And that was fairly sort of quietly the new CRO. I don't think there was any sort of public announcement. What's the story behind her background? Did the current CRO get repositioned somewhere in the company? Did they leave? What happened there? Anoop (21m 4s): No. So, you know, her background is from Appian, you know, which is a more platform for connections of you know, how companies build their apps on top. She helped grow them from, you know, when they were on $20, 30 million to over $200 million, which is, you know, an area in a range, we are very interested in that experience. She is a wonderful, you know, builder, enabler of scaling enterprise sales teams. Our previous, we didn't have a CRO before, we had a VP of sales, Scott Goodman said, and he's been amazing for us. Anoop (21m 51s): He will remain with the organization. I think we just needed to expand the capacity of the leadership team. Chad (21m 57s): Great answer on the, we need to focus on the US first because a there's a lot of discipline that obviously goes into that. There's a lot of money already sitting on a powder keg when it comes to cash, but then obviously looking international as well, because you do have international clients. I get that. So , that's awesome. My question, Anoop goes around something that I hear from talent acquisition leaders, all over the place, they're sick and tired of hearing all of these platforms that were boasting AI before and now they're DEI platforms, right? Chad (22m 37s): And it makes not just them sick because they know that it's quote unquote, "loosely DEI". If it is DEI, let alone AI, but you guys also have diversity hiring on the website. You've talked about it. What should companies actually look for to be able to differentiate? Because when you're starting to talk about, you know, addressing unconscious bias with technology, that only goes so far, so help us out. Anoop (23m 7s): Yeah. So the funniest thing Chad, is that, you know, diversity holistically looking at diversity, equality, inclusion, belonging, is a complex problem, and there's no single silver bullet to address all of that in one go. You know, if you were to ask the talent teams, they'll say, Hey, sourcing and recruiting is the hardest, but you know, there are many companies which might be revolving doors, you'll hire the talent, and then they have the talent leaves and that is no fun or helpful. So I'll tell you where SeekOut helps today and where SeekOut is going and a lot of the growth than the funding and the unicorn status relates to how we actually help people. Anoop (23m 56s): So I hope that some of your people who are listening today and are just sick of all the noise about everybody doing it, you know, they give us a serious look. So it starts with, you know, to me, one is how do you set targets? So, you know, so being able to understand that in the talent pool, you're looking at data engineers with 10 years of experience who know Tensorflow. Well, you know, we will tell you what diversity looks like. We'll tell you what diversity looks like that your peers will tell you where these people are. Chad (24m 29s): Okay. Anoop (24m 30s): The second thing. So this is about how you set targets and realistic targets and not be just streaming. Right? The second thing is I believe that job descriptions matter in attracting talent, and I'm not talking about the Textio like thing. Make sure you're nice and fuzzy, which I know you guys will never do. Joel (24m 56s): Come on now. Chad (24m 58s): Joel's, Joel's warm and fuzzy. Come on. Joel (24m 60s): Don't make me push the soundbites Chad, don't make me push it. Anoop (25m 4s): I didn't mean it in a bad way. Okay. But it does about requirements. You know, job descriptions become kitchen chair, kitchen sinks. And, you know, depending on what you do, you can narrow the aperture of people. So helping, having data-driven conversations, with hiring managers that help you widen the aperture so you can find great, capable, diverse candidates, you know, is really important and SeekOut helps you with that. And then the third thing is actually sourcing and finding those candidates and, you know, we have amazing AI and filters, et cetera, that they'll help you. Anoop (25m 44s): And then, you know, we say unconscious bias that all of us have and how do you reduce bias as the way we call it is actually bias reducer. And we give you flexibility and hiding names and pictures and social networks and universities, whatever you want to do to do that. Now, a lot of companies are finding all of this very valuable and that's, you know, suddenly a very strong element and our growth. Now, as you look forward, how do you measure inclusion? How do you measure belonging? How do you measure the processes? So, because we integrate with the applicant tracking systems, we will also tell you, you know, they were 50 women and 50 men who applied and, you know, 10 women got an interview and 20 men got an interview and one woman got hired and four men got hired. Anoop (26m 40s): So basically data can also be an interesting tool that lets you ask smart questions, you know, in the workflow, what is actually happening out there. And so that you can say, it might be reasonable or it might not be reasonable. Maybe the interview process needs to be changed, maybe the right kind of doors, people need to be there and the interview room. You know? So there's a lot of things that you can do as we head into the, you know, enterprise talent optimization I was talking about, you can take Microsoft, you can look across all the vice presidents and you can say, Hey, for each one of them, you know, how many black people joined the organization and how many people left. Anoop (27m 26s): If there are a lot leaving then, you know, maybe, and it's, you know, there is an inclusion, belonging problem that is there. So again, data allows you to ask smart questions and if you dig down, you know, that will help you debug the system and get on a path to improvement. Without data companies are flying blind and that is, you know, not good for them or for anybody else. Joel (27m 59s): Let's talk a build or buy Anoop, a lot of your competitors have slightly bigger war chests than they did a year ago, which certainly begs the question. There's going to be a lot of acquisition activity in our space. Are you, I don't think you guys have made any acquisitions, at least nothing publicly that I've seen. Are you guys going to now be in the acquisition business? Are you going to stay firmly in the build business or somewhere in between? Anoop (28m 35s): We have not done any acquisitions so far that is there. We remain open to anything that comes up opportunistically. Joel (28m 43s): He's saying there's a chance, Chad. Chad (28m 45s): I'm saying that. That's how they branch out into international. Yeah. Good. Put that on my predictions. Joel (28m 52s): Keep going Anoop. Anoop (28m 53s): Yeah, no, I am just of the mode, you know, never say never. We will, you know, I'll tell you about how I think about acquisitions. You can have technology acquisitions, a small team that's done something amazing. You can have, you know, customer acquisition, somebody has a large customer list that will benefit from our solution. And so, you know, you can do customers, you can have Aqua hires where we just get a lot of talent from the thing. And so, you know, they it's all over the map in some sense. And we will look at opportunities that come our way, carefully, but also, you know, I've done many acquisitions while I was at Microsoft. Anoop (29m 39s): It is really important that there is a culture match and be able to grow. They can be a huge distraction, okay to the existing team. Where no progress is made. So we will try and be smart if we do anything. Joel (30m 3s): Only the sexy people, Chad. Chad (30m 5s): They have to be a diverse set of sexy people. That's Anoop Gupta co-founder CEO Deathmatch winner, unicorn at SeekOut. Anoop, we really appreciate you coming on the show. It's been way too long. We definitely need to get together at a conference somewhere. But in the meantime, if somebody wants to find out more about you or SeekOut, where would you send them? Anoop (30m 30s): So I would send them to our website, seekout.com, get a demo. Or you can send me mail directly? I'm a new anoop@seekout.com know, connect with me on LinkedIn. Send me an email and it'll be great to get together. Joel (30m 49s): So friendly, friendly. So open everything. Anoop, we love you, man. Keep on rocking, Chad and other one in the can. Joel and Chad (31m 0s): We out. OUTRO (31m 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.

If you love financial news, Buy-or-Sell and snarky commentary around those two things, then this episode if your wet dream. The boys are talkin' earnings and Wall Street news from Seek, Recruit Holdings (Indeed.com, Glassdoor), Randstad, Upwork and Dice this week, as well as playing buy-or-sell with Haul, Kevala, JobPixel, Alongside and Mystery. But it's no mystery that this episode rocks, ending with a reality check around pay transparency. 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 (21s): Oh yeah. You're listening to the broken clock of podcasts. We're going to be right only twice on this week's show. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "TikTok and you don't stop" Cheeseman. Chad (36s): This is Chad "Dr. Evil" Sowash. Joel (39s): Watch and on this week's show financial news galore, a buy or sell extravaganza, and why you're going to start publishing salaries and job postings, whether you like it or not, let's do this. Chad (53s): So that was a much closer game than I had ever imagined. Joel (60s): You we're calling for a blowout. You were calling for a beat down. Chad (1m 1s): Dude, I saw it happening and it didn't, it did not happen. Made for a much better game. Joel (1m 7s): It was a good game, not grand, a the Bengals got to give me on that a face mask on Jalen Ramsey, but Hey, that happens in games like that, that happens in games like that. The better team won and I knew they would, but it was close. Now everyone's talking about the halftime show. Chad. Chad (1m 25s): What about that? It was awesome? Joel (1m 27s): Everybody loves it, except I guess me, I got some problems. I got some problems with the halftime show and I know I risk losing my gen X, my membership card, but I got three things I want to point out that made the halftime show featuring Dre, Snoop, Eminem, Fiddy and others left me a little cold. So number one, Chad, I thought the song choices were a little suspect. Outside of a In the club and Eminem. There was no Chronic, nothing from doggy style that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Now that was my least, least like negative thing to say about it. Number two. Chad (2m 5s): Okay. Joel (2m 5s): We had talked before the show about protest. Chad (2m 10s): Yes. Joel (2m 10s): The NFL historically has done awful with race relations, particularly among black Americans. And I thought this was a perfect time to protest the NFL. Eminem was the only one who kind of sorta, maybe protested as he knelt by Dre as Dre was on the piano. So there was no coordinated effort. There was no like t-shirts or anything that would stand out. I, you know, my guess is most people didn't even recognize that there was a protest, but there was a little bit of one. Number three Chad, the biggest reason I have a problem with the halftime show is that these entertainers made their career on sticking it to the man. Okay. Joel (2m 50s): 187 on the motherfucking cop. Right? And now they're just part of the machine, right? It was like watching if the Sex Pistols played at a Queen's dinner or like Rage Against the Machine playing opening day of the Bush Library, right. It just felt wrong. It felt like this should not be happening. And that was what really, really bothered me. I didn't like seeing these people that in my youth were against the man against the establishment. And now they're just part of the machine and that just left me really cold Chad. And get off my lawn while you're at it. Yeah. Chad (3m 28s): Yeah. I think it's funny because everybody got on Metallica after like the Black Album, because they went mainstream, but that's when they started making cash. These guys already made their cash. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to bring more, more people to, to, to rap, to hip hop. Right? So you never saw Dre smiling before? Right. Dre was a smile and motherfucker during that entire thing. And I love it. They're different people, man. They're different people. So to expect what you expected out of, you know, 50 somethings versus 20 somethings, I think yet, I think your expectations were off, so. Joel (4m 2s): Yeah, I know it's not the popular sentiment. I know everyone in my age is like that shit was off the chain. It was the best halftime show ever. I just, I couldn't help, but just be pissed off watching it. Now I did enjoy the 50 Cent jokes after the performance. You notice 50 was a little bit bigger than he had been 20 years ago, as most of us are. But I don't know if you saw like the memes around, I guess he stayed at the candy store too long and now it's like, and the one was now he's a full dollar now. Cause he went with 50 cent. Those are pretty good jokes. I did. I did like those. Chad (4m 38s): Yeah, no, that was good. I'll tell you what it was off the chain was a finally being back in front of a live audience, doing a show. We were at Sun King Brewery last night in downtown Indianapolis. It was a blast man, Pillar HR. We had Mark the CEO of Pillar and we sat down, had beers, had a crowd. It was like a VIP event. And it was a blast man. I'm really looking forward to more of that. Joel (5m 10s): As much as I hate people. I really love people at the same time. It was nice. And when you have beers that makes people that much more nice to be around. Chad (5m 20s): Yes. Joel (5m 20s): So thanks to Pillar for hosting that event and thanks to Sun King. If you don't know Sun King, hopefully you will at some point it's in Indiana. Chad (5m 27s): Oh damn. Joel (5m 28s): I'm sure most of the country has no clue what Sun King beer is, but hopefully they will soon, but they do know Chad. They know LinkedIn. So I got a shout out to LinkedIn. So a couple of things, Wall Street Journal editorial this week, proclaimed quote "let's face it. LinkedIn might be the best social network right now" end quote. The editorial sighted. Number one, trust LinkedIn is the most trusted social media by a long shot. They're at 40% trust. Number two at 14. Yeah. I said 40. And then all the way to 14% is Instagram. So trust is a big one and there's apparently a surge in gen Z usership. So big shout out to LinkedIn. Joel (6m 10s): Take that TikTok. And number two, they're adding a political kill switch. Chad, I don't know if you saw this, but available now in the US if you don't want any more Trump talk anymore Biden talk, any more politics whatsoever you can flip the kill switch and have all political talk off of your social media feed on LinkedIn. And to me, that's a shout-out! Chad (6m 33s): It's perfect because it's happening before all the political, I mean, it's getting ready to heat up. This November we're going to have elections and it's going to start getting heated. It's going to start heating up soon. So I've already hit the kill switch. I saw it. I went. Hit it. It's done. So hopefully we will see many people hitting it. Hopefully we'll see that across other social platforms, because if LinkedIn can do it shit, Facebook can fucking do it. Anybody can do it. Joel (7m 2s): And they gave you the choice, Chad. If you want politics have at it. If you don't flip the switch, it's beautiful. Chad (7m 10s): Flip the fucking switch. So a big shout out to IRA Wolf and Jason Cochran over at Geeks, Geezers and Googlization podcast. I was on a couple of weeks ago, they posted it this week. The podcast name is Plan, Integrate and Automate. It was a fun time. Joel (7m 28s): Awesome. I'm going to go back to the Super Bowl for my next shutout! Chad there were a lot of ads. Most of them sucked. You probably won't be surprised to know that the top ad had no stars whatsoever. Had no budget whatsoever. All that it featured was the QR code. Chad (7m 47s): A bouncing QR code. Joel (7m 49s): No stars, no money. Chad. sfx (7m 51s): I've got balls of steel. Joel (7m 52s): That's right. They looked at the tradition, the face. This is a big win for QR codes, right? And when we know it is because some of the data from the commercial, right, Coinbase shot up from 186th place to number two on downloads in the app store overnight. And they got a whopping 20 million hits just during the commercial in the time that it ran, it crashed the site. QR codes are back baby. And I couldn't give a bigger out than the one that I'm giving to Coinbase. Chad (8m 29s): Very nice. My favorite commercial though, was the GM Dr. Evil, where they're focusing on Dr. Evil is now the number two ranked threatening the world. He's not number one anymore. Number one is a climate change, global warming. And now he's set to help with GM. Now that he's taken over GM to save the world so that he can be number one again. Joel (8m 53s): So did this displace Alexa for you on the favorite Superbowl ads? Chad (8m 57s): The full Alexa ad is awesome, but they didn't play the full Alexa ad. They had a different version. It was a shortened version. And I didn't like the cuts that they had on that one. So I like Dr. Evil better. Yeah. Joel (9m 8s): We'll Chad here in Indiana. It's raining. I don't know if it's raining where you are, but it's a pretty gloomy day. So I've been dreaming a lot about Arizona, which is where we were a week ago and thinking a lot about some of the experiences we had in that made me think about the Uber story, the gig story that we came upon, we didn't share. We shared the whole mobile advertising thing play that Uber is looking at, which we think is great. But do you think there's some real life stories that are worth giving a shout out to? So number one, we have an Uber driver that you and I are both in the car for. Chad (9m 38s): Yep. Joel (9m 39s): Obviously we strike up conversations around, how long have you been doing this? How do you like it, et cetera. Chad (9m 44s): Yeah. Joel (9m 44s): This woman's story almost brought us to tears and that's hard to do Chad cause we're tough guys. But anyway, she'd been running a call center for a long time. Chad (9m 56s): 15 years! Joel (9m 57s): She was rocking 70 hour work weeks. She had high blood pressure. She was on meds. During the pandemic she said, or was she laid off? I'm forgetting. Chad (10m 5s): She was laid off. She started driving for Uber. Then when they asked her back, guess what she said? Joel (10m 12s): She said, sit and spend, basically what she said. She's off her meds. She can spend more time with their kids who are at home, by the way. She can make her own schedule. All the things you hear about being an Uber driver, this was real life stuff. And I think this is you and I both think that this is happening on a broad scale. Chad (10m 29s): Yes. Joel (10m 30s): In many places. And the second story in terms of the gig economy that we have is we ordered alcohol. I know this is going to surprise everybody. We ordered alcohol on Drizzly, when we were in Arizona, because the Airbnb didn't come with, you know, just fully stocked bar. So we called Drizzly, Drizzly shows up and I go out to help or go out to meet the driver. And it turns out the driver is the owner of the liquor store because they didn't have enough people there to drive the liquor to us. She, the owner, drove the alcohol to us. So talk about a tightening of talent. The owner is delivering the alcohol. That's the state of the world that we're living in. Joel (11m 14s): And we thought it was worth sharing with the listeners. Chad (11m 18s): Yeah. And to add on to that Uber Drizzly story, I have an OnlyFan story. So very close friend of mine actually does taxes. And he had a young lady come in and she had a $70,000 gross to come from this company. And, he just started asking, you know, what what's this company do? And it was OnlyFans. She netted $50K on OnlyFans last year as a side hustle. So as we look at the way the world is changing, these are three stories that, again, we talk about every week, how the world of work is changing. Chad (12m 0s): This is how it's changing. Joel (12m 3s): Do we know what she does and what her OnlyFans URL is? Chad (12m 6s): No. And no, but I can tell you it's going to be, it's going to be more on the adult side. Joel (12m 13s): All right. Well, I've got one more, a shout out here, and I'm going to give you a clue. sfx (12m 18s): 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. Joel (12m 26s): All right. Well, I think all of us got a little box from Plum this week. Our friend is, is there Jason Putnam also the winner of the fantasy football league on Chad and Cheese. Anyway, box showed up with, I guess, the traditional giveaways, right? Pens, notebook, was there a mouse pad in there? I don't remember. Yeah. It was a typical stuff, but worth the shout out, Jason, thanks for thinking of us. And it gave us an opportunity to play one of our favorite sound bites. Chad (12m 59s): Amen. Amen. Big shout out to Collin Parker over at Creelate, who was looking good in the new Chad and Cheese t-shirt. Joel (13m 4s): Oh yes he was. With the kid. No shame. Chad (13m 7s): He's not looking as tired as you would think you would look. Cause he was holding his six month old baby. We might need to look at getting the Chad and Cheese onesie out there because man, there are babies everywhere. I'm going to call it the Corona baby boom. Joel (13m 23s): Chad and Cheese degenerates come in all sizes and shapes and ages. For sure. We should consider a onesie by the way, Chad. He got that t-shirt for free because he signed up at chadcheese.com/free. And if you want to get something free, you need to go there. You're going to get t-shirts from Emissary. You're going to get beer from our friends at Pillar, and you're going to get whiskey from our homeys at Textkernel. So if you haven't done that yet, please make the move. Chadcheese.com/free. Which all of these birthdays that I'm going to talk about, have all done. Chad. Oh, celebrating a birthday this coming week. Joel (14m 3s): Ryan Philmon, who is a former winner of free shit on Chad and Cheese. Yeah. Jessica Multhaf, Maria Ania, Ross Grainger. Kevin Burgess, my boy. Charlotte Ulvros of Tengai, hopefully celebrating a nice Swedish birthday. Happy Birthday to all of them who will be celebrating another year around the sun, this coming week. Chad (14m 32s): But not least kids. Events. We have the E recruitment Congress happened in Ostend, Belgium in early May got Rika Coppens, Dee Coakley, Bas Van de Haterd, Hans "the man" Mengleschots, Adam Gordon. And obviously Lieven will be there, but go to Erecruitment-congress.com, go get your tickets. If you're in Europe, you got to be there. If you're not in Europe, take some time, go to Europe. Enjoy! Joel (14m 58s): I can tell you're morphing into a European because you're saying those names a lot better than I would as an American Chad (15m 8s): I'm practicing. Then we have Unleash America, which actually same venue, MGM Vegas. Joel (15m 13s): Vegas! Chad (15m 13s): Vegas Baby. Although the date has changed to late May, which I think is very damn smart because by late May crossing my fingers, we should be in a much better place for live events. At least here in the US go to unleash.ai, click on events, and get your tickets and last but not least never least. We love this place. RecFest, July 7th at Knebworth Park, we will be emceeing the Disrupt stage and I'm lining up some guests to come in and help us out. Chad (15m 53s): So we're really excited. Search RecFest 2022 on Google. Get those ticks today. Joel (15m 56s): Not just guests, Chad, special guests. Chad (15m 58s): Special guests. TOPICS! Joel (15m 59s): Holy shit. We got some Wall Street news from like everybody. Okay. I'm going to run through these as quickly as I can. And then we'll comment on what stood out. So number one, let's start with down under our friends at Seek reported earnings this week. So strength at home helped Australia based Seek record a solid first half result in the 2022 financial year with revenue, earnings and profits, all recording, double digit growth. The company also paid its highest ever dividend to shareholders. Revenue increased 59% and the stock was up 8% on the news. Now going to Recruit Holdings who as you know, Chad own Indeed and Glassdoor, they continue to enjoy increases in the postings of job ads across the US, Canada and Europe during the third quarter of 2021 driving gains and recruit holdings of which they account for around 30%. Joel (16m 53s): Recruit Holdings has a lot of other businesses, revenue surge, 81.3% year on year to $2 billion in US dollars for Q3. However, the growth moderated quarter on, I said, however, Chad, however, the growth moderated quarter on quarter due to the holiday season and COVID-19 which pushed the stock down nearly 10% after reporting. Chad (17m 20s): Hmmm. Joel (17m 20s): Let's go to Upwork, which posted a 29% year over year increase in total revenue in Q4 taking the total figure to $137 million. They also surpassed $15 billion in lifetime talent earnings during that quarter. Chad (17m 37s): Damn. Joel (17m 37s): That's the freelancers. However, profit came in below consensus, which sent the stock down 7%. Randstad, our friends over in Europe and elsewhere reported fourth quarter earnings that beat analyst forecast and revenue, that topped expectations, they cited significant growth and perm and RPO services. Monster.com. Remember them Chad? Revenue was up 12% shares were up nearly 5% on the news. Now we'll end this with Dice. Chad who needs innovation Dice's board of directors authorized a new stock repurchase program of up to $15 million in common stock. Joel (18m 17s): This will commence following the completion of DHI's previous 20 million stock repurchase program shares popped 8% on the news. So let's review here. We've got Seek, we've got Recruit Holdings. We've got Upwork, we've got Randstad. We've got Dice. That's a lot of financial news. Chad, what stood out to you? Chad (18m 38s): The stuff Upwork people. I mean, everybody, shareholders were not happy with Upwork. And this seems to be kind of like the mindset that we have. Upwork was increasing the money spent on research and development, marketing, especially on administrative costs. They're trying to focus on long-term as opposed to, it sounds like their shareholders are looking at short term. It's really hard to see a brand, try to evolve and even try to see around corners. You need to spend money to make money and when they're making money, this is the time to do it. Right? So I think what Upwork is doing is incredibly smart. When it comes to all the different recruiting companies, there's an article on recruiter.com, where they expect a $50 billion increase on spending on hiring 2022, which I would like to call the idiot tax. Chad (19m 33s): I actually recorded a podcast earlier this week with Serge and Shelley from the RecruitmentFlex about this companies like Randstad, Seek and Indeed will continue to see huge lifts and revenue all due to employers, not focusing on retention initiatives like internal mobility, employee engagement, fair wages, wage equity altogether, childcare. And then we flip over to the acquisition side of the house. Still have shitty candidate experience, horrible candidate care, no nurturing is happening. And actually if they would leverage the candidate database that they spent millions of dollars building, they wouldn't have the problems that they have today. Chad (20m 13s): So all these surges are happening because employers are fucking idiots. This is an idiot tax. Joel (20m 18s): You've stated many times that if you can't make money as a job site in this environment, you should just pack your shit up and go home. I don't think anyone is going out of business based on these reports. I think that there are clouds on the horizon as an investor, we've got Russia, we've got inflation, we've got energy you know, concerns that I think are pushing all growth stocks down, which I think is why there's no room for error. So when you see, you know, a little bit of traffic decrease or a little bit of a forecast altercation or change, you know, investors are gonna freak out, which I think is why you saw the dip in Upwork and Recruit Holdings. Joel (20m 60s): I think Seek probably has a little bit of geographical protection in terms of where they are, and they're less likely to get hit for as a regional comp or geographically specific country or company. And you have Randstad, which is a big ass Titanic with a lot of diversity in their business. And you're going to see growth in some places in this case, RPO and perm work and the monster business, not so much in some of the other digital aspects, not so much. Dice man for all the shit we give our friend Art over there. Joel (21m 39s): He is a financial engineering genius because that stock, since 2001 has 3Xd from where it was over a year ago, it's gone from like two something to over six now. And that's not growth. That's not innovation. That's not anything, any secret sauce. That's just buybacks and making cuts and being financially, you know, sort of responsible and Chad (21m 59s): Smoking mirrors. Joel (21m 59s): What they want to see. Yeah. How much longer can that last, I don't know. But Dice stockholders are, have been pretty happy for the last year. We'll see if we'll see if that keeps going on, if you'd rather, you know, if you played it, who'd you rather between ZipRecruiter and Dice, Dice wins and the landslide on that, even though we give ZipRecruiter a lot more pub. Chad (22m 23s): I see Dice as the Peloton of our industry. I mean, they they're going to make money in this kind of environment. They should make money in this kind of environment. But when it's not this type of environment anymore, again, I think it's all smoke and mirrors, but good for them. Joel (22m 37s): I was also shocked to see Monster only at 12% increase. Chad (22m 40s): Yeah. Well that tells a tale. Joel (22m 43s): That's an anemic increase for a site as big as that. Chad (22m 47s): Exactly. Joel (22m 47s): All right, cool. Let's take a quick break. That's a lot of financial news. I need to catch my breath there, but there's no rest for the wicked because we've got the buy or sell of all buy or sells. Come ask when we get back. And we're back Chad. Chad (23m 7s): We have never had a buy or sell this big. Now we don't have unicorns this week. And that's okay because we have a bunch of new tech. I said we don't have, no we don't. We don't. We have a amazing new tech that's coming out and getting funding. So let's have some fun. Joel (23m 28s): Yeah, let's have some fun here. All right. Let's start with trucking. Okay. Let's talk about Haul that's Haul. Who's ready to gig a five. The trucking industry hall announced a $10 million investment bringing total funding to $13 million. We'll read co-founder of ZipRecruiter is an investor in the company, is the brainchild of two former Uber freight employees. Under it's system Haul becomes the driver's employer of record and basically leases the driver to a trucking company. No more full-time employees, no more having to own your own truck. Chad, are you buy or sell on Haul? Chad (24m 7s): So first off the name Haul loved the Haul, hate the URL haulwith.US. I think they could have some fun with like a great marketing campaign around Haul and Oates. Kidding. sfx (24m 19s): Oh hell no. Chad (24m 19s): So it's important to start off with the fact that as you had said, both co-founders come from Uber freight division, right? So they understand the problem. Tech solution. And I believe the timing's right, which is huge. This is a, from the Haul blog "driver churn is a real problem in trucking with drivers changing fleets, 10 to 15 times in a career costing fleets upward of 10 to $15,000 to recruit, qualify, and onboard each new CDL driver. Since its initial 3 million seed funding last year Haul's revenue has grown 30%." Chad (25m 2s): This is Uber for truck driving currently just in Cali. I do love the website doesn't push you to job search. Rather it asks you for your phone number and just drives you into the process. I think they're going to need more than $13 million to grow rapidly, but I think this is what staffing companies look like in the future. Are they too early? I don't think so. I think timing's right. This is a buy. Joel (25m 31s): Echo your sentiments and it was a great podcast. I'm spacing on what show it was, but they interviewed a woman who, you know, saw a commercial on TV, get your license, get employed today, make a bunch of money, see the country, et cetera. And she joined this class, got all the appropriate licenses. And then the company really sort of forces you in to being your own boss and owning your own truck. And the woman in the interview did that and ended up, you know, owing too much on the car, getting billed from the company, which she didn't expect. I mean, it was a money pit and not a money-making opportunity. Joel (26m 12s): So I'll be really interested to see, ultimately I think a lot of truckers want something that the Uber driver and Arizona and the giggers, and that we've come across want. You know, they want flexibility. You know, what is my route? I want to be able to control this, but they don't want to have the problems and headaches of being an entrepreneur slash owning your own truck and, , you know, having contracts and paying bills and all that stuff. So Haul is here to be that middle area where, you know, if you don't wanna do the full-time employee thing, you want to have more flexibility, but you don't want to own your own truck and have all that, that pain. We are an answer for you to still truck and have more control over your life. Joel (26m 55s): So I think this is a huge buying opportunity for me. I'm kind of surprised this doesn't exist. Yeah. Everything I read there was, there was no competition really for these guys. So I think it's green pastures. All right, let's go to, I'm going to pronounce it. Kevala? Chad (27m 22s): Kevala, that's how I see it. Joel (27m 18s): Yes. K E V A L A Seattle-based Kevala, which helps healthcare facilities find and manage workers as raised $12.1 million for a total of 21 million Kevala software enables healthcare facilities to schedule workers as well as tap into a pool of more than 1000 registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and certified nursing assistants located in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Montana, and Texas, obviously looking to grow into every state in the near future. Chad, are you a buyer sell on Kevala? Chad (27m 50s): This is Haul for healthcare facilities with a focus on senior living and skilled nursing. So what we just talked about with hall, this is another niche which is badly underserved and needed. So instead of having to be FTE, you know, you could be hybrid, you could work part-time, you could work for many different, many different organizations in your area, right? So I'll say it again. This is what staffing companies look like in the future. It's a buy. Joel (28m 25s): So my sister vantages a facility like this multiple facilities, and by far, her biggest headache is staffing. And I know that she has money to spend. I know that she has a growing customer base, ala baby boomers, who are not getting any younger. And that talent piece is the thing that is really missing. So Kevala is in terms of timing, in terms of demand is hitting this thing. At the right time, people are going to spend a lot of money to help ease their staffing woes in this business. So Kevala for me also is a big, a big buy. I don't think they can grow fast enough in other states. Chad (29m 5s): This is a big shout out to Ken over at Practice Link. You might want to gobble this thing up, man. Joel (29m 14s): Good call. Good call. I love it. When you spend other people's money, it's so much fun. Chad (29m 19s): So much easier. Joel (29m 20s): Let's get to Job Pixel video hiring platform Job Pixel has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round from Nama Ventures. Chad, this is a run of the mill video interviewing video resume solution. I don't think I have to say more than that. Are you a buy or sell on Job Pixel Chad (29m 42s): Founded in 2020, starting during the pandemic. One of the co-founders Omar has a sales strategy background, which for me is huge. Why? Because most founders are techies and they're usually very bad at marketing sales and anything that drives growth. I mean, funding partnerships, you name it right. Anthony the other co-founder has a background, which includes a stint at LinkedIn for five years as director of engineering for careers. So I like the founder background. I also like when you layer in the fact that Altru was acquired by an iCIMS for $60 million, Job Pixel is slick and it can sell itself to all core talent platforms as a much needed piece of the recruitment tech stack. Chad (30m 30s): All they have to do is point at what iCIMS did and start to prospectively targets acquirers. So for me, I liked their chances. It's a buy for me. Joel (30m 43s): I was a little torn on this with remote you know, video recruiting, remote recruiting, you know, video is taking a higher level of importance than it has in the past. However, I've hated video resumes forever, and I'm not going to stop now. A resume scan is around six seconds or less with a piece of paper or words on the screen. No one is sitting through video resumes. I don't care how much you think they will. They have a quote on their site from a recruiter at Ashley Furniture who said, quote, "Job Pixel made our hiring faster and way more fun." Joel (31m 23s): Seeing a video of applicants, beats reading a resume every time. I'm sorry, what? This is a sell for me, Chad. Well, let's go north of the border to Moncton, Canada, where Alongside Moncton has raised 8 million in Canadian dollars. That's about $6.3 million US springing the total raised to around 8 million US dollars. Listeners may remember they acquired Canada job site Career Beacon back in December, if you like your HubSpot for recruiting solution to have a little Canadian humility sprinkled in Alongside might be just for you. Chad, are you buy or sell on Alongside? Chad (32m 4s): Think about it, man, Alongside customers could already post to career begins since 2014 Alongside could see the activity since everything was flowing through their system. And they were enjoying a little bit of the profit right now you have a try and true brand like Career Beacon, making money and fueling its own growth. And now it's ramping up development and also sales. So Alongside the entire organization, they're really focused on propelling growth. Now that they have this pretty much this tech stack that they're building. Also a notable is a hire to the team, Serge Boudreau, who we know over at Recruitment Flex is now their head of sales. Chad (32m 50s): He has experience running sales for Workopolis and a little company called Indeed both were for the entire western region of Canada. And I think this to me is an easy buy because they're starting to do some things in Canada that, I mean, nobody else is really doing. I mean, even Indeeds having a problem, cracking that part of Canada. Joel (33m 13s): Yeah. I, again, echo your sentiments. I think that there aren't enough sort of these marketing platforms I called it HubSpot for recruiting. There just aren't that many, I mean, CandidateID, these guys, and there are some others, but to me, there's a huge opportunity, particularly on the automation side and if these guys can get that right I think that'll be really important to their growth. Whereas most Americans look down on European companies and other companies from the world coming into America. There's just a friendliness about Canada. And I think that their opportunity to come south and provide their happy Canadian services to Americans gives them a better shot than most European companies. Joel (33m 54s): My big big thing with them is, raise your prices for God's sakes. Like this thing is so fucking cheap, man. Chad (34m 5s): They'll get there. Joel (34m 7s): Like it almost, it almost makes your product look cheap because it is so cheap. So just raise your prices and people will assume that the quality is in line with what it really is. So just fix the prices. And for me, this is also a buy. So we end buy or sell with Mystery. That's right founded in 2018, Mystery started as an event automation tool for consumers, which matched couples to experiences based on their shared interest. Users would have a date night where they would know where they were going until they got there. Joel (34m 47s): Well, COVID kind of fucked up that whole business model. So Mystery began selling to companies one off experiences, such as virtual get togethers and corporate gift boxes and added engagement tools to measure what was most popular. Now, the company is valued at a hundred million dollars, according to a source after raising $18.5 million in a series A recently led by Greylock. Chad, it's no mystery that you probably love this company. BUt is it a buy or sell? Chad (35m 24s): So Mystery helps, they say, onboarding connectivity, connecting with leadership, collaboration across teams, but it all sounds incredibly redundant to the systems that already specialize in those areas. So I understand the need for connectivity, although I don't believe the market, especially our market, the recruitment talent management side of the house believes they need a separate platform in their stack to accomplish this. I, to me, it's a mystery, how they received $18.5 million. I'm selling. Joel (35m 54s): That's rough. Well, I think culture is a huge issue with the work from home phenomenon that is COVID. So in our interview with Mark CEO of Pillar, and I don't want to, you know, give away anything and you should listen to that when we drop it, whenever that is. But we asked him about culture and building culture in a work from home world. And I think a lot of companies are struggling with how do we, you know, get our people together, rub around and make them sticky and build that culture. And I think as a result, companies are going to try to answer that question with technology, because I think for the most part, we agree that a lot of companies, majority companies, aren't going to go back to the way things were. So they're going to be looking for tools and cutesy ways and unique ways and novel ways to get their employees engaged, to get them excited, to get their employees to say, wow, this is a really cool thing that my company did. Joel (36m 51s): And I think Mystery is going to be at the forefront of being one of those companies that gets the RFP to provide solutions, to build culture in remote teams. So for that, I'm a buy on Mystery, no secret about it. Chad (37m 4s): That's just horrible. That's just horrible. Joel (37m 6s): Historically 85% of these companies are all going to fail anyway. So I don't know why we don't just sell all of them, but anyway, let's take a quick break and we'll talk a little bit about pay transparency. Chad, let's talk about one of your favorite topics, transparency, including pay transparency. So this is from Santa Ana this week. Chad (37m 32s): Oh, okay. Joel (37m 32s): Story was here's what happens when salary is actually included in job listings. Any guesses is for their findings? Okay. First a little context, only about 12% of postings from US online job sites even include salary ranges. This is according to Julie Pollock, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. And that's an increase from 8% in 2019. Wow. 4% in two years, laws are starting to change that though Chad listeners will know about New York City, Colorado and more states and municipalities are following suit. And it doesn't look like the end of the world, making salaries apparent and job postings. Joel (38m 14s): For employers posting salaries can attract job seekers many of whom have salary as their number one motivator plus it can screen out people who will not in any way, shape or form be in the universe of what you're paying for a job, which saves time. Oh yeah and it creates trust from the start and what company couldn't use a little more trust? For job seekers, knowing salary doesn't just narrow down your search, saving time, but posting salaries means equal pay for equal work. One of your favorite lanes Chad. It's also good for existing employees who might learn there, that they are underpaid and easily negotiate pay raises based on such data that is easily accessible. Joel (38m 58s): They might also leave the company altogether if they don't know what kind of salary they should be looking at, you love this stuff. Chad, please comment. Chad (39m 11s): So this goes deeper than just talking about, you know, being able to get the salary on a goddamn job. A 2019 McKinsey study explored how these and other inequities have reduced the nation's wealth. The nation's GDP could be up to 6% higher by 2028. If the racial wealth gap is actually closed. This next quote is actually from McKinsey. Quote, "lawmakers must pass targeted policies that boost household income for black Americans In order to address the issue, the country has over a trillion dollars to gain from this effort" end quote. Overall, we look at this as a way, or we've been told that this is a way that we negotiate. Chad (39m 58s): When at the end of the day, what happens is this is the way that we suppress individuals wages. White women make at least 20% less than white men do. And then you start adding different races to that female to that gender may make even less, sometimes 40% less than white men for doing the same job. How do we expect them to actually get anywhere close to being equal? When we have issues, or these obstacles in play? From the federal reserve it shows that from 1995 to 2016, white households net worth grew 43%, black families household net worth stayed flat. Chad (40m 48s): This is, this is one of the big triggers that's going to actually help equity happen. And when we hear all of these excuses on why we can't do it, you have to understand it's bullshit. I've talked to, I don't know how many talent acquisition and HR professionals that say we could do transparency on pay tomorrow. All the data's in our system, we could publish it. And we wouldn't do it, it would be anonymized obviously, but yet we could still do it if it's not being done it's because we know that we can actually make more money off of the backs of individuals who are not white men. sfx (41m 33s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (41m 37s): Chad, one of your favorite sayings and I'll probably butcher. It is something along the lines of there's no disinfectant like a little sunlight. Chad (41m 45s): Amen. Joel (41m 46s): And that's what transparency does and making that statement makes me miss Arizona even more. Chad. Joel and Chad (41m 53s): We out. OUTRO (42m 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. 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.

You have questions... What is RM automation? What does candidate nurture really mean? What is a true talent pipeline? Are you and your company committing crimes against talent pipelines? All great questions for any organization, and the boys, partnered with RecruitmentMarketing.com's Julie Calli, bring on CandidateID's Adam Gordon to the podcast to cover a broad range of recruitment marketing questions and challenges. It's a must-listen for any employer looking to take their game to the next level. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Adam (1s): If we do this, then we can stop all of this incessant focus on the application, getting people to apply. It's really desperate and it's not very intelligent. 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 yeah. Rugby, kilts, and haggis around the menu today. Everybody what's up kids. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. And this is our employment brand marketing series. I'm your cohost, Joel "Maggie May" Cheeseman. Chad (52s): This is Chad "That's not a talent pipeline" Sowash. Julie (56s): Hey there, Julie from recruitment marketing.com here. Joel (58s): And on today's show, we're digging into a little recruitment brand automation. Let's do this. sfx (1m 5s): Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Chad (1m 7s): So Julie, you got your first real podcast under your belt. How you feel now? You feeling a little bit loose, a little looser than before a little ready? Julie (1m 17s): Yeah! I know this is all new to me being in this podcast world. And I got to say, I have tremendous respect for what you guys do after the first show. Joel (1m 24s): We actually have some live footage of Julie after the recording. sfx (1m 28s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (1m 33s): She's much, much cooler now. Chad (1m 35s): Yes! Much like last week we have a mystery guest this week. Julie, who might that? Julie (1m 44s): Oh, well I'm excited to announce our mystery guest, Adam Gordon from CandidateID. Chad (1m 51s): That kid's been on the show a few times. Joel (1m 54s): He's going to get a jacket soon. Couple more appearances. He gets a kilt. Chad (2m 1s): Chad and Cheese kilt. Joel (2m 3s): Oh I love that. Shit. Shit. You just blew my mind on that one. Julie (2m 6s): More men should wear kilts. I love men in kilts. Chad (2m 10s): Dude they are so freaking freeing. Julie (2m 12s): Oh man. Joel (2m 13s): Are they all your family what plaid? I know it's called something else. Adam (2m 19s): It's called tartan. So I've got three Gordon clan tartan kilts. I have just a black kind of what you call it utility kilt. Full of pockets and stuff. Chad (2m 33s): Oh yeah. Adam (2m 35s): I've got my nighttime kilt, which is the spiderman kilt. That's not for partying. That is for fighting crime. Julie (2m 43s): Spiderman has one of those utility kilts as well. Joel (2m 47s): Does he have a nighttime kilt too? Julie (2m 48s): That is something I'm going to have to explore for Valentine's Day. Chad (2m 55s): Well, that being said, Adam, give us a little bit more about your little Twitter bio. If people have been in a corner, haven't been listening to this show, they haven't heard the 20 different podcasts you've been on. Tell them a little bit about you. Adam (3m 7s): I live in Glasgow in Scotland with my wife and kids and I'm co-founder and CEO at CandidateID. I've been in recruitment for 23 years this year. My, I love, I love haggis. I love all things Scottish. sfx (3m 26s): Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's no Scottish it's crap. Joel (3m 31s): And I love rugby. Adam (3m 31s): I mean, that wasn't me who said that, but it is correct. The other thing is I'm very, very passionate about crimes against talent pipelining and Julie (3m 45s): Well said. I like that term. Chad (3m 47s): Talent pipelining, malpractice crimes. I love that. That's awesome. Adam (3m 51s): And I'm very passionate about marketing automation as well. Joel (3m 55s): Nice segue. Adam (3m 55s): In fact, when I started in recruitment, so see like interviewing people, I had almost zero interest in that. At assessing them even less interest, but getting them to the room, you know, getting them from being strangers to actually being in the room to talk to me about the job. That was the bit I loved. So as recruitment has developed in the last 20 years, things like subjects like talent sourcing and recruitment marketing, other things, all of my, all the hunting bit. That's the bit I spent all of my career on. Julie (4m 31s): What is, what is recruitment marketing automation? Adam (4m 33s): Great question. And not very many people will give the answer to it I'll give. It if we go into, so to set the set up the answer to this, if we go into mainstream sort of sales and marketing, which I believe other than assessing people, I believe recruitment is 100% sales and marketing activity. Chad (4m 52s): Well talk about that real quick? Okay. Dig deep into that. Cause we just had Chris Kneeland on the podcast last week, he comes from a marketing background, a brand background. They do business in sales and marketing much different than we do. So why is that? Should it be different? Why is it different? Adam (5m 9s): I mean, I think that in mainstream sales and marketing, they think about every touch point as completely unique. And they think about what experience it should give to the individual and how it should make them feel and what it should make them want to do next. And we focus almost all of our thoughts about that into what I would call the point of sale material and like the application. Applying, getting people to apply for a job and then taking them through that application. And we're missing out on experiences in so many other places, other places of recruiting. Joel (5m 49s): Adam, I feel like on the consumer side, that marketing automation to me feels very transactional, right? It's Valentine's day, you know, buy a card, buy chocolates, buy something. It's another holiday. Now buy this, do this. And it feels sorta cold. It doesn't feel like a relationship. Do you feel like in recruitment that we get too much into the transactional, like apply to this job, this is open, do this as opposed to building an actual relationship and talking about what the company is, what the culture is. Are there any pitfalls to just being marketing and being transactional? Adam (6m 26s): You're absolutely right. And this is why see one of the hot phrases about three or four years ago was treat candidates like consumers and Scott, my co-founder and I looked at that and just went, when you think about consumer, you think about somebody that's making a choice between Coke and Dr. Pepper. Chad (6m 45s): It's transactional. Adam (6m 46s): It's a point of sale choice. It's not a considered purchase. So this is why when we think about marketing automation, we think about it much more in the B2B sort of process of marketing automation, which is not about the transaction. It's about the nurture. It's about the relationship building through awareness and education and consideration into the point where they bought a new Audi or a new holiday or a new wedding venue or whatever it is, something that's much more high consideration. So it's either an expensive consumer purchase rather than, you know, Mars or Bounty, or it is a B2B purchase, like who should my next advertising agency be? Adam (7m 29s): Who should my lawyers be? Which operating system should ERP system, should I choose? You know, those types of things. So it's very different. Joel (7m 37s): You're the tech behind that? How do you educate or help steer the employer to that mentality and not just let stuff jobs down their throats? Chad (7m 46s): Drag them. Adam (7m 47s): I mean, I right now, so if I think about almost every company that's doing recruitment marketing, as I mentioned, I think that they're focused on the point of sale, but the transaction bit, and those companies who are coming in and working with us, or they're using some kind of a marketing automation type of approach, they're the ones that have really understood that most people couldn't care less about their EVP today and don't care about their pay and don't care who they'd be working with or anything like that. But what they do care about is things like skills, insights, things that help them be more successful in their career. And if they can talk to them way up stream and be useful and be relevant, then they're generating Goodwill with those people long before they're trying to turn them into a candidate. Chad (8m 32s): So question around again, talent pipelining. And we take a look and we're still trying to run these parallels between marketing and sales. Now, if I were a CMO and I spent a million dollars on leads, and then I didn't use those leads, they just a withered and died. Do you think I'd have my job for a long? Adam (8m 54s): Absolutely not. And this is like, you don't get salespeople saying, well, that lead wasn't ready to buy so, you know, it was pointless. They're they're not like in a company like, Chad (9m 4s): Yes, right. It's part of the process, part of the funnel, not everybody's ready to buy today. Adam (9m 8s): What you really want is, if I'm in sales and marketing is if I'm in sales at service number, I can't be like service now. I don't want to talk to people who aren't ready to buy that's a complete waste of my time. I only want to talk to people who have done all of the education themselves. They've been through a considered journey. They've done it in their own time. And you know, they might not have done it in a linear, like, you know, blast. They might have done it in a over time and like micro moments over the last couple of years, they might've been learning about Service Now, but when their activity and behavior gets to a point where they're starting to request, what's our pricing? You know, or those types of like bottom of the funnel kind of bits of information that's been, I want to know who's looking for our pricing. Adam (9m 53s): I want to talk to those people. I don't want to want to talk to people who are like looking at real surface level type stuff. And if my marketing team is using that sales nurture, lead nurture type of approach, and they're using the right type of technology, that's tracking and scoring all of those sales prospects clicks, that all I'm getting is hot leads and I'm not cold contacting people ever. Julie (10m 22s): I've always liked to refer to that as like digital body language. Like, what are you doing with your body and your digital language of what you're clicking on and the activity? What kind of signals are you looking for from the candidates to indicate activity of interest? Adam (10m 41s): Well, I love that digital body language is a really great description, Julie. The types, so when, what we recommend to our customers is, and in fact, on Joel's point, we do a lot of education because we're not, we're teaching companies to really farm their talent pipelines properly rather than just send out like an email blast every week. We're teaching them to do it in a completely different way. So you've got candidates who are cold, who are warm and who are hire ready. And might I don't, I've not made a mistake there using the word candidate. I believe everybody is a candidate until they retire. Or they're a candidate to me as somebody who might go out and try and hire them. Adam (11m 25s): It doesn't matter if they think they're a candidate is about whether I think they're a candidate or not. So that's one thing. But what we're looking for in terms of digital signals is, are they looking at the content, which suggests that they are ready for a hiring conversation. So obviously who looked at the job description, but did not click the apply button yet. They're the candidates that I want to know as a talent sourcer or recruiter. I want those hot leads coming into me. If they're looking at content, which is like skills for data scientists that suggest they're ready for a conversation yet they're looking at, what's it like to work in Amazon as a data scientist, that's a much hotter signal. Adam (12m 7s): So you would wait all of those clicks so that, you know, what's meaningful and what's not. And then adapt that as you learn more. Chad (12m 16s): So you're scoring them, but scoring's the other side of nurturing, right? You have to understand where they're at and hot, cold, warm, what have you. So what does nurture actually mean to you and how do you actually get it done? Because it seems like what we're doing today is nothing but rapid fire spamming. And that is become pretty much table stakes. How do you get away from the spamming quote, unquote, "nurturing" and get into actual nurturing way? And what's the definition from you? Adam (12m 46s): I think just going back to Julie's original question, which was about, you know, what's marketing automation? Marketing automation is a type of technology which will track and score all of those clicks from emails, from text messages, from WhatsApp on the career site. It'll track clicks around social media, around Glassdoor, around YouTube. And so when you're able to track that level of digital engagement, then you can start to set up workflows, marketing workflows based on each click, not based on what happens with probably about 99.9% of what we call in America gets called a talent network, which is a three-step drip email campaign, which they call nurture, which is not. Adam (13m 30s): It's just, I'm going to batch and blast the same thing to everybody today and then set up another one for three days later. And another one for three days later, and everybody gets the same thing. With marketing automation what you get to do is set up programmatic workflows, where if somebody's looking at the surface level type stuff, then they're probably cold, which means don't start sending them job descriptions. When somebody warm, they're looking at the EVP, that kind of thing, then give them more about what it's like to work at the company. And then when they're hire` ready, when they're looking at job descriptions, that's the point when the sourcer gets an alert to tell them, to pick up the phone and get a one-to-one conversation. Adam (14m 12s): So nurture has to happen in a way that the candidates are going to want or the prospects or whatever you want to call them. What they're going to want. Nobody wants spam with job descriptions if they're not looking for a job. They want things that are useful and relevant to them and their career. So it's all about personalization at scale. That's true nurture. Joel (14m 30s): Yeah. I love that. You mentioned WhatsApp and SMS and some other ways to communicate. And I think there's one question that we always think about is like, what do people actually respond to? Right? Email is dead. No one answers this, no one talks on the phone, but I don't think we ever think about nurturing and messaging in a way that says, okay, where do people want to hear from employers? I think LinkedIn might be an obvious choice, but if, if WhatsApp is where I talk to my friends, do I really want an employer butting in and communicating? Now I might actually get my message through, but is it the messaging? Is it the engagement that an employer should be looking for? Do you have any thoughts on that? Adam (15m 12s): Yeah. This is the beauty of marketing automation. You're able to track and score what everybody's doing. So when you get into the data, you can see what's working and what's not. So if you're able to get 100% of your WhatsApp messages to people, but it's driving 2% engagement, whereas text message is driving 10% and emails driving 35%, then keep emailing and stop WhatsApping people. Or set up a set of workflows so that those people who respond to things by clicking on them at WhatsApp, they keep getting things by WhatsApp and the people who do it by email, they keep getting things by email. You can, you can create programmatic workflows where people get the type of content that they want, in the formats that they want, through the channels that they want on the days of the week that they want, based on their previous behavior. Adam (16m 5s): So, you know, I'll just on that, on channels. What we know is that more blue collar type jobs where maybe they're less likely to be on a laptop or a desktop or an email, then things like text message worked much better. Whereas this concept that email's dead is absolutely wrong when it comes to sort of highly skilled professions, like a data science or clinical project managers, or, you know, optometrists and things like that. They're actually all on email quite regularly because they use it almost as like air traffic control for all the different apps and things that they use. Joel (16m 43s): Yeah. And have you, have you found it being a moving target at all? I know you've been doing this for a while, but obviously, you know, Snapchat is obviously gaining prominence and, you know, TikTok, are you seeing it being volatile with what works and what doesn't and that's a moving target, I think would be tough to a tough problem to solve from your perspective. Adam (17m 4s): I mean, I think dynamic is probably a slightly more accurate term than description for me from my view vision, then dynamic is probably a better word than volatile. The thing is you try the very best practitioners of recruitment marketing automation are just constantly adapting what they're doing cause they can see every day what's working better today. What's what are the trends? Because they can see it from their analytics. So because they know what's working, what's not, they just keep getting better and better. I mean, some of the RPU businesses that I know have got teams of specialists who are like real, I'm pretty confident I can describe the most world-class practitioners around, you know, recruitment marketing automation, and this kind of concept of nurture marketing. Adam (17m 55s): Whereas a lot of fortune 500 companies, honestly, they tell me what they're doing to try to nurture their talent pipeline. I'm like that is not nurture and that is not a talent pipeline. You're setting up a spam list is all you're doing here and you don't know who's clicking on it or what they're doing next. So no wonder your recruiters aren't engaged in it because you can't actually give them hot leads. Like who opened an email and didn't open an email. It means nothing. It's totally meaningless. That is a crime against talent pipeline. Chad (18m 27s): So the big difference between talent acquisition and RPO is RPO it's a business and they run it like a business. Talent acquisition it's a job and they don't run it like a business, which is one of the reasons why we don't see ourselves in the C-suite that much. Now jumping into all of this since marketing has such a already a history with using this tech, being able to create marketing messages, you know, drive leads those types of things. When should the TA side of the house actually engage marketing? Should they number one or should marketing actually own this? Adam (19m 7s): No marketing should definitely not own this or it'll get no priority whatsoever. I know my wife is a chief marketing officer and anytime she's ever had a recruitment internal TA teams coming to her up looking for help, she's like, no, mate, I'm sorry, it's not, I get fired if I don't do my job, I don't get fired if I don't do your job. So unfortunately, you know, you need, you need the expertise within your TA organization. If you have a TA team of three people, then that's going to be pretty difficult. If you've got a TA organization of 10, then at least two people should be focused on talent pipelining and nurture marketing. Adam (19m 48s): So I've seen quite a lot of companies where they've really changed the approach based on the new found ability to actually track and score candidates and do marketing automation. So one company based in the UK, well actually their headquarters in the UK, but they're in about 10 different countries. It's an optometry retailer. I think it's the biggest outside the USA and they're constantly hiring optometrists. And they started in the beginning of 2017. They started with 24, 360 degree recruiters. By the end of that year, four of those people had switched jobs to nurturing talent pipelines. And that combined unit of 24 people was filling 50% more jobs per month because the recruiters were no longer cold calling people. Adam (20m 33s): They were purely dealing with warm leads. And you know, if you can cut that out, it's just the concept of cold contacting people. No matter how good at sourcing you are, no matter how good your rapport building skills are. Cold contacting people is there's just never today the optimum way of getting your shortlist. Joel (20m 53s): I get fired for not doing my job. I don't get fired for not doing your job. What a great summary of how marketing feels about recruiting. Chad (21m 2s): Yeah, but wait a minute. Let's back into that real quick, that just demonstrates to the rest of the organization, that talent isn't that important. It is not a part of her job. Although driving leads or brand for the holistic organization is. Now that's a transactional exercise. You're trying to get somebody to buy a $400 Yeti cooler, but what's more important? The people who actually fucking make that cooler, right? The people, who have their 40 hours of blood, sweat, and tears who actually enjoy, hopefully enjoy their job. So I think what Adam just really pinpointed was, I mean his wife, I mean, yeah, she has responsibilities, but the organization doesn't understand how important talent is. Chad (21m 52s): If it was, that might be one of her core responsibilities. Julie (21m 54s): We also ask the practitioners and the recruiters who have these expectations have really strong competencies of human skills right there on the phone, trying to close the deal, try and close the sale, say, Hey, come work with us and give us your 40 hours a week for the rest of your life, or as long as you'll stay with us. But then you throw in that really sexy words that you put together in a string they're programmatic, automated workflows, like is the competency of someone who, you know, is working in HR and is supposed to be on the phone, talking to the people in the program, trying to set up the right rule set, right lead scoring, and build that pipeline. Julie (22m 37s): It's a conflict of their time. So I love what you said, Adam, that, you know, that is the game where people are able to open the flood gate at the top so that they can have more results at the bottom, but to expect to do both, is that, is that realistic that someone can do both of those things with their time? Adam (22m 56s): Definitely not. Definitely not. It's completely different. It's a completely different skill set. Can some recruiters adapt to this type of skillset, which is about, some of it's about creativity, some of it is about being good at using technology and some of it is, is about data analysis. And, you know, talent sourcers can, are, I've got exactly the right type of skill set for this because they are creative and they're very, very good at data analysis. Recruit, some recruiters can do this. A lot of recruiters find it very difficult because of the type of training they've had in the way that they look at the world. But the trend that I see the most, which I just love is the trend of bringing people in from digital marketing performance, performance marketing backgrounds, into the TA organization to drive the pipeline. Adam (23m 48s): It's all about funnel metrics. How many people are cold, how many people are warm, how many people are hire ready, and then splitting that up by different job categories and locations, and then getting everybody out of cold and into warm. You probably don't want everybody in hire ready because then you're going to disappoint a lot of people. There's not enough jobs to go around, but getting everybody from cold to warm is quite a fun sort of process. Joel (24m 11s): Adam, is it your experience that you're seeing more companies create liaisons or people that speak both marketing and recruiting to be in the middle of that conversation? And if you are you seeing more post pandemic when people are making decisions around what we're going to do with recruitment marketing? Adam (24m 29s): I don't see marketing being involved all that often, except for handing over the brand guidelines, you know, maybe being involved at the beginning to agree or consult, advise on. Yeah, we think that's a good strategy that you're doing, go do it. HR and recruit recruitment should never be subservient to marketing. Otherwise they're not going to be allowed to do what they want to do. And so, you know, it's comes back to that whole seat at the table type thing, you know, that, that conversation. And I think if marketing says, no, you say go away. I'm doing it. It's nothing to do with you. So, you know, that's sort of what has to happen. Adam (25m 10s): But anyway, to answer the question, I just love the fact that a lot of TA organizations are hiring people from pure demand generation performance marketing backgrounds into their business to do this. And that will continue and that will accelerate. And the pandemic has definitely accelerated that because more TA leaders have had more time to look at, are we doing this in the right way? You know, they're not traveling as much anymore. So are we doing this? They've got more time to think about, are we doing this in the right way? How could we make this better? And they're actually spending more time with each other, like online, things like that, learning from peers on like meetups and round tables and social media groups and things like that. Adam (25m 52s): So I think that this whole concept is becoming more popular. Chad (25m 57s): We did an interview with Brandon Lynn, who's in marketing for Freedom Mortgage. Now he's been on the recruiting side for his entire career until he went to Freedom Mortgage and they pulled him into marketing and he said, it's bliss because he reports to marketing but yet he's responsible for employer brand. It's more of I think, more of an evolved type of model, not saying one model is better than the other, but at that point they understand within their organization how crucial it is to fill those seats, which is why marketing has that responsibility. Do you think we'll see that evolution or you just think that's kind of like a blip in the radar. Chad (26m 40s): We'll only see a few organizations actually understand just how important talent is, which is pulling them into marketing. Adam (26m 47s): So every employer is different and I know Brandon. Freedom Mortgage is one of our customers. And I think it's unusual though, for that person to be sitting within marketing and you know, I don't think it's bad necessarily, but I feel like if the recruitment team, if the TA team, is unable to get enough candidates, then they can easily just blame a completely different team in marketing. So who takes accountability for this? There's , you know, a gap. There's, like a crack in the sidewalk here. I think that it has to be within the one role reporting into the one person or else there's a blame game that can happen when recruitment goes wrong and recruitment goes wrong 90% of the time. Adam (27m 32s): So, I think it's quite important that the TA organization builds its own capabilities and they're as good as their cousins in marketing. Another point about this is by the way, almost everything is marketing today. Every other area of HR is also marketing. Everything to do with reward, everything to do with organizational design and structure, everything to do with like L and D. There's a considerable marketing input into all of that. And you know, I'm not involved in it so I don't know whether that's emerged yet or not, but it really should have done. Joel (28m 10s): Do you feel that globally as well? I know you have a lot of international clients. I don't know if you've seen any trends where yeah, this is a global issue or, you know what, it hasn't quite hit some of these other areas? Adam (28m 23s): It's difficult to say. It's like 70% of the companies that I work with are UK or USA. I think it's actually about 80% and the other 20% are kind of Western Europe or North America like Canada or Netherlands or whatever. I mean, I think, that if you go the further east you go in Europe, probably the less likely that now this that's nonsense. I was just gonna get myself in a lot of trouble there because there's real hotspots of talent acquisition excellence in places like Poland and Estonia. Joel (28m 55s): You're in a growth industry. I think it's fair to say you're in a growth industry. Adam (28m 58s): I don't know the answer. Joel (29m 0s): I think there's a lot of room to grow internationally with your business and recruitment marketing automation. Adam (29m 7s): Yeah, I agree. I mean, we, so we're playing quite a patient game here because we launched the first version of our product in January 2017. And it worked really well, but it was very hard to use. So we really started our business as a tech enabled service. And then by 2020, September 2020, we had completely rebuilt and relaunched the product. And it's now very much because you know, our customers use it themselves. So it's a lot easier to use. It's a lot more drag and drop and simple to use workflow builders and things like that. And, but still, I think even in the, you know, sophisticated environments like the UK and the USA, I think that it's probably only 20% of TA teams that have the right thinking and capability to do recruitment marketing automation. Adam (29m 54s): But the reason that we're being patient is because we know it's the right thing to do. I, 100%, you know, we created our business because we saw that recruitment CRM was simply not the answer. And you know, that we were providing a better solution than that. And, you know, people are really starting to agree with this. And I can see that by the growth of my customer base. Joel (30m 20s): One of your, one of your products is alumni engagement or one of the things that you, you market on your website. And I don't think a lot of people think about recruitment marketing automation or what you do in terms of alumni or people that used to work there and boomerangs. And this is a growing trend. Talk about that and how companies should be thinking about it. Adam (30m 40s): Employers need to think about, Julie made a great point on the last podcast, which was that, you know, people are moving jobs more often and they want a different type of relationship with an employer now. They want a lot more flexibility to work in the ways that they want, you know, and it's really more about candidates than it is about the employer and what they're offering now so we need to really adapt. And what that means is because people are moving jobs more often, we need to build relationships with people from the moment they leave school to the moment they retire all the way through and arguably before they hit the workforce and after they retire. So with a marketing automation type of approach, what you can do is nurture the relationships with people who are at university, training to become a software engineer, or in college, we can nurture the relationships with those people, right at the point that they've decided they're going to train to go and do this job. Adam (31m 40s): And we can provide them with useful, relevant stuff that's going to help them during their studies and then try and Hoover them up as of not a very humane term, but you know, Joel (31m 55s): Hoover them up? Chad (31m 55s): Suck em up. Wouldnt that be Dyson them up where you're at? Adam (31m 59s): It would be. Yeah. So we Dyson them up at the point that they leave academia and enter the workplace. And then, you know, they might come and work in our organization five different times during their career in five different jobs. And what you want is a system where when the individual is marked as they're leaving on the 25th of February that moves them from being an internal person who's getting not internal nurture around career opportunities with the organization, internal L and D opportunities. You know, news about what's going on, the sort of stuff that's keeping them engaged. . Automatically they go into a different talent pipeline, which is for alumni. Adam (32m 44s): And that's going to share with things like employee, referral options, jobs, but also skills that are going to help them with their career outside of your organization until they come back. We want our, I think Allyn Bailey has been on the Chad and Cheese podcast and she's talked about this concept of the infinity loop. The infinity loop is all about a nonstop relationship. It doesn't matter if they're working for you today or they're no, it doesn't matter if they're mid interview process or they've just left you, you should have some way of maintaining that relationship with the right type of intelligent communication for them, depending on where they are. Julie (33m 27s): Yeah. Evangelizing all of the people that you engage with through your business, including your employees past, current and future. Adam (33m 34s): Absolutely. Which is why if we do that, if we do this, then we can stop all of this incessant focus on the application, getting people to apply. It's really desperate and it's not very intelligent. What's much more intelligent is maintaining an ongoing relationship with those people rather than having to do that distressed purchase. Advertising is vital. It's really vital recruitment advertising is really important, but if your entire recruitment marketing effort is based on advertising, then you're just in a constant distress purchase scenario. Adam (34m 16s): And you've never got a talent pipeline. Chad (34m 19s): Get that a distressed you're in a distress situation at all times, which is exactly what recruiting feels like. You shouldn't be distressed. You should be nurturing. You should be building talent pipelines all coming from our friend, Adam Gordon, CEO CandidateID. Adam, thanks so much for joining us. I mean, we want to press harder and challenge talent acquisition, and recruiting to adopt faster, to get out there and take chances. If they want to take chances, they want to take a look at something that is more fashion forward. How can they get ahold of you? And, where would you send them to go check out CandidateID? Adam (35m 0s): I would send them, I'm easy to find on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, Adam Gordon CandidateID. Joel (35m 9s): OnlyFans. Adam (35m 10s): I'm not on OnlyFans yet, but maybe my next career. And I would encourage people to, for a bit more information about this subject I would encourage people to Google CandidateID Talent Pipeline Playbook. There are probably more recent versions than that, this is about three years old, but it's still just, it is a how to around marketing automation and talent pipelining - the Talent Pipeline Playbook. Joel (35m 38s): Love it. Chad, Julie, another one in the can. Joel, Chad and Julie (35m 42s): We out. Chad (35m 44s): Thank you for listening. So what's it called podcast? OUTRO (36m 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.

Screening tech talent is smokin' hot right now. You know the names: HackerRank, Byteboard, Woven, Triplebyte and others. But do you know TechScreen? If the answer is NO, then you owe it to yourself to checkout this episode of Firing Squad. Chad & Cheese put CEO and founder Mark Knowlton on the hot seat to answer some tough questions. Does he make it out alive? Gotta listen. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. 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. What's up everybody. It's your favorite snipers? This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my main man, Chad Sowash. Chad (36s): What's up? Joel (37s): Today the startup, the victim, if you will, of today's Q and A will be Mark Knowlton, CEO and founder of TechScreen. Mark welcome to firing squad. Mark (50s): Well, appreciate your time guys. I'm really looking forward to this. Joel (54s): Be careful what you wish for. Mark for our listeners before we take care of business, tell them a little bit about you. What's your Twitter bio? Mark (1m 2s): So I got into recruiting in the mid-nineties and they had the fortunate break of going into a high-end Microsoft solution provider, where I was working directly with world-class technologists. It was there I began doing my own detailed technical interviews, a software engineering candidates, and it's where I saw the real impact of how you can affect the process. And so it started me on a journey of self-discovery of really immersing myself. Now I've read the white paper on the C-sharp or the white paper on Java would attend conferences. Joel (1m 33s): Didn't I see you at a WestTech Conference back in '99. Didn't I see you at one of the those? Mark (1m 38s): I don't think so, but what it allowed me to do was to cultivate the facility to do my own real technical interviews. And I, you know, left the agency world to do consulting for major software companies where I was trusted to be the first round technical screen for them. And it was that work that had me come up with the idea of creating TechScreen, a platform that would allow a non-technical recruiter to actually effectively engage with the technical audience. Joel (2m 9s): Yeah, yeah. You get to your pitch in a second, Mark. We'll get your pitch in a second. We want to know about you the person. Mark (2m 17s): So yeah, I was originally got into the working world as a writer and editor in the newspaper racket, and I was being paid to as a sports writer before I was old enough to drive a car. It was when I saw the end of that industry coming that I got into recruiting. A lot of it has to do with the friction. Joel (2m 36s): All right, Mark. Well, clearly we're not going to get to you're walking on the beaches and reading poetry. So let's get to a telling him what he's won today. Mark (2m 45s): Excellent. I think that conference, you guys saw each other at were the AVN awards anyway. So Mark. sfx (2m 53s): Oh hell no. Chad (2m 54s): Mark, you will have two minutes to pitch TechScreen at the end of two minutes, Joel, and will hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If you get boring, you've already heard the crickets, you're going to get those again. At the end of Q and A, you will receive either big applause. This is the vaccine the recruitment industry has been waiting for. Golf clap, you might want to quarantine for a few months and focus on the business or the firing squad, total lockdown, not even Aaron Rogers or Novak Djokovich can get behind this business, get the booster, walk away, try again. Chad (3m 36s): Are you ready? Mark (3m 37s): Yes, I am. Joel (3m 38s): All right. In three, two. Mark (3m 42s): So TechScreen has what we call the world's only technical knowledge platform. And there's three primary pillars. We have a technical interview tool, it's got 120, the library of 120 skills, questions and answers to create custom interviews. Secondly has a technical training tool. We've created text means certified recruiter training. So recruiter can learn from the content we simplify advanced technical concepts. So recruiting can actually learn the technology and use the content for qualification questions. And then it's a tactical sourcing tool because when we create interviews and score them on the fly, our clients can go back through the database and look for, let's say the client came in with three needs for Java guys, will go in search for Java and then sort them by high score. Mark (4m 33s): So they're actually looking at vetted candidates. One of their colleagues had recruited into the past and you know, some of our large clients, they have thousands of vetted candidates that they can be reactivating instead of just worrying about new job postings to get new blood. Why not talk to somebody where you already have them vetted? And one of the problems in recruiting is that everyone gets in typically for the agency and they're forced to learn technology entirely on their own. And so what TechScreen wants to do is to give recruiters that what I call just in time information, to make use of technical content, that's not dependent upon their rote memorization of a terminal definition.` Because so much of the training you'll get where recruiters it's required them to carve out time outside of their core job, learn about, you know, watch videos or watch slides, and then hopefully retain some of that. Mark (5m 28s): Our platform is helping them engage in real-time, whether they're doing a technical interview that they create with our platform, or they're simply making use of the technical training content. Like they could have an app developer who needs to know, security. Joel (5m 44s): Thank you, Mark. That is the end of your two minute pitch. All right, let's get into the fact that you've been a recruiter for a very long time. And I assume that you saw a void in what you were doing or something that somebody was not providing, that was the Genesis of this company. Mark (6m 1s): Yes. Joel (6m 1s): Talk about that or am I off base in terms of what really inspired you to create TouchScreen? Mark (6m 5s): No, no, that was that that was close. It was mostly like friends were engineers and I would hear their frustration in their interactions with recruiting. So very often they'd forward me an email that would have a comically off target job description being pitched to them. And so I realized that the thing that has really harmed the recruiting industry in the collective reputation they have is largely connected to the fact that they don't understand technology at any meaningful level. You know, whether it's engineering managers or talent, and there's this massive gap that has recruiters at a total disadvantage. So I'm going to create a platform that would let them engage more effectively, but do it in a way that as they're executing their job. Mark (6m 50s): So an entity platform that lets us create a custom interview. And we you know, it's the only tool that, where they are the ones asking the questions. It's not like a coding exercise or self-paced multiple choice where the recruiter gets nothing out of it. Right they're just sending them a link to an online test and then they have to wait for them to take it. Hopefully they don't cheat. Hopefully they don't delete it because they feel like I don't need to do this because I got three other offers. And it really is about helping foster engagement between the recruiter and the technical audience, whether it's the hiring manager or the talent. Joel (7m 25s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So you guys have been around since 2015, is that correct? So an old startup, if you will? Mark (7m 32s): Sure. Joel (7m 32s): You guys you've bootstrapped this thing? Mark (7m 36s): Correct. Joel (7m 37s): It sounds like there's no. So you've grown organically. Is there, is there a plan to raise money? I guess at this point you've just grown so organically that there's no need for that. Like talk about that. Mark (7m 47s): You know, it's funny, we've gone back and forth because sometimes people say, Hey, if you have customers, you have paying customers and clients don't raise money. Others would be the other school of thought. So right now we're not planning on raising money because we just rolled out an enterprise pricing structure that two of our clients agree to those, you know, each one wouldn't be a six-figure deal. So if that were to happen, we would have absolutely no reason to raise money in the near term. Chad (8m 19s): Okay. So how many employees do you guys have? Mark (8m 21s): So believe it or not, we just have three. Okay. Chad (8m 27s): Okay. How many clients over the last five, six plus years have you accumulated? Mark (8m 34s): So we're in the low dozens because as being bootstrapped, we, one of our challenges is marketing and visibility. And you know, that wasn't my core competency, right? And so a lot of times when you try to do direct sales, no one wants to be sold something. So there's a lot of resistance. I'm not going to submit to you or, you know, your mental jujitsu and just say yes, but I'm getting greater visibility and getting more recognition out in the world would have people say, oh, I've heard of you guys. We go check you out. Getting more into trade shows is something we plan on doing in 2022, doing more things like LinkedIn lives and getting more visibility and public forums like this, are the way to drive recognition. Chad (9m 21s): What's your go to market from a revenue strategy standpoint? Are you just trying to hit companies, company by company, staffing firms, staffing firm by staffing firm? Do you have any type of a partnership strategies? What's your main? Mark (9m 34s): It's a mixture. I'm glad you asked that. So we recently formed a partnership with somebody in the training space, but they focus exclusively on staffing salespeople. And so this is a well-established outfit where their customers often ask them, Hey, do you do any technical training? And he has to say, no, we don't do that at all. But we do know somebody. So we formed a partnership with well-respected technical sales training company for staffing firms that has hundreds of clients. And we're already working on some deals that could be rather large going through that. We do have a direct sales force. And we recently brought a board, a chief revenue officer who's got 30 plus years in, in HR tech. Mark (10m 18s): You know, so we're really trying to position ourselves to scale from multiple channels in 2022. Joel (10m 26s): What does your typical customer look like? Or maybe what is your target market? Is it staffing? I mean, Chad kind of asked about that, but I want to dig in a little bit about what your typical client looks like. Mark (10m 36s): Well, right now it's more staffing companies because their revenue is tied to filling seats. But one of our best success stories actually came from one of our corporate customers where they had two junior recruiters screen in two months during the pilot, 155 software engineers, which led to managers doing 40 formal interviews. They made 28 FTE offers for 70% interview to offer ratio. And if you believe in this study job, I did some years back, the average interview to offer ratio in their study was like 17%. And so we definitely want to get more on the corporate TA side. Mark (11m 18s): In fact, we're envisioning another type of engagement where we work with them much more closely. So there'll be a professional services engagement wrapped around the software. But definitely through partnerships, we're starting to build partnerships with ATS vendors, be able to say, Hey, look, you can have us bolted into your ATS and now you're much more competitive. I mean, now there's like 41 ATS vendors who have between 0.02 and 2% market share. So there's a lot of competition and the needs to differentiate yourself in that crowded space would make us an attractive partner to a lot of those guys. Chad (11m 56s): From a staffing standpoint, staffing, to be able to bloat margins needs tech, to be able to be more efficient and scale. And we're seeing that RPO side. I mean, we're even seeing that with the applicant tracking systems. I mean, that's where everything's going. It's going toward tech, right? It's not going toward humans because humans suck at scaling. So the question is what is your scale-ability, right? For any type of staffing firm who needs to be able to be more efficient, to be able to bloat their margins, but yet keep their head countdown because their headcount is really the margin killer. Mark (12m 32s): One of the things we do to make it attractive to staffing companies, we actually let them white label the product. So they're actually working with us as a tip of the spear to say, you know, when someone asks a staffing company, what makes you guys different? We coach them to say what we care so deeply about quality we've actually deployed a SASS application, lets us create customized interviews, tailored specifically to your individual requirements. Chad (12m 56s): Humans have to do those, right? I mean, you're feeding the human information, but an actual human has to do that and that human's not going to scale well. So how are you going to be able to help them scale better? Mark (13m 8s): Well, we're going to help them scale better because they're going to start getting better ratios for their outreach. Usually it's terrible. Usually has to have a hundred outreaches to get two or three people to call them back. And by having better messaging in their emails to have better conversations, you know, in their interactions and just kind of come off as far more credible, you know, far more professional. I mean, there's no substitute for a person talking to a candidate in a recruiting scenario, we'll never be able to get away from that. But what our tool does, it just puts them in position to be much more credible, much more knowledgeable and much more confident to be able to engage with a technical audience and get far greater results. Mark (13m 51s): I mean our biggest sapling client between 2016 and 2020, they screened 5,046 candidates, they had a knockout ratio of 66%. I mean, that's unheard of! You know, and our second biggest client did probably 7,000 entities between 2017 and 2020 and they'd like a 50% knockout ratio. And so we're showing, you know, orders of magnitude, improvements in efficiencies, and as we go to our enterprise model with some of our bigger clients, you know, we're looking at being able to do, you know, six figure deals in one shot. Instead of getting, you know, a couple of dozen seats from client A or client B, we just want to be able to say, Hey, everyone gets a texting license when you join XYZ, you know, staffing firm. Joel (14m 33s): Mark, I don't have to tell you that this is a hot business. Chad (14m 41s): So hot! Joel (14m 43s): Screening, not just tech, but obviously tech is incredibly popular at the moment in terms of fundraising and interest, et cetera. I mean, I just, I made a quick list off of the top of my head of HackerRank, Byteboard, Clovers, Triplebyte, Woven, etc. These are, well-funded getting to be well-known competitors. When prospects talk to you and I assume they're asking, how are you different than these others? And if they're not, I'm asking it right now, how are you guys differentiating yourselves from all the other tech pre-screening solutions? Mark (15m 15s): So those coding exercises, or even the e-techies and Brian Benson tech check, all they do is help perform a technical evaluation. The recruiter gets nothing out of it because ours is a technical interview tool, a technical training tool, and a technical sourcing tool. So none of the codel and litmus and code pads or e-techies are doing anything to help improve engagement between the recruiter and their technical audience. In the same way, any of the technical training tools out there, the Dev scaler's, you know, the Recruiting Innovation, all these, some of these other tools, all it is is technical training content and does nothing to help them technically evaluated, technically screen candidates. Mark (16m 0s): It's certainly not doing anything to help generate a potential sourcing targets. And we do all three. And so, although there are plenty of technical evaluation tools, that's all they do. We're an interview tool, we're a training tool, we're a sourcing tool, all in one platform. Joel (16m 14s): What do you think has been the major hurdle to your growth in the years that you've been in business? Mark (16m 22s): Lack of name recognition and resources, and that ultimately may be the trigger that has a saying, Hey, we got to bite the bullet and part with some equity for a, you know, for big comma check, but we have enough guys doing our advisory boards and people would just know in the industry, a lot of them will caution about taking on money and in creating the dilution. But you know, it may be something that we find ourselves saying, Hey, you know, this is the right time and we have the right positioning to get the right kind of valuation that's favorable to us. So never rule it out, but it's just not the core focus of everything I think about when I wake up every day. Chad (17m 3s): Well, you are a training platform because you are trying to train humans rather than actually using technology in being able to fill them with that 120 skills. Have you ever thought of being able to, or maybe it's on the roadmap being able to do some of these engagements with either chat bots or maybe video interviews so that they are recorded, but they are scalable? Mark (17m 28s): Well, we actually have something in our roadmap that I want to be careful of how much I don't want to say too much, but it is going to leverage some things like AI and NLP that can handle scoring the interview on the fly. Not something that would, that would definitely scale, you know, there would be still a recruiter interface, but the ability to accurately keep tabs on the efficacy of the candidate's answers using technology is something that's definitely on our roadmap. Joel (18m 0s): What would you say is the biggest threat to your business at the moment? Mark (18m 6s): Honestly, I have to say if some calamitous economic event happened, that just because companies just stop hiring, you know, fortunately we have seen, you know, there's plenty of activity, but I see the only thing derailing us if some activity or some action that just had companies just completely locked down and just not hire at all, that would be the only thing that I can see that would really take the wind out of our sails. Joel (18m 29s): So how did, how did you maneuver the pandemic or did that not impact you much? Mark (18m 34s): It really didn't impact us much. I mean, we'll right at the very beginning we did have one client who just cut half their staff, but I think that was kind of an overreaction. But we've been hearing from our clients that they're experiencing pretty steady demand. And so knock on wood. We haven't seen the pandemic cause any major disruptions with the exception of one client who just, I think had a very sharp, initial reaction in early 2020, but they've since grown and they've actually more than doubled their commitment with us from the previous year. Joel (19m 11s): Lucky you. Lucky you. Mark (19m 12s): Yeah, so far so good. Chad (19m 15s): This sounds pretty expensive, Mark. That's usually Joel's, I'm trying to get into my Joel Cheeseman. Joel (19m 21s): All these humans! Chad (19m 23s): Sounds very expensive. So tell me what would this actually cost for an organization you're talking about six figure deals. How big is a company like that where are you going to be hitting six figure deals? Mark (19m 34s): Okay, so the enterprise licensing starts at a hundred seats, but just for the basics, you know, the, the monthly is going to be anywhere between 70 and a hundred bucks a month per seat, traditional SASS model. And that's based on how many seats, like up to 10 seats, it would be $100 bucks a month, 11 to 15, it'd be $90 bucks a month, et cetera. And at the enterprise level, there's a $50,000 commitment, but it starts at a hundred seats. Then we'll charge per month based on the, how many like between, you know, between 100 and 199 seats, we'll kind of charge you an extra thousand bucks a month on top of 50 K and then climb the ladder from there. But there's not going to be tons and tons of companies who are of the size that they would need to get a hundred seats and that clearly would be on the staffing side. Mark (20m 19s): You know, the corporate TA side, it's still going to be in the mid to low double digits, you know, per shop. And I just think that we have to get out there with greater visibility because there's no one who would argue the fact that recruiters lack of technical acumen is a real pain point in the eyes of the audience with whom they're asked to interact. You know, you don't have to do a research paper to prove that validity. And when we can just get out to say, Hey, look, we're a technical interview tool, a technical training tool, we're a technical sourcing tool, all in one product. I think it's a pretty compelling value proposition. Joel (20m 58s): All right, Mark Chad (20m 58s): There it is! Joel (20m 60s): That bell means it's time to face the firing squad. Are you ready my friend? Mark (21m 5s): I am. Joel (21m 6s): Well, we might be friends at the end of this, who knows. So I'm really torn on you. At the five-year Mark, which you guys have gone past, I usually like either a no, or a yes on my companies. And you are more of a maybe, which is why I'm torn. I like your history in recruitment and that core competency. You're obviously doing something right having been in business this long, but you're also doing things not as right as you could be. And I think that part of you understands that the marketing, the sales end, that that needs to be a little bit more of the steroid addict. Joel (21m 47s): So can you turn a, maybe into a yes or is maybe going to be a no. Is the question that I have to ask myself and I think a few things working for you are your history and experience, the fact that you're in a hot you're in a lane that's really hot right now. People need technical folks and they're willing to spend money to get them. I think coming out of the pandemic, that's going to be more important than ever. If you can come out, get yourself a Series A round, get yourself some people to start marketing and selling this thing. I think that you could turn it around, but those are a lot of ifs. So I'm going to stick with the torn thing and just say for me, it's a golf clap. Joel (22m 28s): I think there's potential there. I'm not gonna, I'm not going to shoot you down on him yet, but I'm also not giving you a big round of applause. So get to work, get some money and get some people, get some people to go sell this shit and scream it from the mountaintops. I think you could find some success Mark. Chad (22m 46s): Joel said, he says, get yourself into quarantine and focus on the business. Now I get that. So Mark, I got to say, I do love what you're doing here. First and foremost, you're getting recruiter certified and that's a great step forward and finding the right talent for the right gig. I totally get that. But this is a scale game. This is a tech game, and this is also a money game. These are all areas that you're not playing in right now. A few six figure deals will not help you keep pace with unicorns that are out there, kind of like Touring who just got $87 million and now, you know, they're evaluated over a billion. Chad (23m 26s): And I keep focusing on one thing scale. And as I started to dig deep into the company, I started to reach out to some very high level staffing firm friends of mine, to be able to grind on this with me a little bit. And they all agreed scale will not happen with human beings. Working with staffing companies today, even working with talent acquisition today, what's harder to find than a technical person, a recruiter? So what do they have to do? They have to scale with tech. So to be able to do that, you will have to, no question put all of this great knowledge that you have with these 120 skills into technology that will make it much more fluid, much less friction, and overall something that you can plug and play. Chad (24m 13s): Until you get to that point again, I love what you're doing, but until you get to that point where there is less, less friction, it's gotta be the guns for me. Joel (24m 28s): Ouch. Chad (24m 28s): Love you, Mark. Joel (24m 28s): Nothing personal. Mark (24m 29s): Nothing personal. Joel (24m 29s): We appreciate it. Mark and wish you the best of luck and hope that in a few more years, you can come on the show and tell Chad to fuck off for his bad reviews. Mark (24m 40s): I'll consider that an open invitation. Joel (24m 41s): Open invitation. Chad (24m 42s): Of course. Of course. Joel (24m 43s): If you can throw whiskey in the deal, then I'll be in on it too. Mark (24m 48s): Single malt. Joel (24m 48s): Love it. And for our listeners, you didn't, you did not get a chance to do this in your pitch. Where can they find out more about your company? Mark (24m 57s): So a TechScreen.com. Joel (24m 59s): We love it when people prove us wrong. Mark. Chad (25m 3s): Do it, man. Joel (25m 4s): Open invite. Mark (25m 5s): It's coming boys! . Chad (25m 8s): Excellent. Joel (25m 8s): Ooh, big talk. All right. And with that, Chad, another one is in the books. Joel and Chad (25m 13s): We out. Firing Squad OUTRO (25m 17s): 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.

Maybe it's the fact the boys are recording from the Arizona desert this week, but this show is hot, hot hot! SmartRecruiters and Checkr go shopping, Yardstik gets paid, the Valley is bummed about losing workers to Web3 and we finally get some numbers around the metaverse ... including a definition. Pass the sunscreen and turn it up. This one gets toasty. 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 (29s): Oh yeah. Feeling Indiana looking Arizona. Hi kids recording from Paradox HQ and pictureusque Scottsdal, Arizona. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "it's a dry heat" Cheeseman. Chad (46s): And this is Chad "ready player one" Sowash. Joel (49s): And on this week's show Smart Recruiters and Checkr go shopping, in border takes flight and Silicon Valley fills the staying of Web3. Let's do this. Chad (1m 1s): What is Web3? Do we even know what web3 is? Joel (1m 3s): We're going to get into that. Chad (1m 5s): Okay. Joel (1m 5s): Maybe after the second commercial, I don't know, dude. Why don't we record all of our shows like this? Chad (1m 12s): We should. Joel (1m 13s): Let's get a sponsor to fly us to Arizona for eight months out of the year. No summers, no summers. Chad (1m 18s): And we could bounce around. Doesn't have to be just Arizona has to be somewhere nice with a pool. Joel (1m 24s): Shaker's our travel sponsor. Let's talk to them about this. Chad (1m 26s): Wtih the hot tub and Tim Sackett has to be in the hot tub. Joel (1m 30s): On the unicorn floatie, if possible, if possible. Chad (1m 35s): Thanks to Paradox for bringing us out here and yeah, I mean, you know, hooking us up. It's been a good time. Joel (1m 40s): We both see what's known in the business as an analyst day. Chad (1m 43s): Oh, is that what this is? Joel (1m 45s): Show us the product. Answer questions. Chad (1m 48s): That's what this is? Joel (1m 49s): Yeah. Analysts stay under the sun. Chad (1m 53s): I have a Corona Corona. Joel (1m 54s): Corona, and it's too hot in the hot tub so we're recording in the shade right now. Let's get to the shout outs, shall we? Chad (2m 0s): Hit it! Joel (2m 1s): Actually, were you the one that sent me the sexual chocolate guy was getting off spot or Spotify. That was, that was fucking awesome. Randy, what's his name? Randy. Chad (2m 12s): Rainbow Hudson? Joel (2m 13s): Randy Watson from the peanut gallery. That was Tim Sackett with the cultural reference. Appreciate that. Let's get into some shout outs. I think this podcast is the only thing standing between us and a meatless or an endless meat buffet. Chad (2m 27s): The meat sweats. Joel (2m 28s): The meat sweats and whiskey later. Chad (2m 30s): I can't wait. Joel (2m 31s): I got a shout out for LinkedIn, Chad. You know, I love me a good LinkedIn poll. Loved me a good LinkedIn poll. Chad (2m 39s): You love to ride a poll. Joel (2m 41s): Oh man. So two went out recently. One is, one is kind of FYI. The other one is maybe the most important poll ever taken on LinkedIn. I'll get to the appetizer first. So I wanted to know what percent of candidates were ghosting you for the talent community. Chad (2m 59s): Okay. Joel (3m 0s): Zero to 10, 40%, 10 to 25%, 35%, 25 to 50% ghosting, 17% and whopping 9% said 50% plus ghost them. So 75%, the bottom half. Chad (3m 15s): Nobody's Ghosting. Joel (3m 16s): Well, there's some ghosting on it. We had 250 votes, no, 298 votes on that one. Now the second one, much more culturally significant. Chad (3m 24s): Okay. Joel (3m 24s): We got the big game coming up. I said with your wings, ranch or blue cheese. Chad (3m 29s): Oh, good call. Okay. Joel (3m 29s): Question for the ages. How do you think it played out? Who do you think won that? Chad (3m 36s): The classic is blue cheese. I'm a ranch kind of guy. So I'm going to go with ranch. Joel (3m 41s): Okay. Ranch was the winner. It was close to 54 ranch and 46 blue. We had 250 votes on that one and yes, anyone from the Buffalo Metro area were very strongly in the blue cheese camp. But anyway, this question is finally answered as far as I'm concerned, ranch over blue cheese. Chad (3m 60s): Excellent. Well, the ranch or blue cheese of the industry we'll call that Glassdoor seems like it's dead or at least that's what a series of TA leaders have been saying over the last few weeks. That's right. I guess the crew over at Glassdoor they're non-responsive whatsoever. You have people calling and this is multiple TA leaders, calling, not getting any response whatsoever. I'm wondering if Indeed is looking to finally pull the cord on this. What's going on? Joel (4m 29s): I can't believe they don't even transfer calls to Indeed. They just let it ring off the hook. Eighties, eighties, voicemail style. Chad (4m 35s): What did they have? Indeed has the job content. I mean, they don't do anything. Joel (4m 39s): The last one turning off the lights at Glassdoor, give us a shout and let us know what the hell is going on over there. Shout out for our friends at jobs.com. Chad (4m 56s): oooo! Aaron. Joel (4m 57s): Who we're partnered with Aaron Okay. So Triller and job.com announced a partnership that will allow Triller users to discover and apply for open positions with a video resume. We love us some video resumes, Chad, not. Rather than the traditional resume using video transcription and AI matching. This is kind of interesting. The integration will provide Triller users with a job matching functionality where they can be matched with relevant jobs. I'm sure everyone putting on short form video on Triller, can't wait to get their hands on some job postings. Chad (5m 26s): So can we finally figure out what the fuck job.com is going to be when they grow up? I mean, we had a credit card. We had a credit card. We had this new Joel (5m 39s): Hey Ma! Where's the magic eight ball? Chad (5m 41s): I mean, I don't know what they are going to be. Right. I don't know what the fuck they're gonna be? Joel (5m 49s): Going to be credit card. Chad (5m 50s): The credit card 2% over like 15 per, I mean, not as though Joel (5m 56s): Throw some NFTs or some crypto in there to really get our attention. Chad (5m 60s): What's next job.com and Kleoverse. There you go. Joel (6m 1s): Oh, you gotta let's do that. So the European show, if you're lost on that one, you got to listen, listen to the Euro show. Another shout out HiredScore. Oh, our friends over there. We love us some Athena and Todd, and everybody. Chad (6m 17s): Hottest of war. Joel (6m 19s): Hottest of War. And apparently AI and employment. So our friends at HiredScore officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement this week with Tupou exciting, a lot, the technology and content provider of all-in-one recruitment solutions in, and this is the key point, Chad, China. Chad (6m 35s): Ah. Joel (6m 36s): At least they said this deal will enable mutual clients to gain instant benefits from more efficient candidates, sourcing fair and intelligent candidate screening as well as improved employer branding capabilities. And did I mention this was in China, which I think is the most important point to take from this. If you can get into China, make friends with the CPC. I think there's money in those hills. Chad (6m 56s): Yeah. And if you think about it in our space, for the most part, you're not seeing investment coming from China into our world as much. Right? And if Athena goes after that huge fucking market, not to mention it's an immature market, right? So you go into this immature market, show up guns, blazing with poopoo or is it Tupu? Joel (7m 23s): Tupu. Chad (7m 24s): So anyway, I think it's genius. Hopefully Joel (7m 26s): My mandarin's musty. So who knows? Yes. LinkedIn's pulling out of China. Athena's going, not just the tip. She's going all in on China. Good for you. Athena good for you, Athena. Chad (7m 39s): Excellent. I have a shout out to Peloton who is laying off 3000 employees. The question is, what the fuck did they think was going to happen? They were spending money like drunken, fucking sailors and the pandemic, which juiced their business wasn't going to last forever. So what did they think was going to happen? Joel (7m 57s): They had a party and they invited the instructors and the employees didn't quite like that too much. The CEO has gone now though. Apparently. Chad (8m 8s): So what's going to save Peloton? Joel (8m 9s): They are the most expensive, a clothes hanger, a clothes dryer, whatever? What's going to happen is they're going to get acquired on the cheap by Nike or maybe Apple or I think Amazon was in there somewhere. Yeah. They'll get, they'll get snapped up on the cheap ala Fitbit or what other health gadget you probably own back in 2012. Chad (8m 34s): Yeah. Great product, great service. The problem is yeah, they were overextended and fucked themselves. So that's, let's, we'll see where they actually end up. Joel (8m 43s): Peloton. Shout out to my wife. I want to be a little bit self-serving here. Yeah. So Dr. Christine, for those that don't know, my, my wife is on the cutting edge of bugs as food. This is a real thing. It's coming to America in the form of pet food, probably. Chad (9m 5s): Okay. Joel (9m 5s): Pet food. And now companies are giving environmental footprints on food and things that you buy. Chad (9m 12s): But why bugs? Joel (9m 13s): Why bugs? They are easy to replicate or reproduce quickly. Chad (9m 17s): Proteins. Joel (9m 17s): A lot of protein, a little bit to no space to take up. Yeah. They're, they're easy to manage quick to grow. They grow themselves. I mean, it's quite a miracle food. Chad (9m 29s): It's a miracle food. Joel (9m 29s): Anyway, to the point you're familiar with Davos probably rather than a lot of our listeners probably are. I'm sorry this is the world economic forum that puts on rich white dudes. Chad (9m 40s): Rich white dudes with their own private jets. That kind of shit. Joel (9m 45s): Yes. Yes. Those kinds of folks. So, my wife was published in the world economic forum newsletter this week. So when, you know, when she leaves me for Elon Musk or Jamie Diamond, you know, why and she was also interviewed by Wired Magazine. So this is a really hot topic. She's become a bit of a figure head for the bugs is food trend. Shout out to my wife. Chad (10m 12s): You go to the Cheeseman house for anything food. Joel (10m 20s): Don't eat the cupcakes. If you eat anything bread, there's bugs in it. Chad (10m 25s): Bug flour. Joel (10m 26s): Cricket flour specific. Chad (10m 26s): You've been warned. People shout out to a listener of ours. Sarah, we'll leave it at that. She asked Chad and Cheese who I love that song. She asked Chad and Cheese, I work for a insert, big job board name here, and a good bit of my customers' contacts are turning over. Curious to know whether you think something is going on in HR/talent as in moving to marketing, branding focus versus HR, or if it's just the attrition/musical chairs, we're seeing across the whole labor market? So what do you think Joel? Joel (11m 1s): Everyone's taking stock of their lives, I think. I think it's much like the great resignation. I don't think there's a simple answer. I think it's a lot of different things. People reevaluate in their life, people moving to other jobs or just rediscovering new things. I don't think there's an easy answer to that question. Chad (11m 17s): There's not, we have a talent shortage already. A lot of that spurred through retirements, immigration. I mean there's a ton of things that are going on right now. Not to mention, I don't know if you've noticed or not. There's a shit ton of startups. And when you have startups. Joel (11m 33s): Forty million new companies started last year, Chad. Chad (11m 36s): Well just look at our space though. Joel (11m 39s): Sure. Chad (11m 39s): If you have startups in our space and you have a practitioner who is actually pulled, we've seen this, Tyler Weeks pulled into a position. I mean, they want to build shit because they know what's wrong within their process and their organization and they can't fucking fix it. Joel (11m 57s): Yeah. Those people are valuable. Chad (11m 58s): Yeah. So they leave! So like you'd said, there's a myriad of reasons why this is happening, but this is the time right now. If you have an opportunity and you get a chance to get some start-up time do it. You might not be happy at the end of it, but who knows? You might get a good exit. Joel (12m 14s): Yeah. Speaking of gig economy, this is why travel is so important. Chad, did you see the Uber cars with the ads on top? Chad (12m 23s): No, I did not. Joel (12m 24s): So this is, you can find out more at uber.com/ooh. But do you remember, like in the early two thousands where companies paid you to put a wrap on your car and then they track mileage and those all kind of died? What, there are, Uber is out here in Phoenix with a digital ad board on top of their car. I'm guessing it magnetizes to the top or out. And then it's all I'm sure digitally put through. And then the driver gets money and obviously Uber gets money. So gig workers are going to make more money than they ever have before, which means less workers for a lot of people to hire, which means the talent crunch continues. Chad (12m 57s): So I can drive an Uber and I can put one of these on the top of my car. Joel (13m 1s): It looks too, I don't know all the details. Good. I just saw it this morning, but I'm sure that you, as a driver can opt to put this thing on your car and hope, I assume it comes down and pops on and off, and then ads are basically piped into it digitally. And the one I saw was put your ad on this car and you go to uber.com/ooh and then you can buy ad space on these cars. And I'm sure they share the revenue and they make more money as a driver. And you also can just probably just drive around with an ad and make money. And maybe where you are. If you're in a higher frequency area, you make more money on the ad than if you're in the suburbs driving around. Joel (13m 42s): So it's pretty genius. Chad (13m 43s): The new age billboard that we've seen in taxis for our entire fuckin' life. Joel (13m 46s): Not nearly as interesting as free shit from Chad and Cheese and Chad, I'm seeing way too many people not sign up and ask us, where's my shirt. Where's my shit. Where's my beer. You can't win people, unless you go to Chadcheese.com/free, we've got shirts from Emissary, whiskey from Textkernal. And we have beer from our friends Pillar Chadcheese.com/free. Shout out to Chami Bailey who won our whiskey draw this week. She works at Boar's Head. One of my favorite meat producers. Chad (14m 20s): I got to say she lives in a part of the world where it's not easy to get her whiskey. Joel (14m 29s): Lebanon, Tennessee. Chad (14m 29s): We got her the whiskeys. Thanks for Joel doing a hard work on that one. Joel (14m 34s): You know what? Wouldn't be quicker driving to down there. Chad (14m 39s): You know what would be quicker? Cause you can't drive to Belgium, but you can fly and be there in early May get on the calendar right now, kids. Go to Erecruitment-congress.com going to be in Belgium. Erecruitment-congress, Congress kind of says it all. Who's going to be speaking? We've got the an e-sports dude we've got. Joel (14m 59s): My favorite Scot is speaking isn't he? I think we're the two old Muppet guys in the balcony, screaming at everybody. Yeah. And that's good. We need a Bitly URL for that, for that URL. It's a little long. Chad (15m 15s): We should. Just go to Google and type in E recruitment Congress and I'm sure they'll be fine. Joel (15m 21s): Can we do redirects and wix, can we just do Chadcheese.com/brussels or Belgium? Chad (15m 29s): Okay. That being said also RecFest is in July, Chad and Cheese on the disrupt stage doing a little MC action there. Drinking some hard liquor, doing what we do. Joel (15m 37s): Yeah. Birthdays, birthdays, celebrating a birthday. It's a short list this week. If you want to be on this list, by the way you got to go to Chadcheese.com/free. We got Charles Brett's Jonathan Zoom. I wonder if he's the Zoom, family. Chad (15m 53s): Zoom? Joel (15m 54s): Zoom, zoom. Maybe it's zoom. Correct? I did this on the plane on the way over there. All right. Jonathan Zoob. My bad. Chad (16m 3s): Zoom's my boy. Joel (16m 5s): All right. So some of these names might not be right. I got Andrew Mol and Jen Kurtz, sound about right. Okay. All right. Cool. I apologize, Mr. Zoom. Chad (16m 17s): He'll be fine. Mr. Zoom. Joel (16m 20s): Super bowl. Oh, we got to talk about this. Let's talk about this comments. Chad (16m 24s): First and foremost, seeing the Cincinnati Bengals get in, it hearkens back to Anderson. The days of Anderson quarterbacking, the Bengals and then them losing, by the way. Yeah, yeah, Joel (16m 39s): But both losses of to the niners. Chad (16m 40s): Mostly Killing. Yeah. Seeing them. And then also seeing a kid from Ohio quarterbacking, Joe Burrow. I would love to see the Bengals win, but I don't see it happening. And they're going to be playing an away game in LA stadium. And those guys are hot. Not just their offense, but their defense. And one of the problems that Cincinnati has had is Joe Burrow on his back. Joel (17m 10s): Yeah. And Evan Miller Arnold there, the other defensive end. Chad (17m 13s): Donald, we talked Joel (17m 13s): To Arnold or Donald Donald I'm thinking of Sam Arnold the wrong guy. Yeah. I mean, as a Clevelander, I'm a little torn about the whole Cincinnati thing. I'm not too excited. At least the colors are the same, but I'm a little torn now. Now for our draft Kings listeners, the line I think is four and a half. Chad (17m 32s): Huh? Is that it? Joel (17m 32s): Do you think that's it. Chad (17m 33s): I take that long. Joel (17m 35s): You take the take the Bengals at four and given four and a half points. They'd beat the chiefs by three. Chad (17m 39s): That, I mean, I think I know, I think LA is going to blow them out. LA's gonna blow them out. Yeah. I think Ella is going to blow them out. Okay. Joel (17m 49s): If the Chiefs didn't blow them out, I'm not sure that the Rams. Chad (17m 55s): I think the Rams Defense is better. Joel (17m 58s): So that'll be the X factor. The line sucks. So when it's string note in our industry, it looks like there will be no job sites, employment sites, LinkedIn, whatever advertising in this year's Superbowl, do you take anything from that? Chad (18m 10s): That's telling I think. I think it's telling him, cause you have ZipRecruiter, who's spending a shit ton of cash on podcasts. Joel (18m 17s): Indeed advertised last year. Chad (18m 18s): Advertising. I mean, but, but you also have to take a look at what was it like $7 million per 30 second ad? So I think they're taking a look at that and then the ROI from before and saying, look, we can probably spend that money throughout the year and do a better job. I don't know. But I think it's telling either one, one or two ways, either for our industry or the Super Bowl, they've just gotten way too rich. Joel (18m 41s): Yes. I wouldn't have been surprised if one of these unicorns that we talk about regularly just said, fuck it. Let's roll the dice on a super bowl ad and build our brand like a motherfucker all in 1999. Because you know, any one of these tech, B2B, whatever employment sites, that's not a job site, did a Workday style ad on the Super Bowl they'd instantly be a name that people would know. Chad (19m 6s): Yeah. They would definitely be a name that people would know. I'm just not sure they would get out of that, what they think they would get out of that. So. Topics! Joel (19m 22s): Alright, Smart Recruiters has acquired London base Attrax. That's A T T R A X, a provider of career site software that lets companies build, you guessed it, career sites. Founded in 1999 into my research Attrax looks like a totally bootstrap business. The acquisition will result in an integrated offering called Smart Recruiters Attrax that's clever. Designed to help customers build data powered curated career sites that enhance the candidate experience and improve hiring outcomes. Smart Recruiters CEO, founder, and friend of the show, Jerome Turnock said, in a release quote, "we chose Attrax for its impressive technology and proven ability to help customers build award-winning career sites. Joel (20m 6s): The integration of Smart Recruiters and attracts provides truly intelligent career sites that operate in tandem with the ATS deliver, deliver hiring success." Terms were not disclosed. Attrax employees around 20 people, no announcement on what's happening with their executives. Chad (20m 23s): So I used to think that this type of tech was pretty much table stakes for any applicant tracking system, but in the day and in today, or I should say today, these products, when they're built internally are really shit and they're not done well. Then we have, you know, the whole point solutions and being able to choose your own. And then you just integrate with our system. So I'm not sure, you know, if this is a great and smart move for, for Smart Recruiters, to be able to just have that ready and available, or if they should have just kept them as a point solution, unless they got them cheap. Joel (21m 5s): Yeah. I think layers is the keyword here. I think ATS is hate layers. I think they hate layers of services on top of their service and to the degree that they can buy those and make them their own. I think that they're going to do that. And we're seeing that more with white labeling of technologies saying, Hey, this is the Greenhouse programmatic solution, not the Appcast or some other provider and customers, I think, feel comfortable using the ATS's product or what looks like the ATS's product as opposed to someone layered on top of it. I think the other thing is, there's clearly a trend of recruiting following marketing solutions and these sort of do it yourself, landing pages, microsites, you know, I think in marketing is incredibly popular. Joel (21m 53s): It's been a thing in our industry, but it's always been, oh, someone else creates those for us or someone else provides those it's an agency or whatever. And I think that more of that company or people are learning to do it themselves and want to have solutions that do that. One startup that I talked to out of Australia called Shizamme. And yes, they've had issues with the movie with Shaq in it, I think called Shizam. Does the same thing. They do sort of do it yourself, landing pages, career sites, et cetera. So I just look at it as if we can control more of the layers that go on top of us, the better it's going to be. Anyhow terms were not disclosed. Joel (22m 33s): This might've been a serious sale. They've been in business since '99, according to my research so they may have been just one to get the hell out of it and called up Jerome and a deal was made. Chad (22m 46s): But we've been doing this since the early aughts. I mean, Talent Brew was created. Joel (22m 49s): Was it do it yourself though? I always thought they had to have somebody do it. Chad (22m 53s): I think they had the, the setup where it was like, Hey, you can do it yourself, but nobody wanted to do that. Right? So they knew being TMP rate and say at this point that, you know, they would lean on their agency and it just made sense. Right? And that made sense. The average years of the world, all these quote unquote "CRMs" that we started talent communities with, those were all really predicated on, you know, landing page pages and better experiences. So this isn't anything new. I think I see it full circle, but my question back to you with regards to like white labeling, you know, you can white label something like this. You don't need to buy it. Joel (23m 29s): If you buy it, you get all the profits and all the control. And maybe that smart people even wanting to hire, and they're in the UK and Smart Recruiters got a bunch of money and they want to go public. So having some new toys to play with, I don't know. Chad (23m 43s): Could be, could be. Joel (23m 46s): All right, let's go to the background check game, which is always exciting. So we're tying a little checker and yardsticks. Let's get to Checkr for a San Fran base. Checkr is growing its footprint north acquiring Modo a Vancouver Canadian-based background check company. The crown jewel is Modo HR ScreeningCanada that's trademark Chad, one word. ScreeningCanada, which provide background checks in both English and French. The acquisition will allow Checkr clients greater access to Canadian background. Checkr data listeners may remember Checkr founded in 2014 has a valuation of $4.6 billion. Joel (24m 28s): Numbers on the deal were not disclosed. Shakur Modo HR employees about 40 people. According to LinkedIn, Crunchbase says Moto HR founded in 2017, had previously raised two seed rounds, both with undisclosed sums. What are your thoughts on the Checkr - ModoHR deal? Chad. Yeah, Chad (24m 51s): Smart with regard to, you know, first and foremost, they have $559 million in funding. So you have that. They're, I'm sure not doing bad when it comes to revenues. Right? Growth Joel (25m 0s): Still doing background checks. Yeah. Chad (25m 2s): Last time I checked. So how do you gain market? Eh, you either go in into those different markets, spend a shit ton of cash to, you know, penetrate that market and try to win, win business, or you just buy them fuckers. Yup. And that's what they did here. And I think that's incredibly smart go it's it's the same line of business. All you're doing is really pulling in new clients, new portfolio of clients. Joel (25m 27s): Yep. New clients get some talent and what we don't know, I echo all your sentiments now what we don't know. And, and I thought instantly of Indeed's acquisition of Workopolis back in the day, which was allegedly a cock block ZipRecruiter. So I'm wondering if Checkr called checkmate on someone else trying to loop into the Canadian market and snatch these guys out. So yeah, for all that money, got to go public gotta be in Canada. If you're an American company, this seems like a no brainer to me. Chad (25m 58s): I'm interested to see where they go next. And again, I do not believe it's smart to go into, especially with the kind of bank role that they have, the wad of cash that they have. It's not smart to go in and try to penetrate a market from, from jump, go in and acquire somebody if you can. Joel (26m 19s): Well, speaking of penetrate, Chad, let's talk about Yardstick. Oh, okay. Which was my nickname in college, by the way. But that's a different podcast. They've raised 8 million in Series A funding. The Minnetonka, that's in Minnesota, Chad, based startup provides employee screening most interestingly for gig marketplaces. Yardstick will use the financing to support its growth, which has taken the company from 38 customers in 2020 to 131 customers in 2021. Founded in 2019 Yardstick previously raised 4 million in a seed round. Yardstick has around 25 employees with ARR of around 3 million. Chad, are you buying background checks for the gig economy? Chad (27m 0s): If I was Checkr, I would just go ahead and buy these fuckers now. Joel (27m 5s): Yeah. Go to the couch, get some, get some spare change and go buy a yard stick. I use Upwork quite a bit for employing designers and developers. And really the only background check you have is the number of stars on the jobs that they've done here, reviews, which is a perfectly fine system, but you can have a five-star review and still be an ax murderer. So I I'm a fan of easy background checks in this industry. It doesn't have to be the gig economy from a digital perspective. It could be the guy coming over to put my grill together from Task Rabbit or any other babysitter like this kind of quick, easy digital, online background check for the little people, I think makes a lot of sense. Joel (27m 49s): So Yardstick, there you go. Let's take a quick break and digest the Yardstick if you will and we'll be back with little trouble in paradise. Chad (27m 58s): The valley Chad is in dire straits. Remember the Valley Girl, the whole valley girl thing that we went through in the, was it the eighties? Joel (28m 9s): Nicholas Cage? Chad (28m 9s): It was a movie. Joel (28m 10s): It wasn't. Remember Moon ZAPA. Yeah. I'm a valley girl. Okay. Fine. For sure. For sure. Chad (28m 14s): Yes. Joel (28m 14s): Valley girl things have changed. Yes. Yes. The valley moved up north from the days when we were rolling and apparently Web3. This is the second time we've mentioned Web3 on the show. It won't be the last. It's fucking everything up. This is from Business Insider, recruiters say workers are leaving Silicon Valley giants for crypto and Web3 endeavors. Why you ask? Well, one recruiter said it's because people want to work on what is most exciting in technology. And right now that's crypto and Web3. Oh yeah. And it might pay to follow the money with a scarcity of engineers focused on the space. Joel (28m 55s): It will likely also pay off to take the high risk and get in early, our friend had HackerRank CEO, Vivek Ravisankar added quote "developers like new things. They like new shiny objects." Chad (29m 11s): They do. Joel (29m 12s): Chad, that's just one part of the story though. We mentioned Apple paying out bonuses of $180,000 to developers and it looks like Amazon paid attention to that move. According to GeekWire Reports, Amazon will boost its maximum pay base base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees. This is up from $160,000 previously. As part of an overall increase in total compensation intended to help recruit top talent and retain existing employees. No word yet. If employees will be offered a trip in Bezos penis rocket, Chad Silicon Valley's in trouble. Chad (29m 57s): Yes. Joel (29m 58s): What's your take? Chad (29m 60s): First off Amazon is also not Web3 and Web3, the new hotness, the cryptos, the NFTs, Joel (30m 7s): The metaverse. Say it. Chad (30m 9s): The metaverse yes. Joel (30m 10s): Apparently just changing your name to Meta doesn't keep the engineers. Chad (30m 14s): When you're, when you're really not the metaverse. So it's pretty interesting because there was, there's an internal memo from Facebook entitled. Why is it so hard to hire right now? And I love this quote actually coming from one of their recruiting leaders. Quote, "all of you are now starting to experience that major in balance between supply and demand and it doesn't feel good." It doesn't feel good. And the thing is when candidates were easy to get, we paid them $160,000 a year. And that was the top base for Amazon. And they went to 350. So what does that mean? It means they weren't just underpaying warehouse staff, right. Chad (30m 54s): Even though their warehouse staff still not making enough. Joel (30m 57s): Sure. Chad (30m 57s): The shit that they do. But my question to you, if you were making 160 and again, there's no transparency on what anybody makes in any of these companies, unless you're in HR and you can see that shit. And you were making 160 and you see this shit, do you go in and say, okay, yeah, I think 325 is good. Joel (31m 20s): I go to apply to whoever's paying 300 thousand or, I mean, I'm sure Apple got an influx of resumes when they started paying out $180,000 in bonuses to developers. I mean, look, this is the evolution of things. And if we're talking early eighties valley girls, you know, Culture Club used to be a fucking awesome bad-ass band. Chad (31m 46s): Do you really want to hurt me? Joel (31m 46s): And things evolved and everyone moved to Guns and Roses. So then you made me very similar to that and they made you cry as a result. The Karma Chameleon will get you Chad. And everything goes around. Now they have all the money they're making payments. They're putting their money where their mouth is. So that's when you have that to work with. It's a nice thing. And I, you know, do NFTs does metaverse does all this stuff become huge or do people, does that flame out? And people come back? Time will tell. Chad (32m 16s): This is a huge course correction though. I mean, it really is. And if I am working for Amazon, this just signals to me that you knew you were fucking underpaying me. So if I don't get a pay raise number one, or even if I do, I really just want to get the fuck out. You know, I have a fuck you man mentality at this point. Joel (32m 36s): And a lot of people have. And I also think one of the things, part of the story is the compensation for a lot of those folks was in stock and for the last year or so, Amazon stock has been pretty meh. So if I'm looking at companies with stocks that are going to the moon, that's also an incentive start looking elsewhere because my Amazon shares aren't quite what I thought they would be at this point. Yes. Agreed. And you know, none of this talks about the CEO wages, which is fucking crazy Your panties are all in a bunch. Chad (33m 10s): Dude. So earlier this month, Starbucks announced their plan. And I want to tie this together real quick because we we've been talking about inflation. Inflation, and we've been tying it to wages, oh, wait a minute we've got to pay these people more so therefore we've got to up our prices. So Starbucks earlier this month announced their plan to hike its prices this year. It's the third increase. Joel (33m 44s): It's already pretty low. Chad (33m 43s): Pretty cheap. It's the third increase since October! As large US restaurant chains try to blunt the impact of most ferocious inflation in decades by passing costs along to its customers. The Seattle coffee chain CEO saw his overall compensation grow, listen, kids 40% from $14.67 million to over $20 million last year. So we've got an incredibly. Joel (34m 17s): Imbalanced? Chad (34m 22s): Imbalanced landscape, which we're seeing Joel (34m 23s): It's an injustice Chad. Chad (34m 25s): We're seeing it with Amazon. And now we're seeing with CEO pay. And that all goes into now they're spinning it into this bullshit narrative that, oh, wait a minute, we've got to raise our prices. And the problem is we have bloated margins, CEOs and executives and board pay is out of fucking whack and Americans demand too much. They're looking for cheap and they're looking for 24 7. And these, the companies and boards know this. So they're ripping it out and saying, well, this is what you're asking for. And we have to pay our people more so therefore you have to pay higher prices. Joel (35m 1s): Was supply chain not mentioned in this story at all, as a reason why? Chipotle's CEO did this recently? Didn't he? Chad (35m 12s): Yeah. Joel (35m 12s): I got to pay more for burrito. So Jack ass in the ivory tower can have another yacht basically. Hey, that's capitalism. What are you going to do now? In fairness, Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks, most of that increase was bonus stuff. His relative salary increase was 6.2%. Now I'm curious with the stock market being very challenged right now. And most analysts say it will be through the entire year. Are we talking about these raises in 12 months? If we still are, there's something curious. Chad (35m 41s): How much of a bonus to the baristas actually get the ones who are doing the job day-to-day looking the people in the face there in the community. How much of a bonus did they get? A bupkis, right? They, other than maybe a couple of free late. Joel (35m 58s): Don't they get free college at the University of Phoenix Chad (36m 1s): Free lates or something like that. Joel (36m 2s): I'm sure they get all the cafe lattes they can drink. Chad (36m 6s): Starbucks said revenue in the most recent quarter jumped 19% to 8.1 billion. We have all this backwards and Dan Prize, one of our favorite people that we love to talk about on the podcast, he's the CEO of Gravity Payments. He's the guy who paid everybody in his company, $70,000, including himself. This is what he said on Twitter. Companies are doing a great job rebranding corporate greed as inflation. Let that sit with you. Joel (36m 35s): Let's take a break and let that digest. And we'll we'll come back with metaverse. Fuck. All right, Chad, let's talk about the metaverse. Chad (36m 45s): Ok, it's like every other week! Joel (36m 46s): So, so yeah, I know. I love it. And I don't even own an Oculus, someone, some company out there buy us an Oculus and put your logo on it. And we'll we'll do social media posts anyway. So Gardner very, very reputable company says, says in four short years, 25% of people will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse. That's one in four people, Chad. For work, shopping, education, social and entertainment, which I put porn in that entertainment section, which if I think about that, then I could get 25%. Joel (37m 28s): But anyway, Marty Resnick, a research vice president at Gartner said, quote, "enterprises will have the ability to expand and enhance their business models in unprecedented ways by moving from a digital business to a metaverse business. By 2026, 30% of the organizations in the world world will have products and services ready for the metaverse," end quote. Ready player one is just around the corner. Chad, are you ready? Chad (37m 51s): Nope. I'm going to tell you right now if PornHub goes metaverse, it's going to be way before 2020s and there's going to be more than 25%. Number one. So the big question is what is the definition of metaverse right? Are we using kind of like this broad scope in a stroke of the, not just the Oculus, but also what's happening with Sony PlayStation, all the gaming, you know, the X-Box those types of things. There's a lot of, there's a shit ton, millions of dollars that are actually spent on those platforms on the daily. Chad (38m 35s): Right? So does that count? They talk about work, right? I think that personally our work metaverse is going to be completely different than our play metaverse do you agree? Joel (38m 50s): Well, I'm glad you asked Chad because Gartner actually defines the metaverse for us. They define it as quote, "a collective virtual shared space created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. It is persistent, providing enhanced immersive experiences as well as device independent and accessible through any type of device from tablets to head-mounted displays." Chad (39m 11s): Ah, so this could be, so again, this is a very broad brush, which is why they got the 25%. And I don't, I think that we, if we look at today engagement in the, just the gaming platforms, I would like to see what percentage that is, because to know that as a baseline would be done, understand how quick we could get to 25%. Joel (39m 38s): So you're saying there's a big spectrum between I'm attending a virtual class and I'm buying land on decentral land next to Snoop dog. Okay. Exactly. Well then the numbers maybe make sense. They, they might, but not nearly as much sense as us getting another beer and putting our Tutsis in the pool and watching the sunset together. Think about that. Kids. Joel and Chad (40m 7s): We out. Outro (40m 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.

While the world teeters on geopolitical confrontation, Chad & Cheese continue to keep the peace with Belgian brother from another mother, Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze, and special guest Geert-Jan Waasdorp founder at Intelligence Group in The Netherlands. This episode, the boys cover Otta from the Europeans perspective, while tackling new topics like Radancy's acquisition of Firstbird and Phenom's purchase of Tandemploy. Additionally, a little buy-or-sell commences with Alva Labs, Jobilla, and Kleoverse. Spoiler alert: There's a lot of sell, sell, sell! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. INTRO (6s): Some podcasts, do it for the fun. Some do it for the fame, Chad and Cheese they do it for global effin domination. That's why bringing America to its knees was just the beginning. Now they have their eyes set on conquering Europe and they've drafted industry veteran Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze of Belgium to help them navigate the old country and bring HR's most dangerous podcast across the pond to trash-talk like never before. Not safe for work in any language. The Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. Joel (39s): Oh yeah. Olympic curling is back and Italy is kicking ass so pass the Chianti and the fava beans, Clarice, you are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "hogged stone" Cheeseman. Chad (53s): I'm Chad "Macron will save us all" Sowash. Lieven (58s): Lieven "still waiting for Putin" Van Nieuwenhuyze Joel (1m 2s): And on this episode, US unicorns are coming for European startups. We pop the cherry on web three and a little game of buy or sell. Let's do this. sfx (1m 13s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 14s): I think the intro there's never been a better intro for Belgium ever and Lieven of Belgium. Joel (1m 24s): And then he comes on and goes, this is still Lieven, we have ways to make you talk. Lieven (1m 31s): Someone has to stay cool. Joel (1m 32s): We have a mystery guest guys as usual. We're very excited. Let's introduce Geert-Jan Waasdorp CEO and founder at Intelligence Group, an international now data and tech company specialized in global recruitment intelligence, GJ. Welcome to the podcast. Geert-Jan (1m 53s): Thank you guys. Happy to be here. Chad (1m 54s): Let's let's hear a little bit more about you. Do you like the summer walks on the beaches? What do you do there in the Netherlands? Geert-Jan (2m 3s): I like the summer, especially now when it's raining here in Rotterdam, I'm also very a soccer game, a fan of a Dutch club call to Feyenoord. But most of all, I'm working within my company, within my companies. I have several, one of them and I'm in started in '99 doing data. And what is now known as talent intelligence? I didn't know the name then, but 21 years later, we are doing that in 28 countries in Europe. Joel (2m 32s): Are there 28 countries in Europe? sfx (2m 33s): Europe has a bunch of countries. Geert-Jan (2m 38s): No, there, there are more countries within Europe, but not in every country there's data or else, not data collectible. I think there are about 35 or 36 European countries, but there are 28 within the EU. And I believe there were, there was a moment that the were 29. Joel (2m 54s): It's hard to keep count knowing some of them will be Russian in a year. Lieven (2m 59s): Oh, this hurts. So Geert-Jan Do you do something similar, like staffing, industry analysts or is it something different? Geert-Jan (3m 7s): Yeah, though we are more focusing on the fixed contracts so that we do a little bit of the temporary market, but we are most, most focusing on what is the behavior of candidates in the markets and then looking for looking for fixed contracts. So what drives them? What kind of media do they use? That kind of stuff. Joel (3m 27s): Can we call you a GJ? That's the big question. Geert-Jan (3m 30s): Yeah, you can. Joel (3m 31s): Cause trying to pronounce Geert-Jan all show is going to blow my head up. So GJ. Chad (3m 35s): It's going to break you. Joel (3m 36s): GJ sounds pretty good. So GJ for those that want to know more real quick, where would they go to find out more about Intelligence Group? Geert-Jan (3m 47s): Well, you go to www.intelligence-group.nl Joel (3m 49s): Good enough for me. Let's get to shout outs. Chad (3m 53s): Excellent. I've got a shout out to Sonic Jobs. So Sonic Jobs received funding recently, and I believe you and Lieven and both gave them a thumbs down on the buy or sell. But Sonic Jobs actually rated number one in the UK apps by absolute growth downloads from 2021 versus 2020. More growth than WhatsApp business, or even the Indeed search app. So big shout out to Mikhil and the team over at Sonic jobs. Joel (4m 27s): Supersonic! Lieven what you got on shout outs, buddy? Lieven (4m 29s): You know, sure. You're not mixing them up with Sonic Youth or something now? Okay. I've got a shout out to Elin David, who today is a Country Manager at Now Jobs, but she has just been promoted to General Manager and that isn't that spectacular, but the reason why she's promoted this pretty impressive. Their now jobs app will break the 100 million Euro revenue this year, which was launched only a few years ago. And it's just a built, starting from scratch, focusing on flex jobs, students jobs, and launched only in four countries yet. Lieven (5m 9s): So Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and France, and growing over 100 million euros. So I see a big unicorn in the making. Joel (5m 19s): Baby corn. All right, guys, I've got a shout out for meetings. Now stay with me here. Okay. Meetings involving Europe are very hot right now. Putin has met with Xi. Chancellor Olof Schultz from Germany is in Washington today. And Emmanuel Macron is meeting with Putin in Moscow this week. Interestingly, most of my life Europe was solidly in America's camp. There was a pretty clear line of what side everyone was on, but now that connective tissue seems to be weakening. Maybe it's Trump's America first presidency. Maybe it's the way we left Afghanistan or maybe how we screwed France over in favor of Australia on that submarine deal. Chad (5m 57s): Or all of it? Joel (5m 59s): Or all of it, or, or yes, but Europe seems very concerned about the US commitment to Europe and doesn't want a Russia, China ,Iran Alliance, breathing down its borders with a weak America. So I'm curious from the Europeans on the show, what's the impression of American military, a dominant support at the moment. Lieven (6m 18s): First of all, we never complained to an America was saving our add in World War One and we didn't complain one day in World War two. So I guess we won't complain if your save our ass once again. So we kind of still love the U S we don't want to pay for it. Of course. And we think NATO should be self-sustainable. But I think now it's time to become more friendly to our American friends. Joel (6m 45s): GJ. What are your thoughts on geopolitics? Geert-Jan (6m 47s): Well this is difficult because I think in Europe, we forgot to know what it's to be, to take some pain, to pay for our own defenses, to have it so a little bit cold when not depending on the Russian gas and probably we should be a little bit harder to ourselves and be straight to Putin and take care of our own business and not depending so much on the US because the US is not good for their words anymore. Joel (7m 17s): Ouch. Chad (7m 18s): Yeah. Joel (7m 18s): Ouch. That's some hard European truth right there. Geert-Jan (7m 20s): Well, us is more focusing on Asia. Lieven (7m 23s): But now no, it's not the time to piss the Americans off you know? We're trying to get friendly again with them. I mean, we've been joking about them for years, but now it's time to renew the friendship and invite them to put our missiles in our backgrounds. Chad (7m 44s): Yeah. But I think it's also incredibly important that Europe, EU and UK take a stand. It can't, it can't just be, you know, the US coming across the pond and sticking our fricking flag in the dirt. I mean, you guys really have to lead and we have to be leaders shoulder to shoulder, but we haven't seen enough of that I don't think. We see Germany kind of like waffling back and forth. So it'll be interesting. Lieven (8m 8s): Not true, but the Germans are still a bit, they've done their fair share in Russia 70 years ago. So they don't want to do it again. And the French well, they have the French Foreign Legion, but that's about it. So I'm not sure who's going to do it. Joel (8m 22s): Well differing opinions from the Europeans. That's why we have this show, everybody. Chad (8m 27s): Yes. Joel (8m 27s): GJ, you got to shout out, man? Geert-Jan (8m 30s): I have two. I, first of all, I have a shout out to the Duth secret service. They found out that Chinese and Russian spies were recruiting high-tech talent, especially in the semiconductor industry in the Netherlands, by using fake LinkedIn profiles and using fake agencies. So they are doing now a social media campaign to warn everybody. So this is really a serious thing because we are building with ASML almost 80% of all chips in the world. This warning is very serious, seriously taken. Geert-Jan (9m 9s): And my second shout out is to Smart Recruiters by buying Attrax. And that's a number based company. Yeah. Friends of the show! Joel (9m 22s): Everyone's a friend of this show. Geert-Jan (9m 24s): That's true. I think going upstream and going well, Atarax is building very high end and very beautiful recruitment sites. Also able to combine the connection with several ATS systems. So this could be a smart move from Smart Recruiters. Joel (9m 36s): Chad, we've got some travel coming up. It's hard to think about that with snow on the ground here in the US. Chad (9m 44s): Knock on wood. Joel (9m 45s): But yes, we've got a May 6th, the eCongress Lieven tell them about your event coming up in May. Lieven (9m 51s): Okay. May 6th we have to probably the best ERecruitment Congress in Belgium. And I'm sure it's the best and Belgian the only one, but May 6th in Ostend, we will be talking about e-sports being the new recruitment plans about programmatics, about basically everything you've been talking about for years, we're going to talk about it again. We'll have some top notch speakers coming from all around the world, but mostly from Belgium and the Netherlands. We also have some Americans, some friends of the show, people from Ireland, from Scotland and the weather is going to be nice because we deserve it. It's seashore, it's just going to be tons of fun. Lieven (10m 32s): And we also have Chad and Cheese who are going to tell you yet, you're going to livestream on LinkedIn. Chad (10m 36s): I saw that live stream on LinkedIn. And I was like, okay, now we need a LinkedIn master to make sure that we're streaming. Joel (10m 43s): Yeah. We need LinkedIn to launch that shit soon to make sure that we can do it. Lieven (10m 49s): I can do it. No worries. You're going to livestream. Ooh. Joel (10m 52s): And for those that want to come work and they find out more info Lieven, Lieven (10m 57s): Just put erucruitment Congress and Google and we should be on top. Joel (11m 0s): And maybe add Belgium in there if you're in America looking to go to your, yeah, just in case, just in case a customer results for Google can be tricky from country to country. And we're also Chad hitting up RecFest in the UK on July 7th I think I have the date on that. We are owning the disrupt stage. Chad (11m 20s): KNEBWORTH Park. Joel (11m 21s): And that's going to be a lot of fun too. So our English friends you'll get to see us. Knebworth the Woodstock of England, apparently. All right guys, you know what comes next? Chad (11m 38s): Topics! Joel (11m 38s): All right, Chad and I talked a little Otta on our weekly show, a few weeks back, but wanted to get some European opinion on this. Here's a quick news summary from Otta. The London based jobs platform has secured $20 million in series A funding. They're now planning to expand a US presence with an on the ground commercial team and double its product and engineering team in London. Otta was launched in January of 2020 so it's still in diapers. Since then it says it has gone from 1000 applications per month to more than 5,000 a day. Interestingly angel investors include Indeed's co-founder Paul Forster, Alex Bouaziz of Deel, Ben Herman and he's the founder of Canvas, formerly of Canvas and the leadership from Beamery. Joel (12m 25s): So who was excited about a new job board. Geert-Jan (12m 29s): 10 years ago, I saw something as similar as old tab, and I don't recollect the name of the company, but I can remember them because it was smart than years ago, to have some questions, to build a profile instead of building your CV. So when I saw that 10 years ago, I said, oh, I thought that could be smart. But today, if we are 10 years later, and now it's not from this era anymore, but I feel in a profile. And what I think is good about Otta is that they enriched the digital profiles. So they enrich them with the bio, from the founders. Geert-Jan (13m 12s): They have API with TechCrunch, Glassdoor. They really have salary benchmarks and they enrich the profiles very smart. So if Otta was focusing more on being an enriching of job postings tool, that could be interesting, but to have a very niche job boards within for high-tech in London. Well, that could be very old fashioned. I don't think that's very revolutionary. Joel (13m 33s): How do you feel about their a US expansion plans? Geert-Jan (13m 40s): Well, if you have $20 million and you want to go to the U S then, then you can fly five times and then you're ready. Joel (13m 48s): You can buy five flights. Is that what you're saying? Geert-Jan (13m 50s): Yeah. Or you're finished because you're out of marketing budget. Lieven (13m 55s): With Putin has army at the border. This is the perfect time to move to the US. Joel (14m 6s): Any thoughts on their investor group? So Paul Forrester, Indeed, co-founder the Deel, Ben Herman of Canvas Beamery leadership. Does that speak positively or sorta neutral on that? Geert-Jan (14m 17s): I wish I would have them as an investor because they are great names. So probably they see something that we cannot see. I hope so, but from a perspective, as older, very niche that they are focusing on, I cannot see it. Lieven (14m 31s): I think basically they're doing what the candidate normally has to do for himself. Like gathering information about the job he's going to apply for. So they're counting on people's laziness, which actually might work. I think they're going to have a hard time getting known by job seekers. I mean, people are looking for a job for on average for six weeks, and then they get hired. So they constantly have to advertise to new generations of job seekers, which is extremely costly and been proven again and again, most companies just don't keep up. So I'm afraid, this is going to be a difficult one because they, as Geert-Jan also said, they're not that revolutionary. Lieven (15m 14s): They just gather information. It's like an aggregator for stuff on employers. Chad (15m 18s): I mean, I actually built a profile. It took at least 15 to 20 minutes. So it wasn't fast. They talk about enrichment. You have to upload your PDF from LinkedIn. They can't even` hit the LinkedIn API. And then when they do that, they only parse the titles. Then you have to fill in like three bullets per so, I mean, I don't know where this is going to end up, but where it is right now, I don't see it as even close to revolutionary. And the idea that they can now with a whole $20 million now start invading the U S I just, none of this makes sense to me. Lieven (15m 58s): No, Joel (15m 58s): We're playing a little or sell later, but I'm hearing four sells on Otta. Is that correct? Maybe, maybe GJ has a hold on that, on that buy, I don't know. Lieven (16m 9s): It sounds like Randstad investment to me. Geert-Jan (16m 12s): Sell, but what, I don't understand this. If you look at this high-tech talent, this high-tech, high-end IT talents, maybe 2% of them are actively looking for a job. And so that market is so small and then doing a job board. That is not very smart. Chad (16m 25s): I'm with you. Joel (16m 26s): Yeah. A lot of this was echoed in, in our weekly show, so yeah, I'm glad we're all on the same page. Let's take a quick break and we'll get into some acquisitions. sfx (16m 37s): Europe Has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (16m 41s): All right, guys. Some well-funded US unicorns are not even unicorns, but some unicorns, some just well-funded American companies are buying up some European companies. So let's go to the news here. The first one we're gonna talk about is Phenom acquiring Tandemploy. So Phenom recently announced the acquisition of the company a Berlin based HR tech company founded in 2013 and it's focused on solving key problems associated with employee experiences. Tandem employees, feature technology as a matching algorithm that recommends pairings among peers, mentors, project leaders, and subject matter experts by analyzing skills based data and individual goals. Joel (17m 22s): It's European customers use it for employee belonging and for advancing organizational wide goals. How very European Phenom co-founder and CEO Mahe Bayireddi added "the move will rapidly accelerate growth in Europe, the middle east and Africa." A reminder that Phenom raised a hundred million dollars last year with a $1.4 billion valuation. So they have some money to play with. Guys what are your thoughts on the Phenom Tandemploy move? Lieven (17m 49s): I think it sounds like a Tinder for the workplace and this might've worked 15 years ago, but not anymore. Chad (17m 56s): Tinder for the workplace? Lieven (17m 57s): Yeah. It's like finding people and matching people with other people. And then they even had had some kind of a, it's not really dating app, but to put people together for dinner or something like that to match people so employees could get to know each other better and blah, blah, blah. I think that's a luxury problem. I mean, today, we're just happy. If we can find someone who we can hire him, and this is all the softs and blah blah HR stuff from from 15 years ago, but maybe I'm too cynic for this? Geert-Jan (18m 30s): Where you see a Smart Recruiters going more upstream to the external market. You see that phenom is going more downstream because if I look at the website of Tandom Ploy, I see they are focusing on the internal markets. And that's at this point where there are so many shortages on the market, the internal market is a market where you can develop people and keep people, there's really retention market. So it could be smart moving up there, but they are very small. They are 25 person. And knowing from a Phenom that bought two years ago, a Dutch company that was similar in size today, they have one employee left. Geert-Jan (19m 15s): So I'm very curious how that's going to develop, but it's a growing market that internal labor market. So could be interesting. Chad (19m 23s): I mean, let's face it. Most hiring companies are atrocious at internal mobility and it's not that they don't do it well, it's that they don't do it at all. So now that internal mobility is a buzzword, especially during the great resignation shuffle, awakening, whatever the fuck you want to call it, they need to retain talent. But most hiring companies are just talking about it and they don't know what to do about it. So this leaves a huge gap from a talent management standpoint for tech companies like Tandemploy to jump in and provide solutions that work. The biggest problem these platforms are going to have to face and this is squarely on Phenom, is finding out who is responsible and has budget for internal mobility. Chad (20m 14s): Is it HR? Is it talent acquisition? Who owns IM? I personally love this, this acquisition. I think it makes sense. But that being said, Phenom still has work to do. Lieven (20m 22s): I agree if you're a big, big corporate company, you might need something like this, but for most companies, I've just say, get to know your people. You don't need software to know your people. I mean, talk to them. They say on their website somewhere, we develop software that connects people and knowledge and organizations. Okay. So knowledge, if you need knowledge on legal stuff, you go to the legal department. If you need knowledge on, on IT stuff, you go to the IT department, it isn't rocket science and all those, those solutions, they deliver a solution for, in my opinion, not for any existing problem. Joel (20m 56s): So interestingly, a Phenom used to be a mobile developer. They used to have a deal with a CareerBuilder to build mobile sites for their customers. My, how things have changed Phenom is now more valuable than CareerBuilder. But Mahe already said, in an interview recently that an IPO would be coming "soon" and increasing the global footprint is a necessary move if you're going public. I think the addition of Tandom employee to Phenom widens their reach in Europe, it adds a second German office. It also expands its operations in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Joel (21m 40s): So these guys are fricking everywhere. The Tandemploy employee team will transition over to Phenom, including its co-founders and co-CEOs. So let's see Phenom gets new customers. They get greater reach in Europe and they also get the talent at the company. Terms were not disclosed, but Hey, when you have a hundred million dollars, who's counting. I agree with Chad. This is a, probably a pretty good deal at not a real big cost to them. Geert-Jan (22m 8s): With all the recruitment challenges you see in the, in Europe and it's very difficult, more and more difficult for recruitment to fill all the gaps. You see companies shifting to internal mobility, keeping people or to retain people. But also when we're talking, we'll talk about it in a moment. A referral is also a tool that's really being used when recruitment is not delivering anymore. Joel (22m 33s): I'll take that handoff GJ. Thank you. Let's get into the a Radancy First Bird, First Bird flipping people off. Okay. Recruitment marketing and tech company Radancy formerly TMP worldwide for the old timers has announced plans to acquire First Bird, a vendor of candidate referral programs, Vienna based First Bird will continue to operate under the First Bird name with CEO, Walls at the helm. The deal is expected to close by April subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Financial terms were not disclosed. First Bird serves more than 1000 clients, including McDonald's, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Joel (23m 16s): What do we think about the Radancy/First Bird deal? Lieven (23m 21s): I've always been a big believer in social referral, then employee referral. And I think they might actually be on to something. I've never seen a company doing it exactly right. And I've never heard of stories where employee referral makes for the biggest chunk in referral. But First Bird actually is doing a very good job on it. I think this is a good acquisition. Geert-Jan (23m 45s): I agree with Lieven. In whether there are not any known success stories about referral technology. Lieven (23m 51s): Nope. Geert-Jan (23m 52s): That First Bird can be one, but you at least need some recruiters who are fully dedicated to referral. But what I really find interesting in this buying of First Bird is that they are integrated with over 40 ATS systems. And I think that that is very interesting for Radancy because they now have their Torian horse into 40 well systems in the markets and they could plug their other technology by using the well the way that First Bird has already made for them. Yeah. Chad (24m 23s): Yeah. Unfortunately, Radancy doesn't work that way. They like to do their own things their own way. And everybody else get the fuck out of the way. But employee referrals, I'd like to point to what GJ just said. You're not known a success story. And there's one big reason why there's no success stories in employee referral tech. It Is because talent acquisition doesn't see it as a problem. Talent acquisition automatically either number one or number two of sources of hire generally are employee referrals and they don't have to do anything. They're fucking tripping over people, right? So there's no budget that's usually spent in this. Chad (25m 4s): And if it is, it's really a pittance, it's really small. So this has never seen as being a problem throughout the years. So therefore talent acquisition doesn't pay for something that they don't think is a problem. Then you have the biggest issue that these employee referral platforms face is adoption. You get it plugged into a system. You can be integrated to a 20,000 applicant tracking systems. It doesn't matter because if you don't have adoption re-engagement and if you're not constantly pulling teams in, not individuals, but teams in, to actually draw out of their LinkedIn networks or what have you, then it's a bust you're paying for something that's not getting used. Chad (25m 46s): So I personally don't think that Radancy didn't see did their due diligence on this and understand the market enough to know that employee referrals and employee referral tech, until you can get the adoption piece down. You're fucked. Joel (25m 60s): Yeah. Chad, you and I have been talking about referral systems since what, H3 back in the early two thousands? I mean the referral business is just littered. Chad (26m 12s): Sorry Hans. Joel (26m 12s): Like it's almost as bad as the college recruiting industry. Like it's just riddled with death, destruction and dismemberment. So why Radancy does not have a long, storied past of acquisitions that make sense if they make many acquisitions at all, and like this one's a real head scratcher to me. I don't know if this was like on the clearance rack in Europe and Radancy just picked it up. If they have some good, you know, founders and tech talent that they want to bring him in, but this was just a total head-scratcher to me. First Bird is a cute name. We made fun of them a couple of years ago at RecFest. And that was fun. They're having the last laugh because they got acquired and we're still doing the show, but again, total head-scratcher to me, why Radancy did this and why anyone thinks referrals are still a good business. Chad (27m 1s): And it's firstbird.com so Radancy should actually just change their name to FirstBird. Joel (27m 5s): Is there a second bird? Cause I feel like it could be a total, like a binge worthy. Chad (27m 12s): Buying it right now. Joel (27m 14s): Every year just start a new bird. Third bird, 2024. Okay. Who's who wants, he wants to play a little buy or sell? Chad (27m 20s): I do. Joel (27m 21s): Alright. I do too. Okay. Buy or sell, you know how this works guys, we get three companies that have recently raised money. I'll read a little summary of each one and then each of us will buy or sell that company and tell the audience why they are choosing buy or sell. Got it? All right. All right. First up is Alva Labs. Swedish startup Alva Labs has raised 11.7 million euros for its digital hiring tool that helps recruiters qualify and compare job candidates using data-driven candidate assessments. The company has a vision to help generate a bias free job market. Joel (28m 2s): The solution tests across logic and personality, saving recruiters, time, money, and resources while also increasing the chances they find the right person for the job. In 2021 Alva Labs tripled its employee head count, expanding the team from 20 to 60, increased its candidate pool by three and a half times, and grew its international customer base by two and a half times. The company counts the likes of Deloitte as customers. Lieven buy or sell Alva Labs out of Sweden? Lieven (28m 34s): It all sounds impressive. And digital hiring tool and bias free and marketing, blah, blah. But basically it's just another matchmaking platform like there are so many, much messaging platforms. And maybe, maybe, I don't know this one, maybe it's a very good matchmaking platform. And then that should be a buy because we all need definitely the matchmaking platforms, but by promoting it's that it's bias free, that's bullshit. All platforms should be biasfree. Joel (29m 1s): Sounds like a sell to me. Geert-Jan (29m 3s): Well, the bias free was like the marketing bullshit that Lieven was talking about. What you see, in my opinion, this, the assessment business is a growing market. And a lot of venture capitalists are going into that market. Probably there are a lot of high margin to gain, but what I do not understand is why they are going to the UK? The UK market This is the highest with the highest competition within Europe. You don't get a feet on the ground and if you are a Swedish company go into, in the Netherlands or Belgium of Denmark or even Germany, but you don't go to the UK. That is a waste of time and money. Geert-Jan (29m 46s): So for me, that choice going to the UK makes it a sell. Chad (29m 48s): Ooh. Okay. Okay. Well, I do like that Alva Labs is looking to expand out to Sweden for God's sakes. Talk about a small market. I mean, I think that's smart going to the UK. I, but will it automate and scale? I think it will. Do the founders have experience in this space? They do not. Competition is fierce in this space and you talked about VC putting money into it because it's magic and it's elixir, baby. It can't be proven. Personally I don't believe in psycho analyzing anybody for a hire for me. This is all just a Zoltar stuff. Chad (30m 29s): Right? Madam, what was that? What was the Madam Lieven? Lieven (30m 32s): Madam Solet. Chad (30m 33s): So this is Madam Solet bullshit. I'm not buying. Joel (30m 35s): All right. I'll take a diff I'll take a different approach. Fuck it. So, yeah, they're talking about the UK, but thank God they're not talking about conquering the US like almost every startup out of Europe is doing, , and I've talked a lot about companies that are RAD being money machines in terms of getting investment dollars. So RAD, if you forgot is Remote, Automated and Diversity, and these guys check off automation and they check off diversity. So that means they're going to get more money to build this thing and maybe make it competitive. So I will be the discerning voice here and give Alva Labs out of Sweden, a buy rating. Joel (31m 22s): Now let's get to jobszilla. I mean Jobilla, Jobilla. Yeah. Fins are so weird. All right. Finish talent acquisition startup Jobilla has secured eight point 25 million euros. This follows a 2 million Euro seed round just a year ago. Founded in 2015, Jobilla combines AI powered candidate filtering, a mobile supported funnel and top marketing strategies that ensure the best candidates see the job opportunities. Based in Helsinki Jobilla has grown 150% in revenue from 2020 to 2021, and is ready to further expand its operations, especially in the German and here it comes US markets. Joel (32m 8s): In the US Jobilla's clients include companies such as Pfizer and get ready for this Arkansas Surgical Hospital. Guys buy or sell Jobilla? Lieven (32m 15s): I'm basically just because I don't like their name. I think a good name is very important, so they should rethink their name. No, but the German approach is a good idea in the German market is probably one of the most important markets in Europe right now, and the American dream where you can't blame them for dreaming big, but no, I'm not really convinced. Geert-Jan (32m 41s): Yeah. I always liked startups. So you probably have to be supportive to any entrepreneur who's putting all his soul into his company, but if I'm looking to Jobilla, what I'm missing is the word programmatic. So what I, what you see in their solution is a distribution of vacancies by social. And if people like to, they click and they do an assessment again, an assessment. If they had been into programmatic, that probably should have been a buy, because programmatic is there's no, not much programmatic in Europe, but I think that's mainly handgun work, what they are doing. Geert-Jan (33m 24s): Yeah. It's sell. Joel (33m 26s): It's a sale. All right, Chad, you're going to buck the trend or not. Chad (33m 33s): Here's a quote from one of their founders, "our solution is really not brutally competing with any other company in this $500 billion plus market, because there is no one that is thinking of recruiting so purely from the candidate experience." Yes. Thank you, Henry. I think Henry needs to wake up and just pay attention to what the fuck's going on around him. It will automate and scale? Yes. I think GJ is a hundred percent correct. When I was looking at this, I was looking at some type of programmatic ability to get targeted distribution. Didn't see it. Do the founders have experience in this space? Chad (34m 13s): No. And the big no-no here is that they have a quote unquote "digital marketing suite of solutions" on their website, which means they're competing with possible channel partners, early adopters and acquirers. I give these guys a big, no way, thumbs down. Although if you're on Netflix and you like Bordertown, that is a Finnish murder mystery that you'll love. So go to Netflix. Bordertown you like that? Joel (34m 35s): Well, that's a buy on the Netflix series, but a sell on the company. All right. I'll make this quick. Cause I want to, I want to get to Cleoverse. So stay in Europe. It might be a buy for me if they weren't talking about the U S but they're not. And frankly, if Arkansas Surgical Hospital is one of your press release companies, that mountain is too high for you to climb Jobilla. Even with that massive 10 million Euro bank account. So big sell from me. And that makes it a sweep of sells there. All right. Let's get into Cleoverse. sfx (35m 16s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (35m 21s): All right this might go in crazy places. So Futurama time. Web3, the first time we've said that on the show, I think Chad Web3 startup Kleoverse has raised $1.2 million. The Finish, yes we're back to Finland, startup has developed a new way to help talent find jobs at Dows on web three and aims to showcase proof of talent via NFTs to combat today's inadequate and old-fashioned practices of the traditional search. Kleoverse helps freelancers create a professional identity in web3, using blockchain. Joel (36m 4s): Kleoverse, hands out NFTs to visualize an individual's web3 proof of talent based on the projects that they've completed with decentralized autonomous organizations, or Dows. The company says they want to replace the need for quote old-fashioned CVS, that don't give a realistic image of the candidates, experience and skills. Today. Kleoverse has over 100 DAOs on its platform and a few dozen projects hosted already by the time of its launch. With over 1000 users signed up for the platform. Does anyone want to buy Kleoverse? Lieven (36m 43s): Yeah, probably. I think two guys who are sitting at a bar and getting drunk and placing a bet. I can make 1 million just by inventing something which says NFT and bitcoin and blockchain and then someone will invest. And I think it worked. Yeah. It's something like that. It must be thinking, what can we launch, including blockchain and NFTs? And they came up with this and one person at least was stupid enough to invest, I guess. Joel (37m 11s): So are you buying the fact that they actually raised money? Lieven (37m 15s): I'm buying the fact that raise money. I kind of appreciate that. Yeah, no, no. Chad (37m 23s): That's a sell from Lieven. Joel (37m 26s): Yeah. That's a Sell from Lieven. All right. Geert-Jan (37m 31s): Well, they could be brilliant. Very brilliant that we don't understand that they are from outer space or 10 years ahead of us. Could be. Lieven (37m 40s): Chances are small though. Geert-Jan (37m 41s): Now, fading and NFTs or NFTs it's it's Nope, Nope, no joke for me. Joel (37m 47s): Is that a sell from GJ? Okay. Chad are you gonna make it a streak? Chad (37m 54s): Oh God dude. First and foremost, I don't believe hiring companies are. I mean, anybody even understands what the fuck a decentralized autonomous organization is, right? DAO. Yes. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry. It, and we're like one of the slowest adoption rate segments, I think in business. So I guess the question is, are they trying to get business to adopt this or are they trying to create these new decentralized organizations? I don't understand what the fuck is going on here. So I've got to sell. sfx (38m 24s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (38m 28s): All right. That's three sells and I'm going to make it a clean sweep, I think. Oh great. This is just awful. This is simple profiting off the blockchain trend. It reminds me a little bit of remember ICO's initial coin offering? We had that scam in our space and people made millions. Here comes Web3 with more scams. If there are any winners here and I'm super skeptical, it'll be 20 years from now. And I will be comfortably numb in the metaverse with Posh Spice by then. So this is a big sell for me, although it is very amusing. Joel (39m 10s): All right guys, that's another game of buy or sell. A lot of selling in the books. So thanks for joining us, everybody a big, thanks to Geert. Geert again, where can we find more Intelligence Group? Geert-Jan (39m 27s): Well, you can find me on LinkedIn and of course Intelligence Group is www.Intelligence-group.com. Joel (39m 36s): Excellent. Guys, if you want to hear more episodes out of Europe, more Euro goodness? Checkout Chadcheese.com/Europe. Boys it's been fun. We'll be back in a couple of weeks, but until then. Joel, Chad and Lieven (39m 49s): We out. OUTRO (40m 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.

Remember seeing and hearing your first Deep Fake? Synthesized voices that sound like your favorite movie star. Not a great impressionist, on the contrary, algorithmically cloned voices where even the subtlest of nuances of a voice can be captured and recreated. Cringy, yet incredibly cool that tech could accomplish such a feat. Yes, technology is advancing quickly and unfortunately many of the advances are seen as negative. Luckily, Ryan Steelberg, president, and founder of Veritone guides us through a more advanced cloned voice discussion. On this episode we cover: The difference between a deep fake and a "cloned" voices Practical applications for using cloned voices Where are chatbots headed? Will this tech help candidate and employee engagement? How do Pandologic and Wade and Wendy fit into the ecosystem? Well kids, welcome to the Matrix. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your RPO partner for the disability community, from source to hire. INTRO (2s): 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 boys in the matrix! The Chad and Cheese podcast coming at you. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman, joined is always the Batman to my Robin, Robin to my Batman, Chad Sowash and today we are just giddy to welcome Ryan Steelberg. I don't think that's his acting name. Ryan is President and Founder of Veritone. If you don't know, Veritone keep listening. We'll get to why you do Ryan. Welcome to the show from beautiful, lovely Southern California. Ryan (57s): Joel. Chad, thank you guys for having me. It's a pleasure. Joel (60s): Should we tell the audience where Ryan is right now? Where he is right now? Chad (1m 3s): And of course we're going to tell the audience. Okay, so now he's not broadcasting from a Tesla. He's broadcasting from a Tesla killer lucid. They've put out, I think, less than a thousand cars at this point? Joel (1m 17s): He's got number 69, I think. Chad (1m 21s): 43, 43. He's better than 69. Yes. But, but yeah, Ryan man. Yeah. We're frothing at the mouth over here, man. You're in California. Got the great weather and you're sitting in a Lucid. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that. Ryan (1m 33s): Life is good. I'm very thankful. Very blessed. Joel (1m 36s): Is Ryan Steelberg, your stage name, be honest. Ryan (1m 40s): It's real. You know, if you search for Steelberg, usually pick up Chad, my brother and I, but my, you know, the name kinda sounds like Spielberg and I kind of flirt at times when I'm trying to get reservations at places. But my cousin, Eric is a pretty prominent cinematographer. So, you know, we're in Southern California kind of sounds like Spielberg, close to Hollywood. So I play it up all the time. Joel (2m 4s): We got to find a good reason to get Chad Steelberg on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Ryan (2m 9s): Right. And it got really confusing. I love it. Yeah. Chad (2m 11s): We don't need any more Chads it feels like Florida in the Bush administration anyway. So, so before we get into the hairy details around how you actually busted into the HR industry, let's talk about the Veritone. What is Veritone. I see this AI operating system, you guys are touting. I have no clue what that even means. Joel (2m 34s): This shit is the matrix. Chad (2m 36s): Yeah, I know this is fricking crazy. So straight from the mountain, man, bring it down on those stone tablets for us. Joel (2m 42s): Dumb it down for us, Ryan. Ryan (2m 44s): Dumb it down. So, you know, I've been a tech entrepreneur for over 20 years now and you know, we started kind of our first push into the internet digital space, you know, right out of school, you know, back in the mid-nineties. And it was all about advertising tech and martech. You know, we were some of the first individuals to build large scale ad management systems, you know, working in, because we kind of powered all the advertising delivery and reporting everything for a lot of old cool names, Yahoo, Lycos, GeoCities, you know, the I'll call web 1.O. Chad (3m 20s): Dude Geo Cities. Joel (3m 22s): Overture stuff? Were you early? Ryan (3m 23s): We were the actual, which interesting to Overture, which, you know, I think the precursor was go-to right. goto.com. We were actually the ad tech engine behind go-to, which became Overture. So I'd like to say is the stupid search ads we were there first, you know, and display ads. Joel (3m 41s): I miss Overture. Chad (3m 42s): It's your fault is what you're saying. Ryan (3m 45s): It's all our fault now, but yeah, that's been, so we've done several businesses, you know, really all focused on ad tech and just the quick fat main version is just think of everything we've built is if there's lots of data that needs to be ingested and analyzed incredibly quickly, you know, we kind of all in the ad tech space, you know, got PhDs in it, right. I have to choose what ad to serve to the right individual the right time and I have to do it in 10 milliseconds. So it was a great, you know, we were early playing around with I'll call it version one oh of neural networks and trying to get better, you know, speed and optimization. So, you know, that kind of set, laid the groundwork for us kind of expanding into the, you know, cognitive AI space, which really what Veritone is focusing on today. Chad (4m 32s): Do you watch Silicone Valley and Startup and some of those older, you know, like they, they try to do the throwback stuff and go, yeah, that was me. Ryan (4m 42s): It's cringy, you know, and, you know, the fact that I'm old enough now, you know, I haven't been the youngest person in the room in so long. And so it's an interesting, I don't feel that old, but man, it's a, a big transition. Chad (4m 55s): I know how you feel. I know how you feel. Joel (4m 59s): So when did Veritone start, like what, what's the timeline from, I guess we had Overture when they sold Yahoo, did you work for Yahoo for a while and then go over to Veratone like, what's the timeline on it? Ryan (5m 9s): A couple of businesses, actually, you know, where the idea of Veritone came was actually when we were working at Google, we, we sold our previous business to Google in '06. And, I headed up all their offline ad efforts for a few years. And again, the impetus for Veritone, it started really focused on meeting entertainment and advertising. And what, you know, as I stated earlier, you know, we've been pivotal players in the ad tech space, primarily around I'll call it display based ads and search ads. And, you know, as mobile exploded, you know, ad blockers came into play. Ryan (5m 49s): It was harder to connect with an audience through just I'll call, you know, interruptive based commercials. And so we started really looking at native based ads, so ads that are kind of embedded with an inch of the programming, right, such as a sponsor of this podcast, or, you know, a logo or a car in a movie. And so we started to work on software that it was just simply not practical to have humans try to analyze all the content. So what if we could build tech at scale that could analyze all this audio and video, you know, at huge volumes and be able to very quickly in near real time identify all of those product placements, those integrations, those unstructured data elements. Ryan (6m 30s): And, that's what we did. I mean so we, you know, version of one Overtone in 2014 was simply trying to identify right in near real time when certain organic ad mentions were happening, you know, on broadcast radio and streaming audio. Chad (6m 49s): Did you break that down into transcriptions? And, then? Ryan (6m 52s): Exactly. Okay, so it was, it was NLP natural language processing speech to text at scale. And then we had to be able to say, okay, great. But what if I want to do this with 5,000 streams at the same time? Right. So it was a scale function and really a precision and accuracy function on the NLP that obviously, you know, had to get good enough so we can turn it into a product. So that, I mean, that was it, it was version 1.0, and then it just expanded significantly from there and to, you know, other forms of cognition, like object detection. Joel (7m 21s): Big agencies and big companies would hire you to, to make sure tell them how many times their brand would come up in radio shows, television. Okay. Very cool. Ryan (7m 30s): And we own it in a division of Veritone. We actually own our own media agency as well. A lot of people don't know that, but Veritone 1 again, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Veritone, we're one of the largest audio agencies and we're actually the largest podcasting media agency. So we like to say our tech that we built, we like to eat our own dog food. Right. We're one of the larger clients of our own tech. So yes, we do license it to third-party companies and brands, but we also use the same technology to improve our own agency. Chad (8m 1s): Yeah. We actually talked to the team about this podcast, not to mention, we represent a much larger group of HR talent acquisition podcasts. Joel (8m 13s): Huge. Chad (8m 13s): And yeah. So Veritone, Veritone had their eyes on the Chad and Cheese. So that being said again, let's dig into the AI operating system that you guys are talking about. Right. So what does that actually mean? Because as we start to see, I think AI turned into like cloud computing where cloud computing one once was a thing, but it's not anymore because it's imbedded in everything we do. Do we, you see that happening with AI is that why we need an operating system? Ryan (8m 43s): Very similar. And I am, if you make the parallel to the I'll call it traditional legacy operating system, like Windows, we saw early that there are so many AI models out there, right? So I mean, you and I could literally in five minutes search and find hundreds of text to speech, and NLP actual models, algorithms, right. That are prepared to take different training data to again, try to execute an AI function. And, so we saw an explosion of models, A and then B, then we saw people who are trying to build applications that would then use that model. So for example, our application that we first built, right. Trying to find an ad mentioned, it didn't seem practical that you would have to have like a hard coded end-to-end process. Ryan (9m 27s): Right. I have to pick one model, build an application, et cetera. And so we said, okay, if there's going to be an exponential growth in the models, and there's going to be exponential growth to your point, primarily because of the benefit of cloud scale, that what was really missing was an operating system. And so a piece of software, a software layer that would allow you to manage one to N number of different AI models in different categories. So from, you know, machine vision to obviously voice and audio and NLP, and then still be able to bifurcate that from the application layer. So again, if you and I are working on, you know, a speaker separation application for this podcast, and we don't wanna have to rewrite the application if we find a killer new AI model, right. Ryan (10m 14s): That comes on the market, that's a game changer in terms of accuracy and speed. So that's what we went. So we, and it turned out to be a very sound and strategic decision that allows us now to really support, you know, numerous different use cases on really any cloud, whether it's, you know, Google or Azure, but also on Prem, we do a lot of work with, you know, the federal government and the Department of Justice. So the operating system does not have to just run in a large public cloud, again, like an Azure or AWS, but we can also deploy the whole stack, even in a network isolated environment, you know, behind a firewall. Chad (10m 52s): That's great for wiretaps right there that easily. I don't know if you know that?, Ryan (10m 58s): No comment there, no comment there. Joel (11m 2s): So fast forward, 2014 to now, you guys are a cornucopia of products and services. Like, is there a way for you to funnel that down? And I guess, how did that eventually lead to getting into the employment space? Ryan (11m 12s): When we first launched the operating system, we couldn't find anybody to buy it. They're like, what the hell is an operating system for AI? I barely even understand how to deploy AI in my company and you're trying to sell me the platform, right? So as almost a necessity, initially focused, just in meeting entertainment, we kind of took our own subject matter expertise. So we built a host of different specific applications built on AI where our tech stack. So, and though in effect, it was something tangible that ESPN and Disney and,, you know, iHeart media, it could buy, right. Ryan (11m 53s): They weren't buying the AI core platform. They were buying the application we built on AI where to do, let's say real-time ad attribution. So the app, so thankfully our decision to focus or have the ability to sell apps, really kickstarted the business in terms of revenues and allowing us to scale. And now if you fast forward a little bit, now the problems, you know, groups know us, they've invested more in AI. They have some analysts and data scientists on staff. And so now they're ready and they have been for a few companies for years now is taking it to the next level. Right. Okay. That's great Veritone, we've been licensing this one application, but now we're ready to invest directly into the AI platform because we want to build our own custom solutions, right. Ryan (12m 35s): Or necessarily, we don't want to tell you all of our problems. Chad (12m 39s): Right. Ryan (12m 40s): We want the workbench because we have internal things that we want to go solve and they want to keep the proprietary nature of the application. So it really went from, we built the platform, candidly first, right? AI, where couldn't sell it for a couple of years until we built a host of different applications, I'll call it the Microsoft Word, right? The Microsoft Excel. And then ironically, the majority of the growth, which is afforded now and going all these different verticals is really more of a focus on the platform itself as compared to the applications. Chad (13m 11s): Do they have access to your sandbox and then they can just build on top of what you've already, what you already have there? And is that provided like through APIs? I mean, how, how is that operating system actually provided? Ryan (13m 21s): Yeah, but you're pretty technical and of you just you're spot on that's exactly right. So there is a development framework, right? Depending on their applications, a full SDK. So you can actually build and deploy new models, AI models, and it's a full framework where you can actually build using a low code low-code, no-code workflow platform, which we call automate studio. So you can start to build the data ETLs and the data pipelines through a low code application layer. And then ultimately, if you so choose to, you can actually on the AI ware platform, which, we call AIwear.JS is, where you can actually build and hardened UI, a user interface that can be a mobile app or a web based property. Ryan (14m 3s): So you're right. It's full it's full stack, and it can, it's available either through our development framework or via API. Chad (14m 10s): Pretty damn awesome. So let me ask you real quick. I actually heard you speaking Spanish fluently on a podcast. Can you speak fluent Spanish? Ryan (14m 19s): I cannot speak Spanish. I, you know, I was a pretty good student. I think I took Spanish for seven years. I don't think I ever got anything less than frankly like a 95 and I can't speak a word and I live in Southern California. So there's the educational system right there for you. Joel (14m 37s): No bueno Ryan. Ryan (14m 38s): But no, I do not speak Spanish. Chad (14m 40s): This obviously propels us into the next question. What the hell is, is the difference between a deep fake and a clone voice Joel (14m 49s): Or witchcraft? Ryan (14m 50s): Yep. You got it. So, again, and primarily we're working with our media entertainment customers. We kind of saw this whole metaverse kind of opportunity emerging. And so. Chad (14m 58s): There it is. Ryan (14m 60s): There it is. We have, so we started to see, okay, what's our entry point. Joel (15m 6s): Did he say metaverse Chad? Chad (15m 6s): He said metaverse . Joel (15m 7s): Oh yeah, that's what I like. Ryan (15m 7s): It's a boom, boom. I get, you know, I had a, you know, had a drop it just with a buzzword, I'm now including some search index. So, so voice, you know, voice was the obvious one. We thought the lowest hanging fruit where, you know, we were ingesting and analyzing so much content that, and hence this conversation right here, it is, you know, it was pretty easy for us to isolate the voices and start looking at that as training data. So synthetic voices, deep fakes, cloning. I'm going to give you an analogy since you guys appreciate some of the mid nineties web references you'll appreciate this one. Chad (15m 44s): Can't wait. Ryan (15m 45s): That the parallel is Napster to iTunes. So for us in the music space, when the CDs, the demise of the CDs was destroyed and the whole world went song specific, what, emerged first was the deep fake of music, right? Which was this, the Napster ecosystem. People were ripping music right from CDs. And they were posting them on different servers around the world. And Sean Fanny and a company called Napster built kind of an index that allowed me to, you know, to index the songs that I ripped off and frankly stole my computer and everybody else. And so that's how it started. And we all did it. Ryan (16m 24s): We went from basically zero to a million fast, and it was ripped off iTunes in your crazy iTunes, brilliant Apple, obviously being facetious is they said, you know what? I believe that if I create a quality of service and a service layer, and I have a large enough catalog, I not only do I believe that we can create a commercially viable music distribution system, but I bet we could start making real money. And over, of course, if you know, frankly, a decade, we could try to get the recorded music industry back to, and everybody's like, there's no way it's free. Well, obviously it wasn't just the lawsuits from everybody trying to shut down Napster Joel (17m 1s): Not just Metallica. Ryan (17m 2s): It was lightning in a bottle with the iPod that the catalog, and it was cheap. You can buy, wow, I can buy one song for only a buck, right. Killed it, killed it. And obviously, boom, that you know, that the digital streaming ecosystem and the song, obviously more songs centric universe is now here. So I use that parallel because that's how I look at kind of the deep fake versus I'll call it legitimate voice synthesis or voice cloning as it's an interesting parallel. Like Napster the first thing that we've all been exposed to are the deep fakes, right? So we've seen the fake Tom cruise, you know, avatars, you know, people speaking, we've heard the spoofs of all have so many countless people where it's not their real voice, but it sounds just like their real voice. Ryan (17m 48s): And to be clear, those are, those are misappropriations of people's rights, you know, league legal case law and IP protection is going through, let's just say a crazy time because of the sophistication of AI and the synthetic content creation. The fact is you and I, we maintain the copyright, right? If you will, of my voice, it's all relative to an argument, right? I mean, if you ask a thousand people, right, did somebody rip off Tom Cruise's voice, right. And anybody who watches that video 99.9% of them saying that that person is trying to emulate Tom Cruise is look at link name and name and likeness, and they're trying to emulate their voice. So that is a misappropriation of IP rights. Ryan (18m 29s): And so the deep fakes that exploded in my mind were like all forms of new innovation is it was a vacuum. It was a novelty. People were interested in it. And if somebody wasn't, if there wasn't gonna be a legitimate platform to do it, people are going to create quote, "deep fix." So, I think, now we're, I'd say entering the commercial phase where now working with the IP owners. So these are the individuals direct, right? The influencers, you guys, right. Prominent, you know, you know, people both alive and who have passed away, the Walter Cronkite's of the world. You're now seeing legitimate opt in, or I'll say, you know, with consent to build official clones. Right. So we'll call these the official, not the deep fakes, but it's this frankly, a lot of the same technology, but it's the approved aspect with rights and protections around the use of these synthetic voices and content that you're now seeing today. Ryan (19m 24s): And that's obviously an area that we're building a business around. Chad (19m 26s): Gotcha. Okay. So back to you speaking Spanish, but not speaking Spanish, that was actually a clone voice that I heard on a podcast. Right? Ryan (19m 37s): Correct. So we took, yes. We took trainee data. And once we built, my synthetic voice, we then could feed it transcripts in Spanish. And then the output obviously came out in Spanish. And so we look at that as just, you know, really exciting for kind of next generation amplification of localization in foreign language distribution. Chad (20m 2s): That's where it hits podcasting. Okay. Because Joel and I, Joel barely speaks English. Okay. Joel (20m 6s): Bullshit. Chad (20m 7s): So we can, can you imagine, can you imagine the Chad and Cheese podcast in Spanish? Joel, but we wouldn't have to learn Spanish we would have a synthesized clone voice that would duplicate, and we could actually have local distribution into Spanish speaking countries. Joel (20m 23s): But does hairy balls translate into every language is the same as it does in English. Chad (20m 25s): Yes of course it does. Joel (20m 27s): I guess the question. Okay. Ryan, let me pick my brain up off the floor real quick. So when you did your voice in Spanish, did you say a certain number of words or syllables in Spanish and then it was your voice? Ryan (20m 42s): No, and that's what it's incredible. I mean, I created the synthetic model just from me speaking in English. Joel (20m 48s): Wow. Ryan (20m 48s): And then obviously as a company, we do both, you know, text translation at Veritone, as well as the voice that we are able to do everything, but no, that's, the beauty is, you know, with about 10 hours of training data and to get a really good quality voice. I mean, you need, you need, you know, I'd say good quality audio is training data, but again, we've gotten good enough that I can repurpose, particularly if you're a professional speaker podcasters, you know, we're sitting on lots of training data, but again, once I have that base model voice, I can do it. And vice versa. If I have a voice that's initially in Spanish, right. I can convert that into an English voice. Joel (21m 23s): And do all the nuances of your voice come over in that tone? Ryan (21m 28s): Exactly. So, and then you can continue, don't think of it as a binary one and done creation a model. You can continue to iterate it. So let's say I start with that 10 hours of training data. You, it just, we, you know, even with the sophistication of the text editor, I just can't get my Spanish voice to say, you know, I can't even think of a funny word right now, but just something a novel. Yeah, yeah. Groupo Televisa. Okay. There you go. Yeah. And I, no matter what, I keep trying to say that it's not coming out. Right, right. You can, you can, you can add then dictionary so I can, I can improve the model subtly for proper nouns and phrases to continue to improve it. But in terms of tone and inflection, it's pretty amazing what you can do with Text to speech now. Ryan (22m 12s): But just one comment though, I'm going to throw a little monkey wrench in here is we also support the modality of speech to speech, which is really cool. Chad (22m 24s): Wow! Joel (22m 24s): Explain that. Ryan (22m 25s): With the same training data, once Ryan's voice is created, I can actually use another voice actor to drive my voice. So I could have Chad right from this podcast, drive Ryan, Steelberg, me, drive my voice. So you're speaking in your own voice and what's coming out is my perfect sound of voice. Chad (22m 49s): Now that's scary shit, dude. sfx (22m 51s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (22m 51s): So, so overall, I mean, seriously, the text to speech thing is amazing. We have transcriptions all that other fun stuff, but I mean, this is where you get into, again, people step back. It's not just that it's crazy, but there's a lot of evil out there. And I know, you know, that the difference obviously between, you know, being able to legally use my voice and not, but there are a lot of people out there who I'm sure would yield this power for evil. How do you stop something like that? Ryan (23m 18s): You know, we do some interesting things when a voice is creative with our tech, we're able to embed, let's just say inaudible tones. And I'll say what we call them little, little Easter eggs that we can quickly scour distribution and verify not only is that, you know, is that a legitimate voice that, that Veritone and Marvel created, but did it actually come from the original training data? So I can actually map back, right? The output of a voice all the way back to the original training data. So very quickly we can see if we can scour in some groups, obviously with like YouTube, for example, that we can, we can pre index our content and to make. And so we don't, it's not like we just have to search every single YouTube video out there and to help create kind of that index. Ryan (24m 5s): Mobile phones is a lot easier, you know, where they're embedding, you know, via SDKs and the application. So if a misappropriated voice is on a mobile phone against the traditional players, it'll identify it. So I think ultimately is we're going to be able to police, it's going to start like everything, you know, bad apples are still in bad characters are still going to do bad things, but I think we're now producing tools fast enough that we'll be able to sniff those out and make it clear that, you know, kind of like a verified Twitter account, if you will? We're we're going to be able to get to that level of integrity here real soon. Chad (24m 41s): For all those kids listening real quick an SDK as a standard dev kit. Okay. So go ahead, Joel. Sorry. Joel (24m 43s): So when Putin comes on TV and says, we're at war with America, you guys can be like, eh, that's not him. That's a fake voice, et cetera, just making sure that that's the case. Well, most of our listeners will know you from your recent acquisition of Pandologic, who also owns a Wade and Wendy's. Chad (25m 4s): Crashing down the door, man. Joel (25m 6s): You know, why that acquisition, what's the vision? Help us out here. Ryan (25m 16s): We have built a really good position and market presence in media entertainment, as we've talked a lot about today and also government legal and compliance, you know, licensing and, helping again, our state and local law enforcement agencies, you know, our military our Department of Justice. And, but we were missing a lot of categories. We know we don't have a very robust FinTech or insurance business. The Pando opportunity was very intriguing to us because of frankly, the ubiquitous nature of hiring, right. I mean, and obviously we're doing an, a very acute issue with labor issues today, labor shortages, right? The great resignation. It's almost the biggest, I don't know, a single company that is not in some form or fashion, struggling to identify source, and land right candidates and quality employees. Ryan (26m 6s): We looked at this as a vertical expansion opportunity for Veritone number one. Number two, the way they built their business was extremely similar to how we look at problems. Starts with data ingested integration, working with the partners like Amazon and others, and then, and the output of their specific HR platform. There's many different areas of the HR equation and the stack, as you guys know, and talk about all the time, but Pandologic was really focusing on I'll call automated and programmatic recruitment advertising. So the ads that you see all over the web and other bulletin and boards, Indeed and other destination sites. So if you kind of look at the combination of what they were using AI to automate a lot of that process, you know, the data ingest side, and it happens to be at least the today their primary application, is that really an ad network, right? Ryan (26m 56s): For recruiting Spielberg's know that pretty well. Right? So that's an area that we felt not, not only confident in the AI backend side, but the output, the front end of their application, which is I'll call a specific ad network was something that we were very comfortable in and understand. Well, so it was a, it was a right time. We negotiated a great deal from a financial and business perspective and we brought it on board and it, and we did know what we were building with the synthetic voice, you know, that we were aware of what they were looking at with Wade and Wendy. So, you know, our big thing is, you know, we continue on to prove right, that the performance of their primary model, but we obviously are very excited about, you know, I would say improving the experience of recruiting from just I'll call it legacy based, text chat bots, and things to frankly, building more organic lifelike voices to have, you know, if you're trying to onboard a hundred thousand new employees in frankly a month, like Amazon, you're not gonna have a thousand recruiters on the phone that can we bring a more lifelike human experience of talking to Ryan Steelberg and not just going through an automated chat bot. Ryan (28m 9s): And that's obviously another area of excitement where we think we can bring a lot of innovation to Pandologic and frankly waiting Wendy. Wow. Chad (28m 18s): All of the, I mean, all of the data that Pandologic has not to mention Wade and Wendy, you are looking at more of an experience that is human, but not so human because it's cloned. Being able to perspectively drive the CEO's voice in a way through marketing messaging or a hiring manager or anybody actually in the hiring chain to be able to provide a much more humanesque experience. Is that what I'm hearing? Ryan (28m 48s): Yeah. You almost got it spot on. There has been a delineation between called corporate marketing budgets, right. And HR recruiting budgets. And even though the output, the form is a form of advertising. You're now seeing companies really bringing together, right. The Chief Marketing Officer and the head of recruiting and HR. Because again, to your point, if I'm trying to attract people to my company, it's not just what the listing looks like on Monster and Indeed. It's the commercials that I'm doing, right. Talking about all the great things we're doing at Veritone right. And so you're now seeing more coordination, more coordination in the marketing message, the brand attributes between traditional marketing and advertising and HR recruiting. Ryan (29m 34s): And obviously Veritone, you know, we've been pretty successful at both. We're bringing those closely together. If companies want continuity, which you're touching about, they want that same voice, the same person who maybe is even doing the commercials. Right. And they want continuity all the way to the onboarding HR process. We now can do that. If the companies think that that's the right decision, if they want really to consolidate and perfect that continuity. Joel (30m 1s): All right. So let me, let me get this straight Ryan. Chad (30m 5s): Wow. Joel (30m 6s): A company could hire Christopher Walken to do their ads, do a licensing deal with Christopher to do the interviewing questions. So people could have an interview situation where they're interviewing with Christopher Walken, at least his voice? Ryan (30m 18s): Spot on. Joel (30m 20s): Wow. Ryan (30m 21s): Now whether that's a good, just tell me one of you guys can do a Christopher Walken impression right now, because that would just close the loop. Joel (30m 28s): One of our outros is a Walken impersonator. So. Ryan (30m 30s): I mean, that's such an iconic right, voice, but what's spot on, right. If they, if that's their desire and they feel that that continuity is what they're trying to achieve. 100%, that's exactly what you could do. Joel (30m 42s): And that's video as well, or is it just voice at this point? Ryan (30m 46s): People demand a more consistent voice. Ironically, then I'll say the visual avatar side and we that's a whole other conversation. We go down. But you know, some people are not comfortable interacting with a hyper photo-realistic avatar. They like the pixelated one, it's a much more arbitrary, but voice, they don't want it to sound like a robot. They want natural sounding voice. Joel (31m 12s): So it can look like a crypto punk, but it has to sound like a human being. Ryan (31m 19s): Yeah. Dapper labs rabbit, right. It could be interviewing you. Joel (31m 23s): Board Ape interviewing you with Christopher Walken's voice. Got it. Chad (31m 26s): So this is amazing from a voice actor standpoint, because you can actually, obviously trademark have the real quote, unquote, "real synthesized" voice of, you know, Walken or Samuel L. Jackson or something like that. But you can scale much faster because you don't have to actually do all of the reads. Ryan (31m 44s): Yeah. The production savings savings alone is astronomical. We strongly believe that every writer that a voice actor or an actor ever does when they're on, when they're signing up to a production that will be negotiation of the use of the synthetic voice that just for post-production efficiency, right? There's so many different areas. You can go though. One little interesting tidbit about that is in the Adobe voiceover world, there's a gentleman, I forgot his last name, but in Germany, his name is Tiberius and Tiberius is the voice over actor for all Brad Pitt movies in Germany. So he's become famous for being the voiceover actor of Brad Pitt, and obviously, you know, we no longer believe that makes a lot of sense, right? Ryan (32m 31s): Brad Pitt and others have built a good brand equity in their own name and likeness. And so now when you start to see those movies internationally dubbed into a different language, it actually will be Brad Pitt's native voice. Chad (32m 43s): You put Tiberius out of work, you put Tiberius out of work. Ryan (32m 46s): I love you Tiberius but you've been, you know, praying on Leo and the other superstars and long enough. Joel (32m 54s): But he's been skating long enough. Ryan (32m 56s): I mean, he's a national treasure, but he's going to have to get in front of the camera and not just be the voiceover. Joel (33m 4s): Hasselhoff Tiberius will this work for people who are no longer with us, for example, could people working at Ford, get a voice message from Henry Ford in his actual voice that's customed to that, or do you have to be alive and go through the process. Ryan (33m 16s): You do not. If there's a lot of, we put those in the quote called the "legacy category." There's a lot of really interesting legacy projects that, you know, again, we try to be very impartial here, right? We're a tech enabler. This is iconic voices of the past. There's also a lot of effort where you have, I believe USC film school is helping involved in the Holocaust museum. They're trying to create amazing avatars and synthetic voices of some of the few remaining, you know, survivors from Auschwitz, for example, stuff like that. And recreate the voices, these iconic voices of the past celebrities. So we're, you know, I can't really go into detail. Ryan (33m 57s): You're going to hear some stuff that we're going to be able to release and talk about, but big iconic names. Joel (34m 4s): Fans, people's estates that are, have been dead can now make new mounds of money. Right? So like the John, the John Lennon, Nike ad is something that we may have to look forward to? Ryan (34m 19s): That's specifically has been deemed now via case law that the estate whoever's thinking controlling of the estate of the deceased has the authority to then to initiate the voice creation. Joel (34m 26s): Wow. I'm equal parts creeped out and totally fascinating. I need a drink. Ryan (34m 29s): That one's interesting, right? There's a lot, a lot of ways you can think about it. I can give you a million like, oh, yes, of course the other ones like, Ooh, man, that's gonna freak me out. Chad (34m 40s): I had to say, I, I know you're busy. You got to jump out in the lucid and, you know, go drive on the coast there in California, but we gotta have you back. Cause we want to hear more about this, especially how you execute in this space, in the hiring space. I know, I know it's part and parcel to what you guys are doing on in other areas as well. But we definitely want to hear how all of this connects, around Wade and Wendy and Pandologic. But again, I really appreciate you taking the time. Joel (35m 11s): As soon as we can have face-to-face with Terry Baker and Ryan over drinks on Newport Beach would be fine with me as well. Chad (35m 18s): That'd be good. Yes. Now I would enjoy that. Maybe cigars too. That sounds good. Ryan (35m 20s): Have you guys met Terry in person yet? Chad (35m 21s): Yeah, of course. Yes. Ryan (35m 22s): Okay. I mean, it's really funny because when you were born in like the Zoom world with a lot of these new people that you meet, right. You'd never really know how big people are or small. And I remember meeting Terry for the first time and I'm like, good lord you're like my offensive left tackle. He's he's huge. Like six' five". I mean, I love Terry. Chad (35m 48s): He's a big boy. Yeah. He's a big Teddy bear that Terry. Joel (35m 53s): Big teddy bear. Chad (35m 54s): Again, Ryan. Thanks for coming on the show. If somebody wants to learn more about Veritone, where should they go? Ryan (36m 0s): Go to veritone.com. We got, it's an easy to navigate site. We got help desk and a knowledge center. So anything you want to learn about from HR to crazy synthetic voices, you can find almost everything you want veritone.com. Chad (36m 20s): That's excellent, Man. Thanks so much, man. Joel (36m 22s): Thanks Ryan. Ryan (36m 24s): Thanks for you. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye. Joel and Chad (36m 26s): We out. OUTRO (37m 6s): 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 world of employment took a break from crowning unicorns this week, and that's just fine with Chad & Cheese, who have gotten a little tired of taking the crazy pills on such a regular basis. In its place, Hiretual has a new brand and new money in the bank, Woven took a Series A, Bullhorn created an investment arm, the NFL has a race problem (still), Home Depot is hiring too fast or not fast enough? ...and finally. OnlyFans has another termination (allegedly) to add to its portfolio. This time, a cop. You have the right to remain sexy unless it steps on our Puritan sensibilities. Take some crazy pills and 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. Tom Brady's retiring, Punxsutawney Phil says six more weeks of winter and thousands of American troops are headed to Europe as Russia stares down Ukraine. Hi kids. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. The feel good podcast of 2022. This is your co-host Joel "the wrong Ohio team is in the super bowl" Cheeseman Chad (42s): And I'm Chad "I'm going commando" Sowash. Joel (45s): And on this week, show HireTool is now easy like Sunday morning, Bullhorn has 20 million reasons to be their friend and stop or I'll launch an OnlyFans account. Let's do this. Chad (1m 2s): Ah, yeah. So Joel (1m 3s): Is it snowing where you are by the way? We're dealing with some snowpocalypse up here in Indiana. Chad (1m 8s): Nah, we, yeah, we, I do have ice and the bush, like the, well, the tree that's next to the house. It's kind of like a bush-like tree. It's all iced up and I can hear it just scraping against the side of the house, but yeah, we have like nothing when it comes to snow. Yeah. Joel (1m 24s): News alert everybody Chad has an icy bush. News at 11. Chad (1m 28s): Gonna warm it up. Can't wait. Joel (1m 33s): Oh, Chad (1m 33s): How much snow? Joel (1m 35s): No, we're probably up here. I mean, it's, it's continuing, coming down pretty hard right now. I'm going to say we'll get like eight to 10 inches. Okay. The good news is we're going to Phoenix soon and there will be no snow there whatsoever. Chad (1m 47s): Amen. And also the good news and this is definitely good news for Chris Russell because he wasn't happy with the Washington football team and he got the Commanders. Now he's not incredibly happy about the Commanders. He's certain to warm up to it. Joel (2m 3s): Chris, at a minimum should be happy they're not the Washington Guardians. Chad (2m 6s): I was hoping they would stay the Washington Football Team. Joel (2m 10s): Yeah, that's a tough one from an IP perspective. It's hard to trademark the football team. It is a lot of merchandise that is unlicensed when you're called the football team. Well, let's get to some shout outs. Shall we? Chad (2m 21s): Yes. Joel (2m 21s): A lot of news to cover this week. Stop me if you've heard this one before Chad, LinkedIn is back in court. So they have filed a federal lawsuit against Singapore-based Mantheos and its founders for the alleged unauthorized scraping of millions of LinkedIn member profiles using a network of hundreds of fake LinkedIn member accounts. Chad (2m 41s): Fake accounts! Joel (2m 42s): And virtual debit cards under fake names. Mantheos fraudulently obtained, LinkedIn sales navigator subscriptions, they then use these to scrape member profiles allegedly I'm shocked as you are as well. I'm sure. Chad (2m 57s): So we talked about fake LinkedIn accounts last week. So it's interesting that this is actually coming into the news and the courts. These are the dark arts of getting into a database and stealing shit. Right? This still goes back to the question of whether LinkedIn is it's their data or is it our data being the users. And I still think that we have a conversation to be had around that, but the way that these guys went after profiles, it's malicious. There's no question. Joel (3m 27s): You know, the challenge becomes profiles are commodity, and LinkedIn's going to try really hard to keep people those fake accounts and policing that and it's just, it's a constant whack-a-mole for them. And now it's on a global scale. So have fun with that. Chad (3m 41s): We saw companies doing this back in the early two thousands where they would get into Monster's database and they would send spiders iinto the database to go and extract. I mean, this is nothing new, right? So it's interesting. And that being said, leading into the next story, the FBI warns that cyber criminals are using fake job postings to gain access to personal data. sfx (4m 5s): Oh hell no! Chad (4m 5s): So we've always had to warn and protect against this type of activity although scammers are getting more sophisticated. Last week, Mick Griffin, the Chief Growth Officer over at Traffic in Poland said that they are seeing scammers use their 14 day free trial as a way to post free jobs into a system. And then those scam jobs are being distributed to hundreds, sometimes thousands of different job sites. So Mick and his team now are trying to manually validate all companies who requests quests the 14 day free demo. So here you have a guy in a team who's created a great lead gen system that now is turning into a chore to ensure scammers aren't scamming, right? Chad (4m 52s): And it's fucked up. Joel (4m 54s): It is fucked up and it's a problem as old as the internet and job postings. And when you get, you know, Google for jobs, I know this has been something that they're dealing with as Google's been dealing with spam of all kinds forever. I wouldn't be shocked if the Facebook issue was a lot of these fake things, scams that were going on, that they said, this just isn't worth the trouble, particularly overseas, where we don't have any jurisdiction or sort of legal system to fight it. It's a shame. You know, interestingly Craig's Craigslist revenue was largely built on these scams and saying, well, if we just charge a little bit, yeah, it's going to keep the spammers away because they're not gonna, they're only gonna spend 25 bucks to a hundred bucks to then, you know, not get what they want. Joel (5m 37s): So yeah, we have scammers to thank for Craigslist billion dollars that they made at least two years ago, because it was a way to fight all the spam that was going into Craigslist. So Chad (5m 48s): Yeah, well, if Google would just pick winners and losers and what I mean by that is actual trusted organizations to take data from, they wouldn't have this issue, but we have this, just this cesspool of job's data that's out there and they feel like they have to take all of it. And so did Facebook. They're fucking themselves. So at the end of the day, you can clean this up. There's no question you could easily clean this up. Now you're not going to have hundreds of billions of jobs or whatever the fuck is out there. Right? But you're gonna have clean data Joel (6m 18s): Yeah. And this is a win, it's a win for Indeed and ZipRecruiter and others that have sort of legitimate postings or at least the perception is all the listings are legitimate. Yeah. Chad (6m 29s): Unless, unless these different applicant tracking systems that are getting spammed are also pushing jobs into those ecosystems too. Right? So it's a virus, man. It could have infect, a lot just off of one posting. Joel (6m 41s): It's a virus with many variants that keep popping up and everyone's trying to find. Chad (6m 47s): And the motherfuckers won't get vaccinated. That being said T mobile shout out to T-Mobile. They are requiring their employees to show proof of vaccination by February 21st or face unpaid leave those employees on unpaid leave will then have until April 2nd to get vaccinated or you're gone, bye-bye go away. You're fired. Joel (7m 10s): And by the way, T-Mobile just reported some really good earnings. I know we've talked about them in the past with how well they treat their employees. And some of that shit pays off in a lot of different ways. So a congrats to T-Mobile. Chad (7m 24s): So I got to say though, continuing to push on this mandatory vaccine piece, this is interesting because we've received vacs mandate research from our friends over at Textkernel which shows that 8.1% of all us job listings have COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment. Some employers and specific industries are still hesitant to roll out these types of mandates since obviously it's already hard enough to find people to fill those positions. And that number would be much higher if the Supreme Court would have supported the mandate. Some of the industries that Textkernel actually reported on in breaking down the data, public administration was the highest with 14.6% of jobs saying, you know, there's mandatory vaccination. Chad (8m 21s): And then the lowest surprising yet not surprising, hospitality in food service at 2.6%. The people who are on the front lines, right? Joel (8m 29s): Yeah. Yeah. That's the catch 22. Chad (8m 34s): YEah, cause you can't fill the position. Joel (8m 35s): Wow. Great information for our friends at Textkernel. That's right, I got an air horn baby. All right. A shout out to Miller Light. I don't know if you knew this or not, but there's a big football game coming up Chad. Miller Light is on the bandwagon of the metaverse. So they're partnering with Decentraland. I haven't visited Decentraland, but it's apparently a place where you can buy real estate and hang out. And it's basically Second Life 2.0, for my understanding. Anyway, they're bringing a virtual bar to patrons during Super Bowl 56, which is in a week or two. The digital bar will be the only place where people can view Miller Light's ad. So they're getting around the whole, like, you know, placing an ad at the Super Bowl. Joel (9m 18s): There's going to do it their own little Decentraland location. Yes. Chad, why go to a real bar when you can just hang out in Decentraland? Are you in? Chad (9m 28s): This is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. If I want a beer, I want a beer. Right? And I don't, for the most part, I don't want their shitty beer. sfx (9m 37s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (9m 37s): That's how I feel. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! I read this and I was like, this is the stupidest fucking thing in the world. First off, nobody wants a virtual beer. Second. What do you think the odds are? At least the audience will be for this and the viewing of this ad in the metaverse drinking fake beer versus on the fucking Super Bowl? Joel (9m 59s): They will get more play out of this from saying, they're going to run an ad in the metaverse than actually people that are there watching the ad in the metaverse. If I had to make a bet, I think the PR that they're getting out of this, the fact that we're talking about it, this is like the new canceled ad or the ads that are too naughty to run. Like those tend to get more play than the actual ads, because they're too scandalous for the Super Bowl and the key masters won't let them into the game. So I think this is just brilliant PR I don't think they're going to get millions and millions of people in their bar watching the game and watching their Super Bowl ad. Chad (10m 33s): It's just makes me not want to drink their beer even more. Joel (10m 37s): As if you needed any excuse, not to drink Miller Light. Chad (10m 41s): Exactly. Exactly. Joel (10m 42s): Bougie beer drinker that you are. Chad (10m 44s): Thank you. Thank you very much. So big shout out to SHRM. What fucking idiots these guys are. Okay. So listen, it's black history month and SHRM drops a tweet pitching why you should be a member. And it's really wrapped around all of this black history month, right? So they're using this as kind of like a facade for black history month come join SHRM. That's not that that's not the big problem, right? Not one fucking person in this ad was black. It was, it was white women and men. And this tweet is just one of the many reasons why you should not be a member of SHRM. sfx (11m 29s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (11m 30s): Oh, wow. All right. Shout out to Gupy or Gupy. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. Chad (11m 34s): Let's go with Gupy. Joel (11m 36s): Anyway, the Brazilian startup, we're going to be talking more about south American companies. Chad (11m 39s): Got a Brazilian? Joel (11m 40s): That's part of my joke. Hold on. Chad (11m 42s): Okay. Joel (11m 43s): So a good be set on Monday. It has raised $93 million in a funding round led by our friends at SoftBank out of Japan founded in 2015. Gupy. Are we going with Gupy? Chad (11m 56s): I like Gupy. Joel (11m 56s): Gupy. Alright. Gupy, with one P sure, uses AI to select, hire and train employees. Brazilian isn't just my favorite form of manscaping Chad it's also a place that pumps out HR tech. See you ruined the joke. You ruined the joke chat. Nice. Chad (12m 16s): My bad. Yeah. My bad also a friends of the show. Rocket Matt, or Rocket Match who are, are of the Brazilian as well. Joel (12m 27s): This show's going south fast. Shout out to our friend, Jeanette Leeds. She was our beer drop winner from last month. She's doing a zoom tonight with our friends at Pillar and breaking news! Jeanette is now the managing director at Hourly by AMS. So big applause, Jeanette way to go. Chad (12m 50s): For all those who don't remember. Jeanette was at Oleo for a number of years. And guess what? Now she's at AMS. So that's a that's pretty big news! Joel (12m 59s): Was the interview we did with her on our show or her show? Chad (13m 2s): It was our show. And we did it at HR Tech like 2018 I think it was. Joel (13m 7s): She's in the archives somewhere. Chad (13m 8s): Yes. Joel (13m 9s): All right. So if you want to learn, learn Jeanette some more, get to know Jeanette, check out that interview we did with her. And with that. Chad (13m 18s): Birthdays? Joel (13m 18s): We're done with the shout outs. So podcasts from last week, make sure you guys check out Cult Brand Revolution with our friend, Chris Kneeland also our interview with one of the Wolf of Wall Street guys from this past week. All right, let's get to birthdays. Celebrating a birthday this coming week. Nick Fishman. Chad (13m 37s): Hello? Joel (13m 37s): He's my old boss. He's a background check icon. A lot of people don't know him, but Nick celebrates a birthday. Bad-ass Jess celebrates a birthday. Yes. Jason Dave Ralph, one of my favorite Irish Irishman. Dave Mendoza, old timer. Jennifer . Chad (14m 1s): Yes. Joel (14m 2s): One of your favorites. Elizabeth , Jacob Elizabeth Dunlap Martin. Don't call him Rodney Dangerfield, all celebrate birthdays in the coming week. Thanks for listening guys. Chad (14m 13s): And while you're at it, thinking about these birthdays, you might as well. If you haven't go and register for free shit at Chadcheese.com/free, you could win free beer delivered to your doorstep by Pillar.HR, you can win free whiskey. That's two bottles of whiskey. One from Joel. One from me. That is sponsored by our friends at Sovern/Textkernel. And last but not least, you could get a t-shirt good-looking threads, baby sponsored by Emissary.ai. Go to Chadcheese.com/free register. Win some stuff. Joel (14m 53s): Chad it's a combed cotton t-shirt it doesn't get any more comfortable than that. You know what I'm saying? Chad (14m 57s): Topics! sfx (14m 57s): Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Joel (14m 59s): All right. Our friends at or in the news, is Chad (15m 3s): It ? I thought it was hired. Joel (15m 4s): We'll get to that. We'll get to that. All right. They announced the closing of 26 million in funding, bringing the total raise to about $45 million. With the new funding, the company plans to invest further in product innovation, expand operations and scale the team globally. But wait, Chad. Chad (15m 27s): What? There's more? Joel (15m 28s): That's not all the company is also rebranding as Hire Easy. sfx (15m 32s): That was easy. Joel (15m 35s): Which the company says reflects its mission to make outbound recruiting well, easy. sfx (15m 38s): Easy peasy, lemon, squeezy. Joel (15m 40s): New money, new name, Chad, what are your thoughts? Chad (15m 43s): First off you weren't impressed with the $26 million. Why? Joel (15m 47s): It wasn't an impressed thing. It was like, well, in the shadow of Seek Out raising $115 million and being a unicorn, it seems sort of anticlimactic. However, talking to the company, the money was there to be had. It was a matter of sort of doing it strategically. And I think how these companies are evolving, sort of reflects that. So I backed down a little bit on it, not being impressive. I think it's a little bit more strategic. Chad (16m 12s): I think it's important for us to be able to take a look at, you know, the numbers and the tech and understand that, you know, there's more than one path and Seek Out, obviously going into unicorn land with all that fucking cash, they've also gone through a shit ton of dilution, right? Not to mention when you get that money, that much money, you do lose some control, especially over roadmap, go to market, a lot of things, right? So you're pushing a lot of different directions. So I think personally, it was smart not to take a lot of cash. And this also, I believe cements that they're going to be more focused on being a point solution rather than trying to be, you know, that one platform that suits them all. Chad (16m 57s): So I, I like their focus and the idea of not taking a shit load of cash, because obviously there aren't many organizations that can afford to buy, Seek Out after this, but Hire Easy. They're still in the target range. Right? So new name, I think it was necessary because I didn't know what their fucking name was in the first place. Some people said high hired tool. Some people said Hire Tool. Yeah. And, and I understand it was kind of like this play on words of hiring and being virtual and whatnot, but it just never worked for me. So this rebrand, even though some people are like Hire Easy, I don't get it. It's like it. Joel (17m 33s): Hurries. Chad (17m 34s): Yeah. Hurries. It made sense. And if you take a look at the logo, it's easy to understand it's Hire and then it's got the big, easy. So I think they're doing a good job there. Joel (17m 46s): Yeah. Yeah. You're cool with it. sfx (17m 47s): Easy peasy, lemon, squeezy. Joel (17m 48s): The people, find your business as quickly becoming a commodity. And it's kind of precious that the Joe Rogan story that we talked about, I think last week kind of comes into this play. So music is a commodity as well. Right? You sign the right licenses. Everyone can have this music. So in Spotify case, the pivot was let's get into podcasting. Let's get some of these personalities on board. It's apparently pissing off some hippies from the seventies. But ultimately I think that choice was something that they did to differentiate themselves. And our space is not much different. Everyone has these profiles. They're clearing houses where you can get access to them, their , where you can have access. Obviously some is fresher than others. Joel (18m 29s): And when you talk to recruiters, there is some difference there. But as we look at what I would say would be like the OGs of the sourcing technology business, Hiring Solved, Seek Out and now Hire Easy. They're all pivoting into different areas. So with Hiring Solved, the pivot was more like we're going to do internal search for you better than anybody else. And for Seek Out, it's like rule the world, cradle to grave platform, kind of kind of strategy. And with Hire Easy. From my perspective, it's sort of like a HubSpot for recruiting. Like we want to be the outbound marketing arm slash recruiting arm for a business. So which Pivot's going to work. Maybe all of them may be none of them, but I think that they're all forced to look at their businesses and say, we can't just survive on people search and people finder. Joel (19m 14s): We have to do more than that. And we're going to take our current crop of customers and our market share and try to grow that into new and interesting ways. So I think it's exciting that they're all sort of doing this or not stuck in their business as is. And obviously the investors believe in the vision. We'll have fun talking about it on the podcast, for sure. Yeah. Chad (19m 39s): So I think the, this new launch of brand and story and focus is good. There's no question. It helps. They're going to have to evolve the tech though. For example, making it easier for recruiters to email spam is nice, but it's not new it's table stakes today, right? It doesn't move the bar. Now, if the system could help a company nurture candidates versus spam, right? That's awesome. That's moving. And when you're talking about candidate enrichment, which they do talk about, I'd like to know how, because this is really what employers need to leverage. Better. Employers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on tech and recruitment marketing over the years to attract candidates into their system, then allow them to wither a way. Chad (20m 29s): So how can tech like Hire Easy help teams stop committing HR malpractice? I also believe that they are going to have to pick a side of the street to work. Currently Hire Easy has pricing for single recruiters. So a transactional model along with an enterprise model. And if I were an investor and to be clear, I am not, I would push hard for them to choose a side of the street. These types of models lend themselves to a big corporation, buying a cheap seat for a single recruiter as a test. And then for a myriad of reasons, the system doesn't get used like it should. And it's called a failed test, meaning you just lost an opportunity for an enterprise client. So I think they have to pick a side of the street. Chad (21m 9s): They can't have both. Joel (21m 11s): The side note left-field from that, they've done a really good job of the warm and fuzzies. Chad (21m 14s): Yeah. Joel (21m 14s): They were originally sort of a, you know, a tech heavy sort of cold organization. Chad (21m 20s): I blamed Shannon for that. Joel (21m 23s): Yeah. I mean, so, so Shannon Patrick York, a few of the other folks that they brought on, they've done a really good job at reaching out to the community. You've probably saw posts if you're connected to recruiters in this space about sharing pictures and videos and stories from the recent rebrand announcement and that's all Shannon and that team that they brought in. So one, if you're a company doing a rebrand, it's a really good idea to get the thought leaders out there. You and I were invited, but had other things we had to do, but it's a really good idea to bring the community into that process. Obviously it's good PR, but also they can speak intelligently about it. Joel (22m 5s): They've done a good job of that in addition to the money in the rebrand. So, yep. Keep on keeping on. sfx (22m 13s): Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Joel (22m 15s): All right. Let's talk about Woven. Chad (22m 17s): Yes. Joel (22m 18s): Indianapolis based and Firing Squad survivor who uses a combination of human and machine powered evaluators to uncover tech talent has secured $8 million in series A funding on the heels of its recently launched WovenMatch, which pairs hiring managers with experienced developers based on their Woven assessment results. Woven has more than doubled its revenue and head count over the past eight months. Woven plans to use the investment to expand Woven Match. Chad is Woven the real deal or just a lot of dream weaving? Chad (22m 49s): We talk a lot about this space all the time and it's necessary and it's booming. Five to 10 years ago we thought scale mats, educating recruiters on better ways to interview, but in today's world, that's not scaling at all. When they talk about some, you know, human interaction and then some machine interaction. Well that's humans really being able to provide behavior to train the machines. That's learning better ways to scale. So I believe Woven it's probably one of the most customized for employer platforms today. Although they will continue to grow through these customizations and build standard templates. Chad (23m 28s): And they'll continue to learn from engineer behavior, hiring manager behavior, and they'll, this will be more of a scalable platform so I can dig it. I think within 18 months, these guys will be, they should be acquired. Joel (23m 40s): That's a vote of confidence from Chad Sowash. I'll echo all that And also say Indy continues to be a hub for workforce tech doesn't it, baby? And Woven is just another success story. The site was built by a local kid who went to Rose Holman. He has some Indiana investors, Wes, who again, faced our Firing Squad. So if you want to know more about the company or him check that out, he's a smart, humble dude, which frankly we probably need more of in our industry. Chad (24m 9s): Yes. Joel (24m 9s): You know, looking at the likes of, you know, touring getting 156 million clovers, getting 15 million, I predict this is just the start for Woven and they're either going to intelligently get scooped up by an Inquirer, or they're going to get a series B and they're going to grow organically with a lot of the others that are out there. So it's a fun, local story to watch. Shout out, to Woven and their $8 million investment. Well, someone who doesn't need money in fact, they're giving money out, let's talk about Bullhorn. They announced the launch of Bullhorn Ventures, a dedicated corporate venture capital resource that will invest in and partner with early stage companies focused on helping staffing and recruiting firms, improve operational efficiency and boost top line growth. Joel (24m 57s): Bullhorn Ventures will launch initially with $20 million allocated for investments. The company joins other vendors such as Workday Randstad and Recruiting Ventures, which is tied to Paradox, to invest in industry startups. Chad, is this a good move or is it wasted capital? Chad (25m 17s): genius. So first and foremost, you have a marketplace where you can monitor new tech engagement with your customers. Now, before this was really just a good way to monitor for possible deeper revenue partnerships and or possible acquisition. Now Bullhorn can identify new tech, do everything I just said and invest in those startups. And then when you're investing in those startups, that means you have influence and possibly some control over roadmap, go to market and also the big one Bullhorn doesn't have to build as much tech in house as they have all these different controlled incubator environments happening. So it's pretty genius if they manage it, right? Joel (25m 55s): Yeah. You know, I'll echo some of that and dig in a little bit. So according to the census bureau, you may have heard this stat more than 4.4 million new businesses were created in the US in 2020. People had some time on their hands to start new ventures. But anyway, that this is the highest total on record in terms of businesses created, well, guess what? Somewhere in there might be the next Indeed or the next Greenhouse or the next paradox. So yeah, setting up an investment arm, that places bets that are relatively small, if we're talking only $20 million for someone like Bullhorn, eventually you're going to hit on a few of these and you're going to get your next acquisition, your next batch of executives, or top talent, maybe even your next market opportunity. Joel (26m 37s): Listeners will remember Bullhorn buying Cleveland based Able a few weeks ago. And I'm sure they want to get in on the next Able at the seed stage instead of after the, A round or B round, I think more companies need to do this good ideas come to light quicker than ever before you have AWS. I mean, servers or AWS, you've got developers over the place to help you build your vision. I mean, these companies are going to be popping up and to be able to act quickly and place bets on multiple companies, I think is really smart and more companies should follow suit. Chad (27m 14s): Yeah. And you also forgot that our friend Lievin in House of HR, they have like 400 million. Joel (27m 25s): Yes! $20 million hold our beer. Hold our beer. I think that's I hear Lieven, saying that right now. Hold our beer. Chad (27m 31s): Exactly. Exactly. Joel (27m 31s): Yep. Good point. Let's take a quick break and get into some racism. That sounds entertaining. Chad (27m 37s): Ouch. Joel (27m 37s): Oh Chad, the NFL is at it again. All right. I'll read the news here and then I'm sure we'll both have comments. All right. So Brian Flores, former coach of the Miami Dolphins has sued the NFL and three teams, including the Dolphins, Broncos and Giants alleging discrimination regarding his interview process with Denver and New York and his firing last month at Miami. Flores was fired January 10th, despite recording the Dolphins first back-to-back winning seasons since 2003 has also alleged that the Giants interviewed him last month for their head coaching vacancy for no other reason than compliance with the NFL's Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for their open positions. Joel (28m 20s): The law firm representing Flores said they hope to quote "shine a light on the racial injustices that take place inside the NFL." A little bit more on the Giants issue for my understanding Bill Bellacheck, future Hall-of-Famer coach of the New England Patriots texted Flores Congratulations on the Giants job when he hadn't even interviewed for it yet. And Bellacheck said, sorry, it was for somebody else. So basically. Chad (28m 45s): Wrong, Brian. Joel (28m 46s): Yeah, the wrong Brian. So the Giants allegedly hired a guy and then we're bringing in Flores only to fulfill the Rooney Rule. Chad (28m 53s): Yes. Joel (28m 54s): That's the new story, Chad. I know you have some opinions. Chad (28m 58s): Yeah, I mean the Rooney Rules started off, I think was well-intended, but it's turned into the definition of performative, which means it's all for show. It's really what it is. And when you take a look at Bellacheck's text, even before Flores had a chance to interview, they had already made the decision. And then we take a look at, okay. So the Rooney Rule we have to at least have one black perspective head coach interviewing, right? Well, let's take a look at the demographics of the NFL, real quick. So Statistica numbers from 2020 shows that the NFL in itself, the players have 25% white players, 58% black players. Chad (29m 45s): There is one count them one black head coach in the NFL. There has never, I repeat, there has never been a 50/50, let alone, you know, 60% of NFL head coaches are black, that just, that has never happened. So we're, we're talking about the actual makeup, the composition of the NFL community. So this means over half again, half of the NFL coaches today should be black. Joel (30m 12s): You mentioned one head coach, how many black owners are there? Chad (30m 16s): I think zero. Joel (30m 16s): Zero. Chad (30m 17s): Yeah. Joel (30m 17s): You know, this is an organization steeped in, I don't know, rich white people controlling the game. They have no government oversight. They're not a public company. You know, their stock can't crash when something like this happens. The status quo is the goal. You have an organization that is just built to do shit like this. And I, I think that the Rooney Rule was put in there to like pacify the press, pacify the, you know, the union. But it has become a veil to be racist because now you can say, well, we have the Rooney Rule. Like we were making progress, right? It's like when Facebook fucks up elections, they go, oh, we're getting better. We're trying to better ourselves. We're always learning. You have an organization with no oversight. So this shit happens. Joel (30m 57s): People aren't going to stop going to games. They realize that, you know, if a player like Colin Kaepernick gets out of line, he gets blackballed from the organization. Probably poor choice of words on this but I can't think of another one. So there's a system of like, don't talk out, take your money, shut up, play the game and let the people in the ivory tower deal with this. Yeah. If you file a lawsuit against the NFL, like why do you think Brian Flores is going to coach again in the NFL? No, no, no chance in hell. Chad (31m 31s): Well, look at where Kaepernick's at. Joel (31m 34s): Totally. So, so huge, huge kahunas on Flores to realize like I'm throwing away my career, at least in the NFL for this bigger mission. But again, people aren't gonna stop going to games. The local governments want football teams in their city. So they're not going to do anything. That's gonna, you know, upset the apple cart. What I'm going to find really interesting is the pop culture or the cultural kickback on this. And probably more than in the last, since probably Prince performed, I'm more excited about the halftime show this year than I have been a long time. So for those that don't know, we've got Dr. Dre, we have Snoop Dog, we have M & M, we have Mary J Blige and someone else who's probably too young. Chad (32m 15s): Kendrick Lamar. Joel (32m 15s): Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. Too young for me to know. So you have a group of people that are icons in the black community. They've built their careers on being like of the streets, of the people in that, in that, you know, in those neighborhoods. So those folks have to be talking about what are we going to do to raise awareness about this issue? My wife thinks they're going to tank the whole thing. I'll be shocked if they just say, we're not going to perform, but there's gotta be a, you know, Olympic black glove moment, or there's gotta be, you know, I can't breathe t-shirt or there's gotta be something that these performers do to raise awareness because it's just come to a head. And I think the halftime show is going to be huge because the world's going to want to know what are these performers going to do? Joel (32m 60s): Because they have more money than God. All of them. Chad (33m 3s): Yes, exactly. Joel (33m 4s): They have nothing to lose. They probably have everything to gain by, by going against the man, which they've done their whole career. So I'm really interested to see how that goes, because I like you see this as a major problem. I just don't know how you solve it. Halftime show tune in. It'll be interesting. I promise not since Janet Jackson's nipple made an appearance, will the halftime show be this entertaining? All right, let's talk about home. Actually. I'm gonna, I'm gonna chime in here because we got some news on Home Depot and how they hire. But I mentioned my son Cole, who's 15 being on the job search. So I have an update. Joel (33m 45s): If you missed last week, he's applied, really I've applied, which has been eyeopening for me. He's applied through me to Subway sandwiches. Chick-fil-A. Culver's, which is kind of a regional burger burger joint. And McDonald's who everyone knows. So I talked about those application processes. Now I can talk about the interview process, which has been interesting. So Subway, we didn't hear shit. So the usual the black hole was in effect on Subway. Chick-fil-A I applied, got a text message back scheduled, a Zoom call. Cole went on the Zoom call. They had a nice branded Chick-fil-A image before the call and a kid came on, but he probably does a hundred of these a day, had about a four minute interview thanked Cole for his time. Joel (34m 27s): And then peaced out. I got an email a few days later saying thanks. But no thanks. Which was fine. So Chick-fil-A sort of dot all the I's and cross the T's. Yeah. Culver's so we apply, got a text with a phone number that says call us. So I had Cole, call them. They scheduled an interview for 4:30 on Monday or whatever. So we went down to Culver's. The person at the cash register says, Hey, Margie, there's an interview here. Margie says, I have an interview today? Chad (34m 50s): Yeah. Joel (34m 51s): Like, oh shit. I didn't know. And then like, give him a Coke, have him sit down and I'll get with them as soon as possible. Chad (34m 57s): Tell him to have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. Joel (34m 59s): Have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. He sits there for 20 minutes and he texted me cause I'm waiting for him outside. And he says, should, should I just bounce? And I said, well, no, go to the front desk and ask for the manager, say how much longer is it going to be? Anyway, the manager clearly did not have time for Cole. So we left. I being who I am and what I do. I called the number and who, which was HR. Yeah, they were apologetic. They said, we're going to make this right. They said, we'd love to have you come back. If we want to reschedule, which we might still do. So Culver's is disparate, probably unlike many regional restaurants. Joel (35m 41s): Now McDonald's, you know, home and here and we love Paradox. But the chat experience like that whole thing was, was a plus compared to the other competitors. Chad (35m 53s): Yes. Joel (35m 53s): Being what we talk about regularly. It's good to get out there and actually apply to these jobs and see how these companies do it. Cause many are falling on their face. Chad (36m 7s): Yes. At the very least. Joel (36m 8s): Okay. Onto home Depot. And this is from CNN. Home Depot has a plan to combat the worker shortage. Speedy job offers. We're talking frequent Jimmy John's fast. Chad (36m 17s): No we're not. Joel (36m 18s): Chad, the world's largest home improvement retailer said Tuesday, "that job applicants could receive an offer within one day of applying" end quote. Home Depot said the quick hiring strategy as part of its plan to hire more than 100,000 new associates ahead of its busy spring season. In addition to speeding employment, the company also offers up-skilling programs, tuition, reimbursement, a cash bonus program and discounted stock purchases. We've heard strike while the iron's hot Chad, but is this taking it too far, Chad (36m 49s): Too far? It's not far enough. So it quote from the article, "the move by Home Depot underscores, the difficulty businesses are facing as they try to fill open positions," end quote. So then why, oh, why is Home Depot making people wait a whole damn day? This is, to me, mind fucking blowing. These positions are not high risk positions. And this could literally be the offer can be provided at the interview. Give them the offer contingent on background, check if it's necessary, then start the onboarding phase. Right? So many hourly platforms today can engage candidates, screen, schedule the interview and even host the interview on the platform. Chad (37m 37s): All right there. Then, you can make the damned offer, pending and contingent on whether you have a background check. What the fuck ever. Right. So why is a Global VP of Talent Acquisition puffing up his chest in a CNN article? This is substandard at best dude. I expected better from Home Depot. I hope Lowe's and Menards are listening because to be quite Frank, if you are not providing an offer and putting it in front of the person's face that day, that second, you fucking lost them. Joel (38m 5s): Well, you're feisty on this one. So one thing America does better than anyone else is fire people. Chad (38m 9s): Yes. Joel (38m 9s): We're efficient at it. We're good at it. Hell we do it on Zoom now. Like we know how to fire people. So why can't we hire people at a similar rate, right? Like why can't we hire people on the day that they come in and interview? Why can't we turn that around quickly? And I get their issues with, well, we want the best candidate, but in service industries and things that need people now. Chad (38m 33s): A hundred thousand people. Joel (38m 34s): Right? Like yes. A hundred thousand people. Yeah. I mean, you know, dot your I's and cross your T's. Make sure you're protected the background. Check shit. Like make sure all that happens. But look, you know, my dad used to say, win fast, lose fast. And this strategy is great because you're getting people in the door look, most people when they're looking for job of this level, like they just want the job. And if you're the first one to offer it to them, guess what? They're not even going to talk to the other companies that they apply to who are waiting. Chad (39m 3s): You're gonna wait 24 Hours. They're not going to be the company though. Joel (39m 8s): Exactly. So, so speed kills. This plays right into that. It's the American way. Home Depot is blazing a trail that I think a lot of other retailers are going to have to follow or lose out to Home Depot. Chad (39m 25s): Yyou miss the whole point. They are waiting 24 hours. They should not have to. They should actually offer right there. Joel (39m 33s): That's lightspeed compared to everyone else though. I'm applying to restaurants that are begging for people under my son's name. And it's taking days. Chad (39m 42s): You're talking about local franchises versus corporations is, are entirely different. Go to go to Lowe's and Home Depot. Those are all corporate owns. They're not franchises, right? So that's that's onions and apples, entirely different. Joel (39m 54s): What you're saying is Home Depot is too slow. Like they're fast, it's a comparative issue, right? Chad (39m 60s): And they need a hundred thousand fucking people. What they should be doing and if they want to blaze a trail. they should be presenting offers to that individual on the interview. They have a hundred thousand fucking positions to fill! Waiting 24 hours is dumb. Do it now. Joel (40m 18s): Here's a new strategy for companies go to the maternity ward of all your local hospitals. And as soon as babies are born, give them a job. Chad (40m 26s): Now you're just being stupid. Joel (40m 28s): Now I'm just being an asshole. Let's take a break and talk about OnlyFans. That'll cheer us up. All right, Chad, it's another OnlyFans firing story. Chad (40m 39s): Wholly shit. Joel (40m 40s): Get excited, get excited baby. Chad (40m 42s): Another one? Joel (40m 42s): Listeners will remember a nurse that got fired for raising blood pressures on the popular fan site. And now you can add a cop from Colorado 48 year old, Melissa Williams, a now former Sheriff's deputy retired with a $30,000 separation agreement instead of facing an internal investigation over her OnlyFans page, which was discovered as always by a coworker after about 18 months of being on the platform where she got naked and banged her husband for cash. How much cash you ask? the New York post reports, a monthly take of $4,000 a month. It could be a case of, he said, she said, however, the Sheriff's office said in a statement, quote, "Ms. Williams was not fired, nor was she forced to leave. Joel (41m 22s): Ms. Williams allegations appear to be nothing more than an effort to manufacture a newsworthy story to drive traffic to her website." Chad is Ms. Williams, a victim of jealous coworkers, or just your regular everyday marketing genius? Chad (41m 36s): Probably a little bit of both. First we get first we get a nurse. You forgot about the teacher. There was also a teacher and now a cop. Nurse, teacher, cop, are you fucking kidding me? Side hustles are becoming a bigger thing first and foremost. So we need to start thinking about that. And we have to remember that those individuals are there to do one of two things. There is an hourly quotient that they are there to work for you and, or there's a project timeline in which they need to provide deliverables right? Beyond that Fuck you that's my time. Would the police department had an issue if she were selling art on Etsy, right? Chad (42m 19s): No Joel (42m 20s): I guess. Chad (42m 21s): I doubt that they would. Actually reached out to one of my friends who's a police officer and I said, Hey, look, is it okay for you to actually do security? And he's like, well, we have to go through the department. And for the most part, no we can't. But in Indianapolis, Metro, you can. You can pretty much do whatever you want. So it depends from department to department, but, I said, okay, so what about other side jobs? He's like, oh yeah one of my friends actually owns a bike shop. So this is all about moral standards. I think that the police department is actually going after, because if Joe has a bike shop, they're like, oh yeah, Joe's got a bike shop. Chad (43m 3s): And I bought my last bike there, but she has an OnlyFans account and that's not fitting with our morals and standards and so on and so forth. So there has to be some type of regs that are put in place for them locally so that they can actually manage this shit, you know? And she only got $30,000 severance after 28 years. Joel (43m 22s): Yeah. But she's making four grand a month screwing her husband on camera. Anyway, besides the point. Chad (43m 28s): That doesn't have anything to do with what she got from the cops. Joel (43m 33s): Beside the point, I couldn't, I couldn't resist. I was a little surprised this happened in Colorado, which is such a progressive weed smoking state. I wonder how many companies are changing their sort of employment policies, because there was a time where like your social media, you know, activities were sort of monitored or like, Hey companies had, we gotta have a policy around social media. I wonder how many companies are creating social or like policies around OnlyFans type sites or OnlyFans in particular because my guess is a lot more will be doing that. Cause there's going to be lawsuits. There should be lawsuits. Chad (44m 6s): There should be. Joel (44m 7s): I'm sure part of her $30,000 separation agreement was you can't sue the city or the police department or whatever. Chad (44m 14s): We got off cheap, they got off, they got off very cheap. And it was a matter of fact, I actually sent this news article to my, my police officer, buddy. And he's like, damn, you know, she only got $30,000 from this after 28 years. I'm like, yeah, no shit. Right. We have to start thinking about work differently. Yes, we were talking about OnlyFans, but this has to do with any side hustle that's out there, and I'll throw out there. There's a very good friend of mine who used to be a VP in a fortune 50 organization. Chad (44m 59s): She's not doing that anymore. She's happier doing different side hustles where she's making more money and she's getting more time to herself. Joel (45m 7s): Is it an OnlyFans page? Chad (45m 8s): It's none of your business. Joel (45m 11s): Oh, so we have teacher, nurse and cop what's the next profession to get pinched lawyer? Chad (45m 20s): HR manager. Joel (45m 21s): HR Manager. sfx (22m 13s): Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Joel and Chad (45m 23s): We out. OUTRO (45m 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

The world has changed and so has the employment branding game. That's why Chad & Cheese have relaunched the Cult Brand series with the help of RecruitmentMarketing.com's Julie Calli. And what better guest to bring on the show than marketing magic man Chris Kneeland of Cult Collective? The group discusses issues around holistic brand, HR's newly minted seat at the table, branding in a post-pandemic and WFH world and much, much more. 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. Joel (26s): Oh yeah, who's ready for a little Cult Brand conversation? What's up everybody? It's your favorite podcast the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my partner crime Chad Sowashington. Today we welcome a third wheel to the cohost roster Julie Kelly member of the recruitmentmarketing.com community. And you know him, you love him, you missed him terribly Chris Kneeland co-founder of the Cult Collective. Should we take a second to let Julie say hi? Chad (1m 7s): Okay. Julie (1m 7s): Hello. I'm happy to be part of this conversation. I'm a huge fan of marketing, but focus on the employer side of marketing. I think it's harder to sell, showing up to work every day for a company than it is to sell a pair of sneakers or a product. So I enjoy the challenge that comes with recruitment marketing. Chad (1m 31s): Wow. Did you detect a little snark there from Julie? Well it might've come from one of the earlier inteviews we've had with Chris. Here's a clip. Joel (1m 43s): Why aren't marketing and HR talking to each other? Chris (1m 47s): I really don't know. Chad (1m 48s): You should've seen his face. Chris (1m 51s): You know a couple of things. I think the HR professionals in many cases have a lot of insecurity when they get into audience engagement stuff, there's glaring, you know, they don't go to school to learn this stuff. They don't go to conferences to learn this stuff. And so you don't want to lean into weaknesses typically. And marketing, I think feels overwhelmed. Like they already have a pretty big to-do list. And so you're now asking me to do one more thing. And my point is your to-do list would actually get less if you started with the employees, all these other symptoms that you're focusing on would go away. Joel (2m 23s): Does marketing look down on HR? Chris (2m 26s): I kind of think most people look down on HR. Chad (2m 33s): But to be fair, that was back in February of 2019. And Chris's thoughts on HR and recruiting, much like the rest of the corporate world has evolved since then tell him, Chris. Chris (2m 53s): There was I think a, a strong belief that the HR team and the HR objectives were largely irrelevant to what the business and the brand leaders were talking about. That I think that there was an unhealthy disrespect and it wasn't me saying I disrespect them, it was me saying when I go into boardrooms, I don't see HR executives at the table. I don't see them talking about solutions that are going to make their businesses better. They, and frankly, it was because we had this mentality, I think that labor was cheap and easy and that we could find people to fill our stores. And you know, now that we're dealing with the great resignation, now that the McDonald's by my house has assigned saying, we're paying $19 an hour plus you choose your own schedule. Chris (3m 42s): Plus we'll give you tuition reimbursement. Like it's just a different day. Joel (3m 47s): Plus a free iPhone. Chris (3m 49s): It's insane. You know, it's like now people are realizing that the biggest inhibitor to our growth is our inability to fill positions and so it's a completely different world. And the HR issues are at the forefront. And the bigger question now becomes who's best qualified to solve those issues because I still see HR teams as being understaffed and underfunded and they need to tap into additional skillsets and additional budgets to help them. Joel (4m 17s): Are they at the table now? Chris (4m 18s): I think they are absolutely at the table. Let me just tell you, I got a phone call from a CEO the other day, multi-billion dollar company who said Chris, I mean, we typically are viewed as creating external engagement, right? And she was already, can your company help us? We're down 800 positions. We need to fill 800 roles. And I just loved the fact that she's thinking about, can we use marketing agencies and marketing tactics to help us fill what the CEO is saying as the biggest challenge facing their ability to hit their revenue this year. Chad (4m 51s): That's awesome. Julie, I've got to ask you a question though, off of this. So why hasn't HR been at the table? We've been whining for years about not having a seat at the table. There's a reason for that. So from your seat, what is that reason? Why haven't we been at the table? Julie (5m 8s): Well, I think it's often been that talent acquisition has been reviewed as a cost center. It costs money to hire people, to invest in the technology, to do all of the activity that's involved with recruitment. And then of course, you know, you look for, well, what is the return of that investment? And the return is every dollar that the company makes in revenue has to do with it's people making that happen. So, yes, there's an external audience that you have to care about and the perception of the world and what they have of the products and services that you offer, but also the internal and getting people to show up to work every day in which powers your company and the work that's done every day. Julie (5m 52s): So I think people viewed it as a cost center. It was a thing you had to do to get by, but now companies are having this boardroom level conversation about, we can't grow without our people. Joel (6m 3s): Chris, do you think it goes deeper than that? Because marketing is technically a cost center, isn't it? I mean, was it more of just a general disrespect for the office? Chris (6m 12s): You know, I don't know if it's disrespect. I think it was certainly taken for granted. I think that supply was higher than demand and that if they thought about, I mean, listen, I've been in many rooms where they say we're going to open a new store in this city. Never once was there a conversation, "I wonder if we're going to be able to get 200 people to apply?" There was this assumption that there was just going to be talent whenever we made the opportunity. And probably some ego that businesses would say, well, certainly people would want to work with us. And it wasn't until they realized why isn't anybody working with us? Or why are we having to spend so much money to beg people to come work here? That they had to really start to look in the mirror and say, maybe we're not as desirable as we thought we were. Chris (6m 55s): And a lot of that is their brand and a lot of that is their culture. Joel (6m 58s): Yeah, I was gonna say, so the conversations now that HR is at the table is the conversation. How do we build a better brand in terms of attracting talent? Is it more about how do we better market and advertise our positions? Or is it a little bit of both? Chris (7m 14s): Yeah, that's right. So I'd love to hear what Julie has to say. I think the old mentality was how do we create, you know, HR policies, benefits that will attract people. And what we're trying to say is if you have a brand, I mean, what's a better sign of like adoration, a customer who comes and buys something once a month, a customer who comes and buys something and tells their friends how much they love it, or a person who applies to work at your company saying, I want to spend 40 to 50 hours a week with you, right? I mean, that is the ultimate sign of adoration. Julie (7m 49s): There it is. Chris (7m 49s): Is that I love this company. And when we see it, we've seen it with Zappos. We've seen it with Yeti. You know, when there's certain businesses that don't even have to do anything. It's one of the symptoms we look at when we are interviewing brands for the gathering is how much investment are you making in what we call bribery, paying people to go out and find people to come and work there, versus you're just fielding hundreds or thousands of unsolicited inbound resumes, because you've built something that people are begging to be a part of. Julie (8m 19s): That's the word right? Begging to be a part of. And that is a cult brand, right? And to be somebody that you want to show up to work for every day, is a much higher level of commitment to ask for. And if you're a brand, no matter if it's what you do or how you treat your people, or the benefits that you offer, if you're a brand that's like emulating, like this is the place to be, and everybody's lined up to be there, then you've arrived at that Cult Brand, couldn't be a bigger fan to say, I want to work for you. That's really the be all for a brand is that somebody loves your brand enough, that they want to show up and help you make it greater. Chad (8m 57s): Amen! Joel (8m 58s): So I think that goes to our sort of holistic brand commentary because Chris, I think you would believe, I think you would think that, you know, someone that loves Yeti, they love Yeti because of the brand that it emulates in terms of a consumer brand, but not necessarily how are their benefits and what's their time off policy, right? So the two schools of thoughts of, Hey, it's the one holistic brand that's gonna sort of achieve both realms or both strategies, or are we still at a place where we have, you know, the consumer brand? And then we have this separate brand about what it's like to work here? Both for Julia and Chris, where do you think we are in regards to holistic brand and employment brand? Julie (9m 39s): I've heard you say before Chris, that they should be one and the same. And I really agree with what you said, and I've heard you say in the past is, that a brand shouldn't have two separate branding, it's employer branding and it's consumer branding. It's brand should be one. But I think that companies struggle to make that, they're two different communication groups, but you can still be one brand. Chris (10m 4s): Yeah. I mean, you know, if you replace the word brand with reputation, you know, people would get disappointed. If you love air and be Airbnb as a brand, you may be a host or that's your preferred way to travel, is you stay overnight there. And then you were to be reading horror stories about how they treat their people and their high turnover and their CEO is an asshole. And all those types of things, it would damage your perception and your affinity for that brand. Now you could decide I'm going to overlook it because I still love the value, but it would, it would absolutely hinder your ability to reap all the benefits of cult-like status. Chris (10m 45s): Versus when you sink, when you think of something like Yeti, I mean, half of it, what I think we're seeing through the great resignation is the idea of just life is too short to spend my time with people, places, or things that don't bring me the ultimate joy. And so if I just love hunting, camping, and fishing, I'm not gonna, you know, work in a factory all day and then hunt and camp fish on the weekend. I want to be doing hunting, camping, fishing all the time. I'm going to find brands that are in that space. And we're seeing that with hospitality or travel or automotive or apparel, people are just sort of reprioritizing how do I want to spend my 40 hours a day? Not just my nights and weekends. Chris (11m 26s): So that's part of your brand. Do you clearly, you know, dominate a space and the higher affinity, you know, if people love, I was looking at a job the other day with a sports team, and I was just thinking to myself, how are you not just overwhelmed with applicants? Because everybody that loves, you know, football is going to want to be associated with this brand. And so that's an privilege that your brand can be associated with something that people can get actually enthusiastic about. Now, if you're waste management or, you know, utilities, you're gonna have a bigger burden because people don't get as excited about that. And that's why you're starting to see this heightened emphasis on brand purpose. Chris (12m 5s): You know? Yeah. Maybe your business is, you know, copy machines and nobody gets excited about color copies, but if you could be tethered to, we enable entrepreneurism and we're feeling that now all of a sudden you can get employees lathered up about that again. So part of it's brand purpose, part of it's your category. And then part of it's just the reputation of what are the policies and practices that make sure people feel valued and appreciated when they're there? Chad (12m 32s): Copy machines, they still have those. Chris (12m 34s): Yeah they do. Julie (12m 35s): And it's also that they feed each other, they are interconnected, right? Because I make consumer decisions based on how I know a company treats its people, right. I I'm loyal to Chobani yogurt because I know how well they treat their people. I hear stories about all the time at their profit sharing that they give to their employees. That makes me go to the grocery store and say, put that yogurt back to my kids. I don't know how they treat their people, get the Chobani cause I know that they treat their people well. So that affects the consumer side as well. Chad (13m 11s): Going beyond that and talking more on the grander scale, Chris, you guys have eight cult brand principles. Would you think that those all extend to marketing on the recruitment side as well? I mean, you still have to pick a fight because you have competitors and you want to try to get the best talent, right? You a want to co-create have purpose all these things they resonate with getting the best talent. Would you agree, or would you say that maybe some of those eight, they just, don't quite fit? Chris (13m 42s): No, I totally agree. And I often get worried because one of the eight is very HR and culture centric. This idea of building from the inside out. And we have seen clients kind of cherry pick that one, throw it over the fence to their HR peers and say, can you guys do that when we're going to do the other seven? It's like, no, no, no, this needs to, this must remain across functional things because you get back to things like if your remarkability has any aspect of your people, if you're claiming your service or your call center or your sales team is part of what makes you special now instantly you don't get to delegate that to HR that that is core to your brand. If you're a brand purpose and then even things like congregate or co-create, you know, we're really big fans of customer and employee advisory councils. Chris (14m 29s): We don't really like culture committees anymore because culture committees have been sort of relegated to planning the Christmas party. So we have to like rebrand a new institution of an employee or a people advisory council, where technically we got to get away from these sort of autocratic. So, you know, kind of mandates that come down from on high. In a perfect company, the CEO is almost negotiating with or counseling with their customer and their employee advisory councils to say, now, can you guys share this or, you know, kind of do more of a bottom up and create a bit of a, you know, we can't really use the virus metaphor anymore, but you kind of, you know, we, the idea was to sort of infect the organization like a virus using the rank and file versus something that comes down from the C suite, because those sort of autocratic regimes are oftentimes being held now as bad examples of sort of flawed leadership and management styles of the past. Joel (15m 25s): Got a question you may have heard of the news recently, Airbnb's CEO, Brian Chesky is sort of roaming the world, I think over the next year, staying at Airbnbs and working from there and looking at sort of the role of the CEO and building brand and sort of the new world of work from home. What is your take on the principles and what is Brian trying to do with his trek around the world? I assume he would be more productive in California working at the headquarters, but it seems like he's killing a lot of birds with one stone by doing this around the country, around the world Airbnb stay. Chris (16m 2s): Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, I think Brian is one of the top 10 CEOs in America right now. People would do well to sort of study him and the way that they handled their layoffs in the early days of the pandemic. Joel (16m 13s): Talk about that for those that don't know or remember what he did. Chris (16m 16s): It was very public. You can Google it. It was just incredibly humane their business, you know, particularly in the first quarter of the pandemic, when we kind of thought that everything that we knew was gonna fundamentally change for the worse. They had to do some significant layoffs and not only were they generous in the sense of their severance, but they were just really humane. And that's one of the corporate principles on being relatable. It was obvious how painful this was. It was clear that it wasn't taken lightly and that every other option was exhausted before they kind of came to this. And I think it was just really well received, partly because he did a really good job with it. Chris (16m 60s): And partly because the contrast at the time of other organizations that were doing it much worse just made his approach seem all the better. Chad (17m 9s): Yeah. I'm a huge fan of whatever you want to call it, eating your own dog food, drinking your own champagne, whatever it is, it just on a much larger scale you're demonstrating that you believe in your product and you want to use it. And you believe in your hosts, right? And you believe in the whole infrastructure that in the brand that you've built, I think it's pretty amazing. We're talking about HR or recruiting, working with marketing. I want to hear from you Chris, and from Julie, how can that be done better? We do have great examples of some recruiting leaders who have worked very closely with marketing and with their CROs, but how can we do this better as a whole? Chris (17m 53s): Well, it's dangerous cause I don't know Julie and her company well enough to know whether they're going to be a part of my good example or my bad example. Chad (18m 1s): She'll tell ya. Chris (18m 3s): But listen, I think recruitment is an example of and I put it up there. We're sort of like with real estate agents that they serve a valuable role, but it hasn't really been in my mind, demonstrably improved upon in 20 years, they haven't exploited a lot of the digital tools other than just using them to, you know, source versus create community. So I think one of the challenges I have with traditional recruitment is it's very transactional. You know, we don't really have a relationship until an opportunity has come up. There's, it's very one way in the sense that it's me with the recruiter versus me with other applicants or me with the employer. Chris (18m 46s): I think nurturing communities of people that have expressed interest in a role that can maybe be fostered for months, if not years versus, Hey, this, the opening is just come up and it's now it's more about timing and luck, maybe a little bit of networking and who, you know, versus I think maybe we did talk about back with IBM back in February of 2019 is a whole community of places where people can get more and more information about the company and they can let the company learn more about them and their evolving skill set and interest levels and realizing that, you know, the best time to find a job might be for me in five years, what most recruiters would then dismiss me saying, well that you're not going to make my monthly quota so you're useless to me right now versus you can make a lot of money off of me if we found a different way to engage and train and teach and entertain or whatever, have a relationship versus a transaction. Chris (19m 39s): Thoughts on that Julie? Chad (19m 41s): Does any of that sound familiar, Julie? Julie (19m 44s): Yes. I mean, too much of recruitment is treated like a transaction. Like I need someone great. Let's put in a request and let's wait for the team to bring us some candidates to interview and let's hire. And it's a transaction rather than a relationship. Relationships take time. They take commitment. There's a promise. There's an exchange. And it needs to be viewed more that you're building relationships. Then we just need to hire someone. The brand story is what is very important in this. There's a promise that the brand makes. We're looking for someone with these skills, these competencies to fill this role and in exchange, we promise you that. Julie (20m 24s): And that is the brand story. Who are you? What is your purpose? What is the value? What is the benefit now that is value proposition right now, product marketers know that all day, but we're doing that for a brand. And there's a story that needs to be there and a promise that needs to be made and it can look great on the front, right? But then when people get in there within 24 hours, you might get notice because what you sold may not be what you're delivering and then you won't be able to retain in that relationship. Joel (20m 55s): We've identified the problem. Let's talk about the solution because I feel like the reward system is a little screwed up because recruiters are rewarded, whether it be monetarily or otherwise by putting butts in seats. They're not really rewarded for keeping a relationship with a candidate or former prospect. So what's the solution and who owns that solution? Is it a marketing problem with, Hey, we're going to continue to farm these folks. They might not be customers, but they're kind of customers as they used to want to work here. Is it an HR problem that needs to be solved? Like what, where do you guys see the solution on this? Chris (21m 32s): I see two things. One I'd love to see a switch in the power dynamic. I think it's weird to me that most recruiters are retained by the hiring organization. I don't, I'd rather have more like the sports metaphor. I always, Jerry McGuire's is one of my favorite movies, but like, I don't know why top talent doesn't have a recruiter working for them and is advocating on my behalf versus working for the company. And maybe that exists for like the highest echelon of CEO. But you know, I'm working with a group right now that's helping me get on boards. And I like the fact that they're championing on my behalf as opposed to just feeding me pre-existing a supply side. Chris (22m 12s): And then the other thing I think has to happen is we have to stop thinking about full time. I think the rise of the contingent worker and the gig economy is going to just radically shift. It won't make sense to pay a recruiter 20 or 30% of my starting salary because maybe the company only needs me for 12 months. And then, you know, it could be the company only needs me to be there for three years to make it back that that finder's fee. And so I think more project based work, more non-traditional employment kind of contracts is going to become good for a business because they're going to start to realize that what they really have are projects or temporary needs. Chris (22m 52s): You don't need a 12 person website development team. Once it's built, maybe you need two people to keep it, you know, maintained and updated. But the people that built it should be released back into the wild to go get other jobs where people are building stuff from scratch versus, you know, creating all these systems and an overhead in house. Julie (23m 7s): I agree with that. I think that you're going to see a lot of flexibility. Well, first of all, flexibility is expected of the job seeker. So companies will have to adapt if they want to keep, you know, fully staffed around all of those projects, whether they're temporary or perm. But where do I see a shift happening? It's in the boardroom now, right? When companies set their objectives for growth, they're in a great, we have to invest in marketing. We have to invest in our sales team. We have to invest in these things to grow. Those things are always understood and lined up and allocated appropriately in those rooms. But HR is like, oh yeah. And then we have to hire some people. That's not the conversation that's happening now. Julie (23m 48s): Now it's like, we need to grow, but we can't unless we hire these people and we can't right now. So that is why companies are starting to say my growth plan needs to include how I'm going to overcome hiring in a talent shortage. Chad (24m 4s): Do you think that'll change with the economy changing though, because once we shift back to more of a market, let's say that's more back to equilibrium. Do you think HR will then be cast aside again? Or are we making a good enough appeal to the C-suite that look, your products don't get created, your sites won't be developed. You won't have any services. You'll have nothing without talent. Does the C-suite understand that? Or is this just a blip in the radar? Julie (24m 34s): Well, one, I'd say you see evidence of it already. Some of the largest brands are buying significant ad space to get prime time exposure. And what they're featuring is their people, their company, right? They're trying to show that they take care of their people, that their people are what power, they're creating a humanized connection between they are an employer to the consumer. So you're seeing more of that happen. And now that's happening at the, you know, the high level where a lot of big brands, cult brands types can afford to do that. But companies are starting to see that as a competitive advantage for themselves, that if they elevate and focus who they are as an employer and how they treat their people, the impact that they make on their community, that that is actually something that consumers are making a buying decision behavior around. Chris (25m 23s): Yeah. I agree, Chad, I don't think it's going to be, something's happened in HR where they have now leveled up and force themselves into the C suite. I think what we're actually seeing is that the CEO, him or herself has fundamentally shifted. There was, there was some data that came out in November when we thought it was nearing an end before omnicron, but EQ has surplussed IQ as the number one attribute employees want in their leaders now and that's, I think more fundamental. When CEOs, when new people who are getting the job and again, I go back to sports, think about what Sean McVeigh did way before Sean McVeigh, and he was like the youngest coach in the NFL. Chris (26m 4s): All the coaches were in their sixties. They had a certain sort of mentality. And now all of the head coaching jobs are like 30 or 40 somethings, completely different mindset and philosophies about how to build a team, how to create innovative or offenses. And we're going to see that, that people are starting to say, maybe the secret for success now is becoming a different type of leader. And therefore I'm going to need different types of lieutenants. And they're going to bring in HR professionals who are wired, you know, to elevate their more purpose-driven the more empathetic, the more people centric mentality. Joel (26m 39s): Everyone's started talking about. Long-term Chris, you touched on a contract, which spurred in me that the gig economy and more and more companies are I outsourcing work that they need done, having short-term contracts or assignments with folks. How does employment brand play into this new reality of sort of temporary work? Does it, does it even matter with people that are just on contracts for a little bit, or does it still matter? Chris (27m 4s): Oh for sure. And some of it's portfolio work like people want Nike on their resume or people want, you know, some big notable brand, but you know, one of the tools that we have within Communo is a sort of like a glass door of what's this place like to work at. And, you know, companies get reputations very quickly for, are they abusive? You know, maybe not physically, but you know, is it like they don't treat their contractors well, you feel subservient? You feel like you're a second class citizen. And so people will opt out of that and you'll end up having to pay higher and higher hourly rates. So just like getting a lineup of job applicants, you, what you really want is the best and brightest freelance talent, willing to give you tremendous deals just for the privilege of working on some cool, you know, account or new product launch or whatever it might be. Chad (27m 52s): With the current state of the economy, let's say economy's booming, but people are quitting. Is that because we're actually seeing all of these new opportunities and options in the gig economy, I actually just spoke to somebody today who said, she's doing like three different side hustles and she's making more money than she did full-time and this is a VP person, by the way, more money than she did, full-time number one. And she has a hell of a lot more time left. So are we shifting to less of this full-time kind of like landscape and more to gig inside hustle work? Julie (28m 28s): It's a job seekers market and they get to call the shots right now. So they get to decide if they want to favor more flexible working environments. And that's what they are, right? The expectations have changed and people are making the choice to, I mean, this, all the data points to this, that people are choosing to sacrifice the security that has always come with full-time employment, perceived security, but that that's really what it is. Like people would favor to work for an employer because there's a guarantee and a security that comes with that. There's risk associated with being your own boss and freelancing and doing contracts, but it offers lifestyle flexibility for them, the ability to choose their own experience. Julie (29m 14s): So, you know, like you were saying, Chris, if, if somebody is going to treat you terribly, you have the option to say, Nope, I'm done with that project. Moving on. Chris (29m 23s): There's two things to think about. So for the most part, I think it's an overwhelming positive. I, you know, people used to say shame on the government. It was their generous stimulus checks that got us in this mess, but that's been over for a while, right? It's the stimulus checks are not, what's keeping people out of the traditional work environments, everything that Julie just said. Julie (29m 43s): I agree with you. No, those checks were not what happened if that were the case, then they ended in September and we would have everybody back at work and they are not. So that's proof. Chris (29m 54s): But let me tell you there's two downsides to it. One is so take my business. My business is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, and for a decade, I considered it a competitive advantage, a secret weapon that I had this remarkable talent in Calgary who chose to live there because of a great lifestyle and work-life balance. And I was kind of one of the better games in town. So if the top talent wanted to work with great brands and do things on a global scale, there weren't a lot of options. And I've now lost that competitive advantage because Facebook or Google or Ford can also hire people and allow them to still live in Calgary. Chris (30m 36s): So we've had to revamp our employee policies, what we call our rights and rituals manual, to be even more competitive, because now I'm not just competing against the Calgary marketplace, I'm competing against the biggest, best employers in the world. And then the other thing that's been glaringly different between having a company in Calgary and clients in the US is my employees don't even give a second thought to moving elsewhere because of socialized healthcare. But in the states, people tend to linger a bit longer because the healthcare system still hasn't figured out how to really allow contingent workers and freelancers to reap the benefits. And that's probably the last thing that employers have that then when we change policies and insurance companies figure out ways to not, you know, sort of maximize the mean where you need a thousand employees that are going to be paying the premiums. Chris (31m 27s): Once that shifts, I think that the dam is going to break and you're going to see over 50% of professionals going freelance. Joel (31m 36s): I find that interesting. And Chris, you talked a little bit about sports today, and it seems like in the, you know, pre pandemic world, you know, I worked in my local market, you know, the buildings downtown had brands that were local or regional. And that was sort of a way to build retention or loyalty, right? Like to be able to say, Hey, in Indianapolis, I work at Eli Lilly. Like everyone knows that building and everyone knows that name on the marquee, but in a world where it's not local employment or even regional, the rich just get richer, right? Unless you're Facebook or Microsoft or this big brand employment seems that much tougher. So in terms of like sports brands, you know, we all watch, you know, football this weekend probably. Joel (32m 19s): Right. We see SoFi. We see some of the names on the stadiums, how important now, from companies aren't Microsoft or Facebook having their name on the local building, you know, the local skyscraper. Does that just matter from a consumer standpoint now should more and more businesses not worry about the regional brand because they're hiring from all over the place. Just what are your thoughts on that? Chris (32m 43s): It's an example of some misdirected, when you focus on an employer brand, you're going to make your headquarters, you're going to maybe make the universities in your local community. You're going to do most of your giving, you know, to the local charities or the, you know, flag football teams or soccer fields. And that's going to become increasingly wasted money when people aren't even in that city to, you know, to reap those benefits or enjoy those things. So that would be an example of you were actually trying to build a master brand. Then you would be receiving applicants from people begging you to change your policies. Or I know that I'm not in the city, but can you hire me anyway? And so that would be actually a pretty good indicator of, do you have an employer brand or do you have a master brand by how big is your draw? Chris (33m 28s): Where are you actually pulling people from? Chad (33m 29s): Well Chris, before we release you back into the wild, I wanna hear a little bit about what's going on with the gathering. Obviously some things have changed during the pandemic. You guys are going back to live shows, knock on wood, back to live shows. Tell us about what's going on there. And when when's the show coming up? Joel (33m 52s): Chad and I really miss Canada. sfx (33m 54s): Take-off will ya we're doin' our movie don't wreck our show hoser. Chris (33m 56s): Well, you guys know that you're of course, welcome to come back and join us. You know, the event is called The Gathering for a reason. And one of the Cult Brand principles is about congregating and something special that happens. You know, we went all digital last year. And it's interesting because in so many ways it was better. We had more small businesses come because the ticket prices were cheaper. We were able to go more global because you didn't have to incur the hassle of getting on an airplane so we had more of an international audience, which is also really positive and the content was as good as it's ever been. I mean, the brands that spoke, you know, gave great presentations, but there's something about being immersed. Chris (34m 39s): There's something about when you're consuming stuff digitally, it's too easy to get distracted. You don't have the, you can channel flip. You know, nobody in real life will get up in the middle of a session and just leave saying this isn't for me. But when you're doing it digitally, you can switch. And what I find is that you might think it's not for you. And in the last 10 minutes, they say something that's rocked your world. It's like, you're rewarded for having stuck out that the 30 or 45 minutes session. So there's something about being immersive that is just unreplicable. So we're doing our damnedest to get everybody back to the castle, but because of those positive side effects of smaller businesses and global, we're going to have a virtual offering as well. Chris (35m 20s): So it's a true hybrid event. You know, Julie, you mentioned Chobani. I think for the past 20 years, Zappos has been sort of the gold standard of a culture first organization. I hope that from the 2020s to 2030s, 2040s, the next golden boy is Chobani. I think it's such a remarkable company that's culture first. They're going to be there to tell their story. McDonald's we talked sports, we got the Seattle Kraken not because of what they've done in year one on the ice. Joel (35m 47s): Release the Kraken. Chris (35m 48s): People don't realize it's kinda like trying to get the Olympics in your city. What Seattle has had to do for the past five years to even be able to have an NHL franchise, I think is a story worth learning about. UNO, which has become the number one game, best-selling game through the pandemic, which is so fun. They were just in LA or Las Vegas doing that sort of their own world series of poker championship series, but with UNO cards, and it is so inclusive, people of all ages can play UNO. I think it said, they're going to surprise a lot of people about what, and they've done amazing things with like gay pride. For example, with UNO cards, they've done stuff with wine people. Chris (36m 31s): They've done stuff for left-hand there's left-handed, UNO cards like, it's just crazy. When you talk about diversity and inclusion, that things, that little humble UNO cards have done. So we're super excited about the brands that are going to be there. It's April 20th through 22nd, and you can learn more at CultGathering.com. Chad (36m 47s): I can definitely say for myself, it is the best conference I have ever been to. And like you'd said, Chris, when you sit down in one of those, it's not a pitch, one of those stories. I mean, you're actually listening to something that literally concretes you to the seat. You don't want to get up. I have generally at a conference. I want to go check my phone, go check my email. I don't do any of that when I'm at The Gathering. So get your ass to Cultgathering.com. Julie Joel, our first real one pulled together in the books. Julie (37m 23s): And how wonderful to have Chris join us. Joel (37m 28s): Another one in the books, Chad. Julie. Julie (37m 31s): Back to the castle. Chad and Joel (37m 33s): We out. OUTRO (38m 19s): 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 are the best companies to work for if you're a woman in 2021? Female-focused employee review site Fairygodboss is a good place to start. Co-founder and president Romy Newman join the boys and dives into the survey, which outlines companies from tech to finance to consulting and more. And if you didn't make it onto a Best of list this year, Romy tells you how you might get on the list in 2022. 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 (22s): Oh yeah. What's up boys and girls at your favorite podcast AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast kind or fellows to Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my partner in crime Chad Sowash and today we are just giddy like school girls to welcome Romy Newman, president and co-founder of Fairy God Boss. Chad (43s): There she is. Joel (44s): Romy, it's been a minute. It's been a minute. How are you? Romy (47s): I'm good. And I love the round of applause. It almost makes me feel pre-COVID Joel (51s): 'Cause we? We could do, we could mix it up. We could dim the lights anyway. Yeah. COVID how's it treating you? How's the company? Give us a quick status of a Fairy God Boss, and then we'll get into some of the news here. Romy (1m 6s): I'm well, I'm really proud to say that Fairy God Boss has grown so much. We're 70 employees now! We have over 200 customers and we've got about 2 million women visiting our site every month. So I think, you know, I choke a lot. Then when we first had this idea kind of back in 2016, people would say, why would women need their own career site? And I think the world has sort of realized why, now. Chad (1m 34s): Because people that were asking the questions were old white men, that's why. Romy (1m 40s): Possibly, but I'm really proud of the community that we built, the participation we have from our users. I'm proud of the companies that we've worked with and the effort that they're putting forward toward being more inclusive, more diverse, more equitable. And I think we've seen such a change in focus and such a genuine appetite for improving diversity across the many companies. Chad (2m 4s): Let's talk about some of those companies. You have a list where you talk rankings for the best companies for women in 2021, we're starting to wrap up 2021, so it's time to get those rankings out there. How do you actually come about this list first and foremost? What goes into it? What data points, et cetera, et cetera. Romy (2m 24s): Yup. So, you know, while today we're really a peer to peer community, our legacy or our history, we started out collecting free anonymous job reviews for women by women because we believe that the experiences women have or having maybe different. And we know that women looking for jobs want to hear from other women who work at companies to understand their experiences. So we still have those reviews. We ask 15 structured questions about things like, do you feel you're treated fairly? Do you feel your CEO supports diversity? What advice would you give to another woman who's working here? Romy (3m 5s): And so at the end of the year, we take all the reviews we've received and based on three key questions, we ranked the company. So it's driven entirely based on employee reviews and driven entirely based on three dimensions. One is, do you feel you're treated fairly? One is, would you recommend this company to other women? And one is on a scale of one to five - how satisfied are you with this job? Chad (3m 32s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So not to sound like Mel Gibson, but what do women want when it comes to a company? Take a look at number one is Power House Remodeling, never heard of this company ever in my life, dug deep into the website, the profile. I mean, they do some really, really cool shit, not just for women, but even for veterans and so on and so forth. How does powerhouse remodeling get the number one slot, especially on a brand we don't even know? Romy (4m 2s): Yeah. I mean, I think that just goes to show the endorsement that its employees wanted to make for it, because a lot of the companies that win these awards are those whose employees have really gone to bat, run internal campaigns to leave reviews and that sort of thing. Often it's through their employee resource groups, but you know, what do women want? So I think above all, they want equitable treatment and I think they want opportunities, and I think increasingly they don't want to be the only woman in the room. I think at this moment in time, particularly flexible scheduling is so critical. Romy (4m 42s): You may know this really disappointing, terrible statistic, but approximately 3 million women exited the workforce in 2020, that brought us back. You guys are 1980s music fans and we are back now in the 1980s in terms of workforce participation among women. So all of the progress of the last 30 years basically was eradicated due to the COVID pandemic, which is a sad, sad story. But one, I think, you know, when we look at why that happened, it was because really a collapse of childcare due to both school closures and then also structurally kind of a dearth of childcare providers. Romy (5m 31s): So basically what's happening is while the workforce is coming back and being repopulated, we continue to see record lows of women's workforce participation. So all that to be said, one of the main things we can do to get women back in the workforce is flexibility and accommodations, particularly while school schedules or childcare is harder to come by. Joel (5m 52s): Romy, I want to say that congratulations on the growth. It sounds like you're well on your way to Glassdoor money. I think that's a good thing. I think they were acquired for 1.6 billion a few years ago. So you're you're well, on your way. Chad (6m 5s): Temper expectations, Cheeseman. Joel (6m 8s): Yeah, temper my expectations. Romy (6m 8s): I like a high expectation. Joel (6m 10s): You like that? Okay. So one of the things, all the review sites do this, they feel very much like a PR grab or begging for media attention. It sounds like you guys have actually done some thought behind this to get some of this data. So I just want to give you a chance right now to say, Hey everybody, this is actually real for us. It's not just a plea for media attention. Romy (6m 35s): Oh, I mean, we're look, we are a for-profit venture back company, but we have a social mission and we're all about improving the workforce for women. I will just tell you, this is my personal passion, because I believe that our companies will function better with greater diversity. I believe our country will function better and have a higher GDP and better outcomes that our success. So this is a labor of love for me. Joel (6m 58s): Gotcha. So I want to talk about a little bit about the pandemic and what sort of occurred in response to that. We saw a serious decrease in the numbers of mothers that left the workforce. I think the chart that I saw was that working mothers dropped out of the labor force at a rate of 4%. Whereas men declined 1%. Are you guys seeing anything in the data in regards to more companies embracing mothers? And certainly we've talked about the mother project here on the show, the mom project that just got $80 million. So this is really focused. What are you seeing on your end at Fairy God Boss in regards to what companies are doing to embrace mothers? Romy (7m 41s): And it's interesting. I think the number one thing companies are doing is to allow for ongoing work from home or at least hybrid schedules. And it's interesting because I don't think that that work from home and flexible schedules are exactly the same thing. But I do think that work from home enables flexible schedules because the concept of FaceTime is just gone. And I will tell you, in my past career, I had a big job at a big company. And at this company I had to be in the office by 9:00 AM. Every day, everybody did. It was a rule. You were at your desk by 9:00, right? Romy (8m 21s): And my kids, if I wanted to drop them off at school, I wasn't going to be able to get there till 9:15. Right. And that 15 minutes meant everything to me. That 15 minutes was probably contributing to one of the factors why I eventually quit. Right. And how important really ultimately was that 15 minutes to the company? I could've stayed late or I could have found made up that time in the evening. There's so many ways I could've made up that 15 minutes if I needed to. Right. But you can see where sort of our historical notions of how work has to be, limit caregivers from doing the work they need to do in, in much too structured and rigid of a way. Chad (9m 3s): Talking about equity. Right. And we say, I've heard you say it a few times over now, do you think there might be a time in coming years when you can actually start to go at some of these companies and ask them to be more transparent, around pay? To demonstrate that they are a great place, an amazing place for women to work and not one where they're going to get, you know, bought on the cheap? Romy (9m 28s): I think it's a really good question. I hope so. I think there's sort of, two conjoin problems with that. One is willingness, of course, but then the other is data, right? And I think the data is really difficult to parse and it takes a village and you look at someone like Salesforce who's really stepped up to address it and it was an enormous data project. But yeah, I mean, I absolutely hope so. I also hope and believe if we can get more women into leadership positions, this problem will go away, because it will be self-correcting. But you know, there's a chart that comes out of McKinsey each year. They, capture this data, it's from the annual tracking study and I reference it a lot. Romy (10m 13s): It's a pipeline, right? And it shows that at the entry levels of the workforce, the workforce is 50% men and 50% women. Chad (10m 19s): Right. Romy (10m 20s): And at each level up the hierarchy of each level up the executive ladder, it becomes more male oriented until at the senior ranks. It's only about 20% women, right? So more women at the senior level, and we're not going to have to undergo all these crazy data, efforts, although good to have data, data is important, but because the people making the pay decisions will be coming at it from a very equitable way. Chad (10m 46s): So along the line of those numbers, I believe the females who are actually in CEO positions in fortune 500 companies is around 8%. Right? So again, in the workforce, we're talking 50/50, but yet we're not seeing the elevation of those individuals, those females into key C-suite leadership positions. So the big question is what can an organization like Fairy God Boss do to be able to help leverage more of those conversations, number one? And number two more outcomes, because obviously we're not seeing the outcomes that we we should and or need to, or do you see that this is really just an underlying problem of what we're seeing in the workforce now with all the females actually leaving the workforce. Chad (11m 33s): Do you think that they're together? Do you think they're separate? Romy (11m 38s): Well, they're definitely related. I am so proud of what we do as a business, which is help companies attract more women to apply for jobs, because I genuinely believe that one of the first things that can be done to cure all the problems is just get more women into the company, into the leadership roles, into the middle management, so that there's better balance, right? 50% of the world is women, right? So there's better balance in all those areas and the more and better balance we have the more the structure and the practices and the culture will change to become more equitable and inclusive naturally. And by the way, I believe this also about all kinds of diversity. Romy (12m 21s): I think we need more representation of different races, of different sexual orientation. We need more representation of people with disabilities and veterans. And I think the more we can adapt our workforces and bring diverse individuals into, up the ranks, the better. First of all, the better the business outcomes, which is really important and also the better experiences all employees will have. And so what I think has to happen is, yeah, we can change policies. We can try to go to trainings, but really we just change the composition of the workforce. And that's what I hope to help companies do. Joel (12m 54s): I want to talk a little bit about the technology sector and actually one of the categories that you break down, the data that you present here and technology has historically been the bro culture, right? And women have historically felt alienated, harassed in these environments. There are a few cases a year or so ago where this was really prominent. Have you seen in the data, some improvement in terms of how women are treated on the technology side of businesses and technology companies? Romy (13m 26s): It's not showing through specifically in our data, but anecdotally I do think that remote working has alleviated some of the sense of micro-aggressions that both women and people from historically underrepresented backgrounds have faced in the workforce. So, but I also think it's a little hard to tell. I don't know what it's going to be like when we all go back to the office. I do think there's definitely been improvement. I also think this idea of virtual collaboration and distributed work has really changed the experience, frankly, that all employees have with their workplace culture. Joel (14m 2s): Yep. So these lists are always fluid companies and their top 10, one year, a couple of years, you know, from now, they're out of the top 10. If you had to sort of get your crystal ball out and predict what sort of companies would be in your top list, what are the things that they are going to be doing to appeal to women? i.e., for companies that are listening to this podcast, what should they be looking to do to improve environment an workplaces for their female employees in order to get to your top 10 list prospectively? Romy (14m 36s): Yeah. So there are so many things, but I would start with figuring out how to be really oriented toward deliverables, toward results, as opposed to toward schedule and FaceTime and availability. And I think by the way, that's going to be a really necessary thing for all companies to figure out as the world changes, to retain the best talent. Everybody knows there's war for talent particularly in the technology space. So if companies want to attract female talent, if they want to attract the best workers, they're going to have to move toward whether it's using OKRs, whether it's using performance objectives, we have to stop measuring productivity in terms of time spent at a desk and start measuring it in terms of contribution to the company. Romy (15m 21s): And I think, yeah, I mean, I think we all want that. Right? Chad (15m 25s): Yeah. Romy (15m 25s): And then I think once you've got that, it can really help alleviate places where there are bias such as pay raises and promotions. So when you're, when things become so transparent and so clear, someone can say at the end of a quarter, look, I completed all of the deliverables that we discussed. Right? I've done my job well. There's no subjectivity and removing the subjectivity will go a long way I think. I also think that there has to be a focus on wellness. There has to be a focus on support of the whole life of the employee, because when work moved into all of our homes, those boundaries just evaporated and let's face it we've all, all, every last one of us in whatever personal way it happened to us have been through a really difficult couple of years. Romy (16m 17s): Right? And so it's hard for employees to just kind of like keep on trucking through it. And a dear friend of mine, Lorna Hagen, who's the Chief People Officer at Guilds recently said, people now lean on their company to provide them community, to provide them guidance, to provide them some support in a way that historically, maybe they leaned on a church or a university, right. But the expectations or demands placed on an employer because it is your main lens into the outside world, have just grown and grown and grown and companies that understand and respect that will win. Joel (16m 54s): I need a hug Chad, that I need a hug right now. Chad (16m 59s): That to me is more scary than a hug. I don't know. I don't know that I want, I don't know that I want to put that much trust in to any brand, but I, what I do want to say though, is that if you haven't checked out this best companies for women or 2021 Romy, where can they go to find this? Where can they go out to find more about Fairy God Boss? Connect with you? Give us a, give us a little bit about that. Romy (17m 24s): Yeah. So you could start with www.FairyGodBoss.com. If you search on that famous big search engine, best companies for women, you will find us and that famous big search engine. Google. That is a Fairy God Boss, customer. Chad (17m 38s): Oh, nice. Nice name drop. Not in the top 10, by the way. Romy (17m 43s): Yes, please. You know how to find me? You can connect with me on Fairy God Boss. You can also connect with me in all those usual places like LinkedIn, by the way, also a Fairy God Boss customer. Chad (17m 56s): Excellent. Well, Romy, thank you so much. We appreciate you taking the time, sharing the list, and again, doing what you do for your community. We appreciate it. And come back soon. Joel (18m 8s): You know, what's coming. Chad and Joel (18m 10s): We out. OUTRO (19m 3s): 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 that time of year again: Predictions! Where'd we get it right and (mostly) wrong in 2021? And what are the bold guesses we're making for 2022 for the world of work? Like always, Chad & Cheese have enlisted the help of longtime vet and good friend Tim "Sackadomus" Sackett to give his two cents on what the crystal ball says for next year. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner 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 (21s): Oh yeah, you want it? You love it. It's the yearly prediction show. What's up everybody. I'm your cohost Joel "COVID house" Cheeseman. Chad (34s): And I'm Chad "did I say that?" Sowash. Joel (38s): And you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast and as always, please welcome Tim Sackadamus! Tim (47s): Yes. I thought maybe you throw in there. Tim "how many colonoscopies did he have in 2021?" Sackadamus. Joel (54s): Well, I was going to ask you how your year went since I'd been basking in your right, your correct predictions, I assume. Tim (1m 3s): Yeah. I don't even remember what they were, so I guess, well, yeah, we go, we get to go through those, which will be awesome. But yeah. You know, like everybody else, you know, it's just been a wonderful 2021. Joel (1m 13s): You got to see us in the fall so that had the highlight of your year. Tim (1m 19s): Right? That's great. That was, it was one of the highlights of the year, by the way. So since we haven't been out to see anybody. Chad (1m 27s): Yeah, thanks to Symphony Talent for that one. Right. We ran riding around in the big pink bus. Joel (1m 32s): Hell, yeah. Wait, did you say pink? Oh God. All right. Let's take a break and get to get to the good stuff. We'll be right back. We got to recap all of our great predictions from last year before we get to the show. Chad (1m 46s): Yeah. That's always fun. Joel (1m 47s): Let me get the buzzer ready. Let me get this sound bite. Okay. It's working. All right. It's working. Chad (1m 54s): Well, one thing, Steven, Rothberg had a prediction and that was late 2021. The vaccine obviously was close in 2020, but Stephen didn't think that we would be back to full conferencing until, you know, Q4 of 2021. Well, I don't think we even did that. Did we? Joel (2m 13s): No. Tim (2m 14s): Well, you know, we do get what HR Tech, Sherm annual went. So there's a little bit of full conferences. Joel (2m 22s): Okay. Chad (2m 22s): A little bit of that. A little bit of that, Joel (2m 26s): Rothberg's enjoying the sunshine in Phoenix right now. So I say we just, we just buzz his ass. Tim (2m 30s): Yeah. By the way, I was in Utah this year and I ran into a guy at a restaurant standing outside that he was from California. He's like, well, the sun kills COVID that's why he was in Utah. I'm like, you're from California. Chad (2m 44s): You're a fucking idiot. Anyway. All right, let's get some of these Tim's and we're just going to rapid fire through Tim's first. So Tim's first a was SAP acquires a core talent platform ATS like Greenhouse, Smart Recruiters, Jobvites yeah. That's big no, but it's still needed. You can always hope. Joel (3m 6s): Predictions are never wrong. They just haven't happened yet. Chad (3m 12s): It's a hope and prayer. Organizations provide vaccines by performance. Tim (3m 18s): Great one. Chad (3m 18s): That would have been a great one. I'd get, could be happening kind of like under the radar, we just don't know about it. Joel (3m 25s): Starbucks. Chad (3m 25s): But we don't know our books. And last but not least for Tim large enterprise company gives option of salary paid in Bitcoin. So. Tim (3m 36s): Yes. Joel (3m 37s): Are we going to give him that one? Chad (3m 44s): If Aaron Rogers is NFL the standard? Joel (3m 47s): These are billion dollar businesses. It's a public company. Chad (3m 49s): We did so bad. Let's give at least one of us one. Tim (3m 53s): Get A half. Chad (3m 54s): I'm going to have cheer. Yeah. Then we'll go ahead and wrap it through my pieces of shit here. So first off Glassdoor takes a dirt nap. That did not happen. Joel (4m 8s): Ambitious prediction. Chad (4m 10s): That was pretty? Yeah, it was ambitious. Blackbox AI outlawed. No. And we actually heard from Keith Sonderling commissioned from the EOCC that won't be happening because you know, we're looking for companies to trip over themselves. And last but not least, this is one that much like, you know, a Tim's SAP you hope happens, but Microsoft acquires iCIMS, that did not happen. Very ambitious and wrong at the same time. Then we get into Joel's where Airbnb launches, Airbnb Work for corporate spaces. But I was right on the counter prediction though, that they would, they would embrace remote with current inventory. Chad (4m 58s): So they are doing that. They're actually pitching the spaces that they had with Airbnb for remote work. So I was right on that one. Tim (5m 8s): Yeah. Chad (5m 9s): Number two, Joel went, he went like crazy on number two. He saw acquisitions. The first acquisition Seek buys, Talkpush, and Vervo mean you talk about, that's a double strike right there. sfx (5m 26s): Oh hell no... Chad (5m 27s): Dice goes private and last but not least in his third strike Recruit buys ZipRecruiter. Joel (5m 34s): Finally, my IPO for Zip happened in the year that I didn't predict it. Chad (5m 41s): And your last one, Salesforce rebrands as Slack and creates a network of people to compete with LinkedIn plus Teams that did not happen. Joel (5m 50s): I still like that one. I still like that one. Chad (5m 51s): That was it. I have to say we were very ambitious last year. So that was good. Joel (5m 59s): Dice had a really good year stock wise. That's not my prediction. I just want to throw it out there, outperformed ZipRecruiter by quite a bit. Tim (5m 57s): We should do it like a survey of gen Z recruiters to see who, if they know who Dice is? Chad (6m 9s): Doubtful. Tim (6m 10s): What percent knows what Dice is? Joel (6m 18s): Well we know the Europeans don't. Chad (6m 20s): Now, before we actually get into predictions predictions, and Joel, you can like scramble them up and tell us who's going to go win. I think the big story, which is I can, I can't wait for the sound effect for this, but the big story is VC funding in 2021 and per George LaRocque's numbers, 2021 was $18 billion. So do we think 2022 eclipses 2021? Joel (6m 51s): Big, no, from me, I think the theme is over. I think there'll be new theme in 2022. I think the money is not free anymore. The animal spirits I think are going to be calming down in '22 and I wouldn't be surprised to see a 50% haircut in investment money into our space. Tim (7m 9s): Oooh. That's a big prediction. Joel (7m 11s): And we're not even to our predictions yet, but Hey, Tim (7m 13s): I think it's going to eclipse. I think there'll be, I think it be between 18 and 19. I just think it's still, even though we're on the way down, I think from like, there's kind of this peak of craziness in the industry, there's still like, there's still is a lot of money floating around. People are trying to get rid of it. And we see it constantly where people are getting a hundred to 50-5500 million, like getting unicorn status for literally having next to no revenue. Joel (7m 42s): Do you think the theme changes. Does it move away from remote and diversity and automation to something else? Or does it stick with those? Tim (7m 50s): I still, the biggest pain people are feeling right now is, is definitely talent attraction. So I think that will continue that, that realm and then, and then retention stuff. Right? So what are we going to do with that kind of internal mobility, retention? Joel (8m 3s): Engagement. Tim (8m 3s): You know, engagement kind of stuff. I think that gets in a whole other, we haven't really talked about engagement, like kind of software for what? Eight years? Five years on the craziness. Chad (8m 15s): Yeah, I think so the previous four years didn't hit 6 billion and then the next thing you know, we tripled over tripled that this year. Tim (8m 22s): So that would have helped. And it helped me. I would have had that. No wonder Joel said nine. Chad (8m 30s): He didn't know either. Tim (8m 32s): I'm going to say eight, Hey, now Chad (8m 34s): The flood gates were open. Dude. I think we're going to see a lot of dead unicorns in the next two years at least. Tim (8m 43s): I don't do that. We need to predict what's the first unicorn in our space that dies. Joel (8m 47s): The problem is they have so much money. They're going to have a life span of at least five to 10 years. Yeah. Chad (8m 55s): I don't know. Some of those fuckers have crazy burn rates. Yeah. They have crazy burn rates. Joel (9m 1s): So Chad, you're saying less? Chad (9m 3s): I'm saying less what? I'm saying less money. Joel (9m 7s): Okay. So should we each guess a unicorn that gets shot for next year just for shits and giggles? Yeah. Tim (9m 14s): We would have to have the list though. Right? We'd have to know which ones are unicorns. Chad (9m 16s): We can bring him back for another show where he talks about that. Tim (9m 19s): Killing unicorn show. Joel (9m 21s): Just one in a short period to me it would be Canvas, founder's gone, new management, like that's kind of a weird squirrely situation. So if I had to pick one, I'd throw them out. Tim (9m 31s): Not a bad one. Chad (9m 31s): I'd have to analyze a little bit more. I have a few that I would like to see dead, but I don't know that Joel (9m 43s): Schadenfreude Chad (9m 44s): They have a longer runway than a 2022. Joel (9m 48s): All right, love it. Let's go to round one now let's go to our special guest, the honor, honorable Tim "Sackett" Sackadamus your first prediction for 2022 is Tim (9m 54s): I think Paradox is going to get acquired, which again, this is one of those unicorn status kind of ones, right. That just got it, which makes it a little more difficult to be acquired, but gold standard in terms of conversational AI products, enterprise, customer base, Workday's already in love with them. Oracle and SAP would also be, it means it's going to have to be a big buyer. Joel (10m 16s): Indeed's an investor. Tim (10m 17s): Right. So I mean, I, I think it's one of those, gosh, they're really good, but they really need more around them I think. Right. Or I think they could, I mean, take advantage of, you know, somebody like a Workday, Oracle, you know, kind of a customer base. So. Chad (10m 32s): Yeah. Tim (10m 32s): That'd be a good marriage to happen. I just don't know with that last round they got, if it's going to be something that could happen, but I wouldn't be surprised. Joel (10m 41s): And you don't think IPO's in the future? Cause that would really be the only other option. Chad (10m 45s): Yes. Tim (10m 45s): That's really the only other option. And I don't know. I mean, they move. I mean, you guys, you, we all know Paradox pretty well. They move fairly slow. I mean, I mean, they still are kind of held with, I think Aaron does a pretty good job of not making reactionary moves. So I don't think they're going that route, but we'll, you know, who knows? But gosh, I think they're attractive to a big enterprise HCM. Joel (11m 6s): Pardon me, knowing Aaron, as I do thinks he would love to go public. I think he'd love to be on the NASDAQ and yes, for sure. Yes. Chad (11m 16s): Feeds into my prediction. You want me to go ahead and go. Joel (11m 21s): Yes. Go ahead Chad. Chad (11m 22s): Okay. So kind of somewhat counter to Tim's. I have two Paradox predictions here first and foremost, new cash means, no surprise kids ACQUISITIONS. So in 2021, Paradox acquired Spetz and Israeli chatbots they've for a global footprint and obviously acquisition of talent over there, good Acqui-hire. And then Traitify a mobile screening platform, nothing more than normal process efficiency tech that you know, why build it yourself when it's there and easy for the taking. So my acquisition prediction is I believe Paradox will acquire, they will make a European acquisition. Chad (12m 6s): The UK and EU are very fertile ground in which the bolster, the Paradox footprint and brand. So first and foremost, they're going to have a European acquisition. My second prediction is their market positioning changes completely. The new cash will drive faster movement for Paradox away from being a point solution, only conversational AI. It's more of a core talent platform competing with players like iCIMS, Jobvite, Eightfold, Smart Recruiters, and Greenhouse, much like Eight-fold when they took that money, they knew that they had to bust out of just being a matching like platform, or they knew that they wanted to go for that money. Chad (12m 51s): Same thing here, the cat is out of the bag, Paradox is going to have to acquire, I see growing footprint being global, and then obviously changing that market position. Because if you think about it, if you're a point solution, you're not going to be able to garner that much total addressable market, right. You have to expand. Joel (13m 11s): So global domination is what you're predicting for Paradox. Chad (13m 15s): Can you expect anything else from Aaron Matos? Joel (13m 17s): I mean, that sounds like a non acquisition of Paradox. That sounds like world domination and public company, from Chad Sowash. Chad (13m 22s): That's what I do. I always counter from Tim. So either Tim will be right or I'll be right. Joel (13m 27s): That's fun. Chad (13m 27s): Or we'll both be wrong and they'll just do it. Tim (13m 29s): Even before this latest round, they were already sitting on a bunch of cash. So I like that. I like that prediction. Cause I think they do obviously have the money to go out and do some of that. And I agree, I think if they decide to stand alone and they already have really big contract size, like their average contracts are already kind of bigger than most ATSes. So, you know, it makes sense for them to kind of go full ATS or full talent kind of platform suite across enterprise wide from that standpoint. Plus again, if you're going to sit on top of a Workday, Oracle SAP kind of HCM and be the talent play that, you know, they already kind of have that, you know, that background to be able to do that. So it makes sense. Joel (14m 8s): Assuming iCIMS goes public, I think they've already filed the papers to do so. Tim, do you think that'll be a barn burner? Do you think it'll be sort of a yawn or is it going to go badly? Because I think how iCIMS goes, we'll see if, what Greenhouse, Smart Recruiters, Jobvite, like all of them follow suit or not any predictions around the iCIMS IPO? Tim (14m 25s): I don't think it'll go bad. I don't think it will be. I don't think it will, you know, double in value though, either. I think it's just one of those that, you know, it'll whatever their price point comes out at, which usually is vetted, like, you know, for so long that when it, by the time it hits the market, it's pretty, you know, kind of locked in. I don't, I just think it won't have a lot of movement to it. Right. Cause I think people don't, most people don't understand that business, even though, you know, from an IPO standpoint, from the market being like everyone's crazy for talent, they'll definitely have the story to be able to spin. And so who knows, but again, some of this just depends, like aren't we kind of waiting for the market to drop like 25%. Tim (15m 7s): Like it's been like an eight year run, like timing wise, they could get really fucked by that. Joel (15m 12s): Right. Yeah. It's certainly not a sexy stock. It's not something that the Robinhood folks are gonna get real excited about if they didn't get excited about ZipRecruiter and not getting excited around iCIMS. Alright, well, my prediction has nothing to do with Paradox. Some people will appreciate that. So my first prediction for the year is robots finally take over in a significant way. I predict that a restaurant by a famous brand name will launch a robot only restaurant. Tim (15m 42s): Starbucks. Joel (15m 43s): So your order or on your phone, Starbucks is kinda tough cause you have some, I don't know so many like the human element of that is sort of special. If I were want to predict, I would say it would either be like a BW3 opening up a wing only satellite restaurant or perhaps Pizza Hut and Yum! Brands who owns, I think Wings, Etc. I could see them launching kind of a wings, a standalone robot only. This thing will get a ton of PR the today show CNN, like everyone will be at this restaurant ordering food and it'll get a ton of press. Joel (16m 29s): And you'll see, I think more and more restaurants expedite their move to robotics. Tim (16m 29s): You guys, can you pause? Can we pause for a minute? I got to look up the URL robotwings.com, Joel (16m 35s): Robotwings.ai? And I think that's a big, a big shift. I think we've been talking about robots in terms of the service industry and a hardest to employ people there and the spike in salaries and hourly wages. And I think this will be a really interesting sort of pivot if it goes well. Tim (16m 54s): I think it's great. I say Starbucks, because I think obviously with the issues of, you know, that they're already having with unions and issues that they have with their vaccine mandates that they just brought out and then you already see an Asian countries, a lot of success with kind of coffee, robot driven, baristas. Like it seems like that's going to happen at some point that's going to happen already. And if you're Starbucks, you're like, I'm done with people at this point. Like how do we just turn it back to the robots? Chad (17m 23s): The Austin airport for God's sakes, they have a robot coffee vendor that's right there. And it's not just your regular, you know, black coffee with sugar. So yeah. I mean we're seeing those types of things. I would, I would say that if, if a restaurant went full robot, right, never go full robot. If you went full robot, it would go down in flames just from the standpoint of what we're used to as humans. There's gotta be that familiarity there. Right. So yeah, I think, I think we will see more robots. There's no question, but if they go full robot, that's a bad thing. Joel (17m 57s): For me if the wings are tasty, I don't care who makes them or what makes em. Tim (18m 0s): I think Joel just wants robot wings. He just is like, I'm ready for it. Joel (18m 4s): I'm so hungry. Tim (18m 6s): At three in the morning, he wants to drive down to like the vending machine and get wings. Joel (18m 11s): The COVID needs to be fed. All right. That those are our first three predictions. Let's take a quick break and we'll get into round two of predictions for 2022. All right, guys, Tim got to go first round one. I know Chad is itching to get his second prediction out. Chad, why don't you hit up the audience with number two? Chad (18m 38s): OK. So number two, ZipRecruiter, acquires Vervo. So as I listened to Joel's 2021 prediction about Vervo being acquired by Sikh, right? I was inspired. I thought it was a bit premature, but to be fair, premature is what Joel is known for. Anyway. I thought. Joel (18m 59s): I have three kids for a reason. Chad (18m 59s): Yeah. I'm talking about premature for her, not you. Anyway, I thought about what big names should be buying, interviewing an assessment tech like Vervo. Then what company literally needs that kind of tech and to stay competitive, the best fit I thought was ZipRecruiter. Hands down, Vervo fits squarely into Zips target audience. And more than one-ups Indeed's weak ass interviewing platform. Vervo just launched a customer service simulator for retail tech support and subscription services, which puts candidates into a virtual customer service environment and then test their ability and skills and problem solving. Chad (19m 43s): Customer service talent is, is generally top three when we take a look at needs of the market, but this simulator could be adapted for much more, especially with Zip because they got so much fucking money. The main point here is that Zip needs the challenge Indeed, and deliver better candidates faster. Vervo would supercharge those efforts and make Indeed's platform look like a set of tinker toys. Joel (20m 9s): Damn. Chad (20m 10s): There you go. Tim (20m 11s): It's like you wrote like the marketing for them. Yeah. Joel (20m 14s): Big sweaty balls. Tim (20m 15s): By the way, could you, like the amount of money that's going to be like just throwing at Zip and Indeed this year from companies begging for talent can be ridiculous. Like I would love to be on the sales side cause you know, you're going to exceed every revenue goal by like 200% like this. Joel (20m 34s): Yeah. They're getting inbound calls. Like I'll call them on Friday. Yeah. Everyone else's begging for phone calls. Chad (20m 39s): Vervo only has 4.5 million in funding. Right. So they, I mean, they haven't taken a lot of money. Right. So, I mean, I think they're perfect. Tim (20m 47s): You got Tradify acquisition for 50 million you're going to get them. Right, right. Yeah. Joel (20m 54s): How global is Vervo? Do we have an idea because ZipRecruiter, one of their, I guess Achilles' heels is the lack of global sort of awareness and market share. Do you have any idea of what Vervo could do for them? I'm guessing in APAC it could help them get there. Chad (21m 10s): Yeah. And I don't think they're strong suit is, I don't think Vervo's strong suit is or their strong region is actually Australia. I think they're doing more in the US and in the EU. So I think this is less of a footprint, more of tech that they need to actually carry on and try not to just stagnate. Joel (21m 39s): You know, one of the interesting, I think macro evolutions and I think movies like Parasite and Squid Game are expediting this, is the technology around basically translating any language on the fly. And that will have really interesting features in terms of our space. Because if you have an automated video interviewing tool that can speak any language on the fly, that becomes really interesting. So somebody needs to develop that if, if there's an API in the future, Google developers or whoever? Tim (22m 6s): I ran into a kid during the holidays and he was, he's doing software engineering and he was like, and I'm doing a minor in German. And I'm like, that's stupid. I'm like literally you should do a minor in electrical engineering or whatever, like a double major because like German, like, do you have a phone? Like you're not going to have to know German. Joel (22m 27s): Yeah. And eventually yeah, on the fly, you'll be speaking English and there'll be hearing German or Danish or whatever. So yeah, I agree. Stupid. Chad (22m 33s): He probably did that for a chick though. Joel (22m 34s): Unless he wants to live there. Maybe he wants to live there or a chick, we've all done stupid shit for chicks. Chad (22m 41s): That's why he would want to live there. Joel (22m 43s): I like that Vervo off the table in 2022. So my next one, is I talked a little bit about themes, in the beginning of the show. And I think that if there's a macro theme for 2022 that I think will filter down to some degree into our space, it's the Metaverse that's right. I had to say it at least once. So we know Facebook actually changed its name in regards to this. So my specific prediction is some company, some startup in our space will have Metaverse something in terms of its solution. And it will be funded to the tune of 10 plus million dollars. Joel (23m 27s): If I had to guess what they would do, I'm sort of reminded back 15, 17 years ago. I remember a conversation about video recruiting and this company that was a startup actually would send webcams because webcams weren't ubiquitous at the time they would send the webcam to the candidate. Chad (23m 47s): Green job interview. Joel (23m 52s): They would have the logo of the company on the webcam. So they kept the webcam. So I literally think like companies will send Oculus devices with their logo on it, to high level sort of high demand candidates, particularly with companies that specify or specialize in Metaverse and do interviews in the Metaverse. So I think that we'll see the first little sprout of the Metaverse with some serious money behind it in 2022. Tim (24m 17s): Hmm. Probably what they'll do is just send you some shitty cardboard cutout thing that you put your phone in and that'll be like the first, here you go, we're going to send you a cardboard thing. It's going to fall off your face. Joel (24m 30s): It's cheaper for us to send you an Android phone than it is an Oculus. Just throw that Samsung in there. Tim (24m 37s): No. Where do you want me to do with this phone? Like throw it away. You're fine. Chad (24m 45s): If that does happen. My prediction is we have them on Firing Squad and I give them the guns. sfx (24m 57s): Oh hell no. Tim (24m 58s): As Joel was talking about Metajobs.com. It's going to be the Meta. I'm just buying urls today. It's the first job board in the Metaverse. Joel (25m 9s): Combined with Pokemon go. Tim (25m 11s): Go, find your job. Chad (25m 12s): Yeah. Career builder has that. Joel (25m 13s): Could you guys see a different sort of focus or specialization of a Metaverse recruiting solution other than the recruiting process? I mean onboarding and training, I think that's going to happen as well. Chad (25m 25s): For sure. It is. Tim (25m 26s): Who's going to have the first metaverse HR, like our recruiting conference that we have to put our Oculus's on. And then we sit there with our haptic gloves and keep touching you inappropriately Joel, under the table. Joel (25m 47s): Time to revive the ERG conference. Tim (25m 49s): Yes. EREMeta Chad (25m 50s): ERE META just put Meta behind everything done. All right, Tim. Tim (25m 52s): All right. I'm going with a TikTok launches, its own recruiting, I say product/service. Now in 2021, we saw TikTok resumes, which was like a quick kind of like, Hey, let's check out and see if people will hire idiots on TikTok with a 32nd kind of video. But to me that was just kind of a let's test the, you know, kind of how the, will people be interested enough in this. And the reality was, is I think companies were interested, especially in the hourly side and would see the whole advent of kind of hourly recruiting solutions in the industry, as we just talked about Paradox and what they have. But I think TikTok they have so many freaking eyeballs for so long every day. Tim (26m 33s): There has to be a recruiting product service solution there that's going to make them a lot of money. Joel (26m 40s): How do you think the candidates will interact with the companies? Tim (26m 42s): That's that's the question, right. I still think like that's the whole reason this TikTok resumes was kind of born by TikTok because I think they felt like, Hey, there has to be a way to make this happen. All as we know is like the total engagement of their algorithm and how they can actually really go out. Their algorithm is so strong and they can really go after certain people. So if you're going after nurses or you're going after pizza delivery guys or whatever, like, you know, you can segment that out so well on and you could on TikTok, they don't do that now. I mean, they do that to you to like give you content. But I would think like organizations would fall over themselves right now to pay TikTok money, to have access to whoever those people are. Tim (27m 25s): And then to be able to jam videos at them, right? Like, Hey, you know, come, you know, work at, you know, Domino's pizza and blah, blah, blah, whatever. Chad (27m 34s): Well, I mean, they can do that now with marketing, right. I mean, it's just it's yeah. It's just the basic marketing instead of doing, you know, for pizzas, you know, you're doing it for pizza delivery positions. Tim (27m 44s): Yeah. I spread, I still think like there's a way to ramp that up right now where companies aren't necessarily making, it's not easy for them to do that. I can't go as, Hey, I'm the TA leader at Uber and I'm just going to call TikTok and say, Hey, I need to hire more people. You know, here's a shit ton of money like help me do that. Chad (28m 8s): I bet you could do that. Joel (28m 12s): Question for you, Tim. So we talked on last week's show, the phenomenon of quit talking, which is basically young people going on TikTok. Chad (28m 20s): At work. Joel (28m 21s): At companies saying like, Hey, kiss my ass. I'm outta here Chad (28m 25s): Store speaker system. Angela's a bitch. Fuck you. I quit. Joel (28m 28s): Yeah. Like younger people wanting to do video sort of feedback and less about like, I'm going to go to Glassdoor and fill out this form on my desktop about the company. Like, do you think that Glassdoor and some of their other competitors get into more video features? Tim (28m 41s): It would be a great option, right. As you see, like, as you go down, you're going to someone's company page and you're seeing all the comments. Instead you're just, you're going to see videos of people like saying like, here's what I like, here's what I don't like. There's definitely that aspect. I think, I'm still shocked that we don't see more and more video in the recruiting space. And like even, you know, that kind of stuff, because especially with gen Z and younger millennials are so comfortable with doing that. Yeah. I mean, it has to happen. Joel (29m 12s): They also don't give a shit about anonymity apparently. So yeah. Chad (29m 15s): Here's the problem. Here's the problem. Those z's are afraid to do it while they're working there because they're afraid they're going to get fucking fired, but they're not when they're getting ready to quit. Cause I mean, it's their middle finger, right? So it's gotta be more of a culture shift to be able to start to get those individuals much. Like we saw with, oh shit, Costco. Dude was doing Costco videos about benefits and what you can expect and so on and so forth. And it was really cool, but that was organic. Dude did it, you know, it wasn't something that was sponsored by Costco, per se. If a company could get their head out of their fucking ass long enough to understand that this of marketing not just impacts your hiring, but it also impacts those individuals who adore your brand and they could get it. Chad (30m 4s): But for some reason we don't connect with our CMOs and marketing does not connect with us. So we're just totally disenfranchised. Tim (30m 10s): We all love to rip on Amazon and there's so many reasons why in terms of how they step on their own dick constantly, but they actually had some of the better TikTok implement branding videos in 2021. Like they did same thing. They had actual actual employees that knew how to TikTok, that had a TikTok following going out there and doing stuff. Chad (30m 34s): Kissing garbage cans. Tim (30m 35s): Maybe not that. Joel (30m 35s): It felt organic? Tim (30m 37s): But it did feel organic. Yeah. Chad (30m 38s): That's cool. Tim (30m 39s): And they got great. I mean, great. Right? Joel (30m 45s): And don't forget Sherwin Williams boy. Tim (30m 46s): Oh yeah. Definitely Joel (30m 47s): Mix some paints and getting fired. Chad (30m 50s): Tony Piloseno. Joel (30m 51s): Okay. Let's let's take a quick break. Pay some bills and we'll get back, I guess to my third prediction. Chad (31m 2s): Cheeseman time. Joel (31m 3s): Cheese time, baby. All right. So I've already covered the metaverse. I've covered robotics. Let's talk about crypto. Let's talk about crypto. Chad (31m 14s): Everybody loves that shit. Joel (31m 15s): All right. Well, NFTs are taken over the world. People are becoming millionaires over these digital, can't be copied "wink wink" images. So my prediction is I think that NFTs will be a tool by companies to recruit as well as retain talent. Let me give an example. Nike is creating their own NFTs. Obviously the NBA, I think any team that has a strong consumer brand will create NFTs that goes into luxury items, athletic wear, et cetera. So I think that if you come in to work for Nike, for example, as an employee, you will get a unique NFT by Nike. Joel (31m 55s): And that NFT will allow you to do things that only employees can do. Maybe it's social activities or sporting events or whatever. And then each year that you stay with the company, or maybe after certain anniversaries, you'll get a, another NFT that will be more valuable because you've spent that much more time with the company. Maybe it allows you alumni. When you leave the company, you'll still have this somewhat badge, if you will, or token to be able to do stuff that only old time alumni of the companies can do. But I think we start to see the first evidence of companies using NFTs to not only recruit top talent, but also retain the people that they have. Chad (32m 42s): Are you like trolling in cell message boards for predictions. I mean every single one seems like old white dude in a beanbag chair. Joel (32m 49s): Sorry. Sorry. My real prediction is Vervo will get acquired by somebody. Let me make, make it exciting. No, Tim (32m 54s): Hey, by how old am I that I think like the whole Nike metaverse like, oh, I can have a digital pair of Jordan ones. How fucking stupid is that? Like, no, it's a goddamn, I don't need a pair of fucking Jordan ones in the metaverse I'm sitting on a goddamn beanbag in my basement, jerking off. I don't need shoes. So fucking stupid. Chad (33m 20s): Back to my comment. Go ahead. Joel (33m 21s): I'll be getting the last laugh next year when we talk about predictions that came true. Tim (33m 25s): By the way, Nike sent me a token. I'm in. Chad (33m 34s): I love it. Joel (33m 36s): And it's already worth $50 million. Tim (33m 39s): I know. Right. I'm going to do another really exciting one. I think Chad and I kind of stayed on brand and Joel went down the fucking rabbit hole. sfx (33m 52s): Take off eh we're doin' movie. Don't wreck our show ehhh. Tim (33m 52s): I'm gonna do a LinkedIn/Teams integration, so it's super sexy. Allowing TA teams to continue to communicate with candidates through Teams versus having to kind of continue to go through LinkedIn. It seems like that, like we keep waiting for Microsoft, LinkedIn to do something. And then I see more and more how they're just trying to jam everything to Teams. It would seem like if I have a LinkedIn recruiter license, at some point, I should be able to communicate under one platform. And I'm going to say that they're going to push everybody then to Teams and not LinkedIn. So we'll see in 2022, what happens, but I'm hoping, you know, Microsoft eventually decides to do something with some kind of integration with Outlook or Teams or something with LinkedIn, that they haven't really done yet. Joel (34m 33s): Tell me, visualize this. So I log into my LinkedIn account and Teams is integrated and I'm talking to the candidates through that? Tim (34m 38s): Yeah. It's through that. Yeah. So like, I mean, so if you're already, instead of going through LinkedIn messaging where it's stuck there, I can now pull that into Teams, which is then going to pull it into every other part of, you know, my email or calendar and everything else. So I'm not having to go back and forth right. To live through, you know, those, those conversations. Chad (34m 56s): Big advantage over slack. That's for sure. And I think this is genius, which is why I don't think it will happen. I think it's too. Tim (35m 4s): It makes too much sense. Right? Chad (35m 6s): It makes too much sense. You would think that they, I mean these integrations, it's almost like they're trying to squeeze everything they can out of LinkedIn kind of like its own little island and they haven't really, they haven't done you would think they haven't performed these types of integrations, which you would have thought would have been completed at least during a fucking pandemic when everybody's working from home. This makes sense. I mean, it really does. Tim (35m 29s): Yeah. I mean, especially like on the video side, when you're scheduling, you know, interviews and all this other stuff through Teams anyways, and a lot of organizations are using that. You know, not having to go back, back and forth between the two platforms, just, you know, it doesn't make any sense. Chad (35m 44s): So it's also, if you're talking to a candidate and you're messaging on LinkedIn, you could just hit it on Teams and boom, right into video. Right? Yeah. I know that you can go ahead and copy and paste a fricking Teams URL, but shit. I mean, if it's integrated, just do it all on the same platform. Tim (36m 5s): Yep. Joel (36m 5s): Does anyone see Salesforce making a big acquisition in our space? Tim (36m 9s): Hmm. Chad (36m 9s): They're busy changing their name to Slack. I don't know. Joel (36m 12s): People been talking about that for years. I'm surprised it hasn't happened, but. Tim (36m 19s): They've been quiet haven't they they've been, it's kind of a weirdly quiet? Joel (36m 23s): They bought Slack and they've been quiet since then, for good reasons spending as much as they did. They better get that right before they do anything else. Tim (36m 37s): There's those beads of sweat on foreheads of executives. Joel (36m 42s): All right, Chad, you're bringing up the rear for this final prediction. Chad (36m 47s): Your favorite. It's your favorite? So Randstad finally shuts down Monster. So here's a quote from the Q3 earnings call "Monster turned the corner 1% year over year. We do expect the growth for Q4 to be stronger on Monster. And we're going to talk to you again at the capital markets day, because the more our technology becomes solid, the more we can invest in marketing. So we already invested in marketing and Monster in this quarter because we do believe that it will yield fruit" Chad (37m 28s): end quote. Okay. So this is a Q3 of 2021 earnings call when job sites are printing fucking money. Tim (37m 36s): Goddamn ATM's. Chad (37m 36s): And Monster turned the corner at a 1%. I mean, who is buying that? And then they said, the more our tech becomes solid. Are you fucking kidding me? You're drowning in technical debt. The biggest problem with Monster is that it's a 1995 core vet that hasn't had proper maintenance. It's been driven hard and into the ground and hasn't received any upgrades whatsoever. Hell, I'm not even convinced they're street legal anymore. So after Randstad does not see a tremendous uplift in Q4 2021 and Q1 of 2022, they cannot find a buyer. Obviously they're not going to find a buyer. They're going to cut their losses. Chad (38m 18s): And don't forget. Joel (38m 19s): Wow. Chad (38m 19s): That they have a somewhat new North American CEO. They're their last North American CEO. This was like, her baby, Monster was like her baby. They have a new North American CEO. She's going to say, this is not mine. I don't want to have anything to do with this. And let's go ahead and just shut this fucker down. Joel (38m 37s): And they sell the domain to Monster Beverage? Is that part of the prediction? Tim (38m 43s): Ooo, they might get more money out of that, right? Joel (38m 47s): Hell yeah they will. Tim (38m 48s): In a world right now, how much would Monster or Monster Beverage pay for monster.com URL? Like 5 million, 10 million? Joel (38m 54s): I'd say 10 to 25 million. Tim (38m 55s): 10-25? Joel (38m 56s): Yeah. Tim (38m 56s): And you can't find another company in our space to spend that on them. Chad (38m 60s): No, not now. Joel (39m 1s): Well, just the domain. They don't give a shit about the resumes and the jobsite for sure. Like just the domain itself. Chad (39m 9s): Out of date tech or any of that. Tim (39m 10s): So maybe we should get with a Monster beverage folks, give them the URL and we'll just take all the tech for like five bucks. Joel (39m 20s): Let's buy Jobbr on the cheap and create the Instagram of jobs that they've been talking about for five, 10 years. Wow. You think they just shut the shit down? Interesting. That's a bold prediction Sowash Chad (39m 31s): Why continue wasting the cash on the resources when it's just going down the fucking abyss in the first place? Joel (39m 37s): Damn. Tim (39m 37s): Did you guys see the, by the way, during the bowl season? Football bowl season, did you guys see the ? Joel (39m 41s): Knew you'd have to get to sports eventually. Tim (39m 44s): Did you guys see the CareerBuilder commercial? Chad (39m 46s): Oh No. Please tell, please, please. Tim (39m 47s): Oh my God, it had first, it had like that the really like the new shitty logo that they have. Like, you can't even tell what it is. Joel (39m 55s): The stamp? Chad (39m 56s): I really thought it was a joke. Tim (39m 58s): It's kind of looks like it's almost like as bleeding edges, like somehow, like it's still in draft form. Like, I'm not sure what this is. And then what was it? Joel? You remember the tagline? Joel (40m 10s): What was it? The employee of the month? Video or commercial where it's like the same woman every, every month. And she's like, I'm out here. The tagline. No, I don't remember. Which is a good sign. Tim (40m 25s): So like, I'm like, wow. Who, talked them into spending this money? Thinking like this is what we need? Joel (40m 31s): At least their fighting a little bit. At least there's taht. Chad (40m 35s): That was the new CEO's first innovative step. Sue Arthur, who I really want to get on the show and talk about this innovation. Joel (40m 45s): That'd be nice. That'd be nice. All right, boys, therein lies another predictions show. Chad (40m 49s): That was a blast! Tim (40m 50s): That was fun. Joel (40m 53s): Let's do it again next year. Let's hope that we can kick this COVID thing and actually have some face time next year more than just east Lansing's finest establishment. Believe it or not I miss you guys. I miss you. Chad (41m 13s): Oh, stop it. I'm going to tear up. Tim (41m 17s): It's just the COVID talking. Joel (41m 18s): It's my 102.3 fever. Tim (41m 20s): He's delusional. Joel (41m 21s): And with that, another one in the books. Chad and Joel (41m 25s): We're out. We out. OUTRO (41m 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. 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 a hot mess right now. Boris is apologizing. Putin is (probably) invading. Belgium is rioting. Fortunately, you have Lieven and the boys, welcoming special guest Calin Stefanescu, CEO & Co-Founder at Dora (Happy Recruiter) to help sort out all the employment news, while you worry about geopolitics. In this episode: TotalJobs is sticking it to staffing agencies, the 4-day workweek is gaining popularity in Europe - although it's not popular with everyone on the podcast - and IKEA flexes it's corporate muscle with employees who fail to get on the vaccine train. What's choo-choo in Swedish? 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. Chad and Cheese Does Europe INTRO (5s): Some podcasts, do it for the fun. Some do it for the fame, Chad and Cheese they do it for global effin domination. That's why bringing America to its knees was just the beginning. Now they have their eyes set on conquering Europe and they've drafted industry veteran Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze of Belgium to help them navigate the old country and bring HR's most dangerous podcast across the pond to trash-talk like never before. Not safe for work in any language. The Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. Joel (38s): Oh yeah. Boris is apologizing. Germany is pandering. Belgium is rioting. Putin is invading. Crypto is tanking and the queen is stripping! Just another week in Europe. What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "Blinken" Cheeseman. Chad (56s): And this is Chad "Back in the USSR" Sowash. Lieven (1m 0s): I'm Lieven "Learning Russian as we speak" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 5s): Da comrade. On this week's episode, Total Jobs is leveling. The UK is piloting and Ikea is vaccinating or else. Let's do this. sfx (1m 15s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 18s): What's up my European friends? We have a mystery guest as we always do. Let me introduce Calin Stefanescu CEO, and co-founder at Dora the recruitment robot by Happy Recruiter. Calin, I assume you're calling in from Romania. Calin (1m 38s): Yes. Joel (1m 38s): Welcome to the show. Calin (1m 38s): Thank you very much. Thank you for invitation. Joel (1m 41s): So Calin's working on his Russian as well. I assume Calin (1m 45s): Maybe we will need it. I hope not. They are very close to us, but let's say we are in a good position, right? Joel (1m 52s): Well, hopefully they'll need chatbots when they get there. Calin (1m 56s): Yeah. Joel (1m 56s): Speaking of, there's been a lot of news in the chat bot space. You've probably heard Paradox is now a unicorn. So Chad and I and Lieven have talked about a lot of other players getting gobbled up. What's sort of your take on the state of chatbots and recruitment? Calin (2m 13s): Basically our chat bot is only a part of the technology that we're doing. What we're doing with the chat bot is a kind of chit chat between the recruiters and candidates to have the options to discuss nonstop and find more things about the jobs from the candidate side and from the recruiters side, more things about the candidate in a very automatic way. Three lines if it makes sense for both of them to continue to the human interview and to make, to see if I know, make sense for them to shake hands and get a job or get a new worker. Chad (2m 45s): So it's kind of the busy work? I mean, it's really trying to do the upfront work. Calin (2m 51s): Yes, basically it's doing the screening. Besides screening is doing the searching for candidates. Basically candidates are leaving everywhere on social media in the company database and Dora is talking with every candidate. The conversation can be customized by the recruiter and in this way, or I will talk with your entire database for instance, in three days. And at the end you realize which is available or not. Joel (3m 16s): Gotcha. Well, Calin, we know a little bit about your company. Tell us a little bit about you and where they can find out more about the company. And then we'll get into some shout outs. Calin (3m 24s): I'm one of the co-founders of the company and the CEO. I like the whitewater kayaking. Joel (3m 30s): You're a huge Rambo fan we learned in the green room, which is great. Calin (3m 34s): Huge Rambo fan and Chuck Norris, of course. Joel (3m 39s): Oooo Chuck! Chad (3m 39s): Yes. Delta Force. Joel (3m 40s): Let's get into some shout out. Shall we? Chad (3m 42s): You first Cheeseman. Joel (3m 43s): All right. My shout-out goes to automation, huh? Stick with me here for a second. Okay. News out this week, approximately 12 million jobs will be lost to automation across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. This speculation in 2040, according to a recent report from Forrester. It's not all bad news, of course, because Europe is an old folks' home. Europe's big five will lose, they'll lose 30 million fewer people of working age then in 2020, additionally green energy will help create 9 million new jobs in Europe's biggest economies by 2040, specifically in clean energy, clean buildings and smart cities and possibly the military if Putin has his way about it. Joel (4m 33s): Shout out for better or worse from me to automation. Chad (4m 37s): We're always talking about how robots are going to take jobs, but really they're just taking tasks. And maybe it's just, I mean, maybe it's the tasks that are leading up to taking the full job. I don't know. What do you, what do you guys think? Do you think that this is kind of overplayed, at least at this point within the next five years, it's not gonna, it's not going to impact that much, or do you think it will. Calin (4m 57s): I mean, right now everybody's complaining that there is not enough people in most of the sectors everybody's like complaining, complaining and you know, starting to pay more and more to find the right people. And I think automation will somehow will balance this a bit, but I don't think that automation is there yet replace, like large number of people. We still need to work a lot to be there. And I think there's going to be in years from now on, but for the moment, all his job, you know, that will be lost because of automation might be a good thing. Because as I mentioned, companies don't have enough people, you know, in their companies all over Europe. Chad (5m 36s): What do you think Lieven? Do you think its played out? Lieven (5m 36s): It's not about making jobs disappear it's about creating time when people have more time to can spend our time at things which are more interesting to them, or even more interesting to the company than just a nitty gritty that's automation can take over. Chad (5m 52s): Yeah, I will. This leads into my shout out, Exotech! Exotech sounds like a skeleton that you would wear during battle. Anyway, French startup Exotech has raised a $335 million series D round and has reached a valuation of $2 billion. Exotech is a hardware and software solution that replaces some of the human warehouse tasks. Humans don't have to roam the warehouse anymore. They can focus on picking, packing and making sure products go in and out of the warehouse. So this is, I think one of the pieces where I think warehouses will be fully automated one day and to be quite Frank, who wants to work in a fucking warehouse anyway? Chad (6m 36s): Right. Joel (6m 36s): I'm sorry, what was that valuation again? Chad (6m 43s): $2 Billion? sfx (6m 44s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (6m 46s): Yeah, no doubt. There's going to be huge growth in automation of factories led by Chad's favorite person, Jeff Bezos, who would prefer not to hire anybody if he could possibly get away with it. Chad (6m 59s): Well, they're shitty jobs. I mean, who wants them anyway? Lieven (7m 2s): Poor people will have them. Joel (7m 3s): Chad, so fancy with his real estate empire, who wants those crappy jobs? I'm on a beach in Portugal. Fuck everybody else. All right, Lieven. You got a shout out? Lieven (7m 16s): Yeah. My shout-out goes to Microsoft for buying Activision Blizzard and not just because I was a small shareholder and made some nice money also but mostly because I feel it's really a smart move. I mean, you know, in 2016, I believe it was, they bought LinkedIn for $27 billion when it was their entry to social media and given them access to a few billion, highly educated people. And then in 2018, their bought Github, enabling them to get in touch with millions of developers. And now they're buying one of the biggest game developers. Once again, giving them access to our hundreds of million, highly educated people. And I see a pattern there. This is not just about buying profitable companies and by the way, they are definitely profitable, but it's about preparing for the metaverse. Lieven (8m 3s): And also it's about buying influence. It's like buying a major newspaper, used to be our television channels used to be a few years ago. So it's buying influence, which is a good shot. Joel (8m 17s): Did Lieven say metaverse? Chad (8m 18s): He did, not to be, not to be confused with the whole Oculus metaverse thing, but the metaverse already exists. The infrastructure, the platform, and in gaming. And I agree. I mean, this is just being able to tap into more of those users as individuals and then perspectively, you know, open up that gaming platform with retail and, a bunch of different ways that you can actually buy shit more than just games. Right. Lieven (8m 47s): And also about recruitment. I mean, we strongly believe at House of HR that recruitment's going to be big in the near future when it's about recruitment or sorry. Gaming is going to be big when you're talking about recruiting. So by the way, it's one of the hot topics and Ostend's on May 6th on the e-recruitment Congress. Joel (9m 6s): So say more about that. What does that look like from your perspective, like interviewing in the metaverse? Gaming? Lieven (9m 14s): It's about reaching out to people, getting in touch with people, trying to just get them to know you. And it's about credibility. We would like to have our own professional e-sport brands, not a brand, but I mean, a team we would like to get involved. Like when we used to sponsor a soccer team, you call it football, soccer, or we call it football. It's the same thing. It's just, we call it a recruitment Plaza. When young people gather together in such big masses, then that's where we need to be. So we are trying to find out the best way to get involved into the e-sports world and how to reach out to those people, how to get to know them, how to make them, getting to know us and how to hire them. Lieven (9m 57s): And we have a few specialists on the topic who are going to be in Ostend. The big four companies are already using it now to recruit people. We have case from KPMG, somewhere in the Nordics. And we will also show the finals of the League of Legends BENELUX cup. Joel (10m 15s): Oh. Lieven (10m 15s): Which is sponsored by House of HR, by the way. Chad (10m 20s): Nice. Good job! Lieven (10m 20s): And the people on stage five against five playing the competition in the finals. So it's cool to get people to know and the HR people to know how this works and how they can use it for their own recruiting strategies. Chad (10m 33s): That's right kids. So go to Erecruitment-congress.com. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, be there. Lieven (10m 39s): Yeah. Chad (10m 40s): All right. Now RecFest don't for a few months after you go to Belgium for the erecruitment conference, you gotta go, you gotta go to RecFest and that is happening July 7th at KNEBWORTH Park, baby KNEBWORTH Park, Joel and I are going to be on the disrupt stage emceeing there making a bunch of noise, drinking beer, having a good time. We're really excited about it and looking forward to the Congress in Belgium in May, and then finding ourselves at RecFest, KNEBWORTH Park in the UK on the disrupt stage. Joel (11m 15s): That's right. Chad and Cheese, coming to Europe, baby. Lieven (11m 17s): Basically are just going to do the same thing. And RecFest as are going to do in Ostend, like drinking beer and disrupting people. Chad (11m 26s): That's our brand. Joel (11m 27s): Break shit, drank too much and talk shit. That's pretty much what we're gonna do. Lieven (11m 35s): That's why we're here. Chad (11m 36s): TOPICS! Joel (11m 36s): All right, guys. Some big news out of the old country this week. All right, let's talk about TotalJobs. UK job board staple announced in a blog post that it is now taking significant steps toward a single standard rate card that will apply to all client types with discounts driven by volume. This will create a level and efficient market in which customer types will no longer dictate the rate you pay. The industry is you imagine, as you can imagine, sounded off with Stephen O'Dell sharing quote "It appears that they are ending the historic discounts given to agencies compared to employers, rather than charge employers, less they're charging agencies more. Joel (12m 17s): This will be a strategic decision to stop favoring agencies over employers and TA departments." All right, guys, what's going on here and who wins and who loses with TotalJobs pricing change? Lieven (12m 28s): Well, basically what they're doing is too little too late, and it's something that all the others have been doing for years. I mean, just to give a very practical example, Accents, one of our companies in Belgium, they have about 500 million euros revenue. They are big in Belgium, but one of our job boards, we were using a lot of StepStone, but StepStone doesn't want to sell for a price smaller than 120 euros per posting, which is totally ridiculous if you have 8,000 vacancies like we have, so StepStone has been doing this for a year, so they didn't want the big agencies like us to pollute as they call it their own databases. So they're just charged ridiculously high amounts of money to make us leave. Lieven (13m 11s): And that's exactly what we did. And we've been working for years not to need them anymore. And now finally we succeeded and now those people from TotalJobs say, Hey, you're going to pay more. You don't want them anymore. So this isn't going to make any difference at all. Chad (13m 28s): This seems so counterintuitive to me, why were employers more expensive than agencies in the first place? Lieven (13m 35s): It's a volume. Hiring company has maybe one hundreds reqs. Joel (13m 36s): You have built-in content with agencies and there were probably some of the first that came on. Chad (13m 41s): You can get content anywhere. Joel (13m 42s): If something's fallen from the tree, you're going to grab that before you go climb the tree for the other stuff. Right? Chad (13m 48s): But that was like 10 years ago. Joel (13m 50s): And that's still prevalent today. I'm sure. I'm sure a lot of the salespeople who made those deals are still with the company. Calin (13m 57s): Agencies are bringing volumes because they have projects all the time so from different companies, but they are using employer's names all the time. But you mentioned before about Accent. I will give you an example, for instance, what we realized during, you know, this years that like big companies like Accent or GI or Manpower or these guys, they have in their database, pretty much everybody. So pretty much there, they will be able to find job boards or in social media, even. So I think, you know, agencies doesn't really need, you know, a, you know, job boards, if they are using their database at a full potential. Lieven (14m 40s): I agree. Chad (14m 41s): But to me, if you think about it, indeed, they totally screwed. Staffing pulled all of their content out of the organic. And yet they saw a revenue raise from staffing companies. So as we talk about, well, staffing companies don't need them anymore in the US at least they're seeing a rise in revenue on sites like Indeed, who were screwing over agencies. So, I mean, I'm not really sure where this is going., Joel (15m 4s): Yeah. And this has been a trend for a while. Chad, I mean, direct employers, right? Like one of the appeals to that was it's only employers. It's no staffing jobs, et cetera. So this has been a trend that's happening for a while. I think in the UK, it's sort of unique because they rely so much on staffing companies. And I'm not an expert on that. But I think that probably has some bearing in the time that this took to happen. The question for me becomes, you know, when it's a seller's market again, and there's more job seekers than there are companies like do job boards, go back to the old model and pack it in with jobs that are relevant just to keep the people that are going to the site happy? Calin (15m 45s): I think, you know, employers, versus agencies they should work somehow together because agencies, they accumulate a lot of experience. They are doing only recruitment you know, everyday for four years. Employers used to, you know, have huge HR departments or, but they are focused on their business. So their main business is like building cars or buildings or whatever. So I think there is a lot of matching or they should work together in the future or transform their businesses somehow to make it to the next year's. Chad (16m 14s): Sounds like RPO. Lieven (16m 15s): Yeah. The situation has changed compared to a couple of years ago. I mean, most of the people reaching job boards are coming through Google anyway. So the more content they have on their boards the better, and each head is a hit. So if we, as agencies can deliver them volume that's okay, problem is this volume is appearing everywhere, all those, oh, we share our jobs on so many platforms because we do it automatically and they are distributed automatically, et cetera. So it's kind of littering the database and now they can charge us a lot. They hardly make any money for credits. They sell credits. And we have, let's say, if you buy 10,000 credits, we have one year to, to use them, but they can charge a lot per credit. Lieven (16m 58s): So they feel the paying customers who really pay a lot per credit because they only take like 10 or 20 credits at a time. Those people, jobs that got lost in the database, I feel that way. The problem is if people come to Google, they don't even see the search engine from the specific job board anymore. So I don't think this is the right time to do this. Chad (17m 21s): My prediction is they will see again much like Indeed they will see revenues rise. There will be a lot of bitching and whining and tantrums thrown from many of these staffing agencies, the ones who can be self-sufficient. This will push them to be that, but the rest of them will make up from a revenue standpoint or the companies that they lose. Joel (17m 43s): There will be a nice little sugar high for the job boards that will take staffing companies, because they'll see a huge influx of agencies. They're like, please take our jobs. Please take our jobs. Lieven (17m 53s): We have money to spend. Yeah. Calin (17m 56s): About the volumes, actually volumes can be a downside because if they deliver a lot of volumes than I know agencies, or they need to process that, that people and hear the digital part and the technology will help companies. Otherwise the volumes are actually a downside. You mean in my opinion. Lieven (18m 13s): But we've been working for years on not being dependent on job boards. We are ready for this. It was coming. Chad (18m 19s): I think you are, you were like top shelf when it comes to that age. So, don't use yourself as the example, I think of many other staffing firms, they're still going day to day. Don't you think? Lieven (18m 31s): Yeah, but, we are not one company. We are actually 43 brands and most of our brands are ready for this, they have been working on this and okay we've been helping them, but they have been working on this. So there used to be only job boards and the own websites. But now there is the own website or our job board start several kinds of job boards. There is Google for jobs. Then there are social, there's LinkedIn. And there is the fourth Pillar. Collin has company like Dora the chatbots, which is also a way to reach out to candidates. So we have so many more possibilities than there used to be before. And we don't depend on them anymore. Joel (19m 3s): And don't forget about the rise of sourcing tools like Seek Out and Hiring Solved and others that has certainly helped staffing agencies rely less on job boards. Well, guys, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about four day weeks in the UK. sfx (19m 18s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (19m 21s): All right, guys, this is from Bloomberg this week. The four day work week is getting a tryout in the UK. Dozens of British companies have volunteered to take part in a pilot program offering four day work weeks for employees. The six month trial will include 30 firms that have agreed to allow staff to work up to 32 hours per week without cutting their wages or benefits. Similar trials have taken place in other countries, including Spain, New Zealand and Iceland, more scheduled to run in Canada and Australia. This trend is also bleeding into the US with San Francisco based Bolt instituting a permanent four day work week for employers last fall. Joel (20m 1s): Companies going to four days are said to have employees who are happier, more efficient and more productive. All right, Iceland and Spain are one thing, but this trend is gaining steam and capitalist strongholds like the US and UK. Guys what's going on here? Is this a good thing or a further decline of Western civilization? Lieven (20m 19s): It's not the further decline of Western civilization. I think it makes sense. I mean, we were talking about automation. If automation enables us to get more work done in less time without losing profit for the company, then it would be kind of evil to fire some people and make the rest of work harder just to make more profits. So people feel it's, they don't have that much nitty gritty work as they used to. So maybe they can get a serious job done in four days instead of five without losing profit for the company. And then it's win, win. Calin (20m 50s): And I will say that it's accepting the truth used to help a company about 10 years ago or more, maybe more. And they were doing a productivity software and they were selling this software all over the world, even in the US. And the software was like, you know, checking what, how much time you are working. And the average that they have was like five hours per day. Basically we work less than four days. Lieven (21m 17s): We should try three days, three days a week. Joel (21m 20s): Lobbying for a two day work week. Lieven (21m 21s): Why not? Calin (21m 21s): Maybe we switch it to the weekend. Joel (21m 24s): Yeah. The workweek is Saturday and Sunday. And the rest of the time we get off. Chad (21m 33s): Exactly. So in 1926, Henry Ford popularized the 40 hour work week after he discovered through research that working more yielded, only a small increase in productivity that lasted for a short period of time. So Ford understood that working someone twice as hard did not produce him twice as many cars. And the world of work has evolved, not because people were breaking their backs or not seeing their families or quitting, but because of productivity, that's the key word productivity. So we took, we saw that Microsoft in Japan a couple of years ago tested a four day work week with 2300 employees. Chad (22m 13s): Their productivity jumped 40%. Electricity costs went down 23%, right? They didn't even talk about long-term retention if they carried this pilot forward, we should be focused, not on the amount of the hours that we're working, but the output, right. The actual productivity. And we need to really evolve past these quote unquote hour kind of times. We need goals. We need to look at, you know, projects, timelines, those types of things, and really get rid of this 1920s kind of thought process. Calin (22m 44s): Yeah. And maybe we can take a look to France. They are working like 36 hours, 36 hours, and they have coffee breaks. And some companies, they have wine breaks. They have strikes all the time constantly. Chad (23m 0s): Okay. Maybe not that part. Joel (23m 2s): Let's call France as the poster child for work productivity. Alright, snowflakes, I'm going to throw a little water, cold water on all this, a warm and fuzzy talk. So first of all, I'm still waiting for the four day work week trend to hit the Chad and Cheese podcast. But Chad still makes me work on Fridays. Okay. When I was a kid and wouldn't eat my dinner, what did my parents say? Kids in China are starving. Hamburger Helper is the devil, by the way. I don't know if they have that in Europe, but I hated it as a kid. Now I tell my kids to do their homework because kids in China are studying their asses off. If you're not familiar with the 9, 9, 6 work culture, let me enlighten you. Okay. 9, 9, 6 is a work schedule practice by many companies in the PPC. Joel (23m 45s): That's China. In it employees work from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, six days per week. If my math is correct that's 72 hours per week. So yeah. Keep coddling everybody Western countries because while you're watching Tiger King on Netflix with your extra day off, China keeps lapping us around the track. Let's see how that all turns out in a hundred years. Chad (24m 7s): So what you're saying is we should just go ahead and kill people with work. Joel (24m 12s): I'm saying there's something to be said for work ethic and working harder than other people do. Chad (24m 17s): Yeah. But you're tying that to actual times, which I think is total bullshit because I can work harder than most people can in probably a fraction of the time. Lieven (24m 26s): So you are referring to Henry Ford now we have a Elon Musk. So he's probably going to do something totally different as well. Chad (24m 36s): Neural network, baby. Joel (24m 37s): Foreign to us Ilon. I'm talking about China. Lieven (24m 40s): Elon has factories in China. Chad (24m 42s): With Lievin It always comes back to Elon. Calin (24m 44s): Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you know, the guy is called Ricardo Semler he wrote the book Seven-Day Weekend . Lieven (24m 52s): He is French? Calin (24m 53s): I know it's Brazilian. And he was describing a way, you know, he just, you know, he took over the company from his father was like in 87. If I don't, if I remember well, and he introduced this new approach, like people can, you know, be at the factory anytime they want, but they need to finalize a certain number of parts or what they are doing or sell a number of things. And that was about it. They didn't work connected to on with time and nothing, just a task. And apparently worked. Joel (25m 25s): Some of the facade of this is like, we're at work all the time. Right? Like we're messaging, we're answering emails. Like how many people really just shut off if they're working a four day workweek. It's interesting. I don't know. I feel like every day is a work day. Calin (25m 39s): Yeah. Joel (25m 40s): You may not work eight hours every day, but you're always kind of working. All right. Let's talk about Ikea and COVID. Is that still a thing? Holy shit. All right. This is from the BBC Sweden's Ikea has cut sick pay for un-vaccinated staff who need to self isolate because of COVID exposure and in some cases for workers who test positive, the retail giant acknowledged it was an emotive topic, but said its policy had to evolve with changing circumstances. It comes as firms struggle with mass staff absences and rising costs. Employment lawyer, Sarah Ozon warned that lawsuits claiming discrimination of the unvaccinated could be coming down the pike for employers like Ikea. Joel (26m 22s): In the U S the Supreme court struck down vaccination mandates from the federal government and employers like Starbucks, who wants embraced mandatory vaccines are now backing down. Amazon is providing cash incentives for getting a shot. Guys how does this tug of war unfold in Europe? Do more companies follow Ikea's lead or is there a better strategy? Calin (26m 44s): Ikea, I mean, they have balls if they do this right now. I mean, when you look at, you know, personal crisis, they, they are doing something like that. On the other side, you know, vaccine is, you know, done by, you know, scientists somehow there we need a balance, but I think it's going to be a lot of, you know, lawsuits against these companies. If they follow this and keep it for for more time. Joel (27m 13s): Yeah. The Europeans on the show can speak to this more than Chad and I can. This feels like a litigious nightmare, country by country in Europe. Am I wrong about that? Like the whole discrimination of the unvaccinated seems like a total slam dunk for lawyers in Europe. Lieven (27m 33s): Maybe it's once again, a job for a Boundless from that. I it's a really difficult one, but I understand what Ikea is doing. I mean, in many European countries, you only have to stay in quarantine if you weren't vaccinated and you were put at risk, or you came in contact with someone who was ill, then you have to stay at home for seven days. But if you refuse to get vaccinated, then you can make a kind of habit out of it, of getting risky contacts and then staying at home for seven days and getting paid. I mean, after a while, I would try to force people into getting vaccinated or looking for another job, but that's definitely my opinion. And I know it's a difficult one, but you have to understand the company as well I feel. Joel (28m 18s): Yeah. (Swedish Chef speak). This sounds really in Swedish to me, but what do I know? So a little bit of USA insight here, data from the census bureau shows that 8.8 million Americans were out sick between December 29th and January 10th due to contracting the coronavirus or looking after someone else who was ill. In addition 3.2 million, didn't go to work because they were afraid of getting the virus and increase of 25% over December. Look without a broad government mandate companies need to decide on whether they implement the carrot or the stick to get workers vaccinated. Americans don't respond really well to the stick when it comes to the vaccine, but whether or not the stick works well in Europe, I'm guessing that's country by country, city by city, et cetera. Joel (29m 4s): I'm guessing some European countries will embrace that better than others companies have tried. I think companies are just tired of lost revenue and unhappy customers and things are coming to a head. And Ikea is saying we're using the stick to get people vaccinated. Chad (29m 19s): So in the US in and tell me, you know, on the Europe side, you guys have mandatory vaccines, right? I mean, we have 16 mandatory vaccines if you want to go to school, MMR is just one of them. And yet we don't have this huge outrage over those 16 mandatory vaccines. And those vaccines were created back in the horse and buggy days for God's sakes. Joel (29m 44s): When they didn't have Fox news yet. Chad (29m 47s): Yeah. Now you're diverting. Anyway. Joel (29m 49s): All right. Sorry. Chad (29m 50s): Overall, I mean, it, just to me, this sounds so hollow with all of these individuals saying they don't want to have a mandatory vaccine when they've already taken probably well over a dozen. I don't know where the issue is here other than we need to protect our community Joel (30m 7s): Leaving. What's the House of HR policy on vaccines? You have a lot of employees. Lieven (30m 11s): And we don't have an official policy. I mean, it's everyone's choice, but we hope people think about it rationally and made the right decision. I mean, we are into putting people at work and when everyone is ill, we can't put people at work. So we prefer people trying to stay healthy, at least. Joel (30m 29s): So no carrot, no stick. You just employ smart people that get vacinated. Lieven (30m 33s): We try to encourage people to do the right thing, but it's a personal decision and we respect it, or we at least pretend to respect it. Joel (30m 45s): Very nice. Very nice. Well guys, that's another show I want to thank Calin, I butchered your name I don't know how many times this episode, but for those that want to know more about you or the company, where would you send them? Calin (30m 60s): To our website, happyrecruiter.com. And then from there they can have a discussion directly with Dora just to get a feeling how is to talk with a robot. Joel (31m 11s): Very nice. And if you want to check out more European goodness, just go to Chadcheese.com/Europe. Lievin Chad. Chad and Joel (31m 22s): We out. OUTRO (32m 8s): 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.

To say we were giddy about interviewing someone connected to the movie "Wolf of Wall Street" would be the understatement of the year. Yet, here we are. And why is Richard Bronson, a former partner at the "Wolf of Wall Street" firm talking to Chad & Cheese? Turns out he runs a site dedicated to finding employment for former felons called 70MillionJobs.com. It's important work that turns out to be one helluva podcast. Most interestingly, the impact on The Great Resignation as it pertains to job seekers with a criminal record isn't going as anyone expected. This one's a must-listen. Enjoy. 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 is most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman 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. Joel (21s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. Also known as the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman joined as always by my partner in crime, Chad Sowash and today we're just giddy, giddy, giddy, like a schoolgirl to welcome Richard Bronson to the show. Richard welcome. You are the founder and CEO of 70millionjobs.com. Thanks for joining us. Richard (51s): Thank you so much for having me guys. Chad (54s): Are we right in saying Charles Bronson's little brother? Is that why you're on the show? Is that what's going on here? Joel (1m 1s): Let's age everybody on the show, real quick Richard (1m 5s): Half brother. Joel (1m 5s): I'm going to rattle his cage Richard (1m 9s): Actually far more frequently the mistake is in confusing me with Richard Branson. Joel (1m 14s): That was my next joke but you beat me to it. Richard (1m 17s): It's a good joke, but yeah, I'm not him. Chad (1m 21s): I like death wish better than I do a millionaires go into space. But that being said, Richard, do us a favor give us a little more, in-depth maybe Twitter bio of who you are and a little bit about the 70 million jobs. Richard (1m 34s): Great. I'm speaking to you from Miami. Joel (1m 37s): So sexy. Richard (1m 38s): Yeah. Well sometimes I think of Indiana at much the same way guys. Chad (1m 44s): Lies. Richard (1m 44s): I launched my company 70 million jobs about five years ago. It is the first national for-profit employment platform for people with criminal records. We have helped thousands of deserving men and women with records, land jobs. Chad (2m 0s): OK. Richard (2m 1s): Certainly there is a backward backstory to how I got involved with that. Chad (2m 4s): Yes, that's what I want to know. So not just anybody gets involved into a job board staffing in this HR space. So what actually drove you to, to give a shit about this population in the first place? Because to be quite Frank here in the US I mean, there's not enough give a shit. I think about helping individuals who've been incarcerated. So why did, why did you care so much? Richard (2m 28s): I'm from New York. I used to work on Wall Street and I had a great deal of success working at some big investment banks. At a certain point I actually became a partner at the infamous Wolf of Wall Street firm that I'm sure you're familiar with. Chad (2m 48s): Yes. Richard (2m 49s): In answer to your, what you're wondering. Yeah. It was pretty much as crazy as it was depicted in the Scorsese film. Joel (2m 57s): Which character were you exactly? Richard (2m 58s): I appeared in the book, but I was not directly a character. Thank God, but I certainly, they were my partners, you know, and I was part and parcel of the mayhem. I left there and moved to Florida where I launched my own financial services firm. And I grew it into a very large business and I made sick amount of money, but along the way, I broke some laws, out of my greed and stupidity and impatience. And I paid dearly for those transgressions aside from losing everything I had, I lost family. I lost friends. And ultimately I lost my freedom. I spent a couple of years in a federal prison. Richard (3m 40s): When I came out of prison, I had less than nothing. I was destitute and homeless, but I had discovered my calling in life and that was to help my brothers and sisters coming out of prison so that they may have more opportunities than I did. And it became my calling in life. I worked for a time at a prominent non-profit organization, devoted to re-entry and became its director. But I was dissatisfied with the lack of impact we were having. There is a three out of four chance that someone who's released from jail or prison will be arrested again, 75%. Richard (4m 20s): So, and it turns out that unemployment correlates directly with recidivism. If you don't get a job, you will go back to prison. If you do get a job, you almost never get in trouble again. So it was pretty clear to me. I thought, you know, something let's do things very differently. No one's ever approached re-entry as a for-profit thing, it's always been the sleepy well-meaning non-profits or governmental agencies, you know, that have handled this. It's sort of like if the department of motor vehicles was handling re-entry, you know, you wouldn't expect such great results, but the reality is, is one out of three adults in this country have a record. Richard (5m 4s): So it's a huge, huge issue. And it's one that I chose to take on a head-on as you know, the theme of my life. Joel (5m 13s): Does a typical customer look like. I mean, I have some certain industries that you probably target, but what is are they big companies, little companies. Tell me about your customers. Richard (5m 23s): Well, we have a two-sided marketplace, so customers are job seekers with records on one side, but you're asking about the employers? Joel (5m 33s): Correct. Richard (5m 34s): We targeted from day one, the largest employers in the United States for no better reason than sort of like Willie Sutton's said, when asked why he robbed banks. He said, well, that's where the money is. Large employers have large numbers of available positions. And my goal when I set out was, part of it was because it sounded good, but I wanted to help a million people get jobs. So you can't do that with working with small companies, you got to work with big ones. And that's what we targeted. Specifically industry-wise there are certain industries that have long been relatively hospitable to this population, warehousing shipping, manufacturing, big box, retail, hospitality. Richard (6m 23s): You know, those are the industries that don't require a great deal of educational background or job experience. And they have lots and lots of jobs. So that is primarily where we had the greatest amount of success. Chad (6m 37s): So right out of the gates, I really want to jump into the problem that we have in this country and why this is so important. First and foremost, the United States has 5% of the global population. And yet we have 25% that's 2-5, 25% of the incarcerated population. So that being said, we're obviously arresting a hell of a lot more than everybody else out there. And those individuals do need to come back for the most part into society, right? So there's a huge need here. Not to mention, let's take a look at today's landscape. Chad (7m 20s): We're always talking about how we cannot find people to do jobs. And yet we have rules and legislation where we have ban the box, which is not something that has happened nationally. Right? So what are you and your organization doing not only to be able to help and impact on the outcome side, but also perspectively to help with pushing better regulation? Are you guys a part of that? Are you, are you with any lobby groups? How does that work? Richard (7m 51s): You've raised a lot of good points. What we do is this, when I first started the company there, we amassed a huge pool of job seekers. You know, we had millions of them, you know, folks all over the United States who had committed a wide range of crimes who are eager to get a job. And unfortunately, the demand for their services was not all that robust. Through our education, through me speaking to so many heads of so many of the largest employers, from me being a keynote speaker at Sherms national convention, talking about fair chance hiring an education process began. Richard (8m 48s): And this was coupled with changes in the Zeit Geist in this country regarding issues of black lives matter, you know, and, you know, social equity injustices and imbalances, and sort of where the company, the country has been moving. It's all created this perfect storm whereby more and more people became familiar with the problems and became sort of desensitized. It used to be that people in prison are monsters lock them up forever. But when the country engaged in the war on drugs in the eighties and the nineties, we started seeing every family was being impacted by the criminal justice system, because uncles and aunts and college kids were getting arrested for dealing pot and all kinds of stuff. Richard (9m 39s): And it was no longer them versus us. It was them became us. And when that happens, you gotta, you know, it's cognitive dissonance, you gotta, something's gotta give. So people started looking at things a lot differently and with a lot more, you know, open mind, which is great. We were having stunning success for us as a small business. You know, we weren't this huge organization at this stage. We were a tech startup, but we were having more success, getting people jobs than any other venture of any sort. But then the Corona virus hit. And we had other plans for us because virtually overnight in March of 2020 companies laid off all of our people. Richard (10m 26s): We had a very, very popular staffing business. Where were we serve as the hire of record, of course, and overnight, they laid off everybody working in every warehouse, every manufacturing facility, you know, things were being shut down. And these are jobs, obviously that can't be worked that from home. So in a year and a half, our revenue plummeted, which was fairly devastating. Now, after a year and a half, as the economy started coming back, a very weird thing happened, the whole paradigm shifted and all of a sudden we're getting more demand from employers and we have less interested in working as part of the great resignation among our job seekers. Richard (11m 12s): So we are swamped with big companies who are desperate to fill millions of jobs. And we have job seekers who don't want to work, or if they do work, they work for three days and then they leave. And it made it impossible for us to make money in that sort of situation. So it has been an incredibly challenging couple of years as it has been for many businesses, you know, and we hope things will normalize, you know, while we're still here and while we can, you know, enjoy that normalization, but it's been a challenge. Chad (11m 49s): You're still seeing challenges, even though there's a huge need in the market. We hear companies talking about how they can't find anybody to do, you know, their shitty job for a shitty wage. Richard (12m 2s): Yes. Chad (12m 2s): But yet they still, I mean, you're still not seeing a need in the market to try to get people into those jobs, or is it a supply side thing? I mean, where's the biggest problem? Richard (12m 17s): I think it is a counter intuitive sociological phenomenon whereby I don't know how people are supporting themselves if they don't have a job, it's not like these were, you know, some explanation is given by economists that it's retired people who are deciding screw it. I don't want to work anymore. You know, that's where some of that great resignation comes from, but, you know, it used to be that if there was a job available, we would make one phone call or one email to a job seeker to alert them of it. They would jump on the opportunity, they'd get to work the next day and they would live happily ever after. And incidentally, as Sherm points out in their annual surveys they do, these people do really well on the job. Richard (13m 3s): So that was great for our business. Everybody won. But now for us to fill one position, it might take 10 phone calls or 10 emails. And the applicant is negotiating, you know, the wages which they never ever did before. You know, this being the lower end of the wage scale. And then, and then again, as I say, they show up and two days later they quit. So we ended up having to hire five people for that one job. It just does not add up to, you know, good business. Unfortunately. Chad (13m 37s): I'm blown away by that. Chad, I don't know. I expected him to say it's the golden age of my business, because these people are getting hired. I never expected you to say, they're just like everyone else. They don't want to go back to work either, or they're doing other things, right. Richard (13m 53s): I couldn't agree with you more. It's something, you know, just as I had no way of expecting that we'd have a pandemic. And then I had no way of expecting how long this thing is going to drag on. And then arguably, it's continuing. Joel (14m 7s): That blows my mind, especially that they get the job and then they leave. Richard (14m 14s): So a worker's empowerment sort of thing, you know, where quality of life and work life balance. And, and then you have other employers out there, big employers, like, you know, Amazon or Walmart, offering a lot more that's out there and feel, you know, you're talking about jobs that really, they don't pay much. They're not very glamorous for sure. You have limited upside. So it's not that inspiring. And you know, again, that's a new attitude that we hadn't seen before. Chad (14m 49s): So for your business, I mean, that's not a great attitude, but overall for somebody who's been behind bars in a very small cell for years when they get out, I think they probably understand that they only have so much time left on this earth and this very existence means a lot to them. So I guess the big question is if we're seeing that shift, is there going to be a shift in your business to be able to move from low wage jobs, to perspectively like developer jobs or things of that nature where you're actually going through manufacturing talent for the biggest companies in the world? Richard (15m 28s): Yeah. It's a, it's a great point. And we have done more of that middle range jobs. We've partnered with different online learning companies. We have believe in our, you know, in our pool of job seekers, which is vast, we have all types. We have doctors, lawyers in the bay area. We have developers, you know, and then there's the issue of what is the crime that they committed? Pretty much every company in the United States with the notable exception of just a couple, they have very strict as, you know, very strict parameters of what they can and cannot accept regarding backgrounds. Richard (16m 14s): For example, someone who's committed a very violent crime or murder someone who's committed a sexual crime. These people are virtually unemployable, which really begs the question. All right, they come out of 95% of people in prison are going to be released at some point, what happens to them? And if they can't get a job or a home or whatever, but if they can't get a job, then what alternatives have they, other than to break the law again? I mean, they have to eat. Chad (16m 43s): Yes. Richard (16m 43s): They have to very often they have families, you know, where you probably wouldn't even blame them for doing what they have to do. Joel (16m 50s): Do you have any sense for, like, we talk about the gig economy a lot on the show are a lot of, like, if I'm convicted of murder or any kind of serious felony, do Door Dash and Uber and Lyft and all these gig economy platforms, do they also deny sort of that opportunity to people of violent felonies convictions? Richard (17m 16s): Yes, very much so. Joel (17m 18s): Okay. Richard (17m 18s): We'll one in general and every opportunity I have to say this, I jump on tech companies pretty much suck as it relates to what we call fair chance hiring. Chad (17m 30s): Oh yeah. Richard (17m 30s): They talk a good game. You know, they act like they're progressive and enlightened and you know, all that stuff. But in reality, they do almost no, you know, fair chance hiring of second chances. If they do it, they do it as a pilot program with three people and they make sure that their PR department blows it up, so it's like the biggest news, but in reality, it's, I suspect it's the equivalent of giving up a homeless person in San Francisco a dollar and thinking of curing homelessness. Well, the answer is they do a terrible job on top of that. Richard (18m 11s): You know, they're very cognizant of the optics. They have people, if you're out knocking on somebody's door, delivering their Chinese food. And if someone, a bad actor, you know, screws up, it could be one in a million, but that will get headlines and it'll be really bad for Door Dash. So, and that's their, you know, justification for it. Joel (18m 35s): So they're all running background checks obviously. Richard (18m 37s): Oh yeah, everybody does. Everybody runs background checks. You know, you can sort of understand it, but, but what is equally counter-intuitive is the fact that these folks, people with records in general do incredibly well on the job. As I said, we're, Sherms, you know, Society for Human Resource Management. We have their fair chance hiring partner. And every year they do a survey of their members about fair chance hiring. And what's been their experience more than 80% of hiring managers that they poll report that the quality of hire when they hire someone with a record is as good as if not better than hiring somebody without a record, it's actually better. Richard (19m 20s): And the retention is better. So that was a fucking home run in the HR world. If there ever was one, we get a good worker who sticks around. Joel (19m 28s): I think that's the first time a guest dropped the F bomb before we did that makes me so happy. Chad (19m 39s): I fucking love it. So Richard, I, again, I understand, I mean the loyalty, the retention, and I guess the thing that really bothers me about, well, not just the bro culture, Silicon Valley, looking down their nose at everybody. Right. But also of HR and companies overall is they're waiting for these mystic individuals to pop up with the exact skill sets that they want and need, right? Instead of manufacturing them themselves. And I think that again, the loyalty factor, the retention factor, and then the ability to actually train these individuals to do something more than a low wage position seems like, again, I use your as a fucking home run, right? Richard (20m 34s): Yeah. I mean, if you consider that the cost of incarceration or reincarceration is spectacular, get this in New York City, it costs about $400,000 a year to incarcerate somebody in a place like Rikers Island, $400 grand. The average nationally is about a hundred grand a year now. So it's not like there's not a huge amount of money that's being spent in the space. In fact, hundreds of billions are spent annually on criminal justice, precious little is spent on training so that when people get out, which 95% will, they actually have some skills, some pathway to do the right set, it blows my mind. Richard (21m 24s): You know, what's the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? blows my mind that it's not. So crystal clear that unless you're giving someone the tools to get a job? Attitudes, the first thing they have to be able to do is do the job. That's the old way it's sustainable. It has to work in, in the capitalist market system, you know, nonprofits help a few people, but to really address the 70 million Americans with criminal records, if they had the tools, if they learned to HVAC, if they learned how to code, if they learned there's a million jobs that we're desperate for, I'll give you one, that's going to blow your mind. Richard (22m 8s): Yeah. You know, if you're out in the west coast, you're not reading, you're smelling and seeing all of these forest fires. Right? Chad (22m 17s): Right. Richard (22m 18s): Do you know that in the state of California, they go into the prisons and they get volunteers to work, to help put out these fires. Okay? And people, you know, lots and lots of the people who are incarcerated choose to get involved with doing this. Sure. You know, that once they're released, they can't get the license to actually work, you know, on a fire at a fire department, helping put out fires? Blows your mind, right? Chad (22m 48s): Yes. Richard (22m 49s): Prisoners to put themselves in harm's way. But now they want to actually earn a living, take care of their family, pay the taxes, pay rent. Sorry. We can't take you. So, you know, these stories, they're not apocryphal. They're all over the place. You know, and they don't make any sense at all and you're left at the end of the day, wondering, well, what, what did you expect was going to happen? Chad (23m 19s): So what does the landscape look like moving forward? Do you see this evolving into companies, working directly with organizations like yours to get individuals ready so that when they do become part of society again, that they do have that solid transition, that fluid transition into a job? Richard (23m 39s): I believe that in general things have improved. I was released from prison in 2005. So that's about 16, 17 years ago. And there has been a sea of change in attitude from that point to now. Chad (23m 52s): Right. Richard (23m 52s): So, you know, I'm particularly the last couple of years, again, with black lives matter, you know, it's like two thirds of my brothers and sisters in prison are people of color. So, you know, we're definitely seeing improvement albeit at a glacial pace. But nonetheless, you know, over time it's happening. Part of the problem exists that training people is not terribly scalable. Some of it can be done online, but then you're talking about, you know, people have to have laptops and three quarters of people who come out of prison don't have access to a laptop or a desktop computer. Richard (24m 36s): So how do they take a class? You know, I think it's happening. And I think there's opportunity. And I think there's commercial opportunity to be involved in their training. And that's something that I'm keenly interested in, you know, but it takes a lot of money to get it going, but I think that's what has to happen and the needs exist. You know, there are certain jobs that we have hundreds of, thousands of people are available positions for them, you know, you know, but they need to be trained to do it. That's typically where government gets involved on that sort of, you know, big infrastructure level. Richard (25m 17s): I thought that if Biden could get this infrastructure bill passed, that that would create a huge amount of opportunity. Well, God only knows if that's ever going to happen. Joel (25m 26s): Whenever we do an interview like this, I generally go to the website and just sort of poke around and see any, anything interesting that I could find. One of the things that stood out to me, a couple of things actually, but I wanted to ask kind of maybe a dumb question, your headline reads on the site, misdemeanor and felony friendly jobs. I don't think that as an outsider, looking in, I ever thought that folks with misdemeanors had issues. Can you, can you talk about the division between misdemeanors and felonies and, how your database is divided and is that a big issue having misdemeanors and getting employment? Richard (26m 3s): Well, certainly, you know, there are more opportunities for people who have merely a misdemeanor versus a felony. And then within the Pantheon of felonies, you could commit, there's a wide range of crimes that people commit and you know, the most violent or sexual crimes again, render people virtually unemployable. We try to have integrity when we say that they're misdemeanor or felony friendly, because very often a job seeker with a record finds some resource that says, there's a job. There they go through, you know, the considerable effort to apply, which typically means they had to create a resume that they didn't have. Richard (26m 45s): And they had to get the clothes to wear for an interview. And they had to get transportation, which wasn't easy and you know, on and on. It's a challenge for them in ways you'd never would consider. And then they go on the interview and they're prepared and they do their very best, but it turns out they don't get the job because the company in a million years just wasn't going to hire them based upon the background. And if you imagine, if you are a middle aged man or woman, you know, particularly with a family and you're going on 10 interviews like this. Every interview, you go on is one step lower because you're willing to more consider something that initially you didn't think you'd have to consider right? Richard (27m 30s): Here you are at McDonald's in Galveston, Texas with a minimum wage is I think $7.35 an hour. And McDonald's doesn't want to hire you full-time cause they have to give you benefits. So the job is for like 30 hours a week, and you being interviewed by some 17 year old kid who looks at your resume and says, no. I mean, imagine your self esteem, you couldn't even get a job at $7.35 an hour making, taking home $140 a week or whatever. And you can't even get that. Imagine just psychologically what that would do to you to a part. Richard (28m 10s): I mean, it's, I can't even imagine that? Chad (28m 14s): You can only understand why they have to go back to the life of crime. I mean. Richard (28m 24s): No alternatives. Yeah. It is a myth. Joel (28m 26s): Well, it almost sounds better. Richard (28m 27s): Well, it's almost better. It's a whole lot better not having any money is objectively the negative baseline. You have a family that needs to eat. So anything that, you know, they can give you begging is better than not then people starving. But, but it's a myth because it's all people who easily will say, well, you know, these are people, they're animals. That's all they ever want to be in is in prison. Like those are all like old myths. You know that like our great grandparents may have thought, but it's not true. Trust me nobody wants to be in prison. Nobody, you know, other than like 12 totally psychotic people, maybe. Richard (29m 9s): I don't know. Well, other than that, nobody wants to be in prison. Joel (29m 14s): Prison. Another follow-up from the website is you have something called the commissary club? Richard (29m 20s): Yes! Joel (29m 20s): I don't know if that's like a LinkedIn alternative or talk about that? Richard (29m 24s): Yeah. Thank you. So when the pandemic hit and companies stop new hiring, the only, the only companies that were hiring were companies like Amazon, which all of a sudden had tens of millions of people without records that they could hire. So that's what they did. So we were essentially just shoved out of business. What are we going to do? You know, I have investors, we have venture capital firms and angel investors who've invested in a company. You and we have an obligation to the population we serve as well as my team. So what are we going to do? We're not going to quit. Richard (30m 3s): The two things we discovered early on that our population desperately wanted, the first was employment that much we knew obviously. The other thing was community. They have precious little opportunity to connect with one another. They lack the opportunity to get advice, to have people help them make connections for them to be inspired by one another, to gain friendship. You're taken out of prison where every decision has been made for you and you thrown into the world, and you're forced to get a job, get clothes, get transportation, find housing. Richard (30m 46s): And you know, if you went away, when you were 17 years old, and now you're 33, and you have no technical technology skills. Imagine what a lonely, scary place the word world must be. Chad (30m 59s): Yeah, I can't. Richard (31m 0s): And so, and you have no opportunity to connect with others who understand what you're going through and could be of help to you. So we thought let's create sort of like Facebook for ex cons. Now my using the phrase ex-con is very politically incorrect, but I guess I'm allowed to do it because I'm an ex-con, but that's what we've created. It's a mobile app, commissary.club, and people connect there and people help each other, and people become friends. And, you know, we're building a community there. Chad (31m 37s): Richard,I got to say, man, we really appreciate you coming on, talking about this. I'm gonna say it again. The US 5% of the world's population, 25% of the incarcerated. We have a problem. And we also have a problem on the side of actually getting jobs filled. There's an opportunity here, and you should be reaching out to Richard Bronson at the seventymillionjobs.com website. Richard, we really enjoyed, happy having you on and if somebody wants to connect with you easily, we're where can they find you? Richard (32m 23s): Contact m at Richard@seventymillionjobs.com. The number seventy milllion jobs with an s dot com. My message beyond anything else is you would be shocked at how good these folks perform on the job. Unlike everybody else, they really appreciate the job you know. And all they want to do is find a home where they can grow and have a chance to, you know, lead a safe, productive, legal life. Chad (32m 39s): Yeah, man. Well, we appreciate it. Definitely stay in touch with us, let us know what's going on. And we definitely want to hear from you again to come back on the podcast. So again, thanks for coming on, man. Joel (32m 58s): Thanks Richard. Chad, another one in the books, baby. OUTRO (33m 42s): 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.

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

This show has it all. European predictions for 2022 (Oh boy, Monster's not going to like this). LinkedIn news (Clubhouse isn't going to like this either). A French unicorn named PayFit. (Cue the unicorn song) Oh yeah, and Gerard Mulder, CEO of Dutch company Textkernel, and recent acquirers of US-based Sovren, joins the show to give his insights on all thing's world-of-work. The guys also dig into some recent startups - Hinterview and SonicJobs - that have garnered millions in funding. Ciao! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. Chad and Cheese Does Europe INTRO (5s): Some podcasts, do it for the fun. Some do it for the fame, Chad and Cheese they do it for global effin domination. That's why bringing America to its knees was just the beginning. Now they have their eyes set on conquering Europe and they've drafted industry veteran Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze of Belgium to help them navigate the old country and bring HR's most dangerous podcast across the pond to trash-talk like never before. Not safe for work in any language. The Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. pe. Joel (39s): Oh yeah. The US and Russia are in talks to keep the peace in Europe, the meeting, however has no actual Europeans in the meeting. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost, Joel, "Ivan Drago" Cheeseman. Chad (54s): And I'm Chad "pissing off the un-vaccinated" Sowash. Lieven (57s): And I'm still, just Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 1s): And on this episode, LinkedIn takes aim at Clubhouse, European predictions for 2022 and oh yeah a French unicorn. Let's do this, everybody. Lieven (1m 16s): Yeah. ' sfx (1m 16s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 19s): What's up boys? Chad (1m 20s): I keep hearing the intro and how the announcer just totally kills Lieven's last name. Joel (1m 29s): As if you really know how to say it after 14 shows. Chad (1m 33s): Yes. Of course I do. Lieven (1m 34s): I still remember it. I still recognize it. So it's not that bad. Chad (1m 38s): That's good. That's very good. Lieven (1m 39s): Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 40s): It's good to have you guys on. And again, it's been a while since we've all been together. Chad (1m 47s): Happy 2022, hopefully. Joel (1m 48s): Happy 2022. Happy 14th show. I think of Chad and Cheese Does Europe. Lieven (1m 54s): 14th already? Joel (1m 55s): And who better to have us on the 14th. Lucky 14th show that our mystery guests, Gerard Mulder, CEO of Textkernel Gerard I'm sure I butchered your name in Europe, but welcome to the podcast. Gerard (2m 13s): Thank you guys for having me. It's a great honor to be, to be on this podcast. Chad (2m 21s): Much like a European, way too nice right out of the gate. Okay. Joel (2m 26s): But at Gerard, is it, is it Herard? Is it Gerard (2m 29s): I'll say, I'll say once the way the Dutch pronounce it, it's actually Gerard. Joel (2m 36s): Oh my God. No, Gerard (2m 37s): I won't do that to you. And I think Lieven like a Lieven actually has a very nice pronunciation of my name. Lieven (2m 48s): We would say, Gerard. Chad (2m 51s): Sounds kind of French. Joel (2m 52s): Lieven has a real education. Unlike Chad and Cheese. So, so Gerard CEO of Textkernel, what else sort of Twitter bio, or sort of a quick summary Textkernel that, for those that don't know, give us, give us the quick intro. Gerard (3m 7s): Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, basically like many in our field, we help connect people in jobs better. And we do that by providing technologies that can be integrated into existing processes to help speed up application processes, to match candidates with high accuracy, to do sourcing and we do a lot of data enrichments. So both on the profile and candidate side, as well as the demand side of the labor markets to help do analytics on the labor markets. So our customers typically use it to kind of like understand what skills are emerging, how is demand developing across different countries in Europe, the US and Canada. Chad (3m 54s): So a little bit about Gerard though. So do you like long walks on the beach? Do you like strolling through the Arden? I mean a little bit about you, give us a little history. Gerard (4m 3s): Well, I definitely, the Arden, so I just came back from there with Christmas. That's a tradition. We go there every year. Chad (4m 17s): That's awesome. Gerard (4m 17s): And yeah, my background is, I joined Textkernel in 2005. It was then a four people company and helped build it out to what it is today. And yeah, I mean, my background is very much in more, on the commercial side, honestly, but as you join a startup, you kind of tend to do everything. So I've been a product manager, a marketing manager, I'm a project manager, you name it, I've done it. And you have today of course, I'm sure we'll get to talk about it where we're making big waves. Chad (5m 6s): Yes! Gerard (5m 6s): And we're currently 150 people company and yeah growing fast and having fun. Wow. Joel (5m 11s): Awesome. Awesome. Let's get to some shout outs. Shall we gentlemen? All right. I will go first. My first shout out goes to France. French authorities hit Google and Facebook with record breaking fines of 210 million euros, big money for Facebook and Google for making it, making it too difficult for users to opt out of cookies. Facebook was fine for the same offense and both companies now have three months to comply or risk fines of 113,000 euros per day. The watchdog said facebook.com, google.fr and youtube.com websites did not allow the easy refusal of cookies. Joel (5m 55s): Citing the example of Facebook, it said, quote, "several clicks are required to refuse all cookies, as opposed to a single one, to accept them" end quote, Vive LA France, for sticking it to big tech, shout out to France. Chad (6m 8s): Sticking it to big tech, Lieven. You got a shout out? Lieven (6m 13s): Yeah. Shout out to the Reddit anti work community. What? Yeah, that's something new. Y'all know the subreddit Wall Street bets where people used to encourage each other to buy meme stocks like GME, et cetera, and try to try to make some money on the way there. And now there's the new subreddit, that's actually not new it was launched in 2013, but it's suddenly booming and it's called subreddit antiwork. And they're at 1.6 million members encouraging each other to quit our jobs and become idlers and give each other tips on how to eat from dumpsters and how to live for free basically. So I guess if this is the new hype for 2022, the war for talent is getting a new chapter. Chad (6m 56s): Ah, shit. Yeah. That, that those are the in cell message boards where Joel gets his provisions. Lieven (7m 3s): And I must say most of the people are male. Most of the members are male and from North America. Chad (7m 12s): Imagine that? Joel (7m 12s): That's all right, because we don't have government handouts to live on. We gotta go through the dumpsters. Chad (7m 18s): Dumpsters. Yes. Going back in, I'm going to double up on Joel's French shout out. So a big shout out to French President Emmanuel Macron for a pissing off the 8% of the French who are unvaccinated in order to harass them into protecting themselves and others against COVID 19, slap them around there Macron, slap them around. Joel (7m 45s): And no cafe for you without the shots. Lieven (7m 46s): He said (SOMETHING IN FRENCH) . They are going to annoy them just until they quit, something like that. Joel (7m 54s): I love it. Love it. May 6th, something's going on Lieven. Why don't we tell the audience and listeners about May 6th Lieven (8m 1s): May six we are planning on not to postpone the Congress on May 6th. Actually. It's actually going to be May 6th, the e-recruitment Congress, 2022. We've been planning it since 2019. So it's about time. Chad (8m 17s): And no shit. We gotta make sure that Gerard's there too. So Gerard, put that on your calendar, big guy. Gerard (8m 22s): Definitely. I will. And I love, I love the fact that you guys are planning because you know, you can also not blend because of fear, but you guys are planning. Lieven (8m 32s): Indeed. Joel (8m 32s): There's an old saying, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans is that yes. They have the same saying over in Europe? Gerard (8m 42s): Yeah. But hopefully it will work out like that. Joel (8m 44s): Yeah. Hopefully you can, you can show up or have some Textkernel folks, now that you have 150 employees. Chad (8m 50s): And I would like to take this time to land in Belgium. I had to actually divert to Malta last time, which was a huge disappointment. Lieven (9m 2s): You're Hippocratic. Joel (9m 2s): Okay. Are you looking for real estate in Belgium now, Chad, you've already got your Portugal empire almost almost solidified. Chad (9m 8s): I'm just going to focus my, you know, on the beaches of Portugal right now. Joel (9m 14s): We appreciate that, the world appreciates that. Well, let's get into some of the news that Gerard alluded to. If you don't, if you don't remember from, I don't know how many shows it's been? Chad (9m 29s): Topics! Joel (9m 29s): Texkernel bought a little company here in the U S called Sovren. So they did this in December. The combination of both companies will create a stronger player in the AI based search and match technology space the company says in Textkernel strengthens its North American and APEC footprint with the acquisition. Following the deal Textkernel will serve over 2,500 clients, including some of the largest staffing firms in the world, working from offices in the Netherlands, US, France and Germany. According to a market source cited by Reuters, the deal is valued at 30 to 40 million euros. Textkernel is backed by Main Capital, which bought the company from CareerBuilder back in 2020. Joel (10m 11s): So let's dig in a little bit with our friend Gerard. Gerard, how did this deal come together? And you're finally going to announce how much the deal was for on the podcast, right? Gerard (10m 24s): No, I'm sorry. I can't no, no that's yeah. I'm sorry guys. No. Joel (10m 27s): That's all right. Gerard (10m 27s): But yeah. How did it come about? Well, first of all, of course I known so for, and for a very long Diamond and we were competing, but as a competitor, we've always kinda, you know, respected each other. We, you know, we approached the same problem from a different technical perspective you could say. And I think it's, it had advantages to do that, but now joining, it actually creates a really strong culmination. And basically we just reached out to Robert at the right time. Joel (11m 3s): And how much whiskey did you have to send them to get a call back? Gerard (11m 10s): Well, it's actually a funny story because, we couldn't actually meet during this time because we weren't allowed to go to the US. So what we did instead is we met in Aruba. Chad (11m 29s): So horrible. Gerard (11m 29s): Horrible right? So we flew out for his team and some people of our team and I think that really helps building trust and going together on, you know, because it's always a big thing, especially, you know, if Robert having founded the company and run the company for over 20 years, it's important he gets to meet the people who will take over from him. Chad (11m 59s): Hell yeah. I got to say, Gerard, you are downplaying this big time because Textkernel is a huge in Europe and Sovren is huge in the US so being able to put these two players together, Robert actually had a conversation with us about this, and this was a holy shit moment for us. So we've been waiting for something big to happen in parsing and matching, and this was it. So what we were really excited to see this happen, and I know I'm like fucking fanboying at this point, but so what? But, I mean, from my standpoint, how do you see the current landscape? This is major power when we're talking about computing power and data in systems today, how do you see the current landscape? Chad (12m 41s): And then give us kind of like an idea into the future, your vision on where this actually goes. . Gerard (12m 51s): Yeah. So if you think about the number of profiles we process jointly. And if you think about the number of matches and searches that are done on our system, it is indeed a big thing because we were, I mean, Textkernel was already the biggest in the industry, but together with Sovren, it's even bigger. And yeah, if you look at the landscape, I think, and this is why I liked Sovren so much, I think we have very little competition left that we can't actually compete with. And the great thing about the two technical approaches that the difference is that we can very easily take things from the Textkernel product spec and our knowledge on, for instance, semantics, on skills and things like that. Gerard (13m 43s): And actually add that to the Sovren product stack quite easily. And we actually expect to actually make a lot of progress already in May. So if you think about most tech companies that are joining forces, getting really usable benefits from each other's products stacks often takes multiple years. I think we can really be much faster. So I'm very excited about it. And also the customers respond extremely positively to the news, which of course is super important. Joel (14m 21s): Yeah. You mentioned, I don't know, sort of the competition, the landscape is fairly bare once you guys got together to create the 800 pound gorilla. So what's the plan from here in terms of growth? Are we going to see a lot more marketing around the world from Textkernel more salespeople? Like, are you just gonna like totally solidify the market and establish yourself as the alpha male in this space? Like what can we expect in terms of the next 12 months in regards to growth and marketing and development? Gerard (14m 56s): Yeah. So, so first of all, it's a marketing and explaining our possibilities to the market. So especially in the US, you could say that, you know, with, Sovren our market share in the US doubled. So we already had a significant market share in the US, but now it doubled, but I still think that's, we're just scratching the surface of the typical use cases that are arising for our kind of technology. And it is primarily driven by automation and digitalization processes and what these processes needs are very accurate, matching, very accurate understanding of the data and the process you want to automate. Gerard (15m 43s): That's where we add value. So in one word or two words, you could say, we deliver foundational technology to drive many of these processes. Joel (15m 51s): Excellent. Well, I think I speak for both of us saying that we're excited for you guys and Robert and Sovren are great friends of the show and we're excited for you and, let's get into predictions. And frankly, one of my predictions is CareerBuilder bought you two or so years ago. My prediction is with the power of Sovren. You guys will now buy CareerBuilder in 2022, you will flip the switch on ownership. Chad (16m 19s): Don't waste your money on that shit. Joel (16m 21s): You can get a two for, with Monster. It'll be great. Speaking of let's go into some of our European predictions, by the way, if you haven't heard our, US predictions show with Tim Sackett and I encourage you to do so, but right now let's get into some European specific predictions. Lieven you have two, Gerard, you have one. Lieven, let's go to you first with your prediction. Number one for 2022. Lieven (16m 46s): For the record, I had plenty of predictions, but I was only allowed to choose two. Joel (16m 55s): Yeah. Chad (16m 55s): Being held down by the man. Joel (16m 57s): Coming soon, the Lieven prediction show for the Chad and Cheese Show. Lieven (16m 60s): Oh my God, I can, I can keep going on predicting. Anyways. Anyways, first one you were talking about Monster and I heard your prediction on, was it last week show about Monster? And I sort of agree. I mean, you know, there's a new CEO, a Randstad or an incoming CEO because Jacque hasn't left yet, but I'm the new CEO. Norton who comes from Accenture and was pretty tech savvy. And I heard a lot of great things about him. So I'm wishing him good luck, but the new CEO is going to try to do something to make a difference. And he will finally try to get rid of Monster. Of course he will. Jack couldn't because Jack was always saying that it was a good investment, but now he's leaving, but Sandra is going to try to get rid of Monster. Lieven (17m 46s): But of course, no one is going to be willing to buy it. sfx (17m 51s): Applause Lieven (17m 51s): So they're just going to chop it up and very lots of small parts, like the coffee machine and laptops, et cetera. And then at the end, we're going to sell the whole website as an NFT. I think. Joel (18m 6s): Trumpasaurus and NFT now that they have Monster beverage in Europe, right? Lieven (18m 10s): The energy drink. Yeah. Joel (18m 11s): I think, I think they sell the domain, that Monster beverage for $25 million. Chad (18m 16s): But what other assets do they have to sell at this point? Seriously? Any comments Gerard? Gerard's like, no, I'm not getting into this. Gerard (18m 24s): I'm not getting into that. I mean, I've been working with the Monster guys for ages and they're all good people. So, but, but I'm also not a regular at this podcast, I'm Lieven, you guys to do that. Joel (18m 39s): We won't put you on the spot. Let's roll right into your prediction. Gerard (18m 46s): All right. Yeah. My prediction is a little bit more, it's certainly more difficult to check later on, but I think 2022 will further democratize equality in pay for professions across Europe. And I think 2022 will make the biggest step. So to make it a little bit specific, 2022, will really take away many of the differences, especially for highly educated roles. Joel (19m 19s): Now your prediction of this, will this be sort of government driven? Will this be market driven? What will be the forces that create the equality. Gerard (19m 28s): Market driven, supported by governments though? Because I do, I actually do think that you in and say many things about the European commission and what they're doing, but one thing I do think that they do really, really well is enable international movement of people. It could still be better, but you know, if you look, if you compare to European economy with the US economy, one of the big downsides of Europe was the ability for people to just take their suitcase, if they were willing to and move to another country and start working. I think, you know, European Union has brought that. Gerard (20m 11s): So, so it's that, but actually it's COVID of course, that that really made it so easy to start working from any place. Also, why would you be paid less if you live in Poland or in Belgium? Joel (20m 26s): Chad has such a boner on this prediction right now. He's so excited. Chad (20m 30s): Yeah. It's hard to keep down. Yeah. So the thing is that Gerard, I agree a hundred percent with regard to, you know, being able to see, not just pay, but pay transparency, obviously what you can see more in Europe than you can in the US but also, you know, one of the hardest positions to fill, at least from my understanding are like truck driver positions. And that's not a highly educated position. So, you know, are we not going to democratization from the top to the bottom because you're seeing individuals who can pretty much do that job anywhere in the EU. Gerard (21m 3s): Yeah. Now I think you're actually entirely right there. It's just that I think on, in turn driving, think it's happened already to a large extent for as an example, for instance, but also a lot of other vocational professions. Nowadays, if you're a contractor, you can take a job anywhere in Europe and just get paid the same. Right? So even in construction. I actually do agree with you. It's across the whole array of professions, but still, I believe that for highly educated professions, as I do think that some of those jobs are easier to do from any location, the difference will even be smaller. Gerard (21m 57s): That's a prediction might be wrong. Joel (21m 59s): Predictions are never wrong. They just haven't happened yet. Lieven let's get to your second prediction. Chad (22m 5s): Lieven as another prediction he wants to steal from me. Go ahead. Lieven (22m 12s): Okay. The next one, it's nothing I'm going to steal from you. It's even more weird. The next big thing in 2022 or the best investment in 2022, we'll be buying the e-Krone and the economy will be the cryptocurrency launched by Sweden and are going to launch it somewhere in 2022. But that's an educated guess, the fact is China is going to launch the digital one and Juwan, or how do you pronounce it by the winter Olympics? And they're going to let the competitors either, how do you call them the sports people and the participants and the people who are watching, you're going to let them pay and those digital Juwan things. Lieven (22m 54s): But Sweden is also working on one. They're testing it right now, they have a pilot project. And I think there will be the first European country launching a virtual coin, which is controlled by the government. And this is going to be a game changer because it's going to put a lot of pressure on Bitcoin, et cetera. Joel (23m 13s): So will employees demand being paid in Swedish, E-currency. Is that another prediction part of that? Lieven (23m 20s): Maybe not sure if they want to be paid in it, but they can change their own currency to the Swedish e-currency. And that's probably going to be a very good investment, is the best way to stop inflation I guess, because Euro won't be able to launch something like that in a short period of time. And Sweden never adopted the Euro and they still have the Krona, Swedish krona. So for them, it's easier to launch something like this, but I was thinking it took us so much time to launch one currency for Europe, the euro. And now suddenly all those states are going to launch their own cryptocurrency, because I know the Netherlands are working it, France is working it. I'm sure German, the others are working on as well. Lieven (24m 2s): Belgium is not, but the others are, this is going to be a step back I feel. That it will be a good investment for those who will be the early adopters. I'm sure Gerard (24m 13s): I've always find so fascinating with the cryptocurrencies is that they're not really money. You can buy things with it, but it's, you're, you're kind of trading a digital currency into money. And then with that money, you, you, you buy, I know you can also buy directly with digital currencies at some places, but the value of the digital currency, is really defined by the demand for that digital currency. Not by any kind of economic liaison to production or something like that. So, do you expect that to be different for these government controls currencies? Gerard (24m 56s): Yeah, Lieven (24m 57s): I think so. And I'm definitely not an expert at all, but in my opinion, those cryptocurrencies, if you buy them, it's not investing, it's speculation, strictly speculation, your hope someone else will be willing to pay even more the moment you're trying to sell it. So that's strictly speculation and it's not backed up by anything. It's just, it's thin air. In my opinion. Chad (25m 18s): I use it any, but anywhere in Sweden, right? I mean, you can't go to France and use this crypto? Lieven (25m 25s): Go, no, but same here. You have changing offices. So it's not difficult at all to change it on the fly and our mobile phone. Chad (25m 34s): The Euro is so amazing when you're an American and you can go to Europe and hop countries until you get to England or Sweden, or, I mean, all that all sucks. So to me, this just adds another layer of suck. Joel (25m 48s): And the answer is the US dollar will reign Supreme for the rest of our lives, end of story. And if we can go that far, let's take, let's take a quick break and we'll get into a LinkedIn taking on Clubhouse. sfx (26m 1s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (26m 4s): All right, guys, we've got LinkedIn in the news, which technically is a US company, but they affect everybody. In the news this week LinkedIn events is coming this spring with video events, but we'll debut this month with an audio component, similar to Clubhouse. With some 800 million users worldwide and Microsoft in its corner, LinkedIn is bound to destroy popular audio event, app Clubhouse, as well as take the live video world by storm. Right guys? Is anyone selling LinkedIn, upping its live events game and taken on Clubhouse? Lieven (26m 40s): I'm actually buying it. I think they have one big asset, one added value, and that's their audience. They have over a billion users and they can match each episodes with people who might be interested. So this actually could work. I never was a believer of Clubhouse itself. I hated the concept. I did love the way they put himself into the markets. Now you have to be invited and you even saw who you were invited by, which is a great marketing stunt. When I got invitations, I checked, who would I like to match my name to? So it was a big stunt, but in this case, this could work because let's just say, for example, I get a text message on my smartphone Hey Lieven there's a LinkedIn audio session on recruitment about to start, would you like to listen in? Lieven (27m 30s): Okay, sure. Why not? So they could match my personal interests with their existing episodes or their sessions. And this could be a game changer. Gerard (27m 39s): Yeah, I totally agree. I think if you look at the last one and a half, two years, we have used LinkedIn in a big way to actually get new audience for our new listeners for our webinars and stuff we wanted to tell through the markets, them helping you and potentially match the content of what you're talking about to the right audience. It could be, it could be big, but, but as I understood it, it's just all audio, right? It's no video or images? Joel (28m 9s): They're launching audio this month, and then eventually upgrading the LinkedIn live events. Gerard (28m 14s): So I would really like it if they would add something in there with a video or content or something like that. Chad (28m 20s): It's just proves that Clubhouse was nothing more than a feature, from the top to the bottom not to mention there's no on demand ability, right? So there's no recording to be able to go to later. So you had to be in the moment you had to be there, you had to be in the room, and there are way too many avenues and platforms to be in right now to engage. So I think if LinkedIn does this, right, where Clubhouse fucked it up is that they actually record, they have on demand sessions, and this is nothing but a more portable way to provide better content. Chad (29m 1s): And in Georgia, I also agree with the video, but video is not as portable as audio. So this will provide them power that they currently do not have. So it's smart, but again, Clubhouse was nothing but a feature and they should've sold when they had what a $4 billion valuation? Joel (29m 18s): Yep, you're probably right about that too. Lieven (29m 20s): Yeah, I think it's, it could be like some kind of an interactive podcast. And that's an interesting idea. I mean. Chad (29m 26s): Yeah. Lieven (29m 26s): We have a podcast and we record, and then we put it online and people can listen to it, which is great. But now people can listen live and they can interact immediately. So there should be something like in an interactive podcast. And if you host it decently, or if you are a good moderator, it could be, wow. We should give it a try. I think. Chad (29m 48s): Agreed. Gerard (29m 48s): Yeah, I agree. And I think the good thing about just audio, the advantage of just audio without has some disadvantages as well, but the big advantage is you can reach people in a moments where you wouldn't have normally reached them. So while they're in their car or driving, so it's, yeah, I think it's, I want to experiment with it for sure, for Textkernel. Joel (30m 14s): So I'll give you a real life example. I did a live event or scheduled live event and everything on it is really smooth in terms of inviting people and who are the other speakers. It all clicks. It all links into LinkedIn's platform where it fell down big time was that they did not provide their own video platform. So they've partnered with like six or seven different video platforms, and you have to have an account there and then schedule it through that partner to then have the video on LinkedIn. And it ultimately is such a pain in the ass. You just like, screw it. Let's just link to zoom or whatever webinar platform that you want it. Joel (30m 58s): And I just felt like the whole time, like Jesus, why can't LinkedIn provide the video and have all this thing be seamless and I record, or, you know, broadcast through LinkedIn. So the fact that they have finally got to a point where they're gonna have LinkedIn live events with actual LinkedIn product, I think that's well overdue. And I think it will be, it should be very successful if they do it right. The audio side of things should be interesting. I think the fact that so many people already have LinkedIn on their mobile devices and alerts can go out saying, Hey, there's an audio session by so-and-so on this topic will generate a lot more engagement. Joel (31m 39s): I think looking at your feed on LinkedIn with archived audio based on maybe a comment or a story that was shared on your feed is all going to be really good. LinkedIn is a B2B marketing sales, recruiting dream. So a lot of people I think, are going to be excited about upgrades to this, platform, if they do it correctly, Lieven (32m 0s): I totally agree. And I think that desperately needs interesting content, the only thing they miss, and they have LinkedIn learning, which is actually very good content, but the content people put on LinkedIn mostly sucks. So now this could be a step up. Joel (32m 17s): Yeah, for sure. Chad (32m 17s): It sounds like the video portion, Joel, your whole experience. It sounds like Swedish crypto. Joel (32m 21s): A little bit, very disparate and disconnected for sure. Yeah. I got to go where and sign up for what video solution I've never heard of in order to broadcast on LinkedIn is very, very strange. Also strange guys. Also we have a unicorn alert. Chad (32m 45s): Nothing strange about that. Joel (32m 48s): This time out of France, which makes it maybe a little bit strange. So French startup PayFit announced a $289 million series E round. That's 254 million euros. Following this round, the startup has reached a post-money valuation of $2.1, say it with me, billion dollars. The Company has been building a payroll and HR software as a service platform for small and medium companies. There are currently 6,000 employers using PayFit around 80% of them are based in France, around 150,000 people currently get paid through PayFit. So guys, are we ready to ride the PayFit unicorn? Chad (33m 32s): Ride it all day. I mean, nothing is more boring than payroll, but nothing is more important than payroll and PayFit has focused on France. They focused where they know to be able to own that market before they actually start to expand. This for most startups, this is where most startups get it wrong. They want to expand way too quickly. I think it's incredibly smart for them, that they're getting good penetration in the country that they obviously live and work in and then take this kind of cash, which at this point is 437 million euros and start hopefully growth throughout the EU. Joel (34m 10s): If it sounds a little bit like JustWorks here in the US, which I know that we've talked about, you're probably on the right track, right? Simplifying payroll. You have people in multiple countries, multiple laws, you know, PayFit lets you manage that payroll from a web browser, as opposed to some office down the street to automate as much of this as possible. PayFit I think also has a product advantage compared to other solutions, as you don't need to be an expert and work for an accounting firm to generate payroll, which I can tell you as someone who has worked with Pay checks before is a pain in the ass. The startup costs to make sure you remain compliant and hides all the complexities around paying someone in Poland, I'm paying someone in Italy. Joel (34m 53s): So I think it's it's right time. It goes back to a little bit of our predictions where salaries are going to equalize. People are going to work in multiple countries. And if there's a company like PayFit, that can simplify that, I think that's a home run. It's really interesting to me that 80% of their clients are in France, which means holy shit, that's a lot of room to grow. The company currently has 700 employees that are in obviously Paris, but you've got a footprint in Berlin, Barcelona and London. So I think these guys are really primed to take Europe by storm in the coming years. Yeah. Gerard (35m 31s): It's of course it's a crazy amount of money if you think about it, especially I'm not certain about their revenue. Joel (35m 37s): Says the European. Gerard (35m 39s): Yeah, exactly. That about their revenue, but it's becoming more it's we're getting there guys, we're getting there. I mean, I dunno if you like the German company think of what's Personio they're like their value of the like $8 billion. Not so it's possible, but, but I really do believe that their benefit is solving a really big problem. And if I look at a company like us, if you think about the amount of time we spend with so many different countries for 150 employees only, if they could solve that for me, that would be huge. Lieven (36m 27s): Now. If I were them, I would use the 400 million to buy Dee oakly and Boundless? Chad (36m 33s): Buy Boundless. Lieven (36m 34s): Yeah. Never underestimates the complexity of working with something like payroll in Europe. I mean it's, multi-country payrolling, local taxing, employment regulations. This sucks in Europe. Chad (36m 48s): Amen. Lieven (36m 48s): So if you want to cross the borders, talk to Boundless. Chad (36m 53s): That's another prediction by Lieven. Lieven (36m 56s): Here, they're going to buy Boundless. Joel (36m 58s): So let's see if the next two companies get a similar response. Let's talk about Hinterview. The UK based technology company has announced that it has raised 3 million pounds in series a funding. The video recruiting platform says they've experienced soaring demand for their technology since launching in 2015, the total they raise now is 6 million pounds. And the company says they're serving tens of thousands of recruiters in more than 30 countries. Apparently there's room for another video recruiting solution everybody. Gentlemen, who's buying Hinterview? Chad (37m 29s): Yeah, we're going to need a bigger boat. It's pretty simple. And Rick Carsley actually the VP of talent acquisition at Freedom Mortgage was on our show and he talked about Hinterview and he actually, he said, this "Hinterview is just another kind of video software. It's neat to have," they were giving him a free month demo. "But when it's a product that works best when it's integrated into your ATS and this one, doesn't, it's just an obstacle." So at this point, the integrations on the site are Bullhorn, Calendly, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. So unless they're focusing heavily on staffing, they really don't have a chance in hell. Not to mention, if you take a look at all of the video interviewing companies that are out there and just do a Google search in the US I didn't see them in the first five pages, I did a VPN to London, nothing. Chad (38m 23s): To Germany, nothing. So they they're going to need a bigger boat and they don't have enough money. Joel (38m 27s): Like, do we really need another video recruiting solution? I mean, are they going to be a niche? Are they going to, it's going to be Europe or UK or certain segment, I guess they could go that route. Automation challenges we're seeing some real exciting stuff. Not only from the likes of Vervo, but also Paradox launching video in terms of their process and who can forget the Metaverse. Yes. Is first time we've talked about it, but look, we're going to be video video and recruiting people in the Metaverse potentially, are they prepared for a world with that and to pay for the development that might go into some of that stuff. So I'm going to sell Hinterview as well. Joel (39m 11s): Gerard your opinion. Gerard (39m 12s): Yeah. I subscribe to, what's been said so far. It's just in general that I, what I always have with these new video interviewing companies, is that you would expect some more innovation and especially with the content of the video. So something like, which is more in our field, really, but understanding what's being said, understanding the entire interview, creating a profile, something in the ATS automatically based on what's been said, suggesting smart questions to the recruiter. Just something more, rather than just another interviewing tool. Joel (39m 53s): Try to have a question for you because you live in the resume parsing world all the time. And I'm just curious, when you, when you hear stories about video resumes, whether it's say TikTok doing them or some other platform, do you look at that as a threat? Do you kind of laugh about it because you know, there's no way in hell that's the future of resumes? Like what sort of your take, when you see someone saying we're going to reinvent the resume with video? Gerard (40m 26s): Well, I think it's a very interesting development, honestly, and we're already taking a step at it. So like we're nuts. We actually did tests on video interviews and we were perfectly capable of parsing out and normalizing the skills that were mentioned in the interview, for instance. So based on video interviewing, you can already, going from speech speech to text and then applying our document, understanding technology, building a skills profile of the person. So we are looking into these types of things. So I, for me, I think it's unstoppable. Video will come and video CVs will go, man, we're just looking ahead and thinking about how can we do it? Gerard (41m 11s): I don't think it will, it's a threat for the resume because I think it serves a different purpose, but one of the things I do believe our customers are going to need is a smart, natural language processing system that combines information from a video, with a resume, with an interview and actually creates one unified profile that you can index and match on and use for other purposes Chad (41m 42s): And contextualizes. Right? Gerard (41m 43s): Yeah. Joel (41m 44s): Chad, that sounds like a scoop to me. How about you? You heard it here first on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (41m 53s): So what about you Lieven? You buying this bad boy Lieven? Lieven (41m 56s): No, no, because just too many doing what they claim to do better. You got, I think, I'm definitely into video. I love streaming. I read a lot about how to, using virtual cams, et cetera, to make the best possible impression. It's all about employer branding, you need to do it right. But when talking about recruitment, technical recruitment, there are basically six steps to follow and you start at a sustainable database like LinkedIn. And then I start searching, scraping, parsing, and then it's matching, contacting and hiring. Six steps. And I think the offer they bring is maybe the last face between contacting and hiring somewhere, but you need to do it everywhere. Lieven (42m 41s): And I also, what I don't like is I couldn't find any business plan on their website. I hate it when people aren't transparent. Joel (42m 48s): Well with LinkedIn now getting serious about video, maybe a their video resumes will be the next thing that we talk about in 2022, we'll Lieven and I guess no one else was really excited about Hinterview. Let's talk about SonicJobs founded in 2017. London-based SonicJobs has closed a series A funding round as it accelerates efforts to modernize the process of applying for jobs online. Former Deathmatch that's the Chad and Cheese podcast participant SonicJobs uses robotic processing automation technology to modernize the way candidates search and apply for jobs and says it is handling more than 250,000 job applications each month, equivalent to one every 10 seconds. Joel (43m 38s): SonicJobs plans to use its new funding to expand further in the UK, as well as launching in the US, coming to America. What does everyone think of SonicJobs? Lieven (43m 47s): The good things first. I think learning from e-commerce is something you need to do. It's all about convenience and that's a great idea. And I've been studying the same stuff for years convenience, and the whole idea about people redirecting the spammy process. They call it. I agree. I totally agree. You'll find a job, you want to apply and then they just redirect you and the whole shit happens again, but this is nothing new. I mean, if you apply other websites from a temping agency, you want to get redirected. You'll just get an answer. If you apply through, we have, we have several apps doing exactly the same thing. So I think this is highly over evaluated, but maybe I'm missing something. Lieven (44m 29s): I don't know. Gerard (44m 30s): Yeah. So I went to the websites and when I came to the website, based on the press release, I was really a little bit surprised because to me, it just sounded like, Hey, this is more like an Indeed actually. So it, it seems to be a job aggregator, which makes the application process easier because you can create a profile on SonicJobs, which they then push into the ATS of the company, posting the job, something like that. Gerard (45m 10s): It was really unclear to me. And this is something like even Monster built this guys and CareerBuilder. Lieven (45m 16s): Even Monster. Gerard (45m 16s): Functionality. So it it's really nothing new, but you know, maybe they do attract a lot of job seekers and have a valid place in the job board world. But I couldn't make them anything different than a job board actually at this point, Chad (45m 33s): It's all about process, right? It's all about going from being a candidate. Who's going from filling out a form to another form, to another form going from this corporate career site to that corporate career site. And this is what Indeed's easy apply does. Right? But easy apply isn't for everybody. And that's the thing. They're trying to create somewhat of a competitor to easy apply. I like the idea of streamlining. I like it a lot. There's no way in hell they have enough money to expand to the US that to me, just through this whole conversation. Off the rails, because to be able to do much like PayFit, PayFit, 80% of their, you know, their clients are in France. Chad (46m 17s): Mikhil and SonicJobs, you guys need to focus. You need to be able to gain ground where you're at and then perspectively, when you get some cash come to the US but there's no way in how they can do it now. Joel (46m 33s): I read the PR first and the quote of more than "they're handling more than 250,000 job apps per month equivalent to one, every 10 seconds." I thought, well, that's kind of impressive. So then I went to the website and the headline is apply to over 500,000 jobs in one click. And I, my first thought was, okay, that's how they're getting one every 10 ds. They're just shotgunning this shit everywhere. And then I thought. Chad (47m 1s): RPA. Joel (47m 1s): And I thought, oh, gee, what employer? Wouldn't love using a site like SonicJobs where people can apply to 500,000 jobs in one click. Can you say, un-targeted now maybe when you know, employment is low and people aren't going back to work. Like maybe companies want that kind of exposure. But when things get back to normal, there's no way employers are gonna embrace a site that touts 500,000 jobs applied to at one click. That's my take on SonicJobs. What was it? You said you're going to need a bigger boat? Chad, you're going to need a lot better business model as well. If SonicJobs is going to make it. Joel (47m 43s): well, boys, that wraps up another episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. We want to thank Gerard. Gerard (47m 51s): You're welcome. Joel (47m 52s): CEO at Textkernel. Now, Gerard, for those who want to know more about Textkernel or you, where would you send them? Gerard (48m 3s): You can always connect with me on LinkedIn and go to Textkernel.com. And I'm sure you'll find a way to reach out to me. Joel (48m 17s): Gerard Mulder. And if you want to listen to more of European goodness, check us out at chadcheese.com/Europe. We're out. Lieven and Chad (48m 24s): We out, we out OUTRO (49m 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.

One of these topics is not like other podcast topics. A new unicorn. An acquisition. A startup getting funded. Google ticks off their workers. Pay transparency. Selling farts on TikTok for $1,000 a bottle. If you guessed bottled farts, congrats. Now listen to this episode, covering all the above, and featuring Seekout, FactoryFix, ZipRecuiter, Bullhorn, and more. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in 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. Inflation has increased 7% in the past year. The highest since 1982. And thanks to Door Dash, I've inflated 17% in the last year. Hi kids it's the most famous dose since Lennon and McCartney also known as the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost Joel "Helter Skelter" Cheeseman. Chad (43s): And this is "just Chad" Sowash. Joel (45s): And on this week show SeekOut hits unicorn status. ZipRecruiter has a warning and TikTokers farting in jars for fun and profit. How could it go wrong? Let's do this. Chad (1m 0s): Oh yeah. My, my opening. That was a shout out for Lieven. Just so you know anybody who's not listening to the Europe podcast. This is the last one had to be the best of them all. They just keep getting better. Joel (1m 12s): I agree. The chemistry is finally kicking in. I think. Chad (1m 16s): Yeah. We had a Gerard Mulder who is the CEO of Textkernel talk a little bit about the Textkernel/Sovren acquisition and Lieven is just, he's starting to open up and he's funny as fuck. Joel (1m 29s): Yeah. He's a standup comedian in hiding. Like he's got a second career if he wants to grab that. Well, let's get to shout out shall we? Chad (1m 38s): So I have two big employment brand and marketing announcements. You ready? You ready for this? Joel (1m 44s): Oh industry stuff. Okay. Chad (1m 45s): Here we go. Here we go. So we are bringing back the cult brand series episodes, and we're doing it by installing a new host. So neither you and I, you and I are going to stay okay, but we're going to have a third wheel. I'm not going to tell you who she is, but she is a CMO in our industry and we're going to be recording our first episode with her live tomorrow for the release next week. She's flying in for dinner. We're going to be day drinking and doing a podcast. I feel like knowing that she's already agreed to fly in, dinner day drinking podcast, she's already going to fit in. So I'm pretty excited about that. Joel (2m 27s): So shout out and semi news item here Kelly Lavin, a Jobvites former. Now a chief people officer is leaving the company to join a startup called Niche, which is in the educational matching game, huh? Matches kids with colleges. So we'll miss you Kelly in the industry. Maybe you'll come back some day. Chad (2m 49s): Congrats, Kelly. We still want to have beers when we go downtown. Okay. So you're still on the list. Another employment branding, shout out the Talentcast with James Ellis is coming off hiatus after a year and a half. Dude took a, a mega break. He's been working on a 2.0 version of his book Talent Chooses You. And he's going to be putting that out via audio. So audio book style, but on his podcast. So be looking for that, he's already dropped episode zero. It's kind of like the getting ready version. And it is funny as fuck. So if you, if you don't know, James, get out of the corner, number one, but subscribe to the podcast, the Talentcast. Chad (3m 33s): Fucking awesome. Joel (3m 34s): And he has a substack now. So if you'd rather read some of his shit, look for him on, on Substack, nobody Chad (3m 42s): Nobody reads anymore. Joel (3m 42s): Yeah. Clearly by the success of this podcast. I've got a shout out to canvas.com. The, the one I predicted is being a shit show as a quickly becoming a shit show. The recruiting site has been ordered by a US district judge to drop the use of the domain name over a trademark dispute. We touted them for actually having canvas.com. Yeah. Anyway, learning management platform, Instructure claims the domain name, canvas.com, which is leased and not actually owned and its logo contained elements that conflict with Instructure's canvas product and line of business. Canvas tech reportedly says they will be appealing the ruling. Joel (4m 26s): Good luck with that. As of this podcast, canvas.com still does go to canvas.com. Chad (4m 32s): Yeah. Probably just going to go ahead and take a step back to jumpstart.me and carry on right and get out of that lease. Go ahead and try to try to get out of that lease. A big shout out to another announcement. Damn so many announcements. Jamie Leonard just announced that Rec Fest is happening this year live at Knebworth park on July 7th. That's right kids Knebworth park the legendary. Yes, I am so excited. Unleashed is going to be happening in the US in late March. And now we have this announcement and RecFest. Chad (5m 13s): And just another bit of news. That's dropping Joel. I don't know if you know this or not, but the Chad and Cheese will be emceeing the disrupt staPe in July at Knebworth park. We are fucking stoked. Joel (5m 29s): And when they ask us to leave the event. Chad (5m 36s): I'm not leaving. sfx (5m 36s): I'm not fucking, leaving! Joel (5m 38s): By the way, I heard that Boris Johnson will be there without a mask. So exciting for that, as well. Chad (5m 44s): He goes everywhere without a mask. Joel (5m 45s): Apparently he does. He may not be prime minister by the time I get there anyway, a shout out to Snag a Job. Geez. When was the last time we talked about them? Anyway, they got the loan. They went to the loan sharks and hook got hooked up Runway Growth Capital a provider of growth loans to both venture and non venture back companies seeking an alternative to raising equity closed a senior secured term loan. I don't know if that's different than like a teen secured loan or a child secured loan. Anyway, a commitment of $65 million. A news release said the loan will enable Snag a Job to continue investing in its technology and drive growth on the tailwinds of an evolving hourly jobs market. Joel (6m 27s): Good luck with that Snag a Job. Shout out to you. Chad (6m 32s): Yeah. I've heard from many startups who are looking for funding that some of the VC terms out there are fucking ridiculous. So I can see why Snag white might be doing something like this. Joel (6m 44s): I'm just so happy that there'll be advancing their technology because they're such innovators. Chad (6m 51s): Shout out to Sepideh Nayeri, hopefully, I'm getting that right and Christie Moon, who are both looking great in their new Chad and Cheese tees, kids. That's right. Joel working, they get free. T-shirts Joel (7m 7s): Are you kidding me? Chadcheese.com/free. Free t-shirts, free whiskey, free beer sponsored by the likes of Emissary, Sovren, Textkernel and our folks at Pillar who was just on a zoom tasting with us this week. Lovely people they are. Chad (7m 22s): Good stuff. Joel (7m 23s): If you haven't signed up, it's free. It's easy. Chadcheese.com/free. Shout out to Betsy Norris, by the way, who is this month's whiskey winner. Chad (7m 34s): Yes! Joel (7m 34s): And most excitingly. Chad (7m 36s): Yes? Joel (7m 37s): We did a drawing this morning with our friends at candidate ID for three really expensive thousand plus dollar bottles of scotch. Chad (7m 45s): Malted, scotch whiskey. Get that right? Yeah. Come on. Joel (7m 48s): Amazing stuff. My bad, my bad. I'm a rookie on the scotch. Okay. So our winners on that, we had to two euros and we had one US-based winner. Alan Clark of Randstad is a winner of a really nice bottle of whiskey. So big applause for that. Neil Foams from the UK and Oliver Beckett, a lawyer out there in the UK as well. So a couple of limeys and one yank we got as the winners. So shout out to them, enjoy that. And we will, if they're listening to this and haven't heard from us, we will get in touch, get that scotch to you, and hopefully schedule a zoom call with all of us and have a good time. Chad (8m 31s): Is limey an offensive term? I have no clue, but it sounds like it. Joel (8m 35s): Most Brits have a pretty good sense of humor around all that stuff. So I'm not too worried about offending them. Chad (8m 41s): Not, that you would, not that you would worry anyway, I'm just Joel (8m 44s): Saying yanks, yanks is not real offensive to Americans. Chad (8m 48s): Yeah. Yeah. Just, cause we don't really give a shit big shout out to Monica Evia, Cheeseman, you mispronounced her name a couple of weeks ago and she nicely guided you through the audio feature on LinkedIn to help you with future pronunciations. So yeah, don't, don't take it personal, Monica Cheeseman sometimes fucks up the pronunciation of Miller. So thanks for listening and supporting that Chad and Cheese t-shirt we love it. Joel (9m 16s): You know what? That's on me. I'm gonna own that. I'm going to own it as a teachable moment. If you are a CEO or someone who's interviewed or talked about on podcasts, like this, use the LinkedIn feature to say how your name is pronounced. It's kind of a neat feature. I'm going to own the mistake, go to LinkedIn and say your name so that podcasters like us don't fuck up. Then we get it right. Chad (9m 44s): Before we get to the fantasy football winner, because I was in the basement. I just want to say that I win the funding bet as a HCM carries the 2021 funding year, which means tonight you're buying the cigar and booze at Nicky Blaine's. Joel (10m 5s): Fair enough. Fair enough. Are we, can we, can we move this to next year? Can we just have the same? Chad (10m 14s): Okay. We'll roll it again. Joel (10m 16s): We'll roll it again. All right. Fantasy football. The winner, in case you didn't know Jason Putnam of a company called Plum. sfx (10m 26s): 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 plum. Joel (10m 32s): All right, Jason, congrats to you, buddy. Hopefully you'll sign up again next year. I think we'll do it next year, don't you? Chad (10m 39s): I enjoyed myself in this league. I was dead the last in my other league. I won. I have no fucking clue how this thing works. Joel (10m 50s): No fucking clue. Hopefully our audience knows how subscribing to podcasts goes. Chad (10m 53s): Amen. Joel (10m 54s): And we'll make sure that they catch the Euro show from this week that you mentioned already. You said our best show yet, don't necessarily disagree. Great guests, great insight into the old country and incredible comic relief with our friend Lieven, which we didn't really expect to happen. We also got some birthdays, Chad. Chad (11m 14s): Excellent. Joel (11m 15s): Great ones. This this past week, we got Joanne Lockwood who doesn't love Jo? And she better be at a Recruit Fest. I'm sure that she will. Here's one that I'm going to mispronounce Muir. MacDonald. M U I R. Chad (11m 32s): Yeah. Joel (11m 34s): He is Scottish. And you'll love this. He's the head of resourcing at Scottish power. sfx (11m 44s): Welcome To all things Scottish. If it's not Scottish it's crap! Joel (11m 45s): Scottish. All right. Happy birthday. Muir. Rob Arndt, Tom Bartle. Steve Jewel, Geert Jan, that's your buddy. I know. I mispronounce that. How do you pronounce it? . Chad (12m 0s): Know John. I mean it's GJ. Yeah. Joel (12m 4s): Yeah. Why don't people just go by their initials. All right. Stephanie Krishnan, Mark Fogel. Zachary Larson. Matt Katz, Chris Grosjean Jill Patterson, Michael O'Dell, and the mad scientist of recruiting Chris Russell celebrates birthdays this week. Michael O'Dell, by the way, is not signed up for free shit on our site. And I'm a little offended. I'm a little offended that Michael O'Dell is not signed up for free shit from Chad and Cheese. Chad (12m 37s): He's a giver. He's not a taker. He's a giver. That's Michael O'Dell. Topics! Joel (12m 44s): All right, Chad, you know what this sound means? sfx (12m 48s): Fluffy Unicorn music. Chad (12m 48s): Yeah. Every week. Joel (12m 50s): That's right. Our friends at SeekOut announced a $115 million series C funding round this week led by Tagger Global Management. The round values, the Seattle-based company at more than $1.2 billion SeekOut noted it has doubled its customer count to more than 1000 enterprises over the past year. Co-founder and CEO, Anoop Gupta friend of the show said, quote, "with this financing round, we'll be investing deeply in innovations that extend our leadership position in talent acquisition, and power new solutions for internal mobility, employee retention, career pathing and learning and development." Joel (13m 33s): SeekOut had announced a $65 million series B round just last March. They've raised a total of $199 million and some change. Chad, are you in or out on SeekOut? Chad (13m 45s): Definitely in . We definitely have to be in, I mean, they were a Deathmatch winner for goodness sakes. So on the stage in Austin, Anoop Gupta, he did his pitch and we all agreed that he was the winner. And obviously, you know, the funders looking at the tech, looking at the background, looking at the landscape, all of that, you know, I think there's no question. There's a great opportunity in this segment. Now there are other players, but you've got to remember, there's so much market to be had. It's good. And not to mention, it's also validating, plus I definitely want to get Anoop on the call. Chad (14m 29s): I'd like to know what was the driving force behind the 300% growth in revenue and the ARR from, you know, going to $25 to 50 million. That's a big range by the way. But I mean, what's the driving force other than just the landscape itself. Joel (14m 40s): Yep. I agree. It'd be great to get Anoop on the show and just sort of get an update from him. Maybe we'll get out in the world and see him face to face, which would be nice. Cause he's a pleasant man to me. I think, to me, it's very apropos that we're talking about SeekOut achieving unicorn status roughly a week or so after we talked about Paradox, reaching unicorn status because to me, while they have sort of very little in common right now, they're both sort of on this trajectory of being a new generation of recruitment platforms or employment platforms. I think the key to that comment is Anoop's quote from the story, which says, you know, "extend our leadership position in talent acquisition and power new solutions for internal mobility, employee retention and career pathing learning and development." Joel (15m 34s): So he's got his eye on a much bigger picture than just search for people. And it's going to be really fun and Paradox, I think has the same sort of vision of the future. And it's going to be really interesting to see how both of these, I don't know, babies in, in route to teenage platform and, beyond how they start competing more evolving more to me that's really exciting. I expect to see maybe app stores or marketplaces start showing up on these different platforms and seeing exciting new features and technologies, and then acquisitions from that. Joel (16m 14s): So to me, this is like version two of the platforms and really interesting companies in Paradox and SeekOut, looking to stake a claim in that new real estate, which is not the metaverse by the way, it's the real world. Chad (16m 28s): Yeah. They, they don't have time for marketplaces. They're going to have to identify and acquire quickly. So they don't have time for that marketplace. Bullshit just yet. They're not an iCIMS right. They haven't been around for 10 years and they need to show growth and I mean, so they don't have time for marketplaces. I don't see that happening at all. One thing I do see, and I do like the parallel with Paradox because that's exactly what's happening. We're taking a look at the old relic of an applicant tracking system of what we used to know. And we're looking at something new being created and you know, these tech stacks, which are incredibly different, which I like to call a core talent platforms because that's really what they are. Chad (17m 8s): And they are so ever changing from customer to customer to customer. The question is which one would you rather be a part of? Joel (17m 14s): Let's play? Who'd you rather who'd you rather Paradox or SeekOut? Leadership is interesting. So if you look at the jockeys, you have one that's like super brain work for Bill Gates. Microsoft probably sees the world in a really different way than anybody else or most people do. And then on, in this corner, you have like industry veteran understand the landscape has executives that are sort of support that. So which one of those would you rather have? I'm going to give the slight edge to the industry folks. They can hire more brains or bigger brains it's harder, and you know, they can hire veterans too. But I like the veterans over in Paradox, a little better. Joel (17m 54s): I think the executive team over there and I like messaging a little better than I do searching profiles as a base from to start from. So if, if we're playing who'd you rather it's super close. It's, you know, hairline difference, but I give a little edge to Paradox and you? You gotta play too. Chad (18m 13s): I mean, Paradox and SeekOut. See the thing is that again, there aren't many of these new age types of platforms that are going in this direction, right? There's plenty of room in the market for both of them easily. I see them crushing some of the legacy platforms that are out there and I'm going to be rooting for them both. But between the two again, I mean, you've got a guy who was the right hand to Bill Gates for God's sakes. And then you've got Aaron, you've got Jay Z, you've got, you know, Adam Godson. You've got all these amazing brains, not too much in a shit ton of grit and experience. There's no way in hell. I would choose between the two of those guys. I think they both fucking rip and they start crushing the competition that's in front of them. Joel (18m 56s): So you're not going to take a stand. Chad (18m 59s): Nope. Joel (18m 59s): You're not going to pick? Chad (19m 2s): They might even, they might even lock arms just so that they can, they can obliterate the rest of the market. Joel (19m 7s): Alright. Alright. Kind of weak, but we'll take it. By the way. I think I do think SeekOut has an easier glide path to acquisition and falling in the arms of a Microsoft. Chad (19m 16s): One thing I would like to say, though, this is a message to all the platforms out there. And I, you know, after reading the press release from SeekOut and all these new press releases. Stop with the DEI marketing speak, no platform can fix a company's shitty process or hiring bias, right? You can't fix that, Ned is a racist, so stop it. Okay. Focus on your solutions that you're providing. If you do provide a diverse array of candidates, that's great, but you can't say that you are the easy button for diversity. You just can't do it. Joel (19m 56s): By the way, if your name is Ned, he's not talking about you. It's a totally different Ned. Chad (20m 4s): Or maybe I am. Joel and Chad (20m 5s): Or maybe I am. Joel (20m 5s): Okay. Well from new tech to old shit, that's still talking. Let's talk about Bullhorn showy. Bullhorn announced this week. It has acquired Able the artist formerly known as Employee Stream and a Cleveland based provider providing onboarding automation software for staffing firms. Able is already a member of the Bullhorn marketplace and is also available in the Salesforce app exchange. Able CEO, Gerald Hetrick and Chief Product Officer Dustin Brewer will join Bullhorn's leadership team. Able's 40 or so employees will also be employed by Bullhorn as well. Plans also call for the Able brand to remain for its operations, to continue and for its operations to continue in Cleveland, terms of the transaction were not announced founded in 2014, Abel had raised a total of 11.5 million. Joel (20m 58s): Beautiful, lovely Cleveland, Ohio has produced a successful startup. Chad, are you buying or selling this move? Chad (21m 3s): I'm buying this move. I thought it was interesting. I went to the website and I was like, man, this looks familiar. It looks like one of the old home Depot layouts and colors and whatnot. It's simple, it's straightforward. And it makes sense. And Able could help Bullhorn staffing clients manage their employees much better. So if a large staffing company has thousands of employees on projects, currently, most of them are managing it somewhat manually, which does not allow the staffing firm to scale very quickly, thus they lose money. Chad (21m 43s): But if the staffing company can easily identify through those thousands of thousands of employees who is getting ready to complete a project and then get them queued up to move to another project with a little downtime and without the need to hire more employees to fill roles well, less overhead, quicker time to start projects means more cash all about efficiency and increasing margins. I think if they learn how to implement this well and they can help their staffing clients implement this well, this will be, it could be a game changer for them being the staffing industries platform. Joel (22m 27s): Game changer. Well tale of two companies a little bit, we talked about another old guard in our shout outs. When I mentioned Snag A Job, which has been around for a long time, Bullhorn has been around for a really long time. And one of these companies has really stayed focused and sort of loyal to the customer and the needs of the customer. The other one kind of took its eye off the ball, tried some crazy ass shit, had to fire CEO and now are sort of, you know, getting loans from, from Guido on the corner to keep the lights on. And the stable one is Bullhorn obviously. And we probably don't talk enough about Bullhorn because this 20 year old company has really done a remarkable job of staying on top, mostly quietly for so long in their niche. Joel (23m 12s): I think they've done a nice job of evolving without alienating their users. Let's be honest, a customer base of staffing people and recruiters is not the easiest herd of cats, you know, to control. I think they know their lane, the recent acquisitions that they've had, you might remember they bought Cube 19. Recently. I know that we talked about that. They typically bring in solid talent, provide new features to the service that are probably one really popular in their marketplace. And also in demand from their customers who are asking this stuff Bullhorn. Isn't the sexiest company out there, but sometimes boring can be really nice. And Bullhorn to me has been sort of the poster boy in our industry of being that in our industry. Joel (23m 59s): So I too applaud this move, but also applaud Bullhorn as well. I know I gave him shit for their pay to play marketplace, but the marketplace is producing some pretty good acquisitions for them. So. Chad (24m 12s): Yep. Joel (24m 12s): All right, let's get to a ZipRecruiter. Good God we've got to talk about them on a show. So our friend and birthday boy, Chris Russell shared the following on his blog this week, ZipRecruiter's publishing is warning job boards to step up their traffic game or risk being ousted from its partner network. A recent email allegedly sent by ZipRecruiter said to an underperforming publisher quote. "This low level of engagement is unfortunately not sustainable. And it has a direct impact on our ability to deliver high quality job seeker, traffic to employers. This message is to bring this engagement to your attention and to notify you that if job seeker traffic remains low, we will no longer be able to continue the partnership and we'll need to deactivate all relevant placements affiliated with your organization." Joel (25m 4s): Sounds like a move from Indeed's playbook. Chad's what your take? Chad (25m 9s): Man. Somebody is feeling the squeeze right now over at Zip. Right? Joel (25m 14s): Ouch. Chad (25m 15s): And do you think that Ian knew that this message went out? I'm going to bet he didn't because this doesn't seem like his style. I don't know Ian personally, but a guy who actually fires staff when he did early 2020, or sorry, 2021. And he did it himself. He had to do it over Zoom because of pandemic, but he did it himself. This just doesn't seem like his style. And it is very Indeed-like there's no question, get your shit together or we're kicking you off the bus. This is not how you treat the community that helped propel you to success. And it's not great for building long-term relationships. Chad (25m 56s): So somebody is feeling short-term pressure and they're going to fuck up some long-term strategy. Joel (26m 1s): So is the pressure to produce more traffic and revenue and they're putting the fear in and job boards to drive traffic? Chad (26m 7s): Yeah. Traffic Is revenue. Yeah. Joel (26m 8s): Okay. To me, the question is why I totally agree with your, with your pressure, like to produce revenue and holy shit, that kind of happens when you become a public company. People start asking like, how do we squeeze more money out of places? I'm curious if they shut a partner down from monetization of their feed, does the feed still work? So in other words, they're still getting the jobs, but they're not getting paid. And how long will they notice that if you're really small, you might not notice it. I don't know. Number two are these partnerships a real pain in the ass? Like you have small publishers, they want you to do stuff they're on, you know, on the phone. And we know that in many cases, it's the smaller customers that are the bigger pains in the asses than the bigger ones. Joel (26m 51s): So I don't know if it's a drain on resources and the company has bigger fish to fry than to deal with little publishers. The other thing I wonder is, is it a damage to the brand? I mean, ZipRecruiter is trying to get out of this we're for small businesses and post jobs and like these small things, we want to be more enterprise. We want to be more AI. And does our brand on these little sites, many of which, you know, may be sort of questionable in terms of their content. Does it make us look bad? Does it make our brand look sort of chintzy or lesser than, you know, our competition? Or maybe it's a little bit of everything that we've mentioned. Chad (27m 29s): This whole message was about traffic, nothing with regard to content, not to mention, you have to remember these organizations were built on the long tail. You know, having the, all your eggs in one basket for one or two traffic providers is what really is going to fuck an organization, which is why you need a long tail. And with the landscape being the way that it is right now, not many people are getting the traffic that they had a couple of years ago. Right? So again, this is more of a short-term squeeze not to mention didn't Zip just talk about their first junk bonds to try to raise $500 million? Joel (28m 6s): $500 million. Chad (28m 7s): Yeah, there, I mean, there's a squeeze happening here and I'm not sure if Ian knows it yet. Maybe he does now. It just doesn't seem like this is the way that you react. Joel (28m 19s): All right. Let's take a quick break and talk about a little bit more money coming into our startup space. All right, Chad, our friends, huge fans of the podcast, friends at Factory Fix have a little bit of news this week. The recruiting platform that helps manufacturing companies hire skilled workers as announced a $10 million series A round of financing this week. The company has raised $16 million to date. Revenue grew 400% last year. And their talent network has grown to over 300,000 skilled manufacturing professionals. CEO and founder Patrick O'Rahilly said, quote, "the manufacturing industry is facing a crippling labor shortage with over a million jobs sitting open right now," Joel (29m 6s): Chad, we all know that you hate college. So you must have a huge boner over this news on Factory Fix. Chad (29m 15s): I hate college debt, not college. It looks like Factory Fix is trying to build almost a core talent platform for manufacturing, much like DriverReach does for truckers and logistics. The big difference I believe is that Factory Fix is a destination location for job seekers as well. So you have two revenue models, one platform. Pretty smart not to mention being able to be hyper-focused in one specific arena, makes it so much easier for developers, for salespeople, for marketing and for targeting, high value targets. Right. You know, who is in manufacturing and could be a perspective client. Organizations like this hyper-focused yes, all of your eggs are in one basket, but I'm gonna tell you right now, that's the basket I would want to have right now. Joel (30m 4s): So I chatted with Patrick, the CEO yesterday. Chad (30m 7s): Excellent! Joel (30m 7s): They love the show and they're listening. So shout out to you guys. We appreciate it guys. And gals, he basically said they forced the company to listen. So maybe they hate us because they have to listen. But anyway, they are listening. So I kind of imagine a group of missionaries in Callahan Autoparts t-shirts, as I think about these guys, we talk a lot about the need to do the difficult work of engaging with teens and young people and letting them know there's another road to take outside of college and what route to take if they want to get there. This is a startup of a bunch of Midwesterners with mostly Midwestern investment money solving problems that impact everyone, but also seeing particularly crucial in the middle part of our country. Joel (30m 55s): So I think they should be applauded for that and that mission. They have a long road ahead. Look, it's not easy to go to high schools and get them involved and educated. And I mean, there are a lot of high schools out there, so they have a really hard job and long road ahead, but frankly, I think we should all be rooting for their success. And hopefully this series A is just , a series A and series B and C are coming. And these guys can grow in a way that that helps young people find career tracks that are appropriate for them. Chad (31m 27s): Two quick points of advice, Patrick, you're listening. I know you're listening Patrick. So first and foremost, when I go to the site and I click on pricing, give me pricing. Number two, number two, definitely reach out, love to have this conversation, you should be dipping into, piping into the U S military. All of those individuals who are transitioning back that more than likely have a lot of these skillsets would be a great fast track for most of your clients to be able to get great hardworking people. Joel (31m 58s): And they're all big Chicago Vears fans. So maybe Justin, maybe we'll be shipping you a Justin Fields Jersey and in return for that grade A Chad (32m 6s): I want the orange one. I want the orange one. Joel (32m 9s): You want the orange one? Well yeah, sure. They could work that out. Well from one startup to a not so startup, Google is in the news this week. From the Verge, Google is giving four of its top execs a significant pay bump raising their salaries from $650,000 to 1 million. Chad (32m 31s): Come on! Joel (32m 32s): Just weeks after the company told staffers, it wouldn't automatically adjust salaries to account for inflation. Chad (32m 40s): Say what? Joel (32m 42s): What's more, all four executives are eligible to participate in a maximum $2 million annual bonus program based on contributions to Google's performance against social and environmental goals for 2022. According to an SEC, filing Chad, does something smell a little weird in Mountain View? Chad (32m 58s): I mean talk about double-dipping number one, because you're giving yourself a raise and in some case almost like double raise and then number two, you're also getting a lot more stock options. I mean, it's like, and you're not paying your people. So you have the people again, I'm going to continue to say this over and over and over who do the work daily to provide and build new products, to provide services who actually do the hard work and are the reason for that revenue growth. You're not the reason for that fucking revenue growth. The people who are on the job every day are the ones who are actually making that revenue grow. Joel (33m 39s): Google's doing some weird shit lately. You remember they adjusted salaries based on how far you were from like the headquarters and the offices that you were working. We know that their labor union is one of the most, I guess, powerful in the country in terms of getting things done at the business. And then now this right, like let's announce to everyone that there's no raises and then turn around and give some executives some big raises like almost 2X raises. Silicon Valley, just roles differently, I guess sometimes because we also have news out of Apple that they're dropping bonuses up to $180,000 to keep their best engineers. Joel (34m 19s): So if I'm a developer at Google, I might start giving Apple a look. If I never had before, right? Google has every right to pay their execs big bucks, but they risk ticking off their frontline engineers, which really are the heart of this business. And having them go to Apple or the competition. So this is a really weird move. It's not smart. It's not Google-y. The ivory tower isn't much use if the lights aren't on. So Google get your shit together Chad (34m 52s): And Reddit, actually shift to a shifted to a location agnostic pay model so that they could start getting those people who were pissed off. And again, everybody's quitting nowadays. There are better opportunities that are out there. Gobble 'em up. Joel (35m 10s): Poacherific baby. Poacherific. Let's go from Mountain View to New York City. Chad (35m 15s): New York City? Joel (35m 16s): Hey, this news out of the big apple, the city council approved legislation recently to require employers to list minimum and maximum salaries on all job openings in New York City. The bill applies to any employer with four or more employees. The only exception to the 4 person rule are employers of domestic workers. I guess that's rich people with maids and shit. And the bill applies to advertisements for private and public sector jobs, as well as promotions and transfer opportunities. The council voted 41 to 7 in favor of the bill. Chad (35m 49s): Nice. Joel (35m 50s): I'm guessing you're loving this one, Chad. Chad (35m 52s): Yeah. I mean the only way that we get to pay equity is through transparency. That's the only way that we get there. Period. I don't want to hear any bullshit from "well, it's hard to get all the wage data." Bullshit. That's why you have all of those systems. You should be able to compile that. And if it takes forever for you, that's on you. Pay transparency is how we get to equity, especially on the pay equity side of the house. And then you take a look at, from Yahoo finance, a total of 81 states and cities will be raising their minimum wage in 2022. Chad (36m 31s): That sounds good, man. It sounds awesome. But then you take a look at the actual home rental data and one salary, even with the raises, can't cover housing at that rate. Joel (36m 42s): Yeah. Chad (36m 43s): We talk a lot about inflation and then we want to blame it on wages. But the thing that we don't do, much like we just talked about Google, is we don't focus on the pay that is happening in the executive ranks, not to mention profit margins. We are still churning fucking profit left and right. But yet we don't want the people doing the work to get the pay. We want that to go upstairs. Joel (37m 5s): Yeah. I agree. I mean, I think you're going to see a lot more of this, particularly in blue states and blue cities in terms of pay transparency, I'm going to focus a little bit on the industry side of this. So now, if I post jobs nationwide, which many are, now with work from home, if that job shows up in New York, then it sounds like the posting has to have a salary range in New York. But if it's posted in Chicago, not necessarily. If I'm paying someone more in Chicago than I am in Toledo, I don't know how that happens technologically, employers are gonna really bitch about that programmatically. Joel (37m 46s): Where's they're not, you know, where they're like programmatically, there's not a direct relationship with the employer, right? So jobs get posted everywhere. And how does that work? Technologically companies are going to get, companies are going to get sued and they don't even know the job is being posted in New York. Like that's going to be a huge pain in the ass. Do technology companies, just not post jobs in New York because it's too much of a pain in the ass and their customers are too pissed off. And if that's the case, we're limiting opportunity in New York because we're not posting those positions in New York, which no one wants to have happen. The devil is always in the details and this legislation as well meaning as it is opens a big can of worms for a lot of tech providers and employers, that'll be interesting to watch. Chad (38m 30s): I don't think this is hard at all because all the jobs are location specific. So therefore they sit in New York and therefore only the New York postings will actually have a pay range on it. So I don't think this is an issue at all. Joel (38m 43s): How many people post jobs and those jobs get on sites that they don't even know exist? Chad (38m 47s): Yeah. But the location is still is New York. Right? And that's the thing is that we're tying the actual salary range to New York City. I mean, it's even, it's even smaller than that. So it's New York City. So any job that has New York City on it automatically has to have a pay range. So within the actual job description itself, there's a pay range. Now, all the other job postings, they don't have pay ranges. So this, I don't see this as an issue for technology at all. Joel (39m 11s): You agree, at least that companies might start saying, well, I'm not going to have salary range. So don't post a job in New York. Chad (39m 16s): Well, if they want people to actually apply for the job, they're going to have to post jobs in New York. Joel (39m 21s): But if it's a national job and they say don't post it in New York because of whatever, like we saw that we see that in Colorado, right? Because they wanted Door Dash and Door Dash said, fuck it, we're not going to. Chad (39m 36s): If it's a remote job and they listed as a remote job, therefore it's not specifically posted to New York City, then there's no reason to actually put a salary on it. So, I mean, it's, I think, I think if you just break it down to the simplicity of it, if it's remote, it's remote, it can be anywhere. So therefore it doesn't have a salary on it. But if it is specifically for New York City and you are targeting New York City, yeah. There's gotta be a pay range. So I think it'll be easy. Joel (40m 5s): Okay. Let's let's take a quick break and talk about some real news. Farting in Mason jars. Chad (40m 11s): What? Joel (40m 12s): All right, Chad, we finally have the great resignation answer. We finally know why workers aren't going back to work as we used to know it. Chad (40m 25s): Tell me. Joel (40m 26s): People are apparently getting paid to fart in Mason jars. Okay. Stephanie Matto, apparently she's a reality star that a show I've never seen claims to have made upwards of $200,000 selling her farts in jars. She apparently went viral on TikTok in December by documenting her lucrative fart, selling business garnering, hundreds of thousands of followers with quote "day in the life of fart jar girl" content. Can you smell what the TikToker is cooking Chad? What's next for Stephanie? She's selling fart jar NFTs. Holy hell. Chad. I got nothing other than I hope there's a market for old guy farts. As my kids get closer and closer to college age, or maybe they'll just go to Factory Fix. Joel (41m 13s): I got nothing. Chad (41m 14s): Humans are stupid. Joel and Chad (41m 15s): We out, we out. Chad (41m 17s): I'm not Lieven. sfx (41m 17s): I'm not fucking leaving. OUTRO (41m 18s): 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 (41m 59s): We out.

Love unicorns? How about triple unicorns? Well, we have two of those - Lattice and Handshake - to talk about this week. Yes, you're taking crazy pills, but the boys might have the remedy. Want more bangin' content? WorkStep, Deel, Bolster, DriverReach, Jobfindah, Vangst and Circa are in the news. Fairygodboss shows everyone how layoffs are done, Microsoft bets big on the metaverse and, of course, OnlyFans is continuing to help fuel The Great Resignation. You're welcome. 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 (21s): Oh yeah. Starbucks is no longer requiring employees to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing following the US Supreme court's rejection last week so order me at cafe mocha, extra omicron. Hi kids. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast, the sugar in your coffee. This is your cohost Joel "It's five o'clock somewhere" Cheeseman. And Chad (43s): This is Chad "I have a headache" Sowash. Joel (46s): And on this week, show Microsoft bets big on the Metaverse, cannabis jobs are smoking! See what I did there Chad? And not one but two triple unicorns. Let's do this. sfx (1m 4s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (1m 6s): Yes. I think we should definitely transition from the pink, fluffy unicorns to the taking crazy pills. Cause that's where we're at right now people. That is exactly where we are fucking at. Joel (1m 20s): Yeah. When we w we totally skipped over the 2 billion valuation, we went right from one to three. So shit. It is crazy pill time. Shout outs. Chad (1m 30s): Yeah. So first and foremost, shout out to Julie Calli, AKA Jules, former CMO over at Recruit X and new president CEO, HMFIC I guess, at a recruitmentmarketing.com. She came to Indy to hang out with us court and intro and the relaunch for the cult brand series. We had a blast, man. Joel (1m 54s): We did have a blast. We haven't been face to face for an interview for a while, and throwing in a throwing in heavy metal music and beer made it all that much better. So that was great. I got a shout out to DEEL. That's D E E L, the remote hiring company that has acquired Roots by the way, that is not the Canadian apparel company. sfx (2m 23s): Take off you hoser. Joel (2m 24s): That's right. They're an HR software platform that enables the remote organizations to collaborate more effectively and reduce burnouts. DEE EEL, acquires Roots. Shout out to them. Chad (2m 36s): You actually predicted that DEL was going to go down, that they were going to go down and flames, do you still feel that way? Joel (2m 45s): That was kind of a loose projection or prediction kind of the Canvas crashing and burning at this point. I've kind of changed my vote a little bit. Chad (2m 54s): Okay. Okay. So a big shout out to Australia for kicking Djokovic's ass to the curb. That was awesome. We've got Starbucks, who is a, I think they were kind of hoping that the US would have a, have a fucking spine and say, yes, everybody gets your shit together, this is good for the community. And go figure that did not happen, so they had to back away. But Australia after fucking with Djokovich for weeks, I think, and making him stay in a hotel locally, they finally said, you know, hit the bricks motherfucker. So Serbia-bound, he was. Joel (3m 30s): As now you've been following this much more than I have, as I understand it, he could risk not being able to go to Australia for up to three years. Chad (3m 39s): Yup. He was deported. I mean, when you are deported, if he would've just left on his own volition, none of this shit would have actually happened, but I'm going to predict that Australia, when everything starts to clear up and they don't have the lockdowns and all this things, and people, people start to forget, which is what we do. We have very short memories. He'll be back next year. Joel (4m 2s): Yeah. That's a lot of money to leave on the table if he can't go to Australia as a tennis player for three years. Chad (4m 7s): Yeah. Joel (4m 7s): Now that he's hurting, I got a shout out for someone who is hurting just a little bit. Fairy God Boss out in the news this week. So Romy our girl, we've interviewed her twice and I recommend you go check those out in our archives at chadcheese.com Chad (4m 23s): First interview view of this year. Joel (4m 25s): Oh, that's a good point. Good point. Good call. So they had expected some financing that unexpectedly fell through as a result they had to immediately restructure for long-term stability and success, this is according to Romy and they also took the quote "gut-wrenching step" of saying goodbye to several high performing and talented colleagues as a result. Now, a couple of things on this for me, one is the default for most CEOs is to quietly lay people off, write them a check and make them sign a paper that says they'll never talk about the company. Chad (5m 0s): Yeah. Joel (5m 1s): So big applause for me that she was transparent about this. She put it out there. She was honest about, Hey, we didn't get the financing. We wanted it, which is also most CEOs will not sort of admit that, Hey, we didn't get the financing we were looking for. So on two fronts, she really put herself out there in my opinion. And the second thing is people in our industry love hiring people in our industry. So sales folks, marketing folks, et cetera. They can find a job. The problem historically has been, oh, well, they're based in Boston and I'm in San Francisco so we can't hire them. Chad (5m 32s): Not anymore. Joel (5m 32s): Well, that's not the case anymore. I was really impressed that she put that out there. I saw multiple people from big companies that we know Jobcase and others that said, Hey, we're looking for people, send them our way. So hopefully all of these folks land on their feet. And I just think it's a real hat tip and shout out to Romy and team that they were transparent. And that I think they put their people in a really good position to find work and stay in the industry. Chad (6m 2s): Yeah. And female leaders are more empathetic. And I have to say, you know, these female founders, another story of female founders, not getting funding, which is a huge problem in our industry. Right. So could Fairygodboss tighten up their model. Could they do a lot of different things? Yes. But do they have a voice? Do they have a pool of talent? Do they have, you know, pretty much followers, you know, like types of? Yeah. They totally do. So I think, you know, this is something that we've seen over the years and it's totally unfortunate. So here's to good luck to Romy and the crew, this will give you time to tighten up focus and hopefully get out there and get that funding that you need. Joel (6m 47s): Yeah. I think she did mention that they were finally cash positive as well in light of this move. So yeah, hopefully it's a better days ahead for the company and the folks that they had to let go. Chad (6m 58s): Talking about people moving Dave Tuttle, you might know this guy, he's an industry veteran all around good guy. He actually left his post at ZipRecruiter for a CRO position at Origin, which is an employee financial wellness app. So it's got to make you think really hard about what's happening over at Zip. You've got an industry vet who leaves for a boring ass startup. Now we've talked about how boring can make big money for like mandatory software like payroll, right? Any ideas on what's happening over there at Zip? I mean, last week we talked about how there were pushing out Indeed-like emails, narratives, those types of things. Chad (7m 41s): And now this? Joel (7m 42s): The sort of emergency raise of 500 million, which was sort of mysteriously, you know, junk bond. It's definitely curious. But yeah, I mean, I think since the ZipRecruiter IPO things are pretty curious over there and it doesn't seem to be, you know, the lightning bolt that may be a lot of us thought that it would be since going public Chad (8m 2s): Ian buddy, what's up, man. Our ears are open. Our phone lines are open, let us know. Joel (8m 6s): Yeah, he'll get right on that. I'm sure. I'm sure he'll get right on that. I got a shout out to Bolster the marketplace for on-demand executive talent. I think they were one of our buy or sell companies a while back anyway, this week they announced a series B financing round of $11 million. This totals their amount raised to $13.8 million. And I think we both bought it as a buy or sell. We both liked the idea of sort of renting or being able to take executives off the shelf and bring them into startups. So shout out to Bolster. Chad (8m 42s): Agreed, agreed. I've got a couple of companies who have their shedding jobs. First and foremost, we knew Facebook was shedding jobs, but I have somebody who actually provided kind of like some internal comms and the whole team, the whole Facebook team who was working on jobs didn't know that it was going to shut down until a few days before it went public. The main reason is they need engineers working on their new quote unquote "mega stuff." The engineers were reassigned immediately. Everybody else who was working, was distributed through, you know, different other Facebook products. Jobs is one of the many projects that has been shut down after the Meta rebrand and their 5-10 year strategic plan was announced. Chad (9m 33s): So remember also GoogleHire. Joel (9m 35s): Google for Hire. Chad (9m 35s): Google For Hire, GoogleHire whatever it was axed. And we had heard all these great things coming out of their clients and out of Google and out of nowhere, they were axed. And it's basically for the same reason, as you know, there's bigger fish to fry than TA. And then that being said, Stack Overflow on their Meta blog said that on March 31st, 2022 this year, Stack will discontinue Stack Overflow Jobs and developers story. Goodbye, job listings, saved searches, applications, messages, all that stuff, right? But Stack will continue to support the advertising components on their talent offering specifically focused on employer brand. Chad (10m 19s): So this next bit was actually telling for Stack Overflow while talent and jobs helped us get to where we are over the past decade. The talent acquisition space is not one where we have a strong, competitive advantage developers as you know, don't have a hard time finding job opportunities. The problem is the effort it would take to truly differentiate in this space would not be one we could justify. Joel (10m 47s): How refreshing is that too, you know what? This just ain't worth it. We're out. By the way, I got to think the marketplace for Facebook. Are you, are you familiar with Open Sea? Yeah. Okay. It's like eBay for NFTs and that like that's coming to the Facebook marketplace soon. Like Facebook marketplace is going to compete with Open Sea. That was not in my prediction show, but I got to think that they're going to be doing that at some point. And a lot of resources are going to stuff like that. Chad (11m 13s): It's amazing. And for all of those listeners that are out there that said, no, this is just Facebook kind of pulling back. They're going to come even stronger into the jobs market. Again, we're seeing this is happening at more than just Facebook. It happened at Google. It happened at Facebook. It's happening at Stack. There are only so many technical resources that they have and they're putting it toward products, services, new projects that have bigger outcomes. Yep. Joel (11m 43s): And I'm pretty sure we talked about that. That resources have to go to Meta and that elsewhere. So that's good on us for predicting that. I've got a shout out to a JobFindah, remember when JobFindah was a silly name. Chad (11m 59s): It's still a silly name. Joel (12m 0s): They have been acquired by Circa. This is more your lane than mine, but this is obviously a OFCCP compliance play one fish gobbling up a smaller one. I don't have much else to say about that, but a congratulations to the JobFindah team for being acquired by Circa shout out today, Chad (12m 20s): I sent an email to Patrick, the CEO of Circa and said, I hope you didn't pay more than 200 bucks for fucking JobFindah I mean, right now, Circa in the compliance space, what they're trying to do is they're trying to gobble up portfolios and you know, somewhat makes sense. It somewhat makes sense. Joel (12m 39s): Do you remember who founded JobFindah? Chad (12m 42s): Yeah, Rathin. Joel (12m 42s): Rathin that's right. And how does this, how many players are there now in the OFCCP space with JobFindah table. Just a handful, right? Not very many. Chad (12m 52s): There aren't a ton of them, but there's kind of like the big fish you've got direct employers and you have Circa, and then you have kind of like everybody else. And when I say everybody else, it's because they're more transactional. Not that they don't make money. It's just, they're more transactional types of platforms. Gotcha. Joel (13m 13s): Gotcha. Another shout out for me. Torchy's Tacos. If you're in Texas, you know what the hell I'm talking about? So Torchy's Tacos is fantastic. It's a staple and an icon in Texas. Well, mysteriously last year, a Torchy's Tacos opened in Jeffersonville, Indiana, which luckily my sister lives. So I got to have Torchy's two or three times a year when I'd go visit my sister. I talked to the management. I said, Hey, when are you guys coming up north? And they said, well, we're looking at opening a place up north in the next 6 to 12 months while I'm driving down the street the other day. And I see coming soon, Torchy's Tacos within 8 to 10 minutes of my house. Joel (13m 54s): I can't be more excited. It's it's also right across from Chipotle. So I'm thinking like I could rock some combo Torchy's tacos with a burrito bowl. Like I could really rock this shit. So Torchy's thank you for coming to town. I'm very excited. Chad (14m 12s): We're talking about social distancing this is going to be much more than six feet in getting around Joel. sfx (14m 19s): Don't wreck our show you hoser. Joel (14m 20s): What else you got anything? Chad (14m 21s): We had a great whiskey tasting last night with our buddy Robert Ruff, Scott from a Textkernel, Rob Bursey, who was the winner? He was sporting two fifths of awesome bourbon. So yeah. Had a good time. Had a good time. Joel (14m 37s): Yeah. And if you want to join us yourself for a whiskey tasting or beer tasting, or you just want to style some dope threads, AKA our t-shirt. You got to go to Chadcheese.com/free today. We're talking t-shirts by Emissary, beer from Pillar and whiskey from our friends at Sovren/newfriends, TextKernel who joined us on the call as well. So you've got to do that. Let's get to birthdays. Chad (15m 6s): Yes. Joel (15m 7s): And one of our close friends to the show is celebrating a birthday. sfx (15m 11s): Welcome to all things. Scottish our slogan, is if it's not Scottish it's crap! Joel (15m 13s): That's right. Our buddy, Adam Gordon, at Candidate ID celebrates a birthday. Chad (15m 18s): We need a scotch tasting now. Joel (15m 23s): We need a scotch tasting. Yes we're working on that. Also a friends of the show, Jason Roberts, Robin Schooling, Justin Miller, Merrell, Tom Eckhart, and Chris Amato all celebrate birthdays. Chad (15m 34s): Holy Shit. January's a big month. Joel (15m 40s): It is a big big month. A lot of sex was going on. Let's see that would be October. I don't know. Chad (15m 48s): Carry the one. Joel (15m 48s): My math really, really sucks. Chad (15m 52s): TOPICS! Joel (15m 53s): We got some insight information recently on UKG. We talked about them a few weeks ago. I think it was December that they had been ransomwared. Chad (16m 1s): Yep. Mid December Joel (16m 1s): Checks weren't going out to people, chaos ensued, dogs and cats living together. It kind of quieted down and we sort of forgot about it. But apparently we have a source telling us that shit has hit the fan at UKG they haven't fixed anything. People are getting paid manually if they're getting paid at all, like it's a total shit show. Chad (16m 20s): Spreadsheets. Joel (16m 21s): UKG is in really bad shape. Is it fair to say our source said they're out of business? Chad (16m 29s): It was the prediction. The prediction was that when you have infrastructure fail like this, getting back to where you were before is nearly impossible. And when you grow to that, of the size of, of UKG you have to be ready for these types of issues. These types of, you know, ransomware threats. And they weren't, and now they have customers who can't pay their employees. So, I mean, this has to be the nightmare mode for UKG the problem is it wasn't nightmare mode prior, or they probably would have had the shit figured out. Joel (17m 4s): Yeah. And apparently they really touted their security, protecting data, et cetera. I mean, these are, these are big companies that use them to, you know, make sure people are paid in a timely manner. Chad (17m 21s): Yeah, it's bad. Joel (17m 22s): So if you have any more insight for us hit us up on the socials, but yeah, UKG's in pretty rough shape. sfx (17m 29s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (17m 31s): That's right. We got, geez. I don't know. Triple unicorns. I don't know what you call like multi-billion dollar unicorns? Chad (17m 38s): Bigger unicorns. Joel (17m 38s): Number. Yeah. I don't know. And when they die, it really hurts. I think we'll find that out at some point I'm sure. Handshake announced this week, a series F round of $200 million for a grand total of $434 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion. Chad (17m 58s): Bam! Joel (17m 58s): Worth roughly the amount that ZipRecruiter is that we talked about earlier. This is more than double its valuation of 2021. They help people start, restart, jumpstart, their careers, CEO and founder, Garrett Lord said in a release quote, "LinkedIn is focused on your past and Handshakes focused on your future." So they're taking aim at LinkedIn. The company says over 1.7 million relationships were forged between employers and candidates on the platform last year. Handshake's community includes 20 million students and young alumni around the world from 1400 educational institutions. Customers include Alphabet/Google and Nike, and they are reportedly on track for our 100 million ARR that's annual recurring revenue, Chad. Joel (18m 42s): Are you ready to go back to school, Rodney Dangerfield style and get with Handshake? Chad (18m 48s): So the amount of dilution that is happening here is staggering. Right? Take a look at the numbers. Anyways, Handshake is smartly aligning their brand with LinkedIn because they know LinkedIn was sold to Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion. But LinkedIn only had total funding of $155 million at the time. And Handshake is currently over $440 million in funding. So what is Handshake trying to achieve and why is it so valuable? Handshake is trying to do what Monster couldn't get done back in the mid two thousands. Joel (19m 24s): That Monster Track? Chad (19m 25s): Yeah. Monster Track. They bought Job Track and they became MonsterTrack. Well, they were trying to take over the college career center. So basically trying to funnel all college students into their platform. The joke is that current college career centers don't represent a hundred percent of their soon to graduate students. So this is more of a smoke and mirrors campaign. And also, as we've said before, I think it's incredibly smart messaging. And this is exactly what Handshake did before to align yourself with a much bigger brand, very successful brand and say, we're coming after you. Joel (19m 58s): The narrative here is pretty obvious. I think, I mean, I've been wracking my brain all morning, trying to make sense of this whole deal. And I'm really I'm frankly, struggling. I hate the college space for some of the reasons that you mentioned. We've seen multiple companies try to penetrate and they're kind of hip for a while. Students leave and then someone else comes along. That's cool and they pick them. And so to me, like there's a ceiling on this business, a hundred, a hundred million ARR is nothing to sneeze at, but they're clearly spinning a story about, we can take this bigger into LinkedIn territory, I guess, sort of like how Facebook went from colleges to say, Hey, we'll just, we'll hit everybody with social media. Joel (20m 39s): I think these guys think they can do the same thing. They've hit a ceiling in my opinion. They raised $80 million back in may to do what remember virtual job fairs. So that was like the next phase of the story. Like if we just do virtual, we'll make that much more money. Now the story is obviously with more money we can take on, you know, , this narrative from the CEO that quote "LinkedIn is focused on your past and Handshake's focused on your future." Like really, they argued that most students don't know anyone on LinkedIn so it's sort of pointless to be on it. You know, from my perspective, connecting to a bunch of other 20 somethings is pretty unproductive, right? Joel (21m 20s): Like the old people on LinkedIn are the ones with dollars and influence and job openings. Handshake is I think over their skis. And now they're too pricey for most acquirers. So IPO is in their future. And I don't think the IPO market, the public markets are going to be real positive. Once Handshake tries to take on LinkedIn and become bigger. I just don't see a lot of growth. I see a really, really hard ceiling to crash through. Yeah. Chad (21m 46s): You talking about a hundred million in ARR versus, you know, LinkedIn and 2020 was $8 billion. Right. So, you know, again, bringing a knife to a gunfight. Yeah. Joel (21m 55s): Yeah. And there's got to be pressure from investors to say, Hey, Hey, where's our next a hundred million coming from right? Where's our next growth opportunity. And I think the people in charge know that there's a ceiling on the college career center space and that they're spinning this narrative to raise more money. And it's not gonna end well, I don't think. I hope I'm wrong for everyone involved. Chad (22m 20s): Crazy pills! Joel (22m 20s): Yeah. The next, the next unicorn. sfx (22m 24s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (22m 27s): So this, this one I'm much more bullish on, I don't know about you, but let's summarize the news there. So Lattice, hold the Lattice, people management platform focused on employee engagement and development said it has raised $175 million in fresh funding bringing its grand total to $328.3 million. The San Fran startups said the funding round increases its valuation from $1 billion to $3 billion. The threefold valuation increase is particularly notable given that it took place in under a year TechCrunch reported that the startup has added over a thousand customers since last March and now has north of 3,500 organizations on its install base Yowza. Joel (23m 10s): Chad, are you putting some lattice on this cheeseburger? Chad (23m 14s): It's all about the lattice and it's going to be an Impossible burger. So quick quote from a Lattice investor, "people strategy is no longer only a concern for HR departments, attracting, developing and retaining top talent needs to be a company-wide effort in order to better accomplish company goals." So that in itself resonates in the landscape we are in today. Just another great reason why they got, they got cash. Remote work isn't going away. You can either have, you know, this disconnection with your employees or you can find new ways to connect. So back in March of last year, we both bought Lattice during, a buy or sell segment of the pod. Joel (23m 54s): We're so smart. Chad (23m 55s): Yeah. Well, I'm going to repeat what I said back then. Organic growth is great, but when the weather is right, you have, and you have access to funds, you launch that motherfucking rocket ship. The difference between Handshake and Lattice is systems versus transactions. Can Handshake become the dominating platform like LinkedIn did? I don't think so. Yeah. Lattice on the other hand is solidly in the platform space. And when you buy a platform, whether it's good or bad, you're stuck with that platform for years and a people and performance management system is a prime target for a larger HCM or ERP. Chad (24m 39s): ADP. Lattice is prime for growth and acquisition. Joel (24m 41s): Yeah. Yeah. These guys are an overnight success, seven years in the making. It's a really, really pretty cool story. So they've been around since 2015. Yeah. They've steadily been growing each year. They sort of raise a round the money every year. And I think that they did the groundwork to when the pandemic hit it, put them in hyperdrive. It made that the calls, the outbound calls to people pitching the product that said no quickly said yes, because they realize this is a work from home issue. We have to engage people. We have to like keep them involved in the company. They've also done a really good job of narrating diversity as part of their offering so they've built a sort of a double whammy for growth in terms of the work from home phenomenon, as well as the diversity play. Joel (25m 27s): And it's just a kind of a fun company like before funding, Lattice, the CEO and the co founder, the CEO's a Princeton grad. He's probably not even 30. I don't think these guys are even that old, but they were, they were doing biz dev for a custom t-shirt company before they founded this business. The co-founder was a developer at the same t-shirt company. So I could only imagine what, like lunch dates were with those guys talking about Lattice. They're going to have to go public, unless your prediction of like a big, big, big blue whale comes in and gobbles them up. Chad (25m 57s): Yep. Joel (25m 57s): But that's going to happen sooner rather than later, I would think. So this is just going to be really fun to watch. I'd love to get the CEO on the show just cause he seems like a really interesting dude, but this is one to watch. And I think they hit the timing was just right. The business was just right. And the team that they built, hit everything at the right time. And yeah, it's fun to watch. Congrats to them. Let's go to WorkStep announced a $25 million series B funding round led by New Road Capital partners for a grand total raised of $43 million. Joel (26m 39s): The San Fran based company was founded in 2017 and matches workers with jobs provides automated interview scheduling and has a tool for employee surveys to measure engagement. It focuses on positions in warehouses, production, trucking and skilled trades said Chris Sultemeier operating partner at New Road and former executive VP of logistics at Walmart quote "WorkStep is uniquely positioned to address the talent shortage at scale, by radically improving how enterprises source, engage and invest in frontline workers" end quote. WorkSteps last raise was February of '21. Chad, are you stepping up to WorkStep or were those boots made for walking? Chad (27m 20s): So WorkSteps promises to help, for example, hire and retain workers at Kroger or at an Amazon warehouse and much like Factory Fix, which who we talked about last week, it's a two headed monster with job postings and a candidate database and a system to help, you know, get a pulse on the client's employees. Okay. Here's the problem. A pulse survey isn't going to fix the problems like inequities, bad wages and customers treating you like shit. Kroger knows they have problems. Amazon knows they have problems. The tech isn't going to be able to tell them something that they don't already know, and it's not going to help them fix it. And what we're doing is we're over promising and we're going to under-deliver on smoke and mirrors platforms like these. Chad (28m 2s): If it was just a job board with a platform like Factory Fix, right? It's a site that draws in candidates matches them and gives you a platform to be able to manage that whole process. That's one thing, but promising that it's going to fix a lot of this shit is just total bullshit. Joel (28m 21s): You feel pretty passionate about this. So I know less about this than I probably should. So I went, I went to Supply Chain Quarterly, Chad. Supply Chain Quarterly, yes, there are publications for this. So I wanted to better understand this. And I felt like how many times do we push startups to answer the question "what pain point are you solving?" Chad (28m 40s): Right. Joel (28m 41s): Many don't have an answer to the question like what pain are you solving? These guys are clearly at least spinning a narrative that they're solving the problem of, look, there's a vicious cycle of spending big bucks to recruit only to see your team churn and new hires, walk out the door. So the cycle keeps going like we're going to help you engage with folks, keep them on, you know, increased retention. So the narrative to me is solid. Obviously you feel differently about the business as a whole, but if you can do that in the logistics business and the companies that they're targeting, it's like take my money if you can actually solve that problem. But they can't, according to you. Chad (29m 19s): They can't. Joel (29m 20s): Well dammit. Chad (29m 20s): They can't raise a company's wages. They can't, all these issues that they're talking about, the companies already know fucking exist, but they're not fixing them now. They don't need tech to tell them that there's an issue because they already know there's an issue. Joel (29m 34s): Are you saying like a little emoticon, isn't going to make people stay on the job longer than they would? Chad (29m 47s): That's my feeling, yes. Joel (29m 47s): A little video from the CEO saying great job. Keep it up. Chad (29m 52s): No, but a quick note, but a quick note in this space. Driver reach here in Indianapolis, they just got $7.5 million in funding. Total $8.2 million overall. They developed recruiting and compliance management platform for trucking industry. And this is one of those companies who they're going against the 800 pound gorilla at 10th street in the trucking space. And we need truckers. We need drivers. This whole logistics thing is it makes sense. But these guys aren't promising things that they can't deliver. And they're in a great position to exploit a very slow moving gorilla in 10th street and a market that needs and deserves more efficient tech. Chad (30m 32s): So congrats to Jeremy and the crew here in Indy. Joel (30m 36s): Well, I think we know which one you think the sexier company is those two. All right. Speaking of sexy, we'll take a quick break and talk about what everyone's talking about the metaverse. All right, Chad, big news. Chad (30m 56s): Yes. Joel (30m 56s): Big news this week and technology Microsoft may have just significantly upped its standing in the future of the metaverse by spending nearly $69 billion. I said 69. To gobble up gaming powerhouse, Activision Blizzard. When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world's third largest gaming company by revenue behind 10 Cent and Sony with franchises like Warcraft, your favorite Call of Duty and my wife's favorite Candy Crush. Side note Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, who's had a year of full of sexual harassment allegations will continue to lead the company, but will report to Microsoft gaming chief Spill Spender almost said Phil Spector when I read that. This follows the reach and acquisition of Zynga by Take Two for almost $13 billion. Joel (31m 40s): Chad, I know you love you some call of duty, but what do you make of all this news? Chad (31m 49s): Yeah, I think first and foremost, if you have not seen the movie Ready Player One, watch it ASAP. While Facebook focuses on Oculus and tries to leap into Ready Player One immediately Microsoft is focusing on how millions are engaged in the metaverse today. And in doing so collectively spending millions of dollars every single day, their users are spending tons of cash every day in the metaverse that exists within Microsoft infrastructure. So with video games, you have a construct that already exists and then you have an opportunity to expand that growing landscape, which means you're just taking an experience that everybody already uses, it already exists. Chad (32m 33s): And then you're opening up the prospect of real retail shops. And those were worlds. I mean the opportunity is enormous. So enormous Walmart's looking at getting in the game. Joel (32m 41s): Yeah, thanks Facebook. It's starting this feeding frenzy. So this reminds me of, and this is why it's good to be old it reminds me of the rush to social media. This feels like, holy shit, this could be the next big thing, let's all place our bets. And you remember that News Corp bought My Space. Yeah, that made a lot of sense at the time Yahoo bought Tumblr for a billion some dollars, which was crazy at the time. Facebook bought Instagram, well, that turned out pretty well. I guess it's smart for a social media company to buy another social media company. Google plus, that was one of your favorites back in the day. Joel (33m 21s): And Microsoft bought LinkedIn, which also worked out pretty well. People scoffed at social media becoming an influence on hiring, but it clearly has. LinkedIn is an obvious example. So the question to me is, you know, if gaming is ground zero for the metaverse, that's where the money's flowing. Chad (33m 41s): Yeah. Joel (33m 42s): Will these platforms eventually become hiring zones, right? Chad (33m 43s): For gamers. Joel (33m 43s): Well for anybody, apparently we're all going to be in this world. So everyone should be up for grabs. Is it an employment branding opportunity? Probably. And that's why we talk about it on the show. What will this all look like? I don't fucking know. I'll probably be dead when it matters or at least we won't be recording the show anymore, but maybe recruiters in the future will suit up, take on the shape of a lagger that's a lion/tiger combo Chad, and start connecting with others in a place like Minecraft or Fortnite. I mean the future could be crazy dude and Chad and Cheese are going to be here for as long as we can to help make sense of the craziness. sfx (34m 26s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (34m 28s): Like the Napoleon Dynamite reference? Joel (34m 29s): You like that? Like her, she loves my skills, my bow hunting skills. All right. Speaking of it's getting crazy. Let's talk about cannabis jobs. Yeah. All right. Vangst, that's an angst with a V a Denver-based cannabis jobs platform announced a $19 million funding round this week. The round was led by level one fund with participation from Cheech and Chong. No, sorry. I didn't read that. Right. And previous investors, which may include Cheech and Chong, it provides workers on a W2 and independent contractor basis. Vangst was founded in 2016 by Karson Humiston, and raised $10 million in a series A round in January of '19. Vangst currently works with 1200 cannabis companies said James Stewart, managing partner at level a level one fund quote "cannabis is an undeniably large and fast growing market. Joel (35m 18s): And Vangst is the only company offering scalable recruitment solutions tailored for the industry's unique needs" end quote. Chad, are you taking a hit off this deal or are you passing the Dutchy on the left-hand side? Chad (35m 37s): I'm more of an edible kind of guy? Joel (35m 39s): Yeah. Chad (35m 39s): In the past 12 months, the sector 25% increased full-time employees, right? Yep. 400,000 individuals. Now back in September of 2017, you and I, my friend actually covered Vangst and the prospect of weed jobs as states start to accept and decriminalize marijuana. So, I mean, I love this. There's no question this is a growth sector. I mean, because you are growing things, but it is a growth sector. I love it. But here's the base basic issue I have with this platform and any other platform that gets into the space, it looks good. Although it's literally the exact same type of system we built back in the late nineties and early two thousands. I should be able to get my information into the system into a 2022 system quick and easy, tap into LinkedIn APIs, parsers for a resume to be able to get my information into the right spots. Chad (36m 32s): This is more of the fill out more shit kind of platform. So I love it. It's a growth segment. I have great hopes for this industry and Vangst, but they can do better, much faster, if they learn from the last 20 years of online recruitment. They need to bring people in who understand that this space, specifically recruitment tech, because what they're doing now with our technology, we always talk about technical debt. They're not going to have technical debt. They're going to have a technical anchor around their neck unless they start to change for the future. Joel (37m 4s): You know, the company was founded in an era where it was taboo or even illegal to post jobs for cannabis online. And that's only changed fairly recently as more states make it legal. It's still federally not legal. So a lot of companies or job boards probably shy away from it, particularly if they're local to a state or city where it's illegal. So they had about five years of little to no competition. I mean, they were it, there were a couple of others, but they came out as the strongest brand. And I think people that are in the system feel a strong loyalty because of that early mover strategy. And I think that'll remain strong for probably years to come and they have a community. I mean, they're kind of like LinkedIn for pot. Joel (37m 45s): I don't know how long term that can be successful. Chad (37m 48s): Their tech is not like LinkedIn. Joel (37m 50s): Well, they try to like profile. And I mean, if they build a community, they tout community, look, I'm not on the site, but. Chad (37m 57s): I am. Joel (37m 58s): You're on this site. Okay. Then you can speak from a position of strength on this one, but longer term, you know, assuming weed goes legal at the federal level, which I think we all kind of think it will eventually, I think Vangst has a tough time competing. I think they do now. Most people don't have a hesitancy to post these jobs on places like Indeed and ZipRecruiter. And at some point they just become another industry for people to find employment, right? Like I just go to Indeed or Google or whatever to find marketing jobs. I don't have a cannabis career, which is what they're touting on the site. I'm just a mom. I'm just a person with a marketing degree who wants to get a job and it just so happens to be in the cannabis industry. Chad (38m 39s): Right. Joel (38m 40s): There aren't going to be many cannabis career folks out there. So long-term, I'm pretty bearish on this company, you know, for the next five to 10 years, I think they'll just do just fine particularly as more and more states open up legal marijuana. Chad (38m 54s): Agreed. Agreed. Your, your point exactly is why they can't just be the standard 1990s tech. They have to be something more. Joel (39m 2s): Yeah. They got to have some really good shit to build in the next couple of years, all right, let's take a quick break and get to the story. Everybody wants the final story this one about Only Fans. All right. Chad, more tales from the great resignation. Chad (39m 19s): Is that tales. T A L E S? Joel (39m 21s): I'll let the listener make up their own mind on that one. Yeah. We've talked about a nurse who found Only Fans riches. Now it's a former preschool teacher and nanny. Danielle Zavala, a big beautiful woman model in the New Orleans area. That's what the story says that's not me reading that, has traded in her pencils and ruler for big bucks as an Only Fans, adult model. 40 hour work weeks and the pandemic had her feeling underappreciated so she quit her dream job. And now works under the adult entertainer name Devy thick and makes twice as much as she did as a teacher in half the time. And maybe most importantly, she lives life on her terms. Joel (40m 5s): Zavala wrote in an article quote "I don't have to let people treat me poorly. I can set my own boundaries with customers and if they break them, I simply don't have to do business with them" end quote. So, Chad, what do you think of my new stage name? Cheesy thick? Chad (40m 24s): I think it's a full of cholesterol. So, we talked about a nurse. A nurse, very hot nurse, but a nurse leaving her job for only fans making like $30,000 a month. And now a teacher, if you think about it, nobody wants to be going to work on a daily basis and treated like shit either by customers, by patients, by your peers, by staff, you know, managers doesn't matter. Nobody wants to be treated like shit. So in this case, it's a nurse and it's a teacher, but I can almost guarantee you, there are many other tales that are out there of the Kroger worker or the Amazon, you know, warehouse worker. Chad (41m 5s): These people who just said, fuck this, I'm going to try it a different and better way and good for them. Is it good though? Why not? Joel (41m 11s): Well, I don't know. I don't know this whole world baffles my mind. Chad (41m 15s): You know, $15 to $30,000 a month and they can sock some away and they can retire early. Good for them. Joel (41m 20s): Is there a ceiling on this? Like, is there a moment where like, you know what 80 million people on Only Fans is too much. Chad (41m 29s): There could be a saturation point. Joel (41m 31s): Like, I don't know. It's just nuts, man. And I love talking about it, but I just, every week it's like, man, the world just gets crazier and crazier and now we're opening up the fucking metaverse. Chad (41m 48s): As soon as Only Fans comes to the metaverse it's over. Joel (41m 53s): No. When Chad and Cheese come to the metaverse, it's over. And with that, this show is over. Chad and Joel (42m 3s): We out. OUTRO (42m 33s): 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.