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For those who think gig economy platforms like Upwork and Fiverr are a race to the bottom for freelance wages, then this podcast is for you. The boys interview Justin Gignac, co-founder at Working Not Working, a site dedicated to making sure freelance designers get paid. This exclusive comes at you compliments of Uncommon. 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: 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: Wow, 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 into Uncommon, the platform identifies your job requirements and in seconds Uncommon uses those requirements to search over one hundred and fifty 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 easiest way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit uncommon.co and use discount code chadcheese for twenty 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, flash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Hey guys, what's up? We are recording live from Branff, Alberta Canada- Chad: It's Banff, dumb ass. Joel: The Gathering #insidetheglass. Chad: Inside the glass. Joel: Yes, this is Joel Cheesman- Chad: Chad Sowash. Joel: I'm accompanied by Chad Sowash. Chad: Hello. Joel: Special guest today, and all I really have to say is the creator of Elf Yourself. I think that's pretty much the beginning and end of the podcast. Chad: Yeah, that's...and we're done. Justin: I'm sorry. Joel: Let's get into the boring stuff. Justin Gignac, G-Unit as his friends call him, co-founder of Working Not Working, a Brooklynite, which I refuse to believe because you're way too nice to be a Brooklynite New Yorker. Chad: He's a sweetheart, he really is. Joel: He's a total- Justin: He's very nice. Joel: Yeah, a total sweetheart. Justin: [crosstalk 00:02:56] You turn the mic on [crosstalk 00:02:57] Joel: Fantastic beard, unfortunately for our listeners- Chad: He's got a great hair cut too. Joel: Don't know- Yeah- Chad: He has a great hair cut. Joel: Yeah, it's like if Chad and I had a baby, to put my beard on his head and that's kind of Justin's look. Justin: Thanks guys. Joel: Justin, welcome to the show. Give us sort of the 140 character or less introduction about you. Justin: My background is art director and creative director in advertising, and about seven years ago my co-founder Adam and I started Working Not Working, it's a global community of the best creatives in the universe. Joel: That's awesome. Chad: Wow! Working Not Working. So, how did you come up with that name? Justin: Back in the day when we'd freelance in New York the recruiters would be pretty old school and they'd be like "Hey Justin, you working or you not working?", and so we were like well shit that's pretty appropriate let's just go with that. Joel: And you have an interesting story of how you let recruiters know you're open for work or not, tell our listeners about that. Justin: So I had been freelancing around New York for about three or four years, and finding a freelance gig was a pain in the ass. You'd call and email every single person you knew in the industry, never have a gig for you, wait two weeks, finally get booked and then five more people would call me and I couldn't take the jobs. So I figured I'd just put a motel vacancy sign on my portfolio site, and so I call it the Justin Gignac Freelance Status Apparatus. It was a giant blinking neon sign that said Justin's working, available or available soon. Chad: Dude, that is fucking genius. Justin: Thanks, and I'm obnoxious so I had an over utilization of technology, so I had a Facebook group, a Twitter feed, a text alert, and iPhone app, and a mailing list to follow my availability so however you wanted to stalk me. And I ended up with forty recruiters from different ad agencies around the country following me. Every time I flipped my status to available I get two or three job offers within a day. Any jobs I couldn't take I would email to my art director friends and it got to the point that recruiter's were like "I see by your little sign that you're working are any of your friends available?" And I was like oh shit, I'm a rep. Joel: I hope some students are out there listening at this sort of creativity for creative jobs. I teased our audience at the beginning but tell us the Elf Yourself story. Justin: So, I had been working at various ad agencies around New York and I was the first creative hire at this small four person shop called Toy. And we got a brief from Office Max to get people to- You guys know what Office Max is? Joel: Sure. Chad: Oh yeah. Justin: Get people to do their holiday shopping at Office Max, which is stupid because it's an office supply store, why would anyone wanna go holiday shopping there? And so we had a very small budget, only a couple hundred thousand dollars maybe enough to do one commercial, and we didn't really think that would make the big impact. Justin: So we ended up doing twenty holiday themed websites that were gifts for office workers everywhere all linked by the little Office Max tab and you can go to any of 'em. So there were ones like, here was roastaturkey.com where you could roast a turkey in real time. There was Mistletoe in an Elevator where strangers seemed like strangers came on and started making out and freaking out other strangers that were in the elevator. And the one that took off was Elf Yourself, which honestly we had no idea what was gonna take off, and it went nuts. It was up for five weeks and it got thirty-six million visits. At one point there were eight elves being created every second. The second year they put it up it was up for six weeks and it got a hundred and ninety-three million visits. We had no idea what kind of elf fetish we were unlocking. And so we ended up putting it out there and it's still going, they gave it to JibJab and then it got crazy after that. Joel: So they literally sold the idea to JibJab? Or Office Max sold the rights to it? Justin: No I think they partnered with JibJab and they figured out ways to monetize it- Joel: They fucked you basically, go ahead and say it. Justin: Well I was only there for about a couple months after the first one launched so, and then I went freelance so it was fine. Joel: Awesome. Chad: You've gotta start the conversation with that, "So Justin what have you done?" 'Well, I don't know if you knew this little thing-'[crosstalk 00:06:31] Joel: [crosstalk 00:06:31] that would be a great pick up line for chicks Justin: It's great for my dating life, yeah. Although, I spoke at a conference in Omaha to a bunch of students and one of the students- this was on Monday- she's like "Oh my God, my family's gonna be so excited that I met someone that made Elf Yourself 'cause when I was six years old we made elves of our family." And I just went oh my God, I'm so old. When you were six years old. I'm like, oh yeah that was like 13 years ago, it's crazy. Chad: So let's get back into Working Not Working, I'm sure you don't wanna talk about that at all. So, a platform that is focused on people like you, and I mean this is really the virtual sign that you're flipping on and flipping off, right? I mean, it was that idea and you're just trying to take it to scale. Justin: Yeah, my co-founder Adam Tompkins and I- he was working one his own start up at the time, trying to find freelance developers, it was impossible- and we were talking and we were like well if that sign could work for me it could probably work for everybody. So, we built the site and creators make a profile with their current availability really big at the top of their profile, some examples of their work, and then companies go on and follow their favorite creatives and get notified when they are available for projects. So, really simple, they can flip, get your real time availability, they jump to the top of your dashboard as soon as they update and then you get pinged when your favorite people are available for gigs. Chad: So fucking smart. Justin: Thanks. Chad: How many people? Justin: So we're at 65 thousand creatives now around the world. Chad: Jesus. Joel: Now, when I first heard about the idea- and I didn't know about you honestly- Justin: That's okay. Joel: But I'm not a creative type so I shouldn't have known about you- Chad: Not at all. Joel: But my first thought was why don't they just join Upwork or Fiverr? I mean there's plenty of designers there. And you have a very interesting business model, tell us about that. Justin: Well I think for us the curation was really important to start, and so only about ten to fifteen percent of people that are on the site get a kind of vetted member status that are approved by our membership board. So that was really important, and also to- we wanted to give people access. So we only charge companies a couple hundred dollars a month, or a couple grand a year, to have access to all of the talent and the platform. And that goes and really democratizes it and gives people opportunity. Justin: And so, a lot of those other sites are driving the cost of freelance down. So you go and find someone and it's a logo design to the lowest bidder for five bucks. We have the best creatives in the world that are doing the Instagram logo and the Superbowl commercials and all that, and I think what's happened for them now is they're getting more opportunities because your opportunities only used to be however big your Rolodex was and now they're getting jobs at agencies and brands around the world. And so they're more in demand and are able to increase their rates and really be more in control of their own careers. Joel: So we had Josh Wright, Chief Economist at iCIMS on the show not too long ago, and we talked about sort of the downward push of salaries and what people could charge for their services, and I love your business model in that you actually curate and vet your people so you're actually increasing the amount of money that these folks are getting for the work that they do. Justin: Yeah and it's also giving them a kind of a stamp of approval which some of our clients have said they won't hire anybody unless they have a Working Not Working member profile. Which feels really good to us that we've been able to put that out in the world and it also created a really big sense of community within our members, and for me we've always described it as we built a platform and network for our friends. Our friends who are creative, and our friends who hire creatives. So, it's important to us to treat people how we would treat our friends, and also talk to people how we would talk to our friends. So we call people out and we say like, when they apply for a job, we're like "Make sure you're actually qualified and interested or else you'll look dumb." And we have a verification to make sure that they know make sure you're actually into this 'cause sometimes you've gotta protect people from themselves, and so yeah it's important. Chad: It's a trust thing though too, right? Justin: Yeah, it's a trust- yeah. Chad: 'Cause you've got these huge brands that are coming in and they're looking for individuals who are qualified and if you have a bunch of unqualified individuals applying then it's like, we just have the same issue. [crosstalk 00:10:21] You really don't- Justin: Yeah, well we know then the recruiting space it's all about efficiency and you throw a job up and you get a hundred people applying, that's overwhelming, never mind some other platforms you get five thousand. And so for us it's important that everyone that's applying is actually really good and it's gonna save you a lot of time because we're doing the curation for you and you're getting the best people applying to your opportunities. Joel: You had an interesting story as we were talking offline about sort of the human element of working by yourself, or freelancing, and how that human connection- and I would think that creative people in general are people people. They like to get out, express interest, and bounce ideas around- so you have kind of an interesting take on that and maybe a solution around that. Justin: I didn't even realize until I was doing it and working from home, freelance can be really lonely. Especially if you're working on your own, or you're bouncing from agency to agency or company to company, it's pretty nomadic and lonely. I had seen at a conference recently that the World Health Organization said the leading cause of ill health and disability in the world is depression. And I feel like the creative industry probably is more susceptible to that than others. And so, for us it's really important to bring people together in real life so they're not feeling as alone. So we started doing- the first year we did the first annual freelancer holiday party, 'cause freelancers never get invited to holiday parties. They're always in the windows outside, fogging 'em up, watching people getting gropey on the dance floor. And so we started doing that- Chad: I want open bar, I want open bar. Justin: And we started doing Drinking Not Drinking so it's kind of a quarterly happy hour in different cities, and I also started doing a creative support group last year. I call it Talking Not Talking, and we set up about thirty to forty chairs in a circle and have a theme whether it's courage, or letting go, or creative insecurity, and just start talking about this stuff because I think it's really easy for people to put on like they have it all figured out, and once you realize that nobody actually does you feel a lot better about your own journey. And I think especially as a freelancer independent you wanna put on that you got it, and you know everything, and you're successful, and I'm hustling, I'm hustling, I'm killing it. And that's hard to keep up because most of the time that's just bullshit. And so I think it's really important to get people together talking about this stuff and really supporting each other. Joel: Now are recruiters invited to these events 'cause I could see a lot of recruiters foaming at the mouth to get in front of these creative folks. Chad: Oh good God. Justin: Well we do, they're invited to the holiday party and we do happy hours at brands all the time, so bringing our network into them and so getting everyone together and really letting them show off who they are and what they do. And I've done Talking Not Talking for recruiters too to talk about the struggles of, that's completely changing landscape. Especially a lot of our clients are ad agencies where they're just losing talent left and right to brands and start ups. Chad: Talk about some of those brands, what are some of the big brands that you kinda show case. Justin: Our biggest clients are Apple, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Nike. I have a actually- Chad: Cult brands, those are cult brands. Joel: Never heard of them, Justin: And then like every major ad agency. We used to have a thing at our home page that said "Remember if Working Not Working creatives aren't working for you they're probably working against you". And the best of the best are on it and they're using it and when we first started a lot of recruiters had a lot of pride in their Roladexs right, and they were like oh I don't need this. And we initially built it just so you could have everyone you'd already like to hire on one dashboard and see who's available right there, and then who's available soon, and who's working, so you don't have to call and email everybody. And so it's made those people better at their jobs, and then being able to search the 65 thousand vetted creatives really helps you get to better talent faster. And if you're not on it you're kind of at a disadvantage. Joel: What's next for creative? Is it around video, is it virtual reality? Is it mobile- Talk about what the trend is coming soon and what's hot. Justin: Well we're getting a lot of- we started primarily with advertising, and design, and illustration, and we've just seen a lot of our clients diversifying their offerings so getting more into production, getting editors, and cinematographers, and directors, and content creators. So we've been kind of going with that evolution as well and getting more folks on there. Yeah, VR was really hot a couple years ago, and augmented reality, all of that stuff, and it's all still there. I think experiential creativity and brand experiences is gonna be a lot more- and I think especially our clients who are in advertising and in general I think IP is the future of this. You have a lot of- every creative I know has a start up idea, an app idea, a movie idea- and I think that the brands that are gonna survive and the companies that are gonna survive are gonna start creating their own intellectual property, investing in their own talent, and being help support them with their ideas and make that happen. Justin: And if you're able to as a creative, if I feel like I'm gonna be able to make the best creative work of my life in house here I have no reason to go anywhere else, and if they're gonna support my endeavors, which now being an entrepreneur myself is really hard to start your own business. It's really hard to figure out who to talk to and how to do this right. And we always joke that, Adam and I, my co-founder- our business skills are two guys who know Photoshop. And so, if you have an agency you can go and use your resources to help make some of the stuff happen and then own a piece of that and really start- Joel: So not display ads in the Sunday newspaper. Justin: No, yeah- small space ads are really big. I remember my years in advertising was always the joke I never wanted to work on radio. And then like what are we doing right now? And so I think things evolve, I don't wanna keep thinking I know everything, I think nostalgia will kill you. Nostalgia and assumptions will kill you. So, it's gonna be constantly changing and just really paying attention to that. Chad: So we're here at an event that really is focused around cult brands, right? And I think that companies are starting to understand, not just these big cult brands, but even these start ups are starting to understand that brand means something. Justin: Yes, it's not just a logo anymore. Chad: Yeah, it's not just a logo anymore. So talk a little bit about that. What have you seen from start ups, mid-market, and what have you, Where there is that real focus on brand and experience where before most companies just didn't really give a shit. Justin: Yeah we just made a product and put it out there. And I think even since we started seven years ago there's just been such a cultural shift of companies and brands prioritizing creativity and design. Ten years ago my mom didn't give a shit about the user experience of her smart phone, but then she went and got rid of her phone to go back to her other one because it didn't work-the user experience didn't work as well. And then you have brands like the Airbnbs of the world, and Apples that are making an expectation for quality, design, and creativity, and thoughtfulness, and the ways brands approach themselves and put themselves out in the world. And so I think the companies that we're seeing are being successful are putting creativity in the c-suite and really making their connection with their consumers more important than ever and not just the products that they're shipping out. Chad: Well and they understand that brand actually impacts bottom line, so I think that was kinda the big disconnect for years is like it's marketing leads, but at the end of the day you're talking about actual cult brand type of impact- if you take a look at Apple and they come out with a new product and there's a line out the door, right? It's like, how do you get there? And I think that, and this is just me, I think that most companies are, they're trying to reach for that brass ring. They might not be able to get to that Apple status but they can have that cult-ish type of brand, even if it's in a certain segment. Justin: Well it's really targeting the people that love your brand and doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on them. And even with my own personal projects and advertising work I've done in the past-Elf Yourself I guess was pretty broad- but I always like to create ideas and invest in ideas that only ten percent of people would get. Because then those people are even more passionate about it 'cause they feel like they're in on something. And you see the brands that are being honored here at The Gathering, and the ones that we use day to day that we just love and adore- they're ones that are so integral to our lives and we kinda can't live without. And so I think to have that indispensability in the hearts of your consumers and your fans is more important than ever. Joel: And piggy backing on that, let's talk about employer brand for a second. And you sit at the crossroads of being a creative person but also dancing a little bit in the recruiting world. So talk about implement branding, how important is it? Chad seems to think they're one in the same, are they different? Give us your opinion on employment brand. Justin: Well I started in advertising and it's been mind-blowing to me that people who are so good at marketing and positioning other peoples brands do such a shitty job of marketing themselves. And you can go and put up agency websites, and mission statements, and they're interchangeable, there's only a handful that really are able to differentiate themselves. And I think the places that are having an easier time doing recruiting, especially the brands, I know what I'm gonna get when I go to an Airbnb. That aligns with my values, they care about people, or Google. So employees now and workers are able to go and find the brands that speak to them and say hey I wanna be a part of that. Justin: Advertising in general they do have an advantage 'cause I have friends that've gone in house with brands and done it for a year or two and they just kinda got bored of putting stuff on white and then wanna go back to advertising. I think agencies actually have a benefit of the diversity of opportunities, but they just need to do a better job of giving people access to those opportunities. Because it used to be I'm gonna go in there, and yeah maybe I'd have to kinda do my time on that big crappy client, but I don't need to do that anymore. Because I can be in charge of my own career and I can go wherever I want. Justin: And so I think the brands that are really making their- you're not losing talent to Google because of free Tandoori chicken on Thursdays- You're losing it 'cause people feel like they can go there, they know what they're doing, and they're doing it with purpose, and they can make great work. And you have to be able to align with peoples values and their purpose 'cause just trying to convince people with ping pong tables and free snacks isn't really- people don't give a shit about that. We survey our creatives and they said no, it's the creative opportunity and the people that they're working with, it's all about the people. Chad: And then you take a look at, I think just from my stand point, Facebook and all the shit that they've been through here lately, right. And how that has impacted their brand, and also their employees, and their employment brand. So therefore, the big brand is the brand, and what we try to do I think in every industry is we try to make things more complex. We try to fragment things and we try to say well this is this, and then this is different over here, and just from my stand point, I believe that the employment brand is part of the overall brand, and that is, that's the big key. Justin: Absolutely. Chad: But again, in our industry I'm probably in the minority there's so many people that just wanna focus on employment brand, employment brand, employment brand- Justin: It's all interchangeable and I think it's also really important not to bullshit people. On both sides of the coin if you're trying to get a job and you're trying to be the version of you they think they want or you think they want, and then same thing with the companies, it's never gonna work that way if people are- it's like any relationship, you gotta wanna be, you gotta be honest about what your needs are on both sides of the coin and then the people that are able to keep that honesty there and the transparency there and then really focus on making sure people are happy are gonna do really well and be really successful. Joel: I find like most of the time your Glassdoor, Indeed, Kununu, whatever reviews are your employment brand, and it's more of the externally than what you say about yourself. Justin: All of our industries no matter what segment, you're a creative or otherwise, they're very small industries and word travels fast and it's really easy to ruin your brand quickly. Word gets out- I look at a friend and they're posting at 4 a.m. leaving the office. I'm not gonna wanna take a job there- Chad: Fuck no. Justin: No, at all. And so I think that it's really important that you go and be honest with yourself and who are you and how do you treat your people and then what is the reputation that we have out there. And if you wanna know what's wrong with your company hire a freelancer 'cause they can- been in multiple different places and can just come in and go oh yeah your process sucks, these people are running the show, these people are totally unhappy because they talk shit about whatever, and you can probably find out within a week all of the issues in your company just by hiring a couple freelancers to be honest with you. Chad: So when it comes down to kind of like footprint right now, you guys, obviously, you started in New York, and you've broadened up, where are your big markets? Justin: Our biggest markets are in New York, L.A., London's our third biggest just kind of organically happened that way. San Francisco, obviously, and then Toronto's building up. Amsterdam is building up. And so we're primarily in the States but yeah we're kind of getting a footprint globally, we got 65 thousand creatives now. Joel: You've been dumb enough to start a podcast, tell us about that. Justin: Yeah so, well I get tired of going to conferences and seeing people only talk about the highlights, and looking at peoples social media and only seeing the highlights. And I can't relate to someones amazing illustration skill, but I can relate to the struggle it took to get there. So, I started overshare a couple years ago and I interview creatives I admire about the struggles of being a creative professional whether it's loneliness, creative insecurity, self doubt, all of that stuff, and try to get people that are at the top of the game to be really honest about the shit they struggle with, because it's really easy to think everybody else has it figured out but once you realize nobody actually does it makes you feel better about your own shit. Justin: And so yeah, I've been doing that, we got season three I'm planning on now and hopefully we'll start that in the next month or two. Chad: Excellent, how many episodes per season are you just-[crosstalk 00:23:49] Justin: We do 13 episodes a season, every two weeks. We ended right before Thanksgiving season two with this guy Jeff Staple who's like the GodFather of street wear. First episode of season two is one of the co-founders Kickstarter, Yancey Strickler, which was an amazing episode so yeah, a lot of, kind of a range of business leaders, and creatives, and artists, and all that. Joel: So turning into Netflix shows, season two comes out in March. Justin: Yeah, exactly. Joel: Well, Justin thanks for joining us. For those who wanna know more about you where would you send them if they wanna learn more about your companies or you in general. Justin: Yeah just workingnotworking.com or @wnotw and I'm @justingignac. Can I just read one thing that just makes me happy, and makes me feel like we're doing something right? We got a text message from one of our members who got a text message from another member and so I'm just going to read you the text message, "Hey Mike, this is that random dude that you sponsored to be on Working Not Working after dropping you and your mom off through Lift. I just wanted to message you and thank you for opening that door for me. The last two years have been crazy, I was at Apple doing UX, I'm currently at Nike as a senior product designer. Two years ago I was doing Lift and Uber every day to survive and I still remember those days. Hopefully you are doing well, just wanted to drop you a note and thank you again. It might have seemed small but you helped turned my life around." Joel: This is where we throw in the applause, yeah the applause sound bite. Justin: But that's like it, it's that kind of stuff that' what's- I think anybody who I know that's recruited that's what they aim to do. And now being on the other side of the coin having been a creative and doing this now, I get so much more fulfillment out of enabling other people to do what they love. That kind of stuff makes me feel real good. Joel: Well Justin, thanks for joining us. We'll be taking the stage with you tomorrow, hopefully- Justin: Yeah I'm excited. Joel: Talking about more shit. And we appreciate it. Justin: Yeah thank you so much for having me you guys. Chad: G-Nac! Justin: Yes we did it. 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, Googleplay, 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. #TheGathering #Freelance #Marketing #EmployerBrand #Brand #Advertising #CultBrands #Branding

ANNOUNCEMENT! Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman. Chad: A few weeks ago, Talroo beckoned Joel and I to Austin, Texas. Under a shroud of secrecy. Finally, we're able to unveil what the hell was going on down at Talroo HQ. Enjoy. Joel: Super exciting day Chad. The office is buzzing. Chad: It is buzzing. Joel: There's excitement that I've never seen before. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And this is an organization that focuses on industry sectors and niches, right? Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: They've been the experts in retail, service industries, healthcare, et cetera. The rumor is they might be opening up a new ... Chad: Vertical. Joel: Vertical. Chad: Yeah. I'm interested in this from the standpoint of I'm kind of- Joel: Actually, Thad, Thad Price, the CEO is coming in now- Chad: Okay. Joel: To announce what the news is- Chad: It's about time. Joel: Thad, how are ya? Chad: Thad, how you doing? Thad: Great, how about yourself? Joel: Good to see ya. Thad: Good to see you guys again. Welcome to Austin. Joel: Dude, we can't take it any more. What is the news? Chad: What the hell's going on? Thad: Well, we're launching a new audience search network. Chad: Okay. Well you've got a bunch already. I mean, you have business services, customer service, financial service, Gig economy, healthcare. I mean, the list goes on. And it seems pretty expansive already. So I mean, what are you going to add to this? Thad: Yeah. And those verticals are actually targeted by our classification engine- Chad: Okay. Thad: The Talroo classification engine. So that's how we find the right audiences for jobs based on over billions of searches each month. Chad: Okay. Thad: So one of the things we found is there's a huge demand for pirates. Chad: There is. We've been talking about this. Joel: Of course! Chad: We've been talking about this. Joel: Pirates. Thad: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Thad: And largely, we were talking earlier about the macro-side and what we found is that usually in situations like this, where we head into a recession soon, gold goes up. Chad: Ah, good point. Thad: So that's a huge opportunity for us to staff up for pirates- Chad: Yeah. Thad: Because we need more gold. Chad: Right. Right, right, right. So I mean, how are pirates ... I don't know anything about this. How are pirates paid? Do they have rum stipends? I mean- Joel: Is there a special booty program for pirates? Thad: You know, I ... Probably so in different ports of call. Probably some are a little bit different than others, but yes, they're paid per mile. They have different incentives. One of the things we're finding, that's one of the most interesting things that from a benefit perspective they care about is dental plans. Chad: That makes sense. Joel: The scurvy is running amok in the piracy community. Yes. Now will this be a real strain on employment for our Arby's? Chad: I am not including that. I am not including that. Joel: Will this impact the argyle sweater industy? Chad: I can't use any of this. From my understanding on the pirate's side of the house, there is a huge knowledge gap. I mean, the boomers are aging out. The skills gap is an issue. So is there going to be schooling? I mean, what's happening here? Thad: Yeah. You're right. It's aging out of the work force, just like healthcare and other industries. So we're actually seeing ... You know, one of our beta customers NEMO Inc., they're actually paying for training to be a pirate. Chad: Okay. Thad: So you see that in other transportation logistics type industries as well. Chad: So you sign a contract, you go through school and you're like on a three year contract. They pay for your schooling and then you're not a landlubber anymore, you're actually on the ship and I'm sure there's a little internship action that happens on board too. Is that how it goes? Thad: Yeah. That's right. And then you're usually ... You could be paid per mile. Chad: Okay. Thad: Yep. And you're getting a ship. Chad: Kind of like truckers. So this could actually zap talent out of the trucker industry. Joel: Now will you be servicing all seven of the seven seas? Thad: Yes, we will be. Joel: Will there be a different pricing model? Thad: It's all based on supply and demand. Chad: All based on supply and demand and targeting. That's awesome. So if there are pirates out there that are looking for good, hard working talent, how in the hell do they get a hold of you to make sure that they can get into this program? Thad: Well, they would go to talroo.com. Joel: For the pirates with a hook for a hand that can't tap out a resume, what solutions do you offer for them? Thad: Yeah, voice texting. Chad: Voice to text. That is genius. Well, I'd like to say Thad, it's about damn time and we appreciate Talroo. Joel: God bless you Talroo. Chad: Big applause for Talroo. Chad: After the interview with Thad. Joel and I wanted to learn more about just how Talroo would engage this new pirate market sector. Word was buzzing around the office that Talroo had hired a pirate dialect coach to train sales and customer service. What? No way. Way. And we tracked him down for an interview. Enjoy. Chad: Okay. Jordan, we understand that you are the dialect coach. Tell us why you're actually here. What does that mean? Jordan: Yes. Talroo has shown success across many industries and verticals such as healthcare, restaurant, retail, financial services and more. Helping these companies attract and hire talent. Talroo are now launching their latest vertical, the pirate vertical. I'm here to help train their customer team on how to best engage with pirate captains and recruiters who need hires. This is to ensure that these employers know that Talroo gets them. Joel: What is your background? Jordan: Well I have been a dialect coach for about 15 years now. I used to be the kid who was always doing voices and impressions and once I got the linguistics part, that was the last piece. I knew that I could do these voices, but with linguistics I could show people how to do these voices, these different sound changes with accents. I believe tremendously in the power of connection and especially in this recruiting market, you want someone that speaks your language. All industries have their own jargon and pirate is no different. So I'm just trying to instill these language techniques, these sound changes, so that pirates can understand that we're part of their tribe at Talroo. We get them Chad: Why is it important to train Talroo employees? Jordan: Well, pirate captains have long been shunned in modern western society. They have- Joel: Disgraceful. Jordan: Questionable morals, poor hygiene. Their social media shows this materialistic obsession with treasure, but I've seen that Talroo really understand them and the uniqueness of their hiring needs. So they're taking this extra step regarding speech and culture. And Talroo wants to ensure that pirate ship captains, fleet commanders, their whole industry, feels very comfortable and at home dealing with Talroo's customer team. Joel: Pirates are people too, Jordan. Jordan: Of course. Of course. They might not have all their limbs, but they're still people. Chad: That's a very good point. Yeah. Or the teeth. Joel: Or the teeth. Chad: Or the teeth. Joel: Couldn't agree more. Jordan: Pirates need jobs too. And this is the place to find 'em. There's some real talent out there, like legendary Blackbeard level talent and speaking to Thad's point about the ... It's a niche attraction, right? A niche client attraction. Chad: I've heard some great pirate talent has actually gone off into other industries, working at Macy's. Jordan: Yeah. There's a lot of pirates that sail to better seas as it were, but ... It's a hazardous profession, but I mean, if there's a better job, they jump ship. So we're here to attract the best talent that we can get. Joel: How do you deal with the various dialects of say a pirate in the Indian Ocean versus the Pacific? Jordan: Oh sure, yeah. I mean, the oceans vary, right? The further away you are, it's going to sound different than ... And your ports of call have to, right? So, if you're interacting with people- Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: Yeah. Jordan: Using different words, words for gold and doubloons might be different than fishing words, et cetera. Chad: So Jordan, how have the Talroo employees actually taken to the training? Because, I mean, this is different training. Jordan: Sure. Chad: So I mean, how have they been doing? Jordan: Yeah, they've never seen anything like this before. Chad: Yeah. Jordan: But they are very quick learners, right? We had a nice session with the while team and we were teaching them everything from words to stay away from. You know, there's certain insults that you really don't want to be throwing around. Joel: What are some of those? Jordan: You know, every pirate loves the sea. So you wouldn't want to call 'em a landlubber, right? Joel: Ah. Jordan: That's like a rookie, right? There's a famous joke, what do you call a pirate with two eyes and two legs? A rookie. Right? Obviously doesn't have that much experience on a ship. Joel: Nice. Jordan: Scallywags, right? You don't ever want to call a pirate that. Bilge rat, 'cause that's the bottom of the ship, right? You belong on the bottom of the ship. Joel: Barnacle I hear is a bad one. Jordan: Barnacles are on the side of the ship, right? So brush me barnacles is like, "Oh, whoa, slow down there." Chad: It's a little abrasive, yes. Chad: Jordan really sounded like he understood Talroo's game, but we wanted to hear his pirate dialect range at work. Check this out. Pirate: Talroo with a partner what makes us a force on the high seas. They be deliverin quality hires, less scurvy and nobody be touching their candidate to hire rates. Pirate: I be loving Talroo. They be staffing me for years now with crew of the highest caliber. And I mean crew that be ready to set sail. Not some landlubber who be uploadin his resume years ago. Pirate: Talroo data driven job ads that deliver. Arg. Pirate: Ye be poo without Talroo. Ye be walking the plank if you're not be using Talroo for your recruitin needs. Pirate: Don't be a bilge sucking scallywag, avast. Use Talroo hire better. Chad: Now that is impressive. Not just Jordan's dialect, but Talroo's commitment to ensuring that companies looking for hard to find talent, not only find the talent, they find a partner in Talroo who works hard to join and engage their community. Way to go Talroo, this rum is for you. Pirate: Don't be a bilge suckin scallywag. Avast. Use Talroo to hire better. For more information go to: https://www.talroo.com/pirates #Pirate #Talroo

GET READY KIDS – If you’re lactose intolerant THIS is the show for you. That’s right hold the cheese and I’ll substitute w/ some Jimmy Stroud! Chad & Jim tackle - Yahoo!’s newest advertising FAIL, - Amazon goes beyond haptic bracelets – think Big Brother HUD, - Robots making hiring decisions? - Jim believes McDonald’s gives-up cuz their automation game is READY… Don’t forget to tip our peeps at Canvas, JobAdx and Sovren! 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 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: Oh, yeah. There we go. Get ready, kids, if you're lactose intolerant, this is the show for you. That's right, hold the Cheese, and I'll substitute a little Jimmy Stroud. Give it up for Jimmy Stroud, everybody. Jim: Whoo, what's up, what's up, what's up? Chad: That's right. All right, so really excited to have you here today, Jim, and- Jim: Yes sir Chad: ... we'll get right to the show after this word from our friends at Sovren. 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. Chad: Well, yeah, with a voice like that, who would not want to take Sovren to dinner, right? Jim: Yeah, oh, yeah. Chad: So Jim, just in case our listeners have been balled up in the fetal position for a couple of decades and they don't know who you are, why don't you give them a little skinny, a little quick skinny about Jimmy Stroud? Jim: Well, let's see. I have been involved in source and recruiting for, gosh, two decades, worked for such companies as Microsoft, Google, Siemens, hosted startup companies. I've also been the MC over at SourceCon, which is an awesome conference, been doing that for quite a while. Now I am presently the VP product evangelist for ClickIQ, which is the best automated job advertisement platform in my opinion. Chad: No bias, yeah. Jim: It's what all the cool kids who want to automate their jobs are using these days. Chad: Oh, gotcha. Jim: And I am there. So yes. That is me. Chad: Good stuff. Jim: If you want more information, look me up on LinkedIn. Chad: Yep, Jimmy Stroud up on LinkedIn. He's everywhere, by the way. Any social media, he's got like 50 different websites, Jimmy Stroud. If you don't know the guy's face, literally, you've been in a closet somewhere. For listeners, we have a special treat this morning because as we were talking about putting this show together, 'cause Joel is on spring break vacation with the kids, we were talking about some of the fun things that we've been able to do with the podcast, and I said something about El Chapo and you were like, "What?" And I realized at that point you had never heard the El Chapo soundbite from CareerBuilder, from their I think it was SVP of sales or what have you, and for our listeners and for you, I wanted to play this for you, as a special treat. Chad: So listeners, this is the first time Jim has ever heard this. If you haven't heard this, don't laugh too hard, here it comes. El Chapo from I believe it's Jim or John Smith, SVP sales, used to be, over at CareerBuilder. Jim: Okay. CB Sales 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- Chad: They're not sleeping. CB Sales Dude: ... it's not like we're not focused. We actually had a trip done until about three weeks ago. We had a great hotel in Cavo. We had dates confirmed. Chad: What happened? CB Sales Dude: Problem is, Cavo has become completely destabilized. Chad: What? CB Sales Dude: Literally this holiday season, they've had over 50,000 reservations canceled. Chad: No way. CB Sales Dude: Evidently, when El Chapo was incarcerated, the code of ethics that he instilled in Cabo and throughout Mexico has gone away. There's no code of ethics, there's no code of honor. All of a sudden, there is a war for power. Chad: No code of honor, 'cause El Chapo is gone. CB Sales Dude: Drug dealers will actually go into restaurants and shoot up the place. Chad: Shoot up the place. CB Sales Dude: So bottomline is this. I wish I could sit here and tell you we have- Chad: And that's all we got. So tell me that is not some of the funniest shit you've ever heard, Jim. Now this is from an insider who recorded this on their phone or something like that and sent this to us, right? So this was actually a sales meeting and they were trying to get people to understand that hey, look, guess what, we're not gonna do the successors trip or whatever, the president's trip or what have you, because El Chapo is gone. Jim: El Chapo. Chad: So I wanted to do that special for Jim, and obviously it's always special for me too 'cause it's the funniest shit I think I've ever heard. Jim: If something goes wrong or is delayed, I'm gonna blame it on El Chapo. Chad: That's a good point. We should actually do Chad and Cheese shirts that said, "El Chapo did it" or something like that. Jim: El Chapo did it. Chad: That's a good idea, that's a damn good idea. So Jim, are you ready to go to shout outs? Jim: I am so ready. Actually, let me jump in first by giving a shout out to Beverly and Richard. I know they're big listeners. Chad: Oh, yeah. Jim: They're also over at ClickIQ, to them and all my peeps over at ClickIQ, one love. Chad: Love it. So this is funny because right before we stared, a delivery guy with a huge-ass box came to my front door. So my first shout out is going to be to Jim and Thomas over across the pond at Talent Nexus, because they just sent me over a case of craft beer in the mail. I actually received, and I think they just ordered it from here in the States, 'cause that makes a hell of a lot more sense, but to Jim and Thomas from Talent Nexus, beer is on you. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate that. Jim: Straight to Chad's heart. Chad: That's right, you know how it works, guys. You know how it works. Barb Froncillo, I think I'm saying that right, I probably am not, thanks for listening and subscribing, one of our listeners. She's one of those listeners that actually reached out because she went to the website and noticed that a link wasn't working, and then it got me thinking on the subscribe side of the house, and I thought, "You know what? I can make this shit easier." So I did. But I wouldn't have if it wouldn't have been for Barb actually reaching out and saying, "Hey, your shit's broke," right? Chad: So thanks, Barb, appreciate you taking the time. JZ over at SmashFly, dude, thanks for coming down and spending the day with Chad and Cheese, mostly a day with Chad and Julie, because Cheeseman is lame. JZ, so do you know JZ over at SmashFly? Jim: Is he married to Beyonce? Chad: I don't think so. No, that's a different Jay-Z, yeah. Different guy. I like that, though. He came down, had some beer, pizza, shot a video announcing that Chad and Cheese are gonna be at Transform onstage. Then we spent the day doing what we do, drinking beer, talking recruitment, employment branding, and finishing off the night with cigars and bourbon. So it was a good time had by all. Jim: It's a hard life, it's a hard life you lead. Chad: Not easy being Chad and Cheese. Jim: It's not. Chad: Big shout out to Steven Rothberg, because he's playing this debate on Twitter with me, and you've heard about how Facebook is dumbing down their advertising tool. Have you heard about this? Jim: I have heard about that, very interesting. They're taking away the ability to target a certain age and I think also sex or something like that? Men and women? Chad: Yeah, it's people with disabilities, so if you want more insights on that whole thing, just listen to last week's March 21st podcast entitled "Indeed's Australian Meltdown," but just to move forward with it real quick, I'm not happy with Facebook because this, I believe, is dumb as hell. You are dumbing down a tool that is surgically helping companies find the types of individuals that they want, and they're dumbing it down because of the bad actors, not the good actors, the bad actors. So they're actually taking strength and power away from companies who want to use this tool in the right way. Chad: Here's what pisses me off: not only are they dumbing down the too, but they're not doing what they should be doing in the first place, which is policing their own damn system. They should be vetting advertisers and they should be auditing the content that goes into that system, and Steven doesn't believe that's the case. He said you can't really expect a platform like Facebook to vet every job ad. Well, this is bigger than job ads, Steven, first and foremost. And if you did attempt to vet, how exactly would you do that? Well, they have more PhDs over there than I can even think of, and if they can't figure that out, they shouldn't have a freaking platform to be able to make billions of dollars in the first place. But if a bigot wants to discriminate against black people, would you trust them to be honest about their hiring intentions? Chad: Okay, so totally get that, and that's a lot to unpack, but really quick, the thing is, Steven, this is on both sides. First and foremost, you have a responsibility as a platform owner to police, audit, and vet, to ensure the individuals who are using said platform aren't getting fucked. That's not cool, dude. You can't say that if a job site allows all these jobs, then how are we supposed to know which jobs are good and which jobs are bad? Dude, that's why you vet. That's why you go through this process, right? First and foremost. Second, if you have a company who is using bias practices, right, that's what the OFCCP and EEOC are for. They come in and they do those audits against the employer, not against the platform, against the employer, and then they enforce regulations against the employer. Chad: There are two sides of the coin here. So I think it's important, great shout out to Steven, thanks for pushing the conversation, but I think this needs to be articulated more. So what do you think about this piece, Jim? Because it's really hard for me to see a company like Facebook with all the money that they make to say that they can't find a way to vet and audit. What do you think? Jim: I think it's a way of getting around potential regulations coming down from the government. 'Cause it's more of a I think a political standpoint and this is just an aspect of it. Because if they are the public square, as they purport to be, then it's free speech, everybody come say what you want, do what you want, it's totally free. But if they are editors, then they are subject to certain regulations, and I think they don't want their hands to be tied in other ways. So I think they're straddling the fence with this defense. Chad: I think they're making the wrong decision obviously in taking away the power of the tool that they actually have, and doing that instead of what they should be doing in the first place. Because this change that they're making still doesn't meet the obligations that they have to ensure that the individuals using their platform are not bad actors. Jim: I think everyone's gonna be looking at them, because whatever Facebook does, I'm sure Twitter follows suit and everyone else as well. Chad: Yeah, and that also pisses me off because when they dumb down their platform and their tools, then stupid politicians are gonna go, "Oh, yeah, there you go. Facebook did it, everybody else should do that." No, it was the wrong answer in the first fucking place. This to me is a diversion and it hurts everybody. So that's all I have to say about that. I'll give you the last word on that one. Jim: Keep an eye on this new law that I think is being passed in the UK, something like that, where it's being called a link tax, which is also something really crazy which just sort of reminds me of this. Okay, so if you are Google and I do a search for pinto beans, I don't know why I went to pinto beans, but- Jim: I want protein, right? And so I do a search and I do a link to the New York Times is doing a report on pinto beans. Well, because Google linked to the New York Times, they would have to pay a link tax. And so even though they're sending free traffic to the New York Times and an article, they have to start paying for it. Now I bring that up because it concerns me because today is about a news story. What if Google would have to start paying for links to job boards or anything else? It can be a real damage to the Internet overall. Chad: Yeah, that's what happens when politicians get involved in shit they don't understand. It's easy to tell politicians something because they don't have any expertise in this arena as it is. Move on to one of our favorites, Elena Valentine, CEO over at Skill Scout. She wants to bring Snoop Dogg to an HR conference near you. Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Jim: No, but I know the after party will be lit. Chad: That's what I'm talking about, right? So here's the thing. We want to support Elena, we want to support this, right? It's HR for Snoop. Go to skillscout.com/, one word, hrforsnoop, and show some support. Because having Snoop at an HR event, I mean, come on. Who gives Martha Stewart more cred than Snoop, right? Right? Jim: Is the conference in Colorado, by chance, or some other place- Chad: I'll tell you right now, that would be a great way to lure Snoop anywhere, right? Jim: Yeah, for our listeners across the pond, marijuana is legal in Colorado and a few other states now. So it would have to be one of those states. Chad: Maybe Portland, who knows. More Oregon action. I mean, it's pretty lit. So last shout out goes to our UK listeners, thanks for the intel about Indeed. Joel and I weren't sure if Indeed was spending a type of mad cash on radio and TV and shit like that that they are in the U.S., and we have received a resounding, "Yes, they fucking are, and we're sick of it," kind of a thing. Indeed is spending tons of cash in the UK to do advertising and we also have a UK rumor that I want to throw out there. Apparently ZipRecruiter UK pissed off reed.co.uk, which is tallied as the number one job site in the UK. Chad: So what happened was Reed dropped Zip as a partner because they were sick and tired of Zip going straight to Reed's clients instead of working through them. Sound familiar? Sound familiar? Instead of going to the agency, we're going around the agency. Same kind of shit, just different players. So I thought that was interesting. Jim: Yeah, follow that story. Chad: Events, so we're gonna be at SHRM Talent in Nashville, followed by StaffingTec, which is actually just across the town, the same week in Nashville, so if you're going to be there look us up. Don't forget also we're going to be at TAtech recruitment marketing summit in Chicago and just announced, Chad and Cheese onstage, RecFest, London, July, you gotta fucking be there. That's gonna be awesome. Jim: Nice. Nice. Nice. Chad: Can't wait for that one. Jim: I fully expect that when you get ready for RecFest that you would have upgraded your swear words and you'll start using more English swear words going forward after that. Chad: Yeah, you know, I actually had one of my friends say, "You know, you're really going to have to start doing that," and I don't think ... That's just not us. People listen to us because we're authentic. They want to hear the dumb yanks come over, right? So that's who we're gonna be. We're not gonna try to be somebody who we're not. You're gonna get what you listen to. So that's that. Jim: That's cool. So I did wanna hear that this ATS is rubbish. Chad: No, not once we're just ... Maybe Joel. And last but not least, on the event side of the house, a T-shirt merch. Remember, Chad and Cheese is traveling with Shaker Recruitment Advertising, look for Shaker backpacks on us, because in those backpacks will be our first limited edition Chad and Cheese T-shirts. We only have 100 of them, so when we say limited edition, we're not fucking with you. We're gonna be giving away anywhere from 10 to 15 per show, thanks to emissary.ai, check out emissary.ai because texting makes recruiting easier. No shit. It seriously does. Chad: But no kidding, we only have about 100 T-shirts, we're only gonna give away so many per event. Get your T-shirt, it's gonna be pretty freaking cool. And if you wanna find out where we're going to be because you want a T-shirt or maybe you just want to buy us a beer, which I would enjoy, go to chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right hand corner, and you will see our 2019 world tour list of events. Jim: Nice. Chad: Good stuff, good stuff. Good, are we ready to do this thing, ready to jump into the first topic? Jim: Yes, yes indeed. Chad: All right, let's do this. Okay, so the first topic, I sent this to you this morning and I thought it was funny as hell, because Yahoo! ... Jim: Yahoo! Chad: You're doing it all wrong. You're doing it all ... So you hadn't seen this ad before I sent it to you. So did you get a chance to just kind of glaze over it? Jim: A little bit. Go over it for the listening side. Chad: Okay, so there's this ad from Yahoo! that focuses on the job-seeker Yahoo! search, or the job search on Yahoo, right? And so what it says is, "Job seekers can use Yahoo Search to start their job hunt," and then it has arrows down and it says, "Search for job posting sites." Jim: Yeah, I remember now. Chad: The ad, the actual picture in the ad, is a dude wearing a hoodie pulled over his head and he's breaking into a house. Jim: Yeah, I had this Scooby Doo look on my face, like huh? I totally did not get what they were doing with that. Chad: Below it, it says thousands of companies are hiring right now. It's like, what am I hiring for? What the fuck is going on? Jim: Yeah, yeah. Maybe you're hiring for the mafia, I don't know. It's kind of weird. Chad: This is a message to Yahoo, this isn't the first time, but you're doing it wrong, guys. You're doing job search wrong. Jim: I don't get this at all. Chad: So yeah, I thought that was kind of funny. Started off with, we'll be sharing that on the Facebook page and Twitter and whatnot. But you had a couple of stories around AI, which I think is actually your first love. In the first one, it talks about the robots are hiring. I think it was Wall Street Journal or something like that. Jim: Yeah, yeah, they were talking about this company called DeepSense, which is based in San Francisco and India, and what they do is they help hiring managers scan people's social media accounts to surface what they're calling underlying personality traits. Chad: What the hell does that mean? Jim: So the company can scientifically assess your personality based on what they find about you online. Chad: Okay. Jim: So if they know that tech nerds are kind of quirky, the ones that are really, really good tend to be quirky, then their tests will say, "Hey, these people are more in line with the culture of your company, so you may want to pursue them as well," in addition to how greatly skilled they are. So when I read that, I thought, "Okay, this is interesting." Chad: Yeah… Jim: Culture fit is like a hot buzz word, if you want to play HR buzz word bingo over here, cultural fit would definitely be high on that list. And so I thought, "Okay, I could see why a company was formed to do something like this," but at the same time my Spidey sense was kind of vibrating a little bit as well. Because I'm thinking okay, so culture fit, you got your matching algorithms and you have somebody who, according to the algorithms, they are, I don't know, an advocate for Bernie Sanders, just to go political. Or maybe they're against abortion, also to stay political. Jim: And so that would determine that you're not a cultural fit, because you think that transgender people should be precluded from a position, say, at, I don't know, Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A or some other organization like that, I'm not saying that's the case, just throwing it out. Or somebody's super conservative, maybe the algorithm would say, "Well, you're not welcome over here at Google or Apple or other companies" because they tend to be more left leaning. So I can see how this could have a good intention, but could be used unintentionally for evil. Chad: Now doesn't this seem like hyper AI machine learning group think? Jim: Yeah. Chad: Doesn't it? It just seems like yay, we want to hire the same fucking people over and over, and it's funny because in my time in compliance, I can't believe I'm actually saying that, in my time serving in some aspects of compliance, one of the companies used to talk about bias from the standpoint of employee referrals, and friends of Bob. Well, friends of Bob generally always look like Bob, right? And that's from a biased standpoint, you start to build your company around a bunch of Bobs, right? Where are the Julies? Where are the Evelyns? Where's the cultural, where's the gender, where's all the diversity at? This to me really lends to the possibility of crazy amounts of bias. Jim: You know, a good example of what you're saying illustrated is what Amazon did with their algorithm and how it was excluding women from it, because they based their algorithm based on people who worked there, who were predominantly men, and it looked at their schools and unintentionally it was excluding women from the process. So they said, "Whoops, our bad," and they scrapped the system. My overall thought on this, and it's not to poo-poo DeepSense, because maybe their heart's in the right place, you always need a human being in the loop. You always need a person to look things over to ensure that the machine is giving you what you intend for it to give you. Chad: It's not just what you intend for it to give you, it's also what they're not excluding people that you don't intend to be excluded. And that's what happened with the Amazon algorithm is that they didn't intend to, or they say, they didn't intend to exclude females, but the algorithm saw their hiring practices, and this is the big key here. If an algorithm is only learning from a stupid human that is already biased in the first place, then what the fuck is the algorithm good for? What's the algorithm good for if it's just going to mimic what a human being's doing? That's not what we want, right? We want to be more blind in our hiring process, and we can't do that if we're teaching an algorithm to think like us. Jim: Yeah, automating your bias on a huge scale. You need to have ... A job of the future I think will be algorithm auditor. Chad: There's gonna be a lot of money there because ... Jim: Oh, yeah. Chad: Because what we've seen is the OFCCP has statisticians on staff, so what they do is they understand that statistically, you should have a breakdown of X or Y in Omaha, Nebraska, right? And if you don't meet that, the statisticians know that. And the OFCCP pivoted to that because they better understood talent acquisition, not the way that they should, but they understood the statistics of it. They will also, and my prediction is, they will also do exactly what you're talking about, which will spawn an entirely new industry, which is consultants coming in, auditing algorithms, doing a statistical test on the not just the talent that is coming in for jobs to ensure that you're getting a diverse talent pool, but who are you hiring? Jim: Starting a whole new industry. So this is an example of not necessarily robots or automation taking jobs away, but robots and automation facilitating a whole new job market. The same way Netflix did away with Blockbuster video, but you brought in streaming technologies and all the other stuff that comes with it. So a new industry appeared off of the ashes of Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video, but a whole new jobs came up in its place. Chad: Yeah, but that being said, retail, which is being understaffed as ever right now, is saying that they're understaffed, which obviously there are still human positions that are not being filled because we don't have enough people, but that AI could be the solution to that. That was also something that you brought up that I felt was a really good transition into this AI block. Jim: Yeah, there was this company called Repple, I'm calling it Repple, not to be confused with Ripple. Chad: REPL, I think it is, yeah. Jim: Yeah, REPL Group, it's a UK-based tech firm, and they did this survey, they looked at a thousand U.S. consumers and 500 retail workers to outline consumer expectations of automation in a retail environment. And what they came away with was that a lot of people, consumers and retail workers both, said automation's gonna be key and is gonna take over the retail space and there's gonna be a lot of automated processes. So in this place of so many retail workers will be automated processes, virtual assistance, and virtual reality technology. So things like standing in front of a magic mirror and seeing how a dress looks on you without you actually putting on the dress. Chad: And seeing if it's in inventory, too. Jim: Yes. A lot of that, a lot of that. And actually when I read that, it made me think too about the things McDonald's is doing. McDonald's made a ton ... Well, they spent a ton of money on this company called, what was it called? I want to say Deep Logic or something like that. Dynamic Yield, that's the name of the company, Dynamic Yield. And so what Dynamic Yield does is it's an AI company and they spent $300 million, and they're doing a lot of what I think this AI is gonna be doing in retail, automating a lot of processes. Jim: So in the case of McDonald's, they are personalizing all of their digital menus. So let's say you go up to the digital menu at McDonald's and it shows Big Mac, fries, and shakes, 'cause they have your order history and that's what you like. So if you customize- Chad: Yeah. It can do face recognition too, right? Jim: Face recognition, also, check this out, also the capability of looking at your license plate, which is kind of freaky. Chad: Holy shit. Jim: And so it sees your license plate a mile off and says, "Oh, Chad is coming, cook us some Big Macs." You know? And then if I come up there and they start showing hot cakes because it knows I like the McDonald's breakfast so much. Any time is right for hot cakes. You're right, McDonald's, that's what I always get here. So there's that. Chad: This is like Blade Runner shit, right? Jim: It's sort of like when the Minority Report, when Tom Cruise has his eyes have been changed out. Chad: Replaced, yeah. Jim: And he walks through the shopping mall and they go, "Hello, Mr. Yamamoto, here's your food and your suit." That kind of stuff. And so although in reading this at one angle, the first reaction I think a lot of people will see is, "Okay, that's automation robots taking jobs away again," but again, I look at it through a different lens and I see how this automation is gonna birth new industries. So like in the case of the retail, I can see McDonald's doing the same thing, 'cause I guess they're basically retail. I see these kind of places, maybe not employees because of automated processes, but sparking a new industry like having events, right? Jim: So imagine you have this dress store, this clothing boutique, right? And you have all these automated processes where people can buy stuff themselves buy clicking the kiosk, whatever. Whatever flew you up to have an event and know your customers better, you can encourage impulse buying. You get a chance to do more social sharing and get the attention of a new audience out there. You get to say thank you to your existing customers who show up to your event and make them feel like VIPs. And then most importantly, you gather data on people there and what they're looking at, what they like, so you can use it for a future promotion. Chad: Well from my standpoint, the whole retail piece and what I read in the story and it makes sense is that the retail, the actual just checkout, isn't really that valuable and if you can check yourself out, like you go to the Kroger and you can check yourself out, you can allow a person, one person instead of several people, actually engage customers and not have to worry about are you getting the barcode right, you know what I mean? So it perspectively helps the customer experience and make things better for companies who are having issues right now because to be quite frank, we don't have enough people to fill the jobs. Chad: So that's a big issue. But on the other side, I'm gonna go ahead and transition, and believe it or not, Jim, Amazon is doing it again. What exactly, we'll tell you on the other side of this break. We're gonna hear a word from our Guinness buddies over at 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, 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. Chad: So, Jim, Amazon plans for AR goggles that track workers. What the hell ... Are haptic bracelets not enough these days for these guys? Jim: I think what Amazon is doing is they're trying to turn their workers into robots, it seems that way, right? Instead of being afraid of robots taking your jobs, they're just gonna turn you into a robot. This is what Amazon is doing, for those of you who don't know. They have a patent where people will put on these augmented reality goggles. So if you ever played Pokemon GO, you now the concept, or if you were ever on Facebook Messenger and you make somebody's face have stars on them or something, that's augmented reality, putting some kind of computer visual over your face through your camera so it looks like you're turning into an elf or something but you're really not. Jim: So anyway, you put on these goggles and so you put on these goggles and the goggles will say, "Okay, go left, go right, this is the box you're looking for," that kind of thing. It'll be able to direct you through their vast warehouse and it'll be like your, I'm dating myself, the Great Gazoo, a little helper on your shoulder to tell you ... Chad: It's like a heads up display. Jim: Yeah, yeah. Chad: It's like if you're a fighter pilot and you have the heads up display in the cockpit, it's like a heads up display. Jim: And so and one aspect is cool in that way, especially if you're new to their process, you're a new worker, you don't really know what's going on, and they say, "Okay, go figure it out." Put on the goggles and the goggles will walk you through things. So one hand, it's good because I can see how it could increase worker efficiency, that kind of thing. But on the other side, putting on these goggles would allow Amazon to know where you are and what you're doing at all times. So you won't be able to breathe. If you have 'em on when you're going to the bathroom, I wouldn't advise it. I wouldn't advise it. Jim: If you have something disparaging to say about your employer or manager, you may not want to say it while the goggle are on or while somebody else's goggles are on. Chad: That's crazy, dude. Jim: It's Big Brother in the office. It's kind of kind of scary Chad: Yeah, so again, the haptic bracelets that we saw that they were using in the UK in the warehouse, they pretty much had a sensor knowing exactly where you were too, and if you weren't close to the quote-unquote "box" or your area, the haptic bracelet would go off. So this is like, they're taking that like 25 steps further and literally, this could be your Big Brother eyes on your face. Yes, it's helping you from a heads up display standpoint, the box is over here, they have bar code scanners build in so all you have to do is look at the box to understand whether that's the box you're looking for or not. There's some really cool things to be able to help somebody do their job. Chad: But the other side of it, and knowing Jeff Bezos, for god's sakes, yeah, the Big Brother aspect is looming large. Jim: I think he's just biding his time. I know that they've bought this robot company, I forget the name of it, so that they can better automate their warehouses, and I think all the bad publicity they're getting for how they're treating their workers is gonna blow over because year by year, they're gonna start hiring less workers and just let more machines take their place. I mean, I know from year over year, they've hired less workers doing their Christmas rush, I do know that much. So they're going to turn more and more into these automated processes and take away the headache and the ... Jim: I noticed too that although they've gotten some bad press for how they're treating their workers, people aren't stopping their shopping with Amazon. So I don't know if it's hypocritical of people who are complaining, because ... Chad: It is hard. Jim: They've not stopped shopping. Chad: It is and it's hard, just 'cause it's so easy to find what you want, to have everything, not to mention ... I actually returned a phone case because I just bought a new phone and I got the wrong size case, and all you had to do was take a bar code in to UPS, they scanned it, and away it went. It was too easy to do a return. Hell, it was easier than going to Kohl's and doing it. It was too easy. So yeah, they're making the friction, especially the human friction, so much less, but then there's also ... Bezos is looking for reasons to actually be more automated, and one of the ways is through the force of raising wages to $15 an hour, right? They made that choice but you also see that looming as when they have an opportunity, they can say, "Look, we had to pay more, it was more efficient, it just made sense." Chad: But it's interesting, we just saw a CNN business article that said McDonald's, who has been fighting this whole $15 wage increase, is giving up. Did you see that? Jim: Yeah, yeah, and that tells me that they have their automation game on point. 'Cause okay, ClickIQ had a product day in London that I was privileged to be a part of, and then that product day, I gave the spiel about the fight for 15, which is the minimum wage going on, and I ran off different reasons why that was good and why it was bad and why it's ultimately gonna hurt workers I think, and so in the case of McDonald's, my saying the automation game is on point, I shared on one of my podcasts, the Jim Stroud podcast, how McDonald's has these automated kiosks, so how they basically work is you walk into McDonald's, you press a button for your Big Mac, you slide your credit card through, and then you walk up to the counter, somebody gives you your food. Right? Jim: That's on the inside of the store. I could easily imagine that being on the outside of the store in the drive through as well, especially if they can personalize the menu. So McDonald's is saying, in my opinion, I don't know, I don't speak for McDonald's, but I think the crown is saying, "Okay, we'll pay you $15, but instead of seven people working in the McDonald's, we're only gonna have two people work in the average McDonald's. So paying two people $15 an hour is easier than paying seven people $15 an hour because of our automation process, so once we've bought all these machines and they're in place, it works for me, so yeah, we'll go ahead." Jim: And by doing that, they can say, "We're sensitive to the workers and yes, you're right, we should be giving you $15, so we're gonna do the right thing. We're just not gonna do the right thing for five less people." Chad: Yeah, it's a little horse shit, because it doesn't matter what they're paying those humans, much like Amazon. They're looking to automate to get rid of the human friction in the first place. It's funny, because I can't push the book hard enough, but Peter Weddle wrote a book here recently called "Circa 2118", and it really talks about all of this and how it's happening. And when it starts to unroll, you're thinking, "Holy shit, dude. This is actually happening from a political, from an economic," you see it coming. And for a company like McDonald's to say, "Oh, we give up," you're right. It's because they see the long-term strategy and they understand that from an optic standpoint, if they pay right now, that's really ... They're not gonna have to do that forever because they're gonna automate anyway. Chad: Pepsi is spending billions of dollars to, and they're said it, to automate. They're gonna get rid of human friction. They're gonna use algorithms, they're gonna use automation and guess what? Less people will have fucking jobs. But guess what else? They're having problems filling those jobs. So they have plenty of reasons to say, "Paying them too much, we can't find people. Oh look, robots don't take sick leave." Jim: There's two other problems that have been coming on with that too that I think people don't take into account. One is the damage to the overall company brand, right? So I know there's gonna be some people that have read about this, gosh, I don't remember the name of the company, but it was in Canada, where people refused to use the self-check out lane because it says it takes jobs away from people. So they say, "We come to the store, we will not use these checkout lanes." So the population was so fed up, they won't do that. So I see more stuff like that happening, and so some brands will have to say, "Okay, how much do we automate? Do we automate to the point where we're saving money, that's great, but if we automate too much ... We can't automate, rather, too much, because then it'll make people mad and they won't use the automated stuff, forcing us to employ more people." Chad: Since we're looking at time, and I know everybody's looking to listen and learn and get the hell out, we're gonna go ahead and hear an ad from our friends over at Canvas. Jim: Ooh. 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. 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: Well, Jimmy, that is a lactose intolerant, Cheese-free podcast, so what do you think? What else do you got to share? Jim: Oh, let's see. Well, I want to invite everyone to connect with me on LinkedIn, look me up, LinkedIn/in/jimstroud, J-I-M, S-T-R-O-U-D. If you want to hear more about the wonderfulness that I call ClickIQ, feel free to email me, actually, jim@clickiq.us. Chad: Excellent, guys. We out. Jim: Peace. 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. #McDonalds #Amazon #AR #Yahoo #JimStroud #Robots #AL #MachineLearning

You've just been acquired after being in business for a few short years. What are ya' going to do now? Go on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, of course! Or at least that's what Canvas' CEO and founder Aman Brar decided to do recently. In addition to discussing the Jobvite acquisition, Brar delves into a variety of topic, especially about how starting a recruiting technology wasn't the smartest thing ever. Enjoy. 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 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: Alls I knows you win death match, next thing you know you get acquired. I mean, it's yeah, yeah. Are we rolling? Chad: Yeah. Joel: All right, cool. What's up guys? This is Joel Cheesman of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, here with Chad. Welcome to the post St. Patrick's Day edition of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. We are ironically in an English pub having beers, hair of the dog if you will. But we have a great guest today here in Indianapolis, Aman Brar from Canvas. Aman, welcome to the show. Aman: What's up? Really glad to be here and excited to be hanging at Chatham. Joel: You look excited. So, for those who don't know, one of our first face-to-face interviews was with your company. You were the winner of our first ever death match. Aman: It's true. Joel: And yeah, I think a thank you is maybe in store from you at this point. Aman: You guys got the equity agreements right, before we got acquired, did you guys get those? Joel: Yeah we're still waiting on that check, but that's okay. Aman: Oh okay man. I thought it was in the mail. Joel: By the way, full disclosure, you are a sponsor of the show. Aman: Indeed. Joel: Which I guess is a little bone here or there is nice. He does get the hometown discount, but that's neither here nor there. Aman: It's true. Joel: I'll start with the first question. Jobvite acquisition, how did you and Dan Finnigan, the CEO get together? How did this whole deal go down? Aman: The narrative, we had a lot of interest in the channel. The last company that me and many of the Canvas team members had scaled, we're very channel focused. So we worked well with the ecosystem, we drove deals and drove integration so we ran that same playbook which is a necessary playbook in the HR tech space. Joel: Oh yeah. Aman: So when we were putting the pieces for Canvas together, laying the groundwork, obviously we had a targeted list of partners that we wanted to work with, Jobvite was one of those. So we've been working on cultivating a relationship there which then led to basically them being our first official reseller. So versus just a market place partner, or a referral partner. They launched had product called Jobvite Text powered by Canvas and the negotiating of that agreement, and then the really exciting execution of that. So look, if that wasn't successful we're probably not part of the sports team today. Aman: But it was very successful. The product really took off and made a lot of sense for us to continue. So it was really just through ... Like in most cases I always tell folks I'm talking to, likely you're already doing business with your future acquirer and I think that largely played out in this case as well. Chad: Yeah, so big high five by the way. Aman: Yeah thanks man, appreciate it. It's fun. Chad: Awesome. We love hearing and seeing Indie business just fucking kick ass. Chad: So you said Jobvite Text. Aman: Yeah. Chad: Right? And that's the product. So we talked about this a little over a year ago. If you remember, we were kind of drunk, I think. But are you looking to prospectively change names and roll up under Jobvite and become Jobvite Text? Aman: Well I like my t-shirt a lot with Canvas. Joel: I like them too. Aman: No, in all seriousness it's a complex roll up. So you've got four brands, four companies. I think right now, and I think largely even for their conceivable future, these independent brands make sense and mean different things to different parts of the market. One of the advantages that we have with Canvas brand, or RolePoint might have, or Talemetry might have is we can go through our sales processes without complicating or hitting the trip wires of, "Oh my gosh are we changing our ATS?" Aman: And so I think there's some advantage to just continuing to be who we are, represent what we represent in the market place, knowing that there's certainly going to be those very consultant like synergies that will come into play. But at the end of the day, it's been of great benefit, I think to us, to Text Group, to AllyO, to you name it, to not have to get in the middle of an ATS switch over conversation as part of the sales process. And I think why anybody would want to jump into that really quickly, I don't know, you'd be confusing to me. So I think there's some advantages to continuing to operate how we've been. Chad: Yeah, I mean having a separate product, brand, being able to go after anybody with any applicant tracking system is awesome. Just looking at long term, from a Jobvite standpoint, being able to say, "Look, we have this, you don't." Whatever that applicant tracking system is, it seems like a huge market differentiator. And to be able to bring Canvas into that ... From our standpoint we've talked about this before, it's like you want to use that hammer. How long do you think it's going to take for Jobvite to actually bring Canvas in and say, "Okay this is our hammer?" Aman: I would argue these don't have to be separate things, actually. The second you can run a new playbook that's no longer having the leverage, just your publicly available APIs, you could drive a lot of strategic advantage through an integrated experience, but still go do a lot for the ecosystem. And I think you're also seeing other companies continue down that playbook, so I think the onus on Jobvite, Talemetry, RolePoint, Canvas is to go create a highly differentiated unique experience that delivers a lot to the enterprise. Aman: But it doesn't mean that we need to trade off everything that we're doing today across the ecosystem. And this is largely in the press release. At the end of the day, these roll ups happen largely to go attack the enterprise space, not to go track the SMB space. So again, you might be driving a lot of value and a lot of focus and a lot of sales place to go win that Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 market, but there's still a really big mid market out there where we don't need to be everything to everybody in that mid market, and so I think we're going to continue to see that. Joel: So for the foreseeable future Text recruit will be able to integrate with Jobvite, you'll be integrating with iCIMS, there won't be any sort of friction there. Aman: We've added additional partners conversations since the acquisition, so our integration playbook's still running, we've got two additional integrations that are in process right now. We've done 16 in the last 12 months and we got two more on deck as we speak. Joel: Great. So talk about your growth here in Indianapolis, what you're looking to either from a real estate standpoint or a ramping up employee standpoint. What will it mean for the local economy? Aman: Yeah, this was a really important part of the story for us. Thinking about Indie largely as being one of a small handful of employment centers for the overall entity. So likely by the end of the year, if you think about the combination of current Jobvite plus Canvas, plus Growth, and I think we're easily in the 50+ employees territory, which is becoming significant tech employment headcount. Aman: More importantly, though, I think that's just the 2019 story. I think what's most important is attitudinally, you talk to Dan, you talk to K1, obviously you're talking to me, Indianapolis, as far as leveraging the SAS strength here, is absolutely part of the thesis, and I would say part of why we're part of the story as well. Chad: So was Dan all in with Indianapolis knowing Salesforce is here, TechPoint, there's a lot of growth in the tech sector. Was that hard to sell him on or was it really easy? Aman: I wouldn't say it was a sales process so much as beyond Jobvite. And there's just a tremendous amount of interest in the Midwest right to have a non coastal employment center. And so, I think you saw, Greenhouse make investments in Denver, you're saying lots of companies with additional footprint in India, whether it's Infosys, whether it's Superior, whether my last company Apparatus a acquired by Virtusa. So I think you're just seeing that trend and I think Indie is riding that wave, and then we're fighting for owned it differentiation as a city across a lot of cities that are doing pretty well in tech. But we're doing very, very well. Aman: So I think it was not a sales process, the indie part, I think it just made a lot of sense and was part of the very, very early conversations. And to give Jobvite credit where credit's due, they'd already started investing in Indie prior to the Canvas acquisition as well, because they saw the talent pool here. Aman: So I think what you find is that, okay, you got Canvas, you got the team that's already here, that's probably going to lead to even bigger and better things. So, we're looking forward to that. And I think that's a fun part. It's a fun part of the gig now for us to go from a seed stage company where, as you know we got a lot done across the six of us, seven of us, we just hired- Chad: Dude, lean and mean. Aman: Yeah, lean and mean. Chad: Lean and mean. Aman: So we brought on seven and eight as we were closing the deal. I mean, we got a lot done for such a small team. But we're also very excited for the help, we're looking forward to just going out. Chad: Yeah, just double up on the Jergens and the tissue. Aman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot we'll be doubling up on like more coffee, Chad. Exactly. Chad: So from a reseller standpoint, is everything business as usual or have things changed? I mean, this is a big roll up, man. Aman: It is a big roll up. Chad: This isn't just Jobvite coming in and say, "Canvas, you're my boy, boo. This is Canvas, Talemetry. I mean this is RolePoint. This is big. So from your standpoint, being a part of this big roll up, what's the big priority for you right now? Aman: This sounds cliche, but it's like the most important thing. It's like don't get distracted at the end of the day. I think folks can get distracted, you can start honestly doing too much, too fast without there being an understanding of what really matters to the client, so I think what K1's done a nice job of Jobvite, RolePoint, Talemetry is we kind of operate with this do no harm philosophy. Like, we all have great things going. The goal is to have something great going together. Let's not screw things up in the, in the interim of that step. Aman: So I think it's been a focus on the client experience, like I'm building out the team here, I don't know folks in California needing to interview the folks that I'm hiring. I mean, we're running our playbooks. There are times where I call because I want to get, "Hey, what do you think about this kind of role?" But like it's a very supportive environment across the four companies right now. The CEOs of the four companies, we chat once or twice a week formally and then a lot of a one-off conversation. But it's a lot of just seeking to understand, I would say, like making sure that we're being really thoughtful. I think the part that's been exciting is seeing a Jobvite customer that didn't have Canvas before, Canvas customer that didn't have Jobvite before or even we've got inquiries coming in from even Talemetry folks now saying, "Hey, we're interested in Canvas." Aman: So I think that whole technology integration, conversation is really, really exciting. But I think just start screwing up a really great thing that all of these companies had going is the really important part, on day 1 through 15. Joel: A little bit of a macro question. In your history, you started with Chacha, which for those who don't know was basically you used to be able to text a question into the short code Chacha. I don't know what numbers those were, I'm sure you do. Aman: 242242. Joel: Yeah. And you would actually get a text answer back, sometimes manually. That business is no more, the smartphone killed that business. Do you stay awake at night ever thinking about messaging, texting, losing, or if fatigue setting in because it used to just be, I'd get text messages now I get text messages, I get Facebook messages, LinkedIn messages, Twitter direct messages. I get so many messages that I fear that for businesses that make their living on messaging, maybe there's some fatigue, maybe something else will replace that. Does that keep you up at night, or what are your thoughts on that? Aman: A lot of thoughts on it. I think the first one is, and I mentioned this last time we spoke too, we were very conscientious that text is not part of our name has a company. We really felt like what's really important is that messaging, there's always going to be some sort of messaging, right. Not even applied ZING but sure. But I think we were always thinking about the long game. So you've got messaging, that'll always be important, conversation, that will always be important. And then the medium shift, right? And you've seen my tongue in cheek Vimeo video where I talk about the homing pigeon ... and I think that stuff's true. The recruiters continually have to adapt. There's something really important to understand about these channels right now, which is the way that the APIs for Facebook and WhatsApp and so forth, they don't function the same way as SMS, right? Aman: And so, all these things will continue to be important. Whatever the next messaging app will become important. But ubiquity allows you to do more, just like we, we can do more with email, phone calls and text and those other channels are just scratching the surface of what's capable. If the labor market shifts and it gets a little less tight and the power shifts back to the employers, then you're going to see those other channels take off faster. But the reality is those channels rely on 100% inbound approach. You can't just reach out to somebody on Facebook Messenger and be like, "Hey, are you interested in this opportunity that you applied for?" You can do it on your personal channel, but you can't do that through the B2B API side. Aman: So I think that there's just a lot that has to be worked on, and I'm as confident as anyone that SMS will have a half-life just like other communication platforms have had. I wouldn't say it keeps me up at night. I think we're still in an age where, I mean hell, there's still email marketing technology companies launching, right? And we're on about year 20 of that, so I think we got some runway, but I think it's important to keep our eye on the future and how do we make sure ... We from the beginning it felt like we're a headless application, ultimately. And we chose our first volley to be SMS. But I think you'll find us having that same omni channel approach at the end of the day. That becomes a requirement. Joel: Do you envision any particular headwinds for the 10-digit number text messaging business versus the short code five to six digit where there's more, I guess, legislation around the five to six and that ended still sort of the Wild West. I assume legislation will eventually come to that. What are your thoughts? Aman: Yeah. We want to be part of the solution here. I have a lot of thoughts on this, which is I'm sure at some point in time somebody may come screw this up, and we are absolutely not going to be the entity that does that. So we're very, very careful. Lots of governors in place, we drive organic what we call organic experiences, so there's no list loading any of that stuff in Canvas software. Inevitably this could happen. Someone could jump the shark here and that might require legislation that you would want, that I would want, that others would want. So I wouldn't even argue that I'm anti legislation here. I think, to the degree that this becomes a problem, we should take a look at resolving it. I'm the last person that wants to be bothered via text message as well from something that doesn't feel like it should be there. Chad: Oh yeah. So we know Canvas Bot is out there, right? Talking about messaging, but then there's the whole chatbot, chatbot, chatbot kind of scenario that's out there. So when you're talking to clients today, or even when you were talking to Jobvite, was that something that perks them up to want to have more of a discussion, or was it just really just predicated on the messaging aspect of what you guys do? Because there's a lot of noise that's out there and chatbots are creating a shit ton of noise. Did that help? Did it hurt or did it not even matter? Aman: I would say messaging is the least interesting thing that Canvas does. If f you've missed the plot line, if you think that's what's interesting about what we do, I think it's the tooling and we started rightfully in a world where we thought semi automation was the first way to go in, and you had an inside view on this where ultimately we were structuring the recruiter's side of the conversation through the questions library and those libraries that we'd created. Then we rolled in before we launched recommended answers, so the suggested answer pops up. And then the goal is just, how do you structure the other side of the equation and start to get better data? So ultimately the messaging part, they paid way too much if they acquired us for messaging. I put it that way. Aman: So now let's talk about Canvas Bot. I think our paper is written a little bit differently versus the other papers out there in that we believe the right place to start was a mobile centric experience. And if you're going to talk about mobile centric, we wanted an experience that didn't require an application to be downloaded. I think that if you think you're going to build your business in this labor market, expecting people to be sitting in front of their laptop while they're in a discrete window of time with a little chat bubble window, you're super confused about human behavior right now. Aman: So the reality is that Canvas Bot and the conversational engine that drives it, it's really powerful and people confuse it because they want to see this web windows-based experience. Reality is go try those and let me know what you think about them and ask them any questions that you like, and it'll keep referring you back to the same website that you're already on. It's like, "Hey, how many interns do you hire this year?" "If you're interested in applying, it's at Acme Corporation." I mean, it's just a nonsense experience. I agree, Joel, I hope it gets better over time, but I think what we're trying to say is, "Hey, let's build a bot experience that meets candidates where they are today." That was in our very first marketing material. Aman: And so I think people are missing the plot. If you're building for this web based window experience, you're just missing what's happening right now. And I would argue your bot is very compelling, it's just built for the world that's on your phone, not the one that's on your website right now. Chad: So that being said, the application process sucks. For most companies, when you go directly to an applicant tracking system, when you have to go through and actually rip apart your process because your instituting Canvas, does that start to help companies better understand the shit that they've sent candidates through over the years and really help them focus on user experience? Aman: I think whether it's Canvas, whether it's Talemetry, which that I would argue that was a lot of the value they're bringing to a lot of enterprise Oracle clients. How do you really rethink the UX? I think whether it's us or the 50 other companies that are going to launch this month, I think so much of it is just UX innovation, right? Like how are we going to move the user experience forward? And what we were trying to do was to move the ball forward with regard to this, no app needed experience, we'll take care of plugging the data in to the ATS or to wherever you want it. And I think we're still scratching the surface of what's going to be possible, both inside and outside. And I think sometimes we want to call it an AI revolution or an HR revolution. Really, it's a user experience revolution. Right? Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Aman: I mean, that's really what it is. And I think that's the really important part. And the other side of the equation then is the companies automating what can be automated right now. And we've talked about this, I think too many companies are selling autonomous driving when we still have NC cruise control, and we're just not going to be that company. Chad: So you're not just going to say AI [crosstalk 00:20:32]- Aman: No, and we're not going to tell people our product's going to do things that it doesn't do, and that no one's product really does. One of my things as any of these companies, if their product actually did what they said they did, they couldn't be shy of a $1 billion valuation now. Right? Chad: Right. Aman: It's impossible, right? Chad: Yeah. Aman: So help me understand the $30 million valuation. So I think we're just losing the plot line. We're kind of taking advantage of a buyer that has just a lot of information they're having to sort through right now. But if you think about the technology being sold and the valuations aren't even close to matching up right now. And I think that's the first tell that we have a lot of work left ahead of us. Right? Chad: So, I mean we talked to Dan Finnigan last week, CEO of Jobvite, and we were talking about modeling. And you can't really look at the HR industry to model. And he kept saying sales and marketing and looking at those different types of industries to be able to focus on technology because that's all predicated on revenue. It's all predicated on ensuring that you do have a great candidate experience. Chad: So from a Canvas standpoint, is that where you guys really saw ... because that's exactly what it sounds like you guys are doing. Is that where you guys gelled, and knowing that you had the same kind of focal point? Aman: Yeah, I would say so. I would say that there are lines of even Jobvite's evolution from kind of where they started with social and email, where there's no doubt that that early emphasis on communication and messaging and channel, I think helped us be pretty congruent with how we fit into that overall ecosystem. So I do think that Jobvite saw many pieces of this pretty early, and I think we helped fill in a missing piece to that story. Aman: But I think messaging, again, it's really the least interesting thing. It's the engine behind it. Joel: I have a couple of, I guess, I'd call rapid fire. We'll see what your answers are like to see how rapid that is. [crosstalk 00:22:44] Yeah, I'm totally a motivated. Joel: One of the first things I got on you about when we first met was your domain, gocanvas.io. Does the extra funds give you the ability to like go get a real URL at this point? Aman: It's a great question. I'd like to spin this another way, Joel, I'd like to let all the young kids out there that want to start a startup just know that you can have a really shitty URL and still go crush it. So how about that? That's the way I like to answer that question. Joel: Boom! Okay. That's not the only one. Yeah, I know. What was the price tag for Canvas? Aman: It was $1.7 billion. Joel: Tongue in cheek on that one. They raised 200 million for the three acquisition. So I'll let my listeners do the math on that one. Aman: Obviously can't articulate the no, I was totally ready for it. Joel: And then lastly from me, because I'm getting hungry. You have a history of starting companies, being a part of companies, selling and then getting out in a fairly short order of time. Should we expect the same out of your experience at Canvas? Are you dedicated to the long haul with seeing this company for the marathon, are you in it to get it up and running and going and then up to your next startup? Aman: I'll give my honest, but what you may deem to be, political answer. When we sold Apparatus, I didn't have a specific timetable. I wanted to finish the job. And I will tell you, like right now I don't have ... I mean, here's a part of the contract I can tell you. I'm not here today because I have to be here today and I'm not working at [crosstalk 00:24:26] Canvas today ... more broadly. To me, the work's not done, and to me, life's about a collection of interesting experiences. A, let's go fulfill some destiny that's still left with Canvas. Two personally, right, I'll make it personal, I like learning and if I wake up today and say, "Where can I learn more?" Would it be conjuring up my next idea on a piece of paper or working to figure out what a four-company integration opportunity looks like. Aman: And so I think for me, the business problem and the opportunity is still really, really interesting. And when I wake up one day and I'm like, "Oh man, I think it could be more interesting elsewhere," then maybe that happens. But I would tell you right now we're not there. Now with that said, if after this podcast Dan's like, "I don't like what you just said on that," and he fires me, then maybe I'm off to my next thing. But no, I think the job's not done. And when it is done, I'm sure we'll all be hearing about it, but right now it's not. Joel: So piggyback on that, and I'm inspired to ask another question. Chad and I've been doing this for a long time and we've seen companies come and go. And there seems to be an underlying fact that people who come in that aren't of this industry tend to not last very long in this industry. You are a rare exception and success story. So for anyone that's looking to come into HR tech or recruiting solutions, what advice would you give them as someone who was, I guess, an outsider to our industry? What advice would you give them to being successful in our space? Aman: Sometimes I get as far as writing the first sentence of a blog post when I never write. But I will tell you this, so let's just write it in real time. To your point, had I really understood the space, I don't think I would have launched Canvas. Do you know what I mean? I think it would have felt like too impossible to me. And I actually think that the ignorance- Chad: Is that an adoption type of thing or what? Aman: Yeah, I think it's an adoption thing. I think the buyers, it's a very different buyer than [crosstalk 00:26:23] we've talked about this- Chad: So reticent, right? Aman: Yeah. It's reticent, it's complicated. I think you've got this emerging group of HR leaders that the rest of the leadership team is still catching up to understand that this has to be a really important part of their business. Here's an example that I talk about often. If a CEO is working on their next round of financing, they're right there with the CFO at the bank, right? Chad: Yeah. Aman: If you're working on fixing a shortfall in your sales plan for the year, what's the next big pitch I can go to with the sales VP? But, for all the talk that CEO's do about talent, what's the first thing they even know about their talent pipeline? When's the last time they showed up on a college campus? So I think part of it is, is that, look, a lot of people want to go blame HR leaders. I don't think that's the case. I think CEOs are kind of full of shit when it comes to talent. They talk about it. They don't spend nearly as much time understanding that except when it's in the papers to talk about, I got a shortage of this or I need grant money for that. Chad: It's a canned quote or something. Aman: Yeah. But they don't really go work on the problem. And so I think that then creates a larger challenge as a SAS company because these are fake dollars in the paper, right? Chad: Yeah. Aman: These aren't real dollars that they actually want to spend. So I'm really glad we did it and I'm actually glad I came into it ignorant of that because I think when we were building companies in the past, the only reason we were successful is because of our focus on talent. We were obsessed with it, and at Apparatus we were obsessed with it. So I just took for granted that that same obsession existed at the leadership level, and I really don't think it does. I think it does in the newspapers and it does when it's convenient, but it really doesn't when it comes to the blocking and tackling the running of a company. Chad: So it seemed from the outside that you guys were hyper focused on exactly what you were trying to get done in the platform. You weren't trying to pivot every six months. And that's hard, especially when their perspective investors out there and companies are saying, "Hey look, I'll give you some cheddar if you do x, y, or z." What, and again, back to Joel's point for all those other startups that are out there, what can you say about startups and really being disciplined and not getting into pivot mode? Aman: We should start getting a little bit of a allergy to that word. There's a couple of things that happen there. One is not enough thoughtful research before you launch. And I think not enough like iteration, so getting the product in your hands. I think sometimes we want to maybe blame the customer, that they don't get it and therefore we pivot versus just going, "Hey, what's not right about my platform yet?" And sometimes you can just be one minor ingredient off to make that cupcake tastes great. I think there's a lot of companies out there that- Chad: Instead of scrapping [crosstalk 00:29:19]- Aman: That's exactly right, that just probably needed to keep listening. And I think we loved being so small because we were so raw and close to our customer and client all the time and we're naming features after recruiters and having a really great time doing that. But I think that too many folks maybe pivot to early, easy to say for the person who didn't pivot and had an exit, so I recognize that. But I do think that there's, I think we should have some fortitude about what you're trying to do. Aman: One of the ones that were always fending off was, go become a sales marketing company. Take this, this is unbelievable platform. We had clients asking, "Could I use this for our customer care op?" "Could I use this to communicate with our clients?" And we just kept saying no. And the reason we said that was our value was in the tightness of the relationship we were creating between the recruiter and us. And were just like, that's it. Nothing else really mattered. And we'd always joke maybe five years down the road, yes. But right now we can't do that. Chad: Aman, I would like to thank you. Another high five. Aman: Yeah, thanks. Chad: Great to see this happen. Joel is over here withering away, so we need to get lunch and probably some whiskey. Aman: Yes. We win Joel Cheesman’s shittiest company to ever launch and have amazing exit with gocanvas.io. That's gocanvas.io. Now keep in mind, little ones out there that are going to launch a company. You can absolutely crush it. Deal with Joel knocking on your URL every day. But I will tell you right now, I'm glad I never spent the money on it. I'm glad I spent it on amazing people and customers. Thank you very much. Joel: We out. Chad: Boom. 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 checkout our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Canvas #Jobvite #CEO #UX #EmployerBrand #process #Texting #Messaging #Acquisition

How do small companies achieve CULT BRAND status? Meet James. He's The Custodian of Culture and Chief Idea Officer of one of the fastest-growing private companies in Canada - Fiasco Gelato. And on this Uncommon exclusive, the boys dig into the secrets that have helped make his company one of the fastest growing in North America. Check it 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: 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. 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 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? 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. Bubble up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: It's pronounced Boettcher? Chad: Boettcher. Yeah. Boettcher. Joel: Boettcher. 'Cause if I do it wrong, I could get Canadian death threats or something. Chad: It doesn't matter, 'cause we do it all of the time. Joel: Just say, "Sorry" after. Chad: Yeah, and this is, it's an explicit podcast, so say whatever you want. Joel: All right. We're recording, right? Yeah? Okay. Hey, what's up, guys? This is Cheese from the Chad and Cheese podcast, HR's most dangerous. You know us, you love us. What's up? From the, I don't know, what are we calling this? The Banff series of podcasts, I guess? Chad: I think you call it the Branff series, but yeah, it's the Banff. Joel: It looks like a Bramff. Chad: It's Banff. Joel: You know when a girl is a Lisa, but she looks more like a Susan? Anyway, yeah, this place looks more like a Bramff to me. Chad: The gathering, dude. Joel: But anyway, we are honored to welcome to the show James Boettcher. Did I say that correctly? James: You got it. Chad: Damn. You never get that shit right. Joel: James, no one on our show will know who you are, so you're a virgin. You're virgin territory for everybody here. James: I love it. I love it. Joel: James is the "Custodian of Culture and Chief Idea Officer" at a fairly well renowned Gelato shop here in Canada. Not in the US yet, right? James: Not yet, and not so much a shop ... We're in about 3,000 retailers across the country. You can pick it up and take it home with you. We've got one shop. It's our gelato factory and coffee bar. It's like Willy Wonka meets Google. Joel: Not to put the pressure on you, but I've been promised that you're the best interview here at the show. James: Oh, shoot, sorry to disappoint already. Chad: Oh, [crosstalk 00:03:36] expectations. Joel: You have a really interesting story of how you got started. You're a Calgary guy, born and bred. Bleed this city to the bone. Give our audience a little bit about you, how you got started, and then, we'll go into the business and your employees, and whatnot. James: Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, born and raised here in Calgary, Alberta. A huge Flames fan, and we didn't have too much growing up, so- Joel: That's a hockey team, by the way. James: Yeah, Calgary Flames, for all the- Joel: For some of those down [crosstalk 00:04:03] down south of the border. James: Yeah, there you go. Chad: Stupid Americans, I swear. James: Yeah, so my whole life, I've sort of had this innate desire to sort of go get what I want. At a young age, we didn't have too much cash, so digging through dumpsters for coke cans to take back to the bottle depot or shoveling walks was the real deal. Joel: I'm glad you didn't say food. James: Yeah, no. Joel: At least you have cans to recycle. James: Yeah, yeah. Joel: I was like, "Man, this is a real sad story." James: Yeah. It's not so sad. It's just about doing whatever it takes, right? Joel: It's about hustling. You're a hustler, from what I've [crosstalk 00:04:37], up to this point. James: There you go. There we go. Yeah, so always doing something on the side. I started this little design company called Paperback Design when I was in my high school days to help make some money. I'd moved out when I was 15, and kind of needed to pay rent, and one of my clients was this company called Fiasco Gelato. Fast forward to 2008, 2009, and the owner of the company was busy doing other things, and said you love this company a little bit more than I do. Why don't you take it over? The problem was, was I had $1,800 in my bank account, and- Joel: By the way, we have a lot of hip, young kids that listen to the podcast, so something really bad happened around 2008 that maybe created opportunity for you. James: Yeah, so I'm about to take over the shop, and the guy's name is Matt, and Matt says, "Hey, do you want to take it over?" I'm like, "I'm like $1,800." We did a handshake deal to repay $100,000 over three years. Joel: Only in Canada. James: Yeah, so I borrowed $5,000 from my aunts, and $5,000 from my good friend, Chris, and we were doing some light renovations to reopen Fiasco 2.0. Someone threw a brick through the front window of the store before I'd ever made five bucks in the shop. Matt came to me, and he still had the lease and insurance in his name, and he said- Joel: So much for all Canadians being nice. James: Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Canadian, no. Chad: One of those tourist Americans. Joel: Yeah, yeah, fly through. "I hate gelato." James: Let's get them. Let's get them. Joel: Ice cream. James: Yeah, so in this moment, I kind of had to decide if I was going to just let it go, or sail on, and said if not now, then when? Rebuilt the store, and was there for five months. Kicked ass, and then, the landlord came by and said, "Great job. You're going to pay double." Joel: Oh, Jesus. James: Being 25, and not great at math, I still knew double was bad. Shut her down, and put everything in storage. Joel: It's one thing to take over a shop, and sell sugar, ice sugar. James: Yeah, yeah. Joel: I assume you had employees. James: Yeah, we had a few. Joel: Had you managed people before? Was this a nightmare? Talk about that. James: Yeah. I kind of got thrown into managing people when I was in high school. I worked at this grocery store called DeBaggis, and I was the assistant store manager at 17 years old. I had to basically manage people that were always older than me. What I learned in those moments was clear communication being effective, but I also learned that I actually had an innate ability to lead people, and playing on sports teams when I was younger, and whatnot, I started to see this emergence. Fast-forward to running my own company, and we had to bring people in. James: No one really knew what the company had, from an HR perspective, 'cause we didn't, we didn't have an HR person. We didn't have an HR manual. It was just like, "Do you want to come scoop ice cream? It's going to be a good time." I think a lot of people came to Fiasco in the early days because the brand had a bit of swagger to it. It was kind of sexy. No one really knew what gelato was, still, but they wanted to have the tasty ice cream, or the unique ice cream. James: But as this whole thing happened, when the fire happened, and then, we had to close the store, it was a difficult time, and I think I learned a lot about how to let people down easy. I kind of made a promise I would never lay people off. Everyone that worked in the company at that time, we found them other opportunities when we basically closed it down in 2010, and then, three or four months later, when I reopened, I called all these people back, and said, "Hey, we're putting the band back together. Do you want to come join the cause again?" That loyalty, employee zero-zero, one of the first person that ever worked for me, Brittany Back, is still a part of the company today, which is a testament to kind of some special things. Joel: Would you say there was more loyalty to Fiasco, the brand, or was there a newfound loyalty to you, the new owner? Or, both? James: Maybe a hybrid of both, that the intersection is a grandiose vision that if we can dream it, we can do it kind of thing, so yeah. Joel: Now, you take over a store. Then, something really bad happens, natural disaster style to Calgary. Talk about that. James: Right. Yeah, so shop opens, shop closes. It's these peaks and valleys of emotion, all the time. I try to recall those moments of how hard it was, when I think things are hard now. But we're feeding a lot of our fans through restaurants and cafes, and in 2013, the Alberta floods happened up here. Half the province is under water. We lose 40% of our business overnight. Accidentally, we put it out to the community we want to help. Again, being born and raised here, we wanted to do something, and it's in our DNA. We ended up launching these two glass jars in the Calgary co-op that were called two by two, rebuild the zoo. Co-op was so ecstatic that A, we showed up for the community, and sold 12,00 jars that were all hand-filled, 10 liters at a time. Joel: I saw what he did there, with the two by two save the zoo. That was our [crosstalk 00:09:23]. James: Yeah, yeah. I like that. It's good, right? Joel: I'll say. Chad: He's a good Catholic. James: After that, co-op was like, "Great job. What's next?" I had this clear jar. I was obsessed with getting it right, and didn't want to launch a new grocery too soon, 'cause you sort of get one at bat, and when we did, people were ecstatic about the product. That was 24 stores. We were working around the clock. I think one of the things, too, on, from a people perspective, is I don't know that we would have achieved what we did if people didn't believe in what we stood for. So much of our community giveback and investment in something that was bigger than us was, I think, an integral part of why people would work 12, 14, 16 hour days, six, seven, eight days a week. Chad: Did you realize that you were creating this cult brand, at this point? James: I think that I would have agreed that it was possible. Somebody would say to me, "What's your dream?" I'm like, "To be bigger than Haagen-Dazs one day." That's an easy reference point. But as time went on, I realized that actually, it was less about scale of a brand, like Haagen-Dazs, in terms of reach or sales, and it was more about looking at brands like Starbucks and Virgin, and Netflix, and saying how can we actually create a company that changes the world from an employment perspective? Because undeniably, we spend more than a third of our lives working. When we go to these jobs, sometimes, they're real shitty, and people spend their whole lives with a third of it being really shitty all the time. I said well, what if we just change that, and it's really enjoyable and rewarding, and you learn how to be a better person in your personal life? You look after all those pieces. How does that now translate into changing the world in the communities that these people live in, and their families, and how they share the story with others, and then encourage others to make that same change. Joel: Was there a time as you were growing where the number of applicants that was coming in started increasing to the point where you said, "Holy shit, people really want to work here?" Talk about that. James: Yeah, we get a lot of people reaching out directly that are, "I'll come do whatever," kind of thing. When we put up, post-up the specific, yeah, in the early days, it was impossible to get a resume in the door. You kind of had to convince people just to come check it out. You know? Chad: Yeah. What's this gelato stuff? James: Yeah. One of the most rewarding things now is we are sharing this. We just hired somebody new in the position we were hiring for. We had hundreds of applicants come in, and then, we narrowed it down to 60 phone screenings. Then, we got down to 20 in person. Then, we had a final four. When you share with those final four people how far they've come, 'cause they realize, through the interview process, it's not like they came in one day, and we said yes or no. We have a six to eight step interview process. They were like, "This has actually taught." James: I had one of them reach out to me this week and say, "That was the most fascinating, and I learned so much. I can't stop talking about your interview process." She didn't even get the job. She's like, "I just want to stay warm, meet you for coffee. I'll take any job you got," which is pretty magical, when you think about it, that people are willing to leave the careers they already have, or look towards a brand that maybe can't pay as much as, you know, in Calgary, it's an oil and gas business, right? The reality is is that we can't pay as much as those companies. But so often now, people are saying, "I actually want to be a part of building something that matters." They'll leaven an organization like that. Or, they'll take a pay cut. Or, they'll find a way to make it work, if the opportunity's there. Joel: Did you find that, as you were doing good in the community, that the appeal to a potential candidate also sort of moved in lockstep with as you were doing good for the community, more and more people said I want to work for these guys? James: Yeah. I think that there definitely would be some correlation there. The hardest part about all of that is generally when you're giving back to the community, you're activating resource, or depleting resource financially that you can't pay people. I always say people are really attracted to the funness, or the excitingness, or the community driven aspect of our brand. But then, when you're- Joel: The excitingness. I like that word. James: Excitingness. There's actually, there's a book at Fiasco of words I've made up, so we'll just add it. There's also a cry count, but we won't, we'll save that for another podcast. But all of those pieces, ultimately, attract them, but then, there's sort of that cold, hard moment where it's like, "Hey, this is really all we can afford," and we're very transparent about our finances. People ultimately have to decide. I feel like we pay well. We pay a living wage. We don't talk about minimum wage at Fiasco, 'cause it's literally not enough for people to survive. But we're not paying $250,000 to- Chad: Right. You didn't go into this to create separate brands. It's like the brand is this cult brand of wonderful gelato and we help the community, and it's just like everything kind of flows. If you want to be a part of this, right, if you want to be a part of this- James: Yeah, you're either in, or you're out. Chad: Right, so it's more of a holistic kind of angle, as opposed to, as opposed to trying to create these little kind of fissures of brand. James: Yes, yeah, yes. Joel: Part of the question would be do you work to create an employment brand, or does it just happen? James: It's funny. Shannon and I were just talking about this right before the podcast. I think accidentally, that is something we've created in a big way. A few folks have come up and said your talk last year was the most moving talk, because not only was it relatable, but it now activated me to go out and say to my employer that we need to do these things. I think that the work that we've done on that in the company was sort of intentionally, but by accident, and what I mean by that is we weren't, there was no strategy around it. James: It was just this is the right thing to do, so we're just going to do it. If it doesn't work out, we'll probably find out. But fortunately, if you do the right thing, it's pretty cliché, but if you do the right thing, the money's going to come. If you do the right thing, then, you can sleep at night. If you do the right thing, then your people are going to look after everything. I think Chris or Ryan, one of them, was talking, "Take care of your people, then, they'll take care of the customer." For sure. Employees first, 100% of the time. Joel: For those who weren't at that talk, last year, and I'm sure everyone listening to this has that- Chad: Was not, yeah. James: It's sort of a gathering. Joel: Give us sort of a snapshot of what you talked about that was so impactful. James: Yeah, so I shared the origin story of Fiasco. I think it was relatable for people in the room that have their own businesses, or work in smaller businesses. I think our conferences like this, the message that a giant brand might share, I was in the M&Ms talk this morning. It's great. It's inspiring, but I don't know how relatable it is, because you don't have a billion dollar budget to shoot a movie, kind of thing. Joel: Yeah, and 85% of companies don't. James: Yes, exactly. Chad: CGI, some M&Ms, or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. James: Yeah, exactly. I think that's why there was, I was a deeper connection. I kind of brought it back to this pretty important piece that's become part of my journey. When I was younger, as I shared before, we didn't have much, rowing up. My dad was in these job placement things. But he'd often come home either overworked, or underpaid, or not cared for, or whatever it might be. As I started to build this company, I realized that there was accidentally, again, this thing occurring where every decision I had to make around the people in the organization, there was a simple governor. It was this idea of building the company that I would want my dad to work for. For anyone listening, it could be your mom, your dad, your aunt, your uncle. It doesn't matter. Chad: Yeah, yeah. James: But we can all relate to that. We can all look back to our childhood, and say, "What was it like when my dad or mom came home from work, and what did they share with me about their boss or their job, or the work they did, and how meaningful it was, or how shitty it was?" Or, whatever it was. Now, my dad just celebrated five years at Fiasco. Chad: No, that's awesome. James: It's the real deal. He left the company he worked at for 18 years. Chad: Fuck. That is fucking awesome. James: He came to me one day and said, "The work that I do doesn't light me up anymore, and I can be your janitor." I said, "I don't need a janitor, dad. But I need a receiver." He literally accepted. Not a lot of pay, and a job that, he's 60 years old at the time. Probably physically can't do at the level he would like to. But it's black and white, every single day. Every decision is literally does this decision agree with a company that my dad would want to work for? That's, it's magic in itself. There's a lot of empathy and humility and understanding, within the organization, when it comes to people, because I just think of Shannon, she's my, I call her my boss, but she's my assistant, and when she has something in her life occur with her kids, or that's real life, you just treat it like she's your parent, and what you'd want to do. It makes it so easy. So easy. Chad: Just about every cult brand we've heard, right, they've said if you're thinking about people, not investors, right, not the agent, not the noise that's out there, but you're focused, you're not distracted, and you understand that your people are the ones who actually service, right, they're the ones who provide, you know, those are the ones who have become the cult brands. James: 100%, yeah. Chad: Right? Can you speak to that for startups, right? We've got a ton of startups that we talk to. Joel: And small businesses. Chad: Yeah, small businesses, and they have these investors that are coming to them with tons of cash, and that's all well and good. But what would you say to them about how to actually get a huskiness, and have the grit and the determination that you've had to be able to make it to being a cult brand? James: Yeah, I think that there's often a juxtaposition between investors and shareholders, and what people think the accountability needs to be, which is generally driven by the bottom line. Actually looking at it through a lens of if we simply just do the right thing by our people, and then do not accept money, or do not work with the bank, or do not have shareholders that do not align with those values, then, it's really easy when you say, "Hey, sorry, we lost money, but we didn't lose any employees," or, "Hey, sorry, we pay people a living wage and actually change the fabric of our community, but we didn't make 20% EBITA." Chad: Amen, yes. James: Those, that's the best advice I can give. The challenge I have is inherently, people want to do the right thing. There's, sure, there's some shitty people in the world. But the reality is is 99.9 just want to do the right thing. But then, in business, they sort of lose sight of that very easily. I don't understand it. Chad: Pressure. Weakness, and pressure. Not, and discipline. James: Yeah, it's not, it's so broken. The way some COs or leaders or whatever treat their people, it's disgusting. My frustration is is that it's like they walk in the door of business, and all of a sudden, turn into this monster. I'm like what if you just created everyone in your company like your kids, or your brother and sister, or your dad. Then, it's like holy shit. That's, it's just easy. The hardest thing to do for sure for anybody is fire somebody. But then, you get into business, and they're like, "Oh, blah blah blah," and they're like really cruel about it. For us, it's if we have to let somebody go, it's never a surprise. Never a surprise. When people, when it comes to that, when we get to that point, they're like, "I understand." Chad: Expectations, dude. I mean, transparency and expectations. James: Yeah, 100%. Joel: Well, James, I'm being told that we're out of time. James: Oh, my God. Joel: But I want to say we really appreciate you sitting down. For anyone who wants to know about you, when you're coming to the US, where could they go find that out? James: Yeah. FiascoGelato.ca is the website. The handle on any social media is Fiasco Gelato. Don't get us confused in the US with Gelato Fiasco. That's for another podcast. Fiasco Gelato, it's crazy. Then, personally, just James Boettcher on all platforms. If you want to see the talk from last year, head over to the cult gathering website, and it's on there. Feel free to let me know how it moved you. Joel: My only regret is we didn't get to talk about why an ice cream company in Canada was a good idea. We'll save that for another show, maybe. Chad: Yes, I love it. We'll pull him back in for another show, because that, I think that could be an entire segment. Joel: Yeah. How much therapy did you have, or have you had a psychological review? James: Here's the trick. It's not about gelato. Joel: Oh, well, thanks, James. Chad: We're going to leave that out there. James: All right. Chad: Later, man. 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 Chad Cheese.com. #Branding #CultBrands #TheGathering #Banff #FiascoGelato #Uncommon #EmployerBrand #E #EmploymentBrand #Marketing

While the Google train keeps chugging along with positive news this week, things at Indeed are showing signs of unraveling Down Under, as well as other spots around the globe. Likewise, Facebook dealt recruitment marketing a blow this week and America, we have a staffing problem. Grab a vegemite sandwich and support our sponsors, Canvas, Sovren and JobAdX. 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. Ed: This is Ed from Philly you're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. 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: Bring it. Joel: Bring is here and the time is right for podcasting in the streets. Heidi ho homeboys and homegirls, welcome to Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm the Jagger to your Bowie, Chad Sowash. Joel: I'll deal with that. Although, one of them's dead. On this weeks show, Indeed's Australian meltdown, oh mate. That was a bad accent. Google goosesteps into Germany. Chad: That's just not right. Joel: And Houston, we have a staffing problem. Yes, we're covering the globe this week, so commute times will vary. Thank god for Google Search API. We'll be right back after this word from JobAdX. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is 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 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 e-mailing us at, joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdX. Together we can save Job search. Chad: The whole job search thing, like road rage, so like job search rage instead of ... but really just getting pissed off. I think that can come out more in the ad. Joel: Millennials don't rage, dude. Chad: What? Joel: They just click onto whatever new Instagram posts they can look at. Now, the people should know that before the show, you and I were waxing nostalgic about the '80s. And unbeknownst to me, Mr. Chad Sowash was quite the break dancer back in the day. Chad: You have no proof. Joel: And was keeping cardboard box companies in business with his stylish moves and waves and moonwalks and everything else. I forget all the moves that were hot at the time. Did you have like a bandana tied to your jeans, did you have the Adidas with the laces untied but tied at the same time? Chad: Well first off there is no proof of any of this ever happening, number one. Number two, it was always Converse. Always Converse. Joel: Was it Chucks or were you walking like the Weapons or the- Chad: No, dude the Weapons. I never wore Chucks, those flimsy things. Joel: You wore Chucks at some point in your life. Chad: No, never put a pair on in my life. And, this is from the guy who actually lives where Chuck grew up, and played basketball. Yeah. Joel: Another little known fact about Chad. He lives in the town that Chuck Taylor honed his first basketball skills I guess. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Every person in my household right now has at least two if not three sets of Chuck Taylors, I just never got into 'em. I rock the Adidas now, but back then, I was definitely all about the Weapons. Joel: The Weapons were great except that they weighed about 18 pounds. Chad: They did. Much like we were talking about the camcorders that you had to carry around to actually try to get any type of video whatsoever. It was like carrying around a cement block. Joel: People don't know Larry Bird actually had a 44-inch vertical leap, but because he wore the Weapons it was more like a 23 inch vertical leap. Chad: Oh shit. All right. We ready for shoutouts? Joel: Shoutouts to the '80s. And beyond. Chad: And who would be great with this would be the Job Board Doctor because I bet he could recall- Joel: The '80s? Chad: Just a ton of shit about the 80s. Oh yeah, possibly depending on how much peyote he got into. Joel: He was not break dancing, though. I can guarantee that. Chad: No I'm gonna go a hard no. Joel: I see like a Rush concert, maybe a Journey here and there, maybe a Foreigner concert or REO Speedwagon, but yeah. He wasn't beatboxing and dancing on a cardboard box. Chad: Oh, no way in hell. No way in hell. But big shout out to Job Board Doctor. Haven't heard from him in a while, but he's been blasting out some tweets and pretty much called Joel stupid yesterday. Feffer: Such an asshole. Chad: So thanks Job Board Doctor. Joel: Well he's over in Europe, so he's feeling all socialist at the moment. I think he's at the AIM Group Conference, I think I saw that somewhere. He's feeling all warm and fuzzy with the government controls. That's what I blame his comment on. Chad: People are being taken care of, I guess. I don't know. Shit. Joel: By the way, last week you said ... Okay, I'm not gonna get into this. But- Chad: You are. You're totally going to get into it. Joel: The government's role is to take care of its people and I take a little bit of dissonance with that. The government's role is to protect people ... Chad: Which is taking care of people. Joel: ... not necessarily take care of people. Chad: Which is taking care of people. I mean, that's ensuring that they're actually getting what they need. Joel: No. The government should give me the opportunity to take care of myself [crosstalk 00:05:58]- Chad: Well, that in itself, there's a balance there, and you can be out of balance very quickly, so yeah, but it's to be able to take care of their people, protect their people and take care of their people. Yes. Joel: Agree to disagree. Okay. Back to the shoutout. Chad: Matt O'Donnell, gotta love this tweet from Matt O'Donnell. He said he's got four new entry level folks joining his team and he likes the idea of having the Chad and Cheese podcast being mandatory listening for all new hires. So do we, Matt. So do we. Joel: Shout out to Nancy from Philly. Geez, Nancy, one of our biggest fans fell off the face of the earth. She's back, she's rested, she's ready, and she's back to listening to the podcast. So Nancy, welcome back. And I'll also wrap in a travel event in May to Philly, which I assume she'll be attending. So Nancy, get ready. Face-to-face. Let's do this. Selfie alert. Chad: She's getting a little saucy, that Nancy, she tweeted, said very sarcastically, "I appreciate you thinking of me, ahem, since the hosts didn't," because Ed was talking about how we're going to be at Recruit Philly and we obviously didn't send out a tweet or something specific to Nancy. So this is your announcement. Nancy. We're finally getting around to it. Ed: This is Ed from Philly. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: A couple of quick shout outs to people who actually gave us some topics for this week, or least some insights. So Patrick Welch gave us some great Google insights we're going to be sharing with you, and also David Beaurepaire [Bow Repair], for some of the Indeed insights that we're going to be talking about. Good job, guys. Keep the insights, the data, all that shit coming. Our listeners, if you see something, hashtag Chad and Cheese on Twitter, share it on LinkedIn, our Facebook page, it doesn't matter. Just get it to us. Joel: Did you say David Boat Repair? Chad: I think it's Bow Repair, but it's French. So you never know how to fucking say it, but I think it's Bow Repair. I could be wrong. Feffer: Such an asshole. Joel: Shout out to some recent interviews that we did. Dan Finnigan, CEO at Jobvite, Steven Rothberg, which went live this week. If you haven't heard that podcast, check it out for some updates on Google. And most fun, I think, because it was in person, was Aman Brar, founder and CEO at Canvas, fresh off the acquisition. He rolls up in a brand new Mercedes. He's got security guards now. He's in Gucci and Coach and Dolce & Gabbana. So, Aman, we love you, man. That was fun. Look for that interview coming soon. Chad: Yeah. And any interview we can do in a bar, especially a British-type pub is always amazing. So we need to do more. Joel: A pub. Chad: Shout out to the ladies from TNG who are trolling us once again, Candidate ID actually joined in to the gift/ meme Twitter trolling. Joel: I have no idea Swedish women were so feisty. Chad: Dude, that whole Viking thing. That's the whole thing that they're pushing. So, death match in Lisbon is going to be out fucking standing. So if you don't have your ticket to TAtech in Lisbon, dude, you're going to be missing out. You got to go, TAtech, Lisbon, in May. You can check obviously on Chad and Cheese sites, see when the events are, go to tatech.org. You can find the shit. Joel: Yeah. And a rumor is Hung Lee is going to be on the voting panel. Chad: Oh. I think, yeah, we have- Joel: We're amping up the IQ this year. Chad: Thank God. Joel: And a much better accent by the way. Chad: Yeah. No shit. So last but not least, to Louise Triance from UK Recruiter, she invited me again. So there must be a thing here, to actually be on Crowdcast with her to talk about AI. So whatever that means, that's what we're going to talk about. If you want to actually be involved, go ahead, go to any one of my or her social media accounts and I'm sure you'll be able to find the registration stuff there. Joel: Dude, your surname French game is pretty strong today. Chad: It's not too bad. Yeah. Joel: A quick one for me, ERE as well is on my travel docket. I don't believe it is on yours, and I can't get away without pointing out that you published a graphic this week of our travel schedule and failed to include our travel sponsor, Shaker Recruitment Marketing. So Joe Shaker, apologies for me. It's all Chad. It had enough to do with me and we will make it up to you. Chad: Whatever, dude. We give Shaker so much love, I mean above and beyond. And not to mention that was rectified literally within seconds. So get off my jock. Joel: Dude, we actually have live footage from Joe seeing the image. Feffer: Such an asshole. Chad: So yeah, the Chad Cheese 2019 World Tour, next on the docket, SHRM Talent and Nashville, Staffing Tech in Nashville, TAtech Recruitment Marketing Summit in Chicago. And then, also, while we're in Chicago, we're going to be making, you might not know about this, that now you are- Joel: I do. Chad: ... now you know now. It's a quick pit stop at Hireology, so we're going to participate in their Chad and Cheese Podcast Club/Discussion. They have a beer fridge and knowing Kyle, it will be stocked with delicious craft beer. Joel: I feel like we're walking into a millennial ambush. Chad: I can't wait. I love that kind of shit. Joel: This comedy's jam packed with 20-somethings that like the show and want us to come visit them. This feels like a baseball bat to the back of the knee to me. Chad: Luckily, I'm always ready for an ambush. So, not a big deal. Joel: That is true. That is true. Ed: This is Ed from Philly. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Let's do this. Chad: Well, first off, let's talk about Google drops the translation and commute search into their API. Now, first thing. You can listen to the Google news podcast we did earlier this week with Steven Rothberg. But here's one of the things that I want to throw out here. I literally just received an email from Thom, the CEO over at SmashFly, and that boy is, I love it: Riding the Wave of this News. Here's how it starts out: "Hi Chad. Joel: That's so Thom. Chad: "Have you ever wished you could search for jobs within a 30-minute commute from your home? Even in the heaviest traffic morning? I live in the Boston area and I've experienced the soul sucking experience of bumper to bumper commute. The struggle is real." Chad: So Tom, in this email, is starting to pull you in, suck you in like Tom does, and then talk about SmashFly's new Google search commute and translation piece, which is really fucking cool. And he also talks about Cox Enterprises, go to their career site and check it out. So he's really pimping what SmashFly is doing here. This is what companies should be doing if they're partnering smartly with Google. Joel: I had no idea are some 4,000 job boards and employers that have integrated the search API. [crosstalk 00:13:51]- Chad: Hopefully. Joel: ... into their site. I was pretty surprised to see that. For those who don't know, the API is essentially Google is running your job search, so related searches, misspellings, all the things that, the duct tape search engines of old can't handle, Google can handle for you. It's been around for two years, early adopters like CareerBuilder, Dice, Johnson & Johnson are still using it, I think optimistically from our perspective in terms of what Google's doing, they continue to evolve the product to improve features. And these were two of the features. Now, a lot of people know the veterans search feature that they launched early this year, late last year, which you're not so great on or happy about or into, but I guess that's a different topic altogether. Joel: But this past week, they launched, or actually on the 19th, on Tuesday, they launched, like you said, commute search, which we talked to Steve, and what I like about that is historically job boards will have, "Oh, this is five miles from your house." "This is 10 miles from your house," "... 20 miles from our house." Well, five miles in San Francisco is a lot different than five miles in Columbus, Ohio, right? Chad: Yes. Joel: From a time perspective. So Google actually now breaks this down to how long your commute will be from a car, walking or public transportation perspective, which is obviously way more valuable than just saying, "Hey, this is five miles from my house or 10 miles from my house." Chad: Yeah. Well, and so I think the podcast with Steven was awesome because we talked about commute search, the new unveiling of commute search and also translation so that the actual translation that happens in search, not just on the page but also in the search, those are two great, I think, features that they've pushed out. But even more interesting to me were the stats that Steven shared. So, again, they have collegerecruiter.com as their job sites, what they were able to do to save money and also make money off the back of this type of a partnership, definitely go look forward the Google News podcast, listen to it, especially if you're a vendor to be able to better understand how this could prospectively help you make money. Joel: I was most shocked at how many customer service calls they would get every week before the search, before Google search versus how few they get now. I had no idea, one, that people still picked up the phone and called companies, but number two, that they were actually getting, I think two to three a week of people saying like, "How the hell does search work?" Or, "How the hell does this thing work?" to now getting almost no calls and the time that they're saving from that. Joel: And College Recruiters is still a fairly, would you call it a niche job board? It's college internship. So if you're a bigger national, global, whatever job entity, like the savings from a customer service perspective must be really nice, thanks to Google. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. And that's just one aspect, right? Joel: That is just one. Basically, in short, they're spending less money and they're making more money. Chad: Yeah. So listen to the podcast. Joel: Listen to the podcast. Chad: So, yeah. Your favorite, I think, topic is Google goosestepping into Germany, and not only that Google is continuing this world domination, but you thought [crosstalk 00:17:11]- Joel: The only way I'm letting you get away with that is because you were in the military and you're a veteran. I don't think I could have said goosestep without the thought police coming in and getting me. Joel: Now, I will say specifically, Germany usually goosesteps and to other places. It's not usually goosestepping into Germany, but we'll forgive that this time, particularly when Google for Jobs is involved. Chad: Yeah. But I mean, this is Google goosestepping into Germany, so that's different, right? Joel: Is there goose? Chad: Is there goot? So thanks again to Patrick Welch for sharing some analytics from Google Analytics that I guess they had set up, which was showing Google was moving toward Deutschland. And that's pretty awesome to just to be able to see, in some of these different areas where work is different in Germany than it is here in the US, so Google is figuring that out. It took Google a while to get into England. It's interesting to see them thoughtfully moving into these different countries. Joel: Arbeiten ist gut. So what countries are we in now? We're in America. We're in Canada. We're in Japan, which is my favorite, because that's where Indeed's sugar daddy lives. UK, we're in Ireland, right? Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: We're in India? Chad: Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. Joel: And now Germany, and you've got rumors that there's a new country on the way. Chad: Well, I mean, doing testing in France, and this is where David Boat Repair comes in from Hello Work. He actually not only showed that they were doing testing in France, but this is the cool part. There was an Indeed citing in Google for Jobs. Feffer: Such an asshole. Joel: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Indeed who does not play with Google for Jobs, you're telling me we have a sighting in the wild of a search done on Google for Jobs in France, where Indeed is a supplier of said content. Chad: That is correct. And we will share the screenshot out. Let me tell ya. I think this is incredibly interesting, just from the standpoint of knowing that Indeed had really gone cold Turkey on Google and said, "No, fuck that. We're not playing this Trojan horse game that we played on the rest of the industry. We're not playing this." But I think there are areas throughout the world where they just don't have the dominance and they're going to need help. So therefore they're going to call upon Google. That's my opinion. What do you think? Joel: I think that they were very, naïve to think that they wouldn't be able to play with Google on some level. I think if they did it in the US, there'd be a lot of 'splaining to do because they were very adamant about, "We're not going to play in this game." They can sort of get away with it in non-American countries. Although as we've seen, the Internet is a small place and people talk. So we're gonna catch wind of it. But yeah, I mean, Indeed globally is a powerhouse, but they're not exactly Hercules in every single market. So obviously in France there's some work to do, their employers that post jobs need a little bit more traffic and where better to go than Google for that traffic? Joel: I also do think it's a nice little acquiesce to say Google is awesome because we're willing to go against our public persona and actually use it in certain countries. Chad: So if they start getting addicted to this crack overseas, what makes anyone think that they're not going to jump on board everywhere? Joel: Well, I believe you and I have a running bet of over and under 12 months from January 1st of this year as to how long Indeed can hold out. And I think you went under, I think I went over and it's looking more and more like you might win this one as they roll out certain countries on Google for Jobs. Chad: Yeah. I would say that, my thought was global in the first place, so I've already won that, but still, it's ... Feffer: Such an asshole. Chad: But that takes us to another conversation because we're getting news that Indeed APAC is coming apart at the seams. You talked a little bit about that. Joel: Yeah. You and I, as you've mentioned, we get insight information, we get tips, I'm sure we get a lot of absolute bullshit. So some of it when we say rumor or maybe or we heard, take it with a grain of salt. But I got an email last week, I've never gotten anything like it because it was from a service where there was a timestamp on the email and it's set to blow up in a couple days. And you can't forward the email. I'm on Gmail, so the forward function is disabled. Oh Shit. Which I've never seen before. You can't copy and paste the texts, which I have seen before, but this was unique. And then the email disappears, the content disappears from your email at a certain date. In my case, it's live for about a week. Joel: So I actually had to take a screenshot of it to keep it in the archives or keep it as fact that I actually did get this. So, I'll read the email as I received it. Basically, stuff's shit outside the US according to this person. Now keep in mind, this is anonymous. Take it for what it's worth, but a lot of it seems pretty legit and we'll dig into some of the pieces of the email here in a second. But I want to just read this to our listeners. Joel: So this reader says, "If you've not seen it recently, I check out Indeed's reviews on Glassdoor," Indeed and Glassdoor are sister companies, by the way. "In the first quarter of the year, 25% of the staff walked out of the Australia office and more are on the way out. A direct quote from one of the top salespeople, 'It's so bad, it's unreal. It's like living a nightmare.' Have a look at their views on Glassdoor in Sydney, which we have and we'll talk about. Joel: "The guy who took over marketing for APAC moved from Australia to Singapore to take the new role, has been demoted in the face of multiple HR complaints, now has no direct reports, and is 'under review.' You mentioned Europe doing well, which we have on the show. They're growing in Ireland and whatnot. That may not be the case in all countries. Did you hear the SVP of EMEA, his name's Chris McDonald, just left after only being in the role for around eight to nine months? A number of reasons why, but basically he took a look under the hood and didn't like what he saw. Joel: "You may also notice Indeed is not on TV, radio and print or even spending on pay-per-click in Europe. I wonder why? The recent posts about Indeed London and it's drugs, drinking and bullying culture have been removed from Glassdoor," which should be pretty easy for Indeed to do, "but they were up long enough for people, including clients to be aware. To say things have changed here in the last six months would be an understatement. It's not the place it used to be." And that is the end of the email. Chad: This is beyond APAC. I mean this is a me as well, then. Joel: According to this email, this anonymous source, yes. Things are bad all over the place, minus, I guess, America, North America. Chad: Gotcha. Okay. So yeah. Now we're taking a look at some of the Glassdoor reviews. And just one of the reviews cited drinking slash / bro culture, job is like Groundhog day with fixed account sets, senior leadership clock watches and are literally positioned to watch people walking in and out. Don't dare to zip up your bag at 4:59, before five o'clock. The same leaders encourage you to work overtime without reward. Extraordinary and unjustifiable increase and revenue targets quarter after quarter. Chad: So it sounds like the squeeze is on and the leadership that they have in place, I don't know if it's young, I don't know if it's inexperienced or whatever it is, they're dealing with it in a very, very bad way. This is at least what it feels like from the Indeed reviews, and some of the titles: Rubbish. Promise the world, delivers very little. Sydney office going downhill fast. Terrible. Toxic. Joel: And what's the current overall star rating for the Sydney- Chad: Let me scroll up here. It is ... Joel: It was about 1.5 the last time I checked. Chad: 1.9, so they're almost at two stars out of five. Joel: Man, that's not good. In terms of Chris McDonald, who I believe was over in Ireland just for reporting sake, his LinkedIn profile still says that he's at Indeed. So for whatever that's worth, apparently Chris McDonald is still around in that role. Joel: Now, I also found curious that there's no TV, radio, print or even PPC over in Europe. And why would that be? And I was trying to think why would that be? Chad: I think you have a dominant share here in the US, and they're trying to keep that. I could see where they would want to focus their defense here, to be able to build that moat. But again, I've said this forever. This is unsustainable. Joel: We have listeners over across the pond. If anyone finds evidence of Indeed on Google with pay-per-click or advertising somewhere in the print paper, please let us know. Otherwise we just have to go on what this source tells us. But I agree that, look, when things go bad, you take money away from where it's not as valuable anymore and you start putting it in resources where it does work, which would obviously lead to North America and particularly the US. Joel: To me, though, this feels very reminiscent to stuff CareerBuilder and Monster were going through right around the recession time. You see spreading yourself too fast, too thin. You see offices going rogue. You see officers going rogue. And to me, we've been talking about the demise for a long time. To me these are the buds starting to show of things coming unraveled, whether it stays that way or not, we'll find out. But to me, this stuff is a really bad sign for Indeed. Chad: Yes. And again, just historically, you take a look at Monster, CareerBuilder and that global spread, and then what happened? Joel: Yeah. Keep in mind, Dice left Europe late last year in terms of its operations. So it's a tough place to do business and maybe Indeed's finding that out the hard way. Chad: It's an entirely different culture. I mean, staffing culture entirely ... I mean, dude, if you don't go in with an entirely different strategy overall, you're definitely going to lose. Joel: Well, who's not losing? Chad: Who's that? Joel: Our sponsor, Sovren. Chad: God, damn straight. Joel: Let's take a quick break, hear from them and we'll talk Facebook discrimination complaints. Chad: Oh, Jesus. 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 Sovereign AI matching visit sovern.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. Chad: Silky smooth sounds of Sovren. As always. Joel: As always. Gets me in such a good mood when I hear that sovereign ad. Yeah, life is much better than it is at Facebook, apparently. Times are tough. Now, I love this because this was actually a topic back in the day, in terms of being able to target advertising for employment based on age, location, sex, college degree, marital status, et cetera, et cetera, which Facebook has historically done, and they've done it very well and they do it in a way that no one else really can because they have so much God damn information about all of us. Chad: And they're making a shit ton of cash doing that. Joel: Shit ton of cash doing it. But they've been under major stress about privacy, fake news, all kinds of shit going on. So anyway, word comes out this week that because of discrimination complaints, Facebook will now disallow employment ads that are specifically targeting the things that you shouldn't target, or at least historically shouldn't like sex, age, yada, yada. So I assume that you're not real happy about this and don't really agree with the move. Chad: It goes beyond employment, but yeah, if we can take a look at employment itself, it's a knee-jerk reaction, and instead of vetting the actual people and companies spending money and / or the fucking content that's going on to Facebook, they are dumbing down a platform that could help companies target individuals with disabilities. And that's just one sliver. But they're talking about in the article, in WaPo, they were talking about how individuals with disabilities were being discriminated against. Chad: And so, it's the bad actors that are what's fucking the system up. But still, they're going to dumb the system down. These same bad actors will be using the system with the same content, just more as a blunt instrument instead of a surgical tool. So I think they are focusing on the wrong areas right out of the gate. They shouldn't be focusing on making a dumber tool. They should be focusing on the auditing piece and ensuring that the individuals who are spending money with them are who they are. And they can do a lot of that, obviously, through the infrastructure that they currently have set up. I just don't agree with taking these types of tools away from employers who perspectively want to focus on hiring females in tech in certain areas. It makes no fucking sense. Joel: I agree with you. I don't think it will affect Facebook monetarily a ton, because this is a fairly small group in the big picture. And I think Facebook has bigger issues with perception and legal issues. I mean, Google was just fined $1.7 billion this week in Europe for its practices. And I think Facebook's looking at that saying like, "Good God, we don't want any piece of that." But I think for small companies that really rely on micro targeted advertising, and their budget won't allow for anything else. I think they're the big losers here. And ultimately they're going to walk away from Facebook advertising, which also includes Instagram and the rest of the Facebook network. I think all ad pricing could go down if demand by advertisers fall, which I guess is good for everyone. Joel: But I question where they're going to go. I assume that there were some high fives given it Snapchat's headquarters, when this news came around. And actually, like I shared this week that Snapchat was upgraded because of their new ad platform actually being really effective. So if you were advertising on Facebook in that way and can any more, I think Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn to some degree are maybe where these folks go. Chad: Possibility. I don't see advertisers pulling right out of the gates. But once again, everybody's going to suffer because Facebook doesn't want to actually stop the real fucking problem. It's the bad actors. It's the content. That's what they should be focusing on, not the actual tools themselves. And that just fucking drives me crazy. Joel: Yeah. Ultimately it's the employers that are discriminating. Chad: Yeah. But here's the thing, there are auditing parameters around those employers in most cases. So whether your EEOC like 50 employees and above or your OFCCP, where you're a federal contractor, they have enforcement agencies to find this shit out. So we have regulations in place, we have benchmarks in place, and these tools could perspectively help companies hit those benchmarks much faster because of the targeting. But yet instead of focusing on where the fucked-up-edness is in Facebook right now, they're focusing on the wrong shit. It's not the tool, it's not the methodology, it's the actual bad actors and the bullshit content that's being pushed into the system. Joel: Yeah. I think ultimately it's a legal thing, it's a public perception and it's a government regulation thing. Because if you look at all the industries that were targeted or that were on the no good list, you had jobs, but you also had a housing and loans, which all look discriminatory just on its face. Chad: It is because the way it's being used. And I'm going to tell you somebody who's incredibly pissed about this, Julie, my wife. She helps companies build hiring programs for individuals with disabilities, so that companies, major fortune 500 companies in most cases, can pull in individuals with disabilities, and they use Facebook. That is a tool that they use. So I'm going to pimp them out real quick. The Crazy and the King podcast, I can guarantee you they will dive into this on the diversity and disability side much deeper than we're going to. Joel: Yeah. Do think that this move flows into other platforms? Because ultimately if Facebook does it, they're going to look at Twitter and say like ... Chad: No question. Yes. Yeah. And that's the problem, is Facebook is taking this step, now everybody else is going to be expected to take the step and this is a dumb fucking step. Facebook, with all these goddamn PhDs and smart fucking brainiacs are doing a really stupid fucking thing. Joel: Tell us how you really feel, dude. Chad: It's not fair to those people who want to try to do good for the system. Joel: It's weird to think we could live in a world where you couldn't advertise on any social media platform to new college graduates in engineering. You have to like take a sledge hammer to your advertising as opposed to a scalpel. And the whole benefit of social media advertising was it was a scalpel. Though it's weird to think in a world where you have this benefit, that it's going to be taken away from under. Chad: Yeah. And there are agencies that their whole job is to enforce, to ensure that the discrimination is not happening. Joel: And I think it also hurts Facebook's initiative into employment. I think part of their overall goal would be, "Hey, post a job and then advertise that job." Well, now what does that look like? Is it just like the old boost your post where you say, "Hey, I'm going to boost my job and not really know where it's going, but I'm just going to boost it?" Do you remember that, when you could actually boost your little- Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. That probably makes a comeback because you're not targeting, you're just saying like, "Hey, I just want to send this ad out into the world." Chad: Yes. And the whole system gets dumber because of this move. Feffer: Such an asshole. Joel: America, we have a staffing problem. [crosstalk 00:37:54] I found this very interesting. But we have this perception that baby boomers are going to live forever, they're not going to leave the work force, millennials are just [crosstalk 00:38:05]- Chad: They're stubborn as hell. [crosstalk 00:38:07] I'm telling you. Joel: ... going to ride Ubers and live in their baby boomers parents houses for their entire life. But apparently, there's some real government problems in making sure that there are enough people to staff the jobs. So, side note, what better reason to build a wall and keep people out of the country? But I digress. You really like this story a lot. Chad: Yeah. Again, I think you were saying that sarcastically. Joel: Totally. Chad: It's like we need people, assholes, why are you trying to keep people out when we need people? So that's one thing. And the number two, this provides the Bezos of the world to say, "Ah, man, we don't have the workforce. We're going to automate." Well, he wanted to go there anyway, but from an optic standpoint, guess what? Makes it much easier for him to do that? Not a bad move. Not a stupid move from a dollars and cents standpoint, but from an automation and actually taking jobs, that's exactly what's going to happen. Chad: But yeah, I mean, this report actually said American working or looking for work stabilized around 63% from 2015 through 2018. That's 63%. So they pinpointed certain areas, like let's say for instance, the women's labor force participation rate is lower than men, and a problem was the lack of affordable childcare options, which, I mean, we talked about, I think it was last week or the week before, about Amazon's Mamazonians, and if a company wants to actually provide a differentiator and start to draw those individuals into their workforce, that's what they need to do right out of the gate, man. Joel: Yeah. And the story also mentioned altering the criminal justice system. I mean, let's admit, there are a lot of people out there that have done their time and paid their debt to society, but can get work or can't do things that they should be able to. I know here locally, there's a pizza shop that actually only hires ex convicts to make the pies, which I think is really interesting. Chad: Yeah. Ban the fucking box. That's all I got to say about that. Okay. So that's not all I have to say. It's fucking stupid that somebody goes to jail, the go to prison, they do their time, they come out and they can't get a job, and they can't vote, but yet they've paid what's been due to society. It's not fair, not only to that group of individuals, which socioeconomically if you take a look at it, are the individuals who need work most. It's fucking ridiculous. Chad: So yeah, the government finally saying, "Yeah, we should probably change this whole stance that we have on the criminal justice system and maybe try to help make it a little bit easier for people to get in the workforce." No shit. Joel: Can we call it the Andy Dufresne bill? By the way, I have a conspiracy theory I just thought of. Federal government increases minimum wage to get more people into the workforce. Maybe they're solving this problem by making companies pay more money to get more people started in the workforce. Chad: Yeah. And I think that's a nice way to lure individuals who we know $7.25 an hour is not going to pay what they need, so they're going to live with mom and dad and maybe they have a kid and maybe they are the earner, the main earner, and they're working part-time jobs, which is actually what we saw from this report as well, to be able to get them to full time, not to mention those dollars do what? They go back into the fucking economy, which helps the economy grow. So it doesn't hurt, especially if everybody's doing it as opposed to just companies here and there. Joel: Are you saying you agree with my conspiracy theory? Chad: Yeah. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I think it's a great strategy. Joel: And I feel like we may have found common ground in the minimum wage debate. If the debate is to get more people off their asses and not play Fortnight for 20 hours a day, let's give them more money to start out in that hourly job, maybe I can get on board with that. Chad: Well, and as we saw from the last report, last a report that was put out, most of these individuals who would be receiving the up to $15 bump are actually the prime wage earners in families. So from our standpoint, again, it's the government taking care of its own. We have to make sure that our people can feed their kids, they can put a roof over their kids' house, or then get out of mom and dad's fucking basement. Joel: And to make sure that we can still feed our kids and shelter them, let's take a quick break and hear from Canvas and we'll talk about who was just named the number one ATS in the market. Chad: Holy shit. 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 the 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. Chad: Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, we know that our friends over at iCIMS was incredibly happy to see Arcadia Insights State of Recruitment, Tech industry. Joel: Yes. I've never of Arcadia, and have you? Chad: I have not. I have not. Joel: Okay. So we're not going to vouch for them. They do research, so we'll just assume that they know what they're talking about. But iCIMS gets touted in an Arcadian Insights report on the state of recruiting technology. The headline is that iCIMS is now the number one in terms of market share ATS in the world, which still doesn't even put them at 7%, but it's still number one now. Joel: The number of the number of services that are declining are many, which means there's a lot of choice, a lot of segmentation, fragmentation, but the two glaring companies that are just getting killed, is your Connex and your Oracle. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Oracle and IBM, man. Joel: Yup. And those two have gone from nearly 10% to almost 5%. So if you look at their market share cut in half, that's a bad day, and that's happened in the last three years. So that's bad news for them. Many of the others that are listed are just stagnant or declining slowly. You got your SuccessFactors, your PeopleFluents. The ones that are growing, Workday is probably second to iCIMS in terms of penetration. Chad: Growth. Yeah. Joel: Jobvite growing slowly and Cornerstone also growing fairly slowly. And both of those are still at under 2% market share in terms of this. So a lot of room for a lot of players, consolidation, I think is still going to happen. What was your takeaway from the growth of the ATS market? Chad: Well, you see Oracle and IBM, they bought into the market, right? And they want it to become these huge ERP along with talent acquisition types of ATS systems. I think what we've seen historically is when companies start to get into this mode, they do a really shitty job of it because they don't focus in one area any more. They are focused in all different areas, which means they don't do anything well. I like that iCIMS and currently Jobvite, they have acquired, like iCIMS acquired TextRecruit, and they're still keeping it separate so that they're running it pretty much like a separate company, they have the whole org chart and whatnot that's focused on being able to push that product along beside iCIMS, but also a way from iCIMS into other applicant tracking systems. That's a different strategy than Oracle and IBM took. Joel: Yeah. I think that the statement and the insights report or the executive summary, the quote from the blog post quote Oracle and IBM in particular market share and customers are now demanding that their core recruiting platforms do more than just process applicants, which, how long have we been talking about that? "They must also become global marketing platforms that engage their audience, drive corporate initiatives such as diversity and inclusion and support career and pay progression." So I think we totally agree on that. I think the whole swing for the fences move by Jobvite to bring on three platforms that are all focused on global marketing, audience engagement, diversity inclusion. Like to me, the Dan Finnigans of the world, the Colin Days of the world, they see that that is the way to go in the future. And I think that they're building those platforms. And to me it's no surprise that you're seeing growth in what they're doing. Chad: Still strong caution to all of those systems that are out there that are looking to buy up, which I think is smart, but it's all about execution and strategy, and again, take a look at IBM, take a look at Oracle, take a look at SAP, take a look at all those guys, man, and see how they did what they did, how they executed. And don't fucking do that. Joel: And to me this is ripe for consolidation. The little guys of the world that have less than 1% market share, they're not going to be able to keep up technologically with what's going on, so they're going to have to sell and they might as well sell while they still have clients and still have some market share. Because a player like Jobvite or iCIMS can start really ramping up the percentage market share by consolidating and buying up some of these smaller players. Joel: And by the way, the report talked about the investment that's going on in recruitment technology. And it's nuts. There's so much money. From 2017 to 2018, I mean you're looking at a 400 million spend to almost a billion dollars in this space being dumped. So there's money there, there's going to be acquisitions, there's going to be consolidation. I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg on some of that stuff. Chad: I think the actual playbook is fairly simple at this point, is get aggressive and start rolling up partners to judge performance toward acquisition. So don't just go out there and buy shit. Joel: Yeah. If you have an app store and you can integrate some of these services and find out which ones are the most popular, you can gobble those up and enhance your marketing platform. I'll be interested to see, the Greenhouses of the world weren't represented in this study, unless their market share was so small they didn't get included. But I have to assume that some of those levers, the Greenhouses will at some point getting to that scale where they're getting 1%, 2%, 3% market share. Chad: Yeah. If they can eat that Oracle, IBM, SAP market share, then yeah, I think so. Joel: This was a good week. By the way, we're recording this on Wednesday. I'm amazed we have enough news to fill up an hour show, although Chad'll edit down to like 20 minutes. But we got a lot of stuff. We'll see you next week, I guess. Chad: You got it, man. 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 podcast, and be sure to get buckets of money to our sponsors. Otherwise, I may be forced to take that coal mining job. I saw at monster.com. We out. #GoogleforJobs #Germany #France #CloudTalentSolution #Indeed #Austrailia #Glassdoor #Facebook #Wages #IBM #Oracle #iCIMS #Jobvite

We're not worthy! We're not worthy! Since taking over the reigns at Jobvite a decade ago after running HotJobs, Dan Finnigan has been a strong voice and leader in the recruitment tech space. Most recently, Jobvite swung for the fences, raising $200 million and acquiring Canvas, Rolepoint and Talemetry to help round-out a full marketing suite for customers. In this interview, Chad & Cheese get the lowdown on the deal and discuss a variety of timely topics. This Nexxt exclusive is a must-listen. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community. 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, 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 freakin' 97% open rate. Chad: What? Joel: A 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. Yep, that's right. Next, 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: 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. 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 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: All right, all right, all right. We're back again. Guys, super special treat today. We're joined by Jobvite's CEO Dan Finnigan. Dan, welcome to the show. Dan: Thank you very much. It's good to be here. Joel: Dan is CEO of Jobvite, like I mentioned. What else would you like us to know about you, besides the fact that the highlights of your career were interviewing with me once when you started at Jobvite and then another time when you were- Chad: Lies. Joel: ... ruling the world at HotJobs? Dan: Well, after just hearing your intro music, I think my future highlight would be having my band play "Fight for Your Right to Party" live for your blog post one time. Chad: Yeah, yeah, we could do that. We could do an event, Dan, 'cause we're doing a ton of events now, and we don't just do a presentation on stage. We actually do entertainment while we're on stage. Having the band bring us on would be kick ass. Joel: By the way, Dan has the most epic beard in the industry. It's sad that we have to do this on audio only, because it is impressive. Dan: As good as yours? Joel: Oh, way better. Dan: Oh wow. Thank you. Joel: It's got that salt and pepper leadership quality that mine just doesn't have. Dan: Oh, it's coming, Joel. It's coming. Joel: Well, Dan, thanks for joining us. Man, we had some big news coming out of your world last month. Tell us about that and how that transpired. Dan: Well, the argue for quite some time has been that the history of recruiting software has been overly focused on in-applicant tracking, what happens after someone applies for a job, and that a lot of innovation has been going on for some years now and our disciplines with sales and marketings around how to build prospects and databases and communicate and engage with prospects before they ever become an opportunity. And we felt that recruiting was gonna go through the same change, and that's why years ago, we launched Jobvite Engage to help recruiters and companies build their own database of prospects and become less dependent on my old world of advertising. Dan: The fact is that the opportunity in this economy and given what's happened in the marketplace to focus on applicant tracking, given the needs companies have, was so great that it was, I felt, a challenge to continue to invest in innovation in these other areas. And I felt there was a window of opportunity for a company like Jobvite to seize the moment and really put a stake in the ground to be a platform and recruiting, as we say, that helps engage with candidates from the first look on your employment brand to the first day on the job. And when we started looking at the landscape, we saw companies like Telemetry crushing it, helping large enterprise companies build campaigns and provide a better candidate experience. Dan: We've always been very proud of Jobvite about creating the ability to share jobs on social networks to drive employee referrals. But then there was this company Rolepoint that was doing a better job than us. And then finally, I always joke that my son, who just graduated from college and he's working in San Francisco as a computer programmer, would never in his life communicate with a company or a recruiter via email. He would only text. Joel: Or phone. Or audio. Dan: Exactly. And so what are we doing? Jobvite was the first ATS to ever integrate into email and calendaring via Microsoft Outlook 10 years ago, and now we're living in an era where the candidates don't even use email. And so we decided to seize that moment and pull these companies together and we're really excited. Chad: Talking about putting the band together, right? If you just stick with that metaphor. That's a big, big job. K1 comes, you get K1 at the door, and then you start pulling Canvas, Rolepoint, and Telemetry together all at once. How long did something like that take? Dan: Well, you gotta seize the moment when you have it, and it's not as if we, for example with Canvas, we had developed a relationship with them. We had already launched a version of Canvas last year and had great success with it. We certainly, and with Jobvite Engage have been competing with Telemetry and others for quite some time and new about their strengths and we had customers coming to Jobvite saying, "Hey, look, I like your employee referral product, but we needed to do more and therefore we want you to integrate with Rolepoint." Dan: So based on that, and our experiences in the marketplace with these companies, we went to K1 and said, "Here's an opportunity. And we could be the first platform that provides the best candidate experience, the best recruiter experience, the best hiring manager experience from first look, not only for the first day on the job, but with Telemetry and Rolepoint to the next promotion because of internal mobility, the capabilities that they have." And K1, this is what they do for a living. They only invest in SAF software companies. They've been one of the fastest growing investors in this area. They've seen this movie before, they've seen what's going on in sales and marketing. And they wanted to, just like us, apply those principles in the area of recruiting and talent acquisition. Dan: And the funny thing is is when I started taking to them about Canvas, about Rolepoint, they said, "Ah, we've already talked to all those companies." What most impressed me about K1 is that they've been doing their homework and researching for about two years. Chad: Okay, okay. So from a brand standpoint, all three of these companies have their respective brands in those markets. Are they going to stay separate? Are you going to roll them up underneath the Jobvite umbrella and create Jobvite's Canvas version and Telemetry, etc., etc.? Dan: Yeah, good question. We're definitely one company. We've come together as one team. We had wonderful meetings. It all happened over the holidays. It all came together over the holidays, and we hit New Year's Day running. And we're all excited about the ideas that have come out of our meetings to date. Immediately, we're almost complete with many of the integrations that are taking place through our APIs. Obviously we like any Jobvite customer to utilize any of these three other wonderful products. I know Telemetry is already working with Rolepoint to offer their capabilities to Telemetry customers, and a lot of exciting things are happening there. Dan: But obviously the real opportunity here is what we could build together. And we're already thinking about those priorities. This is going to be one integrated platform and we're gonna be focused on use cases for recruiters, use cases for candidates, as well as for hiring managers that, as I said, cross the entire value chain of recruiting from first look to first promotion. And we're gonna be one company, and the other thing I'll say is that we've been really pleased with the cultures meshing as well as they have, really quickly. And yeah, it's pretty exciting. Dan: We already had, for example, a bunch of employees at Jobvite in Indianapolis, and that's where Canvas is located. So we're coming together in one office in Indianapolis and everyone's really excited. Chad: So when's that gonna happen? Because you should have Chad and Cheese onsite, since we're both here in Indy. Joel: We learned you guys have a budding office in Fishers, Indiana, which is right up the street from me. You guys have been secretly building this Indianapolis empire. What's going on? Dan: Yeah, you've never been there, that's true. It's a wonderful office. The Fishers mayor and government have been really supportive, wanting to attract tech companies to Fishers, and they created a wonderful opportunity for us to get moving fast. And that office frankly between us grew a lot faster than I ever thought it would. We didn't realize the depth of talent and BTB SAF software that exists in Indianapolis. And then because of that, that's how we first met Canvas, and right now we are I think looking for real estate as we speak and we'll I'm sure be announcing the new office sometime soon. Joel: Nice. It's good to know that Alman and his team won't be leaving Indiana any time soon. We really like those guys. Dan: I'm so impressed with what they've done in such a short period of time with a small, tight team. They are very creative, very bright, and very fast. Joel: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So when I first reported on this, my first sense was like, "Hey, this is a real swing for the fences. This is a real sort of we're going to create a one stop shop or close to it platform." And my initial thought was that it was really driven a lot by companies like Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, maybe even Facebook to some degree, at least in terms of perception. How much did those 800 pound gorillas getting into the game have on you making a decision like this? And am I right in saying you want to be that next tier of platform to the big guys? Dan: Well, I think that's ... I can't say much about what's going on with regard to Google Hire or LinkedIn, except to say that kind of reminds me of the early days of job boards. Very small companies, they want to run their autobody shop. They want to run their flower shop. They want to run their local retail operation. They don't want to be experts at recruiting, and it used to be easy, right? All they'd have to do is post an ad in the local newspaper or buy an ad on Monster.com or HotJobs and they'd have enough candidates. And I think that companies like ZipRecruiter have proven that SNBs need one tool to work, to source, and to make their hire. Dan: That's not what we do. We help talent acquisition departments and companies build their teams, and they have a team of people to do it. And that team of people works with hiring managers and it's a coordinated hiring process. And companies build an employment brand and invest in that. And that's what we're about and that's what we're focused on. And the reason we did this is that we felt that the era of the ATS was over, and that the opportunity to be the recruiting platform and suite of products that service the entire value chain of recruiting was a limited window. And that the time was now. And the innovation that we saw coming out of companies like Rolepoint and Canvas and Telemetry we thought proved it, and that recruiting departments were beginning to change their definition of what recruiting has to do as a function. Joel: You gave a presentation a few years ago that I remember, talking about career-building monster, as we're talking about job boards, creating the two horizontal brands, the Coke and Pepsi if you will of the job board space, and then having verticals come under that such as Dice, etc. Do you feel like this move that you've made helps Jobvite become one of the horizontal market leaders in this talent management space? Or are you looking to catch a vertical? Dan: I believe that Jobvite and our companies have already proven that we're horizontal. We're ... Obviously we started here in the Bay Area and we're very popular with tech companies and tech companies in San Francisco and New York and Los Angeles. But over the last four years, five years, I've just been blown away with the growth in the heartland of the country, in the red states, not just the blue states, in manufacturing, in energy, in retail. And so while we go to market with vertical-focused communications and vertical-focused relationships, at the end of the day we're a horizontal platform. And it's because every company is facing the same challenges. Dan: If you think about today versus 10 years ago, we now live in a world where every industry is connected to the cloud. Every industry is connected to lots of devices that are connected to the cloud. Every industry is being disintermediated by data and analytics and automation. And as a result, every company and every industry is looking for the same kind of talent. And we've seen the vertical of engineering and technology become the driving horizontal across most industries. Chad: So when you take a look at modeling and you take a look at our industry, it doesn't look like you're modeling after anything that's happening in our industry now at all. It sounds like you're looking at, as you said, sales and marketing to be able to model something to different, more platform-focused, then again, the era of the ATS is dead. So can you tell us a little bit about when you were envisioning a model for Jobvite? Is it more towards the sales force of the world? Where are they at? Dan: Companies traditionally have focused recruiting around the requisition. There's this need, I have a job, I'm going to advertise that job in a newspaper. And then the first ATS, you can debate whether it was Resumix or Restrack, and I ran Resumix for a while when I ran HotJobs. It was built around that rex, meaning you advertise a job in the newspaper or on a job board and you get a lot of responses and now you have a database for resume. Today, I think recruiting needs to be built around a brand and an experience that you're going to offer candidates. And the candidates may be interested in multiple different jobs and they're interested in what your company does in the marketplace, what kind of experience they're going to have. Dan: And I've given talks to recruiting departments over the years that they need to think of their company almost in the way universities think about it. These people are going to look at their company and figure out, "Do I want a big company or a small company? A big university or a small university?" What's the curriculum like? They're going to look to see who your faculty is. They're going to look to see who's teaching these classes. They're going to go on LinkedIn and see who your managers are. And they're going to be more interested in that than any specific job. And as a result, we think recruiting software needs to help companies build access to candidates, not necessarily just distribute jobs and requisitions. Joel: Dan, Google for Jobs, as you know, has been a real influential force in the last couple years in terms of job postings. And quite a few of the ATSs that we talk to are really adamant about leveraging Google for Jobs in a way that companies' jobs are directly onto Google for Jobs, that they're optimized, and that they become more of a direct link to the job seeker and the employer. Do you have a similar sort of ideology there at Jobvite, or are you less concerned about that and more concerned about posting to job boards and getting the distribution play right? Dan: I actually think it was inevitable that Google was going to get into this space. 11 years ago, when I was at Yahoo! running HotJobs, I felt very strongly that the future of job searching was not gonna be at a job board. The job listings were gonna be findable by any search engine. And I'm actually surprised it took this long, Indeed and Simply Hired, I think probably we're the intermediate solutions that created vertical search engines for jobs. But I've always felt it was inevitable that Google could become the dominant place where job seekers search for jobs, just like they search for anything else in their life, so that therefore I think it makes complete sense for companies like Jobvite to help companies connect with that audience. Chad: So what about taking it further with companies like Google? They've come out with enterprise APIs on job search and I believe we're gonna see one on candidate search and matching probably sometime this year. What's your stance from a platform standpoint to be able to really partner very closely with these types of organizations, whether it's a Google or maybe another big brand name that focuses on search? Dan: Yeah, I think it's critical to integrate with the ecosystem in not just recruiting, but in job searching. If you think about it, Google has the best data about individuals who search for things. And that, as a result, they can figure out, I think pretty well, what's the next best opportunity for someone? An example I'll give you is when I was at Yahoo!, back around 2005, we built a machine learning algorithm that would take into account things that you searched on Yahoo! for. So for example, if you were a nurse living in Seattle, based on the kinds of searches that you did in Yahoo!, and also the kinds of news stories and content that you would consume, we would begin to figure out that you're thinking of moving to Phoenix, Arizona. And as a result, you'd start to see HotJobs listings for nursing jobs in Phoenix. And the algorithm would watch to see if you clicked on 'em, and if you did, it would then determine that you must be in the market, you must be interested. Dan: and in fact, we saw click rates go up. And that was a long time ago. So it is inevitable that Google's algorithms over time are gonna get very smart at understanding the intent, and that's the key word here, the intent that job seekers have. Well, the same thing exists for companies like Jobvite. We really understand the intent of the companies and what they're looking for. Someone really smart in our industry told me, "Hey, Dan, we're not in the hiring business. We're in the rejection business." Meaning for every 100 people you say who apply for a job, you're only gonna hire one. For every 100 people who look at a job, you're only going to hire one. Dan: Well, think about the information in all of that rejection. Who do they reject? Who do they reject? Who do they reject and at what stage? And who do they jump onto and who do they spend more time with at what stage? And that insight will lead to understanding company intent and hiring manager intent. And I think the long-term opportunity is for the marriage of those two intents. Joel: Dan, when I talked to you 10 years when you first took the position there at Jobvite, you guys were sort of mavericks in the sense of leveraging social media to get traction for job postings, most notably share a job on social media, company pages or job listings on company pages on Facebook. It seems like a lot of that has faded from the foreground. What role does social media have with Jobvite's products and services today? And maybe what will we see in terms of social media in the future? Dan: Well, we still find that companies who roll out employee referral programs and launch them with the requirement that employees create a login into Jobvite, not requiring them to share jobs on social networks, just to create that login, and then set up the distribution of jobs on their social networks, do better at sourcing candidates than companies that do not do that. Rolepoint is teaching us a lot about how to further drive the engagement in employee referral programs through their capabilities, and they're in fact less reliant on social networks to do that. Dan: You know, it's funny, the other thing that we did 10 years ago to the other question you asked me about Google Jobs, is that as soon as you bought Jobvite, your jobs were automatically distributed onto Indeed and Simply Hired, the leading search engines at the time. And customers were so excited when they would turn on Jobvite and start seeking candidates already. And I think the lesson here is that job seeker behavior is fickle and will change over time. And whatever they're using four years from now or five years from now to spend time with each other, to do research, to learn about industries, even to shop, are going to be places where recruiters are going to have be with their brand and their opportunities that they're going to want to find the best people. Dan: At the end of the day, recruiting is going to become increasingly like all digital marketing. Chad: So Dan, you talk about changing from rec-centered to being more people-centered. But we also know that HR and talent acquisition, they've taken processes from over the last decade and they really haven't changed them, because we know, especially in HR and TA, change is a bitch. What's your message to them to be able to try to give them a nice shaken baby moment, to get them out of this and to focus on really what's next? As opposed to the rec, really the people and experience, and one of the reasons why you brought Canvas, Rolepoint, and Telemetry into the mix. Dan: That's a big question. I think a couple of things. Number one, 15 years ago, 12 years ago, I started giving talks about the upcoming change in the demographics and how that was gonna make finding talent in the future increasingly challenging. The obvious, biggest trend of which would be the inevitable retirement of baby boomers and the replacement of them by a smaller, better educated and value-driven generation. And when I gave that talk, people were interested. They may occasionally take a photo of a PowerPoint slide. Now it's all taken as a given. Everyone knows the pain that recruiters feel and their hiring managers feel, right now, in trying to find talent is immense. Dan: If you put 15 CEOs into a room and said, "You can't come out of that room without agreeing on what are the top two or three pain points you face as a CEO," I'm convinced that one of those three, if not the number one would be "I'm scared I'm not going to be able to find talent over the next three to five years to meet my company's goals." So this problem isn't going to go away, and so what it means is that by definition, we're going to have to change what we do if we're going to find that best talent and bring them into the company and keep them. I think everyone understands that. Your point is a good one, but we don't seem to change as fast as the market needs us to change. Dan: I think we have an emerging generation of people who are going to challenge everybody to change. The very people who were looking for these career opportunities and expecting to change jobs more frequently because they feel the need to acquire skills faster to build their career are going to be the ones working within HR departments and recruiting departments, asking, "Why aren't we changing how we're doing what we're doing?" So I think the millennial generation and even the one after that is going to be a big driver of that. Dan: And the second thing, implicit in what I'm just saying is, I think C-level suite is already starting to pay more attention to this, and because they contract a measure, the quality of all aspects of their business better today than ever before, they're going to start asking, "How are we doing in recruiting? Where are you getting your hires from? Which source of hires is the fastest source of hire? Which source of hire is the fastest source of hire? Which hiring managers are doing their job? Which hiring managers are not doing their job?" Dan: And if you have a data that tracks it from the very first moment you have a touch with a candidate all the way through the hire into the job, then you're going to be able to answer those questions for the C suite. And that's what's gonna drive the change. But as you can see, finally, I also think that the disciplines of marketing and sales are gonna lead the way and it's gonna be an exciting time over the next few years for our profession. Joel: The gig economy is obviously getting a lot of buzz in our industry. There are platforms coming out to help establish a marketplace where people looking for gigs can connect with restaurants and employers of all kinds to connect. But we're also hearing that the gig economy is a little bit bloated and a little bit overrated. Where do you stand on the gig economy and what sort of products and services is Jobvite looking at to help support a gig economy? Dan: The word gig almost implies, it almost belittles what's going on here. I think the reality is that, as I said earlier, every industry is being transformed by the cloud, the Internet of things, meaning every aspect of their business is now connected to the cloud, generating a ton of data that's going to be transformative in virtually every industry. And the fact is, the definition of what's core to the enterprise versus non-core is gonna come out of that, and finally, human beings are connected to the cloud. And you're already seeing people ask the question, "Why do I need to come into the office? Why can't I work wherever I want to be?" Chad: Exactly. Dan: And I think that that's not going away. And I don't think that's necessarily the gig economy. I just think that's the cloud. And so companies are gonna have to decide which positions are core to what they do versus not core to what they do. And with those positions that are core, they will still be full-time jobs, but their requirements for full-time work about where people need to be located, what tools they need to use, are gonna be transformed. And so I would argue that working full-time inside a company is going to look more like what the gig economy looks like today. You log in when you need to. Dan: I was just in a meeting yesterday with a bunch of CEOs where they were saying that R&D and development overseas is evolving to a model where everyone agrees that for these four hours, we're online at the same time. But you can be in India, you can be in Eastern Europe, you can be in Florida, you can be in California, you can be in Mexico. It doesn't matter. But as long as for these four hours you're logged in together, you can be anywhere you wanna be. And that's the first I've ever heard of that, and so I think that the gig economy is just the tip of a spear of change about how people work together and collaborate via the cloud. Joel: Dan, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it. I know I for one could talk for a few more hours, but we know that you don't have such time. For our listeners who want to connect with you, where would you send them? Dan: Certainly send me the email at dan@jobvite.com. Joel: Chad, we out. Chad: 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. 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 #DanFinnigan #HotJobs #Yahoo #Nexxt #Canvas #Rolepoint #Telemetry #K1

Drum roll please!!! Today Steven Rothberg from CollegeRecruiter.com joins the boys to talk Google Search API business case and two (2) NEW FEATURES dropped by Google into the Talent Cloud Solution job search API today. Thanks TALROO.com w/ a blank check for keeping you in the know. Enjoy this Talroo exclusive PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people 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, Jobs to Careers thought so. Chad: Jobs to careers? 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 is 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 the Talroo platform enables recruiters to reach the right talent at the right time and at the right price. Chad: Okay. 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, 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: Hide you 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: (singing) Welcome to The Chad and Cheese Podcast, everyone. We have a special guest with us today. I can't believe it took this long to get this cat on the show. Steven Rothberg, founder of College Recruiter. Steven, welcome to the show, coming at us from the Great White North, the state of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota. Steven: How are you? As they say here. Joel: You. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Tell them what you said when you first got on the call with us before we hit record. Steven: About the race? Joel: No. Heidi, Heidi, or something. Steven: Or howdy, howdy. Joel: Howdy, howdy. We took a trip back to 1952. Steven: 1952, I had already graduated from college. I was well into my career. There we go. Joel: There it is. Very nice. Kiss your waitresses, everybody. Chad: Yeah. He'll be here all week. Joel: Steven is here with a big announcement from Google Cloud API. Chad: Not yet, not yet, not yet. Don't do it yet. Joel: Is that what they're calling it though? Because they change the name every week. It's still Google Cloud API, Google Job. Steven: Google Cloud Talent Solutions. Chad: There it is. Joel: Oh, wow. Okay. I'm glad I asked. A big announcement, but before that, Steven has been using the search API, I guess since it was launched, or really soon thereafter. And you have had quite a bit of experience with it. So we want to know about your take on it, how it's benefited your organization, how it's improved search, what exact it is. For people who don't know, tell us about it. Chad: Wait a second, before we get there though, because everybody listening, we've been talking about why Google, or why use somebody else. Right? The whole Trojan horse thing, and I think that's a good ... Right out of the gate, it's like Steven, why did you choose to go the Google route first? And then I definitely want to talk about stats. But why did College Recruiter, after years, hell, probably over a decade, of having your own tech and all that other fun stuff, why did you choose to get on the Google boat? Steven: Yeah. Quite simply, it dates back to I think it was roughly June 2017, where Google announced what's now called Google Hire, their ATS, Google for Jobs, which is the search that happens when you go to on Google. And then also what's now called Google Talent, Cloud Talent Solutions. All those announcements kind of all happened right around the same time. And when we looked at the cost of providing our own search, the building it, the maintaining it, for a pretty small organization, or even a large organization, it's like we're never going to be better at search than Google. Right? Steven: Our customers on the employers' side, not a single one of them is going to ever say, "We're going to post this job, or these thousands jobs, to College Recruiter because they've got great search." Right? They're coming to us to help them hire people. How we do that, they don't really care about. So we felt that we could actually save money and get better results if we partnered with Google and used their API for search to basically replace the search on our homepage and on the interior pages with their technology. So the data, the jobs themselves are coming from our employers, from our database, but the actual search technology, the algorithms, that's coming from Google. Chad: Okay. Joel: And what were some immediate benefits that you saw? Steven: We were an alpha partner. We were one of the first sites to sign with them. We launched during the beta phase a little over a year ago in January 2018. One of the first benefits that we saw prior to the launch that quite frankly really surprised me was that we were dealing with people. It wasn't just like a tech support email address, and here's the API and go figure it out. They were actual real live people that were accountable, that were our primary points of contact at Google. And that's continued to today. I'm amazed that an organization like that has managed to make this a personal experience on the development side, on the customer service side. Steven: That's really important to us, to know that if we have an issue, if we have a suggestion, that we know who to reach out to, and that they respond intelligently and promptly. We don't just get back a copy and paste template like we do with some vendors, or some former vendors, I should say. Another big benefit that we saw immediately upon going live was a reduction in the number of hours that we're spending on maintaining and developing our own search. So we reduced the number of developer hours by about 50%, five zero. Chad: Now is that in house, or did you have a vendor for that? Steven: We were doing it in house, so we had in house developers, several of them, that depending upon the issue, one person might work on it. Another person might work on it. But on a combined basis, about 50% less developer staff time. I also just found out this morning from our customer service team that we went from having an average of about two job seekers a week emailing us or calling us to question the results. Why am I seeing these results? I can't figure out how to run a good search, that type of stuff. And since we went live, we've had one. Chad: For 14 months, and not to mention, that's two week of people that are actually so frustrated that they're taking the time to email you. That's not even really pulling in all the people who didn't even have the time. They just ejected because they had a bad experience. Steven: Right. Absolutely. If you come to a job search site, and you run a search and you get back results that they don't make sense to you, you're going to say, "Screw it." Joel: this I'm going home. Steven: And I'm going to go over to some other site. And they should. There's lots of choice. If we're not delivering a good experience right away, then they should be done with us. And they should move on. Chad: Are they also driving the email notifications? You know, obviously the email notifications historically have driven a ton of traffic to pretty much any job board or job site that's out there. But they're all predicated on obviously Boolean, which was incredibly frustrating because it just didn't work as well. Are you using that to drive the search behind email notifications to ensure that the individuals who are getting those emails are getting more relevant jobs as well? Steven: We're not. But we're doing something pretty similar to what you're thinking. We've actually been, shamefully on us, we've been without a good job match alert email product for the better part of the last year. And believe me, it's a glaring weakness on our end. It's about to be fixed. We're about to go live with a sort of combination job match alert email with content from our blog, YouTube channel, et cetera, sort of wrapped into a weekly e-newsletter. The technology that we're going to be using comes from another vendor that's going to use AI to determine the correct jobs, the correct non job content to send to you based upon your geographic location. Steven: Also, you’re on site search history and behavior, and your behavior in opening the emails and which jobs you click on. It will essentially learn who you are and what you do, quite similar to when you go to Amazon and you search on a tent. And it comes back and it says, "People who searched on this also searched on these things, tent poles, canteens," and then every once in a while, you'll get something really weird like the floor mats for your car. It's like, what the hell does that have to do with a tent? Well, if you've ever gone camping in the rain, you know that you need that. And so Amazon sometimes will come up with some bizarre recommendations on the surface, but then when you think about it a little bit more, they make sense. Steven: One of the reasons that we chose not to use the Google Cloud Talent Solutions for the email product is the cost. Every single day that you send one of those emails to every single candidate, that would be a search, and you pay per search. So we decided to go this other route that it's a flat fee per month. What we are using Google Cloud Talent Solutions for that is somewhat similar to what you're thinking are push notifications, browser push notifications. When you come to our site and you say, "Allow, yes I want to get a push notification when there's a new job or blog article that might be of interest to me," then we use CTS, Cloud Talent Solutions, to identify the job to send to you. And so each one of those is a search. Joel: Steven, I'm curious. Did you find the speed of searches improve greatly? And what did you see in regards to maybe the number of page views on the site? Were people engaged for a longer time period because you were using Google's improved search engine? Steven: Yeah. The speed, I don't have those numbers at my fingertips. I guess the way I can answer that is that our search was lightning fast before we went over to Google, so any speed improvement I think would not have been noticeable to the user. We rebuilt our site about four years ago. And the benchmark that we used was Indeed. If a job seeker could go to Indeed and run a search and get their 10,422 matches and that took so many milliseconds, that was the bar that we set for our development team. And they exceeded that, so if it's fast enough for Indeed's audience, it's fast enough for ours. Even if we are faster, I don't think that there's been a benefit there to the user. But the results have far surpassed our expectations. Chad: Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the stats. Let's talk about the results. As you take a look at- Joel: He was until you interrupted him. Chad: No, no, no. I want him to actually get into stats, real stats. For all those that are out there, yeah, get into the stats. Obviously, speed wasn't something that you noticed, which is awesome. But what did you notice? Give us hard numbers on time on the site, or whatever it might be. Steven: Yeah. Google asked us to pull together some numbers for a case study that they just published. If you want, I can get the URL now or later for people who want to sort of get more details. There were four primary numbers that we looked at. One was the time on site. How long does the average visitor spend on College Recruiter now as compared to prior to January 2018 when we went live? The answer to that is 5% longer time. Now that doesn't sound like a lot. When I saw that it's like, well, that's nice. That's not great. But what that's led to is 25% more searches. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. That is very nice. Joel: That's great. Steven: And that's led to 20% more what we call job detail views. That's somebody who goes from running a search to the job search results page, the page that shows you the 10 results, clicking on one of those jobs, to then read the full job description on our site. We're getting 20% more of those. Chad: Because they're finding exactly what they're looking for versus before when they were frustrated as hell, and they just ejected. Steven: Bingo. Right? You run a search, and now the 10 results that come back to you, rather than maybe one or two being a good fit, now it's probably seven or eight. And so if you get seven or eight good matches, you're going to click on at least one of them. And what that's also led to is that the quality of the people, the match, is greatly improved. 242% increase in our KPI, in our key performance indicator, which are what we call apply clicks. How many people read a posting on our site and then click the apply button to go over to the employers ATS to apply? That's up 242%. Chad: Say that again. What is up 200 and what? Steven: 242%. Chad: Holy shit. Steven: I think that when we first got a good handle on what this Cloud Talent Solutions product was and the benefits to the customer, to the job board, or the ATS, I think Tarquin Clark, who I know you guys know very well, he delivered a presentation at the job gate, North American Job Board Summit in June, I think it was 2017. Might have been July, but it was right around that time when they were rolling out these products. And Career Builder was a very early adopter. Career Builder, I think their equivalent number, a year, almost two years ago, I think it was something like 17% increase. It was something like that, which is huge. I mean, just for turning on a piece of technology, that's a huge lift. 242%, when we saw that, we almost dropped a load in our pants. Joel: Are customers happier and paying you more money? Steven: Yeah. Absolutely. Something that's happened in parallel, not because of Google, but it's definitely made it a lot easier for us, is that two years ago we were almost exclusively a duration based site, meaning that employers would pay to run a job or 1000 jobs for 30 days. Or they might sign a six month contract, or 12 month contract, and what they paid was fixed. Now almost all of our customers are performance based. Virtually all of them pay per click. When we're sending 242% more clicks to employers, then that revenue goes up by 242%. Chad: Now there's your business case, kids. Joel: You're saving money and you're making more money. Steven: Yeah. And the other thing that- Joel: I bet Faith, your wife, likes that. Right? Steven: Oh, yeah. My wife, who's also our CEO, so as our kids put it, we've got the right boss at home, and we've got the right boss at work. There we go. Thank you. Thanks very much. I'm here until Thursday. The developer time saving to, and to a lesser extent, the customer service time saving, that allowed us to complete that migration from duration to performance based far faster because we had an extra 10 hours or so of developer time a month to spend on migrating our technology. And also, then we had more customer service time to spend migrating our customers. So all of that, which has just been really, really critical to our success, happened a lot faster because we didn't have to worry about the search. Chad: Well, not to mention your expertise is not in search. Joel: What is your expertise again, Steven? Steven: The thing that I'm the best at, and I should get a T-shirt for this, I think it was Joel's idea, is being a social media whore. Chad: Oh, okay. There's nothing wrong with that, especially these days. Okay. I'm getting antsy. I'm getting antsy. Can we start talking about announcements now? Can we do that? Joel: In the news. Steven: There are two big announcements that our friends over at Google gave me permission to kind of allow the announcements to come on The Chad and Cheese Podcast, which I'm sure you guys are happy about. One of them is actually live. Joel: I love that they send a surrogate on the show. Steven: They decided that they wanted the news to take the precedent over the speaker, and so they looked for a speaker that nobody would care about. One of the features is live now, and I actually just found out about it a day or two ago. As you might recall, I think it was last summer, Google just sort of announced. Hey, by the way, Johnson and Johnson, Career Builder, any site using Cloud Talent Solutions, College Recruiter, if you go to this site and you type in the military code for the occupation in the military, you're going to automatically see the equivalent civilian code. And it's been pretty good. From what I've heard from people- Chad: Nah. Let's not get into that. Steven: Yeah. There were some problems. But there are definitely some codes, like for a mechanic in the military is going to line up very well on the civilian side. But that was a feature that Google just rolled out. And it was surprise to its customers, surprise, this is live. Nice, new benefit. You're not paying anything for it, anything extra for it. They just did that with language support. For a long time, you've been able to go to a webpage that might be in Spanish. And Google will pop up a message, if you're using Chrome at least, and basically say, "Do you want to see this in English?" And you can say, "Yes." And you can say, "Always translate pages," or whatever. Steven: Well, that's great if your first language is Spanish and you're on a job detail page, the page that has the whole job description. You can then understand what that position is like, the requirements, et cetera. But to get to the job detail page to begin with, you have to be able to run a search on a site like ours in English because the postings are in English. If Spanish is your first language and English is your second language, therefore you're bilingual, therefore you're a candidate that most employers salivate over, you can't find their job posting on College Recruiter because you probably don't have enough of a command of the English language, or you might not, in order to put in the correct keywords, especially if it's Boolean and your search is dumb like ours was before using Google. Steven: Now I was just shown this yesterday by Google. If you go to College Recruiter or any of the other CTS sites, and you type in a word like ventas, Spanish for sales, and then put in your location and hit search, all of the sales positions, all of the relevant sales positions on College Recruiter will come up, even if they do not include the word ventas. About 10% of students in elementary, middle school, high school, et cetera, are ELLs, or English Language Learners, meaning that their first language is not English. Almost all of those are going to be bilingual. Some of them are going to have stronger English skills than other. But if your first language is Croatian, or Japanese, or Spanish, you're going to feel comfortable using that language to run a job search. Steven: Now if you're fluent in English, you'll probably just run a search in English. But if you're not fluent, if you're merely bilingual, then typing in keywords in your primary language is going to lead you to better results. That's going to be the preferred way of searching. And I think that this is going to be a real door opener for candidates who are otherwise extremely well qualified. Think of a part-time retail job in a city like Los Angeles or San Antonio, where there's such a large population of people who barely speak English. Now if a bank can hire a teller, who has very strong Spanish language skills, to work at their branch in Los Angeles, that's great for the bank. It's great for the candidate. It's great for the customer. Joel: Just visually for me, in your search box I put in a Spanish word. And the results will still be in English. It won't auto translate the results for me. But it will sync up those keywords to what the English equivalent is. Am I visualizing that correctly, or does it- Steven: That's exactly right. But now picture yourself as somebody whose first language is Spanish. And so you've set your Chrome browser to default to Spanish. If you were to run that same search again, you would get a little popup from Chrome saying, "This page looks like it's in English. Would you like me to translate this to Spanish?" Joel: So it syncs up. Steven: Then you say, "Yes." Yep. And then that's not anything to do with Cloud Talent Solutions. That's not anything to do with College Recruiter. That's kind of another group over at Google, the Google Translate team. Joel: Have you, from a user's perspective, added in your search window Spanish search available, or whatever the Spanish equivalent of that would be? Have you let users know that they can search in other languages? Steven: We found out about it yesterday. I'm an activator. We've got some developers that are even more so. They get a shit ton of stuff done every day. But we're not that fast. Joel: Are you planning any sort of marketing campaign to, let's say Spanish speaking prospects? Steven: I kind of feel like I should be paying a consulting fee to Joel. Chad: Everybody listening to this podcast should just send us blank checks. Yes. That's the way it should work. Let's talk about number two, commute search. Steven: There have been a few job boards that have done a bit of a mash up, where they've sort of mixed in Google's commute search so that candidates can say, "Oh, okay. I see this job. And I can see the location of it." Employers rarely include a street address or even a zip code with their posting. So the best you usually have is the employer name, city, and state. I think it's all about that there are way too many highly qualified candidates out there in this economy. And so we just really want to keep those people away because there's no other rational reason for it. Hashtag sarcasm. That's three now I think. I think I should have little check marks going. Steven: What we are going live with, and the other big announcement that is coming through the podcast is enhanced commute search. So now when you go to College Recruiter and you run that search, alongside the search results, that here are the 10 jobs that match your interests, you're going to see a map. And that map will have a pin for each one of those 10 locations. And you can then change your search defaults. And you can say, "Here's my address." It might be where your apartment is. It might be the location of your last class of the day. Show me only the jobs that are within, say, a 10 minute walk, or a 30 minute bicycle ride. And then the search results will update and the pins will update. Steven: And so you can then forget about having to look at 100 different retail jobs to figure out which ones are within a 10 minutes walk, and instead, Google will show that to you. One of the things that most job boards do very, very well if they have any kind of commute search option, is distance. They'll say that the distance between your location and this job's location is a mile. Well, if you're in downtown San Francisco at 5:00 PM, it takes you about 45 minutes to go a mile in a car [crosstalk 00:27:52], if you're lucky and if you've got Dirty Harry beside you. Steven: At 9:00 PM, you can get from downtown San Francisco over the Bay Bridge into Oakland in that same amount of time. It really is irrelevant to most job seekers what the distance is between them and the employer. What they want to know is: How long will it take me to get there by walking, by bicycle, by public transportation, by car at the day and time that I'm going to be working? Chad: That's really hard though because, I mean for years, companies, they never had their physical location in their actual job posting itself. And you need data to be able to go by that. And what we used to do was, we would do city center. And that's all we could do because we didn't have any additional information with regard to location. Are you seeing Google attributing locations and trying to kind of fuzzy math it? Or are companies actually starting to push that data into their jobs so that you can better understand what a commute would look like? Steven: No and no. I do think that more and more employers, as they become aware of this issue, will start to include street address or at least a freaking zip code into their postings. Today, some employers are doing that. Most are not. Yeah. Chad: You're such an asshole. Steven: Google does a very good job of identifying an employer's location, or a shop's location, just by putting in the name of the company and the city and state. And then just through Google Maps, you can get that data. What we're doing, Mike Willbanks, who's our vice president of product development, is doing this. He's basically working on an enhancement to our implementation of commute search, so that when we do not have the street address and/or zip code, he's basically looking that up in a fully automated way of course, looking that up on Google Maps, grabbing the address and zip code, and then feeding it over to commute search. So we're building that behind the scenes. Steven: Remember early in the conversation when I told that there are real people at Google, and they really listen to our suggestions? This is one of the suggestions we've made. I don't know if there's been any kind of a positive feedback from them, a commitment that, hey, give us a month or two, and you'll see that feature. But knowing the people who were working on Cloud Talent Solutions and how they interact well with other groups at Google, I have to believe that this is coming. That's just me. Joel: I know when I think about geolocation and geo targeting, I think of mobile. Is it your understanding that this will also be available for say, laptops that have a GPS within it? And what kind of user numbers do you have, mobile versus sort of traditional desktop or laptop? Steven: Yeah. Our site can identify your location if you're on mobile. And then we use that data, or if you're just on a desktop through your wifi network, we can see where you are. We then use that for your default location. If you're on your mobile, we're going to default to wherever your mobile is. In terms of mobile users, when we relaunched our site about four years ago, we went from a typical site, which was the best word to describe it would've been horrifying on a mobile, to responsive design, which is not perfect. But it's a quantum leap forward, or was a quantum leap forward. The percentage of our mobile users went from 15% to 55%. And we didn't see drop off in desktop users. The desktop users, that was more or less flat, so the people who were using our site using laptops and desktops, they kept using our site. What was different was that rather than somebody coming to our site on a mobile, seeing how awful it was, and bailing and never coming back again, and probably telling 5000 of their closest friends, "For God's sake, do not go to College Recruiter on mobile," now they can come to our site and they can have a decent experience. Joel: Are you still seeing growth in mobile or has it kind of plateaued? Steven: It plateaued. Yeah. We've been at that 50% to 55% number for several years now. One of the big problems with mobile is that last mile problem. They can come to our site. They can run a search. They can register. They can upload a resume through LinkedIn or whatever, or if they're on certain phones and they can easily store a file. I think Android phones are supposed to be pretty easy with that, iPhones, it's pretty terrible. But they can do all of that on a mobile. But as soon as they hit that apply button and they go over to the ATS, for most employers, again, they've done a really, really good job of making it as difficult as possible for people to apply. Steven: A lot of employers will sort of poo poo that and say, "Oh, we have that button right there. Apply with LinkedIn. Only 1.5% of young adults 15 to, I think it's 34 years of age, so basically gen Z and gen Y, use LinkedIn on a monthly basis. If they're not even using LinkedIn on a monthly basis, that's only 1.5% of them, the likelihood of those people using LinkedIn to apply to a job on your ATS is really, really low. Joel: Well, Steven, we appreciate your time. We know you're a busy guy. You heard the announcement here first kids. Steven, for those who want to know more about you and/or your company, where should they go? Steven: Yeah. No sweat. Collegerecruiter.com is our domain. Feel free to email me. Steven, S-T-E-V-E-N at collegerecruiter.com. Anybody who wants to read the case study from Google, they can go to www2.CollegeRecruiter.com/GoogleCaseStudy. Chad: Beautiful. Fair enough. Joel: The Google train keeps on trucking. Chad: Love it. Joel: Chad, we out. Chad: We 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 track spikes, you know, the expensive shiny gold pair that are extra because, well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Google #CloudTalentSolution #CollegeRecruiter #search #partnership #analytics #KPI

What do you get when a former NBA player launches an applicant tracking system? Gotta listen to find out if Eddy has what it takes to survive Firing Squad or not. Enjoy this Talroo exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people 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? A cross between talent and a kangaroo? Chad: Haha, 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: Aha, 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. Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: 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: 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 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: All right. Been too long for Firing Squad. Chad: Yep. Joel: Glad to be back. Chad, how you doing? Chad: I'm doing awesome, man. It's nice to be home for a minute, right? Joel: It is nice to be home. It is nice to be home. So we have a treat today on Firing Squad. We have a former NBA player, I think, which is a first for our show. Chad: It is. Joel: Travis Hansen, welcome to the show. Former Atlanta Hawk, BYU, overseas player, welcome to Firing Squad. Travis: Thanks, guys. Chad and Cheese, happy to be here, man. Joel: Travis is CEO, and I'm assuming, founder? Travis: Yes. Joel: Of Eddy, E-D-D-Y.com. Who's your favorite Eddy, by the way? Travis: Oh, my gosh. Christmas vacation Eddy, right? Joel: Oh, yeah. Cousin Eddy. Chad: Cousin Eddy. Joel: Nice. Travis: Cousin Eddy was the best. Joel: Yeah. I'm going to go Eddie Murphy for me. Travis: I could do that. I like Eddie Murphy. Joel: Chad's got some '80s song that he likes called [crosstalk 00:02:49] Eddie, or something. Chad: Yeah, just popped into my head. Charles and, yeah. Charles and Eddie. Joel: So aside from the NBA angle, what else should we know about you? Travis: Oh, man. Born and raised in Utah, great parents. Mom was an amazing mom, died of pancreatic cancer when I was 17. Little brother overdosed prescription drugs. Gone through some hard things in my life. Wasn't always the greatest at basketball. I was athletic, I was tough, driven. But there's guys that are more athletic. I made it to the NBA, did a 360, and then I see Josh Smith do a 720, so I think a lot of things, when you work hard, good things happen, sometime great things, sometimes incredible things. Ended up playing for the Atlanta Hawks, and then went over to Rio, Madrid. Played for the basketball team over there. Lived next to Cristiano Ronaldo in Caca. Joel: Man. Travis: Ended up going to Moscow, Russia, met Vladimir Putin. They gave me Russian citizenship to play on the national team. David Blatt, who was a Cleveland Cavaliers coach, was my coach. Joel: Cavaliers. Travis: Retired, came home, and had a chance meeting with a good friend who started Nu Skin. He was a billionaire and he said, "You know what? What are you going to do with your life?" It was awesome. He looked me in the eyes, there was no one more important in the room than me at the time, which taught me a lot of cool lessons about someone that had been that successful. And he said, "Building businesses could be the most charitable thing you do if you do it the right way." And that's when I knew, after basketball, that that's what I wanted to do with my life. Joel: My mom sold Nu Skin for about a week. She was on the train, baby. Travis: Blake Roney, the founder, and he always says, "I'm a lotion salesman." Joel: All right. She had it all, man. Shampoo, lotion, yeah. All that stuff. All that stuff. All right. Well, before we get into Eddy, Chad's going to run down the rules for the newbies out there, and then we'll give you the two minutes to pitch your product. Chad: Okay, here we go. So you're going to have two minutes to pitch Eddy, and at the end of the two minutes, you're going to hear the bell. Then Joel and I are going to hit you with rapid-fire Q&A. If your answers start to ramble, Joel's going to hit you with the crickets, or maybe even the bell, who knows? And then we're going to just push you along, give you kind of the signal to be more concise. Who's eating stuff? Joel: Not me. Travis: Cheese. Cheese was eating. Joel: It's not me, bruh. Travis: It's the dog. The dog. Chad: At the end of Q&A, you're going to get one of three grades, either big applause, which means you killed it, golf clap means you need to tighten your game up, that's my favorite. Or the firing squad, no! You should probably close up shop, pull out the drawing board because this shit's just isn't working. So that's Firing Squad. Are you ready? Joel: And the guns are still fresh from our last episode, so no pressure, Travis. No pressure. Chad: She got double-gunned. Travis: Let's do it. Joel: All right. At the bell you got two minutes starting ... Travis: Eddy.com. We built a few different businesses, and used a lot of HR tech, and it sucked. It wasn't good. It was old, it was old technology, and we love, coming from the NBA, we know building championship teams is hard. It's much more art than science, and so we set off to make some killer software, cloud-based human resource management software that is designed for small, medium businesses, and it allows you to find and hire the right recruits, and then maintain them and keep them in your business. Travis: Everyone knows that hiring is super-hard. It's hard to ... It's like dating. A couple read a resume, text, meet them twice and then you're supposed to know if you should marry them. And so we set off to build software to automate, to understand personalities and resume parsing, and make it fun. And we've hired, we've hid a couple Easter eggs in there. We hired eight engineers from Ancestry.com who are more than 60 years experience all together. And we think we can revolutionize the industry and build some killer software. Joel: Now everyone ends this the wrong way. Where can we find out more about you? Travis: Eddy.com. E-D-D-Y.com. We launched, we basically been in startup mode for about, mmm, 14 months. We launched 60 days ago, we already put on, we're about 40 companies in 60 days that we've been able to put on our software. Joel: You are fresh. Chad: Fresh. Joel: You are diapered and ready to go. Holy cow. Travis: Okay. Chad: So these SMBs, these small and medium-sized businesses, are you looking to try to take Eddy to the big leagues and do an uprise? Travis: Yo, you look at Greenhouse and Lever, and they're the enterprise softwares out there, we're just as good. In fact, I think they have resume parsing and some, a little bit heavier reporting analytics, but that's not our mission, our focus. We want to be an all-in-one HR solution. It's really fragmented. You have to have an ATS, an HRIS, your own Zenefits, and then payroll. So we're bringing it all in one solution. So we will build what you need to have in each of those verticals, and have the best solution for a small, medium business. So our customers are typically, it's when you go to a breaking point because you're growing so fast, or you're so sick of the manually entry. You have 15 spreadsheets for every little thing that you have, and we bring it all in one. Travis: So it's typically 50 to about 500 employees is when our customers start to look for a solution and find us. Joel: So I can't get past the name. We talked to Myas and Olivias, and all kinds of female-oriented names. How did you come up with Eddy, and what were some of other names that got nixed? Travis: Oh, man. We really wanted a female name, to tell you the truth. We worked really hard and tried to find a, there's a lot more females in the HR industry than there are males. But Eddy was, we loved Alexis and Siri, and so many people are naming their products names. Put it in Eddy or ask Siri, and we want Eddy to be that authoritative expert in the HR industry to help you do your job and make you a hero. And eddy, also, is a little whirlpool in the ocean. We, at our company, we all want to be surfers. Joel: Yes. Travis: We office in Utah. Joel: As everyone from Utah. Travis: We office in Utah but our heart's in California at the beach, so our whole office is basically designed and decorated as if we were at the beach, so it helps us get through the Utah winters. And so an eddy's a whirlpool, an eddy basically goes down, grabs all the nutrients off the ocean floor and then brings them back up so it's a good ecosystem for the fish. Joel: So should we be expecting a voice assistant, as well, in the future? Travis: Absolutely. A lot of automation, a lot of AI. So in theory, Eddy helps you go find the talent, the A+ players, the PLUs, we call them the people like us that are driven, that are genuinely kind, that will make your business go from a garage startup to an enduring business that lasts forever, which every founder wants their legacies, they want their business to survive. And the only way to have your business survive is to continue to find great great people to work at it and run it, and help you. And so we, Eddy, specializes in going to find that talent. Chad: Okay, so let's dig down deep into how. How does Eddy actually help companies source talent? Travis: So it allows you to create a job post integrated with all these job boards out there, so it allows you to cast a huge fishing net to find the right talent so that you're just not manually posting to job boards. We do it in a very unique way. The key words, the characters, the templates, we really have taken an authoritative and expert approach in bringing in HR consultants to help you write the perfect job description, and to tweak it, and to be creative and innovate on that job description. Travis: So we are a people platform. We are not just for the HR admin or for the co-founder, we're also for the candidate, to allow them to have a really quick, fast, mobile-friendly user experience. Most businesses don't even have a careers page. If you go to their website they don't even have a perks, or what's our business like, or what is it like to work there, who am I going to work next to, and all these different questions that candidates have. And so most companies just don't get to the best candidates quick enough with under 3% unemployment in the US, it is a competitive market. And if you don't have the right solution and the right systems and processes to attract this candidate, you're going to lose. Chad: So do you help every single client write all their job descriptions, because, I mean, we were actually just at an AI and automation summit, and one of the things that we talked about was garbage in, garbage out. And in most cases, the job descriptions that companies have today, are garbage. Joel: Suck. Chad: So, yeah, they totally suck, and they've sucked for decades. So do you, is this a differentiation, where you actually get in there and say, "Look, the data has to be not garbage. It has to be good." Do you help every single company rewrite their job descriptions to be relevant to today, and also the requirements for that job? Travis: We provide the tools for you to not copy and paste a job description and regurgitate the job descriptions that are out there. So we provide tools for you to innovate and create new job postings based on your culture, based on your business, that will attract the right candidate. Chad: But it's up to HR to pretty much rewrite their shit, right? Because they just, in most cases they just won't do it. Travis: Almost all of our companies, I would say 95% have all rewritten them and are tweaking them and testing them because they have the tools. I think before, historically in HR tech it's so old and it's so boring that no one has the tools. They have a ton of functionality. Chad: What are the tools? What are the tools that you're providing them that they might not get in any other ATS type of platform? Travis: So our chief product officer's Kenny Freestone. Chad: Uh-huh. Travis: Our head of the US is Josh Calloway, and our CTO's Greg Burgess. These three guys were the first employees. Greg Burgess was the second engineer at Ancestry DNA, which turned into an unbelievable company, organization to help a million people around the world connect to family members. And so they're very thoughtful in their process, number one. So a ton of research, a ton of beta users and understanding what works and what doesn't work, and what works with a candidate, number one. Travis: Number two, user interface. It's a clean, organized, beautiful design that's easy to use, fast to use, and allows you to create a job posting really quickly, but also gives you enough guidance to help you be innovative, because most people, too many of us aren't. We're not creative, we don't know what words to use, and so we built the tools, enough to hold your hand and to help you down this path without being too authoritative, and not too back off. Joel: Travis, it goes without saying that this is an incredibly crowded space, and listeners will know that big gorillas like Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, et cetera, are getting into the ATS market. ATSs, bigger ATSs are trying to figure out what are we going to be, were seeing acquisitions in the space, people trying to be a one-stop shop for employers. Curious, where do you guys fit in the whole universe of ATSs? What's your unique selling proposition to folks that you talk to, because I'm sure you're not the only ATS that they've spoken to. What does that conversation sound like with prospects? Travis: Yeah, it's a great question. There's a ton of ATSs, some of them are good, some of them are bad, some of them are old tech, most of them are old tech. We are not going to be just an ATS-only product. And because, I don't think that's the small, medium business solution. We have four other companies. We need insurance, we need payroll, we need job tracking, PTO, and employee directories. I need an app as a CEO to notify me when someone's birthday and when they have a work anniversary. And I need it to be really easy to pop up and say, "It's, Cheese has been here four years. Do you want to send a funny, classy, or professional text to him?" Joel: He needs a raise. Travis: And do you want to give him a raise? Joel: No. Travis: Too many companies are on paper. They're on filing cabinets, they're noncompliant. They just don't know the right way to run a business. And so there might be some ATSs that are better than ours, but ours is easy to use, it's plug-and-play, it's well-organized, it's a very, the process has been very well thought out. It's a simplified pipeline setup, so you have a 30,000 foot view. It's a drag and drop, so once you've posted your job and the candidate comes in, it's a drag-and-drop, and as you drag and drop, kind of like a Trello, there's a bunch of automated stage actions that happen in back, so they get emailed or text, and- Joel: We actually mentioned the Trello look and feel when we were talking beforehand, yeah. Travis: Yep, absolutely. Integrated job sites, posting job ads, integrated with current careers page allows you to have, to just be a little bit cleaner, a little bit better. Because sometimes, it's not that your business is so good, it's that your competitors and businesses are so bad, is why you win. My dad was pretty successful, he had an insulation company. Sold it for a little bit of money after my mom passed away from pancreatic cancer, and decided that he needed to spend more time with his family and his kids and be there for them after such a hardship. She was only sick for like four months, so it happened pretty quick. And I said, "How were you so successful in business?" And he said, "It's not that I'm so good, Trav, it's that everyone else is so bad." Travis: And I think there's a lot to be said in HR tech that there are a lot of people that are bad at this. Joel: You just highlighted the success of this podcast. Travis: Right, it's not that Cheese and Chad are so good, I mean, there's some crappy podcasts, and there's some crappy HR tech, and if we can figure out a way not to be crappy, to rise about the noise and the crap and be an all-in-one solution, and be able to help companies create championship teams, championship cultures, and to maintain them. Because people change and seasons change, and the candidates change, and to have a process. We've been with so many companies that don't even have an interview guide. And we've built this amazing interview guide with libraries that you can customize. Because as you hire these admins and recruiters, there's just, companies don't have a streamlined, structured process to ask questions. Joel: They might not have recruiters. Travis: Might not even have recruiters, right? Joel: Yeah. How much- Travis: I mean, your sister was the admin and you're growing so fast that you need her now to take on recruiting, and they just are not trained. And also there's a lot of founders that don't want to hire an HR person. They don't want to pay the $50,000 to $90,000 for an HR person. They don't want the other stuff that comes with it. They want someone they trust and they like, and it's usually an admin, and administrator that's been there, and so they promote them to take this on. And they are not technically qualified. And that's where Eddy can step in. Joel: Let's talk about the differentiator of price, which you did not mention, and you have pricing. You have a pricing page but there's no prices on the pricing page. Was that by design? What's your guys pay structure? And I'm sure you're aware that a lot of solutions have a free sort of lightweight ATS, and does that factor into the pricing model? Travis: Our website's terrible. We barely launched, we're a startup. We just barely hired- Chad: Strange to say, that is great. Joel: I love that. Travis: We just barely, so we've been so focused on engineering and product the last year and a half, just convincing the best engineers in the world and product people to work for a washed-up basketball player was hell. We did it, we have a killer team, and we're starting to have a great product. We hope over time, the next 12 to 18 months, it'll become world-class, and so our sights and minds have just turned towards marketing and sales in the last 60 days. So we went out and hired, after two years recruiting off and on, we hired the CMO of Purple, purple.com mattresses. He went from zero to 300 million revenue, brilliant guy. He just started a month ago. We're totally revamping the website. We're revamping our pricing and trying to understand exactly what our customers want, and so that is in the works, and we'll get a lot better at that. Travis: But right now we're just, we're giving killer deals. We're like, "199 to 399, have as many users as you want, get on the system, test it out." Because revenue's important, it's the lifeblood of the company, but right now the lifeblood of the company is, let's build a world-class product, and we need people in it, using it, getting feedback to help us do that. Chad: So customer acquisition. I mean, that's obviously key. You start looking at revenues and obviously making investors and even if it's bootstrap, everybody else happy because they're getting a paycheck. You have the Hired by Google's of the world who have three million companies who are already using G Suite, right? So they kind of have that baked-in base that they can get into. Where are you guys going? Do you have specific regions? How big is your sales force? What's the real focus on growth? Is it trying to grow nice and easy, and start small first? What is it? Or is it hypergrowth? Travis: To answer your question I'd say I just got done attending Qualtrics' summit. Qualtrics is a survey company here based in Utah. Had Oprah come and speak. Oprah, I haven't heard from her for a while since her show, since she went to OWN network. Man, I'm a big fan of Oprah. Just a good-hearted, good human. Some of the stuff she said was just phenomenal. Joel: Have you had her cauliflower pizza yet? Travis: No. Gross. Chad: Because Joel hasn't, that's for damn sure. Joel: I refuse. Travis: That's gross. Gross. I'm a man, I need meat on my pizza. Joel: Oh, Jeez. Travis: Oprah is, Oprah said she left her show, 25 million views, she had all these awards, Emmys, and she started her OWN network. And it was terrible. It started to do very poorly, and didn't have the views they needed, and producers were talking to her. And she said, "Okay. Let's stop trying to own the world, and hypergrowth, and get all these listeners and viewers that we don't have. Let's just focus on the viewers we do have." And so I think our approach is similar, that we're not trying to compete against all these other competitors. We're trying to take care of the customers we do have, give them the full solution to allow them to build an enduring company that lasts forever, and provide the software that allows them to do that. Travis: And so I have no doubt we'll add customers. The customers we do add, we want to make sure we take care of them. So as far as hypergrowth, we do want to do a hero video, we do think when the marketing's been really boring, there's no solid brand, if anybody ever asks, "How do you do hiring recruiting?" They say, "Uh, Indeed. Uh, I think the ZipRecruiter thing", I mean, there's just no solid marketing brand that stands out in the space. And we hope, with some humor, some fun, and a lot of data and research, we can be that brand. Chad: So you talk about Zip, and Indeed. How do you guys actually acquire candidates? Because you're talking about job distribution, and that's fairly standard for most applicant tracking systems. Are you doing anything from a programmatic standpoint, number one, and then number two, are you doing anything on the automated matching side of the house? We're seeing that with, again, the Googles of the world, and many of the other applicant tracking systems who are either partnering, or they're building that themselves. Travis: Yeah, we'll partner. There'll be certain things we build ourselves. Anything we do we'll be A+ at. The things that we believe someone else can be A+ at, we will partner with them. So job boards are specifically one thing that we don't. We think Indeed, and man, KSL, and NewCo, and Glassdoor, and Google are really great at, so we've integrated those job boards. Now as soon as the candidate goes to a careers page, goes to apply, reads the job description, we want to own that. The first interaction, any type of experience with your brand, we want to own. And we want to own it all the way through, and not just an ATS, but onboarding. Onboarding is one thing that will take a little, we'll differentiate Eddy compared to, I mean Eddy versus all these other Breezy, Bamboo- Joel: Enboarder. Travis: Yeah, Enboarder, Jobvite, blah, blah, blah, ApplicantPro, they suck at onboarding. And onboarding's such a critical piece to ensure that a candidate, now that they've accepted the job, they want to work for you, have an unbelievable experience, and then continue to have an unbelievable experience throughout. Joel: Are you partnering for the onboarding experience? Travis: No, we're building all that. So we will own recruiting as far as, as soon as a candidate goes to a recruiter's page, until they're hired, fired, or retired, right? So onboarding, benefits, PTO, HRAS, employee directory, payroll, we will own all of that piece. So ATS, the reason we started with the ATS is because it has low switching costs, it is really the starting point with your business. So as you start to grow you do need a careers page, you do need to have an unbelievable candidate experience and all these different things. And so we believe that's the starting point, and we will have a full all-in-one solution. Joel: Curious about funding. You've mentioned some heavy-hitters that are on the team. Have you gone out and raised money? Is this all sort of NBA dollar-funded? Are you looking to go raise a series A? What does that look like for you guys? Travis: That's a great question. So I've just been super-lucky to have good mentors, and I've had probably 10 coaches in the NBA. Four were incredible, three were okay, and three were average. I've never really had a really terrible coach, but mentor-wise in business, I've had some unbelievable. Fraser Bullock, Sorenson Capital, Bain Capital, Blake Roney Nu Skin, just been so nice to me. And so, and they're very capable, so we know that raising on the idea compared to the team, compared to actual product, compared to actual customers is way different, way different evaluations. So we have bootstrapped and self-funded all this. We have other companies, and so when I got done playing basketball I got heavy into real estate. I did not want to be an Antoine Walker. Poor Antoine, or some of these other guys that have just lost all their money. And so I went- Joel: Pippen. Pippen. Travis: Yeah, Pippen. I got paid for running ladders, and getting yelled at, and I can't run ladders and get yelled at anymore, I'm too old. I just turned 40. I just protect the asset, so we got into real estate. We own now over 500 multi-family units, and then we have a property manager company. After that, we got into FinTech, which now we have a business that does about 10 million in revenue and has about 40 employees. Then we did a couple seed rounds and kind of did some investing, and now we started Eddy and Sass. So we are funded, whether we, we don't have the capital of some of these other large businesses to compete with, but we have enough to build a killer team. And then be scrappy, and be frugal and resourceful, which'll, we think, end up helping us build a world-class product. Travis: And at some point we will want to bring on a strategic partner for growth, but we need to identify so many different patterns before we bring on that investor. Joel: Do you feel like you're at risk of being labeled sort of a hobby or a side project versus a committed business because you have a lot of fires out there? Travis: No, because each company operates independently. Each company has a different COO that runs it. This is all I do, particularly with our nonprofit, spend like 5% of the time with that, because I still love helping people, and giving money away, and helping people's really hard. But 95% of my time, and our whole team, 100% of their time is dedicated to this product and this company, and that's how we've done with other companies. So we know that this is going to be a five-to-seven-year hard run to build a world-class product, and we're committed to that, so I mean, time will tell, right? We got to go play, and the lights are on. But I think you're asking, am I Dwight Howard playing for the Lakers, and when the lights come on, am I going to get traded to the Bobcats? Joel: I think, my curiosity is, if we talk in five years, what does this look like? Have you moved on to other projects? Are you looking to sell the company? It doesn't sound like you're going IPO any time soon. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. Chad: And there's a ton of money being thrown around in this industry right now. We're seeing acquisitions pretty much left and right. So is this built to acquire, or is this built for a legacy? Travis: Well, I think every business should be built for legacy. If you get acquired and someone comes and you end up being a good fit, then so be it, but Qualtrics just got bought by SAP for 8 billion, but no way down the last 16 years did they ever build it to be acquired. So we want to build it to be an unbelievable solution for a small, medium business. We want to be best friends with the founders that worked their butts off, that grinded, that saved money, that became a business somehow, and now they're in growth mode and they need solutions to help them continue to grow. So we'll be, to identify the market, Bamboo HR, GoCo and Eddy are the only three players on the whole market that are all in, all-in-one HR solution for your company. Travis: So within five years there might be a few more, but we believe between Bamboo HR and Eddy, those'll be the top two solutions for your company. Joel: Good enough. We know what that bell means. It's time to face the firing squad. Chad, you want to do the honors? Chad: Sure. Sure, sure. Hey, Travis, appreciate you taking the time, man. Going to start out with, man, you are competing against some very big names. Hiring in HR, HRIS systems are a hard business, just because every company out there believes they're so much different than everybody else, and their hiring experience and their hiring process is so different, so it's like a customizable, kind of like a labyrinth that you have to get into. And then there's the whole process of prospectively spreading yourself too thin. Being just an applicant tracking system, or being just an onboarding piece, is there enough focus in certain areas versus trying to focus on everything. But you get points for saying your website sucks, because I was going to tell you that, but you told me before I could say it. Chad: So you get points for that. SMB is a very smart place to start, because it is a big pool of businesses with low to no tech whatsoever. And I also agree with you 100% that to be able to focus on specific areas and be really good at them, you're going to have to partner with the best to be able to provide some of those technical solutions for sourcing, for interview scheduling, and things like that, that the AI and automation that's happening in those segments are amazing. So I believe your partnership strategy is on point. So between the two of those, I'm going to go with a golf clap. I think you're getting there, man. I think you're getting there, and I look forward to see where Eddy goes from here. Joel: Fair enough. All right, my turn. Travis, it was a pleasure to meet you. It's always nice just to meet startups. You have a great story. You're the reason why we do this show, so it was a pleasure to meet you, and like Chad, I look forward to your journey and where this thing takes you. You're very early on. The one thing that I really like ... So, let me back up. Whenever we talk to an ATS or we learn about a new ATS, Chad and I have been around for 20 years, so we tend to like knee jerk, oh, my God, not another ATS. Why would someone do that? And I have to sort of hit myself and say, hey, not everyone is like you, and a lot of companies, startups, small businesses do not have an ATS. So I try to temper my criticism of a new ATS, knowing that a lot of companies do not. Joel: Now what I really like about the company, number one, is you guys built this for you. You found a need in your own organizations to build this thing out. And some of the best organizations out there were built because someone found a need and filled it. Slack comes to mind. Slack was a side project for the company, and that came out pretty well for them, and will continue to do so. So I love that you're building it for yourselves. I love that you understand that talent builds success, and I think your roots in basketball and sports, obviously, have trained you to get a good team around you, and I think the Casper and the Ancestry folks, I think that is getting a real good team around you. Joel: I think you understand bench strength and getting people around you, so I think that's a big plus for you. That aside, Chad is totally right. This is an incredibly competitive business. Consumers are very confused, who do I use? Google getting into the game is big. Facebook, in some way, is going to get into this, and every small business has a Facebook page, or most do, so I think that's going to be a competitive hurdle in the future. LinkedIn is getting into the small business thing and launched an ATS late last year. You have all the players that you mentioned, so I think that you're going to be successful. I think that you're going to have a niche market. I think you're fine being 5% or less of the small business market. I don't think you need to be huge, and I think that your comments about caring for the customer and knowing who your customers are and what they do, I think, is really valuable and will carry you far in this industry. Joel: So I like what you're doing, but I also am very aware of the competitive landscape and how hard it is to make a dent in this market. So for me, as well, golf clap. So you're on the right track. You're very early on. I'd love to talk to you a year from now, see where you are, see where you are with some of the innovation that you talked about. But I think you're going to be fine, but it is an uphill battle, I will say. Travis: Yeah. You guys are nice. It is. Startups are brutal. It's not easy, and we know it's going to be a five-to-seven, ten-year ride to build a world-class product and take care of your customers, and you look at Qualtrics. 16 years and still very few people heard about them until they had that huge acquisition. And so the thing I like, I get asked to speak to UVU, BYU, and Weber State and all these MBA schools, these entrepreneur kids. And they always ask me, "What business shall I start?" And there's so much pressure put on these kids to think of the new SpaceX, Tesla, Facebook, something that's never come up before. And I think ... my agent's Bill Duffy. He has Steve Nash, Carmelo Anthony, Klay Thompson, and he always says, "The only way to become a billionaire is to come up with one of those ideas, or to screw a ton of people." Travis: And so I always thought, I can build five hundred million businesses, and what are the best spaces to get in? Well, get in the biggest spaces. You know, right now we're in real estate, loans, and HR tech. And so, yeah, as far as our level of success, you guys are rating us on, are you going to IPO, are you going to become a billion-dollar company, you going to be a, you know? We don't rate ourselves on that. We rate ourselves on, can we build? Each company we build can be a hundred million dollar company, and for us, that's our metrics. That's an A+, and we're happy to work as hard as we can to make that happen and create a good team around us. Travis: And then also, let's put on 5,000 to 10,000 customers, and we'd be extremely happy with that. Travis: What are you going to do to me? Joel: Show's over Travis. Travis: Get that thing off. Joel: Dude, where can we find out more? Travis: Eddy.com. E-D-D-Y.com, give it 30 days, we'll have a killer website up. Chad: Thanks. Joel: Thanks, Travis. We out. Chad: We out. Travis: Thanks, 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.c-h-a-d-c-h-e-e-s-e.com. #Eddy #FiringSquad #ATS #Onboarding #SMB

On this week's show, - Messaging apps are HOT HOTT HOTTT and flush with cash - Facebook is feeling US user ejection - Costco, Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, & Walmart minimum wage crossfire - WTF is the human cloud? - Momazonians... WTF did you can her? - Zip pushes past Indeed's Canadian cock block - POWER TO THE PEOPLE - Money flows Wade & Wendy, Paradox, Instawork, HiBob & Gem (ZenSourcer). Oh, and the investment cash register continues to ring. Enjoy, and support our sponsors: Sovren, Canvas and JobAdX. 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. Joel: Why the hell not? We're back, yo. It's The Chad and Cheese Podcast, aka, the red-headed stepchild of recruitment news. I'm your cohost, Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, messaging apps stay red hot and flush with cash. More minimum wage crossfire, and what the fuck is the human cloud. Chad: No clue. Joel: Learn it, live it, love it. And no shirt, no shoes, no dice. We'll be right back 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 sovren.com. That's s-o-v-r-e-n.com. Ed: This is Ed from Philly. You're listening to the Chat and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Yes. Ed from Philly. Joel: Ed, you're dead to me. But I like the sound bite. Chad: Oh, why is he dead to you? That doesn't make any sense. Joel: I crossed the fat guy line, with me. Yeah, shout outs. Chad: Shout outs. Okay. First and foremost, David- Joel: David who? Chad: ... long story short. I can't tell, you got to try to keep this a little incognito, because he's actually ... He's a talent acquisition professional, He's a VP of talent acquisition or something like that. Anyway ... And you'll understand why. David was using CareerBuilder at his company and they were looking either switching to Monster or staying with CareerBuilder. And then he heard our interview with Scott Gutz of Monster, the CEO over at Monster [crosstalk 00:02:33]. While he was negotiating with both of the companies, David wanted to know the source of some of the stats at Scott was coming up with, so he asked his Monster rep and the next thing you know, David's getting a call from Scott. Joel: The CEO called? Chad: Yeah, the CEO of Monster called. Needless to say- Joel: Did he go with Monster? Chad: David went with Monster, yeah. [crosstalk 00:02:59] Not just for that reason, but that tipped the scale and he actually said another sale closed on Chad and Cheese Podcast. Keep up the good work. Thanks David. Joel: Does he want to remain anonymous, because he doesn't want to be known as a career builder user? Is that ...? Chad: I'm sure he doesn't want his fucking sales dude bringing him off and saying, "Oh, I heard that this shit happen." Or something like that. Not to mention it's a very prominent organization, so he probably doesn't want to throw that out there either. Joel: If you haven't heard the Scott Gutz interview, I think it's our best work. Chad: That's good. Joel: Go search the archives. However, we've got some good shit coming up to be published yet. That's also pretty good stuff too. We're in our sweet spot, man. It's good stuff. Good stuff. Chad: It is. Joel: But we do have haters- Chad: Dude, what? Joel: ... which gets me to my ... Yeah, believe it or not. My first shout out goes to millennial Daniel Kraciun. Daniel is the chief marketing guy at find.jobs,- Chad: At where? Joel: ... the Juggernaut of a vertical job search engine. Anyway. Chad: Where? Joel: Daniel doesn't like our cursing. He thinks were bullies. Now, I don't really care what he thinks about us or the show, but he seemed to somewhat give the impression that, people sponsor the show, our company sponsor the show, because they're afraid of getting like harassed or bullied by us, which is total bullshit. Chad: Fuck you. Joel: Our sponsors love us. We don't threaten people like, "Pay us or we're going to talk shit about you." That I have issue with. Daniel, you're way off base and you better bring facts when you say shit like that. Chad: Not only that. It's a free country. You don't have to fucking listen to anything you don't want to listen to asshole. That makes it very simple. Now, the reason why people do listen, is because we're, and this is what our listeners tell us, we're genuine, we're authentic, and we have opinions based in combined 40 years of experience in this fucking industry. So if you don't like it, dude, that's cool. Just don't listen. Go the fuck away. [crosstalk 00:05:10] Joel: Or just buy and beers and do intros for the show. Ed: This is Ed from Philly, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcasts. Chad: Ed's a millennial, not to mention Kyle from hierology who always buys us beers at the show. Joel: Thanks Keith. We appreciate that. Chad: Jonathan Zoob, who was- Joel: Great name. Chad: ... at the TAtech AI summit. He said, Chad particularly, he was impressed with my ability to throw him a beer and not have it explode upon opening. Jonathan, I want you to know, it's taken years to actually perfect my technique. So yes, thank you sir. Joel: Our fans are like Odell Beckham Jr. There in the stands, the newest Cleveland Brown. I had to work that in. I'm going to give a shout out to Willie Nelson for two things. He's got the coolest name ever. Works at Talroo, I'm not sure what he does there, but he had a comment. They were talking about, I guess, x new swag or new clothing that they could do. And I requested Daisy Dukes, probably Daisy Dukes and he refuted that really quickly and said, "No, Daisy Dukes on Cheesman." So- Chad: Please. Joel: ... You'll not see me rocking Daisy Dukes with Talroo logo, anytime soon. But I'm going to go listen to Willie Nelson's greatest hits after this. Chad: Yes, no, Daisy Dukes on Cheesman. Period. Big shout out to Chris over at iCIMS. Quote from Chris, "I've assigned your podcast, the Chad and Cheese Podcasts, to all my new hires as mandatory listening. If they are coming from outside the industry. They love it. Joel: I am straight. I know we have a moratorium on shoutouts that don't involve people or events. Chad: Yes. Joel: But I'm going to do a shout out to Tesla who launched their dog mode, which is basically leave your dog in the car and it will remain cool for the dog to stay alive and not die. I think that's just a pretty cool thing to do. One of those tech things, that make people go, "Yeah, I'm going to buy that." Because they have these little cool tech gadgets. Shout out to Tesla for giving our furry four legged friends, a little TLC. Chad: Dog lovers unite. Shout-out ... Okay. This is to all of our employer brand faithful listeners. We love you guys, but we're shaking from shit up. We are shaking from shit up, got Douglas Atkin and Chris Neil and some other gathering podcasts, and we're trying to change the conversation and make sure that nobody gets comfortable in this space. We're thinking of being more innovative. Some of the opinions that are going to be coming out, might be different than what you're used to. Joel: I think we need to have just sort of a smack down, throw down, punch up, with the employment brand folks, which, by the way, brings me into our TAtech employment Marketing, our recruitment marketing conference in Chicago. We're going to have some top notch brand folks on the stage and maybe we can hash out this whole employment brand, is it a thing or not topic, which you and I cover quite extensively. Chad: It is a thing. There's a whole God damn industry and titles and shit. It's about more of a holistic conversation, I believe. And I think that is something that we could have on stage and we'll have some fun with. But as you're talking about events, are ... The next event that we're going to be at his SHRM Talent, a couple of engagements on the smart stage. It's funny they put us on the smart stage. Thanks to our- Joel: [crosstalk 00:08:50] wouldn't come if it was the dumb ass meat head stage. Chad: No, I think they would. Joel: I know they probably would. Chad: Thanks to our buddies, Jobcase for hooking us up on that one. Staffing Tec. We're going to be right across the city at Staffing Tec in Nashville as well. And while we are there, guess what kids we have the traveling with shaker backpacks. Which are going to be, they're going to be full of Chad and cheese first edition T-shirts provided by Emissary.ai. Can I hear it? Come on. Joel: First edition. Chad: They are putting women at a distance. Joel: Like we're led Zeppelin albums one, three or four. Chad: There's only going to be a hundred of these bad boys going out and then we'll do the next edition and what have you. But emissary.ai, they stepped up and they said, "We want to do something with you guys." And I wanted to do T-shirts and you said it couldn't be done and boom, it's done. Joel: No, I just didn't want any part of it. So the shirts are all Chad ... Yeah, we've got more shirts, more ideas, the dude clearly has a closet that's empty because he wants more T-shirts. Chad: I want our listeners to have our T-shirts. Joel: They are nice shirts, I'll give you that. I'll throw in that I'll be at ERE in San Diego- Chad: Nice. Joel: ... in April next month, doing a thing on Google for jobs, SEO, if you will. So if you're out there for that, stop by and say hi. Come by and heckle me where you're ... Maybe I'll bring some Chad and Cheese tee shirts to ERE. Maybe that's appropriate. Chad: I don't know. We'll talk about that one. Pods that are coming up, we've got Steven- Joel: It's off brand Cheesman. Chad: ... Steven Rothberg. He is going to be talking about some Google news that's going to drop on March 19th. Joel: Mark your calendar. Chad: March 19th. Google news. He's allowed to talk about this stuff. Dan Finnigan, probably going to drop next week, the CEO of Jobvite. Awesome stuff. Couple of gathering pods still out there. We just dropped another one today with Chris Kneeland, which is awesome. And we still have a secret Talroo lot of- Joel: Super secret. Chad: ... podcasts that are going to be dropping here. Who knows when? You're going to have to keep your eyes and ears open. Let's do this. Such an asshole. Joel: All right, let's get into it. Facebook messaging remains hot, dude. Not only in our industry, but others. You're a big fan of Teams from Microsoft. That has come out of nowhere. Like Slack and Facebook and I ... You're really under Teams. What's up with that? Chad: I just think it's incredibly smart for organizations like Microsoft and, as we see with Google and higher ... I mean they've, they have the Suite and then they start adding these different elements to Suite. In this case, Microsoft Teams now has more than 420,000 corporate customers and they've doubled adoption in six months. Slack has 8 million paid users and now Workplace, by Facebook has 2 million paid user. There's a lot of hotness that's happening here, but I'm hot ... I like Microsoft Teams just from the standpoint of it's part of your daily routine. Your Microsoft Suite, what you use ... Again, it's a lifestyle Suite of products that Microsoft has, where Slack isn't. It's out there by itself waiting for Google to acquire it. Joel: Does Teams integrate with LinkedIn or do you think it will at some point? Chad: That's a great question, because ... I don't know, I think it'd be really cool for recruiters to be able to utilize Teams within LinkedIn, possibly. Maybe they can do that now. If you're a recruiter out there and you're currently doing that with Microsoft Teams and Linkedin, let us know. But I think that would be incredibly cool for Talent Acquisition to be able to do those types of things within the Microsoft Suite, which LinkedIn is on the fringes integrated with. Joel: InMail is so important to LinkedIn's DNA and revenue. I hear very little positive about InMail. In terms of replies and an engagement. It seems that a messaging integration at some point have to happen with LinkedIn, if it's going to keep up with everyone else that's integrating messaging tools and text messaging. Chad: From my standpoint, you have to ask yourself why are these platforms growing? It goes back to email and old style messaging. I think number one, it's immediacy. You have all of these individuals connected into an instant messenger type of environment, where you're sharing documents and you're collaborating and so on and so forth. So, immediacy. Number two, the virtualness of work nowadays. And then number three, because we're fucking humans, immediacy. We have to have it now. Joel: Did you just make up a word, virtualness? Chad: Yeah, we do that around here. Joel: Messaging is nuts. If you go to the App Store and look at the top 10 most popular apps, half of them are still messaging. It's still WeChat, it's still Facebook Messenger. Snapchat- Chad: Whatsapp. Joel: ... is still technically in my mind, messaging app. I mean messaging on Instagram. It's just such a huge part of what we do. Clearly the money trail that we see, all signs point to this is going to remain in the future, for the foreseeable future. And AI, I think wrapped into that and we're hearing ... In our interview at TAtech, and if you haven't heard the two part series on that, you should. We talk about this chatbot, it's had a dirty word. And I think all these platforms are moving beyond where chatbot to where we're, an entire platform for communication, et Cetera. And AI is obviously thrown out. But I saw a report this past week that they're saying that 15 trillion in revenue will be produced by 2030. So you're saying, all these solutions that ... It's just the tip of the iceberg. Joel: This is like 1999 on the Internet, when you're looking at AI and all this stuff that's going on. But anyway, there's some some news out of the messaging app world from recruitment. It's obviously hot in general. Um, but Paradox, our friends over at Olivia, formerly jobbing, formerly recruiting, raise 13.34 million, this past week. Which is an odd number, to raise [crosstalk 00:15:26] 13.34. But anyway, in addition to that, there are also opening offices in Chicago and Dallas in addition to the office there in Phoenix. As well as a Wade and Wendy, for those of you who listen to the Shred, and if you're subscribed, you do get the Shred, raise 7.6 million. This is an in addition, of course, to Canvas and TextRecruit being acquired, the past year or two. Chad: Definitely, you take a look at messaging in our space. It's different from the overarching Teams and slack and so on and so forth, but it's the same from the standpoint of immediacy for candidates, and you've got all these ... Again, talk about Canvas and Jobvite, being acquired by Jobvite, TextRecruit being acquired by iCIMS and then you have some other big players out there, Maya, Olivia, Wade & Wendy, Emissary and our buddies over there at Talkpush, they're more on the global scale, which is really cool. But dude, it's amazing, the amount of money that's being focused into the messaging space. From my standpoint, and I've said this before, I am really excited about the matching auto sourcing side of the house, but you're just not seeing the love as much as you are with messaging. Joel: Yeah. What I'm hearing around messaging is, you're going to start seeing 100 million plus acquisition price tags on some of these folks. That's a prediction, but it's by someone that I respect. So don't be shocked to see those kinds of numbers coming down the pike. And it makes sense. Look, we know that 95% open rates are real. We know that. We know that 90% respond within 15 minutes of receipt. We know that conquering ghosting is a thing with messaging. That's real dollars and cents that companies are benefiting from by using these services. Now my question is, every job board has an ATS now. When is every job site going to have like a messaging component as part of its offering. Because I think that's coming as well. Chad: Yeah. You have to take a look at some of those. I think Indeed would be the first one that would want to look at something like that to make it easier to have those communications. So if you're out there Indeed, yeah, it's probably a good idea, if you haven't yet. I don't know, why don't you give us a call? We'll talk about it. Joel: Or give us a call anyway. Chad: The monster ecosystems of 10 years ago or 15 years ago were much different than they are today. I don't see them as big of players, so I don't know. I think integrations is really where it's at. They're not going to look at acquiring CareerBuilder or Monster not acquiring these types of platforms, but going through integrations to make it easier within the applicant tracking system. I don't see any of that happening. It's all around partnership right now. Because they don't have the cash to do it. Joel: To me it seems like a no brainer. Instead of CareerBuilder creating augmented reality where you point your camera, your phone at the street, and you see jobs. Why don't they integrate a messaging app? Where you could look at candidates on CareerBuilder, and if they download the app, online, you get a green light, and then you can message them directly through the CareerBuilder app. To me that seems like a much better use of your tech talent than doing some augmented reality bullshit. Chad: I think the platforms that we're doing really well on are the working not working platform. We talked to Justin Gignac, who is the founder of Working Not Working. It's a freelancer type of platform, but it is incredibly niche and it's only for the design and creative types, for agencies to be able to reach out to them very quickly. I think that is perfect. The perfect opportunity to be able to do those types of integrations. I just don't know that the general job boards per say right now, they have so much technical debt and to be able to, to start to integrate something like this, I just don't see it happening. Again, they're focusing on virtual reality or augmented reality and putting videos on job postings. Joel: But you agree it would be smart, maybe, to do that. If I have the Monster app and I'm getting messages from recruiters and I'm messaging them through the Monster app, that seems smart to me. Chad: It's hard. It's really hard for me to see that. Joel: Are you surprised and impressed that Facebook at work has 2 million paid user or paying users. Chad: I'm very surprised. Again, to see Microsoft turned flipped the switch. To see Facebook flipped the switch. This to me definitely demonstrates that the Canvas and TextRecruit, what we're seeing right now, especially in our industry, it is just starting to heat up. Because the applicant tracking systems or the CRMs or the RMPs or the ecosystems that don't have these types of platforms. They need to have them now. Joel: 15 trillion by 2030. Get on the AI bus. All is not rosy for Facebook, however, my friend. Chad: No, it's not. Joel: follically challenged friend. Chad: They're sleeping. Joel: News out of this week, they're losing members at a pretty rapid pace. They have 15 million fewer over 2017. You had a great chart, which we can't show on a podcast, but it shows ... I think it shows from 2015ish maybe, the decline and growth of Facebook. The good news for them is Instagram continues to grow at a pretty healthy pace. Snapchat is growing fairly slowly, I think over that period and Twitter is like just dead. I mean it's just not moving at all. But if you are Facebook, what do you do? You had a friend that quit because there's no joy in Facebook. Which I tend to agree. I go to Facebook because I get alerts saying I was tagged in a photo or family, keeping up with family, but I'm usually tagged in photos or mentioned, photos of kids. But the new story sharing and stuff, it's getting tired, I guess Chad: We are seeing a rise in the 55 plus side. Where you're seeing a trend, downward trend for the individuals who are ... Joel: The 16 to 24. Chad: Yeah, that's amazing. Joel: Is where the most loss happens. I'll tease a little bit. We'll talk to a CEO Jobvite, Dan Finnigan, this week, which we'll publish a fairly soon, I assume. He has a son who's ... I don't know, a rookie, a first timer engineer, he is not on Facebook, doesn't email and doesn't really talk on the phone much, which goes back to messaging. But if social media starts to slip as a way to connect as a recruiting tool, I don't know what it is other than maybe an advertising platform as well as maybe sourcing. The days of like, "Hey, let's put our jobs on Facebook or let's put a share button on all of our jobs," seems to be over. Chad: From a social standpoint, I mean you're seeing the growth and the different ... The other platforms where you're ... Again, the downward trend of Facebook. There's always going to be a way to find somebody. They're not going to get closed off. We're more connected than we ever have been. It's just us up to us to be able to understand, from a demographic standpoint, especially, how we can connect with those individuals, engage them in a very relevant way. It's been our issue for decades now, is we know how to get in touch with people. We just send shit messages, they're not relevant. We want to be able to send relevant messages because we understand that those individuals are now being impacted by our brand, either in a positive or a negative way, and we're just now starting to figure that shit out, which is fucking mind numbing. Joel: Speaking of messaging. Why don't we get a word from Canvas and we'll talk about minimum wage in the human cloud. 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. We make compliance easy and are the 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. Joel: Doing Aman next week? Chad: Yeah. I would see Aman and ask him if they're going to keep that URL. Joel: When will you become canvas.jobvite.com? Aman is a great interview, great Guy. First time we talked to him since the acquisition. So we're hoping to get some good content for our listeners in the coming in the coming week. Chad: We only get good content from Aman. Joel: That's true. And from us, by the way, we've never had a shitty show. Chad: You such an asshole. Ask Steven Rothberg who said he's listened to every single fucking show. That's crazy. Joel: He has, he has, which is why we're buying him some therapy. Sponsored by ... No, I'm kidding. Minimum wage. Our favorite topic. Chad: It's a thing. Joel: Yeah, it's stupid. That sounds stupid. Chad: Sounds stupid. Joel: Wherever there's a regulation, private business, we'll find a way, or try to find a way, around it. We have news from last week that whole foods, and I believe Amazon as well, who owns whole foods. I like whole foods. Nothing, nothing there. They're $15 an hour, but they're messing around with scheduling so that employees are bitching that they're actually making less because of the scheduling engineering that the company's doing to pay people less. To me this is a unfortunate byproduct of the world. Government says this, can we get around it? We see it in tax code, we see it pretty much everywhere. Minimum wage is no different. Chad: We'll see this from certain organizations. Amazon, Jeff Bezos is a cheap bastard. He always has been, and he's definitely going to do this from an optic standpoint, but we're seeing that there are many cities and other companies that have been doing this, that haven't been chopping back on hours. That's the thing is, if it is regulated to $15, it's not yet, but Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Target, and there's a long list of companies who right now feel like they need to do it, because of the market pressure for winning candidates. They're doing it, right? Joel: Which is how it should work. Chad: Yeah. To an extent. Joel: It should be driven by the market Chad: To an extent. In some cases, there's a wage where somebody does a full day's work and they should be able to feed their family off of it. Doing that on $7 in sum ... What? Joel: Then, ditch the job at Arby's and go work at Walmart. Chad: Some of these people aren't as socioeconomically advanced as other people. Joel: I guarantee if there's an Arby's on the corner, there's a Walmart on the other corner. Chad: I agree. But again, they're not all paying $15 an hour. Joel: So go work where they are paying 15 and then that'll force Arby's to pay 15 because they will lose people to Walmart. Chad: You make it sound so easy. In some cases, these people, [crosstalk 00:27:55] is not that easy. Joel: Government intervention isn't easy either. Chad: It's not that easy. Regulation- Joel: Either is government intervention. Chad: Yeah. And some cases ... What's the government here for in the first place? Other than ... That should be to take care of the people. If capitalism is not taking care of the people and people aren't actually getting a... Wait a minute ... a working wage that can actually help their family put food on the table, then that's not a bad thing. Not to mention, I think we forget that the money that's being paid to these individuals don't go into, unfortunately, into 401k or stock options or shit like that or buying back stock. It actually goes back into the economy. If you give somebody $2 raise, $3 raise, whatever it is, that's not going to just stay in their bank account. That's going to be out there paying for stuff, which means it actually drives the economy more. Joel: Like competition. Chad: Yeah. Like trickle down economics. Joel: Which is why Costco and Walmart pay $15 an hour. Another byproduct of this, negatively, is you get Jeff Bezos who says like, "Screw people. I want people to walk into whole foods with a smartphone, pick up what they need and walk out and have as minimal human interaction as possible," which is what we're seeing with his grocery shops. Chad: And you think that that has anything to do with what he's paying the human beings right now? Because he's going to do it, no matter what he's paying them, because it's going to be more efficient than… Joel: He doesn't want to pay them. He doesn't want to pay. Chad: It doesn't matter what pay is. $15, $13. He's still going to do that because it's more efficient and he gets to put more money toward the bottom line because he doesn't have to pay human beings. The $15 wage isn't really ... It's an excuse, more than it is anything else because he's going to do it. Joel: It's a temporary inconvenience for him. Chad: Yeah, that's it. Because he's still doing it. He's already talked about putting fucking drones up to do delivery and shit like that. Joel: Which we're way long away from happening. Chad: Maybe. Joel: But there are robots in warehouses stocking shit and moving shit. That's for real real. Chad: In our Kroger, our local Kroger, they had four lanes of the check yourself out types of service. They doubled that shit. So yeah, we're starting to roll into that no matter what. None of this is going to be blamed on a $15 an hour wage. This shit was gonna happen anyway because, go figure, there's more to the bottom line. The human friction in the system is a bitch, because people get sick, people have other things to take care of, like sick kids and whatnot. Companies are like, "Fuck that. We're going to put in automation." Joel: Yeah. So it doesn't matter what the wage is, nobody would have a job anyway. Chad: The big question is, when nobody has a job, who's going to pay for the shit? Joel: Go to the cloud, people. Chad: Go to the cloud. What the fuck is a human cloud? Joel: I've heard it twice in the last month. So it's gotta be something. It's basically ... They are platforms like, you mentioned, Working Not Working. Chad: Yeah. Working Not Working. The only reason I even started reading this article is because I had no fucking clue what the human cloud was and it said Staffing disruption, and the source of this is the Staffing industry analysts. The human cloud includes online staffing firms such as Upwork, Freelancer, crowd sourcers like 99designs, Uber, Working Not Working, Communo, all these different types of platforms, and Staffing feels like there's going to be a huge impact on them. Joel: Because finding people will be easy because there'll be marketplaces of people in the cloud. They will fill roles, basically. Chad: Not only that, they're saying that adoption or the interest to adopt has jumped dramatically. It's 53% in 2018, where it was just 21% in 2017. In 2017, around 20ish percent of people were like, "Yeah, no, I'm interested in that. I'd really like to see what we can do with that." Now over half. That's growing quickly and it's likely that traditional staffing and the pure human cloud will combine. They're going to have to. Staffing is going to have to, RPO is going to have to actually start looking at these platforms and either start developing it themselves or acquiring. Joel: Is LinkedIn a human cloud? Chad: No, because it's not on demand like an Uber or Working Not Working or something like that. If I go to Communo, I think that that's more marketing specific, and they work with agencies anyway. Joel: Like Plated for restaurant. Chad: Yeah. It's on demand. And LinkedIn is not really on demand. Joel: Okay. Chad: So that's that ... It'd be interesting to see what Staffing does. Because once again, trying to separate Staffing from Talent Acquisition, Staffing and RPO, it's their business. Joel: Let's see what JobAdX is up to and we'll talk about remote uproars and Mamazonians. Chad: What? Joel: I know, right? Stay tuned. JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat. Ah. 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. The job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX is smart search exchange. References 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs and delivers with job seekers really want premium ad units across our network. 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 increased candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at, joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdX, together we can save job search. Joel: Are you sure that's not you going, ah? Chad: No, it's not me, unfortunately. I pitched to Tim Hauck when we were in Arizona, at the TAtech AI, that I would actually do some insertions of, instead of score and be like, "Fuck yah." And ... Such an asshole ... And that's what I got. That's off brand. I think I'm- Joel: [crosstalk 00:34:55] America. Fuck yeah. Dude, employees are unhappy. Chad: What about this time. Joel: Word out of Bank of New York Mellon, they put the smack down on remote work and the pitch forks came out, apparently. You can't give freedom and then take it away. If human kind history has taught us anything, once you make someone free and give them freedom, they don't give it back very easily. That's the story. I got nothing else. Mamazonians are another part of the angry mob of a workers. Mamazonians, which is the nickname Amazonian employees that are female and have children are getting, I don't think that's an internal nickname. Chad: I don't know if the writer came up with Mamazonians or this just something that ... Joel: It's not a very flattering name. But Mamazonians are basically clamoring for childcare, as an Amazon employee, and we're seeing this throughout the workforce. People want more benefits, they want more stuff, they want freedom. And if you don't give it to them, they're going to go somewhere else. Chad: As we were talking about with wages, this is also flexibility. And flexibility rates higher than, in some cases, than wage, when it comes to mid level types of positions. To be able to, BNY Mellon to take away and say, "No, you can't work from home anymore," that's a big fuck you and many of those individuals will leave for other jobs. In this case moms are asking for some, they feel, basic benefits that they see other companies actually providing. And again, we're talking about Jeff Bezos who's ... he's very stingy on just about everything. That's one of the reasons why he's the richest man in the world, I guess. But if in this market he doesn't start to, or they don't start to, those types of companies, don't start to meet the needs of their employees, what do you think is going to happen? Joel: People are expecting more in companies because of low unemployment and the war for talent. They're willing to do it and I think it's going to be really hard once the next recession hits to make people wear ties again and make people come in the office again. Chad: I don't think so. I think, here's a word of caution. These stories are really just giving the people insights to what their employers really want to do. If and when the market does flip, and it will flip, they're going to do what they want. The days of you work in virtual and ... BNY Mellon says, "Hey, you're coming back in the office," you feel like you have no choice. If you see a company, in this kind of market, demonstrating those types of behaviors, when it flips, they're going to. Because they're going to have the quote, unquote control at that point. So I'd start looking for a new gig at this point. Fuck it. Joel: We're seeing companies trying to get in this trend and try to get into, "Hey, our product can help with the way people are now." I don't know if you're familiar ... Neither one of us is a smoker. Chad: No. Joel: There's this product called JUUL. It's super hot with kids. Yeah. I want to say children but ... with kids and young people and it's, I guess it's ... Is it vaping? I don't know. Is it the same as vaping or? Chad: I don't think so. I think it's just compartmentalize vape. Joel: It's a quote unquote healthier nicotine, whatever. So anyway, JUUL to ... I guess to their credit, they want to sell more JUULs. So they're going to companies and saying, "Hey, add us as a health benefit." In light of helping people quit smoking. So I guess JUUL can be used as a bridge between hardcore smoker and stopping smoking. Now, JUUL is going to companies and, pitching it as a health benefit, which I find quite ironic. Chad: I don't think it's nicotine free. Maybe they have some of them that are nicotine free, but I think that still has the nicotine. I just doesn't have the tar and all the other happy horseshit, but it has nicotine, which is the addictive piece and that's never good. Fuck you, JUUL. Joel: I feel like the patch folks are missing out. I feel like the nicotine patch people should be pitching companies and I should be able to go to the break room and put a little nicotine patch on my arm and get a fix before that sales call at noon. Chad: I don't know that you have to go anywhere to do that. Joel: But companies should give it out for free as a benefit is what I'm saying. Chad: Yeah, now I agree. Just as long as they don't put like a belt of them all. Joel: And they should put them right next to the condoms and the red bull. Chad: And the nutty buddies. Yeah. The nutter butters. Joel: What do you got against nutter butters, man. Chad: Nothing. I'm just saying free food. [crosstalk 00:39:52] They have free food in there too. Joel: Just don't put in the chickens because chickens are killing people. Chad: Yeah, all right. Joel: Moving on. A little bit of news here before we put the show out of its misery. ZipRecruiter announced that there would be going to Canada, or have launched in Canada and ... Listeners will remember that Indeed acquired workology last year- Chad: Workopoplis. Joel: ... and we had heard on the download that Indeed bought workology- Chad: Workopolis! Joel: Sorry, sorry. Dude, it's late. That they did it as what you call a cock block to keep ZipRecruiter out of Canada. ZipRecruiter said, "Fuck you, we're coming anyway." And launched in the Great White North last week. Chad: I think it's interesting because our intel, our sources tell us that Zip had, pretty much a deal on the table with Workopolis, which would have kept all the employees in tact, and then they would have just switched over to the Zip brand. In this case, right now what we're seeing is Indeed is really, it's almost like smothering Workopolis. I believe, and the thought is, from people who used to work there, is that they're just trying to drain it and they're just going to kill the brand overall and just switch it over to indeed Canada. They cock blocked Zip for a little while, but Zip still found their way in. Joel: Another show tease, we've got Ian, CEO of ZipRecruiter, on the show in about a week or two. Some ... Chad: Knock on wood. Joel: All right. Who got money last week and, or this week? Chad: Paradox got 13 million. We talked about Wade and Wendy- Joel: 13.34 million, I believe is the- Chad: What's that? Joel: 13.34 million I believe is the number. Chad: What the f ... Okay. Wade and Wendy got 7.6 million. A couple of chatbotish types of platforms. Instawork, which is a gig work platform for hospitality, they received 8.2 million. Hibob. That's H-I-B-O-B. Not heybob. Joel: It looks like heybob, like it's a very ... It's a very interesting brand. Chad: They received 20 million. And it's an employee management type of a system, I guess, which has great UX, because none of the other ones have great UX. Joel: Which brings their total to 45 million. Chad: 45 million. Joel: It's nothing to sneeze at. Chad: You brought this company Gem. I'm like, "What the fuck is Gem? It's ZenSourcer. We've heard of ZenSourcer, didn't know that they acquired Gem.com, which is huge. Joel: And that's ... It's G-E-M. Chad: Yeah. Gem or… Joel: It's more as I reminded you the cartoon from the 80s, Whereas, the female, the rock band tore it up as opposed to J-I-M, which is a bad piece of beef jerky. Chad: I watched the He-man, the masters of the universe, while you were watching Gem, while you're watching Gem. ZenSourcer, I think, yeah, Rebranded to Gem and I think that domain is pretty fucking hot. It's easy, it's three letters and it's a Dotcom. I wonder how much money they paid for that. Joel: These guys, hands down with the best URL, domain name Combo. Chad: That was pretty awesome. Joel: We gave Canvas a hard time because their URL is go canvas.io. Gem.com is fantastic. To get a three character domain today, a dot com, that's a common word, is really awesome. They probably spent most of that 9 million on the domain and then whatever's leftover they'll grow the business. But a congrats to all those companies raising money and making shit happen. Chad: And we out. Joel: We thankfully are out. Ed: This is Ed from Philly. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcasts. 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 happened up in here. They made me say that. The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new tracks bikes, you know, that expensive shiny gold pair that are extra because ... Well, I'm extra. For more visit chadcheese.com Feffer: Such an asshole. #Messaging #Slack #Microsoft #Teams #Workplacecom #Facebook #Mya #WadeWendy #Talkpush #Emissary #AllyO #Olivia #Walmart #Costco #Amazon #Target #Wages #HumanCloud #BNYMelon #ZipRecruiter #Gem #ZenSourcer #Instawork #HiBob

Chris Kneeland is beyond a "brand expert" he's a Cult Brand Expert and the CEO of Cult Collective where he and his work with brands like Harley Davidson, Home Depot, Zappo's and many others to drive audience engagement. But what exactly does that mean for HR, Talent Acquisition and the Recruitment Industry? No spoilers... You'll have to sit back and listen to this NEXXT EXCLUSIVE... PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and inclusion. Chad: Okay. Joel, quick question. Joel: Yup. 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: 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. Chad: Boom. So how do you get this discount? You are asking yourself right now. Joel: Tell him 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'es. 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/opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Hey guys, it's Joel Cheesman of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. You know as well. Part of our series from Banff, the gathering. We're here with Chris Kneeland, CEO of Cult Collective. No one listening to this knows who you are. So give us a 140 character about you and your agency and how you're different. Chris: That's interesting 'cause me and my agency are two different things. So I'm a father of three, a loving husband and all around nice guy. Joel: We're going to fact check that, by the way. Chris: My agency- Chad: Where is your wife? Chris: She's around. She's around. My agency is what we call ourselves audience engagement experts. We subscribed to the idea that getting customers is not that hard. What you should be doing is trying to create cult-like followings. And that implies using a different belief system and certainly using different behaviors. Joel: Now you're presented here yesterday and you did a session today. You are a big fan of employees. Chris: Absolutely. Joel: Talk about that. Like they're the center of your world, as a strategy and as a business. Talk about that. Chris: There's two things. There's a truth, which is that the world's most beloved brands build that brand love from the inside out. And that begins with the staff. But there's also, I think an egregious problem, which is that employees are largely abandoned by many corporations, by being either commoditized and treated as an HR commodity to be mitigated. Keep the people happy and throw them some doughnuts on Fridays. And the marketing team who I think has the responsibility to be a proper steward over the employees are distracted looking outside at customers and prospects. Therefore, I do believe that employees don't have the kind of leadership at their disposal that they should. Chad: I have that slide because that slide, being able to separate HR from marketing. The big question is, okay, we're just talking to Douglas. And from our standpoint, being on the HR, being on the recruiting side, we see a whole fractured brand that has just emanated probably because of symptom of the overall brand sucks. But there's actually employment brand people in HR. Why? How did this happen? Chris: I don't like the idea of employer branding. I think it should just be a branding. And that you shouldn't have a different face to the outside world they have in the inside world. And the problem is, is companies that are struggling realize, well my brand isn't that inspiring. So I'm gonna have to now fabricate and make up a whole new brand, and a whole new personality to try to attract some talent. The best brands and Douglas would have talked about Airbnb, they're not separate entities. It's just the Airbnb brand. There's no employer brand and consumer brand. Joel: Why aren't marketing and HR talking to each other? Chris: I really don't- Chad: You should see his face when- Chris: You know, a couple of things. I think that HR professionals in many cases have a lot of insecurity. When they get into audience engagement stuff, there's glaring ... They don't go to school to learn this stuff. They don't go to conferences to learn this stuff. And so, you don't want to lean into weaknesses typically. And marketing I think feels overwhelmed. They already have a pretty big to-do list. And so you're now asking me to do one more thing. My point is your to-do list would actually get less if you started with the employees. All these other symptoms that you're focusing on would go away. Joel: Does marketing look down on HR? Chris: I kind of think most people look down on HR. Chad: All around nice guy. Joel: You just lost everybody. Chris: I love it. Chad: No we didn't. Chris: Listen, the only person that's maybe more neutered at the C suite table is the head of HR. Again, I think it's an inappropriate look down. I'm not saying I condone it. I just don't see HR people being the most persuasive, the best funded, the most politically adept. They're not navigating organizations most of the time. But until you find a co-brand. Until you find an organization where they are. Like in even like a Facebook, like when a Sheryl Sandberg ... Yeah, she's COO, but she's really head of people and culture, as much as she is technology and operations kind of stuff. So when brands get it spectacularly right, that executive is the right hand to the CEO. Chris: But rarely is it the CEO. And then you'd falls into the well, whose job is this? And then we start making up titles like head of people or head of culture, because neither HR or marketing lived up to those responsibilities. Chad: On the recruiting side, recruiting, trying to pull in new candidates, those individuals obviously could be using your brand, your product, your service. The Virgin media case study where they show that they lost $6 million because they had a horrible user experience for candidates. And they weren't treating candidates like customers. They turn that and said, hey, let's try to keep that 6 million. Not to mention there's like a $7 million on top of that of individuals who are not using our product. Do you believe that from an HR standpoint, they do have power to be able to impact the bottom line, especially with all those people, but they just don't, they don't wield it. Chris: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. Hundred percent. And you also said something that made me realize there's a difference in my mind between the employer branding and recruitment marketing. And I actually think if the marketing team should be using recruitment marketing as a way to improve the brand. Because if I saw what kind of people you were trying to get, and what standards you are holding up, that I might think differently about your brand. Joel: If most marketing departments knew how many resumes were in the database that are marketing opportunities, they would be talking to HR. Chris: 100%. Joel: That conversation doesn't happen. Chad: Well, an organization spend, in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars on recruitment advertising to pull in all these perspective customers as well. But again, marketing is like closing their eyes. They've got the blinders on. Chris: And at the same time it's us. So, hey, even if he didn't get the job, how am I letting you down? Hey, thank you for your submission. It's in the queue. But meanwhile, go check out our product. There's a whole ecosystem there. Do something that gets them lathered up about who you are, so that even if they don't get the job, they still don't say something negative about you. They should love you more even after getting declined. Joel: You said something really interesting in your session about referrals. You might want to tell that story, has context. But in our business, referrals are still the number one way that companies find new employees. And there'd been time and time again, vendors and people trying to sort of build software around a referral system, right? It's like, you blast this out to your social media. If anyone applies and they get hired, we'll give you $500 or whatever it is. And they all fail. Why does that model fail? And what would be a successful model for employee referrals? Chris: It's again, we're trying to monetize something believing that money is the reason that people do what they do. And if I really care about you, I want you to have an amazing job. If I really love my company, I want people to be able to come and experience it. And I think good HR research also shows that one of the biggest indicators of your affinity for your employer is do you have a best friend at work? You're spending eight to 10 hours there. You want to like the people that you hang out with. So all the stars are aligned to say, everybody wants to make sure that the great people are on this bus. Why taint it with now let's start throwing money into the mix that would motivate me to bring somebody that's not an A player, or might motivate somebody that isn't perfectly a fit. I may not be getting incentivized to come in for an interview. It cheapens the whole thing. Joel: Talk about the Geek Squad example that you had and do you think that model could work? Chris: Yeah, I think so. The Geek Squad model. To make a short story shorter, they tested the idea of rather than giving people money to either refer or be referred, they gave them essentially access and exclusivity. So if I had gotten a geek squad service done, I'd be given a secret card with a phone number that would give me privileges of not having to wait and get quicker, the same day delivery and whatnot. And I had the ability to then share that number with my friends that were also having some tech support issues. The people's ability to say, hey I've got a way to help you, and to give you a privileged access- Joel: Yeah I got the insider deal. Chris: I have an insider deal. That's exactly right. Chad: Don't tell anybody. Chris: That's what everybody wants. Everybody wants to know a guy that can get you- Chad: Feel special, yeah. Chris: So it's all that psychology. And you're dealing with the alligator brain as opposed to this rational, what's the ROI on what this thing is going to be. Chad: Yeah. I know we don't have a lot of time, because we've got other people wanting to use the booth. The gathering. This was amazing. For our first time, we saw brands on stage, and we saw the level of individuals who were talking, VPs, Marvel studios, LA Lakers, Airbnb. I mean the list goes on. How do you get these cult brands to buy into something like this? This is the sixth year and you guys are growing every year. How do you do it? Chris: It does get easier each year. Year one was the biggest one because they had to take a giant leap of faith. I'd say it's two things. One, we invite them. I think sometimes you just have to have the guts to ask. And I think we apply a certain amount of mystery and intrigue to draw them in a little bit. And it's also, there's just a high correlation between cult brand leaders and just really good people. They know that they are doing something special, and they're not selfishly keeping it to themselves. The openness with which they talk is shocking. The warts and all, right? They're not pretending like everything they do is the Midas touch. So you properly invite a really nice person and some good things happen. Joel: So pivoting from the big brands to small brands for a little bit. And I think a lot of smaller companies out there feel overwhelmed, like yeah, it's nice to be the Lakers, the Airbnb. But they have more candidates than they know what to do with. What advice would you give a smaller company? I assume your agency is not a huge organization. How do they sort of get outside that box? Maybe guerrilla strategies to recruit better, even though they're not a huge brand? Chris: Yeah. Two thoughts. One is, I liked Marvel being here because I like reminding people in 1996, they almost went, oh they did go bankrupt. Nobody's exempt. Big does not mean that the rules don't apply to you. And even small guys can learn from the big guys because they used to be small as well. So I don't subscribe to the idea of why you don't have anything to learn from the Lakers 'cause I'm not a $60 billion basketball franchise. But the other part would be, I think that we leave no stone unturned in regards to where you can plus it up. I think some people say, I'm going to spend all my awesomeness on this outbound customer campaign, and then we can do a lame Indeed job description, and spend no energy on that. The best brands touch everything. I don't know if you guys saw the Cheetos thing here. That was probably my favorite presentation of the gathering. They did this pop up restaurant. And even the toilet paper was the Chester Cheeto toilet paper. Chris: Somebody went through that restaurant. The menu's the obvious one. The name and the logo. The spotted Cheetah is the obvious one. But the decor, the little treatments that they made throughout. There's a hundred little things. And I think that's how that separates the good from the great. Chad: One more time about the gathering. We're real quick, real quick, just because from the recruitment marketing side of the house, nobody was here, right? And there's recruitment marketing all over the place. And yes, we want it to be more holistic. But this is I believe where they should be. Give me a quick pitch on why a company should be here. I know you don't pitch, because you don't have all the times. Chris: What do you mean from the recruitment market stuff? Chad: Recruitment marketing to be able to better understand brand overall, and to be able to use that brand to bring in great talent. Those types of people. Chris: Well, I again. There's two things. I remember a few years ago when the CEO from Canopy was here. Canopy's Canada's largest marijuana manufacturer and retailer now. He didn't know a lot about what this event was, but he knew there was phenomenal talent here. He stood up on stage, and his first slide was, I'm hiring a CMO. All he really wanted was the resumes, right? Joel: That's awesome. Chris: And I have been surprised, frankly. You get somebody like Jason White from Beats by Dre that's on the stage, bleeds this. Works for an iconic multi-billion dollar company. And a month ago quits, to go join a different company. The head of Tim Horton's was here. Couldn't have been a bigger fan. Gone, goes to run Fairmont hotels or Four Seasons or something like that. So it is interesting that there are people that are still looking to be inspired, looking for personal challenges, and looking for even more lucrative opportunities. And so, I've come to realize nobody's sat. Everybody's out, got a bit of an opportunist. And so if you're looking for top talent, this is a pretty great place to find it. Joel: The question about sort of reviews and employment brand, obviously, Glassdoor and Indeed. And I'm sure you've dealt with companies on the consumer side that have bad Yelp reviews or other things. Are you a believer in these sites? How should a company tackle bad reviews? Is it just getting it right internally and fixing the organ instead of- Chris: So Glassdoor is a perfect example. I'd go to a CMO, usually that's usually our client, and show them their Glassdoor ratings. And they're usually pretty bad. And they're like, yeah, that sucks. But they don't assume an ownership. They say, maybe you should go give that to HR, or maybe you should give it to operations, or maybe you give it to the CEO. But again, nobody takes those things as burning platforms, and say this must change. The guy from T-mobile was here telling the story that when they started, they were the last in customer service, and customer service for wireless providers was last in 20 categories. I go to the bottom of the bottom. And they as a leadership team said, this is going to change. And we went on this three year journey to change, and become the best rated customer service. I've yet to see that with Glassdoor. Hey guys, nobody likes working here. We're a leaky bucket. The best talent's abandoning. Let's go become the top employer of choice. That's not a conversation I've been in eight years. Joel: And you think that's a discussion with marketing, HR and upper level management? Chris: I think so. Joel: And on just oh that HR's problem. Chris: I don't think HR has the tools to solve it. I know they don't have the discretionary dollars that the marketing department has. And so I think it is an all play. Chad: So tell me a little bit about this Communo thing. Chris: So Communo started selfishly. I like listening to Hootsuite because Hootsuite's much like Slack was built for themselves. And then they realize, hey, we've got something. So Ryan and I love helping brands become cult-like. But when we're being honest about our own personality profiles, we don't love managing people. We didn't get into this business because we wanted huge staffs. We got into this business we wanted to make a big difference. Unfortunately, there's a correlation between how big you are and how much impact that you can make. So we knew we needed a lot of people. So we birth cult collective and cult was are provocative point of view about branding, and collective was the operating model. We used Hollywood as our muse. When the big studios collapsed, and then Imagine Entertainment had like 24 employees, and that blew our minds, because they're making the biggest blockbusters in the world, Ron Howard's group. Chris: But they didn't need craft services on staff. They didn't need location scouting or design. They just built an ecosystem of preferred providers. So we did that, and it grew really large, about 70 businesses started becoming cults ecosystem. And we said the problem here is that this company doesn't know that company. They only know Cult. So we took Cult out of the middle. We just became a user input Communo in. And said, okay now all these 70 businesses can interact with each other through the app. And then we put some staff on it, and Ryan kind of dedicated his time. So he kind of left Cult to go run Communo and now there's almost 400 businesses that are able to say, I either need staff augmentation, or I need help with business development. I need some sales. I don't have enough work. Those are the two biggest things that usually sink an entrepreneur. Chris: So it's just a way of using the metaphor of a commune. Everybody brings something and together we'll ... Somebody grow the tomatoes. Somebody make the marinara sauce. Somebody wash the dishes. And now we've all had a nice meal. And so that's what Communo's all about. Joel: Well, aside from Communo, for our listeners that want to learn more about you, where should they go? Chris: Me personally, it's probably my Linkedin profiles where I most actively maintain my points of view. Or just cultideas.com. Joel: So that's Chris common spelling and then Kneeland, K-N-E-E-L-A-N-D? Chris: Yes, sir. Chad: And the new book real quick. Chris: Yep. Chad: The new book, Fix? Chris: Well. Yeah. I'm sad you say, it's been how five years. Chad: Oh is that really? Okay. How come I didn't get one yet? Chris: It's yet to take over the world. Joel: It doesn't get to Indiana for a while. Chad: Ride the wave, Chris. It's the new book. Chris: The book Fix is really just an espousing of the principles that cult brands do. One chapter's completely dedicated to building the brand from the inside out. And it was just lots of examples of how businesses have prioritize employee engagement, and their pursuit of greatness. Joel: Awesome. Excellent. Chris: Cool. 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. #Branding #CultBrands #TheGathering #Banff #EmployerBrand #EmploymentBrand #Nexxt #Airbnb #Cheetos #Marketing

Douglas Atkin is beyond legit. Douglas authored The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers into True Believers and is the Former Global Head of Community at Airbnb, the architect behind Airbnb's Cult-like brand. Douglas sat down with us at The Gathering in Banff, Alberta Canada to talk about.... What else - BRAND! More awesome and explicit knowledge brought to you by Uncommon - let Uncommon automation help cut your recruiter sourcing time by 75%. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community.​ 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: Well, 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: 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, we're 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? Uncommon is the easiest way to find qualified candidates, active or passive. Chad: Visit uncommon.co, and use discount code Chad Cheese for 20% off. Joel: Uncommon.co. Announcer: Hide your kids; lock the doors. You're listing 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. Bottle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: You guys good? Joel: All right, rolling. Chad: Hit it. Chad: Oh, just so you know, this is explicit, so we're probably throwing bombs around every now and again. Douglas: Okay, good. Joel: And with that ... We should actually put that in the podcast. Hey guys, what's up? It's Cheese from the Chad and Cheese Podcast, part of our Banff series of podcasts- Chad: BRAAAAAMFFF Joel: ... interviewing people much smarter than us. It's been very humbling to have people come in the booth. I have a little bit of a confession. I have read your book. Douglas: No. Joel: Yes, it's been a long time ago- Douglas: Yeah, it was. Joel: ... and I can't remember much of it, although you combined religion with brands and how that cult following was important. So, let me introduce you real quick. We have Douglas Atkin with us. Douglas is the former Global Head of Community at Airbnb. That's former. What's present for you? Douglas: I burnt out after four and a half years, and moved 7,000 miles away to Tuscany, where we live in an ancient house. Joel: Sounds awful. Douglas: I know. It's tough, it's tough. We make very good olive oil and wine, and relax. Chad: That does sound relaxing. Douglas: It is relaxing, yes. Chad: I like that a lot. Douglas: Of course, there's loads of good food and wine and whatnot. Chad: Oh, so we saw your presentation yesterday. I mean, first one right out of the gate just blew everybody's doors off. Douglas: Ah…. Chad: I mean, it was awesome; very well put together. Douglas: Thank you. Chad: So, for me, what resonated was that you created a brand that was a holistic brand that was top .... I mean, I don't want to say top down, but it was focused on every different aspect, whether it was hosts, any type of users, but also internally- Douglas: Absolutely. Chad: ... not just for employees, but also the recruiting process. What we're seeing so much in our industry is that there's a fracturing that's happening, and there's an employment brand that's actually growing out of HR and it just doesn't seem organic. Douglas: No. Chad: Can you tell our listeners how you dealt with that at Airbnb, and also give us kind of like a thought process of this whole kind of non-organic thing that's happening in HR these days? Douglas: Yes. Well, as much as I can talk about that. So, where this all started was, I explained this in the talk, is that I came into Airbnb in a weird way, and I came ... I met Joe; we got on. He invited me out to give a talk to the employees at Airbnb HQ in San Francisco, which then was about 150 people. When I left, it was about two and a half thousand. So, I did that, and I'm sort of an expert, I guess, on community and talked about that. Then, they asked me to come back for a gig for three and a half weeks in a couple of weeks' time, and I thought that was going to be about community. So, I show up. I lived in New York; showed up that evening and saw Brian, who's the CEO/Co-founder, again, and he said to me, "Hey, you know a lot about branding. Can you help us figure out ours?" Douglas: And I went, "Ugh." Well, I haven't been in branding for six years. I've been in the community space for then, but I said, "Leave it with me. I want to think about that and come back to you tomorrow morning," which I did. I said that instead of doing that, what I think we needed to do was take a step back and figure out what the purpose is of Airbnb for its community, and by community, I mean everyone. I mean the hosts, the guests, and the employees, who were also hosts and guests, and for the outside world because once you figured out ... The reason why I said that is because, clearly, there was an incredibly passionate community of devoted employees and users, and I said we need to find out why. What is it? What role does Airbnb play in their lives that makes them so committed and identify with Airbnb so closely? Douglas: So, if you can figure that out, we can figure out what the purpose of Airbnb is, and then we can ... Once you have that, you can figure out everything. You know what brand, what products you should launch and which ones he shouldn't, who you should hire, who you should not, how to train people. You know what companies to buy or merge with and ones to avoid because it's the rudder that guides the ship. Also, you can figure out what the brand is, right? But if you just start at the brand, that's like the temptation is it's going to get stuck in the marketing department and be an external thing only, whereas if it's the purpose, it starts with the founders and the CEO, goes from the inside out. It goes from inside of the company, the employees, and then out to the users and out to the rest of the world. Douglas: In fact, in the end, I had this little slide, which I showed right at the end of my presentation called Inside Out, and it was like a bullseye with employees in the center, then hosts as the next level, who are our partners in providing the service to guests, who are the next level, and the next level after that was the rest of the world. So, that's what we did, and to get insight on what the purpose was, I and some others went out and spoke to over almost 500 employees and hosts and guests around the world to figure out what role it played. Douglas: They never said these actual words, but basically it ended up being this idea of we exist. Our reason why is to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere because we learned that what Airbnb guests want is not to be a tourist. They do not want to be ... That's a dirty word. They want to be an insider. They want to be a traveler who gets the inside track on the neighborhood to know almost as much as the locals, and that's exactly what hosts want to do for them. They want to take them from being a stranger in a strange land who's never been to Tokyo before, or wherever, and make them feel at home, and equip them to feel at home by saying, "Go to this restaurant, not this. Here's a bus pass. Go to these neighborhoods. This is a great cafe I spend time in." So, they very, very quickly go from stranger to feeling at home. Joel: I want to stop you on one point when you said you had interviewed 8,000 employees, or how- Douglas: No. No, no, no, no. Joel: No, not 8,000. Douglas: Up to ... Well, at that moment, this is in late 2012, it was 400, four to 500 of employees, hosts, and guests. Joel: Okay. So, I think most companies ... My perception is most HR departments, they get together and they think, "What is our brand?" I think what you did that was really smart is you actually asked the employees, "What do we want to be? What's it like to work here?" And then from that, you created an employment brand that was within the main corporate brand. Would you agree with that, and was that driven by HR? Who came up with that strategy? Douglas: Well, it wasn't even an employment brand. There was no HR department when we got there. There was one woman from Apple who was overworked. There was no HR department. There was a group of people who still exist called ground control, and their job was to create a fantastic employee. They were to be the hosts of the employees, basically. They put on amazing events and just made everything work, and they still live their now; and nothing to do with kind of health plans and all that stuff. Douglas: So, what I wanted to do was figure out what Airbnb was as an entity for everyone, so employees, hosts, and guests equally. Chad: One brand. Douglas: One brand. Chad: Not an employment brand. Douglas: No. Chad: Not a host brand. Douglas: No. Chad: One brand. Douglas: One brand. It's more than a brand, if you like. It's a huge community of millions of people who have this mission to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere. Now, when it comes to the employees, and this is four years later, this is the last thing I was doing, we had grown from 150 people in HQ to about two and a half thousand, and that puts huge pressure, of course, on the culture. The culture was very strong, palpable, and famous, actually, within Silicon Valley. People wanted to join Airbnb because of the culture, but it was looking a little bit wobbly. Douglas: What I did is I went back and spoke to employees, over 300 of them all around the world: people who just arrived, people who been there for four years, to try and diagnose why the culture was feeling a little fractured and what to do about it. What I found was that we had this banner mission of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere, but there some people feeling like, employees were feeling like, they no longer belonged here in Airbnb because some things had been happening, things like there was a perception that we were hiring people too fast, that they were mercenaries, not missionaries is what we call them. We call them believers. I mean, this is what Brian and Joe, Nate, call believers. Chad: Cool. Douglas: So, believers in the mission of this is more than a job, this is more than a company. It's a mission to change the world. So, there was a perception that some of the leaders who been hired weren't on the mission. They were there simply for their own benefit and to make their quarterly numbers, all these things. So, I went back to the founders, and said, "We need to fix this. We value the culture." In fact, Brian used to quote what Peter Teal said to him. Peter Teal was the Co-founder of PayPal and stuff. Douglas: He was an investor. He invested $200 million into Airbnb in 2012, I think. When he handed over the check to Brian, Brian said, "Can you give us a piece of advice?" The one thing he said, Peter Teal said, to safeguard his $200 million investment was "Don't fuck up the culture." Joel: Wow. Chad: Ah. Douglas: So, we kept saying ... I had to go back and say, "The culture isn't fucked up, but it's wobbly and these reasons." So, and then we ... and the other reasons also was the values were very, very good. People were there for the values and everything, but they weren't quite right, as I mentioned in the talk. So, I had to go back to the founders and say, "We have to change the unchangeable. We have to look at these six values and find out if they're true and core or not." I did all kinds of techniques to get to that, working with employees, and we ended up going from six to four because some of the values were aspirational and not core, not real. They were creating cynicism about all the values because they were saying, "We've got this value, but I don't see you living it." You asking me to do this, and you're saying, "Hey, embrace the adventure, and work all weekend." Douglas: Well, that's not the meaning of the value. Chad: The walking on water value, right. Douglas: Yeah, right, right, right. So, anyway, had to fix all that. I guess to your point, though, is that we never saw a division between the employees or the hosts or the guests. It was all one community because the employees were hosts and guests, and some of the hosts would have loved to work for Airbnb as an employee. So, there was no division between inside or outside, but I knew that if we didn't get the mission bought into and understood and delivered and the values from the inside first, then we could never deliver them authentically externally either. Chad: In what you do or what Airbnb does now, which I think is amazing, through the interview process, you have more of like cultural process people who can veto anybody who's coming in. So, you've got this superstar marketer who's coming in, but somebody can actually veto that, and say, "No, they're not somebody who"- Douglas: Happened to me. I was trying to recruit ... We just started this program I called firestarter to train and mobilize our hosts to become political activists to change their local laws so that they would be legal because we'd started to get with Uber and the others this whole new economy that was bumping up against old laws that didn't recognize it. So, we had to get the laws changed. The best way of doing that, we felt, was through our community. So, I hired loads of grassroots organizers from the Obama Campaign of 2008, 2012 because they wrote the playbook on grassroots organizing. That's how he got elected. There's this one woman I ... was going to be fantastic. We were going like parachute her into Seattle I think it was, and she was very good at getting the host going and everything else. I wanted to hire her full time; she'd been a consultant. She was interviewed like everyone else is interviewed. Douglas: So, if you're an engineer or a marketing person or a partnerships person, you'll probably have six to eight interviews to assess how good an engineer or marketer or whatever you are, but then you also have two core values interviews by people who are not in your discipline. They don't care about marketing or engineering or anything. All they care about is to see if you're going to be a cultural fit, and what that means is do your personal values align with the values of Airbnb and all of us inside Airbnb? Are you one of us? basically. Douglas: So, this woman was fantastic grassroots organizer, but there was an engineer and a product person, I think, was the core values interviewer. They said, "No, this person is not." I was initially furious. I go "I really need her, to parachute her into Seattle." Then, I said, "Nope, it's absolutely right." They have veto power. So, the core values interviewers, and there's now about four or 500 around the world, have ... They do regular jobs; they are engineers or marketing people, but they are especially good at finding out whether you'd be a cultural fit, and they have veto power. Joel: One of the ... You showed a video that was, essentially, a commercial in your keynote. Much of our audience has probably seen it. As you were coming up with the vision and the advertising, what did that do to recruiting? Did you see a spike? Did you see a more qualified candidate based on your values? Talk about that. Douglas: Right. So, we had sort of nailed the purpose or the ... We call it purpose, mission, or vision at Airbnb. I know people get their knickers in a twist about whether something's a vision; I don't give a damn. It's our reason why, okay? It's the thing that we're here to do for the next hundred years. Douglas: Anyway, so we nailed that by about early to mid-2013, and the first exposure it got externally was when we, in 2014, launched our new logo, what I call our equal opportunity genitalia logo, which is- Chad: There's a whole in there for everybody. Douglas: There's a whole in there for everybody. Exactly, yes. I mean everybody. Joel: I hope my mom's not listening. Douglas: So, the goal for that ... First of all, belong anywhere was used to brief the designers, the external design company, to come up with the logo. So, that was it's first job. Second, though, was Brian and Joe and Andrew Shapiro, this guy who led the design group, wanted to make a symbol, not a logo. The difference between a symbol and a logo is a logo is a graphic design. A symbol is a graphic design with meaning attached, okay? So, like I said, like the dove of peace or the crescent of Islam or whatever it is, lacrosse. So, we launched this new logo because before, I didn't know if you remember, Airbnb was sort of like a cursive, pale, pastel blue, and white thing. It's a bit of a weak logo, actually. So, we launched the new symbol, which we call the Belo after belonging with the meaning, and we expressed that in this homemade video internally, which talked about we're not just a travel company. We believe in creating places where people feel safe and secure and at home and can be themselves wherever they go. It's all about belong anywhere. Douglas: So, that launched it, okay? That was the first thing. Then, we did, not long after that, a commercial called Mankind, which is quite controversial; "Is mankind" was the start of the commercial and went on about "find out by going and staying with our hosts who are the epitome of that." Then, we did this other commercial, I think, a year or so later called "Don't go there, live there even for a night." "Don't do Paris, live in Paris. Live with the local, learn from a local," and then we launched experiences. So, yes, I don't know because I wasn't running HR. I didn't have exposure to all of that, but very quickly people knew we were all ... We stood for belong anywhere, and everyone learned about our values pretty damn quick if they were being recruited. Joel: Outstanding. Chad: Well that, my friend, I think time-wise ... You have a helicopter to catch pretty soon. Douglas: Well.... Joel: Tuscany is calling. Chad: Yes. We definitely would love to come to Tuscany and do this even more in depth. That would be wonderful. Douglas: Let's do it with a bottle of our wine. Chad: Exactly, yes. Some bread and- Joel: So, for our listeners who don't know you, where can they find out more, buy your books, buy your wine, whatever. Where should they learn more about you? Douglas: Well, we just keep our wine for ourselves, actually. We don't produce that much. I don't know, actually. I'm sort of hiding at the moment because I'm tired and burnt out, and I'm not working. Joel: Okay. Don't find Douglas everybody. Douglas: No, no- Joel: He doesn't want to be bothered. Douglas: What I'm going to do, though, is on the subject of purpose and mission and values and stuff, I've already written what was going to be a draft for another book, but I've decided not to do a book. I'm going to do a not-a-book, and a not-a-book is a series of sort of longish blog posts, which I'm going to post on Medium over the next few weeks and podcasts like this. Chad: Awesome. Joel: So, find you on Medium? I guess would be where you want to- Chad: On Medium, yes, but give me ... Let it be three or four weeks time to kind of knock them into shape and put them up. Joel: Fair enough. Douglas: Okay. Joel: Fair enough. Chad: Then, reconnect and maybe we'll have another conversation about those. That'd be awesome. Douglas: I would love to. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Joel: Thank you, Douglas. Douglas: All right. Thanks very much, guys. Chad: Thanks, Douglas. Douglas: Cheers. Chad: Later. Tristen: Hi, I'm. 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. Tristen: They made me say that. Tristen: The most important part is to check out our sponsors because I need new track spikes, the expensive shiny gold pair that are extra because ... Well, I'm extra. For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Airbnb #TheGathering #CultBrands #Banff #Brand #EmployerBrand #Uncommon #Marketing

The boys sit down with Max Armbruster to talk RPA... Artificial intelligence is so last month. Meet your future in RPA. Brought to you by the texting giants at Nexxt! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps businesses find qualified candidates with disabilities for their job postings. Chad: Okay. So we've already established texting is probably the best way to connect with candidates, right? Plus next stats show 73% of professionals are open to receiving job opportunities via text and with a 99% delivery rate, you cannot go wrong. Those are two big reasons why you've got gotta love text to hire from Nexxt. That's right. Chad: Text2hire from Nexxt with the double X, not the triple X. Nexxt has over 8 million candidates who have opted in to receive jobs via text and you and your clients need qualified candidates. Nexxt can help you find and target qualified candidates who have opted in for job opportunities via text. And in today's competitive market, you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster. You need text2hire from Nexxt. Chad: Just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Nexxt logo to learn more about how you can gain a competitive edge with opt in texting, text2hire from Nexxt. It just makes sense. 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: Whew. Joel: Mad Max is on the show today. Chad: I know. It's good shit, dude. Joel: Ah, yeah. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Joel Cheesman, your co-host, along with- Chad: Chad Sowash. Joel: And on today's show, we're talking AI versus RPA. And if you're like me, RPA stands for Rapid Projectile Anonymity or something. I don't know. Max, welcome to the show. How are you? Max: I'm very well. Thank you, Joel. Joel: You're very welcome. So you wrote... Well, look, before we get to that, you are CEO and co-founder of Talkpush. So get the elevator pitch and plug out of the way before we get into the real stuff. Chad: Push it real good. Max: Thank you. Thank you. Talkpush is a slogan first of all. Talkpush it real good, by copyright Chad and Joel. Max: But beyond that, we're a messaging platform to help engage with candidates at scale, and we automate a lot of the initial engagements with a candidate to the front of the funnel. And we work in a dozen countries and engage with millions of candidates across messaging platforms like Messenger, SMS, WhatsApp, and automates a lot of the recruitment process after that. Joel: And I will throw in a Death Match alumni. Chad: That's right. Joel: Which is always a solid, solid thing to put on your resume. Chad: You can't beat that. Max: I survived- Max: Barely. Chad: So you wrote an article that said, “Will the Real AI Please Stand Up?” And in Eminem fashion, “Please stand up, please stand up.” And it says, "Why the recruitment industry needs to stop fawning over AI, embrace the RPA, the Robotic Process Automation revolution." Why did you write this? Joel: Wait, what does RPA stand for again? Chad: Robotic Process Automation. Joel: Got it? Max: Right. Well, I think anybody who listens to this show probably empathizes with a feeling of we're a little saturated with AI, the AI pitch and sell. And from my end, as a vendor, I'm still getting probably a quarter or a third of inquiries coming in from people who are asking for AI, and I don't really know what it means most of the time, and it doesn't feel like it's been really thought through. Chad: Do they know what it means? Do they give you a definition of what they think AI is so that you can try to fit- Joel: Oh, no, they don't know what it means. Chad: So you can fit in their box. Joel: That is one big pile of shit. Max: I think, unfortunately, they did read the same books as I have, so they know what machine learning is. They know what the state of the art is, and that's what they want. They want the state of the art AI. They want something that's going to be a machine that's going to learn on top of the data that is continuously feeding itself. Joel: You're giving them way too much credit my friend. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I think they just want to check it off the list of things that they need to do right below chatbot and right above programmatic. Max: I do get some of those guys too. I'm talking about the digital transformation experts that are sending out call for tenders, RFPs specifically with the idea of, “I'm going to grill these guys.” And I'm sitting on these calls answering questions about technology that I don't even know how it's going to be used, so that's where the frustration originally comes from. And I can talk about RPA a little bit, and why I think it's a little bit more of a pragmatic approach. Max: I mean you've had a number of podcasts and shows where you talked about what is AI exactly. There's so many different definitions, but the reality usually falls very short from what people imagine. Joel: But if you read between the lines with your customers and prospects, like what do they really want? Because you have a great section of your post where it's not the fancy, shiny stuff that they're actually using. It's the other stuff. Joel: So HireVue is one of your examples where people aren't using HireVue to like read facial expressions and whether someone's lying, they're using it to create efficiencies around better interviewing through video. Correct? Max: Yeah, the great benefit of video interviewing is the asynchronous conversation. The fact that you don't have to sit through 20 minutes of live call, one after another, because that would take days to go through all that. And instead, you can ask everybody to record, and you can listen to all of them in one go, and you can skip them. I mean it's basically the same value proposition as an answering machine back from the '90s. You know just having all your answers recorded in one place, so you can listen to them in sequence. Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Max: And the majority of customers that I've spoken to... I'm sure if you get somebody from HireVue on the show, they'll tell you about what the analytics do for their customers. It'll be a different story perhaps. I mean they still sit through the interview. They still watch the videos, and they don't let the machine make the decision for them, for the most part. Chad: Before we get into the RPA piece, right, you write, "The rise of the AI junkie." So people are becoming AI junkies. Why is that? Max: You know I read the Ray Kurzweil book about singularity, and I was reading science fiction from a young age. So I'm also really excited by the fact that the machines can help us make better decisions, and I love the promise of AI, but I think that the imagination has just caught on fire over the last four or five years. Max: When I started Talkpush five years ago, and I said, "I'm going to create a robot that interviews people." Max: People really looked at me weird, and said, "What a stupid idea." You know? Max: "No one will ever let a robot talk to their candidates." Max: And like two or three years later, people were asking, "Oh, that's great. Can your robot tell me if a candidate is lying? And how honest it is? And can I get a full psychometric analysis?" Max: It happened almost overnight. I mean it was over a two, three year period, but that's how it felt for me. Joel: Max, I've heard some people talk that I believe know this subject pretty well, and they've said things like, "There are only about five or six actual AI companies in the world." Max: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: Your Googles, your Microsofts, your Alibabas, you know these kinds of big companies. Is there anyone even in the employment space that you would point to, to say like, “Yeah, they're really onto something,” aside from Google who's getting into the space and maybe LinkedIn/Microsoft? Is there anyone really doing AI in terms of your perspective? Max: I don't want to play that game because I don't know, and I'm trying to get away from that game myself. Hey, I mean I think you're right that the real deep AI, Google and Facebook have a leg up on everybody else, and it's out of my reach. But I think- Joel: I'll take that as a no. Max: Yeah, you can take that as a no. I mean but we all get enough data sets that we can create some sort of... We process millions of candidates every year or so. Of course, we can do some regression analysis and come up with some pretty interesting insights, but I wouldn't call that sort of deep AI where the machine is built to understand what the candidates are saying. Some of the people in our space have hired PhDs who focus on natural language processing, and they may be a little bit deeper and more academic into the topic than we are, but that's all I can say on this topic. Chad: So let's get into RPA. So I've challenged many of these AI vendors over the years in saying, “What you're doing really sounds like it's glorified RPA,” and that's not a bad thing. Right? Because what is RPA, and how could RPA help? Max: RPA is beautiful. What is RPA? Is identifying a process that humans are doing. Chad: Right. Max: And then repeating it and automating it. And the big rise in RPA, which happened over the last three, four years, is backed, you could say, by AI. By the technology that recognizes what a user is doing on his computer and is able to repeat that behavior. So it could be somebody clicking on a mouse and moving a window from one place to another, and when the computer recognizes this sequence happens over and over again, can then automate it. Max: So in itself, there is of course some AI building blocks necessary to deliver that, but what I love about it is that it just focuses on the user. And in our case, the user is the recruiter because we work in talent acquisition. And it's eerie how so many of those companies in our space, we don't even talk about the recruiter. Max: We focus on automation and AI, and this is what the buyers are interested in talking about, automated engagement and AI, but not so much on the actual individual behavior and actions of the recruiter who is the main user. And if we shift the conversation to RPA, we can focus a little bit more on the user, who is the recruiter, and that's still probably 60%, 70% of the cost per hire. You know the total loaded cost per hire is probably linked to the human. Joel: And so speaking about cost per hire, in your LinkedIn posts, you have a list of items that can be automated. Some of those are like scheduling interviews, background checks, running assessments. For the company out there that's looking at what kind of hierarchy or priority list should we have around, what are the first three things that maybe we should automate to save that 80% on cost per hire? What are some of the things that you think in your list should be on the top of an employer's list to automate? Max: Usually the low-hanging fruit is automating that scheduling in a pre-screening because a lot of time is being wasted in just going back-and-forth trying to schedule first and second interviews, so that would be the low-hanging fruit. But anything that's kind of repetitive and mundane in the world of a recruiter is an opportunity, from taking interview notes, to doing background checks, to making sure the candidate is fully informed as part of a pre-onboarding or an onboarding process. All of these could be automated. Chad: So Max, shouldn't we just stop focusing on stupid fucking terms like AI, ML, and RPA and just focus on the problems and how the solutions fix those problems because it doesn't matter if it's AI, ML, RPA, or whatever acronym you want to throw at this fucking thing, it's the solution and if the solution best fits the organization for the problem. Are we getting bogged down in the stupid shit and having the wrong conversations? Max: I agree a 100%. I hope that we get call for tenders and client requests that are focused on how can my team handle three times the volume for the Christmas season? Or- Chad: Yeah. Max: How can I get back to my candidates within minutes instead of hours? Those are good questions that should be tackled. And with the RPA approach... Yeah, sorry. We're back to the acronyms. But if you're focusing on one process, it's a very narrow problem, and you can start with that, and then you can decide later on if you're going to pick another one and another one. Max: I think that for the vendors, companies like myself, it's a good opportunity to shift the conversation because you can really do the Land and Expand model where you would start by automating one process, and if you've done one, it's not that hard to then have the discussion for a second or on a third one. Max: I think that's why you've seen the fantastic growth of companies like UiPath and Automation Anywhere over the last couple of years is because they've just been able to take a bigger market share within their existing install base. Joel: Max, we'll let you get out on this one. In your post, you talk about the AI label almost being like All Natural on every food packaging or gluten-free on everything. Chad: Right. Joel: You know it's technically true, but it's not really sufficient to what you're buying. Do you think there should be some regulation, whether it be self-regulating, or some sort of body that really labels something as legitimate artificial intelligence? Or do you think we should still be in this laissez faire environment where everyone can label whatever they want, sort of willy-nilly? Max: I'm not a strong regulation kind of guy, so if they want to use All Natural, All AI, that's cool with me. I think that it used to be Big Data a few years ago, and now it's, I think, RPA has got the tailwind, and there'll be some other acronym coming up in a couple years' time, and I'm looking forward to it actually. So I don't think that's going to be as... I'm looking forward to the next acronyms. Joel: "Let chaos reign," says Max. Max: AR, Augmented Recruitment. Joel: Ew. Chad: Don't start that now. We're coming up with all these new acronyms. Ah, okay, so we're going to end on that Max. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming on. Joel: Thanks, Max. Thanks for everything. Chad: Again, we'll keep jumping back, and we talk about all the time AI acronyms. It doesn't matter, and I think Max you've really lined it out nicely. Check out Max on LinkedIn, Max Armbruster, CEO of Talkpush. Where else can they find out more about you, Max, or Talkpush? Max: Thanks. I've got this article that you referred to up on our blog, blog.talkpush.com, and looking forward to connect with every one of your followers on LinkedIn of course. Chad: Excellent, guys. Appreciate it. We out. Joel: 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. #AI #RPA #Talkpush #TalkPush #Messaging #process #Robots

The Labor Day edition of this week's Chad & Cheese Podcast is full of goodness: Hire by Google shuts it down, Entelo and ConveyIQ get cozy, AllyO may be melting down and much, much more. Enjoy and show some love to our 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. 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.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner. Intro: 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: Oh, tight turn. Chad: Round about. Joel: All right, welcome to the hungover Sweden road trip edition of the Chad and Cheese podcast, HR's most dangerous. Chad: Thanks to my wife Julie for chaffering us. Joel and I are in the backseat of a VW Polo. Joel: I really wish Julie would've worn the black top hat that I got her for the chauffer gig. She did wear the black gloves, though, so I'm okay with that. Chad: Okay, we should stop calling her Jeeves, that's really creepy. That's really fucking ... Joel: If somebody farts in this car, we're stopping the podcast. Chad: We're stopping the podcast. Joel: That's all I'm saying. Yeah, so in this week's show, we're going to be talking about Hire by Google going limp, Entelo and Convey IQ getting married. Chad: Getting jiggy. Joel: And signs of meltdown at Ally O. Stick around, we'll be right back after this word from our sponsor. 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 Sap 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: And we're back. Joel: And we're back. We're on the road in Sweden, north of Torekov or Gurkenschkerken, Vertiferken. Chad: Last night, that was hilarious. We had dinner with a bunch of Swedes, go figure. We are in Sweden and they, again, very mad that thinking the Swedish chef is Swedish, because the Swedish chef is apparently Danish. Joel: Danish. Chad: Yes. Joel: Which makes no sense and their argument is weak. Chad: Very weak. Joel: So, I'm not buying it. Chad: I'm not buying it either. They should like the Swedish chef. Joel: They do, they do, they do. Yeah, Swedes are a fun group. The robot does not eat in case anyone was interested. It does not eat food, it just exists to destroy us one day. Chad: But I think they've given it some new looks, because I think it was giving you the side eye yesterday. Joel: Yeah, so we had meetings all day and they had the robot at the front of the table and it just stares at ... I think it looks directly at everyone no matter what angle you look at it. Chad: I don't think so, I think it was giving you the side eye. Joel: It was looking at me, yeah. It haunts my dreams every night. Let's get to some shout outs. Chad: Shout outs. Joel: Obviously Tin Guy in the group, Jalen CEO Charlotte marketing exec. We're making friends and building bridges from America to Sweden if you will. Chad: As a matter of fact, we've also heard that the South of Sweden is for sale, so if we can just tell Trump to get off of Greenland possibly, we can have a piece of Sweden. Joel: Yeah, much better real estate here in Sweden than Greenland, maybe less natural resources, but who knows? Who knows? Chad: Shoutout to my boy, Roy Etnyer from Monster. He's originally from Columbus, Indiana, came home to see moms, said hey would you like to play a round of golf? Went and played a round of golf and he unloaded a bunch of Monster golf swag, which was fucking awesome. Great job, Roy. Joel: Yeah, this is where I note the vice president Mike Pence also a brother, a son of Columbus. Chad: Just go ahead and let's smother that one as Julie flips you off. Joel: I'm going to give a shout out to Holland Dombeck, our buddy at Delta. Chad: Yeah, Holland. Joel: She heard our story about Google Events, Hire Events, Indeed Hire Events. Chad: Yeah, Indeed. Joel: Sorry, it's a little hot in here. Can you turn the air on a little bit, Julie? Thanks. Anyway, she had some numbers for us. I don't know if you have those handy or not, but it looks like about $2,000 for these hire events, so in case you didn't know, there are no billboards in Sweden. All the billboards are trucks that farmers have rolled in to make a little extra money, but I did hear that they have to have wheels. They can't be stationary. Chad: Oh, really? Joel: Yes. And all the cows here look really happy. Chad: Anyway, shoutout to Holland for giving us some insights on that. She said they were working well for her. Joel: Yeah, she spoke positively about them. I think we both agree that price will go up on those as they continue to roll them out. It's still in beta. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: I had the opinion that Indeed ... everybody wants to be a platform and Indeed is no different, so if Indeed is also your event, job fair whatever you want to call it provider, that's just another reason to stick around with Indeed, similar to Apple launching music or other services that just add features to make sure you stay on the platform. Chad: I like doubling the price with this whole pain view thing, so yeah, if you start the fricking heroine drip guys, just know you're not getting off of it for awhile. The Indeed heroine drip. Joel: And Indeed's okay with that, I think. Chad: Oh, they're fine with it, yeah. Joel: I think that's their preference. Chad: Yeah, I think they're incredibly smart for doing that and if you're out there using them and just lapping it up, you're probably the dumb one. Joel: Of course, in this case, the first hit is not free, it's about $2,000. Chad: It's not free, yeah. Shout out to Henrik Christiansen, so this dude sees on Twitter that we're coming to Sweden, said hey, come on over to Copenhagen. He didn't know we were already going to be there, so he takes us to dinner at this place called War Pigs, which is amazing. The thing he didn't know ... Joel: Now, when you say "us" it's you and your wife. Chad: Julie, my other half, right yeah. Joel: [crosstalk 00:07:38] ... in this whatsoever. Chad: It's because you didn't show up. Joel: Yeah, I know. Chad: That's what happens when you don't come. So Julie and I go and here's this collaboration with Three Floyd's Brewery that is an Indiana company. I come all the way to fucking ... Joel: Yeah, Munster, Indiana. Chad: Yeah, Munster. Joel: If I'm not mistaken. Chad: I fly all the way to fucking Copenhagen and they're like this is the best beer, you can't imagine how great ... yeah, no it is the best beer. You know why? It's fucking Indiana beer. Joel: That is a bizarre discovery. Chad: It is awesome, though. It was awesome. Joel: The beers we've had you can't get in the U.S. outside of Carlberg, which is not Swedish. Chad: Right. Joel: So, if you follow me on Instagram, I'll be posting my beer tour from Sweden here. Chad: Beer tour, but Henrik also the next morning got up and took me on that 5K run around Christiana, which is that free town that we talked about. Joel: Did you say torture or tour? Because 5K sounds a little torturous to me. Chad: He slowed it down for me, that was nice. But yeah, we went through around Christiana, which is the free town where you pretty much can go get high and do all your stuff. Joel: The Thunderdome of Copenhagen, apparently. Chad: Yes exactly, exactly. Joel: Minus the death. Chad: Thanks a lot, Henrik. Appreciate it. Love that you took me to a place that had amazing beer and a run the next morning. He planned that shit. Joel: Did you mention his company? Chad: Yeah, he's the CEO of Job Safari. Joel: All right, give him a little shoutout, a little love. Chad: Also the COO of Job Index, still affiliated with ... Joel: Where are we going soon? Chad: Where are we going? We're going to Recruiter Nation Live in San Francisco. Joel: And if you look at the lineup, it's a home run. Chad: In the Bay Area, I mean you've got to do it. Joel: Yep. Chad: And we've got TA Tech and you know what that means. Joel: Death match, baby. Chad: Death match. Joel: Full roster. Chad: In Austin. Joel: Who's joining us this year? Chad: Who is joining us this year? We have Job.com ... Joel: Asses First. Chad: Asses First, my favorite company. Joel: SeekOut. Chad: SeekOut. Joel: And Pez Candy. Chad: Pez.ai Joel: What is your favorite Pez head? Chad: I don't know, I had so many of them when I was little. Joel: That's a tough one. Chad: Yeah, I loved the new ... Joel: I'm going to go with the Flintstones. Chad: The Flintstones, Barney or ... ? Joel: Barney, Fred. Chad: Oh. Joel: I guess Fred would be my favorite. Chad: Like the family? Okay, okay. Joel: Yeah, so I'm going to go with the Flintstones. It's kind of an old school. Chad: Mine was always a Marvel kind of like the Hulk. Joel: Thor, Hulk, yeah. Chad: Yeah, the Hulk, Spider-Man, that kind of stuff. Joel: It's endless, the magic never stops with Pez. Chad: Dude, it's amazing. So smart. Smart marketing. I just don't know why they don't do them as much anymore. Joel: HR Tech, we're getting into November. I guess we could get it October 1. We got Unleash in Paris. Chad: We do, I think yeah HR Tech's first. Joel: Is that in October or November? Chad: HR Tech is in ... Joel: It is October. Chad: October, early October. Joel: You're right, okay. Chad: Or mid-October. Joel: My bad. Chad: HR Tech going to Vegas, they're letting us in. Joel: Viva Las Vegas. Chad: As a matter of fact, not just letting us in, we're going to be on stage twice. Joel: Viva Las Vegas. Twice? Chad: Twice. Joel: They went from banning us to giving us two show spots, I love it. Chad: Yeah no, I love that stuff. Joel: Spreading the love. Chad: We'll be clad in Shaker Recruitment Marketing gear, I'm sure. Still waiting on the sizing for my Shaker Recruitment Marketing suit. Joel: Three-piece suits. Chad: Yes. Joel: With the Chicago Cubs lining. I think that's going to be in there. Chad: And your tuxedo t-shirt. So yeah, that and then, we go to Unleash, which is in Paris. Joel: The trip is sponsored by SmashFly? Chad: Smash Fly. Joel: Yeah. Trip powered by SmashFly. Chad: Trip's powered by SmashFly. HRTech powered by JobCase. Joel: Love it. Chad: Don't forget about JobCase. Fred Goff and the kids over there. Joel: LinkedIn for those who aren't on LinkedIn. Chad: Yes, for the 70 percent of people who are not on LinkedIn, JobCase. That's your play. That's their new slogan. Joel: Did we just come up with their marketing campaign? They get $100 million in funding and we just came up with their marketing. Chad: We've already ... Joel: Say it ain't so. Let's get to the news, because ... Chad: Topics. Joel: ... news is hot this week. Chad: Hot. Joel: We leave the country and things fall apart. Chad: So hot. Joel: Google ... Chad: What is up with this? Joel: ... Hire ... Chad: This is crazy. Joel: ... letter goes out to users this week that they are sun setting the product. Chad: In a year. Joel: The Internet's go wild with conspiracy theories, opinion. What are your takeaways on this move? Because shock is the first thing that came to my mind. Chad: I think the Google Hire team was shocked and here's why I think the Google Hire team was shocked ... Joel: It's Hire by Google, we should get it right. Chad: Okay, yeah, they should just first and foremost stop changing the name, but ... Joel: I think they are. I think they're done changing the name. Chad: Now, they're going to stop changing the name, yeah. That's why. They finally found the name, they're like okay, we're done. Joel: Maybe that's the hidden reason. Chad: It could've been. Joel: What do we call ourselves this month? Damn it, we can't come up with anything, so let's just shut it down. Chad: We're done. So, last week, they were doing webinars about sampling HR integrations, partnerships, those types of things. Earlier this month, they released a customer-success video from Four Points Brewing, I believe it is, so all of this was happening and they're driving this amazing content and they're doing all the right things. Joel: There was no writing on the wall ... Chad: None. Joel: ... that things were falling apart. Chad: None. Dude, I'm telling you right now, this came from the top. They pointed and said sorry, you've got to go and I personally believe that this has to do with this antitrust case that you had a decision between becoming an entire system for recruiting or just doing search and if you become the entire system, then there's antitrust possibilities that could be thrown around in there, but if you just do search and you're focused on search and you've made some of the changes and customizations that they've made inside Google for Jobs, then you're okay. Joel: It was definitely a Pompeii type of situation, right? Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Like the volcano erupted unexpectedly, everyone's left in the rubble. So, this was not a slow death. It looks like something happened quickly to kill this thing off. We will never know probably why. Chad: We hear some people saying that it just was going to be too hard ... Joel: Yep. Chad: ... and they weren't going to make the money and yada, yada, yada and I don't believe ... they would've rolled this down slowly. You wouldn't have seen the chop that you saw. No way. Joel: Yeah, I agree that when they have free services, the chop makes sense, because no one's paying for it, but they had paying clients, people that loved it. We have an interview if you look through our archives, someone in England that was one of their first enterprise ... Chad: FrameStore. Joel: ... yeah, they had just launched enterprise, right? Chad: FrameStore, yeah. Joel: They've been launching features consistently. Chad: They just launched enterprise. Joel: Yeah and she was incredibly happy. I mean, stopped short of saying she loved her ATS ... Chad: Yeah, she didn't want to go that far, but she was close. Joel: But she really liked it a lot and so, yeah we may never know. It can't be a coincidence that they just had a lawsuit filed against them. Chad: Yes. Joel: And this happens. Now whether or not the lawyers got the attention of the c suite and they said okay, let's look at this thing and they said the numbers really aren't there to justify going to court for the next five years, because my personal opinion is if the product was rocking it, making tons of money, they would've been fine fighting it in court, but maybe it was like we've got to fight this thing. We're making little money, your attitude of does it affect the search business? We really don't want to be in any trouble with the EU anymore than we are. Joel: This whole GDPR thing, we're collecting data for candidates. Maybe it's just like fuck it, it's just not worth it with all that hassle, we're going to pull the plug. But who are some of the winners and losers in Google getting the hell out of the game? Chad: Well, first off Google is the big loser, because now they're not getting back into this space when it comes to this kind of product number one. Number two, if you were a company who is now basing your business off of Google, even some of these API's right? Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. Chad: You've got to question whether one day this shit's just going to be sunset ted. Oh, guess what, in a year it's going to be sunsetted. Just from my standpoint, I think anybody using Google and I mean, I was big when definitely the college recruiters ... there are 4,000+ companies that are using these Google API's. Joel: Well that's a good question. There's still the search API and there's still Google for Jobs. Do you believe that either of those could be gone soon or if so, which one? Chad: I would say no, I would say no, but don't know after seeing something like this happen. It's almost like they're running scared. This is like Facebook's knee jerk reaction to taking all of their targeting away, their audience targeting away. It was a knee jerk reaction and it happened boom, just really quick. This is the same kind of thing. Joel: Yeah, I agree that ... I don't see the search API scaring anyone, pissing anyone off. Chad: I hope not. Joel: They're making revenue from that. It's a pretty easy business for them. They already get search better than anyone else and I think that's an easy product for them to have. The Google for Jobs job search, I think they're probably looking at that. Now, they haven't turned on the paper click machine yet and I'm sure they're doing the numbers saying hey, if x percent do paper click, what could we make? And the numbers on that are probably pretty good. I think they could make a lot of money on their Google for Jobs products. Chad: Yeah, I agree. I do agree. I would hate to see that go away, that's for sure. But again, I think Hire by Google was the sacrifice, so that they could focus on Google for Jobs and actually making money the way they know how to make money. Joel: Maybe the gods said you must sacrifice one of your children. Chad: Yeah, Larry and Sergei came out. Joel: And they picked Hire. And you know, some of the feedback as well was look, our business is hard, our audience is hard, our customers are hard to sell to. Part of it might've been Google ... Chad: I don't believe that. Joel: ... got into that and said screw that. So, you're not buying that excuse? Chad: No. They have a 3 million company base and suite that they can sell to, so I don't buy that. Joel: It was a perfect fit for the G-Suite, for companies to plug in a nice little ATS, job posting. Chad: Calendar, yeah, everything. Joel: Scheduling all that. Chad: So easy. Joel: That made really good sense for the product. Chad: Yep. Joel: And not having this ... to me, the biggest winner is Microsoft/LinkedIn, because now they have the lane pretty much all to themselves to enterprise software and hiring. Chad: And what will LinkedIn do to double down on something like this, because when Facebook killed their targeting, LinkedIn started to ramp up their targeting, right? So it's like now LinkedIn is going to be doing more Facebook-like targeting better possibly than Facebook will be doing on ads. What will they do to double down on something like this? Joel: Yeah, I mean LinkedIn is growing at such a rate that they're going to have some of these Facebook issues soon if they're not already. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: And the targeting of advertising, which they are growing, they're growing their network to target ad segments, so yeah I expect that to be something. I think LinkedIn would just rather put their head down and hope nobody notices for the next 12 months and then just gain market share and then deal with it if something comes up, but it's inevitably going to happen to every social network and job ads. I think Twitter you won't be able to target similarly there or Snapchat or anyone else. It's going to hit everyone. It just hit Facebook first. Joel: But yeah, I think LinkedIn's a big winner, I think Indeed's probably celebrating the hit that Google took. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: They're probably praying Google for Jobs goes next. Any of the other big job boards are happy, every ATS on the planet is pretty happy that Google's out of the game. Chad: Oh yeah, the Jazz HR's of the world ... Joel: Yeah, the little guys, the S&B players. Chad: ... are like fuck yeah, get the fuck out, Google. Joel: Yep, yep, those cheers of the world were ATS owners celebrating, especially the little guys that service S&B's, most of the I-Sims of the world, the Jobvite’s et cetera, Smart Recruiters. I think they felt okay about a world ... or at least it wasn't going to impact them soon, but the little guys were pretty concerned and they're celebrating the demise of Hire by Google. And I do agree that we will not see Google do anything again in our lifetimes. Joel: Like they tried Google Base 10-15 years ago, they've done this, shut it down after two years. I do not see them doing anything like this again any time soon. Chad: Can't fucking believe it. Joel: When we come back, we'll talk about the Entelo Convey IQ acquisition. JobAdX: Nope, nah, not for me. All these jobs look the same. Ugh, next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past your jobs just half heartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it: we live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So, why do we expect job seekers to react differently while reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? JobAdX: Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people and benefits with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job seekers will stumble upon your employment branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection and reducing candidate drop off. You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. JobAdX: Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites to proactively compel top talent to join your team? Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing joinus@jobadx.com. That's joinus@jobadx.com. Attract, engage, employ with Job Ad X . Chad: And we're back. Joel: I had no idea there was so much countryside in Sweden. It's like Indiana in Europe. Chad: Yeah, that kind of Ohio ish around here where it's more hills. Joel: Yeah, a little more. Chad: Yeah, more hills. Joel: Topography. Chad: Yes. Joel: That's your word for the day. Chad: Yes, topography. Terrain. Joel: Terrain. Chad: Terrain features, yes. Joel: So big acquisition, which we thought would be the big news of the week until Hire by Google did their thing, but Entelo, the rumors are true. You heard it here first has acquired Convey IQ. Discuss. Chad: Yeah, it's interesting. It sounds as if, because we've been hearing for many months that Entelo was on pretty much life support, so I don't know so much about Convey IQ, how much money, how much runway they had, but it sounds ... Joel: And Convey IQ was Take the Interview previously. Chad: Yes, Take the Interview. Joel: Made a major pivot, created sort of a hub spot for recruiting, marketing platform. Chad: Right. Joel: Got some money, I think, additional money when they did that and yeah, my comment that got picked up was this feels a little bit like two dinosaurs snuggling together to try to stave off the extinction that was coming after the asteroid hit, so I think the money they got for the acquisition, it feels a little bit like a Hail Mary. It feels a little bit like hey, you've given us a lot of money, just give us a little bit more, back to that drug addict analogy. Just give us a little bit more and we'll make it work. Chad: Keep me on drip. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah, keep me on the drip. Joel: So, they made the acquisition. As far as I can tell, the Convey IQ team out in New York is going to moving to San Francisco. Danielle Weinblatt, their CEO or founder's going to be head of product, I believe. A couple other people are going to be going over. I assume probably some of the sales folks if there are any will join Entelo. So yeah, we'll see. I think it's another take on the whole platform thing, try to be all things to all people and this is sort of their attempt to be that platform. Chad: I think if you're a CEO of a startup that is kind of fish out of water and taking its last breath, you're going to say hey look, throw me a little bit more water, because you're going to lose all your money or we can make this great marriage, because I do believe the marriage of Entelo and Convey IQ makes a hell of a lot of sense, because Entelo in itself is really a matching algorithm, so you have your data from your job, goes in, it matches. Chad: That's all well and good, what do you do next? Well, then the RMP takes over Convey IQ and it starts the messaging, the drip campaign, the nurturing campaigns and that kind of stuff, right? So, they fit together very, very nicely. The big question is will they still be able to sell it? Joel: Yeah and the customers they've had, will they come back? The customers they do have, will they stick around with the new services? Initially with Entelo, we've heard a lot about the exodus of their leadership. Chad: Yes. Joel: So, if you're going to fill those gaps buying another company is a nice way to fill those leadership gaps that you have so yeah, we'll see. I think it's a long shot. What I've heard from people that it is a good marriage. Time will tell, time will tell. Chad: Yeah, there's a very long list of execs/leadership that have left Entelo within the last year ... Joel: Pretty much everyone. Chad: So, good and bad, good and bad. First and foremost, the bad it's hard to lose great, experienced people. The good, that's all money from an overhead standpoint and they can try again to build from the ground up with Danielle and her team. The move from New York to California, I think is ... that's going to be kind of shaky. Joel: Yeah. Chad: I don't think that's an easy move for somebody who has a life. Joel: So, Entelo people search sourcing looking for it's last breath, our next story takes us to another sort of people search aggregation data scraping, monitoring whatever. Zap Info, formerly Read, Write, Web, Drop, Clip, Snap, Snip. Bergdeferken. Chad: Web Clip Drop I think it was, Web Clip Drop. Joel: They've been Zap Info now for quite awhile and Doug Berg of Techies and Job to Web sold to SAP for $110 million. Chad: Fucking genius. Joel: Started this thing up a couple years ago. We talked about I think recently, they've added messaging, text messaging to their platform. Chad: Google Voice. Joel: They've added Google Voice to be able to call candidates. If anyone understands evolving, having to zag when the government is zigging, GDPR issues et cetera and Doug understands those things and I think that he's transforming the company into something much more than just grabbing profiles from the web. And I think that the people that have invested in his company this week announced C-2 round to the tune of $1.75 million understand Doug's vision and are pretty optimistic about where he's going. We'll see. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So overall, $3 million. Doug very smart, not taking a ton of money, because he knows he's building something up, I would assume, to get acquired by somebody big much like he did with ... Joel: That's his jam. Chad: Oh yeah, that's his jam. He does a very good job of that, so you don't take a shit ton of money, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So you make sure that obviously your take is much larger than your investors, but the dude has always been very good at what you like to say see around corners. Joel: See around corners, yep. Chad: And they do that so well and adding features and then really doing some slight pivots, but they don't look like pivots. They just look like that's the natural evolution of the actual product itself. Joel: Yeah, they don't make hamburgers and then all of a sudden they're doing waffles or something. There is a natural progression to what they do and I think it is a word of ... it is a lesson for startups out there and people that want to start up a company, the blueprint for success in our industry tends to be industry knowledge, you know who you're selling to, you know the audience, and you don't get too big too fast. We've seen Indeed grow very organically slowly, only take roughly $10 million. Joel: Jobs to Web, Doug's former company similar thing. I think Techies might've taken a lot of money, maybe he learned a lesson from that 90s go-go period, but yeah, it's be lean, take little money, know that it's going to take time. Our audience is tough to sell to and your chances of success are much better than doing the opposite of that. Chad: And partnerships. The partnerships that he's pulling together and some of this money's actually coming from the Randstad Innovation Fund. They're one of the new funders and Randstad obviously full of recruiters. If they can get this product embedded in Randstad, Jesus man, I mean that's fucking huge. They're like the number two staffing organization in the world, add the RPO on top of that, so Doug is not a dumb man. Chad: Being able to not just get money from Randstad, but also I would believe they're working with them on the tech side to be able to be a part of really the recruiter's normal routine. Joel: Yeah, there's a pretty good chance we'll see Doug at a conference near us soon. We'll have to get him on the mic and see what the future holds for them. He's always a good interview. Chad: Nothing but smiles and hugs. Joel: He's always a good interview and yeah, him and Tim Sackett could hug it out for hours, those two guys. Well let's move to some insider info I guess. We got a tip that things at AllyO ... Chad: Just the tip. Joel: ... may not be going very well. So, we got a tip that basically said hey, if you got a moment, go check out Glassdoor and the reviews for Ally O, so I went out there and looked at what was going on at AllyO ... Chad: You got a hot tip. Joel: ... hot tip, yes. I love those hot tips. Anyway, I won't make a joke, because your wife's in the car. Chad: She's already shaking her head. Joel: She's already ... she knows me too well. Chad: She's like these guys are so fucking dumb. Joel: So anyway, as I'm looking at some of the reviews, basically most of the tech team, things are just fairly negative over at Glassdoor right now, so we've got one "I've worked here for close to six months. First off, let me point out that half the reviews here are fake." Well that's an interesting take on this. Why would there be fake reviews for AllyO? Who's trying to tank AllyO if that's the case? So anyway, this same review says in all caps "PLEASE TRUST ME AND STAY CLEAR OF ALLYO." As she bumps, "All the AI they claim to have is fake, ever wonder why they don't use their own products to run their TA? If it was so great, you'd think you'd use your own product, hahaha." Chad: And that was a tech person? Joel: That was just a current employee. They didn't actually specify. I'll just read some of the titles here. Consider yourself warned, 0 stars if I could, the exodus has begun, startup a lot of security gaps, and it goes on and on, so we reached out to Bennett Sung, their head of marketing. Chad: Good man, yes. Joel: And admitted that there are some issues and they're a growing company. They've grown from a small amount of people to over 100-150, so it was kind of a growing pains thing, we'll get through it, be patient. So whether or not ... take whatever side you want, maybe there's a little bit of truth in both of those, but at least from Glassdoor's point of view, things are fairly bad at AllyO at the moment. Chad: Well, if you are working at AllyO or you were, feel free to drop us a line, go to chadcheese.com, go down to the bottom, drop us a line, let us know, give us your information anonymously, but we'd like to get some insights ... Joel: The tech's insights are a little bit alarming, I guess. If the AI is fake and they're not eating their own dog food, that's a little bit alarming. Chad: Well that is ... I mean, we've called companies out on that in the past on the show and actually doing research and saying, well if your tech's so good, why the fuck aren't you using it? Joel: Yeah, do you think that there's a little bit of AI fallout happening? Like we've talked about AI's being replaced by diversity and inclusion. The hot terminology is moving away from AI? Chad: Yeah ... Joel: Or do you think it's still ... ? Chad: I think first and foremost, people are getting sick and tired of hearing AI when they don't know what the fuck it actually means. Joel: Yeah, I agree with that. Chad: I think we're really focusing way too much on these fucking terms and not the end result. Joel: Yeah, the results. Chad: You know, what's the problem that you're trying to solve, maybe AI's going to help, maybe RPA, it doesn't matter, just focus on the fucking solution. Joel: Yeah, for so long we've heard hey, I need a chat bot, but I'm not sure why I need a chat bot. Just because everyone's talking about it and everyone's doing it, so maybe people are realizing I don't necessarily need AI, because I'm not even sure what that is, but what results, what problems are you solving, what pain points are you curing? Like I think people are hopefully getting to that point as opposed to just I need to check off AI in my annual budget expenses. Chad: Yeah and that RFP, they were asking if we have AI. If you're a company out there and you have an RFP and it actually asks about AI, then you're a fucking idiot. Quit asking dumb fucking questions on your RFP's. Joel: Focus on plugging your bias hole, I think, is what you're saying. Chad: Yes. Always, always. And also, vendors, I know it is so attractive to be able to see something like that on an RFP and then say look, look, look, we need to put this all over our marketing material. Don't fucking do it. Focus on what matters. Joel: Yeah. Chad: That's the solution, the outcome. Joel: Well, we're going to end the show on a little bit of a somber note. The industry lost I guess a giant and a forefather of the industry. You were obviously very close to him. I felt close, but not as close as you, so I'll just hand the mic to you and let you talk about Bill Warren, a father of online recruiting passed away this week. Chad: Yeah, so many of you might not know Bill Warren, because he was a very silent kind of guy, kind of in the shadows in most cases. He started Online Career Center, OCC.com which actually was morphed with the Monster board into Monster.com, so he was actually the very first president of Monster.com, he left there, started one of the very first ASP-driven applicant tracking systems. That morphed over into the Direct Employers Association, there were a handful of us that started that thing up. Chad: And I have to say one of my best and worst memories in spending probably about 12 years with Bill was the very first days when we were starting up direct employers, because I would spend probably three hours with him every single day talking through why we shouldn't shut this fucking thing down. Joel: Why we should not. Chad: Why we should not shut this down ... Joel: So, he wanted to go home? Chad: He needed reassurance that we were on the right track and that one day came when America's Job Bank actually shut down and we had about at that time at Direct Employers, we had about 140 members. I led that project and we created the National Labor Exchange, which was to fill that gap. And we went from 140 members to over 400 in 18 months. It took us five years to get to 140, in 18 months went to 400, so I mean that was the kind of patience he had. Chad: He did have obviously some pretty damn good resolve, but generally he wasn't the guy who was on stage like the Jeff Taylor's of the world who was incredibly boisterous and out there. Joel: Very Midwestern in his demeanor. Chad: Yes. Yeah. Joel: Yeah, so my memory of Bill, probably two things. One was he wasn't a techy. Chad: No. Joel: He wasn't a carnival barker, he wasn't a technology guy, he was really about people and I thin the allegiance and loyalty that people had to him is a testament to that and my greatest appreciation of Bill is what he did for me when I was doing Cheesehead back in the mid-2000's. He believed in it, he thought it was interesting, he believed in me, liked me. Joel: And frankly, bankrolled much of Cheesehead and if you read Cheesehead back then and enjoyed it, you really have Bill to thank and the organization, because they were so supportive of me and that was something that I will never be able to pay back and I will miss Bill and just remember him as a tremendous supporter, someone who believed in me when he really had no reason to and someone who made a real impact on people more so than maybe the business side of it to me. Chad: And that's where this friendship started. Joel: Yeah, we have Bill to thank for this podcast, I guess. So Bill, what better way to say thank you than on the podcast, which exists because of you. Chad: Not much to say other than we out. Joel: We out. Walken: Thank you for listening to what's it called? A podcast, the Chad, the Cheese, brilliant. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know. And yet, you're listening, it's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss, so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anyhow, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Walken: That way, you won't miss an episode and while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com, just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out. #HirebyGoogle #Google #antitrust #Entelo #ConveyIQ #Marketing #Matching #ZAPinfo

Chad & Cheese are turning the world of employment branding on its head. 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: Hidey ho. Joel: Oh, yeah. Back again. What's up Chad? Chad: Dude, I am fucking excited right now. Joel: You are fucking excited. Chad: I'm so excited. Joel: I'm ducking my head under the desk. I'm so scared of how excited you are. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Welcome everybody. Again, this is the Chad and Cheese Podcast, in case you didn't know. This is Joel Cheesman. Chad: Chad Sowash. Joel: And we have a very special series of podcasts coming up that Chad and I would like to introduce you to. Chad: Yeah, they're called the Cult Brand Series that we wanted to put together. And Joel and I had an opportunity to go to The Gathering of Cult Brands last February in Banff, Canada, and it was amazing. Joel: Canada. Chad: I think that the coolest thing from my standpoint, Joel, was really trying to understand what the fuck a cult brand is. My head's still reeling. But I personally wanted to bring that message kind of like down the mountain. Ha, see what I did there? Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: To talent acquisition and HR, and I know that you felt that you had a great time there too, but it wasn't just about the experience. It was more than that. Joel: I mean how long have we been hearing that recruiting is marketing? Chad: Right. Joel: But yet, do we actually live that? Do we actually practice it? And the answer is probably, no, in most cases. Chad: Right. Joel: Both from a marketing perspective and from a recruitment talent acquisition perspective. So our experience at The Gathering, I think, really opened our eyes to the fact that all these brands were preaching talent, employees, are our first sort of level of brand and where we build our purpose, but they talked a good talk, but when it actually came to walk the walk, a lot of the CEOs and the people that were in charge of these companies didn't really get how are we connecting with candidates. Joel: How are we making their experience as solid as possible when they go through the hiring process and the interviewing process, as well as how do we retain top talent through a brand of purpose to make sure that people stay on the job and love what they do because they love what they're doing? Joel: And I think that this series really crystallizes our desire to say, “Look, let's get some real marketing professionals, some real meat and potatoes, to come on the show, talk about how they can build brand, how they can build a bridge with HR and talent acquisition, and how we can really all get on the same page in terms of building a solid brand that can recruit and retain the best people around the world.” Chad: Which is why we have a special guest. Joel: We do have a special guest. Is this when we introduce him? Chad: I think so. Joel: Awesome. Well, welcome to the show everyone, Chris Kneeland. Chris is the cofounder of The Gathering of Cult Brands and the CEO of the Cult Collective, which is an agency. So give us the elevator pitch on you and why we should care that you're here. Chris: Well, I've devoted the last decade of my career to this concept of a cult brand and hope that by the time this series is done, Chad will be able to explain it to others as well as I can because there's something very powerful in the concepts of cults. Chris: Certainly, there's negative connotations in the societal or religious sense of the word, but there's a lot of enviable connotations as people create a brand that people don't just buy, but they buy into. And I think there's a lot of things that people are doing wrong, and there's a lot of things that people simply don't know they could be doing when it comes to boosting their levels of customer adoration. Chad: So from your side of the house, Chris, because I mean you're on the big brand, the big marketing side of the house. We first came to you and said, “Hey, look, HR, talent acquisition recruiting, they need to understand this.” But why do you believe it's important for HR talent acquisition and recruiting to understand what actually makes a cult brand? Chris: Well, it's hugely important, and it's important for two reasons. One, there's a high correlation. So when we look at the brands that are dubbed the most cult like brands on the planet, they're highly correlated with brands that are also the most desirable places to work, so that's not an accident. Chris: Now, I'm not sure which is the chicken or the egg. Are the Dallas Cowboys awesome places to work because people just love working with the Cowboys, or is it the fact that they've built an organization and a culture that has resulted in the talent that has made them so desirable. Right? So that's something we can explore on this series. Chris: But I think the other issue is that traditional HR professionals are ill-equipped to solve this problem, and traditional marketing departments are distracted to solve this problem. We have an employee group, a culture situation that's largely orphaned because the HR professionals don't have the resources that are to be found in the marketing group, but the marketing group doesn't have the mandate to fix it the way that the HR department does. Joel: Chris, we sat down in February, in Canada, to talk to you, and one of the things that you said almost eight months ago or 10 months ago has stuck with me since, and the conversation went something like this. I said, "Do you feel like marketing looks down on HR?" Do you remember what your response was to me? Chris: Yes, I said, "Doesn't everybody look down on HR?" Joel: Yes, you did say that. So my question to you in this series, and as we move forward, is HR, and recruitment, and marketing are historically divided. I don't even know if they speak the same language. Right? So how the two come together to benefit not only recruiting and retention but for just the overall corporate brand? In other words, what can we do to help bridge the two departments together to strengthen the core organization? Chris: I hope that this series will do two things. I think that the people that both of those stakeholders report to, probably presidents or CEOs, need to step up and realize that there is probably a flaw in their organizational structure about how some of these problems are going to get fixed. And we are starting to see heads of people, and heads of internal engagement, and heads of culture, are new C-suite positions that don't report to HR or marketing. They report directly to the CEO. Chris: You know I like HR professionals. I don't mean to say that everybody looks down there. I mean that they have been historically viewed as very tactical, not as brands strategic assets, and they should be. But the marketing department has dollars, and capabilities, and agency resources, and skill sets that are being wasted that should be redeployed into the HR coffers and into those HR teams. So we've got to find a way to stop thinking of these as disparate silos, but rather peers that can work together for the common good. Chad: Well, excellent, Chris. You'll hear more from Chris Kneeland, I promise, during the Chad and Cheese Cult Brand Series. This is just the introduction, so look for it, Cult Brand Series. We're really excited. Thanks again, Chris, for joining us, and thank you so much for introducing us to these amazing people at these amazing brands. Chris: My pleasure. Joel: You're the man Chris. We're so excited to bring this series to our listeners. Thanks a lot, Chris. Chris: My pleasure. Thanks, guys. Chad: We out. 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. #CultBrands #TheGathering #Brand #EmployerBrand #EmploymentBrand #Marketing #creative

Authenticity is a tough thing to come by these days, but Amazon takes things to a whole other level, and the boys hash out what's wrong with the employers branding strategies. Oy! Plus, Stepstone wants to have its cake and eat it too, college degrees ain't all that, Indeed goes offline with its latest product and much, much more. Enjoy and give sponsors Sovren, JobAdx and Canvas lots o' love.​ PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is changing minds and changing lives through disability inclusion. Announcer: Hide your kids, lock 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 & Cheese Podcast. Joel: I think I realized why we should not do live shows, face-to-face, on a regular basis. Chad: Why? Joel: Because my liver would quit. It would just say, "Fuck you, I'm out." Chad: "I can't do this anymore. Oh my God. Oh my God." Chad: (singing) Joel: So welcome to this weeks show, live from beautiful Fishers, Indiana. Chad: Woo-hoo. Joel: At Ale Emporium, off of Olio Road. Chad: Olio. Joel: Come out and say hi, because we'll probably be here. Chad: We might still be here, in the fetal position. [crosstalk 00:01:04] In the corner. Joel: I'm Joel Cheesman, your co-host. Chad: And I am Chad Sowash. Joel: On this weeks show, we're talking about Indeed going off-line. Chad: Uh. Joel: IAC, that big internet company, making a big acquisition. Chad: Can I get another beer? Server: Sure thing... Chad: Yeah. Same thing, the Weizengoot. Joel: The StepStone's double-standard. Chad: Ooh. Joel: We'll be right back, after this word from a sponsor. 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 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 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. Chad: And we're back. Joel: We never left. Chad: WE never left, we were always here. Joel: Isn't editing great? Chad: It was amazing, I love this shit. So, yeah man. I love coming up and coming to the Ale, having a few beers. Joel: Yup. Chad: Having some pizza. Joel: What are we drinking today? Let's do a quick beer review. Chad: The Weizengoot. Joel: The Weizengoot, [foreign language 00:02:33] Chad: It is a Hefeweizen. Joel: A Hefeweizen, yes. Chad: Made here locally, so it's not a... You have the [crosstalk 00:02:41] Joel: I have the list here. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's pretty lengthy. I had the Dare Devil Liftoff before that, which I find very tasty. Chad: Now, it is beautiful. But the Weizengoot is a German-style Hefeweizen. Bananas and clove aroma, medium-light- Joel: Thank you, bartender. Chad: Oh, thank you. I just got my next Weizengoot. So, yeah. Good beer, good pizza. Joel: Let's do a cheers and some shout-outs. Chad: Cheers. Joel: I think that's appropriate. Chad: Gerry Crispin. Joel: (singing) Chad: 72. Joel: That's my best Marilyn Monroe imitation. Chad: 72. And, guess what? SO, I messages him this morning- Joel: Did he really reveal his age, or was that just off- Chad: NO, I saw it on Facebook. Joel: Oh, Facebook. Okay. Chad: So, I messaged him this morning and said, "Dude, happy birthday. We put up a page to be able to, pretty much, memorialize all the Gerry tales." He's like, "Oh, thanks so much man. On my way to Burning Man." He's on his way to Burning Man, right now. Joel: That's awesome. SO, to blow your mind a little bit. Chad: Yeah. Joel: When you and I, probably, met Gerry, he was about our age. Chad: Oh, shit. No way. Yeah, probably. Fuck. Fuck. Not that Gerry's old. Joel: SO, Burning Man and tattoos in Bangkok are in our future. Thanks Gerry, for the inspiration. Chad: Yes. Thanks for that, Gerry. Bucket list. We were received a message from Richard Essex. Tell us about this one. Joel: Richard may need some counseling. Richard is a former [crosstalk 00:04:14] CareerBuilder employee and heard one of our podcast, You Will Know Us By the Trail of CareerBuilder Dead, or something. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: And said it brought tears to his eyes, listening to the number, I guess, of people that he knew, that were no longer around. Just, the devastation that CareerBuilder has taken on. Chad: He was gone, so I don't know if that means he was laughing so hard he was crying or he was crying because he was so sad. So, either way, Richard- Joel: You could also take his name and some iteration of it, and create Dick Sex. So, that could be why he's a little tearful. Chad: Moving on. Joel: Richard man, we're praying for you. Chad: Praying for you, man. You're not there anymore, so don't worry about it. We can only hope Dom buys that thing. Tim Proctor- Joel: Timmy. Chad: ... the Walking outro is awesome. So, Joel said, "Hey look, should we get new outros?" I said, "Why the fuck the not? What do you want to do?" So, he comes back with this Christopher Walken outro. If you haven't listened to the end of the podcast, definitely listen today. We'll be playing it. It is funny as fuck. Joel: It's pretty good. It has inspired more celebrity outros, if you will. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I'm kind of torn between who's next. We've got the Deadpool, we've got Jack Nicholson, we have Leonardo DiCaprio. Chad: So listeners, if you have an idea of your favorite outro, at least a celebrity outro, let us know. Joel: Shawshank... Who's... Chad: Anthony Dufrene. Joel: No, no. The other one. Chad: Oh, Morgan Freeman? Joel: Morgan Freeman, yeah. [crosstalk 00:06:04] He's an option. Yeah, there are many celebrity impersonations out there. Which one should do the next Chad & Cheese outro? Hashtag us at ChadCheese. Chad: Big shout-out to our friends over at Bayard advertising. Mainly, Daniel O'Neill. So Daniel, I want to let you know that- Joel: Daniel stepped up. Chad: ... right now, we are having our corporate outing, the Chad & Cheese corporate outing. We have the Colonel Taylor's Small Batched Bourbon and also... Joel: And the Redbreast 12 Year cask-strength Irish Whiskey. Daniel has got to be on some AA watch list, somewhere. Chad: Yes. I love it. Joel: Somebody is watching his buying activities and saying, "We have a drunkard on our hands." So Daniel, watch out for the AA police out there. Chad: So, what I love right now is the Agency's swag game is escalating. Joel: Alcoholism is no laughing matter, Chad, by the way. Chad: It's escalating, okay? So, we get amazing swag from our travel sponsor, Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Then we just get new Yetis from them. Ext thing you know, we get a new Bayard Koozie, or whatever. What was it, tumbler? Joel: Stop with the tumblers. Chad: Okay. Joel: If it's not Yeti or... Chad: Keep on sending, send those tumblers. Top-shelf alcohol- Joel: ... Frisbee. And Frisbees. Chad: Oh yeah, yeah. So, that was a swag-bomb, by the way. So, don't do that, that's all I have to say. Joel: Somewhere there's a closet at Bayard with mad swag from the 2000's. Chad: Whoever thought it was funny to send me an Indeed Frisbee, yeah. It went straight to the trash. Just so you know. Joel: Yeah, I don't need the Glassdoor hacky sack, thank you very much. Chad: I actually kept my Glassdoor hacky sack. Shout-out to the JobBoard doctor who was back in the Tweet storm. Joel: The doctor. Chad: Be there, doctor. Hung Lee and Adam Gordon for having us up, a really bat clean-up, last week in the Recruiting Brainfood show. That was interesting. Joel: They said, "Okay, we'll put these guys at the end of the show because most people will have left by then." But the audience stayed pretty loyal, I was pretty impressed. Chad: I was impressed. Joel: Solid line-up, Hung, you got to upgrade the equipment. But other than that, it was a solid experience. A good time. I just said, "Hung, you need to upgrade your equipment." Chad: That was another porn reference, by the way. Joel: No wonder he's single. Jesus. Chad: Shout-out to... are you good? Joel: Yeah, I'm done with shout-outs. Let's go to the travel schedule. Chad: Events. Okay, so, first and foremost, T-shirts. We haven't talked about these in awhile. Chad & Cheese limited-edition Cheese shirts, we're running low. But thanks to Emissary.AI, we still have some left over. So, any of the events that we're going to be at, look for Chad & Cheese. Ask for T-shirts, we probably have them. They're soft, they're warm, they're wonderful. Joel: They'll keep you warm in the fall season- Chad: Yes. That's exactly right. Joel: ... as we go into conference season. We're going to Sweden. Chad: We are going to Sweden. Joel: I want to hash out this food challenge that you've thrown down to me. Chad: You are the food guy, I'm the beer guy. You're the food guy. What? Joel: This is the nastiest food challenge- Chad: I don't even know how to say it. Joel: Yeah. We don't know how to say it. It basically looks like a can of fish, left over from Word War I- Chad: Stringy, canned fish. Joel: ... that's been fermenting for 50 years. Chad: Yeah, I think there's something nuclear about it, as well. Joel: That has just enough salt that it doesn't go bad, but it's just on the cusp of being rotten fish. Chad: Yeah. Joel: That they want me to eat. And I'm not sure why I got picked for this challenge. As far as I'm concerned, there's not enough vodka in Scandinavia, for me to even think about doing this. So, yeah. We're going to Sweden, but don't expect me to eat rotten fish, thank you very much. Chad: I believe it will happen, just so you know. Yeah, we're going to be kicking out the Sweden- Joel: #ChadCheese if I should eat the rotten fish. Chad: Really excited that we're going to see, obviously, the robot. How can you not be excited to see the fucking robot, for God sakes? But we're going to see TNG Staffing, AIDA Digital. I'm watching these- Joel: I'm bring a wig for the robot. I'm thinking a different look is needed for the robot. Chad: No. First and foremost, you're already creepy enough around the robot, as it is. Saying you're bringing a wig for the robot- Joel: I'm thinking like a Jackie-Brown-inspired wig, for Tengai, would be good. Chad: Oh, so creepy. So creepy. Moving on... Joel: How do you say creepy, in Swedish? I'm going to learn. Chad: ... Recruiter Nation Live. Joel: RNL. Chad: San Francisco- Joel: The Bay. Chad: ... September 9th through the 11th. If you are in the San Francisco, or around the San Francisco area, you need to be there. Here's the reason why, we have a $200 discount. Go to Recruiter Nation Live, sign up- Joel: Which I think is only good through the end of August, so get on that people. Chad: Yeah. So, you better get on it now. ChadCheese@RNL- Joel: That's the at sign. Chad: ... That's the at sign, yes. Joel: Not the A and T word. Chad: ChadCheese@RNL. SO, that's the Recruiter Nation Live, we will be there. Who knows what we'll be doing, nobody knows. Joel: We're going to interview Aman, the newly-minted CEO of Jobvite, for sure. Chad: I think Aman will probably have as many interviews with us as Tim Sackett has. Joel: Let's bring some rotten fish from Sweden, see if Aman will eat that. Chad: Oh, he'll eat that shit. Joel: He will? Chad: He'll eat that. He will show you. Joel: Hoosiers eat anything. Chad: Aman will not step back from a challenge, that's what I know. Last but not least, TAtech North America in Austin, Texas. September 24th through the 26th. Joel: Oh, yeah. Chad: Death Match, kids. Joel: Death Match time. Chad: Death Match. Sponsored by our friends- Joel: Four companies enter, one company leaves. Chad: ... at Alexander Mann Solutions with contestants... Can you name them off? Joel: Pez.ai, not the candy. Chad: Pez.ai, yeah, Pez. Yeah. Joel: Asses first... Chad: Assess First, yes. Joel: ... SeekOut- Chad: SeekOut. Joel: ... and Job.com. Chad: Whoo man. Joel: Yeah, you like that? Chad: You're a block-chain master, that's awesome. Joel: Yeah. I need more beer, apparently. Chad: Yeah, apparently. We need to give you some beer. Joel: Another drink. Chad: So, that's it, Those are the next three events we're going to be at. If you want to see what other events, because I think we have seven or so, go to ChadCheese.com, upper right-hand corner, Events, click it. Find us, come get your T-shirt, buy us a beer. That's what we want. Thanks. Joel: Kiss Chad's forehead, he loves it. Let's get to the news. Chad: News. StepStone. Joel: Double-standard at StepStone. So, you have an inside informant or two, over there, telling you about the double-standard at StepStone. What's going on? Chad: We certainly do, we certainly do. So, it's interesting because last week, we actually talked about how StepStone and 23 other job sites that are not under the StepStone umbrella- Joel: 23, yeah. Chad: Yeah. So, StepStone has like 30 job sites under their umbrella. There're another 23 that were, pretty much, throwing the anti-trust word at Google in the EU, which is always a bad thing. Google got nailed for anti-trust with shopping. Joel: Yup. Chad: But they fixed their shit. Unfortunately, here's the thing. StepStone, even though they're throwing this anti-trust bullshit lawsuit out, one of our listeners actually sent this message. Joel: Smart listeners, we have. Chad: "Hey Chad..." Well, we asked. We said, "Hey, we can't see the German or the EU Google for Jobs. Send us screenshots." Joel: Yeah. Chad: We got a deluge of screenshots. Joel: [foreign language 00:13:42] Chad: Here's one of them. "Hey Chad, just listened to your most-recent podcast episode. I know people who work for StepStone and they have an entire team focused on indexing all their jobs on Google for Jobs." So, what they're trying to do is they're trying to propagate StepStone. Joel: Yup. Chad: Trying to propagate all of their jobs throughout their 30 different- Joel: Job sites. Chad: ... job sites. All their real estate, right? To be able to leverage Google for Jobs, in the same- Joel: While suing them. Chad: Yes. While suing them, that's the key. Joel: I believe that's called "talking out of both sides of your mouth", in America. Chad: I believe that's called "talking out of your ass". Joel: Yeah, that could be it, actually. Chad: I think that's what it is, yes. Talking out of your ass. Joel: Well, at least they're covering their bets. Chad: Yes. Joel: You know? They're betting on red, that Google will win and then, whatever. Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative), yup. Joel: But they're also betting on black that, "Hey, we'll get some dollars out of Big G." Chad: From another listener, we received an email. "So, here's StepStone's UK brand, at Totaljobs.com. Not only- Joel: A large site. Chad: Yes. "... not only sponsoring search terms on the search-engine results, mind you, but also marketing their jobs, or marking their jobs up for index into Google for Jobs." Then, again, sent a screenshot. So, StepStone, I know you're listening, quit talking out of your ass. Joel: Are we requesting StepStone, step up, if you will, and pull their jobs like Indeed has done? Chad: Yeah. If you're going to be a bitch, and whine about this stuff, you're going to bitch and you're going to whine, then yeah. Joel: Take a stand. Chad: You're doing the exact, right thing. You're whining, and then you're talking out of your ass. But, if you're going to puff up your chest and you're going to take Google to fucking court on anti-trust, then why don't you go ahead and do the right thing? Pull your shit off of Google for Jobs. Joel: Yeah. We give Indeed a lot of shit, but at least they have the cojones to say, "We're pulling it." Chad: Yeah. Yeah, they- Joel: At least in America. Chad: ... they think a lot of themselves. SO, they do that kind of stuff. Joel: All right, so StepStone, what are you going to do? Nothing. They'll probably keep doing the same thing, lose in court. But they'll still get traffic from Google. In the meantime, Indeed is getting into the career fair business. Chad: Ooh. Why? Joel: Speaking of the Big I, out of Austin, Texas. Chad: Why? Joel: Well, I would clearly say- Chad: Yeah. Joel: They would probably tell you that, "Well, it's an opportunity we can't pass up." I would say, "Hey, it's another chip to this whole Google for Jobs thing is kicking our butt. We might want to place our bets in other areas." One of those being career fairs, knowing that there's no way in Hell that Google's ever going to put on career fairs. Joel: So, essentially, Indeed has launched this product targeted toward high-frequency hiring. We're talking truck drivers, we're talking servers, and hourly workers, et cetera. The idea is that, when you post these jobs online, everybody applies, there's no pre-screening or no friction between applying and actually talking to the company. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So, the idea is like, "Hey, if you had an actual event that someone has to get in their car, or get in an Uber, or get on their Bird Scooter to have to come down and interview, you're going to automatically pre-screen people who aren't really serious about the job." Then you can have the event. Indeed handles the advertising of it, the management of it, the candidate flow, et cetera. So, yeah. I guess it's a nice, potentially revenue-flow. I thought job... I mean, I thought job fairs had kind of died out in the '90s. Chad: So, is this a real, physical job fair? Or is it an online job fair? Joel: No, it's a real, brick-and-mortar job fair. Chad: It's a real- Joel: Yeah. Chad: They're setting up... Okay, so here's the thing. It's really hard to scale a lot of that shit. I mean, especially in this kind of economy, when we do have a low employment-rate. I now people are still looking for jobs, but from my standpoint, this is not the time to start up one of these job fair endeavors. This doesn't make any sense. Joel: Well look, if you're Indeed's leadership, you're saying, "Okay, this whole pay-per-click for job postings thing might not last forever. It probably won't. So, where are we going to place bets, or where are we going to diversify our income?" Chad: Yeah. Joel: We've already seen them with staffing, right? That's an obviously, something that Google's not going to get into. They're not going to get into job fairs. Chad: No. Joel: They're not going do this- Chad: It's too hard, there's too much to it. Joel: ... job tracker, whatever it is, where you go take pictures for help-wanted signs around the world. So, they're doing things that, I think, they know Google isn't going to touch and seeing if they can make a dent into it. They've tried other businesses that have failed and they've closed them, to their credit. This job fair thing, to me, is sort of the next idea. I'm sure they've had clients says, "Hey, you guys should do job fairs." And they said, "Yeah, let's try job fairs. We already have 10 clients that'll do it tomorrow." Chad: Yeah. Joel: So, it seems a little haphazard, but- Chad: 10 clients won't pay for a job fair, just so we're clear, first and foremost. Joel: I tried really hard, to think about job fairs and the last job fair I actually remember. Chad: Yeah, uh-huh (affirmative). Joel: Whether it just be in regular advertising around my local market or online, or on Facebook, or anywhere. They seem to be extinct. Chad: When I was the Chief Experience Officer over RecruitMilitary, one of the things that they did, that I didn't totally agree with, but they did, good for them, is they scaled up their job fair. They have a very niche market that they're going after, right? Now, that was very hard for them. They did a very good job, they really did. But, at the end of the day, Indeed's not going to build a business off of that. Joel: No, no. It's a way to get money out of clients that are already paying them for clicks and job postings and whatever else. Chad: It reminds me of Monster Blue Collar, remember Monster Blue Collar? Joel: Yeah, yeah totally. Chad: Then they had a whole segment. It was like, "Oh, you guys are the blue collar sales people." That shit died. And it's not only going to die, but in a market like this, right now, it's going to be flushed down the toilet, quick. So, I think Indeed buying SIFT, I'm going to say that there're probably many different teams that they have working on these things. Joel: Yeah. Chad: But I think the market place piece is where they win, in the skilled market, in skilled-trades market. Joel: Yeah. Chad: It's not the job fairs. So, go after it, Indeed. We're going to make fun of you, go after it. But I really think SIFT if your answer. Joel: Yeah. This also is another reason for Indeed to have face-to-face relationships with clients. I mean, since their inception, they've been a very hands-off, face-to-face organization, right? Everything has been over the phone or online, post jobs, put in your credit card. Chad: Well, scalable. Joel: Totally scalable. Chad: It's scalable. Yes. Joel: It totally makes sense, but now- Chad: That's how you make money. Joel: But now they're getting into more like, the staffing business, and this business, and face-to-face stuff, and let's build relationships. Chad: Why do you think Google doesn't do it? Joel: Again, that's a thing that Google probably isn't getting into. Chad: No. Joel: They're not going to get into the consulting- Chad: Why won't they? Joel: Because it's bad business and it's not their core competency. Chad: Ta-da. Joel: Ding, ding, ding, ding. Hey man, when the asteroid hits, you got to survive any way you can. Chad: Yeah. Well, the way that Indeed survived when the last asteroid hit was, they focused on their core. They knew what they were good at and they knew what they were bad at. They weren't fucking with anything they were bad at. Right now, the only thing I'm seeing with Indeed is that- Joel: Panic? Chad: ... they do something very well, but they're trying everything. Good for them, but a lot of that, there're going to be a lot of heads that roll, in these different areas. That's all there is to it. Joel: Sure, sure. I mean, we talked about the staffing business, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: They had to roll those people into other jobs. Chad: That's hard. Hard. Joel: Or, the agency business, sorry. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, you know, it was easy to be Google for Jobs in 2008. When Google is Google for Jobs now, it's a little bit harder to be Google for Jobs. Chad: It is. Well, and that's one of those things, much like Monster and CareerBuilder should have seen it coming with Indeed. And I think Indeed sees this coming, they just don't know what the fuck to do. Because they're trying everything. Joel: I don't blame them. Chad: Dude. Joel: This is a hard nut to crack. Chad: They should own the Market Place. Joel: I'm not sure job fairs is the answer, but- Chad: No. Joel: Staffing, I like a lot better. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Indeed, we talked about Google, we want to talk about Apple and IBM, and some major organizations that are doing things different, after the break. Canvas: Canvas is the worlds 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. 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: Wow, that was a great break. Joel: That's an awesome ad. I love that ad. Chad: We found, now this article is from 2018, one of the reasons why I shared it was we see more and more companies starting to ditch college degrees. Now, in this article, and I think it's incredibly important, because when we take a look at skills gaps and we start taking a look at "hard to fill jobs", we're putting way too many obstacles in our own way. This article pretty much says Google, Apple, and IBM are taking some of those big obstacles out of their way. Joel: This is an article by CNBC. They focus on 14 companies that have historically required a college degree, to get in. When I entered the work force, 800 years ago, if you didn't have a college degree, don't even bother sending the letter [crosstalk 00:24:34] and the cover letter... Yeah, there were certain positions where you could get away with it. But for the most part, that was the first pre-screening tool that companies had, was, "No degree, [foreign language 00:24:44]. Take your business elsewhere." Joel: But I think, supply and demand, I think online learning, I think the gig economy, people are learning these skills without actually getting a degree in college. I think companies who need this talent, they need people that can be engineers and managers and whatnot, without the benefit of a college degree. The fact that Google is number one on this list, and you can work at Google without a degree, is pretty impactful, in my opinion. Apple is on this list, IBM is on this list. Some weird companies on the list, like Costco and Hilton. I'm assuming those are the management-level headquarter-type stuff. Chad: Well, if they're getting rid of them altogether. Joel: Starbucks, for sure, should be on the list. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But if you're working in Seattle, I guess maybe it should be. But yeah, Bank of America on the list. So, the world is coming to a point where college educations are way expensive. Experience counts for more than a piece of paper, in many case. If you can do the job, you should get the job. Chad: There was one thing that, you were just talking about all these different terms that people should, obviously, think about. One thing that we don't think about is Moore's law. Technology's moving way faster than our education system. So, whether you have a degree or not, in most cases, you come out of the other side with that degree, you're still not going to be prepared for what the company needs. Right? Joel: Yup. Yeah. Chad: Everything's moving so fast, not to mention, you're coming out with $100,000 in debt, or whatever it might be. I think Lazlo Bach wrote a book where they were actually talking about, at Google, being able to move away and move in this direction, years ago. They were on their way to doing it, because they actually saw that graduates from Harvard were actually doing worse that graduates from some community colleges, that they were pulling in. So, it didn't matter, these big, Ivy League schools, it didn't fucking matter to them. Google was like, "Guess what? They're not weighted higher now. Were now going to start looking at people on even keel." Then, in some cases, start to lose those degrees because it wasn't necessary, because how fast our business moves. Joel: Yeah. I'm many ways, I think universities have to look at this stuff and think, "What are we doing wrong, that these big companies feel like they can hire people that don't have a college degree?" I think your point of that, they're not moving at a pace fast enough to deliver candidates and talent that can keep up with the current technologies and development, and whatever else. Joel: So colleges, I think, have to take a look at this phenomenon and say, "How do we do better, to make sure that our people graduate and are prepared for the real world?" If you will. Chad: Oh, yeah. Well so, back to Harvard. [crosstalk 00:27:35] Harvard, there's no reason why Harvard or Stamford or any of the big schools, the big-name schools, shouldn't. Because, I think Harvard has over 30 billion, B- B- billion in endowments, right? They should be moving as fast, if not faster than Corporate America. They should be partnering with Corporate America. So this, for us to be falling back and for Google to be pointing out big names like this and saying, "They're actually at, probably, the same level as some of the community colleges," that's on the administration of Harvard. That's fucking bullshit. They have more money in their endowment than most third world fucking countries, dude. We should have this fixed. The problem is, we have rich dudes sitting around, counting their fucking money. Joel: And dudettes. Chad: Eh, in most cases, it's dudes. But, yeah. I mean, that's the problem. We really need to focus on where the problem is. Joel: Well look, colleges are fat and happy. Chad: They are, that's what I'm saying. Joel: College has never been more expensive. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They're fat and happy. Chad: Most of them, yeah. Most of them. Joel: There's no incentive. As long as students pay money the go to college, to get degrees, and colleges get fatter and fatter, there's no incentive for them to churn out people that can do jobs that require different skills. Until people stop... Well, yeah. We'll see what happens, we'll see about that. Chad: Then they go to the technologies or they go to the certifications, or what have you. But when I saw most of them, most of the big colleges , with the big names, they should be the answer, they shouldn't be the problem. That's what we're seeing. Obviously, that's what we're seeing because Google, Apple, and IBM are saying, "Yeah, we don't need college degrees." Joel: Yeah, I'm mean, look. A Harvard degree, a Stanford degree, a Northwestern degree- Chad: Dude. Joel: ... that used to be a free ticket into- Chad: Anywhere. Joel: ... boats and hoes. Chad: Anywhere. Joel: Now, for many it still is, but now it's more of an economy of meritocracy, and can you do the job or not? I think a lot of companies, through just necessity, are hiring people with good attitudes, the ability to learn, and they're teaching them on the job. That had greater benefit now than it ever has before. I think the gig economy and sites like Upwork and Fiverr also make it tougher, because you can pick people from around the globe, that can do these job. You don't have to go to Ivy League environments or Chicago Rice University, wherever it is. You can go the internet and find these people, and that has sort of leveled a lot of the playing field. Chad: We have an interview with the CEO of HackerRank, that's going to be coming out, I promise. Joel: Funny guy. Chad: He actually said that he doesn't believe that we have a talent shortage, and that's the reason. Is because we are a global economy and we can do those types of things. With companies like HackerRank being able to leverage all those individuals, throughout the world. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Doing projects, instead of actually doing full-time jobs. Joel: Yeah. If you're a company, would you rather hire someone with a degree from, say, Purdue, which is historically, a sure bet, or would you rather hire someone in HackerRank that scores a perfect score on the technologies for what you need at your company? Chad: Yeah. Joel: That's a tougher question for companies to answer. Chad: 50 reviews that say this dude is kick-ass and whatnot, or what have you. Joel: Yeah. Great reviews, they pass the test, all the pre-screening stuff. Chad: Yup. Joel: They can do the job. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It used to be, "Oh, you've a Purdue degree? You can probably do the job." Now you know, they can do the job because of these tools of sites like HackerRank. Chad: Right, right. One of the reasons why I believe market places is where we're moving. So, job sites, the Indeed's of the world. If they don't move toward a market place, I think they're totally wrong. I think the Monster's of the world... I think the only saving grace they have is to move to a market place. Joel: Yeah, look. Three doors down from where we are right now, there's a company called Code Ninjas. They take kids from ages eight or seven, to fourteen and teach them to code. So, are you telling me I can take a nine-year-old kid, put him in there, learn how to code, start building apps as a teen, start doing technologies as a teen, start doing work on Upwork as a teenage, and learn more than what, probably, a college-degreed student knows by the time they graduate after four years of college? That's the world we're living in. Joel: It's not, "Hey they do to public school till they're 12th grade, they don't do any coding but maybe some basic stuff. Then they finally learn coding or engineering or whatever, when they go to college." They can start learning that stuff at seven years old, and that's the world that we live in. Companies are finally taking notice, like, "Hell, I'm going to hire the kid that's bee coding since they were seven, as opposed to the one that's been 19." Chad: Companies are. Now we just need universities to get off their fat and happy asses, and start doing things right. That's the biggest issue, that we don't have companies forging partnerships with universities, or universities with companies, to be able to pipeline candidates directly to on contract. Directly into their organization, where it's like, "Hey look, you come in and you develop or you become on sales," or whatever it is. "Stay with us for three years and we will pay off your college debt." That's the shit that needs to happen. Joel: Sure. Companies want results and having a degree doesn't equal results. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Let's talk about IAC, one of the huge- Chad: You know me. Joel: A huge internet company. You'll know many of their companies in the portfolio. Chad: Tinder. Joel: Vimeo. Yeah, they're definitely dating. Chad: Match.com. Joel: So Tinder, Match, Plenty of Fish. Yeah, I'm looking at the list now. Chad: Do they really have Plenty of Fish? Joel: It's, pretty much, every... Angie's List, Ask for those old-timers who remember Ask. Chad: Oh, Ask. Yeah. Joel: Ask.com, Home Advisor. Chad: Jeeves, Ask Jeeves. Joel: Ask Jeeves, yeah. Our Time, for the older dating set. Chad: Jesus Christ. Joel: Daily Beasts Publishing. There aren't very many, if at all, employment sites that these guys have targeted. Announced this week, they bought NurseFly- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... for a whisper number of $15 million. NurseFly... Chad: They've been around since 2017, dude. They're a- Joel: Yeah, not very long. This is on the heels of, what was the healthcare platform that we talked about last week? I'm scrolling through the news here. Chad: Nomad. Joel: Yeah, Health Nomad, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: So, I don't know. What do you make of IAC historically internet company, staying away from job sites, now actually buying NurseFly as part of their repertoire? Chad: Yeah, I seem to remember they might have had some workings with some job sites, back in the day. Like in the early 2000's. Joel: Yeah, if there's an internet site, they may have bought it or acquired it at some point. Chad: But overall, I think this makes a hell of a lot of sense. IAC owns a shit-ton of companies and they want to be able to move in this direction. Now, Match.com and Tinder, dating apps, matching apps. Nursing, or NurseFly, now is focused on matching travel nurses and the market's about a $17 billion market. It's a big market. So, nursing is obviously... It's hard right now, to be able to fill, especially travel nursing jobs. If they can get ahold of this and not sit on it too long, they might be able to build a market place for traveling nurses. Maybe even blow it up into something bigger. Joel: If you were a big investor, we know you've got the big bank account. Chad: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Joel: Would you rather invest in a site for engineers and technology, or healthcare? And why? Chad: I'd say healthcare. A couple of reasons. First and foremost, the Boomers, right? Not to mention, there's so many that are actually going into the healthcare system right now, and that is the reason why we need so many nurses, right? We need so many healthcare professionals. So, if you take a look at the actual trends, it just makes sense. Healthcare is big and it's going to grow and it's really bloated. But, we need people to be able to fill those gaps. So, I think it makes sense. I don't know if a two-year-old company makes sense, but I would look at more of a practice link, with something like this, to try to blow it up into a much larger market place. Joel: So, co-founder and CEO of NurseFly, Parth Bhakta, hopefully I'm saying that correctly, said, "We built NurseFly to transform and modernize how travel healthcare professionals connect with work. In doing so, hope to alleviate a nation-wide labor shortage in the Healthcare Industry. Our vision is to bring transparency to the travel nursing markets, so we can connect more qualified professionals, to more work opportunities." Blah, blah, blah. "We are thrilled to join AIC," blah, blah, blah. Technology, demand, those are all things he touched on and he understands that, as well. Chad: Yup, yup. Well, what I think needs to happen here is, this is different than the Google, the Apple, and the IBM jobs where you can just, pretty much, find somebody anywhere in the world to work a project, if they're qualified. This is entirely different. You need somebody that is actually there, on premises, to be able to do the work. The big key here isn't really, I don't think, technology. It's back to what we talked about with universities and schools, who certify nurses, to be able to pipeline them into these types of jobs. Joel: Do you remember the Jetsons? Chad: Yeah. (singing) Joel: Do you remember the maid from the Jetsons? Chad: Oh, yeah yeah. Joel: Did she have a name? The robot? Chad: She did. I can't remember it though. I can see her. Joel: I don't remember it. They need nurses like that. They need nurse robots with aprons, that go in and take your blood and temperature, and everything else. Chad: Yeah. Joel: That's what healthcare needs, in my opinion. So, go build that and you've got a multi-billion dollar business. Chad: Ell, you get a tin guy first. You start with the tin guy. Joel: Put some wheels and an apron on tin guy, and give him a stethoscope and a needle, and you got something. Chad: So... Joel: Whoo. We went off on a tangent on that one. Chad: We did. I think I'm going to get another beer here. Joel: All right. Yeah, let's get another beer and let's hear another word from a sponsor. When we come back, we'll talk about programmatic advertising. Chad: And bots. JobAdX: Nope, nah, not for me. All these jobs look the same. Ugh, next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking, as they scroll past your jobs. Just half-heartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it, we live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So why do we expect job-seekers to react differently while reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? JobAdX: Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people and benefits with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job-seekers will stumble upon your employment-branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection and reducing candidate drop off. JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment-branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites, to proactively compel top talent, to join your team. Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing joinus@jobadx.com. That's joinus@jobadx.com. Attract, engage, employ, with JobAdX. Joel: This beer's tasting too good, by the way. This is bad. Chad: Weizengoot. I love a good Hefeweizen. This next one- Joel: Say Recruitology really fast, eight times, From the beer that we've had. Chad: Yeah. I can't. Joel: Recruitology, Recruitology, Recruitology. Chad: This one just seems, almost, like it's reaching, to me. I could be wrong. Joel: Who's reaching? We, as a show or... Chad: Recruitology is reaching. Joel: Okay. Chad: There's like, "Oh, we partnered with this media company," and it's like, "Well all these other programmatic companies are getting acquired. What do we do to get our name our there, so hopefully somebody recognizes us and they buy us?" It seems kind of weak, to me. Joel: Programmatic is a race to the... Chad: It is. Joel: It's like, "How can we arm up, as quickly as possible." We saw four companies sell within a 45-day period, I think. Chad: Yeah, close. Joel: You can listen to past shows, if you want to get the news on all that stuff. But to me, you've got Recruitology, Pando, JobAdX, you've got a few players left [crosstalk 00:40:50] to sort of build that network. The they know they're going to sell at some point. I think it's a matter of how much they can go for, because AppCast has set the market, relatively low, by the opinion of many people that we know. But, Foreman's in Fiji right now, probably enjoying his riches. Joel: So, you have Recruitology, from the people that brought up After College. Apparently, that business is a little bit challenged. SO now, they're building up programmatic ad solution and they're building up as many news paper, media sites as possible. Yeah, they've partnered with Berkshire Hathaway, a well-known name if you're buying real estate or investing in stocks. They're, basically, a group of Mid West-ish news papers and TV stations, et cetera. So, the markets they serve, we're looking at Alabama, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. So, you've got some solid spots there, amongst the Alabama's and the Nebraska's. But yeah, it's a race. Joel: All these companies, these news paper companies are figuring out, just putting jobs on our site and having people self-serve. Isn't necessarily answering or partnering with these guys. It's more profitable and easier and we don't need sales people. We don't need that infrastructure to handle that, this is a better deal. So, I'm sure they're all talking to Pando and Recruitology, and whoever else. Whoever gives them the best deal is who they're going with. So, Recruitology is partnering with these companies, they must have a decent story to tell. I think Pando does, also. Chad: All of the programmatic CEOs I've talked to, after all these sell-offs, have said, "We're solid, we're not selling. Yet." Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: Yes. Joel: Yeah. They're all kind of mad at the price tag that AppCast put on their product. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: They're going to wait it out. From what we've heard, they're going to wait it out until the price gets back up, demand goes higher. Chad: Right. Joel: Look, there're more buyers in the programmatic space than there are sellers. Chad: Oh, shit yeah. Yeah. Joel: So, they can afford to wait a little bit, let the price go up, hope the economy and the Trump White House doesn't screw things up. It's be crazy if one of these guys cashed out at a higher price tag than AppCast, two, three, four, five years from now. But it could happen. Chad: It could happen. Joel: I'll go on record and say, it will happen. Pando and/or Recruitology will sell for more than AppCast. Chad: Or Jovio. Joel: Or Jovio. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Or JobAdX... Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... will sell for more than AppCast, at some point. There you go. That's a precursor to my 2020 predictions, for our show in January. Chad: Well, I'm going to go ahead and put a prediction out there and say that Amazon will use bots- Joel: Is going to buy Slacks. Chad: ... will use bots. Joel: Damn it. You're such a tease. Chad: Will use bots... Joel: Oh my God. Chad: ... in the Twitter-verse and in social. Joel: Amazon, why? Chad: So, this is interesting. Joel: It's stupid. Chad: There's a new rabbit hole on Twitter, that many people have fallen down because of all of these Amazon Ambassadors that are out there. They have these pictures- Joel: Ambassadors. Chad: ... that looks like real people, but it says their name and then "Amazon Ambassador." It just seems like total- Joel: This story won't go away. We covered this six months ago. Chad: ... total bullshit. I know. But Amazon, they won't quit. Here's a great example. There was one dude that says, on Twitter, "What are your prime directives?" Which is Star Trek subject matter, right? Joel: Yup. Chad: An Amazon bot, which looks like Jordan, actually says, "Amazon Prime is all about quick and reliable shipping." It's like, dude, they're keying off of words and then, they're trying to get into the conversation. Joel: It reads like a late-night comedy. The best comic writers in the world couldn't come up with some of this ridiculousness. Like all the user names have Amazon in them. Chad: Yes. Joel: They all say Amazon Ambassador, they all read like a robot wrote this stuff. Like, "As a worker in US, I do not want a union. Why should I pay dues to a union, to get exactly what I'm already getting? My working conditions are good and I receive great benefits. Would I like more money? Absolutely. I don't think anyone would say 'no more money'." I can keep going of you like. "Everything is fine. I don't think there is anything wrong with the money I make or the way I am treated at work." Real people don't talk like that. Chad: "I suffer from depression too. At one point, I wanted to quit Amazon. But I realized, it was my fault for the problems I was dealing with, and not Amazon's." Joel: Yeah. Chad: People don't fucking do... "I'm allowed to talk to people, but sometimes, I don't want to." I mean, it's... Joel: The one that's like, "I just took a picture of the leadership board," or something, "it's so inspirational." So it's an actually picture of a keyword cloud of, yeah, leadership tips at Walmart, or at Amazon, sorry. Chad: Oh, yeah. It was like, "When I walk in every day, I see this." Joel: Yes. "I'm so inspired to stock boxes." Chad: Yeah. You know how you can go to Google and do an image search? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So, it's really simple. You can go to Google, you can do an image search with some of the headshots that are used on Twitter, and see if anybody else is using them. There are like 55,000 of this. It's like a stock photo from Getty Images, or- Joel: Oh, no. Chad: Yeah. Dude, it's fucking ridiculous. Joel: Some bot in Thailand is churning out these Twitter accounts. Maybe this is a good time to say good-bye for the week and sample some of this whiskey that we got from Bayard Advertising. Chad: Agreed. Thanks, Bayard. Thanks, Daniel O'Neill. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. Walken: Thank you for listening to... what's it called? A podcast. The Chad, The Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout-outs of people you don't even know. Yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And, not one word about cheese, not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any-hoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way, you won't miss an episode. And, while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out. #StepStone #Google #Indeed #JobFairs #Apple #IBM #College #IAC #Nursefly #Marketplace #Recruitology #Amazon #Twitter

There's already too many staffing solutions in the UK, right? Nay! says this month's Firing Squad guest, SBOJ (it's jobs backwards, get it?). Let's just see how right this start-up really is on this Talroo exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Chad: Talroo is focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Joel: 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: 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, 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 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: Aw, yeah. Chad: Here we are. Joel: Let's do another Firing Squad because our fans love it. All right, guys. Today we have, geez, I'm going to say this wrong. SBOJ, which is- Chad: Spooge. Joel: Yeah, Spooge is what we're calling it. But it's SBOJ.com. We have Nick Gray, CEO and Londoner. Nick, welcome to the Firing Squad. Nick: Hey, and thank you very much for having me. It's an honor. Joel: Hope you've got your bulletproof vest on today. Nick: Yes. Well, there's plenty around in London, so your president tells us. Joel: Yeah. Hey, with your prime minister, I'm not sure you can talk. Nick: No, exactly. You're not wrong. He's the Britain Trump, isn't he? Joel: Yes, yes. Well, we know that you know the rules of the firing squad, but some of our listeners don't. So Chad, why don't you run through the dilly dilly? Chad: All right. All right, Nick, you will have two minutes to pitch SBOJ, Spooge. 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&A. If your answers start rambling, then Joel's gonna hit you with the crickets, and that's your signal to move along and tighten up your game. At the end of Q&A, we're going to grade you with either big applause. You should at this point, get your bank account ready because you knocked it out of the fucking park. A golf clap, you're getting there, but you can do better. Joel: Got some work to do. Chad: Yeah, you have lots of work to do. Or, the firing squad. Hit the bricks, close up shop, pull out the drawing board because that shit sucks, but that's the firing squad. Do you have any questions? Nick: No, that all sounds very clear. Hopefully I don't get the last one. Chad: Excellent. Okay, Joel, let's do this. Joel: Ready, Nick? Nick: Yes, go for it. Joel: Two minutes starting. Nick: SPOJ.com is a new platform which disrupts the employer-recruiter relationship. Taking the example of real estate, 15 years ago when you were looking for a property you'd visit the local estate agents, who would then send you houses in your budget they thought that you'd like. Now you use an online platform, such as Zoopla in the UK or Zillow in the U.S., and you search for the house you'd like, and are then put in touch with the agent that represents it. Nick: Essentially, staffing firms still work in the same way that realtors used to. Employers recruit in three ways, one by advertising roles and getting direct hires; two, by using an in-house team to scrape LinkedIn, their network, and to leverage referrals to find direct hires; and three, by using recruiters or staffing companies. Nick: SBOJ just focuses on number three. It's a tool for in-house teams to use alongside their ATS which aggregates and manages all of their applications from recruiters. There are lots of staffing firms, so employers manage noise from recruiters by having a PSL, a list of recruiters they can deal with. I always thought this was kind of stupid because, one, the perfect candidate might be using a recruiter they don't deal with, and two, all of the recruiters who are not on the PSL constantly call up the employer to try and get on it. Nick: SBOJ screens existing relationships, manages duplication, and reduces conflict with recruiters, plus allows an employer to use any recruiter on guaranteed terms. No humans are involved; everything is processed by algorithms. SBOJ just manages the introduction. Recruiters still do the same stuff they do now, and employers can still protect their employer brand in the same way. The difference is just that the starting point for the relationship is our platform. Nick: For employers, SBOJ immediately manages all noise from recruiters and in the longer term will allow them to search an aggregated database to recruiters candidates, like you now do on Zillow for houses, which isn't something that they've been able to do until now. SBOJ is completely free for employers to use, so it's been conceived as a bit of a no-brainer. There are also a lot of reasons why recruiters want to use it too. We just got a big investment from a former Dragons' Den investor, which is obviously a huge stamp of approval. To find out more, please visit SBOJ.com or email me, nick@sboj.com. Chad: Very good. Joel: Tight patch. Did you write that down? Nick: I've been doing it all morning. Joel: That's what I'm talking about. Nick: Thank you. I tried it with my girlfriend earlier, and I was sort of adlibbing it, and I'd got about a third of the way through it and she's like, "That's two minutes." Joel: Yeah, we are typically disappointed by CEO pitches, but that one was pretty damn good. Chad: Significant investment from Dragon's Lair star, is it Richard Farleigh? Nick: Yeah, Richard Farleigh. Dragons' Den is kind of the same as your Shark Tank. I think, well, we kind of invent ... Well, I think actually the Japanese invented it. Then we had Dragons' Den, and then you had Shark Tank like three or four years afterwards. Chad: Yeah, so were you on Dragons' Den? Nick: No. Chad: How'd you get his attention? Nick: No. So basically, we kind of knew a couple of sort of mutual people on LinkedIn and I sent him a few emails and he said, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds kind of interesting," and then he didn't really come back to me at all. And he kept looking at my profile and I was like, "Well, you know, if you're going to look at my profile then you need to hear what I want to say." And so effectively I went along and met him and another guy. Nick: It took about six months of loads of meetings and so on and so forth because I think he's very careful with what he does, obviously, which is why I didn't get into the position he is. But he's backed a lot of companies. He tends to do larger investments with far more established companies. But he's a nice guy. We kind of get well, and I think he can see that he can make a bit of a difference with it and we can perhaps do something cool with it. Chad: Do you know if he's investing in this industry at all right now? Are you the only investment he has in this industry? Nick: I think I'm the only investment that he has specifically in recruitment. I don't know a sort of recruitment tech, but I don't really know. He's got his fingers in a lot of pies, put in that way. Funnily enough, actually, I think he was replaced on Dragons' Den by James Caan, who came up in one of your recent podcasts, I think, cause you were mentioning his name, saying, "Oh, Caan. Is that the actor or ..." Chad: Right. Joel: What was it about you guys that that kind of sold him? What was the appeal? Nick: Well, I think it's because it's a market that everybody knows and a lot of people have dealt with. I think a lot of his companies obviously deal with it from the other end of the stick, in the fact that they have a lot of recruiters that are chasing them around and not necessarily always giving them a great service. But often, they want to use recruiters cause they've got good people and they want to hire people. And, obviously, it was my natural brilliance and so on and so forth that pushed him in my direction. But it just kind of, you know, we got on well and it was a point where we needed some money because it's been a very difficult thing to develop and it's cost us a lot of money and time and so on and so forth. Chad: I got to get to the name. So I initially thought it was Spooge. Nick: SBOJ. Chad: It's SBOJ. Nick: Yeah, SBOJ. Chad: If you get the firing squad, you can always pivot to Spooge and make it a different content site. So how did you come up with the name? What's the story? Is it a pain in the ass on sales calls to say, "Hey, I'm Nick with SBOJ"? Nick: Not really. I don't think it's been much of an issue. I think having a short domain and obviously a .com is, because we've got plans to be able to just not do things outside the UK. So having that was ... And, obviously, it's jobs backwards. So it was kind of- Joel: Ahh. Nick: ... That was kind of the pull. Actually, one of my colleagues came up with it rather than me. But I tracked down the guy who owned it in the States and we paid him a bit of money for it, and it was literally about 10 years ago we bought it. Chad: So anybody with dyslexia would have known what the name was. I mean, that's pretty ... Because until you just said that, I was like, "Oh shit, you gotta be fucking kidding me." Nick: Yeah. Well it's jobs backwards. It's one of those things. And really, it's not something that you kind of ... It needs to be explained to you how it works and how we fit into the ecosystem. So when I go along to people and say, "Oh yeah, well it's called SBOJ cause it's jobs backwards, people are always like, "Ah, great. Okay, it makes sense now. Yep." Joel: That should be part of your logo, literally. It should be SBOJ, and then at the bottom, jobs backwards. Chad: There's no question. Nick: Yeah. It's jobs backwards. Otherwise, you'd just come up with a random name. Joel: Now we've fixed your company. We're good to go. Thanks. Chad: BountyJobs has worked this concept for about a decade, probably over a decade, and they're still not a big player. What makes you think SBOJ can break out and make it big? Nick: Well, I think there's some differences with BountyJobs. I'm not massively familiar with it, but a lot of the things that have, they kind of ... What SBOJ does is it aggregates the noise. So what we do is we look after all of an employer's hiring of recruiters, like kind of from the moment that they start using us. So we can guarantee that there'll be no conflict with people. And we use it from an employer's perspective. So the employer is kind of the dog that wags the tail, so to speak. And so effectively, we get a good company to use SBOJ, and effectively the recruiters want to work with that company anyway. So it's just a way of aggregating that data. Nick: Bounty is massive in the UK, and I'm sure there are ... Probably the closest thing to SBOJ is something like a recruitment marketplace, which there are quite a lot of those. Effectively, what happens with a recruitment marketplace is, one, there are a lot of humans involved in it. So effectively, a company publishes a vacancy on one of these marketplaces ... I think Bounty is much more like a marketplace ... And then companies tender for the role. Nick: Now, that kind of puts a lot of the recruitment companies off because, one, they haven't really got any more control over applications or ownership of candidates than they had in the first place because it's all managed by humans and it can still be kind of a black hole when they're putting applications into an ATS; and, two, a lot of the good recruiters just won't use it because there are costs involved in doing so and blah, blah blah. So it's kind of an evolution. And if we'd probably been sensible, we would have maybe created a recruitment marketplace and then created SBOJ. But it's like a recruitment marketplace on steroids, effectively, where everything is processed by algorithms rather than by people. Sorry. Joel: You said something while you were talking about the investment, something about like you guys needed the money or you were sort of in dire straits. Expand upon that, and how big is the team? What does it look like, how much money have you raised, how much money are you looking to raise? Talk about your financial health. Nick: Basically, we've done ... Effectively, most of it has been input from the founding people who came up with the idea. I've been in recruitment for a long time. I did quite well out of that and had some money that I always wanted to invest in building SBOJ. The problem has been the technical stuff has been by far the hardest thing to do because we've had four teams of developers, and only the fourth one has managed to actually do the stuff we can do. Joel: Are those contracts? Nick: Well, no. We've had all sorts of arrangements in terms of being able to give them some equity and la, la la. The developers tend to do the sort of easy bits, but then the hard algorithmic data that we need and that stuff is things that you have to pay 500 pounds a day for. And we've just never really been able to afford it. So to answer your actual specific question, we've spent a lot of money on it but now we've got a thing that actually works really well, in fact, in some ways better than we thought it was going to. Joel: Are you guys profitable? Nick: Is what, sorry? Joel: Are you profitable at this point? Nick: So at the moment, basically, we've been running a beta for about six months and that basically just, we kind of wash our face with that. But, effectively, because it's quite complex, we had to just kind of check to see if the beta actually worked properly before we're pushing out. But we just really, I've been marketing it more actively for like the last two weeks. So we're actually only sort of moving into the market now. Chad: Okay, Nick. Quicker answers. Nick: Sorry. Chad: Are the recruiters vetted? Nick: No. There is a tool on the system where companies, if there's a particular recruiter they hate, they cannot receive applications from them. Chad: Okay. Are the recruiters ranked? Nick: Well, that is a thing that we'd like to do in the future, but obviously we need more data to do that. That's really a data issue. Joel: Can employers rate them? The employers that work with them? Nick: Yeah. That is basically, when we've got a lot more people using the system, that's exactly what we want to do, is allow employers to rate the recruiters so they can see before they use people. But really kind of the point of SBOJ in some ways is that they go for the candidate because we want employers to be able to search a database of candidates because obviously I'd like them to have the candidate rather than the recruiter. Chad: Right. The website says, "Free for employers to use." So how do the recruiters get paid? Nick: Basically what happens, it's the same as a normal transaction. Say a recruiter is introduced through SBOJ. They make a fee. Say it's a 10,000 pound fee. It works with contract and perm, but on a perm example, the company then pays me the 10,000 pounds. I take 10% of that off, and then I pay the recruiter the 9,000 pounds. So they pay me 10% on success, which is kind of in line with a referral fee. Chad: Okay. On the site, though, it says, "Free for employers to use." That's got kind of a gray air. So how is SBOJ a 24/7 marketing tool? How do you help the market from a marketing standpoint? Nick: So, for example, if you're a recruiter who's kind of started up your own small company and you don't have access to a lot of people's PSLs, great contacts in some of these big companies, then assuming that that company's using SBOJ, then you can still use ... It's like a way that ... Recruiters add their candidates to SBOJ and then employers can search them. So effectively, it's like having a shop window for recruiters to be able to advertise their wares, so to speak. Joel: The website also says, "Access the candidates of every recruiter on the planet." How is that possible? Nick: Well that's probably a slightly bold claim, but- Chad: Come on, man. Nick: But obviously, if recruiters choose to use SBOJ, the point is that we focus on getting good employers onto SBOJ, and then effectively, if you want to deal with that employer, you go through SBOJ. We focus on securing the employer first, and then we manage their recruitment from there outwards. So the more people that use it, the better. And obviously, if you do banking recruitment and we sign up five big banks in London, then you're going to be using SBOJ. Joel: In terms of marketing, and you talked about outreach to recruiters, how are you marketing to, I guess, both recruiters and employers? What's sort of the marketing strategy that you guys are implementing right now? Nick: Really, as I said, we're kind of starting out a bit. So we're learning a lot of those things. Really what we're trying to do at the moment is secure some really good employers to use the system. After that, it's really been more of a case with our beta version that we were talking to the recruiters about the system so they weren't worried that their stuff was being stolen off them or lost or they were still going to get a fee, or et cetera, et cetera. Nick: So I think the whole thing in terms of marketing to recruiters is something that is an important part. But obviously I've got a background in recruitment and I know that they don't want to get ripped off. So SBOJ does actually for the first time stop that happening because recruiters can always upload things into people's portals, but they've got no idea what's really happening with that data. And ours is run by algorithms, not people. So we can't cheat the system. Chad: So recruiters add the necessary data, slash the candidates, and then the algo takes over. That's correct, right? Nick: Yeah. We match the candidates if they're matched, and then ultimately, obviously, we can't do it at the moment because we haven't got like a billion users, but ultimately the idea is that if a company wants to hire an engineer in Taiwan, that they can just search that database and find a candidate from a recruiter. So effectively, it just creates another stream that an in-house team can use. Chad: So humans are just adding candidates into the database. Why not just skip the humans/recruiters and buy into a big database of profiles? Nick: Well, because recruiters, it's one of those things, and I think recruiters do useful stuff. Other than making introductions, which is what I'm hoping SBOJ will take over and do, recruiters oil the wheels of a deal, do the negotiations, stuff like that. That's why recruiters exist. Recruitment's obviously a massive industry, and I don't think anybody's going to come up with a golden bullet that's going to kill that. All SBOJ is trying to do is make that more manageable and more palatable. Joel: So you also have the chicken and egg dilemma, right, Chad, where if you don't have candidates, employers aren't going to use it. If you don't have employers, recruiters aren't going to care. So how are you balancing that now? Chad: Right. Nick: I think ... You're right, obviously. It's a chicken and egg thing, but having candidates to search is a thing that we'd like in sort of six or 12 months. For example, now, just from our beta, for certain technical roles in London, employers could search them now. Because we create the link with an employer that manages their recruitment, we automatically get agents that use the system, which creates a database. So without us having to spend loads of money or buy a database or la, la, la, we're buying current data from recruiters that are currently recruiting. Chad: But it's like you're really using humans to seed the system that could be 100% automated, more like a marketplace. How long until you're there? SBOJ says it's simple, but wouldn't it even be more simple just to automate the points of, and reduce the human friction? Because if you have the data from the actual jobs, from corporate career sites or what have you, and/or the actual data from the candidates, why do you need any type of human interaction whatsoever? Allow the system to do what it's built to do. Nick: Well, I think there's two answers to that. One is that the data is added by recruiters. It's their data. So it's not up to me to steal that data from them in the future. If an employer wants to recruit somebody who a recruiter's added, they're going to pay a fee to do that. So that's their data. And, two, the human interaction element is why I think recruiters are good. Like I say, oiling the wheels of a deal and explaining the employer brand, all that sort of stuff, fine. And that's why recruiters exist. I don't think there's anyone who's going to come up with a silver bullet system where recruiters are just going to disappear off the face of the earth. In my opinion, they do good stuff, and SBOJ helps that. Joel: They do good stuff, and there's also a high level of competition, particularly in the UK, and sometimes I feel like I don't appreciate the impact and the importance of headhunters and staffing firms in the UK. Talk about the competition and the competitiveness. Because my guess is you're competing against a long line of well-established, well-known, highly-funded, or well-funded staffing firms there in the UK that makes your job that much more difficult to break through and cut through the clutter and be successful. So talk about the competition, what's your differentiator, and what's your plan on cutting through the clutter and getting noticed in a pretty competitive market? Nick: Well, really, it's just a case of doing what we do well. We've thought of doing some other things, but we've concentrated solely on this managing the data of recruiters because the noise from recruiters is a big problem, and companies find it very difficult to manage that noise in an effective way. You have recruiters constantly phone up their staff, and they don't go through the proper channels, and it can be difficult to manage that noise. So, really, our model is to seal the deal with key employers who want to manage it in a more efficient way. Because obviously the key thing for internal talent teams is that they're supposed to recruit people directly. They're not supposed to just sit there and take people off recruiters, are they? Chad: Right. Nick: And what SBOJ does is it puts that element of managing that section. It makes it a thousand times simpler. From the employer's perspective, it cost them nothing so why wouldn't they do it? So there's no more arguing over terms, there's no more duplication of things, "I interviewed this person six months ago," stuff like that. It just cuts out the difficulty. Chad: Aren't marketplaces like Uber Work, Upwork, Communo, Working Not Working, and Indeed, through their new acquisition of Syft, which was obviously there in the UK, won't it make it harder for recruiters to get placements since these apps are actually going through that algorithmic phase and really getting rid of the human friction? How are you going to combat those types of actual marketplaces with humans involved? Nick: Well I think that, I mean this is one of the prime reasons why I wanted to talk to you two about it because obviously, you've just come up with a load of things that I haven't got a massive knowledge of. You have encyclopedic knowledge of these things, but the fact remains that, for example, Indeed, what Indeed generally does is they'll try and attract people directly, so direct hires. So a talent team will use that to try and take people on directly. Nick: There's still all these recruitment companies around that are still trying to function and work with them. All SBOJ tries to do is to manage that sector. However things develop in the future in terms of being more accurate in terms of direct hiring, then fine. SBOJ is just focused on dealing with recruiters. Applications, recruiters, nothing else. Chad: Gotcha. Okay, so last question from me is, so you talk about the system manages duplication. How? What if a recruiter gets a candidate in the database first, but the profile is stale where another recruiter enters the same candidate data in after, but it's a more updated profile, it's a more fresh profile? Who wins? Nick: Yes, that is a good question. There's a whole ownership algorithm that deals with that. It works first come first served as you say, but ownership of a candidate only lasts for a specific period. I'm not going to tell you what that is, but it only lasts for a specific period, and the applications and activity that happen during that period are logged and still work. And then the ownership changes, the idea of which is that it keeps the data fresh. If you send your CV to a recruiter who's crap who adds their CV onto the system and basically nothing happens, in a certain period of days that will change and a new recruiter can take over. So there's a whole complicated algorithm that deals with that. Joel: All right, Nick, I think we're done with our questioning. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's time to face the Firing Squad. Chad, you want to take the first honors? Chad: Yeah, yeah, I certainly do. Nick. Hey, we really appreciate you bringing SBOJ, SBOJ, jobs backwards, to the firing squad. There are a ton of things that are happening in the industry today. Here in the U.S. we're seeing some things, and obviously that translates differently over to the UK. Becoming a true marketplace, which is, it seems like where you want to go, is going to be much more automated. It sounds like you have some great automation in place, but going toward becoming a true marketplace will mean that you have to get rid of more human friction. It's all about the easy button. Chad: And I understand the want and the need to keep the human involved, but you're going to have to find different ways to do that. I think that the staffing culture in the UK, if you were pitching this in the U.S. and you were mostly U.S. based, you'd have the guns in a heartbeat. But, because the UK staffing culture is so much different, I think you have a shot at this concept in platform if you move quickly in the next 18 months. So I'm going to give you a golf clap. Nick: Thank you. Joel: The English are so polite. Chad: They are. Joel: Thank you for a neutral rating. All right, Nick, it's my turn. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Have you seen the movie The Untouchables? Nick: Of course, yeah. Joel: With Sean Connery and Kevin Costner and the like. Nick: Yeah. Joel: There's a scene in that movie where Sean Connery's with Kevin Costner and he says, "Do you really want to open this box and go after Capone?" And he says, "Yes." And Sean Connery says, basically, "If you want to get Capone, he pulls a knife and you pull a gun. He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue." Nick: Yeah. Joel: So when I'm listening to you pitch this company, I can't help but think about the fact that you're bringing a knife to a gunfight. It's really hard for me to wrap my head around the amount of technical teams that you've had. You're not a technical person by nature, yet you're building a technical or a technology-based company. I think that the competition that you're facing from almost a two-front war. You're facing a battle with some really well-established staffing companies in the UK, but you're also fighting a battle on the tech side competing with some like Syft and some of the other ones that we've talked about in the call. So for me, I will say one thing is I like the name now where I didn't like it before, and I definitely think you need to have like jobs backwards on the logo somewhere because it's very memorable to people if you do that. Joel: But for me, man, I think you're bringing a knife to a gunfight. And unless that venture capital and the Dragons' Den guys back up the brink's truck, it's going to be really hard for you to make this thing work. So for me, you're a nice guy, Nick, I think you're going to make some something happen somewhere. But this, for me, is not the gig. So for me, it's the guns. Take that for what it's worth, but I think you'd be better served doing something else. Nick: No, cool. Really, I wanted your opinion. It's kind of difficult to always push it through in the right way. And you're right. It's a big market and there's a lot going on and, and I've learned that from you, but we've got some interesting tech. So, you know, I think ... Joel: Like I've said before, nothing would make my heart sing more than if you could come on five years from now and say, "Fuck you, Cheesman. We're a multibillion dollar company." I would love that. But for now, we'll have to wait for five years. For those out there that want to want to know more about [Spooge 00:31:00], I mean SBOJ, Nick, where should they go? Nick: Just visit our site, spoj.com, S-P-O-J.com. It's jobs backwards. Joel: I love it. Chad: There you go. Joel: Chad. 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.C-H-A-D-C-H-E-E-S-E.com. SFX: Shall we play a game? #FiringSquad #SBOJcom #recruiting #OpenAI #Talroo

The boys sit down with Jennifer Rock and Michael Voss two high-ranking corporate comms leaders as we talk all things Clusterpuck. Operation Clusterpuck is a book bourne out of real life corporate bullshit that is dark, real, and fucking funny.​ Enjoy what one Amazon reviewer said, "Reading this book is like getting a master's degree in corporate communications, without all the expense and pain of getting a master's degreed." LISTEN and enjoy thanks to our friends at Nexxt and Text2Hire - why aren't you reaching out to candidates via text? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions' clients are changing the lives of people with disabilities, including veterans with service related disabilities. James Ellis: Hey, this is James Ellis from the Talent Cast podcast and you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. So perhaps treat this message like an intervention. Why are you doing this to yourself? You have so much to live for. Why would you waste your time here of all places? Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors you're listening to HR's is most dangerous podcast Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news slash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Let's get ready to podcast. What's up Chad? Chad: Man, it's another day in paradise, how about up North? Joel: Beautiful day here in Indianapolis, Indiana as usual. God's country. Chad: Dude. So I'm totally stoked. I have this book in front of me. It's called Operation Clusterpuck a puck with the a P not a not cluster fuck. That's a military term. That's a military term that we use all the time. But Operation Clusterpuck. Joel: No one outside of the military ever says cluster fuck. Chad: We have a, we came up with that shit. So today on the Chad and Cheese podcast, we have Jennifer Rock and Michael Voss. Co-authors of this amazing, very dark corporate comedy book called Operation Clusterpuck. I told Jennifer and Mike, I was like, dude, I'm not gonna read the back of your book like most of the other lame podcasters. Ed: Yo, that John is so lame. Chad: I want to hear it. Thanks for that. I want to hear from you guys. Who are you and what was the inspiration behind this series of books? Joel: And for those of us like me who haven't read the book, give us a synopsis. Michael: Sure. Happy to. So Jennifer and I are corporate communications professionals, so we have about 40 years of combined experience in all sorts of communications disciplines, from marketing communications to public relations, internal communications, et cetera. We crossed paths at Best Buy headquarters, which is here in suburban Minneapolis where we led the internal communications team. And unbeknownst to one another, we had been keeping copious notes of all the absurd and crazy and just sort of- Jennifer: Soul crushing- Michael: ... soul crushing experiences that we've had. Chad: Are these like the Comey notes? Michael: They are, they're just a little darker and a little funnier then and the Comey notes. We were in a soul crushing half day meeting. You know, anybody who works in corporate America knows how those go. And we, we frankly made an excuse to sneak out, said we had a crisis that we had to attend to. We went to a bar patio, started having drinks and swapping stories and shared with one another that we'd always had the dream of writing a book and decided that we would pinky swear that after we sobered up, we would actually give it a shot. And six years later, our first book came out, BS Incorporated. And about 18 months after that we wrote Operation Clusterpuck. Joel: Is six years longer than you thought it would take to write this book? Jennifer: Oh God, yes. Yeah. It's, you know, we, we like to joke and it's not so much of a joke that working corporate communications and you know, writing speeches for executives has a fair amount of fiction in it. But actually writing a fiction book, actually writing a novel took us a little time to figure out, so yeah, six years, we had no idea it was going to take that long. Chad: So was it mainly the mechanics of how the hell do we do this? Do we whiteboard, do we do like one of those serial killer string boards? I mean, was it just figuring out the mechanics or was it because you were so damn busy on your day job that it was really hard to actually pull together as well? Jennifer: Yeah, it was a little bit of both. Absolutely the mechanics of writing a novel and making it sound like one person wrote it, that took some time to figure out. And also we had really big jobs. I mean 24/7 jobs, crisis communications and you know, handling scandals at the corporate level. We're like ducking in the back seats of the, you know, the corporate jet and jotting down notes. I mean, we had no shortage of ideas and characters and things to put into these books about this big Midwestern company that's spiraling out of control and these middle managers who, who rise up to try to save the company from itself. Joel: You know, you lost a lot of sympathy when you say private jet, right? Chad: Oh yeah. That sounds so hard. Joel: Life is so hard in the back of the private jet- [crosstalk 00:04:41]. Chad: Drinking champagne and caviar. Jennifer: It was awesome. We got, you know, we got behind closed doors in some conversations and some experiences in corporate America that people rarely get to see. So we had a lot of insider stories that we wanted to share. And that's what really fueled the book. Joel: So how much book is fiction and how much is based in reality? Michael: That is a, the best question and the most common question we get. The book is fictionalized versions of real events. Essentially. Now there are some pieces that we lift a scene that we actually lived a meeting, a conversation, that type of thing. But really it's largely fiction, but it's written in such a way and it's drawn, you know, we like to joke, it's ripped from the headlines, but it's- Joel: The names have been changed. Michael: Right but we hear from our readers all the time, they say, it seems like you snuck into my company observed my daily life and then wrote a book about it. So it's really accessible for people. They will really see themselves and their companies and these books. Chad: So was this, I mean inspiration wise, was this, hey, there's possible fortune and fame or this'll help us kick off into a new career or you know what, this is just going to help my stress level. It will be incredibly cathartic to be able to get to some, some of this out of my head. Jennifer: Yeah. It really started out as a cathartic exercise and the first book, BS Incorporated, the manuscript was like 160,000 words and most of it was just word for word, these horrible boring meetings we were sitting in. I mean, they are horrible meetings to sit in, in real life. Nobody wants to read that shit. I mean, are you kidding me? Like it was so awful, but it was really cathartic just to put it on paper and then we pared it down and do something that we really, our goal was to just be entertaining. You know, we all, I think in our jobs have to read a lot of nonfiction books. There's some really great ones out there that teach you lessons about leadership and team dynamics. A lot of them are very boring and we just wanted to write a book that makes people realize they're not alone in the corporate world. Jennifer: Have a sense of kind of co-misery and maybe hang out with some fictional characters that you wish you were having happy hour with in real life. Joel: So what's the book about? Michael: So, both books are about this giant Midwestern company that, as Jennifer said, is spiraling out of control and the executives make one bad decision after another. We take you behind the scenes to a group of quirky, smart middle managers who are just trying to fight through the bureaucracy of consultants and poor decisions and just, you know, getting bogged down in their day to day job. And eventually they figure out what's going wrong with the company and they have to band together despite their differences and figure out how to save this company from itself. Because at the end of the day, we're not an anti-business story. We're really about, you know, the joy and the pain of the corporate experience and all the great relationships you make along the way, as well as some of the, you know, the awful things you have to wade through to get through this. Chad: The book starts out with this big earth shaking event and this is after BS Incorporated acquires another company. There's new leadership. I mean, there are so many moving parts just at the start, I mean, I started reading this, I'm like, holy shit. I was like totally immersed right out of the gate, but it's pure chaos. Is that what you experienced in corporate life because this is dark comedic and chaos laden book that seems that it was really based closely on reality. Jennifer: Yeah. Well, you know, it might be weird to say thank you. Yeah, we're, we're really dark. But yeah, we pride ourselves on that actually. And yeah, I mean absolutely. Some of this was stuff that we encountered in real life or that we've seen in companies in our backyard here in Minneapolis and certainly the ill-fated expansion to Canada is something that we experienced in the companies we worked for. And have seen other ones it in and you know, we, Mike and I have found ourselves in the companies that we have worked with, you know, mired in and trying to help companies wade through changes at the leadership at the top of the house. Maybe not as jarring and tragic as this book starts out, Operation Clusterpuck. But certainly these are things that we experienced. And you know, I've never had a job like my last where I had to sleep with my phone in my hand waiting for that 3:00 AM call that was going to be, oh, you know, now what you know, now what has the company done now what has a CEO done? Chad: Which blows my mind because it's like every aspect of what's going on from a business standpoint and even some of these personal scandals and I mean everything goes through communications or it should go through communications and it just doesn't. Michael: Yeah, absolutely. We had a, when we were at Best Buy, we had three CEO transitions in a six month period. The current CEO resigned supposedly under, you know, just normal circumstances. But it turned out there was actually a scandal going on that the board of directors tried to cover up. Jennifer: And let's be clear, it was a sex scandal. Michael: Yes. And that blew up in the board's faces. And so they appointed an interim CEO that everyone thought was going to get the job and then a dark horse candidate came out of nowhere and then ended up getting the job. So we were constantly scrambling to try to get in front of a what was happening or just catch up to what was happening and trying to keep all of our audiences informed and not have them, you know, employees bailing on the company or investors divesting of the company. Michael: It was constant as Jennifer said, it was a 24 hour a day, you know, mind fuck essentially. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's commercial time. Announcer: Okay. So we've already established texting is probably the best way to connect with candidates, right? Plus next stats show 73% of professionals are open to receiving job opportunities via text and with a 99% delivery rate, you cannot go wrong. Those are two big reasons why you've got gotta love text to hire from Nexxt. That's right. Text2hire from Nexxt with the double X, not the triple X. Nexxt has over 8 million candidates who have opted in to receive jobs via text and you and your clients need qualified candidates. Nexxt can help you find and target qualified candidates who have opted in for job opportunities via text. And in today's competitive market, you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster. You need text2hire from Nexxt. Just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Nexxt logo to learn more about how you can gain a competitive edge with opt in texting, text2hire from Nexxt. It just makes sense. Chad: It's show time. Joel: So I'm envisioning Office Space for a book. How much of an influence was movie, if at all? I'm curious, most books have an antagonist. Did your book and tell us about that. Jennifer: Yeah, you know it. How can you not be influenced by a movie like Office Space? You know, The Office and I mean God, those are great, great corporate stories, great office stories. You know that you watch even to this day, I mean, that movie is really old now. When you watch that and go, God, I hate my job too. Like yeah, that's, you know, my stapler is my, you know, the hallmark of the best of my day. I mean, how sad is that? So yeah, I mean, absolutely you can't help but be influenced by stories like that. And yeah, you know, we, we watched movies like that and think why aren't there more stories that take place in the workplace? It's such a rich environment for all the craziness that happens in the characters that exist. And yeah, absolutely. We were influenced by that. Michael: And I think for me, Joel, when we first started out, my, my frame of reference was to write a story like Fast Times at Ridgemont High in a business setting. So that it's still that [crosstalk 00:12:57] Ridgemont High in itself is a character in that movie, right? And we wanted our business to be almost like a character in the book. We wanted to have these unforgettable characters and this snappy dialogue and really just sort of immerse people in this world. So that was my personal frame of reference going in. Joel: And was there a, an antagonist in the story? Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about the antagonist. So, you know, in Operation Clusterpuck certainly the rise of Lyle Kirkland who is the former chief operating officer- [crosstalk 00:13:26]. Chad: Total asshole. Jennifer: Completely and we have worked for him, at least, you know, he is not a person wholesale lifted from our real life, but he is an amalgam of several of our worst bosses we've ever had all you know, squished into one character and certainly, you know, he is unethical, he is immoral. If you were to ask that character, you know about this book, he would consider himself the hero. You know, as a lot of executives do, it's like, ah, I make tough decisions, but I do it for the good of the company when they are, it's just completely selfish and, and on the unethical. But you know, people sometimes ask us like, why don't you write about good leaders? Well, because the bad ones are so much more fun to write about. Chad: We don't want to have a boring book. How about that? So, so, so instead of just talking about Kirkland, who a total asshole, and you just said pretty much was a composite of different people. I'm going to throw some others out there. Because I've heard that some of the characters in the book might've been supporting cast were pretty much just pulled out of real life. So what about Anna? Michael: So Anna shares a lot of DNA with my coauthor Jennifer, to be honest with you. Anna and Jennifer are both very driven, very career oriented people very smart, very, very good at what they do. And it was a lot of fun to sort of take 70% of Jennifer and create 30% of a fictional character around her. So I don't know if you want to add anything about that, Jennifer. Jennifer: Well you know, early on in the first book, BS Incorporated when we first handed that manuscript over to an editor and the feedback was, you know, I don't know if Anna is likable and I'm like that's me. I'm sorry but I'm going to take that really personally. Yeah it was. But yes, Anna is definitely, we, like Mike said, we share a lot of DNA. Chad: What about Will? Jennifer: Yeah, Will is heavily based on my coauthor Mike. Similarly, you know, started out in a blue collar warehouse job, worked his way up in corporate roles, very diplomatic and very earnest person. Michael: And let's face it, the true hero of the story. Jennifer: Nice. I will point out that even though the characters of Anna and Will share a lot of our experiences, Anna and Will do have a romantic relationship in the book and that is where we, that is where we digress real life. Chad: Okay, okay. Jennifer: Our running joke used to be that Mike and I are married just not to each other. Chad: Gotcha. What about, what about Eric who was another asshole? Michael: So Eric, yeah, he's, he is drawn pretty much from scratch I think. Right? I'm not sure if we had a- Jennifer: well to be honest, he's a tiny bit based on an ex-boyfriend I had but that just a little bit. Michael: But Eric is that classic good looking charismatic guy who has, you know, a blind spot the size of the state of Missouri and just can't sort of get past himself and thinks he can do no wrong. But in the end isn't evil like Lyle Kirkland, he's just self-absorbed and that's really what trips him up in the end. Joel: Was there any permissions that you guys need needed to get as you know in Best Buy? I mean you have, you guys said influences, you said this was loosely based. Have you had any issues with lawsuits or people being upset by the story and the characters in it? Jennifer: No we haven't. And we are firm believers in that old adage to ask forgiveness instead of permission. So we just- Chad: Join the club. Jennifer: We just rolled ahead and told the story and told these characters and certainly especially with the first book we had, we had people read it, you know, they were texting us constantly like, oh come on. Like you didn't even try to, you know veil this character. It's like clearly this is me. Come on. Like we had this conversation on page 42 like come on. So I think people were maybe a tad worried for the sequel. Like well like, ah, now what have you done? Like, what notes did you take in what meeting that is going to show up in Operation Clusterpuck? But I guess the good news is that the people who might sue us, those bad leaders never see themselves in the bad characters. They're never that self-aware. So we were pretty secure in the fact that, you know, even though we lifted some horrible conversations right from real life that they would never remember. Joel: That wasn't me. What is she talking about? Chad: Your supporting cast in Will and Anna's team, they seemed incredibly real, almost like you pick them right out of reality. They didn't seem like a composites. Is that pretty much? Did that make it easier to write? So you're like, okay, so at this point they're supporting characters. So we feel like we can just really nail these guys on the head. Michael: Yeah. Almost to a person. Every one of them started with a real person and the real fun in that is, you know, we would choose someone for the most part that we both knew. So we had a great starting point and I think the best example of that is Benny, the PR manager, Susan Benedetti. Everyone calls her Benny. She's based on a good friend of ours named Lisa and she, she's very much like that. Michael: She's a Bostonian. She's bold. She swears like a sailor. She just sort of storms in and out of every room she's in. Chad: Love her. Michael: She's a real life scene stealing person and every everybody we know like immediately said, oh that's Lisa. Everyone knew that was Lisa. And so she was a really fun one to write because we could take some actual things that our friend Lisa had said, some of the hilarious one-liners and then it was just fun to make stuff up knowing that it was just true to her character as well. Joel: Curious, there are a lot of external sources for commentary on the workplace, so I'm sure you're familiar with Glass Door, Indeed has reviews. Twitter obviously there are a lot of sources for sort of external commentary. Did you guys use any of that? And if you did talk about that. Jennifer: Well that's a great point. You know, I think in both, in the cases of writing both books, we had such a rich folder of materials from our own experiences. Again, no shortage of stories. We ended up having to lop some out of the manuscript because it was too long. But we certainly talked to friends, we talked to people who worked at different companies. Operation Clusterpuck was based in some companies that we had been consulting for. We also had the benefit of, you know, while we didn't necessarily look directly at feedback like Indeed and Glassdoor, we also had the benefit of doing a ton of interviews like this for the first book where it's like the podcasters would turn off the mics and say, okay, let me tell you about the bat shit crazy thing that happened at the company I used to work for. So again, we got some great stories from people that we would say, you know what? We weren't there. This is somebody else's story. But man, this is going in the book. Chad: That's awesome. So in the kind of consolidation or acquisition was happening, automation started to take center stage. Did either of you have experience with like communications around automation starting to take center stage, like the Best Buys of the world or some of your clients? Or was that just something that you ripped out of the headlines? Michael: Again, it's a little bit of both. So we, you know, we worked for Best Buy along enough to where I'm the social media and internal social media really exploded and what sort of electronic and digital tools could we use to communicate with employees. And we were fortunate to be given a lot of freedom to spearhead those kinds of things. So, you know, working with IT, which is always you know, a bit of a like a dentist visit in every meeting we managed to push through and get some things done, but we also did rip some things from the headlines. Michael: So obviously we had experience at Best Buy and Best Buy went into Canada with sort of middling success. But Target, which is also based here in Minneapolis, went into Canada with a huge splash and basically got kicked back across the Southern border and they had some real genuine automation issues and just some silly human error issues that we touched on a little bit in the book too, like not converting to the metric system or not realizing it's 10 boxes to a case instead of 12 or whatever that might be. So they had a, a rich story of failure really that we can just draw a little pieces from because we're not trying to tell that story in particular, but you know, the combination of all businesses facing, you know, challenges with systems and automation along with the human error side of it can create, you know, a cluster fuck. Joel: So are you guys working on a new book and if so, what's it about? Jennifer: Yeah. You know, we've always said that we may continue this universe but to be honest, you know, we were kind of taken a page out of the Marvel Comic universe of like what if we told something from an expanded business world. And so book three we are sketching out right now may have a couple of minor characters overlapping but really is a new industry, new characters. And we want to tell something a little different, something that we've had some experience in from a consulting perspective. Kind of the Wild West, if you will, of of what's going on with some of business growth and in some new industries. So sorry to be vague, but, but still, you know, putting thoughts on paper and you know, people sometimes ask us like, how are you afraid you're gonna run out of business stories to tell? Well no good Lord. Have you worked in corporate America? Like, no, we just have to choose which one, not to go dig one up. Joel: As you guys had done this for a while, do you find that things are changing rapidly or do you find that the more things change the more they stay the same? Michael: You know, I think the human element stays the same. Certainly the business landscape is rapidly evolving, as you've mentioned with automation and digital tools and there's an entirely new, you know, the startup culture is sort of permeating even big companies now that they want to mimic and mirror that. So that landscape is sort of shifting beneath our feet. But in the end people are people and you're always gonna run across, you know, absurdity, selfishness, greed, all those kinds of, you have the seven deadly sins, so to speak, of human behavior set on a shifting landscape. And that's why we feel like there's many, many stories yet to be told. Chad: Okay. So I have to say I'm sad because first and foremost I received Operation Clusterpuck and it's one of those things where, you know, I either dive into it or I just think it sucks and it gets half read and it is what it is. Right at the end of this book, much like many of the kind of like Netflix series that you get into that you really enjoyed at the end of the last episode you're like, ah fuck, I'm done. I gotta wait until the next season. Right? That's where I was. So I went online and I'm like, oh shit, there's a first book. I can do this, you know, almost like the prequel. So I bought the first book because I enjoyed Operation Clusterpuck so much. But I have to say, I'm kind of pissed that you're not carrying it onto a trilogy. So I would like to make a request that you definitely pull some of those characters over. And also, what about audio books? Are you guys looking at doing audibles at all or anything like that? Jennifer: Well, first of all, you've now just made us feel like Big Little Lies where it's like, wait, this is the end of the series? It's like, no, what's the second one? You want to know what happens next. So, no, but thank you for that. And yeah, I mean if, if, first of all, if you read Operation Clusterpuck, you know, you don't need to know the background to jump into that one. As you said, BS Incorporated is kind of the origin story of, you know, Anna's first day at the company and you know, how the company has has progressed. So definitely you can read them out of order. It's all good. And as far as audio, yeah, we've danced around that idea. We thought it might be fun. You know, I would love to, you know, get like the Lisas of the world, our real people to play their characters in the audio version. I don't know if that's possible, but wouldn't that be fun? Michael: That would be fun. And if for some reason we don't go back to this, you know, this company and this set of characters, there's always an opportunity for other people to write fanfiction, of course. Chad: Yeah, of course. So what about, are you pitching this because this is, this is funny shit. This is very Office Space. Like are you pitching this to any companies to perspectively being on the big screen or anything like that? Michael: That is the big dream for sure. And we've had a couple of conversations that that just haven't materialized. And of course that's the thing that gets an author really excited. The opportunity to take these characters in this story and put it up on the big screen. So nothing has materialized yet, but our phone lines are open for anyone who might be interested. Chad: Well I have to say Jennifer Rock and Michael Voss again, the book is called Operation Clusterpuck. Where can they find out more? Give us all the websites, give us all the social and all that other fun stuff. Jennifer: Well you know our central location for all things Clusterpuck is RockandVossbooks.com and from there you can find direct links to get the books on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble, direct from our distributor. You know all the places that fine books are sold and you know, dark humor and not so fine books are sold. So you can find us all there online and you know what, you can find our social media and our email address out there as well. And you know, if you've got a particularly awful corporate experience story that you'd like to share with us to see in a wound into a future book, man, we'd love to hear that too. Joel: Awesome. Thanks guys. Jennifer: Thanks for having us. Chad: Thank you. Excellent. We out. Joel: We out. Walken: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? A podcast with Chad and Cheese. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs to people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible and not one word about cheese but one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepperjack, swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play or whatever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode and while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for creme cheese is so weird. We out. #Facebook #Clusterpuck #BookReview

Think Google's going to have an easy time taking over the world of employment? "Well, think again," says Europe, as 23 job sites file a lawsuit against the search engine giant. What else, LinkedIn is in the news, and niche job boards may be making a comeback, assuming they can turn back the marketplace assault on all-things-employment ... even healthcare. Enjoy and give our sponsors Sovren, JobAdx, and Canvas some love. It all happens because of them. 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.​ Tim Sackett: Hi, I'm Tim Sackett, and you're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm not sure why you are, but hey, you do you. 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: We're back, bitches. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous, never mind the fact that the bar for danger is pretty low in HR. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, Europe takes on Google for Jobs, good luck with that. The case for itty bitty niche job boards and why not LinkedIn, why not? Grab a cold sarsaparilla and some ding dongs, we'll be right back after this word from Canvas. Chad: He said ding dongs. 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 our 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: What's up, Chad? I missed you last week, kind of sort of. Chad: Lies. Joel: Some of our listeners missed us too, I think. Chad: Yeah, yeah, they did. There's a time to step back from the mic and that was it, no question. Joel: I agree, I agree. But the feedback was positive, so we appreciate all the listeners for the good feedback that we got. Chad: Shout out. Joel: Shout outs, Collin at ICIMS, I want to say back to back years being a top 50 softwares and service CEO, well done, Collin. That's great, dude. Chad: Yeah, he's killing it. iCIMS like 13 years in a row, like Inc. Magazine or something like that, fastest growing companies. That's obviously a company to continue to watch. Joel: Really excited about their analysts meeting this year in Scottsdale. Chad: Yeah. Joel: That should be interesting. Chad: Should be a blast. Stan and team over at Recruited, big shout out for you guys, sharing a hilarious video of us at RecFest. We were all amped up after being onstage, and drinking half a bottle of Jameson, and I love how the Brits highlight what idiots we are. That to me really shows here's your Chad and Cheese. Joel: Yeah, not hard to do. Not hard to do. By the way, dude, I'm disappointed I gave you a big opening for yoga in Scottsdale and you totally missed it. I thought you were totally going to grab onto that yoga, #yoga, if you want Chad and Cheese to do a yoga session in Scottsdale. Chad: So are you going to do it? Joel: Well, if the people want it, I've got some legwarmers and some leotards that I could potentially wear, definitely a nice sweat band for the head, maybe some wrist weights. I could get a good look going for sure. Chad: Now see, you always tease people but then you don't do it. There was no speedo in London, okay? So don't tease people about yoga and legwarmers if you're not going to do it. Joel: I am a big tease, aren't I? Chad: You are a tease. Joel: That's bad. Chad: And that being said, in London, another shout out to our friends at Talent Nexus. We never really did a movie review, but it's funny because the movie that they did, kind of like the short documentary, it shows that we're serious, we're passionate about what we do- Joel: So serious. Chad: We don't take ourselves so fucking serious. But thanks to the guys at Talent Nexus for showing us, a couple of regular guys, and that we just speak our mind, like it or not. Joel: I didn't expect the handholding at the end to be so controversial, but there you go. Chad: It was a Gladiator-like scene, and again, I think it's funny because all of that kind of wrapped up with passion and there's kind of tongue in cheek shit that's happening throughout the entire video, and then at the end, just kind of wraps it up like, oh, these guys aren't really that serious. Okay. Joel: Shout out to a couple of dapper dons supporting the T-shirts on social media, Mark Feffer and Dennis Tupper. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: I'm not sure how your wives let you out of the house like that, but they did, and we appreciate the love on social media. Chad: Shout out to Kelly and Allister over at ContentApp.ai, dude, I love it. They hooked us up with the Content app platform and what it does is it sends me articles via text, and I can share them throughout all my socials through one quick response via text message. So I don't have to go into a different platform, I don't have to do all this shit. I just set it up in Content app, and then it just automatically happens. So love it. Joel: Chad is a sharing machine thanks to Content app. Chad: Goddamn straight. Joel: Whether that's a good thing or not, I'm not sure, but you are allowed to do it and that's a very cool technology. Chad: Yes. Joel: Shout out to Katrina Collier. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: She wrote a book that you're pretty high on, you're actually making animated gifs of you reading this book, which I can't imagine a more boring animated gif, but hey, you do you, Chad. Chad: Yes. The Robot-Proof Recruiter deserved more than just a picture. It deserved a series of pictures being animated, which is what we call a gif or what the kids call a "jiff," which I don't understand- Ed: Yo, that jawn is so lame. Chad: That's not how it works. Jiff is a peanut butter. Gif is a moving picture. A big shout out to Kelly Services for their You Need a New Job ad, or ads, which are all over YouTube, dude. And they're like Stupid Human Tricks meets old CareerBuilder ads, right? Joel: Yeah, so the theme is videos on social media that are totally ridiculous and saying you should be looking for a job instead of watching this stupid video. My personal favorite is the monkey massage, which is a little bit of a play on the CareerBuilder monkey ads, kind of sort of, loosely based on that, I guess. So I'm hoping that they don't get a letter from PETA, because they are using a chimp in a commercial, which is usually anti-PETA, but they're massaging the monkey, which I'm assuming is pro-PETA. So I'm not sure where they're going to land on the PETA mark on that one. But we'll see. Chad: You just said massaging the monkey. Joel: I did. Chad: Okay, so last shout out- Joel: They're not spanking the monkey, which would definitely be anti-PETA. Chad: Like there's anything different from ... Okay, so going onto my last shout out is to Hung Lee at Recruiting Brainfood and their podcast/Facebook Live event. We're going to be on it this week, so if you're listening now and you missed it, no worries. Just subscribe to the Recruiting Brainfood podcast, because Hung Lee. That's enough, right? Joel: Hung is totally bottom feeding with having us on the show. I love it. I love it. Way to go, Hung. SFX: That is one big pile of shit. Joel: Let's get to our travel schedule. Chad: Woo, travel sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Advertising, no, no shit, guys. Joel: Allegedly he's talking about teasing, they're allegedly getting us Shaker suits. Chad: Yes. We just received Shaker yetis in the mail. Joel: I'm drinking out of mine right now. Chad: The Shaker yeti, we've got the roll-ons, we've got the backpacks, the trucker hats, the ... Joel: Yep. Chad: Yeah, the only thing we need, you're right, we need Shaker Recruitment Marketing suits. Joel: I hate suits. I don't want a suit. Give me like the tuxedo T- shirt that's Shaker tuxedo T-shirt. Chad: Okay. Joel: But I don't want to wear a suit. That's your game. Chad: Okay, you do that and then I'll do me and I'll do the actual suit. I'm all for that. But we are going to Sweden, people. Going to see our friends at TNG, Ada Digital and- Joel: Friends both human and not so human. Chad: And Tengai, that's exactly right, the robots. So we're really excited to be able to jump on a plane, get out there to Sweden, have some fun with the gang, do some live podcasts. Joel: Nice. Are we doing the podcast in Swedish for our Swedish listeners? No, probably not. Chad: I'm going to have to get my Google Translate, have to download Swedish so I can just sit there and listen to it. Joel: I did see in Ikea this week that "adjo" is goodbye in Swedish. So we can at least say goodbye to everyone. Chad: If we're actually saying it right. Joel: Yeah. Chad: We did get a Tweet from Henrik Christensen, who's the CEO of Jobbsafari and Jobindex in Denmark and Sweden. Here's his Tweet, he said, "Chad and Joel, when you visit Tengai in Malmo, why not cross the bridge to Copenhagen? Besides running a job board, I run as a travel guide in sneakers. I think this run is made for you." And then he sent us a link to the Copenhagen beer running tour, and just so that you know, I'm totally doing it. I've already coordinated with Henrik, and it's on my schedule. We're in. Joel: All right, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Chad: I love when our listeners reach out and say, "Hey, you're coming to my town, I'm going to treat you to some good shit." And that is ... I like to run and I like beer, so doing them together is pretty fucking awesome. Joel: No doubt. And if people wonder whether we're global or not, there you go. We're getting Swedish Copenhagen Denmark races, what is it, a 5K? Chad: Yeah, that's a 5K, yeah. I don't know if we'll make it that far, we'll see. Joel: No, you can do that in your sleep. Chad: Oh yeah, I can do 5K pretty easy. But spending some time in Copenhagen and crossing the bridge, going over to Malmo, going up and spending some time in Sweden, thanks to our friends at TNG, [Ada 00:10:42], Digital, and obviously the robot, Tengai. Joel: No doubt. And if you have any other tourist traps that you want us to investigate, hashtag us at Chad Cheese, and we'll look into it. Chad: Next, we have Recruiter Nation Live. Joel: Nation Live, powered by Jobvite, yes, newly minted CEO Aman Brar. Chad: Amazing. Joel: Get ready, baby. Chad: That's right. Joel: And they gave us a discount code for listeners. Chad: What is it? Joel: Chad Cheese, all right, listen carefully, Chad Cheese at sign, not A and T, at sign, RNL. For $200 off admission to the show, we'll be there, a lot of thought leaders, industry experts, companies that you know and love, will be there, Recruiter Nation Live, can't wait. Chad: Yeah, and if you're in the San Francisco area already, why the hell aren't you going? It's September 9th through the 11th, get a couple hundred dollars off, come say hi, buy us a beer, we'll be there. Joel: I love it. Anchor steam. Chad: Anchor steam. Joel: Got to love that, when you go to San Francisco. A little Anchor Steam. Chad: Little anchor steam, bitch. Last but not least, we're going to talk about our events for at least September, we have Death Match in Austin during TAtech. Joel: Yes. SFX: That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over. Joel: Death Match. Our final contestants seek out .IO signed up this week, so we're super excited for the lineup that also includes Job.com, Assess First, not Asses First, Chad. Chad: Oh, okay. Joel: And I'm blanking on the last one. Chad: Pez.ai, right? Joel: Pez, yes. Chad: And the big key here is this is all brought to you by the big name Alexander Mann Solutions. So we're actually going to have the queen of chat bots is going to be on the judging panel from, Quincy Valencia from Alexander Mann Solutions, and then we're also going to have Cindy Songne from Talroo join us on the judging panel as well, to make sure that we have enough smart people on the judging panel to balance out our stupidity. Joel: This is a banging judge panel, by the way. Chad: But that's September 24th through the 26th. It's in Austin, if you're in and around Austin or who doesn't want to go to Austin? Austin is a fun place to go, especially in September, late September, check it out. Just go to Chadcheese.com or go to TAtech.org, either way, find our way there and we'll see you there. And again, we don't have a problem with you buying us a beer. Joel: Yeah, who knows, we all might just crash Indeed's headquarters, they're in Austin, have a party. Who knows? Chad: I'm in. Joel: Just saying. Chad: All right, let's lock some news. Joel: Let's get to the news, baby. All right. Google for Jobs against Europe, didn't see this coming, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Trust issues, monopoly issues, a group of 23 job sites, I believe, for anti-trust issues of taking away their pie of job board postings and recruiting dollars. Chad: See, I think the EU saw that Google got slapped on the anti-trust for shopping, and they thought that Google wouldn't make adjustments. Well, guess what, guys? They fucking made adjustments. And as we told you when we were in Ireland last year, Google is coming to the EU, get ready. Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: So the EU needs to understand how to leverage lifestyle platforms instead of fighting them. Google, obviously they've made adjustments and U.S. sites saw a bump in traffic from Google for Google for Jobs when they launched. Joel: To me, when you file lawsuits, and I'm not an expert on EU and all the laws and anti-trust stuff. It's a lot more serious there than it is here. But when you start suing companies for anti-competitive activities, you usually don't have a whole lot of leg to stand on. And you're scared, you don't have a lot of other options, things look dire, so let's sue everybody. And this is going to play out like every other lawsuit that Google has had, it'll be in court for two, three years, they'll continue to gain market share. The companies that are suing Google, like let's see if they take their jobs off of Google for Jobs, if their jobs are already on there. Chad: That's the question. Joel: To me, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't benefit from the traffic and then sue Google for anti-competitive activity. So to me, this is a lot of smoke and not a lot of fire. I think it may get settled for a billion dollars, and these sites will get paid and then they can fade off into the sunset, which they'll probably have to do anyway. So I think it's going to end up a whole lot of nothing, but it is expected that this happened, but to me this is just like hanging on, trying to get every dollar you can and doing that through lawsuits. Chad: From the EU side of the house, if you are looking on Google for Jobs today, and you can actually see if StepStone, if they're pushing their jobs out to Google for Jobs, if they're marking their jobs up, if they're there, let us know, because StepStone I believe is going to be one of the bigger organizations, Axel Springer, to be able to press this forward. They have from some of the articles a formal complaint up to the EU already. The big question though, if they're not marking their jobs up to be able to be in Google for Jobs, do they really have a case? I mean, they're not using everything that Google's providing to be able to do what Google wants to do, which is provide them with more traffic. So do they really have a case at this point? Joel: I think if you look into the story and some of the particulars, they're concerned that Google's not just hey indexing jobs and sending traffic. They're talking about Google has salespeople contacting recruiters to post jobs and use their ... Because they also have more than just job postings, right? They have an ATS, they have job search functionality, so I think the company ... And the lawsuit it's talking about, this isn't just links to our site, this is actually Google coming after our competitors, or our customers. And I think that's where maybe the crux of some of that is. To me it's like, settle in, this is the world we live in and lawsuits may temper the time that your demise occurs, but your demise is coming regardless unless you do what you just said was evolve, pivot, figure it out, do some other things aside from just put help wanted signs on the internet. Chad: Yeah. And I think the best experience wins here, so when we talk about hey, we really believe Google is going to go straight to the applicant tracking systems, and I know iCIMS is working with them and some of the other applicant tracking systems are working with Google, but still, if that user experience is not amazing, and they're having a better user experience with job boards because job boards are focusing on that area and they're making it easier for candidates to apply, then the job boards are going to win. Because Google can see how much time is being spent, so if there's quick ejection out of that, it doesn't matter if an applicant tracking system has their jobs in the system or not. It doesn't. It's all about experience. Joel: Yeah. You could sue them or try to make Google your bitch, right? Try to make it work for you. Or the real power of what these 23 sites could do is shut Google off, right? Like take a cue from Indeed and say, "Okay, we're going to try to strangle you off at the source and not let you succeed" and try to get as many job boards in Europe to join your cause to keep Google for Jobs out. That would be a much better strategy. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But it's easier to file lawsuits, fuck it. Chad: There was another article that we saw about niche job board domination. Joel: Yep. Chad: And I think this lends itself to this discussion of let's take a look at how job sites can actually flourish, you know? Not just looking at the basics. So this was from Imrinder from Rchilli and he was talking about the power of niche being super targeted, quality over quantity, and then he named some names on job boards. And one of those job boards was college recruiter, who we know- Joel: Our friends, yeah. Chad: Yeah, have actually evolved quickly away from this duration-based job board kind of scenario, and they're embracing the Google job search API. It's actually helping them, job seekers are staying longer on the site, they're doing more searches because it's more relevant, and they're moving toward performance-driven ads over duration. This is the key to what we're seeing from job sites who don't want to build this moat- Joel: Yep. Chad: ... and not innovate. Joel: Yeah, and I think a big part of what niche sites are allowed to do or able to do that the big sites have a much harder time doing is just really good content and community. You know, providing stuff that's relevant to your audience is hard to do, but it's going to be something that brings people back, keeps them engaged, building community where people can engage with each other, interact with each other. Those tend to be where niche job boards have an advantage. You know, and I know you're a fan of Sun Tzu as I am, but right, so when you're fighting a bigger enemy, zig when they're zagging. And you're not going to beat Google, LinkedIn, Indeed in terms of job postings and quantity, but you can sure win the battle of quality, it just takes a little different mindset and strategy around that. Joel: But niche job boards are successful when they do that. I know, we haven't talked about Dice in quite a while, but DHI had their Q3 results call recently, and they suck much less than they do a year ago. And part of that is they're cutting costs and they're sort of revamping things. There's a niche site with clearance jobs in particular, right, that's a niche that is in high demand and they're profiting pretty well from that. The E-financial stuff is fairly solid on that end, and even Dice, which we give a hard time for, is I think they were down I think 10% last year, this year down 1% in terms of revenue. So they suck much less, they're getting better. I think if they can figure out the feature set better, the engagement better, the content better, we may continue to be talking about Dice as a turnaround story in the next 12 months. Chad: Art should definitely come on the show now and say, "Hey, we're sucking much less than we did. We're on a trajectory." Let's have that discussion, Art. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Here's my thing, I really believe that these niche job sites need to be focusing on becoming marketplaces. This is where I think consolidation could definitely happen. Indeed bought Sift, so the job board bought the actual marketplace tech itself, or vice versa, right? Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: So that to me makes it much easier for a company to engage when you become a marketplace for them as opposed to a place just to be able to throw your ads. Whether it's performance, it's programmatic, or it's duration, you're still throwing your ads out there. They might be more pinpointed, but when you talk about a marketplace, that's an entirely different conversation. Joel: You could actually argue that marketplaces are a bigger threat to job boards than- Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: ... the big guys like Google and Facebook and LinkedIn. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We've seen sort of the general stuff, we've seen services, hourly jobs, which to me is pretty low-hanging fruit for this marketplace environment, but in the news this week, a site called Nomad Health, which is only a couple years old I think, raised $34 million basically Uber for healthcare opportunists, right? So we talk about service stuff with chefs and service, waitresses and wait staff, this is a healthcare platform to bring on nurses and radiologists and whatever in a Uber-type platform contract way. To me, that signals everything's going to go marketplace at some point, right? Chad: There's no reason that it shouldn't. I mean, seriously, we're talking about connectivity here, and right now we have very loose connectivity when we're just pushing our jobs out there or we're diving into, a recruiter's diving in a resume database. That's really loose connectivity when you have individuals who are in a marketplace, that is so much of a tighter network. Right? If you can see availabilities and you can see openings, and the system can start to make those recommendations, right? That just makes a hell of a lot more sense as opposed to having to do all that fucking work yourself. Chad: The automation piece, this is where AI and machine learning really comes in, and it's loose AI, let's say, to be able to start making those recommendations that make sense to fill positions that much faster. Joel: Yeah. And I think very cool, I think one of the stats I've seen at one point is only one in four nursing degrees actually practice nursing. So you have a lot of people that are getting degrees but are either no longer practicing or just got a degree and didn't want to do it. Imagine how many of those might come back into the workforce if they realize, "Hey, I can flip the switch and go be a nurse when I want to at whatever hospital I want to or healthcare facility. And then when I don't want to work, I turn it off." This could be a big boon for the nursing shortage and solving that problem. Chad: It could be big for just across the board, just from a side hustle standpoint. Joel: Yeah. Chad: If I have time and I like to do those things, then yeah, let's go ahead and turn on my side hustle and let's get it on. Joel: Yeah, and talking about older nurses that leave the workforce permanently, this could be a part time gig for them when they go nurse when they want to, and these are 20, 30, 40 year experienced nurses. That platform's going to be a great thing for service industry like that. Chad: Yes. So big shot over the job board's bow, you're thinking too much about Google and you're not thinking enough about marketplaces. You're afraid, we totally get that, but focus on where the point of evolution is for this industry. It's not fighting the organizations like Google, it's working with them and creating marketplaces that you can leverage the shit out of their technology. Joel: Well, you know who's not scared, Chad? Chad: JobAdX. Joel: JobAdX. Let's hear from them and we'll talk about LinkedIn when we get back. Chad: Boom. JobAdX: Nope. Nah. Not for me. All these jobs look the same. Ugh, next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past your jobs, just halfheartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it, we live in a world that is all about content, content, content, so why do we expect job seekers to react differently when reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people, and benefits with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job seekers will stumble upon your employment branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection, and reducing candidate drop off. JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites to proactively compel top talent to join your team? Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing "join us" at Jobadx.com. That's join us at J-O-B-A-D-X.com. Attract, engage, employ with JobAdX. Chad: A quick shout out to Isabelle over at JobAdX because she is totally hooking us up- Joel: Yeah. Chad: ... with different places to go in Copenhagen and Sweden as well. Love those people. Wherever we're going, we get all these people saying, "Oh, I've been there, you have to go to these places." Joel: Yeah, I want to be Isabelle when I grow up. She just travels the world and eats at really nice restaurants and drinks really good liquor. Chad, why not LinkedIn? Chad: Well- Joel: Why not? Chad: See, it's interesting. Why aren't we talking about LinkedIn? So this is an article that actually popped out that talks about Twitter helps the powerful discover their worst selves, and leaves everyone else vulnerable. Facebook brings people together only to subject them to marketing and manipulation. Our social feeds aren't ready for 2020 and the election, right? Except for one. Is there anything the rest of us can do like LinkedIn? Joel: LinkedIn has been surprisingly immune to all the negativity that social media garners. Chad: Why is that though? Joel: I think Microsoft probably is doing a good job of keeping things on lock down, which is a big reason why they haven't ... And I think just their brand of we're a professional network, we're a place for jobs and for business and people that are professionals, sort of keeps them clean. We've uncovered many sort of catfishing/dating/escort services, all kinds of stuff is going on on LinkedIn, but for some reason, they've been immune to the scrutiny that others have suffered. Chad: So I think mainly the actual community itself has policed itself to an extent, because they're afraid to share shit on LinkedIn that they would share on Twitter an Facebook, right? They're not sharing these conspiracy theories or what have you that they share everywhere else. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Because it is a professional network and they're kind of afraid more there for their job than anything else. So I think there's that. Not to mention you do have the LinkedIn police that are out there that we've talked about before where people will reach out and say, "Hey, I don't think this is appropriate for LinkedIn," and it won't be people from LinkedIn, it'll be people from your network. So I think that in itself is different, but the big thing for me though is that that was a big piece of how all of this fake shit was propagated in the last election, in 2016, is that we as individuals shared that shit, because obviously the Cambridge analytics of the world could go and target better, right? Chad: So if I could target better and I knew the different buttons to push with you, then I think I had a better likelihood to actually get you to share some shit that normally you probably wouldn't share. Joel: LinkedIn for a long time was really doing their hardest to be like Facebook. We'll add pictures, we'll add live video, we'll ... And they've done that to their benefit, the people who are posting pictures and videos aren't posting like family pictures and videos of me in the car going to work out, right? It's like videos of me at work or here's my company or hey, check out my blog post. So the content is better even though they are doing some of the functionality as Facebook as long as they don't cross that line to family photos, crazy videos, TMZ shit, and stuff, then I think they'll probably be safe from a lot of the things that plague other social networks. Chad: So here's where I think the change might start to happen, because LinkedIn just launched audience segments. Joel: Danger, Will Robinson. Danger. Chad: So before, and this is where we really got into Facebook's ass around jobs, not the other areas, because this is probably where they should have changed it, is that we are easily targeted on Facebook because of all the different info that we have and really all the different audience segments per se, right? So LinkedIn really didn't have that, but guess what's coming, kids? Joel: What's coming? Chad: Audience segments, and they're creating a partner program which aims to help marketers identify the best target groups for their site's 645 million members. Joel: Yep. Chad: They have companies like Amobee, Analect, Hootsuite, Ogilvy, and Sprinkler, who signed partnerships but once again, what made LinkedIn ... I believe what made them kind of more like this bubble where the asshole fake stuff couldn't get in, that's starting to deteriorate a little bit because of this. Now, I don't think that it's wrong. I just think that they're going to have to have safeguards in place to ensure they don't turn into a Facebook. Joel: Yeah, LinkedIn has this challenge where they want to make money from advertising, but they aren't making that much, and as an advertiser, they're super expensive versus the competition, targeting, it's complicated. They need to be more efficient, they need to be more cost effective in their advertising and a way to do that is to build this sort of marketplace where you're tracking people and things are more efficient in terms of the data that they have. Chad: Right. Joel: But they're also in effect while doing that risking crossing the line of privacy and all that other good stuff that have plagued other social networks. Chad: Yeah. Joel: In the past years. Chad: Yeah, it's smart and I feel it's dangerous as well. Joel: Dangerous, yes, yes. Chad: Danger, Will Robinson. Joel: They have smart people over there, you know? I'm sure nothing can go wrong. SFX: That is one big pile of shit. Joel: Sorry, that was a little tongue in cheek there, but ... Chad: That was nice. Yeah. Joel: Well, some other smart people over at our friends at ZapInfo, our buddy Doug Berg, shout out to him. They continue to roll out the hits there with features of the ZapInfo product, and we have talked to him at length I think off air about the whole JDPR stuff, the privacy, and how the business of sourcing people, getting content off the web, putting it in a database, marketing to it, it's going to be changing. So neither one of us was surprised last week when they introduced SMS/text messaging and Google Talk integration into their product. So now, when you search a company's about us page and use your ZapInfo extension or service instead of grabbing the content and throwing it into a database, which I believe you can still do, you can automatically text people on this page, you could call them directly through their Google Voice integration. Joel: And I think we both agree this is sort of an evolution or pivot that a lot of these sourcing tools will have to make in deciding what are we going to do after we can't grab data from the internet haphazardly? Chad: One of the things that Doug is amazing at, you don't bet against Doug Berg. You don't. First off, he was at Techies.com way back in the day before that was sold off. He's with Jobs2Web before they pivoted and added features and they were bought by SuccessFactors. Joel: 125 million, I think? (Actually 110 million - close) Chad: Yeah, it wasn't low-balled, that's for damn sure. But the thing is, don't bet against Doug Berg. Doug understands that pivots are a part of the game. I don't feel like this is a total pivot, but I do believe this is filling out the portfolio of that, of ZapInfo, and adding some connectivity that is totally necessary for recruiters. Joel: Yeah. There's a reason that when you see Doug on social media, he's always smiling, not only because of his past success but I think he's able to see around corners that a lot of us aren't able to see around, and I think that he probably sees a lot of the challenges that the people sourcing and people search business is going to have, and he's simply creating services that can survive outside of those regulations. And based on their history, there'll be more features to come and more evolution and not necessarily pivots, but he'll grow the business and if pieces of it die, he'll have other pieces to cling onto and grow. Chad: Yeah. Look for an acquisition. Joel: Look for an acquisition. Well, let's look for an add from Sovren and we'll talk about virtual restaurants and, good god, the Ladders? Shit. 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. Chad: And that dinner might actually just be coming to you instead. Joel: Wow, that's a good segue. Very nice. I find this stuff fascinating. Chad: Yes. Joel: Story out of New York Times, I believe, talks about virtual restaurants. So the basic idea is beyond an actual brick and mortar restaurant, beyond an actual food truck that goes to a downtown location or wherever, we're now having these virtual restaurants, which I assume is, I don't know, at home kitchens or you reserve kitchens, like big areas to cook food? And then DoorDash and Uber Eats basically deliver the food that you're ordering online. I think it's genius, I think that it's going to expand the food offerings and how good the food offerings are around certainly urban areas. Chad: Right. Joel: And it has employment implications as well, right? Chad: Yes, yes. You definitely have to see employees in a different light. One of the individuals who's actually, he has a restaurant but he runs other menus out of that same restaurant. He said that delivery used to be maybe a quarter of his business, now it's about 75% of the business. Joel: Wow. Chad: Food delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub are starting to reshape the $863 billion American restaurant industry as more people order food to eat at home and as deliveries become faster, more convenient, the apps are changing the very essence of how these individuals operate a restaurant and one, I'd like to point out, which is here in Indianapolis, it's also in Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, and Denver, is a company called ClusterTruck. Joel: Yep. Chad: What these guys do, it's amazing, because let's say you're down in Indianapolis or you're in Columbus, Ohio or what have you, and you go to one of these bars that really they don't serve food, they might like, chips or something like that, well, you can get onto your ClusterTruck app and they have this awesome menu to go by with like, five different varieties, whether it's Asian or pizza or burgers or something like that, and you can pick what you want and they deliver it to you. Chad: Now ClusterTruck does not have a storefront, at all. Joel: Yeah. Chad: And it's genius. Now this is a little bit different because ClusterTruck has their own employees who they do the running, but this is just really a different way of what we're talking about with Grubhub and DoorDash and Uber Eats and those others. This is fucking awesome. Joel: It's a marketplace for food, right? We talk about marketplaces for people, this is the same idea, and they'll have four star ratings and they'll have reviews and you'll choose based on the market as opposed to oh yeah, I know Chili's or I know Applebee's or I know who these guys are. They'll be much more competition and that menu will be that much more expanded. I think that what's fascinating in terms of employment is you don't need service staff, you don't need a person at the front, you don't need a bartender, you don't need all the legalese, you don't need to pay the real estate taxes, you don't have to pay the leases, all these things that are holding a lot of people back from even starting a restaurant go away, and imagine what that's going to do for employment as well as just better food. Joel: I guess a lot of these waiters will just drive trucks for DoorDash and ClusterTruck and whatever else as opposed to serving people at a table, they'll serve people at their home or at the bar that they're at. Chad: Take it one step further. Was it Pizza Hut or Domino's who was going to have an automated truck who actually made the pizza on its way to deliver to you? Joel: Yeah, so I think there's a startup that makes the pizza in the truck, I don't know the name of it offhand, Domino's was testing a car that was self-driving with an oven, or like a heater, and then you had a code or your phone or whatever unlocked it, and then you took our pizza. Pizza Hut was in the news recently, they're closing a bunch of stores because no one really ... You and I remember the days of oh, Friday night, let's go get a pizza. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Like let's go to Pizza Hut and they have a salad bar. I don't think anybody does that anymore, so they're closing down a bunch of stores because that market is changing rapidly as well. Chad: Times, they are a-changing. Joel: But one thing that isn't changing is the stupidity of the Ladders. SFX: That is one big pile of shit. Joel: So you came across a great food article and were surprised at the source of the article. Chad: Yeah, I was reading through just an article, it was talking about I think like the best burgers or something like that, and I was wondering if it had Beyond Meat or the Impossible Burger, and I clicked through and then I look at the domain, and it's the Ladders. I'm like what the fuck am I doing here? Joel: Yeah, the story was you'll never guess which restaurant has America's best burger. And when you think about job opportunities, you're thinking about burgers in America. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: Now I can't get on them too much because I am a fan of content marketing. Chad: Yes. Joel: And everyone's sort of a job seeker and someone looking for an article on a burger or Impossible meat might also look for a job. But for me, it's like what's next? Articles about Cardi B and Justin Bieber's dating life? I don't know where you draw the line and become TMZ as opposed to a reputable job search site. Chad: Aren't they supposed to be like a six figure executive high ranking site? Why wouldn't they have what's the best Merlot or the best place to get a steak or one of those? I don't know, that just didn't make sense to me at all. It didn't seem like it was on target. Joel: Dude, they're so far from six figure jobs at this point. Their business is get as many people in here, get their data as quickly as possible, and spam the shit out of them. Who was it, Jason that talked about opting out of the Ladders emails? Chad: Yes. Joel: Remember that? It's like the Walking Dead, no matter how you try to kill them, they always come back, like that's the Ladders' business model. And if that's your business model, then yeah, get as much traffic with crappy articles as possible and make sure that those people join your database so you can spam the shit out of them. Chad: Yeah, but that's not sustainable. Let's just put that out there. SFX: That is one big pile of shit. Joel: And with that ... Chad: We out. Walken: Thank you for listening to ... What's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese, brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing, just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one, cheddar, bleu, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss, so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any who, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way, you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com, just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out. Tim Sackett: Hi, I'm Tim Sackett and you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm not sure why you are, but hey, you do you. #Google #StepStone #CollegeRecruiter #NomadHealth #Indeed #Syft #LinkedIn #Facebook #ZAPinfo #text #Marketplace

Artificial intelligence (#AI) is running amok! Someone has to police this out-of-control state of technology. Enter Miranda Bogen, a Senior Policy Analyst who focuses on the social and policy implications of machine learning and artificial intelligence, and the effect of technology platforms on civil and human rights. Plus, she really classes up the joint. Enjoy this Talroo exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities.​ Chad: Talroo is focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your e-mail or ATS. Joel: 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: 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 you 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: Hide your kids, lock 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. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Friday, Friday, Friday. Feeling spunky. TGIF. Chad: More than spunk happening today my friend, today, today it's going to be incredibly spunky. We're going to be talking about AI, AI, AI, and some policy with Miranda Bogen, who is Senior Policy Analyst at upturn.org. Joel: The trend of people much smarter than us continues as guests on our show. Chad: That's not hard to do by the way. She's also co-chair of the fair, transparent, and accountable AI Expert Group. Oh my God. Joel: Oh my God, we're in trouble. Chad: So Miranda, before you jump into Upturn and this crazy Expert Group, just so everybody knows out there, I heard Miranda on a podcast, I don't know, about a year or so ago, I said, "Yeah, she sounds pretty smart." Then I saw her on stage at Jobg8 in Denver, and I'm like, "The listeners need to hear from Miranda." So Miranda? Joel: I'm glad you said Job8 and not some other stage. Chad: No, you weren't on the stage Joel. So Miranda, welcome to HRs Most Dangerous Podcast, what did I miss in the intro? Fill in some gaps for the listeners. Miranda: Well, thanks for having me first of all. Yeah, you got some of the high points recently, but just to give a little bit of background. I work at Upturn, which is a non-profit organization based in Washington DC, and our mission is to promote equity and justice in the design governance and use of digital technology. Chad: Wow. Miranda: So that kind of means everything, right? Joel: Yes, damn. Miranda: Hiring tech, recruitment tech is just one part of what I do, but we also study things like Facebook, social media platforms, police technology, credit scoring, anything where technology is intersecting with people's lives, and especially when it intersects with things like civil rights. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, and even though it has nothing to do with the content of our show, the "hidden world of payday loans," which is a blog post on your site, I'd love to dig into that at some point. Maybe as a bonus at the end. Chad: Yeah, maybe. Joel: Hidden world of payday loans. Chad: So Upturn, on the website says, "We drive policy outcomes, spark debate through reports, scholarly articles, regulatory comments, direct advocacy," I mean, you do a lot of stuff. Conferences, workshops, so on and so forth. Are you guys a lobby group? Miranda: No, we're a research and advocacy group, we're also only seven people. Chad: Wow. Miranda: So we do, do a lot, but we really kind of come in where we're most needed. And often times that's just explaining how technology works to other advocacy groups, the policy makers, to journalists, so that when they're talking about it they have a sense of what's really happening, and they can make sure that the policies they're thinking about are actually going solve some of the problems that we're seeing. Chad: How did it start? Miranda: So we actually started as a consulting group. My two bosses founded it about eight years ago, out of grad school to help again, sort of other advocacy groups, foundations, philanthropies, really get a handle around technology, which was eight years ago still newer than it feels now, and now it's really ubiquitous. But at the time, it was like, "What is going on here, how is technology changing civil rights? How is it changing policing? How is it changing how people have access to opportunity?" And people needed help, so they founded this consulting firm. I joined when we were still a consulting firm, but we decided to switch over to become a non-profit about two years ago, because we wanted to be mission driven. We wanted to go after issues that we were seeing, and kind of scope out some of these gnarly policy issues before other folks were maybe thinking about them. But then work together with other national and local civil rights groups, global policy groups to help direct policy efforts in the right places. Joel: So here's a soft ball for you, give us your definition of AI. Miranda: That's a- Joel: Aha. Miranda: It's a trick soft ball question. If you read any paper or article about AI, the very first line is always like, "There's no definition of AI." When we talk about AI... We actually don't use AI to frame our work, because we don't find it a super helpful frame, because it means everything and nothing. Often what we're really talking about is machine learning, uses of data, Chad: Algorithms. Miranda: ... data analysis, and mostly when we talk about AI, we're mostly talking about just finding patterns in data. So that's what I think of when I think about AI. Chad: Well, that being said, one of the things that really caught me, and I think it caught the entire audience in Denver, is when you talked about Netflix and their algorithm, and how the algorithm picked thumbnail pictures to be able to attract viewers to some of the movies. Can you talk a little bit about that research, or at least some of the information that you provided on stage about Netflix and how that worked? Miranda: Yeah, this was a crazy story. It wasn't something we were working on directly, but I was scrolling through Twitter one day, and saw that people were talking about this situation where a woman was a blogger, or a podcaster, I can't remember. She was noticing that... She was scrolling through Netflix, now this woman was black, and she was scrolling through Netflix, and she was seeing that the little thumbnails that she was being shown for the movies, were featuring actors from the movies who were also black, but they weren't the main actors in those movies. And she was like, "What's up, I tried to watch these movies, and the characters that I was shown in the thumbnails barely have any lines at all? Why am I being misled?" Chad: Wow. Miranda: And so she started asking around, and asking were other people seeing the same thing, and she heard that they were. Other folks who were black were seeing these supporting actors who maybe didn't play a big role, but they were being featured in the thumbnails, while some white users were saying, "No, I'm seeing the main actors." And that was kind of crazy, because Netflix in follow up articles that journalists were writing about Netflix, made a statement saying, "We don't collect race. That's not something we're using to personalize the experience." Chad: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. How on in the hell was this happening then? Miranda: Yeah, so it's really surprising. So many times you hear, "We're not collecting any sensitive data, we're just giving people what you want." And so that was really interesting to me, so I wanted to figure out what was going on. So it turned out that a year or so ago, Netflix introduced this new feature, where it would dynamically pull images from movies, TV shows that were showing, it would kind of dynamically pick out compelling images, and it would show them to people. And it would show you the image that it thought you were most likely to click on to watch that movie. So if you like romantic comedies, then if a movie had a scene of sort of two romantic leads, it might show you that. But if you like just straight up comedy, then it might show you an actor who's also a comedian, even if that's the same movie. So different people would be seeing different images in these previews, even if it was for the same movie. Miranda: So what was happening here in this case was, Netflix was predicting that the black users were maybe more likely to click on these movies or shows, when they were shown these black supporting actors, even if they weren't main characters in that movie, and it was just learning that through behavior. It wasn't saying like, "Oh look, this user is... has these demographics, therefore, show them this image." It was all super dynamic, all just learning from people's clicks, and their online behavior. And the thing about AI, and about when you have all this data at your disposal, is you'll end up finding patterns that reflect people's personal characteristics, even if you don't collect them explicitly, or put any sort of label on them. Joel: So Miranda, does your organization take a stance on these issues, or do you just present them as information? Like, are you saying AI is bad because of this, or are you just saying, "Hey, we've studied this and here are our findings?" Miranda: I don't think we have a position on what Netflix did per se, but the issues I think, and why I was talking at Jobg8, and why I've been talking on these other podcasts is, that same thing is happening in areas like recruiting, because the technology that's underneath Netflix, is the same technology that's underneath any website that says, "We're going to recommend you things that you like," or, "We're going to find you the best people." They're all just called recommender systems, and if we saw that Netflix was working in this way, I was like, "Oh, man, this is a problem. This is probably happening on these other sites that are much more important to how people are finding jobs and livelihood." Joel: So you do take a position that this is a bad thing? Miranda: It's bad if we don't know it's happening, and it's going rogue, and it's ending up directing... it's ending up having the same effect as traditional discrimination in the job marketers, which is what our fear is. Joel: Got you. Well, let's jump into Facebook. I know that you are well aware, and our listeners are too, that Facebook was presenting targeted advertising for jobs in relation to age, sex, education, all kinds of different ways that Facebook targets. Talk about that, and then talk about sort of what your feeling are with Facebook's solution to this, do you feel like it's a good solution, a competent solution? Or, do you feel like it's more of putting lipstick on a pig? Miranda: Yeah, so this is something I've been working on for a couple of years now, Facebook ad targeting, ad discrimination. We were involved in some of the earliest conversations of civil rights groups that kind of pointed out the fact that advertisers could target ads based on gender, age, or what they called ethnic or multi-cultural affinity at the time, which was sort of a proxy for race. And then there were a bunch of lawsuits that were filed against Facebook, and part of the... all those lawsuits settled. And what Facebook agreed to was for job ads, but also for housing ads, and credit ads, was to take out some of those targeting categories to say, "Advertisers, you no longer have the tools easily at your disposal to exclude people from seeing opportunities. Or you can no longer..."- Chad: It's discriminating. Miranda: Yeah, "you can no longer discriminate," right? That's certainly something we support. But, when we were involved in these conversations, we supported all the efforts to make sure that advertisers themselves weren't discriminating, but Facebook is kind of like Netflix, it wants to show people what they "want to see." Ads that they will like. And so, we started getting into this. We started to do some research and say, "What if an advertiser didn't target an ad at all, or they just targeted it to anyone in the US?" Maybe it's a job, they don't really care who comes to work for them, they just wanted to get it shown to as many people as possible. I know that's not a realistic situation, but just hypothetically. Miranda: So we ran a couple of job ads, and we didn't target them at all, and we used Facebook's own tools to see who they ended up getting shown to by gender, and by age. And for example, we ran a job ad for a nanny position, we didn't target it at all, and it ended up being shown to over 90% women, just because... Yeah. So the same thing was happening, and we didn't target it to women, but Facebook was making this prediction that women would be more interested in that type of job. And maybe that was true, maybe women were more likely to click on that job ad. Most childcare providers are women, but is that any different from an advertiser saying, only show this to women, just because the platform is using AI to predict whose most likely to click? Chad: Nope. Miranda: And so that really floored us, and made us think that the remedy for all these lawsuits, and just taking away the targeting categories wasn't really solving the problem. It's certainly preventing bad actors, but there's more to the story here. And so there's a ton of work to do in thinking about what do we do when it's the algorithm that's biased here, and we can't even see it most of the time. Chad: Well, in the research also you talked about cashier positions, the audience was 85% women, and for taxi companies, 75% black. So here's the thing from my standpoint, I think that Facebook neutering their jobs platform, was a huge mistake, first and foremost for companies who do want to target individuals with disabilities, or different segments of the population. They should be able to do that. The thing is, we have government agencies that enforce if you're doing good or bad, right? EOC, OFCCP, that's what they're there for, right? Miranda: Exactly. Chad: Not taking away tools. So if you have a tool that is actually helping you get more individuals with disabilities, or female engineers through the door, if they want to call that discriminating against the white man, well, then that's great, but that's for the OFCCP and the EOC to handle, not Facebook. Miranda: I mean we think... So the technology platforms do have a role to play. They can make some important policy decisions, they can prevent some bad things from happening, but I think in this case it's one where there is the whole infrastructure of regulation. There are employers out there who do want to do the right thing, who want to reach out. There are employers out there who are required to do affirmative outreach to underrepresented groups, and so now on Facebook with those categories getting taken away, it's going to be harder for them to do that. And more over, it's only solving that one case where an employer or an advertiser is choosing to do a bad thing, but we still could have the same effect, right? Miranda: So we still have a lot of problems here. And it's really tricky, because one of the problems is that, there's not really a good way for a regulator to see how an advertiser is targeting on Facebook. That's not something that's public. We've been pushing for that. We think that, that should be something that the regulators are able to look into if they suspect that an employer's maybe doing the wrong thing here. But taking them away, it solves a little bit, but there's still a lot of problems. Joel: Let's get into facial recognition for a second. You're probably aware that Illinois has either introduced or implemented a new law, where if you're interviewing someone via video and using AI tools to do that, you have to let them know that. Recently on Facebook the face app where it ages you 20, 30, 40 years, is getting some backlash as some conspiratorial facial recognition Russian platform. What are your thoughts on facial recognition, particularly as it pertains to employment and people finding jobs? Miranda: I think a lot of the concerns that organizations we work with have around this, are that, is there really any true connection between facial expressions and your ability to do a job? Chad: Yeah. Miranda: That's the concern here. There are other concerns about facial recognition, and privacy, and surveillance, but in this case, it's like, "What does the way my face expresses when I talk, have to do with whether I can go on and be successful at a job?" The fear is that, the way that these systems work is, a company might say, "Here are our top performers, let's build an AI model, let's build an algorithm to find people who are going to be successful like them." And if they're just looking at their facial expressions, and then they move that over and start to use it to analyze applicants, then if the initial pool of successful people was homogenous, that, that same sort of demographic preference will end up getting injected into the hiring process. But it will be really hard to detect, again, because AI can be complicated. It can be hard to tell why a system is making a certain decision. Miranda: And so I think when we think about facial recognition, but really what we're talking about here is facial analysis, the question is, what's it being used for? Is there any theoretical connection between this and the thing we're trying to predict. The Illinois bill is interesting, because there is a problem that people don't necessarily know that they're being assessed when they apply for a job by some sort of algorithm. Chad: Right. Miranda: And when they don't know that, if they feel that they've been mischaracterized, they don't know how to maybe challenge that decision, like they could a normal hiring decision to say, "I think this person was biased against me." The Illinois bill tries to remedy that by saying, "Let's just tell them," right? But if you're applying for a job, and you get told, "Oh, by the way, we're going to use facial analysis, we're going to use AI to judge you, how do you feel about that, agree, disagree," and you want that job, and you need that job, is that really super effective? You're not really in a powerful position there as a job applicant. So usually in that type of situation, we'll be thinking about what are the power dynamics here? Is this a real remedy? Miranda: And so really, I think the laws that are more effective in dealing with AI and bias here, are actually the civil rights laws. Employers can't discriminate in real circumstances. But to enforce those laws, you do need to have more visibility in to what employers are using what tools, and you need to have a sense of who applied and who ended up getting the job regardless of what application process they used, or what AI they used as part of that process. Joel: So I think some of the push back on that would be, "We can tell if someone's lying, or there's a potential that there's some falsehoods, by their facial gestures and recognitions." And voice as well, do you think there is some value to that part of it, or no? Miranda: Our understanding is that the technology is nowhere near to being able to do that. There are a lot of claims out there, there's a lot of great marketing about how AI can do this, but- Joel: There are. Miranda: ... if they're training the AI on a certain group of people, it might not work as well on another group of people. So some colleagues of ours at MIT did research saying that... finding that facial recognition software, that was just trying to tell what gender a person was, it worked great on white men, and it worked much worse on women of color, just because the data it was trained on, were probably mostly people with lighter skin. And so there's not a great sense that this technology is up to par to actually do the things that they're claiming it can do, especially when it comes to emotion detection, and lie detection. That's so different by culture, by individual. All it's doing is stereotyping basically. Chad: Yeah. And if your baseline is that of a white male, or an individual who is calm during an interview, if somebody has anxiety, or maybe that's a part of a disability that they might have, and they don't meet the baseline, then automatically they're kicked to the curb. Miranda: Exactly. Disability's a hard one too, because people building this technology, some of them are trying to do interesting things to kind of debias their models to make sure that it's not harming women, or not harming people with different skin colors, or different ethnicities, but with disability you might not even know who in your sort of training group of people, has a disability. And the people who are interviewing, might not choose to disclose it. So you won't know whether to make sure that it's calibrated to account for that, and that's an accommodation issue. That could really harming people with invisible disabilities, or ones that manifest that a computer could see, but maybe a human would overlook, or it wouldn't be troublesome in a normal interview. The computers can pick up on really subtle things. Chad: Yeah. So back in May, you panned all the ways hiring algorithms can introduce bias, which landed in the Harvard Business Review. A little rag obviously. In the article you talk about how predictive tech, or programmatic helps advertise jobs today, and how that in effect, could really be a huge problem and introduce bias right out of the gate. So a job is posted, this algorithm goes out and says, "Well, we need to target these types of individuals, so we're going to go to these different types of sites," can you talk about that? Miranda: Yeah. So when most people talk about bias and hiring algorithms, they're talking about algorithms that are looking at resumes, or algorithms that are doing these video interviews, or doing personality tests, or things like that. Chad: Right. Miranda: But that's not the only place that algorithms are being used in the hiring process. So much of recruitment is moving into that top of the funnel part of the process. Trying to build the right candidate pool, so that the people who come in the door are already maybe closer to the right people, and so recruiters or hiring managers aren't wasting their time. They get a ton of applicants, they want to spend their time on the right people, it's better if the right people come in the door in the first place. And so programmatic ads or any ads that are on platforms that are personalized, or saying, "We're going to show the right ad to the right person," what they're doing is all the data they really have, is what people have clicked on in the past. Miranda: And so if they're saying the right person, all it means is people who've kind of indicated interest in this type of job in the past, and people like those people. That's the data it has to work with. But what people search for, the types of jobs people search for, the types of jobs people believe they're qualified for, and maybe they go in to click on, that has such a deep reflection of society. And what I talked about in my talk at Jobg8, there's deep occupational segregation, at least in the US and definitely other places. And so looking at jobs people have already had, jobs they think they might want, jobs they think they're qualified for, that's going to reflect these deep divisions. And so just honing in on the people who are most likely to apply for a job, that's going to end up reflecting these social divisions, and reinforcing those disparities. And then people don't even know that there are other jobs out there that they could apply for. Miranda: And maybe it's not that it would prevent someone from going to a company, and looking at their job site, and applying for a job, but if you're bombarded over and over again with ads from a certain company or for a certain type of job, and people from another social group don't see those, you're going to be more likely to apply for that job than they are, and then that's going to reinforce across society. And someone's benefiting from that, and other people are being hurt by it. Chad: Yeah. And if you don't have control of the algorithm or targeting, like we were talking about with Facebook, then that could obviously adversely impact the candidates who are coming into your pipeline, versus having more ability to target the types of individuals, because you know what your talent pool looks like right now. So if you want to be more diversified, you need that control. So that being said, talking about less control, can you tell us a little bit about ZipRecruiter? How do you feel about ZipRecruiter, because they have this awesome algorithm, and how do you think it works? Does it work like Netflix? Miranda: Yeah. So ZipRecruiter and any other sort of personalized job board, like I said earlier, these technologies are all grounded in this basic thing called a recommender system. And the way that works is, it says, when somebody new joins up, the platform has to figure out, "All right, they're new, we don't know much about them. We have to figure out what to show them, and then as they start to interact on site, we can learn more about what they want to see." So it's looking at things you like. So if I go on to ZipRecruiter, or another website and say like, "I really like marketing jobs, I'm going to click on a lot of those, maybe start applying to some," it's going to show me more marketing jobs. Miranda: And then the way these systems often work is, I'm doing that, I have a certain pattern of behavior on the site, if other people are kind of behaving in a similar way, it might start showing things that I've liked to them, because it sees that we're similar, maybe we'll like some of the same things. But also on ZipRecruiter at least, and on some other platforms, I'm sure other folks are building this, the employers also, the hiring managers or recruiters, they can kind of start to thumbs up candidates, or thumbs down them, and it learns those preferences as well. And it starts showing jobs to the candidates that most closely resemble the ones they've already liked. Miranda: And so all these patterns, in the same way that, that story happened with Netflix, even if the platform isn't collecting gender, isn't collecting race, those things are probably going to be correlated with how people behave on the site. It's just with Netflix. And that might end up determining what jobs they see, what jobs they don't see, and kind of guiding people towards a certain type of job that might be... it might be relevant, but it might be hiding from them other things they're also... could be interested in or qualified for. Something like that could end up guiding women for instance to, maybe middle level, lower level jobs, whereas men tend to be more confident in what they're clicking on, what they're applying for. They think can apply even if they don't have all the qualifications, and so they might start getting... shown more senior jobs, higher paying jobs, just because that's the behavior that's being reflected. And it can be super invisible. Miranda: If you're not collecting information about demographics, you might not know what your candidate pool looks like until they officially apply for a job, and by that point it might be a little too late to really do the proactive outreach to underrepresented groups. Chad: How do I get a female to click on my damn job? I mean, that's the thing, it's companies are like, "Shit, I'm putting jobs out there, and females are just... they're not clicking on as much as males," because you know us dumb males, we only fit about 50% of the requirements, but, "Oh hell, why not?" Where a female's like, "Yeah, I'm not meeting 100%, so I'm not going to." What does a company have to do to be able to actually, because there's a huge behavior difference there. What do they have to do at that point? Miranda: Well, so there's a couple of interesting tools out there that are actually using AI to get suggestions about how to change the wording of jobs, so that there won't be a gender bias. And the data they're using, is looking at people who've applied before and saying, "If you use these words instead of these words, we actually predict that more women will apply to your job." So that's one thing that they can do, is really looking at how those jobs are written. Miranda: And then another thing I think goes back to the question about job ads, and targeting. It might be tricky to really just sort of naturally see that the demographics of people applying are balanced, or that you're getting the pool that you want, so you might have to do some proactive outreach. And then having targeting options, might be the only way to really get your job in front of folks that aren't applying as organically at the same rate. And so we think there is a role to play for affirmative outreach to underrepresented groups, as long as someone's out there making sure that no-ones abusing that. Joel: One of the more fascinating products to come out in the recruiting industry in a while, is a robot called Tengai Unbiased. I don't know if you're familiar with Tengai or not, but the basic concept is, you have this essentially head of a robot that projects a face, and interviews candidates in an unbiased fashion per their marketing material. And the robot basically ranks candidates based solely on what their answers are, and what their skills are. Now obviously, bias comes into it once a human looks at the ranking, and then decides maybe from there who they want to hire. Although, in a perfect world I guess, the robot would actually hire the people, and humans wouldn't even have to get involved. What are sort of your thoughts on this futuristic view of how hiring could happen in the future? Miranda: I think it really doesn't matter if there's a robot that's doing this automatic interviewing, or if it's just sort of a piece of software, or a chat bot, right? The robot's a little... It's sticky for PR, but what I think about, what I find interesting is, how is it making those decisions? How is it deciding how to rank people? Or, if we get to a point where they're making actual hiring decisions, what's the cut off score? What are they looking at? How is it trained, right? And even though... There definitely is a problem with unconscious human bias in hiring, so any sort of standardized process is going to help mitigate some of that. Miranda: But the problem with AI, with robots doing this is, generally they need to learn from something. They need to learn what type of candidates a company likes. So a vendor or the company that's building an algorithm, a model, what they need is a current set of employees who have done really well, who are successful candidates. They use that to determine what makes a good candidate, and then they judge new applicants with that model in mind, right? The problem is that, so many companies today still have a problem with diversity and inclusion, and so the people they see as the most successful might still reflect this narrow conception of what success looks like. And it might homogenous, it might be explicitly biased, and so those decisions, even if they're be a robot, they might be consistent, but we don't know if they're unbiased unless we're looking at the difference between who would've gotten a job before, and then whose getting a job now. Miranda: I think that's what really matters when it comes to automated hiring decisions. It's not the interface of the program, it's really is this helping a company mitigate the unconscious biases of their own recruiters, and is that having an effect. And sometimes we don't necessarily have the data from the civil society side, from the public to see that right away. Regulators would, companies have to report that. But we haven't solved diversity and inclusion within companies, so if we're using current workforces to define what success looks like, we're going to lock ourselves in the present if not the past. So how do we make sure that we recognize that we don't have it all figured out now, we don't even know what successful employees look like half the time. It's very subjective. So how do we make sure that those subjective decisions don't get calcified into computers? Chad: Well, Miranda, unfortunately our time is over. Joel: Thanks Miranda, that was awesome. Chad: We had a blast, and don't be surprised if we call you back to have more discussions around this specific topic, because this is popping up, it's not going away, and we're glad that Upturn and yourself are actually around. So thank you so much, and we out. Joel: We out. 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. #AI #bias #Robots #MachineLearning #Netflix #ZipRecruiter

Think Glassdoor has a monopoly on employee reviews? Think again. Fairygodboss is one of the hottest startups hoping to help women breakthrough the glass ceiling and inspire companies to be more transparent. In this podcast, the boys explore the current state of the business with co-founder Romy Newman, as well as reveal how employers can make themselves a more diverse and inclusive place. Enjoy this Nexxt exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your RPO partner for the disability community, from source to hire. Tim Sackett: Hi, I'm Tim Sackett, and you're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm not sure why you are, but hey, you do you. 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. It's take two, with Fairygodboss, thanks to some technical glitches, Romy Newman, president and co-founder of Fairygodboss, thanks for coming. Romy: Yeah, they say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but here it is. Joel: But so a little bit of an intro, you're president and co-founder of Fairygodboss. Romy: That's right. Joel: You've had experience working at Google, Wall Street Journal, and Estee Lauder, a few small companies no one has ever heard of, and have college degrees from Yale, a little school in the Ivy League, and Northwestern- Chad: Hello. Joel: ... Kellogg School of Business. So you're added to the long list of people who are way smarter than we are, so welcome to the show. What did I miss? Romy: What did you miss? Let's see, I do run Fairygodboss, which I'm really proud to say has now over 50 employees out of New York City. Chad: Nice. Joel: Whoa. Romy: We are the largest career community for women, and we're used by about four million women every month to connect, share advice, research information and job reviews, and apply to jobs. Joel: Are you global yet, or are those all domestic, North American traffic? Romy: So about 20% of our traffic now is global, coming particularly- Joel: Oh, wow. Romy: ... from two markets, the UK and India. So that's really exciting. Romy: Yeah, and I have to just say that I'm also extremely proud that we work with over 100 major Fortune 500 U.S. companies, including companies like Apple and Microsoft and Bank of America and Goldman Sachs and Unilever and General Motors and IBM, and we help all those companies attract great female job seekers, and position those companies to be the types of places that women will want to apply to jobs at. Joel: Now one thing you failed to mention is you have had 14 million in funding, including 10 million in fusion earlier this year. Romy: That's how we have 50 employees, yes. Joel: Yeah, exactly. So my point was, I was going to ask you where the money's going but I assume it's hiring people. Romy: And snacks, [crosstalk 00:02:41]. Joel: Are you hiring engineers, sales people? What else is the money going toward? Romy: So we have an amazing engineering team, and I have to say we have an extraordinary CTO who has a really fabulous vision for our product. So for example, some of the major improvements we've made to our product over time have been to build a customized, personalize feed for our users, so when you come in ... Our goal is to become a daily habit for career-minded women. And so now our users when they come to our site are having a personalized experience based on the topics they've participated in before, based on jobs they've researched before, based on where they live, based on connections they have. Romy: So not unlike a feed in Linkedin or Facebook, we've got a fabulous feed as our landing page for locked in users. We also have introduced in the last few months kind of smart job suggesting, so both within our tool and then via email, job seekers receive suggested jobs based on their search history. Joel: And do you guys have apps or not? Romy: Not yet. Joel: Is that coming? Romy: Let's put it this way, we haven't started working on it yet, but it's certainly something that comes up, you know, about every 30 minutes in conversation. Chad: I'm sure, I'm sure. There are plenty of things you can do. When you start to get money, it's like oh, we could do all this stuff. Well, in some cases it's let's focus on the core. And that being said, you guys have a very unique story of how you started and where you started, and I think it's unique from the standpoint of most women went through what your co-founder went through, but she took action to be able to create Fairygodboss. So tell us about that. Romy: Yes. So my co-founder and I met at the Wall Street Journal. We actually both reported to the same manager for a while, but we actually did not know each other very well. I think it's important to say that I had a fabulous experience at the Wall Street Journal. I had managers, male and female, who really supported me in every way, and I have no complaints to register. I think my co-founder had a less positive experience that was not specifically based on gender, but she was very senior and there was a big management shake up and she'd been a top performer, but then out of nowhere, she lost her job. Romy: So the issue was that when that happened, she was two months pregnant with her second child. So nobody knew she was pregnant, she wasn't telling anyone, she wasn't showing, but it meant that she was immediately going to have to embark on a job search, during which it would be obvious that she was pregnant and she would be taking a job and leaving on maternity leave almost right after. So it put into really sharp focus for her that she wanted to be able to know before even setting foot in a company for an interview, before even sending in an application, she wanted to know is this a company that really supports women in the workplace? Is this a company that will support me while I go out on maternity leave? Is this a company that will let me be a senior manager and a mother at the same time? Is this a company where there's evidence of other women that are willing to go on the record and say, "I had a great experience here"? Romy: And so as you know, the world has become a real job seeker's market, job seekers have a ton of power, they have a ton of information. But the information that was available to them prior to introducing Fairygodboss didn't answer the very specific set of questions that Georgine, my co-founder, as a female job seeker had. How does this company treat women? Can I expect to have similar opportunities? What will my success look like here? And so that's where I say she's the real entrepreneur because she saw white space and she said, "Instead of finding a job, I'm going to build this solution." And that was four years ago. Romy: She approached me to be her co-founder, and it just seemed too exciting not to try and so here we are. Chad: That's awesome. A platformer company formed out of need and, I would say, you have 4 million women every month coming back to the site. Now you talk about obviously I would think some of the topics would be not being mommy tracked, salary, discrepancies. What else are women coming to the site for? Are they coming for resources, or are you guys actually providing advocacy for them as well? Joel: Jobs. Romy: Yeah, jobs. We are a platform, so we have this amazing community of engaged women, and at varying ranges of experience from in college all the way up through the ranks to senior level. We have a lot of career coaches. So a main use for our platform is a community member coming on and posting, and I think a real differentiator of our community compared to a LinkedIn or a Facebook is that our members have an opportunity to post anonymously. So for example, a member could come and post, "I've just been promoted and I found out that a man who reports to me is making more than I make as his manager. What do I do about this?" Romy: And we don't necessarily answer that question, but someone from our community will jump in right away and answer it. We had a really kind of robust and difficult conversation going back and forth this week about a woman who had been out of the workforce for 15 years and she wanted to come back in, but she was being told she wouldn't be able to come in at the same level that she'd left at. And there was a real intense debate among the community about whether she should accept a step down in the title or whether she should fight to maintain the same title. Chad: Shouldn't that be an early warning system to these companies? Because this is a community that's having a discussion around their brand in many cases. Romy: So in these discussions, they often don't ... There's not a company associated with it. So there's two ways to contribute content to our platform for uses. One is just sort of general discussion, and then yes, you're absolutely right, in our company reviews, individuals anonymously assess companies, and it absolutely is an early warning system, and should be monitored just as companies monitor Glassdoor. And what's interesting is that a differentiator I think for Glassdoor is, I think we surveyed our users and the main reason women are leaving reviews is to help each other. I think there's this feeling that if we can empower each other with information, there's real opportunity to just support women. The concept of our name is all about women helping women and the idea is that you can simply help women advance in the workplace just by sharing a little bit about your experience. Romy: And the idea is that so now, women are sharing reviews on our site to help each other versus just critiquing management. Joel: So I'm glad you mentioned the name, and I'm always curious about how companies come to a name, what other names were on the table that they scrapped. Is there a story behind Fairygodboss, because it is a fairy unique name? Romy: Absolutely. So when we launched, we were looking for a name that did a few different things. Number one, we were trying to communicate that any member of the community was somebody helping women. Number two, we wanted something that wasn't very serious, because we knew that this topic can get so serious, but we wanted to note that this is a place you can have serious conversation, but also it's not academic. It's not going to be a slog to participate. And then the third thing was we wanted something that, we always knew that SEO was going to be a major source of traffic for us, and it is, and we wanted something that was really unique in terms of a URL, and so that's how we chose Fairygodboss. Joel: And you also mentioned Glassdoor, and I'm curious because you are in a very competitive space. You're in a space where you could argue you already have Coke and Pepsi, and at this point you're hoping to be Dr. Pepper or Fanta. Is that a fair argument, or are you looking to be something bigger? Are you looking to take on Glassdoor or just be a nice little niche here for the female demographic? Romy: I'm trying to work on my soft drink analogy to play back to you. Chad: Tab. Romy: But I think we may want to be coconut water. But essentially, here's my view. There are fabulous generalist sites out there, right? Indeed, Glassdoor, and Linkedin, to name a few. But I don't think ... Our research indicates extensively, and LinkedIn's research backs this up as well, men and women do not represent themselves the same way in the job search, and they don't look for jobs the same way. Chad: Right. Romy: And so with that in mind, there is real room and opportunity for an environment that is tailored for women both from the employer side and certainly from the user side. So I think there's a real future for us to coexist. We never would say to a company, "Buy us instead of Glassdoor." That would not be a winning strategy. But if you are concerned about increasing diversity in your workforce, you should buy us in addition to Glassdoor. Chad: So recently, Facebook has pretty much neutered their targeting, which means from a job standpoint, you can't actually target females. If you want to look for female engineers because your current talent pool is very male-heavy, you can't start to target females within the Facebook platform. Two things- Romy: With a job description, right? Chad: Yeah, with a job description. So two things, first and foremost, do you think that was the right decision made by Facebook, number one, and number two, is that just a great opportunity for Fairygodboss, because now they can come to you because you are the target demo? Romy: Yes. So number one, I don't think it was a bad decision, but I think it was made on the slippery slope argument premise, right? It's not that per se a company is wrong to say, "I would like more women to apply for this job." But I think there's all kinds of bad directions that could go in, too, and I think it was just sort of to nip it in the bud. For us, yeah, it presents tremendous opportunity. I think particularly because I believe the way job opportunities are communicated and the way company benefits, and I don't just mean healthcare benefits, but the features and benefits of why someone would want to work at a company, need to be communicated differently to female job seekers. And we are experts in that, and we have a platform that already engages four million women a month. Romy: So certainly, it is a tremendous opportunity for us. We also lean heavily on Facebook and Instagram, but rather than using demographic targeting, we really focus on creating content that we think appeals to the right audiences, telling the stories that we think will resonate with them, and then allowing the audience to self-select. So for example, a person who's interested in reading a story about why this woman thrives at the company is likely to be a female professional woman and maybe even a female job seeker, and that's how we can increase our reach beyond even our existing users for our partner companies. Chad: So do you do that for companies? So they obviously come to you because you can help them within your current community, but also externally within their own website and other sites, like the LinkedIns or the Indeeds or what have you. Do you help them more in a holistic way or is it just really focused on the platform that you guys have at Fairygodboss? Romy: No, I view our key value to a company is that we help make more women want to think about working at that company. We help more women consider a role at that company, and so we do that predominantly through content. We have an amazing editorial team. We produce seven original editorial articles a day about things like how to ask your boss for a raise or there was one I saw today about how to make yourself the most well-liked person in the office. Great content, and sometimes it will be like do you really have to wear pantyhose? It's all over the map. Romy: But for our partners, we put this editorial team to work and they create content about our partners, and this team has spent a lot of time doing data-driven analysis on the types of content that resonate with the types of populations our companies are trying to reach. And so it's a real added value benefit that we provide for our partners and then we use that, yes, we put that content in all of our communications and in our daily emails, but then of course it goes out on our social channels as well. Joel: You mentioned SEO being a major part of your driver of traffic, and I'm curious because you've also said in a previous discussion that your site is roughly 5% men, but obviously Google is not gender-specific in terms of searches. Romy: Right. Joel: So are you seeing a lot of searches for accounting jobs for women or what's it like for a woman to work at IBM? What are some of the queries that are driving such search traffic that isn't resulting in just a bunch of bounces because half of them are male? Romy: Well, so first of all, I do believe some of the content cuts across, like one of our top searched terms is resume templates, so I think there's no reason somebody should bounce from ... It's still good advice, regardless of your gender. Joel: Got you. Romy: But best companies for women by far leads our search. There are things like gender discrimination or gender equality that drives search traffic for us as well, so you're right that we don't know that it's necessarily women, but they're terms that women are more likely to search, and again, our awesome editorial team does research on which terms women research the most. And particularly professional job seeking women, and they write about those terms. Joel: It's commercial time. Chad: Okay, so we've already established texting is probably the best way to connect with candidates, right? Plus, Nexxt stats show 73% of professionals are open to receiving job opportunities via text, and with a 99% delivery rate. You cannot go wrong. Those are two big reasons why you gotta love Text2Hire from Nexxt. That's right, Text2Hire from Nexxt, with the double X, not the triple X. Nexxt has over eight million candidates who have opted into receive jobs via text, and you and your clients need qualified candidates. Nexxt can help you find and target qualified candidates who have opted in for job opportunities via text, and in today's competitive market, you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster. You need Text2Hire from Nexxt. Just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Nexxt logo to learn more about how you can gain a competitive edge with opt-in texting. Text2Hire from Nexxt: it just makes sense. Chad: It's show time. Joel: We had a topic on this week's show in regards to sort of the growth of TikTok, obviously Snapchat is very prevalent, particularly with younger folks, and we talked specifically on the show about accounts where people were, via video, talking about what it was like to work at certain companies. In the case of our show, we talked about a Walmart worker who had an actual account called Tom at Walmart or something where he would just talk about the company, particularly as an employer. And I'm curious, the review space has been around for roughly 10 to 15 years, and it's primarily been dominated by text, right? People type in what it's like to work at such and such company. Joel: But it seems like the trend, particularly with young people, is moving toward more, "Hey, I'm going to take a short form video about what it's like to work at this company." So I'm curious, how do you and Glassdoor and others sort of evolve into this new world of video versus text-based reviewing? Romy: I haven't given it a ton of thought, it's a really smart idea. I'm going to slap my co-founder right now. And by the way, I want you to know that I learned what TikTok was yesterday from my son's best friend. Joel: There you go. Chad: When you're in a long layover at an airport with Joel Cheesman, that's what he's doing, just so you know. Romy: Got it. Joel: Romy, when you have an opinion on that, please let us know, because I do think it will be something that all of you have to sort of tackle. Romy: Yeah, how could it not? You look at the stuff that's going on right now with Amazon. It's critical. Chad: Yes. Romy: It's definitely. There's no question that it's the future. Chad: Right, right. Well, pivoting a little bit as we see companies say they're focused on equity, inclusion, but numbers aren't showing it in many cases, is gender equality really just a bunch of BS right now that companies are trying to throw at the machine instead of really putting grounded frameworks in place to ensure that they're getting the right types of individuals who are more diverse into their organization? It just doesn't seem like we're moving the dial fast enough. Romy: You know why it doesn't seem like ... This, by the way, is like my favorite question, so thank you for asking me. The reason it doesn't feel like we're moving the dial- Joel: Suck up. Romy: ... fast enough is because we're not at all. According to the World Economic Forum, we are 202 years away from achieving gender equality in the workplace at this current pace. Chad: That is something that you just can't stand for, right? I mean- Romy: No, yeah, it makes you wonder why I get up in the morning, right? But why I get up is I have a daughter who's five, and frankly, if we can all go crazy trying to accelerate that timeline, in my lifetime, I'm not going to see anything close to workplace gender equality, but maybe if we really get focused and deliberate, my daughter might. And so I think about that a lot. Romy: But so in terms of what are the company's motivations, right, I see it that I think it's interesting, when Fairygodboss launched, it was 2015 and when we walked away saying we did career community for women, people thought we had three heads. Nobody does now, because the world has really changed a lot since then. But I think at first, people originally talked about diversity because it was kind of like a nice to have and it checked a box. Sometimes a board member might ask about it. Then came the whole Me Too movement, and I think there was a real kind of downside protection element to it where people were protecting it's reputational risk, etc., and having sort of a party line that they could trot out about okay, well, we're managing for diversity. Romy: So then now today what I'm seeing in the zero unemployment world is fascinating. Companies are working hard to hire women because they can't find enough men for their job. So that's a real change, and you see there was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal about trucking and logistics companies that are hiring more and more female drivers and having to reposition themselves because they can't find any more men. Where I want the world to go is that everyone is investing in gender diversity and all kinds of diversity hiring because they know that it leads to better business results, and according to Morgan Stanley and others, you see that companies with more diverse leadership have better stock returns, right? And all corporations exist to drive shareholder value. Romy: So if companies, I hope, will all really internalize the fact that this is a must, if you're fulfilling your fiduciary duty to your shareholders. If you want the best results you could have and your team is not diverse you're not delivering that. Chad: So 200 years is not acceptable, first and foremost. I have two daughters, okay? Don't you feel like you at Fairygodboss almost owe it to the community to provide almost like an equality credit check for a lot of these companies, ones that you can actually see have diverse leadership teams and you can say, "Yes, they're high up on the radar because they are on the right mix. We know that it all starts from the top as it bleeds down." Is that something that you are moving toward, or is that just something that you just kind of push away and say, "Hey, it'll handle itself"? Romy: Well, so, I try really hard not to editorialize about companies. I certainly have opinions, but I think my view is that the single best thing that every company can do to be more successful, more gender diverse, more gender equal is have more women at all ranks. And I think it doesn't serve ... I think companies who are investing regardless of where they are on their success spectrum in terms of diversity shouldn't be penalized, because really what I want is everyone wholeheartedly invested in hiring more women, bringing more women up through management, and I don't think slamming companies supports that at all. Chad: Well, great, then in that case, taking a look at female versus male equity from top to bottom, and being able to provide kind of a credit check then. So yeah, I- Romy: So we do have that, we have that. Again, not editorialized. So based on simply what female employees, like Glassdoor's ratings, we have a top rated companies for women and it's based entirely, I think in the best possible way, it's based on the fact that the female employees of these companies are going out and deliberately, positively representing their company and feel so strongly about it. So that's how we represent that. Joel: Talking about what companies can do, I'm curious about what individuals can do. And Chad and I recently did an interview with Torin Ellis, who's a champion of diversity and inclusion, he's an African American man, and we asked him straight out, "What can two white guys do to help progress relations between a diverse universe?" Romy: How can you female ally? Yes. And actually we have a whole conference devoted to this, so it's very topical. But I think what's interesting is especially in larger companies, what I see is that there's still a real disconnect between kind of the experiences that women have and what men perceive, and I certainly don't blame men for that. I think what the first step for everyone, for optimal kind of shortening the 200 year timeline, is much more direct communication. Romy: To answer your question, I think the first thing you can do, any man can do, is approach women in the workplace and approach maybe if your company has a women's resource group and say, "Hey, I want to be a male ally. I'm raising my hand so put me to work. Let me help. Or I'd like to find out more about your experiences. Where have you found problems? Do you feel like there's inequality here, and if so, where have you seen it?" So just raising your hand, identifying yourself as someone who wants to know and wants to hear, and then when you hear it, doing something about it, and helping to light that fire. Chad: Romy, I have a question around spending, okay? So in most cases, companies focus on their bottom line and how their bottom line's being impacted and how they treat their customers. Most companies don't see candidates as customers. Romy: But more and more do, right? Chad: Yeah, well, they're starting to, but they're not there yet. Now when women, at least some of the research that I've actually seen, women are driving 70% or more of consumer spending in the United States today. Is that not really just a big hammer to hit these companies over the head with and say, "Look, guys, this is impacting either positively or negatively your bottom line from a products, a service, or a total brand standpoint." What are you doing, Fairygodboss, or what can you do at Fairygodboss to take this banner and ride it all the way up to every Fortune 500 company, because this matters? Romy: Right. Well, I mean, one of my favorite companies to talk about is General Motors, because they have a female CEO, a female CFO, half female board, and they've had like five or six years of record profit and stock price. And an interesting takeaway from them is they have a woman's network or woman's employee resource group as many companies do, and the way that the objective or the way that success of this woman's network is measured is in terms of their market share among female car buyers. Romy: And I've rarely heard a company so directly connect diversity efforts to the business outcome. But I think it's brilliant, and I think everyone should try to figure out a way to do that. And you know where you see it a lot? Where we're seeing it more and more is not yet in the consumer space, but in the professional services space. Law firms, consulting firms, advertising agencies. Increasingly, you're seeing that clients won't accept teams from providers that are not gender diverse, or diverse in all ways. Joel: So we've covered individuals and companies, and I want to talk about employer-specific real quick. And there's a lot of information out there in regards to job descriptions and how they should be worded to be inclusive of all, both men and women. For example, don't use words like aggressive or demanding, that somehow bullet points are more favorable to women. Do you put any stock in this research and do you give advice to companies using your service in regards to how they should actually structure their job descriptions? Romy: So I think job descriptions are terribly flawed anyway, right? For all humans. And so no, frankly we don't spend a ton of time on them because there's so much that needs to be fixed and there's so many reasons it hasn't been fixed, right? Whether it's legalities, whether it's complicated companies, whether it's ATSs, you name it, it is not an easy place. But that is also why it is our belief that if you're trying to attract female talent, it isn't about the job description. Women don't connect with job ... Nobody connects with job descriptions, but especially not women. Women want to hear stories. Romy: And I think a lot about years ago, a couple years ago, my husband and I bought an apartment and we went to all these different apartments and in every single apartment, he had his tape measure and he was checking out the HVAC and he wanted to understand the mechanics, and I wanted to know where the breakfast nook was and how comfortable were the kids' rooms. We had a completely different experience with the same process. And I really think that, and obviously huge generalizations here and everyone's on a spectrum, but women are inspired to confer and connect with a role in a very different way than men are. And that is why we lean heavily on the storytelling. We lean heavily on the role modeling. Romy: Women really react to and respond to hearing why this woman thinks her job is amazing, and how it fits into her life. And some of the best articles we've written, some of the most successful articles we've written, one was for fidelity and it was called "Why my career in finance has made me a better mother," and it really sizzled. It was all about how this woman had this very entrepreneurial experience being a financial advisor, fidelity and how they supported her and trained her, and she was able to be with her children when she needed to be. So really, really convincing women who might not have thought about this job or company to apply. Joel: Sizzled. That's awesome. Chad: So Romy, we thank you once again from the bottom of our hearts for coming on the Chad and Cheese Podcast. If our listeners- Romy: Thank you. Chad: ... want to find out more about Fairygodboss, where would they go? Romy: So please visit our site and register for our site at Fairygodboss.com. Of course, we are also on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're on LinkedIn, and you can email at us at info@fairygodboss, and I would love to talk to any of you. Joel: And soon to be on TikTok. Romy: Later to that. Chad: And again, anyone looking to be an ally and really caring about equity, inclusion, equality, check out Fairygodboss.com. Thanks so much Romy. Romy: Thank you guys. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. 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. #social #EmployerBrand #EmploymentBrand #FairGodBoss #Nexxt #Equity #gender #fairness

-- Listen to Crazy & The King PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. Joel: Hey guys, we're not going to do a show this week. In light of the recent mass shootings and El Paso, and Dayton. Chad and I thought it would be better time served for audience as well as ourselves, that we think about the world we live in, how we can make it better, how we can change it. This isn't a political message but obviously voting is sort of at the core of our country and how things get changed. And we hope that in this time that you would normally listen to our show that you think about what you can do to make the world a better place. Chad and I both have children, his older than mine but we both live with a new reality of fearing that our kids won't come home, and that's real. And we just thought that this would be a good time to reflect on life in our own families, and how we can make the world a better place. So, Chad. Chad: Yeah. So, guys, there are plenty of voices that need to be heard this week, and I don't believe, ours is one of them. So personally, I'm suggesting today, you look up Crazy and The King and listen to this week's podcast. They have insights I believe everyone should hear. Open your ears minds and hearts to change, so we don't have to endure these types of tragedies any longer. Because I mean, we're only better than this. If we embrace solutions which bring change. Joel: And special thanks to our sponsors Canvas, JobAdX, and Sovren who are always supportive. Joel: We out. Chad: We out.

By 2020, over 40 million Americans are predicted to be part the GIG ECONOMY. As such, platforms whose goal it is to support freelancers and solopreneurs are hotter than ever. However, not all platforms are created equal. The boys sat down with Communo CEO and co-founder Ryan Gill to dig into this smokin' hot trend. Take a glimpse into the future on this exclusive podcast from Nexxt. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your bridge to the disability community, delivering custom solutions in outreach, recruiting, talent management and compliance.​ Nexxt: Okay, so we've already established texting is probably the best way to connect with candidates, right? Plus, Nexxt stats show 73% of professionals are open to receiving job opportunities via text, and with a 99% delivery rate, you cannot go wrong. Those are two big reasons why you got to love Text2Hire from Nexxt. Nexxt: That's right Text2Hire from Nexxt with the double x, not the triple x. Nexxt: Nexxt has over 8 million candidates who have opted in to receive jobs via text, and you and your clients need qualified candidates. Nexxt can help you find and target qualified candidates who have opted in for job opportunities via text. And in today's competitive market, you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster. You need Text2Hire from Nexxt. Just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Nexxt logo to learn more about how you can gain a competitive edge with opt in texting. Text2Hire from Nexxt. It just makes sense. -- or JUST CLICK HERE 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 with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Che, che, che, che, check it. We just can't get away from the Canadians. That's all I'm saying. Chad: Can't. Can't. Joel: Guys, special show today. We have Ryan Gill co-founder of Communo, co-founder of The Gathering? Ryan: Yup. Joel: The number one marketing conference in the world according to multiple reputable sources. Chad: According to Chad Sowash, that's for damn sure. Joel: Who are reputable, yeah. Ryan, welcome to the show, man. It's an honor to have you on. Ryan: Hey guys, thanks for having me. I'm pumped for this. Let's get into it. Joel: It is technically your second appearance, although the first appearance we were all a little bit inebriated I guess you could say? So hopefully you remember the first interview. Ryan: You guys were I wasn't. Chad: Yeah, uh huh. Joel: I was being nice. Chad: Just again, for the audience, for listeners, we met Ryan at the gathering last year and just blown away by what was going on. And then we learned about Communo, which is a marketplace. Joel and I are totally geeked out, we love marketplaces. We're seeing a lot going on out there, and we thought, hell, let's bring Ryan on, he's CEO co-founder of Communo, have an expert who's in this every day and talk about marketplaces, gig economy, the now, the tomorrow, kind of the evolution. So that's kind of the setup. Joel: By the way, the only thing we love more than marketplaces, is Ryan Gill. So how appropriate that he's on the show today. Ryan: Yeah, that's what I like to hear. Joel: So, few of our listeners know who you are, so give us a brief on what you do and what sort of gives you energy, and then we'll go into Communo because a lot of our audience has never heard of Communo, but they probably should. Ryan: Yeah. Really, the Coles Notes version is, I think from a high level for those that want to get to know me just as a human, is I've been in businesses 21 years, that'll be coming up, of running businesses, starting them. But I think in the last decade I became a bit more self-aware to know that I'm a true entrepreneur founder CEO, not an operating CEO. So that's a little weird background to start. But I basically became more self-aware about who I am and what I'm good at the last 10 years, and more closely the last five years that I'm really good at starting businesses, building the culture, building the core founding team, and then getting the hell out of the way because I'm an awful operator. So, that's who I am as a person. Everyone says serial entrepreneur. I hate that word. I have multiple companies but one vocation and it's building communities. Joel: And I'm going to give you a little shout out in that if you don't follow Ryan on LinkedIn, the videos that you produce on a regular basis are fantastic. Chad: Dabs. Ryan: Dabs. Joel: I just love the vibe and sort of the off the cuff. I feel like you say like, "Hey man, roll the camera," and then you just have thoughts just spin off your head. It's great. Ryan: Yeah. Thanks for the shout out. And on Instagram it's @RyanGillShares or Twitter or Facebook it's Ryan Gill Shares. Follow, and why it's important, and for me it's not a plug because it's actually, most of its embarrassing or some might think, "Why are you sharing that?" But the premise of Ryan Gill Shares and why we started doing it about 18 months ago, it's very, very new, is I built many companies and had lots of success and lots of failures, and I chose to do this new startup Communo in the marketplace business, which we're going to get to today, in the ad tech space, and when I did it I said, "You know what, I love podcasts, I love watching content on social, I think social can be great, but it's often waxing poetic about what happened after they'd been successful or they'd been a failure." Ryan: I was like, "What if we could document the journey of the whole thing from the startup, the idea, to fundraising, to building your company, and then almost like a movie, play it back in a couple of years, three years, and then people can actually learn as we go." So it is off the cuff and it isn't scripted. It's whatever we feel is important to show about that journey of being an entrepreneur, which a lot of people don't show the good and the bad and the ugly. And, you know, we only put out about 30 seconds a day or a minute a day, and then we do 10 minute vlogs on Monday. Dabs films for like 12 hours. If we can't get 30 seconds, we're pretty horrible. So [crosstalk 00:06:04], but Dabs makes magic out of 12 hours of film. Chad: He does. He does. So let's jump into this. So we want to talk about marketplaces today. Tell us a little bit about Communo. It is more of a niche type of a marketplace. And then we'll start to spin off into kind of like what you're saying now in marketplaces and move from there. Ryan: Well everyone that's listening, if you understand marketplaces and obviously HR and just talent, it goes like wide, narrow, wide, narrow. So Craigslist, one link on Craigslist was like bed and breakfast, you know, homes for rent, and Airbnb built a $100 billion company out of one list of Craigslist back in the day, one niche. And then it goes narrow, and then it goes wide again. You see like freelancer.com or Upwork goes wide. And I think, I'm betting on this, that it's going niche again. So although what I'm building with Communo was for advertising marketing professionals, that includes digital PR, everything that touch communications, it's a $35 billion industry when it comes to just the talent recruitment industry for this niche. So yeah, it's a small niche, but it's fucking massive. Ryan: And so we started it about a year and a half ago. I stepped down from my other companies that I still own but don't operate anymore, and I took on the role about almost ... so we started a year and a half ago, about a year ago I took on the role as CEO and as a co-founder, and we're building a marketplace so people have real time access to the keywords, vetted talent, which is a managed marketplace. So millions of small and large agencies and solopreneurs can grow by getting and giving work more profitably. And the genesis of it is, it all comes from the top down. The clients' projects are not one, two year projects anymore. They're one month, six month projects, and you can't possibly staff for that. It's impossible from a model perspective. There's such a need for it and we built it for ourselves to start with, and then, you know, last year this time we had a hundred users, now we're up to 40,000 users. So the market has told us it's a good idea. Chad: Holy shit dude. 40,000 users. Damn. So the cool part, and I mean this was really born out of your need through Cult, right, to be able to staff up and down quickly. So instead of going and building FTE shops, it just made sense to be able to be more fluid with the projects. So tell us a little bit about that and how the platform started to come together. Ryan: It's a very important point here, I'm glad you asked that. The FTE shop and the agency model isn't going away and Communo is not a disruptor, we're an innovator. It's a layer on top. It's a new piece of operating like QuickBooks would be or like ... It's literally the plumbing and so we're not going to displace the agencies. They're definitely going to get a lot smaller. And when Chris and I merged ... So Chris bought my other company, I had a digital agency called Suitcase Interactive through really late 90s early 2000s, and Chris Kneeland, my co-founder in my other businesses, when we merged and he bought my company, his first thing he said to me is like, we are peanut butter jam. He's like, "We want to go from tons of employees down to as low as we can go as far as FTEs and let's try this continuing workforce model," which we managed on a spreadsheet back in the day, "And see if it can work and see if it affects our top line and our bottom line. Let's do an experiment." Ryan: So from day one, this is 2011, we operated like that and started to narrow down our company, which was called Cult Collective. It's still is, it's a marketing engagement firm that does work for fortune 500 companies around North America. It's very successful and done well. But I would argue our biggest piece of success and why it was successful was our operating model. That's not sexy until it is, right? And so, people started asking questions, "How are you doing that? How are you growing with such a nimble small team?" And we're like, we used to have lots of people and we've narrowed down, but we had a bench of contingent workers, gig workers, that we knew were great and we could bring them in and they could do a project and then we didn't have to fire them afterwards because they didn't work for us. They were moving on to someone else. Ryan: We started coining the term portfolio careers and I think it became popular by someone else. But Chris and I said, "Go out, we don't have a job for you for 1200, 1500 hours for the year, but we have like 300 hours. Go work for our competitors. It's fine. It's not a zero sum game." And not only did the talent love it, that worked for us, we loved it because it made us more profitable. So our top line continued to grow and our bottom line exploded because we didn't have this utilization problem that all agencies and most companies deal with when it comes to human capital. Ryan: We're in the business in advertising and marketing that our product is people. We can't have products sitting on the shelf for six months and not being used. That causes a problem. So we solved it through ... At the time it was called The Collective and now it's morphed into Communo. The best startups, people that are listening, are usually ones that are built for yourself to fulfill a need. And we did that. Chad: Yeah, Slack. Joel: Yeah, Slack. A constant criticism of platforms is sort of the race to the bottom in terms of wages. How does Communo fight that and what are sort of your thoughts on how Upwork and Fiverr and whatnot are really driving down the cost for a lot of professionals? Ryan: Yeah. I have friends at Upwork and Fiverr and Freelancer, so I love them. So that's a little asterisk beside what I'm about to say. I hate those platforms and I hate their model because as a creative myself, I started out as a writer, it is just literally a race to the bottom. I think they'll be around for a long time. There's always a need for the corner store or Walmart. That's what I think of them. But I do think they're important. Communal wouldn't be where we are without them because they led the way. And like I said, there's great people there, but the model is just ... the actual people, they're like roadkill. It doesn't matter how cheap they get sold for, it doesn't matter, there's no real guidance on what people should be paid. They might say they do it, but proof is in the pudding and the members that leave Upwork or Freelancer and come to Communo, the first thing they notice is we don't have a job under a thousand dollars. We don't allow the slider under that number. That's just one of many things. Ryan: We do not take commissions. We're a subscription based model so they can prepare and they can hopefully budget for what they're going to pay. A lot of them join Upwork or Freelancer because it's free. Great. Guess what? It's not free. It's expensive. So those are things that, again, I don't think they're bad people and I think they'll be around for awhile, but if you're going to create a cult brand, which we're trying to create with Communo, you've got to have some enemies and they're definitely my enemy. Ryan: Shots fired. Joel: You're talking about vetting candidates. That seems like a real scaling issue to me. Talk about that process at Communo. Ryan: Let's go back to startup economics, they call it unit economics. In a managed marketplace like ours, we have three different types of people in our platform. The very top of the funnel is what we call extended network. They join our platform for free or for marginal, a very small fee, and they are not vetted except for we run a thing to make sure they're not criminals basically. Ryan: And then anyone who's verified on our platform, we definitely run the background check to make sure they're not nefarious or criminals, we have a scraping tool that checks their LinkedIn, their website, and it gives us a green, red, yellow light to say, "Should we vet these people deeper or are they good enough to be on the platform?" It's verified that they are who they say they are, so you still buy them at your own risk. Ryan: And then we have true vetted and they pay more money to be vetted. So obviously, again, extended network pays a little bit or nothing, verify pays a little bit more, but vetted pays quite a bit compared to our other platforms. And the unit economics work, and it doesn't affect their scaling because we can hire more people than other marketplaces to work on that onboarding to make sure they are who they say they are. But are they good? And one of our early taglines that was such a mistake, that I'll share with your listeners, one of our taglines was experts always. Seemed like a great thing, cool to say. I've been in the business 20 years, 80% of the work done in advertising and marketing, digital firms, PR firms, is not done by the experts. 80% is done by the juniors, the intermediates, and that's just facts. And clients know that too. But those juniors and intermediates need to be good. Ryan: And so we took that tagline off and we really started to say, "Hey, you want on our platforms some junior to expert because that's where 80% of the work gets done. You don't want to be paying $400 an hour for an expert unless you need them." We do have senior people on the platform, very strong ladies and gents, but back to your point, why we can vet them and spend so much time and so much manpower internally and have more FTEs on our team, is because the unit economics work. Where the other companies, they need scale, and they'll just let anyone on because they're taking commissions and we don't have that problem. Chad: So for clients who subscribe, and I mean just from a marketplace standpoint, do you allow the building of benches or talent portfolios? Ryan: Yup. So we are adding the ... It's not live yet, I think it's next on the roadmap, is adding of tribes. We've limited ... we kind of make these tokens up in order to make sure we don't run out of people just to get everyone on the tribe. So there's 70 right now, 70 different disciplines on the platform. So you get 70 coins and you don't get them back unless they're relinquished to you from that person. If they leave the platform or something like that, you get it back. So you can have almost your entire agency virtual, you could have videographers, writers, art directors, and the cool part about the tribe is you can send direct work to them. But more importantly, community. We're not trying to build a transactional marketplace, although transactions ... and we've had millions and millions of dollars of transactions happen in a short time, it's more about that true social connectedness and hopefully that tribes piece of our business, and our feature, allows people to actually get to know each other. Ryan: So when they need each other, and maybe it's not just for work, it's support or they have a question, they can either use a video piece of our platform or they can send a message out to their tribe and know that ideologically those people have received their invite to be in their tribe and vice versa. So they can be a bit more vulnerable and ask for help when they need it. Or scale up with speed because they trust them already. So we have a couple toggles on our platform, which we should get you guys on to test it out, but when you post a job, you can either post it to the open market, you can post it to your tribe, or you can send it direct to a member that you already know. Ryan: And the reason why people do it, you know, disintermediation, of course, you know that term, we don't care about disintermediation because it's subscription business. We're not a commission business. So if they take it offline, good for them. We are trying to build in a loyalty program that don't want them to do that. Not because our model will be affected, we just want to track the online transactions and see what's happening just from a data perspective. Hopefully I answered your question. Chad: Yeah, and it seems like it'd be more efficient to manage it in the platform anyway, have everything set up, your tribe, and not have to work offline. You have everything in one platform. So going back to the race to the bottom, I would think that talent feels like they're on that race to the bottom and it doesn't feel good, right? That damages a brand. So what would you tell a company? We met Justin, you brought Justin Gignac from Working Not Working, there's kind of like the same scenario where it's like, "Hey look, you're coming here not for a race to the bottom." It seems like that's where companies would want to go. They'd want to come to Communo, they'd want to go to Working Not Working because they want to build a brand that's not a throwaway brand. Right? Ryan: And when you say brand, yeah, so the difference to ... Shout out to Justin, Working Not Working, I'm a fan, but our models are very different. Justin's model's great. They're open to clients, so when you talk about brands building brands, that would be more applicable to them and 100% if Justin was here, he would say, yeah, that's what they're building and kudos to them. And it's not a race to the bottom on their platform, which I love. Ryan: I actually just flew Justin in to speak at our Summit. I think more CEOs, this is a total tangent, but stop thinking your competition is your enemy. You should be partners. And so I'm trying to build that bridge with Justin, we had him speak at our Communo Summit last week. Justin's platform Working Not Working is open to clients, so that question would apply more to him, so I can't answer that really. Mine is a closed marketplace, meaning it's only for agencies and marketers and solopreneurs or freelancers that do marketing type work or digital work. And so that's on them to figure out whoever their client is, what they're doing for them. Ryan: We're the matchmaker and making sure they get the talent and 100% we want it to be vetted talent and strong talent because they're going to either continue to come back to Communo because of that talent and we fulfill our promise, but there isn't a race to the bottom because I think, again, ideologically, why we made it a closed marketplace, which potentially, I'm using air quotes, can make it smaller, but it's not, is because people know what each other's worth. If a plumber comes to your house and you're a plumber and they're there for 15 minutes, they're like, "$300 please," you know that the handle was $200 and his hourly rate was $100 or $50, whatever it is. Ryan: In these open marketplaces like Upwork, you got people that don't have a clue what a video is worth or what a writer's worth, and so they just say, "Yeah, 50 bucks or 100 bucks." Where in Communo, the buyers are educated because they buy those services every day. And so to the plumber metaphor, in our business, it's like writers are buying from writers and so they're not undercutting them. Truthfully it's a slap in the face. And so I really feel like we are a shield in front of the creative industry saying, "Let's just let the agencies continue to deal with clients and they can set the prices and then they come to our marketplace to get talent that's good at what they do and everyone's getting paid fairly." Joel: I love that you mention plumbers and that sort of rolls into my next question. You see platforms not only in the digital space where you live, but also on bricks and mortar or offline businesses as well, right? So we all know Uber is an obvious example, but Chad and I on the show have talked about restaurant platforms where you can have gig workers or freelancers come in and serve food or cook food, et cetera. Do you think the same rules that apply to a bricks and mortar sort of a gig platform or solopreneur platform are the same ones that sort of impact the digital? Or are there differences between the two? Ryan: I think they're similar and the revenues are predicted to, by 2022, to be, for marketplaces in general, like 40 or $50 billion driven by the sharing economy. And I think the rule ... so they're similar, but the rules are different that I think because it's like a real battle out there in the brick and mortar because it is dying a bit, right? I don't think it'll go away, but just dying. So everyone's squeezing pretty tight. Where in the sharing economy or in these marketplaces like mine, everyone's coming in and it's in the name sharing. So there's this real generosity and you get exposed pretty quick if you're not that in a platform like ours or others like it. And I think what's interesting from a philosophical standpoint, why marketplaces from the digital perspective are growing so fast, I think it comes from the mindset that comes with sharing. Ryan: And so I don't know if that answers your question, but I think that's a really macro way to look at it, that everyone's squeezing real tight in the brick and mortar, and so there is no collaboration, everyone is trying to grab at things. And when you have a bunch of takers, things dry up pretty quick, where in these other platforms we're ... In Uber ... I literally refuse to take taxis now, I'm done. I actually lost a client. They don't care, but I think ... Also, I don't blame them for not ... They're feeling the squeeze, so they're squeezing more, and then they're looking for a tip or they're looking for this or that. "You don't have cash on you? What the hell?" It's like, "Who the hell is cash on them?" You know, those types of things. And so they're just squeezing real tight and guess who feels that? The end consumer. And so when the end consumer starts to not like it, they prefer a digital alternative and so they a digital alternative. Joel: I'm glad that you brought that up as well because you have some pretty strong opinions on what a freelancer is and what a solopreneur is. And when you said, you know, sort of the freelancer doesn't have sort of the buy in that may be a solopreneur does, talk about your difference of definition in those two and why one fits in nicely in maybe your economy and the other doesn't. Ryan: Yeah, for Communo alone, this is my lexicon. We actually have three different types of members. We actually have five, but small to midsize agencies, everyone understands, and then enterprise agencies are the two other of the five. But here's the three that I have delineation between, gig workers, freelancers, and solopreneurs. Here's my definition. A gig worker is a craft person with full time employment, looking for supplemental income maybe on nights or weekends. Cool. You know our 500,000 users and members over the next few years, it's a small percentage that will be those types of people. They're good people, we want them on the platform, but we're not even going to charge them because they're not adding to the marketplace. Ryan: Then there's freelancers. Freelancers, in my opinion, are full-time independent contractors seeking to be fully billable via project based work. Great. They're the next best thing. They're not the best, but they're just looking to sell 40 hours. They're probably going to work 60, but they're not business people and they might get mad at me for this, but that's okay. They're really just employees working in a different set of rules, their own time maybe, they're still selling 40 hours and that's not bad. Some people are fucking happy that way. That's great. Ryan: Our core member, and I want to know who created solopreneurs because I feel like Chris and I, we were talking about using those words early on, but I want to find out who coined the term because it's awesome. Maybe you guys know. In my opinion, they're full-time independent contractors, much like freelancers, very different than gig workers for sure, but much like freelancers, but they're building a business and seeking contingent workers as their framework. That is their model. They don't want another employee. They might have one, you know, EA or something like that, but their MO is to have no employees ever because they don't want that headache. And trust me, it's a headache. Ryan: It is, it is, but there's an upside too where entrepreneurs do want employees. They are solopreneurs and they always will be that way. And that is our core membership group. We're building about a $500 million business over the next five years, they make up for almost 300 million of our revenue because that is our core people. Why? And our investors ask us this, and VCs that are investing in us, why are they the most important? Because they're buyers and sellers, which is the greatest thing in the marketplace. You want to have those buyers and sellers. Chad: Yeah, yeah, no question. So what does a marketplace look like in five years? We know that there's so much energy that's going into it now, and people are still trying to figure it out. What does it look like in five years? Ryan: Yeah, it's the accepted way of doing business. When you ask that, and truthfully I'm like, "What do you mean five years? People already think of it better." And that's not a slam at you guys, even though I love to slam you, people think of it like that now, it's starting to become common verbiage and things, but people understand Amazon, which been around for a while, people understand Uber. The reason why service-based has been so difficult to crack, and it's a trillion dollar marketplace, it's going to be bigger than all of these other ones, is because it's trust, right? Uber did a bit of that. Amazon for sure did. Ryan: But it's more people, you're not buying products. And if we can, and this isn't a slam to my members, but if we can SKU our members, meaning we've forced them to verticalize, like to make sure that they are experts in something, they can do a lot of things, but why we push our members, even big agencies and small or solopreneurs to have one or two pieces of expertise on the platform, is because as you guys know, browsing is over in a marketplace. Ryan: You're not typing in marketing person, you're typing in VR, or blockchain expert, or you're typing in logo designer for automobiles. Chad: It's crazy specific. Ryan: Yeah. And so I tell people shop for people and so we're trying hard from a vision perspective ... Part of my job, which we should probably get into, is who will win in the marketplaces in the future. And I'm not patting myself on the back, but it's going to be who has the best vision and can communicate it the best from a CEO perspective and defining that strategy and what you're trying to build and communicate it to your marketplace first and your staff, and then the market, I think. Ryan: When I think about SKU'ing people, it's not negative. It's actually a good thing because the marketplace is now going online, but they're not typing in find me a marketing person or even a web person. They're typing, I need a mobile website for the travel industry. Who's going to win? The person that puts mobile developer or the person that puts mobile developer that only does travel websites? Chad: Well, here's the thing though. Here's the thing. That's what I'm talking about. So you know, as we start to get better at this, and when I say we, I'm saying the agencies even more on the direct employer side of the house, we understand the platforms better. Now I mean, you're working with agencies I think who, from an adoption standpoint, from an understanding standpoint, they get it much more than direct employers. But on the direct employer side of the house, I think they're starting to get that they need to be more specific. What exactly do you need? You're right, you're not trying to do the job description thing. You're looking specifically, what you need to fill a gap for a project. Ryan: Yup. 100%, and that's why membership and subscription model's better too, because it forces, again, I think it's Nassim Taleb that talks about ... Anyways, it's about charging people for stuff. They see more value in it. And so instantly, when they're paying 99 bucks a month for their subscription, they're going to care more about their profile because their profile is going to really drive what the ... it's like the front door to your, if you were talking brick and mortar, what does it look like? People understand what they're buying and are you only going to get buyers to come in? And so the reason why our model works well is because they pay, they're going to take more care and attention into their profile, which then makes it easier for people to buy from them. And so it's this nice circle. And then if more people buy from them, they invest more in that profile, which is basically their storefront. And it's just this good positive circle, positive feedback. Joel: Hey Ryan. Most, most of our, well not most, but a lot of our listeners, and I'm sure people on your platform are younger, so let's say 35 and younger, they've never really known a bad economy for the most part in their professional lives. Everyone on this call is old enough to remember many recessions throughout our lives and particularly a really bad one about 10 years ago. I'm of the thought that the next recession, the next downturn, is going to expedite the growth of the sort of gig economy, the platform worker. Are you of the same mindset? What happens to Communo and other sites like yours when the economy goes to hell? Ryan: Yeah, we're trying to get ahead of it so we're a help rather than a, "Fuck you. I told you so." And what I mean by that is we're seeding the community and our industry globally as we grow globally over the next 18 months. Even people that say no to us or they say they're in, we're telling them when the recession comes, when the downturn comes, don't fire your employees or lay them off. Gift them a membership at a discounted rate. We'll be ready to give them a bridge or an off ramp onto something that they can start to use these platforms as a safety net. Ryan: And then it does become a meritocracy and everyone ... that word is hot right now. You're still going to have to be good, but it's going to weed out the people that are really willing to work. So if we're in a recession, it means there's also not a lot of work. So it's actually going to cut both ways so that hopefully they offload them on the Communo for a small fee and they help them get, you know, land on their feet and then it's on that person that's now on their own, but they don't have to be alone. Ryan: They can join our community and if they come in looking for true community rather than transaction, they'll succeed. If they come in looking just to get, which getting isn't bad, but it's the spirit of things, this overwhelming generosity on our platform helps our members know that they're not just in it to get, they should be in it to give and it's kind of like a positive reinforcement from the group. So I think it's coming very soon, I think sooner than people think. Ryan: And then secondly, there's going to be some winners and losers, like everything. It's going to be probably pretty sad still, I think, but platforms like ours will hopefully be a safety net for them to fall into. And then they're going to figure out they got to work their asses off just like they did at the agency or just like they did at the digital firm, to stand out. Ryan: Amazon's a great example. In the early days, Amazon went around knocking on doors saying, "Yeah, have your brick and mortar. Cool. But you should probably open an Amazon store." And a lot of them turned their nose up and now they're out of business a long time ago or they are heading out of business. Same with us. Like I hope these agencies expose their employees to our platform so when the recession does come, they're now like, "Oh, what should I do?" they know where they can go. Chad: Excellent, Ryan. Hey man, we appreciate you taking time, talking about marketplaces, again, talking about Communo and also hopefully you'll be able to come back sometime soon, talk a little bit about The Gathering coming up in February. We're really geeked about that, if you guys let us back in, that is. Ryan: Yeah, we're considering it. We might build a wall. Chad: Nice. Joel: Nice. Nice. Chad: Well dude, if somebody wants to learn more about Communo, where can they go? Ryan: Yeah, if there's investors out there listening, we're closing a seed round right now and then we're going into a series A round for 20 million, about 18 months. We're closing our seed round now, so if you want to get in, you can go to communo.com and go to the investor portion. For those creatives and agencies out there listening, just communo.com and also you can hit me up on social. Chad: Excellent. Yeah. Ryan Gill Shares. Joel: Ryan Gill Shares. Chad: Excellent dude. We out. Joel: We out. Ryan: See you everyone. 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. #Marketplace #GigEconomy #Communo #Nexxt #solopreneurs #Freelance #Upwork #FIVERR #Craigslist #Marketing #creative #media

The hills are alive with the sound of acquisitions! The latest - Recruitics acquiring KRT Marketing - is the fourth similar deal in just a month. The boys cover the news, as well as discussing how much is sucks to be Slack right now, pane view job search, Amazon drones and Monster's continued cluelessness. Enjoy and show our sponsors some respect: 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. James Ellis: Hey, this is James Ellis from The Talent Cast podcast, and you're listening to The Chad & Cheese Podcast. So perhaps, treat this message like an intervention. Why are you doing this to yourself? You have so much to live for. Why would you waste your time here, of all places? 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. So weird. Joel: Summer, summer time. Just sit back and you're invited to a barbecue that's starting at 4:00 everybody. Welcome to The Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous dudes. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: I am Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show another big acquisition shocker. Chad: Oh, hello. Joel: Slack is officially fucked, and we now have an expletive on our podcast. And Monster is still totally clueless. Chad: Again. Joel: Just sit back and unwind, because it's summer, summer, summer time, and it's also JobAdX time. JobAdX: "Nope. Nah. Not for me. All these jobs look the same. Oh, next." This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past your jobs. Just halfheartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it. We live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So, why do we expect job seekers to react differently, while reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? JobAdX: Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people and benefits, with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job seekers will stumble upon your employment branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection, and reducing candidate drop-off. JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment-branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites, to proactively compel top talent to join your team. Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing, joinus@jobadx.com. That's, joinus@jobadx.com. Attract, engage, employ with JobAdX. Chad: Well, hello? Joel: Hello. Chad: Hello. Joel: Milwaukee. Chad: From Millay-Waukay. Yes, it is gorgeous out. It is in the low seventies. And we have a rooftop bar thing that happens. So, after I leave here, after we're done with this, I'm going to go produce out on that wonderful area. And just enjoy my time here in Milwaukee. Joel: Very nice. How are the cheese curds? Is the question. Chad: Dude, yeah. Beer and cheese curds. If you come to Milwaukee, and you're not doing beer and cheese curds, I think that's just really a staple. Sound Effects: Boo. Joel: Boo on you if you don't cheese curd it up. Chad: If you don't cheese curd it, you might get sent to prison. Joel: Well, enjoy your time there. Are you staying the weekend? Chad: No, we're actually kicking out late tomorrow. But Julie is in heaven, because her favorite beer of all time is Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. We come in the airport, and they have a Leinenkugel's store. And I pointed it out to her, and she was like, "Oh my God, this is where I was meant to be." Joel: That would only officially be her heaven if the Obama's were in the bar with her, with being served by Pete Buttigieg. Shout out. Chad: Shout out. Okay. So, first shout out, I've got to do this. It's to CareerBuilder, because I think they're fucking with us. I really do. So, they are doing a Tech Talk at an event that is called, Your Brand As Told By Your Employees. And- Ed from Philly: Yo, that jawn is so lame. Chad: I don't know if this is, like- Joel: Do they have many employees left to tell a story? Chad: I don't know. This sounds like a comedy session to me, right? This just was the most ironic thing, and it was sent to us by a listener. Thank you very much. But CareerBuilder Tech Talk: Your Brand As Told By Your Employees. And from their standpoint, it's like, "You suck." Joel: Yeah. And part of the joke is, we found an article this week about how EMSI, the company they let go out of the spirals of hell, are now are now thriving outside of CareerBuilder's slimy hands. So, good job, EMSI. Chad: Yeah, good job. It's amazing what you can do when you get to get away from the hell scape which is CareerBuilder and Apollo. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Well, one company in the shitter drives us to one company doing great things. Our new sponsor, I think we need to to give them some love here. Chad: That's exactly right. Joel: Shout out to Happy Recruiter. Chad: Why Happyrecruiter.com? Joel: Why not? Chad: Because recruiters that are mad are not good for the company. You want a happy recruiter, right? Joel: Happy recruiter. So Dora is their chatbot. Chad: Yes. Joel: All the rage. If you're shopping for chatbots, make sure that Happy Recruiter's Dora is in your shopping list, at Happyrecruiter.com. Chad: Too easy, too easy. Joel: Too easy. Chad: Big shout out to The Chad & Cheese movie. It's out right now. It went straight to Betamax. Seriously. Seriously. Joel: Coming to a Blockbuster near you. Chad: That's right, straight to a Blockbuster near you. No, seriously. Check it out. You can go to ChadCheese.com. We have it on the homepage, or you can actually check it out on YouTube. Whatever you want. But I love the subtle British-like humor in the undertones, and how slick they shot the movie. Because it seems so serious. But then there are all these hints of, like, "These guys ... This isn't serious, is it?" And it's like, "No." We don't take ourselves that serious, it's fucking hilarious. Joel: Clearly the best 13 minutes you'll spend in your day, today. Chad: Exactly. And I think the ending really just pulls it all together. I mean, you will laugh, you will cry. It's a roller coaster of emotions. You'll enjoy it. Joel: I don't want to spoil it everybody, but, love wins in the end. Chad: Jim Stroud tweeted about The Chad & Cheese movie, and this is obviously one of his reviews, "I never thought I would ever hear the terms HR and orgasms in the same sentence, with all that making sense in the end. Only Chad & Cheese could pull that off, and still deliver the goods." Thank you, Jim Stroud. Joel: Full of surprises that benefits civilization. That's what you get at the show. That's what you get at the show. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Let me shout out to Gerry Crispin. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Our buddy, Ed, from Philly responded a while back that Jerry has really classed up the show. I couldn't agree more. In our five-piece series with Jerry- the last one came out earlier this week, called End Game. But I encourage you to listen to all the shows, if you haven't heard any. Jerry, thanks for playing along, and we'll chat again real soon. Chad: No shit, man. It was great stuff. Also, big thanks to Faith and Steven Rothberg for sitting down with Julie and me when we were in Denver, during Job Gate. To talk about how college is going to break the US economy if we don't get our shit straight soon. So, that's a topic that I think is center stage for our economy today. Not to mention, our economy effects everybody else's economy throughout the world, because we are in a global economy. And it was amazing how many people actually responded back, and that was obviously an important topic for them, too. So, thanks to Faith and Steven for that one. Joel: I love it when we get a little bit out of our comfort level, and talk about these bigger issues. Chad: Yeah. Joel: That's always fun. Chad: That's good stuff. Joel: That's always fun. Chad: Yep. Joel: Shout out to sponsor Talroo and Brazen, the two partner this week. Two tastes are better than one, as anyone from the 80s Reese's Peanut Butter Cup viewing will know. Congratulations to them, their partnership. Check that out at Talroo.com if you want to know more. Chad: Yeah. And my last shout out is to the Job Board Doctor, who we haven't talked about in a while. But he enjoyed the London Pub episode with Rob Prince from Talent Nexus. Who thinks we should bring Rob back on the show? Which will probably happen. Joel: Aren't we going to see someone, somewhere, soon from the Talent Nexus crib? Chad: Yeah, we're actually going see Jim and a Thomas. And it was funny because they said ... They're coming from London, so they said that they're going to come to Austin rent Harley's and find a shooting range. They want to have the Texas experience. Joel: And ride a longhorn. Chad: That's right. Joel: Yeah, yeah. Ride on mechanical bull do that. Do that. Yeah, I like when we do the live shows with the mics. We get some cool interaction particularly when we have guests. So it's no surprise that the doctor enjoyed that show. Chad: Events so ... Joel: Where are we going? Chad: In the next three months, that's all I have time for today kids. We're going to Tengai, ADA digital, and TNG for a live show from Malmo, Sweden in late August. I am fucking pumped for that show. Joel: I'm already searching for Viking museums. They got a few there. Chad: September 9th through the 11th it's Recruiter Nation Live brought to you by our friends at Jobvite. We also have a discount code for Recruiter Nation Live. It's ChadCheese@RNL. ChadCheese@RNL, so the code's going to give you $200 off the current registration. Joel: Don't forget to mention, this'll be our first a Aman Brar interview since he's been CEO at Jobvite. So I'm hoping to get some good content out of him while we're there. Chad: He's always a good interview. Joel: He's a great interview for sure. Chad: Always a good interview. September 24th and 25th going to Austin for TAtech North America. Joel: Death Match! Chad: Death Match! So we're really excited about ... How can you not be excited about fucking death match? It is such a fun program. The contestants that get on stage have a blast. It's really simple. It's a two minute pitch. We do Q and A at the end of it, four judges get together and we determine who the grand champion is. Can't wait to do that. Joel: Yeah bring it on baby. Death Match! Chad: The first part of October we're going to HR Tech in Vegas where we will be doing two live shows. They already have scheduled and HR tech go figure also has a discount code which is simply ChadCheese, which will give you $300 off the going rate. All access premium path. Check it out. Joel: How funny that we were banned from HR Tech last year and this year we're knee deep in it. I love it. Chad: Yeah. I think banned is a strong word, but yeah. Joel: It is a strong word. Chad: Last but not least, we're going to be in Paris. SmashFly is sending us to UNLEASH World in late October. So we're really excited about that. SmashFly, they're going to get their money's worth, I promise. Joel: Come on October in Paris? Chad: Yes. Joel: Bring on the wine, bring on the croissant. I love it. Chad: We need SmashFly gear to be wearing all around Paris. Joel: Yeah, obviously I get that thong ordered there Jay-Z. Chad: Time for topics. Joel: Big acquisition. Chad: Okay. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to start this off with a tweet from Steven Rothberg from a few weeks ago or actually last week. And he said, "So apparently TMP is already notifying publishers that they're leaving APPcast in six to eight weeks. Wow, that's fast." And then Recruitics says, "TMP hold my beer." Acquires KRT marketing. And so I've got a personal story behind this. It's a podcast story. A couple of weeks ago I asked, did Recruitics make the wrong decision because all these programmatic players are getting gobbled up. Did Recruitics make the wrong decision by pivoting to an agency model instead of just staying a pure programmatic player? Chad: And Josh pretty much said, Sowash you're a dumb ass, which I think is awesome. For these guys to be able to do what they're doing and grow and really change the game itself. TMP bought a small programmatic player I've never heard of, but I think that's awesome. In this case we're talking about, especially here in the US, we're talking about two players that everybody's heard of. KRT is the nerdiest of the nerds. They've branded themselves as programmatic plus. And really knowing what programmatic is when talent acquisition can't spell programmatic. Chad: And then Recruitics really deep into, obviously programmatic, distribution, and analytics. I think this is probably one of the best marriages that I could have seen. I didn't see it coming. I think this is awesome. Joel: Yup. And this is, I believe the fourth deal like this in the last month. So programmatic and their marriages with others continues to be hot. What really stood out to me was that it usually is the agency that buys the tech and not the tech that buys the agency. So in the mid-2000s you had agencies try to build it themselves. And they kind of learned that that was sort of a bad thing to do. And then it was just like, let's partner, let's just be agency consultants. And now the trend seems to be let's buy people that know how to do the technology and bring them into the family. But this is first time I can think of where the technology buys the agency. Chad: Yeah. I mean, Recruitics really was an agency, but you're right. They were more heavy on the tech side than they were the agency side, I feel. And this was, I think, beautiful move from their standpoint to say, no, we are an agency. It's a great acquisition from a talent standpoint. When you're bringing a Ryan Christoi, Mona, Olivia, all those different, just incredibly smart agency people, and a portfolio of business with you, dude, that is fucking genius. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really interested to see, you know what Shakers, Bayard's, the other groups move will be. And if they make any move into this space. Because the anti is being upped if you will and it's their move. We'll see what happens. Chad: Well it's not just the anti's been upped, but you know that all the programmatic players that are out there today, what they were getting perspectively offered two months ago, has gone up dramatically. Joel: Yeah, probably. There are a lot more buyers than there are sellers. Now we did report a while back that at least one insider thought Appcast took too little money. I think 93 million was what they got, and this person thought they could have gotten a lot more. But that set the market, right? Just when a star athlete gets paid first, then all the others come in with an already made price tag. And that seems to have happened in this market. Once Appcast went, everyone knew what their price tag was and deals were starting to get done. Chad: To round this out, I'm kind of biased because both of these organizations were critics and KRT. Whenever we talk shit about them, they always respond back, and they want to be a part of the conversation. And they really understand what we're trying to do here at the podcast. We're trying to push the conversation. We're trying to ask the hard questions and they've always engaged, always engaged. Whether it's behind the scenes or it's out in front of everybody. They've always engaged and that's what I love about these two organizations. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Good people. And I joked with one of them, I don't know if he'd want to be named so I won't. But I said, I said, And just a little information we've been trying to get probably both of them to sponsor something on the show for a long time and they've always dodged us conveniently. But I said, "No wonder you haven't been advertising. You've been saving all that money up for acquisitions." So they got a kick out of that one. Chad: All, I have to say is hold my beer. Joel: Hold my beer. Yeah. Very nice. Well done. Recruitics and KRT. Chad: I love it. Love it. So Slack. Joel: Is fucked. Chad: Yeah. So it's interesting because they've just really done a big change in infrastructure to be able to make their platform much faster. And you would think that we would be talking right now about how Slack is going to continue to do well in the market. Although, I don't think either one of us see it that way. Do we? Joel: Yeah. I think we're both cautious on Slack. Obviously there's still a potential big story. But came out this week, Microsoft surpassed 13 million daily active users on their team's platform. And that's a two year company, right? That's as old as the podcast. So in that time they've already surpassed Slack in terms of users. And I think there are a lot of similarities to the job board game versus the platform game. And these platforms just have so much power through their numbers that they can just flip a switch and have millions of numbers overnight. Joel: So when you look at Slack with zero platform competing with, oh, I don't know, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook to have users on basically something that's a commodity. They're in an uphill battle and they better become a platform themselves if they're going to compete. But I think neither of us think that if they build a platform that it's going to be competitive with what Microsoft and Google has already built. Chad: Yeah. I know that they are doing some type of partnership with Google and who knows where that's going to go. But they're really trying to replace email. And I'm not saying that Google is not looking to do the same thing from an evolutionary standpoint. From the article, my biggest focus was Microsoft is using all channels available to market teams aggressively. Including through channel partnerships that sell other Microsoft products. We're talking about sales infrastructure. That is amazing, right? Chad: So if you just inject teams into a sales infrastructure, or into a suite of services that already powers a lion's share of the systems that are out there today. It's like, Holy Shit, dude, how do you compete against that? The only way you can compete really is defined in organization like a Microsoft. Get acquired, have deep integrations, but they have to do something. Joel: Which is why Amazon, as I've been predicting for two years, will be buying Slack and plugging into the network. It could be a possible acquisition for Salesforce as well. They're being predicted to come in a big way. Buying Slack would definitely put them in the conversation. Chad: Yeah, and as I've said before, I really hate their fucking Chatter product, so maybe they can show- Ed from Philly: Yo that jawn is so lame. Chad: Yeah maybe they can run Slack in, let's see. Joel: Well, speaking of a company whose technology does not suck, let's get a quick word from Canvas and we'll talk about T-Pain or Pane View or something. 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. Joel: T-Pain. I don't really have the voice for the machine to do that. Chad: So yeah. We talked about the whole Two-Pane scenario when Indeed went to it and then Monster went to it. Yeah, and this whole Two-Pane. So really quick, it was very simple before when you would go to Indeed and you would click on a job, it would actually take you to where the job sat. And in many cases that was on the employers applicant tracking system. So it took you away from Indeed, but it actually popped up a browser, which you can get rid of. But, still it took you away from Indeed and the browsing, it kind of made it jumbly. Chad: So what they did was they instituted this Two-Pane scenario, which you'll find on some of the other shopping sites that are out there. And you can click on it and then the description opens up in Indeed. So it doesn't take you to the corporate site. It's just a better user experience for the job seeker. Now, Chris Forman, just did an article ... Joel: Appcast. Chad: Yes, from Appcast. Just did an article on ERE around Pane View. Did you read it? Did you get a chance? Joel: Chris has more money now than us by the way. Chad: That's not saying much, but did you get a chance to read it? Joel: I hope he's in Fiji listening to this. Yes, I did. I did. And ERE article. I think everyone agrees that it's probably better for the job seeker. You're not jumping to different pages, different sites. Obviously that is more convenient for them. I think where the argument comes in is, is it better for the job site/employer whose jobs are being Paned? I guess is that a verb? In this process. Imagine if Google did this. Imagine if Google, if you clicked on a result and it opened up a second window within Google of the site that you were searching? From a user, you could argue that's nicer. But websites would freak the fuck out because they rely on traffic, and retargeting, and selling ad space, and doing all that stuff. Joel: So the verdict is definitely out on whether or not it's better for the advertiser from a user perspective. But I'd say also from a cost perspective. And Forman talked about how the amount of money that you're paying per click now is going up quite a bit. Almost doubling, I think, in his article. And the cost per applicants that are clicking on those jobs is going up because fewer are applying. Because it's more or less window shopping than it is actually test driving when you do this. So the job site is making more money and the employers paying more money, but the results they're getting are going down. So you could argue that it's bad for the employer/ job sites. Chad: Yeah. So the old click model where you actually went to the employer's website was about 6.5% of the clicks went through. Were actually for paid advertisers, went through and completed the application. Now it's only 3.5%. So it's been cut dramatically. It's driving higher costs per application prices. The effective cost per applicant from Pane View publishers has doubled year over year due to the overall conversion rates. So here's the thing, and this is the really important piece. Is that if you are an employer, and you are paying for these amazing experiences on your website. Chad: And you are paying to get that job seeker to your website to be able to have that experience, that great experience, it's going to happen less as much. Half as much. And you're going to be paying double for that. So is this great for an employer and that experience? And the big question is, should they just start pulling their money from these sites that are Two-Pane? Joel: In a perfect world, this would drive a cost per applicant model. So it wouldn't really matter if they're coming to the site or doing it on indeed or monster. You're only paying if someone applies as opposed to per click. But I've heard no uproar from employers at this point saying if you're going to do Two-Pane or Pane View, then you need to have a cost per action or applicant model. But I think if the Pane thing continues, there needs to be some grassroots effort to get this thing from a cost per click model to a cost per applicant model. Chad: Yeah, well and I think agencies overall, they are in the best position to do that because they're the ones controlling a lot of the programmatic spend. So they can have these discussions and I understand that there is an agency group now. That they're having these types of discussions and if there was a group that could move the dial, it would be that group. Joel: It is very important to talking about programmatic. Because if the algorithm is deciding where the clicks are being paid, and where they're most efficient, then the Pane model puts the job site at a disadvantage. Because you're paying more for clicks. Too many clicks that aren't resulting in applicants. So if you're using the Pane View with programmatic advertising, you may be shooting yourself in the foot. Because the dollars are going to go elsewhere because the cost per click is too high. Chad: And that's what you get for Two-Paning it. Again, I mean it's, the thing is that you definitely want to have a great job seeker experience. But if you're an employer, isn't that your job to ensure that when the job seeker comes to you, they have a great experience? That's the hard piece, right? Because most companies, most hiring companies, they have a shitty experience. And if you are in Indeed or if you are a Monster, it's like, look, you guys have shitty experiences you always have. We want them to have a great experience, at least when they're with us. But the problem is for Monster and Indeed who's fucking paying them? Joel: Do you have any predictions for the fight? Chad: PAIN. Joel: PAIN. Chad: Yeah. I don't think companies are savvy enough to even start having this conversation. That's why I said that agencies need to start having this conversation. I understand that it is more money for them, there's no question. But they're there to do what's best for the client. And overall, I don't think doubling the price with less applications especially in a world where they're really focused on the user experience on the corporate career site. I think we leave it up to them and we start to have conversations with them to see where they take it. Joel: Well, you know who is getting to a point where they don't have to worry about job ads because the robots are taking over? Let's talk about Amazon drones and the first ever totally automated warehouse in Japan. Chad: Dude. So the FAA actually approved Amazon drone deliveries. Now we knew this was coming. We knew this was coming but I just couldn't believe it happened. Yeah, we couldn't believe that it happened so fast. I mean, my God dude. Joel: Yeah. The government is usually pretty slow to adopt this sort of stuff and the fact that the FAA approved it is pretty crazy. You've seen the video with the blimp, the Amazon Blimp, with the drones flying out of it? Like it's something from aliens meets Terminator? We're getting to that future closer than we think. And it all starts with the FAA approving these drones. They're coming people. Chad: Yeah, it certainly does. And if you think about it, that blimp in itself could be a warehouse. And it has all the packages that you need to deliver. And there you go. And drones are just going back and forth and getting the actual packages to deliver. Again, this is incredibly interesting. It's funny because all the news reports they were all focusing on, well these drones, what's going to happen in high traffic areas? And those types of things. And I think the FAA will pretty much stymie those areas like New York City or something. Chad: But what I'm thinking, what you and I've talked about is I don't think it's a robot problem. I think it's going to be a human problem and people are going to be taking pot shots of these things. And that's where we're going to see the news go. What do you think? Joel: Oh, I'm buying stock in BB gun companies right now. Because every kid under 18 is going to be trying to shoot these things out of the sky until they get cameras and face recognition. And if you're found they'll cut off your Amazon Prime subscription to protect themselves. But fortunately for Amazon as well, those pesky employees who are peeing in trash cans and boycotting their Prime days, it looks like they're going to be a thing in the past too. Because in the same week we have the first fully automated robotized warehouse in Japan. Joel: Jd.com which one of the Amazon's of Asia. Mujin, I'm probably mispronouncing that. A startup spun out of Tokyo University has developed robot controllers that can fully automate warehouses and fulfillment centers. So bye-bye people. The robots are going to work the warehouse, they're going to load up the drones and all the middlemen in that story are going to be displaced. Chad: Yeah. We've talked about this. We've seen the robots moving products throughout warehouses and those types of things. This is something that we knew was going to come to fruition. Now we see it happening first in Japan, but it's coming people. We have drones that are going to be delivering. We have individuals in warehouses that aren't really having a great experience doing the job that they're doing right now. And more than likely are going to be phased out of it. Joel: Who knew that too drunk degenerates with a microphone would be such good at predicting the future? Chad: Shit just seems so God damn simple. Joel: And speaking of predicting great candidates, let's hear a word from Sovren and we'll talk about Monster who we haven't talked about in a while. So I'm kind of excited. 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. Joel: Excuse my cat in the background. She was forgot to be fed today, so she's not real happy with me. She's a monster if you will. Chad: She's a monster. Joel: And speaking of monsters, Monster.com, Scott Gutz CEO is in the news this week. Chad: Yeah. So this article, I'm going to take a different spin on it. They're talking about millennials, right? So what was the big focus on millennials around this specific article? Joel: Well, I would say millennials love AI and big data, and machine learning, which is what lip service Mr. Gutz gave for the article. Although we've seen a little out of that from Monster itself. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Well, from my standpoint, what stuck out for me was, in the talent acquisition space, I'm going to quote. "There's not been a lot of disruption and dramatic change over a 25 year period. Employers still place job ads online and candidates answer them with the little change to the process. Monster's downturn instead reflects its own failure to innovate while competitors started to capture market share from a natural evolution perspective." So first and foremost, Scott, you should be in politics because this is the biggest bullshit answer I've ever heard for at least a while. Chad: It is HR and TA slow to adopt, which is one of the reasons why we don't progress as fast as marketing and sales. Yes. Hell yes. Was indeed a disrupter? Fuck yes they were. Why? Because Monster, CareerBuilder, lack strategic understanding of the industry and mainly they felt invincible. That's how Indeed's innovation kicked Monster and CareerBuilder's ass. It might have been a deviation of something that was already happening online, but it was different enough to be able to disrupt. And in an era that we are right now, where most of the disruption ... Chad: Shit, we're talking about acquisitions all over the place. It's happening in front of their face, I just don't understand why they're saying there hasn't been that much disruption. How do you think Monster fell off the mountain man? You got kicked off because of disruption. Joel: Yeah. Someone made a better mouse trap. There's definitely a point to be made that you know there will always be help wanted ads in the windows. There will always be ads in the paper, ads online, and that's going to happen. The problem is that the world is changing, people's appetites are changing. How we consume media is changing and if you don't keep up with all of that shit, you're going to be in trouble. And I think more and more if you're not part of a monolithic platform or lifestyle, you're really going to be put behind the eight ball. Joel: My problem with with the article and I'll read you my favorite quote since were doing that. So my favorite quote from the story from Mr. Gutz was quote, "We are constantly evolving our monster technology stat so that we can build out in machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. We hope to be the innovator behind those important changes." We've been covering Mr. Gutz since he got at Monster. The only innovation that I can think of is they took off the banner ads from the site and they did some video. Which they partnered with VideoMyJob. And that's all for the innovation that I've seen. Chad: No, they went Two-Pane. Wait a minute. They went Two-Pane. Joel: Sorry. Sorry. Pane View. They still want to be the Instagram of jobs. Yeah. And they took banners off the site. So for him to be talking AI and innovation and machine learning is a fucking joke. Because life isn't what you talk, it's what you walk. Monster needs to start walking the walk because nobody's listening to the talk anymore. Chad: No. Well and he says they want to bring solutions to candidates and employers where they already are. And it's like, dude, you're fighting the wrong fucking fight, dude. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, is where the candidates and employers are. You've got to fight that fight. This is a lifestyle platform game now. If you don't know that and you don't understand that dude, you're going to lose. That's all there is to it. If you don't start to walk the walk instead of talking all this fucking talk, dude, it's over. Joel: At least I don't see those shitty commercials anymore. I think they took them off the air. So we've started with CareerBuilder and we're ending with Monster. Sounds about right. Chad: Yup. We closing the loop. We out! Joel: We out! Announcer: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? A podcast with Chad The Cheese - BRILLIANT. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all they talk about nothing! Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one. Cheddar, Blue, Nacho, Pepper Jack, Swiss. There's so many cheeses and not one word. Announcer: So weird. Any-who, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out! #KRT #Recruitics #Programmatic #Monster #Careerbuilder #Microsoft #Slack #Indeed #Amazon #Robots

Gerry Tales with industry icon Gerry Crispin was off-the-chain, and this is Part V, the last of our interview on all-things-recruiting. Enjoy, get smarter and show exclusive sponsor Nexxt some love. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Chad: Aho! Welcome to the last, the final chapter of Gerry Tales. This is Chad Sowash, and we are happy to have Gerry Crispin, the man, the myth, the legend in this volume five of Gerry Tales. Enjoy, after a word from our sponsor. Chad: Okay, so we've already established texting is probably the best way to connect with candidates, right? Plus Nexxt stats show 73% of professionals are open to receiving job opportunities via text, and with a 99% delivery rate, you can not go wrong. Those are two big reasons why you've got to love Text-to-Hire from Nexxt. That's right, Text-to-Hire from Nexxt with the double X, not the triple X. Nexxt has over eight million candidates who have opted in to receive jobs via text, and you and your clients need qualified candidates. Chad: Nexxt can help you find and target qualified candidates who have opted in for job opportunities via text, and in today's competitive market, you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster. You need Text-to-Hire from Nexxt. Just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Nexxt logo to learn more about how you can gain a competitive edge with opt-in texting. Text-to-Hire from Nexxt. It just makes sense. 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: You go to a lot of conferences, and that's putting it lightly. What is your sense right now on the health of conferences? Are there too many conferences? Are attendees getting exhausted with the number of conferences, or, just like the economy, are the good times going to roll for the foreseeable future? Gerry: Yeah, I think there's too many conferences. I really do, and I think people are starting to cut back. I think they're starting to think about it differently. I'm seeing ... Typically we see companies screwing up a little bit in terms of the end of the year. They don't cut your conference budget, but they cut your travel budget, so you've got money for the conference, but you can't get there. Well, that's not a really good excuse, so there's that. Gerry: I think there's another issue, and that is the head of HR, the head of TA or TM, often has a budget that allows for them to do some interesting kinds of things, but they're not the ones often who should be at the conference. It should be the people who actually operationally have to do stuff, the head of TA operations, the head of TA analytics, the head of university relations, the head of ... They're the ones who, by and large, need to have the budget for them to learn or to determine that there's somebody, a team leader, who could learn and bring it back. Gerry: Typically, if the global head, CHRO, goes to a conference that costs $5000, he or she does not come back and share everything with the people below them, and that, to me, is wrong. That five grand could've put five people in a conference, where they could come back and teach each other. Some companies, certainly I'm an advocate for that kind of approach, and I believe that peers should be doing a lot more to help each other. Gerry: One of the things that Chris Hoyt and I are trying to do is to identify, in various geographic locations, groups of recruiters and folks who are more team leaders and directors, who we could bring together to have a meet-up, where they talk to each other about an issue, as opposed to getting an expert in, somebody who's supposed to ... You know, if you think about what experts do, they basically talk to a lot of recruiters, and then put it together in a talk. Well, you know what? If the recruiters talk to each other, they don't need to spend the money on the expert. Gerry: Exactly, and you get more honest, transparent, open discourse about realtime issues. And then, they're more likely to engage each other online in a way that's open rather than superficial. That's our current effort to give back in some of the areas around the country. Chris just did a meet-up in Silicon Valley that one of our members, Intuit, helped to underwrite and sponsor, and basically, Chris basically got up and spent no more than 45 seconds saying, "Hi. We put this together so that you guys could have a conversation. End of speech. Go back to talking to each other." And the NPS scores on that were 100. And that's what they need. They don't need to be spoken to or taught, pitched, sold, whatever. They need to have quality conversations. Chad: Yeah. Last question from me, Gerry, because we've had you a long time, and we appreciate it. Joel: We appreciate it. Chad: On the ... Yeah, we'll get him back though too. On the employer brand side of the house, we know that there are so many disjointed systems. Companies are using early 2000 process methodologies to be able to try to slam it into technologies instead of trying to rethink how they hire. They have horrible user experience. What's the most, in everything that you're viewing in the employer brands side of the house, what is the most negative? What is bringing the most negative impact to that employer's brand today? Gerry: I think the biggest problem I see with employer branding, because certainly, the folks who are fully engaged in employer branding, want to provide quality information that attracts folks. I think the mistakes get involved in the execution more than anything else. There's an honesty that you see in just a few places, where they talk about, "Don't come here if this is what you're looking for," kind of thing, so that they can reduce the number of people who get attracted, and then focus on why you should come or why you might want to come to this organization. Gerry: There's too much customer-related marketing, which tries to sell people ... "If you've never tried this product, you should try it." That's not how you should be focusing on your career. I think the worst I've ever seen was typically among, in the era of Monster and CareerBuilder fighting over each other, was basically the statements in those ads were, "If you had a bad day, change your job. Come to our job board and find a new job." Don't solve your problems. Go find a new job. And that kind of approach is a little bit more nuanced now when you have employers who basically are trying to attract you for whatever reason, simply because they know you have a certain, I don't know, coding capability. Gerry: That's not a good reason to move from one company to another for an additional $10000, because you don't know what the hell's going to happen on that basis, and so I think the worst issues right now are spamming people with promises that are totally outrageous. And too often that happens with desperate recruiters in desperate times using all of the tools that they have, and just overshadowing their employment branding in ways that are not very real at all. They're cooking the books, if you will, about the kind of organization you're going to find. Joel: The companies that you work with, how are they currently viewing or approaching the Glassdoors, the Indeed reviews, Kununu, Fairygodboss? What's their strategy around that now? Chad: Do they give a shit? Gerry: They do. Joel: Is their head still in the sand? Gerry: Oh no, no. Their head's not in the sand. The problem is how to solve it. Some of those, like Glassdoor, and so I'll ... Let me deal with that one. Glassdoor can be criticized in a lot of ways, but obviously they're visible, out there. The problem is that there's certain elements of their model that developed over the years that are not that positive. For example, if I don't spend money on Glassdoor, someone else has more capability of using my page, because it's going to be there, to advertise and compete with me. And so companies use Glassdoor, in many respects, from a defensive point of view. Gerry: Now, they really need to be able to use Glassdoor in a way that they can collect data that they collect, not that Glassdoor collects, to determine whether or not they're getting the value that they input. Most of my members are split in terms of either being quote "all in" for any number of reasons. Or trying to find a way around it, and that's what's going on right now. They're all aware of a number of these organizations, but they need to be able to figure out how to best fit that in, or how to not use it. Gerry: And that's true even of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is, for some companies, is a crack addict tool that prevents them from using almost anything else, because, if that's where you can put the body in the seat, you're going to use it over and over and over, until you don't know how to do anything else. Joel: Hey, that heroin drip is nice. Gerry: To me, it's fascinating, but the cost ... But now, at some point, a corporation looks at their costs of each of their areas and says, "Holy shit. Maybe an RPO would be better?" And the point is, do you want to find yourself in a position where you're spending so much money on all of those recruiters tools that your finance folks, without your knowledge, go and find that they could do this a lot cheaper if they got rid of all of you? Now, that doesn't mean that that's the right decision. It might mean that you did not spend the time becoming more efficient and more effective. Chad: Yeah, and you don't want to put that in finance's hands, because they will look. Gerry: And you should be looking at it. You should know that that's the limit of what you can do. I need to be able to demonstrate that my organization, if I'm the TA leader, my organization not only does the job, but we do it more efficiently and more productively, and we give more value to the people that we're dealing with than any other way of doing this, and this is how we fly our freak flag. If we gave it to someone else, they might do an adequate job, but will they do it with the kind of enthusiasm and engagement that we want to see shared when they come in? Gerry: And that is an interesting set of questions. For some companies, they should be using RPO more. For other companies, they should be really thinking about how they can do the best job that they can do. And for me, my members, I only want a member who cares passionately about this subject of recruiting, who is fully impelled to improve, compelled to improve, has some thinking skills, so some critical thinking skills, and most important, is willing to share with one another, because I absolutely believe that peers and colleagues should be learning from one another before they go anywhere else. Joel: My brain hurts a little bit. Gerry? We know you're a busy guy. We really appreciate the time. Gerry: This was fun. Joel: Yeah, this was fun. We need to do this again next year. Chad: Or before. We find an event, the three of us sit down with cocktails, and then we have the same type of discussion. Joel: Ooh. Gerry: I'm in. Joel: Because Gerry knows a thing or two about good bottles of wine. Maybe we could leverage that. Gerry: That's true. Chad: Excellent. We out. Joel: We out. Chris Walken: Thank you for listening to ... What's it called? Podcast, the Chad, the Cheese, brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing, just a lot of shout-outs of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible, and not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss, so many cheeses and not one weird. So weird. Anyhoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way, you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. So weird. We out. #GerryTales #GerryCrispin #Events #EmployerBrand #Brand #Technology #Glassdoor

$1.5 trillion in student debt is breaking students backs, but it could also break the U.S. economy. Steven and Faith Rothberg who join Chad and Julie for a look at how College affects the workforce and our economy. Is college too big of a business to fail? Are all colleges treated the same? Why aren't more companies driving the talent conversation through investment? All this and more on When College Breaks The U.S. Economy podcast. Brought to you by Nexxt at Text2Hire - in today’s competitive market you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster, use Text2Hire Nexxt's answer text recruiting. 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 we've already established texting is probably the best way to connect with candidates, right? Plus, Nexxt stats show 73% of professionals are open to receiving job opportunities via text. And with a 99% delivery rate, you cannot go wrong. Those are two big reasons why you got to love Text2Hire from Nexxt. That's right. Text to Hire from Nexxt, with the double x, not the triple x. Nexxt has over 8 million candidates who have opted in to receive jobs via text. And you and your clients need qualified candidates. Nexxt: Nexxt can help you find and target qualified candidates who have opted in for job opportunities via text. And in today's competitive market, you need an edge to reach qualified candidates faster. You need Text2Hire from Nexxt. Just go to chadcheese.com and click on the Nexxt logo to learn more about how you can gain a competitive edge with opt in texting. Text2Hire from Nexxt. It just makes sense. 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. Chad: All right, hey, this is Chad. We have a cheese-free, that's lactose intolerant people are going to love this one. Julie: Or everyone. Chad: Cheese-free podcast. I have the Rothbergs, our favorite couple who obviously listen to the podcast. Faith Rothberg, the brains, and then we've got a Steven Rothberg, the, I still don't know yet what, what the, the brawn, the comedic, the, the comedic sidekick of, Steven: Of all the Rothberg couples that you know, we are definitely your favorite. Julie: Number one. Chad: Definitely. No. Yeah. And then we also have my beautiful wife Julie Sowash, the cohost of Crazy and the King podcast. Julie: Hey everyone. Chad: So that being said, here's how this goes. Our favorite couple, the Rothbergs, love us for our podcast, obviously. Faith: We do. Chad: And they said, you know what, we've got something that we want to talk about. So can you pull the mics out? Can we have a conversation? I said, hell, why not? I mean it's, it sounds like a good time. So we'll see how this turns out. You guys want to talk about college and we'll talk about some of the mess that we're currently in. Not to mention, start talking about some of the disparity pieces. So Steven, Faith what are you saying? I mean this is, this is actually your space. Steven: Yeah, so it's, it's definitely, it's an area of real concern for, so our business, College Recruiter, is a job search site for students and recent grads. And one thing that we've seen a lot since we went live way back in 1996 is just the incredible change in financial abilities and problems that students and recent grads are having. And a lot of it is due to the rapidly increasing tuition and student loan burdens that they're facing. And like you said, there's a huge disparity. So schools like Harvard that you mentioned, their endowment is so large that they could make every student, they could allow every student to go for free to Harvard forever. Chad: Yeah. Ridiculous, right? Julie: And Harvard is not cheap. Steven: Yeah, and it's exactly, Harvard is definitely one of the more expensive schools. And then on the flip side, and Faith pulled together some numbers, you've got historically black colleges and universities, HBCU as most people would refer to them as when they don't have 14 minutes, to where they're just literally struggling to keep the lights on. Chad: Right. Steven: You've got broken windows, letting in pigeons and shit like that. Chad: Yeah. Steven: And the, the disparity is incredible. And then we wonder why people who graduate from certain schools graduate making $120,000 a year and others are graduating making $22,000 a year. Faith: Yeah. I mean, absolutely. When we looked at some of the statistics, it's mind boggling. First of all, in general, there's $1.5 million of student debt right now. Steven: Trillion. Faith: $1.5 billion. Sorry, $1.5 trillion, which is just a number that I can't even fathom. I mean, how do you put your arms around $1.5 trillion in student debt? Steven: I could put my arms around $1.5 trillion dollars. Faith: The thing that's crazy is also like we said, how fast, not only tuition is growing, but how fast that debt is growing. Chad: Right. Faith: And when it comes to HBCUs, 70% of the students at HBCUs do get Pell Grants, which, which help a lot. But because of the increases in tuition, there's still a need for loans to fill the gap between what the school can help with and what those grants cover. Chad: And these aren't interest-free loans, either, in most cases right? Faith: No, in most, the interest rates are much higher than mortgage loans for us to have our own house. Right. I mean 6%, 6.8%. Julie: I mean the, the debt on my, or the interest rate on my student loans, which are set by Congress, the interest rates are twice of what my car payment or car interest loan is, more than twice what our house payment is, or our house mortgage. Yeah. And I'm really looking at a student loan payment that may actually be larger than our house payment. Steven: And if you were to file for bankruptcy, you could get rid of your car loan. You could get rid of your home loan and you could get rid of your credit card debt, but you can never get rid of your student debt. So that is going to hang over your head forever. Julie: Yeah, and I think there's a misperception too that if you have student loan debt that you don't want to pay it back, and that we're looking at political candidates who want to do student loan forgiveness and do all those kinds of things. And I think that's a misnomer. I don't have any problem paying back the debt that I borrowed. I do have a problem funding Congress and funding spending that I don't have any benefit to at a rate that's not reasonable. Julie: I mean we were talking really about, you know, the HBCUs and everything with black students coming out with substantially more debt than white students. You can't start to make up that wealth gap and that generational wealth gap that continues to happen with black and brown students until we start to put some parameters and some minimizations around how much they have to borrow. Because it's just like being a first time college grad in my family. I have more debt than my kids are going to have, but we're still, they're still going to have more debt than people who've been able to go to college and have less than loans for a long time. And it's just this cycle that never ends . Steven: Faith, you had some numbers on the indebtedness by students from HBCUs versus overall. Faith: How disparate it is. So for non-HBCU students, there's a, 55% of those students have student loans. But for HBCU students, 80% of the students- Julie: Wow. Faith: Have those loans. So it's definitely disparate. Right now, it says that black grads owe an average of $7,400 more than their white peers. And that's expected to triple over the next few years to $25,000 difference. Julie: Difference? Chad: Difference, yeah. Higher. So we talk about disparity, right? And this is the thing that really pisses me off, is that first and foremost, I understand that we want to ensure that colleges and universities are being run well. And you take a look at a lot of the research money that's going in. I believe Johns Hopkins actually receives more research money than all the HBCUs. Right. So I mean, so that, so that, I mean, just that piece of disparity in itself, where the money's actually being thrown to this one university, and well-known university, totally get it. But all these HBCUs are very well known as well. So I mean that's the thing is that we have this, the cycle of disparity and it even in the educational system. Faith: Oh yeah. We're totally perpetuating it by not having, they don't get the federal funding for research, like you said. And then, therefore their students don't get as involved in that research and they're not building... Many of the other universities can use that research money and give a better education to their students. And these HBCUs are just, they're basically just getting enough money to keep the lights on. And that's not the same thing. Chad: Right? Right. Yeah, they can't, they can't build on the actual, really the college, the university on the programs. Any of that right? Faith: And the curriculum, exactly. Chad: Yeah. I mean dropping football, dropping sports because it, it costs too much, right? Faith: Yep. Steven: Yeah, so when I graduated from law school way back and I'm hopefully a fully recovered lawyer, Faith will disagree with that most of the time, and the rest of the time she's sleeping. But when I graduated, the tuition at the school that I went to, University of Minnesota, top 20 law school, the in-state tuition was $3,500 a year and the out-of-state tuition was $7,500 a year. So fortunately I qualified for in-state, they made it pretty easy to get residency. But a friend of ours was just looking at going to, well, a friend of one of our kids is looking at going to law school and he told me that that law school now is $38,000 a year. Chad: Holy Shit. Steven: So it's gone up tenfold from what I paid. Chad: And the salaries, the starting salaries have not gone up tenfold. Steven: Correct. I mean lawyers, lawyers who come out of the University of Minnesota are certainly not generally going to be struggling to put food on the table. But when I graduated it was very, very common for somebody making $50-60,000 a year upon graduation. None of them are graduating, making 500 or $600,000 a year. They might be making 80, it might be, it might have gone up by 50%, but it certainly hasn't gone up by tenfold. And Faith pulled some numbers that in 2006, so 13 years ago, the total student indebtedness was about 480 billion, four eight zero, and then eight years later it had more than doubled to 1.2 trillion. And then just a couple of years later, in 2016, it was at 1.4 trillion. Steven: So as bad as it was a decade ago, 15 years ago, it's just, it's escalating. It's becoming exponential. Faith: It's accelerating. Steven: It's accelerating, thank you. It's becoming exponentially more difficult year over year over year. You know the mayor from near where you guys live, Pete Buttigieg, which he, and he and his husband have a hundred- Faith: I'm glad you can say that name. Steven: A lot of practice, a lot of practice, a lot of bourbon. He and his husband have $130,000 in student loan debt and if they're paying at 5% which would be pretty normal, but not on the cheap side, that would just be sort of in the normal bracket range of a 10 year loan. I think I figured that that was something in the neighborhood of like 40 to $50,000 that they would need to make a year to finance that debt. Steven: Yeah. An average student debt is like $40,000 a year at 5% over 10 years. That's $6,300 a year that they need to make because then you take taxes out of that and then $5,000 a year goes to your loan points. So if you're graduating in two, the average college grad makes about $45-46,000 a year. Right. And $6,300 of that right off the top is going to your student loans, and then you've got housing, which very normal in a second tier city, like in Indianapolis where you guys are, Minneapolis where we are, it's very normal for housing to be 1000 bucks a month. So that's another 12 grand. Before you know it, you've lost half of your income to student loans and housing, and then we wonder why people are living in their parents' basements. Faith: Not making it, yeah. Steven: It's because they're below the poverty line if they don't. Faith: Yeah. I think a lot of people that are older that went through college when we, when we did, they don't, they don't realize, unless their kids are in college and they're seeing these tuition firsthand. Chad: They didn't have this crippling debt. Faith: No, they don't really understand how impactful it is. Many of many of these young people assume they will never own a house because they're always going to have a student debt payment of $1,000 a month. And so it's really changing the, sort of the view point of what it's going to be like to live as adults, having families, making all these major decisions. Chad: So we see this impact. We saw the financial crisis right and, I mean this is, this is a crisis. This is literally could easily cripple our economy. Faith: This is the next boom bust, right? Like we had credit card debt. The only difference that makes it even worse and more scary is that you cannot discharge your debt. Chad: Yeah. Faith: So right now there's like 7% of, what was it, 7% one in seven people that have student loans are in default right now. When they're in default, these poor students in grads that can't pay for right for it, they end up getting bad credit ratings. They maybe can never buy a house, buy a car, get a mortgage, whatever. So it's, yeah, it really impacts all the way through their lives. Steven: Yeah, if you want to get an apartment, if you want to get a job, then landlords and employers are going to run a credit check on you. That's become very common. It's now, it's now unusual when a professional position does not require a credit check, and if you're in default on your student loans and your credit rating is four 80 or whatever, right? That employer's going to say, "Well, you must not know how to manage your money. I don't want you managing whatever it is that you're going to be doing here." Chad: Right. Steven: And so we're not going to give you a job, and then that just makes that worse. It compounds the problem. I want to go back to something that that Julie was saying too about the discharging of debt and it's something that I just don't think that most people appreciate, that for almost the entire, for almost the entire history of this country, bankruptcy was designed to be a fresh start and it was designed to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit for people to take chances and, because overall that benefits society, Chad: Right? Steven: Yes, there are going to be some people who go into bankruptcy who really shouldn't, but that's what courts are there for. And the creditors, the banks etc. certainly are well-represented by their attorneys. So I think the number of people who are really getting away without paying debt, that really shouldn't, is incredibly minimal. But when you have your home mortgage, your car loan etc., and you're paying two, 3% on those, and you're paying very often 8% on your student loans and those are risk-free to the federal government, then where is that money going? And I think your point, Julie, if I, if I understood it correctly, is you know, charge me the 3% that I would be paying on a home mortgage or a car loan and it's kind of within the realm of reasonable is, but when it's 8% what you're doing is you're having students subsidizing the federal government, or the it's, it's a tax on education. Julie: Yeah. And you think about too, another example is I work for a not-for- profit. So right now student loan debt forgiveness exists. If I make it 10 years at my nonprofit potentially, and so I've taken that risk that I will get to 10 years with that company and that puts me in a lower payment bracket. But the interest, I'm paying more in interest every year in that student loan, that income driven repayment plan. Then you know, my interest is more than my payment makes in a year and that's money that's not going into my retirement. That's money that's not going to fund my kids' college. And we've got, we've got one in college now and another couple potentially on the way in the next couple of years. And so we've got this kind of sandwich generation going on too where we're going to be paying off our college debt until I'm probably 60 if student loan forgiveness doesn't go away. Chad: Wait a minute, you didn't tell me that. Wait a minute. Julie: Yeah, no shit. Right? Yeah, I kept that one right under the covers til it was necessary. [crosstalk 00:17:14]. Steven: Wait a minute. Julie: And I'm going to be paying on my student or my kids going to- Steven: Why are you trying to take the ring off of her finger, Chad? Julie: It won't even get close to student loan debt. It's a beautiful ring, but it's not going to get up there. Chad: No, no, no. Not to mention, I'd like to keep my life. Julie: But yeah, I think that the overall, one other thing I was reading this morning when we were talking about this is that women have two thirds of the total college student loan debt. And so, it adversely impacts black and brown people, and the institutions, but it also adversely impacts women. And it keeps us from being able to start our own businesses, to put money into our retirement, to invest in ourselves and our families. And there's not a lot we can do about it, you know? I mean, I was a single parent while I was in college and I know I have more debt because I needed help with childcare. I needed help with expenses to keep the lights on at our house so that I could go to college. Even though I worked full time the entire time I was in university. Julie: And so you create this, it's just a trap. It feels like a con game, right? Because Congress has us, no matter what, we can't get rid of the debt, we have to pay whatever loan it is that, or interest rate they give us. And if we try to refinance, for example, to a private loan that would have an interest rate that would be half of what I'm paying now, I'm not eligible for any type of different payment plan. I'm not eligible for student loan forgiveness for my public service or anything. So you lose all of that opportunity to live today versus being able to pay off your debt and no one teaches you that when you get to university. Chad: No. Well, and pretty much what I'm hearing, go figure, the disparity piece, is that, you know, we want to try to again lift women up. We want to be able to lift brown and black people up. We want to be able to, to be, but this again, part of the cycle is pushing them down further because they're receiving more debt than white dudes like me. Right? I mean seriously, it, and again, we talk about how we want to have a level playing field and these are individuals who are trying to, they're trying to get that education so that they can go and make more money. The problem is they get this crippling debt right out of the gate, and they get more then the white dude like myself, I mean. Julie: It's just another great example of institutional inequity and I think most white people who appreciate their privilege, and you know, I'm white so I recognize that I have some privilege, but white men in particular who have the most privilege don't want to recognize that these institutional inequities exist. That the system is just what the system is and we just keep going and you suck it up, right? Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, be a good American and get it done. Chad: It's a hell of a lot harder to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you're not a white dude. Julie: Exactly. Chad: And Julie, last, because we're always talking about endowments and how there's so much money that's there. And this is ridiculous and there was no fucking reason for this. Not to mention you talk about all the kids at Harvard could go to school for free. Fuck that. They can actually take a lot of that money and help subsidize a lot of these other colleges and students, right? So I mean, this is, this goes beyond that of that one institution, that wealth begets wealth. This needs to be infrastructure that actually feeds itself. Chad: Not to mention one last thing. I really believe that companies need to be putting money directly into and help building some of these, these skills gaps, types of programs for development or bio-engineering or whatever it is. They need to be putting their own money into that because the talent that they're getting is going to be creating wealth for them, right? They shouldn't just be sitting there waiting for these guys to pop out and then bitch because they're not getting the, the skills gap right, right? If that's the case, put some fucking money into the Goddamn institution and start building pipelines that will help you get where you need to go. Steven: Yeah, one of our former US senators used to say that it's really hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don't have any boots. Chad: Yeah. Faith: Exactly. The other thing that I just wanted to point out from what Julie was saying too, is that the whole, the whole social inequity, it just keeps the cycles of a lot of, more of our socioeconomic issues. So when you say women have more student debt and black and brown people have more student debt, then you look at those women, many of them are like you were Julie, a single parent trying to make it and trying to better themselves by going to college, by getting that degree so they can have a better income when they come out. And yet it's a vicious cycle because now they're strapped with all this extra debt. Chad: Yeah. Faith: And then they're just stuck in the same place. Even though they're- Chad: And the big question is, is it worth it? Faith: Right. Chad: Literally, is it worth it? Could I perspectively go to a tech college? I agree. I agree. Yeah. But could I go to a, a different type of a certification or something of that nature and not be strapped with this crazy debt that I'm going to be paying off my, you know, pretty much my entire damn life. Steven: A ton of the for-profit schools where tuition tends to be the highest, the loan default rates tend to be the highest. A ton of them, the programs are exactly the same or worse than what you see in community colleges. And you'll pay $40,000 for a culinary degree at a for-profit school and you'll pay $4,000 at a community college. Chad: Yeah. Steven: So why do people go to the for profit schools? Well, one is they are much more aggressive in marketing. Why do most people drink Pepsi or Coke rather than rather than Shasta? Julie: Right. Steven: You know, it's, they're all colas and the Shasta is going to quench your thirst, but, they're the marketing dollars. The aggressiveness of the for profit schools is far greater than the community colleges and the community colleges are so grossly underfunded that there simply aren't enough seats. I hear these people, they tend to be people who are highly educated themselves and whose kids are going to USC and Harvard and whatever. Chad: Right. Steven: And they say, oh, well then don't go to school. Don't go to college. Like that's the answer. Like everybody's going to be like a software developer in San Francisco where you don't actually need a college degree. It's like, um, yeah. The reality is, is that if you don't go to college, you are almost certainly destined to living either in poverty or one paycheck away from poverty for the rest of your life. So people who say, just don't go to college, that's your own fault. Fuck that. Unless you, unless you want to be a plumber or an HVAC today, and those guys are making some damn good money because there aren't any around anymore, right? And, and, and AI is going to be, have a very hard time taking over plumbing jobs. Chad: Yes. Okay guys. Well, I again, I appreciate you taking the time and if listeners want to learn more about you guys and what you do, where, where should they go? Faith: They should go to CollegeRecruiter.com and they can learn more about us on the about us page. They can email us at faith@collegerecruiter.com or steven@collegerecruiter.com if they want to engage in the conversation. It's something I'm extremely passionate about and you'll continue to see more from us about on the topic for sure. Chad: We are too. We are too. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. Faith: Yeah, thank you Julie: Yeah, thanks guys. See you soon. 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. #College #CollegeRecruiter #Economy #Debt #Talent #SkillsGap

As the dog days of summer drag on, industry news remains hot, hot, HOT! This week, the boys discuss: - Indeed's strategy to stick-it to recruitment ad agencies, - Programmatic buying spree break down - Google's latest strike against the likes of HackerRank and Github - Can companies control their employees social? - Snap is back! - Don't get flamed by your own social accounts Enjoy and give sponsors JobAdX, Sovren, and Canvas lots of affection. 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. Jim Stroud: Jim Stroud here and you are listening to my favorite podcast, I listen to it every day, it's amazing, it's wonderful, it's... Okay, help me out. Who are you guys again? 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: All right. Because you are sick and tired of Robert Mueller news, take a break for God sakes. Welcome to The Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous, so help me God. Chad: Well, hello. Joel: I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's show, is Indeed sticking it to the ad agencies, TikTokers are sounding off on their employers, and Kelly gets cutsie with its latest ad campaign. We have to wait six months till the holidays, but boy does Canvas already have some goodies for you. We'll be right back. 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. 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: ... Oh, yeah. Joel: This is the last week without football, till April of next year. Chad: Thank God. There's nothing else to watch right now. Joel: I'm including the XFL, which I guess we're still calling football at this point. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Some kind of football, right. Joel: How you doing, Chad? Chad: Fucking awesome, dude. Joel: Yeah, it's been a good week. Chad: It has been a good week. It's been a good year, let's just put that out there [crosstalk 00:02:42]. Joel: It has been a good year, it has been a good year. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're actually at home for a week. Chad: Yeah. The world tour has really kicked us in the nuts, every now and again. But it's been a good... I don't know if there's a good kick in the nuts, but anyway. It's been amazing. Joel: We've been Tim Sacketted while we're on the road, if you will. Sorry, Tim. Chad: Not so sorry, Tim. Joel: Shout-outs. Chad: Shout-outs. Shout-out to our buddy, Torin Ellis. So, we were at RecFest. Joel: Yup. Chad: Torin Ellis was onstage, did what Torin does. He captivates, he inspires, he kicks ass, takes names. Well, the guys from Talent Nexus said, "Hey, let's get Torin right after he's done, right off stage, and let's have a conversation." Within that conversation, I had an important question because I know at one time, I was asking myself this. "What can two white guys do about diversity?" Talent Nexus actually delivered a two-minute video that we posted on social, that had blown up, people are really rallying behind it. Because, to be quite frank, if you are a white dude but you do believe that something needs to happen for equity and inclusion, what the fuck do you do? Torin states it very clearly, very easily and I thought it was awesome. Joel: What Torin does so well is, yes, he slaps you in the face with his message and his honesty. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But he also does a great job of empathy, putting himself in the shoes of a middle-aged white guy, which is what we are, and thinking, "I'm into diversity and inclusion, I want to do my part. But what exactly can I do, as a middle-aged white guy?" The video really encapsulates Torin's message, but also what Torin is all about. It's actually connecting with people, that don't normally think about this stuff. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: It's great. Chad: Yeah. So LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, go out to the socials- Joel: Or the podcasts. Chad: ... look for me, look for Joel. Yeah, just look for it. Yeah, it's fucking awesome dude. Joel: Yeah. Video podcasting, it's hip, it's cool, it's the new thing. I love it. Chad: It's hip. Joel: I'm going to give a shout-out to SHRM's Roy Maurer, my buddy there. Chad: Oh, Roy. Love it. Joel: He writes for them quite a bit and did a story on the Facebook news, about them having searchable ads and what they're doing there. Quoted your boy right here, so that's kind of why I'm giving him the shout-out. But the article is rather good, head out to SHRM.org if you want to check that article out. Chad: Yeah, it's good. Even though, in spite of Cheesman being a part of it. SO, big shout-out to our friend at Shaker Recruitment Marketing, Mike Temkin. Mike Temkin posted, and it wasn't just specific to us, but it was specific to us. Yeah, where he actually had some data, [crosstalk 00:05:41] some research that showed by Hootsuite, that pretty much 39% of individuals 18 to 64, are reported listening to podcast each month and nearly as much as 47% reported to listen online, monthly. Chad: So it's either via phone, online, either way. But podcasting is blowing the fuck up. If you haven't heard our interview with Mike Temkin, just google The Chad & Cheese Podcast/Mike Temkin, an awesome interview. Guy's a stud. Joel: Yeah. I love that we're benefiting and profiting from the dumbing down of society. No one's reading anymore, they just put headphones in and listen to the news and the commentary. Chad: Woo! Joel: All right. shout-out to Ken Lazarus, CEO of Scout. Sort of a hidden gem in the HR Tech space. You might remember they raised $100 million last year, so we talk to Ken on one of our latest podcasts and get down to what they're going to do with that 100 million, and what exactly is going on. Chad: Pretty awesome, pretty awesome. So we're getting ready to do a partnership, just going to tease this partnership with The Gathering, the event that happens in Banff. Joel: You're such a tease. Chad: Fucking amazing, by the way. But it's funny because we're starting to do some recording and there were some bits that didn't make it to the actual podcast, and we wanted to be able to share some of those with you today. Joel: Ready? Chad: Yeah. Sibyl: Shit, damn it. I'm going to try that again. Shit, damn it. I'm going to try that again. Shit, damn it. I'm going to try that again. Chad: Okay. Sibyl: Shit, damn it. I'm going to try that again. Joel: Damn it. I like the '80s sort of... [crosstalk 00:07:23] definitely. Chad: It is, yeah. Sibyl: Sorry. Shit, damn it. I'm going to try that again. Joel: I'm ready to put on some leg warmers and Jazzercise. Sibyl: Shit, damn it. I'm going to try that again. Chad: I know. So the guys from The Gathering, actually these were outtakes, as they were doing some recordings. They actually packaged this up, obviously, because Sibyl is the one who's doing the voicing. Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: But they sent it over to us because it's funny as fuck. We generally don't play outtakes and it was like, "Why the hell not?" So, shout-out to The Gathering and to Sibyl over there, for great outtakes. We appreciate it. Joel: Yeah. One, we should do something like this. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And two, yes, we are stupid because we just listened to that for like five minutes and just laughed our asses off. We'll probably listen to it again after this podcast and laugh some more, like Beavis and Butt-Head style. Chad: Of course. Joel: Shout-out to Gerry Crispin. Gerry Tales, our fourth installment of the epic Lord Of The Rings-esk podcast interview with Gerry. Number four is up, it's as awesome as the first three and as awesome as the next two. Chad: It's Gerry. That's all I have to say. Candidate.ID, shout-out to those guys because they are killing the crowdfunding game. They've nearly doubled what they've asked for and they still have about 30 days left. If you guys are into, obviously nurturing and building talent pipelines and that kind of stuff, they were on Firing Squad. I don't know if you remember or not, Joel. Remember? Joel: Yup. And Death Match. Chad: Yup, and Death Match. I gave them a rousing applause, Joel gave them a golf clap. But dude, I'm a huge proponent around companies like this. Getting out and actually demonstrating, "Is this idea really worth it? Will the community get behind this?" Not to mention, this is great from a PR standpoint. Right? Joel: Yup. Chad: So, big shout-out to Adam in the team over at Candidate.ID, this is a winner. If you want to check it out, go to crowdcube.com/candidateid, all one word. Joel: Do you know the numbers behind that, what they were hoping to raise and what they've actually raised up to this point? Chad: Yeah, it was 50,000 for starters and they're over 100,000 to date, and they have nearly 30 days to go. That's in pounds, by the way, so they're actually over 100,000 US dollars. 57 investors, their target was 50,000. Yeah, so it's looking good for those guys. Like I'd said, if you're a company that really wants to demonstrate that, the community is getting behind this. Why the hell not? Either talk the talk or walk the walk or get the fuck off. Joel: By the way, disclaimer, we are not financial experts. We are not recommending that you buy this company or say that you'll make money buying this company. Chad: Thanks for that. Joel: I don't want to get in trouble for someone losing their pants, investing in Candidate.ID or any company in the HR Tech space. I will say that, with the regulations around investing in companies, in this way sort of becoming loosened around the world, I think it'll be really interesting as we move into this next phase of startups and companies raising money. How that goes, how much money they raise, and getting away from the traditional VC, how companies raise money will be interesting and something we'll be talking about, I'm sure. Chad: I haven't yet, I will put some money in Candidate.ID. Joel: Will you? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Okay. Well keep us informed about the big payout. When you're sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas in Portugal, we'll know why. Chad: I love it. Joel: Shout-out to the hashtag yoga. I don't know if anyone heard last week's show but iCIMS, as part of their Media Analyst Day, is offering a yoga session. I challenged listeners to hashtag out "yoga"... Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: ... or "no yoga" as whether or not I should do it. Obviously, "Do the yoga," is the reigning leader, or the leader right now. I don't even think "no yoga" has a vote. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So at this point, I don't know, I might have to head out to Lululemon, get some yoga pants. Get a little sweatband going and some wrist bands, wrist sweatbands and limbering up a little bit. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I might be having to do some yoga in Phoenix. Chad: Yeah. I have already committed to do the yoga, so in the registration process they ask what you would like to do. Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: I've already committed to it because the listeners want us to do it. Joel: If we could at least organize some beer to be at this yoga session, to take away some of the pain, that would be great. Chad: Beer yoga, yeah. That would be great. You know what else is great? Joel: Tell me. Chad: Chad & Cheese, The Movie. Joel: Sundance, here we come. Chad: Yeah, I don't know if it's quite great yet but we just received the link and I got to watch the first couple of minutes before we jumped on the podcast. Looks amazing, the guys over at Talent Nexus, go figure, they make us look good and that's not easy. So I'm looking forward to screening it, not to mention the promotion to get it out. Yeah, so there you have it. Look on social during the next couple of weeks or so, and we'll be pushing it hard. Joel: Yup. Robert Redford, we're coming for you. Sundance, 2020. Let's do this. Chad: Events powered by our travel sponsor, Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joel: Who, I hear word they're making three-piece suits for us. Chad: Yeah, they should. With just Shaker all over them. That would make so much sense, it would. Joel: The backpacks are awesome. They're beyond age, gender, sex, race. Everybody loves a good backpack. Chad: That's exactly right, and I'm taking mine to Malmö, Sweden where we're going to see Tengai. That's right, the interviewing robot. Also, TNG Staffing here at the latter part of August, pretty stoked about that. Joel: Right, I'm ready for some salmon and capers and cheese, or whatever else they're eating there in Sweden [crosstalk 00:13:42]. Chad: They told you that they don't do capers. We just saw them in London and they said, "We don't do capers." So... Joel: Oh. Someone sells capers in Sweden, I'm sure. Chad: We've got TA Tech in Austin, Death Match where Job.com, asses first, I mean Assess First and a couple of others, soon to be named, are going to be on stage. The big sponsor... Joel: Yeah. Chad: ... is Alexander Mann Solutions. Joel: Outstanding. Chad: So I'm stoked about that. Joel: Outstanding. Chad: You did some work this week, on the actual trophies. Do you want to talk about that or are we just going to tease it? Joel: Let's just say that the winner will get something spectacular, when they win. Something that will blow up the socials and be something that you might take to your grave. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, it's that amazing. Chad: It's going to be retroactive, so we've got to make sure that we put one in the hands of Aman Brar at Canvas/Jobvite. Yeah. Joel: Canvas, yup. Chad: Then one in the hands of Andreea Wade at Opening.io. So, looking forward to that, as well as HR Tech in early October. We're going to be on stage two days, in the expo hall. Listeners, if you want $300 off ticket- Joel: Chad Cheese. Chad: The discount code, very simple. Discount code Chad Cheese. Joel: We make nothing, so even if you hate us, save some money. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We don't get any of it, it's all good. Chad: Yeah, it's all good. Then, the latter part of October, 22nd, 23rd, we're going to be in Paris. That's right, SmashFly is sending us to unleash in Paris. Joel: [French 00:15:24]. Chad: Yeah, where we're again, going to be in the expo hall, on stage. Just making a shit-ton of noise. Joel: [French 00:15:30]. Chad: I'm out. Joel: News time. Joel: We love inside information, don't we? We love talking to the sources that know the nitty-gritty and what's going on. Chad: Yes. Joel: We had the pleasure, this past week, of talking to two high-level insiders about two interesting topics. Chad: Yes. Joel: Programmatic and what the hell is Indeed up to? Chad: Yeah. Joel: I'm happy to discuss either one first. Chad: Yeah. Let's go ahead... I think they all come together, but what one insider said was Indeed is going direct, to companies. This is something that we saw from Monster, something we've seen from CareerBuilder, we've seen this from many companies. Where they're like, "Let's keep the 15-20% ourselves." Joel: Yup. Chad: But the thing is, when does that ever work? Joel: It works for a while, maybe. But in the long-term, I think it's sort of shooting yourself in the foot because too many companies are just like, "Agency, you handle it." Chad: Yeah. Joel: And if agencies aren't making their cut, they're going to slowly stop recommending you as a source for advertising. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: That's the way it works. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Now, Indeed thinks their shit don't stink enough to think, "There's no way that an employer will not use Indeed," but that's giving a lot of employers a lot of credit. Thinking that they'll go outside of their agency, to go directly to Indeed for that advertising solution. Chad: I don't see Appcast rocking the boat or StepStone rocking the boat and saying, "We're going to do things differently." I think this is a great opportunity for StepStone to start realizing revenue in the US and continue to do what they're doing in Europe, while pressing more performance-based ads, as opposed to duration-based. I just think, from the StepStone standpoint and from a German standpoint, they're going to be more methodical about this. More of a standpoint of, "No, we don't need walled gardens, we're just going to go ahead, continue to do business and grow the network." Chad: On the other side, personally, because we know what Indeed does, is that they'll look at doing whatever they can to do one of two things. Either just push their product more, and other products, and force companies to buy their other products as well. We also heard from an insider that if you're pushing job fairs or anything of that nature out there, Indeed will automatically pull those down and say, "You have to buy our Job Fair Product." Right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So, I see Indeed rocking the boat because that's what they do. But the big question is, do we need Indeed? Joel: Yeah. I think for TMP as well and any other agency, we've heard agencies tell us like, "Hey, we spend a shit-load of money with Clickcast." Chad: Yeah. Joel: And if you're TMP, looking at, "Why don't we just keep all of it? Why not keep all the profits and take the cut that would be ours, maybe lower prices or become more efficient?" It's not only a strategic, looking at what's going to happen with the competitors and losing control over that. But it's also, "Geez, we're going to keep a lot more money if we own the programmatic solutions." Joel: Our insider, I think we agree that buying Perengo was a great decision for TMP, that'll pay dividens in a lot of different angles. I'll be curious to see if another agency comes in and buys a JobAdX or a Joveo, or something like that. Our insider seemed to think that an ATS would be a buyer at some point. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We both agreed Jobvite and iCIMS have a history of buying up cool technologies or emerging technologies. So I don't think either one of us would be surprised at that, if that happens in the next six months or so. Chad: I believe that when you take a look at, obviously, how Indeed's treated the market over the years and the numbers that we've received from some of our programmatic friends throughout the industry. Is that, they only comprise about 15%, around 15% of the overall candidate deliverable. Joel: Yup. Chad: So what can you do, to be able to... And again, this is contingency planning. Right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Because we know Indeed's history, what do we do to contingency plan for that 15%? Programmatic is obviously the only way to go because you're leveraging a large network, versus just really focusing on that one pipeline. Joel: I was pretty surprised that Indeed only served 10-15% of the sources, of candidates that companies got. I would have thought it might be quite a bit higher. Were you surprised by the 10-15% number? I thought it would be up near 25 or 30. Chad: Yeah, no I was. But I think that's the thing, is that programmatic provides such a wide spread of the opportunity to pressure jobs into all these different areas and do it from a performance standpoint, not in all cases but in many cases. Joel: Yeah. I also remember one of our informants, if you will, talk about I guess Zip Recruiter is beefing up their agency team. SO they're taking a different tack, in terms of getting in bed with the agencies. Chad: Smart, yeah. Joel: As Indeed exits the agency business. Chad: So yeah, why would you want to bloat your organization with more and more and more direct sales people, when you can partner with agencies. Not just one agency, but agencies and have them be your sales people. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Now I understand from a control standpoint, they're not just going to sell your shit. Joel: Yes. Chad: But one again, that's exactly what you want. You want that non-bias. So if you are proving to, not just the agency but the end user, the direct employer, that you are worth it then that should work out for you. Now, if you're not, there's a problem. Joel: Yeah. As Zip Recruiter gets more and more into enterprise, more into AI and technologies, the agency play makes total sense. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: The fact that they're coming in while Indeed exits is just really great timing, on their part. Chad: The beautiful part from StepStone is that Appcast pretty much owns the agency, the recruitment ad agency infrastructure, today. Right? Joel: Yes. Chad: That was brilliant. They're looking for a play in the US. Instead of building job boards, fuck that, there's enough job boards, get into programmatic and make money off of that network. Joel: Yeah. I will say that one of the things that I thought about was the two biggest programmatic plays that aren't in play yet but could, with the flip of a switch become a play, are Google and Facebook. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Which, as we know, are the two biggest online market places for advertising in the world. The minute that you can post a job on Google and then promote it out to their network, AdSense network, that becomes a huge play. They become the biggest programmatic player, and Facebook as well, if they ever decide to do that, would be a huge competitor in the "programmatic advertising business". Chad: Now it's interesting that you mention Google because... Joel: You like that segue? Chad: Yeah. In a TechCrunch article, Area 120, which is Google's lab for experimental projects, launched Byteboard. If you want to know what Byteboard is, it's like HackerRank. Okay? For something that's been out there. It's a new tool that aims to make the technical interview experience less tedious and more effective. Joel: Look, if anyone knows recruiting, employing tech people, Google's pretty good at it. If you want somebody to build something that's efficient, effective, easy to use, intuitive, something that tech people understand, you could do a lot worse that Google. So the fact that Google has essentially created a home-made interviewing tool for techies- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... that they're releasing to the public, is awesome. I think you and I both agree, that it's just a matter of time before they roll this solution into their hire product. To where you can use your ATS and your talent funnel, to now interview people through Byteboard. Chad: Oh, yeah. So the big question is now, who's going to buy HackerRank? Because we've been talking about that, Dice should have bought them a while ago. Right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: But HackerRank is a community, it is focused on it being able to provide realistic types of interviews, through coding. Joel: Yup. Chad: From my standpoint, when you're looking at trying to provide interviews for the future and we know development is not going away, this is an entity that everybody should be looking at. Joel: If Microsoft is looking for a bridge between LinkedIn and GitHub, which they bought last year. Chad: Yes. Joel: They could do worse than HackerRank, to sort of bridge the gap between LinkedIn and GitHub, and provide a recruiting solution that benefits both audiences. Chad: Exactly. Total funding for HackerRank, $58.2 million. Joel: Okay. So that's probably out of iCIM's and Jobvite's shopping cart. Chad: Possibly. Joel: You think so? Chad: Possibly. Joel: Okay. But not Microsoft's. Chad: No. Not even close. Joel: Indeed? Chad: Indeed would need to have an applicant tracking system, to be able to plug into something like that, that would make it worthwhile. Joel: They do, it's free. Chad: A real applicant tracking system. Joel: Ouch. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on this and we'll let you know. Subscribe to the show so you get the shreds, we'll definitely shred this baby out when HackerRank gets acquired. Chad: Hell yeah. Joel: Advert, another potential acquiree, JobAdX. JobAdX: Nope, nah, not for me. All these jobs look the same. Ugh, next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking, as they scroll past your jobs. Just half-heartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it, we live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So why do we expect job-seekers to react differently while reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? JobAdX: Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people and benefits with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job-seekers will stumble upon your employment-branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection and reducing candidate drop off. JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment-branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites, to proactively compel top talent, to join your team. Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing joinus@jobadx.com. That's joinus@jobadx.com. Attract, engage, employ, with JobAdX. Joel: Did you know Google now has nine products with a billion plus users? Chad: Fucking ridiculous. Yeah. Joel: Isn't that crazy? Chad: It's awesome, yeah. Joel: That's crazy, right? Photos is the latest one, can you name the other eight? Chad: Gmail, Calendar, Docs, not Hangouts? Joel: YouTube, Search, Chrome... Two you mentioned, so Drive, you said Docs, Drive actually does, I think. Chad: Nice. Joel: Google Play and Android. Chad: It's amazing just how entrenched... Again, they're a lifestyle platform. That's it. Joel: Yeah, we're going to talk about Snapchat and Tik Tok right now, and not even close to any billion-type numbers. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: Google has nine products with a billion users. It's crazy. All right, so yeah. It wouldn't be a show without TikTok, so let's talk about TikTok. But let's talk about Snap real quick, Snap had a comeback quarter, releasing numbers this week. For the first time in their history, they had 200 million monthly active users. We had kind of written them off, we thought Instagram had taken them out. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: Younger people that I know, and there aren't a lot, had told me Snapchat was done, like it was over. Apparently not, people are still back, or people are coming back to Snapchat and using it in greater numbers. As we discussed, TikTok... I think TikTok is the only top 10, most popular app right now, that isn't owned by Facebook or Google, or is Snapchat. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's the only one outlier there that's not public. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We wanted to bring up something new that we saw on TikTok, is there's a guy on TikTok that works at Walmart. His user name is what? Tom at Walmart, or something? Chad: Yeah. Joel: He wears his little Walmart vest in all the videos and he basically tells insights into the company. Some of them are funny, some of them are very dark. Right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: He talks about minimum wage, he talks about the... What was the one about Pop-Tarts? When there's a natural disaster, they bulk up on strawberry Pop-Tarts or something? Chad: Yeah, because they have buying patterns during those times. It's like, they know what to stock up on when the prospect of a natural disaster is on the way. Joel: Yeah, and he makes fun of customers, he makes fun of... He basically pulls the veil off of a ton of stuff around Walmart. Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Joel: There's another TikTok video recently, a couple of girls were having... a lot of younger people are on TikTok. Teenage workers wearing the company outfit, company uniform, doing really stupid stuff and they were actually fired because the boss found out that they had posted these videos on TikTok. unbeknownst to the boss, at the time that they were getting fired, they actually were recording the firing. So they have on Tik Tok, the boss coming in and saying, "Hey, you can't do this. I got to let you go," et cetera. To me, this brings in a whole new era of the employer review, feedback stuff. Chad: Transparency. Joel: Yeah, transparency. For 10 years, employer reviews have been people typing out stuff on Glassdoor and Indeed and all the other sites out there. Chad: Right. Joel: It's morphing into social media, short videos, videos that disappear after 24 hours in many cases. I think it just brings up a totally new realm of managing brand for employers and how the hell do you get a hold of all this stuff. Do you just fire everybody? How do you monitor it, how do you find out about all these people on Tik Tok? Because you can't just do a Google search, you can't just go to Glassdoor and see reviews. You have to be super diligent, and it may even be impossible. It may be the hydra where you cut off one head and 10 grow back, or whatever. Chad: Yes. Joel: I just think it's bringing a while new problem for employers, in terms of managing their brand. Chad: Yes. Well, and I think this comes back to what we've talked about, and many others have, is if you are doing business the right way. If you're treating people the way that you want to be treated, if you have a purpose and that's where your business is focused, instead of profits then, I'm not saying that you should just breathe a sigh of relief because nothing bad's going to happen to you. But if you're doing things for the right reasons and you get caught on tape, so fucking what. That shouldn't be an issue. Okay? And if it is an issue, too bad. What are you going to do? Are you going to make everybody throw their smart phone into a lockbox every time they come in or every time... You can't manage that. Chad: U know what you can manage? You can manage yourself, you can manage how you do things, the purpose and make sure that you're not a fucking asshole. That's what you can do. Joel: Yeah. It's a little bit like, "There is no magic bullet." We've talked about Glassdoor getting essentially hacked, with good reviews and companies that are paying for good reviews and filling up- Chad: Right. Joel: At the end of the day, if you have a shitty work environment, it's going to come out and it's going to impact you negatively, in most cases. The growth of TikTok, Snapchat, and these platforms only underscores the fact that you have no control over your brand. Your brand is what externally happens. More and more, that's out of your control. Chad: I don't agree to that, you're in control of how you treat people and what you do and how you pay people and fairness, and those types of things. Joel: Totally. Chad: I think if you focus on that, controlling that instead of controlling people, that's where we've come. We've gone from the, "You're controlling these people, they're on your team." To, "Now you have to control yourself and how you actually deal with people," because of the transparency of today. I think that's fucking great. Joel: Yeah, I totally agree. I didn't mean you can't control your brand and your purpose and what you do. I just mean, the mediums and the tools that people have now, to communicate with the world are more than they've ever been. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And they're only going to get more, I assume. Chad: Oh, yeah. Yup, yup. Joel: So your ability to clamp down and control that is going away, so you might as well do your best, of what you can control. Which is how you treat people and your message and your purpose. Chad: If you're focusing on being a good human being, I think that's the best we can all go for. Joel: Yeah. And by the way, if you think TikTok is fringe, if you think this guy doesn't get any attention. Chad: Oh, dude. Joel: We're talking in the hundreds of thousands, in terms of... Or, tens of thousands, probably, followers. Hundreds of thousands of likes, on these videos. So these videos are out there and they're getting watched. SO if you think ut doesn't impact you, you're probably wrong. Chad: You are wrong. Joel: Well speaking of wrong, something outsourcing can be a bad decision. Chad: Yes. Especially if you don't have QA/QC behind the individuals that you're bringing in. Joel: Ah. Let's hear from Sovren, to talk about Yahoo! and Kelly. Joel: But I think it underscores the risk that, if you're using Upwork, Fiverr, Freelance Solutions, Gigworkers, you need to be aware that these things are happening or could happen to you. This isn't something that the reviews on the site are going to reveal. When you hire someone on Upwork, you see, "Oh, they've got great reviews, five stars," the last three months or whatever, of clients, they've been really servicing them well. No one's putting on Upwork, two years later, if they don't even know what's going on that, "Oh, they put a logic bomb into our system." Chad: Yeah. If you're allowing contractors to come in, unfettered access to everything and not doing QA/QC, that's on you. Joel: Businesses are being built on contract work, make sure that you're not totally incumbent upon one person to do all your work for you. Chad: Exactly. Or, one person to have access to your social media account. Joel: Yes. Talk about that. Chad: So, this is funny as hell. Jared O'Mara, he's a British politician. He's been in the British Parliament for the constituency of Sheffield Hallam since 8, June 2017 and was elected as a Labor Candidate. Joel: Yup. Chad: Well his Comm's Team went on Twitter and pretty much just laid into him. Here's a Tweet. "I cannot and will not defend you and your vial, inexcusable, contempt for the people who voted you in, you selfish, degenerate prick." That's one Tweet. There's a list of Tweets before the Comm's Team actually says, "Comm's Team signing off, forever. Jared, you are the most disgusting, morally-bankrupt person I have ever had the displeasure of working with. You do not care about your constituents, you do not care about anyone but yourself." Joel: Yeah. Chad: Hello. Joel: I'm assuming he was the only one that knew the password, probably, to the Twitter account? What do you do when this happens? It's just out there for a while. Chad: Yeah. You get this kind of coverage, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So, yeah. When your Comm's Team actually comes back and says, "You're a lazy, vile prick," then, yeah. I guess that's all we can go by. Joel: Yeah. And this is when, you mentioned Hootsuite in the shout-outs, a tool like Hootsuite would have helped remedy this situation, in terms of getting it down. Chad: It's your social media account. Let's just make this clear, it's your social media account. Joel: Yeah. Chad: If you want to be authentic, if you want to be genuine, then you should have access, you should have, really, part of at least, if not all, the actual Tweets or the posts or what have you. If you have a Comm's Team, you can have a separate channel for that shit. Joel: Yeah, yeah. This is clearly why Donald Trump is so brilliant, because he has total control over his social media account. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, so some of those Tweets actually sounded like they were talking about Donald Trump. Chad: Yes. 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 out 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: So simple, so clean, so smooth, Sovren. Joel: SO you have some issues with Yahoo!'s recent advertising strategy? Chad: Yeah, here it is. So this is from our friend, Audra Knight. She actually finds some of these gems and she shares them with me. So Yahoo! is doing sponsored posts on Facebook. Joel: Yup. Chad: This sponsored post actually says, "Job seekers can use Yahoo!'s search to start their job hunt. Search jobs." Then you click on the ad and it takes you to Yahoo! Search engine results page, which pretty much just has Indeed and Glassdoor. So Yahoo!'s spending money pimping Indeed and Glassdoor, what the fuck? Joel: It shows the state of just utter misery at Yahoo!, that they have to use, what? Facebook? Facebook feed, is that where she found it? Chad: Yeah. Joel: So using Facebook, who they lost social media to, to drive traffic to their search engine that now is powered by Bing, so they lost search to Bing and Google. And they're sharing the revenue that they get from clicks with Bing, who I also think is their advertising platform. So, the state of Yahoo! is so bad that they have to drive traffic from Facebook to their search engine that they lost to from Google, to send people to job sites that aren't HotJobs, which they used to own and lost out to Monster. Joel: So the whole thing is like a trail of death for Yahoo!, that is underscored by them spending money to do this whole process. Chad: This is just fucking dumb. Joel: And the fact that they have money to spend on advertising like that, is also amazing. Chad: Well that money's actually going directly to Indeed, I mean all the clicks. That's going to Indeed. Joel: I'm hoping that they actually have paid advertisers, when you search for jobs. Chad: There's still the margins. It's like, "What the fuck are you doing?" Joel: They may be so good at advertising that they're spending... if they're spending .10 a click on Facebook and getting .50 a click on their search engine, I guess that's a good decision. But we're looking at nickles and dimes here, nothing that really moves the needle for Yahoo! It's a no imagination/creativity department. But you do like the Kelly ads that are out now? Chad: I like Kelly. I like anything that is just not warm and fuzzy. Because we have so much of that now a days. But Kelly, yeah, they have a new campaign that's happening throughout the Midwest right now. From my understanding, it is happening here in Indianapolis as well, but a couple of their ads, they're bus billboard ads. So you know the little billboards that you walk by, as you go into the actual bus stop? Joel: Sure. Yup. Chad: And they're ones like, "Mondays don't suck, your job does, Kelly." "Here's a tip, you can wear headphones at work to drown out the sound of your soul being crushed or you could just get a new job, Kelly." "Pursue your dreams of leaving your job, Kelly." Joel: Yeah. And they have a URL like, "Find a job that doesn't suck," or something? Chad: Yeah, but that's not big enough. That shit should be much, much bigger. Joel: Or they should have a text suck to a short code, and then be able to communicate with them via text. That's a different story. Chad: Yeah. Or a QR code that leads them to a video that- Joel: No, no QR codes. Nope. Chad: Something, something. Joel: Nope, nope. Text. Chad: Something, text, whatever. Joel: "Text Kelly to," whatever short code, "to find your dream job today," is what they should have. Chad: They could have a myriad, they have plenty of room. Let me just say that. Joel: So my beef with this, I know that you like this. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I don't find it all that imaginative. We've been producing ads that say like, "Your job sucks, Monday blows, your boss is a jerk." That's a message that people have been pimping for decades. Although, I guess it's effective, people hate their job, they'll go. I just don't find the campaign all that creative. Call me cynical and old, because I am. I assume the job ads work, but I don't find them as creative and imaginative and good as you do. Chad: I didn't say anything about creative and imaginative, or anything like that. Shit that just works, something that gets your attention. Have I seen ads that say, "Your job sucks."? Yeah. Has it gotten my attention? Yes. So those types of things, very clear, very genuine, very blunt, I like them. If it's been used over and over, kind of like the dead horse, beating the dead horse. Man, if it works, beat it till you can't. Joel: So we agree that there's no imagination in these ads? Ed: Yo, that jawn is so lame. Chad: It's simple, yeah. If you think about, just about everything, most of the ad campaigns that you'll see today, they're regurgitated from something else. There's not much original anymore. Take a look at movies, how many fucking reboots do we get, right? Are they still good movies? Yeah, I'll probably go see some of them. But at the end of the day man, to be able to say that it sucks because it's not new, is total bullshit. To say it sucks because it's not working, whoa yeah, no that makes sense. Joel: You like it and you think it works. I'm just saying, if you're going to spend the money to do this, be creative. Come up with something different. Chad: I say, Kelly, you do whatever works. I don't give a shit if it's been used since back in the Roman times, fucking use that shit. Joel: You know what I say? Chad: We out? Joel: We out. Announcer: This has been The Chad & 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. #Recruitment #Agency #Programmatic #Google #Hackerrank #GitHub #Microsoft #Byteboard #ClickIQ #Appcast #Perengo #TMP #Indeed #StepStone

Gerry Tales with industry icon Gerry Crispin was off-the-chain, and this is Part IV of our interview on all-things-recruiting. Enjoy, get smarter and show exclusive sponsor Nexxt some love. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training.​ Chad: Welcome to Volume 4 of Gerry Tales. Joel and I sat down with Gerry Crispin for over an hour and a half and talked history, now and future state of the recruiting industry. This is the fourth installment of our Gerry Crispin series. Enjoy! Chad: After a 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 Flexx Plan from Nexxt. It's perfect for employers and staffing firms who are busy, they need candidates and flexible pricing now. Flexx Plan 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 Flexx Plan with over seventy 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 Flexx 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 a plenty. Remember, Nexxt with a double x, not the triple x. Chad: 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: The growth of the gig economy. Your own opinion on that but also I know you talk to a lot of employers, particularly some big employers. Is the gig economy on their radar? Are they afraid of it? Are their companies embracing it? What's going on? Gerry: I think that is an excellent question and the data that I would have and the conversations that I've had, because I do have a lot of conversations about this, are that large companies increasingly are recognizing that the gig economy is here. That it's active in their corporation, that they would estimate that something between ten and twenty percent of the people who are working and representing them as a company are probably in a gig situation. Gerry: However, the majority of them would still admit that the control of the decisions around that are not in HR they are in procurement and they're in the throws. The transformation is both now are beginning to take a closer look at that because it does impact engagement, it does impact performance, it does impact a number of things. There are some jobs that will be much more amenable for gig work and there are other jobs that if you put gig workers in them you are potentially going to abuse them for a variety of weird kinds of reasons. Gerry: An example that comes from history is that in the forty's and fifty's, there were some extraordinary problems with mining and the way the government dealt with that - a lot of people were dying in the mines because of safety issues. So to incent companies to participate in that, mining companies were forced to report on a regular basis every month the number of people who were hurt or died in mines. However, there a was a weird kind of thing about that. They only had to report full time worker injuries. Chad: Oh, Jesus. Gerry: So, what they did was they eliminated full-time workers and made them part-time workers. Chad: Loop holes, man. Gerry: And the reporting showed that mining injuries and deaths went down by enormous amounts and so the government thought wow there's a lot more safety being installed in mines. So, I use that as an example because it's so graphic, right? Think about this, we have laws in our country that have to do with when you need to give people benefits. Chad: Right. Gerry: And so you have to have so many hours before you get so much benefits. Chad: Right. Gerry: Some companies like Starbucks voluntarily give part-time workers full benefits. Chad: Yeah. Gerry: Which attracts a better class of worker, if you will. Chad: Yep Gerry: So we need to think about who should be a gig worker and who shouldn't and whether or not the company is benefiting in ways that they should not, or might actually abuse the workers themselves. Chad: Well and I think today, I mean we're much more connected so back in the coal mining days there wasn't a message board or a platform for reviews of this employer on that sight. So, I think some of that abuse is definitely gonna go away because it's more transparent 'cause people are actually out there saying these guys are assholes. Here's the thing, and here's my question to you, Jerry. We just know a good friend of mine actually just started a position at Uber Works in Chicago so we see Uber Works is starting up and then we have other organizations that are freelance platforms, the snags of the world. Gerry: Upwork Chad: Communos, which are for creatives... Gerry: CDP bought after market, as well. Chad: Yeah, so we have all these, they're all coming out and because it is so much more of a transparent obviously market, if we do have some kind of universal health care system. Don't you think it makes it much easier for someone to be able to float from job to job and say whether they want to work for that company or not and know that they don't have to Gerry: True Chad: Go into an FTE type of position? Gerry: Yes, for there's a whole group of people who enjoy it, are comfortable with it, et cetera. But, keep in mind there's also a strong percentage of people in our country who want the safety and security of a simple job that they can go to every day and at least pretend that they can go to it for the rest of their life. I'm not saying they should get it, I am saying that all of us are built a little different and I'm very comfortable not knowing where my next dollar is coming. Chad: Yeah, but don't you think Uber and those types of platforms for somebody who wants to work part-time and wants to work when they wanna work, they can just pick up a phone and say okay I'm gonna go work at wherever I'm certified. I can just go ahead and pick up a shift and do that or drive my car. Gerry: I'll bet, though that the most interesting persona within the uber community are people who are in fact working at a job, and picking up an Uber shift. Chad: Side hustles. Gerry: As a side hustle. So the side hustle person, who's a little more energetic in saying I need to make a little bit of extra money is really the persona for many of these gig works and I think that's really where the value is going to be, as opposed to the full-time piece. Chad: Gotcha. Gerry: The side hustle is the cool piece and I talk to Uber drivers on a regular basis and I say well who are you and they're typically students or a side hustle. I don't come across too many at all who are full-time Uber drivers. Chad: Gotcha. I'm gonna do a little pivot and talk about diversity. I know that you guys on the diversity recruiting and sourcing side of the house, you definitely cover that and I guarantee you that your clients are wanting to talk to you about that. In my experience, whether it's Veteran hiring, or individuals with disabilities, or just really any diverse group I hear a lot of people talking about it. The problem is I don't see enough dollars and/or resources that are really earmarked for these types of programs to be able to create sustainable types of talent pipelines. What do you say? What kind of companies are really sticking out and do you think that this is going to be a trend that is just going to have to be the standard, or do you think it's just a lot of fluff? Gerry: I think that there is a strong group of companies that go behind compliance right now, and have huge investment in insuring that the diversity of thought, diversity in every form is represented within their organization. The key here is that these are industry leading companies, these are successful companies, these are high brand companies, these are the companies that are out in the street, if you will, and known by organizations. Chad: Gotcha. Gerry: All right, so I'm differentiating and so my experience is because most of my members represent that. They are companies that hire probably more than five thousand people a year. They're companies that are probably close to, if not, the industry leader in their respective area. They are well-known companies within organizations, so they sense from a values point of view the criticality of that. And they are intent on improving, not all of them have figured out how to do it well. Gerry: Let me give you one example of a trend that I think is happening among retail firms. Retail firms buy in large if you looked at their talent acquisition organizations they'd say oh we hire two hundred thousand people a year or we hire fifty thousand people a year, but I'm only responsible for corporate. We send information to the stores. They handle all of their hiring. Chad: Yeah. Gerry: We don't know what they do. Chad: Right. Gerry: Right? Chad: Right. Gerry: That would've been few years ago. Now, because of the data, they know what they do and you know what? They're not doing a good job at the stores. Chad: Yeah Gerry: And so, if you start looking at these big retail organizations, more and more of them are taking over the store hiring. Now that's not a simple issue. Chad: No. Gerry: But, I won't name the company, but two weeks ago we had an operations colloquium. We had a meeting, my meetings are fifty people or fewer from member companies and we had a presentation by a large retail organization and they gave a case study of last year, and this is the forth year that they have taken over centrally hiring all store employees. But last year they hired, and this is not the total amount of their hires, this is an expanding pilot if you will. Last year they hired fifty four thousand store employees with no recruiters and no hiring managers. Chad: Yeah, high volume stuff, man. Gerry: And they can measure that turnover is better, performance is approximately the same, however they define it. And other measures were the same. Their ROI was based on the fact that they were able to give back literally hundreds of thousands of hours back to the store hiring managers. Who now could spend time actually managing, rather than hiring. Chad: Right. Gerry: But, they also demonstrated significant shift in diversity. Chad: Which way? Gerry: So, there's some really strong evidence that a lot of corporations in the use of technology in the future that have sort of ignored the peripheral sides, but also the high volume sides of their organizations. Now they're coming back to more of a central approach to doing it well. So, practices and I will tell you in ever yo ne of my meetings during the course of the year, and I have one just about every month, there is a focus on diversity within it. So I don't have a meeting that specifically focuses on diversity, diversity is an intrical part of every subject and every topic that we deal with because that's our society from the United States. We recognize that, at least conceptually, our organizations ought to reflect a little bit of who we are as a society. Chad: Was that mainly a platform that did that? Gerry: No, that was cobbled together, you know again it's a tech stack and they're still experimenting with the tech stack. It's the biggest issue we have right now. Companies are just overwhelmed with the tens of thousands of TA point solutions platforms systems and other bullshit that's out there and how do you put pieces together when almost all of them overlap in weird ways. It's a fascinating problem that we're still going to be faced with for the next five to ten years. Chad: Gotcha. Joel: Gerry the jobs report came out today, and needless to say, things are good. Job growth is beating analyst estimates, we got wage growth, I mean things are good. Now, in your lifetime you've seen at least a handful of recessions, I'm assuming. Gerry: Yes, I have. Joel: What, if anything, is going to derail the good times, what does the next recession look like? Gerry: I wish I could predict it because I could make a freaking' fortune doing that, right? Anybody who could actually predict when that recession's gonna come, can actually really do well. Joel: So I'm hearing none of your members are expressing concern about global growth. Gerry: No, no they're not. They're actually not and my experience is nobody ever gets it until it hits them and there's no evidence currently about that. I did think, and this was last year, was it last year? I'm sorry, it was the year before last, that it might trigger in 2018 and so I had an economist talk at one of our leadership meetings and he basically couldn't find anything in the future and I kept in touch with him and he still doesn't think he sees stuff in the next six months to a year. Gerry: I have my own approach which is to go to SourceCon because I figure the first group of folks who are going to be cut will be sourcers. And if so I go to a room of five hundred sourcers and they're happy, that means somebody is giving them work that's going to take them six months. And if they're upset because they're being told there's no work beyond whatever, then I know they're starting to cut back. And so that has been my canary in the mind for a few years and kinda worked closed to 2007, kinda worked around 2001, as well which is the last time. We've had a long, long run. It's been slow, it has ups and downs in certain industries, but I have to say right now we are in a reasonable, still economy and everybody I know out there is attempting to hire, if not more, attempting to hire better and investing in talent acquisition. Gerry: I don't see many people cutting at all. Joel: Yeah, and it the next sourcing recession brought on by AI, as opposed to a bad economy? Gerry: Yeah, or do we continue to evolve what the roles are in recruiting? I mean, if you look at the role of somebody in twenty years ago, what they did is nothing like what you see people doing today. Chad: Keep an eye and ear out for Gerry Tales, coming soon. So wash 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. 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. #GerryTales #GerryCrispin #GigEconomy #Economy

It's been a week since tearin' shit up in London, and the boys are psyched to get back to the weekly round-up show. And the hits just keep on rollin'. -- Appcast, ClickIQ, Perengo and GermanPersonnel!?! WTF? -- Microsoft's LinkedIn bet is paying off -- Chatbots MUST disclose in CA -- Amazon is on strike or wait... no strike? and summer camps in London and Barcelona have taken a turn for the worst. Without Sovren, Canvas and JobAdx this jawn wouldn't be happenin' so give them your undivided attention. 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, rash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: It's so hot. Damn it's hot in the Mid-West right now. Chad: It's so hot. Joel: It's about to get hotter when we burn up these microphones with podcasting brilliance. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast everyone, I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: On this week's episode, there's some serious Pac Man fever in the programmatic advertising space, kids in Europe can now go to the worst summer camp in human history, and we debate who's nuttier, the Swedes or Elon Musk. Chad: Turn your fan to high and grab a cold one, the show starts right after this word from our sponsor, 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's 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: So Amber from Canvas, was supposed to come get a T-shirt. She's been giving me hell on Twitter about getting a T-shirt, we had a box full of them, and she never came and got one. Joel: She had to be called away, I believe. I don't know if it was her fault, but yeah. Chad: It was totally her fault. Joel: For as long as it took me to get a Goddamn cuzi, yeah. She can lose out on the shirt. Dude, I've never been so excited to get to the end of the show, as I have at the beginning of this show. Our wrap up of just ridiculous stories is unprecedented, I think, in the history of our show. Chad: It is pretty fucking funny. Let's go ahead and hit shout outs then. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Let's do this. All right so first shout out to Tom, who's the head of product over at Appcast, he loved that we would take Appcast over Glassdoor all fucking day. Easy decision Tom. And then Matt Lozar said that, he liked the Appcast all fucking day comment, and we should put that on a T-shirt. So I'm thinking we might be able to kind of have this Appcast logo on the back, Chad Cheese on the front, and then it just says Appcast all fucking day. I love it. Chad: Yo, that' John is so lame. Joel: I love it too. Can we still give shout outs to RecFest, I know that it's been a week or so, but I think we're still partying on the inside from our time in London. Jamie and company did- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... a great job, we loved our time there in London, and look forward to future RecFests as well as a potential global domination plan. Chad: You never know, right? You never know. Chad: I came home to some SmashFly goodies. Had some caramel corn, had some... this crazy tea device, I don't drink tea, but Julie loves it. And then go figure, Jay Z sends us chocolate balls, chocolate salty balls. Chocolate covered Bourbon balls, so good stuff. And a bunch of other stuff, but I just had to call this out. Joel: So the best of both worlds. Chad: Yeah, why not. Joel: Bourbon balls, that's nice. That's nice Jay Z. The good news is, we both received our box of goodies at the same time. Usually, one of us gets screwed over, or one of us has to wait. So they were good with the timing on this one, that was nice of them. Joel: A shout out to the boys at Talent Nexus. Chad: Yes. Joel: Man we've talked a lot about the cameras following us around, but hype videos, a little documentary. Can't wait for that stuff to come out. If you want to sign up for the download of the, I don't know, Chad and Cheese movie,- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... or whatever we're calling it, head on over to chadcheese.com, click the link and put in your name, and you'll get the copy. Chad: Yeah. Or, go to talentnexus.com/chadcheese. Too damn easy, right? Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: Also- Joel: Run with Talent Nexus anyway, they're good folks. Chad: Really awesome that Gem had us over, and Rob Prince showed us around for two solid days. From pub to pub in most cases, but thanks guys, really appreciate the hospitality. That was amazing. Joel: And Rob is what, 27? I'm sure the last thing he wanted to do was escort around two old white dudes in London. Yeah, that's nice. Chad: Dude, we were going from pub to pub. I don't think he had an issue. Joel: Yeah, yeah. It was a pretty good time. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's hard not to have a good time there in jolly old London. Chad: Yeah. And that being said, Lisa Scales wins the free beer for a year from Talent Nexus. Joel: Did she pick beer? Did she officially pick beer? Chad: I think she's officially picked beer, but- Joel: Good for you, Lisa. Chad: Yeah. So looked at Twitter, and it was funny because she didn't even take a picture of herself in the Chad Cheese mask. She actually took a picture of three other people who were posing, and that was incredibly smart for her, because it was more a group participation. And guess who, the group overall doesn't get the beer, Lisa gets the beer. Joel: Hopefully she'll share a few bottles with those guys who are in the picture. Chad: Don't do it. Joel: Speaking of also staying in London, shout out to Kylie Roco, I believe I'm saying that last name correctly. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So this was great. You and I go on stage, and she Tweets out, "It's time for..." What was your nickname? Chad: Stone Cold Steve Austin and Jonah Hill giving out- Joel: And Jonah Hill. Chad: ... giving out shots in the main... It was like she was telling everybody. She took a picture and then she said, "Stone Cold Steve Austen and Jonah Hill giving out shots in the main tank." Kind of letting everybody know, hey there's hard liquor coming, come get it. Joel: I'm sorry, I don't... Jonah Hill just doesn't do it for me. So anyway, I Tweeted back to her and I said, "Jonah Hill, come on. Seth Rogen, I've heard that one before, and I can sort of deal with Seth Rogen. At least he gets the cute girls in the movies." And she replied back, "Oh yes, I met Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill was just the first name that came to mind." I don't know if she was just trying to make me feel better,- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... or if that was the truth, but either way, she gets a shout out. Chad: Oh, yeah. She was just being nice. So more shout outs for goodies. AIA Worldwide, which is TMP's European branch, I guess you could say. Joel: No doubt. Chad: They took us to dinner, gave us beer, coffee, chocolates. And here's the biggest thing, I said in the last podcast, I had a great conversation with Richard Collins at ClickIQ about how they should be gobbled up, and then the next day they were and he's like... So he didn't spill the beans, but the night before we were having dinner with pretty much TMP and they didn't spill the beans on the acquisition of Perengo. So I have to say the discipline I respect, but have you... can you not say, "Hey, this is off the record?" I mean, come on people. Joel: It clearly means we need to get drunker with people then we already are, so the truth serum starts flowing. Joel: Shout out to Doug Monroe,- Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: ... Indeed user who shared on LinkedIn this week. This guy's the co-founder of Adzuna, by the way. Chad: Okay. Joel: So not some scrub at some company. So he shared, "Tried to unsubscribe from an Indeed e-mail, spoiled for the choice." The choices he got to opt out of an e-mail from Indeed are number one, only send me e-mails that I've asked for, or number two, send me marketing communications and e-mails that I've asked for. Chad: It's the non- Joel: So either way- Chad: ... opt out. Joel: ... it sounds like you're still getting e-mails from Indeed. Chad: Yes. Joel: You just get to kind to pick your poison of how. Chad: That's not an opt-out. Yeah, that's not an opt-out, that's not what that is called, because there is no opting out. You're just choosing what you're opting for. Joel: Opt out, no opt out. Opt in, opt out. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. Chad: That's a fucked up opt out. Chad: Yeah, so are you ready to go to events? Joel: Yeah, let's do events. Chad: Okay. So events, September 24, 25th TA Tech North America in Austin. Joel: It'll be hot. Chad: We're going to be doing a death match. Everybody loves a death match man. We just finished one in Portugal, going to do one in September in Austen, and fucking awesome dude. Joel: So everyone might be the charm. I mean, one and two were pretty epic, but three might be the... I'm trying to... What movies was the third installment the best? Toy Story? Chad: Rocky. Joel: Ivan Drago, or was that Mr. T? Chad: That was Mr. T as Clever Lang. Joel: What's your prediction for the fight? Chad: Pain. Joel: Great movie. All right, Rocky Three you're going to pick. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I'm going to go with Toy Story Three as my favorite. I've not seen the fourth one though. Chad: Yeah, you can tell you have a tear. Joel: I kind of teared up when I watched Toy Story Three. Chad: You always tear up. So October 1st through the 4th, Jobcase is actually sending us to HR Tech in Vegas. Joel: Who you will remember by the way, pretty much banned us from the show last year. This year they were open arms, come do some shit, do the show, it's going to be awesome. Chad: Two days. Dude, we're doing two separate days in the expo hall- Joel: Yeah. Chad: ... doing or spiel. So they also have a discount code, CHADCHEESE, one word. It's like 300 bucks off, go check it out, and you're welcome. Joel: $300, damn. Go ahead. You could lose that real fast in Vegas. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So October 22nd and 23rd, SmashFly, our friends over there who give us goodies, are sending us to unleash Paris. Again, we're going to be on the expo hall doing our thing there, which I like. Being among the people, people are there, at Chad Cheese, it's epic. Joel: Love Paris, especially I've never been in October. It's going to be lovely. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: It's going to be beautiful. Chad: It's going to be great. So at that point you would think that rounds up pretty much our world tour, but we actually have four new editions. So if you haven't checked out the Chad Cheese world tour list, go to chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right corner, we're adding Sweden. We're going to TNG, Tengai live, so we're going to do a live pod from there. Tengai: Hi, this is Tengai, the unbiased interview robot. Chad: And Tengai actually spun off into its own company. So that's also big news. Joel: Remember the old James Brown shows where he'd act like he was too tired to go on,- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... and he would start exiting the stage, and then he'd throw off the cape and do more shows? That's what we are. Chad: Yeah, exactly. Joel: We're the James Brown of the podcast tour business, which I think is just us doing it. So there's not a lot of competition, but we are the James Brown of our industry. Thank you very much. Chad: And in September, Recruit a nation live in San Francisco at the JobVite's show. Then we're going to iCIMS's Influence in November in Scottsdale, Talent Net in December in Dallas. I mean, when you looked at our original lineup, it was like, "Fuck man, that is pretty aggressive," and then add four more shows onto that. Joel: That's what my wife said, not you. By the way guys, Chad's trying to get me to do Yoga at the ISAM show in Scottsdale. I'm not real sure about that. Chad: I think that is... We're going to have a camera crew there while we do it. Joel: Yeah. #noyogayoga #chadcheese, if you think I should do yoga. Chad: Let's do the show. Joel: Let us do it. Dude, I need to start a fucking programmatic advertising solution, because they're getting bought up like hot cakes right now. Chad: Too late. The arms race goes on, and we didn't know, but a little company called Compana was actually bought up by the Riverside company who owns German Personnel, which is a programmatic company, and they've- Joel: Compana. Chad: ... combined... Yeah, so- Joel: Bless you. Chad: Yeah. So it seems like there's some acquisitions happening across the pond. Those are German companies I believe, overall. Before we get to the main course, which are ones that we all know, Step Stone obviously bought Appcast. Joel: Yeah, it's a blitzkrieg. Chad: It's freaking... I mean, it's crazy. Joel: The Germans. Chad: Then after smacking Indeed square in the face, Indeed comes back and says, "Aha, we're going to buy ClickIQ," Richard Collins and the group, and then we land in the US and the very next fucking day, TMP buys Perengo. Joel: Four deals in 45 days I think, if our math is correct- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... and it's still heating up. So whose next, whose going to be bought up next? And we commented recently that Joveo has been really quiet lately. Chad: They have been quiet. It's either bad that they've been quiet, because nobody's over there, or somebody should check for a pulse, or maybe somethings happening. Who knows? I know that obviously the Recruitics team, it's interesting, did they go the wrong direction in becoming an agency instead of focusing on analytics and programmatic? Joel: That is a question for another show maybe. Chad: Yeah, we might have to have that as a segment all to itself. Joel: Maybe- Chad: I think- Joel: Maybe they're just on the phone all day fielding offers, eBay style, and just waiting for the clock to run out. Chad: We'll figure it out. I think the biggest question right now for these three, TMP, Step Stone / Appcast and Indeed with ClickIQ is, do they play together nicely, or do the walled gardens start to appear? Joel: The walled gardens have to start to appear? Chad: Where first? Joel: The algo's favoring their properties, as it's going to happen. You won't be able to prove it, there won't be any transparency, but it's going to happen. When staffing companies buy job boards, and job boards... All these companies are going to favor their own properties, that's just the way it works. Chad: That's smoke and mirrors, right? Joel: I give a good amount of credit to Appcast that they'll probably hold out the algorithm the longest, but ultimately... You don't think TMP's going to act in TMP's best interest? Chad: Well, I personally believe that TMP, I don't know this for sure, but I believe TMP is going to swat everybody else away, and Perengo is their product, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So they're going to integrate that with Talent Brew, and off you go. So if a client comes to them and they're using Appcast, which to be quite frank, most of these direct employer types of companies, are coming to agencies so that the agencies can do their shit, not so that they can take over their vendor relationship, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So from that standpoint, it's like, "Oh, you don't have to worry about it, we have all of your different job site destinations taken care of with our programmatic offering through Talent Brew, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So, I think that's an easy one to understand from my standpoint. The big question for me is, does Indeed pull their content out of all the other programmatic platforms, just to have it in ClickIQ? Joel: That would depend on how much revenue I guess they'd have to lose over it in the short term. In the long term, if ClickIQ becomes the number one programmatic solution because they're the only one with Indeed, well, that becomes kind of good for Indeed and ClickIQ. Chad: Yes. Joel: And kind of fucks everybody else. Chad: Well, and what is Indeed good at doing? Joel: Fucking everybody else? Chad: Exactly right. I mean, right now ClickIQ- Joel: Boom chicka bow wow. Chad: ... Appcast is really the infrastructure for the agency game here in the US, and abroad for many cases, so they are really the lion's share of how that works from an infrastructure standpoint. So let's say tomorrow through Appcast, you can no longer get any type of traffic or clicks from Indeed, because Indeed just threw up that walled garden? Joel: Oh. Chad: Yeah. So I mean that's the... We've seen them do this shit with... obviously with job boards, with staffing companies, sometimes with big fortune brands. So they're saying, "I'm sorry, you're not meeting the quality that we're looking for." Which means you're not getting any free traffic, you're going to just have to pay for your traffic. So this is... It seems like it's the Indeed playbook, but it's going to go in more of a programmatic scale. Joel: Yeah, and they better do it soon while they're still relevant. Chad: Yes. Joel: Because 10 years from now, no-one will care. Chad: Five. Joel: Oh, okay, go five. I was being generous. Chad: That was nice of you. Joel: The heat, the heat man. The heat. All right, programmatic stays hot, and I'm sure we'll have more stories in the weeks to come. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Another company that's still on fire is LinkedIn. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Seeking Alpha is one of my go-to's for anything like public company and business story related, and they have a story out this week. Microsoft, LinkedIn bet is paying off better than expected. So a guy wrote an article... LinkedIn is just killing, and you give me shit about drinking the cool aid, but the numbers don't lie, and where LinkedIn is going, is pretty impressive. So the article somehow is from LinkedIn standalone revenue within Microsoft, is close to being $10 billion by 2022, which makes that investment pay off pretty quickly at that rate. You just look at the numbers going down. 630 million members, they're one of the few social networks that's actually worldwide. They're still in China. 70% of LinkedIn users are from outside the US, so you look at global growth, it's impressive. Over 30 million companies using it to post 20 million job openings. Joel: 90 million of LinkedIn users are senior level people. 63 million are decision makers in their positions. Three million NBA graduates. It goes on and on from a member's perspective, from a revenue perspective. Once GDPR kicks in and all that, all the privacy laws, LinkedIn is going to be in the cat-bird seat. They're covering solutions for hiring, marketing, selling, education. I mean, they're just crushing it dude. I don't know why you're such a hater on LinkedIn. Chad: I think what they do now, which is really being able to monetize the data and the content that they have, I've never been a hater on that, it's what they can do next outside of that, right? So being able to add an applicant tracking system, and all these new perspective platforms that can plug into it. I just... I'm not seeing that. What they do better than anybody, obviously, is monetize the types of data that they have. Now Facebook does a pretty good job, and they even have a bigger reach, the thing is, they haven't been able to figure out, or maybe just they aren't spending enough time, or really care to understand this industry. Joel: Yeah. Chad: But I believe if they had focus, and they had priority in this segment, they would kick ass and take names. The big question is, will that ever happen? Joel: Yeah, ultimately, Google and Facebook are probably the only ones who can give LinkedIn / Microsoft real competition. If I'm anyone in the ATS space or below, I'm going to carve a niche out, but I'm not going to be something that LinkedIn is doing now. Chad: So they say they have anywhere from 610 to 630 million profile users, whatever, in the system, which is awesome. The big question is, what about an organization like Jobcase? They are US centric, but the thing is, they are appealing to the 70% that LinkedIn is not, and what could an organization do if, I don't know, maybe they acquired a Jobcase? Joel: Yeah. And I think it's really early to put Jobcase in the same position. Chad: Yes. Joel: I mean, acquisition obviously changes things overnight. I mean, we were talking about when LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft, that Microsoft was going to fuck it up like Yammer or any of the other acquisitions that happened business wise- Chad: But they left it alone. Joel: Yeah. I mean, they put resources into it. They integrated into Microsoft 365, and put AI resources. I mean, clearly Microsoft is... The care and feeling for LinkedIn is real, they're serious about building the business and integrating it into Microsoft. I think more AI tools are coming to LinkedIn. The growth both by professionals, they are ahead by a country mile in terms of professionals on the platform using it on a regular basis. And you also look at the Facebook privacy issues, LinkedIn for better or worse, hasn't had those issues and maybe they won't. And I'm not saying that LinkedIn will become the next Facebook, I don't think that's what they want to be. And they won't be the next TiK ToK. But anyway, I just think they're in a great position, and they're on cruise control. Chad: So this week, it was hilarious, because I've started to notice some very scantily clad pictures of females on LinkedIn. And my question is, when did cat fishing start on LinkedIn? Because I received... While I was in London, I had a ton of LinkedIn invites, and I was going through and I was, "Okay, good enough," and I was really being lazy to be quite frank. I was pretty much accepting them all, and then I get a message from one... their name was, Loving Franca. And it was a picture of a very voluptuous female showing a lot of cleavage, and her question was, "I would like to start a relationship." I'm like, block. Joel: So in Loving's defense, you did connect with her, or him, or whatever was on the other side of that. Chad: Whatever, yeah, yeah. Joel: And then instantly got, "I want to build a relationship?' Chad: It was pretty instantaneous. Joel: I would have like to see where that had gone if you had said, "Yes." What would have happened? Would they have asked you for money? Would they have asked you to give them your contact information? Anyway, we won't know because you said goodbye for obvious reasons. But I think if you talk to the old timers that have been using LinkedIn for 20 years, LinkedIn's not that quite old, let's say 15 years, that they would tell you that this shit's been going on for a long time. I think that it's becoming more as LinkedIn grows, and as Facebook gets a little bit stricter and maybe more conscientious about real versus fake profiles, and Twitter's been a mess for a long time. But no-one uses Twitter like they used to anymore. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, I think it's been going on a long time now. Whether or not it's been on hyper drive because of what's going on at Facebook and others, I don't know. But cat fishing and trying to get you to connect with a sexy young thing, even though it's probably a 65-year-old male on the other end managing it- Chad: In Russia. Joel: Yeah, in Russia, yeah, that's been going on for a long time. Chad: On LinkedIn? Joel: There are people, by the way, that connect with you and immediately sell you shit. Chad: Yes. Joel: Does that work for people? Chad: I don't know. Joel: That can't work. Chad: I don't know. I just know that if you come straight to me after I just... I mean, the first interaction is, I want to try to sell you something, I automatically block you. Because that's the dumbest shit to be able to just cold right into it, and think that, that's what this platform is used for. Joel: And more and more I connect with people based on who they're connect with, that I trust. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I like to put out a public service message to say, "Look, let's be more selective with our LinkedIn connections, because we're all sort of connecting because of other people connecting, and it's a vicious cycle of trust misguided." So let's all be more careful about connecting with Loving, whoever that was, and actually connecting with real people who can help us do our jobs- Chad: Don't do it. Joel: ... and connect in the real world. Chad: Don't do it. Joel: Speaking of something you should do- Chad: Yes. Joel: ... is listen to this next advertisement from our sponsor Sovren, and we'll be right back to talk about Amazon Prime Day's Strike, No Strike. It'll be fun. 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 suit 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. Chad: At least the software's not trying to cat fish me. Joel: And if it's a chat bot in California, you know there's a robot on the other end of it. Chad: California Love. Yeah so, a story out of Courts- Joel: Going back to Cali- Chad: ... a new California law is pretty much making chat bots disclose that they're actually chat bots. California Governor, Jerry Brown signed regulations into law last Friday, September 30th, that should make it easier for Californians to know whether they're speaking to a human or a bot. Do job seekers care? Joel: I think people probably care. There's this whole government versus AI automation that we've talked about. We've seen in Illinois with interviewing, you've got to tell them it's an... AI is reading their facial expressions, or voice and what not, and I think it's just going to happen. What I want to know is, how is California passing laws so quickly? They're passing shit like, if you're building a house it has to have solar panels on it. They're passing, if it's a chat bot. They pass stuff so quickly, I want to know what they're drinking, or what they're doing in California to pass these laws? Chad: They don't have Mitch McConnell in California, is that what you're trying to say? Joel: I don't know what it is, because I'm not attuned to the state legislature in California, but I just know that they pass laws over lunch. And it's either impressive, or really scary depending on your perspective. Chad: Yeah, depending. I mean, this could perspectively impact more than just chat bots, because- Joel: Oh yeah. Chad: ... what's the difference between writing a script for a bot that sends e-mails, and replies on the behalf of a human. And we see this on the sales side, and the marketing side with the Marketo's of the world, and those types of platforms. So what's the difference? What's the actual definition of a bot when it comes to the disclosure of this regulation? If a bot pulls together an e-mail, sends it, does it have to say that in the signature line, created by bot? Joel: Well, look at automation and voice. So if I talk to a robot, do they have to say, "Hi, I'm a robot, can we schedule your next hair appointment," or whatever it is, right? At what point do you have... Ultimately, everything will be robotic and automated, so everything that you do in life will have a little disclosure like, "I'm a robot," even though everyone will know it's a robot, because we'll all know that everything is automated. Chad: Yeah. There's going to be a terms of slight... One of those. If you're using Duplex, there's a terms of service, and in the terms of service I'm sure it would say, "You're going to be speaking to a bot, and we're going to collect all your data, and..." I mean, just all this shit. So I think that's the easy part, it's something- Joel: I don't know that it does. Duplex should... If Duplex is like, "Hey Google, schedule a hair appointment for next Tuesday," and then they call the salon and schedule an appointment for you, and then they put it into your Google calendar, I don't think there's any sort of disclosure when your robot calls the salon, that, "Hey, I'm a robot, scheduling an appointment for John my master," or whatever it is. Chad: I think it could easily say, "Hey, this is Google Duplex calling for Chad, want to do a hair appointment, Ha that's funny." So that's all just verbiage, the way that you actually place it up. And the person on the other end of the phone, are they going to care if they get business through this- Joel: No. Chad: ... or not? I don't think they'll care. It's just like the job seekers, right? I don't believe job seekers give a shit that a bot is interacting with them,- Joel: No. Chad: ... because for years, they received no interaction. It was totally black hole. Now if a bot reaches out to them, they're like, "Oh my God, these guys actually care." Joel: Which also goes to the, what's the penalty if it doesn't, right? So one, someone's actually going to have to report that, "Hey, they're not telling me that it's a chat bot." And then number two is, what's the penalty if you're guilty? So we already know that if you're texting without permission, the government will fuck you up. They will fuck you up big time. So there's actual lead... whatever. We won't get into this, but basically, there are people that will try to find people who aren't opting in, or have an opt in, and then they find a way to sue you. There's a whole industry around that. Anyway, for a different show. But if the penalty is a slap on the hand, and no-one really cares, then who gives a shit about this law anyway. But if the penalty is like, $5000 for every message sent by a robot, then holy shit, a lot of people are going to care, and a lot of people will try to profit from it on the legal side of the house. Chad: There you have it. Joel: There you have it. Okay, Striking at Amazon. Did you purchase anything on Prime Day this week? Chad: I did not. I'm not much of a shopper. I'm sure Julie did though, because she loves her Amazon Prime. Joel: Yeah, we bought the kids iPads this week. Chad: Oh, smart. Joel: An epic deal on iPads. So they need it for school anyway, so we were able to do that. So we benefited from it, however, there is some mix up in the news, I guess dueling reports here, that was a strike in Minnesota. Chad: Right. Joel: The story you shared was, people in the street with pitchforks, marching into Amazon. And then the counter story from Amazon, which is fun, is basically that these people were paid, but only 15 people actually sort of marched on Amazon. And this was all sort of a group that was politically motivated and they paid people, et cetera. So I tend to believe Amazon, that there probably a ton... I mean, Amazon is not unionized, there's no Jimmy Hoffer behind Amazon managing and organizing all these workers. They probably all would lose their job potentially if they went out on strike. So I sort of believe that this was more of a group... anti-Amazon group trying to stir up some trouble there in good old, peaceful Minnesota. Chad: Yeah. Peaceful Minnesota, where they still have to piss in garbage cans to make their quotas. I think we're focusing on the wrong thing, how many people showed up versus are they actually receiving a fair wage, and prospectively treated like robots who will pretty soon probably be replaced by robots? So that's the thing. Okay, Amazon Prime Day, we're going to walk out, there are a bunch of people with signs, who knows, paid not paid. Who was actually sticking up for these individuals, right? Because if you feel like you are the only person who can stick up for yourself, and you don't have a union of people, or a group of people, or somebody to ensure that the right things happening for the betterment of all of those employees, you feel helpless. You feel helpless. Joel: Yeah. Chad: It's not how many people marched, are their practices really fair? And from what we've heard, from haptic bracelets, pissing in trash cans and a bunch of other stuff, we can't... Whether you believe Amazon or not, I don't give a fuck. All those other things, are the things that I care about. Making sure that people get paid and they get treated well. Joel: I'm just appalled that your wife, of all people, is supporting this kind of behavior with her wallet. And you can pass that along to her. Chad: Yeah, I will. Yeah, a shout out Julie Sowash on that one. Way to end that segment. Joel: Wait I've got to... There you go Julie, it's all your fault. All your fault. All right let's hear a quick word from our buddies at JobAdX, and we'll go to the meat of the show, the good stuff here at the end. 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. JobAdX: Now with in ad video and multi-media, 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.com. Joel: Chad did you ever go to summer camp? Chad: Yeah. Before we get there, I'd like to get some vindication in here. I just checked the Amazon account, and no purchases actually happened yesterday during- Joel: Oh. Chad: ... Prime Day, so Julie is vindicated and stepping back from her Amazon purchases. Take that Joel Cheesman. Joel: All right. So what retailer of choice does Julie recommend for the best wages and working conditions? Chad: All right, you'd have to get her on the podcast to ask that one. Joel: We need some Sowash endorsement for- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... our retail audience out there. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Summer camp, you've been? Like the whole canoeing, archery, the Bill Murray- Chad: Yeah. Joel: ... late '70s movie smash hit Meatballs? Chad: Yeah. Not quite that fun, but yeah. Joel: Are you ready for the summer? Are you ready for the good time? So Job Today, one of the most influential job sites over in Europe, they decided that it was a good idea to have a Job Today Summer Camp for kids. I know what you're saying, "What do kids do at the Job Today Summer Camp?" Chad: Yeah, are they canoeing, are they archery? I mean- Joel: Yeah, you'd think so, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Kids, luckily they're in London and Barcelona who attended. So according to a story at Angroup, the target audience is young people with little or no work experience. Summer camp is designed to improve their job hunting skills, and boost their resume. Chad: What? Joel: According to the site, each training day will include a morning session on job search techniques,- Chad: No fucking way, how old are these kids? Joel: Let me finish, interview tips, and coaching. In the afternoon, experts will lead hands on job training, successful applicants can attend one or more sessions. I just can't. How bad is- Chad: At summer camp. Joel: ... summer camp if you're learning to write a resume and interview? Chad: Summer camp is time to get away all of the learning, the books, and all that other stuff. It's time to swim, canoe, all that stuff. This is not... This sounds like a Tiger Mom camp. Joel: Yeah. It sounds like some fantasy concentration camp for kids. What in the world is going on over there in Europe? Chad: That's fucking horrible. Joel: I got nothing man. Chad: That's fucking horrible. I've got something, the Swedes love this whole fucking microchip thing. More than 4000 people have already had these sci-fish chips added... We've talked about this before, it's about the size of a grain of rice and it's inserted into your hand. This gives you an opportunity to go and buy things much easier. So instead of using, like when we were just over in London, everybody was tapping their card, and it's kind of novel here to an... the whole pay thing, everybody did it. Now, that's not good enough, "Wait a minute I've got to pull my card out, no I don't want to do that. I'll just tap my hand on it." How much information are you giving away? Joel: Why are people volunteering to do this? Chad: They're fucking- Joel: It just blows my mind. Chad: ... idiots, dude. Geo location... I mean, can you imagine if insurance companies got their hands on some of the information that was actually embedded in your body? I mean it's just... Dude, I don't get it. What are people thinking? Joel: Yeah. Chad: And then, Elon Musk comes up with brain chips, pretty much. I mean, dude, it is freaking crazy. They call the ones that are in your hand, glorified smart watches, but Elon Musk says that these brain chips, they're like Bluetooth enabled implants. He's claiming the devices will enable telepathy and repair motor function in people with injuries. That comes from CNN Business. What the fuck? Joel: Because I really want to know what everyone's thinking. Chad: I don't want to know that, nobody. Joel: All right. I don't want to know what my kids think about me. Chad: Yeah. At all. Joel: "Dad is so stupid." Chad: Yeah, for sending me to- Joel: "Why?" Chad: ... sending me to Job Today camp. Joel: Yeah, "I don't want to go to Job Today camp. No." Chad: "All right, all right Cole, I know you don't want to go to Job Today camp, I can totally get it, but guess what, you're going to thank dad in 20 years." No, he's not, he's going to hate you. Joel: Good news is kidnappings will stop, because we'll be able to track all of our kids wherever they go. So I guess there is some silver lining to this police state that we're moving toward. Chad: You might as well put a collar on them. Joel: Speaking of which, I'm going to throw in a little curve ball. We've all being seeing these face app, check me out 50 years from now- Chad: Like the Facebook? Yeah. Joel: What am I going to look like when I'm old, right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: So I love this... What can go wrong when an app basically dictates or determines what you're going to look like when you're old with face recognition type technology. Chad: Right. Joel: What can go wrong? So anyway, so privacy concerns... A story came out this week, privacy concerns are rising around the viral face transforming "face app", which has swiftly become a global pop cultural touch down. I personally haven't done it yet, I don't really want to know what I'll look- Chad: No thanks. Joel: ... when I'm old, because I'm getting old. Users are being cautioned that the app, which allows users to see their "future self" by using AI software to instantaneously rework photos, could be misused by the software company's Russian based developers. Face App was modified... has modified more than 80 million user images, and according to its terms of use it can "still store and use images even if users delete them." What could go wrong people? Chad: I've got nothing. We're putting chips in our hands, we're looking at putting chips in our heads, and- Joel: We're going to job search summer camps. Chad: ... and we don't mind giving all of our data to anybody and anyone, while we're getting cat fished on LinkedIn. So that's all I've got. Joel: Fuck it, I'm going to go strike Amazon. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Announcer: This has the 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. #Appcast #ClickIQ #Perengo #TMP #AIA #Indeed #StepStone #Linkedn #Jobcase #Facebook #GermanPersonnel #Microsoft #chatbots #JobToday

Do staffing firms need a native app for iPhones and Android devices? This startup certainly thinks so, but do the boys agree? Let's just say it's a house divided. Ready. Aim. Listen. And enjoy this Talroo exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. Chad: Talroo is focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Joel: 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: 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: 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. Chad: That's right. Joel: A whole other level. Chad: That's right. Joel: We're recording on Canada Day, so I'm all hopped up on Molson as we record this. Anyway, kids- Chad: Is that a real day? Joel: -it's another episode of- It is a real day, yeah. Canada Day, when they fought quote-unquote for their independence from Britain. Anyway, Firing Squad is back, gang. Today we have a special treat straight out of the Northwest of the great American country that we live in. Rick, can I call you Little Richard or would you be offended? Anyway, Rick Richard, founder and CEO of StaffUpApp. Chad: App. Joel: Rick, welcome to the show. Rick: Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Joel: You're so mellow, man, I love it. Rick: I'm a Portlander, you know? Joel: That cool Portland vibe you got going there. Rick: Exactly. Joel: My only association with Portland is watching Kindergarten Cop a couple times. Rick: Yeah, that's true, it was filmed here. Joel: Yeah, it was, it was, it was. Like 30 years ago. Rick, tell us about yourself. Chad will go through the rules and then we'll get into the company. Rick: All right, great. So I'm a computer science person by background, software engineering, electrical engineering, as well. I've been a software for the last 25 plus years or so, started a few firms. I'm also the founder and CEO of a mobile app development firm, which is how it led to StaffUpApp. I live with my family and two kids, here in the Pacific Northwest. Me in a nutshell. Joel: So no background in employment, which could be important. Rick: Well, I've been an entrepreneur for much longer than I ever was employed. So, I worked for several software firms, but that was 20 plus years ago. Joel: This is your first foray into an employment-related technology, is what I'm asking? Rick: It is, yes. Joel: All right, Chad, tell him what he's won. Chad: Excellent. Rick, what you've won is getting in front of the Firing Squad. Rick, you're going to have two minutes to pitch StaffUpApp. At the end of two minutes, you're going to hear the bell, and Joel and I will hit you with rapid fire Q&A. If your answers start rambling and you get boring, we're going to hit you with the crickets. That means tighten your game up. At the end of Q&A, we're going to grade you with one of three, first being big applause. Joel: That's what you want. Chad: That's what you want right there. That means we loved it. Golf clap. That's my favorite, but we think that you're on the right track, but you're not quite there yet and need to tighten your game up a little bit. And what you don't want to hear, the Firing Squad. That means take that app and go home. Joel: Take your shit and go home, Rick. Chad: That's right, take your app and go home. So that's it for Firing Squad. Joel, get ready to start him. Joel: Rick, any questions? Rick: No, I got it. Joel: Excellent. And you are on your two minute countdown starting (ding ding ding) Rick: So StaffUpApp is a white label, mobile app solution for staffing and recruiting industry. We make it so that you can have your own branded app in the Apple app store for iPhones and iPads, and a Google Play store for Android devices, all without the high cost of custom mobile app development. The apps are available for a candidate to download and engage with the firms. So today, candidates use and expect the online, on-demand, Uber-like experience. You know, like Netflix mobile, Uber and Lyft apps, dating apps, and of course banking apps, which I love and I use pretty extensively. Rick: Firms that can modernize their approach and have an app to allow easy access to applications submittals, referrals to friends and colleagues, and engage with the staffing firm I think are really ahead of the game. With differentiating your brand in a really big way by having your own custom app, I think staffing firms really give themselves the ability to connect with candidates in a way that they don't normally have access to. Like push notifications and texting, for example, are natural to mobile and I think part of the process. Rick: Staffing firms that have an app have huge first mover advantage over staffing firms that don't, and everyone puts their jobs on Indeed and Google for example, right? That's fantastic and it's essential, but having your own branded mobile app allows you to connect faster with candidates. And both active and passive candidates at any point, they see your jobs, can engage with you, can apply and can submit referrals for friends and colleagues. Rick: To build your own mobile app today would be about $150-200k. A very expensive, time consuming and risky endeavor. StaffUpApp offers a better solution at a fraction of that cost. For more information, go to our website staffupapp.com or email me at rick@staffupapp.com. Chad: Nice. (ding ding ding) Very nice. Joel: Nice job, Rick. You got that pitch down. Chad: Way to close it out. That was good. Joel: Someone's been practicing in the mirror with a stopwatch I think. Chad: Wow, we ridiculed others for not getting that domain in there, right? Very nice. So first question, Rick. Most of these companies don't have a great mobile experience on their site, at all, anyway. So why jump straight into an app if their mobile experience sucks already? Rick: So, first they should have a mobile experience. That's kind of an essential thing. Problem is most people have statistically have been shown like Flurry and other analytical firms that have done a survey, most app users use browsers maybe 10% of the time when they're on mobile. The rest of the time, they're in mobile apps. So they want to engage with firms using their mobile app. That experience is more engaging, it's more specific to them, and it's tailored for mobile. If they have a browser solution that's not responsive now, they're already behind the 8-ball. So they have to have that, but really this is above and beyond having your own browser based solution. Joel: So Rick, I think in the selling point to the staffing firm to have an app is probably not too difficult. Where I have a problem is, asking a job seeker to download a native app in order to see the jobs, to apply and sort of message and engage. You mentioned you have a banking app and I think we all probably do on this call, you use banking tools everyday, right? You're checking your balance, you're moving money, your depositing, whatever you're doing, right? That's a regular thing that you do. Joel: Most job searches happen every two to three years. If there are apps that people download it's probably like the Indeed app, or Glassdoor maybe, where they can see companies or get updates, so what, for a job seeker really is the defining reason why they would download your app versus others? Rick: So you've got two differentiations there. So the passive job seeker who's already employed, now why would he download the app? Then you've got the active job seeker. Let's talk about the active job seeker first. So staffing firms go out of their way to build relationships with candidates, right? You have a candidate walk through your door or email you or however you've connected with them, that's very expensive touch point. They want to engage that person and keep that person connected. Rick: So making an app available to them is essential because now, the candidate's not going to download ten staffing firm apps. They may download, like you said, Monster and Indeed and those guys for the broader search, but they really want that relationship with a firm they've chosen. They're not going to have a relationship with ten different firms, they're going to have a personal relationship with one or two staffing firms that really engage with them. And the app allows you to do that with push notifications and texts, having your jobs available to you, all those features are really available at the tips of your fingers. Chad: So back to my question with regard to the mobile experience on the website. Why not just focus? If I'm a staffing company, why don't I just focus deeply on making sure that that's a more engaging user experience as opposed to creating something that somebody has to download? What does an app give me that a really great user experience on my mobile site won't? Rick: First of all, now you can't send push notifications to a mobile based browser. They've got that ability with StaffUpApp. You can't even send text messages to the person based on their mobile usage. But the big reason is people just aren't using mobile browsers. They just don't use them. Like I said, statistically, they use maybe 10% of the time you're on your mobile browser for a firm to interact with them. The rest of the time they expect an app. Rick: So, yeah, if mobile browsers are being used, sure that would be a reasonable argument. I still would have arguments against it, but that would be a reasonable argument. But it's not being used, so you're kind of not engaging with the people you want to engage with and spending a lot of time and money on a mobile experience that isn't being used. Joel: I want to step back a second, Rick. Talk about, have you guys raised money? Are you looking to raise money? What does the organization look like and what might it look like in the next 24 months? Rick: So, we have not raised money, it's al boot strapped up. I own a mobile app development company. We've built apps for the real Olympics, Motorola, of a national brand, soft built a lot of apps over the last 10 years, so I've boot strapped it up. If we're looking for funding, I'm not sure yet. So we'll see after the next 18 months or so. The market is wide open now, very few firms have a mobile app, very few firms have a good mobile app, so we think we've got a lot of upside, so we're going to approach that as the year progresses. Joel: So you develop a lot of apps. You see a lot of startups and companies that are developing stuff. You haven't developed anything in the employment space. So what was it about this idea that really sparked your imagination and wanted you to actually build it and do this? Rick: So, in my mobile app development company, I will get staffing firms to come to me and want to build their own mobile app. A subside of what we've got in StaffUpApp. But when they hear the cost, $150-250k to build out iPhone, android, the backing system that's needed, and all the supporting services, they shy away. So after a few times happening, I said well I think I can build this and do it in a white label way, so that it's not onerous for us to customize it for every staffing firm. Rick: We can automate a lot of that, build a lot of those options in, in configurable ways, make this available as a service to staffing and recruiting firms instead of one big lump sum fee, we're a subscription based service. Chad: You just said the market is wide open, and you're right, the market is wide open. So why just focus on staffing firms? You have these huge big fortune 500, fortune 25, fortune 50 brands who would, could pay $150k for an app, or $100k, who knows. Why just focus on staffing? Why not branch out and look at that wide open market? Rick: So that's a great question. So, I think the big mistake in startups is they try to do too much too fast. Now, we have a really good product, we're learning tons in the staffing and recruiting industry. They've improved this product over the last 18 months in ways that I wouldn't even have thought of. So we're building up to that point. Will we go to the bigger fortune 500 companies and beyond? You know, very possibly, but when we go to them, we're going to be super solid. Rick: We're going to have a product that we know, an industry that has really worked for us, is really engaging a lot of users, and then we go to them with a lot of strength, instead of trying to get that first fortune 500 company would take a year, right, or more. They take forever to close. So we're in a space where we think we can close a lot of staffing and recruiting firms and get tons of great feedback and make our product fantastic. Joel: We talk a lot on this show about automation., particularly marketing, recruitment marketing automation. I could see a job seeker maybe downloading the app because the recruiting firm tells them, hey download the app and we can engage with you in that manner, but do they continue to get things like job alerts, messages from the recruiters, is there an engagement after the initial download? Or do I download it, get a job, and then I never hear from the company or the staffing firm again unless they manually go in and communicate with me? What automation tools does it have? Rick: All right, so now this is a second part of industry we're talking about. Passive candidates. Someone who's already working, right? They've already used the app, they've got a position, and now they're working somewhere. Why would they want the app? So, the reason is, the staffing firm keeps them engaged. We have a great career resources area where you get help with all sorts of aspects of a running employment, whatever they want, PDFs, videos, whatever they want, they can put in that area. Rick: So the candidate, even passively, can always stay engaged with you. More importantly, a passive candidate has all these relationships with other individuals in their segment. So when I was a working engineer, I knew what everyone was doing. I knew everyone who was happy with what they were doing, or looking for a job, or wanting to change their development stack, and move on. So I knew all those guys. Rick: If my staffing firm, who I have a relationship with, sends a notification out that says, we've got a new referral program. It's now $1,000 if place as a java developer. Now, I've got the app, I know that right away, with just a couple of clicks, I can refer that friend without having to lookup staffing firms, email address or the name of my recruiter, all that is already built in to the app. Everyone gets a report of it. Rick: The staffing firm gets a notification that there's a new referral, the person who's referred now has a link to the app or the specific job that I thought they were good for. So it makes a really tight coupling even if the candidate is passive and not actively looking for a position. Chad: So, Rick, quick question with regard to texting and then going beyond texting to messaging. I see that you have an integrated partnership with a texting organization. What about beyond that messaging with WhatsApp and maybe some of these other organizations like TalkPush, Canvas, TextRecruit, which cover more than just text. Are you integrating with them? How does that all work? Rick: So texting is different, so we have lots of integrations with others. Like one of our referral partners, Staffing Referrals, they have a great system. It flushes out referrals far better than we would. We want to have a basic referral program. If there's third party connections that we can make, we're more than willing to do that. We've got several that we've already done. Rick: Texting is different. Texting is phone number based. So, if you've got the phone number from your texting firm, and our texting partner is not just texting, they've got full rich set of features like RecruitText and others. Canvas, they've got a full rich set of features. So we integrate by the phone number. So the phone number you assigned to your recruiter or the firm, we integrate into our app to when the candidate wants to text you, they've got it already in the app. Rick: We go through their normal texting system, or their texting partner for back and forth texting. So, we integrate it at their phone number level so that if it ever changes it's always still integrated into our system. Going beyond texting, I think that's really interesting. So, I don't see it as much now for WhatsApp and others, but I think that's going to really be the next step for texting candidates, so even RichTexts, that sort of thing, is really becoming popular, but I'm not seeing it yet, but we're certainly watching it, and when that integration is available to us we certainly are going to integrate with others. Chad: Yeah, when you take a look at some of these very large staffing companies like Ronstadt, that is an international staffing organization and across the pond, WhatsApp is used more than really I think any other messaging platform that's out there. Now it is predicated on the phone number which is good, which is another reason why I asked about WhatsApp because that is basic foundation on the phone number. Rick: Right, right. Joel: Interested in marketing. As you all know, selling as a vendor, marketing is challenging, but you're also asking the staffing firm to market the app as well. So talk about how you guys are marketing, the staffing companies, and then what sort of recommendation or hand holding do you do with the staffing firm to then market their app to their candidates and prospects? Rick: So, you're right. Closing a staffing firm can be time consuming, but giving them tips on how to market the app is easy, because they already do all the things that we piggy-back on. They post to Instagram, they post to LinkedIn, they post their jobs. Everywhere they post already, we say add a small tag to the bottom of your post that says 'download our mobile app' or 'we now have mobile app' and it has the nice iPhone and android images that let's them click and download right their from their mobile. Rick: So marketing is pretty straight forward, because again they're already reaching out so many places. And we have marketing tips that we provide them. We're constantly growing and evolving, learning new things, and passing them on to all of our staffing firms. Chad: Right, how many clients do you currently have utilizing your apps and how are they using it to become more of the Uber-ization, as you would call it, of staffing? Rick: So we're about 18 months in. Our beta launch, it was pretty lengthy, so we have a couple dozen clients already, the exact number fluctuates but we have a couple dozen and it's growing. It's growing pretty rapidly. Whenever we leave a conference we always close several clients so we're getting big on conferences now. They way they're using it is essentially the same for all, but it does vary a little bit. More the industrial clients, they push a lot of texts and push notifications to their pool often, and they get a lot of response. A lot of referrals, a lot of applications. Rick: For the more high tech firms, that place high tech IT and other areas, they for one want the jobs to be available. And one thing you guys mentioned earlier on about getting lots of notifications, our app doesn't really give any notifications other than what the candidate asked for. So a candidate for example would download a staffing firms app, they put in their alerts. They say what are they interested in, and only when those things are available do they get a notification that that match is made in the app, and the app shows them the matches they have. Rick: The job listings update automatically so there's no notification that there's a new job, it's just more like when there's a match is available for the candidate but they all use the PDF format of resources, so they always get information, there career resources is updated instantly. If the firm updates in our backend, it's instantly available to the app, there's no refresh needed or anything like that. So they all use it to communicate everything from resume tips to other employment types of PDFs they put out or their blog, whatever they think is important, those are always available. Joel: I'm interested in competition for a little bit. Is there any competition aside from just developers that would have to develop this from scratch, and also what do you feel is the biggest threat to your business? Rick: So there's no real direct competitors, there's another firm in Canada that provides a branded app. They're more time based oriented I believe. They do more time cards. There are a few staffing firms that have built their own, and they're pretty sparse. There the job list. I don't really see a point, right? They do that in they're more of a browser based thing. They don't do even application submittals in many that I've seen. So it's not really an engagement too for them, it's more they thought they needed an app and then they had it built. Rick: So I don't see a lot of competition there. The threat I see, and it's not realized yet, and we plan on being there as well, is something we touched on earlier. First, this evolution of texting happening, right? SOmething's going to happen with texting and I think it's going to be a merger of kind of texting and chat bots kind of thing where the process for engaging a candidate is going to evolve over the next few years. We always talk chat bots in terms of AI. Chat bots are not AI yet. Chat bots are a logic tree today, so they're not really super polished. Rick: You've seen the complicated ones that look very real, but it's not really AI yet. I think AI, with all the searches becoming available through Microsoft, Google, Amazon, true AI, I think the candidate experience is going to change so much over the next few years that you can't really predict where it's going to be. You can only stay alert and say, I'm going to utilize this as it becomes available and popular. So that's kind of how I look at the future horizon. I keep an eye on the things I think are really exciting and coming down the line and seeing how we can integrate it in and provide more value to our clients. Chad: Talking about value. You know, as boot strapping this, you cannot develop everything. You can't. I mean, this is an arms race that's happening right now in this industry, so talk to me about some of the partners that you have integrated with and why you chose to actually integrate with those partners. Rick: Yeah, so that's a good point. You know, it's the same thing about the fortune 500 and 5000 companies. I can't be everywhere yet. I want to stay really focused on what I do, and I don't want to reach out and be the best texting platform in the world. Now we have really good basic texting built into our service, no extra cost, but we also partner with texting companies like TextUs, for example, who has a great system, fully flushed out robust system, and after adding features and functions all the time. Rick: So we let them do full blown texting if the firm is interested in that. Our referrals are becoming so big now, I can't believe some firms don't have a referral bonus program, right? Now as a working engineer, engineers make $100-150k, I guarantee you any one of those engineers, if you put a $500 bonus in front of them, bend over backwards to get that bonus. Staffing firms aren't really utilizing that so much, so we partner with a great staffing firm, a staffing referrals company called staffing Referrals, they integrate into our system as well. Rick: We have a basic referral system that gives everyone great notifications, but if you want a very full robust staffing referrals integration, you go to a company like that and really get the full blown, very niche specific features and functions tailored towards referrals. So that's how we approach integration. They do what we do in segments better, we'd love to partner with them and use them as an integrated partner. Joel: Question about targeting, Rick. Both on, I guess, the job seeker side and the agency side, is there some cohesion there? In other words, I could not see a high demand engineer downloading an app from a staffing firm, whereas I could see other professionals doing that. Do you try to sync up the staffing firms that you go after, that have job seekers that are more aligned to downloading an app? Or is there any strategy at all at this point around that? Do you understand what I'm asking? Rick: Yeah, so it's not a specific strategy, but I disagree with you. As a high end senior engineer, architect level engineer, I would download an app like this because I want to stay in touch with what the firm is doing, especially the referral program. There's great tips that staffing firms have. Most engineers like me, are pretty not extroverted or introverts, right? Rick: So getting tips on how to function more better at work, relationship type things and other great tips that firms generally put out to their passive candidates, would always be of interest to me. So I think the same thing happens with an app. The app, also, is like this business card. You want to give it to candidates that you have interacted with or touched at any point. Then whenever they want to get in contact with you or know what you 're doing, it's just an app away. Rick: There's no searching for you on the website anymore, what was the name of that recruiter, what was that website I want to refer a person to. It's this calling card that's now always on your desktop of your app that very few people would download more than one relationship based staffing firm app, so let that app be your app. It's a way for staying really connected with individuals. Joel: Do you believe that engineers aren't on LinkedIn, because they don't like being contacted by so many staffing firms? Rick: I would never be on LinkedIn if I was an engineer. That's just me personally, because I would get lots and lots of recruiters coming to me and trying to move me from where I was currently placed. Joel: Right, so I guess my question is, how is this different? Rick: So, staffing firms aren't always trying to recruit someone who's currently working. They just want to be in touch with them when they're looking. I think it's very passive in a way firms have been staying connected with a candidate. Just because you placed me, it's not like the 80s where they will place you and immediately try to place you somewhere else. I think most firms will just wait, and when you're ready to move, or more importantly you know someone else is ready to move, you're available to them via the app where they can make an easy and quick referral for a colleague who happens to be moving or not interested in staying where they are for whatever reasons. If you have a relationship with that candidate and they have your app, it's easy for them to refer that person to your firm. Chad: Rick, tell me about pricing. What's pricing look like around this? Rick: So, we're a no contract base, we're very easy sale, very easy decision for a firm. No set up fee, and we're roughly $549 a month. So if there's a little bit, the firm has special ATS connection needs, but generally we go out the gate at $549 a month. Joel: All right, let's go to the firing squad then, I want to hear the bell one more time. (ding ding ding) All right. All right Rick, I'm going to go first here, man where to start. I think that you have a lot of things going against you, and I think Chad and I are probably disagree on this and that's why it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast, so I think, I look at this specifically from the two angles of having a native application, both that you're marketing and maintaining as well as downloading and engaging with. Joel: And from my perspective, I think it's, I can't see the synergies of a staffing firm with a mobile app, having to market it, promote it, engage with folks on it. I understand that job alerts are pretty easy. I think that over time job seekers from the job seekers side get annoyed with that. We've had email alerts forever, and I think similarly app alerts are going to be viewed similarly by job seekers. You may be seeing a totally different thing and if you are, then I'm totally wrong and you'll be a major success. Joel: For me it's really hard to get away from the old way of doing things, whether it's phone calls, emails, texting which we touched upon a little bit are huge. You mentioned advancements in messaging which will happen, which I think is just a much more organic relationship and interaction with a job seeker, so I think there's so many challenges with the business in terms of both of those things coming together. I also look at the fact you've never done employment before, you have a company as it is, so it's going to be pretty easy for you to say let's just go back to doing what we know and developing apps, so for me, I hope you prove me wrong, but for me, you got the guns. Chad? Chad: All right. So Rick, there's no question. Asking candidates to download an app is an obstacle. There's no question, right? But this is where Joel is incredibly wrong. First and foremost I love the focus. It's super solid, and it does take forever for a fortune 500 company to close. Not to mention staffing is a business, right? Talent acquisition, that's their job, right? They're not looking at margins, they're not looking at EBIDA, they're not looking at all of those things, right? Chad: Staffing does. So you, to be able to pick staffing to be business focused, I think is incredibly smart, and the only way to go. Don't worry about those big brands, because those big brands are a pain in the fucking ass. So, understanding partnerships is also a big point, because you know you can't develop everything. That's awesome as well because again, you have the focus that's necessary to be able to make this boot strapped organization right now move forward. Chad: And last but not least, and this is where Joel just doesn't get it, is that Indeed acquired Syft. Syft is a marketplace app, the evolution from traditional staffing to marketplace platforms has to happen. This is how it's going to happen. The big key for you is, can you jump on that train? If staffing companies understand that Indeed's going to drink their milkshake, then they could easily take a look at what you have to offer and say, how are we going to compete. This is how they're going to compete, which is why I'm giving you a big applause. Joel: Rick, you've gotten your first ever in history applause and guns show, congratulations. How do you feel? That's the first time it's ever happened. Rick: Well, we know who the genius of the two of you are. Chad. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Hey Rick, bottom line, Chad and I always root for startups. I hope that you can come on, you know 3, 4 or 5 years from now. Chad, I think we out. Chad: We out. Outro: 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. #Talroo #FiringSquad #Staffing #Apps #Marketplace #Indeed #Syft

When Stepstone acquired Appcast, the boys wondered why Indeed failed to snatch-up programmatic's most well-known and successful companies. Maybe Indeed wasn't even interested. Turns out, they were, as proven by the recent announcement that they acquired second-rate competitor, ClickIQ. In this episode, the guys bring in some special guests - Rob Prince from Talent Nexus and Julie Sowash from Crazy and The King - to get to the bottom of things, as well as cover a broad range of topics, including Facebook's issues, Recfest roundup, Hirevue's impending sale. Check it, and show our sponsors some love: Sovren, Canvas, and JobAdX are bloody brilliant, mate! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is changing minds and changing lives through disability inclusion. 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 dot com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates a human. Sovren. Software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner. Intro: 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. Julie Sowash: All right, can we talk about something now? Chad: This is a wrap up. Joel: This is a wrap up, but we have some news. Chad: We do have news. Joel: Specifically, the ClickIQ acquisition by Indeed, who's getting sloppy seconds by not getting on the Appcast train. We have HireVue rumors of a sale. I guess it's official. They're selling HireVue. It's on the chopping block, and then some other fringe news. But primarily the RecFest roundup and our thoughts on that. If you love special guests from- Chad: This is it. Joel: ... exotic locations, this is the show for you. We're here in London, England. Chad: In a pub. What pub are we in? Rob Prince: We're in the Grove in Surbiton, just down the road from the office. Joel: We've pulled Rob in from pouring beers. We thought we'd throw him on the show. No, actually, Rob Prince, with Talent Nexus. Rob, what's your position there with the company? Rob Prince: Client Services Director. Joel: Client Services Director. We'll get to you in a second. We're also for the second time bringing in the better half of the Sowash bond. Chad: This is nepotism personified right now. Julie Sowash: Yeah. It is. I'll let you be on the podcast. Joel: Julie Sowash. Julie Sowash: Hello, hello. What's your current title besides care and handler and feeding of the Chad. Joel: Just super badass bitch. Julie Sowash: Super badass bitch. Joel: Senior consultant and cohost of the Crazy and the King podcast. Julie Sowash: Diversity oracle. Joel: Guru. Badass bitch. Chad: I think you said that earlier. Joel: All right. All right. Rob, let's get to you quick. Talent Nexus. Who are they, why should our audience care? Chad: And why did you make us look so Goddamn good? Rob Prince: Because it's so easy. Because it's so easy. [crosstalk 00:02:51]. Chad: The British. Julie Sowash: Don't lie. Rob Prince: Overly polite. Rob Prince: Talent Nexus, we're a marketing agency. We work exclusively within recruitment. Today we've got two sides of the business. We've got the programmatic side, which is all about just helping job boards and employers get their candidates for cheaper, and then we've got the employer branding and content side, which is the side that I deal with more than the other side. And it's the side that led us on to doing the video with you guys. Video's a big part of what we do at the moment. Joel: So you're going to have something really smart to say in regards to the ClickIQ Indeed acquisition. Correct? Chad: Wait. Before we get there, I have a rant. Joel: Before shoutouts you got a rant? Chad: Yes. Yeah. Joel: Go for it. Chad: I was talking to Richard yesterday from ClickIQ [crosstalk 00:03:36]- Joel: Dick. Julie Sowash: Oh. He called you out on LinkedIn. Chad: ... CEO of fucking ClickIQ. And we had a legitimate pointed conversation. I said, "Richard, right now we said it on the podcast and you heard it. Indeed is fucking stupid for not buying Appcast, and you guys, I mean pretty much ..." Joel: We're on record. Chad: Yeah. We're on record. And he just looked at me, he turned red and he breathed really deep and he's like, "Yeah, yeah." I was like, "Well, just so you know, you are validated because now you are the big player. Right?" And then guess what happens today? Joel: As he's waiting for the check to clear in his bank account. He's breathing heavily. Chad: He's like, "If Chad and Cheese say this shit onstage, I am fucked." Joel: Actually, the validation is in our show. Chad: That's good... yeaaaa. Joel: Because we criticized it and it happened, because somebody was smart enough to make it happen. Rob Prince: I'm 90% sure that that redness was actually sunburn. He was definitely a cagey about it. He's apologize to you on LinkedIn today. [crosstalk 00:04:43] straight up sunburn. Chad: Yeah, I've got to say, no, congratulations dude. That is fucking awesome. I mean in the short amount of time Appcast, now ClickIQ ... Rob Prince: Big week. Chad: Big week, so ... we'll get to shoutouts. We're going to do that after, whatever. This is big fucking news. You're in programmatic, Rob, you're in programmatic, you know this shit. What does this mean for the industry overall? Rob Prince: I think it is a potentially long overdue waking up. I think the industry's is speeding up, it's waking up. You talked about the Appcast acquisition earlier this week. It's funny that they've both happened at the same time. I'm sure it wasn't planned like that, but these things do tend to happen in twos, don't they? Chad: Indeed lost on the Appcast thing and they're like, "Fuck, we need to pull the trigger on this one. That had to be what happened. There was a bidding war- Joel: Was ClickIQ the consolation prize? Chad: I think they were going for both of them, myself. I think they're going for a clean sweep. What do you think? Rob Prince: Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. Joel: What do you think, though, Rob? This is an opinion show. Chad: Asked you for what you think, Rob. Joel: We don't take kindly to "I don't know." Rob Prince: My guess would be that it was planned purely because I can't see Indeed losing that bidding war and nobody knowing about it. Julie Sowash: Especially for the price that Appcast went at. Chad: Yeah, especially for the price. Joel: What was Appcast's market share here in the European market? Rob Prince: I couldn't tell you the numbers, but they're certainly the leading providers. Joel: So same as the US, Appcast was the leader. Rob Prince: I mean within the UK you're looking at Recruitics and Appcast would be the two versions that people know. Joel: Do we know the dollar figure? Rob Prince: No, I don't think Click's been released. The whole release, I thought, it was interestingly worded release, especially if you compare it to happened earlier in the week. I think the phrase is something they've, they've agreed signed to agree that they will acquire rather than the version earlier in the week, which was, "Hoorah, we got bought." ClickIQ's is a bit different to that. And I'd be interested to know whether that's slightly clumsy wording or whether that means that he's talking about something different. Joel: Knowing Indeed's PR as I do, it was probably strategic, all of it in terms of wording and PR. So my question is if the big dog, Appcast, the relationships with the agencies, okay, that's an advantage and a head start. But now you have click IQ with the full resources of an Indeed. A year from now, two years from now, is Appcast still the one the agencies rely on and use, or does ClickIQ make headway into that world and overtake Appcast in, say, three to five years? Chad: I think you have to take a look at StepStone's priorities. If they're looking to make sure that- Joel: World domination. Chad: Yeah, I mean if they look for literally making sure that they shore up what they have in the US, which is, I mean really dominating infrastructure for programmatic in the US, and then being able to also shore up now what they have in Europe, which is where they're at, if that's their focus, then I think they're still doing well. But the amount of money that Indeed spends or could spend on this could definitely overtake anything. Chad: The big question is do they have the focus of yesteryear? Back in the Paul Forster days, Paul Forster focused a fucking laser. Right? And that's why they overtook everybody- Joel: Focused beasts. Chad: Yeah. And now they have no focus whatsoever. I mean, they're all over the place. So the big question is can they become the Indeed of yesteryear and prioritize and focus in one area to evolve and become something bigger? Or are they just going to fuck this up? Joel: Rob, you know StepStone better than we do. What's your take on their reach into North America, there's rumors that they're looking into to eBay's properties in Canada. Do you have any particular insight into StepStone, a European company as they grow into North America? Rob Prince: StepStone have always been a growing ambitious professional, is probably the word I would use. Chad: They're German, so they're going to be uptight and professional. [crosstalk 00:09:16]. They're more uptight than the British, aren't they? Rob Prince: German? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Ze Germans. Rob Prince: You could ask anybody in the pub that question and you would get the same answer, which is of course. I can't see them being anything other than efficient and smart here. You called it earlier this week. The acquisition is a good one for them. It's a real sign of intent. It's the first proper acquisition of a programmatic business, which is a huge leap in the right direction for the industry. I think that's where that's going. Joel: My question as well as when you have job sites StepStone and Indeed buy up these programmatic solutions, don't you have to say that inevitably there's going to be a little bit of skewing in favor of their properties versus the network properties, and ultimately you're going to send more traffic to either StepStone or Indeed's properties than you are the competition? Rob Prince: It is vital for a platform like that that it is a agnostic. That's why the platform would be valuable and work. You're looking at me with cynical eyes, which I [crosstalk 00:10:33]. Joel: ... transparency around where the money's being spent. And right now there really is no transparency around where it's being spent. Rob Prince: And it's why there's the understandable nervousness and then it's ... you're talking to people at RecFest yesterday and everyone gets what the nervousness is. And it's why, Richard, in his LinkedIn post earlier, even called it out in, one of three paragraphs, one of them was about the platform remains agnostic, and it's all about spending money in the most efficient way. It's not about directly funneling money into whoever owns us. It has to be like that. Can you imagine a platform working in a way that wasn't that? That has to be the way that a platform like that works. Joel: Yeah. So they may be saying that out of one side of their mouth, but are they telling a different story internally on the other side of their mouth? Rob Prince: You'll have to get them on. Joel: Assuming they'll tell the truth. Well, Richard's British, right? You always tell the truth. Chad: Yeah. Okay, so moving on. Let's go ahead and get the shoutouts. Joel: It's commercial time. JobAdX: Nah. Not for me. All these jobs look the same. Ugh, next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past your jobs. Just half-heartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. JobAdX: Face it. We live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So why do we expect job seekers to react differently while reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? JobAdX: Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people and benefits with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job seekers will stumble upon your employment branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection and reducing candidate drop-off. JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites to proactively compelled top talent to join your team? Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing joinus@jobadx.com. That's joinus@J-O-B-A-D-X.com. Attract, engage, employ with Job AdX. Chad: It's show time. Joel: Well, I'm curious if you have an opinion on the transparency and where the money's going. Chad: I don't think Indeed has anything to actually win and / or prove through transparency. They're the big dog when it comes to traffic. They're going to do what they want to do, how they want to do it, when they want to do it, and they don't give a fuck what anybody else thinks. So, I wish and hope that we find out how to make actually a network that that is more targeted and it makes sense, but I don't have the confidence, at least on the Indeed side of the house that that's going to happen. Chad: Now, I think on the StepStone side, we have an entirely different conversation where they do, they need to be transparent. I think there's a yin and yang to this. They can be incredibly transparent, win the public support, love all that other happy or shit. But the question is when does Indeed pull out of Appcast, and they're like, "No, you're not pushing shit our way through Appcast. We're only going through ClipCast? When's that happen, and how does that actually damage that footprint and that infrastructure that's built in the US and the UK? Rob Prince: Well, I think one of the important parts of this conversation is that it'd be very easy in this situation to conflate business decisions, business strategy with transparency. For platforms those to work, I mean, and what we did, and we do loads of programmatic stuff in line one of that agenda is to be completely transparent and open with client budget, so everyone knows exactly where everything's going because that's the only way that we could operate. Rob Prince: That is different to the second part of that, which is what do Indeed do now knowing that Appcast is in one camp and they have ClickIQ in another. But they're different things. Being transparent with customers is just a vital component of what they do. If they transparently step out of that relationship with the other team, then fine, but they shouldn't be conflated, because that would be letting them off the hook, I think, just allowing them to not be transparent because it's strategically sensible for them to do so. That's bullshit. Joel: I think it's incredibly naïve to think that more money won't be flowing into Indeed and Glassdoor. And that's all I've got to say about that. Chad: So, thanks Jamie, Leonard and Bobby and especially Lois, because I think she does all the work. No, wait. Francesca, I think, does all the work, right? Chad: So RecFest was one of ... we've never been to- Joel: If we had a bomb sound effect, this would be where we would play it. Chad: And I will put it in there some, maybe, I don't know, but we've been to how many, just about every conference that's out there in this industry, this was not a conference. Joel: By the end of the year we will have launched up pretty much every ... Chad: This is not a conference. This is a fucking festival. I mean it was a festival, circus slash ... I mean, it was amazing because from my standpoint, I saw recruiters, recruiting teams, talent acquisition let down their guard, become more transparent, more authentic, and actually not just share, but engage in the community more than I have at any other conference. Joel: Yeah. Particularly with the English who are historically a very reserved people, they had no issue with letting go some sort of truth serum must've been in the air. Chad: Yeah. It was called a bar opening at noon. Joel: It might've been the pub that was onsite at every single stage. They got them talking. But yes, it was fantastic. They held nothing close to the vest. People were very open. And I think the speakers as well, it carried over to being very open and honest, feeding off the crowd and being real in terms of opinion and context. Chad: That list of speakers I've seen, not just because we are on it, I mean come on, but the best list of speakers- Joel: It might have had something to do with it. Chad: ... it was ridiculous. It was really, it was awesome. Joel: Yeah. And Jamie's a genius by having us be the closing speakers, by the way. Chad: Because he knew we would blow shit up. Joel: The smartest man in European recruiting. Chad: I think your favorite, Rob, your favorite presentation was Torin Ellis. Rob Prince: Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah. It's been a long time since I've seen somebody control a room like that. And I think often the problem with talks about diversity as they're boring, is often what happens. It sounds like people just telling- Joel: Did you say boring? Rob Prince: Boring. Joel: Okay. Julie Sowash: Yeah. Joel knows that. Rob Prince: Right? It's getting told that you have loads more work to do and that everything's in a pretty bad state and it's your fault, which is all true ... Joel: You can't see Rob, but he's a white male in his late 20s. Would that be correct? I just want to make some context around this before we get to the female on the other side of the table. Julie Sowash: No, but it's good that Rob recognizes that it's all his fault. So yes, go ahead, Rob. Rob Prince: Importantly, it's not that the stuff isn't important. The delivery of the stuff tends to be dry in an HR context. And you're looking at a big top 10 full of what, three, 400 people, all of whom were leaning forward on the edge of their seat, just soaking up every single word. Joel: And it wasn't just fear that Torin would be calling them out during his speech, which I love. Julie Sowash: That was awesome. Chad: On the other side, I mean, Julie obviously not only knows Torin well because she's the- Joel: To say she has a unique perspective on this would be an understatement. Chad: She's on a podcast, Crazy and the King with Torin Ellis. But I actually turned and looked over to her many times and it was almost she was at church. Julie Sowash: You're never not in church with Torin. That's the only way it goes. Chad: So, talk about that. Talk about what that means to your community overall. Joel: Was this same old, same old to you or was this Torin in his element? Julie Sowash: This was definitely Torin in his element. I've seen him perfecting this presentation over the last few months, and it just gets stronger every time. And I think that in particular, this was very meaningful because Mama Ellis was there. So she was there and she got to see him present. Joel: That's his mother, by the way. Julie Sowash: Well, yeah. Mama Ellis. That's how it works. Joel: I thought you said Obama Ellis. Julie Sowash: Jesus Christ. Really? Mama Ellis. Thank God for editing. Joel: Carry on. Mind the gap. Julie Sowash: And I was interested to see honestly how his messaging would transfer over to a European audience, and if there would be that same engagement. And it was pretty powerful in the room. Everyone really, like Rob said, was on the edge of their seat- Joel: He had a few standing ovations. A few people stood up. Julie Sowash: No, I mean, it was pretty bad ass. And I think the difference between what Torin does and what a lot of us have done from a D&I perspective is a validation thing. Torin is a king. He knows his place and he knows he doesn't need to be quiet. And we spend a lot of time buying our seat at the table. "Here's the day to get my seat at the table." "Here's this to show that I have value." Torin already knows that he has value and he already knows that D&I has value and he's not apologetic about it. He's bold about it. And I think that's where we really need to go as a D&I conversation because we need to get people like you guys to be on board with what we're doing. Chad: White dudes. Julie Sowash: Yes. White dudes. Joel: And for our audience, D&I is ... Julie Sowash: Diversity and inclusion. Joel: Thank you. Julie Sowash: And that's the big thing, is that he's just not scared to just call it as it is. And that's the difference. And that's why he draws people in. It's not about the numbers or anything else. And he has backup. There's not fluff there, but that he really knows that he needs to pull us all into a movement and not a data conversation. Joel: Does Torin think that he's making a real difference, or does he feel he's fighting just such an uphill battle that it's going so slowly that it's disheartening? Julie Sowash: I had this conversation today myself, and there are 10 a lifetime's worth of work to do. And even even 55 years after the Civil Rights Act, we have so much progress to make, but I think it feels like a little bit less of an uphill battle right now, because we're starting to see cracks, or we're starting to move forward. And so a few podcasts ago, we talked about just diversity fatigue. Sometimes, as a person who fights this battle every day, it's exhausting and you're pissed and you just want to give up because people keep fucking it up. Chad: There's a lot of that. Julie Sowash: Yeah. And when that happens, I call Torin and I say, "Dude, I'm fucking exhausted today. How do I make this better?" And he was like, "You just got to keep fighting." And so I really do feel like he knows he's making a difference, and when he can inspire the rest of us to keep going, that's where his real impact is. He alone, I alone can't change it. But when we have partnerships that start to have that conversation, we start to move the needle. Joel: So you do feel like headway is being made, albeit maybe slower than you'd like? Julie Sowash: Sometimes it's- Joel: Just from an outsider's perspective, the examples that he gives, the Papa John's founder, the UPS driver, these are within the last few years, if not months. These are new stories. This isn't 1967 history lessons. Chad: Nooses in a fucking GM. Joel: Totally. And we've talked about that on the show. If I'm a champion of diversity, every story I see like that, I'm deflated. How do you keep going? Chad: What is the message to everybody out there who's really not directly impacted with this? What do you tell them? Especially from a disability standpoint, I don't have a disability? Why does this help me? Julie Sowash: So, your question first, right? Joel: My question first. Julie Sowash: Three steps forward, two steps back. Today is a scary time for us. As a person with a disability, as a woman, as a mother with women that are coming up in the world, as a mother with a young gay son, it is a scary time. And that makes the battle that much more worth fighting, because we can see, I think a lot of us got so ... Joel: Complacent? Julie Sowash: Complacent, appeased when Obama got elected. We were like, "Hey, look, we did it." Chad: "We made it." Julie Sowash: "We've made it. Things are going to be better. We got gay marriage, things are moving in the right direction." And through this and Brexit and all the things that are happening in Italy and all over the EU, we can see how fragile that balances in the world of equality. And so we have to ramp up the fight. Julie Sowash: Yeah, it's hard, but it's all fucking engines are go right now, because if not, we're going to lose. And if we don't get on board, it's fucking over for a long time. You know this, I'm looking at exit strategies for my kids and my husband and all of these things that we need to maybe do. That's hard. But then ... Joel: Meaning exit the country. Julie Sowash: Fuck, yeah. Joel: Okay. Julie Sowash: Yeah. Exit strategy. Joel: That's a whole different Brexit. Isn't it, Rob? Julie Sowash: How do I get these kids out of here if I have to get them outta here? Joel: That's a Checksit. Oh wait. Julie Sowash: A Chexit? Joel: That's a Chad exit. I don't know. Julie Sowash: No. It's a Cho- no way. I'm not going to say that. Joel: I don't want to say Sexist, like a Sowash exit, because that's [crosstalk 00:25:03]. Chad: Do you like that? Julie Sowash: No. No, no. Joel: Anyway. Keep going. His question next. Julie Sowash: Yes. So your question, what do you say ... 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: 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 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: It's show time. Julie Sowash: Two things, and you've been, you Chad, have been really good about this, is that- Chad: Not you, Joel. Julie Sowash: You did good yesterday, Joel. Joel: Three steps forward, two steps back, right? Julie Sowash: You did good three times yesterday. Three times. Yes. I recounted them to Chad last night. I did. Joel: He'll slide back. Don't worry about it. Julie Sowash: We're really on the fucking right track, finally. The biggest lesson that I've learned in the last 12 months is when to shut the fuck up. When should I as a white person stop talking and start listening more? And a lot of times I think that white people want to talk because we feel like talking is validating the point. I'm saying I stand by you with all of this information that I'm giving and all of this stuff that I'm doing, and I'm so busy validating who I am, I stopped listening to you. And so as white people, we need to listen better, we need to listen more, and we need to listen with an open mind. And sometimes that's going to be super fucking painful, because we have to accept our place in the world and our privilege, and we have to accept who we are and know that we're not responsible for the current situation, but we can't continue to be complicit in it. And that's the biggest thing, is you can't continue to take your place in the world without saying this isn't okay. Julie Sowash: And until white men stand up, and I mean, it is really, it's mostly white men and a lot of white women who have thought they're doing the right thing and really have been total bullshit about it. I mean, it's a facade, until we started to get super, super, super fucking angry and realize what we're going to lose, that's the thing. Joel: You can do that. Super angry? Julie Sowash: Oh, I'm super fucking angry. Super fucking angry. Joel: Rob, I'm curious as a Brit, do you listen to this and think, "Oh, that's some American bullshit?" Are you picking up what she's dropping? Rob Prince: Something I half realized yesterday, and it's just been crystallized listening to you talk now, is that I think, often the conversation around diversity gets watered down as a product of people being so desperate for people to do something that they don't want to put them off by asking for too much. So, it gets watered down to the point of absolute beige and it's just shit. It's just, "Oh, please do something, please update your cover photo so it looks a bit more inclusive." There are a couple of good shouts out yesterday at RecFest, don't use stock photos, you dicks, which was great. Julie Sowash: That was awesome. Rob Prince: That was nice. That was nice to see. But what I've realized is what Torin did so well and what you do so well is being unafraid to actually ask for what is required. Not watering it down to the point where it becomes meaningless, just because that'll mean you take a half a step forward. It's like no, we need fucking three steps and then another three. So I'm going to ask you for the three. And Torin did that really well. He insisted, if you're going to come up and speak to me later today, and if I see you around and you see, I saw you on stage, whatever, I'm going to ask, "What are you going to do? Are you going to stand up and actually do this stuff?" Rob Prince: And that is such an important part of this. Watering it down isn't going to get you anywhere. Joel: I did love, on the stock photographs, Torin said, "If you do use stock photographs of someone in a wheelchair or someone of color, the message should be: We need more of you. And I love that. That was super awesome. Chad: We don't have these. We need these, right? Joel: Yes, exactly. We want to see you at our company. Chad: How hard is that? Julie Sowash: Jesus, you know how fucking hard that is, are you kidding me? Joel: She's climbing that mountain, dude. Chad: Somebody with a master's degree in a wheelchair can't get a fucking job, entry level job, right? Joel: In today's economy, by the way. Julie Sowash: Well, and can you imagine anyone in talent acquisition or in marketing or an HR saying, "Yeah, put it on our website that it's okay that we need you people, we need you guys to come." Can you fucking imagine anyone getting approval to say that? There's no ability to be transparent in the brand. It's all this aspirational bullshit that James Ellis talks about. Chad: It's risk averse bullshit. Julie Sowash: It is risk averse bullshit. And it's right, because we should be saying "This is what we need, this is what we're lacking." There are some companies that really are a little bit better about that, sorry, a lot better about that, but for the most part there is literally just no clearance on the risk to the brand to say this is what we need. It's so scared and it's so fearful all the time. Rob Prince: And there's a huge dishonesty to it. If you're not prepared to say, "We need more of x, y and z, because by saying that you're acknowledging that you don't have enough of it in the first place. Joel: That's z for our American audience. Rob Prince: Thanks, Joel. I'll go with a, b and c. So if you're prepared to say we don't have enough of a, b and c, you've got to be quite honest as an employer brand to do that. And I'm sure part of what's happening at the moment is people would much rather just shy away from the issue and just hope that people assume they're a really diverse employer rather than be able to put their head above the parapet and say, "Right, actually what we need is more diversity. We're not diverse enough." Rob Prince: So when we're saying, whatever you do, don't start uploading pictures of people in wheelchairs if there aren't any just approved that you're cool with it. Julie Sowash: That we like people in a wheelchair. Rob Prince: It's like, oh no, we're cool with that. Of course you are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. By all means apply. Julie Sowash: So Facebook actually came out with some stats last week, and they released this on purpose and with pride their diversity numbers. They were 3% black and two.5% Hispanic or Latin X. And I'm just making those numbers up. They're like, "Yay, look at us. We're super diverse." No, you're fucking not. Come out and say, "Hey, this is the benchmark and we're not winning at the benchmark, not even certain utilization." Chad: Say, "We need to do better." Julie Sowash: Yeah. Chad: That's it. Say it. I mean, literally. Own it. Julie Sowash: Yeah. But don't try to sell us a line of bullshit. Chad: Own it. Rob Prince: On stats, there was an interesting bit in a presentation yesterday when, Peter at Schneider Electric who was talking about equality in hiring, and their target is 50:50 male:female hiring. And he says and he puts up the graph and it's right down the middle, 50:50, so, "Yeah, we did it." No. Let me show you the version of that where I actually re-include that typically an employer wouldn't show you. I'll put back in all the hard to fill roles. I'll put back in all the roles that make this number look really bad. So, yeah. And it's 37%, which is still good. I might be a couple of percent out, but it's around 37%. And that's okay, because I'm owning it, and we're trying to do better rather than just saying, "Yeah, problem solved. 50:50. See you later." Chad: Don't hide from me, for God's sake. Joel: Talking about Facebook, do you think Facebook uses Sheryl Sandberg as a crutch for the rest of their diverse ... you're nodding your head, yeah. Julie Sowash: Yeah. Joel: Talk about that. Chad: Are you not leaning in right now? Julie Sowash: I am not fucking leaning in. I'm sorry, but that bitch took me for [crosstalk 00:33:20] but she took me for a ride. Her values and her actions are completely separate. Joel: Tell me about that, because I don't know what you're referring to. Julie Sowash: Well, she has been actually one of the biggest- Chad: Hey, chief? Julie Sowash: I need more beer. She's been one of the biggest veils, the transparency veil and one of the biggest secret keepers in Facebook, whether it's coming to how they're using your data or what their employment numbers look like [crosstalk 00:33:55] or how they're tracking diversity. Every single time, honest to God. She's fucking waste smarter than Mark Zuckerberg, but that's also much more devious, because she knows what shouldn't come out and she is ready to fucking hide it. And she is not about transparency at all. At all. Facebook would be a much better company without Sheryl Sandberg in the seat. Joel: Yes. Did we get that on ... shots fired. Chad: You want to check the levels again. Yeah. Now I got that shit. Joel: That's [crosstalk 00:34:30]. We need that bomb soundbite again. Chad: We're going to come down off this high and we're going to close out. Joel: We have one shout out that we really need to do and that's the Talent Nexus team. Chad: That's what I wanted to do. Joel: Oh, that's what you're doing? Well, go with it. Go with it. Chad: Talent Nexus came to us and they said, "We want to do videos of you, Chad and Cheese, and we're like, I don't know, two white dudes with a podcast, but okay, we'll do that. Dude, it was awesome. Not to mention giving away a year of free beer and / or coffee. Joel: Mad, mad kudos, mate, for that one. Chad: Talent Nexus is definitely more than a friend at this point. Rob Prince: You've been very welcoming, and thanks for having us involved. To be honest, the worst bit about the whole thing has been putting up with two days of trash talk about beer, food, accents ... it's zed, by the way. Joel: It's hard to swallow how much better America is than England, right? Julie Sowash: Oh, for fuck's sake. Joel: So, what I want to know is obviously when you do this as a company, you're expecting some return on investment, you're expecting something. What did you internally say, "Let's do this because it helps in these ways?" Rob Prince: With you guys is purely for fun. Joel: With you guys, it was purely an excuse to drink some beer. Rob Prince: Ah, 100%, it was two solid days out of the office, drinking beer and having a great time. Chad: Here we go. Joel: Do we want to talk about HireVue? Chad: We should. Joel: We should. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So the news, I got it sparsely shared with me, but HireVue, which I would say is the, I don't know, the market leader in video interviewing, they have been for a long time ... Chad: Been around for a while, man. Joel: For a while. So, they've gotten quite a bit of investment money. My guess is there was no IPO in their future. There was no recruit backs up the Brink's truck or Microsoft or someone to buy it. So the word is that they are actively selling the company. What does this mean for video, and maybe this is a good one for you, Rob, as a employment brand person or that side of it, what does this mean for video and employment, employment interviewing or video interviewing, et cetera? Is it a trend that's going down? Is this a little hiccup and just something else that's going to happen? I guess I have some questions around it because you see a lot of video companies, VideoMyJob, for example, Vervoe, Video Interviewing and whatnot, just opinions overall on where video is going in light of this potential sale of HireVue. Rob Prince: I think, in a similar way to the programmatic sales recently, I think it's a pretty natural progression. There's an inevitability to video becoming more mainstream in recruiting. Joel: So why sell HireVue? I mean, video is growing, right? I mean every everything I see is, video is eating the internet, it's eating mobile traffic, it's all video. Why now sell the market leader in video interviewing? Chad: But wait a minute. Didn't Indeed by an interviewing platform like interview.com or some shit like that? Joel: Sorry. We're working out some billing issues here with the bar tab. Chad: Yeah. So here in the UK for some reason we can't get two beers poured together, for some reason. Joel: We have some real pouring issues with the British bartenders. Chad: That's okay. We're going to fix this up. Julie is gone [crosstalk 00:37:51]- Joel: Although Julie's an expert at turning a beer into a cocktail. Rob Prince: I've absolutely no doubt she's coming back with exactly what she wanted. Chad: She's the only one who's going to get exactly what she wants. Joel: Give me Guinness with a cider and some Tabasco sauce and throw some whiskey in there, yeah, it may be user error. Chad: So, the whole leader in interviewing, I mean just interviewing period, right? But then Indeed bought an interviewing platform. There was no signal for anybody else to buy HireVue, what the hell's going to happen to these guys? Joel: I don't remember Indeed buying a video interviewing platform. Chad: No, just an interviewing, interview.com. Joel: But that wasn't video. Chad: No. That's why I was saying that they actually bought an interviewing- Joel: Well, the question's about video. Chad: I know. But if video is so important, then why did Indeed, why- Joel: Well, my question is, is it? Chad: That was my ... yes. Okay. Rob Prince: Yes, it's definitely important. Without being behind the scenes, it's very difficult to make sense of ... Some sales and buys, they don't seem to make a huge amount of sense from the outside. But my guess would be they see a huge amount of growth potential but don't feel geared up to do that without some more support, and I would guess that the amount that they've been offered is enough to make that feel the right timing. Joel: When you say timing, it's interesting, because they're feeling a little bit of legislative crunch, particularly in the US with Illinois recently essentially saying, "Look, if you're using artificial intelligence in your interviewing process, you need to let the interviewee know that that's happening," and if HireVue flag in the in the ground was, "We're doing AI with video interviewing," then that's a huge oh shit. If the government comes in and fucks all of our shit up, we better sell now knowing that that's probably the future of video interviewing. Rob Prince: Yeah. And make no mistake, there is a huge hurdle coming up for the whole interview, which is these ... two conversations are happening in parallel at the moment. One is about the growth of video and that kind of engaging content, new ways of doing these things, whether it's interviews, screening, whatever. And the other one is about diversity and inclusion. And actually those two, in many respects, are in direct competition with each other. There's no such thing as anonymizing CVs on the one hand and making sure that people are taken purely on merit. And then on the other hand it's insisting that all of their interviews are video based and immediately exactly knows what gender they are, where they're from and whether they speak with an accent, whatever that stuff is. Those two things aren't compatible in the way they're currently portrayed. Rob Prince: So you've got this now and as you said, exactly the same thing is happening with AI, this realization that actually there's more work to do here than just say, "Oh, both these things are great, let's do both." No. Make them work together, otherwise one or the other will die. It'll have to. Chad: So HireVue is taking over $90 million according to Crunchbase. Joel: I believe it. Chad: Been around for a while. Joel: Been around a long time. Chad: This is not a bootstrap gig. Rob Prince: Well, that's why then. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be a nice size payday that they're asking for by anyone ... Joel: Assuming they get it. Chad: Well, that's what I'm saying. Apparently they haven't gotten [crosstalk 00:41:08]- Joel: And two times they're looking for $1 billion. Chad: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Joel: They ain't getting that. Chad: Well, especially again with the new regulations. That signals anything to anybody that all of the science that you've put behind facial recognition is for fucking shit right now, because you can't use it moving forward. Joel: Look, every new state that follows Illinois potentially devalues HireVue exponentially. And instead of just waiting out the clock, hoping for the best, let's put it up for sale now and hope some sucker buys it up. Rob Prince: Oh, yeah. Exponentially, but temporarily. It actually might be a great opportunity to buy into something which is temporarily damaged by that kind of ruling. That won't last. It can't last. What normally happens is technology moves quicker than legislation can. And then you often get these moments where there's that juddering halt, where the legislation's like, "Oh, shit, actually we missed something. You can't do it that anymore." It will get updated in the future, whether that's in six months or six years. There's no way that AI gets just below now of recruitment because lawyers can't work out how to make that work. Joel: Clearly aren't very familiar with the US legal and / or legislative system. Believe me, if the government can fuck it up, they will. Chad: They'll fid ways. As a matter of fact, I think it was one of our listeners that actually said a third grader could have written the regulation much better in Illinois than these fuckers. Joel: And that's giving our public school system way more credit than it's due. Julie, I'm going to pull you in here real quickly. Julie Sowash: Okay. Joel: Video interviewing, what it means to diversity and inclusion. I would assume once you see someone that's a hurdle for D&I. Julie Sowash: That's right. Joel: Yeah. So HireVue video interviewing tool, up for sale. We see Illinois saying, "Hey, if you're using AI ..." it's not a diversity issue in Illinois, it's an AI issue. Just any opinion on video interviewing and what it means to inclusion, pro, con ... Julie Sowash: So you're interviewing, right? The premise or the thought about an interview is you're going to see the person, so you have a phone screen and then you have a video interview, potentially. Chad: Unless you're using Tengai. Julie Sowash: Yeah. But Tengai has things where, and HireVue, really, the big issue I have with HireVue is when they're taking all of these data points from my face that are telling me if I'm lying, if I'm engaged, if I'm happy, if I'm all these things, if you're a person- Joel: Which could be wrong. Julie Sowash: They could be absolutely wrong, because let's say I just happen to be super anxious. Joel: All you really need to do is take some botox to totally fool the algorithm. Julie Sowash: Oh, well I need botox anyway. However, I happen to be super anxious, so I'm making scared faces the whole time, interviews are really hard for me. Or let's say I have Asperger's or autism and I have a flat affect, or I'm super literal and I don't know how to engage in these questions, those are some of the biggest barriers to employment. And when you're reading my facial expressions, my biometrics, I don't know what the right word is, that's a barrier to employment. And so to try to say, oh yeah, this AI or this whatever bullshit is that we're using now, technology is going to fix any bias, it's not true. And that's the biggest thing with diversity is that, I talked to someone from Monster a few months ago, I've talked to so many people, they're like, "Oh yeah, we'll write an algorithm and we'll fix that bullshit." Julie Sowash: No you won't. You will make it worse. And if you think that you can fix what's wrong with diversity with an algorithm, you're a fucking idiot. It's not true. Sorry. It's not true. There has to be an element of technology and there has to be an element of humanity in the way that we attract and hire diverse people. And if we think that we can just fix it through technology, we're fooling ourselves. Joel: Do you think the boys at Vervoe are a little nervous? Chad: I don't think they are. I think they're happy at this point because they're not doing any of that stuff? Joel: Party on, dude. Rob Prince: Hit it. Chad: Hit it. I think, at that point, we out. Joel: We out. Julie Sowash: We out. Rob Prince: We out. Tristen: Hi. I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, the Chad and his goofy buddy 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 tracks bikes, you know, the expensive, shiny gold pair that are extra because ... well, I'm extra. Tristen: For more, visit chadcheese.com. #Indeed #ClickIQ #Appcast #StepStone #Programmatic #Facebook #HireVue #RecFest #TalentNexus #Event #video

Gerry Tales with industry icon Gerry Crispin was off-the-chain, and this is Part III of our interview all-things-recruiting. Enjoy, get smarter and show exclusive sponsor Nexxt some love. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities.​ Chad: Welcome to volume three of Gerry Tales. Gerry Crispin is a living legend and Joel and I sat down for over an hour and a half to talk history, now and future state of the recruitment industry. Enjoy after a word from our sponsor. Chad: 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 a flexible pricing now. FlexxPlan is also perfect for recruitment ad agencies who need a targeted distribution and tools to help demonstrate client ROI. Chad: 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. 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 FlexxPlan makes it cost effective. Check out everything Nexxt has to offer at hiring.nexxt.com. That's, hiring. N-E-X-X-T.com and if you'd like to save even more cash, just go to chadcheese.com, scroll down and click on the Nexxt logo, discounts aplenty. Remember Nexxt with the 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 Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and modes of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Are you buying into the hype of all the new stuff? You know, chat bots, AI, programmatic? I mean, are you buying into all of it? Some of it? What's your sense? Gerry: I buy into all of it as an experiment. I obviously have been always a fan of the fact that no matter how radical the technology is, there's always an opportunity to play with it, experiment with it. Obviously if you don't do that, it takes so much longer to improve and we know that, especially when you're looking at machine learning tools, you need to collect data and it continues to improve on collected data. Gerry: The problem is that there's no standard that helps us better understand how one algorithm might be better than another, or how to build algorithms in a that that truly impacts the fairness of the outcome and minimizes the institutionalization of unconscious bias. Chad: So question about that is ... I mean there are some systems out there, not many, but there are some systems that are more transparent what we call white box so that you can go in and you can see how you actually got to this flow of candidates, versus black box, where you're just not going to know. It's like, well why did we come up with this result set? Gerry: But even in the white box, so called white box, often is proprietary and therefore is not going to be shared with the company that is buying it. It's a white box to the science within the vendor and that continues to be a problem. To me, it should be discoverable and maybe I have to write an NDA or something else if I buy the product but fundamentally I need to satisfy myself. The advantage, I think, is that many of the larger companies now have scientists who work within talent acquisition. So analysts who are really, really good at what they do. Those companies should be able to truly audit the technologies that they're buying into and there's only a couple of companies right now that really insist on it. Chad: Shouldn't companies really focus? I mean, when you're trying to actually gain leverage over a perspective vendor that's saying, "No, this is black box." If I'm a federal contractor, I have to be able to defend what I do and how I do it. If I don't even know how I'm doing it and how this algorithm could prospectively be biasing our decisions, right? Our slate- Gerry: Right. Chad: ... our candidate slates. I can't defend it. I can't. That could prospectively put my company in risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts or perspectively billions of dollars in federal contracts. Gerry: Well, I agree and while it is a concern, it's another reason for piloting rather than going wholeheartedly into some of the technology at this point, until you've satisfied yourself that you can defend it, or that or that your vendor can defend it with their capability to disclose what they're doing and that they're willing to be a co-op, to be partners with you, which means that they're willing to be responsible for defending that. Chad: They have to take on the risk. Gerry: I've talked to a number of vendors who are heavily engaged in all of, who by and large say, "No, I'm just building a platform. What they do with it is their problem and I have no responsibility and so therefore our lawyers are telling us that if our clients get sued for bias, we're not going to be responsible." I'm going, "You may think that's so, but I don't believe that when push comes to shove that's going to happen." Chad: No. Gerry: And if you don't have enough insurance to cover that year, you're at risk as well. It's an attitude by the way, that I just don't accept. The fact is if you have tools and capability for me to be able to improve my recruitment process and you want me to invest heavily in using that, then I want a partner, I don't want a vendor. So fundamentally a partner to me is somebody who accepts part of this risk. Joel: Gerry, you have a unique vision on the global market. You do a lot of traveling. You see a lot of people around the world and give us a sense of what you're seeing globally, whether it's from vendors and technology or economies or just general employment around the world. Gerry: I have some points of view because I do, you know, go out there on a regular basis. I will tell you though, that I'm not as knowledgeable as some of the folks like Kevin Wheeler and others who really spend a great deal of time consulting literally all over the world. I try to tap into all of the people that I know in terms of trying to confirm some of the observations that I make when I go out there. Gerry: For those who don't know, once a year I take a delegation to a different country. China Gorman and I've been doing that for a number of years. We've been to China and Japan and Cuba and a variety of other places over the last few years, Eastern Europe this past year. The reason why I mentioned that is because we get to talk not only with employers in those locations, but we spend time with the government to better understand how incentives work to keep people at work, as well as as engage them to want to come to work. Gerry: We talked to professors who are teaching MBAs and business leaders, as well as spending time with students coming out of school in terms of what their aspirations are. We see differences all over the world that that fundamentally would require different models of recruiting, in my opinion, different ... and to some degree, differences in terms of how we look at at work. Gerry: Some countries culturally are not ready for the kind of work that we take for granted. We take for granted that you have a diverse workforce. I mean, we work really hard to make that happen. We know all the problems in trying to do that well but in other countries, in many cases, laws actually fully discriminate in a variety of different ways. Everything from age, to gender, to race, to ethnicity, to whatever. They are embedded in the culture and in how the government operates to incent work and not a lot of multinationals really spend enough time thinking through those issues and how they're going to address them differently in each of the countries that they operate. Gerry: So I find it kind of fascinating. So, just take something that we probably know a lot about, in Germany they have accepted a million and a half people in the last 18 months who were not from EMEA, many obviously from Syria and other countries and struggle to engage them and incorporate them into their society, help them adjust to a new world if you will, but have plenty of incentives for corporations and work to be able to put them to work. Gerry: As a result, they end up even with all of the problems, a very robust growing economy, in which they have extraordinary access to workers right across the border in Czechoslovakia. We spoke with the American embassy and the woman who was involved in the embassy had just come from Germany and she mentioned the 1.8, 1.6 million I think, something like that. She said, "So in the last 18 months, how many people do you think the Czech Republic has taken in from outside of EMEA?" The answer was 12. So she says ... and the unemployment rate in Prague is like zero. There is no employment. I mean there's no one who's not employed, who wants to be employed, but they are all, they are all from Czechoslovakia, or some guest workers from the Ukraine. Gerry: As a result, their economy may in fact devolve about 3% this year because they don't have enough people, because they don't allow enough people to work. Therein in lies some really interesting differences that to some degree we need to think about in our own country, where we have such poor discussions about immigration and guest workers and the extent to which we would acquire and welcome people with skills and capabilities from all over the world to help us grow our economy. As opposed to the fear that somehow they're going to take our jobs, as if jobs are finite. Where they're based upon our ability to move forward, not move backwards. Joel: And you spent a lot of time in Japan, they have a pretty unique set of problems don't they? Gerry: Well Japan is a whole different set of issues and we were very fortunate to be able to dig pretty deep in that. The Japanese are not necessarily known for wanting to share a lot of information about who they are. They love studying everybody else. Chad: Oh yeah. Gerry: But we were able to have some very open and honest discussions with them and their population is actually being reduced on average about 500,000 people a year, in part because no one gets to come in, they're probably one of the most closed societies in the world being on an island for the last umpteen thousand years. So their culture is very singular and as a result, they have, I think currently about 50% of their entire population, which again is getting smaller, is already over 65 and in the next few years may get to the point where it's over 60% of their population is over 65. Now that means that 35% are supporting in some way, shape or form those 65%. Chad: Big imbalance. Gerry: And that's not a good thing. Joel: Well thank God the robots are coming to save everyone. Gerry: They believe ... There's two things. One, that the robots will come and they believe that the percentage of women will increase significantly working in the workforce but there's also kind of an embedded approach to how women are viewed in terms of their ability to handle certain kinds of jobs, that I don't know if that's going to change, and their approach to work is such that the average person working in Japan right now is doing something north of 80 hours a week. Joel: Jeez. Chad: Not sustainable. Joel: Well they've been sustaining it for awhile, but... Chad: 80 hours a week? Gerry: Yeah but imagine ... Well, I'll share one of the things that happened there was a compensation because last year, a woman who was working 80 hours a week and then went home and had to deal with all of the issues from her family, killed herself. They have a very high- Chad: Suicide rate? Gerry: Suicide rates in developed countries. Gerry: And this became a national shame issue. The government told us they struggled with what do we do about this? They came up with a solution and the solution that they came up with was passing a law that stated that every corporation must make their employees go home after eight o'clock at night. We looked at each other, there's like 15 of us in the room, from the US listening to this. Obviously we're guests and we don't want to joke about stuff like this, but we're going, "That's not a solution." Chad: No, that's, that's not even a Bandaid for God's sake. Gerry: I don't even get that as a solution. But listen, it's different cultures. They have to address stuff. I love the fact that people are struggling to figure stuff out and the results of doing something will be seen hopefully and measured and people can adjust. I think we have to do the same kinds of things. I think corporations in this country have to do a hell of a lot more AB testing of tools and technologies, et cetera and then measuring the outcomes so that they can say, "Oh, I am getting more value from doing this." Chad: What about ... We just actually just talked about on the last podcast, a Australia giving 12 weeks of pretty much vacation. So you're seeing kind of like this ... Joel: Life leave. Chad: Life leave, yeah. And we here in the US struggle to be, not really as bad as as the Japanese with regard to our work is our life but that's been our culture. Our work is our life and that's not conducive to having a great life. So how do we, here, kind of push away from the Japanese way and go more toward the Australian way to be able to focus on our people. Do you think we're moving that way? Is it mainly just optics and bullshit that we're hearing or do you truly think that we're going to start getting it right here in the US? Gerry: I think if you look at normal distributions of populations, I think the critical issue and the critical difference between us and Australia and other countries is they've made choices that allow for a much greater part of the population to experience the same level of quality of life. Most of them have more socialistic, let's ... Socialism is obviously a bad word in the United States these days, but I submit that there are aspects of socialism that fundamentally a civilized country needs to address and that is things like health care, education, pension, et cetera. Most of those countries have done that and so when they talk about extending leave, they're talking about extending leave and paying people and giving them health care benefits and other kinds of things, not just for you and me who are making some decent bucks, but for everybody. Gerry: Our country, that's what we need to solve, is what kind of a society do we want. We keep arguing over conceptual issues between whatever somebody wants to call Conservative, or Republican, or Democrat, or Socialist. We have these weird conceptual fears about almost all of it. We have to come together and find that we've got a society that is going to treat everybody well in certain things and then allow for a level of individualism, if you will, in other things. Then we could start talking about stuff that Australia does, or stuff that Denmark does, or what have you. We'll never get to that if we can't decide what we will spend money on and otherwise, here's the problem. You and I might be able to work for a company that gives us a year's paid leave that's subsidized by the government in some way, shape, or form because of incentives. While somebody else is still homeless with their kids in the streets because they can't get a minimum wage beyond $7 an hour. Chad: Yeah, they're the working poor. Gerry: We need to take care of the working poor. We need to be able to help folks who by and large cannot work for legitimate reasons. We need to come to agreements about that and we need to look at in the mirror and, and say, "Well, these rules only apply to people who are a little bit more privileged." If you're a guest worker and you're under 13, you still can work in the fields five hours a day. Gerry: Fuck that. Chad: Keep an eye out for more Jerry Tales coming soon. Sowash out. 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. #Workforce #Wages #AI #chatbots #Recruitment #Branding #Global #GerryCrispin #GerryTales

The week of July 4th is usually pretty slow, but there were plenty of fireworks this year. -- StepStone uses Appcast acquisition to slap the US market in the face -- Facebook does job search, nobody cares -- AT&T, Comcast, The Home Depot's rainbow ain't foolin' nobody and more! Try not to choke on all the hot dogs, PBR and freedom. And show our sponsors some Yankee Doodle appreciation. Sovren, Canvas, and JobAdx are our Red, White and Blue. 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, rash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast Joel: Ah, yeah, still trying to shake off the smell of hotdogs, pops, blue ribbon, and freedom. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous, flying in on the wings of a bald eagle, baby. I'm Joel Cheeseman. Chad: And I'm Chad. I can't wait until the U.S. women's soccer team win another one! No jinx. Joel: On this week's episode, StepStone goes fishing for Appcast. Some corporate rainbow flags don't fly quite as high as you think they do, and VR, yes, Chad, VR gets some air time. Grab your Oculus Rift and see how many hotdogs you can down while you listen to this word from JobAdX. JobAdX: "Nope. Neh, not for me. All these jobs look the same. Next." This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past our jobs, just half-heartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it, we live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So why do we expect job seekers to react differently why reading paragraphs and bullets in templated job descriptions? JobAdX: Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people, and benefits. With JobAdX, instead of hoping that job seekers will stumble upon your employment branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection, and reducing candidate drop-off. JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites to proactively compel top talent to join your team. Help candidates see themselves in your role be emailing, "Join us at jobadx.com," that's, "Join us at jobadx.com." Attract, engage, employ with JobAdX. Joel: How was your Fourth of July, my man? Chad: It was relaxing. Didn't have any kids. Just all we had was beautiful weather and beer out on the deck out at Upland Brewing. It was amazing, then went to Swan's Eggs. They had a special beer release yesterday. So, I mean, it was amazing for us. Joel: Any fireworks? Chad: Yeah, we had fireworks the night before. So we stank of freedom the entire day. Joel: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It spells like freedom. Let's get to an abbreviated show, shall we? Chad: Okay. Do it. Joel: Shout out. We made the top podcasts lists from two companies this past week. Chad: We're such suckers. Joel: Our buddies at Candidate.ID, or Candidate ID, or whatever we're calling them today, had us on their top five list. Well deserved, if I do say so myself. VideoMyJob, our buddies over in Australia, put us on their top podcasts list for recruiting. Always appreciate that. If you haven't seen our DEMOpocalypse with them, I highly encourage it for both of those companies, actually. Chad: Yeah, now, we're suckers for lists. Let's just put that out there, guys. Kind of like we're suckers for swag, we're suckers for lists. So Newvoe, Michael O'Dell ... Neuvoo. I'm sorry. Is it Neuvoo? I think it's Neuvoo. Joel: Yeah, and you forgot booze as part of our sucker's list. Chad: Yeah, booze is always a part of it as well. So we got the T-shirts and can koozies, which I displayed on Twitter and Facebook from the peeps at Neuvoo, mainly or with Odell. Joel: Anything in that box for me? Chad: Oh yeah. I got a XXL. And- Joel: You had to throw a fat-boy joke in there, didn't you? Chad: No, I didn't. Chad: It's what you wear. It's not my fault, and a couple of koozies for you, so yeah, they're good to go. Joel: So you already shouted out to the U.S. soccer team. I'm a tad bit concerned because when they beat the Brits, they did a little pinkie T gesture. And he country of England is freaking out about it. Chad: Yeah, I heard. Joel: So if they're freaking out about that, we're going to really fuck shit up because were going way beyond T gestures. Chad: No, England's just pissed off because they're supposed to be good at football, and they just got their asses handed to them. And it's one of those things. And it's okay. Just don't cry so loud. Okay? Just find a corner. Get in the fetal position, and do it like you're supposed to, okay? Joel: But you already shout-out to the soccer team, but I want to give a shout-out to Joey Chestnut, who is the Michael Jordan of competitive eating, winning his 11th, I think, competition yesterday by downing 71 hotdogs in, I don't know, 10 minutes or whatever it is. The dude is insane. I met him at a Target in Fisher's I think last year. Nice guy. So yeah, shout-out to Joey Chestnut, man. Keep eating. Chad: You're the only guy I know who watches competitive eating online. Joel: That's bullshit. There are totally listeners out there that watched the eating competition yesterday. Chad: If you watched the eating competition yesterday, please fire off. Give us some feedback, and tell me that I'm full of shit or Joel's just weird, which I'm going to go with the latter. Ed: Yo, that jawn is so lame. Chad: Thanks to Louise Triance for once again having a Chad and Louise segment. We had Nathan Perrott on from AIA, who we're going to see in London here in less than a week. And also, our buddy Nick Livingston from Honeit, he survived the Firing Squad. He was like one of the first guys, I believe, to actually come on the Firing Squad as a startup, and he survived, did a great job. So it was great to be on with them during a Chad and Louise. If you haven't seen it, go out there on the socials and check out the recording. Joel: Did you make a bone-it joke while you were on the webinar? Chad: I did not. I thought we were out of those since we did it so many times. Joel: We have beat that dead horse quite badly, really violently. Chad: We have. Yes. Joel: Sorry, Nick. Chad: We're pretty good at that. Next I wanted to give a big shout-out to our buddies at Talent Nexus, where anybody who's going to see us in London and then afterwards, these guys have gone above and beyond. They've teamed up with us to be able to put together some promotions. And one of the promotions that everybody's going to love when you're in attendance at Rec Fest is the opportunity to win free beer or coffee for a year. Joel: Yeah. That's my kind of competition right there. Chad: That's right. So I'm going to let the cat out of the bag. So we've got these little Chad and Cheese cardboard faces, like the big heads. All you have to do is take a selfie with it #ChadCheese. The next day after our fucking crazy hangovers, we'll pick a winner as we also do the podcast live, hopefully from Talent Nexus HQ. Joel: Yeah, big head in your case. I'm going to go fat head in my case. I think you're fine with that, right? Chad: Yeah. Not to mention these guys do amazing like employer videos and whatnot. They have a crew that is going to follow us around. They're picking us up at the airport. They're following us around all the way through the day after Rec Fest. And they're slamming together a Chad and Cheese video brought to you by Talent Nexus. That's going to be fun as hell. So we get our very first hype video, Joel. Joel: Dude, I feel like I'm playing for the Buckeye's or something. It's pretty surreal this whole thing is happening. In addition to that, shout-out to Jamie Leonard, who interviewed for our Rec Fest and Joe Slavin, the masterminds of that conference. If you haven't listened to that, it's a quick 15 minutes of a lot of cussing, a lot of laughing, a little bit of sneak previewing of the conference. So check that out. Chad: And don't forget we're going to be headlining at Rec Fest. We're the last ones to take the stage, one stage only. And we're going to have 50 Chad and Cheese limited edition Rec Fest T-shirts that Jamie, Francesca, and the gang actually came up with. So these guys are all in, man. Joel: Get them and flip them on eBay for $1,000,000% profit, obviously. Are you ready to get to the show? Chad: Let's do this. Joel: The biggest news from a holiday week happened on the 1st. Appcast, the market leader for programmatic recruitment marketing was acquired or at least an 85% stake in the company was acquired by StepStone, which is an Axel Springer company, which Axel Springer's a huge like $7 billion publishing company with a few job boards, like a job site, total jobs, and obviously StepStone there in Germany. So great news on the programmatic news front. Chad: This is a German company pretty much bitch-slapping all the US companies right in the face, because this is the smartest, I believe, acquisition to happen ... It would've been the smartest to happen if a US company would've actually bought these guys. I mean, Appcast right now really provides much of the infrastructure of how a programmatic is done today. And I would think that most people probably agree with me on that, especially when it comes to advertise ... or recruitment ad agencies, being able to be connected with all these job sites. Chad: So this, to me, from StepStone's standpoint, is looking at, "How do we evolve ourselves? We see what's happening in the US. They're not pulling the trigger. We're going to pull the trigger. How do we evolve? And how do we start to move the ball forward in the UK or in Europe overall from duration-based ads to performance ads?" So there, this, to me, is big stand. It's really a big move that one of our companies over here in the US should've made, but they're too slow, and they got beat to the punch. Joel: Yeah. We both certainly agree on that. I think what we said to each other was, "Would you rather have Glassdoor for $1.7 billion or Appcast for $70 million?" Chad: Appcast all fucking day. Joel: For the money, it was a total steal for StepStone and Axel Springer. I also think it's a nice little step for a European company with a nice, strongholded brand overseas to make strides in the US. In fact, I think it was the StepStone CEO who said, "We've wanted to get in the US classified's market for quite some time, and this is a way to do that." I know that they've also been looking at some of the eBay classified stuff, which doesn't mean a whole lot here in the U.S., but I know like in Canada, Kijiji, which some people will know as I think one of the top classified sites up north. So, yeah, Axel Springer, StepStone, those guys in Europe looking to make a big splash in the US, and grabbing Appcast was a nice little step to do that. Chad: Yeah, and I don't see this as a little step, I see this as a big evolutionary step for those guys. And it could've been a big step for any of the job sites. I mean, Indeed, I can't believe that a company like Indeed didn't gobble them up. If Monster or CareerBuilder really wanted to make a difference and evolve into something different than what they are today, they could've made this move. There are just a ton of different opportunities that could've happened here domestically. Big, big props to our German friends over there at StepStone. Awesome. Joel: Chris Forman, who founded the company back in 2014 will remain with the company, so I don't see any major challenges or changes, excuse me, coming up- Chad: Yeah, I know. Joel: ... in the near term. But I think some potential winners in this might be the PANDOLOGICs of the world, who are doing also programmatic. If StepStone sort of stupidly launches stuff here and gives their stuff extra weight or more weight the what Appcast is ... They're able to be Switzerland a little bit in their algorithm. I think that could push more people into PANDOLOGIC, or Recruitology, or JobAdX, or some of the other programmatic options that are out there. Chad: Yeah, they're just kind of like, "We've watched chat bots get gobbled up left and right. Is this going to be a switch?" I think it is incredibly smart of any organization that's looking to try to move and evolve to be looking at these types of organizations. Joel: Do you know if Appcast took any money off hand? If they did, it wasn't a lot. And assuming it wasn't a lot, Chris Forman, man, congratulations. In five years, turn that thing into a nice little retirement nest egg, if you will. Chad: $8.7 million. Joel: Okay. That's all right. People got 10x on that investment. That's nice. Good for them. Chad: Yeah, big ups to Chris Forman and the crew. I mean, those guys just have to be as happy as anybody in our industry right now. And this is more, I think, more that validation for what they've done, the hard work that they've put in. And, again, they smartly took this technology and became really the backbone in many cases for programmatic distribution in the actual infrastructure in our industry. So, great job, guys. Joel: Moving on to that little company called Facebook announcement this week that they'll be make advertisements for jobs, loans, and credit cards, I'm not sure if there's a connection there or not, searchable for the US workers, excuse me, in the wake of a legal settlement that they recently buttoned up. This is from ABC News. Ads had only been delivered selectively to Facebook users based on data. Before this, the lawsuit had been over housing ads, actually. The searchable jobs database should be ready within the next year. Joel: So we've obviously talked about jobs being on Facebook and accessible; although making them searchable across from an advertisement's perspective hasn't been something that they've apparently done. And it's apparently something that they will be doing. I don't think it's as much strategic as it is just being free to do it because of this lawsuit being wrapped up. But it is also worth noting because its jobs, and it's a short holiday week, and we don't have a whole lot of news any [crosstalk 00:16:05]. Chad: Yeah, and meh. I mean, to me, the way that Facebook or any of these big data organizations actually make this work is being able to deliver relevant content. And since they've stripped out some of the targeting pieces that they've had for jobs, to be able to help organizations, really, look, to hire a more diverse workforce, all of this just seems very bland and milk toast to me right now because they had the targeting, and they had exactly what they needed to be able to help employers do what they needed to do. Then they just did a knee-jerk reaction, and then they stripped it all out. Chad: They have so many people are saying, "Well, what they use this to only include white males in the Midwest?" If that's the case, then guess what? That's why we have enforcement agencies like the EEOC and the OFCCP, right? So should be able to check these things. That data should be actually available to them from a targeting standpoint. It just makes sense. But we don't think about the other way around. Again, Julie works for Disability Solutions, and they help major brands target the right types of individuals, individuals with disabilities, for specific positions in their organizations. And they hire thousands of individuals with disabilities into those brands. One of the things that they did is they actually used Facebook to help target those types of individuals to help guide them into new careers. Now, that going away, it makes it a hell of a lot harder. It just makes no sense. Joel: Yeah, I think it's largely up to Facebook in terms of how successful or big a deal this is. And if they start sort of integrating job information in searches that are done on the site, I mean, people undervalue Facebook's search engine, but when you're searching for people, it's by far the number one search that people do within the world. So you mentioned Julie. If somebody did a search on Julie, not that they would, but if it knew her company and part of the search results were like, "Hey, Julie's company's hiring, and here are some jobs that they're currently hiring for," I mean, that could be kind of interesting. I don't think that Facebook will do that, but if they make jobs a core of the actual search, overall search, then it could mean something. Chad: I think a lot of it just has to do with delivery within the actual platform itself. Just relevant delivery makes just so much more sense. Joel: Yeah, and relevant ads are nicer if you can actually target for specific things, which they can't really do anymore. Chad: Yep. Joel: Anyway, technology that does make sense, a quick word from our sponsor at Canvas, and we'll talk about rainbows and VR, I know two of your favorite topics. 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. 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: I can't wait to see those guys in London. Chad: You know it. I can see we're going to have to have a shot with a Aman before we take the stage. Joel: Does Aman drink? I don't know if I've ever ... We've had lunch a couple ... Well, I guess at dinner and lunch. I guess he probably had a drink at dinner, if I remember correctly. Chad: When he's not on the mic, which is, I mean, that he's a smart guy, right? So when he doesn't have a mic in front of his face, he might be in a bar, but he's not drinking. But when we turn the mic's off, then, I mean, that's just smart business right there. Joel: Yeah, and by the way, he's likely to be the funniest guy at the conference based on past performance. Chad: Easily, yeah. Joel: Although he's a big-time CEO of Jobvite now, so he might have to tone down the humor. Who knows. Chad: That's why people love him. He's authentic. He's genuine guy. He's a funny guy. I don't expect him to tone that down at all. Joel: All right. Fair enough. So corporate rainbows, this is kind of your lane. Chad: Yeah. I was listening as Julie and Torin were recording their Crazy and The King last week. And they started talking about, and, I mean, this is something that is actually near and dear to our hearts, talked about the LGBTQ community. So they were talking about the story, and after they were done, I went, and I was like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" Chad: So she pointed me to this Forbes article that showed that all of these big brands that scored really high in this index card called the corporate equity index, how they really are like speaking out of both sides of their mouths. They are doing everything they can from a "policy standpoint" to look good on the LGBTQ community side, but behind closed doors, they're also donating money to anti-gay politicians. So when you see the logos, like the AT&T logo, or the UPS, or Comcast, or Home Depot, where they do the whole rainbow logo thing, I mean, that's to be able to say, "Oh, yeah, look, we're all inclusive." But AT&T donated over $2 million, closer to $3 million to anti-gay politicians. UPS donated $2.3 million: Comcast, $2.1, Home Depot, nearly $2 million; General Electric, $1.3. Chad: So, I mean, they have all these companies that are saying, "We are inclusive." But yet the question is, are they really? It came up in the conversation, "Well, isn't this just good business?" And my answer is no. You can't have two messages. You either believe in equity and inclusion or you don't. And a great example I think is like with Chick-fil-A or Hobby Lobby, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: That's what they believe in. They're not doing this rainbow logo thing because they don't believe in it. But yet these companies, AT&T, UPS, Comcast, Home ... UBS, Verizon, they're all doing this stuff, but they're trying to play to both sides of the tracks here. And I think it's total bullshit. Joel: Now, first of all, Chick-fil-A chicken is amazing regardless of where you sit on the political landscape. Chad: Never had it. Joel: Really? Oh man. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Anyway, and a lot of world hasn't because it's still fairly regionalized. But anyway, do you think it's a concerted effort to say, "Hey, we're going to be inclusive and our marketing is going to be sort of as such supporting that," like they're literally putting one face on and then putting money towards anti-gay candidates because they're anti-gay, or do you think that they do believe in inclusion and they do support candidates, and sometimes candidates that are supportive of other things also unfortunately are anti-gay on other levels? Joel: In other words, is it so black and white that corporations should say, "Look, if you have any anti-gay legislation on the books or votes," that, "we're not giving you any money no matter what, even if your policies are supportive of tax, whatever, or us moving places, or hiring people, or minimum wage, or things like that"? Should it be that black and white? Chad: I think ... because I don't know what they're actually thinking behind closed doors, but I do know that we are in a much more transparent community world today than we ever have been. And I know throughout the years, those backdoor kind of donations and deals and those types of things just kind of like slipped under the radar because it wasn't as public, right? And there wasn't as much transparency that's out there. Chad: So, I mean, this is my message to all those companies that are out there, and I'm sure they're obviously listening, is that you've got to get your shit together, and you've got to figure out who you are. And what you said, I think makes a hell of a lot of sense. You've got to know who you're giving money to. And if they actually resonate with your brand, if they embrace the things that your brand embraces. If they do, then you should obviously support them. But if you don't, then you don't. But you have to remember, though, we're in more of a transparent society today, and these things will be brought up. So a rainbow-colored logo is not going to get your ass off of the shit list just because it looks nice and you say wonderful things, right? Joel: Sure. And I think in terms of mobilizing a movement, so to speak, a million dollars for a big corporation like Pfizer is not a ton of money. And if they know that they're losing x amount of customers and dollars because of that decision that they've made, I mean, that's ultimately going to sway them one way or the other. I think transparency goes both ways. So I think it's much easier to sort of mobilize and tell Home Depot that we're going to Lowe's because you've donated money to anti-gay politicians. That's what's going to get their attention. Joel: And I think all that transparency is great and probably brings to their attention something they didn't even think about because that stuff is out there. They could've been just giving candidates money because, I don't know, they're in a certain state or wherever they're doing business and like, "Oh shit, they're anti-gay. Maybe we should think harder about who we're giving money to." Chad: Well, and these are not huge denominations. I mean, we got like close to $3 million to 193 anti-gay politicians, right? Joel: Yep. Chad: So it's not like one or two are giving like a million dollars. But the thing is, again, you have to, you really have to do your due diligence to ensure that you are supporting individuals, regulations, things of that nature that really ... that could prospectively negatively impact your brand. And, I mean, from my standpoint, my stepson Tristen is gay. And I've never had Chick-fil-A, and I won't because I vote with my dollar in this case, and I'm not giving them anything. I don't care how good their chicken is. I heard its wonderful. That's great. Fuck you. You're not getting my money. Joel: Fair enough, man. Don't turn this on me and my love for chicken. Chad: It's freedom. You eat what you want how you want. I'm not judging you. I'm just saying how I vote. That's all I'm saying. Joel: And speaking of other things that I love, this virtual reality story out of Walmart just warms the cockles of my heart knowing how much you love virtual reality as well. By the way, have I brought up the story of the virtual reality arcade that's in my neighborhood now? Chad: You haven't, but we should go check it out. Joel: We should. So you and I, what we remember is an arcade is games side by side of each other, and you put in a quarter, whatever, and you play the game and like- Chad: Pac-Man, Galaga- Joel: ... whatever [crosstalk 00:28:20] thinks about an arcade. So- Chad: Defender. Joel: ... we're having lunch, I'm having lunch with my kids, and I have a 12- and nine-year-old. Cole is my 12-year-old, and he's totally video game-obsessed. So we see this thing that says VR Arcade. So I say, "We got to go check it out." So we walk in, and it's almost like a cube farm, where you have, I don't know, maybe a 10x10 area walled off. They have cameras in the corners that look at your movements and stuff. And they have basically a laptop computer that shows what the person is seeing with virtual reality. Joel: And so it's just like a cube farm. And you see kids with these headsets, and they're like shooting stuff and playing Star Wars with a lightsaber and whatnot. So it was pretty surreal. But anyway, so Cole does it, and he's playing like shoot zombies and whatever. And he starts ... He's looking like Wyatt Earp with these hand guns and whatnot. So anyway, he loved it. He's probably going to want some VR Arcade for Christmas. But anyway, VR is coming. And I've been talking about it forever. Joel: But Walmart has embraced it in terms of training managers, which, to me, makes ... Training workers no matter what they do with VR makes a lot of sense to me. I think at some point you'll be able to walk into Walmart, put on a VR headset, and interview for the job or whatever. You may be able to talk to your managers and go through training with VR. I think this is the future and this is just another step into the future that I foresee. Chad: Yeah. No, this is interesting. This is very interesting. I mean, it's from the standpoint of if you actually don't have a trainer there with those people, and then it's just like a recording, and you put the headset on, and they're like walking through a Walmart, and they're like, "Oh, look over here. This needs stocked, or this needs to happen, or this is wrong." Okay, I get it, because it kind of takes you through the different steps. For me, it's almost like do you not have enough Walmarts to walk these fucking perspective managers through to show them what ... Chad: It's like why do I need VR when I could just go to ... I live in a town that has in the county 40,000 people. We have two Walmarts. I mean, you can't tell me that you can't just walk through the Walmart and go through this training. I mean, again, it's just really kind of interesting. Joel: Come on, man, you might be able to see Sam Walton like actually there. Who knows. Chad: We do that with augmented reality. So you put on these glasses, and you actually walk through the store. And there's Sam, and he's like, "Don't forget, whippersnapper." Joel: He drives down in his old F-150, or whatever it is, guy with his two hunting dogs. That was great. By the way, breaking in, we have another live view from The Ladders R&D department. (crickets). Sorry, I just couldn't resist that. All right, moving on to Candidate.ID, we gave them a shout-out earlier, but they are currently crowdfunding specifically for HR folks in their recruiting universe to take stock in the company. Joel: It's not real clear what is going on. You have to kind of contact them, and they kind of take it from there, because there are regulations around this, and they are a Scottish company, so I'm not sure exactly what goes on there. So if you want to go, you can go to candidateid.cnddtid.com, which I guess is a shortened version of candidateid.com, and learn more. Joel: But they're only making this opportunity available to people in talent acquisition and the "related HR world." This is an opportunity, quote for them, "to come together, to collaborate, and create shared value. We're doing this as a gesture of friendship and good will," like good Scotsmen, Scotspeople, whatever, "because tech investing, from as little as 100 pounds," that's $132 for us in the US, "is fun. And if you own a part of our business, we know you're more likely to share with us your good ideas and feedback." So interesting. Chad: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just smart and fun from a promotional standpoint. One of the things that Adam and team I think have been really good at is getting on stage, getting in front of cameras. He's always doing these videos of walking down the street as he's talking into his mobile phone kind of video type of a thing. So he's always out there, and he's looking for different ways to be able to really just continue to push the Candidate.ID brand, not to mention kind of like the feeling of community within itself. I think it's smart. And I don't see really many other organizations, especially in our industry, doing these types of things. Joel: Yeah, there was sort of a crypto trend there early. Remember Moonlighting, you could buy shares, or they were going to do that. I don't think they ended up doing it, but I know that a few years ago, the funding rules were eased up here in the States and probably elsewhere, so I think you might see more and more companies sort of do this crowdfunding by investing in the company, not just getting shirts and swag, which is kind of what Crowdfunding the site does for the most part. Good for him. Hope he raised some money. Speaking of a company that I'd be open to invest in, Sovren ... Sovren: Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job boarder 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's so human, you'll want to take it to dinner. Chad: This is probably the perfect ending any podcast. I love this story. So go ahead, talk about this resignation. Joel: This is out of the UK, who historically have some of the best senses of humor, Monty Python, Benny Hill, good stuff. So anyway, someone resigned recently with a, "Sorry for your loss" card. 22-year-old Sam Baines gave this card to his boss with the words, "My last day at work is the 28th of July." Yeah, forget the email resignation. Forget the print-out, "I, such-and-such, have ... such-and-such's last day." Why not do it with Hallmark, do it with American Greetings, give your boss a card, and say, "Fuck off. I'm out of here"? Chad: So awesome. And, again, it's one of those condolences cards, and the verbiage inside is, "Thinking of you at this difficult time." Joel: And by the way, we hear so much about ghosting. Ghosting is so lazy, when you can be much more creative, and funny, and humorous. Do it with a card. The next time that you want to ghost an employer, go to Hallmark. Say it with love. Chad: I love it. Joel: We out. Chad: We out. 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. #Facebook #ATT #LGBTQ #StepStone #Appcast #VR #CandidateID #TalentNexus #RecFest #Programmatic #jobboards

With Recfest 2019 a little over a week away in London, what better way for Chad & Cheese to pregame than to get the show's masterminds, Jamie Leonard and Joe Slavin? The boys breakdown the show and give listeners a sneak-peek into the havoc that is about to invade English shores. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community. Tengai: Hi this is Tengai the unbiased interview robot. You're listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I love these guys. 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: Bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins. We got some Brits on the show today. Chad: That's right. Joel: And what better day to have them than when the USA is about to kick the English women's ass in the World Cup. Chad: Well today, on the Chad and Cheese special edition podcast we have Jamie Leonard, and Joe Snaven, from- Joel: Slavin. Chad: Recruitment events company a.k.a. big fucking RecFest. All the way from London, let me hear it guys. Chad: So guy's you're going to have to be a little gentle on Joel because yesterday was Canada Day, and he's drunk on Canadian beer. I didn't even know Canada had a day. I mean Canada- is Canada big enough population wise? Joel: Ruin the towel on me today. Jamie: Is that like the 4th of July for Canadians? Joel: It's, yeah it's a colony like America, to Jamie. Jamie: Thank you for that. Chad: Today as Joel is recovering from a hangover, we're going to be incredibly loud and we're going to talk about RecFest. So, Jamie, Joel and I have been talking about Wreck Fest for fucking months now, because we're really excited because we've never been before. Tell us what we're going to expect. Joel: Who the fuck are you guys? Jamie: What the fuck are we guys? So it's a full on festival. So, we've been running RecFest for this will be year 6. To date it kind of started off as pretty much a conference room day drinking, and its slowly progressed into what it is now. So we've hired a big field, we've put down five marquee big tops a hold, 600 people each, we've had to lay wifi cable in, we've got 3000 recruiters, a bunch of sponsors, a hell a lot of alcohol, food, music afterwards, and it's- the tagline is it's the largest independent event for TA on the planet. We're not bigger than the Anaheim guys on LinkedIn yet, but you know we're on the march. Joel: It's basically Glastonbury for recruiters, or Coachella for our American listeners. Jamie: Yeah so one of our clients, and I won't do the LA accent because I'll just offend a lot of people, but she said "I hear it's like Cher meets Coachella", and I just couldn't think of- couldn't shake that. For weeks. Me in Coachella, and what that would look like. Joel: Embrace that man. Chad: That's good shit. That's good shit. So, how many speakers- you have five fucking stages for god sakes- how many- this is all one day, how many speakers? Jamie: So we've got just over a hundred speakers in total. Chad: Holy shit. And you chose to close the entire day, bars open at noon, this thing starts like around nine, or something like that? Jamie: Yeah, it starts at nine, so you know a good three hours, four hours, before the bar opens. Chad: You guys chose to bring us in to close this motherfucker out, so why choose a couple of dumb yanks to come on stage and break shit? Jamie: Because if you know the RecFest audience, by that time in the day they're slightly, what's the word I'm looking for... pissed. Usually. By that point and you know, maybe talking about- Joel: Belligerent. Jamie: Some one to come on and talk about the intricacies of DNI profiling probably isn't the best thing these guys want, that they want solid banter. They want piss taking, so I've been a fan of the podcast for many years and thought that this would be a great way to close the show up, because anywhere I've heard you guys talk, there's usually beers anyway, so it's like these guys are used to dealing with a rowdy crowd. Joe: And as the American representative here on the ground in the UK, when Jamie means pissed, it means drunk. Jamie: Yep. Sorry Joe's translating for me. Joe: And when he's asking you guys to piss take, that means make fun of people. Jamie: Yeah. Joe's here as the official English American translator. Joel: Yeah this thing is a who's who of celebrities in our industry. From Charney, to Levy, Aman Brar, the newly minted CEO of JobVia. I mean you guys have done a kick ass job. I know I speak for both Chad and I in saying that we're honored to be on the main stage closing this show. Jamie: Thank you. Joel: Torin's going to be so jealous. Chad: Torin's going to be jealous, the Hung Lees of the world, the Bill Boormans of the world, I mean again, from across the pond from here in the US, it's really, if you didn't get a ticket, well it's too fucking bad because they're sold out. But, from what I'm hearing, and this year's not over yet, so I'm not going to keep you to this, you're looking to make this thing even fucking bigger next year? Jamie: Yeah, so you know we looked at different options, do we take it to the states? Which I don't think is the right idea. I spoke a lot to Lars yesterday about this, and I'm not sure it would work right now. Or do we try and make it a destination spot for people to come in from outside the UK? And if you're going to do that you need to give people more than a day, so we're looking at plans at the moment to potentially expand this out to a two day conference, two day festival. And then work with other event organizers around that to make London a bit of a destination spot that week, for people in the TA space that want to fly over. Not just from Europe, from the US, and around the UK. They want to come experience all the UK has to offer when it comes to TA resource and recruiting, so that's the plan. Jamie: We've got the venue for next year, that's good. It's now just working out the intricacies of going two days, because one day is difficult, with this many people, two days starts to get quite complicated. But I'm sure the team will figure it out. I won't, because I don't get involved in that shit, I'll turn up on the fucking day and I'll drink, that's fine. Chad: See that's a great leader right there. You know you have the vision, you can- you guys are doing four day work weeks, which I think is just fucking amazing. You're going to have to tell us a little bit about that. And at the end of this, you're like "you know what? I trust you guys to make sure that this shit happens. Go do it", that is a fucking leader. Jamie: Yeah, you know I'm at a place now where I know when it's time for me to step in and time for me to just get out of the way. And we have a fantastic team. They've managed to pull this off with working a four day week, which is impressive. They've rose to the challenge every time. We've double RecFest every year since we started. It went a hundred, to 200, to 400, to 800, 1500, now 3000. So this team of superheros, they can do anything. I'm sure they'll rise to the task. Joel: Jamie there aren't very many, if at all, vendors associated with the show. There's no expo hall, there's no gold and silver sponsors. Jamie: No. Joel: Is that going to change? Is that by design? What was the thinking around that? Jamie: I don't want to knock any of the exhibitor companies, like they will do their shit really well, but I used to work at Monster, and I can't remember a worse time than being hungover on an exhibition floor. Jamie: I can't remember anything worse than- it just, it's a very unnatural process. The whole idea of grabbing people, scanning them, qualifying them, demoing them. It just is very unnatural, and I don't think it's the right way to do business. Jamie: So we've got vendors here, but they're doing things like... one of the vendors is bringing a litter of puppies for people to play with. Joel: Oh yeah! Jamie: One of the vendors is bringing Tengai. Tengai, you guys know Tengai. Tengai is here right, so that's the sort of shit that people bring to RecFest. It's more interactive, a bit more immersive, not just "hey let me come and demo you, and scan you", I've never been a big fan of that format. There's a lot of networking to be done as well. There's a lot of opportunities to have decent conversations at the bar, or elsewhere. RecFest is a bit more chilled out. Yeah, look there's vendors here, we have sponsorship money, we got some great partners, but it's not as in your face as it is with the big conferences, and it's not as forced down your throat as some of the others. Joel: I hear that robot can drink everyone under the table. Chad: Yeah and anybody who doesn't get pictures with puppies, and pictures with Tengai, you're just not fucking human. I mean, I'm sorry, those are the two coolest things. We had a chance to meet Tengai in Portugal, and we all thought- I mean Joel and I thought it was pretty fucking creepy, but, we got in front of Tengai, and actually interacted, and it was like one of those "I got to take a selfie, I've got to have five or six different people take pictures of me", it is like one of the coolest things. Jamie: Yeah. From our point of view, I'm a fan. We like it when people push the envelope with this sort of thing. I think it's going to be interesting watching the recruiters interact with it, and see if this is potentially a threat. I'm not one of these fear mongers that preach that robots are going to take over our industry one day, but it's an interesting concept. They're definitely pushing the envelope, and it's very, very early on at the moment. So I don't think anyone should judge it, I certainly think they should be applauded for trying something like this. Chad: Yeah. Jamie: Let's see if they can then turn it into a commercial model afterwards. Chad: Who's bringing the puppies? That's what I want to know. Jamie: Tribepad, so a big ATS in the UK are bringing- I think they went to another event and one of them took their own dog and it got overrun with everyone's hanging around. And I was just like, just amplify that by 10. Just bring 20 puppies and see what happens. And they did. Joel: Assuming Chad's wife is going, they're going to fly home about five puppies. Chad: No. Not happening. I don't even want to get into that story. Not to mention the last one, we haven't even talked about. We have put together a promotion, or actually Talent Nexus, has put together a promotion where on the day of, we're going to give away a free year of beer or coffee to some lucky RecFest goer. When you get in there you'll see the promotion will be there, I'm not going to tell you about it, we're going to let it be a surprise, but we're really excited about that! And the thing that I'm really excited about, Joel knows this, I love fucking t-shirts. RecFest created their own Chad and Cheese t-shirt, limited 50. Only 50 of these things, and if you're at the main stage, during our headlining gig, where there's going to be no other stages open, only our stage, we're going to be throwing 50 of these bitches off the stage. Jamie: You're potentially going to cause some sort of riot, you do know that don't you? [crosstalk 00:11:43] My public liability is only 5 million on this one, so if people start getting crushed and shit, I'm holding you guys accountable. Chad: Can't promise anything. Joel: What are you talking about? I think we might be able to fix Brexit during our session. Jamie: Good one. Because your politics are so good at the moment as well. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joe: Yo that John is so lame. Jamie: Yeah, we can have a who's got the worst politics off if you want. Chad: I don't even want to have that conversation, I'm having too much fun right now. Chad: Well guys, so we've got next week RecFest. Anything else you want to talk about before we dump this thing? Joel: I say we get predictions for today's match. US versus England. [crosstalk 00:12:25] Joe: I grew up in New York, I spent about 40 years in New York so I'm quite torn. Being an American I prefer underdogs. The England team is the underdog, and I've lived here for 18 years now, so I've got strong pull there. But I also love the American team and I've supported them ever since I saw them whoop China many many- in the early 90's I think. So I don't think I really know who I want until the first goal goes in. Jamie: Fair enough. You're on the fence, you're on the fence. Chad: All right, yeah I think it's fairly simple, it's going to be three one, USA, we're going to on to win this bitch. Germany's out, right, so I think Germany was really the biggest threat that we had other than England, but once we take care of England today we'll be on stage next week and Joel's going to be in his red white and blue speedo. Joel: I'm going to go two nil. I'm going to go shut up today. Jamie: I really appreciate you guys call it football as well, I just really appreciate that. I know how much that must hurt, to not call it soccer, so I do appreciate that, thank you. That is a big deal to us. Chad: It's not American football, but it is football, so we dig it. Not to mention when the US is kicking so much ass. Joel: Did I hear a Jamie prediction? Chad: No, Jamie didn't give a prediction. Jamie: I'm going to go two one England. Joe: Hey! Jamie: Two one England. Joel: Oh. Chad: Well that being said I think this is going to close out the RecFest edition of the show. Once again guys, if you don't get a chance to go, you're going to hear a lot of reporting and shit from us on it, but make sure you earmark next year, because this is going to be a fucking- not only are you going to see a bunch of really cool people on stage, talking about what you care about, but you're going to have an opportunity to relax, and chill out and then who knows? Maybe hit the mosh pit at the end. Joel: Guys, this was fun man. Jamie: Thank you for all the support. I know you guys have mentioned this at times, so we really do owe you one, thank you very much. Joel: Our pleasure. Chad? Chad: We out! Chad: 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. #RecFest #Event #Diversity #AI #Tengai #Puppies

Gerry Tales with industry icon Gerry Crispin was off-the-chain, and this is Part II of our interview all-things-recruiting. Enjoy, get smarter and show exclusive sponsor Uncommon some love. 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: Welcome to volume two of Gerry Tales. Gerry Crispin is a living, breathing, recruiting history podcast. Joel and I had an opportunity to sit down with Gerry for over an hour-and-a-half to talk history, now and future state of the recruitment industry. This is the second in our Gerry Crispin series. Enjoy, 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: Yup. Chad: New tech can get them to qualified candidates so much faster. Joel: I don't 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 require some kind of annual commitment or contract, right? Chad: No, 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% 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 TAG 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 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 Funcast. Joel: What do you remember from that first Superbowl with the HotJobs and Monster? Do you remember anything about that period, that stuck out? Gerry: Oh, sure. I mean, the Monster ad was probably the most extraordinary thing we've ever seen, in our space of recruiting. No one had ever spent that kind of money to get visibility. And what it created was a recognition that there was going to be a major shift from the $10 billion that was being spent on print-recruitment advertising, to basically shifting all of that. All that money was going to move, and it had. In 2000, it hit 10 billion. In 2001, it moved from 10 billion to five and today it's no more than a billion. Chad: Here's the funny part, Gerry. There was another job site, that actually ran ads, that nobody remembers. Gerry: Which one are your- Chad: HotJobs. Gerry: Oh, HotJobs, yeah. So, HotJobs was going to be bought by Monster, if you recall. Chad: Yeah, but not just then. Coming out of the gate, so this was January of '99, when monster.com launched. In late January, early February, I can't remember exactly when it was, that's when we did the ad. But HotJobs also did an ad, and so did Victoria's Secrets. They had all these online properties that were finally doing ads and all of them, all of them went... I mean, they couldn't handle the traffic. The only one that could handle the traffic was Monster. So nobody remembers that HotJobs ran ads, or Victoria's Secrets or what have you. All their shit couldn't even take the traffic. So yeah, I mean it was... Now their ads [crosstalk 00:04:30]. Gerry: Well Monster was out there, significantly, before. So they had, obviously, a heads up, in terms of visibility. And then, obviously, the HotJobs managed for awhile. I don't know if you remember, but it wasn't long after when HotJobs originally sold... Right. But originally sold to Monster. And the US government sued Monster as a monopoly, to prevent them from buying HotJobs. I don't know if you realize that. Joel: I don't remember that. Chad: Yeah, I don't remember that at all. [crosstalk 00:05:08] what year? Gerry: Well that was... I'd have to go back and look, to be honest with you. But it was in the early 2000's. Joel: Okay. Gerry: So 2000, 2001, something like that. I wrote a screed post, that this is the stupidest thing I'd ever heard in my life. I was then called by Monster's lawyer defending their ability to buy HotJobs. Joel: Yeah. Gerry: And as a result of that, the lawyer said, "We want you," Mark and I, "to go to DC and be our expert witness, when we meet to defend that we should be able to buy HotJobs." And I said, "Okay." And they said, "How much would you want?" And I said, "Well, 3000 an hour." I just pulled that out of the ceiling. Chad: The ether. Gerry: The ether, and he laughed and he said, "I don't make 3000 an hour." Chad: That's your fault. Gerry: I said, "How much do you make?" He said, "300 an hour." And I said, "Okay, I'll take 300 an hour from the time I leave my home, till the time I return. And Mark will do the same." And he agreed to that. Gerry: Now when I said 3000 an hour, I meant for the two hours that we might be in the meeting in DC. Joel: Yup. Gerry: So they paid us for three freaking days, 600 an hour. It was the best deal I had ever made. And we spent a total of two hours in DC, in a big conference room with a board room where you could put 50 people around a table. There were like 10 people from Monster, and Mark and I, and there were like 30 people on the other side who represented the government. And Mark and I spoke for maybe 15 minutes, and that was it. And they won. Joel: Was it just like, "Here's our book of 3000 Job Boards."? Gerry: Yeah. And they won- Joel: "See you later." Gerry: ... and so, Monster won. But then Yahoo! bought HotJobs. Joel: Yeah. Gerry: Actually, you know who was part of that was Dan Finnigan, who just left- Chad: Jobvite, yup. Gerry: ... Jobvite. Joel: You know, you could argue that HotJobs' Superbowl ad was way better investment than Monster's. Because HotJobs spend almost all their money on that Superbowl ad, but it put them immediately [crosstalk 00:08:06] into the same... But about from a brand awareness- Chad: That's an interesting argument. Joel: ... from a brand awareness standpoint, they immediately became the number two job board. Gerry: Agreed. Chad: Yeah, but here's What happened from HotJobs' standpoint. HotJobs didn't take money from staffing companies, they only took money from direct employers. Gerry: Yup. Chad: 75% of Monster's revenues, when we launched in January of '99, were what? Staffing companies. So I had friends that worked at HotJobs and I used to give them shit all the time. Because we were raking in the fucking cash from staffing companies and HotJobs were turning them away. Where do you think they went? To me. Joel: I'm not arguing the revenue question, I'm just arguing... Like the first time I heard about HotJobs was at the the Sherman Minneapolis in 1998. They had a 10x10 booth and they were a punchline. And by '99 they had a Superbowl ad and they were the number two player in the job [crosstalk 00:09:05] space. Chad: And they crashed. Joel: No. And then they got bought. Chad: And then they crashed. Joel: And then they went public and made a ton. They made a... It's Dick Johnson, right, was the founder? Chad: Yeah, it was Dick. Gerry: Yeah. Joel: He's a rich man. I mean, you can argue all you want, but the dice they rolled, he scored on that one. In my opinion. Gerry: That's a good point. It's a very good point. Interesting. If you think about how far back that is, and still, we're talking about- Joel: 20 years ago. Gerry: ... it's 20 years ago. And you come forward and I'm shocked, not shocked, I am amazed at how much money has been spent in the first four months or five months in 2019, investing in job boards. [crosstalk 00:09:58] it's amazing how much money is being put into job boards today. Chad: But they're not spending that on tech though, Gerry, what are they spending that on? They're spending it on the database of people that are... They're spending it on the data. It's kind of like LinkedIn, right? What do you spend that much money on? You spend it on the fucking data that they have, the people. I mean, all that data, what can you do- Joel: Over the opportunity. Chad: Yeah. What can you do, from a technology standpoint, to be able to take this old, crusty job board shit and actually create something that can leverage that data. Right? And make it into something that's worth a shit in 2019, right? Or 2020, or what have you. But I mean, it's all about data right now. I believe, it's not about the technology. Because shit, Google's the one who has the technology that's powering stuff. Gerry: Yup. Joel: And Gerry's a big proponent of privacy. And if the data is so valuable and the privacy issue comes to light, which we think it all will, how much is the data worth if it's not voluntarily given by- Gerry: Right. Joel: ... the private citizen. Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative). Gerry: I think we have the technology now to be able to, literally, ask permission over every data point. Chad: Yeah. Gerry: But no one's holding anyone accountable to do that. Except, I mean the closest obviously is GDPR. But we have not, in many countries, gotten to the level where we would accept that the data about me that exists anywhere is owned by me. Chad: Well, in California, that's going to happen next year because the stricter laws, stricter than GDPR, is going into effect in California. And then you have CEOs like Colin Day who are saying, "Look, we're switching the whole entire 'paradigm' to more of a focus on the actual candidate. It's their data." And they're talking about creating these profiles. Joel: Passport. Chad: Yeah. The passport, that is controlled by the candidate. So, I believe the only way that we can actually move this industry is to have leaders, like a Colin Day, say, "This is what we're doing because it's the right thing to do." And then, for all those other assholes who aren't going to change, have the Federal Government do the right thing for the people and actually regulate it. So, it's going to happen. Not to mention, we're talking about a pod that dropped today, about 13.7 million individuals who had their data in Ladders, had all their shit free-and-open on a fricking AWS Cloud system. Gerry: Wow. Chad: I mean, it's like, "What the fuck is going on here?" I mean, Cenedella is not new to this shit. Right? Gerry: Cenedella was at HotJobs. Chad: Yeah, he's not new to this shit. Right? How do you fuck that up? Gerry: Well, a lot of easy ways. He- Chad: Apparently. Gerry: He's not the only one out there. The fact of the matter is, it's just how we treat the other side. And fundamentally, until it's recognized that candidates have significantly more power and they need to recognize it themselves. So it's not just employers, it's candidates need to step up to make better decisions or want to make better decisions about their own careers. And I think that's coming as well. The recognition that there's a lot more questions that they might want to ask, before they start making good, solid job and career decisions. Chad: Right. Gerry: And I do think, again, that that's coming. When that starts to converge, then I think we're going to see a lot more quality choices between employers and candidates. Because you'll have both sides making quality decisions, as opposed to trying to figure out how to get one side to make that decision. To me, that's always been a serious problem. Is that the transparency is always been on the side of the candidate. I, as the candidate, have to share every relationship I've ever had, professionally. Chad: Yup, souring- Gerry: Why it went well or bad. Chad: Yeah. Gerry: And on the other side I can't ask you, the hiring manager, "Tell me about everybody who's ever worked for you, in this job, and where they are now. Before I decide whether I want to work for you. And tell me about the quality of the team that you've got and where they're going, these are the folks that I've got to work with." So until we start getting more transparent about that, and most companies are not willing to do that. I mean, we struggle with figuring out how to ask the damn salary question. Why would that be a problem? You don't ask the salary question. You tell people what your compensation approach is and that your, for example, here is the band- Chad: Right. Gerry: ... and 85% of all the people we hire come within this range. And that's kind of what you've got to negotiate with. Chad: Well to get to pay transparency in the first place, you're going to have to go there. And again, this is one of the, which pisses me off, some companies have actually taken the step to be more transparent in pay. Most of them, they're covering their eyes and they're covering their ears, and just hoping that it goes away. It's not going to go away. Federal Government's going to step in. Gerry: But we now have data. Joel: Not just our government, but you've got Glassdoor, PayScale. I mean, all kinds of sites ask for salary. Gerry: Well, and increasingly, they're algorithms will put ahead those who do share that information. Clearly Google has been leading, in terms of that. But Talent Board, last year, asked the question of candidates. How they were or if they were asked salary, and if so, how were they asked? And we could correlate their ratings to pieces of that question. So for example, companies that shared information about salary before asking anything, were rated higher by those candidates. Joel: Sure. Chad: Yeah. Gerry: Companies that asked the salary question and refused to answer the question about salary were rated lowest. Joel: So you mean transparency was a positive? Gerry: This was a duh. Joel: Yeah. Gerry: But the point is, if candidate experience is going to impact you and we can demonstrate that it does, then obviously this is an issue that should be a no-brainer. In terms of, at least, at the worst, you should be asking for salary expectations. But that didn't give you much of an advantage, to be honest, over asking salary. Chad: Keep an eye and ear out for more Gerry Tales, coming soon. So watch out. Kristin: Hi, I'm Kristin. 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. Kristin: 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. #Workforce #Monster #SuperBowl #HotJobs #jobboards #Yahoo #GDPR #transparency #Wages #GerryCrispin #GerryTales

If you missed the news breakdown from last week, you're in for a treat this week. The boys breakdown a bevy of news, including - iCIMS buying Jibe - AMS buying a chatbot - Where you at SHRM? Do you job! - Rumors out of CareerBuilder, and Entelo, and new headwinds for Slack. Enjoy the tsunami of news and opinion from HR's most dangerous podcast. Remember, Sovren, Canvas and JobAdx make it all possible. 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 & Cheese Podcast. Joel: Oh, yeah. Don't call it a comeback. Back with our regularly scheduled weekly roundup, this is the Chad & Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous Mfers. Chad: Yes. Joel: I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I am tired as fucking hell dude. This travel is some shit. Joel: You crazy, mofo man. On this week's show iCIMS ain't no Jibe turkey, Karen finds... You like that one? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Karen finds a mate and Slack gets a stiff arm. And we have more rumors than an episode of TMZ. Stay tuned, we'll be right back after this word from Sovren. 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. Sovren: 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. Joel: Va-va-voom. Chad: I always do, every single time I hear that commercial. Joel: So I posted on Facebook this week that Spaceballs was released however 30 years ago or whatever it was, and my favorite line is when they're combing the desert, "We didn't even found shit." Chad: While they were combing the desert, the white dudes have a comb, and the black dudes have a pick. Joel: Yeah. Chad: It was awesome. Joel: Yeah, it's funny shit. I see your fort is as big as mine. Chad: Love it. Joel: Yeah, dude. You've been a traveling man. I was smart enough to take a little time off. But you had to go out to Denver last week. Chad: Yeah. No, I had a great time. Louise Grant from Jobg8. Julie was actually on stage. She fucking killed it. I was her roadie, let's put it that way, which was awesome. Joel: She is number one, were you like standing ovation, go baby go. Chad: It was awesome. We go to a lot of these industry conferences. Joel: We do. Chad: And it's really cool because you see at lunch with the guys from TalkPush and so on, Bill Fanning and Jonathan Duarte, just all these guys that you see. Chad: The things that stick out about a conference is what matters, right? As soon as you come in, you know how they give you the bag full of like, I say in most cases junk. It's got all these cheap tchotchkes and shit, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So Louise and group, they give you a bag, and it had beers in it. Joel: What? Chad: Yes. Joel: Were they in a cooler or something? Just warm beer? Chad: They were warm, yeah. So you had to get your own ice, not a ... I can do that for goodness sakes. Joel: Yeah. Chad: But giving of the beer was pretty awesome. So, that's a big applause. Joel: Okay. So was this Denver, Colorado based beer? Chad: Yes, yeah. Joel: Okay. Chad: It was all local brews. Joel: How many? Chad: I think there was just one per, but Louise gave me a special bag because she knows we like beer, that had six Senators or something like that. Joel: I feel like this whole beer thing is a little bit like thanks to us. A little bit, just a little bit. Chad: It could be. It could be. Joel: Yeah. Chad: But I have to say that was pretty awesome. Joel: This whole ... Yeah, the spread of alcoholism, you know God bless the Chad & Cheese Show. Chad: That's like TAtech. You go to TAtech, whenever we're on stage they open the bar. I mean Pete and Peter at TAtech. It's like no they get it. Then obviously SmashFly. We were on stage at SmashFly just a- Joel: Bucket of beer. Chad: Yeah, a bucket of beer was brought to us. So pretty much wherever we go they understand that it's kind of written in our silent contract, I guess you could say. Joel: In Belgium, I presented at a bar. Chad: See. Joel: That's I can die a happy man now at a bar. Chad: At Tyrone everybody was faced forward but the bar was at the back and they brought the bar in for us. So all we did was go to the back of the room and we sat at the bar and pretty much did our talk during that. But we turned the entire room around because the bar was at the back of the room. That's good shit dude. Joel: Yeah, and we've been really good at our server skills lately. Chad: Yes. Joel: Honing those. Chad: We're trying. Joel: Delivering the goods to people. But yeah, Louise that's a big thumbs up. Chad: Got to love it. Got to love it. Joel: Dear conferences, take note conferences out there. Chad: Take note. Joel: Goodie bags of beer. I'm surprised with Colorado there wasn't something green in the bag too. Chad: Yeah, I know. That sit was going around all over the place. So whether it was gummies or just the traditional, that was happening. Joel: I guess we're starting shout outs, I guess that's the first one technically. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. So you mentioned SmashFly. But huge shout out to Josh Zywien. Chad: Julia Levy from Fiserv. Joel: And Holland McCord, right? Chad: No, Holland McCue. Joel: McCue. Chad: Dombeck McCue yeah, from Delta Airlines, yes. Joel: Yeah. She's had eight names since I've heard of her. Chad: Yeah, I know. Joel: But yeah, they were brave enough to come on stage with us, talk shop, and big shout out to those folks. Chad: Yeah, and Holland actually brought us beer from Atlanta. So again, people are just getting us. So here's a couple of things from SmashFly that I loved. Chad: So, Alan and Tyler from Intel I loved that they're on stage telling everyone that their bat shit bad recruitment funnels suck. Get rid of them. Chad: I want to bring these guys on because again, they're Intel, they have a lot of money they're pushing into recruiting and what not, which I think is just awesome especially from a tech systems' analytics standpoint, a data standpoint. Chad: But I want to get these guys on the show to talk about their recruitment infinity loop. It's really good shit and we saw a lot of that where everybody is kind of moving from this old funnel to more of an infinity loop. Chad: That is more predicated on not just the recruitment process but also engagement. So trying to kind of blend engagement into the recruiting piece. Go fucking figure, right? Joel: Engagement, a common theme on the show that we love so very much. Chad: Yes, yeah. And Holland also said in her presentation of Delta Airlines that they actually have gained, they're given 80 hours back to their recruitment team through their use of Chatbots. So, I thought that was pretty cool. Chad: So hearing these practitioners on the stage talk about yeah, this is really cool. But also to be able to talk about the data and the really practical ways that they're using it and the impact on their teams. Joel: Chatbots clearly work. Like a year or so later they're clearly ... Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's one of our new stories we'll feature, a little tease there. They're going to start falling like dominoes to acquirers. But anyway, we'll get to that in a second. Chad: Too easy, yeah. Joel: Shout out to iHeartRadio. Chad: Yes. Joel: Apparently you can now listen to the Chad & Cheese podcast at iHeart. Chad: Yeah, iHeartRadio and also the new platform Luminary. We're on Luminary, iHeartRadio, and we just continued to add platform. Joel: Luminary is an interesting one. They have paid podcasts like exclusives on there. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: So let's see if that works very well for them. You had a couple of new listeners, Kevin Kirkpatrick and Stormin Norman. You know anything about these cats? Chad: Kevin Kirkpatrick, first and foremost, I just wanted to say that you're saying John wrong, okay? So he's a new Philly listener. Or maybe he's not a new Philly listener, but he's a Philly listener. Ed: Yo, that John is so lame. Chad: That's exactly right. Thanks Ed. Stormin Norman is a guy that I've known forever. He's been in this industry forever and he has 1500 domains that he's trying to get rid of just because they're sitting around doing nothing. So he's like, "Chad can you say something about it on the pod?" I'm like, "Yeah, not a problem." Chad: So if you're looking for ... These are trusted domains that he really just can't do anything with. Go ahead, hit us up on chadcheese.com. Joel: Are they really good? Chad: Yeah, some of them are actually pretty good. But I didn't go through all of them because it's like over 1,000 domains. Joel: We need to give him Jason Davis' number because he's got about 1,000 domains too. Maybe they could be like a bundle package deal. Chad: But anyway, so shout out to another, I believe, new listener, a Jose Watson. It's hilarious. He actually was listening to the Chad & Cheese podcast without headphones at work and he was asked to please put the headphones on because there's some language. So sorry not sorry Jose. You should have known better. Joel: He had a moment there, didn't he? Oops. Chad: Oops. Then Sarah Stamp who logged into and listened to our live stream on SmashFly's Transform. She's a listener but she obviously wanted to watch the show too. So, big shout out to Sarah. Joel: And that's when she discovered those guys have a face for podcasting. Chad: Especially you, yes. Joel: I'm sorry George Clooney. Have we shout out to SmashFly Transform yet? Chad: Yeah, those guys really killed it in Boston. The venue was pretty awesome. Having practitioners, again, not just talk about fluff about stuff on stage, I hate that shit. Chad: I get up and leave when I hear practitioners just talk about fluffy bullshit on stage. I was in my seat listening to things that actually mattered. So big props to Jay Z, to Tom, to Brandy and the gang over there for putting that together. Joel: Yeah. I was sad that I had to jet out early for you know personal reasons. But I was glad to see that the QR Code is making a comeback with Sprint Recruiting, I believe. Chad: Don't call it a comeback, it's been here for years. Last but not least, we've got to finish this shout right with RecFest. Guys we've been talking about RecFest for a while. I know it's like Chad shut up it's already sold out. You can still get on the wait list. Joel: You lead the way. Chad: Yeah, you can still get on the wait list. But here's the thing guys, 3,000 attendees, five stages. They're actually shutting down four of the stages and we're going to be the headliners. Chad: So we're the last ones that are actually on and through our friends at Talent Nexus, we're going to be doing some really cool stuff with them. I'm just teasing you about it now. Chad: But one thing that we will tell you about is if you're going to be at RecFest, we've actually teamed up with Talent Nexus and we're going to be giving some lucky listener/twitter follower, whatever, a free year of beer or coffee depending on what they like. If they like coffee we'll probably give it to the person who's going to take the beer. But anyway, free year of beer. Promotion should be a blast. War Games: Shall we play. Chad: God damn straight. I'm stoked. We have some other surprises with the guys from RecFest. We're putting some things together. You've got to be at the stage because we're going to be giving a lot of shit away and a lot of surprises are going to happen. So, it should be a blast. Joel: Be there or be square baby and you'll miss my red, white, and blue speed dial if you don't show up. Chad: Correct. I sure hope you don't have one of those. Joel: Boom. Tengai: Hi. This is Tengai, the unbiased interview robot. You're listening to the Chad & Cheese podcast. I love these guys. Joel: And we love you too Tengai. Chad: How could you not. Joel: Almost as much as iCIMS love Jibe this past week or two weeks ago. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: Our buddies at iCIMS who have gotten the acquisition bug here lately acquired Jibe, which I guess you would call sort of a talent platform. Chad: More of an engagement. Joel: Yeah, making career sites, being knee deep in Google stuff really early on. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah branding stuff. Sort of an attraction ... See how I did that, we'll lead into that. Sort of an attraction platform that iCIMS is building here. You'll remember they acquired TextRecruit a year or so ago as well. So they're building a nice little platform for marketing to candidates. Chad: Yeah, and I think TextRecruit has probably been like close to two years now, right? Man, it's been a little while. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So I mean once again people, I'm going to say this again and you've heard it before but too fucking bad. Let me make this very clear, this is an arms race. It's what it is. You either pick who you're going to partner with as a core tech or you try to survive on the island by yourself. That's what's happening here. Chad: So, Canvas obviously, Jobvite, TextRecruit, iCIMS, Jobvite also with Telemetry, which is kind of like a Jibe like platform, I guess you could say. Joel: RolePoint. Chad: Yeah, RolePoint. I mean there's all this that's actually happening, and this is an arm's race. Make no doubt about it. The big question is if you're a start up out there or if you're a company that has been a point solution for a very long time, are you going to join in this kind of arm's race? Are you going to try to duck and cover and hope this shit passes? Joel: So we have a whisper number for what iCIMS paid for Jibe, unsubstantiated rumors, but we like our sources pretty well. The number that I heard was 60 million. Chad: Yeah. So the amount of cash that they actually were able to put together was like over 40 million, right? Joel: Yeah. Jibe raised around 39 million, I think. Chad: Okay, okay. So you take a look at the sale on that, that's not a bad buy for iCIMS, right? Joel: No. Jibe investors didn't get quite the 10X that they were probably hoping for. It was more like the one and a half X. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah, and acquisition on the West. I had heard over the years, sort of negative rumors about Jibe and sort of they're running out of money. Joel: So I'm not going to say that it was a clearance sale, but it probably was a little bit of a bummer for Jibe investors who forked over 40 million. Chad: Yeah. Well Joe very early on became very fast friends with Google, right? With Bogomil and then now Tarquin to be able to infuse their tech, the Jibe tech with Google and use Google search, which we thought was very smart, right out of the gate. Chad: And while that was happening, guess who else was a part of that whole kind of collab that was happening? iCIMS. iCIMS is doing the exact same things. So the big question was were they pretty much in the room together, did this all kind of come about through those types of relationships? That's a good question. Joel: Well we know iCIMS is a huge fun of Google and sort of taken up the middle man of job search. Chad: Right. Joel: So, yeah, definitely a match made in heaven from a Google affection standpoint. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Joe will be joining iCIMS as a VP, I believe, or a general manager of the new Attract product. Chad: Which means Jibe's going away. Joel: Probably, probably. It's a good name though. Chad: Well last year ... No, it's a great name. Last year when we were at iCIMS HQ and we were going through the iCIMS' Influence Analyst Conference they were talking about these different components. Chad: The big question that I had for Al was dude, you can't build all this shit. You can but it makes no sense. He was like, "No, no, you're right. You're right." Which is one of the reasons why we bought TextRecruit. Chad: So I see this as something where some very smart people, the Colin Day's of the world, the Al Smith's of the world, they know their shit. He's a due diligence kind of guy, so he saw something I'm sure in Jibe that they wanted to pull in because it's kind of like cheating, right? Joel: A little bit. Susan Vitale at iCIMS will probably hate me to say this. But I like Jibe better than I do iCIMS as a brand. Chad: Yeah. I mean that's the hard part, right? Not to mention it has the name in the market. Not to mention if you pull Jibe, and this is kind of the argument that you and I have had for a little while is if you pull Jibe into iCIMS as a part of iCIMS you could have perspectively lost money from clients because clients actually have a bundle of money for a "talent attraction", talent engagement type of platform, and they have obviously a bigger pile of cash for their applicant tracking system. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Here's the thing, if they're both together, I guarantee you that pile of cash for the engagement piece is going to be much, much smaller. But if it's a different platform, a different product but just owned by iCIMS, I think they can actually keep and gain more money that way. Chad: Again, that's just my opinion but knowing how the actual market thinks and selling into this market for 20 years, that's what going to happen. Joel: I know you're a big fan of house of brands. But to me, and I could go either way, I'm a huge fan of either depending on the product. But I think with the announcement of Attract, iCIMS Attract or whatever they're calling it, I would not be surprised to see Jibe and TextRecruit sort of melt into this new Attract tool. Joel: You will probably say that's a bad decision. I would say it's probably just something that's going to have to happen regardless. But we'll see those guys in a few months. We'll have to nail them down for an interview and see what's really going on with those brands. Chad: Well literally if you have a company like ... And this has a lot to do with culture too. Let's not try to throw this out and just think it's a brand thing because it's not. The people who work for TextRecruit right now, okay, they might be getting paid through obviously the iCIMS funnel. Totally get that, right? Chad: They believe that brand. They are a part of that brand, that TextRecruit brand. If you get rid of a brand like that, something that has had a purpose and something that ... I mean Eric has obviously sold these people on for years because he believes in the purpose. He embodies that purpose. That's going to be an issue from a resource standpoint because people will leave because that purpose means so much to them. Chad: So, if they are looking to make this transition, they're going to have to do it in an incredibly delicate manner. Joel: Slowly. It will be iCIMS Attract messaging powered by TextRecruit for the next two years and then it will slowly just fade away. Chad: Again, it's a delicate conversation. Joel: It's just delicate. Delicate like the name Karen, which leads us to our next story. Chad: Karen. Joel: A love story between Alexander and Karen. Chad: Alexander Mann Solutions acquires Karen.ai. This to me is big fucking news. It's a Chatbot, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So we've got all of these messaging solutions that are being acquired. Now, again, this isn't just an arm's race for the "tech vendors." RPO and staffing see the writing on the wall as well and they know they have a better chance of building the tech and it will be adopted if it's going through their services. Chad: So if you're a staffing company and you're using these products or if you're an RPO and you're actually embedding these products and clients are paying for these products and you're embedding it into their process methodology, holy shit, it just makes sense from an adoption standpoint. Joel: Yeah, yeah. I mean if you're a shareholder in a Chatbot right now you might want to go yacht shopping because the dollars are coming. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Investment dollars we've been talking about for a long time. But these suckers are going to get snapped up in the next 12 months post taste. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We know they work. You've mentioned Holland talking about the time saved, the money saved with Chatbots. We know that job seekers like them. There's no more black hole like. Chatbots work and ultimately people are going to write checks to gobble these guys up. Chad: I'd like to dive deeper with Holland too and find out exactly what they did with the Chatbot that saved them that 80 hours because there might be ... I would guarantee there's even more that can be done. But do you know who actually works over at Alexander Mann Solutions? Do you remember? Joel: That's our girl, right? Chad: Yeah, the queen of Chatbots. Joel: Quincy. Chad: Yeah, the queen of Chatbots. She was on the pod last November. Joel: Yes. Chad: If you haven't listened to go chadcheese.com, click on podcast and just look through the November podcast. It's there, listen to it. It's damn good. Chad: So, when I heard the whole Karen thing happening I automatically thought about her. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Because she knows, I mean, she knows her shit just not from an RPO solution design kind of a thing, because that's what she spent a good amount of her time in. But also from a tech standpoint, she really knows her shit. Joel: Yeah, and she knows the players. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So for Karen to be the one that they targeted and went to acquire, and the terms of the deal were not disclosed. But our girl knows her Chatbots. Joel: So if you're a Chatbot and not using Karen as a blueprint, you might want to start doing that because someone who knows Chatbots and someone who has the money to buy them pick this one so you might want to follow suit. Chad: We'll have to look at early stage too, right, because you can't allow a Chatbot in some cases, depending on what you want to do with it, to get too big. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Because of the price tag, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Not to mention the ability to really change the road map of where that perspective Chatbot is going. So, I think we really haven't heard a lot about Karen, to be quite frank. Joel: Yeah. Chad: And I think this is probably smart because they were out there. There's no question they were shopping and they were checking out all these Chatbots. This Chatbot was probably in the right stage for them, for exactly what they were looking for. It's probably not as mature as a TalkPush, well I guarantee you it's not as mature as a TalkPush or an Olivia or something like that. Chad: But the price tag goes up dramatically when you start talking about them. Joel: Yeah, and she knows all the teams as well. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: So, I'm sure whatever talent they had had some part in writing a check to get those guys. Chad: Yeah, good point. Yeah. Joel: So yeah, modulation is all around. But this is to me going to start a domino effect. We're going to start seeing these Chatbots get gobbled up. Chad: Watch this space kids. Joel: Another space to keep an eye on is the one that JobAdX is currently residing. Let's get a word from them and we'll talk about another new CEO for one of our favorite hourly sites. Chad: Yeah. 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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: So I feel like Snagajob is one of these dying stories that doesn't get enough attention. But Snagajob not too long ago was a major, major force in the job world. And they've fallen off the map really quickly. Chad: So do you feel like they're a dying brand because they did a brand refreshed, there's a Snag.co or something like that. Joel: Yeah, I feel like that was a major fuck up because when they were Snagajob, you can post your jobs and part time work and hourly folks. They were a force in that space and they decided to go platform, marketplace based Uber for workers. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And we both agreed that's a good place to go. But they have not faired well in terms of that new world. They went to Snag.co. They became more sort of native at based. Their original CEO, the one they had when we first interviewed them about this is gone. Chad: Right. Joel: The guy who took over is gone. And now they have a new CEO. So shit's fucked up over Snag. Chad: I have an entirely different kind of vantage point on this. I think that- Joel: That's why we have a show. Chad: Yeah. I think Fabio Rosati. I love the name by the way, Fabio. He stepped into the CEO position. It might not have been announced this way because he's the fucking executive board chairman, right? But I think it was always short term. Chad: And Mathieu Stevenson who's the new CEO, he was the CMO. But he joined the team in January, right? So the guy hasn't even been there a year yet. I believe that Fabio was looking to groom Mathieu to be able to take over the position so he could step back. That's what Fabio has done, he's stepping back into the executive board chair position. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So I think this was something that was kind of calculated behind the scenes. I could be totally wrong, it could be fucked up. But to me it feels like it was calculated behind the scenes and that they were looking for the right person to take over as CEO and that person is going to have to be focused on on-demand platform for hourly workers. Chad: And that is going to be a very competitive space with Uber, is now in that space. Obviously the Upworks of the world. There are just so many of those companies and I guess from my standpoint and we're obviously a little bit closer to this brand, but do you think Jobcase is going to go in that direction too as kind of an on-demand kind of a system? Joel: I think that's going to inevitably have to be part of their offering. I know they're built so much around community. But it would be an interesting part of what they're doing. Chad: Play, yeah. Joel: You know actually play because they already have sort of ingrained reviews and communication engagement amongst job seekers, which really plays well into who hiring is good with contract workers or gig workers. So I definitely think so. Joel: I just think with Snag whenever you lose a CEO and sort of the visionary, the person that you know was ... It's just really hard for organizations to deal with volatility in the CEO ranks. Joel: So, I mean maybe Snag will get it together. We'll certainly report on it either way. But I just think you never ever hear about Snag in the news, from release. I mean they have just sort of disappeared and I'm sure they still have happy customers and people using them. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But I just don't. I don't feel the same kind of energy around the company that I did just a few years ago. Chad: They still have close to 100 million registered workers and nearly half a million employers using this system. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So, again, I think they've got a long runway, right? And I think just from my standpoint, this change was always something that they kind of calculated behind the scenes thinking that ... Chad: Fabio is still going to be from Upwork fame, right? He's still going to be there overlooking everything. But they were looking for the right person, I believe, to take this over. Joel: Yeah. Chad: The reason I asked about the Jobcase, your ideas on Jobcase is because they just hired Jeff Chow to be their SVP of product management. And that dude led product and design teams over at Google and TripAdvisor. Chad: So, the $100 million that they received just months back they're looking to make some very aggressive moves on their side as well. But again, you're right, they're more of that social community piece, how do you perspectively flip a social community kind of a piece into an on-demand work platform? Chad: It seems interesting because they're both in the same segment going at the market differently. Joel: Yeah. I think we should make a note to reach out to Mathieu Stevenson, new CEO, and get him on the show and dig in to what the vision is and what they're doing and what we can expect from them in the future. Chad: I'm already on that. Tease alert. Transitioning over into something we never talk about, Slack. Joel: Slack. Chad: It's interesting that people think it's a big deal that Microsoft is banning the use of Slack. Joel: They're sort of blaming it on security issues with AWS. But it's a competitive play. Microsoft has a competitor for Slack, as such they don't want their employees or their company using Slack when they have a competing product like that. Chad: Right. Joel: It just doesn't make any sense. Chad: No. Joel: Now what is interesting and this wasn't in the story, I don't think, is I understand that LinkedIn uses Slack internally. So it would be interesting. I don't know if they ... I'm sure they banned it across all Microsoft companies but I'm pretty sure that LinkedIn has been a Slack user for a long time. So that could be a nice little headache for employees to switch over to Microsoft products. Chad: Yeah. And I haven't used Teams but I've actually talked to people who do and they love it. I've used Slack, and I don't like it. I just don't like it. It's information overload especially when you get five or six people on a team and they're collaborating on something, it is a bitch to try to keep up with in some cases. Chad: It really ... It's like information overload. It's better than email, don't get me wrong. But I just ... Slack is a "finished product" it doesn't to me feel like a finished product. Joel: Aside from being a very competitive landscape, I think we've been reporting on open source products or services and Matter most. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I think it was the one recently that got 50 million. Did I hear that correctly? Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: So whenever we see a space like this where there is a main player and then it's basically commodity and people do it for free or do it really expensively, it gets in trouble. When you have big players like Facebook and Microsoft getting into this. Joel: But as you listen to ... When Slack went public, their CEO was doing the rounds on CNBC and Bloomberg and everything. They asked him that same question, you know, "Hey, you're getting competition from really big players." He wasn't super concerned. I think his comment was, "We're competitor aware, but we are customer focused." Joel: Which is I think a good way to be. In fact, he mentioned that apparently Google has a competing product. But cool for him is no one knows about it. So it is true that these big companies, the bigger companies will throw resources at creating a competitor. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But if Slack continues to iterate and I do think at some point they're going to be an office competitor, which is a big reason why I think Microsoft wants to kill them now. Chad: We'll see. I just ... Again, the whole Microsoft kicking Slack out to me just doesn't seem surprising at all. Joel: I mean the real challenge for Slack is once all the companies that are using Microsoft, when the IT departments say oh well we don't want to use this AWS service, da, da, da, we're going to go with Microsoft, that's when Slack really hits a brick wall, I think. Chad: I haven't heard of many companies switching from AWS to Azure, but it could happen. Joel: Well if the IT department says look Slack is a threat, a cyber threat or a risk. Chad: That's what this is. This is more, I think, kind of like corporate propaganda. But you know who is really good at this messaging thing? 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: 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 with emoji. We make compliance easy and are razor 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. War Games: Shall we play again? Joel: Let's talk rumors. Tons of rumors. Which one do you want to start with first? Chad: So the Entelo one is ... I mean we're going to talk about Entelo and hearing that they're just not getting traction. But you actually found something even more beyond that. There's kind of some different angles that they're trying run right now. Joel: Yeah. So we've been talking about Entelo trying to sell discount stuff, looking for anybody to buy their shit. Chad: Something, yeah. Joel: They have just been coming up empty. So, a rumor that I got was that Entelo were currently trying to get some private equity funding to merge with ConveyIQ. ConveyIQ you'll remember used to be take the interview video, sort of higher review competitor. And then they became sort of an all-encompassing platform. Joel: So yeah, there's a rumor that's emerged there. The source also tells me that Entelo was running out of options. Recent departures of VPs, of engineering products sales and marketing, which are kind of the main departments for those who don't know. Plus most of the sales team are out. Joel: So, shit's bad in Entelo. It looks like they're trying to find an exit. We've heard everyone from iCIMS, to Workday, to all kinds of other companies that are looking to buy these guys. But it looks like the clock is ticking big time. Chad: Yeah. I think for many of these startups that are starting to see their runaway kind of run out. The most important thing that companies have to understand is cool tech definitely is awesome to talk about. But if you don't have a solid revenue strategy in place you're fucked because you can talk about, you can try to build cool new tech, but if you don't have money to fuel it then you're screwed, right? Chad: That's one of the things that I think you get mesmerized into all these numbers that are thrown out from a funding standpoint, but you've got to remember profitability is the key and if you're not building toward that, and you're just building toward the new next cool feature in the next sprint, then you're really losing sight of a long term objective. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Whether that's acquisition or actually building to become your own platform. That's what I'm seeing from a lot of startups is they're not focusing on the fuel, right? You have the engine but you got to fuel that fucker somehow. Joel: Yeah. And Entelo has been around for quite a while. I want to say that they launched in '11 or '12. We talk a lot about when you build your product on someone else's stuff, that you run a huge risk of getting screwed. Chad: Right. Joel: We saw this with Facebook folks like BranchOut and BeKnown and others when Facebook changes their rules you're screwed. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Entelo's original business was hey we're going to scan LinkedIn and when someone changes their profile or they're more active, we're going to pick up these little cues on LinkedIn to tell you like hey, this person may be ... We're looking for a job, we'll have to be open to a new job than others. Joel: When LinkedIn changed their rules and they couldn't do that anymore and said no one is going to spot our shit, Entelo was like okay now what do we do? And they became a sourcing tool essentially. Chad: Right. Joel: Then that became commoditized. From what I hear, they don't even scrape their own data anymore. They either buy it or they rent it or whatever from someone else. Chad: Right. Joel: It's that whole pool of 150 candidates that everyone uses. So they've become a commodity when they used to have a pretty cool business. Joel: But I think LinkedIn pulled the rug out from under them and they've been scrambling trying to figure out what we do or what we do next ever since that happened, if memory serves correctly. Chad: Yeah. You can run an organization for a good amount of time especially if you're focused on burn rate if you have $41 million. I mean they had close to $41 million. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So they've been around for a while but still, again, it's all about that strategy and how you're going to attack the market. Are you going to attack to be able to partner and deeply integrate with these core systems? Are you going to try to build something that will stand the test of time, which is going to be hard as fuck, let's just say that. Chad: At that point, your strategy is entirely different and you're more of ... You have more of a focus on agencies and direct to clients, right? But the strategy is entirely different and I see a lot of these companies they don't even know who to reach out to. They have no clue where the cash is in the first place. Chad: They see Fortune 500 brands and they think it's going to be easy to walk in and actually sell that shit. Number one, it's not. Number two, they probably don't have as much money as you think they do. Number three, they probably have no clue what talent rediscovery actually fucking means, right? So, you're fighting all of that. It blows my mind, it really does. Joel: Mind blown. Let's go to CareerBuilder, speaking of blown minds. Chad: It's interesting because we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago and you would ask me, "Who's head do you think is going to roll?" I said Irina. I think Irina, the current CEO, her head is going to roll just because she's in charge, she's the one making the decision. It's her, right? Chad: She sets the tone for the entire organization. Well the tone has been a mass exodus of executives and very pivotal types of individuals from CareerBuilder, right? Chad: So we were talking about that and I had a bunch of people texting me and calling and all that other fun stuff saying you're right, right? So I'm not saying she's gone or, but I believe because of the whole ... Joel: Yeah, the stove is getting hotter and stuff. Chad: Yeah, the board meeting, all that stuff, I don't see it lasting very long guys. The big question is who's going to step up and who are they going to put into that CEO position? Joel: It will be another pencil pusher, which I think is what I called her when we talked about this. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: For those that didn't listen or don't remember, they had their second sort of executive leave within a year of the company and the board meeting when she mentioned, yeah, heads are going to roll. They're still trying to sell this thing. They're trying to scrap it, sell the pieces of it, and it's just not working. Joel: Irina, the nature of the beast, is most likely going to be replaced. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. I don't know how else this is going to end but it's not going to be pretty for a lot of people. Chad: I'll tell you when you can really see this thing is over, look at the bonus cycles for sales people and when those bonus cycles are actually paid out, when you start to see the mass exodus, it's fucking done. Done. That's all there is to it. Chad: That's like the last piece because there are so many great sales people already at CareerBuilder, they can see it happening internally when they see it happening internally and you see that happen after the bonus cycle, done. Joel: By the way, CareerBuilder sales people, there are a lot of Chatbots looking to hire good sales folks. Get on the phone there with AllyO and Mya and Olivia and everybody else because they're paying well and higher. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So in Denver this week and you and I are always pretty high on Google and what they're doing and it was interesting because this guy got on stage from Google, I can't remember his name. But he was talking about how Google is pretty much going to stop all the third party cookies, right? Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: He's talking to a room of tech vendors who rely on third party cookies for retargeting. It's like why did you just say that in this room? Was that kind of a nice little hey we're going to smack you upside the head? But he had a- Joel: Remember when they launched Facebook jobs at TAtech? Chad: Yeah, TAtech, yeah. Joel: Job boards, yeah that was good. Chad: Like are you fucking kidding me? It was a really short presentation. It wasn't really great. I guess he had to go to Morocco or some shit like that. Then he was trying to get off the stage and it was like no, you have time for questions. Chad: So I was lucky enough to get the first question and I asked him about the WaPo story this week in Washington Post that actually ... that researchers had actually called Google Chrome spyware because of the amount of cookies that it pulls in, right? Chad: So my question to him was okay, so if you already have Google Chrome which is collecting all these cookies and actually being seen and called spyware, why are you telling everybody in this room that you're doing away with third party cookies? Chad: He looked at me like I can't believe you just asked me that fucking question. Joel: Of course. Chad: Then said, "Google is doing away with cookies, next question." I'm like what the fuck is this? Joel: All right. I think that concludes our rumors segment of the show. Let's talk about Wayfair employee's uprising and call it a day. Chad: Yeah, let's close this bitch out. Joel: You know the story better than I do because it's more of your lane. But basically Wayfair furniture maker was selling furniture to, I guess what, border? Chad: No, it's the current. So the current situation that we've been hearing all over the news is kids in cages, kids sleeping on concrete, that kind of thing, all right. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So apparently the Federal Government said well let's go ahead and spend $200,000 on furniture from Wayfair for an immigration detention facility. For a immigration detention facility and employees got wind of this and they were like no, this is not right. Chad: Now, it's not that they don't think it's right that kids sleep on something other than concrete, number one, okay? So it's not that they want to take beds away from the kids. They have a fundamental problem with obviously these kids being in cages and sleeping anywhere away from their parents. Joel: Principle, the principle of the whole thing, right? Chad: It's the principle. So this impacts our industry. Everybody is like why the fucks are these guys talking about this? It's pretty simple because this country was built and will continue to be built on immigration, right? And we've been asking as our professionals and professional associations and really the largest professional association that's out there today, SHRM. Chad: Where are you? We're still waiting to hear from our standpoint, to have an interview with somebody at SHRM to be able to talk about the responses to their support of the current administration immigration laws. Joel: Yeah. Chad: We know that they're focused in and what they're trying to say is they're focused on just the workforce stuff. But as we all know, this country is blended and we can't find people to fucking fill jobs as it is right now period, right? Chad: So, the fuel of immigrants from the start of this country has never stopped. It has always helped us to diversify and to innovate and to be able to think that we can just change that overnight and stop it makes no sense whatsoever. Chad: We need a professional organization like SHRM to be able to address this and to be able to answer questions and find out why they aren't moving the dial on this conversation. Chad: They should be on the show. We should have a conversation about this because this matters. Joel: I think for me historically speaking, the way that workers uprise and sort of let their voice be heard is really unique to this time and period. Back in the day it was there was a labor union and a labor boss and they would express the views of the workers. Chad: Right. Joel: And now workers are just saying we're just going to mobilize ourselves and have a view point. What's amazing to me about the Wayfair story is these workers went to management and said we don't want you to do this. And management said fuck you, we're doing it. And the workers said, oh is that the way it's going to be? Then retaliated. Joel: That's a really interesting dynamic in the world. The way that workers are saying screw the company and we're going to mobilize and let our voices be heard. And that companies because of low unemployment have to take it, is just really an interesting dynamic to me historically. Joel: And from labor unions to sort of now, it's just a really intriguing evolution to how workers are sticking it to the man. Chad: Yeah. I'm not a big De Blasio fan. But he said something on stage last night that really kind of resonated with me. He said, "People of America don't look at these immigrants as the reason why you aren't progressing in life the way that you want to. Look at your employers. Look at the companies who aren't paying you the wages to be able to actually get you there." Joel: Yeah. Chad: That's where the focus should be and we need to get our heads on straight and we need an organization like SHRM to step the fuck up and actually start addressing these things because if they're going to get on Twitter and they're going to say they appreciate certain aspects of what this administration is doing, great. Let's go ahead and open up this conversation. Let's have a real conversation that's not all warm and fuzzy. Joel: All this excitement has really worn me out and I think I'm ready for a nap. Chad: I'm going to go drink one of those Denver beers. We out. Joel: We out. Announcer: This has been the Chad & Cheese podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because they make it all possible. For more, visit chadcheese.com. Oh yeah, you're welcome. #Slack #Jibe #iCIMS #Entelo #Careerbuilder #AMS #Karenai #Snag #Microsoft #Mattermost #SHRM

An old URL with a lot of new ideas - including blockchain, paying job seekers and a credit card (yes, credit card) - but we'll see how the company does against 40 years of industry experience. Chad & Cheese run Job.com CEO Arran Stewart through the firing squad ... gotta listen to see how he does. Firing Squad is made possible by those pillaging pirates over at Talroo. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community.​ Jordan: I be loving Talroo. They be staffing me for years now with crew of the highest caliber, and I mean crew that be ready to set sail, not some landlubber who be uploading his resume years ago. Talroo, data-driven job ads that deliver. Argh! Jordan: You be poo without Talroo. You be walking the plank if you not be using Talroo for your recruiting needs. Don't be a bilge-sucking scallywag. Avast! Use Talroo to hire better. Chad: Now, that is impressive. Not just Jordan's dialect, but Talroo's commitment to ensuring that companies looking for hard-to-find talent not only find the talent, they find a partner in Talroo who works hard to join and engage their community. Way to go, Talroo. This rum is for you. Jordan: Don't be a bilge-sucking scallywag. Avast! Use Talroo to hire better. Chad: Check them out at Talroo.com. That's T-A-L-R-O-O dot com. 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 fox hole and duck for cover, kids. The Chad and Cheese podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel: Oh yeah. It's been a while now. Firing Squad is back. We have one of the most elusive company's startups in the space- Chad: Stealthy. Joel: -job.com is with us today. Arran Stewart, who is the chief visionary officer. Puke. He must be a millennial. Arran, welcome to the show. Arran: Hello, gents. Thank you so much for having me on the show and you are correct. I am a millennial. Yes. Joel: I knew it. I knew it. Chad: God damn it. Joel: Oh, God. I know. That's just not a good thing. Arran, no one knows you that's listening. Give us a quick elevator pitch on you and then we'll get to the company. Arran: Sure. So, my name's Arran Stewart. I'm originally from a town called Luton just north of London, but I live in Austin, Texas now. I've worked in recruiting and staffing my whole career. Previously prior to job.com, I was actually the owner of a business that was part of Hamilton Bradshaw in the United Kingdom, which is owned by quite a famous person there called James Caan, a king of recruitment especially in the United Kingdom. Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed and love recruitment technology and, outside of that, I'm married with four beautiful children. Joel: Nice job. Chad. Chad: Did he say James Caan like the Hollywood actor? Arran: Yeah, the actor. Yeah. And do you know what's so funny? The name and spelling is the same too. Yeah. Same spelling, but if you Google James Caan, there's two. There's Caan, the actor, and Caan- Joel: KAHN! Arran: -the businessman, he founded Alexander Mann. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I do know them, Arran: Yeah, he founded that and sold it for an inordinate sum of money. Joel: So you love recruiting and you have four kids. Have you had a therapy session in the last 24 hours? Arran: No, not yet. Chad: This is going to be it. Arran: I need it. Joel: You might need your head checked. Yeah. Well, Chad's going to run down the rules for you. Arran: Okay. Chad: All right, Arran. You are going to have one minute to pitch job.com. Now, generally on the show startups come on, companies come on, they need the full two minutes. But when we got on the phone with Arran he said, "Fuck that. We are going to take one minute for the pitch." And at the end of the bell you know your minute is up, right. So the bell's going to start you and then obviously you have a minute to hit it. After that minute, Joel and I are going to hit you with rapid-fire Q and A. If your answers aren't concise and you start bumbling and stumbling around we're going to hit you with the crickets and tell you to tighten your shit up. At the end of Q and A we have a rating scheme here at the Chad and Cheese podcast. Big applause means you killed it, you nailed it, can't wait, we want to buy stuff. Joel: Boats n Hoes Chad: Yeah. Golf clap means you might be on your way, you need to tighten it up a bit. But the firing squad, that means you'd better take your boat- Joel: Bye bye. Chad: -and drive off shore as far as you possibly can and dump this business model into the fucking ocean. Joel: Go back to that shitty town you're from in Scotland. Chad: That is Firing Squad. Are you ready? Arran: I'm ready, gents. Chad: Excellent. Joel, hit it, man. Joel: One minute, starting- Arran: So, job.com is a automated permanent-staffing platform utilizing artificial intelligence and blockchain to deliver a permanent placement candidate for only 7% of the base salary. So we're 65% cheaper than the statistical average in the United States. The fee is the most exciting part. We split it into two. We take 2% of the fee and the other 5% is given to the job-seeker as a salary signing bonus to incentivize them and congratulate them on taking their hiring into their own hands. Arran: Because of the use of blockchain technology we're trying to create a fully autonomous platform and by using rewards and incentives we allow users to take control of their own recruitment because they're the ones with the skills, the experience, and the education. They apply for the job, they ace the interview, why on earth aren't they the person earning the lion's share of the fee? And because of that we believe we have such a unique model which will drive and change the $150-billion-dollar-a-year recruitment industry of which $26 billion is being spent on permanent staffing. Chad: There it is. Joel: Wow, very nice. Chad: Very nice. One thing we didn't get though, if people want to find out more about this wonderful service, where do they go, Arran? Arran: Very easy: it's called job.com. Chad: That is very simple. Joel: Which is where my first question comes in. What is the history of job.com? Because you weren't the first to own it. What's the history of it, how did you guys come upon it? What kind of check did you have to write to get the name? Talk about that. Arran: Okay, so job.com was founded in 2001. It was founded by a guy called [Brian Algin 00:06:27], who still works with us in the business today. It was originally a job board and had quite immense success, actually, towards around 2009, 2010. And then as time's gone on there's been increased competitiveness with Indeed's Hit Recruiter, Glassdoor, and so when we were on our acquisition trail coming here to the US we kind of heard on the grapevine through mutual connections that Brian was looking to exit the business. He'd reached the point in his career where he's been very successful and he's been one of the founding fathers of job boards in the United States. He already had offers from another major job board that we all know, but he was kind of interested in what we were looking to do for the future of recruitment. We went to see him, pitched our vision, what we're trying to achieve, and the changes we were going to make and so he agreed to exit the assets of the business to us and that completed in September 2017. Now sadly, gents, I cannot tell you- Chad: Damn it! Arran: -the size of the cheque that we wrote. But I can tell you [crosstalk 00:07:35] but I can tell you this, let's do some, let's do some head maths. Job.com had $60 million double opt-in registered job seekers listed on the platform. They had thousands of clients and also had a domain name called job.com which arguably could be the most expensive domain name in the world, easily, because of obviously, talking about an industry that's pegged to be worth a trillion dollars globally by 2021- Chad: Plus it's three letters, it's on the dot com domain. Arran: Three letters on the dot com, at, yeah, top domain. And also it has a very high Moz ranking and domain reputation ranking because it's such a legacy domain. So there's many different factors that kick in and tick, more money, tick, more money, tick, more money. Joel: I don't think anyone's dropped D Moz in a Firing Squad, ever. So, good for you, to bring that up. Yeah, this is. Every URL is dot I-O and dot I-I and we've sort of forgotten the whole arms race of dot coms. So this is sort of an interesting story. Chad: Where did job.net come from, though? It sounds like this was also a part of the deal. Job.com and job.net. I mean those are both, dot net obviously not worth as much as dot com but- Arran: Still expensive. Chad: Job.net's been around for a very long time and it has a hell of lot of trust as well. Arran: Yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. And what we've done is we've kind of split them into two because my background has always been recruitment and staffing, but specifically job boards, so we were like, "Right. Let's introduce an automated permanent staffing solution with job.com." So job.com is not a job board. We're a staffing agency. We operate as a staffing agency. We only get paid if you get successfully hired. All the typical things that a staffing agency does. But then job.net is our typical job board. It's what I would call an aggregator. So we aggregate content. Jobs can be posted on us, there's resume database search, because we also own Zillion Resumes, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but we own that, too. And so all of that's kind of packaged together to offer just a traditional job board solution, aggregated solution, and then the other tier is job.com. Chad: So, that leads me to my next question. Job.com, different model than job.net, different model than ActiveHire, different than Zillion Resumes, different than MyJobMatcher. I mean, you have so many companies that are going right now. How are you not spreading yourself too thin? Arran: It's funny you should say that. Look at it this way: it's like they're all shop windows to one central database. You know? So they're all parts of the supply chain. So when you think, and you guys know this, I mean, everything starts in life as a click through Google, typically, looking for a job, then it turns to an aggregator, then it turns to a job board, then it might go to a staffing agency, then it ends up going to the hirer. What we've tried to do is create channels and windows that take a bite out of the cherry at every possible journey of the job-seeker's process. So, MyJobMatcher and job.net are pretty much the same. MyJobMatcher's very much legacy, it was the business we started, but job.net operates in exactly the same way but with a much better domain name. So we kind of shifted everything to that. ActiveHire, again, very similar. It's still there, still attracts traffic, still attracts users, but the effort's into job.net. Zillion Resumes, which is just a database resume service has then just powered the resume database servicing job.net, and then you've got job.com, which is staffing. Arran: So really, we actually only have two businesses running. You've got a job board, and you've got a recruiting staffing agency. Chad: That job board has matching in it though, too, right? I mean, the MyJobMatcher, is that another piece of technology that's different, or not? Arran: Yeah, no. No, so it's the matching technology that powers all of the platforms. All of the platforms use the same artificial intelligence and again, they all have opportunities for machine learning points, different touch points. We like to kind of say, and I'm happy to kind of talk through this, "We're a technology business that happens to work in recruitment." And we very much are. I mean, I'm a big tech evangelist and geek and that's the key to what we believe is our innovation and success, is our technology. Joel: Arran, I'm curious about you embracing blockchain and early on that was a big differentiator for you, and maybe it was the height of bitcoin doing what it was doing a while back. Do people still care about this in terms of the employment space? What is the reason for the passion around it and why is it important? Arran: Yeah, that's such a, I'm so glad you've asked that question. So, blockchain in the beginning, when we started using it, was in its crudest and simplest sense. We were using it to create what's called a private hyperledger fabric smart contract between job-seeker, candidate, and us, automatically, as it, almost like agreed terms, like recruitment terms, automatically, on auto-pilot, on a blockchain for just trust and transparency. But really there was this huge buzz, this huge hype, and it was great for us because we, not lying, we rode with that buzz, but we really are blockchain evangelists of what it can do for the future. Arran: So we actually are utilizing blockchain in three ways. The first one is the private hyperledger fabric that I told you. The second one is a public blockchain, which is where we keep the record of when people are successfully hired, the signing bonuses, salaries, et cetera. But the third, which is our most prized possession, which is what we're working on, is Equifax for resumes. We are creating a trustocracy, a meritocracy credit scoring for resumes. And how that works is people have been giving recommendations to each other on LinkedIn for over a decade, but how can I trust the recommendation given by the person on LinkedIn? Or even the person in your reference? Statistically 30% of profiles lie on LinkedIn. 85% of candidates lie during the hiring process. How can I give context to the hirer behind the trust of this resume? Arran: So it requires to create a meritocracy and trustocracy score for both the person with the resume and the person who gave the recommendation. Then they get what's called a TM score. I can't go into the exact details of how it's going to work, because I can't give it all away yet, but what I can tell you is our goal, utilizing all of the users we have and everyone that comes onto the platform, when they request references there will be a score given to both of those users that are involved in that process, and when they get hired, if they successfully remain in place, their scoring will go up and that will be recorded on the public blockchain which we will then make available to the entire online recruitment market. Doesn't matter if you're a job board, staffing agency, you'll be able to query and reference. Just like you do, like banks do to Equifax to know whether or not this resume's true. Arran: Why would I give you a bank loan and give you money if I don't know who you are? Why would I give you a job, and put all my trust, training, education, and money behind you if I don't know if you're the real thing? You know? It's time to move recruitment on and utilizing blockchain, the transparency ledger, is a way of doing that and that's what we're working on: to create this massive central database of trusted resumes. Chad: So when you have companies like [ICEMS 00:14:36] that are talking about building a passport system, which is obviously the same kind of scenario, are there going to be all these different systems that are going to share data or are they just going to be different systems that you have to actually join into, kind of like databases today? I might be in one site's database or, hell, I might be in twenty different sites' database, but it's different information. Will this all be shared so it's the same information, whether I'm using the ICIMS passport system or the job.com system? How does that work? Joel: Yeah, who's going to standardize all this stuff? Arran: Yeah, I mean, so when you say, "standardized model," think about how many credit referencing agencies there are and different data points in order to reference people on their financial situation. Joel: There's two. Arran: I think, well, there's not because you've got multiple datasets that obviously pulled against that in order to kind of reference people. The feedback that comes into that. You know? Like I might have X amount of different people that I've got credit with and all of those data points going into that as well. So I would say that, for example, [ICEMS 00:15:42] and their passport, by their concepts, and what they're doing is fantastic and what we would look to achieve with that is, let's compliment it. This isn't actually a competition for us. This is actually about improving and bringing forward recruitment for the benefit of hirers and job-seekers. Arran: So with the passport system, because we're all from the same space, we all know that there's pretty much very similar criteria we're all looking for. We've all worked in staffing, we know what hirers need, we know what we need to tick off. So I would imagine without having oversight of exactly the data points they're using to create that standardized passport, there'd be huge amounts of overlap. So why wouldn't you cross-reference databases with each other? Why wouldn't you have that cohesion between two platforms? [ICEMS 00:16:25] is an accurate tracking system, jobs.com is a talent and sourcing platform, both of our platforms generate data that allows us to verify who people are, you share that data together to create a much more accurate blueprint of what people are doing and the fact that they're doing it honestly. So I think it's great. Joel: So this'll be almost a score in terms of how trustworthy someone is? Arran: Yeah, well, trustworthy and meritocracy. So, it's trust and merit. It's like, how trustworthy are you giving a reference, and how do we know that those merits that you gave that reference for are legitimate? Because they're the two things that matter: can the person do it? And is the person that said they could do it trustworthy? Joel: And how transparent will that be? So, with a credit, obviously with credit check I know, well, if I'm late payments, if I default, if I go bankrupt, all that has a negative impact. Will job seekers understand and know, "Hey, here's what your score is based on and here's how you can improve it or why it's not high?" Arran: So actually it's based on, sorry, my wife's just walked through the door [crosstalk 00:17:29] so it's based on, so we can't ever do anything that negatively impacts your score, legally, because potentially there's the opportunity that if we were to prevent your or inhibit your opportunity of getting a job because we'd given a negative reflection on you, that in itself... We could be liable. But what we can do with it is it shows you the opportunity to pick the skills that you are particularly good at, your experience, and various other many components as we know that make up a person's employment make-up. You can then have all of those bits verified. You don't get a perfect score just on one successful placement. This is about building longevity. Statistically people in the IT space, for Amazon and Google, I read, there's a 12-month turnaround. They come and go within one year. Which means over the course of the next five years, if people are using platforms like this, like [ICEMS 00:18:23] platform, they will begin to build a very accurate blueprint on whether or not they've been a good work person or someone that maybe needs some improvement. Arran: The only thing that you can give the hiring manager [crosstalk 00:18:34]- Joel: All right everybody [crosstalk 00:18:39]. Let's move on to the next point. I'm curious about your revenue share with job-seekers and the 5% reward, I guess. Talk about that. How much have you paid out? How much of importance is that to a job-seeker? I mean, don't they just want a job? They're not looking around just for the bonus, right? Arran: Yeah, so they are just looking for a job. I think, realistically, we appeal to a particular audience set at the moment, specifically IT, but also legal and finance. I can't divulge at the moment how much we've paid out [crosstalk 00:19:11] sadly. There's reasons and logic behind that, as you gents probably know. But what I can say is job-seekers that do come to our platform are typically, are quite often passive as well. They're people who are currently employed but if they're shown an opportunity where they could earn a 5% salary signing bonus by going and moving, it's something very appealing to them, especially in IT and technology. Chad: So you can't share aggregate numbers? Joel: Or what percentage that get the reward? Arran: Oh, so percentage that get the reward, roughly, so of the jobs that actually get posted, rather than actually people that are with the database, of jobs actually get posted, we're around about a 20% fill rate. So, 1 in 5 jobs are getting filled at the moment. And I think, more than anything, it's because we want it to be higher, we know it'll be higher, it's still relatively new. It's a relatively new platform. Joel: And is it like, I have to be on the job for 90 days, do I have to [crosstalk 00:20:11] paperwork- Arran: Yeah, you have to be on the job for 90 days, feedback has to come from the client. So, there's a chance where people can drop off, there's many things that, which is good for the hirer. Because we wanted to build it, as well, to avoid any bad actors from job-seekers because you know they exist, too. People who are just like, "I'm going to go there, get my signing bonus, move again, move again, move again." We didn't want to create a kind of burden for the employer. We wanted to create an incentive that maximized their talent attraction, got someone that was definitely wanting the job who would stay for at least 90 days, and that allows for the maximum immersion process within moving to a new job. Which is sometimes one of the biggest reasons why people fail. They join a new environment, they feel a little bit out of place, and they leave. Whereas if you know there's a 5% salary signing bonus three months away, you'll probably see it out and during that time you might learn to get to know people and like the place. Sadly we don't have any stats on that actual thing now but I'm dying to get them because I genuinely think that's a real thing. That's a real reason why people will be more highly retained, because they've given themselves the opportunity to get used to somewhere. Chad: Don't you feel like this system, right out of the gate, would be perfect for the gig economy? Because when you have- Arran: That's what it's for, yeah. Chad: So, mainly for the gig economy. How much money is actually in the gig economy on the staffing side of the house? Because what you're really doing, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're pinpointing staffing and saying, "We can do it better, faster, and much cheaper with benefits on the backend." How big is that nut that you're trying to crack? Arran: Well, the nut is probably an undetermined number, nut, should I say, because I don't think it's actually been quite done per se so much. But let's look at just quick stats for just staffing and recruiting. There's over 20,000 staffing agencies in the US, it's worth over $150 billion dollars a year, and one thing I just want to throw out there is we're not actually against the recruitment staffing agencies that it might apparently seem like. Like we're just undercutting them and we're going to beat them. We're actually a support tool as well. We work with staffing agencies. So, you might have a relationship with your client who wants the white-glove hand-holding, but at the same time, why not utilize an autopilot system like job.com which will bring you the candidate you need to place, gives a signing bonus out of our fee to them? And yeah, we split the fee, but it also allows anyone who might want to become a at-home remote-working recruiter all the tools they need, with no risk, using us. Because you pay us nothing unless someone is successfully hired and we work to staffing agencies, you know, small recruitment, big recruitment, whoever's turn. Chad: Yeah, but that percentage is going to be a lot less for them, right? Arran: Yeah, but if you're making 13%... Let's say you're charging 20%, you give us 7%, you make 13%, and I didn't have to pay anything up front, I didn't have to find any job boards to post on, I didn't have to pay for any AI or technology, I had everything done for me, all I had to do was focus on BD, which as a recruitment consultant is what I really want to be doing. So it's kind of broad strokes. It's [crosstalk 00:23:23] courses. Some people are happy with that, some people won't be happy with that. Arran: But I think that the uptake from staffing agencies has been huge. To give you an example, we are now about to announce and I can say it, we're working with Talent Fusion and pairing with Talent Fusion's RPO with Monster. So Monster will be powering their jobs through Talent Fusion through job.com. And also, we will be upselling Talent Fusion which is their 15% RPO through job.com, too, because there are, as you guys know, there will always be a company that wants a white glove. That want some hand-holding. A person. Someone to talk to. Or roles that need that. So we've got this corporation with Monster now and its partnership, which will be in the press, of how we've got this deal working. Chad: From the payment standpoint, where we start talking about flipping it over and that 5% going back to the new employee, the bonus, right, is that paid in Bitcoin? Or are we getting hard American cash on that? Arran: So we were originally going to do tokenized economy, as they call it, which would have been paid against ether and we were going to do that. It was, being brutally honest, a fad. It just didn't work out and we couldn't make that work. So it's going to be cold, hard American cash and it's paid to- Joel: USA! USA! Arran: USA! Oh, I love the USA. It's paid to the job-seeker on a preloaded Visa card. Job.com Visa cards. So if you go onto job.com you'll see the picture of what the card looks like and it's with Visa. We are doing a press release as well to announce that that will be powered now by Visa. So we're delighted with that. Arran: And so they get their cash on this preloaded card and also with that card, we want them to keep it because it's a branding exercise. Cause you imagine, I just got a signing bonus. Fantastic. I'm at the dinner table with my husband or wife and I'm like, "Darling, I got the signing bonus." Brilliant. And you tell your mother, your father, your cousin, but also, every time you go to use those, because statistically the average signing bonus will be around about $2600, every time you go to use that you'll pull it out and you'll be reminded of job.com because it's on the card. We feel that that, even as a branding and marketing exercise, is so much stronger than the traditional, I go to a job board, I find what I'm looking for, I'm gone. Or I go to Robert Half, I get a job, I'm gone. Arran: We want to build a long-lasting, recurring relationship and take people on a journey throughout their career which is why we want to do the Equifax resumes and why we've got this entire what's called autonomous ecosystem powered by blockchain that we're building. Again, I won't bore you and get the crickets with that one. Joel: I do love that the credit card on the website is not a metaphorical credit card. You literally have a credit card- Arran: We literally have a credit card. Joel: -which you'll be giving people. That's very interesting. Arran: Yeah, yeah, literally have it. Joel: You maybe broke a little bit of news, particularly news for most of our audience, that you guys will be filing for an IPO here soon. Arran: Yes. Joel: Give us the lowdown on that. Arran: Yeah, so we just completed our pre-IPO funding. We are going through our audit process now. It's nearly complete and we'll be filing [RS1 00:26:39]. We will be listing on the NASDAQ. It's not public knowledge as in we haven't PR-ed it out but to be honest we've had so many conversations now in the market that it wouldn't take long for you to find out that news. Other things that we are doing at the moment: we are rolling up staffing agencies. So we have had a number of conversations and deals that are going forward now where we are buying out and rolling up staffing agencies. As a plug, if any of you out there have a decent staffing agency with good EBITA and revenue, message me. Please do. Joel: We want 15% of all those deals, by the way. Arran: Sure. Chad: Hashtag- [crosstalk 00:27:15] Arran: Gents, if you bring- Chad: Chad, Cheese. Arran: Chad, Cheese, bring me any deals, trust me there'll be a kickback. But, truthfully, but nonetheless that's what we're doing. And honestly I'm going to call it how it is. We believe that we are what Uber was to cabs, we are to jobs. We have every intention, and that's why we're filing to go public, we have every intention of becoming that big. That's why we have 380 shareholders. We have a name like job.com, and we have technology, proprietary technology, a differentiator. Because the market's so huge we feel that we can definitely cut our niche, notice how I said niche there, not niche like we do in England, but niche, we can carve our niche out of the market most certainly. Joel: All right, so, these are some pretty chesty statements that you're making and Chad and I talk extensively about the 800-pound gorillas that are now in our space: Google, LinkedIn/Microsoft, Facebook sort of putting their toe in this thing, we already have established players like Indeed, Glassdoor, et cetera. You have some pretty lofty dreams. Are you really going to be able to compete with the names that I just mentioned as well as the big staffing firms that I didn't even touch on? Arran: Yes, so I actually don't think we are competing with them. I actually just think we've carved out our own market. Indeed is all about aggregation. It's volume. It's churn, it's SEO perfection and we couldn't beat them at that even if we tried. Arran: But we have our own part of the market. 60 million people move work every year and based on our model if we placed 1 million of them we'd do $3.12 billion dollars in revenue. Can we capture that part of the market? I think we can. I think we can because we're a candidate's advocate. We're offering a 5% salary signing bonus. We're offering cheaper staffing in a $150 billion dollar a year industry. We're looking at an industry that's hugely fragmented with over 20,000 staffing agencies. Can we carve out our own part of it? I think we can. Arran: It all comes down to partnerships. One of our major partnerships is Office Depot. We're working with company.com and Office Depot on Workonomy, it's been on CNN, it's been on TechCrunch, we've been advertising everywhere this week. The Office Depot's moving to business services and they are selling it to their 12.7 business customers. They are announcing a multi-million-dollar budget towards marketing that to customers and one of those services is recruitment and we power that, it's our service. They're reselling our service for three years to 12.7 million business customers in the United States. We have this partnership with Monster which is massive and you know they're run by Randstad. We've just announced our partnership with SmartRecruiters, it was in Yahoo! Finance yesterday, in the press. SmartRecruiters. We are working with the leading staff-providers of technology and they love our model because they see the value in it. They understand where we fit in the market. Arran: I won't take business from Indeed. I will take business that decides it needs to operate in the silo that I am in and because of that, I think, as you probably appreciate, the market's so big, there's room for all of us [crosstalk 00:30:28]. Chad: There it is. Joel: Aright, Arran. Our time here has come to an end. It's time for you to face the firing squad. Are you ready? Arran: Oh, I'm ready. Joel: He just got really calm, just then, went from this, anyway, vivacious chief visionary officer to very quiet- Arran: Humble. Joel: -scared guy. All right, I'm going to go first, Chad, if that's okay. Chad: Sure, hit it. Joel: All right, so, Arran, dude, I love your passion. I love the domain. I mean, people kind of poo-poo domains these days and it is very diluted from what it was ten years ago but I still think there's a lot of value in having a domain like job.com and the other domains that you have. I think going public is very audacious, I think the revenue share with job-seekers is, same thing. I think blockchain, the verdict is still out on blockchain in terms of searching for a job, how important it is, do people care, and I think that's the same with blockchain on just about everything that's going on right now. Joel: That being said, I think that you have an incredible mountain to climb. The competitive landscape... I think you have a lot of pieces moving in your business, to sort of make it all work, I think, to see a day where people are carrying around your credit cards and getting a piece of the pie from when they get hired, that's a very big dream and as an American I can respect that a lot, but I still think, are you too big for your britches? I think that maybe you might be. I think that at some point you might have to scale the vision back, simplify, make it easier for job seekers and employers to understand what you guys are doing. I'm by no means poo-pooing the business. But I'm also by no means saying that this is a slam dunk and it's gonna take off regardless of what happens. Joel: For me, I'm going to love watching this story unfold, I'm going to love you guys ringing the bell at NASDAQ if that's something that you'll be able to do and see what the stock does over the years and if this credit card thing takes hold. But for me, I'm just very cautious about what's going to happen, so... I got a golf clap. Good for you man, I like the vision, what you guys are doing, but I think you have a long road to go and a high mountain to climb. Chad: My turn. Prepare. All right, first and foremost, adoption is the biggest bitch. I mean, you can have amazing tech, amazing partners, but if you don't have a scheme to be able to ensure that you can bleed into the everyday routine and life of candidates and obviously employers, then you're fucked. It doesn't matter, right? Back in the days, going beyond adoption, also thinking about evolution, back in the day the newspaper should have embraced job boards and evolved their model. They didn't. They lost tons of cash. But I believe staffing is smarter than that and I believe from the pitch that I've heard today and some of the Q and A that we've gone through that you're positioned to help them evolve, which means their partnerships are incredibly vital. Chad: When I was at Monster back in the day staffing was 75% of our revenue. I don't know if that's the same key today for them but I do know that that is a huge market to be able to partner with, not to compete with, so your pitch made a hell of a lot of sense with regard to partnership versus competition. And I also believe in saying, "Look, look at all these different pieces of tech, look at all these domains" and so on and so forth. Also a great answer because the tech is behind the scenes and the key is to make sure that the candidates and the employers don't have to worry about blockchain. They don't have to worry about ledgers. They don't have to worry about smart contracts or an Equifax kind of a thing. They don't have to do anything different. The system does it for you. And last but not least, you're paying in cold, hard cash. So from my standpoint, that's a big fucking applause. Arran: Yay! Joel: Congratulations Arran. How do you feel? Arran: Yay! Oh, I feel great. And listen, do you know, both of you gents, your feedback is fantastic from both of you. Because obviously you're super experienced in our space and I actually take everything on board because being honest, Chad, thank you so much for the major applause, but Joel, in all honesty as well, your feedback is very correct because we are very much on a journey that we're very confident on but like any journey there will be fluidity. Change. Might have to go back on things. May need to be dynamic. But what I can say is we have a firm commitment to innovation, improving staffing, because you know what I care about the most, and I mean this, I'm a father of four, married man, and I understand how important it is to feed your family and pay your bills. And that is what my mission is, is to make that better for people that are looking to do that. Chad: Beautiful. Joel: And with that if you guys want to know more, check out job.com at job.com. Chad? 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 W-W-W dot C-H-A-D-C-H-E-E-S-E dot com. Tengai: Hi. This is Tengai, the unbiased interview robot. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I love these guys. #Jobcom #FiringSquad #Talroo #Blockchain

Gerry Crispin is an industry treasure and a virtual encyclopedia for anyone who wants to take a look back at how things used to be, as well as getting an historical perspective on the present and the future. Chad & Cheese chatted with Gerry and it turned into a conversation that lasted well over an hour (too much for our listeners to digest in one sitting). We've chopped it up, and this is the first in a series of what we're calling Gerry Tales ... like Fairy Tales ... get it? Enjoy this Nexxt exclusive. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities.​ Chad: Gerry Crispin is a literal walking volume of recruiting history. Joel and I had an opportunity to sit down with Gerry for over an hour and a half to talk history, now, and future state. This is only the first in our Gerry Crispin series. Welcome to Gerry Tales. Enjoy, after a word from our sponsor. Chad: 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 Flexx Plan from Nexxt. It's perfect for employers and staffing firms who are busy. They need candidates and flexible pricing now. Flexx Plan 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 Flex Plan makes it cost effective. Check out everything Nexxt has to offer at hiring.nexxt.com. That's hiring.N-E-X-X-T.com. Chad: 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, 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 Gerry motherfucking Crispin. Joel: Friday afternoon with Gerry. Chad: Come on now. Gerry, what's up? Gerry: I like that intro. I think that's a fabulous one. Joel: He's probably never heard it before. This is his first podcast. Gerry: It is. It's close to my first podcast. Chad: Gerry, I think you should actually make it. You're a standard in the industry, so therefore, from now on, you should ensure that whenever you are going to present or anything like that, and they're introducing you, it has to be "Give it up for Gerry motherfucking Crispin." Gerry: I love that. I would like that, actually. Joel: I agree. Gerry: That would be kinda neat. Joel: That's perfect for HR, because they don't like to play it safe at all. Gerry: This is not a podcast who plays it safe for any ... Joel: No, no. That's why you're on, Gerry, because you don't play by the rules. Gerry: I don't care about the rules anymore, I'm beyond them. Joel: I'm getting to that, too. Jumping out of planes and shit. Chad: Going to Birmingham. Joel: So, a lot of our listeners, believe it or not, don't know you, the name, whatever, so I know you've done this a million times, but give us sort of the elevator pitch on you and then we'll get to the good stuff. Gerry: And the fact is, most people don't know most people. Just ... It's just the reality of it all. I will tell you that, next month, I will have graduated from college 50 years. So that will be the kind of cool thing about that. And I will you that every single year, from the time I graduated, I was in some form of recruiting. I was in career services, as a way of getting through graduate school. And most recently, in my last 20, 23 years with CareerXroads, we've kind of pivoted a couple times, but the reality is I support a community of talent acquisition leaders who hire probably between two and three million people a year. And really focus in on my passion, which is what is community? How do you really help each other succeed? Not only for yourself, but making commitments to other people as well. Joel: When did you send your first email, and when did you buy your first domain name? Gerry: Oh, cool. That is cool. My first domain name that I bought was SHRM. Joel: Noo. Gerry: Dot org. Yes. Joel: Wow. Gerry: Which I then turned over to them. My second, and my first dot com, was shaker.com, which I then turned over to Shaker. Chad: Our travel sponsors, by the way. Joel: Yes. Let's hear it for Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Gerry: I had an epiphany in about '93, something in that order, '93, '94. Things were just beginning to heat up, in effect, and I went to my college, Stevens Institute of Technology, and had acquired them, if you will, as a client. I was very proud of the fact that my alma mater was now a client. And one of my friends who still was there was the head of the library. And I went over to the library to tell him that, "I'm now a client ... You're now a client, da da da." And he was in his office, and he was turned away from his desk, and he was pounding on this little old-fashioned Pentium 286, or something like that. Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative). Gerry: And he goes, "Just a second, Gerry." And then he turns around and I said, "Well, what were you up to?" He says, "I need a new research librarian, so I'm hiring a research librarian." I said, "Oh, cool!" I said, "That fits my news. You are now my client. I will be able to get the req from your HR department, and I'll help put together an ad, and get it into the newspaper." And he goes, "Oh. I don't think so." I said, "What? What do you mean? Why not?" He says, "Well, I just put that ... I just was typing into a Usenet group, and I sent it into this one that research librarians use." I said, "I don't even know what a Usenet group is." And just then, his six minute fax machine began clacking, and after a few lines, you could see that it was a resume being sent in. Chad: What year was this? What year was this? Gerry: This was 1993. Joel: And a fax machine, boys and girls, is ... Gerry: Yes. And a light bulb went on in my head, and I - Joel: That's about right. Gerry: Said, "Oh, shit." I said, "That's a loss to the New York Times this Sunday." Chad: Yeah? Gerry: And my commissions are gone from that, you know? And I'm going, "Holy shit. What would happen if everybody did stuff like that?" Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative). Gerry: So that was my first epiphany, and then you know Ward Crispin, right? Chad: Yeah. Gerry: Well, Ward Crispin was a bulletin board guy, back in that day. And somebody gave me his name, and I called him up and said, "How do I get on this thing called the internet?" And he was actually helpful in finding the two addresses in New Jersey where I could, publicly, connect to the internet with my ... Joel: You just had a local ISP. Gerry: Yeah, local ISP. You had to have these rubber cups that you stuck on the edge, end of a phone, and it screeds back and forth in order to be able to do anything, and obviously that was the beginning of that shit. Joel: So you weren't surprised by '97ish, when the job board revolution started. What do you remember about that time? Gerry: I was writing books by then. Joel: Yeah. Yeah, for those who don't know. Gerry wrote books. These things with paper and a binding and - Gerry: I made a living selling paper books about the internet, for God's sake. Joel: Chad and I both remember those books, because at least at my company, they bought them for all the employees and passed it around. Gerry: I know. Joel: And we sent the ... E-span and Job Options, yeah we sent those with the ... When you ... You rated us as a top job site. And Michael Forest, you know - Gerry: Nation job, if I recall. Joel: Well, Job Options. Gerry: Oh, Job Options. Right. Joel: Michael Forest, who I know he loved you. And we put a sticker on it and sent it out to prospects and clients. Chad: Oh, yeah. So did OCC. I mean, we were sending that shit out all over the place. Gerry: Yep. I used to call them up and review them, and the first book, which was written in 1996, had 300 websites and a few job boards, rank ordered, in a variety of different ways. And we sold ... I gave a talk at SHRM National Conference in 1996, on HR and the internet. And in an hour after that ... Yes, true. It was the first time SHRM had ever done that. It was my first national conference speaking, and actually the projector was like a ton. It was a huge, monstrous thing that you had to play with. Chad: Oh, yeah. Gerry: And I showed slides of different ways that HR might change, given what was existing on the internet, and of course the most advanced pieces were some of the job boards that were developing. And literally, two hours after my talk, we had sold 5,000 books. Joel: Holy shit. Gerry: And Mark Miller, this was 1996 - Joel: This wasn't an overhead projector, was it? Gerry: Oh, no, no, no, no. This was on a big, huge, monstrous table, in the middle of the place. And we kind of darkened the entire room. It was really dark in order to get some kind of visibility on the screen. So it was really awful, and obviously the very primitive-looking screens. I remember asking people, and this is June 1996, "How many of you have an email address?" 25%. Joel: Higher than I would have thought. Gerry: And I asked, "How many of you have seen a page on the internet?" About 10%. Joel: Uh-huh (affirmative). Gerry: And my comment after that was, "When I'm done, if you're not ready to embrace this technology, you need to go find a different kind of profession." Joel: Or find another planet to live on, because this thing's going to consume everything you fucking do. Gerry: Yeah, but there were a lot of naysayers in those days, and from '96 to about 2000, you could have an argument, a strong argument, with folks who basically said, "This will never catch on in the short run," that "This will take decades to accomplish." And as a result, many of those who were caught when 2000 turned to 2001 and all hell broke loose. Fundamentally, it really did cause a huge disruption, right around the turn of the century. Joel: There were a lot of people saying, "We were right," when the 2001 recession hit, and all these dot coms bellied up. Gerry: Oh, yeah. I had left everything for CareerXroads by then. But I remember spending every week, every two weeks, or something like that ... Computer world would come out, and when computer world came out, I looked at the ads, and calculated the percentage of companies whose ads said, "Send us your resume via some internet approach." And the percentage was rapidly growing over the course of '98, '99 from 10% to probably 60 or 70%. So obviously people were doing something that ... Changing the game, in terms of that input. And you knew that the output was then going to shift heavily towards the net as a result. People were now engaged. Joel: If only we had bought Amazon at $4 a share. Chad: Or Google, maybe. I don't know. Gerry: Well, no. Google wasn't around. Chad: No, not then. Gerry: The reason why I could sell so many damn books was because the search engines were the biggest choke point. You couldn't find stuff easily. And you did have to understand how to use boolean. Chad: Yep, yep. Hitting AltaVista, or whatever the fuck. Gerry: Well, even Yahoo. Joel: That's when Super Bowl ads made sense. Gerry: Oh, yeah. Oh, without a doubt. Chad: Keep an eye, and ear, out for more Gerry Tales, coming soon. Sowash, out. 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 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. #GerryCrispin #SHRM #Shaker #internet #Monster #History #Yahoo #Google #AltaVista #Newpaper #GerryTales

The boys cover just about everything with Smashfly's Josh Zywien, Delta Airlines' Holland McCue and Fiserv's Julia Levy. Enjoy this live show from Boston and throw our sponsors - Sovren, JobAdX, and Canvas - lots of love. 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'm going to do you a favor. Instead of forcing you to envision Joel and me playing shirtless volleyball, Top Gun style, to the tune of Kenny Loggins "Danger Zone", or even hearing Tim Sackett scamper on and off the stage serving water and cookies like a good little emcee. We're just going to jump right into the conversational fray from Smash Fly's Transform 2019 conference, where we were lucky enough to score some time on stage with Julia Levy, director of talent acquisition and recruiting ops from Fiserv, Holland Dombeck McCue, head of employer brand and recruitment marketing from Delta Airlines, and last but never least, Josh Zywien, a.k.a. Jay-Z, CMO and all around branding and marketing stud from Smash Fly. Enjoy the banter, after these words from our sponsor. Sovren: Sovern is known for proving the world's best and most accurate parson products, and now based on that technology, comes Sovereign's artifactual 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.com We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovern, software so human you'll want to take it to dinner. Chad: 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: ...So, there's an argument, and we some video vendors in the audience. There's a debate between really expensive, professionally made, video versus just getting out the smartphone and sticking it in front of a recruiting or hiring manager and putting that online. Do you have and sense, or anyone on the panel have sort of, guerrilla, amateur style videos versus professional ones? Josh: You say that as they have a professional videographer right here. Julia: There's a time and place for both, and I think we've got a lot of that professionally produced video and photo content and when candidates come to the site, sometimes they think our career site has stock imagery because our associate photos look so good. That's, I think, a challenge, and I would prefer having a blended approach, and being able to use some of the user generated video content, besides what people might post on their own personal Instagrams and things like that, which will capture in a tent stream similar to what you were seeing on the break here, but also being able to be able to get some of that. Julia: If I'm a candidate, I would want to see the hiring manager in a thirty second clip of what they have to say, or see what a colleague, someone else on the team would have to say. I think that candidates want to see that. I think that as a consumer that's what I would want to see. Joel: Where are you putting it? So, you can put video in all kinds of places and James talked about YouTube in terms of the next generation. Where would you recommend putting videos? Where's it a waste of time? Social media, what's effective and what isn't for video? Chad: Are you putting videos on Tik-Tok? Julia: Not yet. Josh: That's like, transforming two years. We'll have a Tic-Tok session. Chad: We'll have a Tic-Tok session, remember that. Joel: We've all seen your account, Josh. Chad: So, how are you using video, and then, how are you guys video? I know you are. Julia: Right now, we just have the produced video and I want to experiment and use video in our talent network forums, and I would love to use video against our job postings and in e-mails, a recruiter saying "hey, Julia." It could be a little creepy I guess. "Hey, Julia I saw that you did a, b, c, and d and I'm really interested in learning more. I'm a reciter at Fiserv. Let's talk." Joel: So, you're not leveraging Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat? Julia: We do, but some of it is in conjunction with our corporate account. Then, there's a lot of partnership with the global brand team, and brand... I don't want to say regulations, but standards that user generated video content wouldn't align with. Chad: That's the big question. I was listening earlier IBM talk about how they have all this content. It's like, how to you QC that shit? I mean, seriously. You want to be able to use this, so you have all this content coming in, but you have to somebody put actual eyes on it. Holland: One, if you're doing highly produced video, to answer your earlier question, I think where that come into play and why a lot of vendors in that space are successful is they really help you with the story arch. If you have a particular message that you are trying to get out, working with a producer who knows how to extract that from your people it's beautiful. Chad: You have a purpose for that video, it's not just a video it's [crosstalk 00:05:43] Holland: You have a purpose, you have a storyline that you're trying to hit. We used to work with this awesome vendor that used to talk about the spark line. The peaks and valleys and the message that you're trying to hit. In terms of that quality control piece, a lot of vendors are backing in to the back end. You send a message out to employee, they record video, and then you have someone who's physically screening that on the back end before you put information out. Chad: Can that not be, like crazy overwhelming? Holland: It can be pretty time consuming overwhelming. I think the crux of that is, only creating content with purpose. Don't just do a mass blast to your employee like "hey, we just bought AllTrue, and we're going to put an article on our intranet so that all eighty thousand people create a video." That's not smart use of that technology. It's about being really intentional with the stories that we want to tell, sending prompts to individuals, having them record them, and then screening that on the back end and only pushing the ones that are true, and hit the storyline that we're trying to hit live. Josh: I think that though is the point though. Right? There's this debate of highly produced video versus user generated video, and I actually don't think it matters, because user generated video can still suck. Everybody thinks that it's automatically authentic and it isn't always. If there's a good story and the person who's on the video has something to say, and you've thought through what the message is, then it's going to come across very well. If you're forcing somebody to read a script, it's going to come across scripted even if it's quick and dirty, authentic, user generated video. I don't think it's either or, I think there's a place for both, and it can be highly produced and very authentic, or it can be highly produced and feel like it [crosstalk 00:07:26] Joel: From where you sit distribution wise, where do you typically send customers with distribution of video? Where should the definitely be and where might they be wasting time? Josh: From a marketers prospective or from what would we advise our customers? Joel: From a marketers prospective. If I'm an employer and we have this great video, where should we put it? What's your answer? Josh: It's obviously multi-channel and that's kind of a cop-out answer. Holland: It depends on what the essence of the video is. If you have videos that drive, tap a funnel but maybe talk about brand promise, culture promise, and then you have videos that kind of come into play that more are like realistic job previews. So someone gets attracted to you brand with video A, then they come, they look at the job opportunities you have, you want to serve up another video related to more of the intricacies of that role, and then as you go deeper down the funnel, maybe that's when you introduce the hiring manager, and some of these more off-the-cuff videos. Joel: How involved is marketing, if at all, with the videos that you're making? Or any of the branding that you're doing? Holland: Very Holland: Yeah, I would say very. At Delta, our people at our product. What sets us apart in the consumer space is our level of service, so our marketing and our cons team does a really fantastic job of curating stories, and then producing content but bringing people like HR and talent into the fold so that we all make sure that we massage the storyline and we're hitting it from each angle of our perspective departments. It's not a one sided story. But then, content that we own, like Day in the Life, realistic job preview content, that's fully produced by HR and talent. Joel: Was that your experience as well, Julia? Julia: Pretty similar, but I would say I've been at companies that didn't have a strong global brand team and I've had to be really scrappy on my own, and kind of own it. Then, maybe talk to and reach out to people in marketing to get their feedback even though I was doing it off the side of my desk, which I'm sure, many of you here feel that way when it comes to recruitment marketing practices that you might not have the budget to do a sixty thousand dollar video and you need to be scrappy on your cellphone. There's products out there that can help you do it for a more reasonable cost, or you can do it on your own with a lot of research. Some of it's trail-and-error, and piloting in smaller places. Josh: I hear you guys talk a lot about this, and I agree with you. We've talked a lot about how employer brand and TH should leverage corporate brand more. But, there's always this assumption that corporate brand has this big pile of cash that they're sitting on. My wife works for General Motors, everything's outsourced. They work with agencies that handle everything, and you might have a marketer that owns agency relationships. They kind of feed and protect and act as a filter there, but they don't control much of the budget. The agency actually controls the budget, so employer brand isn't going to get much of the attention from the marketing agency managing that corporate brand. At least, it's going to be more difficult than if you have a strong corporate branding team or corporate branding team that owns the budget and owns the execution of everything. Again, it's not a clean, easy way to divide things. Chad: Nothing ever is in corporate America. It seems like you guys have direct lines into to marketing, do you have a regular cadence with conversations with marketing on staying on brand, purpose, all of those things. Do you find that is entirely different than most of your peers out there? Like they're disconnected. Or, do you feel like HR and TA, they're starting to come together with marketing more? Holland: I think we're seeing, and particularly consumer brands are really leading this, Chad: It's money Holland: ...it's money and a lot of consumer brands are using their people to differentiate their product. So, we're a commodity, you can fly Southwest, you can fly United, you can fly American, but you fly Delta because of the interiors of our cabin, because of our people, and so, marketing really leverages our people's stories as a means to attract people to our organization. What that requires is them to stay really in close alignment with TA and with HR to make sure that they're one, showcasing employees that are in good standing with the business, who are representative of the brand that we're putting out in the market, but two, that they're speaking to our values and our truths. They're not steering away too much from what we're training them in onboarding and our respective divisions. 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 work flow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology, and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of 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 showtime. Chad: I didn't hear you talk about actual your candidates, no question, are your customers. Holland: Oh one hundred percent. Chad: And if you treat them badly, then you're negatively impacting the bottom line. Is there a line to, to... big corporate? Holland: To marketing? Chad: Yeah Holland: So, there is now, and I'm that line. That line did not exist before so, you were giving me some shit earlier in the lobby, like "what is your job?" Chad: What do you do? Holland: So, if you applied for job at Delta fifteen months ago before I joined, you were going to what, more or less, looked like a spam site. Corporate marketing had no idea. They weren't paying attention They had their own... Chad: How do they not see this? The career site is the second to the homepage on the amount of traffic that a company gets. Their marketing, how do they not know this shit? They have analytics on the site. They have analytics on the site. Holland: They have analytics on the site but I think what happens quite a bit of the time is, Smashfly is a product for this, TNP has product for this, is the career site is built separate of the consumer brand site. Ours is built on our dot com site, it's just a simple splash page, we have plans to blow it out a little further, but if your career site is dispersate from your consumer site, a lot of times corporates not picking up those metrics. They're not getting into their Google dashboards or their Adobe dashboards, whatever analytics platform that they have. Chad: So, ar Fiserv that's not the case, really? Are your candidates your customers or not really? Julia: Not entirely, our customers are a lot of the banks and credit unions, [crosstalk 00:14:44] so we're more business to business. I have to kind of show the value in partnership with the global brand team around the career site. They actually put us, when we were just a little careers blip on the header or the footer, when you go to our corporate site now, we have a huge hero image around careers, which has been fantastic and if you can get your employer to put careers front and center, it is one of the most highly clicked links on the main dot com site. Then, we outsource the career site from there. Julia: We have regular cadence with them, but there still is some education both ways, because I'm very strong minded in my opinion around what the candidate experience should be and what the career site should be and I want us to do to really push the limits and be innovative, but then they want to protect the brand image. The disconnect is where the brand image is to our clients and what would a client think if they saw user generated video, and if it wasn't the same quality and polish of the content that we give to our banks and credit unions and business clients, and candidates don't want to see that heavily produced and polished because then they just think it's just corporate speak and someones just going over a script instead of what authentically Julia thinks of working at Fiserv. Chad: So, how do you message that to them, and say that just doesn't work for us? And, do they care? Julia: It is and ongoing dialogue. Chad: So they don't care? That's what I'm getting. Josh: So they don't want it in the front end of the career side? The reason I ask that is back to your question about how you use a video, I don't think that user generated video always has to be front and center on the career site. It can be used, I know Colin's talking about recruiter enablement tomorrow. There's a tool we use in sales and marketing called Vidyard and we can record personalized videos that will go anywhere publicly, but we can send them and say "hey, John nice to meet you. Can't wait to get on the demo call, really looking forward to it and here's what we're going to talk about." Follow up after the demo, "hey it was really great meeting you." That use case can be applied to recruiting. It's the exact same thing to where it's not publicly visible, it's not part of the brand, you're not exposing anything. You don't have to worry about the polish, but it still has utility. Julia: I had, kind of, the big slash but it on the career site approach, but now I'm pivoting a little bit and just haven't had those conversations yet, so I'm building out that plan to understand how could we use this a little differently than our initial use case and still get a lot of value out of it. It is in other creative way, so I'm still figuring that out. Joel: We heard a lot earlier about shiny object syndrome. We hear a lot about AI automation programmatic video, social media, etcetera. What are the shiny objects that you guys are testing do you think have promise? We might be talking about things five years from now. Chad: Tik-Tok. Holland: So, not necessarily testing it, we use Hirevue, they're pretty embedded in our process. We get a ton of volume. We're a volume shop, and so we really need partners who help us do down selection. We have an IO psychologist and a PhD who helps with assessment strategy and selection strategy, which really refines our pipeline, and Hirevues been a really integral part of that story. We've actually seen more inclusive pipelines since we've implemented their AI solution, which has been fantastic. Chad: Can you write that up for the state of Illinois? Holland: I know, I listened to your show the other day. I think that's one that we're closely monitoring. Chad: Who knows about the new AI regulations? Sentiments? Facial recognitions? I told you all this was a podcast, you need to listen to the show. Holland: I have a bigger beef with the government on that front. The fact that we have to push jobs in the first place really... Chad: Being a federal contractor Holland: Being a federal contractor, but it really impacts the ability to do some of this next level marketing. When you post a job you have an apply cycle coming in, which really requires us to get more refined with assessments and selections versus, I prefer someone to go to a landing page and opt-in so I can more manage a pipeline, but we just don't live in that world. Chad: Right, I mean that's the thing is that with all of this new technology, you know it scares the shit out of obviously not just the government but the people, so therefore, we start to see these regulations pop up out of no where and if you haven't checked it our, all you should have to do is Google "state of Illinois interviewing AI," or listen to the podcast. Chad: These are the things GDPR, not to mention next year 2020, California's coming out with their own GDPR so I mean, these are things that are going to happen and these questions that you have to dig down deep, I'm sure Josh hears this a lot. Are you dealing with this at all Julia? Holland: Yeah. Talking about tools, and I'll it back to the GDPR and the clients.[crosstalk 00:20:08] Josh: I mean there's nothing sexier than GDPR compliance. Julia: I've had to deal with GDPR and we use Hiring Solved, so talent rediscovery is and are we've been involved in and that's been evolving. There is several players that can help. Joel: Explain what that means. Julia: Talent rediscovery, so you're spending thousands or hundreds of thousands, or millions or dollars investing in attracting talent to join your talent communities and your ATS. I recruited for a number of years and as a recruiter, it was very hard to see all the candidates that are in the ATS, so you can't fish in your own pond. Being able to view that nice talent pool of people that have already clicked apply, know your brand, were excited about your brand at some point, and if you have a good positive candidate experience may be excited to reapply or re-engage. So, how do you pull all of those people out of your ATS or CRN and get them reengaged in your brand and your opportunities and continue that dialogue. Joel: Let me underscore, people you have already paid for. You've probably paid for them six time over by the way. Julia: So, with GDPR we set up processes within our ATS so that we can remove people from the process after certain time periods, and that also has downstream implications into, so a report gets run and we review it and then say "okay, delete these records." But, then we have downstream into Smash Fly around who we have to delete in all those European countries, and then also, I have to then look into Hiring Solved, and that's all manual on myself or a colleague. There's definitely a lot of work to be done around that. Julia: When you think of AI or talent rediscovery, machine learning, I wish I had that little sparkly disco ball that could tell what the future is around the best tools. Joel: Josh sees, you see all these tools, so what are you ghoulish on? Chad: Really quick those, you guys have a partnership with Hiring Solved now, what are you seeing? Are you seeing a lot of what Julia's talking about? They understand we have an asset that we have allowed, just to atrophy, spent hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars in our candidate database, are companies starting to see that and realize that we need to go back into this database and try to harvest it? Josh: Yeah, and I think it's a lot of times it's easy to blame practitioners and be like, "gosh this is so obvious, why haven't you done this?" And in reality... Chad: It's not? No seriously is it not that obvious? Josh: Well it is obvious, but the technology limits that. So, if you've ever searched in an ATS, stab your eyes out. It's horrible. To a certain extent, I don't blame recruiters or users of the ATS for not wanting to do that. It requires a lot of time to find, I think our head of sales has separated our wheat from the shaft, which I don't know if that's a great analogy. To find those top tier people that you want to follow up with, an ATS is not a great tool for that. This whole category of technology that was born out of that need is absolutely relevant. Josh: I think this is where, to me, this whole debate of AI is kind of, you just talk in circles. It's more about does it solve a problem that exists, and if it does than it's valuable. I know it's helped you guys quite a bit. There are a lot of tools out there that do the same thing. I think it's one of those problems that is an obvious problem, there are some companies that are very clueless about it and are happy to keep spending money on job boards, and keep paying to re attract people but, I do think it's a limitation of the technology that's been around. It was just never designed for that. Holland: I think it's a limitation of the technology but it's also and what other pieces of tech you've enabled. If you are not hovering good lead qualification going into your ATS, if you're not building in basic qualifiers or pre-qualifier questions that help refine that pipeline, you're just going to be reengaging or resurfacing up garbage anyway. So, do you really wan tot engage something, granted you've paid for those individuals getting into your pipeline. Chad: Yeah, so garbage from your standpoint is actually customers. That's what you have to look at. Holland: I rescind the comment of garbage. What I'm saying is that we need to be a little more stringent on the front end. We're at a marketing conference, if you're really thinking about being a marketer, when was last time you went and shopped technology? I went and I shopped an ATS last year, I filled out a white paper, I learned more about that tech. They sent me a lead qualification form, I filled out that form, I told them about when I was looking to buy parallel to when I'm looking to leave my job. What attributes do I have as a buyer? What attributes do you have as a candidate? And that qualified me, and what I from them was a rejection. We didn't fit their buyer set, but we need to be more stringent on our side as marketers to think that way. To qualify leads that are coming into our database so that we don't have disappointed customers to candidates. Josh: There's, I think a lot of times, candidates, even if they sometimes, are aware that they're not qualified, and they just want very clear communication. Outside of the spammers. There are spammers too that will just like, often called the serial appliers, that will just apply to jobs. I think Tom had a slide on that earlier. Joel: 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 job, 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. JobAdX: 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. Chad: It's showtime. Julia: It's like the dating apps, and you're saying the jobs really don't like and you're like "ugh," you're right away saying no to that, but everything else you're saying yes to, and then the reciters have to weed through this huge in flux of people. Josh: To your point there, the quote unquote garbage, it's not that, right? It's not that you mean that, it's just that they're not a good fit, but there's a way to disposition those people elegantly, and I think that's one of the biggest problems. Joel: Speaking of influxes of huge amounts of candidates, listeners of the show will know that chat bots are getting a ton of money currently. Anybody using those, testing those, general opinion around chat bots, and [crosstalk 00:28:08] Josh: Plug for Emerson. Joel: No sales pitch up here. Holland: I'm going to save my good chat bot story for tomorrow but we're using chat pods in another instance. We're actually using a chat bot out of an accelerator that Delta sponsors, so keeping in the family, and really investing back into these tech communities that we believe in. What we're found is that, we don't have a formal employer referral process, it is on our roadmap. We do get referrals, but in terms of recognition or rewards, that's just not built in right now. Holland: What we also have a lot of is, "I met this person at this dinner," or "my friend's son looking for an opportunity. He just graduated from X University." We're getting all these messages kicked to our recruiters, and what it was creating for them was extra administrative work to screen these individuals and learn more about them. So, we actually stood up a chat bot service, we call is "referrals concierge," where we can reply, "thank you so much, please have them go here if they've not sat in on our training." Where people can go, they can type in the candidate's information, they can type in how they met them, why they think they would be good for Delta. And then, that's actually going to a coordinator to screen and even further qualify, and only send those that are a fit and ready to engage the recruiter, over to our recruiter. Julia: I've been watching it for a while, but I've not dipped my toe in. I think that if you're in a high volume area, like the first time I saw a Paragon or Emerson, I was like "Oh my God." At my last job, we did a lot of high volume I was like, "this could have been perfect" because these candidates could text in a couple of things, go right into ATS, and then we can get them into our process, or into a serum and then have a work flow for a talent network forum. I thought, that's perfect. They've evolved with interview scheduling and stuff like that, but for highly technical professional roles, I get annoyed at Alexa and Siri all of the time. And look how good they are, right? Although they have a lot more of information to go through. I see the value in interview scheduling. If they do it well, that could be something, at least for basic interviews, but the complexities of our business, I don't think it's there yet. Joel: The SVP doesn't want to talk to a chat bot one on one. Josh: Here's a use case though. So, I was at a conference, it was a talent board workshop I think. I think it was Andy, was her first name but she worked at a company called ProCore. ProCore's a technology company. I was talking to an analyst that worked at United that just built their own stuff. So they built their own chat bot but their use case was around this concierge service for booking travel for interviews. They had a landing page for candidates, so it had a map to where they need to park, and the office they were going to, some answers to some frequently asked questions, and then this chat bot that was on there where they could book travel through the chat bots. They didn't have to go to a travel booking site, they would just say "hey, I'm traveling on Tuesday." Okay, well here are four flights that are within the budget for you, timeframe, suggest that you pick one, went ahead and booked a flight for you. All in the back end for the candidate. Josh: So, those little touches I think for an SVP or something like that, that's super elegant. To where it feels like you have your personal assistant, and it's adding value, versus certain use cases where you try to fit it in there, and it just doesn't work, and it actually creates a worse experience in some cases. So, I think sometimes understanding how you want to use the technology and what you'rr actually solving for, versus just being like "oh my God, chat bot, let's just do it." And then it's like [crosstalk 00:31:47] Chad: It's the bright and shiny one. That's totally the bright and shiny case. You're not focused on the problem, you're not focused on trying to get process. Most of this technology we're talking about should be able to take out some tasks. Some of the mundane tasks that recruiters have, or even hiring managers have in some cases. If you're not trying to solve for something, then you're just fucking wasting time, right? Julia: When I first got to Fiserv video interviewing, everyone's "oh, candidate experience, video interviewing," and they wanted to apply it to our Java developers, like our technology fields, and I was like, "A. What problem are you trying to solve? Just candidate experience. And then, I was like, "do you really think a software developers going to go through this video interview before they've even spoken to someone." So, we never went down that path. I feel it has a good place in a lot of specific role, but again, you need to know what problem you're trying to solve and what results you want to get from them. Joel: But like messaging, text recruiting, things like that, you guys still utilizing those? Josh: I was just going to say, for hiring too, my wife at General Motors uses CodeView, so do you know their product? I don't know if you guys have used it, but she said the developers actually enjoy using because they feel like they've gotten a fair shot, to a certain degree. Holland: Do you guys know what that is? Joel: It's for when you're coding a lot of [crosstalk 00:33:12] Holland: We demoed it, it's on our roadmap. Same response. Even our hiring managers were big fans. It eliminates the need for the candidate to come down. Joel: And talk. I'm curious, we talk a lot on the show about, sort of the platform wars, and when we talked IBM, like all the shiny things and there's so much out there. There seems to be a battle between big guys like LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google, Facebook to some degree. We heard recently that sales force is going to sort of get into the work force. Slack went public today. ISIMS and Jobvite are buying everyone they can to create one platform system. Are you guys a buyers of the one platform, or do you think that's a dead end strategy? Josh: I'm not answering that. Julia: We did a big RFP last year, it had been several years since we looked at our tech stack. We had put some add-ons on and we did an RFP last year, and after coming through it, I decided to stay the course, so we've got Smashfly as job distribution, CRM recruitment marketing and e-mail marketing. We've got TMP as the front end of our career site. We've got add-ons like HiringSolved and Textio, and we use LinkedIn Elevate for social advocacy. There's no one who does all of that, or at least does all of it well. Some people say they can do a lot of it, but then when you look under the covers there's big things that are missing that are critical components to what we need to be successful. Julia: The challenge sometimes is around data, and reporting and seeing the full picture, apples to apples or oranges to pears, and so that's where I struggle with that approach, but it for the most part works. Although recruiters have a little bit of fatigue sometimes, so we could have gone with a different social advocacy tool, but we chose Elevate because people know LinkedIn. But, how many different systems do they need to know and learn and log into? So, that is one of the bad sides of doing that approach. Chad: That's a big question, is how many platforms are they logging into? Because, that's not efficient at all, right? How many browsers do they have open? Having to go from one page to the next. If that's not something that you can integrate, is that really worth your time? Holland: I would say no. I think that we in the marketing space, we're in an interesting position in our field. We do a little bit of brand, a lot of marketing, and then we're tech as well. We're rolling up our sleeves, we're sometimes programming on our own, we're building and I think we talk a lot about the relationships that we need to foster with marketing and communications, but for me, my best friend right now is my HR TS teams and making sure that we have those integrations so that our point solutions talk to each other, and then making sure we have single sign-on enabled, and share dashboards, so that if you are using point solutions you can access them all through a single interface. So, I think you can get around some of what you're talking about, but you have to... Chad: That's internal development though. Holland: It's totally internal development. Chad: How many people have that many internal resources for that? Two, I see. Yeah. Two. I mean that shit just doesn't exist. You're in the utopia of all this. They're all looking at you going... Holland: I think there's two sides to the coin of that. I'm not in a position to use a tool like it's a greenhouse for example. Where it's a simple ATS, it's a simple serum, it's all integrated, you could build landing pages. I think it was the woman at IBM who said that she looks at these small companies and they're able to rewrite every job description and that she doesn't have that luxury. I would love to walk in someones shoes where I could use a single, all encompassing solution that allows me to that and not to have to have these deep relationships with IT, so I think there's trade-offs on both sides of the house. Chad: But you've had to do that with Textio, and you're on the journey right now in actually rewriting all of those for... so talk about that a little bit. Julia: It's been an evolution in the very beginning of Textus. If you don't know Textio, it's a natural language processing tool where you can take your horrible job description and put it into their tool and they analyze it against millions of other job descriptions out there, and they give a score of zero to one hundred, and tell you how good or bad your job is. Then, they give you suggestions on how you can make it better, and it's fabulous. Julia: The challenge is, some people feel comfortable writing and others say, "I'm a horrible writer," and recruiters are trying to fill the req, and when you have a really poorly written job description, and you put it in and you have to spend, next Textio will tell you ten minutes, but when you're spending thirty to forty-five minutes of your time rewriting your job description to make it engaging as a job posting, and attractive to candidates, it's frustrating, because you want to just get in and get out. Julia: Now, what I will say to some of the recruiters is if you're spending, we have a team of people that feel comfortable that can help, so we put that together, but we have seen the evolution. We now have hundreds of jobs descriptions, job posts that are already in there, so the largest hurdles and pain are a little bit behind us. I can go in, if I'm a recruiter working on a software developer role and see probably fifteen other jobs that are scoring well, and go and pull that to start from, so it's almost like a job library now. But, what they also added was recruiting e-mails, so that first e-mail as a recruiter that you send to someone to try to get them interested and get their attention, they now are giving you score son that. We've seen from our recruiting and sourcing team that they've gotten higher response rates after using Textio than they did using before, and they're integrated now with Outlook and with LinkedIn, so that's where you're going to be creating those first e-mails. Julia: We analyzed our data from the year before we used Textio to the first year in, and then they've taken a lot of key learnings and put them back in too, so your candidates respond better when you use this kind of language, and this kind of language responds, men appreciate these wordings, women appreciate these words and phrases. Chad: If you're looking for more gender specific. Joel: Women like bullet points, something like that. Julia: It's really helped us remove some gender bias, and it helps us know what words and language speed up the process, and what words and language slows down the process. [crosstalk 00:40:06] The word "collaborate," which I would think we're a really collaborative environment, that word slows down the process by three days. Julia: Who knew? Chad: That's interesting. Joel: Speaking of job postings, there's been a lot of disruption in that space in the last couple years. So, Google for Jobs launched a couple years ago, Indeed, of course, has decided not to participate in Google for Jobs. We have Programmatic rising in popularity. Where do you guys sit on the job posting spectrum and what do you see in the future? Josh: Like Google as becoming a search engine destination for people to start their search? Joel: So, I want to post a job, what recommendation would you give to somebody to get, like is Programmatic the best solution? Is Indeed only okay for most companies? Chad: I feel like we're going to get a multi-channel answer. Joel: Probably. [crosstalk 00:41:07] Josh: No, I think it's, you guys can probably speak, but I think it depends on what you're hiring for. Holland: Yeah, it depends on what you're hiring for, and I said in a Tweet the other day that I know you were like, "oh we'll talk about it." Programmatic is becoming Post and Pray 2.0. Joel: Explain that. [crosstalk 00:41:28] Holland: It got some traction, but I think Programmatic is a fantastic solution. So, historically people have been married to these big contracts. Back in the day you were married to Monster and CareerBuilder, as Indeed came on board you got away form the contract model, but you were an insertion orders and you kind of got hooked on the value that they were bringing to the top of your funnel, and now we're seeing this paradigm shift where Programmatic is coming in and it's disrupting all of that, in tandem to Google, so it allows you to have freedom and flexibility. Over time, Programmatic vendors, ones that have correctly learned what performs for you based on the different profiles you're sending out. It also let's you a b test different... Chad: So why is it Post and Pray? It sounds great. Holland: So, what I'm saying is, what I'm seeing happen though is in a lot of these conversations around Programmatic is you invest in Programmatic, you're able to reduce costs by this, you're able to cut your contract spend by this, but they're not talking about the full circle. Yes, you're able to get more refined in terms of bringing people to your brand, but you shouldn't preach that to your leadership in that way. You should position taking those dollars and using them on storytelling, or re engagement, or rediscovery technology, so what I'm saying is that people are only hanging their hat on Programmatic because it's delivering results, but it's only one piece of the earned, owned, paid puzzle. Holland: We started doing Programmatic and moved away from, a lot of the... we're still posting jobs on LinkedIn, but Glassdoor, Indeed, Monster sponsor, like all that kind of stuff. We've moved towards Programmatic and have a bucket, and we meet with the vendor pretty regularly to review and make sure that it's... Joel: Do either of you have job board contracts currently? No? Holland: I have a LinkedIn contract. Holland: Yeah, how do you want to frame LinkedIn? Josh: We have like a minute and forty-five because this things yelling at us, but I want to ask question just to wrap up but like, what happens when Google turns on, within the Google for Jobs when you can advertise there, how does that blow up everything? And what happens when job seeker behavior changes to where like, Indeed wants to be a destination, and they're spending a ton of branding and marketing dollars on being a destination, but I don't know that you're going to change user behavior [crosstalk 00:44:00] Joel: By the way, Google just launched tracking for your jobs on Google for Jobs, so it's a hop, skip, and a jump between that and "Okay, give us your credit card and boost these certain jobs, for a lot more views." Holland: And a lot of the Programmatic success is still on Indeed, it's still in Glassdoor, because of what you just described. They're pumping lots of dollars into the market place to tell candidates to look on their site, and we should reap the reward of that still. Programmatic is still capitalizing on that. You shared outcast report, their data is showing it, it's still Indeed and Glassdoor. So, we're not moving away in full, I just think we're seeing this evolution. Chad: Do you feel like it's sustainable though? Because, how much of Indeed's traffic was on the Google side of the house? Joel: Ten years ago, you could have replaced that with Monster and CareerBuilder, right? So, ten years from now, will it still be Indeed and Glassdoor? Chad: Five, I'd say five. [crosstalk 00:44:56] Joel: So, I don't think that it's any accident that Indeed is getting into a lot of different things to put certain bets on the platform for gig workers and staffing and a lot of other things, because they're aware of that. Chad: I think we just ended right on time. Joel: You got a broom man? Sackett: I got one last question. Joel: Okay. Sackett: How fast can you get your asses off the stage? Joel: Depends on how long it takes me to get that beer. Sackett: Chad and Cheese, Holland, Julia, JZ, give them a hand, awesome sauce. Chad: Thank you 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. #Smashfly #ATS #CRM #Marketing #jobs #EmployerBrand #EmploymentBrand #Brand

It's a damned free-for-all! Matt Alder comes to a CENSORSHIP FREE environment in this crossover edition of Chad & Cheese and The Recruitment Future Podcast. If the language is too much for you just head your whimpy ass over to Matt's bleeped out version at RFpodcast.com. Everyone else can enjoy the ADULT VERSION all due to our friends over at Uncommon.co. 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: Dude, we're always talking about cool new tech, but it's hard for hiring companies to change. I mean adoption's a bitch. New Tech can get them to qualified candidates so much faster. Joel: I don't 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, but I bet they're expensive and I bet it requires some kind of annual commitment or contract, right? Chad: No 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% 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 Tag 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 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: Well, we should record already. Jesus. Matt: Yeah, let's just get started. Come on. Joel: I'm so confused right now. Matt: I'm sitting, who's show am I on? Who's show is this? Chad: This is our collective show, so for everybody that's out there, so we finally got a chance to meet Matt in Portugal and I had this crazy idea of, hey, let's just sit down and do a crossover podcast where we're going to be on Matt's Pod. He's going to be on our pod and we're going to just have a fucking free for all. So how's that sound? Joel: All your ideas are crazy by the way. You don't have to like put crazy idea. Just say idea and people know it's crazy. Chad: That's right, redundant is what you're saying. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. So nevermind the bullocks, we have Britain's, Edinburg's, Matt Alder on. I guess because he's pushing this it out as his show and we're pushing it out as our show. We should probably all do quick introductions because his audience doesn't know us possibly, and our audience doesn't know him possibly. So should we get that out of the way? Chad: Yeah. Let's let Matt go first. Matt: Yeah, let's do it. So I'm Matt Alder and I run the Recruiting Future Podcast, which some of you will be listening to you. Thank you. Chad: You're welcome. Matt: Which some of you will be listening to right now in this kind of weird crossover thing that we're doing. The show has been going for years and every week, well, most weeks I interview thought leaders and practitioners, about the changing nature of talent acquisition and the future of recruiting. Joel: So you're primarily practitioners? Matt: I'm primarily practitioners. Yeah, absolutely. So tell us about your show, for my audience. Joel: We are, I guess a weekly roundup of news from the industry. Primarily what vendors are doing, who's buying whom and who's doing what and how shitty Monster commercials are and how Indeed's gone down the tubes. That's kind of the stuff that we talk about. We have a show called Firing Squad that is sort of like Shark Tank for startups. Usually at least two times a month we do a deep dive into something like automation, AI, chat bots, whatever sort of is interesting and in the now. And then we sorta do a bunch of side shit. I don't know. What else would you add, Chad? Matt: Yeah, the Shred, I mean [crosstalk 00:04:24] Our focus is to be able to help all those individuals that are out there, whether they're talent acquisition or they're vendors, to better understand what the hell is going on in the landscape. There's so much noise out there right now. We'll do the research, we'll put it out, obviously with our fucked up opinion, but you get a lot of content about a lot of shit that's happening in our industry and people seem to dig it. Feffer: Such an asshole. Joel: Exactly. Matt: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? I've just realized I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to bleep the swearing out. Joel: Oh fuck that. Matt: Do you know what? You know the ridiculous reason why? Apple. So, basically, there are a number of countries that if you have a podcast with swearing in, Apple will not distribute your Podcast to. Chad: Even if you tag it as explicit? Matt: Even if you mark it as explicit. Chad: Oh well, fuck those countries. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. But I have an audience in those countries so I'm going to find some kind of bleeping device. So apologies to the listeners of my show... Joel: What about albums that have explicit lyrics? Matt: I don't know. I don't know. I just know the podcasting bit. Joel: That's bullshit, Matt. Matt: Oh, it's not me. It's not my fault. It's not me. Blame Apple. Joel: That stifles your creativity. Matt: Yeah, it does. Joel: I mean you can't say shite or bullocks or... Matt: Now he's just going to turn this into a swearing episode. Chad: Once you get Joel going down one of these rabbit holes, it's fucking hard and get him out. Chad: In talking with, obviously talent acquisition professionals, staffing professionals, what have you...What are you seeing, today, as one of their biggest issues that you're trying to help them through or they're listening to your podcast to be able to try to get some hints and/or shortcuts through? Matt: Interesting question because I think the answer to it comes back to something that you guys just said. I think the biggest challenge I'm finding lots of talent acquisition professionals have, is the sheer amount of noise in the marketplace. So people are really struggling to get their head round the technology that's available and how it might actually help solve their problems and add some value to them. There's this great sense that people are missing out on some a silver bullet technology and just a lot of confusion about what's out there and how it could work and... Joel: And how are they dealing with learning about the new stuff? Are they putting their head in the sand? Are they actively trying to figure it all out? Matt: I think what I find is that a lot of the people who are really getting on top of this are talking to their peers about it. So going to events, finding out who's using what and how it's working for them. And really that's kind of one of the objectives of my podcast is to get people on to talk about how they are sort of facing their talent acquisition challenges, the methods they're using, the technology they're using. You know, what's working, what's not working and what's never gonna work. Joel: I have this theory that like all the emails that go out, the content marketing, like the typical sort of interruption marketing is all wasted dollars in many aspects. Because a lot of this is just social media. "Hey, who do you guys use as an ATS?" Like, "Hey, who does everybody use for their Chatbot?" Are you saying that that's primarily how people make buying decisions today? Matt: I think it's part of it. I do have sometimes a bit of an issue with those sort of social media requests. Because I think that if you're just asking randomly on Facebook, "Hey, what's a good ATS?" I think it's difficult to get a good answer because people will not appreciate your unique challenges or your objectives or the type of company you are. So I think that's kind of, that's what end of it. But I do think that the events, the peer to peer conversations, the networking that goes on, it's driving a lot of this stuff because I think that a lot of the marketing that comes out to this space, it's really about the vendor's own objectives. So it's like they've kind of got together and say, "Hey, what problems do we solve? These are great problems. We'll solve them." And a lot of the time, I don't think they actually talk to their potential customers or think about what issues they actually have. So I think sometimes technology will solve a problem very effectively, but that problem might be number 50 on the list of problems that someone working in talent acquisition actually has. So I think that's kind of my take on the market and that's what I'm trying to do with my Podcast. Chad: Well, and don't you find that most of these companies really don't truly understand what their problems are? They're hearing so much noise out there and then Jenny from across the street said her ATS was the best... Joel: Jenny form the block. Chad: I feel like, the thing that companies need to really focus on today is their process. They have like a 1990s process methodology that they try to jam into their technology which just doesn't work. And then they try to layer more technology on it, before they really truly find out what their process should be and will that process actually alleviate some of those problems and then prioritization of those problems. And then at that point, after you've gone through all of that, then start talking about technology, but not until then. Matt: Absolutely. I couldn't, I couldn't agree with that more. I think some of the best guests I've had on my show, the people who've gone all the way back to understanding what their objectives are and then building from there it's like, "Well, what actually are our problems? Do these problems actually properly aligned to where our business is going? Are they the right problems to be solving?" And then, "How do we do that? What's the best way to solve it?" And then technology is the kind of the final piece of that puzzle basically. Joel: Do you find it's hard to get corporate folks to open up to you? Matt: Ah, good question. I'm kind of working off a bit of a fake sample, I think, because I was going to say, "No, I have some great guests and they always sort of talk about what they're doing." But, I think my guests are a subset of the whole population, of that kind of corporate population, if you like. Because I think there are people who are open and really happy about talking about what they're doing, they've got a story to share, they've done something good. So, the guests that I have on are no problem at all. They're very open to share and share their learnings. Whether that's the same for everyone who kind of works in talent acquisition, probably not. Joel: So we know you're British and you're polite, but what do you got for us? Any questions? Matt: Yeah, so I've got a few questions. So you claim to be HR's most dangerous podcast... Joel: Claim? Matt: And I was talking to someone who isn't in HR or recruiting about your show actually the other day. And they asked me why was it so dangerous? So you know why are you so dangerous? Joel: Well, I think that the fact that you're bleeping out the first 30 seconds of the show helps us establish that. Matt: Yup, very true. I have something to add to that, if anyone listening to my show wants to hear what we were really saying, if I do managed to bleep it out then, they should listen to this show on your show. Chad: Just go to chadcheese.com and then you'll get the straight shot on that one. Matt: Yeah and likewise, if anyone who listens to your show and doesn't like swearing, then come and listen to my show. Yeah, I never fucking swear on my show, so it's absolutely fine. Joel: If you like your podcasts with some crumpets and tea, listen to Matt's show. No, I think, my answer is, Chad and I are at a point in our careers, we kind of work for ourselves, we don't have really any corporate interests, we can be blunt, both of our personalities are sort of no nonsense. I think a lot of the podcasts out there, someone's got an association, they've got to think about, someone's got an employer, they have to think about... There's always something that sort of gets in the way of honest, open, sort of brutal honesty and talk and I think we're able to cut through that just because of our situations. Chad: And it's easy to be, HR's most dangerous podcast because nothing in HR is fucking dangerous in the first place. So just ratcheting it up, just a couple of levels and putting some snark in it, it makes us dangerous. So it's pretty simple to be dangerous in HR. Matt: Well, that's a really good point. Absolutely. Do you get any complaints? Joel: Millennials hate us, sometimes. Chad: Millennials love us. Shut the fuck up. The advice to anybody who is complaining is: don't fucking listen. I mean, that's what it comes down to, it's your choice to either plug in and listen to us or not. This isn't Russia. We're not doing state sponsored fucking podcasts or anything like that. Just don't listen. Joel: And we're okay with criticism, just bring facts, bring what you got. The social media grenades that, they don't want to come on the show or they don't want to back up, whatever it is. Like I'll give you an example. We had somebody make the claim that we only have advertisers because they feel threatened that we're gonna like F bomb them to hell if they don't give us money for the show. And that's just simply ridiculous. We don't threaten anybody to give us money for sponsoring the show. All of our sponsors love us. So to make a claim like that is either you better come on the show and defend your position or on social media, you better come with some facts that backs up that statement because that's a big claim to make if you don't have any facts to back it up. Chad: And we're going to come straight at you on the podcast, to tell you how it is and ask for you to come on the show to voice your opinion so we can land baste your ass there. Matt: And I think that's the great thing about podcasting is, there's no keyboard warriors here, everyone is having to back up their opinion and talk about it, justify it and not hide behind a keyboard. Matt: Another question for you. So, my podcast is about the future of recruiting. What's the future of recruiting? Chad: So, from our standpoint... Joel: Unemployment lines... for recruiters... Chad: From our standpoint, we talk a lot about technology and that's what we feel the future of recruiting is. It's not total robots, technology, so on and so forth. But, especially now as we talk about process and problems, there are many pieces of technology that could get rid of the mundane bullshit, problematic tasks that we face today. And I feel like the switch of just having people powered recruiting, will have more of a automatic, automated, enabled people recruiting, where candidates don't go into the black hole anymore. That's the problem when you have only people doing this shit, when you have automation support humans, then we can get into more of a humanistic type of recruiting culture. But we haven't been there for years. So I think from our standpoint, we talk about recruiting so much on the technology side because that's where we see the future of it going. Chad: It's like Tengai, right? And Jacob, on Facebook, was giving us so much shit because this Tengai robot is an interviewing robot and it's not human and Blah Blah Blah, and it's like, "Dude, look, you've got to realize these guys are pushing the next frontier of what we're doing." Candidates are already having a shitty experience as it is right now. They're having biased experience right now. Whatever we can do to try to push that boundary, to see if we can do better. That's not the problem, that's the fucking answer. It might not work, but guess what? Unless we try, we'll never know. And those are the things that we like to push on our show. Joel: I think that point of, everyone's sort of confused with the noise out there, really underscores what the future recruiter needs to look like. They have to have a really good, broad or basic understanding of the technology that's going on and being developed and what's coming down the pike because if they don't keep up, they're going to be eliminated. The old days of like, "Hey, I'm a tool in the tool chest and I can live like that." Are, I think, going away and you have to have a very broad toolkit to know everything that's going on and know what a Chatbot is, know what AI is, know what these vendors are, and know what messaging is and the different platforms for that and how to use it and what's advertising. And now there's podcasts, there's going to be video down the pike and how do we best use that stuff. And there's Snapchat and there's Instagram, and there's TickTok and you have to be really smart and keep up with this shit ,if you're going to be successful. The ones that don't are going to be left behind. I think that the line between what's marketing and recruiting is really blurring more and more each day. And for the recruiters that aren't marketers, or think of themselves in that way, are going to be left behind. Chad: So back to your question, what do you feel the future of recruitment is? And I mean you being, more across the pond on the UK side of the house, it's much different than over here in the US, how do you feel that differs from our vantage point? Matt: I would say it's very similar actually. I think that from a big picture perspective, we are pretty much aligned. There are lots of differences between recruiting in North America, recruiting in Europe or recruiting else around the world. But I think the overall direction is very much the same. I kind of already agree with what you just said and I think the key to this is actually critical thinking because I think, understanding what's going on, being able to spot what's a useful tool from what's just a load of hype. But at the same time I think it's having this real sense of being open minded. Matt: And I think Tengai is a really interesting example of that, because, like you, I had Tengai on the podcast because we were all sort of in Portugal and recording. And I kind of got similar feedback and I think when you actually sort of sit down and analyze that, the robot is only a small part of that story. There's a whole sort of bigger story about trying to solve the problem of bias. Also, that is a very, very early stage product, there's no uses data. There's nothing but conjecture and I think until something gets out onto the field and people actually come back and say, "I hate this." I think it's just too early. Joel: Were you surprised at the divisiveness of the opinion and to quote your great statesman William Shakespeare, "Doth thou protest too much?" I think it's very telling about a product when so many recruiters hate it. Matt: Yeah. I mean, I don't even think I was surprised because I've seen that around, almost every time there's some kind of leap forward in recruiting, whether it was the internet to start with or with social media or than robots or whatever it is, there's always this kind of massive emotional reaction. I think where it just gets confusing, is that there also a number of products that have come out that have proved to be useless or before their time or not delivering the hype they promised and it just all gets kind of mixed up together. Matt: But, I think that if you take a step back and look at this and say, you know what, as it stands at the moment, no one will argue with you, when you say, you know what? Talent acquisition is not as efficient as it could be, it has these elements of bias, the candidates are being given a really bad experience, and there seems to be no sort of quick fix or easy way of doing that, whatever people say. Then you'd know that the industry is going to change and things are going to come along and move that forward and I just think it's important to kind of have an open mind and look at things and say, "Well, this could be it or it might not be, but let's at least see what happens." Matt: And on Chatbots, there was a huge kind of backlash, certainly in the UK, when Chatbots first appeared. You know, Candidates wouldn't like them and all this sort of stuff. And actually, a lot of the research that I've seen and a couple of the companies that I've spoken you are using them, have come back and said, "Oh actually, they've been successful and the candidates did like them." So, that's kind of wrong to a certain extent. But at the same time, and this is where I think is all about critical thinking, that doesn't mean every candidate is going to like every iteration of every Chatbot. There will be companies who use them appallingly and candidates will hate them. So it comes back to that, work out what your problems are and the way to solve them and use technology to help you, don't use technologies just for the sake of it or don't use it just so you can say, "Hey, that technology was rubbish and I was right all along." Joel: Remember when QR codes we're going to rule the world? Matt: Ah, yeah, absolutely. There was a brilliant advert. A recruitment company in London put a QR code on a poster on the London Underground. And the whole point was you scan this QR code to go onto a website and this is like years before there was any internet access or any kind of coverage on the London Underground. And it was just astonishing example of using technology because someone told us it was cool without actually thinking about any of the user experience or anything that could sort of happen around that. Chad: We have to think very keenly about adoption and how these individuals are going to adopt. I mean scalability, all that other fun stuff. Just like podcasts. When Joel and I did our first podcast, like in 2008 or something like that, the only way you could listen is on your PC, on your desk. But anyway, the adoption rate was going to be very low and it was just, we were just having a fun time. It wasn't till like 10 years later, like in 2017, where yes, Smartphones changed at all and it was all about the ability to adopt. Those are the things that we need to look at from a technology standpoint. And that being said, looking at the future of recruiting, what is your favorite type of technology right now that you think will take us into that, that next segment of the future of recruiting? Matt: Oh, I was going to ask you that question. Right, well it's a good question because I thought of the same question. Matt: My favorite type of technology? I think I like technology that actually solves a problem. So I suppose there's two answers to this. I think some of the kind of new breed ATS solutions, that are coming onto the market that are actually built with talent acquisition in mind, not built to just kind of automate a recruitment process, but built with candidates and built with a recruiters in mind. I think there's some great stuff there. But sometimes I like the really sort of simple things that make a difference. Matt: I've sort of said this a few times, but my favorite thing that I've actually seen this year is a piece of software called VideoMyJob. And obviously, to disclaimer to say that other providers of the same software are available. And what I like about it is, we all talk about video being so important when it comes to recruitment, marketing and content, and that's all that software does, is it just makes it really easy for you to film a video. It puts subtitles up, it tells you where to put your head in the frame and it does a few simple things to make what you're doing really good and really effective. So, it's not kind of a massive groundbreaking thing, it's just something that really helps people, to get good at doing video and to actually put content out there that looks as good as it can be. So I think it's simple technology like that, that's my sort of current favorite stuff in a world of complexity. Joel: You know what I think, to piggyback on VideoMyJob, I think part of the reason, and this also goes back to the Podcasting, is that those things are effective partly because they leverage a platform of distribution that is now, I guess, evolved enough to where those things work. Like VideoMyJob would not have worked 10 years ago as well as it does today, because you didn't have YouTube, you didn't have social media, you didn't have the channels to sort of easily distribute it. Just like Podcasting [crosstalk 00:26:16] 10 years ago or yeah, mobile. So, a lot of those little technologies are great because they leveraged platforms that exist today, that didn't exist tomorrow. So what exactly is going to exist tomorrow platform wise, that will sort of give birth to these new companies? I don't know. Joel: Now to your question of the future of recruiting, the automation piece seems really disparate right now. You have things living alone or in you know, silos. And I think the holy grail is to be able to pull all of these things together. Where you basically, you post a job and it, it programmatically distributes everywhere. Everyone comes in through a prescreening process with a Chatbot that's automated. The scheduling goes through an automation process that goes right into Google calendar or your Microsoft programs, or 365 and then the actual interviewing is when the actual process starts. So you actually, I think recruiting will be not talking to someone until they actually come through the door because they've been scheduled on your calendar automatically and they've been pre-screened and sourced and everything. And then that sort of a face to face relationship is where recruiting and people who are good at that in recruiting, that will really excel. Joel: So I think right now all those systems are sort of separate. Someone will bring it together and Chad and I sort of disagree on this sort of one platform to rule them all. But it's pretty evident to me that people like Google or companies like Google, Linkedin, Slash Microsoft, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and others are trying to solve that sort of one process problem and we'll see if they can figure it out. Number two, if that really is the holy grail or not, but I do believe that's probably the future of where recruitment is going. Chad: My favorite right now though are the companies, the startups who are focused on being able to help hiring companies, staffing companies, leverage that resume database that they've spent millions of dollars building, in their applicant tracking system or their system of record, that they're just not using. It's ridiculous that every single day companies, recruiters are posting jobs out and they're buying candidates that they already have in their database, so big shout out to a Candidate ID and Opening.io, they were on the death match stage in Portugal. They both do this in different ways. Candidate ID focuses on that nurturing piece and being able to nurture the individuals that you've already purchased, that are in your applicant tracking system. And then Opening.io's more on the matching scheme piece. So obviously you have a job, it's open, the recs open, it goes into your system and it pulls those candidates forward before you go to pay more money. Chad: And that's the thing is that from a talent acquisition standpoint, we need to do a much better job on positively impacting business, and that means bottom line and using our dollars much better. This is more of a practical way to actually dive in and be more process-oriented and focused on what we've already bought. So those are my favorite right now. All the video stuff and that's all cool, but I think being able to really leverage your data that you've already bought is the key. Matt: Absolutely. Joel: That's challenging because you have, Chad mentioned two companies that are successfully doing that, but we also have companies that did somewhat of the same thing and have clearly failed or are failing. So you have like Restless Bandit that just basically sold for pennies on the dollar, allegedly, you have Crowded, which sort of imploded internally and didn't get it done. All those four companies are doing, trying to solve the same problem but half of them are succeeding and the other half are going by the wayside. Which brings you to that whole confusion thing of like, "I know we need to be doing this, but exactly who should be doing it?" And I think that's why you have a lot of people relying on friends and colleagues for word of mouth and recommendations on who they use. Chad: So if companies have startups coming in, they should already know how they want to use that technology. They should know the process, they should know what their objectives are for using said technology. That's the biggest issue that we have right now. Companies are looking to startups. Many of these startups have never been in our fucking industry before and these individuals are not integrating, these startups are not integrating, they're not focused on the points of execution of how to make it work because they don't understand how it should work. Joel: And don't forget about pivots, right? Like, "The product I bought last month is the same company but they've pivoted and now there are a different product. So like my head is totally spinning around that." Chad: So are you seeing that in the UK as much with more focus into the objectives they've started out with? Or are they just pivot machines like we're seeing over here in the US? Matt: It's very similar. It's kind of very similar across Europe. Lots of startups looking to solve, sometimes just one problem which could be a niche problem, they might pick up a few clients, they don't get the traction they need, they then start to solve another problem and things just get very confusing basically. Matt: And I think one of the problems is that there's so much money coming into the sector, there are so many investors sort of looking at this and thinking well recruitment's broken and if we could back the people who are going to fix it, then we're gonna make a lot of money. So lots of money coming into the sector, lots of it is being spent on marketing and branding and advertising. Which kind of ups the amount of noise and kind of reduces the overall traction because there are lots of people competing to solve the same problem and it makes for quite confusing landscape. Matt: Things are changing and it's really important that people go back to that same thing, just understand what are the problems they need to solve and how best to solve them. Joel: For those listening on Matt's show. You can find out more about us at chadcheese.com and for anyone listening on our show, Matt, where can they find out more about you? Matt: You can go to rfpodcast.com or just search for Recruiting Future in any Podcasting app or on Spotify or wherever you access your podcasts. Chad: And you'll be able to see us both on stage at REC fast in London. Right? You're going to be on the R-100 stage in London. That's July 11th and we're going to be closing out the show. Joel: Can we come crash your presentation? Matt: Yeah, you can. I'm doing kind of a panel debate about automation and recruitment. And my session is before the bar's open. And your session is kind of right at the end of the day. So you know, the audience reaction might be slightly different. Well it should be an interesting event definitely. Chad: What we should do is, we should do that panel before the bar's open and then do the exact same panel on the main stage after and everybody has to be drunk when we're doing that. So I think that's a balance between the two. Matt: I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. And knowing most of people on my panel, I think they'd be well up for that. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Thanks Matt. 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. #MattAlder #Future #Recruitment #Technology #Tengai #Uncommon #Openingio #VideoMyJob #video #Crossover #chatbots

What do you get when you bring 65 years of industry experience under one podcast? Press play and find out, as the boys chat with Nexxt’s 25-year veteran Andy Katz. There will be beer on this Nexxt exclusive. 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: Today on the Chad and Cheese Podcast, we have Andy Katz. Joel: Lovely day. Chad: Andrew Katz now, we're sitting on the porch here at ... Joel: Indianapolis icon- Chad: The Veranda- Joel: ... Harry & Izzy's. Chad: Harry & Izzy's. Joel: On the north side. Chad: I have a bourbon on the rocks. What do you have, Andy? Andy: I have some Ketel One and seven. Chad: Ketel One and seven, is it ... Andy: It's noon somewhere. It's 5:00 in London. Chad: It's just about noon. It's almost noon here. Joel: A pint of zombie dust over here. Chad: Yeah, zombie ... I had my fill of zombie dust last night, man. That shit is awesome. Joel: You look a little zombie-esque. Chad: I love it. Joel: After a night of zombie dust. Andy: You cleaned out the bar of the zombie dust. Chad: Yeah, I love it, dude. So we have Andy Katz here- Joel: It's a good thing this isn't on video. Chad: And I've known Andy for a few years. How long have we known each other? Andy: Probably about 20. Chad: Yeah, probably about 20 years. Andy: Just a few. Joel: Did he have hair back then? Chad: No. Andy: No, Chad did not have hair, but he definitely looked younger. Joel: Oh, ouch. Chad: That hurt, wow. Joel: That does hurt. Andy: Sorry about that. Chad: So for all these new to the industry people, Andy, tell us a little bit about you. Andy: Sure. I've been in the human capital space for about 25 years. I started my career at Bernard Hodes group, also known as Symphony Talent- Joel: Were you selling newspaper ads? Andy: I was selling newspaper ads. Joel: Nice. Andy: I was that dinosaur that woke up on a Sunday when I lived in the city and went to a ... There was a newspaper store that got papers from all over the country. I'd go there every Sunday, buy about 40 newspapers, and make sure they didn't fuck up my ad lines and made sure my display ads weren't upside down. Joel: So for the kids out there, what would have been the most you would have made on a display ad in a newspaper back then? Andy: Oof, you talk about full-time- Joel: That was big money, right? Andy: ... full-page ads in the New York Times, they were 100 grand a pop. Chad: Holy shit. Andy: And they were ordering them for three weeks in a row because they got a 50% discount on the third week. So I mean, those were the days where- Joel: Cash money, boy. Andy: ... the agencies were printing money. Chad: Dude. Andy: At newspaper, printing money. Chad: They were printing fucking money. Andy: Yeah. Boston Globe, I remember the days they had 150 full-page ads to start out their classified. Chad: So talk about how that whole trend, and you seeing it, how that came to be with the Internet, all these crazy job boards? Because I mean, that just turned everything on its fucking ear, right? Andy: It did, it did. And it didn't happen overnight. I could, not to keep promoting Hodes or Symphony, but we were one of the first with the job board too, Career Mosaic. That and Monster Board were the first two job boards out there, OCC. Chad: Yes, OCC. Joel: eSPAN, don't forget eSPAN. Chad: Nobody remembers eSPAN, Joel. Andy: No, Joel, sorry. Yeah, that's in the morgue. Joel: NAS remembers eSPAN. They're still around, dammit. Andy: So yeah, it wasn't a change overnight. Some newspapers made the change sooner than later, others- Joel: And most did both, right? I mean, very few would just say, "Let's just go online." Andy: Right. Joel: It was doing both. So probably for a while- Andy: Absolutely. Joel: You were making a lot more money, 'cause they were doing split ads- Andy: We were, there were ad-ons. It was go take out a full page ad and we'll put this job up on this website called Monster Board or Career Mosaic that no one ever heard of back in 1994, '95- Chad: Oh, fuck yeah. Andy: For an ad-on for 300 bucks onto your $100,000 ad, it made sense. Joel: Nice. Andy: It made sense. Chad: That was too easy. Andy: Yeah, it was an easy sell. And you know, between Monster and Career Builder at the beginning of time, they just took off and everything started moving over there. They both made good relationships with the newspapers and had more of an ecosystem behind them. So it was buy a newspaper ad, get an online posting for free or vice versa, and- Joel: When did you see the writing on the wall? When did you say like, "Okay, this newspaper thing probably won't last." Andy: Yeah. Chad: When were newspaper reps saying, "Oh, fuck"? Joel: When did you start seeing the gravy train drive away? Andy: I would say, I'm going to go with early, early 2000. I think we made it through Y2K- Joel: So the first recession, maybe? Andy: Yeah, 2002, 2003, probably right around there. Joel: Okay. Andy: I think after the world actually continued to move forward when it should have blown up 'cause of Y2K, I think everybody was pretty much status quo the '98 to 2001 and make sure it all lived, and then starting in 2002, that's when job boards really propelled us into the future. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So that being said, that was an exciting moment. And Joel always, we always talk about how that was exciting as hell. Andy: It was. Chad: We were there, we were watching- Joel: Superbowl ads. Chad: And it's like, "Holy shit, dude," blimps, Superbowl ads- Andy: I want to be a yes man. Chad: Yeah, I want to be a yes man, that's right. Chimps, all that other shit. Joel: I want to brown nose. Chad: But is it not more exciting now? I mean, there's so much shit that's going on- Andy: It is, it is. Chad: So much money pouring into this goddamn industry. Andy: Well, I think that's what people got scared of. They saw how do you take, and I'm being a little facetious with the 100,000 ads, they were there, but they weren't the norm. Chad: Right. Andy: But a $5,000 ad was extremely common, even if you were running a secretary ad. So ... And that's in major markets obviously where prices were high, so you know, we saw that, it was exciting, we were printing money, people didn't want to say, "How do I go from a $5,000 print ad to a $1,500 posting package?" And at the end of the day, if you look at it and you own the job board, you got 85% of the 1,500. If you were using a newspaper, you got 15% of that. Chad: Right. Andy: So if people really would have thought forward, they would have seen it all equals out, and the Internet is here to stay and it's going nowhere. So embrace it versus try to go around it. I mean, I think the same thing now is with programmatic. People think that's the next end all, be all, and it's extremely big piece of any puzzle, but, and we have to embrace it, it's not exactly the way job boards or agencies want to work, but it is one piece of the overall strategy. Andy: So I think everything keeps morphing. Chad: Why wouldn't agencies want that, though? Because I mean, from a complexity standpoint ... Andy: Right. Chad: The hiring companies are going to come to agencies when they don't understand shit. Joel: It seems like agencies are more valuable now than ever. Andy: the agencies, they're a wealth of information and extremely valuable, and I don't think it's agencies that are saying programmatic is the end all, be all also. It's the easy button right now. You could put all your jobs in one feed, distribute them to 10, 15, 20 places and let it be. But there's a lot more, and I'm not just speaking about at next, it's throughout the industry, you have text messaging, you have re-targeting, you have branding, you have all these other pieces of the puzzle that make up the whole hiring ecosystem, and to say that just one thing, I don't care if you say change my word from programmatic to a job posting or job posting to sending out text messages. One size doesn't fit all. You're not going to reach every audience with one medium. Joel: And I think from where we're coming from, companies know they have to do these things. They know they have to be in programmatic. They know they need a chat bot. Andy: Absolutely. Joel: They know they need AI. But they don't really know what that means. Chad: Yeah, or how. Joel: And agencies seem to fill the void of like, let us help you understand- Chad: They do. Joel: And guide you through that. Are you seeing that as well? Andy: Yeah, and they are valuable partners of ours. Without them, we wouldn't exist. So the agencies are ... They're our middleman between us and the customers or the client for lack of better words, and we're finding that even on the agency side, they're learning more and more every day 'cause again, it might be five, 10 years old, but in relation to the overall hiring ecosystem, it's relatively new. So we keep learning. I manage a huge part of Nexxt, I keep learning every day, I keep making us better, more efficient, offering better services to our job seekers and to our clients, and I think all the job boards out there are doing the same and all the agencies are embracing it and it's really about just having a whole arsenal of tools instead of just saying, "Here's one thing that works for everybody." Chad: Are you seeing a big movement from duration-based ads to performance ads, or is that just kind of like trickling right now? Andy: It's trickling. You still have some of the major players out there doing duration postings, and they're businesses. Sure, it's not where it was in 2007 or '8, but who's is, right? So they're still surviving, they're doing well off of them. I think it's slowly morphing from duration to performance. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're a client and you have $500, would you rather put it towards something that you don't know what the return you're going to get or would you rather say, "Okay, for $5,000, I'm pretty much guaranteed 100 apps"? Chad: So why isn't it moving faster that way though? I would think- Joel: Fear. Chad: ... from the standpoint from an agency- Joel: Don't like change. Chad: From an agency though, from an agency- Joel: True. Chad: An agency can say, "Look," and that's why you have the agency there, is to be able to usher you into these new lands, even though we're still 10 years behind the marketing industry. Why aren't we seeing more of that? Because you would think that that push would happen on the agency side. Andy: Well, I don't think you're seeing any new players come into this space making a duration posting, right? Chad: Right, okay. Andy: So everybody new is performance. You have a few legacies that are doing duration, and it works for them, and- Chad: So it's withering is what you're saying. Andy: It might be, and they're also morphing their businesses and other services to either compensate or move- Joel: Acquisitions. Andy: ... to performance, but it's one of those things I said earlier where not one size fits all, and duration postings still have a place. Sure, they're not where they were, again, 10 years ago, but they're still there now. Chad: Well, and there's still newspaper ads, right? Andy: And there's still newspaper ads. Chad: So, you know, to say that duration posting- Joel: What's a newspaper again? Andy: That's that black-and-white thing you open up on Sundays. Chad: Yeah, exactly, that- Joel: What's your read on the consolidation that we're seeing in the agency business? So you have Shaker buying up Arland Group, you have Monster buying KRT, right? Andy: CKR. Joel: Or CKR, sorry. Andy: Close. Joel: Is that a healthy thing? What's your take on what's going on there? Andy: Yeah, everybody loves competition. Competition validates you and you need different players for different ... Not everybody can handle a behemoth of a fortune 10 company, right? The smaller agencies might not be equipped, so they're going to handle maybe an SMB market. I'll say the same thing about job boards, I'll say the same thing about any of the CRM providers out there, talent community providers. There's a market for everybody. Now when you over saturate that market with too many players, that's when you spread yourselves too thin and nobody makes money except for the top three. Andy: Where if you consolidate on making a number up from 20 down to 12, that's healthy. And consolidation is the crux of this entire country and economy forever, people always acquire and build and grow from there, same thing will happen with the smaller players. Chad: So what about the UX side of the house? So candidate experience has always been a bitch. It's always sucked. But there's a lot of money that could prospectively be there to ensure that you're obviously getting the right talent, they're not ejecting before getting into that 20 minute application process into your ATS. So do you see a movement door down that path, or where does it go from a money standpoint? Where is the money moving? Andy: I think you're right, the UX still sucks, but I'm going to keep going back to not the number of years, but in relative, it's still a newish technology and way of recruiting. When someone figures out truly how to make a mobile apply mobile, that's going to be one of the winners of this whole endgame, and they don't have to do it themselves. They can license out that technology to 20 other players. The biggest- Chad: Didn't Indeed buy a mobile apply company? Andy: I think they might have. Chad: And they still haven't figured this shit out? Andy: Because the difference is, you might be able to get it in on the front end, but getting it in through the back end of the ATS when you have 50 different ATSs that gather information differently and APIs are different, it's impossible to bring it all down to one common denominator to make you be able to apply to all of them. So you might be able to solve for the top three or four at one time, but the long tail's huge still now too. Chad: Well, that's customized work though and that's money to be able to implement for like, somebody who has a Taleo and to be able to get it right. And I understand there's a shit ton of maintenance that has to happen on those APIs and so on and so forth- Andy: Oh, yeah. Chad: But still. Andy: Every client's ATS is sort of configured differently, right? Chad: Yeah. Andy: If every Taleo client had the exact same Taleo set-up, you can build an API, you can build a functionality, you can get everything through a mobile. That's not the case. Chad: No. Andy: Once you have one client do any customization to it, you're kind of fucked. So I think that's what people need to solve for and I mean, there's a lot of smart ... Much smarter people out there than me, and they haven't figured it out yet, so. Joel: So Nexxt offers a lot of services and solutions being in the industry for a long time, so you've seen things come and go. Five years from now of the new stuff, what are we still talking about? What are the big success stories in the future? Andy: Sure, I think it is going to come down to performance marketing. Everything is going to be performance. People want to pay for what the value they're getting. You know, text messaging, again, that's going to keep growing. Chad: I want to talk more about that. Andy: Okay. Chad: So let's put a pin in that, but keep going. Andy: Yeah, so I will say the text messaging's huge. I think retargeting's huge. The bounce rates on client's websites from job seekers is huge. Chad: Oh yeah. Andy: And we don't know every single step of the way why. There are actually companies out there right now that are working on that to show you where the gaps are and why people are bouncing where they are and how to recapture them, but retargeting's huge. If you can drop a cookie on your user and you can know where in the process they dropped off, you can then retarget them at the right time with the right messaging. Chad: But a lot of those cookies and the targeting and all that other fun stuff with GDPR and all these new regulations, new regulation was just put out yesterday- Joel: Chrome. Chad: About ... Andy: What? Joel: Chrome security on Google, they'll tell you how you're being followed, 'cause it's following you. Chad: Yeah, all the stuff, new legislation just pushed in Illinois yesterday. Do we feel like we're going to be able to collect enough data to continue to do those things? 'Cause right now, it's still the Wild West. Andy: Well, I think you have two ... Well, that was going to be my support to you, where GDPR is ... It's standardized across the European nations, right? Where in the U.S. we're not standardized, I mean, California has one set of rules, Indiana has one set of rules- Chad: But don't you have to like, develop a program for like the hardest set of rules? Andy: That's the way it should be, right. And then you have to have people opt in, double opt in, and then if you do that and you're in compliance, then you can drop your cookies. Every time you go onto a website, it's going to say, "We collect cookies. Are you okay with this?" If you accept it, then you know, and we can re-target it. So you know, you've got to go back- Joel: Will employers be comfortable with that message when people go to their site? That'll be an interesting dilemma, right? Andy: Well, let me ask you, have you ever left a site because it said it was collecting your cookies, or do you just go and clear your cookies out afterwards if you didn't like it? Joel: No, but I'm not an HR person who doesn't want phone calls or messages from job seekers saying, "Why are you following me?" Or "How are you following me?" Andy: Right, well- Joel: That may not be the most comfortable conversation. Andy: There's a stalking way of following somebody and then there's the way of re-targeting subtly. Joel: But if I'm an HR person, do I want to explain that? I don't know. Andy: I don't know. You know, you're talking about five years from now, right? Today, I'm agreeing with you. Five years from now- Joel: Okay, keep going. Andy: Again, the landscape changes. Right? So how do you reach the passive job seeker or the active one that maybe have interest but just didn't want to go through your 20 page application? But you have enough data on them from whatever pages you did collect, and say, "Damn, this person's a great candidate. How do I go back after them?" Chad: So okay, I'm going to pivot back to texting, because you guys have how many- Joel: You forgot virtual reality, by the way. Chad: Oh, Jesus. Andy: Augmented reality, [crosstalk 00:15:47] Joel: Virtual reality. Chad: He's still hanging on to Second Life like you wouldn't believe. Joel: I'll- Chad: So he's ... Joel: I will be redeemed one day, trust me. Andy: I heard MySpace is coming back, too. Chad: And friends, sir, if you ever go to Second Life and you see a fairy unicorn, it's Joel. Joel: Shh, don't give away my identity. Chad: So back to texting. Joel: I'm the only one there. Chad: Back to the texting side of the house. You guys have how many to date? You have like a database of like- Andy: Almost 8 million. Chad: 8 million? Okay. Andy: 8 million opted in text messaging job seekers. Chad: So text messaging is to me- Joel: They were brilliant early on. Chad: Fucking crazy. Joel: By the way. Very early on, they had an opt in for resume postings to get text messages. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And that's been a very profitable business for you 10 years later. Chad: Well, when you see the returns on text- Andy: Right. Chad: ... responses, and that hasn't changed- Andy: No, it's actually getting better. Chad: Yeah, why- Joel: Damn. Chad: Why isn't every company doing texting? We nail this all the time. Andy: Right. Chad: It's like, if you're not texting when you're recruiting, you're fucking dumb. I just don't get it. Andy: So I got to go back to slow to adopt, right? Five years from now, everybody's going to have some type of text messaging. Chad: But everybody needs top talent now. Andy: Everybody needs it now and you know, not everybody's going to survive. For whatever reason, and that might be one of the reasons- Chad: Well, that even means you, HR director or TA director. You might not survive because you can't get the talent fast enough because you're not using texting or some of these other programmatic tools or what have you. Andy: They are, and I think anybody would be remiss to say, "Let's not try everything and see what we get from it," because there's enough providers out there to say what works and what doesn't work. My best analogy when I'm talking to clients is, "If you had a million dollars to invest in a stock portfolio, are you going to put it all in one company?" Chad: No. Andy: And granted, yeah, in foresight I could have put it all on Amazon, Apple, Google, any of the fang stocks, right? Chad: Yeah. Andy: But my crystal ball's broken today. So my answer is, you're going to take your million dollar recruiting budget and spread it across 10 partners and move money around based on who performs best. And quite frankly, if Nexxt wasn't one of the ones that were performing for some crazy reason, 'cause we always perform ... That was a little plug. Joel: Obvi. Andy: You know, then they should move money out of our stock. Chad: Well, and that's where we were talking earlier about the agencies. They're like the consultants to be able to- Andy: They're your financial advisor. Chad: To help you make the right decision for those 10. Not for one- Andy: Right. Chad: But for the 10. Andy: And not for 40. Chad: Yes, exactly. Andy: Because you also don't want to be spread too thin. You have to have the right number of sources for your budget and for your recruiting needs and to make, again, I mean, I truly say this when ultimately we all really are looking out for the job seeker and we want them to have the best user experience, but we want to make money doing it. Joel: Aw. Andy: We do, we do. I know. Chad: He's so sweet. Andy: That was sweet. Chad: I'm going to give him a hug, give me a second. Joel: He's a tough guy, but he's really sensitive. Andy: Aw. Joel: Yeah, isn't he? Andy: Okay, I'd better order another drink. Joel: Are you sensing that companies are moving more toward a marketing competency? Are they moving too slowly? What's your sense on that? Andy: I think, especially the major companies and the top fortune 500, are moving ... I mean, most HR departments have an HR marketing department associated with it, right? Joel: Really? Andy: I think corporate marketing and HR marketing are becoming more and more prevalent working together, because they go hand in hand. Chad: Isn't that just splintered out though? Should marketing understand how they're touching all of these types of people, not a bad touch by the way, a good touch. Andy: Right. Chad: How they're ... Seriously- Andy: A touch- Chad: Yeah, there's a bad touch. There's such ... Joel: Chad knows. Chad: And that's what we're saying from like, employer branding and the HR marketing side of the house- Andy: Sure. Chad: It's like, they are a symptom of a fucked up brand or a fucked up marketing department, and that's not saying bad, anything bad about employment branding, because we need those people because all those brands, probably 99.9% of the brands, suck. Right? I guess my question is, how does this become an opportunity for us to be able to ensure that the candidate does have a great experience? Andy: Right. Well- Chad: Even with the fucked up marketing department? Andy: Well, and I think why marketing is such a huge component of this going forward, especially, not to sound trite from, you know, that we're so old, but in the digital age, everything touches each other, right? So you might be a job seeker, but you're most likely a consumer of that company's product of some sort, right? Chad: Yeah. Andy: So if you have a- Joel: Because everyone gets that. Andy: Right. Joel: Not. Andy: Exactly. Chad: They don't. They fucking don't. Andy: I sense the sarcasm there, Cheese. Joel: Yeah, sarcasm. Tongue in cheek. Andy: So they don't get that, and I think if you have a bad user experience and you're a retail or an eCommerce company and you have a job seeker that's coming to you and you have a horrible experience for them, they're not going to want to buy your product. They're not going to want to walk in your story. And I think marketing- Chad: The Virgin media business case has been out there for years. Andy: There you go. Chad: They lost $6 million because they treated candidates like shit, and then they had an opportunity to prospectively on the Delta go like 13, but I mean it's like, dude, this has been out there, and I just- Andy: And it's common sense. That's the crazy thing. Chad: Oh fuck, yeah. Andy: I don't even need your case studies or your data to support what I'm saying. Chad: I know, right? It's like, oh, well there's a case study now, it's like but that made sense before. Andy: Right. Joel: Are you seeing more marketing departments embrace recruiting or are you seeing more HR recruiting companies saying, "We need to embrace marketing"? Andy: I think I'm seeing more ... So marketing always had the cloud. HR was always the ugly redheaded step child, right? Joel: [crosstalk 00:21:27] Andy: Because they were a cost center. Chad: It's the money, yeah. Andy: When marketing is ... It's a cost center, but it's also the first thing that any of your consumers see whatever you put out there, right? Chad: And they drive leads for sales, which drives revenue, which the CEO likes. Andy: Exactly. Chad: That's the big fucking key. Andy: But I think, I mean- Joel: So more marketing is coming over to recruiting and how do we ... Andy: They're embracing them, 'cause I think HR would have always embraced marketing to some extent, because sure, I want to tap into your dollars. I want to co-mingle with you and do some branding on both the consumer and recruitment side at the same time. Chad: Co-mingle kind of seems like a bad touch though. Joel: I like that, though. Andy: But bad touch isn't always bad. Chad: Bad touch isn't always bad. That's what the name of this podcast is going to be. Click bait. Chad: So back to texting, give us more about what you're seeing on that side of the house, just because, I mean, I am- Joel: Yeah, how can it get better? Chad: Yeah. Joel: It was already pretty perfect to begin with. Andy: Yeah, how do you get better at 160 characters? It is what it is, right? Joel: Yeah. Andy: So, and that's- Joel: 95% open rates, 90% red rates. Andy: Exactly. But it's about also hitting the right audience, okay? I don't know that I want to be text messaging doctors, okay? But I might want to be text messaging nurses because they're on their shifts and they're on their phone and they're going to open up, you might want to ... Text messaging for retail workers or E-commerce warehouses. That's huge, because these people aren't going home and spending time on their computer. They're not going to, going home searching on Google for jobs. They want them in your face. How do you hit them? Andy: So I say this all the time, again, shameless plug for Nexxt, is the way we present ourselves is we have all the tools for recruiters to hit job seekers where they need to, and we have all the tools for job seekers hit them where they want to be reached. So if you want to be reached in text, you want to be reached in email, you want to be reached in the re-targeting, we will hit them everywhere versus a lot of job boards, and I like to think we're more of a recruitment media company, but job boards usually have one or two tricks up their sleeve, we have eight that we could fit into. Joel: Where do you put chat bots in the texting, messaging realm? Andy: Yeah, I mean, they're big. They're big, but that's not really to me a recruitment strategy, that's a supporting technology for whatever you have, right? So I don't think that's part of the overall I'm going to go text, I'm going to go email, I'm going to go do an employer branded email. This goes for each one of them. Chad: It's a user experience more. Andy: Right. So it's more like video or I'll put a chat bot in there where it's a supporting role to whatever your strategy is, it's not a strategy. But I think they're becoming key, especially ... It's like text messaging. If you're on a chat bot and someone asks you a question, you got your first 50 canned responses. But text messaging and chat bots are only as good as the user on the other side that's going to be able to customize that answer to that person if they ask an out-of-the-box question. Chad: So what about video? We've heard about video for 15 years- Joel: It killed the Radio Star, is what I heard. Andy: It did, I heard that, too. Chad: [crosstalk 00:24:33] I love the Buggles. So- Joel: Here's hoping it doesn't kill the podcasting star. Chad: Just so we know, this is all going to get cut out. So anyway, back to video, what happens with video? Everybody's so excited about it, but the adoption rate is incredibly low. We see Monster create Monster Studios through Video My Job. Joel: Instagram for Jobs. Chad: I still think that's going to be very low adopting just because there's steps that need to be taken. It's easier than it's ever been, don't get me wrong ... Andy: Right, but there's also a lot of privacy concerns. Like if I opened up a video interview of you, just as ugly as you are, I couldn't hire you. So is that discrimination? Joel: That's what I'm talking about. Andy: Where do you draw the line? Chad: I am sexy, goddammit. Andy: You are, you are. Joel: So it's probably more viable as an employer to present themselves in a video format- Andy: Exactly. Joel: ... than it is a job seeker to present themselves. Andy: I do believe you're talking right now- Joel: Of a higher view solution. Andy: Of a higher, right. Now, they've been talking ... I mean, there's obviously top video companies out there for years in our space, and they do well, and I believe an employer presenting themselves in the best light in a video is the best way to do it, 'cause let's face it, people don't want to read. They don't want to read shit anymore, right? If I can watch a 30 second clip or read an article for five minutes, I'm watching the 30 second clip. Chad: Okay, so let's jump to Shark here and go directly to Tengai. Joel: Easy, Fonzie. Chad: Have you seen the Tengai robot interview? Joel: Have you had nightmares, is a better question. Chad: What do you think about that? Because it was interesting, we thought right out of the gate, "Oh my god, this is fucking creepy." And then we met Tengai in Portugal, and I'm like, "That's pretty fucking cool." I want to take selfies with this goddamn thing. I want to tell my buddies about this. Andy: But are you doing it as a novelty or are you doing it as it really is a viable business model? Chad: I don't know that it would matter at this point. Joel: I believe governments will be the first to embrace this thing, because if they can talk about a totally unbiased recruiting process, to me that's where this will, where Tengai will take off. Andy: Yeah. Joel: So what do you think? Andy: Yeah, I don't know enough about it to say. It's relatively new. Joel: Yeah, oh no, super new. Andy: I mean, I saw it like a couple weeks ago. Chad: Super new. Joel: Super new. Whatever super in Sweden is, that's what it is. It's Abba new. Andy: I would say ... Chad: It's Abba. Andy: In a relative term, I'm going to use it lightly, I've been successful because I've always embraced new things until they've proven me otherwise versus not embracing them until everybody else adopted to them. So I find it interesting. I think that there's a place for it. I don't know what the adoption rate will be, but I would absolutely be supportive of it. I'm supportive of anything new that's going to connect people quicker. Joel: Good for you. Another "aw" [crosstalk 00:27:15] Chad: This is where a big applause line comes in. Andy: Boy, I sound like a sappy ass right now, but either way, I say what I got to say. Joel: Such a softie. Chad: Okay, so you're not in the agency business now, but you still work with agencies. Andy: Sure. Chad: Many agencies are becoming, which you well know, technology providers. What are your thoughts about that? Because technology providers versus unbiased [crosstalk 00:27:43] Joel: It feels like they're less so than they were 10 years ago. Andy: Break down technology. Are you saying reseller or are you saying builder? Chad: Builder. Andy: That's a great question. And here's where my answer is and I've not necessarily been asked this question in this same context, but if you can't be the best at something and you're not going to put all the resources behind it to compete with the people that are taking in 50, $100 million of equity to compete with it, stay the hell out of it and go partner with them, okay? I don't believe I truly have that mentality of buy versus build, and I buy what I can't- Chad: Or partner versus build, right? Andy: Well, yeah, that's buy to me, but yeah sure. Chad: Oh, okay, gotcha. Andy: Partner, buy, or resell, whatever you want to call it. If you can't be in the Top Echelon of what you want you're going to do, stay the fuck out of it, because someone's going to eat you alive and you are just burning resources in cycles on a team that could be doing something that's more core to your business. So you know, it's one of those things where everybody's going to make their own bed and we're going to see where they lie, but I think there's some great technology providers out there that I would partner with in a second. Chad: I love that. Don't burn resources in cycles, because that is happening all over the fucking place right now, and not just- Andy: Absolutely. Chad: ... startups everywhere are burning like you wouldn't believe. Burn rates are crazy. Joel: We talk a lot about the arms race particularly between Microsoft and LinkedIn versus Google. Where are you putting your bets on those two Goliaths? Andy: Well, if you look at share numbers, and I don't have them in front of me, I think Google has like, 60-something percent of the search results and Bing is behind that with like 20 or something. I might be off whatever my numbers is, but it's like a three to one- Chad: Yeah, I think Google's higher, yeah. Andy: It's higher than 60-something percent? Okay. I'm a little outdated. But anyway, I think there's a place for everybody, right? I don't think that it's winner takes all. Chad: No, I'm good. Andy: So I think LinkedIn and Microsoft, I mean, Bing's a great search engine, LinkedIn has a great product. Google's a great search engine, Google for Jobs is a great product, right? Does that mean they're the only two to survive? More importantly, does that mean those two are the only ones that survive and kill out every job board underneath them? Absolutely not. I think there's going to be consolidation in that market in the next three to five years that we probably haven't seen in the last 30 years for the better. But I don't say is it Google or is it Microsoft, I say it's both. Joel: Is there a giant in waiting that maybe you see that others don't? Andy: Ooh. Joel: I like to talk about Slack, for example. Chad: Amazon. Only if Slack is bought by Amazon. Joel: Which I've been predicting for years and is bound to happen eventually. Andy: Did you predict Tableau was going to be bought by Salesforce? Joel: I did not, I did not. Chad: And Google acquires Looker? Andy: Did you know Amazon was going to acquire Whole Foods? All right, then getting off topic. Joel: No, but the food industry ... Although food is my business, the food industry is not so much. Chad: Eating it is your business is what you're saying. Joel: Eating, yes, I'm very good at that. Chad: Eating portions. Andy: Okay, do I see any sleepers? No, I can see where you're going with Slack, I think data is key, Chad, you brought up Amazon. I don't put it past Amazon to own everything, and that's not a good or bad thing. It is what it is. But considering they're probably if not the largest employer or hirer right now, it would make sense for them to do something in this space. It would streamline the process for them, but I'm not on that side of the world. I'm ... Jeff Bezos I think is a little smarter and probably has a little bit more money than me. He'll figure it out before I do. Chad: A tad. Andy: Just a tad. Chad: A tad. Joel: What's on Nexxt's road map that you might be giving us a sneak peek into? Andy: One of the things I want to do, which again, it's a sneak peek and I'm not going to go into too many details, I really want to partner with talent communities and drive leads into talent communities, because I believe they have great technology but like any other database, unless it's filled with something useful such as job seekers, they're kind of only as good as they are. So I think there's ... I think talent communities' CRMs in general are going to be, if they not already have replaced them, the first iteration of an ATS, ATSs are the endgame. Talent community's in the middle ground, and getting people in there. Chad: They're the cosmetic layer, right? The user experience and hopefully- Andy: One's a compliance thing, one's a sourcing. Chad: Yeah, exactly. Andy: Right? Maybe that's a better way of saying it. Joel: Dude, all this talk about Whole Foods and food is making me really hungry. Andy: So you want to order food, right? Chad: I need a shrimp cocktail. Joel: I agree. Andy: Wow. Joel: I agree. Andy, dude, thanks for this. This was fun. Andy: Thanks for having me, thanks for not beating me up. Joel: For people who want to know more about Nexxt or you, where would you send them? Andy: I would send them to either Nexxt.com or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and I will always respond. Joel: And that's Nexxt with two Xs. Chad: Not the triple X. Andy: No, definitely don't go triple X. You're going to get a surprise on your computer. Joel: No, that's the one on my private browser at home. Andy: Yes. Joel: We out. Chad: We out, later. 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. #Nexxt #ATS #Google #Amazon #jobs #partnership #CRM #Engagement

Another week of breaking news highlights this week's show. - C-suite ejections at CareerBuilder, - Job.com readies for an IPO and a Monster partnership, - Government muddies AI interviewing - Rapid Fire w/ -- Google for jobs France, Love Mondays to Glass Door, Nymeria launches Reach & RecTxt launches and last but never least - Whining male managers Enjoy and show Sovren, JobAdx and Canvas lots of love, because they make hearts skip beats. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and 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 opinion, and load of snarks. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Oh yeah, suckers. Joel: I'm ready to floss like a boss. Welcome to the Breaking News edition of the Chad and Cheese Podcast: HR's Most Dangerous. I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm just happy that the Saint Louis Blues and Toronto Raptors fucking won. Joel: My Canadian wife is very happy with the latter of those. On this week's show, more bleeding at CareerBuilder. Good lord. Job.com dropped some mad news on us, and government could derail this whole AI recruiting thing. If you can't listen with the one you love, just love the one you're with, baby. We'll be right back after a word from Sovren. Chad: That's true. 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. Sovren: In fractions of a second, receive match results that provide candidates scored 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 S-O-V-R-E-N dot come. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovren: Sovren. Software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner. Joel: Nah. Chad: So, let's make this clear, okay? I am not a St Louis blues fan, but what I am a fan of is seeing an organization that has never won a championship beat any fucking Boston organization, because those guys have so many championships as it is. Anybody from the Boston area that are still tearing up because they lost, fuck you guys. I mean, seriously. Look how many championships you guys won. Chad: And then we take a look at the Toronto Raptors. Again, this is an underdog type of season, which makes me feel ... And I know Joel's going to bring this up, that his Browns possibly have a chance. And I'm going to say- Joel: Why would you jinx some shit like that, dude? Don't bring that up. Chad: Dude, there is no jinxing the Browns. Pretty much the Browns equal jinx. They're synonymous with jinx. Joel: I'm just hoping for a not embarrassing season this year. I mean, the pressure is such that they're bound to totally implode and end up 0 and 16 or something. I'm not expecting the best, but I'm also probably expecting the worst. Chad: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and let's hit this shoutout, because we've got a shit ton of these. Joel: Yeah, yeah. No tears for Boston, for sure. I'm so sick of Boston teams. All right, who I'm not sick of are the Rothbergs, Steven and Faith, two of our most loyal listeners. Apparently they listen to multiple shows on their deck as they're eating breakfast, lunch, dinner. In my opinion, the married couple that Chad and Cheeses together stays together. So feel the love, the Rothbergs set the example. I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy. Chad: I have to say the same about companies. The companies that Chad and Cheese together stay together. And one company, KRT, who listens to the podcast, Mona, Olivia, and fanboy Chris. Wait a minute. No, his name's Ryan. Yeah, Ryan. I always forget his name. They sent me a Talk Nerdy To Me starter kit, and you know the whole reason for this thing is that Ryan loves trolling Joel over at Shaker. Joel: Next up on shoutouts, Andy from Nexxt, who will be publishing that interview I think soon. We had some good lunch and drinks last week, and it was really fun to visit with him. Anyone from Jersey is always fun to hang out with for a little bit. Chad: Yeah. For small amounts of time, Andy understands this. Short amounts of time. But no, great interview, should pop out ... It'll come out soon, but when you see the interview with Andy Katz, definitely check it out. Katz been in the industry for 25 fucking years. He knows some shit. Joel: Yeah. We're talking 65 years total, between the three of us, of industry experience. It was good stuff. And the amount of money that he made on newspaper ads back in the day is really ridiculous. Chad: Oh, God yeah. Joel: For the youngsters out there, it's a great history lesson for the way things used to be. Shoutout to the gang in Belgium, E-recruiting Congress, House of HR put that on. I had a lovely time in Belgium, the medieval town of [Git 00:05:19]. Things move at a different speed over there in Europe, and it was nice to take a breath and have a beer, and breathe all the second hand smoke. Chad: And I bet you take a look at ... Even though they do have much more smoking over there, they probably ... There's less dying of heart disease. I'm going to have to check that out, just because they're chilled. There's no stress, little to no stress. And they're drinking all the time. Joel: It's just ride a bike around, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, sit by the river, look at the architecture. Life moves at a much different speed there in Belgium. Chad: Exactly. Who else you got? Joel: Is it too early to bring up Tim Sackett and the- Chad: No. Tim Sackett needs to get those elevator shoes ready, because his short ass is going to be on stage next week at SmashFly Transform in Boston. Joel: Do you think he's getting his bow ties dry cleaned this week? Chad: That's a good question, and I wonder if he ties them himself, or if he does the strap-on. Because he looks like a strap-on kind of guy. Joel: You know he's only a pair of suspenders and a rolled up pair of jeans away from Urkle town. So Tim, we're waiting for the day, man. We know it's coming. Chad: Oh, yeah. So we're going to be onstage ... Believe it or not, they're actually bringer us onstage with Delta Airlines. We're doing one of those no bullshit kind of employer brand marketing, and whatever the hell we want to talk about panels. But Holland McCue ... Or is it Dombeck? Holland, you need to figure out what your last name is. Joel: It's his whole first name. Chad: Holland's awesome. Anyway, she's the head of employer brand, marketing, and all the cool shit that happens at Delta Airlines. Fiserv's Julia Levy, global talent acquisition's going to be onstage, and JZ. He personally told me he just put himself on the panel because he wanted to piss Sackett off. Joel: Keep in mind for the newbies out there, this is not the rapper Jay-Z, this is the head of marketing at SmashFly JZ. Chad: Josh Zywien. Joel: Zywien. Zywien's World. Party time. Chad: Then I'll be in Jobg8 in Denver later this month, watching my beautiful wife Julie do her presentation, her thing, onstage. Can't wait to see that. And then ... Here it comes man. RecFest, bitches. RecFest. 3,000 attendees, they're already sold out, guys, sorry. There might be a wait list, so check it out, but anyway. 3000 attendees, five stages, and we are fucking headlining. This is going to be ridiculous. Joel: The stars and stripes are coming across the pond to break shit at RecFest. Get ready. Chad: So, do you have your red, white, and blue speedo? Joel: It was originally a thong, but I thought the audience is a little too conservative. So I'm going to pull it back to speedo-ville. But yeah, the red, white, and blues will be in full force in terms of my attire, I don't know about you. Chad: Excellent. Yeah, no, I'm not going to go that way. I'm going to allow you to be the center of attention. Joel: I appreciate that. I appreciate that. All the love. Chad: I'm here for you. So again, if you're going to be in London, you're going to be at RecFest, look us up. We're also having the guys from Talent Nexus, we're doing some really cool video stuff with them, so look for that. It's just fucking crazy, but we're excited. And that being said, I think it's time to talk about shit. What do you think? Tengai: Hi. This is Tengai, the unbiased interview robot. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I love these guys. Joel: All right. Chad: I just got a text, I shit you not, right before we started recording, from one of my buddies. He's been in the industry for 15, 20 years. He said, "Someday, you're going to have to explain this Tengai shit to me." Joel: And we'll put it in a podcast, so everyone else that's asking, "You'll have to explain this thing to me," can know that too. Chad: Yeah. Pretty simple. Yeah. Joel: CMO. CB. Ejection. Dude, this is crazy. Is anyone left at CareerBuilder? Chad: I don't think so. Joel: Everyone new lasts about a year. Chad: Yeah, no shit. So Amy Heidersbach, I think it is- Joel: Heidersbach. Chad: Heidersbach. She was there for a year and four months, and this lady has amazing cred and background. She was SVP at Visa, she was head of marketing at PayPal, she was VP slash head of marketing at Capital One, and those are just some of the places she's been. This is the kind of talent that you want to be able to launch your brand, your market, your name, all that stuff ... But I guess she saw the writing on the wall, and said, "You know what? I should probably get the fuck out of here, because this brand in itself is for shit." Not to mention, as we've heard from multiple contacts, that it really feels like they're trying to prep everything to chop up and sell. And that's to me, it doesn't seem like it's too far from that. Where are they going to go from here? They're definitely not going to go up, that's for sure. Joel: Yeah. I'm just amazed that Amy failed to look at Glassdoor reviews before accepting a job at CareerBuilder. Anyone with her clout and expertise that would read through their Glassdoor reviews would want to jump on the CareerBuilder train ... Clearly she didn't listen to our show, ever, although she should have. That would've probably saved her a lot of pain and suffering as it was. But yeah, this marks I think the second good executive that they've had jump ship after about a year from coming onto the company. So clear as day, man, shit's not good over there, and the executives are proof positive after just a year, getting the hell out of Dodge. Chad: And if I were the Textkernals or the Broadbeans of the world, I would be asking myself, "When are we going to be carved up and sold off?" Because really, those businesses, I think, my personal opinion, are the easiest to compartmentalize, and hell, they just bought Textkernal for goodness sakes. But anyway, if you think about it, that might not be a bad thing for those brands. Joel: No, I just don't know who the buyers are. There used to be a day where job boards would buy up these companies, trade them like baseball cards. But those days are over, I mean the companies that people are buying, they're not buying these kinds of companies, and they're not really buying what CareerBuilder's going to be chopping up and selling off. So I don't know. We'll see what happens. Chad: So you remember when Sal took over Monster, and then everything just went to fucking shit? Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chad: Not going to say that it wasn't going that way in the first place, before Matt got kicked to the curb, but you can see that kind of happening with Irena in place. Can you not? Is it just me? Joel: Well, yeah. We've been talking about her for a long time, not being a forward thinking executive. She's a pencil pusher from back in the day, so there's no surprise that there's no vision there, no excitement, no energy around these executives that are joining the company to stay on. I've heard rumors that her clock is ticking, and that her time at the company will probably be short lived, unless some real shit gets turned around, and the executives that are departing the company say that shit isn't getting better. So I'm going to be surprised if she still has a job at CareerBuilder come January 2020. Chad: Big meeting, I believe, is actually next week with board. So yeah, I think that's going to be a defining moment. You're either going to see more big name heads roll, or you're going to see her head roll. Joel: Predictions? Chad: Her head roll. Joel: Yeah. I believe there's going to be some punching bag work going on on her at this meeting. Good luck, Irena. It was nice knowing you. Unfortunately, if she just would've come on the show, maybe it would save her job. But she didn't. Joel: Speaking of more news ... By the way, that's sort of breaking news. That hasn't ... You got on that super early, so most people are hearing about Amy leaving CareerBuilder here on this show. More news, probably, for a lot of people, job.com was a guest on our firing squad show this past week. Chad: Aaron Stewart. Joel: Yep, and we'll be ... I'm sure you'll be publishing that in due time here. But we rarely get breaking news from those kinds of interviews, but we got at least two news stories from it which are worth talking about. Number one is it looks like job.com will be partnering with Monster.com's Talent Fusion product, which is basically their staffing solution. Chad, you know more about it than I do. Apparently not a done deal, but according to Aaron, it is pretty much a done deal. So you heard it here first, Monster partnering with job.com on their talent fusion product. Chad: Pretty big. Because as we've talked about with Indeed and Sift last week, I really see the evolution of staffing becoming more of a technical piece, an app to an extent. And it depends on obviously whether it's high volume or what have you, but we start to see that pushing forward as also, I think Aaron said, he's going IPO, right? Joel: Yeah, so the other news that we got from that is that job.com will be filing for an IPO this summer, I believe. So I would say by fall of this year, we could have a new IPO participant in the job boards space, which we really haven't had a major one in the job board staffing in a while. We've had ... We'll move on to Upwork and Fiverr, who are in IPO news, particularly Fiverr. But yeah, we don't get a lot of them, so it'll be interesting to see how job.com lands with Wall Street. Chad: Yeah, so moving to Fiverr, again, this is ... You start to see kind of like these two worlds meld, so you have job.com, which is really focusing on making staffing easier and more cost effective. But that's what you see with Fiverr, too. It's more low cost. People don't see it as staffing, but it really is staffing. I mean, you're really trying to focus on human capital, and filling holes in projects, and those types of things. So I think we're really starting to see this melding of what staffing slash human capital and technology means, and Fiverr goes IPO and you start to see their stock go through the roof. Joel: Yeah, Fiverr had a really good day. The stock is ... As we're recording this on Friday, went public on Thursday, today it's pulling back, but Upwork is benefiting from the attention that they're getting. And keep in mind, Lyft and Uber are also gig economy stocks, we don't necessarily think of them in that way, but the whole gig economy with Upwork, Fiverr, Lyft, and Uber are all seeing a lot of attention on Wall Street. Uber and Lyft had some rough rides there on the early going, but they're stabilizing and coming back from some of the lows that they've had in the last month or so. Joel: So yeah, we've been keeping an eye on this. I think it'll be interesting as valuations become clearer, do these public companies get snatched up by bigger entities like the Microsofts, the Googles, the Facebooks. Slack, as we know, will be going public soon as well. It's an interesting time to be in this space, and the platform seems to be what's really hot now at the public markets. Chad: Yeah. I mean, these types of platforms are good for what everybody likes to call the side hustle, but that's morphing into more of the full-time hustle, which is really, really cool, and some great numbers. According to Upwork's 2019 future workforce report, nearly 74% of millennials and Gen Z managers have remote workers, and 50% of managers increased their use of freelancers in 2016. So that was a few years ago, right? This makes it so much easier. As we take a look at the demographics of our changing workforce, boomers are leaving, we have millennials and Z's coming up. How do they want to interact, and how do they want to work? They want to work remotely, right? They don't have to hit a freaking time clock, so this is something that I find pretty awesome for companies to be able to try to look at to embrace these types of models as they become more readily used by regular Fortune 500 companies. Joel: Yeah, keyword there is millennials. God bless them. The businesses that are coming online that kind of cater to millennials are really hot. So Beyond Meat, which I know you're a fan of. The plant based protein that tastes like animals meat. Those companies are hot, the Etsys of the world, the Chewys, which is pet stuff. All these businesses that cater to millennials are super hot, and the workforce stuff is no exception. We're seeing a lot of heat around that as well. Chad: Yep. Yep. Joel: All right dude, let's get a quick word from our buddies at JobAdX, and we'll talk about government fucking up with fucking shit up on the recruitment AI side of things. Chad: Imagine that. 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. JobAdX: 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. 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. JobAdX: 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. JobAdX: Attract, engage, employ, with JobAdX. Joel: So this news was kind of an oh shit moment for me, Chad. Illinois, the great state of Illinois, introduced House Bill 25-57, the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act. And I don't think I'd ever thought about government really messing up the whole AI recruitment stuff, but yeah, government could really mess it up. So the bill out of Illinois would require employers to seek consent when they use AI platforms in the hiring process. It's passed the state's House and Senate, and is headed to the governor's desk. This is a really advanced bill that is probably going to happen. It really impacts sights like HireVue in particular. AutoVue, Gecko, and Mia were also mentioned. But basically anything that analyzes a respondent's facial expressions to judge if they're a good fit for a job, employees or candidates need to be made aware that this kind of rating system is being used in the interview process. Chad: I don't know how you didn't think government wouldn't fuck this up. Joel: I knew they could, I just didn't think they would. Chad: GDPR and the California regulations that are coming out, this is merely the start. But I want to read a comment from on of our listeners, and somebody who's been on the show. Comment from Quincy Valencia, AKA the queen of chat bots on social media post that I put out there. This is what she had to say, and I love it because she's so smart about this shit. Chad: She said, and I quote, "They would have been better off if they'd allow a third grader to write it. Define how AI works? Really? Delete it after 30 days. Cool. But then what happens when they're audited by the OFCCP and no longer have the video and analysis used to inform the hiring decision," end quote. Chad: So very easily encapsulated there. First and foremost, it is written really shabbily. And they're not thinking about how all of these other organizations actually have to record and report off of the decision that they're actually making. So government's not thinking about government. Go fucking figure, right? So this is ... Here are some of the things that you have to do. You have to notify each applicant in writing before the interview that AI may be used to analyze the applicants facial expression, and consider the applicant's fitness for the position. Number one. Chad: Number 2. Provide each applicant with an information sheet before the interview, explaining how the AI works and what characteristics it uses to evaluate applicants. Number 3. Obtain written consent from the applicant to be evaluated by the artificial intelligence programs. So here's the thing. This is only happening in Illinois, but this is going to have to happen for anybody who applies anywhere, because you know stupid shit like this is going to be rolled out in all these different states. Joel: Yep, yep. And not only that, but companies that are headquartered elsewhere do hiring in Illinois. So now they have to make special ... Ultimately, this is awful news for vendors that provide these services. Because ultimately companies are going to be like, "Ah, fuck it, it's too much to worry about or deal with. We're just going to be paralyzed by the government and not do these things, and let's just go back to fucking newspaper ads." Joel: Yeah. The whole privacy thing, we talked about California introducing stuff, now we're looking at Illinois introducing laws against AI recruiting solutions. So at the end of the day, companies are just going to throw up their hands and say, "Screw it," and start ups that may have started up won't start up, because they're too worried about government derailing their business. And that's, at the end of the day, a bad thing. Chad: One thing I didn't foresee here is them wanting platforms to dump the data after 30 days, or any type of timeframe. Because once again, you can't defend your position of why you hired an individual. So this is good and bad for companies, because this will be data that the OFCCP wouldn't be able to get their hands on in the first place, because it doesn't exist anymore. So for federal contractors that are like, "Oh, thanks state of Illinois. Now that's another piece of data that I don't have to provide to the OFCCP that they can scrutinize on this hiring decision." But on the other side, that information might've also been one of the big reasons why they made that hire. So if they actually said, "Well, yeah, we had the data from our HireVue system, but unfortunately we had to dump it after 30 days." Joel: In your mind, is this a continuous reaction to the whole Facebook privacy stuff? Chad: This, to me, just demonstrates once again that government can't keep up with technology. If you watch any of these Congressional hearings, and some of the actual questions that are asked of these CEOs, whether it's Mark Zuckerberg or whomever it is, right? It is idiotic, some of the actual questions that are being asked. It's like, did you ... I mean, you really, literally, did no research whatsoever. Joel: And I'd love to know how this even got brought up. Were there people that found out they were being analyzed, just anything AI? I'd love to know the catalyst for this law being introduced in the first place. Chad: Yeah. I think what they'd like to do is just get rid of it entirely, so the whole sentiment analysis and those types of thing, especially from AI. And this is just kind of like the first domino in being able to push some of that over. Joel: Because the thing is, AI's going to come into play with everything that we do, not just facial expression, but our voice, do we sound stressed? Do we sound like we're lying? Those tools are online, people can get your sentiment through written word. AI is going to be part of everything communication wise that we do, which is all interview based. So when do you stop, if you start at visual face, do you go to voice? And then do you go to written word? I just think this is a pretty slippery slope of government to really get into this, and really screw up innovation in our space in a big way. Chad: Yeah. The big question is what was the problem they were trying to solve, because I don't know ... If we knew what the problem was, it might be easier to understand why they went down this road, and more than likely they went down the wrong road no matter what. But it's all about what's the problem they're trying to solve, other than a knee jerk reaction to the public saying, "Oh my God, AI." Joel: Yeah. I think it's reaction to the whole ... I think privacy is first and foremost in a lot of governments, and I think a lot of Congress folks, state Houses et cetera, are trying to find sexy ways to get into press, and going after technology and protecting privacy are good ways to get headlines these days. Chad: Well, with some of the stupid shit that these tech companies are doing, they're easy fucking targets. Joel: Yeah. So let's talk about that. So the stupid things that the technology companies like HireVue's doing? Chad: Not HireVue overall. It makes it easier when Facebook, and Google, and all these organizations are talking about AI, and then tracking, and then the Cambridge Analytica. So you think of it from an extrapolated kind of a view, Facebook is collecting data, right? And that data is being misused. This is entirely different ... I would say levels up of data that once again could easily be misused. So that's the big problem. When you have assholes like Mark Zuckerberg, they don't understand how their tool can actually be used, what happens? You've got to go those next steps. Oh, wait a minute, now we have facial recognition. Oh fuck, enemy of the state. That's how this shit happens, so yes, I don't see this as, "Oh, oh my God, HireVue, the big bad ..." That's not the case. It's the Facebooks of the world that are fucking this up for everybody else. Joel: I do think there are larger global macro issues that are coming into play here as well, with China and Huawei and businesses not doing business with them anymore. Seeing videos of Obama and past presidents that look real, that are totally fabricated- Chad: The deep fakes? Joel: Yeah, this is kind of scary shit. And I think that politicians and their constituents are asking, "Okay, where do we draw the line? What is fair and proper, and what isn't?" A lot of this stuff is reactionary to fear of what's going on on a global scare as well, maybe locally with companies that we know and love, like Google, Facebook, et cetera. It's no accident that Apple is launching log in with Apple that totally anonymizes you as a registrant of a certain site, or doing whatever. That's a reaction of the whole connect with Facebook, or log in with Google. What exactly am I being tracked for, how am I being targeted with advertising? People are kind of scared, and government is a reaction to people's fears. Joel: Let's talk about some other stuff. Let's talk about some startups in things in the news. This is sort of a rapid fire session, I guess. So Rectxt, we rarely walk into new startups, but we were in Nashville a while back at the staffing tech conference, and sort of met two dudes over a bourbon tasting from Canada, and they mentioned, "Yeah, we're launching, tonight, a new text recruiting platform that's build on Google Chrome. It's kind of cool, you should check it out." So anyway, we've kept in touch with them, and they officially launched Rectxt, that's R-E-C-T-X-T, this past week officially. It is a Google Chrome extension that you can text candidates. So you can check that out. I think we had quite a few hot Nashville chicken sandwiches and wings with them while we were out there. Chad: At Hattie B's. If you want to get a point where we give a shit about this new product that's coming out, these guys are incredibly smart. They took us out for barbecue at Hattie B's, for craft beer. It was just incredibly smart. So let's put that out there, because more than likely, if it weren't for Hattie B's and these guys being so goddamn brilliant, then we probably wouldn't be talking about it. Joel: Yeah, the quickest way to our heart is hot food and cold beer, I guess. So kudos to those guys, good luck to them. Joel: So next up, we have Nymeria, who you might remember is a sourcing tool, where you can pull out emails and all kinds of stuff. So they're pivoting to ... Have launched TheReach.io, because I guess Reach.io was taken. Chad: I bet it was. Joel: But this is a ... Well, they pimp themselves as get any email, get any corporate email on planet Earth kind of thing. So interesting to me as this week we continue to go down the GDPR and privacy route is doing all these sourcing tools, sort of pivot into marketing tools, just grab stuff that won't get us into trouble, such as emails, which are usually public anyway. I don't know, we'll see the trends, see if hiring's solved, and hire tool, and seek out all those guys pivot over to more marketing stuff. Chad: Yeah, I don't know that sourcing versus marketing matters with GDPR, but I don't know. This is just a really interesting space. Let me just give you a shit ton of emails. I don't know. This, to me, is not exciting at all. I know it is for them, good for you, TheReach.io. The only better URL that was out there that's not available is gocanvas.io, but yeah. It just doesn't do it for me. I couldn't give two fucks about this whole thing. Joel: Yeah, they should've just named themselves gothereachgo.io something. All right, so also in the news, the brand that changed game. Love Mondays, a popular software- Chad: Mondays, Mondays. Joel: Anonymous employer review site- Chad: Oh, that sounds familiar. Joel: Which was acquired by Glassdoor a couple years ago, I believe, is now going to change it's name to Glassdoor. So Glassdoor will be the omnipotent brand there in South America for online employee anonymous reviews. Chad: So the big question is, do you still believe that Indeed is going to suck up Glassdoor and become the overall brand of this recruit holdings internet play? Joel: Well, I do believe that is the smart choice. I'm starting to believe it's not going to be the choice. In fact, I'd be more apt to say Indeed's review section will soon be powered by Glassdoor, because Glassdoor is sort of the monolithic brand now for employer reviews. Maybe Indeed will be powered by Glassdoor on their review section. Who knows? Chad: It should be, but I don't see, again, the whole hubris thing. Indeed's ego giving anything to anybody. Joel: Yeah, I agree with that. They'll just ... They'll aggregate Glassdoor reviews with their own reviews, and just call them their own reviews or something. Tag them, GD, or a little Glassdoor on them or something. I don't know. Joel: All right, continuing with rapid fire news, Google For Jobs ... Wow, it took us this long to talk about them, is now available in our favorite country, vive la France. Chad: Oui oui. Joel: Monsieur. Which is ironic, because I just presented in Belgium about Google For Jobs optimization when they don't even have Google For Jobs there yet. But I did comfort everyone in the audience, saying that, "Just wait, it'll be here eventually," and on cue, they launched in France, which obviously neighbors Belgium. So Belgium, it's coming soon, don't worry. All those optimization tips I gave you are very relevant. Chad: Well, and it's going to be interesting to see how Google For Jobs plays in all these different countries, because we're seeing in Germany, and France, and Japan that they're dealing with the market much different than they are in the US. So they're not just trying to roll this out the same exact way everywhere, so yeah. In Belgium, they might actually have jobs rank higher for the ability to smoke and drink. Joel: Yeah, I'm not sure anyone in Belgium works. I think they just ride bikes around, and sit on the water and contemplate the universe, and inhale secondhand smoke if it's not firsthand, and drink a lot of beer, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Chad: Yeah, except the secondhand smoke part, yeah. I think it sounds good to me. Joel: Yeah, I think the lack of stress balances the amount of smoke that you inhale while you're visiting there. But anyway, something that's not bad for your health, let's get a quick note from Canvas, and we'll talk about male managers who are threatened by females. Chad: Well hello. 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 work flow. 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 cool 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 Ed: This is Ed from Philly, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Chad: Very nice. Joel: You know, with all this Me Too, women empowerment lean in stuff, you'd think we'd have made some progress in the workplace with men's interaction with women. Chad: Yes. Joel: But you'd be wrong. According to CNBC story, talking about a survey done by Survey Monkey, who is a interview alumn at the Chad and Cheese Podcast. We encourage everyone to go check that out. And leanin.org, which is Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg's organization. We've taken a step back. The Me Too and Time's Up movements have brought huge attention to the challenges women face at work, but a new survey finds that 60%, that's six zero, of male managers say they're uncomfortable participating in regular work activities with women, including mentoring, working one on one, or God forbid, socializing. What's wrong with men? Chad: Right out of the gate, boo fucking hoo, you whiny little dudes. I mean, give me a break. So these men, 60% of men are feeling uncomfortable. Okay, so now everything's flipped because women used to feel uncomfortable around your dumb asses, and if that's how you feel, you were probably doing shit wrong in the first place. I can't say ... I mean, I've managed men and women throughout my life, I can't say that I've been the perfect manager. I can't say that. But one of the things I can say is that if i do feel uncomfortable in a situation, especially like this, I was probably doing shit wrong in the first place. Get over yourself, understand that, much like in the '60s, the power balance is now back moving towards the women's side. And it should, since they're only getting like 75 cents on the dollar, not to mention we don't have enough women in leadership positions. Chad: So we have a bunch of men who are used to being on top, on the leadership rung, getting paid more, and now they're not, and they feel uncomfortable, and they pit it on this stupid shit of, "Well, I don't feel comfortable around being a woman," it's like, well then stop doing the stupid shit that you're doing, and it won't be a fucking problem, asshole. Joel: And I love that they use the word uncomfortable, like it's a wedgie. Chad: Yeah. So uncomfortable. Joel: It's a little chilly in here. Little uncomfortable. Chad: Yeah. You know what's been uncomfortable? Women not getting paid as much as men- Joel: Harassment. Chad: ... Women having the exact same skillset as men, and still not getting into the leadership position, and yes, the harassment piece, which pretty much encompasses all of this. When we focus on the equity inclusion, and in this case the appropriateness, if it makes you uncomfortable, that's because you're fucked up. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. So digging into this story, senior level men say they are 12 times more likely to be hesitant about the one on one meetings with a junior women than they would a junior man, nine times more likely to be hesitant to travel with a junior woman for work than a junior man, and six times more likely to be hesitant to have a work dinner with a junior woman than a junior man. Joel: Let's grow up, people. Let's just be human beings. Chad: Just slap these fuckers in the face. Joel: Of course, this inevitably effects the hiring process, right? If there's this comfort at the top, they're going to hire people that don't make them uncomfortable, which means more white dudes in the workplace. Chad: See, this is where I think it's incredibly smart, because this uncomfortableness means that change is happening, and that's exactly what needs to happen. So as change continues to happen, hopefully, then we will get more females in those positions they've deserved for years. They will be getting paid what they should be getting paid. So I think this whole uncomfortableness is because we have a bunch of men who are used to something, and change is happening. And I say boo fucking hoo. Joel: You know the change we really need? Chad: Tengai. Joel: An unbiased recruiting robot. Chad: Yes! Tengai: Hi. This is Tengai, the unbiased interview robot. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I love these guys. 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. #Careerbuilder #FIVERR #Monster #Jobcom #AI #HireVue #Interview #regulation #Upwork #Smashfly #RecFest

If you thought you'd heard everything from the Chad & Cheese European Tour in Lisbon for TAtech, well, think again. Here's their session on A.I. from RECex. Enjoy this Uncommon 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. Chad: Enjoy this special RECex edition of the Chad & Cheese from TAtech Europe after a quick 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: Yup. Chad: New tech can get them to qualify 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 inhouse kickass 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 kickass 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: No, 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% 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: Yup. 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 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 & Cheese Podcast. Joel: Wake up all you Euro trash fuckers. Joel: Chad, we're screwed dude. The presentation before us said they'd make up their minds in three seconds. Chad: They've already made up their minds. Joel: Totally. Who's a listener? A few of you. Excellent, excellent. If you don't, something's wrong with you and you should tune in. Joel: So we're here to talk about what? AI, automation, the end of the world as we know it, basically. Chad: Jobs. Yeah, yeah. So, first and foremost, who is sick and tired of hearing AI all the goddamn time? Joel: I'm sick of seeing at every booth in every trade show that you see. Chad: Yeah. It's interesting because when we sat down with a bunch of individuals from SHRM who are on the Talent Acquisition and HR side, their hands went up quickly, but yet they didn't feel like they would even be engaging or using AI. And, in most cases- Joel: But they've got to buy it because everyone says I need AI, even though I'm not really sure what AI is and I don't know what your AI is versus the other vendors' AI. Chad: But the big question is, why is it so hard to understand what AI is? Joel: There's many different types of AI, Chad, and I think you've been to Wikipedia recently and you know if you have the different variations of a- Chad: I'll get my phone out. Okay, so we hear the ... just breaking it down easy because we're dumb guys and we like to make it easy. Narrow AI, also known as weak AI, if you remember Garry Kasparov getting beat by IBM, the chess master getting beat by IBM, that is what you would call narrow AI. That means that algorithm was smarter than that man, that grand champion wizard master, whatever the hell he was. Joel: It's a bit more decision tree and machine learning kind of AI versus the actual self aware stuff that Google and Microsoft are working on. Chad: Yeah, but, see, and that's the problem. See, that's where people get hung up is they think AI, every aspect of AI, is self aware, but it's not. It's baby steps to be able to get to the super- Joel: We've got a while before the Terminator shows up. Chad: So yeah. Joel: And the sex robots, unfortunately. Chad: And fortunately for China. So narrow AI, do we have that today in our industry? Yes, we do have narrow AI in our industry. You take a look at some of the technologies that are out there today, just one quick example. Three years ago, a little company called Brilent 4:44] went to SourceCon, came in third and that algorithm did in six seconds what the winner did in, I think it took 24 hours. Joel: So it took on three other humans sources, I believe. Experts. Chad: It took on more than that. So being able to actually outpace humans in a much faster, quicker, more efficient way is, obviously, part of that definition, so narrow AI. Just like, again, IBM computer, Big Blue beating, or Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov, right? What did that computer do well? Chess. Could it make tea? No. Could it do anything else? No. Could it even tell the difference between a dog and a cat? No. It could do chess. Joel: Shallow, I get it. I get it, I'm with you. Chad: Narrow or weak. So the next level would be general or strong AI, which we're not even close to approaching yet. That would allow that narrow band to actually broaden up and do much more of those different tasks. Not separate algorithms, but an algorithm to be able to actually do more of those tasks just as well as, obviously, human beings and then "Super" is pretty much Terminator, life's over. Joel: So June 13th, 2016, does anyone know what happened on that day? On that day, Microsoft announced its acquisition of LinkedIn. And I would argue that that was the start of the arms race in our industry for AI automation in employment. So 26 billion dollars was the acquisition cost, actually 26.2 billion. At that point, Google said, "Holy shit." Facebook said, "Holy shit." Up until then, classified was like a one billion dollar a year business, Monster's valuation was around there at the time. So that wasn't really enough to get their heart racing, but 26 billion for a little 500 million people in a directory got their attention. Joel: So, when we look at who's on the cutting edge of the AI that you're talking about beyond the shallow stuff, you've got to look at Microsoft, Google and Facebook in our industry. Those guys are doing real AI stuff. In fact, I would argue that many of the vendors in our space are leveraging their APIs to say that they have AI, even though they're really leveraging Watson, Microsoft or Google. Chad: Right. And asking CEO Scott Gutz of Monster who, they need some fucking product, their answer was, "Yeah, we should take a look at products like that and build around them. I mean, that's strong, those are strong products, we should built around those products." So does it make sense that these big companies should be driving our industry, or they have been. Joel: Yeah, and it's a double-edged sword because you're using Google Search to power all your job search activities, but, guess what? Google's learning a lot by having you plug their Search capabilities into your job board or corporate website. So, in a way, you're sort of sticking the knife into your own back by letting Google into the house, a Trojan horse, if you will, to learn more about how people search for jobs and what they're looking for. Although you're getting a good search technology and you're able to lay off a lot of tech people and save a lot of money in the process. Chad: Save a lot of money, not to mention, you just get better results overall, better candidate engagements, getting your candidates to stick around longer to be able to actually apply to jobs. Companies are actually saying more performance-based [crosstalk 00:08:16]- Joel: There are tons of stories on saving money on customer service. Apparently, there are a lot fewer calls coming in about, "How do I search for a job," doing a Google search, yeah because of your search sites. Chad: And then moving beyond that, the applicant tracking system, which is also embedded with AI and automation. One of the big pieces that, and they just went, believe it or not, enterprise, "enterprise", with Hire, by Google. The thing that I love seeing within it, and something that Opening.io does as well, is the candidate matchup piece, being able to utilize the data you already have in your database, or your client already has in their database, and they've already spent money on those candidates to be able to surface them and get that hopefully in the pipeline much quicker. That's already embedded in Hire, by Google. Chad: The big question is, when's that going to be popped out as an enterprise API? Because it will be popped out as an Enterprise API, which means everybody else is going to have the same type of technology, AI, embedded into their- Joel: And, by the way, how does that impact job postings? If I can just search for candidates already in my database or this whole thing called LinkedIn which is 650 and growing, million user profiles around the world, how important is actually posting a job which impacts a lot of you who may be at job boards? I would contend that job boards are becoming less important and commoditized, which I believe, Google for jobs is also doing as well. Chad: Yeah, see, and I don't believe that because I believe job boards are still strong from one standpoint, and that's data. That's one of the reasons why they're getting so much traffic, not from traffic from the standpoint of actual dollars, so much of investment dollars is because of the data. If they can use that AI, if they can use that matching to be able to ensure that they can get to the candidate much quicker, that's one of the things that job boards can do to pivot into this new age of tech. Joel: Well, if you'd rather have Monster's data than LinkedIn's data, then you have at it. But I'd rather have LinkedIn's data and Google's data. Chad: Well, Google buys Monster's data. I don't think that works. Joel: No one's buying Monster, let's get that out of the way. Chad: So from a sourcing standpoint, you take a look at it ... when we were talking to, and actually had a sourcer get pissed off at me on Facebook this week because we were talking about- Joel: You pissed somebody off? Chad: Yeah, that's what happens. So Johnny Campbell, you might know Johnny Campbell, he's on the podcast. He popped it off this weekend, he said that 98%, he believes, just throwing out a number, 98% of sourcing should be automated, should be automated today. Not tomorrow, not in five years, today should be automated with the technology that's available. Now, we're actually seeing that. We're seeing RPOs actually go after high volume with programmatic, first and foremost, for active matching from the sourcing standpoint going into different databases, whether it's their database or clients' database, whatever it is. So going after those candidates from active and a passive standpoint, pulling them in at that point, going for engagement so automatically starting either with text messaging, email and then also offering that chat bot, which we haven't talked about yet, capability. Chad: So after you're going through that process, some cases, some of these processes within 10 minutes of actually having an engagement with a candidate within under 10 minutes, they'll be scheduled for an interview. Joel: What I think is cool about, you know, you if think of LinkedIn and Microsoft as an asteroid and maybe Google a secondary asteroid, there have been some natural examples today. When you have the asteroid hit, you have the mammals come up and smaller animals take over. So, in a similar way, you're seeing these smaller companies, the chat bots, the text messaging, the programmatic players be smaller, but come up in the world and you're seeing ATSs realizing that, "Hey, job boards have suffered through this new reality, now we have to prepare for what's coming. Hire by Google, you mention, going enterprise, that should get the attention of a lot of ATSs. Joel: So now they're trying to be the one stop shop platform, so you look at Jobvite recently in the States backing up the Brinks truck and buying Talemetry, RolePoint and Canvas. That was because the asteroid came, now we have to prepare for the survival of our tracking system going into the future. So you're seeing a lot of these smaller players, consolidations are happening and consolidation will continue to happen, I think, because of this new reality with automation and AI. Chad: So I'm going to call it audible because I took a picture of a slide, imagine that. And a company was talking about automation and how it has helped them thus far. So 57% of online applications an ad, or 57% of applications per month through their system because they had a shitty process in the first place. They started using chat bots to be able to engage and they started to see more applications. Joel: It's as big a deal in Europe as it is in the States. God, we talked about it in every conference. Chad: It seems that chat bots, automation, some type of at least form of connection and/or not sending them to a black hole, I don't know. Joel: Anti-ghosting magic. Chad: Is magic. And in this case, 66% less from the ghosting side of the house, which means 6% more individuals showed up for interviews and, obviously in this case, high volume day one. And then, 73% decrease in cost per hire, 73% decrease in cost per hire. This is their numbers- Joel: That's a lot of money. Chad: ... coming from the actual company. So once again, we talk about AI, automation, all the glitter and that other fun stuff. The thing that we need to really be focusing on first is process over technology and then problems over technology. That's what this company did. They focused on blowing up their process because this technology was going to provide them with more efficiencies. They didn't just try to layer over more technologies and they also focused on the problem, as they understood the problem. Not, "I need a chat bot," or, "I need to do programmatic, everybody's doing programmatic." Yeah, you probably do, but first and foremost, what the hell's your problem? What's your process methodology? How can we make this much easier for you, more targeted, performance driven and then you start to seeing numbers out of this. Chad: This is one of the reasons why the sourcer was pissed at me this week, because there's actual proof out there that, to be quite frank, if you're doing it right, you could push those sourcers into more of a brand ambassador position, if you'd like. There's many more things that they can do much better within the organization. Joel: So much of this reminds me of our conversation with Colin Day of iCIMS who said, "You know, my competition isn't the new ATS or the new CRM or the new Talent Management system. It's all the clutter and noise in the industry to try to get a customer or prospect to actually talk to me and understand what I'm doing versus all the noise that's out there." So, I think that when we talk to you guys, if this is overwhelming, I think imagine what your customers and prospects feel when they're getting calls from chat bots, programmatic advertising solutions, text recruiting, job boards, ATSs, CRM. Chad: We had a room full of HR professionals, TA professionals, we asked who is using, or knows about, Google For Jobs. Two people raised their hand. Joel: There they are. Chad: Two people in that group. And everybody- Joel: And me. Now there's three. Okay. Chad: Everybody else looked at us, everybody else looked at us like they had deer in the headlights, they had no clue what the hell we were talking about. Had no clue because there's so much coming after these guys. Talent acquisition has so much that's being thrown at them every single day which is one of the reasons why I'm going to go find an agency to put in between so that they can take all this shit. They don't know what's going on. They don't understand. They don't understand the process. They don't understand their problem. They are getting bombarded by everything. So when it comes down to it, we have to focus on process. We have to focus on problem. As soon as we get those two pieces figured out, it makes so much more sense from an ROI standpoint, and you start getting the numbers that I shared with you earlier. Joel: Companies are looking for a consultant, whether that's an agency or a trusted vendor, it's too much. I know I need AI. I know I need programmatic. I know I need this chat bot thing, but I'll know who to go to and what to do exactly. So if you could do that for them- Chad: Those numbers not only lead to a happy client, but a retained client. Yes, it's great to do programmatic, even though they can't even spell the goddamn word. Joel: They can't even spell SEO. Chad: If they know why they're doing it ... yeah, if they know why they're it, how they're doing it, it's so much different, not to mention, it's not just about getting the active candidates in. What do you do with them afterward? You might have the best active solution in the world, what happens afterward? Announcer: This has been the Chad & 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. #RECex #AI #Google #Microsoft #Recruitment #TAtech

Who just raised $100m, has 100m million members in their social employment network and is targeting 70% of the market? Jobcase, that's who... When we traveled to Boston we knew we have to get Fred Goff, Jobcase CEO on the mic. Enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and 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 opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel: What's up everybody, welcome to the Beantown addition of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, I'm Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash. Joel: Today we are lucky enough to be visiting the Headquarters of Jobcase, with CEO Fred Goff. Fred welcome to the podcast, hopefully it won't be the worst decision you've ever made. Fred: Hopefully not, great to be on The Chad & Cheese Show. Thanks for having me. Joel: So give us ... Lot of our listeners do not know you, do not know Jobcase, give us the elevator pitch on sort of you and your background as well as the company's. Fred: Let's do the fun one first, which is the company's. Jobcase is the only social media platform that's just dedicated to empowering people in their work life. We've grown to about 106 million registered members, but probably what's more relevant is 25 million monthly activate uniques. We have about 70 million arrivals a month I think with regard to talent acquisition in Jobcase, so I think Comscore's got us ranked fourth largest in the nation at this point. Fred: So we're pretty active in that ecosystem, but what this company's about, as you've seen today, is really about empowerment. It's about how we can give people one place to keep all their stuff that they own and control and decide where is goes and how we can connect them with a network of other people, that forms a community and that's really the difference about us and how we position. I think the press like to call us LinkedIn for everyone else and we're not necessarily crazy about that. I have a lot of respect for LinkedIn, but it's different. This is about a community, this is about getting you in touch with people that you might not know and how they support you with empathy and how that can empower you to figure out ... If you lean in and take the reins of control, that all these aspects of future of work that might be daunting, could actually work for you. And that comes from a place of empathy, not just a lot of career pathing. Fred: And then the last part of us is we talk about tools to make it easy, we talk about community that empowers you. Then what's our responsibility given that we have that community and all these networked people, then it turns to advocacy. And we think that the turn of us is to advocate for workers in this nation and try to have boardrooms pay a little bit more attention to workers and a little less to shareholders. Joel: And for our international listeners, you are only US based, North American, like give us a idea of your footprint. Fred: Where are we? As of May 29th, 2019, yes but at the point you might be listening to this podcast, no we might be right around the corner. Joel: Ah, so you heard it here first. What geographical location will you be opening up first? Fred: Well that would be premature, but I think that- Joel: I have to ask the questions. Fred: Well, you know, Joel, if we look at what we're trying to achieve, we want to get to a billion members globally. And one of the reasons we want to do that is the power of the network effects allows us to advocate for workers more and we've seen that. I'll give quick example, it's a very micro one, we had 400 people that drive for Uber in Houston, as an example, and this was a while ago. They had one person who started complaining, he got kicked off the Uber platform. And this is a fellow who had now made it his full-time job basically and he was kicked off for an old picture, something ridiculous like that. And in these complaints, we took that conversation and we surfaced it to [Solis 00:03:47], City Manager in Houston, and we said, "[Solis 00:03:49], just so you know, 400 of your drivers are watching this conversation." Joel: Wow. Fred: And within a day, that person was reinstated, his average daily earnings, gave him eight times that, make him whole and that's the first time we realized, the way we think of ourselves, is it's almost a union, right? It's almost like if we could advocate for people, it's got a very positive effect, but from a place of positivity, right? It's a very positive community, it's not one that's out to rabble-rouse, it's the one that's out here to support people. Chad: It feels like the very first time social media really works on the employment side of the house. I mean, we're seeing all the social kind of happen and then they're getting into, you know, quote unquote work. Where did you come from, first, to be able to get to where you are today, because that's a very positive story. Most of the stories that we're hearing are incredibly negative on the social media side of the house. Fred: Yeah, I have a very probably rare story to end up in this space, but I'm thrilled for where I'm at, I mean John Lennon has this saying, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." And I'm thrilled the way life turned out. I actually think I'm fixing my karma for the next life maybe. I was a hedge fund guy. I was a portfolio manager, I managed a billion bucks for BankBoston Robbie Stephens, I got the vision there, the view, that technology should evole asset management as much as other industries. I went back to MIT and tech'd up, got a Masters in the Management of Technology. I studied with my thesis with Clay Christensen, so I'm a big believer in Clay's whole disruptive theory. Fred: And I came out and started a machine learning based hedge fund. And that worked really well until it didn't, so we didn't really see the Lehman bust, we went the cash a few weeks before and so people that were invested in that fund were very happy because we weren't a blow up scenario. But on the other side of that, it was pretty clear that the future was not going to rhyme with the past when you're at the end of 2008. And so we had an existential question with regard to the asset management. Do we do R&D and hunker down for a year until this mother of all black swans blows over, do we split the cash and go home? Fred: And what we did was a third road, we forked the technology, and we took the team and technology that was proficient in high dimension optimization, and in predictive modeling, and machine learning, and we brought it over into the online media space. Instead of constructing portfolios of securities we constructed portfolios of Google, Yahoo, Bing keywords and set up predicting markets, predicting certain behavior and I probably would have thought, if the Chad & Cheese Show could invent podcast first and then be around in 2008, or maybe they were around then, I was ignorant of them, I think back then I probably would've thought I'd do that for a few years. Fred: When we first came out, our first iteration was a little bit more of an Ad Tech play because we were very focused on paying the bills and we moved forward and then we got successful enough that in around 2014, we were able to pause and we were able to say, "Okay, what do we want to do when we grow up?" We had had enough success as a self-funded firm, we had never had a lot of capital raise, it was just what's left in the coffers in 2009, and we grew completely organically, and that's when we really focused in on what today is surfaced as the future of work issues. That wasn't really talked about back in 2014 but that's what we built Jobcase for. Fred: And then we went through a transition of moving from a, what John Doerr might call, a mercenary culture to a missionary culture. Before it was very math-based what we were doing, and in 2014 all the [knock walls 00:07:29] came down of charts and numbers and they all went up about the people that we were serving and we really focused in on how we could help evolve the ecosystem to help individual people. And hopefully that's what you're hearing and seeing today because that's certainly what motivates me and I think our whole team coming into work everyday. Joel: You've been labeled LinkedIn for everyone else, which I think is a little bit short sighted. To me what's interesting about your platform is, you've almost given the keys to the inmates. In other words, your users have this self growing, user generated community where content is put out there for users to help each other with all things job related, right? Like getting work, how to deal with certain issues in the work place, was that on purpose or was that kind of a happy accident as you were building the company? Fred: No, it's very on purpose to have a platform where people help people. At the end of the day, if there's one thing you know about us, it's not what the press wants to call us, we're building a platform where people help people, that's what we're doing. You're going to talk to my CTO after this chat, he's trying to leverage machine learning to help people. Everything is about helping people, right? That's the core north star and from the regard, I think we've always had some humility. When we first were launching Jobcase, even before that, if you were to say, right downstairs, the paradox is what we're building is, in order to build a platform that serves up to a billion people, and really empowers them and then advocates for them, the skillset that requires is extremely advanced. We hire machine learning scientists out of MIT, software engineers, Carnegie Mellon, extreme quantitative skillsets from places that have backgrounds like Princeton and Cornell and all this stuff and we're serving people that have a different level of skillset, 67% of the country with high school degrees and all of that. Fred: And so we have to have the humility that does my team know how to get a job at Walmart? No, you know who the expert in the whole fricking country is at getting a job at Walmart? The lady who got a job there this morning. She knows how, she just did it. So if we could take a digital marketing platform and instead of worry about what ad to serve somebody, worry how can I surface a conversation to the right relevant subgroup of my 25 million active members this month, when someone says, "How do I get a job at Walmart?" If I can surface that on the right channel, to the right person, who's the expert, the one who just got that job, that's how we help. Fred: And that conversation transcends to an acquisition. How do I deal with ageism? How do I ask for a promotion? Am I getting paid enough as a nurse in Cincinnati? There's all sorts of questions on the arc of your work life that we shouldn't presume that I have a blog or I'm going to tell you what to do, I don't know the answer. What I'm going to try to do is hire really brilliant people to write code and put in algorithms to help you get in touch with whoever it is in the country that's the best. And then what's really cool that happens, is communities are forming around this and they don't just get the answer but you get the follow on emotional support and "You can do it," and "I believe in you," and "Don't give up." And that's really the killer app. Chad: What do you do ... That is the killer app, but what do you do to harness that so it doesn't turn into this Facebook thing that you're seeing nothing but Trump stories- Joel: It's anarchy. Chad: I mean, it just yeah, I mean there's so much ... So many of my friends are taking social kind of vacations because it's just too much for them, and it might just be Facebook or who knows what it is, but how do you build this to be able to keep it positive? There's this AI slash human-blend behind it, which is really cool, but how does the policing happen? Fred: That's a great question. I use the metaphor of that Indiana Jones movie, where in the very beginning, you got the big boulder running, he's just barely in front of it, he falls on his knees and he gets up, and he runs through the spiderweb, and he gets ... I think that's kind of where we're at. So we've got a complete control based on the kind of volume that we have and if we slip up, if the vine gets ahead of us, it'd be a problem. One of the first deployments of specific machine learning, that's pretty advanced that we did, had to go to the spammers and scammers. We've got a lot of volume. The first people who figure out where volume is on the internet is not the likely consumer, right? It's not people looking to hire people, it's not that, it's somebody who's trying to trick people. And so we had to do a lot of investment to get those tricksters off and that's a continual battle. Chad: Are you watching Facebook and these other like bigger platforms to see where they're tripping over themselves and say, "Okay, early warning system?" Fred: Yeah, we are, with great humility and appreciation for the difficulty of what they're trying to do. And I think that we have so far succeeded. There's no bullying on our platform, and there's no adjudication. If we see it, we're going to pull it off. And who's deciding that? We have algorithms or we have people that are making judgment calls and right now that's keeping pace. We run a risk that as we break out more and more, we fall behind, but so far, I mean, I think we've got some plans for that, but I don't know I guess all of this is to say, Chad, it's a great question. It's a huge concern, I think we're on top of it for the volume we have today and that we anticipate for the next quarter, it's probably not on top of it for the volume we expect one year from now, so that's what we have to [crosstalk 00:12:53]- Chad: All about scaling. Fred: Yeah. Joel: I want to talk about the war for talent for a second in your own organization. You mentioned your CTO, you mentioned machine learning professionals. We're sitting here at sort of the epicenter of brainiac, you know, east coast, right? Chad: I can see MIT, what is that computer lab- Joel: [crosstalk 00:13:11] MIT, cancer [crosstalk 00:13:12]- Fred: Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Lab, so we're an affiliate of the, it's called CSAIL, but this is where their ... I'll tell you, they'll ask, you know, so there's ... Like two years ago, they have this new thing that came out of one of our, the lady that runs it is Daniela Rus, just brilliant and a friend of ours and she's in the news and you read this and they have like you swallow a pill and this little robot opens up origami style in your stomach and repair a rip in the lining and then of course you excrete out the rest of that little when it folds back up. Joel: The robot, yeah. Fred: So now, you don't have to have any incision at all, you're just swallowing, you got a robot in your belly, I mean the amazing things that are coming out of there is just unreal. And we do collaborative projects with their big data area on things with regard to talent and things with regard to employment and it's also a great place to hire from. So yeah, that's right outside the door. Joel: So the question is, how do you get someone with the opportunity of building robots, nano robots that go into people's stomachs and curing cancer and creating invisible fish and everything else that we've talked about going on here? Fred: Well, Facebook and Google's here too- Joel: And get them to come work for this itty bitty job board company? Fred: Itty bitty job board, you're killing me- Joel: I'm simplifying it. Fred: So allow me to correct. One, we are absolutely not a job board company and with no disrespect to job board companies who offer a great value or social media platform, but- Joel: Forget that part of the question, I was being sarcastic, we do that really well on this show. My point is, they can work on some really interesting problems, how do you get them to take on the problems that are going on here? Fred: Yeah, this is what they care about. I think that we have a very compelling opportunity here. Yes, we pay competitive wages, yes they work with smart people, yes we have a creative environment that has a pretty cool culture I think, but at the end of the day, when you go home as a software engineer or a machine learning person or some version of a quant for lack of better word, data scientist, data analyst, when you leave Jobcase, you know you help people in their normal daily lives. You don't have to guess. They're telling us on the platform. And so I have this little mechanism I do to build empathy when I speak at MIT in front of crowds that I haven't talked to before. There's a lot that know us, and we'll in crowds that don't. And I'll say, "Okay, can you raise your hand if you've gotten a Starbucks," and we're in Boston so the Dunkin', yeah, it's really Dunkin' here, "in the last week? And of course everyone's hand goes up. And say, "Now keep your hand up if you know how that barista or cashier got their job or what they're doing next," and of course all the hands go down and we say, "Well, that's why you don't know us." Fred: And what I see happening in this room, guys, is it's a really interesting thing, it's never failed. After I say this, I lose about a third of the audience and you see their head tilt about 30 degrees and you realize in that moment they're pondering. They haven't ever thought about that question. Everyone's really busy. It's not that everyone's jerks. Everyone's busy. Everyone's got their own problems, their own economic issues, their own career paths, their own personal issues. They're just busy and they don't stop to consider the majority of people in this country, the majority of households that don't have enough savings to cover an unexpected $500 expense, that are sitting across from them, handing them their cup that says Linda on it or whatever at Starbucks. And you realize in that moment they're like, "Holy crap, what is the rest of this?" Fred: And it's not the rest, it's not niche, it's like 70% of this country, right? And so it's- Chad: The engine of this company, or this [crosstalk 00:16:37]- Fred: Yeah, company engine, right? And so when you say, "Now I've got an opportunity for you to actually help these people," and all of these things, AI automation, 1099 instead of W-2, free agency problem, and the follow on issues, wage stagnation, and all of these issues on the future of work, that can be daunting, that people are concerned about. When we say, "Look, if you come here," we're not only addressing that problem, we're harnessing it and if we can kind of democratize big data ... There's one version of our story where we're a complement not to LinkedIn, to Workday, right? I think Aneel Bhursi is changing the face and really accelerating how HR and corporate America is evolving, but he is finding really cool, actionable insights in big data and giving them to Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of American, so Brian can make better decisions for his shareholders and his employees about their talent road maps. Fred: And we're saying, "What if we took those actionable insights and gave them to each individual teller," because in today's world, his teller is going to go to Citizens Bank, maybe Wells Fargo, and they might come back to Bank of America, so they have to take that with them. So talent acquisition, when I go across the street to MIT or others, and we give them the opportunity to empowering the majority people in this country, it's incredibly rewarding, it kind of closes itself. Chad: So what you just talked about was, being able to provide candidates their data, because it's their data in a system instead of it being in some disparate system of a company that they worked for 10 years ago, right? So they have information that is carried forward with them. Does that happen in Jobcase today, is that future kind of forward, what is the system doing? Fred: It's Jobcase today and our whole thesis is, you need a place to keep your information, right? So it's not just a profile, which of course is open access, anybody listening to this right now, feel free to go on Jobcase and you can reach out and contact anybody, we're not going to stand in the way of that, we're here to support that and facilitate that. You want to work with my data scientists to do it a more volume way, sure give us a call, but you can do it on your own. And so when we think about that, that's just like a resume or profile. What's important is the notion that our grandfathers used to have or maybe our fathers if we're a certain age, which is an employee folder that goes with you. Fred: And so the issue today is, if we know that the average 25 year old has had seven jobs and if we know further that a whole bunch of people are stitching together jobs during the same week, let alone year to year, we need a place for them to aggregate all the feedback. That's going to start to fix away it's stagnation problem. One of the attributes about wage stagnation is, in the past if you moved from one job to another within an organization, you have an employee folder to go with you that says you proved yourself, you're growing skills, you're being ushered in. But if you're going to go from Dunkin', to Starbucks, to Marriott, and job to job without a folder with you, you've got to reprove yourself again and again and again. Fred: So if we can surface that, through Jobcase Praises, if we can surface that through reviews where we can hold and you bring with you, and then expose that as you determine, for other employers to find, we think we can help accelerate career paths that way. And so yes, we do that today. What we need to do more of is bridge partnerships with others so they can capture this more easily and so that's what we got to get on top of. Chad: So we've talked about this in the like Uber style for work landscape moving forward where, I mean, once again I mean you can rate your Uber driver but your Uber driver can rate you. The same thing, flipping over into somebody who's cooking a steak or working at a hotel or even doing product development for an organization, right? So I mean it doesn't have to be just a barista, it can be a software developer for goodness sake, so to me it sounds like you guys are building and correct me if I'm wrong, more of an Uberization, bad verbiage sorry, or Jobcase -zation whatever, of the journey of somebody's career overall. Fred: In giving it to that individual person to curate and take care of, right? So that's the real key. Chad: But making it easy because humans don't do that very well. Fred: Yeah, so we have to make it easy for people to praise you, we have to make it easy for you to bring with you, have to make it easy for you to hit a button and say, "I want someone else to have it." If we have a Jobcaser that wants to have their information given to somebody that others might perceive as our competitors, I don't think of companies in the talent acquisition space as competitors. Anybody who's going to help our members on a career path is a partner, right? But other people seem to. So if they want to give it to Ian at ZipRecruiter and make sure they have the information, they want to give it to Indeed, they want to give it to LinkedIn, power to them. Let's make sure we can make that easy to happen. That's a view of where we are. That's not where we get our economics, that's our responsibility to the individual person in our community and I think which will help the ecosystem as we move forward and like it or not, you have to take the reigns of control in your own hands. Fred: At the end of the day, Jobcase was built for a person who believes in these things. They care about others, they know they got to drive their own career, and they believe workers should be treated as well as shareholders. If you believe in those three things, you're a Jobcaser. Okay. If you're a PHD, a mad software engineer, enterprise salesperson, or a front line at McDonald's, you're a Jobcaser if you believe in those three things. Chad: Fred, last question. I'm lucky enough to get it. Can you give us an example of a client success story? How are they using Jobcase today to fill their ranks within their organization because they could be high volume, they could possibly not be a high volume type of client. What's the success story? How do they use Jobcase? Fred: So there's a large e-tailer who's name I probably should check before I say, but let's say there's a large e-tailer that we're pretty close with and- Chad: (cough) Amazon! (cough) Fred: ... large e-tailer and they have a hiring need of different periods and one of our products is event promotion or event management and this is not about ... When you try to get into events, for if a company that is hiring at scale, so it could be a local pizza shop that wants to open up a new shop and they're hiring 30 people at once, right? We see that at Wegmans, a local grocery chain in the east coast or it can be a Home Depot opening up a new one, you know, events are a wonderful way to get a whole bunch of talent at one time to show up. But if you're going to do it very effectively, it's not just about the active job seeker, you can't just post it as a job post. What we're able to do in solving this problem, there was a hard to fill place, they were having an issue staffing it, and said, "We would like to do a promotion, we need to hire like dozens of people at once." Chad: Right. Fred: What we're able to do is just about community, right? It's about our members. So it's not about who's on the site searching, and it's about our knowledge of our members. So we're able to say, "Okay, how many of our members live within five or 10 miles?" And let's say that's about 20,000 in the case I'm thinking of. And how many of our members that live within five or 10 miles of this location also have searched for a similar job in the past at any point of their registration with Jobcase? We'll let's say that's down to about like 7,000. And of those, how many have searched for a job anytime in the last two to four months so they have little bit of an itch, doesn't mean they're active today, but I know that they're open to a new opportunity? And so that might be about half of them, so you got about 3,000. Fred: No they are our members. We know which ones prefer messaging through SMS, or through Facebook, or through Google retargeting, or through email, and so we get the message on the channel they'd like about the opportunity of working at this company. Not the job, that's not what I think is important to people. I think now, I think that's overplayed, job descriptions. It's about who am I going to work for? What's the local culture of where I'm at? And it really is about local culture, right? So we've indexed 27 million locations people work, like Bank of America has 5,300 locations, Home Depot has 2,300 locations. And anybody who's been to a Bank of America in midtown Manhattan versus Bank of America in Weston, Massachusetts, knows they are very different cultures, right? So it's not better or worse, it's just different. Fred: So an individual person might want to assess that. So we surfaced the local culture, we get that information to them about the event and say it's around the corner, we have some very clever ways of making sure we reach and schedule, and then we get lines out the door and we get the hiring done. Now, there's one other aspect to that. So in that case, Chad, we have a very happy, successful client, they had an event, we promoted to people that they didn't have to wait to search to look for this, we prompted the attention, we moved people from being inactive to active with something that was relevant to them. But here's what's important and different I think about us. In addition to going members, not clicks, it's also about how we follow up on the data side. Fred: When my team goes back on data, we want to know that very difficult question everybody probably listening to you wants which is attribution, all this, but our view is kind of different where we're coming from. I have now contacted all of my members in this area that we went through that funnel. I'm member first, right, and when I say I'm, it's not Fred Goff it's Jobcase. Jobcase is member first so we want to know, now that these people showed up, did you process those applications? Did you hire them? If you did in this process, that's great. If there was something that broke down, we have to fix this. We're advocates for our members. Did we talk to the wrong people? Were they not a fit for you? If so, I don't want to bug people that aren't a fit for you. We need to learn about that. Fred: Did you not follow through on them? Well hold on here, these are my members we introduced you. And I think the trick that we should all do when we think about talent acquisition is go through the mental exercise, even if it's a high volume play, of this is my neighbor I introduced to you. How were they treated and how do you feel about that? Because if you know somebody that was hiring and you said, "Oh, my neighbor Joe's going to call you," and if Joe calls back and said, "He said he would never hire me," or if he said, "I still waiting to hear from him, he hasn't done anything," you'd be a little miffed. Chad: Yeah. Fred: Okay, that's the Jobcase view, we want to find the data, not to prove any attribution about pay me more, whatever, that's not our focus. Our focus is members and in fact when we hire sales people, if you were to go down and talk to my sales people and say, "Who do you work for?" They would say, "We work for our members, we're here to get our members good opportunities." That's what we're doing. Chad: It's all about experience. Fred: Yeah, and to follow through. And so, by the way, then we have this large e-tailer extremely satisfied with the level of talent they had coming out the door because we accessed a pool that wasn't readily available through other sources. Joel: I think I heard him say, "Job descriptions are dead," in that process. Chad: Yeah, well I mean they suck and I think everybody knows they suck so I mean this is more of an opportunity and culture where people are ... It sounds like aligning and focused more on that, like more purpose driven. Fred: I think where we're heading is, for the most part, and there's exceptions, for the most part, if you don't know what the job is that you're applying to by the title and a couple lines, then you're probably not right for that job, right? Do we really have to go through a paragraph explaining what a cashier is, do we really have to say, "I really want somebody who works hard," and all this stuff. I mean it's just noise. Fred: Now there are occasions we need to clarify, especially as we have multiple organizations and people don't align job titles and et cetera, but these long paragraphs, we all know it's not getting read. What would get read is not what's it like to be whatever, an accounting person at a pizza chain in western Massachusetts versus an accounting person at a burger chain in say Needham, right? What we want to know is what's it like to work for your company versus another? I get what accounting is, I get what this is, what's it like there, how do you treat me? Fred: So we think it's about that local talent brand that we want to surface and that's what members are going to care about. Now, obviously, there's exceptions, but for the most part, you want to focus on what's it like to work for your company, what are you offering more than 24 bullets on the different tasks you want on some job title, right? Joel: Well, Fred, thanks for sitting down with us today, we know you're a busy guy, we appreciate it. For our listeners who want to know more about Jobcase, where would you send them? Fred: Come to jobcase.com, be part of the community, this is a free, open access social media site. It's about empowering people and it's for everybody. 15% of our members have college degrees and either you have a question about work, how to get a promotion, how to deal with a issue, discrimination, how to get a new job, or you are somebody who can provide answers. If you want to come to a place of empathy that's trying to do positivity, social media right, and if you know that the fruits of that labor are going to be us advocating for the workers in boardrooms, not just shareholders, come be a part of our community. Joel: Always be closing and 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. 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. #Jobcase #CEO #social #bluecollar #SkilledWorkers #jobs #LIVE

Woah! Another BIG week with BIG news. - Zip launches a new product - Indeed buys an Uber for Jobs (Syft) - AllyO receives mad stacks - LinkedIn doubles down on tracking with Drawbridge - Make Dice Techie Again? and we find time to dog Generation Z while we're at it. Enjoy and show Sovren, JobAdx and Canvas some love! (Static imported from Belgium) 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: Oh yeah. Joel: It's on baby. Welcome to the Cross Atlantic edition of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm Joel Cheesman coming at you from Ghent Belgium, a city I didn't even know existed. Joining me is Chad straight out of Columbus, Indiana. Sowash. Chad: That's right. Joel: This week we got breaking news out of ZipRecruiter. Indeed continues to slide into their future. Chatbot continue to make it rain and much more meat on that bone. It's a fat free episode. I can feel the weight coming off right now. We'll be right back after this word from our friends 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 a 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. Chad: So dude, you are like in the place where beer reigns supreme? Joel: Yes, I am in beer heaven. I got walks outside my room making beer. Chad: I am so envious right now/ Joel: And I'm already jet lag drunk, so I'm going to be in bad shape in about five hours. But I have to do a keynote tomorrow so I can't get too messed up, which I guess should lead to our first shout out. Shout out to the E-recruitment Congress. I'm over here in Europe, congress is at Ghent this year. I'm going to be talking Google for jobs and SCO and- Chad: Man, you really pull the wool over their eyes. Keynoting. Are you shitting me? Oh my God. Joel: There are like 10 keynotes, so let's not point that a lot. I think that's how they do it here in Belgium. Everybody feels special. Chad: Nice. Well, that's not a bad thing, to make sure that your people feel special. A big shout out to Fred Goff Garrett, Jen and the rest of the Jobcase over in Cambridge/ Boston, Massachusetts. Our interview with Fred will be coming out soon, but we had a blast. Baseball, Bourbon and a bunch of fun industry conversation. Joel: Yeah. And I'm still trying to get the tootsie rolls and weed out of my nose from walking the streets of Cambridge. How does that combination... there's a tootsie roll factory right in Cambridge and everybody's getting high, awesome. Okay. Chad: Yeah. And people are smoking weed and... yeah. Okay. Shout out to Josef and the gang at Comeet. Give us some love over the pod that we had with Nathan from AIA where we asked the question, who is making the recruitment process so goddamn hard. They liked that question so much, they actually gave us props and they wrote an entire article around it, so thanks guys. Appreciate it. Joel: Can I throw out an odd shutout. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I know we have rules for shout outs now, but we don't have that many. I want to shout out to the eight Spelling Bee winners from the American Spelling Bee. Millennials have gone awry and I don't know what generation, I guess generations Z , they're even having eight winners for the fricking Spelling Bee. The world is over. Chad: Yeah. Like they couldn't have pulled out another fucking dictionary and then just went to pages and wherever their finger landed, that was the next word, right? Come on. They ran out of words. Are you kidding me? Joel: Yeah. If your test is so lame that you have eight winners, go to another language or something. Chad: Yeah, it's a little bit much. A little shout out to Jim Stroud for pitching in and doing some shreds for us. He said, "Hey man, do you care if I do some shreds, some breaking news." Bring it on man. Everybody loves a little Jim Stroud in their day. Joel: Yeah. It's like we're a band and he wanted to come over and play some guitar with us. Chad: I love it. Joel: We're going to be able to shred. Chad: Jim Loves it. Job more doctor, he enjoyed my shum rant and it seems that Tengai is still trolling us. So you gotta love it. New Product. Everybody's either going fucking crazy because, oh my god, it's a robot doing recruiting or some are saying, oh hey, it's cool, but there's really no middle ground right now. And while all that's happening, Tengai, the robot is trolling us. Joel: Such an asshole. Chad: It's hilarious. It's good stuff. Joel: And by the way, the Tengai folks, when you have a product that is one side or the other, you're probably onto something good. So keep hacking at it, don't listen to the haters. Keep doing what you're doing. Chad: Yeah. Fuck them, do your thing. Jumping into events, we talked about Boston a little bit. We're going to talk Boston again because we're coming back to Boston for Transform. This Nash Quash show, we're going to have a totally dope panel discussion, and believe it or not, Holland Dombeck, who's a listener, and also works over at Delta Airlines and in the employer branding... I think she's like one of the big brand heads over there. She's going to be joining us on the panel, so it should be a blast. Joel: Pretty sure our panels will never be described as dope by anyone. Chad: Yeah. I stole that word from Elena over at Skill Scout. I thought it sounded dope, so why not use it, right? Joel: Dope was dope before Elena was born, so I don't want to hear that bullshit. Chad: There'll be a Job Gate in Denver lurking in the shadows while Julie Presents. So in June, if you're going to be at Job Gate, look for me. Joel: By the way, Chad will be the one in the Chad and Cheese T-shirt. So look for him there. Chad: RecFest is sold out. 3000 attendees strong, sold out, and we're also doing something incredibly cool. We've cooked up something with the team over at Talent Nexus. Joel: We're not talking about it yet, are we? Chad: We're just teasing it. We've got some really cool shit that's happening, doing some videos and whatnot. But man, I can't wait. It is going to be amazing. Five fucking stages, and we're headlining actually, we're the last show to go on. Everybody's going to have a few beers in them by then, which is going to be perfect for our show. Joel: We're way more entertaining when everyone's drunk- Chad: Goddamn straight. Joel: Wow, sold out. So we can't even tell people, get that ticket now, because tickets are gone. Chad: Tickets are gone, man. And while we're there, hopefully we'll still have some crazy awesome T-shirts available. So if we are at an event and you're there, come ask us for a T-shirt, who knows, we might have one. And then while you're at it, hop over to emissary.ai because if you're not using a texting platform to recruit, you just don't. Emissary.ai. On to the topics. Joel: Let's do this. AllyO, making it rain. Chad: Yes. The end to end recruiter 45 million in series B, they're up to $64 million overall. Joel: Yeah. I think that's now officially more than Maya. Chad: Yeah, it is. Joel: They're the most funded Chatbot... although they will tell you they're an end to end recruiting solution. Chatbots are exceeding my wildest expectations for valuations. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I was thinking maybe 10 million for some of these Chatbots, but they're going to be pushing a hundred, 200 million, acquisition. [crosstalk 00:08:38] Chad: With that kind of money, the valuation on it. So Sapphire Ventures actually put out on their blog that they believe AllyO is the perfect example of what the value of real AI is and their whole focus... and this is pretty much what the rest of the industry should be talking about too, is getting rid of all these boring repetitive tasks that recruiters don't need to do. And this is what we talked about at Jobcase, we had a great question in our Q and A, this actually makes the process more human and it sounds weird, but using technology to do all these bullshit tasks gives human beings more time to actually do a better job in connecting with the humans. So I think not only investors are starting to understand this, I also believe that the talent acquisition side and obviously staffing and RPO, they get it. Joel: Yeah. Everything that we hear is that job seekers like these things, recruiters, and companies like these things. With the money that's being spent on these businesses, it's going to be a little war, it's going to be a little race for Chatbot. Chad: Supremacy. Joel: Someone high up at Chatbot texted me soon after this announcement was out with just money, money, money was the text message that I got. And it's true, there's going to be money flowing, people are going to get in this game that haven't before, companies, ATS, they're going to be building these things. It's going to be a war for chatbot's supremacy. Chad: Yeah. And don't forget they were on our death match stage in New Orleans. We talked to Sir Hill, we've been talking to these guys for a while and he expects that the company's candidate matching suite will be used by 15% of Americans in 2020. And this got to me because it was like, okay, so they're actually now starting to say candidate matching, which I think is odd because the AllyO that we know is more of like a screen to match than actual like AI matching. Like the Opening.ios or the Uncommons or the HiringSolved. It sounds like they're starting to pull some of the other vernacular, the candidate matching in, but I don't really believe that they have an algorithm that does it like in Opening.io, who obviously just one death match in Europe, by the way. Joel: Yup. Well, with $45 million in the bank now, maybe they can. Chad: I think that would be a bad decision, but who knows. I think at this point that hasn't changed. And we'll get somebody, we'll actually get a little bit of a conversation going with those guys to see what they mean by that, but I'm interpreting it as the process methodology that they have in place from a screening standpoint gives better matches. It's not a matching technology, it's a screening to match technology. So that's what I'm going to go with right out of the gate, but we should definitely follow up with the guys on that one. Joel: Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they were a firing squad interview too, weren't they? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. You're putting yourself out there when you're on the firing squad. I remember these two guys, I guess that was two years ago. They were just these two geeky dudes from Google launching this little company with a, let's be honest, not a great name- Chad: Right. Joel: AllyO. And look at them now. So congrats to those guys. It's always fun to watch these little companies grow and become something significant. Chad: Yeah. And they've got a great team too, so congratulations everybody and keep kicking ass. Stay focused and let's see what happens. Joel: Yeah. And by the way, if you're looking for a job, all these Chatbots are hiring like crazy. So if you're unhappy with your job in the vendor space, fresh up that resume and send it to all the Chatbot providers because they're all hiring- Chad: Another company that's been hiring is one that we've known for a while, and they're usually on the podcast waves, is ZipRecruiter. They have a new product that they've put out. Joel: Nice transition. I like that. By the way, this is going to be pretty much breaking news by the time you listen to this for the show. I don't know exactly how to feel about this, but basically they've announced the quote unquote first of its kind solution that lets job seekers opt in to get recruited by employers across every industry in experienced level. So basically companies see talent that they like, they say, I want to talk to you, and then the job seeker decides, okay, I'm going to flip the switch as well and we're going to have a conversation. It almost sounds like a dating app. I won't call it Tinder for jobs because I hate that. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I don't know if it's that significant or how cool it is, maybe I need to actually see it to be that impressed by it. Chad: It's a resume database. That's what it is. Because really the only way that you could get to candidates before was to be able to post a job, and then their magic algorithm actually did the outreach to see if individuals were interested. And then those interested individuals would obviously apply for those jobs. You couldn't go into a candidate database. So this is really a resume database on steroids to an extent, and talking about matching steroids, right? But here's the thing, it's a smart resume database, totally get it, but it's hire by Google's candidate surfacing tool. That's what it is. It's Opening.io, t's Uncommon, it's HiringSolved, it's all of those matching algorithms. Joel: Right. And according to COE and Siegel, it's the best algorithm in the world. Screw you Google. Chad: And it could be, but the thing is, in talent acquisition, staffing, RPO, the entire industry needs to understand that this tech is already available and you should be using it against your resume database today. And if you want to go further, which most should, you should also look at a candidate ID for Nurturing, who was also on death match by the way. But there's so many pieces of technology that are out there that can help you leverage the money you've already spent, the candidates you've already pulled together, the silver medalists who are probably now gold medalists that you need to connect with. This from my standpoint, I think is brilliant from Zip. Zip, great job. It's amazing. But what this should do to the rest of the industry is validate, you should be doing matching within your applicant tracking systems today. And if these other companies don't have, if the zips or the Monsters or the career voters don't have this type of matching algorithm, they're not fucking worth your time. Joel: I won't go as far as to say brilliant, but I think it's a solid move by them. I think the AI component that we've been hearing about is coming to fruition. The head of product said this was three years in the making, so there clearly focused and working on this diligently. And I also think it's significant because it is a definite maturation from the part-time hourly folks to a more enterprise full-time employee solution. So to me those are the two significant things that I got out of the new product announcement. Chad: Yeah. I totally dig it, good job guys. This again should signal to the rest of the industry that... take a look at some of the verbiage that they're using. They're not talking about this as a resume database, a better matching algorithm, but that's what it is. That's all available to us today. You should be looking for these and all the different types of tools that you're trying to leverage. Joel: While we anxiously await the IPO announcement from ZipRecruiter, let's hear a word from a JobAdX and we'll talk about Indeed and LinkedIn. 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. JobAdX: Our candidate targeting technology ensures that you're reaching talent that is interested in working with you as you are with them. Now within 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. Joel: Oh, I hate it when we're right. Indeed getting closer and closer to that staffing business that we've been predicting. Chad: Yeah, I don't see this as a staffing play. It's a total tech play, dude. Joel: Enlighten me, please. Chad: It's a total tech play. So what we're looking at here, which I think is pretty awesome and very smart from Indeed standpoint, it's an Uber for jobs. It's a UK play right now, but what they can do with it is pretty amazing because this is what we've been talking about for, shit, probably 18 months, maybe two years now, is can we take technology and use it instead of, in place of, a staffing agency. So I think what we're seeing is possibly the evolution in some markets of some of these smaller high volume types of jobs going away from the prospect of staffing and into an Uber like platform like this. Now this is just in the UK, and to be able to cross that pond in the US to make this work over here, it's going to take a lot of fucking work. I don't care how much data Indeed has, it's going to take a lot of work. Joel: You may have convinced me. So they're definitely a temporary agency. The PR out of this was quote, Syft is one of the best temp agencies and is making waves in the world of work. And now they go on to talk about connecting employers and job seekers across the UK with a staffing app temporary. So they're definitely at its core staffing agency, which I guess all UK employment sites or companies are. So okay, I can be convinced that this is a tech play. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Indeed has a pretty high opinion of itself technologically, so to buy someone for technology reasons is interesting. The foothold in the UK I do think is significant from these guys, but Indeed doesn't make a lot of acquisitions, at least not ones that they promote. And this was one that they really got out in front of it and promoted, so they think that it's pretty serious and important. So I guess let's continue to watch and see what comes out of it. Chad: Yeah. I think one of the reasons why you see this pitched as a temp staffing kind of play is because that's what people know, so it's easier to parallel up against that. But now people are starting to understand that Uber is really just a temp agency for drivers. I need a driver, I need it now, it's on demand, the same kind of thing. You're looking for somebody who needs to fill some shifts for next week or maybe later today. I don't want to screw with payroll and admin on this, I'll just go to Syft and if these individuals do incredibly well, I give them great reviews and I can add them to my team. I'm assuming that'll happen on the other side too, because if the talent didn't like the experience that they had, they could say fuck you and give you a one star, and that would just pretty much disengaged from any further activity. Joel: So it is basically a staffing platform. You said Uber for work, and we've seen other platforms like this, so- Chad: Yeah. Joel: Indeed will eventually, they'll grow this brand as an Uber for placements and temporary workers or grow it into the Indeed products, big picture wise. I'm trying to think through this, but yeah. Okay. I wasn't super interested in this, but you've gotten me sort of interested. Chad: Yeah, it's a total tech play dude. And we've been talking about it. I think that if staffing, especially on the high volume side evolves, this is where it's going to evolve, and I think it's very smart for Indeed to be able to pick up in an area that already has a foothold, Syft, in the UK, at least that's the way it sounds, that they have somewhat of a foothold, to be able to grow that. The hard part is being able to get that to translate over to the US. That'll be interesting to watch, when they do it and if they do it. Joel: We need to see if Syft representatives are going to be at RecFest this year. Maybe we can corner them and get an interview with them. That would be- Chad: Yeah. I'm making a note right now to see if we can hone them in. Joel: Yeah, right. If you can combine tech and staffing business in this way, that's interesting. Chad: Yeah. And something else that's interesting, LinkedIn acquires Drawbridge, which is a mobile marketing cross acquisition technology. This is interesting from my standpoint because, wow, Google and Facebook dial down their tracking on candidates and people, it looks like LinkedIn is dialing it up a notch or maybe 10. Joel: Yeah. So this is being able to track people essentially across multiple platforms- Chad: Yeah. Joel: Your iPad, your phone, your desktop, who knows what other devices they can track you across, and then target advertising based on your behavior and what you do. Obviously that's interesting on many levels, and I think the founder was Mob-ad. The founder of Mob-ad, which 10 years ago was a super hot mobile advertising platform, which then grew into other devices. What I did find interesting though is they, essentially it looks like shutdown their whole European operation because of GDPR. So I'm not sure if you believe GDPR is coming to the world, how impactful this technology is, but if you believe that it's not necessarily going to come to places like America or Asia, then this kind of technology helps boost your ad platform significantly. And let's be honest, anyone who advertises on Facebook, Google and LinkedIn knows that LinkedIn is way too expensive and also a little bit not quite up to par with those other players. Chad: Right. So from LinkedIn standpoint, I agree the GDPR piece, not to mention next year coming to California, coming to a state near you, is GDPR like types of compliance measures that you're going to have to focus on. And I think LinkedIn is already doing that. They are way too big and they are way too widespread not to already be doing that. So to be able to bring in Drawbridge and say, okay, we already have a plan in place to be able to check these boxes, I think that's where they're at. So I don't think that's an issue for LinkedIn. To be able to get the cross device attribution is an issue for LinkedIn, and you're right, if they can't provide cross device attribution now and they're charging so much, it's like you can't deliver or even start to understand what the ROI looks like, right. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So I think it's a good move. We'll see how it plays out. Joel: Yeah. And don't forget recently we talked about Chrome having a function that tells you how you're being tracked and who's tracking you. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So that could be a real negative for businesses like this. Who knows, maybe Drawbridge saw the writing on the wall and discounted the price to the point where it was a no brainer for LinkedIn. Maybe they got some good talent out of the deal as well. Chad: Oh, they saw the writing. They pulled out of the UK because of the GDPR. They had an oh fuck moment and LinkedIn's like, hey, come here. No, don't worry. We've got that figured out, here's pennies on the dollar big guy. Give me that shit and let's go. Joel: Here's a cheque, you write a number on it and we'll see if it matches ours. Chad: Nice. Joel: Someone who's not worried about such issues, let's hear from sponsor Sovren, and we'll end the show on Dice of all people. Chad: A laughable note. 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: Let's hope that Dice has actually hooked up with Sovren for this new product. Joel: Because quote from our Zeal CEO and president, it's another step demonstrating Dice's commitment to developing best in class matching algorithms to make recruiting top candidates easier. Yes, the trendsetters of Dice continue to pull out all the stops and have given us it's big style matching from 2008. We're very excited. Chad: This again I believe is going to become table stakes. We just saw the new product from Zip, which is matching, and that's what Zip's whole platform is predicated on that matching algorithm. Being able to know what good looks like, what that qualified individual looks like. The big question is, does Dice, are they developing this themselves? If they are, that's probably a mistake because there are many other matching algorithms that are out there that I'm sure are light years ahead of what these guys can do. Is it a Sovren, did they partner with a company like Opening.io or HiringSolved or Uncommon. Chad: We're talking about matching a lot this episode, but it's getting to be incredibly important that companies understand and these vendors understand that they become the brains behind the brands that are out there. They don't have to have that big brand that everybody says, hey, I want that matching software. They have to be the brains and the algorithms behind it, which I think Sovren, from my standpoint, has done an amazing job doing because nobody really knows who Sovren is. Unless you're obviously a listener of this podcast then you obviously know who they are, but they're incredibly stealthy and they're not focused really on their brand unless they can provide the brains or the parsing that your technology needs. Joel: Yeah. The press release on this pulls out all the buzz words, automation, intelligent automation, unconscious bias, which is becoming a very hot product, I guess. Chad: Yes. Joel: So that didn't surprise me at all. A quick review of what this thing does according to the release, it goes beyond traditional keyword matching by looking at job in the candidate data whereby the best match allows recruiters to sort applicants by match within five classification levels. I'm not sure if that's good or not. While many competitive services offer only one or two levels of classification. Well, there you go. There's the clarification. Chad: Wow. Joel: Learns by leveraging the input and expertise of tech recruiters, HR professionals, tech professionals and tech hiring managers, they got to include everyone there, to continuously improve the outcomes of its match machine learning algorithm. This comes straight out of Monster's acquisition of talent bed. You could have basically put a lot of those same features. Chad: Yes. And that's the problem, it's learning from people, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: And if it's learning from people the intelligent automation results in better matches and removes unconscious bias, how the fuck is it removing unconscious bias if it's actually learning biased from people? That's the big question that most of these companies are going to have to answer and defend right out of the gate. Okay, if you're learning from my people who we already know our bias because we're humans, how are you going to take the bias out? Because from what I'm reading here, all you're doing is putting bias in to the algorithm. Joel: Yup. Everyone who's doing this is grappling with this issue of, if humans are making the hiring decisions, the algorithms are going to act accordingly and there's going to be bias over time. There may not be that much initially, but over time... and Amazon I think learned this through their mistake is that bias is going to creep in as long as humans are involved, it's going to be a very challenging problem to solve. Chad: And here's an important announcement to the recruitment industry. This is becoming an arms race. Let's just get this straight, you're looking at Chatbots matching algorithms and you need these things in your core products, whether their applicant tracking systems are CRMs or RMPs, whatever they are, you need these things to be able to have that differentiator. You can see this from Dice trying to do this as a job board, Zip is trying to do this as a job board. You also need to have this in your core systems. These need to be table stakes. So if you're in town acquisition, these are the things you should be asking for. Chad: If you are a vendor and you think you can develop these things, number one, you're probably stupid. You should look at partnering with many of these different organizations that are out there to make it faster, quicker, cheaper, and then take a look at what iCIMS and Jobvite did. They said, "Hey, look, this does work. We're going to go ahead and acquire that organization." It seems like the recipe is out there and most companies don't understand, even the startups in some cases, this is an arms race. Who are you going to team up with to be able to enter this arms race? Joel: What I think is cool is the consumers in our space. The employers for the most part are becoming smarter than they used to be, if that makes sense. They're pushing vendors quicker, they're asking tougher questions, they're making them tackle these issues and challenges. And I think that's a great thing because our industry changes when customers raise their voice and ask for these things. Chad: They're listening to Chad and Cheese. That's what's happening. Joel: That's exactly right. And I have a message for recruiters as well. I think that was what your message was. Chad: Yeah. Pirate: Yee bee poo without Talroo. Chad: We're out. Joel: We're 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 checkout our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more visit chadcheese.com. #Linkedn #ZipRecruiter #Indeed #AllyO #Dice #chatbots #Matching

What do you do after raising $100 million? Bring Chad & Cheese in for a lunch-and-learn with your employees, of course. What could go wrong? Enjoy this, um, Jobcase exclusive. CHIRP CHIRP?!? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions' clients are changing the lives of people with disabilities, including veterans with service related disabilities. Chad: While visiting Jobcase HQ in Cambridge, Mass, Fred Goff, Jobcase CEO and all around smart guy, lured Joel and I into a lunch and learn session about, well about us, but mainly about the Chad and Cheese entrepreneurial story, complete with some Q&A at the end. Enjoy, after this word from Jobcase. Joel: Yo Chad, got a question for you. Chad: Okay. Joel: Say I'm looking to hire hourly workers for hard to fill jobs, where should I go? Chad: Easy, Jobcase. Joel: Okay. All right. Now let's say I've tried the job boards and all I'm getting is clicks, and what I really want are qualified candidates, actual people, where should I go? Chad: Dude, Jobcase. Joel: Now, what if I want the team who is helping me with all this sourcing to be really, really, really smart? Before you answer, keep in mind I'm talking MENSA smart, like MIT affiliated data scientists and people who are at the forefront of machine learning. Who you got? Chad: Oh my god dude, it's Jobcase. Jobcase. Look, with 100 million members in their community active and passive job seekers, a huge team of data scientists who are experts at targeting and connecting employers with the right candidates, the answer is always going to be Jobcase. Joel: I dig it. I'm picking up what you're putting down, but what if- Chad: Hard stop. Jobcase. See for yourself why the answer always comes back to Jobcase for all your hiring needs. Learn more at Jobcase.com/hire. That's Jobcase.com/hire. Joel: Jobcase. 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. Fred: Guys, why don't you start by helping me fill in your biographies, your professional biographies better than I did? Then after we hear about each of you, if you could talk about the journey on building the Chad and Cheese Show. Chad: You first. Joel: I don't know how far you want me to go back. Fred: Kindergarten. Joel: Kindergarten. Yeah, my first entrepreneurial story is I was a big Star Wars geek as a kid, and my parents wouldn't buy me the figurines. I know we're all old enough to remember these figurines. There was a golf course near our house, so I went and gathered aluminum cans in these big garbage bags, and I would recycle them to the point where I would get enough money to buy Star Wars figures. Joel: Later on in high school, during lunch breaks I would go buy gum at like a penny a piece, and I would go sell them at school for 25 cents a piece. I got in the job board space in '97, '98, around the time this guy did. We were at opposing job boards. Did that till around 2005, and I'd always been entrepreneurial, and I knew that I was at an age where it was time to kind of shit or get off the pot, if you will. Sorry, we have some high schoolers in the audience, so I'll try to keep it to shit and damn and stuff. Fred: They might have heard it before. Joel: Yeah, you're their dad. Fred: Yeah. Not all of them. Joel: Not all of them, yes. Not all the kids. SEO was big at the time. I was a marketer and I had learned that in the process, and so I started an SEO business for HR, it was called HR SEO. The goal was to help companies leverage, if I'm a company in Milwaukee, I would rank for Milwaukee jobs, et cetera. It sort of morphed into helping vendors market themselves and getting background check companies to rank for background checks, and job boards to rank. Joel: Started a blog at the time called Cheezhead, and I learned that the more I blogged, the more business I got. This was sort of my first content marketing education, where you create good content, you get people to look at it and trust you and know that you know what you're talking about, and then businesses come. Joel: Fast forward, sort of sold that business and a couple others. New Chad at the time, he was at Direct Employers. As I was blogging, he had a blog that sucked, but he had a blog, and he was like- Chad: Some of us have real jobs. Joel: We were buddies and like, let's just throw some, you know, the shit we talk about over beers, why don't we put a mic in front of us and push it out there? This was before smartphones. People listened to podcasts on the inter webs at the time. Mobile wasn't a thing. There were iPods, but it just wasn't quite a thing. They really sucked, but then I moved back to Indiana where he is, and he kept bugging me like, "Dude, we need to revive the whole podcast thing." Chad: Get off the fucking couch dude, yeah. Joel: Yeah. Put down the cheeseburgers and pick up a mic. I said, "Okay dude. Let's put a landing page out. If we get 100 people to say, 'Yes, you should do this.' And we get at least one company to write us a check, I'll commit to a year." You agree, and I was hoping to god that we wouldn't get 100 people to sign up, or that we wouldn't get someone to write us a check. Chad: That's how much he loves me. Joel: We did, we fulfilled both those goals and we launched the thing two years ago in March, and we just celebrated in March our second year anniversary of the podcast. Chad: Woo. Fred: Great. Woo. Joel: Look at us now. Chad: Yeah, who all listens? Okay, I've got like five, are you kidding me? Fred: Ask tomorrow. Chad: Yeah. Hopefully you'll all come aboard. Podcasts obviously are incredibly, I should say they're on the growth side. Joel: They're hot. Chad: Take a look at the actual hockey stick with podcasts. We started when the only way you could actually listen to them was on your computer. Joel: It was awful. Chad: Yeah, it was horrible. Joel: Yeah, a little piece of embed code from this site that produced audio. Chad: My story real quick. I was in the military for 20 years, active and then also on the civilian soldier side of the house on the reserves. Deployed a couple of times as an infantry drill sergeant down in Fort Benning, Georgia. During that time frame, in '98, I was with Monster before it was Monster. Online career center in Indianapolis, Indiana, along with eSpan, which was also in Indianapolis, Indiana. A couple of the hot job boards at the time. TMP had bought the Monster board and Online Career Center, smushed them together in January of '99. Did Superbowl ads, blimps, all that other happy horseshit, and there you go. Chad: I was actually a part of that growth, and it was fun, and it was just totally incredible to be a part of that. I left, and I went to a organization called Direct Employer's Association. I was there for 10 years as a VP. Actually that's where I met and had the first conversation with Fred, back probably like around 2009, 2010. While I was there, we built the National Labor Exchange. Joel: Did he have hair back then? By the way. Fred: Did he have hair? Big Afro. Joel: Big Afro. Chad: Yeah. It was all teased out and everything. Built the National Labor Exchange. I mean, there were a ton of things that we were doing that was really focused on workforce and economic development, which is why I love listening to the Jobcase story. Chad: From there I went to recruit military, was the CXO there during transition. Was at Randstad RPO, built their veteran hiring program. Then popped out on my own and got ahold of him and said, "Hey, you know, it'd be really cool if we could start doing something to get our name back out and start talking about just shit, and do it the way that we do." Which is a couple of guys on a bar stool talking about the 20 years of experience, and the technology, and all the bullshit that we hear but nobody talks about. Nobody talks about. Chad: If you've ever listened to an HR or TA kind of podcast, or even blog in most cases, everybody just kind of softballs, or it's all warm and fuzzy. Let's shoot it straight, and that's what we did. Within I would say six months we started to see our numbers skyrocket. Today we have a handful of listeners and sponsors. Joel: I think there are three keys to the success of our podcast. Number one is our wealth of knowledge. Yes, we're idiots, but we've been in this space for 20 years, so we actually do have some perspective and context. That's actually really tough to find. Joel: I think the second thing is that we really focused. So many blogs, podcasts, shows, it's like, I want to do a marketing blog, or a marketing podcast. It's like, to who and to what degree? There's so many like really expansive podcasts that I think part of our success was that we really focused on what we knew best, and we just did that stuff because we knew it when we talked about it. Joel: Then I think the third thing was frequency. We committed to it. We committed to a weekly show, and then opportunities came and like, well we need to feature startups, so we launched Firing Squad, which was like Shark Tank for startups. Then we said, well instead of like the weekly stuff, the news is cool, but let's dive in AI, or chatbots, or automation, or programmatic with people who really know those topics. Now we're doing like live shows and talking to companies that way. Because we churn out content, people know they're always going to get fresh stuff, they're always going to know when they go check out the page, or on iTunes or whatever, that there's going to be new stuff. Joel: I think those three things, and you can chime in on any other things that you can think of, but yeah, that has been kind of the key to the success of our podcast. Chad: Yeah, piggy backing on that. It is so hard to keep up with what's going on in our industry. You have to do a ton of research, or listen to our podcast. I mean, that's pretty much what we want. We want to be able to be the straight shooters, do a ton of research, talk to incredibly smart people, and give our opinions on what we've seen throughout the years and what's happening now. Chad: I think also my background's sales and partnership development and whatnot. It was really incredibly important not just to put a podcast out there and step away. We started partnering with organizations like TAtech, which is a conference, and then other conferences wanted to be a part of it, so we started doing live shows. We took a look at other podcasts that were out there that had similar types of formats, but what were they doing different to be successful? Could we adopt some of those and run parallel? We did that as well. We continually do that. Chad: As we build, the way that I see it is I'm a product guy too, is we build new products that the people want. We have listeners, which I pretty much see as our customers. I don't see our sponsors as our customers, it's our listeners, because if they're not there, the sponsors aren't there. What do they want? What do they want us to build? What do they want us to talk about? That's where we look at our analytics, we connect with our listeners, and we try to give the people what they want, because that's what it all comes down to. Fred: One, that's an awesome success story in two years. What sticks out to me from what you just said is we're pretty active in the entrepreneurial community. Joel: We didn't even raise $100 million. Fred: You didn't raise $100 million. Chad: Who do we get in touch with for that? Fred: I can introduce you to a guy. Chad: Yeah, I'd like that. Can we do that? Fred: I know a guy. Chad: That'd be awesome. Fred: It resonates, what you just said about building your podcast. I heard committed. I heard you were focused. I heard you're expert in your own area and content. Then you started talking about iterating and analytics. These are the exact same way so many entrepreneurs talk in, successful entrepreneurs around Kendall Square, so it really resonates with me. Fred: I'm ignorant of the space, I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I'd be curious if we stay on the business of the podcast, what's success look like for you guys with this podcast, say three, five years down the road? What's the end? Then also, what is the business model around it? Is it advertising and call outs? How's that part work? Chad: Yeah, advertising is definitely our ... Again, if we're creating content that obviously continues to grow our listenership, we're doing things right. If that happens, then companies are going to come to us. At that point, and this is really how we grew, so we had one podcast, it was a weekly podcast, that was full of sponsors. We had a bunch of other companies coming to us saying, "Take our money." It was because they wanted to be associated with something that was authentic, something that was real, something that pulled the covers back and actually talked about what the landscape looks like. We actually hit a nerve obviously. Chad: At that point we started creating all these new podcasts that Joel was talking about. We had these concepts ready to go, but we weren't going to just start throwing them out there without the prospect of funding too. Because I have a consulting company, he has a product called Ratedly that's out there, so we have to take a look at the time that we spend, where do we spend it? Joel: I think that, assuming everyone, if you haven't heard a podcast, you've heard a radio station before, so our ads are very similar to radio spots. I think part of our success was the novelty of an audio advertisement. Because most of the companies in our space, they know what Google pay per click ads are, they know what Facebook newsfeed ads are, but there's not a lot of opportunity, unless you're Casper Mattresses or ZipRecruiter- Chad: Peloton. Joel: To like think, oh this podcasting medium is a really cool place to like market our stuff. Because of the audience that we pull is so targeted, a lot of companies I think the novelty of like, oh cool, we could do a little script and record it, and put it out there as like almost a radio spot on your show. I think that was part of the appeal, that it wasn't just put a banner ad on the site, or do something you've already done. It was really unique to a lot of the companies out there. Chad: Well, and we have fun with our sponsors too, because they'll come out with new ads and then we'll make fun of the ads, or we'll make fun of their URL, you know, gocanvas.io, what the fuck is that? It's one of those things. We have fun with it. Joel: Was gocanvas.com taken? Anyway. Chad: Yeah, but they were acquired by Jobvite, so apparently that didn't hurt. Yeah, it's all about trying to, again, be real, and that's what, when you set that expectation every advertiser or sponsor that we talk to, there's one conversation I have right up front, from an expectation standpoint. We are who we are. We own the content. We say what gets on the air, how it gets on the air. You have no say over any of it, period. If you can get behind that, we want you to be a sponsor of ours. Chad: There has not been a company yet to say no, because they want to be a part of that genuineness that, to be quite frank our industry does not have. It's all softballs and fluffy bullshit, right? That's where I think we struck a nerve. Joel: I think from a job case standpoint, and he mentioned community, it's very strange to me, and I'm a marketing person as well, almost pretty much none of our advertisers are laser focused on, what are we getting from marketing on your podcast? None of them have like gocanvas.io/cheese, or something to get this white paper, or to find out more about us. There's no coupon codes that they're pimping to like how many people buy that use this code that we can track what we're getting. Joel: It almost feels like they're supporting the arts. Like we want to be on this ... Well, art can be many things to many people. Chad: Apparently. Joel: Do you agree? Chad: Finger painting. Joel: It feels like they're less concerned about, what's my ROI? More interested in, how do we partake in the community and support what these guys are doing? I think that's kind of an intriguing part of what we do. Chad: Yeah, I think that's a part of it. I think they definitely want to support something that they believe in. I mean, that's I think how we all feel when we give money to charitable organizations or what have you, or even our time. Yeah, I think the ROI in what we do is seen in many different ways for our different sponsors. Joel: Sure, and we get sponsors who say like, "Half our inbound leads are the show, like they mention the show." Maybe it's just like they don't need to do that sort of tracking because they get it sort of anecdotally internally from their sales efforts and lead funnels and all that good stuff. Fred: Let me ask you one more question on the podcast, and then we'll speculate. Joel: You also asked where we wanted to see it going, which we strategically avoided that. Fred: You strategically avoided. This stuff's going to keep getting bigger. Joel: We avoided that topic, because I don't think, we probably don't even agree on it. I don't think we've even talked about it. Chad: We have. Fred: Well I did hear that if there's a stroke URL strategy, it's Stroke Cheese, not Stroke Chad, so that's going to be another issue I guess to resolve. Joel: Yeah. Do you want to talk about that? Chad: Yeah, I mean, I'm a big growth guy, and Joel's a it ain't broke- Joel: I'm a big growth guy. Chad: He's like, it ain't broke, don't fix it, kind of guy. I mean, and the beautiful part is it's a 50/50 kind of relationship. I mean, we have to sell each other on stuff, because one vote doesn't mean that shit happens. It has to be unanimous. Joel: If we disagree, we don't do it, on either side. Chad: Yeah. I mean, we really have to make the case. From our standpoint, the word that I'm always kind of going back to is kind of legacy. What do people see us as? What do people see our podcast as? It's not just our podcast. How do we also help others really springboard them up because they have great voices as well? What is our responsibility in this space? Not to be just truth tellers, but also boost other truth tellers up. How do we do that? We argue about that stuff. We don't agree in some cases. I mean that I think we're both in genuine agreement that that's why we have people on the show, or that's why we want to be able to promote other, or maybe even create other podcasts. Joel: There is the realization, like for the young people in the audience, and there are quite a few, the bottom will fall out one day. Recessions happen, it will happen again. Chad and I have seen at least two in our lifetimes. When that happens, our industry gets hit significantly harder because when people don't hire, we can't make money, unless you have a different model. I think we're probably more conservative with what we're going toward, knowing that, okay, when the bottom falls out and the sponsorship dollars dry up, what happens to the show? We have to think about that as well when we think about growth. Agree? Chad: Yeah, I totally agree, but I also think that in a recession there's also a great conversation around keeping your brand alive, you know what I mean? Joel: Yeah. It's a little bit like everyone in Boston that was born after 2000 just thinks like championships happen all the time. Chad: Hands up. Joel: They really don't. There are dry spells where things suck, and that's the important insight as well. Chad: Just not in your lifetime. Joel: Yeah. Fred: What is one of the, if you look back at the two years, what is a podcast that's very memorable either because a guest goes horribly wrong, or because it went very viral afterwards on sharing? Can be good or bad, but what comes to mind in the last two years of podcasts? Chad: Career Builders dumpster fire that's turning into like this dumpster inferno thing, has been incredibly helpful. I mean, there's no question. The stupid shit that we hear out of Career Builder, that everybody knows is real, that has really propelled us. Not to mention Indeed making just stupid, I mean maybe it's not stupid short term monetarily for them, or revenue standpoint, but I think long term we see it as stupid to be able to make those types of decisions. People want to hear about that. When we can kind of glom onto it and give our opinion on top of it, it's been big. It's been very big. Joel: Two things that stand out for me is, so I have a journalism degree from Ball State, Muncie's in the house. Speaker 5: Woo. Chirp, chirp. Joel: Chirp, chirp motherfuckers. Chad: That is the weakest shit I think I have ever heard. Joel: Although we're- Chad: Chirp, chirp motherfuckers. Really. That's going to be the name of this pod, by the way. Joel: That's better than the Chad and Cheese Show. Although we're generally sort of idiotic, I mean we present our stuff in an idiotic way, and we drink beer, and we're just like two dudes. I've been really proud of some of the more journalistic stuff that we've done. Like if you go back, we interviewed Monster CEO Scott Gutz, and to me that was a really great interview. We interviewed Dan Finnigan, former Jobvite CEO. Chad: Colin Day. Joel: Colin Day, iCIMS. To me it's those little journalistic moments that I'm really, really proud of. I would also say that secondarily Chad and I are, we're underdogs in a way, and we're big fans of startups. People want to hear about Indeed, they want to hear about Google, they want to hear about LinkedIn. We give that to them because that's what they want, but we're really proud I think of Firing Squad, in that we bring in startups that most people have never heard of, ideas that they've never heard of before, and we give them a platform. Granted, we kill a lot of them, but we're proud that we give them a stage that they generally would not have at a trade show, or putting my ad on Facebook. Chad: Yeah. They have a chance. Put it that way. Joel: Yeah. Lifting up the underdog I think is a proud part of the show for me. Chad: Yeah. Fred: Love that. Let's jump off on that. Let's just softball down the middle. We'll do the softball fluff questions here. Let's talk about what you see happening in the talent acquisition industry. The moment we're in, or the new technology you think is really catching your eye, or what's being overplayed. Kind of just curious to see, have you kind of ruminate on that. Joel: June 13th, 2016, do you know what happened on that day? Chad: A meteor. Fred: I don't, do you? Joel: Anyone? On that day Microsoft announced the acquisition of LinkedIn, for $26.2 billion. Chad: A little bit of cash. Joel: That day really created a huge ripple or wave in our industry. It got Google's attention. It got Facebook's attention. It got Salesforce. Like everyone who didn't consider employment because it's a little bitty billion dollar industry like classifieds. Job classifieds are considered like a billion dollar industry. All started taking note of that investment and saying, "Okay, what does Microsoft know that we don't? Or what do we also know but lost an opportunity to get LinkedIn?" Joel: Shortly thereafter you had Google say, "We're going to get in this thing." In a course of a year Google launches a search API to help job boards and company career sites better search for jobs. You got Google for Jobs, which was essentially Indeed on Google, where Google actually has the job listings or descriptions. Chad: Indeed used to say they were the Google for jobs. Now Google is the Google for jobs. Joel: Yeah, now Google is the Google for jobs. Then also launch an ATS, like manage candidates, have your own career site. We saw Facebook launch a Slack competitor, we saw them launch job postings on their sort of online marketplace. To me, when you ask, where is it going? You have sort of this monolithic, we want to be a everything platform. Joel: You have Microsoft, which already owns Office 365, Teams, now LinkedIn's going to come into this thing. Google as well with G Suite. Now they're plugging in hiring tools and recruiting tools in there. I think Facebook has a lot of issues with privacy that they sort of dropped the ball on it. A world in which those two companies become like Coke and Dr. Pepper for sort of workforce management I think is where we're going. I think eventually HR is going to lose the decision to buy LinkedIn or Google. It will be IT that will decide we're a Microsoft house so we're using Microsoft employee tools, or we're a G Suite house, so we're using Google for our employment stuff. That's the world we're living in. Joel: As a reaction to that, the meteor hits, certain animals die. I think we're seeing sort of the slow death or dilution of job boards, sites that we think about historically as like Monster, Career Builder, Dice. We're also seeing, when asteroids hit, we're seeing little mammals that sort of grow up and evolve. We're seeing sort of on that end AI, automation, programmatic, companies that are small and growing into sort of evolved solutions. We're seeing companies like Jobvite and iCIMS try to be a second layer for an all-encompassing platform. They're buying companies like Canvas for Messaging and Talemetry and RolePoint, and TextRecruit for iCIMS. Joel: I guess long story short, I mean there's huge amounts of change. It's an incredibly great time to be a podcast, because you have these big companies getting in, these little companies sprouting up. Where that all shakes out no one knows, but it's a hell of a good time to talk about it. Chad: Yeah, and I think, so I'm not a big believer in that there's going to be one system for all. I just don't believe that. Whether it's Google, whether it's Microsoft, or what have you. I believe there's always going to be the different players that will be a part of the prospective layers, which is what we're seeing today. Which is crazy, because there are so many different layers that talent acquisition, they don't even use their first layer, being their applicant tracking system, let alone all these other things that they're trying to layer on. Chad: From my standpoint is we talked about our history and being there really when the big job boards, when this industry, I mean really was born, which was really cool, and it's so exciting. It's more exciting now I think than ever before because of the startups and the other players that are really focused on different areas. Chad: Like talk about empowerment. How can you actually get a site? You hear companies talk about empowerment, it's generally just bullshit, because they don't know how to make it work. When you get into a platform and you can see, and not just trying to play to the audience here, but when you can start to see the actual community, the empowerment within the actual platform itself, we're seeing that to some degree in social media, but we're also seeing a lot of the bad shit too. How can you balance that, or how can you get rid of what's happening on the bad side, versus the actual empowerment that needs to happen? Chad: Because people aren't just taking jobs for dollars, they're taking jobs for purpose, and obviously to feed their family. Don't get me wrong, but purpose has a lot to do with it, and nobody's really talk, they're talking about purpose, but they're not demonstrating purpose. Joel: I think we're sort of seeing almost the third wave of sort of the online process. The first was like, just get online. Just take your help wanted sign that's on your window and put it on the internet. Then the second phase, probably in the mid 2000s you had social media. You had MySpace, Friendster, which we remember and we're still on, and Facebook, Twitter. You had like let's just get online. Now you have people online. Joel: Now I think the third wave is sort of like we have technology that can help bring people into the technology and help them do their jobs better, find work more easily. I think where you guys are really valuable is that you've taken sort of the first wave of, there are opportunities, there are people, now how do we bring those together and help them build a community within that? Which is different than a lot of other companies kind of play that dynamic, but I think the way that you're doing it is pretty fascinating. Chad: Right. Well I'll give you a great example. There's a company that's not too far away from here, it's called RallyPoint. I'm in the military, it's a military kind of like Facebook, to an extent. There is some empowerment that's happening there, because when I go in, I'm actually going in, in most cases, to be able to help some of the individuals in the platform who are veterans answer questions around jobs. That to me is incredibly important. I don't think they have as tight a knit or control over it as they possibly could, but I think they're trying to go in the right direction. Fred: Yeah, we know them. Harvard Innovation Lab, right? Chad: Yup. Fred: It's a good team. You touched a little bit on the labor markets as well. Why don't you talk about where you see, and it might be a conversation about platforms, like Wonolo or BlueCrew or Shiftgig, or it might be a conversation about labor market development. Are we going to 1099 instead of W-2? How do you see that labor market playing out, either before or after the recession you mentioned? Joel: Yeah, I'm a pretty simple guy. I graduated from Ball State. I didn't go to MIT or Harvard or any of those schools. Fred: No chirp, chirp on that one? Joel: Chirp, chirp. I like things that make a lot of sense to me. Like when Indeed came out, that made a lot of sense. Take all these disparate systems, all these jobs that are everywhere, bring them into one system and let people easily search and go to those sites. Joel: When I look at platforms that you talk about, the PARE, the Snags, the ones you mentioned, to me it makes a lot of sense. Like if I was getting ready to graduate, or if I was in school, it just makes sense like I want to be this certain thing, let's say I want to be a cook. I want to work at Ruth's Chris, I want to work at Morton's, I want to work at whatever steakhouse. I want to cook steaks for a living, and I can be on this platform where a company can basically bid for my services based on my rating, based on my years experience, whatever. Then when I want to work, I can log in and pick and choose what steakhouse I want to work at that day. Joel: To me it just makes sense that the user is empowered to work when they want, make as much as they want. Then the employer is empowered because if I need an extra cook that night, or an extra whatever because there's a conference in town, that I can easily access this talent pool to bring them in and not have to go through like, post a job, interview them for a full time employee, get the benefits. Joel: By the way, we haven't said the word ghosting yet since we've been here, but ghosting is a huge problem with companies, where people get a job and just don't show up, or they come for a week and then like I'm kind of done with it. To me, platforms make a ton of sense. I think that's why we're seeing so much money go into that space, that people see that as well. Chad: Yeah, I think it's hard to have the conversation without talking about platforms and infrastructure, and being able to once again empower people to find those jobs, and really be in control. That's where we're going. I mean I'm sure, it's not here, it will be next year in a form in California, but who's heard of GDPR? That's all about what? Giving control of pretty much a candidate control of their own data. It's their data. It's not the employer's data. That's a huge shift, and we're seeing that shift happen. Joel: That's coming to America, by the way. Chad: That's coming next year, just starting in California. I mean, being able to do much of what we're doing today outside of platforms, platforms are just going to seep in. Technology is, it's Moore's Law. Fred: That's good. Thanks. Let me hit some questions people asked in advance, just a couple quick ones. Let's see if there's any more out here. Joel: Will we know who asked the question? Fred: I will tell you. Joel: Is this all anonymous? Fred: I will tell you their first names, and I think because everyone pings my members to hire them all the time, or my employees- Joel: Everyone point to whoever first name this is. Fred: Uri, Uri in the room? He's here. Joel: There we go. There's the balls. Yeah, this is my question. Fred: Our man Uri is on our information retrieval team, expert in machine learning and does a lot of applications of that for us. One of Uri's questions says, It seems that recruiting's become less and less humane with automated resume parsing, application filtering, automated screening, et cetera. Where does it get us? What is the affect on teams and overall company culture that we're choosing AI for recruiting?" Chad: Fred has a great slide that you need to take a look at Uri. Just from the base of this question, literally, and I use this in some of the podcasts and presentations that we do, where he's taking a look at like O*NET jobs, and then he's showing that this whole job can't be automated. That there are just aspects, tasks in this job that can be automated. Chad: I think what we should be focusing on is, oh my god, are our jobs going to go to robots? This prospect, but just not yet. Right now we can be more human because we're getting more time back. Recruiters are not doing all this stupid shit and being able to go through and make the calls, and schedule the appointments for the interviews, and just all the mundane things that keep them busy and keep bad recruiters in the system. Good recruiters want to be able to actually provide the human touch. Chad: I believe that the technology will allow us, at least this first phase will allow us to get rid of all these mundane tasks and just focus on process. That's one of my big keys, is that we are always focused on technology, technology, technology, and that's bullshit. We need to focus on process and the problem, and then start looking at technology. At that point we become more human because of technology. Joel: I'd also add that I think ironically the job search process is becoming more human thanks to technology. Now what I mean by that is 10, 15, 20 years ago, even less than that, when you submit a resume to a company online it was what's called the resume black hole. You'd submit a resume to a company, you'd never hear back from them, maybe an automated thank you for applying. It was really a cold and corporate process. Joel: Thanks to chatbots, thanks to messaging, sort of automated conversations that are happening right now, even though job seekers know, because they're told that this is a chatbot, they still like it a lot more than just giving up a resume and then never hearing from a company. Like they would much rather have some sort of communication. I think in a weird way the automation has created a more human touch to the job search process as well, which has been a good thing for companies. Chad: Yeah. Fred: Thanks. This might follow on part of that. Dylan runs our commercial sales team. Chad: Where's Dylan? Fred: Dylan [crosstalk 00:36:07]. Joel: Sales guy question. Fred: Yeah, so here's the thing about Dylan, he is an early indicator of success. He was an early employee over at Indeed. He was an early part of our sales efforts here, so I'm a little concerned he might be looking for the next thing too early on this question. Because he says, "What's the one thing employers want or need that no vendor is adequately serving today? Chad: Okay. Fred: I think that's interesting. I asked you what you see in the current marketplace, and what holes do you see that no one's really filled? Chad: That is a big key. There are so many different types of platforms that can do what we were just talking, being able to take care of those mundane pieces. The problem is they're outside of the applicant tracking system in many cases. You're sending a recruiter from here to this platform, to this platform. I think a lot of the tech is actually out there. The big issue is the integrations, and making sure that the system of record, whether that's your CRM, if that's what you want to call it, or your ATS, that they are integrating into these different platforms to ensure that you have all these efficiencies in place. Chad: That's the big key, because talent acquisition, they can't spell programmatic. They don't know how, hell Joel says they can't spell SEO. They don't know what AI is, and who gives a shit what AI is, right? Just as long as you understand the process and the problem, you can take care of that, but there has to be an integrated system that does that. I think that, Fred, it's not really something that's new. It's how we take what we already have and use it in more of an appropriate manner. Joel: I want to see a day, and I think a day will come at some point where a business owner says, "Hey Alexa, schedule me up to 10 ..." Not even that, "Alexa, find me a PHP developer nearby." The bots go in and they go source candidates that are PHP developers within 10 miles or whatever of where you are. They set up an automated process to prescreen and interview the person, that's also unbiased, by the way. There's not sort of, it's really actual skills, and we haven't talked about that. Chad: Oh, you're talking about the robots. Joel: They do the interview without the person ever doing anything. They schedule it through the process. The scheduling syncs up with the business owner's own Google Calendar or whatever. It'll get scheduled, he goes in the next week, 10 candidates come in that have already been pre-screened, sourced. All he has to do is like sort of make sure the chemistry's right, or interview them, a quick interview, and then hire them in that process. Joel: To me, I think there's a future where we just say, "I need a PHP developer by next month." The bots go do it for you, and people show up, and you hire them if they're fits or not. Chad: There are some companies that are already doing this. I think you take a look at, if you want to see who's- Joel: Well trying to do it. Chad: No, they are. Joel: No one does the full bore, "Hey Alexa." Chad: Cielo does. Joel: Who? Chad: Well not that, they don't do the, "Hey Alexa." Thing, for god sakes. Joel: All right, then you're wrong. Chad: Oh god. Anyway, if you take a look at the RPO side of the house, recruitment process outsourcing companies, one of the things that we have to understand is talent acquisition, it's their job to hire people. In RPO and staffing, it's their business, so they're really focused on efficiencies and the best ways to get from A to Z, or whatever that is. Chad: You take a look at some of those companies and some of the tech that they're putting in place, which is one of the reasons why I love to have conversations with those individuals like Adam Godson or Quincy Valencia, or what have you, at those different RPOs, because they are constantly looking at chatbots, and sourcing tech, programmatic tech, and bleeding that all together so that you do have ... Chad: I'll give you a great example. Right now Cielo has a high volume product that within 10 minutes after they do a posted job, programmatic outreach, as soon as individuals start engaging, within 10 minutes, under 10 minutes, they're already scheduled for an interview. It's boom, right? That's exactly where we need to be, and we can be today. We just have to be able to build those bridges on a more scalable platform, like an applicant tracking system. Fred: Last question from Karen on our biz dev team, account manager. Are you in the room Karen? Chad: Karen? Karen? There she is. Fred: She had asked about gigs, which you already addressed, but she also says, "How do you think the Uber and Lyft IPOs play out in the long run?" Feel free, I'll tack onto the end of that, feel free to address also how the path to public companies can impact or affect how you think companies are serving either their clients or their job seekers. Joel: I think Google is a good example. I mean, Google for 10 years was riding the pay per click train. Growth was through the roof. Everyone was doing it. It was trending incredibly well. Then people started to get more choices in how they advertised. Social media, there are all kinds of ways. Google's last quarterly report they dropped 10% because clicks are going down, the growth isn't there, the amount that they get per click is going down. Google has to figure out, where's the low hanging fruit for more money? To me they're looking at, how do we verticalize our search? How do we do apartments, and cars, and all these different things? Employment is one of those verticals that to me they're targeting to help increase revenue. Joel: Why that's relevant is I think Uber and Lyft eventually the ride sharing train is going to slow at some point. At that point they have to say, where does growth come? Where does more money come? They're looking at driverless cars, and creating those systems. I think Uber in particular is looking at, how do we create, we already have these people that are in the Uber platform that we pay for driving, how can we pay them for doing other things? Uber Eats is I think an extension of that. How do we pay them to go pick up food and deliver it? Joel: I think work is going to be another thing that they probably get into. Like, how do we just use our platform so someone who drives a car also can sign up to work at a dry cleaner, or work at a convenience store? Then we'll manage that whole process because we already have the platform to do it. I think inevitably Lyft will probably look at that space as well, because if it's successful for Uber they'll look at that. I guess that's the answer to the question as I know it. Chad: Yeah. I think it's going to be hard for those companies coming from the direction that they did. I think companies in the employment space can actually take a look at that because they already have clients, they have companies to be able to build on, and they have revenue streams that are already built in for new products that they could build much like an Uber or a Lyft. Joel: Ghosting will go down a lot when a driverless car goes to pick your worker up and bring them right to work. It's like, a car's going to be there in an hour. You get in it and come to work. I'm also really excited about Slack's IPO. I'm really intrigued about how they're going to get into the workforce. If you don't think they're interested, their ticker symbol is work, so they're coming in the space. Chad: Yeah, they're a messaging app. Not to mention, does everybody know how Slack actually came to be? Stewart Butterfield, again, he's trying to build this software company, has to create Flickr to sell it to be able to gain more money to be able to fuel the engine. That didn't work. They found some more money, started the whole thing again, and Slack came out of it. Chad: Whenever I hear Slack talk about vision, all I hear is bullshit, because that was, it was a product that they used internally. There was no vision there. Their vision was to create like this VR second life thing that Joel would be in like 24/7. From my standpoint to me it just seems incredibly overblown. I think they are a company that, much like Uber and Lyft, can demonstrate to the rest of the market where opportunity is, but I just don't see them long term, unless somebody acquires them, which won't happen because they're going to be IPO here in about two weeks. Joel: Agree with either one of us. Slack should be interesting to watch. Chad: It will be interesting to watch. Fred: It'll be interesting with that, yeah. Chad: Yeah, crash and burn. Fred: All right. Right when we're getting the good stuff, we're kind of wrapping up, we're at one o'clock. Listen, I learned a lot and I thank you. I applaud what you guys have done and the success you're having. It's fricking awesome to watch. Appreciate the nice things you said about Jobcase along the way. Anything you want to wrap up with before we call it an hour? Joel: Well every time we have a CEO come on the show and pitch their product, at the end of their pitch they never tell the audience where they can learn more about their product, so I guess I would leave it as simply, if you liked what you heard today and you want to hear more, check out ChadCheese.com, or just search the Chad and Cheese podcast on whatever podcast platform you prefer. Chad: Hit the blue subscribe button and have at it. Fred: I think you added a lot of listeners today. Thank you Chad. Thank you Joel. Joel: Thanks Fred. Chad: Thanks guys. 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. Be sure to check out our sponsors because they make it all possible. For more visit ChadCheese.com. Oh yeah, you're welcome. #Jobcase #History #Boston #recruiting #Interview #LIVE #Careerbuilder #Indeed #podcasting #LinkedIn #Microsoft #Google

If you thought Google was going to be content offering its Hire product to small businesses, well, you're in for a surprise. Big G recently announced it would be supporting Enterprise customers as well. Look out LinkedIn ... and, um, every popular ATS on the planet. The boys have a chat with one of Google's early enterprise customers and the results are ear-worthy to say the least. Enjoy this Uncommon exclusive. 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. Chad: Dude, we're always talking about cool new tech but it's hard for hiring companies to change. Adoptions a bitch. Joel: Yep. Chad: New tech can get them to qualified candidates so much faster. Joel: I know man, but recruiters already have the 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: No, man. Uncommon is not an agency. They don't require a contract, any contingencies. All they do, they charge one flat fee per projects, saving, I don't know, anywhere from 50-80% 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. 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 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: All right, all right, all right. What's up gang? We have a special treat today. We talk about Google more than most human beings on the planet, particularly hire Google for jobs and their job search API. Today we actually have a big ass company who's using Hire by Google to talk about it and tell us about her experience. Amy Smith, head of talent at Framestore out of London, England. She thinks she's too British for the show. I don't think so. Amy, how are you? Amy: Good, thank you. Joel: Thanks for joining us. Give us just a quick snapshot of you and your job and what Framestore does because Chad and I had no idea but the company is badass. So, tell us a little about Framestore. Amy: Sure. So, as you said earlier, I am the head of talent. Chad: There it is. Amy: Yeah, have to give it that emphasis. Which means that I oversee all of our recruitment, but also look at retention. So, great, we get the talented people here but how do we keep them here once we've done that? Then, in terms of Framestore, so, Framestore is a digital content studio. Which basically means, we make computer generated images for any screen you can think of. So, film screen, TV screen, mobile screen, installation VR headset, you name it. Some of the stuff we've worked on lately, which I think you're referring to, we worked on Avengers: Endgame. Chad: Oh my god. Amy: Yeah. Yeah. We made smart Hulk, amongst other things. Joel: Who cares about Endgame. She just said VR- Chad: Oh geeze. Joel: On our podcast. Chad: See one of the biggest box office hits and then Joel goes down the fucking VR rabbit hole again. Joel: Hey. Amy is super bullish on VR, I can tell. I can tell in her voice. Chad: Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, the new Spiderman movie that's coming out. I actually told you before we got on, Amy, took my daughter to see Alita: Battle Angel twice and there's so much cool graphics in that movie. I mean, when I say what you guys did, I was like, I was so stoked. I was happy that we actually didn't have Tarquin on the show and we got to talk to you instead. Amy: Good. Joel: Yeah, just wait until she creates a VR headset experience for getting a job at Framestore. Then maybe you'll pay attention to VR. Chad: Yeah. So, what's the possibility of that happening any time soon, Amy? Amy: Well. You know, we've made a VR experience where we can have you walk on the moon. Chad: Walk on the moon? Joel: That's cool. Amy: Yeah. It was something we did in collaboration with Samsung. Yeah. We put you in a rig, basically, that secretly weights you and then it simulates for you the weight you would be on the moon. Then we put you in a VR headset that shows you the moon and you bounce up and down as if you were actually walking on the moon. Chad: So, you have to do all this and then we're on a podcast to talk to you about your applicant tracking system. Jesus. Amy: Yep. I know. Joel: I feel like I'm doing everybody a disservice with this first question. Chad: So that's the big thing. Right? And it's cool because working with the Tarquin and the team over there, they were like, "Look, don't talk to us. Talk to our clients." And we were lucky enough to actually get you on the show. Chad: You are one of the very first enterprise customers for Hire by Google, and they just announced that they went from SMB and they're moving toward enterprise. How does that feel to be on the leading edge? Amy: Actually it's been awesome because Google are obviously really keen to make it work, so they've been amazingly helpful, and they've made it incredibly smooth to make the transition as a result. We sort of get the opportunity to beta to test things for them and that's really great going from our previous solution which was a long-standing solution where, getting any kind of change which was almost impossible, to now dealing with Google who is so keen to hear feedback is just brilliant. Chad: Okay, so who was that? Who did you move from? Amy: Dun dun dun, the dreaded Taleo. Chad: Awhhh. Chad: See, the interesting thing Amy, is that Taleo, back in the day, first it was called "RecruitSoft", it was known as almost the same as Google now because it really was focused on just ease of use and it's turned into this crazy piece of shit that you just can't use. Amy: Because Oracle bought it, basically it was fine until Oracle bought it. Joel: Bam. Amy pulls no punches, I love it. Chad: So there are plenty of other brands in the industry, why choose an unproven product like Hire? Cause they're still proving it, it hasn't been out that long and it's only been SMB. You guys are a relatively large company, why go with an unproven product? Joel: Trailblazers. Amy: The one thing that we did like about Taleo was that if you're familiar with it you can customize it a lot yourself. We had customized it very heavily and I was a Super User, so we could make it do most things that we wanted. So, there didn't really seem any point moving to anything else on the market at the time because where we would make wins in some aspects, we would lose in others. Amy: And the difference with Hire was that we're using at Framestore the rest of G Suite for business. So for us, it was about the fact that it synced up all of our work tools, because the big thing Taleo couldn't do for us was sync up with our meeting room calendars, so we were doing things like booking interviews twice. Once in our actual calendars and once in Taleo. Amy: All these things, and that ability to sync all our work tools together was the big sell for us. Joel: I'm curious because there are listeners out there, companies that say, "I wish I could be Google's guinea pig. Why did Google pick you? Was it because you're already using G Suite and the relationship with the IT department, do they have a special relationship with you? Why did you guys get picked?" Amy: Honestly I actually don't know. I reached out to them when Hire was first announced and said, "Look I know you're only interested in SME (SMB in the US) and you're only interested in the US at the moment, but we would be very interested in having a conversation with you when you are thinking about going larger." And then when they were, they reached back out to us. So I don't know what the decision making at Google was about that, but I guess we'd shown interest. Joel: It sounds like you just took some initiative. What a novel concept. Good for you, Amy. Good for you. Good. Joel: You're very outgoing for British people. Amy: Not the norm. Chad: So, the case study that Google's put out is entitled fifty percent uplift in hiring manager engagement, which is one of the hardest things to do. One of the reasons why many companies lose great candidates, great talent, is because the hiring managers don't move fast enough because they're not engaged in the process and or the system. So this is big, so can you explain what that actually means fifty percent uplift in hiring manager engagement? Chad: Where was the uplift? Why was the uplift? How did this all happen just by using Hire? Amy: Yeah, sure. So, essentially I could probably count on one hand, the number of hiring managers who actually looked at candidates in Taleo, and I think there are a few reasons why that changed. Amy: One was a single login. So obviously with Taleo they had to login to a separate system, with Hire they don't. But also, I just think it's that familiar interface thing because we're using the rest of the G Suite tools. Amy: When we sent out the email saying, "Here's the link." And they clicked on it, it looked like something they were familiar with and it was easy to navigate and it was straight-forward and what the fifty percent uplift looks like is without any training, we fully anticipated we were gonna have to training and without any training all of a sudden, hiring managers were pinging us about candidates that we weren't even aware they'd seen. Amy: Because they just gone in there and started looking at stuff. What is happening right now? Chad: We're just talking about something that just looks and feels familiar to them, right? So they're used to G Suite? It looks and feels familiar, so they just jumped right in without any training?- Is that what you're saying? Amy: Yep. That's what I'm saying. Amy: Worldwide as well, not just in one location. [crosstalk 00:10:49] Joel: Wow, wow, wow. How big is your team, Amy? Amy: There's about eleven of us world-wide. Chad: How many hiring managers do you serve? Amy: Oh, lots. I actually haven't counted them. Joel: The, "Uh" really tells me a lot. There's a shit ton of them, yeah. Chad: Lots. Joel: So, Amy, whether you know you're using it or not, you're instantly going up to Google for jobs and you're also using the Google Search capability, so you've talked a little bit about how you're recruiting team is benefited by the switch to Google. Joel: Can you talk at all about the candidates or quality of candidates, or even the user experience, as part of using hire? Amy: One thing I've noticed is that our jobs definitely have more visibility now. One of the problems we had with Taleo was actually the way that our instance of Taleo was set up. Our jobs were effectively hidden from Google Search, which was massively helpful to us. Amy: Fortunately with Framestore we work on Endgame, so a lot of people knew to find us. But yeah, it wasn't ideal. So, already just the fact that if you search, "Framestore jobs", they actually come up or, "visual effects jobs", they come up. Amy: That's really helpful. Then I think the other thing is that the application forum is so much easier to fill in and there's no sign-in for candidates so that whole thing of having to sign-in to your account and update your details and all of that stuff was gone. Amy: You literally just fill in some basic details and hit submit. You can do that as many or as few times as you like. I think that's hugely beneficial to candidates and then, let's not forget, with our hiring managers being all over it you're now also getting a response from us much, much more quickly than you ever were before. Chad: Gotcha. Joel: Any anecdotal evidence by candidates that user experience is so much better? Do they come in interviews and say, "Wow it was so easy to apply and use the system.", and they really enjoyed it, or not so much? Amy: Honestly we've only been using it since January so we haven't actually surveyed that and we don't have any anecdotal evidence. No one's said anything as such, but certainly no one's complained. Amy: One of the things we had with Taleo was candidates who would write to our general email address and say, "I've had problems applying.", for one reason or another. We haven't had any of that with Hire. Chad: It really doesn't make much sense that doing everything else on the web, you can buy things, you can do whatever you want, without having to quote unquote, "create an account", never really understood why we still have to create an account an applicant tracking system. Chad: But, on the integration kinda like transition, moving from Taleo to Hire by Google, how was integration? I'm sure you had a ton of candidate records, did you migrate those over into Google? Or how did that actually work? Amy: Yeah, so we did. We migrated all of our data which was seventy-seven thousand candidate profiles, and I have to confess and I hope Google don't mind me saying this, that we did have a bit of problem with our data migration because we were one of the first of this size to do it. Amy: And they learned some things along the way, but actually the good thing is that we fed back and everything that was a problem has been fixed and its now fine. So, although there were some teeny problems, they were things that could be resolved, so it wasn't a complete disaster and like I said, people have learned from the experience and they know what to do next time they have a customer as large or larger than we are. Amy: I didn't mind that so much particularly as they were so keen to get it right and so fast to respond to anything that went wrong, and our account manager Jessica is just awesome and she's been brilliant. Amy: We've had at least a weekly conversation with Jessica since we started this process so, I can't complain about it. Given that I didn't even know who my account manager at Taleo was, having a weekly call is something of a turn-up for the books. Chad: So this is a message to Taleo, get your shit together. So, as you have seventy plus thousand candidate records in your database, one of the things is that Hire has been pressing and I thought was really cool is that there is this automatic candidate surfacing piece that is in, so that when you post a job, it automatically serves up candidates in your database that could perspectively be qualified for that job. Chad: Are you seeing that? Is it working? If so, is it working pretty well, or does the algorithm need help? Amy: It's working now. When we first started the algorithm wasn't working. It was a thing between brilliant search and not brilliant search and which one it was doing and it was being weird. But it's resolved now and it works really well now. Amy: It's definitely turning up the right profiles of people. Now, whether they're people with previously dismissed rather reasons or not is a different thing, but, there's not necessarily a way the algorithm could know that. Amy: It's definitely turning up the right profiles of people for sure. Joel: Amy, you mentioned some problems with the data migration, so let's dig into some other problems or things that maybe Google Hire doesn't do yet that's on your wish-list. What would that look like? Amy: When we first rolled out, offer approvals wasn't in Hire, that's recently gone in in the last month. That's now been resolved, but that was definitely something to start with, and obviously we've now got a bit more data migration to do cause we've got to migrate in all the offers that we were doing externally for a couple of months. Joel: Amy, would you dare say that you love your current ATS? Amy: Oooh. Joel: Cause you may be the first person in history. Amy: Well, that's a lot of pressure now to say that. Amy: Can I say I like my current ATS, with a view that may be a longer relationship I might love it? Chad: I like that. Joel: You can say that, sure. Joel: I like it a lot. [crosstalk 00:16:57] Chad: I like it a lot.[crosstalk 00:16:58] Amy: Oh no, I knew that was gonna happen; mocking the accent. Reports, that's the other thing that I think still needs some work is reporting. Amy: There are reports in there and the reports that are there are great, but if you want to do something fairly custom, that involves basically downloading all of your data into an Excel spreadsheet and then interrogating it from there which is obviously not ideal when you have seventy-seven thousand candidate records. Amy: Cause that takes a while to download, but for example, one of the things we used to do in Taleo was a weekly scheduled report for certain departments that needed to know certain information about who was joining the business or- that kind of thing. Amy: And you can't do any of that kind of reporting at the moment in Hire, so, that's definitely one of the things that I think we're looking for improvements on but I know its on their road map. Chad: So, in the case study it also refers to increased candidate response time to "almost instant". Now, okay almost instant is pretty damn good. Why do you believe it has gone to almost instant? What is Google doing to be able to help you get candidates their response time is so fast? Amy: What happens is when someone applies, the hiring managers gets a notification, if they've chosen to have those on and a lot of our hiring managers have been trustingly. If I have the choice to define that for them, I probably would have switched that off for them, but actually a lot of them have chosen personally to keep that on. Amy: So they get that notification and they're like, "Oh I'm gonna click on that." And they look at their candidate and they look interesting and within about five minutes after the candidate applying, the recruiter has a notification from the hiring manager saying, "I like this person, let's meet them.". Amy: And if the recruiter says they do, then there's an email that's gone back to the candidate after no more than ten minutes saying, "Hey, just saw you apply to come in and meet us.". I mean that's phenomenal. Chad: So, the experience itself, and companies are always talking about candidate experience, makes sense because again, candidates could be customers. Many of those companies have very verbose kind of cosmetic experiences on their site. Tons of content, all that stuff. You guys don't, and Hire really doesn't. Chad: Hire is very "keep it simple" stupid and it's very bare-bones. Do you believe that's one of the reasons why candidates get through the process so quickly and do you think that, maybe, you might need to have something that has more content-rich information or do you think the "keep it simple" stupid process is really perfect for you guys? Amy: So for our experienced artists, the "keep it simple" stupid process really, really works and I just have to explain a little bit more about how the industry works. So, most people in this industry are on what we call, fixed term contracts which basically means they have a start-date and an end-date of them rather than being permanent. Amy: And the reason for that is obviously this industry is project-driven, and so it may be that for example, we run out of work for a particular kind of skill set at the end of a project, but it might also be that an individual wants to move around from project to project. We've got this show, but the studio down the road might have Superman or might have Star Wars, or might have something that they particularly really want to go and work on and so they just work on a project for us, and then they go down the road and work on a project somewhere else. Amy: It means that we have artists who move around a lot between studios, and so when they apply back to us they don't need the job description. They don't need to know what the job is, they don't even need to know how many frames there are; they know who we are, they know what the job is cause its the same job they've done at fifteen studios before us. Amy: All they want to do is get us their details quickly. For those people, Hire is perfect. I would say though at the more junior end, at our entry-level and internships and all of that stuff, I do think having more content available would be valuable to help them really understand cause I think if you're a new grad or you're at a school; you worry about what the work environment looks like and who you might be working with and- how much is gonna be expected of me and my first job and that kind of thing. Amy: I think having content that could help reassure people at that level would be hugely valuable. Joel: Add it to the wishlist, I guess for Google. Joel: Amy, so you know Google makes a lot of money when people click ads on their main search and we've speculated for a while on this show that eventually you'll be able to post on Google for jobs and have those jobs boosted in some fashion, where you as the advertiser pay for those clicks, for that added exposure. Is that something that they've talked about with you to test? Is that something that you'd like to see in the future? Amy: They haven't mentioned that as being on their road map. Although we're getting hopefully a road map update in the next couple of weeks, so it might be. Amy: But they haven't spoken about it yet, but I think definitely its something that would be of interest for particular roles. I don't think we'd do it for all of our jobs, but for certain hard-to-fill roles I think it would be really helpful to have that as something you could bolt onto a job. Joel: I'm sure they would agree with you. I'm curious, what are you using in term of job boards now? Because as you know, on Google for jobs, they'll show your listings but also people could still apply through other job sites. So, talk a little bit about what you're doing externally and how that interacts with your Google Hire experience. Amy: So here's what's interesting about our industry. People in the majority of jobs in our industry don't go on job boards. There are only really a finite number, I would say certainly less than fifty, major visual effects studios in the world, and so if you want to work in this industry you generally learn who they all are and you just go to them direct. You certainly don't go on to Monster or any of the sort of, bigger job boards out there because that's just not where these jobs are. Amy: So in that sense, we don't really post. Obviously that's different if you're talking about some of our support departments. Like every company, we have marketing and finance and HR, and all those departments and obviously those will go up on the traditional job boards. Amy: But through Hire, we already have integration with Monster, with Glassdoor, with Indeed, so you're already hitting some of the larger ones anyway in terms of profile. Amy: And obviously LinkedIn, offer you job wrapping if you've got company page, so that's happening as well. We generally find, I'm gonna touch wood now, that we don't need to post on other boards as well; that it's kind of working for us as it is. Joel: Can you see a day where you don't post on job boards at all for any positions? Amy: Maybe, although I still think for those that have support departments, like you guys said before we started, you had no idea who Framestore was, why would you? Amy: You know, if you don't work in this industry, you wouldn't necessarily. I think probably for support departments, there's still value in posting more widely than just on our own website and on Google search. Joel: But you are saying there's a chance. Amy: I think there is a chance cause I'll develop that VR experience and then everyone in the world will just try it out [crosstalk 00:24:29] Chad: I think Joel was messaging you on Facebook Messenger or something like that, that was a coordinated effort, I could feel it. Chad: So, as you were talking about before, many of the applicant tracking systems that are out there, one of the biggest issues companies have is service. They don't even know who to call, when they're having issues, for what issues, there's so many different departments; it seems very kind of fractured out there, with Google. Chad: And I know it's very early, especially with Hire and you're one of the first enterprise customers, what is your experience been? And, what would you say to pretty much any startup out there also, Hire, really being a startup at this point, to be able to focus on customer service in scalability? Amy: Our experience of Hire and their customer service has been phenomenal. As I said, Jessica, our customer account manager is available all the time. She's really fast to respond to things. Amy: We've had a weekly call with her since we started this process and she's happy to continue that for as long as we want. It's driven by us, not by her. I know that she has other clients as well, we are by no means her only customers, but she makes us feel like we are almost. She's also really good at, where she has a client who has solved a problem that we're coming up against, she might put us in touch directly with another customer which I also think is interesting. Amy: So you could actually directly share customer experience which I think, why not? That's hugely valuable and I think in terms of talking to other startups, I think that piece is a huge difference and no question has been too silly and I think that's the other thing. Amy: I think sometimes when you buy a piece of software you get your implementation team and they've been through this a million times before and they give you a timeline that's a calendar and they go, "Okay. This is it, this is what we're gonna do when, this is what we need from you when. Great let's go.". Amy: And you kind of feel like, "Oh, I've got some really dumb questions, but they seem so confident they know what they're doing, I don't wanna ask.", whereas with Jessica she was like, "Ask me anything. Doesn't matter, there's no stupid questions. We're new, you're new to us. Ask." And she's been true to that word, we've asked her some very dumb questions and she's made us feel really stupid sometimes, but that's okay. That's absolutely fine. Amy: It's been really good and like you said, I have a very good anecdote about Taleo. It was the day of our Christmas party, and Taleo went down and it said it was because we hadn't paid and I checked with our finance team and we had paid. So, I tried calling the last person who told me they were our account manager in the U.S, and couldn't get through to them. Amy: Got bounced to India, by this point I'm in the taxi on the way to our Christmas party. The person in India couldn't help me and bounced me to Ireland, where I got through to a lady who was packing up for her Christmas holidays and said, "I don't have anything to do with account services whatsoever, I have no idea why you got through to me but I feel for you and I'm gonna try and sort this out for you.". Amy: And so she helped me, and I only missed about the first hour of our Christmas party, but that's just typical of a lot of people's experiences I think. Chad: Not only are they screwing up every day in the office because they had this kind of system that is not workable, they're screwing up your Christmas party, Amy and that [crosstalk 00:28:02] Joel: Such an asshole! Chad: That's gone too far. Amy: Exactly. Too far. Joel: Way too far. Amy: So, yeah. Joel: Well Amy, I expected this to be a stamp of approval from you for Hire, but I didn't expect it to be such a stamp of approval. You're a really big fan and I'm happy that you have an ATS that you like a lot and are on the road to loving, hopefully in the near future. Chad: We'll probably reach out to you, hear in about a year or so, to see if you're still in the like/love scenario, because obviously we want to say abreast to this. Amy: Yeah, whether we've had some terrible breakup, you know? Joel: I feel good about this one, Amy. I feel good about this one. Joel: We'll be in touch again for a progress report. Until then though Amy, thanks for joining us, we know you're busy, and Chad 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. #Framestore #HirebyGoogle #Google #CloudTalentSolution #ATS #Uncommon #Adoption #Recruitment

LIVE from sunny Arizona... Ummm wait., no that's rain-soaked Arizona for the iCIMS iNFLUENCE conference. We're talking: - Google for Jobs LIVES - Indeed goes gig - Slack takes it in the nuts - again - LinkedIn has its sights on the Supreme Court against hiQ and we do an iCIMS tech and strategy round-up. You can't beat this with a Talking Stick (get it?)... Thanks to Canvas, Sovren, and JobAdX! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides training and development to help your workplace leaders and employees integrate with and value people with disabilities. James Ellis: Employer Brand isn't something you sprinkle on your recruiting like magic fairy pixie dust, to kind of make it better. It is both a craft and a calling. If that's the kind of work you want to do with your employer brand, come join me, James Ellis, at The Talent Cast. Intro: 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: Yeah. Chad: When's it going to rain? Joel: From the rain-soaked desert in Scottsdale, Arizona, you're listening to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, a.k.a. The Chad and Cheese Podcast, a.k.a. Right Said Fred and Seth Rogen. I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad Right Said Fred? Joel: I'm too sexy for my shirt. On this week's show, is Indeed going full gig? Slack continues to take it in the nuts, and, "Hello, Supreme Court. It's us, LinkedIn." Yep, I just dropped a Judy Bloom reference. We'll be right back after we pay a few bills. 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 spa is at your side, adding automation to your work flow. 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: And we're back. Joel: And we're back here. Recording at the iCIMS yearly analysts/VIP/ Chad: Influence. Joel: Customer event. Chad: That thing. Joel: And it just wanted to rain in Scottsdale, Arizona. One of the 30 days a year that it rains here, we get two of them. Whatever. Chad: Not good for my golf game, not to be able to get out there. Joel: But my massage game is rocking with this indoor activities. Got to give a shoutout to the masseuse that worked my tight- Chad: Jerome? Joel: Areas. Chad: His name was Jerome, right? Joel: Jerome and Bubba worked me over. Man, it's been a long couple days. Chad: It has. Joel: So, shoutouts. Chad: Yes. Joel: Big shoutout to iCIMS, obviously. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Class organization, class people, class product, always have a good time with them. You get the Jersey attitude with- Chad: Yeah. Joel: The soft touch of tech. Chad: In literally opening the kimono. Susan just said that on stage. This is where we open up the kimono- Joel: It's kind of a naughty thing. I'm surprised in the Me too era that we can say "open the kimono so freely." Chad: Susie Vitale can say whatever she wants. Joel: That's true, she can. Chad: She can do that. Big shoutout today to Matt Charney, it's his birthday. So he's turning 70. Joel: Stay young and live forever, Matt. We love you, Man. Chad: Stay young, Matt. This next one is kind of weird. Robert Half, big shoutout to the number one job board on Robert Half's new list? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Big shout, guess who it was? Joel: Was it Robert? Chad: It was Robert Half. Joel: I didn't even know you could look for jobs on Robert Half's website. Chad: All of the different, there's a huge staffing company, so they have to use all these platforms. Joel: Great. Chad: And then, to be able to rank themselves number one, on a list, I thought was fucking outstanding- Joel: Usually, you try to be a little more incognito when you do these lists and want to promote yourself, but- Chad: Yeah, you're in staffing, you just do what the fuck you want. That's just how shit works. Joel: I mean, yeah, pity the fool that reads that and doesn't make the connection that it's self-serving. Man, who else was on the list? Chad: I don't know, I just, I had to stop right there because that just blew the whole list for me. Joel: Yeah, I think somebody commented, "Hello, 2012 called. They want their job board list back," or something. Chad: As if Robert Half's job board was even on a list in 2012. Joel: No doubt. Shoutout to Colin Day. Chad: Colin, yes. Joel: iCIMS CO was kind enough to have dinner with us yesterday at the event. Always nice to see him. Success couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, so Colin, shoutout to you. Chad: Colin's a great guy. I mean, he is one of the industry leaders who, he was a recruiter, and all the way up through the ranks, I mean, they just stuck to their guns, on the applicant tracking system and what they do, and they will say that, "Hey, we haven't done it right all of these years, but we feel like we're getting it right now." That's really cool for somebody to just be, again, that transparent and talk about where they feel like they were off the rails for a minutes. Joel: Yep. I love that, this may bleed into iCIMS round-up, but I might forget, I love that his sort of opinion of new tech and where things are going is sort of a wait and see approach. He's very calculated in terms of what they do technologically, and it's really easy to get sort of caught up in AI and ML, and the automated, and programmatic and everything and just start launching stuff willy-nilly and they don't do that. His comment, I think, in the presentation was, "Look, when the clients are bringing out the pitch forks, that's usually about the time that we should building and launching products." I appreciate that approach. Chad: I don't... 100% agree on that one. Long list of quick shoutouts, just so that you guys know, you feel free on LinkedIn or Twitter to follow us or connect with us. Will Capper over at Direct Apply, Karyn Lurie at Live Hired, James Anderson at Peachy Mondays, yes, that's a company. Mike Ferlaino, I think it is, over at Zip, and a bunch of people this week, actually connected. That happens all the time. I don't give enough shoutouts to that, so I wanted to be able to say, "Feel free, we love the engagement." Joel: Absolutely. Shoutout to the Job Board Doctor. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Who's been quiet for a while. Chad: He was napping. Joel: He came out of the woodwork and enjoyed last week's commentary on Paul Forrester and some other things, so Doctor, good to have you back, shoutout to you, Brother. Chad: Shoutout to Kristi Robinson. So she is the head of TA from Esurance. Joel: Well, hello, Mrs. Robinson. Chad: Hello, Mrs. Robinson. Yeah, so she actually did a pod with us. We're going to be launching that who knows, maybe in the next month or so but really appreciate her coming on and after listening, it was hilarious, because she agreed to come on the show, and then I asked her, "Have you ever heard the show?" She just kind of looks at me. I'm like, "Okay, go listen to a show before you get on." Joel: Did you pick the show that she listened to? Chad: Yeah, I did. Joel: Oh you did, okay. Chad: Yeah, it was one of the more- Joel: It was the CareerBuilder, WWE segment that got her giggling. Chad: And so that set the bar pretty high. [crosstalk 00:07:56] So anyway, we had a blast with that. Joel: Adam at Applichat, Chad, that guy just cracks me up. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: His firing squad drop this week. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Needless to say, we have opposing opinions on his business and what he's doing, but that kid just cracks me up every time I see his picture. So, Adam, here's to you, Buddy, shoutout. Chad: Yeah. Not about what he's doing. I love what he's doing, and I love that he's a 22 year old kid, starting a company. Oh my god, it's amazing. Joel: Yeah, we just love that he's a 22 Irish kid and living in Mexico City. Chad: But I felt it was my obligation to be able to- Joel: Sure. Chad: You'll hear it on the firing squad. Joel: Father figure in full effect with Chad Sowash. Chad: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Topics, you think we're ready for topics? Joel: Let's do the show, Man. Chad: Okay. So we're going to jump into the iCIMS round-up. Joel: Sure. Chad: And as, pretty much when we got to Scottsdale, obviously it's an entirely different feel than going to New Jersey. Joel: A little bit, you think? You think? Chad: So iCIMS making that big change and they've got beautiful headquarters, right? Making that big change and then also really melding their clients with us, the quote, unquote analysts. Joel: Yep. Chad: I thought that was really cool because we had an opportunity at lunch and breakfast and at drinks to talk to their clients and not just about what they're doing, but also about the content that was happening on stage. It was more of an immersive type of experience, as opposed to how it was in last year's. Joel: Sure. Analysts get tired of hearing each other talk. It's good to have a second opinion on some of this stuff. Chad: Yep. Joel: Obviously, they survey the attendees and we'll see if they cross the stream again next year. But I would be surprised if the employers don't prefer an intimate meeting with just them as opposed to loud mouth analysts and opinionated bloggers and podcasters. Chad: Yeah, I don't know. Okay, we'll figure it out, we'll see. Joel: We'll figure it out. Chad: We'll see how it turns out next year. Joel: Yes, if we're invited back, we'll see, which his very much in limbo at the moment. Chad: Yeah, I think Susan's already said, "You're not allowed." Joel: Yeah, I'm pretty much blackballed from iCIMS events. Chad: One of the cool stats that they shared with us, and we're going to have to get deeper into this, is that it's $680 per day, per job that is open for a company. That's an average that they've been able to pull together with their clients. I thought that was awesome because when we're talking about talent acquisition, and we're talking about the actual company's bottom line, we don't talk enough about numbers. And the bottom line. This is actually a figure that, let's figure out how they came up with it, but it's a figure we can start taking to the C-suite and saying, "Hey, this is what you're losing because you're not doing X, Y, and Z." Joel: Yeah. It reminded me of the UNLEASH panel where Sainsbury, I forget his name, mentioned- Chad: Chris Wray. Joel: You're numbers guy's your best friend and if you want to get a seat at the table, bring them along. To me, this is iCIMS giving you some ammunition to go to the C-suite and get a voice in terms of dollars and cents for getting HR at the table. Chad: I think that was $147 million dollars that Chris Wray, over at Sainsbury's actually had calculated that their candidate experience could cost them that amount of money in consumer goods because they are a grocery store. Joel: Your memory is better than mine, we'll just go with that. We'll go with that. Chad: That is amazing. But again, those are the conversations we need to have. Those are business conversations. Joel: Yep. Chad: Not the cost-per-hire bullshit that a CEO doesn't know about or even care about. They need to know how much money they're losing on a daily basis from a production standpoint, what have you, and also from a consumer goods and services standpoint, from experience. Joel: Yep. Another standout highlight for me during this event was, I had talked about Bullhorn's new marketplace in last week's show and I have a strong opinion on making people pay to be on the platform. iCIMS was very quick to respond to say that theirs is free, which it hasn't always been. I think that's somewhat of a new thing but when you get someone like iCIMS, which is big, it's a huge ATS, say, "We're going to allow people in free," the only hurdle they have to clear is, they actually have to have an iCIMS client using their product. Which I think is a fair hurdle that people should have to clear. Chad: Yeah. Joel: But, to me, this says to every other ATS out there like, "Hey, we appreciate the fact that start ups can make apps on our platform. You should take some of the barriers out of your, whether it's pricing, whatever it is, to get people, enable people to put products and services on their platform is a fantastic thing." I also think, you know you and I talk about the one platform to rule them all and it's hard to think, "Oh, Google's going to be the one platform, or LinkedIn and Microsoft." But when you start talking about an ATS platform where every third party service that you use and enjoy is on that one platform, maybe changing your mind that there can be a one-stop shop, as long as the platform is robust and everyone's welcome. Chad: Yeah, I think their unified platform, so this marketplace is pretty awesome because like you'd said, they have made the only barrier to entry is that you're working with one of their clients. At that point, this becomes a awesome strategic play for M&A. You have all of these companies, whether they're start ups, not start ups, to be able to get into the iCIMS platform in a standard integration, or a prime integration. I would definitely say if you can get to the prime integration, get there because you're sharing much more data, and they can see. Especially if you're looking to get acquired but yeah, overall, I just think it's incredibly smart. Chad: From the start ups we've talked about, or we've talked to, over the years, we've always said, "Get these integrations. Get them in deep." This is an awesome example of exactly what we've been saying. They're monitoring how you are doing. Joel: Yep. Going back to my comment about Colin being very prudent in terms of what they launch, the app store enables them to see what's growing, what's successful, what clients want, and enables iCIMS, in this case, to make an acquisition as opposed to building it themselves. To me, that's a sound strategy. We saw that with TextRecurit, we saw that with Jibe, this past year. That's, to me, a smart idea and it makes allowing people to put apps on your site or on your platform for free that much smarter because it's insight into your next acquisition and your next growth strategy. Chad: Right, right. I think around the programmatic, companies don't really understand it. Which is why they go to their agencies to do this. They're not going to come out with the pitchforks like you were saying. I think this is an entirely different kind of an anomaly to their current strategy, where hey, the people will vote on it and what not. Well, they don't even know what it is and it's out there. But it can save them a shit ton of cash. I think this could be a great opportunity for them to standardize programmatic in a core platform. I think, I really think that their strategy is sound, no question. But you have to take a look at some of those anomalies that are big out there. Joel: Yeah, plus no one loves data like you do. It's one thing to hear people like us say, "This is the future." It's another thing to say, "Hey, based on our marketplace, here is the future and here's what we should get involved in." Chad: Yeah. Yeah. I do love that. Joel: I will also mention that if you're ever at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale, make sure you have the carne asada because it's amazing. Chad: It is freaking amazing. Joel: I've had some beef in my life and this stuff was very nice. Chad: The Ignite UX is another, well, UI for their user experience, is another big change. Some of the analysts weren't really big on it. I can understand from the standpoint of usability, just as long as they aren't adding clicks, just to make it more pretty. That makes more sense. I don't think they're doing that. I could be 100% wrong, but I do... back in my quote, unquote, short applicant tracking system life, when Wow employers, one of the worst names ever, came out as an ASP, one of the very first ASP applicant tracking systems, I went to a client. Thing was set up to look like Microsoft, Outlook, kind of like Microsoft products, which really were ugly as fuck. Joel: Sure. Chad: I went to a big perspective client that we're going to hopefully drop a big contract on, and they said the usability was great, the thing that really sucked was, it was hard on the eyes. To be able to have a system that you're looking at eight hours a day, or maybe even more? Joel: Sure. Chad: That actually comes into, that comes to impact the decision. I, until that point, never thought about really being in a system that long, and I think this is a great decision for them. What do you think? Joel: Yeah, I agree, updating. Let's agree, iCIMS has been around for a long time. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: I mean, they've never been trailblazers in design, to say the least. But in addition to the recruiter side of it, I think rethinking what the job seeker's experience is is even that much more important because as consumers, good design is the lowest bar that you need to clear. If the representation of companies' career sites is shit, then people's opinion of the company site, as well as your platform, is going to be shit. The redesign was welcome but I also think a necessity in this world that we live in, of everything has to be fucking Uber, everything has to be Airbnb, everything has to be cutesy and easy and linear, as Colin, I think, mentioned. Everything is, "You can only do this, and you can only do this," and then go to another page and you can only do this. But it has to look good and they've made strides to do that, which is great. Chad: Yeah, I think Ron asked a good question. The current president and interim CEO, he asked, "Who has a great experience out there that we should look at?" I mean, we all just kind of thought, "Yeah, what does look good?" Uber was one of those, Lyft was one of those, because it is fairly simple, but thinking about the actual user experience that you do have, and enjoying that experience, what platforms do you use? I'd like to hear from our listeners on that one. Joel: Yeah, and particularly mobile. I mean, more and more job search and interaction and engagement is mobile, so making sure that experience is kick ass is really important. Chad: Indeed. Joel: Indeed goes gig, maybe. Chad: Indeed goes... so we've talked about this a little bit. We kind of saw this happening with SYFT. Joel: Yep. And we've seen Indeed throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall in the past year. Which- Chad: They have to. Joel: To their credit, good. Chad: They have to and good for them. Joel: Their forefathers did not do similarly when Indeed was kicking their ass, so good for them. But yeah, spotted by our buddy Chris Russell, since June of this year, Indeed quietly launched Gigs.Indeed.com. No announcement, we assume, it's just sort of a test thing. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I don't know how he got wind of it, although he's always sticking his nose in places he shouldn't. It's by no means an Upwork, Fiverr sort of platform, or what you think of a gig site would be. It really sort of a job board with jobs that are sort of historically thought of as gig jobs. Dishwashers, real estate agents, things like that. Also, there are very few jobs on it. Literally, less than 1000. So this is either somebody throwing shit, or as Chris speculates in his post, that with the acquisition of SYFT, maybe this is part of a bigger thing that Indeed will launch at some point in terms of taking on the gig economy. We'll have to watch that, but they've definitely launched it. It's not on a weird URL or anything. I mean, it's on Indeed, so this is something to watch into the next year. Chad: We will be watching. Joel: Do you think it's a smart move? Chad: Yeah, I think it's always a smart move to take a look at the different ways people are working. Joel: Yep. Chad: Whether its helping somebody find a side hustle, or whatever it is, I think it's a good idea, especially if you're in the world of work. They have been really focused on FTE, your traditional types of jobs. I think it's smart for them to do that, especially, again, if you have a platform like SYFT, this is going to be, this is really going to be how I would assume you start to transform Indeed into something entirely different, which would be really cool. Joel: Yeah. To me, it'll be interesting. I think this is definitely somewhere that they're going to go, whether or not it's a full-on, "We make, we pay them, and you put money in to leverage workers," whether or not they go full bore into like Upwork competition, or Snag, which we've talked about before. Chad: Right. Joel: I think it's to be, will be interesting, and I think secondarily, do they keep the SYFT brand and grow it out to this new platform? Or do they just take the tech from SYFT and put it on this new gigs.indeed.com URL? Chad: Which is... it looks like it's in Beta. It has the basic search, kind of like browse functionality for specific types of like home healthcare and that kind of thing. Joel: It's bare bone shit. Chad: Yeah, it is. Joel: Yeah. Chad: It's the very start of something that might never see really the light of day. Joel: Yes, it may never be promoted but, to me, this is a place they probably should go. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It's a place where, if you're looking at, "Where is Google for jobs not going to go?" It's probably competing with Upwork and Uber and things like that. From that perspective, it's probably a good strategic move to get into the gig economy. Chad: Excellent. Who do we need to hear from? Joel: Who do we need to hear from? Chad: I think we'd need to hear from Sovren. Joel: I love Sovren. Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and most accurate parsing products. 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.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: We're back. Joel: We're back. Chad: Last week on the weekly show, I actually asked, because of the whole Google coming into the space- Joel: I feel like not having beers for this show is a bad thing, but I guess it's too late at this point. Chad: They came into this space like mad men. I mean, they had three products and they were slamming them down. Joel: Triple threat. Chad: Yeah, and then, now, they pull Hire off the table, even though we hear that it was a good, if not great product. Joel: Sure, go back and listen to our interview. With- Chad: Yeah. Framestore. Joel: Yeah, Framestore loved it. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Loved it. Chad: It was a product they were really excited to be in. Joel: Yep. Chad: That won't exist next year at this time. Joel: Correct. Chad: My question was, I'm not really feeling that much from Google for jobs or anything like that. I might have spurred Chris on, I don't know, but Chris Russell then wrote a post, and he was speaking with some staffing companies and some marketing companies and what not. Joel: And Chris has his own sites, as well that he monitors. Chad: Yeah. So he had this one quote from Matt [Lozar 00:24:59], friend of the show from Haley Marketing. He said, "He can confirm that our clients for Google for Jobs, peaked in July but has decreased the past few months." Could just be cyclical at the end of the year. Joel: Or cyclical. Chad: Yeah, cyclical, cyclical. It's about three percent for traffic source. Kind of getting some inputs from organizations who have multiple clients I thought was pretty interesting. Joel: Yeah. All the job boards that pay attention to Chris and love Chris love hearing these kinds of posts. Chad: Oh yeah, I'm sure they do. Joel: For sure. However- Chad: They're not going to enjoy hearing this. Joel: Colin Day here at iCIMS gave a keynote or presentation yesterday and one of my questions to him was, "Look, last year you were super bullish on Google for Jobs. What's your opinion today? Are you still bullish on what they're doing?" His comment was, "Absolutely." Basically, what he's seeing is a slow march, Google for Jobs keeps getting bigger and bigger and more important, in terms of traffic driven. He said they'll go in, look at the top sites, and a year ago, they were number six. Then, a few months later, like, they population up to number five, and so forth. Susan Vitale, CMO, mentioned after he spoke that Google for Jobs is now the number three referral for jobs on their clients' websites. This is real data, this isn't speculative. Followed by LinkedIn and then followed by number one Indeed. Joel: But, rest assured, from the ATS perspective, an iCIMS perspective, Google is marching on this steady growth for Google for Jobs. My personal theory is that job seekers are learning to go directly to the company site because more times than not if they go to a job site, they have to go back to the company site, anyway. So the behavior of Google for Jobs users is, "I'm going to find out what the direct link to the employer is, and I'm going to click on that to apply, which wold lead to less traffic to the job boards, which is primarily, I'm guessing, who Chris Russell is talking to. Chad: Well, he did talk to a staffing company and one thing you have to remember is that early on, not a whole lot of companies got into Google for Jobs. Whether they were vendors, or staffing companies, or what have you. If there's a small pool of actual jobs, you're going to get a greater share of the traffic. Fairly simple. What's happening is, all the mark-ups and everything like that, iCIMS gets involved, they throw thousands of customers into that. I mean, if you're seeing a drop, that drop could be, that's organic. I mean, because you have more in the system. Just makes sense. Not to mention, I really believe that too many companies are looking for that silver bullet where they don't have to buy Indeed anymore. That's just not going to happen. Especially right out of the gate. Chad: Is Google for Jobs something that you should be involved in? Of course. But you also need to take a look at these other programmatic platforms and look at different ways to diversify your traffic because if you're not doing that, and you're just waiting for that one big site to come up, all you're doing is continuing the cycle of dependency where, before it was Monster, and that was the number one. It was like, "Oh, no, no, no." Then CareerBuilder, and then, "No, no, no." It's like, stop doing this to yourself. Joel: Yeah. I believe the decrease in traffic to job boards is part of Google's master plan of like no click search. Chad: Tarquin's here, we'll ask him. He won't answer. Joel: He won't answer us. The writing on the wall, in terms of if you're a job site, to say, "How do I get traffic in more, different unique ways?" You should have been doing that long before this, but that is really important now and underscored because what happens if Google starts aligning themselves with all the ATSes and saying, "How do we build one click apply right directly to the ATS?" So then I'm a job seeker, I'm on Google for Jobs, I'm looking at the entire job, and then there's like a one click button right into the ATS that I can start. I can have a Google account profile and then that sends my stuff directly to the ATS, directly to the company. At that point, the job boards are severely screwed because you're not going to the job board site, you're not applying through the job board site, you're just staying on Google, and applying directly from them. Joel: I think that's probably something that they've thought about. Chad: I don't think they have. I don't. I think that it all comes down to the best experience overall, and they're tracking the experience. So if the experience is better on a job site, then that job site's going to rank better because it's all about the experience, no matter what. The content is the content, but the experience is entirely different. I believe what job boards, job sites, whatever the fuck you want to call them, what they should be doing right now, is focusing on their experience. Not having candidates go through hoop after hoop after hoop, but making it a great experience for them, and that's how you win. Chad: I don't personally believe that theory. Joel: Just build an awesome virtual reality solution and people will flock to your job site. I also think there's going to be a lot of anti-trust issues. Chad: That's what Chris said. Joel: Google's moving beyond... this is a bigger Google story than Jobs. Chad: But this is search. Joel: Yes. Google's anti-trust headaches have mostly been pay-per-click. But it's moving into... they're screwing over Yelp, they're screwing over any weather site, rental site, reservations. No one's going to these sites anymore because Google has all the content on Google. If there's anti-trust that comes out and the courts decide that Google can't just take site's contents, and just make it available on Google without having attribution or sending people to the sites of origin, then that's not going to happen on Google for Jobs. But if they don't get anti-trust cases, yeah, we'll see what happens. But in a perfect world, I don't think Google wants you to leave Google ever. Chad: No, but I also think that their big play for defeating anti-trust in this space, was killing Google Hire. Not being that full system, that one system that rules them all, because that is a monopoly at that point. Right now they can go back and say, "You know what? We could've gone there, as a matter of fact we were, so we stopped, and we're just focusing on what we do, and what we do is search." Joel: "We're just making publicly available content-" Chad: All we're doing. Joel: "Available on our platform." Chad: That's exactly right. Joel: Yep. Chad: Talking about anti-trust is... one company that I don't think comes up enough, they're smartly, I think, dodging a lot of this, maybe because of- Joel: They have experience. Chad: They do. They do have experience. Joel: In anti-trust. Chad: Microsoft is eating Slack- Joel: Yeah. Chad: Like a fucking boa constrictor, Man. Just slowly and just choking them to death, and then they're just going to eat them whole. That's it. Joel: Yep. So, a little context here, we talked a little while ago about Microsoft teams surpassing the traffic in terms of daily users of Slack. Slack has about 12 million users, at the time when we reported it, Microsoft had surpassed them and gotten 13 million. It just came out recently that they're at the 20 million users mark- Chad: 13 million wasn't that long ago. Joel: Yeah, it wasn't that long ago, so, yeah. If I'm Slack, it's going to be really challenging. But Microsoft, anti-trust issues, I don't know. Facebook has a competing product, as well. It's not as if people don't have options in terms of messaging at work. But in terms of Slack, Man, that's a tough battle to fight because Microsoft product is integrated into companies already- Chad: Yes. Joel: It's flip a switch, now we have a Slack-like product. Certainly there'll be a good group of rebellious companies that say, "We're never going Microsoft." But in terms of growth, good God, Slack has got its work cut out for it. If the stock continues to dive, like it did this week, somebody's going to come in and grab them up at clearance prices. That could happen next year. Chad: Sit back and wait. Watch the fricking Microsoft train roll and just watch that fricking stock tank, and then wait for the clearance items, Man. Joel: That's right. My prediction of Amazon buying Slack could still happen, Folks. Chad: Could still happen. Joel: Could still happen. Chad: Excellent. So I think what we're going to do, is we're going to take a little time for JobAdX, and then we'll be right back, and we're going to talk about LinkedIn, and what is LinkedIn doing, or asking of the Supreme Court? Joel: Yikes. Chad: What the? JobAdX: Nope. Nah. Not for me. All these jobs look the same. Next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past your jobs. Just half-heartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it, we live in a world that is all about content, content, content. So why do we expect job seekers to react differently while reading paragraphs and bullets and templated job descriptions? Stand out in a feed full of boring job ads with a dynamic, enticing video that showcases your company culture, people, and benefits with JobAdX. Instead of hoping that job seekers will stumble upon your employment branding video, JobAdX seamlessly displays it in the job description while they're searching, building a connection, and reducing candidate drop off. You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites to proactively compel top talent to join your team? JobAdX: Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing joinus@jobadx.com. That's joinus@jobadx.com. Attract, engage, employ with JobAdX. Chad: And we're back. Joel: We're back. Chad: LinkedIn asks the Supreme Courts of United States, a.k.a. SCOTUS, to look at the hiQ ruling. Joel: Yep. Chad: LinkedIn plans to ask the United States' Supreme Court to review a ruling that requires the company to allow its site to be scraped by analytics company hiQ Labs and, just for everybody else that's out there, probably about 10,000 other small companies who do the same damn thing. Not the same thing, but scraping-wise. Back to this, the Microsoft-owned social networking service disclosed its plans, in court papers filed Thursday with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who they haven't had a good track record with- Joel: Nope. Chad: LinkedIn is also asking the Ninth Circuit to pause the lawsuit until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case because they know they're going to get smacked down like a bitch by the Ninth. The battle between the two companies began in May 2017 when LinkedIn demanded that hiQ stop scraping data, and hiQ is the David in this David and Goliath. I mean, they literally... I can't imagine how many funds they've had to put out to be able to try to fight this over two years. Joel: Two questions. One is, "Does the Supreme Court take this on?" I'm not enough of a legislative nerd to know if they will. Obviously, in this country we know that the Supreme Court takes on really big issues, really big questions, and tries to answer those questions based on the Constitution. That's the first question. I tend to think that this, if it's framed as, "This is online data. What happens to it? Who has access to it?" It is a big enough question that the Supreme Court would listen to this case. The second thing is, "Will they win?" If it does go to the Supreme Court. You have to look at the make-up of the court. Very conservative, siding with Big Business. I think you could probably make that argument and in that world, I think LinkedIn probably has a pretty good chance to win the case. Joel: I do think that whatever ruling, if they take this on, is going to have widespread, very widespread implications to sites and scraping and who owns data and server traffic and how all that stuff is organized. If they take it on, it's going to be a super interesting thing to watch heading into next year. I'm kind of hoping that it does go to Supreme Court. Chad: I kind of do, too. I think it'll go the other way, and here's why. Small business. This is how small businesses actually... they're not using LinkedIn's data because that's not LinkedIn's data. That is the candidate's data. Therefore, they're actually using that data to be able to, again, whether in hiQ's standpoint predict certain things or what have you, this could perspectively negatively impact thousands of small businesses. Chad: If you go into the Supreme Court with, again, more of a conservative panel of judges, then you can really say, "Hey, look, we're talking about a Microsoft-backed company." We're talking about a huge, big corporation that is trying to stamp out not just one little guy, thousands of little guys. Joel: Yeah, I think that'll be a big question for the Supreme Court, is how does this stifle innovation? Chad: Yeah. Joel: We're looking at a world- Chad: Very much. Joel: Where a handful of tech companies are prime to basically own everything that innovation dies in that world. Chad: Take guys like SeekOut who just won our Death Match. Joel: Correct. Chad: Right? Joel: Correct. Impacts a lot of companies. Chad: Yeah. Joel: All over the place. I do hope this goes to the Supreme Court. I'll be watching it closely and then hats off to hiQ for, again, taking on this battle. Chad: Yes. Joel: I'm not sure how they're bankrolling the legal bills, but good for them for fighting this good fight. They may go down in history as a serious David to the Goliath of Microsoft and LinkedIn. Chad: If you're one of those small companies that is scraping data from LinkedIn, and you are not giving money to hiQ for this law, this court battle? Then, that's what you do right now. You give them a call, you write them a check because they are fighting for you, and your business livelihood. Joel: That's right. When you're making out the holiday cards to your VIPs and close friends this year, make sure you send hiQ a little love this holiday season in their fight against LinkedIn and Microsoft if you're in support of what they're doing. Chad: That being said, we out. Joel: We out. Walken: Thank you for listening to what's it called? PODCAST! with Chad, with Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shoutouts to people you don't even know, and yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar. Blue. Nacho. Pepper jack. Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anyhoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode and while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out. #LinkedIn #Microsoft #iCIMS #Indeed #GigEconomy #GoogleforJobs #Google #Slack #SCOTUS

Is it a chatbot? Is it a Facebook advertising platform? Is it bound for global domination? Well, let's not get carried away here, but Applichat brings its goods to the Firing Squad. To say Chad & Cheese are split on this one would be an understatement. Opinions clash on this episode for sure. Brought to you by Talroo. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides training and development to help your workplace leaders and employees integrate with and value people with disabilities. Chad: Talroo was focused on predicting, optimizing, and delivering talent directly to your email or ATS. Joel: 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: 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. Intro: Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to put their 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. Chad and Cheese podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel: Oh yeah. Firing squad is back. Mark Cuban ain't got shit on us. Chad: That's right, bitches. Joel: What's up, Chad? Chad: What's up, Cheese? Joel: I feel like it's been a while. My gun's a little rusty. Chad: It sounds like a personal problem. Joel: I did have my vasectomy recently. Chad: My shit's all oiled up and ready to go. Joel: You're all lubricated. Nice. Nice. I've got to get that going. All right, on today's Firing Squad, please welcome everybody, Apple iChat, or I mean Applichat, or I mean apply chat. We'll get to that later, but Adam Chamber from startup Applichat, I'll go with that, is here straight out of Belfast, calling in from Mexico. Adam, welcome to the show. Adam: Hola, chicos. Good to be here. Thank you. Joel: What the fuck did you just say? Adam: You don't want to know. Joel: You fecker. Adam: Fecker. Joel: I was going to ask Adam what his favorite Irish whiskey was, but from his LinkedIn profile he looks about 13 so I won't ask. Chad: Which means he's been drinking for about 10 years. Joel: That's why he's in Mexico. Adam: Daintily poised on 10 emoji cushions right now. Joel: Yeah, that's right. Baby bottle. That's what he had growing up in Belfast. No. Welcome to the show, Adam. Adam: Thank you very much. It's good to be here. I've been listening profusely. Perhaps too much. Joel: Long time listener, first time start up on the show. So Adam, give us a little bit about you, which I'm guessing is about two years of professionalism. And then Chad will describe the rules to you. And then we'll get into it. Adam: Sweet. Okay. So, hi, my name's Adam. I'm 22 years old. I left university with thinning hair and big ambitions, but I couldn't find a girlfriend and I didn't really fit in back at home. So I decided to start a business and move to Mexico. So I'm here, single, bilingual, ready to mingle with some HR podcasters. Yeah, marketing's always interested me for about 10 years since I was selling virtual football card in school. Now I'm applying the skills I've learned over that time to make recruitment less stressful, because life's too short for wasting time on boring hiring processes. Joel: You are living the gen Z dream basically. I'm a little bit jealous, got to know. All right. Adam: What gen are you? Joel: I'm a gen X-er as this chat. A little known fact about us is we are a day apart. He is one day older than me officially. Adam: Okay. Older and wiser. Joel: Yeah, so you would have been born in what year? My math is not good. Adam: 1997. Joel: '97 very nice. All right, Chad. Well for being on the firing squad, tell him what he's about to win. Chad: All right, Adam, you will have two minutes to pitch Applichat. At the end of those two minutes, you will hear the bell. Then Joel and I will hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If your answers start to suck or they ramble or they've just taken too long Joel's going to hit here with the crickets. This is your signal to tighten up your game. At the end of Q and A you will receive one of these three. Either a big applause, get that bank account ready. Golf clap, you're getting there, but you can do much better. Or, this is what you don't want, the firing squad, hit the bricks, close up shop, pull out the drawing board because that shit needs to go home. That's the firing squad. Joel: Grab a Corona, get a siesta and reevaluate things. Chad: That's right. Are you ready? Joel: Any questions? Adam: Yeah. What sort of guns are you using? Chad: Those are M240s. Adam: I see you brought it. Okay. Joel: Do you know your guns? What, were you in the IRA or something? What? Adam: No, I was a bomb maker. Anyway, let's go. All right. Joel: You guys are so quick. All right. Are you ready to pitch your product? Adam: Absolutely. Joel: All right. In three, two... Adam: Okay, I'm on Instagram every day, know the job boards and LinkedIn combined, but finding and hiring them has been historically difficult for recruiters. Successful odds require experience and budget per targeting leads to hoards of unqualified applicants. And crucially, many recruiters aren't aware that 98% of Facebook's ad revenue comes from mobile clicks. Making people leave the platform. If you're a normal mobile optimized career site turns otherwise interested talent away to the next cut picture. This raises cost per application and it loses you revenue and opportunity on the world's largest pool of passive candidates. Adam: That's where Applichat comes in. We help high volume recruiters source automatically pre-screen and allocate candidates directly to their ATS. Our solution uses Facebook ads and Messenger to provide a seamless conversational application without disrupting your charge workflow. So I'm going to talk about the process now. Number one, we set up six creative ads which provoke the engagement, which Facebook's algorithm favors. Rather than saying we're hiring, all ads must focus on the audience's peons and tell their own story. Number two, all the clickers are introduced to the role of Messenger while simultaneously being pre-screened by the talking job ad. Adam: The chat bot messaging and follow ups makes it impossible for basically unqualified people to waste time on applying. And it sends automated follow ups to the 90% who usually don't apply immediately. If they are qualified, they can then make an application through Messenger. They can book an interview straight into recruiters' calendars or be sent to a prefilled application form. It all takes place on the same interface where people are used to informal emotional interactions such as love, joy, longing, desire, the reasons people change jobs. Adam: So our best results have seen 70 HR staff free to do more productive work, 50% drop in cost per hire, and a decrease in interview no show by 40%. And since launching six months ago I've learned a lot, and we've been working really hard for handle full of clients based in the Philippines. Joel: Thank you, Adam. Chad: Thank you, Adam. Joel: For our listeners, where can they find out more? Adam: So if you want to find out more, go to appli.chat/cheese and you could get a 1,000 phones, $1 referral bonus. Joel: And spell that for our listeners. Adam: A-P-P-L-I dot C-H-A-T forward slash cheese. Joel: Right on, Chad. Get him. Chad: Giving them the cheese. So I heard something in there around anti ghosting magic. Tell me a little bit about your anti ghosting magic. We've heard it from other chat platforms, but what makes yours different and why? Was it 40% that you were cutting on the no show rate? Tell us a little bit about that. Adam: Yeah, so because we're using Facebook Messenger, people are always in the inbox. And compared to email, it's about four times the open rate. So to decrease that interview no show we just sent every couple of days or so updates, help, and advice about the interview. So instead of kind of forgetting about it or disregarding it, people are constantly being checked in with, being made to feel that they were valued and that they should actually go to the interview. So yeah, it's quite make people happy and what actually do- Chad: So the platform is predicated on Facebook Messenger only, is that correct? Adam: Yeah. So right now it's focusing just on Facebook Messenger, just to keep things kind of hyper focused, kind of use that as a springboard in the future to expand into text. Chad: Okay. So what differentiates you from the other bigger players that do Facebook already, but they also branch out and they do SMS, they do WhatsApp, they do all these other social messaging mediums? What differentiates you and why should a company come to you over them? Adam: So the major differentiator is we run the ads for recruiters. Recruitment job ads on Facebook have the lowest click through rate of any category and 50% less than real estate. And the problem is just recruiters don't know how to do it. They don't know what the algorithm favors and they post stuff which doesn't get promoted by Facebook ahead of more engaging advertisements. So where other platforms simply make the chat bot, we take a bit of the sourcing burden on Facebook and actually manage your ad campaign for you. Chad: So I feel weird that a gen Z is relying so much on Facebook for their business. I feel like I'm talking to an old gen X-er like us. Do you feel like you're putting too much into Facebook? Don't you fear that from a demographic standpoint younger people aren't using Facebook? And is that a major threat to what you're doing? Adam: So I think younger people still definitely are using Facebook, especially Facebook Messenger. A while back at university, everyone was deleting it to focus on their studies, then they went and redownloaded it a week later. But they still have Messenger because they want to talk to their friends and they're not going to delete their friends from their lives. I'm kind of focusing in a lot on the Philippines especially, and there about 90% of internet users have Facebook. Their largest is the 25 year olds generation Z demographic. So I mean it is definitely a risk using Facebook as the center of the business and I've been told that by other people, but for now I'm kind of happy to use that as a launch pad because it's such a big opportunity and no one's really focusing on providing sourcing solutions on it either. Chad: You mentioned a lot of countries, are you targeting a certain geographical area? Is it something for everyone? Marketing wise, what's sort of the focus for you? Adam: Yeah, so the focus at the moment is the Philippines. It's kind of the candidate reason and the market reason. So Philippines, we spend more time online than any other nationality. As I said, they've got a national average age of 25 compared to 30 in the USA. Because more than 90% of the internet users are on Facebook it's a big opportunity to start streamlining the recruitment process of all the outsourcing companies in the Philippines. So the outsourcing industry is like call centers, customer service, and they're expected to need to hire a million people in the next five years. And they have a massive problem of pre-screening. So everyone wants to apply to these jobs because they're so well paying and above the national average. So I kind of see myself as coming in and raising the amount of people who are actually successful from applying there. Chad: And what percent speak Gaelic? Adam: Well I don't even speak Gaelic, so I couldn't tell you. Chad: So are you focusing on staffing companies as your core client? I mean, who is your target in the Philippines? If you're looking to go after companies, are they companies? Are they recruiters? Who's the product actually for? Who are you trying to sell to? Adam: So the industry is called BPO, which stands for business process sourcing. Essentially Americans are paying the Philippines to do some of their kind of less skilled jobs, unskilled jobs, but they just want cheaper labor. So the industry is worth several billion dollars and it's kind of on top by companies like mine which provides chat bot solutions. So it's really those BPOs. And the good thing is they're not so risk averse as I find staffing companies in the UK to be. So they've been founded by American - Australian entrepreneurs here just going into a new market and they're kind of more open to taking advantages to stuff like this. Chad: Instead of going straight to the middleman, which is the BPO, why not start hitting the RPOs in the US who aren't as risk averse as they are in the UK or the EU? Why don't you start going after the big pile of money? Because this is where the money's at. Obviously you can go to the Philippines, and obviously they've got a great penetration rate for Facebook, but is that where the money is? And is that where the longterm strategy should be for you to be able to help an already outprocessing type of strategy versus going straight to where the money is in the first place? Adam: Yeah. That's a really good point, actually. The way I saw it was it was so well received whenever I went to Philippine and companies and the EP was in the Philippines that this would be a really good kind of testing ground because there's going to be so many applicants going for these roles. So it's more of a low hanging fruit for me, the American RPO market. That is on the roadmap when the company grows a little bit. But yeah, it was just sort of a matter of low hanging fruit to be honest with you. Chad: So what about this building of ads? Obviously recruiters can't do ads. They're, not marketing professionals to try to train them up to do this. It's just not what they're built to do. And in most cases it's not why they got into the job in the first place. So from my understanding, it sounds like you actually build ads. How many ads do you build per job and how is that facilitated in Facebook? Adam: So as I said, we start out with six ads, and the point of that is to find which one works the best. So the three different combinations of images and text and then three different audiences. We would go onto their Facebook ads manager, create those, connect them to the chat bot, and then after a few days or so we'd cut the two worst performers. After another few days we cut the two worst four performers, until we have the best performing ads. And this is where it's really different from programmatic where you've maybe only just put one ad up. On Facebook you really want to be testing to find out what your audience is and what your message is. That's what we focus on. So we take off the testing burden. Joel: So these aren't job descriptions, these are actual advertisements? Adam: No, these are like stories. These are life stories. Because I mean when people are on Facebook, you need to catch their eye. I mean, people scroll on average 73 feet a day. If I see a job description saying money, location, I'm less likely to click on it. If I see you can change your life by doing X, Y, Z- Joel: So these are stories. You're not doing the traditional feed ads on Facebook, correct? Adam: Yeah, absolutely. Because they're too boring. They're very boring. Joel: And then do the ads direct people who slide up to automatically start chatting with a company? Or is it a landing page? What's the process? Adam: So it's an automated chat bot, because if you click on just apply now that's going to take you to the career site. And a little many of them are mobile optimized, especially with the big fortune 500s. And my target market with Philippines, they're disgusting. It's just a massive but it's horrible. Joel: It keeps the user in Facebook. It doesn't take them to the company website or something, which I think is traditionally what our audience thinks about when they think about advertising. This is simply like let's start a conversation now and then there's automated chat and then that person becomes an applicant at some point. Adam: Yeah. So it's like a congruency between them seeing the ad and them talking through the Messenger. It's a much more seamless experience, and before they know it they started a tentative application. Joel: Do you think you're more of an ad agency than you are a chat bot? Because it seems to me like the most important thing you do is help people advertise on Facebook and then you're just using the chat bot or the Messenger solution to then create applicants for companies. Am I off base there, or am I right? Adam: Yeah, well it's a bit of both. So we have some people who they can get leads in using the ads, especially the ones in the Philippines where everyone wants to do the job. And how many have ones who can't source it all and these help with that. The thing, it's not a traditional ad agency because we use a lot of templates. So we kind of have a monster chat bot, which is then white labeled. And then we know what sort of messages work for the ads, so they're all sort of copied and pasted and then altered a little bit. So it's scalable. I'd say it's a scalable ad agency. Joel: And what kind of results are you getting on the ads, click through rates and whatnot? Adam: Okay, so I'll give you... Pardon? Joel: Yeah, go ahead. I'm looking for numbers or what kind of click through rates and engagement you get on these ads. Adam: Okay. So one company and 152 click the ad in one month and 88% percent of them were basically qualified. So 12% of people clicked, within 30 seconds they were told you're not suitable for this role. And that'll save them a lot of time of time. Of the 152, 13% of them applied, and we actually needed four hires. So from 152 there was four hires, and the span was about $200 on ads. Joel: Excellent. Thanks. Chad: So on your website it says your ATS is filled with dead leads. Is that really the case? Adam: Well, I would say that especially in the Philippines most companies they've had applicants who they forget about because they're not right at the time. And the thing with using the Messenger chat bot is we can actually communicate with the ATS so we can tag someone in the chat bot as being not suitable right now and then give them the offer to be looked into, like an automated sequence where they can receive free stuff basically. And the rule of that is just to keep them sort of active, so to speak. Chad: So the chat bot actually allows companies to prospectively... Companies have spent hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars on building a resume database that they never touch. And those leads in that database are pretty much a gold mine, probably a bigger gold mine than anywhere else because they've already paid for them. How can your platform... Or can your platform help them turn that atrophy database into a lead generation database? Adam: So today I've just been focusing on the people that I source, making them an active database. So the people from the ads continuing them on. What kind of put me off reactivating the database was there's a lot of people doing it. And also it starts that email. I'm kind of trying to focus on the chat aspect of this. I just want to be hyper focused, guys. Chad: Does it have to focus on email though? Adam: Well how else can you get them from... I mean you could.... Joel: And I'm curious sort of in light of that, retargeting, right? So you could certainly take all the emails and an ATS upload it to Facebook and then show the ad to those people. Is that something that you're doing? And then secondarily, are you putting any retargeting code on the career site so that people then see the ad when they go to Facebook after visiting and looking for jobs at a company? Adam: Yeah. So the first one, it's a little bit sketchy because they haven't opted in for that to happen. If the company has in their user agreement that they can use that for marketing, then it's okay. But I mean I didn't want to kind of break the rules so to speak without... Because the thing about using Facebook is you have to toe the line. If you don't you'll be kicked off. I kind of pride Applichat on being the most compliant agency in the space. And the second question, could you remind me what that was? Joel: So retargeting, so putting in a retargeting code on a career side and then seeing ads. Adam: Yeah, absolutely. So we put it on the application page of the form, which we are indeed linking to a form. And then they can see the ad. But usually we do it through Messenger so if they've got to a certain stage in Messenger we remind them through Messenger. Joel: So you're not putting retargeting code on the ATS or the career site, but you could do that in the future? Adam: Yeah. So we've done it with one client, so yeah, it's certainly possible. Joel: Okay. And then so keeping with Facebook, so your website says you capture a phone number and an email. Is that captured from the chat or are they asked to submit that information to you? In other words, are you capturing it sort of without them knowing just because they're connecting on Facebook or is that part of the chat process? Adam: Oh no. So it's all part of the candidate. Rather than scraping databases or reaching out to them cold on LinkedIn we give them the chance to submit that info. So what I ask is consent to our privacy policy by sending your email. And then the email address pops up as a quick reply. So that's just a little pop up. All they need to do is click a button and then they've given the email address and opted in at the same time. About 98% of people go past that step. Joel: All right. All right. I want to get in to some of the business perspective on this. You're promising a weekly video call with your customers. Is that scalable? Is that realistic? How does that work and will you keep doing it when you're super huge and famous? Adam: I'm famous now, mate. No, it's definitely not scalable. It's not scalable at all. Joel: So that will be eliminated from the website at some point? Adam: Yes, at some point. So the thing is at the start treating the clients really well so we have a good reputation. I mean there's still a lot of close contact because we're all about chatting, but I mean that will be taken out in the future. Joel: Do they like the video calls, or is that sort of bothersome for them? Adam: No. Well, the thing is not all of them take the weekly call. It's just on the table if they want to be kept up to date we do it. Because I'm just starting out I love it because it's talking to other business people in the same space and helping them. Joel: Yeah. Well, you're 22. The education is probably invaluable to you. Old people like us don't want to talk to anybody. So I'm curious, have you raised money? Are you looking to raise money? I mean, your contact us email on the website is your direct email address. So is this going to stay small? Do you want it to be big? Talk about that. Adam: Yeah. So in the next couple of years I don't plan to raise money. I want to keep it a kind of small agency where I work with contractors. We basically provide a really focused service to say 20, 30 clients. That's kind of just a personal choice for me where I want to see how the business starts to grow. And if it's something which is appealing then I'm going to take it to the next level and maybe seek a bit of funding. However, I'm thinking in two year blocks at the moment. Chad: A lifestyle game is not a bad game to play. On the website it actually says, "What you need is automation to do the heavy lifting." So what heavy lifting are you actually taking off the recruiter's shoulders? And how much time are you giving back to a recruiter in about a week? I mean, so if you take a look at just a week's time frame, how much time are you giving them back and where is it at? Adam: So for our clients, the main problem is prescreening on qualified candidates. So they would maybe get hundreds of people in each week and only 30% to 40% of them will be useful. What we do is automatically take those people out at the very early stages within one minute. So if it takes about a minute to chuck someone away and if they're doing say 100 of those a week, then that's 90 minutes a week. We have a client, they're a Chinese company, but they have an office in the Philippines and they move seven staff in the more human facing kind of different HR rules. So I guess with them we save several hours a week. The big part of it is taking automatable tasks out of recruiters' hands and letting them do stuff that they're trained to do and enjoy doing. Chad: Okay. So what's your end goal here? Are you looking at making just this a lifestyle business? You have 20 or 30 companies and maybe grow that to 50 over the next five years and just be happy with that? Or are you looking for more grander acquisition or growing into a platform? What are you looking for as a digital nomad? Adam: Okay. Yep. Well, personally for me, I would like to grow it to the point where I don't need to worry about money and I have an income that kind of makes anything possible for my lifestyle. So as you said, the nice point would be 30 to 40 clients and to be five or six contractors managing those accounts with me. Looking longterm, I would like to sell the business once it's got to that stage. So I mean I'm not thinking of put it on the stock market or trying to create a multimillion pound empire. For me, this is a lifestyle business, which I think can help a lot of people remove the stress from recruitment. Joel: So Adam, I'm going to let you out on this. Talk about pricing because one, I'm sure there's pricing for the service, but then you've got pricing for the advertisement and how much is the company spending? And I'm sure you have to go through a recommendation for how much they should spend. Is it pretty customizable per deal? Can you standardize pricing? Talk about that. Adam: Yeah, so it's a bit of both. It's $1,000 a month and then there's performance based add on. So that could range from $5 to $25 per application depending on what they're actually paying recruiters. So, for example, if a company wants to make 20 hires, maybe they need 200, 250 applicants. If we charge them $5 per applicant on top of our $1,000, and if they pay $1,000 for ads, that's $3,000 they've spent on 20 hires, which I think is a pretty good deal considering they're pan about 500 to 600. Joel: So they're paying for application, so they're not worrying about how much the advertising costs. You're just making sure that you're paying less for an applicant than they are. And Facebook is getting the difference, I guess. Adam: Yeah, pretty much. So the benchmark is what they're paying recruiters for the candidates. Joel: Okay. Adam: Yeah. Joel: So 1,000 and then 25 for every applicant that they want? Adam: I mean, it depends on the audience. So if they're targeting IT specialists, then that's going to be a higher cost per lead in terms of Facebook's charge. So then we'd raise the $5. Joel: So nurses would be more than, I don't know, servers or something? Adam: Yeah, more or less. Joel: Okay. All right. There it is. All right, Adam. We have come to the end of our Q and A and it's time for you to face the firing squad. Chad: Here it is. Adam: Yeah, that's good. Kill me. Joel: Irregardless of what kind of guns we're using, I'm going to go first. So I think that when we grade a company or give feedback or become critical, it's easy to get into the everyone should want to be super rich and famous and go IPO or be bought for $100 million. But I think that sometimes you should judge a company based on what they want to be. And the fact that you want to be this nomad going from country to country and doing what you do, not having staff, not raising money, a 30 40 company business is very doable, I would think. So I tend to come at this at critiquing you based on what you want to do. Joel: I think we're going to see a lot more businesses like this in the future, sort of these solopreneurs that get a niche. I think the fact that you're just the Philippines, I'm guessing there's not a lot of competition from there. I think Facebook is a little bit risky, but yet has more people on it than Christianity. So if you can help people figure out how to advertise on Facebook, which by the way is also Instagram and anything else Facebook owns, and then drive them into a chat experience, which becomes an application. They don't have to figure out the advertising, they don't have to post jobs. You take that process out for them. I think that's a pretty cool business. Joel: I think you probably will be acquired at some point. I think this is a really nice play for an agency to provide ads in a different way than maybe what they're doing today. I think that Facebook isn't going anywhere. I think your pricing is very competitive. You're a super young guy. My guess is this'll be something you do for five years and then you go off and do something else. But for me, are you going to be a $100 million dollar acquisition and stay in Mexico and retire? Probably not, but that's not what you're looking for. I think what you're doing is pretty cool. I think you're a pretty smart guy. I think for what you want the business to be, you're on the right track and from me you're going to get a rousing applause, man. I'm a little jealous. Adam: Come to Mexico. Joel: Let's see if Chad feels the same. Chad: Well Adam, I'd like to say we love chat bots. You listen to this show and you know we love chat bots because there are so many applications. I love the lifestyle business aspect. I love that. I also love that you understand the demos. You're in the Philippines because you know the penetration rate in the Philippines, and you also know the target of the BPOs. That to me is awesome. Here's the thing, it's kind of like a turn. It's either a lifestyle business or it's not, okay, because it's hard, not impossible, but very improbable to be both. To be able to focus and understand all the different markets, much like you do the Philippines right now, I think it's essential. Not just obviously UK staffing is pretty rigid and they're not going to pick this up, but who is and where's the money? Chad: So I think you've got a great incubator going on in the Philippines. Here's the big problem that I see. This is an easy model for companies like TMP or AIA who just bought Car, a company who does this very sort of thing and they can scale. Or Symphony, who just bought SmashFly who also has a chat bot. Or maybe even Talk Push who pretty much owns the APAC area when it comes to the chat bot slash CRM side. So I think overall, I love the idea. I love the digital nomad. The problem from my standpoint, it is too easy to replicate, which is why I'm hitting you with the guns. Joel: Ouch. Chad: I love it, man. I say you live it up as long as you can. Joel: Dude, there aren't many arousing applauses and big guns. So however you feel about that, I don't know, but it's a unique situation. How do you feel? Adam: Yeah, I feel really good. I didn't come just for positive feedback. So thank you to both of you for your input. Joel: Fair enough. Well, again, Adam, for those who want to learn more, where do they go? Adam: So go to appli.chat/cheese, A-P-P-L-I dot chat forward slash cheese. Joel: Thanks, man. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Chad. Chad: We out. Outro: 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.C-H-A-D-C-H-E-E-S-E.com. SFX: That is one big pile of shit. #FiringSquad #chatbots #Facebook #Advertising #Agency #Applichat

Hell hath no fury like a bunch of salespeople screwed over by a greedy company, which is why CareerBuilder's back in court. Oh, CareerBuilder, you're the gift that just keeps on giving. In addition to this news, the boys cover: - Bullhorn's new bullshit - McDonald's & Olivia's catfish move - LinkedIn's hashtag fetish - and Facebook's aversion to innovation and how it totally screws up their recruiting efforts. The upcoming holiday season obviously has Chad & Cheese feeling all warm and fuzzy. Enjoy and show Sovren, Canvas, and JobAdx - those are our sponsors - lots of love. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and inclusion. James Ellis: Hey, this is James Ellis from The Talent Cast podcasting. You're listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast, which I guess is your choice. Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR'smost 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 of snark. Bottle up boys and girls Joel: AWE YEAH, it's a rare, very rare late night episode of the chat. Okay. Joel: Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm feeling kind of squirrely. So break out the smoking jackets and pour yourself a cognac. I'm your cohost Joel, Don Draper, Cheeseman and I'm Chad. Let's hurry the fuck up. There's football on. So wash on this week. Show LinkedIn hashes out at companies. At least one part of bullhorns new market place is bullshit and CareerBuilder is back in court while the fire is warm and the Browns are on tonight. Kids, we'll be right back 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 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 go canvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent. Joel: Shout out to the Browns who are bound to kick the Steelers ass tonight. I probably just jinxed it. Other shout outs, a shout out to Recruitcon. Just got back from Nashville earlier today. Spoke on SEO for Google for jobs. I was a good time. Nashville's always fun. Nash, Vegas and the house. Shout out to Recruitcon. Recruitcon that Julie's still down there. Yes, she's on. She's got a double billing on that bitch. Good for now. You warmed them up. That's awesome. A big, big shout out that you're not, you're talking about the crowd. Obviously. Chad: We're close, but not that close. Tengai wins a Nora, which is a national online recruitment recruiting board. Yeah. Anyway, way to go. Tengai. Joel: Yeah. If they can't win an innovative award, they can't win anything. Cause that fucking thing is at least innovative. Yeah. Chad: The only one in the world, a Skill Scout, big props to Skill Scout. So we, we've been looking for an opportunity to do video for a while now and just have had too much other shit going on. Joel has been able to double up on his naps, which has been awesome. But we finally found a company skill scout who we could do DIY stuff and it wouldn't look like all "Blair Witchy" and shit. It looks good. So we're happy about that. Joel: It took a company led by another Cheesman to get us on, on video. We appreciate that. And a Valentine. Chad: And a Valentine... The one who actually sent the shit to you. Joel: A Cheesman and a Valentine. Shout out to Jim Stroud, the latest entrant to our network empire podcast empire joined evergreen this week. The announcement went out. We're glad to have Jim on board and it's going to be a fun ride. Shout out to him. Chad: It is. And next up I'm going to say I'm going to give it up. It's going to happen... For all you branding fans out there. Employer Brand fans, James Ellis and The Talent Cast will be official very, very so in the Evergreen Podcast network. If you're looking for more knowledge to feed your brain subscribed to the Jim' Stroud's podcast and The Talent Cast. Joel: Saw James today. Actually I'm sure this will be something he, he needs to cover this on the podcast and I'm going to, I'm going to tease the audience. He was recently interviewed for a job at CareerBuilder. I won't give away any more than that, but he's got a nice little story to tell. Yes, very recently they're pimping that. They got a bunch of money somehow, which I don't think has been publicized, but we'll, we'll have to get on that if anyone knows anything about that. Let us know. Chad: This class action suit we're going to talk about might have something to do with that. A big shout out to Micole Garate I think it is. She tweeted listening to the Chad and cheese podcast for the first time. "This Is definitely the big mouths of HR podcast". Two things first, Nicole. Really this is your first time. Welcome. But wow, it took you so long. Second, the big mouths. I think that's good. I'm just not sure. Joel: You make her name sound like the latest McDonald's dessert. I think it's Micole and not Mc-Hole or whatever that all you'd said. And why can't we get fans with normal names? For God's sakes, man, we can't pronounce anybody's on this show. I'll take them off. Yeah. However, Michael O'Dell I can pronounce, he lives in Nashville works for Neuvoo. Apparently they have about 10 different pronunciations of the, of the word and within the company. So the fact that we mispronounced it I think is okay. But Michael took us, took me, to his favorite barbecue spot. Took me to some cool sort of historic bars in Nashville. Fed me PBR. It was a good time, Michael. Much appreciated you're a good cat. Chad: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Julie doesn't give get any props it all for buying you drinks. Are you kidding me? Joel: She didn't buy me any drinks. Chad: Okay, we'll, we'll put that one out there. Wait til she gets home. Shout out to your favorite porn star. Hung Lee for giving us some love. He gave us some lot of on Sundays, recruiting brain food. I've never seen one of his porn his porn movies, but you know, that's, you say he's good, so I'm going to go with you on that. Joel: He's hung like a, you know what? That's all I'm saying. Who else got a, that's all my shout outs. We can talk about travel unless she got more people to suck up too. Chad: Jobiak. You forgot job yak gets $2.3 million. Joel: I'm going with Joby. You like Jobiak better? Chad: Yeah, it's definitely Jobiak. They're pushing jobs to Google for jobs. I'm going to say it's Jobiak, Joel: Joby yak. Kodiak job yak. Yeah, they got 2.3 mill, right? Chad: Yeah, 2.3 mill. It's, it's, it's interesting now for what I'm hearing. They're having issues with conversions. Joel: Oh shit. Chad: Conversions can be a bitch and hopefully that 2.3 million can help you get there. My big question is we really haven't heard much from any of the programmatic players around Google for jobs and what I would like to hear from them and we'll reach out, but you guys reach out to us is Google for jobs dying? Are we seeing still the type of traffic that we did six months ago, a year ago? I want to hear about that because we're not seeing much happening from the platform itself. Joel: Yeah, I don't think it's dying. There's an SEO presentation, PowerPoint being passed around and it, it's, it's not about the jobs component, but it's about Google's entire no click search like strategy to compete with everybody and jobs is just a piece of that. But right from the tool, the SEO tools that have been sort of highlighted in this presentation the jobs component is growing quite nicely. So although we may not hear stuff anecdotally or from providers for that at least one tool in the SEO community is showing that there's a, there's a good amount of growth in the jobs vertical for Google. So I don't think it's going anywhere. I know, you know, we've talked to Sovren Robert Ruff about how much easier it is to sort of handle jobs, parse jobs and serve them up much more so than profiles, which was part of the (Google) Hire issues and closing that down. Joel: But yeah, I don't, I don't think hires going anywhere. I think they're going to monetize it next year. They're going to start paper click shit. Like I don't, I don't think it's going anywhere at all. Chad: So you don't feel like jobs is going anywhere. Okay. I don't. Okay. Okay. We definitely like again to hear from some of our programmatic friends out there to give us some, some data on some of that. Just the, the peaks and valleys of what's going on. And imagine that a programmatic friend, Julie Ho from JobAdX your limited edition Chad and Cheese t-shirt is in the mail. Just want to make sure you knew that.. Joel: Big fan of the show. Julie Ho. Man, awesome... Events. We're almost done with the year. Thank God. Are we going to have a moratorium on talking about 2020 until 2020? Chad: Possibly. Joel: Okay, so ICIMS this next week. Chad: Going to Arizona for ICIMs... GOLF... Goat Yoga! And then we'll learn more about in players. You know, one of our big players in our space, you know, you might've heard of them ICIMS. So it's going to be a two day affair. Learning what's going on with them against the market and why we're there. We can actually ask them about Google for jobs as well. Joel: We, we totally can. And they enjoy talking about that. Colin's a big fan of what Google's doing. And by the way, that reminded me of another shoutout, a Symphony Talent care package came from me. You got that or not? But yeah. Yet another Yeti that I can add to the collection and a pair of AirPods, which is fucking fat. Joel: So ICIMS better up the game when we go down there with the swag because symphony talent just upped the game big time. Chad: Airpods and they matched ICIMS Yeti, Yeti for Yeti. So Symphony Talent now, not just spending money on things like I don't know SmashFly. They're spending things on a The Chad and Cheese. Joel: Pretty sure they didn't just get that for us. Pretty sure everyone that's important, you know, and we are important got a Yeti and a pair of AirPods so we're not that special, but it's still really nice swag. Yeah, I'll take it from stuff that you can't drink. This is a pretty good you know, second second act. At least you can put drinks in the Yeti to keep cold for your football watching pleasure. Chad: Yes, it needs to have that walking drink. Going to Dallas for TalentNet and what are we gonna be doing in Dallas? I shit, I don't even know what, what's, where are we at? What's, what's going on in Dallas? Joel: Big D. Yup. We're doing a talent net live Craig Fisher's 10th year putting this shit on. It's a Dallas and really Texas staple. We're gonna be doing our show. We're going to be doing our naughty or our world famous naughty or nice list. And we're trying to, we're working on a guest a to come up with us. That's, that's been a challenge so far, but I'm pretty confident that we can get a, a competent female, hopefully counter voice to balance our naughty to her. Nice. Chad: That would be nice. So if you're in Dallas area and you'd like to get on the chat and cheese podcast and feel free to go ahead and hit us on the website or tweet us or something like that, Joel: We could probably get you into the conference. I don't want to speak for Craig, but if you're willing to come on the show and you don't have tickets to the event we could probably pull some strings. Chad: I'm going to say we can probably do that. Chad: Topics! Chad: Topics! It's time for the NEWS... Joel: Careerbuilder. The long arm of the law coming down on Careerbuilder once again in the news. Chad: Yes. So from the Cook County Record, a, a new class accident action lawsuit has accused CareerBuilder for underpaying its sales representatives, allegedly stripping those workers of commissions they had earned. And one of the things you won't don't want to do to your school staff is you don't want to fuck with their commissions. But that is one big pile of shit. Benjamin D foggers filed suit and potentially hundreds if not thousands of additional plaintiffs who worked at Careerbuilder may join in that suit. So if you were in Careerbuilder during the timeframe in which the fucking occurred, guess what kids? Join the class action suit. Joel: You gettin' paid, you don't get paid yet. I had heard rumors of this a while ago about commissions being screwed up. I think this was during the whole whatever, poncho Vila or whoever the hell it was. Chad: El Chapo. Joel: Yeah. I think this was during the whole Chapo thing that commissions are being cut and slashed. I had at least one ex career builder messaged me and said everything in this is entirely true and it's why so many of us left when it happened. So yeah, I think, I think CareerBuilder's probably gonna have to write a check for this one. And if it's thousands it's going to be a pretty big check. Chad: Yeah. So according to the complaint, CareerBuilder instituted a new compensation plan. This is, this is classic. Under the new comp plan, the compensation was allegedly ratcheted down then commissions were removed entirely. Joel: Ouch. I love also that they're adding interest and attorney fees to the lawsuit just to add a little salt to the the wound there that they're about Chad: What do pissed off sales people do? Joel: File lawsuits apparently. Chad: ...Or They don't sell and, or they leave. And I've had a handful of 'em as individuals actually reach out and say exactly. It is a matter of fact, one of them sent me this this story. I didn't even know it. I got this story and then had a handful of others actually ping me and say, boom, here's the link. It's true. So it's, man, this is not a good thing. You don't, you don't screw your people. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. There's also some, some good stuff out there on Glassdoor and indeed and other places where, you know, reviews are put. So it hurts your recruiting and retention for future employees that you might recruit. Chad: Well, so you were talking about some of that money that they might've had that there were talking about with James a will, if you scrape this much money off the backs of your salespeople, you can come up with cash. But I mean right now CareerBuilder's kind of like that Titanic, it's going down while the executives find the lifeboats and everybody else just, you know, they just stay on and fucking drown. It's, it's horrible. Joel: Yeah. I think they're, I think they're just playing with house money at this point. I mean, obviously a little bumps in the road where they have to pay out stuff sucks for them, but I think they've made their money. And then some, and now they're just milking it. Don't you think? Chad: Now they're just making people's lives horrible. Sure. I mean that's what it is. I mean, people around have no idea what's going on. No, not putting money back into the product and looking to sell. And from my understanding, some of my sources say that the background screening company is very close to being sold. So there is even more money. So it's, you know, again, it's like the Titanic and my, my question to the people that are still on the Titanic, the fuck are you doing on the Titanic? Joel: They're counting, they're shuffling the chairs because it's busy work. At least they have Text Kernel to fall back Chad: Yeah. And Broadbean. Right, right. But I mean, so just a couple of years ago were they have like 25,000 clients and I mean that's dwindled down to like a 2-3000 or something like that. I mean, it's just, it's, I don't understand where this ends and how they can get guys like James Ellis in for an actual interview. Why? Why do they even need it and why are they doing WWE sponsors? I don't get it... Joel: But at least you like their new ads though. So they have that. Chad: No, I liked, I liked them better than any of their other ads they've done in the last couple of years. That's what I said. Joel: We can talking about McDonald's then for God's sakes, we can beat that dead. Chad: Yeah. I don't think the horse is dead. If the horse was dead, people wouldn't be publishing more, more news about them. Joel: No, you're probably right. Chad: Yeah. That's the thing that's getting me, and one of the reasons why I personally wanted to talk about this is because this feels like Second Life back in the day where everybody was so excited about it. But then remember TMP did a job fair and that shit just didn't work. Joel: All right. Let's unwrap this a little bit. Are you comparing the fate of Second Life to the future fate of voice, search? Chad: No wait a minute, I thought you, I thought you were still bolstering second life. Joel: I'm on it right now. You believe voice assistants are a thing, right? Like that's not gonna. That's not gonna be Second Life part two, right? Chad: Yeah. Well I think Second Life is still a thing though too. The problem was back when they did it, the bandwidth was horrible. The processing was horrible. It was too early for its time. It might be good for job fairs one day, right? But it's just not, it's not ready. The problem I have with this product, which we've talked about before, the experience for the job seeker sucks. And if that job seeker go figure is a customer of McDonald's and they have a shitty experience, it's just another black hole that they end up in. So I just don't get it. Why does McDonald's rush to market with something that sucks from an experience standpoint? Joel: But I think there's one valid thing here is to note that bloggers and journalists are historically lazy and they see a story, right? McDonald's, Alexa apply for a job and it's like, I'm gonna write about that. And they just look at the press release, they copy and paste the quotes that are from the press release. And they don't actually like go to Alexa. Yeah, they don't do it. I have an Alexa if I don't have Alexa, I get that. But like they don't actually test it. It's just like something to drive traffic and clicks to their blog or website. So there is a, there's a level of laziness with this story to say like, Oh, it's cool, let's write about it, but actually not do journalism or reporting and see if it actually works. I wish some more of that would happen, but yeah, that's part of the reason why this thing is still in the news and it will continue to be someone else, some other company will do it and they'll do a press release around that restaurant or whatever has done it and more press will come out. But ultimately if the shit doesn't work, it'll just, it'll just die out. This is obviously going to be a topic in our Naughty and Nice podcast. I'm going to guess this is on your naughty list with a bullet. Chad: And ONLY because I was so excited to be able to actually have something that was voice activated that was a good experience. Right? Or at least a good shot of an experience. This is total shit. Joel: You feel torched by this. You're your it feel. Chad: Yea, I feel, I feel bait and switched. So you know, if you're McDonald's, this is bullshit. If you're Paradox and Olivia, this is total utter bullshit. They both knew better. Mel. McDonald's probably didn't know as much better they should have, but the vendor paradox, they should have known better. Joel: You feel like you've got catfish, don't you? You feel like you were lured in and then you know, she wasn't what you expected when you saw the Tinder post. Chad: That's exactly right. It was a very, was a great look in maybe a little air brushing that was happening, but still, yeah. Got catfish on this one. Joel: Well, let's take a break. I'm going to check the score on the Browns game and we'll come back and talk about indeed and bullhorns. New marketplace. 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 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. Joel: We've got a seven Oh score Browns in the lead, Baker Mayfield one yard rush, rushing, touchdown. Just an update. It's early. Totally jinxing yourself at this point. Yeah, I can't wait when this airs in the finals like 49 to seven, there'll be good. It'll be fine. So a tweet from cofounder of indeed Paul Forrester. Got you all been out of shape this week. What happened? Chad: Yeah. Well let's set this up real quick. So Paul Forrester really is the guy, him and Ronny who made Indeed, you know, what it is today. I mean, the culture of indeed is very, very much that of what Paul wanted it to be. And this tweet really it exemplifies. Joel: You think it symbolizes the DNA of the company. Chad: And who Paul Forrester is. So anyway, Paul puts out a tweet talking about 15 years ago, the indeed space and now the new indeed space in Austin apparently outdoes Facebook in Google. So he's all excited about it and one of the people that's not excited and I, I know many companies that are not excited because they feel like they were taken for a ride with the trojan horse. One of the, one of the people actually said, it's really too bad you're focusing more on your offices and not on the customers that got you there. Chad: That's what we talk about all the time. Indeed. Really bait and switch where they give away that that free heroin drip of organic search traffic and then they just yank right out from underneath you that they did that with job boards. They did that with staffing companies. This is a great opportunity I think for Paul to say, you know, that's really interesting and Paul hasn't been with the company for a very long time. I think it's easy for Paul to say "That's very interesting. I'm not involved with ops, so you know, I, why don't we bring those guys in. I'm sure customer service can help you out" but Paul doesn't do that. Paul says, interesting point. Although in fact job-seekers are more important in that journey. Pretty much telling the company that paid to lift them up to create what they created today. Fuck you. That that symbolizes Paul Forrester. He's always been an asshole. And the culture of this organization is, guess what too fucking bad. You don't like it? Go somewhere else. Joel: You know Paul's in Bora Bora with a fruity drink with an umbrella and could care less about your opinion. Okay. Chad: It's a different story. This is another reason, another reason why he should, he should be nice to people for God's sake. Joel: That's true. He has no other reason, you know? Right. It's, it's the two he has maybe. Chad: He can at least after the billion dollars that they made while he's drinking fruity drinks on the beach, be a nice guy instead of an asshole anymore. Joel: At least he's not cat fishing people from what we understand. That's a good thing by the way. Ronnie is a beautiful human being. We can agree on that. Chad: Yes, we can definitely. We can definitely. He, they, they definitely have the, the yin and yang gone but also from a source and this continues to kind of build up. Here's a quote from one of one of the vendors who is dealing directly with hiring companies. "Indeed Told one of our bigger customers that to get their jobs sponsored, it would be 10K per month", which means in this context that they're actually starting to pull organic traffic away from hiring companies now and they're starting to make them pay exactly what they did with job boards, exactly what they did with staffing companies. Guess what? If you're a hiring company and you don't have an exit plan, sorry about ya. Joel: I think it's fair to say that indeed is quickly not a job search engine anymore. It's just a pay to play job site. I stopped short of saying job board, but basically that's what they've become. Chad: No, it's a job board with performance ads. I mean seriously, because all of the jobs are on with this, this two pane kind of thing that they have going on. They went from being a job search engine that drove much like Google drove traffic to your site and to keeping all the traffic on their site. Joel: I'm just saying that the general spirit of a job of a search engine is not to like make people pay to be in the search engine. Yeah, exactly. And they're getting there. They're so, they're getting so far away from that that I'm just, they're just a job board at this point to me. Nope, they are. They are a job board. A Bullhorn is in the news. We haven't talked about them for a while. So I got an email from Doug Haslam their senior manager of media relations. Bullhorn has today launched the new Bullhorn marketplace. You can learn more at bullhorn.com/marketplace. The marketplace is an ecosystem of a hundred plus pre-integrated partners to help customers, blah, blah, blah, choose solutions, yada, yada, yada. You love marketplaces. I love, I love marketplaces. With one exception. I emailed Doug back and said, Hey dude, can you, can you send me some like pricing info on the marketplace and do you, do you care to take a guess at what his comment was? Joel: Or his answer was? Chad: I don't want to give you that answer because you'll publish it. Joel: Pretty well. Maybe that's what he, what he said internally, but the, his official answer was quote just spoke with the alliances team to confirm we are keeping fee structures confidential at this time, so I'm afraid I can't disclose any of that. And my reply was, "Boo", I don't understand why that can't be transparent. I don't know why. Just the whole fee structure needs to die. I mean S I don't know who needs to do it, but they're charging so much like to be in the, to be in the marketplace. Oh, okay. I just think the spirit of the began with the spirit spirit of marketplaces should be like, you know, put in, put your app in the marketplace. The marketplace will decide which solutions in the marketplace are best for the market and users will be able to use services in the marketplace based on sort of a, a meritocracy, you know, Apple to be in the Apple app store. Joel: You know, it's a $99 fee for the year and it's free to put in an app. I mean they obviously review it and they have terms of service and things you have to sorta jump through, but there's no real costs. Android is free, you know, Slack is free. I don't know why, you know, our business has this sort of hurdle. I understand ATS is have after make money and these places have to make money, but it just seems intricate and it just seems a, it just seems bad that we make companies and startups that could be in marketplaces like this basically not be able to do it because of the fee structure and I, and the fact that the fact that you have fee structure sucks and then the fact that it's not transparent I think is doubly, doubly shitty. Chad: Yeah, I agree with the transparency, but I don't agree with as the whole app piece because the, the apps are not as complex as what's going on in the actual marketplace for the applicant tracking systems. So if you're building an app for Android or iOS, right, that it's not easy, don't get me wrong, but it is, it is much, much less complex than trying to get your platform integrated into something like a core system, like an applicant tracking system. Not to mention it's not a one way road where only the developer of the app is going to have to do the updates, right? You have to have somebody in the core system also doing that, in managing that. So therefore there are resources and costs that go along with it. So, I mean, I think it's the big difference is scale of what you're talking about. I love the idea of having a marketplace where you can do that, but what you're talking about scale wise is entirely different. I mean, maybe, Joel: Maybe it sounds like a topic for ICIMS next week. Yeah. Help us understand why the F the fee structure exists as it does in our world and in others? Chad: I think they'll probably say read Chad's transcript and that's it. Joel: I doubt they'll say that. I just think it's because we love startups and we firing squad and you know, we love them. And I think too many of the ones that I talk to, it's like we can't afford to be on multiple marketplaces, let alone, you know, one or two. And I just think it, it, it hinders innovation. It stifles, you know, startups and I just think that sucks. Chad: Either way I totally get we what you're saying. I'd love to see it easier for startups to be able to engage and not have to pay. But yeah, I mean it's the, I think it's the resource piece really. Joel: Ah, let's take another break and check scores. And we'll talk about two fun topics. Tiktok and LinkedIn. Tiktok. JobAdX: Nope, not for me. All these jobs look the same. Oh, next. This is what perfectly qualified candidates are thinking as they scroll past your jobs. Just halfheartedly skimming job descriptions that aren't standing out to them. Face it. 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Joel: It seems like yesterday we were talking about TikTok at 500 million users. Yes. Will they just surpassed a billion users, they're the fastest to, to get to a billion ever. Yeah. The average time spent by user per day is like 56 minutes. The, the 16 to 24 age group. It's like by far the most pop, not by far, but it's the most popular app among, that age group. So obviously when that happens, what does Facebook do? Chad: They want to try to mimic exactly what's happening to and or steal. So they tried with lasso first and that fucking bombed. Joel: Well, yeah, so the Lasso bombed but putting stories within Instagram has worked basically, and they've, they've effectively stifled Snapchat's growth because of that. So they're essentially doing the same with TikTok, Techcrunch and variety caught wind of a new tool called reels, like a movie reel. Joel: And I think this was in South America somewhere like it wouldn't get sort of discovered. Right. so these are 15 second videos. You're gonna just feed, set them to music borrow audio, do duets with other, it's take two users. Chad: It's tick tock, Joel: It's tick tock. So I was trying to figure out an angle from employment on this and I got to think if I'm a, if I'm a shit hot developer and all I see coming out of Facebook is copycat stuff that's mimicking successful technologies and services, why the fuck would I go to Facebook, right? Like if the innovation there is dead, I'm going to go somewhere where it lives and breathes and that for the last five, 10 years has not been Facebook. Chad: Yes. And I want to make a point real quick. I remember for many months every time I brought TikTok up, you laughed at me, but you love tick-tock. I find that fascinating. It is fascinating. Yeah. Not to mention if you're on it, like Gary V is like everywhere, but he is like all over TikTok. Every time I turn on a TikTok, I just turned it on. He was on TikTok. I think it's a great marketing machine to be quite Frank for individuals even like us. I mean we should we get a TikTok, we should possibly talk to skill scout about that. But yeah, I think if you're looking to try to work at an organization that doesn't feel like the corporate or the man, it's not going to be Facebook today. It's definitely not with all the shit that's going on with Zuckerberg and, and, and Cheryl tell him bullshit lies and Congress. I mean, it's just like, that's not where you want to be. I'm not sure that Google is where you want to be either right there. They're just so corporate these smaller types of startups that I think that's the ticket right now. Joel: Yeah. you know, I think Twitter's trying to balance the line of not falling into Facebook land. Yes. And I think part of the whole, we're not going to take political ads as part of that because I think that's gotta be a minefield for Facebook recruiting when they get questions about why do you allow political ads that aren't totally true? And in fact, sometimes absolute lies to be on the platform. So Twitter, I think Twitter is trying to stay cool, but they're balancing out that fact that Trump's presidency is based on his tweets. Yeah. But then also staying away from the political minefield that is advertising. But yeah, it's a weird, it's gotta be a weird world for recruiting for these big companies because I think hot shit developers are running as far away from them as possible. Chad: Yeah, there are many people that are running away from them as far as possible. Yeah. I'll just go with that. Joel: But where they're certainly running to is LinkedIn cause it's so cool. So LinkedIn, this is my list. This is my little pet story for the week. So LinkedIn launched hashtags for companies or basically the company pages, right? So if you're a company, you know, whatever for if you're an ATS, you can put hashtag ATS hashtag recruiting software, whatever, whatever hashtags you want to associate with your business which is all, which is all fine and good. Right. So what's happening, and I did this for, for Ratedly. I added hashtags to it. So any, any posts by an individual that has hashtags, that are, that are the same as the ones you associate with your business, you get an alert from LinkedIn saying, Hey, Joe Schmo just posted something about employment branding or whatever it might be. Right? And then, and then it says you might want to go comment. Joel: So I'm like, okay, well that's kind of clever. So I go, I go to the post that they told me to look at and comment and sure enough if the, if there were 20 comments, 15 of them were companies, right. So, so now, so now all your posts are going to be inundated with companies that are like minded to the content that you just posted with commentary, which I got to think is going to get really old, really fast with people. So yeah, I just wanted to point that out as something new at LinkedIn that they're doing, but I can't imagine that they're going to, that users are going to be real happy with like 10 comments and nine of them are from companies. Chad: That's horrible. Joel: Yeah, it's pretty bad. Go Browns Chad: We out. Walken: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? Podcast The Chad, The Cheese . BRILLIANT! They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho pepperjack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird anyhoo. Be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, GooglePlay, or wherever you listen to podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese is so weird. We out! #LinkedIn #Bullhorn #McDonalds #Facebook #Olivia #Paradox #Careerbuilder