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Another year, another podcast full of predictions that (mostly) won't come true. Yup, it's finally 2024 and the boys have sobered up enough to give their best guesses for what will happen over the next 12 mos. And if you already long for 2023, never fear, we also review last year's hits and (mostly, again) misses. Plus, we reflect on 2023's podcast takeaways, our fantasy football champion is crowned, and travel heats up again. And what the hell is Dry January? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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: Oh, yeah. Two guys who can't even spell dry January. Hey kids, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel the prophet Cheeseman. Chad: I'm Chad. Who said dry January is a thing, Sowash? Joel: And on this week's episode, we're pulling out the crystal ball and looking into what 2024 has in store, or probably not so much if history is any guide. Let's do this. What's up, man. Chad: Hello. I'm finally back in my second abode in Cabana. So I'm not on Madeira anymore. And next week I'm gonna be back in the USA. So yeah. Joel: And I think I speak for all of Facebook when I say we're not gonna miss any of your beach fronts adult mischief making photos that we had to endure for the last couple of weeks. Chad: Oh, I do it for you. I do it for you all. Joel: You do it for me. Chad: You gotta live through me or take examples or whatever. It's all good. Joel: Peepers and I had to power through to make it to midnight on New Year's Eve, but we did it. [laughter] Chad: Dude. I was, okay, the island of Madeira, it's like off the coast of Africa, but it's a Portuguese island and they have the best fireworks in all of Europe. The entire island is lit up and it's crazy. We were out on a boat, which was literally a replica of the Santa Maria. So we're like on a pirate ship, and it has nothing, but it's an open bar, snacks and booze. And we sat there and shit we were probably out till 3:00, but I mean, we were watching just this island get lit the fuck up. It was amazing. Joel: What was the drink of choice? Was it sangria? [laughter] Joel: Or was it beer? It looked like some nudist, male swingers thing that I saw. Chad: What the fuck are you talking about. [laughter] Joel: Anyway, a lot of people listening don't even follow you on Facebook, but it was wild. Chad: The drink of Madeira is Poncha and it's this very, it's fruit and it's rum that's pretty much it. It's fruit, and it's rum. And yeah, you you can get knocked out pretty quick on that shit. So we were heavy into the Poncha. That's for fucking true. Joel: Shit. Yep. That sounds about right. Well, you ready to get back to work? You're ready to focus and get back to America and embrace work, the work ethic, the puritan work ethic and get back? [laughter] Chad: What? Joel: I gotta say, I enjoyed, people listening, Chad and I take at least a week, I don't hear from him. He doesn't hear from me and it's a great sort of relaxing time for me, 'cause Chad's a bit of a pusher. He's a bit of a go like, do this shit, or let's get this thing going, or what. So it was nice to kind of relax. But I feel pretty rejuvenated. I'm ready to hit the ground running. Chad: I definitely feel rejuvenated. Joel: A lot of stuff going on. Starting with travel. Chad: Yes. We've got travel happening in late January. We're going to San Diego for TA week, the 29th of January that week. And we're gonna be at Mission Bay Resort, hanging with koalas at the San Diego Zoo with our friends from KoalaFi. Get it with the Q and the I. Koalafi? Joel: Yeah. I do. SFX: Winning! Chad: We're gonna be in their booth doing some interviews, we currently have eight events scheduled for 2024 already. Fuck! So come and see us at any and all of them. Go to chadcheese.com/events register and come get drunk with us. Joel: I do have a quick travel, a quick a Canadian travel. Chad: Oh, shit. No, you did the Canadian thing, didn't you? You did the hockey thing? Joel: We're doing that. So we're headed to Montreal next weekend. Chad: Oh, nice. Joel: If you're in Montreal, which it has a nice, vibrant, employment related community. Yeah, come out and say hi. Maybe we'll have a beer but meeting up with the hiring branch folks watching a Canadians hockey game, against the Oilers. Connor McDavid hopefully won't be injured and having a good time. So I will be representing the podcast solo in beautiful Montreal, which I've never been, but I hear it's a beautiful city. Chad: Yeah. One thing I'm not doing is going north for the winter. That's just not something I do. I don't do that. I find a sandy beach where it's nice and warm, so you enjoy that. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Well, it's almost as good as getting free stuff, but not quite as good. So we had a nice little holiday giveaway. If you haven't signed up yet, kids, you gotta go to chadcheese.com. Click the free link. We're talking Textkernel, giving away whiskey, Aspen Tech Labs, giving away beer. Of course, we got t-shirts from our friends at JobGet. And if it's your birthday, you might win a nice bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. But last month's winners, our bourbon winner was Alan Bourne. Not related to Jason Bourne, as far as I know, our beer winner was Morgan Michels. And Kelly Herivnek was our birthday winner. Chad: Nice. Joel: And I think if I hear birthday, that that usually means that we play this one. I'm little slow on the trigger, man. It's been a couple weeks. [video playback] SFX: Do you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plums. Chad: That's what dry January does to you. Joel: Yeah. The brain is off for sure. All right. Celebrating another trip around the Sun and our listeners, Mira McDonald, Zachary Larsson, Cheryl Ford, Rob Arant, Mark Katz, Peter Brooks, Mark Becker, Mark Fogle, Keith Sedlik, William Nolan, Steve Brown, Lou Adler, Athena Carp, Peter Zalman and Lauren Sharp. One of our favorite Aussies, if not our favorite Aussie is celebrating another birthday. SFX: Happy Birthday! Chad: Who's Who? Joel: Hopefully they're not celebrating dry January on their birthday have a drink for us if anything else. Chad: Yeah. If they're smart, they're not. I wanna jump into really quick and talk a little bit about what we did in 2023 kind of like in retrospect and then move forward a little bit. What stuck out to you in what we've done over the last year or so with the Chad and Cheese? Joel: Well, aside from not killing each other after six years together. Chad: Always big. Always big. Joel: I figured 10. 10 is the breaking point where we finally walk off the stage but the travel stands out for sure. It's been so fun watching the RecFest, The Unleash crew grow, come to America, continuing to meet friends, new people, old faces some of the interviews we did live from a multitude of booze was great. The startups we always love some of the ones that stuck out like Vet, Aaron and others have been fun to watch. Certainly we'll get to it eventually but fantasy football is always a highlight for me, Chad. Always a highlight. Chad: Even though you don't perform well. [laughter] Joel: No, like the rest of my life I did not, not perform well. How about you, what stood out for you in '23? Chad: So I was taking a look at what we did over the year and we did over 60 interviews and we tackled some pretty heavy topics in 2023, who would've ever thought that we would be talking about failing child labor laws. I mean going back to the 1930s and saying, hey look we're just gonna take away all these child labor protection. So we talked to Reid Mackey about that we talked to some other incredibly smart people like Professor Ifeoma Ajunwa and Professor Mona Sloan about AI regulations. Pay transparency still a thing, gonna continue to be a thing. Maria Colacurcio and Anita Lettink. We've been talking about remote work and return to work all year because it's been kinda like this tug of war. We talked to Mary Elkordy about that. Women exiting the workplace Tracy Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas talked to us about that giving us the women's perspective. Turnover contagion with Andrea Derler and Roe versus Wade which has really impacted our lives after the SCOTUS overturn and Dr. T is what we called her but Dr. Tana Session. She was amazing. It was just great to have all of these experts come on the show and again those are just a few of the 60 plus that we have and we came out of the barrel hot in 2024 with our friend of the show, EEOC commissioner Keith Sonderling. I think this is like his third or fourth time on. SFX: Aih papi! Chad: But yeah, it's great stuff and I mean with including our YouTube only content we are over 1200 episodes pod to date. 1200. 1-2-0-0. Fuck! [applause] Joel: I think that deserves an applaud for anyone who's listened to any of those in the last six years that we've been doing it. By the way it's Tana, not Tanor so if you see her. Chad: Oh, Tana. Joel: So if you see her out there make sure that you get that right. Dude, Michigan might win a national title. Chad: Yeah, I don't wanna talk about that. We're done with that. [laughter] Joel: Let's go to fantasy football something that's great. So another season is in the books. Chad: Yes. Joel: I had a lot of fun I think everyone that participated. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: It was an all female Final four which was awesome. I think half the league was female but Dina Perro for Pyros... Chad: Boom. Joel: Is our champion for 2023, her winnings are on the way. I can't wait to see the pictures, she's already promised a good photo session with her winnings. She was followed close matchup jagged little Jill Patterson came in second. Marcy Mall Playground, Michelle Sergeant Slaughter rounded out our Final Four then we got Brent Locey, Joe Berga Dixon, Chad you came in seventh respectably right there in the center not showing off... Chad: Not good. Joel: Not falling behind, Dean Oster at eight and then everyone else sucked didn't even get into like the Constellation stuff. That would be me, Jasper, the European, Dennis last year's Champion, Tupper and then the Cellar we got Kristen Urban and that is just frankly the car crash of fantasy players. Chad: Ridiculous. Joel: We might send Dennis Tupper a little something for going from first to almost worst for this year but that is another season. Hopefully we do it next season. I'm pretty sure our friends at FactoryFix who sponsored this season and the year before are gonna be at least open-minded to doing it again. Chad: They love it. Joel: But that is Fantasy football finale. Chad: And talking about little boats and hoes. I mean YouTube, we launched a YouTube channel in 2023. Joel: We did. Chad: I kinda had to drag you kicking and screaming but at the end of the day it actually worked out pretty damn well and we got to I think Skill Scout to thank for that to make us look all pretty and sound good. [applause] Chad: We had over 30,000 video watchers or downloads, whatever the fuck they call it. Anyway over 30,000 in less than a year. Joel: We don't know the internet. Chad: Yeah, the top five YouTube videos was number five iCIMS CEO abruptly quits. Number four... Joel: Shocker. Chad: $7 Mayo might end democracy, number three Uber takes aim at TaskRabbit, number two StepStone steps in it, and number one will AI take recruiter jobs with Amy Butchko. That was it, that was a great interview as well. SFX: All right, all right, all right. Joel: Oh, Butchko. By the way Chad I'm on my way to being TikTok famous. My Full Service Sucks short, by the way, the shorts are totally surprised. Like people love us in about one minute or less intervals, which I totally understand, but my Full Service Sucks on TikTok is over 4000 views, which I'm pretty, pretty impressed with. I'm well on my way to TikTok fame. So I can finally walk away from this podcast and talk about things that old white men get angry about. I think it may be my calling. [laughter] SFX: 60% of the time it works every time. Joel: Which brings us to reviewing last year's predictions. If you haven't been paying attention, kids, this is our prediction show. If you haven't heard it before, we review our predictions from last year, see where we got it right and where we mostly got it wrong. And then we make new predictions for the new year. So Chad I don't know how you wanna do this. We can do one each. We can do all of yours, all of mine. Chad: Knock all your three out. Yours is going to be fun here. Joel: Okay. My three, my three were super specific. Chad: Yes. Joel: They were rooted in fact, if you don't believe me, go back to the archives, go to chadcheese.com and go to January for that one. So my first one was... My first prediction from last year was that Scott Gutz CEO of Monster would no longer be CEO of Monster. And for that one... Chad: Oooh. Joel: Yeah, I got that one wrong. And although he's still there, it's gotta be the worst job in our industry. Piloting a ghost ship basically in foggy uncharted waters can't be very much fun. Chad: I think the paycheck he's bringing down, he's probably okay with it right now. I think maybe being an AE there or something like that, that probably fucking sucks, but being a guy who's taking down the kind of cash he is, I think he's okay. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I guess he can cry all the way to the bank on that one. Okay. That brings us to my second prediction. Greenhouse IPO. Oh boy. Greenhouse, although they had, I think hired chief financial officer that had extensive experience in going public and had done some other things that I thought was a clear indication. Greenhouse did not go public nor did any company in our space of significance go public. So that one, that brings me at, O for two. Chad: I think we think these companies are smarter than they really are. We look really deep to try to look for their hidden kernels of what might actually to try to put the put these things together. I just don't think they're that smart. Joel: Well you know what I say about predictions, Chad, they aren't wrong, they just haven't happened yet. SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Joel: All right. Let's get to my third prediction from 2023... UKG buys iCIMS. Yeah, that one was rooted in a, I thought some sound logic the CEO that they had hired Brian Provost had experienced selling a company to UKG and I thought what better CEO to sell to UKG than the guy who sold a previous company to UKG. Unfortunately, Brian Provost is gone while Scott Gutz continues to to drive the Monster ship. Chad: Who would have thought that Provost just would eject. I mean, out of just thin air, one day he wakes up, picks up the phone, says I quit. Who would have thought that would have happened? I guess what, again, you never know these crystal balls. Sometimes they work. And most of the times they just don't. Joel: Full disclosure. We have no idea what happened at iCIMS, so we can only project. Chad: That's what happened in my head. He woke up, yeah. Joel: That brings my take at O in three for my predictions from 2023. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: All right, Chad, are you ready? Chad: Yes. Joel: Let's do this. Chad: Oh man. I tell you what pay equity was having its moment in the sun. And I thought automatically there's one company that's out there that I know and I love that they're going to get acquired because they are a system that just makes sense for pay equity, right? They're very transparent. It's technology. It makes it easy. And Syndio did not get acquired. So that was a big, big zero for me. Although, I'm sure they're doing incredibly well still, whether they were acquired or not. Joel: Is it something you think might happen in '24 or are you putting that one off the table? Chad: You know what? I don't think so. And here's why. And I don't think it's a situation where they won't do well. I think they'll continue to do well. I just think that because DEI, pay equity, all of these things are just not cool anymore. AI is kind of taking the stage. CEO saying stupid shit. I mean, we've seen so many CEOs just come out and say the quiet parts out loud over the last couple of years, that has taken the shine off of just about all the things that we cared about, that we should be caring about. And DEI, pay equity, those types of things, unfortunately are just not getting the focus and the time that are deserved. And I feel... Joel: Which is a shame. SFX: Boo! Chad: Yeah. Like 2024 is gonna be just another year of stupid shit from the CEOs, from the C-suite, from the board of directors and unfortunately we're going to be, we're going to be focusing on the drama and not the things that actually matter. Joel: I think you're right. All right. Now let's get to your number two prediction from last year. Chad: So Web3 is alive. My prediction was that some form of blockchain-esque type of organization would actually get out there in our space and it did happen. CV Wallet did come out and I think they're doing well. I think they're doing a lot better than we had actually thought right out of the gate because they didn't focus on blockchain. They focused on process. They focused on really the issues because of all the cons that happened on blockchain and crypto and that kind of shit. And we'll give that a half. What do you think, a half maybe? SFX: All right. All right. All right. Joel: McConaughey approves. We'll go with that one. Yeah. Bitcoin's having a moment here in the new year and ending last year. Ethereum is back. Solana is striking hard. I don't know, crypto might be a hot topic in '24. And your buddy, Sir Richard, might be in for a good year. All right. Let's get to your final prediction from '23. Chad: Google for jobs paid ads. That's right. We've been talking about this for years now, kids. I think since Google for jobs came out in 2017, we've been talking about the paid ads finally happening. We haven't seen them in the wild, but we have seen testing. We've seen screenshots of testing. And therefore, I mean I think we'll probably take it off the board from now on, but... Joel: You think so? Chad: We know that it's in the process. We know that it's happening. Google for jobs paid ads. I'm going to take a win on this one. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: All right. If you're keeping score at home, Cheeseman, 0 in 3, Chad, we'll give him a one won in one. How about that? We'll give a tie to the Bitcoin. Well, let's see if we can do any better in 2024. Don't get your hopes up. We'll be right back. All right. Chad, it's time to make our 2024 predictions. Are you excited? Chad: Oh yeah, dude, I'm stoked. I am stoked. Joel: Okay. In a macro level, I'm really concerned about '24, the world is burning, global conflict, geopolitical uncertainty, we have an election year here in the US, Taiwan, has an election, Germany in recession. It's a really volatile year. I'm really scared to make predictions this year. And I've decided that this year will be my George Costanza strategy for predictions. Now, if you're not a Seinfeld fan, hopefully, there's four characters in Seinfeld and George is kind of the self-deprecating, negative one. And he has an episode where he says, if everything that I do is wrong, then the opposite must be right. Chad: Yes. Joel: If every instinct I know is wrong, then I'm going to do the opposite. So this year, I'm going to go a little George Costanza on you and go the opposite of what I would normally do on our prediction show. So with that, my first prediction is no IPOs. That's right. No IPOs of significance. And I'm not talking about some pink sheet bullshit company. I mean like significance. And we've been talking whether it's more official than others, but iCIMS, Greenhouse, Smart Recruiters, Personio, Deal for sure, HiBob, like some companies are teasing IPOs, their S1s have been like, they've almost got there. They're really close to doing it. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: But this year, I think with so much volatility, I think we were at peak IPO with Birkenstock last year. I think the IPO markets, unless Reddit, Stripe, some of these big tech companies go public and really hit it out of the park, I don't think any of our companies are going to go IPO in 2024. Now, what I hear a lot of these days is "survive till '25". I think this will be a year where we hunker down, survive, get through the elections and everything else. And then '25, you're going to see a flood of some of these companies go IPO. But for me, my first prediction, is that there will be no IPOs in our space in 2024. And that brings us to your first one, unless you have a comment. Chad: Oh, yeah. First, I mean I'd like to say that... It sounds like the year of Cheeseman not taking any big swings, you're just going to bunt and try to get on base. Joel: That's a black or white. No, that's a black or white prediction. Chad: That's a big swing. Joel: That's no gray area. That's no tie. Chad: It's not going to be a big year. We all know that. Joel: Either I'm right or I'm wrong. There's no gray area. Chad: Just because it's black or white does not make it a big swing. That's not a big swing. Joel: I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm really wrong. And we have a lot of cool shit to talk about, including IPOs. But I don't think it's going to happen. Chad: Yeah. We'll still have a lot of cool shit to talk about. But IPOs, probably not. Joel: Oh yeah. I hope it's not all cyber trucks and meta VR systems next year or this year. Chad: All right. Get ready. Yeah. I'm going to go big on this one. I'm going to talk about two acquisitions that are going to happen in 2024. Yes. I understand several clearance rack acquisitions will happen in 2024, but those are not the ones that I want to focus on. I believe there are amazing startups that are new, different and will provide market vendors, big market vendors with a market advantage that they do not have today. Here are two that are near and dear to my heart that I believe could change the TA landscape forever. The first is an early stage startup who I believe can revolutionize the talent acquisition space. And I don't mean by using a large language model. I mean by creating new rails, infrastructure, much like AppCast did, by building the programmatic advertising rails for recruitment marketing agencies and new revenue streams for job boards. Chad: Plus also creating infrastructure to make background checks faster, accreditations and references instantly available and new revenue streams for screening, testing assessments and simulation providers, just for starters. And instead of talking about PPC and PPA, how about we talk about having the data and ability to actually target qualified candidates. The ones who you know have the accreditations, they've already passed the background checks, they passed the assessments, and instead of paying for an apply or a click from a candidate that doesn't meet the requirements, they actually make sense. The only vendor currently in our space that can pull this off, call back to last year, CV Wallet. SFX: That's winning. Chad: Yes. Sir Richard and Queen Beverly, they have tremendous experience in the space, resources, and the network to pull off an acquisition in 2024. Why? Because as we saw, big names like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and many others get leapfrogged by little old OpenAI. The big names in our industry understand their rails, their infrastructure and their brand mean nothing if they're leapfrogged by a competitor who acquires a more evolved infrastructure and revenue models. That's why CV Wallet gets acquired in 2024. Joel: Oh my God. Chad: That's a big swing. Joel: As if Sir Richard and Beverly need another Maserati. Upgrade that garage, as they say in England 'cause you're gonna need a few more... Chad: Success breed success, my friend. Success breed success. So my second, in today's world, we are flooded with generative AI and vendors who are doing their damnedest to try to figure out how to wrap this AI into practical workflow for their users. And for over a decade, vendors have tried to solve the recruiter workspace problem. Hiring companies are using an average of 30 plus different technologies today and recruiters have to have at least that many browser tabs open to use that shit. So it's not just efficient and many great platforms need to be receiving adoption and they can't because they just can't get the users to use their platforms because they're all over the place. Enter Poetry. SFX: Aih papi! Chad: That's right baby. A recruiter enablement platform that wraps all of those problems into an early stage solution. Founders and our friends, Adam Gordon and Mike Hughes are both veterans in the space, they sold candidate ID to iCIMS and they are not looking to create the next platform to rule them all. Oh no. They're creating a workspace that ties all of those platforms and point solutions together. And that was always the answer. Creating a platform to rule them all was never sustainable and never the real world and practical answer, but rather a workspace that ties them together and integrates practical generative AI workflows. That's the answer and that's my friends, is why Poetry gets acquired in 2024. SFX: Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is, if it's not Scottish, it's crap. Chad: Two European companies. Joel: So we get a two for one. For your first prediction in '24. Acquisitions, two companies, both European, I'm shocked that as the newest European resident that you're picking two European companies to get acquired. Chad: And that literally just came into my mind as I'm talking about. I'm like, holy shit, they're both in Europe. I didn't even think about that as I was thinking about these. Yeah, so it just popped. Joel: Just came into your head. Just came into your head. All right, kids. That brings me to my second prediction for 2024. No new unicorns in 2024. Now Chad, you remember '21 and '22, we had a parade of unicorns, tons of them. Deal, Remote, Oyster, Velocity Global, you name it. There were tons. And this past year we had HiBob, Harry, maybe, was close in that neighborhood, I don't think this year with inflation, I think is still gonna be high. Volatility's still high. I think there's a lot of investors that feel burned by putting in so much money into the workspace. Remote work is still kind of up in the air. I think that investors will be gun shy to invest in our space. I think inflation money won't be cheap, into next year. Volatility around the globe. I just don't think we'll see a billion dollar valuation and a new unicorn in 2024. And again, I hope I'm wrong about that one as well. Chad: Whew. Yeah. Well, I'll have a little to add about that later. Joel: Fair enough. All right. Well, while you think about more European companies to pimp and more European ideas and socialists ideologies to throw at us. Let's take a quick break. And remember, kids, there's no show without the sponsors, so please listen to the ads and write blank checks to these companies. All right, Chad, you've had a little time to think. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Think of new things that are going on. But this brings us to your second prediction for '24. Chad: Prediction for 2024. Twitter hiring dies. Now let me paint a picture. In December, that's where the European part comes in. In December, the European Commission has opened formal proceedings to assess whether Twitter may have breached the Digital Services Act. The investigation includes countering the dissemination of illegal content, combating information manipulation, increasing platform transparency, and examining the user interface design. This provides a huge distraction for an already undisciplined Twitter. Plus, this is happening right when Threads launches in the EU. Moreover, the economics just don't work. Enterprise advertisers are continuing to run away from Twitter, which has resulted in losses around in the billions. Then Elon tells the enterprise advertisers to go fuck yourself. Then just recently, Linda Paper Tiger Ya Carino declared that Twitter would target small to medium sized companies to replace the said enterprise dollars. Chad: Twitter then wrapped their SMB jobs thingy into the basic verified offering, which includes spotlight top roles on your profile. Who the fuck at a small to medium-sized business is going to manage that day-to-day jobs fiasco? Nobody, nobody. Number two, job sync via ATS or XML feed. Who the fuck at an SMB knows what an ATS or XML feed is? No, it's a very, very, again, it's starting to, it's starting, very thin, very thin. Last but not least, unlimited job slots published to your profile and job search at twitter.com/jobs. Who looks SMB profile on Twitter? So you have to go to the actual profile to see this shit. So all of these features, "features" are just smoke and mirrors until Twitter starts pulling jobs into their main feed. Then all fucking hell is going to break loose. Johnny's plumbing and heating, their jobs start popping up by Alex Jones tweets, and then all bets are fucking off, kids. Chad: Plus, here's the final point. Twitter just wrapped those so-called features into an already existing verification product without increasing the price of the product at all, which gives no additional revenue and actually devalues those bullshit features. So how will Twitter pay to increase SMB buyers? Much like ZipRecruiter did, they have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars as Zip demonstrated and that's not sustainable. So here's a recap. EU investigation. Facebook's threads enters into the EU. Enterprise revenues are gone. Twitter devalues its hiring platform, and much like Facebook shutting down its jobs product, remember, Facebook already tried this. Google shutting down its jobs API, and Google hire ATS. Twitter will come to the realization that without enterprise dollars, they will have to spend more money than they can make through this stupid buck and bullshit advertising to try to lure people into an SMB verification scheme. That's why in 2024, the Twitter hiring platform will die. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: Just to be clear, x.com/jobs is gone when we ring in '25. Chad: Well, it doesn't exist today. If you type in x.com/jobs, it goes to twitter.com/jobs. So stop calling it X, 'cause it's not X. Twitter hiring platform will be dead. Joel: It will be... So that page won't exist. What do you think about their LinkedIn killer? Are they going to focus and pivot on that? Should LinkedIn be shaking in its boots? Or do you think they'll not do anything with that? Chad: There have been stories already that LinkedIn's revenue is jumping because they're actually getting that, all those companies that are running away from Twitter, some of them are going to LinkedIn. So LinkedIn's already siphoning some of that money off. LinkedIn is going to be in the catbird seat when this shit just drops. Well, here's what's going to happen. You're going to have all this pomp and fucking bullshit circumstance from Twitter saying that hiring's the thing, right? Then when it dies, where are they going to go? LinkedIn's going to pop in. They're going to say, come over here, guys. This is where you need to be. So you're going to get the Indeeds and the LinkedIns and whatnot, the big brands, the bigger brands, who are literally just going to siphon that dollar off. But Twitter hiring platform, that bitch is pretty much dead. Joel: Here's a prediction. Elon will be the GIF that keeps on giving to this podcast in 2024. Chad: Again, just another bunt. Jesus. Joel: All right. This brings me to my final prediction for 2024. And by the way, to piggyback on your acquisition commentary, I don't think there's going to be any big time acquisition. It'll be like Poetry, year old thing, or CV wallet. There won't be any 100 million plus acquisition. Paradox is not getting acquired in '24. Chad: Now, Paradox doesn't want to get acquired. Joel: I just pulled that out of my ass. But there won't be any huge, really newsworthy acquisitions next year. Chad: The ones that are kicking ass and taking names, Deal, Paradox, they don't want to be acquired. They don't want that. They're waiting, right? Joel: If you remember, I think in a previous episode, we talked about Deal and how they've just crushed it. I think they've earmarked $200 million for acquisitions. So these companies that are crushing it, they're going to go shopping and start picking up features and acqui-hires. That'll be hopefully, a news story that we talk about. Chad: Clearance rack in early stage startups. You get those because tech is starting to accelerate. The velocity is so fucking crazy right now. You can get some real cheap companies who really they couldn't execute, or you're going to get some amazing startups that have tech that nobody, I mean, again, this is all about leapfrogging the competition very quickly. Joel: Yep. And I think on the raising side, I think you'll see a lot of startups that are AI driven, that have two people, they'll get the five, 10, $20 million, but no unicorns in that group. All right, let's get back to my prediction. In 2024, there will be a death of a unicorn. I've already said there won't be any new unicorns, but I think we will see the death of a unicorn, someone that had previously had a billion dollar plus valuation, go by the wayside. We've already featured Beamery on previous episodes, which is frankly been a train wreck. They raised 50 something million dollars in December of '22, and then turned around and laid off 15% of their people. Then they laid off 25% of their people here just before the holiday season. I've got my DMs blowing up about my whole department was laid off, like Beamery could be in that group. Oyster is another one that raised a ton of money and has seen a lot of layoffs. I think they're running third, fourth, or fifth fiddle to the likes of Deal and Remote. To your chagrin, Eightfold will not be one of the death. Chad: They took too much money. They've got more runway. Joel: Well, that'll be the thing, but I think they're just good enough to survive, but I think there's gonna be some down here that we say goodbye. Maybe they're an acquisition on the clearance rack or maybe they just shut the doors, some other companies that we talk about. So that is my third prediction that we say goodbye to a unicorn that had previously raised one billion dollars in valuation dollars. Thoughts? Like it, don't like it? Chad: Yeah, no, I like it because the valuations were bloated. We talked about the valuations. A lot of those billion dollar valuations were literally not real world billion dollar valuations. So yeah, I could definitely see that happening, but they're gonna be like the, like you said, Eightfold. Eightfold, they took a lot of money unless they continue to buy fuckin' spaceship booths like at the HR techs and like in every fuckin' conference you know, across the world and they keep adding people, which they're not gonna do. They've got at least runway to be around for a few more years. But beyond that, I think the head shed, right? The actual CEOs or co-CEOs, I think we're gonna start to see heads roll before we start to see unicorns die. Joel: Yep. SFX: That escalated quickly. Joel: All right, let's get to your third and final prediction for 2024. Chad: Third prediction for 2024. My last prediction does not have a name ascribed to it, but it is very specific. It's not a bunt. It's not a bunt. A dominant AI player will emerge in the HR and TA space. While everyone is watching ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and all the other very general platforms fight over the next level of multimodal dominance. We will see a domain specific player in HR and TA, use OpenAI's model. And no, I don't mean Josh Burson's bullshit platform. I mean a real player with access to real data, not something that they conjured up because they were paid to conjure shit up, right? I mean very specifically an AI player that will open its platform up to the public to play with ALA, OpenAI and ChatGPT. They will provide limited, yet free access, and their brand will gain notoriety and will leapfrog many of the bigger brands that are out there in 2024. And this is where I'm gonna kind of counter what you're saying. They will have an opportunity to be a unicorn because the only thing that's making people unicorns in 2024 is AI. And if they adopt that OpenAI platform or process that OpenAI leapfrogged, I think we have some people in the space, if they take the risk that they will be able to do that. Joel: Yeah, well no doubt AI will be the sexy story. SFX: What are you doing, step bro? Joel: Probably all year. The counter to that is like the bubble bursts, AI is a fraud, Dot-com bust 2.0, and we're seeing a different tune. But yeah, I agree that AI will be the story for this year in our space. And there was someone, someone posted predictions that I read. It was that someone will get a significant amount of money invested and the investors will realize that they have no employees and the CEO is a bot. [laughter] So that'll be a fun story if we ever get that. So that is... Chad: Yes. Joel: Our predictions for 2024. To recap, I said no IPOs in our space this year. I said no new unicorns. And I said one unicorn will die in 2024. Yours were? Chad: CV Wallet and Poetry will be acquired, two early stage startups. Twitter hiring will die on the vine. And last but not least, we will see a domain AI player, obviously in our space, adopt the open AI business model and they will just fucking kill it. They will leapfrog a lot of the bigger brands in our space in 2024. SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Chad: Usually not 60% of the time. Where I don't think we've got a 60%. Joel: You have a global prediction to kind of end the show. We got elections, we got sports obviously going down. Any predictions on a macro level that you want to end the show with? Chad: Yeah, I don't want to think of macro stuff at this point because there's so much dystopian things that are happening around us. I'm trying to keep it light at the first of the year, especially with this year being a big, big presidential election in the US. And again, everybody's watching. Everybody's trying to see just how fucking crazy the Americans are and we're gonna let them know at the latter part of this year. But the hardest part about this is the ride we're going to have to take from now. And I'm sorry guys, it's gonna get a little dark. The ride that we have to take starting now all the way to November, this is gonna be a dark year when it comes to news and it comes to social media. I'm probably going to have to detox several times this year. [chuckle] Joel: Well, that being said, I'm gonna give you a sunshiny ironclad prediction for 2024. Chad: Please. Joel: The Cleveland Browns win the Super Bowl. The Cleveland Browns. SFX: Winning. Joel: Win the Super Bowl. Chad: Joel Flacco. I was like, what the fuck? Joel: Flack around and find out everybody. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the chat and chase podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

News has been slow since the holidays, but things are getting back to normal. Most notably, Indeed and LinkedIn are still doing stupid stuff, and we're happy to oblige with some razor-sharp commentary. They're the gift that keeps on giving. Additionally, DJ Sol at Goldman Sachs has finally figured out and fixed racism ... hallelujah! OK, not really, but you decide. Plus, it's a Who'd Ya' Rather, pitting PerformYard against Mercor (call it the 2 a.m. edition, because neither choice is all that appealing). How can it get even better, you ask? Can we interest you in Pornhub's annual report on global porn consumption? Spoiler alert: It's a lot to swallow. Talking about the data! There are some real sickos out there. Wait, did I mention our bulging Spotify metrics? Like, Share, Subscribe and Review! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. Intro (podcast Introduction): 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. Two guys who will never get a ticket to Davos. What's up, kids? You are listening to the Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel DJ Cheeseman. Chad: This is Chad, it's fucking cold in here, Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, Indeed, Goldman Sachs, LinkedIn, and PornHub. One of these things is not like the other. Let's do this. [laughter] SFX (sound Effects): Emotional damage. Chad: So, talking about cold, how was Canada? You went to Canada. You did the Canadian hockey thing. Joel: Canada's great. Quick shout-out to the hiring branch folks, Stefan, Kevin, Beth, very hospitable as you would imagine Canadians to be. Took us to the Canadiens game. Very passionate about that sport. There they are in the north. Edmonton was in town. The Oilers have Connor McDavid, arguably the best player there. They booed every time he got the puck. Chad: Boo! You suck! Joel: Yeah, it was good. It was good old-fashioned fun. My wife, who's from Canada, as most of our listeners know, loves the snow. She got a little bit of snow. She got cold weather. The one negative, I would say, would the train ride from basically London to Montreal. Sounds really romantic. It's sitting on a tough seat for many, many, many hours. Imagine the worst seat you've had on an airplane and do that for like eight hours plus. Chad: Really? Huh. Joel: It's a little rough. They promoted free drinks, but they limit it to like one an hour. The train engine had issues. We had to sit at a station for like three hours until they got the next train. Chad: Fuck. Joel: So the romantic trip wasn't romantic because it was dark the whole time. We were going from Toronto basically to Montreal, but never been to Montreal. It's a very nice city. A cool mix of old-time vibey, Frenchy stuff and kind of newer things. Good food there. All around good trip. And when I came home, it was colder here in the Midwest than it was in Canada, although cold on both fronts. Chad: I saw actually Stephen O'Donnell in Scotland bitching about how cold it was. Not even close to as cold as it is here. So it's like Scotland is warmer than it is here in Indiana. But I do have something. I'm gonna make you jealous. Are you ready? Joel: You got Taco Bell for lunch. Chad: No. Joel: Okay. Chad: Guess what I'm doing this weekend? Fully immersive VR experience called Sandbox. So we have one here in Indianapolis. Five of us are going and we're playing a game called Deadwood Valley, where you're a military team that's dropped into a town in the middle of nowhere that is infested with zombies and it's your job to clear it out. So saw this. We did some really cool things. I think I told you about the game that we did in London with the guys from Talent Nexus. That was the Squid Games. They've got that here too. But again, that wasn't fully immersive. This is fully immersive. So pretty stoked to go try that out. Joel: How is it more fully immersive with this VR versus the Squid Game VR? Chad: This is VR here in Indianapolis. What we did in London was, it was a room that literally had projections on the wall. So that's the big difference. So when you've got the screen on your face, they can project all this stuff like scary ass zombies and shit like that. And it's like you're there versus being in a room with just seeing projected wall stuff. Now, the projected wall stuff was really cool, but I'm really stoked to do this immersive VR experience this weekend. Joel: Yeah. They had one of these near me a few years ago, like pre-pandemic. I'm sure the pandemic put them out of business, but it was basically like a bunch of cubicles and people with headsets on, like you said, fighting zombies, shooting cowboys. And like one was a car. You were like racing through Montenegro or something. And my wife and her sister did it and they wanted to throw up after doing it. So hopefully you don't have the same reaction. Kids were fine. Kids don't have an issue. But I guess the older folks, the older folks aren't quite attuned to the things that the young kids like. But yeah, that sounds a lot of fun. Get really drunk, I guess, would be my advice. And then really soak it all in, I guess, is what you should do. Chad: Okay. I'll do it. Joel: By the way, shout out to our friend Evan, sent me a Taco Bell gift card just because I think I did something nice. He is like the PR guy. Anything you do nice for him, he sends you something. So get to know Evan if you like free shit. Chad: There's gonna be a video, unboxing video of something that Evan sent me. So you'll see, it's a little bit better than the Taco Bell. Joel: A little bit better. I have hard time, hard time thinking about that. Let's get to shout-out, shall we? Chad: Yes. Joel: My first one is, you know, we get asked all the time, what's the best ATS? What's the best chat bot? What's the best this or that? And sometimes you just got to look at look at some review sites out there. G2 is probably one of the more well-known legitimate, I guess I would say, resources out there for reviews. Anyway, they've they've dropped their Winter 2024 Best ATS's out there. And I just want to read those out for you. So the best for small business, they give to Zoho Recruit. The best for mid market, Greenhouse. I can buy that. Best for enterprise, Greenhouse. That's two for Greenhouse if you're keeping score at home. Best by G2 user satisfaction is 100Hires, which I've never heard of. I don't know if you have or not. Chad: No, no. No. Joel: Yeah. Okay. So we'll... Whatever. Best ease of use goes to Vultus Recruit, another one I have not heard of. Do you know Vultus? Chad: No. Joel: No. Okay. And the best free goes to Zoho. So if we're keeping at home, Zoho and Greenhouse are ones that we know and can at least say that it exists. And we know some people there. Vultus and 100Hires, no clue. If you're using it, love it, let us know. If not, we would say tread carefully if you're going to use those services. Chad: I'd say if you were probably talking to the Daniel, the CEO of Greenhouse, and he would say that they're not an enterprise applicant tracking system. G2, I think it's interesting, they do reviews for everything, but they know much about nothing. Joel: Yeah it's all reviewer. There's not a curated expert list the people to go in. So, yes, the system could be gamed probably pretty easily. Chad: Yes. Joel: So, yeah, use with caution. But I thought, you know, we get asked a lot, what are the best ATS's? This is what G2 says are the best ATS's. Chad: And those aren't it, other than maybe Greenhouse for, you know, small. Shout out to listeners and guests. So our Spotify rap numbers came out for 2023 and our listeners grew by 25%. Streams grew by 48% and our followers grew by 46%. So, thanks. Thanks to all guests who graced us with their voices, their experience and all of our listeners who gave us a hard time on a weekly basis. They gave us bourbon and also a lot of love and kudos. So thanks all because the industry needs to have some of these hard discussions that we have. And a lot of times we're the only ones that are having them. Thanks for listening. Thanks for connecting. Chad: Not to mention, I got to say, just last week we received messages from Bulgaria in Dubai and Shane from Dubai knows exactly how to get Cheese excited as he pitched us coming to Dubai for a McDonald's grand Big Mac, which is basically a Big Mac with quarter pounder patties. So if you're watching us on YouTube, you can probably start to see Joel is drooling right about now. Joel: So these are just Spotify numbers, right? They don't calculate from everything. Chad: No, Spotify. Joel: So that was... Yeah, I was pretty impressed. Spotify is kind of a hipper thing. I'm going to tell my kids that we have increased Spotify numbers and see if they actually finally think that I'm cool. But that's probably a long shot. By the way, thanks for everyone who commented and liked Chad's share of this image. He needs affirmation. He wasn't hugged a lot as a child. So everyone coming out and loving the things that he shares helps all of us. Chad: Nothing wrong with hugs, Cheeseman. Joel: Nothing wrong with hugs and nothing wrong, my second shout-out, to booze being delivered to your front door. And as our listeners know... Chad: My favorite. Joel: And many of the listeners that have signed up for free shit, which we'll get to in a second, know that Drizly, Drizly has been a trusted partner of ours. Chad: Yes, they have. Joel: When I say partner, I mean, we give them money and then they do the service. Chad: They do stuff. Joel: That they were paid to do. But Drizly was early on probably the only one other than like a mail service that would deliver booze within, you know, a few hours if you... Chad: Great service, too. Joel: Wanted to do that. They started in 2012. They grew organically. A couple of guys in Boston, I think, said, hey, why can't I get my beer delivered? And they're like, oh, let's create a business around this. So they did that. Chad: There we go. Joel: They're bought by Uber in '19, I think, for one point whatever billion dollars. So these guys cashed out on a great idea. Now, as many of you know, Uber Eats is a service that delivers just about everything. Instacart, DoorDash, even Total Wine here. A couple of some of the people in the US know about Total Wine, they deliver, which they use DoorDash basically when you buy from them. But anyway, the news out this week and I was originally crushed because we had a report about Bird scooters filing for bankruptcy. Joel: Drizly is getting shut down. Now, on the surface, that sounds horrible. What kind of life do we live? What kind of world do we live in if scooters and and booze at your doorstep are gone? So they're shutting the brand down, but they're going to wrap it into Uber and Uber will be delivering everything from groceries to picking you up to whatever. So it's it's not dead per se. But if you love the Drizly Grizzly, you know, I love the branding, the red. It's just great. They were actually at... Actually they were at SHRM National this year. There was a booth for Drizly. Joel: They gave me some swag. I felt a real bond with this product and now it's gone. So in that sense, it's kind of a bad news. But never fear, kids, Chad & Cheese will still be able to deliver booze to your doorstep, but you got to sign up. You got to sign up. And let's just jump right to it before your next shout-out, Chad. Go to chadcheese.com. Click the free link. Sign up. We're talking about beer from Aspen Tech Labs, a bourbon selection for both Chad and I from Textkernel and, of course, free T-shirts from our friends at JobGet, which, by the way, we're formulating our new shirts for the next year. So make sure you get that new shirt. You got to go to chadcheese.com. Click the free link for that for that good stuff that we deliver. Chad: My next shout-out, my last shout-out is going to go to the Pie2Pie podcast. Yes, I actually said that, Pie2Pie podcast. You thought we had a good name, Cheeseman. And here's why. I'm going to go ahead and share this video. Here we go. Pie2Pie Podcast: Everybody in our pizzeria makes at least 50 or $60,000 a year. And, you know, and the leadership makes close to $100,000 a year. That's what it costs to have people that are good at their job and care about it. And the reason that people don't care about their job out there in the world is because they get treated like we don't care about them. And if you don't care about your employees, what do you expect? You know what I'm saying? Like slavery is over, people. It's time to treat people well and care about them. Unfortunately, for the people that get to keep whatever's left at the end of the month, that means you've got to pay them well. You know, it would be really nice if I could just make lots of money and not care. Joel: Pizzeria, 50, 60K a year. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Did I hear that right? Chad: Yeah. But did you see what he did there, though? He equated money, paying someone a living wage, to caring about your employees. Not a high five or a pat on the back, money, money. Now, don't get me wrong. Motivating employees is important, but it's fucking hard to motivate someone who is more worried about, you know, how they're gonna, I don't know, fucking pay the next house payment, car payment, feed the kids. So if you care about your employees, pay your employees. We talked about last week on a shout-out how an HR professional said a high five or a pat on the back is just as good as a raise. That's bullshit, kids, pay them, pay them, pay them. Joel: That must be some fucking good pizza if they can give wages like that. And I was transfixed by the logo. It was the LA like Dodgers logo. And the A was a piece like a slice of pizza. That's genius. Chad: That's pretty sweet. Joel: And why the Dodgers haven't killed that, I don't know why. But yeah, good on that. Good on that. Chad: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is it time for birthdays? I run with plum. What's going on? Outro: I can feel it all the way down in my plums. Joel: That's right, Chad. Another year around the sun for some of our listeners. And if you've been listening to our fantasy football updates, you know that that I love a good nickname. And for some reason I can't control myself. I'm starting to give nicknames to the birthday people. So, apologies. You're just, I just, I need my fix. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right. So celebrating another year around the sun, we got Tom Bartles and James. See what I did there? Chris Grosjean, Chanel Nelson, Michael O'Dell, Beckham Jr., Joanne Lockwood, Chris Russell, the love muscle, Marvelous Marvin Morgan, Steve Empringham, Jason Roberts, Robbin Schooling, Michelle Cryer and Tommy Boy, Tom Eckhart are all celebrating another year around the sun. Are the nicknames too much? Should I not do... I mean, you laughed. So if you laugh, somebody else probably... Chad: Apparently, you know more about Chris Russell than we do. [laughter] Joel: His wife has a Twitter account that you should check out. Chad: Okay. Anyway, events, events. Here we go. Joel: We'll get to the PornHub stuff later, folks. Don't worry. Don't worry. Chad: So TA Week in San Diego, January 29th through the 1st of February. Join us at the San Diego Zoo. Have you ever been to the San Diego Zoo? Joel: I have not, but it's world famous. Chad: I've heard from many people listening to this podcast that it is amazing. So if you're going to be at TA Week on day zero, that's Monday, January 29th from 2:00 to 5:00 Pacific Time, we're going to be at the zoo to experience the biggest koala colony outside of Australia. There it is. Look at it, YouTube, kids. And listener, listener, you can win free tickets into the zoo by heading off to chadcheese.com, click on the events link in the upper right hand corner or just go to chadcheese.com/events. And right there on the header, you can register to go to the zoo with us on day one. And then on day two, we're going to be in the qualify booth interviewing the best and brightest practitioners that are out there. And this event is going to be a lot of fun. And I can't wait, dude, because I am totally fucking ready to leave the gray of Indiana and get some SoCal sun on my skin. You know what I mean? Joel: You've been here for a minute. You were in Portugal. Chad: I know. Joel: You're here for like... You'll be here for like a week and then... Chad: My tan is fading. This is bullshit. Then in March, 11th through 14th we're going to be at the Wynn for Transform Vegas. This is a big show. We haven't been at this one, over 3000 attendees, 100 plus investors, more than 500 startups, 300 speakers. Our first time. Once again, if you if you've never been before, we're gonna be there. It's in Vegas at the Wynn. Go to chadcheese.com/events. If you register on the site, guess what? You're going to see a discount code. That's right. Chad & Cheese always looking to save you cash. Joel: Yeah, we're expanding our footprint, Chad. We haven't been to TA Week. We haven't been to Transform, you know, so we're bulging. I like it. I like the exposure. And by the way, speaking of bulging, our travel is sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing as always. Chad: I got to say real quick for them, they send one of the smartest Christmas presents or New Year's presents or holiday gifts. And here's why, kids, it's balsamic and it's olive oil. And it's got the Shaker logo on it. Now, if it was booze, you generally wouldn't leave it on your counter all year until it's used up. You go put it with your booze cabinet or what have you. But this, you put out on your counter and you have the Shaker logo until you use it all. And it takes a while to use the size bottle that they have. So that's, I thought about this week, that's incredibly smart from the kids over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joel: Yeah, I keep mine in the bathroom. It's great on my skin to keep it nice and smooth, but still... Chad: I don't want to know what you use that for. Joel: It's the same point, Chad, it sits there for a while. I've got a lot of skin, but still it takes a while to empty that thing. Chad: I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Joel: That's good. Shaker in the household all year round. That's what I love. And I guess that's it. There's no more fantasy football. I feel so lonely. I need that hello darkness, my old friend soundbite. Unfortunately, I guess we don't have it. Chad: Simon & Garfunkel to start the show. Joel: So good. So good. All right. Indeed. That's right. We're starting with Indeed. I know you're surprised, has launched Tech Network, an industry-specific programmatic ad service allowing enterprise-scale customers to distribute job ads across 50 plus tech websites. The platform aims to help employers fill hard-to-find roles with a healthcare focused network coming soon. The updated service has integrations with over 300 applicant tracking systems aiming to simplify the hiring process. Employers using Tech Network in the US experience a significant increase in relevant applicants from skilled candidates. That's according to, you guessed it, Indeed. The platform is expected to expand to more markets in the near future. Chad, your thoughts on the Indeed Tech Network? Chad: Why wasn't Indeed doing this already? They bought ClickIQ how many fucking years ago. They weren't already using their advanced tech, yeah, that's sarcasm, kids, to target qualified candidates. They're literally announcing that they never were really targeting relevant candidates before. So it was all bullshit. Before this, it was all bullshit. You never got relevant stuff as it was. And if you're using Indeed, you probably knew that anyway. So this sounds like either a cry for help or even a diversion more than a new product. And seriously, how do you get the market to stop talking about your failed pay-per-apply or pay-per-started-apply products? Well, you create something they should have accomplished 10 years ago. I would label this maybe even more as an Indeed smokescreen. Also the love they gave for like having 300 plus ATS integrations, total bullshit. If you've ever worked with an applicant tracking system before, everyone in the industry knows that integrating with an ATS is fucking hard. Routine maintenance breaks it. Pixels don't work. And when you're as big of a bully as Indeed is, no applicant tracking system really wants to see you succeed. Chad: And we know that because we've had candid conversations with applicant tracking system leaders for well over a decade. They hate those motherfuckers. Last but not least, a word of warning for job sites that are involved in this new product. Ask yourself what happens when the bulk of your specialized candidates are now in Indeed's database. What happens then? What happens? Indeed cuts off your revenue stream and you die. That's what happens. There are a lot of job sites, and I got a lot of messages this morning around this, there are a lot of job sites that are not doing well right now. Joel: No. Chad: And Indeed knows that they are looking for cash. They're looking for the heroin, right? This is Indeed's way of giving that little heroin drip. And a lot of these job sites are gonna get suckered into it. They're gonna push all their specialized candidates into Indeed and then Indeed is just going to fucking boa constrictor their ass and kill them. Joel: In addition to the IQ comment about being programmatic, my second thought was why would they kill the API? They were the backfill for so many job sites for free. All they had to do was target specific niches. The other thing that popped in my head was a trip back to the future in that when I was at Job Options, our primary marketing strategy was to partner with industry sites, associations, news sites and then we would power a job site. People would click jobs if they went to whatever site and then they would see our jobs. If they applied or posted their resume that it would be posted onto our network. All the pricing stuff was... Like we powered the whole thing. Google killed it. Google killed that whole model because that was a much cheaper way to get traffic. It turns out people that go to a new site do click jobs but it's like 10% of the of the visitors whereas Google if I search jobs, like everyone's clicking those links. Joel: So that model is super old and that made me think, well now that Google for Jobs is here, Indeed is maybe back in the situation where okay well we can't rely on Google for the traffic anymore. How do we leverage what we have to do that? So they're like, let's go back to the old partner model where we'll power jobs for people, and this is also the recruitology/job case model. So you're seeing now these job case sites pop up. They're more or less on newspaper sites, so it's like locally focused. So Indeed is partnered with, I guess, Wired according to the news release, Stack Overflow and a few others like that. It reeks of we're desperate. We can't get traffic, and now let's create a new way to get money from people. So now their salespeople can call all the companies looking for tech talent and say, oh, we have 50 plus sites in our tech network. It's only gonna cost you X to be on this network. So now they're gonna get more money out of people and then when healthcare launches, like no surprise that's probably the second biggest dollar amount you can grab is healthcare. Joel: So now they're gonna call all the healthcare systems and say, oh, we have this new health network with all these sites that you know. I wouldn't be surprised if they're if they're paying Wired to have that real estate. That would be an interesting twist, is if Indeed is paying some people to have that real estate because if Wired's giving to them for free or even a rev share, I think they they are cheating themselves out of some profit. So this feels like a story from 25 plus years ago is new again because of the same issues. No search traffic and let's see how we can get more money and make it look like we're strategically helping you target these specific individuals. I think it's a big... Chad: Back to we talked about Stack Overflow actually ditching their jobs and their careers section that they wanted to go after. It didn't work, kids. Do you think putting a jobs link that didn't work before but having it powered by Indeed is going to work? It's not gonna fucking work. So what's gonna happen is they're going to charge more CPC wise because they've got these names that they're gonna throw on marketing material and it's all fucking, it's again, it's all fucking smoke and mirrors. This is the Indeed smokescreen. That's what it is. Joel: Yeah if you know the model hit us up on on the socials. Are they paying for this real estate? Are they rev sharing it? What's going on here? I'd like to know. SFX (sound Effects): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: And more pills. Let's go to our friends at LinkedIn. They've introduced new job search features aimed at making career transitions easier for users. The new collections feature categorizes jobs based on interest such as sports or gaming, making it easier for users to discover relevant opportunities. Additionally, LinkedIn says users now have more control over their job preferences, allowing them to set criteria like employment type, pay preference, and location such as remote work. Preferences matching the users criteria are highlighted, wait for it, in green. Should the competition be green with envy, Chad? Your thoughts. Chad: So bad. So bad. Oh, you mean about LinkedIn, not the joke. Yeah. Joel: Yeah, sorry. Chad: So last week, Joel, you pondered the the power of GenAI in LinkedIn and my response is that it'll be like strapping a jet engine on a Cessna. And this week, well, they they proved me right. What kind of sorry ass search bullshit is this? We're using GenAI, and if you're watching us on, if you're not watching us on YouTube, I'm using the air quotes, kids, "GenAI." Dude you can do that with basic fucking search and match. I mean, dumbed down search and match. Not the more advanced stuff like Textkernel. So they had more advanced stuff with other vendors available to them that they just never used. So they're receiving a rise in applications because their platform sucked in the first place. They could do nothing but go up and now they've applied 2010 basic search methodology and they want to call it AI. I call bullshit. LinkedIn, listen up, your platform is old. Your tech is in heavy tech debt and here's a message to your sugar daddy, Microsoft. Microsoft, do yourself a favor and implode LinkedIn. Help them build something that works starting from the ground up and then stop that basic bitch AI narrative. It's beneath you. They've got a lot of great talent. They've got a lot of great tech. They just need to be running parallel like Monster should have done during the Indeed days to be able to build this thing up and then continue to build that moat. SFX (sound Effects): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: If you are connected me on LinkedIn, you know that I regularly like to post related search results that I typically get from Glassdoor which tells me that I should be a janitor at my local high school or maybe making pizza pies at the local Papa John's. Now, I have nothing against Papa John's. They make a damn good pizza, and its founder is from Ball State University, but we won't go into him, because he got in a little bit of trouble a few years after that. Anyway, for the first time, I showed a related search from LinkedIn who thinks I should be a host at my local Olive Garden. Now, I don't know if it took the fact that I have... The fact that I'm a co-host on a podcast... Chad: Probably. Joel: And somehow thinks that I'm a host at a restaurant, but that is just bad AI if nothing else. Chad: It's not AI. Joel: Yeah, I don't know what the hell... I don't know what's going on. I don't know if they just... Because the OpenAI, like Microsoft and OpenAI, LinkedIn should be crushing the AI like related search. You should feel like you're on Netflix when you're on LinkedIn about jobs that are applicable to you. They clearly are not getting the job done because co-host of a podcast and hostess or host of a restaurant are really far apart from each other. I'm seeing more and more job stuff in profiles, in searches I do. Like if you worked at a certain company and you're searching someone, they'll have like jobs at that company. So they're focused more on jobs and I get the fact that, you know, a recent story, applicant... They said that applications have risen 50% in the US as well as 36% globally with 85% of working people contemplating changing jobs this year. Joel: So somebody at the high ups at LinkedIn said there's gonna be a lot of job search traffic, how do we get more people to our jobs? And the flip side of that is they're probably getting less job search traffic maybe because of Google, maybe because of people figuring other ways to get jobs like watching TikToks where people are saying they're paying 60 grand to their pizzerias. I don't know what's going on but they are clearly falling down on the job search from traffic perspective, companies are probably telling them we're not getting the traffic that we used to or that we want... So they are hell bent whether they do it right or wrong to get more traffic and try to get more people to apply to these jobs, but as my related search results show, they are failing miserably at that task. Chad: Horrible, horrible, horrible. Joel: We'll be right back. SFX (sound Effects): Just the tip. Joel: All right, Chad, who's ready for a little Who'd You Rather? That's right, that's right. Chad: Let's go, let's go. Joel: You know how it works, kids. We talk about two companies that have recently gotten a little bit of funding and Chad and I will review those companies and tell you who we'd rather. So if you're ready to play, Chad, let's get to company number one, Mercor has secured 3.6 million dollars in funding. The company introduces an AI-powered platform for automated candidate vetting. Mercor promises to pull data from various sources to create a holistic applicant profile, enabling quick, precise matches for specific roles. Founded in 2023, they claim to have achieved seven figure annual recurring revenue and boast a talent pool of 100,000 users across 25 countries. That is, Mercor! Joel: And in this corner, we have PerformYard. They secured $95 million in funding, which they say will be used to enhance their software suite and expand the team. The platform, founded in 2013, not quite a startup, offers tools for performance reviews, feedback, and employee engagement surveys. Claiming over 1500 business customers, PerformYard says it has experienced 5x revenue growth in the last four years. Chad, who'd you rather, PerformYard or Mercor? Chad: Now, Mercor, very much like parkour, got to say their explainer video was really sharp. They did a really good job on that. And here's my problem. The CEO and founder has no experience in this space. And here's an example, "our crawlers automatically pull information from resumes, GitHub, personal portfolios, websites, and more to create a picture of every applicant." So that sounds exactly like the same message a HiringSolved or Crowded had about six to seven years ago, right? Then PerformYard, PerformYard, on the other hand, really needs to start tying their retention and productivity platform to the end result that the C-suite really cares about, slow attrition and bigger revenues. They have exactly what every other platform would kill to have, but the marketing message is falling way short of the C-suite's give a shit mark. But no matter, this Who'd You Rather is pretty lopsided. And I'd rather have a more established player who needs to tweak their message over a newcomer with little to no experience. I would rather the Yard, PerformYard. [music] Joel: All right. This was a hard one to pick because they're both sort of eh in my book. So Mercor, you're right. Mercor is sourcing with a new wrapper. It's a chatbot sort of interface. You chat like, hey, I need some PHP developers. And you go through a chat kind of scenario. It's all tech-focused. And we know that tech layoffs are sort of a thing these days. So the amount of people that are hiring tech, I know, is probably at the floor and going up from here. But it's not exactly the best place to do business. At the moment, we've seen a major, major collapse of the sourcing tool, whether it's SeekOut, sort of, I don't know what they're doing currently. HiringSolved, gone. Hiretual, rebranded. There's just, it's been commoditized. So I don't know. Just making this a chat thing isn't going to change the game for sourcing. So I'm not super interested in them. And then I go to PerformYard. Joel: They've been around a long time. It hasn't happened yet, which kind of makes me a little bit concerned. They've, 95 million in funding. They got to be doing something right. Chad: A lot of cash. Joel: That says something about that. Although we know the risks of raising too much money sometimes is better than the opposite side of that. My big problem with PerformYard is the competition. You got Lattice, you got 15Five, Leapsome, Trakstar, Culture Amp. There's a lot of competition. So do I pick the company where they have little competition because all the competition is gone or rebranded? Or do I take the company that has a ton of competition and is going to have a hell of a hard time making it? So this is a really tough one. And I refuse to not pick either. So if you put a gun to my head, a virtual gun in this case, because you're going to the VR shooting zombies, I'm going to have to go with Mercor because there's nobody left. And maybe it's just timing. Maybe it's a QR code thing. Chad: Could be, could be. Joel: Everyone had QR codes for a while, and then everyone went out of business with QR codes, and then the pandemic happened, and then QR codes were cool again. So maybe Mercor is going to be cool again. Chad: Maybe. Joel: Maybe. Yeah, maybe parachute pants are back. Maybe Z cavariccis are back, and maybe sourcing for tech talent is back. So in this case, for me, Mercor. And that is another game of Who'd You Rather. All right, Chad, let's get to one of your favorite guys. Chad: Who? Joel: Goldman Sachs and DJ Sol. Goldman Sachs has ended its Launch With GS initiative, committing 1 billion to companies led by women and people of color. The bank claims to have fulfilled its goal, deploying the funds to nearly 60 investments. So I guess Goldman Sachs solved racism, Chad. I missed that headline. Chad: Yeah, I did too. Joel: Regina Green, the head of Launch With GS, announced her departure, and the bank is shifting focus to the One Million Black Women initiative, pledging $10 billion in investment capital over 10 years. The move comes amid broader challenges for diversity programs, and Goldman facing criticism for extending beyond its core business. Chad, are you picking up what DJ Sol is dropping? Chad: So I got to say, over the past weeks and months, we've seen several privileged individuals claim that they want to claw back these types of promises or programs. And instead of focusing on that, let's focus on something real world and working class. And nothing is more working class than the military. So earlier this week, on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, John Popelka shared his story on LinkedIn, and it was a lot like mine. So first off, John and I, who have never met, although we both grew up in Ohio, where racism flourished, we joined the army, where about 50% of our basic training classes were diverse. Both John and I had very influential leaders of color all throughout our careers in the military. Those leaders shaped us and the people that we are today. But I want to mimic what John writes in his post, "I thank God for the leaders in my life who deprogrammed all that bullshit out of me." He goes on to say, "love and gratitude to all of the change agents past and present who worked tirelessly to make the American dream a little more accessible to all." That last part, make the American dream a little bit more accessible to all, that just stuck with me after reading about the DEIB programs being demonized and cut our country, our success, our failures, everything happened as a melting pot. Chad: And to not understand our greatest strength, which is diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, is to not understand our history and how we got here and what America truly is. So shout out to John Popelka, who showed us a little bit of his soul this week. And then also that's the working class and how the impact actually happens, unlike a DJ Sol who is pissing and moaning at a country club, right? This is this is the real world. Joel: Yeah, I feel like a broken record on the DEI conversation because ever... And we talked about it, ever since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, we knew that companies would start unplugging from these initiatives, that the PR machine would pay less attention to that as a result. And it was sort of a green light to strike that down. And in accordance to your friend, these initiatives, affirmative action, for example if you're a kid of color in this country, and you hear affirmative action is gone, are you more or less likely to apply to a prestigious university? I don't know. But I would guess less, because you feel like maybe there's no way that you're going to get in. So why even bother? That may or may not be the reality. But the perception is there. And I think perception has a really strong presence in this issue. Because $10 billion over 10 years, okay, $10 billion sounds like a lot of money. $10 billion over 10 years to Goldman Sachs is not, it's a great headline. And there's nothing saying that two years from now, they don't cancel this initiative... Chad: Yes. Joel: And do something else, and then just keep moving the ball, keeping the media on their toes and what the hell's going on. You really have to look at the proof. Proof is in the pudding, right? So anytime I hear these DEI stories, and people get out or people, people are committed to it, go to their website, go to their about us page, and look at their executive team. I'm serious. Because if they don't walk the walk, then fuck them. And if you go to Goldman Sachs' about us page and their executive site, let me get these numbers right here for you, Chad. They have six white guys on their executive team. And they have two white women. I said white twice there and I didn't say color once. So if Goldman wants to really walk the walk, let's get some persons of color on the executive team. How about that? That would be that would be a good start. We'll be right back. SFX (sound Effects): I'm as mad as hell. And I'm not gonna take this anymore. Joel: Can I interest you in some PornHub data, Chad? I know you love data. Chad: Oh, Jesus. Joel: PornHub has released its annual report on global porn consumption. The report includes various data points and charts analyzing trends in online adult content consumption. Some notable findings include the popularity of certain categories linked to racial and ethnic terms highlighting issues of fetishization and sexual racism. Additionally, the report notes a rise in searches for trans porn, with baby boomers and cisgender women contributing to increased interest. The report also provides state specific data revealing unique preferences in different regions, such as Maryland's interest in glory holes, and Missouri's top search being transformation. Chad, there's a lot to swallow here. SFX (sound Effects): What are you doing, step bro? Joel: Your thoughts? Chad: Yeah, I got nothing, dude. I looked at the list and I didn't know some of the terms. I'm looking and I'm like, what the fuck? But but some of the information really didn't surprise me because they were talking about some of the more mature terms, like mature sex, porn, what have you. Joel: Sure. Chad: And again, it's baby boomers. They've got nothing to do. They've retired. They're taking these little fucking blue pills. And they're getting told no, apparently. So they got to do something. They got to do something. So it just kind of makes sense. Joel: Old dicks, young chicks never gets old. Chad: Blame the boomers. Joel: Some of my faves here, Chad, the boomers' favorite category was smoking. Are they smoking during sex? Are they smoking brisket? I don't know why smoking would be the top search term. Chad: Like the Marlboro Man? Are they looking for the Marlboro Man sex? Joel: I don't know, they're reconnecting with the '60s and '70s. Everybody smoked, like that's how they had sex, and they want to relive that, I don't know. "Star Wars" was the top movie character search, that makes total sense, unless Chewbacca is something more... Chad: Princess Leia. Joel: More popular than Princess Leia, totally get that. So the top relative searches by state when compared to other searches by those by those states. So North Dakota's number one search term was loud wet sex. SFX (sound Effects): We are experiencing technical issues. Joel: Loud wet sex in North Dakota. Go figure. Mississippi was furry. Connecticut, Connecticut. This is good. Talk about some freakazoids in Connecticut. Speaking of Chris Russell's love muscle, double vagina. Double vagina was the number one. Chad: I don't... No, stop. Joel: I don't even, I don't know. I don't even know what's going on here. So Chad, I wanted to look at our top search terms at Chad & cheese for the year because I don't think we'd get anything close to that. But so for those that are interested, layoffs and iCIMS was very good to us in 2023. We had Beamer layoffs, iCIMS layoffs, Veritone layoffs, Radancy layoffs and Deal layoffs being top terms that sent people to the site. In terms of iCIMS, iCIMS CEO resigns was a top search term as well as iCIMS CEO steps down. And my favorite, who is iCIMS CEO? Those were top search terms for our site. And the number one search term that was not Chad or Cheese, that had Chad or Cheese in it was, wanna take a guess? Chad: Indeed. Joel: Oh, close. Keep going. Indeed blank. Chad: Indeed sucks. Joel: Yes. Yes. Way to go, Chad. Chad: Yes. Yes. Joel: Indeed, the gift that keeps on giving, just like PornHub. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Like a good fight? Well, you're in luck. This episode is for you. This week, the boys are covering fights between OpenAI and The New York Times, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, and Miller Lite and Bud Light. Good thing Chad is back from Europe and in a fighting mood. We take on challenges to DEI and the rise of minimum wages in New York and California, while beer mints are hoping to be a thing. (It's not.) What's more snarky TikTok'ers, Big Macs, and Bird scooters ... Oh, my. Grab a cold one and enjoy. Again, what the hell is Dry January? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. 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 & Cheese Podcast. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. Two guys who will not be head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide next season. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Flacco Cheesman. Chad: And I'm Chad living in America Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, OpenAI versus the New York Times. Miller Lite versus Bud Light and Elon versus Mark Cuban. Let's do this. Joel: You're back. Chad: It's good to be back to work, my friend. Joel: You're back and it's only 38 degrees, so you're good, man. It's golden. You brought some sunshine with you to the Midwest. Very nice. Chad: Yep, some sunshine, but yes, it's fucking cold. This is not cool. This is not cool. I was prepared for this, but I wasn't prepared for this. Joel: Yeah. What, Tim, did you leave like '70s, '80s? What? Chad: Well, first off we flew back to Paris because that's where we came in. So we spent the night in Paris and we loved the Algarve and the Algarve was I don't know, it was close to 65 degrees, 70 degrees. Joel: Lovely. Chad: Nice, nice. Joel: Lovely. Chad: Flying to Paris, motherfucker, it was snowing in Paris. That's bullshit. That's bullshit. I was not ready for that, but it got me ready. So, coming back here, at least it wasn't snow as of yet. It wasn't snow so it was all good. It was all good. Got a lot of rest, slept well, got up this morning, had a pot of coffee... Joel: There you go. Chad: And I'm back in America in Chad mode right now. I am work, getting to my emails, I'm doing all this shit that I don't do when I'm in Europe. Joel: Were your dogs happy to see you? Did they remember who you are? Chad: Oh yes. Oh yes. The dogs love it, especially the first few days. 'Cause I don't let them sleep in the bed with us. We got three big dogs. The first few days though, acclimate, come on back in. And it's a good thing. So all good in the hood. One thing I do wanna say though, it's like Christmas in fucking January around this bitch. I had a ton of industry friends send gifts, mainly booze while I was gone. So it was all just piled up, ready for me. So I'll be doing some TikToks and some videos and whatnot thanking people. Joel: Yeah, some unboxing videos is that what we have to look forward to? So we're going from like... Chad: Yeah, somewhat. Joel: We're going from Club Med swinger videos in Portugal to box opening videos in Columbus, Indiana. Chad: First off, don't be projecting your wishes and your dreams on me as what... I'm doing that shit. Joel: Dude, there's a video you put up, it looks like the Grotto from the Playboy mansion, but it's big and outside. And there are dudes in Speedos relaxing on the beach and... Chad: Fucking Europe. It sounds like Europe. Joel: It's Club Med swingers action is what I'm saying. Chad: No, that's just Europe. Joel: Oh man. Oh man. Well, welcome back... Chad: Good to be back. Joel: Good for you. We go to San Diego in a couple of weeks, so you get to... Chad: Can't wait. Joel: It's gonna be a cold weekend. It's gonna be a cold weekend here in the Midwest. Chad: Thank God. Joel: I get to go to Montreal today, so that's... Chad: Lucky bastard. Joel: Oh, we'll get to that in traveling but let's get to shoutouts, 'cause we've got a lot of stuff going on this weekend. My shout-out. Chad: Hit it. Joel: Is a triple thread food shout-out. You're gonna love this. All right. Chad: Really? Okay. Joel: Number one, let's start off with this. Mikal Bridges, NBA basketball player plays for the Nets. My new favorite basketball player, and I'm sure you wanna know why. He admitted this past week that he has eaten Chipotle every day for the last 10 years. 10 years, 365 every day. I'm not sure it's every day, but it's a lot. Yes. Speaker 3: Chipotle is my life. Joel: Chad, not all heroes wear capes. Some of them order the Barbacoa bowl with extra queso. So that's my number one. My number two, Chad, as a kid of the '80s, you remember the Wendy's commercials, where's the beef? Speaker 4: Where's the beef? Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: It's really important in your burger that you have a nice balance between the beef and the bun? Speaker 4: Where's the beef? Joel: And the bun. Chad: Yes. Joel: And the Big Mac, one of probably the most known burger around the world. You can go to Big Mac in France and get a Big Mac. Chad: Special sauce. Joel: The problem with the Big Mac for me... Speaker 4: Where is the beef? Joel: Too much bread, not enough meat. You got the middle layer of the bread. You got the regular bread, and then you got the little tiny cheeseburger patty, not the quarter pounders. Speaker 4: Where is the beef? Joel: The cheeseburger. Well, McDonald's is solving that like much of the other problems in my life. They're bringing the double, basically double, double Big Mac. So two patties... Speaker 4: Where's the beef? Joel: On each side of the middle bread here for a limited time in the United States, starting January 24th. Chad: Thank God. Fuck. Joel: Guess where I'm gonna be for lunch on January 24th Chad? Eating a Big Mac... Speaker 4: Where's the beef? Joel: At McDonald's. That's my two. Number three on the food. The food goodness. We might as well be the Food Network podcast. Wendy's... Speaker 4: Where is the Beef? Joel: Has recently launched Wendy's Fresh AI. I'm sure you're wondering what that is. They partner with Google to create basically a real time automated chat in the drive-through. We've talked about this. That it's gonna happen. Wendy's has partnered with Google, buy that Google stock now 'cause it's a little bit depressed at the moment. We're talking about 22 seconds on average save time for people that go through the faster fresh AI lane, up to 99% accuracy. If you have a problem, it goes to a human being. If you start cussing out at it, a human being comes on and saves you. But my shout-out goes to three of my favorite places in the world, Chipotle, McDonald's, and Wendy's. Thanks for making life a little better. Here's to you. Speaker 4: Where's the beef? Chad: I've had so many people comment to me on how much better fast food tastes in Europe. And it's all because they don't have all the... And chemicals that we put in our food here. [laughter] So they're getting much cleaner food in their fast food. And it's not really that fast in Europe either. We're trying to get things in seconds versus minutes. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Fast food industrial complex baby. Joel: But you've been away a while. Ozempic is a big thing now. These drugs that help you lose weight. So this is clearly the fast food industry combating the Ozempic tidal wave. Like, we're gonna put more patties on the big Macs, more nuggets in the box. Like this is... Chad: We'll show you. Joel: This is how we're gonna fight back, Chad. Here's how we're gonna fight back against science. More food. Speaker 4: Where's the beef? Chad: So we're gonna move away from fast food and back to HR. So my first shout-out is to transparency. In 2024, I'd like to challenge TA and HR to be more genuine and transparent, and here's what I mean by that. A head of HR posted something on LinkedIn that I'm gonna paraphrase. I believe it was intended to be a New Year's Eve or New Year's inspirational post, but I don't think it landed that way. It said, and again, I'm gonna paraphrase. In the new year, a high five or a big thank you means more than a promotion or a raise. This year, make an effort to shout-out to those who make the workplace awesome instead of giving them cash. What are your thoughts about that, Joel? Joel: I'm not a buyer of high fives versus cash. I'm not picking up what they're dropping on that one. And I can't imagine any worker adopting that preference over cash. Chad: No. Joel: Look, money talks my friend, especially in America. Chad: Yes. Joel: Take out the wallets, write some checks, companies. The high fives aren't gonna cut it. Chad: Man. So I believe it totally lands disingenuous and it portrays HR as nothing more than a pawn to the C-Suite, and not truly giving a shit about the people they're supposed to be looking out for. It all comes down to trust. And I wanna play a little video from Simon Sinek around trust. Here we go. [video playback] Chad: So I think again, trying to pull all that stuff, all that together, if we are more genuine, and less full of shit in 2024, I think we might start regaining trust back. I think we might. So let's give a shout-out to transparency and also to being genuine this year, in 2024. Joel: This is not a new trend. Children have been seeing their parents screwed over a long, long time. But I appreciate the way that he highlights it there, Mr. Sinek. I appreciate that. Chad: Yeah, love it. Joel: And speaking of Sinek, Chad... Chad: Oh, no. Joel: I'm sure you like I remember our first ride on a scooter. Micromobility is what the kids call it, apparently. Chad: Wasn't it Austin? Didn't we do that together in Austin? Joel: It was Austin, yes. And how you lived through that, I have no idea because you have no restraint on crosswalks, my friend. But Bird scooters, you may have seen this, filed for bankruptcy. This is why we can't have nice things Chad. People are throwing these things in the river up in trees, taking them home like... Chad: And dumpsters catching shit on fire. Joel: Yeah. No, they've made some bad decisions. They went IPO through a SPAC, which we know the history of those companies. So, Bird bankruptcy, maybe they'll figure it out. Maybe Elon will come along and write a check and make them all test for scooters. Chad: Acquisition test. Joel: That would've been a better one than Twitter. Lime scooters continue to live on. They seem to be doing okay, but clearly, human beings are not ready for freewheeling scooters on the streets of big cities around the world. And I, for one, as you know, am incredibly saddened at the prospect of scooters going the way of, I don't know, bikes on... Chad: The dodo. Joel: Yeah. The dodo, the buggy whip, whatever. I will tell my grandchildren about the good old days riding the Bird scooters in downtown USA. Chad: Love ya. Love ya. All right. I'm gonna go ahead and again, another HR kind shout-out. This one's to job hopping. So in HR, we've all been programmed that job hopping is bad, but exactly who is it bad for? Well, here's Vivian too. When she appeared on the Eric Siu podcast, take a listen. [video playback] Chad: And you know, as well as I do, there are so many of those people that just hang around and they're in the job forever, and they're not the best. They're C players at best. So keeping them, is that what you're looking for? Are you looking for one of them when you're going to recruit somebody, instead of... What we're used to is nah, no job hoppers. In this case, the job hoppers are the ones that are obviously in demand. And this goes well against what we've been taught in recruiting. Why is that? Because it's bad for the company, it's not bad for the employee. Although I think it's actually better for the company and you have to get into that understanding that you're gonna have that churn. The big key is, can I keep them for four instead of two? What can I do to incentivize them to... Maybe not promote, maybe they don't wanna be promoted. Maybe they just want something else. It doesn't matter. You have to know your people better. And I think that from a company standpoint is really our superpower. We have to know our people better. Joel: And you mentioned transparency. Transparency helps this immensely because in the days where you don't know who's getting paid, it's really hard to have a conversation with your boss and saying, Hey, everyone that's coming in that's new, that is my job, is getting paid more than me. That's not fair. And that's a great negotiating point for your boss to say, you know what, you're right, you should be making what you're making. And I've seen, my wife is a college professor. She sees new professors coming in, it's a public university. They all know what everyone's getting paid. So there's a lot of resentment around newbies getting paid more than you. But there are conversations with the deans saying, "Hey, why is this new person getting paid more than me? I should be getting paid more than them." So transparency helps us a lot. And it goes down to my 17-year-old son who recognized that newbies, he's been on the job a year plus, we're getting paid more than him... Chad: Oh fuck. Joel: And good on him he went to his boss and said, it's not cool that I've been here for a year, we're talking fast food, and these new people are getting paid more than me. And he's getting a raise. So transparency and knowing, I think carries a lot of weight in that. And it's also very prescient that you showed this video, Chad, because I've been on this podcast going on seven years now, and I'm not getting any raises or any recognition or benefits. And so, [laughter] I'm gonna be turning in my resignation at the end of this. Chad: You get bourbon in the mail all the time. Joel: So anyway, all right, good shout-outs, good shout-outs. And we are transparent, Chad, with free shit. Chad: That's right. Joel: Everyone's on social media sharing it. Love doing that. It was fun during the holidays. Birthdays are always fun. But if you haven't signed up kids, chadcheese.com, click the free link. People are getting free booze, we're talking bourbon from our friends at Textkernel, Beer from Aspen Tech Labs, T-shirts from JobGet. And if it's your birthday in any particular month, you could win a nice bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. And that sound, Chad, you know... Chad: I can feed it all the way down to my plums. Joel: Means that we're gonna celebrate some birthdays this month. Chad: Birthdays. Joel: That's right. Fans that are celebrating another trip around the sun include Jagged Little Jill Patterson. You remember her from fantasy football? She's still licking her wounds from losing in the final four there. Chad: She did well. She did well. Joel: Paul Drake, Jenny Olsson, GJ Vassdarp, Rita Doshi, and Craig Fisher, AKA Fish Dogs all celebrate another trip around the Sun. Happy birthday to those listeners. Speaker 6: Happy birthday. Chad: Happy birthday. And well, it's gonna be... It's another year, which means it's another year of events. Later this month, we are going to be at TA week in San Diego where we will be hanging out with a crew from Koalafi that's like qualified. But Koala, Koalafi at the Koala colony meetup. Joel: What? Chad: Yes. We're gonna go see Koalas at the San Diego Zoo. Evan White has a ton of other VIP after hours events planned. But if you're gonna be at TA week, stop by the Koalafi booth for a T-shirt, do we have any T-shirts left? Joel: We're at the bottom of the barrel of T-shirts. And we're negotiating another deal, hopefully a new design. Pretty excited about it. We'll talk further. But people love the Hard Rock, the Rock T-shirt... We went with the AC-DC. I think we gotta go with something similar. But yeah, stay tuned for new T-shirts coming in in 2024. And by the way, Koalafi is like a dad joke a company. It's like Koala, Koalafi like so as a dad, I appreciate the Daddy jokingness. By the way, I got a good dad joke for you, Chad. Did you hear about the... Chad: Oh, geez. Joel: Did you hear about the chameleon that couldn't change colors? Chad: I did not. Joel: He had a reptile dysfunction. [laughter] Joel: That's good. That's not bad. Chad: Very on brand. Very on brand. Joel: That's not bad. Chad: Real quick. We are also going to be at Transform in Vegas March 11th through the 14th. They have over 3,000 attendees, 100 plus vendors, more than 500 startups and over 300 speakers. We have not been to TA Week or Transform before. So two new shows for the Chad and Cheese. Go to chadcheese.com/events. That's right /events in the header. We actually have a discount code for Transform. So go ahead and click on register and have at it. Hope to see you there. Joel: We are bulging into new events this year. We are bulging into new territories, which by the way, Chad, if you haven't checked out the Chad & Cheese Podcast Does Data only on YouTube. You gotta check it out. We've partnered with Toby Dayton, the Sasquatch of Statistics. Easy for me to say only, on YouTube. We look at the monthly employment report, break it down and in just three shows, Chad, the winds of change are strong. The economy can flip on a whim. And the last show to this month's show very interesting, very interesting things on the horizon. Chad: It is interesting. Joel: So you gotta check that out. Youtube.com@chadcheese. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any episodes in the Future. [music] Joel: Topics. Chad: Topics. Joel: All right, Chad, we haven't talked about layoffs for a while, so let's hit some layoffs for the new year. Chad: Coming Strong. Joel: That's right. Lever, in case you missed it, owned by Employ who also owns Jobvite has "Cut a slew of workers" but not exact numbers are known. I don't know how much a slew is, but that's what the San Francisco Standard quoted in their story. Chad: Sounds like a lot. Joel: Apparently customer service reps were the most impacted. I fear that they're not the only workforce company in the coming months to have layoffs. We will keep you abreast of that. From a macro picture, Google and your favorite Amazon have also announced some layoffs. And if you're an NFL football fan, Pete Carroll, Mike Vrabel and Bill Belichick are all looking for new jobs. Word is, they might be... Chad: Three head coaches. Joel: They might be starting a competitive podcast to take on Pat McAfee including Aaron Rogers. So we should be looking out for that. Any thoughts from you on layoffs around the country? Chad: Yeah, we're seeing a lot of these companies. I mean, even BlackRock is talking about laying off 600, 3% of their staff as well. A lot of companies, not all, are going to be impacted by AI. Not from the standpoint of AI doing somebody's job, but it just impacting business flow. In this case, Lever, I don't think has anything to do with that. I think they've been on the ropes for a little while. They were acquired, obviously on the ropes prior to that. Still on the ropes. And I think... I'm not going to say they have problems, but they do have some huge some obstacles ahead of them. They have all of these different companies. They still haven't aligned those companies from a business strategy standpoint, from a go to market standpoint. And it's incredibly hard running one company with one platform versus three fucking platforms. To me, it sounds like a goddamn nightmare. Another nightmare that I've heard of that's coming is SmartRecruiters. It sounds like the dominoes are falling there. Jeremy Johnson, CFO, out. Rachel Orston, Chief Customer Officer, out. James Chan, VP of Global Presales, out. Charlie Nelson, who's been there for eleven years, Chief Sales Officer, out. Joel: Damn. Chad: And from the intel that I'm getting, there are going to be more key players leaving in Q1. So there are a lot of changes happening. A lot of changes happening. And remember, Jerome was there for a while. We got the new CEO that came in, kind of saw that that was going to happen. But this is... The winds of change. I think you've just said it, the winds of change are happening. And when you take a look at... Those are two ATS players, I mean, shit, employs more than... They have three themselves. So they have a huge huge obstacle in front of them, multiple obstacles. So sitting back and watching what happens with them is going to be interesting. Good luck to those guys 'cause it's not going to be easy. Tech debt for one platform versus three fucking platforms. Oh, my God. SmartRecruiters, they've had... I think their biggest issue is go to market and really understanding who their customer is and who their competitors are and who their partners should be. Again, this is the time where things are going to shake out. We're going to see some big companies fall, some companies fall, and some acquisitions happen. Joel: House of brands or a branded house. It's a difficult decision for any company who's acquiring folks. And with Lever, Jobvite, Jazz, that becomes really convoluted for customers... Chad: Jazz Hands. Joel: And internally, multiple customer service, different sales teams. That's quite a mess. Chad: Fucking nightmare. Joel: Winds of change, Chad. It always comes back to The Scorpions, a la 1980s. Yes, more layoffs. Chad: Love me some scorpions. Joel: More layoffs for sure. I think Indeed, remember they had an investor, a little private equity action. I think they're probably going to get a haircut here in the next couple of months. No inside info. I'm predicting there'll be more efficiency at Indeed here at some point. Chad: Remember when Indeed said they were going to have an applicant tracking system? I mean a hiring system applicant? This is a hell of a lot harder than people think, you know what I mean? Joel: Bring back job tracker, I say. Bring back the app where I can take pictures of help wanted signs in my downtown and get money for it. Chad: No, no, no. Don't do it. Joel: All right. OpenAI is in the news, so let's talk about that. Several high profile lawsuits are challenging the legality of OpenAI's ChatGPT, and similar AI products, alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition. The New York Times, for instance, claim these chatbots use their intellectual property without permission, diverting web traffic and causing reputational damage. Ouch. OpenAI argues it's within fair use. The outcome promises to shape the future of AI and copyright law. Chad, what are your thoughts on OpenAI versus the New York Times? Chad: So, months ago I said that content or data was key to all these large language models, key to training and feeding the large language models. Everyone will have access to these large language models, but not everyone will have the data to train the models. There are tons of data lakes that are out there that are not open to the public. Think of unleashing a large language model on ADP Payroll data, could pay equity be fixed faster. What about unleashing a large language model on an applicant tracking system candidate pool you've spent millions of dollars amassing over the years. Could the data be enriched? Could candidates be matched and fast tracked into positions? Filling those positions faster, thus driving a more productive workforce? Shit, yes. But the thing is the content is the key. You need the fuel. You need the training data to be able to do that. So in this New York Times case, they understand their content is data, and data is the key to power the AI. I just hope that we in TA and HR understand our domain specific data is very specialized, which makes it golden. It is literally a pot of gold. Companies should be working closely with vendors to understand their data, clean it up, and start putting it to work ASAP. Chad: So I see this coming. I also see the New York Times and many other publishers, they were fooled once by Google in being able to give their content out for free. And now they're going after that money now, shit, 20 years later, now they're saying, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, I'm coming after my pot of gold, motherfucker. Joel: Yeah. And not just Google, to me it's a Napster and maybe even Monster moment. If you're old enough to remember Napster, or at least seen a documentary on Netflix, the music industry, their choice was to destroy, sue Napster out of business as opposed to looking at how do we partner, make money? And then a few years later they had Steve Jobs walk in and basically bend them over for 99 cents a download per song. So that was probably the wrong decision. Google, like you mentioned, Prof. G, one of our favorites, likes to talk about when he was on the New York Times board talking about we should shut off Google, we should partner with every media, major media outlet in the country and say, unless you pay us, you're not going to be able to index our stuff. They obviously didn't do that and we're in kind of the position we are now if we're looking at in employment, how many times in the mid aughts did we say, why is Monster, CareerBuilder, hot jobs? Everybody letting... Chad: Indeed. Joel: Letting Indeed and SimplyHired and everybody else index their stuff. They could destroy them tomorrow by cutting off their content. Of course the thought of, well, this is a little shitty search engine thing, we're getting free traffic, who cares? And then look how that turned out. So yeah, there's been a lot of companies burned on, hey, our content is valuable, we should get paid for it. And it's not just the New York Times. Sarah Silverman comedian is suing ChatGPT as well. So there's going to be some big legal case as to how I think OpenAI and everyone's going to have to pay for the content and how they're making these models and spitting out information. I don't know how they get away with it. I think Google probably has the best chance to come out of this with the best partnerships, spending the most money. I mean, we'll see how it ends up, but going to be interesting. This is the moment where either OpenAI potentially dies or everyone gets rich and everyone is feeling good and feeling fine and cherry wine. Our next OpenAI story is about the GPT Store which just launched. Joel: The ChatGPT store allows users to share custom chatbots created through the GPT builder program. Over 3 million bots have been generated since November and is now available to ChatGPT plus, Enterprise, and a new paid tier called Team, catering to smaller teams at $25 per month per user or $30 per month per user, whether it's annual or monthly billing. OpenAI plans a revenue sharing program for GPT creators based on user engagement starting in Q1. Chad, what are your thoughts on the GPT store? Chad: That's interesting. I believe I saw a post and I got to reach out to Martin Lenz over at Jobiqo, where they've already created one of these chatbots and they're releasing it to the public as well. So, yes, this is going to be something that's big, and there are going to be different models, different versions. But again, we're going back to what they're trained off of, because if they're trained off of just basic data that's available to the public, who gives a fuck. If they're trained off of that secret source data that nobody else has, that's incredibly different. So I think this, to an extent right now, is all about nothing. They're just going to be a lot of same types of chatbots coming out. Chad: Will they be more specifically focused in certain areas, yeah, but you can do that yourself, especially if you're using just public data. The big difference here, I feel this is more of a diversion. Focus on something that is more specific to you. Martin Lenz and Company they have the access, they understand the type of specialized domain data in the public that they can use, but they also have their own data. So they can make that almost mixture special, source wise, what vendors are going to do that. That to me is what is more interesting. The rest of them are just kind of like, anybody can do that. I want to see the stuff that happens that's trained off of data that nobody else has. Joel: So App Stores have been a staple in the Internet ecosystem since Facebook did it 20 years ago, probably 18 years ago. And it was genius at the time. Twitter had... Build on Twitter, build on LinkedIn. Everybody opened up their platform and then just about everybody got burned for building stuff on those platforms. You probably remember, bknown, you might remember BranchOut, which made their entire business based on spamming people in your network on those social media platforms. Chad: Which is why it got killed. Joel: Yeah, which is why it got killed. All it's going to take is the App Store provider to change the rules and you're screwed. We're seeing App Store with Apple gamer companies 30% to Apple. How are you profitable on that? I think going back to the New York Times. If you are creating stuff where you have to have a license agreement with the company, whether it's through OpenAI or something else, I think it could be a really tough time for a lot of app makers if the New York Times wins and OpenAI has to pay license fees for all this content. Because that's going to funnel down to all the developers. They're going to have to pay a fee for using that content. Joel: I think where you're going with, could you use ATS data to create really interesting large language models? Could you use job postings which are basically free around the Internet? That becomes interesting. I think one of the threats to OpenAI is its relationship with Microsoft who owns LinkedIn. LinkedIn will probably have the coolest ChatGPT, whatever things, maybe they'll build them right onto LinkedIn's platform. But the fear of, I built something cool on ChatGPT and LinkedIn goes, oh, we don't really like that. And it's saying for some reason this is banned or this isn't going to happen. I think there's a real threat to building stuff that competes with LinkedIn and LinkedIn and Microsoft saying, I don't know about this. Google's definitely going to open up their stuff. Everyone with AI is going to open up their stuff, and we're going to see a flood of new apps, APIs in marketplaces work until they don't. ATS is in our space. Will there be apps built on ATSs that involved OpenAI, ChatGPT technology? There probably will. Chad: Yeah. They already are. Joel: Well, I'm just saying proceed with caution if you're a developer, if you're an investor in these companies, 'cause historically, when you build on someone else's property, they tend to raise the taxes, they tend to set up fences, they tend to make life a little more difficult than it was when you first came on the property. Chad: It'll be interesting, your LinkedIn example. I think it's funny 'cause it's like affixing a jet engine to a Cessna. You're going to see those things happen, but it's just not going to work. We've been talking about this for years. LinkedIn infrastructure is old, tech debt is a bitch, trying to do all these new things. If Microsoft helps them rebuild LinkedIn as we know it today and make it this AI powerhouse, man, it will be fucking beautiful. But if they do what you were talking about doing, you're putting a jet engine on a Cessna. That's just not going to work. Joel: Yeah, like silicone lubricant, on Clark Griswold's snow sled. Let's take a break and when we come back, we'll talk about DEI. Joel: All right, Chad, let's talk a little DEI, which some people are forecasting will become DIE. I guess time will tell. But Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are beefing over diversity, equity and inclusion. Musk criticized United Airlines Pilot Training Academy's 50% diversity goal for women and/or people of color. Cuban defended the goal, clarifying it applied to the training school, not the airline itself. Joel: Musk called Cuban a racist, reiterating his suggestion for diversity in Cuban's NBA team. What's more, Bill Ackman has labeled DEI as racist. Google is cutting DEI initiatives, and Lululemon's founder has gripes about Lulu's, "Whole diversity and inclusion thing", adding, you've got to be clear that you don't want certain customers coming in." Chad, it's been a long, strange trip for corporate diversity efforts. What are your thoughts? Chad: Over the years, we've talked about how many, not all DEIB programs were nothing but window dressing. When the chief diversity officer has limited or no staff and no budget, what the actual fuck are they supposed to do? They're literally told, hey, go out and do stuff, and you've got nobody. You've got no resources. What are you supposed to do? So seeing these departments of one go away, it's not a bad thing, because many of them, they weren't moving the needle in the first place. They couldn't. They didn't have the resources to be able to do that. But here's what I hope we see happen. I hope companies understand the business need for DEIB. And those companies start to contract people like Torin Ellis and Shaker's John Graham to not just make connections, but drive outcomes. Hire companies with like Disability Solutions like Pepsi did, to create better hiring and retention outcomes, and maybe even win an award from the US government, like Pepsi did, off the work and outcomes of those experts because they can drive those outcomes. They know how to. Chad: Literally, Pepsi received a pass on OFCCP audits because of their collaboration and outcomes with Disability Solutions. Now, I'm biased because Julie is the executive director of Disability Solutions, but they have proven themselves with outcomes. To me, this could be an opportunity for a lot of these companies who didn't know what the fuck they were doing in the first place, to call people in who know what they're doing. So to Cuban's point, your loss is my gain. You want to lose all of these programs, great. Fuck you. Great. I want them. Which means you're going to lose all that great talent, all that opportunity. You're going to lose it. Chad: I don't care, 'cause you're my competition. You might not be in the same industry, but you're still a competitor for great talent. So guess what? I love it. You do you. I'm going to do me, and I'm going to get the best talent through these programs. Joel: Yeah. It's amazing to me that we're calling something like this a racist initiative, trying to bring more people into the fold of corporate America. Chad: Reverse discrimination. Are you fucking kidding me? Joel: Yeah, it's weird. It's a surreal world that we live in. Good on Mark Cuban. Good on, Mark Cuban. When we sat down with Torin Ellis a few years ago and we asked him, hey, what can two white guys do to help the cause? And his comment was, Speak up. Put yourself out there. Defend the efforts and take on people that will attack it. So good on Cuban being one of the more high profile people to take on Elon Musk and anyone else, but... Chad: He gets it. Joel: He totally gets it. It's not about quotas and people aren't qualified, it's about expanding the net and getting more people into the fold. And he really has a great way of clarifying what the issue is. Look, the pendulum swung way on one way. Black lives Matter, Me Too, George Floyd. The media embraced it, companies were like, we're good guys and gals, we're embracing this and we're hiring DEI and then when the economy did its thing and people stopped paying attention and Ukraine... Americas attention and people's attention went away from that. And as a result, corporate America has as well. You and I called this, Chad, when the Supreme Court nixed affirmative action, we said, this is going to slip into corporate America. This is going to destroy DEI programs and initiatives at companies. We talked about the Lead at Facebook, which had nothing to do with DEI. It had everything to do with the person. But I'm sure that has something to do with the whole effort. Joel: So I like where you're going with, this is going to be a marketplace issue. It's going to take people who buy stuff to say, we're not going to buy stuff from companies who don't embrace this. It's going to take people who work for these companies to say, we're not going to work for you anymore unless you embrace these values. And it's going to embrace some of market forces that say, Hey, companies who do, and I think we have a lot of evidence already, that companies that do embrace DEI are more successful from a bottom line initiative and perspective. Elon's off the reservation example of this. I don't know if he's the normal case study, but the more companies that have the Mark Cubans that embrace this, the more employees that want it, the more customers who are saying, we're going to buy from companies that embrace this, that's going to be the change, not because CNN is reporting it and not because global sentiment says, this is what we should focus on today, tomorrow it will be something else. This needs to be a foundational change. Chad: So back to back outcomes. I'm much closer to this than most people are, not because I'm doing it, I was a veteran, I built veteran hiring programs. I understand a lot of the window dressing and bullshit that happened there. Watching Julie do this on a daily basis and understanding that companies that they're working with and they're building programs with, they're getting better retention than their "Normal, run-of-the-mill employees." These are things that, we were talking about job hopping earlier and we talked about trust earlier. You know who really trusts an organization? One that gives them a fucking chance that's never been given a chance before. One who lays it out on the line and says, hey, look, you're going to train, you're going to work, you're going to be this. We want to stand behind you and do this. That's how you build loyalty and trust. Joel: Yeah. Chad: These types of programs are the bedrock of being able to find new talent and get them trained up and keeping them for much longer, which does what? It gives you a solid firm foundation of great talent. And if you don't have that, you're not having the revenues that you want to see. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. I fear it's only going to get worse. And the whole ESG movement taking a hit just gets combined with all this. But going from one injustice to possibly another, let's talk about minimum wage. Effective January 1st of '24. The minimum hourly wage will increase from $15-$16 in New York City and Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties and from $14-$15 per hour for the rest of the state. Meanwhile, the minimum wage in California is now $16 an hour for all employers. Later this year, fast food restaurant employees will get $20 per hour and health care facility employees will make up to $23 an hour. Chad, what are your thoughts on New York and California's initiatives? Chad: Well, I think... We talked about this, we have seen stagnant wage increases, stagnant wage levels over the years. And the market hasn't fixed it. We have got to do a couple of different things. Yes, the market will drive certain areas like tech. But it doesn't drive everything. So we actually have to have governing bodies and forces that help to ensure that we don't push more people into poverty. That's the big key. And that we're not making people shit, work more than one full time job just so that they can put a roof over their family's heads. So at the end of the day, this is about ensuring that our neighbors, the people that we live with, the people that we share communities with are taken care of. We've lost that. We've been focusing on rugged individualism ourselves. What can we do for ourselves instead of the community? Chad: And that's where a lot of the trust has been lost, unfortunately. So is there going to be a shock factor with some companies who might have to go out of business or they might have to change how they do business to be able to work with these new wages? Yes. And I'll give you a great example. Just in Paris, we were in this hotel called CitizenM and it had literally bare bone staff. You go into... You go in, you register yourself, you make your own key. You go to the bar. You want to order food? Well, guess what? You got to go stand in line, and Europe is famous for queues, so everybody's fine with a queue. They go stand in line, they order their food, they get a little buzzer like you do, the thing lights up, you go get your food, you eat wherever you're at. They are looking at trying to create an entirely different environment. Maybe you like it, maybe you don't. If you don't like it, then you don't stay there. But companies are going to have to be innovative. To try to think that companies have to do the same thing for decades and decades and decades and continue to grow. That's madness. That will not happen. Hopefully, this will jar some companies, but it will also sink some companies. Joel: Yeah. In case you missed it, the federal minimum wage in America since 2009... Chad: Still. Joel: Is $7.25 an hour. [laughter] Chad: Ridiculous. Joel: No matter how you feel about it, you could probably agree it's maybe time that we increase it from 7.25 an hour from 15 years ago. Look, there's an ongoing narrative in America that Texas, Florida, Carolina's Southwest, everyone is leaving New York, California, Chicago, the bigger traditional cities you might call blue cities to these States, largely because of opportunity, low taxes, et cetera. What I'm going to find interesting is, will there be a reverse migration by people who would rather make $20 than $10 an hour and do the math and say, wow, if I make twice as what I'm making now, my standard of living, my kids, education, my health care improves. So I'm going to leave Texas, and this is an example and I'll move to California because I know I can get twice as much as I'm getting now. And do businesses coincide with that and say, well, we need to open up more restaurants and stores and shops in California or stay open because people are making more. And by that reality, they're spending more because they have more revenue and income. Joel: So long term, this is a really interesting strategy, I'm not sure if they're doing this on purpose, to reverse migration back to cities where workers know that I'm going to make twice as much, if not more per hour, if I leave this general vicinity. I'm looking at this as sort of a reverse strategy by bigger states to stick it to the states that have grown population over the last couple of years. Back to your comment about automation, this is largely going to be a race to how quickly can we automate and get rid of people? I mentioned Wendy's at the top of the show, automating the drive through, you mentioned the hotel in Europe. Companies are going to race to automate and have fewer people working. Now, hopefully there'll be more enough jobs to cover the people that are out of work from those businesses. Joel: The other thing I see happening in some of these states, at least, is going to be taxation of the technology. There's going to be a push at some point where the workers and voters say, look, we're losing jobs and everything to these robots, this automation, do something about it, Mr. And Mrs. Politician. And the reaction to that is going to be we need to tax or get something out of the companies that are squeezing out people from their businesses. It'll be a really interesting future. Immigration plays into this as well, which is a big issue here in the States. But yeah, it's a race to automation and how politics is going to react to people losing jobs if they do. The counter argument is there'll be more jobs than ever with more technology. There'll be more GPT apps that need customer service reps and need salespeople. Joel: And so we'll see what happens. But it's a dance that I enjoy watching and I think we enjoy talking about. But good on the people who are getting more money. Look, I think both of us have fought for a national $25 an hour, maybe some exceptions for small small businesses. But there's no reason that Domino's, Papa John's, Subway's, McDonald's can't pay those wages. People will pay an extra dollar for the Big Mac, especially if it's a double Big Mac, Chad, in the future and help pay some of those salaries. Chad: Big Mac should be followed by a beer. So let's just hit that one up. Joel: Let's take a break and we'll talk about beer. Joel: It's good to be back, man. Fast food, beer. This is good stuff. There's no Onlyfans in this episode though, I'm a little sad about that. Chad: Wow. We going to have to make up for that. Joel: All right. So it's dry January. Let's talk about beer. Miller Lite is introducing beer mints for the month, allowing beer lovers to, "Enjoy the taste of Miller Lite," I don't know about that, without consuming alcohol and adding the mints offer afresh mint flavor initially, followed by the subtle taste of Miller Lite. When you chew the mint available for a limited time, thank God, each tin includes 40 mints and costs $5. Meanwhile, Bud Light on the other light spectrum has launched a new ad campaign featuring NFL royalty Peyton Manning and the Dallas Cowboys running back Emmett Smith. Chad, what are your thoughts on the current state of beer? Chad: I think nobody enjoys the taste of Miller Lite, first and foremost, they're just doing it because they want a cheap beer. So buying mints to be... I think it's funny. That's really funny. And if you're going to give them away for free, then maybe, but I'm not buying that shit for God's sakes. And then on the Miller, on the Bud Light, on the Bud Light side of the house, hello, same as it ever was. Go back to what you know. What do you know? You know football, you know who your core audience is. And that's what they're going back to. I still don't disagree with they're looking to try to hit different markets at different promotions and different times. I think they should continue to do that. They should not apologize for doing that. They should just fucking do it. Chad: And then they should run these types of campaigns during football season. You've got Peyton Manning, you got Emmett Smith. People know who they are if you're in that demographic. That's the key. And also as human beings, we need to quit being such bitches about all the ooh, it's got a rainbow bottle. Who cares? It's the same shit in the bottle. It doesn't matter. And if that offends you, then you've got a problem yourself. It has nothing to do with the beer. So anyway... Joel: Everyone has the right to drink shitty beer, Chad. Everyone should have the right to drink shitty beer. Chad: Yeah. Well, hopefully the people that are in New York and California can afford something better than fucking Miller Lite. Joel: I bring Seinfeld into this show all the time. There's an episode of Seinfeld where he buys 1,000 packs of this Chinese gum, they sit around and they chew gum and Kramer's like oh, let's sit around and chew gum. Can't you see guys watching the NFL playoffs in January with a tin of Miller Lite mints saying, "Hey, man, pass me a mint." And then passing around the mint and they're all eating mints, watching football, celebrating dry January. This is a great marketing ploy, but this is not going to take off. People have mints to get rid of the beer breath that they have before they go to see their wives or girlfriends. Joel: As far as the Peyton Manning, I hate this ad. I'm not buying that Peyton Manning is drinking Bud Light. Peyton Manning is part owner of a luxury Tennessee whiskey that I can buy. This is like Tom Brady doing ads for Hertz. Motherfucking Tom Brady is not renting a car at Hertz. Give me a fucking break. I want to see the old timey Bud Light beer commercials with Rodney Dangerfield and like Bubba Smith and Larry Csonka and those... Let's see some real blue collar, lunch pail guys that play football. Let's see the linemen. Let's see the linebackers. Let's see those dudes. I want to see those dudes drinking Bud Light. Chad: The guys who still make millions of dollars, are you kidding me? [laughter] Joel: But I know we're not going back to the Swedish bikini team. I know that those days are over, but we can go back to old comedians. Let's see Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle in a beer ad. That's what I want to see. Chad: Bill Burr I can see. Joel: I'm not buying it, Chad, but we have an announcement here, Chad. Chad: Not mints. Not mints. Joel: And in honor of this block here, Chad & Cheese are now officially marketing old style beer. Yes, since 1902, old style has been refreshing Americans all over. So everyone, old style Chad and cheese. What's better than that? The next time you listen to the podcast or watch it on YouTube, that's right, we're on YouTube now. Kick back with a good cold, old style and live life at its fullest. Welcome back to America, Chad. Cheers, my friend. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't tuck away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

With an upcoming annual conference, Lieven's been really busy, but he found some time for a chat with all the news coming out of Europe lately. First up, Stepstone is touting its best year ever, but at least one co-host if calling for peak Stepstone, meaning it's call downhill from here. Another reason for pessimism is the entry of Google for Jobs in Stepstone's backyard: Germany. It's going to be interesting, and maybe Appcast, Stepstone's shiny new toy, can save the day? We discuss. And how about a little Buy-or-Sell, reviewing startups Demando, JobCannon, and Bubty (no, it's not a new techno band out of Finland). Then we roll a grenade down the hall and give you Lieven's predictions for 2024 (spoiler alert: Goodbye SEO). TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. [music] Intro: 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: Oh, yeah. Three guys who will never get admitted in to NATO. What's up boys and girls? You are listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. I'm your co-host Joel Davos Cheeseman. Chad: This is Chad I'm going Demando Sowash. Lieven: And I'm Lieven organizing congresses since 1976 Van Nieuwenhuyze. [laughter] Joel: And on this episode, Google for Jobs comes for Europe's biggest economy, Stepstone's best year ever and a little buy or sell. Let's do this. SFX: Emotional damage. Joel: Lieven, where have you been? Lieven: Ah, I've been working. Working. Joel: What? I thought it was a European vacation. One of those 18-week getaways to the Swiss Alps. But no you've been working. Huh? Chad: No, he was skiing. They were skiing in there. [laughter] Lieven: I was also in the Alps but we've been working actually on the congress. I wasn't lying about organizing congresses. I've been pretty busy organizing this one. Chad: Talk a little bit about it. We're gonna be in Amsterdam where we're in the center of everything. What's going on? Lieven: Well, this is already the fifth edition and you've been part, Joel, of three I think. And Chad was also there twice I think. Joel: Yep. Lieven: Yeah. So this is the fifth edition of the E-recruitment congress. And each year it's getting better. This time we're moving from Belgium to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam because my Dutch colleagues thinks it's where it's happening, so [laughter] we pretend to believe them. Joel: Holland, where it's cool if you're Belgian. Lieven: It's so cool to be Belgian, they love our voice. Anyways, anyways. E-recruitment congress, March 19th in Amsterdam at Muziekgebouw which is the most beautiful congress... It's not a congress location. Actually, it's a music hall, a very beautiful one. It's really impressive. Chad: Oh, nice. Lieven: Near the water. A beautiful scenery, close to the center and right next to the Amsterdam railway station, so if you... Chad: Perfect. Lieven: Come by plane or by... Yeah, it's really convenient. We have a great list of people. Also Hilke Schellmann will be... Chad: She was just on the show. Yes. Joel: There you go. There you go. Lieven: I was so busy trying to convince her to be at my show but then she was at yours. Okay, whatever. [laughter] But she'll be there and as you all know, she's written a great book, In The Algorithm. I ordered it at Amazon and I still didn't get it but I'm sure it's on its way. I should have ordered it at Amazon Belgium, not the Americas probably it takes some time there. But I've been hearing tons of good stuff about it. And what I find interesting is she's actually very... She's a critic voice about AI and jobs. And most people who are going to be talking about AI at the congress will be very enthusiastic because they're going to try to sell the audience some of their products which are all AI based of course. Chad: Imagine that. Lieven: She's probably... Yeah. She will be the more critical kind of voice which I like. Joel: She'll be a cold bucket of water for some of those folks. Lieven: I'm sure. I'm sure. [laughter] Chad: She's an investigative reporter, so she did her work. She did some digging and she found some things out. But I mean that's a good thing. That's why we have a free press, kids. Joel: The clothes can't get clean without the agitator. Right, Chad? [laughter] And Hilke is the agitator. Chad: That's what I'm talking about. Lieven: Yes. And I've been communicating with her for a few weeks now and I'm looking forward to meeting her. I haven't met her yet but looking forward to. We have lots of other people. Just check the website. It's E-recruitment congress. If you put it in Google, I'm sure we'll be on top. It should be, huh? Joel: I think it's on our events page too if you're at chadcheese.com. Chad: It is. /events. Joel: And a coupon code may be coming soon. Lieven: Yes. I was just going to mention it. If you happen to stumble upon the Chad and Cheese page, you might find entry codes which gives you access to the congress for 50%. Chad: What! Joel: Whoa! That's a deep discount. Lieven: That's a deal. I know, I know. We only have 750 places and it'll be sold out, so don't wait. Joel: Can I get Belgian beer in Holland, Lieven? 'Cause if I can't then that's a problem. Lieven: We'll bring it. We'll bring it. Joel: I can't drink Amstel Lite for a week. I just can't. I can't bring myself. Lieven: No, of course not. Or Heineken. Chad: Nobody wants Heineken. Come on. Joel: Can't do that. Chad: No, no, no, no. No. Joel: Can't do that. Lieven: The best Belgian beer we can find in large amounts... Chad: Barrels. Barrels. Barrels of beer. Joel: That's what I'm talking about. We're gonna have the college refrigerator behind our table where we're in the cheap seats there at the congress. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. All right. Let's get to a little business. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Chad: My shout out this week goes to Carrefour, one of France's biggest supermarket chains who will stop selling Pepsi products in their latest clash between retailers and their suppliers over inflated prices. The move marks an escalation in Carrefour's attempts to pressure some of the world's biggest consumer goods companies to cut their prices after hiking. It seems that greedflation is being combated with a new, what they call... Joel would know this, shrinkflation campaign. Joel: What? Chad: Where grocery stores are slapping warnings on product ranging from lint chocolates to Lipton iced tea advertising customers that say they have shrunk the size of the product but they are still charging more even though the raw materials cost less. That's right. So vive la France. Vive la révolution and shout out to Carrefour. Joel: All right, guys. I have a bit of a somber, sad shout out today. Chad: Don't be a wet towel. Joel: Jerome Armbruster... Sorry, no relation to Max. President of French-based recruitment group, HelloWork passed away last Thursday I believe. 53-years-old, married and a father of one was cycling when he was hit by a car which then drove away. Chad: Wow. Joel: The driver of the car apparently was apprehended and will face the justice system. But our hearts go out to Jerome and his family and the employees at HelloWork. So, somber shoutout. Tragedy does happen and it affects all of us in some ways. So again, hearts out to Jerome. Chad: Cycling is dangerous, kids. Make sure you're wearing that helmet. Make sure you've got all the reflective gear. A friend of mine actually was on a team that cycled over 750 miles. There were six of them on the team, they all at least got hit once by a car. At least once by a car. Joel: Geez. Chad: Be careful out there, kids. Be careful. Joel: And you think with the Tour de France that drivers would be more aware of cyclists in the country but... Chad: Apparently you haven't been driving in Europe very often. Joel: Yeah. I don't do a lot of bike riding, I'm sure that surprises you. Chad: Well, you'll see a lot of those in Amsterdam. [music] Chad: Topics Joel: I'll be lucky if I get some walking in with some wooden shoes. But other than that, not a lot of exercise for me. All right. Let's talk about Stepstone. Chad: What? Joel: They apparently experienced their best year ever in revenue back in 2023, surpassing the $1 billion mark that they hit in 2022. Despite that, CEO Sebastian Dettmers said that the long-planned initial public offering is being deferred due to current market conditions stating that the company is not in a hurry. In case you missed it, Stepstone is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Axel or 'Akwell' if you're an Eddie Murphy fan, Springer Group and operates in more than 40 job boards internationally as well as Programmatic Powerhouse, Appcast. Chad, your thoughts on Stepstone's best year ever. Chad: So all of this is obviously encompassing the Appcast money, right? Joel: Yeah, I would assume so. Chad: Okay. So one thing... I'm waiting for this to happen. I'm waiting for them to actually kick Sebastian to the curb. They rebrand, they flip it and Appcast becomes the parent company and they put Chris Forman into that position because Appcast is the future of this company. Stepstone is not the future of this company. As soon as 'Akwell' Springer understands that, I think it's gonna be fairly simple. But we've talked about this on several occasions. Is a job board going to be the future of the industry? No. Will it be, I don't know, AI and targeting and branding or recruitment marketing? I wanna see the switch, Appcast becomes the big dog and Stepstone goes where they should be, which is underneath the big dog. Joel: Yes. The 40 job boards are not the future unless you believe a franchise of frozen yogurt shops is the future of technology. No. [laughter] SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: The job board crusaders are gonna be mad about that comment. Look, they had a layoff of about 5% in 2020... Chad: Layoffs? Joel: In November, which I'm sure helped their end of year revenue number. But they got some competition coming. I agree, Appcast is the future. I don't think there's a chance they leave the Stepstone brand and Lieven can talk to this 'cause he's in Europe, Stepstone is still a big swing and you know what? In Europe, so I don't see them flipping to Appcast which no one knows... Chad: In Germany. Joel: Except the American guys for the European Podcast. Indeed is now the number one site in Germany. LinkedIn is now the number three site I believe in Germany. It's the number one site in Spain. It's coming really, really hard. And our next story will prove that Google is... Yeah, I said coming hard, Sowash. Everyone's coming hard in Europe but more than that, I don't know if we've seen peak Stepstone. You'll remember that the music industry had its best year right around Napster time. You see a lot of these companies, you saw Monster hit peak Monster right around the time Indeed started taking big chunks out of it. So I would be concerned if I'm at Stepstone that we might be at peak Stepstone. It may be just downhill from here. Joel: I think the IPO question is really interesting. I made in my prediction show, our prediction show that there would be no IPOs in 2024. I was concerned that Stepstone might be the one... Them or Personio, I thought there might be a European wild card. I don't think an IPO is gonna happen this year because you look at what's going on in Europe, Germany's in recession, UK's potentially gonna be in recession. Like it's probably not a great time to go public, so to wait a year is gonna be interesting and in that year's time, Indeed, LinkedIn and probably Google are gonna continue to take chunks out of that market share. I think we may have hit peak Stepstone. Lieven: My mother used to tell me, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So I should shut up. But I never listened to her. Concerning the IPO, there is a recession, it's not even a big one, I think we're already... It's not even a real recession, it's just a slowing down the economy in most cases. Germany had a recession but recessions normally take 12, maybe 18 months max and by the end of this year everything will be behind us or something really weird, a black swan should happen. But normally, it will be behind us. And I'm sure Stepstone by then will have thought about something new as an excuse not to do the IPO because they know it'll not succeed and if you try it once and you screw up, you can't do it again. Chad: Nope. Lieven: Because people will never ever trust you again. Joel: Unless Elon buys you, then you can do a do-over. But I don't see that happening either. Chad: No. Lieven: Not even Elon will buy Stepstone. Chad: No. Well, and again I mean the IPO, if you have Appcast as the big boy and you're going to IPO, you're talking about more advanced technologies than a job board. This is just prepping. To be able to get ready for IPO you've gotta get a narrative pulled together and the narrative of a job board leading an IPO, I'm sorry, go ahead do it. Lieven: 15 years ago they should have tried, not now. No but really. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They need to buy CareerBuilder and Monster on a 2-for-1 BOGO deal... Chad: Don't do it. Don't do it. Joel: And then put in AppCast jobs exclusively on those boards and then maybe they can go IPO on Wall Street. Chad: And then rename the company as Tech Debt Inc. Joel: Monster Cast Board Builder. Chad: Tech Debt Inc. Lieven: So if you're interested in outdated technology and an outdated business model then you should invest. Chad: No, thanks. Joel: Yeah. Chad: No. Joel: No, not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. SFX: Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel: All right. Well, like we said, Stepstone cannot rest because here come the Americans. I talked about Indeed and LinkedIn making big cuts into their market share. Well, Google is apparently rolling out Google for Jobs in Germany, Europe's largest economy following previous testing in Austria back in 2023. This comes on the heels of Indeed and LinkedIn, both of which are based in the US gaining ground in Germany and more broadly all across Europe in the past year with the latter overtaking new work-owned, Zing. Remember Zing, everybody? We talked about them in Germany last year to take the number three position. Hat tip to Alexander Churkovski for his fine in the wild there that he shared on LinkedIn. Chad, your thoughts on Google for Jobs opening up in Germany? Chad: Yeah. I mean it's a grind. I mean we just talked about Stepstone. It's old tech. They need something new because when you have the Indeeds of the world that literally they're just grinding, they're grinding every year and they're gaining more market share. LinkedIn, grinding, gaining more market share and then you have fucking Google, are you kidding me? I mean you've got to be able to differentiate yourself and you can't do that by going head-to-head with a Google, LinkedIn and Indeed. That's why again it just makes more sense, you're proving me right with all of this stuff. They've got to go pure AppCast and they got to do it quick. Joel: So, job postings it's largely a race to the bottom in profitability and these big companies that don't... Let's be honest, don't make their living on job postings are coming in and they have AI that you don't have, they have brand awareness that you don't have, they have reach that you don't have... Chad: Scale. Joel: It's very challenging. I mean think about it. It's Indeed, it's Stepstone, it's LinkedIn, it'll be Google soon. Zing is in there. Zing doesn't know what the hell... They don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Chad: They'll be out soon. Joel: So are you gonna compete with Google? Good luck with that. I mean, Lieven can speak to Google's brand awareness and power in Europe. I'm sure it's similar to that in the US. But look, Germany has... They're in a recession. I know it's a small one. It's an itty bitty recession. But recession means people are looking for jobs. And it makes sense if you're going to launch some job offerings, if you're Google, like do it when people are more likely to look for jobs. And I guarantee you Google has data that's saying trends in Germany are going up based on job searches. So maybe now it's a good time to do that. I also think it's really smart for Google to do this because of all the EU regulations and political issues that they have. Joel: Similar to how TikTok is really good about showing TikTok ads and how great TikTok is to help like old people commute with each other and like ministers to build their churches, that's really good to run during the GOP debates and political news that will help you build your brand. It's good for Google to go in front of EU regulators and say we're helping people get jobs. We're helping companies grow in Europe because of our Google for Jobs offering. I don't know if that'll be the spin that they put on it but I think it would be smart for them to do so. Overall, again I think we're at peak Stepstone and Google coming to town only underscores the fact that Stepstone has some serious problems in their future. Lieven: I think you said it all. And if Stepstone has a future because you were talking about their future, if they have a future I won't be in it. No future for Stepstone. No, no but I think Google for Jobs, Indeed, they're going to own Stepstone. They're still growing. We see the figures here. We measure everything. It's going more slow than I expected. I thought there would have been... The growth would have been faster but they are steadily growing. Joel: The Google growth? Lieven: Yeah. Joel: You thought it would be faster? Lieven: Yeah. I thought Google for Jobs would be more dominating faster. But it took them some time. And I'm not sure when did they launch here, four years ago, five maybe? Something like that. And we have one out of four candidates comes through Google for Jobs right now. What you have to imagine, we hired over 100,000 people last year. Chad: Wow. Lieven: So that's quite a lot. Chad: Yeah. 25% is... Lieven: Yeah. And it's not for all companies. It's like the temping companies. So for the high end search and selection agencies is different. That's mostly calling on it. It's like those people are passive job seekers. But for the active job seekers, Google for Jobs is great. Joel: Yeah. So currently they're in 40 countries. So in the, what? Seven, eight years or whatever that they've been launched, that's a pretty slow roll. I expect that it'll quicken as they roll more and more countries out. Lieven: Yeah, I guess so. Chad: But they never really launched anything. They started to just throw some UI together, they've been beta testing, et cetera, et cetera. Let's take a look at Indeed, a company that was focused and they have tried to penetrate these markets. And in many of these European markets they are still not number one, right? So it's taken Indeed this long, which this is their expertise to actually try to climb that ladder. Google, they haven't even tried yet. So when they start trying, I think we are gonna see a big dip, let's just say that in the StepStones and the Indeeds of the world. Lieven: And I always think Google should be able to do better, because they know everything about every user. Every search I've ever done has been recorded somewhere. I'm sure... They basically invented scraping. So I'm sure they've scraped my LinkedIn profile. When I log in using Google, my Google login on all kinds of websites, they know it. So they know everything about me, they have like a file, it's enormous. And they should be able to offer me the one job that I'm looking for. They know everything about me. So their matching is, to be honest, it's pretty basic right now. They could do so much better and I think they will do. The moment they take the time to improve their stuff, it'll be great. And then Stepstone is a goner. Chad: Soon as they unleash DeepMind into it, yeah. Joel: And let's be fair, like Google has a lot of legal issues in Europe. So the fact that they're moving slowly may not... Shouldn't be that big of a surprise to us. And by the way, Monster is still a thing in Europe, so Europe also is a little slow to accept new things like Google for Jobs. Lieven: Yeah. Monster, I'd prefer... I wouldn't call it still a thing. [laughter] The name still exists, but if I ask my students Monster, they say that's an energy drink. They don't know about job boards. Joel: It's the number five site in Germany, sort of like the Utz potato chip. You know, it's still around, but you only see it in a few different convenience stores. Lieven: Yeah. Chad: They're called crisps, Cheeseman. Joel: Yeah. They're called crisps. Chad: They're called crisps. Yeah. Lieven: Here, they don't even have a sales team left. They used to have a sales team in Belgium. Joel: Really? Lieven: They closed down the offices, they just left. And I think the last one put the lights out and then they were gone. [laughter] Joel: Well, speaking of lights out, let's close this topic and when we get back, we'll talk a little buy or sell. SFX: Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel: All right, boys. Who's up for a little buy or sell? I know... Chad: Let's do it. Joel: I sure am. All right. You know... You all know how it works. We talk about three companies that have recently gotten money and each of us will buy or sell that company. Here we go. All right. Number one, we have JobCannon. People in the US that have seen that commercial will know what I'm talking about. [laughter] UK's JobCannon has secured a $500,000 pre-seed investment. JobCannon employs AI aiming to streamline job searches and talent acquisition, focusing on assessments to validate candidates' skill, hoping to reduce hiring time and provide more efficient matches between job seekers and employers. The funding will support improving soft skills testing, incorporating hard skills tests, and collaborating with PhD level specialists for test enhancements. Chad, are you buy or sell on JobCannon? Chad: JobCannon seems to be all over the place. For example, on the site I search for data engineer jobs, they're only 12, which I understand they're very early in the game, but those jobs are from the UK, Ukraine, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and France. That's a big problem because they are still very small. So they need to pick a region for marketing and sales focus, because half a million in seed funding, that's gonna be gone before you know it. Okay? So plus, are they a tech oriented job site or general? General won't work. There's already too much noise in the market. So they need to attack a vertical, become an expert in that vertical, and then expand services in that vertical or pick another industry that's close and start to slowly expand that way. I hope these guys, they do well, but unless they stop going all over the map with everything they're doing, they just aren't going to have a chance. They need to focus on footprint, they need to focus on discipline, and until they can get there, unfortunately, kids, it's gonna be a sell for me. Joel: So their website is a trip. I didn't know if it was a pitch for glamor shots 2.0, if they were selling sunglasses and eyewear or they were selling like video game software. It's everyone's AI, everyone's wearing sunglasses. I wasn't really sure what they were aiming for with the site. I'm a real stickler for copyright dates if you're a company and they're still copyrighted 2023, so they need to fix that. That's a little thing of mine that I'm finicky about. Look, they are focused on tech right now although they're talking about expanding it to all industries or categories, which Chad, to your point is gonna make it really, really tough. And I'm not sure developing in tech right now with as much layoffs that we're seeing in tech is a great target anyway. I'd focus on healthcare if they were doing that. Joel: Another hangup I have with them is that it's an amazing amount of work for job seekers to get into the system. I hate sites where it's like, do this long form test, do this, do like this thing when they can easily click over to Indeed or LinkedIn or wherever and easily apply to jobs. They don't have to go to the site that they've never heard of called JobCannon that may or may not have any customers that will find me on this site. So I can't imagine that they're getting the best of the best developers putting in their information on the site when it takes so long to do that. And then the last strike for me was they really, really pound on their AI capabilities. Okay. Pound on your AI capabilities, but you know what, your competition has a lot bigger ammunition in that AI boat. So to me, this company really felt like a knife in a gunfight. So just like Chad, this is a sell on JobCannon. Lieven: Yeah. JobCannon. Given the fact this was founded by two Ukrainians and two Israelians, I see where they got the name from. Can imagine the cannons being top of mind. Chad: That escalated quickly. Lieven: They focus on assessment, which is nothing new. And I had the same feeling when looking at their sight as, was it Joel who said it or was it Chad? Joel: Glamor shots, selling sunglasses. Yeah. Lieven: The glamor. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed, yeah. [laughter] So it's also like this looks like something my kids could make in a weekend, but... Okay, he's very smart, I have to admit he's a very smart kid, but still in a weekend. Yeah. Anyways, anyways, so, sell. Joel: All right. Next up we have Netherlands-based Bubty. They've secured $1.9 million in seed funding. The platform utilizes AI driven technology, allowing companies to move away from traditional third party marketplaces and establish internal talent pools for managing freelancers. Claiming 240% growth in ARR over two years, the funding will support Bubty's expansion into, you guessed it, the US of A. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Bubty? Chad: 240% growth of nothing is not a lot. Let's go with a quote here, "Bubty lets companies move away from traditional third-party marketplaces and build their own internal private talent pools." Okay, let's get something straight here, Bubty. Right out of the gate, some of the biggest hiring companies in the world spend hundreds of millions of dollars in recruitment marketing to amass huge candidate databases already, and then they do nothing with them, and that's on the full-time employment side of the house, right? So, Bubty believes those companies are ready for the contractor side of the equation. No, they're not. They're not even fucking close, guys. You're selling to the wrong market, which means until they align their product with adoption and the needs of the market, this is an easy, easy, easy sell. SFX: No. God, please, no. Joel: All right. I feel a little differently about Bubty. By the way, any site that can make me think of busty is always a good start for any site. Chad: Anything that aligns with PornHub is good for Joel. Joel: Yeah, Chipotle and busts are pretty much a winner for my buy or sell ratings. [laughter] I understand this as like a white labeled Upwork or Fiverr, where you have your own private label co-branded or branded solution, you have your application's contract workers, you can manage them from inside your platform instead of Upwork or Fiverr. I like that they have their Trustpilot rating right on their site. I don't know how anyone else feels about that, but I like having some sort of a confirmation that they're a legitimate company. They have an office in New York City, so at least they have some presence. It may be a virtual office for all I know, but who cares? They're in America already, which I think is gonna be much more amenable market to them going forward. And they have a really strong integration strategy. They're integrated with pretty much everybody that you could think of that would matter. So for me, I'm gonna go the other way on this. I think Bubty is a buy. SFX: Oh, my God, I love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life. Chad: It's named Bubty. [laughter] Joel: All right, Lieven, you're the tiebreaker. Lieven: Bubty. I totally agree, if you start from scratch, 240% gain means nothing. I mean, twice nothing still is nothing. But I kind of like the industry. I mean, freelance platforms, one out of two people almost globally spoken is a freelancer. I agree, it will only grow. In some industries however, freelancers are... The wages are eroding, the salaries because of mostly AI. And that's something you have to take into account because most of those platforms, their business model is they take a small amount of the fees getting paid but if the fees are going down because of AI, then you get less. But I do believe freelance will keep on growing, and definitely in most industries, it will be a decent business. But the whole Bubty thing, it couldn't charm me. So, I think it'll be a sell. SFX: No. God, please, no. Joel: That's a sell from Lieven. All right, guys, here we go. Chad: You get Bubty. Joel: Here we go. I got Bubty'ed. I got Bubty'ed. All right. Chad's favorite name in the startup competition is Demando. All right, the Stockholm based company has raised about 700 to 15,000 US dollars. Demando focuses on passive recruitment, offering a platform that anonymizes candidates allowing employers to identify and contact them based on skills and experience. Demando claims to have over 50,000 registered candidates saying this indicates a demand for an alternative to traditional job changing methods. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Demando? Chad: So last week, Indeed announcing their move into the tech sector provided market validation for the talent tech vendors like Demando and our friends over at Hackajob. Indeed has a broad reach and they can see what industries are ripe for the picking. And they chose the tech industry. So they chose that tech industry because they know there's fucking cash there, which is a very good sign for vendors like Demando. I see these types of vendors getting acquired by staffing companies and involving the staffing model to bring a more demand projects to the tech sector. Vendors like Demando could conquer their respective regions, and in this case, really focusing on the Nordics and then get acquired by, oh, I don't know, little companies like the House of HR. I'm incredibly bullish on evolution that's happening in this sector, which is why I'm going Demando. This is a buy. [music] Joel: Wow. Man, I feel about this company similar to how I felt about Ada. I don't know if you guys remember Ada or not. Paul Forster... Lieven: Yeah. Joel: Indeed co-founder, invested in them and they were... Chad: Great marketing and that was about it. Joel: And they were acquired. Yeah. You, you, you, Ada, no. So they got acquired, but we don't know how much for, and what... It was basically a job board for the Gen Zs. Like something to make them feel cool, like this isn't your daddy's job board. To me, this is the same thing. It's a job board with a different shade of lipstick on it. They're trying to appeal to the youngins. I think the youngins are gonna go where the jobs are, not just where somebody riding a skateboard on Venice Beach is on the homepage. Like I think content is what's gonna win. And I don't think these guys have it. They'll probably get acquired by somebody for an undisclosed amount. So if that's success, then have at it. But as far as I'm concerned, that is a big no for me. This one is a sell. No Demando for you. SFX: No. God, please, no. Lieven: Nah, I feel kind of different. They focus on passive candidates, which is mostly LinkedIn's playing garden. So normally I would say, huh, good luck. They launched in 2015 and they still exist, so they must be doing something right. Maybe they just don't pay their people that much. I'm a strong believer in the importance of reaching out to passive job seekers, and if they have something interesting to offer, I might give it a look. The Nordics are an interesting region. But the reason why I will definitely buy them is because Schibsted is a very old and a very big media group, so they have tons of advertising power. And if they... If some company can keep this alive and make it even grow, it's a company like Schibsted. And those local job sites, they only survive if they have a big newspaper group behind them. And in this case Schibsted's investing, yeah, it's a buy. [music] Joel: And that's why we have Lieven on the show for that European perspective. All right, everybody, that is another round of, you guessed it, buy or sell. When we get back, Lieven's 2024 predictions. Lieven: Oh, I thought you were never going to ask. [music] Joel: All right, Lieven, listeners know that Chad and I have given our predictions for 2024, but our European listeners want to know what you think about 2024 on the prediction side of the house. On your first one, apparently you have four, unless another one has come up since we've been in the green room, but let's go to number one here. Lieven: Okay. I'm going to take my time for the predictions. [music] Lieven: Okay. For the first time, we will see the impact AI has on the study choices of young people. Job security or the lack of job security will steer study choices, and I feel blue collar educations are gaining in popularity. And it's actually happening already. For the first time in years, the nurses students or the subscriptions for those students' education, whatever, is growing. It was going down for quite some time. Now it's growing and it's not because of COVID... [foreign language] Lieven: It's because of job security. So I think AI will have an impact and this will have a big impact and we'll see it for the first time this year. Blue collar is gaining ground for the first time in centuries. Joel: I like it. I like it. By the way, you wouldn't believe the number of nursing students at my local strip club, but that's a different podcast altogether. Let's get to number two prediction for Lieven. Lieven: Okay. I think in 2024, companies will stop calling all their new AI assistants copilots because at some point they will realize it's getting confusing. It's an important one. No more copilots. Joel: Do you have a name that it will become or you're just like, no copilot? And that upsets Chad greatly 'cause he loves the term copilot. Chad: I do love copilot. Lieven: But everything is called copilot right now, it's so confusing. Chad: That's a good point. Lieven: Yeah. People are talking about copilot, but what copilot are they talking about? We are constantly arguing about stuff, which apparently is... Whatever. It's confusing. Stop it. Stop using copilot. Joel: I think they should change their name to Bubty. My Bubty is with me and ready to negotiate with you. All right, let's get to the number three prediction for Lieven. Lieven: I am sure that AI optimization is going to become a big thing this year. How to get your company mentioned in ChatGPT. And actually, it's difficult. I tried it already and like you have SEO companies, you'll have AI optimization companies and by 2041, HR will have discovered it was important, but this year marketing will jump on it. Joel: Yeah, no doubt. I know you listen to our weekly show, but the New York Times suing... Lieven: Oh, I don't. listen. Joel: Yeah, you never listen to the show. You don't even know who the hell we are. And so New York Times, OpenAI, who can use the content, who can plug it into their systems, is gonna be a big issue. I think there's a great opportunity professionally to be an agent for these content providers to... Lieven: Absolutely. Joel: To negotiate with all the AI solutions and get them the best price to access their content. I think that would be an interesting job for 2024, but that was not your prediction. Your prediction was? Lieven: People will actually use AI agencies to optimize their presence within AI. I'm going to give you an example. Recently, I needed a hotel in Amsterdam. So I checked, I asked ChatGPT, can you give me a hotel close to the airport, which has a great restaurant and a few other stuff. Enter. And it gave me a list with five hotels. And then I wondered why would that hotel be on top? It was a good choice. It was a good hotel and it had all the options I wanted. But then I thought, damn, some companies would be very happy to be on top on ChatGPT, and how can you manipulate this? And I started experimenting and it's not easy, but I think we can. Joel: SEO is so last decade. It's time for AIO. Lieven: Optimization. Joel: That's right. All right. Chad: AIO. Joel: Let's get to your fourth and final prediction. Lieven: Of course, something you will probably also predict it's Randstad once again won't find a buyer for Monster. And finally, they will sell the furniture and close everything down. [laughter] Chad: So don't you think that it's just about time that they just go ahead, call it quits and just shut it down. It just blows my... Joel: Sell it to Stepstone. Chad: It blows my mind that they're still allowing this anchor to hang around their neck and anybody else like Stepstone who wants to buy an anchor, like CareerBuilder or Monster, go ahead and do it. But why haven't they done this yet, Lieven? It's been an anchor. Lieven: I was told and maybe it was even in our show, I don't remember. Joel: Our show. Lieven: But it was the last CEO... Now it's van't Noordende, but he's a new one. But the last one, he was the one who actually wanted to buy Monster. And as long as he was present, they just couldn't close it down because then they would have to tell the CEO that his decision sucked. So they didn't dare to. And now with van't Noordende, he can clean up the ship and call it a day. Joel: I like it. Call him Lieven Domus, everybody. That is another episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. We out. Outro: 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. Anywho, 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.

We had employee referral software solution Real Links, and their CEO and co-founder Sam Davies, on Firing Squad four years ago. Chad gave them a rousing applause, while Cheese was a bit more tempered, giving them a gold clap. Needless to say, a lot has happened in the world since January 2020, so we thought a reunion would be apropos. When we last talked to Davies, they had just raised a little over a million bucks, employed nine people and were considering changing their domain from dot-io to a dot-com. So what's new? Ya' gotta listen to find out. Spoiler alert: LinkedIn has been as integral to their business as they thought it'd be. Visit www.reallinks.io for more. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: Like Shark Tank, then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman 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: Oh yeah. What's up kids? It's Sam the Butcher's favorite podcast, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I am your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the Bobby to my Craig, Chad Sowash is in the house. And this is a reunion episode of The Firing Squad, and we have brought back Sam Davies, CEO and co-founder at Real Links. Sam, welcome back to the Firing Squad. Chad: Dude, nobody's gonna get that reference. Nobody's gonna get that reference. Sam the Butcher. Joel: And it's Sam Davies. Chad: Craig and Bobby. Joel: Oh yes. Sam is on the show. Chad: I'm just saying the reference. That's a great reference, but most of people aren't gonna get it. So let's tie that together. Joel: But I know that the Brady Bunch is Sam's favorite show growing up. Chad: There it is. Sam, have you ever watched the Brady Bunch? Sam Davies: I've gotta say no, sorry guys. Joel: Oh, come on. Really? But you know there's a show called The Brady Bunch? Sam Davies: I do. I've heard of the Brady Bunch. I haven't watched that yet. Chad: Sam the Butcher, that was good. Joel: There may or may not be a character named Sam the Butcher who brings home the meat to Alice, anyway that's... Sam Davies: Okay. Chad: Alice has always taken the meat. Joel: Just trust me when I say our audience for the most part gets the reference. So it's all good. It's all good. Anyway, welcome to the show, Sam. Before we get back to the pitch you gave us way back in the day and what the company's doing now, give us a little taste about you. What makes you tick, Sam? Sam Davies: Cool, thanks for doing this again. It's great to be here. So, I'm Sam Davies. I'm the founder and CEO of Real Links. I got into this business, I got a lot of stick for it last time, but after leaving corporate law, no stick this time. Good. But the good part of it was I got referred from one law firm to another and really got me thinking about sort of how you could do things differently. And then got ourselves into Real Links. And it has been one heck of a learning journey since. I don't think I have ever learned so much in my entire life as what I've been through in learning what this sector's about and how to adjust and pivot this platform. And super excited to talk to you about that today. Chad: Kids, just in case you didn't hear, back in January of 2020, yes, 2020. Sam came on the show and did Firing Squad and this is what we call Reunion Squad. We're gonna play the two minute pitch that he actually performed back then. And then we're gonna talk about what's changed, difference. Obviously we've been through a pandemic, there's been a lot of changes, but we'll talk about that. First and foremost, let's set it up. This is Sam's two-minute pitch from Firing Squad back in January of 2020. Play that beautiful bean footage. Sam Davies: Employee referrals are a great hiring solution. They lead to a 39% better retention rate and candidates who are 3-4 times more likely to be hired, to name just a few referral stats. The problem is that generally companies struggle to get more than 10% of annual hires through referrals. That's where our employee referral platform Real Links comes in. As you guys know, there are a few other players in the market, so I'm going to focus on what makes us different here. Our platform syncs an employee's connections on LinkedIn, email and Facebook, matches them to live vacancies and notifies HR teams and employees when a match is being made. Employees have huge networks, but it's too unmanageable and time consuming to search through them each time a new vacancy comes up. Our platform makes it manageable and supports diversity in the process as candidate data such as name, ethnicity, nationality and gender is anonymized in the HR view, removing any unconscious bias. Sam Davies: Ur referral methodology is another key differentiator. We use gamification and rewards. We don't take a one-size-fits-all approach. Each company is different, so we run focus groups to understand employee motivations and customize the gamification to meet their needs. It might be a raffle, it might be a point space leaderboard, but you don't know until you speak to the employees. This way, we're able to increase referral participation and longevity. We also boost participation by letting employees select whether a referral is a recommendation or an introduction. People generally only feel comfortable recommending 4-5 people as referrals, but we have big networks of contacts with relevant skills and experience. Introductions to those contacts are also valuable, allowing employees to identify what sort of referral it is, takes the stigma away from their needing to be recommendations and opens up the referral network. Addressing one of the other key reasons for low engagement, we keep employees updated during the referral journey. Employees no longer feel that their referrals end up in a black hole and there's no transparency. We're already working with a number of large organizations, including McKesson and Adecco. We white label the platform and do a two-way integration with ATSs for our clients. Find out more about us and our pilot offering at reallinks.io. Chad: Dude, I gotta say, after four years you seem so much calmer. Joel: Our listeners don't know that Sam hit the crack pipe before that episode of the Firing Squad. Sam Davies: I mean, the speed. There's, take a breath man. Take a breath. Joel: Chad, you did not speed that up, right? Chad, you did not speed that up in the editing. Yeah, that's real speed everybody. Chad: I did not speed that up. No, no, no. He was trying to slam a lot of information into two minutes, lemme tell you. Joel: How do you feel listening to that pitch here four years later? Sam Davies: Well, slightly embarrassed. The speed at which I went through that, I think I must've heard like that guys, you got a two-minute pitch. Anyway, a little bit embarrassed, but anyway, it's super interesting actually to listen back to it and actually think about forgetting for one second, how quickly I spoke or the laugh that we heard later on in the podcast, that I've also had to adjust. But actually how different the product is and it's sort of cool to look back and think about how things have changed so much. Joel: I got a few like sort of housekeeping things from our first, when we first interviewed you. Your URL is reallinks.io and you had mentioned maybe buying the dot-com, which still looks available. Any updates on that? Sam Davies: Yeah, look, the dot-io is still, it's performing well for us, if I'm honest with you, and that the people who own the dot-com are charging a ridiculous amount of money for it that's just not worthwhile given the traffic that we're seeing on the dot-io. Joel: So you're good with the i0, like we should not expect a dot-com announcement anytime soon. Also when we first spoke, you had nine employees. What are you up to now? Sam Davies: 15 of us. Yeah, it's been an interesting journey in that respect as well. Joel: All remote it sounds or mostly remote? Sam Davies: It's a combination. We've got some that are office-based in London, but we now hire particularly engineers from different areas of Europe. Yeah, it's a blend. Joel: Okay. And then the last one is you had raised roughly 1.4 million pounds when we last spoke. Sam Davies: Yep. Joel: According to CrunchBase, you have not raised any more money. Give us an update on the funding. Sam Davies: Sure. We have taken on a little bit, a strategic bump from an organization called Join Talent. They're an embedded talent solution, UK-based, got a really interesting client base. It's a combination of really cementing a strong partnership that would help us to scale, but also taking on a bit more money as well. But otherwise, our growth is fueled by the money we have coming in. Chad: Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. Because there are a lot of companies that are out there who just want to take cash, and they feel like that's going to propel them to the moon very quickly. You guys haven't done that, right? You've taken little bumps here and there, and I'm sure you've had an opportunity to take a hell of a lot more. Why have you made the decision to not take a lot of money? Sam Davies: Firstly, it's seeing sort of a path to revenue growth without it, and thinking about front and center of my mind is what that exit would likely be. And my view is, I'm not going to continue raising for vanity sake. And if I want to sell this platform in the next 2-3 years, unless I want to go on and become something much, much more, I need to think very cleverly about what money we take on and what that likely exit will be. Otherwise, the investors and myself are diluting ourselves for no good reason. That's basically the view, thinking about what exit we want and making sure that we get there in the strongest possible position. And what I mean by that is that we've all got a good amount of equity left, and we're all happy when we walk away. Chad: Amen. What have you learned over the last four years? That's a lot of tip. Over the last four years, what have you learned? What would have been the biggest learnings? Let's say top three, biggest learnings. Sam Davies: Well, biggest learning would be what I thought was the USP for our product, 100% was not the USP for our product. Chad: Okay. What's that? Sam Davies: Okay. When we, and quite rightly, looking back on it, I was critiqued quite heavily on the last podcast when I was talking about the fact that employees have the opportunity to connect their LinkedIn networks to the platform, and the platform would start matching them to live job vacancies. Way too much friction. Quicksand, I think, was the phrase that one of you used on the previous podcast. But that didn't necessarily actually end up being a problem in the sense that LinkedIn changed it, but it was way too much friction for employees. And ultimately, what we realized, to make this platform successful, we needed to solve employee engagement, fundamentally. It was an employee engagement problem that we needed to solve, whereas we were way too focused on ensuring the quality of the people that employees were eventually putting forward. But actually, we were asking way too much of them, and we needed to change that. Our USP has really shifted from a platform that was doing quite complicated bits around asking employees to connect their networks, to a platform that's all about activation. Sam Davies: How do we nail adoption? How do we activate and how do we amplify? And that shift has changed the way in which we've built our products and the way in which it works today, which I can elaborate on now if you want me to, or we can... Chad: Yeah, go ahead. No, hit it, man. I want to hear what's changed. Sam Davies: What we realized was we needed to really crack internal marketing automation. All very well having this clever matching piece that we've spoken about, but we needed to find a way of getting employees to easily share jobs with their networks. And what we realized to do that is we needed to go native. We needed to go native in the channels that employees are using on a day-to-day basis. Chad: Wait a minute. So LinkedIn wasn't really native. You're talking about... What do you mean by native? Help us out with that real quick. Sam Davies: Sure. Absolutely. When you're talking employee engagement, what we were asking employees to do previously was come to our platform. Come to the Real Links platform. On the Real links platform, that's where you're going to share your jobs. That's where you're going to share potentially content. You're going to look at your matches. You're going to get your updates. But everything required the employees coming to us, coming to the platform. I did so many focus groups with employees, the system fatigue, the numerous systems they've got to interact with on a daily basis. Sam Davies: They just don't want that. We started experimenting with the idea that, well, look, if we know our employee bases are using Slack, Teams, and email, why are we asking them to come to the Real Links platform? Why couldn't we get them doing those referral activities within those channels? We took a whole shift change and we instead focused in on building integrations with Slack, Teams, and email. It's been a game changer. Essentially, now as an employee, say you're participating in one of the referral campaigns, you receive a prompt on a Tuesday morning. Hey, Joel, we've got this job for you to refer with your network. You will be able to share that job directly from within Slack or within Teams or within email, depending on what you use. You wouldn't ever need to come to the Real Links platform. To give you an example of this, we work with HelloFresh, one of our clients now. We just ran a campaign with them. It was a three-week hiring drive campaign. 90% of the employees that participated never came to Real Links. They just clicked share, pushed out the content, pushed out the jobs directly within that channel. They got their gamification updates. Sam Davies: All of that functionality that we previously spoke about in terms of rewarding employees for the referral journey, shares, views, application, that all still exists, but they're getting those updates in the channel that they use, winning those raffles, winning those competitions in the channels that they use. We also came up with a much better way to address matching. That hasn't gone all together, but instead of asking people to do all of this friction-heavy stuff around connecting their networks. Sam Davies: Joel could receive a message on a Tuesday morning, and we're set for Tuesdays today and it would say, hey Joel, see if you've got any matches in your network. You click on the matches button, it's essentially pushing you directly to your LinkedIn. It's like a safe booty and such. So it's going to take Joel directly to his LinkedIn, to his first connections in the location where he's hiring with the job title, but excluding people at Joel's company. Sam Davies: So basically all of the risk element of are we messing with LinkedIn goes away 'cause you're just directing people to LinkedIn. One click, none of this friction-heavy stuff, and again, that's been a game changer. We see really, really good engagement with that matching functionality that we never saw with our old tool. Joel: In short, it's all about push and taking away the friction. Is that about right? Sam Davies: It's 100% right. And I was, if I look back at like the deals that we've won, like we say the likes of BT, likes of EY over this last period, it's all been because they're like, you mean that you can get our employees to do all of these referral options, but your platform could essentially be invisible. And I'm like, yeah, you can do everything in teams. And that's the excitement factor. That's where these companies are now like, yeah, we want a piece of this product because it makes so much more sense than what we were doing before. And again, it is those referral updates that I spoke about very quickly in that two-minute pitch, they're still happening but they're happening in Teams or in Slack or in email. Joel: One of the things I hear what falls down is engagement. So you're integrated, but to me, the rewards, whether it's cash or these little bets, like what have you learned in four years about what motivates employees to do this shit? Sam Davies: Really good point. So I think I spent, again, it was interesting telling you all about how you got to go and do focus groups. Imagine me going to EY and saying, "Hey, to implement this, we're going to run focus groups across your whole organization." Chad: So that went well. Yeah, no. Sam Davies: Sure, Sam, come back to me. No, so I think the point that still stands from what I said before was employees want different things. So what we now have is global reward shops, essentially. So if you were to win a raffle or a points-based leaderboard, most of our clients have it set up so you take tokens and then you spend it on what you want. For some employees, that might still be cash. For some employees, that might be like a holiday abroad. For some employees, that might be we work with a gaming company. They spend a lot of their stuff on like one of the gaming sort of voucher pieces that's included in there. We simply don't know. And employees are too broad and too varied for us to even try and work that out with as many focus groups as you want. Sam Davies: So actually streamlining it so they can choose what they want has been the big development for us. And that's working. The other thing, just quickly to, 'cause I should mention it, Joel, in answer to your question. What a lot of our clients will also have now is a charity element to it. So most campaigns that are run will have like a collective charity goal aspect to it. So for example, in this referral campaign, we're gonna run a collective goal to plant 300 trees. And essentially like activity on Slack or Teams results in more trees being planted, but it could be any charity. So it's a combination of that as well. And that tends to work really well. Joel: So just so I'm clear, you provide them the good stuff, whether it's charity donations or cash or whatever, the company just decides, okay, what we think our employees will want. And if they change it, that's totally fluid. And you guys just provide the platform to do that. Sam Davies: Sorry, more than that. So a company would assign a budget. So say you're running a referral campaign for a month, you've got a hiring drive in tech, for example. And that's the other thing about engagement. Most of our clients will run like targeted Slack or Teams or email campaigns where and when they need it, moving away from this always-on approach. But to go back to your question, when you were going with this reward shop methodology, so for a raffle, so say you had like three winners at the end of a campaign, those winners would earn tokens. So it's not like the employee's saying, I'm gonna assign these three rewards, but the employee would then say, okay, I've got 500 tokens. I'm gonna go into the reward shop and decide what I wanna spend that on. So it gives the employee complete freedom to decide what they want. Joel: But the reward shop is purely powered by you guys. Sam Davies: So we have partners, reward shop partners. So we use, we partner with a number of them, but the one that's most common is XOXOday. And we use them primarily 'cause they're the most global. So whatever country you're in around the world, be I'm based in the US, it will show you different voucher options. I'm based in India, it's gonna show you different voucher options. So again, it becomes a completely global solution. Joel: We've seen, and we are seeing companies go to sort of share the link with any, like anyone knows about a job paying $1,000 referral fee and if I know someone who might be a good fit, even though I don't work at the company, I can share that, affiliate marketing style. And if they apply and get a job, then I get paid, even though I'm not an employee at the company. Have you thought about that model? Did you vote against it and why? Where are you guys on expanding the referral stuff outside of the employee base? Sam Davies: Yeah, it's already happening with a few of our clients, although not quite to everybody. So they're using it for early careers hiring. So we've got two of our clients now that use it for early careers. And the reason I say it's beyond the employee pool is because they're trying to engage university students who are either doing apprenticeships or internships with them. So EY would be a good example of this. And they're engaging those university students to then become almost like brand ambassadors for them on campus to share those grad jobs or those apprenticeship jobs with their fellow network. So that's already happening. So that's an example of external referrals. Alumni is another example. In terms of making it work and going even bigger, one of our clients is currently considering it. We would definitely support it. There are tax implications when you're sort of rewarding people who aren't your employees, but it can be done. And we've certainly seen a huge amount of success for that early careers piece and getting interns, apprentices to start sharing jobs and content with their networks before even joining the company. Chad: So Sam, talk about the response that you started receiving from brands, from prospective customers. Once you moved from a come to Real Links to come to Teams, Slack, email, what was their response to you? Because you've been talking to these people for a while and then you switched. I mean, you pivoted, right? So what was the response at that point? And when did you know this is it? Sam Davies: So I was going back to some of the companies that we previously demoed to. So we'd previously spoken to EY, we'd previously spoken to BT, previously spoken to HelloFresh, a number of them. Chad: Ones who weren't clients? Sam Davies: Ones who weren't clients. Chad: Okay. Sam Davies: So these weren't clients and we pitched the platform to them. We then went back, we then showed them what we were doing here. It was like night and day. It was a complete transition. And I think I'm seeing more of that enterprise level because any enterprise company has just got so many systems. I think when you speak to an enterprise, they're like, that's where you've really hit a sweet spot 'cause they're like, okay, this is perfect. I can achieve what I want here, get maximum employee engagement without asking my employees to join another system. Sam Davies: That sort of idea that we could be an invisible platform. And our pipeline and our courses over the last period have been almost transformational for us. And that is simply down to the fact that we were peddling the wrong tool in lots of ways. And that's a massive learning, right? But you don't know when you're a startup and you're learning as you go. And thankfully we realized the sort of error of our ways while we had a good amount of time left and have been able to course correct. And I think the other aspect of this, guys, is not only has it helped for conversations because it appeals, but we're seeing the results. As I was having a look over some of the case studies before we jumped on here. We work with an organization called Celonis. We've increased our referral hires from 9%-33% within less than a year. I think we got them up there within sort of a six-month period. And again, it's all just about making sure your engagement is in the channels that employees are using on a daily basis. And that's absolutely fundamental. And we're seeing that across the board now. Chad: Let's talk a little bit about the perspective numbing effect though, because you get into some of these systems, right? And one of the problems we've seen, I think with referrals over the years is that you just blast your employees with these referrals over and it's every day and it's constantly, right? Sam Davies: 100% Chad: How are you going to ensure that that numbing doesn't happen? Can you? SFX: Just the tip. [laughter] Sam Davies: What we realized again was one of the other problems was exactly what you're describing. These generic automated comms going from our platform to employees being here's the latest jobs. And we thought we cracked it because we applied some relevancy to it. So we were like, the weekly email that everybody gets is going to show the jobs that are most related to that individual. So trouble is you send anybody a weekly email with jobs, they're going to switch off. So when we rebuilt the platform and it really was a rebuild of the platform, we built a campaign builder. Sam Davies: So essentially it now works that when we're talking about sending you these Slack or Teams or email comms, you're building a campaign to support whatever objective you have at that moment in time. Do I have a hiring drive in tech? Okay, let's build a campaign for tech. When you're running a hiring drive in tech, you're only adding your tech jobs or any content that's going to support that, but you're inviting employees to participate in that campaign who have relevant networks. So if we're sending these automated Slack messages to go with that example for a tech hiring campaign, those messages are only going to the product teams or the tech teams or the teams that we think would have relevant networks for those campaigns. Sam Davies: So you're running these referral campaigns where and when you need them. You're moving away from this, I'm just going to blast everybody with like the same email every week. If you take that approach, if you take what I call the always-on approach, even if you use Slack or Teams or email, you're still gonna lead to an engagement drop off. You've got to run campaigns. Campaigning is absolutely fundamental and engage employees where and when you need it. The other sort of, I guess, development that's worth mentioning to you guys is because we started seeing such good engagement in terms of employee sharing jobs, let's go with HelloFresh, for example. They're like, can we use this for content sharing? Could we use this for employer brand advocacy? And we've got as many clients now using the platform for employer brand activation, employer brand advocacy, as we do referrals. Chad: And this was their idea, not your idea? Sam Davies: Well, yeah, they had the content. So we had, again, there was a version of our platform previously that did facilitate the sharing of content. So it wasn't completely alien to them. That was there, but it was let's start funneling that content through these channels as well. And again, to give you an example of that, we've got lots of clients now that are building up ambassador programs using the platform. There's a lot of organizations now that they're trying to turn all of their employee populations into brand ambassadors or employer brand ambassadors. They'll usually do that by creating a Teams channel or a Slack channel. And that's the way in which they're manually trying to engage them to share content to support employer brand. They're now able to automate all of that via the Real Links platform. So we're seeing ambassador communities being built using the Real Links tool as well, which is awesome. And it's got that dual use, which is, again, it's helping us as a business to accelerate from a growth perspective. Joel: Sam, when we spoke four years ago, you were pretty much LinkedIn integrated. And I had a question around, what about the people who aren't on LinkedIn? Seems like there's a whole universe of folks, working class, blue collar, on the line, on the move, that are outside of the referral product. Are you still looking at that as an opportunity? Do you think it's just a waste of time to try to get them engaged as you do with companies that are on Slack, in Teams? There are a lot of companies and employees that don't use those products. Sam Davies: No, it's a great question. So we also, well, we've got a number of clients that have a number of employees that are on the shop floor or in warehouses. And it's our job to make sure that we engage them as well. There are a few different ways that we do that. One could be through, so we've got one client, they're called Expedia. It's like field marketing. So everybody's on site all the time. They'll do it through automated emails to people's personal emails and employees at their organization are able to one-click share from the email. We can also do that via WhatsApp, so automated WhatsApp messages to employees on site to the extent that a company has permissions to do that, or automated text messages. And then with other organizations as well. Sam Davies: I'm not sure if we spoke about it last time, but we do have a mobile app. So we've got companies that fall into the category you're talking about, Joel, that would have QR codes up on site as well, and employees would scan the QR code and at which point, from an activation perspective, they'll receive push notifications via the app. So when you're talking that employee group, we're really focusing on like WhatsApp, text message, email to the extent that that's gonna work. And it, and that by the way, that works super successfully for that Expedia company. Joel: So you have native apps on Android and iPhone? Sam Davies: Yes, we do. Joel: How's that engagement? How's that going? And when did that launch? Sam Davies: We launched that for a client probably about nine months ago. Joel: Okay. Sam Davies: Maybe. Joel: So new. Sam Davies: Yeah. Yeah. So relatively new. But yeah, look, it's all about, with all of that, it's about that initial adoption piece. And in order to crack that, that'd be a combination of things, posters on site, trickle downs from sort of managers and teams, team meetings to the extent that we can use email, WhatsApp and text, pushing it out that way, that that's sort of fundamental to get everybody on the app. So if you get that right, you are in a strong position but then making sure that, just like I spoke about with sort of Teams and Slack, we're doing sensible push notifications to bring them back and take the actions that we want them to take. Yes, we support LinkedIn, but these employees are primarily sharing on Facebook, on WhatsApp, on Twitter. Our goal is really to be a referral and advocacy solution for any company. We wanna be industry agnostic, and we've got success stories now to back that up. So they're excited to support different employee types. And again, to go to HelloFresh, we're in conversations with them to support them in one of their delivery centers, for example. Joel: My man loves dropping HelloFresh. Sam Davies: I do. I do. I do. [laughter] Joel: Clearly it was McKesson when we first talked. McKesson came outta your mouth a lot. Now it's HelloFresh. Okay, so you're four some years into this journey. Sam Davies: Yeah. Joel: Where do you stand on, what do you want to be when you grow up? Are we looking acquisition? Obviously I'm assuming IPO is not in the future. Is it just gonna continue to organically grow? What's your vision for the next four years? Sam Davies: So my vision would be to organically grow and ideally sell within the next four years. So we've got some growth to do over the next 2-3 years to get there. Joel: Love the honesty, by the way. I love it when people are like, eh, we're looking to sell next year, next couple years. So good for you for honesty. Sam Davies: No, I mean, look, realistically, I think, it's not something that's gonna probably happen in the next two years. Joel: And who's a good potential buyer for a referral company? Is it an ATS, is it one of these remote platforms? What do you think? Sam Davies: It's. I would say that we, yeah, the ATS route is definitely a strong path for us. I think the reality is we've got a very good referral and advocacy module now, and if an ATS snaps us up, they could easily sell that onto their customer base and make a tidy return. So, it's a good route. There's also CRMs, obviously big CRMs in the market, big HR systems, obviously you saw Radancy bought... Chad: Firstbird. Sam Davies: Firstbird, for example. So there are different routes, but yeah, I'd say the ATS route is obviously, probably what... Chad: Well, friends, that's Sam Davies. Thanks again for coming back to give us an update. Again, four years ago, who the hell, I mean, that went fast, my friend. If somebody wants to get ahold of you, they want to get away from the friction, how can they get ahold of you and where can they find more about Real Links? Sam Davies: Yeah, if you can hit up reallinks.io, not dot-com yet, Joel, reallinks.io. Or if you just wanna hit me up straight away, sam@reallinks.io. Joel: Sam the Butcher Davies Jr. Everybody. Chad, that's another reunion pod in the can. 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@chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

Artificial intelligence and the world of work are strange bedfellows, especially when it comes to recruiting. It's OK if you're a bit confused, but trust us, you're not alone. We're pretty lost too, particularly when you start imagining where things could go as AI develops at lightning speeds. That's why we invited Hilke Schellmann, NYU Professor, Emmy Award-Winning Technology Journalist, and author of How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now to the podcast. Together, we cover a broad range of topics from her take on HR Tech, to bias on steroids to rampant sexism to vocal biomarkers (say what?). It's a must-listen for navigating the ever-evolving minefield that is AI in recruiting. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. [music] Joel Cheesman: Ohhh, yeah. It's President Biden's favorite podcast, aka The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, the salt to my pepper, Chad Sowash is in the house. And we are just giddy... S?: Push it. Joel Cheesman: Giddy to welcome Hilke Schellmann, NYU professor and Emmy Award-winning technology journalist. Chad Sowash: What? Joel Cheesman: And author of the book, "How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired, and Why We Need to Fight Back Now". Hilke, was AI used in creating the title of that book? 'Cause it's a mouthful. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: It's a mouthful. Hilke Schellmann: I know, I know it was a mouthful. It wasn't created by AI, but we did try to use AI for the book cover. I ran it through all the AI image generators, and you know what, it's very sad. It's a lot of robots. It was a lot of blue and zeros and one, and I was like, "I don't want that. This is about humans, humans." So we came up with orange and yellow and a face and sort of fractaling how humans are reflected by AI and seen by AI. That's what we wanted to convey. So I worked with a human on that. Joel Cheesman: And we love humans on the show. Hilke Schellmann: Ohh. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Before we get to all the AI, let our listeners know who Hilke is. What did I miss in the intro? What do you like to do in your personal life? Give us an insight into Hilke. Hilke Schellmann: Yes, yes. I'm Hilke Schellmann. I have a funny name, hence I'm originally from Germany. It sounds very German, but it turns out the people of Germany have also never heard of my name. So... Joel Cheesman: Ye gut? [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: Sehr gut. Joel Cheesman: Sehr gut. Chad Sowash: Sehr. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: What part of Germany? Hilke Schellmann: Oh, you know what I'm actually from the northwest. It's a town called Bielefeld. It's between Hanover and Cologne. It's one of those... A fine town, mid-level size. I would not recommend you visit it. Joel Cheesman: Good place to raise a family, I guess. Hilke Schellmann: Totally. Totally. Joel Cheesman: Yes. Hilke Schellmann: But apparently, according to the German myth, Bielefeld doesn't exist. But I'm living proof that it does exist. Although now I live in New York city. I'm a reporter here, and I'm also a professor at NYU, I teach students about being a reporter. And I think everything has been driven in my life about curiosity. So I got really curious about AI a few years ago. And I also always loved math and I guess missed that. I was like, "Whoa. There is a technology that supposedly quantifies humans. I wanna know more." And the origin story is, I took a Lyft ride, 2017, at a conference in Washington DC, which was with consumer lawyers. So nothing... It has nothing to do with AI. But I took a Lyft ride from the conference to Union Station to take a train back to New York, and I talked to the driver and I asked him, "Hey, how was your day?" And he was like, "It was really weird." And I'm a reporter, I'm like, "Oh yeah, tell me more. Why was it weird?" [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: And everyone else would be like, "Ohh." And I was like, "Oh yeah, tell me more. Why was it weird?" And so he was like, "I had a job interview with a robot." And I was like, "What? A job interview with a robot? Tell me more." It turns out he had applied for a baggage handler position at a local airport and he got some pre-recorded phone message on his phone, asked him three questions, and I had never heard of that. This is like six years ago. And I was like, "What?" So I made a note like "Robot interviews," and I forgot about it. Until I went to an AI conference and somebody... There was a sparsely populated panel and somebody who had just left the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was talking about algorithms going through people's calendars and finding how long people are absent. This was in early 2018. And she's like, "I'm worried that this will harm mothers and people with disabilities. There could be bias and discrimination here." And I was like, "Oh, I must look into this." And I talked to some people, went to my first SIOP conference, and I was just blown away by the technology, and have been fascinated by it ever since. And I've published about it a bunch. And then finally I was like, "I think somebody needs to write a book about this and look at the plethora of all these exploding tech tools and maybe dig a little deeper." Chad Sowash: Well, AI's all over the place. It's not just hiring. So why did you pick this space? It's everywhere. Why did this fascinate you? Hilke Schellmann: It's really hard to tell. At the time I was also investigating facial recognition and other technologies for the Wall Street Journal. Chad Sowash: Ah. Hilke Schellmann: But I really felt like, "Wait, no one is looking at AI in HR." And I went to HR Tech, and I know you've been there many times and, my head was hurting. [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: I was on the floor for a few hours and I was like, "Oh my God, this is incredible, all this technology." And you know what? I didn't see a lot of reporters and I was like, "Wait a second, this is really changing. It seems like HR is really changing with this AI technology and other automated tools coming into the industry and we really aren't talking about it." So I was like, "I think we really should talk about this, and we really need to know how these tools work and what's happening." I got really fascinated by it and felt... And I do think that reporters and the public spends a lot... We spend a lot of time thinking about high-stakes decision-making, facial recognition and who gets to board an airplane, how long are you gonna be sentenced to go to prison? Those are all high-stakes decisions that we use algorithms. Hilke Schellmann: And I would also put hiring in that category, or using AI at work, because it matters if I get the job. I understand that people get rejected all the time. And we often don't get the job more often than we do get a job. But I'm nervous before I go to the job interview because it matters to me if I get the job or not. And it's high-stakes for me and I can provide food for my family and a roof over our head. And a lot of people have a lot of their identity tied to their jobs and they would really like to have a job that they love. So we gotta make sure if we use technology to sort people, and reject people and put them into the next round, that that technology works. Joel Cheesman: Our heads hurt at HR Tech as well. Hilke Schellmann: Yes. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: But it's usually a morning-after hurt that our heads encountered... Chad Sowash: Oh. That's usually your head that hurts. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Your whole body hurts. Anyway, so getting into the research, how did you perform the research? Did you work directly with vendors on this research? Give us a little background of the research first and foremost, and then start diving into the book. Hilke Schellmann: I'm a reporter. My longtime home has been the Wall Street Journal. I did a couple of stories for them, so we are as a reporter in a glorious position to call up vendors and ask them questions and they show me their technology. And I got really curious and wanted to know, like, "Okay, what's under the hood? How does this work?" And you can also sign up for free trials, so some of the software I tested myself. I like to test it and understand, "Okay, if I was a job applicant, how does this feel like? How does it feel to play an AI game? What do I have to do? How does it feel to do a one-way video interview?" And I think what's also interesting, I'm a professor, I teach undergrads and graduate students and you know what they all know HireVue. If I talk to anyone over 35, they give me a blank stare and like, "What is that?" All my students know all about it because the jobs that they often apply for like video interviews are super ubiquitous, or also, the career entry-level jobs often now have AI screens. They know all about it. We have some great discussions. Joel Cheesman: I assume it's second nature. They don't think it's weird or, "Why am I talking on a vid... " It's second... Hilke Schellmann: Oh, they totally think it's weird. They totally think it's weird. Joel Cheesman: Oh, they think it's weird? Chad Sowash: Oh yeah? Hilke Schellmann: Yeah. [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: They think it's like, "Why am I speaking to myself in this video presentation?" And I think also, a lot of them really care about jobs and they wanna be doing a really meaningful job in a meaningful company. And a lot of them feel... They don't actually get to talk to the companies, and they don't get to ask questions about the company, they don't get to see the culture of the company a little bit. If you go to an office, you get a glimpse and you get to ask questions. And most of them really do not like it. And some do love it. There're some people who really love to be in their own room and it's quiet and they can just riff off why they're good at things. Chad Sowash: So it's a one-way conversation and they don't like it. Joel Cheesman: That's great insight. Hilke Schellmann: Yeah. It's like... And this is totally anecdotal, the slice of Hilke students. But I've also talked to a bunch of folks who run career centers at universities, and they had similar sentiments from their students, that most of them really don't like it and some actively run away from it. And for some, they love it. But I think especially students who have a disability, they're really worried that this will be somehow, hiring managers will see this and they don't get to explain why they maybe look off camera or something like that, or they're worried that they have a speech impairment and the AI doesn't fully grasp what they are saying. And I think what's interesting is, with prior assessments, I don't know if I used to apply for like a fire department job, I knew how much weights, I have to lug around from A to B and I can train for that. Hilke Schellmann: But now, these assessment screens, or these AI screens, a lot of people... We just don't know how we are being screened. A lot of folks that I've talked to didn't even know that they were possibly screened by AI. They just thought they'd do a one-way video interview and poor HR person has to watch the thousand of video interviews, they didn't know that maybe AI is even being used on them. We don't know how we're being scored. And I think that's actually, gives a lot of people anxiety. They're always asking me like, "Well, what can I do?" And I'm like, "I don't necessarily know that either." Chad Sowash: We didn't know how we were getting scored before, but a lot of times we would just go into a black hole. It just seems like there's bias inherent in the system no matter what. Now we're adding AI. Do you expect to get worse than what it was? Hilke Schellmann: I hope not. [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: But I'm hoping that we wouldn't replicate the human biases. I'm actually not advocating to go back to human hiring. I actually think that's very flawed as well. And you all know this, that we are happier when we have a full belly, yaddi yaddi yaddi. We all know that. We shouldn't go back to that. But my idea is like, wait, now that we are digitizing this and using AI to do a lot of the hiring, let's do this thoughtfully and let's not replicate the biases of the past and build them into these new systems and objectify them through their technology and bringing new machine bias, that also comes into the system. Let's thoughtfully really think about it and talk about, like, "How should we do hiring? Should we really base hiring on past successful employees currently in the company if we wanna diversify, is this a good idea? How can we make sure that we don't pick up what's special to these 50 people that we are looking at versus real skills that we needed on the job?" Hilke Schellmann: And I think we are not quite there yet. In my work, so I get to talk to the largest vendors, I go to HR Tech and I'm very curious how these things work. And I'm glad, I'm grateful to all the vendors who show me their technology, showcase it. I test it out, and often I get a trial run and start it. One thing I did, it was a company that I met at HR Tech when it was during the pandemic, when it was all online, and it's called Curious Thing. And they, at the time, were marketing their AI technology... Joel Cheesman: Hilke, before we get in the weeds too much with every vendor at HR Tech, trust me, we don't wanna get too far in the weeds on that. Let's talk about the book. What was the inspiration for it? What was some of the research that went behind it? What are some things that shocked you as you were going down this journey? Let's get into the book a little bit. Hilke Schellmann: Yeah. What was interesting to me, I felt like... I'm actually kind of a podcaster and a radio person and I did videos, but I actually felt like... Joel Cheesman: We won't hold that against you. [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: But I actually felt like, "Wait a second, how am I gonna explain a resume screening tool in video? I actually need words for that." So I went down the rabbit hole and had everyone and their mother explain everything to me, how their technology works, all the different ones. I played AI games, I did video interviews, I tested my resume, I worked with people who have disabilities and also asked them to go through the screens. And then I did a lot of work on how we are being tracked at work. I'm really interested in things like, "Oh, how does flight risk calculations work? What can you monitor and what can you predict out of my work habits?" I tracked myself for a couple of weeks and figured out, like, "How productive am I?" Those kinds of things. I'm really interested in the idea that we can quantify human beings and how good we are at that, that's the driving questions in all of that. I was blown away when I walked into my first... One of the first SIOP panels in 2018, and somebody was showing me how, back in the day there was the facial emotion recognition, the intonation of our voices, the words that we use and how that is all calculated to figure out how successful you are at the job, and I really was like, "Wow, this sounds like magic. Maybe we have found the key to find a way to hire people better." Joel Cheesman: Or it's total bullshit. Hilke Schellmann: Well, it turns out when you look into the tool, it's a little bit more complicated. The facial emotion recognition, we moved away from that because there isn't a whole lot of science, scientific solid underpinning on that. I think once I got started doing deeper and looked at things and talked to folks who get to also look into the black box a little bit, there are things that came up that I think show you that maybe some of the tools do more harm than they actually do good. And there was a little bit of an a-ha and an awakening moment that I felt like, "Wait a second... " Chad Sowash: Any examples? Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Hilke Schellmann: Yeah, totally. I talked to a couple of folks who get to come in when large companies test these tools and they wanna bring in vendors, they have pilot phases. And I talked to a couple of folks who looked at online resume screeners, and one of them found out... They look at their technical reports and the keywords, and they found out that one of the tools used the word "softball" to down weigh way applicants and the word "baseball" to give them a little bit more weight in the tool. Chad Sowash: Ouch. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Ouch. Hilke Schellmann: And... Joel Cheesman: What? Hilke Schellmann: That is probably gender discrimination, right, 'cause the people that put "softball" on their resume in the United States are more often than not female, and males maybe put "baseball" on their resume. And this job had nothing to do with baseball or softball or whatever, it was just a statistical prediction. And so they found that and told their clients, "I really wouldn't use that tool because you have a gender discrimination lawsuit waiting for you." That's kind of a thing, that's the problems that I kept discovering and discovering. There was another online resume screener that predicted on first names, Thomas, same thing it picked up hobbiew... [overlapping conversation] Chad Sowash: What? Hilke Schellmann: Hobbies, basketball. Apparently, if you had the word "Syria" and/or "Canada" on your resume, that was a predictor success. And these are just... Joel Cheesman: Well, I agree with that. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Canada is a definite... Whether success or not. Are you finding that sexism or racism is a bigger issue with AI? Hilke Schellmann: It's hard to tell. Probably, maybe a little bit more sexism, because I think it's easier to check, because when you do the four-fifth rule, you check men versus women. And so it comes off pretty easily, it's a pretty easily gauge if there's something wrong. And that, I heard over and over again. There's another lawyer who looked into an AI game spender. He was like, "We tried to do it in the pilot phase, slice and dice it every different way." It was always discriminating against women. And what's striking to me is that we as the public don't know about this. I don't know how many HR managers know about this. I'm sure there's... And actually, I know there are, obviously people talk and somebody who's in part of a pilot phase, but I talk to the next person and share this, but we actually don't have this public knowledge. I think what happens a lot is that, we don't push vendors and people who build this technology to do better, because we don't publicly test, we have very little transparency around this. Hilke Schellmann: So I do think, if a tool works, like, "Show me the tool, great, and let's build on that, that would be great." But more often than not, what I found, when I did the test myself or talk to other people, there were really striking things built into it that did not make it as fair as we wanted it to be. And I think another thing that people don't really look at often enough is, so there's intersectional fairness, if you are a part of two groups, if you're maybe a African American woman, that came up a couple of times as well that vendors and companies don't always look for that because they feel like, "Well, the EOC is not really mandating that." And I think that's debatable if you should do that or not. And a couple of companies that did that, it did not turn out in their favor. I think we have a lot of work to do because we know from other examples that this is a problem. And as we've seen again and again with AI, these problems keep replicating, and if we don't take a closer look and monitor these systems constantly, biases creep in all the time. Chad Sowash: Were you able to go down-funnel and better understand on not just the front-end on, let's say, for instance, keywords, but also looking down to the slates of candidates and watching, just literally the percentage of females and let's say individuals of color, were actually out, they're filtered out due to the AI? Because, to be quite frank, most of these AI models are trained on past behavior. And past behavior is... Hilke Schellmann: Exactly. Chad Sowash: Bias. None of this surprised Joel or myself because we keep seeing this over and over. Hilke Schellmann: Yes. [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: Probably no one to bisect in the industry. But the question is, if we know that, why do we keep using these tools and why do we train it on past employees or current employees? Chad Sowash: Yes. Hilke Schellmann: And that's a question... And I don't know what you mean further down the funnel. I did test video interviews... Chad Sowash: On the top of the funnel is the questions that they ask early on for the pre-assessment. And then down-funnel is the actual outcome. Who were the gold medalists, silver medalists and bronze medalists? Hilke Schellmann: Oh. Chad Sowash: Were they all three white dudes? And then what did that pool look like prior to getting to those last three, let's say? Hilke Schellmann: No one has opened their hiring funneling to me like that. Joel Cheesman: I'm shocked. Hilke Schellmann: But I actually would love to do this kind of inquiry. And I'm working with sociologists and computer science and we do these larger sample sizes, then I can just do as a journalist. I do a sample size of two or five and I think that's... I can say like, "Something is weird here." But I think more often enough, we need these larger sample sizes. And I would love to do a long-term study and understand, like, "This AI tool has labeled this person as a no-hire. Let's hire them and let's hire the people that you use with another AI filter in a traditional way and let's follow them for years, thousands of them, and figure out who is actually successful." I think that would be a real benefit to society to do this. Joel Cheesman: A real benefit, but also a really nice fantasy, I think, in most cases. You mentioned monitoring this. We've talked everything from having an audit system, whether that's government or private sector that comes in. You talk... Whistleblowers, because this is bias at scale. Chad Sowash: Oh God, yeah. Joel Cheesman: This isn't the individual... Hilke Schellmann: Yes. Yes. Joel Cheesman: Hiring manager. This is mass bias. Hilke Schellmann: And I think that's where the risk lie, right, like in traditional hiring. Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. Joel Cheesman: Vendors don't wanna necessarily open the kimono. Employers don't wanna open their windows to what's going on. What's your thoughts on monitoring this? What's a common sense approach? What has worked or what do you see working in the future? Hilke Schellmann: I think what might be helpful is, if everyone could be a little skeptical and ask questions about accuracy. If AI is 90% accuracy, what was the training data? How did you come to that 90% accuracy? Was it a holdout of your own training dataset? Or if you don't have 90% accuracy, that's very bad, your tool probably doesn't work. It's the same dataset. Have you tested it in the wild? What other data have you used over time? How have you monitored the system? Those are pretty easy questions to ask, I think that gives you a little bit of insight. And then I think everyone should go through a pilot phase and really figure out, "Okay. Can I use biased datasets in here? Do I get biased outcomes? What happens if I use synthetic data?" And then I also think, I test these tools and I always tell people, "Steal my methods." I want people to... Obviously I want people to read my book, but I also want them to read the book and steal my methods, like how did I test the tool? Hilke Schellmann: One of the tools like that says, it can find out how good people speak English. This is for call centers abroad. When you hire people abroad, when competency is English. So when I did it, I did the interview, I spoke English and answered all the questions in English. I got an 8.5 out of 9 English competent, very competent actually. I was very proud of myself. I was like, "Oh man, English is my second language. This is great. What a great AI tool." And then I spoke to it in German. 'Cause I was like, for sure all the vendors that I always talked to talked about like, "You have to have a threshold that you have to overcome. If you have a speech impairment or there's silence, you get an error message." I was like, "I will get wanna an error message." And so I spoke to it in German, sent it off, and then I got a 6 out of 9 English competent. [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: It was all German. In fact, I read the Wikipedia entry on psychometrics in German. It's called "psychometrie." There was not one English word, but I got a competency score in English. And I did that with a couple of other interviews. And sometime... One other tools, and one actually gave me a transcription. And it was... It was just gibberish. It didn't even make sense at all in English. But I got a 73 match score for the job. Chad Sowash: Now you talked to one of these vendors after this, did you not? And... Hilke Schellmann: I talked to all of the vendors afterwards. Chad Sowash: And they gave you reasoning behind it. What was their reasoning? Hilke Schellmann: For the one that I was 6 out of 9 English competent, it was very... I was like, higher math interview. They were telling me that this is in a 5D space and in this space there was, German and English were close by and that's why this confusion in the AI tool... Chad Sowash: Like total bullshit. Hilke Schellmann: And I was so confused that I was like, "I don't know what a 5D space is and I'm just so confused." [laughter] Hilke Schellmann: And at the end it was just like, if you're in front of a judge and you have to explain why I was rejected or got the job... Made it into the next round. What... Can you just say how that happened? And it was another round of 5D and spaces that I don't understand, and I was like, "I'm not sure if you understand the developer of the tool, what your tool predicts upon." And I think that's where I feel like we really need to be skeptics about it, and really understand like, "Wait, we make high-stakes decisions on people here if they get a job or not. We need to know what we are predicting upon and how these tools do the job and how can we actually have a printout, old-school speak at the end to understand like how did the tool derive at these outcomes and at these predictions and what were taken into consideration?" 'Cause we don't want proxies, baseball, basketball or the way I speak or the way I look to be part of that, but we have to monitor these systems. Hilke Schellmann: I also talked to the company that gave me a 73% match success score rate for speaking German, and it came up with this gibberish transcript in English, and they told me that it wasn't the words that I used because clearly their transcription was gibberish. And they were like, "No, no, no, the AI tool knew that." But it was the intonation of your voice that they checked that was 73 match score to the job. And they congratulated me of having great intonation. I was like, "I don't even know what science that is built on. We really shouldn't use this for hiring. We should use methods that work." Chad Sowash: Well, they were assessing for English language. So therefore your intonation, it doesn't matter. Hilke Schellmann: Well, but they were saying the intonation, they also checked the intonation of voices, and my voice was, apparently that was the one thing that stood out to the AI tool. Chad Sowash: But to qualify, you have to be able to speak English and you did not speak English, so therefore you didn't qualify. Although they're saying you did qualify because of intonation. It makes no sense. Hilke Schellmann: It makes no sense. But that's some of the tools that I have encountered in the space. And so that makes me think, if me, somebody who has really no complex technical training or knowledge, can play with these tools and they break upon impact, we really have more work to do. And do you want me to read what came out of the transcription when I talked about psychometrie? Chad Sowash: Yeah. Hilke Schellmann: What came out of the transcription was, so this is the words I spoke in German and then the English transcription was, "So humidity is desk a beat-up. Sociology, does it iron? Mined material nematode adapt. Secure location, mesons the first half gamma their fortunes in." It goes on and on and on. But as you can tell, it's total gibberish and I got... Joel Cheesman: Crazy pills... Hilke Schellmann: A 73% match to the job. I think, I want people to use these methods too and test these tools... Joel Cheesman: Hilke, when I knew we were gonna talk to you today, I felt really confident that you were gonna clarify all this stuff, that I was gonna leave this interview... [laughter] Joel Cheesman: And be totally in sync with what's going on. But I feel less secure. I feel like the cat is out of the bag. I feel like this stuff is advancing so quickly. And we also... A lot of these are tools for individuals. We have no control for the rogue recruiter that says, "I'm gonna throw this video in some tool that isn't okayed by my company and see what it says." We talked about Google Gemini on the show last week and being able to AI from voice, sight, sound, text, everything, we're going into a full monitor mode of our employees, not just hiring, but while they're on the job. Hilke Schellmann: Oh, totally. At work, yeah, totally. Joel Cheesman: Our raises, our promotions, are gonna be driven by what AI says about us. I'm just overwhelmed by this and it sounds like you are too. Give me some hope. Give me some hope as we... [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Wind this down, that, I don't wanna jump off the ledge. Chad Sowash: Give Joel a hug. Hilke Schellmann: No, no, no, don't jump off the ledge. And in fact, I'm very hopeful that I feel like we're at the beginning of this. Joel Cheesman: Oh, good. Phew. Hilke Schellmann: It has taken over a lot of the HR space and we see 8 out of 10 of the largest companies in the US use some form of monitoring and a lot do. But I actually think now that we talk about it and we humans have still control over these systems, let's actually talk about it and have a conversation how we can do this better. So I actually feel this is exactly the time we need to talk about this. The same with audits. I've reported on audits that companies have done themselves and paid a third-party entity to do these audits. And strikingly enough, the tools work as advertised. I wonder why. Joel Cheesman: Phew. Hilke Schellmann: Because maybe there's a conflict in interest of bay. And also, we don't even really have audit standards, what are we auditing for? One of the audits was basically like a roundtable discussion. It didn't even look at the algorithms and figure it out like, "What is going on here?" The other one was a conflict of interest, people who were leaders of the company were on the scientific papers that was published about the audit. That is not clear delineation of church and state and an independent assessment. I don't actually believe that is a good way. I think what would help is transparency. And we need non-for-profits or some folks or universities or who knows, testing these tools, at large scale publishing that. And also building tools so then we actually maybe have an online resume screener that works and we can tell people, "Here's the GitHub. Take that code and build your own and manage it and monitor it." And don't just build like black boxes and the... Out there and don't share it, because that's the only way that we will actually get better and understand how these tools work. Hilke Schellmann: But I agree with you that some of it is really scary. In the book I tested vocal biomarkers, that out of our speech stream can find out, are you possibly gonna have Parkinson's? Or maybe you're already sliding into Parkinson's. But they can also find out, are we anxious? Are we depressed? And I feel like, I don't know if I want my boss to know that. But anything can be used. We could use this and run this over the vocal biomarkers. And in fact... Joel Cheesman: Ooh. Hilke Schellmann: I've done that because there're apps that you can download from these startups and I've just... Poor random people's YouTube audios and ran it through the vocal biomarker and it gives you a score, how depressed, how anxious you are. So anything can be done with these technologies, and we don't actually know if they work. We know from science that there's something in our voices, but how exactly it works and really 30 seconds at a time one day is probably not a good idea to understand... Joel Cheesman: No. Hilke Schellmann: Like how depressed or anxious you are. And maybe you just ran up a flight of stairs and you're out of breath and that's why you aroused in your voice. It's really hard to tell, maybe over a long period of time. Joel Cheesman: Some of us don't need AI to figure out that fat, drunk and stupid, is not something that needs to be analyzed by AI. Chad Sowash: Or a way to go through life, Cheesman. So it's scary... [laughter] Chad Sowash: It's muddy, but it is the algorithm. Can you tell us how AI decides who gets hired, monitored, promoted, and fired, and why we need to fight back now? How do I buy this book, Hilke? Hilke Schellmann: Oh, how do you buy it? Chad Sowash: Yes. Hilke Schellmann: You just go online and buy it. Also, there's an audio version, that I spoke. I think it's really fun because I got to reiterate my own experiments. So I think it's really fun. Chad Sowash: Nice. Hilke Schellmann: You can also listen to it and you can tell me all about it. I have social media feeds and I would love to actually hear people's feedback on my methods and what I did. I'm very open to critical feedback 'cause I wanna know, what can we do better? That includes me. Tell me what you think and what else We need to look at in the space. Joel Cheesman: The book... Hilke Schellmann: And I'm also interested in looking at these tools myself and finding ones that really work. I'm really open to that. I just need to look under the the hood. I'm just not gonna buy marketing language that this stuff works as advertised, because we know way too often that it doesn't. I'm inviting everyone to look under the hood with me. Joel Cheesman: She is a whirlwind, everybody. Go read the book. Listen to the book. She's also very active on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad Sowash: We out. Outro: Thank you for listening to, what's it called, podcast, The Chad and Cheese. Brilliant. 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. Not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho, 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.

Do the names H3, Zubka, YorZ, Jobster, Refer.com and KarmaOnef mean anything to you? How about Indeed Crowd? Still no? Well, they're all that created a referral marketplace and eventually called it quits. History does not look fondly on empowering regular people to promote jobs to their networks for money. Draftboard, however, thinks they've cracked the code. CEO and founder Zach Roseman joins the boys on a lively episode of Firing Squad. To say Zach had a mountain to climb is an understatement, but he just may sway the world into his way of thinking. We are all recruiters? Well, maybe ... maybe not. Gotta listen to see if Draftboard survives the Firing Squad. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman 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 Cheeseman: All right, all right, all right. What's up, everybody? It's Krampus's favorite podcast, a.k.a the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the Max to my Grinch, Chad Sowash is in the house. Chad Sowash: Gello. Yes. Joel Cheeseman: And we are excited to welcome Zach Roseman, founder and CEO at a startup called Draftboard. Zach, welcome to Firing Squad. Zach Roseman: Thanks. Thanks for having me here. Excited to be here. Joel Cheeseman: No problem. No problem. Now, a lot of our listeners don't know who you are. We'll get to the business stuff after. We want to know about you. What makes Zach tick? Tell us your story. Chad Sowash: Business in the front, party in the back. [chuckle] Zach Roseman: Oh, this is gonna be fun. Yeah, my name's Zach. I grew up in New York, lived there for most of my life. I actually just moved to Tel Aviv, Israel a few months ago, so it's been an exciting, wild time... Chad Sowash: Hello. Zach Roseman: The last couple of months. Talk about moving to a new city, and it's like, "Hey, war." So that's definitely gonna... Chad Sowash: Whoof. Zach Roseman: A slap in the face, but also pretty crazy to see in a lot of ways, positive and negative. Chad Sowash: Yes. Zach Roseman: So yeah, that's been a lot of my life the last eight weeks, but I've got a beautiful wife and a lovely daughter with another one on the way. And yeah, I love what I do. I wake up every morning excited. I like working out. I like going on hikes. And yeah, I'm a pretty simple guy. Joel Cheeseman: There it is. Chad Sowash: So we generally don't ask questions on this segment, [laughter] but I want to know as an Israeli, what is life like? I mean, us in America, we see what's going on in Gaza. Is it normal? Is it business as usual? Are people scared? Talk about what it's like in Tel Aviv right now. Zach Roseman: Yeah. I mean, I'll let you guide me, but I won't go too long. But there have been phases in the first few days after the terror attack on October 7th. I live in Tel Aviv, which is like 40 miles away from the Gaza Strip, and we were wondering if there were terrorists that were gonna be coming out with AK-47s in our neighborhood, right? They're not... That seems to be a concern. And then the last seven weeks since that point, since a few days afterwards, it's been more about, "Okay, the country is sort of starting to deal with the aftermath of that. And so you've got 300,000 people in a country of 10 million called up to reserves... Army reserve duty. So in the tech space, 20 to 30 percent of pretty much every company has lost people to the front lines. And then from a living perspective, it's weird. Zach Roseman: It's kind of Twilight Zone-y, like Black Mirrory. The shops and restaurants are sort of open again during the day. Everything's closed at night. There's no nightlife to speak of, really. Most of that's because they can't find waiters and waitresses 'cause everyone's on the front lines. But also you can go to coffee and grab it with a friend, and then you stand up and there's a teddy bear sitting on a public bench that's with simulated blood and the picture of a nine-year-old has been captured and taken hostage. And so there's everyday reminders of what's going on. Chad Sowash: Whoof. Whoof. Wow. Zach Roseman: Sorry to take it dark, but that's where we are right now. Chad Sowash: Yeah, no. I mean, war is not light, my friend. Yeah. And then, sorry to hear that you and your family and other families are having to go through that. That's ridiculous. Zach Roseman: Yeah, it's not fun. But you've also seen some amazing things like really, the country is more united than ever. People helping each other in ways are just wild, and the projects that have been grassroot initiative that have got off the ground in the last two months, some of them are not public yet and some of them are. It's just mind-blowing to see what people have done and the way they're volunteering their time. Chad Sowash: Well, Zach, the Israelis are incredibly resilient. Hopefully, you will be resilient today. Because today on Firing Squad, this is how it's gonna go. At that sound of the bell, you're gonna have two minutes to pitch Draftboard. At the end of two minutes, we're going to hit you with about 20 minutes of Q&A. Be sure to be concise or you're gonna get those crickets. At the end of Q&A, you're going to receive either a big applause. Congratulations, Zach. '24 just started out with a bang in a good way. Golf club. Joel Cheeseman: Easy. Easy with the puns. [laughter] Chad Sowash: You've got some noise happening there, but you're gonna need more of an arsenal to move this market. And last but not least, the Firing Squad. Such bad things right now. Jesus. Joel Cheeseman: Metaphor. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. Chad Sowash: This is worse than Andy Cohen and Kathy Griffin on the New Year's Eve party. Joel Cheeseman: Ah start us on a downers, Zach, please. Chad Sowash: Just preemptively apologize and go on with something else in your life, my friend. Zach Roseman: We're going to save space though, right? We're going to say it's all good. [laughter] Everything happening outside the walls of this podcast is irrelevant for now. Chad Sowash: This is a trust tree. Trust tree, yes. Zach Roseman: Exactly. Chad Sowash: Take it away. Take it away, Cheeseman. Joel Cheeseman: All right, Zach, give us your pitch in three, two. Zach Roseman: So I founded a company called Draftboard and the basic concept is very simple. Most companies offer their employees a referral bonus if they refer a new hire. It could be $1,000, $3,000, $5,000, all the way up to $10,000 or $20,000 I've seen. And our pitch to companies is very simple and it seems to be an effective pitch. Why are you limiting that referral bonus to only your own employees? The point of a referral bonus is to incentivize people, your employees, to refer better people so that you can hire better people faster. Zach Roseman: Hire them two, four, six, eight weeks faster. So why limit it to just your employees? There's a whole wide world out there with a huge network that's much bigger than your 3-person startup or 10-person startup or 200-person startup. And so that's what we do. We're a marketplace. On one side of the marketplace, companies sign up. It takes literally 90 seconds. We integrate with applicant tracking systems like Greenhouse, Lever, Workable, and a few others. Three clicks and you're in. You decide what bonus you want for the jobs to be listed on Draftboard. You can list a bonus for some jobs, all jobs, one job. You can have different bonuses for each job. Totally up to you as the company. You can list bonuses and then take them down. You can keep them up for a long time, whatever you want. You can change them from second to second. So that's one side of the marketplace, the jobs are listed. Zach Roseman: And then the other side of the marketplace is what we call scouts. A scout is anyone in the world. It's you, me, it's your parents, your siblings, your partner, your friend, your spouses. Everyone in the world has a network. That network was built from who you went to kindergarten with, who you went to college with, who you play basketball with on the weekends. And that network is valuable to the right company at the right time for the right job. But right now, those companies have no idea that candidates that they want to reach even exists, let alone how to reach them. And so the second side of the network is scouts. And scouts are essentially, it's a fancy word for referrer, right? Zach Roseman: So I refer you, you refer someone else. I can go onto draftboard.com as a scout or anyone can. And you can see what jobs are hiring and what the referral bonus is. So literally in seconds, you can go to draftboard.com right now you can see a job for, I don't know, SeatGeek or Veer or Formlabs. Click share. And within less than 10 seconds, you can share a link to that job with your friend. Your friend clicks in the link. He sees a job application page that's hosted on draftboard.com. We've ingested it from the company's ATS, and they decide whether to apply or not. Zach Roseman: There's some magic that happens afterwards to make sure that we can maintain quality, which we'll, maybe we get to in an hour or hopefully we'll get to in the Q&A, which I think is actually the most important part of Draftboard. But that's it. The basic idea is that companies can get better distribution for their jobs by offering an incentive, because incentives do drive behavior. And scouts is this sort of new concept where we're not allowing anyone in the world to either make side hustle money 'cause they love meeting people and introducing people. Or they can build an entire business on draft board. There's a lot more to it. It's idea was heavily inspired by my wife. She would kill me if I didn't mention that. So I'll pause there. Joel Cheeseman: All right, Zach. Pretty tight, man. Pretty tight. I like it. Let's talk about the name. The good news is I really like it. I mean, it has some connotations with military, [chuckle] with professional sports. Zach Roseman: Exactly. Joel Cheeseman: I love that you have the.com, so my question is, what's the genesis of the name? Did you have to go drop some coin on the.com? I can't imagine it was available. Tell us about the story of the name. Zach Roseman: Yeah. So I came up with the idea last June, so June, 2022. And I called, this what a lot of people do, friends and said, "What do you think of this?" 'Cause I did not want to be a founder, like I came from the corporate world. I was the CEO of a large or mid-size company, depending on how you count. I didn't want to be a founder. I acquired companies with founders and they had terrible lives. And so it really took a lot of people convincing me to do it. So once I decided I was gonna do it, and I sketched out what the product would look like, then I was like, "Okay, well, in order to raise money, you need to actually have a name for it. And so I sat down and I was like, what are the best names I can come up with? And this idea of professional sports where you draft your team, they're literally the draft board in football in the rookie draft. Joel Cheeseman: Oh, we're familiar. Zach Roseman: You literally have a whiteboard. Joel Cheeseman: Yeah, we're familiar. Zach Roseman: Right? Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. Zach Roseman: And then you cross out names. And I thought about that a lot as when you're building a team for your company, you're drafting your team, right? You're choosing who you want. And so I liked that concept. It really meshed well, yeah. Actually, the military angle, I didn't even realize until I was talking to my wife's grandfather and he heard the name and his face, his eyes went wide and like fear. And he is like, you know the word draft board is like a very negative word for me. 'Cause those are the people that can call you to go to World War II. And I was like... Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. Go to war. Yeah. [laughter] Zach Roseman: Yeah. So that's where it came from. Joel Cheeseman: And the.com, did you have to buy it or it... Zach Roseman: No, that was a story. I'll keep it simple. I got the draft code that was available. The.com was actually owned by a fantasy sports company, maybe unsurprisingly, that had failed. I found the people, I figured out a way to get in contact with them and said, "Hey, I'd love to buy this off of you." They just said, "No." And so I tried three or four times, and then finally, once I raised money, I was like, "Hey, I've got some investors. I think I might be able to do a little bit more." And so you are given a price that, for me, was a steal, but it was real money. But he was finally like, "Yeah, it's a matter... Like, "If you pay me what I bought it for, I'll sell it to you." And it worked. Chad Sowash: Oh, nice. Joel Cheeseman: That's nice. That's nice. Now you've had executive positions, I would say. You've had some finance, some wall streety positions in the past, but no sort of recruiting, no HR. Now obviously you've ran companies, so you've nibbled on that, but with no experience, why was this ideas that appealing that you would sort of dive into it? You have some experience at IAC, which is a big internet company, so you have some competency there, but you're not from recruiting this idea was just that good, I guess. Zach Roseman: Yeah. So I think there's two things I'll answer to that. One is, it touched on a lot of the pain points or some of the major pain points I had as a CEO. So my last company, I was a 500 person company. We had offices around the world. One of the biggest challenges, and I'm really serious about one of the biggest challenges, friction between hiring managers and our talent team. Our talent team were busting their butts to find great candidates. And yet they would... The hiring managers always felt like they weren't getting the best or it wasn't coming fast enough. And it created this real issue because the hiring manager committed to, "Okay, I'm gonna do X, Y, Z in this quarter and in the next quarter and by the end of the year." And they would come to me and say, "The talent team isn't sending me the right candidates. Can I hire an agency? Because otherwise I can't deliver to you as the CEO what I promised." Zach Roseman: And so they're putting me in this position. And then the talent team would say, "No, I'm sending them great candidates." They just keep saying no to everyone. And actually they didn't do like an onboarding call with me to like talk about what they actually wanted for the role. And so now they keep changing it. So it was this massive problem. And so when I had the idea, I sort of thought about that and I thought of like, incentives aren't necessarily aligned between hiring managers, talent team, talent team gets paid a salary. They're not incentivized to move as fast as an outside recruiter, but at the same point... Oh, it's boring. Okay. Joel Cheeseman: I'm sorry Zach. Let's move on to money. Now you mentioned investment. You are not on Crunchbase. So you have investors listed on the site. Talk about the money. I'm guessing this is either pre-seed or seed round. How much have you raised? Zach Roseman: Yeah. So I haven't disclosed that yet. We'll announce that pretty shortly. But for raise from some great investors, you guys are smiling for some reason. [laughter] S?: Woo. Zach Roseman: Raise for some amazing... I can tell you the funds we raised from Founder Collective, Animal Ventures, Twelve Below, Ground Up Ventures, some great early stage funds, mostly based out of New York. Joel Cheeseman: All right. You don't wanna break any news on our show? That's cool. That's cool. Zach Roseman: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Okay, Zach. So let me get this straight. Anyone can refer a candidate. So why would I want an anonymous person that's out there? I don't even know referring people to my jobs. I mean, is there any QA, QC that's involved to ensure that these people that are being referred actually meet the requirements to my job? 'Cause I already have enough shit coming into my jobs in the first place. I don't need more. I just need quality. How do you ensure that I get only quality? Zach Roseman: I couldn't agree with you more. I've literally sat on calls. People have screen shared their screens and lever and Greenhouse with 4,000 applications. 1600, 843. That number sticks in my head. The job boards do a disservice to their users, both the companies and the candidates. 'Cause they allow one-click applications. There's no friction in the process. We introduce friction. And so if you apply for a job on LinkedIn, your application goes directly to the company's Lever at Greenhouse. And the company now has to deal with sorting through all that crap. There's a 3% accept rate, right? One out every 30 resumes. The company says,"You're good enough for me to have a call with it, with someone on my talent team." With Draftboard, when a candidate submits an application. Zach Roseman: The scout who referred them, the person who sent them the link first is the line of defense. So the application gets sent to the scout first and the scout has to either approve or reject it. Now why would they reject that application? Because anyone they approve, we track the status of that application because we're in an integrated with the company's Greenhouse or Lever, whatever, ATS. And so when Scout approves an application, we send it to the Lever or Greenhouse system and we can track the status of the application. It moves through... As it moves through the recruiting funnel. So we know when it's in screen by HR or even before that resume received, first interview, second interview, third interview, all the way down through the funnel. And we can assign a score, or scouts earn a score, what we call a reputation score. And so if that score... Let's say you're a really good scout and 80% of the candidates you send are getting through the first stage of resume review. You're gonna have a 4.7 and a 5-star rating. Think of it like an Uber score, or an Airbnb rating, right? Chad Sowash: How are you tracking down that far in the funnel? Zach Roseman: Because we have permissions from the... The company gives permissions to track the candidates... Chad Sowash: But, yeah. But that doesn't matter because Lever and Greenhouse break shit all the time. So if you put a pixel in there, they're gonna break your pixel. It's gonna be a pain in the ass. So how do you specifically, do you use a Pixel? Do you use a sort... What do you do to actually ensure that you're... Zach Roseman: We have permissions within Lever and Greenhouse. We're official partners with them. We literally have permissions to track the candidates. So there's no pixel, there's no... Chad Sowash: Okay. Zach Roseman: There's no funny business, there's no data issues. There are permissions you can select within the ATS to say, "Yes, give this person permission to know what stage the candidate is at." Chad Sowash: Okay. So now once I see that, do I see the referrers review score at that point? Zach Roseman: You do. But even before that, you as a company set a minimum. You say, "I won't accept referrals and scouts with a score lower than 4.0 or 4.1 or 3.9." You can choose that. And what that does, it creates a world where the scout is really careful about who they refer. 'Cause if they refer crappy people and their metrics drop, they're not gonna be allowed to refer to companies anymore. And so it creates this nice sort of reinforcing cycle where I'm careful of who I refer. Then the companies get the best resumes and candidates and they have higher accept rates. Instead of 1 out of 30, it's about one out of six on Draftboard now. Chad Sowash: Right. All right. So from a go-to-market standpoint, it sounds like you're very closely integrated in with Lever and Greenhouse. Are you just focusing on those two ecosystems to be able to sell and penetrate into, or how are you doing that from a go-to-market standpoint? Zach Roseman: Yeah, so we're official partners with Lever, Greenhouse, Co-meet, Ashby and Workable. Those are the five we decided to start with because we're focused, in the beginning, building out a jobs marketplace or tele-marketplace, you need to focus on a particular category. We chose tech, and those are sort of the five biggest ones in tech. I'm sure you... There's other ones that of course arise, seeing that here and there. But those are the ones that sort of, opens up a whole wide swath of companies to us. Chad Sowash: Okay. So you mentioned it earlier, this feels like a side-hustle platform. So are you mainly seeing recruiters engaging in this? And then, obviously, it's kind of like a little side-hustle for them. Zach Roseman: Interestingly, it's not recruiters. We're mostly seeing doing the side hustle. So, mostly, we're seeing people who are super connectors and people who run professional communities on WhatsApp or Slack or wherever they run their communities, on Meetup, whatever it is. And so those people, for the super connectors, I'm sure you know people like this whenever they meet someone, they're like, you should meet these three other people. And they love making introductions. And when I said that the idea was inspired by my wife, she's introduced 30 people the jobs they actually got, let alone hundreds of jobs, they didn't get, the most she ever got as a thank you, was a bottle of wine. In most cases, the companies don't even send her a thank you note. Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. Zach Roseman: And so part of this was driven by like me productizing my wife being like, "Hold on." If she can make two grand, which is what the company's paying their own employees, she'd be rich, right? And so we're seeing a lot of people who make introduction in any way saying, "Hey, the candidate's not gonna be mad at me for making introduction?" 'Cause they want the job, right? They'll be thrilled to get the job. Joel Cheeseman: Right. Zach Roseman: The company's happy because, and because they want to hire people faster and they're more than willing to pay the two grand or three grand. 'Cause they've already decided they'll do that for their own employees. So it's a win win win. Joel Cheeseman: What is the time period by which I refer someone and I actually get a check in my account or payment in my account. Zach Roseman: So it's one of our challenges, right, is the timing issue. So I refer you, Joel, where let's say for a job, you look at the job you apply, it takes you a week. You're not gonna apply. It takes you a week to get the interview scheduled, right? Then it's four weeks of the interview process. Then you get an offer, you start two weeks later, and then we give companies the option to set a probation period. How long does the new employee have to work for you before the scout is paid? And anywhere we set it from anywhere from 0 to 90 days. So if a company chooses 90 days, you're talking about four and a half to five and a half months lag between a candidate first starting with you and us paying them. And so part of our challenge is to convince new scouts that we're good for the money, right? And so we've experimented with a bunch of different ideas. Do we give a little bit upfront to make them like, "Hey, you're actually gonna get this on the backend." We have testimonials from scouts that have actually received money already. We've had a few placements. And so yeah, it's a challenge, but they're what... We'll see, I guess that's the answer. Joel Cheeseman: Knowing that, what's the... And you're young, but what would you say is the attrition rate of scouts? Are there committed scouts that are doing it on ongoing basis or is like, "Oh, I know one person and... " I mean, we're in a get-it-now world where I order something online, I get it, in 24 hours and now... Zach Roseman: Yeah. Joel Cheeseman: With your stuff I got to wait months before I get my gratitude. Are there ways that you give badges or like... Chad Sowash: Exactly. Joel Cheeseman: Show them tracking in their account or emails like we're almost there. I mean, how do you slow down the attrition rate, which I guess that would compound. Zach Roseman: You're right about what you're suggesting. So we have... Since we see the candidate status, anytime there's a change in status, we message the scout and say, "Hey, this person moved from stage I to stage II or stage II to stage III." And that gives you that little endorphin push, like of a rush. So you're like, "Oh, that's actually moving forward." Beyond that, we haven't done it yet, but we're gonna be building a leaderboard for scouts to sort of compete with each other, right? And see who's doing the most referrals, the most quality referrals, getting the most applications. In our case, one thing I really care about is reject rate. I actually want the scouts to reject as higher percentage of candidates as possible. 'Cause that means we're sending the highest quality to the companies. Sorry, there was another part to your question that I'm blanking on right now. Joel Cheeseman: Well, it sounds like you'll... Some competitiveness, but you are tracking of every so often, "Hey, we're almost there. We got this point in the process, the payment's coming." Zach Roseman: Exactly. Exactly and you'll be... You have a dashboard where you can see, okay, this is what you have in flight, right? You have three people in interviews, you have 10 applications you need to review, and you have 15 recent activity things, meaning something has changed in the activity recently. Joel Cheeseman: Okay. Now on your site, you have some promotional language, and I'm gonna quote your website here. Earn up to $276,500 in referral bonuses by sharing jobs. Chad Sowash: Whooo. Wow. Joel Cheeseman: Come on, man. 207... Is that a real... Is that real? Or did you like just pull $276,000 out of your up your ass. Chad Sowash: And who, Who did you write a check for that much? Zach Roseman: I don't know what site you're on. Our site says 190... Our site is 197,200. And yes, that if you... We actually have 86 jobs on that, on the site right now. We've had over 200 listed since we launched a few months ago. We've had almost 500,000 of real jobs posted. These are all companies I've physically talked to and led them through the integration process and actually gotten their jobs on. Joel Cheeseman: Do you know how much the leading scout has earned on your site? Zach Roseman: Yeah. So we're super early. So we've had six placements and each one is from a different scout. So the most was $5,000. We've got a couple of people who have earned $5,000 each. Joel Cheeseman: Okay. It is a real argument. Talk about the external referrals. Zach Roseman: Most of our jobs are US. Actually, 80% of them are US. Joel Cheeseman: Well, America is number one. So, obviously, that should be the case. So external... Zach Roseman: I'm still an American citizen. [laughter] Joel Cheeseman: We have external referrals and internal, right? Zach Roseman: Yeah. Joel Cheeseman: What's the percentage breakdown? It sounds like you're really focused on the external, people from outside referring inside. But there's a piece of your business that's internal. Talk about the division, the focus, the breakdown. Zach Roseman: Yeah. So right now, we're actually purely external. We have it on the product roadmap to build a feature for companies to manage their internal referral process, which would be essentially just a private label version of what we've already built. And we will build that at some point. But right now, we're focused on the external. And I think, Chad, you asked a few minutes ago, why should I trust an external person? Well, one is because of the reputation score, that it's a data-driven point that can tell you whether the person is a good or a bad scout. But two is because these people have an incentive to make sure they're sending you candidates that you're going to accept, right? It's a monetary incentive. And so it's again, incentives drive behavior. And I think that's sort of the beauty of this model, if I may say so. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Well, I guess you can. You're the CEO. So is Draftboard more than just referrals? Zach Roseman: I guess the short answer is no. Or is there a particular place you're going with that? Meaning... Chad Sowash: Yeah. Do you do more than just referrals? That's the question. [chuckle] Zach Roseman: No, I mean, we're a source of talent. That's the basic idea. We use referrals as the mechanism, but we look at the world as... Lets say like, "Okay, employee referrals tend to have super high accept rates, anywhere from 30% to 80%," right? What percentage of them... Of the candidates that you get referred as a company that you'd actually talk to? Chad Sowash: But your entire business model is predicated on referrals. Okay. Okay, good. So how do I share referrals? I get an XML feed from the applicant tracking system, or you guys scrape the board or what have you? How does that actually work? Just walk me through. You said it takes three clicks, but after those three clicks, if I import 2,000 jobs, well, let's say 500 jobs, then I've got some management to do. So talk me through that. Zach Roseman: You're talking from the company's perspective? Chad Sowash: Yes. The people who are actually spending money with you, yes. Zach Roseman: Right. So from the company's perspective, you go through our onboarding. I sit with you in the onboarding process, like say, authorize a greenhouse there's an OAuth, and then an API token with some of the other ones. It's just an OAuth click. It's literally three clicks. You see on our dashboard, you see all your jobs show up with all of the irrelevant data, the location and the job spec and everything else that's loaded in Greenhouse, that we take that. And then all you do is a screen that shows you, it says, "Okay, what bonus do you want to set for this job?" And there's a button that says list this role. And you can choose to list all your roles. There's a bulk list button, or you can choose select roles to list. And you have different bonuses for each job. And then the next part of the process is now they're listed, and any scout can refer you a candidate. But for you as the company, it's the same experience as getting an application from any other source into your ATS, right, whether it's LinkedIn or your website or Indeed, meaning it comes into Greenhouse for that particular job. The only difference is this, is the source is tagged as Draftboard instead of LinkedIn or website or whatever other source. And we also give you some information about the scout who referred it, right, the first name, the last initial. We're probably going to just give the full name. Zach Roseman: I don't really care about doing the full name if you want it. And their scout's reputation score. And so you get that additional data. But from your perspective, you're going through... You don't have to change anything about your workflow. Your workflow stays exactly the same. So it's really a set it and forget it solution. We also have the ability for companies to do something we call a job sync, where anytime they add a job to Greenhouse, it automatically gets listed on Draftboard at a certain default bonus setting. And so they can choose that bonus setting. So that way, instead of them having to manually go and update Draftboard every time they add a job, it happens automatically. Chad Sowash: Okay. But from the standpoint of being able to go in there, I can have let's say, for instance, all my tech jobs default to $5,000, all my sales jobs to $2,000, so on and so forth, correct? Zach Roseman: Exactly, exactly. Chad Sowash: Okay, okay, okay. So have you ever heard of H3 or a Jobster? Zach Roseman: Jobster, I have. H3, I haven't. Chad Sowash: Okay, how do I get my LinkedIn network involved? How can I get them integrated into this whole process? Zach Roseman: Yeah, so sneak peek of a feature we're gonna be launching called Matchmaker. You're gonna be able to download your LinkedIn connections, upload them to Draftboard, and then we're gonna do matching of your LinkedIn connections with the jobs on Draftboard and start to suggest matches for you. And that's a really critical feature because a lot of people will come to Draftboard, I think Joel, you said this earlier do you have people do one referral or do you have people doing 10 or more referrals, right? And so a lot of people say, "Okay, there's someone I have in mind, I wanna refer them to a job." And they just do that one referral. And then it's just I don't know who else, I can't remember who else is looking for a job for that particular software engineer job. With this, we're gonna be able to say to you, "Hey, these 10 people in your network are a fit for this job. Do you want to share it with them or not?" And so it turns Draftboard from a sort of pulling information out of your brain to hey, pushing information that exists somewhere else to you and sort of packaging it up and ready for you to choose an action which is sharing it with them. Chad Sowash: Okay. Joel Cheeseman: And is that an ongoing, I guess, query that you're gonna do with my network in LinkedIn? In other words, new jobs are posted all the time. Zach Roseman: Yes. Joel Cheeseman: Most of my connections may be in a certain location or maybe a certain profession, but as new jobs in my network grows, will I get an email every week like, "Hey, we scoured your LinkedIn folks and the jobs we have and here are some matches and do you wanna share those with your matches?" Zach Roseman: Exactly. Joel Cheeseman: You're shaking your head, and that's the idea. Zach Roseman: Yeah, 100%. And so there's different ways you can do it. You can either do it based on the jobs. You could say I'm interested in these types of jobs. Then we could say, "Hey, these types of jobs just came up." You have 10 people each. Or you can say, "I wanna find Joe Schmoe a job. Show me jobs for Joe Schmoe." So we'll have like a way for you to say, "Here are the 20 people I care about finding jobs." And then we'll only send you candidates for those 20. Joel Cheeseman: Got it. So Chad took a step or two down memory lane. I'll go a little... A few steps further. So H3, which you mentioned was basically a company that does what you do about 18 years ago. Jobs was another one, Zupka, Yours, Refer.com, Karma One, probably none you've ever heard of but you probably have heard of one called Indeed. So a company called Indeed, little job site global... Global footprint launched Indeed Crowd in 2016, [laughter] which is basically this idea. Companies would put a dollar amount, a bounty, if you will, people could share jobs, etcetera. Two years later, they shut it down for whatever reason. Obviously, it didn't pan out the way that they thought it would. So I guess my question is, how is this time different? How is your company different than all the companies I just named? Zach Roseman: Yeah. So the biggest change is that even five years ago, none of the big ATS, I don't wanna say none, but they either had, or it was much recruiter, they didn't have, or it was much recruiter. The API integrations took into them were much recruiter or didn't exist at all. So I was talking to the team at Greenhouse and like this didn't... The ability to do what we do today and read the stages from them didn't exist five years ago, let alone 10 years ago or 18 years ago. So that's a huge change in the infrastructure of the HR tech space, is that you know this better than me. Every company now wants to integrate with everyone else because if you don't integrate, you're losing customers. And so now everyone has open APIs, they do, and they move from APIs to OAuth and to, in order to make it easier. But this couldn't have happened. The other thing that exists today that I'm sure Indeed could have built, and maybe they did, but that there's amazing payment providers. Like we use Stripe that have literal marketplace products. So we actually don't have to build any of the payment infrastructure. Stripe handles that, right? Zach Roseman: And so when we go to a company we say to them, "Hey, you don't have to worry about issuing a... Collecting a W-9 or issuing a 1099 'cause these are scouts. You're paying the people like independent contractors. We take care of all that. And for us, we actually don't have to take care of all that. Like Stripe takes care of all that. So it's sort of this one solution. And then the other thing is, look, Indeed is Indeed, Indeed has a lot of products. Some of them are competitive with other ATSs. And so it's, it's harder, it's hard to go out and say, "Hey," you are like, "Greenhouse, play nice with me on this one product I have." I was talking to the founder, I won't name the company of a very large old school ATS. And he was saying, "LinkedIn tried to launch an ATS however many years ago." And they just were like sort of a bull in a China shop, and no one wanted to work with them. And so I think you have to be really careful who your partners are, and it helps that we're independent. Joel Cheeseman: So I used to write on this, this topic and a friend of both of Chad and I an Ohio State fan, that's just a side note. Anyway, so when he launched this, there was no social media and there was a thought that, "Well, now that people have these big networks, that that will be the thing that makes this thing work. That didn't pan out. And then I asked him when Indeed dropped its thing, what he thought the reason was. So his comment this is quote, and this is the founder of H3. Quote, "You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make him or her drink." Only 4% of people are actual connectors, perhaps proven by the fact that fewer than 4% of LinkedIn's members are in the 500 or plus connection category. So I'm hearing from you a lot of technical things, but how much is human nature part of this, like being in the job sharing? I'm gonna blast this out to people, or I'm gonna like actually put in the thought work about who would be a good... And how many are we really connected to on LinkedIn that are just sort of passive connections. So what's your opinion on human nature? I mean, I'm an old white guy, so I'm open to the fact that younger people might be more open to this. Talk about the human nature part of this business. Zach Roseman: Yeah, for sure. I don't envision this being there are 300 and what, 30 million Americans. There's no way that all 330 million are gonna be scouts, but we need to do... And I think about the... When I started fundraising, I was very clear with investors, first of all, this is like a 0 or 100. There's no middle ground here. We're a marketplace where they're gonna succeed amazingly or die. And then the second thing is, we're not the easy side of the marketplace, quote, unquote, "Is the companies," right? I've heard this literally dozens of times, why wouldn't I do this? There's no risk, there's no cost. There's no reason for me not to do this. The hard side is the scouts, as you point out, right? Who are the scouts? What's gonna motivate them? Is it just money? Is it esteem? Is it being known as the person in your network who we don't know that yet, right? But the whole vision of draft board is built around building a cohort of Super Scouts in the same way that you think about like eBay Power sellers or Airbnb Power or Super hosts, or even on Uber, right? Zach Roseman: They want their drivers to drive 40 to 50 hours a week. They're not gonna turn down the person who drives five hours a week, but it's not what their whole core business is built around. And so for us... For me, the human nature part is who are the people that have either built a skillset in sourcing talent? So AKA recruiters or former recruiters or laid off recruiters, or people who don't have enough business right now, and they're like, they have a ton of silver medalists. And I say, "Hey, come on to Draftboard and you can place them." It's people who run communities who wanna, who wanna give people in their community, a benefit, right? I have a proprietary source of jobs you can't find anywhere else. And by the way, because I have a 4.7 score, my jobs are gonna be... My referral's gonna be taken more seriously than if you apply on the company website, which is absolutely happening. Companies now look at Draftboard referrals first, 'cause there tend to be higher quality. And then the other thing is, there's super connectors who are already doing this. And so I think the human nature side is both finding the people who are already doing this and are more likely to, but also the companies. They're already offering employee referral bonuses. And so it's a very... It's sort of like they're, "We're not creating anything new under the sun. We're taking existing things and just making it a super simple, easy experience." And yeah. Chad Sowash: Okay. So let's go back to go to market. Who are you focused on, you going direct to brand on this? Are you going to recruitment ad agencies? I mean, how are you actually getting a portfolio or brand penetration. Zach Roseman: Amongst the companies? The company's listing jobs, you're saying? Chad Sowash: How are you actually getting sales? Who are you going to, are you going directly to the brands? Are you going through agencies? What's your focus? How are you doing it? Zach Roseman: Yes, so in the beginning, it was mobilizing my networks. So I spent 10 years in corporate America and built a lot of relationships. And then I had my investors and angels and whatever, and going through all of their networks, being like, "Here are our target companies. Here are the ones that can... You can make an intro to this person." And now we're hiring our first BDR who's gonna do more of like blocking and tackling, just getting... Setting up meetings. But we are... We're staying focused on startup. So really our sweet spot is 30 to 500 employees. We have a few companies that are 1,000 plus like Veer and Formlabs and SeatGeek, and then a bunch that are smaller at 10 employees that are just looking to hire the first one. Chad Sowash: So mainly SMB, you're talking about small to medium sized businesses? Zach Roseman: Yeah, I would say if you're a company over 2000 employees, we're probably not the right fit for you right now, right? Because if you put a hundred jobs on Draftboard, it's too much for us. Chad Sowash: So give me... Yeah. Give me some pricing around the... Because this is an SMB model. Joel Cheeseman: Sounds expensive. Sounds expensive, Chad. Chad Sowash: Yeah, sounds expensive for Joe's Plumbing around the corner. How much is it? Zach Roseman: No, we're not doing SMBs like Joe's plumbing. We're doing like startups. I mean, startups, like plus, I mean whether they're C-stage to series C-stage, series D-stage. Chad Sowash: Okay, still, what's the pricing? Zach Roseman: It's zero, it's free. Chad Sowash: It's free. And the only thing that you pay is you guys take... You take a commission. Joel Cheeseman: Well, companies are paying you. Zach Roseman: No, no, companies aren't paying us. Chad Sowash: So you get... You take a chunk out of the actual commission or like a commission out of the dollars that are paid. Zach Roseman: Yeah, exactly. So the companies don't ever pay us any fees. They list the jobs, it's free. If they hire a candidate, then they pay $3,000. Let's say that's the... They decide on what the bonus is. Let's say they put a three grand bonus. We take 20% of that from the scouts cut, not from the company. And so the company is never paying us a fee. And yeah, that aligns us with the company. It means that like, we don't... We're not trying to get anything more out of them. We're not trying to get them to stay longer. Chad Sowash: All right, Cheesman. Joel Cheeseman: All right, Zach. By the way, plumbers are people too, Zach. [laughter] Plumbers are people too. All right. Zach Roseman: Before I started this company, I was looking at starting a plumbing company. So have no fear, I agree. Joel Cheeseman: I refuse to show you my plumbers crack for the podcast, by the way. So let's go back early days of the internet. Amazon launches affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are huge. They make a ton of sense, right? You don't have to spend the advertising. Let people advertise for you. Let them email, put banner links on stuff. Made perfect sense. And when it came into the employment sector with H3 is the first one I remember, I'm like, "This makes perfect sense. Why spend all this money on recruiters? Why spend money on job postings?" Just empower people to share links to people and track the process. And if they make a hire, then get a check. And I literally did get a check back in 2006 from H3 for a recruiter that I referred to a job. So that was pretty exciting. And I was a little bit shocked when the company didn't pan out. Joel Cheeseman: And then I watched all the other sites that I mentioned come and go. When Indeed did it, I thought, "Man, if they can't do it, no one can do it." But the problem is I still think it's a great fucking idea. To empower people to promote your stuff, you have social media, you have people connected more than ever. But for whatever reason, Facebook didn't change. It didn't turn around. The growth of LinkedIn hasn't turned around. Now, maybe your solution of integrating with LinkedIn, and that's gonna be the secret sauce. Historically, LinkedIn doesn't love it when you create shit like that, and API... It's just rarely ends great. I like it as an internal thing better than I do an external thing, although external things sounds better. But I just... As much as I love the idea, I can't deny history. 20 years of history says this idea does not work. If you're the first one to stick it up, stick it up the ass of history, then good on you. But for me, I can't in good conscience. 20 years of history says this idea is not gonna work. So for me, Zach, again, this is not personal, man. It's a great idea. The world just isn't ready for it. Zach Roseman: I hear you, man. Joel Cheeseman: I hope you're the first Zach. I hope you're the first. Chad? Chad Sowash: Woo, woo. I'm gonna take a little bit different angle on this, Zach. First and foremost, I love that you're focusing on integrations down Funnel, Lever, Greenhouse, etcetera, etcetera. I can tell you, you've never been in HR because HR doesn't trust anyone, let alone referrals, right? I mean, they don't even trust internal, right? So... Zach Roseman: Oh, I've heard. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Not a big trusting group. But so again, I'm a big believer in referrals. I believe referrals can be executed much better and more efficiently, but most companies stumble over all of the referrals that they're getting that are coming in, and they're either number one or number two source of hire. So could the process be better? Yeah. Could we even do more referrals? Well, fuck yeah, but employee referrals aren't a perceived problem, which is why they are never a top three priority and they don't get substantial budget. Well, hopefully, you've got an answer to that by the free aspect. Joel talked about human nature. Well, this is HR nature, which is something that you really need to get your head around, especially when it comes to adoption and history. It's a solution to a problem that the industry doesn't believe really even exists. Chad Sowash: So as we talked about before, we've seen historically companies like Jobster, who I believe first... Their first iteration in 2004 was a referral platform. H3, 2007, the list goes on and on and on. H3 never evolved past just being a referral platform and they died. Jobster had an identity crisis and they died. I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle and coupling the priority pain points with referrals and then looking at different aspects of things that will actually go get you budget. Because last but not least, my friend, the straw that broke the camel's back for me is that you need to charge the damn company. They're the ones with the money. Don't charge the little guy. Don't charge the little guy. So again, from a historical standpoint, from a product and a focus standpoint, you're going to have to slowly edge open that product, Tam. But until then, it's the Firing Squad. Joel Cheeseman: God damn it, Zach. Zach Roseman: Love the feedback. Joel Cheeseman: I hope you're the first one. Zach Roseman: No, it's great. Joel Cheeseman: I hope you're the first one. Chad Sowash: Oh, I wanna see referrals work so badly. So badly, Zach. Joel Cheeseman: It's such a good idea. There's just human nature, something... Zach Roseman: I could address it, but I... It's not... Look, to your point, Chad, it's not a question. I close one-third of companies I talk to. I've talked to 150 heads of talent. It's the highest close rate my investors have ever seen. They literally tell me now, part of that is 'cause it's free. Obviously, their companies are going to close free. Chad Sowash: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's like Indeed closing, getting jobs on their site the first time they came on free, right? That's not a close rate. Zach Roseman: Right, no, but the reason I mentioned it is that all of the companies that when you talk about it, these companies, the biggest problem they have is what we talked about in the beginning. They get 4,000 applications crappy that they have to go through from their team. And as you said, no one's giving them a budget to spend 100 grand on some fancy AI tool that's gonna spot the best candidates that are not. Those tools exist. But unless you're a big corporate like IAC, you're not doing that. And so you have to have a way to filter out the crap from the diamonds. And I think that the referrals for me, again, it's a mechanism to do that. It's not the... I don't claim to have reinvented the wheel here. But yeah, look, I hear your feedback. Joel Cheeseman: Zach, the Firing Squad is over. It's over. When you knock it out of the park, you can come back on and tell us how wrong we were. But until then, my friend, I hope you're the first that proves us wrong. Make this referral thing work. Until then, let our listeners know where they can find out more. Zach Roseman: Joel, I'm gonna make it work for you, specifically, so you can finally regain faith in humanity. You can find us at www.draftboard.com. We'd love to have you on. Joel Cheeseman: In the can, Chad. Another one bites the dust. We out. Chad Sowash: 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.

What's going to happen to all those remote-work unicorns who raised hundreds of millions during the pandemic, now that RTO is back and WFH is out? What's the current state of M&A in HR Tech in 2023, heading into 2024? And when will the IPO dam finally break and throw companies like iCIMS, Greenhouse, Personio and others to the public markets? All great questions, but ones Chad & Cheese aren't exactly proficient in answering. That's why we asked Jim Holzer, managing partner at Drake Star Partners, on the pod. Jim manages M&A and capital raising in the HR tech vertical for Drake Star. A must listen for anyone raising, selling or just surviving this turbulent market. Don't go into 2024 without checking this one out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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: Oh, yeah. It's your dog Groomer's favorite podcast, AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always the OH to my IO Chad Sowash. Chad: Yes. Joel: In the house. And today we welcome Jim Holzer, managing partner at Drake Star Partners. He manages M&A and capital raising in the HR tech vertical. Jim, welcome to the Chad Cheese Podcast. Jim Holzer: Thank you. Chad: Drake Star. Jim Holzer: Thanks Joel. [laughter] Chad: M&A. Joel: This has nothing to do with the rapper Drake, right? Let's just get that out of the way real fast. Jim Holzer: It does not, no. Joel: Okay. Chad: No, it's Drake Star... Joel: Drake is not in the M&A of HR tech companies. Just everyone wants to... Chad: That's like, it's like the death star just of M&A. Joel: It is. Chad: It's like they come in and they eat it all up. So, Jim, give us a little Twitter bio about Jim. What makes Jim tick. Jim Holzer: Helping entrepreneurs and great companies achieve their goals. I've, been a banker doing software and tech enabled services banking for several decades. And, I've worked at, some of the large full service investment banks as well as specialized M&A advisory firms. And my focus today is on HR tech. You know, it's one of the most interesting segments of the software and tech services landscape. And I've been at Drake Star for over a decade. I'm a managing partner and shareholder and behind, beyond HR tech. I have a family of two grown kids live in the New York area. And it's, I am a suffering golfer. [laughter] Chad: Aren't we all. Jim Holzer: Aren't we all. Chad: Aren't we all. Joel: Jim loves to party. I can tell that just from that con... Chad: So the HR space, why is the HR space so interesting to you? Jim Holzer: It's been an area that has, had a lot of growth and innovation for a long time. And, you see companies of all types really being able to thrive. So from the innovative, seed stage company to the large public company, there's constantly been innovation. It's been an area also where the economy, the introtech economy, you know, despite being influenced by the overall economy, has done quite well. And you see very active, very active capital markets from the early stage capital to VC to private equity and to public markets. And, so very, very interesting space where, there's always something interesting going on. Chad: So Talk about Drake Star, who, what is Drake Star, 100% percent tech-focused. Give us a little background around Drake Star. Jim Holzer: Yeah. So we're, an international tech-focused investment bank, as you mentioned, but we have local presences both in North America and Europe. There's about, eight offices. We focus on M&A and capital raising only for tech companies, over a hundred bankers. So we're really actually one of the largest dedicated tech groups out there. Like many of our clients we're employee owned. So, we get the entrepreneurial spirit and some of the challenges that entrepreneurs go through, and we try to really help them, guide them on their journey to be successful. Chad: How much is managed assets wise that, that you guys have under your umbrella? Jim Holzer: Okay. So we're not an investment firm. We're an advisory firm. So, you know, what we do is we work on behalf of companies, really two principle areas. One is mergers and acquisitions, you know, mostly, sell side M&A. We could talk about what all that means later. Sure. As well as, you know, raising capital for later stage growth stage companies. Not venture capital, but more kind of growth equity type capital. Joel: He's a matchmaker. Chad: He's a matchmaker. Joel: He's matchmaker. He makes love connections happen. [laughter] Joel: He's the Chuck Woolery, he's the Chuck Woolery of Drake Star. Chad: He's the Tinder of Drake Star. [laughter] He's gonna tell you whether you swipe left or right. And that being said, what a great segue to my hot or not, question. I'd literally like to hear Jim from you, what type of technology are you sick of seeing pitched Joe and I could go on for days around this, but what tech are you sick of seeing pitched, and then what do you see that's hot that you don't see that's pitched enough? Jim Holzer: Well, I think the obvious one that's over pitched, and maybe not, I'm not sick of it. I'm kind of waiting to see where it's gonna end up. But AI, I mean, everyone is talking about AI and, I was at... Chad: Is it in every pitch that you see though? I mean, it's just like AI this... Jim Holzer: It's AI this, AI that, you know, it's almost like, if you remember, I'm gonna date myself a bit here, but in the dotcom era, every company put dotcom at the end of their name. So no, but I, so I think, I think AI is real, but what I'd really like to see, I'm waiting for sitting at the edge of my chair is like, how are some of these solutions actually gonna take hold and add value to employers and to companies and to candidates? Chad: So what's, what, hot? What do you wanna see more of? Joel: You better say VR Jim, you better say VR. [laughter] Chad: Don't do it Jim. Jim Holzer: VR. [laughter] Chad: Don't you do it. Jim Holzer: I think, you know, one of the, some of the things that we're seeing are, you know, I guess a couple areas like skills-based hiring. I think is, is really important. One of the issues that we could talk about that's affecting HR tech, in addition to what's going on in the economy, but there's, there's been this job gap that's, that's been going on for a while. Chad: Oh, yeah. Jim Holzer: And, Right. There's more, more openings and there people to fill them. Right. And, while it's been narrowing with, you know, some of the employment numbers, it's still pretty big. And, you know, maybe it's not really a jobs gap. Maybe it's really a skills gap. Like how do, how do people get the right employees, the right talent? And so we see a lot of companies, going after that. And so I think that's very interesting. And then we're seeing other areas, you know, kind of more topical in line with the economy, like contingent labor and other things like that, that are doing doing okay right now. Doing well now. Jim Holzer: Yeah. Well, I think there's a jobs gap and a skills gap, right? I think both can be, both can be true. Where we're having kind of like a jobs gap, in let's say, for instance, hospitality. That's not really a skills gap per se, but then there are huge skills gaps in, some of the more technical spaces where we're really in need of, different types of skills. So I think that they both can exist. Joel: Jim we're on the sort of the edge of saying goodbye to 2023. What surprised you or you didn't expect in 2023 as you look back on the year? Jim Holzer: I think the thing that was kind of the unknown, and you know, now we're seems to have some light under at the end of the tunnel, is, you know, the impact of the Federal Reserve and their rate high campaign, it was just sort of an unknown and kind of seeing when inflation data, which is what they're tracking, when that would start to moderate. And so we now have seen some moderation and it seems like, a lot of prognosticators are saying that the Fed is kind of the end of their rate raising cycle, and that, you know, and that should be better for the economy. The question is how long do rates stay high? So that, I think that was kind of the big unknown. Yeah that I was been waiting to understand like, when would that, when would we see that kind of the light at the end of the tunnel? Joel: And what's your read on inflation rates? And, you know, money isn't free anymore because we had a parade of unicorns from, let's call it 2020 to 2022. The deals, the oysters, the velocity globals, the remotes got a lot of money. What's the state of those companies right now as they look into 2024? Jim Holzer: You know, if you look at venture as a whole, there is definitely, you know, a lot of money thrown at companies and, things kind of went too, maybe too far in one direction. And now what's happening is, you know, it's a lot, a lot harder to raise capital for the, some of these companies. And so there's a big emphasis on profitability and controlling your own destiny, being cashflow positive. I mean, it's, you know, with the SaaS model, you know, when that, as it's getting established, you can kind of invest in that and get some pretty, pretty amazing growth. But you also have to kind of look at like, how are we as a company, you know, what's our cash flow situation? What's our cash situation? So there's a big emphasis on that. And we've seen the market change. Jim Holzer: You know, everyone talks about the rule of 40s and, you know, which is really the sum of a company's growth rate and their profitability, their free cash flow margin. And so what's happened, there's been a massive correction in the public markets. And what you're seeing now is, you know, companies that maybe traded companies with, let's say a 20 to 30% growth rate and a 10 to 20% free cashflow margin will trade higher than one with a greater than 30% growth rate, or a less than 10% free cash flow margin. And so that's kind of a, a sign that the market is, you know, growth is still very important, but profitability is becoming important as well. Jim Holzer: And you see that in the venture marketplace, whereas the investors wanna see, you know, more, more disciplined, and the companies that were on that old model you were talking about before, some of them it's more difficult. And we've seen, you know, even with some of the IPOs that have happened, we've seen some unicorns, you know, go public at a lower valuation than their last round. Joel: Not in our space, they haven't, you've seen Instacart and some others. Jim Holzer: Yeah. Not, not yet. There haven't been any HR tech ones, but just, you know, the whole, the whole kind of, you know, software. Joel: Put a pin in the IPO question. Chad, what do you got for it? Jim Holzer: Okay. Chad: [laughter] So how will all of that money affect a lot of these big brands? I mean, because there is a thing, as we say on the show, as taking too much money. Joel: The other dynamic, Jim, also, a lot of these companies got a lot of money on the premise that the world was gonna go remote and never go back to the office. And we're seeing that they are going back to the office. So to me it's like a double whammy for these companies in terms of trying to make it your thoughts? Jim Holzer: Yeah. Well, and Venture always, you know, had the requirement that when you take that money, you have a higher hurdle for exit because the investor, you know, especially those early stages, they need to get, for their model to work, they need to get 6, 7, 8X returns. And so, as an entrepreneur, you're signing up for, to grow, to become a much bigger company. And so for some companies that, you know, that's great. If you can become a large business, you know, perhaps large enough to go public or just kind of keep on growing, you know, that could work, but it doesn't work for everybody. And, if you get too caught up in raising lots of money and, higher and higher valuations, then it's just gonna make it harder for you to have a good exit and return for everybody, all the stakeholders. Chad: So let's talk a little bit about the key data points for, acquiring or M&A from your side of the house. As founders that are out there today. They obviously would love to hear from a guy like you to know what the key data points, obviously profits, growth was big. Now it's more, you know, focusing on discipline and profits. What do you see now, and then also with the landscape down the road, is there going to be other points that you think are more important, than, you know, just pure growth. Jim Holzer: Every company's situation is unique, you know, so it's really a combination of all those factors. What you wanna see is a company that is growing and gaining traction in their market with a business model that makes sense and can generate returns. So, you know, what does that mean? It does mean profitability companies, companies can trade off profitability for growth. So a lot of attention when you're selling a company or raising capital is on things people call the SaaS metrics. So what is your gross in net retention, what is your LTV to CAC? What is your payback for CAC? And what do your margins look like? What's your channel strategy? Is it direct? Is it go, Is it partner? So how does all that work together? Jim Holzer: And then, you know, strategically, how does that fit in an ecosystem? Are you in a category that has a big enough TAM that you could be, a product onto itself? Or are you kind of a feature of some other bigger company that eventually will get consolidated? So we look at all that, you know, and the story is always unique based on the company and the segment, and there's not really one size fits all. It's really, you know, building a healthy business, you know, having, you know, a strong team. Teams are really important in technology. Jim Holzer: You know, buyers will, will look to buy a company for a position in the market to fill a product hole, but also to get talent. And a lot of our deals, the team on the company that's getting sold is a, they actually have, you know, enhanced career opportunities and a better opportunity to be part of something bigger, you know and join with other, you know, like-minded colleagues. Chad: Are you seeing a lot more of that, where it's more of an acqui-hire? Yes. They're getting the tech, yes. They're getting whatever portfolio, what have you, maybe filling a features some of a gap that they have within their current organization. Is it mainly the talent? Because I mean, that, that in itself is a pretty big buy, but that talent can also walk out the door. So I mean, there's a huge risk for a lot of companies right there, isn't it? Jim Holzer: Yeah. So we're not really that involved in acqui-hire deals. They tend to be like some of the smaller deals, you know? Chad: Okay. Jim Holzer: Perhaps we talked about some of the, you know, challenge venture back companies, you know, some of them could probably get acquired and maybe, the team might be an interesting, driver. But, you know, in a lot of our deals, it's kind of a combination of the business plus the talent is how I would say it. It's not, it's not just the talent. Chad: Gotcha. Gotcha. Joel: Let's jump into IPOs. Jim. We've been hearing for years the iCIMS, the greenhouses, were going public. The pullback from, you know, after releasing the S1, is the dam gonna break in '24? Are companies just gonna back away from all the IPO talk. I mean, Personio is one that, over in Germany that's now coming to America, they're talking about IPOs. I mean, HiBob is raising a ton of money. The IPO has to, the dam has to break, right. Jim, what's your take? Jim Holzer: So, yeah, I mean, as the economy improves, as interest rates moderate as the stock market recovers, you're gonna see more IPOs. And you know, that that should be, I'm expecting a better IPO market in 2024. You know, whether or not some of these big companies, you know, iCIMS Personio, HiBob, etcetera, the ones you mentioned, will get out, you know, is gonna be more, it'll be market specific. It'll be a better market environment, but also company specific. So it's gonna depend on where they are. You know, there are, there are also, you know, opportunities, for some of these companies to do more of a private equity type transaction to get an exit. You know, obviously iCIMS has, you know, several private equity firms in there. But obviously as you get bigger and you, as we talked about earlier, and you have, you know, really high valuations, it becomes harder to do some of those. Chad: So from the Drake Star HR tech report, let's go ahead and jump into that for, and this was just released when, Jim, this is pretty new stuff. Jim Holzer: Yeah. It came out last week. We do a quarterly, you know, HR tech report. We look at different sectors. We look at M&A activity, financing activity. Yeah. We try to spotlight, we, a lot of times we'll invite a guest and we'll try to spotlight, you know, an area that's interesting. Chad: So I think the thing that you said earlier that I thought was incredibly interesting, that is that there's innovation in this segment. And there is, there's no question. But without adoption, that really doesn't matter. And from... Jim Holzer: Absolutely. Chad: From your data, 63% of HR leaders intend on using generative AI to improve efficiency. Why only 63%? And to you, is that like a downer? I mean, because this is a large market and only 63% of the market is looking to actually go into what everybody's talking about, which is AI, and it's on every one of those fricking presentations that you see out there. Joel: And we wonder why CareerBuilder is still in business. [laughter] Jim Holzer: Yeah. I mean, I don't know why it's only 63%. You know, perhaps some of the companies have their heads down, they were focused on what they were focused on and they're are not gonna go after the AI hype. But I think, you know, really, it'll be interesting. As I said earlier, I don't know if you all have any predictions, but how will it, how will this settle out and where will we see adoption? Yeah you're right. There's innovation, but also you need the adoption for it to work. Joel: Oh, we always have predictions, Jim, and what the market says about our predictions. Joel: 60% of the time, it works every time. [laughter] Chad: And then also on the business side of the house, 37% of HR leaders are exploring AI to cut costs. You would think that that would be a much larger, I mean, especially when you're talking to the business, right? If you're trying to look for budget, the way to say that this budget's gonna help is it's here to cut costs. So do you think that HR themselves need to be schooled on what the really the aspects of business are that they should be focusing on? Because this 37%, that should be 99.9%, right? Jim Holzer: Yeah. HR and the technology landscape, we constantly see automation to improve processes, improve compliance, you know, you name it. And so yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that, the AI should be a big part of that. So yeah. I'm kind of, I'm also wondering why it's only 37% Chad: Yeah. RPA AI, whatever it is, I don't care. And I almost think, and tell me what you think is you start to look at all these presentations and you're dealing with these startups that, the process efficiencies are built in. And that's what many HR companies are looking for. They're not looking for themselves to create AI, and/or to adopt. They're just looking to have this baked into their newest platform. Jim Holzer: Yeah they're looking to have it baked in. You know, some of them, you know, board members might say, well, what's our position on AI? We need to have a position on AI. And so, you know, maybe that's why you're seeing a lot of hype 'cause all of a sudden the dam broke and people are saying, yeah, we have to do something with AI. Joel: Jim. There's been layoffs recently, most notably LinkedIn laying off some 670 or so people, we talked about Oyster, another sort of unicorn from a couple years ago that's laid off a lot of folks SeekOut, I think, recently, so I could go on and on, but how does someone in your shoes look at layoffs? Does, do you say weakness in the business? Do you say smart business decision? Do you say automation is coming in? Talk about how you look at layoffs from your point of view. Jim Holzer: Yeah I mean, the layoffs obviously are a sign that the business is not performing up to expectations whatever the budget is. And they're making adjustments for it. I think again, it's kind of case specific and what's the magnitude? Are they, is it large scale layoffs or is it, you know, some pruning, what have you. But, you know, clearly, you know, we talked about the funding market's changing, and that's one of the tools that companies and management will use to respond to that. Joel: When you say funding has changed, money isn't free anymore. Interest rates are higher. And some of the big raises that we've talked about on the show, HiBob, Harry, Employment Hire recently, these are pretty big rounds. Do you look at those and say, those are really healthy companies because to be able to raise money in this environment, you really have to have your act together. It's sort of like the real estate market from '06 to '16. Like, you had to have good credit, you had to have a job, you couldn't just get money for free. Do you look at these rounds now and say, these are really healthy companies because the hurdle they have to clear is much higher than it was in in 2020? Jim Holzer: Yeah, I mean, the companies are performing to raise capital's environment. You have to be performing. And, you know, the other thing that's, you know, implicit, you have to maybe look a little deeper into the round. These firms that have investors, the investors, you know, provide a level of support. So when they, when a brand name investor comes in, they're not just necessarily coming in for that round. They're making a commitment to support the company. So you need to look at did they raise more capital? Are there new investors involved? What is the valuation compared to the last round? That's not always, all that information isn't always public, but I mean, that would, you know, sort of indicate how they're performing. But I'd say yes, in general, you know, companies like HiBob and others that are raising capital are, you know, likely performing. Chad: I've got two quick questions to round this out Jim. So first and foremost, we're seeing a lot of companies who've taken a lot of money who have an overinflated TAM. And these are what I like to call, I don't know, lies. [laughter] I mean, you've got all of this bloat Of companies who are marketing that they have this vaporware. Now it could be aspirational, there's no question, but it seems incredibly undisciplined to me. And I would like to know what you guys see when you see these companies come in, with large valuations, but they're at a TAM, that there are no way that they can actually cover that. That's question number one. What do you guys do? Is this an advisory scenario where you have them like close and become more disciplined? What's the key there? Jim Holzer: So, yeah, I mean, that's a question an investor or buyer will ask is what your view of the TAM? And we look at that and we try to assess is it credible or not, and advise them like maybe we should change our assumptions a bit or, maybe it looks good. So, yeah, so it's an important thing and it's as important as any other aspect of the company. You need to, we need to present it in a credible way and we know what investors and buyers look at. So before we take a company to market, we spend a lot of time looking at all those different aspects, Tam being one of them, and trying to explain it in a credible and transparent way. Chad: Gotcha. Gotcha. So my last one's about founder deal breakers. So do you have any stories, anonymous stories? Joel: You can name names Jim. Chad: If he wants to. That's entirely up to him, but I wanna hear some stories, some founders like Antics are really bad decisions that just stop the deal dead. Jim Holzer: I remember once I did a deal and, it was a recap where the founder was going to, take some money off the table and get capital to grow. And he never told us that he was being audited by the IRS. Chad: So ouch. Jim Holzer: When we were like very close to closing, all of a sudden he gets a very large fine and penalty from the IRS and needless to say that, that killed the deal. [laughter] Joel: Wow. [laughter] that escalated quickly. Chad: Okay. That's a good story. Jim Holzer: And it's... Joel: Jim, my question isn't nearly as entertaining, but I asked you to look back at '23, you mentioned IPOs in '24, but gimme some predictions for '24. As we head into a new year, what do you expect to see in the M&A space and investment space? Jim Holzer: So, yeah, I think '24, and we're starting to see this happen already just based on, you know, discussions we're having and new clients that we're taking on. I think M&A is gonna be stronger. There has been, even in spite of the turbulence this year, there has been a good demand, strong demand for good companies that are performing. By definition, there's less of those. Jim Holzer: And you have, you know, strategic buyers that have growth plans and have capital that wanna make acquisitions. You have private equity that wanna make acquisitions. So, you know, even though '23, like our, the quarterly M&A volume is probably at 20% less than '21, which is a high watermark. There's still like 34% more deals in 2019. And so we're kind of, we're expecting that to continue the fundraising market on private placements has been more challenged. Jim Holzer: There's been more of a decline there, you know, both, you know, versus '21 and 2019. I think as things settle out, companies may be adapt their business models to, "the new normal". I think we'll see some improvements there, but I'm expecting probably a more active M&A market and probably an improving financing market, but still may take a while for things on the financing side to really heat up. Joel: Are there gonna be a lot of clearance rack sales? 'Cause I think that that's what everybody's looking for? Jim Holzer: I mean, there could be, but the companies that were challenged and have issues on capital, they wanna sell and they need to sell, but buyers are still pretty careful. So some of them might happen, but, the buyers out there that are active and driving the market are, want good businesses that don't necessarily wanna take on something that might be risky or, you know, maybe heading in the, continuing to head in the wrong direction. So I think there'll be a lot of companies that will see, you know, that are troubled, that will seek a sale. The question is how many of them will actually get done? Joel: Give me one company that'll IPO in '24. Chad: Drum Roll please. Jim Holzer: Good question. Chad: Just a prediction Jim, we're not gonna hold you to it. It's okay. Jim Holzer: I'm not sure. [laughter] Jim Holzer: Is that okay? Joel: Oh, come on Jim. Chad: I'm gonna call step star. I'm gonna call step star. Joel: Come on Jim. [laughter] Alright, that is, that's Jim Holzer, everybody from Drake Star Partners, he's a managing partner. Drake, for our listeners who wanna know more about you or maybe some startups out there that are looking for money or wanting to sell, where would you send them? Jim Holzer: Send them to our website, drakestar.com or to my LinkedIn profile. Joel: Easy enough. And if you ever wanna talk about '80s basketball, collegiately. Jim's your guy. If you know in the green room, Chad, that is another one in the can, we out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead, now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese sit down with Taylor Weiss, a Technology Investor at PeakSpan Capital. Taylor discusses her role, preferences for startups, emphasizing the importance of honest, succinct pitches. The conversation explores tech founders' ages, backing the right founder, excitement for innovative solutions in HR Tech, and leveraging AI for career advancement. Taylor stresses honesty's significance in career progression, proposing early education on self-awareness. She advises startups to align with investors' ethos and highlights PeakSpan's focus on alignment with entrepreneurs. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel50 booth at the heart of HR Tech, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions, and we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel50, the scienced-based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. 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. [music] Joel: Oh yeah. What's up everybody? It is your poker dealer's favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel. Joined as always, the Paris to my Treasure Island, Chad. Chad: Yes sir, so classic. Joel: We are recording live from the Fuel50 booth at HR Tech in Las Vegas. And we are excited to welcome Taylor Weiss, technology investor at PeakSpan Capital to the podcast. Hello Taylor. What's up? Taylor Weiss: Hello. Hello. How are you guys? Thank you so much for having me. Joel: Relax. It's okay. It's okay. Relax. [laughter] So our listeners probably don't know who you are. Taylor Weiss: Thank you. Joel: Give us the Twitter bio. Give us the elevator pitch. You get pitched all the time. Give us your pitch. Taylor Weiss: I do get pitched all the time, yeah. Joel: Tell us about Taylor though. Long walks on the beach. You like hiking? I mean, what does the inner Taylor look like? Taylor Weiss: How did you know? Joel: See, okay. Taylor Weiss: Wow. No. I'm a senior associate, at PeakSpan Capital in San Francisco, doing this for a little over half a decade, in investing growth stage software companies. I absolutely love it. And I do love long walks on the beach with my dog and... Joel: And what's your dog's name? Taylor Weiss: Asri, yeah. Joel: Asri? Taylor Weiss: Asri. Joel: Oh, okay. Taylor Weiss: Yeah. Joel: How'd you come up with Asri? Chad: Asri? Yes. Let's get... Joel: How'd you come up with the Asri. Yeah. Taylor Weiss: I was in Bali. I actually used to live there. Joel: You were in Bali? Taylor Weiss: I lived in Bali. Joel: Holy shit. That's awesome. Taylor Weiss: For a segment of my life. Joel: Wow. Taylor Weiss: A very short summer. And there's a word in Balinese called Asri a A-S-R-I. And it means a calming presence within nature. Joel: Nice. Taylor Weiss: And a sort of happiness. And I put a U in there so that Americans would be able to pronounce it correctly. [laughter] And that's what I named my dog. Joel: So what is the antithesis of that? Because that's what Joel is. Taylor Weiss: Okay. [laughter] I don't know. Chad: Be careful. We're just starting the interview. [laughter] Be nice. Taylor Weiss: Is he mean to you like this all the time? Chad: This is how this works. [laughter] It's all good. It's all good. Taylor Weiss: I thought you were the Paris to his Treasure Island. What's going on here? Joel: I know. I'm supposed... Chad: He'd like to see my treasure island. You know what I'm saying? [laughter] Taylor Weiss: When in Vegas, maybe. Joel: Moving on... Chad: Where are we? I wanna point out something for the kids. Joel: Yes. Chad: You said half a decade, which is a great way to make you sound more... Joel: Yes. Chad: More experienced. Joel: 6 years, yes. Chad: Than your... Not five year... Half. Joel: I love it. Chad: Half a decade. So for the kids out there, that's much better than five years. Joel: I love that. Chad: I love that. I do love that. Good for you. Good for you. Taylor Weiss: He's six and a half, seven years, so. Chad: Which I'm sure as the technology investor, being younger, talking to the young founders is a positive. So talk about your role as the technology investor at PeakSpan. Taylor Weiss: Yeah. Now, it's wonderful to talk to younger founders. We have a... Amazing company, that was started by some younger founders called Arist, who does learning, micro-learning in the flow of work. And being a younger founder, being a younger investor, I absolutely love it because you can really just understand exactly where they're coming from, you know what they're thinking and kind of where they came from and why they started these businesses. But it's not always a positive because when you're... Chad: Okay. [laughter] Taylor Weiss: A young investor, you're talking to folks who are a lot older, a lot more experienced. So it's... Joel: Do you have older versions of yourself where you kind of play your good cop act or? Taylor Weiss: Of course. Chad: And is this on the founders' side? Taylor Weiss: Absolutely, Chad. Joel: Yeah. Okay. Taylor Weiss: I definitely do. Joel: See. [chuckle] Chad: And this is on the founders side. Taylor Weiss: On the founders side for... Chad: That are pitching you for capital. Taylor Weiss: Yeah. We have older founders, younger founders. Chad: Yeah. So what's the average age of a tech founder these days? Taylor Weiss: That is such a great question and I haven't really thought about it. I've never gone into a meeting and thought, "Wow, this person is over the average age." Chad: Just role the dice, give me a... Taylor Weiss: Of a founder, probably... Chad: Give me a ballpark eyeball number. Taylor Weiss: Probably... Joel: 30. Taylor Weiss: I would say. Yeah. Mid thirties, forties. I would say I have seen a lot of younger founders within the more recent years. And I love it. I think folks are more empowered to start their businesses. Joel: Yes. Taylor Weiss: At a younger age, people are dropping out of college and starting their businesses right after everything happened with Stanford, Harvard, Bill Gates, all of that, so. Joel: So tell us what excites you most about talking to founders on a daily basis? Because there are... Taylor Weiss: Oh, so many things. Joel: Huge issues, huge problems that have been around for decades, centuries in some cases. What excites you about finding the solutions? Taylor Weiss: It's such a great question because there's so many things to be excited about. I think what I love about this job is getting up every single day knowing that I get to go meet, talk to, and work with some of the most brilliant minds or the most brilliant future minds of technology that's going to be advancing the world as we see it today. Joel: So what part of that excites you the most? Taylor Weiss: Oh. The eccentricity of all the founders. The constant drive. Joel: Talk to me about solutions though. All that stuff. They should all have that. Chad: But this is interesting. She's really focused on the jockey... Joel: Well, which is... Chad: And not the horse. Joel: Which I agree with 100% because I believe, personally, and tell me what you think, that founders make the company. Chad: Yeah. Is it the jockey or the horse? Where do you... Where do you stand on that? Taylor Weiss: I think in the beginning it's definitely the jockey, it's the founder, because that's really what you're backing in the beginning. You don't have much data... Chad: Yeah. Taylor Weiss: To go off of. Once you've got some data, you've gotten some customers, you've gone through a few renewal cycles, then you're backing both of them. When you're in the earlier stages like I am, you have to make sure that you're backing the right founder. So that's where we're focusing on today. Of course, being in that emerging growth category, you're kind of getting to the stage of go to market mechanization where you will be backing the horse and the jockey. But no, it's a great question. I'll go back to answering it. What am I excited about? Solutions. So we're at HR Tech, I am excited about finding companies that are able to give folks a career that they love and doing that in ways that hasn't been done before. And I think that you can do that in so many different ways, right? You can leverage AI to really just push the envelope on understanding what skills are needed for a job. You can push on, pay transparency and make sure that your entire culture is being valued and being paid correctly and equitably. You can push on engaging your employees and retaining them and making sure that you're creating a place where people wanna be. So there's multiple different segments of what people are doing to create a forever home and a forever career for folks like you. For folks like me, for folks like you. That's what excites me. Joel: So we talked earlier about like DNA, right? You want to try to sequence the DNA, right? Which I think a lot of companies have tried over the years and they failed dramatically. How do you think we get to the point where we can effectively find that DNA, that skills, DNA, that culture DNA of that person, and then start to plug it in, because I think that's a hell of a lot harder than actually mapping the genome itself, right? Taylor Weiss: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the topic that he's talking about is in medicine, you can map the genome and you know exactly what is there. And from knowing that you know it's good for, you know it's bad for you in your work and in your career, a lot of the time in a job description, it might not be the skills that are needed. Or in a career, it might not be what's best for you. So if we're able to drill down into, honestly, what are my skills? What aren't my skills, what could they be? And then from the other side, look at what does this job need? What are those skills? How can I develop that within talent? And how can I foster a culture and community that breeds transparency and happiness and engagement and continues in that flow forever? And so being able to execute on that through technology is the question. How does that get solved? I don't know. But I think AI is going to be leveraged in there somewhere. Joel: Yeah. Taylor Weiss: 100%. And the way to do it is really understanding through honesty and transparency and equality. Joel: I think honesty is the hard part, right? Taylor Weiss: Honesty is the hard part. Joel: Because what candidates are honest on their resume and through the interview and what companies are honest in what they actually need, and if they're transparent, what their real culture is. So is that really almost like the missing ingredient is honesty from both sides of the tracks? And if it is, how the hell do we get people to tell the truth? Taylor Weiss: I have an answer for you. Joel: Okay. Taylor Weiss: And I think it has come from... Chad: Just make sure it's truthful. [laughter] Taylor Weiss: It is. This is the most open and honest and vulnerable I've been, no, but I think the honest answer for you is, before you get into your career, you're not honest because you don't know yourself, right? Joel: Yeah. Taylor Weiss: When you start to get into your career, you figure out what you like, what you don't like. It's like dating, you date a few people, you figure out what you like, what you don't like. You find someone to marry you, you settle down, you figure out your life. Joel: Don't say Tinder for jobs. Don't say Tinder for jobs. [laughter] Taylor Weiss: No, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. Please don't associate my name with that. [laughter] But I think as you get into your career, you figure out what you like to do and what you're good at, and you're able to become more honest with yourself maybe two years, three years, four years, five years into your career. What if we could push that into the education system when you're interviewing for jobs? So we could go to universities and we could push that, "Hey, you know what? Here's what you're good at. Here's what you're not good at." And have that life experience come a little bit earlier. And that honesty might therefore come a little bit earlier on both the applicant and the employer side. So I think just pushing that honesty earlier in that lifecycle might be a way it could happen. Chad: We have a lot of companies that listen to our show and a lot of startups who are looking to raise money, looking to get in front of people like you. What advice would you give them? One, in terms of how do I get in front of you? And how should the conversation go when I do get the facetime? Taylor Weiss: How do you get in front of me, man? Go for it. Just go for it. I really like to talk to everybody that I can. Chad: Yeah. Taylor Weiss: That's why I'm sitting here with you guys because I just love talking, as you can tell. I think the best way to get in front of an investor is to be focused on what you're doing, know your product, be able to have your elevator pitch down in like 30 seconds, two minutes or three minutes. Figure out which one you need to do. And when you do get in front of an investor, I think the most important thing is really just like I said before, just knowing exactly what you're trying to execute on and... Chad: Yeah. Taylor Weiss: Know what you're not good at and what you're asking for. Chad: So tips for a good deck that I show you. Give us some quick pointers. Taylor Weiss: Short. Chad: There it is. How short? Taylor Weiss: Easy to understand. [laughter] Chad: Give us some context. 1 slide, 5, 10? Taylor Weiss: Look, I absolutely love a thick deck that I can get into and it's really juicy and it gives me a lot of information and detail, but I also love a short one where I can understand it really quickly. So if I have maybe a three to five page deck... Joel: Okay. Taylor Weiss: That's wonderful. I think that's great. Joel: And keep the juicy deck for later. Taylor Weiss: And then we can dive in. But I think a three to five page deck that is very focused. You're laughing at me. Chad: No. Joel: It's okay. It's just because we're both... Chad: Save me Chad. Save this. Save this. Joel: We're both 12-year-old kids. Chad: Yes, we're children. Joel: So here's the thing that I think is interesting because you are not right. Right? Your funds are not right for certain founders and... Taylor Weiss: Sure. Joel: And certain organizations, how do they know which organizations, which investors to actually approach because there are so many that are out there. How do they know? I mean, are you guys pretty forthright? Like look, here's... You have to meet these five bullets. If you meet these five, we're there, is pretty much all investment firms like that or no? Taylor Weiss: No. Joel: No. Okay. Taylor Weiss: I don't think that... Joel: Okay. Taylor Weiss: All investment firms are like that. Joel: Okay. Taylor Weiss: I think a lot of investment firms are looking for the same type of thing, which is high growth, high retention, potentially profitability in the later stages. Joel: Yeah. Taylor Weiss: I think what's most important to PeakSpan is alignment with the entrepreneur. Joel: Okay. Taylor Weiss: And knowing what firm to look for and who to talk to, I think comes with conversations with folks at the firm. And you'll talk to PeakSpan and in one conversation know who PeakSpan is and you will know if... That this is the firm that's right for you or not. Joel: Should that be the standard for every founder that's out there, so they're not wasting their time with some investors? Taylor Weiss: Yeah. Joel: If they don't know from the first call, then it's probably not the one for them. Taylor Weiss: I think I can stand by that because at PeakSpan within the first call you will know, within the first 20, 30 minutes of talking to us if we're the right firm for you. Joel: Got you. Chad: Taylor, thanks for hanging out with us in the Fuel50 booth here. Joel: Yeah. Chad: For our listeners that want to get in touch with you, maybe shoot you a juicy deck, where would you send them? Taylor Weiss: You can go to my LinkedIn or you can send it to my email taylor@peakspancapital.com. Joel: Nice. Chad: This was fun, Chad. Taylor Weiss: Thank you so much for having me guys. Joel: Of course. Chad: Thanks for joining us. That's another one in the can from the Fuel50 booth at HR Tech in Las Vegas. We out. Joel: We out. Outro: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The 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 shoutouts of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, swiss, so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any 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.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese are joined by Keith Sonderling, EEOC Commissioner. We're talking the impact of AI and technology on HR and employment, including issues like remote work accommodations, discrimination claims, and the increasing use of generative AI. Sonderling breaks down the importance of considering the legal and ethical implications of AI in the workplace and urges HR pros to engage in the interactive process when addressing accommodation requests. He also discusses the rise in retaliation claims and shares details about the EEOC's first AI-specific case involving a hiring website. To learn more about the EEOC, visit www.eeoc.gov. Commissioner Sonderling can be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/keith-sonderling. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel50 booth at the heart of HRTech, it's The Chad & Cheese Podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions and we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel50, the science-based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. Music Intro: 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 & Cheese Podcast. Joel: Oh, yeah. It's your parole officer's favorite podcast, AKA The Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman, joined as always, Chad Sowash. We are live... Chad: Hello. Joel: At HRTech from the Fuel50 booth and we are happy to welcome for his fourth appearance... Chad: Fourth! Joel: On our show, the fifth one when he gets a velvet jacket. Chad: Going for the jacket. Joel: He gets a jacket. So he's on his way. Keith Sonderling, EEOC commissioner. Keith, welcome to the podcast again. Keith Sonderling: Thank you for having me back. Chad: Friend of the show. Keith Sonderling: For the fourth time. I really appreciate it. Joel: Friend of Chad and Cheese, he's a Focker. He's a proud Focker. Keith Sonderling: And that's right. And I also have to mention, of course, at HRTech in a full suit and tie for The Chad & Cheese Podcast... Joel: Yeah, you don't stick out at all. Keith Sonderling: I see you're your cool T-shirts. Chad: So it was funny because he was coming down the escalator yesterday when we were meeting him just to kind of say, hey, we're going to check out tomorrow. Joel: It was kind of a Trumpian coming down the escalator... Chad: He's coming down the escalator. He didn't have the tie on. Joel: With the Sbarro pizza in the background. Chad: And it was funny because Joel was like I can't believe he's wearing a suit. I'm like of course he's wearing a suit. Keith Sonderling: Got to play the part. Joel: So Keith, it's your fourth show. Some people don't know you. Just give us a quick Twitter bio about you and what you do. Keith Sonderling: Sure. I'm Keith Sonderling, Commissioner at the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chad: That's a mouthful. Keith Sonderling: EEOC, as you all in HR know it. Chad: There you go. There you go. Keith Sonderling: The charge of discrimination coming across your desk and that's us. Before joining the EEOC, I was the Acting and Deputy Administrator at the Wage and Hour Division. Chad: That sounds like fun. Keith Sonderling: Also something very familiar to HR professionals. And before that, I was an employment lawyer in Florida defending HR professionals... Joel: There you go. Keith Sonderling: In cases against the same government agencies. So I've seen both sides of the equations and... Chad: Both sides. Both sides. Joel: And a Florida grad. We don't have confirmation on the Tim Tebow tramp stamp, but we will eventually get him to a pool where we find out what's going on. Chad: What's the name of the mascot? What's that gator? Is that... Joel: Gators. Keith Sonderling: Albert and Alberta. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Wow, that's edgy. Chad: So do you have Albert between the shoulder blades? Keith Sonderling: That's a question I don't have to answer. Joel: Yeah. So let's jump into it. Dude, you're everywhere. You're at Salesforce. You're at LinkedIn. You're here at HRTech. That's something that most past commissioners don't do. What's your goal? What are you finding? What are you hoping to learn and get out of all this traveling? Keith Sonderling: It's really important for me to get out and leave DC because the action is happening around the country. And if I stay in the Washington DC bubble, I'm not going to be able to learn what HR professionals, what tech buyers, what tech developers, what tech funders, what the practical applications of these really advanced HR software and workplace technology tools, which as you know I believe is the future, is where all this is going. I'm not going to be able to be able to give the guidance and regulate in this area if I don't understand the community, if I don't understand what the concerns are, if I don't even understand what the products are that are being offered. Chad: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: So many times in DC, it's just hypothetical. Well, I believe tech vendors are making these kinds of products that are going to potentially discriminate and do this. And then you come to these shows and the reality of it is that technology doesn't even exist and they don't even, they can't even make programs that do what they're being accused of doing in Washington DC. Joel: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: So that's why it's so important for me to get out to talk to people to walk around these booths to really work with the vendors and help them in a sense too of saying that here's the problem in HR you're trying to solve. All of these problems as you both know have significant legal implications and how can I help give those tools and guidance based upon long-standing laws, nothing new here to actually have them be able to develop the technology to sell the technology and then more importantly the people buying the technologies, the companies, the HR departments, the questions they need answered as well when they buy all these products and suddenly it's in their portfolio. Chad: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: And then also most importantly we can't forget the users of these products, right? Who are the consumers here? It's the employees, it's applicants. Chad: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: And you know that's who we protect at the EEOC as well... Chad: For the impact, right? Keith Sonderling: The impact of that, so you can see how it really it's the entire ecosystem and it's so important for me to learn all the different perspectives that come with that or we won't be able to do our jobs in DC. Joel: Are you doing a secret shopper kind of thing, because you stick out like a sore thumb. [laughter] Keith Sonderling: I probably shouldn't have worn the full suit. Joel: Hi, I'm HR, here to ask you about your unbiased solution... Chad: Would you like a Chad & Cheese t-shirt? Keith Sonderling: Maybe I need to go a little more undercover but no. Chad: There's a lot of fear around AI. We're seeing it in DC, we're seeing it throughout practitioners are afraid. I it's one of the things where you are now digging into it. Should they be that afraid of AI and large language models? Keith Sonderling: The fear that concerns me or they shouldn't be afraid, they should just say, well, okay how are we using this? Chad: Yes. Keith Sonderling: What purpose are we using it for and how is it going to impact my workers? And that's the questions that they should be thinking about when they're buying, when they're figuring how to develop this and those are long-standing questions that HR professionals and talent acquisition has been asking for any kind of recruitment tool. Chad: Yeah. So it's no different. Keith Sonderling: But before AI, before computers, before any of this was on the internet, when you're just doing employment assessments on pencil and paper, there were considerations there. Is this actually going to make a productive workforce or is this going to be a tool that discriminates and that outside of technology has existed for a long time. We need to just go back to that thinking when it comes to these technologies. Here's what I know in HR, here's the impacts of whatever program I'm doing and now because of the scale of Generative AI, the scale of technology, it's just much higher stakes. Chad: That's the key, right? So when we moved from paper and pencil, paper and pen applications to the internet, we saw huge scale, huge in scale, so we were able to get more qualified and more candidates into our systems, but we couldn't manage that very well which is where the black hole came from and there are also regulations and things, the internet applicant rule, a lot of things happened because of that, but that scale was like step one. This is like the next step of scale, right? So we've seen this before and this is what I'm hearing from you. We've seen this before. Don't be afraid. We have to be able to understand, where you guys come in to educate and then enforce if the education's not taking. [laughter] Joel: And then arrests. Keith Sonderling: And then arrests. Wow. Joel: He has handcuffs in his back pocket. Chad: I don't think I've seen anybody... Joel: So you better behave yourself, Chad. Chad: In an orange jumpsuit, due to the EEOC. Have we? Keith Sonderling: Yet. Chad: Yet. Oh yet. [laughter] Joel: Please let us know when they're putting that out. Keith Sonderling: I'll give you a warning. But you know, in all seriousness, relating to issues like for Generative AI now and all the buzz at these conferences is how Generative AI is gonna make your workers more effective. How you'll be able to eliminate positions by incorporating Generative AI. And in your podcast, you talk about all the time, about all the newspaper articles saying X amount of employees are gonna be laid off or a company's saying, well, we're gonna completely not hire for this position anymore because we could use Generative AI. What we're seeing with some of the striking workers in Hollywood related to fears of Generative AI but let's just break that down what it's actually doing to where HR professionals and talent acquisition understand. So if you're saying, if you're in TA now and your boss is saying, okay, we're no longer going to hire for this position because we're gonna use Generative AI, or you're on the other side of the house, we're saying now we need to lay off these workers because the computers can do it faster. Joel: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: Who is that gonna impact? Right? So if you're laying off certain groups, what are the breakdowns on protected characteristics such as race, sex and ethnicity and how is it gonna impact those groups? So before you're saying, well, let's just wipe out this entire team. You think about how much money companies spend on diversity, equity and inclusion, getting in young, new, diverse, talented workers from applicant pools that they've never seen before. So you spent millions and millions of dollars and all this software to get in a diverse workforce. Now you have a decision to say, okay, we have Generative AI. We can now replace this workers who's getting impacted from these reduction in workforce. We've seen it before. Forget technology. First in, first out. Keith Sonderling: Older workers who are making a lot more than some of the younger workers because they've been there longer. And that's the same implications that's gonna happen when you're talking about using Generative AI. So if you don't do it carefully, right? A theme we've talked about before, just the amount of care and time and effort it needs to take when integrating these softwares, what are you gonna have? You're gonna lay off a whole group, which is now gonna be your most diverse group that you've just done through your recruiting. And the impacts of that are gonna be discriminatory. Or you're saying, well, the older workers, they may be impacted because they don't understand the technology as much. We don't wanna spend more resources to go out and train them. That can be age discrimination. And that is not much different than we've seen in reduction in workforces in the past. How certain groups get broken down. So I think there just needs to be a lot extra care when you're talking about the Generative AI replacing workers or even making workers more efficient, right? Think about that. Now, ChatGPT is gonna make your job 80% more efficient. Well, you need to learn how to do it and that may be difficult for disabled workers if they don't have the accommodations necessary. So again, it's a lot of those basic HR principles that we can't lose sight of just because it's new technology. Chad: So I'm gonna flip the, the script real quick. One of the reasons why disabled workers are having a moment right now is because they were able to work remote, right? Now, we have all these companies who are moving everybody back into the offices and that is not something that many of these individuals can actually do. So therefore from your standpoint, are you actually, you and the team looking at how this move back to the office is bad from a diversity, equity, and inclusion standpoint and negatively impacting individuals with disabilities who are doing the job at record levels. Joel: And these are people hired remotely. Chad: Yes. Joel: Thought their job would always be remote. Chad: Exactly. Joel: And now the switcheroo, it's not. Keith Sonderling: And you're seeing a lot of articles on that. Chad: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: And let me just take a step back. You know, at the EEOC, the federal government, we can't get involved in business decisions of whether or not your employees should work remotely or they should work in the office. The employers still have that, outside of a collective bargain agreement or a contract, which could be breach of contract claims in what you're talking about saying, well, my contract says I get to work from home, now I come to the office. Different story, right? Our perspective is whatever decision you make, whether you allow certain groups to work remotely, whether everyone has to come back in the office, that's up to you. But for those who can't come back to the office. Chad: Yes. Keith Sonderling: Because of a disability, you have to engage in that process. And what we're seeing now is so much pressure to get everyone back in the office. Chad: Well, isn't that an accommodation and something that is normal for a company to talk about? Is it a normal accommodation for an individual who needs to be able to work from home? Keith Sonderling: Right. But we never saw it before the pandemic... Chad: Because they weren't working. Keith Sonderling: Those accommodations. People weren't working remotely. Chad: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: People were coming to the office. And if you said, I don't want to come in the office five days a week, because I have fear about riding the subway system because let's just say, there's significant crime in my city now and that gives me anxiety, or I'm worried about getting the next strain of the virus, what would you say? Okay, come to work or you're fired. Get on the subway and get to work. You've never really seen those before. But now, this is really coming in to where employers can't just put those aside because they're really coming in under mental health claims, under the Americans with Disability Act, which you're alluding to. In that sense where before there was never a federally protected right to telework. Chad: Yeah. Keith Sonderling: Remote work. Now what we're seeing is that the claims are coming in because employers are saying, I can't come back to the office because I'm depressed related to coming back to my old world, that I'm so much more productive at home. I have a new life at home. That's one thing. But now, they're saying that my mental health is not allowing me to return to that world. And I've gone and sought treatment and I'm coming to UHR and saying, I am disabled under the Americans with Disability Act. And if HR departments and this is my key message when it comes to this whole conversation, if you're not empowered to go through that interactive process and if you are under pressure by your bosses to get everyone back in the office and you are ignoring those claims, because you either think they're ridiculous, they don't think they're right, that's not for you to determine. Keith Sonderling: You have to engage in that process to see if that, here's the condition, the employee's coming, what are the accommodations related to this condition working with their mental health provider Or their MD, whatever it is And saying, well, maybe a remote work schedule is what that accommodation is. Maybe it's coming in at different hours. Maybe it's alternative commuting methods. Maybe it's having noise canceling headsets or having dim lights. The answer may not be remote work. But just engaging in that process with their healthcare professionals is what HR departments need to focus on. To your point, they know how to do that, but they have to be empowered to do that even though there's such a push to return to the office Because it is going to impact disabled workers more than others and we're really seeing the mental health claims rise significantly. And what do we mean by mental health at the EEOC? The top claims are anxiety, PTSD and depression. And we're seeing those claims really increase year after year. And that's where disability discrimination has been there for a long time, but we're seeing the types of claims coming in and a lot of that is simply just not engaging in that process to see what those accommodations can be. Joel: Where is napping on the list? Because I'm waiting for that to be a disability that my employer recognizes. [laughter] Chad: 'Cause I don't recognize napping. [laughter] Joel: You guys have been in the news a lot with indictments and in cases that are being brought. What's the reason for that? Is there a trend on the kinda cases that you're seeing these days as opposed to years past? Keith Sonderling: Yeah, well, we have had an uptick in litigation, and there was an uptick in charges of discrimination. And for our fiscal year 2022 increase, which went up 20% from the year before, a lot of those were related to the post-COVID vaccination claims. So everyone was always asking, tell us how COVID has impacted the workforce. Well, we had additional 10,000 religious discrimination charges related to employers, employees who did not wanna get the vaccine, and fighting over that. So we saw that blip related to there. So that's one reason for the increase there. But as far as litigation is concerned, you are seeing an uptick in those cases. And a lot of those, again, it's related to what those trends are. And we're seeing a lot of claims related to disability discrimination increase. In addition to the number one cause of discrimination in the United States year after year is, wanna take a guess? Oh, maybe I can, I'm taking over the podcast here. Chad: Go ahead. Yeah, no, no. Keith Sonderling: That's not how it works? Chad: I'm not an expert in this. This is your job. [laughter] Joel: My gender affirming something or other. [laughter] Keith Sonderling: I was waiting for you to say something. But the number one claim of discrimination across the board, in all seriousness, is retaliation. Chad: Ah yes, yes. Keith Sonderling: And we're seeing that because it's tacked on to other claims. So you come in and say I wasn't paid the same as my coworker who's of different national origin. And the employer says, yes, you were and now you're getting paid less. Or yes, you were and now you're fired. So we really see those claims in addition to the underlying claims where you request an accommodation, or you claim you're not paid equally, or you claim you're discriminated against and then something happens to your employment. So we're seeing a combination of a lot of those in the litigations. So you have the underlying claim of discrimination and you have the retaliation and that just tacks on more causes of action for employers. Joel: And you just had your first AI specific case. Talk about that and how it ended. Keith Sonderling: So this was a case that we brought out of New York. And it was a company that was using their hiring website. And this is sort of the broader debate, which you'll hear about, what is AI? What is machine learning? Is this really AI or not? And most people would say, including me, that this was not AI. But listen to the facts here. So there was a company that offered, it was a Chinese company in New York, that offered English tutoring service in the United States. And their application system, which was just their website, somebody went and applied and they put in their birthday, immediately rejected. Same person went back... Chad: Hello. Keith Sonderling: And changed their birthday by a few years to be a few years younger and was immediately accepted. Now, none of us are machine learning PhD, MIT scientists, right? But I think the three of us collectively... Chad: Can deduce. Keith Sonderling: With our small computer brains... Joel: We could crack pretty easily. [laughter] Keith Sonderling: Could probably make that code pretty easily. Right? Chad: We could crack that code. Keith Sonderling: This is my A-team here, bring in the best investigators, Chad and Cheese on the case. But you see here, I mean, that's just basic coding. That's not sophisticated algorithms, in the sense. So there... Chad: They blamed the AI. Keith Sonderling: They blamed the computers, they blamed the system. They also said that in other countries, they're allowed to do this. Chad: It's not us. Keith Sonderling: This doesn't fly, in that sense, where that's just straight age discrimination. But it goes to a broader point, which we've talked about on earlier podcasts about how quickly, on the applicant side, that these cases can scale. So think about every person who's qualified for that job, that would have applied for that job and would have been rejected because of their age, or didn't see that advertisement because of their age, could be in a potential class of age discrimination against that employer. And that's why it's so critical in the talent acquisition space where having your systems ensuring that they're not automatically screening out people based on age, people based on gender, what these tools can allow you to do, or where you're actually doing your advertisement placements. Keith Sonderling: And there's a lot of technology out there that's gonna help with diversity recruiting, getting job ads in different places. Well, if there is, whether it's a line of code, or the algorithm is designed not to show the advertisement, which of course is federally protected to certain groups, based on race, age, sex we really see this more in the age context, like new college grads, let's just go there. Everyone who is qualified for the job can be a part of that class of saying that they were discriminated against and the employer would be liable for not potentially hiring them. There's a complicated analysis to get there. Keith Sonderling: But you see the value of these cases, how large they can get quickly. And then another part too, we did in one case, we made the employer use AI to go through in a job board to go through their system to make sure that there wasn't any discriminatory terms too close to each other that would preclude people to apply or not to apply. So you can see there's also good uses of this too, which we've talked about on the front end advertisement side. But we haven't seen the large scale cases yet. And why is that? It's because a lot of employees still don't know they're being subject to the algorithms. They don't know whether it's an interview, whether their natural language process is looking at what they're saying, that consent requirement, which we don't have yet. Keith Sonderling: Until we see that, I think it's gonna be very hard for these cases to come to us. Because don't forget when you come to the EEOC, you're just claiming discrimination based on protected category. So you're coming in saying, I was discriminated based on my age. There's not a box that says technology discrimination. Just like earlier on, there wasn't COVID discrimination. So we have to then do the investigation to see, well, was this COVID related? Was this technology related? And that takes time and resources. So until you see changes in the law and consent, or employers start doing consent, you'll start correlating some of these cases that will come in. Joel: Keith, thanks for popping in. Chad: There it is. Joel: We know you're a busy guy visiting a lot of companies and people and employers. Chad: Be on the look out. Joel: For those listeners that wanna connect with you, maybe have some questions, where would you send them? Keith Sonderling: Find me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect on there. Joel: Soon to be sporting a Chad & Cheese smoking jacket on his LinkedIn profile. [laughter] Joel: Chad, it's always fun to sit down with Keith. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back, like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Hallelujah! Holy sh!t! Where’s the Tylenol? This week, we’re checking it once, we’re checking it twice, and we’re going to talk about who’s been naughty, and who’s been nice in 2023. It's a combination of eight companies and individuals, so pour yourself an egg nog and enjoy. Just don't shoot your eye out! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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. [music] Joel: Ohhh yeah. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the tylenol? Hey, kids. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Kringle Cheeseman. Chad: This is Chad. I'm feeling naughty, Sowash. Joel: And on this week's episode, we're checking it once, we're checking it twice. We're gonna find out who is naughty and Nice in 2023. Let's do this. What's up Chad. Chad: Hello. Hello. Hello. Joel: Hello. Hello. Hello. Well, you are cleanly shorn for the holidays. My man. Chad: You can only see my top half. Wait a minute. [laughter] Joel: I don't wanna know anything about those jingle bells, my friend. I don't wanna know anything about those jingle bells. That's not my department. Chad: It's a jingle bell rock, is what we call it. Joel: The podcast has not devolved into that realm quite yet. When we're that hard up for listeners, maybe we will explore... Chad: Give it time. Joel: Explore the bottom half of the shorn Chad. [laughter] Joel: Speaking of which I'm aware, he didn't make my list. Did cardboard Chad make the naughty or Nice list this year? Chad: No. I think, he definitely should have made the Nice list. But we will say honorable measure. Joel: Well, we know. He got a little naughty with cardboard Dolly Parton, at Shem, I don't know the jury's out on whether cardboard Chad was naughty or Nice this year. So anyway Chad, I think this is the fourth or fifth year that we've done this. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The news is pretty light in the holiday season. So all the podcasts and every show out there takes an opportunity to look at the past, look at the future. Which we'll certainly do, in a little bit. But we wanted to do another Naughty or Nice list. Chad and I came up with two recipients each of a naughty award and two recipients each of a Nice award from 2023 in the world of work. I know you have a beach to get to. It's already happy hour as it always is in Portugal. And I have gifts to wrap. I'm not a very proficient gift wrapper, so it takes me a long time. [laughter] Chad: That's why they made gift bags. Joel: That's right. That's right. So, here's how the format's gonna work. We're gonna go, I'm gonna go first with a Nice, then you're gonna go with a Nice, we're gonna take a break, two Nices in a row and a Naughty. And we're gonna load up the naughtiness, on the backend, which is how we always do. And then we'll call it a day. And wish everyone to do and a happy holiday break. Sound good to you? Chad: Let's do it. SFX: Oops. Winning. Joel: Alright. Number one on my Nice list here. Okay. So as of 2020, the pandemic, the work from home, the remote workforce, unicorns galore. We were always wondering like, who was gonna come out of this group the big winner. And we had Oyster, we had Remote, we had Velocity Global, we had Personio. HiBob, Eightfold is kind of trying to be in there, and by all accounts, it seems to look like Deel. D-E-E-L is the big deal. So let me give you some numbers here. They're five years old, okay? They have a woman co-founder. My list is kinda heavy on the females this year. Woman Co-founder. Chad: Love it. Joel: They've raised $679 million. They have a $7 billion valuation, by the way, a few a year ago, I think of that was it 12 billion? So if they've almost been split in half, imagine what everyone else has done in that time. Remote has a $3 billion valuation. Oyster has a $1 billion valuation. According to LinkedIn. Their headcount has grown 118% in the last six months, 236% in the last year, and 675% in the last two years. September of 2023, their hiring has ramped up. So since the fall, they've gone back into an uptrend where most others have flatlined or gone down. Joel: Customers include Dropbox, Nike, Shopify, Reddit, Subway, and your favorite, Red Bull. A story by the information says that they've hit $400 million in ARR, for 2023. That's up from 295 million in January. And in 2020 they made a meager, a modest $1.4 million. So if you wanna talk about Rocket Ships, Deel is a rocket ship. So what's up for the future? They have an I to an IPO in 2025, according to a story in Bloomberg. They have $550 million in the bank and they remain profitable to the tune of roughly $5 million per month over the next 18 months. They plan to spend as much as $200 million on acquisitions. So can you say M&A for 2024 and an IPO in 2025, Deel makes the top of my Nice list this year, and it looks like they are gonna be the big winners of the remote work trend that we saw Take hold in 2020. So, Deel very Nice. [applause] Chad: Cheers to Deel. And I'd say in comparison, Deel had a 10 by 10 booth at HR Tech in 2022. Eightfold had two spaceships for God's sakes. And it just looks like Deel is running their business, in a much better fashion, obviously than the Eightfold kids are. So, yeah. Cheers, cheers to Deel. Joel: By the way, I think their founders are both under 30. So if you wanna look at some zest and some youngins coming up, look no further than Deel. Chad: Some zest. SFX: That's winning. Chad: Alright, my first Nice, get ready. Google for jobs. That's right. In 2023, we've seen several signs of life from the Google for Jobs project. Tom Chevalier over at Appcast Labs noticed Google performing new layout tests and what I would call a public beta, providing screenshots of jobs showing up in paid ad section. You heard that. Then Alexandra Tchaikovsky shared screenshots of different Google for Jobs layouts providing more fluid user experience versus the current chunky look. Yes, it's taken forever to get here, but progress is good. Why does Google make the Nice list? Well, Indeed needed to do something to respond. So in a very out of character move, they tried forcing cost per apply and cost per apply started on the market all at once. Indeed had to get in front of Google because they've educated the market for years on CPC. And if Google was coming to the market with CPC for jobs, well, Google wins that fight. So Indeed needed to get the industry educated on their new products quickly, too quickly. So quickly, those efforts collapsed under their own weight. Yes, Indeed's inability to roll out new products just imploded because Google forced the market. So the Google for Jobs project gets placed on my Nice list for driving excitement and bumbling in the market. We're looking forward to all that Google has to bring us in 2024. SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright. Joel: Very Nice. Warming up with a couple of Nice listers. Alright, we'll take a quick break and get back to two more Nices and we'll tease you with little Naughty, and then bring it into ultimate naughtiness at the end. Alright, Chad, you're about halfway through with beer number one. I'm curious of how far we're gonna get by the end of the show. [laughter] Chad: I'm no lightweight. Joel: Before the break, I had Deel, as my first Nice list recipient. I went super big... SFX: I'm happy. Joel: On the first one, super big. You know how I like it, and on this one, I'm gonna go super small. 'Cause I wanted to kinda balance my Nice list out. Chad: I like it. Joel: Now, you and I have been doing Firing Squad. It was our first show outside of our weekly show. It was the first kind of like we wanted to do a Shark Tank kind of thing, do a lot of startups and who wanted exposure. So we've been doing Firing Squad for a long time. We've killed a lot of companies. We've lifted a lot up. But there was one last year that took me totally by surprise. And generally with Firing Squad, I look at the company, I look at CrunchBase, I look at the founders, their experience and what they've done. And I generally have a good idea of how I'm going to comment about the company, what my rating and review's gonna be. What's that? Chad: Or you think you do? Joel: Or I think I do. So this past year, a company called Vette, came on the show and Vette what they do is they have real human beings. They have a contract workforce of like 600 people. And when you apply to a job, they have an integration into Indeed. And when you apply, you get a note saying, "Hey, would you like to interview now?" And they go, "oh, okay." And then they actually get a call from a human being. I thought that sounds like the worst idea for 2023 that I've ever heard. Chatbots are taking over. Automation is taking over. AI is like... No one is going to pay for human beings to talk to people. Forget about it. So we got on the call, Amber Wanner is the founder again, we're going female on my Nice list. Joel: And they launched in 2020. They've raised about two and a half million dollars. So they're on par with that usual startup flavor, a little bit of a couple million and getting into this. And I thought, I'm gonna destroy this company. She pitch it to us, sold me on it, and I got to thinking that, man, we need some humanity in 2023. And this company, little startup is taking on the paradoxes and the big guys, and like bringing humanity to this industry. When we both gave them arousing applause. I expected to give them the guns. After we talked with them, I messaged Amber and I said, "If you want someone to help you, if you needed... Like, I wanna help your mission and your cause." Full disclosure in the time since then, I'm on with the company, so take my niceness with whatever you want, but full disclosure, I'm helping these guys. And it's real exciting the energy around what they're doing, the humanity that they're bringing to our industry, which tries to get more and more robotic every year. So for me, my second Nice list recipient goes to Vette, and that's V-E-T-T-E.io, in case you didn't know. Chad: As in Corvette. And I love the whole skipping of the interview scheduling. It's funny because that's been like, literally that was like a platform for I don't know how many startups, a couple of years ago. We kinda evolved past that, but that was one of the biggest issues. And now this platform, literally, I think it was like 80% or something like that. You probably know better than I do. Skips the interview scheduling entirely. Because as soon as you apply and you go through the little application process, you can go directly to the interview if you meet all the requirements. And that to me was just genius. SFX: That's winning. Joel: Alright, let's get to your second Nice. Chad: Well, if you've been listening to the podcast this year, kids you know, if you've been watching news you know, it's power to the people. It's the UAW is helping people understand they are stronger together. More importantly, Rugged individualism was pure bullshit. Something manufactured by the C-suite, because as individuals you can't create a movement. And movements are what scare the shit out of boards everywhere. And C-suites everywhere, which is why people like Elon Musk and Mary Barrack hate unions because one person isn't a factor. One person can't really move the needle, but hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands, now you're talking. Plus even those people who were not in the union saw a bump, which UAW, president Shawn Fain calls the UAW bump. GM is bumping non-union wages, not to mention their increasing benefits for non-union employees told Toyota, 9% wage bump, general dynamics, non-union and benefits bump while Stellantis is providing bumps and they're actually slated to build new plants in Illinois. There are plenty of unions out there doing the hard work of pulling people together and creating fair and equitable movements. But in 2023, there was one union head and shoulders above the rest, and that was Shawn Fain and the UAW. [applause] Chad: Howard of the people. Joel: Is it safe to say that if you had a person of the year, would it be Shawn Fain? Chad: Yes. 'Cause he represents more than just him, right? It's like you see a lot of these people who represent a technology and whatnot. He represents these workers, the people who do the hard work every single day. Joel: I have a sneaking suspicion that Shawn Fain might make your predictions list somewhere for 2024. I don't know. You have to tune in for that one. Alright. Enough niceness. Enough of the Nice. Let's get into the evil, the evil people. The naughtiness. The naughtiness. Okay. Making my first Naughty lister. Alright, Chad, you mentioned unions, power to the people, the rise of the worker, which was all a positive trend in 2023. The trend that I see in my Naughty list, if I'm going the opposite direction, is the powers that be having a real problem with the power that workers were garnering. And specifically in the work from home movement. Get your ass back in the office. Remote work, hybrid work conditions, like all of that came to a head. And the powers that be were not happy with what was going on. Greed always as good and it was very prevalent in 2023. So my first naughty, she's the pity city CEO. I'm gonna play the soundbite from her, which is entertaining. And then we'll talk about it on the other side. Enjoy. Andi Owens: Great question, Chris. A lot of questions came through about how can we stay motivated if we're not gonna get a bonus, what can we do? What can we do? Some of them were Nice and some of them were not so Nice. So I'm gonna address this head on. The most important win thing we can do right now is focus on the things that we can control. None of us could have predicted COVID. None of us could have predicted supply chain. None of us could have predicted bank failures. But what we can do is stay in front of our customers, provide the best customer service we can. Get our orders out our door, treat each other well. Be kind, be respectful. Focus on the future because it will be bright. It's not good to be in a situation we're in today, but we're not gonna be here forever. It is going to get better. So lead, lead by example. Treat people well. Talk to them. Be kind and get after it. Don't ask about, "What are we gonna do if we don't get a bonus?" Get the damn $26 million. Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need, and not thinking about what you gonna do if we don't get a bonus. Alright? Can I get some commitment for that? I would appreciate that. I had an old boss who said to me one time, "You can visit pity city, but you can't live there." So people leave pity city, let's get it done. Thank you. Have a great day. Joel: So that was Andi Owens, CEO of MillerKnoll. Andi, by the way, made over $5 million last year. Only one million of that was salary. 2 million was received in stock options, and another 2 million was awarded as stock, and the rest came from other types of compensation. This was all about her and not the workers. There was such a tone deaf element to 2023. The power structure was disrupted. And the pity city, CEO, to me was the epitome of the CEO of 2023, being really unhappy with the workers, not getting the bonuses that I want, not getting paid enough while the workers had to pull the weight to get her what she wanted. Very selfish, very greedy. A very common theme for 2023. So for me, it was easy. My number one Naughty goes to Andi Owens the pity CEO of MillerKnoll. Alright, that's my first naughty. There's a lot more naughty to come. We'll be right back. Alright, Chad, let's keep the naughty going. Your first one is... Chad: Child labor. My first shout out, though, I'm gonna start this off positive, is I'd like to thank Reid Maki, the Child Labor advocacy Director at the National Consumers League and Child Labor Coalition for coming on the show and doing an interview on this topic months ago and enlightening us on this topic. So in 2023 states like Minnesota, Arkansas, New Jersey, Minnesota I said Minnesota. Missouri, [laughter] Chad: Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and many more are rolling back to the 1930s. That's right. The child labor laws, which were created in the late 1930s. They're rolling those back. And these states, politicians say it's because their labor shortage has impacted industries like meat packing and construction. Yes. Kids and slaughterhouses and construction sites. That doesn't sound dangerous at all, does it? So when Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed her state's new, more permissive child labor law, she said the measure would, "Allow young adults to develop their skills in the workforce." First and foremost, a 14-year-old is not a "young adult" Plus, I can guaran fucking tee you that none of Kim's kids, grandkids, or anybody who's close to her fucking DNA are working any of these jobs, okay? So she's just looking for poor people to do the work at an incredibly cheap labor. Right? More importantly, here are the economic, the living wage in Des Moines. Chad: Yes. Des Moines for a single mom with a kid is $67,000 a year. While the average meat packing salary in Iowa is less than 25k a year. Minimum wage is still set at 725 an hour, which is a pitiful 15k. So why so low? When Tyson Foods, Global Foods, JBS, National Beef Packing, and Seaboard Corp. Financial statements show a 120% collective jump in their gross profits since the pandemic and a 500% increase in net income. So these long lists Tyson Foods, Global Foods, JBS, National Beef Packing Company and Seaboard Corp. Recently also announced a $1 billion dividend and stock buyback. And on top of that, these companies paid more than 3 billion to shareholders since the pandemic began. So names of the 2023 Naughty List are Iowa Governor, I Hate Poor People, Kim Reynolds, Tyson Foods, Global Foods, JBS, national Beef Packing Company, and Seaboard Corp for turning the clock back to the 1930s. Shame on you. You're getting a lump of coal. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: Alright. Starting the Naughty off on the right way. Alright. My second one is Aussie twofer. Chad. That's right. Australia. The Arkansas of the Southern Hemisphere never ceases to entertain us, which brings me to, first up we have Nicole Duncan. We've never talked about Nicole in the show. I did it in my research and this is what she had to say about work from home. Nicole Duncan: Absolutely passionate about people returning to work. This generation is just selfish. In our younger days we had to, we caught trains, buses, whatever, ferries to get to work. Yes, it did take two or three hours, but you've got to be in the office 'cause you don't know what you don't know. And until these CEOs make a decision and get bulky about this, it's not going to change 'cause the unemployment rate is still too low. So... Joel: You can't blame people for choosing to work from home if they're given an option, Nicole. But I think you'll find that more businesses are not going to give that option. Nicole Duncan: Well, that's the trouble. I mean, as you rightly said, the first question people ask is, what's your flexible work policy? And then what's the salary I'm on? And things like hotels are suffering in the city. I mean, there's less business travel. They do it all on teams, so they're suffering. There was a big article in the AFR on that last week. I mean, cleaners, people who make your coffee, your lunches, all of those sorts of things. We want a vibrant city for visitors to come to. And it needs to look busy. It needs to look vibrant. Joel: People who make the fastest... Nicole Duncan: Not to look as sort of slow and rambling. Chad: Yeah. Nicole Duncan: And we examine the city all the time and it's a very big frustration. They get distractions at home. Joel: And I used to go to school uphill both ways in the snow. I mean, like, is there more? Get off my lawn moment than Nicole Duncan. So a little bit about Nicole. She's the CEO and managing director of CR Commercial Property Group. So shockingly, she has an interest in people getting back to work and the world getting back to the way that it was. She also employs less than 50 people according to LinkedIn. Chad: Oh, Jesus. Joel: So this isn't about her company and her people. This is about the money that she's making on commercial real estate and making sure that that faucet does not dry up. She also has zero jobs posted on their website, which means she doesn't hire people. Like she's not a big hiring company that needs people in the office. It has nothing to do with her. It has everything to do with her bank account. So she's clearly talking her book in this interview, but is there a better... I couldn't find a better get off my lawn interview than I did with Nicole Duncan, but I said this was a double Aussie Naughty list Chad, and this brings me to Tim Gurner. You remember Tim Gurner who was the CEO that said out loud what everyone else was thinking. Let's hear what Tim said back in the end of summer. I believe. Tim Gurner: I think the problem that we've had is that we've... People decided that they didn't really wanna work so much anymore through COVID. And that has had a massive issue on productivity. Tradies have definitely pulled back on productivity. They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years and we need to see that change. We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40-50% in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around. I mean, there's been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. Tim Gurner: So it's a dynamic that has to change. We've got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy, which is what the whole global, the world is trying to do. The governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment to get that to some sort of normality. And we're seeing it. I think every employer now is saying seeing it. I mean, there is definitely massive layoffs going off. People might not be talking about it, but people are definitely laying people off and we're starting to see less arrogance in the employment market. And that has to continue 'cause that will cascade across the cost balance. Joel: So we covered on the show. I won't spend too much more time on that. By the way, Tim is one of Australia's richest men. So he knows about the little guy. He knows about the working man and woman and what they're going through. So for me, my Naughty list ends and begins in Australia in this case. But no better soundbites that I could share than those two winners. Grab an oil can of Foster's if you're in Australia, 'cause it sounds like some of the execs are pretty raw. Chad: This is gonna surprise nobody. My last Naughty list goes to Elon Musk and his killing of Twitter. I have to admit that I never really loved Twitter, but I enjoyed it and I used it daily. And about a month ago, I deleted the app from my phone. Why? Well, if you've been hiding in a closet or building a meta bunker over the last year or so, you know that Twitter was bought by Elon Musk at $44 billion price tag. And now it's about less than half that. It's worth less than half that. So how did this happen? Simple answer is Elon Musk. Long answer is it starts with Elon chasing advertisers away by allowing and trying to normalize disinformation, trolls, antisemitic tweets, and incels who now rule the fucking platform. Big companies want none of that. And they have pulled billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter for the fear of their ads being in such a toxic environment. Chad: And then Elon goes on the stage and publicly say, fuck you to those enterprise advertisers calling out specifically Bob Iger. You might know him, CEO of Disney, giving those companies a public stamp of approval to stay the fuck away from Twitter. So how does Elon Musk make up the 25 billion plus in losses without all this enterprise cash? He makes the blue check mark worthless and yet charges for it, which only drives more people away. He's planning to charge all users at least a dollar. And he plans to charge companies for a 1990s job jab board he's calling a hiring platform, something "cooler than LinkedIn". Oh, I also forgot that Linda, paper tiger Yaccarino is targeting small and medium sized businesses to fuel Twitter's future growth. And all of this while Elon rebrands as X. And then you just type in X.com. It still resolves to wait for it. Yeah. Let's write Twitter.com. That's right, kids. Chad: It's not X. It's called fucking... SFX: Just the tip. Chad: Twitter.com. And this, this is the genius we were all waiting for. SFX: This. Chad: Nope, not this guy. In 2023, Elon gets put on the Naughty list for effectively killing Twitter, a platform we all enjoyed and some guys like Joel even still loves. Joel: Elon would have made my list for his morality argument as to why people should get back in the office. And his quote that the laptop class is in la la land was one of my favorites. Chad: If he was Australian, he would have made it. Joel: Yeah. He might have. He... Born in South Africa, a few continents over, at least the same hemisphere. You know how I am with geography. Anyway, that's it. Another year in the books. Can't wait to see what happens in 2024. Destined to be a lot of Naughty with politics heating up with the election, geopolitics, and hopefully more money with interest rates going down, coming into the world of work, which Chad and I will be happy to talk about heading into next year. Any final thoughts? Chad: And there's gonna be some naughty AI coming. You know that's gonna be happening. We're already seeing it. There's gonna be even more naughty AI. Joel: I have no doubt. And it'll be a lot of fun to talk about. So what are you doing for Christmas? Chad: I am going to find a beach or some sun and some beer. And when I was 19, no, I was actually 18, born and bred in the Midwest. So I believed what I was told. The four seasons are the best. You've got to live through all four seasons. And number two, snow on Christmas was the best. I was in the jungle for Christmas. I was on a beach for Christmas. Guess what? I don't do anymore. Snow for fucking Christmas. SFX: That's winning. Joel: Well, good on you. I will be in the snow-less Midwest where we don't even get to enjoy that at Christmas time. It should be wet, and probably 50 degrees. But I will be with family. And that'll be that'll warm my heart as your dome is getting warm under the sunlight. It's been a fun year. We'll see you in 2024 with some predictions. But until then, Chad, Naughty and Nice, checking it twice. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese are joined by Heather Bussing, a legal expert in employment law. They discuss the topic of pay equity and how it impacts diversity and inclusion in the workplace. They explore how technology can help address pay equity issues and the importance of pay transparency. They also touch on the rise of unions and the impact of COVID-19 on changing perspectives in the workforce. Heather shares her insights on how employers can navigate these challenges and ensure fair compensation for their employees. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel 50 booth at the heart of HR Tech. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions and we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel 50, the scienced- based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. Intro Music: 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: Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It's your parole officer's favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always the black to my Jack. Chad: Yes. Joel: Chad Sowash. And we are happy to welcome Heather Bussing of Bussing Law to the show. Chad: Bussing Law. You need to like, if you do commercials, you need that Monster Truck Bussing law. Joel: Sunday. Sunday. Sunday. Sunday. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. It's like prestige... Chad: Prestige at Global. Joel: Prestige Global. Chad: Okay. Heather, so you have already finished your talk, which is why you're so relaxed, which is why you're so relaxed. Heather Bussing: I'm so happy. Joel: She's barefoot. Chad: And I appreciate that. Joel: Crisscrossed applesauce on the chair, man. Chad: I love it. Heather Bussing: Yes. Well, it's because my feet don't touch the floor. Chad: That's nice. That's nice. Joel: I think the chairs move up and down. I'll have to look at it later. Heather Bussing: My name is and I'm five years old. Joel: So what'd you talk about? Chad: What did you... Yeah. What'd you talk about yesterday? Heather Bussing: We talked about pay equity. Chad: Okay, that's big. Heather Bussing: We talked about how pay equity can begin to change your DE&I focus. Chad: How's that work? Okay. Because for me, this is more about equity. Heather Bussing: Yes. Chad: Than it is diversity and inclusion, right? Heather Bussing: Yeah. Yeah. Chad: So how do we get those others in there as we're working on equity? Heather Bussing: Yeah. There's a couple things. One is pay equity involves money. Chad: Yeah. Heather Bussing: So if you get that right... Chad: And/or lack of money. Yes. Heather Bussing: Yeah. Well, but money is a proxy for so many things in an organization. Chad: That's a good point. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. Heather Bussing: A budget is a statement of values and what you pay people is... Joel: Keeping score. Heather Bussing: Keeping score. Yeah. Exactly. So if you can start to get that right, it's just math, right? So you can route around all of the, you really need to do x because you can see it. Chad: But it's just math. But that is math in many cases that actually impacts the margins so therefore, that's one of the reasons why if you can pay your people lower and this is how obviously management has fought for many, many, many, many, many years, why not get away with it? If you can pay them lower, then we get more money into our pockets, margin wise, stock buybacks, all that other fund stuff. So why not do that? So why has it taken so long? We're not a parity right now, right? Heather Bussing: Oh no. Chad: We're in 2023 and we're still seeing huge gaps. Heather Bussing: Yep. Chad: Why, if it's just a math problem, why are we still seeing this problem? Heather Bussing: Because until now we had to do multi-variate regressions on Excel spreadsheets. Joel: Bless you. What did she say? Chad: Did she say that out loud? Joel: You need to dumb it down for the Chad and Cheese show. Chad: This is a kid friendly podcast. Watch your mouth, Heather. Joel: Yeah. Watch out. Heather Bussing: So what you have to... Joel: Alright. Go, dig into that. Heather Bussing: Yeah. What you had to do was do a statistical analysis... Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: About who was paid in what pay grades and then figure out if the outliers were correlated to a protected class. Usually gender, but race is also pretty common. Chad: Yeah. Heather Bussing: But with technology now we can do all the protected classes. Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: So we can track that if we have the data and we don't have data on everything like LGBTQ. Chad: Right. Because not, well, not everybody identifies either. Heather Bussing: Exactly. And I don't blame them. So the statistical work is much easier and then once you have figured out how to group your comparable jobs, because what we've been doing until now is we look at people's job titles and we look at their pay grade. Chad: Okay. Heather Bussing: And then we compare their pay. And that's not really comparing whether there's equal work for equal pay. Chad: Okay. Heather Bussing: It's whether there's equal pay for equal pay. So you end up with a self licking ice cream cone that doesn't really tell you anything. But it's always good news. Joel: Again, with the potty mouth, the self licking ice cream, self licking ice cream. Chad: I think, yeah. I think that's... Joel: Give us the current state of pay equity. We had when DEI was popular and everyone was talking about it, this was a hot issue. We've seen laws passed recently. We saw Indeed require pay range. Chad: Or they inserted it. Joel: Although we've seen companies get around that. Give us the current state of the issue of pay transparency. Heather Bussing: Okay. Well first I wanna talk about Claudia Goldin who won the Nobel Prize this week. Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: For her work on women in the workplace. And basically she said, we stalled out during the pandemic and women lost ground and pay equity and there are still tremendous gaps between men and women doing the exact same jobs. Chad: But why? Because the math is there, the platforms are there. It just seems like to me and this is, I think the missing piece, the will is not there, the will of organizations. And at this point, unless organizations are mandated to do this, it's not going to happen. So what do we do? Without the government, what are we gonna do? We're gonna sit here, we're gonna continue to have this conversation. Heather Bussing: This is where pay transparency helps, right? Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: Because if everybody has to post legitimate pay ranges, not just wild... Joel: Not zero to 2 million. Heather Bussing: Right, exactly. Chad: But that's just on the incoming, right? What about all the disparity that's happening within the actual workforce itself? I know that's a start for people coming in and the people on the outside can look out to these jobs and say, wait a minute, I'm not getting paid that salary. So there is some of that, but that's an external, what about the current internal parity that we just can't see? Heather Bussing: Technology can help because we're getting much, much better at being able to understand the work. So, we're looking at skills, developing skills, taxonomies, figuring out what's involved in the work. It's early days, but we're also getting better job descriptions because there is technology that can help create that so that you don't have to get all the weird things out of recruiting C drives and all this stuff over at worker's comp, so once we have a really great understanding of the work, we can get really accurate analysis and assessment of what's going on with pay equity. And then it's cheaper to fix it. Joel: Yeah. Heather Bussing: It's cheaper to fix it than fight about it. It's also evidence. Chad: But if they're getting away with it now, it's not costing them anything right now. Heather Bussing: Well, California is requiring companies to report pay to the regulators and they have the same technology that we do. Chad: Yeah. So you're talking about these platforms. Give us some ideas of some platforms that you would suggest for any company who really cares about pay equity. Heather Bussing: Yeah. Well, let me make my FTC disclosure. [laughter] Joel: Sure. [laughter] Heather Bussing: I do a lot of content work for salary.com and ADP and they are both on track and doing amazing work. Chad: Now what about startups like Syndio? Those are companies that are just specifically focused, narrowly focused on pay equity. What about companies like that? Heather Bussing: It depends on how they've approached the, how do we compare the work aspect. And I don't know. Part of what I'm here to do today is go around and find out what people are doing. Chad: Great. Heather Bussing: So I will check them out. Thank you. Joel: So Chad talks about government and regulations, There's a piece of that. I think a certain segment would say the market is taking care of a lot of this. In other words... Chad: Bullshit. Joel: I know that if I have a pay range, the applicants I get are going to be more qualified 'cause they're gonna be in that pay range expectation. Obviously services like pay scale and whatnot sheds a light on what people are getting paid, that people are more informed. What do you say to the, "Well, the market is taking care of some of that," argument. Heather Bussing: I think that's right. I think we also have to look at sheer demographics because we saw labor shortage after the pandemic. We've seen job growth ever since. And the reality is that women are waiting longer to have kids. They're having fewer kids. We have immigration policies that make it very hard for people to come in and work. And we've got an aging population that is retiring. So we have a labor shortage for the foreseeable future. But how that shakes out in individual jobs is always gonna ebb and flow. Joel: Your angle on market taking care of it is that boomers are retiring at a 10,000 plus per day clip. Eventually there'll be a shortage, pay will equal out and everything will be hunky dory or closer to what it is now. Heather Bussing: Hopefully. Chad: When has that ever happened in our society... Heather Bussing: But it will. Chad: With the market 'cause the market's never fixed it before. So why do you think the market's gonna fix it now? Joel: I'm just asking our guest here. Chad: I'm asking, historically... Heather Bussing: I think it will help. Chad: The market didn't, it won't fix it. Joel: My question was, there is a segment that will say the market will take care of some of that. Chad: No, I heard that. Joel: You don't need the government to come down. I was asking her take on market forces versus... Chad: I was asking you a question as well. It's okay. Heather Bussing: Oh man. Joel: I think both are right. Heather Bussing: I agree. Chad: I think they have to work together. But the problem I think we've had, if we haven't had enough government intervention, which everybody hates to hear, but we in our history have not seen parity. So therefore we have to do something different. Joel: And look, we give Indeed a hard time almost every week. But we are both on the same page in saying... Chad: Exactly, yes. Joel: Requiring companies in their job description to put a pay range. Or if you don't, we're gonna put one in for you. Chad: So, question, do you think Indeed would've done that without all of the states making those... Heather Bussing: Of course not. Chad: Okay. Okay. So therefore, government, that was not a market pressure. That was a governmental pressure. Heather Bussing: Yeah. No. And both things are correct. But the labor shortage is also gonna make movement in DE&I because we're gonna have to hire everyone. Chad: Exactly. Heather Bussing: And we're gonna have to learn to work together. And it's not gonna be optional anymore. Joel: And that's a demographic issue. Heather Bussing: Yes. Joel: From your standpoint. Yes. Okay. Heather Bussing: Yes. And then things get real because it's not about convincing people about things that they don't think matter. It's about, look, do you wanna be in business or not? Joel: Maybe getting in the weeds. You work with a lot of companies, they come to you for questions and you have answers. What are they asking you? Is it basic stuff? Is it really detailed? What are your customers and clients asking about on this issue? Heather Bussing: Well, they're... I still get questions every... Joel: How do I not get sued? Is that... Chad: Or do I have to? Joel: How do I not have to hire Bussing Law? [laughter] Heather Bussing: Well, my clients don't hire me to do litigation 'cause I quit doing litigation. I fulfilled my lifetime quota of fighting with people a few years ago. Chad: So you're more preventative maintenance. Heather Bussing: I am preventative maintenance. Chad: Ah, I like that. Heather Bussing: And getting in there before there's trouble. And wage hour stuff is always big. And I tell people outsource your payroll to a reputable company that's gonna be here 10 years from now that understands the laws of all 50 states. COVID is still a big issue for employers and employment lawyers because the rules keep changing. And sick leave, states are changing new laws in response to all of the ones that expired. And so everyone's trying to sort that out, including me. Joel: Unions are having a moment. Heather Bussing: Yes. Joel: Talk about that because I think that is, you know, ingrained a lot in this equity issue and getting paid what I'm worth and inflation and COVID. Give us your take on the rise of the unions. And we're here in Vegas where there's a threat of... Chad: It's a good point. Joel: The service industry striking. Heather Bussing: Yeah. Well, it's the power dynamics, right? Because the employers hold the purse and the only way that at will employment, right? We don't like your classes, you're fired. And so the only way that employees can have leverage in the conversation is to join together. And then we have a framework for that in place under the National Labor Relations Act. Joel: So you're not surprised to see this rise in unions whatsoever? Heather Bussing: I am not surprised. I am not surprised. Chad: Are you surprised that it took so long? Because the unions were busted up back in the '80s and then they just started to atrophy. And then the pitchforks are now starting to come out. This is what Joel and I have been talking about for years. The pitchforks are gonna come out and now they're coming out in the form of the union. Are you surprised that it took so long? Heather Bussing: Yes, but I'll tell you what happened, COVID. Chad: As an accelerator for many things. Heather Bussing: When you decide that you are not willing to die for your employer, it turns out there's a lot of other stuff you don't wanna do either. [laughter] Heather Bussing: Right? Joel: That's a great perspective. Chad: Well, yes. Heather Bussing: And we learned that things can change on a dime and that all of the things that people were asking for suddenly became possible. Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: Gosh. Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: And so we don't believe that you can't do it anymore. That's what employees are thinking. Joel: Heather, we're at a show, maybe the biggest show of the year in terms of technology and TA and HR. Any takeaways so far from the show or things that you're anxious to see, any vendors that you're interested in talking to? Heather Bussing: I'm excited to just see what's going on and what people are working on. Generative AI is hot, but we'll see how that goes out. I am very skeptical. Chad: Yes. Heather Bussing: But I'm interested in that and I'm interested in figuring out how people are understanding the work. Joel: Everyone of a certain age and I'm looking at everyone at the table, is a little skeptical about all of this stuff. Heather, thanks for joining us. For our listeners who want to know more about you or connect, where would you send them? Heather Bussing: Connect with me on LinkedIn, Heather Bussing. Joel: Easy, easy. Chad: Too easy. I love it. Joel: Another one in the can, Chad. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded till to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

As you probably guessed, the week before Christmas, recruiting news is a bit light. However, that won't stop the Chad & Cheese commentary train, even if things are a little less recruit-y. Elon's Cybertruck is hitting some snags in Europe, and it's not just the narrow roads in Cork that might keep it out of bounds in the Old Country. Threads has also hit Europe, successfully maneuvering the EU regulation machine. Does that spell more trouble for Elon's X? We discuss. Sticking with Europe (why not?), it's a Who'd Ya' Rather: Ménage à Trois edition, featuring Urban Sports Club, Harriet and Mistral. What's more? How about the future of self-checkout and giving eternal life to your favorite porn stars, thanks to AI. Indeed, the happiest time of the year starts with this warm and fuzzy episode of Chad & Cheese. Hallelujah! Holy sh!t! Where's the Tylenol? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeman 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 yeah, I don't know what to say, but it's Christmas and we're all in Misery. What's up, kids? You're listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Shitter's full Cheeseman. Chad: And this is Chad 14th amendment Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, Cyber Trucks Threads and Pornstars, sounds a lot like my Christmas wishlist. Let's do this. Chad: So no cold open. I mean, it was all cold open, you didn't have anything leading you in, you don't have sound effects. This is not a great holiday season for Joel, right now. Joel: This is awful. It's your nirvana. It's your nirvana. No sounds no baby crying or, our software for podcasting. Chad: It took a shit. Joel: We can't play sounds, so Chad's gonna throw these in, I don't know what... I'm out of control. I don't have sounds. This is the Cole In My Stocking. But anyway, it's Christmas time. It's holiday season, our Christmas cards are out, everyone's feeling the love. Chad: Loving it. Joel: You're in, who knows where the hell you are, some sunshine coming through the window, you got bottles of booze behind you. If you haven't seen this stuff, go check us out on YouTube, you can see all the glory of Chad's backgrounds, it's not relegated to his Facebook feed. You can go on video and see the elaborate vacation spot. So where are you now and what are you doing? Chad: I am on the island of Madeira, which is a Portuguese island, but it's literally off the coast of Africa, it is pretty much a mountain in the water, so it's got just this crazy hiking trails, it's golf courses. It's pretty amazing. So we're here through Christmas and New Year's Eve, we have family coming in for New Year's Eve, we're gonna do big Airbnb. Right now I am actually at a friend's house at his bar, as you can see living the life and enjoying shorts and T-shirt weather. Joel: So I'm gonna give you a little AI scare story. So you and I, we chat on Facebook Messenger, and you put a picture on our feed about you in Madeira, and on Instagram, I'm starting to get ads about visiting Madeira for vacation. That's how scary smart this AI shit is getting. Chad: It knows. Joel: It's getting a little out of control, a little out of control. Pouring yourself a beer. That's nice. Chad: Pouring myself a Coral. Literally, this is a Madeiran beer. Yeah, so while you're here, you gotta drink this stuff, so they've got Madeiran port wine, rum, which we will have later. So yeah, we're just trying to do the most Madeiran things we can, get drunk. Eat food. Joel: So you remember last week, I said, If anyone in Chicago wants to lose some money on the Browns-Bears game, so two people took me up on that, one was Joe Shaker, which I knew would happen, and then our boy, Mike Shafer at FactoryFix. So Joe being the grizzled veteran of the betting world, took the points they gave the Bears three and a half points, the Browns won by 3. So Joe technically won in Vegas, although my Browns will be in the playoffs and his Bears will be in Bora Bora, Mike on the other hand, at FactoryFix took it straight up like a man. No points. So I came out even, I pushed on it, but I got a nice bottle of scotch from Mike and I sent Joe some nice red wine, which was his request. Chad: I like how you talk about somebody taking it like a man and going straight up and knowing that whenever you get a chance to take the points. Joel: Take the points, the best ever with Joe was Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State blew him out, but Wisconsin had so many points that I lost the bet. So... Yeah, you gotta take the points, sometimes you have to. If it's Ohio State, Wisconsin, you can't go straight up on that bet. Well, my friend, have a good holiday. I will not talk to you hopefully at all next week, take a time out. Chad: If we're luckily. Joel: And then we hit the ground running next year and spend a lot of time with each other, so let's get to shout-outs. Chad: A big shout-out to... You might know her, Penny Queller and the Mom project. This is from SIA "The Mom project a staffing provider with a special focus on mothers returning to the workforce which is what we need kids, named the long time staffing industry executive Penny Queller as its president, to lead the company through its next stage of growth." Penny was already working as an advisor to CEO Allison Robinson, who has been on the pod and will transition, Allison will transition to a new role as founder and chairwoman. So big shout out to Penny and the mom project. Joel: Love it, love it, love it. Mine is much less professional, I hope that you can bear with me... Chad: Imagine that. Joel: My shout-out goes to Aidan Maese-Czeropski. Hopefully, I said that correctly. Chad: Excuse you. Joel: Who the hell is that? You're in Europe, you may not know this, but a 25-year-old staffer, a Senate staffer this week decided to... Well, he didn't do it this week, but he shared pics recently of having sex, sexual intercourse in a Senate hearing room, the same Senate hearing room where they vet Supreme Court Justices and really important people, Aidan decided to do the nasty. He recorded it, put it on like a private group chat, didn't think this would come out. Shocker, it did, lesson for the kids, if you put it online, there's a good chance that it's gonna be found. Aidan works for an 80-year-old senator. I can't imagine what that conversation was like, 80-year-old senator who's leaving the senate, from Maryland, he was fired shockingly, and people are digging up some really interesting stuff on this cat, they're looking at his Venmo purchases, his Twitter stuff like kids if it's on the internet, it can come to bite you in the ass. Don't do it. Aidan, cautionary tale, but shout-out to you, my friend, sex in a Senate hearing room deserves a shout-out. Deserves a shout-out. If nothing else does. Chad: Yeah, well, I can tell you what the Senator said, he said, everybody's done that, but nobody's stupid enough to actually take a video and put it out there, you got caught 'cause you're an idiot. Joel: Where would be the ultimate on the down low, sex. Would it be the Oval Office? Chad: Oh God, yeah, I mean, if you could pull that off, I don't know how in the hell you'd pull something like that off, but I mean, if you're in a senate room, for God's safe, you go to a SCIF, that's where you go. Joel: I hope it was worth it, man. I hope it was worth it. Chad: Yeah, and what's better than sex in the SCIF is free stuff. Joel: Free stuff almost as good as sex in a Senate hearing room is free stuff from Chad and Cheese. We're talking t-shirts from JobGet, beer from Aspen Tech Labs, a bottle of Bourbon from Chad and myself, our pick from our friends at Textkernel, and if it's your birthday... Chad: What... Joel: And December birthdays are something special, you get a chance to win a bottle of rum from our friends at Plumb. Another trip around the sun is being celebrated by Holland McCue, Monica Abby, Nick Bradford, Mike Politich, Tina Davis, Angela Aguilar, Nick Hutchinson, Kim Grey, Lex Kramer, Ali Raza, Daniel Bailey or Daniel Bailley, Jonathan Martinez, Kelly Havanic, Aaron Matos, and our 25th, December 25th birthdays, our baby Jesus birthdays, go to Jeff Stanton and Craig Rodds who are celebrating on December 25th, which I can't imagine a worst day for a birthday. SFX: Happy birthday. Chad: Anywhere inside the holiday region, I think you pretty much get screwed. Joel: Yes, yeah, my dad, who I said turns 84, his is on the 20th. When we drop this, it'll be his birthday, he bitches all the time about how much his birthday sucked because it was right near Christmas. Chad: But what doesn't suck is events, baby. That's why I travel by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. We already have eight. That's right, the Ocho conference is planned for 2024, the very first is an event in San Diego. That's right, kids. Joel: The wells you know what. Chad: Yeah, we're gonna be hanging out with koalas at the zoo, we're gonna be at the zoo with our friends from Qoalafi, that starts with a Q, ends with an I, Qoalafi. You gotta go to chadcheese.com/events. You gotta check out where we're gonna be, we're really stoked about this event, definitely stoked about working with Evan White this year because that guy is going into overdrive, so really excited about 2024. It's shaping up quick, if you wanna get in and you wanna do some booth stuff with us and VIP parties or what have you, get a hold of us ASAP 'cause they're going fast. Joel: Going fast. And by the way, it's not a Chad and Cheese event, but I will be in Montreal in January if you're in town, say Hi, I'll be seeing the HiringBranch folks gonna go see some hockey, the Canadians versus the Oilers, little Connor McDavid I'm pretty excited about that. But yeah, we got a full plate next year, I'm getting till for this shit, I don't know about you. Luckily, we have video that we can do new stuff with, and by the way, if you haven't listened to the Chad and Cheese podcast does data with our friend Toby Dayton at LinkUp, great stuff. We look at the monthly employment reports, we dig down, we simplify it for the Chad and Cheese listeners, learn some stuff, if you haven't looked at that, it's exclusively on YouTube, go to YouTube.com/@chadcheese, subscribe like and share, my friends. And while you're at it leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice, we'd like to know what we can do better and what we did well in 2023 and heading into 2024. And speaking of doing well, Chad fantasy football, fantasy football was not one of my strong suits in this season, my friend. SFX: Boo you suck. Joel: We're getting down to the end. We have our play-off line-ups set, This is our final full leaderboard for you. Top four spaces go to the playoffs for final glory, the chain, the social media, affection and love, our top four all female, all female playoff at Chad and Cheese Fantasy Football, sponsored by our friends at FactoryFix, includes Michelle Sergeant, Dina Parow, Marcy Mall and Jill Patterson pretty much right up there the whole season, those ladies are gonna battle out for the top spot. Your next four are your consolation prize, that's your boy, Chad there, Joe Bag A Dixon gets to battle it out, Dean Osner, Grent Losi and the bottom four... SFX: Boo you suck. Joel: Eliminated, annihilated. Deleted from the whole scene includes me, Jasper Spanger, Dennis I was Number One Last Year Tupper. SFX: Boo you suck. Joel: And the bottom, Kristen Urban. It was a fun season. Our season is over, you're back in the playoff for the consolation prize, I can't wait to see who comes out the winner between Michelle, Dina, Mercy and Jill. It's gonna be fun. Chad: I beat the number one team last week, I was in fifth place. I'm still in fifth place, this is bullshit. Two years in a row. Fifth place fuck. Joel: Can I just say that I hate Christian McCaffrey, I hate Christian McCaffrey. Chad: You've been making fun of Jasper this entire time, but you're just one ahead of him, and I believe he scored more than 100 points more than you did. Joel: Well, his points were calculated on the metric system, so I don't think it was the same as mine. It was much less, I'm sure, or Celsius one of the two. Chad: Touche, touche. Joel: So not Fahrenheit. Let's get to topics. Chad: Topics. Joel: All right Chad. Elon's cyber truck has hit some bumps in the road. Criticisms from organizations like the Center for Auto Safety highlight concerns about the truck's safety and potential dangers it might pose on the road, they argue that the cyber truck's design, particularly its stiff stainless steel panels could cost severe damage in accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles. Additionally regulatory issues in the European Union and skepticism around the truck's safety features, further field the debate across the pond. Chad You're on the waiting list for the cyber truck, I believe. What are your thoughts on these developments... Chad: I gotta go with the Center for Auto Safety who posted on Twitter "At over 6000 pounds, no one will ever doubt your manhood again, we get it, you were picked last in gym and now you want revenge, but this isn't the answer. Buying this is why you were picked last. It's desperate and dangerous to everyone else on the road, stop being picked last." SFX: No God, please no. Chad: So everybody's making fun of Elon, and we're seeing all of these trolled videos where the cyber truck was trying to take a Christmas tree and they were off road and they had to get pulled out by a Ford 150, they are now calling it the sports futility truck not utility, sports futility truck. The thing weighs three tons, almost a half ton more than the EV Ford 150, and on the Europe side of the house, which you mentioned in a Rolling Stone article, "the truck is currently not available in the European Union due in part to regulatory issues, and a Tesla VP has confirmed it's unlikely to ever be sold in the market." This literally is just an Elon... Joel: Vanity project. Chad: Testosterone project. Yeah, and people will buy it. I don't know, it's the ugliest fucking thing I think I've seen. It looks like the Land Rover from Lost in Space from the 1960s. Joel: You mentioned Europe, by the way, Keith Richards turns 80 this week, or turned 80 this week, how the hell that guy is still alive is a mystery to me, but that's a different show. I think just like the Hummer of 20 years ago, this will be a very popular vehicle with a very specific audience of male, more than likely. Have you seen the black one? The black one is totally cool, this thing will not be like the biggest selling car in the world, but there will an audience for this. And will enjoy it. They'll fix the towing stuff, the European thing is gonna be an issue though, 'cause it's a steel car, that's bullet-proof, that just reeks of European regulation to me, in America, it'll be... I think it'll be a hit with a lot of people. We do our predictions show soon, we don't do like pop culture industries like I would predict this car will be around in a decade, this will be a thing that people do embrace. The weight of it is because they want you to get the tax incentives that you do with the Land Rover or like any other big car, that's why it weighs as much as it does, although batteries don't like heavy cars, so I don't know how they kind of... I guess they kind of balance how far it can go with how much it weighs, but the tax incentive will mean a lot of... Every rapper, every CEO in Silicon Valley, this will be a hit with a certain audience, mark my words. Chad: Well, it's not gonna get obviously into Europe, not to mention Europe is starting to tighten down on their EV rebates, so there's a lot that's happening here, so we'll see the prediction show... I do you see it as kind of like a Hummer sales machine per se? The only reason it is gonna be around is because it's an Elon project and he loves this thing. Joel: Yeah, yeah, just like when Schwarzenegger had a Hummer and it took off somebody like... People will drive, they'll give it like heaven forbid, Trump gets re-elected and he drives around in a cyber truck, then it's over. I don't know. Chad: See the big difference between a Hummer and a cyber truck is the Hummer was actually a military vehicle and that motherfucker could go anywhere. I mean, you could not get that thing stuck, I know 'cause I had one and drove it in the jungle when I was 18 or 19 years old, I couldn't get that fucker stuck. Joel: Right, but how many people who bought it needed to get out of tight fixes like that, like they just drove it around downtown Manhattan or whatever, by the way, this will never go over in Ireland because the roads are like 3 feet wide. All right, from one megalomaniac to another, Meta's social media platform Threads has now been introduced in the EU after previously being available in various countries worldwide, including the US, and the UK, since July 2023. The delay in its launch was linked to complexities in complying with new regulations notably, the Digital Markets Act, aimed at regulating big tech companies and set to be effective by March of 2024, Threads is in Europe, Chad, and so are you. What are your thoughts? Chad: So I see this as really a cage match, a pseudo cage match between Zuck and Elon. So this is a Twitter versus Threads kind of scenario. The unfortunate struggle that's happening here is really between idiocracy and civility, Twitter, undergoes EU probes under the new disinformation rules, their failure to combat content disinformation and manipulation. So now we see Threads pushing into Europe and Twitter getting pulled down in Europe. So why? I don't know, because they're amplifying antisemitism. Alex Jones, and even the seditious, Donald Trump was let back on the fucking platform. Twitter's just too toxic for advertisers, billions have been lost. Elon told the advertisers to go fuck off, the blue check mark means nothing anymore, a possible $1 charge and also hiring platform fees, that won't be enough to make up for the billions that they lost in advertising. Chad: Twitter is top heavy, which means the top 10% of users account for 72% of time spent on the platform. Now, on the other hand, Thread's ability to onboard new users through Insta was great, but only if you have an Insta account. So not so good. Threads is opening up, obviously, in the EU, so they're gonna be able to have an opportunity to expand if they've got great penetration for Instagram in EU but the point of the story is that Threads won't kill Twitter. Hate speech is killing Twitter, Elon's public speaking, his tweets and his behavior is already killing Twitter. So Threads just needs to sit back and focus on creating a better product and allow Elon to continue to pour gasoline on the fire that's happening over there right now. Joel: Threads at launch grew incredibly fast, they did a great job of you leveraging Instagram and all your Instagram people are now your Threads people, and adding people was really easy. The problem has been stickiness and keeping people on, how much of that content is the same stuff that I get other places? Our friend Levin who does the European show with us, we asked his take on Threads in Europe, and his comment was tried it wasn't mean enough. Chad: Wasn't toxic enough, yeah. Joel: Well, yeah, it's too nice, people are too pleasant. So there'll be an audience. Chad: Sounds like a horrible world. Joel: And a lot of people are like I'm over Twitter the toxicity, the Elon thing, the politics so they're over it and they're going to Threads. I see us dividing into a world of like, Threads users and Twitter users. And your Twitter user is sort of a brand that's different than Threads. I mean, if you look at every, just about every major company has the gold badge or the gold, that they pay for their account and you see journalists, and. Chad: Not everybody pays for it, though. Joel: Not every... We don't know who they just give it to and who's paying. I mean but Elon, it looked like he was sort of strong arming companies. You remember some people were getting company names and buying the blue check and then posting as I was really Coca-Cola, or I was really IBM and that was a whole mess. So I think that if you're as a social media strategy, you're gonna have to be on Twitter, whether you advertise or not is different. I tend to think that if Twitter advertising actually worked, these companies would figure out an excuse for like sticking with the platform. But it's a shit show, it's sad to me because Elon's launching rockets and landing them, he's giving internet to like the whole world, he's going to Mars and he dinks around with this social media shit. Joel: It just frustrates me. I wish he would focus on this stuff. And even Tesla, right? He has a point when he says, "I've done more for like, the environment than just about anyone on the planet. And you guys are still like up my ass." We're only up his ass because he's a dick on Twitter. So, I don't know, I don't know. This thing is going to a subscription only I think maybe small businesses will advertise, maybe local people, the big guys seem to be not wanting any part of it, but I think it's gonna go more subscription, they're gonna give you more and more reasons to pay them a hundred bucks a year. And that's the business model in my opinion. Threads will monetize like Instagram and Facebook and in all this, TikTok is kicking everyone's ass. Chad: Exactly, exactly, yeah. Joel: Yeah. Which, speaking of bets have you gotten your bourbon yet from the Indeed Whisperer, Jim Durbin? [laughter] Chad: Not yet. I have not gotten it, but yeah, I will ask my people who are watching over the house to see if I've gotten it so we shall see, because TikTok still running strong in the US of A. As a matter of fact, I might even predict that, flipping this, that next year Twitter in some European countries will be nixed, because of the disinformation and how he's not managing it and EU might put a smack on and say, "we're gonna close you down in the EU." And yet Twitter will still be, or not Twitter, but, TikTok will still be running in the US. Joel: By the way TikTok genius PR campaign, Twitter could take a little bit of a hint or a tip from what TikTok is doing, marketing and PR-wise, 'cause it's Playbook Masterclass, brilliant. Chad: Elon would have to shut up, and that's never gonna happen. Joel: Yeah, it's never gonna happen, it's never gonna happen. Well, let's you and I shut up for a few seconds and pay some bills and listen to some of our sponsors, we'll be right back. SFX: A crummy commercial son of a bitch. Joel: All right, Chad, what's better to ring in the holiday season than a game of Who'd You Rather, and in honor of our friend Levin over in Europe, we're doing a ménage à trois edition of Who'd You Rather, by talking about three companies, and at the end of those summaries, talking about Who'd You Rather of those three, are you ready to play Who'd You Rather ménage à trois style? Chad: Let's do it. Joel: Let's do it, all right. First up is Berlin Urban Sports Club, they've secured 95 million Euros to strengthen their wellness market presence. Surging employee demand for wellbeing programs drives companies to invest in benefits like those offered by the Urban Sports Club. Next up, we have Harriet, a London-based AI solution for HR data management, they've secured 1.39 million euros in pre-seed funding. They focus on cleaning data, offering tailored support and easing HR tasks through its AI powered, assistant accessible via Slack teams and other platforms. And last but not least is Mistral, Paris based Mistral AI established by Meta and Google Researchers, has secured 385 million euros in funding, valued at $2 billion, pioneering AI chatbots. It focuses on open source technology, challenging major players like OpenAI and AI Advancements. The company says it's open source AI contrasts with tech giant's Guarded approach, emphasizing community driven development for safer, more robust software. Urban Sports Club, Harriet or Mistral, Chad, who'd you rather? Chad: So the sports club. This sounds like a perfect model for employees in Europe in a very fad-ish culture for the US looking for free kombucha bar, of the day idea, right? I mean, it seems like free breakfast, free kombucha, that kind of thing has been kind of like the thing, the fad in the US but they don't always last too long. I don't see something like this lasting incredibly long in the US because to be quite frank, employers don't give two shits about their employees. They act like they do, for the most part, there are some that generally do but they're looking at these organizations as a way to just try to suck some attention in to be able to prospectively pitch, their organization. Harriet, an integrated Slack system. Chad: I mean, that's really what it is, is Slack is the core vehicle for widespread and easy adoption. And then using other, much harder to navigate data repository systems like Google Drive, Notion, HiBob, Bamboo, Zapier for the accumulation and the training of that data, this is a really a keep it simple stupid model, I love it, I love it to death. This is awesome, but it feels more like a feature than a bigger LLM 'cause they're just focusing on policies, best practices, those types of things. So I really love it, but it's not as big as Mistral, European, LLM founded in May, this May, by three former Meta and Google AI researchers funded by Andreessen, Nvidia, Salesforce, BNP... Do I need to fucking go on? I mean, this has all the right ingredients to work since Europe needs another major LLM player, I'm gonna pick Who I'd rather Mistral all damn day. Joel: Mistral, you like those high, high priced, high price, companies, don't you? So, talk about David and Goliath. We got one company at 1.39, pre-seed 95 million, and then like the granddaddy here at 2 billion valuation, Mistral. So the Urban Sports Club thing, I do love businesses that like to make companies feel good about what they're doing, whether it's a diversity program, benefits program. And in this case, we let our folks go to the sports club or whatever network this is, to socialize, work out, get healthy, get balanced, etcetera. So I think they will find a very strong market, they've been around for a long time, so they've grown organically. And who better to sort of manage this than the country that invented kindergarten, out of Germany, Urban Sports Club. Joel: So I like the business, but do I like it more than the other two? Harriet total agreement that this is a feature, probably not a standalone company and that's probably how they're built, that's probably why they only have a million some in pre-seed, they are a piece to a bigger puzzle, someone like a Personio, a HiBob that someone like that should come along and gobble up someone like Harriet. I do like the name by the way, it's kind of cute. But yeah, to me this is sort of like, I don't know, scenery in a bigger picture, the real show here, the act, the name on the marquee is Mistral this thing has an amazing potential to disrupt everything. Look, open source has a pretty, pretty long and illustrious career in technology. Joel: WordPress comes to mind, PHP, Linux comes to mind, which is basically the backbone of a lot of websites and technologies that are out there. So the question is, can you take Linux and what they did and even WordPress and take this sort of community-based, development and infrastructure and compete with OpenAI and Gemini, Bard, whatever Google's gonna come out with, and I see Facebook being the backbone for a lot of new things. Our final story about porn, includes Meta and their AI, so they're in there as well. How this will impact our industry though, I think is really, we don't know yet. So this is an open source chatbot, right? How many times have we talked about chatbots? Are they ubiquitous in our industry? Whether it's Paradox, Wade and Wendy, you name it. Joel: All the ones that are out there, is this gonna make it super easy for someone to create a chatbot that will compete with Paradox? We don't know yet, but it certainly seems like the bones are there for someone to just put the meat on it to have a competitive product. Everything that Gemini's gonna build, or can this will probably be a much cheaper, much easier to use, less guarded, less walled technology that people can use to build products in our space. I'm being long-winded, but it's my short answer of saying that Mistral also, you and I can fight over Mistral as to who gets what there, in this ménage à trois edition of Who'd You Rather. But that is kind of a slam dunk for me, it wasn't really even that difficult of a decision. SFX: Shall we play a game? Joel: Which brings us to, self checkout. We've never talked about this. I don't think. This will be fun, so self checkout, promise, convenience, cost saving and efficiency. But faces criticism. Customers complain about glitches. Retailers combat theft, and some stores like Walmart and Target are testing alternatives. Labor shortage drove its expansion, yet rising frustrations and theft concerns persist despite having fans and being a technology advancement. Workers monitoring self-checkout stations face safety risks and customer hostility. Chad is self-checkout on the way out? Joel: Well, I thought it was interesting that, one of the people in the article actually talked about discounts, if I'm going to check myself out, I should at least get a 5% discount, which would be fairly simple for like a Kroger, because, you know, they're gonna raise their prices by 5%, right? And then everybody's going to pay that 5% tax at the actual human register, right? So a lot of this from a confluence standpoint doesn't make sense. Labor is gonna be hard to find to be able to do those jobs, we're already seeing that labor is hard to find as it is. Theft, they already had that into the equation when they started, they're bitching about it now, they're full of shit, their profits are higher than they've ever been. Grocery I know has, lower profit margins, but they're a lot bigger than what they have been. Chad: They're pulling in a shit ton of cash, and their CEOs are getting paid more than they ever have. Bernadette Christian, 59, a worker at Giant Food in Clinton, Maryland mans six self-service stations at once. And she's afraid to help or confront shoppers who she said had become angrier since the pandemic. And I would say even before that, we've just had more of an angry kind of a feel in the US. So yeah, you're talking about Bernadette. Bernadette doesn't wanna come up to you and say, "Hey, what's that in your coat pocket? Or wait a minute, what did you just put in your bag? Did you scan that?" Right? I mean, you're putting these people under some very, very horrible conditions, they've gotta watch six of these things. They've gotta come over to me and I've gotta wait for them to scan my driver's license so that I can get my Bourbon when I want it, there's just too many things that are happening here. So they're playing with the not enough labor, and then when you start to do these self checkouts, you have to have labor on the self checkouts, so it's literally, I think, a problem they've created for themselves. Joel: When I was growing up, my mom would get paid on Friday and she would go to the bank and deposit, like give a check to the teller and say, "I want X amount of cash back," which was the cash she had for the week. And then from there, we would go to the gas station and we would sit in line and wait for the guy who pumped the gas to eventually come over to the car and have my mom say, "fill her up." He'd fill it up, give cash, he'd have the little change thing on his belt and give money back. This was the world before self-service. Chad: He would wash your vehicle and he would check your oil too. Joel: Depending on... Well, in our neighborhood, not so much, maybe in the high class district that you lived in. But the point is like, full service sucks for a lot of people, I would much rather ATM it, not talk to anybody, pump my own gas, that's the world I prefer, and I never, ever check out from the grocery store, with the person, the cashier. I like my own stuff. I get it done quicker. I'm more efficient, and I love when I go to Costco or Sam's Club and I have an App where I can scan the product and I can pay on my phone, and I literally walk out and I have a barcode and the guy goes, boop, and he checks my thing and says, "have a nice day." Like, that's the world I wanna live in. It scares me to think that we're talking about going back to the days of old or getting rid of some of this stuff. The problem is just like the dude in Walmart with the baseball bat that wants to beat up the janitorial robot. People are gonna like, find ways around the system. How do I steal stuff? How do I raise a stink with the 22-year-old that's like overseeing 20 self-serve kiosks. What happened to the day when Amazon bought Whole Foods and we were supposed to just like walk in, and they were supposed to scan us somehow and know what we picked up off the shelf and we just walked out and it charged our Amazon account? Like when is that coming? There's gotta be a happy medium, there's gotta be a way to verify, let people go out the 5% discount. Joel: Sure, that's great., but that'll be more people in the self-serve, which will create more self-serve issues if we add discounts to that. I for one hope they don't get rid of this, or how do you secure it? 'Cause we can't go back to standing in line having the cashier scan everything and like "Al butter on aisle four need a price check," and like they go, that world sucks. I love the self-serve world, figure it out, the theft thing I think is crazy, but our tech should be such now that these aren't issues. Dammit. Chad: So here's the thing. I'm here in Europe, I go to Aldi, I go to Lidl I go to the Continent and they don't have any of these self-check aisles. You go through a person and nobody has a problem with that because they're patient and they understand that nobody's gonna die in this process. As Americans, we want it now, we want it yesterday, and that's one of the reasons why Bernadette Christian is really scared to confront people because we Americans have turned into fucking assholes. These toxic Twitter tweets have really just embodied who we've become. We care about ourselves, we don't care about the people around us, this is about our experience. And there's no reason why this can't work like it used to, I do love this self scan. I do love it, don't get me wrong. I haven't used it in three months since I've been here, you know why? 'cause I don't need to. Joel: You're right, it's a state of mind. There's a comedian that talks about Waze, the program where it helps you drive and miss traffic and he hates it because aside from the fact that it makes you go through a neighborhood you don't know and like cut through places and sort of be like... Is your life that like urgent that you can't sit in your car for 10 more minutes and listen to music or think about life or appreciate what you have? Yes, we're way too fucked up in America, but we ain't going back in America, that's for damn sure. If anything, it'll be more like delivery and I don't even wanna leave my house, I just wanna sit in my lazy boy and Netflix, Madman episodes. Chad: And what about that says community. Joel: Nothing. [laughter] Chad: Nothing, we've turned into a non-community, community. Anyway, get me the fuck out of this. Joel: I know, I know. Thank God we have Chipotle to interact with each other. [laughter] SFX: A crummy commercial. Son of bitch. Joel: All right, Chad, you took the porn stories away from me last week with the ICIMS CEO news news break. So I gotta get it in. Chad: I didn't think that ICIMS did that. Joel: Yeah, I know ICIMS did that, we gotta get that dude on the show. All right. So, Sophie Dee, a veteran porn star, she's about 38 years old, I think is collaborating with an AI company to create a digital alter ego, Sophie AI resembling her appearance and voice utilizing Meta's AI model. STXT trains the AI with explicit conversations, personal details, and AI generated images to simulate Sophie Dee. Sophie AI aims to sustain her income post performing years, offering subscribers a personalized experience at a monthly fee, drawing in around 700 users to date. While Dee anticipates ongoing success, some of the industry like Allie Rae, Allie Rae find the technology premature, premature and not lucrative enough for sex work cautioning against its hasty adoption. Chad, your take on the escalating drama of porn and AI. Chad: So scale, baby scale, and I mean, Allie Rae was, I believe the nurse who was making $30,000 a month or currently is on OnlyFans. Well, of course she doesn't wanna see this happen because this is the next move. We're gonna be able to scale from OnlyFans, which is beautiful because if you think about it, okay, so if you're a stripper and you're on on the stage, you have that time. That's it, that's all you get, but if you go to OnlyFans, you have all of the obviously content library that you've created over the years, and that's scalable. People can dig into it, they can go through it over and over and over if they want to, but you're continuing to add to that, and that scales, well. What scales better than that? Being able to create not just conversations in chats, but to be able to scale those chats to thousands of people at once with one chatbot, and then be able to use possibly looking down the road multimodal where you're actually creating videos and voice. This is the next step, and I really think that if any company is smart enough, and again, this is a Blockbuster Netflix scenario, Blockbuster should have bought Netflix. OnlyFans needs to buy one of these companies, and they need to make it a pretty much a fee for anybody who wants to use it, and they're just making transactional money, they could really explode with that kind of model. SFX: Prince Ehhhh!. Joel: Explode, explode you say? Our friend Adam Gordon and I had a small back and forth on the history of this or the future of this. And he's pretty convinced as I am as well, that they'll still be humans doing this, they'll still be humans, like real people showing skin and doing whatever, pornographic that they want to do. Chad: It'll be more. Joel: The challenge is, and it's, to me, it's... Yeah, to me it's this conflict between the new face of porn OnlyFans and spare time and showing skin and everything, and maybe a few chats here and there, versus a old aging porn star being able to leverage her brand and her portfolio of work, if you will, and being able to provide that in a virtual format for the rest of her life. Frankly, she can still be 25 and whatever when she's 75. But the key there is she's a porn star that has built a brand and an audience, whereas if I just go on OnlyFans and have not done porn or not have any kind of wide audience, the chances that I become rich are much less. And I hate the idea of competing with porn stars from the past now are producing porn, well into their golden years. Throw in the fact that you're gonna get VR at some level, you're gonna get sex robots, and this thing is gonna get strange. Chad: I know. Joel: You're gonna be able to customize, you know, the girl you dated, you know, the one night stand you had back in '98, I want to produce her and like, go back in time. Chad: That's just so fucking creepy. Joel: That's where it's going, dude or I want to like, I love Jennifer Aniston, or I love whoever Selena Gomez, I want to have her as my slave, digital slave, sex, whatever. Chad: People are going to own their own likenesses at that point, let's hope so that we don't have to play that game, oh my God. Joel: But it'll be personalized, it'll be just for me. I'm not gonna publish it anywhere, it's just for me, it's just for my... I don't know how you police that this thing is going weird, but it's too easy to scale and the costs are too low to not disrupt what OnlyFans is doing and the money that girls are making on OnlyFans that is not sustainable when you look at what technology is doing. I hope they never digitize Santa because I'm on the nice list this year Chad, and I can't wait to see what's under my tree. How about you? . Chad: Hopefully it's not an AI, girlfriend, 'cause I don't need any of that shit. Joel: Those are skeletons Chad does not need. Based on your background of booze Santa has already seen you, my friend, happy holidays we out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forward it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas send bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese connect with Zachary Chertok, Market and Industry Analyst at IDC to dive into the realm of HR tech and employee experience. Chertok has a strong professional background in the Human Capital Management (HCM) space, and addresses shifts in workforce management due to the pandemic, the ever-evolving tech stack, data centralization, and the overall challenges faced by HR professionals. Chertok also highlighted the importance of aligning HR strategies with business goals and the complexities of HR navigating between advocating for employees and organizational constraints. Notably, he also shared some interesting observations from HR Tech, such as a trend towards emphasizing the data use case over functionality, and noted advancements in areas like skills taxonomy, benefits tools, and more nuanced vendor differentiation. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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. Joel: Oh, yeah! What's up everybody? It's your rabbi's favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, the Bob to my Doug McKenzie. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Chad Sowash is in the house. And we are happy, excited, giddy, to welcome Zach Chertok... Chad: Giddy. [chuckle] Joel: To the podcast. He is Research Analyst of Employee Experience at IDC. If you don't know IDC, they're a global provider of market intelligence advisory services and events for the IT telecom and consumer tech markets, summaries provided by our friends at LinkedIn. Zach, welcome to the podcast. Chad: That was in ChatGPT. [laughter] Zach Chertok: I was gonna say it's good to be here, but yeah, that's probably the most intense summary I've seen in a long time of what we do. But we kind of live at the nexus of the buyer, the investor and the vendor. So providing guidance to all three so that the cycle knows what's going on. Joel: I want listeners to know that Zach is really smart and I feel smarter before we even push record. Chad: Yes, yes. Joel: So put your thinking caps on kids. We're gonna go deep. Chad: You don't know where this is gonna go. Joel: We're gonna go... Not just the tip. We're gonna go deep in on this one. Chad: We're gonna go deep on this one. Joel: So, Zach, before we get to that, we like our listeners to know who they're listening to. So give us a little bit about you as a person and then we'll get to all the company stuff. Zach Chertok: Well, sure. So I'll start professional and then go a little bit more personal into what I do when I don't have a hat on. Joel: Do you Zack? Zach Chertok: But professionally, I've been in and around the HCM space for the last 15 years. Kind of fell civil engineering by training out of McGill, fell backwards through project management into the tech sector. Consequence of graduating in the financial crisis. Nobody builds anything when capital's slow, but... Joel: It's crazy, isn't it? Zach Chertok: Yeah, I know. Chad: Imagine that. Zach Chertok: You know from the vendor side with Kronos for four years, then went off into the analyst side and I have kind of been on all sides of the sector. So investor, developer, practitioner, analyst, the list goes on, kind of creates a unique flow of... Joel: Don't forget Virgin Pulse. You need to throw a little Virgin Pulse in there. Zach Chertok: So, the wonderful thing when you change analyst firms is when you live in a state that stands by non-competes, you tend to... Yeah, analysts tend to go into the product marketing world for a while. [laughter] So I ran end-to-end HCM coverage for Aberdeen for four and a half years. And during the pandemic, transitioned back into the product marketing world with Virgin Pulse and WorkForce Software for a bit. I got a lot of exposure to worlds... One world I hadn't necessarily been independently yet. And another one that I was kind of returning to with Virgin Pulse was the new one, mainly integrated wellbeing. And from a functional standpoint, inside organizations I always kind of knew what it was about, covered it from that vantage point, but learned a lot about its impact on the overall benefits management realm, getting exposure to the healthcare side of it and the mental stress side of it. Zach Chertok: By working and sifting through everything VP was looking at and honestly post being there, it's wonderful to see sort of how they've been evolving as well in the time now that I've been at IDC and with WorkForce Software, I really got thrown into the nexus of workforce management, employee experience. They were going through the acquisition of what is now workforce experience. And again, it was great to see how that played out and how it really filled niches and for frontline workers that were kind of really going... Statically going unmanaged by some of the broader experience space. And then got the call one day, fortunately from one of my earliest mentors in the field, Lisa Rowan, who was running HCM for IDC, they were looking for a new employee experience analyst, I agonized about it for about four days 'cause I was working for an organization that I loved, but opportunity to go work for a mentor and ultimately made the jump to IDC. Joel: Come on, Zach, give me some personal stuff. This is HR. Give me some walks on the beach, give me some poetry reading, give me something. Zach Chertok: So I will tell you that when you're covering HCM, I joke with a lot of people. The good news is market high, market low. Everybody needs to reorganize a company, so I'll never be out of a job. The bad news is nothing is transactional or rational about this. So you need borderline a degree in clinical science... In clinical psychology rather, to be able to understand which end is up. The nature of that means is that when I'm in my off time, I wanna go someplace where nobody can reach me. So I'm either hiking on a mountain or I've got my head underwater swimming. My two sort of offsite passions. Joel: I'm hanging with Aaron Rogers in a unlit doomsday machine. [laughter] Anyway, alright, so we were talking before the episode about your role at IDC, the cats that you're herding. Let's dig into that. Tell us about it. Set the table and dig in. Zach Chertok: Well, as I said earlier, at IDC, we work a lot both with the buyer, the investor and the vendor side. So we kinda have this trifecta of personas that we drive sort of to and around each other. And the last three, four years since the pandemic loosened... The restrictions loosened up, organizations started opening up, hiring, picked up, all of that have been just dramatic for transition in every corner of how the workforce is managed, how it's engaged, what the frontline looks, and how it's even defined. And what that means is within the three areas of coverage that we have at IDC, talent acquisition, modern HR, which really focuses on core HR and HCM for the HR stakeholder, and then employee experience, which is frontline automation, resource personalization, everything for the frontline and the front office. We all three spaces have been drawn really tighter together to look at how they relationally interact as the nature of the tech stack is changing for organizations. So we're moving on from kind of this functional solution proposition into the concept of the data use case. Chad: So do you guys... Do you actually help with the tech stack in being able to identify where were there redundancies? 'Cause, I mean, many, many companies have way too many solutions in their stack as it is today. Zach Chertok: Oh, yeah. Chad: You take a look at some of the core offerings from their applicant tracking system or their HCM and they've either acquired or they've created features that do what their point solutions do. It seems like there's just all this feature bloat redundancy. What do you guys... Which obviously is a great job for you to slim them down. Joel: Well, we had J and J on. All he said was three figures in terms of how many tools they had, which blew my mind. Zach Chertok: Yeah. I mean, even when you get it down into the s and b scaling... I mean, look, the pathway to automation and digital transformation still, not that they're the same thing, but still follows the traditional path of small business organically grows... Automates by need, hits the mid-level and either they can organically transition into whichever one of the major solutions that they're using a part of fulfills consolidation. But more often than not, they end up in this, okay, we gotta pivot and think strategically here and get our solutions pulled together. And then the suite play comes in. And we're dealing in a market now with Suite 2.0. 1.0 was six to 10 years ago where each functional silo had its suite and Turn-Key HR could turn the lights on and IT wasn't really needed. Zach Chertok: It turns out, oops, IT is kind of needed. 'Cause all the data sets have to talk to each other. [laughter] Because finance and ops need to know what people are doing. HR needs to know how budget is thinking and all the decisions have impacts on each other. So now we're a functional suite 2.0, where the data lake is being created cross functionally operationally, and through one mechanism or another, whether it's a functional suite box that sits on top of the lake or it's a direct reach into the lake. We're seeing the functional users still have their functionality ownership. But the data ownership is really spread organization wide. So we're seeing a lot of demand for Suite 2.0 come first from the mid-market and then scale up into the enterprise. I think the enterprise just really to the J and J example, needs to inventory their landscape. Chad: Oh God! Yes. Zach Chertok: Understand and start to consolidate their buying centers, and not necessarily say one person's gonna be in charge for a huge disparate conglomerate like that. But that there's gonna be sort of buying guidelines as to how it all needs to fit together and how the data management gets consolidated. Chad: So that data lake that you're talking about, how big of a disruption and/or just impact overall is large language models and contextualizing all that data and then being able to scale faster. How's that going to change that next suite? Zach Chertok: Yeah. So the concept of LLM, it's funny, every time I go out to San Francisco, I always catch up with a friend for dinner who works in... I just call the field a digital simplicity, 'cause it's the easiest way to describe what he does. But when I always start talking about these concepts, 'cause it's very easy to live in the HCM Tech bubble, and all that, and get wrapped up in the language. He just constantly looks at me, he says, "Okay, simplify it." And we just... We go through these cycles. He describes things like GenAI, LLMs, as really machine learning that learns from itself. So it kind of whittles it down into more of a core concept. And so when we're talking about the use of LLMs, and again, at the broader concept of GenAI in these massive data sets, we're really kind of in the early stages of what it can do. Zach Chertok: So we're using it for kind of guided speech breaking writer's block, basic guided functional recommendations. But steering away from decision frameworks, which is good, 'cause we still don't want people to be dependent. We wanna augment kind of the synthesis of information so that the decision makers can stay in the decision timing. And not in the aggregate research timing. So for the knowledge segments, the decision makers, it's a pretty powerful time reducer. What we kind of expect, kind of in the dream state, if you were to have a world's fair tomorrow, what could we do with this? Is that LLMs do potentially hold the capacity to reconcile disparate data sets without a direct data link. So when you think about could we integrate systems at the data level without literally having them physically talk to each other having a physical pathway? Zach Chertok: Could an LLM do that? Conceptually, sure. Reconcile into a common language and translate and bring the data sets together. Does that mean that we're gonna sustain a lot of solution disparity further than we should? Probably not, because then it bleeds into the functional use case and employees get unhappy. But then we have vendors like a ServiceNow, for example, who will sit over the top and build a single portal regardless of how many solutions you have. So what we're seeing is an explosion in really the opportunities for how you can come at your solution space based on how your buying centers are structured, how centralized or disaggregated your organizational decision lines are, but with the fundamental component of the fact that your data needs to be centralized. So no matter what happens, that part is becoming non-negotiable. So the data use case is driving the sale more so now than the functional use case. Joel: And I loved how you framed the issue of all the... Everyone's using the same data or you're building bridges to different departments, which I think is your role or part of your role. Talk about what IDC is using to get marketing, to talk to HR, to talk to whoever. 'cause that's gotta be a hell of a challenge. Zach Chertok: A whole lot of buyer guidance. When I have calls with buyers... Now, imagine... I mean, I've been a student and rather a snarky student of management philosophy and cycles for the last 15 years. When it came time for grad school, I kind of said, "Okay, you're not gonna do the MBA, 'cause I'm getting paid to study it. So why would I pay to study it?" Not that I don't talk to the experts. I mean, I get access to researchers at different institutions all over the place because of what I do. So still in the vein of having more questions than answers, contrary to what this sounds like. But [laughter] the first thing is when I get on the call with a buyer is I find out who's in the room to really understand and dive deep into what kind of influence do they have, just to find out what they really need. Zach Chertok: If HR is in the room without a doubt, they're gonna need a business case, otherwise they wouldn't be coming to us. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Right. Zach Chertok: But they also need a little bit of functional guidance to understand, okay, is what you're thinking you need actually what you need. So let's dig into your deeper problem and see if there is a causality that you haven't looked at yet. So that before you go down the road of this particular functional piece, is there a way that you can better connect it into your core strategy, into your inner strategy? Or is really just the extension, what you need because you've already done the rest. More often than not, they haven't done the rest. Not to their discredit, it's just that they have so many challenges that come to their desk. If it's just the HR person that they're just trying to manage through it because... Chad: They're fighting fires. Zach Chertok: Well, and their staff counts, honestly, have not increased. And we know this, and their budgets are kind of stagnant, same as they've always been. So they're trying to make the best of what they have. And I don't blame them. More often than not though, where I can, if the conversation gets to a point where I'm in violent agreement with the HR person, [laughter] okay, fine, go pull your finance person out of whatever meeting they're in and bring them to the call. Or we're gonna schedule another call. And I'm gonna talk to them about it because I can tell you about the budget need that you need to make to realize the investment on the back end. Because we've looked at this a hundred bazillion times. Finance people are fun. [laughter] I'm probably the only person that's gonna describe them as fun because I discovered the reason why they... I keep telling them what they're doing wrong and they keep coming back for more is because I was in a meeting with a vendor a couple of weeks ago and I finally heard how it was coming out of my mouth. And I realized I sound like they're mothers. It's the discipline they either did or didn't get as a child, and it dust off nostalgia, so they keep coming back for more. [laughter] Joel: Oh come on, are you gonna name some names or not? Zach Chertok: No, I will protect the innocent from this one, but... Joel: Ah, ain't no fun. Zach Chertok: But I realize that's really what it boils down to is that to take, for a lack of better words, squishy subjects in HR and people management, the behavioral stuff that finance really doesn't wanna have to care about that is not... It is too behavioral for operations, transactional management styles to take all of that and put it into language that they're gonna respond to, they need a certain air of confidence when the proverbial experts come into the room to convince them and get them over the edge, which is where HR has a challenge. I mean, when I teach students. I teach... Teaching for Columbia HCM for five years, the first thing we do is teach them the difference between an HR leader and the BHR, the Business HR. Because you have to walk in with that confidence. You have to know your numbers. You have to be able to answer these questions and develop your wit to be quick on your response. Chad: Well, you have to know what the business does. And HR doesn't understand... Again, when they're trying to go after budget, they have to understand how they impact sales, how they impact marketing, how they impact engineering. Joel: How do we make money again? That's... Chad: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Zach Chertok: But the other challenge that they face too is HR is caught between... Is caught almost in a no win win, no win sandwich here. Because I think it's cute that everybody thinks that with the advent of a CHRO, HR got a seat at the table. Chad: No. [laughter] Zach Chertok: Here's what really happened. Finance and ops moved their seats slightly further apart so the CHRO could bring a folding chair to the table. [laughter] That's what happened. So you think about the picture of fighting, fighting, fighting to get a position where your face, your visage is seen among the people at the table. But you have to toe the line or you'll be easily kicked out of the room. And so once, HR is advocating for the organization and is listening to what is bubbling up from the line of business, but is caught with just how far they can advocate for that at the table, or risk losing their seat. Zach Chertok: So even as employee experience, for example, starts to come to the fore as a line of business mandate, with the data managed between, with the HR, IT partnership, we're seeing a lot more of the responsibility for that come from line of business management as a challenge to HR's remit, because line of business management has not fought for the seat at the table. They don't have anything to lose in standing up for what the employees want and need to see. So we start to see in some organizations the HR line of business partnership forms well, in other organizations we see line of business management kind of threatening what the remit of HR should be and adopting some of those characteristics. Joel: We're here at HR Tech a big shoe where everybody samples their wear. Chad: Really, really big shoe. Joel: Why are you here? What have you seen at the show that has piqued your interest? What technologies or companies have you excited give us your HR tech experience breakdown? Zach Chertok: Well, I will admit it's colored by probably the seven conferences that I've been to before this. But on the sweet side, when we look at the big players, like I call the big three what's your Workday SAP Oracle from an integrated standpoint, they're definitely pursuing the data cap ownership across the entire operations layer. So we've seen a lot of transformation in the full tech stack from them, which has been an interesting journey. We see sort of more strategic alignment and unity. Again, the big concept really is going to market on the data use case for a lot of vendors, still promoting functionality but at the end of the day, the data use case is setting the value proposition. It's more committed to this year that than it was last year. I always joke that, what's the buzzword this year that's gonna make me wanna throw up walking on the floor? [laughter] Zach Chertok: I had a toss up between GenAI and skills. Not that either one is lacking in value. I just challenge people to say define it. [laughter] It turned out to be responsible AI. Joel: Ooh. Chad: Ooh. Zach Chertok: Now mind you, good concept, but there's no standard definition, so make me believe it. So it's the one that I kind of challenged them. "Okay. About maybe a third of you actually have a good definition for it." So that was what it turned out to be. But like last year, I'm up in the analyst room, we do a lot of briefings with vendors across the board. This is the best place for us to meet everybody all in one place. See what they're doing. Talk about our upcoming research, what else should be in the purview, and kind of have that meeting of the minds. Zach Chertok: And like last year, we're not getting a lot of marketing buzz speak from them. They're being very... All of you are being very... Fuel50, as we're sitting here being included, is being very frank with what is coming to market, what we see that they're not doing. There's a lot more humility in the room. And not just among the vendor space among both myself and the analyst too. That pretense is gone and it was gone last year. It's nice to see that it's sustaining into this year. And then at a functional level, seeing some of the gray spaces between some of these new concepts getting filled. So skills, great. It's come on the board. I get it. Organizations want better adaptability and maneuverability and skills does it, it decouples the employee's sense of value from their role to how they actually contribute. And so that there's opportunities for growth personalization, to put it short. Joel: Yeah. Zach Chertok: But organizations need guidance into building their foundational taxonomies before they can get into a dynamic skills architecture. So a lot of folks want to get there, they just don't know how to start. 'Cause a lot of HR isn't trained on the ontology framework. Joel: No. Chad: No. Zach Chertok: So we've seen some vendors come forward with guiding that foundational ontology creation, whether at a service level or an automation level, that's an example of a gray area. On the benefit side, we've seen a lot of employee dashboard guidance to decisions based on tie-ins on variable benefit structures and wellbeing alongside benefits data from historical health records. If I had a benefits tool that would allow me to equitably select my plan based on my health history and participation, oh my God, benefits would be a breeze. I wouldn't dread sifting through those 150 day page document nonsense from the insurers or even using a basic comparison tool and having to sift through 70,000 boxes. Zach Chertok: So those are the examples of the gray areas between functional peak triangles that we're seeing start to get filled in. Because the world is in transition right now, there's a lot of opportunity as more of those areas are opening up that we're seeing vendors differentiate themselves into. Even if their original core propositions are still comparable. So there's a lot more differentiation between even like vendors than we've seen in previous years. Joel: Can you dig it? I knew that you could. Chad: Amen. Joel: Zach, for our listeners who wanna know more about you, where would you send them? Zach Chertok: You can feel free to either find me on LinkedIn under just my straight last name... First and last name rather. Or you can certainly reach out at Z-C-H-E-R-T-O-K@idc.com. Joel: Big brain, lots of snark, and he says visage, not visage. [laughter] Chad: Check that. Joel: Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two Chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back, like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

When the Chad's away, the Cheese will play. With Sowash taking a PTO day, Cheese welcomes guest co-host Jim Stroud, editor at SourceCon to fill-in. We're talkin' the state of sourcing, Indeed's double moonwalk from pricing and employees, a drop in the jobs report, Remote launching an Upwork competitor (or is it Fiverr?). Plus, life imitates art at Chipotle, Minnesota strippers and plenty of rizz. Enjoy, ya' filthy animals. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Joel Cheesman (00:47.156) two guys who are just dripping with Riz. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost, Joel Bunker Cheesman. Jim Stroud (00:51.486) Hahaha Jim Stroud (00:57.714) And I'm Jim Heisenberg Stroud. Joel Cheesman (01:00.292) And on this episode, Indeed backtracks the state of sourcing and US job openings dropped to a two year low. Let's do this. Jim Stroud (01:11.159) Woop woop! Joel Cheesman (01:14.244) All right, guys, programmatic is all the rage. All the kids are doing it. It's dripping with Riz, like I said in the intro. Well, if you're into programmatic advertising, you gotta check out JobAdX. JobAdX is a programmatic solution that will help put your jobs on ludicrous speed for the best talent that you can possibly find. Now, in our last episode, we talked about Twitter getting into the job board game. Well, guess who backfills Twitter jobs? It's appcast. And I know a lot of you out there using appcast, but do you want your jobs on Twitter with the whole cesspool of garbage content that's out there? Well, if you don't, you owe it to yourself to look at some new programmatic uh, solutions and you owe it yourself to check out job ad X one of our longest standing sponsors, we love them. And we know that you will love them too. Find out more by going to job at X that's J O B A D and the letter X. dot com. Joel Cheesman (02:19.228) All right. So this is a special snow Chad bootleg edition of the Chad and cheese podcast. Now, for those of you don't know, Chad is gone. He's he's building his European real estate empire. He's MCing London events, etc. So so it's just me and a co host, which I'll get to in a second. But this is not going to be edited whatsoever. If we screw up, we screw up. If we say something like there's no turning back, right? This is like your favorite Pearl Jam bootleg from 1996. It's going to have scratches. It's going to have, you know, the couple in the back making out. It's going to have the dog barking, like all things are going to. So, so be, be warned. This is what you signed up for today. And with that, I want to introduce our special, special cohost. Jim Stroud, the man, the myth, the legend is here with me today. Jim, welcome to the podcast. Jim Stroud (03:12.982) Whoop whoop! Thank you sir for having me, I do appreciate it. Joel Cheesman (03:18.212) You bet. So for those of our listeners that don't know, man, your, your career has been Toad's wild ride. Uh, give us, give us like a 32nd, uh, career of gym. And we'll get to the present day stuff. Jim Stroud (03:33.646) Sure, 20 years in the biz, sort of an OG, worked for Microsoft, Google, Siemens, string of startup companies. At one point I was the global head of recruiting and sourcing strategy for Ransat SourceWrite. When I was not doing that, I was writing books, producing crazy videos and podcasts, and it brought me all to the job that I have today and I'm so excited about it. Joel Cheesman (04:00.688) we will get to in a second. But yeah, you and I met 18 years ago or so. You haven't aged a bit and I look like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings now. So yeah, right, right. What? Anyway, I won't get canceled on this episode. I refuse to do it. You worked at MCI, which I didn't. Jim Stroud (04:02.379) Yes. Jim Stroud (04:07.014) Yeah? Well, this is a filter, so you know. Jim Stroud (04:19.79) Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe Yes, that was my first gig in sourcing 1997. Stone Age. Joel Cheesman (04:28.08) And that create in college or in high school, I think I used to try to get people to sign up on MCI and I would get like a penny for every call they made or something like, I don't remember exactly what it was, but yeah, MCI, which became sprint, I think. Yeah. So long. Jim Stroud (04:37.405) Oh. Jim Stroud (04:41.678) Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, yeah, British telecom bought them and then I think sold them to Sprint Something like that. Yeah Joel Cheesman (04:48.324) Yeah, we're old basically. That's, that's what we're saying. That's what we're saying. Well, Jim, I, I appreciate you coming on the show. Uh, don't try to don't, don't fuck it up. Okay. We'll, we'll figure this out. We'll figure this out. But so Jim, Jim is going to walk through the show, uh, with me and I'm going to guide him through this, but we have this thing called shout outs, Jim, and we have little shout outs, little things, little tidbits that have piqued our interest, but don't quite qualify as a, as serious news. So my, my first shout out, uh, goes to Riz. Jim Stroud (04:59.228) No promises. Joel Cheesman (05:18.224) Riz, which I mentioned on the show. So dad joke alert. So my kids, I have two teenagers and a six year old, and we have them fill out their Christmas list every year. And this year I thought I'd make a good, a dad joke. There's no good dad jokes. Well, I made a dad joke and I said, hey kids, did you add Riz to your Christmas list? Because I hear all the kids are looking for Riz. Okay. And they didn't like, they booed me, I guess. So anyway. Jim Stroud (05:46.231) hahahaha Joel Cheesman (05:47.464) It's Oxford's word of the year. It's short for charisma. So if you have Riz, you have charisma. In an effort to make this shout out relevant to recruiting, I said, wouldn't it be fun if I went out to your favorite search engines for jobs and looked for Riz to see if there are any job postings with the word Riz in it? Unfortunately, there are no jobs with the word Riz in it. So there's an opportunity for you employers out there Jim Stroud (05:50.886) Mm. Joel Cheesman (06:16.52) People are searching Riz. They're gonna find your job if you just add the keyword Riz into it. However, LinkedIn, LinkedIn did not let me down, Jim. LinkedIn, some creative profiles. Let me say that. So a few profile titles that I found, one said Riz King. He's an up and comer for sure. Director of Riz was one that I saw. The master of Skimity Riz. Jim Stroud (06:37.483) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (06:45.648) Not sure what his core competency was. And my, my favorite, uh, profile on LinkedIn with the word Riz was certified Riz master at your mom's house. So that was, that was, that was, that was certainly, that was my favorite one. So anyway, uh, it beat out prompt. Situation ship, which I'm not quite sure what that is. And Swifty, which with. Jim Stroud (06:48.641) Skippy the Riz. Jim Stroud (06:57.71) hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah Jim Stroud (07:08.419) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (07:13.896) the year Taylor Swift has had. She was just named Time Magazine's person of the year. So Swiftie got beat out by Riz, but my shout out goes out to Riz. What you got? Jim Stroud (07:19.082) Yeah. Jim Stroud (07:24.734) Wow, wow. My shout out goes to Aitana. I think I'm pronouncing it right. She is the first digital influencer who is of Spanish descent, if that's the right way to say it these days. And, now she has pink hair and she has a million followers on Instagram. And not only that, she's had deals with Dolce & Gabbana. She has deals with Couture and some other big names. And the person behind it, the company behind it, they were having issues with the female influencers that they were trying to employ, being late, not taking the job seriously enough, whatever. So they say, you know what? Forget all that. Joel Cheesman (08:12.41) Uh huh. Jim Stroud (08:17.226) Let's just get a digital influencer that we can control, who will always be on time, work 24-7, and it worked. So, Aytana is really just one of several digital influencers out there, believe it or not. So I see this as a shot across the bow to OnlyFans, for sure. Shot across the bow to adult entertainers, because these digital... Joel Cheesman (08:20.293) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (08:36.274) Yeah. Jim Stroud (08:45.558) people are only going to get more and more realistic. So after a while, a lot of people will have to get a real job, so to speak. This is, yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:57.188) No doubt. And I've called for this on the show for a while. And it's gonna take time. But look, dudes don't know the, either they don't know the difference or they don't give a shit. And we've covered this on the show. Jim Stroud (09:09.143) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:11.432) women and not just pictures, but video and the conversation is getting better. And like, there's going to be a day where only fans is out of business because you can go to whatever it becomes unless only fans becomes this where you pay, you know, 9.99 a month to have as many girls do whatever the hell you want with whomever they want all the time, uh, at your fingertips. And when VR becomes a thing, And the audio is like a human. I mean, uh, yeah, this is going to a place where. Making millions on only fans showing your ass is, is it's on the clock because AI is going to take this stuff over. We can talk about the, uh, what this means for the human race and dating and the demise of like civilization, but we'll, we'll save that for the next time you're on, uh, five years from now, we're probably going to be an Armageddon, uh, by, by then anyway, and, and speaking of. Jim Stroud (09:38.807) Yeah. Jim Stroud (09:55.79) Heh heh. Jim Stroud (10:05.354) Yeah, truly. Joel Cheesman (10:07.016) of nakedness in real life. My next shout out goes to the Minneapolis stripper awards. Yes, you probably know that there were stripper awards, let alone that there are local stripper awards. So around 100 strippers gathered for the Minneapolis stripper awards this week. The event aimed to celebrate strippers while also highlighting the need to unionize. See, I brought it back to employment, which is what we do on the show. The awards had nine categories. including the prestigious Miss New Boobies Award. This is for dancers who have been performing for less than a year. The Meg V. Stallion Award for performers working toward a degree, which we've all met those strippers in school working on their nursing degree, I'm sure. And the most sought after award of the night was the HBIC Award. If you don't know it, go Google HBIC, because again, I don't want to get canceled on this week's show without Chad here. So that is my next shout out. The Minneapolis stripper awards. Jim Stroud (11:15.03) I'm going to have to do some research to verify your claims. So I'll look that up to Atlanta. Oh, that's the stripper capital. Yeah, Atlanta. I'm sure there is. There's no shortage of. Joel Cheesman (11:18.448) You're in Atlanta, right? Are you in Atlanta? There's gotta be a Strip Awards in Atlanta. That might be the national, either there or Tampa or Houston or Vegas maybe, or the Strip Awards. Yeah. Jim Stroud (11:31.582) Yeah, yeah, there's no shortage of those clubs that I've heard of. I don't frequent them. I've just heard of several of them within proximity of my home. Research is what it is. Yes, yes, yes. I do actually, I'm going to give a shout out to Sam Altman. He's been through the fire and now he's out with all the drama, you know, that heard about him leaving OpenAI, going to Microsoft and OpenAI said, Hey, we sorry, come back. Joel Cheesman (11:37.917) Of course not. Research, research. You got another shout out? Jim Stroud (12:01.398) You know, and now he's facing a competition from Google that released a new AI, Gemini, I believe it is. And yeah, word on the street is that the Gemini large language model is better than chat GPT, who knows who cares, maybe it's spin, but I like it because it's going to produce, bring it back to jobs, new jobs, new careers, because when you have this kind of cutthroat competition, these companies that want to... Joel Cheesman (12:24.064) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (12:29.29) are going to want to hire the best, which is going to just raise the game up for everyone. So it's good to have a growth industry. Joel Cheesman (12:34.885) Yeah. Like it. Well, better than chat GPT, but is it better than free stuff? Jim, uh, probably not. So I want to talk to our audience about free stuff from Chad and cheese. That's right. If you love free t-shirts and free booze, you're at the right podcast. We got t-shirts from our friends at, uh, at job get, we've got bourbon, a selection from Chad one for me from text kernel. Jim Stroud (12:39.662) Yep. Jim Stroud (12:45.307) Mm. Joel Cheesman (13:03.56) We got free beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. And if it's your birthday in any particular month, we have Rum with Plum. That's right, if it's your birthday month, you could win a great bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. Joel Cheesman (13:25.284) That's right. And that brings us to this week's birthdays. That's right. Another trip around the sun for our fans, Matt Miller, Kim Stewart, Lars Kuhs, Chase Johnson, Patrick Hodgdon, Lana Schuman, Craig Anderson, Bob Scruggs, Matt Stubbsy Stubbs, Jeff King, Brandi Dawson, Tanya Truelove, Anoop Gupta, CEO of Seeked Out, and apparently some chick. named Julie and so wash celebrate a birthday this week. So happy birthday to them. By the way, Chad is in London this week. He's finishing up a stint with TA tech, which will end our travels for this year. But if you want to find out where we're going to be the usual suspects, Jim Stroud (13:55.947) Who? Joel Cheesman (14:21.212) Go to ChadCheese.com, click the events link to keep track of where Chad and I are going. And also while I'm doing a little housekeeping here, every month we do a show called the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Data. We've partnered with Toby Dayton at LinkUp to go over the jobs report every month. We look into his data, which is used by some of the best Wall Street firms out there. We dig into what's going on from a molecular level. And what's we bring it down to the Chad and cheese audience. We take away the, the wall street speak and bring it down to main street. Uh, if you haven't checked that out, it's only on YouTube. Uh, so check out youtube.com, uh, at Chad cheese. We do that because we have the best charts and graphs in the business, which we can't really relay over audio, but make sure that you check that out. Uh, a new one is coming out this week as a new report is being released. Joel Cheesman (15:24.164) Which brings us to our fantasy football leaderboard of the week. Do you play fantasy, Jim? Jim Stroud (15:32.046) Nah, not football. Different fantasy leagues. Ask me after the show. Joel Cheesman (15:36.968) Board games? I don't know, I don't want to get into it. Okay, what kind of sick games, kind of sick fantasy games are you playing? Okay, so we play fantasy football, sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix. The season's almost over. The top four get to the playoffs. This is really the final week of the regular season. Here is your top 12 leaderboard. And number one, she's been there almost the whole season. Michelle Sargent-Peppers is right there, followed by Marcy Mall-Rat. Uh, Dina Pero for pyros at number three, jagged little Jill Patterson at number four, uh, Chad bought so wash, uh, no one wants to have a conversation with that Chad bought by the way, uh, FYI. Uh, number six, Joe bag of Dixon is, uh, is in that spot. Number seven, Brent, Brent Losey, uh, number seven, uh, number, number eight Joel. It's all good achievement. That's me. Jim Stroud (16:22.911) I'm sorry. Joel Cheesman (16:32.776) Number nine, cool. Mo Dean Osner number 10 Jasper, uh, the last European to make it into the league, uh, span Jart, cause he frankly just sucked after whining about why won't you let a European play fantasy football? Number 11, Dennis breakfast, lunch and Tupper number 12, the Caboose Kristen champagne air Bona. And that is your fantasy football leaderboard. Well, Jim, when I have a co-host on, I like to talk, just dig a little bit about what you're doing. You've been around for a long time, have some great insight. Let's talk about sourcing. And I'm gonna give my historical perspective on sourcing, and then I'm gonna hand it to you to give us the current state of sourcing and the future of sourcing. So sourcing for me goes back really to like shally business, like foldable business card with Boolean strings. Jim Stroud (17:12.738) Yes. Joel Cheesman (17:29.404) And search engines, no one knew about and don't exist anymore, uh, that you could use to find people that evolved into companies, hiring, solved hire tool that had all the people data and then all the bullion was built in. Like, what do you need? Of course, LinkedIn is growing this whole, this whole time. Uh, LinkedIn sues everybody, uh, throws out cease and desist. You can't take our data. Um, and basically effectively puts a lot of people out of business. Um, there's a big pivot in the industry, uh, profiles become commoditized. You have, uh, you know, for nine 99, you can access a hundred million profiles. That brings the price down for everybody. Higher tool becomes higher, easy, more of a marketing platform. Uh, hiring saw goes out of business. Uh, seek out is I think kind of finding its way around. They went through around layoffs recently. So from my perspective, the sourcing profession. is in a real state of flux right now. So I'm gonna pass it to you to kind of give us the state of sourcing, your role at SourceCon, what the show has become, the future of the conference, and maybe the future of the profession. Jim Stroud (18:42.082) Sure, sure. I think you summed up sourcing in a very, very accurate way. We are in a state of flux. Yeah. Sourcing is in a state of flux. I think a lot of people are concerned. I hear it when I'm at the conference. I talk to people virtually and in person. And if they're in the recruiting Joel Cheesman (18:50.6) This is why I have an award-winning podcast, Jim, for six years running. Yeah. Because I'm old. That's why. Jim Stroud (19:12.262) industry, there is a lot of concern. People are looking at the AI technology out there and they're thinking, wow, AI is here, so my days are numbered. And I say, well, not necessarily. So I just think that when new technology is introduced, some jobs will be displaced, but then new ones will replace them. Just as Netflix took out Blockbuster back in the day, for you young folks, there used to be a time when you got DVDs in the mail and it wasn't streamed. But now with Netflix, you have the streaming technology. And so that brought about a bunch of new jobs, content creation, digital marketing, data analysis, software development, cybersecurity stuff, just name a few. So there will be new jobs that I think sourcing will morph into or will also incorporate. And I'll make a prediction on three different jobs, if I may. of the future, which you'll probably start to begin to see next year. One job that I predict that's going to appear in 2024 or shortly thereafter is what I'm calling the algorithmic recruiting analyst. Joel Cheesman (20:01.908) Sure. Jim Stroud (20:16.906) And that's somebody who analyzes the performance and effectiveness of AI algorithms using HR tech tools. Someone who optimizes algorithms for better outcomes, maybe tweaking the dials a little bit for more diversity or provide more insight. Sort of like, it's sort of an old school comparison. Tweaking the Boolean strings to make sure that the AI is getting the right candidates or as many candidates as possible. Another prediction I've seen in the very near future is the ethical AI compliance officer. All right. And that's somebody who makes sure that AI tools are in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations. You know, President Biden recently issued an executive order on AI to promote, as a quote, safe, secure, and trustworthy development of the use of artificial intelligence. And when I heard that... Joel Cheesman (20:48.815) Okay. Joel Cheesman (21:00.052) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (21:10.598) that just tells me that new regulations are on the horizon. And you already have a few out there, like New York City Local Law 144 and others, but there's gonna be a whole bunch. And when you're not in compliance of all these regulations, it's gonna cost you money. So I think it's gonna be a job where someone's whole job is to make sure that you protect the company from having to pay fines. And then third, which I know for sure I will likely see next year. is something I'm calling the AI recruitment trainer. That's somebody who comes in and trains sourcing teams on how to use AI tools and platforms. There are so many tools out there. And this person is going to come in and say, hey, you know what? Let's connect ChatGPT to Zapier and look at all the things you can do. Look how much time it's going to save you. And this is by doing these things that I'm going to train you on, your team is going to be more efficient. You'll be able to do more with less, that kind of thing. So somebody like Eric Jacob, if you're listening Eric shout out to you. Eric Jacob or Ronnie Bratcher or somebody like that, or any number of people from what are called the source kind OGs could do a really good job with this. So those are my three predictions there. Joel Cheesman (22:18.789) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (22:25.134) So let's get to SourceCon real quick. If memory serves me, and again I'm old, there is no SourceCon without you. Were you one of the original? Am I off base on that? Jim Stroud (22:28.81) Yeah, yeah. Jim Stroud (22:37.124) You flatter me, sir. You flatter me. Well, back in the day, back in the day, it was Leslie O'Connor, Rob McIntosh, Earl Mann and myself. We were the four horsemen, so to speak, behind it. I didn't put the money up, so I almost feel kind of sketchy saying that I'm a wonderful horseman, but I was. Joel Cheesman (22:46.074) Yeah? Yeah. Jim Stroud (22:58.998) the emcee for SourceCon and promoted it for the first few years. So a lot of people still remember me from back then to now because I really got into video promotions, producing videos to promote SourceCon back then. And I've been back several times over the years, keynoting at the event. And as Luck or Providence, whatever you want to call it, has have it, I am now the editor of SourceCon. Joel Cheesman (23:00.068) Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:05.437) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:23.229) Yeah. Jim Stroud (23:23.466) which means that I helped to plan the event. I helped to create the content on the event. And I also promote and manage the online community of really, really talented people who have a love for sourcing. I'm very, very blessed. Shout out to the SourceCon community. Shout out to the good folks over at ERE. One love. Joel Cheesman (23:46.428) You know, uh, real quickly, the, the conference universe fascinates me and I've been around for a while again, uh, back to me being old, but you know, ERE used to be the go-to conference for everybody. SourceCon was like the freak show, you know, the, the people. I mean, I say that, I say that it's, it was like, Jim Stroud (24:04.331) Hahaha Jim Stroud (24:08.382) Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sort of like Comic-Con. Joel Cheesman (24:10.524) It was like the S it was like the SEOs back in marketing, right? Like all the SEOs got together and like, and they were the freaks, right? But they, it was like, they knew something other people didn't. And source con always felt like that to me. They, they had, they spoke each other's language. They saw things that other people didn't see. Um, and it was always fun. Pandemic hits. You know, there's a new, a new crop of conferences, the unleashes, the rec fasts, um, what's the state of the conference? Jim Stroud (24:14.485) Yeah. Jim Stroud (24:20.894) Exactly. I think what? Jim Stroud (24:27.392) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:40.04) What, how, how were the vendors changing? Like you talked about your predictions. The vendors used to be pretty straightforward, like pro search profiles and like, uh, or contract people to do searches. How are the vendors different and how is, how is the conference different? And where do you hope to take it with a whole new crop of competition out there to, to get people's mind share? Jim Stroud (25:00.31) Sure. Well, with the sponsors, we just announced the first ever AI product showcase. So what we're going to do is we're going to have several vendors, five minutes, to showcase what they do and give the audience five minutes to ask them questions. There are so many tools out there, and we're going to allow a select few to present to the community. Shout out to Danielle at ere.net if someone's interested in that. But we're going to have them just sort of showcase because a lot of the tools out now, everything is powered by artificial intelligence in some matter. So there's that. In terms of the look and feel of SourceCon, originally back in the day, it would have been a fair comparison to say SourceCon was to recruiting conferences as DefCon. Joel Cheesman (25:42.482) Yeah. Jim Stroud (25:56.258) what's the security industry or Comic-Con. So if you can combine Comic-Con, that's the conference for people in comics and Marvel movies, things like that. If you combine Comic-Con with DefCon and add in recruiting and sourcing, you would have SourceCon. Over time, it felt like it was sort of straying away, sort of lost its sort of mojo in that sense, but I'm trying to bring sexy back, so to speak. So... Joel Cheesman (26:06.14) Uh huh. Joel Cheesman (26:20.633) Yeah. Jim Stroud (26:27.103) These sound effects. So bringing it back to that old school source con vibe where you have the, to your point, the weird people or the people who are just really passionate about sourcing, really passionate about AI and recruiting and sourcing and showing them the latest tools and tricks all in one place. It is the place to be for that. Joel Cheesman (26:34.737) Okay. Joel Cheesman (26:46.64) Okay. Well, with AI, I know a lot of people have questions. They have a lot of ideas or how AI can work and making me a better sorcerer. So I'm kind of with you. I think there'll be some new and inventive ways that we, I can't even see that vendors and people will come up with, uh, to take sourcing to a whole different place. Uh, give us, give us the, where the win, uh, and any discounts, uh, that you might have for the, the Chad and cheese listeners. Jim Stroud (27:06.216) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (27:14.57) Sure, you can get all the information at sourcecon.com. That's S-O-U-R-C-E-C-O-N.com. And you can get 10% off by using the discount code sourcecon10. And you can also get 100% off if you contribute four articles to the SourceCon blog. Those articles will be peer reviewed by a lot of the SourceCon OGs. So if you want 100% off, write a very, very good article for very, very good articles and submit them. And once they're peer reviewed, you'll get free tickets. Joel Cheesman (27:50.736) All right. Jim Stroud (27:54.52) Hehe. Joel Cheesman (27:55.292) Well, thanks, Jim. Where can they learn more about SourceCon? Jim Stroud (27:59.018) Yeah, go to SourceCon.com. S-O-U-R-C-E-C-O-N.com. Joel Cheesman (28:04.368) Easy enough. Easy enough. Joel Cheesman (28:10.616) Now to the news in no particular order. Indeed, my God, we never talk about indeed on the show, Jim. Indeed is discontinuing pay per application, or what the kids are calling PPA pricing, set to end in less than two weeks. Wow, that was a quick decision. After replacing pay per click for most employers, Jim Stroud (28:20.049) Never. Joel Cheesman (28:34.82) Initially favored by smaller employers, PPA faced criticism for complexity and unexpected chargers despite changes. Indeed cited it as an unsuccessful experiment focusing now on pay for performance models, Jim, I know you don't have a lot to say about this particular. Uh, item, but do you have any, any thoughts on indeed what the community thinks about indeed? And maybe about this, this confusion with pricing. Jim Stroud (29:05.158) I think that indeed could learn something from McDonald's. McDonald's has been around for a while, but they have the same basic menu. Even though people still, it amazes me people walk into McDonald's and they sit there and look at the menu. Like it hadn't changed in 20 years. Basically unless they bring back the McRib or something. It's something about keeping your business process as simple, keeping it simple for the customers. Joel Cheesman (29:22.057) Uh huh. Jim Stroud (29:32.426) It's cool to introduce something new every now and then, but there's something to be said about consistency. You know, they'll make it difficult. The easier you make it for someone to give you money, the easier it is for you to get their money. So that's what I say about that. Joel Cheesman (29:45.756) Yeah. And pay-per-click 20 years on is kind of a universal thing. People understand you click on my ad and I pay you money for the traffic. Every time you try to throw in complexity, you're going to get a lot of money. Joel Cheesman (30:05.784) So we talked about this when they launched it. And the fact is Google can't make this work. Google back in the mid 2000s had like, you know, pay per purchase. So someone clicks on an ad and if they buy your pair of shoes, then you only pay us for people buying the shoes or you pay us a percentage of what people spent. You can imagine the level of fraud, deception that people tried to get. Jim Stroud (30:06.134) Hehehehe Jim Stroud (30:10.09) Hmm. Jim Stroud (30:29.186) Right. Joel Cheesman (30:35.536) like less, like not pay Google or people that were using AdSense. Forget it. So if Google can't figure out a pay per acquisition model, uh, then it should tell you something that you can't either, uh, indeed is going through a real period of hubris right now. Uh, they're going through a period of, of fear, frankly, uh, with, with Google for jobs with LinkedIn growing. with programmatic, uh, appcast and others breathing down their neck. Um, indeed is making some really dumb decisions. And I think this was one of them to think that they could just do this, uh, really reeks of hubris. I understand the idea of it because it's hard to have a conversation as an indeed salesperson and say, look, I know you're paying, uh, appcast 12 cents a click and you're paying us 84 cents a click, but we're, we're better. Right? Like that's a hard conversation to have. Like, why should I pay you double for the click that I'm giving someone else when I'm still getting the results that I need? So they, they wanted to create confusion of like, well, no, it's not per click. It's per applicant or it's per interested, interested candidate or whatever, whatever model. So they want to sort of dilute the waters and confuse people. Well, it looks like they went too far. Uh, and our, our backtracking on, on what they they've had to do. Um, Jim Stroud (31:46.565) Hmm Jim Stroud (32:01.458) It could be... Joel Cheesman (32:01.608) The other thing is there's a company, a private equity firm called value act that just gave a bunch of money to recruit holdings, which is indeed parent company. Well, you know that when private equity comes in the door, they take a magnet, you know, magnifying glass to everything and they say, okay, what's, what's frivolous, what isn't working, what is working, how do we cut costs? Um, clearly there was a strategy meeting where someone said, why are we doing this? We're, we're losing customers. They don't understand it. So maybe there was at least some. Jim Stroud (32:06.373) Hmm. Jim Stroud (32:11.171) Hmm Joel Cheesman (32:31.512) Uh, some focus or refocus with, uh, with the private equity coming in, uh, that made them, uh, make this move. I don't think it's the end of bad moves for indeed. I think they're going to continue because the world isn't going to change. Google is still going to march on LinkedIn is still going to march on programmatic is still only going to get bigger. Appcast is buying agencies and so IPOs are going to come down the pike. It's only going to get tougher for indeed. So, uh, I don't, I'm not sure what they're going to do, but I think Dumber moves are going to come in by them. Maybe new products, new brands, new extensions, maybe consulting, maybe more recruiting and staffing. Uh, but the, the paper click life only has so much to live at this point. And the PPA didn't work. And, uh, I think the PPC lifespan is limited at this point. Jim Stroud (33:19.698) I think when you're so big, to your point about the hubris, you get so big you figure you can do whatever you want. But I do think that the way things are, what indeed needs to be looking at in the corner of their eye, is companies merging and being acquired. I heard about there's some talk about Paramount Plus doing some kind of deal with Apple Plus. Joel Cheesman (33:44.749) With Apple? Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (33:46.11) Yeah, because they're both hurting on the streaming wars and their library is really lacking compared to Amazon and Netflix. So if a lot of companies, because of these interesting times, start teaming up and merging and they start coming together like Voltron and robot or something, it might be big enough at some point to take on indeed. I think the real problem is no major competitor. Or not. Joel Cheesman (33:51.889) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:05.108) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (34:15.19) big enough to really cause them to shift what they're doing. It needs more competition, is what I'm saying. Joel Cheesman (34:20.117) Yeah. Well, back to sourcing, right? Like at one point profiles became commodities, like they're out there, you know, like LinkedIn has built a walled garden around their stuff and they've done a good job of protecting that, but there's no protection for job postings. Companies don't give a shit if you scrape their cut, their ATS and grab their job and throw it out there. Now they may care, but they're not doing anything about it. So as jobs get to become commodities, it's like, it's a race to the bottom. Jim Stroud (34:25.003) Yeah. Jim Stroud (34:41.792) All right. Joel Cheesman (34:46.256) of pricing and to me the programmatic, you know, uh, wave that's, that's happened is, is a mirror image of what's going on with any commodity out there as a race to the bottom. So for me, um, indeed has, has nowhere to go except like milk this thing for as long as they can, unless they do come up with some miraculous, uh, you know, ninth fourth, fourth quarter comeback. I think they're going to share a faith that Monster shared. I mean, how many times do we talk about Monster hubris? You know, 15 years ago, you know, 10 years ago. Jim Stroud (35:20.704) Yeah. I never would have thought Monster would be gone. I always thought Monster would reign supreme forever from back in the day, you know? But it happens. Joel Cheesman (35:32.848) I mean, like we're going to talk about job openings, uh, in our next story, job boards should be crushing it, crushing it like Zipper, crude or indeed like every job site should be crushing it. Unfortunately they're not. Um, and it's that race to the bottom, uh, for job advertising, but enough about indeed, we'll get back to them in a, in a second. Let's, let's talk really quickly about job openings. So in October, us job openings fell to 8.7 million. Jim Stroud (35:39.912) you would think. Joel Cheesman (36:02.844) the lowest since March of 2021, indicating a slower hiring pace amidst higher interest rates. Despite declines, job availability remains historically high. Hiring slowed from previous years, yet added 239,000 jobs monthly in 2023, reflecting a resilient job market amid rising borrowing costs and easing inflation. To put this in context, job openings reached a record of more than 12 million in March of 2022. The last time job openings hovered around 9 million like it is now was in the spring of 2021. Jim, what do you make of the drop and how should recruiters be looking at the news? Jim Stroud (36:48.766) Every time I hear a news report these days about job market, jobs down, but it's not really that bad because you have this over here, my thinking is that my inner Senate comes out and I'm thinking, okay, it's a presidential election year, right? Election season, right? So there's going to be spin all over the place. I think that we are in a recession, whether it's an official recession per se. Joel Cheesman (37:05.481) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (37:17.898) When I go to the grocery store, I think recession. I see gas prices happening, thinking recession. I could be wrong, but it just feels like we're in one. So any report that I see, I take off a grain of salt because I said, you know, people in power want things to look a certain way. Now, after the election is over, then we may see a bit more reality of how things are. But there's that. But... That and also how I get a lot of requests from other recruiters and people in the business, hey, do you know who's hiring, that kind of thing. It took a minute for me to land the gig that I have now, so I know that although jobs may be plentiful, as they say in the media, I know it's not quite the story for everyone. That being said, I would like to throw out a couple tips for recruiters who are looking for work, if I may. So this is something that recruiters and sourcers, pretty much anyone can do. Go over to Google News or any news site for that matter and do a search on series B in quotes and funding, right? Or series C in quotes and funding. When companies are raising money and then they're in their series B or series C round. that means that they're in a position to expand their operations. Usually when you get the series B and C, they are going to do more hiring. They're going to buy more products so they can sell more stuff. So those are companies that are poised to expand. Those are companies you want to pursue because they got money and they're growing. So, um, if you do a search, I did a search just a while ago and I saw several, uh, companies there. Now in Google, you can refine your search by recent or past week or past month, whatever. Do a search for recent week and you got fresh meat, so to speak, of companies that may not even have a job for a recruiter posted because it's so new, but now is the time to network and sort of get your way in that way. Also what you may want to do if you're currently working and you're concerned about how long you're going to continue working there. Jim Stroud (39:35.334) I would say diversify your skill set as much as possible. Maybe ask somebody how you can help with workforce planning or employer branding, that kind of thing. And then if you are in management, I would say strongly, this is the time to really hire, actually, believe it or not. Joel Cheesman (39:45.552) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (39:57.578) Because when you have a recession or at least it feels like recession to a lot of people, a lot of people are going to be nervous. So a lot of the A players that normally wouldn't even look your way, they may be open to an email to a conversation because they're thinking, okay, I'm working now, but things are kind of iffy. Yeah, maybe I will entertain an offer or at least talk to someone about that. And then if they happen to be laid off, then you may be able to get them at a lower salary. Joel Cheesman (40:01.501) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (40:20.132) Yeah, yeah. Jim Stroud (40:26.774) that you can afford versus you probably wouldn't be able to afford them if the economy was doing great. And then, of course, when recession is over, a lot of your A talent, they might be recruited away to other places for higher salaries. But at that time, your company might be in a better position because of all the contributions of the A players that got you to that point. So that's my rant on that. Your soundbites. Joel Cheesman (40:34.098) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (40:48.028) Got it. So my perspective is what's happening is exactly what the Fed wants to happen. Look, we flooded the house with money during COVID, what, $6 trillion, whatever it is. So we had a big party and we're coming down from that. So inflation, we gotta get that under control. At least inflation has stopped growing. Jim Stroud (40:58.06) Mm. Jim Stroud (41:08.15) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:14.668) Uh, the market needs to cool down. Jobs need to come down. Like more houses need to like everything needs to slow the hell down or we're going to overheat. We talked about, uh, this on the chat and cheese podcast does, uh, does data with Toby Dayton, what's happening is what the, what the feds want to have happen. Um, so from my perspective, 12 million jobs is ludicrous. I mean, that was, that was nuts. It was like three opens, three openings for every human being that can work. Like that is not sustainable. I don't know how many were actual real jobs. I think there was a lot of fraud in the system that we may never know about. Yeah, things are getting under control. I think it's normalizing. This doesn't scare me at all. You can throw in the word Goldilocks. It's like not too hot, not too cold. It's kind of just right. I'm glad that the labor market is holding up. We're hearing Jamie Dimon and some other big banks talk about recession. I think you're right in that we've seen a rolling recession. Jim Stroud (41:47.522) There you go. Embrace your inner cynic. Jim Stroud (41:57.567) Mm. Jim Stroud (42:13.212) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (42:13.264) I think if you're in tech a year ago, it was a recession. Uh, if you're an energy now, it's a risk. So like it's hit different, uh, industries at different times. It hasn't kind of hit all of us at the same time. Uh, but yeah, you're right. What's the old adage? Uh, if you're, if your neighbor's out of work, it's a recession. If you're out of work, it's a depression. Uh, so depending on where you are, uh, it could mean a totally different thing. Well, let's keep this thing going. Uh, when we get back from the, uh, the break, we'll talk more about. Indeed. Jim Stroud (42:33.486) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (42:45.232) Well, people probably know text kernel, uh, as the best resume parsing solution out there. Uh, they bought sovereign a long time, uh, chat and cheese sponsor a few years ago. And they're still the best parser, but they're branching out. They're into matching semantic search, sourcing APIs, you name it. And they're diving into AI. Like their hair is on fire, leveraging LLMs for recruitment, whether you're a staffing agency, corporate HR, staffing vendor, or management consultancy. You gotta be using text kernel. Okay. Customers like Ronstadt, Manpower and Kelly are already using text kernel and they have been for a while. Uh, and you can be in really good company, by the way, uh, they acquired a company called Jabati a few months back to take things to a whole new level when it comes to conversational AI and enhancements and technology guys, you owe it to yourself. To check out text kernel. If you care at all. about evolving your TA strategy. Learn more today by going to textkernel.com. That's T-E-X-T-K-E-R-N-E-L.com. Joel Cheesman (43:57.564) All right, Jim, it's an indeed double rainbow on this week's episode. So indeed following the pandemic is discontinuing their monthly and I'm using air quotes, you days. That's why oh you days. These are mental health days for employees globally stating reduced vacation bookings. The move aligns with a trend of companies reevaluating pandemic introduced perks due to budget constraints. Jim Stroud (43:59.139) Mm. Hehehehehehe Jim Stroud (44:12.494) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (44:27.74) Despite this, Indeed maintains unlimited paid time off and remote work options, also extending parental leave to 26 weeks. Jim, it's a double rainbow for Indeed, featuring our favorite company, or at least one of them. Again, what are your thoughts on Indeed trashing you days? Jim Stroud (44:48.682) I understand the business case for dropping that benefit, but my concern or my hope is that it doesn't spill over into other mental health benefits. And I said it because there was a survey that was published this week, actually, I think it was this week, by the American Psychological Association. And they reported that over 56% of the psychologists they surveyed had no openings for new patients. 56%. And among those who keep waitlists, the average wait times were three months or longer. And nearly 40% of those said their waitlists had grown in the past year. So there is clearly a need for mental health assistance. That mental health benefits are needed across the board. So I sort of shudder when I hear a company saying they're not going to offer as many mental health benefits. So I just again, I understand their business case for dropping it But I hope it doesn't spill over to other built-in health businesses putting them benefits putting those in danger because they are needed Joel Cheesman (45:57.956) Yeah. So I'm going to give them an applause on the 26 week parental leave. Uh, most companies aren't doing, uh, something. So yeah, 26 weeks for parental leave. Uh, they're extending, extending that, uh, now everyone in Europe and Canada is like, that's still not long enough, but at least in America, we're, we're making some progress on that end. Um, I always have a problem. If. Jim Stroud (46:08.782) 26 weeks? Wow, that's commendable. Joel Cheesman (46:25.636) If you are a market leader in solutions for HR, you should be a model of what treating employees correctly should look like, because all of your customers are in this industry. And if we can't get employee care right, why should we expect our customers that are doing this to get it right? So from that perspective, Jim Stroud (46:40.427) Mm. Joel Cheesman (46:53.584) I think Indeed is falling down a little bit on what they could have been this like beacon of this is how you treat employees. Here's how we do it and you can do it the same way. To be cutting something like this, I think just is a little bit short-sighted and leaving I think what is an obligation to be a model of what it is to treat employees well. They've done a pretty good PR job of saying like, well, we've... put back the things that we lost during the pandemic. So we're taking away some of the stuff that we gave during the pandemic. That's a really nice slick PR move to kind of cover your asses. Companies that have unlimited time off, generally have no time off. I've worked at companies where there's no two week period or you got to take it or you lose it. It's just kind of like, hey, you're an adult, take whatever time off you want. And what happens is nobody takes time off because they feel like, well, I'm letting the team down or I'm slacking. I'm certainly going to take more than the next person over. So everyone just ends up working like slaves and no one takes time off. What I've learned is you have to have a period and say, You got to take the time off or you lose it. And then everybody takes their vacation time. So I, I don't, I don't trust companies are like, we have unlimited time off because you, you basically have no time off when you have that, uh, that is your thing. The other thing again, back to value act, their, their private equity firm. Again, there was a meeting and they said, how do we cut shit out? How do we get people more, uh, more productive? How do we get, how do we kick the people in the ass and get them back to work? And this was, I'm sure one of those things that they took out and was easy. If I'm an Indeed employee, I'm looking for more cost cutting efforts coming down the pike from value acts. Uh, I don't want to say layoffs, but would I be surprised if some layoffs come, come down the pike? No, I would not. So for me, like, this is maybe the tip of the iceberg for Indeed's cost cutting. It starts with you days. And it's pretty soon. There are no happy days whatsoever. If you know what I'm saying, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Jim Stroud (49:04.226) Did they have this link, does Indeed have RTO policy, return to office policy? Joel Cheesman (49:04.41) Okay, sorry. Joel Cheesman (49:10.972) They are pretty, well, they are pretty, I'm sure they do, I don't know it offhand, but they are pretty flexible with the time away from the office. Although they've spent a lot of money on real estate, particularly in Austin, to get people into an office. So I think they're on a hybrid model at the moment. Jim Stroud (49:24.608) Yeah. Jim Stroud (49:30.678) Would I hear a big company? Jim Stroud (49:37.031) I feel like when companies are, oh yeah, go ahead. Oh, oh yeah, I'll point, yeah. I was gonna say that I feel that when a large company like that announces return to office, in the back of my mind, the cynical side of my brain says, tell me you're laying off without saying you're laying off. Get people to quit so you don't have to pay unemployment insurance or severance packages. Joel Cheesman (49:37.392) You had a point there before I cut you off. Go ahead. Okay. Well, yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:56.487) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (50:00.556) Yep. Jim Stroud (50:02.794) It's a win-win from a competition perspective. So. Joel Cheesman (50:05.36) Yep. And Chad and I talk all the time about boiling the frog. It just, it starts slowly and like before you know it, you're back to work five days a week. Your benefits are the way they used like everything is back to the way it was before the world changed. Jim Stroud (50:14.571) Yep. Jim Stroud (50:19.674) Have you heard of this thing called the wall of worry? You heard a term I just came across yesterday. So there's a low demand for office space these days. And it's been called a one trillion wall of worry. People in the office space leasing thing, because that's how much think they're going to be losing by end of 2024. A trillion dollars. Joel Cheesman (50:31.045) Yeah. Jim Stroud (50:46.026) and they're concerned about it and all the banks that they're in debt to are concerned about it is interesting. So I think RTO is going to continue for a lot of reasons, not just to lay people off. But yeah. Joel Cheesman (50:49.596) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (50:59.undefined) Who do you think owns those commercial buildings, Jim? The rich people do. Who owns the companies? The rich people. The rich people want you back in the offices that they own. I mean, it just makes sense. They're just gonna make it as slow and steady as they can. I think cities like New York, Chicago, bigger cities, you're just gonna go back to work. I think that stuff is gonna be good. Where I worry about the Clevelands, the Detroits, the smaller, do those downtowns ever come back? Jim Stroud (51:05.934) Yeah. Hmm Joel Cheesman (51:28.858) Um, we'll see. Jim Stroud (51:30.626) Well, there's a movement now going on, I think it's in New York and parts of Chicago, they're trying to kick it off where they want to convert the office buildings into residential. Some of those office buildings could be turned into residential, but the problem with that is that some people don't want to go back to the big city anymore because there's too much drama for some folks, depending on what city. Joel Cheesman (51:43.272) Yeah. Jim Stroud (51:54.803) If you know, you know and sort of thinking like I want to say I hear the birds because they get a little crazy there In the city, so I don't know if it's gonna work Joel Cheesman (51:59.952) Yeah. Plus a lot of those buildings aren't zoned for plumbing or, you know, the things that we think of in apartments. Uh, so you have to change the laws and the zoning regulation. So it's, it's a big pain in the ass for sure. It's, it's not a flip the switch and, and have a high luxury apartments, you know, in downtown New York, it just doesn't quite work like that. Jim Stroud (52:05.334) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:21.968) All right, let's get from one job site to another, or at least a new one anyway. Remote has launched Remote Talent, a marketplace integrated with its HR platform. Employers access global talent for local, hybrid, and fully remote roles, handling onboarding and compliance seamlessly. Job seekers find remote roles with detailed filters. The platform soon integrating AI and global knowledge tools. caters to remote work aiming for what it calls a better hiring experience. Remote also recently launched freelancer hub, a platform for freelancers to manage operational tasks. Upwork and Fiverr are losing sleep over remote talent, but Jim, what are your thoughts on remotes move into job board status? Jim Stroud (53:12.814) I think it's a good move for them. I scanned over their website just a little while ago. And I probably missed a couple of things here and there. But if I were them, I would do my best to position Remote as the number one champion of the digital nomad movement. If I wanted to be a digital nomad and just go from place to place working different exotic locations around the world, Remote.com should be the number one place to go for that. I should see information on how to get travel visas, guides on working abroad. I think they do have some guides on working abroad. But the number one thing I would do, probably before even doing all that, is either hire or create a travel influencer to produce videos about working all over the world. I saw their, I looked at their YouTube channel. That's free advice. I looked at their YouTube channel, and I expected to see. Someone say, hey, this is me and I'm in Bali and I'm working here as a software developer and then I go to the beach and then I do this kind of stuff. That kind of video would go viral outside of the job secret market and that would really promote their brand. It probably worked for any of their competitors, but I'm thinking remote. So something like that, they should be all over that. I was surprised not to see that. Maybe I overlooked it, but they should be doing that. Joel Cheesman (54:17.053) Uh huh. Joel Cheesman (54:29.416) Mm-hmm. Wow. Joel Cheesman (54:40.244) Jim likes it, Jim likes it. I do not like it. And here's why. So historically, companies that get a lot of money like Remote has does some dumb shit. They lose focus, they get into stuff that they shouldn't be getting into. They start diluting their talent and what they're thinking about and how they innovate the main product. I'm reminded of... Jim Stroud (54:44.634) Ah. Jim Stroud (54:54.231) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:07.02) Simply hired a company, you, you know, as well as I do. And, and back in the day, indeed, and simply hired were sort of both companies coming up in vertical search, jobster was there, but we'll, we'll save them for a different day and. We're indeed was super focused on speed ease of use, basically being Google for jobs. Jim Stroud (55:19.084) Yeah. Jim Stroud (55:22.395) Ha ha Joel Cheesman (55:31.536) Simply hired was like, well, we have 50 million. We have five X what indeed has in funding. What do we, what else do we get into? Like let's throw banner ads up. Let's do a resume, a writing help. Let's do like all these things that were unfocused and not like court of the business, you could argue that it was a fringe function of it. But to me, like an HR platform for everything, uh, remote Jim Stroud (55:31.692) Yep. Joel Cheesman (55:58.196) to like being a job marketplace where employers can find people is totally taking your eye off the ball. And you're competing with Deal and Rippling and Oyster and some big, you know, high dollar competition. You can't afford to be unfocused. I'm also reminded of Handshake, the college recruiting site out there. The last round of funding they got, they talked about taking on LinkedIn. Uh, which is just stupid, but it's also unfocused and taking your mind off or your, your eye off the ball. It's pretty common. You get a bunch of money. Investors go, okay, how are we going to add a billion dollars to the, to the bottom line and you go, well, let's see, let's add jobs, let's take on LinkedIn. Let's, uh, be a streaming service. Like people just lose their minds when they get a lot of money. And from my perspective, This is a dangerous road for remote to be on. I don't think they should be getting into the Upwork Fiverr business. They should stay laser focused on what they do, being the best at it. They already have the best name, arguably, for what they do. Now, if they had started out as a remote work thing, then that's one thing, but they didn't start out that way. I think they're at real risk of screwing it up. But what do I know? I've only been around, I've only been around for 20, 25 years. Jim Stroud (56:54.571) Hmm. Jim Stroud (57:17.938) Time will tell. Joel Cheesman (57:20.072) Let's take another quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about, well, one of my favorite topics. Joel Cheesman (57:39.316) Well, we talked about a job at X's programmatic advertising and text kernels AI. I want you to now meet Pando IQ, which brings two great tastes together, programmatic and AI. That's right. Amplify your recruitment reach and target more qualified candidates with PandoLogic's programmatic job advertising platform, Pando IQ. Pando IQ, a best in class programmatic job advertising platform. with a candidate management dashboard and conversational AI. That's a chat bot to you and I, Jim, for a deeper level of engagement without the heavy lifting or hassles. And Panda was acquired by Veritone, a pioneer in AI who also recently acquired Broadbean, the leader in job distribution. So how many flavors can you actually put onto one solution and have it still taste great? That's Panda IQ. More than enough reasons. Jim Stroud (58:13.646) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (58:36.456) to give them a look. Everything that Pandologic has to offer is something that you should be looking into. You can learn more by just going to pandologic.com. That's P-A-N-D-O-L-O-G-I-C.com. Joel Cheesman (58:57.404) All right, Jim, it's Chipotle time. Jim Stroud (58:59.072) Mm. Joel Cheesman (59:05.852) All right, so this one's straight out of sitcom land. Rosemary Hain, 39 year old, received a minimal sentence for assaulting a Chipotle worker in Ohio. Judge Gilligan, is his name, criticized her behavior offering her an alternative to reduce her jail time, working 20 hours a week at a fast food place for two months. The victim, Emily Russell, left Chipotle Jim Stroud (59:09.545) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (59:35.024) Supported by public donations and a new job. Jim, does the punishment fit the crime on this one? What are your thoughts? Jim Stroud (59:43.39) Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I love this story. I think it sends a message and hopefully this message will change the entitled culture that we tend to live in these days. What happened to basic manners? You know, what happened to just, you know, saying please and thank you and having a little bit of patience. You know, everything doesn't have to be done in 30 seconds or less. You know, if you have someone that makes a mistake, show a little grace. You know, I think if I traveled through time and let's say that the, if I came back from the nineties and saw that happening, I would be totally shocked. I would think that person is just totally nuts and should be, you know, put it, put aside somewhere to, to get some mental health assistance. But nowadays it seems so common to see these kinds of outbursts. Joel Cheesman (01:00:22.484) Mm-hmm. Jim Stroud (01:00:43.426) And it is really unnerving. It makes me concerned about future generations when you don't have any interpersonal skills, that you can't have any empathy with somebody who's doing the best they can or just having a rough day. In the big scheme of things, someone gets your order wrong. Is it really worth all of that? Just send it back and get what you want. I mean, it's, yeah. I'm so glad it happened to that person. Joel Cheesman (01:01:08.616) Jim, you're bringing us down and we don't do that on Chad and Chi. So I'm going to bring us back up. I'm reminded of a Seinfeld episode where George and Jerry are pitching to NBC. The idea of a show where a guy commits a crime of some sort and the judge, uh, makes him someone's butler for a year. And it's like, the whole show is based on this guy becoming a butler instead of going to jail. So I thought. Jim Stroud (01:01:12.364) Hahaha! Okay. Jim Stroud (01:01:17.72) Mm. Joel Cheesman (01:01:37.18) boy, art imitating life on this one. This person that chunks a bowl at a Chipotle employee is now forced to work fast food as punishment. Now, a little known fact about me, McDonald's was my first real job. This was back in the 80s, and they had the McDLT. Do you remember the McDLT? It was like the hot stays hot and the cold stays cold. Jim Stroud (01:01:39.851) Hmm. Jim Stroud (01:01:54.802) OK. I remember that. Jim Stroud (01:02:01.25) tastes cold. Joel Cheesman (01:02:02.428) The styrofoam boxes they came in clearly destroyed much of the world back in the 80s, but that's neither here nor there. So another side note, George Costanza, not as George Costanza, is in the commercial for the McDLT. So we're bringing this full circle with Seinfeld and my experience at McDLT and McDonald's. And frankly, all this talk about McDonald's and Chipotle is making me... Jim Stroud (01:02:19.774) Wow. Joel Cheesman (01:02:29.744) Very hungry. So let's wrap this thing up, Jim, let people know where they can find out more about SourceCon and give them that discount code again. Jim Stroud (01:02:32.843) Yes. Jim Stroud (01:02:38.166) Sure, you just go to www.sourcecon.com. That's S-O-U-R-C-E-C-O-N.com. Use the code sourcecon10 to get 10% off. Or you can submit four articles to me. My email is jim at sourcecon.com. And four articles that are peer reviewed on the site will get you a free ticket. So that's 100% off. Can't beat that. Joel Cheesman (01:03:00.904) Can't beat that. Another one in the can. Chad will be back next week, unless I get lucky and he falls in the channel or something. And happy birthday to his beautiful wife, Julie Sowash. Jim, give it to me. We out. Jim Stroud (01:03:07.19) Hehehehehehe Jim Stroud (01:03:13.675) Yes. We out! Ho, ho!

Chad is back this week following a week of British hospitality and has some things to add to last week's discussion around Indeed and Appcast. Then it's on to Google's Gemini, they're answer to taking AI up a notch, including multimodal intelligence. That's text, images, audio, video and even code, if you didn't know. What else? Well, LinkedIn's campaign to kill fake accounts and the companies that create them is in high gear, as legal cases are closing, and fines are coming. Plus, Facebook fraudster Barbara Furlow-Smiles, a former global diversity executive at Facebook, comes into view and might explain why the social network's diversity strategy has seemed so out of whack lately. And because we love you, dear listener, so much, we drop some breaking news out of iCIMS to close the show, along with some commentary (of course). Enjoy, and be sure to check us out on YouTube, where we're publishing some really cool content, including the weekly podcast. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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 snack. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Oh. Yeah. Like the Jelly of the Month Club. We're the gift that keeps on giving the whole year. What's up, kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Impeachment Cheesman. Chad: This is Chad. What day is it? Joel: Sowash. And on this episode, Appcast strikes back, LinkedIn fights on and Gemini. It's not just the astrological sign of your favorite podcasters. Let's do this. What's up, Chad? Chad: I was trying to figure out what day it is. Spent a week in London and we were stacked. London in December is London in December. I'm just, get that out there. Cold, rainy... Joel: Kinda like London in August. Chad: Oh, Jesus. Yeah. But cold but full of warm pubs, which is fucking amazing. And great people we know, the holiday lights throughout London were just fricking beautiful. And thanks to Peter Weddle and Steven O'Donnell and Bill Fanning for having Julie and I out to the event. We had some great Indian food the first night with Fanning and Stubbsy. Then we went to lunch with Alex Fourlus, who bestowed a couple of bottles of Greek wine upon us. Sushi with our friend, Mikel from Sonic Jobs. Dinner with Sir Richard and Lady Beverly Collins at a pretty swanky Instagram ready Italian restaurant. Joel: Oh yeah. It was Swanky. [laughter] Chad: A night of drinking, Squid Games, dinner and more drinking with Gem, Thomas and Rob from, the guys from Talent Nexus. And a really cool last night out with Sam and the Real Links Board of Advisors at the Groucho Club in Soho. Last but never least, Alex Tchaikovsky brought me some Oktoberfest German beer right from Germany. And I also got a bottle of 12 year reserve single malt Bushmills from our friend. Joel: Okay. Chad: Michael Blakely. So delicious. So delicious. Joel: So I'm surprised you don't know what day it is with all the alcohol and food that you consumed last week. Chad: I'm sorry. Joel: Squid Games. You're gonna have, I know Squid Game the show. Chad: Yeah. Joel: What do you mean you had, you did Squid games? Chad: So they, they've got this immersive game where you literally go into a box. It's a room, but it's a box. You put on these little visors and they've got like these little nodes on them and you play the game on the wall and... Joel: Yeah. Chad: Like green lights. There are just a bunch of different games that you can play. And then you score, you score as a team against other teams, but then you also score against each other. So it was fun. And whenever we go to London, I have to say one of the most fun times we have all the time is with the guys from Talent Nexus 'cause they always take us out to play games. Joel: Sure. Chad: Drink, eat, and then drink again. Joel: Yeah. So was this like a Netflix sanctioned... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Thing... Sponsored or powered by Netflix. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Squid Game. And you went in a thing and it was, had Squid Games branding on it and everything. Chad: Yep. Joel: Oh, shit. That's kinda cool. Chad: Yeah. Joel: It was really cool. An extension. I like it. I like it. And there was a bar there? Chad: Yeah, as a matter of fact. Joel: You could drink and play Green Light? Chad: It's funny because between games, right on the wall, it asks you if you want more alcohol, and then you just go up and you touch the wall and what you want. Right? And I want two IPAs and I want a fizzy drink for Thomas or something like that. And then you put order and two minutes later they come in, they put them down in the little drink holders and you go back to playing the game. SFX: Alright, alright, alright. Chad: Genius. Joel: I'm not hating on that. Not hating on that. SFX: Shout out. Joel: At all. At all. Let's get to some shout outs. Chad: Let's do it. Joel: Shall we? I know you've, you gave a whole bunch in your little explanation of last week's activities. But my first shout out goes out to Checkr. You think Checkr is a background check company? Well, think again, Chad. They've expanded the platform with the launch of Checkr Pay and Checkr Onboard addressing the needs of growing flexible and mobile First Workforce. This stuff reeks of desperation to me. [laughter] Joel: We look at Handshake going after LinkedIn. Last week we talked about Remote taking on Upwork and Fiverr. This kind of dilution of the brand and the services, almost never works out very well. It confuses the consumer. It divides the workforce. It creates confusion. Checkr says background check. It's a great brand. Checkr does not say onboarding solution. They're fucking up. This is what happens when you take too much money when your valuation is too high, you start doing crazy stuff like this. And I think Checkr is going to regret it. However, shout out to them, for doing something, I guess. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's smart because they're going down funnel, whether they can do it successfully or not. That's, we will see. But they definitely have to open up the total addressable market with the money that they took. So they have to do something. The question is, were these the right, the right things to do. Background check into onboarding. Man, there's a good synergy there. The thing is they've gotta go down. Joel: Yeah. Chad: They've gotta go down funnel. That was one of the things that we talked about where LinkedIn is really, they're really stuck, is there at the top of the funnel. And if they come down the funnel, then they have more data. They have, more of an ecosystem. Right now. The ecosystem is just on the top of the funnel. So I don't know. We'll see what they can do. It's, I kinda like those guys. I'm not a big background check guy, but I kinda like those guys. Joel: Yeah. It's a shitty business. So you kind of gotta start doing new stuff, I guess. If you want to support your, what is it, $6 billion valuation or whatever the hell it is. Chad: I don't know. I don't know. Joel: It's crazy. It's crazy. Chad, anyone? It's crazy. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad: I've got a Mary Fix Miss. This is from our factory fix guys. We'll talk about fantasy football later, but... Joel: Oh shit. Chad: Big, big shout out to the Cumberland Hotel in London right by Marble Arch where Julie and I stayed. Shout out because they played NFL football every Sunday, which coincidentally also came during their drag show brunch, which was amazing. We had football going on and drag over there. It was like a melding of the communities. Did they actually meet? It doesn't matter. They were together. It was pretty cool. Joel: That escalated quickly. Okay. Moving on. Chad: Yes. Joel: Shout out to Doritos. Chad: Oh, no. Joel: Who doesn't love Doritos? What's your favorite flavor of Doritos? Chad: I love Cool Ranch. I'm big Cool Ranch Dorito guy. Joel: Cool Ranch. Cool Ranch. You gotta, you can't lose with cool ranch. Chad: No. Joel: For sure. The sweet chili is really solid as well. Anyway, can I interest you in a nacho cheddar Doritos flavored liquor drink? Chad: God, no. Oh, that sounds horrible. Joel: Think Cheddar cheese. Vodka. Chad: That thing sounds horrible. Joel: Okay. Chad: Oh my God. Joel: So, so... Chad: I'm about ready to throw up right now. Joel: Doritos PepsiCo is partnered with Empirical, who's a big, booze, booze, booze maker. And they have fused nacho cheese Dorito flavor. Chad: Yeah. Joel: With vodka. Chad: Wow. Wow. Joel: The reviews of people who have had it is that it's good. Now PepsiCo needs to get in bed with Taco Bell and get this nacho Doritos drink with some Taco Bell. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And your boy here is in Nirvana. Okay. I don't know about the hangover, beer shits the next morning. But for the night, that sounds like a pretty good time to me. Shout out to... Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Doritos Liqueur coming in January at the low low price, Chad, of $65 a bottle. So skip the Old Forester, skip the Bib and Tucker, skip. Yeah. Chad: No. Joel: Go to the Doritos $65 aisle for that one. Chad: I will not. Joel: For that one. Chad: That sounds like a very high price tag to puke my guts out. Joel: It's very expensive. Chad: Oh, that's crazy. Joel: Especially for vodka. Chad: That's crazy. So I'm gonna shout out to infrastructure. Shout out to high speed rail. And it's about time in the US, announced Friday the largest federal investment in passenger trains in decades with 8.2 billion in new funding for high speed rail and other projects nationwide. Infrastructure, baby. And it's about fucking time. Joel, have you ever been on high speed rail? Joel: Yeah. It's called European transportation. Chad: There it is. Yes. Yes, you have more space. There's no TSA, no long lines. It's just a better experience than flying when you're not crossing an ocean. Europe is bigger than the US. China is bigger than the US. Guess what? They both have high speed fucking rail. It's about time. So big shout out to the US and high speed rail. Joel: Yeah. I hope this works. We've talked about Europe, it's like half the size and twice the population. So rail makes a ton of sense. Everything is close by, ton of people. And... Chad: Landmass wise, it's bigger than the US. Joel: I thought it was half the size, but twice the population. Chad: Nope. Landmass wise. Europe, European, Europe. Joel: We need Adam Gordon to chime in on this. Adam Gordon. Chime in on this. Chad: It's fairly simple. You can just go to Google and do a search on landmass. Joel: What's Google again? Anyway, so we're in Indianapolis. Chad: ChatGPT. Joel: There should be a Chicago Indie, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, regional makes a ton of sense. Both of those, all those cities would benefit greatly if there was like a... Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: High speed train that took you to downtown. The center of downtown of all those places. But Americans love their cars, so we'll, see what happens. Chad: Well. We love the cars 'cause we've been forced to use cars. We in Indianapolis have been trying to get fucking light rail forever. And the Koch brothers have been down on that shit. They've been spending money against it so that we keep buying oil. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So this a lot. Joel: Yeah. Chad: It doesn't have to do with us loving cars, it has to do with what we have available to us. Joel: Yeah. Car and oil had better lobbyists than the railroads did back in the day. But yeah. Chad: Very much. Joel: Yeah. The high-speed train is sexy. I'd like to see it. SFX: Ay papi. [laughter] Joel: I'd like to see it at least in my, I wanna get to Chicago easier and faster and cheaper. Chad: Exactly. You know what's even better than fast rail? Free stuff. T-shirts from JobGet. Beer, Aspen Tech Labs. God, I love those guys. Whiskey, I don't know if you've seen Textkernel's new logo. Have you seen it? Go to textkernel.com. New logo, new brand. Pretty amazing. And if it's your birthday kid, if it's your birthday, Hey listener. Rum with Plum. SFX: [laughter] Joel: Oh shit. SFX: Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down to my plums. Joel: So before we get to this week's, your wife celebrated a birthday last week. Chad: Yes. Joel: Do you wanna say anything nice about her or what you guys did? Chad: Oh, did I not go through the long laundry list of what we did in London? Not to mention. Joel: Oh, so you wrapped that into her birthday? Chad: Yes. Not to mention she came back with three more pairs of Vejas. So she has three sets of Vejas for Europe and three sets of Vejas for the US. Joel: Do all Vejas have the V and the, on the sneaker or do they like. Chad: I think so. Joel: Have like boots and... Chad: I'm not a Veja expert, although I know all of hers have the V's. Joel: Yeah. Got it, got it. All right, well, let's get to this week's birthdays. Chad: Okay. Joel: Some fans are celebrating another trip around the sun that includes Jack Mahoney, Lars Coos, Allison Paget, Fozzie Imtiaz, Alex Micklin, Phil Larkins, Christina Lowry, Aaron Stevens, Rathin Sinha, Max Armbruster. Chad: There he is. Joel: Your boy? Jonathan Duarte. And a very special birthday by my father, Will. Chad: Yes. Joel: Cheesman is celebrating. SFX: Happy birthday. Joel: Number 84 on planet Earth. Happy birthday everybody. Happy birthday. Chad: Happy birthday. Joel: Before you ask. He loves Popcorn. So we're getting him every imagine... Maybe, maybe Doritos flavored liquor, popcorn. I don't know. We're gonna get all the kind of popcorn that my dad can eat with the seven remaining teeth that are still his original teeth. Chad: Get all the popcorn. If you have to, put it in the blunder, just make sure he gets the popcorn. Okay? Joel: Toothpicks for days. Chad: Yes. Joel: Getting those kernels out. Good lord. Joel: Oh my God. So events, kids. Travel powered by Shaker Recruitment marketing. We already have eight conferences planned for 2024. The very first is the event in San Diego. That's right. TA week where we're going to be hanging out with koalas. Yeah. No shit. Koalas at the zoo. We're going to the zoo. Why? Because we are hanging with the guys and girls and crew from Qualifi. That's the one that starts with the Q ends with the I. Qualifi. If you wanna check it out, go to chadcheese.com/events. We're really stoked. Evan White has been, he's been in high fucking gear putting together events and doing some really, really cool work. So I'm excited to work with him this year. Joel: Yeah. Evan is out of control. [vocalization] Chad: [laughter] Joel: I have a Canadian update on one of my travels. So our friends at HiringBranch were at HR Tech this past year. Chad: Nice. Joel: We did the high roller with them at Unleash earlier in the year. And I was talking to him about living in Montreal. Everyone listens regularly knows my wife is Canadian. I have Canadian in-Laws. Chad: Yep. Joel: And my father-in-law's a big Montreal Canadiens fan. So I was asking if he went to games, was it hard to get tickets? He is like, well, I share season tickets with a few other guys, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, the wife and I are gonna drop the kid off in London, Ontario, take a train. We talked about trains. Take a nice little train ride all the way to Montreal. We're gonna have dinner, I think, with some of his team, the night before. And then the night of, go to the game, we're gonna get to see the Oilers. Connor McDavid arguably the best hockey player in the world. So I'm pumped for that. But that's my travel. It's sorta business, sorta not. Chad: I love it. Joel: You're not involved. You don't have to be, but yeah, HiringBranch. Thank you. We'll see you. We'll see you in a few weeks. For sure. Chad: Beautiful. Joel: For sure. Chad: Are you just trying not to talk about fantasy football and your ass whipping last week? I'm just, I'm not sure. [laughter] Joel: All right. So I've split with you. Okay. I split with you. [music] Joel: Well, all right. Let's, okay. Chad: Well, your record wouldn't show that. So. Joel: That's, oh, all right. Okay, everybody. Fantasy football is winding down. Chad, like me is not in the playoffs at this point. Chad: I'm five again. Last year I was number five. Fuck. Joel: Praying. Yeah. Praying he does not make the playoffs because he will be really hard to live with if he does. Here's your leaderboard. For the, I think final week of the regular season. This has been sponsored by our friends at FactoryFix. Can't thank them enough for supporting our unhealthy addictions, like fantasy football. And Chad is showing, his FactoryFix sweater Christmas sweater. Chad: On our YouTube. Yeah. Joel: If you're not watching us on YouTube... Chad: This is like a jersey. Joel: You gotta go to YouTube. Chad: It's like jersey quality. Joel: Yeah. @ChadCheese. Chad bought an ugly sweater of our podcast, like the first or second year that we did this. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I assume you still have that. Chad: Oh God. Yeah 'cause it is fucking epic. Joel: He's like, Well, let's sell this. I'm like, no one's gonna buy this shit. I don't know. Maybe we need to do like a special... Chad: Everybody loved it. Joel: Christmas sweater. Yeah. Sponsored by somebody. Chad: Get with Mike from FactoryFix. See if he can do it in this kind of, this is like jersey material. This is fucking legit, thick. Nice. Joel: It looks comfortable. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: It doesn't look itchy at all. It looks really nice. Chad: Perfect. Joel: It looks really nice. Okay. Here's your leaderboard everybody. Probably the last week that we'd go through the whole thing before the playoffs. [laughter] Joel: Number one, she's been there all year. Pretty much... Chad: Kicking ass. Joel: Michelle, Sergeant Slaughter. Chad: Yes. Joel: And number one. Number two, she's been there just about the whole season. It's Marcy Playground Mall. Number three, funky Cold Medina Perro. Number four, Jagged Little Jill Patterson. Chad, just on the line at number five. Chad Future Ball Cheese Sowash. Number six. Joe Bagga Dixon. He's there, he's right there. He's the sixth one. Joel: Number seven, Brent Musburger. Number eight. Billy Joel Cheesman. Number nine, Dean Wizard of Ossner. Number 10, Jasper The friendly ghost Spanjaart. Number 11, Dennis the Menace Tupper. And he's tied with Kristen Duncan Sheik Urban. That's right. She's barely, barely breathing at. [laughter] Joel: At number 12, but I'm more excited to see who's in the cellar at the end of the year. Then who's in the playoffs because Tupper and Urban are fighting for that last spot. And if Tupper goes from first to worst, we're gonna have to get him an epic something to like showcase as the loser, for the season. Chad: Like a broom. Joel: Also. Chad: A toilet brush. Joel: Also, notably, we will likely have an all female playoff, this season, which I think is fucking awesome. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So fucking awesome. So fucking awesome. Chad: Yep. Joel: All right. That is your Fantasy Fix leaderboard once again. Sponsored by our friends at FactoryFix. By the way, the Browns play The Bears this week. If any of the FactoryFix people wanna lose some money, just hit me up on the DMs and we can figure that out, friends. [music] Joel: Alright, Chad, well missing last week. I know you're chomping at the bit to talk about a few of the items that we discussed. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Jim Stroud was nice enough to join me, take some time off from SourceCon and fill in for you. But you have some stuff on your chest you want to get off? What's up? Chad: Well, first off, yeah. So Jim, thanks again for guest hosting my friend, known Jim forever, but you might not remember... [applause] Chad: You might remember Jim was our very first guest host in April of 2017, when Jeremy was being born, he stepped in and we were very, very early into this fucking journey, so... Jim's the OG. Yeah, he's the OG. So I have to say it was quite refreshing to kinda sit back, listen to last week's show, digest it, and then pull together some comments, because the dumping of CPA seems to be just a big retreat by Indeed. Two quick points number one, a history lesson. How did Indeed take Organic away, the free traffic away first and foremost, or I guess, I'm sorry, transition to moving everybody to paid traffic. Chad: They started with job boards first and they made them pay for traffic, so it was... They took that little piece out, it was a third of it, they took them out, they made them pay for traffic, then Indeed waited patiently. Then staffing company's jobs were taken out of the free feed and they had to pay the Indeed piper, right? After the dust settled on that one with staffing companies, then hiring companies were next, so how was that successful rollout different than what we experienced this year? Joel: Tell me, Chad. Chad: They did it all at once. They weren't fucking around, they didn't follow their tried and true trojan horse model, the indeed crew has grown cocky and sloppy. So why do you think that is? It just blew my mind seeing Raj Mukherji talk about, Well, things are getting better and employers are starting to like it and it's very new. Joel: Sure. Chad: And then we go back and now it's an experiment, so why are they getting so cocky and sloppy. Joel: So we talked about this, so I'll give you, I guess, three reasons. One is hubris, you mentioned it when you just get cocky and confident in you can't lose, then you just do stuff and think everyone's gonna love it. And that rarely works. The other one is they have a new sugar daddy, they have a new private equity firm that's probably forcing them to look at what's working and what isn't, and this probably wasn't working the way that it should, and somebody, a grown up in the room hopefully said, This needs to go... Because it's not the direction that we need to go. And I think the third one is a little bit of fear. I... Regardless of what people say, I think Google for Jobs is growing, I think once they start pay-per-click, some advertising solution there, it's gonna pull money away from Indeed, so doing things out of fear like this. Also programmatic, it's really hard to have a conversation as an Indeed salesperson and talk about like, I'm paying 12 cents a click here, but I'm paying you 84 cents like... Chad: A click. Joel: Why am I doing that? And that's a really hard conversation to have, if you create confusion in this new model that, No, it's not clicks, it's applicant or it's interested candidate, then you create confusion and then people just go, "Oh, okay." Then it's not 14 cents versus 52 cents. It's something different. Chad: So that was point number one. They just seemed to be sloppy and cocky because they've been able to roll these things out very effectively before. Number two, you made a Google comparison to Indeed, which was pretty apples and oranges, and let me hit this up, so Google doesn't control the product and they never did. They were like the marketplace, but they never controlled the product. Indeed controls the entire ecosystem, right? That's a huge difference, indeed. I'm predicting they can and they will do CPA, why? They have no fucking choice with Google for Jobs and LinkedIn breathing down their necks, once Indeed finally invest cash in a system that can actually match candidates against experiences and skills to do job requirements. It's a done deal, and that's not complex at all, as a matter of fact, ZipRecruiter should have productized this already, I can't believe they didn't. You want 10 candidates that meet your requirements to apply, done, then the ad shuts off after 10 applies happen. It's not hard. We've gotten the information, we know their qualified... Boom, you got what you asked for. They might not be exactly what you want. But it doesn't matter. Chad: You wanted qualified applicants, you got 10 qualified applicants. What's hard is Indeed's matching technology is shit, and their back-end system is in legacy status, I spoke with some people last week when I was in London, and they pointed directly at Indeed getting fat and lazy like Monster did, and that their back-end literally not changing for seven years. So Indeed will have to spend the money, they have plenty, they've gotta do it to retool to make CPA happen, the cost per started apply, that's another mess and another story, but I think CPA. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Which they say they dumped. I think that's coming, they just have to do a shit ton of retooling on the back-end, because with their forced registration right now they're gaining more candidates into their database, they need to start asking more information of those candidates, create richer profiles, and then they need a better matching system. In the end, I don't know, maybe they try to buy Textkernel or something like that. Somebody who actually works... SFX: 60% of the time, it's crazy. [laughter] Joel: Now you're getting crazy. Now, you're getting crazy, I would love to see when Google launches their paid product or they're paid option, if they go like bottom feeder per click pricing, talking $0.05 a click, I'll talking disrupt the Programmatic people. Disrupt Indeed. Totally throw a grenade down the hallway of the job board industry. I don't think they'll do that, but it would be really fun to watch. The other thing is there's a technical side to this, and there's a human side to it, because people can do the math in their head saying, "Okay, I pay this many for this many clicks and I got this many candidates, and okay... " they've somehow adjusted to the cost of that, and they're okay with it. When they start paying tens of dollars for an applicant, if that applicant is not great, the math on that is tougher because I'm paying dollars as opposed to cents for garbage, and there's a mental human thing that they have to have to figure out if they can. The technical part is one of it, but if you can't convince people that I'm cool with paying for an applicant, I'm cool paying this much for it, then it's not gonna work, so that's a bigger problem for me with them than it is the tech side. Joel: Or do they have something else that's different. It's gonna be fun to watch. I think they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and if Google comes out with bottom dweller pricing, it's gonna be really, really interesting, and if they start putting those ads in your Gmail, they start putting job postings on YouTube and other places in their network that's gonna shake up the programmatic folks, it's gotta be fun. Come on Google, let's get it done. Chad: I see Indeed buying a lot of that real estate, by the way. Joel: They already are. Chad: And then secondarily talking about Appcast and Twitter and Greenhouse and Lever a couple of weeks ago. So our discussion, were you dug into the jobs feed of the Twitter's new "hiring platform". Yes, if you're not watching on YouTube, I'm using air quotes, hiring platform. Chad: Had us scratching our head and wondering what the actual fuck is going on over there. I mean, huge brands have directed their big marketing agencies to pull all advertising from Twitter, but what happens if those same companies' jobs start showing up beside antisemitic posts powered by jobs feed given to them by Greenhouse, Lever, Appcast, whomever, right? So we receive tons of opinions, which we always do from listeners, and that's great, and a response from the man with the million dollar smile, the COO over at Appcast, that's Matt Molinari. Matt posted, "Hey all, I'd like to clarify a few points. On behalf of Appcast, we have always empowered our customers to direct us to remove sites and channels from their job advertising strategy, Appcast customers, with jobs distributed to X. Twitter, have been made aware and have the choice if they'd like to continue doing so, that said Appcast remains committed to staying at the cutting edge of job ad distribution. Yada, yada, yada, yada, a bunch of policy stuff. Joel: Yada, yada, yada, yada. Chad: I totally love it, the latter part was more I think legal, than it was Matt. I love it. But why is this a big deal? So there was a bit of gaslighting on the socials last week, and running parallels between LinkedIn and Indeed job postings with these Twitter postings, and let me qualify why this is so different, antisemitic tweets, social posts will not show up in the Indeed or LinkedIn feed next to your employer's jobs, the end goal of the Twitter hiring platform is to add job content into the main Twitter feed, this is where all the toxic posts are happening, there's a huge difference in saying that I wanna use Indeed, I just... I don't like their pricing model versus I don't wanna use Twitter because they've got antisemitic posts. Those are entirely different. So that was last week. And remember jobs are not yet in with the tweets. They're not there yet, but they will be. So just imagine your brand showing up beside a purely toxic tweet or maybe I don't know. A tweet from Alex Jones. That's right, kids. Alex Jones was allowed back on Twitter this week, the very anniversary of Sandy Hook School massacre. Who's Alex Jones, you might ask? Chad: Well, if you forgot, Alex Jones claimed for years that the killing of 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary school, elementary school, in Newton, Connecticut was staged with actors as a part of a government plot to cease Americans guns. So yes, I do trust Matt's words 'cause I trust Matt, he's an awesome dude. But I'm also a huge believer in trust, but verify, make sure you know where your fucking jobs are showing up, the jobs are not co-mingling yet in the actual Twitter feed, but when that shit starts happening, stay diligent, kids. SFX: Another one. Joel: So we talked about this pretty extensively, talked about Appcast providing backfill for Twitter, which it still is as well as Greenhouse and others, and Matt was quick to point out that advertisers have control over where their jobs show up, yada, yada, and that's great that he reached out. A lot of companies don't reach out or publicly explain what's going on, and that's their right. I would say when you get to a certain size, you should have a team or somebody dedicated to giving a heads up to the industry media, the bloggers, the podcasters, whatever, and by doing that, you and I or one of us should have gotten a heads up like, Hey guys, they never reached out to me, the PR, like the PR person. Chad: Well, I just wanna say that I reached out to somebody of one of the big companies who actually had their marketing pulled off Twitter to ask TA if they received anything from their applicant tracking system or anything like that about this whole thing, received nothing. But yes, we definitely need to receive that shit, but before we do, the companies do. Joel: The customers do, yeah... Chad: Yeah, when we start actually being the ones who are heading all of these conversations, which we shouldn't be, but... Fuck it. That's who we are. Joel: That's it. If you wanna control the narrative, you have to communicate with the people who talk about this stuff, and then you're not stuck on LinkedIn with your COO talking about like, "Oh, here's the policy, guys" or "Here's what's going on, in case there are any questions". We should have known before the deal was done, "Hey, we're doing this, anyone that doesn't wanna be on Twitter can not be on it, we've let our customers know." So we could have gone on the show and said, Hey, this has happened, and Appcast is there, but they've done the due diligence of letting their companies get off if they don't wanna be on the Twitter platform. There's nothing on their website that I saw that says anything about customers can control where the stuff goes. I'm sure it's there, maybe when you log in, but when you get to a certain size as a company, have people, have one person dedicated to building a bridge to all the media that's industry-wide, give us a call, we'll give you... We'll give you the first dozen... Chad: We know those people well already. Joel: It's not a big community, but let them know because I can tell you I've never gotten anything from Appcast like, "Hey, this is coming. Here's a news release, we're dropping on whatever", nothing. So Appcast, you bought an agency, agencies do this for a living, empower them to reach out to the industry media and anybody that's a certain size, think about people like us because we talk and your customers listen, your partners listen, and it could save you a lot of headaches, if you control the message before it drops. Chad: No question. Joel: No question. Alright, well, somebody who generally does get the message but does not reach out to us. SFX: Chad: [laughter] Joel: Google is in the news, let's talk about Google's Gemini, they've, making some waves in the tech world, to say the least, it's designed to be a multi-modal, which means it can understand and work in various types of information such as text, images, audio, video and code, Google has big plans for Gemini, they're integrating it into many of their products, including search, their ad platform and their web browser, Chrome. It's largely been celebrated as an ambitious project that has the potential to change the way we interact with technology. Chad, my favorite. Gemini, by the way, what are your thoughts on Gemini? Chad: Question. Did you see the promotional video? Joel: I did, I did. Chad: It was a promotional video, was not a demo, but it was pretty astounding, I think we need to stand in awe of where we've come in just the last year, ChatGPT was opened up to the public a little over a year ago, and we're now, we were marveling over poems and image generation because it was fucking cool. So when you start taking a look at multi-modal, why I tell you what, we talked about this, and just like to let you know that the Chad and Cheese brought this to you back in July, kids, go ahead and play that beautiful bean footage, Joel. Joel: Yep, have a listen. SFX: Chad: The big key here that I think through these three; inflection, runway and typeface is multi-modal, and when you're talking about multi-modal models, it's not just consuming text, but you're also consuming audio and video. So if you wanna contextualize the data, which is really what this is all about, You need all aspects of that data, so think about it, if you're reading something, you gain some context, if you're listening to it, then you gain more context than reading, listening than watching, you're just continual starting to understand how AI can learn. Chad: So we're getting past just the text aspect. Joel: Bingo. Boom. Chad: Again, we talked about multi-modal, so Gemini is the first model to outperform humans on what they call an MMLU, a massive multi-task language understanding, there are so many fucking acronyms in this shit. One of the most popular methods to test the knowledge and problem solving of any AI model, Gemini beats ChatGPT-4 in every general AI reasoning, math and code category, only ChatGPT-4 was better in reasoning, one of the subsets, common sense reasoning for everyday tasks. So they have three offerings, one is nano, which is gonna be for my droid phone, which is gonna be awesome. Chrome and some of the devices. Then you've got Pro, which I'm assuming is gonna be more of an SMB model, and then Enterprise, which is where every... Those big companies are gonna start grinding data. Two weeks ago, we talked about how these large language models are cars, and the data you feed into them are the fuel. What's happening is the car is evolving from a Model T to Ferrari in record fucking pace, so what you can do with that data is going to be amazing, it's gonna be mind-boggling to be quite frank. Chad: So with these numbers, Google just leap frogged OpenAI, aka Microsoft. Get ready because Microsoft's answer, then maybe Amazon or Anthropic's answer is gonna be a leap frogging Google. This is going to be the race, kids, and it's not gonna be who wins because this race is just going to fucking continue and those big three players, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, they're gonna stay in the race. Anthropic, we'll see who actually gobbles them up, 'cause somebody's going to. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Yeah, Google went deep on this. [laughter] Joel: To explain the video if you haven't seen it, there's a developer and a voice, the voice is the AI, and he starts by drawing a squiggly line and the voice says... And he says, "What's this?" He's like, "It looks like a squiggly line," and then he finishes it. It looks like a duck. And the voice says, "Oh, it looks like a duck." He draws water, the AI is like, "Oh, the duck is in water," and it kinda keeps going, different shapes. It shows like a rubber ducky, and then it says, it has a duck, a rubber duck and has two roads, one ends in a bear, one ends in another duck and they're like, "Which road should I take?" And it says, "One of them looks like there's a bear, the other one is duck, so ducks are friendly, go to the duck," that's kind of where this thing is going, and it's pretty mind-blowing, and I think about how that could impact our space. Look, you could see a world where a video camera watches you at work all day, and then the AI says at the end of the year, did they deserve a raise or not based on what they saw, what... Joel: How much work they did, facial expressions, whatever, how much of a raise should they get, how do they compare with the other workers in their department because we've been watching them the whole time. You could see a world where this thing watches an interview and says which candidate they would hire as part of it, and why would they do that. Are there ones that they thought were sketchy, and this gets into higher view facial recognition stuff, this gets our friend Keith Sonderling interested, I'm sure in terms of how this could play into exclusivity and racism and bias. Joel: So this is cool, but it's gonna do some really weird, interesting things for the workforce, because I could see a day where Big Brother is watching you all day and giving a report to everybody about what it saw, what it thinks about what your job is, that gets into Minority Report status, predicting what you're gonna do like how you are gonna respond to stuff, it could be sales process, it could be like going into a store, could be... Think about school shootings, you mentioned Sandy Hook, imagine a video camera outside of every school that says, "Oh, this looks like a bad guy" for whatever reason, and then locks the doors until there's some approval process, so you could look at security very differently than we do now. But yeah, very impressive. I'm anxious to see where this goes, it's slightly scary. I was really hoping that he was gonna set down like a dildo or draw some boobs to see what the AI, if it could recognize those or not, but unfortunately, it wasn't a 12-year-old boy doing the demos for AI. Chad: Maybe next time. Joel: People are gonna abuse this thing, have fun with it, joke around with it, but yeah, it is impressive technology, and it is gonna change the way work is done and how people are evaluated and how people are hired for sure. Chad: I can see contextualized AI videos, contextualized AI interviews. So video creation, audio creation, a lot of stuff you're talking about is very dystopian, trying to look at the little stuff, the things that we can see in our space and how these models could perspectively create just a better experience for recruiters and for job seekers. Joel: We're talking about augmented stuff, it's like literally assistant watching and looking and seeing things as they are, like voice, video, audio, all that stuff being gobbled up and chewed up and spit out in an intelligent way. Alright, well, my mind's a little bit blown. Let's take a break and we'll talk about LinkedIn when we get back. Alright, Chad, let's talk a little LinkedIn. LinkedIn continues its fight against fake accounts by winning a legal case against top social and social BD24. The defendants were found to have created over 400,000 fake LinkedIn accounts and were ordered to pay damages and prohibited from offering fake followers, likes, views, comments or connections. Sarah white, a VP of Legal at LinkedIn said, "We're encouraged by our decisive win and will continue to leverage all available tools, including legal action when necessary to ensure the LinkedIn community remains trusted and authentic." Finally, I feel safe using LinkedIn. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news out of our favorite social business network? Chad: Damn. So I think this is a pretty amazing precedent that's being set, but $43,000 for damages, that's a slap on the wrist. $430,000 would provide a punch in the mouth that I think this deserves. This is a shot over the bow to companies out there that are inflating their company size with fake employees on LinkedIn, and it's happening. And we're seeing it happen. Why are they doing that? Number one to bloat what people think the size of their organization is. Number one, not to mention sharing content, commenting on content, bloating really all the commenting segments and engagement segments with fake engagement. I don't see this just as these companies who are nailed with a pissy ass fine, there are companies that are out there today that hopefully, LinkedIn has a reporting methodology to ensure that they can start to prove that some of these people are actually real, instead of just finding an image on Midjourney and are creating a image on Midjourney and starting to create profiles. Joel: So here's the LinkedIn playbook as I see it, Chad. Step one, keep everyone out of your house, this is sue everyone scraping your profiles, everyone that's using it to create new services and solutions, the HighQ legal case has kinda solved that for the most part, in combination with like playing whack-a-mole with spiders and scrapers that come to the site. But for the most part, the products and services created to scrape LinkedIn has subsided, so step one has been achieved, I think for the most part, number two is just what happened is legitimize your data, if people can't get to the data, but the data is garbage, then it's not worth as much as if it's legitimized and original content. So step two is taking place, who's putting fake profiles? Joel: How do we identify those? Get them out. Step two is en route, and there's a lot of... If these knuckle heads were putting out $400,000 fake accounts, imagine somebody who's serious about this and what they could do to the data that's in there. Once they've achieved that, and by the way, they've partnered with Clear and other services to try to help legitimize the profiles that are there, if they can get to a point where 85, 90-plus percent of the profiles are all original or even closer to 100%, then it's like turn on the money printing machine because you have achieved Xanadu in terms of what they do, look, Microsoft pay $26 billion not for the job board, not for the learning up-scaling solution that they have, they did it for the people that are on LinkedIn. The directory of professionals is highly monetizable, but they gotta get those in line with being legitimate people who are real, so this is their next step, if they get to step three, think about what you're gonna be paying for LinkedIn, you think you're paying a lot now, if they feel like they have a high level of real people and profiles on the platform, what you pay now for LinkedIn is gonna be a pittance for what you're gonna be paying for it in the future. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Three steps to the money making machine, the money printing machine at LinkedIn, it's happening, people. It's happening. Chad: [laughter] With their old ass tech, it's happening. Joel: But good for them. LinkedIn is better if it's real people. Chad: No, agree 100%. Agree 100%. Joel: No one can be pissed off about, Yeah, get all the fake stuff off, that's perfectly great. Chad: Yeah, they can be pissed off about Facebook though. Joel: Yes, they can definitely pissed off by Facebook, yeah. That's... SFX: Does anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: Alright, a little Facebook fraud. Can I interest you in that? Chad: Let's do that. [overlapping conversation] Joel: Barbra Furlow-Smiles, a former Global Diversity Executive at Facebook has pleaded guilty to stealing over $4 million from the company through an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious charges and cash kickbacks. She used her position to make Facebook pay numerous individuals for goods and services that were never provided and then received kickbacks from them. She also caused Facebook to onboard vendors owned by friends and associates who paid her kickbacks after receiving payment from Facebook. She used the stolen money to live a luxurious lifestyle in California and Georgia. I guess as luxurious as Georgia can be, she lived it. She is scheduled to be sentenced in March of 2024. Just in time for March Madness. Chad, what are your thoughts on fraud at Facebook? Chad: Yeah. So Barbara Furlow-Smiles served as a lead strategist, global head of employee resource groups and diversity engagement at Facebook. This is her own community, this is her own fucking community that she's fucking over. No wonder why the damn DEIB initiative over there failed, we've been making fun of it for years, they spent all this money and nothing happened, this is why. It was rotting from the fucking head, it was rotting from this Barbara Furlow-Smiles. She deserves the orange jumpsuit for 2023. She gets the orange jumpsuit award. Her and ol' girl from Joonko. This has been the year of fraud for a couple of females in leadership positions, which just... I am fucking floored. Joel: What she had going on was one hell of a fucking like OG Capone style racket going on, and the sad thing to me is people are gonna connect DEI person with criminal, and that's just wrong. And I encourage any company that's listening to separate the two, DEI is not her, she's not representative of Facebook and what they have been doing. Take out what Facebook's been doing for the last five years in DEI off the table. Separate the two from your brain because they have nothing to do with each other, and it's sad that it will. People will connect the two. And it sucks for the movement, for sure. Joel: Damn it. I need to take a break and maybe talk about strippers, maybe that'll make me feel better, I don't know. We'll be right back, everybody. Chad: Well, Joel, unfortunately, I'm going to go ahead and actually bust in with some breaking news, so we're not gonna talk about strippers this week, I'm sorry. ICIMS is following a thorough search to ensure they bring in the right leader to lead iCIMS into the next chapter. They have identified their new CEO, Jason Edelboim will be the CEO effective January 2nd. He brings nearly two decades of experience in data technology and enterprise software and previously held senior leadership positions at Cision, PR at Newswire and Bloomberg. He's a PR guy. He most recently served as President and COO at Data Miner, an AI platform company that pioneer technology for the real-time detection of events and business critical information for public data sources to corporate enterprises and government organizations. That's right, kids. January 2nd, iCIMS will have a new CEO, that's fucking awesome. But yes, this literally just came into my email and it is hot off the presses. What do you think? Joel: So a few things in there, Data Miner, a public company, I believe that went IPO fairly recently, I don't know if this guy was part of that process, but if iCIMS wants to go public, having someone with that experience obviously makes a lot of sense, and I thought that was one of the reasons why they had the last two CEOs. Certainly took enough time, so I hope they vetted everyone and had long conversations, and... Chad: After the last one, they had to take the time. Joel: Hopefully this guy sticks around a while. Hopefully he sticks around a while. Cision you said was the company that he's coming from, I don't know anything about Cision, so I don't know... Chad: He's from Data Miner so Cision is... Joel: So Data Miner is his most recent gig. Chad: One of the PR groups, one of the actual PR marketing groups. Joel: But yeah, I'm sure everyone at iCIMS is just happy to have a captain of the ship again. Chad: Well, breaking news, and hopefully next week you can talk about strippers. Joel: Can I give you a stripper joke though? Chad: Sure. Joel: The worst stripper joke. What's the difference between a waitress at a strip club and a stripper? A waitress at a strip club and a stripper. What's the difference? Chad: One's topless and the other one isn't? Joel: About two weeks, we out. Chad: Oh. We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you, you made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there is no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back, like an awful train wreck, you can't look away and like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

It's earnings season, which means our show's usual suspects are opening up the books and showing off their numbers. Unfortunately, unless your name is Upwork, Uber and DoorDash - darlings of the gig economy - the numbers aren't all that exciting. Spoiler alert: Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter and Dice disappointed pretty much every shareholder. While job sites are losing, however, labor continue to win in light of the recent UAW smackdown of Detroit's Big Three. In addition to carmakers, airlines are getting in on the act, and don't be surprised if more segments start blowing up, thanks to so much China hating going on at the moment in the West. What's more? Google for Jobs keeps evolving, RTO policies keep sucking, especially for mental health disabilities and challenges and Russia continues to ruin everything. This is why we can't have nice things, but at least we still have podcasts like this one to spread joy around the world. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. 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, yeah. Two guys who start every day with a green smoothie. The bartender says it's a margarita. Whatever. What's up, kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Footchball" Cheesman. Chad: This is Chad "You've been Rick rolled" Sowash. Joel: And on this show, Google for Jobs is not a nonprofit. HR Tech is having a hard time finding profits, and US worker's paychecks are raining profits. Let's do this. Chad: Okay, I want to clear the air here, okay? So Jasper Spanjaart, who thinks he knows something about Portuguese, we're in Paris for Unleash. Is that where it was? It was, right. Okay. And he tells you that the way that they say football in Portuguese is, footchball. What the fuck is that? Joel: This was an 18-minute conversation about how to pronounce football. Chad: He comes back later and says, yeah, I was totally wrong. That's not how you pronounce it. I'm like, yeah, no shit, asshole. Joel: It's fun to say, though, footchball. Intro: It is very fun to say. So I have to thank Jasper for that one, because that was a funny 18-minute conversation about nothing, which is kind of like just about the length of a Seinfeld episode. Joel: Yeah. Wasn't this before he ate some bad fish and spent like the next eight hours on the toilet? Chad: It was not good. It was not good for poor Jasper. Joel: Yeah, it was not good at all. Unlike the meals you're having in Portugal, by the way. Chad: Oh, dude, yes. It is beautiful. It is like a wonderful 75 degrees. I was just on the water, kind of clearing my head before I had time with you and here we are. So yeah, let's get this over with. Joel: Time with me. Time with me. Clearly, there's no Olive Garden in Portugal. Chad: No. No, but we do have olive trees everywhere. Joel: That's where the fried stuff with cheese was. So that's the whole point. Chad: Yes, exactly. Joel: Well, I'm glad you're having a good time. You're there through the holidays. So everyone, if you're sick of Chad living his best life pictures on Facebook, well, guess what? They're not going to stop. Chad: Yeah, pause. Pause me on Facebook if you don't want to see my pictures, and Instagram if you don't want to see my pictures. Joel: If you don't see them, you'll run into Cardboard Chad on a Zoom call near you, at some point. Chad: Thanks to ERIN app. Yes. All right, let's jump into these shout outs 'cause I know everybody wants to hear them. My first shout out goes to senior recruiters who are getting Rick rolled by resumes. SFX: Never going to give you up. Never going to let you down. Never going to run around and desert you. Chad: That's right. Recruiters should obviously take more than seven seconds to review a resume. Why, you might ask? Why? Well, Angelina Lee, a software engineer, totally duped recruiters with a hilarious resume with bullet points that got her immediate interviews. Here are some of those bullet points. While at Instagram, she was a full stack engineer that led teams, a team of six engineers to mine Bitcoin on company servers. At Zillow, as a senior full stack engineer, she organized team bonding through a company potato sack race, resulting in increased team bonding and cohesivity. At LinkedIn as a software engineer, she connected with Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn and slid into the DMs. Joel: That was her skill. That was on the resume. Sliding into Reid Hoffman's... Chad: Yep. SFX: That escalated quickly. Chad: At the University of Berkeley, California, she set the Phi Beta Phi fraternity record for most vodka shots in one night. That is all. That's a bullet. And last but never least, all the links in her resume lead to a video of a YouTube video. Rick Astley, never going to give you up. Yes, she Rick rolled recruiters from Atlassian, GitHub, GrubHub, Bolt, scale.ai, Reddit, Airtable, and Wattpad. They all wanted to interview her immediately with these fucking bullet points on her resume. Joel: Clearly, she has cracked the algorithm code of passing the pre-screen. Chad: Oh, it's fucking awesome. Joel: Wow. All right. Well, my first shout out goes to Walmart, something they also probably don't have in Portugal, if I'm guessing. Well, anyway, Walmart is introducing daily sensory friendly hours. I didn't even know this was a thing, across its stores nationwide, which will involve lowering the lights, turning off the radio and replacing TV displays with static images. These hours are designed to accommodate individuals with sensory processing issues such as autism, ADHD, PTSD et cetera. Walmart sensory friendly hours will run from 8 to 10 AM At your local Walmart in the US and also Puerto Rico stores. There is no no end date that's been named. So I think this is a great thing. I didn't, I mean, like, I don't know how this came up or... Chad: Should adopt it for everybody. Joel: I don't feel like you need to have a disorder to enjoy this. I'd love to go to Walmart without the TVs. And if they could get rid of the greeter, that'd be great. That'd be great. Chad: We all because of all of the, you know, all the time on our phones, as you can see on YouTube, I'm holding up my phone. We have so much information coming into us at once. Walmart could be kind of like a getaway from all of that for everybody all the time. They can just get rid of all of that shit. Always. I think it'd be great. Joel: I think this is sexy. SFX: Ai, papi. Chad: So shout out to Twitter who are selling Twitter handles, which I thought was interesting. Joel: It's called X now, Chad. Chad: Going to continue to call it Twitter. How do you know when your business model and company is in the tank? Well, here's a key indicator. Twitter has begun work on a handle marketplace for the purchase of account names left unused by the people who originally registered them. Earlier this year, Twitter began purging defunct accounts from its site and Musk posted that he planned to free up as many. As 1.5 billion usernames soon. It seems interesting, almost like selling domains. Joel: Oh, it's totally like selling domains. And it's also strong arming all the corporations and personalities that have said, I'm not going to buy a blue check. I'm not going to do all that stuff because to me, it's sort of strong arming people like, you could lose your stuff if you don't pay up, if you're not active anymore. If you're, I mean. So to me, it's a play to like strong arm people into paying. But yeah, there are a lot of domains or not domains, but handles that I assume that people would pay big money for. Most of them probably pornographic, nevertheless, would probably pay a lot of money. The dude needs to make some sort of return on his $44 billion. This is one way to do it, I guess. He won't make many friends, but it is one way to to make some money. Maybe not... Chad: It just seems like he keeps... He can't see the burning forest for the flames, for me. It's just like it's crazy. It's like he's driving this business further and further into the ground. It's because to be quite frank for me, this just means that more people can buy names that aren't them and they control. I mean, just the whole validity of why would I give this guy my credit card information? This is another big fuck you. I'm not doing it. There's no way. Joel: This is another thing. I mean, so we both are familiar with dot jobs, right? So when dot jobs came out, you had to sort of apply and they proved it and everything else. There could be a case where any new company startup, new Hollywood darling that Twitter just keeps a wrap on their handle and you got to go submit a request to have the handle. So this could be a thing going forward, like if you're famous or a company or in the public domain, that you'll have to go to Twitter, X for approval of the said handle to get it. This could be a definite whole new business for X going forward. Chad: Yeah, I think it's going to be a business that just runs people away and they'll go to other mediums like TikTok and Threads and who knows? Joel: Well, Elon overload warning, kids. If you thought that was too much, Elon, I've got another shout out for Elon. It may not even matter the handles, Chad. Elon sat down with Britain's prime minister this week on the BBC and talked about AI and he says universal basic income is so 2020, he's talking about universal high income. Here's the soundbite from the interview. Enjoy. Elon Musk: We have for the first time, we will have the first time something that is smarter than the smartest human. And that, I mean, it's hard to say exactly what that moment is, but there will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want to have a job for sort of personal satisfaction. The AI will be able to do everything. I don't know if that makes people comfortable or uncomfortable. It's hard. When there's new technology, it tends to usually follow an S curve. In this case, we're going to be on the exponential portion of the S curve for a long time. And we have to actually be able to ask for anything and it won't be and we won't have universal basic income. We'll have universal high income. So in some sense, it'll be somewhat of a leveler or an equalizer, because really, I think everyone will have access to this magic genie. SFX: All right, all right, all right. Joel: That's right, baby. We're all getting high incomes, no education, no nothing. Just universal high income. Sounds like a good time, Chad. Chad: It's Wally. Yeah, no, it's a great time. But I mean, until that happens, people love free stuff, so they can go to chadcheese.com/free where you can get your T-shirts, free T-shirts, kids, from JobGet. Beer, you can prospectively win beer. We give one away, not one beer, but one big pack of craft beer left. Joel and I drink the rest of it. We just give you one beer. Joel: You know times are tough when we give away one can of beer every month, everybody. Chad: That's from Aspen Tech Labs. Just know they are sending a big, big thing of craft beer to you. Two fifths of whiskey from Textkernel. And when it's your birthday, you know, baby, it's time for a little rum with our friends over at Plum.io. Yeah. SFX: Did you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plums. Joel: That's right. Another year around the sun for some of our listeners and biggest fans, Chad. It's a short list this week. So, you know, it'll be quick. So Alicia Bichler, Lucas Roscoe, Katie Gentry, John Tehan, Kevin Lowe, Alan Bourne and Laura Martinelli are all celebrating a birthday this week. So shout out to you guys. Have a good time. Chad: Lucas Roscoe, probably one of the most American names I can think of. Joel: Isn't he a senator from Mississippi? Chad: Probably Louisiana. Joel: Vote Lucas Roscoe for congress. Chad: Vote Lucas Roscoe. Now that voting is over, it's time for events, kids. And when we do events, we do it with Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's right. They fuel our travel. I'm going to be going to TAtech in Europe in London, that is. December 4th through the 6th. I'm going to be emceeing the stage for a few days with Kirstie Kelly. It's a good time. It's going to be really focused heavily on tech in our space. Going to have a lot of tech leaders from our space talking about what's going on and even sir Richard and Queen Beverly are going to be there, so I'll give them your regards, Joel. SFX: Bros and hoes, bros and hoes, I gotta have me and my bros and hoes. Joel: That's not just for them, also FactoryFix powered fantasy football, Chad. That's right. Chad: Oh, that's sexy. Joel: Halfway through the season and here is your leaderboard going into week 10, I believe. Number one, she can't be stopped, she is a juggernaut in fantasy, Michelle Sergeant slaughter at number one still. Followed by Marcy Darth maul, Joe Mason Dixon line, funky cold Medina Perro, jagged little Jill Patterson, Jasper the friendly ghost Spanjaart, Billy Joel Cheeseman, Chad so washed up, Dean Streets Osner, Brent Losi gosi, sorry Lucy goosey or something like that. I made these up at about midnight last night. Dennis Quaid Tupper and kristin urban Dana. Round out the 12 players in fantasy football. That is your leaderboard powered by our friends at FactoryFix. Chad: I beat Michelle Sergeant, the number one team last week by 40 points, four zero. I think she has two losses. Four zero points, 40 points and it didn't even phase her. I mean, she's scored that many points she is still on top. But you know who else is on top? Joel: Who's on top? Chad: Data, baby. Data's on top. If you're a data geek, you gotta check out this new Youtube series that we have. It's happening monthly. Every time the jobs report comes out, the BLS spits out their jobs report, our friends over at LinkUp who have a shit ton of labor market information, we get Toby Dayton who's a CEO over there, we get him on the line and we talk about the jobs report, we talk about landscape, we talk about the economy, those types of things. We put our first one out this week and it caught fire. It caught fire. I was really excited about it. Chad: It caught fire because we go deep, Chad. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: That's right. That's right, we go deep on this one. All right, Chad. A lot of companies in our space reported quarterly earnings this week and it wasn't all that pretty. Here's a quick breakdown. Revenue fell at Indeed and Glassdoor amid uncertain economic conditions and the new pricing model at Indeed that I know you love helped push down paid job ads according to their owner, Recruit Holdings. Indeed's paid job ads fell 50 year over year heading out to DHI group that stock ticker symbol DHX. Home of Dice and ClearanceJobs reported third quarter revenue fell 2.8 year over year. The stock is down a whopping 20 plus percent since reporting. Ouch. Veritone who acquired PandoLogic and Broadbean, plunged over 20%, that's their share price on Wednesday as Craig-Hallum, a Wall Street analyst downgraded the stock to a sell rating after their earnings report. Background check company, Sterling, missed on earnings and revenue estimates. The silver lining perhaps was ZipRecruiter beating on earnings and revenue, of course that's after being down over 30% year to date. Chad, it's ugly out there. Your thoughts. Chad: It's ugly and last thing I want to talk about is Dice, for God's sakes. But Indeed, right? Let's talk about the big guys in the space. Much like Monster, Indeed hasn't evolved their revenue model with innovative products. Monster and Crew Builder didn't evolve and Indeed, a more evolved platform at that time, knocked them both off the mountain. So since Indeed's inception, they have needed to do something different. All they have done is rename the exact same goddamn products that they have so that they can raise prices on them. All that they are doing is taking a search engine and turning it into a job board with mandatory registration for job seekers, right? This is the shit that we were doing in the late '90s other than the you know the performance click piece. I mean, they're starting to look at mandatory registration which is, it was something that even was a no-no back in the late '90s so they haven't evolved and they have actually devolved and only demonstrating to us that this is not a sustainable model. They need to be able to create new products not put lipstick on the fucking pig. Create new products and evolve their model. Chad: This to me is something that you're going to see across the board but when you see a big industry player like this, you understand that hey, that's market validation. You've got to pivot and you've got to do something new quickly. Joel: So there was a time when Monster was a public company, Yahoo, not Yahoo but HotJobs. When the economy was good, these stocks did very well. In any given vacuum, times are good. If you watch the Chad and Cheese Does Data show with Toby, things are improving and getting better so it's kind of curious why these stocks aren't doing well or at least going sideways. They're doing pretty poorly. I think the fact is, people are finding people in different ways. There's, there are disparate ways that people are finding work, finding people to fill jobs because there clearly are jobs that need to be filled that's in the news on a regular basis. Joel: So I have outlined what I call the four horsemen of the apocalypse to the job board or the jobs industry, job posting industry. You ready, Chad? So number one in my four horsemen of the apocalypse for the job board industry, number one is Google and LinkedIn. Google for Jobs, no matter what narrative Indeed or anyone else says, is putting a hurting on the job board industry. I mean, it is a commodity that Google has sort of figured out and we'll talk about that in our next story. But Google is a juggernaut that job boards haven't quite figured out how to leverage in any scale and LinkedIn, let's be honest, is the place where you find people. It's where you source people. They've done a great job, like it or not, of pushing out the competition. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Putting a walled garden around their data and they have done a really good job of doing it and now they have OpenAI thanks to Microsoft's deep pockets to now take that to another level. So the first horseman is LinkedIn and Google. The second horseman is automation. Look, you and I just talked recently about the robots at AWS moving boxes, working in the warehouse. Why would you buy stocks that are job postings to hire people when you see images about Amazon replacing everybody with robots that carry boxes, not to mention driverless cars that are eventually going to come? Look, Wall Street is a forward looking indicator and forward looking, it looks like we are going to need less people. So why would I invest in these companies? The third horseman of the apocalypse is AI. Again, if I am looking at Elon Musk doing an interview with the Prime Minister of Britain, saying that we won't even have jobs in the future. Chad: Universal high income. Joel: Why would I invest in companies if there is no growth prospects for people or even having jobs in the future? And the fourth horseman of the apocalypse is the gig economy. We didn't talk about those stocks. Upwork is over 20% year to date in its share price. Uber is up almost 100% and DoorDash is up 80% year to date. If I am an investor, I see people have options. I see people can do their own thing. People can gig it as a career. So those four horsemen of the apocalypse, Google and LinkedIn, AI, automation and the gig economy spell trouble for ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Glassdoor and others. And I don't see any end to the pain that they are suffering. Chad: Pain, the pain. [laughter] SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Chad: What Indeed has been trying to do is obviously raise prices and everybody at this point is trying to do what marketing has been doing for about 10-15 years, which is the qualified marketing light or MQL. That's what everybody is trying to do. I think that's the next pot of gold. But again, that's going to go away. So automation, I agree 100% on being able to get incredibly targeted. We just talked about in the shout outs where a resume was fooling recruiters. We need to be able to actually have proof positive that these individuals can do the job. Just because they say they can, doesn't mean they can. So for companies like Indeed to just continue to do the exact same thing over and over and over and call it something new, I think the market is starting to understand it's all bullshit. Joel: Well, I mentioned Google in my summary and Google is in the news. Google is in the news. They're making changes to their free service, Google for Jobs, which may impact organic traffic to job postings in favor of sponsored jobs by some accounts. The alterations have been observed in Germany, the Netherlands and parts of the US and they involve reducing the prominence of Google for Jobs in search results. The modifications could lead to a decrease in free traffic to job boards, aggregators, ATS operators, and employers. Some experts believe this is in preparation for the launch of Google job ads, aiming to direct more traffic to paid ads while others think it's intended to enhance the user experience. Chad, you were interviewed for the AIM Group story. I assume you have some thoughts on Google's move on Google for Jobs. Chad: Yeah, so I'm here in Portugal and I'm not seeing any changes. Even when I VPN into the states or even parts of the EU, I haven't seen any changes. So this is obviously still somewhat in beta, maybe A/B testing. But regardless, Alex Tchaikovsky actually did a video which showed the changes that they don't seem like an effort to slow organic traffic personally, although we will see in the numbers as it's rolled out. It seems like a more streamlined approach because Google for Jobs is ugly as fuck in the first place, right? So them to try to streamline it, to make it look better, more aesthetically pleasing, I think is incredibly smart. Plus, we're not 100% sure just how they're going to roll out paid ads. We think we know, but we really don't know yet. So personally, I see the changes, maybe the A/B testing, no matter whether it means that they're spending time to try to figure out whether these changes, these tests are better for job seekers and or the actual ads. When they start rolling out paid ads, I think we're really going to understand how this looks, feels, and there's going to be a lot of adjustments that are made. And with the Indeed and Glassdoor numbers down, it will be incredibly interesting to see how Google paid ads impact the entire market. Joel: Yeah. I mean, the pay-per-click thing is going to happen. I think we've been predicting that for like three or four prediction shows. It's going to happen. Look, we talked about stock price. Google has been sort of under pressure to monetize. They're sort of getting AI a little bit weird and investors are asking questions. An easy billion dollars is getting into this job posting space in a big way and making Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter all pay a nice little tax to get their jobs on Google because they're all going to pay that tax, just like all the job boards and niche sites back in the day had to pay Indeed a tax to get their jobs on Indeed. The monetization thing is definitely going to happen. Google's really good about looking at user behavior, what people do, streamlining stuff. They cut out stuff that people aren't using. So the little tabs on the top, Google probably knows people aren't using those. So let's get rid of them. I think part of the commentary was that, oh, they've gotten rid of bookmarks and they've gotten rid of the email alerts. Well, Google might know that no one uses those. Such a small percentage get job alerts that why even have them. And frankly, I think we have overestimated the value of email alerts for job postings. Joel: I remember back in the day where I was like, everyone's always looking for a job. They want to get that email every day about all the new jobs. Well, it turns out they're not that excited about a new life insurance sales position or being a state farm agent every day. People just tune that shit out and we've gotten a lot better at filtering out stuff. So Google may just know like, this is not that important. Let's get rid of it. It's getting people away from what we want them to do in the process. The other thing is it shows that Google cares. Google wants to make this work. Google isn't just throwing spaghetti at the wall and like, oh, maybe this will happen. This is 2007, I think they launched this. So this is over five years that they've been doing this. It works. They clearly are on board with job postings. Now they're going to monetize this thing. They care. That's what this move tells me about what Google did. Then the last thing is Google tests a lot of stuff. Certainly search results in my old SEO days, there would be, oh my God, in the wild, Google has different search results. Or, oh my God, they're putting a new story in the regular search results. Or, oh my God, they put in a YouTube video. Google tests this stuff to see how people respond to it. Do people use it? Joel: So I wouldn't necessarily say this is gospel that this is what Google's going to do. They're probably in the testing phase. They may go back to certain things. They'll look at user activity. Don't get too excited that this is the end all of what Google for jobs is going to be. It may just be a test that they're running in a few countries and they may revert back to other stuff that they've done before. Chad: Yeah, I think it was 2017, not 2007 for Google for jobs. Joel: '17 is what I meant. It's too early, Chad. The coffee's wearing off. [laughter] The coffee's wearing off. Chad: The thing that is going to be interesting is that Indeed won the SEO battle early on because it was easy. They gave Google exactly what they wanted. I know that as we tried to fight Indeed with dot jobs and launching 40,000 domains of pure corporate content against their single site of content. Google was looking for easy. There are some other things there too. The big question is going to be for me is that, can Indeed come back in like they did in the early days and find a way to game the system? Ones that Google likes and which will give them a rise in the search engine rankings, in the Google for Jobs search engine rankings. We will see. Hopefully, we will finally get to see corporate jobs rise organically because that is the source of truth. That is where the job starts. That's where it ends. There are no purveyors at that point. It's exactly what it is. We're going to see. There's still a lot to be shaken out here. Joel: It is really interesting. I occasionally just look at search results just to see what's what and who's there. Maybe I didn't notice. It's just kind of a curiosity for me. I will say that corporate jobs are creeping up into higher rankings. Part of that might be... Chad: Time, time in history? Joel: All the niche boards are gone. That might be part of what this is. But these corporate sites that have been around since the dawn of the internet, they're starting to figure out optimization, the Targets of the world, the Walmarts, the UPSs. The big brands that we know are starting to creep up in some of these results. And I think they're creeping into the Google for Jobs stuff. Anyway, you're right. I think ultimately, Indeed, Glassdoor, they're all going to have to pay. They're already paying anyway to be above the Google for Jobs listings. That's not cheap. They're pricing themselves out a lot of this. I haven't seen an Indeed commercial in I don't know how long, so they're clearly shifting money. Or a ZipRecruiter ad. Now, I know I don't live in a big metro area, but those ads used to be really common and they're not anymore. Take that for what it's worth, but they're going to have to pay Google if they want to be found on Google. Otherwise, they're going to keep paying a lot of money on ads, which they don't want to do either. Chad: Yeah. I think domains have had the time and trust, which is one of the things that have been like the recipe or the biggest ingredients for the recipe of good SEO is time and trust. Do they trust the domain? How much time? How much history is within the domain? Hopefully, we will see that shift because again, in the early Google days, they really had nothing to balance out against. Now, I think they know better, but we shall see. Who knows? They can still fuck this up. Joel: The wild card is employers/ATSs need to make it a lot easier to apply to jobs because I think users know if I go to XYZ Inc., I got to go through 45 minutes of bullshit, apply to a job. If I go to Indeed or LinkedIn, they already have my profile, I can easily apply. Yeah, so until the corporation, if the corporation's figured it out and their ATS is figured out, then it's probably game over from an organic search result, but it still is a pain in the ass to apply to most jobs. Chad: We shall see. Joel: I need coffee. Everybody, listen to our sponsors. There is no show without them. We'll be right back. All right, Chad, can I interest you in some return to office news? Chad: Oh my God, so many fights. Joel: And some discrimination, a dash of discrimination. Yeah, I know this is one of your favorites. All right, the battle over the return to office between workers and employers is intensifying as more workers are filing charges of disability discrimination to federal and state agencies. A growing portion of these charges is related to mental health conditions like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The increase in such charges is in part driven by employers requiring employees to return to the workplace and denying some of their requests for accommodations. The return to office policy has become a contentious issue in workforce management with potential discrimination claims arising from denying accommodation requests related to mental health diagnoses. Chad, your thoughts. Chad: So, we actually talked about this a couple of weeks ago and this article came out in the Wall Street Journal like the very next day. So I said it then, I'm going to say it again, the Jamie Dimons, the David Solomons of the world, they just don't give a flying fuck about diversity, equity, and inclusion. So this is really not, this is going to fall on deaf ears to the likes of them. But I believe there are many CEOs that really do care and they want to understand the consequences of jamming everyone back into fucking cubicles, especially after we're seeing historic record lows of unemployment for people with disabilities and even women who can get back to full-time work because they have the autonomy to work from home. Earlier this week, I actually spoke with a CEO that specifically wanted to talk to me about this topic. He didn't even think about the impact of forcing people back into cubicles that would have on his workforce. And then we talked a little bit about the article where Brittany Lenhart, she was actually a face that you could put to it. Not to mention, it's very scary because then these four letters come into play. The EEOC and EEOC discrimination cases around this topic are exploding. Chad: In September, the EEOC sued a Georgia employer for declining to allow a digital marketing manager with anxiety and other mental health disorders to work remotely three days a week. The company fired the employee soon after she requested the accommodation. We've become so used to a culture of control that it's hard for leadership to understand that you can actually manage and lead people from afar. And not everybody can do that. So it's going to take special managers. Not every company can do it. Not every company is not going to be able to do it, especially if they're very sales-focused and they need to have that control, let's say. But there are many companies that are out there that I think that will be able to get an amazing talent that is remote and even hybrid talent that are going to be just fleeing away from companies like this. Joel: The harsh reality is most employers, they want you to show up, shut up, and buck up. Most of them are from a generation like us where the mentality is like, rub some dirt on it and fucking get back out there. Mental health is going to be a tough one. Look, if I'm hearing impaired, I'm visually impaired, I've been blind my whole life, that's easy to prove. That's visible to everyone. That is a much cleaner decision or debate to have. When you throw mental health in it, it's a really gray area right now. My guess is, companies don't want to deal with it. That's why your case study was fired. To go to court on that, to go EEOC on that, proving that is tougher, I guess, I would guess, than I have a hearing disability or I have a disability that is sort of culturally known, acceptable as a disability. There's a certain mentality of people in America, certainly, that will not embrace mental health issues as a thing to be accommodated by employers. The EEOC, we have to have some really strict rules, some really clear rules around what is mental health, what is a disability, is it a doctor's note, is it something more clinical? I don't know. This is more your lane than mine. Until we start treating mental health disabilities like we do hearing, visual, mobility, et cetera, this is going to be a really gray area and most companies aren't going to be really open to addressing the issues of mental health with workers. Chad: Instead of just focusing on, well, are they really disabled? Other than them getting accommodations and needing accommodations, then we give them that, but who cares? The person, the human, they're doing a job. Moms who are working from home, that's not a disability. Being a mom is not a disability, but guess what? We're treating them like they have a disability because they're being mommy-tracked because they have to be there to pick the kids up or they have to do X, Y or Z. It's total bullshit. We need to understand that the great talent is out there and being able to provide them a little autonomy and treat them like fucking adults is where we need to be, whether it's disability, diversity, gender, doesn't matter. That's where our head needs to be. A lot of these discussions really tend to focus on one specific area. Fuck all of that. We need to focus on performance. Joel: Yeah. One of the great tragedies of the return to office is the folks who were super happy and productive and content doing their job from home and taking care of kids, they're not dealing with exterior issues, those people are so screwed in this return to office trend that's happening. It's unfortunate. Chad: And again, whether you have a disability or not, it doesn't matter. Just the human themselves, can they perform? Joel: Well, from kind of a bummer conversation, let's talk about some winning. SFX: Perhaps winning. [laughter] Joel: All right. Labor continues their winning ways. We've talked about the UAW and the big three. Toyota Motors said this past week that it is raising the wages of non-union US factory workers just days after the UAW union won a major win against that big three. Members at the General Dynamics plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have voted to ratify a new tentative agreement for salary increases. How's this for a little worker leverage, Chad? American Airlines is now offering $250,000 cash bonuses to poach FedEx and UPS pilots to join their ranks. So much winning, Chad. I can't stand it. SFX: Perhaps winning. Joel: What are your thoughts? Chad: [laughter] So I watched an interview with Shawn Fain, the head of the UAW this week, and he mentioned this as the UAW bump, which I think is pretty cool because, again, GM is bumping non-union wages. Not to mention, they're doing a company match increase from 4-6% on 401K plans, right? Toyota 9% wage bump, General Dynamics, UAW, Stellantis, they're actually building new plants in Illinois, right? So as we were talking about this months ago, it was like, well, shit, they're just going to move everything away. Well, the UAW is like, no, nothing's getting done. We're doing more here in America. And from an optics standpoint, nobody has gotten this done right over the past 40 years. Shawn Fain and the UAW have done it. Not only are we seeing wage gross, but they're also planning, again, on building more in the US. So I'll say it again. I love this. I love this. As CEOs received 1500% increases while American workers turned in to the working poor with 18% increases that, for the most part, was less than inflation in many parts of the United States. While guys like Milton Freeman and now Josh Berson and Johnny Taylor are a proxy mouthpiece for the rich, we finally have a mouthpiece. We have a mouthpiece for the people who are doing the work on the front line. So these moves are a collective middle finger to those assholes saying, fuck you, I deserve more. Joel: Yeah. Shawn Fain has made the rounds on TV. You being in Portugal maybe don't get as much as we do, but he is a popular guy on the news shows. And his new statement is, the next time we do this, it won't be the big three, it'll be the big five or six, which is a shot across the bowel of Toyota, Honda, the German car company, and... Chad: Tesla. Joel: Maybe most importantly, Tesla. And those companies are going to have to either you know, get ahead of this, raise salaries now. I imagine at some point Tesla is going to use their stock leverage to keep workers happy or keep them from striking or unionizing. Salary increases will probably be part of that, but they're going to make the stock options really juicy, I think, on Tesla workers. Also being in Europe, you probably don't get quite the attention to the Republican debate that happened this week. And let's say anti-China sentiment and anti-producing things outside of the US and our allies is a very popular topic amongst the Republican candidates. And it is with Joe Biden who... Chad: It's popular with everybody. Joel: Had the great photo op with UAW. Like look, the sentiment, the rhetoric for the next year is going to be America, America, America, China bad, rest of the world bad, we need to build stuff here. The Intel chip, you and I, hearts are close to Ohio. Ohio is going to benefit greatly from this move, the Intel plan in Columbus. Yes, workers are going to win for the next decade because industry, production, everything is coming back to our shores. Globalization is like so last decade. The airline thing is really interesting to me. We can't just pull pilots out of the sky like we can probably auto workers. So these certain degrees and certain professions are going to be super hot. I have a 17-year-old at home. He'll hear about this 'cause I'll talk about it. You don't think a lot of kids now are going to want to go to flight school knowing that they're getting quarter of a million dollar bonuses for coming to work there. So really great time to be in labor. Capital is going to have to kind of suck it up and figure stuff out. Automation will be part of that. But anyway, let's enjoy the moment. Workers are winning. And maybe the biggest win is we get to play Charlie Sheen. SFX: Perhaps winning. Joel: We'll be right back. Chad, the Russians have finally gone too far. [laughter] A Russian doctor claimed in a TikTok video this week that oral sex poses a greater risk of causing throat cancer than smoking or drinking alcohol. Chad: Bastard. Joel: To support the argument, the CDC notes that HPV can be transmitted during oral sex with men being more likely to develop cancer from the disease while women are more likely to carry the virus. What's more, Michael Douglas, yeah, Gordon Gekko, previously claimed that oral sex caused his throat cancer. Chad, this is why we can't have nice things. What are your thoughts? Chad: Everything kills us. We're all here on this planet for a short amount of time. Do the things that make you happy, just as long as they're not illegal. Come enjoy some sunny shores somewhere, whether it's on the US, it's in France, it's in Italy. It doesn't matter. You get one of these, kids. Enjoy every single bit of it. And if it has to do, some of it has to do with some oral sex, have at it. Please enjoy yourself. Joel: Party at Casa de Sowash, everybody. SFX: What are you doing, stepbro? [laughter] Joel: Okay. So, Chad, you and I are proud Gen Xers. You and I grew up with sex is going to kill you because of AIDS. Drugs are going to kill you. Remember this is your brain on drugs, the frying egg. Smoking obviously is going to kill you. How many ads of throatless people and lung, black lungs do we see? Drunkenness is going to kill you. Remember, mothers against drunk driving. Everyone's going to die from drinking, sex. Everything fun is going to kill you. What's next? Listening to podcasts are going to kill you? [laughter] SFX: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Joel: But like, throwing oral sex will kill you is not going to move the needle for Gen X. And I doubt that it's going to do much for the millennials or the Zs. Chad: No. Joel: And the boomers really don't give a fuck at this point. So look, kids, like Chad said, we're looking at Biden versus Trump 2.0. We're looking at World War III. And more than anything, we're looking at more annoying pictures of Euro Chad enjoying his best life. We can all use a little more oral sex. We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

King Kong vs. Godzilla. Rocky vs. Apollo Creed. Democrat vs. Republican. People love a good showdown, and the world of work is no different. This week's show highlights the trending conflicts between Google against OpenAI, Deel against Rippling, RTO against WFH, Labor against Capital ... and most importantly, Elon against Everybody. Beyond that, the boys are talkin' layoffs at Beamery, Josh Bersin's Galileo™, and Twitter ... er, X's new job search design. With Thanksgiving in America right around the corner, consider this week's show a solid appetizer for what's sure to be an overrated meal of dry turkey, runny potatoes, and undercooked stuffing. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. 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. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. When it comes to females, Cosmo ain't got nothing to do with our selection. What's up kids? You are listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Factory of Sadness Cheeseman. Chad: Chad, it's Friendsgiving time. Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, deal is kind of wait for it a big deal. Poaching gone wild in Silicon Valley and unions just keep winning. Chad: Oops. Winning. Joel: Let's do this. Chad: Dude. Joel: What's up man? I don't know if you're aware of this in Europe, but it's Thanksgiving next week. Chad: Oh, yes. Of course. No we actually had Friendsgiving last night and, for all of you who don't know what Friendsgiving is, remember, that, you don't always have to go to a family's house because sometimes that's a pain in the ass. You can just go have Thanksgiving with friends. But during the pandemic, we couldn't get out and do Thanksgiving, right? So we did a Friendsgiving with Julie's team and it was virtual. And Amanda, who runs sales, her husband is a chef. So Chef Gabe, who lives in Washington State and is also a fishmonger, picks and packs fresh fish and seafood in dry ice along with veggies, risotto, and a great bottle of wine, and gets those packages out to everyone on Julie's staff overnight. Chad: Then, just like a cooking show, Gabe teaches us all how to cook the meal together via Microsoft Teams. And last night, he literally had a stove top camera, like from the top so you could see the whole stove top. And then you also had a Chef Gabe cam, and he taught us how to cook a wonderful meal, a wonderful, wonderful meal. And this to me is just another way that we can demonstrate how if you are remote, you can be together. You can have a great time. And thanks to Amanda and Gabe for once again, creating an amazing night with fabulous food for the team at Disability Solutions. That was a blast. [applause] Joel: So basically you had Chef Gabe from the Food Network, showing you how to cook fresh seafood for Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Whatever, you were calling it. So I'm guessing there was no turkey dressing and mashed potatoes... Chad: No. Joel: On the menu. Chad: That'll be happening during Thanksgiving though, so we can get a best of both worlds. Joel: Yeah. I'm shaking it up this year. The wife is going to New York City for the Macy's Day Parade with her sister and mother. Chad: Okay. Joel: So it's me, my 84 year old dad, my six year old son and maybe an appearance from my 17 year old son. Chad: Oh, dude. Joel: You know how that works with teenagers. But we're gonna do barbecue. We're gonna do, there's a barbecue place in town. We're gonna get some rib. Chad: I love it. Joel: Some brisket. That's gonna be our Thanksgiving. Chad: I love it. Joel: We're gonna mix it up. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I mean, Thanksgiving dinner is pretty overrated. In my mind, turkey is a pain in the ass. I mean, stuffings can be good or bad. Chad: It takes forever. Joel: Mashed potato. Yeah. It takes forever. Like by the end of it, the wife is pissed off. Everyone cooking is mad, like the kids won't eat. The kids just eat the roll, right? Chad: Yes. Joel: You put all this work in for the kid to eat a roll, it's just not good. So football, pajamas and barbecue is gonna be my... Chad: It sounds like a blast. Well, hopefully all you listeners out there are either having Friendsgiving and/or a traditional Thanksgiving as well. And if you're not in the US hell, you can still have one. I mean, we were in London last year, and we had Thanksgiving in London. They actually had a menu that had Thanksgiving meal on it. So just go enjoy it, whether it's American holiday or not, go have a good meal and enjoy yourself. Joel: Yep. And by the way, we'll be airing our Jive Turkeys episode next year in lieu of the weekly show, which is one of the more... Chad: Next week. Yes. Joel: Fun episodes, I think. We're getting into like Naughty and Nice, Jive Turkeys, Predictions. Chad: Oh, it is the fun part. Joel: Like, this is our time of the year where we get to review and look at the past year... [overlapping conversation] Chad: Fun time of the year. Chad: So that'll be fun. But let's get into stuff... SFX: Shout out. Joel: That's happening today. You got a shout out for me? Chad: Twitter is hiring platform. That's my shout out baby. So let's make a deal real quick. I will start calling Twitter X when they actually start using the x.com domain. Because it's still on Twitter, right? So it's still Twitter. Joel: That is true. Chad: You go, yeah. You go to X and it's fucking Twitter. Okay. So that sounds fair. Right? But according to Adrian Carbone, who is the, who actually I guess a product designer at Twitter and working on the hiring platform over there, they have just unveiled how they are going to deliver jobs on Twitter. Can I get a drum roll? Can you get a drum roll out there? Joel: Oh, we do baby. Chad: There it is. There it is. It's Job Search. That's right. It's just basically they're gonna have a Job Search on Twitter. That's right cool kids. Driving innovation through 1990s Basic Job Search functionality. How many times have we seen this go wrong? How, and I mean, hey, let's just slap a Job Search on there. Put a tab there that says jobs. And it just, it dies. Joel: They should just partner with SimplyHired, to backfill their Job Search. MySpace back in '06 or whenever it was. Chad: Back in the day. Back in the day. But if you... Joel: Back in the day. Chad: Want to try out the search, Adrian... Joel: Yeah. Chad: Once again Carbone, go check him out on Twitter. And he said, if you're interested on the early access in kicking the tires, go ahead and DM him. So I did. And I said, put your job search where your mouth is and let's take a look at this thing. So let's see. See if he responds. I am very doubtful that he does. Joel: Oh, I can't wait. I cant wait for your review of Twitter's new Job Search. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad: I don't see it happening. Joel: All right, Chad. Well, I have a triple threat down under shout out for you. So this is including New Zealand and Australia and you know how much Australia in equal parts scares the shit out of me and fascinates me. So here we go. So New Zealand McDonald's, they've apparently launched the worst menu item since the McDLT. Do you remember the McDLT, Chad? You had the hot side hot, the cool side cool. Chad: Cool side cool. Yeah. Joel: Little known fact about me. I worked at McDonald's for about a minute and I was the McDLT guy, so I was making McDLTs back in the '80s. Chad: No wonder they failed. Joel: Anyway, their law... No, that's true. And George Costanza was their pitchman on the commercial. So they're launching, get this, the McSalad burger. Now, when I read this, I thought, oh, there's probably an impossible burger on it. It's just, it's a vegetarian thing. No, no, no, no, no. It's got tomato, shredded lettuce, slivered onions, American cheese. At least they got that part right. Two pickles, peppery chicken sauce on a toasted sesame seed bun. So it's basically a salad. Chad: On a bun. Joel: On a couple of buns for that. Yeah, no impossible burger, nothing with parents on this thing, just veggies on a bun. Okay. So there's more from down under. It gets better than that. Okay. So I'm reading headlines last week, and I read the following headline, "World's most dangerous bird emerges from ocean, stunning onlookers." And I said to myself, it's gotta be Australia. And sure enough, I opened the story and it's in Australia. So the world's deadliest bird doesn't come out of a tree, doesn't come out of like the forest or some shit. It comes out of the ocean in Australia. That's how crazy this continent is. This country continent is nuts. Anyway. So, my triple hat trick here for Australia, this is great. So on social media, there's a show called Love Island, Australia Version. I guess there's a version in every country, but I got a soundbite for you. You haven't heard this? Chad: No. Joel: I didn't play it for you in the green room. So you'll be with everyone else that hasn't heard this. Check out this soundbite from Love Island, Australia. [video playback] [laughter] Joel: And that is... Chad: Humans. Joel: My down under triple threat. Chad: Oh Jesus. Joel: Shout out. Chad: Oh my God. Joel: Maybe when you're on the bottom of the earth... Chad: Oh my God. Joel: It does look that much bigger. I don't know. Chad: When we are getting dumber as species, the human race is getting dumber as a species. Let's just, I mean, we've got really, really smart people. And then we've got the really, really dumb people. And there's like, the division is just getting so much bigger. It's ridiculous. Joel: Yeah. Australia is the Florida of the Southern hemisphere. I'm convinced. Chad: I'm going to one up you with this one. Then when we talk about shock factor, we're going to give a shout out to the HR nightmare of the week. The following HR nightmare is brought to you by Solera, a global leader in vehicle life cycle management. A video has been circulating of a mass layoff via zoom. Not only is a zoom layoff incredibly impersonal, obviously, but you choose not to give a shit when you have a mass layoff, then you don't mute the fucking mics. The mics weren't muted and all hell breaks loose. Plus someone records it and guess what? It finds its way to the socials. Go ahead and take a listen. Joel: And it finds it's way on The Chad and Cheese podcast. [video playback] Joel: Poor David, man. Chad: David might be the problem though. She might just be calling it out. Joel: Oh my God. And the HR, the HR lady who was on the call was just gobsmacked. Chad: Nothing she could do. Joel: No clue how to react to any of this. And it was contagious. Everyone starts going in. Like some of the sound wasn't good enough to put on the show, but man... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Ouch, Ouch. Chad: And they, and Solera currently has 203 jobs open. So if you are looking for a job, I would tread lightly. If you look at a Solera job, if that pops up, you just might want to go ahead and click no. Joel: Yeah, job at Solera. All right, Chad. The shout outs. It's going to get better. Believe it or not. Chad: Okay. Good. Good. Joel: Your boy's has done it again. That's right. Josh Bersin has partnered with Sana to power "the world's first expert assistant for HR". Chad: Oh my God. Joel: Brought to you by The Josh Bersin Company. It's called Galileo and it's already got a trademark on it. So don't even try to use it for anything... Chad: Galileo. Joel: Devious. It's basically ChatGPT, but only using Bersin's content. Pretty high on his own supply. Bersin said in the release, "This paradigm shattering offering will change the way companies run their HR organization and manage their people, enabling any professional to operate like a world-class expert in a short period of time." Was Josh not hugged very much as a child? I'm starting to think that he wasn't. How long before this egomaniac clones himself and boxes himself up to be your company's robo HR manager and puts you out of a job. Shout out to Galileo, but don't forget the trademark TM at the end. Chad: Just so we need more Android, like old white dudes in HR. That'll change everything. And you know what will change something, getting free stuff. That always change, and it changes my mood when something comes to the door... Joel: Oh yes. Chad: And I've got some free stuff, you can get some t-shirts, the Chad and Cheese t-shirts, the newest one, which is sponsored by JobGet, you can get a big pack of craft beer by Aspen tech labs. You know the guys who do the job sites and the spidering and all that cool tech shit. Whiskey by Textkernel, two bottles of whiskey by Textkernel. And if it is your birthday, you could possibly win some rum from plum.io. SFX: Can you feel the tension in the air right now? Chad: Oh yeah. Chad: I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plums. Joel: That's right, Chad, another trip around the sun. And since we're not broadcasting next week, I'm going to just finish out the month of November with birthdays. So we got Jim Lowe, Randall Emery Emory, Eva Zils. Betsy, Chuck Norris, Robert St. Jacques, Karen Hewell, Michelle Palermo, Sean Lutians... Chad: Lutians. Joel: Valerie Doyle. John Chirio, not Chirio, Wendy Dod, Jason Stevens, Tony Lee, Matt Charny, Kevin Wheeler, and last but not least, Chad, near and dear to your heart, Kennedy Cook is celebrating a birthday, so... SFX: Happy birthday. Joel: Happy birthday, everybody. What'd you get her? Chad: Kennedy turns 24. She's living in Budapest. She's in the UK this week. What the fuck did she do? You need to get... She's fine. She's fine. No, happy birthday Kennedy. Way to go out there, kick ass, be a girl boss, and can't wait to see you soon. We're gonna see her... She's actually gonna come to Madeira, the island of Madeira... Joel: Nice. Chad: For new year. Yeah, she doesn't have a bad life, that kid. Joel: She's doing all right. I think she's gonna be fine. Chad: She's good. Joel: I think she's gonna be gonna be fine. Almost as fine Chad, as our new show. If you haven't tuned into The Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Data with Toby Dayton of Linkup, that comes at you every month, only on YouTube. Go to youtube.com/@chadcheese. We called it this month. We called it Goldilocks. Things are back. You look at the markets, the CPI numbers, your 401K is looking a lot better since we did the show. I'm not taking credit for it. Chad: Thank God for us, yeah. Joel: But some of the data was right on this month, and every month we're gonna look at that. I think it's gonna be great information, but check that out. Only on YouTube, just like Chad is only gonna be in England next month on our travel schedule. Tell us about that, Chad. Chad: That's right. December 4th through the 6th, gonna be at TAtech Europe in London. Kirsty Kelly and I will emceeing the show. Alex Tchaikovsky is gonna be presenting his latest findings on Google for Jobs. He's always coming up with shit around Google for Jobs. Hung Lee's gonna be performing a Brainfood live session. Who knows what that means, but it should be a blast. Adam Gordon's gonna be there. Matt, that British guy, Alder, my lovely wife, Julie Sowash, Andrea Wade, the smart people just keep coming. That's all I'm saying. If you live in London and you don't already have a ticket, go to chadcheese.com/events and register. Even if you're outside of London, take the train in, take the day off. Take a couple of days off. Take the train in, come see us. Joel: Not to mention porn stars. Someone said Hang Lee everybody. SFX: What are doing step bro? Joel: And speaking of that, let's talk a little... Oh yeah, that's right. Week 10 is in the books. Heading into week 11, we got Fantasy Football with Chad and Cheese, powered by our friends at FactoryFix. Here's your leaderboard Chad. Michelle Sargent is outta the number one spot, replaced by Marcy Project Small. Michelle Sergeant Slaughter is in second place, followed by Dina Perro Fopyros, Joe Mixon Dixon, Chad Smith Sowash, Jagged Little Jill, Pat Patterson, Jimmy Dean Ossner, Jasper Spic and Spaniard, Brent. I'm Brent. I'm a lousy baby so why don't you kill me? Number 10 is Joel Rifkin Cheeseman. Number 11, Dennis Tupperware. And the caboose crisscross. Kristen Aribon. Y'all are gonna make a jump. Jump follows out the 10 on fantasy football, everybody. [music] Joel: Which brings us to a little bit of... SFX: Layoffs. Chad: Layoffs. Joel: That's right, Chad. We got some layoffs. Well, it's been quite a car crash this year for the folks at Beamery, Chad. A little history. In December of last year, Beamery became a unicorn after raising a series D at $50 million. Then a month later, they laid off 12% of their staff. That's just a month later... SFX: Wow. Dope. Joel: Then in March of this year, again, Josh Bersin alert, your boy wrote a post entitled "HR GPT arriving now. Beamery starts the generative AI revolution in HR." Yeah. Maybe not Josh, maybe not. Word is, this week, another round of layoffs went down, with some rumors, putting the number at 35%. I asked around from one former employee who preferred to remain anonymous, of course, "Beamery is not doing well. Used to work there. They did big layoffs in '22. Then a bunch of us left at the end of the year. They just dropped their west VP, east VP, central VP left, head of strategic sales, left." Chad: Shit. Joel: "Director of engineering, left, sales consulting director, left. 80% of their AEs have left. Yes, it's that bad." I asked if it was the business or the leadership, and my source answered, "Both." [laughter] Another source said, "They plan to eliminate 25% of the global workforce in an effort to reduce costs by 35%. Sales have been terrible all year, so no big surprises from the news." That's Beamery. But from a big picture perspective, big tech continues to cut headcount. It was reported the likes of Google, Amazon, Zillow, and Snap will continue to downsize heading into '24. Analysts say it's most likely connected to an uncertain economic outlook. Snap, co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel is apparently pushing a, "Hardcore work culture". By the way, Chad, any thoughts on Beamery or big tech layoffs? Chad: Yeah. I think we saw this ship sinking, the Beamery ship sinking. We've been talking about it for a while. They, again, and you say it all the time, they're, you can take too much money, and they did take too much money because it forces you to spread the TAM. It forces you to do a lot of things that you wouldn't regularly do. And unfortunately, when you take the kinda cash that they took, it doesn't always work out well. But we're gonna talk about Google more here in a few minutes, in their new designs, as I believe that they're shifting talent needs towards sexy, large language models, Bard and Gemini. Chad: Ian Sherr, a tech reporter and analyst pointed out that some of the layoffs aren't always related to economic issues. Companies may have a division or products that are no longer viable. So they decide to cut those jobs, or to my point, they're ramping up hiring in different areas. We saw this with not Google for Jobs, but all the other Google platforms that they had on TA. They had an applicant tracking system, they were doing these different APIs, and then they cut all of that shit because they needed more resources over in Cloud. This kind of thing is gonna happen, especially when you are out flanked, and they were by OpenAI and ChatGPT. So a lot of this doesn't surprise me. There's gonna be some ramping up of hiring in some other areas. Joel: I have nothing to add except for the fact that I was critical of Beamery, I think a year or so ago. And our buddy Matt Adam Gordon. SFX: Welcome to [laughter] 'All Things Scottish our slogan is, 'If it's no Scottish, it's crap.' Joel: Mr. Gordon gave me a hard time about my criticism of Beamery. Chad: Really? Joel: Well, it looks like I might be getting the last lap on the Beamery question. Adam, still love you though, still love you though. [music] Chad: TOPICS. Joel: All right, let's get into it. Here's a headline for you, Chad. OpenAI's New Weapon in Talent War with Google, $10 million pay packages. "The recruiting fight between OpenAI and Google is growing fiercer as OpenAI proceeds with an employee share sale that would nearly triple the startups valuation to more than $80 billion. Its recruiters are courting top artificial intelligent employees at Google with millions of dollars and a message. Join us now to lock in a stock package at the current valuation of $27 billion in benefit from the impending increase. As part of their pitch OpenAI recruiters have claimed researchers would have regular access to computing resources, including the specialized chips staff rely on to run experiments and develop new techniques for AI models according to people with knowledge of the claims." Chad, we talked about American Airlines poaching UPS pilots to the tune of $250,000. Chad: Champ change. Joel: But this takes poaching to a whole new level. What are your thoughts? Chad: Put your money where your AI is baby. So a quote from the article in October, "OpenAI leased nearly half a million square feet of office space from Uber in San Francisco. However, some employees have moved in the opposite direction from OpenAI to Google, indicating that the talent wars are just warming up." We're going to see, especially these huge Titans when it comes to technology, they're gonna be fighting over the just top talent. If you've seen the Blackberry movie, if you haven't, you should watch it. This is something that is really interesting because you see Blackberry at one time, going after talent with these huge $10 million packages. Right? The only difference was they were postdating the stock. Joel: They broke the law. Chad: Yeah, they broke the law. [laughter] Chad: Big difference there. But still, I mean... Joel: Damn Canadians. Chad: It's one of those things. This isn't something that's new, right? You start to pull in big talent because you wanna change the world. There are so many people in the world that can actually help you do that. And I'll give you a quote from the movie, he said, "I thought we had all the best engineers in the world here at Blackberry." He was like, "No, I said, we had all the best engineers here in Canada." SFX: Take off, Lee, we're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show you hoser. Chad: These guys are going everywhere. Joel: Gotta love a good Blackberry reference. So if you were on the fence about AI being the future, well. Chad: Wake up. Joel: Everything this might make you commit to the fact that it is the future. Look, do you think back in the early 2000s, Google wasn't poaching techies from Microsoft, Oracle and whoever else with the promise of stock riches? The difference is Google didn't necessarily break the law, or didn't break the law like Blackberry did. Now they're getting a taste of their own medicine, Frankly. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Look, this is some Sun Tzu shit. [laughter] Joel: When your enemy is... When you're fighting Goliath you gotta be quicker. You gotta have a faster stone coming outta your gun or whatever the analogy is. But this is how the game works. And applause to OpenAI for playing the game. On a side note, AI giveth and AI taketh away. There was a story in the Financial Times this week about how much generative AI has impacted freelance workers in the content creation space. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Let's just say the picture showed a cliff dive in terms of revenues and opportunities for people in the gig economy to find that work. So it works both ways. I have kids on the cusp of college, and I'm doing my best to make sure they don't get AI'ed out of existence. [laughter] Making sure they take the right roads. So the winners will win big time. And it looks like the losers might lose an equal measure. But this shit's just starting to heat up. Wait till Facebook gets into it, wait till Amazon, wait till China starts poking around. Europe could get involved, this shit's just starting and a lot of people are gonna get really, really rich. It reminds me a little bit of the '90s and the rush for developers and people who could code. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And be webmasters. I remember visiting the headquarters of a company in San Francisco, and there was a nice Porsche 959 in the lobby. Chad: Lord Jesus! Joel: That when people would come in for interviews, they would see this and be like, this could be yours if you just joined the company today and last for 90, whatever it was last for a year, you get a free Porsche. So that's the kind of crazy shit that we're gonna see going forward. And I'm here for it, baby, I'm here for it. Chad: Very boiler room. Yes and I mean, if the kids are good with their hands, plumbers, carpenters, HVACs. Yes, I don't know what to do with my hands. [laughter] If they do know what to do with their hands, then guess what? They're still gonna be jobs that are out there that are going to be AI proof. Good luck to all the rest of them. And hopefully... Joel: That's right. Chad: They don't come after podcasts anytime soon. [laughter] Joel: Like Elon says, the laptop class is living in la-la land. SFX: La escalated quickly. Chad: Fuck Elon. [laughter] Joel: All right. Well, from one big Deel to another Deel, that's D-E-E-L, last valued at $12 billion, has hit $400 million in annual recurring revenue, a senior sales director at the startup said last month, up from a pace of $295 million in January, according to a story in the information this week. In case you missed it, Deel reached $295 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2022. So that's less than a year that they've had the increase. The company's co-founder and CEO told TechCrunch at the time, and that was up 417.5% from $57 million in ARR achieved at the end of 2021. Joel: So we're doing the math here, 57, 295, 400. Deel says it has been profitable since September of last year, and they claim a profit margin of 85%. They claim over 15,000 customers, including Nike, Subway, Reebok, Forever 21, one of my favorite places to shop, Shopify, Dropbox, and Klarna. [laughter] The information highlighted a growing rivalry between Deel and Rippling. Chad, you know what's coming. Big Deel, little Deel, or no Deel? Chad: The big Deel. I mean, they're obviously pulling in the cash. And the funny part about this is you might remember two HR techs ago when we were laughing at them because they had a little 10 by 10 booth at HR tech, right? Joel: [laughter] I had forgot about that. Yeah. Chad: Remember that? They had a little 10 by 10 booth. And then Eightfold had this humongous fucking spaceship, right? And yeah, we see where they're going. Looks like that spaceship might have a hard landing. But we've talked about the stupidity of return to office movements, but it's still gaining momentum. So here's a question. Deel is a platform that helps manage remote contractors. So how is Deel killing the game right now? Does that mean that the future of remote work is contract work? Is return to office only prominent in the US or is return to work just a mirage? Because Deel's numbers are not a fucking mirage. So what's happening here? Joel: I think that I look to the commercial real estate market and news around that to get a clearer picture around this. From what I can tell, and we've talked about New York City, we've talked about some other bigger cities doing really well in terms of commercial real estate, people refurbishing spaces, some making it apartments or lifestyle places where you work, live, shop, whatever. But the cities we should probably be worrying about are the Detroit's, the Cleveland's, the Pittsburgh's, you know, in terms of going back to work there. I do think there is certainly a global remote work, the ability or the need to have payroll and benefits and understanding the tax structures and everything else that goes on in employing a global workforce. But if you wanna have a global talent pool, you have to have remote workers. You can't just have people in Bangladesh move to Boston that easily. So remote work may not be what we think it's gonna be, but it is going to be a part of the world. And we're starting to see who's going to win in this space and who isn't. I mean, I think when we... You and I were real curious when we had the unicorn parade. Chad: Oh God. Joel: A couple of years ago of like who was gonna make it, who was gonna to come out of this, who was gonna thrive. And I think we're starting to get some clarity around who is gonna be the big winner and who isn't. And just looking at things like either news stories or maybe insights on LinkedIn in terms of headcount, Deel, Rippling and Remote are all doing very well in multiple parameters. Chad: Yes. Joel: Now the ones that are stabilized, maybe just for being really smart with their money, you've got the Paradoxes, the Fountains continues to do really well. Fountain to your chagrin is, is holding pretty steady, we'll see if that continues to hold. They have a lot of money to keep the lights on for a while. And then you look at who are the losers. And I think, Oyster layoffs that we talked about them recently. They seem to be challenged. Velocity Global, out of Denver, it seems to be struggling a little bit. Talent.com. We talked about some big layoffs there, pretty much the whole job board sector. If it's not declining, it's barely sort of keeping its head above water. But the unicorn slaughterhouse and who's going to be big made into mincemeat... Chad: Clearing up. Joel: Is starting to come to clarity. Deel is gonna, at least at this point, look like one of the winners. Now, I think both of us are super interested and excited anticipating the IPO flood that should eventually come with the Deels, the Personios, the HiBobs, the ATS' that we know and love that is gonna be really interesting. And who doesn't have the S1 to go public and what's gonna happen to those companies. At this time, it looks like the Oysters, the Talents and etcetera, are gonna be, on the chopping block in the IPO parade of unicorns that get steered into the slaughterhouse and not the fun house. Chad: Yeah. I'd really like to dig into a lot of these companies because the go to market obviously is different from company to company to company. And it would be nice to dissect the differences between what happened and where. I mean, that to me is the most important. Talking about Velocity Global that's out of the US. Right? You've got a Deel, out of Europe. I would say intrinsically remote is going to be big in Europe. Right. You've got all of these different countries and then you need workers. So you need that EOR system in Europe, and that's a great way to start. And then to be able to expand over into the US, just through your portfolio, just through wallet expansion. So we'll see, I don't know if that's the case, but we shall see. It'll be interesting to dissect. Joel: Yeah. The information also highlights the impending rivalry between Rippling and Deel. [laughter] If you look at both of those metrics, they're really, really similar. But yeah your point about taking too much money and we know what happens when you take too much money. SFX: 60% of the time it works every time. Joel: All right, Chad, a little RTO news, which we've had quite frequently lately. Can I interest you, Chad, in higher revenue growth in return for autonomy as a worker? Chad: I'll take it. Joel: A new report released this week by Scoop, a company that compiles data, completed an analysis of remote work policies and revenue growth at 554 public companies done in partnership with Boston Consulting Group. It found that the average public company that gives employees choice over whether to come into an office outperformed on revenue growth over the past three years by 16 percentage points compared to companies with more restrictive policies. Companies with fully flexible policies achieved a 21% industry adjusted revenue growth rate compared to only 5% for those with more restrictive policies mandating office attendance. Chad, your thoughts? Chad: So, Scoop, this is kind of... You think it's kind of like biased information just because it's, what Scoop does and they wanna push their platform. But if you take a look at the data... Joel: Public companies. Chad: They do have a great point, right? Joel: Yup. Chad: And not only that, but they have data policies from 7,500 companies. So they can see the trends from a much larger data pool. But then they get obviously even more data around the public companies, which I thought was amazing. But remote and hybrid, as this is coming to fruition, all means fewer commutes, which is less wasted windshield time and better for the environment, more autonomy. Employees feel like you're treating them like a fucking adult, greater productivity because I don't have Jeffrey barging into my office every 10 minutes with a new meme he wants to show me. And we've talked about this for like the last few weeks. Diversity, expanding your talent pool outside your norm gives you more diversity and allows women to manage their own damn day. So let's face it. We need more women back in the workplace. How are we going to do that? I don't know. Maybe give them more autonomy over their damn day, right? If they're... Chad: We've got to focus on performance and all this equals to higher revenue growth. I think they do have a point here. There is, you could see possibly some of a little bit of a bias, but it's not black or white, but this is a lot of good damn data that pushes toward at least a hybrid structure and starting to provide at least a little bit more autonomy to the work-force. Because they're adults and you pay them because you trust them. And if you don't trust them, that's why you manage them. And if you can't manage them, then that's your fucking fault. Joel: Dare I say sexy... SFX: I am happy. [laughter] Joel: Data, Chad, in case you missed it, this also this week, 41% of workers would rather quit than return to working in the office full time. That's according to poll results released from our friends at Monster. Yes, they're still around and doing surveys. [laughter] If you're keeping score at home, and Chad highlighted this, fully remote work means greater productivity, helps the environment with fewer commuters pumping CO2 into the air, improves diversity, broaden the talent pool. As Chad said, improves your brand and increases the number of candidates who actually apply to your job. Chad: Sounds good, right? Joel: So you know that from LinkedIn postings. Yeah. And now we're adding growing proof that it means higher revenue growth. So other than that, remote work kinda sucks, I guess. [laughter] Some more numbers from the Monster poll. These are fun. 66% say their overall mental health and well-being has improved working from home. 58% have increased focus due to reduced social distractions. 47% have reduced stress from avoiding a toxic work atmosphere. Maybe those are some of the Solera workers that we heard from earlier. Chad: Could be. Could be. Joel: 67% say their growth opportunities are not limited by working remotely. 46% say that working from home actually improves their work relationships. 43% feel more energized when working remotely. So a lot of the numbers around remote work are looking pretty good. So if you're an employer on the fence of what we're going to do in terms of hybrid, full on back to the office or remote, you might want to take a second look at remote if you are negative on it at the moment. [chuckle] And from remote work to some people on the job, we got some unions, union news. On the heels of the UAW when against the big three Las Vegas hospitality unions negotiating for better pay and benefits struck a historic tentative deal with Caesars Entertainment this week, averting a 10,000 worker strike. The proposed five-year contract promises wage hikes, health care and pension support, reduced workloads and advocacy for non-union workers. Talks continue with MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts impacting some 25,000 workers amidst expectations for significant pay increases. Joel: The unions represent around 53,000 Vegas-based employees. Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA's 118-day strike with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has ended, yielding a billion-dollar deal, addressing AI threats, streaming and actor rights, re-shaping Hollywood in the process. But wait, Chad, there's more. Tesla, Tesla faces worker strikes in Europe, particularly in Sweden. [laughter] Chad: Sweden. Joel: Challenging the company's refusal to negotiate collective agreements. Experts think European Union successes might influence US organizing efforts. You think? You think, Chad? So much union-winning. SFX: Opps. Winning. Joel: Your thoughts? Chad: The last story we just talked about, remote work. This is all power to the people. There's a huge shift and the union side of the house. Hell, we're talking about non-union workers who are getting the UAW bump, right? And you'll see the same thing from the Vegas hospitality. Anybody who's not a part of the union, they're going to get a bump. But what do you think that's gonna make them think about? Should I join the Union? Toyota 9% bump? Should I join the union? Maybe I could have got more. Should I join the union? You take a look at Tesla after Elon's bullshit in Sweden, and Swedish Tesla workers are on strike. But even better, dock workers are refusing to let Teslas into the country in solidarity. Why? Because they're like, you know what? That might not be my job. I might not be a Tesla worker, but they're a worker just like I am. Right? Joel: Yup. Chad: And that's the thing. In the US, what we've done is we've put focus on this rugged individualism and it has exploded finally. And we're finally getting to the point where it's like, hey, I can feel your pain. And I understand that that could be me. Forever we've been like, well, sucks to be them. Right? Joel: Yup. Chad: That is a term that we use regularly in the US. Sucks to be you, sucks to be them. Now you've gotta understand they are you. And that's exactly what Sean Fane, the UAW and all of these unions are doing. And to watch us as a society become more, again, individualists has really splintered our trust in just about everything, in religion, in politics, in friendships, in family. If we get back to understanding that, hey, look, this is us together as community, we can fix those things. And I feel like, and I'm hopeful, I'm very hopeful that this is the road to fixing those things. Joel: Go unions. SFX: All right. All right. All right. Joel: By the way, in every boardroom in the world, they're saying, how quick can we get the robots up and running? How quickly can we get the robots up and running? We knew this would be contagious if the UAW could pull this off. And they did, to my surprise, maybe less so for yours. Unionizing is the new black baby. If you go to Google and search unionizing in the news section, everyone's using a unionizing, restaurant workers, rail workers, healthcare workers, hell, there's a lighthouse workers [laughter] union percolating for goodness sake. Chad: They are still lighthouse workers? Joel: I didn't even know lighthouse workers is a thing, and they're unionizing. This thing is gonna be all the rage going forward, employers, companies are obviously freaking out. What do we do? How do we nip this in the bud? How do we get robots to take these jobs as soon as possible? Which again, goes back to the $10 million payouts for AI that OpenAI is paying people because companies are gonna wanna replace these workers as quickly as possible. But for the time being, if robots never happen, if AI never happens to take certain jobs, there are gonna be people getting paid and it's gonna be the union workers that are cashing in big time. Chad: And then we're gonna have universal high income. Joel: That's right. Thanks, Elon. Thanks Elon. Speaking of, when we come back, it's the all Elon closing. All right, Chad, from oral sex last week to Elon Musk this week. Sorry about that, everybody. Well, speaking of unions, the fifth circuit court in the US of appeals has ruled that Tesla's ban on pro union t-shirts at its Fremont, California plant did not violate labor laws. The defense Tesla does allow union stickers instead of t-shirts. So back to work, motherfuckers. And here's more Elon for you, Chad. Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain chip startup, garnered interest from thousands of brain implants after FDA approval for human trials. Musk aims to implant 11 people next year, targeting 22,000 people by 2030, envisioning a brain machine symbiosis, whatever the hell that means. Joel: Hungry for more, Elon, Chad? Tesla is constructing a unique diner and drive in movie theater combined with a supercharger station in Hollywood. The plan initially set for Santa Monica. Oh, that's where Zip Recruiter is. [laughter] They will feature a two story restaurant... Also, our friend Evan, by the way, 32 charging stalls, movie screens and a rooftop bar. This project could potentially signal the start of a nationwide chain of dine and charge stations for EV users. Chad, so much Elon, so much to digest, if you will. What are your thoughts? Chad: So you know what all of this is leading to, right? It's a town, a company town where Elon is the mayor. Everyone eats Elon burgers. Dogecoin is the currency. Everyone has a Neuralink chip in their head. And X marks the spot on Mars where this town is gonna be built. It's all coming to fruition. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! [laughter] Joel: Okay. On the T-shirts, Tesla's team wear policy, required employees to wear black shirts imprinted with the Tesla logo. The company said the policy was necessary to ensure that vehicles were not damaged during assembly. They thought the union T-shirts might damage the cars. That sounds like a lot of BS to me. Chad: Whatever. Yeah. Sure. Joel: On Neuralink. Nope, I got nothing else, but nope, I'm not on board with that. On a Tesla diner, however, Chad, I'm in. I'm in it to win it, baby. What do you think is gonna be on the menu? I have an idea. You ready? Chad: Okay. Hit me. Joel: Here we go. They're gonna have a laptop class club, a universal high income Italian beef and a dessert with Cybertruck sopapillas on the menu. Chad, count me in. Thanksgiving is around the corner. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Chad and Cheese, we out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Thanksgiving week means it's time for our annual Jive Turkeys edition of the podcast. This year, the boys take on Twitter's failed hiring platform after Elon Musk's acquisition, Kid Rock's inconsistent behavior and impact on Bud Light, Grindr and Xing's questionable shifts into job matching, Joonko's collapse due to unethical practices, and OpenAI's leadership upheaval with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman quitting abruptly. Next up: iCIMS' CEO's sudden resignation of Brian Provost, and Silk Road's rebranding to Rival-HR ... this after multiple leadership changes. It's a fun-filled episode of industry missteps, unethical behavior and sudden, drastic changes within these companies or individuals ... ultimately labeling them as our Jive Turkeys for 2023. Gobble! Gobble! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. 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. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. Just a couple of guys who like legs and breasts. Of course, I'm talking about Thanksgiving dinner, you bunch of sickos. Hi, kids. This is The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel, never convicted, Cheeseman. Chad: Chad Turducken Sowash. Joel: And on this episode. SFX: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving. Joel: Yeah. Let's do this. Happy Turkey Day week, Chad. Chad: Pretty stoked. Here in Europe you can do just about whatever you want with whatever food you want. The thing that's beautiful though is, I think you talked about it, is we don't have to put a turkey in the oven for eight fucking hours. We can just eat whatever we want, which is great. It's great being an adult. Joel: Sometimes it's great being an adult. Middle age, by the way, is the most thankless time of your life. Why's that? Your aging parents aren't thankful. They're mad about everything. Your kids hate you. They're mad about everything. Everyone just expects you to be on, keep the ATM full and just shut your mouth and do your job. That's middle age, everybody, in case you haven't gotten there yet. Chad: I'm not feeling that. I don't know what your problem is. Joel: Yeah, empty nester probably changes things and you haven't had any parental issues. Illness, death? Chad: Both my mom and dad have had medical issues, but they've gotten through it. They're continuing to get through it, so. Yeah, it's... Joel: Do they still live independently? Chad: Part of life. Yeah. Joel: It's coming for you. Chad: Thanks. I appreciate that. Something to be thankful for. Joel: So this episode, everybody, if you're a new listener, the holidays are just... They just hit different for us. We do this Jive Turkeys episode. We will do Naughty and Nice. We'll do Predictions. We'll do all kinds of stuff for the holidays, which is really an excuse for us not to work. We just do these fun episodes, 'cause I think everyone kinda likes... Chad: This is still work. I don't know what you did. I don't know what you did, but I worked. Joel: As the Portuguese sun beats down on your bald head, yeah, definitely work that we're doing. So we usually go to shoutouts, but I have some thankful fors and you have shoutouts of your own. So why don't you go and just hammer out your shoutouts and then we can be thankful for some stuff. Chad: Yeah. My shoutout and being thankful, all in one, is for having American football in the Algarve. Yes, I am five hours behind Eastern Standard Time. Yes, I do get the abundance of amazing European football from all the different leagues around here. But one of the thanks, my favorite bar has American football. And that to me is just something even more to be thankful for. Not only do they have an amazing whiskey selection, they have American football. Joel: Now I'm feeling like that's Latin for I get to watch the Ohio State and Michigan game this week. Is that what that means? Will this bar have Ohio State and Michigan on? Chad: Yeah. That one might be a little bit hard. NCAA's hits a little bit different, but I will ask. I will ask. Because if they can get it, they will get it. Joel: 'Cause you probably see this on your feed, but all kinds of drama. Harbaugh is a dirty boy. Michigan is naughty. Yeah, Michigan is on our naughty or nice list as a naughty. Ryan Day is under pressure. 'Cause if he can't, if it's a third straight loss to Michigan, Harbaugh's not on the sidelines. So Ryan Day is under pressure. They're talking about him being on the hot seat if he doesn't win. Chad: Whatever. Joel: This is number two versus number three in the nation. Huge repercussions for this game. And most importantly, for me, my wife is going to New York City for the holiday, for the Macy's Day parade. She's meeting her at her sister there. So I get guilt free, unhindered viewing of Ohio State and Michigan this year, which is usually a bit of a hurdle for me to clear. So Thursday football. Friday, they have now what they're calling Black Friday, which they have football now on Friday, NFL football. And then Saturday is college football galore. So I'm gonna be really happy for the next week or so. Chad: Football, football, football. Joel: Football, football. And we're not doing dinner. We did dinner at my sister's, the Thanksgiving thing. Chad: Nice, nice. Joel: At this house, we're going barbecue. I'm going down to... Chad: Good call. Joel: The barbecue shop. We're getting ribs. We're getting some chili. Maybe some sausages, some mac and cheese, some mashed potatoes. It'll be really good. Chad: Get it all. Joel: I'm gonna have my 84-year-old dad over and my six-year-old son. That's the threesome. That's the three stooges that are gonna be watching TV. So anyway, enough about me. Football's great. I'm glad you get to watch. I hope you get to watch Ohio State, Michigan, if not, well, you're in Portugal and it's life is okay either way. Chad: I'll soldier through. Joel: Yeah, I'm gonna skip the shoutouts and I'm gonna be really stereotypical and just do thankfuls. Chad: Okay. Don't make me cry. Joel: Number one, our fans. Dude, we're two middle-aged knuckleheads. To see people wear the shirts, to share the booze, to reach out, certainly I think both of us get contacted. Love the show, where you have your open office hours or whatever, where you take calls. So I'm sure you hear people... It's just fantastic, the little podcast that we've built. But it wouldn't be anything without the fans. So I gotta thank the fans. It also wouldn't be anything without the sponsors. I'm continually just amazed at the people who will write checks to be sponsors of the show. Certainly we think we have a great show and our listeners do as well, but our sponsors stick with us. They become friends, they become supporters, and it's just really great to have them around. Other than that, I think you and I are both really blessed. We have great families, great friends, and damnit, Chad, I'm thankful for you too. I'm thankful for you. Chad: I knew you were gonna try to make me cry. Joel: Yeah, I don't wanna make you cry. Chad: I knew it was coming. I could feel that. Joel: I didn't wanna bring you off the Wham, the Careless Whisper. But goddammit. I'm thankful for so much. I think we complain a lot on the show. We complain a lot in our everyday lives. Give thanks. Think about how grateful you are, how lucky you are. Your country is hopefully not at war. You're hopefully not dealing with any kind of trials and tribulations. Hopefully you have a lot to be grateful for and you can give thanks even if you're not American. Take time to give thanks this week. Chad: Yeah. Well, and also would like to thank all the listeners/watchers who are watching us on YouTube. In a very short amount of time we have almost 750 subscribers. We have great sponsor participation, people watching the shorts, people watching the full episodes. You and I both thought, "This is good audio. Anybody really going to want to look at our ugly mugs?" And they do. Joel: We never thought it was good video. That's for sure. We never thought, "This is going to make some great video." Chad: Well, thankful for the team at Skillscout for making us look good, and so good that now we have a second series on YouTube under the Chad and Cheese YouTube handle. Just youtube.com/@chadcheese, where Toby Dayton from LinkUp once a month connects with us and goes over the job numbers, goes over the landscape, goes over a lot of things, and tries to talk it down, kindergarten style, to us and to our listeners. So really, again, thankful for all of that. If you haven't subscribed, check us out on YouTube. Just search for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel: Absolutely. And thanks to the European show that's still voice only. That may change. Levin's just too... Chad: It might. Joel: Good looking to keep boxed up in a speaker forever. So look out for that. I don't know. I don't know. No promises, everybody. Chad: Oh, you know he wants it. Joel: By the way, speaking of sponsors, if you haven't signed up, go to ChadCheese.com. Free t-shirts from our friends at JobGet, bourbon, one from Chad, one from me. That's our friends at Textkernel. We got free beer from our homies at AspenTechLabs. And if it's your birthday, you could win a chance to win some really good ram from our friends at Plum. And if you listened to last week's show you know that I went through the rest of the month's birthday, so I wouldn't have to read them on the show. But however, I'm thankful for this sound bite. SFX: Can you feel the tension... Chad: Yes. SFX: In the air right now? Joel: Oh, I can feel it. SFX: I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plum. Joel: And if you love that one, oh yeah, you're gonna love this one too. This is our fantasy football sound bite. And Tuesday means we have a new leaderboard, Chad, and we're recording this on Tuesday. So I wanna read our top 12 leaderboard in fantasy football. Number one, Marcy Mall continues to crush it, just like number two, Michelle Sargent. Chad: Killing it. Joel: Killing it. It'll be a travesty if neither one of them win the league. But anything can happen. Anything can happen. Dean Aparro. Chad, you're number four now, which puts you in a playoff spot. If you can hold on to this, then happy days for you, my friend. Chad: That's a big if. Joel: The following list is Joe Dixon, Dean Osner, Jill Patterson. I come in at number eight, which is up from number 10, so watch out for me. I stuck it to Jasper, which makes me feel good. I think I beat him, I beat Tupper, and I think I beat you this year, which is really all I need from fantasy football. Number 10, Brent Losey. Dennis Tupper continues to drag on the bottom. Chad: Winner last year. Joel: He's a bottom feeder. He loves it, apparently. And Kristen Urban, just a string of bad luck for her. But that is our fantasy football list. [music] Joel: And with that, Chad, are you ready for a little jive turkey time? Chad: Bring it. Joel: So if you're a new listener, here's what we do. We each pick three or four companies, people in the industry, that just deserve to be called out as jive turkeys. They've either broken a law, they've disgraced themselves, they've destroyed share value, something or other. Chad: Themselves, their families. Joel: They've just embarrassed themselves, and there's just no fun... Speaker 4: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving. Joel: For jive turkeys this close to Thanksgiving. So Chad, let's have you start with your first jive turkey of 2023. Chad: This will not surprise anyone right out of the gate. My first jive turkey goes to the Twitter hiring platform. Twitter was bought at a $44 billion price tag by Elon Musk, and now it's worth $19 billion. So how does Elon make up that $25 billion in losses? Well, it's easy. You start a job board. Apparently, that's how you do it. Earlier this year, Twitter's announcement of a hiring platform after acquiring Laskie, it got us thinking. Since Laskie was a job matching engine, how would Twitter match people to jobs? Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter doesn't have a person's career information, expertise, skills or anything really regarding occupation. So what corpus of data would they use to match these users to jobs? We were really racking our brains on this. Well, I guess we thought way too deep on this because Twitter launched their first version of job cards, doing what everybody's been doing on Twitter for years, blasting jobs into their feed. Top five job listings on corporate profiles. That's innovative. And last but not least, we just heard last week a basic 1990 style job search. So Elon compared what was coming to a new and cooler version of LinkedIn. Well, Elon, maybe in 2006, but not in 2023. So this early version of Twitter hiring platform gets a jive turkey from me. Joel: Oh, boy. And Twitter/X gave us plenty to talk about in 2023, Chad. You picked obviously the most relevant one to the industry. How do companies pick their top five? It's like MySpace when you had to pick your top friends. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: I don't know how they come up with their five. But, yes, the search box... Chad: And how do you manage it? Joel: Let's hope that comes in '24. Let's hope the LinkedIn killer gets launched by Elon, because that'll be a lot of fun to talk about. Chad: Talk a little bit more about that later. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. Yeah. This was bad for sure. Chad: I don't think it's gonna be Twitter, though. SFX: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving. Joel: All right. That brings me to my first turkey of 2023. Well, Chad, we talk a lot about brand integrity, walking the walk, if you're gonna talk the talk if you will. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Well, let's look at how not to do that by focusing on Kid Rock from 2023. By the way, do you have a favorite Rock, Chad? We got the Rock, Chris Rock, Kid Rock, Plymouth Rock. Do you have a favorite Rock? Chad: Do I have a favorite Rock? I like Pet Rock. That thing. Yeah. Joel: Pet Rock. Okay. Go '70s. I'll go Chris Rock. Just generational comedian. Anyway, so back in April, the right wing lost its mind When Dylan Mulvaney promoted Bud Light as a trans celebrity. Here's Kid Rock going to Twitter with a really big gun showing the world what he thinks about Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney's relationship. S6: Let me say something to all you and be as clear and concise as possible. Fuck Bud Light and fuck Anheuser-Busch. Have a terrific day. Joel: [laughter] Have a great day. Anyway, pretty tough guy. He was on brand, everyone on the right, the mega knuckleheads all cheered him. However, in August, Chad, just a few months later, he was sighted online enjoying a Bud Light at a Nashville bar. Oops. That's... SFX: That's winning. Joel: That's not winning, Chad, by the way. So Twitter cried treason, of course, highlighting his flip flop. [laughter] Joel: Then, Chad, just this month, he goes on Hannity, and for those of you who don't know Hannity, he is a Fox News celebrity, and says that he never called for a boycott of the beer, and he feels bad about the people who lost their jobs because of his stunt. For the record, Bud Light's stock has almost back up to pre Kid Rock and pre boycott levels. No word on the hundreds of people who did lose their job when the stock did tank. But for all this and more, the flopping, the idiocy, just the relevant knuckleheadedness of America, Kid Rock gets my first jive turkey of 2023. Speaker 4: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving. Chad: So much fake outrage in 2023. There's just so much of it. People are so pissed and they're so mad, and you try to ask them, "About what? What are you really mad at?" Joel: He should be mad about not making a hit in the last 20 years. That's what he should be mad about. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a diversion. Joel: Bawitdaba was a long time ago, Mr. Rock. Bawitdaba was a long time ago. Chad: Nobody is paying attention to him. And he wants somebody to pay attention to him. So therefore, fake outrage gets him attention, apparently not the attention that he wanted. Joel: Before we get to yours, and I know everyone is really excited, let's take a quick break, pay some bills and we'll be right back with Chad's jive turkey of 2023, number two. Joel: All right, Chad, it's our Jive Turkey episode. You've already given us one, Elon and Twitter/X. Now give us your number two jive Turkey of 2023. Chad: Well, Joel, my next turkey is what I would like to call a shared dining experience, where a portion of this is gonna go to Grindr, a location-based social networking and online dating application targeted towards gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Why Grindr? SFX: Just a tip. Chad: That's right. Because Grindr targeted LinkedIn by saying their location-based matching platform would double as a hiring platform. Joel: Say what? Chad: Yes. A dating app doubling as a hiring app. Anyone with half a brain will understand that using a hookup app is not a smart move for hiring. Seriously, what company wants to have a hookup culture in the office? And the final portion of this turkey dinner goes to Zing. Zing is reversing course and turning itself from a LinkedIn style platform, mainly in Germany, into a job board. So literally, instead of just adding job search matching and engagement capabilities into their social platform, they decreased their tam dramatically along with any valuation they had. So this shared dining experience is a combo platter for Grindr and Zing served up by our friends at LinkedIn. Joel: Look at you with the puns. S8: Has anyone noticed this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. [laughter] Joel: And you accused me of the dad jokes. My favorite part about the Grindr story was it happened when we were live at Shaker headquarters. [laughter] Joel: And we bring Joe Shaker to an interview and the first thing we say is, "So Grindr for jobs, man, are you guys pushing that to your customers?" And of course, Joe had to be as diplomatic as possible and say... Chad: He took it like a champ. He took it like a champ. Joel: Yeah, something like, "We look at all the advertising mediums and we look at them, objectively," yada, yada, yada, yada. But you could tell he really appreciated that he was on the Grindr episode. He really appreciated that. SFX: What are you doing, step bro? Joel: All right. Well, that's gobble number two from Chad. My number two gobbler goes to Joonko, yeah, a company we didn't talk about a lot. That's J-O-O-N-K-O. And they got KO this year, if you will. A little bit about them. Founded in 2016, they focused on helping underrepresented candidates get hired. Well, that was pretty hot back in 2020, '21, '22. A noble go for sure. They were spearheaded by Ilit Raz, their founder and CEO. Well, in September of '22, they raised $25 million and things looked pretty great for the company. Now, fast forward to June of this year, and Raz is in trouble as the company faces collapse... And in fact, they have collapsed. We'll get to that in a second. Due to allegations that it misled investors. An internal probe revealed Raz's involvement in unethical practices, exaggerating the company's business size. She allegedly claimed partnerships with 150 companies than the actual number was much lower than that. The scheme involved fake invoices, fake wire transfers, and fake bank accounts. Oi! Chad: Jesus. Oh, my God. Joel: Raz, who resigned following these findings, has not commented on the allegations. They also, Chad, if you want more, claimed 500% sales growth for the two years following the investment. They lied about partnerships with American Express, PayPal, and Accenture. As of today, the website is kaput. It's down, it's out. Sorry for the employees that got behind this company and this leader, including our friend, Albrey Brown, who's been on the show at least once. Turkey number two for me goes to Joonko and its founder. Oi! Chad: How is she not in jail? She took money, she faked invoices, she faked wire transfers, bank information. How is she not in jail? That's the question. Joel: I wanna know when her Hulu series is coming out. Forget jail. [laughter] Joel: These people go to TV when they do this kind of shit. We work. Chad: Well, I think if she went to jail... Joel: We work Uber. She should face justice for sure. We'll follow this story. But yeah, everything has been erased minus their LinkedIn page which they still have. Chad: Yeah. That's fraud. I don't know how they don't go to jail. Joel: Every year something like this happens. Whether it's the oil rig guy from a year or so ago, whether it's Zenefits. Chad: Rigzone. Yeah. Joel: Yeah. The fraud isn't just for Theranos and WeWork and the companies that get Hulu series. They happen in our industry too. And hopefully, we're there to highlight it and talk about it in 24 when it happens with whoever. Whatever unicorn defrauds investors next year, we'll be there to talk about it a year from now. But that is my turkey number two, Chad. What do you got next? Chad: I've got the biggest turkey. So let me go ahead and set this up for you. You might know a guy by the name of Sam Altman and also Greg Brockman. They did what every other founder was afraid to do. While every other founder keeps their products behind the demo wall, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman gave everyone access to the product. No charge. Go play with it. Have fun. Rate it. Talk about it. Tell your friends, family, your peers at work. Just use it. Use ChatGPT. Joel: This is sounding pretty good so far, Chad. Does this turn take a turn for the worst? What... Chad: It's getting there. It's getting there. This is why it's a big Turkey. I need a big setup. Overnight ChatGPT and OpenAI became household names and catapulted into a position as the leader in generative AI, a company most of the population had never heard of before. They became the leader in AI overnight. Sam Altman was constantly featured in stories, on stages all over the world. He was the new tech wunderkind. Joel: Poster child. Yep. Chad: So an overnight success. And remember most people had no clue who the fuck he or OpenAI was just a year ago. Microsoft sees its chance, funds OpenAI with $13 billion, that's billion with a B, $13 billion. All Microsoft products are now infused with OpenAI generative AI. Yeah, exactly. Google is caught off guard, fumbles the release of its ChatGPT competitor, Bard. Who makes Google stumble and look like it's amateur hour? Nobody does, but Greg and Sam did. Last Friday, this is where it comes. Last Friday, a year after ChatGPT was opened up to the masses, OpenAI's board sacked Sam Altman and Greg Brockman quit in solidarity. Microsoft only received word about two minutes before the press release was dropped. That's right. Microsoft, the same close partner, the one that has $13 billion, injecting OpenAI tech even into their product suite. No heads up. So in a baller move, Microsoft brings Altman and Brockman both to the head of Microsoft's new AI venture. That's right. The new CEO of OpenAI will have to report to its big biggest partner and customer, Sam and Greg. [laughter] Chad: So meanwhile, 550 out of 700 employees at OpenAI have signed a letter telling the board to resign, or they're going to leave and go to Microsoft with Altman and Brockman. OpenAI, no doubt, is the biggest turkey of the year. Joel: And more directly, the board, I guess, and whoever made these decisions. SFX: 60% of the time it works. Chad: Three people left on the board. Three people left on the board. They're going to have to go ahead and commit Harry Carey. They're gonna have to restock the board. There's gonna have to be something that happens. But what does Microsoft do? Do they just sit back and watch or do they just go ahead and and buy this thing up? That's the question. Joel: Yeah. This is fascinating. Chad: It is. Joel: This is news. This is like unfolding as we record and more news will come out about this. There was word of trying to bring Sam back. There are obviously employment agreements in place. These people in California, where there is no agreement. There is no non compete. Chad: Exactly. Joel: How many are in states that do. The board has egg on its face just immensely. The payouts by Microsoft, as I understand it, are due to milestones that the company hits, and so it wasn't like they just backed up the Brinks truck and said, "Here's billions and billions of dollars." Chad: But it's their waiting, right? Joel: Yeah. [laughter] Microsoft may have just bought this company or the brain power of this company. They're already doing the server power. They've already integrated it into their stuff. Microsoft may have pulled off the biggest coup in corporate history, 'cause Zuck and Google and Amazon was all on the phone trying to get Sam to come... Chad: Oh God. Yeah. Joel: Do something at... Chad: Easily. Joel: The only few companies that have the power that can do the things that OpenAI does. But anyway, yeah. This may go down in history as Microsoft's greatest takeover by acquisition. I don't know. It's very interesting. The board looks really stupid and we criticize Zuck for having total control of Facebook. We criticize Elon for basically having no board. He just calls the shots. This is kinda what happens when a founder or guy that is in charge has no stake in the company. He's on record saying, "I don't want any share of the company. This is an open project," yada yada. This looks like a hissy fit. This looks like a knee jerk reaction. Chad: Easily. Yes. Joel: It looks like billionaires that are having a hissy fit are throwing a tantrum over something. But it's very odd. Very odd. Very odd. Chad: Well, I've gotta give you one more quick story. So Julie and I, we went to a Google developer conference in Lagos this last weekend. On our way back, we were listening to one of the "emergency podcasts" from one of my favorite podcasts called Hard Fork. And I'm sitting here listening to it and I look at Julie and I said, "You know what I would do if I was Satya? I would hire Altman and I would... " That is a baller move if you can get him. Because then whoever comes in at OpenAI is going to be literally reporting to Altman at that point. And the next thing you know, Julie comes out yesterday and she's like, "Did you see the news?" I'm like, "No. What?" "Yeah. They did exactly what you said they were gonna do." [laughter] SFX: Oops. Winning. [laughter] Joel: Yes. It's very, very bizarre. Well, from one corporate gobbler to another, my third gobbler of the year. And this pains me, Chad. It pains me, 'cause... I think I speak for both of us when I say that we love iCIMS. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Early supporter. Analyst day. We knew the early people, the early folks. We were there in the acquisition. Some of the people there are our biggest fans, we're some of their biggest fans, but there's really no getting around that they did a real jive turkey move this year. So in fall of '22, they announced at their annual show a new CEO, Brian Provost, who gets ultimately my Jive Turkey of the Year award. So '22 fall, they announced Provost as CEO. By '23 fall, he is out, resigned abruptly as CEO of iCIMS. The company cited personal reasons. You and I went on the show on the weekly edition and said thoughts and prayers if this is something personal that he just couldn't get out of, just like an emergency thing. Joel: And the more I talked to other people that I trust and sort of been around a while and I thought about it myself, if it was a personal reason, when CEOs leave for personal reason, even when Steve Jobs left for cancer and dealing with that, they had an interim CEO, and typically, "I'm gonna come back once we've beaten this thing," or, "Once the personal thing is resolved, I'll come back." But until then let's get a plan together. Who's gonna be interim? Who's gonna be the new whatever? There's a plan laid out. It's not like an abrupt, "I'm out of here for personal reasons." So clearly, just like OpenAI, multi-billion dollar valued company has hissy fits on the board, has CEOs that abruptly leave. There's no way of getting around it. Brian Provost bounced on iCIMS. We don't know why. We can speculate. They were supposed to go public. Maybe that was part of the vision and the company did a u-turn on that. Maybe he got into the business and said, "Oops, this wasn't what I expected." We don't really know. And unfortunately, I don't think we ever will know. To this day, iCIMS is still without a CEO. Or at least I haven't seen anything across the wire. And I think that I would if I did. I don't think they've announced a date for their annual event. I think that's on ice. Chad: Yeah, I think it's in May. Joel: Okay. So tentatively next year it'll hopefully happen. And we'd love to attend. We did their keynote, I guess, or one of their big stage... We had a nice stage presence last year. Anyway, this guy comes on at the annual event. He talks about his family. He is a hockey guy, kind of a tough guy, Minnesota salt of the earth. And then he just bounces from the organization. According to his LinkedIn profile he is now a board member at Zenwork and Border Foods. I don't know, Border Foods, but Zenwork deals with taxes and regulation reporting, and they just got $163 million in investment. So I'm guessing Mr. Provost will land on his feet there at Zenwork in some form or fashion while iCIMS sits sort of stagnant without a CEO. And for that reason, my number three gobbler of the year goes to iCIMS' former CEO, Brian Provost. Chad: A guy like Brian Provost, you expect more. And at this point, the only thing I can say is from the outside looking in, he just didn't give a shit. [laughter] Chad: He just didn't give a shit. He either has enough money in the bank, which I'm sure he does. He has enough connections. He was part of this PE portfolio. He just didn't give a shit. And that to me is sad because, again, it impacts a company, hundreds of people, thousands, especially if you're talking about customers. Joel: People we know and love. Chad: Yeah. So personally for me, I'm going to say, "Fuck that guy." [laughter] Joel: Always you to mince words, Chad. Always you to dance around the topic. But yeah, look, you don't take this job without being an adult, and that did not happen here. And that is very unfortunate. ICIMS will land on their feet though. ICIMS will land on their feet. Chad: I think they will. Joel: And we will land on our feet after we take a quick break before we get to Chad's final gobbler of 2023. Joel: All right, Chad, we've gone through a long list of turkeys, my friend. I'm almost full. I'm almost done with turkey. I almost can't take it anymore, but I think you might save us with a new menu item. What you got? Chad: Yes. Well, for those who don't like turkey, I've chosen to add a little ham to the menu. Joel: Ooh. Chad: A couple of weeks ago, SilkRoad changed their name to, wait for it, Rival and their domain, they changed their domain name from silkroad.com, that's a damn good domain name. Joel: Yep. Don't say it. Chad: To rival-hr.com, a very less... Joel: Oh, no. Chad: Less amazing name. So this is... Joel: No. Did you say hyphen, dash? Chad: Yes. Joel: Oh, no. No. Chad: So this is quite odd as SilkRoad Technology was founded in 2003. Yeah, they're 20 years old, so why the change? If you're an established and well recognized player in the space, why change? Well, I think that's the problem. SilkRoad isn't a widely recognized player. After 20 years as a core talent platform, something had to change, and it did. Remember that SilkRoad acquired Entelo right off the clearance rack a little over a year ago, and then elevated Entelo's clearance rack CEO, Robert Tsao, to the CEO of SilkRoad. And I think we were both kind of mesmerized about, "What the fuck is going on here?" So how does a point solution clearance rack CEO ascend to become the CEO of the acquiring organization? Well, let's go back to 2021, when HighBar Partners acquired SilkRoad, there it is. PE wanted, no, they needed a change. So acquire some new cool tech off the clearance rack, kick out the current CEO, elevate the clearance rack CEO. We're all good. We're on our way. Well, apparently not all change is good because Robert Tsao was replaced by Greg DiTullio, I think that's how you say it. Joel: R2-D2. What? Chad: Yeah, if you are R2-D2. And SilkRoad can now be found at rival-hr.com. High Partners is slapping more lipstick on their pig than Indeed, which is why High Partners receives the 2023 Little Piggy award. That's soo bad. Joel: That's a lot of ham right there, baby. Chad: That's so bad. Joel: That's a lot of ham. Chad, I'm impressed. You stayed focused. You didn't go to Johnny Taylor. You did. You stayed away from Indeed. We both did. Chad: No, Josh Bersin. Joel: No, Josh. That was my next one. No Bersin. So you've spared a lot of people this year, and they should be thankful for that, my friend, as they sit down for dinner. Any other honorable mentions that you can think of? I'll throw out one. Chad: Go ahead. Joel: ZipRecruiter's Ant-Man promotion almost made my turkeys. Chad: Oh, Jeez. Joel: If you remember the Ant-Man commercials that did not feature Paul Rudd's voice. I'm sure they couldn't afford Paul Rudd's voice as part of the promotion, but they did a... Chad: Ridiculous. Joel: Promotion with Ant-Man and put no Ant-Man stuff on the website. There was nothing on the website that was like partnering with Ant-Man, searching for jobs. So ZipRecruiter almost made my list of turkeys and shit. Chad: So did their marketing team get totally cut prior to that? Because this is like there's... It was like there was nobody at home. Joel: If they had just had the Marvels and the blockbuster Marvel film that just came out, that's a whole other podcast that I'm sure you have opinion on. You also stayed away from Wrexham, which I'm guessing is gonna be in our Christmas naughty or nice episode. I'm guessing we're gonna hear some Ryan Reynolds... Chad: There's a possibility. Joel: At Christmas time. But until then, Chad, happy Thanksgiving, happy Turkey day. However, you celebrate or don't celebrate. Chad: Happy barbecue. Joel: Barbecue, football, hopefully for you, Ohio State in a route of that team up north. I will talk to you, my friend, after the week. I'm gonna miss you, man. I'm gonna miss you. Chad: Miss you. Joel: Miss you so much, dude. Get the fuck out of here. Joel: All right. Enough of that. We out. Chad: We out. OUTRO: Thank you for listening to... What's it called? The 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 shoutouts 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. 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 is so weird. We out.

Can't get no satisfaction with those other podcasts? Well, you've come to the right place. This week was one helluva news cycle, including an 'F bomb' from our favorite billionaire nut job, Elon Musk, to go along with a job board launch out of Twitter, er, X. Spoiler alert: Indeed's probably not losing a lot of sleep over it, but if employers don't want jobs on a platform with antisemitic content, they may want to pay attention. (Talkin' to you, too, Appcast.) Plus, Amazon is officially in the ChatGPT competition game, with something HR should be paying attention to, LinkedIn has finally figured out it can make money in healthcare, unions keep winning, and Machine Gun Kelly is hoping to poach NFL star Travis Kelce back to his hometown Cleveland. Who says you can't always get what you want? Not our listeners. We even throw in some AARP-inspired "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" jokes to talk about The Rolling Stones recent ticket pre-sale on AARP's website. Don't want to spoil it for you, but the computer screen was 'painted black' for a lot of would-be ticket buyers. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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: Oh Yeah. We gave up drinking whiskey this week. It was the worst 20 minutes of our entire lives. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Kissinger Cheeseman. Chad: And this is Chad. Get the popcorn ready Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, Amazon has a queue. LinkedIn hits on nurses and boomers can't get no satisfaction. Let's do this. What's up. Chad, were you, were you overserved last night on the beach? Chad: Oh my God, man, it wasn't my intent to go out last night. I was going to stay home 'cause, Julie, has trash TV night with the girls They watch Too hot to handle. Joel: Is this the points game or the money game? Where if you like. Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if you. Joel: Get naughty. Chad: If you kiss or you screw or whatever, they take money away from it. Yeah. It's stupid. Joel: Is it people from multiple countries this season? Chad: I Don't know. I don't know. Joel: Yeah. Chad: I don't know. But it's, I mean, it's like brainless TV, which is. Joel: Sure. Chad: You got hot people on TV. It's totally brainless. You don't have to think about anything. Well, I was just gonna watch Blue Samurai, Blue-Eyed Samurai, which is awesome on Netflix if you haven't watched it. It's really fucking. Joel: I haven't. Chad: It's awesome. It is awesome. You gotta watch it. Joel: Not Spoiling it. What's it about? Chad: I'm not gonna, I'm not even gonna tell you when you get into it. You will get sucked right into it. Joel: Blue-eyed Samurai. Chad: Blue-Eyed Samurai. Joel: Okay. Chad: Anyway, so I was lured down to the bar, which is not hard. And yeah, I didn't, we didn't, I didn't get home till 3:00 AM So, that being said, [laughter] Yeah. [laughter] Joel: Well, it sounds like you my friend, need one of our favorite sound bites to feel better. Have a listen. S4: Like That thing's giant. How many times bigger is it than Earth? Like. S5: The moon? S4: Yeah. S5: No, no Not bigger [laughter] S4: Here it is. Joel: I wish we had a visual on this. 'Cause you could see the guy like, okay, do I wanna screw this up? Okay. Maybe it is. Maybe it's, maybe it is bigger. Chad: Maybe I just go with it. Depends on how hot she is apparently. S4: The moon is bigger than Earth. Joel: Oh. Yeah. That's why we need the visual to really appreciate. Chad: Has to be. [laughter] Joel: I love Australia. Australia is just the gift that keeps on giving. It is the Florida of the Southern Hemisphere. Chad: I know. It definitely is. It definitely is. It definitely is. Joel: Alright. Well, can you gather the strength for some shout outs? Chad: I think I can. I think I can. Joel: Maybe. One. Can we get one shout out. I'll, I'll give one if you give one. Chad: Let's give a shout out to Canadian Journalism's win over Google. That's right. Over the years we've talked about how the internet, mainly Google at this point, has killed journalism. Well, not in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated quote, "after months of holding strong and demonstrating our commitment to local journalism, to strong, independent journalism getting paid for their work, Google has agreed to properly support journalists including local journalism." End quote. What does that mean? Well, the Canadian government had estimated earlier this year that Google's compensation to news outlets should be about $172 million. Google's estimates were a little bit lower, around a hundred billion. It's still chump change for Google, but remember, many other countries are watching very closely for the outcome of this fight. And they're going to want their piece of Google. S6: Take off. Lee. We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show. You Hoser. Chad: To the great white North. Joel: Google calls that lunch money. Chad: Oh, yeah. [laughter] Chad: How many times are they gonna have to do this though? From country to country to country to country. Joel: Yeah. I mean, the, the defense on this, and, and Zuckerberg basically said, Zuckoff, to Justin Trudeau. I think from this whole process, I saw a story a few weeks ago about how little referral traffic news stories get now. On Facebook, which basically says like, okay, you want money, we're just gonna take you off the platform. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So very few tra... Very little traffic now comes from Facebook. Google It's a little bit tough because it's a search engine and those are trusted stories. And, but like Facebook, you can kind of get away with it 'cause you're sharing pictures of, of babies. And. Chad: My sunset. Yeah. Joel: You're drunk a night out with your wife and your, and your, and your your food on the beach in Portugal. Like, that's what I have to deal with on Facebook now instead of, instead of... Chad: That's news [laughter] Joel: That's a good one. That's news. That's news. And so is this even much less? Less so, but yes. Travis Kelce's been in the news, a lot. Chad: Taylor Swift. Joel: He's dating someone named Taylor Swift. I, haven't heard of her, but she's kind of a big deal apparently. Well, Kelce, Travis and his brother have a podcast. We talk a lot about poaching on the show. You remember, American Airlines going after UPS and FedEx pilots with $250,000 to get them to. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: To come to American Airlines. Well, machine Gun Kelly, another Clevelander as is Kelce, took poaching to a whole new level. I wanna play you, something from their, their podcast this week. Kelce Travis: Kel's What's Good Dog. Machine Gun Kelly: I'm sure you get asked this question behind closed doors a lot. Chad: Oh shit. Machine Gun Kelly: But I would be, remissed if due to the nature of our friendship and just as a clevelander that I did not insert this question personally. Joel: Okay. Chad: I don't even know What's... Machine Gun Kelly: I will give you $500,000 cash upon arrival just for shopping or whatever you want, as well as matching that same amount as a donation to both of our high schools. Both Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, as well as every day breakfast and coffee delivery from my restaurant [laughter] Joel: Oh. Chad: Oh my Gosh. Machine Gun Kelly: If you would just come home and put on these colors right here and. [laughter] Kelce Travis: You mother, you know, that was the original Dream Dog. [laughter] Joel: So Machine Gun Kelly 500K Cash money, tax free. Chad: Breakfast. Joel: Basically. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Breakfast in bed coffee for Taylor Swift, from his restaurant. It's great. So Shaker Heights is Machine Gun Kelly, Cleveland Heights. I lived in University Heights for a long time, which is wedged in between the two. So this one hit close to home as a Browns fan and, and as a still clevelander in many, in many ways. But this takes poaching to a whole new level. And I wanna see more of this in sports. Chad: Well they've gotta get somebody to throw him the ball in Cleveland and they just don't have that. So, I mean, there's no reason for him to go there in the first place. 'Cause he can't throw himself the ball. Okay. So it's unfortunate, but it's just, it's just the case. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Joel: He goes on to say like, I'm not gonna lie to you. I got, I got it pretty good in Kansas City. So he goes, he goes on to say like, it's not too bad, but you know what they say about quarterbacks in Cleveland. S9: 60% of the time it works every time. Chad: It's more like 10% of the time it works every time. [laughter] Joel: Well, you know, who's winning is people who sign up for free Shit. Chad: Our Listeners are winning. That's right. If you go to chadcheese.com/free, you can get yourself a T-shirt, from our friends at JobGet, beer, craft beer delivered to your doorstep. Not by us. It's gonna be UPS or or somebody like that. FedEx from Aspen Tech Labs. Our friends over at Aspen Tech Labs Whiskey two bottles. I don't want to think about Whiskey. SFX: I Happy. Chad: I wanna think about whiskey right now, but two bottles you're gonna get delivered from Textkernel. That's right. Our friend's at Textkernel. And if it's your birthday, it's rumwithplum.io. S11: Really? Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can [laughter] I can feel it all the way down in my plum. Chad: Sounds like he needs to take that plum assessment is what it sounds like he needs. Joel: Yeah. Best, best sponsorship ever. [laughter] alright, so, rum with Plum, if it's your birthday this month, you could win a, a great bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So celebrating another trip around the sun this week. Listeners Deidre Pitts, Frank Wittenauer, Mary Kelly, Michael Cox, Nathan Budziak, Terry Kaler, Steven Branch, Andy Parker, Kyle Pollard, Alex Murphy. Chad: Oh. Joel: Ryan Irwin, Mason Wong and Matt Grafflin. And our friend Torin Ellis all take another trip around the sun. SFX: Happy birthday. Joel: This week. Happy birthday to them. And by the way, Chad, we're working on our Christmas cards for the year, which you can only get if you sign up as a fan. So... Chad: Free stuff. Joel: If you want the Christmas card this year, you don't wanna just have FOMO on social media. Go out to chadcheese.com, click the free link and, sign up for our stuff. Chad: We send cool stuff. And it's for free. Gotta say it's gonna be great next week. Yeah, it is. Next week. Jesus gonna fly out on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to seeing all my friends and people in London for TA Tech Europe next week. I'm especially interested to see what a room full of tech vendors think innovation looks like these days. Chat GPT was launched, to the public about a year ago. And I mean, it's gonna be, it's really gonna be interesting to see large language models and data sets, those types of things. I wanna see these brains working. So this is my challenge to you. Everybody coming to TA Tech don't come with the basic bullshit stuff. Okay. I don't wanna hear about emails. Okay. I don't want to hear about, I wanna hear about the really cool innovation that you guys are bringing to the market. Joel: I think you're saying not not too much fish and chips. Not too much [laughter] Not too many pints before you come. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Come to play. 'Cause Chad's got his game face on. Chad: That's right. Joel: Chad, we got, we got a lot of great shows, but we got another one. SFX: Another one. Joel: That maybe people don't know about. We're doing the Chad and Cheese podcast does data with Toby Dayton from Linkup. We look every month at the Fed numbers, employment numbers, economic numbers, and we dive in. We give it a Chad and Cheese spin to it. But if you, if you haven't, plugged into that, it's only on YouTube, check us out at youtube.com/at Chad Cheese and get all the economic goodness from our, our friend Sasquatch of Statistics, Toby Dayton. SFX: Economic goodness. Joel: That's right. That's right. Chad: Oh, no. Joel: Oh, it's winding down Chad. And not looking good for me. Chad: Oh no. Joel: I'm gonna just have to root for you. [laughter] Well, fantasy football. Fantasy football. Again, our friends at Factory Fix, we appreciate it. Not looking good for me. Chad is looking pretty good here in week 13, I think. But here's your, here's your leaderboard. I feel pretty good about my nicknames this Chad, you ready? [laughter] Chad: Okay. Joel: And number one, we got Marcy Mallrat, number two. Michelle, Sergeant Peppers. Number three, Vitamin Dina Perro. Number four. Chad, GPT Sowash. Oh, that was pretty good. [laughter] That was after about three grams of, of Scotch. Number five Bag of Dixon [laughter] That's Joe Bag of Dixon, by the way. Number six. Cyprus Jill Patterson for the Cypress Hill fans. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Number seven. Cool Modine Ossner. Chad: Very nice. Joel: Number eight, Brent Locey How much you could save bundling your home in auto. You may not get that 'cause you're not in the US anymore. [laughter] but if you watch football, you know that one. Number nine, Joel Gargan Zola Cheeseman. By the way, Chad, did you know that there is 1,871 types of cheese in the world? I didn't know that. Chad: I did not. Yeah. Joel: Number 10. Jasper Eyewear Spanx Spanjar [laughter] number 11, Dennis Quaid Tupper. And number 12, the caboose. Kristin Urban Dictionary. And that is our factory fix. Fantasy football leaderboard. Put me outta my misery. The season is almost over. Intro: Topics. Oh, that Hurt. Joel: What's topics This bitch. And what better way to start our topics than Elon Musk. Elon Musk speaking at the 2023 Deal book Summit. Defiantly addressed advertisers leaving X formerly Twitter due to anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitic. Chad: Yes. Joel: Did I say that right? Chad: Yeah. Joel: Posts. He boosted Musk told them to go fuck yourself and threatened to expose their actions. He admitted posting foolish content and denied being anti-Semitic. Musk, discussed unions. China's influence and voiced AI concerns. I couldn't believe that he actually said, go fuck yourself. So we had to go to the audio Chad. [laughter], enjoy it. Bob Iger: You don't want them to advertise? Elon Musk: No. Bob Iger: What do you mean? Elon Musk: If somebody's gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Bob Iger: But. Elon Musk: Go fuck yourself, [laughter] Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob. Joel: So there you go, Chad. Go fuck yourself. In job site news, however, x.com/jobs is now live. Yes. It redirects to twitter.com. 'Cause x.com isn't working currently. But, whatever, whatever, dude. If you, if you had quote, it'll look like Indeed Circa 2008. Well, you've, you win. Because it looks just like indeed Circa 2008 reviews of the new job board. Vertical search, I don't know. Job search engine, are mostly positive, but this whole effort is barely halfway to first base. Chad, your thoughts on all things Elon this week? Chad: Yeah. Alright. Let's, let's go to the, the, the things that matter most, and it kind of trickle down. So kids were watching the richest man in the world melt down right in front of our eyes. The high Bob comments at the end was for Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, who pulled Disney's ad budget from Twitter after some of Musk's controversial tweets. Retweets boosting that kinda shit. But Disney isn't the only advertiser finding the exit. IBM, Warner Brothers Discovery. Sony, Comcast, NBC, Universal and Lionsgate are some who have left the burning building. I think it's fairly simple brands and people don't want to associate with a platform full of antisemitism conspiracy theories and division. For starters, the optics are bad and the moral dilemma is even worse when advertising dollars go to fuel this hate machine. Right. So the following is from, a Slate article, just last month quote, since Musk bought Twitter in October, 2022. Chad: Can't believe it was only that long ago. It's lost approximately 13% of its apps daily active users. According to new data from mobile research firm, Apptopia and its rebrand as X only accelerated the decline end quote. So blue checks ad dollars, a thousand dollars monthly business accounts and 1990 style job boards. It, they can't save this dumpster fire. They are throwing everything at the wall, but the thing that everybody's hearing one of the smartest, richest man in the world looking like a total fucking ass. Every, it's, it's, it feels like it's almost every single day. So, I mean, who wants to be a part of this, this, this fucking dumpster fire? I mean, obviously these big brands don't, and it's their prerogative not to. And since he told them to fuck off, I guess they, they sure the hell don't have to come back. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: You remember the movie Brewster's Millions? Chad: Yes. Joel: So for the kids out there that don't know Richard Pryor, John Candy's in it. Anyway, it's kind of a, it's a forgettable movie, but the premise is, Richard Pryor, if he can spend I think a million dollars over 30 days, he gets. Chad: I think it was 30 million or something like that, but it was a lot of money. He had to spend a shit ton of cash. Joel: Like a million dollars a day for 30 days or something. Chad: Yeah. Something like that. Joel: So anyway, he had to spend a ton of money. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Which in 1980, whatever. Was a lot of like, that was like, he was buying teams. He was buying like real estate and crazy stuff. Chad: Yep. Joel: And he was given money to employ people. Everyone knew that it was gonna end badly. Chad: Well, and he couldn't have any assets at the end of it. Joel: Oh, that was it. Yeah. Get rid of the money and the, yeah. So. Chad: And he couldn't have any assets. Yeah. Joel: Anyway, the point of it is, it was entertaining as hell. Chad: Yeah. Joel: To watch this guy spin down the toilet and know that, know that the whole shit show is gonna end badly and that it was at least gonna be entertaining for everybody. And no one was really gonna get hurt other than him. Chad: Yeah. Joel: There's an element of this to me that's incredibly entertaining in a Brewster's millions type way. [laughter], I mean, you always think about having so much money that you don't give a shit. Elon Musk has so much money, he doesn't give a shit. And we get to watch it every day with crazy shit like going on CNBC and saying, go fuck yourself to like the top companies in the world, frankly. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: So that's, it's very entertaining. If you don't like Twitter or X go somewhere else. I don't feel like, like unlike Facebook, Twitter's not destroying teens from what I can tell. Unlike TikTok, it's not the greatest propaganda machine for the, for the CCP of all time. You don't like Twitter, get the hell off it otherwise, or don't advertise on it. Don't watch it. But it's a fun train wreck for me at this point to watch. We enjoyed the hell talking about it. Let's talk about the jobs thing for a second. We didn't know what it would look like. Would it look like a little, little search bar on top of Twitter? Would it be in the sidebar? But that's hard because mobile is most of what Twitter is. So now it looks like it's a standalone x.com/jobs, and it's basically put in your keyword and put in your location. You can click the little map icon to get where you are. Chad: It's a job search. It's all it is. Joel: It's a job search. So there's, there's no, you can share a job. There's no bookmarking, there are no job alerts. All, all the sort of traditional things you think about when you think about these things. You can't really join like your Twitter account, it doesn't really wrap into applying. Chad: Why are they wasting their money on this? I don't understand. Joel: They've certainly partnered with Appcast to provide content. 'Cause most of the jobs I clicked on were Appcast. So they're at least making money on the clicks from Appcast. It looks like there's a deal with Greenhouse because a lot of, a lot of the jobs are Greenhouse, so maybe they're plugged into Greenhouse XXML feed or something. Chad: ATS feed. Yeah. Joel: Tesla jobs are all over the place, which I thought was interesting. Chad: Yeah. Joel: You know, all of Elon's stuff is gonna get preferential, treatment. Will it make 10 million a year? I like, are they gonna promote this thing, you can't post jobs on it. I assume if you have, if you pay for the job posting thing, those jobs are on the board. But the applies sometimes go directly to the job description. Sometimes they go just to the job search page. Chad: It's a mess. Joel: Which is a whole list of jobs, which you then have to go and find what job I was applying to. There's no direct apply. They should have called jib sink to like, direct apply to all these things. It's a mess. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it's early, they still are a big platform with a lot of people. This feels a lot like when Facebook had jobs for a while, and then it was just a mess. If they ever open the floodgates of you can, you can put a job up for free or for some cost, then it's just Craigslist, then it's just like, then it's just chaos and anarchy, which maybe Elon wants, but it's nothing to get excited about at this point. Go see if your jobs are there, I guess. And see how, how you feel about that. And does antisemitism come into play with your jobs being on this platform? Chad: That's the thing right there is. Joel: That's the thing, right? Chad: Yeah. Oh, I mean, it, it, think about it. All these companies who are literally, they're leaving. They, they're not interacting or engaging on, Twitter anymore. I mean, you've seen some of these, these marketing departments from some of these big companies. They've gone radio silent. Right? They, they're just not engaging anymore because they can't be a part of it, not just pulling down ad dollars. So what if you're using Lever or Greenhouse or, or one of these applicant tracking systems and your jobs just magically show up on Twitter? I would go fucking nuts. Joel: Yeah. Do you think Appcast has had a call yet around, why is my job on Twitter Because they're gonna get those calls. Chad: To this yeah. Oh, I'm gonna be reaching out to 'them after this, because I think about all the ad agencies that are using Appcast and whatnot. Do they know that their clients could prospectively be going to Twitter? Right? I mean, dude, there are just so many bad optics that are happening here for, for any brand, right? Unless you're a red balloon kind of company. Okay, great. Right? That's good for you. That's, that's awesome for you. But a lot of these companies do not wanna be associated with, with this bullshit. And they might be, their brand might be included, and they have no fucking idea that their brand is included. So, reach out to Greenhouse, to our friends at Appcast and so on and so forth to see, if, if they're getting the okay from these companies to be able to actually push them to Twitter. Because if they're not, oh, that's gonna, we're gonna have a, we're gonna have a whole fucking segment around that. Joel: Yeah. If you're listening and you're a blogger, if you need a good blog post [laughter], go look at all the advertisers that have, like left Twitter for this shit and see if their jobs are on the job board. And that that'll be a great post for you to get traffic about, all the companies that are on Twitter with jobs, even though they're not advertising with the company. Oh, it's just, it's just fun to watch. Chad: Whew. My headache just got worse. Joel: Alright. From one car crash to the other let's go to Amazon. Well, they finally have an answer to ChatGPT Chat. Amazon launched Q a generative AI powered business chatbot responding to competitors like OpenAIs ChatGPT, that was this week. I'm sure the folks at, 007, have nothing to say about the name Q as a, as a brand anyway. It, it aims to synthesize content, streamline communications, and assist with tasks. Q can do things like synthesize content. I just read that. I think. [laughter] Joel: Q can do things like synthesize content, streamline day-to-day communications, and help employees with tasks like generating blog posts. As well as aid employees with tasks like support tickets and policy inquiries priced at $20 per user monthly. It competes with Microsoft's and Google's enterprise Chatbots resources discuss AI management in the workplace and its potential in HR tasks. The first 100 customers get a complimentary toy penis rocket from Blue Origin [laughter] Okay, I made that last part up. But seriously, Chad, big deal. Little deal, or no deal. Chad: Yeah. I mean, late to the party's not a big deal for them because they, they have so much data to train on in the first place. I mean, this is just going to be a suite of services for all of these companies. I mean, you take a look at Microsoft, take a look at Google. This is gonna be a part of a, a part of the suite of services. I I really believe though, that the new big evolution of these large language models, is actually gonna be just around the data piece. So a large language model, if you think about it, is like a car. And the data is like the fuel. And much like the walled garden platform that have cut Google out of indexing their content over the years, the exact same thing's gonna happen here. So go back to the, my earlier shout out where journalists will start getting paid for their work on Google. Chad: Assessing training data or accessing training. Training data will, be the evolution of this same situation. You want to access the news. You pay, you wanna access the data you pay. Knowledge is power and access to that knowledge is gonna cost money. So who wins in the war? Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Anthropic. And much like the Canadians are doing, for journalists, we're going to have to build legislation around this as well. Just because I'm using Google, Gmail, G Suite, that doesn't mean I'm allowing Google to use my data to train their LLM. Same goes for Microsoft Windows 365 and all their other products. This is not just a, a conversation around the really cool AI, it's what's fueling the AI. And that's a lot of the contents like we're talking about again, for, for Google being shut out, and a lot of these, these walled gardens, how are they gonna pay? We need regulations. And that's gonna be the next evolution, I think. SFX: What are you doing step-bro? Joel: Do you remember when smartphones were all the rage? Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: After Apple made the iPhone, Android came out, which made sense. Open, you know, open source and all that. But then Microsoft had a phone. Amazon had a phone. Facebook had a phone. They did the software on it. And we sit here today with Coke and Pepsi, Android and iPhone for the most part. And AI to me is no different. You had open AI come the floodgates open, by the way, him coming back to the company. We, like, we touched on that on the, the Turkey show. But like, it's like, back to the future. It's all back to normal. We'll get a new board. We'll make a ton of money. It's all good. Anyway so to me, it's like, if you don't have AI, then you're just screwed. You look like a backwaters hick from an Australian dating show... Chad: Everybody's gonna have it. Joel: So, so all these companies are like, we gotta have an AI. So open AI, Google has barred, Llama or whatever, Lambda, Llama Lambda Alpha Lambda Lambda. Chad: Anyway, Lambda Lambda Lambda. Yeah. Joel: Revenge of the Nerds. I'll reference for those of you Gen Xers out there. Yeah. And now Amazon has to have, this chat bot. Now what's interesting is it's a, it's an enterprise work-related chatbot. So they're, coming at a different angle. Their one benefit is the AWS spin on it, because a lot of companies have their sites hosted on AWS. So if they push this thing to all the techies, all the CTOs out there, like, Hey, you're already using AWS here's this really cool workplace chat bot. We already have your content through your database that we're running on AWS, like, why not make a cool sort of conversational thing? And that uses all your data, from the company that you want some that does whatever they want. I don't know how that'll work. But that is the one in, they don't have to advertise this on TV. Like, Hey, if you got a, if you're at work, like use the AWS chatbot at work, they can just like wrap this in to a company's AWS account. And that way it could work. But I don't see a ton of people like getting all juiced up about Aw. About Q, Enterprise, chatbot. I just don't see it getting all that excited. Chad: Yeah. No, I, but, but I mean, it, it, think about it, this is just gonna be like cloud computing wise. It was, it was like everybody has it now. It's, it's just how you do business. These co-pilots are going to, to get better. All of those companies have cloud services. Right. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud. I mean, they all have cloud services. So Yeah. I mean, this is just gonna be something that everybody has. The biggest question is, once again, are they going to be able to use your data in the larger scheme of things to be able to train their large language models? That to me is, that's going to be the big question. Joel: Similar to the, the mobile wars, I guess. It really became a game of who has the apps that people want. Like where are people developing the apps? And that ultimately was the iPhone and Android. Blackberry's marketplace sucked. Everyone else sucked or didn't have enough traffic. So AI similar in that if you don't have the data, then it's kind of worthless. And if I were. Chad: It's like a car with no fuel. Joel: Like I, I argued back in the day that Microsoft should just give the best apps like a bucket of money and say you're gonna exclusively put Angry Birds. Or any, whatever was hot back then on Microsoft's platform and no other platform. So people would start buying Microsoft phones because that's where Angry Birds was. Chad: Xbox and Halo back in the day. Joel: And we're seeing this happen. If I'm the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, whatever, I'm going to all these companies and saying, who wants it? Who wants all their data trained on this stuff, on this great content? And it'll basically potentially strangle or suffocate all the other AI services or make them become niche around internal content or whatever. That could be a play. We'll see. But to me it's similar, like the apps or who's gonna win the data is who's gonna win if this thing becomes more of a commodity, who's gonna develop on it? Let's take a break and come right back and talk about LinkedIn. SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright. Joel: Alright, Chad, well let me start by saying congratulations on your 20th anniversary with, with LinkedIn this week. Chad: [laughter] Yes. Joel: You, my friend joined two years before me. 'cause I had to go check. I wanted to say 2005. Was when I got on LinkedIn. Now, at the time it was mostly a sales thing. You were a sales guy. I was, you know, I was marketing guy at the time, so I could see where you would be more, in tune with it than I was. But anyway, they've added a new feature. They're going after New Market. LinkedIn has enhanced its job search features, specifically for nurses aiming to cater to the 3 million nursing professionals on the platform. The updates include specialized filters for job searches, adding over 65 nursing credentials, and 35 skills to user profiles with nurse shortages and increasing demand. Various job sites, including Shift Key and Shift Med, have garnered significant investments reflecting the industry's growth. Chad, celebrate that anniversary and tell us what you think about LinkedIn's move into healthcare. Chad: Yeah, I mean, adding some filters here and there, credentials, and I mean, for, for a segment of their working population who doesn't frequent LinkedIn that much in the first place, I, I don't think it really matters. Right, what does make sense though, is becoming the lifestyle app for these workers. So, for example, as you can see, I actually wore my Harri gear today, but for example, like, Harri, they are an app that employees use on a daily basis. Why do they use it on a daily basis? When I want to check my work schedule, where do I go? I go to the Harri app. What about clocking in and clocking out the Harri app? What if I go, what if I'm in the ICU and I need to message my boss who's in their office and they're three floors away? Chad: Well, I go to the Harri app and, and I, I message them there. Right? That's how you become a lifestyle platform, right? And then, and then you build an ecosystem around that. Then you also have companies like Paradox who have started to move toward that applicant tracking system, right. Being the applicant tracking system being more of the actual, system for those workers, the frontline workers, these companies, these, these, the, the Harri's, the, the, the paradoxes, what have you. They're going to beat the shit out of, mark my words, the LinkedIns and the the Indeeds because they're going to be sticky and the employees are going to be there the entire time. They can build ecosystems, not just for employers, but for the entire frontline ecosystem itself. So if I want to get a shift and I'm working, you know, at this hospital today, and I want to go get a shift and I see that there's open, they already have my information, I'm in the system, I can pop over and I can run a shift shift over there. That's what tomorrow's workforce is definitely gonna look like for, for, for nurses. Right. And really a lot of frontline employees. So I don't think this does anything to move the needle at all for LinkedIn. You know, it's cute, it's nice. But to be quite frank, at the end of the day, it's just not gonna do what LinkedIn needs it to do. They need to move down the funnel. Joel: Yeah. By the way, we have some hidden footage from, the meeting where LinkedIn decided to, sort of get into the space. S4: Like that thing's giant. How many times bigger is it than Earth? Like. Joel: Okay, the part about the filters. Remember when Google came out with the ad about veteran... Chad: Oh God. Yeah. Joel: Categories is the wrong word they had filters for like, number, you know, you know this, this is your lane. Chad: Yeah. It was, it was a military occupation coach. And they fucked it up. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. It sounded great. Like as a non, a non-veteran, I watched, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. That seems really, really awesome. And then you like, you, you peed on, peed in my Cheerios and said like, now this is bullshit [laughter] So I gotta think at some point, nurses are gonna look at these filters and whatever LinkedIn has done and said like, well this is stupid. This is bullshit. So techies hate LinkedIn. Developers hate LinkedIn. That's why they're on GitHub and all the other places. Because all they do on LinkedIn is get hit up by recruiters. They get no value out of being on LinkedIn other than I get recruited. So the people that don't want 18 calls a day from recruiters. Just say, I'm not on fucking LinkedIn. [laughter] And LinkedIn has pretty minimal privacy stuff. So it's like if you're on LinkedIn, you're gonna get hit up. I gotta think nurses either feel the same way or are going to feel the same way. The 3 million that they have, that's really a small number for someone like LinkedIn who has a global footprint the way they do. I gotta think the only people on LinkedIn and like our, our recent nurses, people that just got outta school and like heard you gotta be on LinkedIn, they're getting hit up... Chad: Or they're administrators. Joel: On the regular from, from recruiters. Yeah. So it's like nurses just like developers are not gonna like flock to LinkedIn because they have new filters for job search or whatever. Chad: No. Joel: So it's like really stupid. Now I will give them this, they will be able to go to every hospital, every healthcare system in the country, probably the world and get half of them to be like, yes, we want the new nursing, whatever, because we need nurses. So it's like... Chad: 'cause they're suckers. Yeah. Joel: They're gonna make money from this, they're gonna like, get companies use it and like Monster back in the day. And indeed today no one gets fired. 'cause they use LinkedIn, so they're gonna get people write checks to this. So in that, in that case, it's a win. But five years from now, we're not gonna be talking about LinkedIn as like this juggernaut healthcare, nursing, platform. Chad: No. Joel: Like it's, it's total. It's a, it's a, it's a really quick money play. It's like Twitter launching jobs. It's like people, the, you know, the strategy meeting at LinkedIn was like, how do we get a quick hundred million dollars? And someone said, nursing, let's target nurses [laughter] in the next 12, 24 months. They will make that, you know, a hundred million dollars or whatever. And then they'll be like, it's a big success. And then it'll, it'll fizzle out and like it'll be done. Chad: It Was the same, it was the exact same conversation that they had in the boardroom at Twitter. How are we gonna make some more money? Job search. We'll start our job board. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. We have that tape too from, from X. SFX: Just the two [laughter] Joel: All right. So, let's go to our next story. Unions are back in the news. SFX: Winning. Joel: Well, after smacking around Detroit's big three, the UAW has launched an unprecedented organizing campaign. Unprecedented is saying a lot for the unions. By the way, Chad, aiming to unionize thousands of non-union auto workers at over a dozen automakers in the us including Rivian, Lucid, and pretty much everything out of Japan and Germany. It covers nearly 150,000 workers, since winning, winning big. SFX: Oops. Winning. Joel: There it is. Since winning big various automakers have responded by raising pay, but the UAW asserts that non-union workers still lag behind in benefits and rights. Chad, your thoughts on this year's cinematic hit, the union strikes back. Chad: So Sean Fain is for real, and we called this a couple of weeks ago, so I'm not just gonna go ahead and, and retread this. Just go ahead and play the audio from earlier this month. Joel: Yeah. Right. Chad: This is all power to the people, there's a huge shift and the union side of the house. Hell, we're talking about non-union workers who are getting the UAW bump, right? Anybody who's not a part of the union, they're gonna get a bump. But what do you think that's gonna make them think about? Should I join the union? Toyota, 9% bump. Should I join the union? Maybe I could have got more. Should I join the union? You take a look at Tesla after, you know, Elon's bullshit in Sweden and Swedish Tesla workers are on strike. But even better dock workers are refusing to let Teslas into the country in solidarity. Why? Because they're like, you know what? That might not be my job. I might not be a Tesla worker, but they're a worker just like I am. I think we're finally getting to the point where it's like, Hey, I can actually feel your pain. Chad: And I understand that that could be me. Okay, so one word, momentum. Sean Fain has it, and Elon Musk does not. I mean, can you imagine the meltdown Elon would have if Tesla workers unionize? I mean, get the popcorn ready, kids. No shit. And as you'd said in, in a video, Fein points out that electric vehicle makers, Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, they've reported huge profits then Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, 470 billion in profits over the, the past decade. So, I mean, he's, he's looking at the numbers. He, he's incredibly smart. He's being transparent about all this. And he's saying, look, we know what you're making. We know not only what you're making from a profit standpoint, but we know what you're making and you're actually pushing up in salaries, in bonuses to the people who aren't doing the work. And that's the fucking c-suite that people are doing the work deserve the, more pay. Chad: Right. And I mean, so this is, this is something that again, I really believe is resonating all over the United States. We used to be the individualism is, is key you know, contrary. And we see that, that did nothing but fuck us at the bottom line while other people were, were getting paid millions and millions and millions and more dollars. And they're like, wait a minute. That's why they want us to just think about ourselves. Right? 'cause when we do that, and we're not together, we're not as strong. So now they're starting to coalesce, they're starting to come together, and they're becoming stronger, and they're going to get more money out of it. I, I think it's, I think it's, it's just gonna happen. And I, I can't wait to see the, the union boom. Joel: Yeah. I can hear Elon saying, go fuck yourself to all his workers, yeah. As we speak. Chad: Good, good luck with that one. Joel: [laughter] Yeah. We're, we're capitalists on the way up in Socialists on the way down. Chad: [laughter] Can we find a middle ground? I mean, seriously. Joel: It's really interesting to me you remember when Meta launched, their metaverse thing, like they changed their name. They, they were all in on the metaverse. Until they found out the metaverse wasn't like gonna happen. At least not in the way that, that I and Zuckerberg, thought it would... Chad: [laughter] wanted it to. Joel: So what did they do? So what did they do? They said, we're gonna cut the budget for Metaverse. We're gonna get efficient around, our profits. We're gonna get serious about what we do Well, and their stock is like fucking blown to the moon. And their quarterly earnings report was insane in terms of like cutting costs, but making more money. It was ridiculous. So it's no surprise to me that this week we had news outta GM that they're cutting the budget of the cruise, the cruise department or cruise business. For better or worse companies are, the car companies are gonna be forced to look at what is profitable and what is like R&D money pit down the toilet investments. And it, to me, it bodes, it's not a great sign for automated driverless cars that they're getting out of this for, I mean, not getting out of it, but they're cutting the budget, and also reports that, electric vehicles aren't exactly what, the market thought it would be, or the government or, you know, like a lot of budgets that Ford and, and car companies are talking about spending on EVs is now getting pulled back. 'cause they find out, well, EVs look like shit. That's my own opinion. Tesla, Rivian, Fisker, they're the only ones that look good. I look at a Mustang EV and I want to puke [laughter] because I was of a, I'm at a certain age where Mustang to me is like 66 Mustang pa... Like muscle car speed. Joel: And I look at this, this CRV basically Mustang and I wanna puke. So anyway, EVs aren't happening. Automated driverless cars aren't happening. So companies, car companies are like, look, we got the union, tsunami coming. We need to start like getting serious about our business, start cutting costs, start, stop doing frivolous stuff. Leave that to the startups and the crazy ones, as Steve Jobs would say. So the good news is, I guess companies are like getting serious about paying workers because they know the unions are coming and they can't be spending frivolously on stuff that's not working, so for me, that's a good sign. Media's going through the same thing, right? Disney, we gotta get into streaming. Well, shit, streaming is like, not as much as this cash machine that we have over here, do we dump streaming? So companies are really coming to Jesus about what makes money, what doesn't, and shareholders are forcing their hand. But it's great to see that unions, in addition to getting workers what they're, they're due. They're making the marketplace work as it should and only put money behind the things that are actually working. And in this case, that means people. And that's a great thing for civilization and, America. Chad: Yes. Yes. And yes. Joel: And what else is great for America, Chad? Oh, the Rolling Stones are back. [laughter] Let's take a quick break. Alright, Chad, the Rolling Stones revealed their 2024 North American Hackney Diamonds Tour sponsored by Wait for it AARP. That's right. The organization for Americans aged 50 and above that includes us, Chad [laughter], with Mick Jagger at 80, Keith Richards at 79. How is that dude Still still pumping. Okay. Ronnie Woods at 76, the band released their first album since losing their original drummer, Charlie Watts back in 21. The tour span 16 cities with an exclusive presale for AARP members of which I am not Chad, I won't, I won't speak for you, but I refuse to join AARP the, the result of this presale. Well, that's right. You can guess. You can guess it. Chad [laughter], I've fallen and I can't get up. The AARP site crashed inspiring boomers everywhere to lament the days of camping out for multiple nights in real life to score tickets. I'm sure all those AOL dial-up accounts that still exist didn't help either. Talk about, can't get no satisfaction Chad, what are your thoughts on the Rolling Stones tour? Chad: Talk about prolific being able, not just to put out fricking music, but to be able to perform on stage. And I don't care if they, they don't have the energy that they used to or what have you. No fucking kidding. Mick Jagger's 80 years old so yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's amazing. I think, first and foremost, it, it, I can't believe it's taken them so long AARP to get them to get Rolling Stones on board, or at least an older act like them on board, and then the whole ticket sales thing. I mean, did we not learn from Taylor Swift? I mean, and her, like, just like buckling the internet for God's sakes. This shit's gonna happen. I mean, it, it reminds me back in the day when, monster and HotJobs did the, the Super Bowl commercials and HotJobs literally just went away. It went away for like a day because it [laughter] 'cause the traffic broke it. Right, this is what happened here. I don't, I don't know, understand why they can't be ready for load balancing and traffic these days. It's, it's crazy. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Chad. Chad: What? Joel: Hey, Chad. Chad: What? Joel: You can't always get what you want. [laughter] We out. Chad: We out. S16: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Chase podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas send bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads. Instead, now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese interviewed Jack Berkowitz, the Chief Data Officer at ADP. They discuss various topics such as ADP's data-driven approach, AI strategy, skills graph, personalized employee experiences, and the intersection of HR and marketing. Berkowitz highlights the importance of treating employees as consumers, leveraging data for talent acquisition and management, and the role of ADP Ventures in engaging startups. He emphasizes ADP's focus on data flow and its impact on delivering cohesive experiences across various HR functions. The conversation delves into ADP's commitment to respecting data rights, collaborating with government entities, and their excitement about AI advancements in their Gen.AI project. Berkowitz also mentions companies like Vizier and Workday, discussing their impact and contributions to the HR tech ecosystem. Overall, the interview emphasizes ADP's data-centric approach and its evolution towards personalized, impactful HR solutions. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel50 booth at the heart of HR Tech, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions. And we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel50, the scienced-based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. 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 yeah. What's up everybody? It's your bookies' favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost, Joel, joined as always, the dean to my Sinatra, Chad Sowash is in the house. We are recording live from the Fuel50 booth at HR Tech in Las Vegas. And we are happy to welcome Jack Berkowitz, chief Data Officer at ADP. Jack, I bet that works really well with the ladies at the bar. So a lot of people know ADP, a lot of people know data. Tell us about Jack, what makes you tick? Jack Berkowitz: What makes Jack tick? Well, I like hanging around paddling on the Chattahoochee drinking bourbon with friends. Joel: All work, no play makes you a dull boy. Jack Berkowitz: Yeah, exactly. Joel: Jack's my guy. Jack Berkowitz: A little bit of that, but then I also get into data, it's my job. So I do three things at ADP. One of them, probably most important thing is I build products for people. And so really interested in building data products that people enjoy to use, which is kind of hard. Chad: They'll actually adopt? Jack Berkowitz: Yeah, actually adopt and use. Second thing I do is I build the data platforms and work on things like that. And, now I'm working on our AI strategy across the company. And so we just launched some stuff called ADP Assist, which I just was talking about a few minutes ago, and keeps me busy. Chad: So many consumers are split, in my experience, in two groups. One that wants infographics and pictures to tell a story, and the others who want... Joel: Dashboards. Chad: Unlimited spreadsheets to geek out on. So how do you balance those two markets? Jack Berkowitz: Well, they're not really even different markets, and particularly with the new technologies, more of a continuum. Right? So think about it this way. I could sit down and I can ask the system to give me an answer or I could then easily pivot into the exploration and then pivot back. It used to be two markets, in fact, two totally different groups, but what we're seeing now in the technology is gonna be continuum, basically go across the surface and dive in. Joel: Gotcha. Jack Berkowitz: And I think that that's gonna be an interesting thing not just for HR people but for operational people that have HR concerns. I have several hundred people that work for me. I have more HR concerns than my HR team does. Chad: And how will generative AI play into that? So if you look at the travel industry, Expedia's building tools, Google, etcetera. Like, Hey, plan a trip for me to Greece between these days. Find me the cheapest hotel. Are we gonna be able to do that with data on the employment side as well? Jack Berkowitz: Yeah, we just did this example the other day. Show me people affected by the new 401k rules. Send them a message. Let them know that their deductions are gonna go up. Tell you what? Make it more personal. Don't make it sound like corporate America. Make it something personal so that they understand it. Give them some indications. So that'll be the type of experience that we give, won't maybe be as exciting as a trip, but again, it'll help people get the job done and let HR people get back to being HR people as opposed to being clerks. Joel: Let's geek out a little bit real quick. Let's go back to the days when big data was like the hot topic, big data. But at some point, all of that data, we didn't have the processing power to actually dig into. Are we finally there with GPUs, AI? I mean all these, different acronyms now that we have around data and tech, are we finally there where we can dig into that massive amount of data and actually make it mean something? Jack Berkowitz: Yeah. Yeah. I think we're close. Right? You hit it on the last part, the processing needed to be there and everything else. What is the meaning? Like what does that data mean? Because otherwise, you just had it sitting there and you had to do something with it, you had to spend hours and hours putting meaning on top of it. Joel: Trying To contextualize? Jack Berkowitz: Contextualize it. Even that example of a contribution plan, what's a contribution plan? You and I know what it is. Computer doesn't know what it is. And so technology's coming together now so that computer actually knows what a contribution plan is. Oh, you're talking about a 401k or a 403b? Oh, I meant a 403b. Oh, okay, here's the columns in this database associated with a 403b. I can start to bring it out. So it's the processing, but it's also this ability to drape the meaning across things in the context that you and I have as opposed to a computer. Joel: Gotcha. Chad: We talked a little bit about the HR side. We have a lot of recruiters listen to the show, a lot of TA professionals. Are you working on data points where I can say, "Find me a PHP developer, English-speaking, X amount of experience?" Is that recruiting process happening at ADP as well in terms of what you guys are building out? Jack Berkowitz: Yes. One of the things that we really focused on past couple of years was using all the data that flows through our systems to build a skills graph. And that skills graph... I mean they were talking about it on stage earlier, but that skills graph is 100% data-driven. And so it's just based on the people, the licensing, certifications, things like that. And our ability to ask that question now is spot on. I can even ask, "Tell you what? Find me people that help me balance my DE and I program out. Find me people that give me coverage for the customers I have." So I can... "Here's where my customers are. Help me find people that can cover those customers." So the system can automatically say, "Well, within 50 miles." It knows that, I don't have to tell it, it would just know these things. And so we're working on all of that stuff right now. Chad: Sounds like a very unbiased way of finding people. Talk about that and how you're trying to... Joel: Skills, certifications. Chad: Yeah, just data, it's only when the people get involved that shit gets messed up. Jack Berkowitz: Exactly. So that's pretty funny. We started the skills-based hiring because of DE and I and all the things about three years ago. And so since that time now, we can tell you not only about the skills, we can tell you what the skills add to somebody's paycheck. So what happens if a nurse gets a new license? I can tell you that she's going to make another $5230. Joel: Now, is that something that you can actually display to the employee so that they could actually see career-path wise? Jack Berkowitz: Yeah, exactly. So we're doing both of those. We're, A, giving it to the manager, but we're also giving it to the employee so the employee understands when they're taking training what's the benefit to them. It's great as a benefit to the company. Right? But that relationship between employee and company is transitioning. And you're seeing it. Right? Joel: Market power. Jack Berkowitz: We see market power. When we see it in the data even, you're seeing a shift of employees to smaller businesses. To you guys. Right? And you're seeing that shift because people have choices. And we want to create that environment so that the employee and employer have a balance in that. Joel: Well, in that case, we're seeing a ton of turnover. Attrition is ridiculous. Amazon was at $8 billion in attrition, that impacted the bottom line. Are companies finally focusing on internal in retention and being able to push people up through the ranks and being able to provide the internal opportunities today? Jack Berkowitz: So, yes, tech vendors, we're building tools for them, but we're actually seeing the companies do it. Joel: Well, that's the thing, is the adoption piece. Right? Jack Berkowitz: Yeah. So the nice thing for us is we got a million clients so we can actually see the impact of all this stuff happening across the population. Joel: A million clients. Jack Berkowitz: A million clients. Joel: That's scale. Chad: What a tough problem to have. Joel: I mean just the data, though. Think about the amount of fucking data. Jack Berkowitz: Yeah. Exactly. And we can see... Like one of our big things we did a couple of years here ago about DE and I, we can see pay equity gaps being closed. And we can see 1.5, $1.8 billion in gaps closed 'cause we can look across the client base. We can see, for example, companies adopting certain technologies, certain strategy, their time to fill decreasing by half. We can see boomerangs increasing by certain companies taking certain steps. So we know what people do. So what we're seeing in the data now isn't just the technology, but we're actually seeing the step-up in companies being smart HR companies, not HR technology providers, but individual companies being smart about their HR. We just bought a company two months ago called Sora, all about the experience, about people onboarding, or the journeys through, and making it a human experience, as opposed to a form letter experience, making it very personalized. Companies that do that... And they have great customer names like Etsy and Plaid. Right? Companies that do that have happy employees, boom, you get this retention, you get higher productivity, we cross-correlate that, we go get public numbers on companies' performance, and we can see it in the data. Chad: What you're talking about sounds a lot like marketing. Are you having conversations with companies' marketing departments? Are recruitment ad agencies looking at the data differently? In terms of these questions around retention and better marketing to these folks, talk about the bridge that the data can take to marketing and what kind of questions companies should be asking. Jack Berkowitz: I don't know that we're having enough conversations like that yet, but you're spot on as to where we all need to go. Right? HR departments need to market. They're the representative of the company. Joel: They're the beating heart of the entire organization. Yes. Jack Berkowitz: I looked at... I was looking at marketing technology in HR recently, and I was super interested in... There's a company, Pandologic out there. Right? And so Terry Baker was the CEO, I got to know him really well. And I was super interested in the way they were using marketing technology and applying it to sourcing. Sora is actually a spin out of a marketing technology company to do marketing internal. Their architecture looks like an e-commerce marketing company, but we're doing it for HR. And I think HR people thinking about themselves in that way, it'll be a bit of an adjustment. That's exactly where the industry needs to go. Joel: So as Keith Sonderling, the EEOC commissioner pops by... Jack Berkowitz: Yeah, Keith's sitting right there, He's waving. Joel: He was on the show earlier. How much of an impact do you see government driving development, new product, and really the focus of your customers? Jack Berkowitz: Well, it's really a partnership. Right? I think the best thing, and it's great to see Keith 'cause it's on my mind. Chad: He can't quit us, by the way. He can't quit us. Joel: He just can't quit. Jack Berkowitz: But it's that partnership between the regulators of the government for doing what's right for people. Joel: But are you guys engaging them because you know that you've got to be a part of the discussion? Jack Berkowitz: Definitely, we're part of the discussion. We, just ourselves, Indeed, Workday, just issued a joint statement about data rights and personal protections of employees. We took a decision as a company a few years ago to treat the employees of our clients as consumers. Right? As consumers with all the consumer rights associated with that. So it's a partnership with the government, it's not so much we're reacting, it's the right thing to do. And so we're going to be right out in front, making sure at any point through your career, you're going to be going through an ADP system. We have a responsibility to make sure that we're treating that data with respect and that we're treating people with respect 'cause otherwise, get out of the human business. Right? Leave human resources, leave human... Right? It's about people. Right? Our new tagline, "always designing for people," it's because we think about that person at the center of everything we do. Joel: What's the most exciting product that you are working on right now? 'cause you've got a ton of products. You're a big frickin' organization. Right? What is the thing that, really, you get up in the morning and the first thing you think about is that project? Jack Berkowitz: Well, I got to be honest with you. Since the step change that we saw with GPT-3 and 4 eight, nine months ago, I am 100% working on GenAI and our ADP Assist product every single day. And I'm so jazzed because I was telling somebody after my talk today, we had built a whole bunch of components, but they were all these sort of separate things, you went to this part of the app or that part of the app. And now our ability to actually just start to combine these components, we get freaked out because new capabilities emerge. We're suddenly asking it things, and it's responding because it's using these components collaboratively. Now, obviously our engineers are hooking it up, but wow, look at this! So every day, every single day, I'm learning more and more about the technology we had built. I'm super excited to see people using it. We fielded some of our first GenAI stuff back in July, and so now we got the first iteration of people using it and seeing the questions that they're using. That's what jazzing me every single morning. Chad: It's a little early, but you guys just announced ADP Ventures, which will be an investment arm. What kind of access, engagement... Will you be working with some of these startups? Will they have access to what you're learning and what the data is telling you? Jack Berkowitz: Yeah, so we're putting that all together. Like you said, it's a little bit early, but definitely, we're going to be a little bit more active with those startups in terms of bringing them together. Look, we have a great startup environment to begin with. Our marketplace has 400 different companies on the marketplace. They all have access to ADP customers. We cosell, and people get these great emergent experiences. Imagine that on steroids. Right? So we made a few investments, we'll be making some more investments, we'll be talking about when data needs to play in those things, I'll spend time with them. Usman Khan, Oz, is the guy running that. He's my peer. We both work for the same dude, and we're super excited about that. Oz and I were at dinner last night, just so pumped up about this move by the company. Joel: So you have so many products across the board, I mean from end to end. How do you keep it straight? I mean not to mention, you've got all of these data points that could follow through from talent acquisition to talent management, upskilling, reskilling, all these things. How do you keep all of that for your million-plus customers? How do you keep that straight? Chad: Jack is really, really smart, Chad. Jack Berkowitz: No, no. Look, First of all... Joel: Yeah. I hope. Jack Berkowitz: First of all, I got a great team. One of the things that we did was really that point of that flow. We thought about data differently, I think. A lot of people think about data as sort of landing and staying in places. We think about it as flowing. Right? We move over $3 trillion a year, flowing through our systems to pay paychecks and taxes and stuff. So for us, it's all about data flow. So we built a data layer that flows, data flows through all those experiences. So you come in and you say, "Hey, here's my skills." Well, guess what? When you show up, your learning system is already ready for you that first day. Right? Your 401k starts to figure out, "Oh, here's the things that you need to do." So all those pieces start to come together in a pretty cohesive thing tied together through that data layer. Right? Now, some of the products are a little bit more mature, less mature. And so some of those things will disappear, like the old products people are used to, but that data layer becomes the enabler for all of that to happen. We're getting better and better at what we should be doing, which is providing the right expertise along with the right products for our customers. Chad: Jack, we're here at HR Tech. Big show, a lot of vendors, a lot of technology. Curious if there are any companies that have piqued your interest. And if you don't want to drop any names of companies, are there any themes that have piqued your interest or curiosity? Jack Berkowitz: It's crazy. I was talking to somebody a little while ago. I remember coming here in 2014, I think it was. Maybe 2015, it was about two booths, a card table, and some crackers. Obviously, the ones that are using AI get my attention simply because... Professional jealousy. Chad: So everyone here. Jack Berkowitz: Well, some professional jealousy. Joel: Well, but that's the question, though, because there's a lot of AI talk, but is there really a lot of AI happening? Chad: A lot of sizzle or is there some stake out here? Joel: Yeah. Is there some stake out there? Jack Berkowitz: There's some stake out there. I mean I'll talk about a couple of them, and I compete against them, but at the same time, I can respect them. I'm always respectful of what Visier is doing. Right? When it was all about visualizations, they had the best visualizations. Think about 10 years ago. And now you look at V, and it's like, That's nice. Now I can get my time-to-value much faster than them. So there's always give and take. I always like Eightfold. I think they bring something interesting to the table. And I spent my years at Oracle, I'm always respectful of Oracle. And we announced a big partnership with Workday a couple of weeks ago, So I think Workday does great work, but I'm more interested in just watching the industry grow because, really, it's about the ecosystem. ADP really is the center of the ecosystem. So for us, it's really about seeing all of this grow and seeing all the... Look at the number of people that were in Burson's keynote this morning. Right? There must have been 6-8000 people there. I was amazed by that. And so for us, we just want the ecosystem to grow. The ecosystem grows and things are fantastic. Chad: You're the center of the ecosystem and Chad and I are just a couple of satellites in the distance. Joel: Oh, yeah. Chad: Thanks for hanging out with us in the Fuel50 booth, Jack. For our listeners who want to know more about you or connect, where should they go? Jack Berkowitz: Well, LinkedIn is always good. @jpberkowitz on Twitter, and I've a lot of Twitter followers, but find me on LinkedIn, retail on LinkedIn, best way to get me. Joel: Excellent. Chad: Love it. Well, all this sizzle and steak talk has me a little hungry, Chad. When's dinner? Gotta be soon. That's another one in the can. We out. Joel: We out. INTRO: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese sit down for a candid conversation with Philip Dur, co-founder of Peakspan Capital. They discuss partnering with growth-stage companies post-product market fit, offering domain expertise and capital. Dur also highlights focus, talent, and scalability challenges for startups on our space, and they also delve into investment strategies, avoiding trendy markets, focusing on high-impact solutions, and foreseeing societal responsibility in HR tech. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by Disability Solutions is your sourcing and recruiting partner for people with disabilities. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel50 booth at the heart of HR Tech, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions. And we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel50, the science-based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. Intro: 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: Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It's your blackjack table's favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman, joined as always, the Siegfried to my Roy, Chad Sowash. We are recording live from the HR Tech Show in Las Vegas from the Fuel50 booth. Chad: Tigers everywhere. [applause] Joel: And we're excited to welcome Philip Dur. Chad: He's a Tiger. [laughter] Joel: He is... Phil Dur: I wish I was wearing stripes. Joel: The co-founder and managing partner at PeakSpan Capital. Chad: Woo. Joel: That sounds really fancy. Chad: Like those glasses. That doesn't... Joel: And the jacket. Phil Dur: It's awesome to be here with the two of you. Joel: You didn't have to take off the ascot for our show, by the way. [laughter] Joel: You could have kept it on. Phil Dur: Well, it's a little warm in here. Chad: Yeah, that's a good point. That's a very good point. Joel: Oh, it's gonna get hotter in this episode. Phil Dur: Oh boy. Here we go. Chad: So give us a little, Twitter bio of you. Phil Dur: Yeah, yeah. So I've been partnering with entrepreneurs for 26 years. Just joined my 41st board, which is amazing. Chad: Holy shit, 41st? Phil Dur: And I see that... Isn't that crazy? Chad: Wow. How do you keep it together after that? Phil Dur: Well, they're not all at the same time. Chad: Okay, good. Joel: It's not like women. Phil Dur: Wow. Chad: Oh, okay. [laughter] Phil Dur: Oh, my gosh. Joel: Which you have, anyway... Chad: I can only, I can only take care of one, okay? Joel: Back to Philip, back to Philip. Chad: Too much. Phil Dur: 26 years working with entrepreneurs, which is amazing. I pinched myself that I get the privilege to work with these incredible pioneers and innovators. My firm is 27 Folks in New York at Silicon Valley. We've got a billion dollars of committed capital, $585 million most recent fund. And we, I think we fill a gap in the market. We partner with what I call emerging growth stage companies. So it's when you're through the product-market-fit woods. Chad: Gotcha. Phil Dur: And it was really hard. Like you really had to focus to get through those woods. Chad: So we talking A stage? Phil Dur: It's funny 'cause our companies will typically bootstrap or quasi bootstrap to five to 10 million in revenue, so even though they have real scale, we're usually their first institutional investor. And they're bringing us in because they've gotten through those product-market-fit woods, and now they find themselves at the foot of a mountain called go to market scaling and mechanization. And that's where we come in with capital and more importantly, domain expertise and experience and an awesome network to help them crush that. Chad: Now, do you find at that point that many startups, you've got a lot of startup founders that are out there, great people, great vision, but once you get to growth, that's an entirely different animal. Do you find that at that point you have to have a hard discussion and say, "We need to bring... " Joel: Are you the one that brings the adults in the room, is the question. Chad: [laughter] Do you bring bring the adults in the room? That's a great way to say it, Joel, because this is very hard for many founders to understand that it's just a different animal going from founder stage to growth stage to IPO, etcetera, etcetera. Phil Dur: It's a really excellent question. I would say most founders think that establishing product-market-fit is the hardest challenge they're gonna see in their journey. [laughter] Phil Dur: And I tell them no, it is a hard challenge. But scaling your business with real repeatability is even harder unfortunately. I'd say that one of the things that we do a lot of is kind of increasing talent density, right? So typically when we partner with our founders, they're torch jugglers, they're running sales, they're running product. They're the part-time CFO. And so over time we'll help augment that team so that we can really kind of concentrate and reinforce their superpowers, if that makes sense. And different founders will have different... I've had some founders who are the best strategic salespeople on the planet. I have other founders whose superpower is their product. And so it's all about identifying where can you have the most impact as a leader in your business and complementing you at the right team members. Chad: Right. Some founders are revenue sales focused... Phil Dur: That's right. Absolutely. In their DNA, like they're amazing at it. Chad: And some are tech and they're developers. Phil Dur: That's right. Chad: Does it matter to you guys? Is there really a sweet spot for you guys when you're looking at a founder that you want to... Joel: I'm guessing the best is both. Phil Dur: Yeah. But you rarely see it, right? Like most people, unfortunately, are not polymaths when it comes to being excellent at all things at the same time. [laughter] Chad: Yes. Phil Dur: I'd say that we always wanna start with a couple of essential ingredients. One is you gotta have a good product. Second, we try and avoid whatever's in the white hot chewy center of whatever Silicon Valley based venture capital's interested in. [laughter] Phil Dur: Because Silicon Valley venture capital is like, they're like rabbit farmers, right? They get excited about a category. And then if you fast forward like eight quarters, there's 12,000 companies that are all going after the same small addressable market. So we look for entrepreneurs that have a great product. They live in a relatively dense meaning favorable competitive environment. And what they're doing is something that matters and has impact. And those tend to be the best partners for PeakSpan. Joel: Name some names. Give us some of your like big exits, your most sort of... Chad: Portfolio, baby. Portfolio. Joel: High profile. Yeah. Phil Dur: I'll give you some early hits in my career. So one of my first investments that I ever worked on was in a business called Plateau Systems, which was a great LMS, not a great name for a software company, Plateau Systems, but great software business that was acquired by Success Factors and now is SAP's LMS. Joel: Okay. Chad: Nice. Phil Dur: I was privileged to join the board of at the time, small business called HireVue, and they were about 3 million in revenue scale. And it's great to see them as one of the leaders and pioneers here now. Within the PeakSpan portfolio, Fuel50 is obviously an amazing partner of ours, but we also work with a number of other businesses. There's a company called Epignosis. Their flagship product is called TalentLMS. And they have probably 11x'ed revenue scale in the four and a half years that we've been partners. Chad: That's two LMSs right out of the gate. Is there a focus on the LMS side of the house? Phil Dur: So I'm not... I don't need to be particularly clever. I look for big pain points. Chad: Yes. Phil Dur: And we lean into those. So we think that if you look at the shortage of talent that is facing North American, Western European companies in particular, over the next several decades, there's gonna continue to be a massive focus on re-skilling and up-skilling, and how I can be super creative about addressing those needs, yes, with external candidates, but also with the folks that work for me currently. So we've made investments in businesses like TalentLMS, which is a high velocity LMS for departmental and mid-size businesses. We're partnered with an incredible business called Arist that serves enterprises with a continuous learning solution. The flow of work, they basically break down your content into micro courses, and they deliver that through Slack Teams and text. It's almost like putting your reps in every day as opposed to sitting in front of a screen for two hours. We work with a business called Bongo Learn that does video based training and assessment with AI to... Joel: I'm sensing a theme here, Chad. A lot of L words. Phil Dur: We also obviously... I mean, Fuel50 is right at the forefront of helping you develop your internal talent to meet your future needs. Joel: I think one of the criticisms of investment firms is that they tend to chase the shiny thing. So if CNBC's talking about AI, well, we gotta get into AI. If they're talking about remote work, well, God, we gotta get headfirst in remote work. It sounds like you guys are a little more disciplined in that. Talk to the shiny thing trend and how you guys stay focused on apparently the learning side of development and employment. Phil Dur: My analogy for what you just described, have you all seen the movie? I've got an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old, but when they were tiny, tiny, I embarked on a wonderful relationship with the Disney franchise. There's a movie called "Finding Nemo" that you probably have heard of. Chad: Oh, yeah. Phil Dur: Great scene in that movie... Joel: Just keep swimming Phil. Chad: Swimming baby, Dory. Phil Dur: Great scene in that movie where Dory pops up out of the water near a pier and there's a bunch of seagulls sitting there and one Seagull sees her, and she says, "Mine." And then all the other seagulls go, "Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine." That is the US venture capital industry in a hot second. [laughter] So what happens in my industry is something gets hot and I can actually show it to you in the data. We can actually go back and look at company starts and media mentions. Right now it's GenAI. Before that it was e-scooters. Before that it was big data. [laughter] And as soon as that topic gets hot, everybody's gotta have their play. Chad: Yes. Phil Dur: And so you see this massive increase in the number of companies going after the same opportunity. And if you fast forward three or four years later, sadly there's like two or three players that own 80% of the segment value and the rest are struggling to find a home. It's not a great way for entrepreneurs to build value. Not a great way for us to harvest and accrue value for our stakeholders. So we tend to look for business, I'll use Fuel50 as an example. If you look at the competitive set going after their segment of talent, marketplaces, intro mobility, and career pathing, you've got some really credible players, Gloat and Eightfold and Fuel50, but given the size and quality of the market opportunity, you don't have like 60 that you can rattle off. Right? Chad: Right. Phil Dur: And we as investors and partners find that when we're working with our teams to be an exceptionally compelling dynamic, got a huge market opportunity, it's something that's hard to do. So there's natural walls and moats. And there's very few vendors that are actually doing it with grace and elegance. Chad: Well, talk a little bit about the due diligence, if you would, because we've seen, and we will continue to see a shit ton of vaporware that's out there. There's a over promise, under deliver, and a lot of that has to do with the sugar rush of the cash that came in in the first place. Phil Dur: Yeah, you bet. Chad: And the explosion of some of these TAMs and we'll say Eightfold for... They started off with a very short, small TAM that was focused on parsing and matching. And now they do everything, which to me, come on, how can you explode that fast? So you see those types of things every single day. If I'm a founder and I want to go after cash and funding and I get cash and funding, what does that TAM, how do you play with that TAM from founder to founder to founder? Because sometimes it just explodes. But then you see some organizations that stay hyperfocused. What's the right answer? Is there a right answer? Phil Dur: There's no perfect right answer. I think if you try as a small business to go after too large an addressable market early in your development, in my experience, in my quarter century doing this, it's a little bit like when your kids try and play 10 sports at the same time. [laughter] The odds of them being good at any of them go down dramatically. Whereas when you see people that are really exceptional in what they do, they wake up every morning and they just try and get a little bit better at that sport. The other analogy I use with my entrepreneurs is, I'm not telling you that you can't go after that big grand vision someday. But it's a little bit like dropping a pebble in a pond. Let's not go after the sixth ring first, let's focus on that immediate ring that we created right around the pebble. Phil Dur: And once we've really crushed that ring, then we expand to the next ring. And the beauty of that to your question is your team wakes up every morning and they know exactly what they're doing. Product knows who they serve. Customer success has seen all the problems and objections. They know how to speak the language of the customer. Your sales team knows how to sell to that ICP in their sleep. Your marketing team is making the same content over and over again, so they get really good at it. It's like anything else in life. Practice makes perfect and focus trumps in expertise. So, I'm a huge believer in focus first for most businesses. Chad: Gotcha. Joel: I wanna touch on societal responsibility. Phil Dur: Sure. Joel: And we touched on chasing the next shiny thing. There was a period in our business where diversity, equity, and inclusion was a hot topic. The George Floyd murders, the Me Too movement. There was a lot of money going into companies focused on inclusivity and diversity. That seems to have dried up, that seems to have hit companies where Wall Street Journal reported a lot of companies are laying off their DEI management team or whoever's in charge of that. Does capital have a responsibility to continue to push the envelope around these social issues? Or is it strictly a market decision to say the money's not there anymore, we're gonna go somewhere else? Phil Dur: I actually prefer to be an optimist. And when you said that... Joel: Well, that's no fun. [laughter] Phil Dur: When you said that, what immediately went through my head was actually some conversations that we've been having. In my role, we don't need to be that smart. We talk to buyers. So we talk to CHROs, we talk to people leaders and we stitch together those conversations and pattern match. And that's how we get excited about new and emerging themes where we feel like innovators and pioneers can have an impact. One of the areas that I'm hearing CHROs talk a ton about even in this market, which is a tough market because budgets have been slashed and people are feeling a lot of constraint. They felt abundance two years ago, and they're not feeling abundance today. The couple of the key areas that we hear people talking about over and over again that I think are exciting is, one is pay equity. Pay equity is a super important and hot topic right now, which I think is encouraging. Chad: Yes. Phil Dur: And by the way, way overdue and needed. Second is we hear people talking about a real desire to have better workforce analytics. So, before we can address some of the questions and problems that you're talking about, we first need to understand what the heck is the state of play. And what's embarrassing is I think most mid-market enterprise people leaders would tell you if they were being honest, they have no clue what their organization looks like. And so I think we first need to make sure that we understand what does the state of the union look like. And then I prefer to be optimistic and think that leaders have good intent and that we will correct these things over time. That's my view. It keeps me energized. Chad: You know where intention takes you, right? Phil Dur: You're gonna be negative now, aren't you? I'm just a guy. Chad: I'm just saying... So from our standpoint, intent has been wonderful, but it hasn't moved the ball. It hasn't. We love to talk about pay equity, but the only way we're gonna get there is through government intervention. If it wouldn't have been, then we would've done it years ago. Phil Dur: But that's coming too. So we see EU and US states moving more and more to transparency which is I think an essential ingredient to pay equity. And you've got some amazing vendors. There's businesses here like Compa that are crushing it with an awesome novel approach to providing that transparency and decisioning for enterprises. There's companies Figures in Europe that are doing the same for the European market. So look, I hear you all, I'm not in any way ignoring or taking any currency from your observation, but I'm in the business of being an optimist. That's how I wake up every day and get motivated. And so I do think we're gonna hit these issues and see improvement. Joel: Does government regulation drive investment decisions and should it? Chad: Hell, yes. [chuckle] Phil Dur: Government regulation can be a massive catalyst to investment decisions because it will drive customer behavior. Chad: Oh, yeah. Phil Dur: And vendors will respond to customer behavior, we see that all the time. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So we've seen a massive shift. We saw '20 to '22 free money, unicorns everywhere in every industry. That's dried up. We're starting to see some cracking of the ice with HiBob getting investments, Harry just got a big investment. I just wanna get your take on the world that was, the world that is and the world that will be in terms of how money is being freed up. Phil Dur: Yeah. So, one benefit of having done this for 26 years is this is my fourth economic correction that I've seen as an investor, that 2020 to 2021 period was the most buoyant that I've seen in my career. I think referencing that as a baseline or as a comp is probably not the right mentality for an entrepreneur to have. Chad: No. [laughter] Phil Dur: But I think that there are things that are just true. So going back to our comment around focus, focused vendors I think will always trump. People that have the best product in their category will always have access to capital. I think we went through a period and you guys were referring to as sugar rush. We went through a period where people were looking for candy all the time. And what they learned, unfortunately is that candy is not good for you. [laughter] Phil Dur: It feels good, in the moment, but it's not good for you. Chad: Yeah. Phil Dur: We're here at Vegas. Joel: Everything's good for you here. Phil Dur: The all-you-can-eat dessert buffet looks good, but it's not good for you guys. Joel: Wait, where's that? [laughter] Joel: Where's that? [laughter] Chad: Don't tell him. Phil Dur: So I'd say, a lot of the companies that we work with are bootstrapped or hyper capital efficient before we show up. And you should see the return that these companies are able to glean from the capital that we contribute because they're athletic. Their DNA is around taking any dollar they get and really making it go far. Chad: Oh, yeah. Phil Dur: And the beauty of that is that you can create the most extraordinary wins for everyone, for your employees, certainly for the founders and for your investors at outcomes that are very different than what some of the valley companies require to make everybody feel satisfied. Chad: Yeah. Phil Dur: Sometimes those expectations are very hard to meet. Joel: Phil, thanks for hanging out with us here in the Fuel50 booth. Phil Dur: This is awesome. You guys rock. This is so much fun. Chad: Thanks, Phil. Joel: For our listeners and particularly those startups out there that may be looking for some capital, where would you send them? How can they connect with you? Phil Dur: Come, see us, reach out to us. All of our contact detail is at peakspancapital.com, and I wanna thank the two of you. This is awesome. Chad: Thanks, man. Phil Dur: And if I can ever rejoin you, I'd love to do it. So thanks for your time. Chad: Amen. Joel: Philip McCracken, I mean, Philip Dur, everybody. He's the co-founder and managing partner at PeakSpan. That is another one in the can. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, Chad & Cheese interview Doug Shagam, Head of People Data and Insights at Johnson & Johnson. Shagam shares his unconventional journey from aspiring drummer to data analytics, emphasizing the power of people analytics and storytelling in HR. He discusses integrating multiple HR platforms, democratizing data, and shaping J&J's talent acquisition. Highlighting their J&J Learn program, he explores skills inference, employee growth, and the significance of sharing the company's vision with its workforce. Shagam's insights reflect the intersection of data, technology, and employee experience in HR. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel50 booth at the heart of HR Tech, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions. And we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel50, the science-based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. Chad: 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. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It's your bookie's favorite podcast, AKA the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman, joined as always, The Edge to my Bono, Chad Sowash [chuckle] and we are recording live from the Fuel50 booth at HR Tech in Las Vegas. So we are excited to welcome Doug Shagam, Head of People Data and Insights at Johnson & Johnson. Doug, welcome to the podcast. Doug: Thanks so much. It's a privilege to be here. Joel: Did you know that your last name, Shagam, auto-corrects to Shazam? Doug: I did but most people remember me because of Austin Powers. [laughter] And it's Shagam, baby. Joel: Shagam, wow. Chad: Shagam, baby. That's a good call. That's a very good call. Joel: If only your parents knew that one day their last name would default to Shazam. [laughter] So anyway a lot of our listeners don't know you, I'm guessing. Give us a quick Twitter bio about what makes Doug tick. Doug: Truly on Twitter you can see that I am a guy who really is a drummer by training. I started out my career at Julliard. And then my parents said, all right so how are you gonna actually live, like pay for your family, pay expenses, do things? I'm like, oh, all right. Joel: Did you say have you not known like Keith Moon, John Bonham? Like you could make... Doug: Yeah, I pointed out like there are some pretty cool drummers who have been very successful. And they're like, no we're gonna give you four choices. They start with letters A, B, C or D. You could be an attorney, you could be a banker, investment type preferably, C, CPA or doctor or dentist. So admittedly I tried for the whole doctor thing until I realized that you actually need a higher GPA than a BAC [laughter] to get into one of these medical schools things. So I said all right that's not gonna work. So spent an extra year degree in political science and realized well I could work at Blockbuster back then. Not exactly gonna provide stable... Good idea but then is it gonna work? Chad: Great access to films, I mean. Doug: Tons. And watched plenty, trust me. I went to school in Buffalo right across Niagara Falls. So easy access to... Joel: I need to interject that he went to a MAC school, I attended Ball State so little brothers in arms here for the MAC. Doug: Love it. Love it. Love it. Joel: A little shout out to the MAC. Yeah, go ahead. Keep going. Chad: I love the MAC. Doug: So ended up getting my MBA and fortunately I had a little help from a friend, namely a family member who was a chief medical officer at GE. Chad: Ah. Hello. Joel: Again proving it's not what you know, it's who you know. Doug: It's always about who you know. Got into GE in their FMB program and realized after the two years of training, very nice to meet Jack Welsh, brilliant man, learned a whole lot but also realized I am not a finance dude. So it started there and a lot of my learning and lessons came from that and progressed into analytics, people analytics and love the fact that work that I and my team does can actually make an impact on people where they spend a lot of their life really. Joel: So you were a blast at parties. You went from aspiring drummer to data guy. Doug: Yeah. And I'm now like 10,000 Malcolm Gladwell hours, dude. [laughter] I'm the guy who, no joke, like saw in the sixth grade some dude playing drums and I'm like, wow, he's got a lot of people watching him. I wanna be that guy. Went into training band the next day, met my guidance counselor, signed up and he's like, shit, he's good. [laughter] So turned out... I went through some lessons, figured out that I had this thing called relative perfect pitch, I can play anything on a piano if I've heard it and... Joel: No. Doug: Honestly. Joel: Really? Doug: Great bar trick especially after a couple of bourbons. Really good. Joel: Well, we love going down this musical party avenue. [laughter] But let's talk about your role at J&J and what you're doing that's exciting. Doug: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm the Head of People Data and Insights which really sounds exciting. It's more people analytics really if I break it down into two words. And from the start of just gathering what are the right data elements to collect, the right variables. What are the questions that people really wanna know answers to, to what actions will they take from that and making sure that it's democratized. We don't wanna keep data in jail. I've always said most of these core systems that exist, they're powerful, they're huge. But how many people can really access them and understand them? And when we talk about an employee's lifecycle that's what we care about. Understanding what are those moments where we can access data to really help improve impact and drive outcomes. Chad: Well, and then actually tell the story around that data. 'Cause data doesn't tell its own story. You've got to tell that story. Doug: So true. Data's unemotional. And nobody wants to read pivot charts for a living. Chad: No. Doug: Right. Nobody does. Chad: Some people do but they're boring as hell. Doug: Well, yeah. I mean come on. Joel: They don't wanna be drummers. [chuckle] Doug: Who wants to do that. I mean come on. So you've got to have people who are great storytellers who can influence and make decisions and bring it to life. It's like reading a book is great, it's important, you need to do it but when you have somebody who can tell the story of the book, now that's powerful. And that's what we wanna create, a culture. And we wanna make sure that not just the HR people who are great, do that, we want business leaders. These are people who manage P&Ls. We want them to do the same. And they're very willing to do the same with human capital data. We want people who are... Even our employees to know, well, how many people do we have in the company? Are we hiring more people? Tell us about how many more we've made. So basic stuff like that is so important to us. Doug: And when we think about talent acquisition that's our big play right now. For the next three years, this is our big focus area. And bringing not the old school way of thinking about TA but understanding, people have skills, people have experiences, people have all these different attributes that we wanna bring at this front, not at the back to the table for our recruiters, our hiring managers to help make better more informed decisions. Because that's where the gold is. I mean heck, I'm sure ChatGPT could write a great resume for me. No question about it. But I'm old school and I don't wanna just take a job description and have ChatGPT do it. I wanna understand what's reality. I wanna measure it. I wanna do a side by side. My dream, I want... All right, maybe two monitors, I'm a little old but two screens. I wanna have one screen that shows my internals, one shows my externals and I wanna be able to understand tell me when I measure all these different pieces who should I be selecting for? 'Cause I got 578 people apply for one job that I had. Chad: Yeah. Because of scale. So back in the day when we were passing around paper resumes and applications and those types of things we didn't have to deal with the scale that we deal with today. And now we've got the opportunity of new scale with AI. So you being able to scale, a lot of this can't happen just in one platform. So how many platforms are you trying to sew together to create this ability to tell that story that you're talking about? Joel: How many cats are you herding? Doug: If I told you we are close to triple digits I'd probably be... Joel: Oh, my God. Chad: Of tech platforms? Joel: Of tools? Doug: Of general HR platforms. Chad: Okay. Doug: TA is not up there. They're in the double digits in fairness but... Joel: Totally. Doug: There's overlaps between different things and we don't use them as probably as bestly as we should. And that's where we've got opportunities. So part of why we look to figure out what's next on our horizon is just for these reasons. It's because... There's some great companies out there who have outstanding things but how does it all tie together? 'Cause I don't wanna use somebody who just does video recruiting to have to go to somebody else who just does skills assessment to somebody else who just does this or somebody else who does that. Which is probably how many companies have done it and admittedly how we have too. Can I find somebody who can integrate these things, bring it together and give me that whole experience in one so that it's easy, it's simple and we place the candidate at the center and that's what matters most to us. Joel: Are there any of those tools that are invaluable that you couldn't live without? And is there any effort at J&J to build your own tools in terms of the data that you're collecting and how you're analyzing it? Doug: I always think there's opportunities to explore or build strategy but what I've learned across 25 years of experience is building is hard unless you're a tech firm. If you're a tech firm you can probably build all the great stuff. But it's so much easier when you find people who are experts in their craft at knowing this thing. And there's always trade-offs. Like they may not be perfect at that but they're experts at that. So when you can figure those things out and help push them and admittedly we're 150,000 employees, we've got close to 100,000 contractors, 70,000 contractors gross. Those are the areas where we say all right how do we do this better? Why does it take 12 steps sometimes to get somebody from A to Z? Why can't we do that in four? I mean unless you're some super top executive where of course there's gonna be more interviews, of course there's gonna be more... But for most of our people you don't need 12 steps or some magic number. Joel: Just to be clear. You're dealing with data on the front end with incoming candidates as well as the current employees upskilling opportunities, where should people be moving? So you're using tools on both sides of the fence. What kind of stories are you telling with the data and specifically I think data helps talent HR tell a story about profitability in the organization. Are you doing that at J&J and how? Doug: Yeah. So something we're super proud of is launching, we call it J&J Learn. And a lot of it is based on some of the work we've done in partnership with you folks as well. And the fact is we're already seeing those returns. We think about the fact that now we don't have separate training that takes place within our firm group, within our MedTech group. It's all under the umbrella now of J&J Learn. And I love it because I think about what I experienced at GE at Crotonville. Where you bring people together whether they're in aircraft engines or in capital, sure, there's some specialized groups that existed back when I started years and years and years ago but most of the training really happens right there at the center, at J&J Learn in our specialized campus in Orlando. And what I love about the fact is we not only have cost benefit from bringing all that together but more importantly we're seeing people already who are taking classes who are not only gaining skills but working with others that they've never worked with before. Doug: And that cross-pollination plus the benefit of going through the classes, completing them, seeing how their talent velocity whether lateral moves, promotions are occurring and this is early stages. We're just beginning one year in, imagine what this is gonna look like three years in. We think about retention, we think about that talent velocity score, we think about return on investment, what it costs us and what we'll get back later on. These are huge opportunities for us. And it's certainly one of our big rocks if you could use that phrase. But it's something we're very proud of. Sandra Humbles is our chief learning officer. Joel: Dig into the ROI part of your statement. What does that look like at J&J? Who are you sharing that with? What does it look like? Doug: Well, I could tell you our CFO is certainly interested in something like that. Joel: That's good. I fear that's unique in not too many companies so that's a good problem to have. Doug: Oh, yeah. I mean, these are things that really matter to us. And we want... I remember back when we started to do some pilots and people were asking questions like wow you can infer skills. That's pretty cool. Pretty cool except for the people on the factory floors in our supply chain organization at the time where they don't have equipped laptops to put in what skills they have and how we can measure them and all this stuff through inference. So we had to come up with other strategies. There's lots of ways to measure skills, lots of ways to go through content but how do we make sure it's good and equitable for everyone? Doug: And what we cared about was, are we seeing employees getting value out of this? It wasn't just the dollars and the cents at first. It was really about the employee experience. Are they growing? Do they have aspirations? Are we helping them to get to their aspirations? And you've got to have a hook. It can't just be well we're gonna save the company money. It's got to be about well what can... The old, tune into the radio station WIIFM, what's in it for me? And that's really what helped us get started. Don't you wanna grow? We posted, here's what we're playing for. And when you post that and then you start realizing, well, oh, I have some of these but not all of these, I better start focusing on some of these. They matter to the company. We're not saying we're gonna throw you out or kick you out or not keep you up but what we are saying is you should know what we're playing for. And a lot of people got on that bandwagon real quickly. Chad: Yeah. I bet so. Joel: You are listed as a top 10 influencer via CIOLook. Chad: Top 10. Joel: I'm not a reader of the publication but how do you get to be a top 10 influencer for someone who wants to follow in your footsteps? Doug: Well, I would always say this... So thank you for bringing that up. I appreciate it. It's certainly something that I'm honored and humbled by. So let me start there. And what I would say is this, you've got to have learning agility. If you think that what you learn now and what you know now is something that is always there, you better realize that it's not. Chad: Amen. Amen. Joel: Well, Doug, thanks for sitting down with us here at the Fuel50 booth at HR Tech. For anyone who wants to connect with you or learn more, where would you send them? Doug: Hit me up on LinkedIn. Joel: Easy. That is Doug Shazam if you're in auto-correct plan... Chad: AKA Shagam. Joel: AKA Shagam. He is the Head of People Data and Insights at Johnson & Johnson. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell or enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western you can't quit them either. We out.

The Dutch Trump is something we never thought would be uttered on our podcast, yet here we are. This episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast (Does Europe) starts with a lesson in European politics and the rise of mini-Trumps around the in places like Italy, France and, yes, Holland. That's followed by a breakdown of recent tech news, including London-born startup Artisan and it's AI, named Ava, raising funds, Ukraine's Jooble quietly winning and Spain's Manuel making moves on Paradox's Olivia (Is she interested? We discuss.) Then it's off to startup land where companies are refocused on retention and pay equity in light of higher interest rates and a dead IPO market. From there, it's off to Deutschland where a recession has led Europe's largest economy to rethink immigration ... assuming you're the "right" kind of immigrant, of course. Chad opines that "there's too many stupid humans" in the world. He's not talking about our listeners, of course. Enjoy this wunderbar episode. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. [music] Chad: 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. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah, three guys who look amazing in lederhosen. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast Does Europe. I'm your co-host, Joel, stuck in second Geert Cheeseman. Chad: And this is Chad "Blame the Dutch" Sowash. Lieven: I'm Lieven, making public affairs sound like fun, Van Nieuwenhuyze. [laughter] Joel: And on this episode, move over Paradox. Retention is in and Germany wants you. Let's do this. What's up, boys? Chad: What is up? It's time to blame the Dutch, kids. Joel: Don't steal my thunder Sowash I got a shout-out. I got a shout-out. I'm sure it'll 'cause some conversation. I'll mispronounce this, Geert Wilders, it looks like Geert Wilders, for those Americans. Chad: Yes. That's a much better movie. Joel: The media is calling him The Dutch Trump, and he's in a good position to become Holland's next prime minister. He's well known for his strong anti-immigration, anti-Islam and Euro skepticism. The Netherlands would join Italy, Germany and France, and also Argentina, although it's not in Europe, embracing a more right wing nationalistic position. That's all happened in the past few years. Wilders secured 25% of the Vil, which is a lot, apparently, so he'll have to play nice with other parties to become the prime minister. But what do I know? I'm just an American. Lieven, please enlighten us on the Dutch Trump. Lieven: Yeah. Enlightening is something he needs. Okay. Geert Wilders is the head man of a party called PVV Part Vryheid, Party for Freedom. And he's been in parliament for over 25 years. He's pretty, he's experienced. But now what is a problem? They have to find capable people to fill in those seats because they don't have... Nobody who is in his right mind is going to openly admit he's promoting Geert Wilders. [laughter] Chad: Well, nobody who's decent would actually join that party in the first place, is what I'm hearing. Lieven: Definitely not. And they would never admit it. Some people I'm sure will vote because deep inside they are against Islam or against whatever, but they would never, not many people would tell it to their friends even that they voted for PVV. Joel: Ireland had some shit go down this week. Lieven: Also right wing extremists, people burning whatever they [laughter] could burn. Yeah. Chad: You gotta love how these movements like the Party for Freedom is nothing less than, there's no freedom. Lieven: Nothing at all. [laughter] Chad: At all. It's like in the US we had Citizens United, which literally was nothing but corporations. [laughter] It's like, none of this shit makes sense. The question is, does he have a chance to actually become prime minister? Because the votes are transparent; you have to know who voted. Or can they actually vote behind closed doors for prime minister? Lieven: Most European countries, it's like this. The party who wins the elections, they get the chance to first try to make a coalition with other parties to get some kind of majority and then they can agree on who's going to be the prime minister. And I thought the second party, VVD it's called, was going to make a deal with Geert Wilders' party. And the deal could be Geert Wilders would say, I'm going to to settle down a bit and I'm going to be a bit more demographic... No, democratic, democracy. Yeah. And then if you join me, and then we can have a majority, and then you can become the prime minister because nobody would accept Geert Wilders as a prime minister, but VVD decided we don't want to work with him. We're going to, we want to join the coalition. Now it's a problem because he only has 37 seats and he's the biggest party, but it's only 37. Now he has to find people who are willing to work with him and I don't think it will happen. So he probably will never become a prime minister, even though he would love to. Joel: Has this come to Portugal yet, Chad, has this trend come to Portugal? Chad: I think the trend is everywhere. You have far right people all over the place. But the Portuguese, because we are in the beautiful country of Portugal where everything is wonderful, it's just not as bad, it's just not as bad. But yeah, this happens everywhere. Joel: Interesting times in Europe, for sure. Chad: Do you have a shout-out, Lieven? Lieven: Yeah, my shout-out goes to VDAB, which is the Flemish Department of Labor and they have a job board, the vdab.bejobboard. And according to a survey done by Intelligence Group, VDAB is the biggest job board in Flanders beating both LinkedIn and Indeed, so they should be sponsoring my congress now, because our congress, House of HR's congress, because we only work with the best. And since they are the biggest, I'll contact them. Joel: They are the biggest. [music] Chad: That's hilarious. We're talking about events. Next week, I'm gonna be in London for TA Tech happening on Tuesday and Wednesday where I will be MCing the event with Kirsty Kelly. People in the room will be guys like Matt, that British guy Alder, Hong our favorite porn star Lee, the lovely and talented Julie Sowash, Death Match winner, Andrea Wade and a list of other smart and talented people. If you're in the UK or oh shit, maybe you can hop on a quick flight to London. Go to chadcheese.com and register. It's gonna be a great event. Plus Cheeseman, this is where you're gonna get envious, my friend. We are scheduled to have and record a multi podcast episode in a proper English pub. Joel: Whoa. Chad: A few hours before the reception with Alder, Hong Lee, Julie, Chris, Murdoch, James Whitlock, and myself. We'll be dropping that in the holiday stream sometime soon. Joel: Did you say, did you say Hong Lee? [laughter] Joel: By the way. Didn't a certain Scot in our lives have some big news this week? Speaker 4: Welcome to all things Scottish. Of course it is, if it's no Scottish, it's crap! Chad: Oh he did. Yeah, and I guess it's public now. So Stephen McGrath with this little baby ginger girl, and he's assuring us it's gonna be a ginger girl, [laughter], and yeah, so he's home with Natasha as long as she will have him until she kicks his ass out of the door to go back to work again. So we're really, really excited for him and that little baby girl. Joel: Rumor is he's spiking the bottle with Aberfeldy. I don't know if that's true or not, but hey, I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. Chad: She's Scottish. I think that's normal. Joel: [laughter] It's already running through the blood, so why not put it in the liver while you're at it? Holy shit. Happy. Congratulations, Steven. The world couldn't use a better sperm donor than you, my friend. Chad: Our favorite Scot, yes. Topics! Joel: Alright, we got a tech block out of Europe this week. Chad: Hello. Joel: Let's get on three stories and we will comment appropriately. First up, Artisan has raised $2.3 million to create human-like digital workers launching artisans like Ava, a sales rep, automating tasks while aiding human workers. Founded by a 22-year-old CEO from London, they claim to have 3000 users, and that's all in just the first six months of launch. Chad, what's your take on Artisan? Chad: So Ava, this AI sales rep's gonna have access to 265 million contacts, which she can just blast and start the cold calling process, the cold outreach process. I think Artisan is smart to start with sales because that's where most of the massive budgets reside. Sales leaders should be expected and excited about this tech because as a guy with sales background myself, prospecting and cold calling takes a ton of time away from the actual dollar-making sales activities. So actually talking to interested humans with problems, this gives sales reps the time to better research companies and then engage in meaningful conversations, opening up that wallet even further and doing more of what you should be doing as a salesperson. We talk about this in recruiting, all the minuscule, the kinda tasks that are happening that take you away from the actual human interaction. Chad: That's what I think Artisan is doing here. The cool thing, onboarding only takes about 10 minutes with a back and forth conversation. So you're actually having a conversation with the AI, for the integrations itself to talk about domain specific skills required for Slack, Teams, and integrations to HubSpot, Salesforce, MailChimp and others. So I can see, and I will predict that in 2024, we will definitely see companies using these co-pilots as SDRs and co-pilots for sales. So, they're also gonna have Noah, the AI designer, and Liam, the AI marketer that are gonna be coming out in 2024. So... Joel: All good English names for those chat bots. S?: Alright. Joel: So my man is 22, he's straight out of like casting for the next... Chad: Love it. Joel: Nolan film about, you know, tech. They got accepted to Y Combinator, which accepts 1% I think of startups. So right there you got a story made out of Hollywood, right? Like 22-year-old founder. And by the way, this guy is, you know, good looking. There's some topless photos. He's a guy, so it's all good. So I mean, he's like kind of sexy. He's British, he's young, he's got this cool tech startup. They moved to San Francisco. Y Combinator, like everything is going right for this company. They got a PhD on the other side of the co-founder equation. It's a great start. I mean it's from, what I read it's all email based at the moment which, how many of us get spam emails from "salespeople," quite a few of us on a regular basis. [laughter] Joel: Now it can have a conversation via email where it answers and has a back and forth, which at some point I assume goes to a human being to actually close the sale or get the contract signed. Companies like Air, air.ai, which we've talked about actually will call people in terms of having a conversation. So there are companies in my view that are way ahead of where this is going. Artisan is at a good place, but they need to get to voice really quickly. They need to get to text really quickly, which assuming, with Y Combinator's help and funds, they will do. But this has the undertones of a really cool story in our space, because this guy is straight out of central casting for a startup. Chad: But do you think, I mean, adoption for a voice that you know is not human is going to be, is gonna be good, especially on the sales side? I think like for a candidate, because they just want interaction in the first place, companies are getting way too much fucking interaction from salespeople as it is. [laughter] So I don't want calls all the goddamn time from salespeople. So I mean, I think it's almost like a difference in industry and also who you're trying to use this outreach for. So I agree with you there are some that are ahead of them, but I'm just not sure on the adoption curve if Air is gonna make it happen or not with voice. Joel: I mean, time will tell. I mean Air sounds really human. It's not like you're talking to a robot on the phone. Now there is, like Tesla does this, Apple does this, some big companies do this. Now it's on the consumer side, so it's not a B2B transaction, which is what, you know, you may or may not be looking at with Artisan. So I guess time will tell whether buyers on the corporate enterprise side of the house will be like, whatever, and hang up, or if they'll actually have conversations. I think they'll get more human sounding. Joel: People may test them, have fun with, oh, let's see if this is really robot, and like test it with questions. Just like the people in Walmart with bats that will beat up a robot janitor, people will have fun with this. Will it work? I think the sad truth is sales in our space is a numbers game. Like, if you're not making a 100 calls a day outbound, it's really hard to make a difference in a company. And startups, if I'm a startup in this space or any space, and I can have a software that will email hundreds of people on millions of users, in terms of leads, would I do that if it's a lot cheaper than hiring an STR or a sales person? Yeah, I'm gonna do that. Now, if after six months I got nothing, then I gotta go back to plan B or go back to plan A. But a lot of companies are gonna start the sales process with this automation solution, and I guess time will tell as to whether it'll work or not. Chad: Are you gonna equip your staff with it over there at house of HR Lieven? Lieven: Already doing it, I think. But it's a very interesting concept, Artisan, I liked it and I'm a big believer of the whole hybrid teams concepts. I think in the very near future, teams will consist of both people and robots. And you'll have to manage both and make sure they work together. This Artisan concept with launching bots like Ava now for sales, but they will haves several personas doing different things, they actually are first step towards that hybrid team concept. I love it. And actually they seem to have the right background. I mean, and the sexy CEO who's 22. If it was only him, I would have my doubts, but the CTO has a PhD in astrophysics from Oxford University. So this combination could be cool. I mean, a young guy, who's really enthusiastic and who probably has great ideas. And then a CTO who's been around and who has a... Chad: Grounds him. Lieven: And then those two forces working together might actually achieve something. And I read they will participate in the Y Combinators winter batch, meaning that's where Sam Altman came from, Y Combinators. So, I think they're circulating in the right circles. Joel: Yeah. Interestingly, recruiting was not one of the verticals that they're getting into, Chad, that you mentioned, Liam and others... [overlapping conversation] Joel: But the opportunity in our space to put retargeting code on an ATS for someone who's already applied, to see them come back to the site and then contact them in this fashion is gonna be huge. I don't know of companies doing it. Chad: I agree. Joel: But there will be somebody that figures out that process and it'll be huge, for sure. Chad: Yeah. HR needs bigger budgets. I mean, we deserve it in the first place. Recruiting deserves it in the first place, that should be happening. I agree 100%. But they're going after the big cash first, which is sales, obviously, and marketing. Joel: Oh, for sure. Market and sales. Yeah. There's, there's money in them, in them hills to start this thing up. Well, that's not the end of our tech news... S?: Another one. Joel: Out of Europe. Ukrainian job search platform Jooble has made an investment in Treaz Work, a service that facilitates the outsourcing of hiring freelance recruiters. The investment amount has not been disclosed, but the platform currently has over 800 registered recruiters and more than 500 daily users. Chad, what's your take on the move by Jooble? Chad: So, Jooble must be making a lot of money off of paid ads and arbitrage in East Europe. So good for them. That's awesome. 'Cause this is their, like their second, their second or third time they've actually invested. Tarah's Work is a freelance marketplace, and they're trying to penetrate more of Western Europe labor types of positions like rigor, mechanic, electricians, chefs, drivers, security guards, people who cannot be remote workers, which I thought was interesting. So I originally thought Tarah's work would be an SME player for companies with smaller recruiting staffs and smaller recruiting budgets. But those two just don't quite jive in my head. So I was thinking Lieven's gonna know more about this than we do, and you've forgotten more about this than we know, Lieven. So, would SMEs recruit talent from Eastern Europe into Western Europe? Or is this literally just a play for larger brands and companies? Lieven: It's always kind of difficult to move those people from Eastern European countries and to integrate them in western European countries. So it's mostly done by bigger companies who have, who can facilitate this. But there are plenty of companies who are doing this for SMEs. We, for example, in the Netherlands, have a company called Covebo, and they specialize in hiring and training people from Eastern European countries, mostly with skilled blue collar workers within construction. And they retrain them to work in western European countries and also at SMEs. So there's definitely a need, but those SMEs can't do it by themselves. So they're helped by people like Covebo doing the hassle for them. Chad: Do they become their employer of record? Does Covebo become their employer of record, or do they just... Lieven: Yeah. Chad: Okay, okay. So they're like an EOR company for skilled labor. That's really, really interesting. Lieven: And in the Netherlands, they even provide housing. Chad: Ah, smart. Lieven: They facilitate everything. Yeah. Joel: Yeah. Send them to Chad's Airbnb in Portugal if you ever run out of room in... Like you mentioned, Chad, Jooble's like a secret success over in Europe. I mean this acquisition, it's their third... Chad: During a war. They're in Kyiv. Joel: That's my other point. But they acquired JJ an online edtech company and Adsy, a recruiting ad service. Their leadership team outside of their PR guy who's from Sweden, apparently, they're all in Kyiv or Ukraine. That's incredible based on what's going on in Ukraine right now. So big applause for them for all that. But... [applause] Joel: If you're looking for ways to donate money indirectly to Ukraine, put some money in Jooble, promote some jobs. They've got other companies that they're working with, like there's a company to support in the world in our space outside of Jooble, some Israeli companies that we've talked about on the show, TaTiO, HiBob, ZipRecruiter, etcetera. The fact that this company is still rocking in the heart of Ukraine... Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Is just really cool. Really cool. Chad: Yeah. It's inspiring. I mean it really is. Joel: Totally, totally. Lieven: It's amazing. Life goes on even during a war and business goes on. Joel: That's a good point. We Americans at least, we're so pampered and cushy and plump and fat. We don't think about some countries just are used to crazy shit going down. I guess Eastern... Chad: We're protected by oceans. [laughter] Joel: Eastern Bloc might be one of those sectors. Well, that's not the end of our tech breakdown, guys. Let's talk about someone else. S?: Another one. [automated voice] Joel: Let me get to my notes real quick. Alright, Move Over Paradox. An AI driven chatbot named Manuel based in Madrid and led by some HR pros has developed a chatbot out of the company named HR Bot Factory. They've helped deliver a major recruiting effort to a Spain company at the tune of 3200 seasonal workers during peak season. The company has secured 1 million Euros in funding, that was earlier this year, and they generate income exceeding €500,000 back in 2022. Chad, what's your take on Manuel by HR Bot Factory? Not to be confused with CNC Music Factory. Chad: HR Bot Factory. It does sound pretty cool, especially if you do know CNC Music Factory. But seriously, it's just a basic candidate application flow chatbot, I mean the kind of stuff that Paradox and Talkpush do in their sleep. Now, I'm not sure where the AI comes in or is needed here, but since everything today comes with a side of AI, I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, I say good luck, but this seems like a chatbot pitch that we heard from about seven years ago. So I'm gonna give this an eight out of 10 on the yawn factor. [laughter] Joel: How are you gonna buzzkill our final tech story? Gonna make you sweat till you bleed, Sowash. [laughter] Chad: Sorry guys. Joel: Yeah. If Paradox hasn't acquired these guys already, maybe they should just for the talent and the footprint. Because they apparently are in a lot of different countries. If you look at their website, they've got little pins in South America, throughout Europe, etcetera. So if they have some sort of client base that can be turned onto some real tech like Paradox is slinging, that could be a real opportunity for them. You'll remember Paradox bought Spetz out of Israel back in '21, so it's about time for them to acquire another European company. So hey, Paradox, get in that couch, get some loose change and go buy... [laughter] Joel: Go buy Manuel, which is a pretty sexy chatbot name at least. Chad: I think Aaron will just want to crush them. [laughter] Joel: Probably, probably. No clue what Paradox's footprint is in Europe. It's probably not bad. Do you run into Paradox in Europe, Lieven, chatbots? Lieven: Nope. Joel: No. [laughter] Chad: What about Sewer? [laughter] Lieven: Okay, Sewer. Sewer. Just having some technical issues, but I'm fixing them as we speak. Joel: We can hear you and you can hear us. So that's... Lieven: Okay. Chad: Building the plane in flight. Yes. Lieven: Okay. Joel: Lieven has a whole studio, by the way. Chad and I have like a mic plugged into the computer. [laughter] Lieven: Yeah. But need to make up for everything else I lack. So okay, chatbots, we were talking about chatbots, right? Chad: Yes. Joel: European chatbots. Lieven: And it was Sewer. Was it Sewer? I twas Sewer. I think until one year ago or something, when talking about AI and chatbots, I always thought about very artificial and hardly intelligent. But now with everything based on ChatGPT, it's getting really intelligent and it sounds really... It doesn't sound artificial anymore. So I think recruitment using bots as a proven concept, but suddenly it became more effective, I think, and I'm a believer, I think it will work. And I kind of like the name where... Were we talking about Manuel before I had those issues? Joel: Manuel, yes. Lieven: Manuel, you know Fawlty Towers in the US? No? A television series by John Cleese. No? You know John Cleese? Joel: Fawlty Towers sounds like a great name for a business. Yeah. I'm gonna buy some Fawlty Towers. [laughter] Lieven: It was the name of a hotel, Fawlty Towers. And there was one waiter working there, his name was Manuel. And he was famous for the quote, "I know nothing. I'm from Barcelona," so whatever went wrong, he knew nothing because he was from Barcelona and he was working in the United Kingdom in a hotel called Fawlty Towers. But the fun part was in the whole of Europe, this was a very popular series, and everyone knew Manuel and everyone, if you said, "I know nothing," they would answer, "I'm from Barcelona," but only in Spain the name Manuel was changed to Pablo. And Pablo came from Naples, Napoli, because the Spanish people here they didn't really saw the fun in Manuel. Okay, so but this is totally irrelevant, just came up. Anyways we were talking about chatbots. S?: Does anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Lieven: Manuel. Okay, please go on. [laughter] Chad: Yeah, I'm gonna go with a Hogan's Heroes reference, and that's Sergeant Schultz, who, I know nothing, I know nothing, I know nothing. Joel: Absolutely. Lieven's gotta stop pounding the Belgian brews when we record this podcast. Lieven: The Belgian brews. Joel: Let's take a quick break and talk a little European startup tech hiring. We'll be right back. All right guys, let's talk startup tech hiring. A new report on European tech startups from Ravio indicates a shift from hiring surges to a focus on retention, highlighting decreased hiring rates by nearly 40% to 50%. Yikes. The report says startups are retaining talent through increased salaries, addressing gender pay gaps and promoting equitable work environments. Why is this happening? The survey cites economic pressures such as ballooning interest rates. The report stresses the need for non-cash incentives, like, shocker, equity. Chad, what's your take on the news on startup in the tech space? Chad: So this is coming out of an article from tech.eu, and let's focus on the byline here for a minute, "In response to market conditions, European startups are increasingly focusing on employee retention and pay equality." When times are good and money is flowing, good business practices always suffer. When talent is abundant, companies feel like they have license to treat their people like shit, because talent can easily be replaced. But when times are tight, money isn't flowing so freely, talent isn't as easy to come by, attrition is killing overall productivity, business starts the, "Our employees are the greatest asset bullshit." So this is just a normal cycle of business. And sitting back to watch it over and over is fucking maddening at times. This should be a specific business problem that is taught in business schools. Then there's the pay equity and representation problem that plagues businesses as well, that was in this article. If women are doing the same work and not receiving equal pay, it's going to be harder to retain them. If women are only seen as a low percentage of leadership roles in a company, why would any woman want to stay? Why would any female want to stay? So more business problems that I don't believe we tackle early stage of learning with whether it's startups, whether it's in university or what have you. So this to me, has nothing to do with hiring. It has to do with just shitty leadership and shitty business products or processes. S?: 60% of the time, it works every time. Joel: So, I look at this primarily from a, I guess, macro economic perspective. So when a lot of these startups, or when startups in general in the past few years have been founded, they've been flush with cash, money is free, the IPO market was open and available to startups. That's really turned around. So the appeal to get the best and the brightest to come to your company isn't shares of... Isn't stock options and a payday during, for an IPO or a big acquisition, they gotta come up with something better. And if they can't hire because their salaries aren't better than big tech companies can pay, then they gotta spin it as equity. They gotta spin it as we'll retain you and keep you in some form or fashion. Like, here's how we're gonna do it. Joel: Whether it's better work environments or better flexibility, that depends on the startup, but they can't just rely on shares of stock, they can't just rely on a big payday to attract the best people. So when those people leave or there's a threat to leave, well, we got to retain them better. I think the pay equity thing is PR for the most part. It's like, hey, let's just throw in pay equity. Let's keep the women we have. The study also showed, I think, a fairly decreased amount of salary for women at these companies. So they're actually just getting to equal from where they are, which is pretty far down. So they are making a difference there, but I think a lot of it's PR, we'll keep you by paying you what you're worth. Joel: Oh, gee, thanks. That's really nice of you to do that. Also a big problem is the down rounds, which we don't see with private companies, but the shares of stock that these people had with down rounds and revaluing these companies, some of these stock options are underwater. They're worth nothing because of the revalue of the company. Not everyone is open AI. No one's revaluing at $87 billion or whatever it is. So these startups have to be creative. Good on them to actually think about retention and how we keep people and paying women fairly. That's a luxury you didn't have to deal with when money was free. Now you have to deal with it. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah, this is... Chad: They don't give a shit when everything's good. That's the thing. It's like you always have to think about this. Joel: Yeah. Inflation, competitive marketplace, big companies with a lot of money, like, welcome to the world. Yeah. Lieven? Lieven: For it to be stupid from my point of view to promote retention. I think you should constantly hire new people and preferably through us. But these days, it's not like you can open a can with potential candidates and they will just jump out. You have to find something to attract them and also to keep them, of course. And I think being part of an equity program definitely works for us. At House of HR we have over 300 people who are part of some kind of long-term investment scheme, or a plan, a scheme doesn't sound right, long-term investment plan. Chad: Scheme, yeah, bad word choice. Yeah, plan. Lieven: But it's a lost in translation, a long-term investment plan, and that definitely helps to keep people involved. They all say something like, as a small shareholder, I don't think this is a good idea. And it's funny, but it's a way to keep people involved. And also, of course, it's a nice bonus if everything turns out right. And people won't leave if they have something to look forward to. So I do believe in equity and giving people a fair share of the profits. Joel: Lieven, did you see many people or any people leave when Bain came in and made such a move to acquire so many shares of the company? Or was it like, oh, we're coming in and the promise is an even bigger payout at some certain point? So retention has been easy at House of HR, I'm guessing. Lieven: It became easier. It's never easy, of course. I mean, but it became easier and people definitely did not leave because Bain bought them. But there was a big long-term investment plan and it paid off when Bain entered and then there was a new one. So, even if the company grows, everyone can grow with the company, which is something personally I love. Many companies have many different ways to motivate people, but in the end, money is always important. And there is a certain moment where a few thousand euros more doesn't make much difference. But for normal people, it does make a difference. It's a difference between having an extra holiday or just being able to pay the bills. Joel: Yeah. 'Cause Europeans need more holidays. Lieven: Some European countries. Chad: Yeah, them living their lives just suck, Cheeseman. Yeah, it's horrible. Man, I don't know why we do that. Joel: Politically, it's kind of dicey right now. Like immigration, what countries will let people in, how hard is it to get people in, I think that's gonna play into it as well. Which takes us into our next story out of Germany, everybody. So Europe's largest economy, AKA Germany has relaxed regulations for non-EU nationals seeking employment, emphasizing a shortage of skills With the current pool of candidates. Revised legislation effective from November 18th Facilitates residency for those with a university degree and a job offer, lowering the income threshold to around 44,000 euros annually. Specific fields like STEM require earnings of approximately 40,000 euros. IT specialists without a degree need three years' experience. Permanent residence permits can be obtained In as little as 21 months With German language proficiency, ja. The changes aim to aid international companies In recruiting skilled workers and bolster German competitiveness. Studies reveal that most EU Blue Card holders, which I'm guessing is the equivalent of the Green Card in America, Lieven can enlighten me on that one, they tend to stay longer term. So there's more incentive to get them into the country. Chad or Lieven, what are your thoughts on Germany's move to get some brain power back into the country? Lieven: I think it's the only way, I mean, we need the people. And the whole population's aging. So we're going to have a big problem within 10 years if we don't find new, to say it's a new blood to keep us young. So I think this is the way to go. And this is exactly the opposite of what they are proposing in the Netherlands. The party we were just talking about from Geert Wilders actually is trying to stop labor immigration. It's the total opposite. And I think in this case, Germany is right. Chad: Yeah, I don't know if this is the answer to what the real problem is. But I know it's not more people. And I'll give you an example here in a minute. I'm a huge fan of immigration because it brings culture, new ideas, productivity. Although we need to start talking about sustainability first. And growing Germany's population is not sustainable. I'm going to give you an example That I think everybody will understand. It's comparing Germany to California, the US's best producing state, so stick with me. So we have to take a look at literally the size of the country. So by landmass, Germany is about 350,000 square kilometers. California is bigger, 423, almost 424,000 square kilometers. By population, Germany's population is 83 million people. California's is 34 million people. That's a huge fucking difference. By GDP, Germany's GDP is 4.4 trillion. California's is 3.8 trillion, right behind them, they're one state in the US. California has almost a third of the size of the population of Germany. California has bigger landmass, about by 75,000 square kilometers. This is not a people equation. It's a revenue generating equation. Population growth in Germany and most places in Europe is not just, it's not sustainable. Chad: And Lieven, this one's for you, my friend. Belgium is only about a third of the size of Indiana land mass-wise, and that's where Joel and I both live. And yet, Belgium has twice the population of Indiana. There are already too many fucking people in Indiana, okay? I cannot imagine why, why all these European countries are so pissed off because they have too many fucking people. It's too crowded, it's not sustainable. So to be able to say that we have to grow population, I think is just maddening, to be quite frank. We have to think a different way to actually ensure that, again, take a look at Germany. Germany has 83 million people, 83 million. So that's a hell of a lot more than California's 34 million. And California is making just about as much GDP as Germany. There's a different problem here and this is not gonna solve it. More people's not gonna solve it. Joel: If only Hitler's Lebensraum campaign would have panned out, then they would have had plenty of land. This is why they don't grow almonds and wine in Germany. Lieven: By the way, I think in Indiana your gardens are just too big. Chad: They could be, but we don't have as many people. [chuckle] Joel: Well, it's interesting, I mean, Americans don't consider, Europe is like half the land mass and twice the people as America. So that's why they have trains. US trains don't make sense because you gotta go long ways to... Chad: High-speed trains would make sense, but go ahead. Joel: Yes. Lieven: Only a few lines, of course. Joel: Elon's boring company will save us from that. Chad: Hyperloop. Lieven: I agree, I mean, one of the... The guy who won the Dutch election, his slogan even was, "The Netherlands are full. And according to what Chad is saying, he's right. I mean, there are so many people. But if you want to keep our potential growths, if we want to keep it, then we need the people to do the work, to pay all those pensions for those who have been working for the past 40 years. So if you want to keep the current system intact, we need new people. And since we don't make them like our Scottish friend is doing, then we need to say it may be rudely, important. The problem is in the Netherlands, for example, there is a housing shortage. Houses are becoming extremely expensive. For normal people it's becoming impossible to buy a house, definitely not in the popular regions. And those people say, if we import 300,000 new people, that's 300,000 new houses, which make it even harder for the... Chad: Again, that's why we don't need more people. Joel: Germany wants the "right people." They want they want educated people who make a lot of money and can buy stuff and can pay taxes and can support the aging population. Lieven: Of course. Joel: The immigrants they don't want, they don't want, so it's like have our cake and eat it too. Chad: That's always been the case. That's always been the case with Germany. Lieven: But not only with Germany, I mean with the whole of Europe right now. This is why extreme right is gaining so much because the social system is going to collapse if we just open the gates to, Let's say the whole of Africa. Chad: So, is AI the answer? That's the question, we need less people... Joel: It might be! Chad: We need less people... Lieven: Definitely. Chad: We need to generate more revenue and that revenue goes back into the system to pay for the old people. That's what I'm saying. The construct that we're talking about right now, the economic construct we're talking about right now is a 1920s construct. It's much like when inflation rises. What do we do? We raise the interest rates. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard of in my life. It's a 1920s construct. We need to be thinking differently about how economics can work. They don't have to be the 1920s version. Joel: And in 1920 people lived to be 65, which is why the retirement age is around 65. Unfortunately people are living longer, but they still need care. Chad: Eighty-one is the life expectancy in Germany. Joel: And now, by the way, Europe's paying more for their defense, which means more in taxes to pay for bombs and tanks. So who's gonna pay for that? It's not people that are retired. It's young people that are paying for the retired and paying for the new stuff. So it's like, how do we balance this to keep our way of living so our politicians can stay can stay in business? And so it's this really incredibly difficult balancing act and... Chad: It is... Joel: Like Lieven talked about the demographics. It's gonna, like it's gonna be so top-heavy with old people, that young people aren't gonna be around. So you either produce more people, have more sex, which sounds like a great solution to me, but apparently young people don't agree. And number two is you either let immigrants in... Lieven: I'm sure they have lots of sex, but they use birth control. Joel: I don't know what's going on. Talk to Steven, he knows how to do it. And I think all of us on this call know how to do it too. But anyway, I digress. So it's either, have more sex and more people, have immigrants, which they're trying to like, let's have the right immigrants, but not the wrong kind of immigrants. Lieven: That sounds... Joel: Or you become more productive. To Chad's point, the economy comes such that you needs fewer people to produce more goods and consume more shit. And so it could be a balance of all that, it could be one or the other. We just don't know about productivity and AI as to where that'll be the the panacea or not. Chad: I don't know if that's gonna be the panacea. I just know that creating more stupid humans is not a panacea. Joel: We have no other choice at the moment. Chad: We have plenty of choices. We just don't... We just don't choose. Joel: Yeah. We cane pull the plug on the old people and say you're on your own. There's no health, there's no Medicare, there's no like, there's no safety net and in a 100 years, it'll balance itself. Chad: Or we can make sure that CEOs aren't making like 1500% more than everybody else. I mean, there are things that we can do. It's not just one thing. We don't just pull the plug on one factor. Joel: Well, you can tax the rich more to support that, I guess, you could... Chad: There's that. There's that. Lieven: In this case, it's not a money thing. It's just a people thing. I mean, which is the... Chad: It is a money thing because you got to pay for those people who are living 20 years longer than what they did in the 1920s. Lieven: One out of six active people are having a job in care right now in the Netherlands, because all those people becoming older demographics. We're going to need one out of four people, but we also need those people to work in IT. We also need them to become a fire agent, etcetera. So we we just need more people to do all the jobs which need to be done and mostly within health care. Joel: Or you need more robots to take blood pressures and... Chad: We need Jedi robots, is what we need. We watch Star Wars, get... [overlapping conversation] Lieven: We have to make choices, for real. Joel: As soon as the Amazon robots are filled, all the warehouses are filled up, they can start caring for the for the elderly. Lieven: We'll see. We'll see. Joel: Which by the way is real opportunity. My dad's in a retirement home. Like those people would love conversation, whether it's a robot or a cat. They just want to talk. I'm digressing, but there's there's a lot of opportunity for companies to make a lot of money on the demographic collapse of Europe and most of the rest of the world. Lieven's empty, he needs another one and I need one after this conversation. Boys, it was fun. We'll see you again in a couple weeks. We out! Chad: We out. Speaker 5: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

How could the boys head to Europe for UNLEASH World and not get a hot take on the current state of the continent when it comes to the world of work? European businesses like Personio, HiBob, Job&Talent and others are shaking things up, and it goes both ways with the likes of Appcast reshaping European stalwarts like Stepstone. That's why we invited Hendrik Schmahl, Partner at EY in Berlin to the Textkernel booth for a chat. Schmahl is busy leading the consulting practice advancing HR transformation and digitization, but found some time for Chad & Cheese. If you're looking for a different take on how the economy and tech are evolving in Europe, and particularly in Germany, then this interview is a must. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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: Oh. Yeah. What's up everybody? It's your sous-chef's favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the Eiffel to my tower, Chad Sowash is in the house. And we are happy live from the Textkernel booth at Unleash in Paris to welcome Hendrick Schmall... Chad: Schmall? Joel: Partner at Ernst and Young or EY in the wonderful city of Berlin. Welcome to the show, Hendrick. Hendrik Schmahl: Thank you, thank you. You're welcome too. Yeah, of course. Joel: Thank you. Thank you. So our listeners unlikely know who you are. So give us a Twitter bio about Hendrick. Hendrik Schmahl: A Twitter bio. It's more, it's more like that I'm doing 30 years almost on consulting in HR particular. Joel: Okay. Hendrik Schmahl: Made a perfect consulting career from Accenture to Deloitte to Korn Ferry to Ernst and Young. And in particular focusing on the issues that CHROs are actually having. Joel: Oh yeah? You have any kids? Chad: Yeah, where's the personal stuff? Hendrik Schmahl: I have three kids. Joel: You have three kids? Okay. Hendrik Schmahl: I have three kids, yeah. Joel: Three kids. Chad: How many pairs of Lederhosen do you all... [laughter] Hendrik Schmahl: Actually two. Yeah, after... Chad: Zwei, zwei. Hendrik Schmahl: Zwei. Chad: I love it, I love it, I love it. Joel: So your focus is on Germany for sure, but I wanna get your take on Europe because we have a European show. We're two dumb Americans. Give us and other dumb Americans that listen to the podcast and even some Europeans, the state of the business in Europe as a whole, from how you see it. Chad: It has a bunch of countries in it. Joel: It does have a lot of countries in it. Hendrik Schmahl: Yeah. A lot of countries. Chad: We don't want a state or country by country breakdown. Just give us a 30,000 foot view. Hendrik Schmahl: What we're usually facing is that a one size fits all logic, which is coming globally quite often from America. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: Then they have boundaries when they're facing the challenges in EMEA, in Europe. And that's mainly driven about the different cultures we have within such European region. The regulations, of course, it's a major topic. Quite different country by country, even state by state. Chad: Right. Hendrik Schmahl: And then coming back to the culture. Yeah. It's not as... The culture is something we are very proud of. And I think in Italians very proud of the Italian culture. The French guy is very French and the German is very German. And how to tackle this as a business, even with the one size fits all logic. And then you have your challenges. Joel: So you're saying the EU hasn't brought everyone together in harmony in Europe. [laughter] Chad: Is that what you're saying? Hendrik Schmahl: No. We are trying hard. Yeah. But we respect each other. Chad: You're trying hard. Chad: Trying hard. Hendrik Schmahl: That's for sure. Joel: All under one note. Chad: And then Britain leaves and screws it all up. Damn it. Joel: Fuck them. That's all I gotta say. Hendrik Schmahl: But also economically driven, right? Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: That's a difference. So one has a recession, then you have the industry logic where the one country is larger in the pharmaceutical companies and industry rather than the production. The production is suffering right now. Joel: Why is it suffering? Is it a supply chain thing? Why is it suffering? Chad: Is it a Russia thing? Hendrik Schmahl: They all came a lot with the Ukraine war too. Joel: Yep. Hendrik Schmahl: Of course. But overall recession, when they're suffering, they're suffering on the talent shortage. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: That's really something where you have to move actually your production to different countries. Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: To source talents over there. That's a major topic. And then of course, the increases of all the prices with the oil, with the energy. That's a topic. Joel: Yes. What about Israel and Hamas? Do you think that's gonna be a big impact as well? I mean, 'cause it feels like we're clawing our way out. Hendrik Schmahl: Yes. Joel: Right? And then something else happens, right? We had Ukraine, Russia invades Ukraine, and then that obviously impacted dramatically for Europe. No question. Right? Do you think this war is going to impact as well? Hendrik Schmahl: Emotionally, of course. Joel: Oh of course. Hendrik Schmahl: I'm not a politician but having just... Joel: But just economically is what I mean. Hendrik Schmahl: Economic footprint of having Iran... Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: Jordanian and all the stuff. And then in the end of the day, talking with the Americans and the Russians, again, I think that must have an impact. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: Then entering Africa, which is a market to go anyway. Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: More or less soon. And then you have the problems. Chad: I wanna dig into the talent shortage that you mentioned in Germany. Are we talking service sector? Are we talking healthcare? Are we talking tech? Hendrik Schmahl: We're talking everywhere. Chad: Are we talking all of it? And what is Germany doing to remedy that? Are they opening up the borders? Hendrik Schmahl: Yeah. I'm not sure whether you have seen our votes last week. So, no a major topic is immigration. Or migration actually. Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: And we were always quite bad in handling this. Yeah? And also even turning people coming to Germany into the logic of getting them, educating, getting them integrated into the business and so on so forth. Joel: Into society. Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: It's a society topic since 30, 40 years. And no, we are not doing that well. Now it's really lying on the companies. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: They say, okay, what kind of integration approach, inclusion approach we are really doing? Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: Who is applicable for what kind of work? And then of course there's blue collar work where it's getting more and more into the logic too. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: But it is company by company. It's less about the society or the Germany is taken care of. Chad: How has the EV revolution impacted Germany? Because Germany is a juggernaut in producing autos, luxury autos, Volkswagens and Tesla's making inroads to building Teslas in Germany. You're smiling. So talk about the EV revolution, [laughter] and what that is gonna mean to Germany's economy. Hendrik Schmahl: I'm from Berlin, so Elon Musk made a Tesla factory just next to Berlin or even still in Berlin. However, I think that this, in the end of the day, it is driving us for having more innovation. So keeping up the speed of this innovation coming from everywhere. Chad: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: And then it's more like research and development and then really applying it into your production and supply chain. So it's changing actually jobs, products, and in my opinion, it's a very good logic to get more and more pushed to innovation rather than relying on the existing and making a couple of evolvements rather than revolutions. Joel: So Germany historically has been very union heavy. Right? Elon Musk, historically not union heavy. How's that gonna work out? Hendrik Schmahl: I think he's facing a couple of challenges in Germany. So as each company has to deal with it. Yeah. And the unions is not, not a bad thing about it, it's more like having a dialogue, getting them involved. Then you get also the support. Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: And at the end of the day, it's about the workforce and the human beings. And then we have the protection logic. We have a logic of being kind, keeping development, but also having the sort of job secureness. Which is a bit difficult for Americans to deal with. Yeah. So rather than saying, Hey, you're terminated and then... Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: And it's a different story. So you have to do a different kind of workforce planning and also along with this, with budget and expenses. Chad: So Germany is at the center of a lot of interesting activity in the vendor space in employment. Personio is a company that we talk about quite a bit on the European show, which is a German company. You have... Joel: Deutschland. Chad: You have Ronstadt buying Appcast, which was the 800 pound gorilla of programmatic advertising from the United States, and then bought Baird and created Appcast One. So there are a lot of things happening in Germany. What's your take on the companies that are being built, their impact on the German economy, how they're looked at from a brand perspective? Germany's having a moment. So bask in it and let us know your thoughts. Hendrik Schmahl: Yeah. First of all, I'm very proud that German offers this room for startups. And then really not only being a startup with a smaller platform, but really then getting larger and larger and larger. And when you look at our decks to our most 30 valued companies, then half of them are former startups. Joel: Really? Hendrik Schmahl: So they really exchanged... Joel: Half of them? Hendrik Schmahl: Half of them. Joel: Wow. Hendrik Schmahl: If you compare it 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Yeah. Then the names just disappeared and went into the M Ducks, D Ducks and so on. Joel: Wow. Hendrik Schmahl: So like delivery or... And something like this. So Ronstadt is the one thing which is just doing a expansion by inorganic growth. So they have to do this anyhow, otherwise they are getting just not recognized anymore. And you want to keep business. And Personio is a great example So it's still called a startup, even though they are, I don't know, existing since... Joel: Unicorn, yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: Yeah. Yes. Or something like this, but the logic on the momentum... Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: Maybe from SAP, HCM and Workday and as a potential Newlogic and with the Oracle stuff and so on. So it was like, okay, there was a momentum. Chad: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: And I think there were growing successfully and now they have one and 1,500 employees or something like this. I'm not so quite sure, but, so they're getting recognizable. Joel: They're getting ready to expand into the US. Chad: Coming to America baby. Joel: And that's a big, big, big step. Chad: Yep. Joel: That's Neil Diamond right there. Chad: That is Neil Diamond worthy. So we work remotely. Is there, is education in Germany focused on startups? Are governments focused on giving money to companies? Like what's in the water in Germany that's starting all these companies? Because this is something new in our industry. Hendrik Schmahl: I think first of all Berlin is quite creative in the major hub for startups in Germany, followed by Munich. And now it's Hamburg I think. Chad: Is that capital money? Is that investment? Hendrik Schmahl: No. Chad: Private money? Hendrik Schmahl: It's private investment money. Joel: Okay. Hendrik Schmahl: But for me, it's a source, it's a creative people. So we are quite international in those cities. So it's not all about there's a German starting a startup. Yeah. It's more I don't care where they're coming from, but there's the environment, there's the ecosystem, and there are a lot of platforms you can exchange to learn from each other. And then you collaborate. And then I think ideas are getting larger and larger and then it becomes a company. Joel: Well, when you don't have to go to Silicon Valley to get money, that makes a big difference. And we're seeing this happen in Europe, and we talk about it quite a bit on the show. Chad: Yeah. But it's not... I mean, the Silicon Valley money, I mean Personio, they got a lot of cash. Right? But it's almost like they're spending cash better in Europe than they are in the US. I mean they're getting so much cash, or at least they were. Right? We were on that sugar rush for a while, and then there were nothing but fricking unicorns being manufactured. Do you think that as we take a look at all of these startups who got a lot of money, that we're gonna see a lot of dead unicorns soon? Hendrik Schmahl: I hope [laughter] actually. I hope. Joel: You hope? Hendrik Schmahl: I hope. Joel: Explain, explain. Hendrik Schmahl: Yeah. For me it's... In my particular profession, if you look what are kind of startups and unicorns over there then there are quite a lot of similarities across the startups. And like everything which is quite often there must be a consolidation. And then I even think that they're either making it together or then they're just disappearing. But for sure that they will be using the new technologies, the new logics and possibilities. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: There must be unicorns. Yeah. And there's something becoming a unicorn maybe next year. And then there's getting commodity after three years. Yeah? So it's more like, I think there's a pace and the passion of technique and possibilities, they are just... They're there. They're just able to use it. Joel: I want to pivot us. Chad: Pivot. Joel: I want to pivot us to something that the HR practitioners out there need to hear, they probably want to hear, is around business and being more focused on business. Now, I know that, I mean, that's really, that's your wheelhouse. One of the things that we haven't been able to do, a lot of CHROs see themselves as cost centers instead of the actual people who are the heart and soul of the organization that make things work. 'Cause without talent, can't build cars. You can't develop cars, you can't... Right? You can't do any of this. So what are you doing to be able to help those companies get past time to hire, cost per hire and get all the way to the bottom line? Because the bottom line is the only thing that the board and the CEO and the C-suite care about, all the rest of those, they don't care. So what are you doing to help them? Hendrik Schmahl: We are helping them by the portfolio and the impact of the P&L. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: As we're really talking about, okay, what is necessary, either in your supply chain, in your whole value chain. And what is it meant to be influenced by HR or by the workforce, by the people, by the skills you have or not have anymore, and so on. So it's more about becoming the business partner. That's an old fashioned word. Yeah. Like a buzzword. But understanding the business is first, listening to the business, is even weird. But that's a necessity. And then we are consulting CHROs or the HR organization that's more like a, should we really talk with a business or do they really know what they are expecting from HR? Joel: Right. Hendrik Schmahl: They say, Exactly. Listen to this, understand it, and then get the sense for the P&L impact. That's not about getting the payroll right. Yeah. So that's commodity. But it's even hiring. Yeah. As we hire as the best people in the short time when they are really necessary and on time, on sequence, we would say. Yeah. That's something that has an impact. If you're looking for salesperson and then they're not there, then you are not selling anything. Chad: Well and especially vital roles, right. Because we just saw many of the FANG organizations, the Facebook, the Amazons, the Googles, they were bloated. They did... These were not vital positions. They were hoarding talent. Right? And now they're flushing talent out. And then we're starting to see more companies and more companies doing that, who were trying to keep up with them before. Are we going to start focusing on the vital roles as opposed to just because the CRO wants to fill more roles, we know that the roles that we are focusing on are vital as opposed to we're just, we're just burning cash. Hendrik Schmahl: Yeah. And the other perspective. Yeah, you have a platform where people are working and all aiming for the same target. And that's great. There's creativity in the room, and then you develop something. But how to make out of a platform, a real functioning organization? That's something most of the countries are not capable to do. You may have incubators Yeah. And becoming a new business unit with new ideas with new people. Yeah? That there's something like that. But we have the governance in place that has to be applied for this too. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: We have all those procedures and so on. But then they are starting to struggle, and then they are losing the talent again. It's more like a platform capability. And I don't want call it agile organization. Yeah. It's more like, it's really a platform. It's a competence. And then being able to distinguish between your hardcore production stuff. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: Where there's crazy ideas. My new products, my new innovation actually. Joel: That sounds fancy. Platform. Chad: We're here at the Unleash World Conference in Paris. We're here in the Textkernel booth. What are some of your early takeaways and insights from the conference? Hendrik Schmahl: As I'm very impressed by all the startups I don't know. Joel: Yes. Hendrik Schmahl: So I really, I'm here actually to run around getting known each of the companies, of the startups to be just ahead of the new wave of innovations coming up. It's more like, you know, the standard softwares. Joel: Yeah. Hendrik Schmahl: And what they're capable. I love Textkernel. Yeah. I was really grateful for all the skill management and recruiting stuff. There are so many add-ons. Yeah. So many actually using AI stuff to make lovely work perfect and even smarter. That's actually why I'm here. And I'm very excited. So I met already 20 companies, I was not aware of them. Joel: Excellent. Chad: What an optimistic, feel good way to close this interview with Hendrik Schmahl everybody. He's the partner at EY. If they wanna know more about you Hendrik where would you send them? Hendrik Schmahl: To LinkedIn actually. Chad: LinkedIn. Joel: LinkedIn. Chad: That's Hendrik Schmahl everybody. We out. Joel: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. Outro: No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Recorded live at the HR Tech Conference from the Fuel50 booth in Las Vegas, this episode features Larry McAlister, a three-time CHRO and author. We discuss his book "The Power to Transform," which serves as a field guide for building a human-centered, tech-enabled work culture. The episode also covers various topics, including the importance of HR technology, the need for HR professionals to embrace technology, and the impact of generative AI on the industry. Larry emphasizes the importance of self-care for job seekers and offers advice on how to make oneself more marketable in the evolving job market. The podcast also touches on the potential ethical issues and risks associated with AI in recruiting. Larry can be found on LinkedIn or at his website, LarryMcAlisterBook.com, and his book is available on Amazon. To learn more about Fuel50, visit https://fuel50.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. Chad: Coming to you live from the Fuel50 booth at the heart of HR Tech, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. We are diving deep into the world of HR technology, tackling workforce challenges with innovative solutions. And we'd like to give special thanks to Fuel50, the science-based talent marketplace that bridges skills gaps, unlocks hidden potential and supports better retention and engagement. Let's do this. Intro: 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: Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It's your sportsbooks favorite podcast, AKA, The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman joined as always, the Bellagio to my Venetian, Chad Sowash. We're recording live from the... Chad: All about the balance. Joel: Fuel50 booth At HR Tech in Las Vegas. And we are just giddy to welcome Larry McAlister, three times CHRO and bestselling author to the podcast. Chad: He owns a sandwich shop, doesn't he? McAlister? [overlapping conversation] Joel: They have a great roast beef, yes. Larry: That one has two Ls. Joel: Great roast beef. Larry: I only have one L. My dad said only the rich one got two Ls so that's why it's one. Chad: Oh, okay. So you had to back off a little bit. Joel: A lot of our listeners don't know who you are. Give him a quick Twitter bio about what makes Larry tick. Larry: Yeah. So I worked for Fortune 500 companies doing transformation, a technology transformation making sure... Joel: Do you want a name drop? Larry: NetApp and Equinix were the last two I worked at, the biggest data center company in the world and NetApp is now a big cloud company. Changing the way that managers and employees work together and completely transforming how HR acts inside a company. And people told me, "You should write a book, you should write a book, you should write a book." I was like... Chad: A book? Larry: Okay. I'll write a book. Chad: Okay. Larry: Good idea. Chad: I'll write a book. That's a lot of work, Larry. I mean, you... I'm sure we're already... Joel: Talking into a mic is much easier. Chad: Yes, it is, right? Just transcribe that shit. So there's a lot of research that I'm sure you had to do for the book, but you were probably already doing that. Talk a little bit about what researching for the book actually brought out that you just didn't know before. Larry: Yeah, that's great. So what I try to do is not make it a research theoretical book. Chad: Okay. Larry: It's called "The Power to Transform: A Field Guide." So I want to just tell you how I did it. Chad: Gotcha. Okay. Larry: If you know me and you read the book, you're like, that's Larry's voice. Chad: Nice. Larry: I want to... Third grade level reading, that's my goal and I cheated a little bit. Chad: I think you're having to drop down a level for Cheeseman. Joel: That's my... Were there cartoon pictures as well? Larry: There are some photos in there. Joel: Yes. Larry: You can point and... Chad: The coloring book. Larry: Draw all it in a book. Chad: Yeah, Joe likes the coloring book. Larry: So the idea is just to help people say, I could do transformation. I don't have to go pay some big company a million dollars to help me do it and then they leave and you're left with nothing. Just follow this book, follow these 300 pages and you can do transformation for yourself and put HR on the map. Chad: Yeah. What's the biggest piece of transformation that is not happening today? 'Cause transformation is a very long process. Larry: And a big one. Chad: There are many steps, 300 and some odd pages for God's sake. Larry: Yeah, yeah, 280. Yes. Chad: What 10 pages in there is the most important that just isn't happening? Larry: I think I call it the golden loop. Everything has to be connected. So you come to HR Tech, you go buy a piece of technology, turn it on and have this idea, build it and they will come. They will not come. You have to have an established digested talent strategy that technology propels. So there's no way you just turn it on. So I say, "Hey, how do you activate yourself? How do you activate the team? How do you activate the enterprise and how do you activate the future?" Those are the four tenets of transformation. Build technology to go all around that. Fuel50, I write about in the book, they were our enterprise-wide solution. Everyone in the company felt they could grow during the pandemic from their kitchen table. Thanks to technology that supported the strategy and not just something I turned on and said, "Ho get them, guys." And at the time, we were the number one fastest adopter of Fuel50. Joel: Yeah. I feel like there's a little bit of a backlash on technology in that there's so much noise. We're here at HR Technology. Rows and rows... Chad: It's hard. Joel: And rows and rows of companies that will change your life. Chad: It's a sea. Larry: It is a sea. Joel: I feel like the reaction is let's just keep our LinkedIn licenses. [laughter] Talk about the clutter and what companies are facing with that 'cause I think it's a real problem. Larry: I agree with the noise. So generative AI is going to be the fastest and most impactful technology in our lifetimes, probably since Fire. Joel: Are you saying more than QR codes? Larry: More than QR codes. Joel: Wow. Larry: More than the internet, more than your phone. Joel: Mind blown. Larry: So the good news is, wow, you can just go, if you have an AI and an API, you can build a booth here. The question that you have to solve is you're not shopping around to figure out what people have. What are you trying to solve? What is the problem you as an HR person is trying to solve? Define your problem. Then what I did is I had an HR tech parade. I brought in 16 vendors and said, here's the three problems we're trying to solve. Joel: That sounds fun. Larry: And we just brought them through technically. Chad: It sounds more like a circus. Larry: A little bit, but one, you're like, oh my God, I don't know anything. My mind was blown, but two, you get to compare and contrast right next to each other all day long. So that's in the book as well. Find out what you need, what's the problem? These guys don't sell solutions a lot of times. They just say, "Hey, look how cool my baby is. I'm the founder. Look at my pretty baby." I'm like, "I don't care about your baby. Solve my problem." Chad: Or it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist or it's not a priority. Larry: Or a priority. Chad: Yes. Larry: So you're like, wow, this is cool. If you buy the shiny object, it's going to get dull very fast. Chad: Yes. Larry: If you're solving a problem you've already identified and talked about to your employees and say, "Now, we talked about growth in your career. Here's the tool that's going to help you do that", that makes it much more powerful... Joel: The people you're talking to, are they wanting one solution, one ring to rule them all? 'Cause we see a lot of companies trying to do everything for everybody. Chad: The easy button, baby. Joel: But then obviously we have integrations and I have my favorite text recruiting solution, I have my favorite chat bot. Is that what people are leaning toward or are they looking for the one solution for everything? Larry: Maybe next year there'll be more people coming together. I know a couple of these guys are selling together, three different companies selling on the same piece of paper, but you need a tech stack. There is no... It used to be go get people soft in the old days. Those days are over. These guys in this place here can innovate way faster than a Workday or an SAP, so you have to build a tech stack absolutely. Chad: So around that tech stack, one of the things that we've seen over the years is that there is so much redundancy because many of these core systems, these applicant tracking systems, they're acquiring companies, they're adding things and then they still have point solutions that are redundancies. When, and it is, is there in your book a point where you say, look, start with a clean sheet, blow this whole damn thing up and build from the ground up? Larry: Absolutely. So you're always going to have your basic HCM. People data are always going to be there. Chad: Core, core. Yeah. Larry: You have to have that. Chad: Recordkeeping, the things that you have to do. Yes. Larry: And with all these companies pull the data from, and give you ideas of what to do with your employee. So there's going to be a moment when you're going to say, all right, I have to get onboarding done. You have to do it. You buy the onboarding tool, it fits into your story, and then a year later, you're like, damn, there's someone better now. You're going to face it. There's no way that you're going to pick a solution now that's not going to be leapfrogged in a year or two, but you got to solve the problem today. What is your bigger problem? Chad: But we don't do that though. We keep what we've had forever and we close our eyes. Larry: It's over. Chad: And we say we've got it all figured out, but tech is fluid, the market is fluid, but these companies have not been fluid. So how much of the time should CHROs, VPs of TA, how much time should they be taking to reassess? Larry: Double what they're doing now. Chad: Okay. Larry: Double what they're doing now. Joel: So two minutes. [laughter] Chad: High five. Larry: High five. Perfectly delivered. Joel: Like a high five. Larry: No, it is good. So when I said generative AI is changing the world, it literally is and the bots aren't going to take your jobs. It's the people who know how to use this technology who are going to take your job. So if you're not thinking of a tech augmented reality, tech augmented leadership, tech augmented organizations, if you're not thinking that, you will be bypassed, your employees will leave you. Think about people coming out of college right now. They think that... They walk into a company and that's old antiquated HR technology we have to deal with. This is horrible. I have a free app at home that is 10 times faster than those. Chad: Yeah. Larry: So we have to as HR folks be... If you are not an HR person anymore, you are a technologist who sits in the CHRO seat, so be a technologist, be a transformation expert, start breaking glass. Some of it you're not going to be able to sweep up, but you have to start breaking glass today. Joel: Are you calling for term limits in the CHRO position, 'cause I feel like that's where you're headed with some of this? Larry: Yeah, I think absolutely. Even boards have to start thinking about, what are you doing to move the needle on those? Chad: Well, that's the problem though, I think, Larry, is that our CHROs are looking at themselves as cost centers, not the beating heart of the organization and when they need to go get that, they need more money to build the tech stack to be able to get the talent that the company actually needs, they're afraid to go ask. Larry: I agree. Chad: And they shouldn't be afraid. They should be bold but we're not. Why? Larry: Because people don't realize we're in the golden age of HR technology. We have caught up to everything else. Remember Salesforce, everyone went and spent all this money on Salesforce. We can do it now. Our people technology now is as good as any other technology. And if you're worried about getting budget, then you're worried about the same old stuff you're always worried about, what's our turnover, what's our time to fill? You can solve all of those problems with generative AI now. So I think the idea is build a strategy, bring in the technology to enable that strategy and that's true transformation over the long-term. Chad: Yeah, but the problem I think though, Larry, is that those metrics that you just talked about, the C-suite, they don't give a shit about that. What we should be doing is demonstrating how that impacts the bottom line. Larry: It's so easy to do that now. Yes, Fuel50, I also work with BetterUp. They're able to show... For BetterUp is coaching, right? Chad: Okay. Larry: They show salespeople in your organization who were coached versus those salespeople who weren't coached have bigger sales deals, faster sales cycles. Chad: Do they retain? Larry: And they retain... Chad: They say less turnover. Larry: And they're more productive. You go straight to the bigger revenue. You can prove better revenue. How does that not get to the board? Chad: And if you've got less turnover, then you've got less open positions and open positions only mean lost revenue. Larry: Lost revenue, lost activity. Chad: And we're not talking about that lost revenue, right? Larry: HR can now walk into the board and say, "I can give us better revenue, I can have more productive innovation and get products out the door faster." We can now prove that. Chad: Hot damn, Larry. Hot damn. Larry: We can prove it. Joel: Are they going to have those conversations? Chad: That's the question. Larry: They have to. Chad: That's the question. Larry: They have to. Joel: Yeah, I think they have to. Larry: So technology first, CHRO second. That's where we are. Joel: Back to what you said on skills augmentation. A lot of listeners in the past 12 months have been laid off, whether it's downsizing, right sizing. We're automating your stuff, we're offshoring it, we're outsourcing it. If I'm at home right now, I've been unemployed, I want to get back into the workforce, what skills, what actions would you recommend they take to make themselves much more marketable than they were a year ago? Larry: What if you're laid off? It's about self-care, it's not about you. You have to care about yourself. Work out, do stuff for yourself, keep your head straight. It's not you that you're not getting the job, and a lot of times it's the company. That's just one. Always focus on self-care when you're laid off. Two is, I have a list that I've sent to 20 laid off people of ways that you can use generative AI to help with your resume, to control your interviewing, to practice your interviewing. You can get... One of the guys who's a recruiter who used to work for me and got laid off. He went and got his prompt engineering certificate. He's like, "I'm just going to learn how to do this." Chad: There's a certificate? Larry: Yes, prompt engineering. Joel: Was that a linkedin learning course? Larry: I'm sure they have it. Joel: I'm sure they have it. Larry: I'm sure they have it, but I think it was out of Kellogg or Yale or something like that. So you have to know what generative AI is. You cannot hide. Even if you're just playing around with ChatGPT, there's thousands of them, but you, no matter what job you're going into, no matter where you are in the world, if you're laid off, you need to understand generative AI and play with these tools and understand what it is. Chad: Bard, Claude, all of them. Larry: Yeah, but even Bard's a great one. Just figure it out and get certificated, if that's even a word, in some of these tools 'cause you can't... Recruiters aren't looking at your resume anymore. It's a freaking bot that's looking at your resume. Joel: Yeah. Larry: I had one woman who put a job description to ChatGPT, then put her resume into ChatGPT and said, "How do I make my resume apply to this more to make me the best candidate?" Resume, better. So what five questions are they going to ask me and how do I best answer them? Chad: Was she hired? That's the question. Larry: She was. Chad: There you go. There it is, there it is. Larry: That's the only reason I tell that story. It's the only reason I tell that story. Joel: Let's flip the script 'cause you brought that up. Look, there's a lot of news and buzz around new AI tools where I can apply to hundreds, if not thousands of jobs with my new bot friend. How is the community, the employer space going to react, adjust, evolve to handle this new reality? Larry: If you're faking your resume 20 years ago, you're still going to get called out. [laughter] So if you're faking your resume now, you're still going to get called out. You can just fake it faster. Joel: Yeah. Larry: So the idea of getting to an interview is still the most important thing and that's a human interviewing you. So generative AI and technology doesn't replace the human being. It gets you to this human interaction faster and with better data. So you can play around, but once you get to that interview and you're asked real questions, you still have to have the proof, you still have to have the proof. Joel: Yeah. Larry: So I think there's ethical stuff we're going to deal with. We're going to go inside and outside of Congress. Chad: Oh yeah. Larry: There's all that coming. Chad: We Just had the EEOC commissioner in this seat. Larry: Is that right? Chad: Yeah, exactly. Larry: They're scared. I saw a lawyer... Joel: A tough act to follow, Larry. Larry: Yeah, I know. [laughter] I saw a lawyer... Joel: That's one hell of a fluffer. Larry: At a different... [laughter] A lawyer at a different commerce just stood on the stage and said, "You're at risk." That's how we started, "You're at risk." It's always on you. It's not about the technology. Chad: I mean, yeah, it was... Larry: But we're always at risk. Chad: Always at risk. Larry: But I see you have a question. Chad: So what's the name of the book again, Larry? Larry: It's called "The Power to Transform", and it's a field guide to building a human-centered, tech-enabled work culture. Chad: And that is Larry McAlister, everybody. Joel: Thank you, guys. Chad: Larry, if people want to actually connect with you... Larry: Just come to LinkedIn, larrymcalisterbook.com or LinkedIn, 1C1L. We're the poor ones. [laughter] We don't have extra letters. So that's how you can find me. Larry McAlister on... And our LinkedIn's the quickest way. Joel: And I'm guessing Amazon has some... Larry: Amazon has the book. Joel: Yeah, there you go, there you go. Chad: Amen. Larry: Buy it now. Joel: Buy a used copy at a discount, everybody. [laughter] Another one in the can, Chad. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

The world is a volatile place. Inflation, conflict, elections and AI, to name a few, have meant a lot of things in business are taking a pause. Mergers and acquisitions are no exception. However, things are still moving, and signs of new life are everywhere. That's why we invited Georgios Markikis, managing partner at Venero Capital Advisors to the Textkernel booth in Paris at UNLEASH World to chat about the state of M&A. From the recent Clevy acquisition by Fountain to the current thawing of markets to how hungry private equity is at the moment to make things happen. Turns out, there's a lot of dry powder out there, which not only makes this interview interesting, but necessary for anyone who makes their living in workforce businesses. TRASNCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. 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, yeah. What's up, everybody? It's Marie Antoinette's favorite podcast, aka The Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad: She lost her head over this podcast. Joel: I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the Gérard to my Depardieu, Chad Sowash is in the house. And we are just giddy, live from Unleashed World, from the Textkernel booth to welcome a show favorite, Georgios Markikus. [laughter] Georgios Markikus: Hi guys. Good to be back. Joel: He's the managing partner at Venero Capital Advisors. Welcome to the podcast again. Chad: Welcome back. Georgios Markikus: Yeah, thank you. Third time and then I can say that I'm a regular. Joel: Your fifth show you get a red velvet smoking jacket. So keep doing it. Your mom... Chad: With our big heads on the back. Joel: Your mom will be proud at some point of your accomplishments. Chad: We still have to get... We have to get Quincy's out. Joel: That's right. So some of our listeners don't know you. Chad: What? Joel: Give us a little Twitter bio about you and the company. Georgios Markikus: Yeah, so I'm managing partner at Venero Capital Advisors, so we are an M&A advisory firm focusing exclusively on HR tech and the future of work. We're the most active advisors in the space. So yeah, keen to talk about what's happening right now. Joel: And Chad says you have the most beautiful head of anyone that we've ever interviewed. Georgios Markikus: Oh, stop. Chad: It's a good looking head. Joel: It is. Georgios Markikus: Thank you. Joel: You guys can trade shaving techniques later. Chad: Yeah, you can't pull this off with a funky shaped gourd like yours. Joel: I know. I know. It's awful having a full head of hair. Anyway, anyway. Chad: So okay, so let's talk about this. Today versus two years ago, the market is so much completely, I mean it's like flopped, right? So tell us a little bit about what you're seeing in the market right now, differences, where you're excited, where you're seeing... Where is it going? Georgios Markikus: Absolutely. So two years ago, we were having boom time and then... Chad: Sugar rush. Georgios Markikus: Yeah. And then COVID hit and everything just collapsed. After COVID, we had what we call the post-COVID boom. So you had a surge in investment and a surge in M&A. Joel: Free money. Georgios Markikus: Free money. Seriously. Record levels. And then what happened? 2022, the markets collapsed, markets crashed and a lot of uncertainty in the market. Recession is coming perhaps, interest rates are going up. So what we saw is HR tech from an investment perspective wasn't affected dramatically day one, but over the months and the quarters we've seen a steady decline in investment. And Q3 just closed, we had the lowest number of funding rounds... Chad: Wow. Georgios Markikus: Since late 2018 and then lowest volume invested in the space. Now the question is what's been happening? And there's two things that have been happening. Number one, VCs, yes, they have been more diligent about who they invest in, but the interesting thing is that companies themselves have also not been coming to market as much. Why? Because over the last 18 months, they realized that they need to get to profitability. They've been reading the same headlines. They know that funding will be hard to get, debt financing is getting more expensive, so everybody has been coming leaner, right? Everybody has been focusing on cutting costs. Chad: Which is a good thing, right? Georgios Markikus: Yes and no. Chad: Okay. Georgios Markikus: Why? Good thing because everyone's been extending the runway, right? But what's happening to growth? You cannot be cutting costs and not affect your growth. So I think next year we'll be looking back to 2023 and 2023 will be a slow year for a lot of folks because they've been cutting costs. Chad: Sure, sure. Georgios Markikus: Alright, so it's interesting. Pros and cons to cutting costs. Joel: What are we going to see in terms of, you mentioned the unicorns, I assume there are down rounds happening or will be, valuations are going to plummet. What's going to happen to these unicorns that we talked about between 2020 and 2022 or three? Georgios Markikus: Yeah, interesting. Joel: You're choosing your words carefully. Georgios Markikus: Yeah 'cause last year, there was some panic raising where valuations took a hit. This year, the panic has subsided. So we're not seeing panic investing anymore or distress investing. So I think for the unicorns, probably they'll do okay because investors will bet that they will be winners ultimately. So I think they'll do okay. Chad: Plus they already have investment in it, and they don't want to lose that investment if it dies. Georgios Markikus: Exactly. So they'll double down. Chad: Yeah. Georgios Markikus: Exactly. Now the people who hurt probably are the ones who are maybe in the middle. They've raised funding, probably high valuations, but they haven't quite hit their metrics. Now they're forced to cut costs. They'll see growth slow down and they will be impacted. I think the unicorns will probably do okay. Joel: My sense is that the most successful ones are chomping at the bit to go shopping. My sense is there's a clearance rack of companies that are ready to be bought, which I'm guessing is your wheelhouse. Talk about that. Georgios Markikus: Yeah, so M&A, interesting. Different story for M&A. M&A volumes have remained very constant for the last couple of years. So we didn't see the slowdown that we've seen in investment. We haven't seen that in M&A. Very consistent volumes. And the other interesting thing that happened this year versus last year, valuations picked up quite a bit. Chad: Really? Georgios Markikus: Yeah. Yeah. So last year, we saw a big contraction, 2022, about 40% to 50%. This year... Chad: Wow, that was huge. Georgios Markikus: Well, still in line with public markets. Public markets collapsed by 50%. Workday, from 12 times to six times. But this year... Joel: Don't get me started on ZipRecruiter. Don't even get me started. Georgios Markikus: They got hit badly, yeah. Chad: Yes, they did. Georgios Markikus: By the way, they're not the only ones. Everybody in recruitment got hit. But this year, something interesting again has been happening. Valuations have been going up. Why? For two reasons. Firstly, companies haven't been forced to go to market anymore because they extended their runway, they cut costs, so there's been fewer distressed sales. For the companies that have been forced to come to market this year, the multiples were low, low single digits, really low multiples. But the companies that have been coming to market are the ones that choose to come to market and their KPIs are very strong. On the other hand, you have private equity with loads of cash that they haven't been able to deploy for a couple, you know, for at least one to two years. Keen to do good deals. So for the right assets with the right KPIs, these guys pay really, really high multiples. Chad: So it's a thinner market, but it's more healthy? Georgios Markikus: Yeah. Yeah. Chad: Right? Okay. Which is not a bad thing overall. I mean getting ideas on the market's one thing but there are a shit ton of bad ideas that are out there that actually make it to the market. We see them and you see them all the time. Yes. Georgios Markikus: We've seen them. Yeah we see them all the time. So yeah, but it's very interesting because I mean it was IntelliHR that was acquired earlier this year and that played out in public. It was a publicly listed company. It started out, initial bid for that company started at four times revenue, right? Which is relatively low. There was a bidding war and the final price was north of, I think, 11 or 12 times. So the starting price versus the final price shows you that for the right asset, buyers are willing to, and we've seen this in other situations as well, for the right assets, buyers are willing to pay a lot. Chad: What are those assets? I mean, it's not just technology, right? What are those assets? Georgios Markikus: Great question. We get asked this. So what is a good, what makes an asset in demand? Well, a couple things. First of all, the KPIs need to be good, right? Growth needs to be good. Profitability is very important these days, much more than a few years ago. Rule authority, you keep hearing about that much more today than a couple years ago. But also, you need to be differentiated. You cannot be another commodity asset that's undifferentiated, that does what others are doing. So you need to be a bit, you have your own moat and your own competitive kind of advantage and those assets attract a lot of attention. If you're just another, ATS for example is an example of a very competitive, very commoditized market. Those probably struggle to get really high multiples, but some others can do really well. Joel: So I'm hearing a little bit of optimism, but a little bit of skepticism. We've been waiting for the IPO markets to sort of break for over a year now. What's your take on that? We have a Personio that just raised, it's coming to America, it's talking about an IPO. There are companies here at the show that have been talking about IPO, ISEMS, Greenhouse, et cetera. Chad: Kinda backed out. Joel: What's your take on the IPO market? Is that going to break open in '24 or not? Georgios Markikus: In '24 possibly. We had some attempts by ARM and others to float this year. Joel: BIRKENSTOCK was huge. Chad: Instacart. Georgios Markikus: So, probably some false starts, but I think maybe, hopefully, '24. Remember with the stock markets, they move before the real economy reflects the upturn. So hopefully, by next year, the effect of all the interest rates and everything will have played out and we will start to see the central banks returning to focusing on growth as opposed to shrinking the economy, so if that happens as soon as that happens the markets will open up before we actually see this play out and then IPOs will resume. Joel: Is anyone in this space that you're like I'm really rooting for them because we haven't had a good publicly traded company in my lifetime. Is that going to change? Georgios Markikus: Look, I mean we have some great companies that, you know, from Personio, I think UKG probably is going to want to IPO at some point relatively soon. So I think we have some really good former startups who became unicorns who eventually, hopefully will come to market. And if those do well, then I think it's going to be a very strong signal for everybody in this space. So I think everyone would be rooting for some good IPOs in the sector to be successful. Chad: So we're at Unleash. It is busy as hell. Joel: Buzzing. Chad: There are just as many startups as there was back when the sugar rush was on. So I mean, this to me seems incredibly positive. Do you think that this is a false positive? Or do you think that we're still moving in the right direction? Georgios Markikus: No, no, I think we're moving in the right direction as things are changing, right? So a few years ago we had, well, we at Venera called the period of rapid innovation. So you had a lot of companies pop up that were addressing point solutions and very specific problems and those have started to consolidate. I think now the companies that you see here probably are more nuanced. I think they probably tackle problems that are real and they probably do that in a more differentiated way. I think you start to see the non-differentiated copycats probably fade away gradually. We had a lot of those in recent years. So I think the ones that are now surviving and certainly the ones that are spending the time and effort and money to exhibit are probably ones that think, look, we have something here. Joel: So one of your more recent deals was Fountain acquiring Clevy. I'm curious with the AI revolution, everyone's talking ChatGPT here, what kind of deals are you seeing percolating from your point of view? What's hot, what's being acquired, what's being shopped for? Georgios Markikus: Yeah, so AI was very hyped, but that's not necessarily a driver for M&A today. It helps, right? But it's not that someone is looking specifically for it. I mean, there are a couple vendors, or even some big names, I'm not going to name names, but some big guys who want to acquire. Joel: Georgios never names names, everybody. Chad: Not on the mic at least. Joel: Yeah, not on the mic. Georgios Markikus: But largely speaking, AI is a feature that a lot of companies promote as having, but that's not necessarily the driver for M&A. What is a driver is what I mentioned earlier, offering a product that targets a very specific pain point, a niche solution that, when I say niche, it's something that the big vendors will not spend the time and money to build it out. Chad: So they'll acquire it. Georgios Markikus: They will acquire it, right? The workforce management is very hot these days. Health and safety and security compliance, those areas are very much in demand. Interestingly, multi-country payroll is also... Chad: Oh, hell, I bet. Yeah. Georgios Markikus: Making a comeback behind the scenes. Some companies... Some vendors have released their own features, but also from an M&A perspective, there's things happening there. Chad: Seeing big growth in EOR too, right? I mean, there's huge growth in EOR. Georgios Markikus: And those guys are looking to make bolt-on acquisitions that complement their offering. They want to have more things that they can upsell to their customers. Learning is big, combined with skills, upskilling, reskilling. So yeah... Joel: It's not just the sizzle and the steak sometimes it's the side of Fritts everybody. [laughter] Georgios Markikus: There you go. Joel: Georgios Markikus everybody. Georgios, for those that want to learn more about your company or connect with you where would you send them? Georgios Markikus: Website venerocapitaladvisors.com or you can find us on LinkedIn. Joel: Always a pleasure. Chad that's another one in the can, time for another cappuccino. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

If rubbernecking pertained to podcasts, this one might be at the top of the list. It's just one car crash after another, and you'll find it hard to look away as you figuratively drive by. Whether it's Stepstone stepping in it, again, or Xing thinking the job board business is a good pivot from its failed attempt at taking on LinkedIn, we have you covered. Appetite for destruction not quenched? Then how about an all-Sell round of Buy-or-Sell, that'll have you in stitches. In fact, it got so bad, it turned into a commercial for one of House of HR's businesses. Gotta love Lieven for always talking us off the ledge. Call your therapist, or grab a beer, at least, and tune in now. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. [music] 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. [music] Joel Cheesman: Oh, yeah, just three guys waiting around for next year's October Fest. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. I'm your co-host, Joel Bonaparte Cheesman. Chad Sowash: This is Chad Marble Arch Sowash. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: And today I'm just Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: And on this episode, Stepstone goes moonwalking, XING goes job boarding and a little buy or sell. Let's do this. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: What's up, gents? Chad Sowash: Where has Lieven been? Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Busy. Is busy a place? Joel Cheesman: I love it. He's happy hour in Belgium. He's got the Belgian beer. He's looking laidback. He's in the all-black Euro uniform. I love it. [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: It's navy blue. It's not black. Navy blue. Joel Cheesman: It's midnight. It's midnight is what it is. Chad Sowash: He's gone full-Lieven on us. [laughter] Intro: He's gone full-Lieven on us. [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: I know my camera died and that's probably... Well, never mind. But the sound's still okay, so that's important. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Oh my God. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Let's hit the shoutouts... SFX: Shoutout. [overlapping conversation] Chad Sowash: Let's hit the shoutouts. My first shoutout foes to competition. That's right. Lisbon-based Aptoide, an alternative Android app store, announced on Thursday that it has secured €8.5 million in a funding round from Digital Turbine. Aptoide aims to expand its presence in the US markets. [music] Chad Sowash: When you allow competition to flourish, you get better products unlike Apple. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Android's so bad it has to have some competition. [laughter] That's what's going on with that, my friend. That's what's going on. Alright, so my shoutout, can I interest either of you two in a $12,000 bottle of Scotch? SFX Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is, "If it's no Scottish, it's crap!" Chad Sowash: If you're buying. Joel Cheesman: Alright. So news this week, a hidden stash of scotch whiskey discovered in a 13th century Scottish castle dating back to 1833... Chad Sowash: Wow. Joel Cheesman: Is set to be auctioned. The two dozen bottles of the historic scotch will be available for bidding between November 24th and December 4th and are expected to fetch around $12,000 each. While it's not confirmed where the whiskey was distilled or if it's even a single malt, it's preservation in a dark, cool cellar environment over the past two centuries has kept it in good condition. The exact number of bottles has not been disclosed, but it needs to be above 80 proof to be legally labeled as scotch. Despite the tasting notes, the allure of this 200-year-old scotch lies in its historical significance, making it a must-have for whiskey enthusiasts. Chad Sowash: Must-have. Joel Cheesman: Let's go in on a few bottles, boys. Let's go in on a few bottles. Chad Sowash: Yeah, you get the first one. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: You should see the pictures of these things. It's like the cobweb, it looks like motor oil in the bottle. Yeah, it's gotta be good. It's gotta be good stuff. SFX: Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is, "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!" Joel Cheesman: Alright, Lieven, man in the dark, what you got? Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Okay. My shoutout goes to Work ID and that's ID, like identity, not like a great idea, even though it's a great idea, by the way. It's a platform which was launched by Federgon and that's the National Staffing Agency. No, it's the Federation of the Belgian Staffing Industry, something like that. But basically, the whole idea is for once our competitors, we also have competitors, and House of HR work together to realize something we thought the government should have been doing for a long time, basically launching a platform where all those people who are actively looking for a job can put their information on and then they can decide who they want to share that information with. So it's not only personal information, but also like your driver's license, your identity card, all the stuff you need to send copies every time you apply. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: And now just... You own the data. You say, "I'm going to adopt this or that." And with one push on the button, you say, "I'm going to send this to House of HR. I'm going to send it to Adecco." Of course, not to Randstad, but maybe to Manpower or something like that. So the candidate is in charge and whenever you want to, you can make changes and you decide when to share what. And if you stop sharing, you can. You won't be bothered again by those agencies once you have a job. So it's a great idea and it will save people looking for a job lots of time. And for once, it was nice working with our competitors. [laughter] Chad Sowash: It's CV wallet for Belgium. [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Yeah. It's something like an easy apply, but launched by the staffing industry. That's cool. Chad Sowash: Oh yeah. But it houses all of, I mean literally, a person's information and it's theirs. They have it. So literally, it's like a CV wallet. Yeah. No, that's awesome. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: It's a CV wallet indeed. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: House of HR doing some housing. I love it. SFX: Alright, alright, alright. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Almost as good as Chad going to London... Chad Sowash: I was gonna say, I'm already in Europe, Jesus. Joel Cheesman: Next month. Yeah, I know you. Chad Sowash: Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman: Is London still Europe? Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Yeah. Chad Sowash: TAtech Europe, baby. December 4th through the 6th, Kirstie Kelly and I will be MC-ing the show. Alex Chukovski will be presenting his latest findings on Google for Jobs. Hung Lee will be performing a Brainfood Live session. And Adam Gordon, Matt, that British guy, Alder, the lovely Julie Sowash, Andre Wade, and a host of other smart people will be taking the stage. If you don't have tickets and you're already in London, for fuck's sake people, what are you waiting for? Go to chadcheese.com/events, register today. Joel Cheesman: Did someone say Hung Lee? SFX: What are you doing, Stepbro? [laughter] Joel Cheesman: This thing is going off the rails fast. That's fast. Let's... [music] Chad Sowash: Topics! Joel Cheesman: Alright. Germany-based job board operator, Stepstone is laying off approximately 215 employees, which amounts to about 5% of its 4,200 strong workforce. The company's CEO Sebastian Dettmers explained that the move is aimed at centralizing functions, optimizing operations and increasing overall efficiency. The affected areas and countries were not specified. Stepstone owned by Axel Springer generated about €1 billion in revenue in 2022 and the company operates in 30 countries under various brand names and is considering an initial public offering, or what the kids call IPO for Stepstone, pending market conditions, of course. Chad, times are tough for job boards. What are your thoughts on the layoffs at Stepstone? Chad Sowash: Yeah. I mean, on this week's show we talked about Indeed's latest market troubles. They're really a global force, right? Stepstone, not so much. I mean, they're mainly only prominent in Germany, correct me if I'm wrong. But Stepstone has more of a single prominence, which means the market lends itself to greater instability. This doesn't surprise me. Now, let's get into Sebastian's letter. In the letter that he sent to employees. CEO Sebastian Dettmers said many areas of the company had become "too complex and inefficient". Okay, my question is, who the fuck's fault is that? All that says to me is that during the time when it was good, Sebastian allowed the organization to become bloated. Chad Sowash: Now they're closing an entire office in Sweden and that's more than head count. So it's interesting. It doesn't surprise me, but it's just funny how they kinda like try to weave the narrative around inefficiencies. It's like, dude, you were the fucking CEO when all those inefficiencies were happening. So that means you mismanaged the organization and 215 people had to be let go. SFX?: 60% of the time, it works, every time. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: You mentioned, I think last week's podcast, and we talked about sort of a lot of job boards and industry players that released quarterly earnings and where things were going, and Indeed's parent company, Recruit Holdings said something very interesting. They said one of the reasons for the down earnings was, "evolving labor market". I talked about the four horsemen of the apocalypse for job sites and I think it goes for Stepstone as well. And those four apocalypse horsemen are, one, Google and LinkedIn. LinkedIn I think is right behind Stepstone in terms of market share in Germany. Google, obviously, we've seen it's a race to the bottom. Google's gonna commoditize job postings. And Google for Jobs isn't quite what it is in Europe than it is in America, but it is a sign of things to come for Europe. And I think Stepstone is at least seeing some of that. Joel Cheesman: I think automation is the second horseman. We're seeing obviously robots, whether it be software or actual robots taking jobs. And companies are certainly skeptical about what the workforce will look like in the future. Europe is no exception. AI, I mentioned interview with Elon Musk talking about a future where there are actually no jobs whatsoever. You gotta start taking some of that rhetoric into consideration. And the fourth one is the gig economy in Europe, we've talked maybe even more than we have in America in terms of a very diverse set of solutions that people can make money in the gig economy. All that spells insecurity, instability for job boards. And I think that we're seeing that with Stepstone. Now, the good news for them, they own a little thing called Appcast, which is arguably part of the future programmatic advertising. Joel Cheesman: They current... They recently bought Bayard Advertising, creating AppcastOne. So to me, the better play for Stepstone, particularly if they're going public, is in the Appcast brand, not the Stepstone brand. I doubt they'll do that. But in terms of a global brand, Appcast has a better shot at making waves than Stepstone. So the IPO will be very interesting what market they go on. Is it the German market? Do they go for the American market? Those are obviously different questions. But look, times are tough for job boards. They're not gonna get any easier based on the four horsemen that I outlined. Stepstone is not immune from what's going on and they're gonna have layoffs. I doubt this is the only one. This is only 5% of their workforce. I think more is coming. More pain is coming for Stepstone employees. Chad Sowash: Pain. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Pain. Maybe they're going to automate the firing procedure to make it more efficient in the coming years. Chad Sowash: Sure. Sounds German. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: They could sell it. They could sell it as a solution. Tell their customers. Chad Sowash: We've seen Appcast do incredible things in the US, but penetration isn't the greatest in Europe and the rest of the world. What do you think the long term is for that? Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Now you're going to start promoting Appcast just when I signed with... I didn't actually sign, but I made an agreement with VONQ to work with them. And now suddenly it's all Appcast. No, no, no, we're going to work with VONQ. Joel Cheesman: Well, no, Appcast just happens to be connected to Stepstone. There are other programmatic solutions. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: I know, I know, I know. First, got back to Stepstone. When I read the whole article, I taught for the first time in years, Stepstone is actually helping to solve our structural employee scarcity by putting their own people on the market, which is really nice of them. [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: I can imagine cost-cutting is something they really needed and that's what they do right now and it might save them some time, but they're heading the same way Monster went. And... Chad Sowash: Yes. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: You can buy some time by cutting those costs, but if you just... They're going to buy or they're going to invest in AI, they said. So they have an outdated business model. What are they going to do? Are they going to install a vacancy writer? Are they going to use some kind of a GPT-based matching engine? The same system will still be outdated. I mean, they have a job board when Indeed and Google for Jobs are playing. They just have a credit-based system which was pretty neat 20 years ago. So I don't think Stepstone has... The model they have right now, they will be able to save it, I don't think so. But as you say with Appcast, maybe if they're going that way, they might. But then like you said, firing only 5% of the people is just the beginning, I fear. They'll need a totally different team to do something like that. Joel Cheesman: And oddly, we have two Europeans on the show and only one American. You guys... We hear a lot over here about the German economy that they're in recession, that times aren't great in Germany. Can you guys speak to... So what you're seeing in Europe in regards to the German economy? Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: They're having hard a time since they are the biggest economy in Europe. So for example, for Belgium, it's a problem because they used to export a lot to Germany. And if things are going to slow down in Germany, the Belgians will feel it also. So it's a chain reaction. Also, Germany is having big problems with their cars and they're a major car manufacturer. The big luxury brands are German. They still are. Tesla, for example, is hurting them big time. And the fun part is they even opened a big factory in Germany. So Tesla is now a German manufacturer, but I don't think Mercedes and BMW liked it. So our German economy is going down and I think it will last very... I mean, a recession normally takes 12-18 months to recover. So we need 12-18 months to recover from a... I'm not sure if we see anything getting better real soon, maybe summer next year, something like that. But what is it now? 5% decrease, something like that. It's not the biggest recession, but it's one. Joel Cheesman: So I'm guessing that if they go IPO, none of us will be buying shares in Stepstone. [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: No. Chad Sowash: Yeah. There's no way in hell. I mean, they bought some halfways decent tech. Obviously, they bought Appcast. But there's also Mya systems, right? It's almost like they're not creating products to be able to address what the market needs, to be able to get individuals engaged, candidates engaged better. 'Cause right now you need to be able to get the candidates engaged on the top of the funnel so that you can find out if they're actually fricking qualified for the jobs that they're applying for. Right? I mean, I just think there's some great services they could put in place to be able to really increase their value quotient. And I mean, that's the big key that we just saw from the AIM group that Indeed has overtaken Stepstone and overall traffic. So, this is not just a downward trend, I think for them, that they can easily come back from. It's gonna be hard. But they've got a lot of firepower. The question is, can they use it? I just don't know if they know how to use the weapons they have. Joel Cheesman: I think Lieven made a great point is they're Monster 2.0. And unless they make some of these big bets, they're gonna go down the same road that Monster has in Europe and elsewhere that they do business. So to me, that was very prescient that he said that. So Mya, that was... I fricking forgot that they acquired Mya. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: And this is what we do. They haven't done jack as far as I can tell with that technology. And I don't even think that AppcastOne has integrated Mya technology. 'Cause it's a perfect funnel to say like, "We'll get the jobs posted. We'll put people in the funnel. We'll pre-screen them with conversational AI." That makes sense to me. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: And maybe it will eventually happen, but it seems really disparate right now. Chad Sowash: They pushed it off to Total Jobs in the UK. I mean, it's... Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Chad Sowash: It's just really weird. They've got all of these... They've got some pretty damn good weapons that it just seems like they don't know how to use them. Joel Cheesman: We'll be right back. Alright guys, second verse, same as the first, almost. Sticking with Germany, XING, the Hamburg-based professional social network recently announced a pivot to a job board model. The revamped homepage allows users to search for job offerings using various filters and settings while integrated anonymized Kununu employee reviews provide insights into companies. Passive job seekers with complete profiles can be found and contacted by 20,000 recruiters and active members with regularly updated profiles can apply to positions using an integrated CV generator. Currently, XING has approximately 22 million users and 1.4 million job ads. Both XING and Kununu are owned by New Work SE, a publicly-traded company in Germany. Chad, your thoughts on the XING news? And that's XING with an X for everyone in the US. Chad Sowash: Who the fuck thought this was a good idea? I mean, Indeed switched from a job search engine into a job board and Recruit Holdings recently reported that Indeed's job posting revenues were down by what? 50%? Wasn't it 50% [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Chad Sowash: So why in the hell would XING switch from a LinkedIn-like social media platform into a job board? I mean, LinkedIn has a job board component within the actual platform, so to me, this defies all fucking logic. Linkedin is a professional social network, which means it's more of a lifestyle platform, while job boards like XING is now are only used when you're looking for a job. FX?: That escalated quickly. Chad Sowash: You've officially lessened the need for me to use your platform on a daily basis, which dramatically lessens the products and services that XING can advertise or even develop and sell to the market. So who is making these fucking decisions? [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: They had to do something, so why not that? [laughter] Chad Sowash: Yeah. Let's just go ahead and constrain the revenue opportunities that we have. Joel Cheesman: I mean, they should have just become a dating site if it was like you had to do something. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: With webcam models. That's an idea. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: I gotta... I'm gonna go. This is a deep cut by me and if... Chad Sowash: Oh my God. Joel Cheesman: And if you're new to the industry, just fast-forward a little bit. But the deep cut here is Jobster's Jason Goldberg, I don't even know if you know this, Chad, so after Jobster, he created a company called Social Median. It was kind of a dig-ish bookmark social thing. Chad Sowash: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman: XING bought it... Chad Sowash: Oh, Jesus. Joel Cheesman: In 2008. Chad Sowash: Oh, suckers. Joel Cheesman: And Jason Goldberg was the Chief Product Officer at XING for the year of 2008. He sold his company to XING for $7.5 million. Anyway, that's my deep cut on XING. Chad Sowash: Wow! Joel Cheesman: I don't know when we'll talk about him... Chad Sowash: Good one. Good one. Joel Cheesman: Again. So they were founded in 2003, basically when LinkedIn was founded. They were LinkedIn alternative to Europe. I think they wanted to be the LinkedIn of Europe. Of course, LinkedIn became the LinkedIn of Europe and social media... And XING became this sort of like, "What the hell are we?" They've had job postings I think for a long time. So it's like, "If we can't compete with LinkedIn, we might as well have job postings." But I think they're fourth behind Indeed, Stepstone, LinkedIn, some of those that we talk about, in Europe. Joel Cheesman: So they're like sort of middle of the pack for job postings. This is a Hail Mary, basically. I mean, they're a publicly traded company. The stock year-to-date is down 50%. So shareholders are like, "You guys better do fucking something or the stock's going to zero." So it's like, "What's the shortest bridge for us to start making some money? Well, job postings. We have people here. We have some people that have posted jobs. Let's just be a job board and roll with it." But this is a Hail Mary. This is a stinker. This is hot garbage. This is going nowhere. Chad Sowash: Yes. Joel Cheesman: This is just a big, big pile of shit. This thing's been around since 2003. It's a zombie company. They're gonna squeeze it for as much profit as they can, hopefully sell it at some point for some sort of profit. But this is, yeah, clearance rack at TJ Maxx type stuff. XING is going nowhere, baby. Close it up. Last person out, turn off the lights at XING. Bring back Jason Goldberg. That's a better strategy. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Oh God, don't do that. Jesus. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: I mean, LinkedIn recently announced they have one billion users right now. I think one or two weeks ago, they said at one billion. And even my German colleagues which are pretty conservative, even they don't use XING anymore. They also made the switch to LinkedIn. So Germany was like the last stronghold for XING and they held on pretty long. But there was one other site in Germany, not XING... Oh, sorry. In Poland. And I keep forgetting the name because it's kind of complicated if you don't speak Polish to remember. They never really were into LinkedIn as well and I think they also surrendered now. So it's a lost cause. But you said they're trying to make some money out of it or maybe try to sell it, but who would buy it? I mean, if you buy something like that, you must at least have something to do with the recruitment business. And if you have something to do with recruitment business, you won't buy it. Joel Cheesman: Have Rica walk in with her platinum card and just buy the thing and just throw House of HR jobs on or something. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: She has... SFX: Winning. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: She has a policy about buying... Joel Cheesman: Garbage? [laughter] Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: The best in class. So she would be buying LinkedIn, I think. Joel Cheesman: Oh my God. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman: If they're not a stronghold in Germany, it's over. Chad Sowash: Now. Joel Cheesman: At least be a German LinkedIn and be really good at German stuff. Chad Sowash: In the press release, they're talking it up. They're saying that, "Hey look, this is gonna be great... " Joel Cheesman: Oh yeah. Chad Sowash: "Because we've got 22... " Was it 22 million users? "We have 22 million users that we are literally going to fucking bombard with staffing companies." Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: They'll be happy. Chad Sowash: They're gonna lose. They're gonna lose their subscribers left and right. They're already not using the platform. Now they're going to go into the platform. So you're gonna start to see their usage go up. It's only so that they can delete their shit and get the hell out. Joel Cheesman: So moving on from the Dumb and Dumber portion of the show. Let's go to our Buy or Sell portion of the show. You know how it works, guys. We talk about three companies, startups that have recently gotten funding. I'll read a summary and each of us buys or sells that company. Are you ready to play Buy or Sell? First up, we have Empion. The Berlin-based company has raised €6 million in a seed funding round. They offer an automated headhunting solution using AI and cultural matching to connect talent with companies based on skills and cultural fit. The company previously raised €2.4 million in a pre-seed round. It has clients like Personio in their portfolio. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Empion? Chad Sowash: So €2.4 million in a pre-seed round, and then you get €6 million in a seed round? That's pretty legit cash and that's impressive. I'm really interested in the large language models and how we start to use large language models, but when I saw they were using matching for skills and, wait for it, culture fit, it just smells like there's too much bias in the air in this machine. So it's a sell for me. You drop the bias and I might be a buy next time, but cultural fit, a match for... Are you fucking kidding me? No. Joel Cheesman: Oh, that's a sell for Empion. Okay. So a little side note, the founders look like they belong in your favorite new indie band and not like running a startup. And literally guys, the company page, everyone is in a black shirt. It's like Sprockets on steroids, this company. But that's... Chad Sowash: They've all gone Lieven. Joel Cheesman: That's a side note for... Yeah, it's like very... It's so German, it's ridiculous. It's like, "Everybody, put on the black shirts and grease back the hair and whatever." So anyway... But they have PhDs. They're... I'm sure they're incredibly intelligent. I kid a little bit, but yeah, they look like your favorite indie band, not your favorite startup. So they're in this no man's land of they wanna be sort of scientific and technical and they wanna be kind of job board-y. And when you go to the site, that's what it feels like. But then they want you to fill out a test. So it's not search for a job. It's like take the test. Well, there's nothing I love more than taking a test when I go to a website, right? Let's see, TikTok, bug fights, or take a test on this site that I've never heard of. So unless they're gonna drop all these millions on, I don't know, I guess, Bundesliga advertising in Germany or whatever, however it's pronounced... Chad Sowash: Bundesliga, yes. Joel Cheesman: I don't see much of an opportunity to get into customers or candidates. It doesn't seem like a software that you can plug into an ATS or integrate it into something that people are using to apply. So for me, it's just like in this no man's land of expecting job seekers to do this lengthy test, but we're not quite a SaaS business. So for me, I'm very confused. Although I wanna listen to some indie music when I go to the site. For me, it also... It's gotta be a sell for me. But I'd love to have the founders on Firing Squad if they're out there listening. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: I wanted to look into their pricing structure. So I went to the site and I saw they had some kind of a chatbot. And in these large language model times, I love chatbots, so I gave them a chance. And I couldn't actually type anything. I had to make a choice first. "What is your question about?" And I had four options. So I found pricing questions. Okay, made sense. I clicked pricing questions. And then it said, okay, another drop down menu, "How many employees do you have?" So I chose over 2,000. And then I immediately got an answer, "Great. I will connect you with one of our sales specialists. What is your email?" And then I gave up. I mean, they claim to have AI and they have a chatbot which just asked my email when I want to know what the pricing structure is. So no, if this is the way they work, then definitely sell. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Chad Sowash: That feels like this entire episode thus far, Joel. Joel Cheesman: Yeah, that's three sells. Dumb and Dumber and one sell. Let's see if the show gets any better. Alright, let's go to our next contestant, Netherlands-based Swipe4Work. And that's the number four in Swipe4Work, guys. They've secured €400,000 in funding. They plan to use the funds to enhance its product, integrate AI applications and expand the platform all across the Netherlands. The app, which connects employees and employers based on skills, personality and interests, eliminates the need for CVs and traditional cover letters. They claim around 10,000 downloads and aim to cover the entire country in the future. And here's the kicker, guys. They're looking to introduce visual elements in job listings such as company videos. Wooh! Chad, are you a buy or sell on Swipe, the number four, and Work? Chad Sowash: I agree with, I think the name is Niek Huizenga, the investment manager at G-Force who says, "In these times of staff shortages, the traditional job platforms are simply not good enough." And I totally agree. But downloading an app for job search is just fucking stupid. Job search isn't a lifestyle activity. I don't do it every day. I don't need it on my phone. Unless you make it more sticky, you make a part of the process, that's great, but I have to download an app to use this thing. It's a sell. SFX: Boo! Joel Cheesman: So I've met quite a few Dutch folk in doing this show, Chad, and they always strike me as some of the most sort of thoughtful, intelligent, polite people that I've met. They're kind of like the Canadian of... The Canada of Germany. They're kind of a nicer, humbler... Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Dutch people? I think you're getting them mixed up with Belgian people. Joel Cheesman: I'm trying to be nice before I kill the guy. But they're thoughtful people, from what I've experienced. Can we agree on that, Lieven, or no? Lieven borders the Netherlands and they've probably been at war for a thousand years. So they don't necessarily like each other. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Flemish people are like the polite, introvert version of Dutch people. Dutch people aren't polite. You can say a lot of Dutch people, but they're not polite. They're very, how do you say it, noisy, very noisy, always when they enter a room, everyone will have seen they entered. No, they're not polite. But I love them. I love Dutch people, but... We have plenty of Dutch colleagues. Joel Cheesman: Alright. Enough with the Netherlands commentary. Let's get to the company. Alright. The name sucks. Dude, any name that has like a number in it sucks. Anything that's associated with swipe is dating now. So if you try to throw that into a work site, forget about it. I gotta download some shit to get to this. That's so 2010. Come on. Innovation is now videos in job postings? Come on, man. I know Europe's behind the times, but that's innovation? I just... SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel Cheesman: Granted, they've only gotten €400,000. So it's a small bet at this point. There may be a feature somewhere down the line. Chad Sowash: They can fail fast. Joel Cheesman: Yeah, they can fail fast and go drink some Heineken and hang out on the waterfront. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: But this is a sell for me as well. Lieven? Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: No, they can't go back to being noisy. No, no, no, no. No, it's a sell for me as well. I'm not going to talk about it. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: He's not talking about it. That means crickets. That means a big sell rating, everybody. Alright, let's get to the last company in this train wreck of a podcast. Joel: Slinger. Joel Cheesman: UK-based Slinger is your favorite new heavy metal band. No, it's a startup in our space. They raised £500,000 in pre-seed funding. Slinger is a hospitality employment platform that aims to replace traditional CVs, where have we heard that before, with videos, where did we hear that before, and creatively written submissions. Job seekers are vetted in advance and shifts claimed on the platform are instantly secured. The funding round was led by Google for Startups Black Founders Fund, as well as some other Slinger plans to use the investment to expand the team and focus on mentorship, upskilling, interview preparation and work experience solutions. That's a mouthful. Chad, are you a mouthful on a buy or sell rating for Slinger? Chad Sowash: I'm gonna re-quote something that you said. "Slinger replaces outdated CVs with, with videos and creatively written submissions." In a world of better technology... Joel Cheesman: In a world... Chad Sowash: Verifications, simulations and automated processes, we don't need candidates for hospitality jobs to provide creatively written submissions. We need to ensure that people can actually do the goddamn job. So replacing a resume with a subjective and biased filled process is not the answer. This is a sell. Let's just get over it. This is a fucking sell. Joel Cheesman: So I wax poetic about the Dutch people I know. I won't go into the Brits that I've met... Chad Sowash: Thank God. Joel Cheesman: In the past five years or so. But I was expecting a little bit more than video integration in this stuff. I struggled with this one more than the other two because it does have the automated, the instant shifts. I like the diversity play. I like that Google got behind this company, which means there's something there. Again, it's a small bet. It's £500,000, which means Google's probably just got that in the couch cushions and they wanna throw it around to some businesses that fill their need, fill the prerequisites for them. This is a squirt gun in a gunfight. This is a big nothing burger. This is innovation dressed up as your favorite royal. I don't know. But this has been a real disappointing segment for Europe in Buy or Sell. I hope that you guys step it up in 2024 'cause this for me is the hat trick of sales for Slinger. Although I want a t-shirt and it better be like heavy metal-influenced. Lieven, save us from this disaster. Chad Sowash: Or a porn site. Joel Cheesman: They can sell Slinger domain to XING, and then XING can be a dating site called Slinger. There you go. I fixed everybody's problem. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: Their domain is Slingerstaff. That's the one, right? Slingerstaff.com. 'Cause I looked for Slinger and I found 150 sites, but not one of them was into recruitment. So I think I found them, Slingerstaff. SFX: Oops. Winning. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: You said something, Chad, I thought was interesting before about, you don't want something installed in your phone for a job because you hope you're not going to look very long for a job and then you won't need it anymore. So you don't need to install an app. And maybe it is the case with hospitality jobs because in many cases, it's something you do next to your real job. It's like helping out you on the weekends at a festival or something. Hospitality. And then an app might be nice to just find something to do during weekends, which is basically what NOWJOBS is doing and doing very well. So if you need an app for hospitality work, then you download NOWJOBS and you'll be very happy. There's no way you'll need Slingerstaff. [laughter] Chad Sowash: This turned into a commercial for NOWJOBS. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: This is a commercial for NOWJOBS without any shame. If you need something, you'll use NOWJOBS. You won't be using Slingerstaff, which makes it totally ridiculous for me to buy it. So I won't. I will sell. Joel Cheesman: Sell Slinger, buy NOWJOBS, everybody. [laughter] SFX: Alright, alright, alright. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: That's the whole idea. [music] Joel Cheesman: That is another episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. We out. Chad Sowash: We out. Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: We out. Outro: 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 shoutouts 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. So weird. Anywho, 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.

Can we interest you in voice-driven AI algorithms to offer personality insights for the candidates you're looking to hire? Your current crop of employees? A start-up called Koios is betting that you will. OK, so skills-based insights are all the rage right now, thanks to organizations like Plum, HiringBranch and others, but personality insights? The boys are skeptical, but welcome Tom Sherwood, co-founder and CEO at Koios on Firing Squad to find out what all this witchcraft is about. Does he leave unscathed? Abracadabra, Holmes! You gotta listen to find out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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: Oh yeah, it's your bartender's favorite podcast, everybody, aka the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined, as always, the crackers to my cheese, Chad Sowash is in the house. And this is Firing Squad. And we... Chad: You called me a cracker? Joel: Hey, hey, don't go there. Chad: You said it. Joel: We haven't even introduced the guest yet. Let's introduce Tom Sherwood. He's the co-founder and CEO of Koios. Tom, good day to you, sir. Tom Sherwood: Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me on. Joel: I love when the Brits are on 'cause, they get points for sounding smarter than us right out the gate. Chad: Which is easy. Joel: So, Tom, we go fast with Firing Squad. Let's get to you real quick. We'll talk about the company a second, but tell us about Tom. What makes you tick? Tom Sherwood: Yeah, so military veteran, five years in the artillery, and then joined the big bad world of recruitment that kind of opened my eyes to everything. But, yeah, what makes me tick? Sport, my family. I've got three young kids that keep me on my toes. I'm traveling this week, so I'm embracing eight hours of sleep a night. Joel: How do you have three kids? You're 15. How do you have three kids? Tom Sherwood: I am 35. Joel: I joke. I joke. Tom looks young, everybody. That's Tom. Tell Tom what he's wanting... Chad: Well, welcome, Tom, first and foremost. But this is how a Firing Squad is going to play out. At the sound of the bell, you're going to have two minutes to pitch, Koios. At the end of two minutes, we're going to hit you with about 20 minutes of Q&A. Be sure to be concise, or you might get hit with the crickets, which means tighten your game up. At the end of Q&A, you are going to receive one of these from both of us. Either big applause. Newton was hit by an apple. Chad: We predict that you're going to get hit by a huge bag of cash. Golf clap. You're no Einstein, but you just might be able to make this equation work. And last but never least, the Firing Squad. Even Bill Nye, the science guy, is turning his nose up at this stinker. Scrap it and try again. Are you ready for Firing Squad? Tom Sherwood: Let's do it. Joel: All right, Tom, your two minutes starts right now. Tom Sherwood: So, Koios is a psychometrics platform which has been built to remove the need for self-assessment in the world of psychometrics. We set out to change the candidate experience initially. So, previously, people would have experience where you have to complete a half an hour self-assessment. You answer some questions about whether you're the life and soul of the party, etcetera, etcetera. We set out to remove that. So, we leverage deep learning to predict personality based on the acoustic makeup of your voice. So, from just 90 seconds of free speech, we can build a completely personalized psychometric insight report on an individual. So, that could be used initially for your current workforce. Tom Sherwood: It's all hosted onto one platform where individuals, employees, managers, leaders, people leaders can all see the report. They can see how each other likes to collaborate, how each other likes to communicate. And we also just yesterday released Phoebe, which is our AI assistant. So, you can interact with Phoebe, have a chat with her about people's personalities. Tom Sherwood: So, for example, if you have an issue about someone's motivation in the workplace, as a manager, I think I can go onto your profile, Joel. Joel, and be like, got a meeting with Joel. He's underperforming. How do I best communicate this whilst keeping him motivated? And it will give you some actions about the best way to speak to you based on your psychometrics. And you can find out more details at getkoios.ai. Joel: Clearly, he wants a good score from me by telling me that I'm underperforming, Chad. That's not a good way to start. Chad: Everybody knows that, Cheesman. Tom Sherwood: I had to pick one of you. I was like, which one am I going to pick? Chad: Good call. Intro: All right. I always talk about the name. Yours is one of the worst ones, I think, that we've had on the show. So, Koios, did I say it right? Chad said Koios or something. Is it Koios? Tom Sherwood: Koios. So, Koios was the Greek titan of intelligence. Joel: Yeah, and his dad was Uranus or something, right? I researched that. So, anyway, that's good, Chad. That's good. All right. So, Koios, how do you spell it? Is it K-O-Y? Is it K-O-I-O-S? Like, I think there's some confusion in terms of a prospect or someone that wants to learn more about you. Koios.com is not owned by you. The URL that you've used is getkoios.ai. So, Koios.ai isn't even your URL. Like, not since gocanvas.io have we had a URL like this. So, help me understand and sell your name to me and the URL. Tom Sherwood: So, Koios is spelled K-O-I-O-S. It is symmetrical as well, so it's nice on the eye, according to branding experts. Chad: There's not another K on it, Tom. It's symmetrical if it would have another K. Okay? So, let's get beyond that. Carry on. Tom Sherwood: So, yeah, Koios.com obviously isn't owned by us. It's owned by a quite old-school software networking business. Koios.ai is owned by somebody, and we're in the process of looking to acquire that, because it's not being used. The certificates are out of date, so they bought it and haven't used it. So, we have getkoios.ai for the time being, and we are looking at getting the others. Joel: All right. It's not a great answer, but it is an answer. I'm going to go from sort of tough to I'm going to give you some credit here. You've got some rich experience in recruitment with some big brands. I'm going to drop Snap, Spotify, Apple. Joel: I think Korn Ferry is in there somewhere. Like you have some really rich experience with recruitment. So tell me about what you've learned in your experience that you can bring over to Koios that has helped build the company and the vision. Tom Sherwood: I think it's about really valuing the candidate experience. For far too long, internal teams and also as an industry, I think over the past kind of 10-15 years has changed significantly. It used to be all about the client and the candidate was just a commodity. Whereas actually the candidate experience is now at the forefront. And that was something that I learned when I was at Robert Half actually, not Korn Ferry. Joel: My bad. Tom Sherwood: When I first started there, it was about championing the candidate. The candidate is king the whole way throughout that. And I think that's something we learned to empathize as the candidate is kind of the customer. And they are the most important part of this. And if you're empowering the customer to have a great journey, and they're enjoying that, and as they onboard into a business, then they are going to be your future leaders. That's kind of what we're kind of using as a founding team. Alex, my co-founder, himself, he works in TA with McKinsey, etc. So we have a very similar perspective from that side. Chad: Okay, so you talk about... I'm gonna go back to the name real quick. When you guys were looking at Koios, obviously you, is it Koi? It's Koios. There it is. Joel: Koios, not Kayos. Chad: Koios, like the fish. Tom Sherwood: Like the carp. Joel: Very chaotic. Tom Sherwood: Like the carp. Chad: Koios, okay. Tom Sherwood: Yeah. Chad: So when you were doing the research on this, obviously, you wanted something strong, like Greek God. But one thing, how much research did you perform on how many companies are actually named Koios today? Tom Sherwood: Yeah, we looked into it. Yeah. The actual name isn't trademarked. There are a few companies trying to use it. I mean, to be transparent, we actually were originally called, before we came out of Stealth, we were called Culture Labs. And so it was a very, very kind of different business. Chad: Wait, two words I can spell. Wait, two words I can spell. Okay, carry on. Tom Sherwood: So we were originally called Culture Labs. And when we were speaking to our investors. Joel: And they were dot-com too, Chad. They were dot-com too. Anyway, go on. Tom Sherwood: It's 2023. Come on, guys. [laughter] Joel: It's HR. Come on, Tom. Tom Sherwood: We are changing the industry. We are trying to bring them into the 21st century. Joel: Carry on. Chad: Ooh, okay. So just so that you know, there are 13 companies just in Florida alone named Koios. Okay. Tom Sherwood: Yeah. Chad: So it's very popular, but you're not looking for popular. You're looking at trying to get discovered. Now back to your... Joel: Definitely a Google issue, Chad. If you just search Koios, they are not anywhere. Chad: Oh, God. It's worse than that. Joel: Yeah. Okay. Chad: And they had the dot-com. God, I didn't know that. I wish you wouldn't have said that. I'm about to explode right now. So you were in recruiting, which I think is amazing. So it gives that really great experience. But you weren't in psychometric testing. So why didn't you go more toward efficiencies, automation, those types of things that are incredibly cool? You talked about Phoebe, the assistant. Why didn't you go toward that versus psychometric testing? Do you have a background in psychometric testing? Why was this something that you thought you had to do? Tom Sherwood: I've always found psychology and behavioral psychology fascinating, whether that be in sport, whether that be in high performance business culture, whether that be in a military world. I've always found psychology fascinating from that perspective. And initially we actually set out to do it. It was to do with processes and automation. It was when I was at Spotify, they use testing for their hiring. And they were often taking candidates anything from half an hour to 45 minutes to do these tests. So there was a huge appetite for this information and there was clear value in it. Tom Sherwood: But the process itself was terrible, which was what we tried to solve initially, which was removing the need for self-assessment, which then evolved into what we're doing today. So we very much believe that talent isn't acquisition. It's not development. It's not management. It's actually that whole journey combined. So even though as of today, we are doing psychometrics for the current workplace. Our talent product is coming in the new year. And we very much see it from the first interaction that that individual has with a business, obviously the acquisition channel. And as they join a business into the talent development and into talent management. And we see that as a full journey that is potentially giving the best psychometrics. Chad: So all I've heard thus far is the real problem is time. Tom Sherwood: Yeah. Chad: Right? Because it takes so much time to complete this. So is that the only problem you're trying to solve for? You're using voice, which I thought is incredibly interesting. And we'll get into that. But do you think is time really the only thing that you're trying to solve for? Tom Sherwood: It's time, cost. Traditional assessments cost a lot of money. Chad: So you're cheaper. Tom Sherwood: Whereas ours are cheaper. And what that leads to is the democratization of access. So whereas previously, if you were to go and do a Hogan assessment or a Myers-Briggs or any kind of assessment such as that, you would go and spend a lot of time, spend a lot of money. And because it was expensive. L&D budgets or coaching budgets were often kept for managers and leaders. And we understood that the value of psychometrics is across the whole organization. If anything, the more junior members of staff, the intern, the graduates have a huge appetite for learning. Whereas if you're a C-suite and you've been doing it for 35 years, you kind of know yourself already. So actually the value in democratizing the information all the way down to the newest members of staff was what we were trying to do. So by reducing the cost, a company can have the whole organization complete their psychometrics and empower everybody to understand themselves. So it is time, but it's also democratization of this information as well. Joel: Well, time is money, Tom. And you guys recently raised about $550K in pre-seed money. You guys are not even out of diapers yet. You launched the company very recently from what I understand. What are you going to do with the pre-seed money? When is the seed round coming? And what are you kind of looking for? What's the growth plan in this? Talk about the money. Tom Sherwood: Yeah, I mean, cash is king, right? I suppose from a fundraising perspective, this round that we've just done has been very much focusing on taking our MVP to market. So we've released our beta. We're working with a couple of customers at the moment about rolling that out, developing Phoebe. Yeah, Phoebe was the first version that came out yesterday. So kind of getting that to market and essentially learning the sales journey, but also the utilization of the product within a business. So as we start to learn from our customers about how they're deploying it, we can then have a product-led growth as we go into kind of formal launch next year with the talent product, with the ambition to raise seed in Q1 next year. Joel: Okay. Walk me through the product. By the way, you said beta, which is beta for our American listeners. [laughter] Joel: Just so you know. Walk me through the product for Phoebe for example, if I'm the candidate, am I speaking through the microphone in my computer? Am I talking to Phoebe? Is she talking back to me? And then you're analyzing my voice. Walk me through how the product works from a candidate's perspective. Tom Sherwood: Of course. So essentially what will happen is so what I'll use the example of the current workforce because they're the people who are using it. So an employee will get invited to the platform. They'll receive an email from their head of people or their line manager. They go onto the platform and they log in, they create an account to put their details in and then they give it a prompt. So you can either record directly into the product. So, or you click through and you can record into it. And we need anything from 90 seconds of speech. We give a couple of prompts about what to talk about, just to give some people some direction. And/or if you want to upload something that you've prerecorded. So whether you want do it in a meeting room or you want do it on your walk home from work, you can then upload an audio file or for accessibility reasons. Tom Sherwood: So for example, if someone has to speech impediment or they're not comfortable doing speech, we also offer self-assessment as well. If they'd like to, but obviously self-assessment takes 10, 15 minutes. When they go on it, they then click through in the recording, they speak for two minutes. We ask them to speak about their career, what they like to do, what their ambitions are. We then take that data file and we run it through our AI. We then also extract the transcript from what they've spoken about and provide a personality report, which then personalized based on what they spoke about as well. So whereas previously most reports would be, you're an introvert or an extrovert, and here's your file. What we do is we actually take what the person has spoken about and we'll reference that in their report. So for example, if it comes back that I'm highly agreeable, it'll reference something that I spoke about as to why that's an indicator of me being highly agreeable. Joel: So it's not a skills assessment, it's more of a culture or behavior or demeanor assessment. You're not telling me I'm good at programming. You're telling me that I'm a nice guy who gets along with people and is highly motivated. For example. I'm simple... Tom Sherwood: Yeah. Joel: I'm simplifying I'm sure. But that's what we're looking to do, correct? Chad: Yeah. It's psychology. We use the big five psychology model, which is, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism. So most people would've heard of Myers-Briggs. But, which is the MBTI, the 16 personality types, that the majority of companies have probably have heard of. But the big five is the more robust psychology model that's been the preferred method for psychologists since the 1990s. Joel: Yeah. Are those your competitors? And what does a typical client sort of look like? Or what do you hope a typical client would look like? Tom Sherwood: A typical client is an organization that's looking to invest in their people. Obviously, there's a lot of questions, a lot of conversations happening in boardrooms around how can organizations get more out the current people they have? So part of the way that our insights are delivered is all about enabling people to perform better. So it's not a selection tool. It's not to be used to say, this is a red flag, or this is a bad thing. It's this is their personality. This is how you get the best out of them. So it's enabling everybody to understand themselves and others to improve performance and collaboration, because ultimately within a business one of the or a key people strategy is turning relationships into productivity. Chad: So explain voice acoustic makeup. Tom Sherwood: Yeah. Chad: And what does that actually do, and what does that do for the test? Tom Sherwood: Yep. The way the model works is when you speak, it's kind of broken into two main areas. You have the transcripts of what you're saying and then how you're saying it. I'm sure everyone's heard the, what their parents used to say growing up. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. It is actually scientifically true. So we break that down. We break that down into two parts. The transcript is cut off, so we can personalize the report, but then we analyze actually how you're saying it. So that's then broken down into two parts as well. So you have the acoustic side, so the volume, the rhythm, the tone, the key that you're talking, and then also the linguistic makeup of the sentence. So the ums, the uhs, the adjectives that you're using is a real key indicator. And there's about 2000 data points that our models are analyzing, and then it produces a prediction of the big five based on that. Chad: So how do you not see that as a bias method of perspectively trying to classify somebody? Just because I have a different cadence than somebody else does, doesn't mean that we're not the same kinda mindset. So how do you not, especially from females who might be more high pitched, versus like a Joel who seems a little bit more calm. Joel: Damn sexy. [laughter] Chad: But could have a crazy streak. So talk about that. It seems like we're actually injecting bias into the process. Tom Sherwood: So I'd actually counter that and say it's completely opposite. So the way that we've trained the model is, we've actually done it via academic research. We've gone out and actually paid every respondent, over and above their minimum wage of their country respectively. So it's been trained on anybody who speaks English worldwide, that's not English language from London, that is anybody who speaks English as a first, second, third, or fourth language. They then complete the traditional assessments, so we have their core base personality assessment as if they would've done a questionnaire, they then send us an audio file, which is between, five and 10 minutes long of them talking about themselves. And then Martin, our chief data scientist, who's an absolute genius has built the model to be able to map out the complete structure of the audio of their voice and then their assessment. And that's how we picked up the trends. So with thousands and thousands of hours of data, with these 2000 data points, plus there are key indicators of different personality traits displayed in your voice. Chad: So how would Stephen Hawking do in this test? Tom Sherwood: In that, it's just because he had a speech impediment, or lack of ability to speak. That's why we offer the self-assessment for accessibility reasons. Chad: He could still speak through his computer. So I mean for me, again, it seems fairly subjective from not to mention you're not just talking about human beings and how we speak. You're not just talking about languages. You're talking about somebody from the Midwest speaks entirely different than somebody from the East Coast, west Coast, or the South. So how do you discern between that? Because for me... Chad: Again, it seems like it's just injecting bias. And I'm not talking about worldwide or gender, I'm just talking about regions. Regions of, let's say just the United States. Tom Sherwood: Yeah. So when we collect the data, we also collect, the demographic data so we can analyze the performance of the model in that instance. So because we have people with different dialects, different accents to your point entirely, we can, we'll be self-testing the model constantly with this training data. So we'll see, for example, if somebody were, a certain demographic from the Midwest and the model was performing, below where it should be, we can then train more data in into that. And we're completely transparent about all of this ethical use because we know there'll be questions about diversity. So on our website, we actually share all of our data, how we do it, to that extent, to be fully transparent. Chad: So is this open source? Tom Sherwood: The model itself isn't, but how we've trained it is. So all of the data we've collected, the process that we've used, so yeah, we're fully transparent around that. Chad: Okay. So which is a available to anybody so that if they go through audits or anything like that, they can actually use your model. Okay. Tom Sherwood: Yeah. You can, as I said, you can go onto our website. We know there's gonna be, there are serious questions about the application of AI, within people strategy. And we're also working quite closely, with the British Psychology society as well as we've got attorneys in the US we're working with AI-EU regulation as well, because we wanna be so far ahead of this and be transparent from the word go, rather than people ask questions down the line around how have you done this? We're gonna be, we're on the front foot to show exactly how we've done it. Joel: Did you mention that text is a way that you can analyze someone? I know Chad said Hawking speaks through a computer, but there are people who just can't speak at all or will type. Is that an option? Tom Sherwood: Yeah, so you can do self-assessment. So you can actually do the old school version of answering the questions of are you the life and soul of the party? How do you feel in this situation? So the traditional method, we also offer that as an option if somebody isn't comfortable using voice. Joel: So I know that, Europe and the UK aren't as litigious in nature, but the US has a great reputation of suing everyone, for everything. [laughter] And this feels to me like a lawsuit just begging to happen, not waiting to happen, but begging to happen for candidate or for prospects in the sales process that come around and say like, this looks like it's just too dangerous in terms of getting me in trouble. Because at the end of the day, recruiter, employers, their job is to keep the company out of court. And this feels like a real minefield to me. Convince me otherwise. Tom Sherwood: So there's one key, really key indicators to this, and there's a law in New York, and also it's part of the EU regulation of the application of AI. Its AI cannot be used for selection purposes. So our model and our report quiet clearly don't give any indication of why you should or shouldn't hire somebody. All it does is show this is their personality and this is how you work with them. It isn't about this is a negative trait, this is a positive trait. It's about unlocking that person's potential. So we're super aware of that. And there is a lawsuit actually happening at the moment to do with a pharmaceutical company in the US that use psychometrics for selection using the old school method, and are currently being sued because an individual unfortunately committed suicide after being rejected for a job by using psychometrics. So we're aware of that and that's why we're about enabling decisions, decision makers to understand the individuals rather than to select them based on... Joel: What do you want to be when you grow up. In other words, is this an acquisition play? I guess I'm assuming the answer you're gonna gimme is like, "We're just trying to build the best product ever and how things roll out is how... " but is... Do you have an end game on this? Is this a feature? Is it a product? Are you on a three to five year track to get acquired? And if so, who do you think would be a good acquirer? You mentioned some big names, that are McKinsey, I think and some others that are doing this. Is that the play? Talk about the future, the roadmap. Tom Sherwood: The future is, I mean, big picture is to change the way that psychometrics is used across the whole industry. So, there are the big players such as your Hogan assessments, your Harvard, your Thomas & Co, which are huge. We wanna be the world leading platform for psychometrics and coaching. And if that means that we end up acquiring them, and so be it, and I think there's an opportunity for us to really change the way that this is used and really bring the whole industry of psychometrics into the modern world. Chad: So talk about your target market. Who is the perfect client for this product? Tom Sherwood: In theory, any company that has people in, we can work with. I know that's [laughter], that's a pretty... Joel: The world, Chad. Tom Sherwood: The world, yeah. We're gonna take over the world, at the moment it's, SMEs we're actually working. And we're having a lot of interest within the recruitment industry actually, of recruitment agencies who are trying to squeeze the best out of their current employees. So for managers who haven't managed before, it's enabling them to make better decisions and to coach their teams more effectively. So initially, as of today's SMEs, anything from 50 to 200 employees where they have small L & D budgets, and they can use this technology to empower their leaders to do better. And as we move into next year and we're able to train more languages, so we have demand from South America, we need to train it in Spanish and in Portuguese, obviously as we go into the enterprise world. And we'll start working with larger enterprises next year, hopefully. Chad: So SMEs that's a hard market to penetrate, so how are you going to penetrate that market? Tom Sherwood: So initially it's come through founder sales and we have some very strong relationships, myself, Alex, Martin, obviously through the portfolio of our VCs we're working with. We also got some very strong investors as well, who have angel investors both in the, in Europe and in US. But essentially it's about understanding that companies are quite budget restrained at the moment, and how can they get more out there people with less. And because our technology is cheaper, well, it's more cost effective than anything else out there. And it enables companies to actually perform better. That's part of our strategy is kind of tapping into that, to give them a better future. Chad: What about geography? You talked about, obviously training more languages, although right now, where's your main focus? What market geography are you trying to penetrate? Tom Sherwood: UK and US. I'm obviously here at the moment in New York, meeting with a number of customers this week because there's a big appetite over here. Joel: Chad, this sounds really fucking expensive. [laughter] Joel: Tom. Talk about the pricing of the product for us. Tom Sherwood: Pricing is gonna be changing this week. Actually. [laughter] We've taken some feedback. We're changing the pricing. We're gonna have a free tier which is individual use. As an individual you can do your own assessment you can see your report and that's and that's the limit of it. But then the premium product which the ability to create teams. You have your Phoebe assist, your assistant and will be £10 per employee per month. Joel: One last one from me is retention a selling point of this product? You've talked about saving time but I'm trying to get to like what kind of what pain are you solving for companies? Tom Sherwood: Yeah. I think retention is a very clear indicator of effective use of behavioral psychology in organization. Once we have the metrics we'll be able to start showing case studies around that. Joel: Okay. Okay. I got it. Oh man, that's the bell, Tom. Are we ready to face the firing squad? Tom Sherwood: I'll Just have a sip of coffee first, go on. [laughter] Joel: All right, Chad warm up while he sips his coffee and let him know what you think about Koios or Koios or Koios or whatever you called it. Chad: Well my first piece of advice would be to rebrand to culturelab.com. [chuckle] Chad: Two words that I can understand, that I can spell. It makes it much much easier. I love the fashion forward usage of tech. I mean voice acoustics makeup. I've never heard of that before. I thought that was incredibly cool. I also thought facial recognition was cool until HireVue got smacked with regulation from the state of Illinois right? Trying to solve problems. Time is is definitely a a big problem because you're you are talking about being able to get those in individuals to take the test. And if they're taking 45 minutes to take a test it's just not gonna happen. In many cases you're gonna have high ejection rate right? But cost, today with what you guys are doing most of those companies it's gonna be a race to the bottom if you start talking about cost right? Chad: Because everybody can scale, it's tech right? It's not paper and pencil anymore. It's tech. So I think the there are more problems that you guys need to dig into to really start to create that business case. Because testing is an incredibly lucrative space but it is also which you already know, probably one of the most competitive because it is so lucrative. So at the end of the day I love that you're looking at the fashion forward stuff. The thing is you are going at a very very high rate of speed. You might want to dig in while you're in New York and have some conversations with some EEOC people. They can give you some possible education. But until then my friend I still feel like this is a HireVue facial recognition situation. We're so early into the tech, not just, not actual tech itself but for us from an adoption standpoint and it's all about adoption because if you can't sell it, obviously it's not gonna get adopted. So until then you guys are still early, you're in diapers. But until you can get a little bit more than just time and cost, I'm gonna have to go with the firing squad my... Joel: Ouch. Ouch. All right Tom my turn. Tom you're a sports fan. Do you like baseball, cricket? Tom Sherwood: More of a cricket fan. [laughter] Joel: Or is it rounders in the UK? Is it rounders? Is that... Chad: Cricket. It's Cricket. Joel: Cricket's. Not baseball. Give me a fucking break. All right. So. Chad: It's pretty much, it's pretty much the equivalent. Joel: Quick lesson in baseball Tom. You go to bat and you get three strikes meaning you swing the bat and you miss the ball. At strike three you're out and you gotta go to the dugout, right? And you get three strikes in an inning. I won't go into all that. So I'm gonna give you three strikes about this company that to me says you got your work cut out for you. Number one, your first strike is the name. We've already been over that, we've beat that dead horse. I'm not gonna say anymore about it. You can change the name. So that's the good news. And you're so early in this journey that you can sort of fix that, hopefully acquire koios.ai and remedy some of this. Strike number two, this thing is hard to understand man. I don't wanna say snake oil but voice to know person's personality. Joel: And I know there's science behind it, like to get my head around this and I'm not the smartest cat in the room, but it's sort of challenging for me to get get my head around how my voice and how I speak can give you data on who I am as a person. That's a little hard for me to grasp. I also don't know what pain really you're solving. Look recruiting budgets are getting slashed, recruiters themselves are getting cut. Everything's getting automated which may be something that you can look into if you automate this whole process in interviewing and what a person's like, maybe that's an angle for you to pursue with the business, but it's not like a skills assessment where it's really cut and dry. You're we're hiring people based on skills. This is a personality trait thing. Joel: So strike two for me is sort of difficult to understand what exactly pain, what pain are you solving or resolving for me? And number three, Chad touched on it, the diversity, inclusivity issue. Whether you eloquently in a British accent told me why that's not an issue. But I'm telling you people are gonna be scared shitless to use a product like this just because of the fear. People are gonna be so scared of getting sued to oblivion by this product that they're gonna just stay clear of it because the benefits aren't good enough for them to be like I'll risk going to court because I can do this. That's the bad news. Tom. The good news for you is you need to pivot this shit into being a dating app ASAP or make it into like a dating API where I can get an analysis on someone I might swipe right on based on hey they're a nice person. They're agreeable, they open the car door. Like what dating app. This screams dating app to me. You won't have the legal issues. Someone like Bumble or whoever can buy you. Otherwise, you can go sell it to authoritarian governments or maybe any government for that matter that they can analyze their employees on a really strict basis of their demeanor. But otherwise I don't think this works as an employment app, workforce app. And I gave you the three strikes. Why? So just like Chad... It's nothing personal. Pivot this thing to a dating app and you got gold baby. But as it is man, I just I can't give money. Chad: It's a bigger market, that's for sure. Joel: Yeah. Like it's not personal. 25 plus years each experience in this industry. Take it for what it's worth. But yeah, you've got two guns on you... Tom Sherwood: That's Good. Thank you. Yeah, it's good to hear your thoughts. Joel: I love how the Brits stay polite. Well, Tom we wish you the best of luck. We hope that you can come back on the show in three years and show us how successful you are, that you sold for $100 million and tell us to fuck off. But until then Tom for anyone out there listening who wants to know more about Koios give them that URL one more time. Tom Sherwood: Getkoios.ai, which is spelled G-E-T-K-O-I-O-S. A-I. Joel: He spelled get for us, Chad. That's a gentleman. Another one in the can, Chad. 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.

Week Two of Chad & Cheese's back-to-back travels is a tour de force that finds the boys in Paris for Unleash - taking residency at the Textkernel booth - after a stint in Vegas for HR Tech. The recruiting news never sleeps, of course, so the boys are covering alerts out of LinkedIn, Stack Overflow, The Martec, Yardstik and Citibank this week. Additionally, there's an extensive list of shoutouts from their European adventures and a few special birthday announcements. Grab a baguette and a chunk o' fromage, Pierre! There's a podcast révolution goin' on up in here! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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, yeah. Recording this week from UNLEASH in Paris with a residency at the Textkernel booth. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, I'm your co-host, Joel, Joel Cheesman. Chad: And this is Chad, T-shirt and underwear, Sowash. Joel: And on this week's abbreviated episode, we're talking UNLEASH LinkedIn layoffs. Chad: Layoffs? Joel: And sandwich sacking and who'd you rather. Let's do this. We got McGrath. Chad: Oh, dude. [chuckle] Chad: That intro was so loud. Oh, that was so loud. Joel: Was it? Chad: Oh, so loud. My head hurts. Joel: Like bad recording or bad... Chad: No, like my head hurts. Joel: It's just loud. Okay. If you don't know, Stephen McGrath, our favorite Scott. [chuckle] SFX: Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is, "If it's no Scottish, it's crap." Chad: We love you too, Adam. And Mike. Joel: So dinner last night, Adam... Yeah, Adam and Mike's dinner with Scots. So we go out with Stephen McGrath, who's celebrating a 33rd birthday today... Chad: At midnight last night. Yeah. Joel: So as we record this. Yes. Yes, at midnight last night. We're in the final place to get drinks, both our wives are 80 sheets to the wind... Chad: Toasted. Joel: At this point. Chad: Toasted. Joel: Totally toasted. And I say, "Just get me a Jack and Coke." Jack's easy to drink, 80%... Like it's easy. It's like the Bud Light of whiskeys. [laughter] Joel: I come back, I'm drinking this thing, dude bought me a triple shot Jack and Coke. That's what we're dealing with here in Paris. Thanks, Stephen. Thanks, Stephen. Chad: Oh, dude. Yeah. No, Julie was... She was out after all the wine. Her and Christine obviously were out drinking earlier while we were working, and then they just carried along. And yeah no. So, yeah, we got McGrath. Joel: I'm fine. Chad: Yeah, Julie's like... Joel: I'm fine, let's go. Chad: He's an enabler. I'm like, yeah, yeah, go ahead blame McGrath... Blame Stephen. Joel: He's just Scottish. He's not an enabler. He's just Scottish. Chad: That's who he is. That's who he is man. Joel: Happy birthday though to him. We obviously love him. Chad: Yes. Yes. SFX: Shout out. Joel: All right, so let's get to it. We got a short show. We got to get back to UNLEASH and all the things that we have. So first shout out... Or just show some love, Textkernel, we were in Textkernel 's booth yesterday, got some great interviews that will be dropping in the coming weeks. But thanks to them, they were very hospitable. Love Gerard, their CEO, he's always great. So first shout out definitely to them. Chad: Yes. Joel: Second one for me, Talking Job. The startups here are great and they have a competition, which I think your daughter... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Helps set up. Chad: She actually runs it. Yeah. Joel: Yeah, runs that thing. So Talking Job, if you don't know... I'm not sure where they're out of, but their basic premise is that you apply through voice and it transcribes everything, as opposed to messaging or texting which is paradox... Chad: Yeah. It's sexy. It's sexy. Joel: Someone would do. Yeah, like the kids like talking, they like talking, Siri, Alexa, whatever. We've been talking about voice for a while. So these guys won, so congrats to them. I've already mentioned Adam Gordon, Stephen McGrath. Thanks for a great dinner and a good time last night. And also, hi, Bob, had a party, rooftop party here that was really crowded... Chad: It was. It was. Joel: And really popular. So shout out to them. By the way, headquartered in Israel. I checked with them and they said all of their employees were safe and sound, so that's good. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Good. Good to hear that from them as well. What do you got? Chad: So a shout out to all the fans out there and the people that we see at shows that we don't get a chance to hang out with. I mean, we get texts all night, that type of thing. We can only be in so many places at once. It happened last week in Vegas. It's going to happen wherever we go. But we... Amazing time. And again, the rooftop, we got to see a bunch of people hang out for a little bit. But again, if we didn't get to hang out with you here, hopefully maybe the next place we might be able to hang with you. So shout out to all of our fans and our friends who got the Chad and Cheese shaft last night. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. And as an abbreviated show, we're not gonna do travel, we're not gonna do like fantasy football from our friends at Factory Fix. But you will be in London in December, which is our final end of year travel. So the only chance you get to see us this year is Chad in London at TAtech. Chad: Early December. Joel: How great is France? Chad: France is amazing. Joel: Probably like your whole life you've heard, French are rude. Chad: Oh, no. Joel: They hate Americans. Like they're just miserable people. Chad: No. Joel: They're just... They're great. France is so great. Everything about... Even the shitty parts of France are pretty good in my book. And by the way, I was introduced to French coffee, similar to Irish coffee, but instead of a Jameson, you throw in some cognac. Chad: Nice. Joel: So if you haven't tried a French coffee, please do so. And it really helps if you have the French whipped cream on top, the homemade stuff, which is really nice. Chad: And a little biscotti on top. One of those, yeah. Joel: Yes. Yes. Little dessert all day doesn't hurt. You can do that in France. Chad: And talking about that, we're not doing birthdays, but I do have to give a shout out to my... Our middle kid, Emma, who turned 22 last week. 22. Jesus. And my niece who actually got married. So congratulations, Hayley and Chris, which I had to do between Vegas, wedding, France. So, yeah, it's been a hell of a couple of week and a half. Joel: How's does it feel to have a 22-year-old daughter? Is it surreal? Chad: It so feels like a 12-year-old up here. So, yes, it is very surreal. Joel: So I'm sure like you and most people listening, Facebook throws out your memories. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And obviously, every day I get memories of Stella and my kids, and it's just... It's so surreal. Chad: It is. Joel: When they were young, and where they are now. Like, I can't imagine 22. And you probably look back when... She's probably still a 12-year-old girl. Chad: Yeah. Joel: At least I know Stella is to me, so anyway. Chad: Watching Kennedy run shit at UNLEASH is just like you were in high school yesterday dude. Joel: Dude, she's a girl boss. She's in control. [laughter] like, I love it. I love it. Quick rant 'cause we were talking about HR Tech. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And we'll get to UNLEASH takeaways here in a second. But I just have to point out Phenom. Who a company that a lot of people know, a lot of people probably use. They're pretty good at the fake advertising. [laughter] We talk about fake news. They posted on LinkedIn, the sphere. Which we got to see you too. We talked about most people have seen this thing on social media and online, but anyway, they took their logo and like put it on the sphere and made it move as if it was real. By all accounts, that was not a real ad. They didn't pay the $650,000 to have an ad on the sphere. And if they did, if that was their ad, they wasted their money. So anyway. Joel: That was shitty. Yeah. Joel: Total fake, total BS, if anybody fell for them advertising on the sphere, like you've been fooled. And you shouldn't do that shit. [laughter] I mean, if it was an obvious, like, Hey, haha, we're here, but they kind of made it look like we really are on the sphere. We're here at HR Tech. So anyway. Chad: And somebody in marketing thought they were geniuses though. I guarantee you. Joel: Who, yeah. Who Green-lighted that shit. [laughter] I dunno. [laughter] Yes. Let's fake, by the way, they also have like 60,000 LinkedIn followers as a employment software solution. A little bit unrealistic. I don't know. Maybe. Chad: Right? That's a lot of people. Joel: I'm not, allegations, allegations. Go see who's following them and see if they look real. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Chad: That's all I got, it's all I got. Joel: All right. You ready for some UNLEASH takeaways? I wanna know what you think so far of the show? Chad: Yeah. Other than all the shots and rooftop parties. SFX: All right. All right. All right. Chad: Talked to Elliot. Even before we talked to the staff at UNLEASH, we noticed that there was something much different this week than there was last week. HR Tech was... HR tech is, as I said last week, HR Tech is HR tech kind of is like same as it ever was. Not for, not here at UNLEASH. The enthusiasm and excitement that we saw here was amazing. And you saw it as soon as you walked in the hall. I mean, people were early. It was just, it was amazing. Now, later we found out that they had record numbers, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So even though you little pussy Americans who stayed home because of the "bedbug" infestation, many who I talked to at HR Tech said, no, I'm not going to pairs because of that. Well, guess what? You missed out. And they had record numbers. It was amazing. It really was, it felt like a, it might just be me, but it felt like a new level of excitement for UNLEASH. We've been to UNLEASH before. We enjoy UNLEASH. We love the way that it's set up. You've got stages, integrated in with the expo hall. It's all like togetherness in, some form or fashion around community. But in this case, it just seemed like it was heightened tremendously. I don't know why. But it just did. Joel: Yeah. I think part of that is with COVID, COVID was over for America probably a little bit before it was Europe. So there's a little bit more pent up energy or demand to just get the hell outta the house. Obviously coming to Paris in fall isn't a bad thing. Look, there are two conferences that I look forward to every year. It's RecFest in London and it's UNLEASH in Paris. Part of it's location. Part of it is just the energy, the uniqueness of the show. I'm over the whole like, go away for an hour, sit through a PAR PowerPoint, come back for coffee, talk to a few vendors, go back out from the expo hall. Come in for a drink, like that. It's just so played RecFest. Totally throws that on its ear. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: But UNLEASH, like you mentioned, it's all together. The energy is there, there seems to be a mentality around Americans that we know it all. We know all the companies. [laughter] We know everything, there's a curiosity and an engagement with Europeans. That's almost a humility of I'm here to learn. I know that I don't know everything. There are Americans here, there are Brits here. There are so many different viewpoints. But I'm here to learn and ask good questions. Americans don't have that mentality. Maybe it's just 'cause it's America, but it's so refreshing to come here and have that engagement that I think is hard to find in America. Chad: Yeah. And it feels like we're just all business all the time too. Which is, it sucks and it's flat and it's stale. Right? We're here. It's not just all business all the time. And don't get me wrong, we see people, at the HR techs or whatever shows we go to in the US and, we have a good time. Okay. There's no question there. But when we're talking about business, it just seems like everybody, just wants to get down to business. Joel: Yep. Chad: Here, it's not that way. It's more about the relationship before it is the business. And that might actually have something to do. One of the key ingredients to the excitement that we actually see here. And also at RecFest, because these two shows, these two shows, my favorite shows, they're both European shows who came to the US and they bring an excitement that the other shows just don't. Joel: Yeah. The competitiveness that's going to come with RecFest coming to America. UNLEASH in America. Apparently HR Tech's gonna come to Europe in a bigger way. Like, yeah, the competitiveness is gonna be turned up to 11. I guess that'll at least be interesting. I don't know if it's good for business, but it will at least be interesting. My fellow Americans, if you haven't been to either RecFest in London or UNLEASH in Paris, you're missing out. Skip HR Tech next year. [laughter] And come to Paris. [laughter] Chad: Topics. Chad: Oh, that hurts my head. [laughter] Joel: Editing that one's gonna be fun for you. Isn't it? Chad: Oh. Joel: Okay. Alright guys. We got some layoffs on Monday, LinkedIn who is not at UNLEASH and was not at HR Tech. Chad: Weird. Weird. Joel: By the way, said it was cutting 668 people. The third round of layoffs at the Microsoft owned unit this year. Meanwhile, developer form Stack Overflow said it would cut its staff by 28%, which according to the verge amounts to 100 jobs. Last year's cuts were more a response to macro economic conditions as big tech firms cut in response to a downturn in ads and corporate spending on enterprise software while startups had to cut costs when venture funding dried up. Today's cuts seem to be caused by a narrower set of factors more specific to individual companies. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news out of LinkedIn and Stack Overflow this week? Chad: So I thought LinkedIn was interesting because we're talking about roles across engineering, product talent in the finance team. So notice how they didn't mention sales or customer service, that's a good indicator to me. Why? It's very telling from the standpoint that you're owned by Microsoft, you can allow the mothership to absorb some of those duties. Now, I'm not 100% sure that's the case, but it just makes damn good sense. The one thing that's most interesting is the product team. Now, we talked about on this podcast for years about how LinkedIn's product isn't evolving at a rate that, you would think that a market leader would evolve at. Will this be a pivot to Microsoft product engineers? I don't know, but I'd like to start digging in further to see, I mean, because this could be a turning point for LinkedIn in a very, very good way. Chad: This is all just a supposition at this point because we don't know. But if you take a look at it and you think about it, being able to dig into the core of the mothership, there might be some opportunities here. But the good, the good thing just from a market standpoint is that again, when you see the cutting of sales and customer service, there's an issue going to Stack Overflow, there's an issue. Significantly reducing the size of the go-to market organization. That's a problem. The go-to market sales team, that's a problem. And we talked about when Stack added talent as a product and thought, that might actually make sense because of what they actually actually do. It could be somewhat fluid but I'm not sure that it is. I think that Stack, which is a communication and efficiencies tools for teams, right? For actual organizations. Talent probably doesn't need to resolve or at least be in that platform unless it's a separate team that knows how to sell it. Because the teams, the communications, the efficiencies, the dev stuff that they do, from Stack Overflow, that is a much different product. Chad: That's a much different story. That's a much different sales pitch than talent is. So I think maybe they're trying to open that tam a little bit too much. It did sound like it, it seemed like it made sense, but I think what we're seeing here is that it just didn't make sense for Stack, which is good for organizations like the hacker jobs, the hacker ranks and whatnot. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: So, layoffs at LinkedIn probably is from a suffering of or weakness in recruiting. Its biggest revenue source remains recruiting fees and a lack of a strong growth in advertising is probably part of that layoff round as well. LinkedIn may also be shifting employees to a market where labor is cheaper. CNBC had a story recently about LinkedIn "Ramping up hiring in India" Chad: How's that make any sense? Joel: Little offshoring could be the case. Interestingly this news came a day after the Financial Times published a piece about how great LinkedIn was creating a, "New breed of influencers." So usage remains strong although popularity doesn't translate into revenue, unfortunately. Chad: Right. Right. It should. Joel: It should. Linkedin should be better at advertising and providing better recruiting tools. Chad: They need better products. Joel: And better products. Yes, for sure. And if they're more job seekers, they should be using LinkedIn as well and paying them for those services. Stack Overflow's move, maybe the strongest sign yet as to how chatGPT is going to fuck around with digital businesses for the foreseeable future. Stack Overflow cut 10% of staff in May after doubling its workforce to more than 500 people last year. The sugar rush that you like to talk about, now that was before ChatGPT was launched. I remember that. It was the information who reported in April that Stack Overflow was one of several software companies that they thought was a danger because of the rapid rise of generative AI. As tech companies start to file quarterly earnings throughout October, it's gonna be really clear as to how deep and the reasons why these layoffs are happening. For now, the cut to LinkedIn suggests at least some big tech firms are being more careful and being more disciplined around labor costs. But until we get some earnings reports, it's gonna be hard to say for sure. Chad: Yeah. Agreed. I don't know that the Stack Overflow thing, has much to do with generative AI yet. I don't think we're there. I think it will. I think it will, I think we'll actually see more of the coding as it gets smarter, because we're in co-pilot phase right now. And the co-pilot phase is really just teaching the algorithms to do what we're doing. It seems cool. It's like, oh, I've got a co-pilot to help me out, but we're really just teaching the algorithms to do what we do. I don't think we're there yet. So I think we will be having that conversation. I personally think, when you take a look at cutting a go to market sales team, there's a product problem. There's a product problem, and they need to at least kill a product that was being supported by that go-to market team and then focus, narrowly focus on what they're actually doing well at. And again, I think we both thought that talent was gonna be good for Stack Overflow, but as you dig into it a little bit more, their product, their original product set, talent really doesn't fit within their original product set from a sales standpoint. So I think that's what's happening, but I think we will see the impact of generative AI down the road. Joel: Yeah. And GitHub, who is owned by Microsoft/LinkedIn hasn't had these kind of cuts either, so that's interesting. By the way, ICEMS launching a co-pilot this week at UNLEASH. Barely missed the cut for us to talk about, but I'm sure we'll be talking about co-pilots. Chad: On their high resolution screens [laughter] in the booth. [laughter] Dude, it was like, okay, so it was funny and we love ICEMS. Okay, but we gotta give them some shit. [laughter] They have these big ass screens. Big screens, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: It's like, and they're showing the co-pilot and they're on these grainy ass, almost 1970s... Joel: Yes. Chad: Resolution. It was, oh my God. And we said something to some of the staff and they're, oh my God, I can't stop looking at it now. Joel: Yeah. I didn't notice it until you said something, but now I can't unsee it. Yeah. I was looking for the knob from the old... Chad: Yeah. Joel: '80s, '70s... Chad: Yeah. Oh God. Joel: Televisions. Chad: That was so fucking hilarious. You have the rabbit ears, it's like, oh, wait a minute. We can get this in here. Joel: Someone get the aluminum to clear up the picture a little bit on this thing. Oh, geez. All right. When we come back a little who'd you rather. Alright, Chad, let's play a little who'd you rather. Chad: Okay. Joel: I'm gonna talk about two startups that have recently gotten funding, and you and I will pick who we'd rather. Are you ready to play? Chad: Let's do it. Joel: Who'd you rather. In this corner we have the MarTech Sydney based. The MarTech has raised eight million in funding. The company employs AI to enhance personalized talent marketing. They count companies like Marriott, Vodafone, and Adobe as clients, leveraging employee advocates to create videos and stories promoting working for the companies, and then distributing them across various platforms for recruitment campaigns. They have offices in the US, the UK, and Australia. And in this corner, Minneapolis based Yardstik has secured an additional 12 million in funding. This brings their total to $24 million. The funds will be used to expand operations, broaden their business reach and enhance development efforts. Yardstik provides trust and safety tools and expertise for high volume hiring businesses to safely screen, verify and onboard workers at scale, particularly in the gig economy. They employ 42 people while the MarTech employs 29 people. So, Chad, Yardstik and the MarTech. Who'd you rather? Chad: I think they're both good names. The MarTech. MarTech, everybody knows marketing technology, but being the Chad of the Chad and Cheese podcast, I like the MarTech. Joel: Yep. Chad: Launching this year. That's what the article said. CrunchBase has a 2015 date is when they found it. And the CEO on his LinkedIn has 2018, so I have no clue when this thing actually started. Joel: They're Australian. They probably don't know either. Chad: Yeah. That's a good point. But I'm going with the momentum on this one. If you take a look at the MarTech, it's $8 million for an Aussie recruitment marketing company. Joel: Yep. Chad: That's a lot of money. Joel: Yep. Chad: For an Australian company. And especially in this space or this time right now, the MarTech signed, as you'd said, Sainsbury's, Marriott, Vodafone, Adobe. They've got some pretty big names that they have on already. Plus the, it seems like the CEO Raj has been in the marketing space since 2007. On the other hand, the Yardstik number one, I'm not a background check guy. That's your area. Number two, job seekers paying for their own background checks, you can just fuck off. Okay. I'd rather the MarTech all day. Joel: Oh, the MarTech. SFX: Aai, Papi. [laughter] Joel: Good one. Chad. Alright. So two very distinct businesses on this who'd you rather. Yardstik is trying to compete in the boring, settled, established market, known as background checks which has its Coke, its Pepsi, and its Fanta with the likes of Sterling and Checker. I hate the background check business, low margins with any margins. It's a race to the bottom. And I hate startups who think they can put a dent in this crusty old grandfather of an industry. Now, the MarTech, I'm not so big on the name, the, like the Facebook, they were smart enough to take the out of the Facebook. Chad: Give 'em Time. Give 'em. Give 'em time. Joel: If they could have just named it MarTech or something, that would've been better. But aside from the name, the MarTech is diving into a growing segment that doesn't really have a clear platform of choice. Talent marketing is a growing niche that companies have a growing interest in. How do we leverage TikTok? How do we leverage reels? We get it all the time. We come to these conferences and when we talk to people, I look at the MarTech almost as a do it yourself agency, a ad agency solution where you can provide your own videos and posts and they leverage job description marketing. It's sort of like a hoot suite for recruitment marketers. I think if you're a shaker or an agency, look at these guys really strongly and see is there stuff we can take from this and give to our clients 'cause I think what they're doing is really, really solid. There's also a ton of room to grow for the MarTech, whereas the Yardstik is gonna be fighting for every yard. Get it Yardstik, see what I did there? Chad: I get it. Joel: Even in hangover mode I got dad jokes. So it... Chad: Every inch. Joel: Yeah. Every inch they're fighting for... There's a ton of room to grow for MarTech as a result. I would much rather the MarTech over Yardstik. And by the way Chad, Yardstik was my nickname in college. Just a side note on that. [laughter] Joel: We'll be right back. Alright, Chad. Chad: Yes. Joel: Are you ready for a sandwich sacking? Sacking is what the Brits call firing, by the way, in case our... Chad: Oh yes. Gotcha. Joel: American friends don't know. Alright. The bank... Chad: Sandwich sack. Joel: Yeah. A banking analyst from Britain who was terminated from his job at Citibank for expensing two sandwiches and other items on a work trip to Amsterdam, has lost his legal battle for unfair dismissal. He claimed that he consumed the items himself while the bank suspected he bought them for his partner, launching an investigation while arguing that the expenses were within the bank's daily limit. The judge ruled in favor of the employer stating that the issue was about the employee's failure to provide a full and frank disclosure rather than the amount of money involved. The judge emphasized Citibank's commitment to honesty from its employees and considered the dismissal to be a reasonable response to the misrepresentation allegation. Chad, what's your take on the double sandwich dismissal? Chad: So he wasn't fired for buying a sandwich, he was... He was fired for lying is what they're saying, but still, I mean. Okay, we don't know the past of this guy. Okay, he could be a liar. And this is just a long stream of a paper trail of why they got rid of him, but because I can't think of something that's under $100 for a bank to actually get rich, banks are swimming in money, literally, they're swimming in money, so I don't know why this would be a problem other than they just wanted to get rid of a problem player, a problem child in the organization. That's all I can figure out here, but I think it's... To be able to get, in having Citibank's name tied to a sandwich sacking, that's not great for optics no matter what, whether you think the guy was a liar or not a liar. It doesn't matter. Joel: Are you saying Citibank should have better things to do than launching an investigation on sandwiches? SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Joel: Okay. First of all, let's not shame people for eating two sandwiches at a time that's just not cool and not that unusual, by the way, secondly, Citibank probably wanted this dude gone, if he was crushing it, they wouldn't care if he was ordering flaming yon and lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner, let's be honest. Laying people off in Europe is usually tougher than the US, so this must have been the easiest route for Citibank to cut this guy loose, to blame it on the sandwich debacle and lying. Third, at face value, this is a lesson for all the kids out there, you can build a lifetime of trust only to have it all taken away because of one discretion, in this case, it was kind of a funny discretion, but nevertheless still a lie, if that little voice inside your head is saying, don't do it, it's usually a good policy to listen to that internal voice, and by the way, Chad, my inner voice is saying right now, why the hell are we recording a podcast. We're in Paris for God's sakes. Viva la France, we out. Outro: Wow, look at you, you made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell and enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap, because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look away and like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

It's Halloween time again, and as usual, this episode is full of tricks and treats from the world of work. We're talkin' layoffs at Bullhorn and Nomad Health, Radancy acquiring Brazen, Employment Hero claiming unicorn status and more. What's more, you ask? How about Amazon introducing human-like robots into its warehouses and Cruise driverless cars getting pinched by the government regulators. The biggest trick of all probably goes to all the Return-to-Office mandates dropping on the heads of unsuspecting workers, like moms and the disabled. Of course, we end on a treat, talkin' about adult film star Riley Reid's new AI girlfriend app, that promises to be as naughty as you want her to be ... virtually, of course. Carve a pumpkin, grab a glass of witch's brew and enjoy this week's episode of HR's most dangerous podcast. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Joel: It's the Halloween episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. 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. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. Two guys who will never be Speaker of the House. What's up kids? You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Gag Odour Violation Cheeseman. Chad: And this is Chad Kingmaker Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, we're talking Radancy acquisition, employment heroes, and intimate conversations. Let's do this. Chad: You cannot leave. [laughter] Joel: Yoh! Chad is back. Chad: I am back. I'm back in full force. Oh, it's glorious. It is glorious. Joel: Your costume this year, Euro Chad. That's what I'm going at for Halloween this year. [laughter] And every day until next year. [laughter] It's good to have Euro Chad back. Chad: It's good to be back. Joel: So I gotta throw something at you before we start. You probably didn't catch this, but this is blowing up with the socials. There's a new survey asking women where they do not want to be taken on a first date? Chad: Okay. Joel: And a lot of guys are chiming in and giving opinion on this. Have you seen this list? Chad: I have not. Joel: Okay. Chad: But why are guys chiming in? I don't understand. [laughter] Joel: So this is great. So this is a list of where women say, do not take us on a first date. Your ready? Chad: Okay. Joel: Yeah. Cheesecake Factory. Chad: Okay. Joel: Applebee's, Chili's, Chipotle. Come on now. Olive Garden, the movies, your house, any fast food chain, Buffalo Wild Wings, Wingstop, Red Lobster, any buffet. I guess that includes Vegas, IHOP, Denny's, the gym. Why would you go to a gym on a first date? Church, Starbucks, coffee dates, ice cream dates, family functions, movie nights I.e. Netflix and chill. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Somewhere that requires a long drive, bowling nightclubs, hookah bar, a bar for just drinks, Waffle House or sporting events. So where the hell else can you go? Like, coffee's out, sporting events, Starbucks, come on. Chad: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is why you don't look at surveys 'cause they're fucking stupid. [laughter] Chad: Ask her where she wants to go. Obviously, don't take her to a fucking franchise. I mean, gimme a break. And, Applebee's, are you kidding me? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Come on. Joel: I love the gym. Is that a thing? Let's go to the gym. Chad: Apparently. Fuck, I don't know. Joel: Apparently it's a thing. Chad: I haven't been on a date in a very long time. Joel: Yeah, yeah. I know. I know. Alright. Let's... SFX: Shout out. Joel: Let's get to some shout out. Shall we? Chad: Hit it. Joel: Alright, we talked about the MarTech. We did a who would you rather... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Some people chimed in positively and negatively. But I wanted to point out that the MarTech is doing marketing right. We talk a lot about companies. We're generally as complimentary as we are critical about companies. Chad: Yeah. Joel: If the media says something good about you, run with it, put it on social. Make a meme, make charts, do a soundbite. Do of it... Do everything you can to get mileage outta this. And the nice things that we said about the MarTech, they ran with it. Like you too... They put a image together, put your quote on the image, put your face on it. Had a big... Big long comment about it. It was great. So we have a lot of companies listening. If we say something nice about you, go with it. Get it for as much as you possibly can. So, shout out to the MarTech and their marketing team for getting it right when we said something nice about them. Chad: Yeah and Yardstick the one who was not the one we would rather, the CEO commented on my LinkedIn and said, "Yardstick here, I won't dwell on the items you got wrong about us on the pod care to have us on the pod to clear up the details?". And I was like, of course. Come on to firing squad. I would love to see MarTech and Yardstick on their own firing squads because a who would you rather is like a... It's 2:00 AM at the bar. Okay? Joel: Yeah. Chad: It's... I mean, you're picking up scrap at that point. In some cases. In some cases. Joel: Yeah. Yardsticks should be careful what it asks for. [laughter] Chad: Well, my first shout out goes to childcare at work. I guess UPS is expanding their emergency daycare after a pilot program, helped it avoid 120, count them. 120 unplanned absences and reduce turnover in the pilot program from 31% to 4%. Holy shit. Joel: Wow. Yeah. Chad: So UPS will expand the program to additional shifts in the California pilot site in some Pennsylvania facilities this quarter. Everyone cheers UPS While Patagonia has provided onsite daycare for 40 fucking years, kids. Shout out to companies like UPS are finally waking the fuck up, while Patagonia continues to be an example of giving a shit about their employees for decades, not just when it's fashionable. So shout out to childcare at work. SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright. Joel: By the way, I'm still waiting for our free Patagonia swag to come in for all these nice things that we say about Patagonia [laughter] Well from one company to another that we talk about quite a bit. LinkedIn. Chad: Oh, okay. Joel: Had some big layoffs last week that we talked about. SFX: Layoffs? Joel: And they finally reported. So things aren't exactly as bad as they seem. LinkedIn's revenue for the fiscal first quarter ending on September 30th increased by 8% year over year in constant currency reaching $285 million. Growth was primarily driven by the talent solutions segment, while the results exceeded expectations. LinkedIn continued to experience negative year over year bookings due to a weak hiring environment in some key sectors I.e. Technology. For the upcoming second fiscal quarter, Microsoft expects LinkedIn's revenue growth to be in the mid-single digits with a focus on talent solutions and marketing solutions. So a little bit of best of both worlds, are to tail two cities on that one. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: People are hiring less, but LinkedIn's still making a boatload of money on their talent solutions. Shout out to LinkedIn. Chad: Shout out to another company, Dollar General. This is not really a shout out. This is a, what the actual fuck were they thinking moment, which goes out to Dollar General, who was fined by the EEOC for requiring applicants at its Bessemer, Alabama distribution center to share past and present medical conditions of family members such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease all according to the 2017 EEOC Case. Dollar General also required applicants to pass a post-offer pre-employment medical exam that screened out qualified individuals with disabilities. Holy shit. The EEOC said in a statement, "Dollar General rescinded job offers to applicants whose blood pressure exceeded 160 over 100, or who had less than 20,50 vision in one eye. Even if those impairments did not prevent the applicant from safely performing the job". This is a... What the actual fuck were you thinking moment out to Dollar General. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. [laughter] Joel: All I wanna know is why Dollar General wanted to know about my penis enlargement surgery. That's all... SFX: Ai, Papi. Joel: That's all I was concerned about. Chad: And that was not the cash was about, wasn't it? Joel: Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Joel: And restocking. Anyway, well we talked about Patagonia, who will never send us free stuff, but we at Chad Cheese... Chad: I love free stuff. Joel: Are always sending free stuff to our listeners. We're talking rum with plum. If it's your birthday, we're talking free beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. We're talking about a bourbon selection from you and me from our good friends at Textkernel. Great seeing them in Paris last week. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And of course t-shirts by our friends at JobGet. But you can't win if you don't play. Head out to chadcheese.com today, click that free link, put in your information and following that will be free stuff from Chad and Cheese. What time is it? Chad: What time is it? Joel: It might be, it might be time. It might be time 'cause we mentioned Plum. Chad: Ah... SFX: Can you feel the tension in the air right now? Joel: It might be time for birthdays. SFX: I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plum. Joel: That's right. That's right. We miss birthdays 'cause we're on the road. So let's do some catching up on some birthdays. Celebrating another year around the sun, our friend Dennis Tupper, who needs a little birthday love because his fantasy team isn't doing all that great. We'll get to that in a second. Ryan Moffitt, Garrett Friedman, Sean Horton, Cammy Owens, Jonathan Stelling, Jeremy Roberts, Heather Cochrane, Dr. John Sullivan, Stephen O'Donnell, one of our favorite Scots out there,'cause we love the Scots and last but not least, born on Halloween. That's right, our friend Punkage. Chad: Oh. Joel: Pankaj Jindal Co-founder at Sense celebrates his birthday on Halloween. So everybody that's out there... SFX: Happy birthday! Joel: This week. Happy, happy birthday to everyone. Chad: Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Well, it's time for events kids, which is brought to you by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's right. Wherever Chad and Cheese go, we take Shaker with us. Joel: That's right. SFX: Ai Papi! Chad: So coming early December fourth to the sixth TAtech Europe is gonna be happening in London. And I'm going to be there MCing with, Kirsty Kelly. So if you're in London, you're gonna be at TAtech. Can't wait to see you there. Not to mention we're probably gonna stay about a week or so. So, let's take a look at some dinners, maybe some podcasts. Let's get some content out while I'm in London and we're freezing our asses off together. Can't wait to see you there. Joel: Love the deep content. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Alright well. [music] Joel: That's right, fantasy football update everybody. Fantasy Football with Chad and Cheese, brought to you by our friends at FactoryFix. Here's the leaderboard, heading into I think week eight of fantasy football. Number one still stands strong, that goes to Michelle Sergeant Slaughter. [laughter] Joel: Number two, Marcy Playground Mall, followed by Dean Kane Ossner, followed by Joe Biden Dixon. Chad: Wow! Joel: Number five Spot goes to Chad Lowe Sowash, number six Jasper Jim Stone Span Jart, number seven Jagged Little Jill Patterson, who I think kicked your ass this past week. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Number eight, Brent Crude Low Cie, followed by Funky Cold Medina Perro, number 10 crisscross Kristin Urban. Number 11, Joel Embiid Cheeseman. And... Chad: Oh 11! Joel: And number 12 spot Dennis The Menace Tupper that is... Hey, if I have to go two and four for the Browns to be four and two, well I can swallow that. [laughter] Joel: That's not the worst thing in the world, Chad. Chad: All I have to do is say, Jill, you got lucky. Last week I was in Paris and I totally spaced my lineup and I had two, I think at least two that were on a bi-week. So yeah, she kicked my ass. That's not gonna happen again. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. I lost it by single digits again, I think six points because fucking TJ Hawkinson decided to have the best Monday night football game of his life. Oh, well anyway. [laughter] Chad: And topics. Joel: We're having fun no matter what at Fantasy football. So before we get to the news, Chad. Chad: Yes. SFX: Layoffs. Joel: That's right. We got some layoffs to talk about. Bullhorn has laid off 9% of its workforce. CEO and Founder Art Pappas announced on October 19th in a blog post citing the downturn in the staffing industry following the "explosive growth", observed coming out of the pandemic. Also with layoffs is Nomad Health a healthcare staffing startup, in case you missed it. They've cut 25%... Chad: Wow. Joel: Of its staff according to Business Insider. They have previously cut 17% of its workforce, that was back in February. Ouch. This was a former favorite startup of mine Chad. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Any comment on what's happening with layoffs at Bullhorn and Nomad Health? Chad: There's a couple of things I think in the tech space for staffing companies, we need more competition. I really think we need more competition to be able to push the market even harder. We have... You have Bullhorn and then you've got everybody else. So I think we need more competition there, really to push the market harder. Yes. The landscape itself isn't great from a staffing standpoint, but that doesn't matter. You should be automating, you should be building tech stacks and you should be bolstering your margins. So, I mean there's that Nomad Health side of the house. This one is really confusing because we have, at least here in the US, we have a great need for nursing. Right? We have a great need for healthcare. I mean it's amazing that an organization like this, unless they're literally just trying to rightsize because they became bloated, which I could... I can understand. I can't imagine there aren't great opportunities still out there for Nomad Health. So maybe this is more of a right sizing because they were bloated. But again, you know how I feel about that. If a CEO cuts that many people, they should cut the CEO. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. I mean, this is one of those businesses, it's like trucking, right? If you can't make this thing work, it's time to take your ball and go home. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: Particularly with the flexibility that they were giving travel nurses and other healthcare professionals who want more flexibility, who want more of a gig economy. I really thought Nomad Health was gonna, was just gonna crush it and be a model for their businesses coming through. This is not a good sign. I mean, laying off 25% and then 17% earlier this year of that, that's really, really bad. That's either like super shitty management or this business just doesn't work because they're baby boomers getting old every day and they're not getting any younger that need healthcare. So some of the others that came out that do this, we haven't heard layoffs from them yet. So, we should watch this carefully. Some of the other sort of gig economies or flexible work platforms for healthcare workers, like, let's keep our eye on those and see if this is a trend. Otherwise, Nomad Health, what the hell are you doing? Geez. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Geez. Gets... Chad: Again, utterly surprised that a CEO... I mean, 'cause this is, if you take a look at it, it no matter what, it falls on the CEO's head period. And if you were cutting 17, 25%, I mean, you gotta get new leadership in there. It's, not that we don't like the guy for god's sakes, it's just there's gotta be ramifications for shit like that, for mismanagement. Joel: Does not look good. Not look good at Nomad hell. Chad: No. Joel: Well, speaking of news, Chad, let's get to Radancy the artist formerly known as TMP. They've acquired Brazen the fine purveyor of recruiting event software. In case you missed it, the terms of the deal were not disclosed. This acquisition expands Radancy's cloud-based marketing and technology offerings by incorporating brazen tools for managing virtual and in-person events, creating microsite, enabling live chat and automating candidate communication. Brazen was founded back in 2007 and had previously raised $13.2 million over 10 funding rounds. In case you missed it Radancy also acquired CRM vendor as unify and candidate referral solution First Bird in the not so distant past. Chad, what are your thoughts on the move by Radancy? Chad: So virtual job fairs, hey, Radancy 2010 called and they want their tech stack back [laughter] It's, this is fucking ridiculous. Brazen founded as you'd said in 2007. Why buy a product that puts us all back into Zoom fatigue after COVID? I mean, it just doesn't make sense. So acquiring legacy tech, like Brazen isn't the move I would have expected Radancy to make. I would've expected a company like Radancy to be looking at startups like vet, Taddeo hiring branch to just name a few examples of technologies that we think are more future hiring process. I mean, it's not virtual job fairs. I mean, that's not the future screening, interviewing, proving that a candidate has the actual skills that their resume says that's the future. And we can do those things now. So. Joel: Yeah. Chad: It just... It blows my mind and it almost feels like Radancy has lost their swagger. And here's an example. Let's look at how Radancy is currently creating narratives around positioning themselves in the market. Number one, Radancy's new byline is from high to apply. Okay? So from high to apply, it doesn't scream end-to-end hiring platform. Joel: No. Chad: It screams top of funnel point solution, right? So that's one. And that's just basic. That's basic shit. It's like that's not you. That doesn't make any sense. Here's another one quote from the press release, "Decreasing cost to hire by 30%, reducing time to hire by 25%." So how do those numbers impact the actual business as I've said on this podcast almost every fucking week, the C-suite and the board doesn't give a shit about those numbers. If you're reducing time to hire by 20%, how much faster are those people getting into the seats? Chad: Right? What impact does that have on the bottom line? How much actual revenue does that represent? Cost per hire in time to hire are acute little statistics. But if you want to help your clients vie for more budget, that actually ends up in your pocket, you have to get to the numbers. The C-suite and the board actually give a shit about EBITDA, margins, sales retention, wallet share. If you can't tie those numbers to those big corporate board types of numbers, then get the fuck out of the boardroom man. Radancy should be a much more evolved platform at this point. It just... It really feels weird as we take a look at their marketing and then you take a look at the actual... This acquisition in itself, it just, it's mind boggling to me. I don't get it. Joel: That escalated quickly. I'm gonna blame this all on Appcast, Chad. [laughter] Joel: Appcast buys Bayard, agencies freak out. They've always had this question of buy, build or partner. They tried to build in the early days, including TMP/Radancy. They realized that they don't have the engineers to keep up with the products of actual companies that are building this stuff. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So building wasn't really a thing they could do. So partnering was great. Let's partner, like maybe white label some shit. It'll be fantastic. And then Appcast happens, they buy Bayard, they become AppcastOne, all the other agencies freak out and go, okay, if we can't build it where like, partnering is a huge risk now, we gotta like buy shit. Let's go buy some companies. And Brazen, let's be honest, was probably on the clearance rack at TJ Maxx. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: Radancy walked in and bought it for 50% off or whatever. [laughter] Joel: This is gonna be a trend that we see, I think. Chad: At Marshalls. Joel: Yeah. You're gonna see agencies like, "who can we buy? Who can we take off the table?" We've seen ATSS kind of do this with Text Recruiting and buying Canvas... Chad: Right. Joel: So like this whole like partnering thing is in question. And I think agencies are a little bit scared and emotional right now and Radancy, to me is an example of that emotional decision making. We're gonna see more agencies buy companies, they're gonna put more companies in their portfolio and have a brand of house or house of brands. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And this is gonna be something that you see going forward. If you're looking to build a startup for kids, build something that an agency just bought, and then create a copycat of that company. And in 12 to 18 months, you will sell to another competing agency at Top Dollar. So if you're looking to start a company, make a new Brazen or something else because agencies are looking to buy and they might be coming for you if you create the right solution. Chad: Don't do that. Don't do that. TMP/Radancy, I mean, they bought a programmatic platform after StepStone bought Appcast, right? So they've been reacting each time. I don't think this has any reaction whatsoever. This is, again, this is Legacy Tech. Why do you even buy a virtual job fair platform in the first place? There are so many amazing point solutions that are out there today that are like cheats to being able to get qualified, proven individuals into your candidate slates. Joel: Yeah. Chad: What does this do? This slows down the process. "Oh, we've gotta wait. We're gonna have a job fair next week. Can you come to our job fair?" "No because I have a fucking job by then." This is so old school. It doesn't make any fucking sense. I don't get it, dude. I seriously don't get it. And I really believe that Radancy has lost their swagger. Joel: And by the way, we mentioned Centrify in Firstbird. Does Radancy have any track record of integrating these new tools effectively? I haven't seen it. Chad: Employee referrals. I mean, employee referrals. Joel: I mean, it's a thing. Chad: It's a thing but companies trip over more employee referrals. I mean it's an agency that's buying things that seems like 2010 when everything was really hot. But they're not... The newer tech that's out there today is about automation, it's about quickness, it's about targeting, it's about skills, and which this has nothing to do with at all. Joel: Chad, this news just came over the wire. Recruitics has bought a QR code company. [laughter] Joel: It's crazy how this is happening already, already so fast. Geez. Chad: That was a joke kids. That was a joke. [laughter] Joel: Let's get to our next story. That's right, baby. The unicorns. Unicorns are back and they're coming from down under this time. Australian tech startup Employment Hero has secured nearly 140 million pounds in funding, valuing the company at over 1 billion pounds. The funds will support its expansion in the UK where it provides software for small and medium sized businesses to manage payrolls, employee integration and recruitment. The company's choice of London, as its European base, is seen as a vote of confidence in the UK's tech sector and is aligned with the government's effort to attract foreign businesses. Thanks, Brexit. Chad, throw some shrimp on the Barbie. Pop open a fosters and give us your thoughts on this news. Chad: Got some, I mean, some pretty impressive numbers first and foremost. I mean, getting that kind of cash is... That's pretty impressive. Two weeks in a row. I think we've actually talked about tech companies down under who have gotten funding. So, good for Australia. Employment Hero says that they have 300,000 companies across Australia using their product. Not too shabby. And already 20,000 in the UK. Chad: PE firm. TCV actually had past investments with Airbnb ByteDance, and now they're getting into hiring and payroll. [laughter] I mean, it just doesn't seem to be as exciting at all anyway. Building tech for the SMB market is much easier than building for enterprise. SMB doesn't require a ton of customizations like Enterprise. So you can build a standardized platform and the SMB market will just be happy that they aren't using spreadsheets anymore. So the hardest part about this though, is that being able to actually target those SMBs and get major market penetration, top of mind types of marketing. So in the financial year of 2021, over 365,000 new businesses entered the Australian market, right? So there's tons, tons of small businesses. By the end of the financial year, they had 2.4 million in total small businesses. And in the UK they generate around 700,000 new businesses a year. Chad: So there's some great opportunity that's there. The hardest part though, and you can see this with the ZipRecruiter of the world and whatnot, when you can't spend money anymore to continue penetrating the market. We as humans have very short memories. But hopefully, that 140 million pounds will give them a little boost and they'll be able to get some market penetration in the UK, which I also like that focus too. Going to the UK instead of coming directly to the US. I think it's a much easier market to dig into. [music] Joel: Alright. So in an uncertain world of war, political upheaval, I could go on. Inflation rates, money's not free. It's good to see our space raise some big bucks here in the last few months. We talked about HiBob. Harry recently and now these guys, apparently the one platform to rule them all is still really popular. This company's on a tear. This company is like Crocodile Dundee and in a big old oil can of fosters in them, because they have a lot of testiness go to their site. It's a party, go to their employment brand stuff. I mean, it's like, it looks like a fun company. They're partying. They're looking for a good time. In the last two years, they've increased headcount, 93%. They're all remote. You talked about their customer base, right on their website, it's like 300,000 clients, can't be wrong. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Something like that. They make claims of being the first, the world's first employment super app. Whatever the fuck that means. [laughter] Joel: I mean, they are living it. They're vim and vigor. They're kicking ass. Like it's fun to watch. Very Australian in demeanor. Australia's like America's younger sibling, you know, south the border. I think we have a lot in common. SFX: Rebellious. Joel: The question I have, I also agree with the European Focus. I think they're gonna run into Personio and HiBob and some others. So that'll be interesting to watch. The question I have is, who the hell ever comes out of Australia and becomes a huge success? Like recent memory, we got Vervoe. Chad: Atlassian. Joel: Cipia, VideoMyJob, even Seek, can't get the hell out of Apac. So if they can do it, more power to them, and at least from the looks of it, they think they can. It's gonna be fun to watch. I want them to come to America because they're gonna have a good time in the US. But until then, I guess maybe we'll have to see them at RecFest. Chad: Yes. Joel: At Knebworth to have a good time. But employment Hero baby give it to me. I'm down. [music] Joel: We'll be right back. Alright, Chad, from the party in Australia, let's go to the Amazon. Well, Agility Robotics is collaborating with Amazon to test its bipedal robot Digit at Amazon Robotics Research facility in Seattle. Digit is designed for logistics and can handle items in warehouses while working alongside employees. Amazon will initially use Digit for tote recycling, aiming to improve workplace safety and reduce repetitive tasks. The robotics tailored for human-centric environments. And this partnership expands their collaboration with Agility, already part of the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund. Digit's initial deployment is expected in 2025. Well, from Amazon to Cruise, the driverless car company, Chad, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise's autonomous driving permit, effectively halting its Robot Taxi service in San Francisco. Joel: The DMV said that Cruise's vehicles aren't safe for public operation, and the company has misrepresented information related to the safety of the technology of the vehicles. Cruise is majority controlled by General Motors. So, Chad, your thoughts Amazon, Cruise, is this a win or a loss for humankind? Chad: Well, I mean, if you think about it way back in the lost in Space days, right? The black and white were robot. Everybody loved robot, right? And I think as humans, we really want to see robots, right? It's the sci-fi that we've all grown up with. But then we start talking about possibly infusing those humanoid robots with Gen AI. And then you've got a movie on your hands, right? All you need is Will Smith as lead actor. We've all seen this movie before. We're getting into iRobot territory here. The pace of algorithms are developing and evolving at an amazing rate. Chad: The thing is, can the hardware keep up with it, on the robotic side of the house? If it can, I think we're gonna see some amazing innovation. But then also at the same time, can we start talking about universal basic income for God's sakes? I mean, this is gonna be a need for some people in parts of the country, as we've seen manufacturing taking over by robots, they're going to be much like Italy. You go into southern Italy, they have a poverty problem because the government hasn't focused on economic development in that area to bring them jobs. So what did they do? They had somewhat of a universal basic income. So anyway, we're gonna have to be talking about a lot of these issues from an economic and a societal standpoint because of these sexy ass robots. Joel: Yeah. If you're listening, you can't see what we're talking about. But I encourage everyone listening to go to Google and search Amazon robots in the company that they partner with. 'Cause these are, you're right, these are like science fiction Robot humans lifting boxes, doing what humans can do. But doing it with metal and AI. So scary, yes. Which is appropriate. SFX: You cannot leave. [laughter] Joel: Because it's Halloween. But this is the future. This is like when we went to the sphere and said, Oh, this is gonna be a thing. Chad: Yeah. Joel: These robots are gonna be a thing. And by the way, Amazon has apparently run out of people to employ. We've talked about that before, that they can't hire any more people. They can't, like... Chad: Shitty jobs. Joel: They can't produce... We can't clone people to go work at Amazon. So robots are the next best thing. They don't take time off. They don't need breaks. They don't go on strike. They don't pee in trash cans. [laughter] Joel: Like, it's a perfect scenario. And probably what Bezos and company have been wanting to do for many, many years, it's finally coming to fruition. You can't look at it and say like, that's the future. And humans are kinda screwed if this takes hold, which it probably will. The UBI thing is really interesting to me. There's been a lot of studies recently about like, if you give people a $1,000 what happens? Oh, they spend it, they put it right back in the economy. Chad: Yes. Joel: Which is a good thing. And they tend to buy things like, you know, pay for rent and food and things like that now. Chad: Yeah. 'Cause Robots aren't gonna buy shit. Joel: Robots aren't gonna buy shit. [laughter] Joel: And I think it's gonna be a hurdle because we've also seen where people take drugs when you give them free money. So I don't know what kind of guidelines or posts or safety things you put in, like to make people not get drugs. If you give them cash, like, do you have to spend it on food? I don't know. But that's something I think that's gonna happen. The Cruise thing to me is just stupid. From what I can tell, they're in trouble because like, somebody fell out of a car and then they hit the driver's car hit that person, or it wasn't like a normal, I'm walking across the street and I got hit. It seems like an extreme example. Chad: That was a hit and run. So an actual human hit somebody, it threw that person into the path of a Cruise Vehicle. Joel: Into the car. Yeah. Chad: And then the Cruise vehicle ran him over. So, I mean, again, it was humans fucking things up in the first place. And then secondly, the company just isn't transparent enough with the government. I mean, if you're doing something like this, it has to be highly, highly, highly transparent. Joel: Yep. So the fraud thing is bad, like that should not happen. But in terms of the technology, they're gonna go back to the drawing board. Every extreme case, they're gonna like, try to program into this thing. Cities like Phoenix will continue to have driverless cars. It'll continue to grow. So I don't look at this as any sort of major hiccup that this is over, this trend is over. Driverless cars are gonna be a thing. By the way, quick note, you probably heard the UAW settled with Ford. I think at the 25% increase. Chad: First domino. Joel: Yeah, in salaries. So good news for the Ford workers. I'm sure Stellantis and GM are soon to follow as well. Chad: Yep. Joel: Well, moving on from robots good, people bad. Let's go back to, let's go to some work from home. Return to office news. Stick with me here. This is a little bit lengthy, but some heartfelt messages that I think we should share. So the percentage of US households with remote workers has declined to less than 26% down from the peak of 37% in early 2021. That's according to the Census Bureau household pulse survey. This trend reflects employers efforts to bring employees back to the office. Driven by concerns about dwindling profits and economic uncertainty. The demand for remote jobs outpaces the number of companies offering them, of course. And some states are offering incentives to attract remote workers, such as Alabama's $10,000 incentive program. Joel: While many large cities have high remote work rates. Overall office attendance in major US cities remains at around 50% of pre-pandemic levels. Now, in RTO news, Carrie Breckenridge shared on LinkedIn how she had to resign from AWS, thanks to their return to office mandate, saying in her post, "The day my manager called to tell me, the RTO mandate finally made its way to our team. I silently cried on the other end of the phone. I knew I wouldn't be able to manage to keep my children's schedule and appointments, keep up with my productivity at work, keep taking care of my stakeholders and customers the way I had done for five years. And more importantly, I wouldn't be in the best mental state if I did commit to the return to office policy. Not for me, my children, my stakeholders, my customers, or my team." Chad, what are your thoughts on the state of WFH and RTO? Chad: Yeah, I mean there's some major unintended consequences for return to office. So I'm gonna take a different angle here real quick. We've seen the lowest unemployment rates for individuals with disabilities because of their ability to do their jobs remotely. So instead of thinking of the segments of people with disabilities as charity cases, they've more than proven they are vital, a very vital segment of the workforce. Only now to be told, unless you can come into the office, you're worthless to us. So just think of that for a minute. Companies pounding the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging drum over and over, and then forcing people back into the office who can't work from the office. And then what about women? We just heard that story. What about women in the workforce? Many women pulled themselves out of the workforce because of the lack of childcare benefits when they go into the office. Chad: So, again, DEIB takes over and it takes another shot on the chin because old white dudes want everybody back in the office like it's 1930. I really believe if companies gave two shit about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, they wouldn't be focusing on this. They'd be focusing on being able to embrace remote, hybrid onsite childcare. For me, this really hurts the workforce. And not to mention, the relationship that somebody has with their employee, right? I mean, like, she was just talking about working not just with at AWS but with their clients, and having those relationships, right? And then also being able to have those relationships with her kids, which is incredibly important. Those are things that companies just aren't taking into account. Not to mention, obviously being able to really kill the individuals with disabilities. And then working women who really just need autonomy. It's not a good look or I think a good strategy for most of companies that are out there. Joel: Alright, dude, work from home was over as far as I'm concerned. When Zoom, Zoom told people to get their ass back into the office. You remember Elon Musk talking about this being a moral question. In the meantime of all this, stock prices have gone down. The market's tanking. Shareholders are talking about get shit back up to speed, layoffs, get back in the office. This is just, this is what's happening. This is just the world that we live in. The old white guys in the ivory tower can't be happier than to have this happen and get people back in the office. It's obviously a shame. People that were benefiting from work from home, whether it was mothers who, let's be honest, have suffered probably more than anybody with the work or going back to work. People with disabilities, this is hugely awful for people that were having a great time coding or doing whatever they were doing, can't make it in the office. Can't... Just can't do it, right? Joel: Just working. It's an incredible shame. To me, hybrid is not remote. To me, hybrid is, I still gotta live near the office. I still gotta go in, I still have to find transportation. So hybrid to me is not like a nice middleman. To me, it's either you're pregnant or you're not. You're either remote or you're not. And I think hybrid is just Latin for, we'll eventually have you back for five days a week in the office. So for me, this is a huge bummer. Chad: It literally makes no sense. Joel: But someone else happy about the return to work OnlyFans, which will take us into our next story. We'll be right back. Chad, are you familiar with Riley Reid? Chad: Not until this article came across my desk. Joel: Yeah. I've never heard of her either. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. Okay. So anyway, Riley Reid is launching clona.ai, an online platform that allows users to chat with digital versions of adult content creators and porn stars. These avatars are trained with explicit consent from the models creators, giving them control over the AI companions conversations. Users can subscribe for $30 per month to engage in "intimate conversations," with their favorite adult stars. Clona uses Meta's Llama 2 language model as a base and refines it to reflect the personality of the person it's based on while the AI can engage in explicit conversations, the extent depends on the actor's preferences, not the users. Despite ethical concerns, Riley Reid believes the sex industry will play a significant role in adapting AI into society. G, you think like Porn's had a big role in everything that technology is coming to her life. Chad, what are your thoughts on intimate conversations with porn star ai? Chad: I mean, the oldest profession, prostitution as an occupation, dates back to 2400 BCE in Mesopotamia, for God's sakes. That's right, kids. Sex has always been good business. And now women can step away from prostitution and stripping to scale a much safer sex selling business. AI to duplicate versions of yourself. Now that's fucking scale. And at $30 a month, or $360 a year, and let's say she has 10,000 subscribers, that's a cool 3.6 mil baby. Yes. The robots are the sex workers in this model, which is, again, much safer. She knows sex cells, and unlike the prostitutes of Mesopotamia, she doesn't have to worry about some fat dudes grimy mitts on her. So let the algorithm do the work and cash those fucking cheques. [laughter] SFX: You cannot leave. Joel: Okay. If you're OnlyFans, you acquire this company Or build this shit as soon as possible because Naughty AI is the future. And like, wouldn't you rather, instead of getting naked, like have a visual that is a human, and someone can bend it, do whatever it wants to do. You can have chats, talk conversations with Riley Reid. She's as naughty as you want her to be. To me, that's the future. But you have to be a big porn star to have an audience that people will pay $30 a month for that kind of access. While we were on planes this past couple weeks and those eight hour flights from Europe had, a lot of time, I watched the movie Her again. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Which is a 10-year-old movie which is pretty cool. So if you don't know, it's Joaquin Phoenix. Scarlett Johansson is the voice who should be the porn voice for everything, but I digress. Anyway, having conversations, relationships, like I'm dating an AI. These are things that's gonna happen. People are lonely, loneliness epidemic. People are gonna embrace this thing. It's gonna make a ton of money. What was really strange in Her was, and I'd forgotten about this... So he talks, she's Scarlett Johansson's in his ear. He talks to her like, wakes up. She laughs at all his jokes. She thinks he's super smart. So a real woman gets involved and she puts Scarlett in her ear and like a video thing. So she doesn't talk, but she's talking and Scarlet's in his ear, but she's doing the physical human stuff with I guess the equivalent of a prostitute. So that's how you get the physical, but still feel you're connected. It really scrambled my brain and fucked me up a lot. So anyway, if you're OnlyFans, to me, this is a big trick. [laughter] Joel: If you don't follow suit and buy this company. But if you are a lonely guy looking for love, this is a huge treat. SFX: [laughter] So bad. Joel: I love Halloween. I worked in a trick or treat joke at the end, Chad [laughter], have a good time in Portugal, whatever the hell they're doing in Portugal for Halloween. And we out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Oh, maybe you cheated and fast forward it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Things tend to get a little kooky around Halloween, which the world celebrated this week, and the news around work was a bit discombobulated too. Our eighty-something president laid down an executive order regarding AI regulation, labor unions struck a big blow to The Big Three, and LinkedIn cuddled up to frenemies like Beamery, Eightfold, and Radancy. Plus, OnlyFans-inspired dismissals strike the same school twice, and an epic duel of Who'd Ya' Rather pitting Yourco's David against Traba's Goliath. The boys even throw in some KFC rejection letter entertainment, brought to you by social media, and the demise of WeWork. Thanks, internet! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. [music] Joel: Oh yeah. Two guys just waiting around for a Frankie Goes To Hollywood reunion tour. What's up, kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel, relax, Cheesman. Chad: And this is Chad Hot for teacher Sowash. Joel: And on this episode, LinkedIn goes deep. [laughter] SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Biden takes on AI, and somewhere, Jimmy Hoffa is smiling. Let's do this. Chad: Happy Post Halloween. Joel: Post Halloween. What is Portugal Halloween like? Chad: It's not the same, but here it's not a door to door thing. The kids, we've got two schools that are here in our little village of Cabanes. During lunch, they actually do like a little parade downtown, and they come into the different cafes and restaurants and whatnot. And then that's when they get candy and whatnot, so that all the people that are there, they give them stuff. That was really cool. So did you have a good flow of kids looking for full size Kit Kats? Joel: Decent flow. I'm curious, do the kids do a parade or is it the adults or the community? Chad: Yeah. The kids do a parade. Joel: So the kids are just parading around the street. Okay, that's interesting. Chad: They come to the streets, they go do their thing from business to business instead of coming to your door. Joel: That's a fat Tuesday for a bunch of kids [laughter] asking for beads. I mean, candy. Chad: Margarita, here you go. Joel: It was fine here. It snowed. It snowed, which whatever. Chad: Really? Joel: That's a thing. Yeah. So that meant hot cider with plenty of Jack Daniels... Chad: Which you have plenty of. Joel: In that. Yeah. [laughter] Jeremy is six. I got a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old. Here's the breakdown. 17-year-old went to his girlfriend's house, did the Texas Chainsaw Massacre outfit... Chad: Nice. Good for him. Joel: Which was really good. He actually had a real chainsaw with no chain on it. He went all out. [laughter] Wore a tie for the first time in his life, I think, had the fake blood. Chad: My God. Joel: My 14-year-old was too cool for school, didn't do anything, which was kind of a bummer. And then the 6-year-old, he was a Pokemon character I don't even know. Went to his friend's house. And the kids, the problem with 6-year-olds, they do an all-out sprint for like 30 minutes, to as many houses as they can. And then it's like, crash and burn the last hours, like kids throwing shoes at each other, candy at other people, tears, "I'm gonna sit down and meltdown." And then it's like, "Fuck it, let's go home." We do the whole thing with the candy at the door. My wife being the fun police is like, "Only take one." [chuckle] And then we have a ton of candy left 'cause everybody just takes one... Chad: Oh, Canadians. Joel: 'Cause they're scared to death, I guess. Yeah, Canadians. Yeah, yeah. Socialism on Halloween is always fun. But it was great. [laughter] It's nice 'cause I have a young kid. The older kids are done, but I get to travel back in time and re-experience Halloween with a 6-year-old. Chad: I had a new experience. We went to a Halloween party in Tavira. Julie and I went to... We dressed up as a goth couple, which I've never been in my life, and I wore... [laughter] I painted my fingernails for the very first time. Have you ever had your fingernails painted? Joel: I can't say that I've had my fingernails painted. No, that sounds... Chad: Well, being a girl dad, a lot of dads have their girls paint their fingernails, paint their toenails, that kind of thing. Emma was never really into that. She was soccer or softball, that kind of thing, so that never happened. So this is the first time I've ever had my fingernails painted, and I thought, oh, this is really cool. And it was good with the costume. The next day, it just bothered the shit out of me. I don't know why. It was so foreign and alien. [laughter] So, anyway. Joel: We have cardboard Chad, we have Euro Chad, and now we have Goth Chad. I don't know. Chad: Not a keeper. Not a keeper. Joel: I think it's a step too far, in my opinion. A step too far in my opinion. Chad: Mine too, mine too. Joel: Well, we got a lot of the show to cover, so... SFX: Shoutout. Chad: Excellent. I'm gonna go straight into Halloween shoutouts. So this is for... Shoutouts to Halloween treats. That's right. Thanks to Elena, Abby, and the Skill Scout team for sending Julie and I a Halloween movie night at home, I'm sure you got one too, an Amazon gift card for a free movie rental. I thought that was really cool. They gave us a... We didn't get a trick, we got a treat. SFX: All right. All right. All alright. Joel: Okay. So I had another shoutout, and then a news story crossed the desk and it got replaced. So aside from family, Chad, I have two framed pictures in my office. One is an autographed Larry Bird photo, and the other is a signed Bobby Knight picture. The General passed last night. We're recording this on a Thursday. So, as a kid from the Midwest who was a Teen Hoops junkie, coach Knight was godlike for me, won a championship at Ohio State, West Point, three National Championships, the last undefeated season for a major school, Olympic Gold medal. When college kids actually played, he coached Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, all those guys from way back in the day. Chad: He has accolades. Joel: He's got a resume. He's got a resume. Now, it's complicated. It's complicated as many famous people's resumes are. So minutes after the announcement, my dad calls me, he's holding back tears, asking if I had heard the news. Really impacted my dad who's the same age as Bobby Knight. My dad was a coach in Indiana, which you and I both had coaches who thought they were Bobby Knight, who wanted to be Bobby Knight. He's a dying breed. We'll never see another one like him again. One of the first books I ever read that I remember was A Season on the Brink about the '83 season. If you haven't read that, I recommend it. Again, he was a complicated personality, but for me, his attributes far outweighed his negatives. His past players largely love him. He will be missed and impacted my life in a big way. Shoutout to the General Robert Montgomery Knight. Rest in peace. [laughter] Chad: Sounds like a confederate General Robert Montgomery Knight. The next shoutout is almost a Cheesman shoutout. You're gonna love this, because this is about KFC. SFX: I happy. Chad: KFC rejections. So on the socials, [chuckle] I saw a screenshot of a KFC job application rejection letter, which read like this, "Thank you for your application to team KFC. We're cluckin' delighted [laughter] you're keen to join the flock. However, at this moment in time, your skills aren't the secret recipe the Colonel is looking for. But we'd love to hear from you again. Give us a cluck if you would like to apply in the future. Best wishes, team KFC, Dublin." Which was followed by the user's posted comment, "Getting a rejection email with multiple fried chicken related puns is a new low for me." [laughter] Joel: Here we go. [laughter] Chad: Shoutout to KFC. Joel: That escalated quickly. Chad: They do great on Twitter, not so great on rejection letters. Joel: Oh, just give me a coupon for a Chicken Little. That's all I want. Just give me a coupon. You don't have to go through all the hoops. Chad: I want a bucket. Joel: Don't need all the hoop. Well, yeah, if you're gonna throw in a bucket, then some biscuits and gravy too. So my second shoutout, last one. So rest in peace to the General. Rest in peace, apparently, to WeWork. WeWork is planning to file for bankruptcy as early as next week. They had a net long-term debt of 2.9 billion. Chad: Wow. Joel: And over 13 billion in long-term leases as of June of this year. In case you missed it, WeWork was once valued at $47 billion back in 2019. Now, that number is well under $100 million. Meanwhile, a dozen large office leasing deals in Manhattan this week, ranging up to 250,000 square feet each are nearing completion by the end of the year. Pundits say these deals show signs of recovery for the Manhattan office leasing market. The end of WeWork, the beginning of a new boom in commercial real estate. I think this may be another nail in the coffin of the work-from-home movement, unfortunately. Chad: Possibly. And at this point, I don't know why Adam Neumann is not in leg irons, for God's sakes. Jesus, talk about stealing. Joel: He just got a ton of money from Andreessen. He's got a new startup. It's just crazy. Chad: What fucking idiots. I mean, what idiots. Anyway. [chuckle] Things that people do love is free stuff. That's right. T-shirts from JobGet. Joel: Oh yeah. Chad: Beer from Aspen Tech Labs. Love those guys. Whiskey, two bottles of whiskey. One from Joel, one from me, from Textkernel. And if it's your birthday, kids, yep, I got one of these handy, it's Rum with Plum. So if you go to chadcheese.com/free, register so you could prospectively win all of that. SFX: Do you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plums. Joel: That's right. By the way, some of the names connected to this month's winnings. Bourbon goes to Monica Evje, friend of the show. Saw her at HR Tech. Beer goes to Nicole Adamson, who I posted on LinkedIn. She texted back, "This is the best text I've ever gotten in my life." [laughter] That's what we're doing here on this show, we're creating miracles and spreading love. Chad: Changing lives. Joel: And one of our interview favorites, Andrea Derler won the Rum with Plum. So, it was her birthday. More birthdays from this week go out to Elizabeth Hill, Dale Grand, Graham Ferguson, Louis Gleaner, Jarvis Carell, David Roddy, David Yorg, Eric Clemens, Kayla Campbell, Libby Sartain, and Shally Steckerl. Those are our... Chad: Nice. SFX: Happy birthday. Joel: Another trip around the Sun for some fans of Chad and Cheese. Chad: A lot of Europeans in that list. Joel: Let's get to travel. Chad: A lot of Europeans on the list. Our event's sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing, kids. That's right, Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Wherever we go, the sex goes with us. That's right. The sex, the sexiness of Shaker Recruitment Marketing. So I'm going to be at TA Tech in London, December 4th through the 6th. If you are in London, if you're close to London, if you're even, I don't know, contiguous states, I don't know, in Europe, you need to be in London at TA Tech. It's gonna be a good few days. Go to chadcheese.com/events. You can register there. I'm gonna be MCing with Kirsty Kelly and there are gonna be a long list of people that you wanna sit down and listen to, not to mention have drinks with. So come see us, chadcheese.com/events. Joel: Europeans love us. How much do they love us? Chad: They do. Joel: Almost as much as the Minnesotans, which brings us to an update from Minneapolis. [laughter] That's right, kids. You know the European show. You remember the Recruitment Marketing show, the Cult Brand Series. We got a new one coming, Chad. Chad: Yes. Joel: It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Data. We're partnering with Toby Dayton from LinkUp. These guys are producing just kick ass in-depth numbers around employment, what the Fed is saying, what ADP is saying, et cetera. They got their own numbers. Wall Street's finest are tapped into this data. We're gonna talk to Toby once a month, figure out what's going on, bring it to the people, give it in terms that everyone understands. And I, for one, I'm really excited because I watch CNBC and Bloomberg, [laughter] and some of these commentary on the numbers is really confusing, and I'm not quite sure, I'm Googling stuff. I'm excited to have Toby on the show to kind of straighten us out and get us on a level playing field with some of Wall Street's finest. Chad: Yes. And just so that everybody knows out there, remember we're on YouTube and this is going to be a YouTube exclusive. That's right. It's not gonna come out on the audio. We got way too much content that's happening there as it is. Plus you wanna see Toby and you wanna see the charts and graphs that he's going to be going over every single month. So as soon as the jobs data comes out, which is on a Friday, that next Monday, we're going to do the show so that next week, you're going to get that wrap up of the Chad and Cheese Does Data with our friend, Toby Dayton. Joel: Yep. That's youtube.com@chadcheese. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. I'm excited, almost excited as Chad... [music] Joel: About a little fantasy football update. I'm moving up the charts, baby, and I'm excited. But here's our leaderboard again. FactoryFix sponsors our addiction to fantasy football. Number one goes to, again, Michelle Obama Sargent. She is kicking ass... Chad: Killing it. Joel: Seven in one, I think is her record. Yeah, just killing it. Chad: Fuck, yes. Joel: Number two, Marcy Malware. Number three, Joe Mason Dixon Line. [laughter] Number four, Jasper the friendly Ghost Banjart. Number five, Dina Plum promotion Perro. Dina got promoted at Plum this week, so another congratulatory... Chad: Very nice. Joel: Message for her in that. Yes, we are plummed out today. If you're not watching on YouTube, you gotta check it out. Following her is Dean Blizzard of Ossner. That's right. That's an Ozzy Osborne reference. Number seven, King of the Jill Patterson. Number eight, Joel Osteen Cheesment, or Joel Ostint? Osteen. Osteen, yes. Chad: Osteen, yeah. Joel: Number nine, Chad not-just-a-country-in-Africa Sowash. Number 10, Brent Spinerlosey. Number 11, Dennis Tupper Lake. Number 12, Kristen Urband in the USA. And that is... [music] Joel: The leaderboard of Chad and Cheese. And that brings us to... Oh my God, we got more. SFX: Layoffs. Joel: That's right. Some layoffs. This is a quick one 'cause we're gonna talk about it on the European show next week. So, tune in for that. But Germany's StepStone announced this week that it was laying off roughly "215" employees or about 5% of the company's 4,200 strong workforce. StepStone, a huge influential company there in Europe. So we will definitely talk about that. But that's a decent chunk of people whose lives will be impacted... Chad: It certainly is. Joel: Those are layoffs. [music] SFX: Topics. Joel: Alright, let's get political. President Biden has issued an executive order aimed at addressing the threats posed by artificial intelligence. The order seeks to prevent the misuse of AI for developing destructive weapons and supercharged cyber attacks. It also calls on Congress to pass data privacy legislation. The executive order establishes regulations such as requiring AI companies to conduct safety tests and share the results with the federal government. Industry standards, including watermarks for AI-enabled products, were introduced to enhance transparency. Government agencies will implement changes in their use of AI with a focus on addressing racial bias and civil rights abuses. Chad, your thoughts on Biden's executive order? Chad: Yeah, so it's really interesting as I start going through it to glean it. And there's a lot that's been written on this in a very short amount of time. I I think we should bring some people on the regulatory side of the house in so we can start talking a little bit more about this. It seems like we're always talking about this, but it's important. We're starting to catch up, I think, slowly to Europe who's really been aggressive. I mean, they were back early this year starting to formulate what they wanted to do around AI and being able to create guardrails. A couple of different points in the executive order. 7.3, which is strengthening AI and civil rights in the broader economy. So within the next year of the date of the order, they want to prevent unlawful discrimination from AI used for hiring. Chad: The Secretary of Labor shall publish guidance for the federal contractors, which we actually talked about before. What was the easiest way to make sure that this shit starts happening? Whether it's anything, I don't care if it's bias, it's AI with bias, you go after the federal contractors first 'cause they're the ones taking money from the federal government. They have higher standards that they have to meet, and it just makes sense. So that's one of the things that they're doing, but they're also looking at, which I thought was interesting and smart, increasing AI talent in the government. They actually are starting to put together a plan which will focus on... We all say small government's good. Not everybody does, but in this case, we need more boots on the ground, AI boots on the ground for governments. Chad: So they're looking at actually trying to build AI teams in all the different segments of government. I think that is incredibly important and smart. And then as the AP article says, we looked at social media and we allowed it to go unfettered, which fucked us. And it's continuing to, and we're starting to see, whether they're intended consequences or unintended consequences, it doesn't matter. They're still fucking consequences. We need to try to skate to the puck on this one. We need to look around corners. We need to try to figure out how this can be best used and how it could prospectively be used for evil. And that was one of the things that Biden was focused on. What can we do on the good side and how can we protect against the bad, deep fake kind of shit that will... It will happen. Joel: The road to hell is paved with good intentions, someone once told me. Chad: Always is. Joel: I was interested, you mentioned some pros and comments. Our buddy Ryan Steelberg at Veritone, CEO and President, posted on LinkedIn, "President Biden's recent AI executive order marks a significant step towards a future where AI becomes inseparable from ethical and responsible considerations rather than just a technological advancement. You talked about social media, you talked about... You should have talked about the internet. The internet for a lot was like, "Let it go, baby. Let it roll. Let it roll. See how the chips fall." Chad: Try to herd those fucking cats. Jesus. Joel: Obviously, that was a difficult one. Now, the internet's obviously more global than just the US, and I feel that AI is similar. We're in a political year. A year from this month, we'll be electing a new President. Biden's favorables aren't great. He's entrenched in two wars. He's entrenched in some inflationary issues, and so things are challenging. The political cynic in me says, what's the political reason to this? I think to take Big Tech to task, Google... Look, that's who this is going to impact; Google, Amazon, Microsoft. And they've been under pressure in terms of free speech and regulation. So I don't know if it's like a work-around with what he thinks the Republicans will do on Big Tech. I worry about how much teeth this is going to have. You mentioned federal contracts, so there is some precedent to say, hey, if you're doing work with the federal government, these are regulations you're going to have to deal with. But I don't know, is Congress going to finance this? Are they going to pass laws around this? Is there a new department that's going to be created, the AI regulation department? Joel: The CEO from Workday was quoted as saying, this is going to be a tremendous amount of work, a cost to us to provide data and report back to the government. And you're going to hear that more and more. But smaller businesses, are they shielded from reporting? There's a lot of stuff to be worked out around this. And at the end of the day, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea do not have to abide by any of these regulations. So, that concerns me. Are we going to hinder our development of AI while they run wild with it and innovate beyond what we're doing? So I think it's a great first step. I think it's some great bully pulpit setting the stage for what we should be and how we should be looking at AI. I just think the devil's in the details on this. How is it going to be played out? Who's going to be put under scrutiny of this? How are they going to report to it? What's it going to cost? Who's going to finance this? Who's going to actually police? Joel: Because in talks with our buddy Keith Sonderling at EEOC, if you don't have the money and the resources, it's really hard to regulate and take people to tasks. And even if they do, you and I ongoing conversationally talk about, wow, that was coins in the couch cushions kind of fees, right? So are there going to be real teeth around punishments around AI abuses? Are there going to be people in orange jumpsuits? These things all have to play out. I think the rhetoric was great. Everyone seems to be behind it, I just think, externally, and the details around this are going to be really hard to iron out. We're just going to have to wait to see what it looks like. But it's a great first step. Chad: Yeah. I think the interesting thing is you talked about Biden's favorability rating. The only ones lower are, I think, Trump's and Congress. And Congress has the shittiest fucking favorability rating that's out there. We're not entrenched in two wars. We are funding, but we're not actually losing American lives. So watch your rhetoric around that, if you would, please. The two segments of AI is incredibly important. And I think you're right, but I think these aren't two things that happen together. First and foremost, China is already creating guardrails around their own AI for their own society. Now, for the other society, the way that they attack from a defensive and/or from an offensive standpoint, they're going to have entirely different rules for that. And I think we will as well. So I don't think this is going to hamper us at all. And all of those companies who are making record profits and they want to make more money off of AI, well, these are the things that you have to do to ensure that it happens without having a Cambridge Analytica moment. I mean, these are all the things that we have to do to stay responsible. We can't just do this in an unfettered way. So yeah, I get it. Companies don't want to spend more money, but they want to make more money using the AI. Well, you're going to have to spend money to be able to make money. That's all there is to it. Joel: So I'll backtrack my entrenched statement and say, divided over two fronts, I guess. I'm curious, politically, do you think there's a reason to do this politically? Chad: The AI piece? Joel: Yeah, to come out with a statement and to take sort of the lead role on regulations around AI. Do you think that was politically motivated or no? Chad: I don't think there is from a political standpoint. I think there is just from the standpoint of social responsibility. It's our responsibility and it's our government's responsibility to take care of the citizenry, which did not happen on the social media side of the house or the internet side of the house. We didn't look to try to get around the corners. We just thought, "Oh, wow, this is a really cool toy we get to play with." I'm sure there are some political angles, but getting the president to do an executive order means it's incredibly important to him because he shouldn't be doing this. The Congress should be doing it. The problem is our Congress right now is in total, complete disarray. Joel: Yeah. I mean, we're just now starting to talk about social media and regulating kids, and it's 15 years hence of social media. Longer than that, but... So how long is this going to take? Geez. Chad: I don't know, man. Joel: And based on what I'm hearing in terms of how fast AI will ramp up in terms of being smarter and smarter and smarter, I don't know if government can keep up. It'll be interesting to watch. Chad: Yeah. Well, and we also had one... A Google executive said that general AI is within five years, which is fucking crazy, because we're talking about sentient AI. The generative AI that we're dealing with right now, nothing, nothing compared to what general AI is going to look like. Joel: Be afraid. Be very afraid. Well, from one AI bully to another, I don't know if that was the right transition or not, but let's talk about LinkedIn. They're launching a new hiring integration called CRM Connect set to be available in early 2024. This integration connects LinkedIn recruiter with candidate relationship management systems to simplify and streamline the recruiting process. It allows for sharing of data between these systems while respecting LinkedIn's members' data privacy settings, or so they say. The integration is launching with partners like Avature, Beamery, Clinch, your favorite Eightfold, JobVite, and Radancy, enhancing efficiency for LinkedIn recruiter seat holders who use these particular CRMs. CRM Connect promises to reduce the time spent switching between systems, provide recruiters with accurate and up-to-date candidate insights, and improve the ability to nurture candidates effectively by centralizing the information. Chad, this is not just the tip, this is LinkedIn going deep. SFX: Just the tip. [chuckle] Joel: What are your thoughts? Chad: It seemed interesting just from a connectivity standpoint, but what's the best way, as they say in the article, to "reduce time switching across systems? What's the best way to do that? The best way is to become the fucking system. So I don't think this is a technical exercise with partners because it feels more like an audition. Seriously, we all know that LinkedIn is like crack for recruiters. So, build out the CRM functionality or just acquire one that you've already connected with so that you can expand WalletShare for a more robust offering. So, while auditioning, keep your competition close, pull in their massive datasets, and maybe even unleash a little Open AI to the data to better understand aggregate recruiter behaviors, messaging, and anything else that you think the LLMs might be able to dig into. So no, I don't believe this is purely about connecting to Avature, Beamery, Clinch, JobVite, and Radancy. I think this is an audition. And I do have a funny follow-up here. I was speaking to a friend of mine about this to see what they thought about it, and they had one comment; "Eightfold is the Theranos of talent acquisition in a complete laughing stock. Plus, Beamery has no future ahead." So apparently, they don't think Eightfold or Beamery have a chance in hell in making the LinkedIn Microsoft team through this audition. SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Joel: So you think this is an audition for an acquisition? Chad: Yes. Joel: Essentially. Okay. All right. I'll take that a little bit, but spin it in this way. LinkedIn's new CRM Connect product is both defensive and offensive. It's defensive because they see CRMs as a threat to attention, and thus a competitor to their business that wants you to be on LinkedIn all the time. They want to keep you there, making all your CRM data available, and LinkedIn accomplishes that. To me, that's a no-brainer. They should have done that a long time ago. However, I do think this is offensive. You think it's an audition. I think it may be just a straight-up theft that we're looking at. [laughter] Remember the API playbook. Give third parties access to your platform, learn all about them, then shut them down by launching a competing product. LinkedIn used to make access to profiles pretty easy, then they throttled it, then they killed it. Then companies like HiQ who wanted to scrape the data got sued into oblivion. If you think the same thing or something similar isn't happening here, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you. Partner with LinkedIn at your own risk. Buy is definitely an option, but so is, let's just make it ourselves once we understand what customers want, what they're using, what they search for. You're going to open the kimono, LinkedIn's going to get a good view, and they're going to crush you. Or at least, that's the playbook, I think. Chad: I just don't think... We just saw LinkedIn, they just had a layoff, so they're starting to come down. I think from a resource standpoint, especially when you're the size of LinkedIn, you don't build something like this. You go ahead and you see, much like marketplaces that we talk about with applicant tracking systems, you see which ones work the best, which ones get the best traction and the best data flow that you can have back and forth. I think this is a pure audition for an acquisition play. But I agree, there's definitely an offensive-defensive mode that's here. I think, to me, when they put this article out and I was reading it, I'm like, I'm reading between the lines here. There's a lot not being said. Joel: Did it surprise you as much as it did me that SeekOut in some form or fashion was not included in this integration? Chad: No, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that. That is a very good point, especially when it comes to the data and the tech and obviously Anoop's connection. Joel: The relationship. Chad: Yeah, Anoop's connection with Microsoft. Yeah. Joel: Yeah. I don't know if that bodes well for SeekOut, but either way, LinkedIn is dangerous and beware. Beware, kids. We'll be right back. It's crack. Joel: Chad, how about a game of, who'd you rather? Chad: Yes! Joel: You know how we play the game, kids. We talk about two companies that have recently gotten funding, and then Chad and I will tell you who we'd rather. Well, in this first corner, we have Miami-based Traba. They've secured $22 million in funding in a round led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. Many of you will know the name, Peter Thiel, and if not, go watch The Social Network. Traba focuses on the light industrial staffing sector and focuses on challenges like outdated processes and low fill rates. They report a 99% fill rate and less than a day to fill open positions with above minimum wage average pay. The latest investment brings total funding to $43.6 million and positions the company for nationwide expansion. They employ 75 people. And in the opposing corner, Yourco, an Indianapolis-based startup, has secured $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by Ground Game Ventures with Ground Game Venture's managing partner and friend of the pod, Aman Brar, joining Yourco's board of directors. Joel: Yourco offers a text messaging platform for employers to communicate with non-desk employees such as those without work-related email accounts. The funding will be used to hire engineering and marketing staff. They employ 10 people. So Chad, I love a good David versus Goliath. Who'd you rather? So who'd you rather between Yourco and Traba? Chad: So Traba feels like a localized model of FactoryFix. Obviously, they're going to expand out nationwide, but they feel kind of FactoryFix-ish. And you know how much we love the boys over at factory fix. So trying to fill light industrial roles quickly can be performed faster than using staffing agencies. And I think that that is the big key, and that's their big market advantage. Yourco is a very, very young company, no question. But at this point, they're nothing more than just a basic platform feature. They're not a business. Communication is big, but this is one aspect of a platform that needs to wrap into technology like a Traba or factory fix, which connects you to your current staff and/or the external marketplace. So I see companies like Traba and FactoryFix are the future of staffing, because as I said earlier, it's about speed of identifying, notifying, and filling shifts, which is why I would Traba all day. SFX: What are you doing, step bro? Joel: All right. So this is almost a who'd you rather between Peter Thiel and Aman Brar, who we love, by the way. Chad: I would not go that far, 'cause I would have picked Aman. Joel: Peter Thiel has companies like Facebook, PayPal, Stripe, Reddit, Quora and the like in his portfolio, so that's pretty tough... Chad: That's a little bit of money. Joel: To go against. Aman is great at bootstrapping companies and then flipping them for 10X for a reasonable amount, à la his company, Canvas, who was acquired by JobVite. So while I think they're both going to be winners and I want to go with the home team from Indianapolis, I think if I want to make a billion dollars, I'm going to go with Thiel. If I want to make $25 million, I'm going to go with Aman. So while I'd rather both of them, I think that the money, Chad, is going to win out, and I'm going to go with Traba. All right. That is another episode of, Who'd you rather? Now, let's get into some union news. The United Auto Workers or the UAW as the kids call them have struck a deal with Detroit automakers. The agreement includes significant benefits for UAW members, such as a 25% compounded raise over four and a half years, increased 401k company contributions, and enhanced profit sharing bonuses. The contracts also include an immediate 11% raise and massive pay increase for those lowest paid workers. Temps hired this year, for example, will see a 150% wage increase over the four and a half years of the contract. Joel: This is happening in light of recent news around pay transparency laws saying the growth of advertized wages for new hires is slowing and even reversing with some companies now posting lower pay ranges and around 30% to 40% of employers not complying with laws requiring salary ranges at all. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news from Detroit and the pay transparency update? Chad: So I really feel like it's finally the time of the worker. Joel: Oh, do you? SFX: I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore." [chuckle] Chad: So we've endured four decades of bullshit economic policies where the dollar stayed in the ivory tower and didn't trickle down. We have assholes like Josh Berson and Johnny Taylor driving anti-work sentiment, saying companies will go out of business as the C-suite and their boards buy more vacation homes and yachts and their compensation grows by 1500% compared to the people on the front fucking lines actually doing the work, getting 18%. So the UAW is striking a narrative that is counter to the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps narrative that we got suckered into back in the Gen X days, because it's fucking hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can't afford fucking boots. We're also seeing, which is really cool, outside of GM, Ford and Stellantis, that Kaiser Permanente, CVS, Walgreens, Mack trucks, they're all starting to strike as well because they're seeing what is happening here, and that, again, they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. That, to me, is exciting. Chad: On the pay transparency side of the house, I watched the interview and I read some of the articles around this and they're talking about, "Oh, pay transparency isn't working." No, dumb asses. Companies are just pulling down... It's a negotiation thing. It's kind of like Berson said. Oh, yes, I would like to have a four-day work week. Well, yeah, asshole. It was a part of the negotiation, something that you can actually pull off the table. If you put the salary up at the level you're actually paying people right now, that's the starting point. So what do they do? They bring it down so that the starting point is down. So yeah, all of this is literally just a mirage, and for all of you idiots that are out there that don't understand how to negotiate, this is going to be really surprising for you. For all of us who understand business and we've been doing this for fucking years, guess what? It seems normal. SFX: All right, all right, all right. Joel: I'm shocked, Chad. I'm shocked that they got this done. When we first touched on this months ago, I said, they're a paper tiger, they're going to move jobs to Mexico, they're going to automate everything. I am impressed and shocked that this got done. Big win for workers. Big win for labor. Holy shit. Chad: Yes, yes. Joel: You're going to see more unionization. You're going to see stress from Tesla workers and right-to-work states want to unionize, or they'll just fucking go to Detroit. If you want to see an increase in applications to the big three of talented people, this is it. This is incredible news for unions, for workers that have been getting kicked in the nuts, proverbially, for decades. It's a big win for Joe Biden. I said early on when Joe Biden went to go visit, I said, look, both of these candidates need to try to elbow their way into getting this deal done. Trump went to a non-union shop. Biden went to Detroit and picketed for, I don't know, 28 seconds or something. But at least, he was there and the photo op was great. He can claim victory. He's going to be on the campaign trail in these swing states like Michigan, talking about union wages and the rise of unions and the common man and the working man and woman. So, big win for Joe Biden and the Democrats, in my mind. Joel: Loss for Tesla. They're going to have a hard time keeping unions at bay, I think. Obviously, some shareholders will probably take it with greater salaries expenses. We'll see how that goes. So far, early on, stock prices haven't declined much. So, Wall Street for the most part is okay with what's going on, or at least price it in. But I'm ultimately just shocked that this happened. And it proves once again, if you have leverage, you can get this shit done. If you're UPS and people need their packages, if you're making cars and people want to drive new cars, then you can get what you want. But before you strike and do all this stuff, have leverage and have the numbers to do it. They did this really strategically. They rolled out the closings of plants. They tightened the screws more and more slowly. It was just brilliant. I am super impressed with union leadership. I think they totally stuck it to the leadership of these companies. The workers won. If you're a Democrat, you're happy today about Joe Biden's prospects of being president. Joel: I'm shocked. The only cynic in me is that the car company said, "Okay, well, it'll take us five to seven years to automate. It'll take us that long to get to Mexico. Let's just give them what they want now and have a slow roll into oblivion. But let's make them happy today." But until that happens, this is a huge victory for unions. The pay transparency thing, look, if you're an employer, it is a good thing to put salary ranges in your job postings. You get better applicants, you get more applicants. Their retention at showing is better. It's just so stupid what we're seeing in pay transparency. Chad: I know. Joel: Companies just need to suck it up and do it. If you're not going to do it, Chad: Agreed. Joel: Is going to do it for you anyway, so you might as well fucking get on board [laughter] with pay transparency. But totally impressed with the union. I'm blown away that they got this done. Good for them. Chad: And I got to tell you that Shawn Fain, who literally took that position because the other guys got put in jail, and there's more transparency around the UAW today, and it has to be. I think this is like a new movement for collective bargaining and unions and hope to see this move through. And again, you mentioned Tesla. There are so many industries that are out there today who really need representation because the little guy is getting battered left and right. So yes, I think this is a very big one. And I'm excited for not just those workers, but workers throughout the entire United States. Joel: Big, big applause for the union there in Detroit. [applause] Joel: Very well done. Very well done. Let's take another break. Talk about OnlyFans for the first time on the show. [laughter] Just kidding. We'll be right back, everybody. Joel: All right, Chad, how about a little OnlyFans news? Chad: Imagine that. Joel: That's right. Megan Gaither, an English teacher and varsity cheerleading coach at St. Clair High School in Missouri was put on leave after it was revealed that she was selling explicit content on OnlyFans to supplement her income. Gaither, 31, cited financial struggles and the need to repay over $125,000 in student loans as the reasons for her moonlighting job. Her total income last year, including a coaching stipend, was about $47,500. Gaither said she had deactivated her OnlyFans account after a student left a note under her classroom door, hinting that they knew about her secret. Her colleague, Brianna Coppage, a former teacher at the same school, resigned after it was discovered that she was running an OnlyFans page with her husband. Chad, more OnlyFans drama. What are your thoughts on the latest? Chad: So, I automatically thought of Van Halen's Hot for Teacher, the video, when I started reading this. [chuckle] Because if you think about it, do you know how much more attentive I would have been in class as a teenager with these teachers? SFX: Just the tip. [chuckle] Chad: But seriously, what did those ladies do that was illegal? Nothing. Then why are school systems allowed to fire them or push them into actually quitting? If I'm not doing something illegal, then you can just fuck off. Plus, did it hamper the teacher's performance? It's amazing how we shame women for doing things that are not illegal, or we make them illegal, like, I don't know, healthcare choices for their own damn body. If I were them, I would sue the pants off of these school systems. See what I did there? Joel: I like that. That's good. [chuckle] That's good. That's not too bad, Chad. Chad: I don't get it, dude. I just don't get it. They don't make a lot of money. Joel: Well, we finally found the killer app for OnlyFans that's going to put it under is Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness. That's going to put OnlyFans out of business, if all these student loans get excused. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, kinda. Chad: Doubtful, doubtful. [laughter] Joel: Let's go back to last week's Clona.ai, Riley Reid's new venture. By the way, I reached out to Riley Reid's people for an interview. We'll see if they reply. So far, it's crickets. So Riley, call us. Chad: I appreciate that. Good. Joel: Call me, Riley. Anyway, I think OnlyFans is going to be disrupted by cheaper, naughtier options like Clona. I really don't think... Chad: AI. Joel: We're going to be talking about OnlyFans in 10 years in the way that we are today. AI is going to take this over. VR is going to be a thing, body suits with vibrating condoms. Who knows what the future holds? But it's not good for OnlyFans unless they make some serious acquisitions. But the girlfriend experience is coming and it's not in the form of teachers moonlighting with booby pictures. Second thing is, can we start paying teachers like the rock stars that they are? Look... Chad: That'd be great. Joel: It's an election year. I want to hear some governors talking about six-figure salaries for entry level teachers. That's what I want to hear. You want to see states start outperforming every other state, you want to see kids from all backgrounds start to outperform their peers, you want to see best-of-the-best college grads go into teaching? Well, start paying them like the badasses that they are. And that's why Chad and I are running as co-governor in the State of Indiana this fall. That's right, kids. Chad: Jesus. Joel: Vote Chad and Cheese. Vote Chad and Cheese. We're running for [laughter] co-governor of Indiana. Oh my God. Coach Knight, rest in peace. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Ya' down with LLM? How artificial intelligence is leveraging Large Language Models to power solutions like ChatGPT is redefining how recruiting and hiring is done. The problem is, its early innings, which means the masses don't quite understand the ramifications and how to harness the new tech in order to take their staffing strategies to a new level. That's why we invited Textkernel CEO Gerard Mulder on the podcast to make sense of it all. Textkernel’s LLM Parser, powered by GPT-3.5, represents a groundbreaking fusion of Textkernel’s proprietary industry knowledge with ChatGPT, making this dynamic combination the next generation in parsing technology, offering recruiters and HR professionals unparalleled levels of accuracy, efficiency, and insights into candidate data. Yeah, it's kind of a big deal, and the boys grill Mulder on the benefits, competitive landscape and potential threats. We also cover Textkernel's recent acquisition of Joboti, and dive into what potential moves the company might be eyeing in the future. Recorded live from the Textkernel booth in Paris at Unleash, you won't want to miss this conversation with long time Chad & Cheese sponsor. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. 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 yeah, what's up, everybody? It is your prime minister's favorite podcast aka The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, the Jacques to my Cousteau, Chad Sowash... Chad: Amen. Joel: Is in the house. So we're recording live from Unleash World at the Textkernel booth... Chad: Wow! Joel: And what better first interview to have than CEO of Textkernel, Gerard... [applause] Chad: Gerard Mulder. [laughter] Joel: Mulder joining us. Gerard, welcome to the podcast, for the third time? Gerard Mulder: I think it's the third time. I did send you guys some recordings... Chad: You get a... [laughter] Gerard Mulder: So maybe it's four times? I don't know. Joel: You get a red velvet smoking jacket. Gerard Mulder: If he's named Jet, then I'm Gerard right now, right? Joel: Gerard. Gerard. Gerard... Chad: Gerard. Gerard. Joel: A rose by another name smells just as sweet. Chad: Like Textkernel, yes. Joel: What do you prefer? Gerard, Gerard, Gerard? Gerard Mulder: I'll do my official pronunciation on this show once and then I... Joel: Give it to us. Gerard Mulder: You can just... Gerard. Joel: Gerard. Chad: Gerard. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Gerard. Joel: Gerard. Yeah. Alright, so you guys are making things happen. You're moving and shaking. Some news that recently came out. The Textkernel LLM Parser... Chad: Oh my God, here we go! Joel: Give us the skinny on this release. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. So like with every development in machine learning over the past two decades, roughly we're also embracing large language models. And the great thing about these large language models is that the start that you have is already at a very high bar, it's better than anything that's come before. What the great thing about our capability now is that we're combining this large language model with our proprietary deep learning models. And by doing that, we can actually get it even more accurate, but also we're able to solve for a really big problem, which is the speed of the parsing. We're basically breaking up with our deep learning parser, the CV into bits, and then sending that into synchronous separate calls to a large language model. And this way, we can actually get to reasonable speeds still. I must say it's for our high volume customers. It's not the recommended solution right now because it's going to be too slow. But if accuracy is really important to you, it's great. And we're super excited. Chad: Practical use. One of the things that cracks me up is we've been talking about large language models and ChatGPT this and Bard that and Claude, and we're not hearing real practical reasons to be using, literally, from a business standpoint. And this is probably one of the first. Other than going and putting your job descriptions into ChatGPT. It's just, it's one of those things where it's really cool to be, you guys are the market leader in parsing, matching all the way around. And now, instead of just staying still and waiting for the market to do something, you're doing it yourself. Gerard Mulder: We were the first to release deep learning-based parsing engine. And now we're the first real supplier to deliver a large language model parsing engine. And we'll continue to also test different large language models. We're definitely going to jump on top of LLaMA, for instance, from Facebook, because... But the great thing they do... Chad: Why not? Gerard Mulder: Is they're making it open source, so that creates a lot of possibilities for us. That's great. And I believe that we're still scratching kind of like the surface of where AI or where digitalization and automation... Chad: Well, you're just starting though. Right? You know what? I think most people don't understand is you don't just plug in an LLM and it just works at the max and best efficiency and/or capacity, right? Gerard Mulder: No. Chad: This is a learning type of prototyping, type of a thing. And so, I mean, it's going to get better over time, speed-wise, accuracy-wise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. And what's most exciting about it actually, is kind of like where we're taking it next, which is sort of like, you have to imagine, you can ask anything, basically, you name it, we got it. It's actually a project we did during Innovation Week, the title of that, where we're using basically a large language model and we're letting you, kind of, on the fly, decide on the data model of your outputs. And where I think the value of large language models will come in is that you can combine what's in the profile of a candidate with the real world knowledge that's inside such a large language model. But the question is, how do you do that in an easy manner and also a scalable manner? We're figuring that out, basically. Joel: And I appreciate Chad mentioning what you guys do 'cause we didn't ask at the beginning. We all just assume we know Textkernel and what you guys do. Would you add anything to the parsing side of it, in terms of a general view? Gerard Mulder: Oh, totally. So, parsing, it is how we started. Just like Sovren did, which we acquired, definitely, with confidence, I can say we have the best matching engine in the industry. We have a sourcing application that help recruit our search easily on external sources and pulling the data into our ATS. We deliver the most comprehensive insight in the labor markets, demand side of the labor market through our jobs data products. Just to put a number out there, we've analyzed 1.6 billion jobs. And you can analyze that job history and job trends historically real-time based on scale. So for every company there is in the US or Western Europe, I know what skills they're hiring for, what was the first time they were looking for somebody that knows Hadoop. Chad: You probably know better than they do. Gerard Mulder: Yes, we do. Actually, we do. Chad: Yeah. [laughter] Gerard Mulder: No, it's so funny. It's funny that you say that, because I recently... We once had a customer, and they were talking about kind of like how to get more control on what they were writing in job descriptions and also, kind of like what everybody was hiring for. And I said like, "Don't you know?" They said, "No, we don't." And I said, "Well, let me show you. And I can also show you where it was published. And I can also show you the context, people that are mentioned in these contexts." And they were like, "Wow!" [laughter] Joel: Long story short, we're biased, but Textkernel is awesome. Check them out if you need to. I want to get back to the LLM, the new technology. And so many times, a company in your position has to worry about disruption, has to worry about the next new company startup that shows up. How much of what you're doing is, we want to make sure that if we're disrupted, we disrupt ourselves? Is there a chance that this becomes the new foundation of Textkernel? Will this always just be a feature add? Is it a way to scare off the competition? Talk about the disruption and how you think about it. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. Textkernel is very innovative, basically from the start. We have this competition we do called Innovation Week, where we actually promote bottom-up innovation. Everybody in the company can pitch an ID. And it's not like a hackathon. It's actually a one week where we close the entire company, and it's not just for developers, anybody participates in such teams. And so basically, in the spirit of that, and also a little bit inspired by Google, we started Textkernel Labs. And with these large language models, or you could say the capabilities... Joel: I'm sorry, Textkernel what? Gerard Mulder: Labs. Labs. Joel: Labs. Okay... Gerard Mulder: Labs. Joel: Sorry, Labs. Got it. Alright. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. Labs. Is my pronunciation not correct? Labs? Joel: Labrador Retriever. Labs. Gerard Mulder: Labs. Joel: Got it. Okay. Gerard Mulder: So what we're doing in Labs is building prototypes really quickly to solve problems that our customers sometimes come up with or create solutions that we think of ourselves, and we make them available to our customers for a particular portal. It's not for all customers, it's some customers that get access to it. They provide feedback. And when we say like, "Hey, this is actually really interesting and it solves a big enough problem," we then start to productize such things. So I think that's a really good way of starting to actually really test the waters with all the capabilities of large language models and generative AI in general, figure out, hey, what actually really works? Yes, I agree with you like you said, like a job description builder, how much value is it? Still, we had to build one, but we did it in two weeks. Joel: People love the magic trick, Gerard... Gerard Mulder: Yes, they do. They do. Joel: They love the magic. Chad: Pull the rabbit out of the hat, Gerard. Gerard Mulder: That's in there, but like automated, reach out messages to candidates. Now, where we can add value in those types of things is because of our capabilities to analyze both a job description and a profile, and our kind of like our knowledge on the labor market, when I think about job descriptions, we know what your competitors are offering, what skills they're asking for. If you write a job description for a particular role, we can provide you that information and give you... Chad: Because it's all public data. Gerard Mulder: It's all public data. And we can give you suggestions. Actually, the job description builder was kind of like just a finger practice for us. But now customers are actually saying, "Wow, we want that, actually." And our partners are as well. So by building these things, we can also help our technology partners innovate faster at a very low cost. Chad: So, you're like crowdsourcing prototypes at this point? Gerard Mulder: Yeah, a bit. You could say that. Yeah. Joel: Yeah. Innovation is a core part of your business but also more and more are acquisitions. Everyone who listens to our show knows about the Sovren acquisition, one that was very recent was Joboti and I think there was another one... Chad: Excuse me? Joel: Yeah. Excuse me... Chad: Joboti? Joel: Let me get a Kleenex on that. Chad: So, talk about... Gerard Mulder: I actually use that internally, Joboti... Yeah. Joel: You used that? That's nice. Gerard Mulder: So I said like, "Let's shake our booty and party, that goes... " [laughter] Joel: I'm glad I'm making a positive impact on the world. Chad: That's what you're giving to the world, Cheesman. Gerard Mulder: Now we party like Joboti. Joel: Big booty Latinas and Joboti, shaking booties everywhere. Talk about the acquisition strategy, the companies that you've acquired, what kind of companies are you looking for? Are these acqui-hires? Talk about that strategy. Gerard Mulder: Yeah, so basically the strategy is two ways. On the one hand, we want to consolidate some part of the market because if we are on a bigger scale, then what we innovate and the innovations we bring to the market have more impact. So we can basically invest more in innovation that way. So that's one aspect of it. And the other aspect is actually acquire functionality that we haven't built ourselves, where we believe like, hey, this would really be a good add-on. So, Joboti or Joboti, well, it's actually pronounced, it's a very good example of that. If you look at Textkernel traditionally, we're building too many systems, like matching engines, parsing, data. But after the match, it stopped. We can automatically recommend great candidates to a job, but we don't control what happens after. Usually, not so much happened or it wasn't done in the right way. I wouldn't call Joboti the way we position it as a full blown candidate engagement platform. It's not, but it is the logical next step on what happens after you do a match or when a candidate comes to your recruitment side. Chad: Yeah. Candidate data gathering and you guys are a data company, so therefore, you can, it's a better engagement to gather more data, and then you crunch more data and you give out better output. Gerard Mulder: Yes, exactly. And like, hey, I found you a hundred good candidates automatically, now I've reached out to those candidates and 10 of them actually want to make an appointment, and we're making that appointment for you in your ATS as well automatically. That adds a lot of value. But what you are talking about is actually really interesting because the way I look at it like right now, many of our customers have huge databases. Some of them even with 20 million candidates in them. Chad: Well, they've spent how much money building that database. Right? Gerard Mulder: Unimaginable. Right? Chad: Yes, yes! Gerard Mulder: Yeah. Over years. Joel: Unimaginable for Gerard is a lot, [laughter] just so everyone knows. That's a lot of money. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. It's a lot of money. Yeah. But sometimes we do ask our customers, if we dare to be a little bit challenging, say like, "What is the value of your database actually? Or your people data?" Chad: Yeah, that's a great question. Gerard Mulder: In our Innovation Week, actually, we did a project where we started to create a dashboard and a dashboard would show kind of like what the potential value of a candidate database for a particular staffing company might be and what it is today based on the engagements of that company with their talent pool. And automation and the chatbots, and other like services around that, or analytics on your people data can significantly increase the value of the candidates database and can help you engage in a more relevant manner. And so, that's really where we're going and what we're building. Future acquisitions will also kind of like be in this path of trying to kind of like create a more automated flow and better communication with... Between companies and people, actually. Joel: And one of the things I've always been impressed with is the moat that you've built at Textkernel and obviously buying Sovren really consolidated that moat and made it even more intimidating than it was before. But you do have competition, you do have companies trying to get stronger that have been around a while. I don't see a lot of startups. You can comment otherwise [laughter] if you do, but talk about the competitive landscape. How do you think about it? What do others have that you wish that you need to build better? Are they stronger? Are you just the 800-pound gorilla [laughter] and everyone else is just renting space in your jungle? Chad: The big swinging gorilla. Gerard Mulder: We're way too modest to ever say we are. Right? Joel: You're way too Dutch. Gerard Mulder: Way too Dutch. Way too Dutch. Chad: Wait a minute, yeah. Come on. Come on. Gerard Mulder: So here's the thing. This is kind of like our, has been our kind of like go-to market strategy. We're an API business and we deliver point solutions. Sometimes, APIs are point solutions as well but what I kind of mean with point solutions is say we build an integration into SuccessFactors to solve a sourcing problem and we actually build it but our API business usually gets integrated by suppliers ourselves. From the outside, it looks like some companies, I'm not going to name any company right now, looking at one over there, might be actually seen as a competitor, but they're also a customer. So we are... [laughter] Joel: I love when that happens. Gerard Mulder: We are as a company, we believe very much in this composable product solution sets and what we're trying to do is give everybody in the industry, and I know, these are big words, we're trying to give everybody a leg up because we're trying to solve the hard problems that other companies can build on top of. When you look at competition, I have my traditional competition like XRI, for instance. And I appreciate them because we're kind of like the same age, started on the same bases. I'll never say any negative about them, but we have evolved beyond what we both started at and we're kind of like further ahead right now. We offer way more products [laughter] and solutions than they do. Joel: Well, certainly competition is good for business. I don't think you'd want to be the only guy in town. Gerard Mulder: Exactly. Exactly. And I think like I said, we're scratching the surface. There's so much possible. This market is still growing much faster than competition is coming into the market. And in the end, after that, it will consolidate, which could be a good thing for lots of people as well. Right? Chad: Well, from the outside looking in, for many companies or many prospective clients, let's say, they see the parsing matching side of the house as there are many companies that are out there that do it, but they don't understand that you guys are actually the guts behind a lot of those other companies, some unicorns that say that they parse and match, and you guys are doing it behind the scenes. Gerard Mulder: Yes. Best kept secret in HR tech. Chad: Yes. Which is always, I always thought was genius. Right? Joel: It's not a secret anymore. It's all on Chad and Cheese. Chad: The white labelling... Yeah. The white labelling... Gerard Mulder: Yeah. Well, we're not labelling anyone. Right? But yeah, you're right. Chad: It's smart business for them though, because it's hard work doing... It's like one of the heaviest lifts in the industry is what you guys do. Parsing, matching, being able to contextualize data is fucking hard. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. Building taxonomies, maintaining those. Yeah. Chad: You know better than I do. Yes. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. Ontologies. It's horrible. It's horrible. But we love it. Chad: It's horrible! [laughter] It's horrible. But we love... I wake up in midnight sweats all the time, but I love it. Joel: If it was easy, everyone would do it. Right? We talked about partners, competition, startups. We're here at Unleash. What are some of your takeaways of the conference? What are some of your goals here by exhibiting? What do you hope to get out of this week in Paris? Gerard Mulder: Yeah, regrettably, I'm only here for one day. It's just two days. Primarily happy I'm talking to you guys, of course. Chad: Thanks for being here, Gerard. Gerard Mulder: And having you on our booth. So that's cool. Yeah. For me, it really is a networking event and it's just like, and I just like, interesting company right behind our booth that's... I forgot their name, but... [laughter] Sorry about that. It's just like a new company and we're just talking about kind of like what are their biggest hurdles in development? And that's actually, skills and ontology. And they're like, it's such a big lift for them, but they have a great product to help people progress their careers. And just like in a regular conversation, you suddenly have a new potential new partner that will use your product. So for me, it's networking, just understanding what people are building... Joel: I think he's going shopping is what I'm hearing, I'm hearing. Chad: Yeah. If you take a look at it, all the startups that are around here, if they need data and 99.9% of them need data, they need somebody to parse it, contextualize it. It's like, this is shopping from a couple of different aspects... Joel: It is dating, yes. Chad: Number one, new clients in the prospect of, who knows, M&A one day. Gerard Mulder: Yeah. The other day, like many of the exhibitors here, are somehow using a software component of ours. The other day, some time ago, I was at the Borne event and I didn't expect it, I felt like, okay, this might be more competitive actually. They're more focused on staffing, of course. But even there, I suddenly noticed, probably 30% of the suppliers here use either like Sovren or Textkernel type of technology. We're trying to be nice to everyone basically, of course... [laughter] Chad: Smart. Gerard Mulder: And help out where we can. Joel: Yeah. Your brand is not one of animosity and fear... Gerard Mulder: No. [laughter] Joel: It's a loving touch that I get here... Chad: It's the red light district of the HR tech. [laughter] Gerard Mulder: Okay. Yeah... Joel: Everybody's wel... It's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa... Chad: It's very inviting! Joel: Now you've gone too far, Sowash. Chad: It's very inviting. Joel: Now you've gone too far. Gerard Mulder: No, but we'll take anybody on our booths, on our Textkernel booths. Whether you're a competitor or partner or a customer, we don't care. We'll take you around and you'll see. Joel: That's right. There's an electric bike and a pair of wooden shoes for everybody... Gerard Mulder: Yes. [laughter] Joel: At Textkernel. Gerard, thanks for your time. Thanks for letting us camp out here in your booth... Chad: Yes. Gerard Mulder: Yeah, you're welcome. Joel: For all of our listeners that don't know you, that want to connect and learn more, where do you send them? Gerard Mulder: Www.textkernel.com, of course, and you can also hit me on LinkedIn, Gerard Mulder. It should be easy to find in Amsterdam. Joel: Absolutely. And the best coffee is here at the Textkernel booth, by the way, as well. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out! Chad: We out! Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Did you happen to catch ERIN at the SHRM show this summer? If you did, you’re probably wearing a Chad & Cheese T-shirt right now. You also probably learned about a start-up in the employee referral space who just raised millions for their business. In case you missed it, employers say referrals are their No. 1 source of hire. For these reasons alone, we had to invite Mike Stafiej, CEO at ERIN, on the show to break it all down for us. We also make fun of Cardboard Chad. Confused, gotta listen. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. Intro: 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: Hey guys, cheese here. This is an interview I did with ERIN, CEO live from SHRM in Vegas. Unfortunately, my mic had some issues, so I've rerecorded my questions for this edit. Don't worry, the answers sound fine, but there may not be as organic a feel as usual. Enjoy. Mike: I'm here. This is me. Joel: You do exist, you're not just a sloth herder in Pittsburgh, which is nice. Some of our listeners don't know you and they don't know ERIN. Give them the elevator pitch. Mike: Yeah, So ERIN is an employee referral and internal mobility platform. We make employees, recruiters, I mean, that's our pitch. The outcome of what we do is more hires from employee referrals. So that's what we sell. Joel: So what's your background? Mike: So actually a nerd gone, sales guy, gone business guy. So degree in computer science, but like super blue collar, mix that all in as well. My dream, and I'm not, I'm not like exaggerating here. I was gonna go to college and I was gonna be the guy that replaced keyboards for people, because I thought you could make some good money doing that, like working in a big business. Oh, like Mike, my L key doesn't work. And like I show up and swap it out and they're like, you saved the day. Like, that was my mission. I was good at fixing computers. Right. Joel: And how Old were You? Mike: I mean, that was college. Like, I was gonna graduate college and like go, my internships were for Fortune 500 companies, like doing back office help desk stuff. Joel: What Did your parents do? Mike: Nurse and like machine room, right? So like oh, this is a college educated boy doing computer stuff. Joel: And your dream was to replace the L Key. Mike: Now you got to remember this is like, two, the L well, it's this L key specifically. Yeah. But there were other keys that I had my eyes on as well. The, this is like 2009, right? So like graduating college, like you can get a good job like helping people with tech. Now that was short-lived, so I had some internships, got a, basically from there on the abbreviated version is got some really cool jobs at startups and I only worked in startups, essentially my whole professional career. And I got to see companies go from nine employees to 250 employees and be part of that, right? So I started essentially as help desk, like dream come true, right? Like making 45 grand a year. And I made it like that... Joel: Going to one Steelers Game a year. Mike: Ah, dude, Pittsburgh, 45k in 2009. Like, I mean, that was a good out of college job. Like I was not complaining at all and benefits or excellent benefits. So anyway, I get in there and I quickly realize there's a lot of dumb people out there. So the, if you can talk about complicated things in a way that doesn't make people feel dumb, like that's something that people rewarded. And that happened at the startups I worked at. So I became a sales engineer. So I eliminated the technical hurdles on a sales cycle. Eventually quit to become a salesperson 'cause I wanted the glory. And then I realized sales is way harder than everybody thinks. I mean, extremely, extremely hard. It's fun to look at... Joel: People think it's easy... Mike: Everyone thinks it's easy 'cause like their perception of what sales is is what we're doing right now. Drinking in Vegas, hanging out expense cards. Like yeah, they don't realize the average sales person's life expectancy is like 16 months at a company, right? So like, it's high pressure but fun. And then eventually got into to starting a few companies and now we're here at ERIN, right? Joel: So what was it about employment that made you say, oh yeah, I want some of that. Mike: My dad, when I was younger was stiffed out of the referral bonus and I said, I'm gonna fix that. I'm kidding. I'm basically Batman, right? Like it's, honestly, the story is kinda unique. I was helping a lot of startups. So again, so I had a lot of startup experience through various companies and kinda like a triple threat in the tech background sales guy, with a touch in marketing, right? And I was working at, call it like a venture builder, it's like a fund that wanted to start companies. And they had several companies and they made the mistake of hiring a bunch of high up people out of big banks. And they're like, here is a company, run it. And they're like, okay, great. They have all these ideas, like now who does the work? And I come in and be like, you have to do the work. Mike: Like this is how you do it. And then through that, like recruitment became a focus for us. And eventually, like ERIN was just something I designed like on the side and it became its own thing. Like, so, all the reason we started, it's kind of different than a lot of people out there. It was still like a, I mean I designed every pixel from day one. I just went out there sort of talking to people in New York. I'm like, Hey, like we're gonna do blockchain referrals. This is 2018, right? So like, so blockchain and AI were things we had to say. Now it's funny because in 2023 you still have to say AI, it has like come back the pandemic, put it on pause. But like, it's like, no, no, no, we'll sell it again. But, so I'm out there like blockchain AI, like displaced recruiters and people are like, I don't know what you're talking about, but if you can give me more employee referral hires, I'll pay for that. And then so really just zeroed in on that problem and then built a solution around it. Joel: The name ERIN? Mike: Yeah. Joel: Talk about that. Mike: Okay, so the, it's an acronym, Employee Referral Invitation Network. ERIN Right? But the real reason I remember specifically, my kid was like two years old and I'm putting him to bed. And I get this email from one of the guys at the Venture Builder, right? And he's like, it's an article about how companies with human names have higher investments and higher customer satisfaction ratings, right? And it like cited like Marcus, Casper, all these things. And the, and part of their premise was is that it felt like a person and like a more of like a thing rather than like work, right? Like, so if I was like employee referral business, right? Like who gives a shit about that? So anyway, I got this article, I started just thinking of like HR-type names. Like what's like a fun person in HR, so the first one was Layla, right? Layla, like Layla app. Sounds cool. Sure. Layla.com is just like tons of porn. So like, couldn't use that one. So... Joel: So ERIN not as much porn around the name ERIN. Mike: Significantly less porn on ERIN. So then the name kind of ERIN popped in my head. And then like, the ER was an obvious like employee referrals and then kind of worked the acronym backwards from there. But it worked out. So we got there. Joel: Clearly Why Ask Jeeves is still the number one, search engine in the world. People really connect with those names. Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're great example of the success story with ERIN. Yeah. Joel: Yeah. Obviously. [laughter] Joel: So you mentioned competition and standing out. The referral business, obviously, there's no public company in this business that has struck it rich. Many have come and gone. I don't need to turn the pages on those history. But you look at Firstbird that was acquired recently, Teamable, WorkTaps, which I got from Google I actually don't know if they're... Mike: Don't even know if they're... Don't give them any credits, 'cause they don't exist. Joel: Yes. So how are you different? Because it seems like companies buy the stuff. They don't like it. No one uses it. They try someone else. How are you guys gonna cut through that? Mike: I think there is a few layers there. And maybe to flip just one page back in the history book, we were super naive when we started. It was not like I came out of an HR office and I was like, "Referrals can be better." We were just trying to build a solid business and solve just a legitimate problem. "If you get me more referral hires, I'll buy that." That was what everything was based off of. So actually, when we started, there was a whole bunch of other companies and the gimmick back in the day. And we didn't even know about half of them. Like, we were ignorant. So the gimmick back in the day was like, "Connect your network. We'll tell you who to refer." That's actually the whole premise that got the company started. Without that idea of, "Connect your network. We'll make it easier to refer," we would never have started the company. That was our whole pitch back in the day. We've gotten off that because we realized, one... Mike: So there's about five other companies that did that back then, Teamable, Boon, Drafted. All of them have gone under fire sales or something like that, and it's because they stuck on that. So where we shifted pretty quickly is, through the pandemic, we realized that referrals is an enterprise problem. The bigger you are, the harder it becomes to get the numbers up. And we solve that at scale. So the value exponentially is bigger. What got us through... To just go off track for a second, what got us through some of that up and down on the pandemic is just large enterprise deals. And once we were able to solve that problem for enterprise, we were able to work backwards from there and then educate the lower end of the market on like, "This is what you need to go from 10% hire from referrals to 30-35." And then we could start making some big claims about like, "Look, here's your business at 10%. At 35%, this is what it looks like. Go tell your CFO that." So the difference, I think coming full circle on this, is we're truly an ROI-driven product. We talked earlier today, we had a little session here. I said, "If you cannot save money by hiring more employee referral hires, you should not invest in employee referrals." So obviously, we know that you're gonna save money. The trick is, is how do you get there? Right? Mike: And part of that play where I think people have missed is, one, that they actually didn't listen to their customers. So the superpower we had, and somebody told me to stop saying this, but I'm gonna keep saying it, is since we had no preconceived notion about what the solution looks like, we just listened to our customers and built what they needed, and then we were able to sell that to other people. So some of the things that we're doing, specifically for enterprise, but that, again is trickle down to mid-market, our competitors don't even touch. They don't even say the words that we're saying on their sales call. So I feel like we have a little bit of an advantage there. But maybe to wrap it up, when you look at a lot of the acquisitions that have happened, it's definitely been because they're like, "Oh, this is a good feature of something bigger." And they bring it in. And look, that could naturally happen to any startup. I think as soon as you get success, somebody wants to make it part of their suite and they're good. But where we're really... Where I'm personally really excited about the future is I think HR tech and AI and talent acquisition altogether are kind of in a weird spot right now. And what I mean by that is... Mike: I mean, realistically, in 5-10 years, you're gonna have less people in talent acquisition than you have today. They're being replaced by AI plays and efficiency plays. We're not here to replace recruiters, but we're here to keep humans involved in the process. And I think as the dynamic of a talent acquisition team changes, meaning you have more sysadmins than necessarily recruiters, keeping humans involved in that process is a really appealing thing to the future. That's not just referrals, there's a lot of things you can get out of that. And so we really look at it. We're an employee-first product. And now that we're in the employee's pockets with 2 million employees using the system in 100 countries, what else can you do for that employee? I will buy into, "You cannot be an employee referral product forever. If that's all that you ever do, there's a ceiling that you'll run into." But I think we have a good foundation for some pretty appealing plays, especially because of the mobile play that we have. Joel: Is it fair to say that companies do not have more than one referral solution? Mike: Yeah, that's a pretty safe bet. Joel: Okay. So you're replacing generally what someone already has. Is it like the ATS where everybody hates their ATS, everyone hates their referral program and they're looking to change? And how hard is that change to make? Mike: Yeah, it's a great question. But honestly, it's actually not... Replacement would be a big word for it. Because the ATSs have a feature that allows referrals, but they don't get deep. It's just like, "Oh, here's a share button." That's really what it is. And then you can see the sources, a share. Or on the application, "Hey, how did you find out about us?" And they say, "Oh, somebody referred me." That's the extent of the ATS referral programs. We go way deeper about that. And the problem with those solutions, so we don't necessarily look at those as competitors, but somebody that doesn't give a shit about raising referrals from 10% to 35%, they're fine with that. But they're not our customer anyway 'cause if they don't care they hire more than 10% hires from referrals, why would they even talk to us? So they're cool with the out-of-the-box tech. But if you wanted to be at 35%, none of those solutions can get you there. The real difference is creating that experience for the employee, because the employees don't use the ATSs. Those are candidate-focused products. We're an employee-focused product. Joel: You did not say the death of recruiting, or the recruiter. I wanna make that perfectly clear. But this feels a lot like a marketing tool to me. Do you see more of what you do and more of what marketing does bleed into recruitment? And are you sort of in the pole position to take advantage of that? Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So with the large customers that we work with, they'll have a recruitment marketing initiative, whether they outsource it or I mean they have somebody dedicated to it. So it's interesting when they get pulled into the conversation, because it's definitely like a communications issue at first, like one of the biggest problems for why referral policies fail today is 'cause nobody knows about it. Then the second is that nobody knows how to participate. And then the third is that it's a bullshit experience. You have no idea what happens after you participate. So communications is a big part of solving all three of those problems. So it's starting to get blurry there. And honestly, where I see the business headed is a lot more recruitment marketing as well. But like through the employees, I'll give you a simple example. We were talking earlier about newspapers and whatnot, like a billboard to advertise jobs, like maybe effective in some markets. Mike: But what's really effective is when you have somebody make a 10-second video on TikTok and they have 50,000 likes, and nobody wants to see an ad there. They wanna see real people quick hit stuff. So how do you get your employees... Your employees are the ones that have to do it. You can't manufacture that. So how do you really tap into viral and you got to get through the employees to do that. That's where I see referrals maturing with technology in general. It's like with consumers and especially in certain industries. Like, we were talking earlier if... It's one thing, if you're looking for a bunch of accountants, but high volume retail, hospitality, things like that, you're not... Billboards aren't gonna work. Mike: You need to be more in like the current tech. Glassdoor reviews, super popular. So why can't you reward your employees for helping you with those things? So employee referrals traditionally is like, get me a hire. It's actually not that it's share this job, push it out there, let the world know that we're hiring, help us with that. And our whole take with the current product is that you should reward that behavior. So if you're sharing a bunch of jobs for me, I should give you something for that, whether it's a gift card or a giveaway or whatever it may be. So the same thing goes with Glassdoor reviews, viral videos, those are things that should be rewarded as well. Mike: And the other thing people don't think like the first part of the gig economy was employee referrals, right? It's no different than a, "Hey, go drive me here and I'll give you a couple of bucks." Employee referrals is the same thing. "Hey, go be talent acquisition for a day and I'll give you two grand." Like tapping into that. And I think really pulling back that experience and then breaking that down and spreading that across tens of thousands of employees, you're going to see a lot of roles within a company, not just talent acquisition, I think kind of like, decentralized, we'll say, and split up like, " Hey, I'll give you 50 grand a year to do this job, but I'll give you an extra grand a week if you do this job." I think there's going to be a lot of how the world changes in the next 10 years. And I hope to be able to capitalize on it. Joel: Yeah. It has always felt more marketing to me than recruiting. Like commission junction was the original or Amazon's affiliate program, training people to have a unique URL, share it with the world and everything bought that always seemed like a natural fit. And it always seemed like that would be something marketing would understand. How do we get more hires, more exposure to opportunities through that mechanism? There was a company... Part of me thinks this is generational. There was a company called H3 before the car that did this. Mike: I only know about them because of your podcast. Joel: Because of the podcast. Mike: Otherwise I'm like, "Who the hell is that?" I Googled them, I can't find them. Joel: H3 and the founders, a friend of ours of the show. And I had conversations with him about why wouldn't this work? Because I actually joined the service. I knew someone that wanted a recruiting job. I referred them. They had sort of the unique URL. They tracked it through the, I guess, ATS at the time. And then I actually literally got a check in the mail because I referred that person to the job. And that seemed like an amazing business to me. Like if you could somehow harness that, it didn't work. Mike: Yeah. Joel: And when you talk to... Hans is the guy's name who founded it. When you talk to Hans, he says that social media wasn't there at the time, but more importantly, there was a generational cultural opinion that you don't just shotgun jobs. It's something you don't just shout from the mountaintops. Is it your opinion that Gen Z, younger millennials, they don't give a fuck. They'll share the shit. Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why would they? Joel: I want to get paid. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And I'll tell you, this is a great point 'cause we have this conversation with customers all the time. One of the questions I'll ask is like, "Well, if they're sharing it on social, do we want to give them the same amount of credit as if they refer them?" I'm like, "Well, what problem are you trying to solve?" Start with that. And if the problem is that you don't have enough candidates, then who gives a shit. Get them any way you can. And usually they're like, "Yeah, you're right." And I was like... And I'll tell you what, once you hit 35% hires from referrals, scale it back. Part of the problem, going back to your earlier question, where people were just missing is that the nuanced details of actually taking their paper policy and then putting it into software is really hard to scale, right? Joel: Yeah. Mike: And what I mean by that is, do you want to treat a social share different than a direct referral? Your program better be able to differentiate that and handle that and it should be able to have the analytics on that as well, so that you can make those decisions. And that's really what we do. That... When I say like your ATS doesn't touch that, your ATS doesn't go that deep. We go literally as deep as you can on this topic. And everything we've ever built has been designed from our customers. Not to get too abstract, jumping back here. I think that is a little bit dated in a mindset, but I also think it's always, again, what problem you are trying to solve, what outcome you are trying to drive. And if you're having a hard time hiring, I'd say who cares how you get the candidates, as long as they're quality, and then have the ability to scale that, calibrate that as you go. So that if you are getting spammed with a bunch of junk, then maybe that's not part of your plan. Most customers don't care about that right now. Joel: Yeah. So your product is primarily employees that work at the company to empower them to market, share jobs, etcetera. It's not for the world at large to find out, "Oh, Microsoft has a job." I know I'm not an employee of Microsoft, but I know someone who might be good for this. I'm gonna share that. It's not part of that as I understand, is it going to be, do you have an opinion on keeping it in-house versus letting the world know about these opportunities? Mike: I mean, this is, and that's kind of going back to your H3 question. Honestly, that was the original ideation of this product, which is like anybody can be referred, actually a great use of a decentralized thing, which is logging on the blockchain. And I mean... Was it hired.com that they basically did this. Joel: Yeah. Mike: Like, Hey, anybody can be a recruiter and then they still charged charge the same bullshit fees that an external recruiter would charge which is a huge miss. Right? Like... Joel: Yeah. Mike: So one, I mean, look, marketplaces in general are hard. B2B is a lot different than B2C and you're essentially talking about mixing both together and it takes a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of presence to really build that, I do have an opinion that it pulls a little bit too far away from the quality at that point. But the biggest thing, 'cause we've tackled that specific problem with some other people and we've allowed them to do that in certain ways. The biggest thing is taxes. Like, how do you, if you're giving a real bonus for that or anything worth value, which you need too to catch anybody's attention, the paperwork is not worth it. 'Cause I already have 10,000 employees, why do I need 350 million? Right? Like, the 10,000 can do it better than the 350 million and I don't want to have to get 1099s for all of them. Right? Joel: Yeah. Mike: So like, at least in our customer base, like they're struggling enough as it is in terms of like resources. So then like, handle the paperwork for non-employees is, would be a nightmare. That's usually what kills that conversation. Joel: Interesting. Mike: We can do it, but usually they decide, our customers decide not to do it. Joel: Got it. Mike: Because it's just not worth the headache. Joel: Got it. So you raised $5 million late last year? Mike: Yep. Joel: What has the money gone toward? Or new raises. Mike: Do you see these Chad and Cheese T-shirts? Joel: Obviously the Chad and Cheese. Mike: Yeah. I mean, like, these are nice ass shirts and they're like, so most of it went to the shirts. Big part of it went to the Chad cutout. Joel: This loss and the cardboard Chad and the T-shirts. Mike: Yeah, the high, it's a nice cardboard though. And it's stands up. Really it's a... Joel: Oh, it's a top of the line cardboard. Mike: So... Joel: As only Chad would would want it. [laughter] Mike: So we had early success through the pandemic and right after. We're not like some like instant success story. It was two years of grinding it out and then the pandemic created a situation where people wanted to invest in more nuanced ways of recruiting. Joel: Yeah. Mike: And referrals has always been the gold standard. We got it. So we were able to build enough of like really product market fit over the last two years that drove the round. And that round was based on what we are today and also what we can become. Going back to some of the other stuff that I just shared with you. So that said, I mean, mostly growth, right? Like, say like, you see here, we have the bigger booth. I mean, we're not gonna be like HR tech, crazy big booth. Joel: Few more people on the booth. Mike: Yeah. Few more people. So we hired salespeople, marketing people. We doubled the size of the company in the last, six months. But we're still, I'll tell you, raising money last year was a really cool experience because like, we were profitable and then raised money and just advice for other entrepreneurs out there. It's 2023. If you did do not have a path to profitability or you're not profitable already, you're not getting the money you want. Joel: Yeah. Mike: So like, that has to be a number one focus. So while we're spending that to grow faster and it's been working, we're still like super cautious of just like, what's next and what's the world gonna bring to us? And we want like our growth to kind of, to fund that more than anything. Joel: Yeah. Mike: So the round has been awesome. It's given us flexibility, but more than anything, like our customer base has been growing the business. Joel: So are you actively looking for new funding? It's sounds from your comments. Mike: Yeah, yeah. Joel: That it's a much more challenging environment. Mike: This shows you like half, I said wolves and I'm a little sheep. Right. Like, they're just like circling me. Like there he is. [laughter] get him, get him. I think part of a CEO's responsibility is always fundraising. Whether you need the money or not, you should always have options. The time we're in right now is the that people that need the money, the people with it don't wanna give it to them. And the people that don't need the money, the people with it want to give it to them. We wanna be in that second category, right? Joel: Yeah. Mike: So we operate our business as if we're never gonna raise another round again. However like look, I just, I told you the 10 year plan, which is there'll be less people in talent acquisition. They'll have different roles. It's like when ATMs came to banks, right? Everybody thought, oh, like we're never gonna have tellers again. So no, like the jobs are still there, they just did different things, right? So AI's coming in and that's your ATM, I think the space is gonna change pretty dramatically over the next 10 years. And I like the fact that so many businesses have done referrals and have failed. And one thing investors always start with is like, HR techs are crowded space. I'm like, it's a crowded space with a bunch of bullshit. It all looks like crap. None of it integrates or works the way you think it does. So when you get good products in there, there's actually a lot of, there's a ton of potential from this space. Joel: Yeah. Mike: And we wanna be on the not only the cutting edge that's saving the bleeding edge of that at some point. So referrals is a pretty safe and traditional play. Joel: Yeah. Mike: But I see a ton of potential. So our future rounds of funding would fund these bigger efforts. And like I said being a referral product forever, like our story could be that we just get gobbled up like the others have. Or we could drive some really cool shit in the future. And really cool shit takes a lot of money. Joel: I like cool shit. You mentioned integrations. How important has that been to your growth? Mike: 100%. So listen, I'll tell you, I didn't know what an ATS was when I launched this company. [laughter] Mike: That's how outside I was. I'm not kidding. And I'll tell you, I'm trying to think of all the assholes that told me no in the beginning. Like, there was a list of ATS, they were like, you ever seen, remember this show, was it Billy Madison? Joel: Yeah. The movie? Mike: Yeah. Or the movie. But when he calls the one dude and he is like, Hey, I just wanted to apologize for being a dick to you in high school. And he like crosses him off the kill list. Like, that's like, that was like me with ATSs back in the day. I'm like, these are all the dudes that told me no, right? We're not gonna touch your startup. You can't integrate with us. And then I did it anyway. And then they came back and they're like, oh, like you actually know when people are unhappy with a product because they're investing in things that we do poorly. Joel: Yeah. Mike: Which is referrals. So maybe we should actually be friends with you. So like I love having relationship with some, but critical, I mean like every, we have one customer that's not integrated. Joel: Wow. Mike: Every, so not only ATSs, we do the full tech stack at this point. So as our product evolved, we realized you needed, like, it's not just about candidates, it's also about it, Hey, like employees in like eligibility. That stuff's not in the ATS, it's in the HRIS system. So we integrate there, we integrate with single sign-on. So it's really the whole tech stack. But out of our own ignorance, the way we did that was basically out of those systems into ours. So it's made these integrations a lot more painless than people expect. Joel: Yep. Mike: So that we can come in and like, look, if you're a Greenhouse customer, you plug in the API and it works. If you're Workday, it's like, here's the RAS report we need, and like they're, okay we already did that for our website. Joel: Yeah. Mike: So we keep it pretty standard and that's allowed us to streamline that and make it, honestly, probably the easiest like full tech HR tech stack integration that people have done. Joel: You said referrals were the gold standard of recruiting. Why? Mike: There's a few reasons for it. And one, I mean. They... When you think about starting a company, really what you're looking for is something that's done on spreadsheets today. And you want to make it better, right? Because if they're doing on spreadsheets, that means they're doing it and it's important to them. But I mean, everybody's had a referral policy for decades. The referrals are the gold standard because one, it's a faster hiring cycle and it gives you a better quality candidate, and that's measured really by retention. And the biggest reason for that, people don't always think about this, is that when you get a referral, they actually know shit about your business, that your job description's not telling. The dirty laundry's been aired. It's like, here's how it works and here's what the job really is. And when you get a high quality referral that comes through that they know what they're getting into and they already have some people inside the business. So they, culturally, it's easier to fit in faster. Everybody listening to this has either hired, been hired by a referral or have made a referral before. This is my buddy, they're a good person. I worked with them before. You're basically putting out some credibility for them and you're putting your reputation within the company on the line. So that creates overall just a better candidate for everybody. Joel: One of the criticisms of referral programmes... Mike: Is this DEI. As soon as I said it, I'm like, oh. I know... Joel: Come on, man. I'm trying to sound really smart with my question, which never works anyway. But yes, if I just empower my employees, they're all going to look the same because they all know people like them a 100%. You clearly don't agree with that, but why not? Mike: So you're basically saying you're anti-DEI on your employee base, which is kind of fucked up. But I hear the premise. We actually, so we talked about buzzwords, right? So 2018 was blockchain and AI. 2019 was DEI. Do you remember that? Joel: Sure. Mike: If you didn't have a DEI product. Joel: We got a show. Mike: Like, oh dude, we were early stage startup. We had a DEI in play. And it actually worked. So what we did is we had, it's a diversity hire incentive. So you can plug this into anything you want. If you want to hire a woman on the sales team or veterans, whatever it may be, essentially. And now we didn't source any data on it. We just said, hey, if you want to reward people actually participating in your DEI effort, here's a way to actually do that 'cause the problem with DEI is that it's limited to just the talent acquisition team in marketing, obviously. So what I mean by that is it's easy to say, we have a DEI initiative, but to actually get your company to do that at whole, you actually have no way to do that. So when you say, hey, but we'll reward you and pay you to participate in that process because that's important to us as a business, so much so that we'll pay you double the referral bonus if you give us a DEI higher, then we'll be good. Mike: So what we did is essentially if the ATS tells us this person is qualified, that we do nothing to source 'cause it's just a slippery slope right there. But basically, and it could just be a recruiter checking the box at the end of the day, it then triggers a bigger bonus amount for that employee. It notifies them, hey, you've participated in the DEI programme. Here's a bigger bonus. So I'll give you a simple example. We had a customer in Spain, so all the people in legal right now are just licking their chops, like, got to go after. So this is in Spain, they're not in the US And I always tell people, we got to talk to your legal team before we do anything. We're just the product. Their sales team was heavily male dominated, so they double the bonus if you refer a female to work in the sales team. So a simple example, but it's effective and it says, this is what we want to do as a business and we'll pay you for it. Joel: There are a lot of people here at the SHRM National Show, it's a general show. You're getting a lot of people that are in their 20s or just getting started out in the profession. For the listeners out there who are new to referrals, they're just starting to look at companies and solutions. What kind of question should they be asking? What kind of things should they be looking at to justify who they pick to run their programme? Mike: Yeah, yeah, look, I think it's the very first thing is what's your policy look like? And if you're going to work with a vendor like Aaron, can they actually automate every part of your policy? Because the whole point is to eliminate manual work. And by eliminating manual work, you can actually give real time feedback to your employees. So it's not just making your job easier, it's making the experience better for everybody. So eliminating that manual work is key. The second thing is most people approach this from a one size fits all solution. But the reality is, especially if you're a large enterprise, it's like you're going to have hundreds of thousands of locations in multiple countries. And usually the policies are broken down that way. And whether you want to maintain that or not, the reality is some areas, locations, branches, countries, they're going to perform better than others. Mike: And not only does the product need to be able to understand that structure, but it needs to be able to give you analytics 'cause look, tech is tech. You need to know what's working and you need to double down on that. So by getting analytics broken down and saying, hey, it turns out nursing in Manhattan, we're getting through the roof referrals for it. But in Pittsburgh we're getting none, why is that? Maybe it's a manager problem, maybe it's a communication problem. But if you don't have that data point, you can't make that decision. So regardless of how good the tech is, it needs to break down the data in a way that you can ingest that and make decisions. 'Cause it's like you launch this thing six months later, you got to relaunch it, right? You're going to take what's good, double down on it, take what's bad and cut it out. So those are the two big things. Automate the policy completely and then make sure that it's set up to structure the data in a way where you can get intelligence that you don't have today. Joel: And how is your pricing structured and how is it different than maybe some of your competitors? Mike: Yeah, so early on when we launched, we came out, I mean, role point was they were big dogs back in the day. It's fun 'cause immediately we launched and we're competing with the big dogs in the space, a 30 employee company like man. So we went head to head with them. They got bought up on Jobvite, and that kind of cleared the space. There was a bunch of other players in the space, and we actually brought their pricing down because we got so effective so early on, and we were just kind of desperate for sales. I'm not going to lie that it dragged everybody else down to them for them to price match us as our product outplayed theirs. So when that happened, it kind of set the standard. We do it based on number of employees that you have. So whether you're using the product or not, it's how big of a company are you? And part of that is because we have features that are focused on all employees, marketing to them, getting them, onboarding them into the system, processing their eligibility data. Mike: Giving you analytics on it, even if you have, 15% using it. So we base it on your size, we take that into account and then now we have different things that you can add on. We fully white label our product for our enterprise customers. So that's a small extra fee. We don't, we try to say like, we don't make any money on it, but it's more work. So, but it makes adoption easier, right? So something we want, we really encourage our customers to do, but it's essentially how big are you and what features do you want? But the foundation is the size. Joel: So you're saying size matters at ERIN? Mike: You know what, thankfully this is not... Joel: I'll get to the next question. Mike: This Is not the case in college for me, but now size does matter. [laughter] Joel: I'll let you out on this we're hearing the ERIN Booth, we're giving away Chad Cheese T-shirts. The only thing more popular than the Chad and Cheese T-shirt is the Sloth. Mike: Is the Sloth. Joel: Tell me about the Sloth. Mike: Yeah, great, great question. Scrappy young startup. We actually, coming to our first SHRM a couple years ago, they moved it multiple times 'cause of the pandemic. They ended up putting us up front, we had this awesome booth spot and where the question was what are we gonna give away? And my past experience in startups, I'm like, nobody wants your garbage. Like they're gonna throw it out. They throw away the cheap t-shirts. That's why we had to do the higher quality. You wrestled us into the $11 T-shirts instead of the $6 ones. I liked the scratchiness of the $6 ones, but whatever. Joel: Hey, you can have all the beefy tees as well as far as I'm concerned. Mike: But it's like, what are you gonna give away if somebody actually will keep and not like, just throw away? And the real answer to that is something they can give their kids. So we got these sloppy arms sloths people they ate them up, I mean lines around the booth and it just kind of became our thing. So like where the Sloth people now, we have t-shirts with sloths on it and the company culture, like it's really good to anchor early stage startup 'cause look, you're gonna work yourself like 60 hour weeks. Everybody is busting their ass. Anchor the culture in something silly. And it's sloths. Like we have sloth posters in the office. I told you earlier, all our conference rooms or sloth like movies replace with sloths, instead of jaws. It's claws and sloth man prophecies. Joel: Clever. Mike: So and not only that, like our customers really enjoy it as well. So we'll send them care packages. It's crazy how much sloth shit you can buy on Amazon but it's all over office. And it's like we needed a coat hanger and I'd search for sloth coat hangers and they exist, right? So Yeah, it's just anchored in, it was like just an innocent thing. Joel: Was the fact that that sloths are slow put into the equation. Mike: It's just like we came with the name and worked backwards on the acronym. It's like we make your slowest, recruiters fast or slowest. Joel: I like the no pressure, the no stress. Yeah. I get that. Mike: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll use that one moving forward. Yeah. So anyways, so the sloths mean like no pressure, no stress. Things like that. [laughter] Joel: All right. Good enough. Well Mike, thanks for hosting us here at SHRM. For our listeners that wanna know more about you or the company, where would you send them? Mike: They will go to erinapp.com. E-R-I-N-A-P-P.com. Joel: I can dig it. And we have closed down. The lights are going out. Mike: They got dim. [laughter] Joel: At SHRM. Another one in the can. Thanks for sitting down with with us. We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Chase podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way. There's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy in nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Employee retention. Ever heard of it? It’s kind of a big deal. See, employers would rather hold on to the existing crop of workers than have to go back to the well year after year. Ever heard of the gaming industry? Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal too, and hold onto those employees are particularly tricky. Good thing we ran into Madeline Laurano, the founder and chief analyst of Aptitude Research, while we were in Paris at Unleash, because she actually gave a presentation on the topic and decided to hangout with your boys in the Textkernel booth for some knowledge droppin’. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: 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: Oh yeah. What's up everybody? It's Emmanuel Macron's. Favorite podcast, AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host... Chad: Is that true? Joel: Joel Cheeseman joined as always. The French to my fries, Chad Sowash is in the house and we are recording live from Unleashed World in the Textkernel booth and we are just giddy to welcome. Madeline Laurano, founder and chief analyst at Aptitude Research to the show. Madeline, welcome. Madeline Laurano: Thanks Joel. Thanks Chad. I'm excited to be with you all in person. Chad: Yes. Joel: In person? Chad: She's probably one of the people who can say that she gets the velvet robe for being on the show. Joel: Have you been on Five Times? Madeline Laurano: I think so. But this is my first with you, Joel. Like normally it's just me and Chad. Joel: We really have to do this velvet thing, 'cause we're kind of talking ourselves into it. It's the old SNL. Chad: I think it is. Oh yeah. Joel: Once you've hosted Five Times. Chad: Big Chad, Cheese heads on the back. Madeline Laurano: Oh, I like it. Chad: Velvet. It should be purple I think. Madeline Laurano: I want a T-shirt though. Joel: A nice pipe. Madeline Laurano: I need a T-shirt. Chad: You don't have a T-shirt yet? Madeline Laurano: No. Madeline Laurano: I want a T-shirt. Chad: That's 'cause we don't have extra small, that's why. Joel: Oh what a nice... Madeline Laurano: Oh that's nice. I like that answer. That's like the best answer ever. Joel: Okay, so a lot of our listeners know who you are, some do not, give us a Twitter bio. Tell us about Aptitude Research. Madeline Laurano: Sure. I'm an analyst, so I study HR technology, give opinions and write research reports. So there's a lot of comments. I know you wanna say right now. Joel: She's given that before quite a bit. So you presented here at the show? Madeline Laurano: Yes. Joel: Tell us what you presented, what maybe some of the feedback was. How hot was the topic? Madeline Laurano: I really liked this topic. So it was not me presenting anything. It was me interviewing a company, Ubisoft, which is a big gaming company. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Uber stank? What? [laughter] Madeline Laurano: They have 20,000 employees and they, are using talent intelligence and Eightfold and Skills to be able to retain, that's their issue retention. So it was around retention, but retention in the gaming industry, which is really, really interesting. Chad: Big names like Assassins Creed. Madeline Laurano: Yes. Chad: Far Cry, Tom. Oh my God. They've got some kick ass games. Who would not wanna work for them? Madeline Laurano: So it's, and gaming is very insular. So it's people that get into the gaming industry stay in gaming. And typically before COVID retention wasn't an issue. Like you'd stay with the company because games take three to five years to develop and create. And then you wanna see your name on the credits. Like that's the big thing. Chad: Is that like part of your resume? Madeline Laurano: That's my new resume. Chad: Is it? Okay. Madeline Laurano: And then if you're young and you're coming out and your name is up there and you tell mom and dad and whoever else that you're on this game, It's awesome. Chad: And Gotrude everybody. Madeline Laurano: Yeah, exactly. Everybody. Joel: I was young and coming out at one point. But that's a different podcast. Chad: That was college. Joel: Now acquisitions are a big deal in this space. Madeline Laurano: Yes. Joel: Obviously Microsoft and Activision, is in the headlines quite a bit. Is that from a retention tool? Is that when the rats scatter and go elsewhere? Talk about the acquisition and what that means to poaching. And these people working elsewhere. Madeline Laurano: I think acquisitions change the culture, it's like the company culture changes, people have more opportunities and they look to go elsewhere. For this company, the interesting thing was a lot of times people leave 'cause of compensation, especially if you're young. You're like, you're gonna make more money, you could double your salary. And if you're in your 20s, that's like life changing. So for them it wasn't compensation, it was internal mobility. Chad: Ah, okay. Madeline Laurano: So they wanted to like gamers wanna know they have career development opportunities. Chad: Doesn't everybody though? Madeline Laurano: I think so. I think so. Chad: I think aren't we seeing that more? Madeline Laurano: More and more. Chad: And one of the reasons why attrition is like exploding in many of these big brands. Is because they just don't know where the hell they're gonna go next. Madeline Laurano: They don't know where they're gonna go next and they wanna feel like there's some investment in their careers from their employer. It's so funny 'cause I think about like when I started interviewing at companies when I was in my 20s, I would never have asked that question. Like, what are my... They would ask me that question. Where do you see yourself in three years? You wouldn't ask the employer. And now that's shifted. People are asking that in interviews. Chad: Which is great. Madeline Laurano: It is great. Joel: I think another thing that we didn't have. Coming up in the work world was the option to work from home. And I would think that these are highly intelligent individuals that like working at a computer, and programming and coding. What is the typical outlook at gaming companies when it comes to hybrid, remote all the time? Get your ass back in the office and how is it impacting retention? Madeline Laurano: Oh. This is such a good question 'cause this came up and I would've thought exactly that. I would've thought it's work from home is what they would want. A lot of them might seem like introverts, but they found the productivity was going down so much with a work from home. So the games, the cycle for the games to come out. Was taking and is taking generally longer in this industry, in the gaming industry than it ever has before. And they think they're attributing that to work from home. So hybrid is definitely where they're at finding that balance between letting people have the flexibility but they need people in person collaborating, brainstorming together, face-to-face. Chad: Is that because they're so young at this point? Madeline Laurano: Possibly. Chad: Because at that point, when you've matured, you understand you gotta get shit done or you might not have a job. And you've got a house and kids and all that stuff. But when you're young, you're just kind of flying all over the place and you're not, you really don't have the discipline to work from home. Madeline Laurano: Yes. Chad: So is the demographic for their workforce fairly young? Madeline Laurano: Yeah. Madeline Laurano: It's younger. They definitely have senior roles and they're balancing like how do they balance both? But yeah, I think that that's a big part of the work from home conversation. The other interesting they said about the generational piece is like generative AI can replace so much of what happens in the gaming industry, but they don't wanna replace entry-level roles. And that's what a lot of people are talking about. But they can't do that because you have to grow in this industry for the company. And they have to have the entry level roles. Chad: Your pipeline, your senior pipeline for five years from now. Joel: That's fascinating. I assume that's part of the messaging. That grow your career here, you're not gonna be automated out of a job, and you'll eventually be that person that can't be replaced. That seems like a fantastic recruiting message, [laughter] but I'm sure Ubisoft and everyone else is doing. Any recommendations around that or tips? Chad: I can stick behind it. Yeah. Madeline Laurano: I Know. They're using technology for that internal mobility. So it's basically matching them with opportunities as they continue in their career. Joel: How do you pitch that story to investors? Because they're looking to cut costs, they're looking to be more automated. Madeline Laurano: Yep. Joel: I assume those are diverging viewpoints. How does a company talk to their investors? Madeline Laurano: They are. Yeah. And I think it's enhancing the role instead of replacing it. It's kind of satisfying both. Like telling your investors this makes them do their job better. Productivity is enhanced. Ultimately could the games come out every two years and not three to five years versus we're replacing. But it is, it's balancing what your employees need versus what your investors want to hear. Chad: Is that what we're looking at. Madeline Laurano: I think so. Chad: I think in the near future, in the future is really just the balance. Madeline Laurano: Yeah. Chad: Because you made a big, big point. You can't have senior people on the team if you don't have junior people on the team to be able... And if they don't... If it's not transparent to know what the actual path is to get to the senior positions. And for years there was no transparency. Madeline Laurano: Yeah. Chad: There was no transparency. You weren't sure where you were gonna go and so people were just ejecting. Being an analyst, you see a shit ton of technologies. What technologies are you seeing that are making those pathways more transparent and making it easier for companies to retain? Because we all know attrition costs more to a company. Because obviously the hiring and whatnot. So what are you seeing? What kind of platforms. Madeline Laurano: And it's all industries. Everyone's impacted right now by this attrition conversation. Chad: Exactly. Madeline Laurano: So I think you're gonna love this answer is the skills, the talent intelligence. I do think if you're using... Chad: Did you just say talent intelligence? Madeline Laurano: I did [laughter] I knew I was gonna... Joel: She's leading the witness Chad. Madeline Laurano: I knew I'm leading the witness. But if you're using a skills-based approach, you're seeing the individual for the full picture and the complete picture, not just experiences that you find on a resume. And not just what you find in an employee profile. So everyone's got an opportunity to kind of own their own career. Chad: Looking at those, there are plenty of assessments that are out there. And we've seen so many pseudoscience, there's just so much that's happening and it's so hard for HR and TA to look out there. And every I/O psych person that is on staff or what have you, how do they cut through all of that to find out what is actually working for them? Or say for instance, competitors or other people in the market. How... Where do they go? Where's the bible for that? Madeline Laurano: It's so hard. There was a session recently at a conference where it was Spectrum and they were talking, they had their I/O and their head of talent acquisition who are both amazing and the work that they have done to get insights into that retention piece is incredible. But a lot of it's manual, so they're doing it all on their own and it's mind blowing... Chad: Oh. Madeline Laurano: But if you don't have the expertise on your team, how do you do that work? And I think what we're seeing with a lot of the tech providers now is, you can get those insights, whether it's assessment providers, whether it's talent intelligence platforms to be able to get a better understanding of your workforce without having to do all of it manually. Chad: Well, 'cause you have to... You can't scale that. Madeline Laurano: No. Chad: That's just... Madeline Laurano: And it's constant, you have to consistently stay on top of it. Chad: Yeah. Madeline Laurano: And you just need dedicated roles to do that. It's a lot of work. Chad: So did they do that just because there were so many variables from company to company to company, from client to client to client. And they felt like the only way to do it was manually? Madeline Laurano: Through tech. Or through Spectrum? Chad: Yeah. Madeline Laurano: Yeah. And they have a lot of brands that they were bringing together. And retention's a big issue for them too, so yeah. They were... And they have the skills to do it. They have Laura Fields is their I/O and she's brilliant. You should have her on the podcast. She's really good. Joel: Hey, this is our show. [laughter] We'll decide who's on this show. We'll decide. Get your own podcast. Chad: I'm gonna look her up right now. Madeline Laurano: Yeah. [laughter] Joel: How important is... Google made 20% time popular. They've since gone away from that, from what I understand. But it seems to me like gaming would be prime for free time experiment. Throw stuff at the wall and that leads to greater retention. Talk about that and other companies doing it well. Madeline Laurano: Yeah I think it's such a good point because gaming especially, it's that combination of creativity and tech. Well you don't see that in a lot of other industries. It's like both things. Chad: Yeah. Madeline Laurano: It's really unique skill sets, but it's exactly that. And this didn't come up in the session, but I do wonder how much of that is free playtime on your own, at your own time. Two in the morning, whatever that might be... Chad: That's creative. Yeah. Madeline Laurano: That's creative versus set nine to five work from home conference meeting. And at what point is there burnout with that too? If you're balancing both things. If you're making everyone come to the office in meetings all day nine to six and then they've gotta do creative time at home on their own. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Do we just go back and we've been talking about this hybrid is the answer possibly. But it feels like there's been such a huge push to push everybody back into the office. It's hurting attrition. You've got... It's hurting retention. But it's also hurting something that I don't think we think enough about, the individuals with disabilities... Madeline Laurano: Yes. Chad: Actually have the highest rate of work right now. Madeline Laurano: Yeah. Chad: That hurts that community in a very, very big way. Not to mention it also hurts diversity programs. Madeline Laurano: Absolutely. Chad: So why are we not hearing more about that? Madeline Laurano: I don't know. Chad: Because I think that would almost shatter a lot of these big brands. Saying that it's literally just an attack on their diversity efforts. Madeline Laurano: Absolutely. Even you saw it with the schools too, for a lot of kids that needed some extra support or where diversity, equity, inclusion was part of those school programs. The home environment was actually better for them. And then you're just forcing all the kids back into the school system where it doesn't always work for everyone. And we're doing the same thing in the office. And we're not thinking about that. I don't know if you're seeing this too, but I feel like there's been this trend where we're talking less about diversity, equity, and inclusion... Chad: Oh yes. Madeline Laurano: Than two years ago. And... Chad: Easily. Madeline Laurano: You've got this whole work from home thing happening and this hybrid forcing everyone back into the office and yet we're not talking enough about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yeah. I think it's such a good point. Why isn't this not a main topic? Joel: We're here at Unleash World, you talk to everybody, company-wise. What companies here are you excited about? What startups are you peaking your interest? And most importantly, can you describe to Chad and I what Eightfold does. Chad: Oh God. Madeline Laurano: We'll start there. Chad: Dude wait. We need a full podcast for that one. I think. Joel: I think Madeline can do it. I think she can break it down for us. Madeline Laurano: I'm going to do a sentence summary. Chad: Okay. Madeline Laurano: And then we can do a follow-up podcast on this. I do love Eightfold. Joel: She wants that jacket, doesn't she? Madeline Laurano: I do want. I want a t-shirt. A Chad Cheese t-shirt. And I'm going to wear an Eightfold sweatshirt with it. Joel: The t-shirt's easy. Just go to chadcheese.com/free... Chad: Yeah. Joel: For your free t-shirt. Madeline Laurano: Oh really? Oh my goodness. I'm gonna do that. Chad: We're going to have to order a special though. Madeline Laurano: So if you have a system of record, like your ATS or whatever that might be, that's collecting data. A talent intelligence platform or a system of intelligence draws insights from that data. It takes the data from the system of record, but it's also feeding the insights back into that system of record. Joel: So I can tell by your voice, you're excited about Eightfold and... Madeline Laurano: I like Eightfold. Yes. Joel: What they're doing. Madeline Laurano: What else? Joel: What are some other companies that you're excited about? Madeline Laurano: Well, I always love Paradox. Every time I hear more Paradox examples, I get excited. I just talked to GM today at this conference. Chad: Yeah. Madeline Laurano: And they had this great example of an interview schedule that they had to do. Chad: Oh yeah. Madeline Laurano: And the candidate was French. And they just had a little blurb in their resume or their profile or whatever it was about how their first language is French. And that recruiter would never pick that up. It was a tiny little thing. Chad: Yeah. Madeline Laurano: But the scheduling tool picked that up and it started to communicate with this candidate in French. And it was such a good feeling for this candidate... Chad: Wow. Madeline Laurano: And so much personalization. So I loved hearing that story today from Cyril George. And I will admit, I have not visited the startup... Chad: Pavilion. Madeline Laurano: Pavilion yet. Joel: Startup Pavilion. Madeline Laurano: And I need to do that. That's what I want to do. That's what I get excited about. And I haven't done that. Joel: Are there any you want to make sure that you touch base with that you know is here? Madeline Laurano: No, what recommendations do you guys have for me? Chad: I say go there in every corner and then just keep your distance 'cause you will get attacked. Madeline Laurano: Okay. Chad: So keep your distance, read the cards and then whatever excites you, then go into those. Be pointed. Madeline Laurano: Okay. Chad: But yeah. Joel: I can tell you, poetry. Madeline Laurano: I have to very care... Oh poetry. Joel: Is the best dressed. Madeline Laurano: I haven't seen adam. Joel: Is the best dressed kiosk that's out there. Madeline Laurano: Adam is always the best dressed of every thing. Joel: The Spider-Man kilt looks pretty traditional. Madeline Laurano: Is he doing that. Chad: And the puffy jacket. Joel: And the puffy, yeah. Madeline Laurano: Oh, I love Adam. I just am excited for poetry. Joel: Lots of good stuff. Lots of good stuff. Madeline Laurano: That's my favorite in the startup Pavilion. Joel: Madeline, thank you for sitting down with us. We know you're a busy, busy woman. For our listeners who want to know more about you or connect, where do you send them? Madeline Laurano: So you can go to aptituderesearch.com. We have lots of free research and no t-shirts, but I wish we did. And I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter and all that fun stuff. Joel: I know a guy for t-shirts if you want to talk later. Madeline Laurano: Oh good yes hook me up. Joel: Chad, that is another one in the can. The velvet jackets are on order. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Chase podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

The low standards around child labor laws in America are enough to make anyone think they're taking crazy pills. Shockingly, many states and local governments are going backward when it comes to protecting our most vulnerable, particularly in agriculture. That's why we invited Reid Maki, Child Labor Advocacy Director at the National Consumers League and Child Labor Coalition on the podcast. It's a sobering discussion on the state of working kids and immigration failures throughout the country and its heartland. It's also discussion, however, about how change can happen for the betterment of everyone. We are failing our kids and it's high time we make a change. Knowing is the first step. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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 Cheesman: Oh, yeah. It's your starting quarterback's favorite podcast, AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I am Joel Cheesman, your cohost, joined as always, the Taylor to my Travis, Chad Sowash is in the building, and we are just excited, so welcome Reid Maki. [applause] Joel Cheesman: Child Labor Advocacy Director at the National Consumers League and Child Labor Coalition. I bet that works really well with the girls at the club. Doesn't it? Reid Maki: They look confused when they hear that. Joel Cheesman: We look confused, although we always look confused, so don't take it personally. Reid, a lot of our listeners don't know who you are. Give us a Twitter bio of what makes Reid Maki tick. Reid Maki: Well, I've been working on these issues for about 30 years. I started with a farmworker organization in DC. I went to school in California for a long time, probably longer than I should have, and I'm playing ice hockey at a very advanced age and I like to sail in the Chesapeake Bay and go to movies and hang out with friends. Joel Cheesman: This is audio. Advanced age could be a lot of different ages. Do you care to share your age? Reid Maki: I'm 65 years old. Joel Cheesman: Wow! Reid Maki: And I'm not..., and I'm not the oldest member of one of my teams, so. Joel Cheesman: Rocking the ice at 60. Wow. Chad Sowash: And we're talking about low to no contact. Right? Joel Cheesman: Are you Canadian? Like what historically did you play in college? Reid Maki: I grew up in Massachusetts watching Bob, a guy named Bobby Orr play. It is low contact but we have incidental contact that can be pretty violent. Chad Sowash: No hip checks. No hip checks. Reid Maki: Exactly. Joel Cheesman: Is there a doctor onsite just in case there is a hip check? Reid Maki: Well, we have a lot of professionals on our teams, so there's probably a doctor on a couple of my teams. Joel Cheesman: Listen to the humble brag. There's some professionals that show up. In their 50s. Chad Sowash: We gotta keep it tight. We gotta keep it tight at 65. Okay. Okay, Reid. We're gonna dive right into this, my friend. The topic of rolling back child labor laws has come up a lot. Right? So states like Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and more are trying to roll back child labor laws, and these state politicians say it's because of labor shortages, which have impacted industries like meat packing and construction. So how did we get here? Can we start at the beginning? Why did we enact child labor laws in the 1930s in the first place? So okay, let's start there. Reid Maki: Yeah. I think that... You know what? It was an understanding back then that children are special, the phase of their life is developmental and they need nurturing and they need to be educated and learn things. And in the early 1900s, the country had rampant child labor in all kinds of awful spots like coal mines and factories, and kids were working 10, 12 hours a day and getting mangled in equipment and getting killed in coal mines and just all kinds of horrible situations. We were losing like thousands of kids and adults. I think back then, we were losing 5000 workers a year. Joel Cheesman: The good old days. Reid Maki: Yeah, and well, then the Fair Labor Standards Act came along and it eliminated most forms of child labor in the US. It has a glaring exemption for kids who work on farms. And that's a big concern for us because we see a lot of migrant children being exploited, kids who are only 12 years old, they're allowed to work on limited hours on farms as long as they're not missing school. So we see kids in the summer working like 80-90 hour weeks, and it's backbreaking labor. Chad Sowash: Well, how in the hell can you do that and go to school at the same time? Because I go looking back and why we started it to your first point, education. Right? Our kids are our future and we want to be able to educate them to be able to obviously take over one day, not just at the farm, right? To build rockets, to be able to do some really cool shit. So when it comes to education, how can kids work even 40 hours a week, let alone 90, and still be educated? Reid Maki: Well, yeah. During the school year, we see the migrant kids, they're required to go to school. The truancy laws are pretty good, but sometimes they'll work before they go to school. Sometimes, as soon as school's out, they go back to the fields, putting in pretty long hours. And this is actually a problem that we're quite aware of now because kids have moved into meat packing, which is an illegal form of child labor. And they came out of a DOL investigation earlier this year. The kids were working the night shift in a meat packing plant, cleaning it, and then they were going to school. And of course, they were falling asleep. You would expect that. So we don't wanna see kids sacrificing their future for a few years of income when they're teenagers. And we know they're from desperately poor families and they need money and we're okay with them having a job, a part-time job, but we don't wanna see them working a night shift in a meat packing factory for sure. Chad Sowash: Well, you're talking about... We're talking about poor families here. Right? You're not gonna see a bunch of rich kids working in meat packing. Joel Cheesman: Is that code for "immigrants," by the way. Chad Sowash: I would say somewhat. I would say there's probably a mix, but there are a lot of immigrants, correct. Reid Maki: Yeah. In the meat packing situation, we're actually seeing a lot of unaccompanied minors who are kids that come over with no close relatives. And there's been a surge in that population in the last four years. And that's one of the reasons why we're seeing all of these stories about child labor in factories and meat processing plants. The kids are completely vulnerable. They are here with maybe a distant relative or a family friend, and they've really got nobody watching closely over them. And they're desperate for money. They've left behind family in Central America or Mexico who are in desperate poverty. They'll take anything basically, and these jobs are illegal and they're horrible for kids. I mean they're not too great for adults. But yeah, it's how they're ending up there. To the point of, yes, the unemployment rate is quite low and there are labor shortages, but we really can't balance a labor shortage on the backs of some of our most vulnerable workers who are teenagers, and especially putting them into dangerous situations. That's just not something we can do as a society. Chad Sowash: Well, I mean the basic economics around this is, today the average meat packing salary in Iowa is less than $25,000 a year. Why so low? Reuters reported that Tyson Foods, Global Foods, JBS, National Beef Packing Company, and Seaboard Corporation financial statements showed a 120% collective jump in their gross profit since the pandemic and a 500% increase in net income. So these companies recently announced a billion dollars in new dividends and stock buybacks, and on the top of that, these companies paid more than 3 billion to shareholders since the pandemic has actually begun. So these companies have the money to invest in higher wages to draw in more workers and even invest in automation, so why are we even having this conversation? Reid Maki: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. If you're having trouble attracting adults to do your work, you have to raise wages, you have to make conditions better and raise wages. It's a pretty simple formula. You don't hire 13-year-olds to work the graveyard shift using caustic chemicals. And by the way, the only way this scandal came out was that one of the kids was in a classroom and a teacher noticed they had chemical burns and said, "What happened?" And then the kids told them. And that teacher didn't do what so many people do, which is nothing. That teacher called USDOL and reported it. Reid Maki: And that launched an investigation that found basically that this was happening in 13 facilities around the country, in eight states. And kids were getting hurt. There was a recent article in the New York Times, there's been a few exposes in the New York Times about this this year. And they profiled this one kid, Marcos, who when he was 14 got his arm caught in chicken-processing plant equipment, basically almost tore off his arm, and he was bleeding out, they thought. His coworkers looked at him and said, "He's gonna die." They called 911. And when the 911 operator kept asking them, How old is the person who's hurt? They got so flustered, they hung up on 911. Somehow, the kid survived, but he has a useless arm right now with a mangled... With a hand that's in a claw. The arm can't be used. And I mean it just goes to show you what's really at stake in some of these jobs, that there can be like horrific, traumatic accidents. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Reid, I wanna preface this by saying it'll be the most important question that I ask you. Chad Sowash: Oh, God. Joel Cheesman: Is that Ava Longoria in your LinkedIn profile picture? Reid Maki: Yes. I was in a... I had the pleasure of being in a press conference with Ava Longoria once, about 12 years ago. Joel Cheesman: And kudos to you for humbly putting her in your profile picture. Chad Sowash: Keep that around my friend. Yes. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Keep that one around. It's probably an 8 x 10 in your office. Help me understand. So my family is... I have a bunch of farmers in my family. I'm not one of them. And there was a time where this stuff made sense. People had eight to 12 kids, it was free labor. I remember my 13-year-old cousins driving around John Deere tractors that they probably shouldn't have been, but they were. That's why it was legal. And when you said, Agriculture was exempt for some of these laws... But people are having less kids now, it seems like these laws are being bastardized to include immigrants, illegal immigrants, kids that aren't family. Oddly, to me, states are now rolling back age limits on farms. Help me understand politically, commercially why all this is happening or how it's happened. Reid Maki: So there has been an exemption for children working on their parents' farm, and that goes back to the beginning of time, basically. And that's something that US law, follows. Our work is focused on kids, like migrant kids who are working for wages and these basic exemptions that allow them to work as early as 12. And we actually see kids working before that 'cause there are exemptions on top of exemptions, and there's a thing called the Small Farm Exemption. So even if they're working for wages and it's not their parents' farm, but it's somebody else's farm, if it's a really small farm, then there's no rules that apply. And you can see an eight-year-old or a five-year-old picking berries or... A lot of the work is hand-harvesting fruits and vegetables..., and another loophole is that in the US, if you work, you have to be 18 to do work that we know is hazardous, but on farms, which is actually one of the most dangerous sectors, and it accounts for more than half of the deaths of children, of child workers, even though only about 3% of child workers are children working in agriculture. So that's how dangerous it is, so. Chad Sowash: Wait a minute, wait a minute. 3% of the overall, and 50% of the injuries and deaths? Reid Maki: Yes, 50% fatalities are on farms. It's quite... It's really dangerous that you're with a lot of... I mean I just told you that the farm kids are not covered by these protections, but in some ways, they're the most vulnerable because they use the most machinery, and they're the ones who have the most traumatic injuries. But the migrant kids, they use razor-sharp scissors and implements and it's a lot of musculoskeletal issues. And a lot of pesticides. We see a lot of cancer in farmworker families, and the kids don't really know the risks that they're engaged in. We also see kids working on tobacco farms. You're legally allowed to work on a tobacco farm at age 12. You can't buy cigarettes in the US until you're 21. That changed a couple years ago. You have to be 21. But we will put a kid in the field, and the kids get the nicotine residue on their skin. It absorbs. So they wear black plastic garbage bags. They punch a hole for their head and their arms. And that's to try to diminish the amount of nicotine absorbing into their skin. But tobacco states, the main tobacco states like Virginia and Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, they're very hot in the summer. So you have a kid... You have a kid, maybe 12 or 13, wearing a black plastic garbage bag in 100 degree heat. And it's hard, it's very hard work, the plants go over their heads. So yeah, it's just like a... It's kind of a Dickensian world out there for child labor. It's not benign. Joel Cheesman: And by the way, if you're working at night, going to school all day, sleep deprivation tends to add to the dangers of working in these areas. I'm wondering, Reid, if you had a magic wand, how would you fix this? Would you change the laws? Would you change the tax structure? Would you change immigration? All the above. If you had a magic wand, how would you fix this? Reid Maki: I know it's very controversial, but I do think immigration reform is probably part of this because the adults are having trouble getting into the country, and the kids, because of immigration rules, have been able to get in. I wouldn't change that. I mean I think that they deserve to have their asylum looked at. But if you need adult workers and Americans won't do some of these jobs, then having a supply of adult workers coming in makes sense. I think we need much better enforcement of the laws 'cause the laws are pretty good for like the factories and the meat packing facilities, but there's only 800 federal inspectors at USDOL. For a country of our size, it comes out to 200,000 workers per inspector. And that's a lot of workplaces. I think it's like 11,000 workplaces per inspector on average. Joel Cheesman: Wow. Chad Sowash: So how do we amp that up? How can the United States government amp that up and actually have more people to identify when things are going wrong, as opposed to that very small cohort of enforcement agents? Reid Maki: Yeah. The main thing is to get an appropriations level that's substantially higher. Joel Cheesman: Which is really gonna be easy. That'll be easy to do. Reid Maki: There's no problem in congress right now. Right? But to his credit, Joe Biden has recognized that there's a crisis going on here that needs to be addressed, and so in his supplemental funding request that came out a few weeks ago. Along with some disaster aid for hurricanes and things like that, he included $100 million of additional money for USDOL, enforcement of child labor. Now, that has to get through congress still, so chances are it might not, but it would be a great start. It would be a great start at hiring those additional inspectors. One of the things that they are doing though is... We have a lot of meat inspectors, food inspectors in factories. They are being trained now to look for child labor because there were inspectors that were seeing very young children in these plants and knew they shouldn't be there, but said, "Oh, it's not my job to look at that." And so they did nothing. But now they're being empowered to actually do something, make the calls, bring in the DOL inspectors to deal with it. Chad Sowash: So being able to amp up and get more eyes. I mean, these are people that are in these facilities anyway, so to be able to give them the opportunity just to identify if there are other problems. Right? Reid Maki: Yeah. Yeah. It makes total sense. And some of the other things that we really need, we need higher fines. Chad Sowash: There we go. Joel Cheesman: Orange jumpsuits. CEO of Tyson Chicken in a jumpsuit. That might fix it. Chad Sowash: Yeah. [laughter] Reid Maki: When the meat packing scandal broke, basic DOL found the supplier of these cleaning crews, that these all-night cleaning crews hired so many children. That company was called PSSI. And they were fined $1.5 million. Now, that company has annual revenue of something like 450 million. So they were fined basically like one day of revenue, which is not enough. It's not enough to really cause much fear. And so the other thing is that... And DOL recognizes this, they realize that they have to hold accountable the companies that benefit. So the companies hire the staffing firms and the staffing firms don't have enough due diligence, and enough to look at the IDs and say, "This is fake," or, "This kid looks 12 and he's saying he's 34." So we need to hold the JBS' and the Tysons and the Purdues accountable. DOL said it will do that moving forward, but when it announced the results of their investigation in February, they didn't do it then. So so far, none of these giant companies have been held accountable, except for reputational damage. Chad Sowash: Let's talk about the... There are 16-year-old kids that are dying. A boy from Guatemala who was just killed at a job at a slaughterhouse in Mississippi, as reported by the New York Times. Two other 16-year-olds died on the job in the US this year, one while working in a sawmill in Wisconsin, while attempting to unjam a wood-stacking machine, he was pinned up and crushed. Then another 16-year-old died in Missouri while working at a landfill. And pretty much the same thing happened. He was caught between... He was pinned between a tractor trailer and rig itself. So we're actually seeing deaths, but we've got these little-bitty fines and we don't have CEOs in orange jumpsuits. The enforcement agents, they've gotta feel like they're doing nothing every single day other than looking for spare coins in the corporate couches, for goodness sakes. How can we... Do we need to stiffen the laws? Number one. Number two. Is the answer just stripping the states' rights away from this and just putting in a federal mandate? The states can have all the rights that they want, but they have to... They have to at least meet the federal mandate. Do we put a federal mandate out there that makes us not back in the 1930s? Reid Maki: Yeah. Well, and this is the context. You described it really well. This is the context through which states are trying to weaken the laws. Chad Sowash: Yes. Reid Maki: But there's an understanding... I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that if there's a protection at the federal level and at the state level and they conflict, whichever is more protective is what is supposed to have weight. And that's getting lost in all of this discussion, as the states are weakening protections and extending the hours that kids can work. That's getting lost because basically they're in violation of the more protective federal law, which is pretty good. The federal law says that kids can't... Except for agriculture, federal law, when it comes to like meat packing, says, "Kids can't do it." When there's a conflict and the federal law's supposed to take weight. But that's not being recognized by the people in the states that are enacting these laws, so there's a lot of confusion for employers. They're gonna think that they can... Like in Iowa, the federal law says that... The federal law says that kids can work three hours on a school night. Well, Iowa has just changed that to six hours on a school night, so every employer in Iowa is gonna think he can do that, but technically, they're in violation of the law and could get a serious fine from USDOL. So there's all kinds of rampant confusion that needs to be cleared up. And I agree with you, we should adhere to the... There should be a general recognition even with the public and business community that we have to adhere to the federal standards. Chad Sowash: Well, it's interesting 'cause there is a dynamic here. Right? Most of these states, if not all of them, are pretty much conservative-driven, so they're on the Republican side of the house. And Republicans are always looking for smaller government, which is really a code word for "less enforcement." I mean we get to do whatever the hell we want no matter what the laws are. And we're starting to see those rollbacks. I mean it seems like a code for being able to, again, operate within my own means, let alone having to worry about state or federal government. Reid Maki: It's not universally true. Like New Jersey last year did extend hours for teen workers, and they had a Democratic governor, but for the most part, it has been in conservative states. And it's really concerning. And there was some recent reporting, maybe two months ago in the Washington Post, that found that there is a conservative think tank in Florida behind some of these state laws. They're actually drafting the legislation and handing it off to conservative legislators. Chad Sowash: Is that AlEC? Reid Maki: It's not AlEC, but it's called the Foundation of Government Accountability, which sounds like an innocuous name, but it's not an innocuous group. And there's some concern that they're basically trying to undermine labor rights of the most lowest level workers of the bottom tier, including teenage workers. And they have a cadre of like a hundred lobbyists to help them enact these loosening of protections. And I think it's shameful. Apparently, they're financed by a right-wing billionaire, who's a privileged member of society. And they're going to great lengths to weaken protections for people at the bottom. Chad Sowash: Wouldn't happen to be a Tyson. Would he? Reid Maki: I don't think so. Chad Sowash: Okay. Joel Cheesman: I asked about your magic wand, Reid, and two of the things that I thought you might mention, but you didn't, I want to get your take on them. One is automation, and the other is increasing the minimum wage. What impact would you see having that on this issue? Reid Maki: Yeah. I think minimum wage is a big thing. One of the problems with agriculture is that the kids who harvest fruits and vegetables work under a system called the piece rate, which is basically the more buckets they fill, the more the family gets paid. And if those kids all got the minimum wage rather than the piece rate, then I think we'd see some of the younger kids... Like I've met nine and 10-year-olds in the field, some of those kids would not be hired if they were... If they were being paid the minimum wage because they're getting paid a subminimum wage. And the piece rate is an inhuman form of work incentive, it's basically... Joel Cheesman: Slave labor, to some extent. Reid Maki: Yeah. It's asking people to work at the limits of their capacity for like long periods of time. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. And as far as automation, I do think that that will happen eventually in agriculture. It may take 20 or 30 years, but the attempts to automate fruit and vegetable harvesting have usually fallen short because the fruits and vegetables are so easily bruised, and so you need a robot, a robotic machine, basically, that has incredible delicacy. And they're making advancements all the time. I think that they will get there. In two or three decades, we'll see it pretty much all over the country, I think. But for now we've got all these... We've got hundreds of thousands of kids working with their parents, 12-hour days. It's just not right. Joel Cheesman: And I want to get your take, this is some news outta California, I think, this week. A new bill signed on will require schools to teach students about child labor, workplace safety, and rights to organize. Thoughts on that? I don't see it happening in Texas, but is this something that may happen? I mean unions are having a moment, dare I say kids could unionize and make changes, or their parents. Where do you see this going? Reid Maki: Yeah I think this is a good idea because I think that the young people don't have really any... Hardly any knowledge of the workers' struggles in the country over time. I do think where unions exist, we don't tend to see child labor, like a first thing a shop steward would... If he saw a kid working on a processing plant, he would file a grievance, he would blow the whistle. So I do think that unionization could play a pretty nice role in this. And in some of the meat packing, basically what was happening is JBS agreed to unionize some of those cleaning crews, and that's the outcome. That's the outcome we'd wanna see, like higher wages, adult workers. So I do think this is a great idea. Chad Sowash: So how does that actually have to happen though, Reid? I mean do they have to organize within or is there a body right now, a unionizing body of poultry workers, meat packers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, that would actually go into these organizations to be able to push? Because as Joel had said, the unions are getting their mojo back. We've seen so much went from UPS, SAG AFTRA, with UAW. I mean there's a nice push. Right? 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers walked off the job. That's historic. How do we start to push more for these unions in these different workplaces? How does that happen? Reid Maki: I mean there's a recognition by... I think JBS realized that their reputation was at stake. They've had a lot of reputational issues in the past and they were looking really, really badly, and so they said like, "This is a way to fix this." I think UFCW, I believe, is talking with them about how to bring about the actual unionization of these workers. I think we just need more pressure. Consumers have to exert more pressure, that these workers need to be paid better and should have access to unions. Chad Sowash: That's hard. Joel Cheesman: So a lot of people listening are saying, "This is horrible, this is awful, but what the hell can I do? I'm just one person in my daily life." Reid, you mentioned more consumer pressure, but against who? What industries should people be writing checks? To nonprofits that are fighting this? Should they be writing their congress person? Like what can the average person do listening right now to make a change? Reid Maki: All of those things? Yeah, I think they... In congress right now, there are at least four bills that would increase child labor fines. And they can write to their member of congress and say, "Hey, I learned about child labor, fines need to be increased. Let's provide more money through appropriations for enforcement agents and let's raise fines." Then their member can then cosponsor those bills. Once they get enough cosponsors, then leadership sees them as viable bills, and then has a chance to pass. So yeah. And I think... I mean if people like to write letters, I think writing a letter to the presidents of Tysons and JBS and Purdue and all of these meatpacking, then... That does seem to be a sector that has been particularly hard-hit. Last year, we saw that they were funding kids and suppliers to Hyundai. I mean Hyundai did seem to take the situation seriously. But yeah, writing letters to corporations and saying, "I'm a consumer, consumer. I buy your product. I'd like to think that you're producing unethically, let's fix this." Joel Cheesman: Is there any documentation of like what politicians, what members of congress are fighting for this issue? If people do wanna write a check or get behind a candidate, is there something that they can go to for that? Chad Sowash: Like on your website or... Have you guys published anything? Reid Maki: We have a fact sheet that lists the bills, and with a click, a link to congress.gov, where you can see like who introduced the bills. There is a brand new... This is something that hadn't existed before. It's a child labor prevention task force in congress, so it's congressional members. The leadership on that seems to be Dale Kildee in Michigan and Representative Shelton, also from Michigan but there are half a dozen members or so of congress that are on that, on that task force. There are a number of members of congress, especially on like the agriculture side. We've had bills for two decades that haven't really moved, but they could move and they need our... They need the support of the public as well. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Well, Reed, we appreciate you taking time out of the day to talk to us about this incredibly, incredibly important subject. If you would, if you could, can you tell our listeners where they can find out more about you, about this cause? And then also, how can they connect with you? Reid Maki: Yeah, so you can visit stopchildlabor.org, which is our website. Learn about the Child Labor Coalition, 35 great groups that come together to fight, to reduce child labor. If somebody wants to send me an email, they can email me at reidm@nclnet.org. Joel Cheesman: I'm gonna make a TikTok chat and I'm writing a tweet to Elon Musk, that'll fix this whole thing. It's gonna happen. Reid, thanks for joining us. Reid Maki: Sure. Joel Cheesman: Chad, that's another one in the can. I feel smarter, but I wanna jump off a ledge right now. Anyway, another one in the can. Thanks for your time, Reid. And we out. Chad Sowash: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Oh, maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton simply replied, “Because that's where the money is.” The same might be said for JobIndex's lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement, claiming the world's most popular search engine is taking their content and publishing it to Google for Jobs without permission. Anyway, the boys dig into this claim and voices, tempers and hilarious soundbites commence. But wait, that's not all. They also dig into cover letters and why AI either does or doesn't make a bit of difference. (Spoiler alert: There's a story about a perfume-drenched CV.) Then ending on a high note, it's Who'd Ya' Rather with CareerFairy and Mintago. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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: Oh yeah. No, Parisian bedbugs were harmed in the making of this episode. This is the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your co-host, Joel "Infestation" Cheeseman. Chad: Chad "FlipDog" Sowash. Lieven: I'm Lieven "Teaching AI to the HR masses" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel: And on this episode, more Jobindex drama, who'd you rather and a tasty Marmite sandwich. Hey, it's gotta be better than Surströmming, right? Chad: Oh God. Joel: Let's do this. Chad: Anything's better than Surströmming. Joel: [laughter] Oh, God. Oh, bedbugs and Surströmming. We just lost about 80% of the listeners. Chad: Oh yeah. [laughter] Joel: By the way, YouTube's Surströmming, if you don't know what it is, it's worth it. Chad: It is. It's worth the laugh and the gag reflexes that everybody has. Anyway, anyway. Joel: Oh, all the videos are like, they take someone from another country and they feed them stuff from other countries. And then they get their take on it even or if it's like, Irish taste bourbon for the first time and then they give their take on bourbon as opposed to Jameson. Always entertaining. Chad: Always. Always entertaining. Joel: So the world noted a new war since we last spoke. It will be advanced a little bit when people hear this, but over the weekend when watching the news, I think everybody, Israel declared war on Hamas. Now we have a 20 year war veteran, or not war but Army veteran on the show. And we have a European on the show, most of which Americans don't have access to. So I'm just curious, any thoughts on the impending conflict in the Middle East with Israel and Hamas? Make a noise. Chad: That, did you feel anything this weekend at all, Lieven? Lieven: I think the biggest impact will be the way people look at the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I know America is very supportive to Israel, but in Europe, people kind of felt sorry for those poor Palestinian people in Gaza. And they, many people thought Israel was being very harsh on them and they shouldn't be. But now, sentiments has changed, have changed. So I feel, after looking at those terrible images from people shooting, mass shooting dancing youngsters on a festival, this kind of terror is, there's no reason good enough to do something like that. So I think, from now on, Israel has a lot more support here in Europe also. And of course, in Belgium, where I live, there's a very big Jewish community. Antwerp, I'm not sure if you know it, but it's one of the biggest I think, in Europe, live in Antwerp. Germany also have them everywhere. Chad: They're also being supplied by somebody because they don't manufacture any of that themselves. Obviously, there's always been huge conflict between Iran and Israel. So that this is something that could spin out of control. Let's hope it doesn't. I mean, we already have enough with Ukraine trying to drive its own sovereignty, for God's sakes against Russia. The last thing the world needs is another war. Outro: Shout out. Joel: All right. Well, I'll take a little more time to focus on a shout out to our Israeli brethren in the industry, although it's not technically Europe, they do business in Europe. They do business in the US and these are people that frankly, we count as personal friends. So a lot of companies do business out of Israel. Hi, Bob. We talk about a lot. We'll see them at conferences coming up. TaTiO, Chad I know you mentioned you're close with them. ZipRecruiter has a strong AI office over in Israel. Spetz, who was acquired by Paradox, Wilco, who we've interviewed for Firing Squad. Veritone got executives over there, we're close to them. A company called Perfect and Team Me. So there are a lot of businesses and organizations and frankly, just people that we touch that I wanted to focus a light on. I hope stay safe. I hope you're well, your families are well. And hopefully we'll see you soon and things will calm down and we will find peace. We'll see. But shout out to them. Joel: Can only hope. Lieven? Lieven: My shout out goes to the European AI Act. 'Cause as you probably know, the European Parliament came up with a proposal for the first global version of a comprehensive law on the use of AI. And they are negotiating details with a bunch of countries Europe has, and with a bit of luck, they'll reach an agreement by the end of this year. And they defined three different risk levels on the use of AI, usage of AI. It's like, the unacceptable risk, the high risk and the limited risk, and I'm very happy to tell you that so far the use of AI in employment and worker management is only considered a high, but it's not a totally unacceptable risk. So we're still in the game. Chad: We're still in the game. Joel: Still in the game everybody. Chad: It's not psychological warfare, which is obviously much above a high, the unacceptable risk. What is incredibly psychological, in a very good way, is the 2030 Football World Cup has been announced. That's right kids, get ready. It's going to be in Portugal, Spain and Morocco, who will be hosting. And I have from news reports out of Portugal that the Benfica, Sporting and Porto FC stadiums are going to be used for the World Cup. So 2030 baby, can't wait. Coming to my hometown. Joel: That's right. Who wants to sponsor Chad and Cheese World Cup adventure from Portugal where we're taking bids now everybody, we're taking. Taking bids. Chad: A little early, but it's okay. You can you can still go ahead and lock it in. Joel: Do we want to talk about travel? Chad: Yeah, we've got TAtech happening in early December, that's in London. I'm gonna be MCing the stage with Kirstie Kelly so the TAtech Europe events, which I believe is like two and a half days long. So check it out, go to tatech.org. You can register there. You can go to chadcheese.com/events. Not to mention yes, it's next year but still pretty excited to go to Amsterdam to see... Joel: Yes sir. Chad: To see Lieven and crew. And Rika. Hell, we haven't seen her in forever. SFX: All right, all right, all right. Joel: Love House of HR. Chad: E-recruitment converse, baby. Lieven: Yeah, March 19th next year. Counting the days. Chad: Put it on your calendars. Go to chadcheese.com/events and register register register. Joel: See you there. Topics. All right guys. So last time we recorded, Jobindex, a job site based out of Denmark was suing Google for copyright infringement for taking their content and publishing it to Google for Jobs. The CEO has been corresponding with Chad on some of the details. So let's dig into what Chad found out, if anything. Chad: So first and foremost, I definitely like to thank Kaare, is that how you say his first name? Is it Kaare? Joel: Kaare or Kaare. Chad: K-A-A-R-E Kaare Danielsen. Joel: Mr. Danielsen, how about that. Chad: Kaare Danielsen. Yes, founder and CEO of Jobindex for the correspondence of the past couple of weeks. He provided us with a document that laid out his talking points around the lawsuit with Google and it's Google for Jobs product. Kaare states "Jobindex has asked not to be a part of Google for Jobs and we do not give any of our content to Google. Nevertheless, Google still copies a lot of the job adverts from Jobindex through some of their partners." So now as you dig deeper, you find out in fact, Google is not scraping Jobindex's jobs. Rather, other job boards like JobGrab from Singapore and jobdanmark.dk from Albania are scraping those jobs and having job seekers directly apply to their sites instead of Jobindex. Chad: So this isn't Google scraping Jobindex as they would have you believe. In effect, Jobindex is suing the wrong company and/or companies. So JobGrab and JobDanmark are stealing the Jobindex content and passing it to Google to drive more traffic to themselves. This is an old trick by the way, kids. This has been happening for a very long time. Jobindex is really in a bind from the standpoint is that they can't shut off the scrapers from Google. Why? Because Google owns over 93% of the job search market in Denmark. If they did that, they'd be committing traffic suicide at that point and then Kaare provided the document that tells the real tale, I think. And and he writes, "For Jobindex, this means increased advertising costs since the organic traffic from Google has dropped 20%." Chad: So he's specifically citing that they're paying for Google search engine marketing on one hand and they're denying free traffic from Google for Jobs on the other hand so do you want traffic from Google or not? Remember? I started out the statement from Kaare with a "Jobindex has not... Has asked not to be a part of Google for Jobs and we do not give any of our content to Google." Now, Google for Jobs is a product of Google, but you still are providing access for Google to index your jobs. You need and you want that and you're actually talking about having to pay more to Google for search engine marketing, right? Chad: So do you want the traffic or not? I mean, that's as you take a look at it, it is so contradictory and I reached out to a couple of people who are in the search market and this is all I heard. It's a PR stunt. They want to be able to go after a big name and they want to escalate their brand in the EU and you know, going after Google right now is is kind of you know a trend in the EU, so why not. Joel: Lieven, you have a bit of a counterpoint on this? Lieven: Right, at this time, I don't really totally agree. I looked into what Kaare was writing and he said writing a job advert takes on average five to seven hours, thus this is a piece of high-quality writing that has required a lot of work and should be subject to copyright. First, if you spend five to seven hours on writing a job advertisement, you should be or fired or nominated for a Nobel Prize on literature. But anyways, this is irrelevant. If Jobindex doesn't want to get listed in Google for Jobs, that's their decision. Whatever the reason they don't want to get listed and if Google is listing Jobindex's vacancies without their consent, then Jobindex definitely has a case and they're right. There is IP, intellectual property on vacancies also, why not? They have handwritten them, so to speak, so there's an IP on it. And if they take the copy from and with they I mean Google, if Google takes the copy from obscure scraping sites without checking if there is an IP infringement... Lieven: That's Google's problem. That's not Jobindex's problem/ Jobindex shouldn't be proving that their vacancies were or shouldn't be complaining that their vacancies are taken by Google. Google just shouldn't take them. And by the way, scraping is more or less legal, call it a gray zone. But scraping of commercial databases and spreading the content is a very very black zone in Europe and this is actually what Google is doing right now. They are scraping commercial databases and use it for their own commercial profit and this is definitely a black zone and there Google is wrong even though they claim we don't scrape directly, we do it through a intermediates. Lieven: Solution. They should be checking if they are not spreading content which should be IP protected. And they don't, so they're wrong. And I think they have a case. And I think Jobindex could make lots of money out of this. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: Okay, let's dig into the psyche of this guy a little bit. I don't know him, but from the interview that I had with him, he's very adamant about, we've been doing this for 27 years. We were doing this before Google. The only competitors in Denmark are us, LinkedIn, and the government site. So, it sounds to me like for 20 some years, this dude has had green pasture to probably charge as much as he wants for his job postings. He hasn't had to deal with outside interference. He's not a big market where, Monster, Indeed are probably a big deal. And along comes Google, who by the way, I'm sure he was enjoying some free traffic and continues to enjoy free traffic from Google. And then they launched this Jobs thing. And then he starts seeing a bite come out of his traffic, which he admitted on the interview. He says, "I don't care about Google." But then he goes on to say, "I've had a 20% drop in traffic since Google for Jobs." So what is it? Chad: And I'm having to pay more for it. Joel: Either you don't care or you do care. I'm guessing he cares. And this 20% means he has to lay off people. He can't charge as much. And in fact, if you look at some of their LinkedIn data, their company data, they've slashed sales headcount, some design workers and HR to the tune of about 5%. And I'm sure that he's saying that that could be a lot bigger if this trend continues. Lieven: He might even have to sell us his third boat. [laughter] If he has been in this business for 27 years, he's been making a lot of money. Joel: Let's agree he's not a 20-something startup guy. If he's been doing this for 27 years, he's probably looking to get out. He's probably got some lawyer friends that he had lunch with and said, "Hey, this whole Google thing, they're pissing me off." And they said, "Look, Europe hates Google. Google wants this stuff to go away. I think we can get them to write a check for whatever just to make this go away." So the guy says, "Sweet. I got some friends down at the Danish media group. Why don't I get them involved? So there's like a big name. And then we really scare the shit out of Google. We all make a nice little sum of money." Look, he can shut off Google. You look at his robots text. There's nothing there. There's no strategy around do not index our site, Google, which is super easy to do. And he's saying that these sites, these foreign sites... Chad: Singapore and Albania. Joel: Yeah. Taking his shit, making it their own, and then they're loading that shit up into Google for Jobs. But there's no... There's clearly no strategy around how do I block these countries and or these sites from scraping our site? Look, there are clear ways technologically to take sites that are taking your stuff and restrict them, redirect them somewhere else, make it difficult. And granted, look, these sites are scraping everybody. If Jobindex turned off tomorrow, I'm sure they could give a shit. What is it? A couple thousand jobs, maybe. I don't know. But they probably wouldn't even notice. But there's no effort to, like, restrict these companies and these sites and countries from visiting their site. So he could clearly, from a technology standpoint. Joel: And by the way, they have 538 employees, according to LinkedIn. They must have some tech people in that company that know how to do this shit. This is not a two-person mom and pop they're at their residence running this site. This is a real business. And they have people that should be able to restrict these spiders from getting their stuff. If they want to cut off Google, they can. They obviously don't. They just want a payday. They want some PR. This guy probably wants to retire. He probably wants a big check from Google. And then he can maybe sell the company to somebody. And he can go retire and live the good life and have his employees, 500-some strong, still be employed, still be relevant, and be able to set off into the sunset. Lieven: We'll see. Joel: The danger is Google will have to write a lot of checks because these little job boards will come out of the woodwork and everywhere, nook and cranny in Europe, and want money. So there is a good chance that Google says, nope, we're going to fight this shit because we don't want to pay every Tom, Dick, and Harry job site $10,000,000 to go away. Lieven: Because it's the only source of income those little job sites still have. But it's like suing Google. And I agree totally with Joel and with Chad, but from a legal point of view, it's irrelevant. I mean, you say they could block Google. They could block those robots.txt. They could use it to block those scrapers. It's like saying if you don't lock your house, it's your own fault when people break in. And that's true. Maybe it's true. But still, it doesn't justify breaking in. And if he doesn't want to be listed in Google, that's it's right. Chad: But he does want to be listed in Google. This is so contradictory. It's total bullshit, Lieven. He's bitching and moaning because he lost 20% of traffic. And now that he has to pay more to get more traffic from Google. That's bullshit, contradictory stuff. Okay. You take a look at everything that's in that document. And at the end of the day, as Joel said, they've been around for 27 years. He keeps harping on that. Well, then you should know better. You should have tech people who can block IP. You should go into Cloudfire, toggle it on, right? There are so many things that he can do, not to mention he's suing the wrong people. It's like, if you're going to create this narrative, then you've got to do it right. And these guys, they're all over the place. They're contradicting themselves. I don't care about Google, but wait a minute, I lost 20% traffic. Oh, now we've got to pay Google more. Oh, I don't want, it's like, dude, just make up your fucking mind. Do you want Google traffic or not? Joel: He is suing the right person, Chad. When John Dillinger was asked, why do you rob banks? He said, "That's where the money is." Chad: That's where the money is. Joel: The money is in Google. Lieven: He also tried to at least talk to the people from jobdanmark.dk, which sounds very legit but it's basically the job site which is owned by a Mr. Intel in Tirana in Albania. So those people don't react. And there's another site which happens to be in Africa, but they didn't specify where in Africa. So it could be anything. Chad: Block IPs. Lieven: Probably it's Russia. Chad: You know when there's a load on your servers, okay? I was in the indexing game for a very long time, guys. Okay? We've been blocked. I mean, when I was with DirectEmployers, we first started this, we got, we had the whole FlipDog thing that was going on that was bad. You can block IPS, you can do all of these. This should be normal for what they're doing. Normal operating procedures. But yet, no, you know what the normal operating procedure is? Let's go try to get money out of that big hill of cash called Google. Lieven: So what do you say? It's like some photographers which aren't very good photographers, they just take tons of photos, they dump them on the internet and hope someone's going to copy paste them, use them somewhere, and then they use software to track who's been using my photo. And then they send them a bill. Joel: Now what's happening is these sites out of Africa, Albania, wherever are stealing these jobs. They're posting them on Google as their own, and then traffic's going to them, and then they're making money on traffic, ads, banner ads. Chad: He's mad because those job sites are getting the traffic off of his IP, which I totally get. But that is why isn't he going after those job sites? Just because they can't find them. Okay, then go ahead and block the IPs. Lieven: Yeah, but if Google wasn't providing Google for Jobs, those job sites wouldn't be there in the first place. So Google for Jobs is the reason. Chad: That I think you're stretching that. We've had this problem well before Google for Jobs, Lieven. Well before Google for Jobs. Lieven: But Mr what is his name, didn't have this problem well before Google jobs. Chad: Back in 2008, right? When we were like in the thick of this with indexing and whatnot with DirectEmployers, this was the same problem. There were these things popping up all over the place. This is not a new problem. Lieven: Okay. And I agree from a normal point of view, you're totally right. But from a legal point of view, I think he might get a case because of the spreading of a protected database for commercial reasons, and they're using it and they shouldn't. When House of HR has an app it's called Swap, you swipe through jobs swap. And we also scrape jobs and we had a very big lawyer agency looking into this because it's, as I said, it's a gray zone using other people's content to get traffic and to find candidates. But, and they said, you'll get away with this no problem, as long as you don't touch commercial job boards. As long as you don't touch commercial databases, then there won't be a problem. But the moment you start using job vacancies from commercial databases, you'll be sued. And I think this is what's happening here. Joel: I think this is where Europe and US kind of diverge in that. Lieven: Maybe. Joel: Like we have pretty strict rules around FTC FCC, whatever, that if you're a search engine, you can only show so many characters unless or else it's stealing and you have to link back. And like, there's certain laws in this country that are probably more stringent in Europe. Because if your lawyers are telling you don't touch commercial property, just touch the government stuff or the association nonprofit, then there's a probably a reason why. Whereas America, I don't think that's an issue. Chad: And again, they've been in the game for 27 years. They know how to stop this. They don't wanna stop this. Joel: I'm not sure they wanna stop it. I think they want that check, baby. They want that check from Google. Lieven: Probably. Chad: I don't know. Lieven: And I don't think they want the check from Google, but I think Joel is right. And he's going to, he's looking for an exit. He wants to sell his company and now there's the big threat of Google for Jobs and the value of his company suddenly dropped because of Google for Jobs. So now he wants to have a case and Google, you shouldn't be touching me. So my company gets its old value back. Something like that. Joel: Think about if he's in talks to sell the company and whoever the buyer might be is saying, you know what? This whole Google thing scares us. Your traffic's down 20%. Like we're gonna just hold tight. You don't think he's pissed as shit, he had that deal maybe on the table. And then Google comes in. It's personal now, he made it personal. Chad: Joel's coming up with fantasies right now. Joel's coming up with fantasies that there's this fantasy deal on the table. Okay, let's just talk. Joel: He wants boats and hoes, baby. That's what he is looking for. That's what he wants. Chad: We know for a fact. We don't know that there was a deal on the table. Joel has a fantasy deal. We know for a... Joel: I said, can you imagine, can you imagine? Chad: Which is what I'm saying, it was a fantasy. So we do know specifically his traffic dropped 20% and he's mad that he has to pay to be able to get that traffic back. And yet he says he doesn't want to play with Google for Jobs, right? So much contradictory bullshit that's happening here. I don't understand what the guy wants. Joel: He may not know what he wants at this point, except... Chad: Cash. Joel: That Google money, baby. And speaking of money, let's take a break. Hear from a sponsor or two, I don't know. And we'll talk about who we'd rather. All right guys, before we get to who'd you rather, we'll end on a climactic note, if you will. Let's talk about cover letters. 'Cause we never talk about that. Dubliner. Chad: There's a reason. Joel: James Malley recently shared his thoughts on AI's role in creating cover letters that piqued our interest, referring to them as the Marmite of the application process, meaning some like them and some do not. Malley said, "AI isn't yet able to extract the why piece of an applicant as the data crumbs you have left in the past can't articulate why you envisage human skill, that is, this role and why it's perfect for you." Chad, thoughts on AI in the role of cover letter creation, and more importantly, are you thumbs up or down on Marmite? Chad: So why are cover letters still a thing? I mean, I just don't understand that. I mean, these are truly a vestige of a bygone era. Back in the day when you handed somebody your resume and you had a cover letter, because at that point we hadn't scaled and people weren't getting a lot of resumes. So you could actually take time to look at the resume and then you could look at the cover letter. We don't have that anymore. This makes no sense to me at all. I mean, it's like horse-drawn carriages and Marmite, which I think is fucking horrible by the way. The only thing worse is Vegemite. Joel: I wanna listen to Men at Work right about now. [laughter] Joel: The Australian band, not European. Yeah. Look, Chad touched on the history. I'm gonna go a little deeper in that. Like, we're both old enough to remember the days where you went to get the Sunday paper, you looked at ads. They had an address, phone number, whatever. And then you would, in a big envelope, you'd go to Kinko's, you'd get your resume printed up on really nice like gray... Chad: Nice paper. Oh yeah. Joel: Or manila paper. And then you would literally write a custom cover letter for that job. Chad: Yes. Joel: There was no like copy and paste. You had a word processor. Some people had a computer. You'd actually go to Kinko's where they had a computer. You'd write up your cover letter, they'd print it out for you. Then you mailed the thing. If you were smart, you sent it via like FedEx or UPS when you knew they got it and you wanted to make a splash, and then you were alerted that they had it. Then you called and said, "Hey, did you get my shit? When can I come in for an interview?" And then like the whole process of calling, ghosting, all that stuff happened. The internet made it feasible to blast your resume to hundreds, if not thousands of companies if you wanted to. Which made cover letters obsolete. And frankly, most recruiters that I know don't look at cover letters. They're looking at skills. I guess if it's a writing job, you wanna look at some of that stuff. Joel: And now we have ChatGPT, which can write it for you. They're already writing letters for recruiters, whether it's thanks for playing but we went somewhere else, or like, this is gonna be mainstream. Why in the world is anybody writing a cover letter? By the way, there are new tools that we're gonna be talking about on the show, that people can blast their resume. Like go through the pre-screening process, right? Like we set up these pre-screening tools to stop this mass application. We like, "Oh, let's put some gatekeepers up." Well, guess what? The new AI is gonna be able to like, go through the pre-screening, answer questions. Like it's gonna be, you're gonna see applications happen like you've never seen before. Chad: Already does. Yes. Joel: Yeah. Ghosting is gonna go through the roof. No one's gonna give a shit about cover letters. It's gonna be like, "Oh my God, how many applicants did we just get? How do we control this? How do we stop this?" And if you just say, "Hey, it requires a cover letter." Who cares? It's gonna be a ChatGPT. Everyone's gonna do ChatGPT, they're gonna get around any whack-a-moles that you wanna say, who's ChatGPT and who isn't. Like, there are bigger problems than is your resume written or your cover letter written by a robot or an actual person? They're gonna be much bigger problems with automation and how people are gonna be applying to jobs in the future than the cover letter. And I've never had Marmite, so I can't comment on that. [laughter] Lieven: It stinks. It really stinks. Chad: You're lucky. You think it'd be good 'cause it's the yeast... Joel: It looks like chocolate. Chad: From beer. Joel: It looks like a candy. Chad: Oh yeah, not for me. No. Joel: Lieven, cover letters. Do you guys still get them at House of HR? Require them? What's up? Lieven: First up with Marmite. [laughter] Lieven: I tried it during COVID because suddenly it was all over the news that the British were very anxious about Marmite not being in the stores anymore because of the, during COVID there was a problem with the, how do you say it, delivery problem. Chad: Yep. Lieven: So stores were out of Marmite and this was a big thing. And I never heard about Marmite. So then I went to my local store and I found Marmite and I tried it, and I was really happy about it. This must be really good. And I opened it and it smelled, it stink. And I tried it, and it tastes maybe not disgusting, but just not good. So I think, to get back to the point, I think cover letters are going the same way for me as Marmite. The last one I remember was one, and actually this is true, which was perfumed. I loved it. [laughter] SFX: Ay papi. Joel: No way. Lieven: Yeah. Joel: What was the job? Lieven: Yeah. Just someone working on my team in a creative job. And they made it as a love letter and I loved it. And it was perfumed. Yeah, it was creative. Chad: Was her name Candy? That's the question. Joel: Yeah. [laughter] Lieven: It should have been Candy. Damn. It probably wasn't. Joel: Well played, Sowash. Lieven: I would've remembered. [laughter] Lieven: And I also remember a cover letter which was inserted in a balloon with helium, so you know a flying balloon. And they hang it to my office, the opening... Chad: The door? Lieven: I'm not sure what the word is in English. Yeah, the door. Chad: The knob, the doorknob? Lieven: Yeah the knob, the doorknob. That's the one. And there was a balloon hanging up my doorknob. And someone put a letter inside and I had to cut the balloon and read the letter. But those were the two only letters I remember. And I don't think I've seen many since. But I used to like motivation mails because it gave me a very quick idea about the intelligence of people. Being able to write a short mail with the essence was a way to say, are people able to tell me a story which is convincing in short amount of time, which is an asset. But now, as you say, with ChatGPT, I'm definitely not going to read whatever has been written by ChatGPT. It's just, it's no use. So now this is gone. Once again, a nice memory from back in the days. [laughter] Joel: I love the delivery. Like there is something to be said for zigging when everyone else is zagging. So if there are job seekers out there, like, yeah, it's not the cover letter, it's the presentation, the delivery. Lieven: Definitely. Joel: The creativity is what's gonna get you noticed. Lieven: The most creative one I think was and probably this is a classic, but this is the only case I know. Someone bought my name as a Google advert thinking all those agency workers, those managers at agencies have big egos and they Googled their own names, which of course I did. And I saw, Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze, I want to work for you. And I clicked on the ads and that was someone's application. And this was so cool for a digital agency and the guy was hired. So that one was a nice one too. Chad: It works. Lieven: But of course, it works only if you are applying for a very creative job. If you're looking for a, let's say if you're applying for an accountant job, we don't want our accountants to be too creative. [laughter] Lieven: I don't think you would be hired then. But for those agency jobs, I liked it. Joel: Perfumed resume. Lieven: Yeah. Chad: Better than Marmite, my friend. [laughter] Chad: Better than Marmite. Joel: Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Well, on that note, let's play a game of who'd you rather, everybody. Here's how we play it. We read two companies that recently got money and we choose who we'd rather in our assessment, starting off with. Joel: Zurich based CareerFairy, a live streaming platform connecting students with employers. Think, virtual job fairs and stuff like that. Has secured an undisclosed yet significant investment from Dublin-based Mediahuis Marketplaces. The funding will support CareerFairy's global expansion, focused on other DACH and Benelux regions, touting a workforce across multiple European locations and 200 paying clients. CareerFairy believes their future is nothing but up and to the right. Founded in 2019, the company employs 25 people. And in this corner, Mintago. London's Mintago has raised $4.75 million in funding. Founded in 2019, the company provides a financial wellbeing platform designed to help employees tackle their most pressing financial needs, such as managing pension contributions. The company intends to use the funds to further enhance its platform and accelerate its growth across the United Kingdom. They currently employ 42 people. That is the face off. Chad, Mintago or CareerFairy. Who'd you rather? Chad: Yeah. So Mintago, to me, it, seems like it's definitely a problem, but I don't think it's a big enough problem, where CareerFairy can be seen as a necessity because identifying candidates earlier is key for most organizations today and in building their talent pipelines. So to me, this starts to solve a talent pipeline problem. The employer understands and they will pay for it. So I am all in for CareerFairy over Mintago. SFX: What are you doing step bro? Joel: Well, I hate the name CareerFairy. First of all, it's a horrible name. Chad: It's two words you can spell. Joel: It's a little bit memorable, like your cologne or your perfumed resume. But I generally hate student, connecting students with employers companies. They come and go, handshake, like it's just a shitty business. You gotta stay cool and relevant to the kids, which is not easy. There's always a new company that wants to come into the career services. We've got a cooler TikTok account or we've like, whatever it is, students are fickle, targeting them is just a bad historical, or bad business historically. However, let's look at the financial health of employees around the world. According to BenefitsPRO, financial stress costs US companies 4.7 billion per week. Imagine that on a global level, and particularly in Europe, there's a low percentage of savers. Only 20% say they have basic financial literacy. Most people don't have $1000 in the bank for an emergency. My kids aren't taught finances in school, and it's a big problem. If they're not gonna learn it in school, they might as well learn it as an employee. By the way, it's most of these kids that are going to CareerFairy, they're gonna have this crazy debt on their head for going to college that will need Mintago to help with their financial stress. Chad: Not in The UK, but in the US. Carry on. I think you forget what show you're on. Go ahead. Yeah. Joel: Yeah. I know how much apartments are in Paris. Anyway, for me, this is pretty obvious. I hate businesses targeting students. This one is... SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Mintago all the way. Lieven. Lieven: Do I really have to choose one? Joel: Is it neither or you like both of them? Lieven: No. It's neither. No, no. But, I think about Mintago can be very short. I mean, the easiest way to save money is not to spend it on Mintago. So, that's done. And then we have, CareerFairy. I like the name but probably for different reasons. But I feel, it was launched in 2019. Live streaming was the perfect activity during COVID and they probably gained some ground, but now we're post-COVID and they're still hanging on to the live streaming. But because of COVID so many companies as ours, they had their own streaming studios installed. So they don't need companies like that anymore. Three years ago, four years ago, 2019, if I would've liked the professional streaming, I would've used a company like that one. But now we have our own streaming studios, so we don't need them. Lieven: And getting in touch with students isn't that hard. We do campus recruitment, we need it, but we don't need a platform like that. The only reason why I might prefer CareerFairy over Mintago is because Mediahuis, they're Dublin based. But in fact, the holding above Mediahuis is a Belgium company which I happen to know very well, and they are a newspaper publisher and they have very good newspapers in Belgium and the Netherlands and some other countries. So they might use that as a leverage to launch CareerFairy on a bigger scale so it could work. Otherwise, I would never invest my own money in it. I wouldn't even invest House of HR's money in it. Joel: Lieven breaks the tie, the win goes to CareerFairy. Chad and I are coming to Europe. If you're listening to this, you might be at Unleash in Paris, right about now. Make sure you stop by and say hi. We'll be in the Textkernel booth. Until then, we out. Chad: We out. Lieven: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Mind Games was a song penned by John Lennon. This interview has nothing to do with the famous Beatle, but up-skilling your workforce through the power of gamification is all the rage right now. That’s why we invited Geri Morgan, chief people officer at Intellum, an Atlanta-based learning technology company, on the show. Turns out, Geri is doing some amazing things with gamification that every employer could learn from. You probably won’t get Pac-Man Fever, but you’re likely to practical tips on how to improve retention and empower your workforce like never before. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: 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 yeah, it's your parole officer's favorite podcast, aka the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, the Skeletor to my he-man, Chad Sowash is in the house, and we are excited to welcome Geri Morgan. Chad: Geri! Geri! Geri! Joel: Chief People Officer at Intellum, an Atlanta-based learning technology company. Geri, welcome to the podcast. Geri Morgan: Thank you. Super excited to be here. Chad: She's glowing, people. She's glowing. Joel: Yeah. It's four o'clock. She's had a few. That's why she's glowing. We won't tell her boss. We won't tell her boss. Geri, for those that don't know you, give us a Twitter bio about you, and then we'll dig into the company and all that boring corporate stuff. Geri Morgan: All right. Awesome. So, I've been practicing HR for about twenty years, and started my career with The Kroger Company, Cincinnati-based business, and just love doing the people work. I'm one of those people that didn't fall into HR, I chose HR on purpose, and have a lot of fun doing what I do. Some things about me on the personal front, I've got three kiddos, two, nine, and sixteen, so I have... Chad: Wow! Geri Morgan: Every emotion and every age represented. Chad: That's a spread. Geri Morgan: Yeah. It's a lot of fun in our house. And my husband and I, we've been married for thirteen years now, so, yeah. And one thing that not a lot of people know about me is that after college, I auditioned to be on MTV's The Real World. Joel: That escalated quickly. Geri Morgan: Unfortunately, I was not selected, but my opening was the Geri, Geri, MTV pick me. Joel: And they didn't pick you with that? That's... Geri Morgan: No. Chad: So, what was the process? Did you just have to send in like a tape? Was it like a VCR tape? Was it a... Geri Morgan: Yes, that's absolutely right. Recorded a three to five minute video about yourself and why they should select you, and then you had to fill out a handwritten application. I couldn't tell you what the next steps were because I didn't make it past that point. Joel: So, you mailed in a VHS tape? Geri Morgan: Yeah. Chad: You do not look old enough to actually have been alive during the VHS Betamax era. You just don't, Geri. Geri Morgan: Thank you, Botox. Chad: I love it. I love it. Well, let's go ahead and move on. Move along. We've got stuff to talk about here, kids. So, today we're here to talk about closing the skills gap, leadership training, and trying to curb, churn, and retain our employees longer, which all drives more revenue to the bottom line. So, starting with the skills gap, here's a quick definition. A skills gap is the difference between the skills the employers need and the skills that the employees have. So, I've got a three-part question for you, Geri, right out of the gate. Joel: Ease her into it, man. Chad: Why is there a skills gap, number one? Why does the skills gap still exist since we know it's been there for decades? And what are you personally doing to close the skills gap at Intellum? Geri Morgan: So, the skills gap, you know, I think that businesses are evolving at a pace that's more rapid than our team members can keep up with. And so, that's just a known fact. You know, organizations are moving at a pace, technology is moving at a pace that our internal tools and the resources to prepare and ready our team members is lagging behind a little bit. Some of, and I already forget question number two. Chad: Why does it still exist? Because we know it's there. Geri Morgan: So, you know, I think that the insights and the way that we can be proactive and help prepare the businesses for the next bend and the next turn. So, some of the strategies, some of the things that we're doing are gamifying the skills gap and gamifying the education experience, driving more excitement and energy and making it fun, while at the same time, being able to get some insights around what that means for the business and augmenting our staff to overcome where we have gaps. So, having some data and analysis around where our talent is, and then knowing where we need to fill in. Chad: Well, it seems like many companies aren't spending the money on training to be able to close the gap, right? And it sounds like you guys are. Talk a little bit about the gamification piece. Does that help? How have you seen it help? The interaction, the engagement. Tell us a little bit about that. Geri Morgan: Yeah. So, you know, gamification, I think that all started thanks to Candy Crush. Then we started, people realize that we're motivated when you turn things into a game and you make things fun. We had a lot of the consumer applications started to blow up. You know, you're getting streaks and badges for reading and walking. And my favorite streak to be on is the good sleep streak. So, you know, you can get motivated and incentivized to do lots of things. Joel: Is that at work? Because I would nail that one. Chad: That's only you, Joel. Joel: I'd nail that one. Chad: And I got to tell you, I stopped using a device because of the sleep because I was so competitive about my sleep that I would get every single night. I had to stop. I was stressing myself out 'cause I wasn't getting as much sleep as I thought I was supposed to get. I'm one of those, I'm one of those. Joel: Only so Sowash. Only so Sowash. I think the Boy Scouts might be offended that you said gamification started with Candy Crush because they've been giving out badges in Boy Scouts for decades. [laughter] You touched on strategy. Give us some tactics. I mean, it's not Candy Crush for like the boss's face and you like. Talk about a real world example at your company of someone getting badges or rewarded in a gamification setting. Geri Morgan: Yeah. I mean, I think some things that we're working on now are like just on a daily basis. How do you conquer your to-do list? How do you complete tasks and feel good and achieved on a short-term basis, getting achievement badges for hitting certain milestones. But really where we're going is more of the skill-based piece. So how can you be recognized for being a task master, a top communicator, problem-solving machine, an innovation guru. And so building out reputation-based, and I think that's the key, is getting out of this mindset that just because you did an activity, you earn a badge. It's making it more meaningful, something that you want to aspire to achieve. And so that can help spark those friendly rivalries, encourage people to step up their game and helping with more strategic work like succession planning, leadership development, and then knowing where you need to build out your education strategies based off of kind of the health and the skill level across your organization. Joel: And using DOPA hits to do that, right? Chad: Yeah. How do you publish? Is there a dashboard somewhere? Is there a literal like pens with stuff? Like how do you publish it? How do you spread the word that someone is getting badges? Is there a vendor, a third-party software that you swear by? Talk about that. Geri Morgan: Well, Intellum is all things education. So we drink our own champagne. We're using our platform. And so our platform does allow for the reputation-based gamification. So we do it for skills as well as core values and being able to earn those and level up in those. Even recently, we're preparing for all employee retreat. And so we're getting people excited about going to this location together and going through the process of preparing and who's ready and excited about the event. So it can help with the team building element as well as kind of the more strategic skills development. So looking for the right vendor and platform that can help facilitate this. And then, of course, with your badges, there's always that cherry on top. Is there an incentive or something in addition that can motivate them to be valued and feel valued. But to your point, Chad, everyone's not that enthusiast or super competitive. And so you do have to be mindful. And so coming up with the right strategy on your gamification is key. And connecting it to business results is where you're going to see the best buy-in. Chad: That's what I want to hear about. Business results. So when you were starting to create these games, do you have a business result or at least one that you've envisioned to try to hit, like a goal that you're trying to hit with all of these things? And they are something that does pretty much translate to a business result because that's all the C-suite cares about in the first place. So talk a little bit about that. And when you do create these games, you're focused on ensuring that not only you're creating something that has a business result, but you can articulate it to the C-suite. Geri Morgan: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, that strategy needs to be beyond just the compliance. Certainly you could tie this in to your basic compliance trainings. You get your badge when the compliance is, the learning is completed and your ROI is avoiding fines and penalties, but it's more powerful than that. And so it can really help lead to better outcomes and deriving some insights that can help with the conversations and managing your team. I think of a great example is a high potential team member that was positioned for a leadership development program. And so we signed the program and monitoring the learning activity. And we realized that the individual was spending time in technical training and not doing the leadership coaching and development work. And so this insight and being able to develop a program that gave us some data helped us have a conversation with the individual, learn and talk about career paths. And instead of losing that person because they wanted to go in a technical track, we were able to have that information sooner to be able to position them and just redirect where they're taking their career. Geri Morgan: So I think that the ROI is going to be retention of team members. It's gonna be helping us to get them and keep them engaged and looking at the connection between the or correlations between engagement and your education and learning strategies and performance, I think is really another powerful way of looking at gamification and how we're engaging. And really it's learning is our new marketing for our internal team members. Chad: You mentioned retention. Is there any number, like people are here longer or express more satisfaction or our glass door rate, you know, rankings have gone up. Any data around the retention piece? Geri Morgan: Well, I mean, I think there's lots of reports and data out there. I mean, when gamification and those elements are used, it is found that 90% of employees feel more productive and a 48$ increase in employee engagement. We're seeing some of those results in terms of our overall employee engagement. We're higher than the benchmark. We benchmark ourselves against other similarly sized technology companies. And so we are 10 to 20% on average higher than other peers in our space. I think the glass door rating would be another way of looking at that. We really look at employee engagement internally. You look at retention as well. And the other piece that I think is layered on is your internal promotion rate and through your learning initiatives. Are you preparing individuals to be promoted and grow their career or do you have to bring an outside talent? Joel: So leadership training, I've always had a pet peeve being in the military for 20 years. Whenever you get promoted, you have to go through leadership training. If you don't, if you don't complete it, you get demoted. Right? But on the corporate side, why isn't leadership training standard for every organization? Number one. And number two, you know, what have you guys and what kind of impact have you seen from leadership training within your organization? Geri Morgan: It's crazy how lacking this is across the corporate world. I was reading an article recently. It was less than 5% of businesses have leadership development programs at all levels implemented across. Chad: How does this happen? Geri Morgan: So we're again, we're in that natural state of just being reactive and instead of proactive with preparing our leaders to navigate situations successfully. I mean, I think there is a budget, you know, certainly that's an area that is easy. And one of the first things that sometimes gets cut, which is unfortunate, the budget piece. And, you know, it's hard to do it right. There's so much, you know, the canned content out there. And so this perception is, is that it's difficult to do. And so I think maybe that's why organizations, you know, don't do it. But I mean, the ROI, you're absolutely right. Like it's the career growth and progression and employee retention are some of the key drivers. The millennial workforce is looking for growth and development opportunities. And so if you're not providing that, you're going to see that turnover every 18 to 24 months, especially from that generation. If you're not satisfying that expectation of employment these days, our workforce is 65% millennial. And so this is a big part of what we talk about in creating that culture of learning. Joel: You talk about retention, which is very important. I'm curious about two other R's. One is recruiting. We know that applying to jobs suck. We know that ninety some percent bail before they complete the task of applying to a job. Are you guys currently doing anything to gamify the application process or the recruiting process? And if not, is it something that you don't want to do or something that you just haven't gotten around to? The other question is around referrals. Do you have a badge for someone referring someone? And is that a big badge? Because it should be. Geri Morgan: I love that idea. I think the recruitment piece itself, I think that's brilliant. It's not one that we've currently taken on as an idea, but I have. Chad: New product for your teaching. Geri Morgan: Yes, I think it's fantastic. Joel: I'll take 15% of all these profit. Geri Morgan: Let's keep working on this, but you're absolutely right. I mean, we want to stand out and be a unique company. There's a lot of competition for talent. And so we do want to be a top destination where people want to work. And so we try to showcase and highlight our culture in unique ways and have a very collaborative selection process and do some things that are very personalized to that individual. And in terms of that selection process, talking about things that matter to them and making sure that they have time to vet us fully so that it's a mutual fit. But I think that this could be really fun to work on a gamified recruitment experience and prepping candidates for successful conversations and the vice versa. So interesting angle there. And the referral piece is something that we do track and monitor. And I like the idea of badges for that. And then there's like a master badge. And then once you have so many referrals, you're hired in HR as a recruiter so... Joel: Honorary recruiter. Geri Morgan: A whole new career path. Chad: I want to. I want to. We don't need no stinking badges badge. That's that's what I want. Joel: That's for the Eeyore at the company that just doesn't care about anything. Chad: So we talked about curbing attrition and retention. So a report was leaked that Amazon was losing nine billion dollars in revenue due to attrition. There are multitudes of reports of loss in productivity. All throughout the globe, not just the U.S It seems like curbing churn via career pathing upward/internal mobility is is really the major answer. So have you seen an uptick in companies actually starting to gain traction around around these areas and understanding that churn to the extent that we've had it has not good and is probably the biggest reason why productivity has dropped so much. Have you seen some traction around that? Geri Morgan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's certainly being in the technology space. It is an area where we're seeing a lot of growth and extra conversations around employee engagement and and retention and how strategy needs to be a core piece of business strategy and having plans to understand and learn why retention is happening. I think that's where you have to start. It's not, you know, the one size fits all. It's not one answer that is going to address and provide a solution for every business. You got to start with listening and understanding why that activity is happening within the organization and then coming up with solutions. And so, you know, again, starting with a plan and a strategy, the business outcome is everything. Don't rush out crap, you know, don't you have to make it good quality content. And so if you're not putting that thought in the first part and creating the strategy and really knowing who your learners are in this case with career development and opportunities for growth and development within businesses, then it's not going to have the buy in and the meaningful impact if you're not starting with understanding your learners and mapping out what that business connection is. Joel: Now, you're headquartered in Atlanta and you're in Cincinnati, so I'm guessing you have remote workers, which leads to my next question. How can you best harness the gamification aspect when everyone is in a different office, working from home and particularly if they're on the road? Do you guys leverage mobile as part of your gamification? So if I'm on the go, I can still have my gamification aspects in my hand as opposed to opening up my laptop. Talk about remote and mobile. Geri Morgan: Yeah, yeah. So we have been a fully remote and remote first organization for 23 years now. So we've been doing this for a while and you're absolutely right. Gamification can help support the employee experience and create community. So it is a tool that can bring people together and facilitate team building, helping create those connections. You can do that through challenges. So, you know, trivia is like right now. We're currently celebrating Intellum's 23rd birthday. So... Speaker 5: Happy birthday! Geri Morgan: It's our Jordan year. So we are all Jordan themed. We've got company trivia going on and some fun prizes that are custom Jordan jerseys. Chad: Nice. Geri Morgan: So, you know, gamifying celebrations and moments that can bring people together like this. And then you can also just create and foster community through platforms around common interests. And so we have groups and individuals that are connecting on, you know, gardening and parents, which, you know, got that covered and other interests that bring people together in a way that create those relationships at work. So that's just kind of an added bonus that you can use this to help facilitate and address multiple different people strategies. Chad: So as we're talking about gamification, let's talk about cheat codes. How do companies get past the mistakes? What are some of the biggest mistakes and what are some of the biggest cheat codes for them to get to better results faster? Geri Morgan: I think starting with knowing who your learners are and then what those learning objectives are and then thinking about how what does that drive in terms of actions? What are the results? So you don't always have to be so monumental. Start with the small things. The other thing that we do is we pilot. And so we get people together. We call them spark sessions. And so sharing, hey, I'm working on this. What are your thoughts? What's your reaction? And so start small and get feedback, get engagement. And then you're going to get people that are excited and become the ambassadors of the program when you launch. So I think that is really a big opportunity that people just try to skip over. And then being able to promote, I mean, it's a whole marketing effort. And so the launch of it, getting the leaders all informed and excited about what you're doing and connecting that to your business outcomes is gonna be the way that you can set people up for successful gaming or learning initiatives in general. Chad: Are you getting marketing support around this internally? Geri Morgan: Yeah, yeah, we do. We have our marketing team that provides some exceptional resources. And if you don't have that, you don't always have that. You know, like with our culture council work with Intellum's birthday, we were able to use Canva and AI and some other tools to help us put together the marketing resources that we needed. Chad: ChatGPT, baby. Geri Morgan: Yes. Yeah, there's AI for that. So leveraging that as much as we can. Joel: I mentioned Eeyore, but in doing some research on this topic, there was a wired story a few years back giving some pushback on the gamification trend. And I'll read you a quote here from the story. "Gamification is unhelpful and can even be harmful if people feel that their employer is forcing them to participate in mandatory fun." Have you run into employees that aren't into it? Do you give them an opt out? Like what tips would you give companies who have sort of a stick in the mud, if you will? Geri Morgan: Yeah, yeah. So that's something that we're real passionate about. Is not making it mandatory, not making it required, is creating an experience that people want to be part of and then going in with the right expectations. You're not going to engage 100% of your workforce. So establish what's realistic. So is it 80%? Is it 60%? So knowing that you aren't going to achieve and be able to appeal to everyone. But I think where you really gain some of those Eeyore's is when you have the reputation based element to it. And so when there is, it's not just for earning the badge. When there is a skill or a mastery level that you can get connected to what you bring and the value that you have, that's when you have your audience and your learners and employees engaged is when there's kind of that level of achievement that is based off of their reputation or skill or value. Chad: Well, too bad, Cheesman. Mandatory fun is always going to happen with the Chad and Cheese podcast. That's Geri Morgan, everybody. Geri, Geri. Joel: Geri. Chad: So, Geri, where can people connect with you? Where would you send them to connect with you to find out more about the company and some of the things that you guys are actually doing? Geri Morgan: Yeah, please connect with me on LinkedIn or find us through Intellum, through LinkedIn or intellum.com. And it's been really fun to talk about how we can level up productivity. And so I just encourage everyone to game on. Joel: Geri, you have officially won the Chad and Cheese podcast badge. And with that, another one is in the can, Chad. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Intro: Like Shark Tank, then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman 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: Oh, yes sir, it's another Firing Squad what's up everybody? It's your favorite average white guy podcast, AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman, joined as always the chips to my salsa, Mr. Chad Sowash is in the house... Chad: Oh yeah, light... Joel: And today we welcome... Chad: Crispy. Joel: Amber Wanner founder and CEO of Vette. Amber, welcome to Firing Squad. Chad: That's Amber Winner to you. Joel: Not a whiner, she's a winner. Her name is Amber Wanner. Amber Wanner: Thank you so much for having me. Yes, my name is Amber and sometimes it's autocorrect my last name to winner but it's Wanner and I am a Philly girl and I moved recently to Boise, Idaho where I am building my company Vette. Joel: Fantastic, fantastic. Chad: You don't hear that much. Joel: Are you an Eagles fan? Amber Wanner: Absolutely, through and through. Joel: Absolutely. Amber Wanner: Everyone in Boise is gonna be an Eagles fan when I'm done. [laughter] Joel: Fixers, Flyers, like you're total Philly to the bone in terms of sports. Amber Wanner: All of it. Joel: That's awesome, that's awesome. Chad: Yeah. Very nice, yeah now... Joel: Didn't we talk to someone from Philly the other day whose favorite team was the Cowboys? I found that very odd that that was... Chad: That is very odd. It seems like a transplant at that point. Joel: Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. Alright, Chad. Chad: Which is like Philly in Utah. Yeah. Joel: Tell her what she's won today. Chad: Well, Amber, welcome to Firing Squad, this is how it's gonna play out. At the sound of the bell. Joel: That's not the bell. Chad: There it is, you're gonna have two minutes to pitch Vette. At the end of two minutes, we're gonna hit you up with about 20 minutes of Q&A, be sure to be concise or you're gonna get the crickets, that means tighten up your game. At the end of Q&A, you're gonna receive one of the three from myself and Joel, big applause. Uber for phone interviews my ass, more like the rocket ship for phone interviews. Yippee Ki-Yay motherfuckers, you're getting acquired, golf clap. This ain't a rocket, but it still might get you a good exit without hitting warp speed and last but not least, it's the Firing Squad. Joel: Oh boy. Chad: It's the penis rocket that prematurely exploded on launch. Get back to the drawing board, 'cause this ain't it, that's it. Are you ready for Firing Squad? Joel: It's like throwing snowballs at Santa Claus in Philly, you ready, Amber? Amber Wanner: Yes. Joel: Pitch in three, two. Amber Wanner: Awesome. So Vette is a platform that utilizes the gig economy to phone interview applicants on behalf of businesses. So basically this allows an applicant to interview the moment that they apply to a job or express interest. So we're talking about that moment of intent where you have a quick moment to be able to capture that applicant and move them forward in the process. Our veterans are stay-at-home moms, retirees, military veterans, people with disabilities and a lot of HR professionals who are doing this in their free time. Our platform has the script so they know exactly what to say, it's a data-driven interview, so there's no bias and it's really having that, we call it instant human connection, where someone's able to really have a genuine conversation with a human. And yeah, we then, work with companies to put the data back into the ATS and move them along the process. We consider it, the hiring journey, which is the moment of intent is the applicant, the moment of conversion is the candidate and then the moment of retention is the employee, and so we're tracking that entire journey from the moment of intent. Okay, that's all. Joel: That sounds like she was done, a little early, a little early that time. Alright, Amber, I always ask about the name. Amber Wanner: Yes. Joel: Obviously Vette, I think of Corvette just 'cause I have a whole Armada in my garage. Little known fact about me, kidding. But vette.io, vette.com is a shockingly a car site. Amber Wanner: Yes. Joel: With a chick in a bikini selling Corvettes. So like that may be some confusion in the marketplace, but how'd you come up with the name, was there a number two that almost made the cut? Talk about that. Amber Wanner: Yeah, so it's funny that you said vette.com because, it is really funny 'cause it's a bunch of Corvettes, a guy with a bunch of Corvettes bought the website in the 90's and he's selling it for a decent amount of money. And so when we hit our first million, we're gonna buy a Corvette and the high heels. I dunno if you saw the high heels on that website, but no Vette is really, like you're vetting, you're vetting someone. And so it applies to any kind of aspect of that hiring process when you're vetting someone. Joel: Did you secure like vette.net or vette.ai to redirect or is it just the io? Joel: We do have vette.ai, but originally it was vette.io, which is where it is today but we do also own vette.ai. Joel: Got, it. Okay. You are a two-time founder. Talk about your previous startup and maybe how it compliments the current company. Chad: And how can you do that? 'cause it looks like you're only 12. I mean, come on. Amber Wanner: Thank you, I just turned 32 and I'm like, I don't even know how. Chad: Oh stop. Joel: Amber. I would be triggered at a comment like that. Tell him to fuck off. Amber Wanner: I used to lie about my age 'cause I wanted to be older like forever and wear high heels so I could look older... Joel: Same me too. Amber Wanner: And everything. But my first company, it was called Candidate. So I ran that for about five and a half years. It was a tech recruiting company and the idea for Vette part of it came out of that, I was having software engineers vetting other software engineers, and it was just part of my process. It was a challenge that I had, but prior to that I actually was in staffing and so I was in frontline staffing, and my sole job was to smile and dial applicants that applied the day before, the night before and no one would ever pick up or get back to me because they applied at that moment of intent when they were available. And so I thought there had to be a better way. Joel: So you've raised about, what is it, a little over 2 million, 2.4 million in seed funding, you were founded in 2020. What have you done with the money? What do you plan on doing with it? Is there another raise coming in the near future? Amber Wanner: Yeah, definitely. So I launched the company right as COVID was happening, which I think was a really great opportunity because I didn't have employees that I needed to let go. Like I could really hone in on understanding the market, the industry, doing market research, testing stuff out. So originally it was supposed to be software engineers vetting other software engineers. But I found a matrix that said the higher the skill, the less on-demand something could be, the lower the skill, the more on-demand something could be. So I pivoted the business to virtually anyone can interview like a warehouse worker or a fast food employee, and so I brought on all my friends and family to be the vetters sitting on call. A lot of them were military veterans, a friend of mine had a physical security company in Philly. Amber Wanner: And I was like, as soon as an applicant applies on Indeed or wherever can I text them and say, Hey, I saw you apply this job, would you like to interview now? And so the data just came in. The applicants were like, wow, that was so fast. I can't believe that I'm talking to someone so fast. And so I was like, okay, I think we have something here. That was before we had raised our pre-seed. So built out a proof of concept, I like to call it our bubblegum and tape version of the product, tested it out on a staffing company on their use case, learned a ton and then with that data, we were able to raise, our seed round and then we launched to the public last year and we are, hopefully Q1 of next year, gonna be going for our series A. Chad: Awesome, awesome, love getting the family involved, that's all great. [laughter] Amber Wanner: It passed the mom test. Joel: And they're probably all from Philly, I bet that was a fun pre-screen. Chad: The whole alpha/pilot. So okay, so beyond that of getting family involved, where are you finding your vetters now? You said individuals with disabilities, veterans, giggers. Okay, great, but where are you finding them to actually pull them in to do this? Amber Wanner: So we have done zero marketing and it's all been word of mouth and we have hundreds of vetters on the platform. We've started tracking how they're finding out, it's word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth. Like one veteran is telling another veteran and so right now we actually have a wait list of 600 vetters, and it's all on top of the 500 that we already have on the platform. And because it's a supply demand situation, we need to make sure that we're managing that so that way the vetters are making enough money to continue to come on and then there's enough jobs coming in, but it's been so great because we've been really understanding the vetter behavior and when they go online, when they go offline. We have teachers over the summer, all summer we had a lot of teachers on the platform. But yeah, it's just been so incredible that the flywheel for the vetters have really kind of gone, it's cool. Chad: So do you have like a specific amount of Vetters that you want on the system at all times? And if it starts to shrink down, you start to invite other people into Vette. How does that work to ensure that you have enough vetters at specific times, especially high volume times? Amber Wanner: Yeah, so we actually go off of Erlang C's call center model to make sure that we always have coverage. So we also offer to companies where their internal team could take that first Vette request that comes in and if they're not available, then it goes to the Vetter network. So there's always coverage and like you said, if there's any times that are lagging, we'll bring more on, but what we found is that when Vette requests are coming in, vetters are online 'cause they're making money. Chad: Gotcha, gotcha. So how are they trained? How are the vetters trained? Amber Wanner: Yeah, so technically we can't train because it's gig work, but we could provide best practices. So our vetters vet new vetters coming on, so we use our own product to vet them coming on. And then we provide all the best practices, the feedback loops, everything very similar to like an Uber where there's ratings and so they're able to get that feedback. Chad: Okay. So how do you do QA/QC moving forward? So you vet this vetter, you put them on, that's great, but that doesn't mean they're always gonna be amazing. How do you continue to provide QA/QC to ensure quality? Amber Wanner: So we're working towards sentiment analysis for the vetters to be able to save the energy level and whatever else. And we can provide that feedback as data. So I always say cash is king, data queen, and data really, everything is about data. We're utilizing humans, but get it, it's for the data that they're... Chad: Okay. So are, are you recording and that's how you're getting sentiment analysis and then you're doing transcriptions, tell me a little bit about that process in itself. Amber Wanner: Yeah, so all the interviews are recorded, and they are transcribed as well. We're able to go off of that. After the interview is done, an applicant gets a text message saying, how would you like to rate, how was your interview experience? Rate it on a scale, so they can rate it that way and then customers can also provide feedback on the vetters that they... Favorite vetters and whatever else. Chad: Process-wise, the transcriptions are then, and recordings are pushed into the applicant tracking system, is that how it works? So that then the recruiter can jump onto it to review? Does the review happen in Vette or does it happen in their applicant tracking system? Amber Wanner: So, yeah, so in the actual interview, if this, then that. So if they answer this way or if they answer this way based on what the company puts as their deal breakers and whatever else will determine if they're the right fit or not. And then after the interview is done, the text goes out to them 10 minutes later letting them know if they're moving forward or not and what the next steps are. Chad: 10 minutes? Amber Wanner: 10 minutes. Chad: 10 minutes. Amber Wanner: And on average, applicants went for getting that text message. So the way that that it works is an applicant will apply to the job. The moment that they apply, they get a text from us saying, Hey, saw you apply this job, would you like to interview now? We've eliminated scheduling. No scheduling at all, so if they're available now or whenever, it's a link that looks kind of like Uber, they don't have to download anything, they just hit interview now, a button, and it searches who's online applicants are interviewing on average within one minute and 28 seconds of getting that text message, and then 10 minutes later they're getting their feedback about what their next steps are. So our conversions have been absolutely insane and it's funny 'cause I just know what we're building, but the industry standard it's really cool to see kind of how that is working. Chad: You're skipping a step. Amber, you're skipping a step, that's not fair, you're skipping a step. Scheduling. Joel: Amber... Amber Wanner: We're also reducing companies Ad spend because we're converting leads faster, the applicant's faster. Joel: Amber wait lists, Philly accents, working moms in Utah, this all sounds very inefficient. Can't we just automate this whole thing with AI? Are you gonna stick with this human model? Amber Wanner: I love that you said that. Any investors that I talk to that want to replace the human entirely with AI, I don't want them to be our, necessarily our investors. And I'm fine saying that, and I've spent countless nights, like after ChatGPT and all that stuff came out, I spent countless nights trying to really understand why that works and why the results are showing. And I kept coming back to this word, moment, we're capturing the applicant right at the moment, and what moment is, is it leads to momentum, and so if you think about the physics behind momentum, it's mass and velocity, so when you could capture an applicant in the moment and show them that they matter with a human, that's what's leading to conversion and that momentum, but companies can't do that right now because they don't have enough people. Amber Wanner: So basically they're pumping more velocity, which is the technology, but they don't have enough people, and so by utilizing the gig economy, we're giving them mass people in their time, and so in terms of now the AI part, like the psychology behind it, the difference between AI that could sound like a human and whatever else, is the relatability factor, it's the, "Oh you grew up in Somerset, New Jersey, did you go to the Bridgewater Commons Mall? I went there with my grandpa growing up." It's that relatability, that human to human connection that I will stand on until I'm blue in the face, and if AI takes over entirely, I don't wanna be a part of that world and I will continue building that until, yeah. Joel: Alright, so you passionately will die on that hill. I get it. Amber Wanner: I will. Joel: But do you have any data or anecdotal evidence that that's what your customers want? I get that the job seekers want that, but do your customers demand it as well. Amber Wanner: Well, the customers are coming to us and a lot of our AI competitors, which we love AI, don't get me wrong, 'cause it basically AI, I believe that AI getting you to the human is the way that it goes. Creating more efficiencies there. But our AI competitors are actually asking to integrate with us because their customer wants the human aspect. Joel: Interesting. So from the looks of it, it looks like most people who apply talk to somebody, at least from your website, that's what it looks like. Is that the case? And how do you manage that? If you're doing like high volume positions it seems like 600 wouldn't be enough to handle that. Amber Wanner: The interview is about five to seven minutes long, it's up to 15 interview questions and/or statements. And you can get a lot out of a conversation out of a moment in five to seven minutes. And so a vetter does an interview, we wanna make it so that a vetter can do about six if they wanted to, per hour, which is again is that Erlang C's call center model. But yeah, and as we start getting more and more companies on, we just add more vetters one by one. Joel: And how much can a vetter make? I mean, do you find yourself competing with DoorDash wages and what they could make doing other gig things? Is that a separate competition? What can a vetter typically make? Amber Wanner: Actually, it's funny 'cause how did we first start getting vetters? I would recruit all my Uber drivers, I would be like, oh, I'm doing this. But the great part about vetters is that you need to leave your home. You can do it from the confines of your own home, from wherever you are. And that's the beautiful part about, our vetters are distributed all across the country. I think we have two states where we don't have vetters, I think Hawaii and North Dakota, I think, the last I checked. But we have vetters all over and they can do it from, right? They don't have to spend gas money, they don't have to do any of that, it's literally having a human to human conversation, and the purpose and the mission and vision behind Vette is that we're having strangers show other strangers that they matter. Amber Wanner: And we're working with a grocery store and when it started getting me thinking that the applicants are the customers and so when... It is such a beautiful thing, it's that like loving your neighbor thing where like that better could be your customer, that applicant is your customer. And that's one of the reasons why also having that human to human connection for right at the moment in of intent rather than AI, you're building that rapport and that trust, and guess what, who is that person gonna shop at now? Your competitor down the street or the company that they're vetting applicants for? Joel: I'm sorry, can I get an applause for recruiting Uber drivers to be vetters. I think you hear a lot about hustling as a startup and that is hustling, quick applause for that. Chad: And big applause for Philly Love, Philly Neighborly love. So let's talk about market segment. What types of companies and positions is Vette really perfect for. Amber Wanner: So high volume hiring. So originally when I first first launched the product, again, we haven't done any marketing or anything yet, which is why probably a lot of people haven't heard about that. But we started off saying, okay, we're gonna do... Like this customer's interested and then this type of customer is interested. So we work with assisted living centers on CNAs, RNs, LPNs, housekeepers, line cooks, jobs. But then we're also working with a physical security franchise that is recruiting security guards. And we also have car rental who's doing like drivers and some salespeople We also have a hair salon that's doing like hairstylists and it's interesting, it's really any company that needs to capture the applicant at that moment of intent before you lose them to your competitor. But I will say that I pivoted from the highly skilled, like the software engineers, doctors, lawyers for a reason. And that was because there's not thousands of node engineers readily available to vet someone's applicant on demand. So I want people like my mom and your mom and your sister and your brother and our neighbors and everyone to be able to use the platform to earn a living. Amber Wanner: I have a situation where a friend of mine, she was having a hard time paying her rent, and I don't want anyone... Have you ever seen The Pursuit of Happyness. I recently saw that. Chad: Yes. Amber Wanner: And it was like, I don't want anyone to ever feel they don't have an option. And with this, they have options, you don't have to starve and you don't have to not be able to pay your rent. Chad: Amber for President people. Okay, so when we're talking about being able to get these vetters ready for new positions, new companies, those types of things, is it easy, is it hard if they're already in the system, but yet it's something that they haven't questioned about before types of positions, is there any type of training that needs to happen? Amber Wanner: So that was the question, and that was when we first weren't sure 'cause the vetters would be like, well, can I have the script before hand? We're like, no, it's right when it pops up, so we started testing it out, and you find that it is like, you pick it up so... It is such a seamless, the way that we've developed the platform, I developed it for someone like me, I don't like complex systems, and I need something that's super easy to figure out, and it's so easy, it's a script that the first part is generally started the same way, there's consent that the call is being recorded and whatever else, and then it goes into... It's a conversation and we want it to be a conversation, we're okay if vetters go a little bit off-script, and as long as that human-to-human connection is there and you're doing that data that you need. But yeah, there's a couple of questions they had to be tested there, we constantly are doing A/B testing on stuff, and we learned from that. Chad: Okay. So what about staffing, you said that you tested this with staffing, this seems like the perfect opportunity for staffing to start to build more margin within what they're doing possibly. Are you working with any staffing companies at all? Amber Wanner: Yeah, we actually are. So we're working with staffing companies and RPOs have been reaching out to us to use the technology and then to use the overflow for the times that they can't get to speak to the applicant. Chad: Right. Amber Wanner: Because even call centers and RPOs are limited. Chad: Yes. Amber Wanner: Because they're based on seats or the limited availability of the one single person, and so with that, it's not limited, it almost in a way defines the macro economics of being able to have the resources to do something and so... So yeah, we're working with some staffing companies and RPOs, I've been reaching out to us to use the platform. Chad: And again, taking macro economics on the podcast, she's definitely running for president, so we're talking about a US target right now, are you working within the entire US? I would say yes. Are you looking to be able to go beyond that. Canada, Mexico, and then beyond Europe? Amber Wanner: Yeah, we have definitely gotten requests, some people have reached out and been like, I heard about Vette, I'm like, how did you hear about Vette, I don't even know how, but it's really... It's cool to hear that. So yes, we also are working on an option where if an applicant wants to interview in Spanish or in a different language, that we could prioritize the vetters that could interview them in whatever language that it is that they want, as well as any specific industry, they'll be prioritized, so if someone has a nursing type of job, they could have a nurse be the one that vets them, it's priority, it's not guaranteed, but we could prioritize based on that. Joel: You mentioned chatbots and some others that are competitors, are there any other competitors that you would consider that maybe we are, and you mentioned, is there anyone doing this globally that you know of, anyone outside of chatbots that are competitors? Amber Wanner: No, I don't wanna... Here's the thing, I'll never say no, there's not a competitor out there because who knows who was me building something in their studio apartment, building something, I don't wanna ever take that away from anyone, but as far as we know, and I do keep an eye on what's going on in everything, no. We do have a mode that we have in our... Chad: Got it. Amber Wanner: Back pocket, but, yeah... Chad: And who would the ideal acquirer, not acquirer, ideal partner be for this business, if they called up? Amber Wanner: Yeah, I waiting for the point where we can acquire companies. But no, so I would say partners with us would be maybe the RPOs or some AI companies. Honestly, ATSs, the ATSs are definitely one that... What we found our data, because we're converting applicants faster, that it'll only make the ATSs better. So we do have automations and everything, integrations with ATSs, but partnering with a Workday or Oracle or any, would really be something that I think would make sense and also help them out and their partners and their customers. Joel: This sounds really freaking expensive, Amber. Chad: Hello. Joel: What can a customer expect to pay for such a price-sounding solution? Amber Wanner: Yeah, so it ranges. If a company wants to use it internally for the platform, and we also give data on what times of day interviews are coming in, so we can fully equip them with that, so it's anywhere from $89 per seat to $59 per seat for internal and in external, it could be anywhere from $20 per vet to $15 per vet. Joel: Okay, okay. All right, Amber, that is the bell meaning the Q&A session is over. Are you ready to face Firing Squad. Amber Wanner: Yeah. Joel: Come on give me some Philly like bring it on. All right, Chad get her. Chad: All right, so one thing that chatbots have demonstrated is that instant gratification is something that... And I think we've all known that it's what America is built on these days, like it or not, we created this experience monster and now we have to feed it. That being said, not every company will want a chatbot texting experience when they have an opportunity for a human touch point. And in some hiring companies, they might feel that the human touch point will actually give them an upper hand in landing the talent and then the optics of giving a human white glove experience. So it gives them that market experience, not to mention, you're also being able to skip a step where everybody's talking about, oh, we do scheduling so much better, there's no scheduling, we're skipping that all together. The hard part, obviously, you might see as you start to grow this, 'cause you're still really in your infancy, is scaling the workforce, the vetters for the new areas to interview, and then obviously growing aspirationally, growing globally and being able to do that in foreign languages. Chad: Right? That's where it gets scary. Although we've seen generative AI uses a co-pilot that can index information much faster and better than humans alone coupling that with a multi-modal large language model, and the near future kinda puts human-powered platforms in a redundancy kind of scenario. But guess what, we're not there yet, and I think Vette has time to get acquired and or explore those avenues themselves, which is why I believe you're headed down the right path. You're doing all the right things. You've got the right experience. I'm a big fan. This is a big applause. Amber Wanner: Yay, that's the Rocky. Yeah [laughter] Joel: I love it. The little corner of her mouth was starting to smile as you were leading to the applause. Alright, Amber, don't get too excited now 'cause I still have a turn in this thing. All right, so when we do these Firing Squads, I research the company, what they've raised, and I come with the questions that are pretty standard, and then I come up with what I think without meeting the founder, as nice as they are or whatever, 'cause that way, I try not to be biased in my decision. So I write up a commentary of what I think without meeting you, what I would say. And I was ready to kill this company, I was ready to say, this is a commodity, this is gonna get AI'ed to death, and I said, unless she tells me they're gonna automate this thing and go, AI, you didn't. You zagged and I zigged, you said there's no way in hell that we're gonna go automation, we're gonna be human being till the end, and one of my points was that you're being the Uber for employment or Uber for interviews or whatever it is. I wrote it down in Uber for phone interviews, and I was gonna say, even Uber is looking to automate all their taxis, robo taxis were just approved in California, this is where everything is gonna go. Joel: The difference is, if I'm an automated robo taxi or a taxi with a taxi driver, I don't really care 'cause I don't talk to the taxi driver, my experience and a taxi is no better if I talk to a driver or not, I just wanna get where I'm going. Searching for a job is different, these are people who are looking, they may have been laid off, they may be depressed or defeated in some way, I gotta think, if I'm looking for a job and I'm in that head space and I apply and talk to a human within minutes. If not seconds, I feel a little bit better about life. I feel a little bit better about, oh shit, I applied and I got a person, a human being on the line and your right to say, we're a long way from, hey, I'm from Chicago, like, oh, did you see the Bears game last week? Or to have that kind of nuance in context, I think we're way off from anywhere near that. I love that you have a mote of Vetters, you should write a white paper on how you're able to grow Vetters with no marketing whatsoever. And I think it goes beyond just talking to your Uber drivers, unless you were taking Ubers for 24 hours a day, in multiple cities. Chad: Hoping from Uber to Uber. Amber Wanner: Yeah [laughter] Joel: And I also think. We had a story recently about a customer service company that laid off 90% their customer service people. Good for them, that's the direction I wanna go, but that's also Vetters for you to cherry pick and grow your mote, if you will, of people that can provide a human touch through the job search journey, I believe humans will always have a place in this world, held there still classified job postings and newspapers, you may have a small percentage of the overall market, but it's gonna be a really big market, and you may be the only fish in that pond, and I think that's a good place to be in. And for that as well, it's a big applause for me, and you know what happens when that happened, Amber. You get a little careless whisper in the Firing Squad. That's just how good... You obviously have survived and thrived in the Firing Squad. How do you feel? Amber Wanner: Amazing, I could breath now [laughter] Joel: I can breath now. Amber Wanner: Thank you so much that means a lot to me, it really does. Joel: You're welcome. You're welcome. Chad: Thanks for coming on. Joel: Such a pleasure. Good luck to you. Obviously, you're early in this journey, let us know when you get that series A, Let us know when you're making moves overseas. But until then, Amber let our listeners know where they can find out more about Vette. Chad: Yeah, so we actually created something for Chad and Cheese, and so its vette.io/chadandcheese, and then you'll actually be able to listen to a real call, a real vet and book a demo to see the product. And, yeah. Joel: That escalated quickly. Chad: That deserves a big position applause in itself. Joel: You want applause for that all right. Amber Wanner: Yes. She is forward thinking on all of this, I love it. Just another way... Joel: Atleast she didn't volunteer us to be Vetters for those demos. Like you guys will be getting calls for demos of that. Chad: Wait till we get off the recording, she'll be at... Joel: That's right. That is vette.io everybody. Chad another one in the can, this one was fun and 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 W-W-W.C-H-A-D-C-H-E-E-S-E.C-O-M.

The boys are snapping necks and cashing checks this week from the HR Tech Conference in Las Vegas from the Fuel50 booth. After giving some much-deserved love appreciation to Friends of Chad & Cheese that we’re in attendance, the boys dig into the latest news from show sponsor Harri, covering the latest round of funding with the company’s CFO, who jumped in during the show. If that’s not enough for a shortened roadshow, the guys discuss takeaways from the conference and wonder why startups in certain parts of the country have a tough time with naming their companies. Oh yeah, and a breakdown of U2 at the Sphere goes down. It was a beautiful day, indeed. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: 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 snack. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel: Oh, yeah. Recording live from the HR Tech Conference in Las Vegas from the Fuel50 booth. This is the Chad and Cheese Podcast... Chad: This is tight. Joel: Weekly show. I'm your... Yeah. Chad: This is tight. [laughter] Joel: I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't know. Alright. I'm your co-host, Joel the Edge Cheesman. Chad: And this is Chad "I can't fucking believe we went to the Sphere last night" Sowash. Joel: I know. That's exciting. And on this abbreviated episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, we're talking HR Tech Conference news and... Chad: Stuff. Joel: Interesting stuff. Chad: Stuff. Joel: We're talking Harri. Let's do this. So how are you feeling, man? Day two and a half, I guess? Chad: Yeah. And I gotta say, it's hilarious because we come here and... I mean, HR Tech's HR Tech. You see the Startup Alley... Joel: Yes it is. Chad: You see the big names, companies getting funding, which we'll talk about. It's same as it ever was to some extent, but it's more exciting because of all the AI aspects of it. Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: And then we got lucky last night and scored some tickets for U2. Joel: Yeah. Let's talk about us 'cause I feel like that's what our listeners wanna hear about. So this has been an incredible trip. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I got a few shoutouts, thank yous. Plum is on the list. Chad: Oh, hell yeah. Joel: Sponsor of the show. Chad: All you need is Plum baby. Joel: Rhyme with Plum. All you need is Plum. [vocalization] Joel: They always do a great job of creating a theme around a promotion. Chad: Tying shit together. Joel: All you need is Plum. The Beatles love imagery... Chad: That's amazing. Joel: T-shirts, stickers. Joel: Yellow submarine. Joel: They went full-in. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Drinks before. So if you haven't done the Love at the Mirage, Cirque du Soleil show, if you love The Beatles, even if you don't, I think you're gonna know a lot of the songs no matter what. Chad: Pro tip, pro tip, take a gummy before you go. Take a gummy, about 10 milligrams. It'll rock your world. Oh yeah. Joel: Yeah? Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Yeah. But you didn't do that. You're just... Chad: I didn't. Julie did. But I did last night for U2. And that... So yes, pro tip. Joel: Okay. Well, let's not jump ahead. So pro tip on the gummies, thanks. Not for the kids out there. Don't you... Chad: Yeah, not these gummies. Joel: Just say no, kids. Chad: Yes. Joel: So then last night, we get a, basically falls in our lap, tickets to the Sphere. If you don't know what this is, it's basically a huge digital ball in Vegas that has digital... Chad: You said it earlier... Joel: Animatronics... Chad: It's the future... Joel: Animation is the future. Chad: It's Fifth Element shit. Joel: So We get to go, to see U2 at the Sphere. Great Tickets, great seats. Paradox, another great sponsor, shoutout to them for hooking us up for that. Chad: Amazing, amazing. Joel: What were your thoughts on the Sphere, U2, all that? 'Cause I think we were both blown away by it. Chad: Yeah. No, it was funny 'cause last week I was actually showing TikTok videos to my daughter... Joel: Yeah. Chad: Of the Sphere and I was like, "Isn't this the coolest thing ever?" and she was like, "Well, are you gonna go?" I'm like, "Sweetheart, I mean, tickets are like 1200 bucks. I doubt it." Joel: Right. Chad: Right? Joel: Right. Chad: And then last night we were on our way and I called her. I'm like, "We're going to the Sphere." [laughter] I felt like a little kid. But we got there. We were outside, not even inside the venue yet, and it is this humongous digital ball and it is just... I was awestruck. I took one picture. That's all I could do. I had to get inside. I got inside. It was really easy to get in. I was... It holds 18,000 people, this ball. It holds 18,000 people. We got in really easy. Got beers pretty quickly. And I mean, the experience in itself, as soon as, U2 got on stage, I've never been in such an immersive experience in my life. I believe this, in many cases, will replace that of what we've known as VR. Joel: The arena show. Well, okay. Chad: The arena show and VR too. Joel: Okay. So you would go VR. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Joel: None of this in your living room experience. People are gonna wanna be here. AI cannot replace... Chad: No. Joel: What happened last night to us. Chad: No. And they can't replace doing it with 18,000 of your closest friends. I mean... Joel: Yeah. The energy can't be replicated. Chad: And that's what it feels like. Oh, it was amazing. Joel: Yeah. When you have... The intro to Streets Have No Name, how it just goes up, and then everyone starts jumping, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, you can't replace that with VR. So when I saw this thing getting built, I had no idea it was gonna be like this digital eyeball in the center of Vegas. Chad: We saw it from the high roller from UNLEASH. Joel: Yeah. I saw it getting built and I'm like... Chad: It's just like this black ball. Joel: Okay. It's 18,000 people. How are they gonna fill that? Because usually when it's Celine Dion at the whatever, it's like 5,000. It's pretty easy to fill. This was a big... I'm like, how are they gonna do that? Just 'cause it's a ball? Big deal. And then when I saw the digital thing, I thought, "Oh, that's really cool." Chad: Yes. Joel: And then you go in and we start seeing the TikToks of all the digital, just stimulation. I was blown away. It had like... It must've been like Romans going to the Coliseum for the first time. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: That must've been what it was like. Chad: The quality of the video though was... Joel: And the sound... Chad: Amazing. Joel: There were scenes, and we don't wanna spoil it, but where like the Edge is on guitar and he's looking at the camera and you feel like every little nook and cranny of his face is there. Chad: Literally, he looked like a true giant, almost like 3D. I mean, it was amazing. Joel: Remember when the ceiling light looked like it was coming down? Chad: It was coming down, yeah, like it was gonna crush us. Yeah, it was pretty fucking cool. Yeah. Anyway... Joel: Yeah. I was telling you that there are a few episodes in my life where I thought that's the future, the internet, digital camera, smartphone. This was one of those moments. This is the future of entertainment. We talked about boxing fights, sporting matches... Chad: Oh yeah. Football, yeah. Joel: Obviously more music. This thing is gonna be in every major city. Big acts are gonna wanna play there, smaller acts. I guess the dome can be as big as you want. It could be 5,000 people if you want. Chad: It could be. And it could be just aspects of like domed screen, right? 'Cause we're seeing Dallas Cowboys Stadium, for God's sakes, the whole fucking place is a screen anyway, right? This is just beyond that. And being able to integrate some of these technologies into it, I think that myself is where we're gonna see arenas going. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. We don't make stock picks on the show, but it is a public company. Chad: Oh, I'm picking this. I am picking this. [laughter] Joel: And when you lose your shirt, call Chad. Don't call me. Don't call me. Chad: I said, I'm picking this. I didn't say anybody else should picked this. Joel: I know. [laughter] Joel: So we mentioned Plum. We mentioned Paradox. A few other thank yous I wanted to mention. Our friend Omar at Job Pixels took us out for a great night. His wife is a saint. Chad: Oh my God. Joel: A baby that doesn't sleep. And then there's the baby. I'm talking about not Omar, but the actual baby. She's got her hands full. Shoutout to her. Keith Sonderling, friend of the show, four-time-now guest... Chad: Yeah, amazing. Joel: EOC, commissioner. Shoutout to him. He was at the show last night in the pit. I wanna know if he was wearing a suit. Chad: No, I don't think he was. Joel: Okay, no suit. Chad: 'Cause he actually said he was gonna go change. I told him we got tickets and he's like, "Oh shit." And then he went and he found tickets. Joel: He found tickets. Yeah, yeah. And Shane Gray was there last night. He was posting pictures. That was great. Chad: Good time, good time. Joel: Plum I said, Paradox, obviously. Shoutout to Rich Wilson, our friend at Gigged.AI. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Gave us some scotch. Gave me some scotch. We'll get to how I got that. Chad: Kilted Yoga. [laughter] Joel: Kilted Yoga. How deranged are our fans that they thought to bring a kilted, was it hot yoga or just yoga? Chad: No, just kilted yoga. Joel: Kilted yoga. Chad: Just kilted yoga. Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: We're gonna do that. We're gonna do that in Scotland. Joel: They know the audience. Yeah, we're gonna go to Scotland, drink some peated lovely golden liquid. Chad: Nothing like doing downward dog in a kilt, in a kilt. Okay. Joel: Underwear, optional, apparently, on some of that stuff. So shoutout to him. Also Joe Wilkie, who brought over some bourbon, which you were... Chad: Yes, I got. Yes. Joel: Able to keep because you're not the biggest scotch fan in the world. And really just some of our fans. Colleen DeGeorge... Chad: Oh dude. Joel: Loves us, and messaged both of us, I think, to just, belts and suspenders that she was gonna get in front of us. She came by. Chris Brevik, who we didn't know necessarily, he comes by, says hi. Dude's got a Chad and Cheese t-shirt on under his Oxford. He's incognito from his company. And he said, "Hey guys, I just wanna show you," he's got the shirt. So we got him on social media. We still have a few more hours here at the show. I'm sure we'll run into more people. But yeah... Chad: Of course. Joel: Love seeing old friends. But that list there for me was a special list of thank yous and shoutouts. Chad: Yes, that's amazing. Shoutout to Loom for getting acquired. Joel: Yeah. Let's get into some of the news here. Yeah. Chad: Fucking, almost a billion dollars. [laughter] Who would have thought? Little Loom. I mean, seriously. Joel: Little Loom. Chad: Little Loom. Joel: Little Loom. Chad: A billion dollars. Joel: Yeah. We had some people come over and say hi and talk about this. Talk about an un-Moatable business. They're saying like a case of Red Bulls and we could create Loom in about a weekend. So I'm not sure if that billion dollars... They must have one hell of a roster of clients that are using it or have some really interesting plans. Chad: They've got great adoption though. I mean they've always... I think Loom... And again, to kind of like be first to the show gives you that advantage. And I would assume they've got a hell of a portfolio, not just from a Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000, Fortune 2000, but just dudes like you and I going and doing the transactional side of the house. So they've got the transactional, and then they've got the big account. So I would assume that they were worth it. Joel: Yeah. They were one of the sort of... Everyone was talking about Zoom back in the pandemic and Loom was kind of quietly, were this remote demo, take customers through the product solution that I guess sort of flew under the radar until now when someone wrote a big check for them. So shoutout to Loom for sure. Chad: Talking about big checks. Should we talk about a big check? Joel: Big decks. Chad: Oh yes. Joel: Checks and decks, yes. Stay tuned for some great episodes from our time live here at the Fuel50 booth at HR Tech. I have a shoutout for Candidate.fyi, not candy-date. It's actual candidate, how you spell it with FYI. So these guys, it's an ex-Googler, and I know that the history of ex-Googlers creating companies in our industry aren't great, but these guys are creating... It's kind of a secret project, but they raised a pre-seed of $1.3 million, which isn't too shabby. Chad: That's legit. Yeah. Joel: Pretty legit. They're in invite-only mode. So if you're interested in checking it out everybody, you gotta go to... Chad: That is always so sexy when they do that. Joel: Yeah. People love the scarcity. They wanna get into the party. The velvet rope is always attractive to people. So Candidate.fyi, if you wanna go check that out. Apparently, it's creating experiences during the hiring and interviewing process, which sounds very Gen Z to me. I'm excited to see what the hell this thing is gonna be, but shoutout to creating some mystery. Chad: Yeah. Who knows. It could be gerbils on a wheel for all the fuck we know. Joel: Some mystery from an ex-Googler. Candidate.fyi, everybody. Should we get into some real new stories? Chad: Yes. I wanna talk about money. Here's some money... Joel: Let's talk about money. So the big story this week, Chad and Cheese sponsor, Harri, that's H-A-R-R-I, has raised 43... Chad: Can I buy a vowel? Joel: Yes, you can. You can buy a vowel. Vanna's been sick lately. I don't know if you've seen this. Chad: Yes. Joel: She's got the COVID. Well, that's what they're saying anyway. Chad: That's not good. Joel: She's been out a while. Chad: That's not good. Joel: Anyway, get well soon. Chad: Yes. She's not a young buck. Joel: Still hot 40 years later. [laughter] Alright. Yeah, no spring chicken. Okay, so our friends at Harri have raised $43 million in a Series B round. This brings total funding to $112.2 million. Chad: Wait a minute, wait a minute. I think I see one of the... Is that Jack? I think that's the... Jack, come here. Come here, Jack. Wait a minute. We've got another... Joel: This is the luxury of the live show, everybody. Chad: Oh, this is amazing. Joel: We get to just pull in... Chad: Come on, take a seat, man. Take a seat. Joel: Pull in high-profile, highly paid executives... Chad: Look at that. I mean, look at his jacket for God's sake. Joel: Randomly hanging out. So I could say the news, but why don't we hear it from you? What's going on at Harri with the release this week? Jack: I'll keep it tight. Chad: Keep it tight. [laughter] Jack: Not a lot. Not a lot, actually. Yeah. No, we've got a lot going on in the platform, but we're excited to announce our Series B raise. We raised $43 million, fueling growth and super excited. So led by Atalaya Capital Management who's a credit-oriented fund and follow-on investment from Golub Growth, who's been a great partner for us. They were in our A round and now they're in our B round as well. So yeah, a lot of stuff going on, fully capitalized. Money, or cookies are in the bank, as we say. And yeah, we're super excited to let... Chad: So what are you gonna spend that money on? Wait, what are we doing? Joel: Hold on real quick. Chad: What are we doing? Joel: What's the valuation now? [laughter] Chad: Wait a minute. Jack: So we're not disclosing valuation, not disclosing... [music] [laughter] Jack: This is gotcha, right? No, we are... [laughter] Joel: Have you heard our show? Jack: Yeah, of course. No, we're excited. It's a nice up round for us, especially in this market... Chad: Yeah. Joel: To be able to announce an up round, not disclosing valuation, but again, with Atalaya, super excited for the partnership. They've got very deep pockets and are gonna continue to invest in us, we believe. Chad: Amen. That sounds nice. Joel: What are you gonna do? What are you gonna build? How many more people are you gonna hire? What geo-targeted... [overlapping conversation] Joel: World domination... [overlapping conversation] Chad: Are we taking over other countries? Yes, what's going on? Jack: So the mantra for us is capital efficiency. So we're bringing in 43 million, but we're gonna be... Joel: You must be the CFO, capital efficiency. Jack: Smartly deploying that capital. Joel: Let's put everyone to sleep. Jack: Yeah. [laughter] Joel: Capital efficiency. Jack: If you've ever met a banker around here, they probably tell you the same thing. But we've been trying to avoid them. Yeah. So our platform particularly around talent acquisition is really well-bulletproofed. Workforce management, which is the second sort of product that we launched, has a little bit of work to go, so we're gonna deeply invest in that system of record, system of operations, contiguous data flow, all that costs money to build. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Yep. Jack: And so we're gonna continue to invest in the platform. Our go-to market team continues to scale. And as you guys know, I'm sure many other SaaS companies, particularly in the HR space, go-to market is challenging right now. Chad: Yeah. Jack: The deal cycles are taking longer. There's more decision makers at the table. And so we find that investing in go-to market... Joel: Money's not free anymore, from what I hear. Jack: Money is not free. And yeah, so when the decision is a five and a quarter T-bond or open up your wallet and invest in the companies, there's some real decision-making... Chad: Yeah. Jack: Process that goes into that. So, which is another reason why we're so thrilled to get this thing behind us. Markets are gonna continue to be crunched. Capital's gonna continue to be scarce. So yes, we're happy for it to be behind us, but companies who are coming to market now, they're gonna have some challenges, we think. Chad: How many countries are you guys in right now? Jack: So we primarily operate in the US and the UK. When customers pull us into more markets, we'll go with them. So we're across, I think, 25 countries now. Chad: Is that the expansion? I mean, is that the expansion strategy? Because as you get those bigger clients, they're gonna drag you into... Jack: That's exactly right, yeah. Chad: Yeah. Jack: So the large enterprise system tends to be concentrated in one country, but then they'll pull throughout. Chad: Yeah. Jack: Especially the franchise space that we operate in and large hotel chains, so Radisson for example, have pulled us across mainland Europe. And we're exploring things in APAC. APAC is very difficult to do business in in some of the countries. And so we... Chad: Can't imagine. Joel: It'll get easier with all the peace time... Jack: Yeah. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Joel: That's all going around. Jack: Yeah. There's nothing going on over there right now, but we try to move with our customers. So that's regional expansion. Vertical expansion's sort of the same. We're not actively approaching new verticals, but if verticals come to us and are interested in taking our product with very limited new dev... Chad: Yeah. Jack: We're happy to engage in those conversations. Chad: So focused. Jack: Exactly right. Yes. Joel: So, you mentioned Radisson, your press release talks about McDonald's, Subway. For those out there that don't exactly know what Harri does, what are you doing for a McDonald's or a Subway? Jack: So our elevator pitch is we are the end-to-end human experience platform focused on the frontline worker and vertically focused in the hospitality industry. Hospitality for us means restaurants and hotels primarily. Joel: Yep. Chad: And so for McDonald's, for example, we're gonna be their workforce management system and we will... Time and attendance, scheduling and compliance is big in our industry. Joel: Sure. Chad: Oh yeah. Jack: So we have a layer of compliance that weaves through both talent acquisition and workforce management that helps our clients defray the risk of significant litigation and regulatory risk. Joel: And will the new money, the new funding, will you expand that? Will you look at healthcare, any of those other sort of high frequency? Chad: He said focused. [laughter] Joel: Well, I'm just poking the bear to see... Jack: Making sure we're listening. The healthcare industry right now, it's a buzzword... Joel: Yep. Jack: Particularly in SaaS. We believe hospital, healthcare, and acute healthcare is a very difficult market to operate in. Chad: Yeah. Jack: And we're not necessarily interested in expanding there. Non-hospital, non-acute healthcare, nursing homes and things along those lines, we're exploring and dipping our toes in. We're not interested in big bang vertical expansion. We go into a vertical very focused... Chad: Yeah. Jack: Ensure that we can actually operate there... Chad: Nice. Chad: And there's not regulation that we don't know about, and then we'll double down. So some of the money will likely eventually go into new vertical expansion, but smartly focused deliberately. Joel: No banging, Chad. No big banging... Chad: No big banging. Joel: Is what I'm hearing. Chad: I don't know. Joel: What else do you wanna say about Harri or what's going on with the funding? Are you looking for more money? Is the IPO coming? What breaking news do you wanna drop on us today? Jack: Let us pop the corks first, please. So we closed our round on Friday. We announced it on Tuesday of this week, as you guys know. So we have no plans to raise additional capital at this point. We're gonna take that 43 very deliberately invested, and at some point in the future, perhaps there's an opportunity for additional liquidity or capital market transactions. But we're gonna enjoy it for now at least. I mean, we're in Vegas, so yeah. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. So you're gonna throw some on the blackjack table is what I'm hearing. Jack: That's right. Well, if you put it... Yeah. If we double up quick, then we'll never have to come back, right? Chad: Then it'd be fun, yes. Jack: But as a fiduciary, of course, we're not doing that. [laughter] Joel: He's good. He's good. He needs to be on the mic more often. Jack: We do, we do. Joel: Fiduciary, capital efficiency. Jack: Yeah, too many buzzwords. If you walk around here long enough, you'll hear them all. [laughter] Joel: He's sexy. He's sexy. S?: Unfortunately, Jack's not a... Joel: More big bang, less capital efficiency. For our listeners who wanna know more about Harri or the raise, where do you send them? Jack: Harri.com or reach out to us directly on any of our social platforms. Chad: Excellent. Joel: And that is H-A-R-R-I... Jack: Correct. Joel: Not Y dot com. Jack: Yes. Chad: And it's busy for you. I know you've got all this money coming in. You've got all these people who wanna talk to you. We appreciate you stopping by... Jack: Yeah. Chad: And actually taking a little time with us. Jack: Of course. Joel: Too much money's better than not enough money. Right? [laughter] Jack: That's right. Joel: As a fiduciary. Jack: Exactly right. I appreciate it, guys. Thanks for your time. Joel: Alright, man. Get out of here. Enjoy the show. Go make some more money. Chad: Later, dude. Joel: What a nice guy. Chad: I know. Joel: The British companies always have such nice... Chad: They do. Joel: Cerebral folks that always like... It's the Scots that we have to worry about. The Scots are the ones that... Chad: Oh, they're the ones we have to worry about. Joel: Drag it down. Chad: I don't know about that. Okay. Joel: Thank God. Okay. So that's Harri. Do you wanna take a quick break? Chad: Yep. Joel: Maybe hydrate a little bit? Chad: Yeah. Joel: And we'll come back and talk about some more news from the industry at HR Tech, Fuel50 booth. We are back here from HR Tech live. Chad: Oh, I need some water. Joel: Day two and a half. Chad: Need water. Joel: We're dragging a little bit. Dragging a little bit. Now, there's no rest for us because we head out to Europe when we get home for the UNLEASH... Chad: Ooh, yeah. Joel: In Paris. Somebody... Chad: Everybody feels so bad for us right now. Joel: Yeah. Chad: "Oh, they're turnaround. Oh, they're going to Paris." Joel: "Oh, Portugal." Chad: "Oh." Yeah. I don't know. Joel: "Oh, Switzerland pit stops. Oh my... " Chad: We do this for you, people. Joel: Yes. Chad: We do this for you. Joel: All the wine is for you. Our death by liver pollution is all to you, people. Chad: Amen. Amen. Joel: To you, people. Okay. So I had a news item from the Shred. By the way, the Shred was loaded this week. Chad: Really? Joel: Loaded with a lot of like one million, two million... Chad: Like your nachos are usually? [laughter] Joel: That's good. That's not bad. That's not bad. And my potatoes, by the way. Chad: Oh, yeah, loaded potatoes. Yeah. Joel: And my soups and... Yeah, pretty much everything I like loaded. But yeah, if you haven't listened to the Shred, it's only subscribers to the podcast. You can only listen to it on a... Chad: Yeah. You don't have to pay for it. You don't have to pay for it. Joel: Platform, podcast platform. You don't have to pay for it. Chad: No. Joel: But anyway, a lot of news this week, a lot of funding and whatnot, but one that stood out to me, and I'm gonna withhold the name... Chad: Okay. Joel: 'Cause I really just wanna talk about the name, but the news is pretty significant to resist. Chad: Okay, go ahead. Joel: So this is a Middle East company, which we don't talk about very often. Chad: No. Joel: They closed a $30 million Series A funding round, marking the largest Series A investment for a software as a service company in the Middle East, which I think is pretty significant. Chad: Okay. They've got money over there. Joel: So they provide HR tech solutions such as recruitment, management and payroll processing, pretty much one of those platform to rule them all. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They have over 3,000 clients. They've been around since 2016 and have about 200 employees. Now, that's pretty cool news. Chad: Yes. Joel: But I wanna talk about their name. Chad: Okay. Joel: Their name is Jisr. J-I-S-R. Chad: Oh. Joel: Who is making these company names like Spits and Jisr? [laughter] Joel: When they come to the US, how hard is that for salespeople to say, "Hi, this is Joe from Jisr"? Chad: Yeah. Joel: "I'm sorry, what?" Chad: Yeah, yeah. "Excuse me?" Joel: "Jisr?" Chad: "Excuse me?" Joel: "Jisr." Chad: "Excuse me?" Joel: "Jisr." Chad: "Jisr. What?" Joel: "I'm sorry." Chad: No. Joel: "We don't want any." "What?" [laughter] Joel: Anyway, so big news... The Middle East obviously is a hot zone. Chad: Yes. Joel: We obviously would love to see companies, more capitalism, more commerce, more... Chad: Yep. Joel: More capital flow into the Middle East. This is a great story not just for companies in the Middle East, but the fact that this is a human capital company... Chad: Yes. Joel: In the vein of like, maybe an Andela, HiBob, et cetera. The Middle East is an interesting place to be. Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: And this funding round certainly showcases that. Chad: So much news, man. So much news. Joel: "This is Chad with Jisr. How are you?" Chad: Oh, God. Ugh. [laughter] Chad: I just don't get it. Joel: I don't get it either. Chad: I just don't get it. Joel: The names of these companies. Names of these companies. Chad: Anyway, moving on. Jesus. Joel: Yes, yes. What else do you wanna talk about? Chad: We really didn't get a chance because we've been here in the Fuel50 booth... Joel: Yeah. Chad: Doing some pretty amazing interviews. I was very surprised, let's just say that. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Because usually, we'll get interviews that are thrown at us and we have to kinda like... We have to do a lot of work to make them good interviews. Not this time. I mean, Fuel50 gave us some really good, I mean, good people to talk to. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So we're gonna be having some of those and they're like 15 to 20-minute podcast episodes that are gonna be coming out over the next few months. Look for those. Joel: And the topics are a variety of... Chad: Oh, very much. Joel: Specifics, EOC, AI, big data. We had capital people that are giving money to these companies, writing checks. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So it was a really nice variety of interviews that we did... Chad: Yeah. Joel: This week. I wanna talk a little bit about some of the conversations we've had with some of the head, the higher-ups at some of these companies. One in particular, and we won't mention names, was really painting a dark dire picture for towards the end of October. [laughter] Chad: That's because he was around during 2007. I'm not, I'm not. Joel: Don't give it away. You're gonna give too many clues... Chad: He's been around since... Joel: To who said this. Chad: 2007. Joel: Which makes his opinion... Chad: Yes. Joel: Have some weight. Chad: Important. Joel: Yes. Chad: Important. Joel: Do... Chad: Indicators. Joel: Are you seeing... Are you envisioning some dark days ahead? Do you think that's a little bit of hyperbole? What's your take? Chad: I think any founder who is not thinking that there are dark days ahead is one that's gonna spend way too much fucking money. Right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: And right now, from what we're seeing, and what I'm actually hearing from founders around check writers is they're actually writing checks now... Joel: Yep. Chad: Is that Q4 is starting to open up, it's starting to kinda like they've opened up the wall a little bit more. Joel: Yep. Chad: And I think what's happened is that we've heard in the news all this, "Hard times are coming, get ready." Joel: Yeah. Chad: Recession, recession, recession. And everybody just... They just tighten up, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Everybody tightens up. And then they're not spending money. Now, since it hasn't happened, the Fed has done a goddamn good job, right? I wish we had more tools... Joel: Yesh. Chad: Than just raising fucking interest rates. But other than that, they've done a good job. And now I feel like fourth quarter's coming around, there's still money to be spent. There's still money to be spent. Joel: Yes. Chad: Fans everywhere. Fans everywhere. Joel: Yeah. It's warm and fuzzy here at the... This is why we love to travel. This will never be replaced by VR either. One of the things here from the show that I wanted to talk about in terms of negativity on the show... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Is a lack of buyers, a lack of people who are looking to buy... Chad: Are they here? Joel: Yeah, at the conference. Chad: Yeah. Joel: I guess we're talking about HR Tech in this segment of The Weekly Show. But if there's one negative... And I would say that we both agree that it's a good crowd. Traffic's been steady. I don't know if it's pre-pandemic levels at this point... Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel: But clearly, things are loosening up. There are buyers here, but it doesn't seem like there are enough of them. One of the creative ideas, and I gotta give credit to our boy, Evan, your friend Evan, Mr. PR whiz, is that they should have a scholarship. HR Tech should have a scholarship where we're gonna bring buyers, we're gonna bring people that write checks, we're gonna pay for their flight, we're gonna pay for their hotel and we're gonna get you, the vendor, more people who are buying products and services as opposed to more or less being a partnership, a raise money, a sell the company kind of show. Should it be more of a buyer show? Chad: I personally don't think so. One of the reasons why I like HR Tech is I know what it is, right? Joel: Yep. Chad: The animal that it is is strategic alliances driving revenue, not just direct to brands, and then also investors, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: I think that's really the wheelhouse for HR Tech. There are some practitioners here, there's no question, but the big focus is technology and making those deals and making those revenue-generating deals that, again, aren't all direct to employers. So I think every event who wants to be all things to everybody is nothing to anyone, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So I think HR Tech is... They're doing well what they do well. If you want practitioners, you're gonna go to UNLEASH, which will be next week, right? If you want practitioners in teams and learning events and all day, all-hands meeting type, you go to RecFest, right? They're different animals. Joel: Yeah. Chad: So yeah, I don't agree with that personally. Joel: I do think saying that though, the content from what I've seen covers everybody. It's not like the sessions are, how to build an API into whatever, or how to get more traffic to your SaaS company. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: So if you are a decision maker, a buyer, a practitioner out there, I do think there's a credible value. Not... I mean, just the content alone. But also, you should know about these companies. You should know about the technologies that are here because there are some really cool technologies... Chad: They're really a lot. Joel: Really cool experiences. So I know we have a lot of practitioners who listen to our show. HR Tech should be on your radar for sure. Don't just stick with the sherms and don't just stick with... Chad: I do agree. And I think to some extent you can kind of like fly under the radar because most of the companies who've been here, most of the vendors who've been here understand the animal of HR tech, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: And then as a practitioner, you can come in and you can learn, and there's not as much kind of like pressure on you. "Are you a check writer? Are you a check writer?" You know what I mean? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Because the whole intent of the team that they send isn't really focused on sales to direct employers. Joel: Yeah. And I think it's a lesson for... You and I love the Startup Alley or whatever the hell they call it. This is a kiosk. You get a little bit of real estate. But these are the most energetic, passionate, excited companies out there. I think maybe they come to the show thinking we're gonna sell a bunch of stuff. And you need to pivot your expectation. This isn't a, we're gonna sell 50 grand of stuff. This is a, you're gonna get your name out there in the community. You're gonna build relationships and integrations with companies. So maybe that's where a lot of the pushback comes. The old veterans, the Paradoxes, the iCIMS... Chad: Oh, they know. Oh, they know. Joel: They know that they're not gonna get a huge ROI. They're gonna build brand and touch base with people... Chad: Exactly. Joel: And a great time to do that in a place like Vegas. Long story short, we're gonna keep coming back... Chad: Oh fuck, yeah. Fuck, yeah. Joel: To this conference because we love it so damn much. Chad: And again, thanks to Fuel50 for allowing us to crash, gave us a nice place. Look at these comfy chairs. I mean, it's good time. Joel: I need a comfy chair, Chad. Chad: You do need a comfy chair. Joel: My ass needs a comfy chair. Chad: You're so spoiled, so fucking spoiled, I swear. [laughter] Joel: Alright. So we're... Paris, if you're listening to the show and you're gonna be in Paris, we'll be at the Textkernel booth doing just this. Come by and say hi. Bring us goodies, whatever. My wife is joining me and she loves chocolates. She loves the European chocolates. So feel free to drop some of those by. But otherwise, no rest for the wicked. You and I are headed out to the airport today. I get like a few hours of sleep and then we turn around and head out to Europe. Chad: And I've just been informed we have two more interviews. So we have to wrap this up and get back kids, 'cause you love this shit. Joel: And the good news is this will fill all our stuff staff for the holidays. So I can catch up on all my naps over the holidays. [laughter] Chad: Like he's ever missed a nap. Joel: Yeah, never missed a nap. Chad, this has been a fun week. I'm excited for Paris, but this has been great. Another one in the can. S?: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look took away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

When Google launched their job search engine, dubbed Google for Jobs, a lot of people scoffed, remembering past failures from the world’s largest search engine dipping its toes into employment. Hello, Google Base and Google for Hire? Well, no one’s scoffing now. Google seems to be all-in, with a pay-per-click (PPC) offering coming soon. Optimizing for search results can be challenging. That’s why we invited Alexander Chukovski, founder at Crypto Careers, to take a look at the ins and outs of optimizing for Google when job postings are in play. Crypto Careers connects professionals and businesses building digital assets and blockchain technology, so Alexander knows how to tackle the tough segments. If your jobs are on Google - and they probably are - then this is an episode you don’t want to miss. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: 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 Cheesman: Oh yeah. It's your high school gym teacher's favorite podcast, AKA the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman and joined as always, the O to my J, Chad Sowash is in the house. And we are happy to welcome Alexander Chukovski. Chad Sowash: Oh, he's excited. Joel Cheesman: Founder at Crypto Careers. Alexander Chukovski: Guten Tag. Joel Cheesman: Alexander, Guten Tag. Chad Sowash: Long-time listener, first-time caller. [laughter] Alexander Chukovski: Yes. Thank you for having me. Such an honor. Joel Cheesman: And what bunker are you calling in from for the podcast? [laughter] Alexander Chukovski: Oh man. I'm calling from this weird country called Bulgaria. Probably no one has heard of it. It's somewhere in Eastern Europe, around Turkey, Greece, somewhere there. Just pick up a map. Joel Cheesman: Pick up a map. Yeah, I'll go to Borders and get me a map and find... [laughter] Chad Sowash: I love that Alexander thinks that Americans are so stupid, they don't know Bulgaria is a country. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: Pick up on that. Chad Sowash: I appreciate that, Alexander. Joel Cheesman: So Alexander, they don't know Bulgaria and they probably don't know you, so let's get a little Twitter bio about you and what makes Alexander tick. Alexander Chukovski: Alright. So I run niche job boards in Web3, crypto and soon AI, and at the same time, I consult companies in the HR tech space around topics like SE optimization, Google jobs optimization, job classification with machine learning, AI programmatic job advertising, product development, anything you can think of for HR tech. And before that, I don't know, I worked in all kinds of roles in TA tech. I've been in this industry for 15 years. Chad Sowash: Why? Why'd you get into this industry? Why? Why, why, why... Alexander Chukovski: Oh man. Chad Sowash: Poor kid. Alexander Chukovski: Oh, it was just pure chance. I didn't know that this industry actually existed. So I started working as a student at a German job board called Experteer in 2007. So think about that. And Experteer was a paid membership, only white collar, high-salary jobs. Something like the Ladders, but cool. I promise you. It was cool. [laughter] Hey, what's happening to the Ladders? Do these guys still exist? Joel Cheesman: Who gives a shit? People in the US are listening and they hear Crypto Careers, this dude in the eastern block and they think shady as hell. So help us, bring us back to some level of legitimacy with crypto, it gets a bad rep, blockchain. Get us up-to-speed why we should trust this industry and what you're doing. Alexander Chukovski: Well, Crypto Careers is like the top three job boards in crypto. It's been around for five years now. We have had over, I don't know, 25,000 jobs. People think that the crypto industry is very shady. And I mean, partially it's true, [laughter] but whenever... Joel Cheesman: But not you. Alexander Chukovski: You're in a bull market. No, not me. But whenever you're in a bull market, hiring just explodes. And we built it a little bit from a job board to like a placement agency. It's been going great. So, there's a lot of money to be made. Joel Cheesman: So I would guess it spiked in '20 to '22 and it's crashed since then. Am I wrong about that? Is there still a hot, hot stove for crypto jobs and careers? Alexander Chukovski: It's picking up right now again. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Alexander Chukovski: So in summer it was pretty bad, pretty dire. But now jobs are still coming in. I think we have about 5,000 jobs open in crypto companies around the world. So at the top of the market cycle, I would say it was 10,000 in 2022. That was like the best time. Chad Sowash: So hyper niche. Alexander Chukovski: It was amazing. Chad Sowash: Hyper niche, which is to be quite frank, not a bad place to be because there aren't gonna be many competitors that are out there, obviously. Top three. Top three. That's awesome. But today kids, we're talking about Google for Jobs. That's what we're talking about. Why? Because Alexander knows a little bit about this, okay. So Alex, let's talk a little bit about a basic intro for Google for Jobs. What is it for anybody who's been locked up in a closet for the past five years? A little bit about the basics of Google for Jobs right out of the gate. Alexander Chukovski: Alright. So if you're a recruitment marketing professional, I would say this is this nice thing out there where if you play well with Google, you put some schema on your jobs, they'll send you high quality converting job seeker traffic to your jobs for free. So you're not paying anything for that. You just have to play by the rules, optimize them a little bit and you get traffic. And if you're a job seeker, it's just this thing that pops up after the sponsored search results when you type in something like retail jobs near me. So, it gets a lot of attention from job seekers, right? And people are really focused on optimizing this 'cause it's really good traffic. Joel Cheesman: So if I could add to that, historically, you searched sales jobs in Google and you would get a bunch of links to websites that have sales jobs on their websites. Alexander Chukovski: Hopefully. Joel Cheesman: Today I search sales jobs, it automatically locates where I am and gives me the actual job listings and then where I can go to apply to those jobs. So it's basically vertical search takes out some of the middlemen of the job board going to that site, you can go directly to the job posting. Just wanted to add that. And you've been putting your jobs on Google for Jobs since it began, 2017? Alexander Chukovski: Yeah, pretty much. The crypto job board has been there since start. It's been going pretty well. Joel Cheesman: And I know Chad and I, when it first came out, I was like, "This is kind of shitty." [laughter] Talk about what it was then and how it's evolved and maybe where it needs to go from here to even improve from now. Alexander Chukovski: Oh, man. I can write a book about this one. But [laughter], let's focus... Chad Sowash: I think you have already on LinkedIn. Jesus Christ. [laughter] Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. So I mean, in the beginning, everyone thought that Google is going to go all-in in recruiting 'cause they had an ATS, they had a job-matching product and they had Google Jobs, and then suddenly they got slapped with this monopoly suit from 2017 and that was confirmed in 2019. And pretty much the whole team disband. Everyone left. And then Google Jobs... Chad Sowash: That's not the reason why they did it, but yeah, that was external pressure. They did it because they were short on resources and Google Cloud was gonna make a hell of a lot more money than fucking job postings. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. And some of the key people left and then they joined other companies. Yeah. But eventually there were a lot of promises and I think all of us went to conferences and were like really scared what these guys are gonna do. And I would say when it comes to what they promised to build, we're probably halfway there. They do release new stuff now and then. There was a large update, I think October, 2022 when they introduced new metadata into the schema. So if you follow these, these are of course, nice ways to optimize your performance. But to me, it feels like the product is stuck in 2019. That's where it is, unfortunately. So there was always this existential threat that they're just gonna turn it off. But I think we're past this point now. I think it's here to stay. Chad Sowash: So talk about your clients, what you're seeing, traction. I mean, is it even worth it? Because I remember back in the day, and this is, I think even before 2007, I could be wrong, but Google Base came out and they were asking everybody to put their jobs in the system... Joel Cheesman: Spam. [chuckle] Chad Sowash: And then it just... It was spammy, it was nasty, it was horrible. So tell us what you're seeing through the data that you're collecting from your clients. 'Cause that's the big key right now. Alexander Chukovski: I think the big key is that if you already have a good domain ranking, technical SEO is fine, you're most likely getting traffic and that's good. And there are always like ways to optimize this. So you can probably get a few clicks per job per month on top of it. S?: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: What got really hard in time was that if you have a lot of jobs, from let's say Appcast or Zip Recruiter or like any type of backfill and you try to push this into Google Jobs unless you have like very high domain ranking, it gets really hard to get indexed, right? So today if I start a new job board, get a feed from Appcast and then just start blasting them into Google Jobs, probably not gonna get any traffic at all. I mean, it depends a little bit on the country and a little bit on the niche and if you have a little bit of content on the site, but it got really, really hard, especially in the US. Chad Sowash: Duplication is hard. Joel Cheesman: Is that because the algorithm is really good at your site, is nothing and this is duplicate content, and so you're not gonna go show up? Or is it because users didn't click on options that they didn't trust? They're clicking on LinkedIn and Indeed and the corporate site? What was it that pushed out the spam? Alexander Chukovski: I think it's a combination of both. So on the one hand, Google rolled out these E-A-T rules on content quality. So if you start a job board today that doesn't have any content at all, like zero blog posts, no contact, no about us page, you're actually probably not going to get indexed at all. Just forget about the jobs for a second. And that's kind of what made it hard on the one hand. And on the other hand, I mean, Google tracks every click, they know what people like to visit, they know where the high domain rankings are. They're not going to send people to some shady websites. Alexander Chukovski: I think probably the beginning of 2020, there was this one company that got a very nice site. So they were blasting Appcast jobs into Google jobs from hundreds of sub-domains from these small local radio and TV stations in the US. That worked for a while. They probably made a lot of money. But Google found out about this and they killed it. So today I would say cheating is really, really hard. What I see is that if you try to send a lot of sponsor jobs from Appcast, because they have very short life cycles, they come in for two hours, then they disappear, Google thinks about it as a spam, and then they're just gonna cut you off and you're going to get zero traffic. That's what I see. Chad Sowash: So from the standpoint of actually getting traffic, and then also let's just talk about SEO at first. Indeed got SEO really, really quickly at really high ranking on the search pages. We find out later the attribution was the amount of content that they... Not just the amount of content, but how quickly they were getting rid of old and pushing in new. Right? So they were like firing off feeds to Google, new jobs to Google very regularly where many other sites would do it like maybe once every 24 hours. Right? So it was very fresh content. And that's what Google saw, which is one of the reasons why Indeed boosted up the rankings. Today with Google for Jobs, is that... Do you think that's a part of the algorithm too? And talk about the traction and type of traffic that your job sites are actually seeing and your client job sites are seeing? Is it worth it? Alexander Chukovski: I mean, let's put it this way. If you have a good domain ranking and you are not on Google Jobs yet and you have some good content, so let's say stuff like long tail jobs, jobs from direct employers, jobs that don't have a schema that it's kind of hard to find. And if you push this into Google and you play by the rules and you have some good technical SEO, you will get traffic. It's gonna work out. It's gonna be really nice for you. But if you don't have this and you have zero good content on the side, zero blog articles, it's just not gonna work. Google sees this and for them it's just another job site. Why should they give you traffic? Why should they send a job seeker to you and not to Indeed or any of the other guys that are already proven? Joel Cheesman: So early on, Indeed said no to putting their jobs on Google for Jobs. They've obviously reversed that trend. What are you seeing in terms of your own traffic? Is Indeed funneling a lot of folks from Google to Indeed? And also, we thought when this came out that the corporate site would be sort of the king in terms of where people went to apply to the job. However, that sometimes ends up in a 45-minute painful experience of applying to a job whereas Indeed, LinkedIn who I already have an account, it's a lot easier. What are you seeing in terms of where are people going and your response to Indeed getting into the game? Alexander Chukovski: There's a lot of inconsistencies, right? So Google introduced this direct apply thing which if you read it carefully, does really not fit into Indeed's apply flow because they ask for your registration in order to send you to jobs. Chad Sowash: Yeah, mandatory registration. Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. So why do they still rank? But they rank very high because they have very high domain ranking. That's one of the key factors out there. So they're very good on technical SEO and they're kind of riding on this. And that works very well for them. It's not gonna work for other people that are just joining in right now, the party. They are... They're too late for that. Chad Sowash: To Joel's point, do you think that Google right now is weighting the experience higher than original content? Because to be quite frank, they should be weighting all of the content that's coming from corporate career sites much higher than any job board. 'Cause that's the original content. That's where the job actually originates. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah, but what is the applicant flow on the original application form, right? Chad Sowash: Well, that's the question is, is it experience? And I know I'm talking to a job board guy and all, [laughter] but it's the experience versus the original content, right? And if I'm just looking at trying to make it easy apply for job seekers to go in and just apply to jobs to a job board versus the original content to the actual brand who's doing the hiring, it seems like Google right now is weighted more toward the experience than original content. And that's not where Google's always been, right? They've always weighted original content much higher. So why is that? Alexander Chukovski: I guess we scrape Google, right? We scrape Google Jobs and we see who ranks where for certain search terms, also for my clients, in order to know how they perform. And the truth is that job boards rule right now. It's not the ATS. It's not the career page. It's the job board that rules. And I guess it's just that some job boards offer a better application flow than these career pages. That's kind of my takeaway. Not all of them, right? Workday, [laughter] not really, but Greenhouse, Lever, pretty nice sites, very easy to apply. They do rank very well, but again, Indeed, Zip, they decimate all these results. So they get a lot of traffic. Joel Cheesman: I mean, tell me if I'm right or wrong on this, is that if I'm a job seeker, I don't know Greenhouse from ICIMS, from Smart Recruiters, from anyone else. So to me, clicking on the corporate site is a box of chocolates. I might get a quick apply, but it also might just be... It might waste my whole afternoon. So if I know LinkedIn, I know Indeed, I know Zip, I've applied through there, I know it takes this amount of time, so to me, it's like, I know what I'm getting with Indeed and LinkedIn. I don't know what I'm getting if I click Salesforce.com or Eli Lilly or a corporate site. Am I right on that or no? Alexander Chukovski: You're absolutely right on that. I see it the same way. And you already have your data on Indeed. You already have your profile. So you just know it's like one click apply and you're done. Why should you go to this weird page that it's called Workday? Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: What is that? Why would you apply there? So ATSs have lost the battle for sure. Joel Cheesman: Which is a shame. Can they come back or are they screwed forever? Chad Sowash: Well, first off, let's clarify this. I don't think the ATSs have lost the battle. I think the HR department and talent acquisition has lost the battle because they took something that was simple, the ATS apply process, and they've created this mon-fucking-strosity of an apply process of saying, "No, we need to have this and we need to have that." This should be a signal to all talent acquisition and recruiting professionals that you guys fucked this up. [laughter] The applicant tracking system did it. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. But I don't have any ATSs as clients or employers that are interested in Google Jobs optimization. [laughter] Alexander Chukovski: So let's leave it like that. Joel Cheesman: Well, what sucks is a few bad apples ruin it for everybody because some of them are doing it right. But if a job seeker doesn't know what they're getting into, they're just not gonna go 'cause it's uncharted waters for them in most cases. Alexander Chukovski: Although there is this guy, I don't know if you know, Jerry Lee's like an influencer, career coach type of guy on Instagram, does these crazy videos, "Apply 200 jobs in two minutes" and stuff like that. That's kind of his niche. And he's actually doing a lot of advertisement for Lever and Greenhouse and all the nice ATSs, has two million audience. I think he's helping them, he's helping educate people. So I'll bet that in maybe one year, we'll see that Greenhouse, Lever and some of the other nicer ATSs probably outperform job boards for certain niches that they're very strong. Like crypto, for example, is very Lever and Greenhouse-driven. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: They get a lot of traffic. So we compete with them. I don't compete with Indeed on Google Jobs. Not at all. I compete with Greenhouse and Lever. Chad Sowash: So a quick commercial, 'cause Alex and I are both advisors for this company. I think CV Wallet will probably be the heir apparent 'cause we really need... And this is something that Taleo tried back in the day, they had the universal resume, right? And because they were so big, they thought they could pull it off. The problem is nobody else wanted to use it because Taleo, much like Indeed is today, was the big bully in the room, right? So you need kind of like an honest third party who's out there to be able to provide this type of service. Do you think this could be something that Google actually thinks is attractive, or do you think they even give a shit? Alexander Chukovski: I don't think they really care about it. I think that's a great use case. It's the only use case for blockchain in recruiting. There are no other ones. Whoever tells you this, anything else then just shoot them or run away. But I mean, Google can actually verify people, 'cause most people have a Gmail address. Do you remember the login with Gmail thing? Chad Sowash: Yeah, yeah. Alexander Chukovski: That's a verification. That's a profile verification. So that's kind of a competitor to what we do in this other company that you just advertised. Chad Sowash: The challenge is which Gmail account you wanna use when you verify your identification. [laughter] Alexander Chukovski: BustyLatina69 is mine. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: BBL71. Yeah. Chad Sowash: BigBootyLatina69. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Alexander, you're an SEO and it's pretty clear from this interview in the green room that you pay a lot of attention to rankings and what that means to your traffic. Do you have any sense for, if you look for a job on Google for Jobs, you have like maybe three or four job boards that you can choose from, do you have any sense for what that number one position is for traffic versus number two, three, and four? 'Cause I know in SEO for regular results, they know that 97% click that first ranking or that first result, and then it goes down significantly from there. Do you see the same thing with Google for Jobs or is it too early to tell? Alexander Chukovski: It really depends on the country and on the niche. Right? So if we stick with the US, 'cause you don't care about Europe anyway, I would say the first place is really like a hardcore between Zip and Indeed. Joel Cheesman: But do you know what percentage of the clicks go to the first result versus second, what's beside that? Do you have any sense for that right now? Alexander Chukovski: Oh yeah. It's about 80% on the first click. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Alexander Chukovski: 'Cause that's what we always optimize for. We always say that we wanna get clients on the first click and everything else is not important. Joel Cheesman: That's great information. And what do you need to do to get to that first position? Is it an SEO game? Is it like, I need people to click that over everything else? Or both? Alexander Chukovski: It's mostly like an SEO game because it's part of your optimization. It's everything. It's like page speed, it's your current technical SEO, it's your domain ranking, it's your job ads page, how is it structured, anything that... Joel Cheesman: Page of the domain, all kinds. Alexander Chukovski: Page of domain. Yeah. When was the job updated? Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Chad Sowash: So give me an idea. What kind of traffic, from one of your sites or one of your clients' sites, what kind of traffic are they seeing from Google as a percentage from overall traffic? And then also, what kind of boost does a company, if they do this right, what kind of boost could they see from Google for Jobs? Alexander Chukovski: Well, I can give you like direct figures from one of my job sites. So with inventory of about a thousand jobs, only 500 of them are relevant for Google because of location and stuff like that. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: We get about, what is it, 10,000 clicks every three months, organic clicks. Chad Sowash: Okay. Alexander Chukovski: So it's 3,300 clicks per month. Chad Sowash: On 500 jobs. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash: Yeah. 'Cause that's a very small sample size. Right? Alexander Chukovski: A very small sample size. Chad Sowash: Yeah. So that's a lot of clicks on a very small sample size. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Not too shabby. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. Then I have another European customer as a comparison. I would say 16,000 jobs in inventory, Northern Europe, probably get about, I would say close to 60,000 clicks a month. So... Chad Sowash: Okay. Alexander Chukovski: Pretty good. But I have a very strong local authority. And then there are these clients that I start working with, they have 200,000 jobs and they get 30 clicks per month. [laughter] Chad Sowash: So, those companies are probably gonna wanna get into Google for Jobs ads. So can you give us kinda like a basic intro into the Google for Jobs ads, the ad product that they came out with? Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. I mean, isn't this a secret? I don't know. Am I allowed to talk? Is Google listening? They're gonna blow up my laptop. Joel Cheesman: They are listening. Chad Sowash: They're always listening. Joel Cheesman: And a lot of people already have signed agreements not to disclose stuff. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. I mean, I haven't signed anything, so I can just talk. Well, we've been waiting for this since 2016. Probably it's gonna come out in the US around the end of this year. And what we know is that it's just going to be another class of ads, right? It's going to be shown on top of the sponsored job ads, so on top of the sponsored links. So, you have sponsored Google Job ads, then you have sponsored display links, then you have Google Jobs, and then you have organic search. So, very important product. It's going to give you a lot of visibility. It's going to be a direct click out, so no intermediary page. So you can think about that in terms of performance. Chad Sowash: Oh, nice. Alexander Chukovski: And I think it's just going to send ripples through our industry. It's gonna have a huge impact. Joel Cheesman: Have you seen screenshots or things in the wild that would tip you off to that sort of visual? Or is that just your best guess? Alexander Chukovski: Well, we all saw the screenshot from Tom from Appcast. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: But if you now browse Google, occasionally there are days where they would alpha test this and beta test this. I think it's now in a beta test stage because I have been able to see a few of them. What's really interesting, in Europe we have this one small fragment on top of the Google jobs results, which says "See similar... Find jobs here and there," and it has the small levels of job boards where you can find jobs. You don't have this in the US, but in the beta of Google job Job ads, you have this in the US. So that's gonna be a major change I think when it comes to capturing the whole search page as a brand. So if you're Indeed, not bad for you. Joel Cheesman: So just to be clear, it'll be at the top of the job search results, there'll be direct links to that job. So it won't be, "Here are the results," and then that first spot, that first link, I assume that would be like paid and it would say ad. That's not what we're looking at. You're not buying the first link in a job posting. You're buying display ads basically, or ads at the top of the search results. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. You're buying display ads on the top of search results. It's gonna be three or four, like a carousel type of thing. And that probably's gonna be connected to your bidding and what you're willing to bid. It's gonna be the first thing that people see on mobile. Chad Sowash: So if, you know Google Shopping, if you've ever gone through that experience, then they have tried to assimilate that user experience from what I've been told and the screenshots that I've seen. So if you haven't tried Google Shopping, go try it out and then you'll get kind of like a flavor for that. So you have actually said Alex, that you believe that this Google for Jobs ad component is going to be a supreme, supreme product. Why do you think that? Why do you think it's gonna be better than Indeed or any of the other major sites that are out there? Alexander Chukovski: Well, it's probably five reasons, but let's focus on the two main ones. So user intent recognition. If you think about Google Jobs, the way it understands that you're searching for jobs and it knows what kind of jobs you're searching for, this is based on the technology that Google built for job-matching. There was this product in 2017 called Google Cloud Talent-something, I don't anymore. They changed the name so many times. It was a supreme job-matching product, right? So it had a very extensive in-house developed taxonomy, 250,000 occupations, three different layers, 50,000 skills relationships between them. Very good products. No idea why it never actually managed to work out. But... Chad Sowash: Money. Alexander Chukovski: That's what they use on Google Jobs, yeah, to understand what the search intent of users is and to show them corresponding jobs. And that's gonna be the same technology that's going to power Google Job ads. Chad Sowash: My conspiracy theory was they were using that in their large language model. As you started to get all that information from all of those areas and they were pushing in, they were using it in a large language model to be able to actually hone their own algorithm. Joel Cheesman: Conspiracy theory. [laughter] Alexander Chukovski: There's this other theory that they just assume that they can translate the whole thing with natural language... Chad Sowash: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: And the language models, but it didn't work out. 'Cause labor markets are complex. You cannot just translate them. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Do you anticipate it'll be a penny a click to start and the market will drive prices up from there, similar to how pay-per-click came out in 2002 or '03? Alexander Chukovski: I think that there will be some, let's say, arbitrage opportunities in the markets until everyone really jumps on the opportunity. So definitely money to be made. Joel Cheesman: But do you think Google will charge as little as a penny, or do you think they'll have a higher threshold coming out the gate? Alexander Chukovski: I think it will be higher out of the gate. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Alexander Chukovski: And I mean, they'll do the bidding for you automatically, so yeah. Joel Cheesman: Some people don't know this, but Bing does get a lot of traffic, and they've basically copied the format of what Google's doing. They used to do only LinkedIn 'cause they own them, but now it's a competitive product. Are you getting your jobs onto Bing? Do you have any data on that or experience? Or is there a reason why you're not on it? Alexander Chukovski: Well, I mean, Bing had a nice jump in performance during the whole generative AI phase. That was great. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: It wore off. So right now it's at the same level as it was before. You can get a couple of clicks. They do have a sponsored job product. But in order to get in, you need cooperation with Microsoft. And no one in Microsoft knows how to actually get in. I've asked so many times. So right now it's probably mostly reserved for LinkedIn. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Imagine that. Imagine that. So let's talk a little bit about impact globally. You talked about before some of the pressures that are actually happening in the global market against Google and they've been fined dramatically, which is... I mean, it's good. It's good for the bully to get smacked around a little bit every now and again. Do you think that this is going to be rolled out carte blanche and then it's gonna be global? Or do you think they're gonna be pretty much dead zones in the globe, like the UK or something like that, where they're just... They really just don't wanna play in that sandbox. Alexander Chukovski: Yeah. I mean, they're probably not going to roll out in France, right? [laughter] No, I mean, joke aside, so US by the end of the year, for sure. UK, I don't see an issue there 'cause UK is not part of the EU anymore. So... Chad Sowash: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: Who cares? It can go wrong. And then about Europe, I think we'll see a subsequent launch on a country by country way, the same way they did it with Google Jobs. Chad Sowash: Sure. Alexander Chukovski: There was a new lawsuit announced in Denmark against Google, again, because of Google Jobs and some competitiveness and copyright infringement and that kind of stuff. So I think that's probably going to hold them off a little bit 'cause there is a potential lawsuit there. I mean, it's going to be such a great product. If you think about a country like Germany, where people pay €1,600 for a job posting to StepStone and suddenly they have this alternative where for 50 bucks, they can get, I don't know, five amazing job applicants, that's gonna be problematic for some of the job boards. And I'm sure they'll try out something against Google. Joel Cheesman: Speaking of lawsuits, let's talk about Elon Musk real quick. A little bit off-topic, but you listen to our show, you know that X, the artist formerly known as Twitter, is rolling out job postings. Companies that are sort of verified companies can post jobs. I assume those jobs will eventually make it over to Google for Jobs. Have you seen any evidence of that? Just overall thoughts on Twitter/X getting into this game. Alexander Chukovski: Well, obviously, Elon Musk needs money. I mean, that's kind of clear. So he wants to dive into recruitment marketing. I haven't seen anything on Google Jobs. And I think Twitter is becoming a more closed platform now. So the whole tweet indexing anyway is a hard stuff. So imagine getting jobs indexed. That's gonna be even harder. But I don't know. I just don't see it as a big game changer in our industry. All the problems that I can think of with regards to your brand to advertise on Twitter, why would you do that? That's like suicide. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Alexander Chukovski: God, I hope he's not gonna sue me. [laughter] Joel Cheesman: The guy from Crypto Careers says putting your shit on Twitter is a bad move, everybody. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Well, Alex, we could talk to you all day, my friend, but we're gonna cut it off here. We're gonna have you back when this is all real, it's live, it's not alpha, beta, any of that stuff. But until then, if listeners wanna connect with you, where would you send them? Alexander Chukovski: Just go on LinkedIn, type in Alexander Chukovski and connect with me. Joel Cheesman: Alexander, stay out of my search history. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad Sowash: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

This episode could've been a double album it's so full of amazing content ... Chad & Cheese: The White Album, if you will. We're talkin' layoffs at Snagajob and Meta, Indeed telling customers, "There's nothing to see here," LinkedIn embracing its inner Guns 'n' Roses, OpenAI taking aim at Apple's iPhone, Tesla getting nervous about the UAW strike, Who'd Ya' Rather with Hiring Branch and Transfr and Chipotle's "cobotics," collaborative robots that work with, rather than replace, humans. It's a nice compliment to Chipotle’s Chippy and Autocado automation. Drink it all in, because the boys are travelin' for the next 2 weeks, so we made sure this one was the Big Mac of podcast episodes. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. Intro: 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: Oh, yeah. We sail around the world and go port to port every time. Hey kids, you are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host, Joel, bags-packed, Cheeseman. Chad: And this is Chad, speaker of the house, Sowash. Joel: And on this week's show Indeed clears the air, open AI takes on the iPhone and Cobotics at Chipotle. Let's do this. Alright. Is the Portugal jersey a subliminal message that you're ready to get out? Get the hell out of the US? As we sit in a rainy Indiana as we... Chad: Yes. Yes. Wait a minute. My dogs are going crazy. Joel: The dogs even wanna go. That's right. The dogs... Chad: Oh my God, my dogs want to go to Portugal. [laughter] Yeah. They want to go to Portugal. Unfortunately, they're not gonna go to Portugal. I'll be back. There's a cat. Joel: There's a cat. And we're back. Chad: Luckily we went through COVID and everybody's used to that shit now. So it's all good. Joel: Okay. Chad: As a matter of fact, I gotta do this. It's been one of those days, dude. It's fucking October. Yes. And you're right. One of the things that I am excited about is being on the road and finding myself on the beaches of Portugal for all of Q4. I can't fucking wait. Joel: So a lot of news around bedbugs in Paris, which scares me a little bit 'cause we're going to Paris, but they haven't made their way to Portugal yet. No bedbug issues... Chad: No. Joel: In Portugal. Yeah. This is scary stuff. We got riots in Paris. We got bedbugs. Chad: You always have riots in Paris. Joel: That's true. Always a revolution in Paris. I see videos of like don't sit down in the metro. It must be bad. Chad: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I reached out to our Airbnb and said, we need to ensure there aren't bed bugs there. And they said that they've been doing the refreshing checks and whatnot. So I do love taking the metro while I'm there, but I'm not sure that I'm going to this time around. I think I might just stay close to home on this one. Joel: As long as there's no outbreak of the Vonk in Paris during UNLEASH. Chad: There's gonna be an outbreak of the Vonk, I can almost guarantee you. Joel: Oh shit. That's gonna be scary. Chad: I can guarantee you. We're gonna need shots again for that shit. Yeah. No kidding. No kidding. Fuck! Joel: Oh, I can't wait to get out though. Can't wait to get out. Can't wait to get out. Vegas next week we get back and basically I get a, a two hour nap and then it's off to Europe that next week. So shows will be interesting for the next couple weeks everybody. So enjoy this sit down, boring, well prepared for, long show 'cause there's a lot of stuff in the news. Chad: Lots of content gonna be coming your way kids. And that being said, let's go ahead and hit a little shout out action. And I'm gonna start out with Terry Baker. You might've heard of him before, who was just named the new CEO of Daxtra. Terry is an industry veteran with deep CEO and CRO experience in this space. Prior to this position, Terry was the CEO of Pandologic, prior to their acquisition by Veritone. He was there for a little bit after that. And I forgot that Terry was with Adicio for six plus years. Joel: Wow. Chad: Remember Adicio? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. What a blast from the past. Anyways I personally felt that Daxtra was given a knockout punch by Textkernel after Textkernel acquired Sovereign, but apparently Daxtra has a new sugar daddy. They've got some money. This is gonna be the first swing I see is Terry jumping in and we'll see if they can make some noise. But Daxtra was, they were around and they were in the conversation for years prior to COVID. It's almost like they caught COVID. They never came out of it 'cause they went silent. Apparently they're back. So, we will see what kind of ammunition they have, because I'm gonna tell you right now. Yes, Textkernel is a sponsor of the show, but I'm gonna tell you right now, kids, they are the world fucking leader in this space, especially after buying Sovereign. So they're forced to be reckoned with. So good luck to Terry. Joel: Yeah. I'm just happy that Terry's working for a Scottish company, which means there could be bottles of scotch show up at my house randomly. That's... Chad: Yes. Joel: That's what I'm excited about everybody. Chad: Yes. Joel: That's what I'm excited about. Well, speaking of companies with a lot of money, Jamie Dimon gets a shout out from me. I know how you love a good Jamie Dimon. Shout out. But anyway, I digress. JP Morgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon expresses optimism about the benefits of AI predicting it will lead to a shorter work week and enhance various aspects of the bank's operations. Dimon said this week in an interview with Bloomberg, "Your children are going to live to a hundred and not have cancer because of technology." And literally, they'll probably be working three and a half days a week. Of course, if they're working for JP Morgan Chase, all of those days will be in an office. Shout out to Jamie Dimon. SFX: All right. All right. All right. Chad: On the other side of that spectrum, shout out to unions who seem to be getting their mojo back. Since UPS, SAG-AFTRA and the UAW started making waves, more unions started following their lead. This week Kaiser Permanente had 75,000 workers walk off the job, which is the largest healthcare workers strike in history. The American workers have taken lower pay year after year, after year, while profits reach record levels, executive take huge pay increases and stock buybacks occur and they're becoming the norm. The rich get rich richer off the backs of the people who are actually performing the work. And this makes the union mojo even stronger. So here we go kids. Shout out to Union Mojo. SFX: That escalated quickly. Joel: Yeah. Unions are having a moment, but I hope they're not having too big of a moment while we're in Vegas because apparently the service folks want to strike. And if I can't get a Laphroaig at the bar, I'm gonna be really upset in Vegas. Chad: If I have to serve myself, I'll be okay. Joel: It is not gonna be... Chad: I'll be fine. Joel: Not gonna be good. You know who needs a union, Chad? It's all the AI actors... Chad: Oh Jesus. Joel: That are going down recently. This week Tom Hanks, the real Tom Hanks warned fans about a fake advertisement using an AI generated version of his likeness without permission. Sharing an image of the ad on Instagram and highlighting the issue of deep fake technology. But wait, Chad, there's more. Zelda Williams, daughter of the late Robin Williams criticized the use of AI to recreate her father's voice this week, expressing concerns about consent and the impact on living actors saying, "These recreations are at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous frankensteinian monster cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is." Me thinks this is just the beginning of AI's weird dance with Hollywood, Chad. Chad: I agree. I hope that AI doesn't get into the free stuff business. That's all I gotta say, because while we are at it, you can go to chadcheese.com/free where you can win beer from Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey from Textkernel, t-shirts from JobGet. And if it's your birthday kids, you could win rum from plum.io. Go there and get your assessment done. SFX: Really? Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can, I can feel it all the way down. Joel: Oh, that's right. Everybody as Chad Chugs another beer. Let's celebrate another trip around the sun with... Chad: Oh that's good. Cheers. Joel: Some birthdays of fans this week. And by the way, I put in I think two or three weeks in our birthdays 'cause we're probably gonna miss them next week after Vegas hangover. So celebrating, is that a Great Lakes? Very nice. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Cleveland style. All right. That's good. All right. We got Daniel Brian Fellows, Mark Jenkins, Gary Gray, Denise Adams. Cheryl Callaway, Jameson Stark... Chad: Yes. Joel: Tom Kenny, Ryan Beck. Gareth Feevu, Tom Hannon, Brandon Pointer, Carla Dewey Goings. Does that sound... Dewey Goings? That sounds fake to me. Chad: I love it. No, it does sound fake, but I like it. Joel: Carla Dewey Goings, Todd Duclose, Tom Stonelink. And our favorite Scott Steven McGrath, all celebrate another birthday. SFX: Here we go. Happy birthday. Yes! Joel: We'll see Steven in Paris. Maybe he'll show up with a little, little liquid gold for us down there in Paris. Hint, hint, hint, hint, Steven. Although it's his birthday, maybe we should be the ones bringing something. Chad: That's not how this works, Joel. Joel: I know. Chad: That is not how this works. Joel: We're the podcasters. We don't pay for shit. Chad: When you're talking about events, we've got HRTech next week in Vegas. If you're going to be at HRTech, where can you find the Chad and Cheese? Where can you find t-shirts? Where can you find, I don't know, beer and food? Or where can you bring beer and food? That's a good question. At Booth 1125, we will be in the Fuel 50 booth where they're allowing us to crash. I don't know why they're doing that, but they're allowing down by the river. We're gonna be there doing interviews. SFX: I'm happy. Chad: Saying hi, doing pictures. They've got like professional headshots that are going on there. I think you do a professional headshot and then you do a professional headshot with Chad and Cheese. So come to the Fuel 50 booth. Then as you had said, Joel, we got to hop on a plane, come back home. I actually have to go to Ohio for a for a wedding. My niece's wedding. Then I've gotta come back. Then we've gotta go to Paris. Then we're going to Paris for UNLEASH, which is always fucking amazing. Who doesn't love Paris? Sands bedbugs, obviously but Paris, just a staple of products, services, practitioners and great content. Chad and Cheese are going to be in the Textkernel booth. It feels like a Textkernel show so far. So come out there and then December 4th through the 6th, I'm gonna be in the London for TA Tech Europe where I'm going to be MCing. So it's gonna be a good time. We've got a lot of stuff going on. And fuck guys, we're in Q4. Come out, enjoy the rest of the year and do that at HRTech, UNLEASH and TA Tech. Joel: So let's touch on this pictures with Chad and Cheese at HRTech. I wanna start a new LinkedIn profile pick trend. I wanna see a bunch of profile picks with Chad, I and whoever is taking the photos. I think that's a trend we can, we can all get behind. Unlike the trend of my record in fantasy football, Chad. Chad: You suck. Joel: It is a tough, it's a tough... Chad: An A player baby. Joel: It's a tough first quarter of the season. Our fantasy football is sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix, which they've apparently thrown a ringer into the mix 'cause their number two on the leaderboard is Joe Dixon. But number one... Chad: It's early. Joel: Number one is Marcy Mallrat, who I think is in her fourth week now. Oh, I guess third week at number one. She's kicking ass at four and O. Joe Mama Dixon. Number two, followed by Michelle Sergeant Pepper, Brent Berry Losie at number four. Dina Freeman Perro, number five, number six, Chad Sweet Sowash, sweet spot, he's right in that middle. He is not showing off. He's not falling behind. Just like Castanza. Number seven, Jack and Jill Patterson. She's got an MBA I know. 'cause it's in her name on LinkedIn. Number eight, Dean Ozzy Ossner. Number nine, Kristen Bell Urban. Number 10, Jasper Indiana Sponge Art our European guy in the mix. Number 11, Joel Blue Cheeseman. It's blue 'cause I'm kind of blue that I'm so down the line at number 12 in the caboose again. Dennis, last year's champion, terrible tupper rounds out our fantasy football. Chad: Dude, I almost knocked Marcy off the fucking top. She had 27... Her defense scored 27 downs defense. 27 points which is like three times the normal amount. So I thought I had her. And then Dallas played, and I knew I was fucked. Joel: I, every week have a component who has someone who blows up. This past week it was McCaffrey. McCaffrey had like 50 fan... Dude scored four touchdowns. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: And I lost by four points like that. I still feel good about my team. Chad: It hurts. It hurts. Joel: When I played you, it was Keenan Allen who had like 40 some points. Every week someone blows up the tanks. Tanks my team. But it's a long season. Half the league is at two and two. So there's, still hope. I gotta perform this week. But... Chad: It's okay. Joel: But otherwise, yeah. It's not, not been a good season for me at all. Alright. Let's get into... SFX: Playoffs. Joel: Let's play some layoffs here. Chad: Layoffs? Joel: To start the show. Snagajob is on life support. The company who says they're the country's largest marketplace for hourly work and who had a round of blowoffs in August 22, has laid off, "Many workers." That's according to a post on LinkedIn by a former employee. Also according to LinkedIn, the company has hired pretty much no one in 2023 and has seen a 33% reduction in sales and engineering in the past 12 months. In the past 24 months, there's been a 38% reduction in head count. They currently have 216 total workers. We'll see how much they have a year from now. I talk about CareerBuilder and Monster getting acquired by European Sugar Daddy, screw that. Job and talent, if you're listening, Snagajob is on sale now at your local TJMaxx. Don't walk, run to get this on the cheap job board in America. Chad: Don't do it. Oh my God. Don't do it. These companies and the ones that that we talk about that are definitely, they've just fallen off the cliff for god's sakes. When you see salespeople being pushed out the door, that's a huge fucking identifier. That's a huge signal that things are fucked up, right? Yeah. So I did see many salespeople on LinkedIn saying that they were part of the purge. All I can say is we should play taps right now because they're dead. Snagajob is pretty much dead at this point. Joel: Yeah. Taps, I'll see your taps and up you a... How about that? But that's not all Chad. Meta, your favorite social media site is planning to lay off employees this week in the unit of its metaverse division. That's according to Reuters. We don't know how deep the cuts will be, but 600 employees work on the Metaverse project. I wonder if they'll be laid off in person or in the Metaverse. Chad, what do you think? Chad: I think that Mark Zuckerberg obviously doesn't know where the puck is going because where he's skating, is not working, is not working. And I don't know how many times we've talked about CEOs where they can reach a certain level. And you've got your, your, your startup CEO then you've got your take it to the growth stage, CEO and so on and so forth. He's been around since day fucking won. He just needs to go find a fucking yacht, be chairman of the board and give somebody else the reins 'cause this motherfucker does not know what's going on. Hey, go have your cage match with Elon. Go train for that. Go train for that, but get the fuck outta Meta because you are fucking things up, dude. Joel: I guess that means you're not gonna buy their new RayBan augmented glasses. SFX: Hasn't anyone noticed this. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: All right. Well, that is our layoff segment of the show. SFX: Playoffs. Joel: Let's get to some real news, shall we? Chad: Yes. Joel: Two of our favorite companies are in the news this week, Chad. First up, Indeed says there's nothing to see here. They've apparently resolved initial issues with its pay per apply system. Raj Mukherjee, a senior executive at Indeed mentioned during a marketing conference that employer satisfaction has improved since the PPA rollout. The company plans to continue with PPA while also offering pay-per-click with daily budget limits for the foreseeable future. They're also getting into AI in a big way, soon to be using it to enhance matching and messaging technologies for employers, including drafting email responses, creating job seeker profiles, and improving response rates. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news from Indeed. Chad: So Indeed is trying their nothing to see here, as you'd said bit again. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. SFX: Alright, move on. Nothing to see here. Please disperse. Nothing to see here, please. Chad: Okay. It's funny because they sprinkle AI into this, which is a total diversion. It's like, oh, look over there. Nothing to see here. Look over there. Raj Mukherjee or whatever the fuck his last name is. Joel: Rob M. [laughter] Chad: Said employer satisfaction has improved considerably with the pay-per-application product. So remember Indeed was charging companies at like around 10x. The system was going out of whack, right? So improved considerably is a fucking low bar, Raj. Okay? That's a low bar. It's improved considerably. Okay. Let's get back to the basics here again, they're trying the diversion of AI. Don't bite on that bait. On the SMB side of the house, small companies will have to pay higher rates for a wave of unqualified candidates with a new shade of lipstick on the Indeed Pig called Pay for Results, which is the exact same as pay-per-application, right? Pay-per-apply, exact same thing, but they put a new shade of color of lipstick on the Indeed Pig. On the enterprise side, pay-per-started-apply is another new shade of lipstick on the same fucking pig. Pay-per-started-apply is what used to be called pay-per-click back in the olden days, just like 10 years ago. Chad: So don't be fooled, kids. Indeed is just applying a new shade of lipstick to the same old pig and they're asking you to pay more. It's the same thing, only at a higher price. Don't be a sucker. Don't be a sucker. Don't fall for the AI games. Don't fall for the new lipstick shade on the same fucking pig, guys. Also on the trusted network side of the equation, and this one's from the AIM Group, they did some really good reporting on this "Indeed now reaches 350 million job seekers each month worldwide and has ongoing relationships with 3.5 million employers. Both numbers up 40% in the last 18 months." Okay, so all of you vendors that are out there that are pushing job seeker traffic to Indeed and you are responsible for that 350 million job seekers. I want you to listen up. Indeed crushed Monster and CareerBuilder without having forced registration processes in place. They crushed them without that. Now Indeed forces job seekers to register, which means they are actually siphoning your talent pools. If they now own your talent, what the actual fuck do they need you for? So you're going to be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until you're dead. Or just zombie companies like CareerBuilder and Monster. But remember, kids, there's nothing to see here. Joel: Is it any coincidence that Indeed started putting their jobs on Google For Jobs about 6 to 12 months ago? Do you think that maybe they realized they were having their annual meeting and wanted to juice up their numbers? And putting jobs on Google might help with that 40% increase that you mentioned... Chad: Doesn't hurt. Yeah. Joel: From the AIM reporting. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so. Chad: No. Doesn't hurt. Joel: At least we know now their next magic trick. [laughter] Their next shiny thing over here. Oh, it's AI everybody. Chad: AI. Joel: AI, we're going to be launching some AI shit that's going to blow you away and keep you on the heroin drip that is Indeed. So. Yes, Chad is right. You guys keep falling for this shit. It's incredible, amazing. But their next show... Chad: Everybody does. Joel: Their next show, and we will be tuning-in and talking about it endlessly and ceaselessly is the AI magic trick. And we know about magic tricks, Chad. SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Joel: Oh, yes. But there's someone else, Chad, that's getting into the AI game. And this one might be for real. Not to be left behind in AI. LinkedIn also made news this week. The company has introduced new AI driven products to enhance recruitment and employee training. The new recruiting tool leverages data on over 950 million professionals to identify qualified job candidates beyond traditional sources I.e. Job boards allowing recruiters to describe ideal candidates in natural language and suggest expanding location skills and remote work options to widen the talent pool. The tool also relies on candidate provided insights like their willingness to work and company values alignment integrations called CRM connect linked recruiter with existing Candidate Relationship Management System. These products are currently in pilot stages with select customers. Chad, are you ready to board the LinkedIn AI train? Chad: See, now, when Indeed says AI, it's a total fucking diversion. For LinkedIn it's not a fucking diversion. They have many more signals from job seekers. Not just signals, not just daily signals, not just interactions and engagement, but they also have history, right? They've got crazy amounts of it, they are 21 fucking years old, which just blows my mind. They're legal to drink, which I need another beer here in a minute. But here's a quote from the TechCrunch article. "LinkedIn is not entirely new to the AI rodeo. It has, in fact, been a heavy user of AI over the years. But until recently, most of that has been out of sight." Okay, so let me get this straight. Chad: LinkedIn's job matching algorithm has been shit for years. It still is. And now they're telling us that that's been AI, I really, really hope, and this is my hope for LinkedIn. I hope they can get their shit together when it comes to not all the fluffy bullshit stuff that they... They won't talk about AI coaching and whatnot. Don't fuck with that. Fuck with the things that you have already. The data that you can grind into that AI, those large language models can eat. That's what you need. That's exactly what you need. Go after that. Give us a better relevance, deliver better job postings, deliver better content, and focus on those things first. Then the rest of it will just come in line. I really want to see LinkedIn do well here. I think they have a better, a much better opportunity than Indeed is, but at the end of the day, they gotta prove it. Joel: Chad, I got to admit, I was pretty excited about this news... SFX: What are you doing step-bro? Joel: So welcome to the party, pal. Oh, by the way, your boy Josh Burson calls this exciting, and that's probably enough for anybody in terms of what this is. Chad: How much does LinkedIn pay Josh Burson to say that it's exciting? That's the question. Joel: I don't know, but he's excited. Chad: I don't either. Josh, Josh, how much do they pay you? Joel: Whatever it is, he's incredibly excited. SFX: Aai, papi. Joel: All right. LinkedIn has a new appetite for destruction and everyone should start looking alive. Okay? Not surprisingly, LinkedIn also announced that jobs mentioning AI doubled in the past 2 years. This is what a billion dollar investment in OpenAI by your sugar daddy, Microsoft, means for LinkedIn. You mentioned the rich get richer, and it could not be more true. While Indeed is concerned about packages and playing magic games, LinkedIn is moving it at hyper-speed. Look, we're moving beyond job search. It's like, let Google have the job posting. LinkedIn owns sourcing and soon to own AI. Look, SeekOut, better have some life alert. They better have that little necklace with the life alert. I'm very nervous if I'm competition to LinkedIn, which by the way includes just about everybody that we're going to see at HRTech and UNLEASH World in the next couple of weeks. Appetite for destruction. The big dog is hungry, everybody, and OpenAI is dangerous. Chad, it's on son. Chad: Indeed's fallen and they can't get up. Is that what you're going for? Joel: It's on. SFX: Alright, alright, alright. Joel: I got kind of juiced then, I need one of your beers, I think. All right, let's go to our next new story. OpenAI versus Apple. That's right more AI everybody. OpenAI is reportedly exploring the development of an AI hardware device. Sam Altman, OpenAI's founder, has had discussions with Jony Ive, renowned for designing Apple products, about this endeavor. While specific details about the product remain limited, it suggests a potential next generation consumer electronic device that integrates AI into your daily life. Sounds like it's about time to dump the Android, Chad, what are your thoughts on this development? Chad: So I got to say Apple is the only big player that's not in the generative AI product game, right? Joel: They're doing something. They got stuff going on in the background, don't you worry? Chad: Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll hope that that's the key. Well, if not, that means that they have an exposed flank as Google and Android will probably integrate Google Genesis into their operating system with, while Apple does what? They're going to have to lean heavily on Microsoft or Amazon at some time. So this is a very, very big signal to Apple that they can not sit back and watch. We've talked about Amazon last week becoming a much bigger player in the generative AI game by dumping $4 billion into Anthropic. More importantly, this is Sam Altman signaling to investors who have sunk billions and billions and billions of dollars into OpenAI. Apple isn't a purveyor, I mean they, I think, have a great opportunity to get in the game late and still dominate. Joel: That's what they do. Chad: But they have to get in the game. That's the thing. Now being able to actually create a device, whatever that AI device is, it's going to have to be a mobile phone. It's going to have to be, 'cause this is what we're used to. This is what we're addicted to, right? So it has to be something like this. If you create something else like, I don't know, VR-Headset or something, it's just not going to happen. Right? And you can't fit a GPU into this, right? So he has to figure out how AI works with something that is not going to be AI. It's going to have to be a conduit to AI. So it's gonna be interesting. And smarter people are going to be answering this problem and we get to sit back and watch. And I'm excited because these are big fucking companies, kids. And let me say this real quick. The big names are NVIDIA and AMD, because none of these companies, these AI companies will exist in the future without these companies producing their GPUs. Joel: Yeah, yeah. Chad: Period. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: So, Chad you know that I'm prone to the occasional SEO-geek, article, podcast, etcetera. And I always wonder, what's after, what's today? What's after search, what's after this phone in your pocket? There's got to be something next. And when I heard this, I thought, okay, what the hell does this look like? And I was listening to sort of a future of SEO, search and how this would work and so right now, all the major publications, authors are suing OpenAI for their data and taking their data. Now, assuming that they either win that case or that case is in court for the next decade, what do those companies do to protect themselves, to protect their business models? And what this one pundit thought was, there are going to be walled gardens everywhere, and we're all going to have co-pilots, assistants, whatever we want to call them, and we will ask our assistant questions. And the assistant will basically ping all these walled gardens that you either have a membership to or a subscription to, or somehow you've connected with these content providers. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They will go out, seek the answer, and bring you back the answer to your question as best as they possibly can. Because... Chad: If you have access. If you have access. Joel: If you have access. Chad: Yes. Joel: So right now, search is becoming like, we'll give you the answer. I don't know if you, I know you use Google on a regular basis like if you ask Google a question... Chad: Oh, yeah, the generative AI search... Fucking awesome. Joel: It's there. You don't have to click any links anymore. Well, that's going to come to a head at some point. So when I think about, what does this device look like? I think about the movie Her. I think about a co-pilot, in Her's case it was a date, I guess. But we will have these assistants and they will get answers. Is it audio? Is it visual with glasses or contacts? Is it a speaker in your house? Is it all the above? Maybe your TV? I don't know. But if anyone's going to do it, Johnny Ive has certainly got the chops to do it. Carrying a big phone in our pocket is pretty stupid. Like, if you think about it, like. Chad: Don't tell me I need a chip in my head. Don't we do that shit. Joel: That may be an option. You might have to wear the contacts, Chad. Chad: No. Joel: I don't know. Chad: I could do that, pretty cool. Joel: But something it's going to come to a head. I think it'll be incredibly interesting how content providers protect their stuff from AI, who they do deals with, who can access their information. The legal process is going to take forever. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. But what we have now is not going to be what we're going to have in 20, 25 years. Chad: No. Joel: And this is our first glimpse into what the future could be. Chad: Yeah, I totally agree. And I definitely agree. With regard to the walled gardens piece, you're going to have to pay to access the data so that you can actually get answers from any of these different sources. Right? So that's going to be one way. And then the rich obviously are going to be able to have access to everything. So they're going to have co-pilots and assistants that can answer just about anything that they want or need. Then we've got to think about the multimodal piece of it. So it's audio, it's video, it's text, it's everything. Right? That's the next leap of generative AI is not just text. It's much more than that. So I think that's awesome. But the hardest thing that and I think the dumbest thing is to get somebody away from this because we are addicted to this. Chad: And if you're not watching the video on YouTube, sorry, kids, but I'm holding up my phone. The phone has become it's like the ball and chain, dude, I can't go anywhere without this fucking thing. And it's behavior and human behavior. So how do you break that human behavior for a entirely different device? I don't know. I think it might be like an Alexa, which can have more hardware in it that you can have in your house, in your car, right, with these new electric vehicles. And then maybe once the tech gets to the point we don't have to have like, 1980s huge ass block cell phones. We can have the same types in size of cell phone that we have today with GPUs that are actually installed. Joel: Yeah. And you talked about Apple. I know you don't use Apple products, although you watch Ted Lasso, which makes me question your... Chad: Julie has an Apple phone. Joel: Yeah. Okay. Julie has it. So Apple, we know, has a deal with the Music, the record companies, they've had for a long time... They have Apple Music. They have Apple News, which I subscribe to, which gives you access to Wall Street Journal, a lot of... I share articles on our feed. And you're like, Apple News sucks because I can't get to it. But it is a walled garden that I pay for that I can get access to. So when you think about Apple, they are building these bridges to content providers and providing a way to monetize that for everybody. So Apple is a little bit in an advantage state there, as opposed to, like, Google or Facebook. Chad: I think... Joel: All of them could write a check tomorrow and get the same content, I'm sure. Chad: Apple when and if they move to micro payments, they could outflank Twitter. I don't think Twitter's longevity is there. And I think Apple could kill it, could crush it in an instant. Definitely with micro payments, especially around access to great content. Joel: The way they do it now is subscription. I pay a base fee for the whole family. Chad: But that leaves me out, right? Joel: It's news, it's music, it's Apple TV. Well, I don't care about you. Chad: You don't, but Apple does. Apple wants my money and they're not fucking getting my money, right? Joel: Yeah. Similar to how the iPod back in the day integrated with Microsoft. That was like a huge deal when it happened. Well, it worked out pretty well for Microsoft. Let's take a quick break. A lot to digest here, everybody. But please listen to the ads, because there is no show without our sponsors. All right, Chad, who's in the mood for a little Who'd You Rather? You know how the game is played, right? We talk about two companies that recently got funding, and Chad and I decide who would we rather? SFX: Aai, papi. Joel: You know what I'm saying? All right, first up, we have Transfr. That's T-R-A-N-S-F-R, kind of like Flickr from back in the day Chad, you remember Flickr, a New York City based company has raised 40 million in Series C growth funding, bringing their total to $90 million. They offer Immersive Simulation Training for various careers, I.e. VR with trainees using headsets to engage in real world skill development and practice. The funds will be used to expand the executive leadership team, scale the platform and develop new training simulations covering a wider range of skills and scenarios, including Espanol. They are currently deployed in over 1000 locations nationwide across various industries. And that is Transfr. But let's go to our next corner. We have HiringBranch straight out of Montreal. Chad, one of our favorite cities in Canada. SFX: Take off, will you? We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show, you hoser. Joel: HiringBranch has secured $2.5 million. The company plans to use this funding to support its growth and expand its AI capabilities. HiringBranch measures and assesses soft skills required for different roles. Their approach includes benchmarking top performer skills and creating tailored scenarios to evaluate candidates, resulting in what it says are improved hiring quality and efficiency for their clients. So, Chad, two companies. Only one can survive. Who would you rather? Chad: First off, a little love for us. Are you talking about foreign languages? Chad and Cheese have almost 50 episodes that are in five different language. Obviously, we've got number one, English. Then we've got Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. That's right. You can find the Chad and Cheese podcast in five different languages. Believe that shit? Okay, on the Transfr. Joel: We did it before Spotify, Chad. Chad: Way before. Joel: We did it before Spotify. Chad: Way before Spotify. So I believe the only real practical application for VR/AR goggles today is for training purposes, which is what Transfr is doing. But in general, companies who continually whine about the skills gap, they still have done nothing to close it. Generative AI is the new tech darling which has pushed any platform with a VR/AR goggles further down the rabbit hole, plus as we talked about earlier, Meta is actually laying people off. HiringBranch on the other hand, now we're friends with the Ckanuck up in HiringBranch, but nonetheless, I'm a big believer in work simulations and assessments as proof of a skill, instead of just believing a resume. It's a practical step forward in assessing talent, which is why for all practicality, this is something that will be adopted. It's practical HiringBranch, I'd rather HiringBranch all day. SFX: All right, all right, all right. Joel: If my T-shirt is any indication of where I'm leaning on this one, Chad. Chad: Fuck interviews. Joel: Little story back in the day, I'm gonna say circuit 2005. I met with a company called Life Agora. Chad: T hat's a horrible fucking name. Joel: It was very awful, especially when some shit... Chad: I hope they had the.com. Joel: Some shit was available back in the day, they went with Life Agora. Anyway, the company was video interviews pretty early on, and they would literally send job seekers a web cam that was branded with the company they were interviewing with. So the company had to pay for the web cam, the job seeker would get to keep the web cam. Chad: Sounds like Green job interview. Joel: You know where this is going. Chad: Yeah. Joel: They went to a total shit show of shipping, camera doesn't work, how do you turn the audio on? It was awful. Long story short, devices and getting into that business sucks, unless the device is ubiquitous, everyone has it like cameras now, video interviewing makes a ton of sense 'cause there's a video camera on every single computer and phone, etcetera. It's not the same with VR, it's not the same with headsets. Companies have to buy this shit. Who are they gonna use? Shit's broken. Does the company get involved? It's a pain in the ass. And like you said, with the Metaverse doing layoffs, the jury is still out on VR. Is this kind of thing be embraced? I think there's a place for it, medical, industrial, maybe service some other places, but it's not a huge, huge market, unlike HiringBranch who yes, aside from having probably better T-shirts [laughter] is a better deal. Let me count the ways as to why it is. 300% customer expansion growth within Fortune Five companies. Number two, they cut interviews by 80% for one of their clients, and number three, 90% lower hiring costs and under 1% bad higher rates for another client, and more than anything else, the TAM, the total addressable market for hiring branch is far bigger than it is for their opponents. And who doesn't love a good Canadian company Chad? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? So for me it's a clean sweep for HiringBranch everybody, and that is another episode of Who Would You Rather? Chad: I can't believe you didn't go with VR. Joel: I'm down on it and I'm down. I love the Canadians, you know that. Chad: Literally, yes. Joel: Can't get enough of the Canadians. SFX: Take off, will you? We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show, you hoser. Joel: All right. Next story is the ongoing strikes by unionized workers at GM, Ford and Stellantis have drawn the attention of non-union auto workers at rival companies like Tesla. Some non-union workers support the UAW's demands while others remain skeptical particularly when it comes to concerns about job stability and perceptions of unions. Despite the challenges the UAW is looking to expand its presence and influence in the auto industry, particularly in non-union plants. Unions are having a moment, Chad, like we've already covered, but what are your thoughts to their expansion. Chad: I think, again, they've gotten their mojo back, and this is something that scares the shit out of the Elon Musks of the world. But before we get into that, let's dig into some of the workforce equation around how we move to electric. Because the first thing that we talk about is that the automobiles are going to need 20% of the parts that a traditional combustion engine needs. So that being said, so many people, and if you take a look at, so many people have honed in on the 32-hour work week proposed by the UAW, that was done for a reason. The four-day work week is one of the mechanisms to try and combat the need for fewer bodies throughout the manufacturing lines. Cutting from a 40-hour work week leaves eight hours unaccounted for each week. Will the automakers just close up for those eight hours? Chad: No, of course not. So if you do the math for every four employees that are taken down to 32 hours, that creates another full-time position. That's one step in being able to create a more full workforce answer to this, it doesn't answer it entirely. Now, the parts manufacturing landscape will change immensely, only needing 20% of the parts. What do you do to boost the jobs numbers? Well, you bring those jobs back to American shores for the cars that are manufactured here, and you create parts manufacturing jobs. Our biggest supply chain issues during the pandemic, and even today are a lack of redundancy. When your company only makes a certain part in Wuhan, China and nowhere else. Your supply chain was broken. Chad: So I really believe we need to legislate redundancies. And since electric vehicles will provide much larger margins and the auto companies are already making record profits as it is, that's one of the only ways we can shore up supply chains while creating more jobs for where the vehicles are actually sold. And here's some real quick data around that, Tesla's profits nearly $10,000 per vehicle, which is five times more than GM. And GM are still making record profit. So don't believe the millionaires who are sitting on their super yachts drinking Bubly, saying that this is going to implode them. That's not gonna happen. The future is electric, higher profits, better margins, more jobs is definitely electric. SFX: That escalated quickly. Joel: Look, we've talked about this for weeks, labor has been getting their ass kicks for 40 years. It's shocking it took this long to happen, I think it's a matter of automation becoming real for people in a way that it hasn't ever been. I think inflation, I think the pandemic was an eye-opener for everybody. This is a window for labor to basically get theirs. Because I think that Mexico is the new China, there's a threat of near-shoring obviously, politically, we can... Chad: Tariffs. Joel: Deter some of that tariffs. But the future is automation, if you look at a Tesla plant, there aren't a lot of people there. If EVs are the future, then there are gonna be less workers no matter what in the long term. You have the added kick in the nuts in that the government is pushing for EV vehicles which says, Hey, our window may be closing faster than it should be with the $7500 tax credit. More and more people will be looking at EVs than they have before. So I think that's why that's politically dangerous, 'cause you have Biden on one hand, pushing The Green agenda of EVs and pushing incentives to do that, but then you also have him on the picket line talking about unionized workers should be getting paid what they are worth, etcetera. Ultimately, what I'd love to see happen, and I've mentioned this a couple of times, is the government stepping up with a fair living wage, a minimum wage increase. Joel: We know what it is now, increases have been anemic make it 25 bucks. Have exceptions for maybe teenagers or certain rural areas or maybe startup companies or small businesses, but if the government just says, hey, here's the level playing field that we're all gonna play on, it's fair for everybody. We don't get in these states versus states, we don't get in these political battles and all these things that are headaches. A living wage by the federal government is the ultimate union, and I'm surprised that in an election year, we're not hearing more about what the government can do to make labor more prosperous. They seem to be playing politics with the union workers and treating them as a swing vote as opposed to looking at the bigger picture, which hopefully we'll see come out in the election in 2024, but I'm not super optimistic on that one. Chad: Well, I mean, the United States only works from quarter to quarter anyway. We don't look five years down the road or 10 years down the road, and the Green Agenda, let's just be clear, is a life agenda. This is trying to make sure that we have great lifestyles moving forward, and the whole oxygen thing is pretty important too. But if we take a look at a living wage from state to state, and then if you open a plant in Alabama, which you've seen companies do because it's much cheaper to get talent there, the thing is if you still force the living wage job, it's much more of a level playing field, but the thing we really need to focus on, and I think we'll drive wages up is if we put legislation or a cap in place to say, look, CEOs can only make 30 times that of their lowest wage employee, if they wanna make more, they gotta move everybody up. We've talked about the rising tide that's been bullshit for decades, the only way we get a rising tide is to cap the dollars on the top to be able to raise everybody up else up with them. Joel: That is a great point. I doubt it's a Chad original, but it's still a great point. Chad: No it's not. It's not. [laughter] Joel: If you own in a small business, if you want a 401k plan for your business, the more you can pay yourself more or put more away, the more you give your employees, so to me that makes... It's already kind of being done, we just have to do it on a salary and to say, hey, if you want X amount what your lowest person is paid, you have to bring yours down and bring theirs up if you want your... That seems like an equilibrium that we could aspire to. It is funny although by the way, how quiet our friend Elon Musk has been about this issue. He's just hoping that he can be quiet and that the whole thing just goes away, I think that. Chad: He does not want this to happen. Joel: No, he does not. Chad: That's why he has profit margins that are just exploding, one of the reasons why, right? Joel: Yeah. Well, let's take another quick break and we'll get to one of my favorite topics, but you gotta stick around to know what it is. Alright Chad so let's get to some real news, shall we? SFX: Oh my God, I love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life. Joel: I was waiting for that. It's like we've been doing a podcast for six years together. Alright, yeah, your Chipotle burrito will be rolled by human, but its guts may soon be assembled by a robot, the fast casual chain announced this week a new automated digital makeline, get it makeline, that uses machines to build bowls and salads to customer specifications. Human employees are then expected to incorporate the robot assembled ingredients into burritos, tacos and quesadillas. The shift is part of Chipotle's foray into cobotics, collaborative robots that work with rather than against humans. For now, at least, Chipotle's Chippy Autocado and other Cobotic efforts will work alongside their human co-workers to get orders filed. Chad, what are your thoughts on Cobotics at Chipotle? Chad: I'm only thinking about universal basic income at this point. Because they say with, the robots work with humans until they can take over the human jobs. So at the end of the day, we used to have, you and I, when we were growing up, much different than it is today, we had to go find a job. And for the most part, we went to work in fast food, I worked at Burger King, I worked at Mr. Hero, I did those things 'cause I had to. 'cause if I wanted money, my parents weren't just gonna give it to me, I had to go and make that money. So today, it's different. We evolve, I appreciate that. We don't have kids doing those jobs as much, and it's much harder to find individuals, especially with the constraints on immigration that we do have, in some cases. These companies have no choices, especially when it comes down to this. Now, when it comes to fast food, I would love to see that industrial complex shrink dramatically, just as long as Chipotle is not a part of it, 'cause I do love some Chipotle. Joel: I do, and just in case you didn't know my policy, when there's a burrito in my hand. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Oh no, it goes all the way in. Look Chad at there's no way around it, there are going to be fewer food and burrito prep workers at Chipotle. Assuming the quality stays the same, I don't think consumers are gonna care whether a human being or robot makes up their bowl. On the flip side, Chipotle needs to hire more workers to deliver food. Right now, DoorDash, I think brings me my Barbacoa Bowl but there should be a Chipotle branded delivery person, and they should combine it with their rewards program of which I'm a proud member, Chad. After so many orders, for example, I should get a free trucker hat or maybe a T-shirt [laughter] with that delivery. It's less about the automation and more about the UX Chad, it's all about the UX, and that's why we're launching our new Chad and Cheese experience, we're going to automate this podcast so we can randomly show up at listeners offices and homes for a new way to engage the brand. Maybe we can order some Chipotle... Chad: No we're not. Joel: While we hang out with some of our fans Chad. SFX: Oh my God, I love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life. Chad: We out. See you in Vegas. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt, you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a bottle of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bag fights on TikTok. Now you hung out with these two chuggle-heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off on the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful trainwreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can quit them either. We out.

The European show is typically filled with one or the other: An American company in Europe, or a European company in America. This week, lucky listener, includes BOTH. America’s Uber, on the heels of dealing with similar legislation in California, now finds itself juggling an EU who wants to treat giggers as full-time employees. (Cue the higher-rates, longer waits fear mongering!) On the other end of the continental expansion is Deutschland-HQ’d Personio growing its footprint in America with an office in New York City. What’s more? How about a lively conversation spurred by the latest round of Buy or Sell, featuring Heyu Works, Recrubo, Freework and Kenjo. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. [music] Joel: Oh yeah. It's International AJ Day, which I can only guess is followed by International BJ Day. This is the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. I'm your co-host, Joel Unwanted Kiss Cheesman. [laughter] Chad: And this is Chad "What Is This Rugby Thing" Sowash. Lieven: And I'm Lieven "Not Stuck in Traffic Anymore" Van Nieuwenhuyze. [laughter] Joel: And on this episode, Uber warns Personio grows and buy or sell. Let's do this. Chad: What are you doing in traffic? You're in Europe. You've got all this great public transportation... Joel: Well, Lieven's way above public transportation. Chad: Flying cars, I mean, that kind of... Lieven: I really don't like the public parts. Joel: Audi 5, whatever. Yeah, he's not... Lieven: Five-five? It's an eight. Joel: Eight. Yeah, exactly. Lieven: It's an eight. Lieven: There's just too much public on public transportation. [laughter] Joel: He may or may not have a driver as far as I know. He... [laughter] Chad: Well, he needs one apparently, because he was just stuck in traffic. And that's a bunch of wasted time. Lieven: Over two hours. My commute is two hours. Joel: Geez. Lieven: Yeah, I know. Chad: Your commute? Is that normal? Two-hour commute? Lieven: Yeah. Normally, it should be one hour and 40. Joel: You shouldn't have bought a country house so far away from the city. You should live in some two-bedroom apartment with the rest of the commoners. Chad: With a garden and a pool and a tree house. [laughter] Lieven: Who told you? [laughter] Joel: The helicopter was out of service. Lieven: Anyway, it's topics. Joel: Helicopter was out of service. Lieven: Topics. [laughter] Chad: I think we have shoutouts first. Lieven: I have shoutouts. Shoutouts. Joel: Shoutouts. [laughter] Chad: I got it, I got it. I gotta do this one first. Shoutout. I got a message over the weekend from Adam Gordon and he's doing his damnedest to try to make me watch rugby. Now, Ireland did defeat South Africa this week, so big props to the Irish. But they got beat by... The Irish did get beat by Ohio State, by the way, in college football. But at the end of the day, you just cannot compare, and people try to all the time, rugby with NFL football. Never the two shall come together, shall cross. So, Adam, I appreciate you love your rugby, but I'm gonna stick with my American football. Joel: Yeah. Rugby. [laughter] Lieven: As someone who's living in a country which isn't interested in rugby nor in American football, rugby is without the helmet and the medieval protection and American football is like... Joel: Medieval protection. Yes. The battle ax... Chad: The armor. Joel: And the strong bows. Lieven: So basically... Chad: Mason Morningstar. Yeah. Joel: I do respect that rugby... Lieven: So basically... Joel: Players aren't all dead. There's a gentleman's agreement that they don't kill each other and there's an inside rule thing of like if you hurt somebody, you're gonna be... It's kinda like the baseball, you hit us, we're gonna hit you back twice as hard. So I do respect the level of gentleman behavior in rugby. I think I would like it if I embraced it. Adam should focus his energy on making the meat head of the podcast between you and me. I'm more likely to engage with rugby than you are, Chad. Chad: But it's like cricket. It's like a worst version of baseball, right? Joel: No. No. Chad: Rugby is a worst version of the American football. [overlapping conversation] Joel: That's not cricket. You like the finesse sports and the positions. Chad: No, no, no. My my point is they try to run parallels. Cricket, baseball, no parallels. Cricket sucks. Then rugby and American football, to me, again, it's a taste, it's something that I enjoy. My taste is American football. I just think rugby sucks. Joel: Lieven, break the tie. Rugby or soccer or football? Chad: He doesn't care. Lieven: I don't care. But actually, I think if I just hear it like this, rugby is for men and American football is with a helmet on and "Don't you hurt me," and the shoulder, Epaulette, we call it in French, like the shoulder protection. Joel: Yeah. I do love the European sentiment that football players are weak, scrawny dudes. I challenge any European to get hit by a 380-pound lineman at full speed and tell me how... Chad: And runs faster than all of us. Joel: Yeah. And tell me how feminine the sport is. Chad: I'm gonna go ahead and make this real easy for all Europeans. If, if Europeans and rugby was so hard and their athletes were so damn good, they would get paid more by being in the NFL, number one. The only people we see in the NFL who have crossed over and they make more money, by the way, are punters. Joel: That's true. Lieven: Are what? Chad: Punters. Joel: Kickers. Yeah. Chad: The ones who stand and they kick the ball and they hardly ever get hit. Those are the Europeans and Australians who are so tough. You don't see running backs. You don't see offensive linemen. You don't see linebackers. You don't see any of them who would get more money. And if they were such great athletes, they would get more money in the NFL, but they're not. Joel: And by the way, the fact that not every Mr. Universe or these dudes who lift weights all day aren't playing football... [laughter] Chad: Throwing cables. [laughter] Joel: I don't know where that disconnect happens, but why football scouts aren't going to Mr. Universe competitions and strong man competitions and recruiting these guys to be on a line somewhere. Yeah, I don't know. Chad: Dude, it's not easy. That's why. Joel: I know it's not easy. But these guys have a headstart. Holy shit, we're off on a tangent here. Alright, so... Chad: My bad. It's Adam Gordon's bad, actually. Joel: Yeah, it's Adam Gordon's. Chad: It's your fault, Adam. Joel: Fucking Scots, man, always fuck everything up. Alright... Joel: Scottish. All the time. Joel: I'm gonna bring this back to a gay wedding. How about that? So my shoutout... Chad: Okay! Joel: My shoutout goes to Molly and Martina. Molly is my niece I know very well. It's my sister's daughter. So Christmas is holidays. I've known her since birth. This isn't some distant cousin or niece somewhere in another state. So Molly and Martina got married this weekend. This is my first gay wedding that I've ever been to. We talk a lot on the show, Chad, about lack of progress, nothing's changing, we're moving backwards, all of which are relevant based on whatever context we're throwing out there. But when you go to a gay wedding and you see two people who love each other, you see, regardless of man, woman, whatever, love is love. Joel: These people are happy. They have every chance as heterosexual people do to be as miserable in marriage as everyone else. Shoutout to Molly and Martina, proof that there is some progress, there is some change in the world. However, Chad, something that will not change, my ability to do dances that were popular back in the '80s. We're talking the Running Man. We're talking the Kid 'n Play. We're talking the Cabbage Patch. They were all out on display for the young people at the wedding and they were very impressed, obviously. Some of them may have gotten on camera. I don't know. If you're connected to me on Facebook, there may be some visual treats coming soon. [laughter] Chad: Save us, Lieven. Save us with your shoutout, please. Lieven: I just wonder, were you the drunk uncle, Joel? Joel: Oh my God. Okay. Yes. Lieven: Every wedding in Europe needs a drunk uncle. Joel: I was not, but I got to tell you about the guy who was. Alright, so a guy shows up with a mullet. That was the first like, he's going to be the guy. Chad: Well, and this is in Indiana, right? Lieven: Which means? Joel: Louisville, Southern Indiana, yes. By the way, a gay wedding in Indiana isn't like a gay wedding in Oregon. It's a little bit more of a purple squirrel. But anyway, my man showed up in a royal blue shirt with some green pants. He had a really blonde hair, Chad. You know the kind that like bleaches the shit with Clorox? Mullet... Chad: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Joel: And I was like, "This dude, this is the guy. This is the guy." So sure enough, a couple hours into the show, the shirt gets unbuttoned. Oh yeah. The shirt's unbuttoned, untucked, okay. He's giving everybody a hug, giving high fives. He's doing the whole, that thing. And then towards the end of the night, a couple hours later, he's showing around an empty bottle of Maker's Mark. And I'm like, "What? Why?" Well, he was bragging that he had consumed the entire bottle of Maker's Mark to everyone. And he was dancing with the Maker's Mark, shirt unbuttoned, mullet blowing in the wind. That was not me leaving. I was classing it up with my Running Man to Vanilla Ice, but this guy... Chad: You're just giving Lieven more bumpkin ammunition right now. Lieven: It could have been you, Joel. Joel: Full disclosure, Chad... Lieven: It could have been you. It sounds like you. Chad: Chad, you and I both, and who we married to some degree are all backwoods, like there are elements of that in all of our families. So full disclosure... Chad: Oh, easily, yes. Oh, easily. Joel: Yeah. So we are Americans, Lieven. We're not caste system, royalty, European, like some of the people on this podcast. We are the riff-raff and the bumpkins of the world. Lieven: Riff-raff, oh nice. Joel: And this is what you get, man. Lieven: Joel, I promise if you ever gay marry, I'll be there. [music] Lieven: Especially for you, I'll be coming to Indiana to join your gay wedding. Joel: I hope to God my wife isn't listening to this show 'cause I'm gonna have some explaining to do based on that comment, Lieven. Thanks. Chad: She's Canadian. She's very tolerant. Lieven: She's open-minded, of course. I mean... Joel: She's tolerant to a point. She may draw a line in that one. Chad: Lieven, shoutout. Save us, Lieven. Save us. Lieven: Okay. Back to serious business. My shoutout goes to Meta for launching a new AI chatbot actually this week. It was announced they're going to launch it this week. And they're focusing on young people using 27 different personas. So I read the article and I thought, okay, normally you go to Facebook to talk to your friends, but if you don't have any friends, Facebook is providing 27 different virtual friends, which is so sad. I mean, why would someone young go to Facebook to talk to a virtual chatbot, knowing it's a virtual chatbot? I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all. So I... Chad: Have you seen the movie, Her? Lieven: No, but it sounds like Joel's wedding. No. SFX: Hasn't anyone noticed this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Lieven: No. Joel: I'm sorry, I need to back this up. So we're shouting out the creation of 27 fake personas on Facebook being launched? Lieven: Yeah, yeah. And... Chad: Fake friends. Joel: And this is the company that's doing this? Lieven: Facebook is doing this. They're launching a chatbot with 27 different personas. So if you want to talk to a surfer dude you can. So if you're really sad and feeling lonely, you can. And that's actually the whole idea. You can go to Facebook and talk to someone with a personality you want at that point. But I think it's utterly depressing if you read it. If this is the future, I don't wanna be part of it. Joel: Now, if it was Only Fans launching this, would you feel the same way? Lieven: That would be something totally different. SFX: Alright, alright, alright. [laughter] Lieven: Of course. But it's not. It's Meta. [laughter] Joel: Oh my God. Chad: Maybe Meta will be at UNLEASH in Paris and we can talk to them about this. I would really enjoy that. That's right, kids. We're gonna be in Paris in October. Go to unleash.ai to see when that's actually happening. If you're in Europe, you should definitely be there. Stop by. Chad and Cheese are gonna be somewhere, somewhere. More than likely we're gonna be at the Textkernel booth at least on day one, but we're gonna be bopping around all over the place. Lieven: And there are plenty of bridges, so under the bridge somewhere on day three, next to the Seine. But it's Paris, and Paris is nice, even if you have to endure an HR Congress for it. It's nice. [laughter] Joel: Oh my God. I'll save us this time. S?: Topics, finally. Joel: Alright. Lieven: Finally. Joel: Uber's top executive in Europe, Annabel Diaz, has cautioned that the Brussels' plan to classify gig workers as de facto employees could lead to the shutdown of Uber's services in hundreds of European cities and result in price increases of up to 40%, a 50%-70% reduction in work opportunities and longer waits for riders like Chad and Lieven when they're in Europe. The proposed EU legislation aims to grant giggers the rights of full-time employees by default, potentially changing the current self-employed status of many platform workers currently in Europe. Despite industry concerns, EU officials argue that such rules aim to ensure fair treatment and protection for gig workers. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news out of Europe and Uber? Chad: So, from The Financial Times, Nicholas Schmit, the EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social rights said, "This is about establishing clear criteria and looking at the facts. If the platform is in fact an employer, then the people working for it are entitled to the same rights and protections as workers in the offline world." So if a company can't provide basic benefits while providing a living wage, it's not a company at all. If a government can't allow its citizens to choose between full-time employee work and side hustle status, well then you're doing it wrong. I see the answer is in the middle here. It's more of like a gray area that they're not having conversations around and allowing side hustlers who don't need additional benefits to select they are Ubering as a side hustle, and those who are using it as an FTE, their only source of income or their main source of income, there should be benefits that are attached to that. To me, it seems like we're having a black or white discussion and there's nobody meeting in the middle for this kind of option at least. S?: That escalated quickly. Joel: So the one thing we have to compare it to here from the US is there's a California law a couple years ago that started called Prop 22 that essentially resulted in, after an appeal, that contract workers would continue to be contract workers, they were not gonna be full-time employees, which was a win, and still is a win for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and all the other gig platforms. One of the big differences in America and Europe is healthcare. And one of the big arguments in terms of Americans being full-time employees is that there are usually benefits in terms of healthcare that come with that that contract workers do not get. If you're a contract worker, you're pretty much on your own in America. Europe is unique in that you get healthcare as a citizen. So even as a gigger or a full-time employee, you get healthcare. Joel: And if that's the big sort of hurdle as to whether somebody should be a full-time employer or not, if you take healthcare out of the equation, I agree with Chad that it becomes a gray area of like, well, does it really matter because we're taking care of people from a healthcare's perspective? I assume retirement and all those things are also on the table in Europe, whether you're a contract worker or you're a full-time employee. I think that labor unions have a major concern with the gig economy. I think the more contract workers there are, the less union members there are, and the less union members there are, the less member dues that come in, the less power that union has. And by and large, unions are more powerful in Europe than they are in America. We're seeing that kind of play out with the Auto Workers Union here in town. Joel: I think it's a little... It's equally unfair to say if you wanna be a contractor, you wanna work when you wanna work, you wanna live the life you wanna live, you can't do that. You have to be a full-time employee. I think that's almost as unfair as saying you can't be a full-time employee or you can or can't. I tend to land on the freedom of choice. If you're gonna get healthcare anyway as a European citizen, I say it's even more so right for you as a worker to say, "I wanna be a contractor," or "I wanna be a full-time employee." I would like to see this fall on the side of the contract workers. I would like to see this fall on the side of Uber. And it's not about wait times. It's not about the number of of cars that I can get in Manchester next time I come to town. I think a lot of people do wanna work on their time clock, when they do what days they want, they wanna work as much or as little as as they please. I hope this goes contractor. We'll pay attention to it. But, yeah, I tend to lean on the side of freedom on this one. Lieven: That's actually a very interesting point of view from a European standpoint, I mean. Joel: How so? Lieven: We feel like if you're paying them like employees without giving them the benefits employees get, those people are getting screwed. But you are totally right. I mean, they get healthcare and if they choose to do a job like that, it should be their choice. Then again, problem is I feel most of the people who are doing this for a living don't have much choice. These are the only jobs they get. And then there is a problem. It's totally different if you are like a student and you're saying, "I'm gonna side hustle a bit to get some extra money to go out," then you have healthcare, you have insurance, you have probably a whole future ahead of you because you're a student. But if you are 40 years old and you have a migration background and you have to drive around with your bike earning 10 Euros an hour without getting any employee benefits, then you are totally screwed. Lieven: So in Europe, this is... I don't think it's the same system like it's in the United States. And when I read the article, I thought, basically the people from Uber say, "If you are forced to treat our workers decently, we will have to close down shop." That's what they're saying. "If you make us pay them decently, we'll have to close down." So I looked into it and I thought, but what if they're right? What if they actually have to close down because they don't make enough money out of it? Then there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole delivery system. And then this is just a business which have to close down. If it's true what they're saying, then this is just not sustainable. Or you have some students working for you and that's okay. But you can't force full-time employees to work for something like this. S?: Right. Lieven: And then it's a problem of the system. And I totally agree that Europe should intervene, but I totally agree with Joel as well. And I think this is something you can't just compare Europe with America with. It's totally different mindsets. Chad: No. Lieven: It's interesting. Chad: And again, I think it's in the gray area because you're 100% right, we're talking about... I don't care about flexibility. I'm talking about the amount of hours that you work, right? Are you a full-time employee? You can choose your own hours. That has nothing to do with it. Are you working 30-40 hours a week? Right? The big question for me is, and I think you might be able to answer this much better than we can, Lieven, is how taxes actually get paid into the system to ensure that you're supporting that healthcare infrastructure versus being a contractor or FTE. And I think that, and I could be wrong, but let me know, that most of these governments are saying that companies are getting away without having to pay into the system, to pay into the infrastructure, because of this. It's almost like a loophole, right? And they want them to pay into the system because, again, you guys care about your entire citizenry, not just the ones who have jobs. Lieven: Yeah, true. And the problem is the whole contractor thing, I mean, I'm a contractor, the whole top management of most companies are people working as an entrepreneur, they call it, independently, because they have some kind of, I'm not sure what the name is in English, their own company... Chad: Contract? Lieven: And they just send bills to. But those people make lots of money and then they can get their own insurance. They can have their own pension funds. They take care of themself. And the only reason why they do it like this is because they don't have to pay that much taxes. They can optimize everything. This is why top management in Europe is having their own company just to optimize taxes. Let's be fair about this. Otherwise, in Europe, you're being taxed to death. I mean, you have 55% taxes. It's just unfair. But, okay. The problem is, if you don't get the money to pay your own insurance and you don't get the money to pay your own car and your own whatever, then you have a problem with this kind of statutes. Chad: Yeah, the numbers don't align. Joel: Lieven, how do you think it would... How would it play out if you could choose, let a worker choose if they wanna be full-time or contract? How would that work? Lieven: To be honest, if you don't make 500 Euros a day, you'll have to be employee, or they should choose that. Then again, for me, for example, I like it having a client instead of a boss. I mean, if you're independent, you sent a bill, you have a client, and if your client is unreasonable, that's something totally different. And having a boss, I would never be unreasonable... Chad: Yeah, but you're not driving Ubers though. Lieven: Of course not. [laughter] No, no, but indeed it's a different system. I was thinking about in Belgium, and I don't think it's the same in all European countries. In Belgium, we have something called flex jobs, meaning if you already have a job like four out five days working, you can take a flex job on the side which will allow you not to pay any taxes or... Yeah, I really think it's not any taxes at all. And you can make some extra by working more, because we need workers. We have a lack of workers. And this is a very good way to work for Uber, for example. But then you have the benefits from your full-time job, from the other job, and you have your pension and you have everything being arranged for you and you make some more money, which is nice. But if you have to get a life out of the 10 Euros an hour, sorry, no way. Joel: But I did not know that upper management were contractors. Did you, Chad? Chad: Country to country. I think that differs from country to country. But yeah, I didn't know that about Belgium. No. Joel: Look at them taking advantage of the loopholes. S?: 60% of the time, it works every time. Lieven: That's a fact. Joel: Alright, let's take a quick break and we'll play Buy or Sell. Alright guys, who's up for a little buy or sell? You know how the game works. We mention four companies. It's usually three. We did four 'cause we had an extra one. We read a summary and each of us will buy or sell each startup. Are you guys ready to play? Chad: Yep. Joel: Buy or sell. Alright, number one, London-based Workfree has secured $400,000 in pre-seed funding. The platform aims to streamline freelance hiring by eliminating traditional high commissions for freelancers and relying on a community-vetted talent network to enhance trust and quality assurance. Freelancers, community advisors and non-institutional investors collectively own 25% of the company, which says it will support over 10,000 freelancers and 100 paying clients by the end of 2024. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Workfree? Chad: All of this sounds great. And since Workfree is focusing on specific talent communities like digital agencies and tech companies, they might just have a chance 'cause they're really being incredibly focused, and then they can broaden that TAM later as they start to get traction. But I'm just not close enough to understand the market's appetite for another freelancing platform with only an estimated 7.2 million people in the UK who are identifying as gig workers. And then when you are successful, where do you expand to? Europe, as we've learned through this podcast, is not easy to expand from country to country to country, right? There are huge obstacles going from the UK into Europe. And I mean, the UK's not even a part of the EU right now. So for all of those reasons, unfortunately, it's a sell. Joel: Alright. I was totally confused by this whole 25% of the company owned by the freelancers, the community advisors. Who the fuck are these people? The institutional... Like this whole... Chad: Advisors? Joel: Decentralized movement, this blockchain, nobody owns this shit, crypto craziness that goes around, I'm gonna lump these guys in that same, just hallucination that this company isn't owned by anybody, it's owned by the people that use it. Like, fuck off, man. Look, this company is totally BS. Like Chad said, it's a smokescreen to make you forget the fact that they're competing with these huge businesses that are established and profitable with these kinds of workers. Freelancers have many places that they already know about by telling them that, "Hey, you'll own part of this company. Come over to us, use us." And then five years from now when the company's out of business and your ownership of the company is worthless, then you'll be like, "Why the fuck did I get on this bus?" So for me, this is too much risk, too much competition. This is an easy one for me. This is a sell. Chad: That's surprising. [laughter] Lieven: I think you Americans can't handle the whole idea of a community-driven company. S?: I'm happy. [laughter] Chad: An open source, yes. Lieven: In fact, there are many companies like that in Europe. In France, for example, you have those winemakers, and they have all their own vineyards, but they buy the machinery they need to produce their wine together and it's called... But it actually works. And you have the same with farmers who are in dairy. That's the name, dairy, yes? Milk? Chad: Dairy. Yep. Lieven: And then they... Yeah. I think those are just very modern and you're not ready for it. I would buy, but I already have shares in Fiverr and they're not doing very well and I'm not going to do something like that again. So, no. S?: No! God! Lieven: It's a sell, but I do like the idea and I think you Americans are not ready for it. S?: No! God, please, no! No! No! [laughter] Joel: I love that we aren't open-minded enough. And he's mentioning thousand-year-old businesses around wine and dairy. [laughter] We're so not progressive. Let's get on the dairy trend, everybody. Lieven: Yep. Chad: I wanna get on the wine trend. I like that. Joel: Our second contender, Berlin-based HR tech startup, Kenjo, has raised 8.8 million Euros in a Series A funding round to expand its HR and employee engagement software solutions targeting SMBs and Latin America expansion. The startup supports efforts around attendance, shift planning and recruitment among others while remaining compliant focused on businesses, industrial service and commercial sectors. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Kenjo? Chad: If you're not Personio and you have hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and you're going after SMB market, I think you have little chance. Secondarily, if you are in Germany, France and Benelux currently, and you are taking this money to expand into Latin America, Latin America, not the rest of Europe, but Latin America, okay? [laughter] If you wanna move into Latin America, do it organically through your portfolio and wallet share growth, not new funding. This, to me, there was nothing that I saw in this organization and their go-to-market that I would ever get behind. So easy enough. Sell, sell, fucking sell. SFX: Take off dude, we're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show, you hoser. Joel: Alright. Unlike Chad, I like Pilotfish. I like surfers that are on really great waves that may be mediocre surfers. Now, Personio is the apex predator, and we will talk about a few others in Buy or Sell, I believe, going forward. But look, I love Latin America. Money's moving out of China. Money's moving over into locations closer to the US where shipping and things can be shipped more easily and efficiently to America. I'm only mad that it's not American companies that are taking over South America. How on earth are we letting German companies come over and invest in South America? It should be us doing it. So I love emerging markets, Africa, South Asia, and I also love these guys, which makes this one for me... [music] Joel: A buy. That's right. Chad: What do you know about the SMB market in LatAm? Joel: I once bought some Mexican candy in Cabo. Chad: That's what I thought. That's what I thought. Okay, carry on. Carry on. Carry on. [chuckle] Joel: The Brazilian market's blowing up, Chad. Come on. Everyone knows that. Chad: Yeah. 'Cause they speak Portuguese. Carry on. Lieven: Is it me now? Alright. So basically, to follow Chad, I don't know anything about South America, but I feel if a company is investing 8.8 million in Kenjo, they must have done their due diligence much better than I have and I trust them and I follow. If a serious company is investing 8.8 million of their own money, who am I to go against that? And I'll just try to walk behind them and get something out of it. For me, it's a buy just because I don't know anything about them. I'll follow those who do. S?: Alright, alright, alright. Joel: He's a follower, everybody. That's our Lieven. We love him. Netherlands-based... Sorry. Let's get to our next startup. We got a little bit off-track there. Netherlands-based Recrubo has secured 600,000 euros in a seed funding round. Recrubo promises to simplify job applications using WhatsApp and AI, streamlining the process for candidates and employers. The platform is already serving companies like Sodexo and aims to help five million career entrants over the next five years. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Recrubo? Chad: Recrubo. [laughter] Recrubo. Okay. So all of the conversational AI players that have been in the space for more than five minutes already integrate with WhatsApp. I think this is bad timing. Everybody's getting into the generative AI space and they wanna try to find their niche. There's way too much noise and there are way too many veterans in this space who survived. The ones who already got kicked out, ALIO, the Mayas, those, we were able to learn from them. So I think it's just bad timing for Recrubo right now. It's a sell. Joel: Alright, let's get back to my Pilotfish commentary. [laughter] This too is a Pilotfish. If Paradox is the great white shark ready to eat most of the market share, there's certainly gonna be some left for the pilot fish out there that are serving up the crumbs from the predator that they are enjoying the ride. So for me, yes, you had Maya and many others. Zoro we haven't heard from in a while. Are they still around? Anyway, I don't know. Maybe these guys learn from the sins of the father. They've done a lot cheaper. Certainly, the amount they've taken, can you turn 600,000 into six million? Yes, I think that you can and if that is your calculus for success, then this too for me... SFX: Alright, alright, alright. Joel: Is a buy. Chad: Cheesman's on a buying spree. Lieven: Yeah. Alright. And I've been stuck in traffic and I'm a bit grumpy and I'm not buying. But anyways, I don't know anything about South America, but I do know the Netherlands. And I don't know Recrubo, which isn't a good thing. So if we didn't buy 'em, then we must have had a very good reason not to because normally, if it's good and it's in the Netherlands, we buy it. And with me, I mean House of HR. [laughter] Lieven: So that isn't really speaking up for them. And I looked at their site and it says, "Recrubo's AI recruitment solution ensures that your vacancies are always felt." This is bullshit. Yeah. And so it's a sell. Chad: Bullshit. Lieven: I mean, even we can't ensure your vacancies are always felt, almost always, of course, but not always. So no, no Recrubo for me. Joel: Alright. I'm feeling really lonely on this buy or sell episode. Let's see if we can all come into agreement on the next one. Another Netherlands-based recruitment platform, Heyu Works, Heyu Works, that's the name of the company, has partnered with Otto Holding, receiving a significant yet unnamed amount investment to support growth. Heyu Works matches professionals with companies based on personality and skills assessments. Over 4,500 professionals have joined with plans to double this year and potentially reach 35,000 by 2024. Chad, I dare you to get the Pink Floyd classic out of your head and buy or sell Heyu... Chad: Yes. Or... Joel: Standing... Chad: Hey Jude. I'm a big fan of the funding because it's coming from Otto, and since they could be a great option for portfolio penetration and then the prospect of acquisition, I like this a lot. Heyu says they would, or they want to use the undisclosed amount of cash to take their current candidate user base from 4,500-9,000. That was pretty telling. As a closer partner with Otto, she would explode their candidate in client base dramatically. So with those projections, it doesn't seem like Otto will be giving anything more than just cash to burn. So for me, that, again, it's a sell. If you're going to focus on driving numbers that matter, then yes, but these numbers just don't matter. Joel: Yeah. Alright. How do you say plum in Dutch is my question? [laughter] Chad: Don't you dare compare these guys to plum. Don't you dare! Joel: Let me keep going. Alright. So the website says, "Heyu helps you find out more about yourself and your career." Maybe this is some warm and fuzzy European shit. But I was confused by this because this isn't a business-to-business solution where you say, "Okay, take your candidates, give them assessment, let 'em know how they did and put 'em in your database." This was more of... To me, this is more of a LinkedIn job board style like, "Hey, do your assessment, we'll tell you about yourself, where your strong parts are, points are, where you're weak." And then do they transfer that data into job postings? It looks like they're trying to sell the data to companies that come in like as pre-assessed. So are they taking on LinkedIn? Are they becoming a job board? Is this the hook to get people to apply to jobs? I don't know. I was really, really confused. I think some of it is lost in translation. Look, unless this undisclosed amount of money was a $100 million-plus, they're not gonna be able to scale this to a ton of consumers to make it relevant. Chad: No. [laughter] Joel: So for me, this was a pretty easy... S?: Hasn't anyone noticed this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel: Pretty easy sell for me. Lieven? Lieven: I agree. I like the idea of taking a test and having a different way of doing job matching just by saying what's interesting to me and which kind of, whatever you like. But there are just so many companies doing the same thing. We have 40... No. 53 companies within the group, and I think at least 10 of them are doing something similar, but they all have different suppliers. So there's just too much competition on this market to become really big, I think. And now with AI, there soon will be a whole new kind of matching, I feel. And this will be outdated before it's making me money, so I'm not going to buy it. [laughter] Lieven: Sorry, Heyu. Sorry. If we bought you recently, then I take my words back. Joel: That's three sells. And I apologize, plum. I apologize. Just for that, I'm gonna play this sound bite just for you. SFX: Can you feel the tension in the air right now? Chad: I can feel the tension after that. SFX: I can feel it all the down... [overlapping conversation] Lieven: Plum is kind of a fruit right? Plum? Joel: Yes. Chad: Yes. Lieven: It's plum in Dutch. Joel: Good to know. Good to know. Chad: Plum. [overlapping conversation] Joel: It can also be used as iconography around body parts. I'll just leave it at that. And that is... Lieven: In Dutch as well. In Dutch as well, but I wasn't going to say so. but indeed. Yeah, it's in... Chad: Allow the bumpkins to do it for you. Lieven: I think the wedding you went to would be enthusiastic about it. [music] Joel: That's right. Okay, gang. That is another round of Buy or Sell. Quite a bit of disagreement this time. But it's always fun doing that. Alright, let's get to our last news story. Munich-based Personio is expanding its presence in the US by opening an office in New York City. [music] Joel: That's right. That's right. They plan to double the US workforce by the end of 2023 by double. The company valued at $8.5 billion, currently has 40 employees in the US and intends to hire across various departments. Bodhi Mukherjee, former engineering director at Google, has been hired as the vice president of engineering and will lead the New York office. While Personio aims to tap into the US talent pool, the company says it remains committed to serving European SMEs and is considering an IPO possibly in 2024. Founded in 2015, the company employs 1,903 people. Chad, your thoughts on Personio coming to America. And please pronounce Bodhi's name if it's much better than how I would pronounce it. Chad: No, I don't want to because that's the funniest shit. Mukherjee. I love it. I love it. I would call him Mukherjee from now on... S?: Hi, papi. [laughter] Chad: So earlier this year, Personio changed its legal form, which allows companies to carry out business activities more easily throughout the EU and member states, obviously also looking to target the US. I think this is incredibly telling and awesome. Last week on the Friday show, we talked about hiring. Companies like Salesforce and Facebook and a lot of companies are actually trying to get some of that talent back that they laid off 'cause they over-hired and then they overlaid off and now they're trying to get the boomerangs back. This is where Personio goes in and says, "Fuck those guys. You come work for us." Chad: Tech layoffs, sales layoffs, customer service layoffs, these brands who will have a national footprint, I think this is the perfect time, perfect time for Personio to come to the US 'cause there is so much fucking amazing talent that just got chopped for no fucking reason. And guess what, kids? You're gonna have a great German company. I think this will be probably one of the best invasion stories we're going to see from Personio. S?: Alright, alright, alright. Joel: Look, I think we should pat ourselves on the back a little bit. We kind of called this Personio, HiBob, job and talent growth coming to America influence. I think we should pat ourselves on the back a little bit for calling that. But look, while we talk about oyster on the weekly podcast as well, Chad, some of the bigger unicorns in the US are, if not floundering, challenged to say the least. So to see this story by Personio, to talk about HiBob on the weekly show, some of these European countries across the pond are really crushing it and I think it's a ton of fun to look at. I know quite a few, and I think Chad, you do as well, people in the industry that are looking for new opportunities. Either they're unhappy with what they're currently doing or they've been laid off, or they're at threat of being laid off. Joel: Take a look at these companies. They're hiring, they're looking to grow and they're clearly doing something right on many, many fronts. My question is, if they're gonna go IPO, come on, man. One of you guys buy Monster or CareerBuilder, or just do it. Just one of you guys... Chad: Don't do it. Joel: The Germans at Personio need to go down to Randstad... Chad: Don't do it. Joel: They need to write a check... Chad: Don't do it. Joel: And get Monster. 'Cause they're a sourcing tool. They could do sourcing, Monster, the whole thing, dude, and go public with Monster in the portfolio. Come on. Come on, do it. Give it to me, Personio. Chad: Don't do it. Joel: Give it to me. Come on. Chad: Don't do it. Joel: Please. [laughter] Lieven: The only reason why I would not buy Personio is if they bought Monster. Come on. Seriously. [laughter] Chad: I'm with you... Lieven: Who would be... Okay, I'm not supposed to be talking about Monster now. We're talking about Personio. But I think in this case, the Germans... SFX: Just the tip. Lieven: Are right to take a shot at America. Someone has to tell you how it's supposed to be done. And I like that their website, they offer 50%, how do you say it, discount to nonprofit organizations. So that's so, so nice of them. So it's a buy. And also because they're going for an IPO and I think that's where the big money is. So if you buy now, then we could make something more. Chad: So do you think in 2024, we're gonna see some successful IPOs in this space? In our space? Lieven: StepStone has been announcing their IPO in 2022 and still fine. I didn't hear anything about it anymore, but they were supposed to go IPO in 2023. I can imagine the market isn't exactly right now, but if the situation in Ukraine is stabilizing, then suddenly there will be lots of interest for IPOs, I'm sure. And the market is ready. There's so much money. But people are a bit... They have cold feet about investing it right now. So it's just becoming more and more money and it needs to find a way. IPO is a big idea. But we'll see. We'll see. I go for Personio. Joel: Well, the podcast where there are never cold feet, that is The Chad and Cheese Podcast's Europe. That's another one in the can, boys. Fun as always. We out. Chad: We out. Lieven: We out. [music] Lieven: I didn't get a call from one candy, not one. [laughter] Chad: No, no call from a candy? Lieven: No candy at all. No. [laughter] Lieven: I mean, candy, candy, candy, I can't let you go. I mean, if I don't have a candy, I can't let her go. Oh, well. Joel: We out. Lieven: We out. [laughter] OUTRO: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the The Chad and Cheese Podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast-forward it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

The news this week is hot. In fact, in the time it took to write that sentence, the news got a little hotter. We're talkin' picket lines, Josh Bersin trash-talkin', LinkedIn is your new crazy uncle NOT. We're talkin' Amazon is droppin' billions to invest in generative AI companies, job boards are bailin' on ChapGPT job searchin', Getty Images sealin' its content from AI hot. And we're talkin' NFL stars goin' into porn after football HOT! Someone get us a cold beer and a fire extinguisher!!! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: 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 yeah... Nachos and lemon heads on my dad's boat. Hey kids, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host, Joel Brennan Cheesman. Chad: And this is Chad Mambo Number Five Sowash. Joel: And on this week's show, job boards have a prompt problem, employers have a Big Brother complex, and LinkedIn has a weirdness issue. Let's do this. Alright dude, you and Berson. Chad: What? Joel: What the hell? Chad: I just had the challenge his bullshit. Okay, so after last week's show, a listener forwarded me a tweet from Josh Berson's Twitter account, and Berson's messaging was totally anti-union and anti-worker, so I took a screenshot, posted it on LinkedIn with a few choice words and I got a shit ton of activity on the DM side, which I thought was incredibly weird, and Josh even DMed me. He said he would love to hear more about the UAW wage issue. And then he points to two articles in The Atlantic that he's using for a base of reference, not data points, no BLS, not wage calculators, but a couple of fucking articles. So anyway, I was like... And then he asked me where I got mine from, I'm like, Dude, give me a fucking break. You're a global analyst, BLS data, wage calculators, there are tons of data sourced, well sourced data that's out there, I'm not your fucking research assistant. Okay, anyways then, no shit, I get a DM from another listener who asked me if I had heard his last, Josh Berson's last Podcast episode, which totally trashes the UAW. Joel: He's got a podcast? Chad: Yeah, apparently, apparently. Ramblings of a crazy man. Anyway, I hadn't... So I listened to it and I had to listen to it three times because it was surreal. We have a global industry analyst that sounds like a drunken uncle on Thanksgiving Day. I mean, nothing but lazy nebulous mentions and babblings about nothing. Then I'm just sitting here, I'm absorbing this, I'm not saying anything, I'm just absorbing it. Then I get a... And then I get tagged in a LinkedIn post by Dr. Jim, which outlined and somewhat trashed the very same podcast episode I was just talking about from Josh Berson, and let's go ahead and paraphrase Dr. Jim's post. SFX: What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have I've ever heard, at no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought, everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. Chad: And I listened to it three times, so therefore, my head was spinning, so I've gotta push myself away, but that was it, man. I mean, it's just... You've got these industry leaders who say stuff, they have a pulpit, they have things to say, I totally get that, and I understand that, but don't come with this fucking weak sauce if you're going to have data, which you should have shit tons of. Chad: Not your own data, because you just manufacture that shit, I'm talking about things that real research firms do have... Take a look at that, BLS source data, that kind of thing, wage calculators, MIT, Harvard Business Review, that kind of stuff, right? Use that and then start to create a narrative around that and then we can have a discussion, but just the crazy ramblings, I just... I don't have time for it. We're podcasters, we're supposed to crazy ramble, right, but we come with the fucking data, I mean, I just don't expect that from guys of his "caliber." Joel: And doesn't he have staff to find out some of the stuff for him anyway? Chad: I think he's got research assistants. Most people write the shit for him for God sakes, I mean, which I get. Joel: PhD students and shit working for him, I don't know. Chad: Yeah. No fucking clue dude. Joel: Everybody, this is Chad like when he's been in America for too long, and it's time to get his ass back to Europe, like Chad is at ultimate saltiness right now, everyone stay clear of pissing chad off 'cause this is what you're gonna get, you're gonna get, you're gonna get the salt. Chad: And I wasn't mad, I just... It's unnerving, man. And then all of these people, this is the thing that drives me the most crazy people that are afraid to actually speak truth to power... Joel: Chad my mother, my mother always said the clothes don't get clean without the agitator, and you and me, my friend, are a couple of agitators, but the clothes won't get clean otherwise. You know what I'm saying? Chad: They won't. SFX: Shoutout. Joel: Alright, Jeez. We've spent a lot of time on that. I gotta shoutout the US News and World Report, remember that magazine? I'm sure you subscribed to it back in 2002. Chad: When I was 10. Joel: Anyway, they're still around, and they just published their best HR software of 2023 report, here's how it broke down for solutions that our audience cares about... Alright, best overall, technology goes to Rippling, the best budget goes to Deal... The best deal is a at Deal, if you know, I'm saying Chad. Best for small businesses goes to Gusto. Best for remote teams, ConnecTeam, best recruitment and application tracking goes to Workable, maybe Gem will win it next year as they're launching an ATS here pretty soon, but that is my first shoutout. One, the US News and World Report is still around, so shoutout to them, and secondly to all the winners of their the illustrious best software tools in HR for 2023. Chad: The worst. SFX: Just the a tip. Chad: US News and World Report has come out with a list, that's saying something. Chad: Alright, shoutout to bad presentation titles, companies still can't understand why viewers don't show up to webinars and or their presentations at in-person events. Here's one key factor, your title sucks. So this week's winner of The worst presentation title goes to drum roll, please... Employ. That's right, Employ with their "Augmenting AI and Automation with Human Ability: Striking the balance in your hiring approach." A horrible God-forsaken title. This week's winner is Employ. Now, you might say be saying to yourself, How can I take such a horribly rambling title and make it better... How can I do that Chad? That's a very good question. That's the exact same question I asked three of my new AI buddies, here's their best shot at these titles, ChatGPT answered with "Balancing AI and Human Skills in Hiring." Nice, concise. Our friend Bard's top answer was "Human-centered: Iring in the age of AI." Joel: Oh, I like that too. Chad: Yeah. I do like that one. And our new friend Claude, who were gonna talk about later in the show, came up with "Human-centered Hiring in The Age of AI." It's the exact same thing is ChatGPT. The only difference is they went with human ability instead of human skills, so people, if you're gonna talk about using AI, especially if you're gonna do a fucking presentation about it, use AI, make your shit better at least give yourself some options. Joel: Keep it tight. SFX: Just the tip. Joel: Alright, by the way this goes for conference titles for presentations and discussions. Chad: Yes, Oh, my God! Joel: Because you and I as the disruption stage MCs, have thrown many titles back to people and say, fix this shit 'cause it's not gonna work. Chad: This is bad. Joel: No one's gonna come to this thing and that... Chad: And don't get mad at me if they don't. Joel: Exactly, exactly. And if you pay money, take extra time to make sure that it's a title that someone might actually... Chad: Come on. Joel: Might actually come to. Think of it as clickbait. What would make people wanna come? Click find out more, and go from there. Well, my shoutout and this will end our shoutout goes out to dress codes, gag and looking at me, you know I'm one to adhere to the dress code. Chad: I can see. I can see. Joel: But the senate unanimously passed a resolution to reinstate the formal dress code requiring senators to wear business attire on the floor. This comes after Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, told members that he was relaxing the Senate floor's dress code, leading to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman to embrace his trademark shorts and hoodie uniform within the halls of Congress. Formality does have a place in this world, Chad and both parties can agree that the Halls of Congress is such a place, shutout from me to dress codes. Chad: That escalated quickly. Chad: There are reasons for dress codes, don't get me wrong, but I think one of the things, especially in politics today, is that we are so divided and we feel like obviously, the politicians are in an ivory tower. You take a look at a guy like John Fetterman, you don't think that, especially when he's in a hoodie, and it's almost like throwback to the Zuckerberg days, right? When you're just a developer. And that's who he was, and that's who he was gonna be... In this case, you know. Yes, if there is a uniform, you definitely have to go buy a uniform, if you're in the military, you've got a uniform... If you're working for Cintas, you have a uniform. There are uniforms. There's no question. The big question for me is, what do we do? If it's dress, it can't just be dress, but I think around being able to seem more like a normal human being because politicians don't... They don't, and you know what they could be doing? They could be going to chadcheese.com/free, registering for a free T-shirt and wearing that on the Senate floor. Joel: Now that's something all parties can get behind Chad. Chad: I kow. Yes, and JobGet would love it, obviously, because they're the sponsor of the t-shirts, plus these guys love alcohol, so they can get free beer from Aspen Tech Labs. That'd be awesome. Whiskey, two bottles of whiskey from Textkernel and if it's your birthday, which it is this week for a very big name that we know we'll get there soon, I'm not gonna spoil it Joel, Rum with Plum. You could can win Rum with Plum. SFX: Can you feel the tension here right now. I know I can. I can feel it all the way down to my plums. Joel: By the way, Chad, speaking of dress codes, I may or may not be wearing pants on this week's show. Chad: I did not need to know that. Joel: I'll let you use your imagination for that. Chad: I did not need to know that. Joel: That's right, folks. Another trip around the sun for some of our biggest fans, shoutout goes to Kevin Grossman, Ling Wu. Chuck Geonadi. Liam Mcguire, Brett Farmallow, Gavin lamb, Andrea Darla, Karl Cruck, our European brother in podcasting, House of HR's Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze. And last but not least, Chad, Stella Cheesman celebrates her birthday this week. My daughter is celebrating 14 years on planet Earth as my daughter. SFX: Happy birthday! Chad: You forgot Google turned 25 yesterday. Joel: Yeah, you posted that. You posted that. Some good screenshots from back in the day, do you remember when you first used Google? Chad: I do, and I also remember my executive director asking me, "What the fuck is a Google?" That was funny. "Why are you spending so much time on Google?" Like because it's the fucking shit anyway, anyway, anyway if you wanna take a look at new and cool tech, well, we've got events to talk about. First off, I wanna talk about one past event, Shoutout to Gem for having us at their virtual talent summit, where we discussed embracing the AI shift, the evolution of TA with Dr. Mona Sloane, she's amazing. EEOC, Commissioner Sonderling, love that guy. And on the day of the event, we had 2300 people watch the discussion for an average of 43 minutes. It was a 53-minute long presentation, 40... That just blew my mind. Joel: That's good. Chad: So needless to say, there is an amazing appetite for the topic of AI, you can go to the Gem website and watch it today or wait, and we will be dropping it in probably about 30 days or so on our YouTube channel. Joel: Then wait a minute, Boats 'n Hoes is in Vegas, baby. We've got HR Tech in Vegas, we're gonna be hanging out at the Fuel50 booth at the expo hall. Come visit us, bring a six-pack, some snacks, get a selfie, maybe get yourself a t-shirt and you know take a selfie with our dumb asses then... Oh my God, we're gonna go to Unleash World in Paris. We're gonna be in the Textkernel booth on day one, stop by. SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright. Chad: I think Joel is arranging a wine and cheese plate, if I could get a Charcuterie board, Joel, that would be amazing. Then I'm gonna be chilling like a villain in the Algarve until early December when I head off to London... That's London, England kids, not London, Ohio for TA tech Europe. So if you're in the UK, hell, if you're in Europe, hop on a plane train or the tube, and come and see me at TA tech Europe, see it, say it sorted at chadcheese.com/events, register. Joel: To London, see a far more relaxed and happy Chad Sowash in Europe... Joel: Alright, now let's talk about fantasy football, although it hurts my heart to talk about the leader board this week after losing a humiliating week to you. Thanks for playing Joe Burrow, I appreciate that. Chad: Gotcha! Joel: Could have set out, but he didn't. Alright, here's your leaderboard. As you all know, fantasy Football is sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix. Number one for the week goes to Marcy playground Mall. Number two is Smoking Joe Dickson followed by Michelle Despicable Mehan. And number four, Brent muss-burger lossy. Chad making strides to number five at Chad fucking Keenan Allen Sowash. Joel: Dean O'spot Osner. Number six, Seven, funky cold Medina Peril.Number eight, Gill went up a hill Patterson. Number Nine, from out of the seller, Jasper the friendly ghost Panjart. Number 10, Kristen Kringel Arburn, number 11, Joel rope-a-dope Cheesman. That's right, I'm just lolling everyone to sleep before I make my move, and Number 12 again, Dennis, it's getting comfortable down here, Topper. Round out. Chad: Michelle Sergeant. That's the second week in a row you got her name wrong, Michelle Sergeant. Joel: What did I say? Chad: Not Mehan... She's our other friend over at Plum, but... No, it's Michelle Sergeant. Sorry about that, Michelle, I got you. Joel: Well, what kind of Nickname am I gonna do for that? Okay. We'll come back next week for that... Sorry, sorry, clearly I need a break in Europe as well. Chad: Yes, you do. Topics. Joel: Alright, Chad, let's have a little UAW strike update or just strikes in general, seem to be spreading around the world. A few updates here, and we can comment Biden became the first sitting president to join an auto workers strike. Trump spoke to a non-union auto factory, Shawn Fain, the UAW boss hates Trump, but isn't yet endorsing Biden. By the time you hear this, the strike as likely expanded to other cities, there are probably... Or there are more layoffs, and there probably will be more as time goes by. Tesla shareholders are apparently a little nervous, the stock is down 7% in the last week as shareholders are fearful that Tesla workers will get a little squirrely and unionize on their own, and the Hollywood strike is over. That might be air quotes, and Vegas service workers that's in Las Vegas are striking, although details are a little sparse at the moment, just in time for us to go to Vegas, that could be a lot of fun if all the service workers are striking in Las Vegas. Chad: Not cool. Joel: Chad, any thoughts on all the striking going down... Chad: Yeah, I think so SAG-AFTRA, everybody was predicting that this was just going to drag out until everybody ran out of money, it didn't happen because I think the big names were lulled to sleep in thinking that they had enough content to wait this out, and then they look behind them and thought, Holy shit, Netflix is pulling all of this content from all over the world, it wasn't US content, but it was great content, and they have a pipeline and we don't have a pipeline. Fuck, so they got out flanked to some extent, but I think this is a nice plank indicator for unions. Chad: This is we still need a collective voice, and when you see a lot of these companies, when they're talking about the union, they're trying to break unions up, so that you don't have that power, that total consolidated one voice, hundreds thousands of people in one voice kind of power, they don't want that they wanna be dealing with you one by one in their office, so... It's interesting, I think it's incredibly interesting that last week you said that Shawn Fain was playing a political card, well, if he was, he laid all that shit down on the deck because Biden was there, Trump wanted to be there and he told him to fuck off. Joel: If I were him, I would have kept Trump at least in the purview of saying, Hey, whichever one of you idiots can get us the deal that we want, at least put it out there that we're gonna be supporting you as president in the next election. He's basically taken Trump off the table. Trump talking to a non-union shop... I don't even know what to think about. It was like the signs that people are holding up or like pro-union, It was just really weird. Chad: And nobody was in the union in... Joel: No no. Chad: No. Yeah. Joel: That was just weird. That was all optics. I don't even know what to think about that. But he's clearly put his cards with Biden, maybe Biden has told him, Hey, look, we're gonna get this done. I'm gonna get your folks what they need. And if Biden can do that, I think he's the next president. Because I do still think that the auto workers, particularly in the States where they operate Michigan in particular, are swing states, to put whoever gets them what they want into the White House. So hopefully Biden has what he wants. Biden was there for like, not a long time. There wasn't a lot of Q&A. It was like, show up, get photos, sound, say your sound bites, and get the hell out of town. The real pudding will be in that is if this deal gets done if Biden hopefully is behind the scenes working with this, the car makers and the union, like how do we get this done and promising things in the future. Joel: Really interesting that Tesla is concerned about unionization. They've, I think, strategically gone to states where unions are not really welcome. We'll see what happens there. Those are mostly right to work states, so you don't have to join a union as I understand it. So we'll see what happens. But if union workers see the big three get, $20 more an hour, there's gonna be a little bit of pushback on that. Ultimately, automation is gonna take a lot of this stuff, which I think is, this is the time to move, on more funds. Automation is gonna continue to happen. Offshoring or Nearshoring to Mexico is gonna continue to happen. So right now is the time for the auto workers to get what's theirs. They've been fucked over and since we've been alive. Chad and good on them I hope that they do that without bankrupting the auto companies, which... Chad: They're at fucking record profits dude, that's so much bullshit. Bankrupting the fucking... Joel: We'll see, companies go out of business. I don't know. I don't think it'll be the workers though. It'll be Tesla that does Tesla and Toyota. The Vegas thing is gonna be interesting. I can't imagine Vegas if this, all the service workers go on strike. It's gonna be a meltdown, in Vegas if something like that happens. So we'll be watching that as well. Overall labor's having a moment. Whether it's UPS getting what they want, some are when it, you need leverage to get what you want some are like head fakes. I think the Google tech unionization has been sort of a dud. We talked about grinder workers getting unionized and we'll see what happens there. But union is unionization and unions are having a moment. It's fun to talk about some with leverage are winning others not so much, but they definitely are thinking that we need to get ours 'cause we've been getting effed over with inflation rising and everything else going on. We need to get paid. And this is a reaction to all that stuff. Chad: And UPS in a very smart way, got their people back to work because why? What, time of the year is it Joel? Joel: Christmas. The holidays, packages. Yep, yep and we continue to talk about companies hiring. I know Dick's sporting goods, dicks.com, one of your favorite sites Chad, you gotta go out there for that. And, yeah. Companies are announcing a lot of seasonal hiring, so that's all great. Also, a lot of generative AI news out there, Chad, which we wanna talk about. Some bumps in the AI road this week. However Amazon, who is mass hiring, who should also be able to develop some homegrown AI is investing $4 billion in AI firm Anthropic to compete in the AI industry and enhance generative AI for its online platform, amazon.com. Chad, what are your thoughts on Amazon's big bet on Anthropic? Chad: So Open AI plus Microsoft, they have ChatGPT, Google has Bard, and now Anthropic plus Amazon, they have Claude. Who the fuck is naming these chatbots? There's no way in hell that marketing had anything to do with the naming. And when Bard is the best name of them all. Joel: It might be Employ based on their webinar titles, they might be the ones naming all these AIs. Chad: That's a very good point anyway, anyway, anyway. I guess they aren't sweating the small naming stuff because the big stuff, this was inevitable as Cloud providers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon will make loads of cash offering companies currently using their Cloud infrastructure to easily adopt generative AI. Amazon doesn't want a huge client leaving AWS for Google Cloud because Google can provide a shit hot product that Amazon can't. So Claude was already available in AWS before this, but this cements Anthropic's focus on their new sugar daddy, Amazon. So that's the enterprise side of the house. On the transactional side of the house you know, Google and Amazon wanna drive more purchases through their platform, and generative AI can help with better shopping or recommendations and results. It's all about getting that stuff that people are yearning for in front of them so that they spend the dollar. So it will be interesting to see how Facebook and Elon Musk compete with these gigantic organizations. Joel: 4 billion is no joke. That's a lot of money. I don't know the terms of the deal, but certainly they're getting in bed with Anthropic in a big way. I think where the benefit to Amazon comes from is that Claude says it ensures speedy and friendly resolution to customer service request saving costs, and increasing customer satisfaction. So if you look at something that Amazon needs and can get better at, it's that customer service piece. And by the way, this could help eliminate some human beings from the customer service department, which obviously saves Amazon a ton of money. Amazon also has to worry about Shopify, a lot of retailers and people who just sort of sell Etsy type sellers are looking at their own stores. Shopify's having a moment. Amazon wants to keep those folks on their platform. Joel: This is a way to sort of help them do that if they can create their own customer service product for their store owners, that's obviously a big plus. And if they keep it out of the hands of Shopify, they stick it to a competitor in the process. So to me, it makes sense. Hopefully eventually, if there is an acquisition, they're gonna get the talent that's add Anthropic and add extra value. The AWS play, I think is really interesting as well. How much does this play into that product? I know there's some talk about spinning off AWS from the Amazon platform. Does Anthropic become an arm of AWS and AI solutions that you can plug in, your business into that? Joel: So I think it's a pretty smart buy, time will tell. It's a lot of money but it is certainly where things are going so thumbs up for me at least on Amazon's move into AI. Amazon is not the only one though Chad, that's having a moment with generative AI. On the job search front, an industry vendor alerted us to the fact that his site has temporarily scrapped their ChatGPT like job search because it "wasn't producing the results that users needed in." Chad, your thoughts on this impact on the job board industry? Chad: I appreciate the attempt, but you have to remember that AI is like a puppy. It's gonna shit on the carpet until it's trained not to. So you're going to get shitty search results right out of the gate. But if you want to see something that's actually working, Google is augmenting their traditional search with generative AI, not making it one option. Right. Just being able to add it as a part of the experience. Then you take a look at Google's Bard, which is now in Gmail, Drive, docs calendar, etcetera. That product is going to be shit for about six months while it trains. So vendors and users, remember AI is like a puppy. Feed it, clean up after it, just keep training it and don't give up. That's you can't expect out of the gate that generative AI is going to be shit hot. It's gonna take some time kids. Joel: I think you're saying it's not 100% Chad. SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Chad: If you're lucky, 60% of the time. Joel: Yeah. In addition to that, you know, I don't know, I didn't do a search with their solution. I can kind of visualize what it looked like, in addition to the results and what you're gonna get back. You know, people don't like change and we've spent 25 years training them on what a job board is supposed to do. You're supposed to put in a search, query a location, click go and see results. You mentioned Google earlier in the show, and you and I are old enough to remember when Google first came out, the brilliance of Google was that it wasn't Yahoo, it wasn't a bunch of links, a bunch of banner ads, a bunch of flashing lights with the job search box being kind of hidden with everything else you went to Google it was Google and a box and search, or I feel lucky. Chad: I feel lucky came later. Joel: Yeah. Even later. Right. Depending how far you go back. But they knew that no one has any idea what this is. We need to make it as simple as possible. They only have one thing to do. Type something in and go search and job boards have spent 25 years training people on this is what you do on a job search site. If you throw some ChatGPT stuff at them, they're gonna be a little bit freaked out and confused and it's not like they don't have other options. They can just click the back button on Google and go to the next site in the search results. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So if you're gonna like retrain job seekers, redo your site in terms of what that all looks like, you have to tread real lightly on what's going on and ease into it Chad, you know, don't get laid on the first date. Buy your visitors a drink or two to get them acclimated to what's going on. I think it's probably the future where this is going or just, we're gonna do the search for you, like put in sales and we're gonna Chat-GPT this thing and kind of do it for you. But don't freak people out. It's just too much too soon for a lot of them. Chad: Give them what they're used to, but then give them a little advance copy and that's exactly what Google if you're using the Google Labs version of the Google search, you'll see that, the bar generative AI is already in the search. But it doesn't change your experience, it just adds to the experience. Joel: And for listeners of the show, you know this is the time where we take a break to hear from our sponsors, and please listen to the ads because there is no show without them. We'll be right back. Joel: All right, Chad, let's talk images. And you know what I'm talking about. Chad: I do. Joel: Getty. Getty Images is partnering with NVIDIA, or NVIDIA, sorry, two launch generative AI allowing users to create images using Getty's vast licensed photo library with full copyright protection. The tool is based on NVIDIA 's edify model and can generate realistic human figures, but has limitations on certain image types and real world names. Generated images won't be added to Getty's libraries and creators will be compensated if their AI generated images are used for training. The tool is available separately from standard Getty images subscriptions with pricing based on prompt volume. Chad, your thoughts on the latest move by Getty Images? Chad: Yes. Acquisition, acquisition, acquisition. That will be the path for many of these companies to drive the next generation of their business. Why? Because Getty is using their massive database of art and photos of which they own and or they share with obviously licenses and using AI to generate variations of those works. But the models only train off of what Getty currently owns. Chad: So if Getty has a bigger database of content through acquisition of companies like Shutterstock, Paxels, iStock, and others, the ability to create better and more variants go through the fucking roof. So this is a model for the next generation. Access more data, build bigger databases for models to train off of and continue adding content/data to those models. Could be pictures, libraries of books, film scripts, and the possibilities just keep coming. So it's exciting to see, but it's also alarming because the companies with the most money will have the best computing power. Chad: Like you said, NVIDIA, it costs $40,000 to get one of NVIDIA's newest GPU chips, right? And most of those we saw and we reported on a few weeks ago, are going to the big players, the fangs, right? So if you're a little guy, it's gonna be incredibly hard to break through. You're not gonna have the computing power, you're not gonna have the money for acquisition unless you're in a niche domain like some of the vendors in our space, and you've already been training models for years and you've been training and you have data that's automatically flowing into your system from candidates, from employers, etcetera, etcetera. So it depends. But in some of these models, it's gonna be incredibly hard for smaller organizations to compete. Joel: Yeah. I would say the number of organizations that have the money to create these models is very limited. The rule of law is what's going to come into play for all these cases. We talked about the New York Times, walling off their content there's a lawsuit, I think this week from a lot of authors, that are popular, that have basically sued OpenAI in any kind of generative AI from taking the content of their books and basically coming to a point where they could rewrite new books by Michael Crichton in his voice. Create entirely new works based on what he's already done. And he's not even involved. Images is another one. Dolly is OpenAI's image producer. If Getty starts lose, if you can just make an image of Tom Cruise on a plane, [laughter] you don't need to go to Getty Images or any other photo app. Joel: So I don't think they have the money to create their own. I think this is a lot of head fake to say, look, we're building this ourselves. We're walling things off when in their back of their minds, they know the chances of them winning a court case or winning the court case that says OpenAI has to pay and this all goes back to the fair use laws that are in place that basically say you can take a snippet of something. You can't take the entire thing OpenAI thinks they can. We'll see what the law thinks. We talk about Google on this show, when you search Google the number of characters that you see in a search result if they go past that, they start treading the line, of violating fair use laws. So there's gonna be a court case probably next year that says, no OpenAI they can't do this without compensating, which is probably where it's going. Joel: And then they're gonna have to figure out a model where everyone gets paid. Just like music and everything else. And everybody will be happy but until then, I think these companies are saying, how do we close this off? How do we scare OpenAI to get what we want? But ultimately it's gonna come to the courts and how they resolve this is gonna be judiciously not opening up the bank accounts and the wallets to create their own stuff 'cause they don't have the pockets to do that. Let alone authors, people like you and me with a podcast if we're gonna train AI, do we get paid? Should we get paid? And how much we get paid is what's gonna come down to, I think. Chad: Exactly. And then we just saw news that Spotify is going to do what Chad and Cheese have been doing for months. They're going to clone voices and they're gonna start flipping those English and or other languages into additional foreign languages. I mean, you know, again we were first to do this shit but, you know, Spotify's gonna make it easier. Joel: Such pioneers. Chad: If NVIDIA is pushing cash their way, they've got the AI operating system on top of those GPUs. I mean, there's a good opportunity that's there. The big question is, is there going to be, let's say, for instance, an acquisition of Getty by somebody like NVIDIA or Google or what have you, to be able to train their models? 'Cause Google and Gemini AI is multimodal. So that's the next big step. Not just text, but being able to get into like a mid journey kind of scenario or Dahlia kind of scenario. Joel: I think the tech companies are gonna pay. Chad: I agree. Joel: Whether they like to get away with it or not. All right. Let's go to, another company that may have to pay or should be paying, LinkedIn. Chad: Yes. Joel: A story from Business Insider entitled, "It's not just you. LinkedIn has gotten really weird," caught our attention this week, though. Traditionally a platform for professional networking and job related content, LinkedIn has seen a surge in personal training, personal sharing, and unconventional posts in recent years. The author says the shift towards personal sharing on LinkedIn can be attributed to evolving social norms, the blurring of work-life boundaries during the pandemic, and a generational shift among younger users who are more open about sharing their personal lives with colleagues. However, the trend has also sparked debates about what is considered professional behavior with some users pushing the boundaries of what is appropriate to share on a professional network." Chad, is LinkedIn getting too weird for your tastes? Chad: So a question for you, because you believe in kinda like the buttoned up, pieces of the world, like the Senate and making sure that John Fetterman wears a suit. What do you think about this? Because you've been on plenty of different social platforms, what do you think? Joel: So I think in the early days of LinkedIn, it was sort of considered buttoned up. It was work only things that were relevant to work, right? Keep your social stuff on Facebook and now there's other things that you can put fun things on. I think what really changed that, I don't think it's as much the pandemic or younger people getting on LinkedIn. In my opinion when Facebook and TikTok became algorithmic, became here's stuff for you that isn't necessarily stuff that you signed up for, but we're gonna serve it to you because we know your behavior. We know you like World War II history. We know you like big booty Latinas. We know you like bug fights. Like, so these, the social networks that just be, that used to be, Hey, what's Chad doing? Hey, what's my sister doing? Joel: Hey, what's my dad up? Like that sort of out the window. I get very little content about, what I wanna see in people who I follow. So the default for that now is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is now, oh what are people that I hang out at conferences or follow up companies? What are they doing? And it's less about share an article from the Economist and more about what's going on. I think that work has become more social. I think LinkedIn has become the place because there's nowhere else to go for sort of, here's just people you follow and what they're doing or companies that you follow. The minute that LinkedIn becomes, "Hey, we're just gonna serve you stuff that we think that you like based on your preferences," then, where do you go? I don't know, maybe like just little networks or groups. Joel: But I think it has more to do with just, we have nowhere else to go, that we can decide what we look at and see than LinkedIn. I'm all for it. I'm all like, I'm here, you know, you and me on this podcast. We don't have bosses. We are who we are. And we bring that to LinkedIn and people like that authenticity, they like that, that we are who we are. And I think that that is really what's coming out on LinkedIn. I don't think it's weird at all. Joel: Now, the creepy stuff with dudes hitting on women and you know, that stuff is probably way out of bounds and shouldn't be happening no matter what. But just the typical, "Hey, what are you doing with your kids?" Or what's, you're on holiday? Like, I don't, that doesn't matter I'm cool with that because these work people are friends and I wanna see what they're doing on a personal level. It's like, Joe Shaker always says, make a friend, make a deal. [laughter] You can make friends a lot easier and make deals a lot easier in that way if you're yourself on LinkedIn and not some buttoned up caricature of what you think people wanna see. Chad: It comes down to, especially in LinkedIn or any social media, you can de-friend anybody, you can hide some content in some social platforms. It's not like this guy was trying to spread propaganda to fix an election or anything. I mean this isn't Cambridge Analytica? If you don't agree, comment and start a conversation. If it's a troll, unfriend them. Too much thought and effort is taken by people who don't work at LinkedIn on the subject. Let LinkedIn worry about this kind of shit. Right. Their user, their usage. Chad: Not to mention, you take a look at a lot of people who actually left Twitter because they didn't like what it was turning into, maybe they didn't wanna pay. Maybe they didn't like Elon Shenanigans. Well, they need an outlet to be able to do these things. They're familiar with LinkedIn. Right. So I think for us, it's fairly simple. Just be who you are and allow other people to be who they are. And you know, if you disagree or you'd like to challenge people, do that there's nothing wrong with that. But also be ready to be de-friended and that's all good. Joel: Yeah. I think what you and I don't appreciate is, you know, people who do have a job, people who do have a boss, people who do have a brand that they represent and there's a line that they can't cross or don't think that they can cross. The good news is more and more companies are letting people be themselves and they realize that that is a good thing. Like, that's okay. People aren't gonna launch bombs and grenades online. They're just gonna be people. And that's what your company's made up of. So I think as companies get more used to it, people are getting more used to it. Joel: And articles like this are being written because people are letting their hair down and be who they are. But there is a limit of being who you are Chad and our friend Tyreek Hill is treading on that line. We'll talk about him right after the break. Joel: That's right Chad. Some of us wanna retire to Portugal, many of us may never retire, but one NFL wide receiver has a unique perspective on life after football. Miami Dolphins wide receiver, Tyreek Hill, recently surprised fans by revealing his desire to pursue a career in the adult film industry after retiring from football. During a Twitch stream with fellow NFL player, Mike Evans, Hill expressed his aspiration to become a porn star and asked Evans for his opinion. Evans seemed unsure how to respond to Hill's statement. Something tells me you might have a response Chad. Chad: So I watched the video of all of this happening, like the Twitch video. And I really thought at first that Hill was fucking with Evans. Evans didn't know what to say. I mean, he was like really taken aback. He was like, I mean there was this long really uncomfortable pause and Hill was like, what? You don't think so? I mean, come on. So I almost think that he was fucking with him. But, you know, at the end of the day, allow Tyreek Hill to do Tyreek Hill, much like we're talking about on LinkedIn, you do you on LinkedIn. Okay. Tyreek Hill, you do you in life. Joel: Yep. Yep. I got two words. Two words Chad VR and AI. A day is coming where we can watch anyone famous or not do the dirty online with AI. And if you want the sensation of actually having sex with said person, there's going to be a VR headset with your name on it. The good news... Chad: So Creepy. Joel: Tyreek can go ahead and license his image for some virtual freaky dicky and hope the courts uphold that license. [laughter] Chad, I sense you and I will not have similar opportunities to license our image for such pleasantries. Did I mention that I may or may not be wearing pants for this episode? Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Intro: So creepy. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

The world seems to be balancing a lot of good news with the bad news these days. At least that’s an improvement from the days of COVID when it was all bad. Anyway, that same balance impacts the recruiting industry, and thus this episode. The good news: Amazon, Salesforce are hiring and companies like HiBob, Druid, Catalyte, Betterleap and others are raising new funds. The bad news: Google just laid-off hundreds of recruiters globally and Oyster, who’s raised $224 million is going through its second round of layoffs this year. Then the boys cover the UAW strike vs. the Big Three, ask whether we really need CEOs when there’s AI and wonder why Elon isn’t turning X (formerly Twitter) into an OnlyFans competitor. Even Rep. Lauren Boebert would approve. Enjoy. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for The Chad and Cheese podcast. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. You are listening to The Chad and Cheese Podcast. This is your co-host, Joel "Boebert" Cheeseman. Chad: Chad "earth, wind, and fire" Sowash. Joel: And on this week's show, big hiring sprees, big funding rounds, and Detroit's big three. Let's do this. Chad: Man, we got a primer to the day. We actually had a chance to speak to VMware's entire Talent Acquisition Department, which I thought was pretty fucking cool. Joel: I love the corporate gigs. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: I love 'em. They're so refreshing, the questions are great. It's like, the foot soldiers, engaging with them, what's on their mind? I could do a corporate gig Chad and Cheese every week. [laughter] Joel: I love 'em so much. I love 'em so much. Chad: It does kind of like get you all pumped up and all excited 'cause these are the people. These are the recruiters, these are the managers, these are obviously the VPs who drive the entire business. You cannot drive a business without talent. Without these people, you don't have talent. So thanks to Kent, Samantha and the team over at VMware for having us answer questions and do our Chad and Cheese thing, we had a blast. [applause] Joel: Yeah, love it. And there's never been more questions and certainly like, "What the hell's going on?" In the 25 years or so that I've doing this. So that's great. Did you see the Lauren Boebert Beetlejuice play footage? Chad: You mean handjob? Joel: Yeah. [chuckle] Chad: I mean, what! Joel: The handie and the vaping. Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: That was amazing. The vaping. Chad: So proud of our elected officials. Just so proud. Joel: So good. So good. Just for the kids out there, it's the people that protest the much... Protest the most that are the ones doing what they're protesting. So it's like the person that is like the big Bible belt, the Bible thumper, they're the one in chains and a gag getting whipped by S&M shit. It's the relationship like, I don't trust you. They're usually the one that should be not... Should be trusted less. Anyway, note for the kids, but I had a good time and if she ever wants to come on the show or come to a Chad and Cheese party like, [laughter] she's more than welcome. She can throw it down. She can throw down. That was a first date, Chad. Chad: Not surprising, dude. Just not [laughter] surprising. Yes, I'm gonna leave it at that. Joel: Oh my God. Oh my God. Well, are you recovered from Wreckfest? Chad: Somewhat. Somewhat. Had a blast. That was amazing and have to definitely say the Booze Cruise with Hackajob and then karaoke after where we both got on stage, not together but we both got on stage, it was a blast. And then we showed up the next day, and usually day two of a conference is it's like crickets. Because it's really hard to have somebody have a bunch of people go out drinking and then show up the next day, they had 80% plus return rate. Which I thought was ridiculous. Joel: That's pretty good. Chad: Yes. Good for them. Joel: That's pretty good. That's pretty good. And there wasn't even like a hangover station. Chad: There wasn't. Joel: Where people get IVs and get rehydrated. Chad: You know what? That can be a sponsored station next year. [laughter] Chad: Dude, if you've ever had an IV, oh, it just, it fixes things in a heartbeat. Joel: That would be a good sponsorship. And that would be noteworthy. That'd be social media gold, hanging at the hangover. Hangover. Okay. Chad: I have plenty of stories behind the IV, but we'll save that for later. SFX: Shoutout. Joel: We'll save that. We got a lot of stuff to do. Chad: Oh yes. We do. Joel: We got a lot going on this week. Chad: Let's push through. Yes. Joel: Let's go to shoutouts. Yeah. I'm gonna go first. Elon Musk. Chad: Oh Mike, really? Joel: Elon discussed plans for Twitter or now X during a live stream with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, boy that's a party, proposing a monthly fee to combat bots and sharing user metrics. The man who has disparaged transgender people, federal regulators, politicians, journalists, whistleblowers, critics of his companies, and short sellers told Netanyahu, "We can't do that if there's a lot of infighting and hatred and negativity," talking about being on social media. So Chad, are you ready to pay up for Elon's new? Chad: Nothing like killing the base even more than what it already is. His biggest problem is brand in and the problem with X right now is him. He needs to let Linda Yaccarino actually do her fucking job and he needs to go ahead and eject out and start focusing on rockets that aren't exploding in midair. Again, this is not an engineering problem, this is a people problem, and he is not a people person so he needs to eject because he's just killing this platform. It's horrible. [chuckle] Chad: It's horrible. Joel: I find it fascinating how it's been politicized. People are just losing their minds on social media. Twitter's really always been, for me, a marketing outlet. It's been a way for me to connect, tell people what I'm doing. And full disclosure, I do pay for Twitter. I don't have a problem with it. They verified my identity. Look, I think Elon's gonna... I'm along for the ride. I think Elon's gonna add stuff, it'll be interesting, there's metrics around it. But it's never been like a platform for me to be political or give my opinions, it's been a way to connect with people who follow me and give my opinions on stuff we're doing here on the show. But the way that it's been politicized and people get so fired up about this issue is pretty amusing to me. Chad: He's gonna politicize anything because he wants drama because that brings people. It's the Fox News Entertainment or any of the "news channel" entertainment way of drawing people in, and I got enough of that shit. I don't need it anymore, and you know what I'm not gonna do, I'm not gonna fucking pay for it, that's what's sure. But what I will do, hit it. [music] Chad: Is I will give a lot of love to my wife, Julie Sowash who today is our seventh anniversary. Yes, the 21st of September. And that's the day we met, or I shouldn't say the day we met, but that's the day when everything really started happening and we got married on that day as well. SFX: Alright, alright, alright. Chad: Happy Anniversary. Joel: Aww. My best to you guys. It warms my heart. Chad: The cockles of your heart, yes. Joel: To see pictures, it's just... Warms the cockles of my heart almost as much, Chad, as spicy nuggets. Alright, my shoutout goes to McDonald's. The goat of the McNugget kingdom is back at Nicky D's, [laughter] baby. You're probably unfamiliar with McDonald's spicy McNuggets 'cause you never go to McDonald's, but they were available about a year ago, and then they left. Well, they're back. They're back. Spicy nugs in buffalo sauce and maybe a pinch of ranch, and I'm in heaven, Chad. And the rumor has it, and I don't know how I feel about this, Canada's getting a leg up. SFX: Take off will you? We're doing a movie. [laughter] SFX: Don't wreck our show you hoser. Joel: Apparently Canada is getting the spicy nugs and a ghost pepper dipping sauce. Oh, Canada. Oh baby. Shoutout to the spicy McNuggets at McDonald's. Chad: Wow. That's weird. Well, one thing, you might have to pay for Twitter but you don't have to pay for free stuff at Chad and Cheese. That's right, you go to chadcheese.com/free, or just go to chadcheese.com, click on free in the upper right-hand corner, you're gonna get free t-shirt from JobGet. The possibility of winning free craft beer delivered to your front door from Aspen Tech Labs. Joel: We don't deliver this, Chad. We don't come to your door. Chad: UPS and those... They have air conditioning now so they can do that. Joel: Uber Eats. Chad: Whiskey, two bottles of whiskey. Not one, two bottles of whiskey from Textkernel, and then there's a little rum with Plum if it's your birthday, kids. Not to mention, did you see that Plum won a Stevie Award this week? Joel: And what's a Stevie Award, Chad? Chad: It's apparently this big award with... It's almost like the Oscars of town acquisition and technology. Rum with Plum baby, you get to win some rum, but you need some plums so go to plum.io, take your assessment, look internally, a little bit more about your self. Joel: I don't know if I wanna do that, Chad. Chad: Check it out. Joel: I don't know if I wanna do that. Chad: Yeah. And say unless you're Joel. [laughter] SFX: Really. Did you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down my plums. Joel: Alright. Well, you know that sound means. Birthdays, Chad. We have a lot of fans 'cause we skipped last week 'cause we were in Nashville, but celebrating another trip around the sun. This week is Jim Lowe, Randall Emery, Eli Carstens, Lucas Roscoe, Eva Zils, Betsy Chuck Norris, Robert Saint-Jacques, Karen Heatwole, Mitchell Palermo, Katie Gentry, John T. Mehan, Kevin Lowe. Whether or not he's related to Jim or Rob, I don't know. Sean Luciens, Valerie Doyle, Joe Serio, Wendy Dodge, Zac Martin, Kevin Planton, Kelly Robinson, Katrina Kibin, John Sumpter, Shannon Seery, Casey Dockendorff, the best employment lawyer in Canada, by the way, celebrating a birthday, and my girl, Boston girl, Allyson Holbrook all celebrate a birthday this week. Chad: Nice. SFX: Happy birthday. Joel: That's a lot of love going around. Lot of candles on that cake, lot of candles on that cake. Chad: Well, here's some love right here 'cause we got wrecked at Wreckfest. That's right, the shaker. I love this shirt, Calli and the marketing team actually came up with it. Joel: They had to twist Joe Shaker's arm to get such a feisty message, get wrecked. Like you had to... The brand of that slowly to. He probably hates... Chad: It's sexy. Joel: Watching the Bears get wrecked every Sunday, and it kinda got home to him probably. Chad: That hurts, that hurts. But our events are travel sponsored by our friends at the Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joel: That's right. Chad: Shaker.com. HR Tech's coming up, we're gonna be in booth 1125 and drinking, eating, wreaking havoc, and doing some interviews in the Fuel50 booth both days in the expo hall, thanks to the crew at Fuel50 for again, letting us crash at their place. I can't promise that Joe won't make a mess, although we're gonna be there no matter what. You've already agreed to it. Too late. Joel: Yeah, no promises. [laughter] No promises. Let's get into fantasy football, shall we? Chad: Yes. [music] Joel: Alright. Week two is in the books, we're heading into week three. Here's our leaderboard from Chad and Cheese Fantasy Football, sponsored by our friends at FactoryFix. Number one is Mercy Playground Mall, number two, Average Joe Dickson. By the way, Mercy got a D on her draft grade so she's doing pretty well. Number three is Dean Ragin Cajun Osner, number four Dina Pero for Paros. Number five, Brent I'm a Lucy baby. Number six, Chad So So Sowash. Chad: Yes. Joel: Number seven, Jill the Pounder Patterson. Number 8, Kristen The Warrior from Woonsocket Urban. Yeah, she's from Woonsocket, Connecticut, I think, wherever that... Maybe Delaware, anyway. Joel Stinky Cheeseman, 'cause I'm number nine, I'm not smelling real good. [laughter] Dennis, Dennis All-belt No Gas Tupper, who was last year's champion. And number 11, Jasper Hey I didn't sign up for this football Spenjar who had an A plus on his draft grade by the way, that is... Chad: Well, he was number one, A plus, and you had an A plus. Joel: I had an A plus too. Chad: And you're both at the bottom. Joel: Yes, yes. An A grade, you're not winning. An A plus grade, you're not winning. Chad: It's weird. Joel: Topics. Alright, we got a little bit of a... SFX: Play-offs. Chad: Layoffs. Joel: That's right. We got a big layoff. Oyster. Oysters raised $224 million per a CEO blog post this week. "The macro-economic environment has dramatically shifted creating headwinds for many businesses, including Oyster. These headwinds have dampened our growth expectations and radically changed the fundraising environment." They also had to lay off around about nine months ago, Chad. No word yet on the numbers of people that were affected by this. I'm curious of how their HR Tech booth will look. I'm guessing it might not be as impressive as maybe 8Fold's was. Chad: No. They paid for that a long time ago. HR Tech gets their money up front, you kidding me. [laughter] Joel: LinkedIn says they have 659 employees, which is kind of small for the Deels and the Remotes and those guys. So, yeah, Oyster, a big name, raised a lot of money. Another round of layoffs this year, shoutout. Not shoutout, but layoff update from Oyster. But there is hiring Chad, which brings us to our next story. We're done with layoffs. Chad: Give me the happy stuff. SFX: Playoffs. Joel: Alright, Amazon, your boys are hiring 250,000 employees for the holidays and making its largest ever annual investment in US hourly wages. The company will make a $1.3 billion investment this year to bring Amazon's average hourly pay to over $20.50 per hour across customer fulfillment and transportation in the US. Workers will also receive improved on-the-job safety training. But wait, there's more, Chad. Salesforce plans to hire over 3300 employees reversing previously layoffs driven by a focus on you guessed it, AI & machine learning integration into its services. Oh, and this just in, Chano Fernandez the former co-CEO of Workday, has found a new job as the co-CEO of Eightfold AI, that's beginning in January. Chad, what's your take on all this hiring news? Chad: Yeah, so Amazon is getting to be that time of year, go figure, they're going to be getting the hiring engines going. Oyster, macroeconomics, yes. Here's the thing, we all saw the sugar rush was happening. We all knew it was happening and we knew there would be a big fall off, so there's going to be some loss in staff. There's no question. But when you start, depending on the kind of percentages that you're talking about, we haven't seen, I don't believe many leave from Oyster. The Salesforce side of the house, so that's another big one. And they're looking for boomerangs, so you have to have a really good brand with your employees to after they quit to get them back. Right, the whole grass is greener scenario. The thing that bothers me the most about all of this is the new co-CEO at Eightfold. I mean, this guy is gonna make a ton of money for literally just re-shuffling deck chairs on the Eightfold Titanic. This guy isn't going to solve the current nebulous, what the actual fuck does Eightfold do, problem. Chad: I reached out to a bunch of industry experts, got some responses back. Here's the one I wanna share, "Eightfold's Talent Intelligence is a nice concept and story, but it's also our generation's HR tech snake oil. It's a mirage that's ripping off the industry by doing nothing that adds any real measurable value." That is pretty much what Eightfold has been since day one is a lot of talk and no walk. So this to me, co-CEOs, you're gonna spend more money on another CEO, what the fuck for? Joel: Overall, I love, I love this news. Amazon hiring a ton of people, Salesforce getting back people they laid off and realizing like, oh, maybe we over did it, maybe... Recession talk has cooled. Look, if you look at Google trends in terms of talk around recession, it spiked about a year ago, and it's gone down precipitously. Now, some people are still calling for it, and I think there is a level of recession some places and recession not in other places. We look at technology. I think talking to some vendors, that seemed to sort of bottom out in August and now it's gonna ramp up in the fall and into next year. Obviously the consumers are still buying things online, they're still looking for deals and keeping Amazon employees fat and happy. Healthcare continues to be huge money pouring into there, we'll get to the money in a little bit but in terms of some of this news, it's fantastic. Now, there was some bad news with Google talking about laying off hundreds of recruiters globally. I'm not sure how to exactly read into that, whether they're looking to automate all those positions. Joel: But look, some people it's the worst of times if you're in brick and mortar stuff, you're in some of the restaurants, cars, we'll talk about UAA or UAW in the car industry. But some industries are hurting, but others are doing really, really well and it depends on what side. The old adage is a recession is when your neighbor's out of a job and a depression is when you're out of a job. So it kind of depends on your perspective as to where you are on the fence, but overall, I love seeing the news of big hiring companies doing things like this. I think it bodes really well heading into the winter and into next year. I think we're gonna talk a lot more about big hires, particularly for technology companies who were the first to let everybody go and cut heads, I think. I'd love to see a lot more tech companies like Salesforce talk about AI machine learning, new products and features, and we're also talking a lot more about startups getting money, these are all really good things, and I think we've waited about six months for these kinds of stories to start percolating and they finally are. And I certainly applaud it. [applause] Chad: So news just came out, and I find this interesting because Amazon's getting ready to rev up their hiring engines. And news just came out that Walmart is going to start dropping their starting wages. So they boosted their starting wages, now they're gonna bring 'em back down. This is gonna be egg in their face because when they cannot find people to do the work that needs to get done... Joel: Yep. Chad: For them to make money because they're going to Amazon or they're going to all these other organizations because they didn't drop their starting wages, watch this one. Watch this one. Joel: Come on, Walmart. SFX: Boo. Chad: Dumb. Joel: See, that to me is, I think Amazon has done such a good job of delivering goods in a hours to days that people are being trained to, like, I just bought on Amazon, it's there that day or the next day. I mean, why my wife is an addict. Like she knows, oh, it's here. Like there's an alert on her app. Oh, it's here. Chad: Yeah. Joel: The idea of going to a store, a brick and mortar, like picking out stuff and Walmart has tried with, they bought Jet a few years ago. Chad: Yeah. Joel: Which is sort of a Costco online thing. That thing has gone nowhere apparently. Chad: Nope. Joel: Target's dropped the ball. So Amazon, to their credit has really changed, I guess, the behavior of consumers and they are obviously profiting from that while Target and Walmart are in pain from it. Chad: Yeah. Watch this though. When they start killing some of these bigger competitors, that same day delivery, that shit's gonna go away, kids. So again, like the sugar rush we talked about, this is how business works. They strangle the fuck outta their competitors. Joel: Yeah. Chad: And then when they're competitor, either they buy their competitors or they get off the market, then you're not gonna see the same kind of service that you've seen in the past. Get ready. Joel: Yeah. I mean, the last mile is still an issue. Who's gonna do that? I mean, they've done... Chad: Oh, yeah. Joel: A good job with distribution centers all around the country. Chad: Yellow was the last mile like trucking company and they're fucking gone. Right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: So, yeah. I mean, we are paid, guys, to be watching all of this landscape shit stack up to be able to report it back to you or at least our opinions. Right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: And a little snark along with that. But yeah. Some shit's happening. Don't get used to that. [laughter] Joel: Yeah. A side note as well, a lot of talk on Wall Street and the sites that cover public companies that Workday is in trouble. Fernandez leaving for Eightfold. There's a lot of buzz about what the fuck is up with Workday. So we may be having some interesting stories about them in the weeks to come. Who knows? Chad: Here we go. Joel: But I'm excited, Chad, but I'm really excited because. [music] Chad: Here it is. Joel: That's right, that's right. Let's talk unicorns and mass investment in our space. The purse strings are starting to loosen up, Chad. HiBob announced 150 million in new funding, bringing its total capital raise to 574 million with a valuation of $2.66 billion. DRUID, a Romanian-based conversational AIS, AI solution has raised 30 million in a series B funding round, bringing its total to 50.6 million. Betterleap, who claims to have the largest database and the most accurate data in the recruitment market officially announced it's launch backed by 13 million in seed funding, not Series A and Catalyte, a Baltimore-based provider of what it's calling an AI powered end-to-end re-skilling platform raised 1.5 million in funding this week, bringing its total to $65 million. Chad, what is going on? Your take. Chad: So, HiBob. Okay. So whatever happened to expanding through organic revenues or maybe acquisition? I mean, why take so much goddamn money? At this point, they're going to have to go to IPO because there's no way in hell anybody is gonna buy these guys. I mean, they're just, they're not, unless they can get a Workday or somebody like that, or one of the acronyms. Joel: Oh, yeah. Chad: Right? You know, what your SAP or ADP or UKG to be able to buy them. I'm just not sure why this is necessary. I know why back in the day, like when LinkedIn started. When LinkedIn started, there was nothing on the web like LinkedIn, period, right? So they had to build it. They literally had no idea what productization and monetization was going to look like. So they needed the fuel, right? They needed it. HiBob, they, there's a whole segment of technologies that have been there and done that in that segment. So it's not like they have to create and re-productize and monetize. There's already a standard of how to do this. So I don't understand why they need to keep taking money. It's outta my mind. They've gotta be going IPO. Joel: IPO is interesting. And we didn't have this in our notes but we saw ARM go public recently. We saw what happened in NVIDIA, which isn't public but we saw Instacart go public and we're actually seeing Birkenstock. That's right, the sandal maker outta Germany go public. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So the public markets are opening up. I can't wait for Greenhouse or iSIMS or whoever to go public... Chad: Not for us, dude. Joel: To see how this thing shakes out. Chad: No way. Joel: We had some news. We had some news in THE SHRED today, and if you're not subscribed, you won't get THE SHRED. But we talked about Personio, another big European company who's talking already about an IPO in 2024. So the IPO stuff's gonna start loosening up. HiBob has no other option but to go public in my mind. We've talked about pub companies usually don't fail because they took too little money, they failed 'cause they took too much money. Chad: Yeah. Joel: And that does not bode well for Bob. But yeah, if the public markets open up, if whoever goes first in our industry does well, you're gonna see a flood of all these companies that are unicorns or were unicorns a year or two ago, start going public. And that's gonna be a ton of fun to talk about. HiBob will probably... Chad: Yeah. Joel: Be one of them. A few of the others, I mean, there's a fairly common thread with AI upskilling, a lot of the same themes that we've talked about for a long time. The one that really gets me is Betterleap. These guys are sourcing, basically sourcing circa 2017. They've apparently scraped everyone from LinkedIn to Indeed to everybody for a billion profiles. Who knows how fresh they are or how fresh they'll continue to be going forward but they got 13 million seed money. I mean, that's series A money and they got it out the gate. So let's watch them. That's gonna be a lot of fun because where they're in, the space they're in is not very very positive. I said earlier that they're gonna need 13 million just to fight, pay all the lawyers that they're gonna have to fight off Indeed and LinkedIn, everybody else for scraping all their data. Also add that what came through Bullhorn Ventures invested in Staffing Engine and Spark Hire acquired a company called Chally that's also in THE SHRED this week. But money coming, people getting hired, that's all good for the world and it's all good for this podcast. Chad: So Betterleap, their founders don't have, they have no experience in this space. [laughter] They're both product people. Joel: Yeah. Chad: To say that you have the world's largest database is one of the stupidest fucking things to do. You went to a data warehouse and you bought data from a data warehouse. Right? And anybody who's done anything in this industry for five minutes understands that most of that data house information is bullshit. It is fucking horrible. Right? So, I mean, to be able to boast those things, just to me automatically demonstrates that they are not mature enough to even understand our industry. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Or the history of our industry. The one that stuck out for me though was DRUID. Because 60% of DRUID's business is in the US and I think they're out of Bulgaria. Joel: Yep. Chad: I believe. Joel: Romania, sorry. Is Bulgaria in Romania? Chad: No. Joel: Okay. They're a Romanian company. Chad: They're Romanian company. Okay. Joel: You know, your Eastern block knowledge is much better than mine. Chad: So, 60% of DRUID's businesses is in the US. So really quick, just some quick advice to DRUID right out of the gate. That's a signal to stop growing internationally and focus heavily on where you get the most traction, which is the US. And then, those US companies will drive internet, international expansion when you go after more of the wallet share to be able to expand into those different locations under those same brands. Okay. So you're not a huge organization. Totally get that. How do you make the most out of the resources that you currently have? Focus on where you have the most traction and where the most opportunity is. Right now, that's the United States for you. So that would be my advice to you. 60%, that's the 100% of the time is perfect. SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Joel: Just like Chad's advice. Alright guys, we'll take a quick break. Please listen to the ads. Without the ads, there's no show. Listen to our sponsors. Listen to our sponsors. We'll be right back. Alright, Chad. We're barely into week two. If we're even into week two yet of the UWA or UAW battle against the big three. We're gonna start this summary with a soundbite, read an update and then we'll comment accordingly. This is I think GM CEO talking about... Chad: Yes. Joel: Salaries. Chad: Mary Barra. Joel: Yep. Here we go. Mary Barra: But if you are getting a 34% pay increase over four years and you're offering 20% to employees right now, do you think that's fair? Well, I think when you look at the overall, the overall structure and the fact that 92% is based on performance and you look at what we've been doing of sharing in the profitability when the company does well, I think we've got a very compelling offer on the table. And that's the focus I have. Shawn Fain: Wanna call 'em family when it's easy. They haven't been there, they haven't taken care of their workers. We went backwards in the last 16 years, backwards while the CEOs gave themselves 40% pay increases in the last four years alone. Profits have been through the roof. $250 billion in profit in the last decade, 21 billion in the first six months, the price of cars went up 30%. Our pay went up 6%. Inflation went up 19, we're going backwards and they wanna call us greedy. Chad: Yeah. That was Shawn Fain. Yeah, of the UAW. Joel: Union. Union leader, the big three killed my baby. That's right. The UAW strike drama is ramping up like you heard. Not even a week old, General Motors in Stellantis have laid off additional workers due to consequences stemming from the UAW strike. GM halted production in Kansas and Stellantis laid off more than 2000 employees at parts factories in Ohio and Indiana. The strike involves nearly 13,000 workers across multiple plants. Ford boss Jim Farley said the union's demands would bankrupt the company. [laughter] To that, the union responded by indicating that the CEO makes over $21 million per year. Did I mention that we're barely into week two in this drama, Chad? Chad: Yes. Joel: What are your thoughts? Chad: Yeah. This is royalty versus us, the peasants, right? So when the CEO of GM, Mary Barra says her comp is based on overall structure, that means she gets paid differently. But here's the breakdown of how she gets paid. She gets $2.1 million in salary, 14.6 million in stock awards, 4.9 million in option awards. Nearly 6.3 million in incentives, 1.1 million in other payments. Who knows what the fuck they are, right? That was her 2022. So Maria Barra made almost $29 million in 2022. That's over 650 times that of the average line worker for GM. Is one person worth 650 people that actually do the job? So let's dig into this a little bit more. The average line worker makes $41,523, not even $42,000. If you actually gave that line worker 34% raise, which is what Mary's taken over the last four years, they would earn an additional $14,118, which makes their salary 55,000 plus, not even $60,000. Chad: So in Detroit, this is from the MIT Living Wage Calculator, two adults with one child need nearly $67,000 a year for a living wage. One adult with one child needs over $80,000 in a living wage. This is, this shit drives me crazy 'cause Mary Barra is the highest paid of these three. But she's not the only asshole in the room. We talked about Ford's CEO Jim Farley total comp in 2022 was 21 million. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares total comp in 2022, nearly 25 million. We need to start talking about these CEOs, about ivory tower economics and then start looking at what it actually takes for a person, a worker, the ones who actually produce the cars on the line, what it takes for them to live every single day. And we don't do that. We need to break it down and do that more. SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: So this to me, this whole situation will be written in the history books as a fascinating study of so many layers of society. We have an EV revolution that says cars need to be electric. We have certain states saying, hey, by this year, no more gas vehicles can be bought in our state. We see countries over in Europe saying, no more gas automobiles. Now it's funny because the UK came out yesterday and said, we're going to extend the date on how much longer we can have gas cars. I suspect America's states will probably start doing the same. But in this revolution, let's be honest, the big three have not really hit it outta the ballpark with creating EVs. Most of 'em are ugly. Most of 'em aren't selling. I see very few. Everything I see on the road is Tesla, Rivian and I'll probably see more and more Fiskers as we evolve. Chad: Polestar. [laughter] Joel: So you have a government saying, we're going to encourage EV vehicle purchases. We're gonna give you $7,500 tax credit if you buy American made electric vehicles. Well, that puts Tesla right in the sweet spot of getting business by people who are looking to buy a new car. If everyone looks at Tesla as frankly a better looking car, better brand for electric, that's where they're gonna get gravitate toward, not the big three. An electric vehicle, as I understand it, takes less than 20 parts to make an electric vehicle. A typical vehicle today takes over well over a hundred, right? So the amount of workers it takes to make an EV is a lot less than what it takes to make a gas vehicle, as I understand it. And you can automate that a lot easier than you can making a F-150. Joel: Now you have politically, it's tough for Biden to be on the side of auto workers when he's the one giving the tax advantages to people buying EVs. On the Republican side, you wanna be progressive, but you don't wanna seem anti-business. Through all of this sit, all of this drama, the CEOs and the people that are making the big bucks, I think they realize the future of their business. And to me it feels a lot like a get the money while the getting is good. They understand like the future is not in favor of the workers. In fact, I would argue that they are more than happy about this strike because the strike gives them some cloud cover to start firing a bunch of people. They've already laid off 2000 people, and we're not even a week into this. If the unions keep ratcheting up the number of plants that they're striking, watch the number of heads that roll increase more and more. Joel: And I think ultimately the leadership knows that that's where the future is. If they can line their pockets, and by the way, decreasing headcount is gonna increase shock or share prices for these companies who frankly don't have a incredible valuation to begin with. Anyway, I'm rambling, but there's so many parts to this that when the history books are written and put the pieces together, it's gonna be incredibly fascinating. The sad part is yes, the workers for a decade, since 2008 when car companies got bailed out, got funding, federal funding but the workers have gotten royally screwed and I don't see that changing. I think this plays into the hands of the bigwigs, of the people in control and the politicians ultimately. Now, the one thing that's interesting is that the union could be the swing vote in 2024 for the presidential election. Chad: Yes. So Shawn Fain, the head of the UAW already told Trump he can keep his millionaire ass at home. So, which I think is amazing because he said you were the problem. People like you were the problem. We don't need you here. I think this is a great opportunity for all of the politicians to get behind the people because that's who they represent. They don't, I know that the GMs and the Mary Barras and the Jim Farleys and so on and so forth, they give a lot of money to campaigns. But at the end of the day, it's the votes that are gonna matter. This is where they're going to have to balance and be smart about it. And right now, most of them, you hear a little peep every now and again, but they're going to have to take a stand. Are you with the people who are doing the work and they're getting fucked and they have been for decades? Or are you with the ivory tower crowd who, like we heard last year, there has to be pain for the rest of everybody else except for us on our yacht for the economy to go the way that we want it to go. Chad: Yeah. I think there is gonna be... There are gonna be some politics that are definitely played here, but I love the UAW head. He's not taking any bullshit. He's calling it out exactly where it's at, and saying, "If you can take these types of increases in your salary and in your comp, then we deserve it too because we're the ones, we're the reason why you have that up and those profit margins." Joel: Yeah. To me, the chess he's playing, and he totally dissed Trump and he also put Biden to task, and they have not endorsed anyone for president. Whichever party, if they can do it, if they can resolve this and get the workers the raise that they ask for, that's the next president of the United States. Because the swing vote is the unions, and if... Whether it's Biden or Trump, Democrat, Republican, if they can broker this deal and get them paid what they want, they're gonna be in the White House again. That's the real chess he's making. The chess he's playing is he's gonna talk to Trump and Biden and whoever else and say, "If you get us this raise, I will deliver you the White House." That's the chess he's playing. Not the bullshit with the CEOs, he's looking at this at a much higher level, to me. Chad: Yeah. Well, the bullshit with the CEOs is all... It's the narrative. That is truth that Biden's been talking about with Bidenomics this entire time. The thing is does he have the balls to actually back up what Shawn Fain is saying because he legitimately is behind the people, so we'll see. Joel: Love it. Well, speaking of CEOs Chad, an article in Harvard Business Review or HBR as the kids call it, entitled "The Myth of the CEO as Ultimate Decision Maker" got our attention this week. It's author argued a common misperception about the CEO's role is that they are the ultimate decision maker, and that the prize of getting this coveted position is that you now get to make all the decisions. In reality, the CEO's role is much more about shaping rather than making decisions. This approach empowers teams and fosters agility ultimately driving organizational success. Business Insider highlighted the fact that the CEO of Polish drinks company, Dictador is an AI-powered humanoid robot named Mika. And they're not the first company to make a bot it's CEO. Last year, a Chinese gaming firm appointed an AI-powered virtual humanoid robot named Tang Yu as its [laughter] chief executive. Chad, [laughter] help us make sense of this issue. Chad: Tang Yu. So the AI boss named Mika told Reuters that it didn't have weekends and it was always on 24/7. Mika helps to spot potential clients and selects artists to design the rum producers bottle. So, here's the thing, we just talked about these individuals who are making a shit ton of cash. And to be quite frank, you could probably get rid of one of these CEOs. You can take Mary Barra out for about three months, six months or what have you. Would you even know she was gone? I doubt it. You take the 650 people her salary represents off the line, oh, you're gonna notice that shit, right? So why not just start infusing AI into the decision-making co-pilot of these companies? It's funny, we just had... We just talked about Eightfold has co-CEOs. Fuck that shit. Have a fractional CEO with a AI co-pilot along with it. Half the salary on that shit, and roll with it. It's just like this is where we should be starting. We should be starting at the CEO side, and you've got the QA/QC of a fractional person that's there, that's awesome but we don't need to be paying these crazy fucking comp packages to these assholes in the ivory tower. SFX: That escalated quickly. Joel: Yeah, I'm remembering an interview with Steve Jobs many years ago where they asked him sort of the CEO position and how stressful it is and hard. And he had a great answer like, "I have the easiest job in the company. In that, I just make sure everyone is on task doing what they're supposed to do." Now, he obviously helps create the vision of the company and he was a visionary, which let's be honest, most CEOs don't have the visionary thing. They're more managers and Harvard MBAs just sort of filling a seat and making the shareholders feel better. But Steve Jobs basically said, "Look, I touch base with my leadership, I touch base with the foot soldiers and make sure that things are going where they need to go, but once I set this ship on course, it goes. Once I get the plane up, it's auto-pilot to where it needs to go." I think we put way too much emphasis on CEOs not only for their decision making power, but they're, I guess, storytelling and the mythology. We spend way too much time on the idolatry of innovators, and these people must be smarter than us because they invented Facebook or Instagram, a picture app, they must be a genius. So I agree. Co-CEOs is stupid. You gotta go all in. What's this co-shit? [laughter] SFX: Just the tip. [laughter] Joel: I don't understand that at all. Look, it's like a married couple running a company. That's just gonna be just be a bad idea. So, I love this thing, these startups with AI CEOs. Look, how many founders do we know that aren't CEOs? They're not managers, they can't function, why not hand it to a bot? Why not hand it to AI? Like, "Okay, I made this company. Now what do I do? Okay. Let's hire people. Here's the structure." Why not give it to an AI? I'm all for it. And the money you save from it, shit, why not? Chad: Just imagine the amount of country club expense costs that you don't have to spend with an AI. Joel: We'll be right back. Oh yeah. Queue one of my favorite, favorite sound bites, Chad, you know the one. SFX: Ay Papi. Joel: Alright. OnlyFans is in the news again. A platform initially known for adult content has experienced staggering revenue growth. Some of the numbers are out, surging nearly 2000% in three years to reach 5.5 billion in 2022 alone. Shockingly, the US is its larger markets. Where have all the puritans in America gone, Chad? What is your take on the crazy growth of OnlyFans? Chad: I think you said it earlier, the puritans like Boebert. That's who they really are. And she probably, I don't know this for sure, but she probably has an OnlyFans channel out there somewhere. This, to me, again, this is pretty amazing. I'd like to see the distribution of gross revenue versus what their accounts actually make. So to be able to actually split that out and see like the top let's say, for instance, 10 accounts. Of that 55 billion or top 100 accounts, of that 55 billion, how much is being made in this creator economy? Because that's exactly what it is. So this is, again, providing a very safe environment for many people who were sex workers and maybe are, maybe this is a supplement, to be able to move away from the actual physical and do something that's a hell of a lot more safe. I would love to be able to see the breakdowns. We've heard from many through different articles and different publications that individuals are making $8000, $30,000 a month through these channels, these OnlyFans channels so I'm not surprised. And when you have a population like the United States, which is current puritan and religious, these are the ball gag moments that they just love. SFX: What are you doing step bro? [laughter] Joel: Okay. So, today the platform has 210 million registered users and more than 2.1 million content creators. Chad: That's a lot. Joel: Yeah. This massive user base continues driving impressive revenue growth for the company that's in the UK. I wonder where they sit as far as the... Chad, our intro featured Republican Congresswoman, Lauren Boebert and a story on OutKick declared she could make over $6 million a year conservatively on the platform. She currently makes $175,000 in Congress. Republicans love Elon so why isn't Elon taking on OnlyFans? And I say that you can start that initiative with getting Lauren Boebert on the platform on Twitter as they take on OnlyFans. [laughter] Joel: Now that, Chad, is a subscription model that we can all get behind. We out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese podcast or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used a buy a nutritious meal on Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watched big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

“Will AI kill recruiting as we know it?” On this episode, Chad Sowash goes straight for the jugular and doesn’t let up. Fortunately, Amy Butchko, VP of TA at Maximus, is light on her feet and takes everything the boys throw at her and counters like the true champ she is. This interview was part of ATAP’s recent online event and covers all things A.I. when it comes to hiring. From audits to legal minefields to messaging to budgeting and everything in between, this one’s got it all, including Q&A with the live audience of recruiting veterans. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. 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. [music] Joel: Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It's your lunch lady's favorite podcast AKA... Chad: Yes. Joel: The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, the Barney to my Fred, Chad Sowash is here and we are super excited to bring in Amy Butchko, VP of Talent Acquisition at Maximus. Chad: Maximus. Joel: And I'd like you use your own imagination on what Maximus does. Chad: Maximus. Joel: If you don't know what they do, maybe Amy will tell us. Amy, welcome. Amy Butchko: Thank you for having me today, guys. Joel: Give us a Twitter bio on Amy Butchko. Amy Butchko: A twitter bio. So, well, you did really well. So, Amy Butchko. I am vice President of Talent acquisition at Maximus, and at Maximus we are moving people forward. We actually connect citizens to services around government entities around the world, and among other things. And I lead their IT talent acquisition practice. So that is my reason for being here today. Chad: So to humanize this AI session, okay? What do you do for fun? What do you do for fun, Amy? Amy Butchko: Well, as we were having our little pre-gaming sort of getting ready for this, I was thinking about the one thing that I didn't mention where I use a lot of AI, and that is in my fantasy football practice. Chad: Oh. Amy Butchko: So I think you're actually referencing the little red... Joel: Practice like she has a degree and she practices fantasy football. Amy Butchko: The red blob back there, which is where I take my red pottery bag to go and make pots on the weekends. But I do use AI and a lot of apps to help me with my Waiver Wire pickups and stuff. So we can talk about that. So those are two things that I do in my spare time. Chad: Great. Joel: So much swag. I think that would be cool. Like, just Maximus is different. Chad: Oh. Amy Butchko: It actually is pretty fabulous swag. I don't, I'm trying to see if I have any, I think I have. Chad: Is it like gladiator themed? Because I really feel like it should be gladiator themed. Joel: She she has a armor plate. She has a... Chad: Oh yeah. Joel: Whatever that hell... Amy Butchko: We'll save that for another podcast. [laughter] Chad: Okay. So let's go ahead and kick this off. Thanks for joining us kids. We're gonna talk about AI today and a variety of ways. We've got Amy on here because she has a deep understanding of a lot of things and mainly being a practitioner in this space. So let's go ahead and dig into it. So first and foremost, Amy, I'm gonna ask the question that everybody's been asking. We're just gonna hit it right out of the gate. Will AI kill recruiting jobs or is the jury still out? Joel: Oh my God. Buy him a drink first, Sowash, don't go right for the jugular man. Damn. Chad: Right for it. Amy Butchko: No. Chad: We only have 30 minutes, man. We gotta make this count. Joel: Ouch. Okay. Let's go. Amy Butchko: Okay. So, I will be relatively controversial here I think. I do not think it is going to kill recruiting jobs. I think that as long as we are still hiring people, yes, we will need people. I think you guys have some different perspectives though. So I can yield for perspectives. Joel: It won't kill recruiting, jobs, but will there be less recruiters? Amy Butchko: Maybe. It depends on if our jobs get more complex, because one of the things that we've talked about is the fact that being AI enabled makes us more capable in some ways. Right? It's like having a bionic partner. And when you do that, things can get more complex. Things in my world are already pretty complex [laughter] So far, we still need people to unravel the what do the people need to do? How do we find those people? How do we talk to those people once we find them? That's the kind of stuff that makes me doubt that we can dehumanize talent. Joel: Is Maximus adding or decreasing or stabilizing headcount in the recruiting sphere? Amy Butchko: In my space, we're pretty stable. Joel: Okay. Amy Butchko: And we haven't... I have been there for what? About a year? Joel: Are you increasing? Like is the ivory tower talking about increasing or decreasing headcount for recruiters in the next 12 months? Amy Butchko: The ivory tower doesn't typically dictate that in the world that I'm in. Typically the way, because... So Maximus is a government contractor in the United States. We do have a global presence, but the vast majority of the stuff that I do is based here in the US. And the way that I would describe my ever constant strategy for how I staff my team is it's always based on the business. So if we win a new contract, if we need additional resources to help support that we hire and otherwise we support the business that we have with the right number of recruiters and metrics play into that. I know we didn't really talk about this much in the lead up, but one of the things that really helps us is knowing from a data perspective and being able to aggregate the kind of data that we can get now out of recruiting systems about how many recs can a recruiter handle of a certain genre, and then really be able to know what your staffing levels are. So the ivory tower informed by whoever that is, informed by data. Joel: The great Oz. Yeah. Amy Butchko: Oh, well, let me know if that guy's around because he doesn't really work at Maximus as far as I know, nor any place where I've been. It's really about trying to figure out what your resources need to be to meet the demand of the day. Chad: Right. And let's dig a little bit more into that. 'cause that's fairly general with regard to whether you're gonna have more recruiters or less recruiters. To me, the discussions around being able to take some of the really menial tasks off the recruiter's plate by using technology. Number one, to make them more efficient, number one, now that AI, and again, we're talking about recruiting versus the full sphere of like the job market. AI in itself, if it is historically like every other technology, it's gonna create new and more jobs. So therefore you're going to need more recruiters to be able to fill those jobs within. So what you're looking at and just, again, this is just my vantage point is that you're gonna have more efficient recruiters, you're gonna have smarter recruiters who know how to actually utilize technology, and you're gonna need more efficient recruiters because you're going to have more jobs and different jobs to be able to fill. Do you feel like I'm in line there? Or am I too not dystopian enough like Joel? Amy Butchko: I think that some Joel Cheesman skepticism is warranted here. Chad: It's always good. It's always good. Amy Butchko: Yeah, I think you never wanna be the one that's wrong in the direction that you could be wrong, Chad. So I think that that one of the things that is missing from your hypothesis though, is that the complexity of the jobs that we are filling will also potentially increase. And when that happens, our ability to sort of unpack what a skillset would be to even fill one of those roles. Like what do I need if I'm hiring a data engineer? It's very different than if I was doing that from 10 years ago, and AI could help me know more about that as a recruiter in layman's terms and help me both speak to candidates and be more informed when I'm talking to a hiring leader who's probably very technical. So from that perspective, I think that that augmentation piece helps. Not ready to go full dystopia, but I wouldn't rule it out either, you know? Chad: Right. So, literally automation in AI, thus far, conversationally, whatever you'd like to call it has been great for high volume roles. So to be able to, again, to be able to scale right? To be able to scale the need which has given, in many cases, job seekers a much better experience. So instead of going into a black hole, they go into a bot for conversation for prospectively, scoring, scheduling and then getting into interviewing. Do you see, because high volume's much easier in many cases it's a heartbeat, and are you close to the job, right? In some cases do you see that scaling up to more to more complex positions? And how quick do you think we see that kind of scale in our space? Amy Butchko: We're not there yet, in my opinion. We are not there yet. I think that in the high volume spaces, yes. There are mechanisms and we have them here at Maximus. I don't run that team. There's an extremely talented group of people who does that here. But it is a different skill to do this at that type of scale. Joel: How are you guys, because upskilling to me seems like that is more important than maybe it's ever been when you talk about these new skills, these new technologies. How does your organization look at upskilling? What are you doing to sort of prepare for the future? What tips would you give other companies that are in the same situation? Amy Butchko: So, when I am evaluating a recruiter, or even myself, I'm looking at, are we using the tool set that we have today? So a lot of the stuff that you were just saying, Chad, about a great candidate experience with chatbots and being able to get instant answers and get outta the black hole. It's still not happening. We need to get Kevin Grossman on here to tell us about that, but go ask him. He would... It's not happening... Chad: It's not happening in general, but it is happening for some companies who are utilizing that. Amy Butchko: Who are utilizing the technology the way it is truly intended. And I think that Joel, to answer your question, I do think it's a skill issue. I think it is about training your recruiters. One of the things that happened when I got here was there were a lot of tools around and not particularly well utilized. There were some misconceptions that the tools work themselves, and they don't. There are some fantastic tools that can build a boolean strings, but if you give it junk, it's still gonna spit out a dumb string, right? And it's going to spit back bad results. Joel: Yeah. And there's a story we talked about, you mentioned upskilling and education, but also communication. Because we had a story a few weeks ago about a guy who applied to McDonald's, which uses a Chatbot or Conversational AI. The guy went through the process, talked to what he thought was a recruiter. It was a robot, but he thought it was a recruiter, which is good and bad in this case. Amy Butchko: Sure. Joel: But went through the process, scheduled it, showed up for the interview, walked to the front counter and said, I'm here for my interview. And they had no idea what he was talking about, and gave him a paper application to fill out when he showed up. There was no one in management that knew what the hell was going on. So talk about the importance of communication, of understanding like, Hey, everybody, we have this AI tool that is scheduling interviews, and when people come in, if they say, I'm ready for my interview, that's because we're using this service. That communication apparently is not happening. And what tips would you give for companies to start having those conversations and helping job seekers understand what's going on, as well as your employees who may not know what's going on? Amy Butchko: That experience, I think probably happens more often than we would ever imagine. I was actually just recalling when I went to Quest Diagnostics to go check in and go get my blood drawn, and I was supposed to be able to check in from my phone, and I was supposed to check in from the kiosk, but nobody told me that. So I sat in my car and then I came in and they were like, oh, yeah, that app doesn't work. And I was like, oh, cool. Can I still, okay, great. So it's that kind of stuff where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. And it's those human connections that still have to be made. And it's not that somebody from, I guess Oz or the ivory tower was supposed to come down and tell that McDonald's manager what to do. It was their systems and their people weren't connected. Joel: And who's responsible? Should the vendor be having onsite classes about what's going on? Is it the buyer that should be educated? Like who's responsible for filling the gaps in here, building the bridges? Amy Butchko: So who's responsible for making that hire? I think that ultimately it comes down to... Chad: Boom. Amy Butchko: To those people, it's us. We are the solution and we are the problem when it comes to that. Chad: And let me throw that out to you even more in a historical fashion. We had applicant tracking systems come on the scene fairly early, late 90s, early 2000s. They were very basic. They were, they were streamlined. And then we got involved, the humans got involved. And we started to make these processes more complex where it was a five-minute application versus a 30-minute application where they needed blood samples, social security number, everything. First born. So when we're talking about this, like the problem that Joel was just talking about, and then also the setup for the future. As a practitioner, what kind of guidance would you give to the other practitioners that are out there to be able to think more in simplicity versus complexity? Do you think that is incredibly key as we move forward or do you think that there's a necessity to be complex right out of the gate? Amy Butchko: So I think some of the best advice I've ever gotten as a professional is to simplify my communication. It's the advice I still give to everyone, including myself to make things easier. I actually, I take issue with the idea that the humans made the complexity. I run across far too many vendors who think that they've invented HR and they know how it should happen. [laughter] Amy Butchko: And I'm not, and no disparagement, I love tech. Love it. I love it. I love being able to layer technology on top of technology and figure out what the right workflows are. But ultimately, the idea that it starts with tech and then the people came in is absolutely backwards. So if you're designing for the human, so if you're thinking in your head, so in Joel's example, if we're actually thinking about that guy who just is looking for that job and working backwards from his experience, then you might have a system that works. Joel: Do we ignore the job seeker too much in tech? Amy Butchko: I think we ignore the job seeker. I think we ignore the recruiter. I've also found enough systems in my time that are geared toward communicating to whom they think what the executives want to know, which is also based on how people think recruiting is done versus how it is actually really done in the wild. So I think that's, yes. Chad: So when we start to talk about AI, it seems like there's all this noise. Is it AI, is it RPA, is it automation? And we're really focused heavily on the how, how is this being done versus the actual final outcome or the product. Should we be focused more on that outcome and then work our way back into the how or is the how really important just right out of the gate, because I don't think HR professionals have enough time to dig into what AI is, large language models are, versus RPA and automation, and they kinda lose sight over the final product. So what's your advice around that? Amy Butchko: Oh gosh. Well, that's a big one. And I think that it really goes back to trying to figure out what you are really solving for... If the idea is that you are... You think you need to solve hiring, you're gonna come out with a different outcome than if you are, how do we make a great experience for somebody who wants to go to work at a McDonald's in Indianapolis? It's just a different point of view. And I think being able to kind of shift your point of view could be helpful there. So to answer the question more specifically about the how and the what, when it comes to using chatGPT, I think on my team, I probably have maybe 50% adoption. [chuckle] Amy Butchko: And that's okay. It's kind of an infuriating tool if you ask it the wrong question or if you haven't figured out how to write the prompts to get the answers that you need. I have recruiters who are very sophisticated at it on the other hand, where they'll overlay a job profile in a de-identified resume to protect PII, because that's what we do here, and make sure that you are aligning skills to jobs, and then have the machine help you see the gaps more quickly. That is an example that one of my team members gave to me, which is fabulous, but how did she figure out how to write the prompts to make that happen? What questions is she asking? And that's where Joel skill becomes really super important. And it's still important when you're operating the robot. Chad: Yeah. But you said something there that I think is important and we're trying to solve hiring. And that's a big job. That's a big job trying to solve hiring versus what I think some of these technologies help us with are the tasks of hiring and being able to write better jobs descriptions, or at least give us a co-piloting opportunity to write better job descriptions sourcing, scheduling, interviewing, scoring. All these different things. Should we not just break it down into the tasks as opposed to hiring as a whole because it feels like an elephant and we're trying to eat the whole thing at once. Amy Butchko: 1000% right. That's exactly right. The complexity is both, it's the problem and it's the solution. Because RPA, robotic process automation is basically, it's zeros and ones, it's yeses and nos. If this do that, if not this, then do something else. That's your decision set. [laughter] So one of the other things that, when you talk about augmented capabilities on the part of recruiters, we did not talk about this in the prep, but this question reminds me of some Gartner research that I was looking at recently that was talking about how a recruiter can hold a certain number of racks on average to be, and that's pretty much like their, that's their ceiling. A recruiter can hold X racks. If you add a sourcer, assuming this is a person, add a sourcer, they're about 20% more effective if you add a coordinator, which to your point is about the scheduling and all of that stuff that goes behind the scenes, they can be about 50% more effective, which definitely speaks to the idea of how much time some of these "simple tasks" really take. They're not that simple, Chad. They're just not that simple. Chad: The nudging and the continued engagement, as we've seen some of the conversational AI platforms and some of the other platforms, one of the things that we've not done well as humans, because from a scale standpoint, we just can't do it. Is reaching out to every single applicant to be able to give them updates and/or remind them that, Hey, tomorrow you have an interview, or to remind them, Hey, tomorrow is your first day. Right? None of that's simple, it's just that from the human standpoint, we can't scale. Joel: Well, I think in lieu of this, I want to ask about Amy's filter and I don't want to go as far back as to say, like, let's just call, I'll go to rotary phones and ditch the technology. But I've been doing this for a long time, and every time I think, Okay, we've hit our max tech startup valuation ceiling, we bust through it and go towards another one. What do you look at with either buying a new technology, using a new technology? What questions do you ask to make sure it's useful? What are you asking your team, or what are you tracking in your team that would make you decide like, this isn't working, we're getting rid of it, this works, we need to do more of it. Do you have a process right now? Because I think a lot of companies are just inundated and overwhelmed with the amount of tools and you doing this as long as you have probably have some good tips on how to filter some of that stuff. Amy Butchko: Gosh. Filtering out all of that noise and complexity. And I need a robot to do that. I think that my spam filter is a great first cut to be a little bit more serious about it. I'm thinking about a couple of RFP processes that I've been involved in at different companies, and evaluating vendors alongside each other. And one thing for me that is a huge red flag is when I get the sense that the tech has been created around what would be cool or what an executive thinks that they need to hear, right? Yeah. Versus what is real. And for example, if you're thinking about talent mobility, which is a big topic in our industry right now because this is how do we work with the people who already are here who may have desires to do something different or where the business is shifting so fast. Amy Butchko: Some of what we are dealing with in industry right now is the fact that the jobs aren't necessarily disappearing, but they're moving over there and we've gotta figure out how to get the people over there. And if you start thinking about software to begin doing that, and then you start thinking you gotta like input all these really complex human qualities into it along with an ever increasing complex set of skills, it's dizzying. So when I think about how to do something like that with tech, I do try to kind of dumb it down and think, okay, if I've got this person and I've got this job, how would I make that transition as a human to help them? And then think about if the technology is mirroring that, because I don't think that we're gonna be able to do this in a way that's not intuitive to us as people. Chad: So we've gotta get to this because I think this is one of the most important questions for any practitioner that's out there. Amy Butchko: Yeah. Chad: If I do see a reason to buy this new tech. I don't get budget for it. I don't have budget for tools. I only have budget for what I have right now. How do I get new budget? I know that you've done this before and you have experience about getting budget, and most practitioners don't. They just sit there with their arms crossed and say, well, I just don't have any more budget. That's not the right answer. How do you go get more budget? Amy Butchko: Well, I think that the way I have done it is basically proving results with simple steps first. 'Cause some of this, I mean, you guys, this is not rocket science, right? I mean, we're bright, but this is not rocket science. So if you've got a problem that you can solve with a piece of tech that could potentially be done without a person, that's a great business case to make. Especially if you can start small with a license that doesn't cost that much. And then you prove your case, and then you can expand. Or if you've got other stuff laying around that somebody bought that maybe was there before you, that isn't working so well, maybe you can shrink that footprint a little bit and and really show value. So I think it could be both. Amy Butchko: It could be taking... Like there's some tool sets that, that are just outdated. And things in our industry do become outdated. We, we don't need to name names just go listen to your podcast you can hear all about them [chuckle] and find out which names are becoming outdated, but really think about what your existing stack is doing for you. And if you can start to cut first, great. Then you can repurpose. And once you've repurposed, you can incubate, prove your process and then expand. And that is essentially the logic that I follow. Joel: Yeah. Amy, I want to get you out on this. Governments are sort of freaking out about AI, particularly from the hiring employment side of the house. We've seen laws from New York, Illinois, California, companies are asking how do I make sure my AI is clean? I'm not gonna get in trouble by the Feds. What are some things that you wanna make sure questions you want to ask your AI or policies that you have to make sure that you keep yourself out of the cross hairs of the EEOC and other legal bodies? Amy Butchko: Easiest question of the day. I stay very tight with my privacy and my compliance and my IT departments. Know those people by name and have folks that you can call who are experts. I know at least five different experts that I can call within my company. And a few people outside that can inform me and I don't make those decisions. Joel: Delegate, delegate, delegate. Chad: So we've heard... Amy Butchko: Inform. Chad: Inform, yes. I think we've heard that companies have backed away from new technology and AI and saying, look, these things are just, these regulations are way too onerous. This new New York regulation says once a year you have to get your AI audited, which I think it's not often enough. But anyway, we've seen companies actually back away from using this new tech. Are they going to be able to compete for top talent or really just to be able to fill their roles if they don't use that new technology, the new tech in this new environment. Amy Butchko: We're gonna have to all adapt. That's my take. We're gonna have to adapt. I don't see us being able to go full on what I hear. We're not going back to the classifieds. We're not going back to old tradition. We're just, we're not. So finding how, and actually that's one of the things I love about where I am right now, is there's so many people that are smarter than I am about this, that I can be like, Hey, so explain to me how we can do this in the bounds and then we keep talking because every day it changes. Chad: Yeah. Well, and for me, that is the smartest thing that I have ever learned is that when I'm not an expert in an area, go find one because you're not gonna become one overnight. That's pretty awesome. Amy Butchko: Well, and if you were today on this topic, you're already outdated tomorrow. [laughter] So you got, I mean, it's the truth. It's the truth. Yeah. So we've gotta... So stay fresh. [chuckle] Joel: Outdated much like my wardrobe. Amy, we have one question real quickly and we'll close this out. Amy Butchko: Okay. Chad: Here we go. Here we go. Joel: Somebody wants to know, what is the title of the research from Gartner that you recruiter source or coordinator efficiency., there was a research that you... Amy Butchko: Well, I think it might have been that. I don't remember. It is in my Gartner thing, that is not on my other screen right now but you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I think that Sue has my contacts and I will find it. Joel: And that answers my last question about how someone would connect with you. I am Chees. He is Chad. You can find out more about us @chadcheese.com. If you listen to podcasts, check it out because we dropped knowledge bombs just like we did today. Thanks to ATAP for having us. And as far as I know, this is the closing of our interview. Amy Butchko: All right. Happy TA day. Chad: We out. Joel: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

The word audit scares most people. Hello, IRS? But sometimes audits can be your best friend for getting a good night’s sleep, especially when A.I. recruiting is involved. With laws being passed all the time that could put your company in jeopardy, you need some solid advice. That’s why we invited Guru Sethupathy, founder & CEO of FairNow AI to help us make sense this A.I. audit stuff. FairNow is a platform for simplifying and automating fairness compliance. They help businesses by auditing and monitoring AI algorithms in hiring. FairNow is on a mission to help companies build trust in their A.I. and if you’re looking at giving your vendors a deep dive to make sure they keep you out of the crosshairs of law enforcement, then this episode if a must. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: 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 Yeah, it's your therapist's favorite podcast, AKA, The Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the Kelcee to my Holmes. Chad Sowash is in the house, and we are excited to welcome Guru Sethupathy, founder, and CEO of fairnow.ai. Now, with a name like Guru, that's a lot of undue pressure. Is that tough to live with a name like Guru? Chad: Did you ask your parents, what are you doing to me? I mean, all this weight on my shoulders. Joel: He was born and they said he will run an AI company in 40 years. [laughter] Guru Sethupathy: The thing about Guru is like you could put that in any context. I'm out on a tennis court and they're like, what's your name? And you're like, Guru. Oh shit, you better... This guy must know how to play tennis. So it's kind of, in any context, you kind of have that pressure. So I gotta step up. Joel: I mean, I don't know your sexual preference, but I would think with the women, if your name is Guru, you better bring the knowhow, if you know what I'm saying. [laughter] Chad: We're gonna be packing the heat, anyway. Joel: Yeah, You better, you can't come with some weak shit if your name is Guru. [laughter] Chad: You better know how to date and whole nine yards baby, whole nine yards. Joel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad: All right, Guru. So to get through this craziness, let's hear a little bit about you. Obviously, we just trampled all over you, but let's hear a little bit about Guru. Do you like long walks on the beach? [laughter] Chad: What makes Guru tick? That's what we want to know. Go ahead. Guru Sethupathy: Well, with a name like Guru, you had to guess, I started out in academia. So that's just... There you go. It had to happen. Chad: That's smart. [laughter] Chad: Didn't have a choice. Guru Sethupathy: Yeah, right. It was just meant to happen. So, now been... For the last 15, 20 years, guys, I started out in academia. I'm an economist by training. And, but that's where I cut my teeth at this space of both AI and human capital. That's kind of, those are the two things I've been interested in the last 15 years. And when I go for walks on the beach, I think about AI. No, I'm kidding. But seriously, so, those two things are what I've been thinking about. And so AI is really interesting. I don't know how long you guys have followed the topic. It's obviously, really sexy again. It used to be sexy in the late '90s, early 2000s, for those in the audience who remember... Who played Chess or Go, or... Chad: Oh, big blue. Guru Sethupathy: Different types of games. Yeah. There you go. Right? Deep Blue is what it was. Chad: Oh, yeah. Deep Blue and Kasparov, right? Guru Sethupathy: Yes. That was '97, 1997. And the headlines were like, AI is here beating... 'Cause Chess was considered the ultimate human game created. And so that was 25 years ago. And then AI went off the radar a little bit. There was other technologies. There was like e-commerce and internet and cloud. Chad: Cloud. Guru Sethupathy: Social media, and Facebooks of the world, and the Ubers and... Joel: QR codes. Guru Sethupathy: All this stuff. [laughter] Guru Sethupathy: Exactly. And so where was AI? It was under development all these years, but it was a very different methodology. And what changed was the volume of data out there. And so all of a sudden, the way that Deep Blue functioned is very different from the way ChatGPT functions. So... Chad: Well, and how we process it though, right? I mean, processors, we had all that data before... Guru Sethupathy: Exactly. Chad: And we just couldn't... We couldn't process it down. We were doing it with CPUs now we're doing with GPUs. I mean, things have changed. Guru Sethupathy: Those two things changed. The processing, exactly, the compute power and the volume of data. We had data back then, but the volume today, exponentially different. And so those things change and so AI is now back in the forefront, and it is like really, really having an incredible impact. And the other big thing that's really was a big deal with ChatGPT, it's impressive in some really cool ways. But for the first time, regular people, your aunt and uncle, your buddy down the street who doesn't know anything about tech, for the first time, they could interact with an AI system. Because again, AI has been developing the last few decades, but the average person didn't know. Now, they can interact with it, and that's just changed the whole conversation. And we'll see how that affects regulations, and we'll talk about it in a second, but I think that's just raised the awareness of people of, oh my gosh, this is a thing. It's happening. What's the implication? What's the implication for my job, for me? Well, how's it gonna change my work? How's it gonna change my career? What should I go study? Guru Sethupathy: Like, all of these things are super fascinating conversations. That's one thing that I think is happening. The other thing is just I've always just been fascinated by human capital, human potential. Why do some people succeed, other people less so? What determines people's careers? How do they go in and out of career? Skills, how are skills changing? All of this stuff. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot is the half life of skills. Like, if you look back at our parents and grandparents generation, they would kind of pick a thing, and they would just kind of do that for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. Maybe they would have one other career, maybe two careers over their lifetimes. Now, people have four, five, six, seven different careers. And a lot of it is kind of warranted because things are changing so fast. Okay, you gotta go do something. And so how is that gonna evolve and what does that mean for people? I think the intersection of these two topics, AI and humans, is just kind of what I'm passionate about. Chad: So the impetus of fairnow.ai, talk about that. You obviously saw that there... This was happening, scale was happening faster, it was processing faster. It was moving faster. I even think that they're talking about Moore's law running much faster today than it was just even 6 to 10 months ago, for goodness sakes. So talk a little bit about that and being able to give us a little background of why you started fairnow.ai. Guru Sethupathy: I think it was a couple of trends that we saw that were happening. One is I've been bullish on AI for over a decade. And so I continue to think the technology, the sophistication, the capabilities are going to continue to improve. And the ramifications of that are pretty tremendous. It's going to be playing a bigger and bigger role in making important decisions. And we make decisions all the time in our jobs. Whether it's people decisions, whether it's business decisions, whether it's all sorts of decisions, right? Chad: Yes. Guru Sethupathy: So that's one thing. And at the same time, we don't know how these systems work, that's the fundamental thing. Even if you go and talk to an engineer and you're like, "Hey, why did it do that?" I don't know if you've read on ChatGPT and GPT-4, but it does some weird stuff sometimes. There was one example where a person was talking to it in English and it started responding in French. And he's like, what? Like where like... And there's so many cases like that. It's really, for instance, it's really bad at math and logic, which for us, it doesn't make sense because we tend to think like simple math and logic, like third grade level math and logic... Chad: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: It's easier than high school level creative writing, for instance, right? Chad: Right. Guru Sethupathy: But it's better at that high school level creative writing than it is at third grade level math and logic. And so in our brains, that doesn't compute. Why... Chad: Does it... Guru Sethupathy: Why is that? And so there's a bunch of stuff like that where we don't understand how it works or why it works or why it does what it does. That's a big deal. You have to put guardrails around this stuff. You still need humans in the loop. You have to put guardrails. You have to worry about things like explainability and fairness and transparency and all these things, these things really matter. And so I felt both of these things were going to happen. Both AI was going to be more and more important, at the same time for this to really take off, you need to build trust in these systems, because it's very easy to get scared or weirded out and then boom, the whole system can be... You could just lose trust in the system and then, who knows what happens at that point? So to me, really, those two things go together. The advancement of technology has to come along with trust. And that was the impetus for fairnow. Chad: Well, Around the how, we'll get to that here in a second, but there are so many different types or classifications, let's talk about, around AI and it just makes everything so muddy. So you've got... Guru Sethupathy: Confusing. Chad: Artificial narrow intelligence, artificial general, artificial super. And then they even categorize... Like they break those out from there. So how much of your job is actually trying to educate and help organizations and literally, just human beings understand what the hell is going on out there? Guru Sethupathy: That is a very insightful point. I would say in these early days, more than half of our job is that, Chad. Like we have a technology platform, but more than half of my job is just educating, especially... We're primarily working in the HR space, talking to executives in HR and just educating them on a couple of different things. First of all, what is AI? Like literally what is it? How do you define it? When people say AI, what do they mean? And how would you think about kind of categorizing it? And so we even talk about two big buckets of AI. One is predictive analytics, like any kind of model that can predict, Hey, should that person get hired? Hey, should that person get promoted? Those are just simple predictive analytic models. Guru Sethupathy: And then the other one, which everyone seems to know about now is GenAI, which is generative AI. Which is these systems that can talk to you and have a conversation, etcetera. Those are the two big buckets. And then within those, there's subcategories that you can kind of cut into. But it's just good to know because for a lot of people, they just think AI, gen AI, they forget about the predictive models and those are really important too. So that's kind of one big bucket of things that people should think about. Guru Sethupathy: Then within that, another thing we educate on is, okay, what's going on in terms of laws and regulations? And that's a whole another thing. People are like, what is even going on here? I've heard about the New York City law. What does that law say? And then what about other laws? And so in the US we have a patchwork of different states coming together with their own laws, but then in places like Canada and the EU, it's much more top-down, it's much more kind of nationally, federally led laws as well. So that's bucket two. And then we talk about governance more broadly. Okay. Chad: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: How do you do it responsibly? How do you do this well from day one? So you just don't have a bunch of data scientists going around building cool models, and then you don't know how this is all going to explode a year from now. It's almost like a science lab where you put the science kids in the science lab, we're going to run these experiments, but like, hey, let's put some controls around this. We don't want to blow up the science lab. And so what does good governance look like? So those are the three topics that we're educating folks on. Chad: So I think we get wrapped up in classifications and the how, as you talked about, but should we be more focused specifically on the what? And what I mean is the outcomes and the impact on humans. What does it do to the actual human? For these individuals who are qualified and they're getting negatively impacted, because that's the signal. That's really the end signal that we should care about the most. It's like the, how. I think we get really... We dig deep into it. It's like, well, how does this predict and well, it's like, but at the end of the day, it's who's being impacted and how are they being impacted? So talk a little bit about that because I do believe in the how. Don't get me wrong, I am a geek, I love this stuff. But I really believe the what happened and who is impacted is really the thing that most companies should be really feeling... Really focusing on mostly. What do you think? Guru Sethupathy: I think that's a great point. In fact, one of the things, both in our product and our platform and how we educate folks, we talk about risk levels. And the risk levels are exactly related to your point around who is being impacted and how are they being impacted? So for instance, let me give you two examples. If someone is being impacted because they don't get a job or they don't get an interview, that is a very different risk level than I'm just chatting with a gen AI system and it's kind of bullshitting. Those are two different levels of impact and therefore two different levels of risk and that requires different levels of governance. Guru Sethupathy: So our entire governance framework, Chad, is built on risk level, which is a direct function of the point you just made of like who is being impacted and how are they being impacted? So that is absolutely, absolutely, how we derive our governance logic. The other point I want to make though, and I think this gets lost sometimes is because there is a lot of attention around these AI systems and oh my God, what are they doing? Are they biased? All this stuff. Humans are biased too. And so one of the things I don't want people... Chad: That's how the AI got biased in the first place. Guru Sethupathy: Right? Exactly. Chad: It didn't just... AI didn't just say, hey, we're going to be biased. Let's go ahead and bias this. Humans, the human behavior and data is what made this whole system. And here's, I think the big thing, Guru, and tell me what you think about this. First off, the bias we, there's already been biased inherent in the system 'cause it's humans. So we take that bias we put it into AI and the big difference around AI is AI scales better than humans do which means we can negatively or positively, okay. Guru Sethupathy: Exactly. Chad: Impact. Guru Sethupathy: Impact alot more people in a millisecond. Chad: Yes. Yes. Guru Sethupathy: That's right, that's right. And that's the concern, that's the concern. But where we come from is this technology though, if done well, can scale things positively as well. And that's where we differ from some people who are like, hey, let's stop doing AI or let's kind of put a pause on... We think this can actually have really positive implications if you're building good governance and responsible governance while you're doing it. There's a really cool study that just came out that showed as a randomized controller trial, so the best kind of study that you can do. And they broke up men and women and put them in different buckets. And for one audience they said, you're going to be assessed and interviewed by humans. And for the other one it said you're going to be assessed and interviewed by AI. More women self-selected to go into the latter bucket. Chad: Oh yeah, because they already saw the bias that was already inherent in the system. Guru Sethupathy: You know that they know, for instance, the biases they did. Any woman that you talk to knows how interviews work and how that stuff works. And they know that biases that are already inherent to that, they believe the AI is going to be less biased. Chad: Wow. Guru Sethupathy: Right. If you're a company and you're not getting enough female candidates, you actually can do, get more, source more female candidates by having an AI system. Now, then you need to have, make sure that AI system is actually less biased. Joel: Unlike Amazon's. Guru Sethupathy: Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly. But there are ways of doing that and there are ways of doing it. So that's not impossible. There's ways of doing that and then there's a lot of research around this and but I do think that's the future. Again, if you do this stuff responsibly, it's almost like if you have a powerful car, if you have a Ferrari, you can go crash that thing in 30 seconds or you can use that. If you use it responsibly, you can get to your next place faster, in a cooler way, all that kind of stuff. So it's all about how you use a really powerful technology and that's what AI is, it's a powerful tool. Chad: That's how Guru picked up chicks, Joel. We just found out. Joel: Am going to say, you can use the name Guru with great responsibility, or you can abuse it. It's really up to you. How are you going to use that kind of Ferrari. Guru Sethupathy: Touché, touché. Oh man, that was good. Joel: Clearly our AI overlords don't want me to be on this interview. But I'm curious about the current system of auditing or what you think it's going to look like. A company looking to get an audit, where the hell do they start and where do they go? Guru Sethupathy: Yeah. Where they can start, where they can go, they can come to us, that's what we do. And So what one of our... Joel: And why do they trust? Why should they trust you or anyone else? Chad: Why should they... Yeah. Why should they trust anybody? Joel: Does the government give you a stamp? Do you have a little badge from the Boy Scouts. Chad: His name is Guru, come on. Joel: What is it that you have? Guru Sethupathy: I'm Guru with a Ferrari, right? So that's how it spreads. A couple of things. So one of the key things around these laws is they are asking for an independent audit, almost every single one of them. It started with New York City. And let me say one thing before I go further. New York City law, Chad, you and I talked about this very briefly. I don't love the law. There's a bunch of things that if you want, we can get into it. There's a bunch of things I disagree with about, I would have written the law differently. But the thing it did, which I am happy about, is it raised awareness and all companies now are thinking, oh shoot. Okay, we got to slow down here. There's going to be other laws coming in. It's not just New York City, it's going to be other laws coming down the pipe. And so we just got to slow down. We got to... So it just, at least raised awareness of people are thinking about this in a more thoughtful way. So I do wanna give them credit for that. Guru Sethupathy: Okay now coming to... Joel: They're scared shitless is what's happening. But yeah, okay, they're aware of it. Guru Sethupathy: Exactly. They are scared shitless. And then the second point now to your question, Joel is okay, what is an audit? And so almost all of these laws are asking for an independent audit. So what does that mean? That means like, if you're a vendor, you can't just go around and say, Oh yeah, I just audited myself and like everything looks fine, you have to go to a third party. Now, we're in the early days of this. So there is no, like, hey, this is like a verified vendor who does the audit, and like... It's not like fairnow has been Verified in that way or this other company has been verified in that way. So that doesn't exist yet. But here are a couple of things I will say, if we do audits and they don't work out well, that's going to negatively affect us. So there's an incentive and like a thing for us to be very, very, very careful how we do this. Guru Sethupathy: The other thing I'll say is I've been doing this for decades, so I kind of know what an audit looks like in the topic of fairness and algorithms. The other thing that's happening now, this idea of market standards. And this is where I want to talk about carrot versus stick. So the laws and regulations are the stick. Hey, if you don't get audited by an independent third party, you got to pay a fine, blah, blah, blah. Standards are these market standards that are coming out, like ISO 42001. But ISO I'm sure your audience knows is a very, kind of, common, well known international standard around certification of a variety of things. It could be a lot of things and they're doing it now in the... And a lot of them is technology oriented and now they're doing it in the AI space. And 42001 is specifically about certifying that your AI systems are responsible and they have a bunch of stuff. Guru Sethupathy: And in fact the NIST frameworks, the National Institute of Standard Technology, those frameworks are embedded in this standard. And there's going to be other standards. I'm sure SOC is going to come out with some standards. You guys have probably heard of SOC. The EU AI Act is going to have its own standards. So it's going to be a bunch of standards, right. And these standards, Joel, to your question, those are well known, those are well known kind of almost approved upon, agreed upon standards of saying, okay, gosh, if Joel's company has ISO 42001 certified AI, I know they're responsible. And So what we're doing in our product is saying, hey, we'll audit you, but at the same time, we'll embed these standards in there. And so if you pass these standards, boom, you don't have to trust us, trust ISO 42001. So that's kind of how we're working on this as well. Joel: So we're in the early stages of this, I assume I could be Joey Bag o' Donuts, throw up a website and say I'll audit your AI and approve you, whereas, they're probably... It feels like the background check business to me. You got your mom and pop doing stuff, you got like your multi-global, like huge corporations doing it. Talk about the competitive landscape, how does this thing shake out? Or is there a Coke and a Pepsi? And then everyone else is like, good luck with that. Like how does this thing shake out? Guru Sethupathy: I think you're right on a few fronts. The barriers to entry just for doing an audit, not that high. You got to know a little bit about how to do it. You got to understand the the laws. You have to understand EEOC laws, the existing laws, something Keith Sonderling talks about often. And I think you... I remember actually listen to your podcast with Keith. There's already laws on the books. The EEOC has employment discrimination laws around just human bias and discrimination and stuff like that. Guru Sethupathy: And so those laws still apply. It's not like those laws have gone away. So you do want someone who has expertise in this space at the intersection of employment law, discrimination law, bias, and how do you conduct an audit? For example, the four-fifths rule. Not everyone knows about the four-fifths rule. So there's some subject matter expertise here. So I don't want to say it's completely simple, but there's some subject matter expertise. So, there are gonna be folks who have that subject matter expertise that are gonna come into this space. So that's part one. Part two though, is, beyond just the bias audit, there's a whole level of governance, Joel, that I believe is important. So let me give you an example. Joel: Yep. Guru Sethupathy: We've been chatting with customers. HR executives, dozens and dozens. One of the first things I ask them is, hey, how many models do you have in your HR organization. Not one of them has got the right answer. Meaning, they don't even know how many models they have in their own organization. And I happen to know it 'cause I'd be talking to their folks in their organization and I'd ask them, hey, how many models here? How many models here? And they didn't know. And so the first level of governance, forget bias audits, just forget that. The first thing you have to do is just know what you have. You gotta know. You gotta inventory, you gotta know what you have. You gotta know what these models are doing, why they're doing it, who has access to these models, what data they're using. That's just basic governance 101. Then, as you get into more high risk models, then you do things like, okay, now we have to develop validation reports. Guru Sethupathy: We have to do bias audits, we have to do explainability reports. Then we have to do compliance with different laws. So we actually have a framework for different levels of governance, depending on the risk level of the model. And so, this to me... So yeah, you can do a quick bias audit. To me, a bias audit is like a bandaid. So if you go see someone and they're like, oh yeah, you have a scratch, let me put a bandaid on there. Sure, there's gonna be dozens of those. Joel: Doesn't make you a doctor. Guru Sethupathy: It doesn't make you a doctor. And I think that's what we bring to the table. And the reason we are able to do that is, me and some of my colleagues we're ex Capital One folks. The whole financial services lending space, if I can just digress for a second, there has been laws on the books there around, against discrimination and lending for decades now. And so any bank or any institution has had to be very, very well governed around the models that they use in lending and banking and so on. And when I was at Capital One, I learned about that and I said, wait a second, that's gonna come everywhere. That's not gonna be just in banking, that's gonna come to HR, that's gonna come to health, that's gonna come to insurance that's gonna come... It's gonna come to all these spaces and these spaces don't know how to do this governance. Joel: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: And so to me that's kind of what's the different, that's gonna be the differentiator between just an auditor versus someone who's gonna, like you said, a doctor in this space. Joel: Yeah. We have a lot of vendors listen to our show. A lot of people that are building products, cool things that aren't necessarily thinking about bias or how it could impact or break the law. Should vendors reach out to you just as employers do and say like, hey, we've already been vetted by fairnow, we've already been vetted by A, B and C top, whatever. Are they doing that and should they do that and what would it cost? Guru Sethupathy: Yeah. We're already working with vendors. So we're actually working with both kind of enterprise customers who are using these things, as well as vendors who are building these things. And if you look at the laws, New York City is focused on the end customer but other laws like New Jersey, there's a law that's coming down the pipe that's focused on vendors. But if you look at most of the other laws, California, Massachusetts, the EU AI Act, like Canada, all of them are focused on both sides of the market. Both the end user and the company that builds the technology. So vendors should absolutely be concerned about this. And yes, absolutely. And we're already working with them on this. So yeah, they can come talk to us, we're already working with vendors. And I think one of the things there that's gonna be coming down the pipe, and we're already seeing this, is their customers are asking them these questions, Joel. Joel: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: Their customers are starting to come and ask them, hey, wait a second. I didn't ask you last time when I signed the... Signed a contract. But now I wanna know what data are you using? What's your training data? Is there a bias? Have you had a third party look at it? They're starting to ask those questions and so that's where we can help. Joel: Here's the thing though, Guru, is that I can have, I'm a vendor and I go through all of the hoops, right? Guru Sethupathy: Yeah. Joel: But the problem is, as soon as I put that in front of a bias set of data, and then a company takes over and they try to make it more customized/bespoke, depending on what side of the pond you're on, then that fucks the entire system up. So you can be as, much like we've said for years, applicant tracking systems worked perfectly until companies came in and they started customizing the hell out of... Oh no, we wanna do it this way, that way, and the other thing. And now everything is bottlenecked, it's not happening efficiently like it should. Now, in this case, a vendor can go through all of those hoops, but a company starts to push all this infected, let's say, data into the large language model, that's not the vendor's fault. Who is responsible there? Because California wants the vendor to be responsible in some cases. Guru Sethupathy: And this is where... We're in the top of the first inning check, right? Joel: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: There's gonna be so much that we have to sort through and figure out both from like a business perspective and from a regulatory perspective. So on this point around training data, so models, so when I say a model, I'm actually referring to two things, an algorithm and the training data that that algorithm was trained on. So sometimes the same algorithm could be five different models because every time there's a different training data, that to me, that's five different models. And four of those could be good, and the fifth one could be really biased data to your point, right? Joel: Mm-hmm. Guru Sethupathy: So that's point number one. Point number two is, we actually have come up with a pretty cool technique where we've developed a synthetic dataset, a proprietary synthetic dataset that then runs A/B tests on your model, it doesn't even use that dataset. I'm gonna say, Hey, forget about that dataset. Let's use this dataset and run a simulation on your model and test your model for that. And the laws actually allow for that. So the New York City law, there's actually a section there that says, hey, if you can't train on a historical training dataset for a variety of reasons, you can use an alternate test dataset. And so we've created that test dataset, so that way a vendor can say, hey, look, I don't know what training data you have, customer A, but based on this kind of canonical test data, our model is fine. And that's a valid thing, at least from the point of view of the New York City law, etcetera. The other thing that vendors should be aware of is how are their customers using their technology? It used to be the case that you're like, I don't care how you use it. Like, good luck to you, user error is on you, kind of thing, right? Joel: Yeah. You're on the hook. Guru Sethupathy: You're on the hook. And they still are on the hook, but where it starts to affect a vendor is now reputation. So now if, for instance, five different customers of theirs have been sued or audited. And they're all using this technology, their vendor technology. Again, they're probably not on the hook, Chad, but it starts to look bad. So I don't know if you saw this Workday lawsuit, no I don't know. Joel: Yeah, yes. Guru Sethupathy: Kind of as there's some debate there around whether that was a real legit lawsuit or if that was kind of contrived, but you know we can debate that. But the point being, it still looks bad on Workday, right? Joel: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: And so Workday now has an incentive to make sure their customers are using their technology in the right way. And that's another way, again, where we can help, where we can say, hey, if we're auditing a vendor, we can also say, who are your customers? Let's go audit them. And so now you can make... And we can give them a score and so the vendor can know, hey, how are each of their customers doing. And, if they see one of their customers is scoring a D, for instance. All right, they're probably not using it correctly, let's go talk to them. So that's where, those are the kinds of things we wanna solve. Joel: Gotcha. I wanna switch real quick to the top-down versus bottom-up, states versus federal. Guru Sethupathy: Yeah. Yeah. Joel: And so what we did see, going back to your example, we did see financial institutions, the government relaxed on lending laws, and we broke the entire globe. The United States screwed the entire world because everything was relaxed from the feds going down. We don't have really anything in place, federally, the EU is putting things in place. So how much risk do we have in breaking the entire damn world again, if we don't put guardrails in place federally? I know the states are pushing, and I appreciate that, but does it really matter unless we do a federal mandate from the top-down. Guru Sethupathy: Yeah. Really interesting. A really interesting analogy that you're comparing it to kind of the financial system, and what happened in the late 2000s. A couple of things. One is just... I just wanna put this out there. We're just much more of a kind of state's right, type of place in America. And this isn't to get into politics or anything like that, but that's just how we were founded. I'm just going back to our founding and how we got started. We were a bunch of states, and this is part of our... Chad: That was over 200 hundred years ago. Joel: This is America, Chad. Chad: That was over 200 years ago. Back in the horse and buggy days, we... Continue, continue. Guru Sethupathy: No, no, But my point is, that's not the... Joel: He said, no politics, Chad, I know where you're going with all this. Chad: No, that was just a historical reference. Had nothing to do with politics, Joel. Joel: I know what you meant. Guru, go on, save us. Guru Sethupathy: It's just in our DNA. Our DNA is just very different from that standpoint, from Europe and other places. And so, I do think we are going to have, states coming out with their own laws. And they're gonna say we wanna regulate. Now, in some sense, that's good. The thing I like about that kind of stuff is experimentation. Hey, let California try what they wanna try. Let New York try, let Illinois try. And let's see what's working well. The whole idea of states is a laboratory for trying to see what's working and what's not. So that part is good. The part that sucks kind of is like, if you're a national company, your head is gonna explode with 20 different laws across so many different states. And you're like, oh my God, your head is literally gonna explode. Chad: Well, this just makes business good for you, Guru, because now it is so goddamn complete. Nobody can keep up with it, dude. If there was a blanket law, it'd make it a little bit easier... Joel: He's gonna bet on that garage for a few more Ferraris. [laughter] Chad: Maserati, just continue. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Chad: Aston Martin. Guru Sethupathy: So, that is, I think, going to be the plus and the minus of how the US is gonna flip. Now, the thing that is interesting here, and you're already starting to see some federal guidelines. Now, they're not specific laws, but the NIST which is again, an organization that we are members of, and we are working with and partnering with National Institute of Standards of Technology, they've come out with a NIST AI Risk Management Framework. And that framework is going to... Is supposed to be something that states can borrow from, that companies can borrow from, and that they can start using it in building into standards and into governance practices. Guru Sethupathy: So again, I don't think it's going to be an all or nothing. Hey, is it only states doing stuff or is it only federal doing stuff? I do think in this case, Chad, you're gonna see both. You've already seen the White House put out a blueprint. The Congress is already talking about guidelines and guardrails. And so I do think you're gonna see kind of, high level guardrails at the federal level. And I do think you're gonna have specific laws at the state level. I do think that's gonna... How it's gonna proceed in the US. Joel: So let me throw in another curve ball at you. The globe, every country and municipality, and they're gonna have their own laws as well. That company with that satellite office in Belgium is thinking, what the hell? How are we gonna cover our ass on this one? What advice would you give them? And does your company cover a global footprint? Is there an association in the offering that will sort of keep track of all this stuff? Is lobbying in the future? Guru Sethupathy: One of the things we're seeing kind of in the early days is companies just turning off some of their AI systems. Joel: Yes. Guru Sethupathy: One thing I've seen as it gets complicated, they're like, you know what? Screw it. I'm just gonna turn off my hiring and my AI in New York City or in California, or whatever. Now look, that's not a sustainable answer, that's not how you build a business, that's not how you continue to do things over time. But that's kind of been a quick reaction from some companies. And so that's kind of part one of my answer to you. Part two is, yes, we help. In fact, that's kind of a big part of our value prop is like, there's gonna be 50 different laws, you are gonna have 50 different models, that's 2,500 different combinations, we're gonna keep track of that for you. So that is kind of, part of our value prop. Joel, because otherwise, like I said before, your head is just gonna explode. And 100% there's gonna be lobbying. When is there not lobbying when it comes to any law. So there's gonna be huge amount of lobbying. In fact, you're already... And I think a lot of lobbying is actually gonna from the big players. Joel: Yeah. Guru Sethupathy: I think it's the Googles and the Microsofts of the world that are heavily involved in shaping some of these things. In fact, if you look at Chuck Schumer, I think is convening a meeting on responsible AI. And if you look at the names on that list of people that are in the room, it is a who's who and the people that we've all heard of, these names. They're the CEOs of Microsoft and Google and all these really big technology companies. So there's absolutely gonna be lobbying, there's absolutely gonna be reshaping of this. And in fact, that's part of where it comes back to this carrot and the stick idea. There's gonna be laws on the books, but at the same time, there's gonna be some amount of like, not self-regulation, but market regulation. And so the analogy I'm gonna give you is SOC 2 compliance. And I think, Joel, you were shaking your head, you didn't know that one before, but Chad, I think you might. But SOC 2 is a thing. Joel: Thanks for throwing me under the bus Guru. I appreciate that. [laughter] Guru Sethupathy: I just was making sure. If you were like, no, no, I know this stuff, I would've just skipped on. I would've just skipped on. Chad: Guru, everybody knows Joel is just the pretty face on this podcast. Okay, so it's okay. [laughter] Guru Sethupathy: Well in 5 seconds, Joel, you're gonna know as much as I want. Joel: I was just doing sit ups, is why my head is nodding. Doing some crunches. [laughter] Guru Sethupathy: But the SOC 2 compliance is basically a way, a standard for making sure that you are handling your customer's data. Your customer's data, their documents, their... All of your information is called InfoSec compliance. That is not a regulation. SOC 2 is not a regulation, but it is now so prevalent because any time you are a vendor, you wanna sell a product to someone, SaaS product, they will, in their recruit procurement process, they will ask you, are you SOC 2, it just kind of covers your ass. And so my expectation is that will become a thing, that will become a... There'll be standards out there that you'll have to follow. Again, it could be ISO 42001, maybe it's a SOC 10 compliance something. There's gonna be something. And that is something that all companies will just have to follow. And that's gonna simplify things. That'll simplify the things from like, oh my God, 30 laws in 30 states to, hey, if I follow the standard, that should cover me 90% of what I need to do. And so, I think that's also something you're gonna see in the future. And that's also something we help with. Chad: Get ready kids, they're gonna be on RFPs all over the place when that happens. Guru, I want your commitment, my friend. This is just the start of this conversation. We need to have you back to continue this discussion because it is constantly changing from state to state, country to country the GPU to Google, Gemini. Jesus, it's all over the place. Guru Sethupathy: And both sides are just... Both parts of the equation are changing so rapidly. Chad: Yes. Guru Sethupathy: What I mean by both parts of the equation is the technology is evolving at such a fast pace. And so if you ever even wanna come back, have me come back and just talk about the technology and what it's doing, and what is it capable of, and what it's not capable of, I go into that too. What are some of the things that sucks at? We can even nerd out on that a little bit. So, but that side of things, the technology and how fast it's changing and where it's headed, that's one piece. And then the laws and the standards and that stuff is also changing very quickly. Chad: Because they go hand in hand kids. They go hand in hand. Guru, if somebody wants to find out more about fairnow.ai and/or they want to connect with Guru 'cause who the hell doesn't want to connect with a Guru for goodness sakes, where would you send them? Guru Sethupathy: Thank you. Yeah. So our website is the first and best place, www.fairnow.ai. And you can learn a lot more about our company and what we do there. You can reach out to us there on the website directly or email me. Happy to chat. Like you said, the very first question you asked Chad, I think was we're educating people on this stuff too, right? It's not just our technology. We're educating people, helping them think through the complexities here and how they can get started down this journey. So you can email me at guru@fairnow.ai. Joel: Love Guru, AI Guru or just plain Guru. Chad, another one is in the can, we out. Chad: We out. Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Effective LinkedIn outreach can be the difference between a recruiter on Skid Row and one on Easy St. One start-up that promises to put headhunters on the fast track to champagne ‘n' cocaine is HyperJob, a solution that says it'll replace your plain-text job descriptions with interactive job microsites. The solution, founded by Janis Kreilis, CEO and co-founder, uses A.I. to evaluate LinkedIn profiles and craft individual messages with artificial intelligence from there. Hmmm, another start-up relying on LinkedIn for its success. What could possibly go wrong? Gotta listen to see if HyperJob survived the Firing Squad or not. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Intro: Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman 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: All right, all right, all right. It's another Firing Squad, everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure, a.k.a the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the Barney to my Fred, Chad Sowash is in the house. And today we are happy to welcome Janis Kreilis, CEO and cofounder at Hyperjob. Janis, welcome to Firing Squad. Janis Kreilis: Hey, what's up Joe? Great being here. [laughter] Joel: He's excited obviously. Well, Janis, for our listeners that don't know you, give us a little bit about you the person, before we get into the company. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, sure. Born and raised in Riga, Latvia. That's the Baltic countries. US educated, spent four years in Philly, at UPenn, got my Bachelor's there. Two more years in New York, my masters there. In between those two things, I traveled across the world, was living in West Africa, Middle East, Far East, in a completely unrelated sector, the oil and gas. But then I came back to Latvia in, was that 2016, founded an NGO for networking with people like myself, you know, people who come back with this global experience. And through that segued into my first business, which was a recruitment agency specifically tailored to bring more talents to the Baltic countries. Yeah, I love music. I play pretty much the guitar, the keys, the drums. Now I have a wonderful one and a half year old at home, lovely wife. And yeah, that's, I guess the twitter bio. Joel: What is the most famous band from Latvia of all time? [laughter] Janis Kreilis: You wouldn't know it but, [laughter] We have a band called Brainstorm. It's basically like they've written half of the pop rock songs in the country. Joel: I like the name, Brainstorm. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, they've be going... Joel: I'm down. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, they've be... [laughter] They've be going for like, I don't know, 25 years now or something. Still super popular. Joel: I'm down. I'm down for Brainstorm. I'm down for Brainstorm. Chad: I'm down. [laughter] Joel: Chad, give him some Brainstorm and tell him what he's won today. [laughter] Chad: Well, welcome Janis to the Firing Squad. Now, this is how it's going to work, my friend. At the sound of the bell, you're going to have two minutes to pitch Hyperjob. At the end of two minutes, we're going to hit you with 20 minutes or so of Q&A. So be sure to be concise or you gonna to get hit by the crickets. That just means move along, tighten it up and be swift about it. At the end of Q&A, you're going to hear either a big applause, which means you've passed Hyper Speed, passed Ludicrous speed. Congratulations, you've gone Plaid, the Golf Clap. [laughter] Chad: Hyper Speed might be on the road map, but you're nowhere near hitting that velocity. Try harder, or the Firing Squad. No hyper speed for you kid. You'll be lucky to break the speed limit in the school zone with this satellite. Junk it and start over. That's Firing Squad. Are you ready? Janis Kreilis: Absolutely. That's great. Joel: God, I love a good Spaceballs reference. All right, Janis, pitch the company starting now. Janis Kreilis: So, Hyperjob allows companies to replace their plain text job descriptions with interactive and engaging job microsites. These microsites have helped our customers convert passive candidates up to... Improvement of either from 60% to six times. What I mean by microsite is basically each job description we move it from plain text, typewriter era, into a unique web page for each position that features everything about the company, that features multimedia such as images and videos, including a welcome video from the hiring manager. And then moving on to what is the pitch from the company. What are the requirements on the position? What is the team like, everything around, also the office? Hybrid, is it remote? Going into details like what's the hiring process like? Janis Kreilis: So, basically do you have a full picture of the position? And yeah, we have a great candidate feedback on that. So like I said, better, better improvement, kind of improvement in conversion ratios. On top of that, we're right now building a delivery mechanism to help companies engage with passive candidates better. So, in the kind of space of outbound recruitment, we have a CRM. We have our leveraging AI to help recruiters build short lists out of screen profiles on LinkedIn to reach out to candidates in an automated but personalized way. Yeah, so going for the full toolkit to engage with passive talent. Janis Kreilis: Finally, there's analytics. For employer branding teams, if you compare regular plain text positions, you can't really analyze much there. We have a full scope of any marketer would do on a landing page, visits, bounce rates, section clicks so that you can actually improve the conversion rates. The inspiration for Hyperjob comes from the realization that in many ways recruitment is marketing and sales, yet where marketers have great tools available to source and reach out to and convert leads... Joel: All right, Janis, your two minutes... Janis Kreilis: Yes. We need to bring this over. Joel: Is now over. All right, Janis, as we normally do on Firing Squad, let's start with the name hyperjob.io. Hyperjob.com is for sale. Did you investigate buying that? What's the story behind the name Hyperjob? Janis Kreilis: The story is, yeah, I guess the kind of illusion was with text and hyper text right? The old days of Internet where HTML comes in or you kind of move from analog, which is literally a typewritten document into something that has links, can be clicked, is digital. So we said, job descriptions and hypertext comes together in Hyperjob. So yes, that's the kind of the core product. We haven't bought the dot com yet. We don't really see the point just now, but we have looked at it. Joel: So have you explored the price tag? Have you explored like what it would take? [laughter] Janis Kreilis: If it was $500, it would be ours, but I think it was like 20K or something, so. Joel: Okay. Janis Kreilis: So, we're like not at this moment, but it's on the radar. Joel: All right, let's talk about money for a sec. You guys are largely bootstrapped. You founded the company a couple years ago. You raised about $587,000... Is a series A or a seed round in the offing, are you gonna continue to bootstrap it? Talk about funding? Janis Kreilis: Yeah, sure, so we've raised two accelerators by this point in pre-seed round. Right now, we are still actually evaluating two options. We will continue bootstrapping for a while, two reasons. We actually want to get more customer feedback and build the product out before we go into the seed round. And the second part is, well, it's no secret that the fundraising environment right now, especially in HR tech is amazing. SO, [laughter] I gonna maybe wait a bit more to actually have a better round. Joel: In Riga, Latvia, it doesn't have the price tag that a Silicon Valley headquarters might have. Janis Kreilis: Yes, that is saving us... Actually is making us way easier to bootstrap. However, that's a problem when it comes to raising from the US, because when we're doing the pre-seed round, American investors are like, "First off, what is a pre-seed round? 'Cause we do maybe angel rounds. And Why are you raising so little?" And I'm like, "Well, here's an explanation, it's just, it's not as costly to build something here and sell back to the US." So, yeah. Chad: So let's talk about experience here. You went from oil and gas, which is a slightly lucrative industry to a not so lucrative industry in some cases, HR. So why make that move? Janis Kreilis: I just love people you know. [laughter] Chad: Don't give me the bullshit answer, I want the real answer Janis. [laughter] Janis Kreilis: With all honesty, the oil and gas gig, I love the energy industry, actually, my Master's is in energy, I like it, but put it very bluntly, Latvia is a small country, we don't have that kind of an industry here. There's not a lot of opportunities. So I knew I wanted to come back here, and I just knew that, "Hey, this could remain in my background, but I need to find something else here." And yeah, I'm kinda HR for myself is kind of an accident, I'll be frank, I stumbled into it. The idea... How I got into this, as I was saying is we had this network, these meet-ups of globally experienced Latvians in Riga and I kind of also stumbled into that. And at some point, employers started coming to our meet-ups and saying, "Hey, do you have some good talent like people who are looking for work? And to me, basically a scream like, here's the business opportunity, we have a good network and there's a good demand for it. So, that's how the first recruitment agency was born and... Chad: Okay. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, I was a newcomer, and man, in the first year, I discovered every reason why there's so many different clauses in these like recruitment contracts. [laughter] Chad: So, let's jump into it. Let's jump into the company real quick. How many employees do you currently have? Janis Kreilis: We have six in the core team and two and a half freelancers, like two full-time and part-time... Chad: Okay. So, you have more products than you have employees because your product, at least a product list on the website, is source and match, attract and gauge, convert, which are your microsite, manage and nurture, analyze and improve, integrate and collaborate. That's the products or even services that are more staffing services. But those are some very extensive technologies in that list of products. You've only been around for two years, so why are you focusing so heavily on the Convert product? Which to be quite frank, it's just a microsite. Microsites has been around for well over a decade. Why are you focusing so heavily on that product? Janis Kreilis: Well, because it's actually a real innovation in the sector. In these two years, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but... Chad: Sure. Janis Kreilis: We haven't really seen of the same approach. The basically like the spotlight on, hey, you know what, your job description or job ads, job post, whatever you wanna call it, actually makes a big difference in the results or the performance of your outreach and how you can attract people. So, that's the first thing. And you know when you're... For example, [chuckle] we've done some A/B tests with some customers of ours. So, imagine like source 50 people and 50 people, get them the same kind of outreach messaging sequences, and in the test batch, you get two interviews and with Hyperjob you get 12 interviews and candidates are like, "Wow, this is great." Chad: But a microsite is different than your attract and engage. The attract and engage is, that's outreach. I'm talking about microsite. So let's not blur of lines here real quick. Have you ever heard of a company called Jobs2web? Janis Kreilis: No, I haven't, unfortunately. Chad: So, more than 10 years ago, they were actually bought by... Joel: SAP. Chad: Applicant Tracking system, yeah, SAP but it was... Joel: SuccessFactors. Chad: Yeah, SuccessFactors. This was a big trend more than 10 years ago, before you obviously got into the space. Most applicant tracking systems, most organizations have this type of "content management system" that's more of a cosmetic layer, but the problem is Janis, they don't fucking use it. So, how can you make it easier for them to actually use it and make it more practical so that they can get more qualified and relevant candidates? Janis Kreilis: Yeah, sure. So, behind the microsite, we have this builder, and we've made it very, very easy for people. It takes about 20 minutes to fill out information, check a couple of boxes, and you have that branded and ready to go. Chad: Twenty minutes per microsite? Janis Kreilis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad: Okay. Janis Kreilis: Plus once you filled out the company profile, Again, it's about this content management. If you look at traditional job ads or job posts, they're all copies of each other. It's analog, messy text-based information. Here we have structured information, right? Once you've filled out let's say something on your company's profile, right? Right now we're like 300 people. In a month, we're about 400 people. I don't need to update all the job posts individually. There's centralized content management that we have. Janis Kreilis: And plus the ease is also, you'd never start with a blank page. You have a framework that you fill out in our builder, so your hiring manager can talk to recruiter and use that as a way to, "Okay, what is the assignment? What are we offering? What's the role like?" And you're done. Because otherwise, typically what ends up happening is you have an intake interview that takes both about an hour or so. It generates a lot of information. Then, in plain text, you never wanna like present a Tolstoy novel. So you kind of throw most of it out and then you hide it from your candidates, then you go back and kind of re-explain everything to people when they're actually kind of in the first intro interviews. If you use modern UI, you can have a wealth of info, and at the same time, don't overwhelm your potential candidates. So, I don't know if that answers your question, but... Joel: So, Chad went back in the day with Jobs2web, I'm gonna go back in the day with another one that Chad will probably know and you will not, company called VisualCV. The idea of the company was that instead of a text-only resume, you'd have pictures and screenshots of your degrees and videos, etcetera. It didn't take off for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons it didn't take off was because computers need to index your resume, so then it can go into an ATS and it can be searchable, and spiders can understand what's on the resume. When you start throwing columns and pictures, it gets really confused. Joel: Let's fast forward to today. You have Google for Jobs that needs to be sort of easily read a job. You have programmatic solutions, you have XML feeds of your jobs. And all this stuff is based on and founded in the belief that your text will be easily indexed, everything will go into the machine and get spit out in a standardized way. You're nodding your head very aggressively for the listeners out there. So, my question is, why do we need pretty jobs when we have Google for Jobs, programmatic, XML feeds? All these things go against what you're doing. Convince me that we need pretty job postings instead of standardized ones. Janis Kreilis: So, all of what you mentioned is addressing the job seeker market. It's inbound. You post your job, people apply, people who are looking for your jobs. However, with the expansion of the talent gap or the talent shortage, again, not talking about right now, but just two years ago, you would see a rise in outbound recruiting. When people... The right people don't apply, what do you do then? You have to go out and hunt for them, reach out on, let's say LinkedIn, other platforms. And here actually, you as a recruiter, you are the applicant. Because they get like 30 to 40 recruiter messages then every month. So then it's a question of how do you stand out? Janis Kreilis: And if you are trying then to sell and market to somebody, they're not coming to you, you are coming out to them, it plays a big difference from just plain text to actually having something that act as a sales material. So, that's the short answer. The analogy I would say, [laughter] given my background, and the unfortunate fact that I was a born in the Soviet Union, there were no products there. So there was no marketing. Whatever you would throw on the shelves, people would buy. It's the same way. If customers are coming to you like, "Hey, I want to work for you." It doesn't really matter that much. Yes, true. But for the roles you cannot close via your traditional channels where talent is becoming scarce, you need to fight for it, you need every tool needed. And that's why when... To answer Chad's question, why are we focusing so much on conversion? That's where conversion is really important, right? Joel: Yeah. Janis Kreilis: Give them a good pitch, find them in a better way, personalize the outreach, convert at every point of the way. Joel: It's a better hand out than most essentially. A piece of collateral essentially to pass to a candidate to get their attention. Yours is prettier. Janis Kreilis: Exactly. Joel: So, let's talk about sourcing for a second. So, a big part of your product suite is we go out to LinkedIn, we message folks, which I'm assuming is in mail and not trying to grab an email address or a phone number. You can talk about that. But essentially you're leveraging LinkedIn a lot to source. Now, we've seen a lot of volatility, to say the least in the sourcing business in the last couple of years. We've seen hiQ get sued to oblivion by LinkedIn. We've seen HiringSolved go out of business essentially, we've seen SeekOut pivot, we've seen Hiretual become hireEZ. I'm scared about the future of sourcing as a business. Convince me that you're gonna be bulletproof. Janis Kreilis: Right. Why is sourcing happening? It's because is basically a market response to a shortage of talent. And the two trends I'm thinking about is the shortage doesn't seem to be going away in the long term. If you look at the smart people at Korn Ferry, McKenzie, they've kind of evaluated that we're just not churning out enough skilled people in the IT space and digital services and so on. And the second thing is demographics, right? Boomers are retiring, Gen Z is a small generation, not gonna replace everybody. It just points to the fact that there will not be enough talent for everybody. Again, right now we're in a dip, it's a bit of a respite. Joel: Let me rephrase my question a little. So there's the future sourcing, and I do agree, like there will still be recruiters trying to find needles in the haystack. My fear is that the automation piece connected to LinkedIn, that scares me. So put my mind at ease that you're not gonna get destroyed by LinkedIn. Janis Kreilis: Hmm. Chad: What happens if they cut you off? Joel: Yeah. Janis Kreilis: Cut us off. [laughter] Joel: They identify the bots and shut you down. Janis Kreilis: Yeah. Well, actually. Joel: Is that not gonna happen and why? [laughter], Janis Kreilis: We're not really scraping LinkedIn in an automated way that would kind of say like, go... That would break the normal flow of somebody's work. Joel: But You are automating, going to profiles on LinkedIn, in-mailing people. You are automating that process. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, we're working on that. Joel: And LinkedIn has police that are looking at that and identifying it as a way to identify automation, which they don't like. So what are you doing to bulletproof yourself from LinkedIn's monitors? Janis Kreilis: You need to cap or basically you cannot give people weird superpowers on LinkedIn, right? Like send a message to a thousand people, right? So you need to cap their actions. So basically that... In a way, yes, there is an automated software run... Like doing the work, but it cannot do more than I would normally do in a day's kind of a normal workday. So you don't wanna break LinkedIn, right? It's more about playing by the rules and automating the stuff that... Okay, I need to message a hundred people, that would take me like two hours. I can run the script that does that for me, but it's not like I'm gonna do it in like one minute, right? That's the part if that goes into direction. Joel: So you're doing as much as you can to look like a human connected to someone's individual LinkedIn account so that you don't get flagged. Janis Kreilis: That's what you need to do. And... Joel: All right. Janis Kreilis: And also you don't want to enable spam, right? That break... Like that just breaks the industry for everybody. Chad: What's your plan? What's your plan B if they do cut you off? Joel: There are actually alternative sources. I mean, as you'll see, right? HireEZ of this world and SeekOut. There are alternative ways, and actually we... If you kind of look at the outbound recruitment funnel, right? There's the lead gen/getting the people's profiles, then reaching out to them and then conversion. And we see LinkedIn as a great source of profile data, but there are others who are actually actively working to replace LinkedIn. Chad: So. You don't have to reach out through LinkedIn to be able to have a conversation with this individual. So therefore, it's not going to prod LinkedIn to say you're a bad player. Totally get it. Okay. Janis Kreilis: Yeah. Chad: So on the actual website itself, it says pick the best matches without opening each profile. Go beyond LinkedIn search filters, yada, yada, yada. This is all focused around AI and scoring each profile. So a couple of questions. Who parses and matches these candidates? Is it a technology partner that you have or is it your IP? Janis Kreilis: So I'll be... Full disclosure, this is a pilot feature right now we're working on with a couple of pilot customers. What we are essentially doing is imagine a workflow where I've... Let's say I've used LinkedIn's filters to have a list of 200 potential matches, right? Chad: I totally get it. That's not my question. Janis Kreilis: Yeah. Chad: My question is, are you using a partner to help you do that or have you built the IP? Janis Kreilis: We haven't built it. We're actually leveraging GPT from OpenAI. Chad: Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad: So, who audits the scoring algorithm? Janis Kreilis: In terms of legal audit or in terms of the actual output? Chad: The actual scoring mechanism, right? So if you think about it, Amazon had an algorithm that went crazy that just kicked all the females to the curb, right? Because of its learning, the behavioral learning, right? What's to stop your algorithm from giving white dudes a 100% and females 50% [laughter]? No, what's the auditing answer there? This is, if you're working with an algorithm, especially when you're talking about OpenAI or what have you, this shit could go off the rails really quick. So what do you do to audit it to ensure that does not happen? Janis Kreilis: We actually don't enable the algorithm to do the full audit, the way you describe it. It's mostly about scorecarding and saying, answering questions for me. Like, Hey, please check if this person is also a freelancer at the same time. Please check if they're... They have like a PHP on their skills, but it was used only in university. And just go in and give me that information and it's not the AI that makes decisions. So we're not doing this, basically like, "Hey, AI, go out and find the people." And then yeah, you get into all sorts of really bad business, right? It's more about just look at it, look at each profile, and give me specific things that I'm looking for so I can take the decision then. Chad: Okay. Well, when you say use AI to score each profile on your website, you might not wanna say that if that's not exactly what's happening now. Janis Kreilis: Point taken. Thanks. [laughter] Chad: Yes. I mean, think about what you're actually saying to the people, right? And the perspective ramifications that are gonna smack you square in the face. So is the attract and engage product where you generate and send personal messages for each candidate, is that a product of OpenAI as well? Janis Kreilis: Yes. So what we're doing there, again, working on the pilots with the same customers is that we are looking at ways, again, not replacing recruiters, not automating everything, but having somebody's profile and having the Hyperjob page, right? We know the requirements and then combining those, leveraging GPT to write a good intro message. But again, we're basically giving them a first draft of like, "Hey, do you like this? Then use it. If not, you can always rewrite." It's not about like, completely replacing the recruiters. Chad: Gotcha. So are you going direct to companies on this, or are you trying to actually partner with staffing companies and or other tech companies to partner so that you can get penetration into their portfolio? Are you going direct or are you trying to go through partnership? Janis Kreilis: We are doing... Yeah, one is going directly for the internal sourcing recruitment teams. We are also starting to work with a couple of agencies who are partners in recruitment to see whether that partnership model works where they use the product and they onboard their customers. Chad: Okay. So what are you focusing on from a total addressable market when we're talking about geography? What is your focal area for geography? Janis Kreilis: Yeah, two of them actually. One is the East Coast right now in the US and the other is the UK and Scandinavia, because these are English speaking markets in specific niches. Right? Specifically tech, because that's where the talent shortage still is very much available. Joel: You talked about agencies getting this in front of them. What's been their response? Janis Kreilis: A mixed, I will be frank. Some of them, the more progressive ones who you can see, they're happy to adopt new tools, are quite excited, and they're like, yep, sure, let's have a trial. Let's get the candidate feedback. Awesome. And then there's also a more, I would say a traditional business who says, Hey, we've been in this, we're doing this for 25 years and we know how it's done and all is going well, and no thanks. Joel: Got it. And so agencies makes me think that you're targeting larger companies. What does a client usually look like, and particularly location-wise, you're in Europe, are most of your clients European? What size companies or who would you like to be in the portfolio? Talk about what the ideal client looks like. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, it's a bit of a smorgasbord to be frank. So on one end we have the German unicorn Personio, which is an HR tech company itself. They are using... Their entire sourcing team is using Hyperjob for more than a year now. So they're like a perfect customer. They have a lot of open positions, they do their own sourcing, they're very tech driven, analytics driven, really good. Here in the Nordic region, we have a global service center for one of the major banks, and their IT team is using this. So they need to hunt, right? So it's a completely different sector, but a similar need. So yeah. [laughter] that's like a couple. Joel: I guess what I'm looking for, are these enterprises that you need? Are these... Can the solo recruiter leverage your tool? What does that look like? I don't need specific companies, but generally, yeah. Janis Kreilis: Yeah. All the way... To start with these thousands of people all the way down to the single recruiter or down to a, I don't know, a startup, a scale up with just a couple of people... Joel: Okay. Anywhere in the world or English-based? Do you do other languages or? Janis Kreilis: Yeah, we do German as well, we implemented Swedish also. We're just like... They're hunting for people in the Western world mostly, we don't see us as like geography kind of constricted. Joel: Okay. So your TAM is large. It's restricted only by how fast you can add languages to it. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, pretty much. Joel: Another threat in addition to the LinkedIn police, I think the advent of video and automation, right? So recruiters don't actually have to do the follow-up, right? Bots can have a conversation through In-Mail or whatever. Is that in your roadmap for the product that you're building? Will it always be a human sort of mediation product? Talk about taking humans out of the equation or not? Janis Kreilis: I think, yes, we have thought about this quite a lot. The idea is [laughter], I'm gonna sound pretty corny, but you wanna automate the tedious and kind of personalize the meaningful. So yes, a true human connection I think we shouldn't take that out the equation. But things like scheduling, answering factual questions, emailing back and forth, a lot of that can be automated. So again, in the context of inbound, I think this automation will come much faster because then job seekers are... They want something from the companies. In the outbound space when you're trying to sell, candidates feel it very fast if you're being spammy or being like automating the process. So you want to keep this level of control. You wanna leverage AI's, let's say, write the first message, but you wanna check it anyway, right? You want have that conversation. So we're not going for a full a 100% like replace your recruiter in the next couple years, definitely. But to make them more efficient, to make them actually have more time to speak to people, yeah, that's what we'd like. Joel: Chad, I don't know about you, but this sounds really fucking expensive. Janis, talk about your pricing structure. Janis Kreilis: Right now we're charging 249 per recruiter seat per month. Yeah, the experimental features, we're still deciding on the pricing together with the first customers. 'cause yeah, we need to actually pinpoint the value there. Plus we need to pay GPT for it. Joel: All right, the non-answer answer, I love it. All right, Janis, are you prepared to face the Firing Squad? Janis Kreilis: Yes. I'm all Zen, I'm ready to face the squad. Joel: All right, Chad, get him. [laughter] Chad: Oh my God, Janis, I gotta tell you, man, I love automation. I love the idea of taking the mundane tasks away from recruiters so that they can actually provide more white glove type of time and experience to job seekers. I love the opportunity of giving the job seeker a much better user experience and providing better conversions. I love killing the candidate black hole, which we've suffered for decades. So at the end of the day, I really love what you guys are doing. Here are the aspects, here's where the but comes in. Timing, which is not great, and you said that. Not just from a funding standpoint. If you were doing this two years ago, for many aspects, you'd be ahead of the curve. Today you're not. Vision, I believe we need pretty jobs. Okay? I believe we need that. Chad: I totally do. It's a better experience with better conversions, but people won't take 20 minutes to create a single microsite, or they will just half-ass it, right? That's the problem. They just won't take the time to do it, which we've seen for decades in HR, which is why this hasn't worked in the past. Leaning heavily on LinkedIn is never a good strategy. Leaning heavy on Twitter or what have you, being able to lean that heavily on any platform, never a good strategy. The business model in itself, I believe, right out of the gate, should be really focused heavily on the staffing side of the house, because first and foremost, recruiting is their business. They understand the actual, if they can get better conversions, they get more candidates. And what are more candidates to them? It's money. That's what they care about, right? Chad: If they can do that faster, they can do it quicker, they can blow up margins, that's what matters the most. And they will take the time to actually build those things out. The TAM you're talking about regionally, US and the UK, pick one, my friend. You don't have enough money to do both. They're two entirely different animals. I will say it again, we speak English, but that doesn't mean a fucking thing, my friend. It doesn't. We are two entirely different animals. The UK staffing market incredibly different than the US staffing market, right? Same thing on the corporate side versus on both sides of the pond. And then threats. The biggest threat here is that everybody will be using OpenAI-like tech to pull this off. So these products will become features overnight, and that will be happening incredibly soon. So at the end of the day, I love everything that you're doing, but because of all those reasons, I gotta give you a Firing Squad, my friend. Joel: Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Chad: Sorry, Janis. Sorry my friend. Janis Kreilis: Go in. I've been shot. [laughter] Joel: All right, don't roll up in a ball in the corner yet. [laughter] It's my turn. All right, so what I don't like, let's start with that. The bad news first. Chad underscored a lot of that. Look, this feels like a call that we did a time warp 15 years ago, talking about landing pages, pretty jobs, leveraging LinkedIn, maybe not a decade ago, but like the sourcing model is really volatile right now. Relying on LinkedIn is really volatile. Hopefully you're integrating with services where your email list or whatever database kind of becoming a HubSpot for recruitment that you're leveraging already existing candidates. I feel like that's probably where you're gonna have to eventually go. The fancy job descriptions, I do think if the... The point is simply, this is a brochure online that I can give to someone, that's fine. But people can't rely on this to make a lot of pretty jobs in their database and then leverage standardization. So I think you kind of get that, and this is a different animal. Those are the things I don't like overall. Joel: Let's get to what I do like. I like your education. You sort of, were really humble on that. You're Ivy League educated, you're smart guy, your resume and your profile show that. So I think you've got the wits in you to figure this thing out. You haven't taken really any money, let's be honest, in the big scheme of things. So you have a lot of room to pivot, you have a lot of time to figure it out. I'm guessing your labor costs are really low [laughter] from where you are. So there's not a lot of pressure to figure it out or go home. I do think you'll figure something out. I think the AI side of it, I like the fact that you're talking about ChatGPT and OpenAI. I do think a tool where you push a button, this whole thing automates candidate outreach and pretty jobs and video maybe you eventually get into, I think you'll figure that part out. Most of all, I love the vote of confidence from Personio. I talk a lot about them on the show. They've got a lot of money. Clearly, they have backing from investors that believe in what they're doing. And that my friend is your payday. If Personio loves you and doesn't write a check in the next 12 to 18 months, then shame on them because they missed the market. Joel: And if your goal here is to make a product where you make 10x of your investment, I think that is very doable with the money you've taken and the partner that you have apparently built and engaged with. In Personio, there are a lot of other whales in Europe that you can start knocking on the door, I think, getting attention just because you have the Personio relationship. So for that, the challenges are still there, and they stop me from giving you the full applause. I think you still have some work to do, I think you still have some pivoting to do, maybe some more bridges to build. But for that reason, I'm gonna give you. The Golf Clap. Janis Kreilis: Yeah. Joel: The Golf Clap. Janis Kreilis: Awesome. [laughter] Joel: So not your best day, but maybe not your worst day. How do you feel? Janis Kreilis: I feel great. I mean, I'd rather get honest output, right? Like honest feedback. I would love to hear, actually look into more of these things that you mentioned though. The things that were done 10 years ago in the first wave to actually learn from that. I appreciate the kind of words, Joel. It's... I don't go around bashing like, Hey, Ivy League, yada, yada, two schools and full scholarships. Joel: I'll do it for you, man. It's all good. Janis Kreilis: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. [laughter] But yes I agree there's still a lot of things we need to figure out. That's what I'm saying, a lot of pilots were doing. And yeah, a lot of challenges to overcome in terms of how do we automate the process? How do we make the creation easier? So yeah, thanks so much. Joel: Sounds good, man. Well, hopefully in a few years you can come back on the show, tell Chad to suck it, and you made a ton of money. [laughter] And then... Chad: I hope you do. [laughter] Joel: You guys can go have a Gin or whatever they drink. [laughter] Janis Kreilis: I'll just take Chad out with that. Joel: Where you're... Janis Kreilis: You know that. A load of money... Joel: And feed him to the fishes. Feed him to the fishes for all I care. [laughter] To be honest, our listeners that wanna learn more about you, where would you send them? Janis Kreilis: Hyperjob.io. Joel: Soon to be hyperjob.com. I'm sure. Janis Kreilis: Hopeful. Joel: With that chad. Another one is in the can, 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.C-H-A-D-C-H-E-E-S-E.com.

In the past, we’ve been critical of SHRM investing money into startups. Seems like a big conflict of interest, but whatever. Since SHRM isn’t running to talk to Chad & Chelsea about it, how about the next best thing: The company SHRM gave money? That’s why we brought Jocelyn King, CEO of VirgilHR to the show. VirgilHR is an interactive technology that lets employees ask HR compliance questions in real-time. Seems like a company ripe for disruption from the likes to ChatGPT, but you’d be wrong (or at least that’s what Jocelyn says). The way that they chose their name is pretty cool too. Heck, it’s an all-around banger of an interview. Enjoy. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Intro: 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 Cheesman: Oh. Yeah. What's up everybody? We're live from the Aaron Booth at SHRM National Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm your host Joel Cheesman, flying solo as Chad works on his savage tan in Portugal. And I am here with Jocelyn King, CEO at VirgilHR. Jocelyn, welcome to the show. Jocelyn King: Thank you for having me. Joel Cheesman: So I'm gonna embarrass myself here real quick and tell the audience that I forgot to push record when we first started talking to Jocelyn. So a lot of this is gonna be her humoring me with the same questions. We'll see if you give the same answers. That might be an interesting game to play. So for our listeners that don't know you, tell us a little bit about you and the company. Jocelyn King: Sure. So I've been an HR practitioner my entire career. I've worked predominantly for high-growth technology companies based in the US and international as well. And, because we were high-growth, we were hiring in a lot of states very quickly, either opening new locations or hiring remote workers. And it became increasingly difficult to track and comply with employment and labor laws, especially at the state and local level. There are thousands of them. They run concurrently, they supersede each other. It's a very complicated landscape. And now post COVID with a very dispersed workforce, it makes for an even greater challenge for HR professionals. So, coming from a tech background, I thought there's gotta be a technology solution out there that can address this because we're going on Google... Joel Cheesman: Sure. Jocelyn King: And we're googling these requirements online. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: Or we're talking to lawyers if we have the budget, it's either really time consuming and there's a high risk for error or it's expensive when you don't get the answers you need right away. So about a year and a half ago I decided to quit my job. At the time I was a VP of HR for a Series C Tech startup. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Jocelyn King: Out of the DC area. Learned a lot there. They went through a funding round at the time, so I learned quite a bit. Both founders actually are two of our biggest investors. They were really supportive through the whole process and made me quit my job to do this, so really fortunate for them. And now we've built out this solution and just launched it in March. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. So Virgil we have HiBob. We have MeetFrank. We have names all over the place. How did you come up with Virgil. Jocelyn King: [laughter] Yes. It is a very nerdy answer that I have for you. I was a philosophy major in college. I did my senior thesis on Dante's Divine Comedies. If you're familiar with Dante's Inferno, for example. That's the first. Joel Cheesman: Seven layers. Yeah. Jocelyn King: Yep, exactly. And Virgil, who is a real life poet, was a character in this poem and he was this beacon of wisdom and reason, and he was Virgil's guide and he took him through hell and... Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: Showed him all the things that, this is what happens when you do the wrong thing and tick him up, take him up to purgatory and then heaven. And I thought, well, you know, what compliance is pretty hellacious for HR and so we're a guide and we can show you, "Hey, this is what happens when you do the wrong thing and we're gonna take you to the right direction." Joel Cheesman: Got it. Jocelyn King: And it's a little pertinent, so. Joel Cheesman: Got it. Got it. Jocelyn King: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Podcasting with Chad is my seven layers of hell but that's a different, that's a different interview. So you guys are brand new, not even outta diapers yet. You raised 1.5 million in pre-seed funding. Talk about that. What are you doing with the money? What do you plan on doing with the money? Jocelyn King: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we closed that round in December. We were really fortunate, we have four institutions. We were part of that round, including Techstars and SHRMLabs. Having SHRM on board was really exciting because they've only ever done an outside investment like that with one other company. And it was the same time as when they invested in us. Anything else has kind of been through their accelerator, or through funds. So that was really cool that they had as much confidence in what we were doing and that they really felt like the product that we were bringing to market was something that was really needed... Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: By the HR community. So we closed that in December and it was a great process. I felt really supported along the way. I don't think a lot of women in tech necessarily feel that way. And I certainly had my fair share of experiences where I was definitely treated differently because I was a woman. But for the most part just had an incredible journey and experience and met a ton of people who were really supportive. So that was good. And we've been spending the money, on the product side for sure. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Jocelyn King: But now that the product has launched, we're very focused on the marketing side in particular, so that's where our funds have really kind of been re-appropriated to more recently. Joel Cheesman: Okay. I'm glad you brought that up so you have a deep understanding of HR. Just go check out her LinkedIn profile if you wanna learn more about that. You have a tech background, doesn't really scream sales and marketing. So what's been effective for you in terms of the getting to market and letting people know and build the brand and ultimately get sales? Jocelyn King: Yeah, so we launched product in March and that's when we started marketing. We first went for the conference route. So we started the, conference train, I guess, and went through that and it was really good to us. We were really successful in these conferences. We started generating a pretty, pretty good pipeline, acquired customers... Joel Cheesman: Yep. Jocelyn King: Started generating revenue, et cetera. So that was really exciting. We've also been working a lot on content marketing and that's something that takes some time to build up, but we've been working on that quite a bit. Joel Cheesman: Can we see you karaokeing on TikTok as part of your marketing strategy or not so much? Jocelyn King: You know what? I have never been able to get into TikTok. [laughter] Jocelyn King: I. Haven't been able to do it, and nobody wants me to do karaoke. Joel Cheesman: Fair enough. Fair enough. They don't want me to do it either. They do not want me to do that either. Jocelyn King: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: So we've been critical of SHRM investing in companies on the show, and you're a real life example of a company that has gotten money. Is the criticism of saying SHRM shouldn't get in the business of financing companies that are exhibitors at their show or not giving money to people who are exhibitors. Do you get an unfair advantage by being a SHRM member? Do they give you access to the mailing list and things like that? Is it a fair criticism or not? Jocelyn King: Well, I'm not familiar with the criticisms you all have given on SHRM, but I can tell you just from my own experience. SHRM typically invests in funds. If they're investing in individual companies, it's either through their accelerator or in my case independently, VirgilHR and another company. And I think that at least the companies that I know who've gone through the accelerator and then the other company who they'd invested in the same time they've invested in me, these were companies that were... That are trying to bring a product that is very focused on the user, that really addresses a need and a pain point and is committed to ensuring the customer experience during the product journey. And that's been pretty consistent with the companies that they've invested in directly. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Jocelyn King: I don't get preferential treatment actually at all. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: Being a company that's invested in by SHRM, I wish I did, but, yeah, no introductions to customers. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: No discount on the booth, no mailing list access, nothing like that. Joel Cheesman: That's very refreshing to hear actually, our listeners will like to, to know that, what does a typical customer look like? Big companies, I figure they wouldn't be 'cause they can afford their own lawyers. Is it the small business somewhere in the middle? What does a customer look like? Jocelyn King: Yeah, so, we really work with companies that generally have 2,500 employees or under. There's some that are over, but for the most part it's 2,500 and under. And that's because they generally don't have internal employment and labor law counsel. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Jocelyn King: So they're having to, HR is having to go out and do all this work themselves, or they're using outside legal counsel and it's expensive. So we're helping displace some of the legal fees that they would otherwise be paying 'cause they're able to get this information at a fraction of the cost through our product. And we have, customers that have as little as 11 employees. So there's a wide range of customers that, we work with today, but across the board, they're all multi-state or they're in California, which is really a complicated state to deal with. And I think that you kind of, that's where you really start getting that level of complexity with employment and labor laws when you have to deal with so many jurisdictions. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Jocelyn King: So across the board that's pretty similar profile wise. Joel Cheesman: So a lot of state talk. Are you a global footprint? Are you restricted to the US English only Talk about that. Jocelyn King: Sure. So yeah, we just launched in March, as I mentioned. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: So we cover US all 50 states in the district. We do plan on moving into Canada next year, and then move on from there just based on kind of market demand and what maybe our current customers are asking for too. Joel Cheesman: So you're, you're a pre-seed. I would think that a little more money might make that global growth, opportunity more amenable. Are you looking to raise more money? How much? Talk about that. Jocelyn King: So we actually started our seed round last week. We're raising a $3 million seed round and, have just started having active conversations with VCs that invest in the future of work. So we're, very new to that process. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: And hopefully that gets closed by September because we do have some pretty aggressive growth goals and some goals in mind product-wise, like expanding internationally and bringing AI into our product. Joel Cheesman: Sure. So you have mentioned AI. When I toured the product, one of the things I initially said was ChatGPT is gonna destroy this company. [laughter] I know I'm wrong by the look on your face, but I want you to tell me why I'm wrong that ChatGPT can't replace what Virgil does for your customers. Jocelyn King: Oh, sure. So today, if you went on to ChatGPT and you asked it, what are the requirements for an employer when an employee's taking maternity leave in California? It will give you information about the CFRA, but it doesn't even tell you about the FMLA or PDL or if they're in San Francisco, PPLO, all these other, even the ADA, all these other laws that are relevant to that employee taking maternity leave that you have to comply with, which is really dangerous. So ChatGPT today can't handle the field of law. It's too complicated for it. Our chatbot is actually hand programmed by labor and employment attorneys. So they're looking at every single scenario pretty holistically. In the future, AI could get to that point. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: Where it could do that, and that's where we would be looking at incorporating some of that AI into our product. But along the way we're also working on a roadmap that builds out additional functionality, to risk and compliance, for example, once we close our seed round, we'll be building a predictive risk feature in our product where it will actually be able to determine percentage wise, level of risk you have in getting successfully sued for certain decisions you make, like terminating an employee or some form of disciplinary action or an accommodation, for example. And so we'll continue to build and grow and what we'd really like to be is taking hold of that compliance footprint and, go well beyond even just our chatbot today. Joel Cheesman: So did I hear you say that you created an assessment to tell a company, "Hey, you have a 50% chance of getting sued if you do this"... Jocelyn King: Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman: I would assume that's pretty valuable. Now when I look at your pricing, which you publish on your site, so I'll applaud that for sure, but it seems kinda low. You're nodding that it is. Jocelyn King: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: I assume prices will go up at some point, but where did you come? 'cause I would think that you have to be lower than the cost of a lawyer, but you have to be higher than the cost of Googling. Was there some algorithm? 'cause I know you're a science person. Jocelyn King: [laughter] I'm not a science... Joel Cheesman: Somewhere. Well, somewhere in the 7 layers of hell did you figure out how to do pricing and how will that change in the future? Jocelyn King: Well, my spatial reasoning is limited. So there is no science involved. So we actually did an exercise when I was going through Techstars and interviewed about 75 HR leaders and asked them, how much are you spending today on this type of challenge, and how much would you be willing to spend for a solution that did X? And we took that information and then figured out, okay, this is how we wanna price it out by company size. In our case, our pricing is, kind of a mix between the license and the usage based approach. And that's to cater to, the size of a company essentially, and how often we would expect they'd be using the chatbot. So it is intentionally low right now. I'd call it early adopter pricing. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: Because what we are most concerned about today is business is product market fit, and showing that we can bring in customers. We're not as focused on the revenue side quite yet. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: Once we get to that point, we'll increase our prices and, be a bit more competitive. Joel Cheesman: Do you think you'll be grandfathering in the current price to customers that hold on? Jocelyn King: I have not decided yet. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: So I'm not going to answer that question. Joel Cheesman: So you're saying there's a chance, you're saying there's a chance, talk about the competition. Are there others that do this? This is a pretty new space for me, but, do you have others breathing down your neck? Are there established players or are you just the brand new kid on the block with nobody else around? Jocelyn King: No. There are absolutely other companies that have been trying to solve this challenge as well. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: You've got companies like Mammoth or Expert HR, for example, I'd call them digital libraries websites. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: Where you can dig into the content they have and do some research and, and figure out, okay, this is the law that's relevant for X, Y, and Z. The problem is that it's very time consuming and, it doesn't always have the information you need holistically. And by that I mean, if you were looking at that maternity leave example in California, it might not say these are all the laws that you need to consider. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: And oh, by the way, if the person's in San Francisco, there's an additional law that you need to consider as well. So it's not comprehensive, but you have to look through a lot of stuff. Jocelyn King: And it's quite time consuming. Nobody else is really leveraging technology in the way that we are to make things more efficient and automate this process. And nobody is providing prescriptive legal guidance as well. So after our chatbot identifies what laws are applicable to a certain task and employee, we then give step-by-step guidance on everything that HR practitioner needs to do to be compliant with all applicable laws. Nobody's doing anything like that today. So then after you figure out what laws are relevant, you then have to go and figure out, okay, now what do I have to do to actually be compliant with each individual law? Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: And that's really time consuming. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Are you a feature or a product? Jocelyn King: I think that every HR Tech company gets asked this question and it's a little bit unfair. Joel Cheesman: Oh, okay. Jocelyn King: You know, I think that we are a company that is working toward being a product. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: Maybe even a platform that's where we'd like to get to, but I do think that there is an opportunity to partner with HRIS, for example, and be an added commodity to their marketplace. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: As well. So, it's a good question. And I think at the moment we're just still too young to... Joel Cheesman: Okay. Jocelyn King: Truly have a definitive answer. Joel Cheesman: Why do you think it's an unfair question? Jocelyn King: Because I do think that in particular, it happens to HR Tech companies. HR Tech companies get asked that question. And so it's a little frustrating when you're in the HR Tech community, and I say this is just my experience of working with investors, because I know that that's not getting asked the same way in other industries. And it's kind of like, you could say almost any company's a feature. It just, I don't know. I don't like it. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Well, I appreciate you answering it, [laughter] and not telling me to fuck off. [laughter] As an unfair question, what do you want to be when you grow up? Do you want to be a platform? It sounds like you're not in it for the quick flip. It sounds like you're building something for the future, like obviously round A must be in the future and further rounds. Is that what we're looking at with Virgil? Jocelyn King: Yeah, absolutely. I, this is something that I wanna do for a bit. You know, I wanna spend some time on it. I think that there's a lot of potential in the compliance and risk management space that has yet to be explored by us and by others. And it would be very neat if we could be that one-stop shop, for these types of situations that HR practitioners go through. And if we can do it internationally, that would be incredible as well. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Jocelyn King: So yeah, so I definitely plan on being around for a while. Joel Cheesman: All right. Well, I appreciate you sitting down with us. Best of luck to you. For our listeners that want to connect with you or the company, where would you send them? Jocelyn King: Yeah, I think, LinkedIn's a great place. Please find me on LinkedIn. But you can also always shoot us an email as well, jKing@virgilhr.com. Joel Cheesman: Awesome. That is another one in the can, everybody. We are live from the Aaron booth at SHRM National. Jocelyn, thanks for sitting down and chatting with us. We out. S?: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded it to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you'll wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buying a Nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggleheads instead, now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We're out.

I once had a roommate who dated a stripper named Candy. Never thought that would be relevant to a podcast, but here we are. Strange days, but that’s Europe for ya’. On this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast Does Europe, the boys aren’t only (un)covering strippers, but also discussing Google’s latest lawsuit, alleging Big G unfairly competing against job board JobIndex, a new lie detection software that’s bound to be abused by rogue recruiters, and Elon Musk’s X Hiring from a European point of view. Did I mention these are strange days in Europe? Yup, gotta listen. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. [music] 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, Yeah. It's International NFT Day. So, dust off your Bored Apes and your CryptoPunks. Chad: What? Joel: This is the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. I'm your co-host, Joel "Doodles" Cheesman. Chad: I'm Chad "Bang and blame" Sowash. Lieven: And I'm Lieven "Broadcasting from a real studio today" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel: And on this episode, Google gets accused of unlawful job aggregation, liar, liar, pants on fire and X hiring from a European point of view. Let's do this. Chad: Where have you been, Lieven? Lieven: Busy. Busy. Joel: I thought you said Europeans were back at work, you're still on vacation from what I can tell. Chad: [laughter] Lieven: I've been all over the place, all over the place. Busy, busy, busy. I know I've been neglecting you guys. I'm so sorry. Chad: It hurts, it hurts my heart. Lieven: Yeah, yeah. Joel: I'm only hurt that I didn't get an invite to the Brugge House of HR corporate event. That's all I'm upset about. Chad: [laughter] I wanna hold off for their big party. That's my thing. I wanna hold off for that. So, you can do the Brugge thing but I wanna hold off for the big party. Lieven: Be careful what you wish for because if Rika hears, she might invite you after all and then you're expected to take the plane and come over. Chad: Yes. Joel: I got some leather pants I wanna bring to Europe. [laughter] Joel: That's what I'm talking about. Chad: Well, they're actually assless chaps. But other than that... [laughter] Joel: Which I wish I was wearing on the mechanical bull at RecFest but that's a different conversation. So hot... Chad: Weak. Weak. Joel: Second degree burns on my thighs are not fun, are not fun. Holy shit. Chad: Oh, the trials and tribulations of sucking at riding a bull. Yes. Joel: Yes, yes. Chad: A mechanical bull. Joel: Shall we get to... Chad: The one that you asked for, by the way. SFX: Shout-out. Chad: Yes. Okay. I get the first shout-out. This is the fun one. Joel: Yep. Chad: 'Cause it's shout-out to beer after all of this last week of debauchery and Nashville drinking beer. Annual research by the Kirin Holdings Company, a Japanese beer company for all those who've never had a Kirin. Here are the top five... Joel: Ooh. Chad: Countries that drank the most beer per capita. Joel: USA. Give it to me. Chad: Number five, Poland. Joel: What? Chad: Number four, Romania. Number three, Lithuania. Number two, Austria. And number one, almost doubling Austria's consumption per capita, The Czech Republic, kids. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Wow. So, listen... Lieven: Was this a global list? Chad: It was global. Germany was number seven, the US was 17 and Belgium didn't even make it into the top 30, Lieven. Wow. Lieven: We sell our beer. We sell our bear. Joel: How is Austria so high? It's like the size of Connecticut. Like how much beer... Chad: It's per capita. Joel: Oh, per capita. Chad: It's per person, yes. That's where we try to make it fair. Yeah. So, if we just take a look at the all out consumption, China, obviously with the most people in the world and then the US. I mean, those are there but per capita, who by person drinks most? It's the Czech Republic. Now, Czech Republic beer is pretty good. I like it... Lieven: Yeah. Chad: But it's not amazing, that's for goddamn sure. [chuckle] Joel: It's not Belgian, is it? Chad: No, it's not Belgian beer. I think the next breakdown we're gonna have to check out is the top five global consumption of what brands of beer, what types of beer. Maybe that's next. Joel: I wanna see the list for meth usage. I think we'd fare better on that one as Americans. I think... Chad: Yes. Joel: I think we do better on that one. All right. Well, my shout-out... SFX: Ai, papi. Joel: All right, our industry has seen some pretty kooky names over the years, guys. HiBob, JobStar, Jobfox, I could go on but we may have a winner for worst name with the introduction of Candydate out of the UK. Chad: [laughter] Joel: When I say Candydate, what do you think of? Lieven: Ah, sounds great. Chad: It's like the new Tinder, right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: I mean, Candydate. Woo. Joel: Yeah, so... Lieven: I wish... Joel: It's supposed to read like candidate but ends up sounding like... And it's spelled like, my roommate in college, she used to hook up with a stripper named Candy. Chad: Yes. Lieven: Of course. Chad: It sounds like a stripper, like a stripper like dating app. Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Like, "Hey dude, you wanna go to The Chug for dollar pictures?" "No, man. I got a date with Candy tonight. I got a Candydate." Candydate is billed as an applicant matching system that leverages short videos. I'm not sure what's on those short videos. So, its... Chad: OnlyFans videos. Joel: Its tagline is, Recruitment sweet as candy. Oh, god. Are you serious? Lieven: Oh. Chad: That sounds like a Cheesman joke right there. Joel: Yeah, that's bad. That's bad. Recruitment as sweet as candy. Candydate gets a shout-out for just being awful, just being awful but making me laugh. Lieven: I do love the name Candydates. I should have come up with that one, Candydate. I love it in fact. Chad: [laughter] I love it. Lieven: Okay, maybe its a bit embarrassing but I love it. Candydate. Joel: Lieven, you got a shout-out, man, while you ponder how many girls named Candy you've dated in your lifetime? Lieven: Not one. I feel I'm missing out on something. So, shout-out to all the Candys in the world. I've never dated a Candy. Please face this one. SFX: Just the tears. Lieven: I think everyone should have dated at least one Candy in his lifetime. Chad: You might wanna check with your wife on that one, but okay. SFX: What are you doing, step bro? Lieven: Honey, I'll call you Candy. Something like that. She never ever listens to the show. She wouldn't even know. Chad: Oh, okay. Lieven: I mean, I asked her and she said, "That's the podcast, right?" And I said, "Yes." And, "I don't even know where it's listed". So then, I gave up. But, she has other qualities. Chad: [laughter] Joel: Well, maybe we can meet her because we're going to Europe pretty soon. Lieven: You are. Joel: Chad, tell us about that. Chad: Yes. UNLEASH World is coming, kids, in Paris. That's right, early to mid-ish. I guess you could say. October. Joel: 12th to the 14th. Something like that. 13th, 14th. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, if you aren't registered, there's still time left, just go to chadcheese.com/events. I mean, this is one of the staples when it comes to events that you have to go to, not just because it's in Paris, but it's UNLEASH Paris. We've got a great startup competition. They've got startup alleys. It's really incredibly cool. So, come check us out. I don't even know what we're gonna be doing yet, Cheesman. Joel: Lieven, are you gonna be there? Is Lieven coming to UNLEASH? Lieven: I'm just going to drop by to give you both a hug and say hello and show you my candy. [laughter] Chad: And then go to Moulin Rouge. Joel: Bring us a Douville and introduce us to Candy. That's it. SFX: Ai, papi. Chad: I'm going to Moulin Rouge this time, dammit. I am meding up. Lieven: You should. Chad: I'm not catching the Paris flu this time. Joel: Well, we know where Lieven will be. Hopefully the House of HR event finally has a date. Lieven, tell us about it. Chad: Ooh, when is this? Lieven: Next year, 2024, March 19th. And it will be in Amsterdam this year. It's a beautiful location, beautiful location, walking distance from all the places you're not supposed to be except if you're with Candy, of course. But, it's really... The location alone is the reason to be there. But on our next episode, I'll give you all the details. The title, as I mentioned before, I guess, is The Digital Shift and it's about managing your digital teams. You have workers and you have coworkers and you have digital workers, and that's the whole idea. It's about AI, it's about digital and it's of course about Amsterdam. Chad: I can see a Chad and Cheese VIP party in the Red Light District. Lieven: I'm going to arrange you two boats because I saw RecFest gave you a... What was it? A boat? Chad: A pontoon. Yeah. Lieven: Yes. A drinking boat, it wasn't drinking. How did you call it? Joel: Booze Cruise. Chad: Booze Cruise. Lieven: The Booze Cruise. The Booze Cruise. I was so jealous. And I tell, okay, if they can give them a booze cruise, I'll give them two. Chad: Yes. Joel: Chad and Cheese, a booze cruise and Candy. SFX: What are you doing step bro? Joel: From Amsterdam next year. I'm excited. I'm excited. [music] CHad: TOPICS! Joel: All right, boys. Google is facing a lawsuit in Denmark for allegedly and illegally aggregating job listings from a rival marketplace. The case highlights potential limitations on Google's job ambitions and raises concerns about the influence of big tech on niche industries. Jobindex, who says it's the leading Danish job marketplace, claims Google violated copyright by republishing its listings. This legal challenge may set a precedent for other global recruitment platforms to go after Big G. Chad, does Denmark have a case or are they in dane in the membrane? Chad: So bad. So first and foremost, I'm not the biggest fan of Google and their ability to have a monopoly in search for many countries all over the world. But, this lawsuit to me makes no fucking sense. So, I have questions. Joel: Yep. Chad: Number one, I thought the job site had to elect to use Google for Jobs by adopting the Google for Jobs markup language. So, did they use the markup language? That's my first question. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But, that was the standard for the US companies. Then number two, Google scraping content. I mean, Google is a search engine. It scrapes content and indexes content without asking for permission. Why are we having to even have this discussion? It feels like I'm explaining 1994 to a job board. And why isn't Jobindex stopping the scrape with their robots TXT file? Why not? I don't get it. So, my third one... Joel: Yep. Chad: Last but not least, copyright infringement. See number one and number two, for God's sakes. If you don't want your shit indexed, you have options. And I really feel like I'm talking to job board toddlers here, but Jobindex has been around since 1996. So, this is either a bullshit ploy or they're the dumbest job board in the world. The question was, which one is it? Joel: Yep. Chad: Then you look a little bit further and it's like, oh, wait a minute, I see exactly what's happening. Here's from the SIA Report, "Jobindex reported a 7.8% drop in second quarter revenue which is about 12.9 million." So, that was compared to the same quarter this previous year. This is a bang and blame moment, baby. It's a failing, it's a failing dog of a job board that now needs a reason to blame somebody and Google is the biggest bully in the room. So, why not? SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel: So, this is a quote from the CEO of Jobindex. "We're willing to compete with Google but it must be on equal terms, not with Google for Jobs having products on its shelves that aren't theirs." So, is he saying that if all the jobs were on Google, he'd be okay with it? I don't think so. I mean, Google has been dealing with these litigious Europeans for over a decade. The US gets a bad rap about suing everybody but the Europeans are just as bad at suing companies. Look, Google's very careful about these aren't Google jobs, these aren't on Google. And I think that's a big reason why they nixed Hire because they knew if they had Google for hire and people were posting jobs on Google, that they were gonna face issues like this, most likely in Europe, which they are. These are listings that go to other job sites, it's a vertical search just like travel or shopping that sends you to another job posting on another site, whether it's the company site, whether it's Monster, whether it's whatever. Right? So to me, like this guy would do be doing a lot better if they put resources to hiring some SEOs to help them optimize their job postings to rank better on the Google for Jobs solution. Joel: We talked to someone recently, Chad, about how to optimize your jobs, what to do, what to look for. Apparently, Jobindex isn't doing that or people, maybe they have a shitty brand and people don't wanna click on it when they see it in Google results and they're not getting traffic that they want to, I don't know Jobindex enough to know if they're a shitty site or if they're spamming people or the job seekers just know that they're a bad site to go to, but they are doing it wrong. Most sites that know how to leverage Google for Jobs are getting an increase in traffic, not a decrease. Chad: Yeah. Joel: So, these boneheads need to figure out their marketing, need to figure out their brand. Stop blaming Google, stop looking for a quick paycheck from Google to help facilitate whatever lost revenues you have. Chad: Deep pockets. Joel: This is ridiculous. Look in the mirror, get your shit straight and fix it and you'll find that Google is your best friend, not your worst enemy. Lieven: I tend to agree with both of you. I looked into this. I feel if Google copies job ads to get enlisted in the Google for Job app and then links to the source in this case, Jobindex, I don't see a problem. They should be happy. Chad: Yeah. Lieven: They're helping them getting their jobs filled. If they would use job ads from Jobindex but link to a different source to finish the application, that would be something totally different. But in this case, I don't think it's the case. So, normally jobs got listed on Google for Jobs via an API, not by scraping. If the Danish company, if Jobindex, didn't connect their own websites to that API, they never linked it. But, Google is scraping and it's putting it in Google for Jobs, then they might have a case because normally, it's only through an API and you have to reach out to Google themself to have your jobs listed. They apparently didn't and their jobs are listed anyway, so they could have a point. And they claim, and that's probably the reason why they go to courts, they claim since Google launched Google for Jobs, we had a big drop in organic ranking, in organic traffic. And that's... They feel their competitive... They've got a competitive disadvantage. And there, they might have a case because if a small European company is trying to sue big evil Google, European lawyers might tend to feel sympathetic. Joel: But be clear, this isn't Google scraping their jobs and putting them on Google as Google jobs. This is Google sending them traffic for free. Jobindex can shut off Google in a second. Lieven: Yeah. Joel: All they have to do is put robots.txt... Chad: Yes. Joel: Like deny Google. So, this is so ironic that this company has their jobs on Google for free and then they're gonna go sue Google for the same reason that... I mean, it's just so stupid. Lieven: For not getting enough for free, something like that. Joel: Unless Google is just write checks... Lieven: That's ridiculous. Joel: Over nothing just by getting letters from lawyers. This is ridiculous. No court... Chad: Yes. Joel: Like no court in any industrialized world is gonna take this case. Chad: No. Joel: This is just ridiculous. Lieven: Maybe in France. [laughter] Chad: Possibly, possibly. But it's... Again, it's on Jobindex. If they... I mean, if they're getting their jobs into Google for Jobs, which they'd have to have the markup, number one. And that means that Jobindex would actually have to do the work to be able to get their jobs into Google for Jobs. Lieven: Of course. Chad: If this is just an SEO, your search engine ranking pages, you've been doing this for years and you know... You've been around since 1996. If you don't know how to robots.txt and get that shit either blocked by this point, this is on you. Right? This is what search engines do, this is what they've always done. Right? So, this is the dumbest lawsuit. Joel: And to be around since '96 and not understand SEO and how Google works, how are you still in business? How are you still in business? Like, it's just, it's just maddening. Chad: It's all about bottom line and drop in revenue and they've got to blame somebody and Google is the easiest target, especially now in the EU is the easiest target to go after. I just think this is the dumbest set of reasons to go after Google. There are some great reasons to go after Google, there are some amazing reasons to go after Google. These are not... None of these are reasons. Lieven: Yeah. Joel: Yeah. This is where this case is going. SFX: SFX. Chad: [laughter] Lieven: I suggest we follow it and keep reporting on it. Joel: We will follow this for sure. Yeah. Yeah, we'll follow it getting... Chad: Oh, this will be fun. I actually reached out to the... One of the founders of Jobindex or part of the C-suite to ask them to come on to explain this to us because as you can hear already, we think it's dumb. So, please help us understand why it's not dumb. SFX: SFX. Joel: Is is that what happened when you asked them to... Chad: I just reached out this morning. Give them time. Give them time. Okay. Joel: We'll give them a little bit of time. All righty, till then, well now they're never, they're never, they're never calling back. When we come back, a little lying... Chad: Yes. Joel: A little lying on the show. All right, boys. A new tool mysteriously out of Iceland promises to help anyone detect lies over video calls. That's right, LiarLiar.AI says it's an AI-powered lie detection tool that analyzes body language and facial cues during video calls. Chad: [laughter] Joel: It translates psychological indicators into mathematical formulas, whatever the hell that means, using real-time video feeds to detect potential deceit through subtle cues like eye gaze and heart rate changes. LiarLiar.AI promises real-time insights without invasive measures making it effective for truth-seeking during video interactions across various platforms while maintaining data privacy, privacy allegedly. Liar Liar is one of Jim Carrey's best films but is it a good tool for employers? Chad, your thoughts. Chad: So, Jobindex would have a much stronger case against these guys than they do Google. Okay? And they're probably not even connected to this LiarLiar system. This to me, I thought was a joke. Right out of the gate, I thought is this April Fool's Day? Do I wear a heart rate monitor? How do you know what my heart rate is? How do you know over video what my heart rate is? We've had this discussion before around HireVue who got smacked in the face where Illinois actually created a regulation that was specific to facial recognition in HireVue alone. To me, for this to be happening in Europe, this is gonna be stamped out incredibly fast. [chuckle] Joel: I wonder what the laws are in Iceland as far as you know. Lieven: But why do you think it's from Iceland? I thought it was from Bulgaria. Joel: Mysteriously, so, I did some digging. Chad: Is it Bulgaria? Lieven: I thought it was Bulgaria. Joel: The domain and everything looks like it's in Iceland. Now, it looks like they're spreading out a little bit. Anyway, it's kind of irrelevant to the topic but they are a little bit dodgy to say the least. This is not like... Chad: Sketchy. Joel: We got some VC and we're setting up shop in London. I mean, this looks a little bit dicey. So, Chad is dead right. Like, no legitimate company is gonna touch this with a ten foot pole in terms of recruiting. I guess some individuals in regards to dating or something may try this. What does scare me though... Chad: Ooh, Candydate. Lieven: Yeah. The moment that I asked Candy for a dinner or... Joel: Candydate's new functionality. SFX: Ai, papi. Joel: Okay. Chad: [laughter] Oh, that brings back memories. Joel: It's so cheap. HireVue is not a like, "I'm gonna go rogue. I'm a person recruiter and I'm gonna get this and my company doesn't know about it." This thing is cheap enough that there are gonna be some rogue recruiters download this on their computer, try it out, do interviews online and use it to recruit. And if that gets back to the company's hiring practices, then oh shit, then the company's in a world of hurt. So, whereas HireVue you're spending tens of thousands of dollars... Chad: Easily. Joel: And there's no risk of like an individual recruiter going rogue and like buying this product. LiarLiar is gonna get some recruiters that buy it and use it and if you're an employer, make sure that your recruiting team if they're off-site or whatever is not using shit like this because you will get pinched in a big way if it comes back that you're using this type of... Chad: Or staffing companies that you pay to do this because you're still liable. This doesn't just go to the staffing company or the RPO. This is something... I mean this is where it's really incredibly important that you understand the stack that the staffing company or the RPO is using to be able to provide the output of candidates in the candidate pool for you. And if anybody would know anything about this, it'd be Lieven... Joel: It would be. Chad: Because he does a little bit of technology in a pretty goddamn big umbrella of staffing companies. [laughter] Lieven: First of all, we wouldn't use a tool like this officially in our company, of course. But, I did try it out and I... For only 35 euros, I was able to become a founding client which will give me lifetime access... Chad: [laughter] Joel: There you go. There you go. Lieven: To LiarLiar.AI. Chad: Oh, god. SFX: All right, all right, all right. Lieven: Yes, for only 35 euros. I mean, I had to try it and then I tried to install it on Apple but it didn't really work out. And then I got some kind of help from ??? if I pronounce him correctly who happens to be the founder of LiarLiar and the company owner. And it's... I think it's one man company. He was really friendly, he helped me out on how to install it. It never worked out on Apple, but he promised me it would work like a charm on a PC. I didn't try it yet. I'm going to try it on a PC and next time, I'll tell you how it works. But, I looked into it and I... Joel: It says it integrates with Zoom and other video platforms... Lieven: Yeah. Joel: Have you tried it on Zoom? Lieven: And this just makes it so much fun. I mean, you see on your screen all these little ratings and you can share your screen and you can show the people in the meeting, "Haha, you were lying, detected." [laughter] Lieven: This is much fun. I mean, I'm looking forward to it. Joel: Your blood pressure went up. We can tell. Lieven: I Knew you were full of shit. Look, look, look. Yeah. And then, your eye was blinking. The system has seen it. And... Joel: Could you imagine an interview where at the end of the interview they show you the screenshot of your lies from your interview? Chad: Yeah. Lieven: I mean... Joel: Oh, my god. Lieven: It's a perfect way to test the resilience of a candidate, I mean. Chad: [laughter] Joel: Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Lieven: How will a candidate respond to being accused... Chad: Of lying. Lieven: Of lying by a tool like this? It's a great test. Joel: Do they have like an insurance policy if you're sued for using this, that they'll support your lawsuit and... Chad: [laughter] Lieven: Nobody believes it works, so you can't. I mean, it's a trick. Joel: I bet if you look in the terms, there's like a, "Not to be used for professional purposes, only for entertainment purposes." Lieven: It actually never mentions anything like hiring or something, but does look like a great website. The guy was really helpful and I happen to be very enthusiastic about it. Joel: You're enthusiastic about it. Lieven: We're going to give it a try, I'll keep you posted. Chad: It's like a new toy. Joel: I'm telling Rika that Lieven is going rogue and using a lie detector tool in his interviews. Lieven: I never do interviews with candidates anymore... Joel: It's okay. Lieven: So, I'm allowed to use it if... Chad: Like other vendors, right? Joel: I interview Candy... Chad: Yeah, yeah. Lieven: Candydates. If I date Candy, I'll use it. [laughter] SFX: SFX. Joel: Oh, god. How much time do we spend on that? Lieven: You have to admit it's a creative idea. Chad: Sure. Lieven: I like it. Joel: But, it's more like novelty. Lieven: Of course, of course. Chad: It's snake oil. Joel: Totally. Chad: It is total, total snake oil. Lieven: It's funny. Joel: Totally. Some dating app is gonna buy this and like tell you when you're... I'm not going there. [laughter] Joel: Okay, let's go to... From one tech that might work to another tech that works some of the time. Do Europeans like to play cards? Well, X, the artist formally known as Twitter unveiled job cards for displaying job listings in user feeds last week. These cards showcase job details and redirect users to external application forms. They work on desktop and iOS but Android support remains unclear. XHiring introduced in July aims to compete with LinkedIn offering job postings to verified X accounts which cost 1000 USD per month. We've discussed this on the weekly show from an American point of view but let's look at it from a pair of European eyes. Lieven, what are your thoughts on Elon Musk getting into the hiring business? Lieven: You do remember, I used to be a very big fan of Elon Musk. Joel: You love Musk. SFX: [laughter] Lieven: I used to love him. I used to love him, but then he screwed Ukraine and then I stopped loving him all of a sudden. So... Chad: That'll do it. That'll do it. Lieven: I'm an ex Twitter user. I'm not an X user, I'm an ex Twitter user. And there are so many people in Western Europe who really don't use, even never used Twitter at all. So, I think it's a much bigger thing in where you live and where we do. It's Twitter or X now. In Belgium for example, is something politicians are on. Some journalists are on to see what those politicians might tweet whenever they're drunk. And then, you have those extreme right people who are using it as a channel to talk to other extreme right people. But, the bullshit told there is not something one would proudly share with his employer and Twitter claims or Elon claims this might be a competitor to LinkedIn. This has nothing to do with LinkedIn. I mean, LinkedIn has a huge database with valuable resumes. But on Twitter or on X, people don't even use their real names in many cases and they shouldn't because you don't want to get confronted with the bullshit you tell on Twitter. So, it's something... It's totally different. I don't believe for one second this will work. Joel: You're a user, aren't you, Lieven, of Twitter/X... Lieven: Oh, of Twitter because I felt kind of... You're a user, I'm not, I'm not a user... Joel: House of HR has a ton of brands. Are those brands currently on X? Lieven: Most of them probably are totally not. I have an account but I hardly use it. Joel: Like, is House of HR on Twitter? Lieven: No. Joel: No? Lieven: No. We probably have an account just to keep the name so nobody else can tweet out of our own name, but we don't ever put anything on Twitter. No. Joel: So, not bullish on XHiring in your... Lieven: Totally not and our clients aren't. Some people are, of course, and some people like it. Compared to Facebook or even Reddit, Twitter is nothing. Joel: Yeah. Lieven: Or Instagram or even WhatsApp or Snapchat. No, Twitter isn't a big thing. And I should specify, I'm talking about our own main markets, Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Germany. It's probably something else in the Nordics or in Eastern Europe, but I don't think there is a big thing as well. But correct me if I'm wrong. Chad: I just don't understand why they're overextending themselves like this. I mean, you're talking about a market, the job market, the jobs market which is infinitesimal compared to the money that they've lost in the advertising market, right? Lieven: Sorry, but what does infinitesimal mean? Chad: Very small. Lieven: Okay. Chad: Incredibly small. Uber, uber small, right? SFX: Just the tip. Chad: So, it's so small, I don't know why you're wasting your time when you're losing hundreds of millions of dollars on the advertising side of the house. I mean, if he could just get his optics tweaked and quit being an idiot, I mean, he's lost so much money 'cause people don't want their brand on there. Now, here's the thing, if I don't want my brand on there and I stop spending millions of dollars in advertising, what the hell makes you think that I want to put my jobs on there? Again, it's a brand sentiment kind of a thing. So again, I think they're overextending and then we can get into the matching and relevant content discussion which it's gonna be hard as fuck for them. This is exactly one of the reasons why Facebook got out of it. So yeah, I think this is using a thimble to bail out the Titanic. It's just not gonna happen. Joel: Lieven mentioned the influence of Twitter/X in Europe. So, currently the numbers that I saw was in the U.S, there are about 77 million active users on Twitter. Europe is twice the size population-wise of the U.S, but there are fewer users of Twitter in Europe than there are in the US. So, it's a much smaller pool that Elon would be trying to tap into. The other thing is in terms of... Some of the markets, a thousand a month is gonna be no big deal to be a verified account and just throw up jobs. But, a lot of these markets, $1,000 a month is real money. So, the penetration in the UK, France, Germany, I think that's a discussion. But, when we look at Estonia and some of the smaller markets, like I don't think it's even gonna be a consideration. So, I don't see XHiring being a huge impact in the US and I certainly don't see it as a big impact in Europe. Chad: Or taking over LinkedIn. Again, we've talked about this before, Handshake, when they got their first... When they got their last big round, they came out hard in press saying, "We're targeting LinkedIn." That's how they got the money in the first place, right? They're like, "We can be like LinkedIn but only in this area." Twitter's doing the exact same thing. They're pointing at the big bully in the room, which is LinkedIn at this point, at least the big revenue share bully and it makes sense. But, we've seen this fail over and over and over and these guys, they just don't have what it takes. Joel: But, you know what they say about the stuff that Elon Musk does? SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time. Chad: [laughter] Joel: Boys, it's been fun. It's been too long. We're headed into fall. Lieven, we're coming to Europe soon and we will see you when we do. Another one in the can, we out. Chad: We out. Lieven: We out. Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.