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Dat Money keeps flowing in the Recruiting Tech world! - iCIMS rang the cash register this week - Wouldya Perkspot or ClearCompany? - Upwork is moving into full-on Enterprise / Monopoly mode - Indeed's says FU Google for Jobs - We tease Smashfly and Emerson. Big fun! Visit our sponsors, because, money... Sovren, JobAdX and America's Job Exchange rock tha hizzy (do kids still say hizzy?). PODCAST TRANSCRIPT sponsored by: Disability Solutions is changing minds and changing lives through disability inclusion. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinions, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Hey, hey, hey. It's your boys Chad and Cheese ready to drop another episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast on your eardrums. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm so pissed right now. Joel: All righty, on this week's show iCIMS goes "Choo, choo." Indeed's parent company gives Google for Jobs a Big FU, and Smash Fry introduces the world to Emerson. Stick around, I think Chad has a rant stewing inside him. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market, because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching visit sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N dot com. Chad: So much smart than human beings. Joel: And that's not too hard to do if you're just on Facebook for a few hours. Chad: It's not. Joel: You got a rant inside of you, but we're gonna get the shout outs first- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... and keep the audience waiting for this. I'm gonna start it off. Last week when I went off on HR Tech, justifiably so in my mind- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... I said that Todd Raphael, my editor at ERE, had dropped an F bomb. And when I went back into the actual conversation there were no F bombs dropped. So although Todd relayed surprise that I was not given a press pass to HR Tech, he did not drop an F bomb. He's way too classy for that. It's idiots like us who drop F bombs in podcasts. So just wanted to clear that up. Todd, you're all good man, don't worry about it. No F bombs. Chad: Well Ed from Philly didn't drop an F bomb but I bet he wanted to. So he actually tweeted, "Boo hashtag Chad and Cheese won't be at HR Tech." He's not happy. And he actually came up with his own hashtag, #FreeChadCheese. Joel: Which I love it. I think t-shirts are in order, maybe bill boards in Vegas for the show. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, I love it. Thanks Z, appreciate it. Shout out for Jason Crowell. Last week I talked about Google dropping related searches on his homepage. And had a talk with him, he was the one who actually saw it first, that I know of, shared it. Talked to him, he gave some insight which we might have time for at the end of the show to discuss. But- Chad: Cool. Joel: Jason, appreciate it. He's a recruiter out in Colorado for a trucking company there, so. Shout out. Chad: Very nice. Well a couple of shout outs for our friends at jobAdX and Uncommon, who are going to be at HR Tech's startup Pitchfest. So if you're gonna be there, go to Pitchfest and check these guys out. Couple of awesome companies. jobAdX and Uncommon gonna be pitching out there. Joel: Not to be mistaken with Bitchfest, which is what will be happening after hours when drinks are consumed. Joel: Shout out to Jennifer Henley. Chad: Yeah! Joel: Some of you may have attended our webinar this week on high frequency hiring. Jennifer's an executive with NAS Recruitment Innovation. The webinar was sponsored by Talroo, so shout out to both them as well. But Jennifer did a great job. She's a mountaineer, which my wife really likes. And you know, let's go mountaineers! Shout out. Chad: Shut up. So ... And also shout out to some of the attendees who participated. We got a bunch of participation that happens. Kathy Plum, Claudia, Adriana Maddox, Jacob, Michelle, and a bunch of others. Thanks for attending guys. Joel: Did you just say Michelle and no last name? Chad: Yeah, 'cause she had Michelle hyphen or some shit like that. Joel: Michelle. Nice. Chad: Michelle knows who she is. Joel: That's nice. Chad: Michelle knows who she is. If you haven't listened to last week's firing squad with ZAPinfo you have to listen to this episode. Doug Berg, who I call the grandfather of RMPs ... he didn't like that but still. He pitched, did a great job. Got to see how it actually came out in the wash, but you gotta listen. There is some really good history and some good innovation that's happening there. Joel: Dougie Fresh, dropping a bomb on firing squad. Love it. Joel: Well I'm gonna give I think our first shout out to Death Match- Chad: Yes! Joel: Those of you know that we are in bed so to speak with TAtech, we're really engaged with those guys. Chad: Oh man! Joel: They came to us and said, "Guys, how do we liven up the show?" And after a few brain fart sessions we came up with Death Match, which is a final four competition pitting four startups against each other. Chad: Yep. Joel: Chad and I are gonna be judges, we're gonna have a surprise judge. And then I guess another judge, hopefully to garner who the winner is. And for the first time we can finally mention Death Match as well as who the Death Match competitors are. Chad: Yes! We have Uncommon, Canvas one of our favorite domains. Go canvas dot IO. Talkpush. Joel: Push it, push it real good. Chad: And Allio. So Uncommon, Canvas, Talkpush, and AllyO. And just so that you know, I would really appreciate it if you not say in bed with TAtech because 'peat and repeat, having that visual is never something I wanna have again. Joel: Yeah we want people to attend the conference. Chad: Shout out to Disability Solutions, our transcription peeps. Chad: Okay so we're always giving people shit, we just did with Canvas, "'go Canvas dot IO" about their URLs. Well Disability Solutions had a very long URL, it was Disability Solutions at work dot org. And wanted to give them huge kudos, because they moved from that long ass domain to simply disability talent dot org. Joel: It's amazing when brains actually come out in business, it's very nice and refreshing. Chad: It was cool too though, because Doug said ... And this is one of the things that we always ask about the rebranding and what not, he said that he always has a name that he starts off with, with a company ... and Doug's sold plenty of companies. And it always evolves into something entirely different. So they went from WebClipDrop drop to ZAPinfo. And that's just, again, just a guy who's done this before. This is normal. Joel: You know what that little story has made me think of? Chad: What? Joel: Remember Itz Big? Chad: Oh God yeah! IT ... Joel: I-T-Z big I-G. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And they started out with, we don't know what it's gonna be but it's big, whatever we're doing. And they never changed it from that. And they're gone now. But good people behind the organization. But it made me think of Itz Big. So any of the old timers in the industry that remember Itz Big, just have a moment of silence for the death of Itz Big. Chad: Yeah no shit. Joel: It wasn't big. Chad: No. Joel: My last shout out, again with TAtech, we're gonna be hopefully doing some video interviews, which we've never done before. Chad: Yes! Joel: Peter Clayton, who a lot of people know does some stellar work with video and podcasting. We're gonna do these videos. If you, your company are interested in being interviewed by us and having some mad social media juice going out from that, go to chadcheese.com I think there's a link on the homepage, or you can reach out to us directly. Chad: Last from my side, so this is something that you actually put in our Facebook group but you didn't say it so I'm going to. Joel: Okay. Chad: There's a Glassdoor review on Career Builder. Here's the actual review, and quote: "Continuing to work at Career Builder now feels like looting a corpse." Okay so here's- Joel: That's so good. If you're bored at work right now just go to Glassdoor and search Career Builder's reviews. It's ... they're just classic. They are entertainment galore. Joel: So I actually have some gossip around Career Builder, which I know is a surprise. But apparently what I've heard is they have a new employee agreement that they have to sign with a disparagement clause that essentially says you will not disparage the company, talk shit at any time, prior to or after or in during your employment with Career Builder. So Career Builder, if that's true, is certainly noticing ... If anyone out there has a screenshot of the language that's in the new employee agreement please send it to us, 'cause we'd love to see it. Chad: Yeah and just so you know, you're gonna stay anonymous. That's all there is to it. Just send us this stuff, if it's legit ... we're definitely gonna check sources, but send that shit to us. Joel: I think it's time for a Chad rant. Chad: Ah, dude. Joel: Chad rant! Chad: Yeah, so. Okay, so this is about clearances right? Security clearances and how they actually affect the workforce. Now stick with me here because this isn't political, but security clearances being ripped away from American assets, like John Brennan and Hayden and Comey and many more, have actually started the conversation that I've heard on the news and now on social media about why they just don't strip clearances from people after they leave service in the first place. I mean have you heard this? Joel: I probably fell asleep during it. But I have heard mentions of some sort of security clearance issue. Chad: So there are a couple of things here. So first off military veterans have always had an issue translating the skills and finding jobs. And we're always talking about trying to help military veterans find jobs in the civilian world after serving their country. Although ones equipped with security clearance, and individuals who have those security clearances, are much more marketable and can find jobs easier. Right? So when you have a security clearance and you're coming out into the civilian sector, working for a Lockheed Martin maybe some other federal contractor, you're more marketable. Chad: So the thing is, if you're asking why, one of the reasons why is because for all of our veterans that are out there, it actually helps them get jobs much faster if they have the clearance. And security clearances aren't lifetime guys, they're renewable. So that means that you have to go through a vetting process again and again and again. So this isn't something that you just get handed to you. Chad: And to give you an example, so I mean a certification to work in the intelligence community. Let's just look at it like that. So if I ripped a security clearance away from you after you left the federal government or military or what have you, it would be like if a developer leaves an organization and they lose all their certifications. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Right? It also ... Or maybe like a mechanic. Should they lose their ASE certification when they leave their employer and have to reestablish it again? Joel: No. Chad: The cleared community, they depend on this. And it just makes damn good sense. We're looking at this the wrong way. We're looking it as why does this person have a security clearance? It should be more of America needs these individuals to have these clearances so that they can be read in, in certain circumstances, and be able to provide us with network, intelligence, and background. If they can't do that because they don't have a clearance, then guess what? They're not worth anything to us. And they are an asset. So just to let you know, it's good for our military and it's also good for individuals who have that knowledge to continue to get that clearance. So this just makes sense. Chad: And for all of you out there in social media land, do your research, ask more probing and smart questions, and then you won't look like dumb asses when guys like me have to actually school you. Joel: And you don't want to be schooled by Chad, believe me. Chad: No. It's hard not to call you a fucking idiot on Facebook, let me tell ya. I don't, but it's hard not to. Joel: We talk about DHI a lot and that's usually tied to dice, but we sometimes forget clearance jobs is one of their properties. And one of the only growing properties in their arsenal. So it's clear that this is a definite need, and it's an important topic. It's not necessarily my lane, but you go to town man if you need to rant on that. Chad: It's a workforce thing, dude. And that's what we have to take a look at. We don't look at how things impact our work ad our people. This impacts our work and our people and our intelligence community overall. So rant over. Joel: Nice. Can we talk about iCIMS? Chad: Please! Joel: iCIMS get paid this week. Announced on Wednesday I believe. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Joel: They ... Okay so iCIMS has raised roughly $92 million to date, which is not chump change. Now they've been around a long time. They've had one major investor in that time. They have a new one now. What's interesting about this, and your opinions are welcome, is they did an undisclosed amount of raise. Which is kind of odd when we're talking VC and equity type folks. They usually wanna let people know. So I'm not sure exactly what to read into that. Although I'm sure it wasn't in the £50,000 range, I'm sure it was a pretty significant amount of money. Joel: But good for them. I mean my take aways are when you raise that kind of money there's usually an IPO in the future, there's a sale or something in the future to cash out that investment. I know that we talked to Colin Day and if you haven't listened to that interview you should do so. But taking money means investors that want cash out. So to me, am I gonna be shocked if we see an iCIMS IPO in the next two or three years? No. Or maybe an acquisition potentially, although I don't know who's going to acquire them. I would argue that ATS's are sort of becoming commoditized, although I'm sure every ATS would disagree with me on that. Chad: I think we are in a place where we're continuing to see companies, not just start-ups, companies like iCims who have been around for well over a decade. Who, need to stay in front of the competition, or morph into something entirely different. The only way that they can do that, in the time that they see feasible, is to be able to take cash. It's the only way to do it. Chad: They've been able to, obviously, evolve just with their own revenues, which I think is awesome. But again, to be able to spark that kind of growth and perspective development, it takes more money, it definitely takes more money. Joel: Yeah. It almost feels like an arms race at this point. Chad: It does. Joel: There's so much money going into this industry. I think a lot of it too is being inspired by Google, Facebook, and Microsoft getting into it big time. Like, investors that see that say, "Wow. There's gold in them thar hills." They want to get a piece of that. Whether it's through acquisition by those companies, or retail investors getting excited because that space is heating up. Joel: So yeah, the time is right. iCims, very smart people. I'm sure they wouldn't do this stupidly. I suspect that it will be a smart investment in the next few years. Chad: Well remember, during the interview with Colin he called Google the savior of our industry. So, you know ... And, iCims is working very closely with Google on the enterprise API side of the house. So think of this, they are already starting to institute, or they already have, instituted Google search API into their job search. Now there's the candidate API search, that you've gotta know right now that iCims has been working hard with Google to be able to integrate that API, that candidate API job search in there. Chad: So, the savior of our industry, putting all those APIs and things together. I think you can see where this is going. Joel: Yeah. And I think we're going to see more acquisitions. Of course, we talked about the texture crude acquisition. Those guys have hired some nice C-Suite executives. They're moving up to next level stuff. So, it's fun to watch, and ups to them out there in New Jersey iCims. Chad: It's pretty awesome. Joel: Well, SmashFly is a company we don't talk about too much. Although we're doing an interview with them soon, their Head of Marketing, is that correct? Chad: Yeah. JayZ. Joel: For The Uncommon, the exclusive this month, JZ, yeah. So, we won't touch on this for too long, because I'm sure we'll talk about it in the interview. But, SmashFly introduced us to Emerson. Chad: Right. Joel: Their Chatbot, their AllyO competitor, I guess. Fortunately, there's finally a male name in the Chatbot world, which is refreshing. Because, there's just too much sexism in the Chatbot industry. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Any thoughts on the introduction of Emerson? Chad: No. I think it's awesome, because we actually had ... this is a major part of one of our Podcasts months ago. Where we talked about Paradox, Olivia, and HiringSoft. So, a couple of different organizations who were starting to partner with SmashFly. Now what we're starting to see is the fruits of that labor. I'm really looking forward to having the discussion with Josh, and really pressing them on what the Hell they're going to be doing to ... This is a very crowded space, what are they going to be doing to really push themselves ahead of everybody else? Joel: My input on all this is, I've always thought that Chatbots were going to be commoditized. And, this was going to be a feature, instead of a separate product. To me, SmashFly plugging in a Chatbot into their solution, putting those conversations within their CRM. Putting in all the information. To me, it's just the fact that Chatbots are a feature, to make them an actual product, stand alone, is going to be really challenging. Joel: I think companies like Olivia, where it's sort of a mobile only kind of thing, where it replaces text recruiting or text messaging, then it could work. But, I think we're going to start seeing Chatbots on every CRM, every ATS, this is just going to be something that everybody has, at some point. Chad: Yeah, but here's the thing. You have to have companies like the Alios and The Canvas, and Olivia, and Paradox. To be able to do this right, and to really focus all of their cash in this area. And then, find ways to be able to monetize it. It might be a feature, but it's a feature that could perspectively sell a much bigger contract. And, for SmashFly to be able to say, "Look, we're not going to spend a lot of cash on this and try to develop this. Because all these other guys are doing it really well." Find somebody who marries up very well with them. Chad: I'd like to see ... It's more than just a feature. It's something that will, and could, and I would assume right now, probably is helping sell big contracts. Joel: Yeah. I see it more being one of those check box things. Right? 10/15 years ago it was, "Is your site SEO friendly? Are your URLs okay? Can Google find your stuff?" That used to be a product. And now, everyone has to have URLs that can be read by Google. Joel: And then it was, "Is your site mobile?" And you had companies like Jive. "We're going to mobilize your website," right? And then all the ATSs said, "Okay, well we've got to be mobile optimized." And then, all those companies went away. Joel: To me, this is the next feature that every ATS and what not is going to have. And, all these little players that do it exclusively are going to go by the wayside. Chad: This is so much bigger than that. You're thinking very shallow on this. Joel: No it's not. Chad: It is totally. Because, this is also a process methodology piece, and engagement piece. So, it's so much bigger, because they're going to be able to collect more data than ... SEO, was just to be able to make sure that you were there to compete. This is actually focusing on gathering data and being able to do it in a much better way. Chad: On the application side of the house, or also helping, in this case, as a recruiting assistant. So, it's bigger than those types of features. Was SEO big? Yeah it was big. Did it help companies? Yeah, not really, in most cases. Yeah, they checked a box. But in this case, and I think it will. Joel: I'll edit, if you didn't benefit from SEO, it's your fault. Chad: Yeah, I agree, I agree. Joel: Alright? Chad: I agree. Joel: Well speaking of a company that definitely benefited from SEO, Recruit Holdings, Indeed's sugar daddy, reported earning recently. They ain't afraid of no jobs from Google, apparently. They saw an 8.2% over year growth with the company. They called out Google specifically in the report. Which I thought was very interesting. Joel: They said, "Even though the pundits, the Podcasters are talking about our death by Google. We're not seeing that." They claim 200 million unique visitors per month at Indeed. And Indeed is now claiming 120 million resumes. They're putting on a brave face. And keep in mind, Google for Jobs, I don't think has even been live for a year. Joel: So, to talk about year over year growth is a little bit disingenuous. Because Google for Jobs hasn't been around that long. So, we'll see what their growth next year is, year over year. But yeah, they're keeping a brave face. Good for you Indeed. Chad: Well, and Google for Jobs isn't even world wide yet. They're rolling out. Hell, they just hit Europe for God's sake, what, about a month ago? So yeah, Google for Jobs is in its infancy. This is all bluster and bullshit. Chad: Okay Indeed, I totally get that you guys are making cash. We've talked about this, good for you, continue to make hay while you can. I'm going to beat a dead horse here. I remember when Monster was kicking everybody's ass. Yeah, that's not happening today. That didn't happen, because a little bitty site like Indeed came and whipped their ass. Chad: This is an entirely different dynamic. We're talking about a brand that is in everybody's hand, and/or browser, and/or house. So, if you want to just try to push this off like it's, "Oh, Google for Jobs really is not impacting us right now." Yeah, no shit asshole. That's how it starts. Chad: But if you want to continue with this brave face, I would assume you should probably continue to do that. But, make hay while you can. Because this day, my friend, will end. Joel: By the way, we reported some sightings in the wild of Google putting related searches on their homepage for job searches. Which, I have actually seen quite frequently when I go to Google these days. I wrote a little story about an ARE that should come out soon. Joel: But yeah, if Google starts pimping job search on their homepage, watch the numbers go up. Because, that is some very valuable real estate. Chad: Yeah. Not to mention once again, Indeed is spending a shit ton of cash, and they have to, outside of the organic SEO that they used to be able to enjoy, because that's not there as much anymore. Joel: You mean they don't have a homepage that billions of people visit? Chad: No, yeah, yeah. And again, they're not a part of everybody's every day routines. So, this is the long game, there's no question. Joel: Well if you're a recruiter, JobAdX should be a destination site for you every day. Let's hear from those cats, and we'll talk Upwork and PerkSpot. Say that real fast a bunch of times. JobAdX: How many times has someone said to you, "We're the Uber of," or, "It's the PayPal of," maybe, "They're the Facebook of." In many, many cases these comparisons fall short of being close to reality. Or, even a useful illustration of what organizations actually do. JobAdX: In the of JobAdX, our example is so accurate, so spot on, that it's synonymous with our work. JobAdX is Google ad sense for jobs. That means we're an efficient, persistent, and smarter ad unit for job related advertising. As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX offers recruitment marketing agencies, RPOs, and staffing firms. Real time dynamic bidding and delivery for client postings through the industry's first truly responsive tool. JobAdX: All this is done with the flexibility of JobAdX's cost per impression, quick application. We offer unique budget conservation options to effectively eliminate spending waste. We're not set in regret. JobAdX: For direct clients, JobAdX delivers superior candidates with the best of programmatic efficiency, and premium page ad positioning. We also provide publishers and job boards. Higher rev share than other partners for a smarter programmatic platform. In many cases, 30-40 percent greater, and more through our scalable model. JobAdX: To partner with us, you can visit or search JobAdX.com, or email us at joinusatjobadx.com to get estimates, or begin working together. JobAdX: JobAdX, the best ad tool providing smarter programmatic for your needs. JobAdX: Oh, and you've been wondering why the British accent. JobAdX has just launched in the UK too. Chad: Instead of, I would say, yes definitely, recruiters should be checking out JobAdX. But I mean, more on the agency side of the house, RPOs. To be quite frank, Talent Acquisition, they can't spell programmatic right now. They are way too busy doing too much other shit. Joel: Come on now. Chad: No. Joel: That's not nice. Chad: No, I'm just saying they're way too busy doing too much other shit. It's not that they're not smart, it's that they do a lot of stuff. And, the RPOs, the agency staffing firms, those guys have a handle on this shit. And, that's one of the reasons why, it's their business to do it. Chad: So definitely, if you're an RPO, you're an agency, you're a staffing company, you should definitely be checking these guys out. Joel: Yeah, and if you run a job board, or some sort of publishing site, you should give them a call. They can help put some money in your pocket. Chad: Good point. Joel: Upwork- Chad: We've been talking about- Joel: One of my faves, I think. Chad: Yeah. Joel: This is an under reported story in our industry. Chad: Yeah, I agree. Joel: We talked about them going IPO. I don't have an update on that. But, they released an enterprise solution this past week. Which, I think is just a natural extension of what big companies, small companies, IT departments, and other departments are going to do. They're going to out-source contract projects, and it's probably going to be Upwork that manages that whole thing. Joel: In their press release for the announcement, they mentioned that of Fortune 500 companies, only 28% of Fortune 500 companies and notable companies utilize Upwork to find and engage free lancers. Chad: Yep. Joel: So, they have a long way to go, and a long road to snag up some of the Fortune 500 companies. I think they're going to see a ton of growth. I'm not recommending stocks, but depending on the valuation, it might be a pretty good company to get behind, going into the future. Chad: Yeah. I agree. You said in earlier Podcasts that you could actually see ... Because again, you gotta take a look at the workforce today, and how hard it is to find people. Being able to take some of these full time jobs and chunk them into projects, makes more sense, in many cases. And having a person manage your Upwork work force, that could be something that would be happening in the near future. It might be happening right now. And if it is, definitely reach out to us and let us know. We'd like to hear the story. Chad: But, it just makes good sense. You can reach out. It's on demand, it's on demand talent to be able to help you fill a specific voids. One of the things that I think we have a problem with Intown Acquisition HR is that, we've been doing things the same way for so long, we can't do them differently. Chad: So, this job has always been a full time job. Well bullshit, why does it have to be a full time job? How can you perspectively create projects out of that, and start a rolling free lancers in and out of that. And then having a person, maybe a part timer, maybe a full timer, who knows to pick up some of the responsibilities to manage that. Because, it's all about getting the project done. It's not getting the project done with a full timer or a part timer, right? Joel: Yeah. And as companies have a harder time finding talent to fill these roles, contracting globally is going to be a natural progression of how companies grow. A marketing department that says, "Hey, you know, we should maybe be doing something with Snapchat, right?" This is timely because Chad just dropped off a kid at college who only has conversations through Snapchat. Joel: So a company says, "Who knows anything about Snapchat?" Well I don't. Go to Upwork, find a Snapchat marketing expert, hire them for an hourly fee, and get them to get you up to speed or handle it for you. And when you're done with that, then they're done. You only pay them for the time. You don't pay them health benefits. It's a very natural thing that I think is gonna happen. Joel: I think you're going to see job postings for Upwork manager, if there aren't already job postings like that, but yeah, I think keep your eye on Upwork and where this is going. I'm surprised there aren't more freelance marketplaces like this. They kind of almost have a monopoly on what they're doing, so I'd be surprised if more companies don't get into it, but Upwork is really one to watch. I applaud their enterprise solution that they launched last week. Chad: Well, the only way companies are going to start using it is if they start thinking differently about work. That's it. These startups that are out there today that are incredibly nimble and they know that they have to get things out quickly, they use freelancers. It just makes sense because they are building from ground zero talent acquisition, HR, you've got to start thinking the exact same way. The market has changed, will continue to change, and it's going in this direction. So change with it. Joel: Yup. Next story. So we talked about iCims getting cash for an undisclosed sum. There were two companies this week that did disclose how much they got. And I just wanna play a new game I don't think we've ever played, and I'm just doing this on the fly. Chad: Sure. Joel: Let's play, who would you rather? This is usually played with two members of the opposite sex, and pick which one is more favorable. I won't go any deeper than that, but let's play who would you rather? Okay. Our two contestants are PerkSpot, who recently got $50 million in funding. Now this is interesting because they started as an at home business in 2006. They grew organically. This is the first money that they've taken. They essentially offer companies a way to get perks for their employees, right? Joel: So they partner with merchants like AMC Theaters or Walmart or whatever, Kohls, and they provide discounts and freebies to employees. This is pretty smart from a retention recruiting perspective. Come here and we'll give you a free whatever. It's good for merchants because they can get in front of an audience of buyers. And it's good for companies because they're offering these things to their employees. It's a pretty hot market. You see a few players in this space. Joel: So PerkSpot is our first contestant on who would you rather. Our second is ClearCompany, which got $10 million more at $60 million. ClearCompany, I know a little less about, but they're essentially an end to end CRM onboarding benefits like all in one solution. Chad: Yes. Joel: So I guess putting those two players in front of you, who would you rather? Chad: Easy, PerkSpot. And the reason being is that the all in one companies, the big gas systems, they don't generally fair well, I guess you can say, especially when it comes through to getting your money back out of that bad boy. You can take a look at applicant tracking systems like iCims that are really focused on one thing, and they're trying to do that great, but they also have a hub to be able to allow other organizations to tap into their client base in their system. Chad: That's something that I think that has legs versus Clear. On the PerkSpot side of the house though, those guys, it's not a really crowded, I would say, sector, first and foremost. Second, this is like I was talking about like with chatbots. I mean, this is something that you can be incredibly good at and you can really make it an incredibly robust set of perks, per say, sell it off. And I think that, in itself, to me, I'd put my money on that side. Joel: I'm going to agree with you in most of the points that you made, but I'm going to go with PerkSpot for one thing. Yeah, the baby's back. I'm going to go with millennials as my reason for choosing PerkSpot because this business is made for these whiny entitled millennials who think they can just go to work and get free movie tickets and free food and discounts on whatever. This business is made for millennials and God love them. They're taking over. They're making everything their bitch and PerkSpot is custom made for a generation that wants free stuff. Chad: Get off my lawn. Joel: All right, man. Let's take a quick break and hear from America's Job Exchange and we'll talk Google, I guess. Imagine that. Chad: I love it. AJE: America's Job Exchange is celebrating our 10th year as an industry leader in diversity recruitment and OFCCP compliance. We've been helping our thousand plus customers comply with OFCCP regulations that directly support positive and effective diversity recruitment designed to attract and convert veterans, individuals with disabilities, women, and minorities, and empower employers to pursue and track active outreach with their local community based organizations. Want to learn more?Call us at 866-926-6284 or visit us at www.americasjobexchange.com. Joel: You missed the crying baby. Admit it. Chad: Yeah. I like it better when it's only once a show versus like 16 times a show. For God's sake. Joel: All right. We'll declare a moratorium on baby crying sound effects. Chad: Thank you. Joel: Millennials or Gen Z have to be attached to the baby crying. Chad: I like that. Joel: Well G suite meeting rooms, this is something that you got excited about. What's up? Chad: Being able to take a look at what Google's doing ... So we're talking about the flank that Indeed's trying to battle against with Google for Jobs, but then we also have the APIs, which we're talking about with iCims. I mean Google is like everywhere. So they've got the candidate API, they've got the job search API. But then, what's the other arm? It's the Hire by Google, right? Chad: So Google comes out with these new tools for meeting rooms. And that was funny because Tarquin, who is now heading up, he took over, I believe, [Bogomil. Actually, he reshared this, he shared this on LinkedIn, and it just automatically made me think, this is another step toward enterprise for Hire by Google to be able to not just manage meeting rooms, but to also in this case, to be able to take a look at the meeting rooms that are going unbooked and release them so that they're available for other people. Chad: They actually have a study that shows that up to 40 percent of rooms that have been booked go unused. So now, they're putting this out there. I'm starting to kind of connect the dots. Tarquin shares it and I'm thinking, okay, how long is it going to take four G suites to start pulling this meeting rooms piece in and integrating it into Hire by Google, going more toward enterprise? Joel: So this will be a virtual meeting room, right? Because what you're talking about is a literal meeting room. Chad: I'm talking about a literal meeting room because you have to ... Obviously when you have a big company, you only have so many meeting rooms, and you have to reserve them for interviews and things of that nature. Right? So this is a management system. I mean, Outlook has one, Google has one, but being able to utilize this for interviews, individuals who were coming onsite. Joel: These could be conference rooms as well. Correct? Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: That's pretty interesting because I don't think we've ever talked about it, but Google acquired a whiteboard company awhile back where everything you wrote on the whiteboard was digitalized and archived and recorded. So it would be interesting to have meeting rooms that had these smart white boards in them and companies could take notes and whatever and have that automatically populate the content of your G suite management system or whatever. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So that's interesting. I was thinking it was digital when you first mentioned it. I don't know if you've seen Facebook's watch parties? Chad: No. What the hell is that? Joel: So for groups, I think it's all in groups right now, but groups, you can put everything like put a poll up or put a video or whatever. So they're now having where you have watch parties where you can watch with the group a video, I'm assuming a Facebook video, but I don't know if you can do YouTube or Netflix or any of those, but it's basically a way ... Joel: So let's say your group of Dungeon and Dragons friends circle this. You guys want to have a watch party of whatever. You can watch it on Facebook and chat and comment, et cetera. I saw that and I thought, how long is it going to be before company pages have watch parties and people who like a company can watch a video about working at the company or certain jobs at the company? I think that's coming. So that's what that made me think about, but totally different products. Chad: That sounds boring as hell, I think. Joel: Really? If you wanted to work ... Oh, you're full of shit. Chad: Getting together with friends and watching a video about a conference- Joel: That's totally sad, but to say I really like X company and they're going to do a watch party about what it's like to be a developer there or what it's like to be a marketer- Chad: I dig that. Joel: That makes sense in a sense. But yeah, the D&D fans watching Game of Thrones is sorta sad. Chad: You know that shit happens. All right. Joel: So do we want to do a Google search homepage updates, or we want to save that for next week? Chad: Let's go ahead and do that real quick. Joel: All right, so real quick, we talked about Google searches sort of populating Google's homepage. I personally am seeing that very frequently when I go to google.com on Chrome, if some of you're out there seeing it, we'd love to hear from you and get your opinion. I can tell you that once you click the button for a search, it goes to a Google page that's a search for that job query, right? So you see Google For Jobs, they're definitely pimping that. Any company that has great placement on Google For Jobs is definitely seeing a spike if this is a widespread tests. Joel: They're saying on the search that it's generated by your search activity on Google, which I find really hard to believe because ... So the four searches that I got, I won't remember all of them, but one was like jobs in Peoria, Illinois, accounting jobs in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I've never even been to those two cities. And the other one was totally unrelated, like entry level construction worker or something. Joel: So if Google is legitimately putting these up in front of me because of my search behavior, like it totally sucks. Either they have a long way to go on that or they just want to get those buttons up there to see if people click them. And if people click them, they'll get better at making them more relatable. But Google infamous for sort of testing these things on their site. So we may see it go widespread. We may see it gone in a couple of weeks, but it definitely is happening because I see it pretty regularly. Chad: Well, you're seeing it and I'm not. So it makes me think that it's in some sort of beta. And it's interesting because, I mean, they have your geo location. So I can't imagine why they wouldn't be focusing on Indianapolis. But yeah, again, these things are thrown out there to really test and see if there is any engagement. If there is, then I would say that you'd probably, there's more of a mature product that starts to roll out. Joel: Yeah. And I'm surprised that it's just jobs, right? It's not other stuff I search like maybe local restaurants, or movie times, or even I'm searching sport stuff all the time. Why there isn't Buckeyes first game review or something that I see. But anyway, Google has long way to go, but they're definitely doing this, and it's definitely got to be driving a decent amount of traffic to their job search component. And if they're serious about it, then just the warm up the printing press machine because the cash is kind pretty nuts around enterprise employment shit. Chad: Well, I have to say this episode was a ton more Google than I would've thought it would've been, but it actually worked out pretty well. Joel: Yeah, I think so. Are we out? Chad: We out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, The Chad, and his goofy friend, Cheese. You've been listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive shiny gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #GoogleforJobs #Indeed #ClearCompany #PerkSpot #Upwork #Smashfly #Emerson #chatbots #iCims

He's the grandfather of all things SEO + Marketing and platformy... It's Doug Berg people! Yea, the guy behind Techies.com, Jobs2Web and now a startup called ZAPinfo. Doug is bringing his suave and technical abilities back to the recruiting industry and hoping to disrupt the sourcing scene. What do Chad & Cheese think? Gotta listen to this Talroo exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps employers identify and source candidates with disabilities. Chad: Hey Joel. Joel: What up? Chad: Would you say that companies find it hard to attract the right candidates to apply for their jobs? Joel: Well, Jobs2Careers thought so. Chad: Jobs2Careers? You mean, Talroo. Joel: Talroo? Chad: Yeah, Talroo. T-A-L-R-O-O. Joel: What is that, like a cross between talent and a kangaroo? Chad: No, it's a cross between talent and recruiting. But Talroo was focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Joel: Okay, so it's totally data-driven talent attraction, which means the Talroo platform enables recruiters to reach the right talent at the right time and at the right price. Chad: Okay, so that was weirdly intuitive, but yes. Guess what the best part is? Joel: Let me take a shot here. You only pay for the candidates Talroo delivers? Chad: Holy shit. Okay, so you've heard this before. If you're out there listening in podcast land and you are attracting the wrong candidates, and we know you are, or you feel like you're in a recruiting hamster wheel and there's just nowhere to go, right? You can go to Talroo.com/attract. Again, that's Talroo.com/attract and learn how Talroo can get you better candidates for less cash. Joel: Or just go to ChadCheese.com and click on the Talroo logo. I'm all about the simple. Chad: You are a simple man. Chad: Yes, me precious, yes me precious candidate, we wants it so sweet precious, yes. Announcer: Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they've got what it takes to make it out alive. Dig a foxhole and duck for cover, kids, the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel: Hey, what's up boys and girls? We have a special treat on Firing Squad this month. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Doug Berg, welcome to the show. If I can find the applause button. Chad: There you go. Joel: Doug, as many industry experts, professionals, long timers know, the guy behind Techies, the guy behind Jobs2Web, is sitting on a pile of money as we speak because he sold those companies. Doug, welcome to the show. We're going to talk about your new company, ZAPinfo today. Doug: Love to be here guys. Thanks for having me back. I feel like a throwback to the mid-90s. This is awesome. Chad: Yeah, no. Dude, this is totally a high school reunion. You know that right? All three of us half drunk off our ass at the bar. Joel: We're all sober, by the way. I'll add that to the show. Chad, you want to read the rules and we'll dive right into it? Chad: Yeah. Okay, Doug. You're going to have a two minute pitch for ZAPinfo. At the end of two minutes, you'll hear the bell. Then Joel and I are going to hit you with rapid fire questions. If your answers aren't concise, Joel's going to hit you with crickets, which means you need to tighten your game up [crosstalk 00:03:16]. We're getting bored around here. At the end of Q&A, you're going to get judged, either with big applause, which means you have exceeded expectations. Joel: Well on your way. Chad: Golf clap, you're on your way but you've got some work to do. Or the firing squad, take your shit and go home because that's not what you want to hear. That's the firing squad. It's time to buckle up and pitch. Joel, start that timer big boy. Joel: You ready Doug? Doug: I'm ready. Joel: Let's do it. You're on. Doug: Awesome guys. Well, I'm excited to tell you about ZAPinfo, which is a tool that we've created that is instead of an artificial intelligent tool, we're an information automation tool. Instead of AI, we're IA. The reason we built this thing is because recruiters are bogged down with still too much busy shit every single day. They're burning cycles either posting jobs or trying to grab resumes and contact information. They're using 87 tools to try to get the information they need. They're bundling that crap up, they're sending it in demand. All of these tools are going crazy right now and everyone's got a career site, and an ATS, and a CRM, and a recruitment marketing platform, of which I founded part of the business, but none of these systems really at the end of the day talk to each other. Doug: We wanted to build a single tool that would really help bring true productivity to the recruiters, right? They can use ZAPinfo to instantly zap contacts and profile information, put it into any of their applications, basically share that data across all of their applications, and then instantly find the direct contact information. It actually has a huge enrichment capability that instantly finds the LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter identify information. Kind of like what Connectifier used to do, but it's in a very simple and easy to use tool that any recruiter can instantly start using right away. Doug: We're being rapidly adopted by hundreds of companies and thousands of recruiters to literally give them hours of their time back every day and to also help track and measure their sourcing cost, because no one seems to know exactly how much productivity your recruiters should generate on a daily basis, or how many hires they're getting out of their expensive sourcing tools. We actually close that loop, as the recruiters using the tool, marry the source data with the spend data, and finally at the end of the day can help companies maximize and measure how they're sourcing teams are operating on any given day. Joel: Boom. Now, where can I find out more Doug? Doug: The can go to ZAPinfo.io or ZAPinfo.app and be able to ... You may us it for free. They can come down and download the tool and give it a whirl to be able to see if it's going to be something that can work for them and their application. Joel: All right. He's all yours, Chad. Chad: That's good shit. Who at the end of the day has become your target market? Is it the staff agencies, RPOs, or are you really going straight at TA with this? Doug: We're going to anyone that's doing recruiting, mostly going after larger sourcing teams, right? A lot of our earlier customers are big companies like the Best Buys, and United Health Groups, and those folks, but we also work with a lot of these RPO groups like Titus, and Paired Sourcing, and a lot of those guys that are really doing that deep sourcing contract and lead generation and qualification capabilities, where our tool can take literally hours of work and make it just a few clicks. They're really good users, as well as a lot of the big staffing firms and agencies. Chad: At this point, I mean, it's like anybody. Anybody who wants to use ZAPinfo, come at us. But from your standpoint, and I know and I understand, if money's coming in, who cares where it's coming from? But from your standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, from an outreach standpoint, from a sales standpoint, who are you targeting as priority? Doug: Yeah. I mean, those ... From an inside/out go to market, we are targeting kind of the larger corporate, larger staffing and the RPO groups. Chad: Gotcha. Doug: The other thing is, we're partnering. We're actually working as a companion application for almost all of the ATS systems, as well as recruitment marketing and CRM applications who may be used to have an application that could do a lot of this stuff, but for whatever reason they haven't been able to continue utilizing those, or they didn't have the facility that we have. In a lot of cases, they're actually bundling us together with their tools because we kind of act like a MuleSoft or Zapier-type of an application, right? Doug: We mitigate the need for you to have this six month $100,000 integration between your CRM and ATS, because we literally make it two click easy for people to share the information between those systems. It's an instant on thing. We actually can either work, partner strategic with those firms, or we can just work without them. Because I don't know if you guys remember how hard it was to get the Taleos and the other guys to actually- Chad: Oh yeah. Doug: Do integrations and stuff. Chad: Yep. Doug: I just finally got to the point, "I can't believe these systems don't talk to each other." We actually built instead of an API, we built what we called a BPI, which is a browser protocol interface that allows people to instantly and automatically fill in using the, sometimes horrible and crappy interfaces that are on these systems. The ZAPinfo tool can learn it and instantly automate it so in one mouse click you're filling this data point out. Sometimes saving the recruiter 20 to 30 minutes of time, which we've talked to so many talent leaders, you guys, and they literally, their biggest problem is not having users using the systems that they're working with. Doug: They're literally back to using spreadsheets, using Google Sheets, sending emails, and doing everything except using the very applications that were supposed to bring productivity. By solving that, we actually can help their investments in these applications become fruitful again because we actually take them from crappy to what we call zappy, where they can- Crowd: Boo. Chad: Oh, that was ... Yeah. Oh, you had me until that one Doug. Oh, you had me until that one. Oh, Jesus. Doug: All right, man. I'm a marketing guy. Joel: Doug, I want to talk about some news items that came through recently. You are officially now the artist formerly known as WebClipDrop. I don't know if it's something in the water in Minneapolis where Prince is from, but this is something that you guys have done recently. Talk about the name change. Why ZAPinfo? Why the dot io at the end, as opposed to a dot com? You also got a little bit of money to the tune of $1.25 million. Talk about what you guys have done. You're now the CEO. Update us on what's going on. Doug: Yep. Every single company I've started, you guys may know this, I've always started with one name and changed it. JobKeys became Techies. HotGigs became Jobs2Web. TrackIt became MyAlerts and we really are doing the same thing here. WebClipDrop, you kind of got to start a business with one name and let it take on its personality and character and let customers tell you what they think the name should be. I'm a big winner ... I love descriptive names of things. Where we started with WebClickDrop thinking, "Hey, this is easy. It's a web clipboard. People can clip things and then drop things," right? That was pretty easy, but man, people would just mutilate the word, you guys. I mean, some of our best customers were calling it WebClickDrop and Click, all kinds of stuff. Doug: We needed a faster easier name and one that was a little bit more fun and suited for the bigger story that we were going after. That's really where we landed on ZAPinfo, right? People want speed, they want productivity. They just want to zap things and have them work and we felt like the name really embraced what we're after, which is this ability to, "I want to drop my application in. I want to have it be zapping productivity and results to my teams and to the people." That's really what drove most of the name change. Yes, I came over. I'm effectively here as of August 1st running and building the business full-time. I would love to say this is my last startup, but I said that about the last business. Doug: But I'll tell you, it's great to come back to the recruiting and talent and even ... We do a lot with sales and marketing as well, but it's really fun to come back to the talent industry and kind of act like the distribution cap, if you will, because we really get interesting visibility guys on the backend. Just like Uber kind of has what they call their God view. I kind of get something like that, because as we have thousands of users every day zapping talent off the boards, and off of search engines, and off directories, and uploading lists, and all that other stuff, and watching that data kind of flow like the Matrix in and out of all these applications to see where are people getting use, where is information traveling to as it goes through the recruiting process, and understanding and analyzing the intelligence. Doug: We've got a big kind of AI tool that's studying all these profiles and looking at the types of talent, the categories, the geographies, the experience levels, where are those things getting sourced from? At some point, it'll be really fun for us to be able to provide that data intelligence back to the talent acquisition communities to help them understand really what does the time to fill look like, and what sources are the best sources for talent, and what types of companies and things are you best going to be focusing after. Beyond just being a fun little application that makes it easy for me to zap a resume in and out, right? Behind that is a tremendous amount of intelligence that we can garner over time as we get to critical mass. Joel: The money, who wrote you a check and what are you going to do with it? Doug: Yeah. I've been fortunate enough to raise a little over $125 million so far in my businesses, and so I've got some street cred with the venture world and was really fortunate to get a- Doug: ... Venture World and was really fortunate to get a company called Rally Ventures, which is Minneapolis based, but also San Francisco based, so they're the only firm I believe that has those two connecting points, which is important. But they're very big in the technology space. They were some of the early investors in Jigsaw, and a couple of business models that were really close to what we're doing. Seven Peaks Ventures is out of the Oregon marketplace, and they're also very deep in the technology and data space, and then lastly it's a group called Great North Labs, which is one of these venture firms that's right up here in Minneapolis, just getting started, and we wanted to make sure they were involved to try and give them some love. And of course, myself and a couple that are Angels have funded it to this point and we're also participants in this round as well. Joel: And what are you gonna do with the money? Doug: Yeah, so the money is really largely helping us scale very quickly. So we picked up Susan Dunham, who was my VP, one of my big sales leaders at Jobs2Web, and was a rock star. She's with me now. She's already leading the group. We've also picked up a sales account manager. Peter's doing more with partners and channels. Lynette Berg, my wife, is actually our Chief Happiness Officer, and her expertise is knowledge bases, and onboarding customers, and supporting web applications. So she's already built out our whole training library and our knowledge base. Chad: So you're putting the band back together is what I'm hearing. Doug: We got some of the band back together, and of course you know, I've gotten calls from every event manager from HR Tech to Source Cloud to whoever, is all lining up here and we're certainly gonna be participants in a lot of the shows and events. But really, we wanna do a lot of these local events, guys. Not always just the big show stuff, like we're sponsoring the I think it's called the S7 event up in Seattle, right? And those are our people, right? Those really deep, hardcore, Jerry Langhans kinds, Marvin Smiths kinds of people that are using the tool every day, constantly emailing us saying make it do this and that and I think you guys know I'm kind of a relentless innovator I love to hear from customers what feature they want next and put it live within 7 days or less because I think that's what wins at the end of the day, right? Getting in these 2 year product cycles with crap, I mean you gotta almost have an F5 button in your development team. So I'm really fortunate, I've got some of the best developers I've ever worked with behind me on this one. Chad: So within the system itself can I go and, talk about the enrichment property, right, so can I go into my Apple contracting system and then look at individuals who are like 6 months maybe even older and can I enrich that data or maybe even new contacts that are pushing to my ATS, can I enrich out of my ATS? Doug: Yeah, sometimes the very first place a person sees a person is when they've applied, right? And because application processes can be really shitty, they might've only given you their name, their business card, and their current employers so what you can do is highlight the name of the person, right click on them, and Zap Info will instantly take you to their LinkedIn, their Twitter, their Facebook, their GitHub. Whatever social properties you want and you just hit enrich and it'll literally just go and pull all that information and then you can just literally hit edit on the guy and paste and it'll refill out all of the information. So everything people were doing manually around that right, cause you would just do those things and copy and paste and all that other stuff, that's everything that we've automated with the tool. Chad: So can I just set that to do it automatically as I go in so that I don't- because again we're here to- these are still tasks that recruiters have to do before they actually make the call. So can I just set up to do it automatically as soon as I get into a system or maybe somebody applies to my Rex, can I get the system to automatically enrich the contacts as they get into the system so that I don't even have to do that one step? Doug: Alright, so you just passed your interview for product manager. You've been peaking at our 2019 whiteboard. So this year we're really working on what I'll call the outside-in method of enriching data, right? So it's a lot of that kind of stuff and we already have built the API frameworks that we're building data bridges that are API friendly to a lot of the bigger platforms, the SATs, the IBMs, all that kind of stuff. And as we do that, right, we are gonna build what I'll call a punch-out or an embedded system so that, maybe if even somebody joins my talent community and all I have is their email address, the Zap Info tool will take that data and fill in all the rest of the information. Almost real time, so those are things that we're gonna be putting into the 2019 roadmap. Chad: Doug, we talk a lot about on the legal challenges of scraping LinkedIn, you're probably familiar with the Hiq legal case. Talk about that, Microsoft owns GitHub now as well, so I assume that GitHub will be a little tougher to start- to stop sort of grabbing information. Is that a threat to your business, does it keep you at night? Give us your thoughts. Doug: Yeah, so look, the good news is we didn't build a big scraping thing, right, that can help us to harvest all the public profiles and then basically try to get people to come to us and search for data so they don't have to go to LinkedIn, that's not what this is at all. I mean, I think you guys would agree for especially people who have bought LinkedIn recruiter licenses, there's a legitimate business need for that recruiter once they've found somebody and built a relationship and that relationship evolves into the candidate applying or wanting to move forward. You gotta get the data off of the social network and into your internal application. So that's a legitimate business need and, if anything, what we've done is just made that kind of person by person record by record data movement a little bit easier, right. Doug: Cause today people are dropping the PDF file and then reparsing it into their application system which is also a violation of the terms of service, or their copying and pasting data field by field into their ATS which takes thirty minutes and it's a total pain in the butt. And at the end of the day, we're closer to the MAC operating or Windows operating system where you're just copying and pasting data over into those applications. I don't think that LinkedIn's gonna sue MAC or Microsoft and say shut down the copy-paste feature because that breaks our terms of service and so at the end of the day, it's really on the users themselves to not violate the terms of service, right? We follow that, we actually have controls in place in the Zap Info System that even if a company said look we don't any of our users to able to even clip a profile, we can prevent that. So we actually, by being in the browser, can help companies to deploy whatever policy they want around when, how people contact folks. Doug: Actually some of the biggest problems we're seeing, today, is 8 recruiters from the same company might all recruit the same guy on LinkedIn and it's spamming their users, right. LinkedIn is not doing a lot to help prevent this, where as this Zap Info System will easily be able to do that, right. So they can deploy business rules that says, whether their on the LinkedIn or the same guy is on Monster or the other, you know, somewhere, Facebook, I can literally help the recruiters of a company to say whoa, hold on, maybe 3 of us have already been in touch with this person let's have you not reach out to them so that we can make sure we've got a better candidate experience with the universe, if you will, from the outside in of our company instead of just everyone going crazy and firing stuff up. Chad: And you should be able to know that out of the applicant tracking system, right? So you should be able to use a primary signal out of the ATS. Doug: Yeah, but you know what that's a- it's a difficult thing because one recruiters aren't checking into the ATS before they go off and start rifling, you know connecting requests out to everybody so you have to be a black box inside of where they're doing their outreach and everyday living, right? So we have to be able to right in their dashboard, if you will, of communication which is the browser. And then secondly, you know, one of the biggest things is, I don't know about you guys, but some companies are spending a lot of money on LinkedIn and other big networks. If I asked them what's your RY or how you measuring the effectiveness, they have no idea. And so, but the beauty is, when people are zapping someone out of LinkedIn recruiter and putting them into their smart recruiters we, just like in the old applicant days remember Chad, we stopped asking applicants where they came from? We're doing the same thing here, we basically hard-tag the source of those candidates into the system and putting attribution around who the recruiter was and what the source was and then marry that data together. Doug: At the end of the day, LinkedIn should be super jacked because their companies are gonna get way more hires out of the system, they're gonna get much more credit for it, and therefore be able to drive even more and higher subscription rates in the future. Chad: I can actually take a look at all of my recruiters and I can take a look at activity and also productivity because of the attribution of the candidates who are coming through the pipelines and who is actually getting hired into those positions? Doug: Exactly. Today, if you do a sourcing report, even in like your greenhouse or your lever, the data fields are typically never filled in. So you get like 1 guy on the report cause a recruiter was feeling generous and put the source code in, whereas all of a sudden after the first 3 days because it's automatically being done as a part of the automation process, the reports come to life. So they're coming to life inside of their core system where we've built these great dashboards that can also marry up the data and help them get visibility to them on our side as well. Chad: Doug, there's a ton of competition in this arena, not just with start-ups and players like you, but we look at, you know, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn which we talk about a lot on this show with matching, just post your job and it'll magically go into our database and deliver you candidates that match your requirements on a silver platter. How do you differentiate yourselves in a very competitive market, to cut through the clutter and really get to the customer? Doug: You're right. You know, there is eighty little micro-competitors in this space. And at the end of the day, we never want to be an application guys, we always just want to make other applications better so that's what's kind of interesting about being a productivity or companion application, our job is actually to just help these things all work together better. But we've also combined a lot of stuff, right. So I mean a lot of people were using Data Miner and a bunch of these tools to try to capture data and there's a whole bunch of tools that help you to find email addresses and phone numbers, like Ushes and all these other guys and we actually work with a lot of them. So, literally behind the scenes, we will take and use almost every API we can get our hands on; from full contact, to pit bull, to clear bit those are the data engines behind how we're doing the enrichment. But a recruiter that used to have to do those one at a time and then compare the fields and see which one got the email right; that's hours of work. Our thing does it all in one blink of the eye. There's a lot of other folks that will say then take this data and try to integrate it into you Taleo, your ATS or whatever. Again that whole thing is kind of what we've smashed together here and put into a single application. Doug: Chad, your point, while we're doing these data transactions and doing source mapping, that's great, but we're also gonna be adding kind of a Fitbit for recruiting kind of a thing. So because we're in the browser, I can, beyond, you know, the hard action of clipping and transferring profile data, I'll be able to actually say hey this recruiter over here, he's the guy that's on LinkedIn, he viewing this many profiles, he's doing this many searches, he's connected with this many people, he's had this many interactions cause all of that data just lives on those networks and none of it actually gets analyzed and looked at for those key performance indicators about what makes a great recruiter or what justifies a LinkedIn recruiter seat or even, as you guys know, you might buy a hundred thousand dollar job board subscription and find out 9 months in no one's even logged into the goddamn thing. So, you know, we want to be the tool that as people are making these investments, we're literally giving you a weekly report as that leader and as individual actors within those systems to say, you know, your company bought you this tool and this access and here's how much you're using it. Here's how much you're using it against other people in the company to try to gamify and actually bring productivity enhancements to those investments that they're making. Chad: So how do you cut through the actual clutter and say hey look Zap you need- everybody needs to use Zap and here's why? I understand that you're looking at all these different AI solutions that do waking the dead and enrichment and all this other fun stuff, but this is the 1 reason why we stand above everybody else. Doug: Yeah, look I mean, I'm an investor in a lot of the AI businesses, but I think, I think they serve a very different function, right. What they can do to automate the recruiting process is fantastic, right. But at the end of the day, all of that interaction and activity still has to be translated and come into my internal systems and recruiters are Doug: ... to be translated and come into my internal systems. And recruiters are still gonna be doing business around information, whether it be profiles and contact information, and setting up interviews, and debriefing interviews, and onboarding people. And all of those data transactions are things that AI and bots are many years away from being able to just automatically do. And if anything, we'll work in conjunction with them. We've actually got some really neat partnering things coming up where ZAPinfo, our IA tool, our information automation tool can actually work with an artificial intelligence tool to really get you close to what might be a full cycle recruiting solution that is something we might mitigate a lot of these platforms to be in real trouble here in about two to four years. Joel: Doug, what does sourcing look like in five to seven years? Doug: You know, Joel, I think we're finally gonna get back to relationships are gonna count a lot. The whole promise of the social network was that when I link to you and you link to me or if I friend you and you friend me, that there's aa relationship that happens there and I can maintain it, I can update it through my ambient awareness of everything that's happening and manage a bigger group of people without losing connections to them. And I'm astonished, even when we work with some recruiting teams today and we show them how they can use ZAPinfo to not only find, connect, and capture and start stuff, they still want to kind of stay behind this wall. They still don't want to hit the connect button on LinkedIn, they just want to hit the in mail button on LinkedIn, because they don't really want ... They want to get feedback on a transaction or a requisition, but they don't really want to have a relationship with people. Doug: And I think that's gotta change. I really think that if you get rid of all the noise of a recruiter and they really can build kind of their own personal community as an extension of the corporate brand and maintain relationships with people as they go through their entire career process, I just think that that's gonna be where we've reached the apex of what's possible in a socially connected world where it's super relevant and super rich, and feedback is real and full, and we get away from this black box nobody ever hears anything to a super white glove kind of a service where recruiters are valued based upon ... Imagine interviewing a recruiter and literally there's, you're bringing literally this portfolio of all these relationships that you have that you could help bring to a company. I think that's gonna be kind of where the big value of who a source and who a recruiter is in the future. Chad: That sounds like the end game. I mean, from my side. But when you look at humans, we're lazy, right? So, this makes it easier for them not to be so lazy 'cause they can get that data, but still they have to go through that manual process in some cases. But what you're saying is endgame, that's gonna be something that's plugged into their process. Is that what I'm hearing? Doug: I would challenge you to say I've not met many lazy recruiters. I have met a lot of intolerant recruiters. You know what I mean? I think we can confuse laziness with intolerance because we have forced them to work with shitty applications and bad processes, and waiting around and putting limitations on them and all these other things. In a world where everyone's got access to the same people, everyone's got access to everybody, then people that know how to use those platforms and can put rocket boots on and can run faster and do more, and get rid of the friction points, are gonna be the ones that really have a competitive advantage. Doug: And that's where I saw, for our ability to run across, if you will. It's kind of like have you ever seen that ... what's that game show where the big balls ... run across all these big balls. Wipe Out, right? That's in essence, it's in essence- Chad: I was hoping you were talking about Wipe Out and not some foreign game show that Joel watches. Joel: Hey. Doug: But I think that the people that can navigate those things and really drive results, people love to get shit done and their frustration level and absolute anger ... anger level, disgust with their application and their stack and the technologies that get thrust on them are everything that we're trying to eliminate as we bring the platform to bear. Joel: Doug, Chad asked about one endgame. I'm gonna ask about another. What is the endgame for the company? Are you gonna flip this baby like your other companies? Are you in this thing for the long haul? And after that, breakdown pricing for me. Doug: Yeah, look. I mean, we're just getting started here. And we even just got our funding and all of our developers on full time, so I'm always a put your head down and build value in the business and get it to scale, so we've got a good couple of years of just open field running right now. And it's awesome. I'm literally on eight to ten demos a day, and these are big companies. And when we show them, it's always fun as you guys know to show a technology where people didn't know they needed it and in the minute they see it ... Like our demos last 18 minutes. And people hang up the phone and say, "Goddammit, send me a proposal." Doug: We've even had one gal, dead silent on the phone after we showed her some of the functionality. I'm like, "Hello, did I lose you?" And she's like, "No, I hate to admit it, I just peed my pants." Joel: What? Doug: So, I was just like, "I'll tell our developer. He'll love that." But it's really fun to bring that kind of very simple technology, it's an instant on thing, instant ROI thing, but we still, like I said, are just getting started, Joel, and for the foreseeable future, we're gonna just keep building this. As you guys know, I got a lot of folks I know in the business. We can help scale it pretty quickly. And yet we do well. Even with pricing, you mentioned, Joel, we're less than a cup of coffee a day. We charge $40 a month for unlimited utilization of the tool at a user level. That's fantastic, right? And we have some companies that literally save 30, $40,000 per user per year in just either productivity or direct contact costs, and then can help them get visibility to stuff they've just never seen before. So, it's a very affordable solution. Doug: It may not be that cheap this time next year, but in our first year here, it's a great time to get your company on board and get everybody trained up and utilizing the technology. Joel: Beautiful. That's the bell, Doug, and you know what that means. It's time to face the firing squad, and we're gonna give it to Chad. Chad: All right, Doug. I've got to say that I have a soft spot in my heart for Doug Berg, just so everybody knows. I think, dude, the integrations, the BPI piece is legit. Focusing on information automation, the IA piece, because AI really isn't there yet, so being able to create that bridge is a great story, and that is incredibly smart. Focusing on the staffing and RPO side of the house, really focusing your sales efforts there, I can't say that enough, right out of the gate, because they're looking for efficiencies and that's exactly what you can provide. Along with, here's the big thing for them, and you probably already know this. Recruiter attribution, source attribution, and then being able to show them, almost like their own very own god mode within their ecosystem. Chad: The only thing that I need to be able to see this thing just explode, and I know that if anybody can do it, you can do it, is the automated enrichment piece. So, at that point, when you guys get there, I need to know that. Right now you guys are getting a huge golf clap, because I think you're definitely on your way. As soon as you hit that automated enrichment piece, it's gonna be like a sky rocket, dude. Doug: Couldn't agree more. Joel: All right. I'm up. Little story about Doug and his last company, Jobs2Web. Jobs2Web launched shortly after I launched a company called HRSEO, which both sought to capitalize on the SEO trend at the time, and I always felt like I knew SEO better than you guys, Doug, but you guys executed your asses off. You had the contacts, the wherewithal, the money. Execution was key in that business. I don't know the Techies company as well as Jobs2Web, but I really love companies in our space that understand the market, that have contacts existing already, that understand the money game, that you don't want to go raise $50 million tomorrow, that raising $1.25 to get us to our next milestone makes sense. Joel: So, for those reasons alone, I'm a big fan of what you're doing. I think that as a business, this is an incredibly competitive space, but I trust that you'll have the team, and the knowledge, and the historical sort of perspective to say, "Here's the pivot that we need to do. Here's the direction we need to go. Here's what we need to build." And for those reasons alone, I'm gonna give you a big applause. Chad: Woo-hoo. Joel: Now, what do you have to say for yourself? Doug: I couldn't be more happy that you guys had me on the show today. I feel like I've avoided the shark bite in my ass, which is always a good thing. But all due credit back to you, Joel. Hearing your early SEO talks and what you were doing there was a huge thing that kept inspiring us to keep going, and what you were doing down the consulting thread we were doing from a platform thread, and I think that's the only difference between kind of what ended up being where we went. Frankly, the Jobs2Web business, while it started with SEO, very quickly pivoted and went into a full platform play to become the first recruitment marketing platform. And look at what's happened. Doug: There's all these guys now. Smash Fly and Phenom and Jobe. I just love it. I love watching that continued innovation happen and I think the biggest thing that's interesting from my point of view is you guys remember, industries used to love enterprise software where everything was integrated. We're all sitting and waiting and Oracle bought Taleo and we all thought every ... I think that's the thing I see most on the top level is that a lot of these executive leaders are still waiting for a single platform that's fully integrated. Joel: Nope. Doug: It's not gonna happen. If anything, there's a proliferation of applications that's happening, and the very smart people are the ones that are gonna learn how to synthesize, not integrate these systems and be able to buy applications that can seamlessly take friction out and add value to each other. And that, to me, I think is where the smarter strategy plays are gonna happen in the future, and we're excited to be a part of it. Chad: Yeah. How does it feel to be the grandfather of recruitment marketing platforms? Doug: How did I go to being a grandfather, dude? Jesus, man. Founder, innovator. Stay with the baby stuff, none of this grandpa stuff. Grandpa. Godfather. Joel: Yeah. Hey, Doug. Tell us again where we can find out more about ZAPinfo. Doug: Hey, we'd love to have everybody come and give it a whirl at ZAPinfo.io, which is ... stands for input/output. Come on, Joel. You know this. IO, man. Chad: I thought it was Indian Oceans for the country code, right? No? Joel: Good lord. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Announcer: 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. #FiringSquad #Talroo #ZAPinfo #Jobs2Web #Techiescom

Note: In this podcast, Joel misspoke. After looking back at Todd Raphael's reaction, turns out he did not say "fuck." Just wanted to clear that up. It's been a BUSY... BUSY... BUSY WEEK... and the boys are talkin': - Rumors Google is adding job searches to an unusual place - Dice earnings aren't great - Companies really ARE BIASED AGAINST hiring people with disabilities - Titanic shifts with immigration and corp movement - CareerBuilder is abandoning its posh downtown Chicago - NFL starts equality in cheerleading? - Oh, and Slack is raising (again) Enjoy, and support our awesome sponsors, America's Job Exchange, Sovren and JobAdX. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Yo, yo, yo peeps. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Striking fear in the hearts of shitty vendors since 2017. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, Google is feeding, Dice is losing, and Career Builder is shrinking. Yes, career Builder shrinkage, I said it. Don't go anywhere, we'll be right back after a word from JobAdX. JobAdX: How many times has someone said to you, "We're the Uber of, or it's the PayPal of, maybe we're the Facebook of," in many, many cases these comparisons fall short to being close to reality, or even a useful illustration of what organizations actually do. In the case of JobAdX, our example is so accurate, so spot on, that it's synonymous with our work. JobAdX is Google Adsense for jobs. That's means we're an efficient, consistent, and smarter ad unit for job related advertising. As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX offer recruitment marketing agencies, RPOs, and staffing firms, real-time dynamic bidding and delivery for client postings through the industry's first truly responsive tool. JobAdX: All this is done with the flexibility of JobAdX's cost per impression, click, or application. We offer unique budget conservation options to effectively eliminate spending waste. We are not set in regret. For direct clients, JobAdX delivers superior candidates with the best of pragmatic efficiency and premium page ad position. We also provide publishers and job boards, higher rev share than other partners through our smarter pragmatic platform. JobAdX: In many cases, 30 to 40% greater and all through our scalable model. To partner with us, you can visit or search JobAdX.com or email us at, joinus@JobAdX.com to get estimates or begin working together. JobAdX: JobAdX, the best ad tool providing smarter pragmatic for your needs. Oh, and you've been wondering why the British accent? JobAdX has just launched in the UK too. Joel: I got a rant to start off the show if that's all right. Chad: Oh, no. That's probably the best way to start it. Joel: It probably is. I'm a little feisty today. So, I've been blogging for a long time. People may know my work, they may not. But I've been doing this for a while, and I've come across some level of respect, I think, with my work. We've been podcasting for over a year, we have a great following. People who matter are sitting down and interviewing with us, right? Like we have CEOs, CMOs, owners, founders, and I think there's an impression or an assumption on the part of vendors that you and I will be at HR Tech this year. For the mere fact that vendors go to shows to show their wears, to talk to customers and prospects, they also go to these shows to talk to the press. Joel: And for whatever reason, HR Tech in its wisdom deemed you and I unworthy of a press pass. Both in my capacity as a podcaster and my capacity as a writer for ERE, which I would think is a very well respected organization, in terms of content, right? Chad: Yes. Joel: My rant is simply that I think HR Tech is really dumb in not letting press people like you and me into a show. And for the vendors that are reaching out to me almost on a daily basis just assuming that I'm gonna be there and saying, "Hey, let's grab a drink at Hr Tech," or, "Hey, we'd love to show you our new stuff, can we set up a time to meet?" Like I tell those people no, I'm not gonna do that because I'm not gonna be there because HR Tech is kind of being a dick about letting press into it's show. So, that's my rant. I apologize to the vendors that would like to talk to me and chat. And anyone else that's been dissed by HR Tech, but that's the reality and that's why we're not there. Chad: Yeah, so I actually got a text last night and said, "Hey, we'll talk about it an HR Tech." And I was like, "Yeah, well HR Tech said that they're not providing Joel and I media passes." And he responded back with, "What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me?" That was the response. Joel: Yeah, I mean my editor at ERE, Todd Raphael, who is very well respected, been doing this for a long time, he assumed that I was going as well. And when I told him no, I got denied a press pass, his response was pretty much the same, "What the fuck? Like I thought you'd be a shoo-in." But that's not the case so fuck it, HR Tech, I don't need your show. Fuck off. I feel so much better. Joel: Let's go to shout-outs. Chad: Yeah, shout-outs. I'm gonna start them off with our favorite URL, goCANVAS.io, AKA, Canvas, love those guys. Joel: We do love Canvas. Chad: We've gotta get a new URL, a new brand or something. I love the CANVAs brand but the URL, it's horrible guys. New t-shirts and beer koozies for Chad. Joel: Yes Chad: Yes, for Chad. No, after this whole bullshit ZipRecruiter sending you alcohol and I don't get any? No. It's all for me now. I'm playing the Joel Chessman game here. Joel: Oh, really? I've got some new Beemer-y shwag that maybe you won't be getting the next time. Chad: Okay, maybe we can do a barter. Yeah, Canvas, we love you man. You meet those guys regularly for like drinks and updates and stuff, and I'm stuck here with a one year old. Joel: Yeah, and it's beer and it's food and it's Indianapolis, so it's awesome. Chad: Also, a big shout-out to Hung Lee for obviously putting some love for Chad And Cheese out in the Recruiting Brain Food, if you aren't subscribed to Recruiting Brain Food, I don't know what your fucking problem is. Go out there, check it out. It's good stuff. He purees just a bunch of stuff and feeds it to you, brain food, once a week. Joel: I think Hung might be a good guest. Hung, if you're listening and you wanna come on and chime in about stuff, let us know. Go to Chad Cheese or hit us up on social media. Chad: Yup. Joel: I've never heard him speak or give interviews, so he may be one of these like reclusive guys that never talks, which is fine. But if you'd like to come on, let us know. Joel: I'm gonna give a shout-out to a webinar that we're giving next week, the 15th. 2 p.m. Eastern, with NAS, sponsored by Talroo. Chad: Talroo. Joel: One of our sponsors. Love those guys. Again, talking about great swag, Talroo. But if you are interested in high frequency hiring, and who isn't these days? We're gonna do a webinar with Chad, NAS and me. And talking about all that good stuff. You can sign up at Chadcheese.com if you haven't already. Otherwise, you'll probably get an email at some point if you're subscribed to nay degree to our show. Chad: Yes, and actually just drinking beer out of my Talroo glass that is laser etched with Chad on it. That laser etching on the Talroo logo and Chad, that's good shwag. Chad: Shout out to Chase Wilson, and this is his tweet, "Listening to Chad and Cheese is always entertaining, but listening to them talk baby bathrobes at half speed, has to be one of the more entertaining podcast moments I've had in a while, #HalfBaked." Joel: What kind of sicko gets pleasure out of listening to us speak in super slow motion? I'm thinking maybe some meds are in store for this guy. Chad: Yeah, well, I mean Chase isn't that quick in the first place. So everything that he does is really ... he's gotta take it in slow and I appreciate that. So you listen Chase, you listen any way you like. Joel: Fair enough, fair enough. If you're headed to TAtech next month and you're a vendor and you'd like to be interviewed by Chad and Cheese, we're doing something with Peter Clayton in video. There's nothing on the site yet, so if you're interested in being interviewed by us on video, really cool thing that we're doing, hit you sup on chadcheese.com. Or social media and we'll get you guys more details. Chad: Yeah, I think it's gonna be kind of like a between two ferns kind of thing. Or between the ferns. Joel: In between two idiots, I think is what we're gonna call it. Between two beers. Chad: That's a good one. Joel: Between two kegs. Yeah. Chad: Yeah, so JobOrDoctor, big shout out because he's always in a tweeting frenzy, so I gotta give him love. Rothberg, even Rothberg had a Shaker call out, this wasn't a shout out, this was a call out. He said, "You're team over at Shaker does great work including job board, you build, manage, you do all this stuff. But during your podcast interview, you said you pretty much gotta stay in your lane, people should be staying in your lane, and being an advertising agency, that's kind of out of your lane, right?" So that was a pretty cool call out by Steven. And him and Joe got on some kind of tweet back and forth online. So good stuff, man. Chad: #ChadCheese, if you guys aren't, use it. Check it out and get in the conversation. Joel: So Joe Shaker and Steven Rothberg in the octagon, who you taking? Chad: That's a hard one. It depends if Joe brings all his kids. Joel: But if Rothberg brings Faith, his wife, it could be an even fight. Chad: No, that's not even a question. If you said Faith, right? I don't care who we throw in, she's a fiery redhead, she will kick anybody's ass. Joel: Fair enough. Chad: That's all there is to it. Joel: Fair enough. Chad: Yes. Joel: Shout out to John Cristoff Shanard, I hope I'm saying that correctly, in Quebec, Canada. John Cristoff let me know that our email's going to a spam filter. I have to say to that, "Welcome to email marketing in 2018." I'm sure a lot of people are getting marketing messages in spam. I don't know what the solution is, maybe we need a text Chad Cheese to a short code and we'll text updates to people, I don't know? But marketing is hard and email marketing is even harder. Chad: Yeah, yeah. I totally get that. The best thing to do is just subscribe to the podcast so you don't have to actually click on anything, it just automatic. Your notifications, it's all there. That's the best way to do it. But yeah- Joel: And then they'll get The Shred too. Chad: And they'll get The Shred, yeah. And everybody loved The Shred. Joel: I love The Shred. Chad: That being said, Gordon Burns, the CMO over at Bullhorn was on the latest interview for our Nexxt exclusive. Just dropped earlier this week, Gordon shared some marketing survey knowledge, dropped some knowledge on us. If you haven't checked out that podcast, and you're into marketing, definitely Gordon Burns, CMO over at Bullhorn, he's a good time. Joel: Gordo. Chad: Yup. Joel: Not to be surprised with the Scottish Gordon, right? That's another Gordon. Chad: Yes, yes. That's Adam Gordon by the way. And last but not least for me, Thelma and Louise Triance, no actually it's just Louise Triance, over at UK Recruiter. She and I will be talking Google for Jobs and talking questions from all of commerce. It'll be on the sight, so if you wanna go to Chad Cheese, register, definitely be a part of that. We'll be talking about Google for Jobs and other Googly stuff, they've got so much shit to talk about right now. It's pretty fun. Joel: Yup. Oh, and shout outs saying if you haven't voted for us on the TA Tech awards for best podcast, blogging, whatever, do it. Head on over to Chad Cheese, click on the link, give us a vote. We'd much appreciate it. Chad: Do it. Joel: And with that, let's get totally he news, shall we? Chad: Bring it. Joel: Shrinkage at Career Builder. All right. Crain's Chicago, last week reported that Career Builder is trading and it's plush downtown Chicago digs for something further west of the city. I'm not that attuned to Chicago's geography, but they're basically downsizing their office from roughly 160,000 square feet to about 100,000 square feet. So if you're doing math at home, I'm thinking that's like a 40% decrease, something like that. Joel: Yeah, a lot of layoffs there, they're pulling back. They had a really nice office there in Chicago, downtown Chicago. Chad: Oh, God yeah. Joel: So the dumpster fire for Career Builder continues. Chad: So in Broadbean style, they're going straight to the ghetto. Joel: Ghetto time, without the beach. Chad: Yeah, so for all the listeners who didn't listen a couple episodes ago, you should've, and if you haven't, go back because it was good shit. Broadbean has also moved. So this is kind of the MO of what's happening. It's all about cost-cutting at this point, guys. I mean, they are focusing on cutting the fat wherever there is fat. So if you're at Career Builder right now, you are pretty God damn shaky if you come in the morning looking for your desk and hoping that it's still fucking there. Joel: Yeah, I heard some of my contacts, I think, mentioned that they're down to one help desk person at the company. Chad: Oh jeez. Joel: Which is pretty, yeah, pretty amazing. So this to me, there has always been the question of is this just a chop shop deal, where they're just cutting the pieces and moving on? Or is this a copy and paste kind of thing, or cut and paste, where they're getting rid of the old executives and bring in new ones. I mean, to me, this feels more and more like chop shop territory than it does "We're just replacing the bad apples with fresh fruit." Chad: Yeah, yeah. How long do you think it's gonna take before they oust Ferguson and their COO becomes CEO? Because I see that move happening, because she's already hardwired into the system, right, the Apollo. Joel: Maybe by the end of the show, we'll get some feedback. But yeah, I think Ferguson is probably contractually obligated to stick around, but I think once that's over he'll either leave by his own discretion, or he'll be out. But I think he's just a figurehead at this point. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they'll do it in a more smooth kind of manner, rather than just kicking him out with a box. Joel: Smooth, because everything they've done up to this point has been so smooth. Chad: It's gotta at least be one thing, so anyway, yeah, they're cutting the fat everywhere, guys. So whew, more to be had there! Joel: Well, going to the next store, Dice, another old timey, crusty, cobwebby job board, we mentioned that they had a new CEO a couple weeks back. Chad: Art! Joel: Art Zeile, or Zeile, I don't know how to pronounce it [crosstalk 00:15:36]. He had his first earnings call- Chad: Ouch. Joel: This past week. Chad: Ouch. Joel: And it was, I don't know, a tale of two stories I guess. So they, they, on analyst's six expectations of earnings per share, they hit on that, but they were down revenue. They missed revenue in their reports. So specifically, they had earnings per share, five cents, that were in line with estimates. The revenue number of 39.7 million was a 2.3 decrease, 3% decrease from last year, notably Dice, they have three job boards, as most of our listeners know. They have Dice, Clearance Jobs, and eFinancialCareers. Dice was down 8% year over year, and brought in 23.5 million. So it's still bringing in the lion's share of revenue, but it had the biggest decrease of the three businesses. Clearance Jobs seems like it's doing pretty well, although it's the smallest of the three businesses. Joel: Now what was notable to me was that Art was very, he was very transparent about what was going on, what was wrong with the company. And he mentioned a few things, like the design of the site kinda sucks, we need to fix that. We need to retain our current clients in a much better fashion than we currently do, apparently they're bleeding clients, which is bad. And they spent too much time fixing what's broken, as opposed to building new feature sets and new cool products. So it was great to see him sort of outline the problems I think we both have seen or at least expected for a while, and hopefully they are fixing those problems and can move forward. Chad: Yeah, I mean this is his time to be able to do that, because it's not his baby, so he can call this baby ugly, right? But that's gonna change. I mean there's gonna be a time when he's been there long enough, from a leadership standpoint, to be able to make these moves, make these changes. We always talk about technical debt and things like that, these companies have, and they have a ton of because they've been around for so goddamned long. Joel: Yep. Chad: The biggest question is how do you remake yourself? Do you continue to try to play that maintenance game and build something on top of this old, technical debt shit that you have? Or do you start anew, and go in parallel. That's the big question, and that's gonna be an answer that he has to come up with, and in a couple more earnings calls, there's not gonna be, it's gonna be his baby. It's not gonna be Mike's baby, it's gonna be his baby, and he better get his shit straight. Joel: Yeah, it's easy to be transparent when it's someone else's dirty laundry, right? But harder otherwise. You know, I think ... personally I think one of Dice's biggest hurdles is the Dice brand. In that, I think tech people think of Dice as a job board, and the best of the best developers aren't on job boards, they would never sink so low as to sort of hang out at a job board. They'd want to hang out at GitHub and these cool sites for programmers. So to me that's an issue I'm not sure he'll ever be able to fix. Chad: Here's what it comes down to, okay. You have customers and revenues that are happening right now so you can't shut that system down. You have to continue to maintain and play that technical debt game. One of the things that Monster didn't do, and they were fucking stupid because they didn't do this, is they didn't run a parallel line of business which had an entirely new brand, right, could be a sister company or what have you, that was going to be the Indeed, or the next version of what Monster should be. Instead of trying to fix it with bailing wire and duct tape and zip ties and shit like that, run parallel, it's not like you don't have the money to be able to do something like this, right? You're not gonna be able to do what you want on this old ass system. Chad: Now, all the data that you have, all that data from the company standpoint and from the job seeker's standpoint, you should be able to siphon that off and use it in these new platforms. Joel: I think Dice should go buy a brand that's cool, Code Signal, Overflow, something that's not a job board, but appeals to developers. And then slowly start putting Dice's jobs on that site. That would be my strategy, but again he's not writing me any checks anyway, that's free advice, do with it what you will, but to me I think Dice will always be associated with job boards. Chad: Yes. Joel: And job postings. And the best developers don't want anything to do with that. Chad: No. Not in the least. Joel: So let's talk about a new, hip, exciting, progressive, awesome company. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I won't saw awesome, but in the news, trending, Slack is raising more frickin' money. Chad: Dude. Joel: I think they're like, round G at this point. Chad: It is fucking ridiculous. Joel: They're looking for $400 million to put them at a $7 billion valuation. Which, by the way, let me remind you that we just talked about Dice's revenues at 25, 30. 40 billion, or 40 million in a quarter, like this is a messaging app! Or at least it is today. Looking for more money, which seems mind boggling to some degree, but Microsoft has finally admitted, publicly, that Slack is a competitor, so I gotta think maybe, although I think you pooh-poohed it a while back in a podcast, that Slack is maybe looking to take on the big boys, the Microsofts, the Googles, and why else would they be raising so much money? Chad: First and foremost, never use "pooh-poohed", okay? Second, looking on Crunch Base, so they've had 11 rounds of funding at $1.2 billion, so yes, they are going to have to do something. One of two things. If they're going to try to take the big guys head to head, they're definitely going to have to continue to raise a shit ton of money. On the second side, where I still see that they could do well, not if they continue raising money though, is that exit. Actually being able to sell into a bigger ecosystem. Obviously it's not gonna be Microsoft, because Microsoft sees Slack as a competitor, which we said a few weeks ago. But who else out there can actually afford, after all this fucking funding, how could they afford it? Joel: Yeah, they have to go public. I mean, I agree, I don't think anyone's gonna buy them at this valuation- Chad: No! Joel: We could be shocked, right? I mean LinkedIn was bought for 26 billion, so there is a chance that Slack could be acquired, and I still hold out that Amazon may come in and buy them at some point. But yeah, they've got, they've got definitely bigger aspirations than just being a messaging app. Chad: Dude. Joel: I don't know what that is, maybe it's communication in multiple ways, or office stuff, or recruiting stuff, like I'm not really sure, but it's interesting to watch, if nothing else. They're reporting that they have 500 thousand users of Slack, now a lot of those are like one, two people companies that don't matter, but it's a decent number. Chad: Yeah. How many are paid, though? I mean those aren't all paid clients, are they? Joel: The small guys for sure are free. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And the bigger companies do. And they have an app store, assuming they're making some money off of anything that's paid off of that, but I mean they're building an ecosystem, they're building a platform, it's just a matter of what do they want to provide, and who do they want to compete against with this 1.whatever billion dollars that they've got in investment money. Chad: No clue, but we're watching, and we're salivating as they either play the Titanic or they get saved. Joel: This is either gonna be like a Groupon thing, where they just, they go public and fade, they don't make money, and you know ... I mean, Groupon makes money, I'm just saying like, it's like a hot company with a lot of money and a lot of attention, and if they just say no to everyone and go public, it'll be interesting to see what happens. But yeah, Slack, and by the way, Facebook is full bore into this messaging thing. Like they're not fooling around with their at-work product to compete with these guys for messaging, so we'll see. Joel: Well, when we get back, let's take a quick break, we'll talk Google and Textio. But Sovren first! Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market. Because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit sovereign.com. That's s-o-v-r-e-n.com. Joel: Time to talk Google, which we never do. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: So this is in my SEO, geeky wheelhouse, I'm kind of excited about this rumor/screenshot that we got last week. So, in one of the messaging groups that I'm in, someone shared a screenshot of Google's homepage with ... so Google on Chrome, you see the search box, and then you see you know, screenshots of websites that you visit a lot. In between the search box and the frequently visited websites were recommended or related job searches for this user to click on. The related searches that came up for this particular user were editorial assistant jobs, resident assistant jobs, artist assistant jobs, and accounting assistant jobs. So what can we guess from that information? Chad: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's all about history, and they're just serving up where that individual's been and the searches that they've done, obviously, and we know that most of the job searches that land anywhere start on Google. So I mean, it just makes sense to be able to serve that up. Now this individual also, I believe, by, if I remember the screenshot, also went to one of the favorited or the most trafficked sites was Indeed, and it looks like this individual's actually in maybe a recruiting or staffing kind of function. So they're there always. So yeah, just the opportunity to be able to serve up relevant information, and in this case, it was specifically jobs on that Chrome homepage, that was pretty awesome. Joel: Yes, so Google is very conservative with their homepage. I mean, over the years, they've lived on simplicity, they've thrived on simplicity, so for them to do anything on the homepage is sort of a big deal. Yes, this user's most visited sites included Indeed, I'm guessing that if Google is tracking their search behavior, they're searching for jobs a lot, potentially, or looking at job content a lot. I assume if you're looking for Mexican restaurants a lot in your hometown, maybe they're serving up Mexican restaurants- Chad: How did you know? Joel: Preemptively before you go on and search, yeah. So Google's getting really smart, but I'd be curious to know if they're doing it for other things beside job listings on their site. Like are they doing it for restaurants or doing it for concerts and sporting events around town, but it clearly, if it's job specific it shows a extreme level of importance that Google currently has for getting people to their job postings. Chad: So if you're a listener out there and you just, you use Chrome, and you go to just open a browser and you can see the, pretty much it's the most visited websites, and they have them already set up there for you, nice screenshots, let us know if you see more than that. If you see jobs, or you see food, or you see something that's more than just those sites that you normally go to, it'd be cool. And send some screenshots to us. Joel: Yeah, for sure. And it's probably a good time to mention Bogomil, our good friend and head of the Google For Hire, whatever we're calling it today, initiative is leaving the company. Chad: He is. Joel: And handing the reins over to someone else. So I don't know if you want to read anything into that, but I don't know that I do. I don't think Google For Hire is crap, I don't think, I think it's just- Joel: He's gonna be on sabbatical right? So who knows what he's doing, but Bogomil, I assume you're not coming back to our space any time soon. It was a pleasure meeting you, working with you, interviewing you, good luck. Chad: Very good guy. Very transparent, as much as somebody from Google can be, and from my understanding Tarquin Clark is actually going to be taking over. We'll find out. We'll get more information. Tarquin is a go-to market guy on the API side so all that we've been talking about with the job search API, with Johnson & Johnson, Careerbuilder and all those different Jibe and whatnot, he was the guy who spearheaded that. It's definitely in good hands. Tarquin's a great guy and he's going to have his hands full. There's a new API that's open for candidate search and obviously now wondering if it's gonna be under his purview as well, Hire by Google, because that would be awesome in signaling that perspectively all of those come under one umbrella. Joel: Yep, yep. Tarquin has big shoes to fill for sure. Chad: Yep. Joel: But we hope he keeps the channels of communication open. Bogomil presented at TA Tech in Dublin. They've been really transparent in letting us know what's going on so hopefully the spirit of that continues and I assume that it will. Chad: I'm pretty confident that he will. He's a good guy, a good guy and he definitely wants to get the message out there. Joel: Well moving on to our Make America Great Again portion of the show. Chad: Jesus. Joel: Textio, who we don't really talk about I don't think ever on this show, but they do some pretty cool stuff with key words and job postings and helping companies put the right language in copy and shoot ... comparing it to other job postings they have in the system and which ones are most successful and whatever, so anyway, they sent out a report this week that talked about the amount of relocation language in job postings versus a year ago, and there's been a 25%, I believe, in language on job postings about relocating to the U.S. So the Trump effect I guess is either scaring companies about wanting to get immigrants to come over or they think there's regulation that's gonna take place that makes it harder to hire immigrants, but yeah, that was an interesting news tidbit for me for sure. Chad: I think it's, and take it how you will, I think it's an immigration and a tariff issue. We see companies who are actually moving overseas, Harley Davidson, just because, just from a tariff standpoint they have to be able to do that to grow globally and to sell globally. What I took out of the article, which I thought was pretty interesting, was just that. The larger global corporate presence where HubSpot is opening a Berlin office, Microsoft opening in Dublin, and so on and so forth, and this has implications not on the immigration patterns overall, but for the global economy. Chad: To be able to speed that up, and I'll give you a great example, to be able to speed that up, let's say in bourbon. Bourbon is big globally and it's growing in many different areas throughout the world, but these tariffs could make it much easier for another alcohol beverage, alcoholic beverage, to fill that gap, and we're not just talking about short term, we're talking about long term, the same thing happens. So what does that actually mean for jobs? Now, will some companies have to actually move to be able to sell? To be able to keep that market share? To be able to grow that market share? So yeah, I think this is an indication from Textio, which is interesting that it's coming from them, that there's a sharp decrease, I mean very sharp, 25% decrease. Joel: Your thesis, let me get this right, is that companies are opening up overseas locations which excludes the need to relocate to the U.S. Instead, the companies are relocating to other countries and hiring in those areas. Is that your thesis? Chad: I think it's both from an immigration standpoint that we need people, first off, we need people so we can't ... we've got to get rid of some of the things that we're looking for as barriers to actually getting warm bodies to do the job, that's number one. Then number two, yes, the actual movement, and again, our government is doing ... they're making these decisions and there are ramifications for every decision. Yes, there are positives, what are the negatives? These are some of the negatives that I am seeing. Joel: Between the wall, if you will. Build the wall, baby. Keep everyone out. We don't want you. Chad: Yeah, we don't want you so that we can't have people actually doing jobs and our companies fail because we can't put out product. Yeah, that's probably the dumbest shit ever. Joel: Yeah. We could go on about free trade for a long time. Chad: Whoo. Joel: But we both have followers in the ultra Trump wing that would go off in a big way. Disability story. This is your wheelhouse. What's going on? Chad: Yeah. So as most of our listeners know, my wife is ... she's in this space and she focuses on building retiring programs for big brands for individuals with disabilities. These are companies who really care about trying to inject other talent pools into their jobs, because again, we take a look at the unemployment rate today, it's incredibly low. We've got to look at other pools. Chad: A new study actually identified that the hiring bias against individuals with disabilities and, go figure, the individuals with disabilities are like 2.6% more likely to be unemployed in the general population, and companies are just taking their bias and saying, "Well, individuals with disabilities can't do this job." They don't know that, they just have their own bias and this study is actually demonstrating that the bias is real. Not only are the unemployment numbers demonstrating that the bias is real, but the study did as well. Joel: We hear a lot about programmatic ad buying and AI solving these issues, how do you feel about that? Do you think that the machines will fix a lot of these biases, or do you think that it will accentuate them or not solve them at all? Chad: Yeah, I think in some cases they might, so that an individual can actually get through the interview and they can come on site possibly for a face to face interview or something of that nature, but when that happens in some cases, if they show up in a wheelchair, even though it might be a desk job, there's still that inherent bias that happens. That's the problem. That's one of the big problems that we see. Joel: Yeah, I don't know if there's an easy solution to this problem. Chad: Another thing is that the studied showed is that low expectations is the curse of people with disabilities. Again, my wife getting hundreds and hundreds of individuals with disabilities into jobs, I mean, that's her focus and that's what Disability Solutions, who actually sponsors the transcriptions for this podcast, that's what they do, and they have to get through those myths and biases everyday. They actually have training specific to that, because they know this is real, and to have a system, to have a program to actually do hiring that is unbiased, you've got to spend money. If you just think that you can do it off of free resources, then you're kidding yourself. Don't say that you want to hire individuals with disabilities unless you get people in there who can help you do that. The studies constantly show this, but yet we're not changing our behavior. Joel: Do you think the gig economy is an overall plus for people with disabilities, so the Upworks, the Fiverrs, where it's not an interview, it's just a meritocracy. If you can do the job and get good reviews, you get more work and the wheel goes around. What are your thoughts on the gig economy and disability and what would Julie's sort of commentary be? Chad: I would say yeah, if they can be plugged into it and they can do jobs from home, depending on what the actual jobs are, yeah. Just being able to provide the opportunity out there and say, "Hey, here's a project. Who can do this project? Bid on the project. Boom, you get the project, you do the project." That's what it comes down to. That's what we should be focused on every single day as opposed to looking at somebody who comes into an organization who might be deaf. Well, they can't do the job. Well why? Why can't they do the job? What accommodations, which probably aren't gonna cost you very much, what types of accommodations would you have to put in place that wouldn't just be better for this person, but would be better for the entire organization? Joel: Do you know the numbers of people with disabilities and how long they typically stay at a company? Chad: Okay, so, and this is probably where we should do like an interview with Julie or somebody over there, but some of the data that she's actually shown me is that the retention for individuals with disabilities of the projects that she's working, in very big brands right now, is like so much higher. I would say just from trying to remember 20% higher if not more than just your regular employee. They stay longer. The retention ... and again, you've got to remember. It's one of those situations where when you've never been given a chance, never been given a chance before, now you're given a chance. That really means something to you. There's a loyalty, there's a bond that's there that we don't see in the workforce anymore. These guys are actually demonstrating that through hiring individuals with disabilities and seeing the retention. Joel: Well on that note, let's hear ... if you have compliance issues hiring people with disabilities, American's Job Exchange might be able to help you out. Let's hear from them and when we come back, we'll talk cheerleaders, believe it or not. Chad: Oh god. AJE: America's Job Exchange is celebrating our 10th year as an industry leader in diversity recruitment and OFCCP compliance. We've been helping our thousand plus customers comply with OFCCP regulations that directly support positive and effective diversity recruitment, designed to attract and convert veterans, individuals with disabilities, women, and minorities, and empower employers to pursue and track active outreach with their local community based organizations. Want to learn more? Call us at 866-926-6284, or visit us at www.americasjobexchange.com. Joel: Football is right around the corner, Chad. Chad: Can't wait, dude. I am so stoked. Joel: Can't wait. Preseason starts tonight. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So disabilities, equality, it hits football as well. We had a story this week. The New Orleans Saints and the LA Rams for the first time will have male dancers/cheerleaders. Chad: Yeah. Why not. The thing that I never really even pondered or understood was why didn't they in the first place? If you see cheerleaders in college- Joel: They have men. Chad: Yeah. Male, female. I never really understood that. Not to mention from a demographic standpoint, I understand football for a very long time was a very focused demographic on the male side of the house. You want to have hot females doing the cheerleader stuff. Totally get that. But if you want to broaden that up, if you want to be able to once again make more money, NFL, which I would have thought they would have thought this through a long time ago, you'd have males. It just makes sense, not to mention, again, looking for equality all the way around. Joel: Yeah, I agree. I will note that real football teams don't even have female cheerleaders. As a Browns fan, it's a point of pride that we're so old school, we have no logo, no cheerleaders, and we usually have no wins, but that's a different subject. Chad: Entirely. Joel: Steelers don't have cheerleaders, Packers don't have cheerleaders. There are a lot of old, traditional franchises that don't have cheerleaders, male or female, so I will do a little hat tip to those old school football teams. Chad: Yeah. Again, if that's a part of the culture and that's a part of their culture. But obviously the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, that's been a marketing scheme for them for a very long time. They've gotten shit tons of cash because of having cheerleaders on the sideline and calendars and videos and you name it. Joel: Yeah. Will they be the last team to have male cheerleaders that have cheerleaders? Chad: I would say yeah, because Jerry Jones is way too old school to change anything that he's doing. Joel: I agree, I agree. Well, anyway, that's all we got on male cheerleaders. I'm kinda out of gas this week. If you're ready, I say we out. Chad: We out. Ema: Hi. I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy, Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors, because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Careerbuilder #Dice #DisabilityHiring #DisabilitySolutions #Slack #Google #Textio #NFL #Immigration

NEXXT EXCLUSIVE: this month the boys have a chat with Bullhorn's CMO Gordon Burnes about the current state of marketing in the recruitment space on the heels of their annual survey. Notably, the guys dig into the most popular (and unpopular) strategies being deployed by firms around the world. Spoiler alert: Job boards are in trouble. Enjoy, and be sure to visit Nexxt ... there's no show without sponsors like them. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps employers identify and source candidates with disabilities. Chad: This, The Chad & Cheese Podcast, brought to you in partnership with TA Tech. TA Tech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Visit TATech.org. Chad: Okay, Joel. Quick question. Joel: Yeah? Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates or your texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah. I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflex to text messaging. Joel: That's probably why text messaging has a frickin' 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: We had a crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why The Chad & Cheese Podcast love Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it. Chad: That's right. Nexxt, with a double X, not the triple X. Joel: Bow chicka bow wow. So, if you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI ... That stands for return on investment, folks. Because this is The Chad & Cheese Podcast, you can try your first text-to-hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom. Wow. Chad: How do you get this discount? You're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell them, Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to ChadCheese.com and you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Just go where you know. ChadCheese.com and Nexxt, with two Xs. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: Hey, boys and girls. It's your boy, Cheese, here with another monthly exclusive sponsored by Nexxt. This month, we're honored to be joined by Gordon Burns, CMO, that's chief marketing officer, at Bullhorn. Gordon, welcome to podcast. Gordon: Hey. Thanks so much. Good to be here. Joel: Give us the elevator pitch on you and tell us about Bullhorn, for those who don't know. Gordon: Yeah, great. I've been at Bullhorn about four years. Came from IBM, where I ran marketing for part of the information management group there. Really excited to be at Bullhorn. We've been growing incredibly quickly over the last four years. We do CRM software plus operations capabilities for staffing firms of all sizes. We like to think that we help companies do everything from candidates all the way through to cash. We operate worldwide. But, most importantly, we're focused on delivering a great customer experience. We've been able to ... had the opportunity to work with a lot of wonderful people and a lot of wonderful companies. It's been a great ride so far. Joel: What does a typical client look like? Are we talking global? What size? Company names that people might know? Gordon: It's interesting. We have about 8,000 customers right now, close to 100,000 users. It really spans the entire spectrum, from entrepreneur just starting out, gets out of college and wants to dive into the business, all the way through to Adecco and Manpower and Kelly, some of the largest firms. And we sort of organize our company around these segments because, obviously, larger companies operate very differently and have very different needs from smaller ones. So we really try to meet the needs of our customers, whatever size they are. Chad: So, Gordon, you would actually put out a marketing survey. Now, coming from Bullhorn. So, first off, I think it's awesome. We get more information with regard to marketing, especially in the staffing arena, but why did you do it? What was the impetus for actually wanting to put together research or a survey like this? Gordon: Yeah, it's interesting. I think that the marketing in the staffing industry is going through a really big change, and we're sort of at the front end of a big wave that we believe is really going to sweep the industry. And that's going to happen at the organizational level, it's going to happen with technology, it's going to happen with tactics, and it's pretty exciting. Gordon: If you look around at the evolution of how staffing firms arise, a lot of owner operated businesses grew up super strong on the sales side, but they get to a point where they're really trying to scale programmatically. Like, how do we scale without just knocking on doors, right? And then they say, well, there's this thing called marketing, so they go hire somebody that they knew in college, and this person does a little advertising, and it doesn't really work, and so they're sort of stuck, right? Gordon: So I think a lot of owners, owner operators are saying, hey, what do I really need to do to scale this business, and marketing's probably a really important component of growing the business in the long run, so what do I need to do? Chad: Right. Right, right, right. So in the actual survey itself, and just going top line, it actually said "87% of global staffing and recruiting firms do not have a CMO." No love. Gordon: Yeah. Chad: So who is in charge of marketing, or are they just not doing marketing at all? I mean, that doesn't make any sense to me. Gordon: Yeah, no, it's really interesting. I think all firms are doing marketing for sure, and I think what that statistic points out is the relative importance that most firms put on marketing. Marketing is sort of like an afterthought, and so the chief marketing officer, or the person who is in charge of marketing at the firm typically does not have a seat at the executive table. Gordon: In terms of how do we really grow and expand, and how do we manage our customers, the marketing voice is sort of secondary, and I think, in a lot of cases, it's really relegated to, "Hey, can you go place some ads on that job board over there" versus what is the strategic way we can deploy our marketing dollars to grow fastest?" Those are two totally different things. One is just really tactically ... You just go and hire your friend out of college to go place ads on a job board. The other is a really complicated question to answer. Where do I put my marginal dollar of investment to grow the firm? Gordon: To answer that question is very hard. You've got to have a lot of data. You've got to have a lot of information. You have to have done a lot of tests around different channels, but if you want to spend your money correctly, you've got to make the investment to answer that question. Chad: Well, for staffing firms, it's really two sided though, right? Because you're trying to grow the business line, so you're trying to gain more clients, but also you have a marketing aspect where you're trying to help focus on the candidate side, too, right? Or is that something you guys really don't touch on? Gordon: No, absolutely. Totally, and that just sort of increases the complexity. But, you know, in this environment, the challenges are really weighted on the candidate side, right? We're essentially a full employment. We've got the job mix that a lot of the clients is changing, so you need to find different kinds of skill sets. I think, for the most part, the 60% to 70% of the challenge on the marketing side is really about figuring out the candidate side of the equation versus the client side. Joel: Gordon, I'm curious about some historical perspective from the survey, which doesn't quite come out in the executive summary. Assuming that you've done this survey a few times over the years, 80% is a very bad number in terms of embracing marketing, but what, historically, do you see ... Are staffing companies embracing marketing more, or is this number going down over time? Gordon: Yeah. So this is the first year we did a formal survey. We have, over time, started to notice that more and more companies are placing VPs of Marketing in CMOs, and so this year we said, hey, look, we really have to go get some real quantifiable data to understand how this is changing. Going forward, we'll definitely measure it, but as we interact with our customers and our prospects, we're starting to see the CMO be a larger voice in the conversation about how to run the business, and it's because of this question of scale and allocating dollars more effectively. Gordon: And it's also, I think ... There's another component, which is there's a lot more technology out there to allow you to do different things that companies are sort of questioning, and do you really need somebody to say, hey, look, we want to put in a chat bot, or we want to put in marketing automation, or we want to put in dialogue management or whatever it is, and to have someone who can really do that effectively. Joel: So a few of the metrics really stuck out to me, but I think the one that really sort of surprised me in going back historically ... Job boards talk a lot about "We're not dead," "We're as good as we've ever been," or "We're healthy," and the fact that your survey had that only 50% use job boards really shocked me. What do you think about that number? Gordon: Well, I think what's happened is that there is a whole new set of channels to get to the candidate that didn't exist ten years ago, that you now have the whole email channel. You have social channels. You have pay-per-click. A lot of people are doing texting now, right? So I think it's more that there's just a proliferation of tactics that are available to go reach candidates, and also clients as well. And so I think in the old world, you probably had single channel marketing really, and now it's really about multichannel marketing. Chad: Well, and often those channels, I mean, one of the channels that looks like it's gone down dramatically is pay per click job ads, only 34%. Gordon: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and I think what's happened there is that it's a little bit like the gold rush. People, when new channels become effective, you just have a whole bunch of money flowing into that channel, and it drives down the return. Right? And so this is another reason why the marketing function is so important, is that it's really about figuring out: What is the most effective way to generate your candidate sourcing and candidate engagement? And I would say that's another big piece of the puzzle here, is that a lot of these firms are figuring out that they're sitting on a gold mine, which is their own candidate database. Chad: Right. Gordon: And so as opposed to just spending money on job boards, they're saying, "Hey. How can I reactive the people that I've already talked to? Maybe I haven't talked to them in a while. But how do I activate that relationship and then start building on it?" Chad: A couple of things, because that last part is something that we get onto a lot on the podcast. But first off, do you believe ... Because most of your clients, they're staffing firms, and Indeed is kicking staffing firms off of their platform. They're putting them in "Indeed jail." Do you think that might be a part of the impact as well, because they were spending a lion's share of their pay per click on Indeed? And now they're kicked off, so they're looking for other ways. Gordon: Yeah. For sure. I mean, I think there's a mass exodus in the job board world towards very specific boards that are really targeted at the talent pools that you're looking for. And I think these sort of mass market forums are becoming the return on your dollar in these mass market forums is just dropping dramatically. Chad: Right. Gordon: And I think that's what you're seeing, really. And that's driving other changes as well. Chad: I guess what it comes down to, the second part of what we were talking about was the resume database. Right? Companies have spent millions of dollars to actually create these resume databases, but they never use them. They're always looking outward instead of inward. So are you guys looking to, there at BullHorn, are you looking to partner with companies that actually help rejuvenate those databases and also market to those databases, versus going outside, going inside first? Gordon: Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. I think putting in place the right technology to be able to programmatically go after the resume database is really important. I mean, there are all sorts of generic marketing technologies like Marketo and HubSpot that help you manage emails that you might send into your candidate database. And then there's more specific technologies that you could use around sort of putting out surveys or developing new content that you use to activate these relationships that have sort of gone dormant. I mean, there's also a whole content angle here, which is- Chad: The nurturing type of angle. Right? Gordon: Yeah, exactly. And if you think about the whole inbound marketing world, that HubSpot in particular championed, that's another, I think, source of candidate activation. I know we have one customer that has generated 30% of their fills through really awesome content that they post on their web, and then on their website. And then propagate through social media, so they have a very, very active social media presence that the candidates will follow. And then they get engaged with the content. And then as they get more engaged, then they start to see some of the opportunities that the company's working on. Joel: Gordon, I'm curious about your thoughts on LinkedIn. It wasn't mentioned in the survey. Curious about its impact today versus maybe in the past or where you think the impact is going, as well as your opinion on sort of Microsoft's recent acquisition of GitHub and how that'll play into the whole sort of staffing, marketing world. Gordon: Yeah. Really, really interesting dynamic there. LinkedIn is pretty interesting in the sense that they have, at least in the professional space, virtually 100% market share. And the challenge, I think, that any staffing agency will have with LinkedIn is: How much money are you going to spend there? Because you're already, assuming you have LinkedIn recruiter licenses, you're already spending a ton of money. Right? Chad: Yeah. Gordon: And then to the extent that you're using it for paid job ads, you've just got to figure out. You've got to make sure that you're getting the return that you want, versus the other channels. And I think this is really the crux of the issue here, which is that you've got to put in place the right information systems in your marketing departments, so that you can understand where you're getting the best return on your dollar because there are so many different channels. And to do that, you've got to invest in technology and you've got to invest in people, the right people that can actually make those decisions based on the data that you're collecting. With regard to LinkedIn, I think that we use it here, BullHorn of course. Gordon: I think any staffing firm you talk to will use it. I think the question is making sure that you get the right return on those dollars. I think with regard to GitHub, what's interesting is that's obviously a portal into an incredibly important talent pool. And so the real question is: How is Microsoft going to allow staffing firms to get access to that talent pool? Now they have some cultural challenges around that. I think most of the GitHub folks are not necessarily anti Microsoft. Joel: Yeah, they are. Gordon: But they're doing their own thing. Right? It's a lot of ... And so I think Microsoft's going to have to tread pretty lightly there in terms of how they expose that world to the broader commercial world that LinkedIn is really trying to unlock for staffing firms. Chad: We talk about Microsoft obviously and LinkedIn because they're one and the same now. But what about being able to utilize a company like Google to really boost your brand like we've seen with Jibe and some of the other orgs that are out there the plug into their job search API. And now Google has a candidate API, so that obviously the search, the job search is happening from the candidate's side of the house, and then also from the recruiter's side of the house, you're having the candidate search, having those come to together with their beautiful, magic black box of machine learning and AI. Is that something that you think, not just from a technical standpoint, but from a marketing standpoint, that gives an organization like BullHorn possibly an edge? Gordon: Well, it's interesting. I think we're still in the early, early, early stages with that. When we talk to firms about how they're handling this, sort of the ones that are really on the cutting edge, what they're doing is, they're starting to experiment. And there are definitely some wobbles in terms of how that algorithm works. It could be on a region basis. It could be on a job basis. Could be on a pay basis. You really have to go and sort of experiment and see what's working. I think where we're headed here is that each firm is going to get more and more specialized around very specific candidate pools. And the channels that line up to access those talent pools will start to become clear because, as we talked about earlier, sort of the move away from Indeed by some firms is largely driven by this notion of, I need to get access to a richer and more specific talent pool. Right? Chad: Right. Right. Gordon: And I think that's where it's going to go. Now where I think Google has an advantage is on the matching algorithms. Obviously, they're one of the leading AI companies. But they're going to open those algorithms up, and so we'll be advantage of them. Other staffing industry software vendors will be able to take advantage of them. There will probably be third party services that do matching across job openings and talent pools. I think the key thing for a staffing firm right now is to start experimenting because this is going to evolve very quickly here. Chad: Yeah. But don't you see that really giving a marketing boost as you're trying to, obviously, go out and pitch clients? And saying, "Look. We've got the best tech in the world. We know what we can do great. We know what we can't do great." Do you think that actually provides an advantage? Or do you think it's really just kind of smoke and mirrors? Gordon: No, it absolutely provides an advantage. There's no doubt. There is no doubt because you're going to be shut out of either, most probably the talent side, on the talent side of the equation if you're not trying to figure it out. Now in the end, you have to have that relationship with the candidate. Right? You've got to get that candidate to actually make the emotional connection to the job. Chad: Yeah. Gordon: Algorithms still have not been able to figure out: Does the candidate have an emotional affinity for saying yes? Right? People are still better at that than anything else. And so the question is: Can you use the algorithms to filter through the candidates that aren't going to be applicable to a particular job? And then use your personal skill, if you're a recruiter, use your personal skill and understanding of human nature to actually persuade the candidate to take the job. Right? Chad: Right. Right. Gordon: We've seen or heard the recordings of the Google bot calling up the hair salon and making a- Chad: Duplex. Joel: -Duplex. Gordon: It's absolutely insane right? Very, very cool, but it'll be interesting to see that, see Duplex trying to figure out "Okay, how am I gonna persuade them to create an opening when they don't have an opening?" Right? Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Gordon: That's something the machines aren't doing yet. Joel: I'm curious Gordon, social media was listed as the most popular medium by which you would find candidates in market. How exactly are customers and folks you surveyed using social media? Are they advertising? Are they just using it as a sourcing tool? Is it both? Talk about that. Gordon: Yeah, I think it's really born out of this notion of inbound marketing, where you're sort of getting your brand, your content, your point of view out in the market and creating a relationship with the candidate through that point of view. Clearly, there's also a bunch of advertising that's going on through social media as well. And that can actually be done on a Geo-located basis. So, we've talked to some firms that are pretty successful doing that as well. But, I think fundamentally and structurally, that's what's going on, is that firms are realizing to build their brand and to build their presence, they really have to have a point of view in the market with the candidate pool that they're pursuing. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Gordon: I would note that social media was the number one choice for companies that do not have a VP of marketing or a CMO. The number one choice for companies that do have a CMO or VP of marketing is email marketing followed by marketing automation, which is really about candidate nurture. Joel: Right. Gordon: So, social media sort of becomes an important part of the equation, but it's really, I would say, the top of the funnel. And then you start building the relationship with the candidate relationship tool. Chad: So, where do you see texting coming in? Because texting is starting ... We're starting to see a wave- Joel: You read my mind. Chad: Of companies who want to be able to engage candidates where they're at. And, they're not in email because they're not answering email. So, yeah, it is effective but it's not as effective as text. So, as a CMO, this is probably something ... You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Do you engage on the text side of the house? And, are you starting to implement that in BullHorn? Gordon: Yes, absolutely, I would say that we have a bunch of partners that offer full texting capabilities. It's probably one of our fastest growing categories within the BullHorn marketplace for sure. I think everyone's seen the data on what the response rates are when you send a text versus when you send an email and there's no doubt. It's like ... order of magnitude higher if you're sending a text versus an email. So, companies are definitely gravitating that way. I do think that their ... If you think about spheres of intimacy with the candidate ... Sorry, it's like a little marketing jargon for you. Chad: Let me write that down real quick, sphere of intimacy. Gordon just invited me into the sphere of intimacy. Chad: Of intimacy. Gordon: Exactly. Joel: He's never known that octagon before. Gordon: That's in the marketing 201 class. Joel: Now we know what they teach at Harvard. Gordon: No, they don't actually teach that. No, I think that ... you know, look, you're on a email relationship with some of your acquaintances and then some people text you. But, there are certain people that if they texted you, you'd be like “What's this guy texting me for? I don't even know him” Right? Chad: Right. Gordon: You know? So, I think that that's really the challenge from a marketing standpoint about how to handle texting right? When have you gotten to a point in the relationship with your candidate where you can actually text someone and they'll text you back? So, I would say it's if you think about the life-cycle of how you develop a candidate relationship, it's not at the top, right? But, as soon as you can develop that relationship, texting is gonna be the best. Joel: Gordon, so that's the best way, and we've talked about texting, email, social media. I want to know your opinion on just the good old-fashioned phone and where that comes into play with this marketing perspective. And, I'd also like to know, Chad and I discussed on this weeks show, LinkedIn launching a voice mail component on their native app chat. So, I'd like to know your opinion on LinkedIn's new feature as well as kind of where we are with just the old-fashioned phone. Gordon: Yeah that's really interesting. I mean, I think on the old-fashioned phone front, it really comes down to what generation you're in. I'm an Xer and I still will answer my phone. We have actually gone to soft phones here at BullHorn and we get very few calls these days. I think that the world is really migrating away from voice messaging, and I think it's directly a result of generational communication preferences just shifting. So, it depends on who you're going after. If you're going after somebody with 30 years of engineering experience, building bridges, phone's probably the way to go. If you're looking for a web developer who's great on Rails, You can try the phone but there's probably 90% chance you're not gonna get a call back, right? Gordon: So, I really think it depends on where you're going. And so, this LinkedIn thing I think is pretty interesting. I think one thing that's definitely happening is that Alexa and these sort of smart home devices have really changed the way people are interfacing with computers. And my sense it that they're experimenting with that because I think if you take the analogy of having Alexa turn on your radio and activate different parts of your home, if you've got a smart home. Or build a shopping list, as you take that paradigm into the working world, you start to have the question of “So, how are you really gonna interface through voice?” Gordon: The real question is whether that's just gonna be on a command basis or is it also gonna be on a communication basis. And I would bet on the former and not the latter. So, I'm not super bullish on this. Chad: Yeah, and I think sales people are just gonna screw it up for everybody. Joel: And marketers by the way. Marketers and sales fuck up everything. Gordon: Exactly, well just pull up your LinkedIn feed now. We are just getting absolutely crushed by companies just filling the feed up with videos. Chad: Junk, damn. Gordon: Junk, some guy walking to work telling you about why XYZ is so great. And you're like “Dude, why don't you just get out and try to enunciate a little bit better and cut out the horn in the background." Joel: Yeah, alright Gordon, we appreciate your time today in joining us. For those who wanna know about the survey, wanna know about BullHorn, where would they go? Gordon: So, hop on BullHorn.com and type into ... We have a little chat bot there, and type in “CMO survey” and we'll pop it off to you. Joel: Very nice. From Chad and myself I say “We out." Chad: We out. Gordon: Cool guys, thanks a lot. Chad: Okay, before we go, remember when I asked you about the whole reflex and check your text messages thing? Joel: Yeah, you know all about reflexes. Joel: And then I brilliantly tied it to text message's 97% open rate, then I elegantly, elegantly tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh Chad, I can be elegant, can't I? Chad: Whatever man, I know it's redundant, you already heard about Text2Hire, but you're still not using Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: What???? Chad: I know man. Joel: Come on man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again this was all by elegant design. It's all about text to hire and it's all about Nexxt. Joel: And elegant design. So go to Chadcheese.com, click on the Nexxt logo and get 25, yeah, I said 25% off your first Text2Hire campaign. Engage better, use Text2Hire from Nexxt, two X's. Chad: Booyah. Chad: Thanks to our partners at TA tech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Remember to visit TAtech.org. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema, thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit ChadCheese.com. #Bullhorn #Nexxt #TATech #ATS #AI #Google #Marketing #EmployerBrand

Searching is so hard. I man seriously you have to type words to search, push ENTER, and then search again. Nobody has time for that, which must be the reason why Facebook and Google are making life more tolerable for recruiters by just serving up perfect candidates without all that searching stuff. The boys discuss. - Google Job Search API, NEW Candidate Search API and New product names? - LinkedIn adds voicemail to messenger - Uber drops autonomous trucking - McDonald's reinforces their drive to the kiosk - Upwork is down wit IPO - Yean you know me... - Canvas loves Bitmoji AND YES -- Indeed baby bathrobes.. WTF? I know right, that's why you gotta listen ... and show our sponsors - America's Job Exchange, Sovren and JobAdX - some big love! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: Yeah, and we're back bitches. Chad: Ha, ha. Joel: You're listening to the Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous. I am Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I am Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, Google and Facebook are playing the matching game. We're leaving a voicemail for LinkedIn, and baby bathrobes are coming to a trade show near you. Dogs and cats living together everybody. We'll be right back. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Joel: We're back. Chad: We are back, so how was Nashville man? I love Nashville, it's such a great town. Joel: It's great, but I'm not sure I get the whole appeal of it. Chad: Really? Joel: It's sort of like boots, and rednecks, and fried food. Now, fried food is probably my favorite part of the town. Chad: Yes. Joel: I mean it's a small, little, intimate city. It's not like a Chicago or a New York, so it's really manageable. People there are friendly for sure. It's sort of a community of folks. It's a growing tech scene I believe. Obviously the music scene is cool there. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: It's all good, but I don't want to move there any time soon. It's a nice place to visit I guess. It was great. Jobg8 was last week. I went down for a couple days. Job boards talked about how they're dying, I mean how they're not dying. A lot of folks who want to partner with Job Board. I mean, there are probably more not job boards at the job board conference than there were job boards, which is sort of a testament to the business. It's always great to see old friends, meet new folks. There are people that are startups and trying to get into the business. It's all good. I enjoy getting out and networking, as I know you do as well. Chad: Yeah. Joel: You weren't able to join me, so I wasn't held back by the albatross that is Chad Sowash. I was able to blaze my own trail, which is always nice. Chad: You were taking naps in the corner, is what you're saying. That's what I'm hearing. Joel: I just put my AirPods in and don't talk to anybody basically. It's a good time. Chad: When you say that about the job boards dying, or not dying, or what have you, I always think of the Monty Python skit, where it's the black plague and they're like pulling dead bodies out and they're throwing on the cart and they're saying, “Bring out your dead.” The one guy's like, “I'm not dead yet.” It's like the job board industry, “I'm not dead yet." Joel: Yeah, or if we're keeping with Monty Python, the knight who gets in a fight and his opponent cuts off his legs and his arms, and he's like, “It's but a flesh wound.” Chad: “Merely a flesh wound.” Joel: “Merely a flesh wound.” Yeah. They're not dying according to the show. Their stock is rising. They're a strong buy at this point. It's fun. Yes, everyone will always have a help wanted sign in the window, but is it something you want to like get on board with? Chad: Yeah. It's all about evolving away from being a job board, that's what it is. You've got a shit ton of data. If you're not looking to do something with it, with some of these new technologies, yeah, you're going to be that guy who gets thrown in the plague cart. Joel: Yeah. Right now it's all about technology, AI, chat bots. It's everyone at the show was trying to partner with, integrate with all the job boards that were there. Chad: Right. I know. Totally dig that. Joel: For people who love us during the week, they didn't get their weekly show, so we have a lot to cover today. Chad: Yes. Joel: Lot of good stuff. Yeah, let's get to shout outs. What you got? Chad: First off, Kyle Hager over at Hireology, who we haven't heard from in a while. Apparently work sometimes gets in the way of listening to the podcast, which I want to personally go on the record and say, that is horrible and wrong people. Do not allow work to get in the way of the great things in life, like the Chad & Cheese Podcast, and family, and happiness, but mainly the podcast. Chad: It was really cool, because Kyle has this new hire starting, and she was starting like a week later or something like that, and she says, “Hey, is there anything that I can do to get ready for the job in the meantime?” He said, “Yeah, you need to listen to the Chad & Cheese Podcast.” Big ups Kyle, big ups. Joel: Thanks Kyle. Mason Wong, long time listener of the show, long time fan of stuff that we've done over the years. He loves THE SHRED. If you haven't listened to THE SHRED, you've got to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, et cetera. It's a snippet of news that's hot during the week, which we usually cover later in the week, with more opinion. If you love sort of your quick bites of news, THE SHRED is great, and Mason loves it. Joel: I'll also add that his tweet was liked by Jobvite CEO Dan Finnigan, so I guess I could probably say that Finnigan is a fan of THE SHRED, so big ups and shout outs to them. Chad: This is Mason's tweet, “Thoroughly enjoying THE SHRED. Nano episodes of #ChadCheese. Timely, bite seized tight news focused for subscribers.” That last part is key people. If you're not subscribing on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, you might be missing THE SHRED. It's breaking news. It's happening at that time, so you need to subscribe. Joel: Dude, Mason should be our hype man. Chad: He is our hype man. Joel: Really that's some really good copy there Mason. Chad: That's good shit Mason. We've got Dinah Ribarski at TMP. Quick story. Yesterday I call Grasso because I need some Grasso time, and everybody needs some Chris Grasso time, right? Over at TMP. Anyway, Chris introduces me to Dinah, who I find out is a huge Chad and Cheese fan, and apparently she's the reason half of TMP listens to Chad & Cheese. Joel: Wow. Chad: Yeah. Joel: TMP is no little mom-and-pop shop on the corner. Chad: No, but Gross, you've got to step up your game brother. We love you to death, you're the man. Get the rest of TMP to be listening to Chad & Cheese, and subscribe so that they can get THE SHRED as well. Joel: Yeah, no doubt. Let's educate the world on recruiting news and opinion. I got a shout out to Melissa Patterson of Roan Resources in Oklahoma City. Melissa is an HR professional, so yes, many of them listen. They're not as vocal. They're sort of the silent majority, but we do have a high degree of HR folks listening to the podcast. She's a huge fan. Says everyone in her office makes fun of her because she's such a geek on Chad Cheese. Melissa, we appreciate you and thanks for listening. Chad: Love some Melissa. Andrew Harris over at ULoop loves the show and wants to hear more about recruiting industry future state. Luckily Andrew today we're going to be talking about Google Talent Solution and Google recruitment tech future state. Today is your day my friend. Joel: Nice. I'm going to give a shout out to Lindsay Lohan. Yes, that Lindsay Lohan, who does not listen to the show ever, but apparently there was a new story recently that Lindsay Lohan will fire her staff for wearing shoes that do not match. Lindsay is apparently a savage boss. The fact that she's in any sort of employment news is entertaining to me. Lindsay, you're not listening, but if you are, thanks for listening. Chad: Oh my god, so last one from me. Nancy from Philly loved the interview with Skill Scout CEO Elena Valentine. A couple of points that I loved was we talked about how job postings suck. Again, these are no bullshit conversations, and how she thinks storytelling is dope. Joel: Storytelling is dope. All right, my last and final shout out is going to make you really upset. Chad: Oh god. Joel: Typically, vendors will send along swag, particularly sponsors. Like we love the swag that we've gotten from Talroo, JobAdX, Uncommon, Next. Chad: Uncommon. Yup. Next. Joel: Good stuff, like my kids are at school right now, their first day of school wearing like Job Board and HR Tech swag. I don't need to go to Old Navy anymore for clothes, so that's great. Anyway, this past week ZipRecruiter from Israel. Chad: What? Joel: Sent me a care package, I guess you'd call it. There were the typical t-shirts, but there was Israeli candy, which my wife is a total sweet tooth, so she loved that. There was a bottle of booze in my FedEx package. I get this, and I'm thinking, oh Chad got it too, so as we were talking I was like, "Yeah, did you get your booze from ZipRecruiter?" He goes, "What are you talking about?" Zip in Israel, thanks for the booze, and thanks especially for not letting Chad get in on it and get booze as well. Chad: What a bunch of assholes. How do they not know that I love booze just as much, if not more, than you do? I mean the t-shirts I definitely would love the t-shirts, but the booze. I mean seriously guys? Israel ZipRecruiter, you guys are listening all the time, what the fuck? Joel: To them I say, [applause]. Very good. Chad: Bullshit. Joel: Expect many selfies this weekend, because Chad won't be able to, you know. Anyway, all right, let's get to the news. Chad: Yes. Joel: What do you say to that? Chad: We should do that. Joel: Holy shit, Google's not slowing down. Chad: No, and they shouldn't. They are dropping bombs dude, and I love it. I love it. Joel: What did they do last week while I was at Jobg8? Chad: They opened up Job Search, it's pretty much a job search API buffet right now, which is fricking awesome. Because all these job boards that are out there who we know guys, and you know this too, you know this in your heart of hearts, your job search sucks, right? It's all fricking keyword, and maybe you've got a little algorithm here and there, but it still sucks compared to Google, and they're making it open for everybody, so you can tap into it. It's not for free, but still, you can tap into it and you can get rid of your sad job search shit that you've had for years. Joel: Yeah. If you're still serving jobs in date order, and you don't know someone misspells nurse with a Z or something that you don't know what that means, then Google does, and can save your search. Chad: Oh dude. J&J, they're using Jibe and whatnot, but they've seen a 41% increase in candidates for hard to find positions. We're talking about like scientist, oncologist, those types of positions. 41% increase in candidates for those positions. That's number one, right? Companies who are out there, it's pretty important. We know that iCIMS, and there are other applicant tracking systems, I would assume, that are out there that are tapping into this job search API. If your ATS isn't, get their asses to do it ASAP, because this is ridiculous. These are crazy types of positions, 41% increase. Joel: If you have an Indeed company page, call your Indeed rep and ask if they're implementing the Google Search API. Joel: Now to me the biggest news, the second biggest news, was they may have actually come up with a name for all this stuff. Which at this point I think is the fourth name, but the name that they've come on as of last week is Cloud Talent Solution. Chad: Yes. Joel: How do we feel about that? Chad: It's fucking horrible. I mean, there's no reason, I mean come on guys. Cloud Jobs Discovery. You've got to get jobs out of there, because you've just opened up a new candidate API, which we'll talk about here in a second. Jobs, yeah, it's fricking horrible. Chad: I'm going to jump back real quick to talk about this jobs API, and how impactful it is. CareerBuilder, which we've talked about, has seen 40% increase in job views on their talent networks. These little landing pages, types of CRM types of platforms that they create for their clients, huge increase. 41% in actions taken off the search results, because the search results sucked, so nobody was actually clicking through and taking action on them. 15% on email alerts, which is big because obviously that's where a good amount of their traffic's coming from. 18% in qualified applicants in specifically top categories. Trying to get that top talent back in using CareerBuilder. Chad: Once again, CareerBuilder, who has developed recruitment technology, job search technology, for over a decade said, "Guess what? Screw this. Google does it better, we're going to use their shit, which is now called Cloud Talent Solution." Joel: Cloud Talent Solution. You know Chad, you and I once ran for president of Monster. Chad: Yes. Joel: Maybe we should do a little commercial on brainstorming a new name for Google hire with cloud API jobs talent solution, or whatever they're calling it today. Chad: Yeah. Well here's the thing though, Google Hire, or I'm sorry, Hire by Google, which again has switched around and changed since the inception, isn't a part of Cloud Talent Solution. This is an entirely different segment. This is their API enterprise segment. Then the ATS, Hire by Google, is entirely different. Joel: Hey Google, people want to use your shit, but HR people need things sort of clearly spelled out for them. Chad: Easy. Joel: Go down to marketing, which I'm sure has a few people at Google. Chad: Yes. Joel: Figure out a name for all this stuff and stick with it. Chad: Tie it together. I mean seriously, because Google Hire, I'm sorry, Hire by Google, see this shit's all fucked up. Hire by Google uses these APIs, so it really in a sense is a product of. They should all be together. I mean, they want to split shit up, but man, keep it simple, stupid. Joel: Chad and I talk about this shit every week, and we're confused. What do you think about the average person out there? Joel: The most exciting thing, I think we agree, is the matching solution that Google's come out with, yes? Chad: Yeah. I mean it's, so the matching solution right now is only available in Hire by Google. What they've come out with is this new candidate search API. What's happening, much like Job Search, on the candidate search side what can happen is that your candidate search is going to be much better than what it's been. Your recruiters, who are using your database to actually search your resume database in your applicant tracking system, you'll be able to actually find qualified candidates. Chad: Because in most cases, applicant tracking job search sucks, that's just the way it is. Yellow, who after only seven weeks of using Google's candidate search, they reported that, to their clients, "Quest Diagnostics is seeing a 58% increase in candidate search quality." Bloomberg is seeing a 73% increase in candidate search quality. This technology is helping to surface great talent that you already have, that you've already paid for. Joel: Yup. Launching private beta enables recruiters and sources to, “Easily discover top talent in their existing candidate databases." Chad: Crazy. Joel: You and I think it's only a matter of time before it helps you source and easily discover top talent in other people's databases. Chad: Yes. Joel: And other databases around the internet. Coming to a Google product near you. Chad: As you start to take a look at these two APIs, so you talk about matching, so now you have a job API and you've got a candidate API. You have those two things, now you can start the conversation around machine learning and matching through this. That was actually a part of the presentation as kind of like future state of where Google's going. They need you to have both of those APIs locked in. Definitely if you're an applicant tracking system, you should be hard on this one. Getting these locked in so that the machines can start doing their learning, and they can start the matching process. Joel: Sourcers, if you're not sharpening up your resume and CV, you might want to do that. However, don't send it to Mcdonalds, because a story out this week by Mcdonalds, or a study on Mcdonalds, says that they're going to be kiosking in the very near future. You won't have to talk to a human to order your big macs and your fries. Chad's recently been to Europe and says basically everyone's out of work there because everything is koisked when you go to Mcdonalds. Tell us about that Chad. Chad: Yeah. It was pretty interesting, because here in the Midwest I actually jumped into a Mcdonalds, and I noticed the kiosk. I think we talked about this on several other pods. The UI sucks, yada, yada, yada, but they've got like liaison people that are there to kind of shepherd you to these new touch boards where you order on the touch boards, because it's new. Well the family and I, we were in Europe for three weeks this summer. It was funny going through France we stopped, and it was interesting because there were none of these liaisons because guess what? It was standard. Chad: This is something that they've had in place for a while. Yeah, this is where it's going. MacDonald's, you would have thought possibly would have used the US for this type of test. But apparently, they're doing this in Europe for a while. Joel: We're way too stupid to be the test market for this. I will add that I think mobile ordering will also be huge in the coming years. I know that at my local McDonald's, which I rarely go to as you know, you can order on your phone, you pull up, they have slots in the parking lot for mobile ordering. You go there and it knows that you're at the McDonald's and it says, "Are you here?" You say, "Yes," and then within five minutes your order comes out nice and hot in a bag and you say, "Good-bye." There's no going into the store, there's no sitting in line at the drive-thru. It's a pretty nice system. Yes, food is quickly and probably will be the first to be automated and get people acclimated to how this stuff works. Chad: Like shopping at Walmart, dude. Right now, the way that Julie grocery shops is, she goes online, puts all the stuff in her cart, sends it, takes the cart, opens up the trunk, signs something on a pad, they load it up and she comes back. There is some job creation that's happening there because you've got actual personal shoppers doing that work instead of the cashiers who now generally just go through the self-serve. So there is some swapping that's happening there in the job creation, or actually not really job creation, just the migration of where the jobs are within that ecosystem. It's really cool to watch. Joel: How far is she from wanting at-front-door service for that stuff? Chad: If she could get that done, it would be done because she hates grocery shopping. Joel: Because I think that's where eventually a lot of that stuff will go and they'll probably be delivered by a drone created by Jeff Bezos and come from Whole Foods. But I digress. Joel: However, there's also a story, although we're high on automation and see this thing happening in real time, Uber is in the news. Tell us about that. Chad: It's weird because there's a ton of opportunity in the trucking environment for autonomous trucking delivery because obviously we don't have enough truck drivers. We talk about it all the time. There's a great opportunity to make a shit ton of cash in autonomous driving. We've seen companies embark in Waymo and all these different companies who were doing this because they see cash is there. But Uber said, "You know what? We're getting out of this and we're shifting all of our resources to the car portion of our autonomous driving." It just doesn't make sense to me from a business standpoint. Joel: Now, to you, is this a testament to Uber, to self-driving trucks? Like, to me, I think trucking is in such a tight labor market that, to me, that has to happen. Trucking has to become autonomous. Maybe Uber just thinks, "We're not the one to do it, let's focus our resources on the consumer-based car stuff." I think Waymo, although we rarely hear much about it or talk about it, because they're really quiet, I think Waymo is kicking ass on the self-driving consumer cars. I also think, it was in the news recently that Apple has like five thousand people working on autonomous vehicles, which is not insignificant. To me, maybe it was Uber saying, "Look, trucking is great, but we've got these consumer things. We've got Apple, Google breathing down our neck, right here at home. Let's focus resources on that." Or, do you think it is, "We're getting out of autonomous altogether and we're just starting with trucks?" Chad: No, they won't, they will not get out of autonomous. The thing is, and you think of this in building a business, that you go where the money is first. And you know the money ... and where it's easier to actually get to that money. So, it's the path of least resistance, "There's cash, boom, go get it." And then, what I can do, and that's trucking. Because trucking is much easier, believe it or not, traveling thousands of miles in a truck on highway is much easier than navigating in New York City or Indianapolis or anything like that. The opportunity to arrive at scale will be at the trucking industry when it comes to autonomous. That will be number one because it is easier. That's the hard part for me because if it's easier, you go there, you obviously sell and boom, the next thing you know, you're making cash which funnels back into the harder portion of your business which will be the cars. That's just my thinking and obviously they're incredibly smart people, but they're ejecting out of trucks which is the path of least resistance to cash. Joel: Yeah, it's much easier to do a deal with Peterbilt or whoever, for trucking and get a bunch of trucks on the road quickly as opposed to doing a deal with GM or creating your own whatever. You and I have both seen these Waymo cars out in California, look like little bubble cars. I agree that the path of least resistance is trucking. And it makes me think we should get someone on a podcast to talk about automation driverless cars and trucks to really better understand what's going on in trucking and automation for cars in general to see where all the players are. Because I don't think I have a good sense of all the players and who's going to strike the right balance for what companies. So maybe it's something we dig into on an exclusive. Chad: That might be a little fun. That might be fun. Joel: I agree. Speaking of fun, Facebook is also rumored to be getting into the matching game. We just talked about Google getting into the candidate matching game, we talked a little bit about LinkedIn recently, I think, with their small business solution where you post a job and then LinkedIn magically gives you candidates that they think fit the job. While I was at JobG8 this week, Matt Charney, industry expert, longtime blogger, was the keynote and talked about ... he's under embargo actually, but still revealed it anyway, that Facebook is in the near term, coming soon with a similar matching solution where you post your job on Facebook, Facebook scours its three billion users and provides you with the candidates or users that it thinks match your job the best. Joel: To me, this is really huge just for the fact that Facebook has the most people, they don't have as much data, for sure, as a LinkedIn does. We don't know much about the algorithm of how it matches. I'm assuming that it's people that are close to you as opposed to far from you, it's maybe education or where they went to school, maybe it's whatever work stuff they have, maybe it's stuff that they like. If they have an engineering degree and they're liking a bunch of engineering stories, maybe that's part of the algorithm. But it's pretty interesting to me that the big three didn't take very long to leverage their power of database technology to start matching folks with job postings that you're putting on there. Chad: I have to say that Facebook has already proven their matching skills with matching Russians with political candidates. They already have this thing down so why not bring it to the employment space. Seriously, content in itself in a social platform, we have so much time that's spent on social platforms and there's so much behavior that's sucked up into the platform, they have plenty of data to be able to target on. Yeah, this makes a hell of a lot of sense. The question is, where do you think LinkedIn, being a social professional whatever network aligned with Microsoft is at to be able to do the same types of things? Joel: I think that, in terms of AI, automation matching, relevant searches, related searches, those three companies have a big leg up on anybody else in our space. I think, to me, it's partly the data. We know that LinkedIn is heavy on professional, we're not quite sure that they have the small business environment or the profiles to help small businesses although I think they've got to go after it. They're seeing ZipRecruiter growing, they're seeing Facebook getting into this, Google's going to get into this. Small businesses don't have HR departments, they don't have recruiting teams. So for them to be able to post a job and have magically, "Here's 25 candidates and oh, by the way, do you want to send them an I message, do you want to send them a message on LinkedIn and start prescreening these folks and maybe scheduling interviews?" That's a godsend for small businesses. Joel: So to me, that totally makes sense. And both of those have the platforms with messaging and with prescreening and automation chatbot type stuff to really make that a reality. And it's happening really fast. All these guys are full speed ahead on the Enterprise Workforce Solutions and it's really exciting. I think the next couple years are going to be really amazing in terms of the things that we're just talking about like prescreening, setting up scheduled interviews, maybe hiring people through these platforms if they fit the bill on high frequency stuff. By the way, quick shout-out, we're doing a webinar with Talroo about high frequency hiring with NAS. Hopefully, part of the topic will be this automation piece and how that fits into high frequency hiring. But, to me, that's all very exciting. I think they'll all be part winners. I think at some point, LinkedIn has to spend some money, ZipRecruiter style and Deeds style, to talk about how they are a small business solution. Chad: They are right now, on XM radio. Joel: Oh, are they? Chad: On XM radio. That's what I was going to say is that now LinkedIn is starting to do the ZipRecruiter thing which is spend a bunch of money on XM radio. And it's specific to SMB as well which is incredible. Joel: Yeah, ZipRecruiter set the playbook a few years ago, like be everywhere, radio, television- Chad: Podcasts. Joel: ... to get in front of these business owners, podcasts. Yeah, I think that's great. I think at some point Facebook has to advertise too, like either find a job on Facebook or hire people on Facebook because once they start advertising, I think it really starts to take off. Chad: Very nice, very nice. Joel: By the way, interesting point. Facebook recent quarterly reports, I don't know if you saw this, we didn't talk about it before, but they're kind of sucking right now. It looks like growth is stalled or plateaued in North American and parts of Europe. In looking at that, Facebook has to be saying, "Everyone who can be on Facebook is almost on Facebook, particularly in developed countries. So how do we start twisting that revenue dial higher and higher?" Video, obviously, I think is where they're going to go in part of that. But I think part of it, as we've seen with their messaging, their Slack competitor and what they're doing on the jobsite is, "Let's get into Enterprise Workforce hiring shit and help us recover some of the money that we're losing on advertising due to a lack of growth." Just my two cents. Joel: Let's take a quick break and hear from our buddies and budettes at America's Job Exchange. When we come back, we'll talk about, whoa, LinkedIn and Indeed, two companies- Chad: What? Joel: ... we never talk about. I know, odd. AJE: America's Job Exchange is celebrating our tenth year as an industry leader in diversity recruitment and OFCCP compliance. We've been helping our thousand plus customers comply with OFCCP regulations that directly support positive and effective diversity recruitment designed to attract and convert veterans, individuals with disabilities, women and minorities. And empower employers to pursue and track active outrage with their local community-based organizations. AJE: Want to learn more? Call us at 866-926-6284 or visit us at: www.americasjobexchange.com. Chad: Get your compliance on people! Chad: Okay, so I sent a message over to Avi in Israel before we got on the podcast. I said, "Come on, man, what's going on?" This is what he sent. Just so you guys know, whenever Chad gets something- Joel: Tell people who Avi is. Chad: I will, give me a second. Whenever Chad gets something, I always make sure that I take some to Joel whether it's a Talroo or it's a ZipRecruiter. That's doesn't matter. So this is Avi, who's pretty much in charge of all the cool ass tech that ZipRecruiters has over in Israel, says, "Was supposed to get to both of you. Ask Cheese to save you some of the alcohol," since he sent two bottles. Joel: There's one bottle. No. Chad: Aha. Joel: That's crap. Chad: Just so everybody knows, if you send schwag and you just want to send one box, send it to me because I'll make sure that Joel gets some. You can't send it to Joel because he fricking bogart's the entire thing. Joel: I got one bottle. That's total bullshit. Total bullshit. Chad: I don't know man. Joel: Yeah, that's crap. And you're more than welcome to partake if you come and visit me at some point this summer. Yes, you may have some. But for Avi to say that there were two bottles in that box is bullshit. Throw me under the bus. Joel: Anyway, while Facebook is having shitty revenues, you have some news that says LinkedIn isn't suffering from the same problem. Chad: Yeah, dude. Up 37%, what's that say? That's no small doing. They're already pulling a shit ton of revenue as it is, but up 37%. This is what Microsoft obviously wanted to see. This is one of the reasons why they spent 26.2 billion dollars for LinkedIn. And this is just a start, I believe, because as we just talked about the small business side of the house and they start to go after a market they have never touched before, really, they really haven't penetrated. They get into that market and then they start doing bigger, better Enterprise solutions, this is a great opportunity for Microsoft and LinkedIn. And hopefully, not screwing the talent acquisition market with high crazy prices. Joel: You accuse me all the time of slurping on LinkedIn and drinking the Kool-Aid and maybe you're finally understanding where I'm coming from. When they start turning the dials on the Enterprise stuff, the integration with Microsoft product and services, they start rocking the AI, they start Insights, becomes big thing, their video product is becoming popular, I think they have yet to turn the dial on advertising in any significant way. I think people forget the fact that they're a social network that's actually in China. LinkedIn is poised to be a juggernaut even more than it is. I've been talking about it for years and maybe you're finally coming to the light that I've been seeing for a long time. Chad: No, I was just giving you shit because you got a LinkedIn tattoo. That's the only reason. Joel: I have a LinkedIn tramp stamp, I don't even know what the hell ... yeah, anyway, back to the '90s. Joel: They've got to be careful not to get comfortable. They've got to be careful not to become douchebags like so many companies have in our space, but they are, yeah, they're going to be a major big three player in employment. But they also, in addition to revenues, they continually add new features and they're adding new products. They added voice mails this past week, I believe, and it's getting mixed reviews. Essentially what happens is, it's a native application. When you send someone a message, as opposed to texting out your message in an email or whatever, you can leave a voice mail. Joel: You first heard about this and gave me a big ... however, I kind of like it. Hung Lee, recruiting Brainfood guy, who loves and watches the show ... shout-out to him. I don't know if we give him enough shout-out love, but shout-out to him. He's a big fan of this. Are you still bearish on it? Are you coming around? Is it just going to be something no one cares about? Chad: I would say that no one is going to care about this, much like the Facebook voice recording messaging, whatever the hell you want to call it, that they have on Messenger. I don't know anybody ... nobody sends me voice messages on Facebook, not to mention, you've got to remember, this is a professional network. Now, guess what. Not only do I get these messages from sales people who are trying to pitch me via the text version, I'm going to get these fricking long voice mail bullshit ... Dude, I don't want that. Joel: All right. So time out. All right. And I agree, sales people will eventually fuck this up and marketers will fuck this up. But right now, if I want to get to an HR person to sell a product, I have to call them over and over, leave multiple voice mails. When they listen to the voice mail, they don't know who I am, they probably don't know who the company is, they just probably erase voice mails altogether. So this is at least a unique way that I can get a voice mail, I can hear what they have to say, I can see the person on LinkedIn, I can go to their profile to see who they work for, I can go look at the company. I can dig a little deeper than I can just picking up the phone and hearing a voice mail that says, "Hey, this is Bobby Joe with such-and-such company. You've never heard of us before or heard of me, but buy our product and call me back." Joel: At least this is a way to cut through the clutter of a regular voice mail and give some sort of information about who I am and who I work for that didn't exist before. Hung Lee's thing is, he thinks voice mail, traditional voice mail, is going to die and that this is the way that we will leave messages for people in a b2b type environment. Only time will tell. Chad: If I don't listen to voicemails on my phone, this is still on my phone, okay? It's in an app on my phone, it's the same damn thing that I don't want right now. And you're just putting it in a messenger that I use and I like. So no, I don't- Joel: A lot of people won't even answer the phone if they don't know ... like they'll just deny the call, send a text like, "Hey, can't talk right now," or, "I don't know who you are, leave alone." This could be a way to get LinkedIn push notification, like you have a voicemail or a message to communicate with people and get through to them where you didn't before. Joel: Now, again, this will work for about a year and then people will be like, "I hate these things. I get 10 LinkedIn voicemails a day." And LinkedIn will eventually allow you to turn it off. And people will turn off and then will go to something else. But for at least a year, I think, marketers have an opportunity to do this and cut through the clutter and actually get to people that they didn't get to before. Chad: Yeah. I think it sucks. Joel: Well, what doesn't suck, depending on your perception or perspective- Chad: What the fuck? Joel: Are baby bathrobes. Yes, I said baby bathrobes. I'm scrolling through Instagram recently and I follow Indeed, they're a fun company, right? They got t-shirts, they're in different parts of the world, they're always doing stuff. Well, anyway, I saw one pic the other day that made me do a double take. It was a baby in an Indeed bathrobe. And not an adult bathrobe, a baby bathrobe, like it fit a baby. So, I'm thinking to myself, if this isn't a jump the shark moment, I don't know what it. If your company is so comfortable that they're spending money to put babe sin bathrobes, it might be time to reconsider your marketing project. Chad: Yeah, and what they should be sending out are prison jumpsuits to all these companies that they're throwing in Indeed jail. That's what they should be doing. Joel: Oh, that's awesome. I'm thinking like action figures, like, "Congratulations, welcome to Indeed jail." Chad: Right, no shit. Right? Joel: They could have a little shank, they could have- Chad: I mean, that's more real to life. Really, Indeed is not this warm, fuzzy, terry cloth kind of feel. They are a prison jumpsuit kind of company. Joel: They are barbed wire, sand paper pair of underwear people. Chad: Except, I think, for the Canadians. You think the Indie Canadian group, I think they're a lot softer. Joel: I don't know if Workopolis folks would say the same thing. Joel: Tim Sackett is wearing sand paper underwear. Chad: Tim Sackett has an Indeed jumpsuit on right now. Joel: Okay, so also, Indeed launched four new ads this week. The sunny ads. If you haven't heard that episode, go listen. But they maybe listen to us 'cause we like the new ads a little more. Thoughts? Chad: Yeah, no. The new ads are much better. They are 30 second ads, 15 second ads, they're tighter. I think they're smarter. They are very much more akin to what Monster is doing right now. So I think they're almost taking in some of the mOnster recipe on what Monster's doing well. Which is not that stupid purple monster thing, it's the little 15 second ads, are you half in, half out kind of thing. Chad: So I think they're being smart about it and they've gotten away from the ... I love that song Sunny, but now they screwed it up for me. Joel: Yeah, I agree with the short sort of, the snippet of ads, the 15 second, great for social media, great for YouTube viewers, et cetera. Now, Monster takes a much more comedic approach to their ads, which historically, has been really popular. Joel: These Indeed ads look like they're ready for the red carpet at the Oscar's. They are high level HD, pretty people are in them, the visuals are great. The long one where the guy's on the elevator, looks like he's quitting his job, and he's starting anew job, that looks like a Scorsese piece. Si agree the shorter time set is very Monster-like and very common. But these guys really very touchy feely, they're not like Zip Recruiter where, "Oh, post your job, candidates come, they fill positions." They're very warm and feely, touchy, Oscar, Emmy nominated, wanna-be type ads that we like. I don't know if they'll do the trick and save them from the big G. But for the time being. Chad: Yeah, the big question is, what are they gonna do with all the stuff that's going on with Google? The new candidate API and whatnot. Are they gonna finally join in somehow with Google to try and win back some of that traffic that they lost? You think they are just way too far down the path? Joel: What they will do is they will put their ads on Glass Door, which they bought a while back. .and Glass Door will still be playing nicely with Google, and that's the way that they will Trojan Horse Google by leveraging Glass Door. Although, I am looking closely to see if Glass Door disappears from Google search results, because that would be a clear message that's says, "We're totally pulling everything off of Google and we're totally on our own." But until that case, we'll see what happens. Chad: We'll see. We'll see. Joel: Let's take a quick break. We're running long as we knew we would because we have a lot of stuff to cover. But let's hear a quick word from our buddies at JobAdX, who by the way, were at Nashville at Job Gate. It was great to see them. Chad: Love them. Joel: Let's see what they're up too. Be right back. JobAdX: How many times has someone said to you, "We're the Uber of ... or it's the PayPal of ... maybe they're the Facebook of ... " In many, many cases, these comparisons fall short to being close to reality or even a useful illustration of what organizations actually do. In the case of JobAdX, our example is so accurate, so spot on, that's it's synonymous with our work. JobAdX is Google AdSense for jobs. That means we're an efficient, consistent, and smarter ad unit for job related advertising. As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX offers recruitment marketing agencies, RPOs, and staffing firms, real time dynamic bidding and delivery for client postings through the industry's first truly responsive tool. JobAdX: All this is done with the flexibility of JobAdX's cost per impression, click, or application. We offer unique budget conservation options to effectively eliminate spending waste. We're not set in regrets. For direct clients, JobAdX delivers superior candidates with the best in pragmatic efficiency and premium page ad positioning. JobAdX: We also provide publishes and job boards, higher ad share than other partners. We are a smarter pragmatic platform. In many cases, 30 to 40% greater and more through our scalable model. To partner with us, you can visit or search JobAdX.com or email us at, join us at JobAdX.com to get estimates or begin working together. JobAdX: JobAdX, the best ad tool providing smarter pragmatic for your needs. Oh, and you've been wondering why the British accent? JobAdX has just launched in the UK too. Chad: I think it's brilliant that they say, "and you've been wondering about the British accent." It's like no, I really wasn't but oh, now you're in the UK! That's pretty awesome. Joel: Yeah, I'm waiting for the German accent and the French accent. Canadian accents, but yeah. Met with those folks out in Nashville, and according to them, a majority of their inbound leads come from the Chad and Cheese podcast. So the sponsorships working which is great for everybody. Chad: Kick ass, baby. Kick ass. Joel: Cashing checks and snapping necks. Well- Chad: Yes. Joel: Upwork, which we rarely talk about, if at all, and we probably should, has apparently filed for an IPO, quietly. Upwork is born out of E-Lance and freelancer or something like that. One of the sites I actually use regularly, whether it's with Ratedly, or other projects. Like it's great, it's a market place. So you can hire everything from developers to marketers to sales people to designers, they're reviewed of course. You're reviewed on their end, payment is processed through Upwork. If you look at the gig economy and where things are going, people working on contract, people working on project basis, Upwork to me is the major player in all of that. And if I were looking at a company ... you know, if you told me would I rather invest in Upwork or Glass Door going public, I think I'd pick Upwork all day because that's where the growth ... and they're more or less a monopoly in this space. Joel: You have someone like Fiber and a few others that are niche with certain skill sets, but Upwork to me, I'm really interested to see them go public because I think they are a sleeping giant with a growing gig economy around the world. Chad: That bears no question. And I mean, they're growth, I think they're like in over 150 countries and they have over a billion in revenues. Dude, they are, I believe, a success story. And a model for how we should be looking at really this new market. It's how people are going to be getting jobs, kind of Uber-ish. But I think it's incredibly cool, it's easy to use on both sides. Whether you are trying to find talent or you are talent, in payment or receiving payment. And that's what it all comes down too, it's all about the ease of use. And being able to find who you want quickly and make sure that they get paid and you get your work done. Joel: Yeah, and I think they're just starting to scratch the surface of the enterprise opportunity. Because I see more and more bigger companies have managers who don't manage internal work forces, and they manage Upwork contractors and Upwork freelancers and their goal is they're on Upwork and they're managing their team, via Upwork as opposed to their own slack, their internal system, or email, or whatever trail that they're using. Joel: So to me, a great skill set to have is being able to manage an Upwork work force. Because I think that's where, both by necessity and by just by costs, because you don't have to pay health insurance for these folks, they work all the time, around the clock, around the world. It's a great business, so I'm really excited actually to see how Upwork does. What kind of numbers they report, what kind of growth they're seeing because I think that'll be a really great news story. Chad: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and we should talk more about Upwork because they're doing a damn good job. Joel: Yup. And we'll really know how good once they go public, 'cause they'll have to record that shit. Chad: Which is probably why Snag, old Fabioian, he was the CEO over at Upwork, wasn't he? Joel: He was. I think he was the founder of E-Lance, or one of those companies. And when they merged together or whatever and became Upwork, he was the CEO. And then eventually, moved over on the board of Snag. So yeah, I expect to see good things from Snag under his leadership. Chad: Yeah, no kidding, no kidding. Having a guy of that caliber stepping into a leadership position is nothing but good for a brand and a company like Snag. Because again, there is so much opportunity that's there, he has the background at Upwork. This just makes a hell of a lot of sense and is incredibly smart for Snag. Joel: Yeah, I think we both agree that Snag's new model of sort of Uber for hourly workers is a great one. It looks like Peter, the former CEO wasn't the guy to do it. His Glass Door rating, his CEO rating was 41%, which is not good. Chad: Sucked. Joel: So apparently, internally there were some issues. He wasn't getting it done, but I think we both like the idea, we like the brand. So hopefully they can make that work because they're getting a lot of competition from Parrot and others. Joel: Canvas, I guess we can talk about whoever closed this bad boy up. But our buddies at Canvas, here in Indianapolis, unveiled a new, what I would call millennial inspired, unfortunately millennials ar inspiring everything but they're adding Bitmojis to their messaging platform. Joel: I don't use Bitmojis, do you? Chad: I don't use Bitmojis, I use GIFS. Joel: Yeah, you and I have entire conversations with GIFS. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad: So I mean, I could see ... and it makes a hell of a lot of sense because the millennial work force, I think now, bigger than the boomer work fore, which obviously is falling off the implement cliff at this point because they're retiring and they're doing what they do, good for them. So yeah, they're gonna be the targets. How do you they actually communicate? Is it through Bitmojis, to me doesn't make sense, but again, I'm not a millennial. So, I don't know man. Joel: Yeah, I think it just promotes personality, a face, some emotion to the conversation, some humor maybe. So those for who don't know, we have a lot of old people like us listening, so Bitmojis are basically animated caricatures of yourself that you create. Chad: Avatars. Joel: From messaging, avatars I guess. And these Bitmojis are animations that look like you. We'll have certain situations where like maybe they're at a water cooler saying, "Great job." Or they're at a fax machine, I guess they don't use that anymore, whatever it is. Whatever business people do, they're in a cubicle, maybe they're in an office setting somewhere, doing something fun, that's a Bitmoji. Like to me, that is pointless. And I will admit that my father, whose much older than a millennial, my sister turned history on to these and he loves them. So maybe it's just boomers and millennials alike are using this. Joel: I do think it shows some personality to Canvas as well. So if I were choosing between Canvas and a competitor, if Canvas has this fun little animated thing, like I would think, "Okay, that's kind of cool. It's a differentiator. Maybe it would sway me to use Canvas over a competitor." Chad: And Canvas has had two big announcements lately. The Jobvite integration with Jobvite and then this one. And again, if you're looking for organizations, and this isn't a Canvas commercial for goodness sakes, but if you're an organization and you're trying to get out there and have good PR and obviously have a story to tell, these are the types of things that you want, man. You want that big name integration and you want little kind of silly things like just to talk about. That perspectively, really impacts a huge portion of the work force. Joel: Yeah, and I think the whole messaging thing is just getting started. I mean, TextRecruit laid the groundwork and continues to innovate. Canvas, Emissary we've talked about, Talk Push is one that I think we'll be talking about going to the future. Of course, Facebook with their messaging. Does Slat get into messaging candidates at some point? It's a big deal. Joel: So we'll stay on top of it, but until then, I have nothing to add. We're close to an hour on podcast. So I'm ready to say, "we out," if you are. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes, that silly Android phone thingy, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on Monsters.com. Stella: We out. #Google #GoogleHire #CloudTalentSolution #Careerbuilder #JohnsonJohnson #McDonalds #Upwork #Indeed #UberFreight #Canvas

It took over a year to convince Joe Shaker, Jr., president of Shaker Recruitment Marketing to be a guest on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, but he acquiesced. The state of the recruitment ad agency is as interesting as it's ever been. From newspapers to job boards to branding to tech, and even their newest acquisition of The Arland Group. We cover all the bases. Enjoy this Nexxt exclusive interview. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Announcer: This, the Chad and Cheese podcast, brought to you in partnership with TA Tech. TA Tech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Visit TATECH.org. Chad: Okay Joel, quick question. Joel: Yup. Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates or you're texting or it goes off. Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our "Pavlovian dog reflex" of messaging. Joel: Yeah, that's probably why text messaging has a fricking 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: Crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why the Chad and Cheese podcast love.. Joel: Yeah. Chad: ..Text2hire from NEXXT. Joel: Love it. Chad: Yup, that's right. NEXXT, with the double X. Not the triple x. Joel: Boom chica bow wow. So if you're in town acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI, that stands for "return on investment" folks. And because this is the Chad and Cheese podcast, you can try your first text to hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom. Chad: So how do you get this discount you're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell them Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to chadcheese.com and you click on the NEXXT logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Just go where you know. Chadcheese.com and NEXXT. With two x's. Announcer: 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: Welcome to another episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Today we have an interview with.. Joel: Yeah, that's right. Chad: Joe Shaker Jr. Chad: Welcome Joe. President of Shaker Recruitment Marketing and you guys, I mean, Shaker has been around for a hot minute, right? How long have you guys..tell us, give us a little background on Shaker. Joe: I'd be happy to Chad. We have been around for a little bit. 1951 actually was when our agency started, so we're going on six decades now of recruitment marketing. Started by my grandfather. So very proud of the fact that I am third generation leading the organization. But you know, always helping organizations recruit new talent so I will believe we are one of the longest running recruitment ad agencies out there and there's early stories go back in time to, you know, Bernie Hodes and my grandfather actually having many good times touring the US helping organizations through talent acquisition or back then, recruiting. So yeah, it's been a long family history. A long tenure that we're proud to be part of the Shaker family legacy. Joel: So third generation. Was this a voluntary job for you? Or was this sort of at gun point that you decided to be in the business? Joe: 100% voluntary Joel. I mean I am one of 24 in the third gen. Some of the third gen obviously are joined the ranks, and have joined the agency. There's six of us actually in the third generation that are working currently at the business. Joel: Wow. Joe: Second gen, which is obviously my father who grew the business and his siblings are also still here. So there's a good amount of our family but we're up over a 100 employees now. So it's not just Shaker employees. With Shaker family as well as our employees, that makes up the whole entire organization. Chad: So, there's been a lot of ups and downs over the last 60 years for goodness sakes. How in the hell has Shaker been able to hold it together for so long? We've seen so many big names go by the wayside. How have you guys been able to do it? Joe: You know, I will say it's our founding principle that my grandfather, when he created the business, it's customer service. I know it's easy to say that but I do believe that's really how this agency was founded around his motto and my father's motto, "make a friend, make a deal". And in doing so, we do what I think it's two for. We've built strong relationships with our clients. Many of which we've had decades with. Some organizations have been with us 20, 30 years. Joe: But we also hold those relationships I believe very strong with the media. Because that is really, at the end of the day, where the bridge between the media and our clients. And having those strong relationships both with our media friends and partners as well as their clients is what has allowed us, I believe, to not only, you know, continue to grow but stay relevant in the industry. Joel: Historically, is you can go back to your grandfather if they were all in a room, was 2008 the hardest time? Was it 2000? I mean, what period for agencies was indeed the toughest? Joe: Sure, I mean Joel, you hit it. I think it was your last podcast. I mean, when you blast reception right, you had a couple of things I think that kind of hit the industry, it was obviously a recession which we all know our industry is tied to. Jobs are going to go up, jobs are going to go down. And our business is going to go along with it. But I believe from an agency perspective right, you also had this change in business, right? Going from print and obviously going to online. Also changed our business at the same time at which many organizations stopped recruiting. Joe: And so you had to figure out both, right? How do you stay relevant in the new era of talent acquisition and recruitment marketing as well as manage to do that in a time when not many employers were obviously hiring. And so that was probably, I would say, the most difficult but it was also, you know, in all fairness, probably really the first one I've had to lead through. And my father, who's done this longer than I have obviously, has led me through how he's done it in the past. And it's really staying true to the core and building those relationships and keeping our business in tact. Joe: Because we all know it's going to come around, no venture organizations, like working out today are out there aggressivley recruiting and right now I believe, out of the recession, this is when the hardest times. I mean, it's so competitive out there. And I use the lines of one of my clients at Mcdonald's, David Fairhurst says "It's not a war for talent, it's like a workforce cliff and how difficult it's getting". So I think this is either a trying of a time to help organizations sustain, you know, effectively recruit the talent acquisition out there. Chad: So other than the workforce cliff, which is, I mean that's big enough as it is. What has been the biggest change in the last five years? Has it been technology? Has it been the relationships? I mean, what's really been the driving force of not just Shaker but you've seen the industry overall. Joe: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You know it's funny Chad, because a lot has changed, right? Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joe: A lot hasn't in terms of, I believe, recruiting when you look back in confusion that exists out there. The difficulty in finding right talent, right, is what is, what's making it difficult right now. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Joe: And so if you go in time, you know, it might have seemed easier, right? Because ultimately, there was just print. But even when it was just print, and Joel no offense, I'll have to disagree kind of with the statement on the last podcast. That wasn't easy, even when we were running newspaper across the US. You had to research, you had to find those newspapers. Both the nationals as well as the locals. What's the best data to run? What's the right circulation? The trade journals. You know, what's the creative in the ad? It was a difficult job and it was a time consuming job. Joe: And much like it is now, is it the aggregators? Is it the job boards? In some cases, it's still running ads in local newspapers. It's still a difficult task to put together the right media mix? But I believe the biggest thing to answer the question "What has changed the most?". Is around, you know, it's a buzz word but it's one of the most important parts, "Employment branding". Historically, we used to just create pretty ads. It was aspirational. Wasn't tied to anything. That was in the 70's and the 80's. Now, we all realize the importance of messaging. You can't do false advertising because all it's going to do is lead applicants and they're going to balance and you're not going to retain any of them. Joe: And that's what led to the explosion of employment branding. You get to that employment value proposition. And that is also, obviously, and opportunity that opened the doors for many agencies because it's obviously a service that we all provide. And I believe it's one of the most important things that our organizations have to do. As you can put together the right media mix, but if we're saying the wrong thing, what's having the right media plan going to do? Joe: Ultimately, they're just all going to bounce and the key to this whole thing is retention. Joel: I want to talk about talent for a second. You just made an acquisition, which we've talked about on the show.. Joe: Sure, yeah. Joel: .. and for our listeners who haven't heard that episode, I encourage you to do so. You've gone from about a 100 to a 110ish, according to the news that I've written and read, I assume a lot of that was the hires that you've made from the Arland group. So my question is, saying that it was difficult to, you know, what publications are we in? What is creative look like? Etc. How has talent changed from the newspaper days til now, or has it at all? Joe: No, it's definitely, I mean, it's a lot harder of a business in terms of being able having the minds to look at the traditional ways to recruit as well as look at the new emerging media. And I think having that balance right of the historic as well as the emerging is what's important. And it's a hard task. I mean, some of our, obviously for all our account directors and account managers to be able to dance the media planning that goes into that as well as looking at your creative as well as looking at the candidate experience, right? Joe: And the whole website of the house. And so, having that balance across that is, it's a hard talent to find. And you are correct, I mean one of the things obviously that definitely interests us in the Arland acquisition was the talent obviously, with their leader Deb, who I have the utmost respect for and her whole team, who are talented individuals from account directors, account executives and creative individuals. They'll be joining the ranks of Shaker's, I believe, best in class executive team and full team of employees already. I mean, when I look at my leadership team now, which excites me the most, I have Ellen and Mike Temkin, who have been with me for over 30 years. Joe: I have the likes of Dan Shaker and my cousin who came to us three years ago. What previous to that had his own creative branding shop. And so bringing his creative mind and genius into our recruiting agency has obviously propelled our creative. And then before the Arland acquisition, we also hired Peter Carr, who's got 20 years business in the industry to our executive team. Coupled with Derek Briggs, who's my COO, who used to be an actuary at Price Waterhouse. Joe: And it's those minds, right? The mathematical, the creative, the account services as well as obviously to where the industry is going I believe is going to obviously propel Shaker into the next wave. Chad: So the next wave you see is going to be really attached to the EDP and employment branding. No matter what you're doing.. Joe: Yup. Chad: ..employment brand has some kind of shape in that formula, I guess you can say. Joe: 100%. But it's just, I mean, it's that with the media, with the experience. Chad: When you talk about media and employment brand and emerging media, what is the emerging media right now that you're starting to attach employment brand to? Joe: So, I mean, the media is itself, I mean, obviously one of the buzz words in brand in terms as being thrown out there right as programmatic job distribution, right? But how does that fit in, how does that also take into consideration, I do believe some of the ways where you have to traditionally role up your sleeves and recruit. So it's not just being so, putting all your budget into programmatic or put all your budget for that matter even into sourcing. Diversification is key. I think it's glass doors that it's like media now it cans are touching 16 different sources. So how are you being in 16 different sources, especially right now where organizations are still working with limited budgets that they might have had. Joe: ... especially right now, when organizations are still working with limited budgets, that they might've had from historical years, or trying to fight for more budget. How do we make that money go further across more sources? That's what I mean by using the past, as well as looking at some of the emerging, in order to be effective. Also, we look at candidates, they're everywhere. You have to be everywhere, yet, we're still working with some pretty tight budgets right now. Joe: I would say it's not just the media. I mean, it's also ... Right? It's that message and then it goes into that, the whole candidate experience side of the house. It's those areas that are important. Chad: And trying not to dilute the overall spend, right? You're trying to get a good base, a strong base, but not trying to dilute at the same time. Joe: 100%, I mean, a lot of times clients will say, "Well, let's take all our money, and put it into, put out branding, because we have to invest in it." Well, if we spend all that money in the employment brand, then there's nothing left over to go find those candidates, or address the experience, what's the point? So it's leveraging spreading them across those three bucket as well as of course putting diversification within each of those. Because developing employment brand, you're developing one, no in many cases, right? It's one EVP, but it's been segmented out across a variety of different industries. So, how was it like to work in IT versus how it's like to work in marketing. We have to take that EVP, and segment it down so it's even, you know, diversifying the spend within the appropriate buckets there as well. Joel: You mentioned a few new technologies you said programmatic, and obviously the SHRM confrence just sort of finished up last month, and I know that you guys, there in your own backyard in Chicago, were attendees in the vendor space. I know that you personally got to a lot of conferences, as well as have exhibited in a lot of them over the years. How would you sort of explain this year's SHRM confrence, particularly the exhibit hall, what kind of trends are you seeing, or what sort of things do you expect to become hotter in the coming months and years? Joe: Sure, I think it was exciting, I know you guy, I thought you were there as well. Looking at the SHRM show, even just last week, we're at the NCHRS Show up in Scottsdale, I mean the exhibit halls are packed. Every show that we go to there's more, and more and most important I think what's most exciting to, and there's more, and more new people coming to the space, right. Joe: I think you guys do a fabulous job, obviously on the start ups, as well as covering the investment in our space. I've never seen it in the years, I'm not going to say how long I've been doing this, because I know I'll age myself, but I've never seen more investment being thrown in the talent acquisition space specific on the technology side more in recent times, talking with my father he would agree. Joe: That's exciting especially for organization such as ourselves, as the advisors to our clients, to be able to look at those solutions, and I believe finally attentions being put on to the importance of talent acquisition, and you know we're not just standing by, and saying, "Well, it's the ATS's problem, there's nothing we can do about it." People are finding, smart people are coming in, and solving those business issues that are making it easier to effectively recruit. So I think it's been the most exciting times in our industry. Chad: It's exciting, but it's also confusing as hell, right? Because we have so many start ups that are out there. Then we have all these companies, these vendors, who are trying to reinvent themselves. I mean, what is your team doing? Because there's so much that's happening out there. Joel and I try to cover as much as we possibly can, but how can you get into this, really all of this excitement, and also play off the confusing piece. Most talent acquisition professionals have no clue what programmatic means, and that's just programmatic, not talking about everything else that's happening. So, how are you guys actually going after that business with this huge explosion of not just dollars, but start ups. Joe: Sure. Well, I mean the biggest thing is, I'll say and I think from an agencies, it's being a trusted advisor, right? Being that clients partner, and so as we approach it from an unbiased perspective, and the media we're doing the same thing from a technology perspective, and making sure that obviously it's our, at the end of the day it's what our clients need. It's in their best interest, and then that's when we bring in those solutions. In some cases it might be provider A, in other cases it might be Provider B. I think it's important that everyone stays in those lanes. I think as we move through this, you can call it complicated, confusing industry, I think where a lot of companies might stray one way or the other, you know, it's important that we all stay in our lanes. Joe: Medias can't be an ad agency, I don't believe an ad agency can be a media, or be a technology provider. So, that's kind of I believe we're navigating through it, and I think that's where our clients can see the most value, is that they realize that we're going in their best interest. Chad: So, and this goes to one of the questions I was going to ask, with regard to staying in your lane. There are so many vendors that out there, who want to try to go direct, and go away from the agency, but also you're starting, I mean we've seen agencies do the exact same thing. Where instead of trying to be that unbiased, really third party, who's trying to help a company, they develop there own technology, and it's like, "Hey you don't have to go any where else, come straight to us." Chad: So, do you believe that with this new explosion of start ups, that a lot of these different agencies will be able to say that there is no way that they can keep up with the technology, number one, and number two, what would you say to all those vendors that are out there. I'm going to give you a platform here. What would you say to all those vendors that are out there that feel like they can just go direct, and try to go around the agency? Joe: Sure, so obviously I can only speak to my agency right, and to Shaker, you know when others do, and I think it's made sense, and you know, that's their decisions. I can just tell you how we're approaching it. I think when you look at it, there's enough business honestly for everybody. But really it is about partnerships, like I said at the beginning. That's how Shaker, how its always been. I mean I remember as a youngster going to, and Joel you'll appreciate this, old Chicago Bulls Championships when they won six of them. Joe: You know I had to get the sports angle in. Lucky for Ron, I do think LeBron has one six, but Jordan has. But anyway, I mean, I would go to those championship games with my father, with the likes of the Sun Times, and the Tribune. These were some of my father's best friends, still are to this day. Those partnerships with the media, ultimately, when you get that partnership with that agency, as well as the media, wins the client. Then obviously the agency, and of course the media partners too. Joe: So, it's been proven, we got 60 years of success on when that partnerships, how they can be effective, and how they can be beneficial for all parties. I think the media needs to understand, and the partners need to understand out there, is that's why obviously organizations go to ad agencies like myself, and to many of my peers, is they're looking for the advice, they look those recommendations. That's what we provide them. So, when you do this in cooperation, they're going to benefit. Where you get competitive, that's where obviously I believe issues come up and no one wins. The agencies don't win, the media doesn't win. Most importantly our clients don't win. Joel: Joe, what products, and services are employers asking about the most? Also which products, and services do you see sort of fading currently? Joe: Yeah, I would say probably the biggest product running that many organizations are out there actively looking for, and seeking is around programmatic job distribution, you know obviously, the importance of it I believe in. We're strong opponents of it. I believe that this is something that obviously isn't going to stop. It's going to continue to expand in this industry, just like where how job postings should go. They went from newspapers via Ad send, to job postings via the job distributors like eQuest and Broadbean and Job Target, and obviously now job postings being done through programmatic job distribution, but really giving clients the capabilities now to base there media buying off of metrics in real time, being flexible not locking in to set contracts amount hoping that the right amount of postings was purchased at the start of the year, and putting rules in and sponsoring jobs that need to be sponsored, and unsponsoring jobs that don't need it. I mean that's something that I believe that isn't going to stop, it's going to continue to evolve. It's done it in the traditional marketing world, and so it just makes sense obviously that it transfers over into the recruitment marketing arena as well. Joe: You're right we didn't talk about much today around AI. I do believe obviously that's another area that's going to of course continue to evolve. The way artificial intelligence is being utilized from a sourcing perspective and helping people proactively got out there and find those right candidates. To I believe AI provides a great resource in helping find that needle in a hay stack. In addition the likes of a Hiring Solveds and Entelos, accessing individuals that didn't even put their resumes into a data base, right. It's finding that passive impulsive candidate who's going to be even easier utilizing those technologies. Joe: Then you got the candidate experience side is so hard for organizations to say, "Well we can't talk to every single candidate that comes to a career site." They don't have the teams in place to be able to address every single one of them, so how so we respond to candidates in a quick manner and give them updates, and I believe the chat bots like Olivia or Paradox or Recruiting.ai are addressing some of those business challenges, and I believe are going to continue to evolving, and make it even more easier for organizations to improve their candidate experience using technology. Joe: On the same hand, I don't see computers taking over the whole talent acquisition process. This is a people business, organizations are going to need to sell people on why they should come work for their organization. Individuals aren't going to make life changing decisions without feeling for the organization, and talking to someone in the industry. So I don't believe, you know, or there's some schools of thought where, you know, AI and robots are going to take over the whole talent acquisition space. I think it's a balance between the two. Chad: Okay, Joe, so you talk about the impact of AI, and chat bots, but what about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I mean, what impact is Google having on recruiting today, and your prediction of Google's recruiting industry impact in the future? So, how's it hitting us today, and what do you see in the future for Google? Joe: So, I would definitely would say it's probably one of the most exciting announcements, right, in involvements in our industry, and probably in recent time, and if not, if you go over the history of Shaker, I mean as someone, like at Google I believe taking notice right of the talent acquisition recruitment marketing. Chad: It's legit. Joe: It is legit. Honestly, there's no denying their involvement, as we all know it's not just one area, right. They're looking into three, whether it be ATS, very entry level obvious, with there search API, and obviously in the connection between the job postings, and the candidates, and then of course Google for jobs, obviously right there in driving traffic to the job boards, as well as directing to company career sites. So, they're covering it in three areas, and I already gone right, internationally as they launched in obviously Chad: The UK, yeah. Joe: Yeah, just this week, so, they're not joking around like they never do. I believe you know, the excitement I see outside of Google for jobs, I think is obviously a great distribution point for job boards, and for clients direct. So, I mean for our clients, it's important, it's essential we make sure whatever technology platform recruitment marketing platform they're on, is distributing their jobs right into Google for jobs. It's driving awareness, I believe, in our industry to search engine marketing. I mean doing search engine marketing is not new to recruitment, but it's got a lot of attention now, because obviously individuals are looking at, "Well, how... Joe: Marketing. But it's got a lot of attention now, because obviously individuals are looking like- Well, how do I sponsor my jobs? I don't believe, for jobs, you got to be a paid per post mono, they're just gonna say, "you wanna sponsor? Use ad words." So, it's driving, I think, more involvement and awareness around SEM. But the exciting part is, I think, what they're trying to tackle, just like they tackled across the web. Matching candidates to jobs and jobs to candidates. And for so long we were relying, hoping, that the candidates wrote the right key words, and hoping that recruiters wrote the right job descriptions. And now, right, Google is using AI, is making sense of what candidates are typing and obviously what companies are putting postings to do a better job matching. And I believe no one can do it better than of course Google. Chad: So, here's the big question, how stupid is Indeed for not playing in this game? Because right now what we're seeing, or at least what we think we're seeing with analytics and talking to many of these analytic companies, is that really there's a redistribution of Indeeds' organic traffic going out to everybody else right now. Because Indeed's not playing the game. So, how dumb is Indeed for not playing the Google game? Joe: I wouldn't call it dumb, Chad. I mean right, contents king and so in theory, right, in all intensive purposes, Indeed still is the largest job board on the web. Now, we all know, even before Google for jobs announced, technically Google was the largest job board right, 87 percent- Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joe: Of all searches start there. Chad: Right. Joe: So, but in theory, right, Indeed is the largest. So, if I was Indeed, I don't know if I would just overnight all of a sudden say, "Hey, here's all my content." I think they're trying to figure it out. And obviously you see what Indeed's done, I think it was a smart move, right. The acquisition of Glassdoor- Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joe: By Recruit, not Indeed, right. We all keep saying Indeed, but it was really Recruit. Chad: Right. Joe: Well it's driving, it's gonna eventually drive more traffic, but in theory, they're getting into the branding [space 00:25:54]. And so it's not just becoming a job board and being the largest job board. I think they're obviously trying to become that largest recruitment platform. As job listing, databases, and it's branding. So, I believe there's some smart people there. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joe: We all know that. They're evolving and moving with the times, and I think, until they figure it out, just quickly saying, "Here's all our content," I think obviously would've been a mistake on Indeed. So I agree with their move. Chad: But it's not their content, though. Most of that is not their content. And Google is going to be getting that content anyway, so the piece that Indeed's going to have that's only their stuff, whatever that might be, is of small percentage of what Google's already gonna have in the first place. Joe: True. But, in terms of the ecosystem, right, would you just.. as long as, let's put it this way. Is Indeed's traffic the same as it was last year? No. Right. Their traffic obviously is decreasing. But that's across all job boards, and you can say that for any job board, because there's not as many job seekers there. So as long as they're still producing the quality traffic, and I think that's growing their reach. I mean, just sending their jobs to Google for jobs, in reality, I mean look at when we look at Google for jobs now, they're moving job boards out of it anyway. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joe: Right, they went direct to companies. Joel: So Joe, we've talked a lot about the future of the vendor space, and what kind of products and services will be in the future, and what they'll look like. I'm curious about when a little Shaker graduates from Wisconsin in 15 years, and she takes over the family business in 20 years, what kind of business is she gonna be taking over? What's it look like? Joe: Sure. In 15 years, I hope it's a little bit longer than that, but I enjoy and I appreciate, Joel, the Wisconsin mention and not the Ohio State. Joel: I don't know exactly how old your daughter is, but you get the- Joe: I'm more around for seeing the Wisconsin, not the Ohio, so that is correct. Chad: Go Bucks. Joe: I am optimistic, obviously, in terms of where the agency is going. And I believe this isn't just for Shaker, it's for all my agency friends out there. It's tough out there, right. This isn't just, as we said earlier, the right media strategy. You need an organization. I think clients out there is just getting harder and harder to find people, and we know that that's not gonna stop anytime soon. Having that right message and applying branding, and having the right strategy, and the right experience is a complicated formula. And there's a lot of parts to it. So, having that trusted advisor and that trusted partner along side of them to help navigate through that, I believe, is what's gonna be essential. And so I think that's why its very optimistic for all agencies out there. It's not just a simple as putting a job on one of the job boards anymore. And so, it also is, it's complicated. Joe: And so I have to- my goal and my job right obviously, as we move into the future, just like my father and his siblings.. It was easy for me to walk through the forest when someone's already cut down the trees. And it's my job to continue to carve that path so hopefully when that fourth generation does decide to come and join the Shaker family, and join the Shaker company, that they can continue with my grandfathers mission in helping organizations recruit [or change 00:29:06] out. Joel: Well that's a very heartwarming answer, but I'll ask it more specifically. So, bots, automation, AI, you know, the day of talking to a voice assistant where you say, "Find me a PHP developer in Seattle." And having the machines do it. Does nothing keep you up at night in terms of thinking that technology may take away our feasibility with employers in the future? Or do you rest pretty soundly? Joe: I think technology is gonna make it efficient, Joel. Right. And we're already seeing that with the Google search API and obviously with the likes of right sourcing solutions out there, and chat bots, right, that we've talked about today. But this is recruiting and choosing the job. It's a life changing decision. And so ultimately there still has to be, I believe, that personal connection, that personal touch. And so no, I'm not in the school that I believe technology and bots and AI is gonna completely replace recruiters and replace agencies, for that matter. It's gonna make us more efficient, it's gonna make us more accountable, it's gonna make us smarter. It's gonna make it easier for us to find that needle in a haystack, that passive impulsive candidate. But I do not believe it's gonna completely replace us. Just because of the decision to quit one company and move to another. Individuals are gonna want to talk to, feel, that organization before making that decision I believe. Joel: Well what does keep Joe Shaker awake at night? Joe: My four year old, my two year old, and my soon to be newborn. Chad: Oh my god. Do you know how that thing works? I mean seriously man. Joel: Good one Chad. Joe thanks for your time man. I know we've been bugging you for a while to get on the show and we finally became big enough that you could spend time with us. Chad: We appreciate it. Joel: We appreciate it man. Joe: Hey I've enjoyed listening to you all and obviously you have a great partnership and friendship, and so I wish you all the best. And I have to go. Thank you for your time, but I also do applaud that I hope you vote for, obviously, Shaker, for myself, and of course Chad and Joel. Joe: So, cast your votes out there everybody. Chad: Go to chadcheese.com and hit the vote button and you're gonna see some Shaker stuff in there. So give Joe some love. Joel: Yeah, and by the way, if you wanna know more about Joe and his agency, where should they go? Joe: Go to www.Shaker.com. Joel: Fair enough. Thanks Joe. Chad: Sweetness. Joel: Thanks guys. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Chad: Go Bucks. Chad: Okay, okay, okay. Before we go, remember when I asked you about the whole reflex and check your text messages thing? Joel: Yeah you know all about reflexes. And then I brilliantly tied it to text messages. 97 percent open rate, then I elegantly, elegantly, tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh Chad, I can be elegant. Can't I? Chad: Whatever man. I know it's redundant. You already heard about text to hire, but you're still not using Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: What? Chad: I know man. Joel: Come on man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again, this was all by Elegant Design, it's all about text to hire, and its all about Nexxt. Joel: And Elegant Design. So go to chad cheese dot com, click on the Nexxt logo, and get 25, yeah I said 25, percent off your first text to hire campaign. Chad: Woo. Joel: Engage better, use text to hire from Nexxt. Two x's. Chad: Boo-yah. Thanks to our partners at TA tech. The association for talent acquisition solutions. Remember to visit TA tech dot org. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, google play, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. And be sure to check out our sponsors because they make it all possible. For more, visit Chad cheese dot com. Oh yeah. You're welcome. #Shaker #Agenciy #Google #AI #Chatbots #Nexxt #TATech

It's all about technology, partnerships, shortages and MONEY in this week's episode of Chad and Cheese Podcast! What to expect? - Text Recruiting WAR!!! (okay maybe not war) - Jobvite meets Canvas maybe shades of iCims and TextRecruit? - TextRecruit launches TextTalent - Google handles IT labor - American Airlines create a cadet academy and acquisitions by Ultimate Software and Slack, and, of course, what episode would be complete without CareerBuilder's continuous fall into the abyss. Enjoy, and visit our sponsors America's Job Exchange, Sovren and JobAdX. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Hiddie-ho, boys and girls. Welcome to another episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: Is it football season yet? Joel: 52 days, Chad. Joel: On this week's show, the text recruiter wars are warming up. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: There's a whole new batch of acquisitions and Chad wants to talk about shortage. I can only wonder what that's all about. It's another show full of NSFW goodness, but first a word from JobAdX. Chad: You're going to find out. JobAdX: How many times has someone said to you, "We're the Uber of ..." or, "It's the PayPal of ..." Maybe they're the Facebook of. In many, many cases, these comparisons fall short of being close to reality or even a useful illustration of what organizations actually do. In the case of JobAdX, our example is so accurate, so spot on that it's synonymous with our work. JobAdX is Google Ad Sense for jobs. That means we're an efficient, consistent and smarter ad unit for job related advertising. As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX offers recruitment marketing agencies, RPOs, and staffing firms real time dynamic bidding and delivery for client postings through the industry's first truly responsive tool. All this is done with the flexibility of JobAdX's cost per impression, click, or application, we offer unique budget conservation options to effectively eliminate spending waste. We're not set in regret. JobAdX: For direct clients, JobAdX delivers superior candidates with the best of programmatic efficiency and premium page ad positioning. We also provide publishers and job boards, higher rev shed than other partners through our smarter programmatic platform. In many cases, 30%-40% greater and more for our scalable model. JobAdX: To partner with us, you can visit or search JobAdX.com or email us at joinus@jobadx.com to get estimates or begin working together. JobAdX: JobAdX, the best ad tool providing smarter programmatic for your needs. JobAdX: Oh, and you've been wondering why the British accent? JobAdX is just launched in the UK too. Joel: Is baseball season not doing it for you, Chad? Chad: It never does. It's boring as shit. My god. Joel: The problem is we don't get any games on any regular basis in Indianapolis. Like when I lived in Cleveland, all the games were on. You were into it. You could go to games. It was like, "Oh, the Yankees are in town. The Sox are in town." But there's none of that here. I totally understand why no one cares about baseball in this town. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. So football season, come on, baby. It's about time. I need to watch some Buckeyes. Joel: The Talking Heads are predicting Browns to be most improved team, which is pretty much going to be the death mail and guarantees their second 0-6 season. Chad: Dude, how are they going to get any worse? I mean, seriously. I don't know that they can go any deeper into the well. Joel: You know we're talking about Cleveland, right? Chad: God. It's ridiculous. Joel: So JobAdX, our first shout out, for me anyway. I'm headed down to Job Gate this coming week in Nashville. If you're there, say hi. But I know for sure JobAdX will be there. So I think they're actually presenting on the startup stage or something. So be sure to say hi to them and then write them a check while you're down there if you're attending. Chad: Big fat check. I won't be in Nashville. I'm going to be up in Indianapolis watching Foo Fighters. So I'll be getting my music on. Chad: First shout out goes to Nancy from Philly who broke radio silence. Joel: Yes, Nancy's back. Chad: Stuck here head out on Twitter to say hi. Also to Steven Rothburg who right now is probably trolling Allyo on Twitter. He heard the firing squad that we had with Alio and he had a ton of questions. So he's probably out there trolling right now. Joel: I heard Steve was on a corner somewhere arguing about the validity of Paired and Snag's new job seeker on demand platform for restaurants. We'll see about that. Joel: I'm going to shout out to Vote Chad and Cheese. If you haven't gone and voted for your favorite vendors, podcasters, bloggers, etc., go to ChadCheese.com, click on the link, and give your boys some love, give us a vote. Chad: Love the love. I'm going to give a big shout out to Talroo. I don't think that you've actually gotten the gear yet, have you? Joel: I have. I have. Chad: Oh, you did. Okay. Joel: Yeah. News to you. As usual, the t-shirts too small for me. I need to lose some l's I guess. But the glass I can use and in addition to the Talroo logo, I got a big cheese and the back. I'm sure yours said Chad, right? Chad: Yup. Yup. It looks like the laser etching on the glass or whatever kind of etching. But on one side as the Talroo logo, other side has Chad. This is going to be perfect to drink beer. So thanks to Sam and the team over there Talroo for some pretty cool swag. Joel: Rumor has it that Thad himself, the CEO, does the insignia on every glass that customers get. So that's above and beyond for any CEO. Way to go, Thad. Joel: I'm going to give a shout out to Joe Shaker Junior who we just finished up an interview with today on the agency business. Great interview. We've been trying to get Joe on for a long time. He finally acquiesced and we got him on. So, Joe, thanks for the time, buddy. We'll be publishing that soon, and we enjoyed it. Chad: Yep. Should be next Wednesday and it will be a next exclusive, huh? Saw what I did there. Chad: Shout out to Broadbean. So on last week's pod, we talked about Broadbean moving to the ghetto. Remember? Joel: Rumors. Chad: Yeah, rumors that Broadbean was moving to the ghetto. Well, luckily, we actually received confirmation. Broadbean is moving out of their current lush office in Newport Beach. Yeah. So their new digs might not be as great of a location but it has a gym, deli, putting green. I mean, I took a look at this place online. I mean, come on, guys. Broadbean, come on. Is this really the ghetto? Joel: Maybe it's just ghetto by Newport Beach standards, but by everyone else, it's like moving on up George Jefferson style. Chad: Oh, man. It's got your dry cleaners there, all that stuff. It definitely does not look like the ghetto, guys. A bunch of millennials work in there. Joel: And speaking of George Jefferson, I'm going to give shout out to George Laroque. We found out that is not his porn name that we thought it might be. George Laroque, another exclusive for uncommon. We appreciate that. We talk about venture capital, the flow ... What'd you call it? The gusher of money that's going into the industry, and we sort of sorted that out and talked in length about what's going on with the money question in the HR tech industry. Chad: Yeah, cash isn't flowing into our industry. It's freaking gushing. Joel: If Facebook is correct, George has a birthday this coming week. So if that's true, George, Happy Birthday from the Chad and Cheese Podcast Chad: Happy 80th Birthday, George. That's awesome. Great to here it, man. Joel: We'll see you on next month's show. Chad: Two more for me. Thanks to disability solutions for sponsoring the transcription, obviously, for the hard of hearing and the deaf. They still need to have a little Chad and Cheese in their lives. So there's the transcription. Chad: And last but not least, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast because if you subscribe, you can catch late breaking news with our new podcast called The Shred. You can go to iTunes, Google Play, CastBox, wherever you get your podcast or you'd like to get your podcast. You can subscribe and you can get late breaking news. Joel: The Shred about three or four episodes into it. The response has been warm and positive. These are two to five minute little bites of news that's going on with a little bit of opinion. But we usually do most of the opinion on this show. The only way you can get those is if you subscribe. So if you're not subscribed to the show, go to iTunes, Google Play, wherever you listen, and subscribe. Joel: My last shout out ... Chad: Get it. Joel: Might be more of an RIP, but rumor has it that the Career Builder Empower Conference, I guess, not even sure what this is. It's apparently a big deal. I'm sure clients come in and sort of a user meeting thing. Rumor has it it has been postponed this year. I don't know if that means canceled for good or what, but the dumpster fire continues to warm us nicely into the summer months. I'm expecting it to keep us toasty in fall and winter and the rest of next year. So Career Builder, keep dropping bombs so we can keep talking about it. Chad: Cost cutting at it's best. Joel: You ready to get to the show? Chad: Let's do this. Joel: All right. You want to talk about shortage, and I'll let you talk about your shortage issues. Chad: Yeah. The shortage issue, I'm not having shortage issues. The country is having shortage issues. Mainly, first of all, we're going to talk about IT in Google. So Google has announced that they're collaborating with a bunch of different colleges, but this article talked about North Texas Community College to bring its professional certificate course to students in an attempt to develop more qualified IT labor pools. Chad: So Google, I mean, they actually started this in the Silicon Valley where they were pulling people into the GooglePlex and doing these classes to be able to create this talent, which is one of the things that we've talked about. This is more organic and it makes a helluva lot more since. Now it's been announced about 25 community colleges across the country will be providing eight month courses that are these Google courses, which is freaking awesome and I don't know why this isn't just a staple in all of these IT companies recruiting and pipelining. It makes no damn sense why they're not doing it. Joel: There's a great scene in the movie The Untouchables, which I know you've seen and probably most of our listeners have, where Sean Connery takes Kevin Cosner to the police training facility and says, "If you want to make sure your apple is fresh, don't get it from the barrel, get it from the tree." There's a lot of insight to that in terms of business where these companies are saying, "Look, a lot of the colleges aren't churning out people with the skills that we need," and granted, the skillsets that people need are changing so quickly that it's hard for colleges to keep up. So hey, why don't we just grow our own apples, so the speak, create our own funnel of talent, create our own brand loyalty, and improve our employment brand before these people are even in the job market. I think it's a tremendous strategy. I suspect that you'll see this go form the tech sector and people like Google to healthcare industries, growing your own nurses, helping grow just about anything accountants, engineering. Joel: I also think it's interesting we didn't talk about this last week, but there's a new story about colleges that were basically investing in students, or allowing people to pay for college based on your salary when you graduate of getting a certain percentage, I think 5% of your annual salaries. So you're bypassing payment and the colleges are funding it. They're turning their students into investments, which I think is also an interesting and creative way to get more people into college. Joel: So I love this out of the box companies paying for it, colleges getting creative. I think I'm a big fan of it, and I hope it takes off in a mass scale. Chad: Oh yeah. Well, just here locally, so I was talking to local heating and air conditioning, what they've gone through when they've acquired and become these big, massive HVAC companies. And I talked to one of the techs, I asked him, I was like, "Dude, so how did you get to become a tech," and he said, "Hey, they put me through school. I'm on a three year contract." We've talked about this on the show. "I'm on a three year contract. I have to stay with this company for three years, but to be quite frank, the benefits and how they treat me, I don't know why I'd want to leave." So even heating and air, I mean, so smart because it's so hard to find skill trades, IT, I mean, it doesn't matte.r the labor market is short. Period. So if you're not growing your on, you're screwed. Joel: I think I'm interested in this. The local high school nearby, the workshop school is sponsored by O'Reilly. You go by the school, there's a big O'Reily Auto Parts and they're teaching teenagers how to fix cars and bringing them right into the workforce directly from high school in a trade that's going to make them money. So I think that's great as well. Chad: Yeah. So ... Joel: ... from high school and a trade that is going to make them money. I think that's great as well. Chad: Yeah. Next story is pilots. As I said, we have a shortage everywhere, and it looks like also on the side of airlines. We're traveling more as human beings, and we're not doing it in cars as much or trains or automobiles. Cost of flying is lower, and there's a huge need for pilots. Joel: Yeah. I mean, Millennials aren't buying homes. They're just traveling the world like Kung Fu Grasshopper. Yeah. The news that came out was that Delta expects to hire 8,000 pilots over the next decade, and they're actually giving conditional job offers to college students. So, they're going to the tree as well as opposed to waiting for them to come out. American Airlines has started offering loans to students as well. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And they've got a academy as well. Joel: Oh, do they? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Some experts from the article wonder if automation can ease some of the burden. They're kind of skeptical that that could happen, but I think at some point, automation is going to catch up and we'll have ... Of course, with regulations you have to have two pilots, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: That's kind of the rule. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I don't see people getting on planes that are automated anytime soon. Although, you could argue that almost every plane is automated. The people just kind of sit there, and if something goes wrong, they pull a Denzel Washington and flip the plane upside down and land it or whatever. But, yeah, pilot issues, man. If you have kids that like to fly, man, put them in pilot school. Chad: Yeah. In the '80s, pretty much two-thirds of all pilots were ex-military. Problem is the military is having issues right now, and they're predicting shortages with pilots. Not to mention we're moving toward drones on the military side of the house. If the airline industry was really just being fed by the military, the military is having shortages and we know that it's already hard to get people in the military as it is. If you're using that as your sole feeder system or one of your biggest feeder systems, you're going to have an issue. Chad: Yeah. American Airlines actually announced that they have a Cadet Academy, with the intent of really training and recruiting the next generation of pilots. As we're seeing it with Google, as we're seeing it with local HVAC and then now with pilots, this is a trend, and if you're not getting into this trend, then you're going to be the one that is going to have to fully automate because there are going to be no human beings to do your damn job. Joel: Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. Right, sergeant? Chad: No shit. Joel: All right, man, let's take a quick break. Let's hear from our favorite, I don't know, compliance providers. That's your lane, but let's hear from AJE and we'll talk about texting, of all things. Chad: AJE! AJE: America's Job Exchange is celebrating our 10th year as an industry leader in diversity recruitment and OFCCP compliance. We've been helping our thousand-plus customers comply with OFCCP regulations that directly support positive and effective diversity recruitment designed to attract and convert veterans, individuals with disabilities, women, and minorities and empower employers to pursue and track active outreach with their local community-based organizations. Want to learn more? Call us at 866-926-6284, or visit us at www.americasjobexchange.com. Joel: Text wars, nothing but text wars. Chad: There's so much business out there on the texting side of the house because nobody's fricking ... They're not adopting it. I just think this is totally just Blue Ocean for any of these companies and for Canvas and Jobvite in this case. This feels like shade of iCIMS and TextRecruit, but still, who else is doing this? Joel: Yeah. So for those that don't know or don't remember, iCIMS acquired TextRecruit earlier this year. Chad: Geez Joel: They had actually partnered in a similar fashion in 2015 with TextRecruit. It almost looks like Jobvite is taking a page out of the blueprint of what iCIMS did. So, announced this week, Jobvite is launching Jobvite Text powered by Canvas, which will be their own tech solution. Now I wrote a post on ERE, and you know that we disagree on whether or not iCIMS will close shop and just make TextRecruit an iCIMS product. I don't know if you've changed on that. Probably not. But I believe that Jobvite looked at TextRecruit tapping into its data via API, got a little nervous, and decided getting in bed with Canvas was probably a good idea, a good insurance policy. Joel: I wrote about my opinion on that. And on the article on ERE, we had Eric from TextRecruit leave a comment, which I thought that I would read- Chad: Go ahead. Joel: ... real quick. "Hey, Joel, it's great to see the category continue to grow. I'm a big fan of Dan, who's the CEO of Jobvite. I wanted to know, we still love all our Jobvite prospects and customers and are completely agnostic when it comes to HCM, ATS, or CRM that we work with. I believe that choices are important for all customers, and there is zero incentives for iCIMS to have us work only with their CRM ATS. We are seeing some of our large TextRecruit enterprise clients using diversified tech stacks that include Aperture, LinkedIn, iCIMS, and Workday. We will continue to build candidate and employee engagement solutions that cross over the entire stack. ATSs are not building their own email or phone systems. They won't be building their own text automation system." Yeah, because they bought you. Chad: Yeah, but think about it. What I led off with is the opportunity is huge out there. Right now, there is no reason to be able to lock down TextRecruit, iCIMS locking down TextRecruit, or even Jobvite. If they do end up buying Canvas, there's no reason to have any exclusivity out there because there's so much opportunity to gain more revenue. at least right now. Maybe not five years from now, but right now there is so much opportunity for revenue in this space, it would be dumb to actually lock them down from an exclusivity standpoint. Joel: I agree that there's no reason for Eric or iCIMS to want to stop the growth, whether it's revenue or growth of the product, amongst people that use those services. Chad: Correct. Joel: But I think you can probably agree why Dan Finnigan at Jobvite would be a little nervous that iCIMS owns that property and that maybe he wants to hedge his bets and get in bed with a competitor in case something does go wrong. Do you at least agree that most ATSs should be a little bit weary of TextRecruit having access to so much data of your ATS? Chad: Well, first off, if I go to iCIMS and I tell iCIMS that I want to use Canvas, they're not going to tell me No. Joel: Yeah, I agree. Chad: They're not going to tell me No. So, that just totally defeats the entire argument whatsoever. If I go to Dan Finnigan, Dan Finnigan's not going to tell me that I can't use TextRecruit. There could be some great advantages, there is no question, to be able to integrate with specific vendors, but there's no way in hell either one of those CEOs are going to cut off cash. Joel: Are you agreeing that Dan should be nervous or not? Chad: I think they should all be nervous. If they don't- Joel: I agree with that. Chad: ... if they don't have a text partner, which is one of the reasons why I think Jobvite was incredibly smart in getting into this. It made just so much sense. Joel: We agree on that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I agree that Eric wants this thing to grow as much as possible. I agree that Aman at Canvas wants it to grow as much as possible. I'm sure Euan at Emissary wants it to grow as much as possible. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: But if you're an ATS and iCIMS owns this property and it's integrated into your system, you should be a little bit Trojan horse worried. Even if nothing happens, it's in your favor to at least be cautious about it. And I also think that neither one of us would be shocked if we get a headline that says, "Jobvite acquires Canvas" six months from now. Right? Chad: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised about that at all. As a matter of fact, I'd be looking to that for that to happen. But we've got to remember, we talk about getting data. Right? It's not like they're getting the fucking launch codes for God's sakes. It's not that big of a deal from a data standpoint. We want to be able to think that this is a Russian hacking-type of scheme. It's not that. It's not that big of a deal. Joel: We can investigate further as to what exactly data they're getting access to. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I guarantee it's not Social Security numbers, blood type, or anything. Joel: No. I agree it's not either. Chad: So, none of it matters. Joel: If it's traffic numbers, if it's page views, if it's user calls, which even that simple kind of data, or just even knowing what clients that ATS has. Yeah, I wouldn't put it ... I don't know. I just think that you should be cautious as an ATS owner if ATSs start buying up these tech solutions and they start super integrating with your stuff, whether it's from, "Oh, they could cut it off tomorrow or they could be getting intel on my stuff." I would be cautious about it. Chad: I think anybody who is at a tech startup right now, could be chatbot texting, whatever it is, messaging, period. We'll just call it that. You are in a wonderful position. No question. Joel: Yes. Yes. If you need an idea for a business to start, this might be a good one to like, because there are a lot more ATSs than there are text messaging solutions for recruitment? Chad: Yeah. Well, that being said, TextRecruit launched a new, I guess you could say kind of a feature to their platform called TextTalent- Joel: Yeah. Chad: ... which is pretty freaking cool. Joel: It's really cool. As I read it, basically it's sort of sourcing meets text recruiting. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. When you're creating a actual TextRecruit campaign against a requisition, you can search third-party resume databases. So, you can start pulling candidates in from third-party resume databases. Your reach continues to grow past your applicant tracking systems database. So, yeah, no. I think that is pretty fricking cool. Joel: Very cool. And they've also ... I think we mentioned this a little bit back, that TextRecruit launched drip campaigns, so they are more and more becoming a marketing platform than just a texting communication platform. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So, knowing Eric as we do, that doesn't surprise us and knowing iCIMS like we do, that doesn't surprise us. I think that's really, really cool, that TextRecruit is really pushing the envelope, because they are ahead of the competition right now and I think will continue to be in the near future. So, kudos for the solutions they're churning out. Chad: Here's the big message. No matter Canvas, TextRecruit, Emissary, whatever the other options are, if you're leading talent acquisition and your recruiters don't have a formalized texting platform to engage candidates, get one now because you know your recruiters are already texting candidates. But if it's not saved in the centralized database and you could be audited, not to mention you can't use machine learning or AI against data that you don't have, so there are so many reasons why you need to have text. Not to mention, I don't know if we, we didn't say this, but 90% of SMS are actually read within the first three seconds. Email sucks, guys. Emails for shit compared to text. If you're not doing text, you're out, dude. Joel: No, that we can agree on. I think the next argument will be text versus automation, chatbots, AI, et cetera. Chad: See, I see chatbots and I see messaging as messaging, so I see texting becoming now part of that. These are just different channels that the chatbots get to be able to connect with you. So, whether it's on text, whether it's on Facebook Messenger, I see all that as an integrated solution very, very shortly. Joel: I think ultimately, the text recruiting folks will start implementing AI and automation more than I do a chatbot integrating text messaging. Chad: Right. Joel: I think those will be a feature of text platforms as opposed to the other way around. Would you agree with that? Chad: Yeah. It's a hard one, but I would say yeah. I think that it's just more of the focus and where they're already going. So, yeah, I would definitely agree. I think if you started out with texting and you started to move toward messaging, that, to me, is more exciting than trying to move from messaging and then backing up into text. Joel: All right. You ready to take a quick break and then talk about acquisitions? Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: All right, a word from Sovren, gang. Sovren: Sovren AI Matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches. It tells you how and why it produced them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI Matching, visit sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: We talk about AI machine learning, and you want some AI to actually power- Chad: ... that text platform, you might want to call Sovren. Joel: Dude, Sovren is a unknown beast in this industry like ... Yeah, everybody uses them. It's amazing. It's amazing. By the way, quick interjection before we talk about acquisition, so I was messaging back and forth with an Indeed employee. Chad: Okay. Joel: One of the ground troops, and frankly, you probably agree with this, talking to the ground troops is the best, because the front line and the people making the calls- Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Know so much more than the management and executives. Joel: So anyway, I love talking to sales people; so what this sales person told me was, that the three other solutions aside from Indeed, the three that he hears more than any other are ZipRecruiter- Chad: Yes. Joel: Facebook. Chad: Okay. Joel: Which I thought was interesting. Chad: Yes. Joel: And LinkedIn. CareerBuilder never, Monster never, Dice never, Craigslist never, because I asked; so just a little tidbit from the front lines of the job posting battle ground. The three ... Of course Indeed is going to say it's talked about, but Indeed and then those other three says are really hot. Joel: The biggest surprise to me was Facebook. I didn't expect Facebook to be on the minds of employers so much. Chad: Yeah. I would think SMB side of the house, maybe that's who this sales person deals with, I don't know. Joel: Yes. Joel: Yes, it was SMB, I'll put that out there. Yeah, and he was like LinkedIn getting more into SMBs, I told him like, “Yeah, you know, you should be hearing more LinkedIn, a little bit as you go forward,” and he promised to keep me abreast if he hears more and more LinkedIn; but LinkedIn is still number three in SMBs. Joel: So off to acquisitions. Joel: Acquisitions, man. Ultimate Software dropped 300 mil on PeopleDoc. Chad: PeopleDoc. Joel: From your favorite country, France. Chad: Yeah, well they did pretty well in that World Cup thingy. Joel: They did pretty well. They were good. They're lucky they didn't play the three lions, but that's a talk for another day. Chad: They didn't even show up for their freaking ... their last match. Joel: No, no, no. There's too much ... There's beer at the pub, man. You don't want to play a nothing match; so anyway, the news, 300 million. Acquired PeopleDoc for 300 in cash and stock. It expected to close next quarter this year. Both make HR solutions. Joel: Ultimate Software went public in '98, they've been around forever as we know. PeopleDoc, kind of they've raised somewhere around 30 million dollars up to this point; so yeah, it just seemed like similar solutions, to me just a little bit like Shaker buying the Arland Group, right? Joel: You got some talent, you got some customers, maybe you got some duplicitous technology that you can wrap in, or new technology, and so that's what that seemed like to me. Any takeaways for you? Chad: Yeah, I think, no question being able to increase footprints internationally, makes a heck of a lot of sense; but also it sounded like, from what I've read, you know, I've never used PeopleDoc; but it sounded like PeopleDoc was really more focused on the employee e-engagement side of the house, which makes a hell of a lot of sense because we just talked about labor shortages, right? Chad: The smartest thing for employers to do, for companies to do today, is to focus on retention; so being to have that outreach, have that smooth onboarding, to be able to continue to interact with your employees; so it sounded like this is more of an employee engagement, kind of UI and outreach-kind of scenario; which I thought was incredibly smart. Joel: This is also interesting to me because in talking to Georges Laroque, in our upcoming podcast, he mentioned France as being the number two country in terms of venture capital. Did I hear that right? Or was the coffee a little strong for me that morning? Chad: Yeah, coffee was a little strong. He said France was the fastest growing because they really focused on growing startups, so you know, this does make sense obviously. Joel: Yeah, Macron, they have a new leader who's really pushing some commercial interests and startup engagement there, so yeah, I think it's great. Most of the French startups we're not big fans of, but hey, you know? You got to take some swings to get some hits, so hopefully we'll be seeing some more out of France that impresses us; but we're surely impressed by at least the money that Slack has raised, 790 million dollars. Chad: That's a lot of cash. Joel: We're freaking out when someone raises 50 million, and these guys are like just dwarfing all that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But, they made an acquisition for Missions. What do you know about them? Chad: Slack is really a foundational-kind of a platform, right? And, if you want to do something different with Slack, you build on the foundation, and you do that with apps; so they're different, kind of like almost like a modular-kind of scenario. The interesting thing is 65% of Slack users, the actual companies, build their own apps; so that means the balance of those companies have to hope that there's something in the App Store that they can kind of plug in. Chad: Missions is more of a workflow-kind of an app, that can be indigenous to Slack overall; so if you do have a company who is onboarding, which is actually what TechCrunch said, and I thought it was interesting, after talking about PeopleDoc for 300 million. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Being able to have better employee engagement using Slack, which is a great way to engage employees, because they're on Slack all damn day, and using Missions to be able to do that, to be able to process a much better workflow; so I thought it was really cool. Joel: You know, one of the great things about having an App Store is you find out which apps are the most popular, and then you go buy them. Chad: Yeah. Joel: iCIMS buying TextRecruit probably had a little bit to do with iCIMS seeing the growth- Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Of TextRecruit users, we see this with Facebook apps, I think Apple ... Apple, one of their original apps was like sort of a tracking or statistics app that I think they acquired way back in the day, so it's a real benefit to have that, and this is just Slack saying, “You know, look, these are pieces that are incredibly popular. Why don't we roll these into our main offering and go native with it?” Joel: And, to me, this was a smart move. There was no ... The financials weren't disclosed, which usually means it wasn't enough to really talk about, so this Missions team was probably a pretty small company, Slack found some money in the cushions, gave it to them and got the app suite, so I'm in favor of this move, for sure. Chad: Oh, yeah, and there's nothing worse than getting into a platform, especially when you're new, and there's no easy-to-understand workflow. I mean, it just, it's, “Okay, what's my workflow? How do I do? Where do I go?,” and from this standpoint there's no question, from Slack's standpoint you can create your own workflows with Missions; and, again, it just makes a powerful platform that much more powerful. Joel: I agree. Do you want to talk about Canada or not? Chad: Oh, why not? Joel: Why not? All right, so there's a lawsuit by a former CareerBuilder employee that I wrote about for ERE that should be published soon if you want to check that out, but, basically, sales guy in Toronto whose boss was demeaning to him, made sort of derogatory remarks, allegedly. Joel: This is what the claim says, that he was sick. His boss said, “Oh, this seems to be a trend on Mondays,” kind-of thing. He had his commission structure changed, he had the ability to work at home sort of negated or lessened, according to the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit he went to HR, filed a complaint. Joel: HR out of Chicago, I believe said, “Yeah, we'll look into it and let you know,” they didn't get back to the plaintiff. He told his boss he had filed a complaint with HR, shortly thereafter was fired, and so he's basically suing CareerBuilder in Canada, or CareerBuilder for wrongful termination and harassment. Joel: Now, we talked about this a little bit before the show; if you're a salesperson in America, you're probably thinking, “Well, Jesus, I get shit all the time when I'm sick, or if I take lunch for five minutes longer. Like, why is that a big deal?,” or you know, “Hey, I get my commissions structure changed every six months, like why is that a big deal?,” or, “Hey, yeah, if they tell me I got to come in the office, I got to come in the office.” Joel: However, if you're in Canada, there's this little thing called “Poisoned work environment” where you can't do stuff like say derogatory things like, “Oh, it seems like you're always sick on Monday,” or, “Oh, that's a trend, huh?”, so you got to be really nice in Canada, apparently; and people, employees, will sue you if you're not, which is what we're looking at here. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I will also add that the limits on what you can get from these kind of lawsuits are really low relative to what Americans can get. Chad: Got you. Joel: The cap on this, I think, is 75,000 that you can get as a worker for this stuff. He's also asking for like back-pay, and some severance, and blah, blah, blah, but it totals about 150,000; which, if he's paying legal fees, he's probably going to get like 500 dollars from doing all this with lawyers; whereas the lawsuit by our buddy at Shiftgig, Lori McInerney, hopefully I said that right, is seven-figure area; so God bless America, sue everybody. Chad: Yeah, not so much. I can understand if you're being treated differently than anybody else, and I mean, the derogatory remarks, they just ... Doesn't make any sense for that, I mean if you're in management you have to be a step above that; if somebody is off a lot on Mondays, well then, in the review you bring that up. I mean you actually show facts. “Here are the facts, this is what we've seen”. Chad: Just being stupid and kind of throwing things out there, I mean, it happens, but it's one of those things where we have to be more disciplined and it shouldn't. Commission structures change all the damn time. Now, was his commission structure changed? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Verus everybody else's? I mean, that's a big question, and then also, the work-from-home segment, right? If you're being punished from working from home because you're not hitting goal, not because you're missing Mondays, because you're not hitting goal, that's not an issue. You need to hit goal. Joel: Yeah, I don't think this is a frivolous lawsuit. I really feel like the plaintiff probably feels like, “I got crappy ... I got shit on at work”. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I just think, for Americans, particularly people in sales, to hear this would be like, “Gee, that's just Tuesday”, I think that, that's maybe a little different, but I also would say that there seems to be a trend at CareerBuilder of like an old boy ... like untraditional culture that's different than other places, and as the world changes, it looks like CareerBuilder's having a hard time changing with that reality. Chad: Well, I don't know. I mean, their President of Sales and two VPs of Sales are not there anymore. That to me signals some change. Joel: Well, let's see if they bring on new ones, because we don't know if that's just a straight up, “chop this baby up and monetize, and sell”, or whatever, or if it's a literal like Monster, “Let's get rid of everybody of old, and let's bring in new people”. Joel: I would agree with you if they start bringing in new SVPs and new Vice Presidents in Sales, but if they don't, then to me this is just a chop job to bring out as much profit as possible, and probably sell this sucker at some point. Chad: Yeah, which we've seen they're doing pretty often. Joel: Anyway, love the Canadian reference because my wife's Canadian, she'll appreciate that, other than that, I'm going to probably go to the porch and have a beer, in my new Talroo pint glass. Chad: Yeah, I was going to say, just don't wear that Talroo half-shirt that you have now. Joel: That's for the next bet I lose against you. Chad: Oh, that'll be soon. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my step dad, “The Chad” and his goofy friend “Cheese”. You've been listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. Tristen: They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors, because I need new track spikes, you know, the expensive shiny, gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Jobvite #Canvas #iCims #TextRecruit #Google #AmericanAirlines #UltimateSoftware #Slack #Careerbuilder

CA$H is GUSHING into the Recruitment Industry, which is why George Laroque from HRWins.com joins Chad and Cheese to break down the first two quarters of VC spending in 2018 (spoiler - '18 is already bigger than '17) Are AI, Block Chain, and Machine Learning taking all the VC cash? It's a breakdown of who, what, why and how of all the investment money flowing into recruitment technology startups. George shares insights and data specific to Recruitment Industry VC CA$H! Many props to Uncommon for this EXCLUSIVE look into the ca$h that's being pushed into the Recruitment Industry. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad: This, The Chad & Cheese Podcast, brought to you in partnership with TAtech. TAtech, the association for Talent Acquisition Solutions. Visit tatech.org Joel: Chad, why do recruiters spend money on unqualified, or uninterested candidates? Chad: Dude, I don't know, because they're recruiters. What in the hell are you talking about, in the first place? Joel: All right, stay with me here. PPC campaigns mean you're paying for click, and the person who clicks could be qualified, or unqualified. You don't know, and you're still going to pay for that click. Chad: Hell, man a subscription model is even worse, because you're paying for all of the candidates, not necessarily qualified ones. Joel: Bingo. So the answer is current pricing models suck, duh. So, what if you handed over cash for only interested, and qualified candidates. I'm talking about candidates that are actually qualified. The ones that meet all of your job requirements from years in industry to specific skills. Chad: I gotcha, now you're talking about Uncommon. Joel: Bingo, Uncommon is where the model does not suck. Right now, Uncommon only charges $14.95, that's 14 dollars and 95 cents per interested, and qualified candidate. If you do volume hiring you'll get bigger discounts. Chad: Man, that's cheap. So, yeah Uncommon is simple, you set your monthly budget, and Uncommon only charges you when you get an interested applicant that meets, or exceeds your job requirements. Joel: And to sweeten the deal just create your free account, and get your first five qualified, and interested candidates for free. Just go to uncommon.co to create your free account. That's U-N-C-O-M-M-O-N dot C-O and get those fresh five free peeps with mega skills. Chad: Hey, this is Chad from the Chad, and Cheese Podcast, today on the Uncommon exclusive we have George Larocque. Joel: George Larocque, the rock. Chad: La rock, not the porn star by the way. This is George Larocque, George you've been in the recruiting industry for a good amount of time. Give us a little bit of your background, and tell the listeners why they need to know a little bit about George. George: It has been a good amount of time. It's been like almost thirty years now. So, I spent ten years, I came out of the staffing world, moved on to the employers side, came out of recruiting into HR, and really ran it all. Spent 10 years on the vendor side, launched a couple of bigger brands in talent acquisition, and worked in talent management, there as well. Now it's been about nine years as this analyst, and advisor. George: So, what I do is publish reports on HRwins.com. Outside of the reports, what I do is, I help employers, and vendors understand each other. One of the things that I do as a part of that is track innovation, and all of the start ups, what's coming up, and share a quarterly report on the VC that's been invested in those start ups globally for HR tech in all of the segments. Joel: So, George what piqued my interest there was saying 30 years in the industry. So, let's start with an historical perspective from you in regards to, I guess the VC space. What are your take-aways from the last, 10, 20 years of money flowing in, and out of the industry? George: The last 10 it's been just, you know, We've had maybe a couple of lulls here, you know 2008, 2009, everybody tapped their brakes, right, with the financial collapse, but generally speaking it is just been a, it's been salad days as far as the money flowing into the business, right, into the industry. Deals that in 2000, 18 years ago, you know somebody got $5 million. We were like, "Wow, that's a lot of money." George: Last week, Greenhouse got $50 million and I saw Daniel, the CEO there, and I said, "That's a lot of money." And he said, "It is." It's, we had earlier in the quarter, we had a $100 million round to Checker, right. So, it's just vastly different, and that's not just an HR tech things. It's everywhere, the money is, it's incredible how much money is out there for start-ups. Chad: So why do you think this much money is actually going out to, I mean, $50 million is a good clip of cash. So, what does a Greenhouse, or what does a Checker, what do they actually need with this kind of cash? George: Well, $50 million at Greenhouse, and I knew them a little better that I do Checker, but it's a later stage round. They've raised over $100 million. So, when you look at what a company's doing with a big later stage round like this, these aren't, this isn't like back when Zenefits came out of nowhere, and raised 500 right? That was just inexplicable, and where are they now, right? Chad: Yeah. George: So, this is more of a growth funding, they've received validation. Now, I'm not saying it's a foregone conclusion that they will be the leader they are trying to become, or seem to be emerging as, in either one of their cases. But they've had to demonstrate a certain amount of revenue traction, a certain amount of you know product market fit, that they've got to have the right team. So, at the same time investors like to double down, it's a safer bet when others have done before and these, these firms have demonstrated more results. So, they're rather put more money into a more established vendor. That's why it's so hard to raise the early money, because it's you know you don't have the product you don't have the market acceptance yet. Joel: George, you see a lot of companies now sort of forego the public space. You know, going IPO, in the early days, you know Monster Dice, going public was sort the way that people would cash out. Today, you're seeing someone like Glassdoor that gets two hundred some million in investment money go for the sale to recruiting, you know recruiting in the space, recruiting in this instance as opposed to going IPO. Is it your sense that these companies are getting a lot of money? Is the goal essentially to sell or to go IPO in your opinion? George: You know back in the day, when I was on a vendor site. I was employee number 10 at BrassRing, we raised a crap ton of money, you know largely from the newspaper industry. You know, and it came from their corporate funds. If you asked me when I was running sales for BrassRing, I would have said, "Well, what we have to do in order to exit, whether we're acquired, or whether we go public is exactly the same. We've got to build value, yes." It's the sound bite that you're told to give when your asked that question. Now, I think there's more of an assumption that, obviously the VCs looking to get their money back times five. George: I don't know that there's a preference. I think they want, I think there's less of a glow around going public to your point. I think there's, if they get acquired, and they get a sick multiple, that's a hell of a lot easier, you know, staying private not going through that process. But you know I think that really has to do with the culture of the organization, and sort of the founders, right. How, you know, what's their vision for what they want to build, and what success means to them, and then depending on how much they're leveraged, what that means to the VC they took their money from. You know, it means more what the VC thinks if you're highly leveraged to them. Joel: Yeah, so it sounds like strategy is changing when it comes to start ups. That being said, obviously funding has changed as well from comparing last year to this year. Can you give us can of like an idea of how much money's been spent in 2018 versus 17, and what that looks like possibly moving out through the end of Q4. George: We're basically at the mid point of 2018, and we've already surpassed 2017. So, with 1.33 billion in 2018, that's a couple hundred K, I'm sorry a couple hundred million more than we did, we did about 1.09 billion in 2017. So, that's a break neck pace. It's hard to predict where we'll be end of the year, because you know I look at, you know Q1 this year was huge. It was almost 800 million, just in Q1. So we have about 533 million in Q2, so you know that's dip from Q1, yet Q2 was bigger than any quarter in 2017. So, does that mean, will we spike up again? It's really hard to predict, because you know I don't know that, you know, the same indicators you'd look at for just general corporate growth, or how the job markets doing, or how the stock markets doing, necessarily relate to the investments that are in the works today. It's hard to predict for me, anyhow. Chad: So most, I mean, most VC and correct me if I'm wrong, they don't even understand our industry in the first place. So are they just anxious to just throw cash at anything that sounds good? I mean even just a concept versus what's actually there. It was funny the other day we were talking about vaporware, and how that was big term back in the late 90s. It almost seems like what's going on today as well. George: You have a couple of questions there. You know, to Joel's point earlier, I think the VC sees these exits, they see the Glassdoor acquisition, they see Indeed being acquired, they see Linkedin being acquired, they see all of these things. And you know there's some big, these are some mammoth acquisitions, big exits for these guys. So, it draws a lot of attention to the space. You know, on the other side of things they saw success factors years ago, and you know which was another giant acquisition by SAP. You could argue whether that was way over valued or not. So, that gets a lot of attention. Then you start to look at the issues, like a macro level that everybody is aware of, right. In the news you hear about the pay gap, you hear about the skills gaps, you hear about, you know, the job market having issues, you know talent hard to find. So the VC is aware of this and I think it attracts them to the space. George: I don't know if it's vaporware that they're investing in, because it's really hard to raise, you know, I talk to so many start ups that have, they have a product they have a good idea, but they don't have the traction they need to track that early round of venture capital. It used to be a million dollar run rate, you know, less than ten years ago, a million dollar run rate in recurring revenue would drive some investment, but that's clearly not cutting it any longer. They're looking for more traction, more success, but there's still like that old. There's still that old boys network. You look at the big rounds that go really early, and you can see the ties, whether it's through their educational background, maybe they worked at an investment bank, worked in the same corporate corporation at some point. I still see a lot of that for the really big ones that happen early on. Chad: You're saying D, actually your C rounds, at least within your report, is where a lot of the money's going. So what you're saying is, there has to be that proven model that's in place. Even though 120 million went to A, most of the money over all went to more later round funds. George: Yeah, that's yeah. That's a good point. Now, it's impossible to track all of the seed rounds, and this is something that I think vendors really need to get their head around when they want to raise some money, and get to that A round. The reasons it's so hard to track, I get a lot of calls form vendors and they're looking for introductions to venture capitalist that make super early, you know, investments. That money tends to come more from angels and independent investors, and there's a full time job there, which is networking and pitching your company to these networks of independent investors. George: If you don't them already you've got to get to know them and you got to get them really believing in what you're doing. If you were to get a few hundred thousand dollars to leave their hands for you to go build your business and get to that A round. It's a whole different game than the folks that are pitching for an A round on the backs of you know five, ten, million dollars of run rate. Joel: George, I want to ask you about red flags. Historically, anyone who watched the Jobster train wreck [crosstalk 00:14:22] taking as much money as they did, this was bound to end badly. Erik, the CEO, and founder of TextRecruit spoke at TAtech last year, and said something along the lines of, you know, how much does a chat bot like Maya, really need? I think Maya's raised somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 or 40 million. I'm sure that you probably know better than I. Whereas, TextRecruit took a fairly modest three million, as they had already found some success. So, I'm curious, anyone out there that you can look at both historically, and just sort of the checks, that have been written that you can say fairly well that this is probably not going to end well? George: Well, I think, we just watched, I mentioned Zenefits on the HDM, and benefits side. That was a public implosion for a lot of reasons. They raised a ton of money, over 500 million in one round, and you could just see that that was, that the original founders were arrogant, they were coming into the market smarter, perceiving themselves to be smarter, than every multi-billion dollar pay roll company that came before them. So, it was, you could see that one. That's a historical record. George: Right now, I don't know that I would out any specific vendors, but I would say that I do see a lot of features that are billed as products right now. Chat bots are a really good example. And you know that funding question, how much is too much? You see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that, because you don't want to over leverage yourself. But at the same time, you know, it's- One of the things you can do with money is create a lot of noise, and get a lot of attention, right. You can invest in marketing, you can invest in branding, you can invest in sale people. That's where it isn't necessarily the best product that starts winning in the market with more feet on the street, and more attention. George: So, you know the draw to that is, it's pretty intense. You could almost look at another vendor that's raised a ton of money in, I wouldn't call them a feature, but if you look at SmashFly in the recruitment marketing space. They've raised a lot of money, and you know there's been, we haven't really heard anything officially, but we know that there's been some shake ups from a management perspective. George: You know I look at them and I know they've got a lot of Fortune 500 customers. They're the perceived market leader in recruitment marketing, but at some point, depending on how much money you've raised, it can never be enough, because you can't be on as healthy a clip from a revenue perspective to satisfy those investors. So, it's, again I'm not predicting their demise, but I think that's one that I'm watching to see. I wonder how they're going to fare in the next few years. Chad: Yeah it's almost like you're drowning, right? I mean there's just so much that you can take, and then you've just taken too much. Then to be able to get that five x, or who knows what they're asking for, to be able to actually pay that back against that quote, unquote unicorn type of status isn't easy. Obviously, if it was then everybody would be doing it. George: No, you're right. I think the whole unicorn thing is, it's just a silly conversation you know, unicorn by definition is supposed to be rare, right. Chad: Right. George: It's mythical, so the idea now that the conversation, and the broad B2B tech market is one where, you know sort of getting to unicorn status is the goal. It's just not feasible. It just isn't realistic that they're going to get to- especially in our space. I just don't see that happening. Chad: Yeah, let's switch gears real quick, and let's talk geography. So, where's the money being spent? The start ups where are they at, and I guess you could probably see on both sides, where's the money coming from, and then where's it being spent. What companies, where are they actually located, geography wise? George: Well, not surprising to anybody would be that the US leads, from a VC perspective, both in where the moneys coming from, as well as where the start ups are located. Silicone Valley, is still the, they like to call themselves the cradle of innovation. But you're seeing some other areas like New York, Boston's emerging a little bit, again. Then there's start ups that are located across the country. The world is getting flatter. So, you can attract talent that isn't quite as expensive. They get better quality of life, and your cost of living, and cost of doing business is a little more feasible in the middle of the country. Atlanta's got some interesting things happening there as well but it's still a US and Silicone Valley. George: Internationally speaking, you know. So, in Q2 the US had 21 deals. Number 2 was France with seven. So there's a big gap between number one and number two, and the UK was number three with six. Then everybody else was like one or two deals here or there. France is something interesting, they may never catch up to the US, just given the way we roll here, but and then the UK may never cath up for all I know. But when I look at France, they sort of game out in the last couple quarters. I've said it, I've written about it. I don't know whether, it's something political, or you know what's happening ultraly there. They seem to be developing start ups. They seem to be investing in their people, and even from a governmental perspective, creating ways for folks to start companies and get some early traction. George: I've been contacted by a branch of the French government about a start up coming to the US, and they were helping them find analyst, and advisors. So that's kind of interesting. I'm not aware that we do that for any start ups. Chad: Seeing that in Ireland too. George: Oh really? Okay that's cool. You guys were over there. I listened to your, at least one of your shows from like the Guinness Brewery maybe. Chad: Throughout Dublin, wherever there's beer. Joel: George, I'm curious, you see, obviously we talk a lot about Google, Linkedin, Microsoft, et cetera. Do you see that having a significant impact on the types of companies being funded, and how much they're being funded? George: I think those are good examples again, of activity in the market that draws a lot of attention. But in the talent acquisition space, consistently quarter to quarter, job boards lead as the subcategory, right under, I sort of group it by talent acquisition, and then within that I look at job board slash market places, because I've only seen a couple market places that just look like every job board I've seen. So, by far the job boards lead. I think, you know, while Google has released with in the G Suite, you know, a process management, you know air quotes, ATS like capabilities. George: You know a lot of what they've done, and you know deeper, you have deeper insights into their product stuff, but a lot of what they've done is around the job advertising. Where we're anticipating that build go, is further in that, and getting companies exposure, and dry talent. So, that's a job board like marketplace, and I think that probably has something to do with a sustained investment in job boards, and market places. Chad: Yeah, I mean the job boards already have revenue streams coming in. They're looking to pivot to, I would assume, to evolve past just being a job board. So I guess, and just from my opinion, it makes sense for a company to be able to provide funding to a company who already has solid revenue streams first, and foremost, and they're looking to evolve into different technology. Doesn't that, I mean from my stand point, when I'm seeing this from the outside, that's kind of the feeling I get. Is that what you're feeling as well? George: Yeah, that's one big part of it. The other, I think, is more so than any other solution in our space. It is a two sided, job board by definition is a marketplace. I've got a consumer, and I have the corporation. Right, I've got the consumer, and the business side of it, and I'm bringing them together. George: So, if I'm investing in an applicant tracking solution, it's a one sided sale. I'm selling into the business. So, you've got a really, that sort of high volume transactional environment that a job board can be, is really attractive to an investor, because I can sell, I can sell via eCommerce, I can sell single ads, and I can sell big subscriptions, and other services that I can tack on to your point, and grow this business, because I've got a captive B2B market as well. Joel: George, I'm curious about, I asked about red flags earlier, I'm interested in green flags. Of the start ups that are getting money maybe in multiple rounds. What are some of the ones that you look at and go, "Oh yeah these guys are a home run"? George: I'm not giving anyone, any investment advice, let me say that up front. That's the million dollar question, no pun intended, right. It's I think, you know, let's look at the big sexy trends. So, all of the bots, and the AI, and the machine learning. There are a couple, one that jumps out, I think you might have spoken to them, is AllyO, who goes really deep into the process. Now, how much of that, you know, I haven't gone deep with them. So, I don't know how much of that is like pseudo AI, I don't know how much, I'm not questioning their credibility at all, but that model of doing something innovative, you know, and really changing the game for the recruiters, and talent leaders is something that I would pay close attention to. George: I also see their customer list, and that looks pretty impressive as well. I think, we are going to see some, you know, I don't know whether it's going to be a like a Beamery, or I picked on SmashFly a little bit, it cold be a SmashFly, it could be a Telemetry. I think the folks who can bring the employers something that helps them with that, sort of getting the brand to, out to the audience is going to be interesting as well. I think your, there seems to be room to me for, either a big brand job board to reinvent themselves, or somebody else to come in form the outside, and maybe that's Google. Maybe that's what Google is, the void Google will ultimately fit is the finder of talent, because the Monsters and the Career Builders just didn't get where we thought they were going. Joel: George, man thanks for all your time. We really, really appreciate it. We know you're a busy guy. Thanks and any last words parting wisdom. George: No, I'm just really excited to do this with you guys on a monthly basis. Thanks for having me this is- I am looking forward to it. Chad: That was a good hard sale I love that, that was good stuff. Joel: We are a huge deal apparently, if George wants to be on our monthly show. Chad: No shit. Joel: Thanks George. Chad: Thanks George. George: Thanks guys. Joel: Remember to visit Uncommon.co Chad: Where the candidate model doesn't suck. Right now Uncommon on charges $14.95 per interested, and qualified candidate. Plus if you're into volume, and I know you're into volume, there are bigger discounts. Joel: To sweeten the deal Uncommon allows you to create a few account, and get your first five qualified, and interested candidates absolutely free. Chad: Uncommon.co... Do it. Chad: Thanks to our partners at TAtech the association for talent acquisition solutions, remember to visit TAtech.org. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen, thanks for listening to my stepdad, Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping' that's happening' up in here. Tristen: They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes, you know, the expensive shiny gold pair, that are extra, because well I'm extra. For more visit chadcheese.com #VC #Money #HRwins #Smashfly #Beamery #Jobster #Uncommon #Greenhouse #Checker #Zenefits #TATech

The boys are back after a July 4th break and there's a lot to cover. - Listener comments spark discussion - Thanks! - Shaker expands through acquisition - Beware Google prepares to plant it's colors on UK soil - Google Duplex -- Again?? - Careerbuilder keeps the home fires burning - not in a good way - What the Hell is Apollo doing? - Broadbean moves to "The Ghetto" Enjoy, and give our sponsors a big hug. America's Job Exchange, JobAdX and Sovren love the warm-and-fuzzy. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous broadcast. 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Yo yo yo, it's your favorite podcast. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese show, HR's most dangerous. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: Sowash, Chad Sowash. Joel: You're still Chad, aren't you? On this week's show, Google says, "Good Day, Gov'na!" Shaker shakes things up. You see what I did there? And the dumpster fire rages on at Career Builder. Chad: Jesus. Joel: Yes, it's actually getting worse. Grab some marshmallows, we're making s'mores, right after this word from Sovren. Sovren: Sovren AI Matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit sovereign.com. That's sovren.com. Chad: So smart. Joel: How was your 4th of July? Chad: It was amazing. Joel: Yeah, we took a little break. Chad: Yeah, now, I took a break myself. Being pretty much on the road for a month solid, I binge watched with my lovely wife Julie, Luke Cage. And that's exactly what I was looking for. Joel: It was sort of bleepin' hot where we were for the 4th. So I pretty much stayed in. Now, the benefit that I get is being married to a Canadian, I get to celebrate Canada Day. Which I didn't even know existed before I married a Canadian. Chad: Who would? Joel: But it's kind of a fun little, Let's drink beer and we go up to her sister's in London, Ontario. We have a good ol' time. So, I had a nice little end to end, two country birthday celebration last week but I am ready to get back on the horse and do some podcasting. Chad: Damn straight, its about time. Joel: Shout outs! Chad: Shout out! Chad: Okay, first shout out. Shout out to The Shred. Joel: The Shred. Chad: What the hell is The Shred? It's a new breaking new segment from your favorite podcasters, The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Here's the thing about The Shred, you've got to subscribe because here is why guys, We're not going to put all of this breaking news on the website. Reason being is, it happens all the damn time. So, if you subscribe using iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, whatever it is that you use for your podcasts, it will automatically notify you. And guess what? You will be apart of the breaking news. So, go check out The Shred on the website, you can subscribe and you are off and running with breaking news. Joel: Look, we know a lot of these addicts out there, They can't wait until Friday for the skinny. They gotta have it immediately. Which is why we did The Shred. These little bite size snippets of news. So, you need to subscribe in order to get it but we think it will be really really cool. I'd say this first week with the Career Builder news which we will talk about and the Google news that you broke will be, we will make well worth your while to push subscribe on your latest podcast solution. Chad: Yeah, numbers are already sky rocketing by the way and we haven't even talked about it yet. Joel: It's the bomb! Speaking of, With all of these new listeners, lets make sure that we remind them to vote Chad and Cheese on the upcoming TA Tech nominations for Best of Everything in Recruiting. That's right! If you get up to chadcheese.com, there is a big ole' image that Chad made, it says 'Vote Chad and Cheese' or something. Just chick that, find us on the ballot and click the radio button. Chad: Vote it up. Vote it up. chadcheese.com. So, Angelo over at RoboRecruiter was listening and he loved the Down Goes Slack podcast. He called it 'juicy'. I don't know if we've ever been called juicy before. Joel: Juicy, I've had my booty called juicy before but never a podcast. Chad: What I was thinking is that I could actually go out and get you some of those Juicy Couture sweatpants that say 'juicy' across the back and you can wear those to all our live events moving forward. Thank you, Angelo! Joel: Those would look great with my yoga pants by the way. Wow, the show can only go down from here. Shout out to Ally O, our latest Firing Squad victim. If you have not listened to the latest Firing Squad, check that out. It was a great interview. I won't tell the audience how we voted, but it was favorable for the most part. Chad: Yeah, Ally O, literally are looking to replace recruiters with their technology, their AI, their machine there, whatever the hell you want to call it. I really don't care, it's a platform and I mean they are up front about it. So, yeah it's pretty cool. Joel: Yeah, I think one of the quotes was, "We have companies that are using us, we are their recruiter." Chad: Yeah. Joel: Period. Right? Did I remember that quote correctly? Yeah so, if you are worried about the future of your job as a recruiter, you might want to go check out the interview with Ally O. Chad: And last but least from my side of the house, Joanne De La Rosa, She is and avid listener. She's not even in our space. She's not even in the recruiting space, which is funny because we are hearing more stories of people who aren't even in recruiting and they listen to out podcast. Joel: What's wrong with you people? Chad: I love 'em. I love 'em. We are obviously one of the only pods that she listens to. But here's the thing, Joanne, she is suffering with some medical issues right now and she is recovering. We thought that we would give you a big, get well shout out from Chad and Cheese. Thanks for listening but again the feedback that we receive the engagement that we get from our listeners is huge. Which is very important to us but it is very important that you get well soon, Joanne. Joel: The feedback is our oxygen and a quick note to say hey. If you haven't reviewed us on iTunes, Google Play, wherever you listen please take a few seconds to give us some feedback, we would really appreciate it. Joel: My final shout out for the week goes to Judge.com. Chad: Woo Hoo! Joel: I'm book ending with The Shred at the beginning. Judge is our exclusive Shred sponsor. I'd never even heard of them until we did the podcast because one of our most fanatical listeners, husband works for them and they became a sponsor. So, Judge, big shout out. Thanks for supporting us. We love you. That's judge.com. Chad: That's a hell of a URL. I mean who gets that domain. They have been around longer than you and I have. So, they are not a new group right? Joel: 1958, I think that they have been around. Almost as long as Shaker. Which is a great segway. I know that we want to talk about The Cheap Seats first but yeah, talking about old organizations, Judge is one of them. Chad: Yeah, no shit. So, we are going to set up The Cheap Seats. Why don't you go ahead and set up The Cheap Seats. Joel: You want me to, it's your idea. Chad: I know but you know. Joel: Okay so, we have great listeners and they all have opinions. Many of them like to share their opinions with us. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And have conversations outside of the podcast. And in some cases, we believe like, "Hey this is kinda worthy of more publicity, more exposure." So we thought lets have a little segment called The Cheap Seats. Where we sort of discuss and elaborate on topics that we discuss in private in some cases with our listeners. Chad: Yeas, Yeah. So, Danielle Kluge over at Pontoon, sent us a message, she said that she listened to the Down Goes Slap podcast and she agrees that with more of the simplified positions. We are talking about AI and machine learning and what not. That CDL drivers and warehouse workers can be taken over by AI. Although, she does think that for niche positions, it's going to be a hell of a lot more difficult. So, your thoughts on that Joel? Joel: Define a niche position for me and the audience. Chad: Yeah, a niche position being, lets say for instance, a rocket scientist. That would be a hell of a niche position. Joel: Brain surgeon. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So anything that is not just you have to have a pulse, to be able to work here kind of thing. So, they are more than just the simplified jobs. Joel: I would side on agreeing with that. I think that when you have high turn over, a lot of churn organizations, lower educated folks. We are talking restaurants, hourly, seasonal stuff, I think AI and automation makes perfect sense for that. I think that you as well love the platforms, the Uber type platforms for those folks, where they can turn on themselves and match them with an opportunity for the day to go do that that day. Joel: When we are looking at people who hello, have jobs like scientists, surgeons, doctors, nurses, that becomes much more challenging. Those are the recruiters that have relationships locally, that go to meet up, that go to colleges and build relationships with these folks in order to get into where they live at work and what they do locally and socially. So, I totally agree that automation with start with the lowest common denominator. I would be a little careful to say a 100 years from now, is it not going to penetrate into higher level folks. You and I won't be around probably, we might just be two talking heads in a fish bowl. But I think in the short term, yes. I think that we are a long way from attracting and retaining and recruiting high level folks through automation and AI. Chad: Hey that's why we are feeding the machines right? I mean the machine learning piece of it. So yeah, you gotta start somewhere. So you start at the base. So, machine learning is training the machine to understand more complex problems. We have seen that. I mean we take a look at the IBM debater project that we just talked about a couple of weeks ago. I mean, we are debating, we are playing chess, we are doing all of these things. These are complex problems right? So, the niche positions, yeah they are going to start going after those niche positions as the machine learns. That's what it comes down to. So feeding the machine, those niche positions are also going to be taken by these algorithms. There is no question. Joel: And let's not forget that advertising is going to get better. Right? If you have seen Minority Report, there is nothing saying in the future that a doctor, rocket scientist, will be known as a rocket scientist and as they go to the store to buy groceries and ad pops up about a job as a rocket scientist. Like, advertising will get more, will get smarter as well. Chad: Yup, yup. So thank Danielle for your take on it. Love it. Keep it coming. Joel: Thanks Danielle, good take. Chad: Hot take. OK the next on is from Steven Rothberg, college recruiter. (Booing) Joel: Steven knows us, he will appreciate that. Chad: He loves it. So, Steven tweeted us. So this is out in the public. Chad: Chad and Cheese, love the idea that all hourly workers will be hired through on demand gig apps. Like we have been talking about the Ubers and the Lyfts. But I don't see it. I get that a restraunt can hire a dish washer for a shift at the last minute but would you want your server to have almost no training? Chad: So what do you think about that? Joel: So, I think that the apps that we've talked about will, you know a lot of these services have badges or they tag people as pros for certain positions. So, I think what these apps are hoping to achieve is, okay if you are a server at Olive Garden, You can be a server at any Olive Garden in town. You could probably be a server at Chili's and probably be a server at Logan's Steakhouse or something right? Chad: Yep. Joel: So, this case, this person could have badge that says I could work at any Olive Garden, any Boca Di Beppo, whatever restaurants those are and then if I am the employer, I can say I only want my opportunity to show up for people who have badges for Olive Garden, or whatever the restaurant is and that can be a match up. I don't think that you can just have a random dude come in to Olive Garden and say okay what's the menu and what do we do, and train them. I don't think that's going to be the future but I do think you can have a badge system where people can automatically can fit into positions. Whether it's a server, a cook, anything. Chad: Right and well, think of it and just now from a driver's stand point and Uber and Lyft. They've done a ton of the heavy lifting right? You can see who the person who is picking you up, the color of the car, but just think of that from the stand point of being able to see the person and their experience within this platform. Where else have they worked? What is their rating? Right? What is their show rate? Those types of things, I think, it makes it much easier to be able to really work within the gig economy itself. To be quite frank, I really think that this is a stop gap solution until automation takes those gigs away. We see McDonald's implementing kiosks, Chili's has a table side electronic menu that you can actually pay your bill through. Go to Kroger and most of the people are actually going through the self service lines. I mean, we are teaching ourselves to get away from actually using human beings and this is going to be another one of the areas where that happens. Chad: One of the examples I used was, I've been in a lot of airports lately. You go up to the counter, and especially in these international airports, to be able to order food, there is an iPad that's there. You use the iPad to order your food, somebody brings you your food, that will probably change in the future. But where is the waiter, where is the waitress? They are gone. Joel: I think that we are a ways away from that, maybe not in the fast food segment but the food service. I mean, the trend is that millennials apparently don't like to cook. They want to go out to eat where it's fast casual or whatever, right? So, you have more demand for these restaurants but there is less talent to sort of take care of these folks. How many times have you gone to a restaurant and there are just tables just sitting there and they tell you it's a thirty minute wait. And you are like there are like eight tables over there. Well, they don't have people to support that. Joel: I think that the magic of the platform, lets back up. So, in Steven's world, I post a job on Craigslist or Zip Recruiter right? I get ten folks that are interesting, I talk to them. Three come in. One doesn't show up. The other one leaves after the first week and I get one person who stays on and I train them, I train everybody but that's huge headache. If I know that there is a conference in town or there's an event, or hey I know that I am going to be short staffed, to be able to win-win open up an app and there's eight people ready to work tonight. Chad: On Demand. Joel: On Demand. They are in there and I know that they can do the job. That's a huge win-win, not only for the restaurant but for the worker because they work on their terms as opposed to the boss's terms. Chad: Yup, and in a perfect world, that person would post their job on Collegerecruiter.com, right Steven? Joel: Which lets be honest, Steven doesn't like that model because it's not his model. Chad: Well not yet. Last person from the Cheap Seats is Johnathan Mills. He had some great questions in clarifying what's going on with Google for Jobs. We've been talking about this and we are going to talk more about it. From my stand point, I've actually talked to a ton of people around what Google for Jobs actually means. They get is confused with the actual API, the job discovery API, in higher and there is a lot of crossing of the streams when you have these conversations. So, my advise, not just to Johnathan but to everybody that's out there, is that you can listen to our show because we talk about it all of the time. We actually have contacts at Google and we try to definitely work hard to get this right, but do your research. Find out what is going on out there. Whether you are in town acquisition, you should definitely be doing your research or if you are a vendor who could prospectively be competing with this, you better know your shit guys. This is very important. So, just to be able to kind of take it laissez faire. You are not going to be able to do that. There are big names in this industry now and its time to bone up and get ready. Joel: Yeah, you know, Google is historically really bad at this whole branding thing. They have always been sort of a branded house as opposed to a house of brands. Which has it's own benefits. I mean, YouTube was kept YouTube. Do you remember Google Video? I do, right? But YouTube is a brand and people in the brain, branded is really nice. So, like I agree that this is your life, this is your profession. You should know the difference between Google, Google for Jobs, the Cloud API and Google Hire. But at the same time Google could do a better job instead of just tagging on these words behind Google to help people understand. Now they got to worry about Google Calendar, Google Chrome, Google is everywhere and it's hard for consumers to keep everything in line. Chad: Big props to Johnathan because in most cases you just kind of take the information that's coming to you and just go on and reverberate that shit, right? He was actually looking for it. He was researching and he wanted an opinion on what's going on. So, big ups to Johnathan and thanks for reaching out to us. Thanks for all of our Cheap Seats listeners. We might do this again, who knows. Joel: Yeah. Let us know, if you hate the Cheap Seats, if there's a topic that you want to discuss on Cheap Seats reach out to one of us or go to ChadCheese.com but let's take a quick break. Right? And then we are gonna come back and talk about a recent acquisition. JobAdX: How many times has someone said to you, "We are the Uber of. Or It's the Paypal of." Maybe they are the Facebook of. In many many cases these cases fall short of being close to reality or even a useful illustration of what organizations actually do. In the case of JobAdX our example is so accurate, so spot on that it is synonymous with our work. JobAdX is Google Ad for jobs, that means that we are efficient, consistent and smarter ad unit for job related advertising. As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX offers recruitment marketing agencies RPOs and staffing firms real time dynamic bidding an delivery for client postings through the industries first truly responsive tool. All of this is done with the flexibility of JobAdX's cost per impression, click, or application. We offer unique budget conservation options to effectively eliminate spending waste. We're not set in regret, for direct clients, JobAdX delivers superior candidates with the best of programmatic efficacy and premium page ad positioning. We also provide publishes on job boards, higher rev share and other partners through our smart programmatic platform. In many cases, thirty to forty percent greater through our scalable model. JobAdX: To partner with us, you can visit or search JobAdx.com or email us at joinus@jobAdx.com to get estimates or begin working together. JobAdX, the best ad tool providing smarter programmatic for your needs. Oh and if you've been wondering about the British accent? JobAdX just launched in the UK too. Joel: You know Job Gate, coming up for our listeners that are going. I am pretty sure that JobAdX is going to be there, so if you are interested, find Isabelle or Tim or whoever and learn more. Chad: Oh yeah. And I believe that they are also up for one of the innovator awards. So again, when you go to Chadcheese.com and you click on the vote, they will be up for one of those awards too. So, vote for JobAdX. Joel: Do that thing. Because if they are successful, we keep getting paid, that's what I am talking about. Chad: Amen Brother. Joel: Yep. Shaker! Chad: Acquiring the Arland Group? So, didn't see that coming did you? Joel: We don't see a lot of agency on agency crime. In the industry, where they buy each other. It's usually private equity firms or they just downsize to the point where they are just skeleton crews. But yeah, this was a rare acquisition. Newspapers for sure have been probably the most demolished industry since the dawning of Craigslist and Job boards and everything that has happened. But agencies thrived as newspapers thrived. So, as the decline of newspapers has happened, agencies have gone through an incredible evolution of going from getting 15% on a $5,000 display ad, and just basically picking up the phone to actually having sales staffs that are consultants and have to know a lot of different technologies and job boards. To me, we are at this time in the agency business where there is going to be some consolidation. There is going to be some smaller firms merge into bigger firms. And this is just this sort of happening. Joel: Shaker has been around for a long time. I think they are third generation now. It really is family owned business. You talk to a lot of people there and their name is Shaker. The people that have been there for a long time. So, its nice to see them consolidate some other brands that have a lot of consistencies with theirs. I know Arland Group, it's like a ten person shop but they are really in line with what Shakers culture is. So, it was a perfect fit. What are you thoughts? Chad: Its all about footprint at this point right? There is money to be made in the recruitment industry. I mean money is being thrown around left and right. So, not to mention that you have clients who have no clue how to spell programmatic, let alone how to go out and buy it. You've got employer brand. You've got all of these things that employers just suck at. I mean, they just really do. A lot of it has to do with they do not have the time to become good at it. They have other things that they need to do, so they need experts in this space. So, I think that it's great from the stand point of Shaker, really increasing footprint. You know they are in Chicago. The Arland Group is in St. Louis and just really starting to grow to be able to also get that Book of Business that the Arland Group had. You are talking about two leaders, Deb Andrychuk and Joe Shaker who I think really compliment each other well. Joel: You know, the talent that these agencies have had. Hey have gone from sort of people who can pick up a phone or shmooze a client. You know a three martini lunch, lets be honest, it doesn't take a lot to call a newspaper and say, "I'm placing an ad, I am going to fax it over and run it." Right? To have a sales person or an account executive that understands programmatic and automation and chatbots and what job boards are still relevant, all of these Google products. That takes someone with a brain and the agencies with the most brains are going to win. So I think a lot of the moves by Shaker, who frankly has done a really good job of retaining the best talent at their company, the people who talk about these things, merging with the Arland Group to like ad to your sales force of more people who understand that language, is only going to make them stronger. So, I think that this was an acqui-hire if you will, as much as it was getting the clients that Arland Group has, etc. It probably wasn't a huge acquisition but it was a strategic and a really smart acquisition from a talent and customer stand point. Chad: Yeah, I agree. I agree and you take a look at the TMPs of the world who really are differentiating themselves with tack, like Talentbrew. I think five years ago, ten years ago, that was a good move, but today? I don't think that it is sustainable. I think it's about the people because we have so much tech that's happening from a start up stand point. Hell, we were talking about Ally O earlier. How can TMP focus on all of these different areas, employer brand and programmatic and so on and so forth and still continue to be an "agency/tech company". I think that is incredibly hard and not sustainable, where a Shaker and Arland Group, they are smaller there is no question but there is just more focus there which makes it much nicer. The KRTs of the world who really focus on programmatics. So, I think that we are starting to see a shift. Joel: Yeah, they have gone from like okay we are getting 15% of a display in the newspaper, now we are getting 15% of a $99 job posting. So, the evolutions says, "Okay, why don't we just make our own job board, why don't we make our own ATS, Why don't we make all of our own stuff and then we get 100% of the profit." You know the sort of wear with all to compete with the people who actually do that specifically. So, I think that they have learned, "Okay, we just need to be really really good at being consultants and helping our clients make the best decisions." And in the course of job postings sort of going away or becoming commoditized, the real value is in the technology that is being created today. Customers need to make sense of all the noise that's out there and agencies can fill hat void. Chad: Yeah, and it's noisy as hell. Joel: Speaking of noisy, if you watched the World Cup yesterday, England losing. Unfortunately for me. Chad's a frenchie, we won't get into that but the noise coming from the UK is a nice segway into Google for Jobs opening shop in England, in the UK. Chad: In the UK. Joel: No one is shocked right? Chad: They shouldn't be. It's interesting, Patrick Walch over at AIA Worldwide, who was a sister company of TMP. He started to see pretty much the signs, the patterns of testing within the UK. Which is what he's seen in Canada, kind of duplicating the things that he has seen in Canada and in India when Google was actually launching there. So, we have been talking about Google for Jobs coming to the UK and it looks like it is on it's way. Joel: Do you think that, the Uk is sort of a unique environment because its so staffing heavy as opposed to the US. Do you think that is why, because to me the UK that seems like a really natural progression. The fact that they went Canada, India and even South America in a few places. Do you think that was the reason that the UK was sort of slow, or just Google being Google? Chad: I think that is some of it, but there is also a huge lawsuit against Google right now and the billions of dollars. When it comes to Google, it used to be froogle but anyway when they were starting to aggregate all of the different sites to be able to create a buyers site and that was infringing on business. That's what the UK was finding so they have that monopoly kind of bad word thing happening. So, I think that it made sense for Google to better understand a way or create and better way for users to experience and utilize other sites. So, like Google aggregates from the same job from Zip Recruiter, College Recruiter and the advertising agency and so on and so forth. The user can actually pick who to apply through. So there is that choice that is in there and it's not that monopoly kind of thing. So, we have watched the evolution happen through the actual user, the UI itself for Google for Jobs. I think that was one of the big pieces of it. Joel: Sometimes having you on the show really pays off and I think that your comment about the GDPR stuff and the privacy and the lawsuits probably is the reason Google has waited to open up in the UK. Chad: It's a lot of money. Joel: It is a lot of money. So, yeah Google is going to be everywhere at some point. Unless, you know like China, where you can't get into but Google for Jobs will be everywhere. You don't have to worry about it, you better start thinking about it. Something else to start thinking about, voice assistance on a commercial level. Chad: Duplex maybe? Joel: Duplex. Dude, this thing is happening much faster than I imagined. I thought we were like three to five years from this, but a story came out last week that Duplex is starting to test commercial applications for call centers. So, yeah, you call a call center now and it's, "Hello, press number 1 for blah, blah, blah." So, Duplex is going to start acting like you are talking to a real person and it will feel much more organic. Also, it came out that Alexa, Amazon's Alexa is test commercial applications as well. So, Mr. Mrs. Recruiter, you know this might be coming sooner than you think. So, if you are too concerned about understanding Google for Hire from Google for Jobs, you might get run over at some point by this thing called Duplex while you are sitting around figuring out the difference between an ATS and a job search. Chad: Yeah, well and this just goes back to earlier from the Cheap Seats, will AI be able to catch up? Here is a great example guys. I mean if you watch the Duplex demonstration, it is amazing and then think of all the other applications that you can plug into this. The thing that really gets me and I think that it is funny is all of these people saying, "Well it's a computer and they are talking to me on the phone, shouldn't they identify themselves as a machine?" Why? Seriously, what's the purpose? Joel: By the way, I am going to flip this a little bit because stories of like job seeker robots and bots are coming out. Imagine a world employer where a job seeker can instruct Duplex to call 100 companies on their behalf in a day to try and set up interviews with that company and reference that persons resume to answer questions that you might have about that candidate. Like that could be a real thing. Everyone could start having to worry about phone calls coming into the HR department about jobs and that is something to think about. Right now, they don't they just get emails and digital stuff. Chad: Machines will be talking with machines. Joel: The phone might come back with machines. Chad: Machines are going to be talking too. And That's what happened with Facebook, if you remember. One of the reasons why the big blow up happened with Facebook's AI is because Facebook was working on really their machines negotiating against themselves and to be able to do it more efficiently. So, as the Facebook system, the machine learning started to see that the English language was really inefficient, so it created it's own English language and it just morphed from there. So, I mean, we already have apps, machines that are already doing these things, these negotiations, these outreach pieces. It's already happening today guys. So, to think that it's not going to happen especially with the Duplex interface. Man, don't put your head in the sand. Joel: Amen. Lets take a quick break. Chad: Yeah, AJE. Joel: Yeah, we will talk about CareerBuilder, one of our favorite topics. So, stay tuned and buckle up. Oh shit. AJE: America's Job Exchange is celebrating our 10th year as an industry leader in diversity recruitment and OFCCP compliance. We've been helping our 1,000 plus customers comply with OFCCP regulations that directly support positive and effective diversity recruitment. Designed to attract and convert veterans, individuals with disabilities, women and minorities. And empower employers to pursue and track active outreach with local community based organizations. Want to learn more? AJE: Call us at 866-926-6284 or visit us at www.americasjobexcange.com Joel: Well, lets get to what everybody was waiting for, CareerBuilder. Holy cow, what a mess. Chad: Crazy. Joel: So, my first Shred was that we got some word that three folks, executive level folks had been a combination of fired and just left the Titanic I guess. Let's go through these real quick. Douglas H, VP of Sales apparently fired. Now he is unique because he was names in the recent sexual harassment lawsuit but our buddy Lori McInerney. We don't know if he was terminated because of the lawsuit or if there was some internal investigation but the word is that he is gone. Everything that I have heard about this guy from at least two or three folks is that he was just not a good dude. Like he was not a good person, I guess he could sell his ass off but most of the people that I talked to are pretty glad that he is gone. Michael Zellner is gone, another VP of Sales is gone. The word that I have gotten on him is he was the last ethical VP at the company. So, apparently its just Caligula now and Thunder dome at CareerBuilder. The last one that you knew, that you got wind of was Mark Landwer, President of Enterprise Field Sales. Do you know where he ended up? Chad: I don't. Joel: Okay, and from what we know, he was just getting the hell out of Dodge. Chad: And Dude, I am telling you right now. People are scared at CareerBuilder, and this is just my personal experience. I have contacts at CareerBuilder who won't connect with me unless it's in person. I feel like I am apart of spy games or something. Joel: What do you mean, like you are meeting people in garages? Like cover of darkness before they will talk to you? Chad: You know, it's in person, wherever that might be but it's got to be in person, it can't be something that I guess is traceable, I don't know dude. But there is paranoia that is going on around that place that I am not sure that can be duplicated. Joel: Are you surprised? Chad: No. Shit I am not surprised. Joel: I'd be horrified to go into that place to work everyday. Chad: Well, you have heard a little about Apollo and Broadbean, tell me about that. Joel: Yeah, so, whenever this stuff happens at CareerBuilder, inevitably more people come out of the woodwork and go, "Yeah, did you know about A, B and C." The harassment lawsuit, apparently there is another sexual harassment lawsuit that is brewing out of Canada that was in response to the Chicago, Laurie's lawsuit. That has not come to fruition yet. That may happen. So, that's happening apparently but we got word after The Shred update that Apollo is closing the Broadbean Newport Beach office. Which you have actually been to right? Chad: No, I haven't but I have seen pictures and from my understanding, it's an awesome office. Joel: I mean, Newport Beach is awesome as itself. Anyway, they are apparently moving to a "ghetto place right next to the John Wayne Airport." I have flown into the John Wayne Airport which was pretty nice. The luggage place is outside, which is nice but yeah I don't know if the area around is that good. So if it is bad Broadbean employees are. I'm sure really happy to leave Newport Beach to go to a ghetto outside of John Wayne Airport. So, that's happening as well as, word is that there is large CareerBuilder telasales operation out of Chicago. It's being shuttered and reestablished in the Philippines. Chad: You gotta be shittin' me. Wow, if they wait about six months, they could do it with Duplex. Joel: Wow, that's a whole other topic telasales and the job space getting shuttered for Dulplex. But yes, my question is are they going, like okay, either all these executives are dirtbags and scum and Apollo is being smart and getting rid of everyone who is a cancer and they are eventually going to bring on rockstars who turn this thing around or they are just cutting everything and creating super efficiencies and they are just going to milk this cash cow until it dies. I don't know what they are doing, what are your thoughts? Chad: It's basic acquisition 101 right? You go in, you assess which is what they did for a few months. And then you start looking for costs that you can get rid of. You got to look at your margins. You got to look at that cost that you can get rid of. Now I do not know either one of these guys, they could be stellar, they could not be stellar. I have no clue at all but if you take a look at the high side of the salary spectrum, I am sure that they are on the high side of the salary spectrum. So, being able to perspectively get rid of some of these VPs, that's cost, that's overhead and then you take a look at this other piece where they over telasales? I don't know, but these are all cost measures. Plus, hell, If you was actually named in the lawsuit, not saying that he was actually terminated because of the lawsuit, but that's a lot of noise and there is a lot of shit going on. So, I mean anybody who is there today at CareerBuilder, dude I am sorry that all of this noise is happening. Hopefully, you can gain some focus or a new position somewhere else. Joel: So, Randstad buys Monster. They get rid of everyone on executive level, but then they bring in a whole new team. It changes the culture, the direction and try to revive a dying monster. Pun intended. So, CareerBuilder feels like an absolute Gordon Gecko style, rip it up, sell the pieces, monetize as much as you can and then at some point sell the whole thing down the road. Like that's what this feels like because I haven't seen any indication besides a new COO who is from Apollo, that they are interested in turning this thing around. It's like a total chop shop at this point. Chad: If you had seen this over the next three years as they ramp up to try to get acquired by somebody else who knows. That would make more sense. It's like it's they are really trying to flip this thing quick and the waves that come out of this, I don't think that they are doing anybody any good. Joel: They are doing us some good because we have a lot of stuff to talk about every week. So, from our stand point, keep burning shit CareerBuilder because it's fun to talk about. Chad: Fill the dumpster and keep it on fire. Joel: Are we out? Chad: We out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, The Chad and his buddy Cheese. This has been The Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get you podcast, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit ChadCheese.com. #GoogleforJobs #Google #Shaker #ArlandGroup #GoogleDuplex #Broadbean #Careerbuilder

This is Part II of a two-part podcast LIVE from Tempe Arizona and the TAtech AI Summit. It’s a hype-free discussion around “AI and Automation” Aaron Matos – CEO of Paradox Olivia Yongue – Director of Client Strategy at KRT Marketing Sahil Sahni – Co-Founder of AllyO. Enjoy, and support our sponsors: Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. (music) Chad: Hey it's Chad and this is part two of a two-part podcast, we're just finishing up in Tempe, Arizona at the TA Tech AI Summit. It's a hype free discussion around AI and automation with Aaron Matos, CEO of Paradox, Olivia Youngue, Director of Client Strategy at KRT Marketing and Sahil Sahni, Co-Founder of AllyO. And, of course, some snark and opinion from Chad and Cheese. Enjoy. Joel: It's commercial time. Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and most accurate parsing products. And now, based on that technology comes Sovren's artificial intelligence matching and scoring software. In fractions of a second, receive match results that provide candidate score by fit to job. And, just as importantly, the job's fit to the candidate. Make faster and better placements. Find out more about our suite of products today, by visiting sovren.com, that's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Sovren: We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates, like a human. Sovren, software so human you'll want to take it to dinner. Chad: It's show time. Joel: One of the things I loved early on, Aaron, when we spoke about Olivia and ... It's not necessarily a question for him, that's fine ... Is, you're trying to solve the mobile apply issue, which was the heart of the whole movement. For you, anyway. And as anyone in this audience knows, we've been trying to figure out the mobile apply thing for a long, long time. Just pushing apply through LinkedIn and then going to LinkedIn and then coming back, it just didn't work. And you created this mobile chat bot, or whatever you want to call it, to create an apply system through- Chad: Assistant. Joel: Yeah. Through a conversation- Aaron: He's getting it. Joel: ... and I thought that was fantastic, so a year or so since launching, talk about the mobile activity versus desk top. Maybe what's next for this, are we going to see voice assistants? Walk someone through an apply process. Aaron: We got to the concept of this behind two things, one was, yes we were trying to solve mobile. We had made it not pinch and zoom ugly, but there was still crazy forms, and so this has been an obsession. How do you fix mobile apply, where candidates want to raise their hand in a mobile environment. The other piece that was driving us was we saw the problem that when I walked in to large TA teams, where they were all staring at their computers. Aaron: And I just did not believe that the value of recruiting is in us playing with software. And so, it kind of got to be a pebble in my shoe of like, I think there's the 80/20 problem of, we're spending 80% of our time on admin stuff and 20% on people stuff and we should flip that. So, those two things juxtaposed to drive. Today, mobile on the candidate experience side is utterly amazing. Conversion rates in the hundreds of percents better because the process is easier. Aaron: And that piece, I think, will just continue. The computer of the future is a mobile device. And that's still working it's way through the enterprise. I joke about this all the time, go take a Millennial and put him in front of [Toyo 00:03:46]. No offense to Toyo, but they look at it and they're like, "Where the hell do I Skype?" Like it's the most confusing stuff in the world and so, our enterprise software also has to take a transition from the last 20 years we built software purely for the enterprise. Aaron: For the recruiters, for the HR departments, and we have to change that. We have to start building software first and foremost for the candidates, because if you build great candidate experiences, you'll actually have a great experience for the company. Joel: Kyle, for the record, he drew first blood on Millennials, just for the record. Aaron: I love Millennials. They're our favorite. Joel: How are you working with ATS's, are integrations that paramount? Do you care? Aaron: oh absolutely, I think it's ... We have a huge network of partners on the ATS and the CRM side for ... All the enterprises have these. We have to plug into this, there is a system of record and we have to help facilitate communications in a different way. We view that as our strength, our strength is to help facilitate communications, be able to talk to candidates in a new way, do that through different channels; through the mobile, mobile web, whether that's their Facebook, WhatsApp. Any kind of channel. Aaron: But the ATS is still core, that's not changing. The CRM systems have a different layer, someone talked earlier about the CRM penetration, and the enterprise, I think, is pretty high. And that idea is, how do we get more candidates into the CRM to actually start doing work? Chad: On the data side, some of the data that we have to work with is garbage. I mean, take a look at job descriptions. They haven't changed for five years, or even Plus, right? So, if you're trying to build algorithms off of data that's garbage ... We've always heard, garbage in, garbage out. How do you get ... And not only that, from a resume standpoint, when I have an asshole who puts frickin' 'ninja' on their resume, right? How does that even correlate to what I'm looking for? Chad: Wizard. Something of that nature, right? So if you're working on ... Yeah ... If you're working with garbage data, I mean, how do you get passed that? How do you build ontologies that gets passed garbage? Sahil: Well that is the challenge, and that's the IP. You cannot take the Google AI and assume that it applies to recruiting. We, Google as a customer and a partner for us, you just can't do that. You have to build it. And even recruiting as a generalization is very broad. Different kinds of skills, different kinds of challenges you're solving. So when you say "role" even the world "role" could mean very different in the usual Google sense, which is very broad, versus what you're looking in recruiting. Sahil: To your point, we built the whole ontology to parse all the jobs recs. You guys know of how LinkedIn and Indeed scrape every job rec an ATS and just show the job recs. We took that a step forward and we said, "Hey, can you parse the information in there to extract the job title? The location? And the requirements?" And it's- Chad: The requirements in many cases are still junk. Sahil: Oh 100%. Chad: You'll see, you'll see, you'll see "needs a bachelor's degree," and it's like, "Oh yeah we haven't needed that for two years, because it's a tight job market." So it's like, yeah we haven't needed that for a couple years now. What the hell do you do? Sahil: Well, this is what you do. A, you use technology to parse that and surface what's on there, because the recruiters are not looking at it. Right? The hiring managers posted it, and no one's looking at it. That's number one. Chad: Because they're too busy scheduling shit. Sahil: Right, they're too busy doing other stuff. Who has the time to go change the years of experience from three to two? When you've got 80 candidates to schedule? Second, what we push for is rapid deployment. When you deploy and you're scheduling interviews with McDonald's in San Jose, and they're getting candidates who have one year of experience, within a week or two weeks, they will text or email AllyO and say, "Hey this needs to be two years." Sahil: So you've taken what they have, you deploy, you let them review it. They need to sign off, we don't take liability for that, but you deploy because it's publicly out there. And then they, over time, optimize. That's the way you do it. You could spend all your time doing material, what's the perfect job description? But the reality is, a job description should vary by region because the label market changes. Chad: So, Olivia, is this a major point that you talk to your clients about constantly? We were talking about this for decades, have we not? We've been talking for at least 20 years, as long as we've been doing goddamn job postings, right? Before Monster was Monster. Why hasn't it changed? And will it? And will these types of platforms start to surface the need to be able to do that? Olivia: Absolutely. I mean, job descriptions are stale. All of my clients are like, when we talk about low-converting jobs and why they're not converting, we take a look at the job title, the description, maybe there's something in there that we could change and tweak to increase SEO, to increase traffic. And so, those are conversations we're having with them daily that, ultimately, impacts larger discussion of going back and updating all job descriptions. Olivia: But just thinking about ATS integrations and, I want to talk about programmatic a little bit, we've been doing a lot of work of integrating with ATS's. Chad: That's gotta be hard, though, from a programmatic standpoint, if you've got garbage, right? To be able to target. Olivia: And the reason why it's important is right now in current state, we, essentially, get a live feed of completed applications feeding back to our system. So we can optimize programmatic campaigns, based off how many completed applications are coming through per job. However, we'd like to take this a step further and optimize per qualified applicant. Olivia: And so, having that live feeding integration set up with ATS's is so important. I mean, not only driving the cost-per-application down for our customers, but just having that real-time data that we're not getting today. So, it's just something difficult that we're working towards to, essentially, offer in the near future. Chad: Yeah, this is the bane of your existence right now. The job description. Aaron: I mean, the job description's always going to be a challenge. I think that's part of the challenge in matching. We're trying to take incomplete job descriptions and match them with incomplete resumes. People and jobs are complicated. They're very, very complicated. I mean, there's companies they're doing incredibly interesting, innovative stuff. Companies like Intel that have kind have gone reckless, not reckless, but "reckless". And are managing talent pipelines and looking more at how do I ... look at people and instead of them applying for our jobs, we look at what they can do and match them to jobs in our company. Aaron: So it's a lot of innovation that's happening around this. There's no perfect answer for that. Joel: Olivia, quickly, what percentage of your clients are using an AI tool, currently? Olivia: I'd say, probably, it's grown over the past year. There's definitely more awareness, some people just getting buy-in from leadership, but it's probably 30, 40%. So definitely room to increase that. Joel: How big do you think it will get? Do you think it will be 100% at some point? And if so, how long is it going to take us to get there? Olivia: I'd hope it'd be 100%. I mean, I want my clients to be using technology to make smarter decisions, to just work on areas of challenges; whether it's bandwidth or cost savings. A lot of the points I think Eric talked about today on one of the, I think four or five factors that you focus on, but I think it's going to take a little while. I think as awareness continues to grow and customers learning and understanding how it can help, probably in the next three years we'd see that adoption increase. Joel: It's commercial time. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat. Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same, irrelevant ads. Page after page before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low, budgets are wasted, jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs, and deliver what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network. JobAdX: Score! JobAdX: That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at: joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdX, together we can save job search. Chad: It's showtime. Joel: So let's talk, I'm going to talk about the great consolidation, if you will. So, recent news, TextRecruit was gobbled up by iCIMS a year or two ago. Canvas was in the news recently, these are text ... I guess text recruiting tools. We see Mya getting 30, 40-million. We see AllyO getting 18-million-ish, 19? Okay. I'm pretty good. Pretty close. Wade & Wendy are in the news this week, 7.6-million. So I'm assuming we're not going to see a flux of IPO's from chat bots and these kind of tools. Joel: What happens with the consolidation of these? Is this going to be something in the next 12 months that we're going to see? Is it further out? And if so, who will be the companies most likely to buy up the chat bots and the automation tools? I would assume ATS's, but I could be incorrect. Chad: So that's a good question. Sahil: So when you look at, when you look at new categories in an industry, so let's take talent acquisition here, typically consolidation gets pretty rampant when you have only one or two, or say one major player. So, consider the case of video interviewing, HireVue went off and others got consolidated. And then that one vendor ... That one vendor grows to a size where they become the plateau. HireVue, Hire.com, a lot of the CRM's are that category. Sahil: What's interesting about the space that Aaron and I are in, is that there are at least three or four very dominant players who are all feeding off each other's growth here. They're really feeding off each other's growth. And that is very unique- Sahil: What's that? Joel: Who are those three? Sahil: I won't name them, but one is AllyO. AllyO and, sorry, there are two dominant players. AllyO and Olivia. But you know, everyone focuses ... Mike's looking at me with a sad face. Please... and Mya. I'm sorry. But, my point is ... Chad: Go get a beer, Mike. You deserve a beer. Sahil: The reason why 40% of the customers are into this, is not because AllyO just went in, went crazy. It was contribution from all three of us, and we're feeding off that. That is unique. And that uniqueness creates opportunity to actually have some major exits here. Some major exits meaning either going public or exits that are not a 500-million but you rarely see in the talent acquisition space. So that's point number one. Sahil: Point number two, in terms of who will acquire, I think consolidation will happen. Customers are asking for AI, vendors want to just demo ... Again, it's a pre-sale thing, it's not a post-sale thing. So customers just want to show something. You acquire ... I'll take a name ... You acquire Canvas and you can show, "Hey, I have texting feature in my tool kit," and then you can make the sale. Or you can retain the customer. Sahil: So that kind of acquisition is going to happen. For the larger acquisitions, where there is Olivia, AllyO, it really comes down to the most strategic partnerships here. And the way at least AllyO is growing, when we don't think we belong to, as an add-on on an ATS, or enhancing the staffing company or CRM, we actually, when we say it, we mean it. Sahil: We want to go end-to-end because customers really benefit, and the AI from the end-to-end is super powerful. And that puts us in a weird situation where we necessarily don't have a very solid acquisition strategy. We're not saying we built a feature of video interviewing, which would be bought out by an ATS. So, I hope that gives some color- Joel: I'm hearing AllyO IPO 2022. Sahil: You're close. You're close but you're a little further out. You need to be more optimistic. Joel: See, Aaron, if you don't ask the questions, you don't get the answers. Olivia: I would just add that one of the biggest pain points that I hear from customers is just all the different integrations that they have to even consider. So when vetting new technology, that is the absolute. One of the first questions that we ask is, who do you integrate with? What do you offer? What is the process like? Timelines? It's just so important that whatever technology and the tech-stack that comes under that, integrates with their current resources so it's not just this isolated resource that they're using. Olivia: So, I would hope that there are more acquisitions happening in the near future. And I have heard, also from clients, that it does make the decision easier on their end if they're looking at a new career site vendor. If they're already working with a chat bot vendor, that it's just easier to just bundle everything together instead of going with a career site vendor, and then vetting out different chat bots. So, just thinking ahead, with where the industry's going, I would definitely ... would like to see, maybe, job cases in the running with the 100-million-dollars that they just got. Aaron: Can I answer that one? Chad: Yeah. Aaron: I want to throw one out. Chad: Go right ahead. Have at it. Joel: Are you really going to answer it, though? Aaron: Yeah, I mean. He's going public in.. Joel: Yeah, so 2023? Aaron: I mean, I think the whole idea that there's consolidation in the industry might be over-stating it. This is an incredibly fragmented industry. The large ERP systems, the large ATS systems are ... This isn't like someone's got 40% market share. K1 did a cool thing with Jobvite and- Joel: You just said those three dominant players. Aaron: Well I think he meant in the ... Joel: In the room? Aaron: In the assistant chat bot space. I appreciate being put in the category, I also think that we are all really small. None of us are a 100-million-dollar company, unless there's something I don't know. Joel: Paul? Aaron: We're all small. We're all growing, and I think that's the opportunity. The space is getting ... The challenge is, you get to big system of records and then everyone wants innovation and the innovation's going to happen in point solutions. And so, if you're a big enterprise that needs to be cutting edge on candidate experience, you've got to go find a point solution that integrates them with your system of record. And that process is just ever continuing. Chad: So we're talking about tech stack earlier, right? Many hiring companies have a tech stack in place, and they're not even leveraging half. Maybe 25% of the power of that current stack. How do you get past years of companies saying I hate my ATS, even though they use 10% of it. And really start to understand, and imbed, your product into their process. Because, again, we heard earlier that process over tech. If their process is all jacked up, what are you doing other than putting tech on top of it and then them being able to point at you later and saying it's your fault. Aaron: I think the ATS is always at the challenge of ... have you ever met anyone who's like, "Oh my God, I love my ATS." That doesn't exist, really. I think trying to get adoption is something that we probably think of differently. We're trying to build tools that don't need adoption because they actually do work. Chad: So you're saying the ATS doesn't work? Aaron: No, not 'do work' that way, but they actually do work. Chad: Do work, gotcha. Aaron: But there's actually automation that's happening and functionality of ... So it doesn't need, per say, recruiter adoption, the tools actually start running in the background. So I think that piece, we see happening. I'm sure others do as well. Chad: Okay. Olivia: From what I see with my clients, whenever they're responsible for reporting back any KPI's that are related directly to their business or making a change, that's where they're more invested. So, I would say, talking to the stakeholders, our companies and trying to educate them more, if they're being tasked to come back and change, move the dial in one area, whether that's candidate engagement- Chad: What's the cornerstone KPI? What is the cornerstone KPI? 'Cause there's so many. Olivia: Depends on what product you're using. So, I mean, chat bot, could be engagement, it could be looking at scheduling software, how to improve rates there. It really depends what you're using. Chad: We're looking, and I think Xor was talking about time to fill? So, time to fill being ... I mean, that's something that's not as subjective, per say. 'Cause it is hard where the higher ratio, I mean you have to work with humans, and that's fairly subjective because you get hiring managers who make different decisions. So I mean, what do you see from your clients that is the KPI for them that just makes sense. Or the one that you guys are trying to push to them. Olivia: It's that 98% that I mentioned earlier that it's the percentage of candidates that aren't getting hired. Looking at the candidate funnel. And so, if they're going back to their team and, I mean, they're spending so much money recruiting for talent and recruitment marketing and trying to make sure they have a strategy in place if they're reaching the right talent. Chad: With a huge candidate data base, by the way. Olivia: Yeah. Chad: Go ahead. Olivia: Exactly. So it's waste. There's a lot of waste coming in, going out. And so, it's just a missed opportunity for these companies not to figure out a way to engage with that 98% that are not getting hired. Joel: How are you guys integrating your product with Second Life? Chad: Oh Jesus. Okay, we're going to skip that one. Joel: Just making sure everyone's awake. Okay. Chad: Who's doing virtual reality? Joel: I would say ... Let's give that back. Let's talk about ghosting. Ghosting is a real problem for employers. And a story I recently did someone ... Akin to you guys said, "Messaging, automation, chat bots are anti-ghosting magic." Talk about that. Sahil: One needs to go deeper as to what's the problem with ghosting. So the problem with ghosting is not somebody not showing up for an interview, the problem with ghosting is them not knowing that they're not going to show up. So let me just synthesize that down. If you knew they're not going to show up, then you don't need to wait for them. Chad: Yeah, give me a second, I got to take this, man. Okay, go ahead. Sahil: You got it? Chad: Yeah, I got it now. Sahil: Assistant. Okay. So- Chad: Tell him. Sahil: So, it's the ability to either have enough of an indication to be able to go back to the hiring manager and say, "Hey Sahil has less than a 25% chance that they're going to show up, because in the last two days, every interaction I've sent with them, they've just been very low." Plus with some macro data, which is ... In this market, X% of people are just applying for welfare or whatever, especially in their hourly or whatever it might be. Sahil: So ghosting is a problem. In fact, in the hourly world, if you guys don't know, seven out of 10 people who are scheduled for an interview don't show up. Seven out of 10. The value is not to make all seven show up, really, because they may not show up in the next interview. The value is being able to tell that hey, of the 10 people who are scheduled next week, here are the three that are most likely to show up and here are the six who may not show up. Or however that might be. Chad: Last question. Google. How is Google impact [crosstalk 00:23:09] client standpoint. Hired by Google, hired by Google, the API, Google for Jobs. I mean, not so much in Microsoft, the big names landing in this industry. How's that helped the other products to be able to really rise up? Because, again, Peter's first message to us is, you know, it rises all the boats. Olivia: So, with all of our clients, we absolutely talk about innovation when we think about their ... Let's pretend, 2019 recruitment media strategy. We always include a line item in our media plans for innovation and put a bucket of dollars there. We are just waiting for Google for Jobs to have an advertising product, because we know it's coming. So hopefully it's within this year. Olivia: So, that's something that we're paying very close attention to and we have, not a shameless plug, like on [KaraT's 00:23:57] website we have a whole Google for Jobs hub that we keep up with the latest and greatest trends. But second to that I think Google Cloud and layering that technology on top of a customers career site has been making a big impact on the way that candidates are searching for jobs. Olivia: And then also impacting once they are finding the right job, completing the application and then, ultimately, going in the hands of a recruiter. They're not getting so much waste and non-qualified talent because that does increase the jobs that they're looking for and what's coming up in the search results. Chad: Thank you all. We appreciate- Joel: Let's hear it for our panelists. Thank you guys. Chad: Give it up. Give it up for Hireology and JobAdX for the beer, we really appreciate it. Joel: Do you have any post questions, just on Twitter hashtag ChadCheese and we'll try to get answers. Chad: Thanks guys. Joel: Thanks guys. Joel: It's commercial time. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent tech space interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text. And so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas Bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off the Bitmoji. Canvas: We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: Thanks again to the team from TA Tech who always run a great event. Aaron from Paradox, Olivia from KRT and Sahil from AllyO. Joel and I will be at TA Tech events all over the world, so go to TAtech.org, heck out events, register and then grab a beer at our show. Sowash out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my step-dad, Chad, and his goofy friend, Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors, because I need new Trax bikes. You know, the expensive, shiny gold pair that are extra because ... Well ... I'm extra. Tristen: For more, visit ChadCheese.com. #TAtech #Paradox #AllyO #KRT #AI #Automation #MachineLearning

This is part one of a two-part podcast LIVE from Tempe Arizona and the TAtech AI Summit. It's a hype-free discussion around “AI and Automation" Aaron Matos - CEO of Paradox Olivia Yongue - Director of Client Strategy at KRT Marketing Sahil Sahni - Co-Founder of AllyO Topics: - Standard AI definition - AI Transparency vs. Explainability - Recruiter adoption for RPA or AI. WHY?!? - Is chatbot a dirty word? Enjoy, and support our sponsors: Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: Hey it's Chad, this is part one of a two part podcast we just finished in Tempe, Arizona, at the TAtech AI summit. It's a hype free discussion around AI and automation. Again, this is part one of a two part podcast, with Aaron Matos, CEO of Paradox, Olivia Yongue, director of client strategy at KRT Marketing, and Sahil Sani, co founder of AllyO, and of course, some snark and opinion from yours truly Chad and Cheese. Joel: It's commercial time. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search (computer mouse clicking). This is the sound of job search defeat (computer mouse clicking and a groan). JobAdX: Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads, page after page before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low, budgets are wasted, jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdx's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs, and delivers what job seekers really want, to premium add units across our network (computer mouse clicking, a man saying “score”). That's the sound of JobAdx's relevant results, attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns, and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at; joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdx. Together we can save job search Chad: It's show time. Joel: I don't know how I feel about this reclining set up here. Like two old men. Where's the cigars and the smoking jacket. Chad: Just do your job. Joel: Hello everyone, I am Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: And we are the Chad and Cheese podcast. I feel safe saying if this room doesn't listen to our show, they probably should, raise a hand so you know who we are, anyone. Outstanding. Well I guess my intro's over. You can find out more about us at chadcheese.com, if you have any questions or comments about our little panel here, you can hashtag chadcheese, and we'll get to questions or try to reply at some point, and you're doing the intro here right? Everyone's doing sort of the 140 characters or less who you are and why you're here? And then we'll get to the Q and A. Aaron, would you like to start us off? Chad: Aaron starts. Aaron: Hey I'm Aaron Matos, I'm the founder and CEO of Paradox. Joel: Just a heads up, we're recording this Aaron, so choose your words wisely. Chad: You said 140 characters. Joel: I mean after the 140 characters. Olivia: Hello, I'm Olivia Yongue, and I am director of client strategy at KRT Marketing. Joel: Did you make those pants yourself or did you buy them like that? Chad: He wants to know cause he wants a pair. Joel: I do want a pair. Do they have jackets like that? Chad: Oh Jesus. Sahil: Are you guys done? Okay good. My name is Sahil, I'm the founder of AllyO, just wanted to take my 140 characters and thank both Aaron and Peter for having us here. I think we've been in this space for four years, completely illiterate, still about the talent acquisition space, it's great to come here and get to know people, so thank you so much. Joel: By the way, we like our shows to be interactive, if you have questions, shout out something, Chad loves exercise, unlike me, so he'll run out and give you the mike to ask questions if necessary. Chad, you wanna start us off? Chad: So the AI issue, that was shut down, the Amazon algorithm, that was shut down because of bias, right, has that helped? Has it brought awareness or is it a pain in the ass, because now everybody's asking about Amazon, it's like, no we don't wanna do that AI thing because it's biased, Aaron. Aaron: I think Athena tackled this a bit, you know I think it was good that Amazon was transparent, and they admitted it, and they said, “hey this is what happened”, I think it is kind of a cautionary tale, to the question of, "are clients bringing this up?" I think they brought it up in the first. We have a really short attention span news cycle today, so, those ten days afterwards, people brought it up, today, I think if you're on the sourcing and matching side, you care about this stuff, for us, we're really trying to focus on BFOQ kinda very clear criteria as an assistant, so we don't plan that matching game as much, so for us it's not as big of an issue. Chad: Okay Olivia, I mean, clients, are they asking about this whole AI slash Amazon thing, or did it just go away real quick. Olivia: You know there is limited conversation about it, I mean, at KRT our job is to bring these types of articles and updates to our clients, so we really brought it to their attention, and I think there's no such thing as bad press, so as bringing it to light, it starts a conversation, it gets them talking about what happened, what can we do, what should we be thinking about to fix it if we are to go this route. Sahil: I think in my opinion, what we saw, coincidentally just before the news came out I was at a conference where I'd taken a poll asking the audience how many of you had considering an AI solution in the next one year. And the response was six percent. When the interest is so low- Chad: Six percent? Sahil: Six percent was the response. This was a hospitality conference, so take that filter. When the interest is so low, and Amazon comes out and does whatever it does and openly says it, it actually causes everyone to consider that, “hey, if Amazon, which is really the largest staffing company in the world, has been working so much into it, and is open about it, there must be something in it.” I understand the negativity around it, the negativity helps in differentiating vendors who are actually solving it, if it's a problem. It does, it surfaces that. But at the same time I think it, in a weird way, amplifies the hype, and so now if you go and ask, you'll have somewhere like seventeen to eighteen percent of the market is interested in exploring an AI solution in the next twelve months. Chad: What you're looking at, you're looking at major enterprise organizations, right? So, most of them are federal contractors, and they're scared shitless, in most cases, because there are hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, that they're getting contracted by the US government, are you building platforms, to be as Athena would say, explainable or transparent, knowing that at the end of the day, the US government could regulate this and say you have to be transparent. Sahil: Yeah, I'll give you examples, amongst like major defense contractors, customers that we have include Walmart, or Allied Universal, G4S, and if you go and apply on their website, or did a year or two ago, you might know this when you apply for a job and it's a defense contractor, you're required to give ten years of employment and residential history and they would include that in the application. Awful. Sahil: What we've seen at a high level is the adoption in AI has been for reasons to improve their candidate experience, more from a conversion standpoint because end of the day they need to hire. I mean, how good is a defense contractor who can't sell the defense. Right, and so, we've seen them adopt it for that reason, from a concerned standpoint, absolutely, when we play mostly in the larger enterprise space, and we're going through all the scrutiny, whether it's your IT security check ins, and whatever it might be sometimes it takes a couple of weeks, sometimes it takes months and with defense contractors, it's much more severe. Sahil: But having said that, at the back, you've got a very core need, it's not like they're saying, "hey if this passes, I will use it." They want this, and they want it to pass. And so they are making sure, that whatever is happening is not only compliant, but it's also moving efficiently to get to that point where it can start creating value. Chad: You guys don't want to weigh in on it? Not really, it's just I don't like that compliant shit. I don't like that compliant shit. Go ahead. Joel: Eric Kostelnik earlier from TextRecruit said there were only about a handful of AI companies in the world. Google, Microsoft, et cetera. Is he right? And if so, are all these AI solutions just using all these other big companies AI to power their stuff, is there any homemade AI out there in our industry, because I think if everyone's just using Google or Amazon, or whatever AI solution that there should be some transparency. Discuss. Chad: Is Eric still in here? Aaron: No, he jetted, so he left. Joel: Are we gonna refute whether he said it or not? Aaron: No he said it, I mean I think that, what's your definition of AI? Joel: This isn't about questioning me, Aaron. This is me asking you questions. And I love that you're trying to dodge the question, but I'm not gonna let you do that. Aaron: I'm not, do you think this whole room would agree with the definition of AI? Chad: Well okay so question, because you use AI right, in defining what you guys do. Aaron: Sort of. Chad: Okay, well I mean if you use it, then that means your company's defining it. Aaron: We actually call it assistive intelligence. Because we're trying to make a very clear separation that the goal of what we do is help assist, and get work done, that's our goal. To the question of what AI is, people talked about this before, the original Dartmouth conference was in 1956, and John McCarthy, they talked about what AI was originally, which was “how do we do work that humans are doing, how do we understand language, how do we understand messaging, how do we do translation.” Aaron: Today AI is a bigger category where that's full machine learning and deep learning, includes things like NLP, partly I always joked that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, these companies are doing amazing work, that's changing recruiting, and people honestly sometimes just get too hung up on, “that's not AI.” John Sumser, who we all love, he's been around and his first report on AI said, that he kind of defined AI as having sentience. We're not there. This is not Westworld. Google built Alpha Go, it can play Go really, really well, it can't play checkers. It depends on what you define as real AI. Joel: So AI is not AI is not AI. So Googles doing AI, and you're doing AI, but it's just a little different AI. Aaron: I think Eric's point was there's a few big companies, and look China's even leading the way on just really great ML, and great power that is used in machines to see insights that we have never seen before, and Google's open sourcing some of this stuff, and those big tech companies are clearly leading the way. But, same point, there's companies in our space that are using amazing ML to source to match, there's NLP that's mincing conversations from all of the players in the space, that are ten, fifteen minute conversations, that pass quote, the Turing test. So again, a rose by any other name, would smell as sweet. Joel: Olivia, when a customer says, what's AI, what do you tell them. Olivia: You know I think there's so much noise out in this space, of just partners throwing out the word artificial intelligence, and so I strongly believe that there is, I know there's a lot of my vendors out there, but a lot of the tools are really smart, intelligent, I don't think they are truly doing artificial intelligence if you break down what AI is, but I think they are doing excellent work, and they're providing a ton of value when it comes to machine learning and augmenting, and providing that value, I just think when you go back and really define what AI is, in having that artificial intelligence come into play, it's not truly doing what it should be doing. Chad: So the AI End-to-End Recruiter doesn't that make HR numb when they hear AI, AI, AI, and then you come in- Joel: It just means nothing right. Chad: Yeah and then you come in and you're like “Hey, I've got this End-to-End Recruiter Recruiter, we're using AI.” And they're like, “Bullshit.” So, how do you differentiate yourself, how do you actually prove beyond that. Is it because, is it RPA, or is it beyond that. Sahil: So firstly I feel like when you think about where AI is going and the buzz around it, who's to be blamed for it is the market. Because vendors are searching for AI, so when vendors are searching for AI, sorry, buyers are searching for AI, and when buyers are searching for AI, vendors will use that. That's keywords under caption or whatever. First and foremost. Chad: So you're blaming the buyers? Because that's what they're looking for? Sahil: No, no, I'm blaming the [crosstalk 00:13:18]. Joel: The markets. Sahil: Wherever it might come, but end of the day, the goal of a for profit business is to sell and make a profit. Chad: It's not to lie though. Sahil: So that's point number one. That's point number one, I think point number two, I'll take my definition of the AI the way we think about it, it's not automation only, you need to have a objective which comes down to either the process and what you're trying to improve, and then you need to have the math behind, which automatically learns and maximizes that objective. That's what the human mind does, when you grow up at the age of two you touch the hot stove, you learn that it burns, and over time you learn not do that, that objective is solving for not getting burnt. Sahil: That's AI, we as a company have our NLP framework, we have our own ontology, we have patterns around it, we've taken AI in a very different way and we've patented that specially for the recruiting world. Having said that, I will confess that eighty, eighty five percent of the value to Aaron's point comes from automation, it's not that the industry needs AI, an AI is just a tool there and sadly so it tends to create more value in the presale process than wholesale. It might change later, I'm not saying it won't change, Google's the first company to come and say, “we'll be AI first.” You type in sentence in Gmail there's a one in five chance that it'll complete it for you. Right, it's pretty awesome. That is cool stuff. Sahil: But today, in the recruiting world, AI is being done, I think it's being done by a few companies, it's been advertised by all, but that's because most of the value exists in the automation, not in the AI. Joel: It's commercial time. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligence text based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvas Bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technologies, and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in twenty minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: It's show time Joel: Should there be standards around AI? Cause I'm sure you guys just grit your teeth when you see companies you know aren't doing AI, but their site is dot AI, they have AI on their website, they're promoting it, I mean should there be a standard with which consumers can tell whether it's real AI or not? So like the old job board association? Sahil: Well I think it is. So the buyer in the market is super smart. They're super smart, I think they gravitate with starting with AI as, “I'm interested in AI, but the sale process, or the selection process is all around what value I'm gonna solve and how I'm gonna track that.” And soon AI just becomes a minor ingredient in that. It just becomes a minor ingredient. Whether you solve that problem with AI or automation or you have humans doing it, if you are solving it efficiently, you are solving it. So as a result I think that standardization could happen, it might get some marketing buzz, but it will not make no difference in practice, because no one is buying a solution saying, “hey, I just want AI,” without knowing what the hell it's gonna do. And even if they bought it, at some point six months down, they'll realize, “hey, it's not doing anything.” And so they'll stop. Chad: Olivia, earlier we saw some McKinsey data that showed fifty percent of jobs are automatable, right?. Tasks versus the actual jobs themselves. What the hell are companies waiting for? I mean if there is tasks that you can actually see, and even Fred showed it very nicely with the O net data right, and he highlighted some of the tasks that can be automated. What the hell are companies waiting for, I mean you're talking to companies, multiple companies every day. What the hell are they waiting for? Olivia: It's change. It's being uncomfortable with change, I mean I study my client's funnel, their [phonetic candidate funnel, so studying how many applications are getting to generate a hire, and a lot of them are Fortune 500, and they're converting literally one to three percent of applications into hires, which is so low. And knowing that information and there are tools out there to help them, to shrink, or grow that percentage or you're looking at that ninety percent of talent that isn't even getting touched, there's never engagement, I mean trying to get them to think about different ways to get ahold of them, I mean it's difficult bringing new technology, adapting to change, going up the ranks talking to leadership, I mean there's so many layers that a company has to think about before even implementing anything like this, so it is pretty difficult, I think it's gonna take awhile to get there. Chad: So Aaron what I'm hearing is Change management is a bitch, how do you get by that, is that like one of the biggest obstacles that you have to actually deal with? Aaron: Change management is a huge issue, especially on the global enterprise. I mean you're in enterprises, these are not one workflow, this is not one recruiting process. You have to first and foremost solve business problems and then you gotta figure out how you're gonna make change. And if you change technology, then you have to also change people and processes, and what the work that gets done, the technology helps enable that. But large organizations that have huge departments, huge recruiting departments, huge hiring neural nets, it's a task. Chad: So from a recruiter’s standpoint, and a recruiter adoption standpoint, who's trying to get recruiter adoption. So the question is why, why isn't this a part of the process methodology already, and it's taken away, just like from a scheduling standpoint, sourcing can be done automatically, there can be QA/QC, scheduling can be done automatically, there can be QA/QC. Why in the hell are we trying to get recruiter adoption? I don't understand. Why don't we, as leaders, actually adopt. Joel: Because you're turning around the Titanic in most cases. It's not easy. Chad: Yeah but if you're taking it off the table for your recruiters and you know it'll make them more effective because they're doing all this admin shit. Aaron: I mean I think that is happening in some companies, I think the large organizations are trying to figure out how do you eat a whale, I mean it's a bite at a time, this is hard work. But in smaller midsize companies I think you can kind of dictate, “hey, all scheduling's gonna now happen through this technology.” And it is happening. We're still, and I mentioned this last night, I feel like, and for those of you who have been around and watched the internet grow, this feels to me I think there's this very large very large shift on how software is going to work for people in the future. That we're going through this transition, that the software is going to be intelligent, it's gonna have automation built into its core. And it feels a lot to me like the web in 2000 or 1998, where it's still so early, in 2000, everyone thought the web was done, or in 2001 it was like, “hey, the webs done.” I think we've had a lot of innovation since then, to me we're in that early stages of a lot of transition. Chad: So you have recruiters? Olivia: Yeah. Chad: So talk to me about that. Olivia: We don't like to have the hard conversation. You have to say yes for things to go your way. Chad: It's not a hard conversation though. Olivia: Then it slides. But that slide is, people think jobs and all the hype is jobs, those are the headlines- Chad: It's a task. You don't have to take the garbage out. Yay, I don't have to take the garbage out. Olivia: If you don't articulate that, in your plan, “here are the tasks for automating, and here's what you're going to do instead.” If you don't have that second part, you can tell them till you're blue in the face their job's not impacted, they're still not gonna believe you. Cause layoffs happen all the time. Somebody had a layoff somewhere. Chad: If you stop taking, if you started having somebody else take out the garbage for them, okay, and they didn't even know they're like, “holy shit, the garbage is taken out.” What's the- Olivia: So I say, “you don't have to take out the garbage”, but if you're taking out the garbage ten times a day, they're going, “hmm, what else am I gonna do?” And if I don't come and say, “now you're gonna mow the lawn, and you're gonna wash the windows." Chad: Now you're gonna do more of the brand ambassador things that we should be doing in the first place, to actually ensure we have a hell of a brand. Olivia: Yeah so now you're gonna do something else, but companies don't articulate that, they don't say, "here's what you're gonna do-" Chad: Is it that hard? Olivia: It's not that hard but it's a hard conversation. Cause they're scared. Joel: Fear, yeah. We're human beings, we're trained to stay away from change. Someone said recently that this whole thing feels a lot like search in the early days. You do searches and the results were sorta kooky, but you knew eventually it'd be worked out, and to me that's to your point of early days, that's kinda how it feels. Is chat bot a dirty word, and I ask that, because it seems like all the chat bot folks are running away from being labeled a chat bot. Am I wrong on that? Is it a dirty word? From the agency, it feels like companies are getting away from that, and I wanna know why. Chad: Well we actually did an interview with Quincy from AMS, and she said when she throws out chat bot in a conversation- Joel: Platform automation. Automation platform. Chad: The company pukes a little bit on themselves, and they're like, "no, we're not a chat bot." So is it that labeling thing that's a problem or is it not a problem? Aaron: I mean first of all, I think Quincy's right, we've always called the concept an assistant. No one ever called Siri a chat thing... We don't do that. Joel: Voice assistant is not a dirty word. Aaron: The whole idea for me of what we're trying to do is, and yeah, it started with chat bot, and to me it was like, “hey there's a website.” Well is SAP a website? I mean come on, it's a lot more than that. And I think the whole idea, if you Google bot, chat bot, and say define chat bot, it will say a computer program designed to have a game of basically talk reply. And I don't think that's what we're trying to do. I think the market has moved past that very quickly. For us, it's a dirty word, but it's also a frame of reference, because people do understand chat bots today, so they understand the concept. So we think of it as fine as a frame, I think we all have to go past that, and the people in this room, we are going past that. Joel: Do you feel like part of it is the risk of commoditization of chat bots? And if you're labeled a chat bot then you become a commodity, so we need to be more than just a chat bot. Is that part of why it's a dirty word? Aaron: To me I don't know that that's the reason, I think that that it focuses on the wrong thing. To the point of buyers aren't trying to buy AI, they're trying to solve recruiting problems, and business problems. No one's ever came and said, "hey I wanna buy a bot." They don't do that. They come in and say, "hey-" Joel: I've heard agencies say people call them and say we need a chat bot. We don't know what a chat bot is, but we know that we need one. Am I wrong on that or? So it is happening. Chad: Olivia, what are you doing to stop this chat bot madness, this chat bot fucking madness. Olivia: Oh, it gets my clients talking which is important, it talks about when they bring it up, what kind of challenge are you trying to solve here. And how can a chat bot help you. So, having these conversations is really important, if they want to call it a chat bot, if they wanna call it a virtual assistant, that's fine with me personally. I think my job is to help and this is with Laura's point earlier being a translator. Every single vendor out there calls their product different names, it's very, very confusing, so if I can help translate what does that mean to them for their business and how can it help them, then I'm doing my job. So if they wanna call it a chat bot, and I can communicate what they're trying to solve, then it's a win. Chad: Okay so, on the AllyO side, is that incredibly hard because what we're saying is that hybridization of platforms and processes, right? So it's like you have a platform that does all of this, and it's really a hybrid of different point solutions. They're all different to Olivia's point, right? They're all different in their message, different... How do you get by that? What's the major... If you're talking to Olivia who is incredibly powerful from the standpoint of being able to touch and educate clients, how do you get past that? Because again, there's a lot of noise, and it's really muddy. Joel: By the way, Olivia is Paradox's [crosstalk 00:26:14], and it's also her name. So just don't get too confused. I was a little bit confused. Sahil: I'll confess, I've only known two Olivia's in my life and I have both on the stage. Joel: Olivia Newton John? Sahil: Don't ask me to pick who I'd prefer. I think, I'll speak a little bit to the previous one and then try to answer to Joel, to your point. My intuition, it's the opposite. Will chat bots commoditize by 2020 or 2021, yes. If we had to put money I'll put it on the yes bucket. But they haven't commoditized yet. What that means is when you say chat bot, you could mean something very different than what you say chat bot. As a result, if I'm doing something very different than what you think, but maybe more aligned with that, then why would I call myself a chat bot. So I don't think it's gotten to the ATSCRM world. But it's really a difference of ten percent, you're talking like eighty, ninety percent difference between products. And so I feel that's the key point. Sahil: To your point on how do you deal with the challenge. If I'm talking with Olivia or her clients, it really all comes down to showing the value that you've created for customers. It's just the case studies. You go into a customer, they had a certain problem that hopefully resonates with who you're talking about, and then you show what you did, and then you show how that improved, and hey, talk with them, or see what they said in Forbes, or see what they said wherever. It comes down to that, and who cares whether it was a chat bot, whether it was an ATS, whether it was Joel and Chad sitting at the back and making it happen. It happened. And if Joel and Chad did it they should be paid for it. Chad: Could be a Chad bot. Joel: You heard it here first. Sahil: So I think the honest truth just lies in- Joel: Snark on demand. Sahil: The honest truth just lies not on the website, it lies not in these presentations here, it just with when you are working with a customer, or folks who are sending that message out, you're not trying to create a ill formed category out there called chat bots because it's not reached that stage, but you're trying to just say, “hey, if you have these categories or problems, this is something that might work.” I'm guessing that's how you guess. Joel: It's commercial time. Sovren: Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job order intake technology intake technology in the industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting Sovren.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates, like a human. Sovren. Software so human, you'll wanna take it to dinner. Chad: And that's the end of part one. Check out part two for the rest of the story. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema, thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This had been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Itunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors, because their money goes to my college fund, for more, visit chadcheese.com. #TAtech #Paradox #AllyO #KRT #AI #Automation

Lots going on at Talroo these days. So the boys hit-up the HQ to have a chat with CEO Thad Price. A wide variety of topics are discussed, including how they differentiate themselves from Indeed when hiring in Austin, Texas. Enjoy. Disclosure: Talroo paid for our trip and time to help out with a separate initiative. We just weren't going to leave without talking to Thad. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Hello, Austin! Joel: What's up, Austin. Chad: Austin. We've got beer. Joel: Beautiful people here in Austin. Chad: We've got beer. I've got to say, they've got a wonderful assortment of beer right out of the gate. Joel: Local beer. Chad: Local. Shiner Bock. Joel: Local. Thad: And how does it compare to some of the other cities that you've been to as far as the beer culture? Chad: This is ... This is much ... Joel: Shiner's solid. Chad: Yeah, this is much better for sure. Joel: There are other brands in there. Who's the beer guy? Like who's the aficionado of beer? Chad: Nobody. Joel: Nobody. Nobody drinks here at Talroo. It's a drug free environment apparently. Joseph- Joseph: Yeah. Joel: ... what's the best beer in the fridge right now? Chad: How are you not drinking a beer? Joseph: Oh, I like Fireman's Core. Fireman's Core is pretty solid. Thad: Oh, okay. That's in there. Yeah, it's in there. Joel: Fireman's Core. So I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: And we are the Chad & Cheese podcasts if you haven't heard of us before. Chad: HR's most dangerous. Joel: We are more or less a weekly roundup of news, opinion, from the recruiting world. We also do some monthly shows. Talroo is a sponsor of our show called Firing Squad. Chad: Ooh, everybody loves Firing Squad. Joel: It's a bit of a Shark Tank for the recruiting industry. Hopefully guys have tuned into that, if you haven't, you should. Chad: Who doesn't love listening to a startup just get their ass ripped? Joel: So when there's an audience with their CEO at the front, they act very weird. They don't quite know what to do. Is this the first podcast that's ever presented here at the ...? Thad: Yes, it is. Joel: Yeah, it's okay. So they don't know what the hell how to react, so we'll have to loosen them up. So keep drinking and we'll tell more dad jokes and we'll get this going. Joel: So we're joined here today by Thad Price. Fairly newly minted CEO of the organization. Chad: CEO. Joel: You're almost a year now ish. Thad: Yeah, almost a year. Yeah, about 10 months. Joel: Okay. So the last time we spoke to you, you had made the transition from Jobs2Careers to Talroo. Chad: New brand. Joel: How has the new brand gone, better than you thought, about what you thought? Give us a state of Talroo a year later since last time we spoke. Thad: It's been phenomenal. I mean, the move to Talroo from the perspective of what we're driving for customers, how the individual partners see us, it's really changed, right? In so many ways. In a lot of ways, there's a fixation that occurs with having a brand like Jobs2Careers, what products are you building? What products are you building to bring Jobs2Careers to people, right? And so by redefining a brand, we can restart the story, and redefining our brand has been great for us. And more importantly, restarting the story has been really focused on this kind of B2B product and the B2B service that we provide to recruitment professionals. Chad: So tell us a little bit about that, because I mean, starting a new brand and getting into a new segment, entirely, right? Tell us about that journey. First and foremost, what made say we really have to change everything that's going on, and then jumping into that a nice cold water. How'd that feel? Thad: Yeah. Well, at first it was ... whenever you make a decision like this, you have to weigh the risk and benefit, right? And so it was chilly when we really looked at it originally, it was like, okay, we've got a lot of brand equity built into Jobs2Careers. It's a job search engine. There are people that understand the idea of searching for jobs, how do people find jobs effectively? And from our perspective, it was what are we really investing in? And of course, this idea of talent attraction and creating a talent attraction platform that's more efficient at helping employers reach talent was really what drove us to this juncture. And so it's been great, and we continue to drive success for customers. Thad: I think the big change that's happened in the industry in the last few years is that the right talent is out there, it's all around you, and it's up to us to help companies find that talent. And I think that's really important in driving everything that we do here. Joel: And speaking of talent, you guys made a commitment about a year ago to bring on some, I guess I would call them heavy hitters in the recruiting industry. So talk about what that's meant to the business as well as sort of overall headcount and where you're growing and where you're looking at being say a year from now. Thad: Yeah. We brought some amazing talent to the Talroo team, rounding out our executive team. We build our team members internally as well. A lot of investment here for our current team members. A number of our team members have been here over four years, over three years. They continually grow in their different roles. So that's been great for us. Cindy is heading up sales and service for us with years of experience, years of experience with the agencies, relationships,- Joel: Cheap seats. Thad: ... agencies with .... What'd you say? Joel: She's back there in the cheap seats. She kinda watches everybody like she's the mom and makes everyone behaves themselves. Chad: She like snuck in. Thad: So as we engage with recruitment advertising agents, it becomes very important for us to ensure that we're driving their value and then driving the customer's value. So that's been phenomenal for us to be able to provide that success. And of course, Keith's been leading up our Talroo brand and building that brand and doing some really cool stuff like having you guys here today. Joel: The coolest thing you've ever done, right? Obviously. Chad: Super secret meeting people. Super secret meeting. Joel: So what departments have you sort of ramped up? A year from now, what is headcount going to look like and what departments will see the most growth? Thad: Yeah. We probably ramped up ... engineering is where we really invested heavily. So Tony leads our engineering team really focused around data and how to extract value from data. How do we scale our services and infrastructure? So last year, one of the things that was so different for us is we were growing so fast, we really needed to invest in our infrastructure. And so we did that in the last 12 months and that's proven to be very successful for us in so many different ways. Thad: So, it's great to have, to be in a situation where you have to invest in your infrastructure to catch up with demand, and that's exactly what we did last year, and it's been great to be in a situation ... I mean, today we're powering over a billion job searches per month and it all leads to that idea of how do we find the talent wherever they are, and make it more efficient for employers. Chad: That's big, but there's so much noise in this industry, right? How do you differentiate yourself? And coming out with a new brand, I think that makes it a little bit easier because you're not going in as the same old brand and trying to say, "No, we're not that anymore." So I get that, but how do you differentiate yourself now from all that noise that's out there? How do you cut through it? Thad: Yeah. So I like to think of it like this, right? Years ago, there was this idea of ... and we've all heard it so many times, this idea of posting and praying, right? So people would post and pray that you receive the right applicant or the right hire. We like to think of it as post and produce, right? When someone invests with us and they engage in job advertising, our goal is to deliver a hire, right? It may be hard if you're looking for a doctor in Anchorage, that's hard, right? Or in some cases it may be hard if you're looking for a pizza delivery driver in Poughkeepsie, hard markets, right? But we give it a shot and we make sure that everything's working and everything is as efficient as possible. Thad: So, I think the big thing to think about is that for years, job advertising has been this idea of a portal or a destination or brands, I said, a post and pray. So, you post a job on a destination. That is very, very different as it stands today, right? Indeed is the world's largest job search, right? The world's largest job search engine, and when you post, you're there, right? And people, that feels good, right? Joel: But it depends on how much you're paying. But yeah. Thad: Right. That's a good point. Cost is always one of those really interesting things. So in our world it's how do we find the unique audiences wherever they may be, because the idea of finding a job or attracting the right talent is bigger than a single destination or bigger than a single site. And I think that's the value that our platform brings and helps people find and mines those audiences where they may have never looked, right? And think of probably 10 years ago, 20 years, 25 years ago, it was monster job board, you Super Bowl ad, you know that kind of thought process, right? Chad: Oh yeah. Thad: Then you kind of had Indeed. Well, probably in the middle there you had Niche, right? So you had kind of dice and in niche networks. And so today, people feel good that they're posting on a niche site, right? And that it's going to provide a great candidate for them. And so our thought processes is if we could take all of these audiences in one platform and bring a niche approach to talent attraction wherever that actual candidate is, we can provide a lot of value. And that's exactly how we look at Talroo and how we look at this idea of a talent attraction platform and how all the audiences are in one system, and our goal is to target those. Joel: Post and produce, Chad. Chad: Post and produce. Joel: I'll have to remember that one. Question about the branding piece maybe internally. So Jobs2Careers, well known as I guess, a job posting, job board kind of brand, and then moving over to Talroo, I think more of a technology, you mentioned, platform service. How was that handled internally? It's obvious a different sales person who can sell job postings and can sell technology. So, how was that handled here internally and was it difficult? Thad: At the end of the day when customers engage with us, they provide a budget. So, with that level of engagement, that level in investment, they want hires. That's why you invest. Joel: Outcomes. Thad: They want outcomes, right? Chad: Yeah, not clicks, outcomes. Thad: That's right. And in our business, if someone invests $3,000 or $5,000 a month or $10,000 a month, we should be able to provide them that outcome, right? For that level of investment. So whether it's clicks or whether it's cost per application or whatever it may be, there's the budget and the outcome is a hire, right? And I think that's why you see a lot of investment and a lot of companies that are going after this idea of a hire because that becomes very, very interesting and important as well. Thad: So from your point, Joel, it really hasn't changed anything that we do today because it's still an outcome based business, and largely what happens is when customers find value, they end up investing even more. So we'll have customers that start with two or $3,000 a month, and by month six they increase to 10 to $12,000 a month. That happens a lot, right? When you find the right customer and you focus accordingly and you provide great service. Chad: Well, that being said, taking a look at the advertising industry, right? And then the recruiting industry, two entirely different segments. Advertising, you go out and you say, "I want you to target," whether it's Facebook or Google or whatever it is, I don't know where it goes, I don't care where it goes, I just want you to be able to target these types of individuals and provide outcomes, qualified leads, right? Are you finding that it's hard from an education standpoint, to be able to talk to employers because they're going to say, where's my job going? Where's it going? Where can I see it? Where's it at? Versus a, don't worry about that. This is the magic of how the systems work. How do you get past that? Thad: Yeah, good question. So we were chatting about this earlier today. The number one programmatic advertising platform today as Google, Facebook's number two, number three is Amazon. People don't really think of Google, unless you're in the advertising business, Google, Facebook, Amazon as programmatic systems, right? But there programmatic, and in our world, programmatic really just means being efficient, right? Are you efficiently investing my money and are you targeting the right people? Thad: So in the advertising world, what happens is Google has signals, Facebook has signals, and from those signals, people say, "I'm looking to buy a house," and in Keller Williams or other real estate companies say, "I want to advertise to all those people looking to buy a house because I know the audience. I know the audience of these are the people that are looking to buy a house because of signals and everything that's happening behind the scenes." So in our world, we have a billion queries a month. Well, we know the people that are actually looking for a certain type of job. We know people that are looking for retail jobs. We know there are people that are looking for cashier jobs. We know people are looking for transportation jobs. So our goal should be to target to those people that are specific to them. Chad: Is it also frequency though too because you know really how aggressive they're going after it? Thad: Yeah, that's a good point. Frequency is very interesting, it is a very interesting topic. So from our standpoint, the industry is changing. We're seeing the change happen. In a lot of different roles, they've actually created talent attraction roles. So in a lot of talent acquisition and HR departments today, you actually will see talent attraction roles that are being created, and in some cases, those people have a lot of experience in traditional advertising. So is it happening? Could it be happening faster? Yes. But is it happening? Yes, it's happening. And I think that you're going to see more and more of this thought process because our job should be, there's a commitment to produce, there's a commitment to provide outcomes, and our job should be to invest and spend wisely where it makes sense, where we're producing those outcomes. Joel: You mentioned Google, Facebook and Amazon which leads me to my next question. At least two of those made impact in the jobs world in a big way about two, three years ago. Google for Jobs came out, Facebook launched the ability to post jobs on their side as well, and we're even seeing little glimpses of Amazon getting into the job posting game. Talk about how those big Goliath companies have affected your business either for good or bad. Thad: I haven't seen any impact as it stands today. I think Google has created a great opportunity where folks can advertise. I think that the biggest opportunity and kind of the Trojan horse for Google is probably Google Hire, right? If you think about it, that's very unique content, all of these applicant tracking systems they have. I think the last thing I remember seeing is there is, it three million businesses use G Suite? So these are three million people that you don't have to spend marketing dollars to, mostly small businesses, so that's very different. Today, we handle mid market enterprise and the conversations that we have with mid market enterprise is definitely different than what Google is providing. We're watching it, but I think that as I think of Google, Google does everything in scale, at scale, at scale. Like we advertise with Google, we have account representation at Google, but would an enterprise company have account representation at Google? I'm not sure. But I can tell you that we provide account representation and we provide great service. It's one of the things that provides a lot of value to our customers. Thad: So I think that it'll be interesting to see the shift. Facebook is really looking for probably small businesses, right? Their entire business is really built on small businesses. Joel: Trying to a kind of Craigslist. Thad: Exactly. And Craigslist, right? Craigslist is a billion dollars, right? Joel: Billion dollars, yeah. Thad: There was a recent report saying it was a billion and mostly small businesses. Joel: I put it on our show too. Chad: Has anybody seen their site lately, because it's the same as it was like in the 90s. Thad: I mean, they're the smartest of them all, right? 40, 50 people, right? It's pretty amazing. Joel: No investment capital, 50 employees, a billion dollar company. Pretty good. Thad: Yeah, it's pretty good. Chad: Back to Google real quick. We've seen many different job sites or are vendors actually tap into Google for Jobs to be able to really rejuvenate, in some cases, traffic. Have you guys been able to see traffic out of that? Do you work with Google? How does that work? Thad: We work with Google as we advertise our brands in Google. We do not work with Google for Jobs today and one of the reasons why is we think there's a lot of strength in having a unique talent pool that we can provide to employers. So, from our perspective, that talent pool becomes very important for us long term. So where we think there's a lot of opportunity is that people are changing, there's a lot of focus around behavior, people are finding jobs in lots of different ways, and they're finding jobs beyond a site, they are interacting in so many different ways. So we're looking at how do we find and how do we attract talent in other areas. Thad: A lot of companies in the past have been very dependent on sources, and so I think that it's up to us to find out how do we focus on other sources. Joel: So, speaking of some news items, piggybacking on the Craigslist announcement. There's been some news in our industry lately about sort of consolidation, acquisition. You recently probably heard that Jobvite sort of backed up the brinks truck and bought Canvas. You see Workday getting in bed with Beamery with a five million dollar investment. Do you watch these consolidations and acquisitions? Does it impact what you do or not? Or do you have a general sort of commentary on what's going on in the industry with consolidation? Thad: I think you're going to see more, I definitely think so. I think that as you walk the halls of HR tech, there are a lot of point solutions, right? A lot of point solutions that are heavily invested in a lot of ways, and I think that one of the investing philosophies is you either start at the top or you either start at the bottom, and what you're seeing is companies like iCIMS that have gained a lot of traction, raised a lot of money, they are at the bottom of the funnel. And as you look at iCIMS, I think you're going to see a focus around moving up, that's my prediction. As you look at other companies that are at the top of the funnel, I think you may see those companies move down, but I think it's hard otherwise because you either have to be the sourcing product and the sourcing solution or you have to be the compliance and applicant tracking solution. Joel: Do you guys actively look at companies to acquire? I can't think of any acquisitions that you've made in your history. Thad: We haven't made any acquisitions. Joel: Are you looking to make some of those or is that something that you don't typically visit? Thad: As we look at our strategy, our overall strategy, I think it could make sense in the future. Joel: But no announcements you want to make today? Thad: No announcements. Chad: Dammit. Okay. So just the first part of this year, a major player, Indeed, actually kicked Staffing in the nuts and said, "Hey, look, you're no more free. You're going to start paying for stuff." You're reaching out, I would assume, you're reaching out to Staffing. What's your message to Staffing today? It doesn't have to be anti Indeed, that would be my message. But what's your message to Staffing because you know they're looking for ways to get the hell out, they are looking for exit strategies. Thad: Yeah. And to your point, Indeed is a great product. It has provided value to the ecosystem. Chad: I didn't say that but go ahead. Thad: I'm saying that because they're a great product, they provide value to the ecosystem. Any company that provides value to the ecosystem deserves a seat at the table. So, I want to make that clear. From our standpoint, we think that there's a huge opportunity to deliver unique candidates and maybe unearthing these audiences that they're not currently attracting, right? So we think of how staffing firms generally provide value. The first way they provide value is I have to find candidates that the employer hasn't already seen. Without that, why do I need a staffing firm? Right? That's the key. I have to unearth these people. I have to find this opportunity and somebody else will find these candidates, and we provide that, right? We can provide that way for them to reach candidates that they may not have ever seen before because they're spending their time investing in resume databases, let's say, right? And so resume database is what we hear from our customers time and time again is, "I'm seeing the same candidates over and over." So we can provide unique candidates, that provides a lot of value for staffing firms. Thad: The other thing is the idea of providing value around performance, this whole idea of post and produce, right? The ability to just provide a performance based product for them is something that's very different. So I think that becomes a way to provide additional value. Chad: Now, do you feel like everybody needs to move down that road, because not everybody is right now on the performance side of the house? Thad: I think it's based on the customer type. I think that there are customers, mid market customers, enterprise customers, staffing customers, good customers that we do a lot of work with, right? Because there's a whole new movement around customer acquisition and gigs, they understand it. They understand performance, they have goals, they're metrics driven. It's more like customer acquisition. Talent acquisition is more like customer acquisition that's very different. But for small businesses, craigslist is a billion dollars. Is it performance based? It actually is performance based, right? Because people are getting outcomes off of craigslist for $30, $50, $100. Chad: But they won't be paying it again, right? Thad: But they wouldn't be paying for it. I think as you look at this, we try to shoehorn performance based advertising into different customer types, but really, our job is to be a fulfillment engine. And I think if you actually look at some of the international players in job advertising, they understand that. They understand their job is to be a fulfillment engine. Whether it's performance based, it is performance based at the end of the day, right? Just not the delivery mechanism or the method of payment. So I think you're seeing that and you're going to constantly see more movement around that. Thad: The international players that are very, very savvy and understand that they're a fulfillment engine are the ones that are still doing very well. Joel: Let's stick with Indeed for a second, and you have a very unique piece of real estate here in Austin, and a lot of our- Chad: It's gorgeous by the way. Thad: Thank you. Joel: ... listeners won't realize that you could actually throw a rock from your front door and hit Indeed's Austin headquarters. Chad: Joel did. Joel: And to me, that would pose a ton of really interesting employment branding questions because I assume almost anyone here could walk out the door, go to Indeed and get a job because they have experienced at Talroo. I'm sure Indeed has the same situation. I'm sure you guys see them walking around with their, I help people get jobs, tee shirts and it's very aware that you guys are both here. Thad: Sure. Joel: Has that been a recruiting ... like have you had to have a brand separate from their work environment to recruit? Is this a different work environment than theirs? And I guess just how did you guys strategize around how are we different as an employer from the guy who is right across the street and our competitor? Thad: Yeah. We haven't had any recruiting issues or any items like that. I think that- Joel: So no one has said, "Fuck this place," walked out and gone to Indeed? Thad: That's right. We haven't had that- Joel: Okay. Chad: No ideas are been given, okay? Thad: ... or the other way. Joel: He's writing it down, look. Thad: As I look at the faces in the audiences here and I have conversations, we have a very different culture in that we're a small business, growing business, doing good work. And I'm not trying to simplify the message, right? And I think when you have a large company, it's a very different thought process, right? Austin, actually if you go to the airport and you'd fly into the airport, you won't see a franchise in Austin's airport. They're all, in most cases, locally owned Austin businesses. Thad: It's because people in Austin, they believe in the Little Guy, right? They believe in kind of this idea of Austin, and focused on companies, and you'll see success stories like Torchy's Tacos and all these other businesses that have been very successful in Austin. And I like to think culturally, that's where we fit, right? We're the company that's growing, we're investing heavily in our people, we've had a lot of success, we're 100 strong, but we constantly provide a lot of value, and a lot of career opportunities, and everyone can make an impact. When we interview engineers, and we've been able to recruit engineers from large companies like IBM as an example, the number one thing we hear is, "I want to make an impact. I want to make an impact." When you're talking about a billion queries, you can make an impact, right? Every person matters. When you're talking about the number of clients that we have, every person matters so much. And that's so different. Joel: So when can we expect the keep Talroo weird tee shirts? Thad: I think we can have one sent to you maybe for the next show. Joel: Okay, sounds great. Chad: Can I take [crosstalk 00:25:27], medium XX0. Thanks. So industry wise, there's a lot going ... I mean, this is probably one of the most exciting times I believe in our industry. Thad: I would agree. Chad: So with all the startups and with everything that's going on, your vision, where do you see this industry actually going from here? There's so much noise, once again, right? Thad: Yep. Chad: How do we cut through the clutter and say that's where it's going? Thad: Well, the number one thing you hear is automation. Chad: Yes. Thad: Automation becomes so important, right? Our automation that we provide customers is, "Hey, we scale up what works and we scale down what doesn't work for you automatically." Automation becomes very, very important, and they have other things to do. Recruiters should be recruiting not working on tasks that ... Chad: Manual tasks. Thad: Exactly. That should be automated. I think that's where you're going to see a lot of value with AI, right? In those tasks. Recruiting, we always say, "Don't take the human out of human resources," right? You see a lot of focus around AI and chatbots and things like that, you can't take the human out of human resources. And so from a recruiting standpoint, that probably should be, I think, that's where recruiters should spend their time, that human connection. These are the people that you're recruiting that are going to define your future. These people you're recruiting, they're going to define your company's future. Great people grow great companies. If you can't recruit the great people, you can't grow a great company. And I think that as you look at the industry, when you focus on automation and making it easier for people to find great people, you can build some great companies. Chad: So you haven't read Circa 2118 yet, have you? Thad: No. Chad: Peter Weddle's book. Thad: No, I haven't read that. No. Joel: I haven't either. Thad: Yeah, I haven't read that. Chad: Joel doesn't read. Joel: I was curious from what you're saying from a macro level of what's going on in the US economy if you pin it on the global growth scene and where you see opportunities, any chinks in the armor maybe that you're seeing in terms of slowing growth? What sort of just your macro view on the economy in the US as well as outside of that? Chad: That's a big question, literally macro. Joel: I ask questions to produce. Chad: Instead of pray. Joel: Exactly. Thad: So that is a big question. At the macro level, we're headed for softness at some point, right? We're repeating a business cycle. That's just how it goes. Now, I think what will happen in the labor market is there are headwinds in a labor market that we haven't seen before. A great example is the gig economy. There are people working today in the gig economy that would probably have to have a traditional job three years ago. So if the economy, from a labor market perspective as the economy slows, and inventories increase and the economy slows, from a labor market, I think from what I can tell, the labor market is isolated because people are always going to need good people, right? Then you think of the hiring of high volume, right? You think of high volume hire. Thad: Companies like Uber, Lyft and others, Instacart, they're filling a huge void right now. So even if the labor market, let's say that the economy slows, there's less hiring at the retail level, cashier level, well, people still need people and there's a certain type of talent there. I will tell you, we did a little bit of research, we produced a book last year around ... our first published book about high volume hiring, right? And we were thinking about this as we were working with the team on it and we said, "What's really changed?" And I gave a little story of how at my local Home Depot, I walked into my home depot and I said, "How's the automation of checkout going to change how many people Home Depot hires?" Right? I'm like, "Is this really going to change?" Joel: Is it Home Depot that has the automated janitors that sweep the store? Chad: I believe so. Joel: I think so. So they're seeing automation in their stores. Thad: However, they still have to hire people because now what they're doing is they're providing better customer service and they're having to do that because of companies like Amazon, because of the online threat. So whether it's Talroo providing great service to our customers or Home Depot providing great service to our customers, I think what happens is as we focus on the tasks that could be robotic in nature or could be automated, there's more human connection. And whether it's a Home Depot cashier or whether it's a recruiter connecting with talent, I think the human connection is what's so important in all these areas. Joel: So I noticed in your solutions, you have gig economy. What do you guys do and can we expect you to be like a platform to bring employees, gig workers and employers together in the near future? Thad: Yeah. So today what happens is we have a number of relationships with gig economy advertisers, right? And they advertise like a customer acquisition scenario, right? So they're saying, "Okay, I want to find someone looking to drive for Uber." And so they contract with us and we provide them a driver, and at the end of the day, they're looking for that driver to actually start and actually drive for Uber in certain areas. And so what they do is they target different segments. So they're saying, "I'm looking for drivers in San Francisco, I'm looking for drivers in Austin, I'm looking for drivers in Phoenix," let's say, and we drive them people that are looking to drive for Uber. So today, the platform that we provide provides them those drivers and we're finding those drivers and mining those audiences within the Talroo platform to provide value for them. Chad: So, what didn't we ask you today that you'd like to actually push out? Thad: I think you guys are rock solid. Chad: Yep, that's us. Joel: Well, let's end with this. For those listening that don't know much about Talroo that want to learn more about the organization or even you, where would they connect? Thad: They could go to talroo.com. Joel: T-A-L-R-O-O.com. Chad: Give it up. Joel: Thank you, Thad. Thad: Thank you. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad at the Chad and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad & Cheese podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes, you know the expensive shiny gold pair that are extra hard because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Talroo #Programmatic #Jobs2Careers #Indeed #Interview #Google #GoogleforJobs #Craigslist

It's another NEXXT EXCLUSIVE! There's only one way to end your time at The Gathering the conference Forbes calls the best "Marketing Conference To Check Out In 2019". You talk to the guy who helped start the whole thing, of course. Here's Ryan Gill! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. Chad: Okay, Joel. Quick question. Joel: Yep. Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates or your texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflex to text messaging. Joel: Yeah. That's probably why text messaging has a frickin' 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: Crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which, are all great reasons why the Chad and Cheese Podcast love Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it! Chad: Yeah. That's right. Nexxt, with the double x, not the triple x. Joel: So, if you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI, that stands for return on investment, folks, and because this is the Chad and Cheese Podcast, you can try your first Text2Hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom! Chad: How do you get this discount? You're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell them Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to chadcheese.com and you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Just go where you know. Chadcheese.com and Nexxt, with two x's. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: My mike is on. Can you hear me? Is everybody in? Joel: There you go. Chad: The movie is about to begin. Joel: I've got to turn my down, because Ryan's going to be like off-the-fucking charts, I love it. Chad: Hot mic. Joel: Okay. Chad: Here we go. Bring it. Joel: This isn't the weekly, this is the Ryan Gills Chad: I might do something with this, I might splice this into the weekly, and then do like, by itself. Joel: So we're just spittin. Chad: We're riffin. Joel: All right, cool. All right guys, so this is Day Three in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Chad: It's fuckin beautiful dude. This shit is amazing. Joel: At the backdrop are the Rocky Mountains in Canada. Chad: With an IPA. Joel: We've got beer in front of us. We've got Bloody Marys. Chad: Grizzly Paul. Joel: Caesars, wings, pita bread and whatever else, so we're having a great time. Chad: And Ryan Gill, the mother fuckin founder and idea guy behind The Gathering. Say Hi. Ryan Gill: Hello everybody. Joel: Most people don't know that listen to us, what The Gathering is. Chad: Not at all. Chad: Which is ridiculous. Joel: Ryan, tell us what it is for someone who doesn't know what in the world The Gathering is. Ryan Gill: Yeah, first of all I've been listening to you guys podcast for a while and there's a lot of content out there and I love the depth of the content, the smarts I get from it. But I think when it comes to podcasts, you gotta like the people and relate to them. So I love your guys podcast and getting to know you guys and flying out here Joel: It's weird how our fans are like us, and maybe that's why. Ryan Gill: That's a great way to segue into The Gathering. I don't believe in metaphysics or putting stuff out there, but we just attract amazing people so that's the first thing. That's very broad, but if you like amazing people, you wanna come to The Gathering. But The Gathering, for those listening, and if anyone's been to South by Southwest, or they know TED Talks, I believe if TED Talks and TEDx, and South by Southwest, had sex and had a baby, it would be The Gathering. I'm not joking. Sometimes TED Talks are too cerebral, and a bit boring, but they're amazing and soulful. And sometimes South by Southwest is too much a party. Even though it's very inspirational, and so I think it's both. You guys, is that a good ... it's cerebral, but- Joel: I explain it as sort of Davos meets South by Southwest. Similar to your description I guess. Chad: Yes, and you're in Banff. I mean, Jesus man, this is picturesque. I mean, you come here- Joel: I didn't know this place existed until six months ago. Chad: You don't want to leave- Joel: I thought it was Branff, and I still kind of do. Ryan Gill: Part of that is because we do not ... This is a public service announcement. We're not inviting Americans to be on the show. I'm just joking, we love you guys. Joel: He's not joking. Chad: But seriously, it's an hour and a half drive. You've gotta be committed to come to something like this, and we saw huge brands. And not just huge brands, but we're talking about high level individuals. VP of Operations from the LA Lakers. Joel: Not just big brands, but movers and shakers at those organizations. Chad: How do you get these guys? Ryan Gill: Yeah, it's a commitment to excellence from Year One. We're in our sixth year. It's those cliches that are true. They really suck, but it's like, take care of people. And so our first year, we begged people to come, and crossed our fingers. I think we said we sold 200 tickets. We didn't. We gave away a hundred and fifty. We sold fifty. But we knew we had something good. And we wanted to tell stories about brands, yes, but more about the leaders behind them. You guys are parents and business people. Business is an art, and it takes sacrifice. Like working long hours, being away from your kids, they're not great things to do, but when you believe in something enough and it makes a difference in the world, it's worth it. And I think business people behind these brands need more attention for the sacrifices they make. So we celebrate the Lakers, but we celebrated Tim Harris, because he's a bold, honest, no bullshit guy. Joel: I think you're hiding a secret, because Tim let it slip that you impressed him so much with your invite. Sort of alluded that there was a video of some sort. So how do you really get people to come to the show? What's the big sell? Ryan Gill: It's direct mail, baby. You think I'm joking. Did you wanna hear the story or not? Okay. This for sure is gonna be the best podcast you've ever had, like most views. I'm just kidding. Maybe it will be. Ryan Gill: So early years, no one knew about us. But everything ... you think about all these things that start, no one knew about them at start. 'Cause you wanna create just unique cult brands, and there's not lots of them. There's tens of millions of brands, there's probably only 500 brands. So we write them all down, we do some research, Google them. And we write them this letter about what I just said, we want to honor brands and lifetime achievement, not just ... People don't just buy from them, they buy into them. They tattoo Harley-Davidson on there, or Red Bull. So we find their email, address to their head office, find their CMO or CEO. We sent one to Dana White, UFC, he was here one year. We send them out. They're so well designed. I'm not joking with direct mail. So well designed. Joel: Were these FedEx deliveries? Ryan Gill: I'm getting to it. Don't jump ahead. Joel: Sorry. Ryan Gill: 'Cause I'm in advertising, we get our best writer to write the thing. If you got it, you're like, "I'm going to read this, it's beautiful." And it's their name, and their logo, and then we put it in an envelope that's handmade. Then we put a wax seal on it. It's black, it's so cultish. Then we put it in FedEx. FedEx is a beautiful thing. Powerful people want to get their FedExs. They're getting contracts people, they're getting subpoenas through FedEx. So if you want to get through, spend the extra $15, or $20, and then make sure what's inside. So they open them, and it's sincere, and they literally have no fucking clue what they just read. Then they email us because they're curious. Joel: Do you tell them what you want, or do you tease them to say- Ryan Gill: No, they say they have to call Gatekeeper or they have to email back Gatekeeper at The Gathering.com. No name. Now we have more power to it though, because when people come here, they're like, "Yeah, it's Cheetos." They might not be the biggest, but I feel something with Cheetos. Joel: They're the biggest in my home. Ryan Gill: Yes, exactly. I can tell, I'm sure. Joel: Ouch. Ryan Gill: I'm just kidding. Joel: Damn. Ryan Gill: Where was I? What were we talking about? Joel: You were talking about the invite. Ryan Gill: The first year, I think we only sent out a hundred. We got 64 emails back. 64% open rate, read rate and respond rate. Joel: Well you had a 100% open rate I bet. Ryan Gill: So they got back to us and we went through them all. We get it down to like 20, 15 or 20. 'Cause they have to be relevant, they need to be making money. What their staff say about them, is a massive ... they're all weighted scores. Staff not liking working there, we've had to phone the biggest brands in the world and say, "No one likes working at your company." Off the list. They don't come to The Gathering. Chad: So these people open these up, right, direct mail. And they're some of the biggest brands, and what Ryan just said was, you can't fucking come. Joel: You're not good enough for our conference. Chad: So what does that ... Oh wait a minute, why can't I come? Joel: It's like the pretty girl who gets denied, and like, "What? No one denies me." Chad: Are you shitting me? Ryan Gill: It's a phone call, and then if they get through that then they have to go through half an hour with Chris, going through our rules. It sounds like an amazing pitch, but we're sincere. And you guys experience the content. So you go back all the way to your very first question. How do you do it, why do you do it? It's amazing content because they're amazing people. And they're curious of this black envelope that shows up. To Oprah Winfrey. So Harriet, her CMO gets it, and she didn't ... we picked Tony Hawk, and Oprah, she didn't score as high as Tony this year on relevancy with people under fifteen, one of our things. Are you really ... to be a real cult brand. And he's been around 30 years. Fifteen year olds still love him and like him. So they all get the envelope, and they get back to us. That's crazy. Joel: Talk about that a real quick, because you had Oprah, Tony Hawk, and Kim Kardashian. Ryan Gill: Gordon Ramsey. Joel: As the three finalists. Ryan Gill: Gordon Ramsey was deep in that too. But Kim got erased early. She's great too, powerful but not around long ... you get extra points, 20, 30 years, the longer you're a legend. And it's not always gonna be celebrities or sports people. I talked with Gordon Ramsey. He's a brand, he's not a chef anymore. He's beyond that. It's hard for them to believe it. Like Tony struggled with that yesterday. [crosstalk 00:10:21] He's much above a billion dollar brand, and he's shocked by it. Joel: He's so humble. How does this year stack up to previous years? Do you feel like you're getting better, do you feel like we're so big, we need to pull back? Are you gonna continue to grow? Someone commented- Ryan Gill: That's a good question. Joel: I overheard someone say, look I remember when it was like 400 people here. You could easily walk the halls. Now you're kind of crammed, and it feels really busy. Are you scared of getting so big that no one comes? You know, the old adage like it's a great place but it's too crowded, I don't go anymore. Ryan Gill: Two things I'm terrified of that. And I'm not terrified. And what I mean by that is, if I think it's shitty, or if it gets too big and it gets out of hand, where you're not connecting, I'll stop it. But I think growth is good too. I love the early years too. They were my favorite years. Year 1 and 2, like I remember the after party was in the pub. Have you guys been to the Waldhaus down there? Joel: No. Ryan Gill: It's out of a movie. It's an 1865 pub, you walk down there. It's called the Waldhaus. Joel: We gotta go. Ryan Gill: We had our first after party there. 'Cause only like 17 people stayed. But I love those beginnings and people think, they wanna grow too fast. So my answer to that is, I promise for posterity it's on here, we won't grow too fast but I wanna grow because more people need to experience it. Joel: For the record, I never want it to be not here. I never want you to move it to Calgary. Ryan Gill: For the record, I hope the Fairmont isn't listening to this, 'cause we're going to major negotiations, so please strike that from the record. This will not weigh on them. We are the prize. Not you. Chad: So that being said, every brand it seemed, talked about their people. Talked about employees. I mean, that was the base of everything in brand. But yet, there's nobody here other than us knuckleheads, that have like employment or HR background. Joel: And Chad and I rarely go to marketing. Ryan Gill: Working Not Working's here as well. It was amazing. Despite what other media companies might say, Working Not Working Gignac's the man. Joel: We were surprised that employment was such a focal point of so many of the presentations being a quote marketing, cult branding kind of conference. Ryan Gill: You think it should be more general? Joel: No, I thought most of the companies would talk about the marketing side of it. The consumer branding, how we built a product that everyone wants to buy, and where ... and not so much, success is built from the inside out, as opposed from the outside in. Ryan Gill: I wrote a book called Fix, with Chris Kneeland my co-founder, and we have a chapter in it about built from the inside out. We studied, as much as I like to have fun and stuff, I am a true geek and I love research and studying, and I pride what we've done here with cult on amazing curiosity of just researching. So the biggest thing that stuck out to us, and we studied them 5 or 6 years before we came out with real understanding of it. But the greatest cult brands, they treat their people so well, that when they go through hard times, guess who stays around? Them. 'Cause they're their first consumer. Joel: Agreed. Which of the presentation stood out to you as really exceptional? 'Cause you're seen a lot of these, which ones really stood out? Ryan Gill: That is super hard. Douglas Atkin kicked the whole thing off. Were you guys here for that? Joel: Yes. Ryan Gill: Yeah, Airbnb ex-CMO. I'm chewing ice.... Chad: You're good. This is the after party. Ryan Gill: Oh, this is good. He was amazing. He set the table. 'Cause I didn't know what he was going to talk about. I gave the opening speech. I said, "Last year was about vulnerability, brand purpose, that kind of stuff. But this year's about intentionality." And then he comes up and talks about that, about like just be specific about what you want your brand to be, and be intentional, so that was my favorite one. I heard I missed ... I think her name's Jennifer. Did you go to the Cheetos one? Chad: No. Ryan Gill: So I heard the Cheetos one. But the great thing is we record all these. And maybe you guys even in your show notes can... Ryan Gill: But I missed Cheetos and I heard it was the best one. That's what I heard, so. Again, you miss shit. Chad: Well that's the hardest part, right? We're definitely gonna need to check these out, because I was in sessions that I loved, but then I heard other sessions were going on at the exact same time. So we're definitely going to have to share ... do you share those videos? Ryan Gill: Yes, so it's mid-April that they come out. Joel: They'll be made available to the public. Ryan Gill: They're highly produced, and then they'll be snack sized. So we'll do the 45 minute thing, and then we'll have 14 clips. Joel: The Dabbs version, all cut up and sexy. Ryan Gill: @Ryangillshares. Follow me. Joel: Let's talk about our session. It started out as, you caught wind of our show, you interviewed us for your thing, you wanted us here. I'm assuming it was something unusual for the people that were here to see recruitment, employment. What was the catalyst for you to say, we need to have this content at the show? And now that we've done it, are you glad you did it? Ryan Gill: You're invited back, we already told you guys, for good. Just for one year, we'll see how next year goes. But you're invited back. The reason why you're here, it goes back, I like honesty. That's a stupid thing to say, of course everyone does, but in the face of when people might not like you, or it's critical feedback, I was raised to like that. That's how you get better. You're in the Army, you need critical feedback, you need to know it's true. Joel: Embrace your critics. Ryan Gill: You get better. Your whole podcast was about that. I know people don't like you. Those are people I like. I mean it, you have a point of view and it's not nice to have people not like you. I just resonated with you guys, I listen to it all the time, and I think your other listeners will agree that because Human Resources is so important, we're all starting to understand that now. People are standing up for themselves. We need honest conversations to make workplace better for everyone. Maybe your podcast will teach people how to operate. I gotta go to the spa. I'm getting my first mani and pedi ever. Don't judge me out there. You're coming back next year. These guys will be back, and we'll curate some stuff. Thanks guys. Thanks for listening everyone. Cheers. High fives are happening. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been The Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors, because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Cheetos #TheGathering #Banff #Branding #Airbnb #MarvelStudios #RyanGill #Communo #Nexxt #CultBrands #Marketing

To say this week's episode is a bit disjointed would be an understatement. But hey, we just comment on what we see happening in the world of recruitment. So, here's a taste: - CareerBuilder throws a few logs on the dumpster fire - RUMORS! - IBM uses ethnic slurs - "Uber for EVERYTHING" jumps the shark - Robot baristas - OpenAI withholds "dangerous algo" - Thumbtack offers giggers benefits? - Jobcase brings in the MUTHALOAD! Enjoy, and give our sponsors some love: Sovren, Canvas and JobAdX. There is no show without them. PODCAST 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. Announcer: 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 works. Complete with breaking news, rash opinion, and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Here we go. Joel: Let's do this. We just got back from Austin, and boy, are our arms tired. Hi-dy ho, kids, and welcome to Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Joel Cheeseman. Chad: And I'm Chad "Foosball" Sowash. Joel: On this week's extremely disjointed and random roundup, the dumpster fire at Career Builder rages on. Stop me if you've heard that one before. Robot baristas, Uber for humans- Chad: What? Joel: And the greatest advancement in desk technology ever. Strap an iPad to your head and get geeked. We'll be right back after a word from JobAdX. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat. Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads, page after page, before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversations are low. Budgets are wasted. Jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs and delivers what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network. JobAdX: Score! JobAdX: That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results, attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at joinusatjobadex.com. JobAdX, today we can save job search. Chad: Yeah, I still think the guy should be saying, "Fuck yeah," instead of score. We need to get that edited. Joel: The first "ugh" sounds a little bit like you, when you get frustrated with me. Ugh. Chad: I think I'm gonna talk to our buddies over at JobAdX and see if they don't mind if I actually cut out "score" and then I'll just say, "Fuck yeah," and then I'll just go ahead and insert that in there. I think it'll be great. It's awesome. Joel: Aren't we gonna see them in Phoenix next week? Chad: Yeah, we are. I think over a few drinks we can probably get that done. Joel: Yeah, get them all lubricated and agree to a totally not safe for work ad. Chad: We just got back from Austin and I can't remember the last time I've done a podcast without looking your ugly mug right beside me. This is interesting. This is pretty refreshing. Joel: I'm going to enjoy a weekend free from Chad Sowash, because I have to turn around and see you again in Phoenix and hope to God, unlike Austin, it doesn't rain in Phoenix with fairly, moderately neutralized cold-ish weather. I say that because we came from Canada, so it did feel warm, but it would have been nice to see a little more sunshine. Chad: Yes. But as in Austin, and thanks to the amazing hospitality from Talroo. We had great opportunity for amazing food. Joel: Franklin's Barbecue. Chad: Yeah, they brought Franklin's Barbecue in. We worked our ass off while we were there. We were playing Foosball, we were racing down the hallways on scooters. Joel: Corn hole. Chad: Ping pong. Joel: I showed you how to hover board. Good god. Chad: If you're not following myself or Joel on Twitter, you need to. Go to Twitter, just ... I mean, I'm the only Chad Sowash on Twitter. Obviously probably the only Joel Cheeseman. Follow us, there's some hilarious fucking videos, I think I might have put them on Linkedin, too, of Joel trying to hover board. That was awesome. That was worth the entire trip. Joel: I don't know how kids can just zoom around on these things. They're like death traps. Chad: It's practice, man. It just takes practice. Joel: Yeah, I guess so. Chad: I gotta say, the Talroo team was awesome, treated us like a couple of podcasting kings. Joel: How many cases of beer did they buy for us? Chad: Yeah, yeah, if you go on Twitter or LinkedIn, probably or Facebook, we might have put it on our Facebook too. Joel: Yeah. Chad: You will see the pile of beer cases ... Joel: Stacks. Stacks. Chad: It was awesome, dude. Yeah, so there's gonna be some great content coming from Thad. Probably next week we're gonna drop an interview with Thad Price. Joel: CEO. Chad: Yep, CEO over at Talroo, and then we've got some super-secret stuff that's gonna happen in the weeks upcoming, and that's all we can say about that. Joel: Gotta wait for it. Get 'em all hot and bothered, baby. Chad: Lube 'em up. Joel: Got some super-secret detention coming up, coming your way. Chad: Oh, shit. Okay, shout outs. Joel: Another shout out to Neuvoo, I still don't know if I pronounced that correctly. Chad: I think it is, yeah. Joel: Some French Canadian thing. Sent me a pair of socks, I think sent you also a pair of socks. Chad: Yes. Joel: And with all the swag I'm getting, I'll never have to buy clothes ever again. Except for maybe pants. I have not gotten a pair of swag pants yet, but I'm sure it's coming. Get me some nice daisy dukes, somebody, for the summer. And I will ... Chad: I hope nobody ever does that. Joel: And I will rock those bitches. Chad: Yeah, so thanks for thinking of us Michael Odell and the team over there at Neuvoo. John Headland, so John fired off a message to me. He watched our, the Gathering panel intro. We did it on video, and he provided some solid feedback on what Chad and Cheese actually means to him. I had said something random ... Joel: What are we, Santa Claus now? What Chad and Cheese means to him? Like, God. Chad: Hey. Joel: They're fans now, right? I love it. Chad: You've gotta allow them. Joel: What we mean to you, that's great. Okay. Chad: We've gotta allow them to bear their soul to us, Joel, come on. Joel: I guess. Chad: But yeah, gave us some great feedback. So thanks, John, appreciate it. Joel: Fantastic. So I got a package from FedEx today. Chad: Oh, nice. Joel: And it had our travel sponsors' swag in it, at least delivery one, Shaker Advertising. For those of you who don't know, they're sponsoring some of our travels and are equipping us with some of the highest tech gadgets on the planet, including trucker hats, new carry-on luggage, polos. Chad: Backpacks. Joel: Backpacks, yeah. They're gonna outfit us like a couple of middle schoolers as we venture around the world. And so my luggage and shirts were delivered today. Chad: Nice. Joel: So not as exciting as the trucker hats, which are stuck in China, I guess, being made. But the luggage is really nice, so Shaker man, thank you guys. The polos are great, I think they're Nikes. I'll be looking great on the green this summer. Much appreciated, big shout out. Chad: Yes. Joel: And by green, I mean Top Golf. Chad: Yes. Traveling with Chad and Cheese. You'll be seeing more videos and all that fun stuff, brought to you by Shaker Recruitment Advertising. Joel: Shaker Recruitment Advertising. Chad: Shaker Recruitment Advertising. Joel: Chicago owned, Chicago based. Chad: Hung Lee, he loved the iCIMS throat punches Indeed line, and he gave us some love on Recruiting Brain Food. So that was pretty awesome, thanks, Hung. Joel: The Brits is like the violent nature of us Americans, so they always love that. They're way too proper to have a headline like iCIMS throat punches Indeed. Chad: Yeah, but they can share that shit, though. Joel: Which by the way, shout out to Indeed, who is right next door to Talroo, which is kind of an interesting dynamic. We went by, gave 'em a big cheers, waved to them, we didn't get past security, of course. But we did see the building and said hi, so shout out to our friends at Indeed. Chad: Yeah, fuck them. Allen Fleur, hey, man. Joel: Such an asshole. Chad: Allen wants more virtual beer toasts, which brings me to we need to do more Demo-pocolypse. We need more Demo-pocolypse. So if you're out there in your company and you want to highlight new features, new platforms, products, whatever it is, and you want to do that via Chad and Cheese Video, then reach out to us. Go to the website, hit the little contact us area, and let's talk about Demo-pocolypse. Joel: Demo-pocolypse. I just made that up, it's great. Shout out to Lily Valentin. There's no E at the end of it, so I don't know if it's Valentin or Valentine. So I'm not sure. Lily Valentin works for Adzuna. Chad: Oh, okay. Joel: Big fan. She says the whole office listens, the company's a big supporter of the show, so Lily and the group at Adzuna, shout out to you guys. Thanks for listening. Chad: Well, you guys, you need to have a listener party that's kind of like a book club. You get together and you bear your soul and you talk about the Chad and Cheese podcast that really moved you. Joel: We're bringing together companies like never before. Chad: That's exactly right. Joel: It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Chad: Yeah. My last shout out to Holland Dombeck and James Ellis, both branding lovers. You are going to love, enjoy some of the Gathering pods we're going to be dropping in the next week. So once again, we were in Banff for about a week or so, probably the best branding, awesome conference, and we're going to have some really cool interviews that we're going to be dropping, so stay tuned. Joel: Did you know Forbes rated the Gathering the number one conference to attend for business professionals? Chad: Well I know why now, because I actually attended. And I have to say that at the end of conferences, I am fucking conferenced out because of talking with people. They're just so much, right? But at this one- Joel: Dealing with me. Chad: Yeah, being with you. This time, I was total, I was fucking fanboy. It was ridiculous how cool it was and the type of content that was brought to stage. We go to great conferences throughout the year in the recruitment industry, but this was something entirely different and new, so it was really cool. Joel: For sure. And we're gonna be spitting out some great content from that show here in the coming weeks. And speaking of the show, shout out to Laten Davison who was a volunteer from the show. He was there for our segment, he became a fan during the segment, wanted to connect on LinkedIn. We were like yeah, sure, dude, and he thought, "Wow, that's really, really cool." College student, just getting a start, nice, Canadian kid. Laten, this shout out's for you, and I will end my shout outs with a company in Japan called Piala, which I'm probably misspelling, but it's spelled P-I-A-L-A. As a non-smoker, I've always complained when I was in the workforce about how much time smokers got extra by smoking. I mean, it's literally like an hour a day- Chad: It is, it is. Joel: That they get not working. So anyway, Piala is giving non-smokers six extra days off for vacation, because they have I guess so many smokers and they want to reward the non-smokers who have been complaining. Apparently there are a lot more smokers in Japan than there are in the U.S., so it's a little more culturally different, but I applaud them for taking a stand for non-smokers and giving them a little extra perk, which they've been deserving for a long time. Joel: And with that ... Chad: Really quick, on the event side, go to chadcheese.com, click on the events link all the way in the upper right, and you're going to see that we're gonna be at TA Tech next week, we're also going to be at TA Tech in Chicago in April, in Lisbon in May, in Austin in September. We have a discount code there for you. We're going to be at SmashFly in June, Transform, then Recfest, which is going to be in London and about 3,000 fucking attendees strong, and Unleash in Paris. So go to chadcheese, click on events, and there's some discounts that are there for you, not to mention it's where we're gonna be, you should be there, too. Joel: We're saving you hundreds on your conference traveling this year. Chad: Easily. Easily. Joel: Love us. Chad: So there's some gossip out there. We got some gossip. Joel: Big gossip. We love gossip. And our sources are pretty solid. Like ... Chad: Oh, they are. Joel: We have a trusted group of anonymous people who trust us to keep their names out of it, but are more than willing to let us know what's going on. So we got some new gossip out of Career Builder this past week. Apparently some more big names in the C-Suite are getting axed. They gotta be running out of C-Suite executives to fire. I don't know, there must be so many, because every month, there's gonna be a firing. So anyway, the gossip is Pete Janson, who was VP of the New Biz Group, was axed. We got Megan Moobach, hopefully I'm saying that right, who was VP of sales, and we got Alex Madison who was a manger of enterprise sales. So the heads keep rolling at Career Builder, and thank you guys, our anonymous sources out there. Hopefully you don't get fired any time soon because we love the info that you're giving us. Joel: Which clearly states that our sources aren't necessarily VPs. They're like in the trenches, and I kind of like that. Chad: No, totally dig that. So it's like adding more logs to the dumpster fire. Joel: I want to add, 'cause we're having a running list of companies that won't talk to us ... Chad: Uh-huh. Joel: Should we add Irena, CEO Career Builder to this list? Chad: Oh, yeah. There's no question. I mean, you reached out to them through PR, right, to be able to see if she would be on a panel or even do an interview with us, and it was a big fucking no, right? Joel: It was a no, but it was a no like oh, she's busy. And we'll send somebody else. So it wasn't like we're not gonna talk to you. But yeah, I think Irena, if you're listening, and obviously the title of this will be like, "Heads Roll at Career Builder" or something, so we know that you guys are listening. Irena, we want to get you on the show, we want to find out what's going on, the Tex Colonel acquisition, what's going on there, what's going on at Career Builder. So if you're out there, Irena, give us some time, come on the show. We'll be nice, we promise. We will be tough as usual. Chad: Tough but fair. I mean, the only opportunity you're going to get to be able to actually get your message out there on this show is to be on the fucking show, so there it is. Joel: Yep, yep. So all those people who won't be on the show ... It's back, baby. Chad: Fuck. Okay. So that should be, I think that was actually IBM for apologizing for using ethnic labels like yellow and mulato in their applicant tracking system. So this goes under the what the actual fuck happened here? IBM apologized Tuesday after one of its recruitment web pages powered by Brass Ring, who they own, gave applicants the option of using racially insensitive terms to identify themselves. The process took job seekers to a dropdown menu that included, among Caucasian, black, and other options, yellow and mulato. Joel: This is almost a joke. I hope somebody in technology copied and pasted a list of nationalities from the 1940s. Chad: Oh, fuck. Joel: And then jokingly copied and pasted it as the new code for the dropdown, 'cause this is totally ridiculous. Like yellow, seriously? Chad: Yes. Joel: Seriously? Mulato? Chad: They said it was copied over from an area of the world where those are used commonly, I'm paraphrasing, but still. This is what happens when you don't give a shit about QA and QC and the process, right? They're a global organization that has downsized considerably over the years and I know the guy who would have been in charge of ensuring that this did not happen. Needless to say, he doesn't work at IBM anymore, but dude. Joel: Pretty sure I know who you're talking about. Chad: Yeah, no, dude, he would have been 100% QA, QC behind this entire fucking thing and he got axed and laid off like over a year ago or something like that. So dude, all I have to say is, what the fuck? Not just to IBM, but you and I were talking about, you know, on the Brass Ring side. Do you not have triggers to be able to say, "Oh, wait a minute, you're a dumbass. Don't do this." Joel: Well, and it's a word of warning to anybody. IBM is a big-ass company with a lot of committees and fail safes, allegedly. It's probably a good time, if you haven't, go check your ATS, go to the dropdown menu for nationality if you ask it or whatever, and make sure that everything is PC and not gonna piss anybody off. Because literally a job seeker recorded this on video and put it on Twitter and totally called them out, and so everybody embedded this video so it's there forever, which is great. But yeah, don't put yourself in a place where somebody like IBM can be embarrassed and really quite offensive, actually. Joel: Yellow is nuts. Chad: If you're a company and you're not doing quarterly audits on the actual process, especially before you do any type of rollout, first off, that's when audits should happen. But still, if you continue to do the audits not just on content, but on process ... Joel: Well, it doesn't help that IBM's brand is kind of crusty and old anyway, right? So now when I apply, I see references from the 1950s of yellow and ... Are you ... Yellow? Was red on there, too? Chad: As we talk about the 1950s, then we're going to slam this podcast into like, 2118 really quick with this new telepresence human Uber thing that you posted that just totally freaked me the fuck out. So where did you find this thing? Joel: Like, I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April Fools. But apparently there's a company that you can hire someone to go to things for you. So a literal person will go somewhere, in this case it's an office. Let's say you're traveling and you want to be at a meeting, maybe an all hands thing or something, and you can't be there. So you hire someone to go for you, and they strap a tablet/iPad to their face. Chad: To their face. Joel: And then your face is on the tablet, so like you're actually there, and you can see the event, or basically you see what they're seeing, and your face is basically replaced on their body. And it looks ... It's almost like slave labor that you strap a tablet to these people and they're walking around and being there for you. I guess it's Uber for humans. But I think we're sliding so far down the wormhole that we're just struggling to find startups and businesses that aren't just totally ridiculous, and this is one of those. Uber for humans. Joel: I'm waiting for this to intersect with Tinder- Chad: Oh, god. Joel: Where you go on multiple dates with multiple people at the same time and other people strapping tablets to their face or maybe it's like you can go on dates but not be on dates and then- Chad: Oh, that's too far. Joel: Someone else dresses up for you and it's like two tablets speaking to each other on a date. Chad: Yeah, but does the person who's wearing the actual iPad face get lucky if it's a good ... I don't understand. See, that just to me doesn't make any sense. Joel: Do they have to have sex with the tablet on? Chad: I would say yes. I mean, I don't know. I think you've gone a little bit too far there, so I'm gonna take a step back. Joel: That's where we're going, dude. We're going so far. We're talking about yellow on a dropdown for nationality and now we're talking about sex between people with iPads on their face. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So probably everybody out there has seen those little robots, those rolling robots who have the iPad attached to the top of it. You see them in commercials and that kind of shit. This is like that next step. I thought it was creepy before, but now they're calling it a chameleon mask and the surrogate humans are actually really the vehicle versus this rolling bot thing. The actual creator in Japan, go figure, said it provides a way to attend events remotely using another person's body. It's surprisingly natural. What? It's surprisingly fucking creepy is what it is. Joel: Yeah. If I start walking around the world and I see people with tablets on their face, I'm gonna lose it. You're gonna start seeing this in school, like college kids are gonna send these people to tests and shit. Fucking absurd. Chad: We should get these guys on Firing Squad. Joel: Yes, oh hell, yes. And it's gotta be some video component to it, 'cause they have to have somebody else's body with their face doing the interview. We have to do TA Tech in Japan, and we'll get these guys to do some employment angle and we'll get them onstage. Chad: We'll talk to Peter about that next week. Joel: Oh, god. It just gets weirder when we come back. But let's take a break, listen to a word from Canvas, and we'll talk some silly automation stuff. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvas bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser-focused on recruiters' success. Canvas: Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: Dig it, Canvas. A little teaser, we're scheduling a face-to-face interview with Aman Brar, CEO and founder- Chad: Spoiler. Joel: Of Canvas to get to the bottom of this whole acquisition thing and what's in store for that company as well as text messaging automation AI for his business and the industry as a whole. Chad: Yeah. It's always fun to sit down with the cool cat and have a cool conversation about the industry. And Aman is definitely a cool cat. Joel: Totally cool, and I want to see how many shrimp cocktails at St. Elmo's he can down, because if you've had those, you know they're pretty spicy. Chad: Horseradish extraordinaire. Joel: The automation apocalypse is real. Chad: Yeah, but you know what they won't do? They won't be making St. Elmo's shrimp cocktail, but they will be making coffee. Joel: So we're in Austin and totally freaked out when we saw this. Chad: In the airport, yeah. So last week, we talked about Pepsi, and they're spending b-b-billions to re-org and aggressively automate, right? And that's get rid of fucking humans, right? Now Joel and I go into the Austin airport and we see, guess what? A robot barista. So it is this big machine, really cool looking, and you have this app on your phone, and all you do is go to the app, pick what you want, pay for it right there, and it makes whatever you ordered right in front of you. Joel: Whatever you want, man. Whatever you want. Chad: Whatever you want. Joel: Now you say really big, I'd say it's about the size of a 60s Volkswagen van. Chad: Yeah, one of those love vans. Joel: Yeah. And it had really nice, looked like a big tablet screen, pick your shit, had windows to see, you could see you making your coffee. But this is the future. I could see this for anything. I think food courts could eventually become these screen touch, tell me what you want, here's service, you're good, bye, and you're good. Chad: Yeah, we're already seeing that from McDonald's to an extent, where you're walking up ... Joel: McDonald's is a nightmare. Chad: Right now it is, but when we were in France, and we were on our way to Normandy, we had to have a quick bathroom break and we're familiar with the McDonald's, so we just jumped in there, and they've obviously had them around for forever because it was very fluid for them. Now it takes longer, it's not fast food in Europe. Don't get me wrong. But it seemed fairly fluid. You didn't have somebody there that was like a liaison saying, "Oh, have you used our touch screens?" It was all just happening. And it's been happening there for a while. So yeah, I think right now it is a mess, but it'll be something that is fairly fluid for everybody who's probably not a boomer. Joel: It feels like coffee is specific enough that automating that is pretty easy. Automating chicken nuggets versus Big Mac versus so many menu items ... I will say I like the mobile app for McDonald's where you order on your phone and then you pull up into a designated numbered spot at the restaurant and then you check in, and then five minutes later, your food comes out and you go on your way. I do think that works. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But being in an airport, dealing with a screen of so many items was a total nightmare. Chad: That works for Walmart, too. Like I said before, that's how we grocery shop. We grocery shop on the couch, we fill our cart up, and then we go to Walmart, we open up the trunk, they load it into the trunk, you just sign, and boom, you're gone, right? So this is how Walmart is combating Amazon, and I think this is how some of these different coffee companies and fast food companies are really battling their number one cost, which is overhead. All right, what's next? Joel: We're putting journalists out of work. Open AI, baby. Chad: Open AI but a text generator that's so good, it's considered too dangerous to release. And there are a bunch of people that are pissed off about that, because Open AI is a not-for-profit that's open-sourced and they're not going to release this. They said its new natural language model GPT2 or something like that, it was trained to predict the next word in a sample of 40 gigabits of internal text. The end result was the system generating text that adapts to the style and context of the conditioning text, allowing the user to generate realistic and coherent continuations about a topic of their choosing. Chad: So this is pretty much AI that you gave a topic to and they would create contextual articles, or even just smaller than articles, around this premise. Joel: Yeah, and in many ways, it may not be this software, but at least being tested in terms of journalistic writing and reporting. We sort of joked before the show that this wasn't going to put journalists out of work, but I enlightened you and said a lot of journalism is just regurgitation of press releases. And by the way, most press releases could probably be automated, aside from quotes from the CEO and whatnot. But there's no reason that publishers, newspapers, etc. couldn't use something like this to just spit out news based on press releases that are submitted to a numerous number of sites that are out there already and just make it slightly original. Joel: And by the way, it's also potentially a great SCO tool to just spit out original content that's made by an AI and create tons and tons of pages of original content. That doesn't mean people are going to like it or share it or link to it, but it could obviously create a lot of pages that Google would have to deal with. Chad: Yes, and Watson is doing this already on the sports side of the house, and they've done this with tennis. So they will just feed in information about the score and Watson will go out on the web, obviously pull in data from the individuals who are playing, and they'll create a recap about what happened. So they'll have all the information, and then push it out and it was done by Watson. Joel: Was it Watson recently that did a debate with a professional debater? Chad: I think you're right. I think it has Watson in it, but I don't think it's full Watson. But it's called the Debater Project and it's beaten humans, but I think it just took its first loss from a human. Joel: Yay, humans. Way to go. Chad: Do, humans. Joel: Way to go. I'm going to add to the AI conversation here. I saw a post this week about artwork that was created by AI, and I haven't seen artwork more horrifically creepy and scary as artwork created by this AI. It was sort of like the Fly, where Jeff Goldblum, he just was off, right? He was human kind of sort of but he was a fly, ears were falling off, stuff was melting. And so- Chad: Very Picasso. Joel: Really creepy stuff. So AI has a long way to go to replace artists for dominance, so that's a good bit of news for the artists out there. Chad: So anyway, Open AI, they said they're going to revisit this whole allowing this new open source algorithm to possibly be pushed out later, but they did warn governments they should consider expanding or starting initiatives to monitor the societal impact of AI technologies, especially when it comes to fake news. Because you can actually have an algorithm like this and spit out a ton of fake shit easy. Just automatically give it subjects and make it tainted toward the fake side of things, deniers or whatever the fuck it is, and boom, let it go. And then the machine just does it and obviously, you can plug that into some type of sharing software and then it's just pumping that shit out. Joel: The potential for evil in making that much more efficient goes up exponentially when AI is brought into the mix. Chad: Sons of bitches. Joel: Let's hear from Sovren a bit of AI that is good- Chad: I love the good AI. Joel: ... for humanity and recruiting, and then we'll talk about benefits for contract workers. Chad: Hmm. That sounds fun. Sovren: Sovren AI Matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI Matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. Sovren: To learn more about Sovren AI Matching, visit sovereign.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N .com. Joel: So topic with the whole gig economy is what are these people going to do for benefits? And it's a very real issue because I know a lot of people who are stuck at their job because benefits. They can't leave because I got kids and I got healthcare and I've been there and you have too, I think. A family of four, you're talking about 500 a month for healthcare, and that's not really great healthcare as it is. It's just making sure that if you get really hurt, you're not really bankrupt. Chad: Yeah, that's what you wanna safeguard against, right? You don't want to have to get sick and then go bankrupt. That's the thing. Joel: Imagine universal healthcare in this country, what would happen to the workplace. How many people would leave? I mean, we talk a lot about the gig economy is overrated and it's not, but if corporate America lost five to 10% of its workforce because those people would now have healthcare, that's going to be a big hit on corporate America. Chad: Yeah, well, I think corporate America needs to think differently about work anyway. I mean, if that did happen, they would evolve. The thing that got me was, about this, was Thumbtack getting out in front of all the other platforms, because how many other platforms are out there now that are gig-type platforms? And if I'm a gig worker, and I fit within the Thumbtack realm of types of jobs, then that's going to ... I'm gonna go there first, and I'm probably going to work that platform much harder than any other platform. So I thought that was smart for them to be able to focus on okay, how do we not only get people to register, but also retain them and get more activity out of them? Joel: So they're sort of tiptoeing into this. They're partnering with somebody to do it. They're only offering it currently for I believe house cleaners in New York and California, which excludes a lot of people on Thumbtack. I don't know if you've used Thumbtack or know about it, but it's all kinds of handy people, do it yourself-ers, repairmen and women, obviously cleaning houses and whatnot is part of that. But what I thought was interesting about the model partially was that when you hire a contract worker, you have the ability to voluntarily give them a tip basically that will go towards their healthcare. So to rethink about when I hire someone to fix my deck or plumbing or whatever if hiring them on a contract basis says, hey, do you want to add five bucks for their healthcare? Do you want to add 10 bucks for their healthcare? That's something that I would probably do. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: So to put it in the hands of the consumers is pretty cool, and I like that idea a lot. Chad: Yeah, we've been using Uber and Lyft a lot lately, and that little tip functionality that Lyft had first, I mean yeah, of course I'm going to give my driver a tip, right? But if you do something like this, would you tip for healthcare? Fuck yeah. I think this is kind of the evolution hopefully that we'll see more platforms start to play with this and adopt it, because it just makes sense, because that is, you're 100% correct, that is the void of why some people don't get into gig work, because of that benefits piece. And if it allows more flexibility, even better work conditions, why not? Joel: Yeah, I agree, and in this case Thumbtack will match if you donate. So it incentivizes donation because you know that okay, I'm going to be able to double this because of Thumbtack. And obviously there's a limit to that, but I think both the platform and the consumer teaming up to provide some healthcare component to the contract worker is great, and I think you could throw in even hey, donations made to your contractor's healthcare are tax deductible. Why not? And then that incentivizes you to give more, because you're deducting it from your taxes. I think that's a really cool system that I hope takes hold. I'd like to see that. Chad: Do you think you could get more gig workers if they had an opportunity to have benefits? Well, fuck yeah, you could. Joel: Sure. Put it in a health savings account. You could potentially have so many contractors that ... I mean, Thumbtack could, I think, negotiate cheaper rates because all their contractors are on a central healthcare system. I'm sure that gets difficult when you look at different states and who's in certain states and whatnot, but it could potentially be done, I guess. Chad: Yep, yep. Joel: All right, moving on to money, money, money. Chad: People got money. Joel: People got big money. Let's start with the least amount of money and work our way up to the crazy money. Chad: Threads. Joel: Threads, well, they're not the least. Sapling is the least. Chad: Oh, little bitty Sapling. Joel: Yeah, Sapling, onboarding company. We don't talk a lot about onboarding, but it is important. Enboarder is one that's doing some cool things out of Australia that I think was recognized recently and/or got money. But yeah, onboarding is a big thing, creating efficiencies and technology and automation around onboarding are cool. I guess Sapling is tackling some of those challenges, so congrats to them. We'll be watching. Threads is next on our list, with 10.5 million. Chad: A cooler platform I would say. Sapling, yes. The onboarding thing is a must and you have to have a good onboarding process and hopefully you have a good onboarding tool, but Threads is more of kind of the cooler platform design to work, to be more inclusive by empowering teams to discuss and make decisions at scale. What the fuck does that mean? It's a messaging platform. Joel: It's a Slack impersonator. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's a slack competitor, basically. Chad: For the work [crosstalk 00:39:08] Joel: We're going to see these things come out of the fucking woodwork, dude. Chad: Yes, we will. Joel: Once Slack goes IPO, man, you're going to see all kinds of competition around that. Chad: Yeah, well think about it just for a ... All of these, we'll hit Landit next, but they all are great acquisition targets if they can execute on their plan from a technology standpoint and revenue generation standpoint. Joel: And what better startup to get money for than one that can be acquired? Crazy. Chad: Makes sense. Joel: We've got Landit, 13 million for the warm and fuzzy soft skills of executive coaching, career advancement. Chad: Blah, blah, blah. Joel: Furthering education, etc. Always boring, but always people will pay for that shit. Sapling by far is the worst name of the three. Threads is kind of cool I guess. I don't really think of corporate messaging or enterprise messaging system when I think of Threads, but yeah, let's go with that. Chad: Sapling's one word though. So that's kind of easy, right? I don't like the connotation of ooh, Sapling, but it is easy, right? So I don't know. Joel: Landit. Landit sounds like a space startup. Landit on the moon. Okay, so the big daddy, 100 million dollar investment. Chad: Million. Joel: Yes, Job Case, I don't think we've had 100 million dollar investment since Scout got it last year. It was actually one of the bigger news stories, but they're never anywhere. Scout is never at a show. Scout never calls us. Scout never is out there. Job case is more so out there. You know a little bit more about them than I do, but they're basically a blue collar job platform marketplace. There's a ton of blue collar workers and Job Case is now going to have 100 million dollars to figure out how to employ those folks. Chad: Yeah, like over 70% of the workforce, right, is on the blue collar skill trade side of things, however you want to categorize them. Yeah, I worked with Fred over a decade ago when he was at Precipio, and I believe this is really what was spawned off of Precipio. Job Case employs about 200 data analysts, scientists, software engineer, and they're really close to MIT. They're actually an affiliate of MIT's computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory. I believe that's probably a nice selling point when you're trying to get 100 million dollars. Joel: And by the way, when you look at the professions that are gonna be harder to automate, plumbing, construction, building shit, those kinds of jobs, although some of that is very automatable, a lot of those things are gonna be really hard to automate. So I think to take a bet on a blue collar sort of marketplace makes a little more sense than some of the others. They have some hot competition obviously with Snag and some of the others that are out there trying to solve this blue collar hourly contract kind of work. But yeah, there could be worse spots for sure. A lot of these folks aren't on LinkedIn. Chad: Well, and that's the thing, is that I think what they're trying to do, and I think this is a hard objective to achieve, is become the LinkedIn for blue collar skills-based workers, just trying to reach out to them and draw them into a platform. Not that they don't have a mobile phone or what have you, it's just do they generally, from a lifestyle standpoint, use these types of platforms to find jobs? Big question. So I think it'd be great to get Fred on he show, so I'm gonna reach out to Fred and see if we can get him on and talk a little bit more about it. Joel: Yeah, we got a lot of companies that have gotten money, whether acquisition or investment, that would be great to get on the show, so yeah, let's get him. Let's get him. And I think that we'll be seeing a lot more from Job Case thanks to this money. I think we'll probably see them more at conferences and events and advertising. Not quite ZipRecruiter exposure, but maybe we'll see much more of them in the future. So our show just tipped the scales at an hour, I know you're going to edit that down, which is great. I think this is a great segue to our last story, which is the greatest invention since maybe plumbing, we just talked about that. Maybe the printing press. Maybe compares to the computer, maybe the car. Chad: Gutenberg is rolling over in his grave right now. Joel: It's called the Nap Desk. A lot of us have probably seen the Seinfeld episode where George has a bed built under his desk, complete with alarm clock shelf, a little magazine rack for reading materials. But a company has finally made this thing commercial, the Nap Desk is a regular desk on top and it's a sweet dream on the bottom, baby. You've got a bed, mattress, pillow, your stuffy that you love to sleep with. Whatever you need, the Nap Desk will provide, and frankly I think it's maybe the greatest invention of all time. Chad: I can't see, and this is just me, I can't see wanting to actually get under my desk where I work and take a nap, 'cause I don't think that I could sleep knowing that I have work to do. I've got to separate myself from my work environment. I don't take a nap in my office. I have a couch in my office. I have a TV in my office. But I don't take a nap in my office. I would need to get the fuck out. Joel: Some of us can't be as mentally strong as me when it comes to the discipline that it takes to nap anywhere, including under your desk or in your office. Hey, it takes mental strength to shut down and take a break. Chad: I'll give you that one. That's awesome. Joel: We out? Chad: We out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors, because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Careerbuilder #IBM #Uber #Robots #OpenAI #Thumbtack #Jobcase #Benefits

The boys invaded Banff in Canada last week and not only evaded arrest, but were able to record a damned good weekly show full of news, surprise guests and lots of Canadian strange brew. Enjoy and give our sponsors some love, eh? Sovren, Canvas and JobAdX make us all warm and fuzzy ... even in the Canadian Rockies. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Sovren: Google, Lever, Entelo, Monster, Jibe. What do these companies and hundreds of others have in common? They all use Sovren technology. Some use our software to help people find the perfect job, while others use our technology to help companies find the perfect candidate. Sovren has been the global leader in recruitment intelligence software since 1996, and we can help improve your hiring process too. We'd love to help you make a perfect match. Visit Sovren.com, S-O-V-R-E-N.com, for a free demo. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts, complete with breaking news, brash opinions, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: What's up, boys and girls? We're going to do the weekly Chad and Cheese Podcast slightly differently this week. Chad and I are coming to you on day three. Let's call it the hungover edition of the Gathering in beautiful Banff, Alberta, Canada. Chad: Dude, we're sitting here in the beautiful Rundle Room in Fairmont. If you've ever been to this place- Joel: Think of the Shining. Chad: ... you know exactly what I'm talking about. It is incredibly beautiful. We've got snow-capped mountains- Joel: Here's Johnny. Chad: Dude, you can't beat that shit. This is amazing and [crosstalk 00:01:41]. Joel: It's great. So we're day three. We're a little bit slaphappy. We're on two or three beers at this point. So yeah, we figured- Chad: What the fuck? Joel: ... our audience, our listeners will not care if we don't do the show in a typical fashion. Joel: So let's get to shoutouts. Shoutout to the show the Gathering, cultgathering.com. It's primarily a marketing, branding, cult brand show. They had us on sort of a leap of faith for them to have two HR recruiting guys come on the show. We did a panel with Paul Darcy, CMO at Indeed. Chad: Yeah, Justin. Joel: Founder of Working Not Working- Chad: Yeah, Justin Gignac. Joel: ... a platform for creative folks to find work. Think of it as Upwork for creatives. And Ryan Gill, who is the guy behind the Gathering, has a startup called Communo, was on the panel. Full house. Really engaged audience. It was so exciting to be the recruiting guys at a marketing show. Chad: Yeah, I have to say we are the only ones. So Marvel Studios and Airbnb and all these big keynotes, they had their own videos that were produced for them. Joel: They had their own hype videos. Chad: Their own hype videos. Joel: So Chad and I need a hype video. Chad: We need a hype video, but we were the only ones with walk-in music. Joel: Also the only ones that gave beer out to people because when you're in Canada, you better show up with beer. Chad: Beer, and you always bribe the audience. There's no reason- Joel: It's more like our show is much better if people are drinking and drunk. Particularly if you're drunk, it's really good. Chad: I mean, it's better if we're a little drunk as well. Joel: More shoutouts to Canada. I married one, a Canadian, and I love coming back. She's probably skiing the slopes as we speak. She's enjoying herself. So shoutout to Canada, the city of Banff. Chad: I have to say that Julie ... So my wife, she came along, go figure, because Banff is fucking beautiful, but it's cold as hell and she hates cold. She actually said to me- Joel: It doesn't help when she wears heels with no socks. Chad: And I agree. Joel: Get that girl some heels with socks. Chad: You don't wear heels with socks. But I agree. This is the best conference I've been to in years. It is ridiculous. Joel: Chad morphed into a 13 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. Chad: I was a total fanboy. Joel: Assuming Justin Bieber is still cool. Chad: Yes, it's fucking ridiculous. But anyway, we'll talk about this a little bit later in the pod, get a little deeper into it. Let's go into some news. Joel: All right. Short shoutouts. Let's go to news. Chad: Yeah, fuck the shoutouts. I don't have time for that. Joel: Primarily, it was a slow news week. Even though we were traveling, it was a slow news week. Notably this week, some friends of ours, HiringSolved and ZipRecruiter, were recognized by Fast Company magazine. Chad: HiringSolved, number two. Joel: Assuming they still have a magazine, but they are still a great brand. Chad: Yeah, yeah. HiringSolved, number two in the AI category. We're talking about overall AI, right? Joel: Only Nvidia, a big ass public company- Chad: Holy fuck. Joel: ... ranked ahead of them. So that's a huge win for HiringSolved. Chad: Yeah. We'll get to Zip here in a second, but I want to break this down. Joel: Break it down. Chad: We're talking about a crew ... How big is HiringSolved? It's not a huge organization, but they are- Joel: I don't know. If it's over 30 people, I'd be surprised. Chad: It is incredibly focused on one mission, and that is to be able to help recruiters and then also dig that AI into applicant tracking system databases to be able to help recruiters find great fucking talent. It's focused. Joel: Minimally funded, particularly with their peers and Entelo and other sourcing tools. But yeah, for them to be recognized ... And we know Shon, the CEO. We love Jeremy and the whole team over there. Chad: Oh yeah. Jackie. Joel: We've done their show. Full disclosure. But this was a big win for them, and I think that if investors aren't going to start looking at them really hard, I'd be really surprised. I think for those at Entelo, Mya, the other AI, this really ups the game to say, "Get on par with HiringSolved at this point because they've been recognized as a major player in the market." Chad: Yeah. Well, to me, it goes further than that because we keep hearing HR people saying, "What is AI?" Well, Fast Company just said, "Guess what? Nvidia, Hiring-fucking-Solved." I mean, it's fucking simple. So when we're talking about, "There is no AI in recruiting," guess what? There is AI in recruiting. I mean, we'll talk about Zip, but to be number two, it's ridiculous. Joel: Another thing that stood out for me is Fast Company highlighted HiringSolved's sort of voice command system- Chad: Yeah, Ray. Joel: ... as well as their mobile features that they have. I think we've both been talking a little bit about voice and voice assistants and where that's going, and this sort of highlighted that voice is getting recognized as a feasible feature in technology. I think HiringSolved has done a good job, obviously, of adding that to their portfolio. Chad: Yeah. I mean, you have to get into the NLP area, and they're really focusing on ... Again, it's focus. That's one fucking word. They don't have any distractions. They are focused, and I have to give them huge fucking props because it is very hard in this industry in this time with all the noise that's going on to say, "Oh God, our investors want this. Wait a minute, a recruiter said this. Wait, a podcaster said this." They said, "Fuck all of that." Joel: Chad and Cheese said this. Chad: Well, no, I didn't say that because we know what the fuck we're talking about. But they really focused, and I've got to give them props for that. Joel: I think it wasn't really highlighted in the Fast Company article because it's so new is their, I guess, version two of Prophet. Chad: Yep. Joel: Prophet, highly used by probably every recruiter out there. Let's be honest. Every sourcer is using Prophet Chrome extension. It's free now as far as I know. Chad: Prophet 2. Joel: Prophet 2. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Electric boogaloo. I think there's a hundred testers right now. I'm not sure that it's been released to the masses yet. But HiringSolved is doing great things out in little bitty Phoenix, not Silicon Valley. They're doing it in the desert, so kudos to them. We'll be looking at what you're doing in the future for sure. Chad: Yes. This Grizzly IPA is for you. Joel: Unavailable in pretty much everywhere that you're listening. Chad: That's exactly right, unless you're in sunny Banff. Joel: Sunny two below Banff. Chad: So Zip. So Zip. Joel: So Zip. No surprise. In the enterprise category. Chad: Yes. Joel: ZipRecruiter, number nine in terms of most innovative. Slack was also mentioned, but Slack is sort of dancing in the workforce thing. ZipRecruiter's clearly employment focused. Fast Company liked their mobile operations, what they're doing mobilely. We've talked about them ramping up in Israel for their AI staff. They're not fucking around. So Zip, kudos to you. You definitely deserve to be on Fast Company's top 10 innovators in the enterprise category. Chad: Yes, and this says a lot for recruitment tech because we've always said that recruitment tech is behind the curve. I mean, we have, and there are two in the top 10. That's awesome. I mean, that's awesome. Not to mention, I mean, just kudos from a startup standpoint and a money standpoint and an investing standpoint on the focus. Joel: When you think about AI, I mean, robotics, self-driving cars, all these things that are going on in AI, and it's a little bitty recruiting solution that gets recognized as the number two AI innovator by Fast Company. Chad: Yeah, number two. Number nine, I wouldn't say is little bitty because I can't fucking listen to a podcast without hearing ZipRecruiter other than our podcast. Joel: Actually, Fast Company poked fun at the ubiquity of airwaves that ZipRecruiter has. If you've listened to a podcast, any podcast except ours because they don't sponsor us- Chad: Sons of bitches. Joel: Yeah, what's up with that? Yeah, if you've listened to a podcast other than ours, you've heard a ZipRecruiter ad. Chad: I need to take a step back and take a drink. Joel: I'm a little low. Let's take a beer break. Chad: Let's take a beer break. Joel: Let's hear from Canvas, someone who should've been on the most innovative list from Fast Company- Chad: Good call. Joel: ... and we'll be right back with some news out of Beamery and Workday. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas Spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas: Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Canvas: Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: And we're back. Joel: We're back. Chad: We're back. Wait, I'm going on Facebook Live. Joel: Full beers. Chad: Beers and- Joel: Does this microphone make me look fat? No, your belly makes you look fat. Chad: So we're going to talk about freaking Beamery. Workday. What's going on here? Joel: I love this. On the heels on iCIMS acquires TextRecruit, Jobvite backs up the Brinks truck with $200 million and buys a trifecta of companies. Chad: That was fucking ridiculous. Joel: Now we have word that Workday is a, I don't know, special partner relationship and have given some money. The whisper number on the investment was five million, I guess we're saying at this point. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So you see this evolution of the ATS, the talent management solution, becoming more of a marketing platform. I think Workday getting in bed with Beamery is just another step towards all these ATSes, all these companies, need to be more than just 'manage people and let them apply' and compliance. We need our users to be able to actually market to these folks. So they're getting in bed and acquiring and investing in companies like Beamery, Canvas, etc. Chad: This is ridiculous, folks. So much fucking money in this industry, and the next thing ... I mean, we were talking about Canvas last week, weren't we? Canvas, RolePoint, Telemetry getting all rolled up. So, I mean, this is ridiculous, but we're at a branding/marketing event, and I guarantee you none of these motherfuckers know any of those names. Joel: You're probably right. Yeah, they know the Marketos. They know the HubSpots. But more and more as recruiting bleeds into marketing, this is going to happen. I think the Candidate.IDs of the world, those marketing kind of people platforms, if they're not on your radar as an ATS to bring into the fold as a more marketing-centric platform, you're going to be left behind because apparently none of these companies can build it themselves. Workday is a big-ass company and had to get in bed with Beamery to have the solutions that they have. Chad: Yes. Over at Candidate.ID- Joel: Scotch is on you, buddy. Chad: Scotch is on you. Yeah, and so are kilts. We're going to see you. Death Match. Be ready. Joel: You will not take our freedom. I can't wait to see him in Lisbon. I can't wait for Lisbon, man. Chad: I cannot wait. Joel: We got a recruiting robot. Chad: Adam Gordon. Joel: We got a mad Scot. Chad: Adam Gordon, yeah. Joel: Who else do we got for ... We got someone else, don't we? Chad: At Death Match? Joel: At Lisbon in Death Match. Yeah. Chad: Oh yeah. We've got Tengai, the TNG. Joel: Yeah, I mentioned them. We've got somebody else, don't we? Chad: Oh, we've got Opening.io. Joel: Oh yeah. That's them. Chad: Andrea. Joel: Dude, it's going down in Lisbon. It's on in Lisbon. Chad: It's not until May, right? Is it May? It's May. Joel: Yeah. If you're in Europe and you're a startup and you want to bring your shit to the Death Match, you think you've got the juice, bring it. Chad: There you go. Joel: There's got to be a good German company that wants to bring it, or maybe a Russian. Chad: Oh, Wolfgang. Joel: Maybe a Russian company. Somebody. Iceland has to have some sick startup that wants to come on Death Match. Chad: So anybody who doesn't know, I mean, we're going to be Portugal. We're going to be in Lisbon in May, dude, and it's going to fucking kick ass. Joel: And we're going to be in Paris. Chad: We've got Death Match in Portugal. We're in Paris in October for Unleash. That's going to be off the fucking chain. Joel: That's going to be lit. We're going to be in London. Chad: So let's talk about London real quick. Joel: I love London. Chad: We're going to be in London. Joel: Great fish and chips. Chad: We have some things that we're going to keep under the covers right now because we don't want to let that out yet. But yeah, we're going to be at RecFest drinking their beer and enjoying the London skyline, pretty much. Joel: We're going to give Charney a wedgie on stage. I think that's going to be a highlight. Chad: Charney walks around with a fucking wedgie. Joel: That might be true. He's a little tight. He's making diamonds up there. Chad: He's a t-back kind of guy. So last but not least- Joel: He and I are going to find a good Oasis cover band while we're out there, I think. Chad: Oh, you guys are both- Joel: That's what I'm talking about. Chad: Yeah, you're made for each other. Chad: So, Pepsi. Did you hear about this Pepsi thing? Joel: Yeah, that's your lane. Tell us about Pepsi. Chad: Dude, so we keep talking about how automation is going to kill humans. They're not going to kill humans. Well, they could Terminator-wise, but- Joel: I'll be back. Chad: We see Pepsi spending billions of dollars to reorganize. Joel: That's with a B. Chad: With a fucking B, dude. Joel: A fucking B. Chad: So to reorganize, and guess what? Joel: What? Chad: Automation. Robots. Fucking no more people. Fucking guess what? People take sick days. People need benefits, that kind of shit. Pepsi, dude, they're all in, and they say they are aggressively going after automation. Joel: Do they know robots don't drink Pepsi or eat Cheetos? Chad: I don't think they know that. Joel: Just saying. Chad: I don't think they know that, and to be a cult brand, you've got to have people that actually drink your shit. Joel: Yeah, that's important. Chad: Isn't that important? Does it piss people off when you tell them to get the fuck out and that you're going to replace them by robots? Joel: Hell no. If I got fired by Pepsi, I might not drink Pepsi anymore. Chad: It's a possibility. You might go Coke. Joel: I might Coke it up. Chad: Or you might just ... a good water. I don't know. Some shit like that. Joel: I can't stop eating these pretzels. Chad: Well. Okay, so go ahead, Joel. You continue to eat. Good God. Joel: So we'll take a quick pretzel break. Chad: Pretzel break. I'm going to drink some more IPA. Joel: We're going to hear a word from JobAdX, and we'll come back to talk about some more shit to end the show. Chad: I love JobAdX. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat. JobAdX: Ugh. JobAdX: Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads, page after page before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low. Budgets are wasted. Jobs go unfilled. No one wins. JobAdX: But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs and delivers what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network. JobAdX: Score. JobAdX: That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at joinus@J-O-B-A-D-X.com. JobAdX: JobAdX. Together, we can save job search. Chad: Where's our server at? Because we need another beer. Tess. Where's Tess at? Joel: [inaudible 00:18:43] final and stuff. Chad: So once again, we are in what Joel would call Brampf. It is Banff. Joel: Were you livecasting there for a second? Chad: Banff. Huh? Joel: Were you livecasting the show? Chad: Yeah, I was. Joel: Was anybody watching? Chad: I don't know, but they might later. Joel: Thank God LinkedIn now has livestreaming. People might actually watch that are recruiters on LinkedIn. Chad: Yeah, so we're going to end the show with some highlights of the Gathering. So we were actually found by Ryan Gill, who is the co-founder kind of like idea guy behind what the Gathering has become. Joel: The heart and soul, I would say, of the event. Chad: Definitely. I mean, yeah. Chris is the execution 'go get shit fucking done' guy. I mean, Chris is awesome, and we have a podcast that we're going to release with him. This is an amazing conference, and what I want to do is just from my standpoint, between you and me, kind of break down some of these speakers. Joel: The highlights, what stood out kind of thing? Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the first thing that I got right out of the gate was when I go to ... and this is a little thing. You're still wearing yours. When I go to a conference, I always take the name-tag off because it's some cheap-ass fucking paper printed bullshit. Joel: You're not naming any names. Chad: No, I'm not because they all do it. It's a paper printed bullshit kind of thing. Chad: The Colt brand, what they did was they created a music VIP plastic pass with an RFID in it to be able to log who came into what session. I wore that thing. I didn't realize it. The first day, Julie said ... when we were at dinner that night, she was like, "You're still wearing your fucking name badge." And generally as soon as I get it, I put it in my pocket. I pull it out of my pocket just to show them that I'm there, and I put it back in my pocket because it looks fucking horrible. Joel: And everyone knows who you are anyway. Chad: I wouldn't go that far. But still, I think it looks dumb. This, I was like, "It's fucking cool." So what was the coolness factor of this thing? Joel: Oh, it was very high, particularly when you compare it to recruitment, and that's okay. Recruitment is not Lakers, Airbnb, Cheetos- Chad: Avian Awards. Joel: ... Marvel. This was clearly cool just from the fact that really well-known brands that you equate to being cool were here. Joel: I think two of the things that stood out to me was the fact that they allowed us to come and speak is sort of a testament to how marketing is starting to embrace recruiting, HR, the people side of the business. Joel: I guess the second thing I took from this conference aside from the leap of faith with going with a couple of recruitment podcasters was you had almost every brand that got up on stage talked about people, talked about employees, talked about the importance of- Chad: The core. Joel: ... who you are and how brands are built from the inside in as opposed to the outside in, and that started with employees. But to counteract that, when we talked and interviewed a lot of the people who were on stage- Chad: Big names. Joel: ... there was a disconnect between okay, people are number one, but how are you partnering with HR recruiting to make sure that that relationship with marketing and HR and recruiting is strong? There's a total disconnect between HR and marketing almost to the point where marketing looks down on HR. I think HR is a little bit intimidated by marketing. Clearly, HR is not at the table when branding big questions are being asked. Most telling was our interview with the Airbnb- Chad: Douglas. Joel: ... sort of brand guy, and this unfortunately was off-mic. Chad: We'll get it. Joel: He told a story about he, in a conversation with the co-founder and I think CEO currently- Chad: Airbnb. Joel: His comment was, "The brand is toast as soon as you get an HR person or HR department." Chad: As soon you create HR. Yeah. Joel: That is incredibly telling, that the opinion of the C-suite is HR is a brand-killer when I think you and I are on the side of, "People and recruiting is the lifeblood of brand." If you and I can be a little piece of bridge between those two and maybe build that conversation or ignite that conversation, that's a really good thing, and maybe this is step one to do that. Chad: I am committed to go to Tuscany where Douglas Atkin actually- Joel: You really sacrifice. Chad: ... where he lives today because he ejected out of Airbnb to be able to partner with him. Chad: No, but seriously, guys, Joel's right. I mean, the thing that really bothered me the most was that I've always thought a huge problem with employment brand was employment brand. I always believed that the brand itself should carry no matter what. Don't fracture it. If it works, it fucking works. The LA Lakers, Tim Harris, he had a presentation that just nailed it that said that yeah, you don't need an employment brand, for God's sakes. The brand is the brand. Airbnb, Marvel Studios, I mean, big fucking cult brands. Chad: So from our standpoint, I believe next year, our charge is to bring leaders, actually employment brand leaders, to the conversation so that we can start to make these bridges because- Joel: We want to start cross-pollinating marketing people at HR shows, recruiting shows, and more recruiting people at these marketing shows. Chad: If you're not at this brand show- Joel: One thing, if I could interject. The Lakers, Tim Harris, I think the VP of business operations, we really wanted to get him on the show, but he's a busy guy. Chad: He's a little busy. Joel: But he gave a story in his presentation where they give their employees these little business cards that say, "Caught you being a Laker." They give them out to employees, and employees, when they see people out in the public wearing Kobe jerseys or Lakers shirts or hats- Chad: Have an awkward intervention. Joel: They have carte blanche to go up to them and say, "Hey, I'm an employee with the Lakers. I caught you being a Laker. Thanks for being a fan. Here you go." Then on the back of the card are instructions to get two free tickets to a Lakers basketball game. Joel: I know most people listening are not the Lakers. You don't have that sort of fanatical- Chad: Cult brand. Joel: ... following, but is there something in your organization where you can empower employees to go out in public and really reward folks that are carrying the brand or championing it? Because I think that Lakers story was really, really powerful. Chad: If we can kind of figure this out on the HR side ... As we talk to Chris Kneeland who is, I mean, really one of the driving forces behind the Gathering, and we're going to post that podcast as well, there is a huge divide. I mean, we're talking about marketing who has probably tenfold, probably more, the cash to spend versus HR, and we're seeing that the symptom is employer brand. Joel: Well, maybe deeper than that. I asked Chris. I said, "Do you think marketing looks down on HR?" His answer was, "I think everyone looks down on HR." Chad: Doesn't everybody? Yeah. Joel: Until we solve that, it's never going to get better. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Don't give too much up of the podcast. Joel: Well, it's a teaser. You've got to listen to the podcast. Chad: It's a damned good teaser. Chris, probably one of the smartest guys that actually took the stage. Chad: Yeah, so we had Douglas Atkin from Airbnb. Mindy Hamilton from Marvel Studios. Dude, I mean, and they went bankrupt, but yet they still created a brand. Joel: 1996, Marvel was almost done. Chad: They created a brand, dude. Joel: And look at where they are today. Talk about passion employees. Chad: Oh, dude. Joel: You would think it's not going to be hard to get someone to get excited to work for Hulk and Iron Man, but- Chad: Especially now. Joel: Yeah, especially now. Chad: Right now. Yeah. Chad: Tim Harris from the LA Lakers. We had Vans. That was here. Lush. Yeti. And then the thing that got me was sitting back and listening to Tony Hawk because we're talking about a guy who is- Joel: He's our generation. Chad: He's our generation. Joel: I mean, we grew up with Tony Hawk. I'm not a skater. Chad: Yeah, me either. Joel: But he was a Gen X poster boy. Chad: Who is a brand. Chad: Indeed was here, just so that you know. Joel: Yeah, let's talk about Indeed real quick. Chad: Let's do it. Joel: So we unfortunately have to add Indeed to the growing list of companies who won't talk to us on the record. Chad: We had a good off the record conversation. Yeah. Joel: Dice. Our boy at Dice who won't apparently come on the show. We added the Ladders, formerly known as the Ladders. They're not going to come on the show, and we have to add Indeed, in my opinion unfortunately, to the list. Joel: However, Paul D’Arcy, who was here, CMO at Indeed, sat down with us for drinks, meaning non-alcoholic drinks. Was pretty open and transparent and the organization. His comms team won't let us record anything that we do with him. He gave a presentation at the show, which was great. It was more or less data around what employees or candidates are looking for and things like that. They wouldn't let us record his session, which was really ridiculous in my opinion. Now he was on our panel, which they couldn't say, "No, you can't record that," because we're actually on the panel. Chad: That's our panel. Joel: That's our shit. Chad: Yeah, that's our shit. Joel: So you will see and/or hear from Paul in the future. I like Paul, personally. I don't know about you. Chad: Yeah, no. Joel: I think he was very open and honest about what was going on. We sort of drilled him about the latest iCIMS 60% decrease in terms of traffic from their users. Chad: And he was behind it. Joel: He was very sort of honest about that, like, "Hey, I think you guys have covered that a lot. I think the two pane solution that we have with searching for jobs may be sort of skewing the numbers a little bit on that." But he didn't shy away from it. He didn't dodge the question. It's unfortunate that he wasn't willing to have a mic in front of him during that session. Chad: It wasn't his fault. It was a babysitter thing. Joel: Yeah. Apparently, in a side conversation, he had said, "Look, I'm cool with it, but my comms teams doesn't want these idiots to make me say something stupid or make me look bad." Chad: Yeah, risk mitigation. Joel: I understand that as a big company with a lot of shareholders. Hopefully they'll reconsider at some point because I do think it was a great interview. Indeed has a new CEO. We're actually going to be in Austin soon right next door to them. So if you're listening, Indeed, and we know you are, hopefully you'll change your mind. We've been very respectful, I think, to companies in the past when we interview them. We haven't been stupid or idiotic to anyone. Chad: We ask hard questions. That's what we do. Joel: We try to be tough but fair. But yeah, hopefully you'll reconsider and we can talk to Paul or the new CEO in the near future. Chad: Yes, yes, yes. So look for all of those. We have a series of podcasts that are going to be able to drop from the Gathering. One of those is that panel discussion. We had some amazing conversations with Justin from Working Not Working. We had Fiasco Gelato. Joel: James. Chad: Which is big here in Canada. Joel: We've had great interviews. Ryan, the founder. Chris called marketing. Airbnb. We're rolling in the content. We're very blessed. Chad: I'm telling you right now, guys. I really appreciate your listening. Joel: We toast to you, the Chadbots and Cheeseheads of the world. I need another beer, and I'm out. Chad: And I'm out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad the Chad and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. Tristen: The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive, shiny, gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #TheGathering #Banff #MarvelStudios #Airbnb #Vans #HiringSolved #ZipRecruiter #Pepsi #Beamery #Workday #Marketing

What happens when you put together two meatheads with public school educations and a chief economist with degrees from Yale and Harvard? God help us, we're about to find out. The boys have a nice chat with Josh Wright of iCIMS about the gig economy and the future of work. Enjoy this Nexxt exclusive. PODCAST 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. Announcer: This, the Chad and Cheese Podcast, brought to you in partnership with TA Tech. TA Tech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Visit TATech.org. Chad: Okay, Joel. Quick question. Joel: Yeah? Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates, or your texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflex to text messaging. Joel: Yeah, that's probably why text messaging has a frickin 97% open rate. Crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why the Chad and Cheese Podcast love Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it. Chad: Yup. That's right. Nexxt, with the double X. Not the triple X. Joel: Bow chicka bow wow. So if you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI ... That stands for Return on Investment, folks ... and because this is the Chad and Cheese Podcast, you can try your first Text2Hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom. Chad: Wow. Joel: Wow. Chad: So, "How do you get this discount?" You're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell 'em, Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to ChadCheese.com and you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Just go where you know, ChadCheese.com and Nexxt, with two Xs. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: All right, all right, all right. What's up, everybody? The IQ of this show is going to get to all-time highs today. We're talking to Josh Wright, Chief Economist with iCIMS. My man worked at Bloomberg, the Federal Reserve. He's got degrees from Harvard, Yale. Chad: He's got chops. He's got chops, dude. Joel: He's probably very embarrassed to be on this podcast. Josh, welcome to the show. How are you? Josh: It's great to be with you. I make it a policy not to believe any of my own press or hype. Joel: So, what did I miss about you that our audience should know? Josh: Gee, you covered a lot of the highlights. One interesting thing is, before I got into economics, I actually used to work in international peacekeeping missions. Chad: Oh. That's pretty cool. Josh: So, a fun fact about me. Joel: Way to make me feel even worse about myself, Josh. Thanks. Chad: That's awesome. Josh: There's a metaphor in there. You know, putting out fires, dealing with chaos, rapid change. Joel: In my spare time, I save the rhinoceros population of Uganda. Chad: Ran into a burning building, saved children, many children. Josh: Okay, yeah. Chad: No, that's awesome. that's awesome. So Josh, I'm gonna throw this right out to you, right off the bat. iCIMS has a chief economist on staff. Why does iCIMS need a chief economist on staff? We don't really see chief economists really in our industry, so why was it so important for iCIMS to do that? Josh: Well, one thing you're pointing out is that it's a great point of differentiation. It makes us different from other companies. But also, as the company has grown very rapidly in the last five or 10 years, we have accumulated a large amount of data, but they need domain knowledge. They needed an expert to help them interpret that data. We've got a lot of great technologists here, but not people who have spent the amount of time that I have in trying to understand the macro economy and the labor market from a really high level, and can connect the dots from the trends within the industry, and the trends within the clients' activity and their hiring operations to broader trends in the macro economy, the unemployment rate, that kind of stuff. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). We have the BLS for that. Do you work with the BLS? Are you providing BLS data, kind of like gap data that they're really not seeing in the market? Josh: Funny you should ask about that. We actually are in conversation with the BLS about possibly providing them supplementary data, to increase the geographic granularity of some of their reports, or doing some kind of study on ... It could be a running supplement or it could be a one-off study, to help them understand what's going on out there. Because like a lot of areas of the government, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is under a lot of funding constraints, and they know that they're not likely to see ... Their needs are growing, but they're not likely to see their funds rise commensurate with that. Joel: Right. We know iCIMS as an applicant tracking solution. They're certainly getting into other things. What we're gonna talk about today is your recent survey on the myths and realities of, I guess the gig economy, or the contingent workforce. Why is iCIMS sort of positioned to talk about this as an ATS, and why did you guys pick this topic to cover? Josh: Well, without getting too much into the marketing of it, iCIMS has really been expanding the last couple of years from just an applicant tracking system, to being a whole platform for all things talent acquisition. Hiring an economist was part of that, to take a broader view of what are the needs of organizations that are really large, and have really thorny hiring problems. One of the problems out there is how do you understand your total labor expense, your total labor spend, your total human capital acquisition? And understanding what's going on in the gig economy is a key part of that. Joel: And based on the survey, you guys are gonna get more into providing services for hiring and managing contingent workforces, although you're probably not prepared to talk about that. Josh: Like I said, I've gone about as far as I can go in the marketing for the product road map. I've got some wonderful colleagues that I can point you towards. Joel: Fair enough, Josh. Chad: Cool. Well, let's jump into the report. I mean, we're talking myths versus realities of the gig economy. So, myth number one. Let's have some conversation around this. People usually start taking gigs or contingent work as a short-term solution, to get a foot in the door while they're looking for a full-time job. So, it's not really something they want to do. They're just trying to get their foot in the door. What's the reality behind that? Josh: Well, the reality is that a lot of people prefer contingent work and gigs. They prefer the flexibility of that kind of job, and in fact, a lot of them have been doing it for years. We found that 40% have been doing it for more than five years, in fact. When you look at the other 60%, it breaks up about 20% each for one to three years and three to five years, and less than that. So, there are a lot of experienced workers out there who actually value having this kind of arrangement, and it works to their advantage. Josh: We kind of think of the gig economy as being it's all about Uber, and people getting jobs from apps. And a lot of them are blue collar, maybe they're down on their luck, or they've got some special need that they're trying to fill in the short term. But actually, we found that there are a lot of people for whom this is a viable career option. Chad: Well, I found it interesting that only 15% said they wanted to land a full-time job. Josh: That's right. Chad: They weren't even looking for a full-time job. Josh: No. Now, it's important to remember that there's a lot of fragmentation in this market. You know, these people, there's a lot of diversity in the people who take gig work. In the world of finance, we call this sometimes a barbell structure. You've got people at the top end of the gig economy, and people at the lower end of the gig economy. So, there are these advantaged individuals who've got the knowledge and they've got the skills. They've got the networks and the experience to be able to basically, maybe not write their own check, but arrange their work life around their overall life. Those are the people at the top end. Chad: Right. Josh: They're the ones who are not looking for any change. They're saying, "This is suiting me. Great." But then there are the people at the lower end, where they are kind of holding on by their fingertips, and it is more of a precarious position. That's one of the things that gets glossed over in the popular media discussions. Initially, there was a lot of hype about, "The gig economy's so great. Silicon Valley is ... " You know, "It's another big win for revolutionizing our lifestyle." And now we're in the backlash period, where you've got ... The California Supreme Court has come out with a case talking about worker's rights. People are concerned about a whole lot of things, at some of these companies. Josh: But what's getting obscured there is that there's this other, underlying trend, this underlying portion of the labor market, where things have been humming right along. It has been doing that for a while, actually. For some of these people, it's a very stable situation. They've been pursuing it, like I said, for more than five years. Chad: Okay. Okay. Joel: Let's dig in a little bit to the segmentation of this. You talk about educated females in their mid-career being really apt to be in the gig economy. You talk about millennials in the survey. Break down sort of ages and geographic regions, maybe. Break this down into, who exactly is the gig economy? Josh: Yeah. The gig economy tends to be either older workers, who in some sense have made it, have arrived. They may not have some kind of golden parachute situation, but they're able to set themselves up for something that they like. Those people tend to be mid-40s or older. And then you've got the younger people, who are in their 20s and even younger, and they're just trying to find something to get by on, basically. Those older people tend to be knowledge workers. They're doing white collar kind of work that tends to be creative. They're doing technology and professional services. A pretty wide variety of work, but distinctly white collar. And then you've got the people who are doing transportation and blue collar kind of work. Joel: So, would it be your contention that women in their mid-career are high because of pregnancy, or would it be something else? Josh: It's not so much people in their 30s. That's there, but it's more like women and men who are further along in their career. Kind of past that hump stage, you might say. Yeah, it's more middle-aged and up. Joel: Okay. Because I would have guessed, women get pregnant, they look for alternative work options, and join the gig economy. But you're saying that's not the case. Chad: Joel is all about stereotypes. Let's just throw that out there real quick. Go ahead. Josh: First of all, it happens, but second of all, this is the beauty of research. This is why we conduct this kind of study, is to find out whether or not our preconceptions are right or not. And here, we find that the story is a little bit more complex. The other thing is, we have to think carefully about the different kinds of arrangements. So contingent work and gig work, it's not only a great variety of different people and a great variety of different kinds of occupations, but also a great variety of different kinds of contract structures. Josh: If you look at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics ... Without boring you all with too many definitions here ... they break it out into independent workers, on-call workers, temps, subcontractors. And you find a lot of variety within that. So the independent contractors, the people who are kind of masters of their own destiny, those actually tend to be men. So, overall you've got women in this space, but they are not necessarily in the positions that are as privileged and as advantaged as these middle-aged and older men. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: I also noticed that the highest number of gig workers tend to have some college. Without having stereotypical comments to follow that, why would most of the workers be some college as opposed to none, or Bachelor's degree or higher? Josh: Well, when you add it all up, if you've got some college or more ... You know, you've completed college, or you get an advanced degree ... that's over two-thirds of the people who have some kind of gig work as their primary job. That's 76%, versus 60% for the U.S. population as a whole. So these people are more educated, and that correlates with doing the knowledge work. You've gotta have the education. You've gotta have the knowledge, in order to be able to access that kind of work. Joel: But with some college, are they dropping out to do gig work? Josh: Some of the younger people might. A lot of the younger people are actually still enrolled in school. So, maybe they dropped out. Maybe they're switching over to an Associate's degree. Maybe they're getting some kind of vocational certification. But, they're up-skilling themselves. Chad: The contingent work is another myth. Contingent work is stressful, because gig workers never know whether their next paycheck is coming from. Right? So, what is the big reason why people actually choose contingent work? The myth says it's stressful, because you don't know where your next paycheck's coming from. But what's the reality there? Josh: Well, the reality, in terms of the upside, is that it's very clear that flexibility was the number one attribute. We asked people, you know, "What's your top reason for taking a gig job?" And more flexible work hours was cited by 64% of respondents. For every other answer that was given to them as an option, it was less than 30%. So, by more than two times the amount ... You know, the two times higher rate ... flexibility of work hours was cited as the upside. Josh: On the downside, yes, there were people who were concerned about less job stability, but that was still less than half, and actually 60%, a little bit more than half, they focused more on the issue of benefits. So, a lack of ... You don't necessarily get the retirement benefits. You don't necessarily get the healthcare benefits. Unemployment, disability, vacation, paid sick leave, all the rest. Joel: Are those issues changing, and do you see government taking a greater role in helping contingent workers with those issues like healthcare? Josh: Well, I think we ... For the federal government, I don't see a lot happening in D.C. right now in these areas. We've got gridlock over the argument of what should be happening with healthcare, who should provide that. We do have this theory that maybe the states will be laboratories, and to some extent that's happening. But that's very much up in the air, what the government is going to do. I think for employers as well as for workers, the question is, what are you going to work out as an arrangement, purely within the private sector? Josh: And I think if you're going out there and you're trying to get the top talent, one of the things that you can do, in looking at this report, is think about, "Okay. Some people really like these arrangements. Who are those people, and how do they compare to the people I'm trying to bring into my workforce? Who are the people that I want to hire? If I can replicate some of these aspects, because flexibility is one of the top ones. If I can provide more flexibility to the workers to whom that appeals, and the workers that I care about, then that's gonna be a win. That's an extra value proposition. That gives me a competitive edge." Chad: Now, is this showing that the workforce is really evolving though, and they're really focusing on that flexibility option? And that if companies would get out of the time clock punching 1950s, that they might actually look more toward FTE positions, as opposed to these more flexible jobs that they're in now, these contingent jobs that they're in now? Josh: Well, I don't think it's changing in terms of what people want. I think most people tend to want to work to live, rather than live to work, although you do have those high-end grinders and achievers who are gonna always be striving. The question is, what are the norms in our workplaces, and what's the relative power of the workers, in order to kind of get better arrangements for themselves? When you look back at the late '90s, we had a very tight labor market. You had the tech boom. And suddenly you had all these young people graduating with degrees in computer science, and developing coding skills through other means. They were in the position to demand more from employers. That had to do with money, but it also had to do with the things that just made their life at work a little bit better. That's where business casual comes from, and how it spread to many different workplaces, outside of just the tech industry. Josh: I think one of the things that we're going to see now, in this tight labor market ... I mean, the continued strains and pulls towards people with hard programming, and tech and data science skills, is ... They're gonna want to accommodate those workers with more flexible work schedules. The question is how much that diffuses out to affect the rest of us, those of us who don't have as strong of a bargaining position, kind of one by one. Joel: Josh, I've talked about on the show how I think a downturn in the economy will be a good thing for sites like Upwork or Uber, sites that are platforms to have gig work. Would you agree with that contention? If another great recession happens, are we gonna see a flood of people flock to the contingent workforce, and assuming that we do, will they stay there when the economy gets better? Josh: I'd say yes to the first question, and probably not to the second question. The reality is that we don't have ... Despite the great work that we've done in this survey, we don't have a complete picture of how the gig economy works. But the current belief amongst the experts in the field, is that this is more cyclical than we believed just a couple of years ago. What we do know ... We've got a long history of this ... is that part-time work is a very cyclical phenomenon. By which I mean, if we go into a recession, then yes. Employers don't hire people full-time as much, because they're more uncertain about the outlook, so they hire them for just part-time positions. Following that logic, they're very likely to go out and hire people more on a contingent basis, in addition to a part-time basis, when we get into a recession and in the aftermath. Josh: However, because we don't have a complete time series, we don't have a full history of data looking at just contingent work, we don't actually have the proof to support that. That's why it's important for places like iCIMS to go out and fund studies, promote the conversation, so that we can all learn more about this issue, and keep it top of mind as we go through the economic cycle. And whatever else the years may bring, we know to keep our eye on this. Because you're right. It's going to be very interesting, what happens when we have a slowdown, if and when we have a slowdown, how employers will respond. Chad: Let's take a look at the economy now. I mean, yeah. When it slows down, I can definitely see it's much easier, because you can pay as you go. But right now, it's hard to get people in the first place. It's hard to get people to actually finish the projects you have going on. Doesn't it make sense for employers now, to be able to change their scheme, and stop looking for FTEs? Because they're not out there, number one. And number two, there is talent that's out there. Finding a marketing professional, I know I can go to Communo. It's a marketplace for marketing individuals. I can get my projects done. And from your research, it actually shows that many of these positions are indefinite contracts, anyway. So I can have them on pretty much as an FTE, without the benefits, and they can still be on indefinitely. Josh: Yeah. In a tight labor market, it's all about getting creative. You know, can you find the pockets of talent that other people haven't found, and can you appeal to them? Chad: Yeah. Josh: So, I definitely think that it makes sense to go to all kinds of alternative sources. Whether they are different websites, whether they are different apps, and other kinds of providers that specialize in different fields, or specialize just in contract labor in general, even if it's not within a specific profession or domain. Those are definitely important tools. Josh: Also, taking a look at different populations. The reality is that there continue to be a lot of disparities amongst different social groups in our society. It's very clear. You just take a look at the unemployment rate. There was a story in the Wall Street Journal, just a week ago, talking about how this tight labor market has led to lower unemployment for people with disabilities. They had a couple of really interesting stories about people on the autism spectrum. Who, employers were so desperate, they had found ways to accommodate the needs of this population, and were able to exploit the strengths of this population. Joel: Josh, I'm gonna try to get sort of geeky here on you a bit. I know you're an economist, so I think I can ask it in a way that you'll have a good answer. As the world becomes a single marketplace, right? Some are like Upwork. You have developers from all over the world, competing for work all over the world. What do you think that does to the standard of living, for one, in the third order developing countries, as well as the standard of living for developed countries like our own? And particularly in our country, will people gradually have to take less money, because the number of people who do that job worldwide are accessible? Or do you think the lower economies come up to our standard of living? Josh: It's a great question, and in many ways it's one of the great questions of our time. Chad: Yes. Josh: Yes. Way to go. Score. One of the things that we have to think about here is, yes. There's a simple logic of, when you've got more people in the talent pool, then you're going to have more competition. The question is, how do you respond to that? Really, it's about differentiation. I don't think it's a question of simply accepting passively some fate of, there's a larger labor pool, and now you're going to get paid less. The question is, what are you going to do in that environment to differentiate yourself? That's you as an individual worker, and that's us as a society. Josh: It's not impossible to see the writing on the wall all the time. You can't know it all the time, but you certainly can see some trends, and make some educated guesses. And when you see where the trend lines head, what are you going to do to support the people around you, in developing what I refer to as labor market literacy? You know, you don't want to be in a position of trying to compete with garment workers in Bangladesh. That's not a great career move right now, to take an extreme example. Josh: Moving into the area of data science, whether or not you're actually a data scientist, that's not necessarily the game, because that might not be your greatest strong suit. But if you're really good at ... Well, I'll give you a great example, my sister. She's got a degree in photography and fine arts. Doesn't sound very technical, but she figured out that if she just added a little bit of cognitive psychology, and a little bit of tech savvy, and a little bit of data science ... And she's certainly not a data scientist, by any stretch of the imagination ... But with combining those skills, she's been able to reinvent herself with a great career in user experience design, the way humans interact with visual information, and the way they interact with computers. So, that's a really smart move. Taking the strength that she has in creativity and the arts, and the way humans respond to different kinds of visuals, and combining it with just enough technical know-how to really engage with where the economy is headed. Chad: So, let's take that question, and kind of compound it a little bit. Andela is an organization that's funded by Al Gore's foundation, and they're actually training developers in Africa right now, because of the lack of developers that we have here. They're actually paying them a much larger wage than normal in that population, which is great, obviously, for that community. But once again, once the cycle turns, we have more competition that we've actually created, outside the United States. Why aren't we taking these same types of programs and actually instituting them into our current workforce, to be able to skill them up, to ensure that we do have the labor market literacy that we need? Josh: It's a really great question. The reality is that we ... Our best understanding is that the private sector is starting to step up and do that. I continue to hear about anecdotal evidence, to suggest that employers are reaching to find those alternative pools of labor, provide extra training to up-skill the workers, and create the workforce that they need. That's a very positive development. And to the extent that the government is not stepping up to do this kind of work, it's really important that the private sector do that. And if you want to compete for talent, and if you want to get your products and your services out to market faster than the other person, then it's really important to think about that as part of your strategy, for not only how you manage people and manage talent, but how you actually develop what you're offering to your customers and clients. Chad: Now, is this really on the government to do, though? I mean, because the people are actually going to work for these organizations in the first place, and the organizations are making the money off the people's backs. So why do we always look to the government to actually solve this, when in most cases, corporate America knows what they need? They know the skills, and they know how to actually train those skills. Why are we always looking to give them a handout? Josh: Well, we're getting a little bit abreast of economics here, and into political science. It's a question for us as citizens, whether or not we want the government to provide that. As an economist, I can tell you about what the market forces tend towards, and what that's gonna drive, and also something about what the role of the government could be. But ultimately, it's a kind of ethical, political choice, what we want to demand as voters. Joel: Automation is a topic on our show all the time. Who's gonna be out, who's gonna be replaced by robots and bots, et cetera. I'm curious. In the gig economy, are there any gigs that are safe from being automated? Or, are there any current full-time jobs that can't be gig jobs or contingent jobs? Teachers, doctors, et cetera, do you see those safe from becoming gigs? Josh: Okay. For the first question, what can and can't be automated, I feel like that is a trap. Because someone's gonna play this clip back in 20 years and say, "We figured it out." Chad: It's all a trap. Josh: You know, my basic thought is to not underestimate human ingenuity, and not underestimating human ingenuity means not underestimating what the robots that we build will someday be able to do. But we do have a good sense of what kinds of things are tough for robots. Manual dexterity is really tough for them. Creativity and empathy are really tough for them. We do see the rise of chat bots, and all kinds of actual physical robots, who are doing increasingly sophisticated things. But those are areas where you can think about, there's a human advantage. Josh: In terms of what can't be made contingent, in principle, there's nothing that couldn't be made contingent. I think the reality though, is that there's a lot of value in having a long-term relationship. Whether you are a teacher, like you mentioned, who needs to have some kind of continuity with a student, in order to judge the progress and figure out, "What does this person need to achieve their learning goals?" Or for an organization. You can get by with a lot of people on the periphery of an organization, potentially, but you're always going to need some people in the core, who have some institutional memory, who've got the relationships, and know how to drive the change, rather than just contract out for some of the tasks. Chad: Well, I'd like to point to one of the parts of your research that actually demonstrates that Gen X ... Go figure ... are the ones who are doing all the goddamn work. 35 hours a week, Gen X. Boomers are obviously on their way out. They're doing just as much hours-wise as the millennials. Lazy asses. And Gen Z's, you're looking at 23 hours. I mean, they're really just getting started. They should be doing more, though. Is there any more depth that you can provide us, when it comes to really just looking at the different segments of the population from an age standpoint? And what should we see, especially with the millennials being such a large population, what do you think we'll see in the gig era? Will they grow, or will they just turn into boomers? Joel: I'm guessing Josh is a millennial. Am I right on that? Josh: Yeah. I'm cusp-y, just in context. Chad: He's cusp-y. Josh: I think there's a lot of power in numbers, and as the millennials move through the workforce, they're going to change it. They've come of age with different expectations from prior generations. We might not see the economy itself get gig-ified, or the workforce get gig-ified, but I think that the full-time jobs that millennials want will be more gig-like. And so, it's more like the full-time positions are going to end up looking a little bit more like gigs, than actually as much of the work being transformed into gigs. That's my current view. Joel: This was a pretty extensive survey. You guys surveyed 1,000 Americans who held at least one contingent job as their primary or secondary income, from also the companies that you guys work with. What stood out to you, or what surprised you most from the survey that you did? Josh: That is a tough question, because there was a lot that was surprising in here. I think probably just how strong that top end of the market was. 69% to 81%, depending on how you measure it, focused in knowledge work, and how many of these contracts were open-ended. You know, 59% had totally open-ended contracts. 69% were six months or longer. So, that means less than a third were working on contracts that were less than six months. And for me, one of the big takeaways of this report is that there's an alternative brass ring out there. I mentioned this idea of labor market literacy before, and I don't think that people realize that this is something to aim for. It's not just about the corner office. It's about the home office, too. Josh: And I think if more people understood that that was a possible and attractive option, they could make better decisions, to set themselves up for that someday. It's not for everyone, but it's gonna be out there for some people, and probably more people than we realize. And the takeaway is that you've got to invest in your skills and your network, and take a long range, long-term view on how that's going to set you up for it, if you are attracted to that kind of lifestyle and that kind of work/life situation. What are the ingredients, and how are you going to acquire them over time? Josh: Because, as the old saying goes, I may be cusp-y towards the millennial, but I still remember the old ad that said, "You, too, can be a winner at the game of life." And if you want to win at this particular game, this survey tells you something about what it's going to take. You need to have the people who are going to be your sources of projects in the future, because so many of these jobs are found through referrals. We found that it was usually three or more contracts for jobs being held at a time, and you've gotta have someone else in the hopper, in case one of those contracts finally comes to a conclusion. Someone else to give you your next job. Chad: That was more than double of a rate. I mean, referrals were 65%. Job boards was number two, at only 32%. So referrals, more than double that of job boards, which I thought was pretty amazing. Joel: It's not what you know, it's who you know. Josh: Exactly. That truth hasn't changed. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Another point of comparison there is finding this kind of contingent work through online apps, or just apps on your phone, only 17%. So, really isn't about Uber. Chad: Well, I know, but Uber is coming out with an expanded app called Uber Works, which is going to do more than just drivers. Then there's Tiller that's out there, Wonolo, Communo for marketing, 99 Designs, Freelancer, Fiverr, Upwork. I mean, it's growing. And from our standpoint, Josh ... I mean, we are constantly looking at tech, but also the workforce as well, to be able to see which tech actually makes sense. And most of these platforms, we are very bullish on. Would you be, as well? Joel: That was Chad's final attempt to sound smarter than the guy with the Harvard degree, by the way. Chad: It never works. Josh: Very good attempt. Let me see if I can wriggle free here. As an economist, I'm not an equity analyst. I don't take positions on particular companies. But I can say that with the long term trends, as I see it, clearly we're going through a technological shift here. There's a distinction between how much of the work is changing, versus the way that work is found. It's hard to imagine that we're not gonna see a continued shift towards using these applications, because so many things are moving online. They've already been moving online for two decades now. So, there's no reason not to expect that this is going to continue. This shift is going to continue here, as well. The question is, from an economist's perspective, what's the natural end state, or what's the end game here? Is it going to be a market that's going to have two or three top providers, and you've got to figure out who those are? Or is it going to be a lot of different specialists, and you'll actually have a dozen or two dozen really successful apps? Josh: But certainly, it seems like a really attractive space to go and try and solve that problem. You know, if you can come up with a better answer to that, then you can make a better investment decision, and you're the one who's gonna make the money. Chad: There it is. Joel: And with that, Josh, we thank you for your time. Josh, if someone wants to know more about you, your organization, or find the survey, where should they go? Josh: You can go to www.iCIMS.com. If you add a slash, hiring dash insights, you'll find my blog and a lot of other great material. We've also got a monthly hiring indicator that you can check out that's found there, that gives you the latest job trends according to our data, based on over 4,000 customers, four million jobs, and over 75 million job applications a year. And you can find me on Twitter @jwrightstuff. That's Wright like the brothers, @jwrightstuff. Joel: You are a great marketer. Susan Vitale would be proud. Chad: There it is. Joel: Chad, we out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi. This is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad Podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes. that sill Android thingy or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors, otherwise I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on Monster.com. We out. Chad: Okay, okay, okay, okay. Before we go, remember when I asked you about the whole reflex and check your text messages thing? Joel: Yeah, you know all about reflexes. And then I brilliantly tied it to text messages, 97% open rate. Then I elegantly, elegantly tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh, Chad. I can be elegant. Can't I? Chad: Whatever, man. I know it's redundant. You already heard about Text2Hire, but you're still not using Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: What? Chad: I know, man. Joel: Come on, man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again, this is all by elegant design. It's all about Text2Hire, and it's all about Nexxt. Joel: And elegant design. So go to ChadCheese.com, click on the Nexxt logo, and get 25 ... Yeah, I said 25 percent off your first Text2Hire campaign. Chad: Woo. Joel: Engage better. Use Text2Hire from Nexxt. 2 Xs. Chad: Boo yah. #Economy #GigEconomy #Economist #Research #iCims

Feel the love on this Valentine's Day episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Let the boys buy you a drink and weave tales of... - iCIMS data showing Indeed getting throat-punched by Google for Jobs - Jobvite backing up the Brinks to compete in the arms race for HR tech supremacy - GM's Toledo plant, nooses, swastikas, racism and lawsuits - and how LinkedIn's hip-to-be-square strategy is failing with Millennials. We love ya' long time, just like our sponsors, Sovren, Canvas and JobAdX. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Happy Valentine’s day all you lovers out there. Get ready to get all warm and fuzzy. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most romantic and devilishly sexy if I do say so myself. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: I'm Joel Cupid Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Barry White Sowash. Joel: Oh, Jesus. This week Chad gets to give George LaRocque a big FU. Jobvite backs up the Brink's truck and millennials are showing no love to LinkedIn. Chad: Fuck. Joel: Fucking millennials. Grab your overpriced roses, a bottle of Merlot, and get cozy lovebirds. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas: Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off the Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiters' success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: Chad Barry White Sowash. Good Lord. Chad: Oh yeah baby. Joel: Yeah, dude. Happy Valentine's Day. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Any big plans? Chad: Oh, yeah. A little love with my wife. But yeah, I already have the roses, the chocolate dip, strawberries, all that stuff has been done this morning. I'll make sure to keep it real and keep it romantic the entire weekend because that's how we do things here in the Sowash residence. Joel: That's very troubling, very troubling. I'm having my mom, all three kids and I think Tacos tonight is our Valentine's Day. Tomorrow is date night, however. We're getting the babysitter. We're going to do one of those rooms where you get locked in and you got to a ... What's it called? Chad: Escape room or something. Joel: Escape room, yeah. We're doing escape room some dinner and drinks. Yeah, just chilling out a little bit. When you have a two-year-old, those lovely moments are few and far between. So, we'll take advantage of it as best we can. But we're traveling next week, so there's nothing too crazy. Chad: Traveling next week to Banff to go to The Gathering, bitches. Joel: Most of our audience is saying, "What the hell is Banff and what the hell's The Gathering?" Chad: Yeah, most people know what Banff is because it is this picturesque postcard. Wherever you turn, it looks like a postcard. It's just fucking gorgeous. It's in the Canadian Rockies. It's interesting that in talking to recruitment marketers and telling them about The Gathering, and then them checking out the website that none of them had heard of it, number one because it is about brand. We're talking about cult brands right, but none of these guys knew of it and they won't be there. I know you're jelly mother fuckers. That's right. Joel: It's mostly a vacation, I think, at this point, although Indeed is going to be there. So Indeed Canada, maybe. Maybe some Workopolis folks. I don't know. We'll have to get all like Geraldo on them and try and get them in an interview while we're there. Chad: It's interesting too because we're going to Banff this coming week and Indeed Canada I mean they pretty much love us. It's the people in Austin that I think don't like us as much. We're going to Austin the last week for a super-secret project that we can't tell anybody about. Joel: Our rest of the month is an Indeed sandwich basically. We've got Canada up top and Austin at the bottom, which could be interesting. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Happy Valentine's Day to us. Chad: No shit, man. Joel: All right, dude. I got one main shout out I got to get it out there. Shout out to El Chapo baby. Chad: Yeah. Joel: My man was found guilty on all 10 counts, drug trafficking, coercion, cocaine, everything. El Chapo, as many know who're integral to the show for one thing and really frankly I just wanted to play this soundbite from CareerBuilder as most people know. Please enjoy. CB Dude: Lastly, trip. Yes, there will be a trip. I just don't know when and where yet. As soon as I will know, you will know, and know this, we're not sleeping on this. It's not like we're not focused. Chad: We're not sleeping on this. CB Dude: We actually had a trip done and sold out three weeks ago. We had a great hotel in Cabo. We had dates confirmed. Chad: What happened? CB Dude: The problem is Cabo has become completely destabilized. Chad: Oh, shit. CB Dude: Literally, this holiday season, they've had over 50,000 reservations canceled. Evidently, when El Chapo was incarcerated, the code of ethics that he instilled in Cabo, Mexico has gone away. Chad: This code of ethic. CB Dude: There's no code of ethics. There's no code of honor. All of a sudden, there's a war for power. You're seeing things happen that you haven't seen in the past where people, where gangs, drug dealers were actually going to restaurants and shoot up the place. That never happened before. Bottom line is this. Chad: Oh, jet. CB Dude: I wish I could sit here and tell you we have- Joel: I'm out. Drop the mic. Chad: Everybody just in case you forgot, that was actually ... What was his name? John Smith or Anderson or- Joel: John Smith. Yeah. Chad: Yeah. He was like VP of sales or some shit like that. He was talking to the sales people about why they're not going to Cabo. The reason was El Chapo is not in power anymore and now guess what, they're really fucked because El Chapo, 10 counts, his ass is going to be in a prison. Joel: He has escaped twice from prison. However, those were Mexican prisons and I can't vouch for them. He is going to be in Colorado I think. So yeah. He should be locked up for life. We should have heard the last of El Chapo. Chad: Nice. Joel: But we have no heard the last of that soundbite. Joel: It will come back. Yes. It will come back. Chad: Thank you CareerBuilder. Thank you. Joel: The gift that keeps on giving this Valentine's Day. Chad: Let's keep this going. I don't know if it's Keca Ward or Kish. It's spelled K-E-C-A, but anyway she's a first-time listener. Thanks for listening. Keep listening and get your peers to listen and subscribe, your family, people in the supermarket. I mean, that's your mission. Go get more Chad and Cheese loving listeners people. That's what we need. Joel: Spread the love I think is what you're saying on this Valentine's Day. Chad: All right. Audra Knight, thanks for bringing ZipRecruiter's ugly Facebook ad to our attention. Then I went on to LinkedIn and there it fucking was on LinkedIn. It looks like this like- Joel: It looks like a bad '70s album cover. Chad: Well, it looks like a Christmas card that you would find in a clearance bin at- Joel: I can see that. Chad: ... a dollar store. So, it would be like a 25 cent card. It was ugly as shit. ZipRecruiter, I know you've got cash to do better. So my God, dude. Make that shit work. Joel: Tidy it up, Zip. Go to 99designs where by the way, we will be announcing the new T-shirt winner- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... Monday. Yes, we're very excited. Chad: I'm pretty excited about that shit. Also, Hireology tweeted a pic of their Chad and Cheese discussion group. Joel: Loved it. Loved it. Chad: I think we should actually take it further than that. I would like to do a special discussion group for these guys since they have one and maybe try to schedule that around that the TAtech our recruitment summit in Chicago. What do you think? Joel: I love this listen party. My only problem is they said what's missing is the wine. If you're trying to enjoy our show with wine, I think you're doing it wrong. Chad: Actually, Kyle brought beer to one of our shows before. So, I can guarantee you, especially if it's offsite, they will be bringing the beer. But that being said, if you're not yet going to the TAtech Recruitment Marketing summit, go to TAtech.org and get your fucking tickets for God sakes. We're going to be there. Obviously, it's going to be a hit. So, let's do this. Joel: It's going to be epic as the kids say. What else? You got tons of shout outs, man. All I wanted was the El Chapo soundbite. So you go to town on these shout outs. Chad: Okay. Jobpal.ai tweeted some love to us out there. They are in the UK and we don't have a chat bot yet in death match for Lisbon. So, I think we might try to get these guys on as the number four bot because right now right we've got Tin guy and TNG, the creepy interviewing robot. We've got Candidate.ID, The Scotsman, the Kilts and the Braveheart shit. We've got Opening.io who just signed on and we've got one more left. So, maybe it will be Jobpal. Maybe we'll get a chat bot in that bitch. Joel: Well if it's any incentive, our very first death match winner just had a very profitable exit. I'm not saying they're connected, but I'm not saying they're not connected. So, it's not a bad thing to be on our death match apparently. Chad: Well, the funny thing is though TNG started talking smack to Candidate.ID on Twitter this week. So, they're already getting into like death match kind of competition mode which I love. Joel: We're like four months away and the trash talking has already started. I love it. Chad: I love that shit. Last but not least, yeah, Ed from Philly, hey buddy. He's in for doing some soundbites for us, so I'll be reaching out. Joel: I better get his deepest Philly accent possible. I want to feel like Ed is non on a cheesesteak when he's doing soundbites for us. Chad: He's got his Eagles jersey on. Joel: Yes. Chad: He's watching Rocky and he's eating a cheesesteak yeah. Joel: I want a Mike Schmidt jersey. I want him to grow out a Mike Schmidt mustache, eat a cheesesteak, and do soundbite thrusts. That's what I want. Maybe some youngling. Chad: That would be sweet. That would be very sweet. Last but not least, events. Joe he said obviously, we're going to roll out the T-shirt. We're going to be at events throughout this year. We're going to add some more events here soon to be quite frank, but go to chadcheese.com checkouts. Just click on events and checkout where we're going to be. Buy your tickets, registers, get your asses there. Then also check out the new Chad and Cheese logo, sport and the shaker trucker hat. That's fucking classic. That's all I got. Joel: Awesome dude. Let's get to the big FU to George LaRocque. I know you're excited to get to that. Chad: What? Oh no. George is a sweetheart. Joel: Data over people. Chad: What did you get and where did you get it because this is all about the ice and just traffic data? Joel: You know I'm plugged into the dark web of recruiting news, so I was on the receiving end of an iCIMS update. iCIMS is a friend of the show obviously. They're basically a bunch of news, what they're doing, stuff that's going on. The thing that obviously stuck out to me like a sore thumb was data that they've been able to garner from their 4,000 clients. Data showing that their clients are seeing a whopping 60, that's, 6-0% drop in referrals or traffic from Indeed, but also showing a 150% increase from Google traffic. Joel: So, this is in stark contrast to our George LaRocque survey that we've discussed. I actually have a podcast out today, which will be yesterday for the people listening tomorrow. But anyway, George was very critical of Google. They're not all that. That's not raw job search for stats. iCIMS has real data 4000 companies. George had 500 SurveyMonkey out there telling him information for his survey. From my standpoint as much as it makes pain and hurt, Sowash wins with data on this topic. Chad: How do you not win with data, I mean, seriously? That was my whole reason for the conversation. If you haven't listened to the podcast this week with George, guy's awesome. I mean, he's just looking for signals, but sometimes I believe in our industry, we look in the wrong places for signals in some cases. He did get some action and some love from Todd Maycunich at resident Tech Stud over at TMP. Joel: Tech Stud. Chad: I think that's on his card, but he did say worth mentioning we've seen the same gain, and that's TMP seeing the same gain in traction from Google for job across all clients. Mostly likely a byproduct of Google biasing jobs on integrated employer sites rather than jobs on integrated job boards, which I think is interesting because we've talked about this before, will Google bias that contents? Chad: I guess the big question is how are they biasing it because generally, there's a job posting on Google that you go to. There are ways that you can actually go in apply for the job. They give you the career site. They give you all these different job board opportunities. So, how are they fucking biasing? I don't understand. That's number one. Joel: This is you talking or TMP talking? Chad: Me. I mean, Todd is saying you're biasing it. I understand how it's biased if the options are provided. Joel: I can't speak for Google, but I think if they were here, they would save it algorithmically, they're learning that people are choosing to click on the direct link to an employer site as opposed to a job board site. So, we're going to continue to show that to the users because well they're showing us that that's what they want. Chad: But if you use, if you actually use Google for jobs and you land on the job posting on Google, it gives you options on how to apply. So, therefore if the career site is like in the number one position, it still gives you those options, I guess is that with the bias is possibly that they are offering the career site like first? I'm going to have dig a little bit deeper with Todd, but I'm going to go to tweet number two because three-part tweet. Joel: Jesus. Chad: But the Indeed story is misleading, in January of 2018 they moved to a two pain experience, which included a hosted job description. Ultimately, employers are likely seeing significantly less traffic from Indeed, but not a negligible decrease in applicants. I still have a problem with this whole two pain bullshit that Indeed is doing because you have to pay on that first click, but you're not actually getting the job seeker to your site on that click. And in prospectively not just getting them to apply for that job because maybe they're not ready for that job, and that's great, but that is my candidate right now or my user right now. Chad: If I can afford them an opportunity to look for another job on my site, that's what I'm fucking paying for, but guess what, Indeed is taking that away. To be able to say it misleading because of this new two pain, well that's fucking Indeed's fault. They're not actually delivering the eyeballs to the site and allowing the brand to do the work. They're saying, "No, we're going to the pay for that, but once they click again, then you'll get them." Joel: In most cases that have seen, they make you register for Indeed before you go much further anywhere else. Chad: Dude, I'll be going fucking ape shit. That's literally holding a candidate hostage that you fucking paid for. Joel: Well, everybody does it. Chad: It doesn't make it right. That's bullshit. Joel: I know it doesn't make it right, but I'm saying maybe that's why they're saying screw going to a job site because they been fucking with me for so long. I'm just going to write to the company site. Chad: Tweet three, our data suggests only a 2% decrease in conversions, but a 75% decrease in conversion rate. My point I don't believe the extent to which Indeed's traffic is down is a consequence of Google for jobs, rather it's a result of a conscientious and value driven decision by Indeed. TMP's an agency and they want to pander a little bit. Joel: Well, agencies aren't going to make a lot of money if any on Google stuff versus Indeed stuff. That's an easy sell to make, but yeah. Of course, we've seen this forever. Agencies came out in favor of Monster back in the day, CareerBuilder dies. They're going to defend where their bread is buttered, in this case Indeed. They make a lot of money on Indeed I bet. Chad: So hopefully, we can get some love from Todd and maybe we can even get him on the show and talk through these points because he has a shit ton of data. Once again, this isn't survey data. These are analytics. That was the big, I mean really the big differentiation between George's survey and what I was looking for is actual hard data. That's it. Joel: Also, announced from iCIMS. They're now developing or have launched Facebook Messenger, WeChat and WhatsApp as solutions or platforms as well. We've seen this with Talkpush, and now we're going to start seeing it with the iCIMS platform. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: And if I had to guess the Jobvite in the near future, which bring us maybe to our next story unless you have comments about that. Chad: Yeah. No. This next segment is dedicated to Mason Wong who tweeted he is eagerly awaiting Chad and Cheese perspective on this next topic. Thanks Mason. This one is for you buddy. Joel: You're bound to be disappointed, Mason, but we'll give our best shot. Do you want to go first, Chad? Chad: K1 pushes money to Jobvite by 200 million. Joel: A little bit of cash, a little bit of chatter. Chad: Then they turn around, I'm sure this was obviously all dealt out and buy Canvas, RolePoint and Talemetry. Fuck. Joel: That's a three player deal that would definitely make the headlines on sports center for sure. Canvas sponsor the show. I don't even know if they're two years old. I guess they're over two years old, but what a great story. We were one of the first ... We went to their offices and interviewed them early on. They've been a friend of the show. They've been on death match. They're sponsor. I know you and I can't be happier or couldn't be happier for Aman Brar and his team because they're just good people. They're here locally where we live. So great for them. Joel: Talemetry and RolePoint, I don't know as much about or much about. I know there's an opponent of referrals particularly internally that's big there I think. My take on all this and the news is great, but I think the bigger question, I guess my opinion on this is Microsoft dropped a big asteroid on our whole industry two, three years ago when I when they pay $26 billion for LinkedIn. Then everyone knew that LinkedIn was going to be like the platform of choice for a lot of people or that's what they were aiming for. Joel: Google came in the game and that was like a double asteroid that hit our industry. Facebook came in although they've they been a little bit less aggressive maybe recently because of the role privacy shit. So, Indeed panics, ZipRecruiter panics, every job board panics. We've the dysfunction flow down into the job board market at first, and then now I think we're seeing the reaction with the ATS market. Now, everyone is like, "We can just survive on being this ugly duct tape people management system." Joel: I think inevitably, LinkedIn and Google are going to be our Coke and Pepsi. Now, it's like choosing to be Dr Pepper or who's going to be Sprite, who's going to be Red Bull? Those things are being decided right in front of our eyes and will probably be decided over the next two, three, five years. Chad: I do feel a shade of iCIMS and then also trying to catch up and in trying to catch up to an iCIMS and get the fuck out of an SND market that Google is starting to gain ground in, we're going to talk about, invading different countries. I think iCIMS overall believes that's whether right or wrong and we saw this when we were in New Jersey and Colin was talking about it that Google from an ATS standpoint is really going to have their hands full in the SMB market, right. Chad: Jobvite is in the SMB mid-market. So, it's almost like okay, what do we do? If we want to get away from Google or get away from this market to an extent and become an enterprise player, how do we do that? Well we sure the fuck can't go out and go out and develop all this stuff, so we're going to have to acquire and/or partner. In this case, obviously it was acquisition. Chad: So Talemetry, a CRM, career site, source analytics, deeply integrated to other ATS platforms. RolePoint employee referral system, which you just don't see any of those works are good for them, RolePoint, because now they're rolled up into a much larger system and they don't have to be out there on their own, and then Canvas. I mean, that one I thought was just too damn dizzy especially after we saw the iCIMS acquisition of TextRecruit because the ability to get response out of text versus email, not to mention they've got cool Bitmojis and shit, it just made sense. You knew it was going to happen. You just didn't know how long it was going to take, so that was pretty quick. Chad: My question will these companies be blended into one brand or will they continue to work as separate brands? You and I have had disagreements on TextRecruit and iCIMS and how I believe they're going to stay as separate brands just from a market standpoint. I think it's smarter. I mean, these are three additional platforms. What do you think about that? I mean, do you think some of them will roll up, they'll all keep their own, or they'll all roll up? Joel: This would be a guess at this point, but I would have to believe that eventually it'll all be under the Jobvite brand. I think in the near future, they'll all remain separate. They'll all do business as usual. I'm sure there'll be cross-selling. There'll be maybe greater promotion on Jobvite to use those services or maybe discounts or incentives to use all of them. Joel: But ultimately I think the technology, the folks working there will all become Jobvite employees. It will Jobvite messaging or Jobvite communications instead of Canvas. I think iCIMS will be the same as well. I think even we're seeing less and less TextRecruit branding. Then it's just iCIMS rolling out WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. I mean, ultimately TextRecruit is the brainpower behind that, but it's not coming out as a TextRecruit product. Chad: I really believe that the way that iCIMS and TextRecruit have continued to move forward as separate brands, and not in all cases with this. I think RolePoint to an extent could prospectively roll up under Jobvite, but I think there is better revenue opportunities with that separate brand to be able to sell into other applicant tracking systems. So, you're not just focused on being able to provide a text and/or a messaging opportunity with in the Jobvite platform. Dude, you've got a much larger market, and you can pretty much sell to anybody. Joel: Yeah. I mean, there's wrong answer between a branded house or a house of brands. Chad: I just think they have a better opportunity going in under a separate name that's not a pure competitor. Joel: We just need to get Aman and Finnigan on the show and ask them. I don't know what they're going to say, but we'll try to read between the lines and see what's really going on. Speaking of a product and brand that doesn't suck, let's get a quick word from JobAdX, and we'll talk about Indeed and LinkedIn. Chad: Do it. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat, "Ugh." Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads. Page after page, before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low. Budgets are wasted, jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs, and delivers what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network. JobAdX: "Score." That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results, attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns, and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at, joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdX. Together, we can save job search. Chad: Together, we can save job search. Joel: Not a bold promise at all. Good on you JobAdX. Let those balls hang low. I love it. Chad: Make it happen. Joel: Speaking of balls hanging low, Indeed. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Two items in the news, they have a new CEO and they continue to crush it from a revenue perspective. I'm happy to talk about either one first. I'll leave it up to you lover boy. Chad: Go ahead and hit the revenue piece. Joel: Okay. Q3 revenue rise is 6% across the entire business of recruit. By the way, I had no idea how much money these fuckers make. It's ridiculous. It's billions. They make a ton of money. These job board things are just little side projects to their bigger revenue stuff, but anyway 6% growth over the quarter within HR technology, which is where we talk. Joel: Revenue growth was mainly due to increased sponsored job advertising revenue from new and existing clients at Indeed, and the inclusion of Glassdoor, which was acquired last year in Q1. The group added that Glassdoor attracted approximately 64 million monthly unique visitors and traffic grew double digits year on year in Q3 of 18. As of the end of Q3 of last year, Glassdoor had approximately, and you had a jaw-dropping moment on this one, 800 employees. Chad: What the fuck! 800. What are those people doing? 800 employees? Jesus. Can't they find some robots for some of that shit? Joel: 800 dude. gotta sell shit, man. You got to call people and whatever. Yeah, but yeah. Chad: You know where that revenue, that Indeed revenue is coming from, right? Joel: Was it staffing? Is that where you're going with that? Chad: Oh yeah. You kick staffing to the curb and say, "Fuck you. You're paying for it or you're not getting it at all because you're not getting it for free anymore." Then staffing comes in with their head hanging low like a whipped fucking puppy, and they pay a shit ton of cash. It's like okay, that's how Indeed starts to like bleed you dry. That's just slowly they're bleeding you dry, they're bleeding you dry, and then guess what, they cut it and then the blood just starts fucking flowing. That, I would say from my standpoint I could be wrong, is definitely one of reasons why they could have seen a bump is because staffing companies, all staffing companies said, "Fuck, now we have to open up the checkbook." Joel: Yeah. Well, that's exactly right. I don't remember when Indeed cut off job boards, and it was like, "Holy shit, we got to pay money at least until we figure out where we get the rest of our traffic." Chad: Yes. Joel: So I'm sure there was a huge spike in Indeed when they turned off ... reduced the spigot if you will on job boards. But dude, this is almost a $21 billion company. It's huge. I had no idea. Chad: Yeah. It is fucking crazy. Staffing, there's some cash in staffing. Joel: We're in the wrong business, man. We need to get out of this podcasting shit. They have a new CEO. Chad: Yeah. I thought that was interesting. I mean, when you're seeing numbers like this from Indeed, and they're seeing the growth, and they're going through the plan, and they bled job boards dry, kicked them to the curb. Now, they're bleeding staffing companies dry. Who knows when they're going to them kick them to curb, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Why would you change CEO? Joel: I have an answer. Chad: Okay. Joel: It's a guess more than answer, but here's my guess. Chad: Okay. I like that. Joel: So, the new CEO, Chris Hyams is an Indeed veteran, primarily on the tech side. Not primarily- Chad: Product guy. He was product guy. Joel: Pretty much product, hiring technology, he's got a tech background et cetera. He's replacing Deko as Hisayuki Idekoba. Yeah. So, Deko is his nickname. Chad: He was a recruit guy. He's a recruit guy. Joel: He was, yeah, total like management executive board of director guy, Wharton School of Business kind of guy. My guess is they said, "Look, we're not just posting jobs and using existing tech to grow. We need to grow products, services. We need to compete with the resources of the LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google et cetera. This is the new game." Joel: So, to put a guy in charge that has a tech background and has, I'm assuming, very deep knowledge of Indeed's platform and what they do and what they can do. So, to me, it was a changing of the guard like, "Look, we need a tech specific CEO. Deko, nice guy. We've grown rapidly under his watch, but it's a new day where tech rules and we need a guy that can facilitate that." But I think it's sort of what we saw with Dice with bringing in a tech guy and getting rid of the financial sort of business guy. Chad: So Chris was the president before, so they're moving him from president to CEO. I reached out to a pretty big brand to ask them this morning. I'm like, "Hey, what do you think of this change?" They said, even though it pains them to say, it was a smart move because he knows the market, he knows the product, and his mindset on those roles are really future forward. So, it's a good move. I hate to say that, but it was a good move for the evil empire. Joel: You can give props if props are due. Chad: Yeah. No. I think this is smart, dude. Did you put a product guy? I mean, to like at what Smashfly with Tom. He was the CTO, and they knew that they had to do things much differently. I think that was a good move for them to put Tom into that position. Joel: This could be a new Indeed, man. They could be a more friendly, transparent, open. Chad: Kinder, gentler. Joel: Kinder, gentler, fuzzier and warmer. Indeed, I mean I put out a tweet about this new CEO and the official Indeed account on Twitter says, "Thanks, Joel" or whatever it was. I'm like either that's just some intern work in Hootsuite and doesn't know any better, or maybe they're actually like, "Let's talk. We'll talk to you and we'll open up the doors." We're going to be in Austin soon. Maybe we should walk in ask for Mr. Hyams and see if he can talk to us. Chad: Yeah. I think we should probably prep the area before we go down there and say, "Yeah. If you guys are open, let's have a conversation." If they are, they are. If they're not, they'll play an Art Zeile from Dice and they'll get in the corner and start sucking their thumb. Joel: Well, we know they listen to this show. So if you're out there Indeed, reach out to us and schedule a little time with your new CEO while we're at Austin. Chad: Yeah, and Indeed Canada. We're going to be in Canada next week. Come see us. Joel: There you go. I hope they have Indeed business cards by now and not Workopolis. Chad: Next story. Joel: Next story. This is all you. This is your lane, dude. Chad: Yeah. I was producing the Crazy and The King Podcast. Dude, if you haven't subscribed, make sure you do so. Joel: Plug. Chad: Yeah, plug there. I heard Torin and Julie talking about this GM story that I hadn't even fucking heard about and it set me off, dude. So employees are suing GM for "underlying atmosphere of violent, racial hate, and bullying." In a GM plant in Toledo, two black supervisors stood up to racism. We're talking about nooses being displayed in several areas, whites only written on the bathroom wall, swastikas. Chad: One of the supervisor subordinate said, "Back in the day, a person like you would already be in the ground buried with a shovel." Then the supervisor was told, when he took it to his supervisor said, "Hey, if you want to build relationships here, you got to let things go." So, just as we believe we are starting to evolve as a people and we can get past this whole color of the skin or religion, this shit happens. It just fucking set me off that I can't believe a major brand like GM is allowing and has allowed this shit to happen. Joel: My two thoughts on this are one is, you and I know Ohio and we know Toledo. It's near Detroit. It's very diverse. Chad: Yes. Joel: So when this came out of Toledo, I was pretty surprised. The second thing led me to like we're just in a political environment now that our leader, like our head of state, doesn't necessarily champion this or condone it directly. But I feel like if you're racist, you feel empowered because of who is in the White House and what's been said. Joel: It goes back to the Robert E. Lee statue in the south and getting rid of that and comments around that. I just think there's an empowerment where if you're racist, you feel like, "Oh shit, it's okay to be racist. I'm going to do this shit." It's very, very unfortunate that we're pushing the rewind on culture and society in our country at least when you see shit like that. It's disgusting and disgraceful and sad. Chad: And it goes beyond that for the brand of GM. I mean, during a plant meeting ... This was a problem and obviously, it's a problem. We've got nooses showing up for God sakes. So, during a plant meeting, a white supervisor said, "Too big of a deal was being made of these nooses. After all, there was never a black person who was lynched who didn't deserve it." That motherfucker was never disciplined, yet GM says they are an inclusive culture. This has to happen. I get the whole from the top the bullshit that fucking Trump puts out there. To be quite frank, it is fairly blatant when he says Mexicans are rapists and they're criminals and shit like that. That's blatant racism. Joel: Sure. Chad: Number one. Number two, GM they're the ones in control of this and they need to fix this shit. Joel: Totally agree. Totally agree. I mean, dude we have the governor of Virginia which is not a backward state by any means, I mean may be part of it, but like- Chad: A Democrat. Joel: ... a Democrat who in the '80s, not the 1880s, the 1980s was filmed far left and blackface and a Ku Klux Klan outfit. He won't say which one is him. Like there's a bad answer on both ways, but he's still in office. He still feels that that's okay or that ... His defense is like, "No, that maybe isn't me, but I went in blackface as Michael Jackson." So your defense is that it's still a blackface, but it was Michael Jackson and not like ... So the whole thing is bizarre. We live in bizarro times. Joel: I hope to a higher power that in two years this whole thing goes away. I fear that it won't, but these are weird times we live in. It's sad that it's spilling into corporate America with reputable companies that are old and traditional in our society and just shit flows downhill, man. It's sad. Chad: Yeah. From our standpoint, I think it's on us to be able to continue to shine light on this shit because that is the best disinfectant, right. I didn't even know about this. It's like fuck this. Our listeners are going to know about this. This is bullshit. This is a huge brand. From my standpoint, that definitely makes me not want to buy any type of a GM product. Joel: And that's the best way to send them a message. Chad: Along with our podcast. Joel: You're really bringing down the Valentine's Day show. Come on, man. Chad: Hey, I'm giving love to all those people out there that deserve equity, inclusion, and real diverse cultures. That's who I'm fucking bringing love to. Joel: The only thing that can make this better is our favorite voiceover, Sovren. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produces them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: So are we meeting up with Sovren. What's going on? We're going to Austin in two weeks. We need to get this nail down. Come on, Sovren. If Joel hasn't reached out to you, just reach out to me. I'll get shit set up. Joel: Dude, there's been too much news. I can't coordinate- Chad: Whatever. Joel: ... a social schedule in my spare time anymore. Chad: What you're saying to Sovren is they're not important to you, but they are important to me. Joel: They're important to us. Technically, they're our longest standing sponsor. Chad: Yeah, they're pretty awesome. They're pretty fucking awesome. Joel: All right, dude. Let's go little rapid fire. I guess we got Google Hire news, we got LinkedIn and we got TMP. Go. Chad: Okay. Hire by Google they've been around since 2017, but guess what, they're spreading out. They're branching. They're invading Canada and the UK. Joel: Meaning they're growing into those markets. They're not literally invading with weapons of mass destruction. Chad: I'm telling you right now the AI is being weaponized and it all comes down to one thing. Their competitors are feeling like this is an invasion, I guaranfuckingtee you. Joel: By the way this goes back to our Jobvite, iCIMS shit. All these companies are seeing or they better see that Google is progressively moving into your backyard. They're coming in Canada, UK. They'll be in Japan soon. They'll be in France, Germany, et cetera, Australia. I mean, they're coming for you and if you're not preparing for it, they're going to burn your house down so to speak. Chad: Jobvite is obviously preparing for that shit. Joel: Obviously, yeah. They needed 200 million to help do that and a lot companies can't do that. So, good on them for having the ability to raise the money, but yeah. Google is coming to town. Is your castle going to be strong enough to withstand it? Chad: LinkedIn. Joel: LinkedIn, dude. This isn't good I guess. So you came across a story that said only 13% of millennials- Chad: Yeah. I think this is really interesting because you take a look at it from a demographic standpoint, as the boomers move out and you've got the millennials that are moving in to really just into that vacuum per se in the workforce, this is a big loss for LinkedIn if they can't get that new segment, that new demographic to start using their system. Chad: I can only imagine after this research that they had a hard one and said fuck. Then saying okay, how do we go after these types of individuals to get them to start using the platform, to understand the professional network is where they need to be? Maybe the whole new video thing that they're doing is one of the reasons. I [crosstalk 00:41:48]. Joel: Yeah. I mean, partly it's shocking because these 15 to 34-year-olds. I believe 15-year-olds don't know should of about LinkedIn or care, but if you're over 21 and in college or educated, if you're not on LinkedIn, something is wrong. 13% is nothing. I can launch a site and get 13% of millennials to use it. It might not be a social network, but that's really bad. This is from their own demographics. Joel: Granted from this report, this was a source kind of story. 39 million students and recent grads are on LinkedIn, which is not a ton. If that's globally, that's not a huge number. 44% make 75,000 a year or more. More than 70% are outside the U.S., which is interesting. Even if it's 25% of millennials using LinkedIn, that's not a good sign for LinkedIn. Chad: No. There's a really good data in this survey that LinkedIn pulled together, but you're always looking for gaps. I mean, this is a huge weak spot, right? Joel: Yeah. I think they realize that which maybe brings us to our next story from LinkedIn. They're launching a live video this week, which apparently is in beta. Not everyone has it, but they're slowly rolling it out. Our friend Audra who we mentioned earlier in the shout outs had a good comment that basically like 2013 call, they want their technology back. Joel: I remember Facebook in particular pushed live video hard. They really wanted people to be a sporting event or concert or whatever, like live stream your participation in that. I mean, I tried it a little bit, but it was a pain in the ass because you got to be interesting on live video. It's not just that interesting to be at the mall and talking about going to Justice and buying a new unicorn leotard. So, LinkedIn's brand is like old people. I think they're going to continue to have a hard time appealing to younger people on any big way. Chad: Yeah, I don't think this is the answer. That's for damn sure. Joel: Yeah. Ultimately, LinkedIn is going to be an add-on to Microsoft's dynasty. Chad: Yeah. Joel: LinkedIn will be utility to have your professional presence, to network with people and share stories, but it will cease being like a cool place to hang out. I think young people are already tell you like, "I'm going to hang out on LinkedIn." Chad: Yeah. I think Microsoft and their suite of products if they can start to somehow spin that to be able to try to encompass and pull more people in. If you have Microsoft suite license or something of that nature, obviously you're going to have a profile or whatever it is. That automatically sucks you in the LinkedIn, who knows right, but there's got to be some ways to really pull in that humongous fucking audience that Microsoft already has using suite. Joel: Just get Kylie Jenner or whatever her name is to be a spokesperson for LinkedIn and make it cool to millennials. Chad: Or you can do something like a Fyre Festival. Joel: Yes, I was going to say that or have a concern on a desert island and really be cool to the millennials. All right, dude. Last on the news briefs here in the end, TMP big ass recruitment ad agency acquires CKR Interactive this week. This is the consolidation of the agency industry. We saw this was Shaker buying the Arland Group. Give us your clients, give us your talent, your sales people who are good and the professionals thought leaders over there, but ultimately, it's very hard to survive as a niche or boutique agency in today's world. Chad: Yeah. I think unless you have a KRT that they focus really heavily on programmatic and companies don't even how to spell fucking programmatic at this point just, so they have to go to somebody. It's like, "That's where we specialize." So, I think in that vein, if you can ride that wave, fucking ride it. But yeah, I think you're right with regard too it's kind of acquihire, as also you're taking another player off the table. So if again you are showing up to these presentations, and you've got one less player in the room because they're now a part of your team, that doesn't hurt either. Joel: The days of answering the phone and placing newspaper ads and display ads in the local newspaper and being able to go to your local recruiter and take them to lunch at Applebee's and be nice and keep their business are gone. That's where those little agencies thrive in sort of that human connection and people just don't care about people as much anymore. Happy Valentine's Day. People hate people. Chad: Here come the robots. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Ema: Hi. I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #iCims #Indeed #data #TMP #Jobvite #Canvas #Talemetry #RolePoint #GM #GeneralMotors #Racism #HirebyGoogle #LinkedIn

George LaRocque with HRwins.com recently published a job seeker survey. Chad had a lot of problems with it. So we did a podcast. Here it goes ... enjoy this Uncommon EXCLUSIVE. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. Chad: I'm going to be over the top. Say hello to the easiest way to find interested and qualified candidates. Joel: Dude you need to tone it down, I was just napping. You mean Uncommon's automated sourcing that turns passive candidates into interested and qualified applications? Chad: Yep. Uncommon automation helps recruiters cut their sourcing time by 75%. Joel: Wow. How much coffee did you have today? Chad: A lot. Joel: Anyway, dude. 75%? That sounds like black magic or something. Chad: Close, it's called automation. It's simple, actually. You just feed or post your jobs into Uncommon. The platform identifies your job requirements and in seconds Uncommon uses those requirements to search over 150 million candidate profiles, and then it pulls back only the qualified candidates. Joel: And don't forget, you can connect your email and Uncommon will provide automated outreach with your customized messages to activate those passive candidates, those pesky passive candidates. Chad: Even better. I'm going to one-up you. Uncommon shows exactly how the candidate meets all the job requirements with a side-by-side comparison view against the job requirements. Joel: Which means you won't be asking yourself, "What in the hell is this candidate doing here?" Chad: No, but you will be asking yourself, "Where has Uncommon been all my life?" Joel: Seriously? Joel: Uncommon is the easiest way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit Uncommon.co and use discount code ChadCheese for 20% off. Joel: Uncommon.co. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: It's George. Joel: Let's get ready to rumble. Everybody, welcome to the Chad Cheese podcast. I'm Joel Cheeseman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On today's show, we're talking to George LaRocque. George: Yes. Joel: George, hello, and tell us a little bit about yourself before we rip into you? George: Hey guys, well I think it's good to be here. I'm George LaRocque, I'm the analyst, I publish everything over at HR Wins, and so I cover the HR technology marketplace pretty much full-spectrum. Joel: Thanks for being here George. Now, you're here for a specific reason. On last week's show Chad and I, specifically Chad, had some issues with your recent survey. So, before we get into the issues, defend your survey. Tell us what you did, why you did it, some of the findings that you had, and then we'll just discuss it like gentlemen. Chad: Well, no, no, no. Before we go there, I would like to specifically thank George for coming on the show. To have balls enough to come on the show. In most cases, what happens? You hear a little whining, bullshit here and there, and then nobody ever comes on the show. Joel: Or silence. Chad: They're hiding in the fetal position like fucking art from the CEO of DICE. So, George says, "Fuck that, I'm going to go smack those guys in the face." And that's what I'm talking about. Joel: Big balls, George. Thanks for all that. Now, let's get it on. George: Is this where you play the outro? Because that all sounds good to me, let's just end it right there. That's good. Joel: Not getting off that easy, George. Chad: Asshole. George: So yeah, the way this came about, it's independent work. There's no sponsor, no clients in the work, and that's important to say right up front. What was happening is I was hearing some things a lot, which, I saw that ... The last straw was when a vendor sent something out and it said, "73% of job searches start on Google." And I went, "Really? Is that a thing? Is that real? Is that real, 73-" Chad: Did he source it at all? George: No, of course not. But, there is this ... I'm not saying everybody thinks 73% of job searches start on Google, and I have a lot of respect for Google and what they're doing in the industry right now, but I was just looking at it and saying, "I'm not sure that Google, at this point, has had that kind of impact on where people start, or what people are using." So, I wanted to test it. George: I put together a really simple survey and I asked, "What do you use? Where do you start? What gave you the most relevant results, and the most irrelevant results? And, here's the thing: I was very thoughtful with all of my surveys around the kind of sample that I use. Now, it's independent work, which means I paid for it. So, would I have liked to have had a bigger sample size? Of course. And a lot of my work has a bigger sample size, but it also has a sponsor or an underwriter. But in this case, statistically speaking, I'm far above the minimum sample size to shine a light on this topic, and that's really what I'm doing. This isn't a verdict, I'm shining a light on this issue and saying, "Let's talk about this." George: So, it's a provocative headline, yes, and that's to get us to read it. Chad: Shame, and it got us to talk about it. Joel: You paid a company to do the survey, is that what you're saying? George: Yeah. In this case, well, I wrote the survey and in this case I used a Survey Monkey's audience product, so I paid for the panel, and I set up the demographic as 18 years old to 65 years old, which is generally considered the working ages. We throttled it against census data, so I have geographically and generationally what looks like the US market in that age group, and then in order to ... the screening question is, "Have you conducted an online job search in the last 12 months?" So, all of the responses are complete. Meaning, the 540 answered all of the questions, and they all conducted a search in the last 12 months. Joel: Do you know how many went out before you got to that 500 or so? George: Yeah, I want to say it was like 800. It was just under 800 or just over. It was about 800. Joel: So a blast of 800, over half of those folks have done a job search in the last 12 months? George: In this case, yeah. Joel: Okay. George: Yep. Chad: That's a hell of a target, by Survey Monkey. My big question was, I didn't really have a problem with survey size, from the standpoint. My big problem was, analytics platforms are everywhere. Real data is everywhere. Why are we surveying stupid fucking humans? Joel: By the way, George, are you done talking about the survey? Because I wanted to give you ... I wanted to give you like a full platform to go through the whole thing. If you're done, we can go at it, but I want to make sure you feel like you've had time to talk about it. George: I'm starting to understand who the good cop is and who the bad cop is on this. Chad: Asshole. George: So, I appreciate that. I appreciate that, Joel. So, just to reinforce my point, I'm not sure if you got past the headline and the charts, but if you got down to the analyst insights- Joel: Yes. George: The first sentence is, "For employers, these data points shouldn't cause a knee jerk reaction on your ad spend." Chad: But they're going to. George: And I talk about what they should be looking for. Chad: But George, they're going to because- Joel: I mean, they're humans anyway. So, my big question is, and I totally get it, and it's like having the attorney sentence that's in there, "You can't sue me because I said this." At the end of the day, I totally get it, but this is a survey. I mean, come on man, there are plenty of people that you can tap in to who have aggregate data, source data. I mean, I can call probably four or five right now and start talking about putting together an awesome survey that is backed by data, not by stupid humans. George: Well we can disagree on whether surveys are valuable or not, but sharing aggregate data and publishing, it is not as easy as that. Like, that sounds good and I certainly have clients, and there are vendors that aren't clients, that are happy to share a view to their data. Now, will they let me go publish that data? Not usually. But, I would say this: I think you don't like the answer that I gave, which is generally that Indeed wasn't impacted as greatly as we thought it was. That's generally what the survey says. Now there's also the Talent Board just put out and they say this ... And they saw you guys, or heard you, beat up on me. And they said, "Hey," they said, "Hey George, we've got like 100,000 folks who just answered what are they using in their job search, it looks a lot like my chart." And it looks, in fact it's worse for Google because they lump Google in with other search engines, and they're further down on the list. George: So I think it ... what this says is that, yeah, they've had an impact, they can have a much bigger impact. I'd love a bigger sample size, but I think we all kind of know, like if you, anecdotally, if you go ask everybody that you bump into for the next month that's conducting a job search, just asking whether they use Google or not, they're going to say ... I bet most of them will say, "I didn't even know Google did that. I didn't know Google had a jobs interface." People are unaware of it. They haven't marketed it to the consumer. Joel: Aside from that Superbowl ad they just ran. Chad: For veterans. George: That's a good point. That's a good point. Joel: That might change. George: It could, yeah. I would say on the veterans side, it was a good start, to roll into it, right? Joel: But how many families have a veteran in the family? I thought it was a pretty genius marketing move because you look like you care about veterans, and I'm sure they do, but people who watched it like, "Wow, they have something cool for vets. I bet I could do a search on Google now for jobs," or, "Hey, someone's a vet in family. I'm going to tell them about this thing at Google that helps them search for jobs." Like, I thought it was a really good marketing strategy, from that standpoint. George: I agree, and so Joel, you don't ... You clearly don't think that people are stupid like Chad does. Chad has established that all humans- Chad: Not all. George: Are dumb. You think they would make the leap from veterans to jobs. And I agree with you, I think it was a beautiful branding. Joel: I'm pretty sure Chad's a cyborg. So, the fact that he's so anti-people makes a lot of sense. But, I wasn't as angry about the survey as he was. He has some very passionate opinions. I have some questions about the survey, for insight from you. Which, I guess we'll take a little break from angry Chad. I was curious why there was no Facebook or Craigslist in the survey. Was that an "other," or was it even included in the options? Was the question an open-ended answer, or did they have options? You know, "Choose A for Indeed. Choose B for Google. Choose C for ... " Joel: I'm like, how did that happen? Because I was kind of surprised Craigslist and/or Facebook weren't represented. George: The options are what you see in the results. So, "Other," was an open text field, and ... I want to go back and look, but I think Craigslist came up a couple of times under "Other." I got a lot ... There wasn't anything statistically that I could hang a hat on. There were some niche job boards, like maybe one or two people use plumber jobs and things that are super niche. A few people were like, "I used Indeed and nothing else." A few people said, "I used LinkedIn and nothing else." Things like that, but nothing that was overwhelming, but those were the options. Now, I don't consider Facebook a job board, or a job search site, but I get why they may- Joel: I mean- George: Be valuable here, and Craigslist though, yeah. I put ZipRecruiter in, and I think the segment that Zip goes after ... I will be carrying this forward, and I think it's a good point. I think Craigslist is a great ad and- Joel: Mark Zuckerberg came out pretty recently saying that one out of five users use their marketplace, which includes jobs. It includes buying and selling stuff as well, but with as many people as use Facebook, one out of five is a lot of people, so I would have been curious in maybe future surveys you can add Facebook because I'd be interested to see if that's on the list. And, I hear a lot of sales people, from vendors, a lot of companies are talking about posting jobs on Facebook, or how to get on Facebook, so that's just my two cents on future surveys that you might do. George: Yeah, that's good input. And just for the sake of the conversation, the Talent Board data included Facebook. They called out Facebook on its own, and it was ... It didn't perform ... It came below what is it? One, two, four, six ... Seventh on the list, seventh or eighth, underneath CareerBuilder and Monster. But it's up there at 16.8%, so it's definitely viable. Joel: Yeah, that's no slouch, right? George: Yeah. Chad: So we just, actually earlier today, got off a pod with Josh Wright who is an economist at iCIMS. So iCIMS is actually looking at leveraging their data in a much better way to, in some cases help the BLS, but also to help their clients. So I think when you were talking about, "Yeah there's aggregate data and it's hard to get around," I think ... Times are changing and we need to take a look at being able to create market differentiators for many of these platforms. And the data is available and it's there. So yes. I don't believe ... and this comes back from my days in working with RecruitSoft. Before it was Taleo, and we actually were testing some of our clients at direct employers. Most of the drop downs information that they received, which is pretty much like a survey when you're going through the application process versus the actual referral codes that we received; Totally off. Totally bullshit. So, it's just like, I don't trust human beings to be able to do the drop down, the pick, and even remember where they ate last, for goodness sakes. Chad: Give me hard data. And, I believe ... I believe that there are companies that are out there that are RPOs, that are stacking companies, there are obviously the iCIMS of the world, the CRMs and whatnot, that want to really differentiate in the market. You could prospectively help them do that, and to it with hard, real, data. Joel: Chad, do you think George's survey is just totally worthless? Chad: I am not a fan of using human engagement when it comes to this type of thing, when you know you have hard data. I mean, that's the big difference. If you want to poll people on their favorite pizza, yes, because I can't find that information anywhere unless I go ahead and mine their Facebook or some shit like that. But, at the end of the day, if you can go get the data, go get the fucking data. George: Yeah, but you're ... You're awfully emotional about this, so let me just calm you down a little bit. That data's really valuable- Chad: I like being able to provide good, solid evidence when people are making the choice, because companies don't do that now, they do it off of what the recruiters are telling them feels good, and it's all bullshit. George: But ... Let me point out two things. First off, I agree. I come out of the industry, and you know my history, both on the practitioner side and the vendor side. I've seen a lot of this data; I can validate that when candidates go through the hiring process, they usually get their source wrong. I don't know, it's some very large percentage of the time. Now, but here's the deal. I'm not asking them, "What did you use to get that job?" George: The way our market works, let's ... You like Google. I go to Google, I run a search, Google gives me the job on every, single place it's located in the results, and then I pick one to drill in, and I identify ... a lot of times I go right back to Indeed, that's not in the Google interface but it's down in the top results, so I could end up on Indeed. And then, if I apply through Indeed, or Monster, or whoever, I think I found the job on Indeed because I don't associate that to Google. But I'm asking, what did you use and where did you start? It's a little different. George: The other thing is, how is that aggregate data if it's based on those humans identifying their source? I know you're saying there's also the passively collected data now. It's ... I just don't think ... I hear you, and I would love to pull together some aggregate data and really do some of that work, but I'm not sure that ... in my experience, most of these platforms, they also have a hard time getting it right. I don't think it's all pristine. Chad: There is nothing that's perfect, I agree 100%. But, I would say the data on those platforms is much better than asking any monkey on the street. George: Yeah, okay. Joel: I'm going to put Chad in time out for a second. I'm going to ask a couple of questions about the survey that I hope are insightful and not aggressive at all. You mention in the survey that you were surprised that ZipRecruiter was so low, and I would agree with that particularly with all the advertisement that they do. What are your thoughts on why they came up so short this survey? George: Well, I'd be curious to know your thoughts, because you've spent a lot more time in the job board ecosystem/industry out there than I do. It was a reaction of surprise based on the fact that they've spent so much on advertising, and anecdotally, as I'm out doing ... and this was not a big enough sample size, but I've done these ... No, I'm talking about these round tables that I do where anecdotally employers are saying, "You know, ZipRecruiter is actually doing a good job for me lately." And so I expected that to be reflected in the results. I thought that may be the surprise, like, "Look at them." And maybe this is them trending. Continuing this work would start to show a trend line, and I'm curious about that. So, in my gut I feel like based on what I've heard, they're probably doing a little better than the numbers suggest, but you know, I wouldn't ... I didn't write that because I, this will make Chad happy, I didn't have data. I just had some feelings. Joel: I mean, my only guess would be that they brand themselves as, sort of, an hourly retail, restaurant service, and maybe the people that were surveyed that weren't in that demographic that would think about going to ZipRecruiter, but I know they're getting more into enterprise and more into jobs that we think about, so as this thing goes on I assume Zip will improve in terms of the number. Chad: I just see the model being different, don't you guys? George: Maybe. I don't know if, in the ... outside of our bubble where we know so much about these brands, and so much about what they do, when I've, again, anecdotally as I ask people what they're using, Indeed comes up a lot. Indeed comes up a lot. And these aren't active job seekers, these are people who, "Yeah, I went and looked on Indeed. I was curious, so I went and looked on Indeed." That's the definition of a passive job seeker, if there is one. If there is a passive job seeker is what I'm saying. George: I think Indeed has a hell of a brand, that Google helped them build. Chad: Yeah. George: And I think Zip- Joel: He's being generous. Or conservative. George: Yeah, on their backs, on their backs. Yeah, I get it. But Zip is, my sense is they're improving. When I hear their ads now, on satellite radio every 10 minutes, it's about employers and about technology, and about matching, and I've got to think that's going to break through to, potentially, a more sophisticated buyer. Joel: So last question, we'll get into some of the money news and what's going on there. You were, partly for click bait, and getting attention, but you were fairly tough on Google as a job resource. And, I would throw in there as Devil's advocate, Indeed's been around for 15 years, Google Jobs less than two. Or, let's just call it two? George: Yeah. Joel: They have the least relevant job results. I tend to think it's going to get a lot better pretty quickly because they're Google. Although you were sort of rough on them in the survey, would you at least admit, "Yeah, for a two year old solution, they're pretty good." Or no? George: They have the Google brand, which is not a job search brand. And I think, so they, by doing anything focused on this space, they have had a ... The impact they've had, even if you were to say the survey was gospel, which, I say it's a point in time I'm shining a light on, a data point right now, but that being said, if they focus and are committed to improving their experience, and if they spend money on marketing this thing beyond the brand piece we saw in the Superbowl, but really, really consistent marketing; Yeah. There's a question that the tables will tilt, because they're Google. Yes. No question. Joel: I mean, for me, and I've been a Google guy for a long time, and doing SEO and whatnot, and their MO is not really to advertise unless it's something huge, like Android phone or something really significant. So, to me, for them to drop a Superbowl ad on searching a job says that they're serious. It says that, to me, too, in five, six, seven, ten years, in this survey, they're going to come out a lot better than they are today. Chad: Yeah. Well, they also have to take a look at their brand because it's getting demolished in Europe, and then the actual lawsuits that are happening here, I think one was just dropped by the federal government. So, there's that whole brand rejuvenation that has to happen, not to mention kind of reaching down and making everybody feel good. I mean, helping veterans get jobs, who's not going to be happy about that? Obviously the veterans are, but everybody's going to be happy about that, so I mean it's a good play from a PR standpoint. Not to mention, as you'd said before, to try to lightly roll out Google for jobs. "Hey, you can find a job here, too." George: Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that, and I love what they did for veterans, and the message overall. They've got a big brand issue right now, and so many ... They had the employee walkout that happened, there's all sorts of ... The privacy stuff, all of that. Testifying in front of congress, all that stuff. They need people believing that Google cares, and jobs is, overall, is a good way, if they can be more effective in connecting people to jobs, for both the people who do advertise on Google, the employers, and the consumers. That's a great thing. I hope they do more. I hope they do more. But, there have been some of these bigger companies, like Salesforce has been rattling their saber all around our space for years, have little impacts, nothing happens. They disappoint me. Joel: George, you got kind of mad there for a second. Disappointment in Salesforce. I can't wait til Slack introduces job postings and you can get excited. George: Yeah, Slack's ... they're going to go public now. I'm ... They've got like tens of millions of active users. They're really interesting and one of the ecosystems HR tech needs to be more tied in to. There's a lot that's tied in there now, but that's where people work. A lot of people. Joel: And Chad and I would agree with you on that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Hey, we agree on something, everybody. That's cool. George: Yeah, all right. Chad: Sweet. Joel: Let's talk about money. George: Okay. Joel: So, a billion dollars you said? More money flowing in. Is it going to continue? When's the recession going to hit so I can sell all my shares in Slack after they go public? What are you seeing, and what do you have to report? George: So, money. In 2018, we saw just over four billion in VC in 2018. That's almost four times as much as we saw in 2017. Or, that I saw. That I'm able to track, and I don't know the better list. It's an incredible amount of money, and the big standout, just like it was last year, but even more so this year, are the job boards. Job boards, marketplaces. They saw, it was like 960 million, which is almost as much as we did in 2017 across all the categories in HR tech. Joel: Wow. George: Yeah, just crazy. Crazy. And, it's everything. It's the niche boards, it's small investments in niche boards, and it's big investments in, like, contingent workforces place, and providing additional services. So, that's the standout. The others are kind of predictable, like around the payroll market, and in other areas, platforms and such, but the job board stuff is nuts. And, Zip was one of them. 156 million went to Zip, and then there's a Chinese job board, who, they call themselves the LinkedIn of China, in my mind, 200 million. Joel: What niches are you seeing that are heating up? We've talked about, obviously, marijuana heating up in the job board space, but what other segments or locations, industries, are you seeing getting a lot of attention? George: You had an opportunity there to talked about like firing up, the cannabis market firing up, and you just ... You blew that. Joel: You see what I did there? Yeah. George: So, I'm seeing stuff across the board. A lot of focus though on, I don't know if it's a niche, but the what we used to call blue collar, 'non-white collar' is the term now. So I've seen a lot of that. I continue to see any freelancer, or gig, or contingent play gets ... seems like if you can hit one of those buzz words, and call yourself a marketplace, somebody's going to write you a check and see how far you can go. Joel: Throw some AI and data in there. Chad: Bot chain them. Joel: Bot chain, crypto. Yeah. Hey, Ultimate Software, you saw I'm sure, just went ... was public, went private, and sold for $11 billion. What do you think that means for the HR tech competitors out there? George: I was on their analyst call yesterday, and they can't say much. It's, "business as usual," and in a lot of ways it will be. The one thing they said that struck me, though, is their motivation for doing this was to get out of the quarterly microscope that Wall Street brings, and to be able to make investments in their R and D, and in their go to market that were better for customers long term, and might not appease Wall Street with a short term lens. So, that would say, if that's accurate, if ... I would say that it means you'll start to see them come out with more innovative stuff faster. So, they're doing a lot with AI, and predictive analytics, and things in that whole space; and I think you'd see more of that hit the roadmap faster. I think you'll see them get into the global market, potentially, more aggressively. Nothing about the deal smells bad to me. This private equity firm also has Chronos in their portfolio, and Chronos also went from public to private, years ago. George: Chronos continues to execute, and the founder's still there, and they're ... It seems, from the outside looking in, it looks like to have been a good move for them, so I would guess it's a patient source of capital, and we'll probably see ultimate ... be a little bit more competitive in the enterprise against Work Day, which is where they've been headed for a while. Chad: So, much different than the Apollo acquisition that we saw with CareerBuilder, because they've obviously been working much differently. Joel: Any other IPOs on the horizon that might surprise us, George? George: I don't have any IPOs, but I will tell you- Joel: Any guesses? George: Any guesses? Nope. But, here's what I do have for you. Watch your PR feed for about five or six new acquisitions and private equity deals, I would say, happening rapid fire, in our space very soon. I can't get into who, but you're going to see a- Joel: We want data here, George. Chad: Damn it George. George: I know, but I can't ... I've been sworn to secrecy, and- Joel: You could have at least thrown out an iCIMS or Entelo, with a guess of who'd go public, but you've got nothing, huh? George: On the public front? Well, iCIMS just got, they just had their PE deal last year. Joel: Was is ZipRecruiter? They're going to go public soon, right? George: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm not seeing this. Joel: With the amount of money they've got, what else are they going to do? George: I mean, they just got it. They just got it. Chad: So you've got to give them time, Joel. You've got to give them time. Joel: I didn't say in the next 30 days. I was just kind of like, "Hey." Chad: You and your instant gratification, Joel. George: Oh, you want- Joel: I'm just going to have to nail my predictions, again, for another year. Basically. George: When you asked me about predictions about who's going to go public, I thought you meant, watch like, in the next, what, like 12 to 24 months? Sure, I think you hit on a couple of good players that could end up ... Who else is there that isn't already public that's got a platform play, that's 100 million in revenue or more? Is there ... You might see some of these middle-market vendors like on the HR side like the Namelys or someone, get from where they are today, in the next two years, and make a play like a Gusto, or someone like Gusto or Namely or some like that, but yeah, I don't see anybody imminent. Sorry. Joel: That's okay. I ask the questions, you give the answers. That's how this show works. Any thoughts on Dice? They weren't in your survey, either. Were they in the "Other" category? George: They didn't come up. Chad: Imagine that. Dice not coming up anymore. Joel: Shocking, because they suck. Joel: Sorry, that was live look at their innovation lab. Some new tech they've come up with. Feffer: Asshole. Joel: I think that's all we've got, George. We appreciate your time, man. Thanks for defending your shit, coming on the show like a big boy, and putting up with us. George: Well, hey, thanks for having me here. It's always fun, and I'm always happy to stand next to my work and talk about it. Joel: So, if listeners want to know more about you, where should they go? What should they read? George: Go to HRWins.com and you'll see all the latest reports right there, and an easy way to jump in by category and get to anything that interests you about HR tech, or investment in HR tech. Chad: We love you George. Joel: Thanks, George. Chad: We out. George: Love you guys. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my step-dad, the Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast, so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. Tristen: The most important part is to check out our sponsors, because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive, shiny, gold pair that are extra because ... Well, I'm extra. For more, visit ChadCheese.com. #Survey #Uncommon #Indeed #GoogleforJobs #HRwins

Are employers gaming Glassdoor? Why is the TAtech Recruitment Marketing Summit going to be so kick ass? WTF is going on out there? Smashfly CEO Thom Kenney has an opinion that you have to hear. Oh, and he covers a lot more than that with the boys on this Nexxt exclusive. Enjoy. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:Disability Solutions helps businesses find qualified candidates with disabilities for their job postings. Announcer: This The Chad and Cheese brought to you in partnership with TATech. TATech, the Association for talent acquisition solutions. Visit tatech.org. Chad: Okay. Joel, quick question. Joel: Yeap. Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates or you're texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. And I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflex to text messaging. Joel: Yeah, that's probably why text messaging has a fricking 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: And a crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why The Chad and Cheese Podcast love Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it. Chad: Yep. That's right. Nexxt with the double X, not the triple X. Joel: If you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and Great ROI, that stands for return on investment folks, and because this is The Chad and Cheese Podcast, you can try your first Text2Hire campaign for just 25% off. Wow. Chad: Boom. So how do you get this discount? You're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell them Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to chadcheese.com and you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Just go where you know, chadcheese.com and Nexxt with two Xs. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: We have 2/3s of the show being military men today. Real treat. We've got Thom Kenney, CEO of SmashFly . Thom, welcome to the show. Thom: Thanks Joel. Good to be here. Joel: Before that you were a CTO, right, of SmashFly? Thom: I was. Joel: You're an army guy and you're a Notre Dame grad. What else should we know about you? Thom: I actually sing opera. Joel: Really? Thom: I do. Yeah, I've sang with the Boston symphony for a little over a decade or so before I became CEO. Chad: How do we not know this? How did we not get some type of operatic with Guinness in Ireland? Last time we had you on the show, oh, that would've been fucking perfect. Joel: He's a very humble man. Although you can get him to stay up later for drinks if you say something like only marines stay out till 3:00 AM or something like ... He can be badgered in that way. Thom: I can. And I can be lured in by pizza. I like what. Joel: It's a little sucker. Chad: Oh dude. Yeah. Yeah, and that's good stuff. So speaking of conferences because that was during a TATech Conference. We've got another marketing, was it recruitment marketing summit coming up in Chicago, right? Joel: Chicago. Thom: Yeah. In just a few weeks. Joel: Chicago. Chad: Yeah, it is just a few weeks isn't it? I mean it's in April. So SmashFly is like the headliner on this bitch. So why'd you guys want to get involved? Tell us a little bit more about how this all came to be. Thom: Well I tell you the experience that we've had with TATech just in general. Well the TATech team has been really, really positive. And when we look at some of the conferences that we've been to, some of the insights that we've gained and also that we've been able to give, it's a really good audience for us to talk to. And when we looked around the landscape, you've got conferences that are in Europe, you've got conferences here in the US, you've got the AI conference that's coming up in Arizona in just a couple of weeks. Thom: We looked at this from the perspective of where is SmashFly really in this whole ecosystem? And part of that recruitment marketing platform, part of what recruitment marketing is, as we look to the future, especially as we look to push this idea of how we're leveraging automation and personalization to really create great candidate experiences. We thought what a perfect platform for us to be able to share with the industry where we think things are going and invite some really great folks working with the TATech Team to really put on a great conference specifically focused on the recruitment marketing side. Joel: And just as a side note, the show really took off once they started featuring Chad and Cheese at the conferences, but that's neither here nor there. Chad: He's being humble. He's being humble. Joel: Thom the last time you spoke, it's almost been about a year since we were in Dublin together. You've been CEO for almost roughly a year now. Tell me about what you've seen, what kind of changes have really stood out to you in the last year in recruiting technology? Thom: I think one of the biggest things that we've seen, especially in the last year, is you look to all of the small point solutions that are really coming about to help build that automation or that personalization, whether it's conversational AI, chat bots, whether it's sourcing, whether it's intelligent interviewing, psychometric analysis. There's been a lot of movement in the industry. And what I think is most interesting about it, because like you said, I was a CTO before I was a CEO, to geek out on some of this tech is phenomenal. The challenge that we have is that it's not getting easier to talk about the tech and to talk about the value of the tech. Thom: It's almost getting a little bit harder because the tech is becoming more advanced. There's more that you can do with it and demonstrating a business proposition to the economic buyer has been one of those things that we and a lot of our friends that we're partners with had been spending a lot of time with to really demonstrate, this isn't just a really cool, neat little trick of technology. It actually moves the needle for the business because at the end of the day, that's what everybody wants. Chad: That's one of the things that really kind of pisses me off because I geek out over this tech that's coming out. But the thing is it's not being positioned appropriately. It's like, look at all this cool stuff? Look at this glitter? Look at this glam? But we're not seeing business solutions and there are business solutions that are actually baked into them, but it seems like there are way too many product people that are like trying to shape message and not sales and marketing people who are trying to shape message. Thom: Well, what do you want there to shape the message? Do you want somebody that's willing just to sell you anything just because it happens to be a feature? Or do you want a real deep dive from a product marketing team? When you talk about a SWOT analysis, when you're talking about a market analysis, when you talk about a growth opportunity, the tools that are being built with only a sales and marketing focus are going to be vaporware. They're going to be gone. The tools that are being built in partnership with some of the best companies in the world, those are the ones that are actually going to have staying power because they're being built to a business need that's being articulated by the business, not by the neat little shiny object that somebody is going to grab and look out for a little while and then toss in the trash. Joel: Yeah, one of the things that stood out to me in Dublin was you saying that companies were calling you saying we need a chatbot, but not really knowing why they needed a chatbot. So have we at least evolved to a point where companies know why they need a chatbot? Thom: A lot of our customers are, and the interesting thing is that they're articulating a business case that really helps them move that needle. Because if you think about the history of the industry has really looked at how do we optimize what the recruiter and the sourcer are doing? How do we decrease expenses? How do we decrease our time to hire? And these metrics that are important. But the reality is, what you're really trying to do is grab the talent and the hiring managers and bring them together more quickly and the right talent to the right hiring managers at the right time is one of the most important things. Thom: What we've started to see, especially in the past six months in some of our sales cycles is customers are asking us very, very specific details about how will this chatbot, this conversational AI transform the experience for the candidates? And when we talk to those customers about what they're looking for, we had a variety of different pieces of feedback. Either people just have too much volume and they need people to get engaged without always talking to the recruiter on the phone and other folks are well, we deal with almost all passive candidates who never want to pick up the phone to talk to a recurrence. So it's a great way just to create that initial interest in the organization. Thom: Because when we think about recruitment marketing and to some extent the ATS and through the process of discovery all the way through to higher, there's really those three top tiers of that bucket. You've got to discover the talent or discover the company, that's on both sides of the equation. You've got to generate some awareness of what the value proposition is, whether that's for an opportunity or whether that's for a mission statement for a company. And then finally you get the interest and the interest is where the call to action is to actually apply and get into that process. Thom: We talked to our customers a lot about where do you need to tweak your model? Do people know who you are? Great. Do they know anything about you? They don't. Okay, that's an area that we can help you with. And when you link all these pieces together between social engagement, email campaigns, the way we do career marketing sites and chatbots, you bring that together in a holistic view. You demonstrate a value proposition that really is both measurable and actionable that makes a difference for a company. Chad: We've been talking about this new survey that came out that says 75% of recruiters have no confidence in most of the technology that's out there today, which means the new AI, the chatbots, so on and so forth, which means it's going to be hard from an adoption standpoint, which is exactly what a company like yours needs. You need that adoption. Just from your standpoint, how is Emerson helping defeat that no competence kind of feeling from a recruiter? How does a chatbot like Emerson do that? Thom: It is hard to overcome that because you have a lot of solutions out there that regardless of the industry that are just bad. I mean I remember the early days of Verizon trying to use the chat bot that they had onboard. I mean, literally wanting to throw my laptop across the room because it was so stupid. I mean no intelligence in it whatsoever. And so a lot of that experience for the recruiters, they see chatbots, they see conversational AI across the industries and it isn't just recruiting. So when we talk to these folks, the way Emerson interfaces with a CRM, I think is one of the most important aspects of what it is that we're delivering. Thom: You're not talking about two completely separate systems. You're talking about an integrated platform where the conversations flow into the candidate relationship management system in a way that's seamless. Now the interesting thing about it is when we get the pushback from folks about, well, this isn't worthwhile and this isn't something that we can really rely on. Then we get into a scenario where we can actually show them in real world examples where this is actually making a difference and we're pretty transparent too about this is what it can do and this is what it can't do. If you want it to be able to answer any question in the world, it's not going to happen. Natural language processing, semantic analysis, it's really, really good. But most of our customers don't have a million or a million and a half dollars that they want to spend to create the perfect chatbot that's going to answer every question on the planet. Thom: The question to them becomes, what are the biggest pain points that you have? We're the mundane tasks that you do every day and what are those tactical touchpoints that really make a difference for the talent. And if you hone in on what that messaging is and each company is different, but you hone in on what that messaging is and it can actually be impactful. One of the other things that I think is important about the way that we've implemented Emerson is it's not just a plug and play kind of chatbot. It's one that has the ability to interface with a human on the back end without ever knowing that there's a human there interfacing with that person on the front line. And an interesting stat that we have is a vast majority of people that interface with Emerson say thank you or some other version of thanks at the end of the conversation. Chad: People are polite. Thom: That shows an empathetic connections. They're very polite to the chatbot. Because I can tell you which ... Right. With chatbots that don't work, I can probably show you some of the ending comments of those. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Fuck you, you saw. Thom: Exactly. Joel: Hey Thom, we've talked about chatbots here in the early minutes of the show, which is fun. But you guys offer quite an array of services and solutions. What else is hot on your menu list? What are companies really interested in and maybe what's on the future development map for you guys going into 2019 here? Thom: There's really two things I think that fall into those categories of what you're talking about. The first is what we call Pipeline Intelligence. A lot of companies are looking to identify what are those metrics, what are those KPIs that tell me whether or not my recruiting teams are actually achieving the goals we want them to achieve? And time to hire isn't necessarily the only KPI. Thom: As we look to build out the Pipeline Intelligence that digs a little bit deeper in all the data points we have, that's something we want to help fuel the decision making process both for the recruiters that are on the ground and then for the economic buyers that are trying to move their talent acquisition organizations into the next generation. Thom: The second thing that I think is really interesting and we're hearing a lot about and that we're formulating in 2019, is Internal Mobility. It is an entirely untapped pool of talent that most companies just don't pay any attention to. And if you think about those stats that we've been talking about in 2018, 12% of candidates are active and 88% are passive. The passive candidates, guess what? A lot of them are already in your organization, especially if you've got 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 employees. Thom: That marketing manager that's ready for that promotion to director, that engineer that's ready for that senior engineer position, or even that person who is looking to get a step up into the VP or higher, if they don't know about the internal opportunities that are there, it's hard to mine the internal employees that are already engaged with your company that already know your value proposition, that are already committed to your strategic growth. Identify those folks, show them the opportunities that are there, engage and nurture them just like you do outside talent and you'll have a great uptick in the ability to reduce some of the costs that you have first because you don't have to retrain these people. You don't have to onboard these people and you're keeping them engaged in the business and giving them great working opportunities. Joel: I didn't hear any virtual reality in that answer, so I'm not sure what kind of future SmashFly has. Chad: All right. Just go ahead. Let's go onto the next part. Last thing we need is a sex robots coming up next. Joel has this thing. Thom: Joel does works at home. Chad: Are you taking your, your current tool sets that you which have been focused outwardly on really active candidates, or trying to pull active candidates and then turning them inward is that what it is that you have all these product sets in place already and you're just turning them onto the employee base versus external? Thom: Absolutely. It's a little bit different of a marketing techniques. Your messaging is a little bit different because these are already employees in your organization. But think of talent, network pools. We all talk about this. SmashFly is always bragging. We've got recruiters from 69 countries in our system and we've got people from 180 countries. I mean billions and billions of data points in our system. It's pretty much just another talent network pool that exists inside the company. Thom: You've got talent pools for say advanced technology people and you've got talent pools for marketing people and for salespeople, this is another talent pool that you can leverage inside of the SmashFly platform that says, here's an audience that I want to message to about some really great opportunities that we have. It's not a huge technological or fundamental shift for a company to think about things that way. Joel: Thom, we've been talking about marketing is recruiting and recruiting is marketing for a long time and as I look at your site, it looks like Marketo, it looks like HubSpot. So is the rate at which recruiters are becoming marketers on pace with what you would hope it would be? Is a little slower than you thought or is it even faster maybe than what the market would perceive? Thom: I think it's a little faster than the way the market would perceive. And the reason I say that is because I believe that the folks who are doing the recruiting are picking up the skills for marketing as they're using tools like ours. It's one of those things that just your experiential knowledge of doing a task builds a core competency and a skill set. So for me, people may not know that they're becoming marketers, but as they use our tools and as they get better at using our tools or any tools that are in recruitment marketing, it's helping build that experiential skill set. Thom: But I think interestingly if we go back to your comment about virtual reality and what we would do with that and maybe we're going to go down without know. Virtual reality for like interviewing is awesome. But look at where we've come as a society, right? You've got virtual reality and people who are wearing the goggles and then that damn Pokémon thing where people were walking out in the middle of cars because they were chasing the ... That's augmented reality, right? Chad: Yep. Thom: If you think about the augmentation of technology, we can think about that exactly inside of recruitment marketing and the interviewing process and the hiring process exactly the same way. We're not trying to eliminate the human touch, which is so important in engaging talent. What we're trying to do is we're augmenting the work that these folks do every day and we're helping them do it better in a way that actually delivers better results for them, for their group, but then also for their companies. It's that augmented technology and the intelligence in that augmentation that I think really moves the needle. Thom: Do you need to go back to the 1950s in Mad Men and make sure all of the recruiters know exactly how to advertise a product? I don't think so. The augmentation of the technology is going to empower the recruiters to do that recruiting so they will become marketers in a way specific to their area of expertise without actually having to go back and like do a master's degree in recruitment marketing or do some crazy training segment. It's going to come as a natural evolution of the technology and a natural evolution of the industry. Chad: Okay, so candidates are saying thank you to chatbots, right? They feel like they're getting a great experience with chat bots. There's no human interaction there. And from my standpoint, I love that because we've given candidates just shitty experiences and black holes over the last 20 years. Asshole. Bastards. So do we really need that human touch? Because to be quite frank, the humans are the ones who fucked a lot of this up in the first place. And with platforms like yours, you can get into drip campaigns. You can get into very smart, sequenced types of events to make it so much easier, so much more efficient to be able to have a great candidate experience and also draw in those very highly touted candidates and have them, I guess nurtured by the time they get to the application process or the interview process. Thom: Well look at it this way, dating apps, right? The dating app is something- Chad: No. No. We're not talking about Tinder. Thom: Yes. Yes. We're talking about dating apps. Look if you're in a dating app- Joel: Tinder for jobs. Thom: The dating app is using AI and machine learning. The dating app is engaging you at a level where you don't have to actually interface with someone. Chad: Yeah. Thom: Now, most people other than Joel, are going to want to actually meet a person face to face and have that conversation. If you're dating and you're looking for that companionship. When we look at chatbots, conversational AI, email campaigns, social campaigns, whatever it is, there is a point in time where you want to cross that threshold and you want that human engagement. Thom: The idea behind the technology of creating these connections between talent and companies and hiring managers isn't about just doing it in some very detached or semi realistic way. It's about a way to create a level of engagement so that the relationship that you're developing becomes stronger at each step in the path. So you create a really good engagement with a conversational AI tool like Emerson and that takes the next level to create a really good human to human engagement with a recruiting manager, which then creates an even better experience when you sit down for that interview with a hiring manager. Thom: Because think about it. If you walk into an organization and you're ready for an interview and you're thinking about this opportunity and maybe three or four other opportunities. If you're a company that's leveraging this technology, what do you want? Do you want somebody who's just coming in there and sitting down and wants to learn more about you and your company and what the jobs are? No, because that's a waste of everybody's time. If you can do it in a way where somebody sits down across from you at that table or that desk or at that coffee shop and they're already engaged with that company because of the experiences that they've had and they're already excited about that company, then the hiring manager's job becomes much easier because now you've got a scenario where you can truly look for fit. You can truly look for, is this the right person for the organization and then what do I do to continue this very positive experience all the way through their onboarding into their first six, nine months, one year, three year of employment. Thom: When you see these statistics that come out and say it's just great, great feedback from companies. I say when you've got that level of engagement is very, very positive for the company and for the employee. So it's just a matter of where you start doesn't mean where you have to end up. It just means that where you start as it leads to a progression of deepening relationships and deepening experiences, the better the outcomes are going to be for the companies and for the people that are coming on board. Joel: And speaking about positives for a company. Wall Street Journal recently reported that certain companies were potentially gaming their Glassdoor reviews. Chad and I were kind of torn on where we fell on whether this was really happening or not. Do you have any opinions on gaming Glassdoor? Whether you think it's happening? You guys sort of sit at the, sort of the corner of branding and technology. Where do you sort of side on that issue and how does Glassdoor and reviews play into sort of your business if at all? Thom: It's absolutely happening. Firsthand knowledge. Absolutely happening. Chad: Told You. Thom: Yeah, it's one of those things that Glassdoor ... Glassdoor, it's a great company. It's doing a great service in many ways because people otherwise don't have a way to look at a reputation of a company, right? And SmashFly, we pay attention to what people are saying. And quite honestly we had an interview candidate that didn't have a good experience and we reached out to that candidate after seeing the Glassdoor review and I posted something on Glassdoor to apologize and to say we would love to talk to you about your experience so that we can make this better for everyone. Thom: I think it's a tool for people looking for opportunities and for companies to address that. Joel: Do you have real world ... So you said you know firsthand people doing this. How are they doing it exactly? Are they just saying, "Hey, leave good reviews." Or incentivizing it somehow? Thom: I don't believe, at least in my experience, it hasn't been true that there's an incentive to actually go out and do it. But the strong power of persuasion and suggestion is it's out there in the market with different industries as well. Just having seen it from where I've been in the past. Joel: Fair enough. Also the news recently, Ultimate Software just sold for $11 billion. Thom: That is the machine of a combat. Joel: We have LinkedIn at 26, so people are still more valuable than the technology. But clearly the technology is worth quite a bit of money. I assume you thought about your own business and where you guys fit in the ATS marketplace. But what do you think the $11 billion buyout means for the ATS market as well as your business? Thom: When we think about the types of deals that folks are doing today and everyone's talking about whether or not there's going to be consolidation and growth and what the PEs are during and leveraging debt. There's a whole lot of action that seems to be going on right now in this was just ... I mean it blew out of the water what the numbers are. But I think what it says is there's a future to where these technologies are going. Because if you're a PE or a VC, you're not buying what the technology is today. You're buying what the potential is. Whether that's the potential of a leadership team, a potential of a technology or a potential of a market. You're not buying for today. Thom: It's the Gretzky quote, right? "You don't skate to where the puck is, you skate to where the puck is going." So when we think about what that means for our industry, there's so much going on with recruitment marketing and how recruitment marketing is bleeding over into the ATS. The ATS is in the RM Tools are getting closer and closer and closer because companies are recognizing the value of that engagement across the board all the way to that point of hire. So when we look at Ultimate and what Ultimate is doing, and then some of the other ways that companies like Greenhouse are starting as a recruitment marketing tool with an ATS kind of working together from the get go. Folks are seeing where talent engagement 2.0 is really coming. It's getting to a point where your entire engagement experience is going to transcend the ATS, and I think in a few years beyond that even transcend into the employee experience as well. Thom: A lot of these technologies are going to be leveraged across the board from the moment you discover a particular person to the moment you're interfacing with someone who's been at the company for five years and you're letting them know about a great opportunity they have about a senior marketing position in California. So this is, I think, indicative of people with money saying this industry is still growing. This industry still has so much potential. And when we were doing some recent studies last year about what our market is and what our market cap is, we look at like IDC and like what is it the $8 billion or $9 billion of total addressable market that exists for not just the job boards and the point solutions, but also for the CRMs and the ATSs. That's huge. Thom: We'll get about a $2 billion market point for companies like ours to be able to go to. And then you look at what we've actually been addressing in the market. The feedback that we're getting both from studies and then some anecdotal that we've been doing on our own is we're really only about a quarter at penetration. So 23% to 24% penetration in the market today. That's a huge amount of room for all of us to grow. And when we think about it at SmashFly, we're less concerned about this just craziness of like war time stance, we're going to kill everybody. The reality is we've got so much opportunity just to make this pie bigger. And if we're making the pie bigger, everybody's slices get bigger, so there's plenty of room a lot of companies to do really well in this space. Chad: And we're going to close up with a TAtech going to close up with TATech. If you're a TA leader or a TATech leader, somebody who's a vendor that's out there, you're a founder, a CEO or what have you. What should they expect out of TATech leadership summit on recruitment marketing? What should they expect and what do you really want to personally, not to mention as the summit address to that audience? Thom: The potential. I still believe there's a lot of untapped potential in recruitment marketing and the way that it interfaces across the entire talent pipeline. And if you think about the way the technology is invigorating a lot of these talent engagement and talent acquisition teams, that takeaway I think could be huge from focusing on recruitment marketing. It's not just about putting a technology in place to optimize and save costs. It's about putting a technology in place to move the needle through your entire business. Where do you need to hire? Where are you not getting the right types of people? How are you losing people to your competition? How are you tracking folks? How are you measuring your success? How are you demonstrating your value proposition to the business owners in your own organization? Thom: It's those types of things that when we think about the huge potential of recruitment marketing across the landscape, when you take some of the feedback that you'll get from this conference, whether it's some of the working studies that we do, whether it's some of the talks that we do, the case studies, there's so much information that you can leverage back in your own organization to really move the needle. Joel: Good answer, Thom. Chad: That's good. TATech Leadership Summit on recruitment marketing, and again, every time we look at these lists of what's top of the list for talent acquisition leaders. Recruitment marketing is there because they understand their candidate experience, their handling of the process has sucked over the years and this one of the big, at least I'd say top three or top two that we always see. So in April, April 17th and 18th, you'll have an opportunity in Chicago to check it out, to be a part of a summit. Go to tatech.org. Just click on events and register to see Thom's smiley face talk about recruitment, marketing and a bunch of TA leaders as well. Chad: Thom Kenney everybody. Thom thanks for joining us. For those who want to know more about you or SmashFly, where should they go? Thom: Smashfly.com. Chad: Too easy. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad Podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes, that that silly Android thingy or wherever you listen to podcasts. Be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise I may have to take that coal mining job I saw on monster.com. We out. Chad: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Before we go, remember when I asked you about the whole reflex and check your text messages thing? Joel: Yeah. You know all about reflexes. And then I brilliantly tied it to text messages, 97% open rate. Then I elegantly tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh Chad. I can be elegant. Can't I? Chad: Whatever, man. I know it's redundant. You already heard about Text2Hire, but you're still not using Text2Hire from Nexxt. I know man. Joel: Come on man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again, this was all by Elegant Design. It's all about Text2Hire and it's all about Nexxt. Joel: And Elegant Design. So go to chadcheese.com. Click on the Nexxt logo and get 25, yeah, I said 25% off your first Text2Hire campaign. Engage better, use Text2Hire from Nexxt. Two Xs. Announcer: Thanks to our partners at TATech. The Association for talent acquisition solutions. Remember to visit tatech.org. #Smashfly #CEO #TAtech #chatbots #Nexxt #Marketing #Engagement #ATS #CRM #RMP

Damn my head still hurts... It was Super Bowl hangover week, so the boys discuss takeaways from advertising's biggest day, including winners and losers, but not the game because it totally sucked. - Microsoft goes right for the heart strings - Google talks job search - Monster Layoffs - Will Video kill the Job Board Star? - Craigslist is now a billion dollar money-making machine - Mattermost is looking to squeeze Slack's market - Is Walmart saving middle America? Buckle up and visit our sponsors, Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: Give it to me. Joel: Hidey-ho, boys and girls. Welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm Joel Cheeseman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, layoffs. Layoffs. Layoffs. Layoffs at Monster. Craig and that list of his, well, he's one rich son of a gun. And we review shit from the Super Bowl. The podcast, by the way, is guaranteed to be more entertaining than the Super Bowl, by the way. Chad: Easily. Joel: Stay tuned, we'll be right back after a word from JobAdX JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat. JobAdX: Ah. JobAdX: Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads. Page after page, before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low. Budgets are wasted, jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs, and delivers what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network. JobAdX: Score. JobAdX: That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results, attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns, and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at, joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdX. Together, we can save job search. Joel: Score. Chad: I really think that when they talk about job search defeat, they have to remember they're on the Chad and Cheese podcast. The dude should go, "Fuck." Joel: Oh man. It's a rainy, crappy day in Indiana. Chad: It is. Yeah, you're gonna have to get your frickin' boat out, dude. Joel: What's your favorite rain inspired song? Chad: Rain inspired? I have- Joel: Song about rain. Chad: Song about rainy days and Mondays always get me down? Joel: The Carpenters. Chad: The Carpenters. Joel: Wow. Chad: There you go, baby. Joel: I'm gonna go Purple Rain, little purple madness for Thursday morning. Anyway, the level might be low on energy, with all this rain and nastiness. But let's get to shout outs. Chad: Do it. Roy Mauer over at SHRM, hey buddy. Thanks for suggesting the topic of recruiter ethics. That actually gave Joel and me an opportunity to reach out to Jim Stroud, bring him on, and if you haven't listened to the podcast, we talk about recruiter ethics. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Automation, and Jim's paranoia. I think he says "Duck, duck, go" about 37 fucking times. Joel: Yeah, and aluminum headgear. Four or five references to that. You know, Roy is jockeying for the position of number one fanboy. And speaking of number one, we're looking for new t-shirts. Chad: Yes. Joel: Sponsored by Emissary.ai. We've got four pretty good designs that users, viewers, listeners can vote for. Chad: Go to chadcheese.com, click on our logo, and it takes you right to the voting area. Joel: I guess we're gonna run that voting for about another half week or week. Chad: Yeah, as long as we feel good about it. Joel: Yeah. If there's clear winner, we'll close it down and get those shirts made. Chad: Yeah. And if it's not the one I like, we're gonna keep it open for fucking ever. Joel: Exactly. Chad: Shout out to Tris Revill, who said he was dead impressed after getting finally getting around to listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Thanks, Tris. Joel: And you might need some therapy, but that's a different discussion. I'm gonna go rapid fire here, George Laroque, Jim Stroud, and Thom- Chad: Kenney. Joel: Spacing on his name, yeah Tom Kenny, who we interviewed, and also Josh Wright from [Cims, their head economist. We've just been cranking out quality podcasts, and this week was really great, so be on the lookout for those coming up soon, but some great topics and some really smart people come on our show for some reason. Chad: Yeah. Well, it's nice because we're knuckleheads. Shout outs, and this will probably, probably be the only one ever, so ... get ready. To the recruiting animal. He actually dug up, like in the web archives, our first podcasting gold moment, back in 2008, when we did our very first podcast. When you had to listen to it on your PC, because you didn't have podcasts on your phone back then. Joel: Did it actually have the old embed code, on that site? Chad: It didn't. The hipster, the hipster [crosstalk 00:05:16] like dumped all that shit, yeah. Joel: So you couldn't listen to it, it was just there? Chad: He was just proving that ... that we had actually, I think at one time, compared our show, our first shows, to recruiting animal, and saying that it was less WWE style. Joel: I'd agree with that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So was he, was he dissing us, or like, giving us props? Chad: No, I think he's giving us props. I mean, it doesn't matter, I'm gonna say he was giving us props anyway, so. Joel: I mean, he's very angry, so I never expect to hear anything complimentary from him, so. Chad: And he's Canadian, right? I mean, how the fuck is he, I mean, he's like the only angry Canadian. Joel: They can get angry, trust me. I won't go any further than that. But they, some of them do have tempers. Chad: Noted. Noted. Joel: Some of them hold grudges, too. But that's a different story. Chad: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So thanks also to Josh Vesley, for letting us know that Indeed does, in fact, have pot jobs. Or pot job listings, rather. Joel: Yes. As does Monster, as does Zip Recruiter, as does most of them. So, so this is strange. So I did a little bit of investigation, because it's still illegal, right. It's still a federal law that pot is not legal, right? So I went to Zip Recruiter, I went to Indeed, although they didn't reply. Shocker. And then Monster. And yes, they all post pot jobs, and they don't have a policy against it, but then I asked, okay well, if I'm in Nevada, and want to advertise, you know, my brothel for like escort positions ... no, I'm being serious, right? Like it's legal in Nevada- Chad: Yeah, it is. Joel: But it's federally illegal. So technically I should be able to post my prostitution job wherever it's legal, based on what their reply was. But they do not, they do not advertise prostitution jobs on these job sites. So it's a little bit of a double standard, where, you know, they're having their cake on the weed side, but then protecting their ass, pun intended, on the prostitution side. So I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna, I'm interested in this. I'm gonna try to call the feds or somebody, and say like, why is it legal for them to post pot jobs on their websites? And see if I can get an answer. But they all do it. Chad: Dude. Joel: And they all have legal teams that say it's okay, so something in the law makes it okay, although I think it's a little bit of a double standard. Things that make you go, hmm. Chad: Yeah, you're digging deep there, man. So did you see this Fortnite like concert that happened, like last week or what have you? There like, over a million people showed up for a concert at Fortnite. Did you see this? Joel: I saw the story. I'm not on Fortnite. My son is addicted, so I see him today, I'm gonna ask him, like did he go or did he hear about it. Fortnite is genius. Chad: Yeah. Joel: My son's spending his allowance on stupid shit, virtual stuff, but this concert was genius, right? Like so, you're selling, I guess they sold sponsorships to the concert, people attended. Chad: Yes. Joel: And then they fought each other after the concert was over or something, but like this whole virtual second life, version 2.0 or whatever, is pretty cool. So I don't, I saw the story, I think it's cool, but I don't know a ton about it. Chad: It's very Ready Player One-ish, right. Which is really cool, but so I threw out there, was like, cool, we should do something on Fortnite with Chad and Cheese, and Birch, over at TextRecruit, he said he wants us to have a Fortnite battle royale. Which would be really cool, because we could have startups literally fight each other, in Fortnite. Joel: Considering our audience, the number of people who would actually understand that, and get it, would be pretty low. Chad: We are branching out, my friend. Joel: However, virtual battles against startups in our industry is a pretty cool idea. Chad: I do like it. Joel: Yeah. And by the way, Ready Player One was virtual reality, which you hate on, so the fact that you said that means you secretly love virtual reality. Chad: I secretly love virtual reality. I just don't love the thought of putting on goggles and looking like an idiot while doing it. Joel: Hey, we're all gonna look like idiots. It's all good. Chad: It's okay. Are you done with shout outs? Joel: I'm done with shout outs, and it was nice [segue 00:09:42] actually, to talk about video games, because we're gonna go into the Super Bowl and talk about some of the ads that we liked, around employment, kinda sorta. Chad: Kinda sorta. Joel: So, so I give you props, your prediction on the score was closer than mine. But yeah, congratulations, I think your prediction of 14 to 28 was closer than my 31 to 35 prediction. Chad: Yeah, I thought 14 to 28 was just, I was trying to go lower than yours. Joel: Yeah, you were playing the Price Is Right game. Chad: Yeah. And that was just, it was fucking horrible. And the ads, for the most part, were horrible as well. We do have a couple that we wanted to talk about that, you know, that are from companies that are now in our industry. But yeah, the ads, that was horrible. That was literally horrible. It made me not want to watch football for a while. Joel: I don't believe that. But yes, I would agree that the ads were pretty forgettable. I did like the Tom Brady handing Baker Mayfield his rings, and saying, "Hold these for me", was pretty good. But there were a few ads that were on the line of sort of employment related-ish, and some that were definitely directly employment related-ish. Joel: Let's start with Microsoft. You have some strong feelings about that one. Chad: Well, I mean, we're seeing more of these pull at your heartstrings commercials lately, and Microsoft, in this commercial, grabs those strings, yanks them out of your, your heart out of your chest with the we all win commercial, which stars kids with disabilities. Really cool. One of the dads, right out of the gate, says, you know, playing video games is his son's way of interacting with his friends, because he can't physically interact. Go out and play Frisbee, or football, or what have you. But playing video games with their friends makes kids happy. I mean, I remember when I had my, the Atari, or hell, back in Pong days. Dude, friends would come over, we would fucking love it, dude. Chad: But these kids, the regular controllers just didn't work for them. So one of the kids actually said, you know, I never thought it was unfair that these controllers really didn't work for us, I just thought that it's the way that it was, and that it would never change. Then, here comes the heartstrings moment. Then, they start unboxing the Microsoft adaptive controllers, and all the kids are like, wait. You mean, you actually thought of us? Like they're not outsiders anymore. Chad: And from that standpoint, you know, as we take a look at this as human beings, and as we take a look at this as human resources, you know, this is a strong message that accommodations should be universal for everybody. And to make it easier for individuals with disabilities to actually get jobs, to be able to do whatever we do, just makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. And they did this with kids, which obviously just pulls at you pretty hard. Joel: Yeah, of course, my snarky ass thought, you know, every level of ability should be able to sit on the couch and get fat. But. Chad: We already have enough of that. Joel: Because my kid plays nonstop. And it destroys me. Anyway, I love these commercials, although they weren't employment related specifically. I think that obviously people like working for companies that do good. Chad: Yes. Joel: And we'll talk a little bit about that in another segment on the show, but you talk about millennials, and we do a lot on the show, and how much they want to make a difference, they want to work for something that means something bigger than themselves. And these ads aren't directly recruiting related, but people want to work for companies that are doing good things. And indirectly- Chad: You can get behind that. Joel: It's gonna be a great recruiting video, for sure. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. You can get behind that brand. I mean, who's looking at it and saying, oh they're doing stuff for individuals with disabilities, I mean nobody's doing that. They're like, oh, that's cool as shit. Joel: Yeah, like I want to be a part of that. Chad: Yeah, exactly. So that, I agree. And that, from my standpoint, your brand is your employment brand. I don't believe that there is an quote unquote employment brand, per se. Your brand, this, that what you saw in that video, that was your fucking employment brand. Joel: Yeah. A little bit like, it reminded me of the Audi commercial a couple years ago where the guy's- Chad: Oh, dude. Joel: Daughter is doing the soap box race. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Like, what am I supposed to tell my daughter, you know. And you and I both have daughters, I'm choking up here as I'm thinking about it, but like, yeah. I want to do some good for the world, and my employer should be a vessel to do that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The other ad that we wanted to talk about was, it was great because my neighbor across the street was in the navy, and he came over for some beers and food, and to watch the game. And this is the Google vet jobs ad that came on. They start showing these numbers, these sequences of numbers, and I, as a not military guy, have no idea what these numbers mean. Chad: Yep. Joel: And my neighbor's like, oh yeah, that's navy. Like, oh yeah, that's such and such. And he gets it. So anyone, I assume anyone that's in the military automatically saw that, and said military. And they connected with it. So as he's saying that, I'm thinking, oh shit, I bet this is the Google vet job search ad. So sure enough, it is. And I thought it was brilliant, in that it connected with military people, and not like the outsider, so it was sort of that, you know, we speak that secret language that only military people speak. Chad: Yep. Joel: And then obviously, most people have a military person in their life, so it connected on that level. Again, Google's doing good, they're helping vets get jobs, so you have that sort of emotional good theme as well. And by the way, they also advertised in that segment, like, you can search for jobs on Google. Chad: Yes. Yes. Two points carried very far on that. Number one, this is great fucking PR. Who doesn't love freedom, and our veterans, right? Hell yeah, Google. Hell yeah. Right. Fuck yeah. And then number two, they're slow rolling promotion that Google now does job search, right? So they're not just getting into it and saying find a job on Google. They're like, they're doing it behind a brand that everybody's like, oh yeah, that's kick ass. That is frickin' awesome. Oh wait a minute, you can look for jobs on Google? Chad: So they're starting, it looks like they're starting to kinda slow roll this thing, which is really cool. We could have a whole segment on, you know, the military occupation code crossover and how that actually works, and if it's worth a shit, whatnot. But we're not gonna get into that. Joel: Yeah. And I also think anyone who is suspicious that Google isn't serious about this whole jobs thing, you know, dropping two and a half [mill 00:16:33] or whatever it is for a 30 second spot in the Super Bowl should convince you otherwise. And by the way, Google doesn't advertise, historically, that much, unless it's Android or some big sort of projects. Or, so the fact that they did it for jobs, part of their search functionality, is pretty special for people that are watching Google. Chad: Amazing PR, and amazing way to start to slow roll a promotion of, hey guess what mother fuckers? Yeah, we're doing job search. Joel: So another ad that was very subtly employment related, you might not have even remembered seeing it, was for Bumble, the dating app, staring Serena Williams. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It was a pretty good ad, and then at the end, it showed all the different Bumble ... I don't know, services? So Bumble, the dating app, is obviously the most well known. But they have Bumble BFF, where you can just make friends with people, and not have sex with them, I guess, or try to have sex with them. And then they have Bumble Bizz, which has been promoted as a LinkedIn competitor, although it hasn't gotten a lot of ... it hasn't gotten a lot of buzz, see what I did there. It was advertised. So very, very quickly and subtly, Bumble Bizz, a LinkedIn competitor, was advertised on the Super Bowl. Chad: Yeah. So, I mean, Bumble trying to push all these different, kind of like, systems of women's networking, and kind of controlling who they actually connect with, which I think is pretty cool. But yeah, we'll see what happens on the actual job side of the house. I'm not very bullish on that. Joel: Well, the problem with Bumble Bizz is, like, the number of married, or men in a relationship, who will join this site is, there's a ceiling. Because I'm not gonna get caught, with my wife, with Bumble on my phone, even if it is Bizz, I'm gonna be in deep trouble. And I'm sure I'm not alone on that. Chad: Yeah, no. I never even thought of that, because I never thought of even joining it. Joel: However, something I won't get in trouble being on is Sovren.com. Let's hear a quick word from them, and we'll talk about layoffs. Layoffs. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market. Because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Sovren: Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit sovereign.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: Although I think your wife, at this point, would probably be pretty suspicious, because you keep listening to this ... commercial over and over. Joel: Oh, Sovren? Yeah, yeah. The sexy voice at Sovren. We're gonna be in Austin soon, are we gonna try to meet the mysterious voice behind the Sovren ads? Chad: That's not, that's not the whole intent. I'd love to be able to get with, obviously, the entire, the Sovren crew- Joel: Oh, the whole team, for sure. Chad: And have some bourbon. God, you gotta get better at this. Joel: I am awesome at this. I'm really awesome at reporting layoffs in our industry, so yesterday word started to sprinkle in the morning that Monster was laying off some folks. We here in Indianapolis have a Monster office, so it hit ears pretty quickly and word spread from there. I reached out to the company, to our friend Kate Rambo, over at PR there. So she was really accommodating with information, basically on a global level, Monster is laying off approximately 5% of their workforce. It's pretty typical that, you know, new CEO, new executives come in, you know, they sort of get a lay of the land. And then they figure out who can we fire, who do we need to fire, you know, how do we cut some fat, how do we refocus. Joel: So I think on one end, you could say that's what Monster's doing, I mean, 5% isn't a draconian cut in the company. But some people are pointing to a lack of innovation, a lack of moving fast enough, or having maybe mismanaged expectations from the executive side, versus the employee side. In other words, the executives are talking about redefining resumes and videos, you know, Instagram for jobs. And the people in the trenches, it's like sell, sell, sell. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Sell the job postings, sell the products, and there's sort of a disconnect. So this may be more epidemic to a bigger problem, I guess we'll wait and see. Chad: Monster was acquired by Randstad in August of 2016, then executive heads rolled. They have new fresh faces in, including a new CEO, and you know, the cool thing for them is they have inherited a major recruitment industry brand, right? Joel: Yep. Chad: Not to mention there's a ton of technology that's in the closet from positions over the years, like Trovix, Jobr, Goziak, Talentbin, and there's even more. And that sounds like a perfect opportunity, on its face, right? But a good amount of that, I would assume, actually comes with a shit ton of technical debt. And actually trying to get products rolled out. And from my standpoint, you know, from the outside looking in, all we've seen is we've seen kind of like a refresh of the search, and a de-NASCARizing of the platform. Chad: That's one thing, right? Oh yeah, we kicked our ads out, which means revenue, number one, let's put that out there. That means revenue. But it's a better UI, better UX, but still they're kicking revenue out. Then, really the only big thing that we've heard is this, the video partnership with VideoMyJobs, which I think is cool, but this is an added value. So they are sinking time and money into something that's going to be an added value. Once again, that's revenue that they have to get back on retention, creating a stickier product, and hoping, I mean, this is ... what I see here is a gamble. Hoping that people use this, because adoption is a bitch. Joel: Yep. Chad: They're getting their jobs fed into the system via XML feed, in most cases. Now somebody's gonna have to go in, create a video, and plunk it into the job that's already into the system. Right? So there's an extra step that has to happen in a system outside of what they're already touching anyway. That's hard, man. So will video kill the job boards star? Joel: Boo. Chad: That's a good Buggles. Joel: I've thought for a long time that Monster has a knife in a gun fight. And that they're trying to, you know, leverage the brand that they still kind of enjoy, the traffic, and I'm sure the resumes and email blasts that they still send out on a regular basis. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But from an innovation standpoint, to compete against Google, LinkedIn, Indeed, et cetera, I just think it's a losing battle, and I think, you know, partnering with folks to provide technology is probably just, again it's just not enough. Too little, too late, if you will. You know, we talked to them at HR Tech, and they talked about having an app store similar to the iPhone, or the iTunes store, where people can make apps on top of Monster. And that's all very cool stuff, and I think that would be very good for their brand, and very good for their, you know, engagement and traffic, and all kinds of stuff. But we haven't seen it. Granted, HR Tech was in October. Chad: Yes. Joel: So less than six months ago, so you gotta give them some time. But yeah, I would certainly like to see more innovation rolled out more quickly. The studios product was beta since October, I guess- Chad: No, this week. This week. It just rolled out- Joel: But it started in beta, right? So it's been in beta for a while. Chad: No, it hasn't. It just launched, they made the announcement in October. It went beta this week with 120 companies. Joel: Because when we interviewed them, didn't they say they had 100 companies using it? Chad: It went beta this week with the [crosstalk 00:24:50]. The very first video going into a job, on the Monster platform, this week. And it was for a Monster compliance job. So, I mean, that's the thing, is that, you know, that's a pretty long window. Joel: Yep. Chad: And from an anticipation standpoint, a market anticipation standpoint, it's like, okay, great. What's it gonna cost, how can I buy it? And it's like, well it's free, it's gonna be added value. Okay, how do I use it? Well, guess what. It's months later. Chad: But back to layoffs piece, I mean, if you think of it, just from a timing standpoint, budgeting happens latter part of the year, everything's kind of shored up the first part of the year, and last year, I have to check my numbers, but I don't think Monster hit their 2018 numbers. I think this is, these hundred plus individuals are affording Monster a little more runway, but the problem is, the problem is for me, the only product that I see that they have out there is this new Monster studios product. And ... that's for 2019. What else are they gonna launch in 2019? Joel: Well, we'll have to see. Chad: Product wise? Dude, I don't think they have anything. Joel: I think your skepticism is certainly well warranted. If it took them that long to launch a video product that they've actually partnered with someone that's actually already done it- Chad: Yeah, they didn't even have to build it. Joel: It's more or less an integration play than an actual building play. You know, to roll out an app store seems really, really aggressive. Chad: You've got tech like Trovix that's matching, right? Either that is like old, semantic search that's shit, and they just scrapped it, or what have you, but they have all these different things, and if they can't use what's in the closet, they still have to partner to be able to innovate. Because it has to happen, and they don't have the cash that they used to. And Randstad, very focused on the ebida, right? Joel: Yeah, as you know. Chad: They're looking at frickin' margins, dude, so right now, here's my only thing. They've gotta generate revenue. The only way they can generate revenue is to be able to put products out there that will excite the market, right? And this added value, to a product that they already have, I don't know if that's it. But to be quite frank, I think that's the only horse they have in the race right now. Joel: Yeah, I mean, you know Randstad better than I do, because you work there, but I'm guessing that, you know, like big, bold acquisitions aren't ... aren't on the playbook at this time. Chad: Not for Monster. Joel: Yeah. So it's not like they can go innovate by buying innovation. Chad: Exactly. I mean, it would have to be a pretty big play. And a side note, I mean, Linda Galipeau, who's the CEO of Randstad North America, she is a power player. And she just left a few months ago. So, I mean, I don't know if that has anything to do with it, it's more coincidence, but it's really ... it's an interesting story that's starting to be pieced together from that side. Joel: And we'll be here to continue reporting on it. Chad: Amen, brother. Joel: Well, someone not hurting for money ... Chad: Craig. Joel: Yeah, Craig. So this story just ... it impresses me as much as it baffles me. So Craigslist, everyone knows, listening to this. Started in the mid-90s, I think they're 28 years old or some shit like that now. Started as an email list for Craig Newmark, a nerdy kind of dude from San Francisco, or in San Francisco, and it grew into this just crazy successful classified site. They charge between like $5 and $75 for job postings, and listing your rental, or asking for services at home. Anyway, [AIM Group 00:28:40], who has been reporting on Craigslist forever, talks about the revenue that they make, and AIM Group basically goes in and looks at how many listings, and they probably conservatively get to a number for annual revenue that Craigslist comes to, and- Chad: Right. Joel: This is the first year that Craigslist surpassed the one billion dollar mark in their history. So you know, that's a ton of money for a 50 person company. They're not a non-profit, even though they have a .org at the end of their name. They've taken no venture capital. I mean, like I don't know what they're doing with all this money, but it's a ton of money that they're just stashing away between Craig and their, I think Buckmaster is the COO. Basically Craig got sick of managing it, so he gave a big chunk of the company to this guy. Joel: So between those two, like you think of the money that they're making, it's just ridiculous. If they spend a hundred million dollars a year in servers and legal shit, employees, I mean, they're still banking 900 million dollars a year, it's crazy. Chad: I tell you what's crazy, go to Craigslist, it hasn't changed. Joel: Not much. Chad: It hasn't changed, dude. It is, it looks like a site, literally, from the late 90s. It hasn't changed. And it's just simple. Joel: Yeah. Chad: And just really easy to use, you put your stuff out there, people use it. I mean, it baffles me that Facebook hasn't engulfed all this revenue. Joel: Well they're going to try, and they will get a piece of it. You know, I talked to Peter Zollman over at AIM, and you know, the report that they did, it's really good. Really well done. But Craigslist traffic continues to go down. Like year over year, the traffic gets lower, but the revenues get higher, because they can charge for stuff that they didn't before. Or the traffic is more quality than it was before, the listings are more real because you're charging more money. Like people won't spam as much if it's paid, or if you pay to put listings on, so the traffic continues to go down, but the money continues to go up. So it's a very, it's just an interesting story, because it's literally just, it's like 50 people in a, you know, a low rent San Francisco place. Joel: I think Craig, what Peter told me is, he has a home in New York and a home in San Francisco. So it's not like he's living, you know, the thug life with yachts in Fiji or anything. So, man. Chad: I would attribute a lot of their traffic fall from them actually wiping out the personal ads on the site. Joel: That's very true. Chad: I mean, those are gone. Those are gone, right? Joel: In 2010, like every escort, prostitution, whatever ad was gone. And I think part of back to why weed is okay but prostitution isn't, is there was a law passed that you couldn't advertise online for services like escorts. Chad: It's not just that they're not allowed to advertise in the personals, the whole personals is gone. Joel: Yep. Chad: I mean they just wiped it out. They said, well fuck this, we're not messing with it. And some of it actually had to do with human trafficking and things that were happening on Craigslist, so. Joel: Yeah, and I'm sure that's a ton of traffic as well as money, but if you get rid of that, you know, that aspect of your site, people feel more comfortable going to it, they feel more comfortable spending money on it. Chad: Yep. Joel: So they're a huge winner. I mean, when we talk about Dice, and CareerBuilder, and Monster, and these guys, like Craigslist has just chugged along, grown organically, done it right. And by the way, the site being almost all text, aside from photos selling stuff, like it's super fast, search engines love it. Like going mobile was a big innovation at Craigslist. Chad: It's interesting because going from Craigslist to something entirely different, and ... we don't think is being incredibly innovative, but it seems to be because it's drawn a lot of users- Joel: Yeah. And money. Chad: Slack. And now they have, yeah, and money. And they have a new competitor, which is called Mattermost. Now you posted about this, tell us about, who is Mattermost? Joel: Yep. So you and I have always, I think, talked about how ridiculous Slack is, because it's messaging. I mean, it's fancy messaging, you have groups, and teams, and however they want to play it, but it's essentially just text going back and forth between people. I've been doing that on chats, and texting, and stuff for a long time, so I look at this industry a little bit like blogging 15, 20 years ago. So if you wanted to blog or publish stuff online back in the early 2000s, you had to use a service like Typepad, Blogger, et cetera, and you usually paid, you know, 10, 20 bucks a month to put your stuff out there and publish it. And then WordPress came along and said, we're open source, we're free, just download us and you're good to go. Joel: So then it was like, okay, so what is Typepad's real differentiator, there really wasn't one. So people migrated to WordPress because it was free. Chad: Yep. Joel: And you had, like, apps, and plugins, and people were developing stuff for it for free. So it was only a matter of time before Slack, we're gonna start seeing free options, Mattermost, who got 20 million dollars this month, it's a free open source messaging app. Just like Slack. And companies like Uber are using it, they mention a few other big names, but ultimately I think this is bad for Slack, because it becomes a commodity. And what really separates you from anything else, maybe they're banking on it being, you know, their app store and developing on Slack. Maybe they're gonna be more and more competitive with Microsoft, and have, you know, office products or maybe they'll have job postings, or a way to hire through Slack, or do HR benefits and stuff like that. Joel: But yeah, it's gonna be a tough market for Slack. They need to innovate, they're gonna go public, so they'll have money. But we're gonna see a lot more free options to plug in a messaging app for your workforce. Smaller companies will adopt this stuff. And it'll be interesting to see how it plays out for Slack, but I tend to think it won't be a good thing. Chad: Yeah. So Teams, obviously, is kicking ass and taking names, because it's a part of Microsoft Suite. Joel: And Facebook, too. Chad: Yeah. So it, just waiting for somebody to gobble these fuckers up. Joel: We've been waiting for two years, and it hasn't happened. Unless, unless- Chad: Nope. Joel: The eleventh hour somebody's gonna back up the Brinks truck, these guys are gonna go public, and we'll see how it shakes out. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: And speaking of messaging, let's hear a quick word from Canvas, and we'll talk about ... jeez, all kinds of good stuff about employee retention and recruiting. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent, text based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvas Bot is at your side, adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Canvas: Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: Dude, you need to chill on the Bitmojis in business type emails. It's cute when you send it to me one to one, but man, when you ... have just a big list of professional people, and you throw off Bitmojis, it's really embarrassing. I ... it's hard for me to associate with someone like that. Chad: They love it. They love every, dude, our logo is like a couple of Charlie Brown figures, for God's sakes. Jesus. I mean, come on. Joel: Dude, you remember when Walmart was like the Death Star, destroying Middle America and destroying the mom and pop businesses? Thankfully Amazon came along to take that mantra from them, I guess, and Walmart is like ... saving Middle America. With our first story today, we talked about them recently with truckers and paying them more, and giving them all love. So now Walmart is loving on their current employees with paid time off, paid sick days. Walmart just may save Middle America. Chad: Yeah. So 48 hours of paid time. I mean, we're talking about, you know, obviously, a lot of part timers. 25% on quarterly bonuses for spotless attendance, I mean, so what they're saying is, hey look, if you don't have to take the time, then obviously that goes toward bonuses and those types of things. So they have incentives that are on there. But yeah, take a look at the job market. Yes, is Walmart doing this out of the goodness of their heart? Probably not, I mean, they're paying truckers more because they want to ... they want to suck all the oxygen out of the actual market. They want all the truckers, you know, fuck you Amazon. Get your drones ready, right? Joel: Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Chad: And what they're doing here is they know that they have to do more to be able to retain in a very, very, very tight labor market. So yes, is this smart for them? I agree 100%. I don't know if they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Joel: Well, goodness is good recruiting. 20 minutes from here is a town called Greenwood, Indiana. Greenwood, Indiana is a building a ... literally almost a Death Star looking warehouse for Amazon. Where do you think they're gonna try to get employees? Walmart, right. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Like Amazon is gonna hire a bunch of people and Walmart needs to fight that by keeping these folks at Walmart. Chad: Competition's good, man. There's no question. And I've said on several podcasts that we shop at Walmart for groceries, because they have that whole pickup thing. You do your shopping online, you roll up, they put the food in, and you don't have to actually go shopping. Right? I mean, and that's amazing. And that was, obviously, a direct response to Amazon, being able to deliver food to your front door. Chad: So yeah, no, I see that happening. The thing that gets me, though, is the whole economics of the wage thing. You know, it's almost like companies like Walmart are starting to understand to, just starting, that more money in the economy gives the US more spending power. Which means we can buy more shit. And in this case, if you buy more shit at Walmart, right? So I mean, it just, from my standpoint, I have never understood we don't need to raise wages, because those raising of the wages actually does great for the economy overall. It bolsters the economy. Joel: And this is, this is not government forced, right. This is a company saying we're gonna pay more to keep our best talent in the door- Chad: And we'll see how they act when the economy and the actual job market starts to loosen up. That is when you will see the real character of these organizations. Joel: You'll see the yellow smiley face turn [frowny 00:40:06] all of a sudden. With a shank in its hands. Well, speaking of bad PR, Facebook has had its bout with government and privacy, and all kinds of good stuff. So they're trying to, they're taking a little different tact with their employees, in that it was announced, or reported, this week that they're giving bonuses based on doing social good. Chad: There are employees who have left, and I'm sure right now actually contemplating leaving, because of the stupid shit that Facebook has done. They've covered up, they've deflected, and they don't want to be a part of a brand like that, right? We're talking about Microsoft earlier, we're talking about Google earlier, actually trying to get that brand moving forward. I think this is an attempt to be able to do that. Hey, go out, do your thing, you know, social good, we're all about it. You know? I think, again, this is just a PR play, but if it helps them, then good for them. Joel: Previous bonuses and whatnot were tied to, you know, performance. Like it usually is. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Such as user growth, right? Are we adding users, et cetera. I'm not sure how they're gonna measure how many Facebook employees and Facebook t-shirts were out building Habitat for Humanity houses. Hopefully for Facebook, this whole like do good and make commissions and bonuses will work out, but I don't know. It sounds kinda like black magic to me. Chad: We take a look at their actions moving forward, especially in things that matter. Some of these governmental processes and being able to kick quote unquote fake news, or disinformation campaigns to the curb ... that's one piece. Not to mention also kick out all these fake accounts, you know. If they were getting bonuses on all these fucking fake accounts that were being created, then that means no wonder they stopped that shit. Joel: Yeah, like make some new filters for fake news. Or make, like, yeah, do some good tech around that stuff, and we'd be a lot happier than social good. Whatever that means. Chad: That's a good point. Social good. Joel: Social good. So our third story of employee retention and recruitment goes to UNUM. Chad: UNUM. Joel: They're betting that their workforce will pass on time off, or vacation days, for payment towards student loans. Chad: They afford 28 days a year, which is ... is more- Joel: Very generous. Chad: Yeah, which is more than the usual, right? So it's up to five days that they'll allow cash in. And yeah, I mean, if, if you really don't need those days, and you're the type of person who has days left over, then yeah. And as a matter of fact, if you do, and you don't have college debt, or you don't have a kid who has college debt, then shit, they should allow you to actually push that to somebody else, you know? Joel: So apparently the average debt, student debt right now is around 32 thousand dollars. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The max that you can get from this UNUM benefit is 1200 dollars per year, so if my math is right, you just have to work at UNUM for about 33 years to pay off that student debt, so get tucked in, boys and girls, because you're gonna be in for the long haul. Chad: Yeah. I think companies ... the ones that are actually looking at paying off debt, or actually paying for school, to be able to help their employees really close that skills gap, that's going to be incredibly important. This is kinda like nickel and diming, but shit, I mean it's better than nothing. But, but corporate America, I mean, we really need to focus on these skills gaps issues that we've had for over a decade. Whether it's in the blue collar side, whether it's on the white collar development, or whatever it might be, we can't wait for government to actually come up with programs to do this shit. We, and not to mention, these employees are the ones that are making profit for you. So why the fuck is the government doing this in the first place, right? Chad: You should be focused on that. And that should be job one, because if you don't have the right talent, you're not gonna be able to get the product out the door, or the code launched, or what have you. That should be the focus. Joel: We agree. I will add that UNUM should increase the number, the longer time you're at the company. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I think that's all we got, man. We out. Chad: We out. Cole: I'm Cole Cheeseman, and rhymes with Joel, so my dad can easily remember who I am. Thank you for listening to my dad and his follically challenged friend Chad. Make sure you subscribe to this show on iTunes, Google, eight track cassette tapes, or wherever you enjoy podcasts. And be sure to support our sponsors, because if you don't, I'll get angry, and you don't like when I'm angry. Feffer: Such an asshole. #VideoMyJob #Monster #Microsoft #Google #GoogleforJobs #Veterans #Craigslist #Mattermost #Slack

It's THE recruiting and sourcing legend Jimmy Stroud. He's seen it and done it all people. On this UNCOMMON exclusive, the boys cover everything from automation, the future of sourcing and why he doesn't want Google to know what he's up to... Wait did someone say DuckDuckGo? And we tackle the question of "Recruiter Ethics" posed to us by our main man Roy Mauer over at SHRM. Grab a tinfoil hat and enjoy this most excellent episode. PODCAST 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: I gonna be over at the top. Say hello to the easiest way to find interested and qualified candidates. Joel: Dude, you need to tone it down. I was just napping. You mean Uncommon's automated sourcing that turns passive candidates into interested and qualified applications? Chad: Yep. Uncommon automation helps recruiters cut their sourcing time by 75%. Joel: Wow, how much coffee did you have today? Chad: A lot. Joel: Anyway, dude, 75%. That sounds like black magic or something. Chad: Close, it's called automation. It's simple, actually. You just feed or post your jobs in Uncommon. The platform identifies your job requirements and in seconds, Uncommon uses those requirements to search over 150 million candidate profiles, and then it pulls back only the qualified candidates. Joel: Don't forget, you can connect your email and Uncommon will provide automated outreach with your customized messages to activate those passive candidates, those pesky, passive candidates. Chad: Even better. I'm gonna one up you. Uncommon shows exactly how the candidate meets all the job requirements with a side by side comparison view against the job requirements. Joel: Which means you won't be asking yourself, what in the hell is this candidate doing here? Chad: No, but you will be asking yourself, where has Uncommon been all my life? Joel: Seriously? Uncommon is the easiest way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit uncommon.co, and use discount code CHADCHEESE for 20% off. Joel: Uncommon.co. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Chad: It's Jim Stroud. Jim: Hello. Joel: It's the tinfoil hat edition of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Chad: Yeah. Joel: As we were talking before the show, our good buddy Jim Stroud. I don't even know what title you like now, Jim, but everyone probably knows you that's listening, or they should. Jim: You have a small audience. Joel: Give us just a quick intro of you and we'll get into the paranoia that we've talked about before the show. Jim: Yes, you can call me a consultant these days. I have been in sourcing and recruiting for two decades working for such companies as Google, Microsoft, Siemens, and a host of startup companies. Until quite recently, I was the head of sourcing and recruiting strategy for Randstad Sourceright, now consulting for my favorite clients. Joel: Your Twitter handle and your new podcast. Jim: Sure, my Twitter handle, I have two. One is @jimstroud. There I tweet about, excuse me, HR and job search issues. There is my other Twitter which is @jimstroudshow, where I talk about my podcast, which is The Jim Stroud Podcast, because I couldn't think of anything else to call it. There, I talk about future issues, like my latest show was on barcoding the homeless. Chad: What? Joel: What was that about? Was that like the microchipping of employees that we talk about? Jim: No, no, no. It's not as insidious. Okay, so there's this company in the UK. They're dealing with the homeless problem in a very unique way. They are giving QR codes to homeless people. They are wearables. They are not tattoos, which is coming out. Chad: Not yet, yes, yes. Jim: Not yet. Joel: Yeah. Jim: So they're getting these barcodes, and if someone says, "Hey, brother, can you spare a dime?" You can say, "Oh, dude, I don't have any money." They can say, "Well, you know what? Download this app and scan this QR code and you can send me a dollar or $5 or $10. Whatever you so desire, and when you look me up on this app, it will show you not only my face and name to verify if you're talking to the right person but also will give you a brief history of how I became homeless." Joel: See, I think this would be a great recruiting strategy for salespeople. So you can see ... You take the best homeless people that getting the most money, and you turn them into salespeople. Genius. Chad: Now, panhandling's not easy, that's for damn sure, right? Joel: Hell, yeah. You gotta sell your ass off if you're gonna make some money on the streets. Jim: It is true. It is true. When I was researching this, what was more interesting to me was not only the fact of what it was happening, but all the comments people were giving in response to it. I thought some of the comments were like, they went from, gosh. They went from rude to snarky to just mildly sympathetic. Some, and they reminded me so much of The Chad & Cheese Show. Chad: Mildly sympathetic. Joel: Mildly sympathetic. That's good. Jim: One person said, "It's a trap. If you try to scan it with your phone, then the homeless person will just snatch your phone and run." Chad: It's a trap. Jim: That's a Chad comment. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a trap. They're gonna take your shit. Joel: So then, can they use that QR code to go into Starbucks or wherever and get a muffin? Is that how that works? Jim: No, how it works is, okay. Once you're in the program, there are a few things you can do with the money, right? They have a good Samaritan or somebody on the backend who's actually monitoring how the money is used. So you can use it, and these are some of the uses that they cited. They don't cite all of them. They only cited a couple of them in articles I read. One was for a passport, because if you're homeless, you need a passport. Chad: What the fuck. Jim: Obviously. Joel: What? Get out of our country, homeless person. Chad: On the Euro side, right? Jim: Yeah, and then the other example they gave was to collect money for a deposit on a rental space. So if you collect enough money through panhandling, you can have enough money to rent your own apartment, which gives the question of how you pay for it the rest of the year once you have your first and second month down. Joel: Those sound like serious milestones. Jim: Yeah. Joel: Can I just get a cup of coffee? Like damn. Jim: It was kind of weird. Kind of weird. Joel: I gotta save up for an apartment? Jim: So I gave, out of my pocket, I said, you know what? It did not address a problem to me. Kind of like, okay, so you're enabling someone to give money to stay on the street another day, since you're not really helping them. So I cited this site called Kiva. Chad: Nope. Jim: Have you heard of it? K-I-V-A? All right, it's, yeah, K-I-V-A.org. What it does is it allows you to do microlending. So let's say you have a lemonade stand and you want some money to buy some lemons. Well, someone can loan you as low as $25, and then once you make your lemonade money, you give back, I think $25.75 or something like that. You get a little kickback. Jim: So I said, why don't you have the app do something like that where you help somebody to start a business. Even something small, like shining shoes in the subway station. You buy them shoe polish, or maybe you donate business advice or you donate clothes or if they're trustworthy enough, maybe give them temporary office space somewhere. So you can help them get on their feet, start a business to get them off the street, and then eventually hire other people. So that was my input into that whole thing on my podcast. Joel: Well, these are all problems way too big for us to handle, I think, on this show. So why don't we rotate to recruiting. Chad: I sent over a little piece that we talked about last week revolving around. It was Entelo's recruiting automation trends reports focusing on recruiters, what they're doing, what they're not doing, and then also, you can talk about the paranoia that's baked in, too. Maybe why they're not doing some of this shit. Jim: I did not read, let me see. I know I seen that, because I saw it. I added it to my Twitter queue. I didn't read that specifically. Give me a couple of examples from that. Joel: Well, the thing that struck me was phone, or email, sorry, is still the number one way that recruiters contact people. Phone and text were number two. Now, they didn't separate phone or text. I tend to think phone is probably lower than we think or at least trending lower. Then you get into InMail, which is like 13%, which is pretty low. So I guess, what are your thoughts on best ways for a recruiter to contact a person? What are your most successful ways? What do you think of the findings? Jim: I think email is probably the most successful way. When I speak with sources, recruiters, that seems to work for them. Also look at it from a consumer side. People who always, when they're surveyed about what platform they want to be contacted by when speaking to companies, email is always at the top. I'm noticing though, from our previous conversation, you asked me about robocalls. Maybe that is factored in the Entelo report. I don't know. I haven't read it just yet, but I know that some companies will use robocalls to reach out to talk to people. I haven't experienced a recruitment robocall yet that I know of, which is really, really good. Basically when I get robocalls, it's some kind of political speech or something like that. Joel: Let me give you some numbers about robocalls that came out recently from MarketWatch. Okay, so "US phones are inundated," this is from the story, "with 26.3 billion robocalls last year, which was a 46% increase over the 18 billion spam calls placed in 2017. The tech to make such calls has become easy and cheap to access, so more robocallers are jumping into the fray. The junk calls are driving people to avoid the phone altogether. With 52% of cell phone calls going unanswered. Mobile carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile and Sprint have pledged to implement a security protocol within the next year to help weed out some of this spam." But it definitely is a problem and I gotta think it's affecting recruiters' abilities to call people. Jim: I'd imagine so, and I also imagine it would damage a company's brand. If someone's calling me all the time that's a robocall, I'm gonna start thinking negative about that company. Chad: Well, many times, they don't say what the company- Joel: They don't reveal who they are. Chad: Yeah, they don't reveal who they are. They're just calling in saying, "Hey, we have this great offer." Joel: "Manage your student loan." Chad: "Great offer," or whatever it is, and so from my standpoint as Joel was talking about earlier, I'll notice that calls are coming in from a local area code and they're just- Joel: Spoofing. Chad: Yeah, spoofing the area code, so I mean, I don't answer any call anymore unless it's already in my phone and it can pop up a name. Jim: You know what I see on my phone? Maybe it's just part of that, because I don't answer the phone, but if I get a spam call, presumably a spam call on my phone, I see scam likely. So it lets me think that Apple is monitoring or someone is monitoring all of the scam or spam calls and put them into a system so that even when someone calls my phone, it says scam likely, or sorry. Do you guys see that on your phones? Joel: No. Chad: Nuh uh. No, I don't. Joel: Are you an Android- Jim: No, I have an iPhone. Joel: Yeah, I have an iPhone too. My wife has an app that will basically filter robocalls so she doesn't get them, and the service answers the calls and tries to keep them on the line as long as possible and annoys them. So there are incredible business opportunities with this problem, but it definitely is a problem. She was getting robocalled a lot. Chad: Now, is she paying for the service? Joel: Yep. Yep. It's like 3.99 a month and it's well worth it. Chad: Dude, that's like, yeah, no shit. That's almost like McAfee, right? You have to get McAfee or Norton, obviously, and it had always been said that they were the ones creating a lot of these viruses to ensure that you had to have some type of protection. So it's almost like- Jim: Protection racket. Chad: Exactly, it's a protection racket, man. You fell for the protection racket. Jim: Wow. You know what a cheaper way to get around that might've been to go to the site, this other site's lacking. But one is called whocalledme.com. If you do a search on DuckDuckGo which is my preferred search engine. Joel: I wonder why. Privacy. Jim: Privacy, man. So you put in who called me on DuckDuckGo, and you'll see a bunch of these kind of sites where you can do reverse lookups on these robocallers- Joel: Does it work with spoof numbers? Jim: I don't know. I don't know. I just know that when people get a number, they won't be able to use the same number on you twice. They're using these IP things, I forget what they're called, but at least if they used the same number in the past, you'll be able to see who they are and leave a comment saying, "This guy's a spammer" or whatever. Joel: Mark my words, SMS is next. Chad: Yeah, no shit. Well that being said, 39% of recruiters rank emails as their preferred outreach method, and knowing that text and maybe in some cases, you have their email address, but you don't have their phone number. But text works so much better. Why aren't we kind of starting to gravitate toward text in this case? Jim: I think, isn't that when someone sends you a text, there's a charge on your phone depending on what kind of service plan you're on? Joel: I mean, that's pretty rare these days. Jim: Is it? Joel: Yeah. Jim: I always thought that in the beginning when texts first started catching on, I always thought that was the reason why recruiters hadn't done texting en masse like they do email. When you send an email, it doesn't cost anything to the end user. But if you send a text to someone and it affects their bill, they're really not gonna like you. So I thought that was the reason why recruiters sort of stay away from it in the beginning, but they're doing it more so now because you're not charged so much now. Joel: Do you use text in your recruiting? Jim: Yes, but people have opted in to receive those. So different systems that they use, when you gather their information, they join a talent community and you have a little box there say, hey, would you like to be contacted by text for opportunities? And they hit a little checkbox, then you're gold. But if you don't have that and you see their phone number and you decide to try a text anyway, then no. Jim: Then I think for some recruiters, it may backfire on them, because they don't have a system that allows people to opt in to receive texts, and you decide that they come from your phone, that can backfire you back and they could tell all their friends, "Hey, everybody, this person's spamming me. Why don't we all get together and spam him as one." Chad: Well that's, I think that's why it's incredibly important why you use a canvas platform or text recruit or something like that where it is happening through a formalized platform where you can gather all of the information, number one, and you can have kind of like those opt ins in place automatically. Again, it'd be much easier to do a blast, let's say, for individuals with Java background as opposed to just everybody on your list, and then throwing a bunch of irrelevant bullshit at them. Joel: Chad and Cheese sponsor Nexxt, with two Xs was really smart back in the day to ask resumes being posted if they wanted to receive texts or were they open to that, so they have like 10 years head start on most people with getting permission to send texts to candidates. Chad: I have 8 million or something like that. Joel: It's a lot, yeah. Chad: Yeah. I have a shit ton. Jim: I saw in real life, spotted in the wild, I saw this process that I thought made a lot of sense. Hardee's, there's a Hardee's down the street from my house, and they have on their sign, text 1123 to Hardee's if you want to work here. Chad: Yeah, shortcut- Jim: I'm paraphrasing their sign, but that's what it was. So when you text that number, it'll send you back a message saying, hey, would you like to receive notifications of new jobs here at Hardee's? Yes or no? So I'm giving them permission, and then they are texting, presumably, people within a certain geographic area. So a new job comes up, there's an opening, it's gonna text all those people in that area. They respond. It's a wonderful thing. So I see that being awesome for people who work in retail, who work in fast food restaurants, and they want people who are close because based on past experience, if someone works near the mall or near these fast food places, then they stay longer, because it's convenient for them to work. Joel: Where are you with chatbots right now, Jim? Jim: Oh, I like chatbots. I do. I do. Chad: I like me a chatbot. Jim: Chatbots are wonderful. Joel: I like chatbots. Jim: I want to be a chatbot when I grow up. I like it because if nothing else, it gives job seekers a feeling of connection or a feeling of closure depending on how the chatbot comes into play. A lot of times, job seekers, they snip their resume into a black hole, never to be heard of again, but at least with a chatbot, you have the illusion that you are getting somewhere in the process. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Because to me, the Hardee's example is great, but I think where it would be better as opposed to just saying, hey, I'm opting in for sort of messages about openings that texting in actually started a conversation. Like what's your name? Do you have a driver's license? Are you over 18? You can start screening people and having a conversation through chatbots, or in this case, sort of an SMS chat. Then you really get engaged candidate as well as you're building a solid brand, because people are like, holy crap. They really care. They're really asking me questions. Joel: Then you could potentially even take that to, if they pass the prescreening, that you could actually set up interviews and get those people in front of a human being. Chad: They have platforms that are doing that now on the high volume side of the house, right? Joel: Yep. Yeah. Chad: So Jobalign, Talentify, I mean, there are platforms that are doing that now, so I agree. Take it past just the collection of the information and start the engagement right there. Jim: And take it even a step further. If I am talking to a chatbot right now about an opportunity, and I'm going through the screening questions and I'm hitting every button for them, then why not just send a message to a recruiter in real time, saying, "Hey, I got a live one right now who's doing all the screening questions, and would you like to talk to them because I'm talking to them right now," the robot says. "They're hitting all of your requirements." Then the chatbot, then I tell the chatbot yeah, then the chatbot tells the job seeker, "Hey, you want to talk to a recruiter? Here's the link. Schedule something." Chad: So how do we get recruiters to engage and embrace these new types of technologies? I mean to be able to really be confident, because again, the survey actually said 75% of recruiters lack confidence in their ability to leverage these new recruiting tools? Jim: Adapt or die. Chad: Adapt. Jim: That's all I can say on that, because that is the future. It's not even the future. It's more like 15 minutes into the future. More like five minutes into the future. It is quickly becoming the standard. You will have to become Tony Stark. I don't think it's a situation where the robots are gonna take over and kick you out because there's some things that humans will always do, but you're gonna have to be Tony Stark to know how to talk to your Jarvis to do things, because all your competitors will be doing the same thing. If you can't- War Games: Shall we play a game? Jim: If you can't keep up, you gonna fall behind. Chad: That's right. Joel: Jim, you have a, I think one of our first interviews with you, you talked about the two kinds of recruiters, sort of the farmers and the hunters. Jim: Yeah. Joel: I think it was the phone answerers. Whatever it was, and you have an interesting perspective on that. Talk about that again and how having a chatbot that prescreens people is going to expedite the people who have manually picked up a phone and said, are you over 18? Do you have a driver's license? They become pretty obsolete in that new world. Jim: To an extent, yes. Just basic questions. I can see chatbots doing that for sure. I don't see them replacing recruiters though, because recruiters can hear the different nuances in somebody's voice. They can ask more probing questions. They can say, why do you say that? Or their spidey sense could kick in. They can ask additional questions or probe deeper, and you can't get that with a chatbot. You can get those basic prescreening questions though that'll make the recruiter's life easier. So I do like that. Jim: I think a lot of these tools will make recruiters, for better or worse, better on the phone, because if you have these chatbots who can say, prescreen people and you're talking to your desired audience, then all I really need to do is just focus on building relationships with the candidate and then further on with the hiring manager. It gives me more time to talk to the hiring manager and get that warm and fuzzy with them. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So what kind of recruiters are in most jeopardy? Jim: The ones that are not really strong with maybe emotional intelligence. I think sometimes people prefer email, not just because it's more efficient, but because they don't want to talk with people if they don't have to. If you do a search on DuckDuckGo for ... for millennials losing interpersonal skills, you'll see a lot of research and articles about how the machines have taken over and how they prefer spending time with machines and games rather than engaging people, losing the art of looking somebody in the face and talking to them straight in their eye, or building up a conversation. So I think that that's one reason that email is so preferred by a lot of recruiters, not just for the efficiency], but also because they don't want to actually pick up the phone and talk to someone. Jim: So someone who can be empathetic, someone who has all of the emotional intelligence soft skills, someone who can problem solve. That kind of thing. Those people will be in high demand. Chad: So here's the thing, especially the people being in high demand because there's already a lot of pressure in recruiting as it is. Roy Maurer actually reached out from SHRM, the famed journalist over at SHRM, and he wanted us to actually talk about do recruiters need a code of ethics? We're talking about right now, right, as pressure starts to mount. So Steve Bates wrote this article, and he started off with "Low level recruiting jobs can be among the toughest in HR. Practitioners are under extreme pressure to fill client positions. That pressure can tempt recruiters to make some less than ethical choices." As we start to see the market squeeze even more, do we see that we need a code of ethics even more now, or maybe in the next five minutes as you were saying than we did in the past? Feffer: Asshole. Jim: You know what? Okay, this is a little bit of a rant for me, because I wrote this article, no I reposted it in 2014. I think I originally wrote it in 2012. Joel: We love rants. Rant away. Jim: The first article I wrote was called Resumes Are People Too, where I talk about ethics from a job seeker perspective. Then I wrote one called, A Great Idea That Never Happened, which was licensed recruiters, how it would be great if recruiters had licenses, but it won't happen. Chad: Oh, SHRM would love that, man. They could certify recruiters and make a shit ton of cash. Joel: Money, money, money. Jim: Some people who see this issue and have actually taken actual steps in trying to make it happen, like ATAP, the Association of- Chad: Talent Acquisition Professionals. Joel: Talent Acquisition Professionals, yeah. Jim: Yeah, okay. So they have a professional code of recruiting integrity, which is really cool. I think there area a couple of other people out there who was doing it. Even if SHRM decided to do it, there'll be something, but the problem with it I think is that you can't really penalize someone if they don't subscribe to the code of ethics, right? Chad: Yep. Jim: So if you have a Better Business Bureau thing on your business, then you can get some kind of penalty for not abiding by that seal of approval. You can't have the seal of approval on your business so people don't think you are as legit as somebody who does have it, right? If you are licensed by ATAP, for example, or maybe even SHRM and you decide not to abide by those ethics, then what's gonna happen? Joel: Slap on the wrist. Jim: You get a slap on the wrist. You might get a ding on your employment brand, but you're not gonna have any fines, and if you hit somebody in the pocketbook or the wallet, that's when change will happen. So I'll go, I don't want government taking over everything. If there was a government agency that watched over licenses for recruiting the same way it does for hairstylists or the same way it does with pharmacists, whatever like that, right? You get reported and investigated and it shows that you're not following those processes, then the government entity can say, you know what? We're gonna hit you with $1,000 fine for every time this happens, or a $10,000 fine. Once it gets out that you can get actual financial repercussions for not abiding by the rules, then the change will happen. Until then, it's just talk. Joel: Do you have any horror stories in your pocket, Jim? Jim: Yeah. Well, one of the horror stories that I could go to was what these military recruiters would do. So I read an article once about how military recruiters who were desperate to get their numbers up, how they would tell people how to get around drug testing so that ... Joel: That's how Chad got in. Jim: You know, I didn't want to say that. Chad: Hey, just because you have a ton of testosterone in your body does not mean you're taking drugs, okay? Feffer: Asshole. Jim: So also they were giving out information about how to get fake diplomas, which is a booming market, by the way, on the dark web. Chad: Wow. Joel: Wow. Jim: Yeah, I did a show on that too, fake diplomas. Make a lot of money that way. So those are a couple instances in that regard too. So when those recruiters were found out, they got some mandatory retraining. They got a little slap on the wrist and got in trouble for that, but there was no penalties, no financial penalties for doing that kind of thing, so that kind of thing still happens, not just with recruiters. You see it in corporate too. There's some companies that may post jobs that don't exist. It's just so that they can get an influx of candidates, and they may say, "Oh, you know what? We're gonna have a job like this again eventually." Chad: It's evergreen. It's evergreen. Jim: it's evergreen. Yeah. So they'll still post the jobs and get candidates, but you're basically wasting the candidates' time. It would've been better to have a talent community and say hey, we had a talent community, and sometimes we have jobs like this. Why don't you join our community and stay in touch with us? That would be so much better and ethical than just saying, hey, here's a job. Apply for this job. It doesn't exist. But again, there's no financial repercussions, so it's not gonna stop. Chad: So what about Glassdoor? I mean, knowing that there's no financial repercussions now, but what about candidates going to Glassdoor or companies working with prospectively these different staffing groups going to Glassdoor, getting their anonymous bitch on? Jim: Sure, I think it'll slow it down if it is done en masse. Usually when I look through Glassdoor, I see people complaining about a particular company, about the working conditions or the work life balance, stuff like that. I don't see, maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see as many people complaining about specific recruiters on Glassdoor, per se. I always see them complaining about the company. Am I missing it? Are you guys seeing that more? Joel: There are some new site, they don't come to mind immediately, but there's at least one or two sites that are just recruiters, and we've talked about on the show. We don't think there's much of a market in there for people to go bitch about the recruiter that they had, so I don't think there's much future in there, but yeah, some sort of a review system would be nice. I like your licensing idea, because you're more employable if you have a license or maybe if you have an ethical background and have a secured license, you're more marketable, more employable. So I like that idea on its face. Chad: What about these staffing companies, though? What about these staffing companies actually coming up with their own code of ethics and holding recruiters to those code of ethics, and if they step outside of those lines, it's not a slap on the wrist. It is you're out the door. Joel: You're fired. Jim: You're fired, yeah. I like that as well, but I don't know how many enforce it and I also don't know how many people are thinking, well, if we're on the straight and narrow and our competitors are not, then we're missing out. Chad: Could be a competitive advantage to be able to go on and say, "Hey. We're straight. We're transparent. We've got a code of ethics, and here are the shitbags that we've kicked out to the curb." Jim: That would be a ballsy move. That would be pretty good. I would actually applaud that. Joel: My post-Super Bowl hangover made that really hard to listen to. Chad: Especially after a shitty Super Bowl like that. Joel: Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna pivot to something Jim, and you mentioned DuckDuckGo two or three times in this podcast. We're not sponsored by DuckDuckGo, but- Chad: We should be. Joel: Yeah, we should be, which is for privacy reasons. They don't track you, et cetera. You mentioned before the show that if you use Google, you're in a different browser, secret browser that isn't Chrome or Safari or whatever. I'm curious about you because you've been a sourcer recruiter for so long, and we talk about the show about the death of sourcing. We've had many guests come on and say, automation is going to make sourcing irrelevant. What are your thoughts on the current state of sourcing and where it will be in, let's say, five years from now. Jim: I don't think sourcing will ever go away because there will always be new tools, new sites, new tech advances, new ways to hack, so there always will be a need for sourcers in that perspective. It's almost like saying, will we ever need to stop cybersecurity because once we've fixed all the cybersecurity of the day, it means no more new stuff will come out which isn't true, of course. Joel: Well, you always need cobblers, right? Jim: Yeah. Joel: But how many are there these days? Jim: Yeah, you always need some new stuff. So I don't see sourcing going away. I do see some of it being, a lot of it being automated. I see a lot of new tools coming out, as always. I see that there always will be those purple squirrels. I see that the sourcer will be need more so for those purple squirrel kind of things and less so for, I don't know, retail worker or fast food or things like that. Joel: Will there be fewer or more sourcers in five years? Jim: I think there will be fewer, but I think they will be better, and I say fewer because there will be some who will not evolve. Chad: It's the thinning of the herd. Jim: Yes. Chad: Yeah. Jim: But back in my day, a lot of sourcers, they went to Monster and CareerBuilder and that was quote unquote, "sourcing." That is not sourcing, young lady, young man, and as new things come about, there will be more stuff unearthed, so it won't go away. You'll just be finding people that are harder and harder to find. Chad: So cream of the crop, the people who are just rounded out in skills, that's what we're looking for. Joel: Basically finding Jim is gonna be really hard because he's not gonna be on any browser that isn't secure. He's not gonna be searching on anything. He's not gonna have a barcode or a microchip in him, and he's always gonna have his tinfoil hat on. Jim: But the way they still give me after all of that will probably be some kind of programmatic recruiting, getting you with that advertising- Joel: Automation. Jim: The advertising that I can't resist. That's gonna be the way to get me. Joel: And on that note. Chad: Thank you, Jim. Joel: Jim, we love you. It's always good to have you on this show, man. We appreciate you. Any last words, people where they should go, what they should read, what they should not do, maybe? Jim: Sure. Go to jimstroud.com, J-I-M S-T-R-O-U-D.com and subscribe to my blog, listen to my podcast. Chad: Oh yeah. Jim: I give away a lot of free stuff on my podcast. Please download it because I get a kickback, just to be honest. Chad: Love it. Excellent Jim. We out. Joel: We out. Tristen: Hi. I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, the Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors, because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive, shiny, gold pair that are extra because ... well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. Links cited: A Great Idea That Will Never Happen: Licensed Recruiters | LinkedIn Resumes are people too – Jim Stroud This is why you hate recruiters! Institute of Recruitment Professionals ATAP Ethics Recruiter License Example Do Recruiters Need a Code of Ethics? #Automation #Sourcing #recruiting #JimStroud #SHRM #Ethics #Uncommon #Privacy #DuckDuckGo #ATAP #chatbots

The end of January is supposed to be boring. Nay, say Chad & Cheese. The boys dig into: - Listeners are lining up to punch Joel in the throat - We don't need no stinkin' surveys - only the data ma'am - Chad finally sees Indeed's assault on staffing agencies - Amazon employs robots in their war on Walmart - Vangst receives $10m further embraces weed's legality - Ghost proof interviews with Canvas, Mya and messaging Just throat punch Joel on your way to spending bucket loads of money with Chad & Cheese our sponsors Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: I got your polar vortex right here, mother nature. Welcome to The Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, we pull some anti-ghosting magic out of our hat, we learn why Indeed gave the AA staffing industry a big FU, and we get a little contact high from the growing pot jobs industry. Smoke up Johnny. We'll be right back after a word from Sovern. Sovren: Sovren AI Matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each, individual transaction. They will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI Matching, visit sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: Hopefully be seeing those guys sometime soon, right? Joel: Yeah, we're headed to Austin. We'll see if they got any more vodka or bourbon from HR Tech still around. Chad: Bourbon. Joel: We were taking some of that. Yeah, I think it was bourbon. It was bourbon. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Well, dude, happy Super Bowl weekend. Chad: No shit, right? It's here. Joel: Yeah, I tried to do a little, a New York accent at the beginning, but it sounded a little bit more New England maybe because there's been so many Bostonians on TV lately. Chad: Bastards. Joel: They're gonna win, though. Chad: I don't know that, yeah. Joel: Quick prediction? I'm gonna go New England 35, LA 31. Chad: I'm gonna go LA 28, New England 14. Joel: Okay. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Only 14 points. Chad: Yeah, LA had one hell of a defense this year, and I think they're gonna lock it down, and they can. If they can lock down those receivers, not to mention they have a hell of a pass rush. Joel: Well, for the sake of the viewing audience, I hope it's not just 28-14. I hope it's a little more high scoring than that. Chad: It can still be a good game. Joel: Oh, sure. But these aren't massive defenses. If New England's not scoring much, it's because they're sucking. It's not because they're playing the 2000 Ravens or the 75 Steelers. Chad: The Rams had a good defense this year. They had a very good defense this year. Take a look at their line, what is it, Donaldson? Take a look at their backs, man. Joel: And Suh. A boy called Suh. Chad: Those guys, they're legit. I'm waiting for the AFC to finally fucking put together some teams in the late season who don't just fucking fold like cheap card tables. Joel: Well, thank god we have the Browns then, who are destined for Super Bowl greatness. Chad: Once again. Joel: Interestingly, I haven't heard a lot about the commercials this year. Chad: I know it's gonna be incredibly expensive to get a fucking, it always is, but it goes up every year. So we'll see. We'll see who actually has the cash to play in this game. Joel: We'll see, and we'll probably discuss it on next week's show. Chad: More than likely. Joel: Now, for the non-sports fans, they'll be happy to know that we're gonna tighten up our shout outs a little bit, so we're limiting it to people, exceptional people, not just anyone, events, and maybe like really special items for the show. Okay, so we're tightening up. I'm gonna start with Adam Gordon, candidateid.com or candidate.id, whichever one. Go check him out. The crazy Scotchman, Scotsman, that we love so much did a Braveheart inspired death match video taunting us. I shoot fire out of my ass or lightening out of my ass, and you shoot fire out of your eyes or something. Chad: Yes. Joel: But it was very well done. Love Adam, can't wait to see him in Lisbon on the death match stage. Chad: Yes, and I have to say that TNG and the 10 guy creepy ass robot is the one who actually started this, so their video acceptance pushed Adam. But yeah, you can check it out. You can go to chadcheese.com, click on podcasts and video or death match, whatever, and they're gonna be right there. Check them out. They're funny as hell. Joel: They must not have as much of a litigious society there in Scotland, because I would be scared to death to do a parody of Braveheart by risk of getting sued by everyone in Hollywood. But hey Adam, good for you man. Stick it to the movie studios. Chad: I would've thought you would've started out with the Joel throat punch. Joel: I don't know, to me that feels like the fourth hitter. That seems like the clean up to me, but yeah, if you want to bring that up, go ahead. Chad: Yeah, so you had a post on LinkedIn that kind of, I would say, exploded to an effect. You posted, "If you ever hear me say," and I quote, "I need to story this," end quote, "Permission to punch me in the throat." So apparently, people don't have a problem, and as a matter of fact, they're kind of overjoyed at the thought of punching you in the throat. Joel: Yeah, there's a number machine in the corner of my office here, if you want to take a number. Apparently, there's a lot of energy around punching me in the throat. Now, I will say that the odds of me saying, in public, "I need to story this," or "I want to story this," is pretty low, and it was driven by either millennial or a Gen Z are saying it. Similar to like, "I need to tweet this," or "I'm gonna Facebook this." So this is the whole story phenomenon of stories on Snapchat and Instagram. "I need to story this." So I hope to god I never say it. If I do, carte blanche to punch me in the throat. Chad: Just so that you know, we do have this already set up as an event. It's gonna be a sponsored event by JobAdX. We already have t-shirts being designed, throat punch Joel t-shirts, those types of things. So when it does happen because it'll happen, we will have an event pulled together to make sure that everybody can enjoy the Joel throat punching. Joel: Multiple video sponsors have lined up to video record this and push it out there. Now, to underscore the idiocy of mankind, my throat punch post has received almost 15,000 views from the comments, and people talk a lot about, why don't you write or talk about more thoughtful, intellectual pieces? The point is, we give the people what they want, and apparently, they want throat punches and Braveheart videos and everything else. So if you don't like our content, blame it on humanity, because we're just giving the people what they want. Chad: That's right. Ed from Philly, he loves what we're saying, because he really liked the Weekend at Bernie's comment about Wilbur Ross]. Joel: That was pretty good. Chad: Ang over at JobElephant's officially sent us a strongly worded letter and took exception to your job site farming comment, because JobElephant's obviously is their product. He took exception to that. Joel: Yeah, so those that didn't listen, Textkernel being acquired by CareerBuilder, I think Textkernel's an awful name. Chad: Yes. Joel: It reminds me of farming and corn kernels, and the whole animal thing is played. So JobElephant, what I got for you is ... a big elephant gun. Chad: Oh, god. Killing it. Okay, so Toby Culshaw- Joel: Loves us. Chad: Well, and he's created a TA podcast list for TA professionals, so if you're out there, you're a TA professional, maybe you're a vendor in this space and you want to listen to a top notch podcast, obviously you're already listening to one. He's actually created a list for this, so check it out. It's on LinkedIn, Toby Culshaw, C-U-L shaw, and there you go. Joel: I don't think they were numbered, but we're clearly number one if he had numbered that list, I think. Canada, here we come, eh? Chad: Yeah. Joel: The event's February 19 through the 22-ish. Chad: It's gonna be awesome. Joel: We're gonna be in Banff near Calgary, Canada. More CEOs than we can shake a stick at, more thought leaders. I'm not sure how they let us into the event, but sure enough, we're gonna be there and aspire to interview a lot of people and get a lot of content for everybody. Chad: So this is a cult branding event, names like Yeti, LA Lakers, Marvel Comics, Cheetos- Joel: Cinnabon. Chad: Yeah, Cinnabon. Joel: Cinnabon, Cheetos, yeah. Chad: Converse, M&Ms, Porsche- Joel: Miller. Chad: I mean, dude. Joel: Budweiser. Chad: This is like the brand event of the year, so we're pretty fucking stoked, not to mention after that, there is a concert event, which I'm going to go to as well. So it should be fun. Joel: It feels like Davos meets South By Southwest for Canada, is basically what we're going to. Chad: They let us meatheads in. Joel: Yep. Chad: Soon, you will be able to check out the new Chad Cheese first limited edition Chad Cheese t-shirt- Joel: Original. Chad: Original design. Joel: Exclusive. Chad: Exclusive, what else do we want to put on it? Joel: Earth shattering, orgasmic- Chad: We're gonna have three or four different designs you can vote on. This is all sponsored by our friends at Emissary.ai. They are going to be promoting, they're the sponsor of this first, limited edition Chad and Cheese shirt, which we're going to be giving away at events this year. Joel: We're excited. Chad: Yeah. Joel: You're excited. This is your baby, man. You've been talking about a t-shirt sponsorship for a long time, and I have poo pooed it since you started, so I'm giving you full credit. If this thing takes off, Chad is the guy behind it. Chad: First and foremost, you get throat punched for saying "poo pooed", and second, it's gonna take off. People love fucking t-shirts and Chad and Cheese t-shirt. Give me a break. Come on. Joel: Especially when they're limited and orgasmic. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: People love those kinds of t-shirts. Chad: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Joel: Holy shit. Are we done with shout outs? Chad: One more, Mark Feffer is providing us with sound effects. I'm working with Mark on another project. I thought, fuck it. I'm gonna pull in some of these sound effects for Chad & Cheese too. He'll love it, so go ahead and play one. Feffer: Asshole. Joel: Did we get a signature to do this? Are we gonna have to pay him every time we use "asshole" on the show? Chad: No, don't even put that out there in the universe for god's sakes. Now we're gonna have to think about it. I'm working with him. He writes all the content for HCMtechreport.com, and we're doing some podcasting roundups and whatnot. We're trying to liven some of the stuff up, so I thought you'd just kinda cross-pollinate some of the stuff that we're using over there and it'd be fun. Feffer: Asshole. Asshole. Asshole. Joel: Now everybody's gonna want sound bites on the show, nice. Chad: Yeah, well, and that is awesome. We should do that. Where's my Ed from Philly fucking sound bite? Joel: Yeah, you gotta have some Philly. What would Ed say? Chad: I don't know. We need a sound bite. Joel: All right. All right, Ed. Through the guns. All right, George Larocque is starting off the show. Dude did a poll. He has larocqueinc.com is his blog. Larocque, L-A-R-O-C-Q-U-E inc.com. Chad: Larocque, yeah. Joel: I'm guessing that's French. Larocque. Chad: Le ROCK. Joel: Something. So the title is Everything on the Internet Starts with Google. Sure, but what about online job search? They say no. You have a few comments about the results. I have a little bit of a commentary about the sample size, but essentially, it's a big hand stroke to Indeed, which lands number one. Although I'm a little, I'm confused, because the headline is basically like, Google sucks, but Google is number two in terms of search site used. Where does this job search start? Google's number two, and they're like five or six points behind Indeed, and then you go down to LinkedIn, Monster, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, et cetera. Joel: So what are your thoughts about the results? I don't think this is a huge blow to Google, but the headline would say otherwise. Chad: Yeah, I take issue mainly in the methodology. So it was a survey. I think it's cute when you're asking dumb humans where they start anything, because they can't fucking remember. Seriously. It doesn't look like the survey is any better, has any better information than the ATS drop down question. Where did you find this job, right? Joel: Yeah, and there are a certain number of people, and let's agree that Indeed still has some nice search rankings on a lot of things. People are still going to Google and then going to Indeed and then finding the job from there or applying through that. So you really get into some confusing issues of, do they really remember, or what exactly is the process by which they're telling you what they're going for? Joel: This is why analytics exist, right? So you put a piece of code on websites, and you don't leave it up to human beings. You leave it up to what actually happens, which obviously wasn't what this survey gauged as far as I know. In fact, my big problem with it is that they surveyed a whopping, in the job search area, 540 individuals. If this was 540 employers, I'd say, home run. That's a great sample size, because it's hard to get employers to answer anything. But dude, 540 job seekers is not a ton of people. Joel: I think the rule of thumb, and I'm not a survey expert, but I think the rule of thumb is you look at the potential universe, and then getting as close to 10% of that as possible. So at 10%, 500 would be 5,000. Chad: Not even close. Joel: So a lot more than 5,000 job seekers in the country, so I would've loved to have seen a lot larger sample size. George could've partnered with any job board of significance on the planet and emailed a number of their people, or he could've just put an ad on Facebook and target people. There are probably different ways that he could get a lot of people to answer this question, but 540 is a fairly small sample size. I wouldn't put the gospel around what the results were. Chad: I don't want fucking human beings answering anything. Joel: Well, that's never gonna happen. Chad: We have data. We have fucking data, okay? So it's funny, because this kind of string blew up on social, and there were a few people that were saying, "Oh, that's a fine sample size," and I thought, you know what? It's pretty fucking simple. You can aggregate, many of the people who are in this conversation can actually aggregate the data from their clients, and they can come out with a real number, right? Because this, I don't think is a real number. It's a human survey. Who gives a fuck, right? Give me data. This is not data. This is the problem that I see within our industry today. We are focused too much on noise instead of the actual fucking data, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this. Chad: This survey, quit doing fucking surveys like this. Stop it. Give me fucking data. Don't do stupid surveys when you can get data that will actually give us concrete information. Joel: So I guess you don't have a SurveyMonkey subscription then, right? Chad: So for SurveyMonkey, I mean, SurveyMonkey can be used for many different things, right? You can ask, but not this. You should be able to find data that supports this. Joel: So for the record, if a company wants to survey the employees about where they want to go for dinner on Christmas or the holidays, you're okay with that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Just not big, kind of topic stuff. Or if you want to survey someone about their interview or their exits, that's okay. You're not totally anti-survey. Chad: No. Joel: Just with stuff like this, you want just hard data. Chad: If there is hard data, right? Unless you're polling all of the Yelp information from all your employees or Google reviews for restaurants and whatnot. If you have that data, fucking A. Big brother, have at it, plan your party. In most cases, you don't. In this case, you can get the fucking data. If you don't have the data, then guess what? Don't fucking talk about it. Joel: Because we're getting ready to survey our listeners for their favorite t-shirt, so I just want to make sure that when we do that, they can't come back and say, "We did the survey and you guys hate surveys." Some surveys are okay, just for the record. Chad: Can we actually pull data together that will tell us which t-shirt our listeners like before we actually put those out there? No, we don't. If we had it, we wouldn't be asking the fucking humans, right? But we don't, so we're gonna poll them. Joel: Fair enough, man. We like George. Let's put that out there. Chad: Love George. Joel: Love George. We've interviewed him. Hopefully he'll come back on the show at some point. Chad: He will. Joel: Maybe we'll talk about this survey and he can tell us how we're full of shit and how it's an awesome data set. Chad: Well, there's a couple of things. We could ask him onto the show and we could talk about this. We could also ask the Shane Grays of the world who have companies like Clinch who actually aggregate this data, so it wouldn't just be like a certain client, and could prospectively give us data points on what they're seeing through a litany of different companies, right? That, to me, is a better conversation. Joel: Yeah, and we're interviewing ICIMS about a whole bunch of data here this month, I believe, and maybe we'll talk about what sources are driving the most traffic to their customers. I think that's a much better data point than asking people. Chad: Yes. Joel: I agree. I agree. All right, man, let's move on to Indeed, and you found this story. What's up? Chad: No, actually, one of our listeners hit me up on LinkedIn messenger and really said, "Hey, have you seen a big movement with Indeed hire?" I was like, "No, why?" He's like, "Man, they're calling us left and right." So they're seeing more of a sales push, not to mention he gave me a link to the website which has a video that focuses obviously on the product. It just seems like it's more polished than I've ever seen it before, and that's where I thought it was interesting and it would bring up the interesting discussion around, as you had said before, that you really believe that Indeed is going after the staffing industry and this in itself could be evidence. Joel: Which, I wish we had a sound guy in a booth, but we're just two idiots at desks. I'm pretty sure there's a sound bite somewhere where you think, I'm full of shit thinking that Indeed is getting into staffing. They're getting into staffing. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The video, Google, Indeed Hire. Google Hire. Indeed Hire, they screwed the staffing industry a few weeks ago, kicked them off the site unless they're paying. This is why. They're getting into staffing, and they're getting serious because these videos, the site, it's just very well made. This is where they're going. They're gonna compete with staffing companies for sure. Chad: What I said was, I don't see them going against the Adeccos or the Randstads of the world. They were already in staffing. Do I think that they're going to be a behemoth and, no, I don't. Are they gonna try? Fuck, they just might. I think this is interesting though because back in the day for Monster and CareerBuilder, dude, they were taking their bucks as they were killing them, right? They were taking their dollars. They were sending them traffic as they were slowly bleeding them and killing them, but they just kicked staffing off. We've talked about it before. Some staffing companies are actually spending more money because of that, so- Feffer: Asshole. Chad: Maybe this is part of the grand plan. We're going to get more money out of staffing, and this is how we're going to bleed staffing by kicking them off, because they're already hooked on the crack, and then guess what? We're gonna take their business from them. Joel: I'm clapping because yes, you have encapsulated the whole strategy, and it's a repeat from what they did to job boards. Kick them off, get them to pay, and then slowly bleed them with their own product. Boom, rinse and repeat. Chad: It's worked before. The thing is, I don't know that it'll work on the big ones that are out there, right? The ones who have enormous databases as it is. Joel: To me, it's clearly sold as a, if you don't have the infrastructure currently to place people or find people, we will do that for you. But yes, the large enterprise, folks, I don't know. But this is a clear strike against the staffing industry. Chad: How do you think this is going to impact Europe? Because they're so, I mean, obviously the staffing companies in Europe, that's a part of a company's DNA. Joel: Sure. Well, we've been wondering the buildup in Ireland, the buildup in the UK, whether that's with real estate or people. Maybe this is a big part of it. Let's really take on staffing in a big way, and Europe could be ripe for that. Chad: Could be. Could be, could be. Look out Europe, here comes Indeed. Joel: Look out, yeah. If you've used the Indeed Hire product, like it, love it, hate it, whatever, hit us up at chadcheese.com. We'd love to hear your take on the product. Chad: You know it. Joel: And speaking of products that we know are awesome, let's hear from JobAdX. This is their new ad. Chad: Yes. Joel: I feel like a DJ or a VJ announcing the new Thriller video. Here's the new one from JobAdX, boys and girls. JobAdX: This is sound of job search. ... This is the sound of job search defeat. ... Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads, page after page before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low. Budgets are wasted. Jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most target jobs and delivers what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network. JobAdX: Score! That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results attracting a qualified candidates and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at ... Join us at jobadx.com. JobAdX. Together, we can save job search. Chad: Save it. Joel: I'm in a really good mood after that background soundtrack. I feel like it's from the Brady Bunch or some sort of 70s or 80s sitcom. I like it. I like it. Chad: They were happy the entire time. Yes, I love it. Joel: Yeah. Much improved, JobAdX. Way to go. Shout out to Isabelle, who we know is sort of doing the marketing there now. Chad: Nice. Nice. Joel: At the company. So a topic we never discuss, automation. There's a ton of stuff out there. What do you want to start with? Chad: Let's start with the Brookings Institute report. Joel: Okay. Chad: Talking about the jobs that are going to go away. Where they're at, all that other happy horseshit, and it's pretty simple that many of these jobs, like food prep, production operations like manufacturing, office administration support, farming. This kind of blew my mind. Farming, fishing, and forestry, transportation, construction, and extraction. Those were all above 50%, so they had this index. Food prep was like 81%, so as you go into your McDonald's today and you start to see these boards that you're doing kind of these touch boards where you're ordering your food now, and then you just go to the front and the food's waiting for you there. That's kind of like another step on the food prep piece. Chad: Then we also saw, god, it was a robot called Flippy. It was in California, right? And it would flip the burgers. It would get the burgers right, put it on the bun, have a full burger done for you the way that you ordered it, and a person didn't touch it until they delivered it. Joel: What I find interesting was sort of demographically where, the types of folks that are gonna be impacted the most, and the Brookings Institute study really targeted men, young folks, and minorities for a variety of reasons. I also found it interesting that the rust belt would be particularly harder hit, because a lot of the jobs are boring, repetitive stuff, right? It's- Chad: Production. Joel: Yeah, so it's no mistake that our politics, in large part, are being driven by fear, and there's a ton of fear employment wise. Am I gonna have a job? Particularly in the Midwest and the rust belt where folks are getting displaced by robots, and there's a real fear there of what's going on. What I'm finding is we did the Walmart story last week about Walmart needing drivers. So I kind of went a little bit of maybe we're getting too ahead of ourselves with the whole automation thing, and then this week sort of slapped me in the face, saying like no. We're actually not. Joel: Amazon employs over 100,000 robots in its warehouses, and they employ 125,000 humans. So that gives you an idea of it's almost 50/50 at some place like Amazon. We'll talk about self-driving cars, et cetera. So for me, it's like a lot of this isn't 20, 30, 50, 100 years in the future. This is sooner than maybe we think, and Brookings talked about the automation of by 2040, food preparation, 91% automatable. That's a huge segment of the workforce that 20 years isn't that far away, is gonna be gone, basically. There'll be a manager per store, and that's it. It's all automated at restaurants. Chad: What got me was healthcare support was at 40%. Healthcare practitioners was at 33, and we're starting to see where AI is detecting cancer. Robots can do surgery more efficiently. So there's a lot of this, even in these very difficult types of jobs, being a practitioner, a healthcare practitioner, is pretty amazing, but yeah. You talk about the Walmart piece, and we were talking about Walmart is sucking the air out of the trucking industry, because they're pretty much close to doubling the salary that their truckers to like $90,000, so therefore they're driving retention, not to mention they're sucking the air out of the market by pulling all those drivers in. What can Amazon do? I mean, what can they do? Chad: So we also shared a report about Embark, self-driving trucks delivering a payload from LA to Jacksonville last year, and now Embark, go figure, is partnered up with Amazon. Joel: Shocking. Chad: Yeah. But those gaps, dude. It's all about the gaps. So Amazon says yeah, I have to automate. I have to. I can't do business because I don't have people. I don't have people. When the market flips and there are more people than there are jobs, it's too fucking late, guys. Robots are already in. Joel: Yeah, the efficiency, the cost savings is already in the recipe. It's over. Chad: No sick days. Joel: Yeah, and again, this was another slap in my face to be like, wow. Yeah, I forgot about, was it Budweiser who had a truck load of beer delivered across the country? And then the Amazon thing. We talked a little bit about the little Amazon drones that could be rolling around the sidewalks in a neighborhood near you soon. This stuff is happening, and we report on it. Joel: I also think, to go back to the original, the demographics of it. Young people, you and I both have young kids. Yours are older than mine, but that first job that you get that builds pride and responsibility and all that, and the story on the Brookings Institute talked about half of employment opportunities for 18-24 year olds will be gone within ten years, or will be automated. So imagine all the young people that aren't getting that first foot in the door because of automation. We talk a lot about the old folks that are doing the old manufacturing jobs, but it's young people that are gonna be highly impacted by automation. That's something to worry about as well. Chad: Yes. But again, you take a look at all the gaps that we're experiencing right now, people, and this is one of the things that I think Peter [Weddle 00:29:24] outlined very well on circuit 2118 is that there's opportunity there to get rid of the human friction, and the opportunity happens when there aren't enough humans to go around, which is right now. You can fill those positions with efficiencies and robots and those jobs won't come back. Chad: So we're talking about jobs going to Mexico and that kind of shit. That's nothing guys, those jobs, ah, in some cases, might come back. The ones that go to the robots, that shit's not coming back. Joel: Amen. So Entelo, let's talk about automation recruiting. This was some interesting data. They had a survey come out. What piqued your interest on that from an automation standpoint? Chad: I thought it was funny, because the very first point was 60% of recruiters say finding the right candidate is their top challenge, and 40% say that it's engaging candidates. But then it goes on to say that 37% of recruiters rank email as the preferred outreach mechanism. Joel: Did you say email? Chad: Email. Joel: But you know, it's true. That number did not surprise you. Chad: No, it didn't surprise me because we've got all these old timey fucking recruiters that are out there that aren't, they're not up with texting, with messaging, with actually quick and easy ways to first and foremost, identify candidates. So if you're going to LinkedIn today, and you're trying to source candidates just manually through LinkedIn? Dude, fuck. There are platforms that can do that in seconds, and then you can turn around and start messaging. We've even see, and I'm talking to the guys at Cielo about what they're doing to increase efficiencies for all of their clients and RPO, and it's all around automation. Joel: Isn't it funny how, we talk about email or messaging for a second, the survey as you mentioned, 39% email, 33% phone and text, LinkedIn InMails 13%. That's, LinkedIn was really small. That kind of surprised me, and I don't know exactly what kind of recruiters they were talking to. But if only 13% are using InMails, that doesn't bode well for LinkedIn. So to me, putting in phone with text should totally be separate. If it was phone, I much rather would like to know what phone is versus text than putting those two together. So in next year's survey, let's make sure, Entelo, that we separate phone and text because I think those are very different, and I would also put chat with text as well. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Then taking that next step, 47, almost 50% of recruiters don't track open rates. Over 50% don't track click through rates. So they don't even know how all of this shit is performing. They could have the worst emails in the world, 39% of them, right? Could have the worst emails in the world, and they don't even know how they're performing. They don't know. And again, this is one of the reasons why we have automation and platforms out there, is one of the reasons why obviously Entelo created this automation trends report. But yeah, it's like, guys, get with the fucking times and start looking at the way that you're engaging candidates before you throw them into the fucking black hole. Joel: Yep. Also, I think it underscores the role that drip campaigns may have in the future, because if it's this sort of these one and done emails, you're just scratching the surface of what you could get. All is not lost, now. 75% say technology will play a larger role in their hiring processes next year, this year. 22% planned to increase their spend on AI powered recruiting software. So it's not all lost. There are some innovators, some first movers in this group, so hopefully the next year's survey will reflect that. Joel: Now, I will also underscore from our first story the Entelo survey, 625 talent acquisition professionals, which is more than Larocque surveyed from job seeker data. So good on Entelo for getting a good data set versus Larocque's job seekers, which was even less than what Entelo was able to get for responses for a recruitment survey. Chad: Give me some applause. I'm going to my last point is also 75% of recruiters lack confidence in their ability to leverage AI tools to recruit. Joel: Which is why more and more marketers will need to be recruiters. Chad: Talking to the vendors that are out there, right? So vendors, listen up. The easier you make it for recruiters to actually not even have to use your platform. It just works, making it less human friction will increase adoption. Joel: We're both still waiting for that voice assistant where you say, "Get me a Ruby on Rails developer with 5+ years experience in Seattle. Go." And it just does it, and your schedule gets filled with interviews. Well, this is a fantastic segue to our next sponsor, Canvas. Let's hear from them and their automated service and text messaging. Then we're gonna talk about anti-ghosting magic. Be right back, kids. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvasbot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: You've seen the movie Tropic Thunder, haven't you? Chad: Oh god, yes. Joel: So the final scene, like in the credits where Tom Cruise is dancing. Chad: Yes. Joel: I always see that when I hear the Canvas music for some reason. Du du du du du. Chad: G5 player. Joel: I'm the dude playing the dude. Oh man. Chad: So this wasn't planned, but we actually are going to start to talk a little bit about Canvas and ghosting when it comes to employees, right? And candidates. Joel: So I wrote my first story about Mia or Mya. I don't know what we're calling it today, but Mya, sort of the first chatbot that got any kind of decent play. This was in 2016, so they sent out a little PR saying hey, here's some data. Here's what's new with us, et cetera. So I thought three years into this, what's the data showing? What's going on? Joel: The chatbot phenomenon is going strong, and granted, I talked to people who are actually selling this product, so take that with a grain of salt. But the metrics around it are really favorable in terms of reply rate are 90%+, engagement rates are very high, particularly in comparison to email and telephone. Time to hire is being decreased significantly for a lot of these companies that are using chatbots and automation in that standpoint. Interestingly, what I thought, and this was great. Aman Brar, who's the CEO and founder over at Canvas, he's always good for a sound bite. His was messaging or chatbots are, quote, "anti-ghosting magic." Joel: So we talk a lot about ghosting on this show, about millennials and anyone just sort of disappearing from the interview process or even not showing up at work or just leaving after a couple hours. For whatever reason, if you have a ghosting problem, getting on the chatbot train will remedy a lot of that because for whatever reason if people are chatting on an ongoing basis, there's less likelihood of just ghosting you in the recruiting process. Chad: Yes. We did a podcast with Adam Godson from Cielo, one of our badass podcasts, and I think he actually, he was talking about, it might have been an off conversation that we had as well. But Cielo, I know, has automation put in place, much like the Canvas automation that you're talking about, and they have seen dramatic dips in ghosting, because the system actually texts out to the candidates. That kind of ties the candidate in. It was like, are you going to be there today at whatever? Chad: So it's that, first, it's that reminder, because not everybody goes by a calendar, but it's that reminder. And it's that email, or that message that goes out to them making them feel like they're not in a black hole, and it could be just a system, just a process that's actually firing, not an actual human being. But that's not what the person cares about. They just know that you're reaching out to them to remind them that today at 1:00 or what have you, you have an interview. We're looking forward to seeing you or something like that. That means something to a candidate. Joel: And interestingly, so two vendors actually talked about ghosting. Aman talked about it as well as Aaron Matos, our friend at Olivia. His quote was, "Hiring managers and teleprofessionals waste hours of time each week with candidates who ghost or no show to interviews. Thanks to assistance automating both the scheduling and the follow up for interviews, we have clients reporting interview attendance at 98%." A couple of the Mya highlights as well, they talked about 90% of contacts having conversations compared with claims of the industry talking about 37% connect only when relying on human recruiters. Joel: Each completed Mya conversation saved a recruiter 20 minutes and triple the number of candidates that move through the process from application to securing interest of hiring and qualified candidates were scheduled for an interview within 72 hours of submitting their application, which was a 79% reduction in typical time that applications usually turn into interviews. Chad: Adam over at Candidate.ID, who's gonna be in a death match in Lisbon, he's always talking about nurturing candidates, right? And nurturing them with content that's relevant in many cases, but also sending out those little pings, right? Just those little things just to touch base. That means so much to a candidate, and that's what the system is doing that human beings are not. Chad: Real quick, I want to put in a plug for our DEMOpocalypse with Talkpush, because these guys are ... obviously big in the chatbot space, chatbot layered with CRM. So just go to the site. You can click on podcasts and then videos and look for the DEMOpocalypse. But check it out, man. I mean, this is all about process and being able to be more efficient and ensuring that you are nurturing those applicants, those candidates, and even those employees with these different platforms. It's really, really fucking cool. Joel: Yeah. I think this really will be the year that if you're not at least testing out chatbots, you're really gonna be behind on the eight ball, because there are so many vendors, so many companies that are providing this. If you're not using it, you're screwing yourself, because the numbers are pointing to a lot better experience for everybody when chatbots and automation are being used. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chatbots, texting, I mean, just look at everything and blow up your process and focus on efficiencies, because these platforms are made for that. Joel: Which, by the way, a little side note from the sports fans here on the podcast. Nick Saban, as anyone in, at least in the US will know, is the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. There was a story on Deadspin this week about one of his coaches actually just leaving and becoming head coach at some other university. So even Nick Saban is dealing with being ghosted. Chad: I can't believe that. So I guarantee you, Nick forgot several conversations. Dude came to him and said, "Hey look. This is what I'm looking at." I can't believe a dude just cleaned out his office and fucking left without telling Nick Saban. I can't believe it. Joel: Are you accusing Nick Saban of pandering to the media? Chad: Imagine that. Joel: Or heaven forbid, lying to the media? Chad: Yes. Joel: Miami Dolphins. Maybe he's smoking something, which leads us to our next and final story. Chad: Nice segue. Joel: Vangst, I assume I'm saying that right. It's angst with a V in the news this week raised $10 million- Chad: Crazy. Joel: In venture money. I think that brings their total to about $12.5 million. I find it interesting because we rarely find job boards interesting, but the pot industry lives in a bubble from a job board perspective. No traditional job board will touch pot jobs because they're illegal. It's still federal law that you can't smoke pot, so none of the national job boards will post pot jobs because it's the same as posting casino gambling where it's illegal jobs or whatever it is, right? I'm sure there are regulations. Joel: So if you want to get in the job board industry, get into pot, because you live in a bubble. It's like 1999. It's the wild west, and so this company started a couple years ago. It was started out of this woman's dorm, let's say girl because she was in college. It was born out of, she emailed a consumer list that she had. She was selling something out of her dorm. She polled, here we go back to surveys, she polled her fellow college students and said, "What kind of job would you most love to have coming out of college?" Overwhelmingly, a job in the pot industry was really favorable. Joel: So she said, "Holy shit. I gotta start a job board and get all these students that want pot jobs with employers who need to hire them." So she founded this company. It was more or less a job board/staffing company at the beginning. It has since become what we love, one of the on demand employment platforms, so similar to Uber or fill in the blank with whatever, Plated, Snag, et cetera. Students can go out to California, Colorado, wherever it's legal. On their phone, what jobs are available, what hours do I want to work? I assume they're getting high in the hours that they're not working, although they're working in pot. I don't know if that's. Anyway. Joel: So this is, it's just kind of cool to side story in the job board space which is relatively boring in most cases. This is where the action is, and if you believe that pot is gonna be legal in the US, if not most of the world at some point. Chad: Information from a SHRM article that I though was interesting. It's called the ABCs of THC. About 60%, 62% of US respondents to a 2018 Pew research survey said marijuana should be legal. 62%. Now, back in 2000, that was only 31%, so it's doubled. State laws reflect that changing attitude to where about 33 states, there are a shit ton of states today that have legalized medical marijuana, and ten states approved both its medical and recreational use, right? Chad: So the global legal marijuana market is expected to reach 146, over 146 billion by the end of 2025. Joel: Yeah, and I've seen estimates as high as 500 billion- Chad: Fuck. Joel: At it's height. I mean, if you agree that it's gonna be 25% of the tobacco industry, then you're just looking at ridiculous numbers. Chad: Here's something else. So marijuana possession cases, regardless of quantity or a person's criminal record will no longer be prosecuted in Baltimore as the State's Attorney General actually said that. I see more of that happening as well, where it's like look. We've over the years have incarcerated way too many fucking people over weed. Joel: By the way, isn't it strange that former House Speaker John Boehner is like leading the charge. Have you seen these commercials? Chad: Yes. Joel: Like John Boehner pot conferences and pot summits. It's totally bizarre, particularly for guys like us who grew up in the just say no era that the former Speaker of the House that's a Republican is leading the charge about legalized pot. Chad: Always told us gateway drug, man. That's all we heard. Oh, dude, marijuana's the gateway drug. Don't do it man. Joel: Being Gen X sucks, man. Sex was gonna kill you, drugs were gonna kill you, the Russians were gonna kill you. Everyone was gonna kill us growing up. Chad: Pretty much. Joel: So yeah. The kids now have it much easier. I'm getting the munchies with all this high talk. It's time for lunch. I'm out if you are. Chad: I am out. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, the Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. Tristen: The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive, shiny, gold pairs that are extra because ... well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Marijuana #Ghosting #Texting #Messaging #Indeed #Canvas #Mya #Amazon #Walmart

CareerBuilder acquired a company with a funny name, companies are gaming Glassdoor to make themselves look better (or are they?), and Africa is the next hub for tech talent, compliments of Al Gore, Walmart is looking to corner the trucker talent market. And much more, including weed, porn and hangovers. Enjoy and visit our sponsors, Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides training and development to help your workplace leaders and employees integrate with and value people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Oh yeah! Joel: It's frickin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth. Welcome to The Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's Most Dangerous and Most Degenerate ... I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, CareerBuilder acquires a company with a kooky name. The Wall Street Journal says Glassdoor employers are behaving badly, for shame, and we pull a podcast hat trick with porn, weed, and hangovers. Chad: Whoo-hoo! Joel: And somehow find a way to tie it all with employment. If there's something below rock bottom. We're certainly shooting for it. Stay tuned after this word from Canvas. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent, text-based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a bit emoji. We make compliance easy and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at goCanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's goCanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: I think you just found a new sponsorship opportunity. Chad: What's that? Joel: The show bloopers. Chad: That's a good one, yeah. That's pretty cool. Joel: There's always the best part of the show anyway, and no one ever gets to hear the way we screw up the show. Because you're so good with that editing pen. Chad: Yeah, it doesn't happen that often. I mean, I don't have to cut out too much. Just some of the stupid rambling that I do in most cases. Joel: Well, hey if there's money involved we can make up some bloopers. Chad: When it gets warmer out, we need to spend some time in Indianapolis with the Canvas crew, go out for drinks or something. I haven't seen those guys in a while. Joel: Now why does weather have to be a reason to go see them? They're still there in winter. Chad: Yeah, I don't know that Aman comes out. Joel: I want to know if the bottle of Jergens is still on the conference room table. Chad: It wasn't just Jergens, dude. It was Jergens and Kleenex right next to it. Joel: Yes. I had forgotten that. My brain had conveniently filtered that information out. Yeah. Chad: Don't worry, I'll help, I'll help. Joel: The Canvas crew works really hard. Let's put it that way. Chad: Yes. Yes. And that being said, let's go on to shout out since we're talking about the up in Indianapolis, big indie shout out to Eli Lilly. You actually shared some stuff. What did you find out about Eli Lilly? Joel: Okay, Eli Lilly and company began a concentrated effort four years ago to recruit, mentor, encourage and support women in senior leadership positions. And today's six of 14 Executive Committee members are women. The company was recently recognized for the Catalyst Award for these efforts. So shout out to Eli, a local company. They've been doing good stuff for a long time. So it's good that they're getting some recognition for it. Chad: Yeah, big shout out Eli Lilly. That is awesome. If you want to be able to actually impact your ranks, this is how you do it. You put programs in place and you execute and big shout out to Eli Lilly. So I'm sure there's some other companies that are out there that are doing it. Joel: Maybe- Chad: Throw them our way. We'd love to talk about. Joel: And maybe we should send that news out to Oracle who's had some issues lately, right? Chad: Oracle's totally fucked up, man. That being said, let's talk about a genius company. KFC. Joel: KFC. Chad: Remember the fireplace logs they had that smelled like chicken? Joel: I'm burning one right now. What are you talking about? Chad: Dude! They fucking came out with candles that smell like gravy. Genius people. Joel: What's next? Taco Bell with candles that smell like chalupas? Can life get any better? Do we not live in the best time in human history? Good lord, KFC. Chad: Yes. Genius. Joel: Shout out to Hireology, company that actually from what I understand has like company sanctioned, scheduled meetings to listen to our show. Chad: It's kind of like a book club. So they get together, they have this monthly Chad and Cheese podcast club. So it's like a book club, right? We're gonna have to get some more intel. I think you listen to the pods right? And then you all come together and you talk about it. It sounds like every company should have one of these. Joel: It sounds like a harassment case waiting to happen, but I certainly appreciate if you're out there listening Hireology and apparently you are because you have sanctioned meetings or book clubs or whatever, just take a couple pictures hashtag it #ChadCheese and show us exactly what the hell is going on over there at Hireology. Chad: Yeah, and do you have to sign like a waiver or something like that? Joel: I will not sue the company for harassment for making me listen to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: Shout out to Glenn Martin over at the Digital Works Group who posted on LinkedIn about the #SocialRecruiting show last Friday. Remember, you couldn't understand why Katrina and Audra would have me on to the show. [crosstalk 00:05:54] Joel: Still can't. Chad: Well, let me read this post. Essential watching/listening as the recruitment whirlwind that is Chad Sowash talks to the wonderful Katrina Collier and the hard rocking Audra Knight. Whirlwind says Glenn, whirlwind. Joel: Yeah, one man's whirlwind is another man's airbag, so you know, take that however you want to hear that. Speaking of airbags and whirlwinds, Indeed's annual meeting this year is bringing in SNL veteran Amy Poehler into to keynote. That's an odd one to me, but it should be funny, I guess, right? Like she can at least make a little bit of the Google pain go away for a while with jokes. Chad: Indeed needs to make their clients and partners laugh somehow because they're fucking them the other way, right? So it's like here's a whole 40 minutes or so of laughter while you forget all the pain that we're causing everywhere else. Joel: I like it. It's not a bad strategy. Laughter is the best medicine. Chad: I agree. I agree. A shout out to Jim Stroud, thanks for all the social love, my man. And if you guys aren't listening to The New Jim Stroud podcast, take a listen. Just go to JimStroud.com. Our man over there put together some really cool stuff. He's doing this short podcast that is kind of like on the freaky side of recruiting. So almost like a Black Mirror kind of style of thing. So it's kind of out there, but it's fun to listen to. Joel: Black Mirror kind of podcasts? Interesting. Chad: Uh huh. Yeah. Joel: Jim's an interesting cat. Go check that shit out. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: I have a little bit of a side rant/just insightful shout out, I guess, to a couple of college kids that I had lunch with yesterday. Chad: Oh, Jesus. Joel: Who are launching a job board. They didn't really like what I had to say. But much like young kids are going to do it anyway 'cause mom and dad don't know shit. So they're gonna launch this job board. Anyway, what I found interesting in my discussion with them is I was expecting to hear some really cool information and context around how college kids are hustling, right? Are they on Upwork? Are they selling shit on eBay? Are they driving Ubers in their spare time? What are college kids doing? And I was incredibly disheartened to hear the answer that no one's doing shit. So I don't know if it's this particular school or particular whatever, but I was really bummed to hear that college kids aren't hustling with all of the online opportunities that are out there. Joel: So I don't know if that's on the college, on the students, on the whole system. But man, if I had had just eBay in college, I would have been hustling my ass off. Chad: My daughter who is in college now, she has a hustle where she is an online stylist and she's been doing this since she was in high school. She was a high schooler hustling. And she was styling 40 year old women. They didn't know she was in high school. But they loved the styles that she put together. Now she's a college kid. So it's much cooler, but she is hustling her ass off. Joel: I don't know what a designer is. Maybe we can take that one offline because I don't really care that much. Chad: But she's hustling. That's all it matters, dude. Joel: People now have more opportunity to hustle than ever before. Like, you can say like yeah, GenX and Baby ... Like technology has made hustling so easy and so efficient and so cheap that I'm just surprised not everybody's doing it. I thought they'd all be like competing with each other on what they could do, and how much they're making and everything else. But at least in this situation, everyone's just going to school to get a job for 40 years and die. Chad: They don't realize that's how it works today. Or I don't get it. Okay. Joel: I don't know, dude. I'm old. I don't know. Let's get some kids on the line and figure out why aren't they hustling? What the fuck is going on with these people? Chad: Yeah, I don't know that I could put up with that. Shout out to HCMTechReport.com. I'm voicing and ad libbing some news roundups for them for Mark and the crew. They put a shit ton of content together. And I reached out to Mark and he does interviews every now and again. And he interviewed me. And I said "Dude, I'll do some voice for some of the things that you guys put out." And they're starting to do more of that. And as we see, like from our standpoint, we do a show and then we get it transcribed. They're working at the other angle. He's still writing his ass off, much like you do. Writing his ass off, but then there's going to be that audio angle as well. And I think that's really cool to be able to see some of these old timey, text driven articles turn into something that's more portable. Joel: So anytime that you want to badger me for napping, I want people to remember that you just said "I write my ass off." Chad: Text and Twitter characters. And then Talk Push Demopocalypse. Did you see the new video that they just popped out, promoting Demopocalypse? Joel: Yeah, it's a professional video. It's great. Chad: Yeah. So this is the thing that I keep telling companies is that so when you do a demo with us, or you do a demo at all, right? You have so much content to be able to play off of to be able to do these awesome short videos, so on and so forth. These guys put one together that just kicks ass. And hopefully they'll be able to put out more because again, there's like half an hour of content. But I don't believe that recruiting and branding professionals are taking all the content that's thrown into their lap and using it like this. That's a missed opportunity, man. Joel: Yeah, video's great because you do one video and you've got multiple videos, you've got text. You've got probably audio for a podcast. Yeah, video's great. Definitely leverage it and use it. And I think I'm hearing a little bit of a promotion for our demopocalypse product, am I? Chad: Oh yeah. I mean, if you're a company that's out there and you are looking to launch, you're looking to push out new features or you just want people to see your shit, you can do that with Chad and Cheese. We're only doing two a model. Joel: Only two. Chad: We're only doing two a month because we don't want to be frickin' avalanched with this shit. But yeah it's awesome and if you take a look at what Talk Push did, I think one of many videos that they're actually going to put out, it's a great way to really get your brand and your message out to people that you want to get in front of. Joel: It's also a great reason for Chad and I to have a beer, which we always need excuses to do that, right? Chad: Yes. That's always a good excuse. Joel: Well you have, speaking of great video, you love a recent commercial by Aeroméxico. Tell me about that. Chad: Dude, this is the funniest fucking thing. So Aeroméxico is definitely trolling Americans. They go down to the border states, which has a good amount of bland of Mexican heritage, obviously, DNA crossover, right? Joel: Sure. Chad: And they ask these Americans "Hey, would you like to come over and visit Mexico?" You know, tour Mexico. There's great tourism spots and the people that they're talking about are "No, no. You guys stay over there, we'll stay over here." And then, they do a DNA test with them. Tell the listeners why it was so fucking funny. Joel: Well, so a little context, the demographic of who they're interviewing are Texans where their signs in town that say we don't need 911 because they have guns basically. So this is the audience they're talking to. They tell one guy who I don't know, he looks like he's out of a '50 sitcom. They tell him he is 22% Mexican. And he just says "Bullshit." And then they asked one guy who wouldn't go to Mexico like "Do you like burritos?" "Yeah." "Do you like tequila?" "Yeah." And he gets a discount to go and says "Well, I guess I'd go if you know there's a Taco Bell on every corner." Just little things like that remind me how great America is and how progressive our attitudes are. Chad: Well, and it's just hilarious that Aeroméxico they're doing this whole trolling thing and saying "Look guys, you have this opinion of Mexico, but it's in your DNA. It is in your goddamn DNA, people. And guess what? You get a discount. Come on over and see us." And some of their faces when they saw that they actually had 15, 16, 22% discounts, they're like "Oh, okay." Yeah, their whole attitude changed when they thought oh, I could go and it would be cheaper. Joel: When are you gonna do your DNA, dude? Chad: I don't know. That's a good question. I should probably get that done. Joel: Do you want to? You want to, right? Chad: Julie won't have it down. Oh, I don't see why not. I mean- Joel: Julie won't do it? Chad: The government already has my DNA, right? I served 20 years in the military. So it's not like it's not out there everywhere. So yeah, I would definitely like to do it. Julie, she's totally paranoid. She does not want to have anything to- Joel: Why? That's weird. Why? Chad: It's like the Big Brother stuff, man. It's all the DNA thing. And I don't know, I think she would. Joel: Yeah, no, I think it was great. I did it and it was really cool. I think knowing where you came from is what everyone should sort of know a little bit about. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: Shout out to The Gathering. Most Americans, speaking of smart fun, Americans won't know The Gathering. But it's an event in Canada, in beautiful Banff. I said it correctly, I think, near Calgary. Very scenic ski resort kind of town. We're going to get together with a bunch of branding experts, CEOs, a lot of forward thinking companies. Hopefully we'll get some great content and interviews while we're there. In addition to having probably pretty good time. Chad: This is real, high powered branding. And they're talking about cult brands and it's funny when we think about cult brands, we think about the Apples of the world, right? People who stand in line for the product and really for the brand or Marvel who stand in line for the movies. Airbnb, Porsche, I mean all these really big brands are going to be there talking about branding. Joel: Don't forget Cinnabon when we're talking about standing in line because I've been in that line more than once. Chad: That's a good call. That's a good call. So I think it's going to be awesome from our standpoint to be able to bring kind of like the employment angle into that conversation as we get an opportunity, cross my fingers, to interview some of these high powered branding moguls from huge brands. Joel: Yup, absolutely. Absolutely. Could I give a shout out to Talroo for their secret project? Would that be kind of a nice teaser? Chad: I think you just did it. So yeah. Joel: Okay, we did it. We did it. We're gonna to be going down to Austin for little secret marketing thing. So not giving too much away. That should be really fun. We're pretty excited about what they're up to down there. Chad: We are. We're also excited about RecFest. We're going to RecFest that's in July. Tickets are on sale. So go to RecFest. Check it out. It's going to be in London. TA Tech, their AI event, which is in Phoenix, Scottsdale, something like that. Go to TAtech.org. Check that out. And last but not least, right now we're going to many more, but these are the ones that I know are open for registration, SmashFly’s Transform Live event, which is going to be in Boston this year. Chad: We will be there and I believe they are now open for registration. So get your ass out there. Register. Buy your tickets, whatever the hell it is and learn some shit people. Not to mention buy us a beer. We'd love it. Joel: Let's get to the news. Chad: Boom. Joel: Good god, our shout outs were 20 minutes long. We got to put a moratorium on that. Chad: It's less than that because you fucked up the- Joel: Oh, that's true. That's true. It's still too long. All right. CareerBuilder, our buddies, officially acquired Textkernel this week. The company took a 60% stake in Textkernel back in 2015. For those who listen to the show know that couple years after that, CareerBuilder jumped into bed with Google to run their search which was kind of what Textkernel does. So it kind of look like they were going to move away from Textkernel. Well, guess again. This week they got full in on Textkernel and acquired the company. This however does not mean that they're dumping Google Search technology. A spokesperson told me that they'll be combining the two technologies for some cool and innovative stuff. Joel: A couple takeaways for me on this is they're bringing in 120 Textkernel employees, many of whom I believe were engineers. Thinking about how much talent CareerBuilder has bled throughout the last couple years it's kind of interesting that they'll just add another 120 to the bottom line. Also a little bit skeptical that they'll keep Google long term, by buying and making the investment in Textkernel. But we'll see about that, I guess. Chad: Yeah, there are so many different types of search. Obviously there's the job search that the candidate does when they get on to your site. There's a ton of matching that happens behind the scenes, which they're not using Google API for right now. So there's that which Textkernel could obviously plug into. So I mean- Joel: Searching resumes. Chad: Yeah, definitely searching resumes. I think there are so many different things that they could use this technology for. And I mean, I've heard for years that Textkernel is amazing semantic search. So we'll see. I know that Google is eyeing the opportunity to launch an API that will be a candidate search type of AI matching API. Will Career Builder go full Google with that, I think this says no. They'll stick with the job search piece and the job search obviously different than the candidate search and some of the other products that could prospectively have. Chad: But this is nice for them because they know the Google job search is working and it's working better than anything they had before. So they can focus on other areas where they could actually provide product for employers. That's worth a shit. Joel: Let's add some automation stuff to that and it gets kind of interesting. You know, I've been always pretty critical of their innovation over there at CareerBuilder last few years, augmented reality. So hopefully bringing in some new blood on the tech side will help develop some cool products going forward. I also think if they do move away from Google, like I'm not mad at him for that. I think that, you know, we talked to Monster CEO and kind of owning that and not giving that to Google, although we agree as a cost efficiency and probably Google searches better than anything else. Also, seeing Google evolve into a competitor would make anyone a little bit wary. So maybe that's what we're seeing Career Builder do with the Textkernel acquisition. Chad: Right. Well, I mean we're seeing Google do the candidate matching inside of Hired by Google. So we know that's happening and they're doing all the wonderful testing behind that. And they have partners like the ISEMs and Jives of the world that they can work with to be able to finally tune those things. So yeah, I mean I think it's a good opportunity for CareerBuilder to get some fucking engineers in that place for goodness sakes, and hopefully focus on employer products that just kick ass which is different than the actual job search itself, which is working well. Chad: So if they can get focused, they can get priorities in place I think that's a good thing. And it's funny I was text messaging some internal people at CareerBuilder and people who just left not too long ago and they're all positive about it. And one of the guys said "Yeah, I'm really interested to see how you guys spin this into how it's all fucked up." I'm like "Dude, I don't see it yet, but maybe it will." Joel: Well, what's fucked up is the name. So hopefully they'll either dump it or change it to something else because I'm really tired of these like hokey, farmy, Corn Kernel, Text Rooster, Job Rooster, Recruiting Rooster, Horse Job. Let's ditch the whole farm-like theme. And I know Kernel is like a kernel of information, but I think of a corn kernel. And maybe that's because we live in the Midwest but Textkernel in general is just a dumb name and it says nothing really about the technology that they have. So hopefully they'll dump it or change it or something. So that's my criticism of the deal. Get rid of the name Textkernel. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also got another text from somebody else say "Everybody pretty much thought that CareerBuilder owned TextKernel anyway." When I saw the story pop out, I had to check the date. It was like oh, yeah, that's right. They had a majority stake, they just didn't own the entire company. But this individual who just texted me said "Those Textkernel guys probably want to kill themselves right now." Joel: Why? Chad: Being pulled into a dumpster fire. I don't know. Joel: Okay. Yeah, yeah. They're nice little happy Amsterdam existence or wherever they're from has been postponed till further notice. I'd say get on CareerBuilder, like innovate by acquisition, get talent. You know, if this is what you want to do, do it. That's all I have to say about that. I'd say we have on to the Glassdoor Wall Street Journal story. Chad: Yeah, your favorite, talking about those reviews. Joel: Yeah, this was interesting. Wall Street Journal who is typically known for pretty hard hitting journalism did I guess a study where they looked at companies and review spikes during certain times of their existence and you know when an excessive amount of five star reviews happened during certain times. And I mean basically kind of called companies guilty of sort of stacking the deck on their reviews and getting employees to write good reviews and whatnot. They did have maybe one or two actual quotes from employees who said that they were told or asked to write good reviews. The companies they had employees from weren't really big companies. They talked about Tesla, a few other big ones. Joel: But I find it a little disingenuous. I won't go into the fake news territory, but I mean, companies really ... Like to me there's nothing wrong if a company wants to make a concerted effort to try to get more reviews. That doesn't mean that they're saying give us five star reviews or you're fired. It just means like hey, let's strategically target our happy employees and invite them to write reviews. That's still anonymous. We still don't know who did it. I'm just saying like there are things that companies do to improve their rankings or get more involvement by employees and it doesn't necessarily mean they're trying to stack the deck or get five star reviews. I know that stuff goes on. I know stuff. People buy reviews, et cetera. But for the most part, I do think that companies aren't trying to game the system. Joel: Additionally if you're telling employees to do that, ultimately one or two employees are going to go to Glassdoor and say "Hey, I was told to write a five star review. Fuck my company like they suck." Right? Like that's probably going to happen if you do that. So I'm a little skeptical of The Wall Street Journal article. What do you think? Chad: I kind of side with Hung Lee. We just did an interview with them and he felt much like I do that the anonymous side of reviews. You know you've got to be skeptical about that. And also the buying reviews and whatnot, which we've seen in big platforms like Amazon. So you have to take it with a grain of salt. I know that I was in a company at one time and I've also heard of other companies where it felt like they were being strong-armed almost into doing these reviews. It was part of weekly team conversations and those types of things. Right before their annual reviews. So it didn't happen all the time. It was right before annual reviews, right? So it's almost felt like they were being strong-armed and doing these things. Chad: You know, it was interesting. Some employers on Facebook were taking the side that you were saying look. You know they were defending Glassdoor and what it felt like to me was back in the days of Monster when Monster was being like total shit heads and assholes, but companies were spending money with them. And they felt like they had to defend because they were spending money there. And if anything was coming bad out of the money that was actually being spent it could prospectively impact them. That was the feeling that I got out of it. "Well, I've been working with Glassdoor forever and there's no way that this could happen in a large scale." It's like "Okay. You say that, but do not realize the shit that's happened at Facebook, the shit that's been happening in Amazon. I mean, come on guys. You've got to open your eyes to this shit." Joel: Yeah. I mean happens to what degree. I mean not one size fits all. What I would've found interesting from the Wall Street Journal story is if they had also gone to Indeed's reviews, maybe looked at Twitter, maybe looked at like multiple different platforms to see if the same trend happened on all of those other platforms because it's pretty hard to like have a concerted strategy around we're going to bump our Glassdoor, we're going to bump our Indeed, we're going to bump our Comparably, we going to bump our InHerSight. That would take a lot of work and that's very hard to do. So if Wall Street Journal would have done multiple platforms, they could have said this only happened on Glassdoor and not the other ones, so maybe there's something fishy there. Chad: And you would have thought that they could have cross reference with many of those other review sites, but shit they probably don't even know they fucking exist. Joel: They should have talked to Ratedly. Chad: Yeah, they could have. If they just had the Ratedly app. Joel: Yeah. I kind of hooked him up with some data for that shit. Joel: All right, well before this turns into a Ratedly commercial, let's hear an actual commercial from Sovren, with a little Walmart and Al Gore. Chad: Nice. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why they produce them. And offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: We're gonna have to make sure that we get ahold of our Sovren peeps as we head down to Austin here pretty soon. Joel: That's a good call. That's a good call. We're also Xor, one of our favorite firing squad company just down there in Austin. Maybe we can drink some Russian vodka while we're there to see them as well. Chad: I'll do it. Joel: Twist my arm. Vodka with Russians. Love it. Chad: Hope I wake up with both my kidneys. Joel: God. All right. Speaking of transporting illegal items, Walmart wants to hire 900 drivers this year with average salaries of am I hearing this right? 90K to drive a truck? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Damn. Chad: Yeah, I mean, so take a look at the market. So in 2018, the turnover for truckers was 96% just because obviously, the landscape is so competitive. And there's a shortfall, I believe it is like 50,000 drivers. So the 8,000 truckers working for Walmart today are getting a raise. And that raise equates to around $90,000. They the way that they did the math, it was like 87,500, but that's comparing to do DOLs numbers in 2018 for the median annual pay for a trucker was $53,000. Chad: So that's one hell of a boost. And I think that will help obviously Walmart in a couple of ways. Number one, retention, right? We're going to pay you a hell of a lot more money, not to mention, we're also going to look at doing work schedules that are routine work schedules. So, you know when you're going to be home, you know when you're going to be with the family, so on and so forth. So there's some things that they're trying to do to ensure that they have retention. Number two, there are also some things that they're doing, I would say, to be able to disrupt Amazon and they're shipping because Amazon's already having issues and having to raise prices from a shipping standpoint. So I see this not only from a retention standpoint, but from a competitive landscape standpoint. Yeah, there's a big, big war that's going to be waged here. Joel: Is it starting to feel like we're farther and farther away from self driving cars, or is that just my imagination? Chad: No, dude, I see this happening right now. This is just a part of the battle, right? This is the human piece of the battle. Behind us they, I guarantee you, are pushing money into autonomous vehicles and then the individuals who have to be in the cab at first, obviously they're not going to make $90,000, right? But there's going to be this slow kind of push of humans out of the cab of the truck because at the end of the day, Amazon and Walmart, everybody, they want to be able to raise those margins. The way that they do that is the cut overhead. This is all overhead. Joel: Have you seen Amazon's scout drone thingy? Chad: Yes. Joel: It's like this little four wheel dump truck thing that rolls down the sidewalk. The commercial, I don't know the intricacies. I'm sure a lot of people saw this. The little car, the little Tonka truck drives up to your house. I'm sure it'll alert you on your phone. You go out. I'm sure your phone unlocks the truck and then you get your item and then it goes off and delivers more stuff. And I'm not sure what to think about that. Like I know if I were a teenager that would be so ripe for graffiti destruction. Louisville Slugger to the back end. Like just a world where like drones and these little cars are delivering items to people, do you have a hard time envisioning that or is it just me? Chad: No. We're already seeing that like the scooters that you just walk up to and you like- Joel: Yeah. Chad: We're already seeing those being demolished and thrown into dumpster, shit like that right? So yeah, I could definitely see that. I think those types of delivery systems will definitely have cameras on them so they will be able to identify who's doing this. So there'll be a lot of hoodies and masks to ensure that they can't identify. But yeah, that's just going to happen, there's no question human beings are fucking stupid and they like to destroy. It's true. Joel: All right. I have no other comment for that. But I just think, yeah, it'd be a great world if drones were delivering pizzas and these little trucks are delivering, you know, whatever. But it just seems really hard, especially in big cities. Chad: We heard reports that I think it was Lyft or no, it was Waymo. So Waymo, it's marked that it's an autonomous vehicle, even though it has somebody in the seat, right? Joel: Oh yeah. Chad: That other cars were trying to run ... Uber's we're trying to run these Waymo cars off the road. So we already have reports that this shit ... It's like the whole kind of Luddite uprising shit where it's like "Oh, look, there's not a person." Well, there was a person in there, but we're just going to run this bitch off the road. Same shit like you're talking about with these delivery systems. Or kids shooting BB guns or whatever the hell they have at these drones. Yes, that shit's gonna happen. Humans are fucking stupid. Joel: Doing this podcast has not enriched my impression of mankind unfortunately. Okay, well there's hope in Africa. Chad: Yes. Joel: Al Gore is back in the news here. His fund invested I guess $100 million in training, educating Africans in high tech jobs and then outsource contracting them that talent across the globe, which I think is wonderful. It's basically India 10 years ago, 15 years ago. You know, Africa was bound to be the hub for like cheap engineering talent. And we're seeing signs of that now. Chad: Yeah, the big difference here is that they're going after quality and not cheap dev. The company's names Andela. They now operate in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda. They have about 1,100 developers on staff working for more than 200 companies, nearly 90% of which are in the US. So yeah, I mean, the big piece here is they want to focus on being able to ensure that we're getting the tech talent that we need, especially in an age where unemployment so high and it's investors say remote work can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, right? Chad: So I mean there's kind of like [crosstalk 00:35:20] flavor to it because obviously Al Gore's involved, but from my standpoint, I think we've talked about it on the show for, shit I think since the show has started that Andela is actually doing a contract, train and then pipeline program, which means they're getting these individuals on contract, then they're teaching them up, right? They're learning them up. They're giving them the skills in which to do the job. But they're on contract for two years, three years, whatever that might be. Chad: Now you have a pipeline of developers and they have crazy amounts of analytics to see what types of code is actually being put out. Is it good code? Is it failing? Is it successful? So they're doing this with an eye toward the future and actually pipelining talent. I've been saying this forever. This is the actual process, this the actual type of program we should be putting together in this country. These least 200 companies that are actually using them today, they should be doing this shit themselves. They should be doing it here, obviously, but also abroad. It makes no sense why this isn't a standard. Joel: Can I get socially conscious for a second? Chad: I don't know. Joel: So there are a few things that bug me, like chopping off rhinoceros horns for medicine in China and like elephant tusks for shit around the world- Chad: That's bullshit. Joel: That really stupid and it happens because people in Africa in this case don't have opportunity. You know, don't have education, don't have like hope that there's something better than I have to go chop a horn off of a rhinoceros to make money to feed my family. So when I see stories like this, it gives me hope that technology, capitalism, progress will in some weird way save the old world, or like nature and educate people. And so to me, obviously, yes, from a commercial standpoint, this is very interesting. It's great. I think the more talent that's out there doing this stuff is fantastic. But from a social perspective, I love seeing that these things are happening in parts of the world where bad things are happening to the environment and to animals that are just minding their own business and have no reason and no benefit at all for doing what we do to them. Joel: Slicing fins off of sharks for soup is another thing that really bothers me, but you get the point. Just a little bit of a rant for social consciousness. We'll move on to weed porn and alcohol here in a little bit. Chad: Well, it just makes good damn sense that we focus in a global economy and to try to go back, World War II's isolationism, Lindbergh's America first bullshit. You can't do that. It didn't work. It won't work. Our community is much larger because of the internet because of technology. We just have to think in with more broader scope and these types of programs I think are amazing, but they can also be implemented here in the US along with abroad. Joel: I agree and we talk about automation a lot and losing jobs. To me the thing that will save it is if we give education and the tools to the world to create new businesses, to create new products, to create new innovations, like to me that's probably going to save us from circa 2118. If we put the power of education and innovation in more people's hands, that'll create the jobs and the opportunity that will sort of combat the automation of so many industries. Chad: Done. Joel: I won't be alive to see it, but damn it, maybe that'll happen. Chad: Yeah, we'll be living through the second version of the Dark Ages. Joel: All right, let's get a quick word from JobAdX. Chad: Is this a new one? Joel: No, they're not letting us run the new ad yet. They're still pimping the birthday ad. So you have to wait till February to hear the new JobAdX, which is appropriate because Super Bowl new JobAdX, maybe it all ties together really well with Tom Brady's next Super Bowl appearance. Here it is, JobAdX. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you've placed in us. Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad-text bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partners sites. We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners. And we've developed our revolutionary LiveAlert which eliminate latency and expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links whether open today, next month or next year. For more information about our solutions, please reach us at joinus@jobadx.com. Chad: Now that is a JobAdX commercial, but stop teasing us guys. So government shutdown. 800,000 people are impacted. Joel: It's a lot of folks. They got a lot of time on their hands. Chad: They do have a lot of time on their hands. So you saw that PornHub saw a bump in traffic over this timeframe. Joel: Sure. Well, we reported last week I think that Upwork and Fiverr and some of the gig sites are getting a spike in activity. Well, shocker. All these government workers with extra time on their hands are going to porn sites and reported by Mashable, PornHub saw a spike, no pun intended, in its traffic. Saw an average daily increase of almost 6% during the week of January 7th, which was the shutdown's third week over traffic from the previous year's traffic. I'm looking at a bar graph now and there's a nice steady uptick. It is erecting quite nicely in terms of traffic to porn sites. So I'm wondering if job boards are seeing a similar spike in their traffic as well. Chad: Yeah, I bet. And they also showed that in Washington DC, it was higher than 6%. So yes, they did see it like an average overall, but in DC specifically, it was over 6%. I don't know. I would assume that these individuals who are sitting at home, they're furloughed or what have you, they're not just sitting and waiting. I actually the hell wouldn't. Obviously the gig site thing is going on. They're driving Uber. They're watching PornHub. What's next? You look for another fucking job because I'm telling you right now this shit could happen again and what the fuck are they going to do, right? They can't survive this way. Joel: Of course they can't. I'm waiting for the story to hear how many people are being poached to the private sector because of the ongoing shutdown. Chad: FBI was talking about this. Many of their agents could get three times the amount that the government pays them and why put up with this bullshit with somebody who's you know saying that the FBI is fucking deep state and all this other bullshit? Why put up with this when I could go make some big cash and not have to worry about this shit happening anymore. Joel: Agreed. And we've got the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, I don't know if you saw this today, the today being Thursday, said ... You know, someone asked the question "Hey, people are in soup kitchens. They're really hurting. They're sacrificing, et cetera." And his comment was "I do read that and I don't understand it. They can all go to a bank and get a loan because all this money is federally backed, that they will get paid." I'm sure that's true, but how many people are actually going to go to the bank and get a loan for a month's worth of salary because their money is federally funded. It sounds really sort of tone deaf to me that the Commerce Secretary said just go get a bank loan. The money is federally backed. Chad: Yeah, it's not kind of tone deaf. It is fucking tone deaf. Every time I see Wilbur, I always think of Weekend at Bernie's and think that that fucker's not really alive and somebody just kind of moving him around like a fucking Muppet. Yeah, dude, I don't get it. We're hearing so many things that really are contrary to understanding that I think it was 40% of Americans live somewhat paycheck to paycheck. Those individuals don't understand what that means. So they can't even come close to trying to comment on it. The only thing that can make this right is to be able to ensure that they get back to their jobs or they might already be at their jobs, they get fucking paid. That's it. Joel: It almost makes you want to smoke weed and drink alcohol, which leads us to our last two stories. A company in the US here is giving out what they're calling donations of weed to government workers. Company called Bud Trader, gotta love that donating medical marijuana, I guess that's one of the workarounds there for illegal weed, giving them to furloughed workers if they're willing to ask for it. So we've got free weed and we've got hangover cures. Wanted to be a shout out, but I think it's an actual story. Joel: Company called Morning Recovery is pushing ads saying that American companies lose $4 billion every year because of hangovers and employees drinking too much. Now I'm wondering if Morning Recovery is on next to the coffee, tea that that get people ... Maybe some companies are out there doing it because hangovers are a real problem, people. So we've got weed smoking furloughed workers that are at least going to be rejuvenated when they go back to work after drinking for nights on end. Chad: Yeah, I don't know that they can afford the liquor right now, but this should be a part of like corporate practice is what it sounds like. So most of those people won't make it in, in the first place. So make sure that they have like their own kit, their own like emergency hangover kits that they have right beside their nightstand or what have you. So it's like hey, when you get up in the morning you feel like shit, guess what? Take this, get in the shower, and then get your ass to work. Joel: That's like the recovery kits that companies gave out at HR Tech that one year. Also, if companies put out a hangover relief sort of drink, are they encouraging drinking? I could see that being an issue. Chad: No, no. They're not encouraging drinking. It's like saying you want to ensure that people have protected sex. Are you promoting that they have sex? No, they're gonna have sex. I mean, it's what they're going to do, right? Joel: Yeah, but companies aren't putting out bowls of condoms in the break room. Chad: That's because having sex doesn't stop people from actually coming to work. But prospectively drinking obviously does, right? If it did, then they would. If it was a problem and they were losing money, then they would. But that's not the case. In this case, it's the people who are getting drunk. So yeah, I mean, make it a standard. Hey, here you go. Here's your kit. We know that there's the Christmas parties coming up, or the holidays party is coming up, shift it out to those guys and say "Can't wait to see you Monday morning." Joel: I think they're a lot for Pedialyte and Red Bull instead of something like Morning Recovery, but that's just me. Joel: Dude. I'm at a gas. We out. Chad: We out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, the Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. Tristen: The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive, shiny gold pair that are extra because, well ... I'm extra. Tristen: For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Careerbuilder #Glassdoor #TextKernal #Andela #Training #Workforce #Walmart #Amazon #Pornhub #BudTradercom #Shutdown #Government #Trucking

Over 11,000 subscribers tune into Hung Lee's Recruiting Brainfood every week. To say the dude knows his shit is an understatement, and Chad & Cheese explore a wide variety of topics with this snarky Brit. Enjoy this Nexxt EXCLUSIVE. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community.​ Announcer: This the Chad and Cheese Podcast brought to you in partnership with TAtech. TAtech, the associate for talent, acquisition, solutions. Visit tatech.org. Chad: Okay, Joel. Quick question. What happens when your phone vibrates or you're texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. And I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflect in text messaging. Joel: Yeah, that's probably why text messaging has a freaking 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: Crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why the Chad and Cheese Podcast love Text2Hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it. Chad: Yeah, that's right. Nexxt with the double X, not the triple X. Joel: Bomb chicka bow wow. So if you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI, that stands for return on investment, folks, and because this is the Chad and Cheese Podcast, you can try your first text to hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom. Chad: Wow! Joel: So how do you get this discount, you're asking yourself right now. Tell them Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to chadcheese.com and you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Just go where you know, chadcheese.com and Nexxt with two X's. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: I don't know why it took us so long, but believe it or not, Hung Lee, ladies and gentlemen is- Chad: Hung Lee! Joel: ... is finally a guest on the show. Chad: Yeah! Joel: Hung Lee, welcome man. Some of our listeners do not know you. Hung Lee: What? Joel: I'm going to quickly introduce you as the CEO of Workshape.io or as Chad likes to say, "Workshapio," and probably more well-known by our listeners for your curation of Recruiting Brainfood, the weekly email that goes out. Hung, welcome. Good to have you here. Hung Lee: Finally. Guys, let me just say it's a massive honor for me to attend this show. It feels like it's a milestone. And it's definitely on my calendar. It's something that I'm going to frame. This is a big moment for me. Thank you very much for having me. Chad: You can tell that he's a Brit, because he's saying all this stuff and you can hear behind he's like, "I can't wait to get over this fucking podcast for god's sake." Joel: Yeah, we have a bad habit of getting guests that sound way smarter than us. We need to ... Chad: Which is not hard. Joel: We need to downgrade our audience or our guests for sure. We couldn't downgrade our audience anymore. But our guests need to be taken down a notch or two. So Hung, what did we miss in the intro? What do we need to know about you that we don't already? Hung Lee: You know what? I'm so focused these days on doing those two projects. It's hard for me to fill in the gaps really. I mean maybe you guys are probably very familiar with it yourself when you do something media related you give so much out, it can be a bit consuming. So when people say, "What do you do in your spare time?" I'm thinking, "I have some fish. What else do I do? I like hanging out now and again if I see my friends." But yeah, it's an all-consuming thing to be one of these people that is trying to support the community and push the marble forward for one, you know? Chad: Yeah, but he's HR's most eligible bachelor. That's one of the things that he's leaving out there. Yes, he is working hard. Joel: And as we've determined before the show, with a name like Hung, if you don't bring it, there's going to be a lot of disappointment, so maybe there's a reason he's still single. Hung Lee: Can I just credit you guys? It's like two minutes, less than three minutes in and you already got that one in. So I just want to say well done. Chad: Joel has been waiting at least a year. When he first came out with that joke, he's like, "Holy shit." He's had that thing holstered, man. Joel: It took a long time to get our schedules to sync to have you on the show. So yes, I have been waiting for a while. Joel: Let's talk about Recruiting Brainfood for a second. Why did you do it? What's the process? You have advertisers. Just sort of give us the lay of the land and what you do with the Brainfood product. Hung Lee: So I mean the genesis of Recruiting Brainfood is really ... I mean I personally found it very difficult to find great content online. I mean there's a lot of stuff out there, a lot of quality content. But there's also so much that's trash. Chad: Junk, yeah. Hung Lee: That is was very difficult for me to really ... Where is the good stuff? Where is the consistent good stuff? And I just started collecting links as people do. You bookmark them. You put them into pockets or whatever it might be to consume it at a later date. And it just occurred to me, "You know what? If I started sharing this list to people, maybe other people can get piggyback off the work I'm doing and they can get some of the good stuff that way as well." So Brainfood really started off as a way for me to try and improve the signal to noise ratio if you like, using startup speak, and to make the internet a little smaller for myself. The internet got so big that it was unmanageable. So I wanted to try and shrink it down into a more manageable size. And that's what Recruitment Brainfood, that was the start of the newsletter. It's basically an attempt to make it smaller. Joel: So that sounds really warm and fuzzy. But there is certainly some interest where you're building your personal brand and you're also getting the Workshape.io product out there. That certainly had something to do with it, right? Hung Lee: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean there's another ... What I find is that most things that you do tend to have value in multiple areas, right? So when you do anything public, I wasn't unaware of the fact that, hey, listen, if it does turn into something then maybe this will be a nice in balance strategy for me in some way. We of course in Europe have the GDPR thing happening. Last year I think it was. And Brainfood started two years ago. So I had a little bit, a look around the corner in thinking maybe I need to really get consent from the people I'm emailing. And one of the ideas was, hey, if I was able to launch a newsletter then maybe I'll be able to email these folks without needing to bother too much or be too worried about the GDPR side of things. Hung Lee: So for sure there was multiple reasons for doing it, but primarily it was for personal consumption was the first thing. And all of those later things just started coming in as the newsletter got a big more popular. Chad: Well, then it started to snowball, right? And now you have a series of lists that you have available to the public as well. So talk a little bit about that. Joel: So how big is your list, Hung? Hung Lee: So I think Joel has this size thing going on, doesn't he? Joel: I have issues. Hung Lee: Yeah. That's okay. We can talk about that later. Chad: He's overcompensating as usual. Joel: Because size does matter when we're talking about email lists. Hung Lee: That's it. So the email list in terms of subscribers I think it's something like 10,600 or so right now. So not mega massive. I think lots of people are into the hundreds of thousands and so on. But I think we've got a good bunch of people who seem to be reading it, who seem to be very into the idea of the Brainfood. And yeah, they seem to be engaged. So that's growing and growing well, so I'm very happy with that. Chad: You have lists around conferences and other lists too, right, that you guys ... I mean it's like a crowdsourcing type of curation that's happening right now. That I mean has really grown and exploded lately as well, right? Hung Lee: You know one thing that I really learned value on is if you've got a network, you've got to put the network to use. I think a lot of people don't really ask for help in a public way. I mean today's a great example. I got an email from a subscriber who said ... who had a problem about, hey, listen, Hung. What are the things that employers are looking for when they're recruiting for a head of talent. She was going for a job there. And I twas thinking, "You know what? I could give this person advice, unqualified advice, I may add because I'm just one guy. I'm giving her one perspective." What she should have done and what I recommended her to do was to publicly ask for that information, get multiple inputs, multiple sources of opinion, which I think she's going to do. Hung Lee: So for me I default to asking a lot of people. I rarely ask one person for advice because that person's only going to give me their angle and even though I might respect them in terms of what they know, it's only going to be one narrow view of the world. But if I stick it out more broadly, then I'm going to get multiple perspectives. And then hopefully you'll be able to make a better decision as a result of that. Joel: So we talked about some of the positives for your business, but I'm sure taking time away from the startup is challenging as well. Talk about some of the things that ... the challenge that you have balancing Brainfood versus Workshape.io and how you kind of maneuver that obstacle course. Hung Lee: Yeah. I think realistically you have to change your business plan. You have to change acquisition strategy. You have to do all of those things when you try to ride both of these horses. So to put this into plain language, basically with Workshape one of the big things that costs time was obviously a customer acquisition. You've got a go in and sell to customers. You've got to go and pitch to them and demo and do all of those things. Labor intensive work which I found you could not do that with Brainfood running alongside. Hung Lee: So what I've done with Brainfood is basically always put a link back to Workshape so that as the audience on the newsletter grows, I'm actually getting in bound customers signing into the product and they're converting through that means. So the discovery of customers has changed. I had to change the pricing on it, so obviously I have to drop that down because I'm no longer doing the high touch sales but I'm hoping that that will compensate by higher volume and lower customer acquisition cost. Joel: Interesting. So let's talk about Workshape.io. A lot of people I think just know you for the Brainfood newsletter. Tell you about your start up. Hung Lee: So Workshape is basically a matching product that helps companies recruit software engineers. Our main idea behind this was that we felt that the problem in hiring tech people wasn't the discovery issue. People are getting easier to find these days. Lots of data out there. Lots of great tooling out there to help you identify the person. But the person has stopped listening to us, right? They don't want to talk to recruiters, especially if you're a technical person with a high demand skillset. The last person you want to interact with seems to be someone who's pitching you by email or whatever it might be. Hung Lee: So what we wanted to do with Workshape is basically to create an environment where engineers could discover a new job opportunities but be insulated from all of that over-recruitment messaging that they're getting from more public places. We knew that Linkedin was problematic for software people. We knew any place that really had an open database where you could search for candidates was going to be noisy for those guys. So we wanted to create a low noise, high signal environment for software engineers to conduct job discovery. Hung Lee: And basically what this means, guys, is there's no search and no ads on Workshape. It's a matching product. We basically take information about what the engineer wants. We visualize that in terms of time or the tasks which we then display as a work shape and we match that directly with an organization that has a compatible job. And the idea is if we're going to remove a lot of that ad and apply mechanic, hopefully we can just connect people together that should naturally have a conversation and then we as a platform will get out of the way and let those two folks have a conversation. Chad: So I watched a video that you put together. I mean it was a really short video and it was cool, because it showed just how easily somebody could come in, create their own work shape. Hung Lee: Sixty seconds, man. That was our target. We wanted to get someone through the flow in 60 seconds. Chad: That's awesome. Hung Lee: Yeah, an engineer's not going to spend time filling out forms, right? So one of the main things that's problematic when you're doing a matching product is the amount of information you collect is directly associated with how accurate your match can be. But then you have another problem because the more you ask for that information the less people are going to complete it, particularly if you're highly skilled, in demand. So what we wanted to do was really find a way in which we could get the engineer to give the information that we wanted which is how do you want to focus your time as a software engineer and do it in 60 seconds or less. And that's where the work shape idea came from. The idea of not doing it text based at all. We're kind of anti-text generally. We think that the description of what someone wants to do can be done visually with a kind of focused distribution. And yeah, that's one of the probably the best innovations of the product I would say. Chad: Let's take a look at, backing up a little bit, and the bigger picture, because you talk about matching ... This is a way cool way to actually match. It's really creating, as you call it and you named it work shape, against the actually work shape that company's looking for for a specific job. Now backing up and matching, who else is doing matching in a very interesting or cool way out in the industry today? Hung Lee: You know what? I think we're all trying to do ... There's a lot of companies trying to do this type of play. I think that most of them are trying to do it algorithmically in the sense of they're trying to pass a lot of text. So this is one thing that I think we did very well to avoid where you're trying to interpret what this person is meaning when they've put together these words on this resume. And then try and figure out whether that matches to a job description which again is a lot of text that you need to figure out what this person means. And this is why text-based matching services have generally never been successful because of course words are naturally ambiguous. If I say product manager to you, that may mean one thing to one company. It may mean something very different to another company. Chad: Well, I mean what you're saying really is job descriptions such. So and they're all text-based. So trying to work off of data that such, garbage in, garbage out. Is that what I'm getting? Hung Lee: That's exactly where it is. And it's not garbage, man, because we need ambiguity to have conversation. I mean if I knew everything about you 100% transparently, probably we would not be friends, Chad. Chad: Somebody's been looking at my Facebook profile or something. I don't know. Hung Lee: Yeah. I mean the reason why we have relationships is because we need a little bit of doubt to say, "Oh, maybe he didn't really mean that. I'll give this person a little bit of slack, because maybe my interpretation is wrong." And that ambiguity is the fluidity which gives society the ability to succeed. But when it comes to being, to matching people to opportunities, text is problematic because we're using text words in different ways. And for us one of our solutions was simply trying to dodge the words completely. We're not going to try to get smarter at NLP or whatever and have a huge teams of data scientists trying to figure out what people mean when they write in things. We're just going to say, "You know what? You've got your text-based document there. You keep it where it is. We're going to get you into our system and you're going to tell us with the focus distribution what it is you prefer to do. Here are the 10 things that are more or less universal software engineering activities. What would you prefer to do more of or less than?" And they simply with a drag and drop interface, they'd tell us that. And that gives us some quantified data which we can then accurately match to an employer that has designed a job along exactly the same parameters. Joel: As you know, last year Microsoft dropped a good chunk of change on GitHub. GitHub is kind of your sweet spot. What are your thoughts on GitHub, Linkedin, Microsoft, where that whole thing is going and how impactful will it be on the industry? Hung Lee: I think it's absolutely seismic. I mean Microsoft obviously want to own the workspace I think. And one of the things I'm very impressed by with Microsoft is the sort of recovery from a point where they were ... I wouldn't say they were never [inaudible 00:18:07] because they've always made a huge of money. But there was a period of time where they were kind of ... People stopped talking about Microsoft as being irrelevant as a shape of the future when all you were doing was using their documentation software, the OfficeSuite and what have you. But they've really understood I think that work is changing. And the purchases they've made I think are all about trying to position themselves to be the infrastructure provider for the future of work. Joel: So I'm predicting that they'll acquire Upwork this year. Will you agree or disagree with that prediction? Hung Lee: I'm not going to stake my sort of hat on it. But I think that would be a smart purchase. And I agree with you in terms of that's where they're going. They understand that the shape of the company will change which is why they're moving strategically away from the desktop. You look at Linkedin for instance, that's providing a social layer of data on top of the OfficeSuite. You're looking at Microsoft Azure. That's providing cloud services. Again, take it out of the company. It's sort of facility. You're looking at GitHub which is opensource collaboration across companies. They've even had attempts to buy ... Not attempts. They bought it. They just haven't executed properly. And there's stuff like Skype, Yammer, and those types of collaboration tools. And it's all about I think trying to understand, you know what? Human beings will work together in future. But they may not work together in the same company in the same way. And Microsoft want to be the player to be the organization that you have to interface with at least one of their products to get anything done. So yeah, I'm very impressed by what they're doing for sure. Chad: They haven't been able to really make some of those big acquisitions happen. What makes you think that they're going to be able to take these other big acquisitions and make them become fluid within kind of like a workspace ecosystem. Hung Lee: I think the leadership has a lot to do with it. Chad: The execution. Hung Lee: Yeah, well, the ... I mean this is not me to hammer down on Steve Ballmer and those type of folks. But Steve Ballmer basically was a sales guy. Joel: He still is. Hung Lee: Yeah. He wanted to hammer out sales, what was making money at the time. It was the OfficeSuite. That type of stuff. And he didn't really have the technical DNA I think to handle a rapidly changing environment. You want a sales guy CEO when you've got a mature market and the market's going to basically stay similar for a period of time, because then he can optimize your business and he can make you super efficient. But right now you've got Satya Nadella there. He's a tech guy. He's aggressively repositioned the business. And I think he is exactly the right sort of set of hands really on the wheel right now for this type of company. Chad: Let's do a hard pivot and then as we're talking about Microsoft and the leadership in I believe some amazing acquisitions. And I believe that the prospect of the acquisition of Upwork or what have you and then now let's look at Google, because they're doing business in an entirely different way just like Google does, right? As you see what they're doing with Cloud Talent Solution, with Google for Jobs, obviously the Hire by Google I think is what they're calling it now. The Hire by Google product. What do you see happening there from the standpoint ... because it seems much more elementary. I mean not that they're doing it wrong. But it seems much more elementary on the Google side than it does the Microsoft side. Am I missing something? Hung Lee: No, that's expected though. That's how they make products. I mean if you look at Google's most successful products, they were all little side products that different engineers decided, "Hey, listen. Let's go and do it." Gmail was probably one of their main products that are widely used. That was definitely emerged out of a hack bot. So I think now Google Hire by Google emerged from that as well. So this is how Google does product development. And I think that they'll test it as a startup and then they're obviously not a startup they're DNA is still startup I think. They'll test it in terms of what the users do. And then they'll double down if it works. Joel: What are your thoughts on Google for Jobs initiative? Hung Lee: Well, I think because Google controls sort of the access to the internet to a large degree it's going to have a huge impact on how we advertise jobs. It's a clean shot at Indeed. It's pretty clear that ... Let's pull back just a little bit. But if you think that Google's original mission was to organize the world's information and make it the one-stop shop where you would find what you were looking for, you'd recognize that of the last five years or so that stopped happening. You've found many aggregators doing what Google did because Google didn't do it anymore. Example, Indeed for jobs. You would not go on Google and start searching for jobs necessarily because you'd know that Indeed actually had a much better, a much more organized inventory there. You're looking at booking a flight. You don't go on Google necessarily. You go on something like Skyscanner or a product like that. Again another aggregator that focus on an industry and basically said, "We're going to deliver you more accurate information than Google can." And there's all kinds of examples where that's occurred. Hung Lee: So I think what Google has done with Google for Jobs and Indeed with their new travel service and all the rest of it is really think, "Okay. We need to take back some of this mind share about us being the one place that is the start and finish of discovery." And I think they've looked at Indeed and thought, "Right, we're going to try and kill them." And that's what Google for Jobs is. Joel: So this is a great segue. So let's talk about Indeed and their sort of place in this new world. And I'll throw in ZipRecruiter if you want to talk about sort of what I think is satire of what the big boys in the job search space. Where do they fall into this new era? Hung Lee: Firstly I love Indeed because they're one of the most aggressive companies I've ever seen, right? Chad: If you say aggressive equals assholes, then yes, I agree 100%. Hung Lee: No, no. They weren't assholes. They're actually very nice people. And- Chad: Have you seen some of these policies they've rolled out and how they're crunching the market? I mean yeah, is it bad business, we'll find out, right? Are they making a shit ton of cash? Yeah, they're making a shit ton of cash. But is this short term, longterm, man, I don't know, man. I just don't ... I believe relationships build things and these guys aren't building relationships. Hung Lee: No, but Chad there's no rule book when it comes to business, man. It's not about playing nice. And Indeed came in with an offering. And the job boards, it was very clear I think really from the beginning that Indeed at one point was going to kill them. Chad: They didn't see it though. That was the fun part. Hung Lee: I think they were in willful denial, because they saw the short term traffic. They got the big dopamine hit from all of that and they weren't able to do anything about it. So basically I've no problem with Indeed's aggressive, some might say, anti-competitive policies. I think that's how you run the business so you make the money they have. They've also doubled down I think with a lot of purchasing themselves these days, buying interesting bits of software. They've hired a lot of ... Joel: Glassdoor. Hung Lee: Yeah, they've hired a lot of people as well to work on their own internal products. And in fact in the last 12 months or so they've just been rolling out new innovative products into recruiting marketplace almost every month it seems. So I think they're really looking for what's going to happen if Google for Jobs does succeed in becoming, retaking the spot as the aggregator for job discovery. But I think Indeed will do it. They'll find a way to do it. Whether they stay as an aggregated type of business, I don't know. Whether they move into more of a potentially as an ATS type product, why not? Chad: Do you see that more as an acquisition versus build? Do you think they actually have time to build what they need to get away from the big business of ... And also the dopamine that they're hitting themselves with every day versus that next level pivot? Hung Lee: Okay. I'm going to give you an answer that you as a podcast hosts don't like. But the answer is I don't know. The answer is I don't know. I really don't know how they would do it. But I think they will because they've got ... Again you look at the DNA of the business. They spotted an opportunity that no one else saw. But they went ahead and did it in about 10 years. Ridiculous how quickly they became the sizes that they are. And right now they're diversifying with lots of different product developments. Joel: What are your thoughts on the Glassdoor acquisition? Hung Lee: So I've got a problem generally with review sites. And this is not specific to Glassdoor. It's just that I don't believe that you can trust the data, right? In the sense that we are in the fake news era, folks. We understand that people say things that aren't true. So when you have the review site that's anonymized, that people are given rankings and all the rest of it, I feel a little bit uncomfortable with it because I do wonder whether who appears top may not be necessarily right. It's simply the organization that's managed to gain that system a little bit to get there. And you're saying quite profound things into the market to say, "You know what? That's ranked number one. And that's ranked number 50." When in fact it's that natural justice, so to speak, but hey, Glassdoor themselves have been great as a business because they've managed to parlay the review concept into a major business and a major player in recruitment space. Hung Lee: I don't really have a strong opinion what it means for them to be part of a bigger company to be honest to you. But yeah, like I say, I'm not sure review sites ... Whenever I see someone trying to pitch me a review site or say, "Hey, what you think of this," I have to say I'm against it. I think it's potentially libelous. And not a great way for the buyer to do due diligence I would say. Chad: Yeah. And we are in the era of data and anonymized data. GDPR are making sure that everything is transparent, making sure that the user can control their own data on the candidate side. I mean how's that going to happen on the review side? Anyway I totally get where you're coming from what about Zip? So we threw Zip in there. Where do you think their line is versus kind of like the rest of the field, because they're doing business differently. Don't you think? Hung Lee: Yeah, I mean they've really been an up and coming ... I think Zip have actually been one of the sponsors of Brainfood recently as well. So yeah, they're a really interesting- Chad: Sons of bitches! Hung Lee: Does that mean I can't say things about them? Chad: Oh, no, go ahead, please. Go ahead. That's awesome. Hung Lee: But again the ad space is super interesting because it's obviously still a place where companies spend most of their money. It's quite amazing that that's the case, right? Because the rhetoric at the operational level is, oh, we don't advertise the jobs. We do all of this innovative stuff and et cetera, et cetera. Chad: Matching. Hung Lee: Well, they do matching. They do direct sourcing. They do all kinds of amazing wiz bang stuff. Chad: But I mean they've hired a shit ton of developers to do R&D and pretty much in Israel a good amount of it's around the matching piece, the AI trying to understand what the hell, just like we're talking about earlier on the text side of that house, what does that resume mean against this requisition? Hung Lee: And a company like Zip and in fact all of these aggregated type of businesses do have just an enormous dataset from which they should be able to develop a much more efficient algorithms to do that matching. So it really depends on how deep they can pull that information out. I mean again in Europe you're going to have all kinds of consent issues you've got to worry about and all those types of things. So I think what might be the case is that you'll end up having very different technology products in different legislative environments and they'll emerge and they may in fact be quite separate. So in the US for instance you might see these matching products that are based on non-consent driven data collection. But I don't think you can make that product in Europe anymore. And you can't sell that product in Europe any more. So Europe will do something else and it will service its market in a different way. And we're kind of moving now towards they call it the splinternet, the idea that ... Have you heard of this term? Joel: No. Hung Lee: Okay. The splinternet, it's splintering. It's no longer a case where we can think of a global, a unified system where you'll have these titanic organizations that just go smoothly across all of these countries. But in fact you'll start getting loyal players will be maybe as big as you're going to get, because it's going to be local laws to say, "Hey, listen. You can't do that here. Or if you do do it from elsewhere, you can't sell it here." And that even goes all the way to the top. Chad: We're at HireConf late last year, and I mean just because of GDPR I mean they killed 29 million profiles. Joel: HiringSolved. HireConf, the conference for HiringSolved. Yes. Chad: That's it, my bad. Hung Lee: No doubt. It's difficult because as an individual I've got one view of it and obviously as a vendor and as someone who thinks data is obviously important, I've got another view of it. So I'm very conflicted about where all of this lies. What is important to realize I think is on the spectrum of who cares about data, these probably going to be three major players in terms of where the legislature boundaries are. On the one side you're going to have ... On the one extreme you're going to have the EU which is going to be super protective of the consumer rights and super protective of data privacy. On the other extreme you've got China who literally don't give a fuck. They're just going to take every single thing by default they're going to have your information. And then in the middle, you're going to have the US which probably has a sort of a looser idea behind it. They're going to try and do the right thing, but hey, listen, we're running a business. You'll probably find different products in different technology companies emerging from those three sides and they won't be able to sell to each other. Joel: So if the internet is splintering and we're sort of seeing these, I don't know, little fiefdoms per country, do you think that recruiting is on a similar track? Is a recruiter in the US going to be vastly different than a recruiter in the UK or Germany and will they use different services and different skillsets? What do you see with that? Hung Lee: Yeah, it already is, Joel. And I think that that's simply going to be exacerbated by the drift of these technology ecosystems. I mean I had a friend of mine, I'm meeting them later tonight actually. These guys I wouldn't ... They're high volume email messages, right? So I wouldn't call them spammers per say. But I think they're good dudes that know how to send a good email. But they said, "Hey, listen. We stopped doing that in Germany because every time we do that we get a response not from the person we send it to. We get a response from their legal team. Right?" Chad: It's a new day my friend. It is a new day. Hung Lee: And they said another thing. They said, "Hey, listen. We also stopped doing it in the Netherlands because we don't get the response from the legal team, but we get the response from the person we emailed, but they're very irate and we have to spend the next half hour explaining why we're going to delete their data and never ever email them again. But we do send it to the UK guys, because you know what? You guys are okay dealing with spam." Hung Lee: So I think that was kind a very local example of, "Okay, you're going to have to have really localized strategies to do business and localized strategies to do recruiting." But I think that's always been the case, right? I mean you can't ... It's not the same dog that we're trying to ... Dog that you skin? You don't skin dogs. You skin cats. What I'm trying to ... Chad: I don't know that I'd skin any of them. So when you take a look at the landscape just in the UK, let's just say your side of the pond. What startups out there are really interesting to you? Hung Lee: I think that we have had a wave of innovation that is now starting to go mainstream. And actually the most interesting thing for me is not necessarily the new shiny toys, but actually which toys are getting implemented. And one thing I think is is definitely happening is gone into the mainstream already is the deployment of chatbots into corporate businesses. I'd be very surprised if by the end of this year, companies haven't employed something of this type and already using it. I think this type of technology where you're trying to change one of the very persistent problems in recruiting which is this information gap that candidates have. Chatbots have proven I think the business case that this is the technology you should be using and that to deal with that particular problem. And then you're going to see that adoption I think will radically change how companies think about things like candidate experience and onboarding and all those types of things. Chad: So do you think a lot of that has to do with really process though? Because I mean chatbots can help really candidates. They can help recruiters. And they can be a part of like kind of almost like RPA to an extent, right? Hung Lee: Right. Chad: I mean that's really I would say baseline. You're looking at RPA. And then there might be some learning in there, what have you. Do you think it's because chatbots are easier to understand when you break it down to the process and say, "Look, from all these different tasks that you're currently doing, this technology, this chatbot, quote unquote chatbot, will actually take all that away and you won't have to deal with it unless somebody wants to talk to an actual human being." Hung Lee: Yeah, I mean ultimately I'm a big fan of single use products anyway, man. I think the idea of having a single system does everything for you has always been kind of a fool's vision of innovation and a lazy person's vision of innovation really. It's like some robot butler's going to take care of your life. That doesn't happen. Chad: Joel is waiting for that right now. Joel: Right after the sex robots. Hung Lee: I'm not even going to comment on that. The sort of what I see as practical as basically single use tools that can help you get faster at one thing that you have to do. And what chatbots I think can definitely do is do things like candidate updates and respond 24 by 7 and not leave the candidate when they're asking for questions that are easily answered by ... because the information is, what's the word, objective, right? So you're not making judgment calls necessarily and getting that to data out there. So I guess the ... Hung Lee: One of the really interesting things is that we thought initially that individuals might want to speak to a human being over a chatbot. But the evidence increasingly suggests that's not the case and in fact it's the opposite, that people would prefer to deal with a chatbot in the first instance, particularly when they're just about discovering the job or discovering that company. Because you're just in information collection mode there, and you just need factual information right here and now. How much are you paying? Can you sponsor a visa? Do you need a degree for me to apply? All of that information can be provided because it's objective. No bot is making a judgment call there. And as a candidate, I can absolutely understand why I would like to extract that information through a bot rather than a human being simply because it's more efficient. Like I don't have to invest any social capital to get that information. Joel: So let's talk about automation for a little bit and maybe the future of sourcing because I think a lot of the things automation brings are supportive of the end of sourcing or many parts of sourcing. Chad and I talk a lot about HiQ's legal battle with Linkedin and GDPR. I mean at some point the trend seems to be that the people are going to win and that their data is going to be protected and that sort of thing. So what does sourcing look like in five years? What are sort of your thoughts on the death of sourcing? Hung Lee: I think it's going to die, yeah. I think if you studied the history of sourcing. It started off as being a subset of recruiting, right? Everyone did a bit of sourcing. But you also did client relationship management. You did BD. You did admin. You did all of that stuff. But then when the social web started to emerge and all of this data started to explode around us, you started to get figures that called themselves sourcers and not recruiters whose primary activity was basically to go into the internet and extra human capital information as a specialist skill. And typically they might hand that information off to someone else who would do the out ... or they would be kind of providing a list building type service to say, "Hey, listen. I've just mapped the candidate, the candidate landscape that you're looking for. Here are the people you need to speak to." So sourcing kind of split from recruitment, but I think it needs to now go back into recruitment. Chad: Do you see it happening in a market like this though? I mean I think these types of markets, so in the US I mean we're under 4% unemployment. So one of the reasons why that happens is because it is so hard to find individuals in the first place. You have to really double down and really have a team that's focused on something like that. But when the market flips, then you can kind of go back to how you did business before. Do you think the market really chooses what happens? Or do you just think it was just a natural evolution because humans are lazy as shit? Hung Lee: Well, I don't know if humans are lazy. But I think efficiency's another word for laziness, right? Like we want to do more with less. That's the nature of what we are as a species. And it's what we are as a business as well. So I think when I say sourcing dead, of course, it isn't. But is it going to be the most important skill that a recruiter has? I think probably not going forward. If you think of what the primary skills of what the sourcer has, it is a person that is able to interact with an inefficient system to pull out information from it. Joel: And on that note, Hung, thanks for joining us today. For those who want to connect with you or learn more, where should they go? Hung Lee: So I'm kind of, probably Twitter's a good place or @HungLee would be a good place to do some messaging to me if you want to do that. Linkedin I think I'm maxed out on connections, so no longer the right place to do. Sign up for the newsletter. You know recruitingbrainfood.com. I email out every day, sort of every week should I say. And I'm on it as an email. So if you want to get in touch with me that way, you can do it through that channel as well. Chad: Since we didn't have you on in 2018, we need to double up in 2019. So here in a few months, maybe six months or so, I think we should start to reach out to listeners and ask them what they want to know from Hung Lee. So we're going to get stupid Joel and Chad questions. Joel: Screw the listeners. Hey, we're going to be in London this year, Hung. Hopefully, you're there as well and we can have a pint or two and really do it right. Hung Lee: When are you guys in town so I can make sure I'm not here? Joel: July. Chad: RecFest Hung Lee: RecFest? Unfortunately I am here because I'm hosting one of the stages. So yeah, I'd love to see you guys and it'd be great to have a pint with you for sure. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Awesome. Maybe a little live podcast is in the future. Chad: Oh, that could be it. Hung Lee: Great idea, man. Great idea. Joel: Chad, I'm out. We out. Hung Lee: See you later. Chad: Okay. Okay. Okay. Before we go, remember when I asked you about the whole reflex and check your text messages thing? Joel: Yeah. You know all about reflexes. And then I brilliantly tied it to text messages, 97% open rate. Then I elegantly, elegantly tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh, Chad. I can be elegant, can't I? Chad: Whatever, man. I know it's redundant. You already heard about Text to Hire, but you're still not using Text to Hire from Nexxt. Joel: What? Chad: I know, man. Joel: Come on, man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again, this was all by elegant design. It's all about Text to Hire and it's all about Nexxt. Joel: And elegant design. So go to chadcheese.com, click on the Nexxt logo and get 25, yeah, I said 25% off your first Text to Hire campaign. Engage better, use Text to Hire from Nexxt, two X's. Chad: Boo yah. Announcer: Thanks to our partners at TAtech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Remember to visit tatech.org. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more visit chadcheese.com. #HungLee #Brainfood #Indeed #ZipRecruiter #RecFest #Nexxt #WorkShapeio #Matching

This episode is NSFW... So ut the kids away for this one and cozy up with that fire. The boys are discussing: - Slack's new Penis Swastika logo - Accenture screws over CBP and taxpayers - Ladders sucks at innovation - Glassdoor expands to New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong - Gillette's new toxic masculinity ad campaign - China's military problem: masturbation and video games Your eardrums are going to need a thorough cleaning. Enjoy, and give our sponsors some love: Sovren, Canvas and JobAdX. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's on for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: This episode is definitely not safe for work. Let's get that out of the way right now. Welcome to the weekly episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous duo. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad not safe for work Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, Ladders, the artist formerly known as The Ladders, takes innovation down to the bottom rung, Gillette shows off its softer side, and swastika penises. Chad: What? Joel: Yeah. You heard that right. You'll need to stay tuned to find out exactly what the hell we're talking about, but first, a word from our advertiser Sovren. Sovren: Sovren is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Sovren: Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. Sovren: To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Joel: Boom. Yeah. It's about to get real up in this piece. Let's go to shout outs. Chad: There it is. Michael B. Clegg. Joel: Michael B. Shore Clegg, friend of Al B. Sure, I'm sure. Damn. See, I'm so fired up I'm jumping the gun. Chad: Uh huh. Joel: All right. Michael Clegg, longtime vet, stumbled upon the show, loves it. Michael, this shout out's for you. Chad: Yes. Shout out for you. He actually tweeted back to us as we said thanks for listening. He's like, "Hey, dude. I meant that I love your show." Someone that's been in the industry for 20 years, like he has, he's now a business owner. He needs this type of content more than ever. Then, he actually said, "We dumped CareerBuilder last year." Chad: So, I don't know that it was us who was responsible for him dumping CareerBuilder, if it was just CareerBuilder's antics and shit that they did, but thanks for listening, Michael. We really appreciate it. Joel: Pretty sure if CareerBuilder was working for them they wouldn't dump them because of idiots like us with a podcast. All right. I'm going to to Ryan Gill, then Chad: There it is. Joel: I don't know even what to say. Dude has mad video interviewing skills. He's got a guy with a camera who's got mad skills. Chad: Dabs. Yeah. Joel: Anyway, I don't know. You and I did a video interview with Ryan talking about a variety of things, from starting companies and podcasts and success and kids and sex, and who knows what else we talked about. Chad: Yep. Joel: If you haven't checked that out, do a beeline to at least one of our social medias and check that out. Did he post it somewhere on their site? Chad: Yeah. Well, they posted it on social media. It's called Linked Up. I don't know if it's weekly, but they do a ton of content, which is awesome. Chad: I have to say this, it is a cinematic experience that everybody needs to see. These guys really pull together good video. Ryan's the founder of the gathering which we're actually going to go to here at ... In a few weeks in Banff, and also the CEO and founder of a new talent marketplace called Communo. Joel: You know it's pronounced Branff, right? All right. Shout out to a Tengai. Did I pronounce that right for you? Chad: Good job. Joel: Tengai, and it's Elin not Ellen. Tengai unbiased video. Another video if you haven't seen this. They are coming to Death Match in Lisbon this year. They have this creepy-ass robot that I refer to as a cross between a Barbie hairstyle bus thingy. Chad: Yes. Yep. Joel: And the I-Robot robots from the Will Smith movie. Chad: Yes. Joel: Anyway, they're going to come. They did a video of the robot trash talking us, and it's fantastic. Chad: Dude, it's awesome. TNG and their unbiased robot recruiter, they call, they named Tengai, yeah, it's definitely creepy. They created this acceptance video, which is fucking hilarious. Reposted it on Linkedin. Chad: If you're not following The Chad & Cheese Facebook page, go follow that. It's on there. Also, Ryan's video's on there. Go and check it out. It is freaking hilarious. Joel: I'm starting to get the sense that as more video gets produced we need to just embed this on the site and send people to the site to see these videos. Chad: Yeah, that's probably a good idea. When I find some time I'll see if I can get that done. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Roll the dice, come to ChadCheese.com, and see if these videos are up on the site. Chad: Something like that. Joel: Shout out to [Roy Mower 00:05:17], our buddy at SHRM. Chad: Yeah, Roy. Joel: He wrote a story on recruiting ethics and asked us for our ... Thought we should cover it. My thought was, "Us give criticism or insight on ethics? How about how to be a asshole podcaster? We'll give opinion on that, but ethics for recruiting? I don't know. Go to Steve Levy for that." Chad: We might pull a recruiter on maybe and interview them around that and give them shit around it, and that's how we podcast, but I don't know if we should actually be doing the story on that. That's awesome. Joel: Vendor ethics, maybe. Chad: Oh, that's a good call, yeah. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Audra Knight and Katrina Collier, thank you so much for having me on The Social Recruiting Show. Joel: Did they have a head injury or something? Maybe have some bad pizza? Chad: They called this the 2019 bitch fest, so they thought I might be able to add into the bitch session, I guess, so who knows. I guess we'll check it out. Joel: Well, if anyone's a little bitch that can bitch, it's you, bitch. Shout out for me to Jobiak, right? Chad: Ya. Joel: The site we've had on for Firing Squad. They put your jobs on Google for jobs. Anyway, they reached out to me for a quote about where recruiting was going to go in 2019. I gave them a quote. Joel: They put me in this thing called 20 Recruiting Experts, or 20 Experts Giving Their Insight into 2019. Double shout out for not including you in the top 20 experts, because they know what they're talking about. Chad: Yeah. No. They just know that you're a sucker and hat was easy to be able to say, "Hey, we want you to share our shit." You got Cheesman. He's a sucker. Good job. Joel: Yeah, yeah. Sugarcoat it however you want, Sowash. Chad: Big shout out to Michael Strahan for pulling together a lobster dinner for the NCAA national champs, Clemson, since they had to eat burgers and chicken nuggets and shit at the White House. Joel: Yeah. More on that later in the show, but, yeah, Strahan stepped up and bought lobster dinners for them, I guess. Chad: Yep. Joel: A nice PR for him as well doing that. Chad: Very much, very much. Joel: I'm surprised. How did Ruth's Chris or Morton's or somebody not come out and be like, "Oh, we'll do dinner?" Why no restaurant took advantage of that? Chad: Dude, I guarantee you they had no fucking clue. He likes what he likes, and he likes fast food. He's like, "Fuck it. That's what I'm going to eat, that's what they're going to eat." There was no invitation out. Joel: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying why didn't every nice restaurant in the country see that he bought them burgers and say ... Chad: Ah, I see. Afterward, yeah. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Gotcha. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Why didn't Ruth's Chris come out and say, "Hey, we'll invite the Clemson Tigers down to wherever and feed them a nice Ruth's Chris steak dinner?" Nobody jumped on that. I was kind of surprised. Chad: Probably because they'll take the sanctions they just dropped on Russia and then put them on Ruth's Chris. That's why. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Chad: Anyway ... Joel: They're all employing immigrant workers that will all be put on furlough, or something. Jesus. Chad: Shout out to Monster for their new ads. I think they're still the 15 second versions. They are fucking hilarious. I don't know if you've seen these or not. Have you seen these? Joel: Yeah. It's the basic same premise, like I'm going to get a job, no you're not, and then they're gone basically getting a job really fast. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: It's all mobile, which is good. Chad: The copy's the same for every single experience, right? You've got a coder that's working right next to another coder. He's like, "Yeah, I found a job on Monster. I won't be here long." Guy's like, "Yeah, right." Looks back over and it's an entirely different person. Joel: Yep. Chad: Then you take it into an entirely different workspace. It's the exact same copy over and over and over in these different situations. It's fucking genius. Joel: Chad likes comedy where he doesn't have to think too much. Chad: Everybody does. Joel: Yeah, I guess so. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Seinfeld. I'm done with shout outs. You done with shout outs? Chad: Couple more I'm going to throw in [crosstalk 00:09:16]. Chad: Just opened ticket sales, so you definitely want to go to RecFest in London. Don't know. We might be there. TATech. Shit. We're going to be all over the place. We're going to be [crosstalk 00:09:27]. Joel: Yeah, we are. Chad: [crosstalk 00:09:28] in Europe, and not to mention we're going to do a couple of TA Tech's here. One in Chicago for recruitment marketing, so all you recruitment marketers out there think about that one, and then Austin later this year for the big show for TATech. Check those out. Go to TATech.org, go to RecFest, and buy some fucking tickets. Joel: The world is going to get very sick of us this year undoubtedly. Chad: Sick of you [crosstalk 00:09:51]. Joel: [crosstalk 00:09:51]. Yeah. Okay. I love how RecFest tickets now available, like they're selling Woodstock or tickets to The Who like it's a big ... Chad: Dude, it is a big fucking field right outside of London. It's supposed to be like a Lollapalooza kind of event. They start ... Even the bar's going to open at noon. It's going to be fucking crazy. I can't wait, man. Joel: It's the Coachella of recruiting. That should be their little mantra. Chad: Are we ready? Joel: All right. Can we get to the damn show already? Chad: Okay. Joel: All right. Ladders. The artist formerly known as Ladders. By the way, don't go to Ladders.com because you'll actually go to a site about ladders. Chad: Makes sense. Joel: Even though they've changed their name, the URL doesn't work that way. You still have to go to The Ladders. Chad: Yeah. From a marketing standpoint does that make any fucking sense? Why do I change my name to Ladders if my domain is The Ladders, knowing that people are going to search on Ladders and find ladders companies? Joel: Well, Facebook used to be The Facebook and then they actually went out and bought Facebook.com to just be Facebook dot ... Just be Facebook. Chad: Yeah. Right. Joel: Now, if Facebook went to the Harvard students' directory we'd say that's the dumbest move in marketing history. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Ladders is no different. It's not as obviously big or influential as Facebook, but, yes. If you're going to change your name, go to the ladder guy who's got the URL and offer him some money, because you're so successful that you can actually own Ladders.com. Chad: Okay. I digress. Joel: There's a high price for ladders eCommerce, apparently. Chad: Yeah, I'm sure. Joel: Anyway, Ladders comes out with a press release this week. I get a lot of press releases and this one really stood out. Sometimes spammers will sort of regurgitate press releases from days gone by. I thought, "An announcement about [pay per click 00:11:51], maybe I missed that." Okay? Joel: They announced that they're adding a pay per click solution to their job site. I go to the site and I'm like, "Maybe the date is from 2008, maybe I just missed this." No. It's a new announcement. Okay? Chad: For pay per click? Joel: For pay per click. Okay. From the release, this is a quote, "With cost per click Ladders continues to innovate to provide high-level talent acquisition in recruiting professionals with the right tools that attract the best and most active candidates." Is PPC innovation? Discuss. Chad: No. There's no discussion behind it. I can't believe that they actually put together a press release. Joel: Yeah, like an agency and everything. Chad: Oh, so they had an agency. This wasn't just some intern that they said, "Hey, write something up about pay per click. We're going to put this shit out to see to see if it catches anybody." Joel: Yeah. This is a tweet. This is like a, hey, head's up, we should've done this 10 years ago, but we're doing it now. We got pay per click. Thanks. No. Their agency got behind it, press release, everything, so it was a big deal. Joel: Then I thought, "Well, maybe they're innovating in other ways," right? Given fresh eye. So, I go to the site. They have advertising options, so their advertising options are basically email blasts, sponsored posts, and everyone's favorite, banner ads. Remember leader boards and skyscrapers? Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: They still got those at the Ladders. Nothing about AI, big data, [crosstalk 00:13:26], programmatic advertising. Chad: Oh my god. Joel: This was a really hilarious post for me to write and a news report that really, really made me laugh. Maybe we're missing something. Maybe we're not being fair, so let's just put it out there. Ladders, if you want to come on the show, tell us how you're innovating, tell us how you're kicking ass and taking names, you're more than welcome to come on and talk to us. Chad: We'd love to have you, as a matter of fact. There's something beyond this press release. It probably should've been on the fucking press release, but if there is some insights beyond the press release we'd love to be able to hear it because that shit does not sound innovative at all in 2019. 2006, I could give you that, but today? Not even close. Joel: Yeah. You and I, we had a good time reviewing the site for the show today. Things like there is no do it yourself job posting eCommerce functionality. Chad: Yeah. Joel: You can't just go on and post a job, which we're going back to the 90s for that kind of stuff. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: You actually have to put in your email and have someone contact you, which I'm sure is a nice little funnel for leads for them, but, anyway, yeah, the site doesn't scream innovation. If we're missing something, let us know, but otherwise this is just 2007 back to the future, making money the old way job site. Chad: In the meantime, quit putting out stupid fucking press releases. Joel: Yeah. The money that you're giving to your agency, hire some developers and make some real stuff. When you make some real stuff, people like us will talk about it and go, "Hey, that's pretty cool." Chad: Yeah. You know what I would think is pretty cool? Joel: Go check out the Ladders. Chad: I think it would be pretty cool if ... Tell us how you go through the matching process of, or the courting process or being able to help from a negotiation standpoint, navigation, give us something new. This is old shit, right? Joel: Sure. The business model is challenged. Let's be honest. When Ladders came out in 2003, whatever it was, if you put on 100K job every Tom, Dick and idiot applied to it. There weren't filtering functions, there was no way to pre-screen people and filter those folks out. Chad: Well, you had to subscribe. Remember that, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: That was the only filtering that you had is if you wanted to have a 100K job and above you had to subscribe. Joel: Pay to play. Chad: You had to pay to actually gain access to those jobs, which, to be quite frank, you could find them anywhere else on the web. Joel: Yep. Chad: It just made people feel special. You go in, you pay your little thing, and then, yeah, you're right, you can just hammer the shit out of anybody who's in the database. Joel: Sure. 2008 happened and every job site went to hell for a while. In that meantime, profiles started getting put on websites like Linkedin. Everyone had information, and Github happened. Joel: Now, if you need a high-level executive making six figures, my guess is most companies are going straight to the source and going to Linkedin or wherever. They're not probably even posting a lot of these jobs. Chad: No. Joel: To me, I don't even know how the business model works today with everything that has changed since when they first launched. Chad: Yeah. You don't have to post those jobs. That's the big key, right? Joel: Yeah, and if you do it's programmatic. The machines do it and find out where the best sources are. You can screen these folks and you can chat bot them up and find out if they're really qualified. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. Chad: You let executive search take care of that shit. Joel: Or there's that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. That's expensive, but, yeah, you could do that. Chad: Yeah. Well, it's expensive to get someone who's good and vetted, right? Joel: Quality ain't cheap, Chad. Chad: No. Exactly. Joel: But, bad, bad podcasters are a dime a dozen. Chad: We're everywhere. Joel: Exactly. Chad: What about- Joel: Well, I've said all I want to say about the Ladders. Chad: Okay, well, what about good advertising campaigns as we flow and segue into the next one? Joel: Okay. Well, we can debate whether this is a good ad strategy. You paint the picture. You're a big fan of this ad. You like it. Some people haven't seen it, I'm sure, particularly people overseas. Gillette, who historically has been a very machismo product, Gillette, the best a man can get. It's power suits and chiseled jaws in the shower. Chad: Yep. Joel: This is what we're used to. They did a 180 on their latest ad campaign. Chad: Yeah. It's still behind the best a man can get, right? It just revitalized for 2019. The internet just lit up. People really ... Okay, so, men, really, they're going apeshit because this ad broaches toxic masculinity. Chad: The ad in itself really it goes through mansplaining, bullying, dads saying the boys will be boys making everything all right, catcalling, aggressive types of behavior toward women. Then, it actually shows, which is interesting, Terry Tate, I can't remember his real name, but [Terry Tate 00:18:45] the actor who is testifying in Congress, saying that men need to hold other men accountable. Chad: Then, the commercial shifts gears. Buddies and dads step into role models and show that that behavior isn't acceptable. The boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow. That was one of the big kind of role model lines in the ad. Chad: From my standpoint I thought it was gold, especially that after Gillette did the Shakeem Griffin ad, the dude who has a disability, doesn't have one of his hands. He made it into the NFL, and telling that story. They're really getting behind storytelling and trying to change what their brand looks like. Joel: I'm totally for the message and the movement that's happening in our world. Chad: Yeah, me too. Joel: Because we're the same age, you'll remember some of this stuff. A lot of it isn't new. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I remember growing up being told it's okay to cry. I remember growing up, and this is the 70s. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Turning the other cheek, right? There was actually a Kenny Rogers song about turning the other cheek and looking the other way, right? The message to me ... I think ... I don't want to say it's recycled and it's refurbished for a new era, but men being sensitive is not a new thing, at least from my memory growing up and this thing. Joel: Now, where it's new is is when companies that are historically macho and they've built their brand on that men masculinity, that they're changing their brand. While I agree with the message, I'm really skeptical as to the brand pivot for Gillette. Chad: Yeah. Joel: To go from man's man, macho, power suits, hot women rubbing your cheeks, going from that to what they've gone to it's just a real risk with brand. For me, the bigger thing that ... The bigger problem they have is the trend of beards, as well as Dollar Shave Club. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Because I have to imagine those two things are a bigger blow to their business. I would've preferred from a marketing standpoint to try to tackle those issues than make a political statement. Chad: Yeah. I think you're really shortsighted on this issue because I don't think that this ad was only focused on men. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Gillette also makes products for women, right? Yeah, they do, so therefore if you take a look at ... Joel: No clue. Chad: Well, I have a wife, and she shaves, so I kind of know these things. Joel: Let's assume Gillette makes women products. Okay, gotcha. Chad: No, they do. It's pretty simple. This is not just an ad that is focused on one segment just being men. Yes, it is speaking to men, but it's speaking to everybody. All those people could perspectively buy their products. Chad: I did have somebody on Facebook actually say, "Great message, wrong messenger. Gillette is just doing this to look good." It's like, yeah, no shit. That's what advertising and marketing and PR is about, right? Chad: I think when it comes down to the brand, not just from buying something but also working there, so we also talk about employer branding, and wanting to be able to go to a company that's ... Really represents your values, right? It's not just about the product, it's about working for a company as well. Chad: Being able to set this brand up overall I think is incredibly smart and real business. I understand that we're all in talent acquisition, HR, or whatever, but are we so divorced from real business that we can't understand the actual basics of brand? Because that's what this is. Chad: Now, here's the problem, right? If Gillette is not focusing on equity then there's a serious problem. If their ranks and their positions are not flushed with equity with women, people of color, if the pay scale is not equitable, yeah, there's a huge problem. Chad: That could actually create damage for that brand, but for everybody to be able to see a message like this, not just men, but everybody, I think it's awesome for their brand. Not just their product brand, but also their employer brand. Joel: I certainly agree that for ... They're going to sell a lot more women's products because of the message, and I agree that from a recruiting standpoint this is going to open up a whole new sort of awareness of the company through a much broader spectrum of candidates. I think you've turned me on that. I think time will tell in terms of the numbers of what this does. Chad: Okay. Joel: They're probably letting their ... They're ignoring their position of being the masculine product. Someone will probably come along and try to take that from them and hold that brand, because there is some value in that, right? There is. Men are still men. Chad: They are. Joel: [crosstalk 00:24:05]. Chad: I don't think that they're saying that men aren't. I think what they're trying to say is that we have a responsibility as men. Boys will be boys, right? We don't treat each other like that. Chad: That was the big difference in the message. Where there are guys at grills, there's two boys are fighting. When the gears shift, one of the dads actually walk over. It goes from boys will be boys, which was an excuse to allow that kind of aggressive behavior, number one, to, two, hey, we don't treat each other that way. Joel: Sure. Chad: It's not masculinity. You're trying to throw this away as, well, they don't care about masculinity. That's total bullshit. What they're saying is we've evolved as a people, which we should, not all of us, and we should understand that we shouldn't treat other human beings like this, whether it's another guy or another female, right? It's a pure definition of what they believe masculinity should be. Joel: Okay. Chad: That's a great employment brand, by the way. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. I think brand is what your customers say masculinity is, not what you say it is. So, we'll see. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. This is coming from a guy who likes to fight, right? I enjoy it as a sport, but I see that. Joel: Sure. Chad: And I agree with it. Joel: Yeah. You don't ... Yeah. Being a meathead does not automatically make you a catcaller and an idiot. Chad: Yeah. Joel: To me, masculinity is you're the opposite of that, right? Like, you're strong enough to honor people and be respectful and not hit people. Chad: And don't get me wrong, I've mansplained shit before, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: I've been put in my place. I've also ... I've been that dumb quote unquote masculine kid slash man. We all change, so I think this is a great opportunity to see a brand actually change and evolve and say, "You know what? You know what? That probably wasn't good when we did that shit back there." That's fine. Change your behavior and move on. Look forward. Joel: Fair enough. Let's hear from JobAdX and talk about swastika penises. Chad: It's a great segue. Joel: We'll be right back. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies, and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you placed in us. JobAdX: Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad text bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partner sites. JobAdX: We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners, and we've developed our revolutionary live alert which eliminate latency and expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links whether open today, next month, or next year. JobAdX: For more information about our solutions please reach us and join us at JobAdX.com. Chad: Penises? Really? That's what we're going from? Joel: Swastika penises. Chad: Oh, okay. Joel: You got to throw that one in there, too. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Joel: You know what? I'm feeling older and older with so many of the societal changes and cultural and age and everything. It kind of sucks. I was looking at the lineup for Coachella this year. I knew and wanted to see maybe two of the bands that were there. I thought, "Man, I'm old." Chad: Yeah, but I think this is a great opportunity for you to actually get out, see those bands, and experience some of these new bands. You might find a new band to follow. Joel: Yeah. I used to have time to do that, listen to new bands. Anyway ... Chad: Yes. Joel: All right. Slack unveiled a new logo this week. Chad: Yeah. Joel: That it looks a little bit like a swastika with little I guess scrotums underneath, would you say? Chad: I'd say it looks like kind of like a Microsoft ... Like, their little square where they have four different colors. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Now, this has four different colors, but it looks like four different penises on top of each other. Joel: Yeah. Chad: I don't know that I see a swastika as much, but I do see that this ... Kind of like this stacked penis logo thing that ... Joel: Oh, that's funny because when I looked at it I immediately saw swastika. I was like, "Okay, penises, look for those. Okay. Scrotum, phallic symbol. Okay, got it." Yeah. The internet is blowing up with talk about the swastika penises that Slack has unveiled. Their old logo, as many know, was a hashtag sign. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Which to me works perfectly well. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I don't know why you need to change that. Companies get really overzealous with logo changes. Uber's changed it a few times, and Airbnb changed it to some weird V, upside-down V, thing. I don't know. It's very big now for agencies to want to push for logo changes for some reason. Chad: Well, it's a good way to get cash from a company. From the reports that we've seen, back in October of last year Slack had $900 million cash in hand, right? Joel: Oh good god. Yes. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yes. A report this week as well, Slack had apparently $640 million revenue predicted for next year. They had $900 million on hand. Now, they've gotten a ton of money, but nowhere near what we're talking about. It blows my mind to start talking about those kinds of numbers for a messaging platform. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joel: It's kind of crazy, dude. Chad: Well, I'm going to fault JZ for sending this podcast down the wrong road, because it's going to get worse, my friend, I promise. Joel: By the way, that's not the rapper JayZ in case anyone is wondering if Chad is actually that cool. He's really not. Chad: No, I'm not. Joel: No. Chad: Really not. Let's go ahead and transition into the next non-penis, or at least it starts out that way. Joel: Yeah. You've got some spare time on your hands, go look at Slack logos. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And have a good laugh. Chad: It's ridiculous. Last week we were actually talking about the Army's recruiting woes and how it was really hard for them to recruit, and how they were doing some really cool and innovative things with eSports. Joel: Yeah. Chad: This week, [Task and Purpose 00:30:19] had some more data on that. Actually, they were talking about an estimated 72% of individuals in North Carolina are ineligible to join the military due to being overweight, lacking the adequate education, or having a history of crime or drug use. 71% of people living in North Carolina are ineligible for military service. Joel: Okay, so you were in the military. Chad: Yeah. Joel: All right. I was not, which you can't tell by looking at me, but I wasn't in the military. Paint the scene for me. I'm a kid, I'm an 18 year old. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I go into the recruiting office. Do they look at you and go, "You're too fat?" Do they give you an IQ test? What is screening these kids out of the military exactly? What's the process? Chad: Yeah. Generally ... Okay. Depends on whether we're at war and we need to beef up military or not, because this will change, right? It always does. You go in, you take an ASVAB test, which is a test across all military branches. It gives you a score. They do some physical testing. They also do some medical history background things that kick a lot of people out. Chad: To be quite frank, as being a drill sergeant, an infantry drill sergeant, down in Fort Benning, Georgia, I had many an Army recruiter who I hate send me down range kids that are 40 pounds easy overweight, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: It's my job in 14 weeks to do one of two things, to hopefully knock 40 pounds off that kid's ass or he's going to break because of all the weight on ... Obviously gravity does things. Joel: If I'm just a high school graduate I couldn't ... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Would that be passing the intelligence test or do I still have to take the test of the ... From the Army? Chad: Yeah. You have to take ... No, you have to take the ASVAB, which, again, it's just one test for all military. Joel: Okay. Then, how hard is this thing? Chad: It's not hard, but it's not incredibly easy. A lot of it what it is today is it actually focuses on how you troubleshoot and how you think about solving the questions that they ask. To be quite frank, it wasn't a breeze, but it wasn't incredibly hard. Joel: With the Commander in Chief serving Big Macs and Filet-O-Fishes in the White House, it's no mystery why it all goes downhill, right? Kids see that. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: Fast food, our president does it. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The world's just falling apart pretty much. Chad: Well, that, and then we're talking about not being able to have enough individuals in our military ranks in the first place for our national defense. Then, The Wall Street Journal comes out with a fucking op-ed or something like that that says women don't belong in combat units. Chad: It's like we can't find enough people as it is, but yet women don't belong in combat units. Again, me being a guy who's been in the infantry, if you can do the job I don't care who you are, right? If you can do the job, if you can physically do the job, then you should be there. Joel: Yeah. Chad: My whole thought process was am I healthy enough to pick up the person next to me if they're injured, put them on my back, and get the hell out of the AO, right? That was ... Joel: Yeah. Chad: Now, the next question I was asking is looking to things person next to me and say, "Are they healthy enough to do that for me?" Right? It's fucking ridiculous. Then, transition to the next piece, border patrol, they're having issues as well. There's no question. Joel: Yeah. Chad: But, there's this ... Thanks for sharing Tim Hawk's story from NPR, border patrol had paid Accenture approximately $13.6 million of a close to $300 million contract to recruit and hire 7,500 individuals into custom and border patrol. Joel: Yeah. That seems about right. Chad: Yeah. No, it does not. That's $40,000 per hire, number one. Number two, that's like a fucking $500 hammer, right? Within 10 months into this first year of this five year contract, Accenture had only two accepted job offers. Oh, god. It's fucking ridiculous. Chad: There's serious problems and they're having performance issues. There's no question whatsoever. Accenture was doing this with $300 million, right? A contract for $300 million. They had already been fronted $13.6. Chad: Then, they actually had to use the government agency's applicant tracking system when Accenture failed to deploy its own. With that kind of money, man, I can pull together a great team, a great process, and I guarantee you you'll have more than two fucking hires. Joel: Well, the good news is, according to a New York Post article, the Chinese Red Army is in no better shape than our Army. According to the article, the People's Liberation Army ... Chad: Yes. Joel: I guess they're not the Red Army anymore is now dishing out advice after one city saw more than half its candidates fail their physicals. More troubling than that is a masturbation problem. Chad: The Chinese military says excessive. Joel: Excessive. Chad: And too many video games are among the reasons its physical test failure rates have been ... You can't make this shit up. Dude, think of it. Joel: No, you can't. Chad: China's girl to guy ratio is totally out of whack. It's like five to one, or seven to one, or whatever the hell it is. What the hell did they expect? They'd better get their sex robot industry up and running quick. Robot: Shall we play a game? Joel: Yeah, well, eventually the robots are going to fight each other, anyway. All the fat, dumb people in the world can have sex with the sex robots. Chad: Oh, this is ridiculous. Can we go to an ad? Joel: Sure. We can go to an ad. Let's hear from ... Who we got now? Canvas. Yeah. Canvas will love being put on after that one. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas Bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas: Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. Canvas: We make compliance easy and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at Gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's Gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: Please tell me the Russian Army has similar issues. Chad: I have no clue. I don't even want to do any research on that right now at all. Joel: Let's talk about Glassdoor. Chad: Okay. Joel: Glassdoor opened shop in three markets internationally this week. They opened Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand. Hobbits need jobs, too, apparently. My point on this is I've predicted that the Glassdoor brand will go away eventually. It'll just get sucked up by Indeed who's ... They're both owned by the same parent company. Joel: If anything, this move of growth says maybe they're not going to go away anytime soon. They're actually opening up new markets. The word is they're going to be opening up more places, more cities and countries this year. Yeah, little bit of news tip there. If you're doing business in Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand your employees have a new place to go talk shit about you. Chad: Isn't that like Kununu? Are they trying to squeeze Kununu, do you think? Joel: It is interesting. Kununu a little bit more European. Chad: Okay. Joel: Indeed is most definitely in those areas and I'm sure have the reviews sections as well. Yeah. They're not huge markets. From a population perspective, you're looking at probably 15 million people with those three markets, so it's not super huge. Chad: Yeah. Joel: New markets aren't super hard to open, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: A little bit of language thing, a little bit of whatever, a new URL, and you're off and running. It's not like a huge herculean effort to open up in some of these places. Chad: A little language thing. That's easy. That's not a big deal. Joel: Translation. Chad: Yeah. That is interesting because, as you have talked about, kind of Glassdoor coming under the Indeed umbrella, I agree that I see that happening, but I don't see it happening from a brand standpoint. We've talked about this before. Chad: I think this actually kind of bodes to what I've been talking about. I think they really want two brands that can try to own more wallet share. If they continue to go down this path they have a good opportunity to do that. Joel: If they continue on this path they will have proven Chad Sowash right for the first time on this podcast. Chad: Lies. Lies. Joel: All right. Gig economy, our final story in this painful episode. Chad: Okay. Joel: Many people probably know, at least in this country, that there's a government shutdown. 27 days at this point. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The longest in history. National parks are being flooded with fecal matter and trash. It's just a mess. It's horrible. Chad: [crosstalk 00:40:44]. Joel: So, no surprise, we've talked about this before, when people get unemployed or don't have something to do it's ... I think both of us agree that they're going to start gravitating toward the gig economy. Chad: Yeah. Joel: How can I make money? How can I on the side drive an Uber, develop shit, make a graphic? Whatever it is. We have some proof and a story this week abut the gig economy really might explode if more and more people get knocked out of work. Chad: Yeah, yeah. There's no question. Oh, man. 800,000 people. Those people, obviously they contribute to the economy every single day by spending money, and not everybody has a huge bank account that they can just draw from. All these 800,000 people are not millionaires, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: They've got to find ways. I actually saw a story last night where a guy was saying, "Hey, look. I had to go pull weeds for one of my neighbors. They gave me 20 bucks so that I could have gas money to get to ... To take my kid to his appointment." Joel: Yeah. Chad: Those types of things. They're looking for any way to survive during this bullshit that's happening. Joel: Yeah. I heard a number today that a very high percentage of Americans don't have more than $400 in a savings account for moments like this. With the federal workforce, you're looking at I think 16% of the population. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's a huge number of people. The story talked about Fiverr, another popular ... We talk about Upwork quite a bit, but Fiverr is another sort of place for people to pick up contract work, or gigs if you will, experienced 350% increase since the government shutdown. Joel: Yeah. We both think that a lot of good things growth-wise are going to happen with Upwork and Fiverr. We've talked about Microsoft potentially buying Upwork, or somebody. I think Fiverr's on the table as well because once the economy goes south these sites are going to explode. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that was one area in Maryland, the Lexington Park area, that holds a very large percentage of the population there is obviously government workers. They experienced the 350% increase in gigs. Joel: Buy your Upwork stock today, kids. Don't take financial advice from me, and we out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to The Cheese & Chad Podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes that silly Android thingy or wherever you listen to podcasts. Be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on Monster.com. We out. #Gillette #Slack #TheLadders #Branding #EmployerBrand #PPC #innovation #design #BorderPatrol #Accenture

Back in the day matching - or shall we say - eHarmony wannbe sites really sucked. Now they're kinda good, thanks to AI and a bunch of available online profile data, which was NOT the case in 2006, for example. So here comes SquarePeg. Does this matching contender have what it takes, or are they gettin' the guns? You'll have to checkout this Talroo exclusive to find out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community. Joel: Hey, Joel. Chad: What up? Joel: Would you say that companies find it hard to attract the right candidates to apply for their jobs? Chad: Well, Jobs2Careers thought so. Joel: Jobs2Careers? You mean Talroo. Chad: Talroo? Joel: Yeah, Talroo. T-a-l-r-o-o. Chad: What is that, like a cross between talent and a kangaroo? Joel: No, it's a cross between talent and recruiting. Chad: But- Joel: Talroo was focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Chad: Ah, okay. So it's totally data-driven talent attraction, which means the Talroo platform enables recruiters to reach the right talent at the right time and at the right price. Joel: Okay, so that was weirdly intuitive, but yes. Guess that the best part is? Chad: Let me take a shot here. You only pay for the candidates Talroo delivers? Joel: Holy shit. So you've heard this before. So if you're out there listening in podcast land and you are attracting the wrong candidates and we know you are or you feel like you're in a recruiting hamster wheel and there's just nowhere to go, right? You can go to Talroo.com/attract. Again, that's Talroo.com/attract and learn how Talroo can get you better candidates for less cash. Chad: Or just go to Chadcheese.com and click on the Talroo logo. I'm all about the simple. Joel: You are a simple man. Announcer: Like Shark Tank? Then, you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they've got what it takes to make it out alive. Dig fox hole and duck for cover, kids. The Chad & Cheese podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel: Oh snap. After a holiday hiatus we are back and we are feisty Chad: We back. Joel: And ready to put a young, nubile startup through the Firing Squad and on that note, let me introduce Claire McTaggart from Square Pegs ... Is that right? Square Peg Hires. Claire: Square Peg, yes. Joel: How do you pitch yourself? Square Peg, Square Peg Hires? Claire: Just Square Peg. We're just one peg. Joel: Square Peg. All right, we'll go with that. Joel: She's the Founder and CEO of that company. Claire, welcome to the show. Give us a quick elevator pitch about you. Claire: Sure, so I'm the founder of Square Peg. My background's probably a little bit different from some of your guests in that I worked in Management Consulting, mostly doing strategy work for one of the big consulting firms. But during that time, I spent four years running a hiring team working at everything from campus recruiting to sourcing strategy to writing and delivering the infamous consulting case study interviews. And we were always just frustrated with the process. Put up a job post, receive hundreds of mostly unqualified applicants, whoever happens to be cruising the job board that week. And either use a ATS to pull out key words or a human to make five second decisions based on a little data. And just, we were kind of hoping to get results. That amount of guesswork and lack of analytics sort of astounded me so I left to go build a product I would have wanted to use. So that's sort of how Square Peg was born. Joel: And what school did you attend, undergrad again? Claire: I went to Michigan Undergrad and Georgetown for grad school. Joel: Ooh, so you know this song because you're always getting your ass kicked by the Ohio State Buckeyes. There it is. Claire: It's a sensitive subject. Joel: It should be sensitive. Claire: It's been sensitive for many years, especially this season it was especially sensitive. So, yeah, off to a good start here guys. Joel: We like to get you off balance here at the Firing Squad. Play your rival's fight song before you go on. Joel: Okay, Chad, tell her what she's won before we get to her pitch. Chad: Well, Claire, on today's show you're going to have an opportunity for a two minute pitch of Square Peg. At the end of those two minutes you're going to hear the bell. Then, Joel and I are going to hit you up with rapid fire Q and A. If your answers start rambling, Joel's going to hit you with the crickets and we will move along. That's also the signal you need to make your shit more concise. At the end of Q and A, you're either going to receive a big applause. That means you knocked it out of the park, golf clap means you need to tighten up your game, or the firing squad. Hit the bricks, close up shop, pull out the drawing board because it pretty much sucks. Claire: And that could also be the OSU fight song, right? Chad: The only worse song would be the Michigan fight song. Claire: Oh! Chad: Yeah. Chad: That's Firing Squad. Okay, Joel, let's slam this Square Peg into a round hole. You got that timer ready? Joel: Slam it. I am ready. Claire, are you ready? Claire: I am. Joel: Two minutes starting. Claire: Okay, so Square Peg is a data-driven hiring platform that helps employers source and match a curated batch of candidates to their jobs based on hundreds of indicators that fit, so not just resumes. We're also now starting to provide HR teams with insights and analytics to help them understand data behind who they're selecting and rejecting and help them improve over time. Claire: So as you know, there are a lot of factors that make an employee thrive in a particular job or environment that can't be found on a resume. And what those factors are actually differs depending on the company, the role, or the level of seniority. So Square Peg helps employers identify what skills, experience, personality traits and softer attributes are most important for a specific role in under ten minutes. And then, we source a batch of highly qualified applicants in just a few days. So all of the candidates on Square Peg's platform have been assessed across hundreds of indicators of fit before they're matched with a job. So our algorithms have a really rich data set to help identify top talent and invite those candidates to view the match and share their data. Claire: So most of these pasts are pasts of candidates who aren't looking for job boards, but are open to the right position. So hiring managers or recruiters will receive a curated batch of interested candidates who might not otherwise had applied or who might have been filtered out. And they get a lot of data to help inform the section and interview process. And because we remove the bias of a human resume review and use alternative data sources, we actually help improve diversity outcomes, unlike your favorite Amazon case study you've been referencing. Claire: So right now we focus specifically on corporate or business hires like marketing sales and customer experience, which are actually the hardest to get right and it's usually due to soft skills fit. So we launched a little over a year ago, paid plans starting this summer. We've assessed over 12,000 candidates and have 30 company clients, including a few Fortune 100s. Joel: And dammit, Claire, where can we find more? Claire: So you can find more at Square Peghires.com or you can email us info at Square Peghires.com. Joel: Now, that was a tight pitch. That was a tight pitch, but if you've listened to Firing Squad, every single person who's pitched, every single CEO, founder, they always forget the end. Where do we find more? Chad: They do. They do. It's amazing. They're so intimidated by us. Claire: Hopefully, our IPO is just good enough that if you put Square Peg in we're somewhere near the top so. Joel: Oh, that's a great question. Chad: So let's go through that real quick. So why Square Peg because I understand the whole square peg in a round hole scenario, but the web is littered with just about everything Square Peg in every industry, TV, shows, sitcoms, Sarah Jessica Parker. I found so much about sitcoms looking for Square Peg. Did your team vet the name and SEO ability before actually taking the leap? Claire: Yeah. Joel: And what other names did you throw away? Claire: To be honest, Square Peg was our first name and our only name. So we didn't go through that process of, you know, on a white board picking out a thousands names. And I definitely didn't want to spell it Square Peg with no vowels in it and have to explain to people what the site is. So we actually do decently well if you put Square Peg and then anything to do with hiring, recruiting, matching talent. We show up on top. Chad: Well, there's even a Square Peg recruitment company and that's where I went first. And I was looking at it and I'm like there's no way in hell this is the thing. So I looked and I was looking at your email address and I'm like oh shit. This is not even the same one. So I mean that's somewhat confusing. I do like that Square Peg, very easy to spell, but you gotta get that "hires" in there and I think that was one of the things that Joel right out of the gate was like, "Is it Square Peg Hires?" That was a little bit harder, even for me just trying to research. Claire: Yeah, so you will know when we have raised a lot of money when we have bought the domain from that company. I think it's a small consulting firm in London and one day it shall be ours. But, you know we really just love the name Square Peg. It absolutely fits what we do. We look at just a lot of data on what makes a person thrive in a specific job and so we're not trying to fit someone who's just not going to be a good fit into a role. And so that helps for both the company side and the candidate side so the name just makes sense. And for some reason, also, I think it sounds familiar even if people haven't heard of it, maybe because of Squarespace or something else, but I know I've been to the bank before cashing a check and someone will say, "Oh, Square Peg, I love that company." And I'm like are you sure. But there is a nice ring to it so we're definitely going to keep the name and all we've gotta do is start buying up some other domains that lay in our path, but that's a long-term priority. Joel: Fair enough. So SEO's not the only game in town. What other ways are you marketing the company? Claire: Sure. So for employers right now it's pretty much a direct sales model and so either meet them at conferences or reach out personally to them and we get a lot of referrals so that's pretty much how we find employers. A lot of them have read articles about us online and signed up so the Fortune 100s that we have all came in through reading an article about us actually. Claire: And then, on the job seeker side most of that we actually don't do any marketing at all. It just sort of grows on it's own. That's a lot referral base where people share. So for job seekers, they come onto Square Peg's platform, they take and in depth assessment, they get a free report with all of their results, and then we only bother them if we have a really high potential good job where we think they'd drive. And so they tell people about it and say, "Hey, you're not going to get these daily digests. They're only going to come to you when they have a really good match". So the job seeker side sort of grows organically and on the employer side it's really a direct sales model. Chad: Okay, that sounds really nice, the job seekers find you organically, but that's just not very palpable, right? Are employers having them come to the site? There has to be some way that you're getting job seekers that you're matching with. How's that happening? Claire: Yeah, so employers are not sending them. We source all of our candidates to our site and that's really important when differentiating us between an assessment company, for example, that's just going to take your existing candidates and give you their personality scores. We actually source all of our candidates. So again, we really don't do a lot right now to grow that. If we wanted to move from ... We've delivered 17,000 assessments. If we wanted to move that to three million, then yeah, we would probably have to do some rigorous advertising. We have done some advertising in markets where we're not big. So for example, we had a client that was looking to use Square Peg to grow their sales team actually in Carmel, Indiana and surprisingly, we did not have a lot of talent in the Carmel area. Chad: That's Carmel. That' where Joel lives. Claire: Okay, so we had to do a lot of advertising there to just say hey, if you take this assessment, you'll get a free report with your results and then, you can be a passive job seeker and we'll only inform you when you have something. And so they would do that and then, if they were a good match, then we would put them forward to this employer. So we have done some advertising and if we don't have it the right candidates, we'll always go source more through advertising, but right now it does grow at the rate that we need it to for our client base. Chad: So does it work in a way that a company has a job opening and then, you guys ... Like let's say it's a PHP developer in Seattle. Do you have a team of people that will go source PHP developers in Seattle? Will you then, target marketing to PHP types in Seattle? How that does that work? Claire: Well, we would never do that role because we don't do tech hires. That's one of the big differentiators between Square Peg and others. So you go to Square Peg for all of your corporate or business hires. So marketing, sales operations, customer experience. Chad: Okay, my question changes to marketing manager in Seattle. Claire: Okay, yeah so the first thing that we do, and where we always get our first batch of candidates, is usually just from our database. So right now we're the biggest in New York. All of our clients are in New York or California area, but we'll match them with candidates within our own database. And if we find that we don't have really high scoring matches, then we will go advertise to people with certain skills and backgrounds. And then, we will encourage them to take the assessments that we offer before they ever see their job description. Chad: How big's your database? Claire: So we've assessed 17,000. We've delivered 17,000 assessments. Chad: And those are most organic? Claire: Yeah, so again, people reading about us online. Right now we are a pretty new, small company and it is mostly organic or if you get your results you can share it online. You can invite other people to take the assessment. So we get most of our, I would say 90% come in just sort of by finding us online. We have a decent ranking for job matching or assessment. So that's how we're getting most people. I think as we grow, we'll have to start a more aggressive talent sourcing campaign, but what we are doing now is just trying to build an organic database where we have all these candidates with a really, really unique data set that you can't get anywhere else on each candidate. Chad: Most power to you if you can do that. Joel: On the site it says, "Take all assessments in under an hour", which made me almost lose my lunch. Claire: Yeah, it's actually 12 minutes. Joel: Well, in a market with such low employment, how do you get candidates to invest even two minutes, let alone 20 or whatever it takes. How do you get those candidates to really invest that amount of time, especially in the kind of era that we are right now in a quick ... I mean the anticipation and the expectation of people is instant. Chad: Yeah. Can't I just swipe right? Claire: So we're actually the opposite of the Tinder swipe right model. And we see less than ten percent of users dropping off during the assessment part of onboarding and the reason is because, I think, today's job seeker, although they want instant gratification. They are willing to exchange more personal data for a better personalized product and experience. And so when they go through the Square Peg assessment, they learn about themselves. Are you highly detail-oriented? How do you compare to other job seekers? How do you compare in certain environments? And so as they take these assessments, they learn about themselves and then, they get this report. And I think especially today's job seeker are really interested in learning about themselves and getting curated, personalized sort of insights about themselves. This is why you see so many people taking Buzzfeed quizzes on which Harry Potter character you are, but this is actually real, psychoactive data that's valuable and reliable and so they are willing to exchange data. And what we do in return is we say, one, we'll give you this rich report, but also we're not going to spam you. We're not going to bother you. We're actually just going to reach out when we say, "Hey, you are highly detail-oriented and adaptable. You'll work well in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment that's really mission-driven and we've got a perfect position for you that's within your salary range". And so we'll give them that instead of here's the daily digest of 30 irrelevant jobs. Joel: We've heard this before and we've heard this for years. It sounds like it at least. It's called eHarmony for jobs. So it is different from Tinder. Tinder is the instant gratification, you swipe. Claire: Yeah. Joel: And eHarmony, that whole process, methodology, it sounds very similar to what you're talking about. You're talking about in depth assessments in matching. So even eHarmony couldn't make that work. What makes you guys think you can make it work? Claire: Yeah, so a lot of I think what some of the other companies who've worked on this, that they do is they have a hypothesis that it is one thing that makes a person thrive in a job. So you've had guests on that say it's all skills or somebody else that will say no, it's all personality and culture fit. And what we say is actually we don't know because it's going to be different for every company, every team, and every role. And so what we do is we build for all of that. And so what that means is we do look at resume data, we look at skills, we look at job role, we look at experience, we look at education, everything, industry background, and ask a lot of questions about the resume, and then, we also ha ea psychometric assessment where we look at 20 different workplace personality types and then we also look at preferences, things like what actually makes you want to perform better. We have these assessments for both job seekers and for employers. Claire: And then, what we'll do is over time, I'll algorithms personalize. So we'll say okay, for this entry level sales role, actually personality plays a really big part. You know you want persevering, motivated, highly people-oriented candidates that have a really good work ethic and that actually matters more than whether they know sales force, but for this brand marketer of SEO marketer, actually skills play a much bigger role than personality does. So we start to curate over time and that's how our sort of algorithms work is that we aren't going to come out there and tell you this is what works. We're going to say we're collecting data across the board and we're going to measure success over time and we have a lot of data on what makes success at various roles, at various seniority levels and at different types of companies. Joel: Well, success changes from company to company though because hiring mangers do, right? So their though process around what a perfect candidate looks like changes from one sales manager to the next sales manager. So do the sales managers, do the employees actually have to take these tests as well to ensure that the match is what they're looking for? And when turnover happens, how do you continually go through that process of assessing all these new hiring managers. Claire: Yeah, so that's a great question. So there are two options that we have. One, which we tend to do a little bit more with enterprises, where we can have your entire sales team take the assessment and we can identify what is in common with your top performers and then, we can source candidates based on that. And we do collect all diversity and demographic data so we ensure that, on average, we provide a pipeline that's around 60 percent women, 25 percent diverse candidates. Claire: So we can asses your top performers and say we'll take the attributes that with low standard deviation are really in common with your top performers and we'll find you more people like that while also taking care of the diversity issues. And then, we work with startups as well as Fortune 100s so you might have startup wanting to hire their first head of marketing and they don't have a team to take an assessment. And so then, what we do is we have a questionnaire for that, for whoever's the hiring manager and what matters to you, what will this person be working on, some questions, and then, we have a lot of data that we spend a lot of time and research doing on what makes a successful, mid-level marketer at this type of role. So we will pre-fill some of the psychometric data. So we'll say, for example, for this operations role logical thinking is probably really important, moreso than intuitive thinking. And so we can pre-fill some of that information. Claire: Then, I think the most important thing that we do is you mentioned turnover and hiring managers coming and leaving. The most important thing is right now if you work with recruiters internal or external, whatever it is they're using to make decisions on who to sect and who not to select, you're not collecting data on that. Chad: I'm curious. What does the ideal customer look like for you and are there any scaling issues with your business? Cause you mentioned a strength in New York. Is this sort of a regional rollout? Talk about that. Claire: Yeah, so we are a small team. We are primarily New York bases and other sort of major cities. And what are some of the issues to scale? We're a very small team right now and so on our roadmap, there's some things that we haven't done yet like a lot of ATS integration, which we probably need to do, but the reality is because we get such a small, curated batch of candidates, it's not been a highly requested feature. And our ideal employer is usually like a Fortune 500, but we have a bunch of clients right now who are 10 to 12 person startups. So I would say we tried to market to larger companies because they can make so much more use of all the data, but we do work with small companies as well. Joel: So when most vendors, today, are trying to pull data from social data warehouses and anywhere they can actually build profiles, you guys are going the old-fashioned route, right? Because that's all we're hearing today is AI, machine learning, I mean all this stuff. And you guys, really, you're saying no, we're not going to step down that path. We're going to go down the build your personalized profile so that we can fit you better into a role. That's not the most popular path. Why are you guys going down that path? Claire: So we are open to any sorts of data as long as we can prove that it works. And so I haven't seen a lot of compelling evidence that knowing somebody's Twitter feed is going to help you hire them. And I also think that there are some issues about your private life versus your work life and so what we want to do is anything where we can prove that that data actually has an impact on hiring, that's what we want to use. So it's not that we're old school, it's just we want to use something that we know is valid and reliable. Claire: And we do use machine learning algorithms so the way that we use that is as an employer, you receive your candidates and you say I'm interested in this one, I'm not in this one, connect pass, connect pass. As you connect and pass, we start to show your more candidates that are similar to the ones you connected it and less candidates that are similar to the ones you passed on and then, we give you data on who you connected with and passed on. So we might say you're connecting with people mainly because of skills. Here are the skills that you're connecting with. And then, we want to see that those people end up being your top performers. If you end up hiring them and they leave after three months, which has never happened with one of our candidates, but if it did happen we might go back and say, "Okay, well what were you basing your decisions off of?" It was skills. Well, now we need to know that that should be weighted less when you make a decision, maybe it should be something else. Joel: Can you also see if there are bias against gender or anything else? Claire: Absolutely. That's a huge part of what we do. So we've worked with a lot of financial services companies who simply don't have a diverse pipeline that includes a lot of women and they're wondering why and we don't think it's a pipeline issues. We'll just say okay, let's look at what you need to be a top performer and then, let's get people in and then we can feed them back that data. Okay, we gave you a pipeline of people that are qualified. Here's all the data on how they're qualified and here's who you selected. We aggregate all of that. Joel: Okay. Claire: At the individual level, but we feed that back and then, we can help them improve. So we might say you're putting too much emphasis on what school they went to and not to preventing you from getting enough hires in this particular role so let's actually weight that a little bit less and get more women or diverse candidates into the role and see how that impacts outcomes. Joel: What is the company look like in, let's say three to five years? You sort of mentioned raising money. What does it look like, both from a features perspective as well as a company at large perspective? Claire: Yeah, so I think in three to five years what we are moving into will be sort of what we'll call the smart analytics or smart insights category, which is how do we help hiring teams use all of the data on a day-to-day basis that they use in section to get smarter over time. So that they are becoming strategic players and informing the rest of the company about what is working and what is not. If people are your more important assets, they will be the experts on all of the traits and aspects of what people are performing well in what roles. So we're going to move and we'll always do sourcing and matching, but I think we're also going to move to build a really robust analytics tool. That's definitely in our two to three year pipeline. And as far as other features, we're a small company so there's a lot that we can still do to build out. Claire: Fundraising is something that we need to do to get there, but it's not a goal in and of itself, I'd say. I'd rather have happy, paying clients than VCs, but it's something we are probably going to look to fundraise in the next few months. Joel: So being a small business and looking to try to find the cash quickly, right? Because I mean it's all about that direct sale at this point. So what type of of partnerships, business development partnerships have you started to cultivate and put in play to be able to make an impact on driving revenue? Claire: There are things that we have done early on to help drive revenue like build out some custom assessments or do things that help us become an expert in our field that we can charge for just to get revenue in the door early on. And then, in terms of partnerships that we are going to grow into, I think an ATS partnership is a great way of helping us with business development. The problem is we are never just going to show resume data. We have to have a custom integration because we provide rich data and so that will be a longer process than most people's ATS integration, but that's sort of a natural progression. Claire: And then, there will be, I think from a product perspective, offering our product on other sites might be something that we look into. So for example, if you're reading on The Muse about what career should you go into next, maybe you can have a Square Peg assessment integrated into that article and you can take that assessment and get feedback on exactly where you might want to go and then, get a report and then The Muse might be able to tailor articles to you. So you know there are a lot of sort of product integrations, but I would say we have too much low-hanging fruit until we get into some of those larger partnerships. Joel: From a business development standpoint, once again, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit. How big is your sales team? Claire: So my sales team is myself and one other person. It's very small. We are a team of five people right now. So we have a machine learning data scientist. We have our Chief Science Officer. He's not an employee. He's one of the premiere experts in the US on industrial organizational psychology. So he wrote the textbook on personnel assessment selection that's used in most PhD programs. So we have a lot of technical experts on IO Psych side and machine learning data science side and we are minimal on sales and marketing, but I think that's okay in the beginning because it allows us to serve our clients and then, as we start to generate more revenue, then we'll invest much more in sort of our sales and business development side. Joel: What's your pricing breakdown for people who want to use the product as a subscription based model? Like how do you guys structure pricing as well as what is that pricing? Claire: Sure. So we structure it per month per role and so if you put a role with us if you only do one, it's $1,000, which I know sounds very expensive, but we guarantee that you'll want to interview 40 percent of the candidates that we give you. Claire: So if you go to a job board, you'll probably want to interview two percent maybe and you'll have to look through hundred of irrelevant candidates. So with us you're going to get 12 to 20 candidates. You'll want 40 percent. We'll guarantee that you want to interview and if not we'll continue to work for free until we get you that 40 percent. So it's $1,000, but the more roles that you buy with us the more you get a discount. So if you're buying large packages of roles, it can be $500 per role so the more you buy, the cheaper. Joel: All right, Claire, that's the bell meaning that our time here is done. Claire: Yeah. Joel: So you know how this works Shark Tank style? Chad and I are both going to comment on what we've heard and give you a final grade. Are you ready? Claire: I don't know. Am I? Joel: I don't know, okay. I'm going to go ahead and start this off Chad, if you don't mind. I've got a trigger finger that's itchy after such a long layoff. Joel: Okay, Claire, I couldn't help but listen to your pitch and think that I had been transported back to 2008. Chad mentioned a lot of this stuff. He mentioned eHarmony, but he and I both know names like Climber, Jobster, it's big. Companies where job seekers had to feel about very lengthy questionnaires, companies had to fill out a similar questionnaire, and then this magic matching thing happened. It's, in theory, a great business model. Unfortunately, none of those companies are around anymore and I think that's maybe a fairly telling thing for your business. You may have a secret sauce that I'm not seeing. That's certainly an option that I'm willing to explore. Joel: I'm having a hard time with the organic job seekers are just finding us thing and I would've loved to have hear some sort of a marketing strategy whether that was just PR or going on to stupid podcasts and getting shot down by idiots like us. So I would've loved to have heard something around that. I think you do have scaling issues. I think you're going to have a hard time getting a lot of companies to buy into the sort of manual approach because automation is such a big trend right now and not very many people are betting against automation and AI and getting job seekers and employers together. So from that standpoint, I think you're very challenged. Joel: The silver lining in some of this is that I think you're a smart person. I think you probably have a good team. You're a small team, as you said. You haven't taken a bunch of money so there's not a lot of pressure to do things the way that you have outlined it so I would expect to see a pivot at some point in your business to maybe something that is more feasible for success. But for me at this point right now, Claire, I'm sorry but it's guns. And it has nothing to do with your Michigan degree FYI. Chad: Ha. I wouldn't believe that if i were you. Okay, my turn. I believe the only way forward for employers is intelligent matching systems period. I mean I've been waiting for this for years. It's probably my favorite tech in the recruitment sector right now even more than chat bots, believe it or not. Joel: Lies. Chad: We've come so far so fast thanks to technology. Namely because we're getting closer and closer to kind of a loose definition of AI. I mean it's not sentient. We know that, but we're getting closer to what that actually means and being able to pull data together. It's my favorite so I am most cynical about this area because I want it to happen so badly. So in a market where unemployment is low and you cannot hope that candidates are going to spend nearly and hour, half an hour. Claire: No, it's 12 minutes, 12 minutes. And for employers it's eight so yeah. Chad: Still adoption is hard, right? Adoption is hard, especially on the employer side. You might be able to have companies spend time because they need talent so badly, although when the market flips and it will those same employers are not going to spend the time to update their profiles. And obviously the newly evolved jobs are going to be the updated information that you need to be able to make those great matches because you're going se deep into the heads of these HR managers or these hiring managers and also candidates. So you know at the end of the day because of some of the things that Joel mentioned, not to mention here recently we've seen a company much like, not exactly, but Hirevisor, kind of pitch the same thing and not get the traction because adoption is the hardest thing and everybody's looking for that quick and easy make it happen kind of scenario. I've got to go the way of the firing squad. Joel: We still love you Claire. It's done out of love. Claire: Can I say one thing real quick? Joel: Of course. Claire: So I guess one thing, maybe, I didn't make clear is how quick and automated this can be. So for employers, they can add a job, it can be done in under two minutes. So this isn't a process that's old school where people are taking very long assessments and for job seekers we have ways of them updating this in a quick, automated way that takes less than two seconds and their data lasts for two years so it actually is quite quick on both sides, which maybe I didn't get to and the matching makes it an entirely sort of automated process. So just wanted to be clear that this is not spending an hour on onboarding. This is really in a matter of minutes and it's mobile. Joel: Look, if your challenge is the messaging, then that's an easy thing to fix. And we could rewind the clock and our reviews would be different, but from what we heard you know that was our grades and you learn from that and change your message up a little bit if that's- Claire: Yeah, no I just didn't want anyone listening to think that this is a very long onboarding process because we put a lot of time and energy into making sure this is quick and automated as fast as we can. Joel: And last, but not least, here's the thing that you're going to have to obviously fight from an adoption standpoint. There are companies that are out there that are taking feeds and pulling data and tweaking algorithms and having tremendous success right now. I mean we're seeing that. I'm working with companies who are having tremendous success with really little onboarding time so that's a big, steep hill you're going to have to ... and we hope that you get there. Claire: Yeah, and I think it differs a little bit depending on the role. We do VP roles, director roles, manager roles really in the soft scale intensive niches. So we're not doing tech hiring where you know just knowing someone has two years of job is enough to hire them. So I think for the area where we play this is sort of a strategic decision on using this type of data and this amount of data because fit is so important. But I think for if you're looking at filling a call center or you're looking at filling some developers, then something like a better or Stellar Employee will work for those options. But we're really trying to build something specific for the niche we're going after. Joel: All right, Claire. Where can we find out more about you and do you have a deal for our listeners? Claire: Yes. So you can Square Peghires.com or send an email to info@Square Peghires.com and we will offer anybody who's listening to this podcast ten percent off of any package of roles. So just send us an email with Chad and Cheese referenced in the email and we will offer you ten percent off. Joel: Right on. Chad, we out. Chad: We out. Announcer: 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. #FiringSquad #SquarePeg #eHarmony #Matching

We got your New Year's resolution right here, pal! The boys and back and breaking down - Update on Indeed's Talent Network Policy - Oculus Rift and smart speakers are killin' it! - Irina sharpening the axe at CareerBuilder - Who dropped $200,000 on the Jobster.com domain? - Army Recruiting disrupts with eSports - Rants on Palantir and Oracle lies and the NFL's agism Don't forger to give our sponsors some love, brave souls that they are: Sovren, Canvas and JobAdx. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your bridge to the disability community, delivering custom solutions in outreach, recruiting, talent management and compliance. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors! You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast! Chad: We are back. Joel: Merry New Year. We're back, bitches. New year, same idiocy. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast, HR's most dangerous. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I am Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, the dumpster fire rages on at CareerBuilder, Jobster is back from the dead for the third time, and we start 2019 with dueling rants. We got your resolutions right here pal, and we'll be right back after a word from Canvas. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human ... that's you ... at the center, while Canvas Bot is at your side, adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology, and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix, by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: Oh, I'm ready. Joel: Good to be back. Chad: It is good. Joel: I can't lie that the break was nice. Chad: I'm sure it was. You were able to nap a little bit more, little bit more beer, little bit of bourbon. Joel: Yeah. Eat a little bit more, drink a little more, sleep a little more ... It was all good. It was all good. Of course, we've been podcasting like demons this week, so yeah, we hit the ground running even though this is our first weekly show since being back. Chad: That being said, I'm going to go ahead and tease some of these. We have a Firing Squad coming out this month that is killer. And we got Hung Lee on as an interview. Joel: Hey, yes. Recruiting's favorite porn star is on the podcast. Chad: Not to mention ... In 2019, it looks like we're going to take Europe by storm. We're going to be in Lisbon in May for TAtech, our buddies Pete and Repete, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: And then we've got Recruitfest in London, in July, which we're really excited about. Joel: Cheers. Chad: And there's some others that we're still planning, that we're going on. So you're going to see us in Europe this year, doing live shows to be awesome. Joel: Don't forget Canada. Chad: Oh shit. Oh, Canada. Joel: That's coming up. Chad: It's not Europe, but yes, it is Canada, and it is in the Canadian Rockies. It's in February, so it should be gorgeous and cold as shit. Joel: Banff, which I still miss ... miss whatever ... I say Branff and Banffi, and I say all kinds of stuff. Really my Canadian wife loves, but that's another story. Chad: Oh yeah, I'm sure. Joel: Yeah, teasers galore. We're going to have a busy year, a big year. Chances are, if you're at our conferences, you will see us at some point. Chad: And there's going to be T-shirts. Yes! Joel: Oh, T-shirts. Joel: Tell 'em what they won, Chad, with the latest T-shirt sponsorship. Chad: Yes! We have two new sponsors that are happening this year. Right out of the gate, we have Emissary.ai, who will be sponsoring the very first Chad and Cheese limited edition T-shirts, which we will be giving away at conferences. And last but not least, Shaker Recruitment, believe that ... Joe Shaker- Joel: Joe Shaker. Chad: ... spending money with Chad and Cheese. We have a new sponsorship called Traveling With Chad and Cheese, where Joe and the group are going to gear us up with Shaker gear, and yeah, wherever we go, we're taking Shaker with us. Joel: If you can't tell, we're really reaching for those sponsorship opportunities. Chad: Dude, they're awesome. Joel: I'm just glad that we got Joe to commit before the Bears meltdown in the playoffs, because he might not have been quite as open to opening up his pocketbook after that game, yeah. Chad: Oh dear. Joel: Which leads me to the first shout-out, I think. Shout out to Philly fans. We have a huge following in Philly. They're probably still drunk, who knows, as we speak, celebrating the win. Good for them, sad for the Chicago folks; that was a real bummer of a loss. We have a lot of fans in Chicago. So torn there; shout out to Chicago, but as always in Chicago, there's next year. Joel: As always. Yeah. We're going to go to Susan Vitale, who we have not talked about in a while, because- Chad: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:05:20]. Chad: She just had a little girl, so I want to congratulate Susan, the family, the whole iCIMS crew, because I'm sure little Alba Rose will be gracing the doors of iCIMS very soon, if she hasn't already. Joel: That was a unique name, Alba. Chad: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Joel: Alba. Yo, Alba. I'm trying to do it with like a Jersey kind of attitude behind. Chad: Sounded more Philly, more Rocky. Joel: Yeah, I guess so. Hey, Jersey. Okay. You mentioned the Hung Lee, a big shout-out to him. I'm going to give a shout-out to Irina Novoselsky. Hopefully I said that correctly. Chad: Really? Joel: CareerBuilder CEO made Chicago's 40 Under 40 list. The 33 year old is making shit happen, as we will find out further as we go into the show, but shout out to her for making that illustrious 40 Under 40 list. Chad: She's making things happen all right. We also made a couple of I think 2019 lists, so Mason Wong and Hung Lee put on their pods to follow in 2019. Now, Hung Lee's was I think more focused on the recruitment side of the house. Mason's was really just focused on what he listens to, and I believe we were the only recruiting/HR podcast on his list, so appreciate it guys, thanks so much. And Mason, I'm going to try my damnedest to get Joel to bite on new sound effects, but I can't promise anything, buddy. Chad: Yeah, but we think we may have figured out my hot mic issue, I think. Hopefully we have that figured out. And by the way, I think Huang Lee just pulled the first hat trick on the show. I think he was mentioned three times within the first seven minutes of the show. So Huang Lee, hat trick. Very nice. First he's British and probably has no idea what a hat trick is, so go Google that, Hung. Joel: Nice. And you wanted to give a shout to Chris Sacktosoojowiavlassosso or whatever his name is? Chad: Santosuoso, it looks like. Joel: Yeah. Santosuoso. Chad: The Santa man. Joel: It sounds like he was forced to listen by his former boss Greg Giambanco , who you called Greg Jiambi. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But thanks for listening, Chris, whether it was forced or not, and thanks Greg, for forcing Chris to listen. Now go out there and force more listeners, because we want to make sure we blow the roof off of 2019. Chad: Jiambi and the Santa Man. Thanks for listening. Joel: Good stuff. Joel: Appreciate it. And your wife's been busy on the mic too, apparently. Chad: She has. That's a metaphor. So yeah, her and Torn Ellis, and our listeners know Torn because ... Well, Torn is Torn. I mean, he's fucking everywhere. But he was on the pod. We talked about diversity recruiting. I did an interview with him, and he blows stuff up wherever he goes. He's awesome. He's actually teamed up with my wife, who was also on the podcast talking about disability hiring, and they're doing a new podcast ... just released the teaser trailer I guess you could call it, earlier this week. And it's called Crazy And the King. Look for that, we'll be talking about it every now and again, doing a little cross-pollination, but should be fun. Joel: I would ask which one is which, but I know your wife, so I can put the pieces together and know which one the crazy is and which one the king is. Good luck to them in their podcast venture. I'm waiting patiently for your guest appearance, To mirror Julie's appearance on our show, so keep me abreast of that. I think we should make a dual appearance frankly on their show, and really, really rocket their presence to the moon with us being a guest host. But hey, that's up to them; it's their show. Joel: That's it for shout-outs from me. Who else you got? Chad: Well, I want to thank TNG, the company who brought us the creepy interviewing robot, because Charlotte and Ellen over there, they know how to work Chad and Cheese. They've been sending us hilarious videos, one on how to speak Swedish, which was funny as hell. And then the one that we just received yesterday, it was a beer stabilization device. They have us in their cross-hairs. They have us targeted; they know what we like, and they've been sending it left and right. And we've been retweeting and posting and doing those things. So if you're out there, and you don't understand how to work the media, this is a prime example of how to do it, whether we're media or whatever the fuck they call us. But these guys are killing it, so big kudos to Charlotte and Ellen over there. Joel: And by the way, it's pronounced Eelen. I took a little one of those DNA tests over the holidays, and I did a little Black Friday DNA test, and found out that I am eight percent Swedish, so I feel a new connection that I wouldn't have because of the DNA test. And I do recommend everyone if you haven't done that, you should. Kind of knowing where you're from, your story, I think that's really cool, and the fact that they can do that by spitting a test tube is really, really cool. So yeah, I got a little Swede in me, so I'm trying to bone up on my Swedish for this robot we're going to meet in Lisbon. Chad: Excited about that. TAtech in Lisbon. Hopefully we'll be able to get the creepy interviewing robot there, with Chad and Cheese. But you almost forgot to talk about Talkpush and the Demopocalypse. Joel: Have we agreed on that name, the Demopocalypse? Chad: I don't know how we can get away from it at this point. Joel: Well, Demogeddon wasn't too bad, although that could be construed as Demo Gettin', or ... Demopocalypse, there's no gray line there. It's Demopocalypse. We're doing this thing in the New Year. We get so many startups and companies with new features telling us about them, and we're like, "Dude, let's just show people what the hell you got." We said, "Hey, man Max, let's get on the computer there, and videotape this thing and push it out." See what I did there? We pushed this out real good. If you haven't watched it please check it out, 'cause they're doing some really cool stuff there at Talkpush, real good. Chad: Also it was kind of funny, because I pushed this out into the socials, right? And it was on a Facebook group, and it started somewhat of a heated conversation. And all I did was post ... Here's my post. "Everybody is talking about the death of the ATS. Max shows us what could be taking its place." Right? So that's all I put out there, and then the rock throwing started. And it's amazing, just utterly amazing, how people constantly bitch about their applicant tracking system. They bitch about it all day, every fucking day. But when you say, "Could this prospectively be the new evolution or what could replace the ATS?", then they just start throwing rocks. "No, you're not taking my ATS away from me!" It was funny as hell. Joel: Dost thou protest too much? And these are people that probably didn't even watch the demo, by the way. You pose the question, it wasn't as abrasive as you can be on social media, and yeah, people kind of freaked out about it. Some reputable people commented, and they might be right. People don't change very quickly in this industry, like ATSs and job postings and ... Hell, people are still putting ads in the newspaper for God's sake. I'm not quite as drastic as that, but look, there's a new world of mobile; the ATS just doesn't quite play in that platform very well. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And chat does. The on demand platforms for work is a new thing. Upwork is happening. The way that talent is being managed and recruited is changing, and the ATS will be fine for a lot of folks, but for other folks, a solution like Talkpush is what is going to make sense for them. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's not one size fits all for everybody, and I think that was kind of the point you were making. I don't think they're all going to die. Chad: No. Joel: Just like all the newspapers, radio and the eight track are going to die any time soon. Chad: That's what Sackett said. He said it's an evolutionary process, which I totally get. The only problem is that many of the ATS providers are way more focused on the after you're hired part of the whole process, instead of creating hiring platforms. So most of money you see getting spent are on the human capital or talent management side of the house, not the talent attraction and the user experience and all of that. So when you take a look at companies who want more of that, they're looking at a Talkpush that has a much better interface, and opportunity to hopefully not send these candidates or these prospective customers into a black hole. We've got to find something, and to be able to say that no, the ATS is never going away ... I totally get portions of that, but we've got to spend some time and money on the recruitment process as well, 'cause that shit's just not working. Joel: Yeah, I'm reminded a lot of Henry Ford, I believe, who said if he'd listened to his customers, the car would have been a metallic horse or something along those lines. Chad: Yes. Joel: Ultimately the ATSs, they listen to their customers, and they give their customers what they want, and there's nothing wrong with that. But we have a whole new generation or a whole new group of folks that are trying to invent the car. It still has wheels, it still goes forward and back, but it's not a horse any more. It's not something that needs a buggy whip. I think that's kind of where we are with the evolution of this thing, and people just need to I think understand that that's how technological evolution happens sometimes. Chad: And that's it for shout-outs. Joel: That's it for shout-outs. Let's get to the news. Indeed has an update. What's up? Chad: Indeed's talent network policy ruffled some feathers. Go figure. Joel: Shocking. Chad: I think we probably dropped a few expletives during a few of our podcasts around this stupid shit. That happened last year, and after getting hammered by vendors, media I guess ... I don't know if anyone else actually covered it as much as we did. And some major Fortune 100 companies, Indeed decided to drop one bullet from their talent network policy. Get ready, drum roll please. Joel: I don't have a drum roll, but let's just ... crickets, or I don't know. What do you want? Chad: Here's the bullet that they dropped. Joining a talent network must occur after the application process is clearly finished. That's what they dropped. Still not happy with the vendor telling companies what to do, and I'm a little bit more heated with companies, especially major Fortune 100 types of companies, who would allow this kind of shit, this type of control, to happen from a vendor. I still don't get it. Joel: I got a bullet for Indeed. Couldn't resist that. Yeah, at least they're listening. Usually they just say, "Fuck you,". Chad: It is weird that they actually listened to somebody, but you've got to also think that they were listening to the Fortune 500 companies who they're trying to bypass, all these other agencies, staffing agencies and job boards and so on and so forth ... to have that direct client pretty much relationship, so when the company comes to them, it means something entirely different. They want to listen, because they know that's ... at the end of the day, they want all of that wallet share from that company. Joel: And I read a long time ago that competition is good for business and consumers, and the fact that Indeed is competing with new players- Chad: Yeah, Google. Joel: ... makes them have to listen more to customers, and I think that's a good thing for everybody. Chad: Yeah, I think it's a win for talent network vendors, and their clients, short-term win, but just from an optics and traffic standpoint. But from a long-term standpoint, allowing your vendor to control any and/or all of your processes is a very slippery slope. It's interesting, and we'll watch it, because they're throwing out policies left and right, just really strangling anything that's not a dollar coming directly from employers. Joel: And we'll see how that works out for them. It should be a fun year of Indeed reporting for sure. Continuing the legacy of dumpster fires that I thought would maybe go out this year, because 2018 was a miserable year for CareerBuilder. It was a great year for us, because we got to talk about them almost every week. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Among those are CEO leaving, executives leaving, sales meetings being postponed/canceled, El Chapo, audio leaving their headquarters in downtown Chicago to lesser digs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I thought things might cool down a little bit. It turns out I might be wrong. We got word earlier this week that they had three very veteran people leave the company. There was an email that went out internally from Irina Novoselsky, 40 Under 40 recipient, letting the team know that John Smith, our buddy from the El Chapo soundbite ... And if you haven't listened to that, I encourage you to do so. It's on SoundCloud, and our channel on whatever podcast platform you listen to. He was their chief sales officer, so no little guy at the company ... has left the company. Jason Lovelace, president of enterprise sales and interim corporate marketing, and Farhan [Jasin 00:18:58], who was president of CareerBuilder International, and oversaw global operation of the Broadbean subsidiary. Joel: In all, we're looking at 52 years amongst them leaving the company. That's a big loss for them. Chad: Yeah. Straight from the private equity playbook, baby. And that's actually a text that I got from a CareerBuilder insider. Straight from the private equity playbook. Joel: Yeah. Farhan was apparently really close to Jeff (Matt) Ferguson, the former CEO, who was there for 14 years. In addition to those announcements, it looks like that a couple of communications folks have left the company as well: Michael Erwin and Jennifer Grasz, who I've dealt with in the past. It was very telling; when this news broke, I emailed both of them to see what was going on, if they could confirm, make any comment. Both of the emails bounced, so they don't even have their emails going to their new PR firm. But anyway, they do have a PR firm. Chad: Are you serious? They didn't have them redirect to anywhere else? Joel: They're not forwarded to anyone in marketing to then forward it somewhere or reply. They just bounced back. So anyway, that's kind of a fuck-up on their part, but they do have an agency. I reached out to them, and the agency basically said, quote, "It's company policy that we don't comment on employees outside of executive promotions and new hires." Chad: Dude, that's total amateur hour shit right there, though. Joel: Well, it is. And all they had to do is say, "Those three are leaving the company. We're proud of their commitment to whatever. We wish them the best of luck." Done. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Just to say, "We're not going to comment on three really important people that have been here for an equivalent of 52 years. We're going to just not comment on that." Now, Novoselsky ended her message with, quote, "I believe that in 2019, with our ongoing commitment, hard work and dedication, CareerBuilder will continue our pursuit to be an industry innovator and market leader." Which kind of made me laugh, because "innovator" means augmented reality on your mobile phone, and "market leader", they haven't seen that since 2008. Chad: Yeah, I'm not really sure she understands what "market leader" means in this industry, because they're nowhere fucking close. Joel: Everyone that I've talked to about this recently tell me morale is in the shitter, which doesn't surprise me. The layoffs keep happening, which makes the company more profitable. Apparently the Norcross office, or the office in Buckhead in Georgia, is practically a ghost town from what I'm hearing. The ads that they're running are kind of a joke internally, because they feel they're basically being run to give the outside world the impression that things are great, even though internally shit's totally all messed up. Joel: Everyone I've talked to says they expect the chop shop to be open throughout the year, so Irina is sort of running the show, she's sort of the Apollo puppet. And we'll see where this thing goes, but I think our early predictions of venture ... there's funds are going to come in, private equity, sell it off, get rid of stuff that doesn't make money, get rid of the high-priced people ... And then do who knows what with it after this, but I'm guessing sell to somebody, sell the pieces off, who knows? Chad: Yeah, I mean the chop shop's going to be open once again. Look for ... Do you think it's actually going to be sold this year? Do you think it will be chopped up and sold off in pieces, or do you think they can actually sell this thing as one? Joel: Well, everyone that we've heard ... Most people we talked to have talked about 2020, 2021, being recession time. We kind of snap back from the 10 years of growth that we've enjoyed. So if you're looking from a time perspective, selling it this year or next are probably better than year three, four and five that are coming, so ... I don't know who would buy it. Maybe some European company or Asian company that wants to make a splash. I'm being serious maybe Recruit Holdings buys it to help solidify their Indeed, Glassdoor, CareerBuilder ... Established companies here in the States: I don't know. But yeah, I would say if they don't sell it this year or next, it's going to be pretty tough after that if the recession and the economy downturn happens, which a lot of people are predicting. Chad: Yeah. Well, CareerBuilder has a big portfolio of products. So it could go either way; it could be a full sale, or they could just chop 'em up and sell 'em off one by one. Joel: Yeah, I'd say both of those are on the table for sure. Chad: What would they do with the domain though? Guess who's back, kids? Joel: Guess who's back, back again ... Okay, old timers will appreciate this. Newbies won't know what the hell we're talking about. In 2004 a startup hit the scene that was dynamic, interesting, fun, cuckoo, semi-innovative, called Jobster. They had a leader named Jason Goldberg, who said a lot of crazy shit, did a lot of crazy shit. He had an executive team that was really stellar, that has gone on to do really interesting things. Anyway, it was an interesting situation. He ended up leaving. The whole thing sort of collapsed. They sold the Jobster domain to a company called Zapoint. I think this was 2010, 2011. Zapoint basically lived off the SEO for a few years. They put in an Indeed backfill, I believe. They probably had some postings. Joel: Anyway, I kind of forgot about it, and then you share some information that you got that the Jobster domain had sold in October of last year, for $200,000. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Which is way too much for that domain. But anyway, it was bought by a Swedish company ... Here we go back to Sweden ... a Swedish company called Jobbird. Chad: What the fuck? Joel: Jobbird. Swedes are weird, dude. I don't know. So I guess Jobster is better than Jobbird, maybe, particularly if you want to go in the States or whatever. So anyway, Jobbird bought it. Jobster redirects to Jobbird, so somebody dropped 200 big ones for the domain. They're going to do something with it; exactly what, we don't know. In my research, Jobbird has had some issues of its own. Apparently it filed for bankruptcy last year. It didn't let its employees know. They found out in one of the Swedish newspapers or something. They have a new ... Someone took ... I think a private equity firm took it over. They have visions of taking on Europe and the States, so maybe the Jobster acquisition was this private equity firm, like, "We're going to come in, keep Jobbird, we're going to take Jobster and hit the States." Who knows? But we'll be watching closely and updating everyone on what the hell happens to Jobster. Chad: Yeah. And if you want more in-depth on the history of Jobster, we did a shred last week. It's called Jobster is Back. Again, you can only really get to those shreds if you subscribe. So subscribe; you're going to get some good content. This is really a history lesson; I remembered a lot of it, but I couldn't remember a lot of the years in which a lot of this happened, and it was interesting. And to say Jason Goldberg and the cast of characters back on those days weren't funny and cool and hip and full of a shit ton of money, 'cause they pulled together $52.5 million ... Joel: Uh-huh? Chad: Yeah. It was fun times. Joel: Did your homework, If you don't do anything out there, go to YouTube and search "Monster is a crap product." It's the video that I took in my old Cheesehead days at the DirectEmployers' annual meeting, so we were both connected to this somehow. And it's about a three minute rant from their CEO about how bad Monster was, and it's classic. If you haven't seen that, I encourage you to do it. It's still on YouTube. Chad: I remember that whole presentation so vividly, just because it was funny to listen to Jason. 'Cause Jason, he took the gloves off. He usually just took the gloves off. And he was in front of a bunch of ... really Fortune 500 companies' talent acquisition leaders. Joel: Who were all Monster clients probably. Chad: Yeah, they were all Monster clients, and they took offense, because they were spending money with Monster. So not the smartest way for Jason to go with this, especially when he was trying to sell this product. But how did you record that? Did you have something on a tripod? 'Cause you had a video, obviously. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Did you have a tripod set up, because this was an hour video, that when you cut it down to ... what was it, six, eight minutes or something like that- Joel: It was about three minutes. It's about three minutes. Chad: Okay. Okay. Joel: But yeah, I put the whole 60 minute presentation online, and it did nothing. And then I said, "People have to see this piece of it," so I edited it down, put that up, and then Cheesehead blew up, and blew-up it went everywhere. But that was a classic annual meeting, because not only Jobster presenting but Paul Forster from Indeed presented, and I think Simply Hired presented as well. Chad: Yeah, got 'em. Gautam Godhwani. Joel: So that was the triple threat, like the world is changing companies. And then you guys had yeah, your Fortune 500 companies, just with their mouths open learning about pay per click and all this stuff. It was a classic meeting; it was great. Chad: It was funny, because I got to deal with all the CEOs of those up and coming organizations. And it was funny, 'cause I remember Jason Goldberg called me one day, and they just got maybe their Series C funding or something, and he was adamant he was going to buy DirectEmployers Association, because we had 700 major Fortune 1000 types of companies, and he saw as that just like an instant way to get a portfolio of clients. Joel: Too bad he wasn't around today. He could buy CareerBuilder. Chad: No shit. Joel: And make that what it could be. That was also the meeting where Craigslist sent a cease and desist to all those three to stop scraping Craigslist. Chad: Good memory, man. Yeah, that was a great annual meeting. Joel: That was a good annual meeting. All right man, let's take a break here and get a word from Sovren, and we'll come back and rant a little bit. Sound good? Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market, because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: I think I figured it out. I think I figured this out. If TNG, and their 10 guy, whatever robot, had Sovren technology and that voice, done. Sold, best product on the market. Joel: By the way, TNG, we found out stands for the next generation? Did I hear that right on our call? Yeah. So at least that makes a little more sense. TNG, the next generation in Sweden or something. Chad: Which is interesting. If it is next generation, I'm sure that's not Swedish, so they would actually do it in English. Interesting. Joel: No mass appeal for the audience. Dude, you got a rant about Oracle and somebody else. You're doing it for the cause; like dude, save this for the actual recording. Chad: Yeah, stop ranting. Okay, so Palantir, and/or [Oracle 00:31:07] and Pandora, they've just been flat out lying to the US government. Here's a good example. Palantir told the DoL, the Department of Labor, that competitors could identify where Palantir has been making significant progress in hiring women and minorities, and target recruiting strategies, right? They were saying, "Hey, this is a trade secret. We can't give you our diversity numbers. We can't show you just how many women we're hiring. Oh, we're doing such a great job ... How many people of color. We can't tell you that, because it's a trade secret, and our competitors will find out, and they'll come after our people." Chad: Well, here's the facts, kids. Out of 167, 167 tech companies in Silicon Valley, Palantir was in the bottom four for female managers. No, they had no women of color in management. No women of color in management whatsoever. And DoL actually cited that Oracle was paying white men more than their counterparts. And Oracle then shot down a shareholder proposal to actually do a gender audit pay gap. So it was like, "No, we don't want to know, because if our shareholders find this shit out, we're screwed." Joel: Yeah. Chad: "So let's hide it. Let's not show anybody." And that's not how shit works. Joel: Yeah. It shouldn't be how it works. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We can't just build walls and hide behind them, Chad. Chad: We can try, we can make sure that 800,000 people are actually kept hostage while we're talking about those walls, but anyway. Joel: So anyway, yes. I have a rant as well. Maybe not quite as passionate as that, but I think it's a reflection on us as a society as a whole and the ageism that we practice way too often. And I'm going to back to the NFL. I know we have a lot of sports fan out there. We certainly don't have some ... We have some global people that don't even know what the NFL is, but just stick with me here for a second. The NFL coach hiring spree is currently happening. Teams that have fired their coaches are hiring them, and what tends to be the trend these days, is to follow the hot trend of hiring young people. So Sean McVay is with the LA Rams. He's a 30-something coach, very dynamic, offensive-minded coach. Nagy at Chicago I believe, is in his 30s as well, kind of an offensive guru. Joel: All the teams are trying to emulate this and hire young people. Well, the problem is, of the eight teams remaining in the playoffs, seven of them have coaches over 50. I would argue that the only team currently that has hired sort of an adult are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who hired Bruce Arians, who's over 50, but he also has Superbowl wins under his belt, he has coaching Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer ... He has a resume and a pedigree, and I think it's just a reflection of what we're seeing in corporate America: people want young folks that are cheap, they know technology, they're more flexible, et cetera, when I think a lot of times it's the older folks that have been there, done that, they have gray hairs and experience for a reason, and they have something to add. Joel: I think it's kind of sad that the NFL is reflecting America opinions, attitudes as a whole, because I think we're really missing out on great coaches and history. And the evidence is there that it's the older coaches that are getting to the playoffs. Chad: Well- Joel: God help Sean McVay if he loses this weekend, because then there may not be any coaches under 50 left in the playoffs. Chad: And if you take a look at a lot of these coaches who've been in for a while, obviously, it's not about them as being that singular coach, it's what they bring with them, and that's staff. We're talking about actually bringing heavy hitters to your defensive line coaches or your offensive coaches or your quarterback coaches. I mean, there's more sway there. And if you have that kind of sway, what can you do in pulling free agent, that can draw those players in? Chad: It's the same thing in our industry; if you go cheap, there's a reason why they're cheap. If you want to actually take a look at somebody who has the experience, has the network and can pull a shit ton of resources together, you should probably take a look at somebody who's been doing it a while. Unfortunately, that's just not the case, and maybe that's what we're seeing at CareerBuilder. Maybe they're like, "Hey, 52 years of experience. You mean nothing to us. We're going to put a couple of kids or 10 kids in your positions to be able to backfill, right? And it's going to cost us less." But at the end of the day, you're going to lose out in that equation. Joel: Yeah, history favors the old, for whatever reason, but yeah. Goddamn it, the Cleveland Browns did the same thing; they hired a young guy. He couldn't even get hired as a coordinator anywhere. They put him in as a coordinator because he was sort of the default, "We hired the last guy." He wins three games, and in Cleveland if you win three games in a row, you're Vince Lombardi, and the reincarnation of Paul Brown. And he's the head freaking coach. I hope it works out, but history says it's going to be another disaster in Cleveland, unfortunately. Chad: I hear ... Aren't they having a statue molded or minted or whatever the hell they do to make this statue for him, and a three game win streak? Joel: Yeah, it's going to be like the Disney statue with him and Mickey, so it's going to be him and Baker. Baker's going to be really small, and he's going to be really big. That's what they're putting up in Cleveland. All right dude, I'm done ranting. I think you are as well. Let's hear a quick word from JobAdX, and we'll talk army VR and voice assistance, one of our favorites. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you have placed in us. Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad tec's bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partner sites. We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners. And we've developed a revolutionary live alert, which eliminates latency and expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links, whether opened today, next month or next year. JobAdX: For more information about our solutions, please reach us at joinus@jobadx.com. Chad: Was the person whistling in the background in that always there, 'cause that's the first time I noticed it. Joel: There's a whistler in the ad? Chad: It sounds like a whistler. Chad: It could be me. Joel: Oh yeah, my hearing's gone. I'm old. I don't want to hear anything any more by choice. Chad: I'd like to look at military recruiting, because our nation's defense goes in line with whether we're hitting our recruiting goals or not, and the military spends more money on recruiting, and is the best recruiting guide that's out there for new and cool kind of things. And there was a new story that popped out of NPR, that talks about the army recruiting goals falling short in the Gen Z era, which was incredibly exciting I think from my standpoint, because Fortune 500 companies, I don't believe are having to deal with this just yet, but the military is. That 17 - 24 range, to an extent. So yeah, it was pretty interesting seeing that the military, especially in this case the army, said, "Hey, recruiters. Get out there on Snapchat, get on Twitter, get on Twitch, all these different types of social media platforms, and try to engage individuals better than what we can now, because you can't call someone Gen Z, 'cause they're not going to answer the goddamn phone." Joel: Yeah. So as a marketer, a digital marketer, I learned early on about PPC. And PPC did not mean pay per click, it meant porn, pills and casinos. The basic gist of that was if you wanted to market in the digital world, keep an eye on porn, pills and casinos, because they're doing the innovative stuff that companies at large will be doing five, 10 years from now. And I think the army is what recruiters should be looking at, because you're right, when you have to recruit people that could die on the job, you better have some damn good recruiting strategies. And the fact that ... We've been talking about the army being innovative for a long time. I think they were the first to have a Second Life island recruiting folks. So when I read this, the main takeaway from the story was the quote that said, "Basically, Gen Z does not answer the phone ... Like, they do not talk on the phone. They don't answer the phone, it's alien to them, they don't want to talk to you." Chad: Yeah. Joel: So the recruiters have been empowered to go to Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch ... anywhere that the youth are playing, they can now go and recruit from. And I think that if you're an employer that's still posting jobs and calling people, like if they're young, they don't want to talk to you. You should be using Canvas, Talkpush or whoever to communicate with these folks, because that's where they live. And the army has set a really great example to show you how they recruit, which is way more challenging probably than the way you're recruiting for a company that isn't killing people. Chad: Yeah. So if you believe that the handshake, looking people straight in the eye, and making sure that you have that kind of connection is the only way to do business, you're fucked when it comes to this new generation. And you're really basically back in the 50s, the way that we did business 50s, 60s, 70s ... until the internet came along, and not so much in technology ... really just didn't give us much time, and we didn't want to fuck with humans any more. Chad: I thought that another cool piece was the US Army sponsored e-sports championships, where recruiters would actually ... This one recruiter was actually on air as one of the e-sports announcers in the tournament. And within 24 hours, they had two million views on that whole segment, and half of those people were 17 to 24. Then the army actually said, "We need to embed this into our actual community." And the army has sports, so you can be in track in the army, you can be a boxer, you can ... You can actually be in sports in the military, and now they're starting an e-sports community to be able to once again draw these 17 to 24 year olds into the community. Changing their culture around this, 'cause they know they have to. Joel: But e-sports isn't about running and fucking jumping, dude. It's about killing people in Fortnite, and Halo, and Battlefield and shit. My 12 year old son, if there's nothing else he should be able to do, it should be shoot a gun at a target, because the kid kills people and aliens and whatever else to the tune of hours a day. If you're looking for people to actually hold a real gun and shoot things, it's the people that are on e-sports playing Halo and Fortnite and everything else. So it's not only hitting them where they live, but they're actually probably pretty good candidates for picking up a gun and shooting things, because they do it digitally on a regular basis. Joel: I think it's also fun to look at ... at our age, advertising through the years of the military. So when you and I were growing up, it was like, "Army, navy, air force, marines. What a great place. It's a great place to start." For us, it was like, "Oh man, you can your start, you can get a career, you can be in the long-term, get security." Chad: College. Joel: Get a job. Yeah, get college paid for. And then it became like Army of One, where it was like, "Screw this team thing, you go in, it's the individual, it's about you. It's about your experience." And now the ads are like virtual reality. You're jumping out of planes, you're storming a beach, you're going from a nurse in a hospital, so then you turn around and you're actually in the battlefield fixing hurt soldiers and shit. For me it's been fun to watch how the military has evolved over the generations, and how the generations ... how you appeal to those generations differently throughout the decades. Chad: And working as an infantry drill sergeant for a time in the US Army down in Fort Benning, Georgia, this shit pisses me off more than it does anything else, because I can tell you, those kids who have been sitting on the couch shooting things in Fortnite or whatever, can't hold a weapon. They've never shot a weapon, they've never run to the Stop sign and back. They're just ... It's one of those things where it's like, "Oh yeah, go ahead, go get those guys, so now I have to mold them into men." That sucks. Joel: Guns have to change. Guns have to turn into joysticks, and controllers somehow. Chad: The robots are going to take this shit over anyway. That's all I gotta say. Joel: Basically, kids will control robots on the battlefield like it's a video game. That's where the world's going. And speaking of VR and smart speakers ... One of your favorite topics. Let's start with smart speakers. These are the voice assistants, Alexa, Siri, Google et cetera. They're flying off the shelves. This is huge, right? The holiday numbers are in. Nearly one in 10 people got one over the holidays. There are now 119 million in circulation in the US alone. This is according to NPR, and Anderson Research. That's a growth of 78% in just the last year, with 21% of the US population now in possession of a smart speaker. Also double digit growth is expected through 2022, as people work out how to best utilize this tech in their daily lives, and not just ask for the weather report. If you're looking for recruiting ideas and the next big thing, clearly voice assistants are a thing. The numbers prove it out. We'll see. Chad: There's no question. It's funny, 'cause I was going to get Julie one of the new ones with the actual Google Assistant with the screen, because you can say, "Hey, pull up a recipe, or pull up ... " I could do that while I'm cooking or what have you. She was like, "No. I don't want that, because I don't want people looking into my home." So there's still that paranoia that's out there too. We do have a Google Home, and maybe they're listening, but they're the hell not watching at this point. Joel: To me, this is eventually going to hit the corporate world, right? I think at some point, these voice assistants will be on every desk in every office and every conference room, where you will ask, "Bring up the presentation, whatever." Or, "Set a meeting for this date," and it'll ... "And invite this person, this person," and you'll just voice that. You won't do it with your phone or with your computer. I think these will eventually penetrate corporate America, and that's probably when the recruiting/HR solutions will happen, because there's no reason why you can't say, "Hey, Alexa, what's our company policy on vacation or time off?" "Time off is dictated by blah blah blah blah." Chad: Yeah. And I think those are easy steps, because we're seeing chatbots do that already. So I think those are easy steps from a voice NLP side. I think when we get into duplex, that's the cool part, when we start to say, "Hey Google, call and make an appointment," when Google's actually calling to make an appointment or sending an email to make an appointment, or doing something of that nature. Or, "Set up an interview for ... ", those types of things. I think that would be ... That's really the next step with the whole duplex model. Joel: I agree. I think we're quite a ways away from that, but I agree, that's where things are going. Well, virtual reality, my favorite technology and yours too, it's equally hot. Oculus Rift, and who hasn't seen the commercials, at least here in the US, of Jonah Hill and the Maroon 5 guy watching the Lakers at Courtside? Oculus Rift sold out on Amazon this holiday season, and the company says they saw strong demand, and continue to into the holidays and after. So maybe VR will finally have its moment here in 2019. What do you think? Chad: It's a possibility. I don't know if it's 2019. I don't know if it's 2019. We did talk about being able to make this mainstream. And that is just the key right there, is making it mainstream. This kind of adoption: if we can continue to see this type of adoption for VR, I think it first and foremost is pretty sad. It's cool at the same time, but it's so sad ... then yeah, you're going to see it happen. We're already seeing companies get into ... I can't remember the name of the company ... into this space, where they send you a VR headset, and it's made out of this really thick type of cardboard, where you quick assemble, you take your smartphone, you slap it in there, and you go onto this whole VR kind of scenario. That's already starting to happen. I think they're ahead of the curve, there's no question. Because we have to get mainstream adoption before anything like that works. If it continues on this route, and you see this type of growth, then yeah. If it starts to kind of fall of the edge, then no way in hell. We'll see. Joel: I think of us as fairly tech savvy, and we don't own one. So that speaks to something, although I really thought about it. I really thought it would be cool. My dad, who is in Austin, we're both sports fans, we both text each other during games ... I thought it would be really cool to be like Jonah Hill and the Maroon 5 guy, to watch games with my dad on this headset. Now, that might tick off our wives. Chad: Yeah. Joel: That's kind of like a world that's kind of cool. I would like to watch a game with my dad, who's in Austin, and feel like I'm there with him. Anyway. Chad: Yeah. Now, that is cool. And it was funny, because I couldn't believe that you didn't already have one, so for Christmas I actually looked at how much they were, and I'm like, "Oh, fuck that." It was 350 bucks. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Instead, he got me the cheap whisky, folks. That's what he did. It's all good. All right man, happy New Year. Chad: Happy New Year. Joel: I'm looking forward to another year of this. We out. Chad: We out. Ema: Hi. I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors, because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Indeed #Jobster #Careerbuilder #VR #SmartSpeakers #Alexa #GoogleHome #Army

We saw Mike present at a conference last year, and the dude's knowledge of the recruitment industry, Google for Jobs and even Amazon's foray into jobs is super intriguing. As a result, we cover a wide variety of recruiting industry topics on this UNCOMMON EXCLUSIVE. Enjoy. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and inclusion.​ Chad: I'm gonna be over the top. Say hello to the easiest way to find interested and qualified candidates. Joel: Dude, you need to tone it down. I was just napping. You mean Uncommon's automated sourcing that turns passive candidates into interested and qualified applications? Chad: Yep. Uncommon Automation helps recruiters cut their sourcing time by 75%. Joel: How much coffee did you have today? Chad: A lot. Joel: Anyway, dude, 75%, that sounds like black magic or something. Chad: Close, it's called automation. It's simple actually. Just feed or post your jobs into Uncommon. The platform identifies your job requirements, and in seconds Uncommon uses those requirements to search over 150 million candidate profiles. And then it pulls back only the qualified candidates. Joel: And don't forget, you can connect your email and Uncommon will provide automated outreach with your customized messages to activate those passive candidates, those pesky passive candidates. Chad: Even better, I'm gonna one up you. Uncommon shows exactly how the candidate meets all the job requirements with a side by side comparison view against the job requirements. Joel: Which means you won't be asking yourself, "What in the hell is this candidate doing here?" Chad: No, but you will be asking yourself, "Where has Uncommon been all my life?" Joel: Seriously? Uncommon is the way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit Uncommon.co and use discount code CHADCHEESE for 20% off. Joel: Uncommon.co Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Say a prayer, boys and girls. We're going to try and get through this show unscathed. I'm Joel Cheesman of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: On today's show, we have another Uncommon exclusive, a special treat today. Saw this guy speak at the Jobg8 conference in Nashville. I was super impressed with him. He lives in Aspen, Colorado, he's got an undergrad degree from Georgetown, and has a masters from the University of Chicago. Other than that, he's a pretty decent guy. Welcome Michael Woodrow to the show. Michael: Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Joel: Hold on, trying to get the applause button. Chad: There it is. Joel: There we go. I need a bigger screen to get all my soundbites. Chad: That's what she said. Joel: Michael, before we dive in, give the audience, who I'm guessing most do not know you personally, give us a pitch on you and what you do and why you're here. Michael: Sure. I've got a business called Aspen Tech Labs and we actually just had our 10 year anniversary party this past Friday night, so we've been around for a little while. We work behind the scenes in the recruitment tech industry. The bulk of our business is jobs data management, so jobs scraping, and we move alot of job content around, from applicant tracking systems into advertising platforms like ZipRecruiter, Monster, and Broadbean. Lots of guys like that, we move job content around, we synchronize it, we keep things flowing between the ATSs and the advertising platforms, 'cause we also have our job word product called JobMount, and we have a cool product, hopefully we can talk a little bit about today, called Career Set Cloud, it's got a nice Google for jobs interface and a job alert system. It's a career centered product. Joel: Yep, and JobMount and SpiderMount, a lot of our audience members in the vendors side will know that. JobMount's been around almost 10 years, right? Michael: Yeah, it actually predated the business a little bit. My former partner, who retired recently, started doing one off job wars about 15 years ago, and then we launched Aspen Tech Labs 10 years ago, and JobMount was our first product. Yeah, JobMount and then yeah, a piece of our jobs data management business is called SpiderMount, that's the scraping business. Joel: Yep. Let's dive in, one of the things you really wanted to talk about, and we can get to the industry stuff as we go on, but you were at Jobg8 in London and had quite a bit of takeaways from that. Can you sum up some of the highlights from that show? Michael: I would say that first of all, one of the things that interesting is Jobg8, and there's a conference coming up in March called RecPlus, it seems like the community of attendees in Europe is, nothing against the U.S. people, but is a little more vibrant. It seems like the U.S. one is, sorry, you were there and I were there, so the usual suspects go to the U.S. ones. But in the European conferences, it's media firms, it's advertising firms, the StepStone guys are all over the place there, Russ Media, there's lots of activity from lots of different firms as opposed to the usual suspects. I think that's one thing that's interesting. It's pretty vibrant, it's really well-attended, 200 plus people are there. I think they do a good job. Michael: One takeaway that I had that I thought was really interesting, I think most people took this away too, there's a Spanish firm called Job Today and they built their business from almost nothing in about four years. And they're kind of like a snag a job or retail or lower end employee site, and they do, almost exclusively, they do employer marketing using Facebook. You think about Facebook as being something for candidates really, not for employers, but they say SMBs are all over Facebook. They're concerned about their social presence, etc., and so they're there. You can really advertise to SMBs on Facebook, which people were just kind of blown away by that, and they showed some stats that were pretty cool. Michael: And they said, and then for millennials- Joel: Oh, god. Michael: Which is their target audience, almost exclusively Instagram and Snapchat. That's where they attract their candidates. So that was a really interesting presentation, their growth ... He admitted they had some good funding and were able to spend some money where startups have trouble with that sometimes. But that was one takeaway I thought was pretty interesting. Joel: And I know that AIM Group had a report that a job today is posted, a job in the U.S., for someone to hit up North America operations, so they're coming over here pretty quickly. Michael: Yeah, that's interesting. They didn't talk about that at all, but it doesn't surprise me. It seems like they're well funded and they're moving. So that's something that certainly was interesting. But yeah, there was definitely a good vibe. Another thing that was one trend there was that job boards that are just providing jobs to candidates, the StepStone guys and some more of the recruiter marketing firms, they were telling me that they don't even think that those guys have a chance of surviving, that the sites really need to be a place for candidates to gather information and to interact and the jobs can be one part of what you're doing on the sites. Michael: It sounds like the guys from StepStone particularly are spending a lot of focus on that. That might be because unemployment is so low. The other thing I learned there is unemployment in places like Hungary and Croatia and places like that are like 6%, 3%, 4%. I didn't know that. I thought those Eastern European countries were much higher, but lots of action in those places and people are being smart about recruiting, because if you have full employment, you have to be smarter about recruitment, right? Chad: Yeah, we talked to Wolfgang down in New Orleans during TAtech over at StepStone, and those guys are an entirely different animal. They like to build everything instead of partner for things. So yeah, I could definitely see where they want to be able to grow out something that obviously is more than the job boards, more on the interaction and engagement side of the house. But all of that being said, let's get to the meat of this stuff, because you had a rant that you wanted to go on with regard to Google for Jobs, Google APIs, and Tarquin are those guys showing up to these conferences and really saying nothing. So give it to us. Michael: I love the sponsors of these conferences. They allow me to speak or whatever, so I'm not bashing on the Jobg8 people or anything, but it just seems like this guy Tarquin, I forget what his last name is, Tarquin ... Chad: Clark. Michael: Clark from Google shows up at these conferences and he's not part of Google for Jobs. He claims to know nothing about it. He's part of the Google Cloud side, which is the Google API, Google Hire, that whole side of it. And so if you think about the audience, the audience is recruitment tech people and programmatic advertising and job boards and everyone, and people are seeing like, "What the hell do I care about Google Cloud and Google Hire, especially?" Maybe Google API, not really sure. I don't really see that in widespread use. But he comes up there and he talks about it and people get excited that he's there, and he doesn't say anything. And when he walks away, at least the people who seem to know what they're talking about are like, "Well, that was a waste of time." Joel: It's a nice draw to have Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and whatnot at your conference. Michael: Yeah, I think that is a draw to have those people there, but I think I really am advocating to stop having him come to these things. And I'm going to talk to the people at AIM and Louise and everyone, you should tell him that he can't come alone anymore. He's gotta bring somebody from Google for Jobs so they can talk about what's going on. Chad: So that's like going to Indeed and having somebody speak from Indeed but they have no fucking clue what's going on in their search group. You realize that, right? So they've modeled that like Google, and Google and their search team is pretty much behind frosted glass and shit. So you can't see, you can't really have engagement with them, not to mention, I'm sure you've seen the anti-trust suits that have come out of Europe with regard to Google, right? Michael: Yeah. Joel: Why do you think Google doesn't ... because obviously Tarquin knows what's going on at Google for Jobs. Strategically, why do you think they play that game? Michael: You know, the only thing I can think is that they just don't want to answer the questions about, "Are you guys going to charge for advertising on Google for Jobs? Are you going to continue giving traffic to job boards on Google for Jobs?" I think they just don't want to answer those questions and then be held back later to say, "Hey, you told us this, and it's not necessarily true." So that's the only thing that I can think. That's the only reason I can think. I mean I guess there's some Chinese wall type stuff that might make sense too, but ... Chad: Well there's that, and I mean Tarquin, his whole job go to market is the API stuff. So his focus is to be able to go into those types of environments to be able to talk to job boards and say, "Hey, look," I'm gonna paraphrase, "your job search sucks. It's for shit. You should actually use the Google API job search just like CareerBuilder, Jibe, all these other recruitment platforms, because your stuff sucks. Ours is better." So it's not really his job to talk about Google for Jobs, it's his job to be able to sell the go to market side of the API. Michael: Yeah, I get that. I get that that's what his job is. But I just think the conference people mislead you, someone from Google's gonna be there, we all think it's Google for Jobs and it's not. I get what his deal is, but he even started talking about Google Hire, and he was telling everyone how Google Hire's perfect for them and everything and everyone's sitting there like, "What are you talking about? We're job boards." So he must know. He's a Google guy, he's not stupid, right? He must know. I don't know, it's kind of crazy. Sorry about that rant. I just have seen it three times now, or three or four times, and you just kind of shake your head. Michael: But I would like to talk about Google, I think we should talk about Google for Jobs at some point here because I think it's super interesting. Joel: And before we get into that, I'm curious because you've been in the job board business so long and your product ... Give us a current state of the union for job boards, where they are now, where they're going, are you bullish, bearish, what's going on there? Michael: I'll tell you, when I get a call from somebody who wants to start a new job board, the first thing, I basically tell the person two things. I'm like, "I don't know if you're going to buy our job board or not, but here's two things you can take away from this call regardless of which direction you go: A, don't quit your day job, and B, don't build the job board from scratch." I always tell people that. The second one maybe isn't as relevant to the question, but the first one, don't quit your day job, is ... Michael: And kind of a side note that I tell people is, if you want to start a job board today, you need to have either some secret sauce for attracting candidates, maybe have connections to an association or your brother's in charge of the Nurse's Association of America or I don't know, something like that. But you have some secret sauce to attract candidates or you've got some access to employers that you've been in the industry long, they trust you, they know you're gonna help them hire, one or the other. You need to have one of those two things. Michael: But if you're in the job board business, maybe I drank the Kool-Aid or whatever, but I think you need to offer candidates more than just getting hammered by job alerts, you know? And so you need to offer them some reason to stay connected with your platform. It's news, it's training, it's whatever, so that you'll be top of mind when they're looking to make a job change. I think that's the critical thing. Joel: What are some examples of job sites and what they're doing that you see that's successful? Michael: Let's think about that for a minute. Ones that I think are successful, ZipRecruiter is incredibly successful. We all have to agree on that, right? Is that something you guys agree with? Joel: Sure. Michael: And I love the guys at ZipRecruiter, but I don't understand why job boards take feeds from them, frankly. It's a small amount of money to get to push your traffic back to ZipRecruiter so that they can do a better job than you soliciting your candidate with job alerts? I don't understand why job boards are willing to do that. I understand absolutely why ZipRecruiter's doing that. Chad: So why is ZipRecruiter doing so well? Because they really are just an alert type of job board. They don't have any really additional content. So you were talking about being able to do more than just the alerts and that kind of content, but that's really all ZipRecruiter's doing, right? Michael: Yeah, I think they're a force. And so there's somebody who can just by brute force, and basically all they do is sign up job boards to buy traffic from. So buy traffic from a job board, job boards are always looking for additional revenue streams. Most of them are willing to sell their traffic to ZipRecruiter, but then ZipRecruiter captures all those candidates and they've built this massive job alert resume database, resume database and job alert database, and they're good at it. They're much better at it and they've got the broad platform. They can send engineering jobs to an engineering person and music jobs to a music person. They can send all of those. Michael: So I think they're probably the exception. They probably don't need to provide a whole bunch of content for people, but I don't think your average job board like jobs in sports or golf talent or jobs in football, they can't compete with somebody like ZipRecruiter when it comes to job alerts. Joel: And Indeed's success was similar as well right? Providing backfill for all these job boards, which by the way, they put a little link in the bottom of every site saying, "Jobs provided by Indeed" which help their SEO because of the links they were getting. They're basically using the little guy to leapfrog them to success, right? Michael: Yeah, that's how they built their business all over the world, and I hate those guys, but their business plan was absolutely genius. Because I had some job boards at the time and they were giving 'em massive amounts of organic traffic and everybody relied on them, and I was in their office in Connecticut eight years ago or something like that, meeting with them about scraping and things like that, and every Monday they had like 50 new college grads, and all they were doing was giving them all these job boards to go take their clients, call 'em directly, and say, "Why are you working with ABC Job Board? You should be working directly with us. You don't have to pay per month, we'll pay you per click," that whole thing. It was genius. That's what they've done. Michael: The thing that really still boggles my mind and I wish I could ask Google two questions, not just one, but the second I'd ask them is, "Why the hell did you give so much status to Indeed job postings?" For years, they gave Indeed ... But why? It wasn't original content. It was just aggregated content. Joel: The algorithm. Chad: So here's the thing and here's what we learned, is that, and this is actually something we learned through talking to Colin Day and some of the other operators that are out there is that Indeed was providing almost live feeds into Google and providing them with jobs almost as they were posted through the applicant tracking system. So they were banging the hell out of applicant tracking systems, getting feeds from job boards, etc., etc., etc., and they seemed to be the only place that was providing that kind of content that fast. So I think it was pretty simple for Google. It was like, yeah, these guys are obviously the source. They're providing us more jobs per second than anybody else that's out there who's providing them in 24 hour, 12 hour feeds. Joel: And by the way, the back links for there, people would go to their site, it was user-friendly, they would stay on the site. It wasn't just the frequency of scraping and uploading into Google. Nobody played the SEO game better than Indeed, which is why they became Indeed. I don't know if you can blame Google for that. Google has an algorithm and they say, "We don't play favorites, and if you are, according to algorithm, the best results for these searches, that's how you're going to be in the top of searches," and Indeed played the game really, really well. Chad: They were incredibly focused, which nobody else was. So that being said, let's get the hell away from Indeed for a second. Let's go to Google for Jobs. How does Google for Jobs disrupt even more than they have thus far, or do you think they will? And this will just be where they sit. Michael: I think Google for Jobs is going to be absolutely the force in job search. I just think what we're hearing from people, so we see it, we have this platform where we can scrape jobs from an ATS, you don't have to change your career site, you don't have to do anything, we just grab jobs from your ATS, we populate a parallel career site, we push those jobs to Google for Jobs, and we see the traffic. It's not massive traffic, but it is growing. And what we're seeing is we're seeing super high apply rates and we're hearing in the industry, if you guys Google it or whatever, check it yourself if you don't think I'm right, but people are saying there are higher hire rates. Michael: So Google for Jobs is generating much higher hire rates than other places. And the only thing I can think is that when people go to Google and they look for a job, they're serious about looking for a job, right? They didn't get a job alert, they didn't get bounced into some other way or whatever, they went to Google to look for a job. Google was trying to make it really easy for them to show relevant jobs that are close to them, etc., and then they can choose where they want to go to apply. They can choose to go directly to the ATS if it's offered there or they can go to LinkedIn or they can go wherever to apply. So Google's making it easy for them. Michael: So everything I'm seeing is super positive and if you look at the real estate that Google for Jobs is giving, it's massive. They're giving almost the entire first page to Google for Jobs. And getting back to your Indeed example, maybe that is the answer that I've been struggling for, because I do believe that Google wants to make the search experience ... Google will do whatever they can to make the search experience optimal for the person who's searching. And if Indeed was delivering that for them, then there's the answer to my quandary. And I think that's what they're trying to do with Google for Jobs. They're trying to make the search experience as simple and user-friendly as they can. Joel: Hey, Michael, you had some really interesting insight into the things that are solid optimization tips in Google for jobs. For example, I think one of the things you said was if they're actually applying, then your jobs are going to rank better. Or if you have salary information, Google's gonna look at that more better than if you don't have salary data. Can you give some optimization tips that you've seen from your business and Google for Jobs? And I'm also curious about old SEO, so old SEO of the JobMount, getting ranked for Toledo Jobs versus maybe how a company should be looking at SEO today in a Google for Jobs world? Michael: I would say so Google's got their schema and it's not that complicated to follow. They don't care about geolocation because they know it better than anybody. They've got their own maps API that they can run all the jobs through and they'll have the geo locations, so they don't really care about that. They certainly care about job title. They don't care about any categorization because they're taking the job titles and the content and they're better than anybody at dealing with making sense of content. And it was funny, at Jobg8 in London, people were complaining about it, "Why is Google showing me a physical therapist job in London?" and everything, and my point is, they're gonna figure it out. Michael: They might today show you a physical therapist job in London, but every day they're getting smarter and smarter about what they're doing. So there's the Google schema, and if anybody who's listening here doesn't know what it is, just send me an email or Google it. It's pretty easy to get the jobs in that format. Follow that. They do like salary information, so even if you can have a range that you're going to rank higher or if you've got a range of salary information versus blank salary information. It's a little dicey if you're a job board and you're collecting jobs from, let's say, BP or Craft, and they don't have salary information, are you going to add that to the job to push it out to Google for Jobs? It's a little dicey to do that, but it's kind of up to everybody how they want to handle that. Michael: But salary information is going to help you rank better. And what we're also seeing is that on the Google for Jobs screen that comes up, you'll see LinkedIn usually comes up and CareerBuilder come up. They're either two partners with Google for Jobs or something, they usually come up first or second, but the ATS, the career site, can stand up against those power houses. So I believe that over time, Google is going to give more status to the career site, because again, if you believe my premise that Google wants to make the experience as clean as possible for the user, getting that person to the ATS if it's mobile-friendly is going to be a better user experience than kicking them to Zip and then Zip kicks them to Indeed, or not Indeed, Zip kicks them somewhere else and everyone's collecting information and people are dropping. Michael: I see that's where they're going. They're not quite there yet, but I think that's the direction they're going in. Chad: I disagree when it comes to that, because in some cases if you go to an easy apply scenario, you're going to get somebody who actually applies through Indeed or LinkedIn or one of the actual vendors versus going through a 20 minute apply process and they eject. So I think there's no question, there's a great opportunity for applicant tracking systems in companies to focus on their user experience overall to ensure that they get much better rankings on Google for Jobs, but I don't think that's played out yet. I think that job boards and job sites are really going to work extensively on UX so that they can continue to gain rank. That's just my personal opinion. Michael: I don't disagree with that, yeah, it makes sense. It comes back to my point, Google is smart about this. They're going to try to figure out what's best for the user. And if a quick apply is the best for the user, then they're probably going to direct somebody there. You're probably right about that. Chad: So let's talk about another mammoth organization in Amazon. They've made some strides with AWS Educate and they also started to tack a job board onto that. We talked about this in one of our podcasts last week, a couple weeks ago. What's your take on this? Michael: So one thing we said at Jobg8 that I thought was interesting, maybe you guys have said this already, but LinkedIn's in the job business through Microsoft, Google's obviously in the job business, Facebook's in the job business, Indeed, the biggest guys are in this business. It makes me bullish on the industry, right? So these guys wouldn't all be here if it wasn't interesting, and here comes Amazon, saying, "Hey, we don't want to be left out." SO this AWS Educate platform that they have, again, just like Indeed, you have to respect Amazon. No matter what you think about Amazon. Michael: They're saying, "Let's build a platform and let's display jobs for Cloud engineers and let's provide training for Cloud engineers and let's provide content and other things to keep people interested," and then the idea being, I think, once those people who look favorably on AWS, when they go out into the world and they're choosing a server partner, they're going to choose AWS. So I think it's genius for them to do this, and there's so many of those jobs. I think that AWS wants to capture every Cloud job and maybe even broader, every technical job, of all the AWS partners. Michael: And they want it to be a value ad, they're not charging for it, they want it to be a value ad for the partners. We pay AWS a lot of money and we're a tiny little company. Everybody's paying AWS, and AWS is saying, "hey, we're going to give you something else for that, too. We're gonna help you find people." Joel: One of the things that I think definitely sparked this whole arms race in employment was Microsoft dropping 26 billion dollars for LinkedIn. That definitely got everyone's intention. Any acquisitions in Amazon's future that you see? I've been talking about Slack for a long time. I could see ZipRecruiter being gobbled up by them or maybe Facebook. What do you see on the MNA frontier? Michael: It certainly sounds interesting. If you look at LinkedIn and you look at ... They've got that professional network that they've built. Microsoft now knows about all of us. They have all of our personal email addresses, they have everything through LinkedIn. So I think that certainly made LinkedIn interesting for Microsoft. Is that why ZipRecruiter is building this massive job alert system, because they're collecting user information? They know where these people are working, they know what jobs they're interested in, they have a lot of information there, so could that be something that's interesting? I don't know. I know the Zip guys are happy building their business and having a lot of fun doing it and everything, so I don't know about that. Michael: But I think user information is of great value and Microsoft proved that paying for LinkedIn. Joel: Michael, last question for me. We talk a lot about on the show automation and sourcing automation. Google released out of data the ability to post a job and automatically see who in your database is a good candidate and we see this with LinkedIn as an SMB tool where they go into their LinkedIn directory and give you candidates for the jobs you just posted. This is an Uncommon exclusive, they just launched a sourcing tool that will search 150 million candidates to bring up, candidates they believe are good fits for your job. Joel: The question I guess is your thoughts on the automation trend. At some point, do we even need job postings and is that a viable business for the future? Michael: It's interesting, I'm a recruiter by training. That's where I come at this. And so 20 plus years in recruiting, I'm old enough to say, "Oh, no that'll never work." But I'm also smart enough to say, "Technology is certainly going to continue to disrupt." I haven't seen anything that does a really good job with it, but if you think about what LinkedIn is trying to do, they've got this gigantic professional database and being able to help recruiters match candidates and narrow the list down and then contact them, I think there's definitely a huge amount of power in that, a huge amount. I really believe that LinkedIn is a recruitment technology firm more than anything else. I think that's where they make the bulk of the revenue, and so it doesn't surprise me that they're doing that and I'm optimistic that they're going to improve on that, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that we don't need postings. Joel: It'd be a much better show if you did. Hey Michael, man, I know you're a busy guy and there are probably mountains to ski or something there in Aspen or fires to cuddle up next to, but thanks for coming on the show. For anyone that wants to know more about you or your company, where would you send them? Michael: So they can just go to Aspentechlabs.com or I'm just Mike at Aspentechlabs.com. Shoot me an email and I'll be happy to tell you about the Google schema or how to get on Google for Jobs or anything like that. Happy to do it. So thanks guys, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Joel: Thanks, Michael. And Chad? Chad: Yeah? Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad Podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes, that silly Android phone thingy or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on Monster.com. We out. #JobMount #SpiderMount #SEO #GoogleforJobs #HirebyGoogle #Jobg8 #GoogleJobsAPI

What could be better than predictions for the New Year by Chad & Cheese? How about those two being joined by industry veteran Tim Sackett? Well, your wish is our command. Enjoy, and continue supporting our sponsors in the new year. Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas rock our world. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Merry New Year boys and girls. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous, but today way more charming as we welcome Tim Nutsacket to our show this week we break down last year's predictions, look at next year's predictions and probably talk sports and beer and some other shit. Nurse that hangover, 'cause it's about to get intoxicating right after this word from JobAdX. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you've placed in us. Since 2017 JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad tech's bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange and continue to rapidly grow our network of partner sites. JobAdX: We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all JobBoard partners. And, we've developed our revolutionary live alert which eliminate latency and expired job ads via email, no more dead clicks or overages from job links whether open today, next month or next year. For more information about our solutions please reach us and joinus@jobadx.com. Joel: Tim I pronounced your last name correctly in the opening, right? Tim: Oh Nutsacket. Joel: Welcome back, Tim, It's been a year. Tim: I know and I can't tell you, I mean I've heard from tens of people that've listened to your podcast that are like, "Oh my gosh I can't believe that you're gonna be on the most dangerous HR podcast ever, which is so sad. Joel: To highlight you said tens, right? Tim: Tens. Joel: We have way more listeners than we thought, Jeff. Chad: Yeah I know it's pretty awesome. I know we've got like ... But most are our family though, right? Joel: Yeah. Well Tim welcome to the show, man. New listeners won't know that you were on our year end show or year beginning show last year, to go through predictions. You were star of one of our most popular podcasts last year which was the indeed jail podcast. Tim: Going to jail. Joel: So it's always a treat. Tim: I mean right, I've gotten more content out of Indeed putting me in jail for the year and then deciding to screw over every staffing firm, it just keeps clicking away. Love it. Joel: You and Chad have made a career out of fucking Indeed, it's great. Tim: That's just 'cause they love fucking everybody else, so I mean it's fair play, bub. Joel: And they stole your Christmas sweater idea. Tim: Sons of bitches. You guys had a great Christmas sweater. Joel: Dude. That's all Chad, man. I don't want any credit for that. Chad: You're not gonna get any credit because it was my idea, you thought it was dumb and everybody else is like, "That is the shit." I'm like, "I know it's the shit." Tim: I just wanna know how far ahead of time do you have to think about that to get it to China to have some seven year old kid make it, like it's ... That'd have to be at least nine months. Chad: It's made in Germany, man, and it actually took about eight weeks, yeah. Joel: The country that gave us Claudia Schiffer also gave us that God awful sweater. Chad: It's fuckin' awesome, dude. I love it. Chad: Let's talk about 2018 predictions, where we came out, and first and foremost I'd like to say that I was wrong because Saquon Barkley was a hit but Ed in Philly, shut up Penn State still sucks. Chad: Cleveland took Mayfield, which Joel was wrong and I was right because the Browns, they love the bad boy. But he's not doin' too bad right now, is he? Joel: I'm warming up to him. Little by little. Chad: At the end of the day in 2018 we all agree Michigan still sucks, so ... Joel: Amen to that. Chad: So those were kind of like the pre not talent predictions. Joel: Did we really talk like draft predictions on last year's show? Chad: Yeah we did, we did, we talked a little bit about draft predictions and who we thought was going to kick ass and take names. Tim: What do you guys think about the process of all these kids not playing in ball game? Joel: Don't like it, but totally get it. I do think you have to be a top ten to 15 player to do it, though. So my wife is a West Virginia grad and Will Grier is arguably a top five quarterback in the draft. He's projected to go second or third round. He has said, "I'm not gonna play in the game." To me he should play, 'cause he could light up whoever and maybe even move up into a first rounder, but I think you shouldn't do it unless you're like a top ten or 15 pick. Tim: Yeah, Michigan State's got a quarterback that literally is like he might be a six or seventh round or even not get drafted, he's not playing and you wanna go, "I don't know if you're helping yourself." Chad: There's a risk reward there, right? In that case, that's all about reward. I really don't see a risk there, but my pick for this year where it's around the same thing but Nick Bosa, he went out early in the season with an injury and he decided not to come back but here's my prediction. I still think he's gonna go top five picks because he dominated every game he was in and genetics, big guys, his dad played in the NFL and his brother is tearin' the shit out of offensive lines right now. Joel: This is how Chad does his predictions, like he looks at every mock draft that has Bosa as a top five pick and then he comes on the show and goes, "I think he's gonna be a top five pick, that's my prediction." Like that's such a bold pick, every expert has him top five and now Chad has him top five. Chad: I didn't look at anything. Joel: Way to put yourself out there, Chad. Tim: I'm gonna put one out there. Duke's gonna win the NCA tournament. Chad: That's a good one. I like that one. Joel: That's a good one like would you take Duke over the field? Tim: Oh God yeah. I would take Duke over the field right now in a heartbeat. Joel: I'll go sports. Jim Harbaugh is not the coach of Michigan next year. Tim: No. Joel: It goes to the pros. Tim: That's a good one though, I like that. Joel: And potentially Cleveland is in the Catbird seat for his services. I think he's either in Cleveland or Green Bay. Tim: Did Ohio state make the right decision? Chad: Which one? Joel: Meaning what? Tim: Just moving the guy up. Chad: I think he did a good job for the first part of the season, first four games. So yeah and he's in the system so yeah I think he was the logical step. Joel: He's on a short leash. I mean Ohio State's too big of a job just to like put the next guy in line. Someone bigger will come along. Chad: We'll see. Joel: Let's get to recruiting predictions and review last year's brilliant commentary that we had. Chad: Okay, so the first one, Tim, was sourcing is dead in 2018. Which I'm going to say not so fast, not so fast, there was a lot of talking about it but that didn't quite happen. What do you think about that, Tim? Tim: I still think when you take a look at kind of the evolution of sourcing tech that the run of the mill sourcing sourcer that has to go out the right balloon strings and stuff, like that job's gone away. You don't need that anymore. Chad: So you feel like it's good. Tim: I thought the prediction was pretty good, I mean ... Joel: Alright. The judges disagree. Chad: So that being said, I was just about on the same bandwagon. I was more on the RPA process side of the house and I thought that that would pretty much be a standard in all the process in 2018 and that's just not the case, so yeah I was wrong there. And Joel predicted Glassdoor goes public, which did not happen. Joel: But they would have, had they not been acquired. Chad: Did not happen. Tim: Doesn't matter if it would have. Chad: It did not happen. Joel: Fine. Chad: Second round, Tim said, "Employee referral automation gains adoption." I think that one goes into the category of who gives a fuck. Tim: When you take a look, still, it didn't and I could put that on the list this year too 'cause I still think it's like the highest ROI most underutilized recruiting tech on the market and I still don't [crosstalk 00:09:02] Chad: Which is why they won't do it. Tim: Yeah. I don't get it. If people think they can do it for free, they're like, "We have a referral program, it's on the wall in the lunchroom we'll go look at it." Chad: Exactly. Tim: That shit doesn't work. Chad: So my second pick which incredibly bold, CareerBuilder and Monster start surging back. Tim: It would have been better if you had said CareerBuilder and Monster merged. Joel: Key word there is start. Like you could argue that they started, didn't quite get there. Chad: Yeah, I think I mean CareerBuilder gave us a lot to talk about this year. They were dramatic changes, El Chapo ... Joel: They were the gift that kept on giving in 2018. Chad: Oh my God. Monster really didn't do much of anything, right? So it was a difference between there was a lot of stupid shit happening versus not much happening at all, so I mean there was a start of something but I sure don't know what the fuck that was. Tim: Well no, Monster announced the whole video studio thing, right? That was really cool but then it wasn't actually available. Chad: Once again I don't know that they don't ... Joel: Don't forget augmented reality like CareerBuilder. Chad: Then Joel's was Amazon buys Slack which again didn't happen. Man, we are not doing well here, guys. The last one for Tim, college degrees are dead. I'm gonna get behind Tim on this one. I believe that we actually, at least the starting of this was happening just because of the talent shortage, companies really started to look at getting rid of these really, the requirements for a college degree when, in fact, you don't need a goddamn college degree to do most of these jobs. I'm gonna give him a thumbs up on that one. Tim: Bam. Joel: Damn. Chad: Take that. Joel: I think if we do this show you know, ten years from now that might hold a little more weight. Or if you would've just said, "Alternatives to college start to take serious precedence in some organizations like that would be good, but just to outright say, "College degrees are dead." Was a pretty bold prediction. Chad: He was being very bold. Tim: Yes. Chad: Not so bold prediction, the ATS is going to make a comeback, that was my third one. Joel: And we said before the show did they actually leave? Chad: Although ... Yeah, but I mean they weren't really haven't done anything in the recruiting talent acquisition sides, it's all been background checks and onboarding shit. But we did get iCIMS spending cash for text recruit. They also had an infusion of cash, their vision is very aggressive I believe so I think we did see a vision from at least one of these applicant tracking systems that was aggressive on the talent acquisition recruiting side of the house. Joel: Chad's being very charitable with the predictions from last year, but okay. Chad: Yes I am. And then last but not least, Joel voice assistance comes to employment. Google Duplex isn't ready for Prime Time yet. Tim: Siri, can you find me a developer worth? Joel: We're like O eight and two. That's our record. We've got a couple ties and a lot of losses. Chad: We're the fucking Cleveland Browns of this shit is what we are. Tim: We're playing for our first round selection from 2008. Chad: Shit. Joel: Very nice. And that is last year. We'll get into this year after this quick word from Sovren. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market. Because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching visit sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: See, and again, I'm gonna say that's the reason why AI and algorithms take over because they put sexy voices on 'em like that and there's nothing we can do. Tim: Yeah, they come up with those like Russian names like it's Svetlana. Like here's our chat bot Svetlana. Joel: There is no chat bot named Svetlana. Tim: So great. Not yet. There will be now. Joel: Adriana. Chad: Adriana. So that being said, getting into 2019 predictions and as always we're gracious here at the Chad and Cheese podcast. We're allowing our guest to go first. So Tim, 2019 predictions. Joel: Let's go. Tim: As we know, you know we're gonna have a little bit of softening of the economy. We've already started to feel it with all these fourth quarter layoffs. So my prediction is is that assessment science and those vendor community out there will have a big year, it'll come back in a big way, we'll be talking more about the assessment science side. Basically because we got all in 2018 we just basically hired any warm body that would come through the door and now we can come back we can say, "Look, we don't need to hire any warm body with a hickey, we can actually hire real talented people and take our time lets put some money into that and let's upgrade the talent that we have." I don't think we'll see a bunch of layoffs, I think what we'll see is targeted kind of people getting shot 'cause they suck so bad, and then you're upgrading the talent within organizations. Joel: I haven't heard the word hickey for about 15 years, so thank you for that, Tim. And what is that ... Was that a warm body with a hickey, or a body with a warm hickey? Tim: A warm body with a hickey because a cold body with a hickey is just that's just wrong. Chad: Nobody wants that. You get boo'd for bringing that up, Cheesman. So there's been a good amount of money that's been poured into this area, the assessment area so yeah I think I could kind of get on board with that prediction. Tim: It's kind of beyond I still think too many HR leaders, TA leaders are stuck in this kind of like, "Oh, we're doing the wonder lick or some stupid personality assessment." That's not kind of assessment science or 2018 2019. It's all kind of data driven and kind of really more sophisticated. The reality is that those things can pick people better than Harry or HR men or your supervisor and you know whatever. Joel: Harry Hickey. Tim: Harry Hickey, who is 20 year pro supervisor manufacturer that has no idea what he's doing. He just is basically picking somebody 'cause they came in with Lion shirt on versus a Packer shirt or something. Chad: And that's bias, my friend and we won't have it. Tim: Bam. Joel: Exactly. Chad: We won't have it. Alright, Cheesman, you're first. Joel: My turn. Okay. Mine is much more specific than this sort of gray ethos prediction that Tim makes. Tim: That way in 2020 I can definitely say, "See? My prediction came true." Joel: Yeah you've got the trumpification of predictions. Definitely can get out of that one in the future. Joel: Okay, mine is that at least one of the following CEOs will not make it to 2020, meaning they will get fired. Those three will be Monster CEO Scott Gutz, DHI CEO Art Zeile or CareerBuilder CEO Irina Svetlana Novoselsky. Tim: Don't do that. Joel: One of those three will be fired when we get together next year. At least one. Tim: Okay, real quick let's do a Fuck Mary, Kill. Go ahead. Chad: So Tim. So your pick. Joel: Who can most survive the year and whose most likely gonna get canned? Tim: So I mean I had personal conversations with each of these people in 2018. I've spent time with all of them, so I feel really bad about having to make that prediction of who would get shot first. I will say the Dice CEO. I just think their product is probably struggling. It has less name recognition than the CareerBuilder Monster stuff that who can still kind of get money from non suspecting TA leaders HR leaders. Chad: Yeah. I'm with Tim, I think, and I'm not gonna be as nice, just because Art won't come on the fucking show and talk through it, but ... Tim: Art's a good guy, I think he really believes in the company and the product, I just, you know. Chad: Well yeah but he was at TA tech in New Orleans talking about onboarding and shit. I mean it's like what the fuck are you guys doing over there? Your product sucks but you wanna talk about down stream shit? I mean this doesn't make any sense whatsoever, so I'm not sure that they have the focus and yeah I just, from a product standpoint they haven't been able to keep up. So they would have to leap frog and I don't think that they have the resources to be able to do that, so I think Art's dead in the water. Scott's only been in the job for shit, five, six months. Joel: Six months. Chad: Yeah, and you know I think Randstad, yes they do focus heavily on margins and eBid and those types of things, but I think he's got a little bit more rope than Art does. Joel: I'll zag a little bit from your zigging just for the sake of argument. I'd say Monster has the best chance of surviving. They've got a road map, they've got executives around he's got a team like ... I don't think Randstad is gonna pull the plug, I don't think they're gonna sell the company in the next year but I'll go ahead and say CareerBuilder will get axed. But more likely because they sell the company or just have a total sort of change of leadership and executives and all kinds of stuff but I don't think it'll be performance necessarily as opposed to just a major change in the company. I think her CFO background opposed to the tech background of the other two really lend itself to saying, "Sell it, chop it up." It doesn't really say, "Innovation and like new tomorrows." To me. Chad: She's an Apollo person though, so I think if that happens she'll be moved out to another position somewhere else as opposed to just chopped and ejected out. So if that does happen, I mean she was moved in there from Apollo as an Apollo person, company woman, to be put into that slot. Tim: She shows she's the one to make some tough calls, I mean, so she's definitely a strong leader. I don't know if that company, it doesn't matter who leads that company, I don't know if they're coming back, but I think I agree with Joel on that is that she'll probably move out to some place else. Chad: Alright, so are we ready for more? Joel: Alright brainiac. Chad: Alright, so I'm going to springboard off of Tim's from last year because I think there's a good possibility of it happening this year is much better obviously than what happened in 2018. Joel: So if this is like Tim's is it like water's wet or sky is blue? Chad: Kind of. No, I'm gonna say Booleon is dead and candidate matching becomes standard in recruiting platforms 'cause I mean seriously, let's face it, recruiters are spending 7.4 seconds reviewing a single resume, which is stupid when an algorithm can review thousands of profiles in that same time frame and match qualified candidates to the requisitions. So platform vendors who wanna stay ahead of the talent acquisition ask or they're already moving in that direction anyway and they have been in 2018 and all those TA professionals who don't want their CHRO or their CEO to ask them, "Hey, what are we doing in AI or process automation?" They've already started doing due diligence or they have somebody doing it, it'll start to take place traction wise in 2019. So I think the matching piece is going to be a standard for companies. Joel: So just to specify. You're not saying sourcing is dead, but you're just saying the process of Booleon searches are dead? Chad: Yeah. Joel: By human beings. Chad: Yeah. It's gonna be done by an algorithm and all of that is gonna be taking place with platforms as opposed to people. Joel: However Booleon in searches will forever work in google, just so you know. Chad: Okay. Joel: Just throwing that out there. Chad: Booleon for candidates. Joel: Google will not kill a Booleon search train. Chad: No, they are killing the Booleon search train. Did you see their candidate match API? It's already in Google Hire. Joel: I'm talking literally you'll still always be able to put in a Booleon search in Google and click search. Chad: We're talking about talent acquisition here. Joel: I'm bein' a smartass, this is what we do on the show. Chad: Oh, my bad, okay good job. Joel: Thanks. Chad: So that being said, I get to jump to my turn to go to my second prediction. That was a good one that Booleon is dead one. Number two. This is my softball prediction. Microsoft acquires Upwork. I think we can all agree. Tell me if if I'm wrong, that the world of work is changing, especially with the way that the landscape is when it comes to hiring and Microsoft could definitely bridge a huge talent shortage gap by providing individuals who can pretty much knock out products, freelancers, projects, all that other happy horse shit. Instead of doing FTE stuff they could do it through Upwork and then linking it into LinkedIn. So being able to utilize LinkedIn, what do they have like six hundred million profiles or some shit like that? Joel: Yep. Chad: Being able to add those freelancers into the mix and then start to introduce the world of freelancers in Upwork to their millions of clients I think is smart. Not to mention you know I think they're already doing that with a partnership. I think this is just a trickle until they get acquired. Joel: Don't forget GitHub. Tim: So Chad's prediction is LinkedIn becomes the largest staffing vendor in the world? Chad: Not yet. That'll happen in 2020 or 21, but first it's baby steps Tim. You've gotta acquire. Tim: You've gotta build it. Build the machine. Joel: My question is okay, let's assume that Upwork does get acquired. Do you predict others will be vying for their platform as well and if so, who? Do you think this means that someone like a Fiverr or an Upwork competitor also gets acquired? Chad: Yeah, that's a great question because I think, well first off the first question, I think Upwork is already kind of in the courting phase with Microsoft to go through the whole acquisition piece, that just ... My feeling. I think that that is probably just about done. But yes, when that happens the fibers and all the other platforms that are out there I think obviously their value goes up and then you have all these other lifestyle types of organizations who are looking to perspectively pull them in to their suites. Joel: So you don't think like an Indeed gets into freelancing or ZipRecruiter? Chad: Not unless they buy into it. Joel: Tim? No, okay. Tim: I don't think so. Joel: Fair enough. Tim: That would take you know, like forethought, right? Joel: I love Tim 'cause he's so optimistic about all of the vendors in our space. Chad: Well yeah, 'cause he hates Indeed and Indeed really doesn't- Tim: I do not hate Indeed, that's just a vicious rumor. Joel: Yeah, that's okay. Chad: And ZipRecruiter I think is incredibly focused in what they're doing right now as it is and perspectively kind of catapulting into enterprise. I think this would take their eye off the ball. Joel: Do you still think Ubers been sort of dancing around this opportunity, do you think they get into the gig economy as well? Chad: Oh yeah, they're already doing test markets right now. So they're going to get into this, especially if the market stays the way it is now with the amount of jobs versus the head count, it just makes sense. Not to mention they have a platform that already has all this talent available, if they can get the types of jobs that match the talent that they have beyond just driving it just makes good sense. And it's another revenue stream. Tim: I think Uber's position better for doing that on a lower skilled kind of platform, right? Versus Upwork and Fiverr are definitely upscaled versus the Uber side. Joel: Yep. Tim: So it's two different markets. Joel: And Upwork tends to be more knowledge based folks as opposed to Uber which I think could be like restaurants and delivery and all that good stuff. There's probably and extra- Tim: You either cook tonight for eight dollars, show up. Joel: No ghosting at Uber. Chad: No. Alright Joel, it's your turn. Joel: Alright, I'll serve up my softball since you did as well. So number one, I'm still standing by my Slack gets acquired by Amazon but I know that we can't reiterate past predictions so I'm gonna put in ZipRecruiter in play here. Normally I would say like I think Facebook would be a prime acquirer of ZipRecruiter. However I think with Facebook's recent issues with data and privacy and all that good stuff I think Facebook is gonna take their eye off the employment ball and I think ZipRecruiter files for IPO in 2019. Chad: Okay, okay. So we'll see who buys them up before they get the IPO because this is, that's the Cheesman death now right there. Joel: Well they're really the last one standing, right? So we'll see what happens. Chad: Yep. Tim: You know, 'cause I have the next to do a prediction I'm totally gonna go off script 'cause I came up with another one as we're talking. Chad: Okay. Joel: Love it. Tim: SHRM is going to purchase LRP. Because here's the thing, right, we saw that where ERE's been after Talent42, right? And there's too many conferences, we started to see like this consolidation and I think SHRM wants to figure out how do we get away from just being HR leading central and how do we get into the tech space or the talent acquisition space? If you think about they're so big, who could they really go after? I don't see 'em going after ERE but I do see 'em potentially going after the HR side of LRP. Joel: Which would just be HR Tech, right? Tim: Well, yeah recruiting trends as well so they have a four way into a really big kind of recruiting conference potential I think what Elaine's doing out there is really cool stuff, and I think the vendor community supports LRP in a big way. Joel: Does SHRM historically make acquisitions? Tim: Yeah and not well. They tend to buy and they have a lot of, "This is gonna be great." And then they dissolves whatever they bought into the greater SHRM but I think Johnny, the CEO took a beating in 2018. I think he's a really smart guy and I do think he's been pushing that organization to really think outside the box and it just kind of hit me when you guys were talking about acquisition and so for whatever reason it popped into my head. The whole thing with Talent42 I really think we're gonna see a consolidation of the conference space happen and I wouldn't be shocked, so we'll see. Joel: Nice audible Tim, I liked that. Alright well we're six predictions down and three more to go. Let's take a break and listen to a word from Canvas and we'll get to our last predictions. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent tech spaced interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen and record any logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvasbot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: That always makes me dance, that background music. Joel: So my prediction is bitmojis will encompass every job posting in the next year. Tim: I was just gonna come out and say that. My prediction for 2019 with Canvas will be the only one using Bitmoji with commercials. Joel: That's fantastic. Tim: And I'm a Canvas shop by the way, I love Canvas, my team loves Canvas. Joel: Yeah. And this is coming from four middle aged white dudes. Tim: For sure. Joel: Using Bitmojis. Yeah. Alright, I guess am I up first in the final round here? Chad: But first let me put this on the record, I was not dissing Bitmojis because I love 'em. Joel: He does. Every email now has a fuckin' Bitmoji of Chad. I'm just waiting for the Bitmoji where he has his Christmas sweater on. Chad: Oh it's coming. Tim: It'll be on before this afternoon. Joel: That's when I quit the show. The Bitmoji Christmas sweater. Chad: Alright Joel, you're first. Joel: Alright. My last prediction for 2019. We've talked about privacy a lot in the last year, we've talked about being able to grab personal data off of places, in particular LinkedIn. We've talked about LinkedIn's ongoing case with High Q about taking public profiles off of LinkedIn and then using them for your own sort of product and services. I believe in 2019 LinkedIn wins the court case against HiQ and as a result numerous sourcing platform solutions that utilize LinkedIn's data as well as GitHub which by the way has the same owner in Microsoft all go under and we really see a definite decline in new startups around sourcing and the current ones sort of laying to rest in the dead pool. Tim: Do you think LinkedIn comes in, buys one of those sourcing techs like on the cheap knowing that they're gonna go out of business and then just lets that one be the one because I mean it's not like ... They're selling a real lot, right? These sources technology people really love and they work but it doesn't necessarily, you just can't have a LinkedIn professional license and get the same gratifications you're getting through the sourcing tech side. So I'm wondering, that should be then your prediction should lead LinkedIn to actually purchase one of these people. Joel: I think LinkedIn wants to be the number one source for sourcing, whether it's their own profiles or whether it's whatever in GitHub I think that'll eventually integrate into LinkedIn and I think piggybacking on Chad's prediction of Upwork, you know if Upwork or freelancing contractor solution comes in to LinkedIn's dashboard then you've got full time employees you've got technology now you've got contract workers so I'm not sure buying in Entelo or hiring solved or anything like that adds that much value to what they're already doing, I mean feel free to disagree but I don't think they're losing too much if they're not sourcing blogging platforms and whatever's on Pinterest or YouTube or Instagram or Facebook. So I'd say I think they wanna be the end all be all for sourcing worker profiles. Tim: I just thinking then they have to add a product to the roadmap within LinkedIn, right? 'Cause people still wanna buy that without necessarily having all that and then at Talent Connect this year like Shapiro whose our VP of talent solutions and all that stuff did talk about how they wanna add in all the hourly folks as well which then comes to mind who would LinkedIn acquire to get all of the blue collar types into that environment, right? Not necessarily to the LinkedIn profile environment, but into a certain kind of environment, right, that fits for them. Joel: I also think that GDPR is going to come to the states and controlling your personal private information online ... Tim: Is that the Russian mafia? Joel: That's gonna be a thing. If you tell people that their LinkedIn data is being scraped and it's being used to decipher whether they might leave a job in the next six months I'm not sure they'd be real happy about that so I think privacy is gonna continue to be a paramount in the digital economy. When I talk to sourcing companies talking to Doug Berg at ZAPinfo which is essentially grabbing profiles off the web, I asked him about GDPR and his solution is well, before we grab their data we're gonna send them an email saying, "Hey there's a company or recruiter that wants to take your data and put 'em in their funnel for opportunities." How many people are gonna go, "Oh yeah, sure, random recruiter take my information." It might be one percent, two percent that do that. If that's the case, all these sourcing providers I don't see how they stay alive in the GDPR world. Tim: Can they do it the opposite way and say, "Hey, this is going to happen unless you opt out." Joel: It's what the law is. Chad: GDPR is all focused on the candidate right side of the house, so the general data protection regulation piece and really since Facebook and Cambridge Analytica fucked us all, this is bearing down on us much faster, right? So when HiQ and LinkedIn all that started at first it was like, yeah, you know what that data's public, right? Now it's like, "Oh shit, what can they do with public data? How can they target us? What can they do? What are the mal intent behind this perspective platform?" So that's the hard part right now is really Facebook fucked us. Joel: If you don't own the data, if someone didn't go to your site and voluntarily join I think you're gonna have a really hard time doing business. Chad: And you're not gonna own the data, that's the thing is through this whole process, and it's coming to California in 2020, and the California regulations are actually stricter than GDPR, so let's just say we gotta get used to this. You're going to have to give candidates the opportunity to control where their data is, wherever it is, because it's their data, it's not the company's data. Joel: It really means you're gonna have to write a bigger check to LinkedIn. Tim: Literally this week in my company we had a contract engineer quit, put the two week's notice in because he'd thought we sold his data to Paycor. What we did was we actually switched January first we're switching to Paycor as our payroll provider and so they sent him a message to go through the process and he just didn't read our other emails that we told him he was doing this, and so he literally assumed that we sold data, and he didn't know what Paycor was, he thought we sold you know, and totally obviously crazy engineer guy and we're just like, "Dude, we're just trying to get your paycheck to you, you moron." Chad: Yeah, but the guy can code. Okay. My last prediction is Google for jobs displaces Indeed as top source of traffic for employers, job taker traffic, and a little caveat on here Jobiak gets acquired. So these types of platforms, like the Jobiak's of the world that make it easy for employers to get their jobs into Google for jobs without knowing what a markup is or anything like that, or having to pay some big platform to do it like a Jive or something like that. They'll be able to go through a smaller platform like a Jobiak either transactionally or in bulk and it'll make it much easier so Google for jobs will make it easier to displace an Indeed in 2019. Joel: So I assume you believe Indeed won't start playing nicely with Google for jobs? Chad: No, they are too full of their fuckin' selves. Joel: So my next question is does Glassdoor both having the same ownership stop playing nicely with Google for jobs as well? Chad: No, I think they continue business as usual. I don't know how that's actually going to play, we'll see how that shakes out, especially if there's a full scale takeover of job search in content between Glassdoor and indeed. Tim: I don't understand, if I'm Google right and I decided not to index Indeed, why wouldn't I do the same thing to Glassdoor who now Indeed's [crosstalk 00:39:45]. Chad: They're not deciding. They're not deciding, Indeed's making the decision not to have their jobs in Google for jobs. Joel: I think Glassdoor has to follow suit because they're basically trying to build a mote around their solution from Google for jobs and I would say honorable mention for predictions is I wouldn't be surprised if there is no Glassdoor as we know it next year, whether it's just back fell from Indeed and they merged the reviews together and make it just one big thing or they take Glassdoor away totally I think it looks very different next year. Tim: It's hard to do that from a variety standpoint though 'cause everybody knows Glassdoor and they get such great traffic like you almost wanna do the opposite, right? You almost wanna throw Indeed into Glassdoor from that standpoint. That would be the easier transition than it would be the other one. Joel: You think Indeed is the lesser of brands of those two? Tim: Well I mean who gets more traffic, Indeed or Glassdoor? Joel: Indeed. Tim: Really? I thought it was Glassdoor by a lot. Is it similar? Joel: It's probably by a lot. Tim: Wow. Well but they pay for a lot of that. Maybe I'm thinking organic. I don't know what I'm talking about. Joel: This is a brand though. As a brand though do you think more people know Glassdoor then Indeed? Tim: No, what I will say though is that I think Glassdoor has the safer brand side of it where, 'cause you have so many people go in there and thinking they're getting this unfiltered data, almost like a Yelp review kind of thing, right? So there's a little more friendlier play there than the Indeed side which I think is taking a hit. Joel: To me the glaring to answer that question was when you went to HR Tech this year Indeed has a booth and Glassdoor did not, so to me that was like they've decided internally that Indeed is gonna be the brand, I think it's just a matter of time before Glassdoor gets phased out. Tim: Yeah, no I mean I can see. One or the other right, it doesn't make sense to have both. Joel: I agree. Chad: To an extent though, I mean because you have two brands right now and you have to spend money on or some companies feel like they have to spend money on Glassdoor and Indeed, right? So you have two budgets for two different sources. When you start to blend them together as one source that budget becomes one and you will lose cash. I've seen it happen before. So it's one of the big steps that you don't wanna take is look, you're making X with Glassdoor and Y with Indeed, you don't wanna make less than that, so how do you do that? How do you implement that without shaving cash off and just becoming one piece of budget and then some of that money going somewhere else? Joel: You're also losing money if you have duplicate tech teams and duplicate executive teams and executive marketing teams. Chad: That's all behind the scenes, that is- Joel: It's still real money. Chad: Doesn't matter, you can do that behind the scenes without anybody knowing. What you're talking about is merging two brands, you're talking about two entirely separate conversations. You can have Indeed tech teams running underneath a Glassdoor brand. You can still have that store front open but you can consolidate tech. Joel: So you're talking about one CEO for both companies. You're talking about one marketing team for both companies, right? Chad: I don't know if you need to go that far, but you can. Tim: You could, easily. Chad: And you're still talking about two different products. If you have two storefronts people are gonna see two different products. If you have one storefront they see one product and that's when you have an opportunity to lose cash. Tim: So back to the prediction Chad, is it in 2019 Google for jobs will outpace Indeed for traffic? Was that your prediction? What was your prediction? Chad: Traffic for employers to employers. Tim: I don't know if it'll happen in 2019 but it's definitely gonna happen at some point, right? It's just a question of where that tipping point happens. Chad: 2019. Joel: Unless Recruit Holdings buys ZipRecruiter. Chad: That's a good point, that's a very good fuckin' point. Tim, last one man. Tim: So this is really another big giant earth shattering one. Generational consulting 2.0 gen Z comes to town and we have every freaking millennial consultant in the world all of the sudden now becomes a generation Z consultant expert even though they literally have no idea about anything about gen Z. We're gonna see it. We've already seen the content happening, we're gonna see it in a big way. I'm jumping on board I put out what a couple weeks ago that I'm gonna have an entire gen Z blogger crew so hey, here we go. You know? Joel: There'll be an upstart of gen X entrepreneurs using their kids to create gen Z consultancy firms. Chad: We just saw that. We did a story on that on one of our weekly pods where an Xer obviously has a gen Z kid, kid's charismatic, knows how to speak, all that other fun stuff, he's pulled into the consulting firm and the next thing you know they've got a gen Z consulting arm, it's like what the fuck? Are you kidding? Tim: Hey, my son who is a junior at U of M unfortunately, he couldn't get an internship. I had him start writing on the blog and he literally had offers coming from everywhere and again, if you can prove that you're young and you have a voice and you can actually produce content like someone's gonna hire you. Joel: So say that again. Your kid in school started a blog and the job offers internship offers started coming? Tim: So he was interviewing for internships and they kept telling if he didn't have enough experience and so I'm like, "Oh well we can change that. You just start writing one day a week on mine." And we called it like Career Confessions of Gen Z and like it got more traffic than my crap got. People loved it. They had this young guy talking shit about his dad and the whole career stuff and blah blah blah, and he did, so then he ended up taking a job at Quicken, did videos for them and all kinds of stuff. It was crazy that you'll go from not being able to get an internship to like literally a dozen different options. Joel: That's fascinating. Chad: It is. Joel: Tim do you feel like as a recruiter there really is a difference in the generations or is that all bullshit? Tim: I think you see minor differences but otherwise it's time in life issues, it's not really generational differences. Young people don't necessarily wanna buy a house and they want to live in an urban area or blah blah blah or you know, once you have kids life sucks and so it changes what you do. All that crap happens, that's just time in life that's not necessarily millennial gen X baby boom. Joel: Fair enough. Tim: Yeah. Joel: Good show gentlemen. Chad: Very nice. Joel: Are we out? Chad: I think we're out. Joel: Tim are we out? Tim: We're out. Joel: Give us a we out. Tim: We out. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway make sure you subscribe on iTunes. That silly android phone thingy or wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on Monster.com. We out. #Amazon #Slack #Microsoft #Upwork #Monster #Careerbuilder #LinkedIn #Indeed #Glassdoor #ZipRecruiter #GenZ #GDPR #ZAPinfo #GoogleforJobs #TimSackett

Another year down, but what the Hell happened? Chad and Cheese run down some of the best and funniest stories of 2018. Then it's all about the Naughty.... and some Nice too, especially our friends at Canvas, Sovern, and JobsAdX. They deserve some 2019 champagne after putting up with our asses. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps businesses find qualified candidates with disabilities for their job postings. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You are listing to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Ho-ho-Oh. Is it me or does it smell like meat and cheese up in here? Welcome to the year-end finale of the Chad and Cheese podcast, residing on HR's naughty list since 2017. Chad: Yes. Joel: I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, we say thank you. Chad: Thank you. Joel: We review the news that still haunt our dreams and we break down our naughty and nice lists dark for cover. Get comfy in your throne of lies, we'll be right back after this word from Canvas. Chad: Get it. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas: Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off the Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiters' success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's go canvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: I want a culture video so we can text it to everybody. Joel: Because people want to get texts from us, no. They don't. Chad: Of course. Joel: No. They don't. Chad: No, they do. They want to get pictures of ugly sweaters and yeah, I know they want that stuff. Joel: Dude, can we clear up the ugly sweater thing before we get started. Chad: What? Joel: Why, how much, when, what? I mean, you posted this thing, which is hideous and the feedback was beyond what I could ever imagine in terms of positive feedback. I was waiting for pictures of bleeding eyes and heads exploding, but it was positive. Let people know, what's the deal with that sweater? Chad: Yeah. It was hideous because it is an ugly sweater, duh. I mean, this is- Joel: And our faces are on it, which make it rather [crosstalk 00:02:56]. Chad: Which is half of it is really ugly, the other half is just gorgeous. Thank you, but yeah. No. I saw this idea and it was Marvel was doing a superhero of sweaters. I'm like oh holy shit, this would be great, just great from a marketing standpoint. So I threw it out there on social media and people were like tagging each other going, "Oh yeah, this is really fucking cool." I was like you know what, screw it. I'm going to get one done. Why the fuck now, right? Chad: Not to mention this weekend, we're going to have the first annual Chad and Cheese holiday Christmas/Hanukkah Kwanzaa party. So, that'll be perfect to wear the sweater. Not to mention everybody blew up on social media because it is funny as hell. That's why and Indeed stole my shit. Good on them. Good on them, but mine is better. Our Chad and Cheese ugly sweater much better than the Indeed one. Joel: Neither you or Indeed came up with ugly sweaters for Christmas to begin with. This is a very old thing. So to say that they stole from you or you still for them is a little bit ridiculous. Chad: With logos. I stole from Marvel. Then I put it out there and they stole the idea from me because it took like fucking four weeks to get the sweater made and shipped over here from Germany. So that took a while. Joel: That's German? Chad: Yeah. Oh yeah. Dude, I went with high quality shit. Joel: You did. Chad: I didn't do the sweatshirt with the iron on shit. I didn't do that. I went total mechanized loom, all that stuff. I went for it. Joel: The country that gave us Mercedes, the Tiger tank is now giving us ugly sweaters. That's just great. Chad: Yes. Joel: That's just great. Chad: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:04:55]. Joel: Could we have asked for a better year than 2018 was for us on the podcast? Chad: No way, dude. Just to throw some numbers out to our listeners because you guys you're the reason why we do this. 2018 numbers, we had over 90,000 downloads and we put out over 100 podcasts. Listeners, just the feedback on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, it didn't matter. Even when we went to conferences, it was constant and it was awesome. We really appreciate all of that because as we both said here behind mics talking to each other, we're not really sure if this shit resonates and you guys have told us that it does. So thanks. Joel: For the record, Chad does it for the fans. I do it for the money just so you know. Just so you know. Well, we have done to thank yous in addition to what you just made, shout outs, love for sponsors, firing squad, alumnus, our families. The mass amounts of liquor that I'm sure we got it legally through the mail this year, and the endless amounts of schwag that'll care me over and my family with attire for the next 12 years I think. Chad: And the live shows. We did Hire Comp in New York, TAtech in Vegas, ISIMS brought us out for their influence conference. TAtech in Dublin, all the way to Dublin, Recruit Con in Nashville, ERE in San Diego, HR Tech in Vegas. I'm sure there's some of that we're missing, but in 2019 I'm going to predict that you will see more live shows. Joel: And more varieties of shows. Look- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... we've proven Deathmatch is a big winner. We're doing it in Europe, which is bound to disrupt the whole Brexit, EU, GDPR trend that's going on over there. I think what we found our groove on the podcast. I think we're going to find our groove for the live show and events going into next year. Chad: I'll be doing all the logistics to ensure that that happens. Joel will show up with a beer in it all just magically happened. Joel: Can we give our sponsor some love speaking of taking all this stuff out, Chad? Chad: Dude, yeah. Let's do that. Joel: From Canvas, our weekly show guys Sovren, JobAdX, which have been with us for a long time. Shutout to America's Job Exchange who left us midyear but was an early supporter. It wasn't necessarily their fault. Talroo, who makes Firing Squad possible to NEXXT, Judge, and who am I missing? Uncommon is huge for us. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: Emissary for my nappy T-shirt that I had to wear at HR Tech for two days. Thank you to them. Who am I missing? Chad: You're not missing anybody, but I think it's really cool because we started out with one show and it was consistent with three advertisers. Then we had other companies coming to us saying, "Look, we want to get behind you." So we had to create more content and more shows because it just made sense. First off because we weren't talking enough up about startups and then Talroo got behind us and said, "Yeah, let's do this Firing Squad thing." Chad: NEXXT and Uncommon are both helping us focus on getting interviews from top-level individuals. We just put out a podcast with Scott Gutz the CEO of Monster and the chief product officer, Chris Cho. They make that possible. Joel: Which is awesome by the way. I don't know if we've talked about it, but I think the Monster interview that we just published is our best work. Chad: That's pretty good shit and mainly because there were no softball questions. We really went deep into it. Then there's Judge. I mean, we wanted to be able to do breaking news in a different way and Judge was behind us for that. The weekly show with Canvas, JobAdX, and Sovren that is obviously a staple in our listeners' diet. Then you got all these other really cool podcasts with different types of content that you can jack into. Joel: Yeah. By the way listeners if you haven't given a blank check to our sponsors, please do so before the end of the year. I know you guys are working on budgets. Blank check to all those sponsors would be great. Chad: And the subscriber side of the house in 2018 has blown up. So if you're not currently subscribing on iTunes, Google Podcast, Google Play, CastBox, Spotify, whatever that's what you need to do. Look up the Chad & Cheese Podcast, click on subscribe and all of this glorious content will flow to you in a very wonderful way. Joel: Our kids are doing it. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Firing Squad, which one was your favorite? Chad: Men, so we gave big ups to Uncommon, RoboRecruiter, was that it, and AllyO I think. I think three out of the 12, only three out of the 12 had big applause and I really liked those. I think those guys really picked one- Joel: [crosstalk 00:10:21], did you mention them? We had Doug on the show. I think they got two good ones. We'll say good to Hire Advisor, Fire Squad alumni that folded it up which I think we both told them they should do that. So we did get that one right, at least. Chad: I think Hire Advisor might have been the only one that actually received two Firing Squads. I think Woo.io they received a Firing Squad and a golf club tilting toward a Firing Squad. The guts that these startups have obviously there's a risk versus reward here. I go on here and I kill it and I get bigger applause or applause of a golf club, that's so good. But I can go and I can just dive and get the Firing Squad and it's still going out to the public. Chad: You've got to realize guys that because Talroo was paying us, all these startups come on here, they realize if they crash and burn, that is going out to the public. So I have to give these guys a big applause. Joel: For sure. For sure, but remember there is no bad PR. So even if they come on the show and get torched, at least they'll be new and noticed by a lot of people that they normally wouldn't be noticed by. So even getting shut down is a good thing and hopefully we'll get some great startups on the show in 2009. Joel: I want give a shout out real quickly to really both our families I guess particularly our wives who put up with us doing this stupid show and also put up with our traveling, although they tend to benefit from that sometimes. Both have kids that are supportive. Families are a big part of why we're able to do this stuff, so big thanks to them. Chad: Thank you to the lovely ladies of the Cheesman and Sowash family because they're the bosses in this whole thing and- Joel: I want to know your favorite liquor giveaway of the year and your favorite piece of schwag from the year that you were given, not that you bought from Germany. Chad: I was going to say though the Chad and Cheese sweaters are pretty awesome, or if you're across the pod, jumper, just to make sure we clear that up. I have to say that it's really hard to choose on the liquor side because I have gotten so many boxes of beer that are like they are all craft beer and they're all mixed. I mean that was amazing. Continue to do that listeners. I really appreciate that sponsors. That's awesome. The best schwag I'm going to say is the high quality stuff. Chad: So we just receive or I did, and I'm sure you did, to a full zip up like a Columbia jacket from HiringSolved. We also got a really cool sweatshirt, a hoodie from Uncommon. Has Uncommon on the back, embroidered on the front. So yeah. Not the cheap stuff, but really the kick ass gear and Chad & Cheese up so that they'll wear that for not just a couple of days but for the rest of the year. Joel: The fidget spinners and the mouse pads are going to get listed on our favorite's list. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Favorite liquor for me I'm going to with a Middleton, Irish whiskey from LinkUp, the gang at LinkUp. Schwag I'm going to second your Uncommon hoodie. I'm going to throw in the NEXXT pullover. Chad: That's a good one. Joel: It's really one. T-shirt wise I'm going to go Canvas. Although I don't normally look good in purple, the T-shirt is so comfortable. Yeah, I love it. So the schwag was a good year, hopefully we get more good stuff into 2019. Chad: Amen. Amen. Joel: Thank you for everyone putting up with our shout outs. It's a good 10 minutes of every show. For some reason, you guys like it so we'll continue to do it. Chad if you're done with shout outs, let's hear from JobAdX and we'll get to our year interview. Chad: Let's do it. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you've placed in us. Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad techs bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partner sites. JobAdX: We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners. And we've developed our revolutionary live alert which eliminate latency and expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links whether open today, next month or next year. For more information about our solutions, please reach us at JoinUs@JobAdx.com. Joel: The year in review. Chad: Here it come. We're going to rip. Joel: Rapid fire style. We don't do rapid fire anymore. This year end show, we'll do a little rapid fire. You go first. Chad: Rapid fire, what we're going to I talk about a good amount of the subjects that we went over in our podcast. We ripped about 20 of those out. We're not going to spend a lot of time on them, so here we go. First foremost, Chad and Cheese ran for presidents of Monster. Joel: And lost, although I don't think there was any official ballot for the election of president. Chad: Yeah. No. Joel: Scott Gutz is now the CEO. So I guess he's technically the new president of Monster. Congratulations to him. Chad: Yeah, and there is obviously more opportunity down the road for all those organizations who don't have presidents in place to have a co-president setup of the Chad and Cheese. Joel: I will add that we were not able to go to the HQ and Canvas for votes. So, I feel like it was a little bit cheated, a little bit scammy in terms of us losing that election but anyway- Joel: ... a lot of money flowed into all kinds of stuff. So ICIMS got a bunch of cash. TextRecruit got a bunch of cash. ZipRecruiter got a bunch of cash. Global Takeovers, some of these sites ZipRecruiter will be interested to watch this year. Slack got more money than God last year. The money flowed and we're getting some sniffs that 2019 won't be quite as prosperous for the investment side, but we'll have to see. We'll have to see how the economy behaves. Chad: We shall see. This year, earlier this year Indeed went full exclusion of job broad content. Wow Google for Jobs stepped in and said guess what guys, we're here to help. So it was a flip of Indeed saying screw you guys. You're not welcome anymore and Google saying, "Hey, that's fine. You're welcome over here." Joel: I need that journey sound by open arms for that one. I love this one Beyond.com sold its domain to Bed Bath and Beyond and became NEXXT with two Xs not three. Chad: Two Xs, not three Xs. Joel: We thought three Xs would perform a lot better for them in search results but they didn't listen to us, but that was a quirky little story from 2018. Chad: Yeah, it was and I think it was incredibly smart taking that money, selling Beyond.com for a shit ton of cash. Taking that money, pretty much buying your company back and then doing whatever the hell you want to do. Joel: Sure. Chad: So, good on NEXXT for that one. Hire Maturity, which most of you probably don't even know even existed, they launched and almost immediately died. Joel: Like figuratively. No one actually died because when you say Hire Maturity you think maybe it's just a bunch of old people that started something and then died, no. Chad: It could have been. Joel: Just the site died which was interesting. Tracking and microchips were big in 2018. Amazon tracking people. Companies are putting microchips in their employees so they can make faxes faster. Companies still have fax machines apparently which is bigger news than getting microchip, but that was a big story that I find troubling, but I guess we'll see more of it going into next year. Chad: Well, the microchips, the haptic bracelets that Amazon was using in the UK, I mean all this tracking shit, to be a human being and being a job especially with the employment rate the way it is right now. Just tell those companies to go fuck off for god's sake, I mean it's- Joel: Was it Amazon where people were urinating in bottles and stuff? Chad: Yeah, and trash cans and it's like "Yeah, I got to make sure I don't leave my post because I might not make my quota," or some shit like that. Joel: Robots don't shit, so we're at a disadvantage there as human being. Chad: Yeah. Well we'll talk about that a little bit later. CareerBuilder was a total fucking train wreck. Joel: Thank God it was good for us. Chad: Changed dramatically in 2018. Just the face of CareerBuilder changed dramatically and they gave us El Chapo. Joel: Yes. Love El Chapo. Yeah, literally they've changed their face. The CEO Matt Ferguson of 14 years was let go and they brought in a CFO in placement. Sure that will work out great as evidenced by the augmented reality in their mobile app which is killing it. Chad: Yeah. I have better days, but Monster really didn't change enough I think. You see all this change happening on the CareerBuilder side and I mean slow and steady I guess is really what we're seeing for Monster. Maybe that's not even baby steps at this point. I think it's like baby crawl. Joel: We better see some big things out of Monster next year. They can't just throw ads on TV. They can't just take banners off their site. They've got to really shoot for the moon next year if they're going to compete with some of the big names, Google, Microsoft at all that are in the space right now. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Recruit Holdings, Indeed's parent, acquired Glassdoor for $1.2 billion. That was big news this year. Chad: Yeah, that blew up your IPO prediction. That was pretty big. Joel: They filed dude. I was totally cracked in that prediction, just because Recruit swooped in and bought them before they did. Chad: Yeah. Well, that's just like going to the starting line and not finishing the race. You didn't hit the finish, man. So therefore unfortunately, no prediction for you. Joel: Well, we're going to do the prediction show later. We'll see how I did. Stay tuned for that one. Chad: We talked about this earlier, Snag, Monster, Dice, all new CEOs in 2018. There was probably more that route there, but just off the top my head more new CEOs popping out to be able to change the landscape and pretty much how those companies operate. Unfortunately, we just said that the Scott from Monster interview with us and then Art ran like a little puppy dog with his tail between his legs when we tried to do ... We reached to the PR team. They're like, "Yeah, sorry, but we're going to have to decline." Joel: Yeah. All those companies are going to have to kick some ass going into next year if they're going to survive Snag will be interesting. The whole on-demand workforce staff is getting interesting for sure. As we talked about in the recent show of Microsoft and Upwork getting together, and that's where that could go on that end. We talked about Zip but technically 50 million got real aggressive R&D. Engineers off the Wahoo, AI off the Wahoo, Israeli office going global. ZipRecruiter spoiler alert say that they're going to on my IPO prediction list for going the next year for sure. Chad: And it makes sense, and it makes sense until somebody swoops in and buys them at the last second. Joel: Which can happen. Chad: GDPR scared the shit out of everybody this year. Didn't know what it meant. Didn't know how it was going to impact. I think we are at the point where people are starting to figure it out, but I'm not 100% sure. So all these wonderful regulations that we're finding, not just in the UK, but we're going to see happening. Starting in California in 2020, guess what guys get your shit tight and understand what's happening from a regulatory standpoint because it will impact your platform. Joel: Yeah. We have a long way to go. Remember it was HiringSolved to dump 29 million profiles in Europe because it was easier to do that than actually try to figure out how they could deal with GPR. So, I think that's the just starting and Facebook is fucking up every privacy for everybody in terms of privacy. ZipRecruiter, God again, sponsored the biggest podcast in the world, Serial. We're still waiting on their money to come to us but so far in a no go on that. But yeah podcast got some big-money love from our industry this year. Chad: Yeah, podcast did and that in itself, Zip doing all of that on TV and this morning shit, I saw probably 10 CareerBuilder commercials. 30 second ads, I mean they are hitting the market hard end of year trying to get the name out there, trying to the brand out there, and the whole messages you have you probably have like 12 different vendors that you deal with right now. Just come to CareerBuilder. Come to us. Joel: The message as we can get an actual client to be in a commercial. So, we're going to pay an actor to pretend that they're a client of ours and hope nobody notices. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Very clever CareerBuilder. Very clever. Chad: The thing is most stupid humans won't notice. Joel: No they won't. Chad: Google spread Google for Jobs across the pond which was pretty awesome. Joel: Like a virus. Like a virus. You got to love that they put a stake in Japan which is where Indeed's holding company resides. Not that Japan isn't a good market but it was a nice little gesture on their part to put launders down in Indeed's home [crosstalk 00:25:26] this year. Chad: Top buy market. GP wise, they're dealing with that market much different than they are the U.S. market or Europe. So I think they're really taking their time to understand how to penetrate these different markets, the best way to do it. So yeah. That's pretty cool, but yeah, that was definitely a big fuck you to Recruit Holdings and Indeed. Joel: Yeah. Up next I can tell you that the LinkedIn Kool-Aid was delicious and cool this year for me. LinkedIn continues to kill it. Got in the SMB space, the matching space there. They've got insights that kill everybody, predictive stuff in terms of where to hire, open up your new office, et cetera. They've proven without a shadow of doubt that getting acquired by Microsoft was not a bad thing. They have really hit the ground running, put on the turbo boosters and they are killing it and I expect them to continue to do so going into next year. Chad: I still don't understand the acquisition of Glint. It was like $4 to 500 million. That's how much CareerBuilder and Monster received by the way. What the fuck is that all about? Joel: Well, I'm glad you asked, Chad. When we get to my naughty and nice list, I will help expand on this whole Glint thing. Chad: Okay. Joel: But employees and candidates are big winners this year and that companies really care about what they think. They really care about keeping them on staff. I think that if you see a weakness in LinkedIn, it's the continuing to be a part of the workforce after you hire. I think Glint, for whatever reason, health. You have 400 spent it I guess, and moving over to more on boarding retention type tools and for whatever reason Glint was what they went with. I guess they could've probably built so of that shit in-house for a lot less money but whatever. Chad: If you've got the money, spend that shit. Amazon shut down their misogynist AI candidate matching project. So that was interesting, not to mention it also starts an entirely different narrative for talent acquisition out there when they're looking to use "AI". That discussion for me is so exciting because there are so many black box types of algorithms that are out there versus some of these new white box algorithms. That's I think going to be an incredibly fun conversation to have as we move into 2019 and people start to understand what's the difference between transparency and literally the void of transparency. Joel: Of course my favorite virtual reality finally its stride and became huge in 2018. I'm glad that that finally came true for me. Oh wait- Chad: What? Joel: ... that's not right. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Chatbox are everywhere and matching is finally cool yes and maybe it actually finally works. We've been beating up on matching for years and thanks to big data and technology, matching may actually start to work. Chad: yeah. Matching was a really hard process from the standpoint of you had to have a ton of field data that would match up with the other aspect of field of data. So a job description needed to be fielded out right. The profile of an employee and/or a candidate had to be fielded right to be able to make that matching work. Today with all the parsing and "AI" whatever you want to call it yeah, I think we're seeing some amazing things which we'll talk about a little later. Joel: I was going to say I think we're done. Unless you have anything to add, we're hear a word from Sovren and we'll get to the good stuff on naughty and nice list. Chad: I wanted to say last but not least, Circa 2118 scared the living shit out of us by the way. If you haven't picked this book up, I keep peeping this book. We're not getting money for it, I'm telling you right now, but I'm telling you, you have to read this book. It is scary up front, but it has a good ending. You've got to check it out. Chad: The robots taking over, what does that actually look like in all different respects. It's a damn good book and it's not just about the recruiting side of the house or the hiring and employment side of the house. It's about pretty much the entire landscape, but there is a good focus on the employment side. Joel: I'll throw in, equally scary for me is Tinder for jobs is still a thing. Here's a word from Sovren. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produce them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: And that's how AI takes over the world so everybody knows. You have sexy sounding AI who wants to take you to dinner, that's how the shit starts people. Joel: As soon as she can do a podcast, we're done. All right. Naughty and nice list, I came up with my about midnight last night so it's going to be really incohesive. Are we starting with nice lists first? Is that what we're going on? Chad: Yeah. Let me start this out. Joel: Sure. Chad: Number one, and get ready to take shots buddy. Chatbots, Chatbots, Chatbots. Here's the thing. I believe chatbots are starting to help TA focus on process instead of the bright and shiny tech. They want to know about chatbots but as Quincy Valencia from AMS told us on our interview with her on one of our bad ass interviews that when you start diving deep into these new technologies and we need to have a chatbot, well why do you need to have a chatbot? Then that's where the process conversation starts. Chad: Most applicant tracking systems and process methodologies that companies have today in their "stack" is for shit because they're focusing on the tech before they do the process. Many of them still have 1990s processes that all they do is take the paper and put that process into tech. Once you start to revitalize and understand what the process should be from an efficiency standpoint, not because this is the way we've done it since 1999 or what have you but because it makes sense, I believe chatbots are starting to make that conversation more prevalent. Chad: So companies like Canvas, AllyO, Amaya, Olivia, RoboRecruiter, Talkpush and all those other chatbot platforms that are out there, they are my nice list because they're getting talent acquisition to start to focus where they should be focusing in the first place. That's process, not tech. Joel: Very nice. Can I put you on the spot and ask for a prediction for chatbots for next year? Chad: Yeah. I really believe that chatbots are going to start to integrate into the platforms more. So it's not just going to be a chatbot platform. It's going to be a chatbot. That is it's all ingrained into itself. So instead of having ... I think this is smart. We saw SmashFly and Olivia they partnered to be able to ensure that there were chatbots Emerson within the SmashFly platform. I see companies starting to acquire and make that a part of their platform instead of just partnering with it. Joel: Consolidation and acquisitions for sure. I see that as well. I do think there will be a little groundswell of consumer punch back over chatbots. There may be little seeds planted around. We're not really hip about talking to a robot, but we will see. Chad: Yeah. I don't see that happening though because it's between going into a black hole where you hear nothing and talking to a chatbot. We've seen surveys that actually show that job seekers would rather have some form of feedback versus no feedback whatsoever. So I don't personally buy into that. Joel: Good enough. Good enough. Well, my number one on my nice list I'm going with Microsoft. For over a decade Microsoft, well two decades maybe, Microsoft was this old crusty in a DOS prompt Windows 95 dinosaur. With new leadership, they have become quite the juggernaut and in addition to that have really taken root into the employment space. Joel: We know that two years ago, they acquired LinkedIn. We thought a lot of that was just a pissing match to the Salesforce and Google away from their property, but they've actually been invested heavily in that company as well as continue to invest in the space. They acquired GitHub this year as well which was pretty big news. Obviously, the hottest platform for techies to go in and hang out. So, I fully expect next year integration with GitHub and LinkedIn will happen, greater integration with those into Microsoft's Office product will continue. Joel: I think that their recent partnership with Upwork means that they'll be getting into the freelance economy as well. So, LinkedIn is primed with Microsoft's leadership to be the platform for everything from professional workers to contract workers to keeping your tech department well-stocked. So big on my nice list this year was Microsoft. I really appreciate what they've done in the space and hope that they continue to do that and spend money. Chad: Yes and they have. They along with Google and to some extent Facebook have really I believe moved this industry forward so much faster than it has in the past decade. So yeah. Good on them. If you see competitiveness, you to do something about it. You got to react. So all of the other competitors that are out there now are trying to react and they're trying to in some cases figure out how do you either play with or defeat a lifestyle platform. Joel: Yeah. They really started the arms race that we get to report on almost every week. Chad: Yeah, that's fucking awesome. Good job guys. Number two on my nice list, you're going to notice a theme here, it's matching systems. I believe intelligent matching systems are starting to make TA think about their candidate database which is pretty much in most cases an atrophy right now but these companies have spent millions of dollars building great databases with awesome talent. Chad: Companies can stop advertising and start spending cash trying to acquire talent who is already in their goddamn database. Now they can focus on re-engagement and surfacing those qualified candidates in seconds instead of days. So companies like HiringSolved, Intelo, Uncommon and all the other smart matching platforms are on my nice list. The theme here is these vendors are making companies think in a much different way, in a much smarter way about how they should be doing business more effectively. Joel: Yeah and don't forget Google launching a candidate discovery in their platform as well LinkedIn launched it. So, this is becoming sort of if you don't have this, your way behind the eight ball. This becoming something that you need to have. So yeah. I agree. Matching has had a great year and will continue that trend in the 2019. Chad: Yeah, and if you're one of those big database companies that was a job board and you've got this huge database and you haven't partnered with somebody on the matching side of the house or you're trying to "build your own", good luck with that. But just make sure that you get that shit in 2019 and fast because the focus is going to be on surfacing qualified candidates much faster, not just clicks and bullshit apps. Joel: You're not calling out Indeed when you say clicks, are you? Chad: Yes. Joel: We'll get to naughty list in a second. Number two on my nice list I'm going to go with candidates and employees. I think they were big winners in 2018. Some of the reasons you mentioned reviving candidates that have been around for a long time with companies like Crowded and Envoy, et cetera. I think that's been a big win for them. Joel: I think chatbots have been a big one for candidates. The resume black hole that we talk about all the time is slowly fading. If it takes robots to do that, then so be it. At least people feel like they've actually connected and are connecting with companies where before they sent a resume and never heard anything. Maybe a postcard or an automated email. That's a big win. Joel: I think that employees, both past and present, continue to attempt to win big. In 2018, we saw Glassdoor who, let's be honest, Glassdoor's value is in the reviews that are on the site. It's not the jobs are posted or the companies that are using it. So, it means it you're the voice of the employee really matters. I think the billion-dollar buyout of Glassdoor really helps solidify that. We've seen Indeed you ramp up their review section. We see Comparably and others really play in this space. Joel: We see women getting a voice with sites with Fairygodboss and her site that they've heard before. We also look at engagement tools. I mean, those were huge this year. Companies that give perks to employees, they give you referral benefits and dollars to two employees to retain them and recruit them. Those have all been huge trends and I think the ultimate winner in those are the job candidates as well as the employees that work there. It's high time that the pendulum swung to the employee and the worker. I think that it did that in a big way in 2018. Chad: Totally agree. Last but not least on my nice list is we talked about them already, so you knew it was coming, ZipRecruiter. Joel: Zip? Chad: Zip raising money, kicking R&D ass, and I bet they'll be hitting the enterprise side of the house very soon. ZipRecruiter loves podcast, so why the hell can't we love them? But I mean if you take a look at the process methodology of how Zip works, they are using matching in a very simplistic way behind the scenes. They started doing this on the SMB side of the house because SMB really has lower expectations than enterprise. Chad: So, you post a job, it's very simple. The system identifies that the requirements in that job, goes into their huge database and sends out automated emails to activate those candidates and get them to you faster because they know that they're already either qualified or close to qualified to an extent. Chad: They're getting to a model, a much faster model of sourcing than anybody else's at this point from an end-to-end standpoint, just the sourcing piece. So good on them. I see companies in 2019 trying to model after ZipRecruiter. If you are not trying to model after ZipRecruiter and you have job postings onto your site, you're a fucking dumb ass. Joel: I love how Zip sits in this bubble zone of it's definitely not Google or Microsoft or LinkedIn. It's climbed its way above the tier of the Monsters, the Dices, the CareerBuilders and it sort of resides in my mind with Indeed as this sort of are they going to punch through or are they going to fade back into the ether of where the other old friend guys are. For me 2019 is going to be really interesting to see where ZipRecruiter goes from here. Joel: I agree. The enterprise solution is just going to happen. It just has to happen and can they penetrate the markets that you'd normally think of as now I guess Google and LinkedIn? Can they go beyond, "Hey I need to fill a waiter position at my restaurant this week," to "Hey, I'm going to staff up my entire IT department with ZipRecruiter?" Joel: So I agree. ZipRecruiter would make my nice list. I knew they were going to be on yours because you drink the Kool-Aid as much as I do LinkedIn, so I left them out. So definitely agree with ZipRecruiter. My final nice list recipient goes to Slack. Yeah, I kind of threw an audible on you there. Chad: Do tell. Joel: Slack it's just the most potentially interesting company in our space. Microsoft has listed them as a now competitor which don't think anyone ever would've thought that this sort of enterprise messaging system would become a competitor. But I see so much potential in Slack and what they been able to do in raising money, penetrating the markets, client acquisition, global growth. It's already out they're going other than IPO next year. Joel: An IPO will give the money to go after those acquisitions to maybe by ZipRecruiter or make a big splash in terms of the employment space. But I'm just saying that they're so prime and they've had such a great year and they're such a newbie on the scene still that are newbie on the scene that I had to just put them on my nice list because I think we're going to see really, really cool stuff from Slack as they go public and go into next year. Chad: Good to go. Well why don't you start out the naughty list? So I got to start out the Nice List. Joel: Naughty list. Chad: Naughty. Joel: This is what everyone has been waiting for. No one cares about the nice list. Number one with a bullet on my nice list or naught list, excuse me, was job scams. Good lord, okay. These scams have been around forever before the Internet of course, but the Internet has supercharge these folks. Joel: Jobs have always been historically a place where scammers sort of hide in the shadows because people who are unemployed are very susceptible to getting scammed. They want to believe that they have a new job. They want to believe that they have an opportunity and scammers really come out in droves. Joel: I think that 2018 for whatever reason was a much bigger year than usual for scam artists. I don't know if this is the growth of the Internet or what, but we had star jobs was a story that we covered. This was a four-month report by AIM Group that uncovered a site that was leveraging legitimate job postings and backfill from I guess ZipRecruiter was one, who knows who else they were using. Joel: But when people applied, they got funneled into mortgage debt information, marital information, just really deep stuff that they shouldn't have to give for a job. Then once they submitted their information, they were bombarded by emails and text messaging through 10 digit numbers that kept changing, so they couldn't opt out of it easily. That was bad news. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Better Business Bureau had their 12 scams of Christmas posted recently and the seasonal jobs were top of the list. Again because it's the holidays. People are short of money. They're spending too much money. They're running up credit card debt. They're looking for new jobs, new opportunities. Obviously the work at home, the gig stuff is also an opening for scams. Joel: Better Business Bureau highlighted veterans as susceptible more than most. You as a veteran I'm sure can appreciate that. You get folks that served their country. They have spouses that put of a lot of sacrifice to serve our country. These people aren't getting hired as they should. So, they're looking at opportunities that are off the roadmap and are getting targeted by scammers. My naughty list number one is scammers, man. I wish you folks would find something better to do than screw people over. Chad: Fucking assholes, man. Mess with the old people, now messing with veterans. I mean just the targets, it's ridiculous man. It'll piss you off. All right. My first naughty list. Get ready. Joel: I'm ready. Chad: Any company using Tinder for Jobs. This thing, like you've said earlier, just won't go away. Joel: Dating does not equate to job seeking. Chad: It does not. Just because you can swipe means nothing. It's funny like because we just did a firing squad with Tilr and Carisa did a good job but it was funny because she had to push in there that yeah, we're kind of the Tinder for Jobs. I'm like oh, now you just went too fucking far. It seems like people want to put those, these buzzwords, AI, machine learning, block chain, Tinder for Jobs and guys I'm going to make it incredibly simple for you. Don't fucking do it. Chad: eHarmony couldn't even get eHarmony for jobs to work. How you think Tinder for fucking jobs is going to work? It's not. On my naughty list, all you assholes using Tinder for Jobs in any sales field. Joel: Yeah. I'll add that Bumble, one of the more popular dating sites apparently out there launched Bumblebees quite a while ago and they've I guess fallen flat on their face as well. You don't hear much from them. If you go look at Monsters reviews on their mobile app, people do not like swiping left and right for job postings. Chad: No. Joel: Yeah, don't do it. We're still getting startups that are pimping themselves as Tinder for Jobs. Chad: A lot of these startups coming into the space and they just get slapped in the face with "Yeah, asshole, getting a job is not like going on a date." Joel: Yes, very naughty, very naughty. Number two on my list is Dice. Man which was sort of highlighted by the fact that GitHub was acquired for $7 billion I think. That should have been Dice. Dice should be GitHub and the fact that they missed out on those opportunities is really tough to swallow for them, but really naughty in terms of where I'm coming from. Joel: They brought in a new CEO. We've mentioned Art previously on the show here who won't come and be interviewed by us which is there but yeah, we're a real show. We get real CEOs on the show. We'll be tough on you but we're not total assholes. So he won't come on the show. Their earnings are down. They've left Europe for the most part. Joel: The first earnings call for Art, he talked about getting the site up to speed or more modernized site, more user-friendly site that they would offer. If you got to the site now, it's pretty much the same thing. You still see the banner ads, the skyscrapers, the 460 by 60s, the old stuff that just sucks. I didn't even see backfill when I did searches. So. the jobs are pretty sparse. Joel: They're really pushing the sourcing thing and the staffing staff, but man, Dice man, what a bummer. A total naughty list recipient this year. I hope they turn around next year but 2018 was a bad year for Dice. Chad: Well, hearing all that, no wonder Art is hiding in the corner with his thumb in his mouth for goodness sakes. On my number two naughty list, I'll have to say, is Cambridge Analytica. Delay, deny, deflect, and then this newest information that Netflix and Spotify had access to our direct messages on Facebook. Chad: Facebook has been incredibly naughty this year, not just from the standpoint of knowing what was has been going on, but not fixing it and then lying about it. So, they've had millions eject out of Facebook just because of the trust issue. It's not looking good. Do I see Facebook tanking tomorrow? No, but if this continues Zack it's going to very hard for him to stay at the top of that pyramid. Joel: You think so? Chad: Yeah. Joel: I'll add that in terms of AI space, I think it takes their eye off the ball for employment because if they have these really big societal issues to think about and take care of, they're probably not that concerned about beating up on Craigslist and becoming the new SMB's provider of choice. From my standpoint, the naughtiness goes into not only what you just highlighted, but it's probably going to fall into the employment side and not being as innovative as we see Google and LinkedIn being going into next year. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: All right. Well, my final naughty list recipient goes to really robots and not the digital robots, but the actual scare the hell out of me robots. I'll highlight number one, Tanguay unbiased. I don't know if I'm saying that right. We've talked about these guys. They may see us in Lisbon. Joel: We may actually get interviewed by this thing, iRobot from the Will Smith movie and the Barbie hairstyle like think that your daughter had to burst off and just styles its hair. It just sits there and there's a digital face and you can pick different faces and this thing interviews people. Like that is so scary to me. If I walked in an interview and saw a robot questioning me, I'd really like freak out. If this is the future that we're looking at, it's really scary. I think the stuff that if you look at Boston or Boston- Chad: Dynamics. Joel: ... Dynamics, that's some scary shit. Robots that can open doors, can fire guns, can jump 10 feet in the air. That's frightening. I'll bring up the whole Circa 2118 book, which highlights a very dystopian scary future. In interviewing Peter, we talked about warfare, we talked about policing folks and building walls. It's just very frightening. The whole robot trend for me gets a big naughty. Chad: Thinking Robocop, thinking- Joel: Terminator. Chad: Sophia, that right. Joel: Sophia, yeah. Chad: And then Terminator and then also Black Mirror. There was this one episode on Black Mirror like the Boston Dynamics dogs were hunting humans. It's like yeah. If you were to get scared about this kind of shit, it's out there. It shivers down my Circa 2118 looking back. Last but not least. Joel: Last but not least. Chad: Naughty list, everybody saw this coming. It started happening the first part of this year. So first there was doubling paying click stealing. So clicks on jobs were not going to your website, they were staying on the site and then raising prices 30+%. Staffing policy which is kicking the organic and sent our friend Tim Sackett into Indeed jail. Another policy for Talents Networks saying that look, if you have a talent network and you force individuals to go through and I register through a talent network, we won't allow you to use Indeed. Joel: And they stole your sweater idea. Chad: And that motherfucker stole my sweater idea. All of these things are evil genius ideas just so you know, but evil naughty Indeed is my big naughty for 2018. Joel: What else is there to say? Indeed get your shit together. Be nice. Play with Google for Jobs. I want to see that in 2019. Chad: No. I do not want to see that. Joel: All right, man. Well, damn that took way longer than I thought it won't. Dude, here's to 2018. It was a great year. Let's rip it up again in 2019 and unless you have something to add, I'm out. Chad: We're out. Cole: I'm Cole Cheesman, it rhymes with Joel Cheesman, so my dad can easily remember who I am. Thanks for listening to my dad and his follically-challenged friend Chad. Make sure you subscribe to this show on iTunes, Google, 8-track cassette tapes or wherever you enjoy the podcast. Be sure to support our sponsors because if you don't I angry feel like when I'm angry. Chad: You won't like me when I'm angry. #YearinReview #2018 #Indeed #ZipRecruiter #Robots #AI #Matching #chatbots #RecruitHoldings #Glassdoor #Monster #Careerbuilder #GDPR #GoogleforJobs #Amazon #TinderforJobs #Facebook #LinkedIn

Survey Monkey is the premier surveying tool on the market. And if you're company isn't surveying employees and interviewees, you're doing it wrong. Becky Cantieri, Survey Monkey's Chief People Officer, lays out how they keep their finger on the pulse of candidates and employees alike. It's another NEXXT EXCLUSIVE! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps businesses find qualified candidates with disabilities for their job postings. Chad: This 'The Chad and Cheese Podcast' brought to in partnership with TA Tech. TA Tech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Visit TATech.org. Chad: Okay, Joel, quick question. Joel: Yeah? Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates or your texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. And I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflex to text messaging. Joel: Yeah, that's probably why text messaging has a freaking 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: Crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why 'The Chad and Cheese Podcast' love text to hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it. Chad: Yeah. That's right. Nexxt with the double x, not the triple x. Joel: So if you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI, that stands for return on investment, folks, and because this is 'The Chad and Cheese Podcast', you can try your first text to hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom. Chad: Wow. So how do you get this discount, you're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell them, Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to ChadCheese.com, and you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Just go where you know. ChadCheese.com and Nexxt with two x's. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock your doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for 'The Chad and Cheese Podcast'. Joel: Boy, oh boy, kids, do we have a treat for you. Chad, this is when you do the monkey sound. Ready? Go. Chad: I'm not good at monkey sounds, at all. Joel: Oh okay, monkey sounds. We'll do that in editing. Guys, we have a really cool show for you this month. Survey Monkey, a name some of you will know, some of you will not. We have the Chief People Officer from Survey Monkey, Becky Cantieri. Becky, welcome to the show. Becky: Hi. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Joel: You bet. Becky's a little nervous. I don't know if she's ever heard the show before. Chad: She hasn't. Joel: She might be shell shocked after this. But Survey Monkey has a cool new product for HR folks and employment brand people, but we understand that recruiters, vendors, HR folks listening to our show may not know who Survey Monkey is. Becky, give us the elevator pitch on you, what you do, and who you do it for. Becky: Sure. So I am Becky Cantieri, I'm the Chief People Officer at Survey Monkey, and I'm thrilled to be the Chief People Officer at Survey Monkey. I like to think that I'm responsible for the candidate and the employee experience. Everything we do at Survey Monkey is in service of two really important constituents. One is building a really strong business, and the second is the employees in which we serve. Chad: Excellent, excellent. Joel: Lovely. Chad: So Becky, that's the Survey Monkey stuff. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about Survey Monkey, I promise. Right now- Becky: Great. Chad: I would like to kind of dig deep into your dark past at Yahoo. No, seriously. You were at Yahoo for what? 11 ... for a good amount of time, and there was a lot going on back then. I mean, from 2000 all the way through 2011, a lot going on then. Give us a little background about what you did at Yahoo, and give us a little flavor of Becky. Becky: Sure. So yes, indeed. I spent almost 12 years at Yahoo, and it was absolutely a life changing career experience. Believe it or not, I started my career there in the recruitment function, I was the only product management recruiter at the time. I spent a few years doing that, and then quickly assumed responsibility for all systems, programs, and infrastructure across recruiting. From there, I spent about four or five years doing mergers and acquisitions, so the HR seat at the table, working with our leadership team and our corporate development team to evaluate and ultimately acquire or invest in almost 35 companies. So you can imagine, at that clip, if you sign and close 35 deals, you're doing diligence on a lot of deals. So that was a really, really great experience. Becky: And then I moved into more of a traditional HR business partner role, supporting a number of different organizations across Yahoo, from technology teams, to marketing organizations, and did a few chief of staff stints in between. It was ultimately that business partner experience and M&A experience that introduced me to Dave Goldberg, who was the CEO of Survey Monkey at the time, and that is what kind of aided the transition, moving from Yahoo over to Survey Monkey. Chad: Nice. Joel: Before we transition, I'm going to have to interrupt. So you were around when Hot Jobs was there, right? At Yahoo? Becky: Yes. Hot Jobs had been acquired. Joel: Ah, so did you work with Dan Finnigan? Currently at Jobvite. Becky: Yes, he was the CEO of ... at the time. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: So were you around during the Yahoo Hot Jobs Dice acquisition? And if so, do you have any little anecdotes that you'd like to share? Becky: I don't have any great anecdotes to share. Joel: Just kidding. So Marissa Mayer, were you in for any of that stuff? Becky: No, actually she joined shortly after I left. I left during the Carol Barts era. Chad: Nice. Joel: Got you. Becky: Yes. Joel: Okay, let's move on to Survey Monkey. A lot of our listeners don't know Survey Monkey, we'll get to that. But I've been using Survey Monkey, little known secret, since about 2004 or so. It was a tool a long time ago for marketers. The story is pretty interesting, and I've only heard tidbits and folklore about it. Help me set the record straight about the history of the company. Becky: Sure. So I'm glad to hear that you're a Survey Monkey user, that's great. And where it all started, so Ryan Finley is our founder, and about 19 years ago, he was actually doing an internship project where he was tasked with doing some market research. He looked for a tool to use and wasn't able to find anything that met his needs, so he started to build what you currently know today as Survey Monkey. And he built it for his own use and then made it available to other users. He, shortly thereafter, kind of hired his brother as the business began to pick up, and they uprooted the business from Madison, Wisconsin to Portland, Oregon. Becky: Then, the viral nature of the product really took off. At its very core, Survey Monkey is a survey platform that has this great viral component. You create a survey, you deploy a survey, you gather responses from your survey respondents, and then on the heels of that, they're able to create and deploy their own survey as well. So that's really the humble beginnings that it came from. Becky: In 2019, Ryan raised his hand and said there's a lot of- Joel: 2019? Becky: I'm sorry. 2009. Joel: This is future podcast, everybody. Becky: Yeah. No, I'm sorry. 2009, Ryan raised his hand and said, "There's a lot of opportunity in front of Survey Monkey, and I'm just not the right person to take it to the next level." So he partnered up with Bain and Spectrum, and that's when Dave Goldberg joined to be the CEO of Survey Monkey, and they really set out on a mission at that point to grow the company, and we've scaled from 14 employees at that timeframe to now, we're up over 800 employees. We were a US language only, really accepting only US currencies. Now, the product is in 20 plus languages, operating in about that many countries around the world, and we've really kind of evolved and grown the portfolio of products and services that we offer. Joel: So have you worked with David Goldberg? Becky: I did, indeed. Yeah. Joel: That's a sad story. We don't have to get into it. If people want to know, they can Google it, but he passed away a few years ago, I know. He has a famous wife who works at Facebook, but okay, interesting. Great. And that company started in what year? What's the timeline? Becky: It started 19 years ago. So- Chad: Do the math, Joel. Becky: 1999. Joel: 1999, I knew it's been a long time. Becky: Yeah. Chad: It doesn't take much, Becky. So as we talk about this powerful platform, and we're going to be talking about engagement, what was the genesis? Why build, engage in the first place? Was there a need you saw internally to have an HR employee satisfaction type of engagement platform for Survey Monkey? Or is this something that your clients were coming to you and saying, "Look, you do great in many other areas. Can you help us out here?"? Becky: Yeah, so first, let's ground ourselves in what the modern day Survey Monkey is. We like to think we're the world's largest in leading people powered data platform. We've collected over time something along the lines of 47 billion survey responses. So we have this long history and rich data of understanding what our users are using the product for, and HR has always been one of the primary use cases, and engagement within there, again, is another use case where our users are really using us. So it was a combination of, yes, employee engagement is important to us at Survey Monkey, but it's also been really, really clear that it's important to our users as well, and we wanted to build a more purpose based solution that had some of the secret magic sauce at Survey Monkey, which is our methodology, and in there, to help our users do this better and more effectively in their organizations. And as such, Survey Monkey Engage was born. Chad: Okay. So I heard a lot of aggregate data possibly. Do you guys have access to all that data to be able to crunch it and really get some, I guess you could say, opportunities to actually look at the market in a much different way than most of us get to? Becky: Yeah, we really have the ability to understand how our users are using our product and what use cases and things are really important to us, and we use that rich data to make our product even better. For example, we have something called Survey Monkey Genius, which is part of the core Survey Monkey platform, and Survey Monkey Genius helps our users write better surveys. And again, it's all intelligence based on the millions and millions of surveys that our users have deployed on our platform. And the intent is really to help all of our users power their curiosity, and put them in a position to ask better questions, get better insights, and really take action on those insights. Chad: So do you have machine learning that actually provide better structured questions and answers? Becky: Yeah, absolutely. Again, in the product, there's a couple of different things. There's Survey Monkey Genius, which is really the best example of this. As you start to build your survey, Survey Monkey Genius helps you in asking the right questions in the right flow to provide you an opportunity to get the best insight and information so that you can make a really great decision. Joel: Employment branding is all the rage right now, as you know as Chief People Officer. It seems to me like employment branding and surveys are just a match made in heaven. Interested in your perspective on employment branding, where that's going, how are surveys going to play a part in that? Just that kind of general question. Becky: Sure. So I am a huge fan of employment branding, I really think it's your opportunity to tell the world what it's like to be part of Survey Monkey, to be part of the team and what their experience will be when they're here. We, this year, in 2018, have worked more earnestly on our employment brand. Like you guys said when we started the podcast, "I'm a big user. I'm a big fan of Survey Monkey, I love it." That's everyone's reaction when you say that you work at Survey Monkey, and the point, from my perspective of employment branding efforts is to change that conversation from, "I love that product. I use that product." To, "I've heard it's an amazing place to work. How can I work at Survey Monkey?" Becky: So we started our efforts this year more formally in this category, and it all started with a survey, as you might expect. We really wanted to understand from our employees what is it that they value about being part of Survey Monkey? What they're looking for when they make employment decisions. It's a really competitive labor market as you guys know, so people have lots of options, and they have to be able to take in a lot of information to help them make good decisions about where they work, even. So ours began with a survey, and resulted in what we refer to as our employee value proposition, or kind of our statement of belief and what we believe employees get in exchange for bringing their time and talents to Survey Monkey. And now, we're in the process of helping tell the rest of the world what we believe you get in exchange for bringing those talents to Survey Monkey. Chad: So staying on the employer brand side of the house, and also talking about UX and going into more of the Chief People Officer side of the house and understanding that candidates are customers or they could be customers, right? Becky: Absolutely. Chad: So what is Survey Monkey doing to cut down on, or really just provide a great user experience and cut down on that black hole? Because we know that a black hole impact could perspectively impact the bottom line of the overall product. What are you guys doing on the user experience side of the house to make sure that those prospective candidates/customers are having a great experience? Becky: Yeah, great question. From a product perspective, a Survey Monkey product perspective, user experience is really everything. One of the hallmarks of Survey Monkey has always been that it's easy to use and very simple, and kind of an elegant solution that's fun to interact with. So that's always been a core principle of Survey Monkey and the products that we build. If it's not easy to use, people aren't going to do it. So that will continue to be important for us. And I think that really applies conceptually to your employment experience or your candidate experience as well. We want people to really have delightful experiences interacting with us. We want them to feel respected and valued, we want them to learn a lot from their perspective, and we also need the opportunity to learn from them. But most importantly, we want them to leave their experience with Survey Monkey, whether or not they get the job, feeling like they came to a really good understanding of Survey Monkey and that we're a great group of people. Joel: So Becky, what I'm hearing is you guys do survey your interviews? The people that come in? Becky: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we do post-candidate experience surveys. Joel: Awesome. So I think there are a lot of companies that are thinking about doing that or have in the past. What advice would you give to those folks who are looking to do it and what would you tell people who are thinking about doing it, but maybe getting push back from management, to sort of get them to buy into surveying the interviewees? Becky: So first of all, my first advice of course is you've got to use Survey Monkey to do this. Joel: Of course. Becky: And we have helpful templates to help you ask the right questions. But I'd really, really question why you wouldn't want to understand the experience that you're creating for your candidates. If you don't ask them directly, it doesn't really demonstrate that you, one, value their opinion, and they have a lot of channels to share their opinion about their experiences anyway, so it's better, at least from my perspective, to proactively ask them directly in the spirit of improving your process and the experiences that you're creating for them. We've learned a tremendous amount. Becky: We've been in the fortunate position of ... we get great feedback on people feeling really well respected and valued for the time that they're spending with us, but we have heard in the past that we had some areas of opportunity in terms of how we organize ourselves and not being repetitive in terms of the questions that we're asking candidates. So it was the launch pad for us to create internal interview training to teach managers and all panelists involved in recruiting how to organize, prepare, and engage with candidates while they're on site in a way that allows us to gather a lot of useful information to make a hiring decision without everybody asking these candidates the same five questions. Joel: On site, that's interesting. So logistically, how do you survey those that you interview? Because I would think that there would be a follow up email, "Thanks for coming in. We'd love to know your experience or feedback." But you're saying you actually, while they're in the building, you're getting feedback. Becky: Most of our survey efforts are the post-candidate surveys, so it's actually after they've already left the building. But we are starting to pilot a few programs where we have iPads in the interview rooms, and if they have any downtime between their interview conversations, we're either giving them some fun quizzes, an opportunity to check out the product, or to give us some feedback. Chad: Very nice. Very nice. Let's go ahead and jump into Engage. Becky: Sure. Chad: So tell us about Engage. Becky: Yeah, so Survey Monkey Engage, like I said, is kind of an end to end solution around employee engagement, and it has underlying methodology that we've developed and really looks into five core factors of engagement. It focuses on job satisfaction, personal engagement, purpose alignment, team dynamics, and visible future. All elements that we believe to be really important to building great engagement, and in the end, productive, happy, focused employees. So like many engagement products, it's something that the HR team can deploy, and it does two full surveys every year on those five core factors, and then we do a monthly poll survey every month to add richness, and texture, and context on one of those five core factors. Becky: Yeah, so it has been so useful and so insightful for us on really a number of dimensions. And most importantly has positioned us to take action on the feedback that we're hearing from employees. Chad: Nice. So what's the completion rate for you guys? Becky: So we, being a survey company, we tend to get completion rates in the 85 plus percent. Our employees have been well trained since we ask for feedback so frequently, and they've had a great experience because we ask for feedback, we're transparent about the results, whether they're positive or present an area of opportunity for us, and then we tell them how we're taking action on what they've shared with us. Chad: Got you. So what about other companies who are using Engage? How many other companies do you have? You don't have to name them, but how many other companies are using Engage today, and what have their experiences been? Have they seen higher engagement? Probably not 85%, but what does that look like? Becky: Yeah, so I don't actually have, I'm happy to follow up with you, in terms of the number of users. I don't have that off hand, but I can certainly reflect on a number of different customers that we've engaged with directly, both when we were building the product and as we've helped the product team iterate. We've had kind of a core team of power users who have really helped us influence and evolve the product. It's been one of the coolest things that I've gotten to work on here at Survey Monkey is being able to influence this product because we're all familiar with some of the engagement products out there, the kind of annual, once a year survey that doesn't help people leaders make great decisions, it doesn't help us understand what's important to our employees, and we really feel like Survey Monkey Engage does that. It's in its early stages, but it's starting to get traction. Joel: I want to bring anonymous employee reviews into the conversation. Becky: Sure. Joel: Obviously Glassdoor, Indeed, there's about 15 or 20 sites that companies have to worry about reviews being put online. It seems to me that companies that are engaging in regular, aggressive internal surveys are maybe having less of a problem because the feedback loop is internal. Maybe some companies are using surveys to take positive surveys and funneling them into Glassdoor and Indeed to leave positive reviews? What's sort of your general opinion on that, and do you have any examples of how companies or you guys are using surveys to improve your Glassdoor, Indeed, et cetera rankings. Becky: Sure. So of course I'm a huge fan of using surveys to better understand what's going on with your employee population. And I think it's a valuable resource to candidates when they're exploring career opportunities out there. It's their opportunity to get a bird's eye view of what it's like and to hear from other people who have or are currently working at companies. So I get all of that. At the same time, I understand that it can be really challenging because it's typically you're more inclined for disgruntled employees or maybe people who haven't had great experiences to post than you are to have happy, engaged employees spending their time writing reviews when they're so busy at work. Becky: But the philosophy that we've taken, or the approach that we've taken is we really focus on our employees and trying to create really great experiences that are built on the things that they value most. And we believe if we do that and if we treat people well, and are kind, and have a great impact not only on their lives, but the communities that we work in, that great reviews will follow. So we don't chase people down to write great reviews, we don't do campaigns internally. The people who share their perspective on Glassdoor and other things are genuinely having really great experiences, and we think that speaks more loudly than any kind of campaign would to get people to create great reviews for us. Chad: So next, I'd like to talk about providing advice to talent acquisition, HR out there, in being able to actually utilize this type of product to get their employees engaged. Is it one question surveys? Because I've seen a ton of surveys. It's like page after page, and it's horrible. So do you send more surveys, but just less questions? Do you send almost like brain teasers? I mean, what do you do to make it fun and to be able to get such high engagement? For Survey Monkey, obviously your organization is bought in, your employees are bought in, that's what they do day, by day, by day, so 85%, that's hard to expect for most companies, but how do they get their completion rate up? Becky: Yeah, so a couple things. I think one, it's about writing great surveys. And you're right, surveys need to be kind of snack size and digestible, number one, and Survey Monkey has lots of great research and content to help our users write better surveys, which includes, "How many questions should you ask?" Generally, not more than 20 as the rule. So that's one thing. The second thing I would say is if you ask, be prepared to take action. Don't ask for the sake of asking and then never do anything with the data that you receive. I think what has been the most impactful in terms of us driving that engagement with our surveys is that, again, employees, with our employees, we are transparent about the results of our surveys, where we're going to take action, and even when we're not going to take action based on some of that feedback, we just acknowledge that very simply so they know this to be a channel through which they can have their voices heard, and that we take action on. Becky: Let me give you an example. So every year as we go into open enrollment, we do a Survey Monkey survey to make sure ... it's a huge investment in benefit, medical, dental, and vision benefits and perks that we do every year, so we always want to make sure we're using our money wisely. So at the end of the year as we prepared, we did a survey, and the survey results came back and said, we just had really high satisfaction rating. People were very satisfied with our offerings in this category, and really had little insight or value to add in terms of adjusting our offerings at all. But then we started to read through the open-ended questions for our survey, like, "What other input do you have for us?" And there was one question in there that asked ... identified three of our janitorial services workers by name, and it said, like, "Hey, we have great benefits, but what's going on with our third party vendors and our janitorial services team, the people that work in our kitchen? Do they have a great level of benefits?" Becky: So it kind of sent us down this road of curiosity where we were exploring this, and of course, we came to learn that they definitely weren't on par with what we were doing. So that year, our focus was not changing benefits for our own employees, our focus was on creating a set of standards that our vendors needed to meet to be able, for us to be willing to partner with them when they had employees on site, and we were able to invest not only our own money, but help them offer their employees better services. So sometimes it's interesting, the insight and the data that you get. Sometimes it's directly about what your employees want, sometimes it's also about who your employees want you to be as an employer and the impact that they want you to have on all of the constituents, your customers, your vendors, et cetera. So it's important that you really look for actionable insights, and you really dig through the data to understand what's going on and what your employees really want you to do. Chad: So it sounds like you actually might have identified, at least for me, one of the reasons why companies don't like to do surveys is because after they're done with it, they know they have to do something, and if they don't, there's going to be a high level of resentment, right? Becky: Yeah. Absolutely. Chad: Yeah. Becky: You have to be courageous enough, if you ask a range of questions, you could get a range of answers, and something may be reflected back to you that's not really becoming of your organization, or not in line with what you value or the experiences you're trying to create, but it's better to know and be able to take meaningful action on it than to not know at all or to pretend like it doesn't exist. Chad: Yeah, I would say courageous is probably a little far. They're not going into a building after a burning baby, but- Becky: True. Chad: Yeah, if they could stiffen their spine, get out of the fetal position in the corner, and actually care about what their employees think and feel, and then focus on taking action on that, yeah. I get that. That's awesome. Joel: You listeners of the show will know that millennials are a continual source of grief for me. Entitled little brats. And I say that because I know if you started in '99 at Yahoo that you're not in that group. So my question is, how are millennials affecting surveys? In particular, the mobility of surveys? Becky: Yeah, so in my experience, and of course we have a lot of employees that are millennials, of course. I think they're affecting surveys in a couple of ways. One is they really love to share their input, so I think they're helping drive our completion rates because they have strong opinions and they really, really want to share them, so I think that's one way. And they want to be able to take them and do them wherever they are. They're not necessarily waiting for an email. They take them on their phone, they do them on the fly, and they give us bite sized bits of feedback all of the time. Joel: That was about the answer I expected. Lastly ... They want it how they want it, when they want it. Okay. Chad: Like Joel's any different, right? Joel: Yeah. I'm totally different. I'm an old soul. So typically when we talk to ATSs, CRMs, there's integration into platforms like applicant tracking platforms is very important to their business. Is integration something that you guys do? Or is it something you will be doing? Becky: Survey Monkey as a product, absolutely. Integrations is kind of part of our strategy overall. We don't believe we need to be the system of record. We want to meet our users where they are, so whether that's integrating with Sales Force, into Microsoft teams, we have a number of different integrations that help our users marry their operational data and the data that they're collecting through Survey Monkey surveys. Joel: Any applicant tracking solutions that you integrate with or any talent management solutions, like Work Day maybe? Becky: So we are working on those integrations as part of Survey Monkey Engage. Joel: Great. Well, Becky, I think that's all that we have for you. We greatly appreciate your time, we know you're a busy person. For listeners who want to find out more, where should they go? Becky: Please visit SurveyMonkey.com. Joel: Easy enough. Chad: Beautiful. Becky: Yeah. Thank you guys so much. It's been fun. Joel: We out, dude. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to 'The Cheese and Chad Podcast', or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes, that silly android phone thingy, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on Monster.com. We out. Chad: Okay, before we go. Remember when I asked you about the whole reflex, and check your text messages thing? Joel: Yeah, you know all about reflexes. And then I brilliantly tied it to text messages 97% open rate, then I elegantly, elegantly tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh, Chad. I can be elegant. Can't I? Chad: Whatever, man. I know it's redundant, you already heard about text to hire, but you're still not using text to hire from Nexxt. Joel: What? Chad: I know, man. Joel: Come on, man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again this was all by elegant design. It's all about text to hire and it's all about Nexxt. Joel: And elegant design. So go to ChadCheese.com, click on the Nexxt logo, and get 25, yeah, I said 25% off your first text to hire campaign. Engage better, use text to hire from Nexxt. Two x's. Chad: Boo-yah. Chad: Thanks to our partners at TA Tech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Remember to visit TATech.org. #SurveyMonkey #Engagement #Retention #Nexxt #TAtech

Ho-ho-Oh No! What should've been a laid back week has done blowed-up. Crowded goes through major ch-ch-changes in the C-suite... And there's more under the tree kids... - Indeed says "no," while ZipRecruiter says "yes," - Amazon and Walmart are waging "Robot Wars" - People attack self-driving Waymo cars - Uber autonomous is back on the street in Pittsburgh - Employees ghost employers, because they deserve it? - Indeed perpetuates stupid "Ninja" job titles - and we perpetuate Indeed's perpetuation.. Huh? Grab an eggnog and enjoy our Christmas show, sponsored by Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas, as usual. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions partners with employers on disability inclusion initiatives to design scalable solutions to support strategic and operational goals in staffing, training, retention, compliance and engagement. Announcer: Hide your kids lock the doors, you are listing to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts, complete with breaking news, splash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: We are in your ear drums but we don't watch you when you sleep. Welcome to the pre-Christmas week episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, HR's most dangerous and totally loaded on eggnog right about now. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: On this week's show, Crowded gets all shook up, Indeed says no, but ZipRecruiter says yes. And the pitchforks are coming out against self-driving cars. Put your feet up and throw some milk and cookies down your pie hole. We'll be right back after this message from Sovren. Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produce them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit sovren.com. That's sovren.com. Chad: Humans don't need to learn how to think like computers because they're not smart enough to think like computers. That's what it comes down to. Joel: I just want to listen to our Christmas sound bite. Chad: You just love the Christmas sound bite. Joel: I love Christmas. Chad: Any holiday where there is food and festivity involved, yes. Joel: Yes and gifts. Chad: No gifts. Joel: Thanksgiving is great cause there is no gifts, there's no sort of all that effort of watching your wife wrap presents while you drink beer, cause you are often wrapping presents, but yeah. I love the holidays. Are you doing anything special? Chad: Yeah. Going to enjoy some time. The kids are going to be a way for about a week or so. And then they are going to come back and we're going to do Christmas, New Year's and everything all balled up pretty much into one, so that should be fun. They are teenagers now so it's a little bit different, especially went off to college, she's back. We are getting close to being empty nesters which is going to be awesome. Joel: I cannot say the same. My youngest has no idea what's going on, so that's neither here nor there. My nine year old still believes in Santa which is still precious. And my 12 year old is preteen angsty, who knows what's going on there. But yeah, I only get them on Christmas Day, isn't divorce fun. And then they leave me and then I get them back on New Year's, where we will be going to Canada and enjoying New Year's there. So yeah, good stuff. Chad: Oh, Canada Joel: Canada. Hopefully they'll let me back in. Chad: We've got our Chad and Cheese Christmas party, holiday party, Hanukkah party, Kwanzaa party this weekend. Joel: Christmas, Kwanzaa ... We'll have Chris Hanukkah- Chad: Yeah. Joel: Basically it's about really good food and drink. Chad: That's the way it should be. Joel: That's what it is, yes. Yeah. We'll maybe live stream or maybe, who knows. We'll post something, a little holiday message for the podcast. I don't know. We'll have fun Chad: I've got an awesome sweater that I can't wait to wear. So, let's get this done. Joel: Yeah, and I have some nauseous or enough anxiety medicine. Before I see that thing. All right, shout out, so what you got? Chad: Ooh, first and foremost, I'd like to go ahead and thank Scott Gutz, CEO of Monster and Chris Cho head of product at Monster. Just did a really awesome interview with those guys and we just dropped it earlier this week, so if you haven't checked it out, you want to hear about the state of the union or the state of Monster, check it out. We didn't throw them any softballs. I mean, we threw them some pretty fast pitches in and they answered some questions, so it was good stuff. Joel: State of the purple bugs bunny looking thingy, I believe is what we say, yes. Chad: Yes. Joel: From my words I think it's our best work to date on the interview side. You are not an iPhone guy but in iTunes it algorithmically shows podcasts that are the most popular, like most listened to et cetera. And the Monster interview is already in our most popular shows, so that's got to mean something, right. Chad: Nice. Well, and this is really just a shot. Should be heard around the industry for any CEO that's out there, get on the podcast, be transparent. Yes, we're not going to ask you bullshit softball questions, but that's not what the people want. They want to hear the real shit. They want to hear what's going on and we are going to push you to answer those questions. So, get on the pod or over there at dice I see in the fetal position in the corner, get out of the fetal position buddy. Get on the podcast and let's talk. Let's make 2019 a kick ass year. Joel: Tough but fair as my dad would always say. And by the way, my first shout out goes to my father who celebrates his birthday today. This will be published the day after, but yes, my dad is celebrating 79 years on this planet, half of which he's had to deal with me. So that counts for something. And we'll hopefully make 80 and many more birthdays after that. So, happy birthday coach Cheesman. Chad: Yeah, he's got a lot left in him. He's got a lot left in him. Joel: I agree. By the way, a double cancer survivor, prostate and colon. So they got mega ops for survival. Chad: You can't beat that guy. It's all there is to it. Joel: He's a cockroach. Chad: Hence Joel Cheesman. Shout out to new listener [Greg Jim Bonko 00:06:48] I know you want to call him Jiambi but it's Jim Bonko. Thanks for listening man, a new listener now. Since you are a new listener, you have to understand that you've got to go out, get your peers, friends and family listing as well. This is our push to be able to make Chad and Cheese, again, the best or continue to make the best HR podcast out there. Joel: And if not the best at least the most dangerous. Shout out to KFC, they had to make the list there somewhere. They have apparently released these starter logs. Chad: Yes. Joel: Some people don't own fireplaces, so these starter logs you fire up and then the wood, sort of like, KFC has apparently released a starter log for your fireplace that smells like fried chicken. Chad: That's genius. Joel: Yeah, it's like- Chad: That's incredibly genius. Joel: It's like indoor plumbing, the printing press and now the KFC starter log that smells like fried chicken. Chad: Yes. This is amazing. If you do have a wood burning fireplace, you should be getting these for Christmas. Joel: Agreed. Chad: I'm going to say shout out to Google Home Assistant for the commercial rekindling Home Alone with Kevin McCallister. So it's got- Joel: McCulkin. Chad: Oh yeah it's got a today's, it's hilarious. It's got Caulay McCulkin, today's Caulay McCulkin. He's found himself home alone, he asks Google what's on his calendar for the day and then during the entire thing, I mean he's just telling, he's asking google to do things. Again, it rekindles the years where we've watched Home Alone over and over. And it is funny as hell. So big ups to Google for that one. Joel: I love how he throws his back out when he's jumping on the bed. And by the way, you have to turn in your Gen X card for not knowing Macaulay Culkin, that's just awful. Macaulay McCallister, is that- Chad: No, Kevin McCallister is his name in Home Alone. Joel: Oh. Chad: You've got to throw in your Gen X card for not knowing the character name. Joel: No, no. Okay. All right. Anyway, that was a little funny side note. This is clearly one of the last shows of the year because we're getting ... TextRecruit shout out, we have this guy Eric Kostelnik, anyway, interviewed him for the show Kostelnik, I think that's right. Chad: Kostelnik, yeah. Joel: Interviewed him for the show, he has been a friend of the show for a long time, acquired by ICIMS. They sent out a tweet this week about getting their thousandth customer. So big ups to them for that. Chad: I love in the interview with him, you couldn't say his name, he's like, "It's okay man. You've only known me for like three years." Joel: Yeah. Well, people are still mispronouncing Cheesman so ... And Cheesman is much more straight forward than Kostelnik. Chad: Yeah, to an extent. Yeah, I could say that. So I'd like to send a shout out to Boston Dynamics who just put a video out of Santa with their robot dog reindeers. And I just want to say stop it, Boston Dynamics, stop it. You've gone too far. You've made everything in our life creepy. You can't make Christmas creepy too. Joel: The difference is my dog can't open the door, and- Chad: That's what makes it so creepy. Joel: Yeah, totally creepy. Last shout out is just ... Christmas man, take a break. I'm hoping to take an entire week break from Chad next week. We've prerecorded shows just so we don't have to listen and talk to each other for a week. I hope that everyone out there has a relaxing time, takes a break, enjoys family, friends or whatever it is you do. I know it's been a great year and I'm thankful for so much. Thank you Chad for a great year as well. I'm looking forward to 2019 and making many more shows. Chad: Stop it man, you're making me tear up. My last shout out is for all those individuals who love the supreme ugly Chad and Cheese sweater. Thanks so much. Brett Healey tweets, it just can't get any uglier. Thanks Brett, that's exactly what we're going for. Jen Klimas. Rayanne Thorn, Steve Kraut, Roy Mauer, Tim Sackett, Michael O'Dell, Audra Knight, James Ellis and Teresa Reyes Bustamante and many more. I can't because there was so much action on this ugly sweater, thank you. You have made my holiday season. Joel: Are you going to cut the sleeves off and wear it in the summertime, is what I want to know. Chad: No, I've got to keep this thing around but I think there will be Chad and Cheese T-shirts happening in 2019, mark my words people. Joel: Can we get to the news now? Chad: Yes. Joel: All right. Some of breaking stuff here, Crowded as in crowded.com, as in former firing squad alum has some shakeups here recently. I was able to confirm through a conversation with Steve Levy who I know a lot of our audience knows, a recruiting veteran friend of ... many conferences and events around the industry. But he took a job at Crowded a while back. And I'll start off by saying that aside from the news, Steve is staying with Crowded, believed in the product and the people that are there. So his confidence means something but apparently people at the top, we don't know exactly who, how it would be the top of the top, and I think you have some word that he has been let go as part of that. Joel: You have some sources on this story as well. But have either been fired or resigned. So there's some turmoil at the top that's going on. Mike Wiston who we know, head of sales, left the company towards the end of November I believe. Now according to him, it had nothing to do with any sort of chaos or scandal at the top. Which we have yet to confirm. Joe Rubin who is co-founder not confirmed that he's left yet but word is that it looks like he is focusing a little bit on his investment company. His LinkedIn profile has not been updated, Howie's has not been updated. Mike's has been updated, so we can still confirm that he is gone. Joel: The company's about us page has all of those folks still with the company. There's been no public announcement from the company, but as soon as we get something more concrete we will report it. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, wherever. That's where we shred some of this breaking news. So as we know more about the story, we'll be delivering that through the shred. So if you haven't opted in or subscribe to the show, make sure you do that so you get some of this hard hitting breaking stuff. Chad: Right now. Do have to say that this is one of the products that was out there that I think conceptually was amazing. And when we were actually able to see some of the components, I mean it backed up the concept, being able to really leverage your applicant tracking system, candidate database, the hundreds of millions of dollars that companies spend in their databases, building these databases and then they stop using them. This product was really devised to keep that database fresh and make it easier to match up against requisitions that obviously we are a posting on a daily basis. So this is the type of technology that I believe moving forward it's ripe for organizations to be able to tap into. And hopefully Crowded will be around in 2019 and will stay strong. Joel: Yeah, we definitely like the company and the people that were initially there. But you know, things happen. People are people. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They do, shit happens. What are you going to do? Chad: Shit happens. Joel: It definitely happens. But yeah, updates are coming on this story as we speak. I just actually got a call, that was probably about that. So yeah, if you're not subscribed to the shred get that updates on this story and more are forthcoming. Chad: Yeah. And if you don't know how to subscribe, it's pretty simple. Go to iTunes, look up the Chad and Cheese podcast, go to Google Play or Google Podcast, go to CastBox, whatever you use to listen to podcasts. If you don't listen to podcast, you are listening to a podcast, what the fuck. Go look for an App that makes sense for you and just look for Chad and Cheese, subscribe and you will get everything that we put out. Joel: Not so late breaking, takes us to our next story. Tucker Carlson, who probably those in America know but a lot of people outside of the country may not know who Tucker Carlson is. He's a conservative talking head, I guess it would be the best way that I would describe him. He's on- Chad: On Fox News. You got to say that. Joel: He is a Fox News personality. He made some comments about immigrants, specifically that they are dirty. I think that was really, really bad to say. There are dirty. Chad: They make our country dirtier and poor is what he said. Joel: It was just a really bad stupid thing to say. He's actually doubled down on it and said, I stand on when I said. As a result of this, quite a few advertisers have said, we out from supporting the show. And Indeed announced pretty publicly that they were leaving their support for the show. However, another industry stalwart has said they're not, or at least have not come out and said we're leaving. And that would be- Chad: ZipRecruiter. Joel: ZipRecruiter. So yeah, I mean I'd be kind of surprised if they don't just ride the wave of getting off the show. When you work in employment and diversity is such a key to our success, it's really hard to be a company in the recruiting space and support sort of anti-Semitic stupid comments like that. Chad: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. You know that companies like ZipRecruiter they've got ads everywhere, but it's incredibly important to be cognizant of what the hell is being said. And that's the kind of thing that you've got to watch. I mean, you really do, you have a dozen, at least at this point, a dozen other companies, big name companies who have said, okay, screw this I'm ejecting, I'm going home. Indeed being one of those companies very smartly. And then we saw on Twitter that Zip was still running ads. And I don't know if that's just because it was part of the normal flow and they weren't paying attention, but I think this is a shot over Zips, It's like guys, I know you're putting a lot of money out there but you've got to be cognizant of this shit. Joel: Yeah, for sure. Especially in today's environment. Not walking back or getting away from this sort of environment, makes you look sort of tone deaf and can be very damaging. There is reasons why certain companies sponsor Howard Stern, certain content. And if you're going to support something like Fox News which is very opinionated and has personalities like this, you should kind of know what you're getting into. But maybe Tucker went too far for some advertisers, certainly for ones in our space. So I applaud Indeed, I think we both do. And we'll see what ZipRecruiter does. Maybe we'll reach out to them and see if they're going to pull back or not. Chad: I don't believe, I don't think there's any question he went too far with. This has to do with just fear mongering to be quite frank. Joel: Yeah. I mean, Fox gets a ton of viewers and so that becomes very enticing as an advertiser to get on board with that. But you just have to know what you're getting. And if your business is HR who touts diversity and inclusion and all those good things, that becomes really dangerous. If I'm selling snuggies or burgers, there's a lot less risk I guess of backlash. But certainly in our industry you got to be careful with who you're getting behind. Chad: Yes. To say the least. Joel: Next story, ERE media who a lot of our listeners will know. I'm a regular provider of outstanding content to EREs website, also presenting at their spring conference in San Diego. So, if you are going to be there, come by and say hi. But they acquired Talent42, which reminds me of the 80s group level 42. Do you remember them? Chad: Yes. And something about you. Joel: There is something about you, baby. Which I know many of our audience will know because the people who commented about your sweater are all about our age. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I'm sure know this song. So anyway, talent 42 is a Seattle based conference sort of boutiquey nichey up to this point. Historically ERE and it's leader David Manaster have been really good about sort of finding those hidden gems in the industry and acquiring them. And this is just the next line to that. You and I talked earlier and we think it's the Forsyth newsletter that they acquired very early on. And acquiring SourceCon really early on as well, which has become one of the must see events for a lot of recruiters and certainly for sourcers out there. So, I applaud David for sort of being on the watch, on the hunt for some of these companies that are maybe under staffed or underutilized or underfunded and taking them and really making them something. So, Talent42 probably move beyond Seattle, probably go global, probably be something a lot bigger than they are today, but kudos to them. Joel: I don't know exactly what it says about the conference business. It's a good thing that you are seeing some consolidation or not. And certainly when the economy goes south, how do these guys fair, I don't know. But for the near term, this looks like an interesting acquisition. And by the way, we don't talk about conference acquisitions very much. So this was newsworthy. Chad: Yeah. Dave and crew over at ERE, they've been smart about content. We have said for years content is king and how you get it out there. And then there's the delivery mechanism of that content being, whether it's the ERE website or these conferences. So this is just another opportunity to have another vehicle, a very pointed vehicle for those types of individuals who go to that type of conference. I mean, what really distinguishes Talent42 again from some of the other ERE conferences? Joel: I don't know the ins and outs of the deal. Maybe the people behind it were sort of ready to walk away from it or maybe they saw bigger opportunity, but were funded to the degree that ERE might be to take it to the next level, I don't know the specifics of it. But it's built up a nice little brand in the northwest, I don't know, but we'll be watching. Moving on to an ad from our boys at Canvas. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off the Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiters success. Request a demo gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's go canvas.io, get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: So I have an update on Talent42. Chad: Okay. Joel: So looking at this story, it's primarily a tech recruiting event. So the need that it fills is being able to find and recruit tech talent. Certainly SourceCon helps with that but SourceCon is everything. So Talent42 is more tech focused. It is a national show. So yeah. So I think the niche it looks like it fills is tech recruiting. Chad: That makes a hell of a lot of sense. Joel: Well, there you go. Chad: There you go. So that being said, as we roll into these next topics, we're just listening to Canvas and how they're talking about Canvas bot. Amazon and Walmart are adding more robots, believe that. So Fast Company had this pretty awesome article around Amazon and Walmart, because those two are really fighting each other, right. Amazon bought Warehouse Robotics Company Kiva Systems a few years back. And due to that, I'm going to quote on this one, "In fulfillment centers, they have drive units. We're able to store up to 40% more inventory and move custom orders in a faster more efficient way, faster deliveries, lower prices." So taking the friction, this is the people friction. This is the thing that we talked about with Peter Weddle in the Circa 2118 interview, taking the human friction out of the whole formula, right. 40% more inventory and faster deliveries, lower prices, boom, people suck. Joel: People suck. Yeah, the problem and we talked about this in Circa 2118 with Weddle is somebody needs to buy the products that these robots are moving around and making. Chad: Look at the market, how many jobs do we have versus people. So this is the perfect opportunity for you to move those people out because there are other jobs, right. And that's the whole kind of thought process around this. Joel: Yeah. Now you are in this more than I am, but also that they're reconfirming or confirming that jobs aren't going to be lost because of this automation, you just call bullshit on that or? Chad: That is total bullshit. So let's run through a few of these things real quick, especially just with Amazon. Cashier-less Amazon Go stores, where are the fucking people? The concept of drone deliveries, where the people, right. To be able to say that is a bold faced lie. Will there be jobs that are created from this? Yes. But I think, Peter Actually said in the book when you do your due diligence and you take a look at the actual numbers, six jobs lost per every one created, right. So yeah, it's going to create jobs but the deficit is five times that of what it's actually creating. Chad: In 2020, Walmart automated carts will soon be shuttle components of online grocery orders from an attached warehouse to packaged up for human workers. So today, Julie when she shops, she goes online, she goes to Walmart does everything online. If you go into Walmart, you see these personal shoppers and they have these carts and they're going and they're doing the personal shopping, right. What's happening by 2020 is all those human beings are going to be gone. It's all going to be done by robots. That's another step Walmart is taking. And then they have robot truck unloading systems, autonomous floor cleaning systems that are deployed in 360 Walmarts by the end of January. Inventory tracking bots that can do a job in two and a half hours that it actually takes a human two weeks to do, that's stocking, checking merchandise, inventory. Chad: And then, last but not least, there are these things called Walmart pickup towers that are going to be like in 700 different Walmart locations, where you do your online, this is beyond I think just that of groceries. But you do your Walmart shopping online. You walk in the store to this tower, you have a QR code that you scan or something and then it just brings your box up, you've already paid for it online, you take it and you get the hell out of dodge. I mean dude, you cannot tell me that this is going to create a shit ton of jobs. Joel: That's all great but when I'm in the produce section I like to make sure my melons are firm. Chad: I do agree with that. I do agree with that. I do like from melons. Joel: I do like green lettuce and picking that strawberry that I really really want to eat. So there is something to be said for that. Chad: And getting grapes instead of being delivered raisins. Joel: And that. Now beer delivery, I think we're both behind. When a drone can deliver my PBR, it's a good day. Chad: Well, and Domino's delivering pizzas. I mean and this self-bake car pizzas. Joel: Yeah, the pizza that ... It's a self-driving truck. It takes orders online and it makes the pizza and then you go out and get it. You have a little code you got and it got like a hot pizza that's in this ever driving self like. To me that's genius and I'm waiting for that to happen. Pretty soon we'll never have to leave our house. I don't know if I'm looking toward to that day, but certain aspects of that I'm looking forward to. So we talked about the employee side of the automation question today. Joel: Let's talk a little bit about recruiting. Unilever has a interesting story. They process a whole lot of applicants with AI. A story come out this week, Unilever processes 1.8 million job applications. Now Unilever is a big company, so I don't know exactly what percentage of that is, but my guess is it's still a lot. And they also recruit more than 30,000 people each year by partnering with Pymetrics. So they specialize in artificial intelligence in recruitment. The partnership has created an online platform for candidates to be assessed at home on their computer or a mobile device. They've eliminated 70,000 person hours of evaluation through this partnership. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Wow. Chad: Dude. So the first step on this is while you're at home, they send you games to test your aptitude, logic, reasoning and appetite for risk. The whole algorithm goes into play and then it's used to assess the candidate suitability for whatever role they've applied for and then matches against different profiles. The second stage, and this is where it really gets creepy, is that you go into a video interview. And again, the assessor is not a human being, it's not a human being. So this is where the 70,000 person hours of interviewing and assessing candidates have been cut out. So that's pretty amazing to be able to look at how much time a recruiter actually spends, hiring manager, right, as sourcers, assessments, all that stuff, all that cutout, gone, done, taken over by these types of algorithms and systems. Joel: I got a thing for 2019 will be the year that if you're not doing stuff like this, you are going to lose your job. If you are not implementing some of these things as a big corporation in particular, we're going to see this in mass and become ubiquitous and commonplace next year. Chad: In this case, there is no black hole because all of, and I'm going to go ahead and quote, all of our applicants get a couple of pages of feedback, how they did in the game, how they did in the interviews, right. And what tech characteristics they have that fit. And if they don't fit, the reason why they don't fit, so they're giving them feedback, not going into a black hole. And this is all happening without human beings, right. Then it carries on to onboarding and engaging employees. They have a bot called Unibot that, it's all on the NLP Microsoft Bot framework that focuses on being able to just answer basic questions, provide documents and really do what HR and some of even IT, some of these different departments do on a daily basis. That's just really answering basic questions. They've rolled that out into 36 countries. Joel: If you're an Svp of HR and your CEO hasn't come to you from looking at stories like this and said, what are we doing to automate our recruiting. You should probably expect that conversation to happen any day now. Chad: If you have human beings, let's just go down for the basics first. If you have human beings posting jobs, if you have human beings scanning, actually sourcing candidates, right. Even these different engagement pieces from the ChatBot side of the house. If you're not looking at trying to get rid of all those tasks for your people so that they can really focus on being brand ambassadors. Joel is a hundred percent correct, CEO, CTO, who the hell knows, you're going to get a knock on the door and say, hey, why are we in the 1950s when all of our fucking competitors are getting to the talent so much faster than we are. Joel: Exactly. And speaking of coming after, people are coming after self-driving cars in Phoenix. A story out of Fast Company. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Says that to date there's been 21 police reports filed by Waymo drivers. Now the Waymo drivers are people who just sit in the car basically and make sure that for safety measures that they work. But yeah, 21 cases of people attacking with pitchforks and fire and everything else, this poor Waymo cars. Now, I will say that I've lived in Phoenix and can tell you that it gets really hot in Phoenix and people get pretty testy and short tempered. So I don't know how much of that goes into this verse saying how much of it is just we hate self-driving cars. But one Waymo driver says they saw a 69 year old man waving a gun at their vehicle which fortunately the police apprehended before he can do too much damage. But yeah, what do you think about this backlash on self-driving cars that people are attacking them. Chad: Yeah, I mean they are pretty much billboards. They say Waymo, they let you know that they're an autonomous vehicle and people are slashing tires, throwing rocks. I mean, this is could be, who knows, the start of the uprising when you start to see the robots starting to take over. There is also a piece in the article where an Uber driver, I believe it was an Uber driver was actually swerving toward these Waymo cars trying to drive them off the road and he was just screwing with them, but still, it's like, dude, that's going to take my job. Joel: That's going to be a lot of it. It's going to be people fucking with these cars. There is going to be insurance claims of people who run in front of them to get hit and fall claim. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: There is going to be people who are taxi drivers and Uber Drivers who see their livelihood at risk. And they are going to fuck with these cars. This is just like the drones where kids sit down with BB guns and like shoot it at drones, just for the hell of it. But yeah, I don't think it's as much as like an uprising against the trend of self-driving cars. I think it's just people being dumb asses and doing what people do. Chad: Until they start seeing the actual jobs going away and then it'll switch. Joel: Yeah, it could go bad. It could go south really fast. But for now, man, Phoenix might've been too hot of a place. You need to come to someplace a little more, they need to go to like Wisconsin or somewhere more amenable to stuff like this. Maybe at Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh has some nice cars, right. Chad: Yeah Pittsburgh, actually Uber is getting back on the road. They had a fatality but they're getting back on the road and that's the first place that they're going back on the road, it's Pittsburgh. Joel: Let's get a quick word from JobAdX and we'll talk about ghosts and ninjas and gurus. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you've placed in us. Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad techs bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partners sites. We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners. And we've developed our revolutionary live alert which eliminate latency and an expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links whether open today, next month or next year. For more information about our solutions, please reach us at joinus@jobadx.com. Joel: So ghosting and weird job titles. I don't really care which one we tackle first because they're both so hard hitting. But what do you want to do? Chad: I'd say the ghosting first. I think this- Joel: Interesting. Chad: We've been hearing a lot about this. Joel: Ooh, well the big one now is there's no more two week notice apparently. People just say fuck it and leave. Chad: Yes. That's what ghosting is. So just for our listening audience, what ghosting is, is when your employee just doesn't show up anymore, they quit but they don't even tell you that they quit. They're just done, right. So, this is from my understanding, because I haven't done this in a very long time, but it's very popular in the dating world, right. So you start dating somebody, it's like, oh, this is going well. It's like, nothing, radio silence on the other end. They totally ghosted you, right. They are starting to bring that behavior to the workplace. Joel: Yeah. And it doesn't exclude ... It's not just the work, the employees, it's the interview process as well. I mean people will have talked to someone, bring them in for an interview, they like the candidate, et cetera. And people just don't even show up. And they don't tell them I'm not showing up, they just don't show up. And we've heard about first day on the job where they just don't show up. They don't even time to hate their boss, hate the company or hate anything about it, they just don't even show up on day one. Chad: Yeah. Well, it's the market that we're in right now, right. And I believe, and this is just kind of my thought processes, is these individuals believe, hey, what's good for the goose is good for the fucking gander, right. When I go in and I do interviews and you don't get back to me and I go into a black hole, you're ghosting me, right. You are ghosting me, when I put my resume in and I don't get anything back, you are ghosting me. So why is that behavior okay but my behavior is not okay. So I don't think two wrongs make a right in this case. And the reason why this is happening is because of the job market. There are so many jobs that are out there that it's like, yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and hop from this job to that job, screw you, I'm going home. In some cases, but like you had said, there are some that don't even show up for day one, that's because they have multiple offers. Chad: The job market is making this happen. The problem is, when you're so weak that you can't look that individual on the eye and you run and play the run and hide game. You are burning bridges and there is a long term impact for this, especially when the worm starts to turn on the job market. Joel: Yeah. Eventually you'll need jobs. And if you've done a good job of burning bridges and pissing people off and embarrassing maybe people who tatted you up, that you were coming in and you made them look bad, what goes around comes around, which is another thing my dad used to tell me. This is a perfect example of that, that this will come back to bite you in the ass potentially. To me this is a whole culture of like breaking up through text used to be a thing. You don't even have the balls to call the person up or see them face to face or whatever. You just text them and then you are gone. And this whole culture of I don't need to take responsibility. I don't need to do the tough things in life. I don't have to do the right thing, is pretty unhealthy. And that's unfortunate that it's kind of in the work workplace. But it is the reality that we live in. Chad: It's weak people. Joel: It is weak. And I hope that I instill in my kids not to do this kind of shit. Chad: Yeah, no question. And still, I want to impress upon talent acquisition as you are listening to me, they are doing the exact goddamn thing to you that you do to them when you push them into a black hole and you don't give them any type of response or feedback whatsoever. So yes, this is bad. I agree 100%. This is bullshit. But you do the goddamn same thing every day, fix yourself. That's the big key here, fix yourself. Hopefully these idiots will understand and start to fix themselves, but you can't fix them, right. You can fix you. So quit this black hole bullshit. Joel: You're saying that they did, they fail to check themselves. So now they're wrecking themselves. Chad: Therefore they wreck themselves, yes. That's where I was going, very nice. I like that. Joel: Yeah, you like that. All right, well let's talk about weird job titles and then this miserable excuse for a podcast. So Indeed, all these companies have a lot of data usually put out these little fun facts about titles and whatever. So, one of things I thought we'd bring up is Indeed publishes their sort of weird job titles review and then they don't just tell you what are the most popular ones but they actually track which ones are rising and falling, et cetera. So they've highlighted seven terms that are used in job postings that are really pretty stupid, ninja, rock star, genius, guru, hero, my favorite wizard and superhero. Joel: So these are terms that people use. Now, what I thought was interesting is we have two that are like growing exponentially over the other ones. And that would be a ninja and rockstar. One that is spiking up is genius for whatever reason. Now, Apple calls their people geniuses so I'm not sure they're including them or not. What are your thoughts on using these sort of pop culture silly terms for professional opportunities. Chad: First a message to Indeed, you are perpetuating stupidity by putting this kind of stupid intel out. This is fucking stupid. There's no reason to be ... Oh yeah, this is fun. No, this isn't fun because then you get idiots. Let's take a look at ninja, right. So, I'm somebody who is in California and I see, oh, the number one rank is in my state. We should start using ninja more. No, you're perpetuating stupidity, okay. Ninja, rock star, I mean, are these video game players or are they actually doing a fucking job. Chad: So from my standpoint, this is the dumbest thing in the world. People, yeah, it's funny, but it's not funny. This is real world shit. You go and you see job descriptions that say ninja on them, that say obviously that's a rock star and genius. I mean, come on guys, what the fuck. Joel: All right, number one, full disclosure you are still mad at them that you think they stole your sweater, Christmas sweater idea. Chad: And they didn't do it as well as I did. Joel: So you are already pissed at Indeed this week. Number two, this is not stupid, this is great marketing because we're talking about it and people are going to click on it and people are going to link to it and people are going to share it on social media- Chad: So we are perpetuating [crosstalk 00:44:04] Joel: This is great, yeah, is it good for society? No.but is it good for going to Indeed and then saying what this is about like, hell yeah. Chad: Indeed, stop doing this because we are perpetuating your perpetuation and this is just ... Obviously we are dumb as well. Joel: Indeed is just the Messenger. They're not forcing people to put ninja and wizard in their job titles. People are stupid, Indeed is just reporting the data. Chad: Which is why humans are going to be taken over by robots because they know better. Joel: Which by the way, because Indeed doesn't play with Google for jobs. Their jobs aren't getting seen any more. So they have to put out content like this so people will still go to Indeed and hopefully they'll look for a job while they are there. Chad: And I will leave it at that, Indeed you're putting out stupid shit because you're not even doing the Google for jobs thing [crosstalk 00:44:59] Joel: Happy Christmas everybody. Chad: Happy holidays. We out. Cole: I'm Cole Cheesman so my dad can easily remember who I am. Thanks for listening to my dad and his follically challenged friend Chad. Make sure you subscribe to this show on iTunes, Google, eight track cassette tapes or wherever you enjoy podcast. Be sure to support our sponsors because if you don't I angry feel like when I'm angry. #WalMart #Amazon #Indeed #ZipRecruiter #Waymo #Uber #Ghosting

We welcome Tom Becker, EVP of Recruiting Ops at The Judge Group to The Chad & Cheese Bad Ass Series. That's right Tom is one 6Sigma black belt wearin' mutha that you don't want to foll with -- or at least his process. Tom breaks down how some companies are killing the "recruiting game" and others are mere spectators in the cheap seats. We've matched you up with another kick ass Uncommon Exclusive.. Get it? Matching? That's what Uncommon does... with candidates... and jobs... dumbass... PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: Yep Joel: Ah yeah, welcome back to the Chad and Cheese bad ass series. Today, we have Tom Becker, executive VP of recruiting operations; should be executive VP of badassery, from the Judge Group. Everybody say hi to Tom. Chad: Hi, Tom. Dude, how much coffee did you have this morning, holy cow. Joel: I have been up since 3:30, I have had like three pots, so just roll with this shit. Chad: Slow your roll, son. Joel: So, Tom, are you out there? You didn't move did you? Tom: I did not, I did not, hey guys, how you doing? Thanks for having me. Chad: Hey, you're in Carolina, man. Have you been digging out snow all week or what? Tom: Yeah, well we have. What's funny, was a lot of snow; I went to the airport yesterday, I'm actually in Philly today and lot's of snow by the airport but no snow where we are. You guys will get a chuckle out of this, they actually had a two hour delay over nothing. So, all the schools were delayed for no reason. Chad: I mean, you guys don't really have any snow removal equipment though, do you? Tom: Yeah, that's true, I guess. Joel: I mean, that's kind of hard, right. I mean, it's like "yeah, we're gonna try to throw the dice here because if we say school's on and it does snow, yeah; we're pretty fucked, because there's no way we can get this stuff off the road. Tom: Well, it's the ice that's really scary. I'm from Boston, originally, so we're used to driving with a half foot of snow, right. So we're used to it, but I don't think anybody's used to it in Charlotte, and I've been there for about 13 years, so... Chad: It's all those angry, Southern mothers that have to send their kids to school with a little ice on the ground. Joel: So, some background about you; tell us about you, just some quick stuff about your Bank of America days and what brought you to being EVP, mad scientist of tech shit at Judge. Chad: Who are you and why are you here? Tom: I actually started with a company out of Boston, it was called Keene, as a sourcer. Chad: Ahhh... Tom: I'm of the old school and this predates the job boards, which I know you guys love. It predates that and I actually started as a cold calling recruiter. My job was with all the receptionists and I don't think my kind exists anymore. Chad: No. Tom: That's where I started, I started with that. Back then, we were actually experimenting with some technology, so, it's been something I've been interested in my whole career. We were using, like, you know, "can we do events where people can sign up, and we can do online screening, before it was a thing. It was actually a lot of fun. Tom: Anyway, I got recruited from there to go Bank of America and I just had so much fun there. What I did, was I led a sourcing team, when I was there. Then eventually I led all employment branding and also the sourcing for the company. The thing that I got the bug was the 6Sigma bug. I went from partial nerd to complete nerd at Bank of America. Tom: Because it really made me feel like, "Oh, my God, there's so much more to recruiting, there's more to process, there's more to how do you manage performance and got my green belt there and my black belt and sort of went on from there. Tom: Then I went back to Comsus, so I went back into the industry. It was sort of like Michael Coreleone, it just kept pulling me back in. Tom: Once you got the bite for IT staffing or recruiting, you love it and you miss it; so I went back. I brought all this really cool stuff that I learned at the bank, there. Tom: Honestly, guys, we just crushed it. Then we got bought by that little company out of Milwaukee, called Manpower Group. Chad: So, were you one of the original boolean geeks, like Shalley groupies back in the mid-aughts? Were you one of those guys? Tom: You know, it's funny, because I was always the kids standing against the wall. I don't think I was one of the cool kids with that group. Joel: Wait a minute, did you put Shalley in the cool kid group? Tom: I did, I'm sorry. I'm saying, I was always a boolean guy. I loved the boolean strings, I'm probably more of a Cathy, I believe semantics is the key. Once I started realizing that I'm like, "I'm not looking back, I'm not creating these little box". I just sort of left that whole school of thought. Joel: We talked a little bit yesterday and one of the things that you said made me all warm inside. You said, "boolean's dead". Tom: Yep. Joel: Tell me a little bit about that. Tom: I've been able to conduct; and we talked a little bit about this yesterday; I did a few lean assessments. I did about four in my career, principally around IT staffing or IT recruiting. What I did was, we looked and we...Do you guys remember the time and motion studies, you guys know what they are? You sit there and clock recruiter activity? Joel: Yeah. Tom: It's brutal. Right? Chad: Horrible. Tom: Horrible, it's painful. Joel: Yes. Tom: What I found, though, is; if you watch a recruiter, if you sit a recruiter for three days. Day one, they lie to you and they tell you what they're gonna do, right? Nothing that they do, they do, they're just trying to show you that they follow protocol. Day two , they start to forget you're there, by day three they really do what they do, right? Tom: You get to spot all the inefficiencies and things like that. What I learned is that about 66% of a recruiter's activity is non value-added. In other words, they spend a lot of time in busy work. Fifty percent of that is sourcing, so it's all centered around endless job board searching and making these perfect algorithms. When we watch the recruiters try to make these perfect algorithms, these perfect boolean strings, it's a complete waste of their time. Joel: Uh huh. Tom: Right, that's where they waste their time. If you could find a way to automate that, I think that's where semantic comes in. I think semantic, if you have a good process and you're able to deliver or serve up good candidates. You're giving them back, literally two or three hours every day. I think that's why I went over to that school of thought. Chad: For those that don't know, define semantic search, for me. Tom: It semantically pulls out; I know you can't use a definition to give a definition, but it pulls out all of the words and it creates the meaning around those words. For example, it knows if it's programmer, programming; it's able to pull all those things. If it's Oracle, 8i, all the different versions of Oracle. It pulls all those things in the semantics out of the resume, out of the job description and it creates a much cleaner search that's able to take into account, all the other aspects, or all the semantics of what's in the resume and what's in the job description. Tom: It goes a lot deeper and broader. Chad: Chad and I, on the show, talk a lot about start-ups and vendors that are sort of trying to solve the puzzle of the automated sourcing tool. Chad: You say boolean is dead. Couldn't you say that sourcing is dead or on it's way out? Tom: Well, by the way, and I should have started with this; can I give you guys kudos or whatever; the podcast with Peter Weddle, I don't know if scared the hell out of me or if it educated me, but, a little bit of both. It was a really good podcast. Tom: To be honest, I think that sort of where we're heading. I think it's something everyone's afraid to admit. I mean, I believe recruiters should be focused around higher value activities; which is building relationships, engaging candidates, things like that. I think you can automate a lot of the non value-added stuff. So, the process, which is sourcing, which is updating candidates, which is giving them feedback, prepping them for interview, I think all those things can be automated. Tom: If it means sourcings dead, I don't know. I wish I was that smart, as your guest, Peter; but I think it's definitely going to be less and less in the future. Chad: Love that book, Circa 2118, if you haven't listened to the podcast, definitely check it out, or you can go to the TA Tech bookstore and pick yourself up one. Chad: Something else that we talked about and we hear constantly, "it's all about the bright and shiny". Now, you're a black belt, which means you can kick somebody's ass, that's what I believe that means. But, also, you're big on the process side of the house. Chad: Talk about how this bright and shiny shit is just screwing process to death. Tom: I don't know if I could kick butt, but I can definitely kick some process. I think there's a really good article that was written in Harvard Business Review by John Woodrow and it's exactly that. It's bright, shiny objects and the future of HR. That's actually where I got that; so I want to give kudos to them.That's where I referenced that. I feel, it seems to me, that rather than focusing on your process that talent acquisition wants to endlessly focus on all this top level funnel technologies that just these little shiny objects, rather than focusing on your process. And optimizing your process and being more efficient with your process centering around; and this could be a whole conversation around the key stakeholders, right. The candidate, the recruiter and the hiring manager. Tom: I don't think we center around that, I think we would rather add another technology or let's focus on predictive analytics, chatbots, big data. Just forget big data, focus on little data, right? Forget top funnel, focus on middle of funnel, cause that's also just as important and almost entirely forgot. Chad: So, apparently you strive a lot of technologies. What are the shiniest things out there, what should our listeners be looking at, in terms of the next big thing and what they might have missed Tom: The thing about the shiny objects is, they can be amazing and they can be revolutionary, you know. You know, your episode on Chatbots was wonderful, it seems like Quincy was really focused on process. Chad: Uh huh Tom: So anything that really enables the process. We're experimenting with two, when we say two things, we're experiment with technology, but we also experiment with process, which I know sounds crazy, right. We'll actually do AB testing around efficiency. So, we'll say, "if a recruiter does this, does that yield more efficiency"; if a recruiter does that does it yield more efficiency?" Tom: All those shiny objects that we should be thinking about are feedback loop technologies, I think they should be focusing more on how easy applied technology, texting seems to be a really big aspect of knowing where and how to use text. But, I think those are the three big areas, really focusing on how does it enable the process as opposed to technology just for the sake of technology. Chad: I'm not going to let you off the hook that easy, give me some names of vendors. Don't just tell broad, broad categories. Tom: Yeah, we use SenseHQ, I don't know if you guys, I'm sure you've heard of them. First, I know you guys did this, as well, but I want to give a shout-out to our CIO, his name is Ken Kreiger. You guys should have him on your show, he's a thirty-year veteran with the Judge Group. He is a recruiter that turned into a CIO, which is unheard of, right? So believes in the same philosophy, that the only time they will implement technology is for the sake of enabling process. We've been able to integrate SenseHQ and it's done some really amazing things. We could talk through that. Tom: Also, TextUs, we've been able to implement fairly successfully. We're also test driving Mya, as well. Chad: So TextUs, would that be a TextRecruit canvas competitor or something different? Tom: What TextUs does, it's similar to TextRecruit, I think is a competitor. Basically, what we did with TextUs is we integrated it into...so we have a homemade, in-house ATS, which I think is one of the best in the industry, I really do. I've seen the other ones and use a lot of them, but what we've been able to do is integrate texting into our applicant tracking system, where you can actually do it natively from the system; from the candidate record or even from a download that you have on your Iphone. It's as if you're texting them from your phone, as well. That's what we use and we use it for top of funnel and we're now experimenting in innovating around can we also use it for mid funnel activities. Like updating and you have interview scheduled and things like that. Chad: I think testing process improvement is genius. I mean, that's where companies should start, as a matter of fact, it sounds like I'm beating a dead horse, for Godsakes, but all these damn companies who have really just pulled their 1990s style application process methodology into their ATS has just really fucked everything up. So, your thoughts on just blowing up the process, starting from ground zero, not even thinking about vendors, until you get your new process down and then start to look for the bright and shiny. Tom: Absolutely, and we do a training, a session with new recruiters, probably like once every other month and I get to give a talk about process. I always say, and you guys, I think you'll get a chuckle out of this, but I always say, "if you started in recruiting 20 years ago and you went into a coma and you woke up today, you could probably get right to work". Chad: And probably be incredibly successful because you're actually calling people and you're doing the human to human thing, as opposed to waiting for somebody to fucking e-mail you or call you. Tom: Can you imagine that? Like they would actually be like, meeting on the phone, they may actually source people. It's pretty incredible. Chad: Could you argue that automation will make us more human because the grunt work will be done by machines and we'll be able to have real relationships? Tom: Well... Chad: Or, no? Tom: It's funny you say that cause I would, I actually think that in order to create a more engaging process you need a more efficient process. Chad: Right. Tom: So I think that's the key. If you free up the recruiter's time to do things like have meaningful discussions with candidates and get to know them, I think...But you can't do that if you give them an overburdening amount of reqs. You can't do that, you have to be efficient, so I think automations and efficiencies, if done right, should create a more human experience. Or more engaging process. Chad: So we've talked about shiny things but I want to talk a little bit about fool's gold. What technologies out there do you think are just absolute shit? Or maybe trends that you think will fade quickly without much fanfare. Tom: There's one thing that's interesting to me, that just never caught on yet. It's, or maybe it has and I just didn't pay attention enough, but video interviewing just never caught on. Or have you guys seen it? I've never seen it caught it. Everyone wanted to rush there and everyone doing video interviews but I think that's one. Right. You're right, right. Or new fandangled versions of resumes and things like that. I think that's one thing. Tom: The other thing that seems to be, I don't know if it's fool's gold, but it seems to be really high in the hills, is giving, not only do you give feedback, but you give meaningful feedback that say "let's give you career advice and coaching". Guys, I think candidates, they want to work for a company and a manager, right? I don't think they want...I think we try to give, we try to stuff all this stuff to them and say "we're going to give you this advance career coaching and advice". I don't know, I think that's sort of fool's gold, or maybe it's just so far up there that I don't think we're gonna get there yet. Joel: I'm gonna throw one atcha. What about block chain virtual reality? Tom: What's funny is I was with, when I worked for Manpower, I think they tried to do a second life thing. This is like ten years [crosstalk 00:16:04] it was a complete... Joel: Hell yeah Tom: ...complete disaster. It was terrible. Not there, I'm sorry. Who talks about virtual reality? I don't think it's there yet. Joel: Joel loves virtual reality. He just wants to put something on his face and have somebody feed him 24/7, sit on the couch. He would be in his boxers, he would be like in frickin Utopia. Joel: But what about block chain? We keep hearing about block chain and how powerful it is, but we don't really see products that are worth a shit that are sold with quote, unquote "block chain". Tom: Yeah, I agree with you, I haven't seen it yet. I think with the power of block chain, it's able to authenticate, right? And then put it across the block chamber where it's there and you can't remove it, right? It's in all of the nodes. I don't know, I think to be honest with you, it might be my fool's gold, because I think there is potential there. I just think it's got to be done well, with the right platform that's big enough and able to really provide that authentication. I think it's not only authenticating skills, it could be authenticating things like are they good workers, do they show up on time, do they get along with others. Imagine if that was a block chain and you couldn't erase that for a long time and think about the impact that will have on the workforce. Joel: They really don't know what block chain means. Employers don't even know block chain means, right. It's almost like trying to go out there and beat them to death with a word that is so high tech that they should use, that they don't understand. So, I mean, everything that you talked about, you know; being able to validate and just the authentication pieces, I mean, all of that is incredibly important but that's not what's going to sell HR and/or talent acquisition. Tom: Totally agree, right, I mean, remember, predictive analytics was almost the same thing. Everyone just wanted to use it; and even big data, everyone was obsessed with big data. I remember I did a talk at SourceConlink, forget your big data, use your little data, for crying out loud. You're... Joel: Uh huh Tom: ...you have no idea how to use your data. Honestly, I think there is promise in block chain but I agree with you, it's not, "hey you should do block chain" it's "you should find a better way to authenticate skill sets in this IT staffing industry". Tom: The staffing industry has massive implications cause you could go to a client and say, "here are validated JAVA developers who are proven to have a good track record, their code is actually validated by peers that have a high score and on other websites". That's really powerful. Tom: I think, again, it's not block chain, it's solving the problem of authentication, right? That's what its doing. Joel: We've focused a lot on technology, for obvious reasons, but I'm curious to your opinion on employment branding. Are we over rating the importance of employment branding or are we paying enough attention to it? Tom: By we, you mean like the just general talent acquisition? Right? Like the... Joel: Employment branding is a hot topic, right? Glassdoor was acquired for a billion plus dollars. You know, companies spend a lot of money to keep people in the building and get them in the building in the first place. The culture and what its like to work there and everything is really important. Glassdoor just put out their best companies to work for. A lot of their competitors are doing the same thing. Are we overrating the importance of that or not? Tom: You know, I think we are. Here's what I'll tell you why and I could go either way on this, but, it seems to me that if you spend all that time on employment brand and it's not authentic. In other words, if you spend all that time getting people excited about this, you know, people drinking beer, playing... Joel: I like that Tom: ...foosball, or whatever it is, right? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. However, if you're spending all that time and then you show up, you being the candidate, and it's inauthentic. Then you've kind of wasted all that time. You've got to be authentic all the way through the process. Joel: Isn't the value of sort of online reviews, the fact that you're getting the real nitty-gritty. You're not getting what the corporations telling you its like to work here, you're looking at the workers telling you what it's like to work there. Is that important? Tom: That is important, right? That's what employment brand tries to leverage, right? Or try to tweak or change, right? That's really important. I do think that authenticating from the inside, you know, what it's like to really work there, I think that's incredibly, it's exposing. Or it's encouraging. That aspect of it, I think, is incredibly important. If you use that aspect as a means of employment branding then I think it's really powerful, right? But, it's more about trying to make something different, or make something attractive that potentially isn't, that's a huge downfall. Joel: Excellent, when you're taking a look at employment branding platforms, when you take a look sourcing platforms, all these different platforms that are out there. I mean, this is a really cool time to be in recruiting. I mean, the last five years, before this big peak, really sucked. I mean, it was boring as hell, but this last, like 24 months, has been pretty awesome. What is your favorite platform today. I mean, you just can't wait to get up and use it every single day. Or, test drive it. Tom: I don't know that we have any shiny objects here. I don't know that I, I think it's an incredibly exciting time and I think if you're not using all of them, like we use all the social platforms really well, or I should say fairly well. In that it drives candidates. We're constantly interacting with the talent communities. But, I don't have like that one or two thing that I say, "oh we gotta use to engage or attract? Joel: Uh huh. Tom: I think it's more where the people, where the candidates are going, right? I hate to pull a Mulligan on this one, but I don't really have one that I'm excited about. Joel: Where are the candidates going? Tom: I think they're searching, they're just doing a Google search, right> I think that's where the candidates are definitely going. I think mobile, right, because it drives them to like their area, their neighborhood. I don't know that they're gong to any one or places right now. It's really been distributed fairly evenly, it seems like. It seems like Google is doing a good job to make it so it's the search, right? You've got to value high on that search result. But, I don't think they're all running to one place. Unless you guys are, you probably see more than I do, but I don't see on absolutely dominating or over the others. Joel: So, you mentioned Google a few times. What do you think about Google for jobs? How do you think that's going to impact or how has it already started to impact the industry and is that we're seeing such a huge change and more innovation? Tom: I think so, and by the way, I love the fact that they set up shop in Japan. I think that was awesome. Joel: So do we. Tom: Everyone was all upset about Randstad and Monster, like Indeed. I mean, come on, it's a staffing company that owns Indeed. So I love that, right, I love what they're doing. We had a meeting with Monster a couple weeks ago. I'm not saying, necessarily that Monster or Google, or whatever. I don't think Google is gonna want to own this space. I think Google wants to provide their partners the ability to win. I think Indeed was almost gonna, they were trying to corner their backyard and I think Google just was like, "I'm not going to let that happen, I'm going to distance you immediately". And, I think that's what they did. Joel: Interesting. Question about the gig economy. Obviously trending, we talk a lot about it on the show. I recently wrote a blog post talking about Upwork partnering with Microsoft, which I believe will potentially be a major acquisition target for someone like Microsoft, going in the next year; where they have LinkedIn, they have GitHub and now they have Upwork. Talk about your thoughts on the gig economy and maybe how that reality fits into recruiting today and tomorrow. Tom: I think it's going to be a lot more prevalent. If you look at, like when I worked for Manpower Group, we were able to visit a lot of other markets, European markets. Latin American markets and I believe our penetration rate for contractors; before I go into gig economy; was like four percent. It's not as high as people think it is, you know, in terms of contractors. Whereas in other countries it's like 30% or 20, it's really high. I think that that's a trend that will come here. I think more of the US economy will be a gig based economy, or temporary labor economy. I actually love the work they're doing, I think when someone figures out the Uberizaton of jobs, I think that's going to be a huge innovation, right? I applaud what they're doing, I think that's the right direction to go. Joel: Yeah, my last question is in regards to privacy, obviously you're familiar with GDPR over in Europe. We were interviewing the founder of Hiring Solved, who said they basically threw away, 29 million profiles in Europe because it just wasn't worth the time to deal with the privacy issues. How do you feel privacy is going to impact recruiting, particularly here in North America, in the future? Tom: I think it will impact. I'll say, me personally, I'm that guy that like, doesn't care. I know that's wrong, right? If someone wants to take my data, they're just gonna do it, right? I'm probably on one extreme end of that. It seems like its going to be out further than we believe it will be here in the US, right? I think it's impacting. I lead a few forums in the IT staffing industry, one is all CFO's, another one it's all recruiting directors and I've asked this question a couple of times. Are you impacted yet by GDPR, by these other things. They're saying no, the ones that have European operations, they're saying yes. Tom: It's more of an IT impact, we'd have to change where the data resides and how that interacts. I don't see it impacting over the immediate future, at least over the next couple of years. It's becoming more of a box in the staffing industry, "are you GDPR compliant?". I don't know that they're ready to say what that means, unless there's something big. Remember when Microsoft was sued with the whole co-employment thing? I don't think it's here yet, it hasn't reached shores yes, which really impacted companies that are principally in North America or in the US. Joel: ...hit us yet, but assuming that it does, how does that impact recruiting? Tom: I think it impacts more the CIOs of recruiting companies, if that makes sense? Or it impacts more the way the data resides. I don't know that it actually, again, the recruiting process is the process; what the recruiter does. It won't impact what the recruiter actually does, right? Because, then their IT organizations, they're going to have to scramble to figure out how they're going to serve up this data to the recruiter. I'm gonna go on a limb and say, "I don't think there will be a major impact. I really don't". Because it's more for IT to figure out, it won't really impact the core process of talent acquisition. Joel: Right, because all the inter workings of GDPR and then also in 2020 there's even more strict guidelines that are going in, in California. 2020, the US, everybody pretty much does business pretty much in California, so it's gonna happen in the US by 2020. But yeah, I can see just from a process standpoint from how you keep the data, how the individual can manage the data, that's what it all comes down to. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I've never heard it put that way before but, obviously, clean and simple. Tom: It may impact data bases, right? Like, where the data actually resides but again, to the recruiter, if they have an effective IT organization, they should find a way to say, "okay, you're sourcing in Europe, and now use that database". Right?. I don't know that if affects the core, fundamental process of talent acquisition. Joel: Yeah, yeah. Well, Tom, sir. That is all we have time for today. We know you're a busy guy, being the EVP of recruiting operations and all the cool shit over at the Judge Group. We appreciate you taking the time, coming on the show and we expect you to share this with all your peers, your friends, your family and they all need to subscribe by the end of the day. Chad: Tom, for those that want to connect with you, how would they do that? Joel: Connect with Judge at www.judge.com but also on @tombecker on Twitter. Chad: Excellent, we out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema, thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad and his buddy, Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on I Tunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more visit chadcheese.com. #process #GoogleforJobs #ATS #CRM #6Sigma #BadAss #Matching #AI #Blockchain

Scott Gutz, Monster's CEO, has been on the job about 6 mos. To say he has his work cut out for him and his team is a gross understatement. For over a decade, Monster enjoyed being the top brand in the employment industry. Those days are gone, as job boards have become antiquated in exchange for names like Google, Facebook and Microsoft who are now vying for marketshare. On this Uncommon exclusive, we dig into the State of Monster with its CEO and chief product officer, Chris Cho. Give some love to Uncommon for sponsoring this EXCLUSIVE! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Chad: I want to be over the top, say hello to the easiest way to find interested and qualified candidates. Joel: Dude, you need to tone it down I was just napping. You mean Uncommon's automated sourcing that turns passive candidates into interested and qualified applications? Chad: Yep, Uncommon Automation helps recruiters cut their sourcing time by 75 percent. Joel: Well, how much coffee did you have today? Chad: A lot. Joel: Anyway, dude, 75 percent that sounds like black magic, or something. Chad: Close, it's called Automation. It's simple, actually, you just feed, or post your jobs in Uncommon the platform identifies your job requirements and in seconds Uncommon uses those requirements to search over 150 million candidate profiles and then it pulls back only the qualified candidates. Joel: And, don't forget, you can connect your email and Uncommon will provide automated outreach with your customized messages to activate those passive candidates, those pesky passive candidates. Chad: Even better, I'm gonna one up you. Uncommon shows exactly how the candidate meets all the job requirements with a side-by-side comparison view against the job requirements. Joel: Which means you won't be asking yourself, what in the hell is this candidate doing here? Chad: No, but you will be asking yourself, where is Uncommon been all my life? Joel: Seriously, Uncommon is the easiest way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit Uncommon.co and use discount code Chad Cheese for 20 percent off. Joel: Uncommon.co Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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 it's time for the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: Oh yeah. Joel: You da monster. Joel: What's up Chad? Chad: Oh man, eh welcome back to HR's most dangerous podcast where we've all been naughty because it's just not that fun being nice. I'm Chad Showash. Joel: I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And on today's podcast we have a special gift for our listeners, we have Chris Cho Monster's chief product guy, he's one of those guys who has all the good toys and he doesn't let anybody play with them. Welcome Chris. Joel: Bastard. Chris Cho: Thanks guys, happy to be here. Chad: And Scott Gutz, CEO and supreme elvin commander over at a monster.com Chad: Did I get that right Scott? That's how Kate said I should introduce you. Joel: Is it just chief Monster, or is it just CEO now? Scott Gutz: I like chief monster we'll go with that one. Joel: You like that? Okay, okay I like that too. Welcome to the show guys. Chad: Welcome to the show, hey we're gonna just jump straight into Q and A just because everybody knows who the hell you guys are, so number one Scott, you've been the Monster hot seat for five months, how does it feel man? Joel: Toasty. Scott Gutz: It feels toasty, warm, but good. Joel: How would you describe the state of Monster, currently? Scott Gutz: We are focused on restoring Monster to prominence and relevance and we're very excited about the products that we're introducing in 2019, some of the products are evolving in a material way in 2019 and we're super excited about our management team, we remain excited about our brand and we're excited about our global footprint and all of the things that come with that. Joel: I would say the first few months of the new leadership that came in there was a real focus on the users, for example you took banners off the site which I personally applauded because you guys used to be NASCAR so that's a nice change, speeding up the site being really focused on users and then getting to profitability after that. Are we at a point now that you guys feel comfortable that the site itself, the user experience is rockin' and you can really focus on the profitability? Scott Gutz: So I'll give a quick answer and then I'll let Chris give his perspective as well, so I would say were focused on experiences, we're focused on matches and we're focused on outcomes. You're absolutely correct we've done a lot of work to improve the experience on the site, we've done work to improve the speed of the site, we've done work to enhance our capability from a search engine optimization perspective, from a Google for jobs perspective, but would I say that we're super happy would be, overall experience both from an employer and a candidate perspective, I would say no there's plenty of work we've got in front of us to make the experiences that much better going forward and it's one of those things where I think even if you asked me the same question in 12 months time, I'm gonna tell you that we're not fully satisfied because we're always going to be trying new and different things to make sure that our users, new candidates are wanting to come back and we want to make sure that our employers are having a super good experience with all the tools and solutions that we provide to them. Scott Gutz: On the profitability side, we are continued to be focused on the experiences, the matches and the outcomes and we think by doing that we're going to get better outcomes for our candidates, better outcomes for our employers and fundamentally better outcomes for Monster, both from a profitability perspective and from an overall performance perspective. So, I think I covered all of the aspects of your questions, but maybe I'll turn it over to Chris to add some additional color. Joel: Sure. Chris Cho: Hey guys, we're never gonna be happy with user experience and while we did invent the space in 94/95 and we introduced to the world this notion of being able to search jobs on the internet and while others have emulated, others have copied and explored new areas of what we do, we still remain very hungry to reclaim and re-pioneer the space yet once again with a great new user experience that we're building today around our job board. I just feel that job boards today are so transactional, right? You go to the homepage, or you go to the app and you type in a key word search and then you get your search results, maybe apply to a few jobs, maybe sign up for a few job alerts and then you're done, right? You don't come back until the next time you're looking for a job. We want to change that, right and we want to change that so that people find more value, we drive value back to the employers, we have a life long relationship with the job seeker and the candidate instead of a transactional one. Chad: I totally get that and one of the reasons why we take a look at Facebook, take a look at Google, you take a look at Linkedin with Microsoft, we're looking at lifestyle platforms, right? That's exactly what you're talking about. We're talking about having that transaction when I need a job and that's it and those types of platforms are going away because every single day we use these lifestyle platforms. So, yes there are other companies who have mimicked and really, to be quite frank, out preformed Monster over the years, Monster was at the pinnacle and then got knocked off the mountain and they weren't performing as well. How do you change that, specifically, what can you do to be able to compete in a lifestyle platform landscape? That's the big question. Chris Cho: So we have to educate, enlighten and uplift, right? The thing about social networks with social feeds and news feeds is that a lot of the content that you see, that gets pushed to you is toxic and I want Monster from a product vantage point to be the antidote to that, right, I don't want anxiety producing, fear of missing out creating content product services to be pushed to you, rather and I'll give you some examples, right. So, when you go on a Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram, or something else you're going to get oh here's where I'm vacationing and you're not, here's what I'm eating that you're not eating right now, or here's the conference, or business event that I'm attending that you're not and that's just for a lot of people, right, whether they know it or not, subconsciously being embedded and it's giving them a lot of, for a lot of people, anxiety, right? Chris Cho: What if we altered that to be positive and understood that this ecology of job search is really rooted in one becoming, or wanting to be a better version of themselves, right? What if we included content, product services, job ads that were more relevant, that were more suited, that were more career path oriented, right? That's the kind of mentality and line of thinking that we're having. Scott Gutz: And just to add a quick perspective to what Chris was saying, you know, we believe that in this younger generation there will be a lot more job turnover than perhaps the older generation has experienced, so there's data that suggests that this new generations may be changing jobs and by that I mean employers and not jobs within a company, 15 to 20 times during the course of their career, so as Chris said, I think we have a real opportunity to be the go-to site where we are fundamentally invested in the evolution of that persons career and that person thinks to come back to Monster first for perspective on where to go next and that's really what we're aiming for. Chad: Okay, the big question is how though? That's all well and good the educate, enlighten on lift, that's wonderful and a day of Facebook where you get on and you're having fights with your family every single day because of politics and that kind of shit, right? Then it bleeds into Linkedin and everything else, how do you do it? Again, it sounds great and you can get up on stage and talk about it and it sounds wonderful, but it all comes down to execution, how? Joel: If I could jump in for one specific example that I can name, you know, you guys a few years ago partnered with Kununu to power your employee reviews. We know that employee reviews are valuable, right, I mean it's great content people want to go back, they want to see the nitty-gritty, the inside info on the company. Glassdoor recently sold for, you know, 1.2 billion dollars so we know there's value in reviews, it seems kind of silly that you guys are outsourcing that component of your site, is there a plan to have reviews come in house and have Monster power its own review section, or is the plan to stay with Kununu and have them handle that component of content? Chris Cho: I think reviews are one component of a seekers consideration building journey, right? Yeah, I'm really interested in learning about a companies culture by way of ratings and reviews, but then the job search is so much more than that right? It's about benefits, perks, salary information, commute times, maybe an authentic video of the hiring manager him, or herself presenting themselves with heres the individual that I want, the characteristics that they embody and what sort of contributions I expect from them, not in some sort of professionally, agency created video, but perhaps, through in a very authentic selfie style video that we've been able to capture for them and maybe in 45 seconds, 60 seconds and have them be presented as part of the job ad. So, that's the kind of thought that we have, company ratings and reviews are very important and we realize that, but they are just but one component of the job search process. Joel: You brought a video and I'm curious you recently launched Monster Studios which I describe as Instagram for jobs, I assume you have a different explanation, or description, but how is that going and what sort of early feedback on that product? Scott Gutz: I'll give a quick answer Chris, I would say we're super excited about Monster Studios. The companies that have expressed interested are a multiple of what we expected and we're in a beta phase right now, so we're close to a hundred customers that are participating in the beta and we have hundreds more that are asking for permission to also participate. We're moving into an alpha phase in Q-1 with an expectation for a global launch at the end of Q-1 going into Q-2. So far we're happy with the performance of the solution, our customers that are participating are happy with the performance of the solution. Scott Gutz: We are getting ready to introduce this to candidates as we go forward, which is the most important test, as Chris said, I completely agree with his answer, if you think about all of the different considerations a candidate has when they're making a determination as to the right fit, yes you could look at commute time and compensation and information and perspective from Kununu or Glassdoor about the company itself, but getting a real perspective from the department manager and the department in which you're going to work and having things like specific company profiles associated with the particular location and that particular department, I think are super important in terms of a candidate ultimately determining whether or not it's a right match. We think video is an important component, it's one of the components that we think candidates will effectively consider going forward and we are really very, very bullish on on Monster Studios as a major element of the Monster technology staff and the Monster employer and candidate solutions going forward. Joel: And did I hear you right, that you're launching it for job seekers? What does that look like? Scott Gutz: So the comment was more specific to the fact that job seekers will be looking at Monster Studios in order to make a determination on the right fit, however, we are also looking at moving the video solutions into the candidate world as well that would more likely be second half of 2019, but there are some things that you need to take into consideration before the launch. Joel: So a video resume component, essentially? Scott Gutz: Exactly right. Chad: That being said on the Monster Studio side of the house this is enhancing your current product, right? Scott Gutz: That is correct. Chad: This is not a standalone product, so how do you believe this is actually gonna impact revenues? Experience is awesome, we love it, but at the end of the day you know Ron Stod and Linda better than I do, it's all about being able to ensure that you're going to be impacting that bottom line and focusing on EBIT, alright? Scott Gutz: Two things that I would say, one is we actually think that the way that you get ahead in this business or in many business is creating differentiation, so as a part of our job ad solution we think by including Monster Studios we're providing an enriched solution for employers and by extension a better mechanism for them to attract the right candidates. The second comment I would make is Monster is in a good situation relative to it's EBIDA performance, one of the things that's interesting is that we are fundamentally a technology and a media company, we are different from a staffing company, a staffing company uses the EBITA as their major measure. Chad: Yes. Scott Gutz: From an EBIDA perspective Monster is doing quite well, but clearly I am here to grow the revenues, I'm here to grow the profits and my management team and I are laser focused on introducing solutions that are better serving employers, introducing solutions that are allowing candidates to find the right match and again, if we think about experiences and matches we think that leads to very, very effective outcomes for all parties involved and we hope guys, including Monster. Chad: So on that same line of thinking experience has to do with relevant matching, right? So Zip Recruiter has taken the SMV market by storm, but you know their going to be in the enterprise market very soon. They haven't focused on clicks, the PPC side of the house, they haven't focused on apps, they've focused on quality and more toward the qualified candidate side of the house. Two questions, first and foremost, especially right out of the gate from a philosophical stand point, do you believe moving past PPC and PPA to qualified candidates is really what everyone should be focusing on right now, obviously, including Monster? If so, then when can we expect a product? Scott Gutz: So, let me see if I understand the question, right now Monster has a variety of different solutions that we offer, which include elements of the traditional duration job, a PPC equation, a PPA equation and a PPH equation and that's not only in just our pure job ad category that exists in our services solutions, as well. Do I think that Monster is going to move to one versus all of the others? Given the fact that we're global operating in 15 different markets, I can tell you that the market expectation for products and services is different by market, by way of example, Canada is different from the US, the UK is different to Germany and I believe that we're going to continue to offer a variety of solutions that meet the requirements of the market, that being said, I want Monster to be in a position where irrespective of it's say 30 day duration job, a pay per click, a pay per applicant, or a pay per hire that our performance and the outcomes that are being generated put Monster in a very strong, relative, competitive position, that is absolutely what we're collectively aiming for. Chad: Okay, excellent. So real quick, what's the big difference between the US and the UK with regard to those types of products? I mean, great answer, but really down to brass tax, how are you selling differently and what types of products are actually going out the door faster in the UK than they are in the US? Scott Gutz: Yeah, so I'll give a few examples and I'll let Chris offer some perspective as well. One thing that we've seen, I'd say from a European trend perspective is that the duration job continues to be prominent in terms of what people are willing to buy, so there have been pockets of interest in PPC, we know that the competitors that offer PPC have entered those markets and are starting to introduce new models, but we are in a position to offer either duration, or PPC in any market that we operate. Scott Gutz: On the question which is specific to the UK, it maybe just assures you one of the things that we're finding interesting is that the standard job ad if you look at, you know, year over year it is definitely on the decline, however, what we call the premium job ad which includes an active social component is taking away all of the standard share and growing at a fairly rapid pace. So, we think that that the evolution of call it the traditional job ad moving more to social channels is really starting to become very prominent and really starting to create better outcomes in the UK market and by extension in some other European markets as well. Chris you can add any color. Chris Cho: Yeah, so social is huge in the UK and it's not as a result of our lack of ability to yield strong performance in PPC and duration, it is just the market is moving in the direction and we often look at our Monster Europe as tip of the sphere with a lot of things. They teach us and we learn from them and we try to adapt as quickly as possible what successes we can emulate here in the US with respect to avant garde products like social which really aren't super avanguard given that they were released to the market three, or four years ago. On the matter of the quality of higher aspect to it I'm a big fan of the Papa John's tagline, not Papa John himself, better ingredients better pizza, right? I'm going to adapt that and I'm gonna say when it comes to quality of hires and quality of candidates it goes down to better data equals better decisions and I don't think there's anyone here who would disagree with that, right? Chris Cho: What we are doing is looking at the nucleus of what we have to offer, if that is relegated, not just to us, but to every other job board out there, right? The humble, but lowly resume artifact that, honestly, as a online artifact hasn't changed in the past two decades, right? It's still the same word file, same PDF file, right? Chad: Yeah. Chris Cho: We are making advances in uplifting that artifact with a certain halo of information that I think will yield to better outcomes for employers and both Scott and I are very passionate about that being part of our core strategy. Chad: I want to hear about that, that's what I want to hear about. Tell us more about that. Chris Cho: Yeah, well maybe in the next podcast, right? Scott Gutz: To be continued. Joel: Such a tease. I'd like to pivot to Google for jobs if I can for a second, what has that meant to your business, your traffic inflow, plans for leveraging it more in the future, or less and maybe are you starting to think of it as a competitor? Scott Gutz: Initially, we have put a tremendous amount of focus on making sure that the Monster performance on Google for jobs was strong, so in the markets where Google for jobs has launched, which I think you guys are well aware, is US, UK and Canada, we actually have seen super good performance on Google for jobs, in fact, I would suggest that we are anxiously awaiting the launch of Google for jobs in other major markets where Monster operates as a way to take a step forward. So far we have seen Google as a clear path where Monster needs to be well placed and prominent in order to make sure we are appearing where we need to appear. We see organic and SEO and Google for jobs as opportunities for Monster to be much more effective of getting our jobs where they need to be. So far, I don't think we're seeing it as a competition, we're seeing it as an opportunity for Monster to excel and I expect that will be the case as we move really through the next few years. Chad: Here's a quick question for Chris, Chris we take a look at Google for jobs and what we're hearing and nobody knows about the black box of the google algorithm, although, they know that experience means everything, so if you're focusing on experience and you're trying to obviously, demonstrate to Google that you're providing a better experience than all those other sites that are out there, even the app booked tracking systems and so on and so forth, do you believe that that is also a part of the strategy in being able to have a better, new age SEO to get better search engine rankings in Google for jobs? Chris Cho: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt, so that we're very clear Google is an enabler and a really good industry partner, they're pushing us forward and they're doing some things outside of Google for jobs as you guys know on the Cloud side that are effectively democratizing some of that great Google search technology across the board, which has been a good thing for everyone in this industry. When in comes down to SEO, this is precisely the reason why we're going into studios, right? If you delve into that a little bit more and if you path it out and string it out a little bit if Google for jobs as they've taken precedence in Google in the past by indexing and surfacing video content, right? Chris Cho: As an SEO differentiator then becomes part of Google for jobs, then what we really want to start understanding and using as a leveraging point is how the video content that appears on Monster can appear on Google for jobs. That's our kind of way of getting ahead of it and when we allow for really clever, smart features like the ability for people to upload their script, so if you're not a digital marketer and not a lot of people are, right? That are in recruiting and I do feel that the future of the role of the recruiter will be trending towards digital marketing and as they upload their scripts that scripts becomes arguable fodder for SEO, as well as being, close captioning text. That's viability, that's optics and that's stuff that's coming out of Monster, right? Chad: I think that on the video side of the house you're going to get more engagement from job seekers on Monster, so if they come through Google and Google sees that you're getting more engagement because they're watching videos and you have more times on site, then obviously that's going to provide different signals to Google that job seekers are actually staying longer, which means it's a better experience. That being said, that's my personal thoughts on that, what about the API, their job search obviously has been blowing everybody else's job search away, when is, or is Monster going to go full Google? Chris Cho: So CareerBuilder took that dive and I think that they, depending on who you talk to, they've either seen a mixed success, or a big amount of success, depending on who you talk to really right. When you look at that precedence that was set by them there's no doubt that we have high curiosity and high level of interest in exploring that sort of potential as well. We are highly interested and highly engaged in learning more about it, but we also come from a tradition of understanding that search and match is a huge competitive, strategic differentiator that is just going to be really, really hard to relinquish, right? As a core part of the offering, it's just everything about the job search is relegated into bits and bites of how the algorithm sorts it all out, that's clearly evidenced when we bought Trovix, that was clearly evidenced when we bought Sixth Sense, right which are semantic search technologies that power the experience today. Chris Cho: So, there's more water to be squeezed out of that towel, out of those acquisitions, there's more juice to be squeezed out of that lemon, but we are also very, very adapted and under Scott's leadership we are very, very keen on understanding what sort of efficiencies that can be driven out of partnering with Google, in that sense. Scott Gutz: I would just add, really quickly, even if we were to move to a more commoditized search solution it doesn't change the fact that the match and recommendation component of what we do is highly specialized based upon algorithms that have been built out over years that is reflecting a significant investment that we have on the data science side. Even if search is commoditized I don't think match and recommendation will every really be something which we will relinquish, to use Chris's terminology. Joel: Interesting. Question about the gig economy, hopefully we can agree that this is a trend that is taking hold in the workplace. Any plans for Monster to leverage the gig economy, whether that's maybe partnering with somebody, or building something in house, what are your views on that? Chris Cho: So we absolutely see in this next generation they are going to be looking at gigs as much as they may be looking at full-time jobs, so we've got a variety of different initiative that we're both exploring both from an internal perspective and from a partnership perspective, we clearly have a lot of experience with our parent company Randstad who is in part-time jobs, gig jobs and full times jobs so we've got a perspective that we're learning from them in terms of what they're seeing. We also have run some tests, I mean just by way of example, you guys are aware that we operate the military site and the fast website, on the fast website we've just started to offer part-time jobs to high school students and college students who are coming onto that site, the uptake has been probably 3x what we expected that gives us some indication that moving more towards part-time more towards gig, is an element that we absolutely have to consider if we want to be all of the jobs to all of the people as we go forward. Chad: What about Chad bots? They're all the rage right now and we hear Monster talking about experience, obviously, a lot which is good, but candidates are still floating in the black holes, right? So, how can Monster help with the engagement between employers and candidates and almost be that defacto platform for them, perspectively using messaging through WhatsApp, Facebook and integrating chat bots? Scott Gutz: So I'll just give a high-low perspective and then let Chris give a bit more detail, but I could say in the context of experiences when you think about texting and chat those are absolute elements, it's the way people interact today, we understand that this is going to be something that becomes much more prominent going forward. We have multiple different partners that we are discussing the evolution of text and chat with, it is available in solutions that we are offering today as we move to our next generation of candidate search for employers we will have text capabilities built into the search process, we have a variety of initiatives now around chat, but just to make the very clear statement that we think these are very important components of the employer and candidate experiences going forward and we intend to be a leader in the space. Chad: Okay, so for Chris real quick and maybe just for clarity Chris. Chris Cho: Yep. Chad: So, being able to provide customized chat bots to your clients as a product for revenue generation to be able to also bridge this divide for candidate experience who individuals who are going into black holes, is that what we're talking? Chris Cho: That's a part of it right, so first of all huge shout out to our partners Textrecruit Eric Kostelnik that have been very influential in helping us understand what sort of potential we can unlock with great chat bot experiences and of course we are partnering with them, that's a public fact and they've been very helpful in helping us understand where chat bot technologies can be deployed, but we also look at our parent company Randstad and the investments that they've made in companies like Aleo and Wade & Wendy, right, some of the things that they're doing are very avanguard and they have very specific cases around leveraging chat bot technologies to overcome and automate a lot of the mundane things that job seekers, who by the way have been our biggest fan and loyal supporters since our birth and helping them get over things like how we can make the apply experience doable through a set of SMS interactions. Right? Instead of sitting down 19 minutes in from of a computer and being like, oh my god let me copy and paste C resume into every text box, right? Chris Cho: I think when you look at the potential it has to offer we do see it being a combination of improving the quality of experience for our job seekers and candidates, but also delivering on the outcomes that employers want, which is really enriching and engaging the seekers, the candidate audience thoroughly so that they get, again, better data creating better decisions. Scott Gutz: The one quick thing that I would add is as more and more traffic moves to mobile and mobile apps, or mobile web we fully expect chat and text to be that much more prominent and that much more usable in that environment. Joel: No question. Scott Gutz: Yep. Joel: Historically when a new leadership comes into an organization, a new owner in general there's obviously a lot of moving parts internally, the people are unhappy, some people will be happy and I'd like to just talk a little bit about sort of the internal aspects of the organizations. Currently on Glass Door, Scott you have a 65 percent approval rating, the company as a whole has a 3.1 out of five stars. Assuming you guys are never satisfied, Scott how do you plan on getting your approval rating up for yourself, as well as, the company at large? Scott Gutz: I think that's a fair question and again having been here for five and a half months it's been a really good experience in that I have inherited a management team that for the most part has all joined within the last 12 to 18 months, we've shared that with you guys before. Everybody from a management perspective is not defensive about the past, everybody is looking forward, everybody is here to grow the business and I've been super pleased with the fact that my management organization and by extensions, sort of the level minus two organization is super excited about moving Monster forward. Scott Gutz: So, what are we doing? I would say that we've spent a lot of time and I've personally spend a lot of time reintroducing the Monster vision, the Monster mission, the Monster values and setting a strategy for the two thousand plus people of Monster to understand and appreciate and it's around a lot of the different things that we've discussed, it's around audience acquisition, it's around new revenue streams, it's around defending the Monster core platforms, it's around innovation which we consider to be quite important, so as we continue to broadcast our strategy and to be very transparent, in fact, it was just three weeks ago that I stood before the global organization and said these are the things that we're going to do to make Monster a great company again going forward and to improve upon the performance that we've seen in recent years and so far the response has been very, very good. Scott Gutz: When you introduce the strategy now when we set our objectives for 2019 and moving forward the objectives will tie directly into the strategy, my personal perspective having done this a few times before is if people understand what we're doing and why we're doing it, they understand what their role is in the contribution to the overall strategy, they understand that what we're doing to differentiate ourselves from the competition if you could get those things working together and you've got good people around you, like Chris and like Kate, you know, I really, really get very excited about the future of Monster and I'm hopeful that when I get excited that that permeates through the organization, my leadership team gets excited, their teams get excited and to get back to your original question Joel, then you can start to see those scores on Glass Door going up in the right direction because we've created the right environment. Chad: Guy's I'd like to say I really appreciate you both coming on, taking time to answer the hard questions and there aren't many CEO's and chief product officers that will actually jump on with a couple of knuckle heads like us and answer tough questions, so I mean, this was awesome we appreciate it and we hope to do this again as your continuing to push out more new product, start to drive revenue and again, thanks so much. Joel: Thanks guys. Scott Gutz: Well, we like you guys, our pleasure and happy holidays to everyone. Joel: Happy holidays. Chris Cho: Bye guys. Chris Cho: We love you guys. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad and his buddy Cheese, this has been the Chad & Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund, for more visit chadcheese.com #Monster #CEO #Product #Messaging #text #Jobs #Uncommon

This week's show starts out like s LOVE FEST and then goes south quickly... The boys talk: - Joel hates on Indeed's ugly Christmas sweaters - Microsoft is building the Death Star of workforce platforms - Jim Stroud says "GATTACA BITCHES!" - Talkpush calls out AllyO - Comparably does Glassdoor and SEOs the Hell out of it - College kids are sharpening their coding chops with Youtube - Singing day with a jobs twist - and branded fruit. Yes, branded F%$KING fruit! Don't shoot your eye out, kids!Enjoy and visit sponsors JobAdX, Sovren and Canvas. They make it all happen. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides comprehensive website accessibility testing with personalized recommendations to enhance usability for people with a variety of disabilities or situational limitations. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Chad: Chad & Cheese! Joel: Shitter's full, Clark. Welcome to The Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's ugly redheaded stepchild. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, Microsoft gives us a glimpse into their next big acquisition in employment. Companies are handing out branded fruits and vegetables. Chad's excited. And Chad gets a stiffy over Indeed's latest swag. Chad: Love it! Joel: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. And, kids, don't shoot your eye out. Sovren: Sovren AI Matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI Matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches. It tells you how and why it produced them, and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI Matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N .com. Chad: How you feeling after last week's procedure? Like a new man? Joel: See, everyone got TMIed last week. I don't know why we have to do it again this week. But, yes, my procedure, a camera stuck up my butt, went fine. Chad: Good. Joel: I'm gonna live a little longer so you and I can continue to pollute the ear drums of our listeners- Chad: Yes! Joel: ... for the foreseeable future. Hallelujah! Chad: That's exactly what I wanted to here. And that's what the listeners wanted to hear. Joel: That's right. And speaking of listeners, let's get to shout-outs. Chad: Shout-outs. Joel: Shout-out to Hung Lee, man. Chad: Whoo! Joel: This guy's he's got a weekly newsletter that millions of people read I think. He loves us. So he said last week, "Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman," I'm not sure why he put you first, but anyway, "do the best industry this week podcast for the people business. It's hard to stay consistently relevant, but these two heroes have got it down to a fine art. Must listen, folks." Wow. Chad: Yeah. No, he's on it. Joel: Hung Lee with a- Crowd: Whoo! Chad: Hung and I have been talking back and forth. We've been for months now. We are going to get him on for an interview in 2019. That's a promise from Chad & Cheese. That's probably why he went with Chad first because it is Chad & Cheese. Joel: I'm surprised he hasn't been on now. He should just be on the show. The British accent alone would help raise the IQ of the place. But the guy seems he's pretty well connected. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got a shout-out to Gattaca, bitches. So- Joel: Way to age yourself. Chad: ... shout-out to Jim Stroud's newest podcast about designer babies, where he talks about Gattaca. And I thought that was the coolest shit ever. So Jim's got a new podcast. It's like 10 minutes long or something like that. Joel: He's always copying us. Chad: Yeah. Well, he loves us. So who [crosstalk 00:03:38]? Joel: Biting off the Chad & Cheese. It's all good. Jim, good luck to you, man. Gattaca, a movie that has aged pretty well I think. Chad: Yes. Joel: Good for ... And as well as I, Robot, the Will Smith movie. I think both of those have aged better than they were when they first aired. Chad: Yeah, but I think, I mean Gattaca's been around I think much longer. Joel: '90s, yeah. Chad: Ethan Hawke. Yeah, that was good shit, dude. So, yeah, I love it. Joel: Agreed. I'll give a shout-out to Harver, not Harvard, Harver, which I had never heard of before. But they thought enough of us to put us in their top 10 list of must-listen podcast, saying about the show, which ... By the way, we don't normally love these sort of lists because they trick us into talking about their company. But these guys actually had a write-up, and it sounds like they actually listen to the show. Joel: So what they said was, "The problem with a professional podcast is that they sound like a lecture. They may be full of useful information, but they're boring. Rather than retaining insights or tips, do you find yourself zoning out? But not with The Chad & Cheese Podcast," and go on to tell about how our show is different. So Harver, this shout-out's for you. Thanks for mentioning us, and thanks for listening, because you obviously do. Chad: Subscribe not just 2019. Do it now. Shout-out to Indeed ugly sweaters. Joel: Oh, God, no. Crowd: Boo! Chad: I told you weeks ago this shit was genius. But the motherfuckers took my idea. Good on them. Good on you, Indeed. But that was genius shit. Good job. Joel: I can't get behind the ugly sweater. These guys pulled out the baby bathrobes earlier this year, which we grilled them for. You love the ugly sweaters. I think they're totally ridiculous. I think people wear them once at the company party. Chad: Genius. Joel: And then it's over. To me, this stuff just says hubris. It says, "We've got too much money to spend it intelligently." And it's just more writing on the wall that Indeed is on their way to the cellar. Chad: I don't agree at all. Baby bathrobes maybe. But this, this is target market. Love it. Joel: Shout-out to, I'm gonna probably butcher this, Elin or [Ellen 00:05:58], she's Swedish I think, Martenzon. She's one of the creators behind the creepy-ass robot recruiters that we talked about recently. This thing is a combination between the robots in I, Robot and the Barbie hair dresser bust that ... Yeah. So- Chad: Creepy. Joel: ... she took notice of the comments in a blog post that I put up. So she wants the robot to interview us sort of in person. I mean it sort of loses itself on audio because it's just a person ... So anyway, Ellen, Elin, fly us out to Sweden. We'd love that. And your robot can interview us and ask us whatever it would like. Chad: Okay, yeah. So we're gonna be in Lisbon in May. Come to TAtech in Lisbon. We'll meet you more than halfway. Joel: Bring Tengai. Chad: Bring your creepy robot, and we will do this interview. I would love to do this interview. It was funny because in her post, she said, "Tengai Unbiased is very likable and sympathetic, not creepy at all," which I thought sound very Trump-ish, by the way. Joel: Why would they name it Tengai Unbiased? Can't it be Heidi or Lisa or something? Tengai Unbiased? Good God. Chad: Jeffrey? Yeah, Jeffrey. Joel: Who's marketing that? Chad: Jeffrey. Shout-out to Jamie Leonard of RecFest. It was funny as hell because he put a post out this week, and he said, "Consider me Santa because I've got a big belly, and I watch you when you sleep." And- Joel: Speaking of creepy. Chad: ... he went along. I think that's something that is part of his shtick, though. And he gave five things that you should do. And one of them was definitely listen to The Chad & Cheese Podcast. It's one of those things, he took his time, wrote this up. RecFest. He's a listener. So, Jamie, thanks for listening. And can't wait, hopefully to see you in RecFest this year. Joel: Has Jamie ever been an extra on a Guy Ritchie film? Because talking to him, he certainly would fit the bill. Chad: Dude, he would be perfect, yeah, for Snatch or ... Dude, that'd be fuckin' awesome. Yeah. Legit. Joel: My final shout-out goes to [Carissa 00:08:16], is that right, at Tilr Carisa. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Co-founder and CEO. Tiller was on the firing squad recently. It's published. Kids, you love the firing squad. You're gonna love this one. Go check out the Tiller whatever we're calling it. Chad: Firing squad, yeah. Joel: Yeah, but I was trying to find a synonym for firing squad, like the- Chad: Don't do that. Joel: ... interrogation maybe. Yeah, let's call it.... Chad: I like that. Joel: Go check out the interrogation of Tiller. Chad: I've got two more. Emily Krueger loves a little Chad & Cheese. Thanks for listen, Emily. We love you. Make sure all your friends, family, and peers subscribe and listen as well. Chad: Last but not least, Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, for having the patience of Job this week. I've always had a rule personally myself when leading teams. That rule is never come to me with a question without researching it prior. This in many cases will help you actually answer your own goddamn question, or bring our discussion to a much smarter level, because there are so many fuckin' stupid questions that are out there. And make it more outcomes-focused, right? Chad: So in the three-plus hours Google's CEO had to deal with the individuals of Congress, who I believe did no research whatsoever and looked fucking stupid, shout-out to him for having the patience and not telling Representative King that he's a dumbass for not knowing that Google doesn't produce a fucking iPhone. Joel: And I'm gonna piggyback and shout-out to the dude in the audience who looked like the Monopoly guy. Chad: That was awesome. Joel: I don't know what that was about, but it was pretty damn funny. Chad: Yeah. He's done it before. It's kind of like a shtick for him. The last one, this is last. Chad & Cheese Live. So as you're planning for 2019, if you're a company and you have a leadership getaway or a summit or something like that, bring in Chad & Cheese. We can do a show. We can do a lot of stuff. But what you can do is you can tap into our recruitment technology, recruitment process, recruitment experience. Bring us in, and we'll do something for you live. Joel: And that is shout-outs. You've got a funny story. Chad: Okay. So this is all about holding each other accountable, okay? So we love the guys over at AllyO, right? Okay, but Ankit over there- Joel: Spank it. Chad: ... actually posted ... Yeah, Ankit, who was on firing squad, by the way, got a big applause from both of us. So love the guys from AllyO. But I quote, this is what he actually posted out, "AllyO is the first AI recruiter to help your candidates over WhatsApp." That's a pretty big deal- Joel: Ballsy. Chad: ... because WhatsApp is huge across the pond. I think there's over 200 million subscribers who use it in India alone. But I know better. So I sent the link to Max over at Talkpush for a response. And before you know it, Talkpush tweets out, and I quote, "All these companies talking about the first ones to use WhatsApp to talk to candidates, and we're over here like first ones," air quotes, "first ones," with a Dr. Evil GIF doing air quotes. Joel: I was hoping he'd have a GIF of the old Bud Light commercial, like, "Wazzup!" Chad: Yeah. So my message to the recruiting industry, and this is one of the things that Joel and I like to do. Let's call bullshit when it's bullshit, okay? And if you're gonna step out there and say you're the first in something, totally get it. But do your fuckin' research. Make sure that you are. And this is not, again, just focused on AllyO and this kind of faux pas. This is for everybody. Don't just go out there and say, "We're the first, we're the best," all this other happy horseshit. Actually come with the goods. Chad: If not, Chad & Cheese is gonna call you out. And we're gonna push other motherfuckers to call you out. Joel: And, by the way, Max has a set of boxing gloves. So I don't know if you want to be messing with that mad French guy. And, by the way, French are out of control, man. Chill out. Chad: Yes, they're a little out of control. So first topic, Microsoft and Upwork, you thought this was dope. Joel: I love this. Microsoft, man. Who knew that they'd be pulling out the punches in our industry? But two years ago, they bought LinkedIn. They bought GitHub this past year. And now, news comes out that they're partnering with Upwork, who we've discussed in length on this show, a freelancing platform to manage your freelancers. It will be built into some of the 365 stuff that Microsoft is putting out. Microsoft's company as a whole uses its service to manage its Upwork workforce to the tune of thousands of workers. Joel: So to me, obviously it's a great move for Microsoft from a partnering standpoint. But for me, my little Spidey senses went off and said, "I spy a 2019 prediction that Microsoft will pull back the Brinks truck and add Upwork to the suite of services that already include LinkedIn and GitHub." Chad: Yes. So remember the guy last week you talked about in the pod that hired a couple of people to do his project in AsiaPac or somewhere like that for a fraction of the cost? Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: Well, I told you that shit was genius. And now, it's going corporate, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So this also plays into the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago about HR and TA being the main reason why we have talent gaps. Both HR and TA are doing business like we're in the fuckin' '50s. They need to, number one, build talent pipelines with training, certification, and degrees. Plus, they need to fill these gaps with these types of initiatives. If they're still looking at, "I can only do full-time individuals to be able to get this done," dude, they're gonna lose every fuckin' time. Chad: So this is a shout-out to the HR and talent acquisition world. The way that you've been doing business for years has to adapt, period. If you don't, you're going to lose talent, and that means you're gonna lose fuckin' cash. And when the CEO comes knocking on your door, the COO, then you're gonna have a conversation. Joel: And I totally appreciate that angle that you're taking. I just my angle I think if Microsoft were to do this, they would have the number-one business networking site in the world. They would have the number-one technology professional site in the world. And then they would have the number-one freelancing site in the world. Joel: So imagine that as a platform. You go to LinkedIn, you post a job. Here are LinkedIn profiles, professionals that fit the job. Here are some contractors you might want to consider. I mean it's just you look at what they're building with this, and to me, it's just super frightening for anyone else that's competing with them because they're building quite the Death Star I guess, if you will, of recruiting. Chad: Yeah, unless they fuck it up, right? That's what we've seen over the years is companies acquiring other companies, and either they throw them in the closet to never be seen again, or they just totally jack it up. So I like what they've done with LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is just continuing to work as LinkedIn, not as Microsoft over LinkedIn. If they can continue that kind of operating policy, I think they've got a chance. There's no question. Joel: Yep. So if you're Google, Facebook, or anyone else, what are you thinking about this stuff? You thinking, "We better get them before LinkedIn does"? Chad: Either that, or start taking a look at some of the other technologies, the other platforms that are out there and doing partnerships with them as well. I mean this is the road to acquisition, I mean being able to actually see if it fits within your ecosystem. Does it work? That's the way business is being done. It's kind of like, "Hey, let's do some pilots before we go and acquire your ass." Chad: So, yeah, if I'm those organizations, if I'm a Facebook or a Google or what have you, that's exactly what I would be looking at doing. Joel: Yep. And to me, Slack going public, assuming someone doesn't come in and buy them before they do that, similar to how Glassdoor was acquired before they went public, I think a big part of it is capital to be able to make moves like acquiring someone like an Upwork or some other software or workforce platform if they're gonna compete on a stage with Microsoft and Google. 2019's gonna be interesting. And we're going a prediction podcast here shortly with Tim Sackett, right? Chad: Yeah. We'll be looking at our 2018 predictions and making fun of each other, and then doing 2019. Joel: Nice. I need to go back and see what I said outside of Amazon buying Slack, which I think could still happen. Chad: Yes. Joel: All right, moving on, speaking of contingent workforce and techies, HackerRANK sent out a survey this week that was fairly interesting. It was basically looking at university developers and how students learn to code and evaluate job opportunities. And I can tell you from the study that the times they are a-changing. Some of the findings here, I'll read you the subject lines and we can dig in a little further for what's interesting. Joel: But "College degrees are not sufficient for coding proficiency," was one of the things that they found. "Students rely on YouTube more than professionals." And I assume professionals would be teachers, etc. So, yeah, kids are just going to YouTube and learning this stuff. Number three, "Globally, student JavaScript expertise can't keep up with demand." Number four, "Growth opportunities appeal five times more than perks." So the kids want growth and opportunities more than they want time off and nannies and smart cribs. Chad: So, yeah. As we talk about these skills gaps, and we're just talking about HR and TA, not knowing what the fuck to do, college degrees aren't sufficient enough for coding proficiency. Because technology is moving so fast, curriculum can't keep up with it. So you need these different, whether it's YouTube or Udacity or what have you, you need these very flexible systems to be able to plug into to train your current workforce, not to mention as you're bringing in new individuals, you should already have these training programs in place. And those training programs could possibly come on contract. Chad: So, "Hey, we're gonna spend X amount of money to train you up on Java because we sure the hell don't have enough Java developers coming out to be able to fill the gap that we have." So we want to train you into Java. But guess what, the beautiful thing is not only are we going to do this. You're gonna be on a contract for three years. And here's what your career path looks like." Joel: So what blew me away was the YouTube presence. How mad are you if you're Udemy, Lynda, any of these platforms that are built on education, online stuff, videos, and kids are just going to YouTube to learn this stuff. That would frustrate the hell out of me. Chad: Yeah. Why do you think that is, though? Joel: Because it's where kids live. I mean how many times do we talk about the lifestyle site, right? Chad: Yes. Joel: The reason people should be scared of Facebook is a billion and a half people are on it, most of them every day. Similar to YouTube. My kids have been watching YouTube since they've been watching other kids open toys- Chad: Minecraft. Joel: ... since five years old or so. Minecraft videos, they're watching Twitch and seeing other kids play. So YouTube is just what they know. And ultimately they search like, "Hey, how to code," or, "Basics of coding," or, "How to HTML." It's just a natural place to go for them. They don't think about going to Google and searching for companies that provide HTML teaching. Maybe they do at some point, but the first place they go is YouTube. And I think that helps support that. Joel: The other thing is try to push my kids into JavaScript because according to the survey, 95% of web applications, particularly mobile, are built on JavaScript. And there's a six to 7% gap between the opportunities that are out there and the people that actually know how to do the job. So there's a ton of money to be made in JavaScript programming. Chad: So YouTube is really the delivery system is what it is, right? The curriculum is out there, but YouTube in this case is the delivery system. It just makes it so much easier, and any company that's out there that's listening, take fucking notes right now. If you have curriculum that's somewhere else internal, external, doesn't matter, use pieces, parts of that, throw it on YouTube as like a teaser to start to get individuals focused on your brand because that's what they want to do, right? Chad: Have some of your employees actually do YouTube videos that are focused in this area, "How do I do this program?" or, "How do I do JavaScript?" or anything like that. To be able to help draw individuals into your brand, you have to go to, just like Joel said, Facebook, YouTube. Where are they at? And that's where they're getting their information. If I need to learn how to boil a goddamn egg, I can go to YouTube. Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 53% of usage on mobile devices is social media. So if you're not on those platforms, you're losing, period. Chad: Yeah. It drives Julie crazy because whenever I don't know how to do something, she's a very text-driven person, I'm very visual, I will go to YouTube. And Julie goes ... She's reading something. I'm like, "Yeah, I already got it. Look, they're showing me how to do it right now." Joel: Yeah. And how many wormholes have you fallen into doing that? No lie, the whole shapeshifter conspiracy stuff, one night I was for three hours falling into shapeshifter conspiracy theories. I won't go into it, but anyway. Tangent off course. Let's take a break and hear from JobAdX, and then we'll talk about Comparably's best companies and signing bonuses and stuff like that. Chad: Cool. JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies, and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you have placed in us. Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad text bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partner sites. We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners. JobAdX: And we've developed our revolutionary Live Alert, which eliminate latency in expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links whether opened today, next month, or next year. For more information about our solutions, please reach us at JoinUs@JobAdX.com. Joel: Boy, how was that for a tangent? Shapeshifters on YouTube. Whoo. I need a vacation, man. Christmas can't get here fast enough. Chad: It is too easy. It's one of the reasons why I have to shut shit down on my computer when I'm doing any work because all the notifications just take me down rabbit holes. And you were talking a couple weeks ago about your internet brain. Well, that's what it is. So whenever I get a book nowadays, I get an actual physical book. I turn all my shit off, I put it in a drawer, do something like that. Then I pick the book up, and I go to the chair, and I read the book so that I don't have notifications taking me down rabbit holes and I don't get a chance to actually read. Joel: You go to a chair? Chad: Yep. Joel: I have this smoking jacket and pipe vision of you reading a book old style. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: No, that's good, man. I need to force myself to do that more often. My turn-off is bingeing on television with my wife, and sports. Chad: Yeah. Netflix and chill time. Joel: Netflix and chill. So I screwed this up. This was signing day, not signing bonuses. But this is your story, so you go. Chad: Okay. So this is one of the coolest things I think. As we were talking about Upwork and Microsoft and then we were going into the college, now we're going into the high school ranks. And Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia, instead of just celebrating individuals or kids who are getting or signing for playing college football or getting into big schools or what have you, they are now doing [signee 00:25:39] days for kids who are getting into jobs. Chad: And in this case, in some cases, you actually have companies who are there, like UPS or what have you, that are there for signing day. And here's a quote from one of the administrators at the school: "They've chosen," "they" being the kids, "they've chosen to maximize their high school opportunities for career training and industry certifications with an eye on becoming successful and financially secure much earlier in life," end quote. Chad: How about there's a huge fucking need for all these types of talent, and they won't be strapping themselves with huge student debt? That's the big key here, right? We have all these jobs that are open where you do need to have specific types of skills, and companies need to be able to obviously pipeline those candidates right into their organization. And why the hell not celebrate it? A kid's going to college. That's awesome, man. Yeah, you definitely should celebrate that. But you also have a kid who worked hard on this certification, and they're not going to college. They're going directly into these different jobs, where there will be learning and more certifications to come. Chad: That's something that should be celebrated, too. And I thought that was pretty fucking cool, and got a ton of frickin' love and views on LinkedIn just from the story. Joel: You know the curmudgeon in me wants to hate on this story and say, "Why are we celebrating not going to college? Why are we ..." I think it just sends a bad message. But I can't hate on the story because it's capitalism at work, and at the heart of me, I'm a capitalist. And companies have a need. These kids in high school can fill that need. If they want to celebrate it with an athletic style signing day where the kids are wearing hats of the company ... It really is like, "What college are you going to?" It's like, "What company are these kids going to?" Joel: And it creates a definitely ... The environment that must create in school for your peers in school to see you sign with UPS or SAP or whatever the companies are, that's gotta be really cool for those kids. I do have some transgression to say, "What are the long-term ramifications gonna be of this?" because I'd hate to see a kid that's real proficient in whatever does the job for five, 10 years, gets married, has kids, gets other kinds of debt, and then the technology that he's been doing becomes passe or irrelevant. Is he gonna be able to adapt to new skills? I hope so. Joel: But I do think one of the things college helps you learn is how to learn and how to adapt and evolve to different changes in life and business. So I don't want to hate on this, but I am semi-concerned about the long-term effects of grabbing kids out of school, throwing them into coal mines back in the day. Is this that much different? If the coal mines close, do they have any other skills to get a new job? And I guess I do have some question about how that will play out in the future. Joel: But otherwise, I think it's great. Chad: You are a curmudgeon. First and foremost, the technology in coal mines and trying to assimilate that to some of the jobs that they're going into, some of them if they're manufacturing style jobs, yes, they will definitely, they will have to learn new technology, get new certifications. I mean everything is moving at a much different scale and pace than it was when we were kids or in the '60s or what have you even before us, right? So this is an entirely different world. Chad: So to be able to see the blue collar, per se, as a blue collar of yesteryear is so far out of bounds. Technology's moving so fast, and for those individuals who want to stay and they want to learn and they want to progress in their career, they will have to get different certifications. So I don't see this as a bad thing. One of the things that I see as bad is in our society, we've taught our kids that college and strapping yourself with a lot of debt is the only way. And that's total bullshit. Chad: There are other ways to live a great life, still be educated, and be certified in something. So for me, this is a great way for somebody who really wants to do something different with their life to be able to do that. Joel: Yeah. I don't disagree. But I also don't think that to say that it's that far off from back in the day kids leaving for the steel mills or the coal mines or working for a car company out of college are that different. I mean steel left. Cars are made elsewhere. Coal mines shut down. And these people had to learn new skills. And I don't think it's that far saying that if whatever these kids are doing, if times change and we don't do that, it they can't adapt, they're gonna be screwed. Just like the people that left high school for Ford or GM, if they didn't have additional skills or could learn them, they were screwed and the government got saddled with, "Let's teach these folks new skills to get them new jobs." Joel: I just don't think it's that different a risk that we took with blue collar jobs back in the day. But time will tell. Chad: Yeah. And I totally disagree. Being in a town that has manufacturing for diesel engines, and now electric engines, it's an entirely different day today. Manufacturing is so far different than it was in the '60s, especially the talent. And how they have to continue to learn in those jobs and talking to those companies in the talent acquisition side of the house, that's one of the reasons why I believe this makes a hell of a lot of good sense. Chad: Now, if we were still in the same day and age where it's like, yeah, you're gonna sit on that line and that's all you're gonna do the rest of your life, which is generally what our grandfathers did, it's not that day anymore. It's not even close. Joel: Well, let's at least agree that if you cannot adapt, you're screwed. Chad: Too easy, which is one of the reasons why HR and talent acquisition is having so many fucking issues right now is because they haven't been able to adapt since the 19-fuckin'-50s. Joel: Right. So I'm saying is these are kids. They learn a skill. And they go work on that skill. I just hope that they have the wherewithal to adapt when those skills become irrelevant or something becomes more in demand than what they've already learned. That's all I'm saying. Chad: Yeah. And that's gonna be up to the company to be able to ensure that they're skilling them up, right? You take a look at AT&T, a great example. AT&T you might be a guy who's working on the line or who knows. But they have programs internally in place to keep those certifications up to date and moving forward. So the day of you being only personal responsible for these things is over. The company is pushing to have that happen because you become outdated if you're not certified. Chad: So what you're talking about, yeah, that would be a problem. That's not an issue for most of these companies who understand that they have to keep their workforce skilled up. Joel: Yeah. And economies go bad, and tariffs happen, and companies lay people off. I mean- Chad: Yeah, I agree. Joel: ... bah humbug. Bah humbug. Let's talk about Comparably's best companies, shall we? Chad: Let's do it. Joel: All right. So we talked about Glassdoor's world-famous best companies lists. Their competitors have their own little list, goddammit. Chad: And they should. Joel: Which they should, right? But it becomes a little overwhelming for everybody. But Comparably has a nice little infographic of their best company cultures. These are for large companies in the U.S. I'll read the top 10 I guess? Chad: Sure. Joel: We'll talk about it. Okay. So number one: Costco. Number two: Google. These tend to be a little bit more what I would think would be the top companies. Number three: T-Mobile, who has a nutball CEO. I'm sure that guy's fun to work for. Number four: HubSpot marketing platform. Number five: Aflac. Number six: Insight Global. Don't know them. Number seven: Intuit. Number eight: Salesforce. Number nine: Blizzard Entertainment- Chad: Nice! Joel: ... my son's favorite company. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: And number 10: Starbucks. Those all make sense to me. Those all feel about right. Facebook is number 16, where they were number seven I believe on Glassdoor's. They were number one last year on Glassdoor. ADP is number 23. I'm looking for employment-related sites. LinkedIn: number 25. Red Bull: 31, your favorite company. Yeah, Indeed: number 43. There you go. Indeed cracks the top 50 list of big companies in the U.S. And my favorite on the list, number 46, Chick-fil-A. Chad: No In-N-Out Burger. What the fuck, dude? Joel: No In-N-Out on this one. Yeah, so a little bit of different metrics behind these two sites. But obviously a good list to be on nonetheless. Chad: Yeah. This looks like a love me wall/SEO campaign more than anything else. I mean this is- Joel: They all are. Chad: ... create more awards to flatter, and then also with the awards comes more content. With the more content comes more sharing. It might be great info and data, but, dude, this is probably one of the biggest marketing ploys I've ever seen. I'm just looking at the list here. So check out our full best places to work 2018 series. And here it is: best company culture, CEOs, company for women, companies for diversity, CEOs for women, CEOs for diversity, best leadership, managers, companies for ... And it goes ... I'm only halfway through the fuckin' list. Chad: So this is- Joel: Don't forget best CEOs in Los Angeles- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... best CEOs in Seattle. Chad: Exactly, right? So this is a content play, and it's an "I love me" play because we just talked about it with the lists that we were just on. Everybody's playing this whole, "Hey, they're gonna talk about us, or they're gonna share us, or they're gonna this, they're gonna that." Well, fuck yeah, they are. So how many more lists can we come out with so that we can create more content and get shared? Joel: Yeah, totally. They're gonna tweet out every one of these companies. They're gonna tag them. They're gonna go to every publication in Seattle and say, "Here's the top CEOs in Seattle." They're gonna get play that way. So, yeah, I ... Dude, it's a great strategy. They have the data. There's nothing wrong with taking the data you have and creating lists and peer opportunities, because ultimately a lot of those people have no idea who Comparably is. They're gonna go to the site, and they're gonna go, "Oh, we don't have a featured page, or we don't have a official profile." And they're gonna join the site, and this company's gonna get more business. Joel: So it's a great strategy. If you as a company out there aren't doing stuff like this, you should because it's pretty impactful. Chad: We should come up with our best. We should come up with a list. Wait, it can't be the best, though. It's gotta be like the shittiest things that happened this year. Okay, we'll talk about it. Joel: Yeah, that sounds like work. But what doesn't sound like work is using Canvas when you're recruiting, and especially their automation tools. Let's hear a word from Canvas, and we'll talk about branded fruit, of all things. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas Spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. Canvas: We make compliance easy, and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at GoCanvas.io. And in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's GoCanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: Bring on the fruit, bitches. Joel: So for the listeners out there, Chad and I get together about 30 minutes or an hour before the show. And we talk about the stories that we want to talk about. And Chad loved this story so much that I said, "Fine, we'll talk about it." So, Chad, tell us about branded fruit. Chad: I don't know that I loved it so much. I just thought it was fuckin'- Joel: You loved it. Chad: ... silly as shit. Joel: Come on. Chad: But, yeah, so here's a quote: "This group taps into the frustration and fatigue that many people feel about receiving the cheap, disposable schwag churned out by the $24 billion promotional product industry. So they came up with promotional fruit." The story was really cool. You got this promotional marketing company. And the CEO I believe it was, she was asked, you were asked to come to the party and bring something, right? And she reached out, she's like, "Well, what should I bring?" And go figure, they're probably in California, said, "Yeah, bring some avocados." Chad: So she thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if I actually stenciled my logo on all these avocados?" And it turned out to be this huge hit at the party. So she thought, "Shit, I could possibly sell this to companies who are coming to my company for promotional goods." And it seems to be working because, again, whenever I go to conferences and they try to give you that bag, I always tell them, "I don't want your fuckin' bag. I've got my own backpack that is a nice backpack. I don't need your cheap backpack." But I'll use that backpack to go looking for schwag that I think is cool. And then I'll just take the schwag that I think is cool. Chad: In this case, everybody needs potassium. You give me a banana with your logo on it, I'm gonna take it. Joel: Bananas I get. Avocados are bizarre to me. I would never at a conference ... Well, I wouldn't have a knife to cut it open. I don't know what I would do with the pit. I'd have to have a spoon to get the avocado out of the skin. Because the story was Lyft, the ride-sharing service, gave out avocados. And that's just really bizarre to me. I don't know, I wouldn't expect anyone to do that. Joel: Now, banana I get. Could you put a apple or maybe an orange? That I get. Cool. But, yeah, this was strange. I don't- Chad: Was that at a conference, or was that at a party or something like that where you had avocados and they were cutting them up and whatnot? [crosstalk 00:41:10]- Joel: So she did it at a party. Yeah, you're right. And- Chad: Yeah, she [crosstalk 00:41:12]- Joel: ... I hate these companies that get founded by mistakes, like someone just does something stupid and everyone's like, "Oh my God, this is a great idea." And then they become a business. I hate those people. But, yeah, so she did an avocado. And then the Lyft was an avocado as well, the Lyft story. But then, yeah, the bananas and stuff that you can peel, all that makes sense to me. Joel: I don't know if Skyline and companies that do this, are they now doing fruit as part of their giveaway portfolios? Do you have to go to a separate company that only this woman does this? It's all very bizarre to me. I don't know how I feel about getting ... I don't really like fruit to begin with. Give me a branded sirloin or something. Then we're talking. But anyway, I don't know how I feel about it. Joel: I would hate to be a trade show manager and have to ship that many bananas to a booth. It'd be a real pain in the ass. Chad: Yeah, I'm sure the promotional company probably does that. And for all Chad & Cheese listeners, you probably will never have to worry about a Chad & Cheese branded banana. Maybe a Chad & Cheese branded Snickers or something like that. But definitely not a banana. Joel: Or the fruit would have to make a cocktail. There would have to be some connection to drinking and fruit. But we'll never just give you a fruit without something connected in some way to drinking or eating. Chad: Well, and I love fruit. I eat fruit every single day of the year. But it's perishable, and it just doesn't make sense to me. But a Snickers, that thing'll last for 500 years. Joel will eat 100s Joel: That's right, baby. Oh God. Are we out, man? Chad: We out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy, Cheese. This has been The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit ChadCheese.com. #ChristmasSweaters #Indeed #Microsoft #JimStroud #Talkpush #Comparably #Youtube #Workforce #Swag

Can a couple of CareerBuilder alums really make a dent in the growing on-demand workforce platform wars? We grill CEO and co-founder Carisa Miklusak to find out. Enjoy this Talroo exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community. Chad: Hey Joel. Joel: What up? Chad: Would you say companies find it hard to attract the right candidates to apply for their jobs? Joel: Well Jobs to Careers thought so. Chad: Job to Careers? You mean Talroo. Joel: Talroo? Chad: Yeah, Talroo. Joel: What is that? Like a cross between talent and a kangaroo? Chad: No. It's a cross between talent and recruiting. Joel: But ... Chad: Talroo was focused on predicting, optimizing and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Joel: Ah ha, okay. So, it's totally data driven talent attraction which means that Talroo platform enables recruiters to reach the right talent at the right time and at the price. Chad: Okay, so that was weirdly intuitive but, yes. Guess what the best part is. Joel: Let me take a shot here, you only pay for the candidates Talroo delivers. Chad: Holy shit, okay, so you've heard this before. So, if you're out there listening in podcast land, and you are attracting the wrong candidates, and we know you are, or you feel like you're in a recruiting hamster wheel and there's just no where to go, right? You can go to Talroo.com/attract. Again, that's Talroo.com/attract and learn how Talroo can get you better candidates for less cash. Joel: Or just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Talroo logo, I'm all about the simple. Chad: You are a simple man. Announcer: Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Chad Cheeseman are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest in data start ups through the gamut to see if they've got what it takes to make it out alive. Dig a foxhole and duck for cover kids, the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel: What's up everybody? The December episode of Firing Squad and if our guest was expecting any favorable treatment because of the holidays, well she's in for a rude awakening, I must say. But, that being said, welcome to Carisa Miklusak, am I saying that right? Carisa: You did an awesome job. Close enough. Chad: I don't think he did, I think she's being nice. Carisa: Miklusak but, you know what? When I first got married I got a lot of Mrs. Miklusak so, I'm going to call it like a B. That's good with me. Chad: Okay, good. Joel: Considering that there's a sac in there that you should be lucky that I'm trying to say it as it is because I could make up a lot of different stuff. Chad: Yes. Carisa: Totally. Joel: So, Carisa is with Tilr. Carisa, give us a little bit about you before we get into your company. Carisa: Sure. Thanks so much for having me today. I really cut my teeth in temporary staffing in the late 90s and then did a long stint at Careerbuilder.com and spun off to start building [crosstalk 00:02:56]. Let's just get it out of the way. I'm going to own it and I then started building startups in 2008 when no one else in the world was thinking it was a good economy to do so. And bootstrap company called T Media and was approached by an investor that really helped to inspire the company that I run now, Tilr. Other than that, I've got four and a half year old twins, a super geriatric dog that died twice and is still hanging around and I spend a lot of time in New York, Toronto and Cincinnati. Joel: I could've gone for the sympathy vote for the dying dog. Carisa: Oh, right. Joel: That's nice. So, Chad tell her what she's in for. Chad: So Carisa, you're going to have two minutes to pitch Tilr. At the end of two minutes, you're going to hear the bell, then Joel and I are going to hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If the answers start rambling, if you start rambling with the answers, Joel is going to hit you with the crickets. You're going to wanna move along and also tighten that game up. At the end of Q and A, you're gonna receive grades from Joel and I. It's either going to be big applause which means you killed it, golf clap, that means Joel almost fell asleep, or the firing squad. Joel: That was pretty good Chad, that was nice. Chad: That means hit the bricks, close up shop, pull out the drawing board because your shit sucks. So, that's Firing Squad. Joel are you ready to get that timer ready buddy? Joel: I'm ready. Carisa, are you ready more importantly? Carisa: Let's do it. Joel: Boom. Carisa: I'm ready. Joel: Two minutes starting. Carisa: All right. Tilr is new search technology for the workforce and what's different about Tiller is that we match on skills not on titles. We actually think that titles are pretty bias and screen people out and not in. So, here's an example of how we reallocate talent. Let's pretend that Tim had job A, and gained skills one through three and then Tim had job and gained skills four, five and six. He's never had a job with title C but yet, title C requires Tim to have skills one, three and six. Our technology will actually send Tim that job and once a worker's screened and background checked, they get to make the decision as to whether or not they wanna go to work. There's no interviews in Tilr's marketplace. So, our companies, or our employers rather, really trust us for our technology to make that decision based on skills. Carisa: Once Tim goes to work, if there's a positive outcome, our algorithm learns from that and learns that there's again this neat, new network between someone that's never done this job and someone that can. So, for workers, we give them new opportunities. For clients, we give them a larger talent pool and we've also recently just introduced our enterprise product which does for companies the same thing that we do in our market place. So, that's a bit about who we are and skills are really the name of the game for us. Joel: So in the time you have left, where can someone find out more about Tilr? Carisa: You can definitely go to www.Tilr.com and it's tilr like the tilr that you pull on the sail boat to turn your direction and also you can download our app. From a company or worker perspective, check it out that way. We've been called the Tinder if you will or Match.com [crosstalk 00:06:20] I know, I know. I'm just getting them out of here of recruitment only because we have swipe left and right. That's like the only similarity so, other than that, that's where you can learn more. Joel: All right. You're done. Carisa: You asked for more man, you asked for more. Chad: Swipe left and right just killed me but even before that, I don't believe, I'm not good at math but, I don't believe that one plus three plus six equals C, okay? That doesn't compute. I did a little research and it looked like you guys, at least before, focused on really trying to become like a new style ATS and now you're talking about search. Carisa: Interesting. Chad: Was that a pivot or ... Carisa: No, we never were an ATS, we came out truly with search. We focused on the on-demand market. We're asking people to believe in true algorithmic hiring and not interview. We focus on the on-demand market believing that jobs that had start and end dates would be an easier way for people to make that leap of faith and start to change the way that they recruit. Also, we focus on jobs in certain areas. We headquartered in Cincinnati, Cinci was our beta market and then [crosstalk 00:07:29] to that tri-state area. So, we never really focused as a ATS at all. We've always been search technology. The first product was our marketplace which is a true on-demand marketplace that matches on skills, not on titles. Our second product now is Enterprise which again is a white label of that product that does it for internal organizations. Chad: Okay. So, one of the YouTube videos that I watched actually focused on how the ATS process methodology sucks. So ... and it was one of your videos, so, that is fairly confusing. So, that is one of the reasons why when I was thinking about okay, process methodology, you guys are looking to try to flip the script on how people get jobs. Now it was skillcentric, there's no question, but on the front end, it was talking about how the ATS process methodology sucked, is that not something that rings kind of true to you? Carisa: So, we do pump out a lot of content. If watched isolated, there's generally a theme of the month that might seem strange but we often times partner with ATSs to provide additional level of detail for the candidates during the on-boarding process. So, the message is they're perhaps incomplete and kind of like Ford when our current recruitment system was built, pumped out their first car rather, sorry, rather like when Ford pumped out their first car, at the same time, our recruitment system was built. Sometimes tends to look at a candidate in an archaic way. We do have young, spunky fired-up people around saying everything sucks. Resumes suck, titles suck, ATSs suck, job posting suck. Chad: They're right. Carisa: And I obviously totally don't disagree because I built the company but, yeah, no, you're not off based but, sorry if it indicated we were like an ATS. That's not what all our business nor a business personally I wanna spend any time in. Joel: Good. You noticed Chad that she didn't say that the young kids are saying VR sucks but, that's a different podcast. Carisa: Nice. Joel: [crosstalk 00:09:22] a branding question. I'm always interested in how you came up with the name, certainly if I go to Tilr.com common spelling if you will, it takes me to a much different website, so talk about how you came up with the name and the challenge that you have from the end of sales process of telling people where to go. Carisa: Oh, interesting. So, we came up ... here's the true story of how we came up with the name. I of course think it's super fun. One of my business partners, the investor that I mentioned earlier, has a jockey that rarely loses a race by the name of Bobby Tiller. He races horses and he called me one night at about 10:30 and we had all kind of names on a whiteboard and I was kind of pissed off because we wanted internally to own coming up with the name. We this amazing MVP underway, it's late at night, we're in this workshop trying to figure it all out. I come home and I get a call from the investor, what about the name Bobby Tiller? Guy never loses. So, the next morning we wrote in on the board and everyone started talking about it. Tried to put it down. We did look at Tiller but, weren't really feeling it. It was partly formal and so, we started playing with different four letter, five letter versions of it but wanted a four letter version. Carisa: Looked at Tilr and I rented the name to test it out first before we actually bought the URL and we totally fell in love with it. We felt like it was both a noun, a verb. So, we call our workers Tilr community members. We also have an association where we offer portable benefits but, that's beside the point. One can also till for example and we hope that in the future people will say I need to Tilr that. So, we thought it was fun and that's how we introduced it. We haven't ... maybe I need to pay closer attention because you asked a good question. Makes me wanna check things out. What's the sales challenge in introducing it? I feel like 100, in this day and age gentleman, that's literally what I was going to say. So, I'll just own it, in this day and age, I feel like people don't really harp too much on your name. I did get one push back from a blogger and I apologize, I can't remember his name. He meant the world to me because it was the day after we rolled out the name. Carisa: That's was such a cool idea, skills are so important, why the hell did you go with one of these Flickr, Tilr, R names. You seem smart, why'd you do that man? Why? Why? Why? And I was like, oh, that sucks. But anywise it's been really fun. The only other thing I'll say about the name is everyone always thinks it's like tiller, like you're sowing seeds, tiller like that and no, you can't really see what I'm doing right now but, you know. Kind of higher up, like Tilr like this. So, I go through a lot of that. Chad: So does Tilr have a community database? Carisa: In terms of where employers can go and look at Tilr's opening? No. We have a closed proprietary database and our algorithm matches the most suitable Tilrs based on skills, availability, and location directly to employers requests. Actually, maybe you guys can help me. We wanna kill the name posting. I can't figure out what to call it other than a posting so, I'm just like a request, when an employer makes a request. But, it's a closed database. We've had conversations about opening it, what would be the meaning of that, but to date, we've not. Chad: Okay, so the actual database itself, it's a database that an organization can post, you're not going to get rid of that word, I'm sorry. You can post [crosstalk 00:12:50] it's been around for 20 years, I mean it's like a common unit. Carisa: We can do it, we can do it. Chad: It's a common unit and it's understood so, just use it. Not that I don't hate it, but just use it. So, if I post into the actual database, does it match up against your Tilrs and then bring back your matching kind of whoever matches in the database? Carisa: You got it, exactly right. 100% and two different types of algorithms go to work. One is someone posts something, and they need it now or tomorrow and there's a very short window and in that way it's like first come first serve. Kind of like Uber. Blow every Tilr that matches and has the right skill profile, availability, and location receives a push notification on their phone that says this job is yours, first come first serve and remember, there's no additional interview with the employers so, once you accept the job, it's yours. If there's a longer window, we like to provide a better experience for the worker so, we'll do more of a linear algorithm where someone will have an exclusive. Again, depending on the time frame, maybe half hour or hour or day if it's a long assignment, to answer whether or not they can take it before it moves on to the next person. Chad: How big is the database and what type of individuals in the database? Is it entry level, mid level, or even you talking about extreme professionals at times? Carisa: We're not talking about extreme professionals yet. We're really focused on jobs where people [crosstalk 00:14:10]. Joel: What's an extreme professional Chad? Carisa: Not me I know but otherwise [crosstalk 00:14:15]. Chad: We're extreme professionals. Carisa: Do I get to be one too? Chad: Maybe. Carisa: Maybe, you guys will decide at the end. Let me know in addition to the normal judgment system. We really are asking people to make a leap of faith and trust in an algorithm so, today, when we're controlling the database, we're focused on jobs like logistics, customer service, light sales, hospitality, events. Oftentimes, we do serve one off clients. Like someone has an administrative person going on leave and needs to fill a job for two months but, we also serve truly on-demand things like an event center has a big event and needs 50 people to come in the morning to clean up, and they wanna have 50 Tilr community members come in eight hours. So, we focus on a variety of different sectors but, I guess what's common to all of them is that there is a driving force that they need a business that's just in time or flows with their business. So, retail you can imagine right now is huge for us. We've got a couple hundred people in a warehouse, another hundred people in a customer service center for a chief client in Columbus, and a couple other deals like that around the country that are really meaningful to us. Carisa: We've become part of their planning for the year. You ask [crosstalk 00:15:38]. Chad: How big is the database? Carisa: Yeah, sorry, I was just going back to that, I was just going to say you asked a direct question, direct answer, we're just under 50,000 total Tilr community members and actively today on the site we had about 417 clients posting since we can't figure out a better word or actively looking for Tilrs. Joel: One of the things that you have going for you is the on-demand workforce solution is hot. One of the things you have going against you is the on-demand workforce software or solution platform is hot and on the show we've talked about everyone from Plated to Snag, to Upwork, to Fiver, to TaskRabbit, where do you guys fit in that economy and how are you different? Carisa: So, I get asked this question a lot as you can imagine and it's been hard to pinpoint us to date but, I think that we sit closely by Upwork and Wonolo in that platform. What makes us really different and I know I keep harping on it is, that way that we match on skills. So, I don't wanna say sorry because then you guys will boo me for being wimpy but, I can only come up the word. I apologize that that example didn't make sense but, where our IP lies and where we're really different is let's say, you eat a skill table and then all of a sudden you start to reallocate talent differently based on a different metric, and that's measured, and either thumbs up or thumbs down over time. You start to build new neurons or connections between skills and outcomes, the outcomes being titles like that word post, it's a unit. It's how we understand things. Carisa: So, that's where a lot of our IP sits, are in these new connections that we'd built between an amalgamation of someone's skill set and their ability to perform in the economy. And that's what makes us really different than let's say Winolo that's also doing just in time, on-demand hiring and allowing scheduling and availability to be part of their algorithm but, really matching very differently. Joel: Why are you going market to market? I think you mentioned you guys are in Cincinnati and yet you'd recently moved or opened up in Indianapolis, why not just open the floodgates and go national? Carisa: At first it was because we really wanted to bait out of course. So, we went to Cincinnati, believe it or not, it's a great city I think for innovation. Maybe you do believe it. [crosstalk 00:17:56] a place for big companies will take a chance and join beta programs. We then really took a community approach in Cincinnati, where we started to work with a lot of undeserved populations and we started to replicate that market to market or community to community rather than a national flood. The other reason just to be totally candid, is funding. We've got about nine million dollars into the business to date and we've built two really meaningful products. We want to be able to make a difference and put the workers to work that sign up on the platform in the markets where we're live. So, as we go for our next round, we'll do exactly what you're talking about, work to expand nationally. Carisa: You'll see us beta a few larger markets first, like a New York or a San Francisco, learn from any differences of some of the tier only in size, not in love and passion and productivity markets that we focus on to date. I mean it really comes down to marketing dollars. Joel: And you raised five million to date? Carisa: Nine million, sorry. Joel: Okay. Carisa: Yes. Chad: So, skill sets rather than job titles and resumes. So, what data are you using if not candidate profile data or resumes to pull all this together to be able to match against these job onthologies? Carisa: Yep, you got, a better word than I could come up with consider that stolen. So, two different ways, one is that person by person, people upload their skills. That's how it works in the marketplace and we joke a lot that marketplace earned us the right to enterprise or build this white label because as we learn from everyone's skills, they can lie to us, just like you lie on a resume or in an interview but, where the difference is, is the first time they go to work, there's a 360 degree rating cycle. Second time they go to work, we have a really good score on the accuracy of their skills, predictability around their work behavior and that kind of piece. So, that's one way that we learn. The other way that we learn, now that we've earned the right is with our enterprise product, when we go into an implementation, the first thing that we do is eat the organization's existing skill table. We don't expect their skill table or even the names of their jobs to resemble our let's call it Tilr master database. Carisa: And so then we learn from every single one of those implementations as well and we're able to share the learning we have from marketplace with our clients and vice versa. So, that helps us to become that much smarter, burn that many new connections, the many new neurons if you will. Joel: I love that we're talking about how do we refer to postings as something different and it occurred to me that these models of on-demand workforce platforms really expect employers to sort of make a mind change of how they normally do business. Carisa: Absolutely. Joel: [crosstalk 00:20:52] most them I'm sure post on Craig's list, they get responses, they interview and then they're done. So, talk about the challenge that that's been and how you're overcoming it. Carisa: Yep, absolutely. That's the biggest challenge and I wanted to stop talking before I got a boo earlier because I felt like I was starting to ramble but, I was going to say, you said where do you fit in, starting to talk about competitors and what we run into in terms of competition with dollars is just that. It's job postings, it's traditional recruitment, it's not Wonolo, we're not running into them. Or Shiftgigger, even Upwork in the market, we're running into exactly what you talked about. This is the way we've recruited forever. And so one of the things that we do is really build trust by asking for a very small order or a job that's often times hired in mass and doesn't have any type of customer interface in order to earn trust. Carisa: What we do find is very quickly in the process. For example, we went into mainly entry level jobs or like warehousing, data entry jobs for our beta program. The way that we got to hiring recruiters for example with this technology or sales professionals or customer interfacing professionals at events was by earning that trust up through the organization or through a referral network by doing well on less interactive roles if that makes sense. So, that's one of the way we do is just with grit, and earning one role at a time. Now that we've been in the market for just two years, some of that was beta but let's just call it two years, we do have a number of case studies and a number of clients that are really willing to show not only how drastically the cost reduced but how they felt like they couldn't hire in their backyard and now because they're looking at skills as the pull, not titles as the pull, it's much larger and they're able to hire refreshingly locally. Joel: I have sort of a general question about the whole on-demand phenomenon or trend. Companies spend a lot of money on employer brand, what it's like to work here, who we are, etc. Carisa: Absolutely. Joel: Does that matter in an on-demand environment because do you really care about an employer's brand? You're just going to go work based on what an algorithm told me on Tilr or another website. Carisa: So, it's an interesting question. Maybe I'm like a traditionalist all of a sudden but, I think it does. You'd be really surprised at the passion that Tilr community members have for working on projects, even if it's only at XYZ client for the holiday for three and a half months. Also, a lot of these roles, not a lot, 10% of these roles turn into full time job opportunities as well. If someone falls in love with their Tilr, we don't want them to hire them behind our backs so, we make it really easy on the platform if the Tilr's interested to move off our platform and to a new home. What I find, and I don't wanna be overly cheesy so I'll say this at risk of a boo, but that is ... values truly are changing and even in the quote, unquote on-demand economy which I think is a word that will go away but, yet the behaviors of this new workforce will stay. Even though people wanna work on different projects or around different schedules, they wanna be attached to things that are making a difference and they wanna be very clear about how what they're doing is making a difference. Carisa: Our most successful clients have programs for their quote, unquote on-demand workers in hopes that they won't have to re-train a whole new crew next year and a lot of them will come back and make this cyclical opportunity a part of their behavior. I actually don't like the word on-demand. I just think it's like the trend is our friend right now and it's a really smart place to prove algorithmic hiring. Chad: You have to play to kind of like AI, Chadbots, Machine Learning, and it's like oh, yeah, well okay. Carisa: Yeah, and that's why you actually purposely see me stay away from those words. I mean if you've noticed I haven't said them once because I think what we're saying is behaviors are changing so much, I think that's what's here to stay. So anyways, at the risk of being cheesy. Chad: So, just adding skill sets into the process. So, let's say you go into a market, what if a candidate, this is a brand new candidate based that you're actually getting into. What if a candidate believe that they're an expert but they're really just average. How do you weed out the over sized egos? Does that just happen through the process as the companies review them? How does that all come together? Carisa: A couple different checkpoints right now, and maybe one become automatic in the future, hint hint, specifically in certain verticals where we're comfortable or have staffed a long time in the markets. But to date, first thing is absolutely like Linked In, like a resume, self-onboarding. You tell us who you are and your proficiency, next thing is we have literally interviewed in 15 to 20 minute phone call, every single Tilr community member to date. We did that for a learning, we did it to hold hands, to help people understand this new experience and to learn how we could automate it. We do ask experiential questions so, it's as good as a quick interview. You said you're a five resolving customer problems, tell the largest customer problem you've resolved on the phone and how many minutes it took you to resolve it. What skills did you use? Carisa: Then of course they do a background check, but once that's done, you're right, they could've lied to us just like a normal interview recruitment process where the proof really lies is the first time they go on site, the first employer rates their proficiency in said skills and they rate the experience as well. That algorithm gets stronger and stronger, the accuracy rather becomes stronger and stronger. Then we look for trends over time. We are in conversations as we earn the right to go further up the chain in terms of the sophistication of roles to partner with and lay over things like personality testing and such but, we've kept it really simple to date and really focused on that reallocation of skills. Like can you take someone that had been a bank teller and a, I don't know, sales rep and have them all of sudden manage a retail organization. Do the skills translate in that regard? I guess they'd be missing that management piece. Chad: How do you interview these individuals, is it a phone interview? What's the actual interview? Carisa: Yes. So, to date on the app, once you're done onboarding yourself, there's something that pops up and tells you to book a phone call. We've literally had phone calls. The reason I was saying hint hint is we have build a Chatbot in 25 different area where we feel we've done hundreds, thousands of matches and really can understand a pattern and have the chatbot ask and screen if you will, for us. But only in those verticals. In new verticals where we are new, we still wanna learn and talk to people and we also do have like a white glove free of charge, so maybe white glove's not a good word, good thing I'm not in marketing anymore, right? But like a white glove service. If any worker, employer wants their hand held, I mean it's really a strange experience right? Carisa: We had to tell workers when we first opened, not there's nothing else, the job it yours. Go to work now and they're like what do you mean? I accepted. We're like yeah, you're already screened, go to work, you're going to be rated there. What are you talking about? No, no man, you've got the job. Or employers all of a sudden just see like hey, Ed will be there at four. They're like okay, profile looks great or [crosstalk 00:28:25] so, yeah, Ed's coming, expect Ed. So, the conversations have been really helpful because we condense sometimes the hiring process to like 30 seconds and although it's efficient and great, it freaks people out. Chad: What's the ejection rate though? I mean because they don't show up a hundred percent of the time, what's the ejection rate that you're seeing right now on your analytics? Carisa: You're totally right, biggest problem I think in the industry is no shows. Specifically as you start to address certain industries. People have a tough problems, like transportation problems, child care problems and that's fair. We have gone to a 40% no show when we opened in beta to about an 8% no show and now we have algorithmic things that kick off in the background, let's just call them things since my my CTO isn't on the phone with me. That allow us based on how the client has preferrenced they wanna handle a no show situation, kick off to either send someone new within the hour, send someone new the next day, not replace them. So, that's part of the client onboarding process is to understand how they wanna hire them. Joel: My God, we just through in ghosting, are there any other buzz terms that we can use on this [crosstalk 00:29:36]. Carisa: Ghosting. Joel: I look at both sides of where you market is and sort of downstream you have some of the names I mentioned with Snag and Platted and Winolo that you mentioned. I look at the high end and I look at Facebook, Linked In going after sort of the similar small business instant matching solution, uncommon is a sponsor and they have really cool sort of sourcing and programmatic advertising tool, text recruit, [crosstalk 00:30:06] my question is, what keeps you up at night? Because those kinds of things would keep me up at night but, I'm curious what keeps you awake? Carisa: This is such a shitty answer for lack of a better vocabulary word, I sleep so good and that's not to be arrogant at all. I'll tell you what my worries are but, I hit a certain point at Tilr where I just started sleeping really great because there's so many things that can keep you up, I just started sleeping great. Finally, after being an insomniac for years but, that's too much about me personally, I digress. Here are the things that I really worry about, I don't worry about a crowed space. I think that a crowed space shows validation. I also look at Linked In, Upwork, perhaps not Winolo but, a lot of the organizations that you just mentioned is great potential partners for what we're doing. Also, in full disclosure, my husband just left Linked In a year ago after being there for a long time so, I know the team there well and I think that there's a lot of partnership opportunities long-term with organizations like that. Carisa: What keeps me up at night is this, there's a very finite opportunity I believe anyways, to change the way that people look at other people. I don't know that we're moving fast enough or that we can necessarily do it alone. So, I'm a big proponent of partnerships and what I mean by that is truly when you start to look at people as an amalgamation of their skills, they are worthy of so much more. We're trained as a culture, take McDonald's off your resume because you wanna be an engineer and no one cares if you worked at McDonald's because it's just going to hurt you. Your manager doesn't wanna see that. But there's really skills that are gained during that job and if we can flip the script and change the way that people are measuring other people, I think we're going to have a lot more dynamic workforce and we'll still have a skill gap but it'll be a manageable skill gap. Carisa: What keeps me up at night is investors are investing in the space right now or the reason I should wake up at night rather and get my computer rather than sleep well, is investors are investing in the space now and I don't know that any one entity can move fast enough to really take advantage, dare I say, of the way that we could impact humanity over the next few years while recruitment finally has a data focus after decades of other verticals really benefiting from it. But, I feel like you're hearing true passion from me now so, I'm going to get off my soapbox. Joel: I love it, I love it. Well our time here has come to an end, so ... Carisa: No. Joel: You guys have a unique offering where you only pay I guess if you hire or there's a match [crosstalk 00:32:32]. Talk about that, what can companies expect to pay for your service? Carisa: 100%. 25% on the hour when someone goes to work and you're pleased with the work. So you've got it. We've kept it really simple, no barriers to entry. We've looked at different subscription models, perhaps in the future we'll introduce different pieces but, completely complimentary to sign up. You post a job, and if it's filled and the person comes to work and works, you pay that 25% on the hourly. That's really it. It keeps us competitive, it keeps things easy. We don't do a percentage of salary for conversion fees. It's literally a flat flee between 500 and 1500 dollars if you want someone to convert to a W-2 employee and find their home with your company. Enterprise is sold as a SASS model. As you would imagine, there's an implementation fee that grows if you want it integrated with things like your ATS as we talked about earlier or your LMS if you really wanna identify skill gap and close it. Carisa: Then there's a per person per month charge that ranges between a dollar and six dollars depending on the number of users so, it's pretty straight forward. Joel: That was the longest pricing answer I think we've ever gotten. Okay. Carisa: At least I answered. I've heard a lot of people on your show go yeah well, just call one of our sales reps for answer. So, at least I'm direct. It's all there. Chad: I like it. Joel: You're getting a little saucy here at the end. Carisa: No, not at all. Joel: It's time to face the squad. I'm going to give my review first. Man, I think that when we look at categories in recruiting right now, that's how with automation and programmatic and I could go on and on but, this whole on-demand workforce, although you don't like the term, is sort of trend [crosstalk 00:34:21] that we're seeing. I think it's a real trend. I think I've said so on the show quite a few times. I think that it ... the challenge for you ... so I like the business mall that you're in, I do like the brand, although I don't know if I mentioned that or not, I do think it's pretty unique. Carisa: Thank you. Joel: It's an incredibly crowded, crowded space and the money you've raised, I know you're looking at raising more money, I think you even said how is somebody going to really stake a claim in this industry and you said the toughest challenge you have is educating the marketplace. I just think that that is going to be a major challenge to your business and I see someone like a Facebook, someone with a big brand that has numbers, that has data, that has I guess bigger brains than you, no offense, and most of your other brothern. To me, that is a real fear and that would keep me up at night, and even we didn't mention Google but I think Google [crosstalk 00:35:19] as well. Google higher and small businesses that use G Sweep so I could go on and on but, I think ultimately, I think you guys have a good team. I like your DNA, regardless of how much of a hard time we Career Builder. I like what you guys are doing from a market to market standpoint even though the traditional logic would say otherwise. Joel: So, ultimately I think good business, I just think my hurdle in giving you an arousing applause is the marketplace and how competitive it is and the big, deep pockets that you're going to have to go up against. So, for me, it's a light applause. Carisa: My grandpa was a golfer so, it means a lot in my heart so, I'm going to take it as a win and I appreciate the good analysis. Chad: Yeah, you're lucky we didn't open up the guns. Okay. So, my turn. Carisa, I totally agree with the process must change. Recruiting takes too god damn long, there's no reason for it, right? So I love the concept, I'm hot on AI algorithms doing quick matching and delivery. I mean that's exactly where we need to be today. Not tomorrow but, today. 8% no show is ridiculously awesome. Especially for that market, 8% I would probably pit that against most of any of the other competitors that are out there, even staffing organization. Two things. One thing, obviously Joel mentioned from being a tight market to not a tight market, yes, it's validation, there's no question. But, there are big names in this market. Chad: I wouldn't worry about that as much because you are really focusing ongoing from region to region. The biggest problem that I have and this is where you were teetering on big applause and golf clap, is scalability. If you can integrate chatbots and stop doing phone screens, when you do that and you get to that spot, you come back and I will give you a big applause but, the scalability as you well know, to be able to get that moving, and to be able to scale out and scale fast, that's the big key. So, at this point, you're almost there but I'm going to give you a golf clap. Joel: You survived Carisa, congratulations. Carisa: Thanks gentlemen, I had fun and whether it's on the air or one off, let's follow-up. We'll introduce that chatbot in Q1 and I very much enjoyed my time. Thanks so much. Chad: Excellent. Joel: You bet. Well, Cinci is very close to Indi so, hopefully you can make up a trip and show us the new scaling features that you have. Carisa: There you go. Absolutely. We'll bring my CTO, he's much smarter than I. Chad: Oh, we can all have a drink. Carisa: Yeah. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Announcer: This has been the Firing Squad, be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode of and if you're a start up, who wants to face the firing squad. Contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com. #hourly #ondemand #recruiting #FiringSquad #tilr #Matching

On this NEXXT exclusive podcast, the boys interview industry icon Peter Weddle about his latest book, Circa 2118. It’s a must-read for anyone in the recruiting industry, where robotics, automation and AI are set to change things dramatically over the next 100 years. The good, the bad and the ugly are all here in this riveting interview. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Announcer: This, The Chad and Cheese Podcast, brought to you in partnership with TAtech. TAtech, the association for talent acquisition solutions, visit tatech.org. Chad: Okay, Joel. Quick question. Joel: Yep. Chad: What happens when your phone vibrates or your texting alert goes off? Joel: Dude, I pretty much check it immediately. I bet everyone listening is reaching to check their phones right now. Chad: Yeah, I know. I call it our Pavlovian dog reflex to text messaging. Joel: Yeah. That's probably why text messaging has a freaking 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: And a crazy high candidate response rate within the first hour alone. Chad: Which are all great reasons why The Chad and Cheese Podcast love Text to Hire from Nexxt. Joel: Love it. Chad: Yep. That's right. Next with the double X, not the triple X. Joel: Bom chicka bow wow. If you're in talent acquisition, you want true engagement and great ROI, that stands for return on investment, folks. And because this is The Chad and Cheese Podcast, you can try your first Text to Hire campaign for just 25% off. Boom. Chad: Wow. How do you get this discount? You're asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell them, Chad. Chad: It's very simple. You go to chadcheese.com. And you click on the Nexxt logo in the sponsor area. Joel: Easy. Chad: No long URL to remember. Just go where you know, chadcheese.com and Nexxt with two Xs. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: It's a Nexxt exclusive. Joel: Dude, I can't believe it took us this long to get Peter Weddle on the show. What were we thinking? Chad: I have no clue, dude. He's so busy. He's writing books. He has these awesome freaking conferences and stuff. Here as of late, they're even more awesome that what they used to be. Joel: Yeah. I can't imagine why you say that. Death match. Chad: Death match. Dude, on today's episode, we're talking technology, robots, takeover, and the light at the end of the dystopian tunnel. The guy responsible for all this, obviously, is Peter Weddle, author of Circa 2118. How the hell are you doing, Peter? Peter: I'm doing great, guys. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Welcome to the show. Chad: Excellent, man. Excellent. Peter: Nice to be here. I was wondering when you guys were going to get around to inviting me. Joel: Little warning if you have razor blades and nooses the home, you might want to put them away as we talk about this cheery book today. Chad: You're like Joel. You need an invitation for anything to happen. It's like, you didn't invite me. Oh, shut up. Joel: Love me, notice me. Chad: Look at me over here, diva. For everybody out there, Peter's currently CEO of TAtech, graduate of West Point. Go Army. And also did some time at Harvard, little school, unknown school. But most notably, Peter is friend of The Chad and Cheese Show. Peter: Absolutely. Chad: Provided insights to the recruiting industry for decades. Peter, the big question is: How the hell did you end up in the HR and recruiting industry? Peter: Well, way back in the 1990s, I was a partner in the Hay Group. And if you will recall, in the early '90s, it was a very entrepreneurial period, lots of new companies being started. Everybody wanted to create a unicorn. So I bought a company called Job Bank USA, which was pre web, but arguably one of the first companies to use computers to match people and jobs. And the rest is history. Chad: There you go. Wow. Today, there's an obvious feeling that we as human beings, unlike 1990, are moving toward dystopia, which is definitely clouding the future of the US when we talk about automation. I mean, it's everywhere. We just even posted a podcast today that was all about chat bots, the entire thing, 30 minutes, nothing but chat bots. But we see research specifically in this case from Forrester, which predicts that in the next three years, 900,000 current human jobs will be taken by machines. Boston Consulting predicts 23% of industrial jobs are going to be taken in less than two years. I mean, Peter, this is an ominous takeover that's being predicted. And your book, Circa 2118, tells that story. But I feel it also tells the tale of moving through dystopia to utopia. Can you give us kind of an overview before we start to get really deep into Circa 2118? Peter: Well, as you've pointed out, there is a lot going on in what I would describe as the age of automation. But it's a little bit like a riptide. It's below the surface. I think a lot of people have this inherent view that this stuff is going to happen so far in the future it won't affect them. Or it's going to happen to somebody else. It's going to be all production workers and not knowledge workers, for example. And given some of the statistics you just cited, the reality is that smart machines, super empathetic, super intelligent, super strong machines are already here. And they're increasingly taking on jobs that we humans now do. And it's going to be a challenge. The opening premise of my book is the first thing we have to do is develop situational awareness. We have to understand what the hell is happening to us so that we can figure out how to get to Circa 2118 100 years down the road. Joel: Right. Right. Peter, I'm going to get to VR headsets at some point in this interview. But before I get to that, I couldn't help in browsing the book, thinking about humans hate change, particularly change that eliminates them from the equation. And I have to think that the powers of government and/or the powers of war are going to impact the future that you've sort of laid out in your book. Give me your take on a government's role and maybe their ability to fight over resources and whatnot will impact how automation takes over in the future. Peter: Well, I think today's governments are wholly unprepared for what's about to happen. We just went through midterm elections, and to my knowledge, not a single politician on either side of the aisle talked about what's going on in the workplace right in front of them. They have constituents who are losing jobs today to smart machines, and that's only going to accelerate. When people tell me, "Well, it'll get to the point where the government will take care of it," yeah. Well, take a look at what happened in Silicon Valley. We introduced a technology called social media. And we trusted to industry to take care of its unintended consequences. And how well did that turn out? Joel: Right. Peter: I think the same thing, unless we do something differently, the same thing is likely to happen with robots and intelligent machines. Right now, there's an arms race going on in this technology, and nobody's controlling it. Chad: Peter, this is a quote from the book I thought was incredibly interesting, and I think speaks exactly to Joel's question. "The wheels of capitalism will spin even faster as we remove human friction." That's the point. There are companies that are going to make dollars much faster, margins rise, and they can report back to their boards that they're going to be making more money. And that is going to be ... And as much as the dollars that are actually greasing the wheels of politics today, can you speak to that a little bit? Peter: Well, the way that economists deal with this challenge is they say, "Well, don't worry about it. The magic of creative destruction is going to create new jobs." Look what happened with electricity. Yes, it put candle makers out of business, but we have all these new jobs. But if you look at what has happened already with this technology, just the only data we really have is on the manufacturing line where one robot put six people out of job. Every new robot introduced puts six people out of jobs. And you have a Forrester report that says, "Hey, the good news is that this technology is going to create 15 million new jobs within the next 10 years by introducing robots and smart technology." Peter: That's great, except it also says that at the very same time, it's going to eliminate 25 million jobs. And it doesn't take a super computer to figure out who came out on the best end of that deal. I call it creative displacement. Every time this technology is introduced, it will displace more people than it creates new jobs. And the number of new jobs will keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller, as you just described, as companies find new ways to automate what we humans will be able to do. And eventually, we're going to come to a zero sum game. There just won't be any jobs left for humans to do. Joel: Peter, this is one of the things I struggle with in your thesis as well, is that you need people to buy stuff. Right? Henry Ford paid his workers a living wage so they could buy his cars, or buy the cars that they were making. In this future where no one has a job, nothing gets bought or sold, what's the point? Right? I mean, what exactly is the end game if commerce can't happen because no one's making any money because there aren't any jobs? Peter: Well, I can tell that y'all didn't read past chapter four. Chad: He didn't read any of it. Peter: Look, it's not an idea original to me. You've got Bill Gates. You've got Elon Musk. You've got a whole bunch of people saying that these trends are already so ingrained that the country is going to have to think about doing something historic on the order of The Great Depression on steroids. It's going to have to think about installing a universal basic income in order to sustain, as you were saying, Joel, this consumer economy that we have. Short of that, the economy will come to a grinding halt. We'll have the greatest efficiency in capitalism ever achieved. And it won't be able to produce anything because there'll be nobody to buy anything unless we produce this universal basic income. I believe that ultimately companies are going to see the value of that. Peter: I mean, even if they're taxed, which is what I'm proposing, a human replacement tax, even if they're taxed, that tax will be less than the cost of what it takes them right now to hire workers, recruit new workers when they leave, pay all those benefits. All that stuff is incredibly expensive. The tax would be less than that, but still sustain a universal basic income. And that will enable the consumer driven economy to continue on. The other half of Joel's question though is equally as important. Peter: There will still be jobs, they will just be done by machines. And as I describe in the book, there will still be work. But for the first time in human history, you'll be able to decide what kind of work you want to do because it's work that engages you, it challenges you. You don't have to go out and do something to earn a daily living. You can go out and find work that really fulfills you. And that's one half of the premise of the new era I believe this is all going to create. It's not a dystopian future at all. I describe it as the Neonaissance, the birth of self ennoblement. Chad: Okay. Kind of gone through the whole dystopia piece. And how in the hell did we get there? That's the part that I want to go through because that's at the end of the book. There's talk about the ennoblement and what not. Let's talk about how we get there. And talk about today, because we're seeing this, the cued assistants, the Alexas, the Google Homes, the chat bots, and how that's starting to really root itself into our daily lives, and how that will turn into the prospect of enterprise automation kits. Peter: Well, I think that as you pointed out earlier, the economic impulse is to create generation after generation of ever more capable technology to do ever more of the work that we do each day, both at home and in the workplace, so that's going to go on. I think that the larger issue is: What are the cultural, societal, educational, governmental implications of all of that? And in the book, I describe the next 100 years as a really tough period. In fact, I call it the second middle ages. And I think that it's going to be tough for us to adjust because our institutions can't keep up. And there will be a lag time. And in that lag time, people are going to get hurt. People are going to unfortunately have their lives and their careers disrupted. Chad: Well, what were there, three middle ages, periods? Peter: The first middle ages had three segments. And I've tried to organize the second middle ages the same way, with three segments. Yeah. Chad: Okay. And we're in the first right now. I mean, it's already kicked off. And we're already seeing some of the things that you're talking about in the book. We're already seeing automation taking jobs. We're already seeing, we actually talked about this on last week's podcast, where an algorithm is actually taking a board seat at an organization. You see. So these are small things that are happening that will turn much quicker as we see the outcomes provide again, it's back to capitalism. If you can widen that margin, then you can make more money, then you can report back. And obviously, you see profits. That dystopia, what does that first kind of middle ages look like? Because that to me is more of a dystopian view, but it's part of the journey that we have to go through to be able to get to that end point. Peter: Well, I think that if you look at your newsfeed today, you'll see that there are instances where people find themselves out of work because they have been replaced by machines. There are many examples in the book. One, for example, was the US Open this year, where the highlights for the tennis tournament, the journalism that was produced, was produced by IBM Watson, was produced by a machine, not by a journalist. All of that will sort of be interesting. It won't really touch a lot of people's lives, but they'll be aware of it. Peter: In the second phase of the middle ages, that's going to dramatically increase for a single reason. And that is because we will have reached the singularity. And the singularity is that point in time where machines finally and forever become more intelligent than humans. And peer research got together some of the leading futurists and academicians and research scientists in the country, and asked them to predict when that would happen. And the median estimate was 2040. So within two decades, we're going to remove the human friction of human intelligence, human limitations, and machines will start creating machines on their own. And that will dramatically accelerate this movement of technology into our lives. Peter: And then as I've said earlier, we're going to be stuck with institutions, both governmental, academic, and societal, which are going to be wholly unprepared to support people in the face of all these changes. And the rest of the hundred years is going to be a struggle to get those institutions to catch up. And I spend a whole chapter at the end of the book talking about what we as individuals can do to make sure that we individually and our institutions are as prepared as possible to help us get through the next 100 years and get to this better place that I describe at the end of that book. Joel: Billions of people on this planet live on $2 a day. And you talk about the struggles that the first world is going to have with unemployment and displacement. Talk about what the third world is going to go through in all these changes in the new reality. Peter: I'm going to do something that a politician would never do, and say, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. My book was focused on what I think will happen in this country, what I think will happen after it happens here, because we are the leading and most developed economy on the planet, what will then happen in Europe, another developed economy. The third world, I think it's going to be even more horrendous. But the short answer is, I honestly don't know. Chad: Tell us about byte-collared workers. You come up with this really ... Instead of white collar, blue collar, it's a byte-collar worker. What is a byte-collar worker? And what does that actually mean to our workforce? Peter: Well, a byte-collar worker can be as rudimentary, if you will, in the greater scheme of the development of this technology as a chat bot. It is somebody who does some of the work of a job in the workplace. It could be the technology in a driverless car. But eventually, it will be humanoids. It will be lookalike machines. Hollywood has created this fantasy about all of these machines being harmful to humans. I think there's an equal probability that they can be helpful to people. Peter: You've got for example, even in today's paper, a report of a company in France, a company that cares for the elderly, using a robot to help care for elderly people in places where there just aren't enough humans to go around. And people are actually becoming attached to this machine in a way that demonstrates that these machines can be empathetic. They can have the kinds of emotional ties that we think are unique to humans. Joel: I'm curious about two institutions here in this country and around the world that obviously are important. And curious how you think automation will impact them. First off, the defense infrastructure and maybe the business of warfare. What does that look like? And also, what does education look like? Is it progressively taken over by corporations? Talk about those two items. Peter: I think one of the biggest issue that we will face, equal to the challenge that we face with the change in climate, is controlling this technology in national defense and military affairs. I worry that this technology will be used in weapons in a way where we lose control just as we have with nuclear technology and at Three Mile Island, we've lost control, or Fukushima. These are imperfect fail safe systems. And the damage is bad enough with nuclear energy. Think about how bad it could be if we let this automated and intelligent machinery get out of control. I think that we are going to have to, within our own country, and then globally, have to develop systems, standards, safeguards, protocols, treaties, call them what you will, that will ensure that this stuff doesn't get out of control, and in an optimum sense, doesn't get into weaponry at all. Joel: And education? Peter: Education, I have a whole section in the book because education has been the central driver for much of what this society looks like today. And I believe that ultimately, education, like every other profession, is going to be automated. But the substance of that education is going to be dramatically different. There will be an entirely new set of degrees. There will be an entirely new set of majors. And it will all be around teaching people how to interact with, how to control, how to work with this technology in the course of their lives. Chad: Don't you feel like we're at a tipping point with many of these jobs? We talk about autonomous vehicles. And we can't find enough drivers to actually drive semi trucks over the road. We can't find enough individuals who want to go into the United States military, and/or they don't qualify medically to be able to go into the United States military, so our ranks are lower than what we would like them to be. These are all opportunities to be able to do exactly what you're talking about, infuse technology and automation, and actually take these jobs. Is that what you're saying? Is that really at that tipping point? Do you believe that's why it's starting to happen right now in such a robust way? Peter: Yeah. I think the war for talent is over, and machines won. I mean, these strategies, excuse me, these shortages are propelling companies into the adoption of this technology. Part of the fictional part of the book, I talk about the 2017 tax cut and jobs act. And I believe that that tax savings that these companies were given will in very short order be turned into investments in automation because right now, there are more open jobs than there are job seekers. And that's going to get worse, not better. Why would a company spend time developing new jobs for humans when they can't find the humans to fill them? Instead, they're going to take that money and invest it in machines to fill those jobs. Chad: Not to mention if you have the opportunity to use that money to buy back stock, not to mention also to be able to create or to be able to bridge the gap that is obviously there from a human talent standpoint. You know long-term that there is a better margin no matter what. It's just a great opportunity to do it now as it is. In the book, you predict that some will deny this is even happening whatsoever. And I see you running a parallel with kind of like the climate change deniers. Kind of like, no, it's not happening. We're creating jobs. It's all good. Everybody go back to what you were doing. Do you feel that? Peter: Sure. And there is some justification for it because this technology has for many years been over hyped. It's been captured by huskers and hucksters and been falsely described as being a part of every product. If you go to some conferences today, walk through the exhibit hall, every single product is described as having AI machine learning in it. And in point of fact, many don't. But that doesn't change the fact that this technology is every single day growing more capable, more able to take on jobs. And I do think we've reached a tipping point where there is enough reality that people can no longer ignore it. Joel: For those of us with small children, Peter, what sort of parenting advice would you give to make sure that kids are prepared for this future, and they're not living in the basement for the rest of their lives? Peter: One of the things that I propose in the book as part of the change in government that we need is a truth in education act, just as we have a truth in food products, and we require food products to be labeled as to what they contain. I believe that higher education must be forced to describe what the prognosis is for all of the majors they have offered to their students, so that we don't send a bunch of kids to school for subjects that will put them in the fields that will be obsolete three years after they graduate. We have that happening right now. And I think that the educational community needs to do a much better job of being transparent about what can be utilized in the world of work and what can't. Peter: That doesn't mean a person can't take a course if they want to. They just need to be aware of what's happening to them. And then I believe for young kids today, and even for older kids, if you're going to be able to work with machines, you have to have a grounding in STEM. And that's whether you wear a blue collar, no collar, or a white collar. You have to be conversant with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Chad: In the book, we all know the first middle ages had plagues. In the book, you talk about plagues that are actually going to be happening in our middle ages. Right? But these are plagues that are much different than what happened before in Europe. Tell us about those plagues, and tell us how you actually see some of the current events really kind of driving the whole thought process behind them. Peter: Well, I think that as with the original black plague, there are actually three plagues that are taking place and will take place over the next 100 years. One I describe as the oligarchical plague. And this is the reality that we have a growing cabal of oligarchs in this country, people who are so wealthy and have so much money that they literally influence the course of our government, the course of our business affairs, and pervert in many cases the way businesses are run, particularly the investment cabal on Wall Street, so that's one. Peter: The second is a betrayal plague. And this is a political governmental class that is captained by the K Street lobbyists in Washington DC. And rogue elements of our law enforcement and entertainment and government and public institutions that are abusing and debasing women or minorities and the powerless. And finally, the factional plague, which is all about the ongoing conflicts between people in religions and white supremacists and immigrants and people who are straight and people who are members of the LGBTQ community and so forth. I think there's a lot of societal rot, if you will, in the country. And we're going to have to overcome those three plagues in order to get ourselves healthy enough to solve the challenge imposed by this technology. Joel: Do you think that in the end, this is, I hate to say communism wins, but the future you're sort of outlining, painting, sounds a lot like communism. Am I off base there? And if so, what happens to religion and nation states in the future? Peter: That's a fair question. And in fact, I address it in the book. It is not communism. The profit, motive, and the private sector remain alive and well in this new vision, this Neonaissance that I describe. What is different are the individual pathways that people have to fulfillment and to tranquility, things that they've had precious little time to work on in the past because they were committed to paid employment. The only way that they could keep food on the table and a roof over their head was to go to work for somebody else. Peter: Well, if you believe that we will get to the point, we will get smart enough that we will recognize that a consumer economy needs people who have the money to consume, and we solve that problem, if we get to that point then we will be able to free people up. It's almost like a real emancipation in the sense that they will finally have the time. They will finally have the support. But most importantly, they will have the reason to begin to focus on these things which ennoble them. And it's that nobility, that unique aspect to access to fulfillment and to tranquility which ensure that human beings will remain a superior creation on the planet. Machines may be smarter than humans as early as 2040, but they will never be able to aspire to that nobility that human beings have access to. Chad: As we talked about before, rich people are obviously going to start to understand that, yeah, all the margins are great. But the product and services, people need to buy it. And if we get rid of the humans, then we're not paying people. If we're not paying people, then people can't buy stuff. And then guess what, we're creating all these products and services that really go nowhere because nobody has money to buy it. So when would universal or basic income actually kick in? And what would actually push that? That would obviously be a political government necessity. But how far do we get down the rabbit hole before something like that happens? Peter: Well, I think tragically, we will go pretty far down the rabbit hole before there will be enough incentive for the federal government and our other institutions to make the changes necessary. I hope that's not the case. But again, using newsfeed realism, extrapolating from what we already know is real into a fictional future, I think that the next 100 years looks like today's reality on steroids. So the same kind of inertia that we see in Washington DC right now will exist until we get to the point where the crisis is so great ... I mean, there are analogs here. We know historically that the situation got so bad in The Great Depression that there were literally riots in the street. People in Congress actually feared that there was going to be a revolution by people who were out of work. Peter: Well, sadly I think the if you extrapolate from that reality in the future, we will, unless somehow we get smarter and more aware of what's about to happen, we will go through some of that pain before we will get to a resolution. This book, you described it in the beginning as dystopian. I believe it's optimistic because in the end, I believe we will turn the corner. We will find a way out of this very dark time, these middle ages, and create the kind of future that people deserve. Chad: And I believe the book, it's really the journey to utopia. But you go through a dystopian era, pretty much, to get to utopia. That being said, let's talk about that. You talk about nobility and robots. I mean, really, in this case they become ... They're really the infrastructure which makes everything else happen while we sit back. And we get to focus on not work. The only work that we have to do is what we want to do. We have a basic income. So talk about that, and then talk about the levels of society. Obviously, you're still going to have the ultra rich. But are there several layers beyond that? How does that actually play out? Peter: Well, thanks to the universal basic income, I believe that we will have a largely classless society. Now before people jump off buildings and scream communism or socialism, I'm not suggesting that is all. I believe that the largest class will be a middle class, but it will be so large that I believe it will be renamed the omni class. It will cover all people except the very, very rich, a .1/10th of a percent of the population. But everybody else, thanks to the universal basic income, will have a reasonably what used to be described as a middle class standard of living. The difference is that instead of working for themselves, as we describe free agents today, they will be able to work on themselves. And what that means basically is that there are two things that differentiate people, and in my view will always make them superior to machines. Peter: And that is, A, they have a life. They can feel passion. They can be in love with a certain kind of occupation and be fulfilled by applying it in what they believe is meaningful endeavors. And secondly, they have a soul. Pugh did a research and found that over 80% of all Americans describe themselves as spiritual. Those are questions that machines will never understand, those big questions of where we come from and where we're going and how we relate to the cosmos. And answering those kinds of questions, or exploring them at least, is what provides people with tranquility. And those two outcomes, fulfillment and tranquility, I believe are what exalt the human spirit. They are what make us unique. I describe it as ennoblement. The difference being that I a democratic society, we're not going to be ennobled by somebody wearing a crown. But instead, we are going to be able to ennoble ourselves. Joel: And let's end the interview right there, Peter. That's a great sort of encapsulation of the book. We appreciate your time. We know you're a busy guy. Look, for those listening, if they want to read the book or learn more, where should they go? Peter: They can find it on amazon.com or the TAtech book store. Joel: Yep. And gain, that's Circa 2118. Peter, we appreciate it, man. Hope you come back and visit us again. And if nothing else, we'll see you at the next TAtech show. Peter: I look forward to it, guys. Thanks. Chad: Thanks. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi. This is Stella. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad Podcast, at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes, that silly Android thingy, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on monster.com. We out. Chad: Okay, okay, okay, okay. Before we go, remember when I asked you about the whole reflex and check your text messages thing. Joel: Yeah. You know all about reflexes. And then I brilliantly tied it to text messages 97% open rate. Then I elegantly, elegantly tied it to a better experience for your candidates. Don't laugh, Chad. I can be elegant. Can't I? Chad: Whatever, man. I know it's redundant. You already heard about Text to Hire. But you're still not using Text to Hire from Nexxt. Joel: What? Chad: I know, man. Joel: Come on, man. Chad: Since advertising takes repetition to soak in, I just thought I'd remind you again. This is all by elegant design. It's all about Text to Hire, and it's all about Nexxt. Joel: And elegant design. So go to chadcheese.com. Click on the Nexxt logo, and get 25, yeah I said 25% off your first Text to Hire campaign. Chad: Woo. Joel: Engage better. Use Text to Hire from Nexxt, two Xs. Chad: Boo yah. Thanks to our partners at TAtech, the association for talent acquisition solutions. Remember to visit tatech.org. #Automation #Robots #Dystopia #Workforce #Education #Economy #TAtech #Nexxt

HAPPY HOLIDAY PEOPLE! This week on HR's Most Dangerous Podcast... - Ireland puts LinkedIn on the naughty list - Indeed EXIT PLANS are on everybody's wish list - Careerbuilder gifts us a new commercial, which cannot be returned - Google for Jobs unwraps it's newest roll-out in Japan - Jobable gives Joel a VR headset present and your employees want to party all the time, Eddie Murphy-style. Enjoy and be sure to leave sponsors JobAdX, Sovren and Canvas milk-and-cookies this year. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You’re listening to HR’s 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. It’s time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: I have nothing at all witty to say for the opening of this week's podcast. So, welcome to The Chad and Cheese Podcast coming at you from recruiting's underbelly. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, LinkedIn's been very naughty. Google for Jobs says Konichiwa Bitches, and we run down the top holiday perks employees are begging for this season. Spoiler alert, partying is number one. Shocking, Huh? Chad: Party. Joel: Eggnog corporate America will be right back after this word from JobADX. JobAdX: As the best ad tool in the industry, JobADX has been providing job board publishers direct employers, agencies, RPOs, and staffing firms dynamic job bidding in real time ad delivery through our programmatic job advertising exchange. When we started, we described JobADX as AdSense for jobs. JobAdX: Now, we offer much more with switchboard in live alert, completing our full suite of dynamic programmatic advertising tools with the best of consumer ad tech. Switchboard offers our dynamic technologies to all partner job board feed management, and live alert eliminates latency and expire job ads via email. JobAdX: For more information about any of our ad solutions, please reach out to us at joinus@jobadx.com. That's, join us at jobadx.com. JobADX, the best ad tool providing smarter programmatic for all your advertising needs. Joel: I still love our intro. Is that wrong? Chad: No, no. You should love our intro. Joel: One of the best things you've ever done. Shout-outs. Chad: Yes. We do have a few shout-outs. Right out of the gates, I would like to thank our friend Steven Rothberg for illustrating the exact reason I had a problem differentiating between two lovely redheads. Chad: So, thanks to Louise and Faith for being so understanding. But, yeah, last week Joel pointed out my faux pas that I had on LinkedIn. Louise actually had a post out there talking about the Chad and Cheese pod, and I thanked Faith instead. I was on my mobile phone. The pictures are much smaller, and they're both very good looking redheads, so there you go. Joel: Remind me never to take marital advice from Steven Rothberg even after he’s been married forever. I know that if I compared my wife to another woman, I would not probably fare very well doing that. So, Steven, you're a bigger man, braver man than I, and you're married is obviously stronger than anyone else that I know Chad: Amen. Joel: Moonlighting in the news, and shout-outs. He talked to Dr. Jeff Garcia, who by the way, if you haven't listened to the interview that we did with him a while back about Crypto, I encourage you to do so, they partnered with Nextdoor. Joel: Most of you who live in suburban America know this site because all your neighbors are gossiping about everything in your neighborhood, and they're powering the small business advertising segment. They’re Nextdoor. So, congratulations to Moonlighting, who keeps chugging along. Chad: Very nice. From business to beer. I actually received more craft beer in the mail. So, thanks, again, to our listeners for sending me craft beer. I appreciate it. And we'll enjoy it. Joel: And you're still not disclosing who's sending you this beer. Chad: I'm going to go a little bit deeper into it. I didn't want to try to make myself look good or anything. But here's the thing, is that I'm in consulting, this person's in consulting. A big job came my way. I didn't want it. So what I did was I actually referred this person, pulled them in, they got it. They're incredibly happy. Chad: This is the reason why I'm getting beer. They’re a big listener, but they also wanted to say, “Thank you,” for me pushing business their way. So, I didn't want to go that deep into it. But since you keep fricking prodding me, there you have it. Joel: Well, we can't be nontransparent with our listeners. If we're going to call people out for it … So, this is great. So this is just some sales shit. Sales guys patting each other on the back, doing favors, right? That’s cool. I’m fine with that. Speaking of salespeople, I got to shout-out to Regi Davis. I think Regi or shark or something. Regi works at Pushnami. Regi exemplified to me some of the worst in sales this week. Chad: Really? Joel: I hate when this happens. So, a salesperson connects with you on LinkedIn. Fairly harmless, maybe loosely tied to the industry or … I do some marketing stuff, as well. I'm connected to marketing folks. Joel: So anyway, literally after connecting, I get a pitch, multiple sales pitches through messenger on LinkedIn, email, because now she has my email address, etc. It just really pisses me off, and I just wish more salespeople would realize, don't try to fuck me on the first date. Like, buy me a drink, tell me a story, like one of my shares- Chad: Court me. Joel: Comment on some stuff. Introduce yourself to me in some way and not just try to get in my pants the first hour that we connect on LinkedIn. I'm sure she's a perfectly fine human being, but for salespeople doing that, take note that a lot of people don't like it, including me. Chad: And there's another salesperson. There've been plenty of salespeople that are sending these too long, didn't read types of messages, which are just fucking horrible dude. But somebody sent me a video from Success Training Institute, simplysuccess.com. Chad: So, I'm giving everybody this so they can understand this turned me off from the standpoint of I just connected, I got a too long, didn't read type of message, which I didn't read, and then they sent me a video. This video was one of the worst videos I've ever seen in my life. From a marketing standpoint, I will never be using Simply Success or will I advocate or push a client their way. Joel: What was the video? Chad: It was two guys who were fake fighting, and they were fighting for your sales or something like that. It was horrible. It was pathetic. Joel: Some basic, standard, cheesy sales they get. Chad: It’s ridiculous. And last but not least, I actually took about 10 minutes one day to help a salesperson do a better job of meaningful outreach because it was so pathetic. I reached out to her and said, “Look, I didn't connect with you for you to sell me shit, although what you can do is you can start to cut and copyright your messages and start to be more meaningful about your outreach.” And we kind of went back and forth and then she tried to sell me and I was like, “Yeah, I don't need that. Have a nice day.” Joel: I would push our listeners to this guy named Gary Vaynerchuk, who most of our audience probably has heard of, who's a big advocate of getting to know you before asking for stuff. I think he wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Punch. I believe it articulated that. And he goes so far as looking at people's social media accounts, what they like on Twitter, and then connecting with them on something they like, like maybe sports or maybe whatever. Joel: So, take heed, salespeople, I know you're under a lot of pressure, but you're just not doing yourself any favors with this blasting of stuff on LinkedIn and everywhere else. I've got a shout-out to Alyssa Banks in Chicago, works for Wonderlic, friends of the show. She's a big, big fan, and I just wanted to say, Alyssa, thanks for listening. We appreciate it. Chad: Big shout-out, probably the guy who gets the most shout-outs other than maybe the job board doctor, Ed from frilly tweets, and I was correct, by the way, he would have had an aneurysm if the Eagles didn't beat the Giants, number one, and Cheesman, nobody cares about your fantasy football team. That was hurtful and funny. All in one tweet, Ed, thanks so much. Joel: I care about my fantasy team. So, fuck off, Ed. You’re just an angry Eagles fan because they suck it this year. Chad: It's the city of brotherly love, man. Come on. Joel: We failed to make another top 100 HR influencers list, so shout-out to whoever the hell produce that list. Chad: First off, I've never heard of this group in my life, and I love the groups who try to assemble these influencer groups just so that they can get their redistribution, right? So it's like, “Oh, look, they put my name on it, so now I'm going to put it into my distribution on twitter or whatever it is.” Never heard of this company before. If they put me in their top 100 list or 500 list, I wouldn't give a fuck because who are they in the first place? Joel: This is a total marketing thing. Let's put 100 bloggers on the list and hope that they blog out, “Hey, I made the 100 list.” There used to be a link bait thing, I don't know if you remember this, but companies used to send badges to bloggers saying that they were on the top 100 influencers or whatever it was, and then bloggers would put this badge on their blog and then that would be a backlink for SEO purposes and yada, yada, yada. People don’t blog as much anymore, and they don't do that as much anymore as they used to. Joel: So now, it's like, let's just go to buzz, whatever, and get a list of top recruiting HR bloggers, and then put out a blog post, and then tag them on our tweets, and then hope that they spread the word and get our company up. It's a pretty good strategy because it works. People are suckers for, “Yeah, I'm important,” me included. But yeah, they should've put us on the list because we are incredibly influential. Chad: If it's from a reputable organization that you've heard of before, it's like, “Oh, man, that's cool.” But I looked at this and I'm like, “Who gives a fuck?” Joel: We're still ready for the ZipRecruiter top 100 influencers list. Chad: All right. Continuing on, I've got a couple of quick shout-outs. Adam Godson, who was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. Awesome. Adam, we just did an interview with him. I think it was last month, one of our badass interviews, where we talked about automation, talk about nothing but technology. Chad: And he was quoted in this Wall Street Journal article talking specifically about that. And then Aida Fazylova, our favorite Russian from XOR, firing squad alumni, wrote a great article in entrepreneur magazines. So, a couple of Chad and Cheese alongs getting some love out there. Pretty awesome. Joel: Awesome. Let's get to the show. You've got some insider baseball. You and I have been around a while. We all have friends in the industry. None of them want to have their name attached to any of the information that they give us. But you had a lengthy conversation and want to share some of the insight that you got recently from a industry insider. Chad: It was more than one. I mean, since we've been talking about these Indeed industry policy updates, I've had plenty of people actually reach out to me and want to talk. So, this is kind of like a mish-mosh of all the different conversations that we've had. Chad: So I tried to make this as easy to get as possible, so stick with me. So we're going to give a little background on the Indeed staffing policy. If you need more background, listen to our earlier podcasts. First, all jobs from staffing companies will be pulled from Indeed's organic in January, citing search quality. Chad: Yeah. Everybody knows that's bullshit, and Indeed should've been straight with staffing companies and really said right out of the gate, “He, look, you've ridden on the free bus long enough. It’s our new model to charge you, and don't bullshit us. Don't bullshit.” And that's exactly what they did. They were bullshitting them. Chad: Only paid jobs by staffing companies will be displayed, and that kind of a kind of gave you an idea. It was like, “Hey, your jobs aren't good enough. They’re bad search quality, although if you pay us, we'll go ahead and we'll put those in the paid section.” Joel: And Indeed defends, they’re going to make a butt load of money. Chad: In my personal thoughts on this, Indeed saw an opportunity years ago to use this leverage to ring more cash out of staffing companies, and some of these companies I talked to paid two to three to five times more. So, yeah, I think it's one of those things where it's a short-term asshole move, no question, but they got more money out of it. Chad: So, to all staffing companies, last but not least, if this move surprised you, you haven't been paying attention. And remember, it was free advertising in the first place. Joel: Formulate that exit strategy. Chad: Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, is that most of the companies that I talked to and the ones that didn't have an exit strategy beforehand re really focusing on it now. So several of the companies that I talked to are actually planning to first step away from Indeed PPC. Chad: They've seen the writing on the wall, they've tested, they've scaled other vendors, and as a matter of fact, a couple of direct employers I spoke with are actually pulling together a group so that group of employers can share best practices on how to more effectively get the fuck away from Indeed. Joel: And have you come around to Indeed becoming more of an active player in staffing? Chad: A couple of the people that I talked to said there's really no evidence other than that's what they feel like they have all the parts to jump into staffing. I had a couple of really deep conversations about it and said, “Hey, look, CareerBuilder tried it, Monsters tried it, still trying it, right?” But they can't crack into it because, if you take a look at CareerBuilder, and we'll talk about them a little bit later, but if you take a look at CareerBuilder, they're doing so much. And they don't do anything incredibly well other than maybe background check shit. I don't know. Joel: They're really good at giving us content for the podcast. Chad: Oh, that's good. Yeah. They're good for the El Chappers of the world. But really, at the end of the day, this comes down to companies are just extremely frustrated, and they're looking for an exit strategy. Joel: I just find echoes of people wanting to bounce out of Monster and CareerBuilder ten years ago. Chad: That was actually said several occasions. Joel: Yeah. And the funny thing is Indeed was the exit strategy, ten years ago. Now, everyone's trying to exit out of Indeed. Chad: Yep, yep. So then we start talking about talent networks. So, that's the next policy. And again, listen to our earlier pods. We go deep into this. So if you're using a platform to collect data before the candidate hits the applicant tracking system, Indeed calls that a talent network, and they could yank your jobs from Indeed. Chad: So, the first thing, every single customer I talked to was pissed off about this. My most important question was, so how does this make you feel, seriously? And pretty much all said the same thing. Who the hell is Indeed to tell us, who are paying customers, how to do business and what types of platforms to use? I mean, high frustration from everybody I spoke with. Chad: So, seeing all these different moves from Indeed, I think, really pumped up the search quality or frustration for an exit strategy. And that was parapraxis there because I'm getting ready to talk about the ex-googlers who are leading the search quality team. And so, it seems as if these individuals, for the talent network piece, had no clue what problem they were actually solving for candidates or clients. The only problem they cared about was an Indeed problem. Chad: So, they weren't looking for about the ramifications for candidates and customers, they were only trying to do something that was focused on search quality and they didn't give a shit about downstream. Joel: How do you think those year-end customer touch base calls are going on Indeed this year? Chad: I know how they're going. They don't care. They don't care. Literally, it's almost like, “We're Indeed, this is what it is.” I mean, companies are coming in who spent millions of dollars with Indeed over the years and they're being treated like they just stepped in off the street and they've never met them before. Joel: We're doomed to repeat the history that we forget. Chad: Yep. Yep. So other comments about other companies, Zip was working better than most at this point. Zip was actually one of the big cogs in most of the exit strategies. Conversations with product people were incredibly exciting. AI focused tons of cash being spent. I mean, there's just momentum happening right now. And the biggest thing is they treat customers right. Everybody that I talked to who’s using Zip says they're treating customers right. Joel: That’s great. By the way, there's a little tease. There’s some big news coming out of ZipRecruiter next week, but I'm sure we'll be talking about on next week's show. But if you read my stuff ere.net, I should have something over there next week if you want to jump the gun, but get our opinion on the podcast. Chad: Last but not least, it seems as if CareerBuilder is working fine. People are actually … They're like, you know … Joel: These are our customers saying this? Chad: Yeah. It’s like, we're getting really good ROI. But CareerBuilder's raising prices without upgrading product, which is not on par with the rest of the industry. So, it's like a stale product, but they're trying to ask more from it. And the ROI that they're saying doesn't justify any type of raising of prices. Chad: So that's kind of normal, end of year, let's see if we can get money out of them. But I think what CareerBuilder is trying to do is they're trying to push people to background check and those types of things. The new CEO, from what I've been told, is actually diverted most of the R&D dollars to the background check product. Chad: The R&D engineers are pretty much gone for the most part. Most customers are like, “What are they actually selling over there? What are they doing over there?” Joel: And background checks aren't exactly the most profitable business, but they do have a background check company that they can pimp. Chad: More exciting. Joel: It's fine that you mentioned CareerBuilder. I don’t know if you’re ready to jump to their new app or not, but they’re alive. They’ve sort of been dead for a while and they’ve laid off people, and had a new CEO, and bought El Chapo and all this stuff. But they're finally like, things are coming back to life. And they have a new ad, which we actually have the audio from, if you'd like to take a lesson and then we can comment either during the ad and/or after the ad, or both, or however we want to do that. Chad: Let's do both. Let’s do it. Joel: All right. CareerBuilder's new ad in three, two. Porn music. CB ADVERT: I was working the same job for a few years. I had a degree and some experience, but no career. CB ADVERT: I came to career builder because it's a purpose-driven company. I wanted to change how people think about work. My team spent a lot of time and money posting jobs. We would get a flood of resumes, but finding the right person was nearly impossible. My budget has to stretch, but my time can't. CB ADVERT: I was ready to make my mark, but I didn't know how. CB ADVERT: Using technology to solve problems, that's my job. And I was tired of using 12 vendors. Then I learned that career builder has everything, data to help us plan, [crosstalk 00:20:43]a single source candidates, marketing tools to engage them, and the fastest back on screening on the market. So we made the switch. Chad: There it is. CB ADVERT: I opened the career builder app and found an awesome job. It even built a resume for me with skills I didn't know I had. I applied with attack. CB ADVERT: It isn't what we do, it's what we do for people. Now, we get the right person faster. It's not just efficient, it's smart. We're making work, work better. CB ADVERT: And I start on Monday. CareerBuilder, Work can Work. Joel: Clever. Chad: I've seen, not this commercial, but a version of this commercial on MSNBC a few times. And word from CareerBuilder is that, they're just getting started. So there's going to be more of this happening in January. The ad itself, I think , it's kind of sterile, it's kind of blunt, but they are pushing more of their solution set per se. So, that's interesting. Joel: Yep. So I have a few takeaways. It's interesting that they would combine three different demos in one ad. So, you have the job seeker, who, apparently, is an actual CareerBuilder user, although he sounds very, not like actual person. He sounds very scripted. Joel: To me, the best was the actual employee. Sarah, Amanda, I forget her name, she comes off as very good. I think, in the ad, the comic relief in this ad for me is they have an actor playing an HR person and the actual ad has a disclaimer at the bottom saying, “This is not an actual HR person or this is not an actual customer,” but it's something that a customer would say, which to me is, could you really not get an actual employer to come on the add to talk about their experience. Joel: So, to me, that was kind of funny. The actor was very funny that they did that. And then, yeah, pushing, they do everything. They’re trying to be an end to end platform. We're going to take on Google, LinkedIn, and all the other big platforms. So, we'll see. Joel: I didn't get much out of the ad outside of the person actually works at CareerBuilder sounds like they’re with it. The job seeker was, I could take that or leave it, and then the HR person, that was totally hilarious because it was an actor, and they told you it was an actor. Chad: If our customers loved us, they'd say this. Joel: Well, yeah. I mean, there are plenty word data's ads where you know they're not HR people but they're talking about HR stuff and like we failed. So, it's just kinda funny. If you're going to do that, just get a real customer, like you’re CareerBuilder. You have tons of customers, right? Get one of them and the company people know and put them on the ad. Chad: Yeah. And I don't want to hear that you couldn't find one because of all the legal bullshit, blah, blah blah. Joel: It's total bullshit. And how many companies wouldn't love to have their name on a national ad campaign and have somebody actual at the company. Anyway, but yeah, CareerBuilder’s alive. Hopefully, we'll see more of them because we love talking about them in the new year. That's all I got from the ad. You got anything else? Chad: No. We'll see what they have. If they go from end to end and then they continue to try the end to end play, that's wonderful. But the only problem with that is that they're not going to do anything incredibly well. Joel: I didn't love that the job secret talks about mobile and didn't talk about the augmented reality feature. I found my job on my mobile phone. I just pointed downtown and found jobs. Anyway … Chad: I was walking downtown and I-. Joel: If you go to their YouTube channel, there's a minute and a half video of just the mobile, and it talks about the augmented reality stuff, which is amusing, to say the least. Chad: It's a waste. Joel: Let's talk about one of our favorite companies, and sponsor of the show, Canvas. Let's hear a word from them, and we'll talk about Google for Jobs on LinkedIn. Chad: Do it. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvas spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Canvas: Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: Can't imagine a company right now, and if you are one of those listening, smack yourself, who is not using some type of messaging, it's not just something that you have to do now. It's something that's going to be a part of your process and flow for the rest of pretty much your career, period. Joel: Grand predictions, which by the way, if you haven’t read Circa 2118 by Peter Weddle, make sure you pick that up at Amazon. We did An interview with him this week. That's coming out soon. Well, Chad, if you want to make a statement with your neighbor, take your dog to take a dump in their backyard. Joel: To me, the news that Google for Jobs has launched in Japan, had some sort of similarities to that in that Indeed's parent company Recruit Holdings is headquartered in Japan. So, what better way to make a statement to your competition than to open up shop in the home country of your owning company? Chad: Oh, yeah. Now, that's legit. And I think the irony, there's two pieces of irony here. First and foremost, you telling people to pick the book up, Circa 2118 and read it, that's irony. And then also, obviously, Google for Jobs getting into this in Japan, and given Recruit Holding’s a big fuck you. Joel: Yeah, thanks for the call out there. Can I get a mini-side rant real quick? I hate my internet brain. You and I have been on the internet roughly half of our lives, and I cannot focus and just slow down and read like I used to. Joel: I don't know if you're the same way or others are out there or something, but I find the internet has screwed my brain up, and I don't think I'll ever get it back. So, anyway, back to the show. Google for Jobs is in Japan now. They're doing a little bit differently. They're not partnering with recruitment sites or job boards like they are in other countries. They're collaborating with Japan's number one applicant tracking system, a company called HR Solutions, I guess. Joel: So, Japan is kind of weird, right? I'm not an expert on the country and recruiting, but I know that it's much different than the rest of the world. So Google for Jobs had to accommodate the cultural needs of that country to sort of launch the business, which says to me it's a lot tougher to launch in Japan. So, good for them on taking the extra effort to launch in that country. Chad: Yeah. I'm not sure from a regulation standpoint and also antitrust what they have to deal with. I mean, it took a while to be able to get up and running in the UK, just from an antitrust standpoint. They needed to think about that here in the US, you know, becoming a “monopoly” and pushing all the job boards out. Chad: So, including the job boards in Google for Jobs as part of the process, it's almost like a deathmatch on Google for Jobs, who has a better experience, who doesn't have drop off rates, those types of things. Chad: So, they're actually pushing, I think, our industry here in the US to do better from a job site standpoint, but in Japan, they might not have to deal with that. I'm not really sure. So they're just going direct to the original content because it's all in the applicant tracking system. So, there you have it. Joel: I think it's also significant because Japan is, I'm pretty sure, still a top five economy in the world, so it puts them in a very active economy, where there a lot of money to be made, a lot of things that are happening. Chad: GDP wise, top 10 and- Joel: Is it five or 10? I’m pretty sure it’s five. Chad: Oh, yeah, might be top five. I just know it stopped in for a fact that I'm just not sure if it's top five. And I think it sends a signal to the Recruit Holdings of the world to the just that they're going to be everywhere. And this isn't going to be a surprise to Indeed or Recruit Holdings, or anything like that. Chad: But I do like how they are doing business differently in Japan. I'm going to have to do a little bit more research on that to see why, because I would assume Japan has job boards too. So, why not also partner with them? Maybe they will. Who knows? Joel: Well, the easy thing to do would have been to be like, “hey, it’s different. You know, it’s not in our template, it’s not how we scale, so let’s just not deal with your pain right now.” The fact that they did the extra mile or made concessions because of the market says that they continue to be very serious about employment and making big waves in this industry. Chad: Yeah. But that's actually easier. If you're going directly to applicant tracking systems, you have less to actually index. You get feeds directly from an ATS, who represents … I mean the original content for hundreds of thousands of companies, and it makes it easier. Chad: So, you don't have to take more feeds from all of these different vendors, you take less feeds you know that it's original content. So, I don't know. Again, I have to do a little bit more research on the Japan side listeners. If you're out there and you know more, frickin ping us, man. We’d love to hear it. Joel: Any experts in the Japanese market hit us up at chadcheese.com. Going on to another mega company in our space, LinkedIn has been bad. What they’d do to- Chad: Ireland’s data protection commission, they had complaints, and they conducted and concluded an investigation of Microsoft owns LinkedIn, originally prompting a complaint in 2017 where LinkedIn's practices regarding people who were not members of the social network. Chad: So what they were doing is 18 million emails addresses of individuals who are not LinkedIn members, they targeted them. So, from our standpoint, that's pretty common practice, right? Joel: Yeah. For those that don't know, you can, on companies or platforms like Facebook, you can go in and plug-in email addresses of your customers, for example, and submit ads and they'll still see ads from your company. However, how did they get those emails, I think, is in question. Chad: Yeah, and it's pretty ironic because we don't know where they got the emails, first and foremost. They probably bought them from somebody and then they matched them up against their database, the database that they don't want anybody having access to. Chad: They don't want companies coming in and playing off their data because they want to focus on data privacy for their users. Although, they want to be able to flip the script and do business pretty much the same way everybody else is and not abide by those data protection laws. So, this is against GDPR, and they got slapped on the wrist by it. They were lucky they were caught before everything really went into enforcement. Joel: Yeah. And to their credit, they did take out the emails or did whatever with them. They're not continuing to run that campaign. Now, the irony in all this is how protective LinkedIn is of their profiles and not letting other people access profile data and they're super wigged out by that and the high Q case, etc. So, the fact that they got pinched for this is ironic and humorous, to say the least. Chad: It's definitely funny. This is what happens. And you think of the whole, yeah, they made concessions. It's because they were caught. That's why they're making concessions, and they were really just in the asking for forgiveness instead of permission mode. Joel: Yeah. Pretty much every business in our industry is going to be affected by privacy laws and things like this. So, it'll be a story that continues through 2019. Chad: yep. In 2020, even more, strict laws go into effect in California. So, if you are US-based and you dropped all your profiles from Europe because of GDPR in 2020, it's not going to matter because if you're going to do business in California, pretty much the US, it's gonna happen everywhere. You better have your shit together and have it tight. Joel: I'm going back to cali, cali, cali. Let's hear from Sovren, and we'll close out the show with some VR and some holiday perks. Chad: Oh, my god. Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and most accurate parsing products. And now, based on that technology, comes Sovren's artificial intelligence matching and scoring software. In fractions of a second, received match results that provide candidate scored by fit to job and just as importantly, the jobs fit to the candidate, make faster and better placements. Sovren: Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com. That's sovren.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovren, Sovren so human. You'll want to take it to dinner. Chad: Really looking forward to going down to Austin later 2019 for TA tech. In meeting, all of the Sovren west world androids. I'm looking forward to that. I can't wait. It's going to be a fun time. Joel: Austin is fun time without anybody. Companies being there, it'll be additionally fun with Sovren and the gang, who, by the way, if you're an HR tech, they are the ones passing out free bourbon shots to everybody. Tom, here's your lucky day. You get to hate on a VR company. Go. Chad: Yeah, java bowl, mail it and immerse your candidates in your experience. So, this thing is like a cardboard kind of a setup. The company mails it to you, and what you do is you download the app at that point, or go to a video, one of the two things, and then you put your phone in this cardboard VR headset thing. Chad: You put it up to your face and you are immersed in a VR tour of a company or you can go into gamification mode, whatever the company's done through this app. But I thought that this was perfect for you because we were talking about how the holidays are coming, VR is all out there. I just think we look like a bunch of idiots with these things plastered on our faces. Joel: To me, this is a little bit like Ai. Everyone says something as AI but not really, but saying if they AI is pretty cool. This is a VR. Sure. But to me, it's more like, do you remember the 70s, you have that little viewfinder and you had that little disk thing? Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: And then you clicked it and you went to another picture then you put it up to your face. To me, this is like a new version of that. You put this thing on and then it shows you a video basically from your phone. I don't see this thing being very interactive. I can't talk to someone else. I can't interact with people. I don't know if this is true VR. Joel: I think you can pitch it as VR, but is it really virtual reality? I don't know. It looks more like put your phone up to your face and watch a video. The other thing that reminded me of this is, there was a time when not every computer had a webcam or camera on it. And, there was a company back in the day that they would actually send webcams to the candidates that were branded with the logo of the company- Chad: Green job interview. Joel: It was at the company? I don’t know, a couple of them did it. And then you would have a little keepsake from the company in the form of webcam and then you would do a video interview with the webcam that the company sent you. Joel: So if at some point cameras on computers become the same as they are now, where nobody buys a webcam anymore because all the computers have cameras on them, if VR becomes as ubiquitous as that, then I think VR has a real place in recruitment. Joel: You and I can argue whether VR will ever hit that plateau. But for now, this is a pretty ridiculous company. It’s great to brand yourself as the VR company and hope that VR really takes off. But if VR does not take off, these guys won't be around for much longer. Chad: Awesome, on the viewfinder, by the way, I had one. I loved it. That was amazing. But yeah, I mean, we saw the video interview. The video interview company more was a software company, but they needed everybody to have a webcam so they just send them out in the mail. So, they were ready for the virtual interview before anybody else was. Joel: I guess they never said that if this company was actually sending out Oculus Rift to people, then there'd be something, but the fact that they're setting a cardboard, basically, masked to people is not the same as sending … because people could actually use these webcams that were sent by companies. And that was actually the cool thing but they're not going to sit at home with this cardboard face mask and use VR, they actually have to have real VR systems. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. So the Oculus, and I haven't put it on my face, and I'm sure I'll check it out when I hit best buy or something like that. But, I mean, it's a piece of rubber that you're strapping to your face. You still look like an idiot. I don't care. Joel: Fair enough, man. We disagree on VR. We’ll see what happens, but we can probably agree on some of the perks that have been listed. They have six here. The holiday season is here. Companies are throwing parties. They're giving away money like trips and all these things. So, Spherion did a survey of a thousand or so of their customers to find out what are the top holiday perks that employees are begging for this year. So, are you ready for the list? Chad: Yes. Bring it. Joel: You want to go from top to bottom or bottom to top? Chad: Bottom to top. Joel: Okay, let's do that. All right. 18% gift exchange. The secret Santas. Yeah, we love that. Another 18%. We've got a tie at the bottom. Company paid holiday meal. Love that. That catering from QDOBA coming in at 20%. 22%, were moving up. Office closure between Christmas and new year's day. Now, I’d like to get on board on that. Chad: Yeah. From a sales standpoint, that shit ain't gonna happen. Joel: We'll let the engineers go home for a while, except a few people that can keep the lights on. We're moving up to 26% holiday bonus. Chad: We can take that. Joel: Some people get pissed off if they don't get a little buddy at holiday time. 28% wanted extra time off. Okay, good. Few weeks, regular, like give me another week or something. I guess that'd be a nice perk. And number one, we don't have a drum roll sound bite, but if we did, we could use it, holiday party at 36%. Chad: Holiday parties suckers. That's right. Joel: I love that that’s above time off and more money. Like, let me party. Let me get into that trouble. That sounds like a good idea. Chad: It’s not a great idea. The worst things are office parties. You get bruised up and you do stupid shit around people that you shouldn't be doing stupid shit. Or you end up hooking up with people. I mean, it's not a good idea. Joel: Yeah. There aren't many great things that can happen from holiday parties, but there are a lot of bad things that can happen from holiday parties. I suspect in the #MeToo era a lot of parties aren't even happening because companies don't want to go down that road, which is probably a good idea. Give them that $50 gift card to Best Buy instead. Chad: Yeah, and if you have any great holiday party stories, send them our way. We'd love to hear them. Joel: And we’d love pictures as well or video. Video’s even better. Send it our way at chadcheese.com. Chad: Oh, I wonder if CareerBuilder is having El Chapo at their Christmas party. Joel: I'm going to say that's a long shot. And then I'm going to say, but we out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, google play, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com #Indeed #Careerbuilder #Linkedn #GoogleforJobs #Holiday #Jobable

CHATBOTS, CHATBOTS, MUTHA F&%$IN' CHATBOTS!! Joel and I are always talking about the latest and greatest chatbots so we thought we'd bring in an expert. Someone who has flown from coast-to-coast in search of a chatbot, NO, not just a chatbot but several chatbots which could serve her client's needs. Welcome Quincy Valencia, Head of Innovation and Solution Architecture from Alexander Mann Solutions. It's another Uncommon EXCLUSIVE, matching you with only the best Chad & Cheese Podcasts. Get it? They're a AI candidate matching company you idiot! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and inclusion. Chad: Say hello to the easiest way to find INTERESTED and QUALIFIED CANDIDATES. Joel: You mean Uncommon's automated sourcing that turns passive candidates into interested and qualified applications? Chad: Yup, Uncommon automation helps recruiters cut their sourcing time by 75%. Joel: 75%! That sounds like magic or something... Chad: Close, it's called auto-ma-tion... and it's simple feed or post your jobs into Uncommon, the platform identifies your job requirements and in seconds Uncommon uses those requirements to search over 150 million candidate profiles and pull back only candidates who meet those requirements. Joel: Plus you can connect your email and Uncommon will provide automated outreach with your customized messages to activate those passive candidates. Chad: Even better, Uncommon shows exactly how the candidates meet all of the job requirements with a side-by-side comparison view against your job requirements. Joel: Which means you won't be asking yourself "What in the Hell is this candidate doing here?" Chad: No, but you will be asking yourself "Where has Uncommon been all my life..." Joel: Seriously, Uncommon is the easiest way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit Uncommon.co, use discount code CHADCHEESE for 20% off Joel: Uncommon.co... Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: It's an exclusive show. Chad: Chatbots, chatbots, motherfucking chatbots. Joel: Not Chad bots, but chatbots. Nobody wants a Chad bot, that's for goddamn sure. Chad: Everybody wants a Chad bot, asshole. Chad: Today on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, we have Quincy Valencia, from Alexander Mann Solutions. I believe her title is Queen of Chatbots. Quincy? Quincy: Indeed. That is absolutely my title. It's new. This will be new to my company when they hear it, but I'm the self-named Queen of Chatbots. Thanks for having me, guys. Chad: Not self-named, we named you. Quincy: That's true. Chad: You've been bestowed upon by- Quincy: Thanks. Chad: So fresh from Dublin. What the hell were you doing in Dublin? Quincy: Yeah, we had about 130 of the senior leadership for Alexander Mann Solutions, getting together in Dublin, talking about how we're going to address all problems, talent-related, before they even emerge in the marketplace. It's an exciting time. Joel: And what is Alexander Mann for those who don't know. Quincy: Alexander Mann Solutions is literally the global leader in RPO solutions as designated by our clients in the latest HRO Today Baker's Dozen, we do have the number one ranking there, globally and also an EMEA and APAC, so go us. Joel: Is that the pay-to-play Baker's Dozen? Quincy: No, it is not the pay-to-play Baker's Dozen. Joel: Okay. Quincy: Stop that, it's not true. It comes straight from our clients. Joel: Do we remember the '80s show, Quincy M,D,? What was the name of that show? Quincy: It was M.E., actually. Joel: Yeah. Was it a source of pain for you growing up? Quincy: No, actually, it's because I'm 110 years old, I actually predated Quincy M.E., a little bit. Not as much as Chad predated him, but a little bit. Chad: Oh, yeah. Me being one day older than Joel, I guess we're just both old asses. Joel: All right. Moving on, moving on. Quincy: Before we move on, I just want to say, I'd actually be a huge fan of a Chad bot, over a chatbot, because then maybe we can turn him off. Chad: Oh, that's not cool. See this is why- Quincy: Oh, you're so sensitive. Chad: This is why we bring Quincy on to the show. We had Adam, Adam Godson who's a very close friend of Quincy's and she's like- Quincy: He is. Chad: ... she's like, "What the fuck. Why wouldn't you bring the Queen of Chatbots on?" I was like, "You know what? That's probably a good idea. We should probably do that." Joel: Queen of Chatbots. Chad: It really is true. It's true. Joel: That's on her LinkedIn profile, by the way. Quincy: I'm the Queen of all bots by the way, not just chatbots. Chad: Oh, all bots. I like that. Quincy: I just elevated myself there. Chad: So we're talking about chatbots today and this is going to be a very broad discussion. Chad: But, first off, I want you to tell the story of why you have so much deep knowledge when it comes to bots. Quincy: Yeah, sure thing. We at Alexander Mann Solutions specifically, are quite the innovators when it comes to automation and artificial intelligence in a process. In a very British sort of way, we do it quietly, but we get things done. So even internally, we don't toot our own horns much. We actually have our own family, we have about 20 different bots in use. And as we look to add this expertise knowledge to our clients to help make their processes better, we just in and develop it and do it our own. So we've developed our own full family of bots using both internal developers and partnering with key industry experts out there to help us do that. Quincy: As we look further, first of all, the world of the applicant tracking system is going to go by the wayside at some point in time. And if we look at the entire ... yeah, it is. Joel: Can you say that again? Quincy: Yes, the world of applicant tracking systems is not long for this world. Because, it's typically a horrible user experience, in almost every case. So when we're working out there to look at how do we improve the experience for all stakeholders in the process, so not just your candidates, but your hiring managers, your recruiters, if you have them, your talent acquisition leadership. We think that we can do that with AI and that brought us to the chatbot story. And I've been living in that world now for quite some time looking at how we use that, how can we shift the paradigm of what people think of as a chatbot into something that's actually going to be an extraordinary experience for our clients and their users. Joel: I feel like I just watched a Netflix trailer. Like I'm ready to dive into this, I'm going to go. Quincy: Sweet. Chad: Let's do it. Joel: She just destroyed ATSs, like let's go. Chad: I love it. I love it. Okay, since we've gotten so deep, so fast, I'm going ask a very deep question. What's up with all the female naming with chatbots? Quincy: Gee, I don't know. Actually, I think it's based on the patriarchy, to be honest with you, everybody thinks of HR as a girl. I think that's what they're doing, so I think that's where it comes from. Chad: You don't think it has to do with women are actually easier to talk to and man are just assholes and they don't listen in the first place? Quincy: I mean, while that's true in some cases, I don't think that's where it came from. I think people, they think of HR, and they think of recruiting, and historically they think of women. I think that's where it comes from. I also think that it's mostly men naming these chatbots and they prefer to name it a girl name. But that's my opinion. Joel: I'm going to go even more elementary than this. Some of our listeners will not know what a chatbot is. Is it that little widget on websites? Is it text messaging? I want to start with your definition of what a chatbot is, in particular when it pertains to recruiting. Quincy: Yeah, it's a great question. I think if you look the core and the start of a chatbot, it is going to be, people will think of it as that little widget that pops up when you go somewhere. In the recruiting world, it'll be on somebody's career site, it may be when you go out to buy a new mattress and a little chatbot comes up to help take you through the process. But really, it's an artificial intelligent assistant that functions through natural language processing that has answers to some of your basic questions. Quincy: And in the recruiting world, it could be, "What's it like to work there? What are the hours? Can I have visible tattoos and work there," to help get through the process in a way that's 24/7 available. And that, frankly, frees up some of your recruiters and your other higher value human assets to do more meaningful and deeper work. Chad: Is that why you have like 20 different chatbots that you guys are working with? You're talking about backend, like onboarding, and even beyond that, employee engagement chatbots, talking about candidate engagement chatbots. And you're also talking about recruiter assistant types of chatbots. Is that why we need so many of these things? Quincy: Well, I think you just hit the nail on the head. If you go, and I've spent quite a bit of time with a lot of the founders and CEOs of a lot of these different bot system, and if you say, "So why is your chatbot different than the other," they faint and they vomit a little bit, and they cringe because none of them, they don't want to be seen as a chatbot. That's an outsider's view of what they do. It's not just about chats, not just about help desk functionality. It really is about looking at the process, the entire recruiting and talent life cycle end-to-end and seeing how we can enhance that experience and really, again, add value to your process overall. So calling them a chatbot at this point is almost a misnomer. Almost none of them are simply a chatbot. Chad: So where are your clients looking for chatbots first, or do they not even know? Is it all just this kind of noise that everybody's like, "Hey, I need to talk about chatbots," and they have no fucking clue what they're talking about, whether it's front end, whether it's back end, whether it's even process methodology pieces. Joel: Yeah, remember in March, Chad, in Dublin where, I forget who it was, said, "Companies are coming to them saying, we need a chatbot," and they say, "Why do you need a chatbot." And they say, "Well, we just need a chatbot because it's the hot new thing." Are we still at that point, or are people more evolved? Quincy: Depends who you're talking to, it's a little bit of both. If I had a dime for every time I've walked into a client or a prospect and they've said, "How do we put some of this AI stuff into our process," I'd be a pretty rich woman. It's not about adding a chatbot or any sort AI to the process. If you're starting with that question, you're starting in the wrong spot. It's, "Let's look at your ...", again, it's your end-to-end talent solution and see what the process is, where we can enhance it, where we can really add value and then we'll determine if some sort an AI assistant is the appropriate mechanism to do that. Quincy: Some of the companies out there are quite sophisticated and they've already done it. They started where the commencement of chatbots was to begin with, which is with, "Let's put a help chatbot on the front so people can get their basic questions about a company answered," and then had some modicum of success there. And then it moved to, "Let's help them figure out, ask questions about the job specifically," and then, "Let's move into prescreens." So as it evolves, at further spots along this process as others, but starts there and then ends up going all the way through. Like Chad just said, "Let's help with onboarding. Let's go all the way through to employee engagement once they're on board." Joel: Are there any level companies that chatbots just aren't for, or does every company have ... should be investigating this? Quincy: Yeah, that's a really great question. I haven't thought of it that way before. I think it depends on what it is you're going to use it for. Again, if it's just chat up front and it's just help desk, I think there's tremendous ability to put that in and use it for most size and scope company, probably the bigger, the better where you have more questions coming in. You're freeing up, again, more resources to do it. Maybe the smallest companies- Joel: And high frequency. Quincy: Yeah, so maybe the smallest companies out there don't have it in a straight chat, stereotypical chatbot, but I would also argue that it could help to, for those who don't have a recruiting department at all, or a talent department at all, or you're depending on generalists to handle the entire process and they have so much on their plate, they can't do it. I think you could really use that to enhance the process, again, all the way through where currently, it may not be the best. Chad: I think we're always talking chatbot, chatbot, chatbot, but companies really should be focusing on process, process, process. And what parts of the process can be actually lifted or supported by using this type of technology, whatever type of technology it might be. Is that where you're trying to turn their heads and say, "Look, we've got to get deep into your process?" Because in most cases, like you're talking about with applicant tracking systems, in some cases, not even applicant tracking systems fault because the companies are using 1990s process methodologies that they used before they actually bought an applicant tracking system. Then they forced them into this antiquated bullshit process. Is that really like the base, the essence of where these companies need to start? Quincy: It is. You totally hit the nail on the head. For the record, I'm not anti ATS, they serve their purposes. They're certainly great systems of record, compliance is a thing, whether we want it to be or not, and they help companies there. But if you do what you said, Chad, which is shove in any sort of technology, whether it's a bot, whether it's ATS, whatever it is, and say, you keep your antiquated process exactly as it today and let's conform the technology to support our antiquated process, you're still going to have a bad process. Now you have the added complexity of technology that may or may not be able to support exactly what you're trying to do. Let's look at what you're doing. Quincy: Let's look at the experience first and then put in humans at the right spot where it's going to most enhance it and put in technology where it's going to most enhance that experience. And it's the same, you started with ATS, it's the same thing for automation, and certainly for these bots that are coming in, the chatbots. So let's look beyond just the, "Can we take it through ...", let me back up. If you talk to, I'm not even going to say who it is, if you talk to people who are heads of these companies. As I said before, if you call them chatbot, they fall on the floor. They started there because that's where their users started. But they're taking that journey so far beyond just the up front chat. Quincy: How can we really manage the entire application process? First and foremost, the companies are getting what they need from these candidates, but they're getting it in a more timely manner, they're bringing candidates in faster, the conversion rates are so much higher. If you look at a typical conversion rate today, the drop off rate between bringing a candidate in, to who actually completes the prescreen or application process, drop off sits at about 59% in general. And when you start adding in a way that they can actually engage and not feel like they have to take a shot of whiskey and put aside four hours the night before they start looking for a job, you're going to have a better experience. You're going to have greater results, really is the bottom line there. Quincy: Let's look at it. Ask the right questions, look thoroughly and completely through your entire process, and think outside the box. How can we go, which I hate that phrase, and I can't believe I just used it, but they're limited today in a lot cases by the imagination of the user and buyer. And let's look at ... and it's because of the paradigm of, "We absolutely have to have humans at this point of the process." As yourself why. Maybe you do, but what is it doing there? So how can you use a, we'll still call it a chatbot since that's the name of the show, to make it better across the board from end-to-end. Joel: I'd like to take it a little step further. Let's play make believe. I'm an employer, I know this chatbot thing is happening, I'm new to the game. I have a list of a dozen that I need to talk to. What are the questions, what are the hard questions that an employer should be asking these chatbots to make sure that they're selecting the best one for them? Quincy: That's the right question to be asking. Before you even engage, you look at your process, you determine you can add in a chatbot somewhere to enhance it, and look and see what parts of the process that you think you want to enhance, and you're going to ask the different providers if they can do that and do they have capability in that area. It starts from, what channels do you support? Is it just that little icon on the screen at the front or can my candidates engage through text or through WhatsApp or through WeChat or Facebook Messenger? Because the key, especially in this market today, is engaging candidates where they are and in a way that's going to be most accessible and most pleasing to them. Quincy: You have to make sure that it's a multi channel application first and foremost. You have to look at their integration capabilities, do they have [ATIs 00:14:43], what sort are they and how does that work with your current tech staff. Because at some point, you are going to have to get information, again for compliance purposes, but certainly for reporting analytics from one system to another. What languages do they support if that's applicable to you. And when they say what languages they support, is it just a Google translator or do they really have some more in-depth and complete of local nuanced language capability or is it just Google Translate, which is a problem. Quincy: I have a funny story about that if I could, really quick, to show why that's so important. A hundred years ago, I worked for a company that I won't name, but it was a large home improvement retailer and there was a huge- Chad: It sounds like Home Depot. Go ahead. Quincy: It does sound like that. There was a campaign to pursue bilingual candidates, specifically Spanish speaking. Our amazing employment branding team, which they were by the way, I went through and they had all these signs made up. They were doing local signage and giant banners to hang in the front of the building. And the words that they put out there, about five minutes after the banners were hung, the corporate office's phone started ringing, it was incredibly offensive apparently. The words they used for [foreign language 00:15:53] which is, "We're hiring," but in certain countries and areas and certain dialect, it's soliciting as in, the lady of the night soliciting. And you don't want to be the poor person who has to go in front of your CEO and explain to them why that's what you're advertising, really not on brand for that particular company. Like I said, it's really important to make sure you understand their language capability and whether that's important to you and where they're driving it. Joel: How about for the cost conscious employers, is there a chatbot? Are there variations in price where you'd want someone to send someone for the cost conscious employer? Quincy: Are there what? Say that again? Joel: Cheap. They're looking for a deal. They're cheap. Let's be honest about it. They don't want to spend a lot of money, they've heard these things are commoditized anyway. Where would you send them for lower level pricing versus maybe higher level gold level pricing? Quincy: Plenty of them because you get what you pay for. If really all you want is a front level, "Can you answer a few questions," any of them can do that for you. That's not going to be their bread and butter and why they're hiring. If you ask that question, "We want X, can you do that," and if it's, "Yes," I'm sure you can all get a price point of what you want. But understand that doing that isn't necessarily going to give you the outcome and results that you need. Sure, you need the cost, but you need, what's the user interface? What's the admin control capability? What are your analytics capabilities? What data are you collecting and how can you track it? What type of support do you have? Those are some of all the questions that you need to go through. Quincy: And if all you want is a box of rocks, somebody's going to give your box of rocks, but I would argue that that's going to be potentially more detrimental than positive. Chad: Then you're going to get the hooker banner, is what she's saying. Quincy: The hooker banner, that's right. Is that really what you want? And maybe you do, maybe that's your brand? Hey, good on you. Chad: It could be your brand, it'd be fine. It would be the Chad/Cheese brand. Chad: So the multi channel support like they're talking about, are most of these chatbot platforms, whatever you call them, are they supporting texting, SMS texting? Quincy: Yeah. I think that's the first that they're supporting, most are supporting texting. But ask them, is it native to their platform? Are they using another person's texting capability to do that? And the reason it's important because there really could be another system that's best in class for that texting capability, but the more technology you start frankensteining together, the more opportunity it is for failure. And, again, you want to make sure that you're enhancing the experience and not detracting from it. So be careful there as well. Chad: We're hearing at least rumbles out there when we talk about chatbots. Big names like IBM and then you're like, "Oh, the Watson," and then you hear companies come back and say, "Yeah, no, that's shit." And then MIA has 40 million dollars or something like that in funding, and it doesn't seem like any of these big names are really taking a lead. Is that, not that you have to name anybody, but is that what you're seeing? Is that there's just big difference in what these companies and how they actually provide it. In some cases, just because they have a big name, doesn't mean they're going to have the best tech. Joel: So is your question, is there a brand leader at this point basically? Quincy: There are several, and it depends what you're trying to do. That's a really good question. There's some companies that I know pretty intimately that are doing great things in their sectors. If you look at AllyO, for example, who I know the Chad & Cheese show are a big fan of, if you look at what they're doing in trying to turn their system of capability really into an end-to-end system, they are really taking a lead there. If you look at ... and their analytics are insanely strong. If you look at Olivia, for example, also leading there, but they're looking at the experience more holistically from both ends, so they actually have an app on the back end for their hiring managers to engage, which is critical to get a system embedded into a process. If you look at Caron, which is out of Toronto, their assessment capability, their native assessment capability, is unparalleled in a way that does not hinder that experience. Quincy: So my caution would be just because somebody has been there longer, or just because their name is bigger, make sure there's actual substance behind what could essentially be smoke and mirrors and depending on a name that people know. And understand what it is, what do you want them to do? Understand that as well. Joel: We've heard a lot about job seekers almost preferring the chatbot experience versus the black hole. Quincy: Yes. Joel: Is it your contention that it'll always be that way or do you think we'll hit a point where we hit chatbot fatigue and this thing is, there's some backlash against them? Quincy: I think it's actually opposite of that. This is where, two things. It's funny, I forget who it was, I think it may have been an iCIMS poll actually that I read recently that candidates surveyed, of those 76% get more frustrated in that black hole with a recruiting experience and not hearing back, that of not hearing back after a first date. It's a problem that we've all known and accepted for 10 or 15 years, or longer. It's a problem. You brought up my good amazing friend, Adam Godson. I heard his podcast with you. Here's one thing that I'm actually- Chad: Make sure you listen to it over, and over, and over. Quincy: Oh, I fall asleep to it at night. Chad: It was that boring, okay. Quincy: No, it lulls me, it's great. Quincy: In most technologies, and I think this is true, the reason that these chatbots have been slower to catch on, relatively speaking, to the others, is because usually tech advancements everywhere are driven by consumer tech and it hasn't. The chatbots have not really taken off from a consumer tech standpoint, and that's really true for various and sundry reasons. But just to be really clear, the recruiting and hiring experience, and even the internal engagement, has historically been so poor, that our candidates and applicants are looking for anything, it's like gasping for air to make it better. And this is where I really think this chatbot is taking the lead from a recruiting standpoint, that may eventually catch on in the consumer space. But the difference is, if I'm a consumer and I'm on Amazon, I want to browse and look around and get to that pretty quickly. If I'm a job applicant, I want to engage and that's what a chatbot can offer the opportunity to do, if properly executed. Chad: It's like Oliver asking for more gruel, "More gruel, please. More engagement, please." Chad: I think it's pretty simple. If you are staring into a black void, there's that or you can talk to a robot, whether it's a Alexa, or My Google Home, or something like that. Okay, I'd rather do that than have nothing at all. Quincy: And program it right? Make sure that your brand is reflected in what you're putting in there. Explore the actual capabilities of the system you're putting in. Is it really just a one-to-one if they ask this question, given this answer? Or does the technology support contextualization where they can really interpret how deep is their NLP capability? It's not like you're trying to lie, you're not saying they're talking to a human when it's really a bot. I think people are really okay with that. Just make sure that your program is ... I was at one, I forget, oh, it was funny. It was actually, it was Caron actually and they were showing us, somebody starts dropping F bombs in the process. Her response is, "Oh, my," it's just what are they going to say, "I don't understand what it is you're trying to tell me?" Or are they going to say, "That deal's better." Chad: Language, that's the one. Chad: So Quincy has a much broader range than chatbots, but we definitely wanted to focus on this because you have been focusing here lately. Here's one thing that I want to ask besides chatbots, because there's so much chatbot distraction right now, so much noise. What great tech, what great tech are companies missing because of all the chatbot noise? What other types of technologies should they really be looking at heavily along with chatbots? Quincy: Some of the people have been talking about, but now have never really used and some are pretty basic, but RPA capability do wonders for some of these companies. Here's an example. We had a challenge with a client of ours, AMS, who we needed to get 70 thousand documents from out of one system into another system. We needed to organize it by, download all the 70 thousand documents, organize it by candidate, create share portfolios for each, set the appropriate document in folder security, rename the file systematically, so on and so forth. And there's a couple different ways you could do that. You could release 10 people from their day jobs, give them 10 weeks to work, spend 35 or 40 grand, human error, bored, and low job satisfaction, that sort of thing, or even create a bot to do it, it's RPA. Quincy: And all you have to do there is free up a few SMEs, allow some time for development, allow the bot to run. And the result in that particular case, it was no mistakes, no tantrums from anyone who were bored, and zero errors, zero. It was done in 36 hours, it would have taken four to six weeks to do previously. So really, that's an actual case study that happened that we managed for them with one of our bots, that you can see surely wide application of that throughout RPA process there. There's a lot of buzz around taking unconscious bias out of the process and there's also been a lot of negative press, like Amazon's. Don't shy away from it. This is where automation, I think, is really going to help the recruiting process and help companies get the best quality talent they can. Quincy: Nobody, or most people, let's just assume and give the benefit of the doubt, nobody's intentionally discriminating or biased against anyone. You can't help it, it's in your brain. It's in your psychology. It's in your DNA. So let's put some robotics there, they're going to help scientifically, and proven to take some of that out, so that you really are getting access to and exposing yourself to the actual best qualified candidate for a job as opposed to hiring managers' gut feeling or a recruiter who was having a bad day. Chad: Take the dumb human out of the equation. Quincy: Yeah. Nobody's talking about Cyberdyne here, it's about adding humans to the process where they're actually adding value and let the machines do where they're actually adding value, which we all know they can do things faster, they can do things cheaper, and they're getting so sophisticated at this point, they can do it sometimes with an experience and a quality level that's higher than what humans can do. Joel: And Quincy, my last question, in regards to your comment about cheaper, how do these companies stay out of the commodity trap? For example, MIA taking 40 million dollars, they better come up with something more than just a chatbot, right? Quincy: Yep. Yeah, it's true. Let's look at, again, start from what's adding to the experience, adding to the process. Are you enhancing your NLP capability so that it feels more engaging and feels more human-like. Are you looking deeper than just chatbot and looking where you can apply that same foundational technology at different places in the process, all the way through to existing employees. Is there a way to engage for career coaching? Is there a way to engage for internal mobility, and that sort of thing? Look beyond, again, I started before, there's a paradigm of, "We absolutely have to have humans here and there's no way a robot could really do it," challenge yourself and the companies need to challenge themselves to make sure that that funding they're getting is being used in a way that's going to move them beyond where the capability is today and not play into those old school thought processes. Joel: Can I get in one more question where we're not quite at 30 minutes yet. I know you'll edit this out a little bit. Two questions I had, one is, the question of scale. For most of these companies, someone has to talk to the employer to ask what questions do we want to ask. So I have a question about how they're going to get over the hump with this scaling issue for most of them. And the second thing I'm curious about your opinion on voice. So you have an Alexa and other voice assistants, does that ever trump the chatbot experience? Quincy: Yeah, your first question about scale, the technology's going to help you to do that, as it learns. Look at it this way. You're going to launch a system, you're going to launch with a hundred or a hundred fifty questions and answers and possible variations to that. And that's a really mild investment of time and energy to do that. As organizations, you already have those answers somewhere, it's just compiling them and putting them in there. The machines learn though, it is a very Cyberdyne-type moment. As it comes in and you're getting more answers to more questions and you're getting more input and more feedback, it's going to feedback to you what it is you need to focus on, which means what could have taken three weeks to start, or a month to start, is now going to take a day, at most to come back on. So trust the technology if you're going to invest in it and it will help you scale pretty organically there. Quincy: And then secondarily, what was the second question, Joel? I got excited about the first one. Joel: Voice, voice assistance versus chatbots. Quincy: There is a ton of stuff to come out of that, I think. But if you look at, everybody knows what Google did, everybody's seen that video. But that was literally years of time and effort that they put into that, for that AI system they put out there. And it's got applicability of one, and it really is one-to-one. Certainly something to watch. I think there's a lot of money being invested in that, a lot of capability into that. Yeah, sure, I think we'll all go that way. At some point, we'll wake up and say, "Toothbrush, brush my teeth for me," and that'll be fine, but it's out there. Watch for it, it's not ready quite yet. Chad: On that one, they need to an extent because using voice activation for chatbots. I see them really turning into or morphing into, whether I'm using my Google Home and it is somewhat of a chatbot for saying it can take me through a process methodology. The technology starts to meld into each other, don't you think? Quincy: Yeah, of course it does. You nailed it there. It's taking, it's a natural extension of what it's doing today, but you still have the issue of scalability so use case for that is so specific, it just takes longer. But it's going to happen and as it continues to develop, it'll happen more quickly. Chad: Well, excellent. Quincy Valencia, Queen of Chatbots, everyone. No seriously, we appreciate you taking the time. I know that you've been doing a ton of research around this. And we've been talking about it a lot on this show so we wanted to bring somebody in who actually knew what the hell they were talking about. Quincy: Hey, I appreciate that you consider that to be me, so thanks a lot. Joel: Quincy, for those who want to learn more about you or your company, where would you direct them? Quincy: AlexanderMannSolutions.com. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Quincy: All right, thanks. Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to The Cheese & Chad Podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you use this dial on iTunes, that's really Android phone for me or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on monster.com. Me, out. #chatbots #AI #Uncommon #BadAss #RPO #TATech

Thanksgiving is over, and business is business, so the boys are back in the saddle and breaking down the recruiting industry's hottest news... - LinkedIn shuts down email downloads and taking launches Snapchat wannabe - Amazon gets your learn-on while they tiptoe into the job board game - Facebook is dying - Furhat robotics creates creepy robo-interview - and we've got jive turkeys galore! Enjoy and kick the tryptophan hangover with sponsors Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: It's a post-Thanksgiving, fat-pants-wearing, detox episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous and most glutinous. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad no-tryptophan Sowash. Joel: On this week's episode, Amazon gets into the job board game. Linked takes on Snapchat. And it ain't cool being no jive turkey on Thanksgiving. Stay tuned, we'll be right back after this message from Canvas and go Bucks. Announcer: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas bot is at your side adding automation to your workplace. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: Text at the speed of talent. Joel: Happy post Thanksgiving, black Friday, week of the plague in my house, welcome back. Chad: Cyber Monday. Joel: Cyber Monday, yes. Any deals in your cross hairs for today? Chad: Eh. Not yet. I'll check it out. I'm not really the shopper in this whole group, but I think I'm probably an online-shopper more than anything else. Human beings just piss me off. Joel: Okay. Yeah, thanks for warming things up there Sowash. I was getting all warm and fuzzy with the Thanksgiving and you pull out the, "I hate human beings." Chad: Happy holidays. Joel: Happy holidays. Chad: Stupid human beings. Joel: You have to love Christmas though, right? Chad: I'm one of those individuals when you shop you know exactly what you're going to go after. And you go in, I'm on a mission, I know what my objective is. I knock that out, I'm in, I'm out, I'm back home, not waiting in lines, not looking through the sale rack, not doing all that happy shit. So I know what I'm good at and shopping's not that. Joel: Fair enough. Fair enough. I don't know what you meant by, "I'm not the shopper of the group." Like my reputation is being some shopaholic? Chad: I think you're the shopper. Joel: I have a 20-month-old dude. My venture is outside the house are pretty relegated to survival activities. Chad: Which means if you have a chance to go shopping right now, you would take it in a heartbeat? Joel: Yeah. On a personal note, last week was really rough on the Cheesman household. We had stomach flu going around. Chad: Plague. Joel: We had vomit and we had all kinds of stuff going on. It was just a bad time. We were supposed to go to Canada for the holiday. That got canceled, so we had pork chops for dinner on Thanksgiving. We've pretty much guaranteed that our Christmas will be drama free and fantastic because we paid the price for Thanksgiving. Chad: Yeah, if you set those expectations. Ah, okay. Let's just hope everything goes well. Joel: Everything has to go well. It has to go well. Chad: It has to go better than Thanksgiving. Joel: Yes, the silver lining was I was able to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes just dismantle the mighty Michigan Wolverines formerly number four ranked in the country. So normally when we go to Canada it's a big thing to like, you know the family's here, don't watch the game, like be cool and stuff. So the one silver lining was I did get to watch the Buckeyes just whoop some ass this weekend. Chad: Yeah, well that's going to start out Shout outs with Penny Queller over at Monster. That team up north sucks Penny, again. Buckeyes baby. Joel: Harbaugh dude, his life, I mean he's got to be in the NFL. He has to hate just being man handled by Urban Meyer every year. It's just sad. But yeah, that was good. Joel: I'll shout out to Sarah Holden, our buddy up in, we're speaking of Canada. Sarah Holden works for Neuvoo or however we pronounce it. And recently got a master's in arts, I think. I'm not sure how the Canada collegiate system works, but yeah looks like she got a master's degree and posted that online. Sarah, good for you man. Keep on keeping on. Chad: Master's in bad-assery. I like to keep with my football theme and thank God the Eagles beat the Giants last night because poor Ed from Philly is about to have an aneurysm. Joel: Well, I've got Carson Wentz on one of my fantasy squads and he's had some pretty bad crappy weeks back-to-back. So good on Philly. They're not going to make the play-offs and Carson Wentz is sucking, but yeah good for you. You beat the Giants. Way to go. Joel: My Browns went down to Cincinnati this weekend and totally just ripped up, It's the Bengals, but the Bengals have owned them for the last 20 years. So, it was kind of refreshing. And my wife noted that I'm warming up a little bit to Mr. Baker Mayfield. Chad: Well, you have to. They've won four times as many games as they had last year. I mean you've got to look for some beacon of hope for goodness sakes. Joel: Look, I like the kid's style. He's got some hootspa, he's accurate. I'm really concerned that it's going to snow and the wind's gonna blow on the lake. And it's going to be December and he's not going to be able to do it. So, we shall see. Chad: We shall see. That being said, getting out of football and getting in to more shout-outs. Shout out to Steven in Faith Rothberg. They have a College Recruiting AI Bootcamp going on at the Googleplex. If you want to go, again it's about college recruiting, and they're talking about AI and how that obviously all fits into college recruiting. Just go to Google, go figure, and google College Recruiting AI Bootcamp. And it's free. So, if you're in that area, shit, you should be going anyway. Joel: Yeah. By the way, did we bring up the LinkedIn faux pas by you when you though Faith was Louise and you commented as if it was Faith and it wasn't? Have we talked about that yet, because that was kind of a big boner, brain boner, by you. Chad: That was hilarious. First off, I was on mobile, okay. So the pictures were much smaller and I could see it was a redhead. So, Faith's a redhead, Louise is a redhead. So, Louise, my bad. You know I love you, but yeah I actually tagged Faith in a comment on something that Louise had put out there. So, yeah, my bad. I had two great looking redheads. Joel: It sounds you're saying all redheads look the same. Chad: It was a very small picture and they were both redheads and I got confused. Joel: I think you're in dangerous territory. I think you're... Although I think redheads is probably the only group of people that you can say that and they don't get offended. I could be wrong. Chad: No. Joel: Shout out for me. I wrote five things I'm thankful for, which you just got to write that post for every holiday. By the way I'm excited about year end shows and our prediction shows, which are always on the air, which we will do. Joel: So, I had five things, I won't mention all of them, but in one my first shout out here I'm going to shout out to the arms race. The arms race has been very good for our business. They're good for podcasting and blogging. The moment Microsoft dropped 26 billion big ones on LinkedIn, it got Google's attention, it got Facebook's attention, it upped everyone's game on the Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Monster, Scale. It maybe brought in Amazon, which we'll talk about here in a second. Joel: So, the arms race has been very good. I'm thankful that Microsoft wrote a check because it's made our industry and talking about it much more entertaining. Chad: Yes. You are correct. Shout out to your favorite VR headsets. Joel: Yes. Chad: That's right baby. This holiday season everyone is looking for gifts and VR is now back in style. We're seeing these damn commercials all over the place but I did see a really cool immersion, first person movie. I watched the trailer. It's actually a Robert Rodriguez movie. It's called The Limit and it's got Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead and Michelle Rodriguez from a ton of halfway decent movies. But yeah dude, this looks really cool and we were talking about VR and how it could prospectively make it to mainstream and I watched this video and I'm like, "Ah dude, this trailer." I'm like, "Dude this is awesome." And then you get to the end of the trailer and they show the person with the thing on their face. I'm like, "Nah, fuck that. I'm not doing that." Joel: Dude, I have to watch, Is this a commercial? Is this a trailer? Chad: Yeah, it's a trailer. I'll send it to you. Joel: All right. Are you actually coming around to VR now? Chad: No, I think I just made it very clear. I'm not going to look like that idiot in that Geico commercial who is waving one way and pushing. Joel: You mentioned the commercials, right. There is Oculus has a huge campaign here in the states. I don't know about the rest of the world. They have Jonah Hill, Leslie Jones from Saturday Night Live, the dude from Maroon 5. They have stars that have VR headsets, they're like at court side at the Lakers game or they're in the movie. So, Oculus is making a good faith effort to get VR mainstream. So what you're saying is that whole diatribe was sarcasm by you and you're totally not into VR? Chad: Yes. Joel: You're going to come around my friend, I'm telling you. I don't own one of these things but I'm closer now to buying one than I ever have. Chad: Yeah. The immersion is so cool, but being immersed with that thing on your head, I just can't bring myself to do it. So that's where I'm at right now, but if you want to check this out, it's called The Limit. Just go to YouTube, look for The Limit. And again it's a Robert Rodriguez film, the guy who did Sin City, From Dusk till Dawn, Grindhouse, Machete, those guys. And yeah, it's a first person type of immersion film. It's pretty cool. Joel: All right, cool. So obviously like everything online, it's going to take porn to take it over the line, so you know. I'm sure that we're going to start seeing not be personally, but I think the industry as a whole, the world will start seeing VR porn. And we'll see if this thing really has legs or not. I'm not sure legs is the right word, but anyway. Joel: This might be my last shout out. In my thankful five, I had the economy. You and I know that when the economy is good this industry is good, right. Money flows, people get hired, which means more readers and listeners and it just snowballs from there. But when the economy sucks, it's really not great. So this year has been an on fire economy which means that has been a good thing. Now I will say that there are little buds of depression that I think are sprouting starting with the stock market, which tends to be leading indicator with the world is ending. It's been a bad month for the stock market and I fear that the tariff wars, the gridlock in Washington, Russia's firing guns on Croatia or somebody. I'm a little bit worried about 2019 but we're talking about 2018 and I'm thankful for the fantastic economy that we have enjoyed in our business. Joel: Let's talk about jive turkeys. Chad: Jive turkeys. Joel: Because trading places is my favorite line, "It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving." So E.R. Rita wrote a post. People love these kind of posts. My top three jive turkeys from 2018. I can mention them, you can comment or disagree whatever. So my first turkey for the year was Indeed. To me that obvious, they said no to Google, they block staffing companies that don't like your talent market. They bought weird companies like Resume.com, they went to Canada to apparently block ZipRecruiter's move to buy Workopolis. The Glassdoor thing is kind of confusing to me. They've been real defensive, they've been real reactionary. For their sake I hope they clear things up and become more proactive and positive in 2019, but for 2018 man they've been a big turkey. Chad: Yeah, and sticking it to staffing firms and anything that you can call a talent network, two black marks right, on what they've done in 2018. And the thing that comes down to Indeed they just don't care. They're going to make the moves that they want to make and they're going to try to force other segments of the industry to do what they want them to do. And we're going to hate you for that. Joel: It's immense hubris, they think they're on top and they arguably are. I mean it was also a huge year for revenues, for headcount, for real estate holdings, all that stuff trended very nicely for them this year. But we saw this with Monster. There was a hubris, we're at the top of the mountain. We're not coming down. And we're going to make the rules and you're going to follow them or get run over. And that's kind of their mentality this year. Joel: I think Google has been a real wake up for them. And I think that they can't deny that that's been a huge hit on their business. But overall I think they feel pretty good about themselves. Chad: I guarantee they do. Joel: My second jive turkey that I had, which is pretty obvious, four-month report by AIM Group, who by the way if you're not at aimgroup.com looking at the news, everything, classifieds. They're probably the foremost reporting arm for international job board, everything classified. But anyway, they did a four month investigative report on a site called startjobs.net and their other side online resume something, online resume help, I don't know what it was. Anyway, they were using ZipRecruiter jobs which by the way you reached out and I don't know if you have any information on that. But they were using sort of ZipRecruiter backfill. Was it ZipRecruiter or Talroo. Chad: Jobs2Careers. Joel: Job- Chad: Several streams of different organizations. Yeah, just content they were using. Joel: It's not one backfill provider, but anyway they were using legitimate jobs to get people to submit really detailed information including mortgage debt information, including marital stuff. This goes back 10 years when Monster had interstitial ads of companies that were requesting social security numbers. So, this is nothing new. It's not going to stop, it's going to continue to go forward. People are going to get scammed, there is a sucker born every minute. But for 2018, StartJobs was the most visible biggest jive turkey on the scam category for me. So suck it StartJobs. Hopefully all the backfill providers will cut them off and they will be left with nada. Chad: Yeah, well the web is always been a place for individuals who just will click on anything or share anything to get their shit stolen. And we've just got to be better as a community overall in how we utilize the web, what we share, privacy and understanding just because we're applying for a job doesn't mean that they get all of our details, all of our info. And I think we're going to see more regulation around that. We're going to see some regulation in California drop in 2020 that's actually stricter than GDPR in and around Europe. So, this is going to change, but we have to ourselves, we have to control and try to police our own industry. And this is where we got to call assholes like StartJobs.net out. And we have to put them on the front page and hopefully get them shut down if they don't change how they do business. Joel: I think to me, they're not part of the industry, but they bring everyone down with them which is sort of the sad thing. One scammy job site brings down every job site from the most legitimate to the least legitimate or Nichey site out there. And it wasn't, once they got the information, the real problem was the barrage of marketing that the people who gave the information over sort of suffered after that. So there was constant emails. It was constant barrage of text messaging. We've talked about in the past as having some challenges in the future that we're using 10 digit numbers instead of short codes which have less regulation. Joel: By the way, this funny side story, I get a text this week and it says, "Hi, I'm your text door neighbor. How are you?" And I'm thinking what in the hell is this? So I play along I want to see if it's a bot, I want to see what happen. I say, "Who is this?" And they say, "It's your text door neighbor. Look at the phone number." So my phone number last four digits are 1578 this number was 1579. So apparently there's this new thing now where people are texting one number higher than them and claiming to be their text door neighbor and trying to have a conversation or get to know these people. I quickly like shut it off said, "Leave me alone." But this is, it's kind of weird, right? And it wasn't a bot, it was an actual person. So if you get someone that says, "Hey, I'm your text door neighbor." Take my story for what it's worth. Chad: What the fuck are they, don't these people have lives? Joel: They don't. It was probably a 15 year old teenager just hanging. But that was weird anyway. Anyway, all right, back to the jive turkeys because I've got leftovers to eat for lunch. Anyway my last jive Turkey, I think it was obvious as well CareerBuilder. CareerBuilder in '18 was just podcasting gold. I mean, whether it was like laying off people, people leaving, people mad, postponed or canceled sales trips, letting Matt Ferguson go after 14 years as CEO, execs leaving by the handfuls putting a CFO in charge of a tech company and claiming we're going to innovate. It was just a bad jive turkey of a year for CareerBuilder, but it was an obvious choice for me. Chad: Yeah, well all I have to say is El Chapo thank you for El Trappo. That was fucking hilarious because it was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And thank you also CareerBuilder for Pokemon for jobs. That is still funny and we will continue to make fun of you as long as we can think about that, so yeah. Thanks so much CareerBuilder, El Chapo, Pokemon for jobs, that is podcasting gold. Joel: Yes, I can't wait til you make fun of their Oculus VR job search technology coming to hr tech in 2019. Chad: Yeah, it's coming. Joel: All right, any more jive turkeys that you have to add to my list of three. Chad: No, I want to get on to Amazon man. Joel: All right, what did Amazon do this week? Chad: Wooo Amazon's doing some cool shit. This all comes together in being able to finally get an entry into the jobs market. So much like we saw LinkedIn bought Lynda from an educational standpoint. Amazon has this AWS courses that they've put together and it's pretty fucking cool in what they're doing. I mean there are 30 hours of training that they've actually pulled together with audacity and for professional areas called cloud architect, software developer, operations support, engineer and analytics in big data scientists or specialists. This is what they need, right? So Amazon is actually trying to pull people into providing free education. You've heard this free education because they know that these types of individuals first are in short supply, number one. Chad: Number two, they need to get them into positions quickly. So get them educated up and then well wait a minute, what if we create too many of these individuals, will get some other companies involved too like Salesforce, like that was it Cloud Next and Splunk and there is some other companies that need these same types of individuals. But Amazon is actually making this happen on the AWS side of the house. This is something that you and I have been talking about for a while. I don't believe that individuals should be paying for education to be quite frank because they're going to be the tools that actually make money for these companies and AWS sees this, not to mention finally if you're a company that are looking for these types of individuals, you can post jobs for free. Joel: What? Free Job Board Amazon? Chad: Free. Joel: Yes, total agreement. And I'll add that by the way while you're educating these people they're probably buying Amazon products and services. They are probably be becoming loyal to the brand of Amazon. They probably would really love to work for Amazon and by proving that they're really competent in these skills, could potentially land a job at Amazon which really cares deeply about cloud services and whatnot. I've been calling and I will probably just predict it for next year because I did this year and I feel like it's going to happen, Amazon needs to buy Slack, they need to bring this sort of educational thing into the workplace and put in the AWS infrastructure within companies and build an enterprise arm which could flow through this Slack interface and platform. So I know you've heard that before you laugh at me, maybe this is a step into convincing you that AWS is slowly getting into the enterprise workforce game and that they will be a force to be reckoned with along with Facebook, Google and LinkedIn and Microsoft for 2019. Chad: Yeah, I know, I think we all knew that Amazon was going to get into it. We just didn't know how. I think Slack could be a good delivery system. I'm not sure that they'll do it. I mean I think that they have infrastructure to be able to build something themselves, but they could, I mean there's no question. Here's the cool part and you said this earlier. Amazon approaches a lot of these new product areas and pricing competitively or just making it free, right? And the way that this is actually bringing new users to their doorstep. So there's a sizable revenue opportunity and being able to provide not just something for the masses, right? To be able to provide qualified talent for positions they need filled asap, but it also wants ... We've been talking about this, they also see customers and that's the biggest issue that talent acquisition has I think over the years is they don't see candidates as customers and they don't understand that a negative impact with that brand, with your brand means that individual could prospectively never spend money with you, right? Chad: And that's a bad thing. Millions of dollars, so even more could be lost. So I think this is incredibly smart on many different levels and I'm most impressed and happy to see a company actually step out and say, "Look, we're going to provide free education to these individuals to get them into obviously our positions or Salesforce positions." Right. And who else do you think is going to embrace that? That's my question because this is genius. Joel: Yeah. I mean, to me it becomes interesting when, let's be honest, I mean if you hear someone graduates from the University of Phoenix or Capella or one of these sort of online, New Hampshire, whatever. You sort of look at it and okay, is it a real degree, right? Is it really going to hold water with an employer like a Purdue degree would or Northwestern or a typical college, right. So I'll be really curious because I think Amazon holds a certain level of Gravitas with brand trust that if I go into an employer and I say, "Hey, I have a AWS or Amazon, I'm an Amazon certified cloud data store." Whatever that might be, does that hold as much weight as saying, "Hey, I have a computer science degree from Purdue." And I think the day that we get there is a very interesting day. But I think Amazon's going to hold a lot more clout than say the University of Phoenix. Chad: Yeah. I think at the end of this, what we're going to see is the different types of certifications, that's one thing. But also you got to remember most of these universities are going if not fully online full offerings online because they understand that's where education is going. So to be able to have partnerships with the AT&Ts of the world or the Amazons of the world to provide and be that educational backbone or curriculum backbone, I think is important. So yeah, I think this is not the first step but we're still early into this. I think you will see some of those big brands from the university side be a part of these specific types of educational delivery systems. Joel: Well, the times they are changing. Chad: Thank God. Joel: Let's hear a quick word from JobAdX and talked about talk about Linkedin. Announcer: As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX has been providing job board publishers, direct employers, agencies, RPOs and staffing firms, dynamic job bidding and real time ad delivery through our programmatic job advertising exchange. When we started, we described JobAdX as AdSense for jobs. Now, we offer much more with switchboard and live alert, completing our full suite of dynamic programmatic advertising tools with the best of consumer ad tech. Switchboard offers our dynamic technologies to all partner job board feed management. And live alert eliminates latency and expired job ads via email. For more information about any of our ads solutions, please reach out to us at join us at jobadx.com. That's join us at jobadx.com. JobAdX, the best ad tool, providing smarter programmatic for all your advertising needs. Joel: There you go. Chad: JobAdX, bring it. Joel: Bringing it to the whole hard. Chad: I don't know that I like that statement at all. Joel: That was a little anyway. Chad: It's bad. Joel: If you had the stomach flu that I had, you might be in the same state of mind anyway, LinkedIn man, this is some good news. You want to start with the blocked emails or the Snapchat competitor? Chad: Wherever you want to go with this because either way it's going to be interesting. Joel: It's going to be interesting. Let's just start with emails and then we'll follow up with the humor of them launching a Snapchat competitor, okay. So, I want to say it was a year or two ago that there was word, the rumors were buzzing that LinkedIn was going to deny people the ability to download the contact information of their network. Chad: Right. Joel: I contacted LinkedIn about this, they emphatically said, "No, you can still do this." And it was true, they weren't blocking it or stopping that functionality but everyone kind of knew like at some point LinkedIn is not going to let you do this and we finally have word of what they're doing. So they're not all, they're not out now saying you can't download your contacts. However, everyone in their settings is defaulted to not letting people download their information and they have to go in and approve or opt in to have their data basically downloaded by their network, which let's be honest most people aren't going to do. So your network of a thousand people, if you wanted to download the information, you might get like two or three actual contacts who are willing and able to let you download their stuff. Joel: A lot of people are mad about this. I understand in the recruiting space certainly in the sales and marketing, this was something that people did and do. But I'm not sure widespread a lot of people are going to care, a lot of people don't even know that they can download their contacts from LinkedIn. Chad: Yeah, and once again we take a look at just Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, right. And being able to pull all that data from profiles, that's hard and that's very impactful to be able to tell that story. And I think LinkedIn are saying, "Hey look, this is the time right now to take a tougher stance on quote unquote privacy." And to really default to the strictest policy as quite the opposite of what we've seen from companies like Facebook over the years. I mean, when you start with a Facebook account used to be, I don't know if it still is, is that your account was wide open, public saw everything. You had to go into the settings, you had to change those. And it made it much easier for competitors to go in, scrape up data or you know the Analytica is in the world to come in and scrape up data and do whatever they're going to do with it. Chad: I guess did LinkedIn's users know that their contact info was exposed and did they care? Is One of the questions. Is LinkedIn taking more of a protective stance for their users or is this really more of a defensive posture and they're using the news of the day to be able to do that. Joel: That's a lot of questions there. I think most people don't know about being able to download their contacts. I think because we live in the recruiting world that's sort of common practice. And I think that LinkedIn initially made it possible because when your network was 300 people, it was all business contacts there will be only Jigsaw and some other competitors at the time that would allow you to extract your contacts, put them in act or put them in some like- Chad: CRM. Joel: Yeah, also CRM or sales tool that made sense. And a lot of salespeople and marketers probably did that. But now people have thousands in their network, a lot of them were done 10 years ago, I don't even know this person anymore. Yeah, I do think the privacy element of just making it harder for people to extract data from LinkedIn and making use select yeah, I do want my data to be extracted. It's probably a good move for them but I can definitely see why the recruiters would be ticked off by something like this. Chad: Yeah. Well, I mean if you pay for seats, they're still shutting that down. Is that the case too? Or is this just from the public standpoint? Joel: As far as I know this is just like, okay, well, you and I are connected on LinkedIn. So previously I could go in and say I want to download all my contacts and I could get your information, which I could get on LinkedIn anyway in a CSV file and then I could create a spreadsheet with all my contacts and do whatever I wanted with that information. Basically you have to now opt in for me to be able to extract your contact information. Chad: Okay. And that's even on pay versions too then, okay. Joel: Yeah, I think this is just your individual network, yeah, not like on paid and I want to extract all this salespeople in Palo Alto or something. Chad: So again, being able to say that this is kind of using the news of the day. It's very Indeed like, right? So Indeed tells companies how your job suck unless you pay me and then they don't suck anymore. It's kind of the same thing and this is what I'm hearing is that hey, we want to make sure that you have strict privacy for your contact information unless somebody over here pays for it and then we're just going to make it available. Joel: No, I don't think you are going to pay your way into extracting your network. I think it's a network wide. People have to accept being able to be downloaded by someone in their network. Chad: I have to do some research on that especially for recruiter seats because I think that would impact the actual ROI of paying for a recruiter seat in some cases. I mean it's not the entire reason but still, if I'm buying a recruiter seat, I want access to the data. Joel: I also wonder if there are tools out there where you can put in multiple account information and maybe you regularly download all your contacts and it just sort of does that every month or every quarter or whatever just to make sure that you're getting all those contacts into some sort of database. I'm sure there are sales tools and stuff like that and products that will suffer from this new privacy feature. But I can't think of any off the top of my head and recruiting that would be negatively impacted by what LinkedIn just did. Chad: Yeah. And I see this is a step, not the final step. What do you think? Joel: Yeah, I mean the walled gardens are going up, whether you're Indeed or LinkedIn or Facebook. Facebook has made a lot of changes to protect its users and probably will make even more in the future. For example, their API used to be able to pull co-workers from your data and you can't do that anymore for APIs and stuff. So yeah, everyone's getting more private and more closed than open. Good thing, bad thing. Individual privacy I guess it's a great thing for businesses and innovation. It's arguably a bad thing. There'll be a balance there somewhere. Chad: Yeah, that's the hard part, right? You've got all these innovative companies that are popping up all over the place who need data to provide a service that companies are asking for. Companies are asking for an opportunity to prospectively suck all this relevant data into a CRM or an RMP and now guess what, that could prospectively be gone by the wayside. Joel: Yeah for sure. I mean it brings back memories of our interview with Sean from a HiringSolved and if you haven't listened to that interview and the live show from HiringSolved or HIREconf you should. They throw away 29 million profiles from Europe because dealing with GDPR and privacy, it was just too much of a hassle to deal with. And so I see that spreading to multiple vendors and people that provide services like that across the world. I mean I was talking to Doug Berg from Zap Info, their solution is if I want to extract someone's contact information that they have sent an email saying, "Hey, this company wants to extract your contact information, please click here to approve or not." I mean, I think that's going to greatly deter the number of contacts that you can grab if you have to ask permission from people before you actually do it. Chad: Oh yeah, there's no question. And then how many people are just going to not even reply, just delete that email. Joel: Oh, 98 plus percent probably. Chad: Yeah. So that- Joel: I know and really want to work for like, I'm definitely not going to let you just take my data. Chad: Yeah. You have to do some really good email marketing at that point, a message marketing at that point and hopefully that company has a damn strong brand. Joel: Yeah, I mean that's tough one. Anyway, so in the more odd LinkedIn news, email blocking was not surprising to anyone. More surprising was they launched a Snapchat competitor, something called Student Voices where basically the goal is to have students provide videos on their newsfeed that disappear after a certain time period. I don't know, I don't really have a comment on this other than what the hell were they thinking, students are not going to hang out on LinkedIn and do Snapchat shit. They're going to be on Snapchat to do Snapchat shit. Chad: Yeah. So, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think so the content was going to be available for a certain duration within the actual stream, but it was saved on the actual individual's profile. So it's like they didn't lose it but it was going to be lost within the stream itself. Is that the way it was going to work? Joel: Yeah. I'll give you the quick summary here. So LinkedIn begins testing Student Voices, what they're calling it. It's a stories like feature which you're seeing either on Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook. Facebook you're saying stories all the time. This is targeted at college students, so it lets users post short videos which are added to their school's campus playlist. The videos disappear from the playlist after a week but remain on the uploaders profile. Chad: I got nothing man. It seems like a lot of development time and I understand what I mean, It makes perfect sense what they're trying to do, they're trying to attract a demographic that they perspectively right now are not attracting or they could perspectively lose. So yeah, it's hard. I mean, we're going to talk about Facebook and how certain demographics aren't using Facebook and others are. How from a LinkedIn standpoint does that work? Do you turn into a Snapchat or does that really devalue the overall professional platform itself? I mean, I guess they're taking the gamble that it's not devaluing at all or we're not getting these kids possibly. Joel: We actually have some live footage from the Student Voices platform. All right, where there is no crickets is our sponsor Sovren. Let's hear a quick word from them and talk about the end of Facebook. Chad: What? Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and most accurate parsing products. And now, based on that technology come Sovren's artificial intelligence matching and scoring software, in fractions of a second receive match results that provide candidate score by fit to job and just as importantly, the jobs fit to the candidate, make faster and better placements. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com. That's sovren.com We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human you'll want to take it to dinner. Chad: I do want to take it to dinner. I just don't know where we would go. That's exactly what I'm getting. Joel: Facebook has been under fire this year. We don't have to rehash everything, but there's been a lot of talk about people are going to leave Facebook in droves. I've basically said, "That's total garbage, people will stick around, they don't care yada yada." Well, apparently people do. Pew reports this past week that 44 percent of Facebook users in their twenties have deleted the App from their phones. You shared a story from Gizmodo that said one in four Americans really have deleted Facebook's App from their phone. Chad: Yeah. Obviously it's taking a toll. I think what we're seeing now in our streams on Facebook is much different than what we're seeing on LinkedIn or maybe Twitter from one side to the other. And for some reason some people felt safe at Facebook and having conversations with friends and whatnot. And then the next thing you know, all this trash has been shared. And then after the election and all that other fun stuff, there's no trust in some cases. It also said that 42 percent of the people who were in this survey had taken several week breaks from Facebook. So it wasn't just people deleting, it's also people who are like, "You know what, I'm taking a break from Facebook, I'm going to take the month off." And I've heard people say that, "I have took the month off of from Facebook and that doesn't bode well for Facebook because once you're away from it and you've kind of break those chains, you really don't feel you need to be there anymore. It gives you that nice little bread crumb to just delete the damn thing or just stop using it entirely. Joel: Yeah. I'm torn by the whole thing. I mean, so there's stuff coming out that kids that are on social media or more depressed and suicidal than those who aren't. And there's stuff coming out, I think it was the CEO of a Salesforce who said that social media is the cigarettes of our time, right. So there is huge under fire the stuff. But then I think I don't feel more depressed because of social media. I feel like it brings me closer to my family and people I like generally than it's a bad thing for me. And then I also think like, Is this generational. Right like, so my generation will be like the Facebook people. Like will age, will be 80 years old still on Facebook sharing stuff and like people in their twenties, Facebook is for old people like us. So they're going to have their thing, which I guess is going to be Snapchat. Joel: Now, Instagram is also their thing and we've talked about that. But Instagram is owned by Facebook, so most of these kids don't even know they're on Facebook technically because, Oh, I'm on Instagram not Facebook. And then the next generation coming up like my kids, they won't be on Facebook or Snapchat, they'll be on something else. There'll be on their VR headsets or they'll be doing whatever. I just think generationally that things are going to like come and go and as a business that's really risky because, yeah, we're good until these guys get old and we're not cool anymore. I think that LinkedIn has a unique sort of brand in that their brand is the professional network, so if you're 20 looking for a job, you better be on LinkedIn because those are the people who are going to give you your jobs and your promotions and introduce you to people. So I think to me Linkedin is in the catbird seat of social networking for longterm success because of their brand of it's work, it's professionalism. It's how you make connections in the business world. It's not where you share cat videos and a holiday pictures from family. Chad: Yeah, so also 12 percent of users over the age of 65 reported deleting their accounts. So 44 percent are in their twenties and only 12 percent over the age of 65. So yeah, what you're saying is I think true. It's something that you get into a routine, not to mention it makes it easier for grandma and grandpa to be able to share pictures and to see pictures of the kids of the swim meets or whatever it is, but there's going to have to be some type of an evolution. And we've seen Facebook really push their stories hard, right. Because they want to try to evolve and to start to capture or maybe keep in some cases those lower demographics. But it's going to be hard and I mean the new stories that we've seen over the last couple of weeks where we saw, they knew what was going on, they knew that the information was being leveraged. I mean that doesn't help either. So you've got all of this non trust going on and it's like, you know what, screw it. I'm just going to stay on Twitter. Kids are just going to stay on Snapchat or what have you. Joel: Yeah. And also it justifies Facebook getting more into work because a lot of these age, these generational divides, if it's just for fun, it is going to hurt them. If they become more of a utility for work, I think that pulls younger people in just by necessity similar to what Facebook is doing. Chad: They'd better evolve quickly because right now more of a marketplace for SMB jobs, that's just not going to cut it, that's not going to cut it. So they're going to have to evolve into something much different on the work side than what they are today. And breaking away with that a URL work, the workplace URL versus the Facebook URL could be helpful but I guess we'll have to see. They're going to have to evolve quickly maybe even who knows, make a dramatic change in that segment because if it looks like Facebook, it feels like Facebook, it's still fucking Facebook. Joel: It's still fucking Facebook. Do you want to do the money run down or you want to send people to the shred? Chad: We definitely want to send people to the shred. You got to go to the shred because guess what, last week we talked about Wanalou or Wonolo, sorry. They need to use that $32,000,000 to change their fucking name because it's horrible. Wanalou and Workable got big cash last week. That's on the shred, a rundown of that. And we'll do a shred this week on ZenJob who received a huge amount of cash. Joel: In border as well. Who we haven't, we don't talk about onboarding very often but I interviewed these guys a couple of years ago and they bring sort of a really cool automated solution to onboarding. So maybe we should talk about them at some point in the future, but yeah, we are not to spend too much time on the weekly show with just who got money, unless it's a big deal. We do that on the shred, which you should be subscribed to for the show. So I'll say we jump right to the scariest hell robot that's being developed for recruiting. Chad: Furhat robotics plus TNG group which is a recruiting firm, are creating this scary most looking robot that I guess will just sit on the table and when people walk in it will interview you. That's what I got from the video. Joel: Yeah, I mean we talk, so we've talked about automation and chat bots and bots and things like that, but that's pretty much been relegated to software. That's pretty much been either you type your chat with something that chats back with you via text. Maybe audio at some point will be prevalent, but yeah, these folks over in Europe, you can learn more about it, I think tng.se are developing essentially a bus. It's like a mannequin looking thing. It has no hair. It's sort of like if you watch, if you've seen I Robot with Will Smith, that's what it reminded me of. Those sort of slick looking, the mouth is digital, the mouth isn't manually moved or the mouth doesn't move. The face is like a mannequin and then it's digitally moving its mouth and its facial features. So I guess you go to a retail environment and just sit down with this thing and it would ask you questions, really creepy shit, but yeah, this is coming. This is happening. Chad: Supposedly the world's first unbiased recruiter robot. Yeah, I mean this just gets creepier and creepier every single day. Joel: Yeah, guys you got to see this video. It's so scary yet sort of fascinating at the same time. We'll put a link to it at chadcheese.com yeah, crazy stuff man. Podcasting is getting fun because the world's going crazy. Chad: The world is going nuts and I can't wait this week we're going to talk to Peter over at TAtech. Peter Weddle about Circa 2118 to find out exactly what's going to happen in the next hundred years. Joel: I don't know if I want to have that interview because I'll be sad. Die soon anyway, so to hell with it. Chad: Yeah I know, I'm living til a hundred. Joel: What's up with the environmental report that says by 2040 we're toast and we're just shoveling that thing under the bed. We're just going to ignore it anyway. Chad: You know you're going to believe in what you want to believe in and if you believe that a bunch of scientists got together because they felt it was in their best interest to say that global warming was happening, then you're in an interesting type of boat. Joel: Nice, yeah, boat. Good word. Yeah, well, when my house here in Indiana becomes a beach front property. I will be a believer for sure. Chad: Yeah, I don't think you're going to have to worry about it. I think the beaches of Miami and those types of areas will probably have to worry about it. Joel: I would agree, Venice. Chad: Venice, already has- Joel: People are walking around in water, it's crazy. All right dude, I can't take it anymore. We out. Chad: We out. Stella: Hi, this is Sarah cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad podcast or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes. That on your android phone thingie or wherever you listen to podcast. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors otherwise I may be forced to take that home writing job I saw on monster.com Stella: We out. #LinkedIn #Amazon #AWS #Facebook #Snapchat #Robots

Trump and job boards finally made the podcast as one story. Rejoice and all hail the podcast gods. What else is in this week's show? - Indeed hates your talent network - Google likes it on top - HR the "skills gap" is all your fault! - More idiots are being microchipped - Will Artificial Intelligence takeover Board of Director positions? - LinkedIn Media is killin' it! Enjoy, and visit our sponsors Sovren, JobAdX and Canvas. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions partners with employers on disability inclusion initiatives to design scalable solutions to support strategic and operational goals in staffing, training, retention, compliance and engagement. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Gobble, gobble, hidy-ho boys and girls. It's another weekly episode of Chad and Cheese. HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: Good to know. This week, Google is out performing Indeed. LinkedIn is on pace for two billion, that's billion with a B. And Donald Trump loves Job Boards. Chad: Asshole. Joel: And this week's show is full of jive turkeys. Stay tuned for all the fixings right her after a word from JobAdX. JobAdX: As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX has been providing job for publishers, direct employers, agencies, RPOs, and staffing firms. Dynamic job bidding and real time ad delivery to our programmatic job advertising exchange. JobAdX: When we started, we described JobAdX as AdSense for jobs. Now, we offer much more with switch board and live alert. Completing our full suite of dynamic programmatic advertising tools with the best of consumer ad tech. Switch board offers our dynamic technologies to all partner job board feed management. And live alert eliminates latency and expired job ads via email. JobAdX: For more information about any of our solutions, please reach out to us at joinus@jobAdX.com. That's joinus@jobadx.com JobAdX the best ad tool providing smarter programmatic for all your advertising needs. Chad: I don't know that smarter has anything to do with this podcast by the way. Joel: I say it's funny, but found the last remaining valley girl for their ad. Oh my God programmatic advertising. Chad: So good. Joel: Let's get the shout outs man. We got a long show today. I was hoping for an abbreviated version but not so lucky. Chad: That's for next week. Joel: I'll lead it off with Debbie Salado. I'm probably butchering that name, Citizens Bank. This is sort of self-interest. She's at Citizens Bank who I'm pitching tomorrow. However, she wasn't higher comp and we missed each other. So there is a little bit of a segue that makes sense. She is a fan of the show and we appreciate it. Thanks, Debbie. Chad: Buy Something Debbie, please, please buy something. Joel: Write a check Debbie, please, Christmas is coming. Chad: Congrats to Ethan and Veronica. Now Bloomfield, they just got married. In their new home in Costa Rica. I just saw pictures of a flower laden, oxen pulling new married couple in a cart on a dirt road in Costa Rica. I mean that my friend is the life. Joel: So romantic. Chad: It awesome dude. Joel: Shout out to New York City. We've done a lot of talk about higher cone from the show live this week, but the big apple never disappoints. We did the statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Central Park at a cab. Good food. Good company. Laughs all around. And by the way, Mexico, the Mexican Barbecue Fusion Restaurant was a pleasant surprise for me at least. Chad: Yeah. two Tecate with like TABASCO sauce and sprinkled with some ... What the hell was that? Joel: It was a hot sauce and fused beer Tecate, as you mentioned, with a like a dusting of hot sauce. It was rather pleasant. I enjoyed it. Chad: That was very pleasant. We went from one place which was more kind of high scale, and then we went to Mexique and that's where I think we felt pretty comfortable there. Joel: We were much more in our element. Mexican Barbecue and Fusion Restaurant. Chad: Yes. Shout out to Michael Ang from Job Elephant. Thanks for listening man. Sorry we weren't more heavy handed with handshake. Steven Rothberg would agree with you by the way. Joel: What a great shout out. I wanted to talk about that when we brought up the Ed Newman to the middleman because this was a great. We did the handshake story and he came out and said handshake is a piling hot, steamy garbage pail of a site. So that was an interesting perspective, from handshake. So thanks for that. Chad: Thanks. So thanks Michael. And a shout out to Vervoe, Vervoe, something that is not hot and steamy. Remember the Terry Tate Office Linebacker Reebok commercials. Remember those? Joel: Men of a certain age I'll remember that commercial. Chad: If you have never seen Terry Tate, the office linebacker go to YouTube, this very second type and Terry Tate's office linebacker. Watch those. They're fricking hilarious. So anyway, Vervoe, they put out these, this really cool ad. It was funny. It was centered around the people in the office and was really slick. It just, it reminded me of those office linebacker, without the concussions of course. But it was a really good ad. Good job for Vervoe and Omer over there. Joel: Yeah. Australian companies are really great at not taking themselves too seriously. Shout out to thanksgiving. Chad: Yes. Joel: May be my favorite holiday. You don't have to have show up with gifts. You can eat and drink all you want and it's totally acceptable. And there's football on TV. Chad: Yeah. Well, and sticking with that shout out to Ezekiel Elliott formally of the Ohio State University and currently running back with the Dallas Cowboys Zeke nailed 155 or I'm sorry, 151 yards rushing and one TD, but the big key here was hurdling over Trey Sullivan and totally poster rising him. That was pretty amazing. Joel: Our affiliated ends aren't going to like that shout out, but- Chad: That was especially for Ed. Joel: I'll shut out from my wife who has Zeke on her fantasy squad who gave her a miraculous comeback on Monday night with his three touchdowns to win her the weekend fantasy. So I'll speak for her on that one. Chad: Very nice. Very nice. Got a ven cat who you like to call big cat, CEO and founder of Job Yak. Who was on. Joel: I thought a mere cat as well. Which when mere cat. Why didn't I think of that one? Chad: That's so much more funny. He was on firing squad with Jobiak. So if you're going to check out the live show from New York City, do that, but also check out the newest firing squad with a big cat or mere cat from Job Yak. It's pretty awesome. Joel: Either way, if you're a CEO out there this dude knows how to work the social aspect from an interview. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: All over Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. I mean, granted he has 60 engineers that I'll probably just do whatever the hell he says, but the number of shares and likes and everything from his stuff was really impressive. So if you're a CEO and you get interviewed, like take a tip from Meercat, How to get the most leverage from your social presence. Chad: Not to mention he was concise. You've got to listen to the show. He was concise. He had his stuff together and he knew that Chad & Cheese podcast Firing Squad would be a great vehicle for his startup to actually sell. And obviously at the end of the day he's going to get graded by us and he could possibly get the Firing Squad. But the guy was confident. He was concise and at the end of the day had a really good show with him, but he knew how to leverage the podcast to be able to get out there. Joel: Dude's a stud and Thank God we got away from the chat bot trend of Firing Squad. That was a nice change of pace for sure. Chad: It was but that Russian female kind of sound wasn't bad. It made for a very good diverse effect between two dumb American guys. Chad: My last shout out is to all of our sponsors and anybody out there listening. I had this amazing, incredibly smart idea for marketing for the holidays. And you still have time to do it. You can pull this off. You should do ugly sweaters with your logo in the ugly sweater itself. Obviously you're going to have to send something to Chad & Cheese because we came up with the idea. But that's the best swag for this time of year, don't you think? Joel: All right, don't connect me to this bad idea. Chad: That's a great idea. Joel: And did you call it genius? Did I hear the word genius come out of your mouth? Chad: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty genius. Joel: My last shout out goes to the book Circa 2118, which I have not read yet and we are doing an interview with Peter on the books, so I should get to reading it here pretty quickly. But I'm sure it's a great book. Everything I've heard, some of the views I've read are fantastic. So if you're in the workforce arena and we know you all are a circa 2118 is a must read for the holidays or a gift to give going into 2019, Chad: I would say I would classify it as going from dystopia to utopia. There you go. Joel: That's deep. That's deep. Chad: It is a deep book. Joel: On that, let's get to the show. What do you think? Chad: Yup. Joel: Indeed. With some new terms of service, what's going on there? Chad: What dumb asses. So Indeed we just had a policy on staffing, right? They're kicking all of staffing out of their organic because their jobs just aren't good enough unless you pay. And then obviously their jobs are just fine, right? You've got shitty jobs, guys. We don't want them in our organic. Oh, wait a minute, you're gonna pay us. Oh, okay. Well let's go ahead and put them back in. This time it's a policy on talent networks. So the definition of a talent network from our friends. I use that term loosely at Indeed. Here's what the definition is. A talent network is a group of candidates that have expressed their interest in a specific company's job openings. Job Seekers opt in by giving their contact information to receive updates on new job openings and the company benefits by maintaining a list of interested candidates. Chad: In some cases, companies will take contact information from a job application and add the job seeker to their new network without the job seeker's knowledge. That's what their definition of a talent network is. There a new policy, you want to hit the new policy? Joel: Oh yeah, sure. Bullet points. This is fun. Joining a talent network must be a completely optional. It must be clear that talent network is not associated with the application process. Joining a talent network must occur after the apply process is clearly finished, not before. A talent network cannot be part of a larger share talent pool. Job Seekers should not receive contexts from any third parties. Communication must be limited to the updates on new specific vacancies at your company. And I love the explanation. Give me the explanation one. Okay. Joel: The explanation for Alex's talent networks often create a bad user experience. Candidates should not be funneled through any process other than a direct application for the position. Chad: So my first question is, will Indeed allow jobs leading to these talent networks in their organic if they're paid postings. Right. And just a reminder, once again, In deed's doing this for staffing. Well, they're not doing it in the organic. The only way that you can get it for staffing companies in the paid area, but they're talking about this bad experience. Right? And they've done the same thing with staffing companies. Are they going to do the same thing with companies? Are they gonna say, well it's a bad experience, but guess what if you're paying us, I guess the experience really just isn't that bad. Joel: To me this feels like Indeed is just sort of gradually screwing everybody that it can without getting really over cross the line. So the first screw was Job Boards, right? Chad: Yes. Joel: Like, okay, your jobs are sort of duplicitous and crappy, but if you pay us like you're good to go and we're moving into like if you're staffing company you're no good if you're a Smashfly or like CRM- Chad: Like the Phenom. Joel: Like phenom into T like, you're no good, they're never probably going to bleed into the direct employers being no good, but they're definitely, I think sticking it to as many entities as they can to suck out as much profit as possible. Chad: Well, okay. So that first line joining a talent network must be completely optional for the job seeker. I thought that seems doable and then I fricking smack myself and woke up and said fuck that. The direct employer pays for that talent network for the middleman, for the layer of cosmetic process, whatever the hell you want to call it, right? Who the hell is Indeed to dictate terms on how that company does business Indeed can suggest best practices and demonstrate those with case studies, Yada, yada yada. But you're not dictating anything assholes. I mean, that's the stance that a company needs to take. They are in fact impacting direct employers because employers are choosing to use those platforms for one reason or another, whether it's marketing or being able to keep candidates or individuals engaged. If they don't have a job for them now, they want to be able to keep them engaged. They use those platforms to do that now indeed saying, "Yeah, sorry employer, we know that you're paying for that, but not gonna happen." It's bullshit. Joel: This is a big plan for them to release their own CRM that they can funnel people into. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Well, somebody commented to me, he said it's free traffic on indeed. So Indeed can do whatever they want to do. And I agree that there's no question, but it's also content and without content indeed would be dead. Joel: Yeah, I remember that comment. I think it was on social media that someone said that. And I totally agree with it, but there's, if you build an expectation as a service and people respond and create, build their own services around that and you pulled the rug from under them. I mean it's not like super cool. I understand that it's done and it can be done. But like for job boards, job boards were enjoying free traffic on Indeed and some paid for higher things and then Indeed pulled the rug out from under them and people were surprised at that because they've had sort of expected this service to sort of adhere to what they had always done. And people normally like when companies change stuff, so I get it. But there's also an expectation that things as they are shouldn't change too drastically. I mean, when Google does this, they sort of slowly and algorithmically change stuff. And I could see where indeed would change its algorithm to put these kinds of jobs at the page nine and 10 of the results to sort of smack them around and give them that information or that penalty passive aggressively as opposed to something like this that's a little bit more aggressive, but it's their business. Chad: well, since all staffing jobs are going to be banned from Indeed organic at the first of the year, the search quality team isn't focused on identifying staffing companies anymore. So they're looking for other things to fuck up. Right? I mean, that's pretty much what's happening. Oh, we're not going to, we can't mess with staffing anymore because staffing is gone. They're out of the organic. So what are we going to focus on next? And last but not least, let's just be clear Indeed throws clicks and apps. Little of which are actually qualified applicants. So as they continue to do this and really cut off revenues to an extent other companies like the ZipRecruiter of the world and in other platforms that are focused on qualified, just only driving qualified candidates, they're the ones that are going to be the winner in this long term. Kind of a once again makes me feel like the monster and CareerBuilder of old when they were on the top of the mountain and they were just so proud of themselves. And then they got their ass kicked right off the top. Joel: Which leads us, I think into our next story. Getting kicked in the what... I don't think we've ever talked about before. Had a blog post up this week or last week where they are seeing evidence from their postings that Google is outperforming Indeed, which we've been predicting for a long time. A quote from the story. I'm now seeing that Google for jobs as a top three source for traffic for our clients beating Indeed in many cases. And then goes into sort of how the see, what traffic sources are the highest rank, so not a year into Google for jobs and we're seeing them beating indeed for this company's clients, which is expected. Chad: Yeah. And it's gonna happen even more as applicant tracking system start to do markups for all their feeds as obviously the middleman. So again, this just makes the fee norms and the smash flies and the clenches and all those platforms really focus on, okay, great if you're going, if you're going to come up with those bullshit types of policies, what we're gonna do is we're going to find ways to be able to replace that traffic. And we've heard of companies replacing that traffic and just moving on saying, guess what, you're not going to get my dollar. You're not going to get my vote. Joel: Yeah. And if just to word those of you outlet out there listening, if you're tracking your traffic and your seeing Google for jobs overtaken Indeed, we'd love to hear story hit us at chadcheese.com or #ChadCheese on Twitter. Chad: Yeah. Or if you are from a talent network company or a direct employer ad agency and want to kind of give us some insights to this new policy and your feelings and whatnot. On the record, off the record, doesn't matter. Definitely hit us up on LinkedIn or Facebook or even on the LinkedIn Messenger. Joel: Or just send us a random email with a fake address. Chad: Don't do that. Joel: And deep throat on it. Chad: Don't do that. Joel: All right. Facebook also vying for a nice piece of the Employment Pie. They continue to enhance their jobs component. A quick shout out to Chris Russell, friend of the show who has the most on his Rec Tech blog. The two enhancements city highlights easy share of jobs to groups and a new manage jobs tab from the pages site. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, have you ever used Marketplace to sell anything? Joel: I've purchased, I'm trying to think of fire sold something. Chad: I mean I just, I just did this week. I mean it's really simple because you put it up on Marketplace and then Marketplace gives you a list of groups that you can post into. This sounds exactly like, I mean, again, it's predicated on marketplace anyway. So it just sounds like it's the same type of functionality to be able to provide more broad based distribution into groups that could be kind of niche groups that are focused on the types of jobs that you're posting. Joel: Yeah, we actually have, now that you were talking have sold some stuff, bought some stuff. And we don't talk very much about Facebook and the impact on Craigslist, but it's got to be taking a hit Craigslist meaning, I had someone, I posted a job for a sort an odd job here around the house and I had to pay $5, which, yeah, is not a big deal, but how many people are saying, screw that. I thing $5 on Craigslist. I'm sure it's more money in certain markets, but and gravitating toward Facebook as a result. So I think everything I've heard from Facebook Marketplace has been positive, numbers out of Facebook is that one and for users on Facebook, I've looked for a job. We're hearing salespeople talk about Facebook being one of the top sort of questions and sources that companies are asking about. so yeah, we don't fall asleep on Facebook, but I think it's a lot of people are in danger of doing so. It shouldn't. Chad: You had somebody come to your house and actually do something that you didn't want to do and it only costs five bucks and you think that's expensive. You cheap bastard. Joel: I think I said - if you roll the tape back - that's not a lot of money. Chad: Okay, good. Joel: But it is very small little hurdle for people to put ... Craigslist for 15 years was free dude for just about everything and now it's not. So anyway. Chad: Gotcha. Joel: Let's break up this ridiculousness with a word from sovereign and then we'll talk about, I don't know what LinkedIn, Skills Gaps. All kinds of funs. Chad: Yep. Strike up that band Joe. Joel: Yes. Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and most accurate parsing products and now based on that technology come Sovren's, artificial intelligence matching and scoring software in fractions of a second received match results that provide candidate scored by fit to job and just as importantly, the jumps fit to the candidate, make faster and better placements. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting SOVREN.com. That's SOVREN.COM. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner. Chad: Okay. So that was not a banjo. But next time guys at Sovren, I want to request that that be a banjo on the music bed. Joel: Chad wants a deliverance style da da ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding AI, matching. Chad: Yeah. That's little bit too far, now getting into pig references and shit. Joel: You got a pretty. All right. So LinkedIn. Chad: Yes. Joel: The few things in the news. Most interestingly I think 2 billion on pace this year for advertising on sort of their general media advertising pro products and services. 2 billion is a lot of money. Like that's nothing to sneeze at. And personally, I don't know if you've advertised on LinkedIn but it's a son of a bitch to get an ROI on LinkedIn. Like, I don't know, people have to be selling some expensive shit, at least in our market to get a good ROI on LinkedIn. So good for them, for making the money. But man, they got to find ways to get people better ROI because it's tough, man. It's expensive and the leads are hard to come by and yeah. So good for them on the 2 billion. I'm sure that will continue to escalate up. It's good for them to diversify from the recruiting side to get more sort of traditional advertising dollars online. But yeah, that was in the news and we thought we pointed out. Chad: Yeah, roughly half of what Microsoft is making four billion ads. So I think that definitely says something. I mean, they are generating about two million posts per day in their feed. It's pretty damn interesting to see the growth and good for that man. That's freaking awesome. Which leads into more engagement in their company pages through the new redesign. Joel: Yup. Yup. Out this week as well. They got a few updates to their company pages for jobs on number one on that list you can see who has signed up for job alerts from your company, which is obviously important. It's good to see who's engaging with your company. You can also surface recommended job candidates who visit your page, so not only who's applying to jobs, who's visiting your page, all good data, which number one, LinkedIn is very into, but also number two, LinkedIn is probably the best at. I was in a call with a people search engine, so to speak, or sourcing tool and they talked about their insights and the insights were very MEH compared to the insights that LinkedIn is able to garner because they have so much just great data. Chad: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean also the integrations to Hootsuite and Crunchbase. So the Crunchbase side, being able to provide funding insights and then for Hootsuite to make it easier to get more content out there. I mean there're happy I'm sure to an extent with the 2 million posts and videos and stuff and shit like that goes out in their daily feed, but how can they do more? And that's what they're always focused on. More engagement, better engagement along with sharing content. Just with employees, so using this as an internal, I mean going through the page admins and the page admins can start to target only internal obviously employees to be able to share stuff on their LinkedIn pages or feeds as well. So I mean and again, remember they just bought glint for four to 500 million dollars so you can see they're going down the employee road to be able to focus more on helping companies retain and get that engagement. Joel: Is it just me or does the internal communication thing sound a little bit like slack? Just me? No? Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's a big step to go from LinkedIn feeds and Messenger to slack. But it could be done and it could be done through, I don't know, Microsoft teams. Joel: Sure. I mean they're already have messages on LinkedIn. How hard would it be to segment that to only people within your company and having groups within that. And I don't know, man, I'm just saying. Chad: There's a lot of crossover though. I mean, because we're seeing obviously Microsoft has dynamics talent and then they also have teams and teams is a direct slack competitor. So how could they perspectively leverage that within LinkedIn? I mean they're just ... Could they or maybe not. You never know how much technical debt they'd have to pay before they could do something like that. Joel: By the way, remember Yammer? Chad: Yes. Joel: Internal tweeting and it was sort of slack before slack. I mean, Microsoft owns Yammer, there's gotta be some legacy tech or people that know what the hell is going on with that stuff. So I don't know. The pieces are there. Plus you throw in Skype is a telephone voice thing. Could be interesting. Chad: There's redundancy all over the place, that's the thing. Joel: Fire everybody and let's get to the skills gap, shall we? Chad: Sure. Joel: All right. So Codecademy technically out of Philly shutting down. What's up with that? Chad: Yeah. So Roy Mauer over at Sherman put out a great article, talked about the skills gaps fall out and how it lands on HR. It's HR's fault, And then we start to see a code academy start to shut down. So you're like, how do you put those things together? And to be quite frank, what we need to do on the HR side and talent acquisition side of the house is we need to focus on building talent pipelines, not only searching for individuals who have those skills. We had a great conversation in New York over Thai food last week with the hiring sof guys and some of their clients and one of their clients said, "Hey, look, we've got to hire 800 engineers in the next 90 days or something." And if that's where you're at, you've already lost. Chad: Not because you can't do it right now, but because you're always going to chase your tail, that's not going to be the last time you have to do that stupid shit. Right? Because you haven't built an actual pipeline. So for these types of Codeacademies that are actually going the way the Dodo, the reason why they're not working is because they don't have the support of these big companies. They're, they're looking for really the individual to pay the freight or government to pay the freight when that's not who should be paying the freight, companies should be paying the freight for this. Right? Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative) what was the story is it's getting cold and wintry here in the Midwest about the ... What was the one animal that stored up the food during the summer, was it the rabbit or something that partied all summer and then basically starved when winter came, like companies should learn from that and learn to be less reactionary and more sort of proactive with the talent and what's coming down the pike and not relying on schools or government or whatever to provide the talent that they need or immigration, et cetera. It seemed like a pretty common sense idea. Chad: So the Codeacademy, those types of entities need to live inside of companies or coalitions of companies, not outside. That'll allow them to expand and contract as necessary. Not to mention you can skill up much faster if you're inside those organizations and they know what's next. Companies in many cases are just waiting for the universities to catch up to what they've been doing for 18, who knows how many months. So we're in a model today that's a 1940's type of model, 1950's type of model. Send them to schools. They're going to learn everything that they want and need. No, they can't. Moore's law has already pushed us too fast. So to be able to get that talent, much closer to the actual job, you'll do something like Sam Houston high school hopefully is doing with cyber security. You posted that, talk a little bit about that. It could be a pretty cool endeavor. Joel: Yeah, I love this. I mean, I've talked about a local high school where my mom lives, the auto parts or learning how to repair cars and that stuff is sponsored by O'Reilly's or whatever. A company sponsoring that whole segment of high school and geez, a Texas high school down in San Antonio is really getting with the times. They're helping train cyber security professionals at the high school level. So I just have to say and what a great service they're providing their students because these are skills that will be in real demand in the next many decades to come. Chad: Well, that's a possibility though. But it could go the way of the Codeacademy if they're not directly connected with companies. Or the federal government. Because obviously the federal government, you need cyber security individuals. If the federal government is a part of this and they're pipelining these kids into their ranks, that is incredibly smart. If these corporations who need cyber security, if they're doing the same thing and they're closely associated and affiliated to ensure that curriculum stays at the pace it needs to, then yes. Although if they don't and they are doing things in the same vein as the Codeacademy, they're going to shut down because they're not going to be able to keep up pace and they're not going to be directly connected to where the students can actually get employments Joel: Yeah. And by the way, the smart companies out there, will get into this high school and meet these kids and maybe have internships with jobs waiting once they graduate from certain colleges with certain degrees. This is a prime opportunity for companies to get in early on this talent, these rookies that are coming in and get them into the firm system and get them on the team when the time is right. Chad: Get them on contract dude. I mean, seriously, get them on contract. Joel: Internships if not- Chad: Yeah. Internships, if you want a commitment. You want a commitment. If a company's going to pay, let's say for you to go through and get a degree or get certificates or whatever it is, there's got to be some type of commitment in place. I mean, just like the military, you go into the military, there's a commitment, there's a commitment there because they're going to teach you a trade, teach you a skill and after they do that, obviously you're there's for two years, three years, four years, who knows? Same kind of format can be applied very easily and is being applied by organizations. The problem is that should be the standard, not something that seems on the fringe. Joel: By the way, people are leaving their jobs at the highest rates since 20O1. This came out this week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 2.4% of American workers voluntarily left their jobs in July. Again, this is the highest rates since April 2001. Employees leave their jobs for many reasons, including compensation or lack of growth. But things like modern networking make it easier for employees to find and change jobs. Chad: Amazing, amazing. Again, locally, we have an HVAC company who's doing exactly what I said because it's so hard to find heating, plumbing, air conditioning types of individuals. So they're taking them and they're sending them, paying for school, putting them on a contract. I talked to the guy's like, "Yeah, I'm about ready to get off my contract, but I'm going to stay with this company. I mean, they believed in me. They paid for me to be where I am today." If you want real retention, that's a great way to get there. That's a great way. It's not 100% foolproof. You still have to treat them well. But it's a damn good step. Joel: When are we going to just bring back and dentured servitude? I think that needs to come back. Let's get a quick ad from canvas and we'll talk about all the stupid stuff that we talked about. The end of the show. Chad: I love it. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage screen and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human that's you at the center. While Canvasbot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day, easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at go.canvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent, that's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: Why don't we have a chat and cheese culture video? I don't understand. Joel: Because we would have proof of the absolute meet headed this and probably regulations that were violating. Chad: It could be awesome. Joel: Dude. Microchips. I don't ... Man. Chad: Again. Joel: This is an England right? Like 1000 employee- Chad: What in the hell? I don't know. I think everybody tries this shit in the UK first. I don't know why the UK allows it. It's kinda like the haptic bracelets that Amazon was using and when the employees would go to the bathroom or something like that, they would know that they were at the bathroom or it's just a different way to track. Right? Joel: Yeah. Well we talked about this. It was an American company, Detroit or something. They were- Chad: Wisconsin. Joel: People were actually volunteering to get microchips bodied, so like get in the door faster and bypass security. It's just mind boggling that this should happen. Chad: And for the copier machine, that was one of the big- Joel: Oh yeah. Please inject me with a microchip so I can fax quicker and print out stuff more efficiently. Chad: Oh yeah. Cause everybody uses faxes today. Let me tell you. And copiers, I can't tell you the last time I actually touched a copier. It's really interesting. So the guy who's doing this in the UK claims that microchips are just a community service that he offers and people like you and I, Joel, we're just not in the learning curve yet. If this came from a government, I'd be like, yeah, that's not going to happen. But then he said, 'We're a private actor. We're doing this with our community, for our community." This guy is so full of shit. Has he not seen what private actors actually do? Joel: Dude, they put this thing between your thumb and forefinger? It's takes about two seconds and feel similarly to getting your ear pierced? Sounds great. Sign me up. Chad: Yeah. No, no, unless I'm James Bond and they want to track me because I'm an asset and they can't lose the asset and that's something that I just going to have to do because the government says that at that level of being an asset, but to do it just so that I can use the fucking copier, no. Joel: By the way, it says in Switzerland, an estimated 4000 people are implanted with microchips, including about 85 of the 500 people employed by TUI T-U-I a travel operator. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Why is this just not a bigger story. 4,000 people in Switzerland have microchips. Chad: Jeez. Joel: God bless America. Chad: I don't get it. Dumbfounded. Joel: All right, you want to talk automation or AI on the board of directors? Chad: Well, it's Kinda the same thing. So let's do border director. So from Forbes magazine, from Forbes I saw this really cool headline that talked about AI in recruiting. I thought, man, I want to read this. And then there was something even better. It talked about AI and how it's actually helping organizations. So here's a quote, in fact, a Hong Kong venture capital firm recently appointed an AI Algorithm to its board of directors. The company credits AI with pulling the firm back from the brink of bankruptcy because humans are fucking stupid. That's me, not the article, executives at deep knowledge ventures noticed the firm was funding way too many over hyped projects and AI is solved this problem by helping the firm make more logical fact based decisions because humans are stupid. It's amazing. Joel: Why not just have it as AI helps us make decisions like business decisions. Chad: Well, yeah. So, this is very surreal to me because you mentioned earlier Peter Weddle's book Circa 2118, it actually talks about board of directors being overtaken by AI because we're dumb humans and AI just makes better business decisions as you can see from this article. It goes on to talk about recruiting, but to be quite frank, the recruiting stuff is things that we talk about all the time. This, to me, I thought was fascinating. Joel: It is fascinating. Yeah. ZipRecruiter just added three big heavy hitters to their board of directors, including the likes of GoDaddy's former CEO, an ex Facebooker who got them through their IPO. I just don't know if having AI has the same kind of gravitas that having some great names on your board gives you, maybe. Chad: Well, I don't think it matters. I think the actual results matter. So if they pull AI onto their board and these types of results happen, I thought you were gonna say Sophia by the way. But if they, if they can pull AI onto their board and get rid of stupid humans who were making dumb decisions, then it doesn't matter about the Gravitas. I mean that's just all going to fade out the window because it's all about outcomes and numbers. Joel: I feel a new business coming on like people are gonna have, it's gonna be AI board members or something and you'll customize your AI experience and yes, throwing a robot to actually go to board meetings and talk to you as part as part of this program. Chad: Yeah. No, it would have to be. Joel: As long as they don't start podcasting, I guess we're safe. Trump who we rarely talk about. At least- Chad: And there's a reason for that. Joel: Yeah. The trump administration posted a job on a job board recently. Chad: So this is what happens when you can't find people who want to work at your organization. I don't care if it's the White House, I don't care what it is. This is what happens when you have to post jobs. But then let's go ahead and pull the White House back into this discussion. It's the fucking White House, Dude. You should be turning people away left and right because they want the honor and prestige of actually saying that they worked in the White House. They can put on their resume. I mean, that is some pretty next level shit. But guess what? They can't find people because of the organizational culture. That's what's happening. Joel: And by the way, it's usually some of the best and brightest our country has to offer that wants to get into the White House and work there. Chad: Oh, I'm out. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad and his buddy Cheese. This has been The Chad & Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund, for more visit chadcheese.com. #Indeed #CRM #RMP #CPC #Policy #GoogleforJobs #Facebook #LinkedIn #SHRM #SkillsGap #WhiteHouse #AI #Microchip

Venkat Janapareddy, CEO of Jobiak promises to take job postings and put them on Google for Jobs, SEO 'em and throw-in a good helping of AI. Can they survive the firing squad? Gotta listen to this Talroo exclusive to find out. PODCAST 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: Hey, Joel? Joel: What up? Chad: Would you say that companies find it hard to attract the right candidates to apply for their jobs? Joel: Well, Jobs2Careers thought so. Chad: Jobs2Careers? You mean Talroo. Joel: Talroo? Chad: Yeah, Talroo. T-A-L-R-O-O. Joel: What is that? Like a cross between talent and a kangaroo? Chad: Ha-ha, no. It's a cross between talent and recruiting. Joel: But- Chad: Talroo is focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Joel: Ah, okay. So it's totally data-driven talent attraction, which means the Talroo platform enables recruiters to reach the right talent at the right time and at the right price. Chad: Okay, so that was weirdly intuitive but yes. Guess what the best part is? Joel: Let me take a shot here. You only pay for the candidates Talroo delivers. Chad: Holy shit. Okay, so you've heard this before. So if you're out there listening in podcast land and you are attracting the wrong candidates, and we know you are. Or you feel like you're in a recruiting hamster wheel and there's just nowhere to go right? You can go to Talroo.com/attract. Again, that's Talroo.com/attract and learn how Talroo can get you better candidates for less cash. Joel: Or just go to ChadCheese.com and click on the Talroo logo. I'm all about the simple. Chad: You are a simple man. Announcer: Lost me precious. Lost me precious candidate to what's it so sweet precious. Lost. Announcer: Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to put the recruiting industries bravest, balliest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive. Announcer: Dig a foxhole and duck for cover, kids. The Chad and Cheese podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel: All right, all right, all right. Guys, we got a treat today. It's the non-chat bot firing squad episode. I know everyone's kind of sick of that shit. Chad: Geez. Joel: Today, we have a much different business. I want to introduce then Venkat Janapareddy. Is that right? I totally butchered that. I'm just going to call you Big Cat for the rest of the show. Welcome and give us a quick bio on you. Venkat: Thank you guys. Thank you for having me. My name is Venkat Janapareddy, founder and CEO of Jobiak. Jobiak is my third startup. Both my previous startups. which I founded had successful exits. My first one, XpertTech, a technology consulting and staffing company, which I ran for eight years, got acquired by a UK-based private equity firm. My second startup probably you might have heard, Gozaik, which was a social jobs platform for Twitter and Facebook was acquired by Monster World Wide a few years back. Joel: Fantastic. Thanks for being here. That was concise and we love concise. Chad, give him the rules of the show and we'll let him pitch. Chad: All right, Venkat. You're going to have two minutes to pitch Jobiak. At the end of the two minutes, you will hear the bell- Joel: Hold on, hold on, hold on. I need a bigger screen for ... For the soundboard. Chad: That sounds like a personal problem. Then Joel and I will hit you with rapid fire Q&A. If your answers aren't concise, you're going to hear some crickets. Chad: You need to tighten up your game and move it along. Joel: I think Big Kats got to go. I don't think we're gonna have crickets today. Chad: At the end of Q&A, you're going to get graded by both of us. You're either going to receive big applause ... You killed it, great job. Chad: You're on your way, but there's good amount of work to be done. Or what you don't want to hear is the fire squad. Chad: That it's probably time to pack your shit up and go home. So that's firing squad Venkat. Are you ready? Venkat: I am ready. Chad: All right, Joel. Get her going. Joel: All right man, two minutes starting ... Venkat: Great. Jobiak is an AI-based recruitment marketing platform for Google for Jobs. For those who don't know, last summer, Google launched their own job search engine called Google for Jobs. Just to give you some stats, 70% of job seekers started job searches on Google today, which is roughly about 150 to 200 million job searches a month. But to get your jobs on Google, employers that are required to add certain code to the web pages. This process can take several weeks just to get started. That's why 80% of employers are still struggling to get their jobs on Google for Jobs platform. Venkat: At Jobiak, we made this process radically simple. Using our platform, employers can now publish their jobs without having to write a single piece of code. Jobiak is very easy to use. It's a simple three step process. Using our platform, it takes about two minutes to get your jobs and Google for Jobs. We are the first to machine learning platform that can read any job web page from any site in any language and predict Google job schema tags with a 90% success rate. Venkat: To achieve this, for the past nine months, we have hired 60 plus engineers across the globe, trained over a million jobs, and developed 27 different machine learning models. We launched our public beta four weeks back. We are having an extraordinary level of interest from employers and industry leaders. And we are super excited about it. Joel: And we can learn more about you where? I always have to do this. Venkat: Yeah, check us out at Jobiak.ai. We do have a free plan where you can publish three jobs for free and get your jobs on Google for Jobs. Joel: And that's J-O-B-I-A-K, correct? [crosstalk 00:06:09]. Gotta spell this thing for people. All right. That's two minutes, man. Chad, get them. Chad: Whoo, okay. So the whole premise is Google for Jobs is out there. Your jobs are not on Google for Jobs. And we're going to help you get your jobs on Google for Jobs. Is it just that laser focused? Or is there more to be had here? Venkat: They're two important points. One, first to get your jobs on Google for Jobs, that's part of our MVP. The next version, which we are releasing in December, it's going to focus on optimization of your job posting. It's okay to get your jobs on Google for Jobs, but you do want to get better visibility. So we have two goals. First, get your jobs on Google for Jobs and help you get better visibility in front of job seekers. Chad: Okay, so here's some questions. We're gonna die deep into the optimization because a lot of the optimization that we hear about with SEO and whatnot's bullshit. So how are you going to help them optimize? Venkat: Well, let me start with how I started Jobiak. First, you know, lots of my friends and colleagues have asked me what is Google for Jobs? What do we have to do to get my jobs on Google? So we scraped a million jobs from Google to find out who's really using Google for Jobs. Turns out 80% of them are from job boards and job aggregators and LinkedIn, especially in LinkedIn is 20%, Glassdoor 15, and ZipRecruiter 11%. Venkat: So we took that data. Now, we are scraping additional 1 million more jobs. And we are going to look at Google jobs schema has nine different fields, as you can see on Google for Jobs. One is description, location, title, salary. We're going to look at all these and building a new machine learning model to figure out how Google is ranking when a candidate searches for jobs. Venkat: And depending on the type of job title, it depends a lot on type of job title you're using, the job description and the location. And we're building a machine learning model to figure out okay, if you have a jobs here from Indianapolis, a developer job, we are going to train a ton of jobs from Indianapolis with that title and city and see how the ranking happens on Google. Venkat: So with this technology, again, we are not going to guarantee that your jobs are going to appear on the fast page, but at least we can tell them "Listen, at least change the job title, or use this job description." We recommend people who have used certain titles and certain job descriptions, similar job titles have had success. Maybe try this. Chad: Well, there are certain pieces of information that you have no control over, like salary. It's a great one because most companies in the US don't actually put salary or a range of salary on their jobs. And Google has said that they will provide more weighting for jobs that have more information. How are you going to be able to provide that kind of optimization? Venkat: Good question. So when we looked at this million jobs, almost 90% of them had no salary. And Google does say that if you put in salary, you have a better chance. So using our flat form, even if you don't have salary on your actual job posting, our platform allows you to enter your salary, so that we can pass that information back to Google Index API. So we recommend that employees enter salary using a flat form. It doesn't necessarily have to be on the actual job posting. But we are passing that information back to Google Index API, so you have a better chance of appearing on the top. Chad: So it's manual. You have to actually manually add that into your form to be able to provide additional weighting to those jobs go into Google for Jobs? Venkat: It is for now, yes. Chad: Okay. Joel: I wanna step back a little bit. The number you quoted, 73% of job searches start at Google, where are you getting that number from? Because obviously, it's high and we've talked about that, and people quote it all the time. But, I mean, there's email, there's social media, there's going directly to a company's website. Like, is there really like a definitive number? And if so, where did you get that number 73%? Venkat: We got this from CIO magazine from IDC. That's where we got the number from. And as you said, we have also seen on many different websites, but CIO IDC's pretty prominent. So that's where we got the number from. Joel: Okay. And my second question here, SEO side, I got some questions on that. But for the company that just says "Man, I mean, ZipRecruiter is on Google for Jobs, LinkedIn is there. Why do I need something when I could just post my job on my job board of choice? Venkat: So first of all, job boards are expensive. Right now, ZipRecruiter the first three jobs they charge you about $249, LinkedIn is lot more expensive than ZipRecruiter. With our platform, first of all, you can get three jobs for free. No charge. If you have more than three jobs, if you have six, we have a pro plan where you can have six active jobs just for $15 a month. Venkat: This is like SEO. You don't pay a lot of money to get your web pages on Google. We are SEO for jobs. So we are much, much cheaper. You don't have to post ... And then our ultimate goal is you want job seekers coming from Google to your career site. Their plan is to take place on your career site, not on some job board. And that's our main proposition. Get your jobs back on career site. Let Google drive the traffic from there to your career site. And we are much, much cheaper than the job boards. Chad: So are you building a job board, kind of like get rid of your middleman. You don't need Indeed when the search starts, 73% of the time, the search starts on Google. You don't need that dumb Indeed. You just need us to be able to push them directly to you and not use a middleman. Is that what I'm hearing? Venkat: Exactly. We are not a job board. We are a recruitment marketing platform. We help employers get candidates to their career site from Google. We also have advanced analytics where we can tell the entire journey of a job seeker. Careersite "That's a feature we have in our Business Edition". And our goal is, again, we are not a job board. We are SEO for jobs. We are a recruitment marketing platform. Chad: That's a great answer. Joel: Venkat, when I'm a job seeker and I see postings from you or optimized postings from you, will I see the company name or will I see Jobiak? Like what will I actually see as a user in searching for jobs? Venkat: So we have four different pricing plans. The first two the free and pro, which only takes less than a minute to get your jobs on Google. You do see apply on the company name, but there is an additional landing page at Jobiak. But it does not have any advertisement or ads or anything like that. From there, when you click on apply, then go to the career site. But our business plan and enterprise plan, which is what we highly recommend, it goes straight from Google to your career site where the job seeker only has direct apply from Google to career site. Chad: So what's the landing page for? I mean, why do you even need a landing page in the first place, other than to have another echelon of pricing model? Venkat: Good question. So right now, we are working with Google. There is a new piece of technology Google introduced called Google Index API. Just got introduced three months back. With this, we are trying to find out whether we can stop this one additional step Google Index API requires. Hopefully, we get this resolved in a couple of weeks. If that happens, then we'll be able to have everyone go from Google to straight to the career sites. Chad: You're pushing something that many other organizations who've been around for a very long time are actually pushing as well. So I mean, even iCIMS customers. If you want your jobs, and that's the applicant tracking system, that's where the job actually originates. Chad: You can have iCIMS go ahead and mark your jobs up because they're working incredibly close with Google right now with all the different API's, whether it's Job Search API, or even the Candidate Search API. So what's the long term for a company like yours when an iCIMS or Broadbeam or a job distribution organization who has pretty great revenue streams already, this sounds like a pretty quick hurry up and acquire me kind of organization? Joel: Right. Future versus product. Venkat: Right. So first of all, most employers, almost 60% of employers don't have an applicant tracking system. iCIMS is an applicant tracking system. So they're pretty expensive. You have to pay at least $3,000 a month to get started on iCIMS. So, if you are a midsize and a small size employer and you don't want to use applicant tracking system, ours is a great platform. Venkat: Second, in iCIMS, you have to enter job each one repeatedly, whereas in our case, you only tell us one job and then show us the location of your remaining jobs on your career side, we automatically use our machine learning model and pick up all the jobs and push it to Google. Venkat: So if you have any ATS, again, half of the applicant tracking systems don't have this Google for Jobs technology enabled. We are actually getting a ton of calls from the top tier applicant tracking systems who have three to 4,000 jobs, and they want to push their jobs to Google. So if you have an ATS like an iCIMS, if you're already using and they have Google for Jobs enabled, that's not our target. Our target is employers who are not using ATS and also ATS do not have this Google for Jobs technology enabled. Joel: So what is the ideal customer for you look like? Is it the 60% that don't have an ATS, the smaller businesses? And is there a fear that those companies will eventually gravitate toward Hire by Google or LinkedIn where there is the upload directly into Google search? Venkat: Yeah, our ideal customer is mid-size. That's what we are targeting, the class of mid sized companies who do not use ATS, or even like at ATSs who have a greenhouse and never ... Not all of them are supporting all their jobs to push it to Google. So our goal is to attract mid size. Venkat: But surprisingly, we are getting a ton of calls from large scale employers who have more than two dozen jobs. And they want us to push their jobs because we didn't really expect this large scale enterprise companies coming to us. But we already received 50 plus inbound calls where they wanted us to push all the jobs. Joel: Is it because their ATSs are failing to do that? Venkat: That's almost, as I said before, 50% of them don't have this Google for Jobs technology enable, like Brass Ring, Bamboo HR, they don't have this technology. And all their employers want their jobs on Google for Jobs and they're looking for a company like us. Chad: Like you. I mean, you're really going to see that to be standard. And that's pretty quick. I mean, you can get a team on that and have those markups, at least what we've seen from some of the applicant tracking systems, have that up and running pretty quick. So don't you see on the enterprise side, this is going to be a standard issue feature for all the applicant tracking systems out there? Venkat: It is true, but it's been what? 18 months. Applicant tracking systems are still struggling. We did get lot of calls from ATSs who they want to partner with us. Not quite sure, but this new Google Index API, if you don't have a partnership with Google, your limit is only 200 jobs. That's the reason some of these jobs you're getting from applicant tracking systems, you see on Google for Jobs is only limited. Venkat: Unless you have a partnership, you're not going to be able to push more than 200 jobs, whereas those who have partnerships, companies like us, we are able to push close to 160,000 jobs a day. So yeah, it's been 18 months. It's surprising to see that some of these ATSs have not caught up. Chad: I would believe just from the competitive landscape, that's going to happen pretty quickly, as some of these bigger names start to, and again, as we talk about iCIMS and they were like one of the first out of the gate. So let's take a look at the actual mid-sized market, which is your target market. That's not an easy market to penetrate. How do you actually foresee going out and trying to penetrate that market? Venkat: Good question. So we have a go to market strategy, which we already know. List of all the employers in the US who are midsize employers whose jobs are not appearing on Google for Jobs. We have a tool that can tell for any given employer whether their jobs are not on Google. So we are planning to run several LinkedIn campaigns, direct emails. Venkat: Our goal is again, Google is going to do a lot of the selling for us and it's a slow start for Google for Jobs. But pretty soon, it's going to pick it up and more and more employers are getting to know Google for Jobs, and they're all looking for a solution. Venkat: So we're counting on this viral effect. But we do have a GTM strategy right now, where we have ton of employers we already know whose jobs are not on Google. We are looking to run several campaigns and direct email, and then also in house sales to directly contact those guys to get their jobs. Joel: Venkat, do have a sense for how important it is that a candidate or job seeker gets from clicking the initial link to actually applying, how quickly that happens? And what that means to rankings and SEO? Because one of the things I see as a hurdle for your business is you may be able to get the candidate or the job seeker to the job quickly. Joel: But if the actual ATS experience is sucky, which it generally is, and they leave the site and go to a Zip Recruiter or another job site, does that inevitably hurt you, even though it's not your fault? Venkat: Yeah, that's a big problem, this supply optimization. That's one of our roadmaps right now. We are working on it. Right now, we don't really have a clear solution what happens when the candidate lands on career site, but we do have this advanced analytics where we are the only ones we can track the entire job seekers journey. Venkat: So we can tell whether the candidate clicked on other than apply for us is whether they clicked on any products at home base, or any other links. But if he leaves abruptly, we don't really have a solution right now. But that's something we have on our roadmap to optimize the apply process. Joel: Right. And you talked about a version 2.0, I guess, of your service, which is actually helping companies optimize their job postings better. What exactly does that look like? Is that sort of face to face consulting? Is that sort of a text-eo, you know, you look at the job posting and sort of highlight ways that they could make it better? What exactly does the second generation of your product look like? Venkat: That's great. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned Texture. And it's very similar to Texture. But except Texture takes a lot of time. If you have a job posting, you have to spend good 30 to 40 minutes to make it a better job posting. In our case, an employer comes to us, they give us a job posting. Venkat: Using our advanced machine learning, we're going to tell them your score is a 30 out of 100, But, we recommend these are the job titles, these are different job description templates. We don't want employers to be really spending a lot of time changing the job descriptions. We want them to pick one that makes sense. So that it's fast and easy. Venkat: So our goal is to provide several templates for job title. It comes down to job title and job description, especially the job description. We plan to give few templates based on our machine learning, what we have seen out of this million jobs. And they can pick and choose and customize it quickly, so that they don't have to spend more than five minutes to optimize their job posting so that they have a better experience on Google. Chad: I love that. The only problem, once again, it comes back down to user experience, right? And the candidate experience because they're going to get this wonderful, fluffy, better, Textio type of job description before they actually get the applicant tracking system where they apply. And they see this train wreck, right? So that's one of the hardest things for me is being a middle man, which is again, this is really one of the functions that you're providing, and being able to provide more information to Google and better information to the candidate. Chad: The end experience is really what matters. So when a candidate hits the actual corporate career site, they see that job or they see the experience and it sucks. They're going to reject and when they eject, that's going to count against that that career site, which means they're going to have even worse search engine results, right? Venkat: No, I agree. I know that's a big problem right now in terms of the apply process. We are talking to companies like RolePoint and Jibe. Hopefully, we'll have something in place. But if they don't have a good apply process, right now that that is a problem. But our focus right now is to get jobs. Significant number of jobs are not on Google for Jobs. So our initial MVP focus is, you know, disrupt this market, get as many jobs as possible, and then work on apply process. Joel: Could this product work for other vertical search engines, such as Indeed? Is that something on the roadmap or no? Venkat: Yes. Microsoft recently announced they are now pulling jobs from LinkedIn on Bing. Now they have, what? 15% of the search market. We are hoping they will do something similar to Google for Jobs. If they do, we'll be the first one using our ML technology. It will be the same tech, we'll be able to push those jobs to Bing as well. Venkat: Indeed, actually, you know, as of next year, they are no longer going to support staffing jobs, three postings from staffing companies. So we're going to tap into that as well. That's a good thing for Jobiak as well as Google for Jobs. They're all looking for solution. Chad: Nice. I love that target. That's nice. Okay, so we're taking a look at, again, trying to penetrate the market because that's the biggest key. The biggest key is adoption and trying to get those companies to start using the product, and obviously paying for the product. Are you partnering with any organizations that are out there? Any other types of middleman? Any agencies? Or is this a we're going to go it alone because we believe the best strategy for us? Venkat: Absolutely. We are already talking to some of the top recruitment marketing agencies. And they want us to do a couple of pilots. Interestingly, they want us to pilot companies which have two to 3,000 jobs, which we really didn't expect. And we are talking to some applicant tracking systems. We did get some calls where they want us to partner, directly push some of the jobs. Venkat: So our goal is to partner with some of the applicant tracking systems, as well as the recruitment marketing agencies. We are not looking to partner any tier two job boards. Again, lot of inbound calls from tier two job boards where they want to use our tech to push their jobs. But that's not something we're looking to do. Chad: Gotcha. Gotcha. So when it comes to ... I mean, you've got a good track record on the acquisition side of the house. What's the timetable on acquisition because this looks like it could be a pretty tight time table? Venkat: Yeah, we are not really looking to sell the company. Our goal is get at least 50,000 subscriptions by end of next year. We have no competition, to be honest. And we want to disrupt, dominate, and take as much market as possible. And we'll see what happens end of next year. Joel: Well, dominating takes money. Tell me about the plans for raising. Have you raised some money already? And what's your pricing breakdown? You mentioned free for three jobs, but how does that sort of segment up the chain? Venkat: Yeah, right now, I am funding it. I'll continue to fund. Funding is not an issue, but if it's required, we are looking to launch in UK and India and couple of Spanish countries. At some point middle of next year, we are looking to raise some money. But right now, I'll continue to fund. That's not an issue. But from a pricing point, we do have free plan. Three jobs you can push any time. Venkat: But the pro plan is about six jobs active any given time, that's $15 a month. And the next one, business version, that's $99 per month, 25 active jobs. The business plan also has integrations with 11 applicant tracking system right now. We can pull jobs directly from those ATSs and push it to Google. And then, we have enterprise plan where we support up to 10,000 active jobs. The price depends on the number of jobs you have. Chad: Sweet. Joel: All right. We're done with the Q&A. And we'll go on to the grading portion. I'm gonna go first. And I'm gonna take people back in time a little bit to the days where jobs ... Yeah, yeah. The Wayne's World ... You know, I remember when Jobs2Web was putting out optimized job postings. This was before Google for Jobs. This was sort of the traditional web search that you saw on Google. And a lot of the same questions came up. You know, why can't a company do this on their own? Why won't ATSs do this on their own? You know, make the URLs nice, make everything findable, XML feeds, title tags, et cetera. Joel: And eventually, most at ATSs caught up and did that. Just like they caught up on mobile and other things. So SEO was more or less a feature that the ATSs and job boards eventually caught up to doing. I think that this is very similar. I think that Google is a proven entity for job search. No one thinks of it as a nice to have. They're starting to think of it as a must have. And as we see numbers out of ATSs and job boards saying that Google for Jobs is taken 30% of Indeed's traffic, that that's a huge number. And clearly Google for Jobs is impacting in a positive way job seekers going to the right place. Joel: And ultimately, I think that companies will want them to go to their site. So they're going to push ATSs to do this. Now Jobs2Web sold to SAP for, I believe, $100 plus million. So they won in that scenario. They got rich and cashed out. I think that your domination, and we're not looking to sell and all that stuff, sounds really nice. But I think that it will behoove any ATS of stature to not look at you guys and say "We're behind on the ATS SEO optimization portion. We need to get on board as soon as possible." And backup the Brinks truck to your office and make you guys a deal that you can't refuse. Joel: So from that perspective, I think we're working with some real concrete benefits for customers. I agree with you that ATSs are going to be behind. A lot of companies don't get this. So I think it opens up a whole new market for a lot of ATSs that may want to get into the SMB space. So for those reasons, this definitely gets from me, and I'm a Google nerd. Joel: That's applause. We'll be talking to you in three to five years about your next startup because you will dump this in the next 12 to 18 months I predict. Venkat: Okay. Thank you. Joel: Chad, you're up. Chad: Excellent. So Venkat, I have to say that your pitch is spot on. There's no question. When you're talking about job boards and the Zip Recruiters and not going to a middleman, right? Not trying to go to a middleman. Going directly to the source, which is Google. I love that. That's awesome, being able to offer free pilots and all those things. I think that's incredibly necessary when you're starting something up that nobody's ever had a taste of before. Chad: So I think that is a main thing. I do think there's no question, this is a very short timeframe. The timetable for you, as Joel just said, to be able to get this turned over is going to be 12, I think 18 months is on the outside. Because if you stay in the same vein, it's really a one trick pony. Chad: And to say you have no competition is not the case. Maybe not direct competition. But when iCIMS is already sending jobs there, and you know, all the other big companies are going to start doing the same thing. You've got Hire by Google. And then all the other small applicant tracking systems, which are pretty cheap. About 80 bucks a month, like a JazzHR. The competition, it's going to happen quickly, right? Chad: So you're going to have to obviously get a quick turn on this. So various competition. And they're also the SmashFly's of the world and the Phenom's of the world. And again, everybody understands the power of Google. So you're incredibly smart getting out in front of this. If you can get rid of this in 12 months, I would say I will give you a big applause then. But right now, it's going to be a golf clap. Joel: Tough crowd. Venkat: Thank you guys. I appreciate the feedback. Joel: But no guns for you, so you made it out alive. How do you feel? Venkat: Very good. Very good. That's really good feedback. Appreciate that. Chad: I'm sure it's part of your roadmap already. You've had a couple of successful exits already. So good luck, man. Joel: Good for you. All right, before we leave one last time, where can our listeners find out more about you? Venkat: Check us out at Jobiak.ai. As I mentioned, we do have a free plan where you can publish three jobs for free. So get your first three jobs on Google for Jobs and see what this amazing tool can do for you. Chad: Always be closing, baby. Good job. We out. Joel: We out. Venkat: Thank you guys. Announcer: 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.chadheese.com. #FiringSquad #Jobiak #GoogleforJobs #SEO #Jobs #Startup

After our "Automation and A.I.: Is Your Job Safe" Smart Stage presentation at SHRM Talent we were immediately ambushed by Jeanne Meister who wanted to talk about taking HR to AI School, so we broke out the mics. Enjoy! More amazing "On The Road" content brought to you by Jobcase! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities.​ Jobcase: With job boards, you get clicks, and well, clicks. But if you're looking for actual people, not just clicks, meet Jobcase. If you need to hire great people, hourly employees, or have hard to fill jobs, Jobcase takes a different approach than job boards. Jobcase delivers local workers, active and passive candidates for the more than 100 million members in their community. That's right, the people on Jobcase are also members, and since they're members, they trust and respond to what Jobcase puts in front of them because they know it will be worth their while, like that job opening you're looking to promote or that hiring event you're hosting. Jobcase: In fact, people are at the center of everything Jobcase does. It's why they use machine learning and data insights to ensure they're connecting employers with the right Jobcase members and their members with the right jobs. It's people first, not just clicks. Put the power of Jobcase to work for you. Learn more at jobcase.com/hire. That's jobcase.com/hire. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Jeanne: I said I had ... Joel: Oh, you don't put your name on your little pamphlet here? Jeanne: No, I didn't. Joel: I guess it doesn't matter, right? Jeanne: It doesn't. Joel: Well, we'll get to that. We'll do the intro here real quick- Jeanne: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: ... and then you can tell us who the hell you are. Jeanne: Exactly. Joel: What's up everybody? We're here at SHRM Talent, Nashville, Tennessee. Chad: Nashville, man. It's warm, dude. Joel: The outdoor edition of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Love it. Joel: Really enjoying the weather here right now. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I think only a beer is missing from this picture right now. Chad: A beer and then a nap, and a hammock. Joel: Did I just say you need a nap? Chad: I know I need a nap. Joel: Wow. Chad: After a beer and a hammock. Joel: You heard it here first. Chad: It's awesome. Joel: We just got off stage talking about AI and automation to- Chad: Shaking up here at SHRM. Joel: ... a standing, standing room only I think is fair enough to say what we just did there, but so someone, a mystery lady came up to us. Chad: She said, "I want to be on the podcast." Joel: She's the, I'm going to go with founder of Future Workplace, okay, and she has partnered with SHRM to do some AI courses. So mystery lady, why don't you tell us who you are and why we should care, and then we'll get to questioning you. Jeanne: All right, here goes. Jeanne Meister, founding partner of Future Workplace, an HR advisory and research firm. We have a network called the Future Workplace network of I like to think of them as the pioneers in HR that are on the cusp of trying the latest new ways to engage employees and create a more compelling employee experience. So we took a poll of our members about a year ago and it said, "What's the one thing that you really need to do better as we're entering 2020?" and they said, "AI for HR." Joel: Of course, they did. Jeanne: Right? Chad: Of course, they, and- Jeanne: And they said we don't know anything about it. Chad: ... they need to do a lot of things better for HR, but yeah, AI is going to be able to help them do that. Is that how you feel about it? Jeanne: AI is going to put the humanity back in HR. Joel: I like that. Chad: I do. Joel: Can we use that? Jeanne: You can. Joel: You haven't trademarked it? Jeanne: Yeah. Well, go- Joel: So how long has Future Workplace been around? Jeanne: Six years. Joel: Six years. Okay, so you're a baby, you're still in diapers as corporations go. Jeanne: Well, I'm just starting to walk really. Joel: Okay, starting to walk. She's stumbling a little bit, holding onto the rail, but that's great. So your members want AI and where does it go from there? Jeanne: It goes from there, they want to recreate the employee and the candidate experience. That's what they're after. Chad: Okay. Jeanne: They see a lot of opportunity to take the routine activities that HR is just burdened with quite honestly, and take them away and offload them to AI so that they can ideally focus on the more strategic areas like closing the sale, right? I mean, AI isn't going to make the job offer, but there's so many opportunities along the way in the sourcing process. Jeanne: I think one of the... As we just talked, I think in addition to the benefits of finding the right talent faster and eliminating that big black hole that we've been living with for decades now, the biggest opportunity I see is the possibility of eliminating unconscious bias, and so if you have the skills and credentials to do the job, you actually are more comfortable talking to a chatbot. Chad: So we actually are going to be in Lisbon next month, and we're going to have on stage with us an AI robot that is an interviewing robot, and it's out of, where are they out of? Joel: Sweden. Chad: Sweden. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Tengai. Joel: Yeah. Think of a like a Barbie bust where you'd style her hair. Chad: Yeah, it's like this tall. Joel: And so yeah, it's kind of like that. Jeanne: Yeah. Joel: And there's sort of a digital face and yeah, the video they have is interesting. Candidates walk in. It's a robot asking you questions and the main selling point I think is the unbiased angle of it's inter... It doesn't matter what color, how tall, what sex. It's going to ask you questions about the qualifications for the job and recommend you accordingly. Chad: And the product is called Tengai Unbiased, so I mean, they are really focusing on that too. So do you think that that is the biggest advantage to AI? Jeanne: I think that's one of the undersold advantages of AI, and as I said, CBS News did a special video the end of September on how is AI used by big companies, and they featured Hilton Hotels, which started using AI in 2015. So they interviewed a customer call center operator who went through the entire process using the LeO chatbot, and they said, "What's the best part of the process?" and he said, "You know what? I felt entirely comfortable being able to share my credentials and get the next step for a face-to-face interview without any unconscious bias. Just telling my story and what my skills are." Chad: Which I think is awesome from a candidate's view, I mean, from an experiential view, right. That's one of the things that we really have to focus on because the black hole has really screwed us in our brands over the years. But I mean from the company side, I mean, that's kind of like an an underlying advantage. Are they focusing on that, saying that's why we want to go there, or are they focusing on it because they know that there are just all these efficiencies that are there to make sure that they can get to the right people faster? Joel: Honestly, if I'm a hiring manager or recruiter, I'm scared to death that I could be replaced with a bust of a robot who will do the interviewing. Jeanne: Yeah. Joel: I mean, what am I really for then? If automation is sourcing candidates and pre-screening them and scheduling them- Chad: And interviewing them. Joel: ... and now they're interviewing them, then what am I going to do? Jeanne: Well, I think the other question here is what's the responsibility of the organization you work for to upscale you? I think what we're not spending enough time on are what are the new job roles in HR as AI infuses the entire HR function, and I can see a number of new job roles. For example, Salesforce came out with a new job role, the Chief Humane and Data Ethics Officer. September of 2019, that role was filled. I think there's going to be a lot of new roles focusing on data ethics and data transparency, and that means that people need new skills. Joel: Branding and experience come to mind, treating job seekers more like customers and consumers. Chad: Brand ambassadors. Jeanne: Yeah. Joel: The sort of bleeding of marketing and recruiting coming together. I mean, we're seeing more bridges between those two departments, and whether they're called brand manager or employment brand, whatever. That would be another thing that comes to my mind in terms of what could grow in light of sourcing and recruiting and interviewing becoming less important. Chad: So tell us about this training. Jeanne: Yeah, so we're thrilled to have developed with SHRM a series of three courses. The series is called using AI for HR. Each course is a mini-course and it's three weeks, self-paced. As an HR professional, you receive five SHRM PCDs plus a digital badge from our firm, Future Workplace. The three self-paced courses are AI for talent acquisition, AI for internal talent mobility, and AI for learning and development. Jeanne: So if anyone is out there in HR saying, "Oh gosh, Jeanne, but where do I start?" Right? The low hanging fruit is AI for talent acquisition, but the mind share, the urgency is AI for internal talent mobility. Why? Because people are staying in their jobs longer. As organizations are flatter, people are actually staying in their jobs 30% longer than they have before, and companies want to retain you as an employee and they need to move you around. AI is ideally suited to help an organization provide more internal talent mobility. Joel: So who's teaching these classes? Jeanne: Not me. We have identified 12 HR pioneers that have started their AI journey as early as 2015, which one is Hilton Hotels. We have brands such as IBM, Hilton, General Electric, Intel. We've identified these 12 early adopters, and they're telling their stories in three-minute video case studies. Our job as the course curators is to create the experience, the curated articles, the research and the application, and it ends with an an action plan. What are you going to present to your team? What's your recommendation that you want to present that your company should go on this AI Journey? Where are you going to start? That's how it ends, and you get five SHRM PCDs. Joel: I assume this is something that you can put on your resume, potentially make more money in your next position, similar to other education advancements, right? Jeanne: Absolutely, and so I'm Jeanne Meister, and you could check me out on my LinkedIn profile because I designed the course, and I also took the course so I have all the digital badging on my LinkedIn profile. Chad: I'm not just the founder, I'm a user. Jeanne: I'm a user, right, exactly. Joel: So how would you define AI, because there's quite a bit of debate. What's your definition? Jeanne: So my definition is AI provides you with the opportunity to create human intelligence through the use of tools and computer systems, so it mimics human intelligence. So your definition looked at the narrow, the general, and the broad. I think what people really wanted is just a broad definition that there are so many parts of our jobs in HR that are routine and manual, and AI can provide the ability to have the same level of human intelligence and offload those parts of our jobs that, quite honestly, we're not getting any satisfaction from. Chad: Yeah. Well, and I think it's most important that HR started doing research and now having these types of resources available to them, it makes it a little bit easier to jump in and really start learning. Jeanne: Yeah. So here's what I was surprised at with your talk. Chad: That it was so awesome? Joel: How sexy we were? Jeanne: Well, in addition to all of that. Joel: We get that a lot. Chad: Yeah, we get that a lot. Jeanne: In addition to all of that, you started by asking so who's afraid they're going to lose their job because of AI? Chad: Right. Jeanne: I was sitting in the first row because I was paying attention to every word. Joel: You're a groupie, aren't you? Jeanne: Oh, I'm so much of a groupie. Chad: New subscriber. Jeanne: I turned around and there were two hands raised. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Jeanne: And I said, "These people are not telling the truth." They are so terrified of AI that they are afraid to raise their hands. Joel: And my comment was, "You all are some disillusioned people." Chad: Yes. Yes. Jeanne: And I think it shows the level of maturity. You said we're in the second inning. We're sort of like maybe in the first pitch of the first inning here. Joel: Okay, okay. Jeanne: Okay. I mean, we've got a- Chad: It's a long journey. Joel: It's very subjective. Chad: It's a long journey, Joel. Jeanne: We've got a long road ahead- Chad: It's a long game. Jeanne: ... and that's why it's really important to understand who are these people that have been using AI for the last three years. What have been their business results, how did they start and what can you take away to your organization? Joel: So we're in the early stages and we both agree on that. Jeanne: Yeah. Joel: You can debate exactly how early. Jeanne: Yes, exactly. Joel: But we have a lot of companies looking to solve the problems of AI, and it's very early in that process as well. You mentioned looking at vendors in the landscape as part of your courses. What are some vendors that stand out to you that are getting AI right? Jeanne: Yeah, so we have an AI for HR technology roadmap where we identified 80 companies, venture-backed companies that have solutions for AI, and we looked at it across the employee life cycle. So we started with personal productivity. Chad: It's like road mapping it. Jeanne: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. Jeanne: So hey, why not be curious yourself and for 19.95 a month, you could have your own personal productivity bot using X.AI, Andrew or Amy, and so we think that you've got to look at it... In order to really think about this as an opportunity for you and your organization, you have to be a user. You can't fake it here, right? Chad: Right, right. Jeanne: So we have a number of personal productivity bots that I think you... That's one of the assignments in the course. We take them through it and choose one. Chad: Build your bot? Jeanne: Build your bot, right? I think in the recruiting space, that's where most of them are, so we have Maya competing head to head with LeO for the whole area in recruiting and sourcing and interviewing. We have in the internal mobility space, we have [Glaut 00:15:44], an Israeli company, but here's what I think is really interesting. So we all know about IBM and Watson, right? Okay, so they've been at it for decades, but a trend that I see is the commercialization of HR vendors by the very companies that are using AI for HR. They're going to be so successful in either building it or buying it that they're going to market with their own solutions head-to-head with the venture-backed businesses. Chad: Yeah. Great time for competition. Joel: Competition is good for business. Jeanne: Yeah. Chad: It is very good for business. Joel: So what does this AI thing look, what's it look like in 10 years? What's the employment rate for recruiters? Jeanne: I think we're going to have a whole new HR function in 10 years, and I think the HR departments will be leaner, more- Joel: We agree on that, I think. Jeanne: Yeah. Chad: Oh yeah. Jeanne: Yeah. We'll be more strategic, right? Joel: Smarter, maybe. Jeanne: Smarter. I think we're going to see the end of the self-service HR and the birth of AI-powered HR, so you're going to be focusing on predictive HR, and one of the cool applications is proactive retention, and IBM has, along with many others have patents in this area. So HR then leaner, a more strategic HR is going to really be key in predicting who's going to stay in the company, and if I have a high performer on my team and I get wind that they could be leaving- Joel: There's a story about GM having something that can predict with like a 90, 95% confidence rate that someone will leave in the next six months. Chad: It's all about signals, man, the signals that you're throwing out. Jeanne: Exactly. Joel: Do you fear that on the creepy scale, it'll get too creepy? Chad: It's already too creepy. What are you fucking talking about? I mean, look at Slack. Joel: I'm talking to her. Chad: Look at Slack. I'm creeped out now. Jeanne: I think it's on the edge of creepy. What do I think is creepy? What I think is creepy is when a company starts reading my emotions at work. What I think is creepy is when a company gives me a sensor and now sort of follows me in the organization as I walk around and knows who I talked to- Chad: Amazon. Jeanne: ... or email. Joel: So there's a company that you basically wear a lanyard that's a recording device. Jeanne: Yes. Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative). Jeanne: Right. Joel: And it records how you say stuff, what you say, et cetera. Do you think at some point people will go away from companies like that and say, "I don't want to work for a company that's going to be policing every single thing that I do?" Could it be a recruiting deterrent in the future? Jeanne: A good question. I think yes, because I think it really... What we know today about data privacy and how important that's becoming and the breaches in data, I think this is only the beginning of what we're going to be seeing in five years from now. So I think that's what's creepy, when somebody follows you in the company, around the company, knows who you talk to, understands who your network is, knows how many times you send an email. That's creepy. Joel: Or even higher view video interviewing will scan your face while you're giving answers to questions- Chad: Oh yeah? Joel: ... and are you lying and are you nervous? Are you this or that? I mean, to me, if job seekers find out that that is what's happening during video interviews, maybe they'll say, "I don't want to do an video interview with you." Jeanne: Well, I don't know if they're going to have the choice. I think 10 years from now, everyone's going to be doing video interviews. They're already doing so many now. Joel: So you don't think they'll just migrate to the gig economy and the contract and Upwork economy? Jeanne: No, no. Joel: No? Jeanne: No. I- Joel: So they're just going to take it. Jeanne: They're going to... No, they're not going to. Chad: I think it depends. I really think it depends on the market and if there are companies that are doing that, it has to happen broad base. Everybody has to be doing it and if not, I mean, you're going to see people jumping. But I mean, we're seeing it like somewhat, not that, but we're seeing that now at Amazon with the haptic bracelets, right, and they didn't have people leaving, and then we have people who are getting microchipped in Wisconsin, and then now we've got Amazon. Joel: Barcodes. Chad: Yeah, Amazon. Amazon has the little HUD, heads-up display goggles and that kind of shit. I mean, I don't know, man. It seems like from a human being- Joel: It feels like an eggshell working experience that's not all that healthy. Chad: No, not at all. Not at all, but people are putting up with it because they need those jobs. Joel: Got to feed kids and shelter their selves. Jeanne: Yeah. I think that so much of it depends also on the level of transparency. Are you telling people what you're doing, how you're doing it, and what you're doing with the data? Employees are going to demand you communicate transparency, and that's where I think we're going to see a lot more than today. Joel: I still think there are a lot of employees who don't realize that their emails are potentially being read by employers. Chad: Yes. Joel: And that should have been found out 20 years ago if that's the case. Jeanne: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Jeanne: Okay. Well, thank you. If any- Joel: Yes, for those listeners who want to know more, let them have it. Jeanne: For those listeners that want to know more, my name is Jeanne Meister, Future Workplace. Please contact me on LinkedIn. The course series is called using AI for HR. It is in the SHRM e-store as of today. Chad: Today. Jeanne: Today is its birthday. Chad: Breaking news, breaking news. Joel: Jeanne, thanks for your time. Jeanne: You are very welcome. Joel: This was very fun. Jeanne: Thank you. Bye-bye. Joel: Have you ever thought about selling jeans? You could be Jeanne Meister, the Jeanmeister. Announcer: This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show, and be sure to check out our sponsors because they make it all possible. For more, visit ChadCheese.com. Oh yeah, you're welcome. #Jobcase #SHRMTalent #AI #Automation #School #SHRM #HR

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!! No, seriously Nathan Perrott AIA's VP of Digital Marketing & Employer Brand talks BS vs. reality. It's another Nexxt Exclusive! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides training and development to help your workplace leaders and employees integrate with and value people with disabilities. Nexxt: Okay, so you need candidates fast and you're sick and tired of being nickled and dimed to death. I totally get it. You should check out FlexxPlan from Nexxt. It's perfect for employers and staffing firms who are busy. They need candidates and flexible pricing now. Nexxt: FlexxPlan is also perfect for recruitment ad agencies who need targeted distribution and tools to help demonstrate client ROI. If you're sick and tired of all the BS, hassle, and just want candidates now, check out Nexxt and FlexxPlan with over 70 million members. Next takes all of your jobs and puts each one in front of the best candidates across their entire ecosystem. No muss, no fuss. Nexxt does all the work and FlexxPlan makes it cost effective. Checkout everything Next has to offer at hiring.nexxt.com. That's hiring.N-E-X-X-T.com. Nexxt: And, if you'd like to save even more cash, just go to ChadCheese.com, scroll down and click on the next logo, Discounts Aplenty. Remember, Nexxt, with the double x, not the triple x. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors! You're listing to HR's most dangerous podcast, Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads the snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: It's the hype cycle. Joel: Let's get ready to rumble. It's the San Diego aircraft carrier outside my window edition of this Nexxt exclusive. Special guest today guys. He's British, so there may be some translation needed. Nathan Perrott, VP Digital Marketing Solutions at AIA worldwide. Nathan, cheers and welcome. Chad: Woohoo! Nathan: Thanks for having me on, guys. Joel: So many of our listeners don't know who the hell you are. Give us the 140 to 280 character introduction to you and your company. Nathan: Thanks. So yeah, I work with clients to help them with their employer brand across digital marketing and technology in recruitment space, focusing largely in TA technologies. I work for AIA. We're a global leader in talent acquisition technologies, and we leverage our talent brute tech, our creative and our strategy to enhance clients' employer brands, basically, and try and redefine how employers and candidates are connecting. Chad: Excellent man. So we're in today because you and I have been talking for a little while about this rec tech hype site. Joel: Don't believe the hype. Chad: Believe the Rec Tech Hype Cycle. What the hell is a Rec Tech Hype Cycle? Nathan: Yeah, so it started in 2015, and we kind of identified a huge surge in the amount of recruitment technologies starting to pop up. And we were inspired by Gartner's hype cycles and they do a lot of the HR emerging tech type things. But we wanted to focus purely on recruitment technology and help our clients cut through the BS really. And that started by helping them understand the landscape of what's out there, and seeing all these different technologies in recruitment. Nathan: So, we tried to map it out and used Gartner's hype cycle as a way of doing that. So it's got these five stages of hype, essentially. You've got the first stage, which is the innovation trigger, where everyone's getting really excited about the types of tech that's out there. You have things like chat bots and AI on there for a couple of years. Chad: I call that the bright and shining stage. Nathan: Everyone's getting excited about how recruitment's going to revolutionize and then nothing ends up changing. Then you get the peak of inflated expectations stage, which is where the only people really talking about it are the companies that invested in it or the VCs that have invested. Chad: Yeah, yeah. I call that the bullshit overfloweth stage. Nathan: Nice. Joel: Yeah, it starts to stink a little bit. Nathan: That's right. Then you get the trough of disillusionment, where either the tech's failed and it ends up in that, or sometimes it can pop in there and jump back onto the innovation trigger as the tech maybe gets repurposed, or the type of technology gets pivoted, so QR codes being used as a call to action were in there for a bit before Snapchat reinvented them and the like. Chad: That's the vaporware attained stage. That's what I call it. Nathan: If we were doing a brand one for this, for the text one. Joel: Tinder profile pic wasn't quite as good as the real you. Nathan: That's exactly it. There's a few tech vendors in there I reckon. And then you hit this slope of enlightenment stage, which is where the technology starts to prove ROI in certain use cases. And what we've started to see over the last few years is that part of the cycle starting to get quite long and quite busy, particularly as new technologies are arising, or the type of technology that we identified previously is split out into slightly more niche uses. Chad: That's the getting your shit together stage. Go ahead. Nathan: And then you've got the plateau of productivity, which is okay, it's hit mass market adoption. It's proven its case. And most organizations are using it to attract talent in some way. Now, when we first started this, obviously it was only our point of view to start with, and that section was bit bigger than we thought. But as we started to crowdsource opinion and get clients and other tech vendors insight, that actually shrunk. Nathan: To be honest, even you've got applicant tracking systems on there, but arguably they're doing the job these days. And I think that's kind of the point of this hype cycle, is that not only is there a lot of stuff out there, not only can you not realistically afford to or integrate all of these things together, but there are some things on here that everybody's using that isn't actually fulfilling what it should be. And that's why other band aids are being put on some of these solutions. Chad: So that number five stage I have is buyer's remorse stage, and we'll cover that. Don't worry about that. But the big question I have is, who in the community is making recruitment tech landscape complex? Because that's what it is. People can't understand what the hell is going on. So, who's actually making it complex? Is it the vendors? Is it the employers not knowing what the hell they should be looking for research wise? Who's at fault here? Nathan: Yeah, I think it's a combination of factors. I think the job of the recruiter, the talent acquisition professional, the HR generalists, whoever you're talking to, that job has changed somewhat in the last few years to become part technology advisor, or at least assessor, and IT, obviously, are getting much more involved in the procurement process nowadays for HR tech. Nathan: And then you've got the technology vendors themselves who are probably making this the most confusing because they're talking about things that their tech does, when in most cases, that's not necessarily the case. And it's caught in between the sales and marketing fluff. There's a huge amount of investment in sales and marketing, particularly from the startup side of things nowadays. A lot of that money that they're raising is going into sales and marketing, rather than product development. Nathan: I commented on this after Unleashed London, recently, when I talked to a few clients who had used some of the vendors there, and some of the prospects, and even some of the tech vendors themselves, who are saying how they've raised some money and what it's going to be used for. It kind of concerned me a bit, because I think the landscape's becoming much more homogenous, ironically, as each tech company tries to diversify more and more, to get more of the landscape, and try and become this one stop shop. One platform if you like. I know you guys have a view on that, the same that I do, which is there isn't going to be a single vendor that provides all of these solutions, and you kind of have to pick what's important to you and understand what's going to make the biggest difference to your talent acquisition strategy before you go and buy any tech that claims to be the silver bullet. Joel: Well, don't go telling Microsoft and Google that there's not gonna be one solution. But I'd like to switch gears a little bit, because we have listeners who can't see the actual sort of curve and where things are on this, so I want to give some context to what we're talking about on your hype cycle. Joel: And I was also reminded by a Seth Godin book, for the readers of Seth Godin out there, a book called The Dip, which is a bit like the hype cycle as well. But just for the listeners out there, some context, you have, at the early stages, sort of going up the initial slope, things like quantum computing, smart spaces, augmented analytics. I mean this is early, early stuff that even we've never talked about on the show, probably. Joel: As you go up there, up the curve, you're looking at virtual reality stuff, you're looking at 360 video, voice activated job search, your voice assistants, and then as the curve goes down, you have at the beginning of, I guess the third stage, where things are sort of starting to be proven. You have chatbots, you have your autonomous stuff, your interactive video. You're moving up the chart here a little bit with social messaging apps, onboarding platforms. And then, as we go into the stuff has sort of been proven, you're looking at SMS messaging, you're looking at an ATSs, you're looking at paper click. Things like that. So, I wanted to give some context to our listeners about where things are right now on your bell curve. Joel: My question, however, the thing that stood out glaringly to me was, you have QR codes and chatbots side by side. To me, QR codes, unless this is a European thing, QR codes to me are off the chart. They shouldn't be on the curve. And chatbots, to me, are on the elevated, going up the hype curve, to have already fallen and then working it's way up there. So, what are your thoughts on the QR code, where you put them, and where was the thought process in terms of putting chatbots at sort of the down slope and going up the proven curve? Nathan: Yeah. Let me start with QR codes, because I think that's a fairly quick one. QR codes is like a reentry fee. That was on the trough of disillusionment for a couple of years. And then we started to use them and see them be used a lot with Snapchats specifically, for engaging with early years audiences, early careers audiences. Nathan: But in China, QR codes are hugely used for WeChat and for engaging out there. And obviously that's a huge audience. So, we think there's potential there in those situations. But I think they were misused. We've seen posters on the Underground here in London with QR codes, and of course you can't use them if you've got no Internet access. In those days, there was no internet access Nathan: So, it's like a lot of these things. The technology is not necessarily bad. It just gets misused. And that takes me into chatbots, where I tend to call them shatbots, Shit Chat bots. Joel: Damn it, why didn't we come up with that, Chad? Nathan: There are a lot of chatbots, particularly in the UK. They're not even chatbots. Some of them are decision tree based. So, the user's selecting a load of menu options, if you like. They're just sort of replacing website, or poor website navigation and hierarchy. Even the chatbots that you do engage with, where some of these startups are saying, "Oh yeah, brilliant. We've now got a chat bot because someone's released some open source code that we can use. We have a chat bot, everybody. Chuck one of these on your career site." Nathan: They're just not creating a good candidate experience. The brand is being impacted by a negative candidate experience, and we're very passionate about making sure that chatbots do the job that they're intended for. Now there's a whole range of use. And chatbots is probably the wrong word actually. Maybe it should just be bots now, because there are different ways that you can use that technology, whether it's in candidate engagement, whether it's in candidate concierge to help them through the application process, whether it's job discovery or FAQs. There's a whole multi-use of bots. That alone could probably have its own cycle. Nathan: But the impact of making sure that you create a great brand experience to positively impact on your employer brand through those things, is very hard to do. You have to have structured data, you have to have lots of it, you have to give the chat bot time to learn, you have to negatively train it as well. I think some of the vendors that are just plugging in these free or open source platforms that are easy to create decision tree based things aren't necessarily thinking about that. Nathan: So, my advice to anyone who's looking at a chat bot should really consider how this is going to work from an experience point of view, how it's going to get trained, what's the data looking like that it's going to read the answers to the questions from, because you can't just sit there and think of 20 questions that someone might ask. Really got to think about it. Joel: I think that's a really healthy counterpoint to probably what we've been getting a lot of, which is high reply rates, high open rates, anti ghosting, magic. Those kinds of things have been surrounded by chat bots. But your contention is that not so much. They're just now on the slope of enlightenment to convince people that they can be a productivity tool. Nathan: I've seen some really good uses of them. Some good chat bot vendors out there. They really understand the candidate space. They really understand structured data. They understand what they're trying to achieve, and work with a client and/or that agency partner to create a really branded experience. Some people have done them in house. There's organizations in the UK that have done an excellent job, but unfortunately, the majority of people are just trying to "innovate" and trying to get a shiny thing on their career site. Chad: Exactly. And isn't that one of the big problems, is that a vendor instead of. I mean a company comes to them and they want to talk about the bright and shiny. They don't even know what the hell the bright shiny is. Joel: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Chad: Exactly. And then a vendor, they go toward their hot button, and that hot button isn't focused on a solution. So, therefore, it's all about the bright and shiny, which is going to obviously dull and fade, which means overall retention of that client is going to be incredibly low, because they weren't focusing on a solution in the first place. What's the gap you're trying to bridge? What the hell is going on? Chad: So, from your standpoint, are you seeing many companies coming in, many prospective clients and/or clients coming in asking questions that are not solution-oriented but mainly bright and shiny product oriented? Nathan: Sometimes. Yeah, that can happen and to a point, there might be an argument for saying, if you want to be known for innovation, you have to be known to innovate and to do the PR around it. L'Oreal has done a great job at that over the years. But most organizations can be oversold the dream of what these technologies are going to do for them. Nathan: My three overhyped from last year where chat bots, AI and CRM. AI's not necessarily in the same bucket as those two, because, in theory, AI could help with chatbox and CRM, but I'm not sure how much real AI there is in those at the moment. But the reality is, particularly with CRM, it's one of those quick reach solutions where I think organizations think, "Yes, we need to move towards a CRM strategy. We need a an in band recruitment marketing strategy. CRM is going to be the technology to do that." Nathan: They forget about thinking about the strategy, the audience segmentation, the content strategy, how are you going to stop the talent pool stagnating? How are you going to validate it, the resource, who's going to do it? Do we have the right bandwidth? Do we need a sourcing team rather than a reactive recruitment team, as well as, instead of how we're going to switch that balance? Do they have the time and the skills? Sourcing and inbound recruitment, marketing through a CRM is really, really complex and takes a lot of time, and you need great, compelling content. There we go with the brand again. Nathan: But most people go for the tech, which is the last thing you should do, once you've figured those things out, and we go for the tech, plug it in. I hear this from clients, I hear it from the CRM vendors themselves. "We've got it. We're not using all of its capability." The vendor says, "Yeah, the client's got it, but they're only using 10% of the capability." And think, "Well, no kidding. You've just gone straight to the end, to the silver bullet and it's not worth it." Chad: Exactly. Well, and that's not a silver bullet. I mean, we see this with applicant tracking systems all the time. We were in a room full of people at Sherman, Nashville, and we asked how many companies are happy with their applicant tracking systems. Hardly any hands went up, number one. Number two, most of those companies or possibly using 5% of the capabilities of those platforms in the first place, so they're not happy with something they're using 5% of. Nathan: Yeah, exactly. Chad: It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and they want to start layering new technologies on top of the applicant tracking system that's not working for them. What the fuck are they thinking? Joel: Especially considering how much they're spending on some of these solutions. Chad: Yeah. Especially an applicant tracking system. Fuck me, man. Nathan: I think one of the challenges that I've identified now. I don't know if this is something you guys have recognized, but most recruitment technology software as a service is obviously going to have a recurring fee, but the way the platforms are built is designed to be maybe configurable to a degree, but primarily it is what it is. Particularly with applicant tracking systems. Nathan: Whereas organizations that are buying them have very different, very disparate structures to how they recruit, how they approach TA, and trying to find that middle ground between a very rigid SAS platform, and process that you want to, or think is the right process, and trying to make that work with that system, I think there has to be a bit of give and take. It's difficult because do you buy a system that is regarded as a great system and change your resourcing strategy, your TA model, and possibly your head count and the types of skills and talent that you hire to that system? Probably not a good idea, but you might have to go some way to that. Nathan: Or do you select a vendor that matches your TA model that maybe isn't best in class but it's a little bit more flexible? And I think that's where some of the middle ground vendors might win. But whether that's good for their business or not to adapt and customize their SAS platform for a client, I've heard some horror stories of technology vendors, even big enterprises, ATSs, configuring their platform or customizing their platform for a client to get to a point where they say, "Look, we can't service this anymore, because it costs us too much money, so we're not going to continue." Nathan: And the client's thinking, "Okay, well now I've gone all the way down this route, I've paid for all this customization, and now I'm going to have to migrate anyway." So, it's a real difficult balance, I think, because we're moving into this software as a service powered tech model. Joel: Hey Nathan, I'm curious about, to be morbid, the death toll of this whole hype cycle. And I'm wondering where job boards might fit on this curve, and even going further back to newspaper ads or print. What happens once you plateau and then things fade? What are your opinions on that? Nathan: I think some things get reborn. So, job boards are going through that kind of identity change at the moment. What are they going to be? And that's why the likes of some of the job boards are buying tech, or acquiring tech to try and diversify or get a different piece of the TA Tech Landscape. So, whether job boards exist as they do today or not, I think we can guess what might happen. Joel: So it's your recommendation that a business should always try to be somewhere on the hype curve to always be viable or relevant? Nathan: Yeah, and I think you've got to be looking at the innovation trigger, as well, because you need to be pushing boundaries and looking at some of this emerging tech to see how it can play. But I think some of the challenges in... Todd, VP of Innovation and Labs it at AIA globally, he's been looking at the HR tech investment landscape for a number of years now, and he shares that information with us. Nathan: Two, three years ago, we were looking at quite a low average brand of investment, which wasn't really significant to secure the longevity of a technology business. But that has significantly increased over the last few years, which shows a bit more of maturity in the space. It's probably more now, what's considered smart uneasy. You've got people investing in the technology that have heritage and background in HR recruitment technologies. Nathan: So, I think there's definitely a change happening, but it is a significant amount of money so that AI can truly be adopted in recruitment, or blockchain, or even quantum computing. And I can't even explain what that is. So, I just know it's a bit better than AI. I think some of these things will be reborn. I think some will drop off. Will we need search engine paperclip marketing with the growth of programmatic? But that's having its challenges at the moment. Nathan: We're having this constant battle at the moment in digital marketing of data privacy and ownership of data, and not being targeted. The platforms like Facebook battling for ad revenue, not wanting to piss the advertisers off, but at the same token, they're getting pressure from governments and from users that they want more protection of the data. So, now Facebook has reduced its targeting again and again over the last year or so, to a point now we say, "Well, is it as effective as it was or what the promise is?" Chad: No. Nathan: Yeah, exactly. Chad: It's not, it won't be. And I take a look at job boards. So, let's take a look at job boards real quick, before we talk about what's going on with targeting Facebook and how they're kind of setting a bad precedent, I think, for the industry. Is that there's a ton of investment that's being poured into job boards. I believe the reason behind that has nothing to do with our current technology, it has to do with the data. Nathan: Yes, absolutely. Chad: And also the information and the opportunity, not to mention the revenue streams they already have in place. So, to be able to pivot a revenue stream into something entirely new, obviously that's not easy from an adoption standpoint, but it's easier to do that than try to build an entire revenue stream from the ground up. Right? Chad: So, I think that's one of the things that we could be seeing with, hopefully, successfully, or maybe not so much in some cases from a job board standpoint, but from Facebook, they have data, they have shit tons of data. But I really think they are making a very bad decision in not focusing on policing and cracking down on bad actors. They're saying, "Well, we'll just take tools away and make this targeting really just like everybody else's." Where they had a hell of an opportunity just to kill the market, much like Google, but now they're waiving it away. Do you think that'll come back, or do you think now that they've gotten rid of it, now that shit ain't come back for Facebook? Nathan: I think it's a difficult one to call because I think the Facebook platform is, as we know it, facebook.com, I think that's going to suffer. I think it already has from a user base. The network that's behind it, the advertising network and Instagram's its holy grail right now. Whatever it really, truly unlocked with WhatsApp could be a key to its success in the future, but its advertising network with in game advertising's hugely successful, and can be extremely relevant. How that will play out in the future, I don't know. Nathan: Just coming back to your future of job boards, I mean there's a number of job boards in the UK, particularly, some of the big ones, actually, and I mean traditional job boards rather than aggregators. The candidate experience is absolutely horrific because in this need to gather data, they're making candidates go through this interstitial login platform, where you click to apply for the job, you fill in this registration, you think you've applied, and then finally it sends you through to the actual ATS, where you need to click on the apply button again. Nathan: How is that creating good candidate experiences? It's not. Part of my job and my team's job's to look at that whole experience. I can tell you now, looking at the source data from all our clients' sources of applications and hires and traffic that job board, they're not up there. We've got organic search from Google. Even Bing in some cases. You've got Indeed still very successful, and Google's jobs is one of the most emerging areas now. And I think you combine that with what the big three firms of Google, Facebook and Microsoft are up to at the moment, and you're looking at a place where, do you know what, it's going to be really difficult for job boards to compete. Joel: Nathan, show recently presented our TA tech. Video and voice were big topics of conversation. We heard how much search is done through video, how much of the Internet consumption will be video going forward. And of course we see large platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, et cetera, YouTube, sort of being the backbone for a lot of that. But what is your opinion in terms of, say, video and voice assistance becoming a thing in your hype chart and some of the startups that you're seeing in those areas? Nathan: Yeah, I mean video has always been big, but I think it's even bigger now. And when 5G finally launches, at least in the UK, we're going to see an even bigger adoption of it. So, we're encouraging a lot of our clients to migrate to a video first strategy when it comes to their content. Because written content is just not getting read nowadays. Anything over paragraph of 140 characters, nobody [crosstalk 00:28:09] Chad: Woohoo! Podcasts! Joel: Don't make me read. Nathan: Which takes me nicely on audio. Voice assistance is going to be huge, I think. We're currently in that innovation trigger of what's gonna come first. Do you build the infrastructure before the users come, or do you need the mass market adoption? There's no doubt about it, that as a consumer device, that it's increasing and it's huge. Nathan: We've seen what I would call a very broken entwined candidate experience on the Amazon Echo, with some of the skills that have been created, so you can get career inspiration advice. Lee Harrison has done a great job at providing career inspiration advice. You've got interview practice skills, you've got job search skills, but they've all got their flaws. There's a little bit of it that's not quite perfect yet. Nathan: Zip Recruiter did a great job with their app, but you still have to have the adoption. But the reality is you can search for a job and apply for it by saying three things. I think voice assistants are going to be huge, which kind of takes me onto the growth of Bing. We've very much got Bing on our radar at the moment, because it's powering the search results for Alexa, Cortana and Siri, although I think Siri's proper be fleeting behind at the moment, as far as voice assistants go. Joel: Nooooo! SFX: Boooo! Nathan: I hope that was for Chad and not for me. Chad: Yeah, that's always for me. Nathan: There will be a surge in that. There's no doubt. But the thing with voice assistance is, again, you've got to have structured data. So, when you're looking at job descriptions, when you're looking at the content on your career site, it's all got to have very well structured data for those voice assistants to be able to understand it in context, and to be able to find that information to make it discoverable for you. Nathan: And that's what we're focusing on at the moment, is making sure that everything we build, whether it's a job description important from an ATS with additional content on, is structured in a way that, whether it's a voice assistant or a chat Bot, can be read and understood in the context of what question is being asked. That will help with discoverability and the like. So yeah, very much so. Those two things are huge and unique. Nathan: And you said it, audio and podcasts are having a huge resurgence at the moment. You go back 10 years, they probably would have been on the innovation trigger and hit the trough of disillusionment, but in the last two, three years, they've really [crosstalk 00:30:40] Yeah, exactly. So yeah, all very positive, I think, in that case. Joel: Is sourcing on this chart? I don't see it. Nathan: In what context? Joel: So I'm curious about, you know sourcing is obviously hot. You have Entello, Seek Out, HiringSolved et cetera. I'm sort of curious where they put them, where they would sit on the cycle. Nathan: So, I've kind of got social media sourcing platforms there in the middle of the slope of enlightenment, which it's kind of those tools. But again it's how we take some of those tools, and as they evolve, we need to sort of define what they are without using a brand name or a company name. You've also got AI and big data talent identification. Joel: That sounds like a matching, almost like a matching kind of a scenario. Nathan: Yeah. So, a bit like some tools out there, that will help you understand the talent landscape. Use the data that's out there, as well as your own data, to try and match the talent based on that market. Now, you might need a combination of those technologies to actually get out in front of your audience, and then you've got to think about, "Well how do we actually get in front of someone who's not not necessarily looking for a job?" Nathan: And that's where I don't think a conventional recruiter, necessarily, or certainly a majority of recruiters, don't necessarily know how to engage that way, because they're just trying to sell the job, and that person's not even got that employer, or a job moves on their radar. They need to be warmed up a bit with some top of the funnel content, some thought leadership, some interesting content that helps get them engaged and aware. So yeah, that's where I see that that being a challenge. Chad: Some nurturing. Nathan: Nurturing. Yes, good word. Joel: Nathan, thanks for your time today. We really appreciate it. For anyone that wants to know more about you or AIA, where would you send them? Nathan: AIA.co.uk is probably the best bet. You can get hold of all of us on there. Or you can look me up on LinkedIn. Thanks for having me on, guys. Really enjoyed it. Chad: Thanks man. Joel: You bet. Chad, we out! Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheesman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make sure you subscribe on iTunes, that silly Android phone thingy, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take the coal mining job I saw on monster.com. We out. #AIA #TMP #EmployerBrand #Brand #RecTech #HypeCycle #Marketing #Nexxt

Chad & Cheese chat with industry veteran Mike Temkin, vice president of strategic planning and development. Enjoy this look into the past of recruitment marketing and a glimpse into the future. It's a Nexxt Exclusive! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is changing minds and changing lives through disability inclusion. Announcer: When you're afforded the opportunity to interview a recruiting, marketing, and advertising icon, you take it. Or just do what we do, corner them and force them on the mic. It seems to work. Check out our interview with Mike Tempkin from Shaker Recruitment and Marketing, right after this word from our sponsor. Nexxt: Okay, so you need candidates fast and you're sick and tired of being nickeled and dimed to death. I totally get it. You should check out FlexxPlan from Nexxt. It's perfect for employers and staffing firms who are busy. They need candidates and flexible pricing now. Nexxt: FlexxPlan is also perfect for recruitment ad agencies who need targeted distribution and tools to help demonstrate client ROI. If you're sick and tired of all the BS, hassle, and just want candidates now check out Nexxt and Flex Plan with over 70 million members. Nexxt takes all of your jobs and puts each one in front of the best candidates across their entire ecosystem. No muss, no fuss. Nexxt does all the work and FlexxPlan makes it cost effective. Nexxt: Check out everything Nexxt has to offer at hiring.nexxt.com. That's hiring.N-E-X-X-T.com, and if you like to save even more cash just go to chadcheese.com, scroll down and click on the next logo, discounts a plenty. Remember, Nexxt with a double X. Not the triple X. Announcer: 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: Give me some levels here, mic test. Mike: Testing 1, 2, 3. Perfect, man. [crosstalk 00:02:05] Cut. Chad: Check, check, check. Mike: You two are right now in basically the middle of the epicenter of disruptive media. Disruptive HR, but definitely what podcasts are right now, are definitely growing tremendously. Legacy broadcasters are definitely having to embrace it after fighting it for a while, including recently Sirius XM buying Pandora and one of the initiatives they're doing right now is making sure that as much content as they have they can be utilized for podcasts. Mike: Because right now, the statistic I saw most recently was that at this point, those who are regular podcast listeners listen to seven podcasts per week. What's been seen in a lot of media surveys and analysis is that a lot of that listening is during drive time, when they're commuting. Either on a train or in a car, really eroding broadcast market share. The two of you are really, at this point, very important. Joel: So the question is, how many employers do you guys have podcasting right now, to take advantage of that growing- [crosstalk 00:03:16] Mike: They could get Chad and Cheese to actually do some stuff for them. Joel: Well that's a whole other conversation, I'm not sure any employer wants their brand going through that kind of mess. Mike: Well, wait a second, we are talking to clients, employers, about how you can basically find the target, turn the content of a podcast, onto a skill set. So it's not necessarily always a broad audience, it's not all American life. And like your podcast, it's very qualitative, and niche, focused for who you're going after. But, now the question I have for you, and I'm sure you're gonna throw questions at me, all's fair- and this is relevant to those of us in the industry, so it's not irrelevant, is who do you think in the month of March, as well as February and January this year, was the biggest advertiser on podcasts- Chad: ZipRecruiter! Mike: That's right! Yep. Joel: That would've been my guess. Mike: Well you got it. Joel: But they have yet to spend one penny on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: Which I love, because it gives us instant cred. Joel: Yeah, for everyone who says we're being bought, ZipRecruiter, biggest money machine in the podcasting advertising market hasn't given us a penny. Mike: All right, so Chad, you got it, number one. All right, so number two is square space- I'm sorry, no number two is Robinhood financial services. Number three is square space, number four, Indeed. Trying to catch up. Joel: What's the first mattress on the list? Casper, purple- Mike: That I didn't see. Actually, after Indeed I believe it was Quip who sells dental services. Chad: Yeah, I had one of those. Mike: And then after that was Geico insurance. Joel: So maybe I'm just getting targeted for my nap prowess for mattresses. Maybe that's my problem. Chad: So, already out of the gate, we've started an awesome- Joel: And we didn't do an intro. Chad: We didn't do an intro, so today- Mike: I'm sorry. Chad: No, this is awesome! Today, we have Mike Tempkin, what is your title? You're like the old man at Shaker- Joel: Gandalf in Chief- Chad: Thirty-one years like a wizard of recruitment, marketing- Joel: Yoda executive. Mike: Oh that's very generous and nice of you. Chad: That's good shit, yeah man! Mike: It's very- I mean, definitely- Chad: Give me some background about you, dude you've been in this industry, you've seen change, we think we've seen change- Joel: Tell us what year one was like for you in recruitment marketing for the kids out there. Chad: In column inches. Mike: Well year one actually for me, my background was consumer advertising at agencies and radio and television. Chad: I was in radio. Mike: And then, in 1984 basically Shaker had a client, and I had known the Shaker family through my own family and also through the work they do for St. Jude, for the research hospital. So we knew each other and they were looking for, to help a client who was doing IT job fairs in 1984 that was having trouble getting the applicant flow. Joel: Who was the employer? Do you remember it was like- Mike: It was a career fair- Joel: Was it Jazzercise or- Mike: No no no- Chad: Was it Brass Ring? Mike: No no no. Chad: Because they started out as a career fair. Mike: It was actually an independent woman if I remember correctly, and she was managing these job fairs in IT. Chad: Nice! Mike: And wasn't getting the flow that she needed for the job fairs. Shaker family came to me, said, "We need some help," and, "what do you think we could do?" And I mentioned, well at that point, 1984, I said, "Well, we can look at radio stations, we can identify to a certain extent the listenership by skill set, to a certain extent. And then basically advertise on those stations. So we had two stations, one was a classic rock and one was an album rock format. Chad: Oh yeah, AOR. Joel: Because techies love classic. Chad: Oh shit yeah, and AR, that was the format. Mike: So I do remember it was actually here in Chicago, it was WXRT which is one of the, I guess, ultimate, eclectic, album adult rock stations. And then it was WCKG which was the classic rock at that time. And we advertised on those two stations, and she got the applicant flow she needed to fulfill satisfaction with her clients, the companies, the employers who were there. And in meeting afterwards, I said, "Okay, how did it work, what was the difference?" And she said, "Well the people from radio, we didn't get as many as we'd get from print, but the quality was better." And I said, "Well, why was the quality better?" And she said, "Because they're currently working." Chad: Ahhh. Mike: You know, their skills were up to speed, they didn't have to be trained on certain languages or components, and I guess as far as recruiting, the shark effect was handled by the candidate generation through media. Chad: Yeah. Mike: So I listened to that, again my background was health & beauty products, retailers and apparel and furniture, theater and entertainment, and so some direct response advertising, which you think about it, recruitment marketing is just direct response advertising, but instead of selling let's say exercise equipment or books or records or clothing, we're selling jobs. And instead of cash, we're looking for the resume. Mike: So, looking at that, I went, "Okay, this was intrusive advertising." You know, classified advertising, be it print in the old days or job boards today, is basically directory advertising. People are directed to go there, to look for certain information. How do you use media to intrude upon people who don't expect the message. Who right now are pretty much complacent and content with their current job. But like any sort of consumer advertising, you put the pebble in the shoe, you basically in some ways address that complacency, that being content, with certain components, certain differentiators that are going to make a company and an opportunity possibly more attractive to- I guess, well later on, I said, and you know Chad from you're background I'm sure, for mass communication, that's what all consumer advertising is. Is just general using these mass consumer components. For recruitment though, It's a little different, you differentiate it, okay this is intrusive advertising because you're intruding upon the person when they least expect it. You know, 5:20 on a Monday afternoon, a radio spot in drive time. Someone's leaving work- Chad: The stop set. Mike: Yeah, the stop set, right, exactly. And you get the when their mindset is such that maybe they're a little disgruntled. They had a bad Monday at work, why do I need to do this any longer? Joel: You know this was pretty earth shaking for 1984. I mean this was a time period where the Sunday paper had all the jobs, everyone that wanted a job got the Sunday newspaper. And for you guys to think outside the box, and say, "We're gonna promote via radio"- Mike: Radio, and then billboards and cinema advertising. Joel: For the time, pretty legendary. Mike: It was different. And what's unique though, Joel, I think, is when I first came to Shaker's, now- I worked for Shaker for four years as a consultant. Doing all of this, basically none classified irregular advertising whenever it was needed, and then they asked me come in full-time. And when I came in full-time, now I was dealing with print too. And in consulting with clients and trying to differentiate recommendations based on circulation, but basically because of my background, in consumer advertising when do you buy the sports section vs. the business section vs. the entertainment section, etc. Because of the demographic differences in the sections or the readership, I went, okay, classifieds gotta have something unique to it. So I went to a media company, and I said, you know, the quantitative I've got, Sunday circulation is a million- Chad: That's the easy part. Mike: How many people are really looking at the classifieds section? And it was 14%. And this was during a strong economy, at that point. Joel: And classifieds have historically always been the most popular section of the newspaper. Mike: It was the most profitable, because you had, basically the margins were great because your expense, you didn't have editorial that you really had to write. Chad: Yeah buying out the column and- that is crazy. Mike: You remember the movie Spotlight, there's one scene of dialogue in the movie Spotlight which is the Boston Globe, and he says, "We've got to have a great story, we have got to hold our circulation, because right now our classified advertising is diminishing." And it was crucial. Now, the reason I brought the 14%, now the internet starts, Shaker we're working on the first internet initiatives in the late 90s and basically I go to comm score, and say, "What can you do as far as analysis on internet traffic?" And the report I get from them is 14% of all internet users were going to job boards. The active job seekers. The rest weren't going. Chad: Oh shit, yeah. Mike: And it was basically the same percentage statistic, and definitely the internet, even at that point, especially even now, is definitely- as far as analytics, is much more precise. Even print would be based upon a survey of a thousand people, will determine that a million people will be doing this. Chad: And you hope they remember where the fuck they went, right? Mike: That's right. Exactly. Joel: What I'm hearing is, and I think a lot of people have the impression of the agency job 20 years ago was answering the phone and putting display ads in the newspaper, and maybe some of it was that, but what I'm hearing from you is, is that the strategy around the agency role hasn't really changed, it's just the number of mediums and technologies and platforms that you have to create a strategy around, would that be correct? Mike: That's right. That's correct. The fragmentation of the options, which definitely is beneficial because let's say in the 80's, and definitely the radio picked up and I remember a client wanting registered nurses. Well in that case it was a soft adult contemporary format, of which I said to them, "Okay, 4% of their listeners are basically nurses, you have to buy, you have to pay for all of them. You won't be able to just fragment the 4%." Now of course, with digital media, we can go and in very many cases behavioral targeting, contextual advertising- Chad: Picking the hell out of them. Mike: Right, exactly, exactly. And at this point, the majority of the public is accepting it. They're not taking the cookies off their hard drive, they are sharing a lot of information, it's the Amazon effect, I like being identified or recognized when I come to an internet site. Now, if let's say media abuses that data, that could change. Both by the public and by the government. But right now- Joel: That makes a sales person in the 80s, a sales person in the 90s, and 2000s and beyond, do they need new skills going forward? Or could you take a sales person from the 80s, put them in today and they'd still be successful? Chad: Dude I was a sales person in the 80s and I went directly from radio- Joel: I'm not interviewing you. Chad: It doesn't matter, shut up. I went straight from radio to the internet- Joel: And you were a teenager in 1984. Chad: Well yeah no, I'm talking about in the early 90s. Mike: My first job in advertising I was very precocious, I was 14 years old and I made an audition tape, I was sick one week from school, and I made an audition tape, and I called it "For Teenagers Only" because at that time you didn't have G and PG and R etc. It was just certain movies were for adults only. And I remember the one that I went to a Saturday matinee and saw a preview for Tongue Without Pity, which was- Chad: Who was in that? Mike: I don't remember who. Chad: Tongue without pity, that sounds like a porn! Mike: I couldn't see it, it was about an army base in Germany, I remember that- Chad: Okay, it wasn't porn. Mike: And Gene Pitney had a top 40 hit, so kids could listen, I was 14 years old, 13 years old, kids could listen to the song, but you couldn't see the movie. So I came with this concept called For Teenagers Only, made the tape, took it to radio station in the suburbs of Chicago, the guy said, "Sure kid. I'll put you on the air, but I'm not gonna pay you to be on the air. You go out there and you sell your commercials, and you'll get 15% of the spot. $10 spots." So after school I'd go on my bicycle, and I'd sell retailers on these $10 spots. So that was [crosstalk 00:15:56] So chad, I'm with him. I understand where you're coming from. Chad: And you can sell air dude, you can sell fucking anything. Mike: But yes, I think that the good people, both at Shaker, the people that I learned from, both in the Shaker family as well as the extended family, employees. There were definitely strategists, even when I came in in the 80s, either they really were taking time to learn the industry they were serving, be it healthcare, be it logistics, etc. Or definitely they understood the limitations as well as the opportunities of media. And that's, you had, let's say at certain other agencies you had the same sort of people, and yes, at agencies you had order takers. I would think that today an agency, in recruitment advertising as well as consumer or even B2B advertising, you can't have order takers any longer. There's the opportunity of being more precise. Because I think, yes, an order taker, even to a certain extent was intuitive, and so therefore you could make a conclusion maybe based upon previous experience with the client, or other factors. Now, yes, the intuitive factor still is somewhat important. But with all of the analytics available, it's basically how to evaluate those analytics. Chad: That's the question though, Mike. I mean there's so much that's available today that wasn't even just a couple years ago, we're talking about the different types of technology. I mean, whether we're talking about engagement, chat bots and engagement, and then you guys being able to get into that. Hell, companies can't even spell programmatic for god's sake, let alone know what to do. So you guys have to be the experts of everything, you can't just sit on the phone and answer and say, "Yeah, we'll do that." Because you have to be experts in many different areas, right? Mike: Right. And definitely what we have in the agency, I think the depth of the executives, definitely they have the resources to be good project managers, to definitely bring in what now we have here at the agency, at Shaker, we have experts in various different initiates. So let's say, here at TA tech, tomorrow Tony Lapur will be speaking about branding, he and his team, that's their focus. And then we have people who focus just on social media, people who just focus on programmatic, a whole department. Search engine marketing, another cost per performance advertising. So you have all these aspects, and then people of course who are just specializing on technology. So, basically the agency since 1951, has always been the base of direct response advertising for candidate generation. Call it what you will, help wanted, employment related advertising, it was candidate generation. It's still, that's the core component of what most clients are definitely going to identify as. Or brought value to them. But definitely, like you said Chad, the means of generating that candidate flow has changed. All the options are available, and, Joel as you mentioned, the analytics that are available and how you basically use those to make your recommendations more precise, more accurate. Mike: You can make a recommendation based on analytics from let's say third quarter of 2018, and it's second quarter of 2019 and there's been a shift competitively in the marketplace, as far as let's say certain employers. It might be a shift in the economy, of basically how candidates are responding now to certain factors. There could even for that matter be changes in media utilization. Such as, a year ago, as I mentioned before, broadcast, media companies, did not take podcast really very seriously. Probably the only one there really was as far as a- I don't wanna call it a company, but an entity, was NPR. You know. And now, every media company is looking at the potential of podcasts. Chad: Even Spotify. Spotify bought up Gimlet, I mean they're buying up content. It's all about great content. So you talk about candidate generation, which I think is awesome, but today it's not just about generation, it's about the experience that they have. How much do you guys get involved at Shaker, with regard to identifying platforms for experience, to be able to ensure that you have a higher application rate, lower ejection rate. What do you guys do around that? Mike: We're working very diligently on the whole candidate- and for that matter the employee experience, so talent acquisition, talent management. So anything that touches candidate generation as far as external recruitment, internal referral programs, for that matter internal communications- which basically for retention, which has always been an issue I'd say for a long time as far as yes well quantitatively we can get this candidate flow, but can you document how either the messaging or the media is bringing in better candidates. And of course a better candidate is the productivity capacity in the workplace, how it relates to profitability, and therefore also how it, at that point if those are good employees, and let's say we actually change the workforce composition of a client who really wasn't happy with their previous workforce composition. Mike: How do we change it and make it more valuable so therefore now they want to replicate it, and for referral programs, which of course really is even more cost efficient than external recruitment. So, looking at all the aspects of not just media, but the technology, the CRMS, TRMS, the talent relationship management tools, the ATSs, as far as even for that matter is the candidate experience, there's certain tools that are valuable for both the productivity of people in recruiting, hiring managers, etc. As far as making sure their time is being used much more productively, but at the same time how it impacts the candidate's experience and the candidate's impression of the company. So let's say if you have an assessment tool, you have assessment tools that go from gamification to very verbal skills, and everything in between. Mike: What's best for the skillset you're looking for, what reflects best on the company that is utilizing that tool, how do we make that decision and help them evaluate really what will be either the best tool for all their employees, or let's say for certain sectors. You use this assessment tool for that candidate base, you use this one for the other candidate base. And what has it really been doing, is the priority of the client, is it for the productivity and the time management of their internal staff, or is it for the candidate experience so they don't fall in the dark hole. They're seeing something. Oh yes, this company basically is interacting with me. And I'm enjoying this interaction. And then from that point on, do they qualify, let's say, for a video interview. And does the candidate find the video interview an experience gratifying, or do they find it intimidating? Now, you say that's where the behavioral profile, that goes into place of let's say certain candidates, feed on their education, their background, ethnicity, etc. Their experience of life are gonna find certain tools, let's say like video interviewing, they might find it very intimidating. And others are gonna say, "Well this is great. I really enjoy this process." So it's how to basically identify either- Chad: Where they're at. Mike: Exactly. So, how I look at it, and some of the things that I've been kind of playing with my mind right now is yes, we've got the active job seeker, and then the passive job seeker candidate, which I've always felt is an oxymoron. You can't be passive and be seeking at the same time. So I've come to terms with that, cause I know HR still finds that to be a very valuable identifier. The passive job seeker really is the job seeker who's not gonna be attracted through a media engagement of any sort. What they are, is the person who's resume is out there, and therefore you have to reach out to them, and you have to move them out of their passivity. Then you have what I feel is a candidate of some value, and going back that experience I had in 1984 of the impulsive prospect. Using intrusive media, non-classified movie, non-directory media, non-job board, to basically go to someone when they don't expect a message, and say "Here is either a job opportunity." Or possibly even more important, a corporate culture that you'll find attractive. Which gets me to what I think is the most important, most valuable candidate for the future. Mike: Especially now, and I don't know if you know a different statistic than I know. When I came out of college, they said you'd have 3.5 employers in your lifetime. And luckily because of a great engagement with Shaker- takes like 10 or 15, yeah. And I've had, in my life 3 major employers. So, when you've got people who are gonna go through 15 employers now, you have to basically make an impact with them when they're impressionable, and any merchandising marketer knows that people build their brand loyalties when they are between 18-34. And it's very difficult to get a person to reconsider that brand loyalty. So how in employment, do we make sure that we build up a base of aspirational candidates? Chad: Yeah, but I don't know if we can do that in employment though. I think that is beyond, that's the brand, that's the holistic brand and how the company actually works, and the aspirational brand in itself. I think employment feeds off of that, I don't know that employment itself can be in charge of that. I don't know that we ever can, just because the company is in charge of it, right? The CEO, COO, the CRO, right? Mike: Well, I can't speak for other agencies, you'd have to talk to them, but at Shaker, in our meetings now with talent acquisition and HR, you ask them how the business has changed. So yes, the 1980's you talk to people and personnel. Their autonomy, their authority had certain parameters. Now, we have people who are definitely very focused, very educated, very experienced in really talent acquisition which is in some ways, aspects of marketing. And then at the same time, we are sitting with marketing departments, legal departments, procurement departments- Chad: Are you really? Mike: Yes. They're coming in, depends upon the client- Chad: So what would you say, percentage wise, the amount of marketing departments you guys are actually sitting with? Mike: It's small. Chad: But it's growing. Mike: I think, I've seen over the years it's growing, I think it's gonna continue to grow- Joel: So you're saying the days of the three martini launch with the personnel director, and they choose their agency based on who takes them to Capital Grill more times than other or we're actually looking at metrics? Mike: In my experience that was more of consumer advertising than- Chad: I was gonna say, we are in Chicago, if everybody can hear the horns and all that other fun stuff, might still be a little bit of that here in Chicago. Mike: I think yes, seriously Joel it's a good point, but yes, today, when we are talking to prospects and being awarded new business- Joel: A big part of your job historically was who can shmooze the best, and who can have the best personal relationships, whether you'll admit it on tape or not. Mike: Well, relationships are important. I will say that. And the relationships are- Chad: They still are though, they still are- Joel: It is, but I think it's more- Chad: Backed by data. Joel: Yeah, data driven [crosstalk 00:27:32] Mike: And results. Basically, even in those days with let's say the personnel director, and there's very condensed parameters. You still have to make them look good. I think that was, and you said, "Okay before you used an order taker or did you help them evaluate and analyze?" Did you say, okay, basically this publication is gonna reach so many active job seekers, if we wanna go- even in those print days, if we wanted to go and reach, and we did this for a number of clients, if we wanted to reach, let's say the non-active job seeker, what section do we need to go to? For certain jobs, use the sports section, you know? You had limitations. But you could say, okay the front section, the business section, the sports section, the entertainment section, if it was skewing more towards women in those days. You know? I don't like saying this, but the truth is the truth, you'd put it in the entertainment section. You'd try to get as close to the horoscopes or the [crosstalk 00:28:29] as you could! Chad: It's the same thing in radio though, ACU was more female than it was male, right? So you look at demos, and you target demos. Much of what we talk about with social media, and it's more really age ranged, so whether Facebook, LinkedIn... Joel: Like how do you feel about Facebook saying, "We're not gonna do job ads that are targeted demographically anymore." Mike: Right. So therefore, that's a limitation now that we have to address and find alternatives. Joel: Do you feel that was the right decision by them, to do that? Chad: I'm gonna say it's fucking stupid, that's just me. Joel: Again, not interviewing you. Chad: Dammit! Joel: Interviewing Mike Tempkin of Shaker recruitment marketing. Mike: I would say for employment, it did have issues. And that's why you said before, "Who are you sitting with at the table now?" And in certain cases, yes, you are gonna sit with legal, because depending on the company and the issues that they're sensitive to, they're gonna say that definitely there's these limitations that the companies, the employer themselves will impose that the media won't impose. We can then go to a client and say, "Okay, we can't guarantee that this medium is going to hit that demo." But yes, we can say that the Facebook demo is different than Snapchat. LinkedIn is different in both the quantitative demographic factors as well as the qualitative factors, psycho graphics or however you want to identify it in the base of analytics, we can help a client, still today as we did 30 years ago, if it can't be targeted through behavioral aspects or other aspects, then yes we can find alternatives. But let's say, just as- looking at the figures of Amazon, and how much money they are generating through advertising. Chad: Yeah, shit yeah! Joel: How much do you think is recruitment advertising? Mike: I don't think that much is. But, if I was- Chad: Do you think it's any? Mike: Well, we actually, to be very frank we sometimes go to media and we push them. And we did go to Amazon years ago, and we wanted to get employment advertising. And said, okay, if a person is looking for a book on ruby on rails, and we're looking for a candidate on ruby on rails, I wanna be there. Chad: Yeah! Just makes fucking sense, right? Mike: Yeah, right, exactly. And at that point in time they couldn't help us. Now, in the future, it could be different. But definitely at the same time, they created- between search engine marketing, how google changed that, from just being a bid based product to being a content and utilization product, relevancy. To how Amazon definitely made people comfortable in the sense that, okay you came here and you ordered a John Grisham book, you must like legal thrillers, I'm gonna suggest a Scott Turow book to you because he also writes legal thrillers. Are you like Tim Mcgraw or maybe you like faith hill. Or you bought a dishwasher, you might also need a refrigerator. Chad: Unfortunately their algorithm fucked up and started kicking out females when they shouldn't, so I mean they've tried but we'll see when the next generation happens. Joel: So knowing that Amazon might not be on the top of your list for marketing mediums, which ones are you currently bullish on and companies should be looking at? So you've got Google, LinkedIn, Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat you mentioned, for god's sakes Tick Tock we've been talking about more on this show, which ones are you most sort of optimistic about? Mike: Well, I'm optimistic about the longevity of LinkedIn. I'm concerned at times, I'd only be concerned because you've seen companies like Monster and Career Builder that definitely seemed to have everything in alignment, and then all of a sudden it fell off the rails. And this goes back to when Bell telephone in the 50s, basically created digital- Joel: We just lost 80% of our audience with that reference. Mike: Well, Bell telephone also is AT&T- Chad: Do some research people. Mike: Well in the 1950s, they had the ability- Chad: Ma Bell. Mike: Ma Bell had the ability to convert from analog to digital. And they said, "Oh we're not gonna do that because we wanna protect analog." IBM in the 80s basically didn't want to embrace personal computers, "Oh no no we're gonna protect the mainframes." And then you had the media. "Oh we don't wanna cannibalize our revenue from print or from terrestrial broadcast so we're not gonna support- Chad: Or Monster, we just wanna focus on our duration ads instead of being an aggregator like Indeed. Mike: So basically, when you asked me- Joel: Fill up the blip! Mike: When you think- yes, today, in the snapshot, here's who's strong. I would say, let's say, what sites are going to possible, and I'm not endorsing them right now in comparison to what you mentioned Joel, sites like Comparably or Jobcase. Others with ad venue just in the employment arena. And for that matter, is media going to be in some ways surpassed, or become a somewhat secondary component and not a priority based on technology. Will certain aspects of software and let's say, what a TRM can do, or even for that matter an ATS, within their own parameters of what they're building or within the marketplaces that they're adding onto their model. How will that surpass even what you and I look at today and say, "These are the solid components." Joel: And where are you with Google now? So we've got Google for jobs, we've got hired by Google, and we have the job search API, any bullishness on any of those? Mike: I think that right now their algorithm is very strong, I would definitely look at utilizing the API at a company level. Therefore, if a company has the google search component on their own careers site, is that gonna make the trip to Google the search engine secondary? And if Google's still monetizing, if it's on their website or not just as let's say, you've got companies now who say, "Okay, we are going away from our legacy products, and we wanna sell the cloud." I mean Amazon, talk about the money they make in advertising, the money they make in cloud in AWS versus IBM versus Oracle, the others. So definitely where are these companies going to evolve? LinkedIn, I would hope, with Microsoft, that they would definitely have the ability, the expertise and the financial capacity to be smart and be flexible. But then unfortunately you look at some of the acquisitions in the ATS market, where you look at companies that you thought, okay, are going to extend the value of what they acquired, and they really appear at this point not to have. Mike: Now at the same time, did those companies really buy them, those companies, for the ATS value or was there a patent or two or three that they really wanted that possibly was related to employment, maybe it wasn't even related to employment, but that's why they were buying the companies. Joel: So you have 30 years in the industry, I won't ask you to predict 30 years into the future, but let's take a trip 10 years from now, what does recruitment marketing look like from your standpoint? Mike: Well, going back to my theory, which maybe you find not valid, or- I give you credit for that, cause both of you know this business, what I think. And I respect both of you. And it's interesting because your podcast are the talk of the industry now. People talk about what they hear on your podcast. Chad: He's making me tear up sometimes- Mike: And this is maybe another discussion, on or off microphone. But yes, I feel strongly- in Europe they've done this. I was at a conference in Sweden in 2008, about three weeks after the bank implosion, and at that conference on branding, those companies were already going to let's say even 16 year olds, 17 year olds, and want to build their employment brand. Know me as an employer. Know what I can do. I still think yes, the aspirational candidate, someone who's really serious about their skills, who's serious about their career, and is not just looking, "Oh I need a job." No. I want to build my career, and even this company is gonna give me the resources to enhance my career either within that company itself, or basically I will be definitely be valuable to them for a number of years, and then I'll go someplace else. And maybe I'll come back to that company. Which I think is part of the paradigm now. But definitely, how do you build the employment brand to be as tangible and as demonstrative as possible. Tony Lapur, Shaker, we talk about it- Shaker recruitment marketing, the differentiators. Which I think is very important. You know you can't have an employment brand and just say- Joel: We have a ping pong table and casual Fridays. Mike: Right, or basically we care about the community. Or we care about STEM careers. Or we care about the environment. Or we care about educational resources. And that's important. And you definitely want to differentiate yourselves with where you are actually making a difference. And you have to make it as- as I said before, as tangible and demonstrative as possible, and that's really extending the employment brand so that people will say, "Yes. That is what I want part of my life to be. I find gratification of being part of that process." And definitely what we will do as a company, is we will help you as an individual, enhance your skills- even when you're 16 years old, we will try to influence you of the skills that we're gonna need for our work force. Because I think the smart employers are not gonna say, "Oh, work force planning is a one year plan, and here's the jobs I need to fill this year, and the next fourth quarter of next year will take care of 2021." Joel: For all you 6 year olds out there in the audience, Mike's predicting 10 years from now that company you want to work for, could be recruiting you. Mike: Not recruiting. You're right Chad, not recruiting, but influencing. Impacting. Farming, right, exactly. If I go to those schools, and I say- Chad: That's what the military does right now. Mike: Right! How do we glamorize- Joel: Best recruiters in the world. Chad: Most money. Mike: I think GE was doing a good job of this, until unfortunately they had to pull back. But glamorizing careers in science, computer science, etc. on national television with very big budgets, and then scaling it down to reaching frequency on more buys but at the same time, even if you don't have a television budget of that nature, at the same time you can have videos now, which can be very practically produced at a very efficient cost. And you can distribute them very specifically to your target audience through digital means. You don't have to have that broadcast identity, and still build a brand at definitely where you want to go. Mike: So let's say we find certain components of people that we see have potential. But we wanna make sure that they're not influenced of, let's say, wanting to go into a career, let's say in metallurgical engineering. That person is so good, we want to make sure that they go into, let's say, bio chemistry. So how do we at 16 direct them to look at that degree in college, and the same time, I could have a careers site of which there's white papers on the career site of which are aimed at the 16 year old, that they can use as a resource when they're writing papers. And the only thing the employer asks is when you do your bibliography in your footnotes, give us credit for what you're using on your school paper from our white papers. That's part of the branding. Now, the student is definitely thinking, "Well I really benefited and I'm grateful to this company for helping me with this paper." Chad: It's all just damn common sense for god's sakes, and all we care about is the now- Joel: It is work though. Mike: It is work. Chad: The research has always been done though! It is. Mike: Joel brings up a good point, it's work, yes. I think that for an employer to be a successful, productive and profitable entity in the future, they are gonna have to be much more pragmatic and that is going to create more work. Now, that work should at the same time create cost efficiencies. Because if you get that person who, when you go to them when they're 26 years old, 10 years later, and we've got this engagement, we've got this talent relationship management tool, we have the ATS, we have the data, we have been going out, and we have been sending messages then. Either manually or mechanically, but we have been interacting with them for all those 10 years since the time they actually went to our white paper, took some information, included in their high school paper, and now in college they're still interacting, out of college they're interacting, that first job- I mean, how many times employers now, and we have clients who are looking at this, they interact with a candidate, they can't have a job adept to point for the candidate. They have to turn them down. But you just don't turn them down and put them in a black hole- Chad: They've gotta nurture the shit out of those. Mike: Nurture the shit- to the extent of saying... Joel: Did we get Mike to cuss? Mike: Yes you did. Joel: I think we did. Chad: Yes! Mike: So, you nurture them- cause I have to admit I'm very, whatever lack of a term you wanna use Joel and Chad- Joel: When in Rome, Mike, when in Rome. Mike: This is what keeps me- because you sent me a note a while back, 31 years at Shaker, and of course it's really more than 31 years with the freelance work beforehand, what keeps me involved? I am very passionate, for lack of a term. I'm very excited about this. And I definitely wanna see before I do leave the business, that companies do get smarter. And they get smart, I think, to be competitive, is you are going to have to be on that early bucket last- not the bucket list of what I wanna do after I'm 65 or 75, what's my bucket list at 22. I wanna work for these companies at some point. And yes, If I go to, let's say one company, and I worked for that company for 30 years. If that's really even realistic in the future. And I don't know if it will be, for both the employer and the employee. But if it is, that's fine. But I think the employer has to realize with the transient work force, you have to have certain loyalty. And the one who comes to you because they want to work for your company, instead of just "Oh, I need a job." That's the candidate you're gonna want, because they will be more productive. Joel: Mike, thanks for sitting down with us. For anyone out there that wants to know more about you and/or Shaker, where should they go? Mike: They should go to www.shaker.com, go through our site, go to info at shaker.com, or they can definitely email me at mike.tempkin@shaker.com Joel: Let's get a drink! Mike: Thanks, thanks a lot. Announcer: This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. And be sure to check out our sponsors, because they make it all possible. For more, visit chadcheese.com. Oh yeah. You're welcome. #Shaker #Marketing #Brand #EmployerBrand #EmploymentBrand #jobboards #Advertising #Nexxt

What a week. - Can Slack compete with Microsoft's software dominance? - Facial recognition takes a hit - LinkedIn feature updates like it's 1999 - Millennials need to get freak-nasty or we go extinct, - Natty Light beer needs partiers, and much, much more. Enjoy and show Sovren, JobAdX, and Canvas lots of love. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps businesses find qualified candidates with disabilities for their job postings. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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. It's time for the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: The Sowashes are back from their European vacation. What's up, Clark? And we're ready to do this weekly show thing. Welcome to the Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's most global weekly roundup of new news and opinion from the world of recruiting. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: Did you learn any Portuguese while you were there? Chad: I did not, but I did learn that is nothing like fucking Spanish. Joel: On this week's show, millennials need to put down the Xbox controllers and grab their real joysticks, CareerBuilder loses another VP in our rumors segment, and we get serious about facials. Grab a Natty Light and hone those party skills, kids. We'll be right back after this word from JobAdX. JobAdX: Finding the right fight is important. When you're deciding on shoes for a long day at the trade show, when you're picking the right podcast for your commute, and most importantly, when you're looking for the right candidate. With JobAdX, you can attract more to your jobs by harnessing the best in ad tech targeting. From predictive industry analysis and keyword click data to premium first page placement and reducing redundant applications, our candidate targeting technology ensures that you're reaching talent that's as interested in working with you as you are with them. JobAdX: Now with in ad video and multimedia, you can share your employer brand story and company culture with job seekers so they can visualize themselves in your office, all hands meeting, or ax throwing team building adventure, all without navigating away from your job posting. Increased engagement makes for fewer steps between job seeker and new team member. Ready to ramp up your job advertising campaigns with the best in ad tech? Visit our new website at www.jobadx.com. That's J-O-B-A-D-X.com. Joel: I'm pretty bitter that I go to Lisbon the same time you do. While I'm there, it's rainy, it's cloudy, it's a little cool. The second I leave, the sun comes out, it becomes 80 some degrees, and you're there for about another three, four days. So I hope you had a good time, asshole. Chad: It was gorgeous. Yeah, so we were, a little time in Lisbon, went to Sintra, went to Porto, stayed a couple of days, a few days in Porto. Dude, it was so awesome, and yeah, I'm sorry you didn't get to share all the wonderful sunshine, but we drank a ton of wine for you and I also brought back by request exactly what you were looking for, a very good port wine. Yes, you're welcome. Joel: Yeah. We give a lot of shit to each other, but deep down, there's feelings. Chad: There's feelings. Joel: By the way, it's notable that your wife, who's very picky about where she travels and where she wants to live in retirement has chosen Lisbon, I guess Portugal, as a top three retirement destination. So for those of you kids out there looking to get out of wherever you are, Portugal might be a place to check out. Chad: Yeah. TAtech Europe did more than just bring us to Portugal. It might be a retirement place. You never know. Joel: Julie needs a new blog or something. Like Julie picks for retirement, where to retire and where not to retire. Chad: That's a good call. Also, Isabel from JobAdX. She was the awesome Portugal trip advisor, so thanks, Isabel, because she really hooked us up on places to go check out while we were there. Joel: Isabel may be my favorite millennial. It isn't saying much, but she is a walking trip advisor. Chad: Isn't your wife a millennial? Wait a minute. Joel: No. No. Barely not, but yeah. Yes, I married so young from where I sit. Chad: Shout to Alex Gotoi I know I'm fucking that up, from Bucharest. He is spreading the Chad and Cheese love. Alex, you spread it man! Spread it! Spread that love! Joel: Spread it wide, Alex. Chad: That's the way I like it. Joel: Spread it far and wide, baby. Yeah, he recommended us and actually, in his tweet recommendation or LinkedIn, wherever it was, called us inspirational, which makes me a little bit leery of his mind, but hey. Chad: I love it. Joel: Spread that love, Alex. Good stuff. Chad: And we are. Joel: VideoMyJob shout out. If you haven't seen the DEMOpocalypse with the kids there, Kristen and Steven, that's well worth your time. Interesting product. Video is the thing all the kids are doing, apparently 80% of the internet by 20-something will all be video, so you gotta get on board. Check out the VideoMyJob DEMOpocalypse. Chad: Yep, and also we'll be pushing out audio from RECex thanks to Stephen O'Donnell and the team over at MyJobViddy. That's an interesting name. We'll be putting out some great content that we had from the stage of RECex. So that was a good time when we got there, even though I was late. Joel: We will not be publishing the RECxxx audio, though. Apparently that's a little bit too much for even our audience. Chad: Is that when you called everyone eurotrash when you stepped on the stage? That was fun. Feffer: Such an asshole. Joel: Yeah, that was good. Chad: Big applause and shout out to our deathmatch competitor. Joel: So solid. Chad: Eric from Mya, Elin from Tengai, Adam from Candidate.ID, and I didn't said AI though. Joel: You almost did a Joel there. Chad: Yeah, I know. Andreea from Opening.io. Four awesome, I mean awesome fucking pitches all the way around. Awesome products all the way around, and we actually had, the judges had to have an extra bottle of wine. This was a hard one to judge, so in the next few weeks, we'll be putting out Death Match podcast where you can listen to every single pitch, so look for that. Joel: Are we okay revealing the winner? Chad: Yeah. Joel: In this weeks show? Chad: Yeah. Joel: So Opening.io was our champion, but as Chad mentioned, it took a lot more wine than we thought to help our judgment, which is a little bit counteractive, counterintuitive. Anyway, but so we came up with opening.io. Ireland won this world cup, I guess, and very impressive outing, all of our startups, companies were great. I love how they go above and beyond the performance bar with Viking costumes and kilts and music intros. It was a great event, and looking forward to doing it again in Austin in September. Chad: Yes, very, very excited to do that, and my last shout out before we get to the t-shirts selfies piece is Matt Alder. He was obviously Chad and Cheesed during one of his interviews at TAtech. My bad, Matt. Sorry about that, brother. Joel: He got Chad and Cheesed. Chad: You got Chad and Cheesed. Joel: Can I throw in our Philly trip in the mixture? Chad: Oh yeah. Ed: I'm not angry. I'm from Philly. Joel: So yeah, we're heading to Philly next week- Chad: Next week. Get your tickets. Joel: Chad's overnighting. I can only handle a day trip to Philly, so I'm not going to stick around, but big fan base in Philly. Looking forward to seeing those knuckleheads and putting on a show for those guys. Chad: That's right. Week after that, we're in Boston for Jobcase live, so we're doing a live gig at Jobcase, and they're taking us to a ballgame, so that's pretty cool. After that, Transform Live, which again is going to be in Boston. It's a SmashFly joint. We're going to be talking about recruitment marketing, and Joel and I are just going to talk about blowing shit up like recruitment marketing. Joel: Yeah, the Cleveland Indians are rumored to be in Boston that day. Chad: That's right. Joel: For the game, so I need to iron my Jim Thome jersey so I can talk shit to Bostonians when I'm out there. That'll be fun. Chad: Last on the events, we are on the main stage. We're actually headlining RecFest in London, and literally guys, it's our job to break shit when we get there. So yeah, look for that. It's going to be, we're going to have a blast. The bar opens at noon. I think we take the stage at 4:00 or after 4:00, so everybody's going to be perfectly intoxicated for our fucking show. Joel: I still like Yanks Gone Wild, even though you don't. Anyway. Chad: That is... Joel: It's beautiful. Chad: You should be, it should be Wanks Gone Wild. Joel: Yeah, we are definitely Wanks Gone Wild and speaking of... Chad: Just keep checking out our social feeds, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Got all these people, Tim [Meehan 00:09:48], Jamie Leonard, the whole Tengai team and Chad and Cheese t-shirts. Now, if you want one of these things, you gotta be at one of these events that we're showing up. So come get a t-shirt if we have any left. Joel: The t-shirt thing is out of control. Chad: It is fucking awesome. Joel: I got a kind of bow down to you on this one, because you were the lightning rod to get this t-shirt thing up and running and done, and I thought, no one would wear our t-shirts. I'm glad I was wrong. Our t-shirts are flooding the webs, the interwebs, and it's very humbling and very cool. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So keep those pics coming. Chad: Big, big shout out to Emissary.ai who paid for the fucking t-shirts. If you're not texting in your recruiting, you're dumb. Go to Emissary.ai. Joel: Which I think is their new ad that they're putting together. If you're not texting and recruiting, you're dumb. Chad: That's right. Emissary.ai. Hit it. Joel: All right, can we talk about facials now? Chad: That'd be great. Joel: I agree. I agree. Okay, so we've been talking and not at length, necessarily, but we've touched on the whole facial recognition thing, how it's pretty scary as hell, and fortunately, San Francisco has banned it. So San Francisco becomes first city to bar police from using facial recognition. It won't be the last city to consider a similar law, I'm sure. So on the face, we like this. However, you, for example, love the quickie check in at airports. There's a company called Clear that uses facial recognition to check you into flights and whatnot pretty quickly. So it's a little bit of a double edged sword, I guess, in that it sounds good to say, we're going to ban facial recognition, but then it also hinders maybe innovation in companies that want to use that to make our lives better. Chad: I think from our standpoint, you have to have the choice for something like this to an extent. So facial recognition could definitely help find missing children, identify and catch criminals, and then obviously also, as you talked about with Clear, speed up travel. We actually saw this during our trip home from Portugal. We went through Amsterdam, and they have facial recognition, pretty much little lines that are set up where you put in your passport, the camera comes down, identifies you, and then you're through and they stamp your shit. They don't ask you any questions or anything like that. It's just boom, boom, boom, and it was really fast. It freaked Julie out, because she hates this facial recognition stuff. We saw it happening in, I believe it was Detroit with one of the Delta terminals, and she was like, oh shit. I don't want to do that. Chad: Then here we are. She's already in line for this thing in Amsterdam, and she went through it and it worked pretty well. So yeah, I think it could help in those areas, but there are these different liberties and privacies and freedoms that we should be able to opt into. If we want to do something like that, I think paying a company like Clear or going through a TSA precheck or something of that nature where you're opting into it, it makes sense. You shouldn't have to do something like that, unless, again, it's in the case of a missing child or trying to catch a criminal. That's something entirely different, but it is, go figure and I hate this term, it's a fucking slippery slope on being able to utilize something like this. All I have to do is say, The Patriot Act. That was a fucking slippery slope, dude, and they were doing shit to our calls, listening in on calls and all of this other stuff because- Joel: Freedom. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Safety, security. Chad: Yeah, well, it was a release of our freedoms. It was a tamping down of our freedoms so that we could have security, or at least the prospect. Joel: Oppression's best friend is fear, Chad, like you know. Chad: Yeah, oh dude. As we know, we should know, because it's coming from the top of our fucking country now. That's all it is fucking fear mongering constantly. You can't stop it. Joel: I love the paranoia of your wife. No DNA test, no facial recognition. She's filed off her fingerprints so they can't track her that way. Brian Hofer, Executive Director of Privacy Advocacy, the group called Secure Justice said in the article, quote, "Facial surveillance technology is a huge legal and civil liberties risk due to its significant error rate, and it will be worse when it becomes perfectly accurate mass surveillance, tracking us as we move about our daily lives." Chad: Yes. So what is the price for misidentification? And this is happening more with black and brown people than it is for white people. That's what the statistics show. So yeah, I think it's nice and it's easy if you're going through and you're paying for a Clear program, but it's much different when the police have this tool in their tool belt, but yet it's still high misidentification rates for some of our population. That's, I mean, and we already have a high incarceration rate of black and brown people as it is. So how the fuck does this help us there? Joel: We've been going beyond the whole criminal element. Are you comfortable seeing advertisements based on your face? If your face is recognized to work at a certain company, do you start seeing advertisements promoting jobs at your competitors and other opportunities and maybe bashing the company that you currently work for? This is a real thing. I mean, I've talked to sourcing companies that are testing out facial recognition solutions where based on whatever database they're using, can track who's wearing what and what company portraits they've been in or what social media settings or what conferences they're going to, and then based, recruiting or sourcing those folks on that. Joel: So this is a real thing beyond criminal and doing bad stuff. This is probably going to impact you in many ways of your life, in ways that you may not want to, so- Chad: Yeah, and Facebook has a hell of an algorithm right now because you post a photo into your feed and it automatically knows who's in the god damn photo because we trained the algorithm to notice who we are and who our friends are. So we're training these algorithms and who knows what Facebook is going to do with this long term? Joel: Yeah, you won't be able to go into an airport or a shopping center or a downtown area with a lot of people and not be impacted by facial recognition technology. Chad: Nope. Joel: More than likely. Chad: No. Joel: So anyway, facials are all over the place, and we'll be keeping a tab on this for everybody. Chad: They're not going anywhere. Joel: Speaking of facials, LinkedIn has some new updates this week, I guess. It's a nice little mix of job seeker enhancements as well as some employer enhancements, although frankly, none of them is real crazy new for job seekers. You got new instant alerts, the job's home is redesigned for more mobile friendly user experience in applying for jobs. Maybe most interestingly they've made salary insights someone that everyone on LinkedIn can use. It used to be a premium feature, so now everyone can now view salaries on LinkedIn in the job postings. So that's sort of new. Launching soon, they're going to have skill assessments. Skill assessments give members the ability to assess, validate, and showcase their skills to more effectively stand out. They will also serve as a tool for recruiters and hiring managers to reliably vet candidates. Joel: For hiring managers, new recruiters, and jobs, they're making the core talent product even smarter. Launch brings together LinkedIn Jobs Recruiter and Pipeline Builder into a single platform. We kind of saw this coming and will continue to see it coming. Then they added screening questions, which is not a new thing for most sites. Indeed launched their screening questions a couple years ago, I think. But anyway, with screening questions, hiring managers can collect yes/no information about applicants to review with a clear understanding of the needs like if you're comfortable with the commute or confirming your educational level. This also helps recruiters and job seekers more quickly know if they're a fit. Chad: Yeah. All these things should've been done a while ago, but so they're being done now, so that's awesome. Joel: At least LinkedIn now is copying job sites instead of just copying Facebook. At least now they're copying actual features that mean something to recruiters and- Chad: Yeah, it starts like they're starting to give a shit or something. So yeah, I like the whole getting to the job faster for the job seeker if they want to be able to opt into getting to feeds of jobs faster because, yeah, I mean, again it's all about timing. So that's awesome, but also on the getting to the talent faster, they're trying to get their tools pretty much up to snuff with some of the shit, some of the startups that are out there for goodness sakes who can help identify talent in seconds as opposed to taking hours, minutes or hours. So good for them. It's good that they're starting to catch up. Joel: Also to their credit, I think that they probably understand better than most that winning the quick apply battle on Google for jobs and being a quick way for people to apply, I've already got my LinkedIn account. It's easy to apply to these jobs. That's going to help them in their optimization of Google for jobs over time as well as condensing the jobs app that they got rid of and now they're sort of bringing it all into one house. I think that's smart. I mean, I don't think it's a huge deal, but I think over time, being mobile, being the ability to quickly apply to jobs is going to help them on a lot of fronts. Chad: Yeah, I think Google will penalize them for too easy an apply process just from the standpoint of being able to scatter and smatter and splatter employees with, or employers, with profiles. I mean, it's all about being able to get the right type of individuals to the job to be able to apply. So if they're applying some really good first and foremost content, and then the opportunity to get the employer what they want, then yes, but if it just turns into this mess of applying for everything and making it too god damn easy to apply for everything, that might backfire on them. Joel: That's an interesting take, because it's obvious to say, yeah, Google's going to reward the companies where people apply. It's very interesting to say, it's sort of a thought 180 for them because they're used to people buying stuff and conversions are good and applications are good. That's all good stuff. It would take a change of attitude and understanding of our space to say too many applies done quickly could actually penalize your SEO. Yeah, that's an interesting take. Chad: Well, I mean spam, right? I mean, they could be seeing the spam, so therefore, that's something that they deal with already as it is, but also remember who would be Google's biggest adversary in this space? Possibly Microsoft/LinkedIn, so it could give them a very good reason to say, smack them down from this practice. Joel: I certainly agree with that, although they'll never publicly come out and say- Chad: Well, no. Joel: We're banning LinkedIn jobs or downgrading them because of our competition with Microsoft. Chad: Yeah, they would never say that. It would just happen. It's kind of like when they rolled out Panda and everybody's SEO got fucked. Joel: Now I'm waiting to see LinkedIn get on the whole chatbot, prescreen these folks through a conversation as opposed to a questionnaire, however they're doing it now. I think that's an evolution that needs to happen. Chad: Yeah, I would've gotten excited about something like that if they would've actually acquired an organization or partnered with an organization to make that happen, but I mean, being able to do these basic screening types of element? I mean, so fucking what? That shit's been happening for well over a decade. Good for you. It's glad that you caught up, but it's just, big fucking deal. Joel: By the way, while we're talking about technology, we have another live view from the ladder's innovation lab. Keep up the good work, ladders. Love you. Chad: Good job, Mark. Joel: All right, speaking of companies going in the shitter, CareerBuilder in our rumor segment here this week, Michael [Piermont 00:23:23], I'm probably saying that incorrect. Piermont, Piermat- Chad: Piermont. Joel: Dude is an entrepreneur according to his LinkedIn profile, and he somehow thought it was a good idea to join CareerBuilder as their VP of Global Growth. He backtracked on that pretty quickly. After only 10 months, he has allegedly left the company. So Michael, man, go back to that entrepreneur thing, because that's a much better gig than CareerBuilder at this point. Chad: Yeah. CareerBuilder right now, I would believe, is just a grinder. I mean seriously, just it'll grind you up and spit you the fuck out. We're seeing that from industry veterans, right? Who I'm sure have pretty big price tags on their head to keep them around, been in the industry for a while or they've been at CareerBuilder for a while. So it makes sense to just kind of nudge them out or hit the eject button, get rid of them, but we just haven't seen much come from CareerBuilder that they haven't been doing for years, and not doing a great job of for years, right? So none of this surprises me. Joel: No, it does not strike me as a place for entrepreneurial type folks at all. This is a churn and burn grind business now. We'll see how it goes when augmented reality, and I can point my phone downtown and see who's hiring. That's the height of innovation now. This is not an entrepreneurial friendly company at this point. Chad: Yeah, when Monster and Monster Studios is actually outshining what you're doing, you really have to take a couple of fucking steps back and rethink your strategy. Joel: Well, you know who doesn't have to rethink their strategy and is always on top of the height of innovation is Chad and Cheese sponsor, Canvas. Let's hear a little bit from them and talk Slack wars, nothing but Slack wars. You like my Bill Murray? That's nice. Chad: No. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvasbot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: Slack aims to be the most important software company in the world, says their CEO in a recent article in TechCrunch. Well, it sounds a lot like Ian from ZipRecruiter. Maybe those guys eat lunch together or go bowling. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But it sounds familiar. Chad: I think it's funny that, I mean, Stewart Butterfield, they created Slack internally to be able to message each other, but that was not the core product they were trying to build. The core product they were trying to build sucks and nobody was buying into it, so they're like, fuck. We gotta sell something, and this is very, very much how Stewart Butterfield has built companies throughout the years. Same thing happened with Flickr. Flickr was not the product that they were building. They were just trying to get capital, and it was like, oh hey. Let's build this and try to sell this and get some capital out of it. Chad: So it's interesting that he has such a great vision for something that wasn't even created as a visionary product, at all, but they're looking to go public in June, valued at 7 billion, 10 million users in 150+ countries, more than 600,000 organizations that are using, but only 88,000 of those businesses are actually on the paid plan. 130 million in revenue, which is up like 60, almost 70% from Q1 in 2018. So I mean, Slack isn't losing a ton of cash like Uber is, but it's also not close to profitability either. So this is an interesting story because everybody hates email, much like everybody hates their ATS, but yet this just feels like a different form of email. I mean seriously, what the fuck different is it? I mean, how's it different? Joel: Well, to me, it feels like you may or may not remember when GoPro went public. Chad: Yeah. Joel: GoPro, when they went public, they weren't touting the fact that they were a camera that you could take on your bike and skydiving or whatever, right? They were promoting it as a platform, an entertainment platform, like they'd have these channels and whatever. So Wall Street didn't buy it, right? They understood the whole hardware video thing, like phones are whatever are catching up to GoPro. They understood that, and then you had Snapchat go public, and they didn't talk about disappearing text messages and photos. They were talking about the camera and the hardware and being an entertain. Joel: So to me, Slack coming out saying, we want to be the most important software platform in the world tells me that they understand that the whole messaging thing is getting commoditized, that they can't really compete in that market long term, and that they have to pimp themselves as this monolithic software company. I'm not quite buying it. I think long term, this thing is going to get commoditized. It's going to get eaten up by Microsoft and others, and they're just sort of playing the game to get as much out of Wall Street as they can until the party's over. Chad: So really, and using Slack, and I've used Slack. What makes it more productive? It's a method of communication. Maybe it's more instant? Joel: You don't have to weed through spam. To me, that's the, I don't have to weed through marketing messages in my inbox or spam. I can have pretty direct access to people that I want to have direct access to. That's the main value in my opinion. Chad: But here's the thing, and it's actually a quote from Alicia Liu, who's a software programmer. By lowering the barrier to initiate communication, the hidden side effect is that Slack has the quiet capacity to exponentially increase communication overhead, resulting in much more voluminous, lower quality communications. So many people, it's so easy to get into this and just kind of communicate that there's too fucking much of it. It's one of the things that I've noticed in using Slack. You get into a group and you start obviously chatting and sharing documents and so on and so forth, and there's just too fucking much of it. Joel: Yeah, and note the fact that with the app store, you can send stickers to people. You can send good, attaboys and good jobs to people, so yeah. There's a growing amount of clutter in Slack that is making it not much better than email. Chad: Yeah, so you're talking about the spam. These are the people that you want to talk to. I totally get it, but there's so much shit that's in there, and think of it from this standpoint. I'm actually, there's a group that I'm in that has around 10 people. So the conversation that's happening with those 10 people as everybody's trying to provide their points, right? It is almost impossible to keep up with unless you're sitting there and just watching the screen, and then you have to scroll back up, scroll, I mean, it's just, it is ridiculously crazy. So I think our want to get away from email so badly is going to send us into a direction that is not going to make us more productive. Joel: There are so many ways to communicate with people. It was kind of, I feel a little old saying this, but it was kind of nice when email was the only way, because you and me, we're all Facebook messenger. But most people with me, it's text messaging, email for people that I'm not as close to. I've got LinkedIn messages from people that are professional based. I've got Twitter DMs and whatever going on there, Instagram, I've got to add to the mix now too because I'm getting people to contact me that way. So it's like I kind of long for the days and I feel like the old classified advertisers who, remember when it was just the newspaper that you could look for jobs. Now it's like, I kind of long for the days when I could just go to my one inbox and see messages from everybody. Of course, marketers fuck that up, but that was kind of a nice little system, and email still works. Chad: Yeah. Gmail kicks a lot of the marketing shit out for me into different tabs. Joel: True. Chad: So it's not as bad anymore, but let's kind of, let's switch the conversation for a second. Microsoft Teams is hot in this space, and they see Slack as their number one competitor. They have over 500,000 organizations using Teams. They're focusing their attention not just on the organizations that are using the dynamics suite, but also focusing its attention on non-desk workers, which means it's going to be more mobile. Joel: Yeah, I mean, I think we both believe some combination of Microsoft and Google will rule the corporate everything, and messaging and corporate communications is going to be part of that. I don't, it's hard for me to see a world where Slack can catch up on the software side and have docs and everything that goes on in there quicker than Microsoft can kick Slack's ass with something like Teams. By the way, Facebook's Slack competitor has 2 million paying users, apparently, or 2 million users. So they're going to get hit on a lot of sides. We've talked about open source solutions that are free for people to use, like messaging in and of itself is a commodity. Slack, I think, is going to have a hard time competing in a world where they're being squeezed with free messaging on one side or cheap versus the big 800 pound gorillas like Microsoft providing messaging to their already existent customer base. Chad: Then you ask yourself, does Facebook Workplace even have a chance, and is it too late? I mean, shit, June 20 is when Slack's supposed to go IPO. For somebody to reach into that and offer a shit ton of cash. I mean I don't know. I don't know, or just let it sit there and wither on the vine as you try to steal market share from it because it doesn't have the infrastructure that Microsoft does. Joel: Yeah, and I feel, I mean, sorry, Facebook has been derailed in their employment initiatives because of the whole privacy thing and just what they're going through on a much bigger scale. I know we've talked about them integrating with ATSs for job postings and things like that, but I think they've been much, their attention is elsewhere because of privacy issue and being sued and GDPR and all that good stuff. So I think right now, it's Microsoft and Google's race to lose and Slack is a wannabe at this point. Chad: Yeah, I think Facebook's a wannabe and they never really focused on the workspace, the Workplace or the workspace, workplace enough in the first place. I mean, just in saying that they're integrating into, I think they named one applicant tracking system or maybe two? Okay, big fucking deal. I mean that is table stakes for all of these types of organizations. Tell me what the next big piece of strategy you're getting ready to launch. The integration's, that shouldn't be it. Again, that's table stakes. Joel: Yeah, it's just a matter of getting as many ATSs and direct jobs as possible into their database, and then they have a messaging system. They could do prescreening questions. They could do chatbots. Chad: They could. Joel: They could do scheduling for small businesses to interview people. They could do all that. I just don't think it's on their radar compared to the other stuff they got going on. By the way, younger people aren't using Facebook, so that's a bigger problem then, they can have all the jobs in the world, but if young people that are desired by small businesses aren't on Facebook, that becomes a real problem. So they got to fix that first. Chad: Yeah, and Facebook, one of the biggest advantages for a company to use Facebook was the ability to exactly target your ads, and they're doing away with a lot of that shit. So I mean, they're doing away with a lot of the pros on one of the reasons why I'd want to fucking use you in the first place. Joel: Yeah, that's a great point. You can't even advertise jobs now basically on Facebook. Chad: Yeah, not worth a shit. Joel: And their advertising can't target, and okay. All right, so we're clearly bearish on Slack today and Facebook today and bullish on Microsoft and Google. Chad: It continues. Joel: It continues. All right. Well, what isn't continuing is people getting their freak on and having babies in the US. A story this week talked about too few babies being born in the US. Fewer than 4 million babies were born this year, provisional data shows, the smallest number in over three decades with potentially lasting effects on the future workforce. The declining birth figures, which have fallen for 10 of the last 11 years suggest that without immigrants, build that wall people, the future workforce may be too small to support the growing number of retirees. This is from the Wall Street Journal. Some analysts expect the birth rate to rise again, however, as the millennia cohort moves through their 30s. So basically, millennials get to getting on and get some babies in this country so we can survive. Chad: Again, it's about us understanding first and foremost, we have how many individuals that are still living with mom and day because they're trying to pay their college debt? I mean this is a much bigger problem, broad scope for our nation and culture, and then obviously globally. But then they're not getting their freak on because they live in, he's living in mom and dad's basement. Okay, that's not sexy, so yeah, I get that. Or they're not looking to actually marry because again, they're worried more about debt than anything else, and then again, the whole build the wall bullshit. I mean, we need people to do these fucking jobs people. The robots aren't here yet. We need people to actually do those jobs. We need to be understanding about all of these things. Joel: Well, frankly, to expect the millennials to bail us out on this is frightening in and of itself- Chad: Not going to happen. Joel: So I wouldn't put much stock in that. What we need is people still want to come to the US, not just the southern border but in terms of students that come here and then we kick them out. If you get a degree in this country, it should be like rubber stamp, you're a citizen, and the fact that we have people getting educated in this country and then leaving and feeling not welcomed is just really stupid. So to me, it's not let's count on the millennials to get freaky deaky. It's a matter of, let's make it easier for smart people and people who want to work into this country so we can move forward and successful in the new century and centuries beyond. Chad: We have individuals who have H1B visas who they're making it harder for them to actually stay in the country. It's like, okay, these individuals, we are training up to do these jobs. Why in the hell after having somebody in the country for three years or two years, who the hell? Why would we get rid of them? We need them. That's why they're here in the first place. Joel: Here's your PhD. Congratulations. Oh by the way, here's your American citizenship. Welcome to the country. Chad: Yeah. Too fucking easy. Joel: By the way, when the sex robots come, there's going to be no procreation, so immigration is really the only way that we're going to survive the future. Chad: Thank god. Humans are dumb. Joel: All right, let's get a quick word from Sovren and we'll talk money and beer. Chad: Excellent. Joel: What's better than that? Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticating matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produced them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Ed: I'm not angry. I'm from Philly. Chad: You'll get to see that famous Ed from Philly if you go to Recruit Philly next, is it next week? Yeah, next week. Joel: 23rd. May 23 in Philly. Come out and see us and Ed, too. Chad: Yeah, you'll get to see Ed. Joel: All right, so money continues to flow into our space. It surprises me every day. So I don't have the numbers in front of me. I think you may or may not- Chad: I do. Joel: We'll just wing it if not. So SeekOut, who, by the way if you haven't heard our interview with their founder and CEO, recommend doing that. They got 6 million-ish? Chad: They did, 6 million. Joel: Did they? So we have ENGAGE Talent, 2 million, I think? Chad: 3.5. Joel: Okay, that's close. Carrot was the big one I think with a lot- Chad: Carrot got the big cash, 28 million. Joel: Yeah, and that's a serious, they raised quite a bit of money, and I frankly hear very little about them or know little about them. It's more of an education thing than a recruiting thing. Then HeyJobs, my favorite name of the four that we're talking about out of Berlin raised a little cash. Chad: 12 million, yep. Yep, so let's go to the top and start with SeekOut, real quick. Anoop Gupta, awesome, incredibly smart guy. He was actually an advisor direct to Bill Gates. SeekOut is incredibly interesting because they interface with LinkedIn and GitHub. They have some incredibly powerful search tools. The big question here is, what happens if the GitHubs of the world or the LinkedIns of the world shut him down, right? Shut him off, and that's one of the things that you always have to worry about if you are a platform where your success is predicated on somebody else's success and/or allowing you to have access. So that's interesting, but 6 million, good for them. Joel: The whole sourcing space is challenged to me right now. We're hearing rumors about Entelo, who I guess you could call one of the granddaddies in this space. They can't sell to anybody. No one wants to buy that. Our buddies at HiringSolved, they released Prophet version two point whatever. It's free, it's as good as probably anything on the market. The whole sourcing automation thing and will people actually search for folks? I just, the sourcing model as it is is really challenged, and I have no doubt that the gang at SeekOut is really smart, but when you look at privacy rules and what is just happening in sourcing and automation, I hope they have a plan B that they're working on to take the company to the next level, because in their current iteration, it's going to be really challenging to be successful long term. Chad: Yeah, I think these platforms are the most exciting to me, just because they take sourcing to an entirely new level of efficiencies. But the thing is, and again, my opinion, just some advice, if you are not working with bigger platforms to become the brain of their platform and then looking for obviously acquisition, then you're probably going to lose. If you don't have people in your organization who are deeply rooted in partnerships and alliances on the revenue side of the house and you're trying to go just direct to clients, onesie, twosie clients, it's going to be a hard slog all the way through. Chad: I think unfortunately, in some cases like the Brilents of the world and whatnot, they're not from this industry. Very, incredibly smart people, Facebook, data scientists or even Entelo, just incredibly smart people, but a lot of it has to do with that revenue strategy right out of the gate. That isn't always the first thing that they focus on. It's always about the tech, which I totally get it, but that tech has to be fueled by something, and that fuel is going to be cash. Joel: Yeah. Remember our buddy Johnny Campbell who says, "98% of recruiting or sourcing should be automated today." Chad: Yeah, the future. No reason why it shouldn't. Joel: All right. Our last story. We're finishing with beer as we should probably every show. Natty Light- Chad: Nasty. Joel: Easily one of the worst beers in the world- Chad: Horrible. Joel: Is looking for an intern or has an internship opportunity for you to hone your party skills and, I don't know, party and drink and spread the Natty Light gospel, I guess. Chad: Yep. You have to be Natty qualified and this means that you will be attending sporting events, do guerrilla marketing, travel to cool places, manage their social media channels, and do a weekly blog. I think this is just pure genius from Natty Light- Joel: Don't forget the line item, design some sick swag that gives consumers all the feels. That's actual part of the job description. Chad: Exactly, man. I love it, dude, and the thing is, I think so Natty Light is just known for shit beer. They're not known for a great company to work for, and I think this is just this so tongue in cheek, it's really funny and I wish companies would think more about what their brand really is and yeah. It's funny to say, I want somebody to go party, but at the end of the day, you're creating a product which really does that. It gives, it makes people happy. Joel: Not only is laughter a great medicine, it's also a great recruiting tactic. Chad: God damn. Joel: You failed to mention the qualifications, which I think are great. So aside from being 21 years old, you have to be outgoing, but not annoying. There is a fine line. Be able to spell protractor, and just be cool. Good luck in your search there, Natty Light. You're bound to find some winners in your resume stack. Chad: And you're definitely bound to find some losers. Joel: Speaking of losers, we out. Chad: We out. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. Ed: I'm not angry. I'm from Philly.

While in Lisbon at TAtech this month, the boys sat down with Firing Squad alum Adam Gordon of Candidate.ID to chat candidate funnels and Eurotrash. Enjoy this Nexxt Exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps corporations tap new channels to find qualified talent in the disability community, manage culture change, leverage federal and state hiring incentives, respond to a changing regulatory environment, and strengthen their workforce through diversity. Chad: We ran into kilt wearing, friend of the show, Adam Gordon from Candidate.ID at TAtech Europe in Portugal. Take a listen, after a quick word from our sponsor. Chad: Okay, so you need candidates fast and you’re sick and tired of being nickel and dimed to death, I totally get it. You should check out flex plan from Nexxt. It’s perfect for employers and staffing firms who are busy, they need candidates and flexible pricing now. FlexxPlan is also perfect for recruitment at agencies who need targeted distribution and tools to help demonstrate client ROI. If you're sick and tired of all the BS, hassle, and just want candidates now, check out Nexxt and flex plan with over 70 million members. Nexxt takes all of your jobs and puts each one in front of the best candidates and cross their entire ecosystem. No muss, no fuss, Nexxt does all the work and flex plan makes it cost effective. Check out everything Nexxt has to offer at hiring.nexxt.com, that's hiring.nexxt.com and if you like to save even more cash just go to chadcheese.com scroll, down and click on the Nexxt logo, discounts aplenty. Remember, Nexxt with a double x, not the triple x. Announcer: Hide your kids, look the doors. You're listening to HRs 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, it's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Adam: From 18-21, my daily rate was 10 grand. Joel: And we won't ask what services came with that 10 grand. Chad: Yeah, I don't think it's appropriate to. Joel: And when have we ever been appropriate on this show? Chad: They're never listed... Joel: People don't tune into us for the appropriateness of our commentary. Adam: I reserve the right to be forgotten. Chad: So you know how we started the show yesterday? Or I should say, Joel started the show yesterday, came on to the stage and said, "Hey, what's up Euro trash?" That's how it started. Adam: Euro trash... Joel: You weren't there were you? Adam: No. Joel: Yeah. Adam: Euro trash... Chad: Yes, yeah. That's how we started. Joel: And I have the air horn too, which was fun. Chad: We all know who bad cop was starting that one out. Adam: That's hilarious. Chad: I didn't even get a chance. Joel: It was the last one of the day, everyone was looking pretty sleepy, so you know. Yeah. Adam: Half the people here are American. Chad: That's a very good point, wait are you... Chad: Oh my god. Joel: Euro trash. Chad: Yeah. So give us an intro... Joel: But someone came up after and said, "Man you stole my thunder." Joel: You made 'em immune to cussing. I was gonna shock 'em into listening to me, but you ruined it for me. Chad: Not gonna happen. Chad: So today we are with Adam... Joel: "Firing squad" alum. Chad: Alum. Joel: ...and survivor Adam Gordon. Chad: That's right. Joel: Just another of the many success stories of those startups brave enough to face the firing squad. Joel: Adam how are you? Adam: Yeah fine, I'm still slightly bitter about the golf clap you gave me though Joel. Joel: What was Chad's? Adam: He gave me a big round of applause. Joel: It's amazing how well the participants remember what we say and how we rate them at the end. Chad: Because it all counts. Joel: And many of them carry grudges and scars and bitterness unfortunately. The funny thing, I have no idea what I remember, I don't remember what I, but you clearly will take it to your grave and curse my name as you're lowered into the earth. But look at you now? Chad: He's a good looking man in a kilt! Joel: You're getting money from either Russians or Germans, we can't quite... Chad: Joel can't pin that down. Joel: The paper trail is a little bit fuzzy. Chad: We've heard Germans, zie Germans. Joel: So clear it up for us right now, who gave you money, how much was it, for what percentage, like what are the deets on this? Chad: What are you gonna do? Yeah. Adam: We received some investment from recruitment technology, a small recruitment technology fund driven by a guy called Andy Burika, in Germany. He has investments in 19 recruitment tech businesses, we're the only ones that don't speak German. Joel: Zer gut. Adam: As I understand. He gave us a high six figure investment and acquired 10% of our business. Chad: High six figure. Adam: Yeah. Joel: A semi-exact answer. Chad: Yeah. Joel: At least the percentage was good. We don't usually get percentages of the business. Were you wearing a kilt during the negotiations? Adam: Uh, no... Joel: Did you open the kimono so-to-speak? Adam: In fact, yes is the answer. So when I first met him at UNLEASH in Amsterdam I was in my kilt. Joel: Uh-huh. Adam: It was the day that, I'd just come off stage after winning the Recruitment Tech Startup stream at UNLEASH... Chad: Uh-huh. Adam: At the competition. And subsequently we were in Berlin, talking the secret HR society's gathering one evening. Chad: Wait can you talk about that? The actual secret HR society? Adam: Well the secret... Joel: The first rule is don't talk about the secret. Adam: About the secret? Yeah. Scott and I were in our kilts, we saw him, we saw him that day, we weren't in our kilts when we were in his office, but we were in our kilts again by the time we saw him later in the day at the event. Chad: Yeah. Adam: The kilt works. Outside of... Chad: The kilt does work. Adam: Outside of the UK the kilt attracts people. Joel: Good tip, good tip. But I'm assuming you have to actually be Scottish to pull it off. Adam: Absolutely not. Joel: No? Adam: No, of course not. Chad: What are you talking about, we're gonna be in kilts later today? Joel: Yeah but we won't be able to pull it off. And we definitely won't be able to raise money. Chad: I'm pulling that bitch off, yes. Adam: I suspect you'll find... Joel: Well raise some money while you're at it. Chad: I do! Adam: I suspect you'll find the amount of people coming over to talk to you is going to increase in your kilts. Chad: Oh yeah? Joel: And I'm assuming the number one question is...? Adam: What material is the kilt made of? Joel: Would not have been my guess for first question or most asked question. Adam: So the answer is yes I am afraid I always wear pants under my kilt. Joel: Oh okay. Pants or an underwear thing? Like it'd be... Adam: Oh yeah, I mean it's not a jock strap. Joel: You're not wearing pants with the kilt right now... Chad: It's not a jock strap... Adam: No, they're kinda like, they're kinda like tight boxers. Joel: No G-string? Chad: Oh okay. Joel: So the boxer brief... Adam: Yep. Joel: That's what we're rocking. Adam: Yep. Joel: I can get behind that. Chad: I'm going with leopard skins. Joel: Boxer briefs or bikinis? Adam: Most people don't though. Chad: Oh bikinis. Joel: Bikinis. Chad: Yeah yeah. Adam: Most Scots don't though. Chad: Yeah! Adam: Yeah I mean like most of my friends don't. You go away and watch a football match or a rugby match or something... Chad: Yeah. Adam: In a different country and... Joel: And they're going commando. Adam: Yeah they all are, yeah. Chad: So back to the topic at hand, what are you gonna do with this money? You've got this amount of money, what are you gonna do...? Joel: Aside from sponsoring the show, what will you be doing with...? Adam: We've hired our first sales team, so we're taking that seriously now. We've got some processes in place and we've got some real rigor around how we're going to market. That's the first thing. Second thing is we have accelerated product development so we're creating a recruitment CRM which will be free to anybody that wants to use it as of July. Adam: That's basically, just, putting our money where our mouth is and showing how much we value recruitment CRM. Zero pounds and zero dollars. Chad: So the CRM sucks, along with the ATS, is that what you're saying? Is that what we're hearing? Adam: No I'm not saying anything about ATS... Chad: Oh okay. Adam: I'm just saying that recruitment CRM is a category of software that's been created to solve a problem that it does not solve. Chad: Uh huh. What is that problem? What's the category problem? Adam: Being able to keep in contact really effectively with all of your candidates. Chad: Okay. Adam: Being able to nurture them and being able to tell recruiters which candidates they should pick up the phone to when the job gets signed off. CRM doesn't do any of those. Most people think that they need it, and that's fine, that's why we built it and we'll give it away for free, if people really want it. That's fine. And it will be a decent CRM, it will be a decent recruitment CRM, by the way it will be. Adam: But what they really need is the talent pipeline software, the talent pipeline automation and that's the bit that we charge for. Chad: I remember when Avature first came out, years ago right, and everybody was, the problem was engagement and the problem was also that candidates were not finishing the application process and in the ATS there really wasn't much you could do with that info at least, that data at least. So they wanted this other layer which actually Jobs to Web got into as well, before they were sold to Success Factors and it was all about business card information. That was all in a separate system from your ATS so that there wasn't any quote-on-quote 'compliance' around it and it was in an advertising system not your system of record. Chad: So it never really evolved past that, is what I'm hearing from you. Adam: Well I mean that's the truth, there's so many different sources of candidate information today... Chad: Uh huh. Adam: That you don't need to store in a CRM and you still got it in just as fast time... Chad: Uh huh. Adam: All these sourcing tools can tell you somebody's email address, and tell you their phone number, so to be honest you're more compliant if you just leave it on the web and just access it straight from the web. But if people want it, then fine, that's great we'll give it to them. We get it all the time, we get people saying to us, "Your product looks amazing, but really we need a CRM first." Adam: So that's why we've created it because we'll just go, "Fine, have this one for free." Joel: So you talked about adding new features and hiring talent to do that, so what, what are some of the features of things we'll be talking about a year now that you guys have created? Adam: We'll be a long way down the road with a machine learning program which is all about self-building campaigns. Organizations today have to put the content into Candidate.ID to make it work and they have to connect the content to each other, you know one bit to another bit, and they need to add a points algorithm to the beginning, a scoring model. Candidate.ID in years’ time is going to be able to self-build campaigns. For example, the recruiter will get an email to say, "Next week's campaign to nurture yourself for engineers is live, or is ready to go live, they'll just click... Adam: No they'll click on a link... Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Adam: They'll get to see what the email copy looks like, text message copy, social media posts... Chad: QA/QC Adam: Everything and then, yeah, absolutely. And then all they'll have to do is press distribute and it'll go. Today they might spend 2 hours creating a really good campaign, in a year's time they'll be able to do one in 15 minutes. Joel: And for the recruiters out there who don't want to become marketers, this is great news for them. Adam: To be honest it means that Candidate.ID is actually accessible to recruiters 'cause today the only people really running it are sourcing teams and recruitment marketing teams. So recruiters can use it to access information about candidates, but you would never have somebody that's filling jobs creating campaigns. In a year's time they'll be able to, it'll be really easy. Chad: But recruiters aren't even going into their applicant tracking system looking for data, they feel like they always have to go out to job boards, or LinkedIn, or some shit like that, right? So what makes you think that they're gonna use this, I mean because they're in a routine, right? "Well we're paying for this, we gotta go out and use it", event though the data's probably already in one of their systems as it is. How are you gonna get them to stop the stupid shit and start using data that they've already paid for? Adam: So that's, that... Joel: I think that's your next catch phrase, by the way, stop doing stupid shit, Candidate.ai. (Candidate ID) Adam: We'll think... Joel: Or ID. Adam: We'll think about it yeah. Adam: That's the precise reason we created Candidate.ID because Pfizer told me that 70% of the people they were hiring from LinkedIn had already been on Taleo at the point that they reengaged with them. Chad: They bought ‘em already right? Joel: Yeah. Adam: Yep exactly. Chad: How many times, and you would know this better than we would, how many times have they bought those candidates over and over and over, before they actually go back into their ATS and use them if they are at all. Adam: Well it's a really good question actually, I don't know how many times they have, but it's at least two for 70% of them... Chad: Oh yeah. Adam: So it could well be three, four, five times... Chad: Yeah! Adam: So here's the big thing they need to do, they need to keep in contact with people throughout the, from the start of their career right to the end of their career, they need to nurture those people, long term relationships, giving them useful, relevant content... Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Adam: And having an ongoing relationship. And not an ephemeral relationship, which is, we might talk to them once every three years or something like that. How we're gonna get recruiters using their own database within Candidate.ID, where they don't do it from Taleo or Workday or anything else... Chad: Uh huh. Adam: Is because they can easily see who's hot today. So you surf them with hot leads so that they can eliminate cold contact, and they can therefore spend more time filing jobs and less time reaching out to people who never respond. That's a massive, massive saving. And in fact today we can show that Specsavers, which is Europe's biggest optometry retailer... Chad: Uh huh. Adam: The recruiters in that business are filling 50% more jobs per person, because they practically eliminated cold contact with candidates. Chad: Which means you need less recruiters. Adam: Well, either you need less recruiters, or you are providing, maybe more superior candidate experience, a higher touchpoint, more internal business partnering, and doing more qualitative things. Of course if cost's your issue, than yes, less recruiters. Joel: You are one of the contestants on today's death match. You're going up against a robot, a chat bot... Chad: And a sourcing algorithm. Joel: Algorithm. What's your strategy to win today's contest? Adam: I'm gonna put the human back into recruitment. Chad: Cause you'll be the only human. Joel: I'm bringing the human back to human resources. Chad: Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, you're just talking about an automated process that will build marketing campaigns, and you'll be able to cut the recruiters in half...[crosstalk 00:14:25] Joel: Exactly. So if you just push a button and it does everything. Adam: Yeah, but I'm gonna, yeah. But the ultimate to campaign build isn't ready yet, so that's in a year's time. Chad: Okay. Adam: So today... Chad: Today... Adam: I'm gonna be representing the human face of recruitment. Chad: The human race. The human face. Joel: So the kilt's on, are we gonna get a Mel Gibson-esque Braveheart rally cry for human beings? Adam: I'm definitely gonna be spontaneous with that, I've been thinking about what I might do. Chad: Uh huh. Adam: I think maybe... Joel: I'm thinking some blue face paint might be... Adam: Maybe but I like, do you guys know Naseem Hamed? Prince Naseem Hamed? The boxer? Chad: No. Joel: No. Adam: He used to come into the ring on a flying carpet. Chad: Ahh. Adam: Thinking about trying to do that. Chad: Yeah. I wanna see you pull that off, I really do. Joel: That's gonna be some brownie points. Chad: You know what, some of the investment that he just received from Russia... Joel: He can probably produce a flying carpet before the event. Adam: Here in Lisbon we're also not that far from Morocco and I'm pretty sure that's where they make the flying carpets. Chad: Yeah I think that is. Yeah, I think that's the only place, they're trademarked or something. Joel: Adam thanks for joining us man, good luck today, in today's death match. And as always stay in touch with what's going on at Candidate.ID. Chad: There it is, keep those legs sassy. Adam: Thanks for talking to me! Chad: Later! Joel: We out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, The Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge-droppin' that's happenin' up in here. Tristen: They made me say that. Tristen: The most important part is to check out our sponsors, because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive shiny gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. Tristen: For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Nexxt #TalentPipelines #CandidateID #TAtech #EmployerBrand #Brand #EmploymentBrand #Marketing

What happens when you get about 100 recruiters in Philly to witness a live Chad & Cheese podcast? A whole lotta trash talkin' about CareerBuilder, Monster, Ladders, Indeed and anyone else who gets out of line, apparently. Grab a Yuengling and get jawn. You're bound to enjoy this live show. Afterwards, give love to our sponsors Sovren, Canvas and JobAdx. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Keca Ward: How many of you do listen to the Chad and Cheese Podcast? Yeah. They're going to be doing it live, and you're gonna hear this I think tomorrow, right guys? Maybe? Joel: If Chad sobers up. Keca Ward: Okay. Depends on the sobriety level of these guys. Please give a big, warm welcome. It is 1:15, so we can get going to Chad and Cheese. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's 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, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: All right, Philly! Chad: So, luckily, we got beer, because we almost left. Joel: Yo guys, this is the weekly show, so you guys gotta represent Philly... Chad: Right. Joel: Because the whole world listens to our show. And all of you will be listening after today. But you gotta bring it for Philly in this weekly podcast. Chad: Represent! Joel: I just learned the word "jawn" so I'm going to try to work it in. Chad: This is our jawn, so we're going to try to... Joel: I'm a little gassy after that cheesesteak though, so I gotta work that in... Chad: Sit over there! Joel: How we doing, Philly? We doing all right? We have some great fans in Philly. Chad: Yes. Joel: For those of you who don't know, I am the Cheese segment of the duo here. My name is Joel Cheesman, believe it or not, that's not my acting porn name. This is Chad, which is pretty self-explanatory. But we do a weekly podcast, couple monthly shows, we do like a Shark Tank-style start-up interview. We travel a lot and do shows and interviews that way. Anything recruiting, you want to learn more stuff, who's out there doing cool things, we like to think that our podcast is the shiz. Or the "jawn", maybe, is what I should have... Chad: It is, it is a jawn. It's totally the jawn. So yeah, we've got a world tour this year, it's been awesome. We just got back from Portugal, and now we're in Philly, love it, I mean, it makes sense, right? Right? But... Joel: It's better in Philly. Chad: What's that? Joel: It's better in Philly. Chad: Oh yeah, so much better in Philly. I mean, we definitely want to give some shout-outs. If you've listened to our podcast, right out of the gate, we like to give what we call shout-outs to people in the industry who give us live. Or we see some cool shit happening. Oh yeah, by the way, this is an explicit podcast/presentation, so you might have to do earmuffs every now and again. Joel: I think we're okay in Philly. Chad: I'm just saying. Joel: I think Philly's all right. Chad: Just saying. Gotta do it. Joel: Montgomery, Alabama, that shit was bad, right?. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Montgomery didn't go very well. Chad: I don't think we're going to Montgomery, Alabama. Joel: Yeah, and if you guys wanna shout out questions or have anything, please feel free to engage. Our show's about forty minutes, this is an hour that we have on stage, so we're bound to run out of gas. So hopefully... Chad: He won't run out of gas. That's for sure. Joel: Well, not that kind of gas. Chad: That's half a cheesesteak. Joel: So, think of questions as we go on and we'd love to engage with you guys and have more of a conversation... Chad: Yep. Joel: ...than us just talking at you. Chad: So big shout-out, first and foremost, the guys who actually brought us here. Not just the Recruit Philly peeps, because they've been kicking ass, taking names, give them a big round of applause. But Emissary.AI. They are the guys, they brought us here. Without their gas money... Yeah. So if you've seen... Joel: My twelve-year-old told me about that app, it's awesome. Chad: Yeah. Nancy, if you could stand up and show the... Joel: Nancy from Philly! Chad: Yes. Nancy from Philly. Joel: Early fan, early fan. Chad: There it is. Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Big Emissary logo on the back. Joel: Nancy stocked us in the early days. We were a little freaked out by it. Chad: Yeah, so her and Ed, who's not here. Ed, what the fuck, dude? Joel: Everyone add Zatisky, -tasky, what's his...? Chad: Yeah, Ed Z, right? Yeah, Ed Z. Joel: No one knows Ed? He put this thing together. Chad: Yeah, he's part of team. Love it, Ed's actually off his... His wife is graduating from, I believe it's nursing... Joel: High school, right? Chad: Yes. High school. Big round of applause. For Ed's wife. Joel: I'm so mad he wasn't here to hear that. Chad: Oh, he'll hear it. He'll hear it. Joel: I know he will. Love you, Ed. Chad: Goddammit, Ed. Chad: Patrick. Where's Patrick at? He got us the beer. Joel: Patrick is... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Patrick is so jawn. Thank you, dude. Chad: Dude, yeah. Patrick is so jawn. Chad: I need to hear stuff from up top, too. You guys just can't be lazy and go in food comas, thank you. Joel: We've gotta raise the roof up top. I love it. Terry Baker's on his phone, dude, he's see this.. Chad: There you go. Arsenio woof woof woof. Chad: Jesus, dude. Chad: Mark Feffer from HCM Tech Report. He actually came down so he could meet us and actually report on this amazing event, first annual, right? First annual, right? Every year? Okay. Just making sure this wasn't a one-time go. Joel: We won't be back, so enjoy it while we're here. Chad: Like "fuck these guys." Joel: By the way, saying we're from Indiana isn't very dangerous. These crazy cats from Indiana. We're gonna break shit up. Chad: It's like stealthy. Chad: Judge Group, and also I want to read a tweet from one of our friends, Jason Katcher. And if you don't know, and you don't listen, we hate The Ladders because it's fucking stupid. It's been around for how long... Joel: And their CEO sucks. Chad: I can't believe it still exists. Marc Cenedella, I know you're listening, dude, shut that shit down. Jason Katcher tweets: "The Ladders emails are like those magic birthday candles that never go out. No matter how many times I unsubscribe or mark as spam they keep on coming back." Good shit, Jason. Love it. Joel: I see a lot of people relating to those emails. Chad: How many people thought Ladders was like out of business, I mean like ten years ago, right? Joel: They're not The Ladders anymore, they're just Ladders. Chad: But if you go to Ladders.com... Joel: Although... Yeah if you go to Ladders.com, it doesn't take you to The Ladders. So they've kind of fucked up the marketing on that one. Chad: It takes you to, well, what you would want... Joel: Probably a ladder store. Chad: To buy ladders. A ladder store, right? Joel: Which is more helpful than The Ladders, by the way. Chad: Yeah. It doesn't make any goddamn sense. I'm going to change my name but not my URL and drive people away to buy ladders. I can't even imagine. Their marketing sucks anyway, so probably nothing. Chad: Next events, Jobcase, we're going to be in Boston next week for Jobcase Live. Joel: No boos for Boston? Oh, I'm impressed. Chad: I would have thought we got some boos from Philly. Yeah, didn't get any cheers. Then we're going to Boston again for SmashFly Transform. Chad: Ooh. Joel: Was that for Boston or SmashFly? Who? Oh. Chad: This is Phenom country. Okay, good call. Joel: Phenom country. Chad: Well, then they need to fucking invite us to their shindig or some shit, right? Oh, you did? Awesome. Joel: She runs the show over at Phenom. I didn't know that. Chad: I didn't know that either. It's awesome. Joel: Screw that, she's the boss. Chad: What's your name by the way? Jen. Jen's the boss. Chad: And then Recfest. Who's going to London? Because there's going to be three thousand recruiters in London. We're headlining this thing. It's like the Lollapalooza of fricking recruiting events. One day, five tents, five stages, and the bar opens at noon. This is going to be ridiculous. Joel: It'd be better if the bar's open for everybody. Chad: The bar is open for everybody... Oh, you mean for this? Joel: Here. Chad: Oh, they're good. Joel: Because Chad sounds much smarter when everyone else is drunk. Chad: Everybody does sound smarter. Joel: Do you guys drink Yuengling, or is that like, whack here? Whack? Chad: It's whack. Joel: It's not jawn, right? Okay. Chad: It's not jawn. Joel: Not jawn. Joel: It's commercial time. JobAdX: Finding the right fit is important. When you're deciding on shoes for a long day at the tradeshow, when you're picking the right podcast for your commute, and most importantly, when you're looking for the right candidate. With JobAdX, you can attract more relevant, engaged candidates to your jobs by harnessing the best in ad tech targeting. JobAdX: From predictive industry analysis and keyword click data, to premium first page placement, and reducing redundant applications, our candidate-targeting technology ensures that you're reaching talent that's as interested in working with you as you are with them. Now with in-ad video and multimedia, you can share your employer brand story and company culture with job seekers, so they can visualize themselves in your office. All-hands meeting, or axe-throwing team-building adventure. All without navigating away from your job posting. Increased engagement makes for fewer steps between job seeker and new team member. Ready to ramp up your job advertising campaigns with the best in ad tech? Visit our new website at www.jobadx.com. That's J-O-B-A-D-X dot com. Attract, engage, employ with JobAdX. Chad: It's showtime. Chad: Okay, so we're going to jump into topics for this week. We have, over the last six months, we've talked a little bit about CareerBuilder here and there. And we have so many... Joel: Womp womp. Chad: Probably like fifty different contacts within CareerBuilder, not to mention Glassdoor. Just seeing what's going on... Joel: We got insiders. Chad: In that dumpster fire. It has now turned into, or at least we're hearing from multiple contacts, it is now turning into a dumpster in-fucking-ferno. Joel: Watch this. Who's still using CareerBuilder in the audience? Who's using it but too ashamed to admit it. Chad: I see one up there. I see one. Yeah, room full of people, arena. Guess what? Joel: It's like ten years ago when you said who's still on Myspace. No one raises their hand but, they kind of were, sort of. Chad: Friendster. I'm still on Friendster. Yeah. Chad: So, we've actually been hearing... Getting information over the last six months about little things happening at CareerBuilder but it seems like everything's coming to a head. They're going to start selling off pieces of the business. And that, in kind of not conflicting but kind of like a range of numbers that revenues are actually down 35 to 40 percent. Chad: Yeah, did you hear the audible "oh"? Joel: Ohhh. Chad: So, it's pretty amazing as we see Apollo came in... Joel: Yeah, does everyone know the history? Chad: We're going to give it to you now. Joel: So CareerBuilder acquired, a couple years ago, 2016... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Private equity firm called Apollo who has a nice history of slashing and burning and making things profitable and selling off the pieces. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They're doing that playbook right now. Chad: Except for the profitability piece. Joel: Yeah, profitability piece. Well, they keep cutting enough people, maybe they will. Chad: It's possible. Joel: Everyone that has been at CareerBuilder a very long time has gone. They let their CEO go about a year ago. Their new CEO is a... what did your source say? A 33-year-old finance... Chad: Yeah, P and E... PE investor. Joel: P.E. hack, puppet or something. Chad: Trying to run a software company with no software experience. And that was multiple people saying, "This person does not have the experience to be able to do what's necessary." She knows how to lean up an organization. That's pretty easy, right? All you assholes are fired. But she doesn't know how to actually turn it into revenue. And that's what we're seeing from CareerBuilder, not to mention we heard so many rumblings, I think it was last year, my prediction was that either CareerBuilder or Monster was going to come back. That was so funny. Joel: That was two years ago. Chad: Yeah, that's two years ago. And I mean, they... Joel: She's not really an R&D CEO. Chad: Well, no. She slashed and burned R&D. Joel: In fact, what's been the most innovative thing they've done in the last year? Chad: Pokemon for jobs. Everybody know Pokemon for jobs? Joel: Right? So you download their app and you put your camera up to downtown Philly, and they'll show you augmented reality-style, all the jobs and companies of people that are hiring. That's been the height of innovation at Career Builder in the last twelve months. Chad: Pokemon for jobs. Yeah. So was anybody at HR Tech last year? Okay, a few people. Yeah, so had like this huge... Joel: They were so excited. Chad: Huge space. I think it was like, at least estimated, spent over a hundred thousand dollars. We're just not seeing CareerBuilder make smart decisions at all. And from, again, from the inside, we're hearing very soon, which is one of the reasons why we're talking about it now, because we've been hearing things, again, for the last six months, that they're actually in the process of trying to chunk up and sell off pieces of the business. And that many of the... Joel: Probably not a ton of takers at this point. Chad: Yeah, no. And many of the executive leadership is actually getting ready to eject as well. We've seen some very big names run. When you have companies like Broadbean and Textkernel, about five years ago, those were on-the-edge technologies to an extent, right, Distribution? But Broadbean now is pretty much what I call done-distribution. It's not programmatic, it's not focused on your needs, it's not targeted by any means. And in most cases, you can't do any type of paper performance. Right? So, it's like going back to the late nineties or early 2000s and doing the exact same thing, just pray and spray and do it over and over and over. As opposed to really be targeted and be focused. Chad: What they have to sell off... Joel: Quantity over quality. Chad: We're losing great, yeah. We call that spam. So obviously the drop in revenue, you're talking about 35 percent to 40 percent prospectively, revenue. They've lost over ten thousand accounts. And again, I see a lot of head-shaking. From what I've heard... Joel: Were any of you the account that they lost? Chad: Yeah. From what we've heard is that even a lot of the agencies are like, "Yeah, we're kicking a lot of our clients out of CareerBuilder everyday because they're not getting the ROI." And in today's analytics-focused industry, man, that's gotta be a bitch for a company like CareerBuilder. Joel: I'm just here to support you. I'm just the face guy. Chad: That's some scary shit. So the funny part is, right, in my prediction two years ago, it was Monster and CareerBuilder, one of those two, they're actually going to make a charge. And this week, what happened? Monster Studios... Joel: I'm glad you said no to drugs a couple years ago by the way. Joel: So, Monster's on the innovation trail as well. A year ago, they announced that they were going to add videos to their job postings. Chad: It was at HR Tech. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Joel: October of last year. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They had a hundred beta clients I believe. Chad: Yes. Joel: And it's only taken them a year to get it out of beta. And create Instagram for jobs, I guess is what I'm calling it. This is a company that has a new CEO, almost a year, he's a tech CEO. They have a new tech head. And the most innovation that we saw out of Monster this year was partnering with VideoMyJob to put videos on job postings. Chad: The big product. Joel: That's kind of sad. Chad: So how many of you today are actually using videos on your job descriptions? Anyone? Joel: Or video at all. Chad: Okay, so, very few hands raised. I mean, it's incredibly low adoption, because... Joel: You should, haven't you guys heard all internet traffic in 2020 is going to be, like, video? You guys gotta get on TikTok immediately, is what I'm saying. Chad: You should see him at the airport. Like thirty minutes of TikTok and he just can't get off. Joel: Don't play like I'm the only one. Chad: The problem we're having, that we've always had with videos, we love video, but it all comes down to adoption, and making it easy for a company to integrate these videos into their job descriptions, their websites, whatever it is. And I think that through VideoMyJob, they've been able to make it as easy as it's ever been thus far. The problem is, it's not going to do it itself, right? And until you can easily empower your people and trust your people to actually do videos that are going to be worth a shit, number one, and then also hit on all the points that you need for your brand. Because you want to make sure they're conveying the right brand experience. That's really hard, right? And I know it's easy to say, "Hey, look, we're just going to go ahead and give all of our people their phones and they're going to go out and they're going to create these videos, and then we're going to have a ton of content." Chad: But the biggest question is, how are you going to go through the content? And can you use the content? That's the hard part, right? From my standpoint, I think that from Monster's standpoint, partnering with another company instead of trying to build, is incredibly smart. I think from a shortsighted standpoint, it's adoption. Adoption is either number one, going to be quick and easy because that's what the product is designed for, or it's going to be incredibly hard, just for the reasons that I just talked about. Chad: You love video. Joel: I want to talk about their shitty new ads. Chad: Okay. Joel: Has anyone seen the new Monster ads? Chad: Monster, just so you know, Monster marketing guys are like curled up in fetal positions because we've been giving them shit about these things... Joel: Are they? Chad: They are. Joel: Well, I assume an agency made that for them. I hope to God they didn't... Chad: Yeah, but they're responsible. Joel: Well, yeah, they're responsible. Chad: Yeah, and they bought into it. Joel: Yeah. If you haven't seen them, it's irrelevant for me to talk about. But they're really... They're shitty. They're bad. Like, if you're Monster, you roll the dice, and you say, "We're Instagram for jobs." And you can see videos from employers, and that would at least give people a reason to go to Monster and see like what are the fucking videos that they're talking about. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: But instead, it's the same old, "Daddy, what's it like to work?" Joel: "Well, you go to work, and your soul gets sucked out, and then you die." Joel: Like that's basically the ad. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kid's going to sleep, no shit, kid's going to sleep, and the dad's walking out. And the kid says, "Daddy, what's it like to work?" And he goes into this... You want to take the kid's shoestring and belts away from him and stuff like that. This is not good, this is like suicide watch stuff. This is not... What's going on here? Joel: It's like Super Bowl 2005 ads, that they decided to just [00:20:13]. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And basically, it's what it feels like. It's like, these ads didn't make the cut in 2006, so let's dig 'em up and throw 'em in because we've already made 'em, and put them out there. Chad: Remember that idea we had, back in the... Yeah, it's so shit. Joel: Yeah, just throw that shit out. Chad: So shit. Chad: So, Joel is incredibly happy right now. Because we've heard, and some of you will be, Brandon's happy too. That Google Glass is actually coming back. Joel: Crickets. Chad: It's the stupidest shit ever, dude. Joel: I'm a VR guy. Not necessarily a Google Glass guy. Chad: Who said, "What is it?" There it is. See, you don't even know what Google Glass is. Tell 'em what it is. Joel: Because you're so young you don't remember the first iteration of Google Glass. Chad: Right. That's right. Joel: So it was... Chad: That's right. Joel: Ten years ago, Google had this thing, and they go like, "We're going to put a little camera on your glasses." Oh, yeah. They didn't even have lenses. It was just like the frame part. Chad: The frames, yeah, the frames. Joel: So, you'd have this camera on your glasses, and the douchebag meter went through the roof, because you talk to someone with a camera on their glasses, are you recording me? What the hell's going on? So, it was like a thousand dollars to get one of these things, they dumped it. To Chad's excitement, they're relaunching Google Glass. Are they calling it Google Glass? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Okay. Chad: I think it's the stupidest shit ever. But they put new frames on it. Cool frames. Joel: Well, in their defense, it's more of an industrial... Doctors can wear it for surgeries. Industrial stuff. Chad: So they're trying to do the Microsoft thing. Joel: I don't think it's for the consumer. Chad: They're trying to do the Microsoft thing. Joel: Sure. Chad: Okay. Has anybody seen the Microsoft heads-up display visor, which is cool as shit. And it's really awesome because it's a total visor, and it's a heads-up display, so like you're in a cockpit. And if you have a mechanic or something like that, they can look at... It actually downloads the schematics to the glasses and you can exactly what you should be looking for, or electronics, or things of that nature. Incredibly cool, and to be able to bring something like that VR or AR really, so augmented reality, to a segment and make it practical, works. Unlike CareerBuilder, who's like Pokemon for jobs. Joel: I feel like we're going towards sex robots. Is that where we're going? Chad: Did anybody listen to... Joel: Those weren't in the notes, were they? Chad: No, they weren't, they weren't, but we just interviewed... Joel: We did. Chad: An actual interviewing robot. Joel: Yes. Chad: Have you guys seen this? Okay, so Tengai is a Swedish robot that... Joel: It's made in Sweden. Chad: It's made, yeah, well, it's a Swedish robot, it's made in Sweden, so it's a Swedish robot. Joel: I guess technically it's a Swedish robot. Chad: So, about ye big. Joel: How many girls had the Barbie bus thing... Chad: Where you do the hair and stuff? Joel: Where you could do Barbie's hair? Chad: Yeah. Kind of like that size. Joel: It's kind of like that, without the hair. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: And like a screen face. Chad: So totally, totally thought this was the creepiest thing in the world. And as you watch and you look at it... Joel: It's pretty close. Chad: You're like, "Oh my god, this is so creepy." But, it's being built as the unbiased interviewing system. Because it doesn't see gender, it doesn't see color, it doesn't see anything like that. And the thing that just drove me nuts was, it looks so creepy. So, we actually saw, in Portugal, and I was totally geeking out. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and Adam Gordon from Candidate.ID I think encapsulated what I think will happen when this thing starts to hit interviewing rooms, is that candidates will be in there, and they'll be like this. They'll be like the robot, and they'll be like "guhhhh." Because it is so cool. You talk to it, it like tracks the person who's talking, and it like head-tilts, and there's this projection screen, it's a 3D printed face, and the face is projected from behind, so you can make different faces. And it doesn't look like a robotic mouth or anything like that. It looks really cool. Joel: So when Chad says cool, I say cool in kind of a Swedish ABBA, IKEA, a little bit off kind of cool. Chad: It's a little off, don't get me wrong. Joel: It's a little weird in a Swedish kind of way. Chad: Yeah. Don't you think candidates will love it, though? They'll be like, "Oh, this is fucking cool." Joel: Some candidates will love it. Salespeople will not love it. Tech people will probably love it. Congratulations to them, we do a thing called Death Match, which we have four start-ups come on at a conference, TAtech, and they were one of the four. So we're fans of theirs, we're rooting for them. Chad: Yeah, they're innovative. Joel: They just signed their first client. Chad: Who else is doing a fucking interviewing robot? Anyone? Nobody? No? Yeah. Joel: CareerBuilder's dropping Pokemon for jobs, and this little Swedish company's actually made a fucking robot to take all your jobs. And your cheesesteaks apparently. Chad: No, just to be able to take... Who likes interviewing people? I don't like interviewing people. Joel: Well, shockingly, recruiters are more mad about this thing than anybody else. Chad: Really? Joel: Which, well, you, for social media. Chad: Yeah, well, the practicality... I think it's one of those things where you really have to experience it. And that's one of the things, you have to be in the room, and really understand it. And not to mention, if they start to make Tengai a part of the experience of being at this company, going in and having like a Tengai at the front desk, and meeting you, one of those things. So IKEA, go figure, in Sweden, and they have high turnover, they have tons of jobs, we're hoping, I know they're talking to those guys, that they'll be able to adopt and do some pilots. Though we can actually get some data around this, because we think it's entirely cool, but we've seen so many entirely cool things just crash and burn over the years, right? Joel: In IKEA's defense, we don't really know if they have high turnover. Chad: That's a good point. Joel: They just might be growing. Chad: I would say in their segment. Let's just say that. Joel: Yes. Either way, you could agree that retail's a great venue, platform, to have a robot interviewing lots of people very quickly in an unbiased way to fill positions in a retail setting. Chad: Yes. So it's spelled T-E-N-G-A-I. Just take a look at it. Joel: Moving on. Chad: Talk about Google? Okay, we're going to go into our Google segment, which is almost like a staple in our show, for god's sake. Joel: Because people love it! Chad: People love Google. Joel: We see the numbers. When we talk about LinkedIn, Google, Indeed, everyone listens. Chad: People love Google, man. Joel: So we talk about it. Chad: This week, another one bites the dust. And what I mean by that is, is TMP Worldwide, which you guys I'm sure know, right? They are now starting to pilot the Google talent solutions API for their job search within TalentBrew. And as we've seen... Joel: Tell them what that is, Chad. Chad: As we've seen, like with CareerBuilder, CareerBuilder who's been in the space for twenty years, many of these companies, even College Recruiter or what have you, who've been in the job search space for so long, have had what? They've had a shitty job search experience. Keyword, Boolean-based. I know recruiters love Boolean but I'm sorry, Boolean sucks on the search, right? Joel: Don't you dare misspell something. Chad: Especially when it comes to job seekers. Job seekers don't know Boolean. Right? It's really a shitty experience. Joel: Boolean, they can't spell. Chad: They can't spell "Boolean." Yes. Joel: Like, what are you talking about. Chad: Let alone "programmatic." So, from that standpoint, what most of these companies have been able to see is that Google's new search, which now powers the CareerBuilder search, Jibe search, many of the different... Joel: Four thousand companies and job boards. Chad: Four thousand companies and job boards. Because Google does what better than anybody else? Make money. And search. Right? They do search better than anybody else. So, most of these companies are starting to kick their search to the curb, and start to use Google's search beneath the layer. So let's say for instance the Phenoms of the world. Could be, clients would go to them and say, "Hey, we want Google search." Well that's a plug-and-play thing with an API. So they make it easy, to an extent, for companies to be able to use Google search. TalentBrew, the reason why we want to talk about it is, it's a platform that's been around for a very long time. Good, bad, or indifferent. And they now obviously are starting to use Google. The big question is, how long is it going to take until the entire recruitment search, job search, is going to be powered by Google? Four thousand sites... sites, platforms. We're talking about corporate sites like Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson, they did a case study with Google, and I believe it was Jibe, and had amazing numbers. Because the actual search is more contextual, and it's not Boolean-based. Joel: Yeah, it's faster, it reads misspellings. It's like Google on your job board, or your company's website. Chad: Yep. Joel: It's very effective. We've talked to vendors that say their customer service calls have gone to zero about people calling and saying, "I can't search correctly," or "how do I search this," or "I'm not getting results." Google does all that for them. So from a customer service perspective, for vendors, it's been a real godsend for them. Chad: How many of you have actually, or you guys have a Google power type of search behind... Anyone, anyone? No, one back that, okay. Joel: Who are you with, ma'am? Chad: A group. Joel: Just a direct employer. Chad: Dubin! Joel: Dubin! Chad: There it is. Thanks, Isabel. Isabel from JobAdX everyone. So yeah, so Google is also moving into many different facets of what we know. And one of them being Google for Jobs, which I'm sure most of you know about. Show of hands? Google for Jobs? Joel: Please say you all know that Google is indexing jobs and sticking it to Indeed. Like, hard. Chad: Google for Jobs experience isn't going great in some areas. They just launched in Germany. Joel: Ja. Nicht gut. Chad: Nicht gut. It's also, we're starting to see some spammy kind of things happening here in the U.S. Jobiak, which is a company that helps companies, helps hiring companies get their jobs into Google for Jobs, actually did research on... Joel: Is it aremyjobsongoogle.com? Chad: Something like that. Joel: If you're wondering if your jobs are on Google, I think the URL is aremyjobsongoogle.com. You can throw in a URL and see if they actually are or not. Chad: So Jobiak did research over 2.5 million jobs in 500 different cities, and it actually showed that 40 percent of those jobs required two to four steps before job seekers could actually apply. Now the promise of Google for Jobs was what? Joel: Efficiency. Chad: Getting job seekers to the job ASAP. Getting them directly to the job so that they... Well, first and foremost, to be able to use Google search, to help them, a better search, just like everybody else is going to, a better search but on Google, to find great jobs. But at that point, it's user experience. Because Google doesn't give a shit about your employers. They don't. They care about the user. The end user actually doing the job search. Because if they do that, and they do a great job, what's going to happen? You're going to pay money to be able to boost your jobs. Right? It makes sense. I don't care about what employers want, that's just dumb, because the experience matters. The problem is they're screwing the experience up right now. Because there's way too many steps. And, how many companies and job boards, are actually using Google for Jobs? Joel: A lot. Chad: A shit ton. Yeah. Joel: Now, in fairness to Google, they're still relatively new at this. They've shown in the past that they've fucked search up before. And they've eventually figured it out. Chad: To an extent. Joel: So let's not bury them just yet. Chad: I think... Don't want to bury Google because the first thing that we're seeing from Google now that we didn't see before. Who remembers Google Base? Which was just a literal piece of shit. That had no focus on any type of revenues whatsoever. These products that they're putting out today, like the ones that are actually powering the job sites and whatnot, there's a moneymaking model behind the API. So that gives us all hope that they're really going to focus on getting this right, getting all the spammy shit out of there. Joel: Yeah, and here's the thing, Google has more competition for ad dollars, now than they've ever had before, so money's going towards social media. Amazon's getting into the game, so if you look at quarterly reports from Google, their last report, they took about a ten percent haircut on their stock price because the number of clicks and the dollars they're getting for those clicks are going down. So Google's in a position where like, okay, how do we make more money in the most quickest efficient manner. So they're verticalizing searches, right? They're doing travel and whatever, cars, and apartments. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And jobs is obviously a component of that. And with G Suite, which means your email's being powered by Google, et cetera... Chad: Who uses G Suite? Joel: They can easily now integrate the job and the hiring stuff... Chad: Yeah. Joel: To G Suite, which we're starting to see, which I think we'll probably talk about a little bit today. That's a fairly short bridge for them to cross, to where then they can start making money. Which, by the way, their ATS product is a revenue generator, their API, which we just talked about, is a revenue generator. And eventually, as Chad said, their job search component will be a revenue generator as well. Chad: Yeah, and there are other products that are gonna pop out as well. But in Germany, they just launched Google for Jobs, and believe it or not, a good portion of the actual job descriptions that are out there, are in PDF. Yeah. So the experience in Germany pretty much sucks right now, because Google's not being able to index. Joel: Does that stand for Pretty Darn Fantastic? Chad: Pretty... Yeah, no. Joel: No. Chad: So, the actual... They're trying to figure it out, right? And they're trying to figure it out globally. And then, all of this happens, and then we have a hack from your favorite. Joel: Yeah, PPC. Porn, Pills, and Casinos, have taken over Google for Jobs in Germany apparently. Joel: It's commercial time. Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and most accurate parsing products. And now, based on that technology, comes Sovren's artificial intelligence matching and scoring software. In fractions of a second, receive match results that provide candidates scored by fit to job, and just as importantly, the job's fit to the candidate. Make faster and better placements. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N dot com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates, like a human. Sovren. Software so human, you'll wanna take it to dinner. Chad: It's showtime. Chad: There was actually a report put out that there was a porn site that started to hijack certain companies. And what would happen is, if you know Google for Jobs, you do a search and they allow you to apply with different mechanisms, right? So you have the corporate careers site. If you posted to a CareerBuilder or whatever, Glassdoor, then you could apply through that mechanism. Well, what happened was, this porn site piggybacked on that, and they had a button at the end, where it would take you directly to a porn site. So, again, Google's going to figure this out. But this is... Joel: You're all thinking, "Damn, that's smart." Chad: It was less than twenty-four hours, it was down. Go figure. Any other company would have probably taken about a week to be able to figure it out. Joel: They're still on CareerBuilder in Germany, I think. And the emails from The Ladders are still going out for porn jobs. Chad: Yeah. But, yeah, no, thanks to Alex Chukovski, because we can't see... Chukovski I think? In Germany, because we can't see German jobs over here. Joel: Nein. Chad: So we're getting a lot of intel from across the pond. But it's important to understand all these things that are happening from a tech standpoint, to be able to level that out because we have organization, or we serve organizations, or we're a vendor to organizations, that are not just in this country. Pretty important. So we have to be apprised of all that stuff. Joel: And there's a good chance some of you hire globally. Right? Chad: And if you do hire globally... Joel: Something to think about. Chad: Yeah, and if you do hire globally, who loves their applicant tracking system? I don't see... Not one hand. Joel: Are there any ATS vendors in the audience? 'Cause we're about to offend you if you are. Chad: Yeah. Probably already offended a bunch of people already. So we actually had, and there will be a podcast that dives deeper into this, we had an interview... Joel: Teaser. Chad: With one of very first Enterprise customers of Hire by Google. Does everybody know what Hire by Google is? It is Google's applicant tracking system that was an SMB, small-medium-sized business model, that, guess what they did really quick? They went to Enterprise. Joel: BigCo. Chad: Quick. So they're now an Enterprise platform. And we were able to sit down with one of these organizations, which is on the small side of Enterprise, three thousand employees, and talk to them about the case study that they pulled the other, with Google. Joel: I was prepared for her to be a fan. I was not prepared for her to be as much of a fan as she was. Chad: A super fan. Joel: She did stop short of saying, "I love my ATS." Because I said, "Are you willing to go on record as the first employer ever..." Chad: You're ruining the whole podcast, stop it. Joel: No, no, there's lot more good stuff in there. "Are you on to go on record as the first employer in history to love their ATS?" And she said, "I like it a lot." If you want to know the problem she had with it, you'll have to listen. Was that good? Chad: Yeah, that's better, that's better. Joel: Okay. That's my teaser. But loved it. There were G Suite users, which I think is a huge, huge plus for Google. Chad: Yes. Joel: They're gonna get into those million-plus companies globally that are using it. Chad: Oh yeah, yeah. Joel: And it just syncs up well. She talked at length about the scheduling syncing up, that it was sort of one platform. And if you listen to our podcast, you know that we talk a lot about Microsoft and LinkedIn and Google, and to a lesser degree recently, Facebook, trying to sort of a one platform for all your employment needs. And I would say, after our interview... Chad: Nah. Joel: I know you disagree with it, but like, she was all in on one place for all this stuff. Chad: Yeah. I think there are many companies that could be, to an extent. The problem is, is like the experience, the experience is very dry, you know. They are many different aspects that companies need to focus on when they're talking about brand. Talking about being able to nurture individuals. The guy who was on stage earlier, said "junk", where's he at? What does "junk" mean when you're talking about a human being? Joel: Yeah, we love following charts and graphs, guys, because we look a lot better after following them. Chad: I have one slide, that's all I need. So yeah, on the Hire by Google side of the house, and this is a thing that really kind of stoked my flames per se, is that they had 50 percent greater adoption by hiring managers. Joel: Now who's ruining the podcast? Chad: Well, I'm not going to tell them why. Joel: Okay. Chad: I'm not going to tell you why, you have to listen. But they had 50 percent higher adoption rate by hiring managers. When's the last time you had... It's not easy to get a hiring manager to do anything, right? I mean, it literally, it sucks trying to get... Can you please talk to this candidate, can you please schedule this candidate that you want to actually fill this position for god's sakes? Joel: And by the way, if they're more engaged, guess what? The candidates have a better experience. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, when we start talking about these big names, which I think is amazing, and Joel always talks about this meteor that hit our recruitment industry kind of landscape when Microsoft spent 26.2 buh-buh-buh-billion dollars on LinkedIn. And that woke up a lot of fucking people, right? Not just Google, not just all these big names, but also, take a look at all these start-ups that are out there today? Some of these start-ups are just flat-out amazing. Some of them might not know the practical way to actually use their platform, but let's say for instance, like TextRecruit and iCIMS. We were actually at iCIMS Influence, and one of the clients of TextRecruit was actually showing TextRecruit the best ways, more practical ways, to utilize their platform. It was incredibly powerful. Chad: And again, I'm going to say, if you're not using texting to recruit, you're dumb. But at the end of the day, when you look at this, there are definitely different ways that you can use these products to make your job so much easier. Not take the job away, but so many mundane tasks that you have to do, that do not have to be done today. Joel: And don't forget exciting start-ups like Chad and Cheese sponsors Emissary and JobAdX here in the audience as well today. They're sort of the mammals that are surviving the asteroid, and will be the next big companies to talk about. Chad: Yeah, well, and it's forcing all these companies, now, and again, going back to the iCIMS and the TextRecruit, which I think is awesome for like an Emissary because it's like, look at that fucking validation. Then, you have Canvas and Jobvite. That's validation number two. If you don't know that you should be text to recruit then c'mon guys, look at all the validation that's out there. But, it's forcing... Joel: Commercials aside, if you're not using text messaging or messaging to connect with candidates, you're really shit. Chad: Yeah, yeah, but no, this isn't commercial. If you take a look at what's happening. They're not buying these companies just for the hell of it. They're not spending millions of dollars, Jobvite didn't spend millions of dollars for the hell of it. Neither did iCIMS. They are trying to battle back, to an extent, what's happening with Google, what's happening with Microsoft, and they have to do something. And these are some of the things they're actually doing, so yeah. Joel: If they can't be Coke or Pepsi, they might as well be Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper or Fanta, right? Chad: Yeah, yeah. So what applicant tracking system has a double-digit growth... Joel: Market share? Chad: Yeah, market share, that's it. Joel: Maybe one or two, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: And they're quickly going to single digits. Chad: Yeah. Single digits. So that means, what do they have to do? They have to offer you better products. Not to mention, it makes it easier for you that most of these companies, like we're getting ready to talk about... Joel: Restless Bandit. Chad: Restless, that's it. Joel: Yeah, I knew what you meant. Chad: Restless. Joel: They're relentless, and restless. Chad: Relentless so much that they got acquired. Joel: Yeah. Chad: These organizations need to be embedded in your everyday process. Because who needs another platform for your recruiters to go into? I mean, seriously. Joel: Are you sure? Chad: It's like they're bouncing from here... You don't need that. You need a process, you need a simple process. Joel: They're competing with TikTok for god's sakes. Chad: Exactly. So talk about, you know more about the... Joel: Relentless, restless, restless bandit. Chad: Restless. Restless Bandit. I think I like relentless better. Joel: Any Restless Bandit users out there? Any hardcore recruiters out there? Chad: Yeah, no, that's why. Joel: This is interesting. So, I would say we were fairly high on a trend about a year ago of bringing back the dead from your resume database, right? So, companies had these resume databases, they had contacts that were years and years old, if not maybe decades-plus old. Chad: Yes. Joel: And they were just sitting there. So there were companies that came out, like Crowded, Restless Bandit, that their goal was to go in algorithmically, see the jobs you currently have, and say, "Okay, who were your B players that didn't quite make it, let's get them back into the loop and get them activated, and get them back into applying for jobs and sort of reinvigorate them." Joel: It's commercial time. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvasbot is at your side, adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io. And in twenty minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Chad: It's showtime. Joel: Crowded, who we were both high on, has had some issues, aside from the technology, with sort of a shyster CEO. They've sort of gone by the wayside. And Restless Bandit was another sort of hot company back in the day that raised about ten million dollars to do this sort of thing. And this past week, they have sort of quietly gone away. They've been acquired or partnered with trustaff, a healthcare staffing company out of Cincinnati, which is a really weird acquisition or merger or partnership that these guys have gone. But if you go to Restless Bandit today, there's no, like, get a free demo, there's no "Contact Us" that can get you a salesperson on the call. So, as far as I'm concerned, there's been no public announcement. I've made a few phone calls that have gone sort of unanswered. But it sounds like they're sort of gone. Joel: By the way, the founder of Restless Bandit was the founder of Bright, which if you remember back in the day, they were acquired by LinkedIn for a bucket of money, so lightning did not strike twice with this guy. Restless Bandit has, I would say, gone by the wayside. He'll probably go and do something else in a year after his contract is up to be with the company. But I don't know if this buries the whole "bring your resumes back from the dead" thing or what it does, because we're seeing with Google, Google will say, "Okay, here's a job you're posting, here are current resumes that you have. Go contact those people on a one-on-one basis." Whereas Restless Bandit was sort of, let's just spam everybody and hope that we get the algorithm right and the jobs actually match what they're doing now, and hope that they come back. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But I tend to think what Google and maybe LinkedIn and sort of like... "Hey, post a job, and here's who's currently good, that's in your database, go contact them" is a better model than just Jobster 2.0 and let's spam everybody and hope that ten percent come back to the top. Chad: Just stamping on the grave... Joel: The graves of dot coms. Chad: Jason Goldberg. Joel: Yes. Chad: Yes. Joel: No one knows who that is. Chad: If you take a look at, again, Hire by Google, automatically when you post a rec, it jumps into your applicant tracking system, and it surfaces candidates that it believes actually fit the rec. One of the issues that we've had over the years, and I know you guys know this, because you don't use your resume databases in your applicant tracking systems because the search sucks, is that how much money have you actually spent in building that database that you never go back to? Hundreds of millions of dollars for just one company in some cases. How many times have you bought that same candidate over and over and over and over? We've gotten incredibly lazy and unfortunately because of our tech being dilapidated and old, it hasn't worked. Chad: But now we have, again, the opportunity to be able to partner with the Googles of the world. Their system, automatically, again, does this. Then you have all these different platforms like the Restless Bandits of the world, the Uncommons of the world, the Entelos of the world, that if you can get integrated into your applicant tracking system so you don't have to go into another platform, you can start to utilize all that money that you spent over the years. And stop this active outreach, at least the amount of money that you're spending on active outreach, and really focus on first, primarily passive outreach into your database. And then, starting to message them to see if they're interested. Chad: At that point, what happens, they apply to the job, magic! Right? So these are the things that, again, we're seeing in the industry that we really need companies to start driving. These are great platforms. In many cases, the companies do know, or they don't know, the best route. You guys don't need another platform to jump into. But you do need to be more cost-effective. Because who's getting more money for recruiting this year? Right? Nobody's getting more. Budget's are getting tighter, and all that other fun stuff, but we need to hire more people. They're in your database. You have the tools for that. Chad: Thanks. Joel: You guys have been awesome. Chad: Thanks to Emissary. Joel: Thank you, guys. Let the world hear Philly! Chad: Thanks, guys. Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors, because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Emissaryai #RecruiPhilly #LIVE #Careerbuilder #Monster #TheLadders #Recruitment #ATS #Google #GoogleHire #GoogleJobsAPI #GoogleforJobs

They didn't hold back on the questions at Recruit Philly so we didn't hold back on the answers and/or opinion. Check 'em out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. SHOW INTRO: After our live podcast on stage at Recruit Philly, we had a little Q and A, so we thought we'd share. Here it is, after a word from our sponsor. Chad: Dude, we're always talking about cool new tech but it's hard for hiring companies to change. I mean, adoption's a bitch. Joel: Yep. Chad: New tech can get them to qualified candidates so much faster. Joel: I know, man, but recruiters already have their routine in place and nobody wants to jump into another platform, especially when it's expensive and also requires hours, maybe days of training. Chad: Exactly. But that's where Uncommon's new service comes into play. Uncommon pairs expert recruiters with in-house, kick-ass technology. Joel: All right. Interesting. Interesting. It sounds like Uncommon understands the problem of change. Chad: That's why they hand select veteran recruiters, train them on this kick-ass technology that has access to over 100 million active profiles. Joel: Yeah, yeah. But I bet they're expensive and I bet it requires some kind of annual commitment or contract, right? Chad: Nah, man. Uncommon is not an agency. They don't require a contract, any contingencies. All they do, they charge one flat fee per project, saving, I don't know, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent on each hire versus the average agency cut. Joel: Oh, snap! Companies could save big stacks of paper, especially if they're rapidly scaling and need hires today. Chad: Yep. And all you have to do is reach out to Teg and the Uncommon crew at Uncommon.co. That's Uncommon.co. Joel: Change doesn't have to be a pain if you're using Uncommon. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman. Attendee: Why is there so much adversity to using search firms, do you think? Joel: Money, cost. Chad: Yeah, I mean, there's a cost. There's a cost. Joel: You're expensive. Chad: Yeah. There's a cost associated to that. Attendee: So are the other things, expensive. Chad: Yeah, well, they are. They are. And, here's the thing for any search firm... Joel: Winning isn't free. Right? Chad: Any search firm, I'm biased because I have an RPO background, or at least a little bit of an RPO background, is that RPO's and staffing really have to sell the efficiencies and not just what you have to bear but what you can perspectively bring to their databases. Like we're talking about you spent so much money on what you do. You're not using it now. Let's help you actually utilize and leverage that data that's in your system. Joel: And interesting, in your space, you're starting to see hybrids. Where we'll have people source candidates and we'll deliver you, like, ten people that we think are qualified. But, they're not going to actually staff them for you. So, they'll sort of... They'll get you to the nine yard line but then you have to take it across the goal line. Chad: So, yeah, so slate. So, Uncommon actually just added a service to what they're doing, They're a sponsor and what they do is they have an algorithm, that's a sourcing passive algorithm, but they also have an active algorithm. The thing is, most companies are like, "I don't want to go onto another platform." Right? So now they have- Joel: "Could you do it for me?" Chad: Yeah, so, "Can you do it for me?". So, yes, now they have recruiters on staff where you can actually dump into it and it's like $5 grand per project or something like that. But, I mean, it's easy to be able to say, "Yes" vs "Oh my god, how many integrations do I have to do? And it's not in my system and then I have to do training". And, when all that goes away, and it's like we deliver a slate of candidates, that slate is this big or this big, then it turned into a different conversation. Not to mention, again, the cost conversation happens. Joel: Big problem with staffing is everyone is online now. So, the days of 'I have a hidden database of people', those days are gone, right? People feel like they can access the same people that you can so, that's tough. Chad: Whether they can or not, it's still the perception and that's the reality, right? Joel: People are still lazy so you got that going for you. Attendee: Count on that. Chad: Fucking humans, man. Fucking humans. Joel: I'm getting a point. Oh, a question, yes. Allie: Over here. Hi, thanks for coming to Philly. Joel: What's your name and who do you work for? Ally: I'm Ally. I'm with Recruit Philly, most importantly. Joel: Nice. Wow, they liked that. Ally: So, two questions. Joel: Sucking up to the show. Allie: Yeah, two questions, do you need another beer? Chad: Yes. Joel: Eventually, yes. We're almost done. Allie: Okay. All right, one for Chad, cheese on hold. Okay, we'll take care of that. Joel: Yeah, you guys know this beer, it's a local one, right? Victory? Allie: Yeah, we know Victory. Joel: Oh, damn. Allie: Yeah. Joel: This shit is jawn, boy, yeah. Allie: Nice plug. Nice plug. Joel: Yeah, get me one more of those. Allie: So, second question, you talked about several different vendors but Indeed didn't come up. Any thoughts on the future of Indeed, their applicability, their- Joel: So, yeah, can we add 30 minutes to the show? Allie: ...what they're doing to be innovative? Sure, at happy hour, come to happy hour and we can talk about it then. Joel: [crosstalk 00:05:07] Thoughts on indeed. Uh, yeah I mean two things on Indeed: one is that they're getting very cocky, they're getting very sort of, Monster, 2006. Like, "Our shit don't stink. You better bend over backwards. You're going to take our pricing and like it." And the history of this industry says that doesn't work out very well for the company that has that attitude. So, aside from the bigger boys getting into it, I think they just... they have a hubris about them that is very dangerous for them and their business. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The second thing is they have competitors, now, that they've never had before in the likes of Microsoft, LinkedIn and Google and to a lesser degree, Facebook which we haven't talked much about. But, let's just focus on Google and LinkedIn and Microsoft. There's potentially going to be a day where the whole, "What software do we use?" Is out of the hands of HR and it's in the hands of IT. And IT says, "We're a Microsoft shop, we're going to use LinkedIn" or "We're a Google shop, we're going to use this Google hire, whatever thing is." And, you as HR, is just going to take it because IT has the money and they make the decisions. So, in a world that looks like that, where is Indeed's place in that ecosystem? I think they're very challenged. We didn't mention, but probably some of you know, Indeed does not put their jobs into Google for jobs. So, if your job is on Indeed only, it's not on Google for jobs, at least not in the US. It's maybe on a porn site in Germany but it's not here in the US. Chad: You'd get some good traffic. Joel: So they're incredibly... They may not say it publicly but they're very concerned and worried about what Google is doing and going to do their business. And you're probably noticing a lot of calls about different products at Indeed that you can buy or our ATS or "Hey, we have a staffing firm now." I'm of the opinion that they'll become more of a staffing firm ten years from now, right? They're actually owned by a staffing firm out of Japan, one of the biggest in the world. So, to me, that's eventually where they're going to go. Thank you. So- Chad: Thank you. Joel: So that's just my two comments on Indeed. I think they're very, very cocky and that's going to come to bite them in the ass. And, number two, they have competitors that they've never seen before and they're not quite sure how to handle it and I'm not sure they will find out, or figure out how to handle it. Chad: Yeah. I think I have the title for this show. It's going to be Recruit Philly going, "Fuck Indeed". Joel: Jawn is the title of this show. Chad: Fuck Indeed. Joel: Two jawn motherfuckers is the title of the show. Chad: Here's the problem with Indeed, is that they were built by job boards and they were built by staffing companies. And they fucked them both. So let's make this clear, corporate America, what do you think is going to happen next? If you're currently using Indeed, because I have to use Indeed, bullshit, You have to look for other alternatives because that behavior is not something we can stand for, period. It is total bullshit that anybody is putting up with that and it's not right, overall. Again, the company was built on being able to help job boards on the traffic side, being able to help staffing companies on the traffic side. And you're starting to see employers get leveraged into, "Wait a minute, you're free traffic is going to go away- Joel: Indeed jail, baby. Chad: -free traffic is going to go. Search quality" Which is all fucking bullshit. Joel: You can check in but you can't check out. Chad: Yes, so if you don't start looking for alternative now to get the hell out of there, hey, you heard it here and it's all your fault, nobody else's. Joel: You suck. Chad: So get the hell out. Next question, after that. Joel: Yes, brave man in the front here. Oh wait, we got- Yeah. Joel: Bring it. Attendee: Back in 2016, Randstad got so upset with Indeed's pricing that they acquired Monster for $429 million. Do you think that was a good buy? Chad: That's a big no and unfortunately- Joel: That's an easy question. Chad: Yeah, I think, unfortunately, I mean, I was actually... I just left Ranstad right when that was happening. Joel: Phew. Chad: Yeah, it's- Joel: Well, we just said at the opening of this show of CareerBuilder and what's going on there a year from now, might be less than a year from now. We'll be talking about happening at Monster. Chad: Yeah, I mean, having a private equity come in and slash and burn, you expect that. Randstad has a longer... they're going to give Monster a longer runway, there's no question. The problem I see is that runway, they're just about to the end of it. And, unfortunately, Monster Studios, if that's the product that you have to give to me in 2019 and that is 'the' product that you're giving to me in 2019, to hang your hat on, man, that's going to suck. Joel: And what sucks is, I mean, I wouldn't say weekly but pretty regularly, we're talking about on the show innovation at Google, LinkedIn. Incremental features and additions, I grant you, but we almost never talk about innovative stuff that's coming out of Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, any of the old players. And, to me, that just says they're milking the dollars as long as they can until they can't milk it anymore. Chad: It's a lot of fluff unfortunately. Joel: It's hard to compete with Microsoft and Google and that' just the reality of our world today. Chad: Are we going to do one more? One more. Attendee: So, clearly, you guys are a couple of opinionated guys. I'd like to hear, how did you guys get started in your careers and that would help me understand what forms your opinion- Joel: I needed the money. Attendee: Right. Money troubles. So we're just- Chad: Quit being an asshole. Joel: Quit? That's our show, dude. Chad: That's our jawn. Get that shit right. Joel: I don't know, I mean, long story short, twenty years ago I got a job at a job board. Twenty years later, I'm still talking about job boards. Thankfully, for me, blogs came around, podcasts came around, YouTube came around and I got a larger audience that I could talk shit to. Chad: So, yeah, he was with e-SPAN. He should throw that out more because, if you know what e-SPAN is, it was one of the very first on the web. I was with OCC, one of the very first on the web. We launched- Joel: We were better. Chad: Yeah. We launched Monster in January of '99 so I was there for the blimps and the Super Bowl commercials and all that other happy horse shit, before they turned into assholes, by the way. I mean, it's just... We've both been in for 20 years a piece. Joel: We started when we were six. Chad: Yeah, and right now, I have to say in closing, this is the most interesting, exciting time in this entire industry. Getting online, we were there. We were there when the first ones were built, right? This is more exciting, watching all these start-ups just, like, explode. All the ideas. Execution probably not so much but, I mean, overall it is the most exciting time and it's one of the reasons why, I think, our podcast is flourished because there's so much going on. To be able to keep plugged into that, you've got to do something, a shit load... ton of research or listen to us. Joel: It's exciting as podcasters. It may not be as exciting as consumers. A lot of noise out there that you guys get to filter. Chad: Yes, and just for all of you as we go off the stage, we have some Chad and Cheese T-shirts if you can, again, see the- Joel: Being modeled by- Chad: -wonderful Nancy and Isabelle, look over… Joel: ...Our big fans. Chad: Isabelle. We'd be more than happy to give out a few of those Joel: Love it. Chad: They're... I'm not going to charge you, for god's sakes. They're free. Thanks- Joel: You guys have been awesome. Chad: Thanks to Emissary. Joel: Thank you guys. Let the world hear it, Philly. Chad: Thanks, guys. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my step-dad, the Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes. You know, the expensive, shiny, gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #RecruiPhilly #Indeed #Randstad #Monster #recruiting #RecTech

Maybe it was the fact Boston was cold in late-May. Maybe it was the rain at Fenway Park. But whatever it was, as the boys find a bar and... -- Chad was not very happy with SHRM this week. -- Google goes with more contractors and privacy -- Restless Bandit exits stage left -- TruStaff defines website amatuer hour -- and fake tans will get you blackballed in Australia ... or is it New Zealand? Either way. Enjoy and give our sponsors a big, sloppy kiss. Sovren, Canvas, and JobAdx rock our world. PODCAST 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. Sovren: Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job order intake technology in the industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com that's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovren: software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner. Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts, complete with breaking news, rash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Let's start there. What are we drinking with in the first period of our podcast this week? Chad: Yeah, this is a Blanton's Bourbon, which is very top shelf. Joel: Tough to get. Chad: Yeah. It's not easy to get. In Philly last week, I was able to get it. I think one of the reasons is that people don't understand how fucking good Blanton's is when you get out of bourbon country. So went to Philly, had a whole fucking bottle there, not like I drank it all, came in here, had Blanton's. But if you get close to bourbon country, it's hard to find. Joel: Yeah, it's not a pretentious bourbon. Chad: No. Joel: They don't really beat their chest. It's a little bitty round, globe looking bottle with a racehorse on top Chad: Made Buffalo Trace. Joel: Not a Pappy's or Booker's. Chad: No. Joel: But it's fantastic. If you're a bourbon lover, Chad and I highly recommend Blanton's. I'm drinking a Redbreast Lustau Irish whiskey by the way. We're at an Irish pub. We're at the Asgard. Chad: Here in Cambridge. Joel: We're in Cambridge, yeah. Chad: Yeah, okay. Irish pub, a lot of people, background music. So yeah, this is our jam. Joel: Yeah. We just got done with the meeting with JobCase, interviewed their CEO, which will be coming out shortly. Chad: Did a lunch-and-learn. Joel: Lunch-and-learn with their company. Chad: Like those lunch-and-learns. Joel: Yeah, we got the tour, got to meet some of their folks. We really enjoy doing that. And if you're a company out there, either vendor or direct employer, and want us to come out and do some learning with your staff, hit us up at chadcheese.com. Chad: Yeah, you have a training budget. So go ahead and use it for shit that actually is going to get your people trained up. Joel: Exactly. Chad: That's us, by the way. Joel: So we just thought, "Let's pop into a pub. Let's crank out the mics. Let's get the weekly show done." And here we are, enjoying some whiskey, enjoying Cambridge, Massachusetts, the weed and tootsie rolls into the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chad: Yeah, so thanks Boston, thanks JobCase. Last week we're in Philly. I still have to give props to Philly. Philly is so John. Joel: It doesn't mean cool. I don't think you used it correctly. Chad: No, I can use it any way I want. That's what Ed said. Joel: Okay, well the Philly faithful will not be happy with that usage. Chad: I don't give a fuck and they know it, which is why they love us because we don't give a fuck. But thanks to emissary.ai for giving us gas money to actually get there. Joel: Sure. That trip was sponsored by Emissary, much like our awesome, amazingly surprisingly popular t-shirts. Chad: Let's hit the topics. So last week we talk about Restless Bandit and TruStaff, and it was on the grapevine, but we hadn't really received any firm notice. Joel: "I heard it through the grapevine." (singing) Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, Restless Bandit has quietly left the building. Chad: Exited. Joel: Pretty much. Chad: Stage fucking left. Joel: Yeah, go check out Restless Bandit and the site has a few links, to press and something, but no link to demos, no way to contact them. Chad: Yeah. Joel: There's an image saying partnered with TruStaff. There was no release. At least two or three calls that I made were not returned, which pretty much is the telltale sign of, "We're closing up shop, we're selling at pennies on the dollar, and we're going home." Chad: So I called TruStaff, and I left a voicemail message, and I didn't get anything from them either. But here's what gets me is that the Restless Bandit site is literally not even a site anymore. It's a landing page, like you said, has three links: white paper, press, and GDPR. Three weird links. Not even one link goes to the TruStaff website. It mentions, "We've partnered with true staff to build technology that moves the healthcare labor market faster." Okay, great. No fucking link to TruStaff. Fucking amateur job. Joel: Does the logo and the header not even link over? Chad: No! It's a fucking amateur job, dude. Joel: Wow, yeah, that's, "Clearance rack on aisle six and checkout, we're going home." Chad: If you go to the TruStaff site though, go to trustaff.com, that site looks like it was put together by one of my kid's using 1900s. Joel: Looks like a Tumblr. Chad: Yeah, like Tumblr or fucking Flickr, right? It's like, "Oh, let's just paste some shit here." It looks fucking horrible. Joel: Pretty sure they have some money, like clean that shit up. Chad: It's definitely not on the web side of things. Or they're trying to stay incredibly stealth and look horrible, because it looks fucking horrible. Joel: Now one of the interesting points of the story is the CEO, whose name escapes me, but I'm going to go a search him out real quick. Chad: Restless Bandit? Joel: Yeah, Restless Bandit. So he was the founder of Bright. Chad: Yeah. Joel: If you remember a few years back. Chad: Yep, acquired. Joel: Which was acquired by LinkedIn. Chad: LinkedIn, yep. Joel: For a buttload of money, and I'm going to find his name here real quick. Steve Goodman. I think that's it. Yep, Steve Goodman. So he was CEO of Bright and which sold to LinkedIn. So lightning did not strike twice apparently for Mr. Goodman. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So this is just the confirmation that Restless Bandit looks like it is exiting stage left and getting the fuck out of Dodge. Joel: Anyone out there that might've been a Restless Bandit client, if there was an email sent to you about what was going on with the change, please hit us up at chadcheese.com. Chad: There's a dude outside with literally- Joel: He is stoned out of his gourd. Chad: ... chains around his neck. He looks like he's been eating Tootsie rolls and fucking pot-smoking. He's out of it. Joel: He's in another universe. Chad: He's in another universe. Cambridge, Massachusetts people. This is where the shit's happening. It's where it's going down. So, okay, moving on. Joel: But yes, if you know anything about Restless Bandit, have an email saying, "Hey, we've partnered with, we're closing shop, whatever." Chad: Something. Joel: Hit us up. Chad: Something. So moving on, I have a bitch that I want to get out real quick. Joel: Get it out, baby. Chad: So SHRM ... Joel: Oh, shit. Chad: Yeah. So SHRM, they've been doing some really weird shit lately, and it's on the policy side. And so Emily Dickens, who's the Chief of Staff at SHRM, put out a tweet that says, "SHRM appreciates the White House's efforts in bringing forward a plan that includes reforms to our outdated workplace immigration system. Employers need a modern workplace immigration system that provides greater access to top talent." And I had to reply to the tweet. Joel: Yeah, your replies were entertaining. Chad: Yeah, so my reply was, "So the kids in cages efforts, is that what SHRM actually supports?" Or the, "We don't have enough people in the workforce to cover open jobs. Is that the support?" Or I was like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" And then- Joel: She blocked your ass, right? Chad: Then she blocked me. And then, two days later, she unblocked me. Joel: That's good. Chad: But from my standpoint, it's really hard to believe that SHRM would actually say that they appreciate this administration's Muslim ban, kids in cages- Joel: Big walls. Chad: ... being able to block great, great individuals who could be in our workforce. Joel: I remember the Muslim ban here at the beginning of the term. Chad: All of it. So SHRM is appreciating this. What the fuck? I don't understand, what's going on? Joel: So if I were playing devil's advocate, I would say SHRM has to be fairly nice to everyone in the White House, because they're the lobbying entity. Chad: They don't have to say a God damn thing. Joel: Maybe there's some shit going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Maybe the White House is threatening HR initiatives or some shit, or maybe there's some House something they want to get passed. I don't know, dude. Chad: First they align with the Koch brothers in an effort to be able to help- Joel: SHRM did? Chad: ... those who were in, yeah, those who were incarcerated, to find jobs. It's like, if you did know that the Koch brothers actually funded a lot of the efforts to get those individuals get incarcerated in the first fucking place. So that's number one. And it just hurt my head to think about that. And then this happens, to appreciate kids in cages, Muslim bans, all this shit. It's like what is going on at fucking SHRM? This is the Chief of Staff. Joel: Well, if they're getting in bed with the Koch brothers, then yeah, they're going to make supportive comments about the White House. Chad: So they're going to go ahead, and what's happening is that what you're saying, and I'm saying this just an opinion- Joel: Koch brothers write big checks, Brah. Chad: We're opining that the Koch brothers are actually greasing the skids of SHRM, so then all this stupid shit's happening. Because, from my standpoint, it is going away from the actual purpose of what SHRM should be there for. It's not supporting the individuals. Who pays for SHRM? Well, the individuals who we're certifying and whatnot, they're not looking at them. They're looking at big greedy fucking conglomerates. Dude, it's just blowing my fucking mind. Joel: You're clearly upset about this. Chad: I'm not happy. So I would love if Emily, over at SHRM, Emily Dickens, even Johnny, I'd love to have Johnny on the show for a conversation. Joel: Sure. I think there's a link from her series of tweets that talks about press contact for an interview. So I think it's a long shot, but maybe Emily will come on and explain exactly what's going on with their position on the White House. Chad: And SHRM has had us at their shows before. Joel: And we love SHRM. Chad: And we like SHRM. Joel: The conference. Chad: Yeah, the conference. Here's the thing. Joel: Folks find it. Chad: We cannot, I cannot, support this type of, not just tweet, but feeling from this type of organization. It's just not something that I can do myself. So hopefully, we can get some explanation out of this, because what I'm saying doesn't fit with what SHRM was, and I thought, was going to be. Joel: They are a lobbying entity, correct? Chad: Yeah. But who are they lobbying for in this case? Joel: Well, ideally for their members, and the industry. Chad: Not for human beings, they're not. Joel: I'm not defending SHRM, I'm searching for answers, and I think there's probably stuff behind the scenes that we don't see, money behind the scenes. It's checks being written. Chad: That just makes it worse. Joel: It maybe does. Yeah, I got no defense for it. So this has clearly upset you and you have a right to be and God bless you. Chad: So does it not upset you, though? For an organization to say these kinds of things. Joel: No, it does. I tend to default to the fact that there are usually two sides of every coin, and that we can jump to conclusions, but until they're interviewed, or they come out, or this is dug into, sometimes it's hard to play one side of the street here. And what's their side of the story? Chad: Their side is they appreciate the White House's efforts to bring you forward- Joel: Now she has other tweets after that, that she had a come to Jesus over the weekend. Chad: I didn't see it. I didn't see a retraction. Joel: Which is probably why she accepted you back with loving, open arms into her Tweetosphere. Chad: Yes, thank you, Emily. I really appreciate that, but again, we want you on the show. Joel: Because you're not the only one who expressed- Chad: No! Joel: ... disdain for that tweet. So there was clearly some internal stuff, and she did not delete the tweet. Chad: No. Joel: So she stands by it. And yeah, maybe there needs to be something out of SHRM, really explaining what the policy is, what the reason for the tweet was. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Because you and many others are pretty upset about it. Chad: Yeah, and again, trying to give you guys over at SHRM an opportunity, and also a microphone, a megaphone, to get on the show and talk to the people and say why. That's it. Too easy. Joel: Give her a chance, man. Give Emily a chance. Chad: Give peace a chance. Joel: Yes. Chad: Give peace a chance. I'm going to. Joel: Take a sip of Blanton's and give peace a chance. Chad: I'm going to get another one here in a minute. Announcer: it's commercial time. JobAdX: Finding the right fit is important. When you're deciding on shoes for a long day at the trade show, when you're picking the right podcast for your commute, and most importantly, when you're looking for the right candidate. With JobAdX, you can attract more relevant, engaged candidates to your jobs, by harnessing the best in ad tech targeting. From predictive industry analysis and keyword click data, to premium first page placement, and reducing redundant applications, our candidate targeting technology ensures that you're reaching talent that's as interested in working with you as you are with them. Now with in-ad video and multimedia, you can share your employer brand story and company culture with job seekers, so they can visualize themselves in your office, all hands meeting, or ax-throwing team building adventure, all without navigating away from your job posting. Increased engagement makes for fewer steps between job seeker and new team member. Ready to ramp up your job advertising campaigns with the best in ad tech? Visit our new website, at www.jobadx.com that's J-O-B-A-D-X.com. Attract, engage, employ, with JobAdX. Announcer: It's showtime. Chad: Okay, moving on. Joel: Moving on. Chad: We're going to talk about something we never talk about. Joel: LinkedIn, Google, Indeed, Zip Recruiter. Chad: Google, that's good Joel: Okay, good. Chad: Yeah, Google. So Google, you actually posted, there's a story about their temps? Their contractors, I guess, actually outnumber the FTE. So the full-time employees. They have more contractors then employees? Joel: Yeah, so two things on Google I thought, this week, that were interesting. One is, yeah, they have more contract workers than full time workers, and I think we've been big fans of the freelance platform economy. We know that Upwork is doing some really interesting things with bigger enterprises like Microsoft, and I wouldn't be surprised if Upwork is sort of the backbone in some of the contracts management with Google. Joel: But yeah, we think so much about freelancing as designers, developers in other countries, content marketers. But these are serious folks that are contract with Google, and they outnumbered the full time employees at a big, big company that focused on technology. So maybe, I hate to say, are we actually undervaluing the gig economy and where that's going? Or maybe it's much bigger and the potential is much larger than even we maybe talk about here on the show. Chad: So two sides of that coin. First off, you can scale faster through contractors, obviously, because they already have a workforce that's available. So I think it makes sense for Google, when they're scaling up, scaling down, to be able to use contractors to do that, makes a lot of sense. But then there's also the other side of it, where there's the prospect and bias, that it's like, "Hey, you get somebody on for six months and then you can just chop them off at the knees." Which is part of what you can do with contractors, because they're not FTEs. Joel: And let's be honest, these are probably really, really good developers who do freelancing gigs with not just Google but Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft. They're probably doing a lot of contract work with a lot of really good companies, and God bless them. They work on their schedule, at home probably. I strongly believe that a big part of the future is this sort of freelance gig economy, and companies like Upwork and Fiver -- who, by the way, I don't know if we mentioned Fiver is going public here soon. That'll fairly interesting as well. Chad: We have not. Joel: So anyway, example for the folks out there, if you're not leveraging contract work, you're behind the times. Get on that. The other thing from Google this week that I thought was interesting was- Chad: Well, before we go there ... Joel: Yeah. Chad: Also remember that, a few weeks ago, we talked about Google demanding that their contractors pay at least a $15 wage, benefits, parental leave. So this is not Google trying to backdoor and say, "Look, oh yeah, we're just going to hire the really low benefit types of individuals." They are demanding that their contractors actually work at a much larger level. I remember last week, people were like, "Oh, well that's just contractors." Well guess what. It's the bulk of their fucking workforce. So, yeah. Joel: Google is clearly focused on contract work for a variety of reasons. And this is another example of that. Another thing Google did this week is they're going to get more serious around targeted advertising, re-targeted advertising. Chad: Cookies. Joel: Cookies through their Chrome browser, and helping users really understand who's tracking you, what's going on, being able to, I'm sure, block whoever's doing whatever. But this is an interesting development, because so many companies in our space rely on being able to re-target folks, whether it's selling to employers, recruiters, or making sure that you're in front of job seekers who come to your site. Glassdoor, famous for retargeting. Everyone does it, but some are better than others. Joel: At the point where you visited a job site and now, days, weeks later, whatever, you've realizing that they're following you around on the Internet. Like how comfortable are you going to be with that? And it really underscores how privacy is taking a front seat again, particularly with someone like Google who's had some issues with privacy in the past. I also think it's interesting, because you look at Apple and Apple has always had this great brand of privacy. They're not tracking you, they don't have the advertising solution that a Google or Facebook has. Google making these sort of moves, I find Apple, like how do we maintain our brand of being the privacy company. And I think this is a one-up by Google to make sure that they try to keep that banner of the privacy company. Chad: I remember, God, it was probably a decade ago, when I had to go to my CTO so that I could get Chrome downloaded on my fucking computer because I wanted to use Chrome. I wanted to continue to use IE as well. But this new browser came out, and it's like- Bar patrons: GOAL! Chad: "Goal!". Chad: Yep, got a goal. Joel: Chelsea scored everybody. Chad: Chelsea's up. Joel: 2-0 against Arsenal. The British listeners will enjoy that. Hung Lee is watching this right now. Chad: So anyway, back to that. How does this impact companies like Facebook? Will it? Because anything that the browser could perspectively pull in, or is it just because you're already logged into Facebook, they're taking your shit anyway, no matter what browser you're on. Joel: Yeah, I think it potentially affects Facebook, I think there are a lot of apps that you've downloaded on Facebook over the years, that you probably don't appreciate are still- Chad: Collecting. Joel: ... connected to you in some way. So I think in that fashion it'd be interesting for people to know, if Chrome can help them understand, "Okay, on Facebook these folks are still doing some sort of tracking with you on the Internet." I think it'll be more impactful for vendor sites, publishers, job sites, who, when you go to their site, and then you leave, you start seeing ads on Facebook and Google about that company, because you visited the site. For those companies, you're going to be outed as targeting those folks after they leave your site. It's fairly obvious now, if you go to a site and you're like, "Oh, their banner ads are magically popping up in my feed." You know why that is? But to the degree that you can maybe start blocking them or easily on Chrome, or deleting those cookies from your Chrome browser, that will affect people that are trying to market to you from those sites. Chad: So here's the cool part. And I know some vendors are railing from this, but the transparency level, the privacy level, and control is shifting entirely. So as we were at JobCase today, learning more about how they do what they do, their entire business model is predicated on actually providing the job seeker with that control of all their data from jump street. Unlike every other fucking job board that's out there, these guys built their platform to be able to do that, to carry your own shit with you wherever you go. This has to be the standard, I would assume, with GDPR and some of the new California regulations that are popping out. How quick do you think we're going to see platforms flip to more of a JobCase slight platform? Joel: So from my perspective, there's no question that privacy and the individual are taking a forefront into today's Internet world or the world at large. I think what's happening is you're seeing bigger companies being more thoughtful about your privacy, being more informative about who's tracking you, what cookies even are. My mom has no fucking clue, but if Google's, if Google's Chrome browser says, "Hey, FYI, this company is currently tracking you. Are you comfortable with that? Ir do you want to block this cookie?" And you could be in power of taking control of how you're targeted online. That's just the way that the world is going. I think marketers are going to simply have to adjust to the new world order, and probably just create ways around it, if I know marketing as I do. And they'll create ways to get around, or new ways to target you or get in front of you. But I think Google, Facebook, so many companies, have been under siege by regulators, that they have no other choice than to start protecting the user's privacy. Chad: Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting because companies who are collecting a ton of data about your interactions or your signals or whatever it is in our industry, they're going to have to be transparent about that and allow for it or not. And that can impact many of these models in a big, big way. Joel: Sure, sure. I think if you're in marketing, this move by Google really is a little bit scary. If you've built your business on retargeting folks that come to the site and getting in front of them, that that is now in danger of going away. Chad: Watch this space. Moving on. Joel: So the problem with being on microphones in a bar is waiters are typically scared to approach you, because you're not just talking, you have a microphone and you're talking. Chad: Next time we'll say, "Hey, bring us more booze." So the next story we want to talk about is Intel. And Intel built a hotline for their workers, because they realized they were losing employees. And not just employees, they were mainly women or people of color. Joel: Minorities, yeah. Chad: So they were losing them. They had low retention rates. So what they did was create a hotline, which I think ... Joel: A literal hotline, like old-school, pick up the phone, they call it Warm Line. Chad: They call it the Warm Line. Joel: I should've just thrown "and fuzzy". They have the Warm and Fuzzy Line. Chad: Yeah, the Warm and Fuzzy Line. So the Warm Line is an employee hotline, has an 82% save rate, meaning that eight in 10 of the employees who filed complaints are still with the company. So they were losing all these fucking people who didn't feel like they were heard. They were filing complaints, nobody heard them. Then they started hotline, this warm line, and they're saving 80% of those that they were losing before. Joel: Yup. And I think, according to the story, they only have four or five social workers or folks that talk to these disgruntled employees. Chad: Yeah, people that are in their global D&I team. Joel: Yeah, so it was a fairly relatively low investment, to save 80% of the people who might leave because of just disgruntled men or harassment or whatever it might be. To me, this is a genius move. More companies need to have this anonymous helpline, this even suggestion box, or how do I contact management to talk about these things that are affecting me in a negative way? Because when you talk about retention and how much that costs companies to lose people, it's a little investment to set up a phone line or an online something or other, where people can have a conversation about what's bothering them. Joel: So to me, Intel major ops, this is great. I think that, this is a call to a lot of the anonymous review sites out there. This is an opportunity for you to create an anonymous messaging or hotline- Chad: A Glassdoor hotline. Joel: ... or communication medium- Chad: Yeah, or something like that. Joel: ... to say, "Look, you already have people that are pissed off going to those sites. How do you create an open channel for them to connect with the company to where they can maybe save these folks who are leaving because they're not real happy." Chad: Yes, and this is not just about overall retention. This is about retaining individuals who are hard to fucking find in the first place. Talking about females, and I think it was women of color, and in most case ... Joel: They have a few employees there at Intel. Chad: They have a shit ton of employees, and as again, those are incredibly important saves. And to be able to signal to all of your employees -- these aren't just the people who opened complaints -- to let them all know that, "If you do have a complaint, guess what, we're going to take care of it." And they have fielded over 20,000 complaints. Joel: That's a lot of complaints. And I know that it's also helped spur a lot of the training around sensitivity training or internal stuff. So not only are you saving employees that might leave, but you're also basically creating your company's training policy around sensitivity and education around minorities and women and everyone else. So Intel's doing so much positive, positive thing. Bar patrons: GOAL! Joel: Sorry, we got some people walking by. Anyway ... Chad: Another score. [crosstalk 00:29:25]. Joel: Biggest Intel, hopefully we'll see more companies initiate this strategy. Chad: So here's the thing, from the standpoint of being a "diversity expert", which is great. But this is something that everybody should be instituting, so that you can learn more about your culture, because if you are Intel, your reasoning behind the complaints and being able to deal with those complaints and train up on those issues, is going to be entirely different than working for Kroger or something of that nature. So if you're in diversity and inclusion, this is something that I'm not going to say, will take care of having diversity experts or D&I experts. This will provide them with much better intel. Yes. Can you get us up again? Server: Which? Chad: A Blanton's and ... Joel: I'll do a Jack [Rinetone 00:30:17] here. Flaming Leprechaun it is. Chad: Jay, guess what? Joel loves Flaming Leprechauns in the back door. Joel: Yeah, definitely not on higher tier pricing list, but we'll go with a little Leprechaun. Yep, let's do that, neat. Chad: Blanton's please. Joel: And by the way, for companies who are concerned with their Glassdoor reviews, and Indeed reviews, and everywhere else, what a great strategy to nip these unhappy workers in the bud and take care of these issues before they go to Glassdoor. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, brilliant strategy all around. Major applause if we have the sound bite for Intel. Chad: Yeah, they don't have to go to Glassdoor because you're taking care of that shit beforehand. Joel: Exactly, exactly. These folks clearly need to vent. Chad: Yes! Joel: And let these things out, and it's much better for them to do that with your counselor on a hotline, than on Glassdoor. Announcer: It's commercial time. Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen and, coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvas Bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology, and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Announcer: It's show time. Chad: Moving on. This is going to be fun. Joel: I love fun. Chad: So Australian Facebook stalking is a thing, apparently. So there's this crazy story that's out there. Joel: They just do it differently down in New Zealand, Australia. Down Under's just a different ... Chad: Yeah, weird. Joel: I realized this when I listened to Men at Work for the first time as a child. Things are a little bit different down there. Chad: In the land down under. So you read the story, then add some color on it. Tell me about- Joel: This is the fake tan story, right? This is the fake tan story? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Okay. Chad: Fake tan story. A tattoo and fake tans, yes. Joel: So a young woman interviewed with a company in New Zealand, right? New Zealand? Chad: Yes. Australia. Around there. Joel: So they had left a voicemail for her, the company did. I guess it was a male and female recruiter from the story. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But they left him a voicemail for her, and I guess forgot to hang up the phone and made comments about her, her fake tan, or what they believe was a fake tan ... Chad: Yes. Joel: ... that she took too many selfies. I think there was a tattoo comment as well. Chad: Where did they find this out, though? Joel: Where did the company find it out? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Probably on the media. Chad: They were stalking her Facebook. Joel: Oh, that she posted it on Facebook, yes. Chad: Yeah, they were stalking her Facebook. Joel: You're right, you're right. So this is the tin guy, best-case scenario for a reason why you need an unbiased automated robotic interviews process, right? Chad: That's exactly right, yes. Joel: Like a robot who wouldn't have seen a fake tan ... Chad: No. Joel: ... wouldn't have seen tattoos Chad: Huh-uh. Joel: ... wouldn't have seen their Instagram account or Facebook account, and would hire the person or not solely on their skillset. And this story underscores that people are people, that they're going to be biased, they're going to judge others, and unfortunately they're going to make hiring decisions based on those biases, regardless of what her or anyone else's skillset is. Chad: Yes, and that's really the only way that we're going to get, I believe, beyond bias is allow the process to actually work. But when a human gets involved, guess what? Bias is still going to happen. And I know that people are going to say, "Well, Algos are developed by people, and people are biased, and blah, blah, blah. Okay, bullshit. If you strip all the bias elements out, then you don't allow that bias to actually happen. Not to mention, if you don't have an algorithm learn from a human and their human signals, then guess what? It doesn't become fucking biased. So for all of you out there who say, "Algorithms are inherently biased," you're fucking full of shit, dude. You can unbias that shit. Not to mention you can fucking audit. Joel: I am no expert in New Zealand law. Chad: It was Australia. Joel: I thought it was New Zealand. Chad: It was Australia. Joel: Anyway, wherever it was, I'm not an expert in law in either of those countries, but I have to assume she has a pretty strong legal case against said company. Chad: Yes. Joel: And this'll be interesting to see if there's a lawsuit brought on and how much the company's going to ow, et cetera. Because this whole bias thing is becoming an issue. And it's going to be more and more so as the Internet takes hold. Chad: And so my question to you is, from a culture standpoint, because that's how people are saying, "Well, we got to Facebook to see if they'll fit in our culture. We own this, to face- Joel: It's not that long ago that people freely talked about, "Yeah, we go to social media sites and profiles to background check people." Bad idea. Chad: Not to mention, I think that's bullshit. Your background checking people is nothing but stalking and trying to see if they fit in your "tribe". That's it. Has nothing to do with whether your background checking anybody. You are just seeing if they're part of your tribe, and your tribe doesn't have fake tans and tattoos, so therefore you're not a part of my tribe. Or guess what? You're too cute. \And I don't want you in here because now you're competition fucking bullshit, dude. Joel: Maybe it is a tough question, because if someone's on social media with Nazi regalia and racial whatever, or attending neo-Nazi meetings, that probably is grounds for not hiring somebody. But a fake tan? I don't know. I don't know. Chad: Yeah. I think in a real background check, because I think you're blurring the lines between a real background check and going to Facebook. So if you do a real background check- Joel: Facebook is not a real background check. Chad: No, I think you're- Joel: But people do it all the time. Chad: He just brought another Blanton's. I'm so excited. No, I think your people do it all the time. He just brought another Blanton's. I'm so excited. So if you go to Facebook, it's not a real background check. If you want to find out this whole white supremacy connection, I think you're going to be able to find that out in the background check. Joel: There probably is some legal problems with someone who's attending neo-Nazi whatever meetings, or whatever they call them. Chad: Yeah, it's called, you're not working at my fucking company. Joel: Now what about a neo-Nazi with a fake tan? Chad: then they're right out. Joel: Then we're just damn being [crosstalk 00:37:31]. That's instant elimination. Chad: Exactly. And that being said, since our second drink came, I believe we're out. Joel: We out. Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, the Chad, and his goofy friend, Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors, because need new track [spikes 00:38:04], you know, the expensive shiny gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #SHRM #Boston #Jobcase #RestlessBandit #TruStaff #Microsoft #LinkedIn #Google #Intel #Facebook #BackgroundChecks