Wall Street has fallen asleep on employment websites for many years. After Glassdoor's major tease job earlier this year, it's looking like things are finally starting to heat-up with Upwork, Slack and ZipRecruiter on The Street.
PLUS
LinkedIn uses data to launch a money machine - srsly wtf are Monster & CB doing?
Goodtime.io banks on automating interview scheduling , which everyone is now doing!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Hidey ho, boys and girls. Welcome to another fun filled episode of the award-winning, let me say that again, award-winning, Chad and Cheese Podcast. The world has lost its mind. We're HR's most dangerous and I'm Joel Cheesman.
Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash and I'm kissing the ReSi right now.
Joel: On this week's show, ZipRecruiter keeps making it rain. Slack and Upwork hit up Wall Street, and if it wasn't enough for Google to spy on all of us, they're now helping your employer spy on you.
Joel: Before you run to your backyard bunker or slap some tinfoil on your head and open up that can of Spam, listen to this word from a sponsor.
JobAdX: How many times has someone said to you, "We're the Uber of ... " Or, "It's the PayPal of ... " Maybe they're the Facebook of ... In many, many cases, these comparisons fall short of being close to reality. Or even a useful illustration of what useful organizations actually do. In the case of JobAdX, our example is so accurate, so spot on, that it's synonymous with our work. JobAdX, is Google AdSense, for jobs.
JobAdX: That means we're an efficient, persistent and smarter ad unit for job-related advertising. As the best ad tool in the industry, JobAdX offers recruitment marketing agencies, RPOs and staffing firms, real-time dynamic bidding and delivery for client postings through the industry's first truly responsive tool.
JobAdX: All this is done with the flexibility of JobAdX's cost per impression, click, or application. We offer unique budget conservation options to effectively eliminate spending waste. We're not set and regret. For direct clients, JobAdX offers superior candidates with the best of programmatic efficiency and premium page ad positioning.
JobAdX: We also provide publishers and job boards higher rev share than other partners, through our smarter programmatic platform. In many cases 30-40% greater and more through our scalable model. To partner with us, you can visit or search, JobAdX.com or email us at: joinus@jobadx.com to get estimates or begin working together. JobAdX, the best ad tool providing smarter programmatic for your needs. Oh, and you've been wondering why the British accent? JobAdX has just launched in the UK, too.
Chad: I bet if you and I read that with a British accent from now on, Tim will get us a new ad much quicker.
Joel: And we'll lose listeners, much faster.
Chad: No, I think it'll be funny as hell.
Joel: Yeah, dude.
Chad: C'mon.
Joel: [horrible British accent] Hello. JobAdX? You like?
Chad: [even worse British accent] Or, the Facebook of ... Yeah. No, I get it.
Joel: Shout-outs.
Chad: Shout-outs. Okay, you get the first one.
Joel: Peter Clayton. Oh my God, dude. My man-
Chad: Awesome.
Joel: ... Peter Clayton, video/audio extraordinaire was shooting Death Match from last week, and provided assorted summary. He interviewed us, we published it on the podcast, so if you subscribe iTunes, Google Play, et cetera., just play that baby and the video comes out. But Peter just crushed it and continues to do so. Major shout-out to PC.
Chad: That's pretty awesome. And we also dropped ALLYO's Death Match Pod yesterday, so listen up and watch for Talk Push, Uncommon and Canvas. Their Death Match performances are on the way.
Joel: I think Uncommon's next, right?
Chad: No, Talk Push.
Joel: Okay, but we're going to be rapid firing these mothers in the next few days I think. If I can get off the couch for five minutes.
Chad: No, shit. Wow.
Joel: I'll get those things off. Bumble.
Chad: Bumble, yeah, Bumble.
Joel: Bumbles next. Everybody, Bumble, dude. I mean we talked about them once, because they had Bumble Biz I think, a while back.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But I think we were both impressed by their full-page ad during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings that simply said, "Believe Her," right?
Chad: It said, "Believe Women."
Joel: "Believe Women." Ups to that.
Chad: Understated. It was in Bumble colors, but that's all it said, it said, "Believe Women." Had a small Bumble logo in the upper right. Yeah, and I mean their organization really is focused on women, so for them to actually come out the way that they did was incredibly smart. It's a great message and it's a message that we should all embrace. But it was pretty awesome to see them do that.
Joel: And by the way, it's my understanding that dating sites don't exist without women, so it's a pretty savvy move.
Chad: No, shit. Matt Plummer over at Zip commented on LinkedIn. He said ... We had our picture with our new award, the ReSi, at TAtech. He said, "Congrats on the ReSi. I don't know what category you won, but I assume it wasn't podcasting."
SFX: Boo.
Chad: That's fucking awesome.
Joel: That was just cold, man. That was just cold.
Chad: I love it.
Joel: Shout-out to iCIMSs.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: I don't think we've talked about it, but iCIMs is flying us, as well as a lot of other, I guess, "Thought Leaders" out to New Jersey, the vacationing hotspot. And treating us to some iCIM's insights. I think we're going to do a little interview with the CEO, maybe. We'll get Susan Vitale to give us a, we out, while we're there, so yeah, excited about that.
Chad: And some Kostelnik time, too, I believe.
Joel: Oh, yeah.
Chad: That should be sweet.
Joel: That would be nice.
Chad: Next week, Louise Triance, from UK Recruiter, she loves talking about Google. But she loves talking about Google and the recruitment industry more, with me. So we're actually doing a talk on Crowdcast. We're going to talk about the Google APIs on the recruitment side, and a bunch of crazy shit, so check out my Twitter feed: chad_sowash and register up. Check it out.
Joel: That sounds like a party.
Joel: Shout-out to Dirk Spencer, TA guy over at JC Penney. Yeah, I guess they are still in business.
Chad: Did you say, Dirk Diggler?
Joel: Dirk, no that's a different show.
Chad: Oh, my bad.
Joel: Saw him SourceCon, hit me up on LinkedIn and said, "It's nice to see that you're finally aging." I'm not exactly sure how to take that, but Dirk, shout-out to you for that.
Chad: Tim Meehan over at KellyOCG for giving the pod some love on LinkedIn. He's a fan of the show and apparently loves the "Colorful Language."
Joel: So educational.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Ty Abernethy shout-out. Ty is known primarily for, Take the Interview, which ConveyIQ is what they are now. He basically has left. Talked to me about his new start-up, which is coming soon, so Ty, it's good to see you out there still hitting the start-up world. Shout-out to you. Good luck to you and let us know when you drop. He's already reserved a spot on, Firing Squad.
Chad: Yes. That's what I was going to say. Get his ass on, Firing Squad.
Chad: To Henrik Christensen, he actually asked me on LinkedIn, "Can you share a screen dump of Google showing job suggestions on the homepage?" And with the new Chrome update ... We've been talking about these job suggestions, which thought was really cool. That has gone away, so the new Chrome update, which looks, I mean it looks pretty fricking spectacular. I like it. But unfortunately those job suggestions on the homepage have gone by the wayside.
SFX: Boo.
Joel: I've got to say, the Chrome page is awesome. For the Safari guys, the Firefox guys, man, up your game, because the new Chrome is really beautiful and really nice.
Chad: They're kicking ass, dude, kicking ass.
Joel: I hate the screen shots of sites that you visit. That are log-in screens or they're blank and it's just a white square. Anyway, yeah, Safari needs to up its game, take some of that trillions of dollars you have and put a new paint job on the Safari website.
Joel: Quick shout-out, last for me, Sofia Coon, marketing person over at kununu. She's looking for a new opportunity. She's been really helpful to us; helped facilitate an interview with their CMO. I hope that this is not a bad omen for kununu's future, however I fear that, that may be the case.
Chad: Yeah, let's hope not. Don't forget our listeners. You wanted to shout-out to the listeners, right?
Joel: Oh, shit. Yes. We tipped it this week, right, or we almost tipped the thousand?
Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. A thousand podcast listens in a single freaking day, man. That means just ridiculous. Thanks so much to our listeners, I mean keep listening. Keep tweeting. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your peers. And get them all to subscribe.
Joel: Remember when we said, "Man, if we could get a hundred listens for a show, that we'd be just crushing it?"
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And look at us now. So yeah, thanks listeners. You keep listening and we'll keep talking.
Joel: All right, hot off the presses, ZipRecruiter, you may have heard them, you may
have seen them. May be sick of them. Has raised another 156 million dollars.
Chad: Hello.
Joel: And is now worth an impressive, 1.5 billion dollars. Yeah, hot off the news.
Chad: Do we also want to take a historical look at what Monster and CareerBuilder actually sold for?
Joel: Sure. About a third of that, I believe.
Chad: Yes. It's about what, 500 million a piece, so yeah, Zip is ... they're upping their game and we actually did a segment on them, I think it was last week, talking about how they are focusing heavily on data and they've been focusing on the deep learning piece. And they're not in this for the short game, kids. They are doing a great job, up-front, right now, but they are looking at how they can do a better job. And this cash is definitely going to help them fucking do that.
Joel: And don't forget that they are the presenting sponsor for, Serial, the most popular podcast in the world, which makes me think some of this 156 million dollar new raise is going to go to the Chad and Cheese kitty, because clearly, clearly they have enough money now to afford the Chad and Cheese Podcast. But I guess, stay tuned on that one, kids. We'll see how that one goes.
Joel: Obviously an IPO has to be coming. We talked about Glassdoor selling for 1.2 billion, they were snatched up before they went public. Could Zip get snatched up, otherwise an IPO has to be coming, don't you think?
Chad: They're getting pretty expensive right now. I mean, if you think about all the cash that they're taking. I mean, yeah, there's still an opportunity to be bought.
Joel: I still think there's some danger here. I mean, they're still looking down the barrel of the Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook, gun. And let's admit, they have to spend a lot of money to keep the traffic gods happy. And I don't see that changing any time soon. I don't know how much they have to spend to get the traffic they need. How much space for profit there is with the ads in the market they're doing.
Joel: To me, I've always thought Indeed and Zip are in this horrible hamster wheel of, spend money, keep getting traffic, keep customers happy, keep spending money and then just keep doing that. And maybe they've got the formula down. Maybe they're golden, but man I think that's a really tough game to keep going when people like LinkedIn and Microsoft and Google just have a built-in audience.
Chad: Well I think they do have a built-in audience. It's the database that they are amassing every single day with all this money that they're spending. And being able to target and re-target individuals who are closer to qualified, if not qualified, for a specific position.
Chad: I think what they're doing in playing this Indeed type of game with the advertising money is they're able to build this huge data base so that they can go to the data base first. That's the primary, because they've already paid for those people. Go to that primary data base first, start targeting them. Pull those individuals in to be able to apply for an easy apply, right. For jobs that are being posted. And if it doesn't meet a certain threshold of what they want from an amount of candidate standpoint, then they can turn on programmatic and they can start to push jobs out there, right.
Chad: I think from a sustainability standpoint, that's where you start to really level and balance, not spending as much money from a programmatic standpoint, as opposed to using a data base and targeting who you have already.
Joel: Yeah, and I think it's going to be paramount for them to penetrate the enterprise business in some way because I'm not sure they can survive being the local pub solution for hiring. I think they're going to have to extend beyond that, and I think they're going to get heat from the companies that I've talked about that are platforms for hourly workers to pick where they work and things like that. I think if Zip doesn't create something competitive to that, that it's going to be hard to stick with the lower-level, entry-level jobs that they're known for.
Chad: Yep, totally agree.
Joel: More in the IPO news. Rumors for Zip that we just talked about radically but Upwork, which we've talked about glowingly in the past, actually went public this week. Their first day on the market was yesterday. So they first went to market between the $10 and $12 per share. That went up to about $12 and $14 per share. I think they actually went out at $15. It quickly went to $23, which these things do. And then they totally stalled and went down from $23 to about $21.
Joel: A lot of people are citing challenges with competition. You have LinkedIn sort of getting into this. You have Fiverr and you have Freelancer, more on a global basis. But I think more interestingly to me is that the gig economy as a whole is getting a lot of heat in that there aren't as many giggers or freelancers as maybe we think. And, the money that you're making freelancing, particularly with Uber and Lyft, is much less than what people expect. And the amount of profit that people are making is going down significantly. So those two challenges have really, I think, kept their stock sort of challenged or had a ceiling at that 20-ish level. I don't know if that'll change. What are your thoughts?
Chad: Yeah. They talk about the number of online freelances as simply not that large. I think one of the reasons why it's not that large is that our industry moves like molasses in January. It is uber slow. We are so behind every other piece of technology that's out there. And to be able to adopt something like this, which is incredibly smart, to be able to really have a platform pretty much on demand. Have talent to be able to pick up projects for you makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Chad: But the problem is we're still in a 1950s style, "Well, you have to come work for me with benefits," and all this other stuff. Trying to get out of that thought process, a company has to get out of that first. I mean they really do. They have to get out of it to be able to open up those types of positions, and then the people will come. I mean that's all there is to it.
Chad: So is it a situation where really there aren't enough freelances out there? I think that's bullshit. I think everybody pretty much is a freelancer, and they could pick up projects in most cases. It's just that our industry and the companies in HR and talent acquisition move too goddamn slow. Not to mention, we hear all the bitching and complaining about not being able to actually find the type of talent that we want and/or need because they're looking at still traditional types of job units. Right. "This is a traditional type of job." Bullshit. Break it up into freelancer type of work.
Joel: I think we're both long-term pretty bullish on Upwork. I think they have a pretty good mote. I think that once they start mobilizing the enterprise, which they're trying to do, and I think will eventually happen. I think things really happen quickly. Let's be honest, near unemployment is not going to last forever. Jobs are not going to be plentiful forever. And when the economy goes south, people that are laid off are going to look for options, and I think the freelance option is going to be one that many, many people look at. And once they get hooked on sort of the freelance life, and taking on projects that are exciting, and working with various companies, and maybe I'm bias because that's what I do, they'll ... more and more people gravitate and embrace a site like Upwork for their wellbeing and their livelihood than, "I've got to get a job." Right? There's another option out there. I just think with low unemployment, they've got a job and that's their life. And then when that changes, they'll look at other options.
Chad: There's no question. And again, we have to think about work in a much different way. We just have to. If we don't, we're going to get passed up by other countries.
Joel: And I would say the big majority of folks on Upwork that embraced it really quickly were international where there aren't as many opportunities and to be accessible to companies in America, and Europe, and Asia was obviously very appealing to that audience. So, it'll just take some time. But yeah, I think Upwork is in the catbird seat as far as a freelance economy, which we think will eventually happen, although it's under pressure at the moment.
Chad: Exactly.
Joel: So more IPO news, more rumors. Slack, which we've talked about a lot and, frankly, laughs at ZipRecruiter's 1.5 billion valuation, because Slack's got to be in that seven to eight billion dollar number by now. They're finally reportedly going IPO early 2009. Thoughts?
Chad: Yeah. This is incredibly interesting from the standpoint of ... Slack, and this is from the Wall Street Journal Story, "Slack operates a popular workplace instant messaging app." That's what we've talked about for a very long time. It's a messaging app. It's like, "Jesus man, how could it have this kind of valuation." But we talked about last week the acquisition of Astro being able to really blur the lines, we believe, or at least I believe, in what messaging is.
Chad: Instead of having all these different platforms to be able to text, and to be able to Facebook message, and to be able to do your Slack messaging, and so on, and so forth. To be able to bring that all together in one platform. And then all the data that you're able to log within all those conversations, all those documents, so on and so forth, it becomes an incredibly powerful system, but still a messaging system, a productivity system in some cases. So I think it's interesting. It still really is ... It's a crazy story. I mean, it really is.
Joel: When you look at Google and Microsoft, they really were built in large part by email. I mean Google was already a search engine, but until it had Gmail, and it had your information, and it was able to build products around that, they were just Google, and not that that's bad, but. I mean email really put them in the enterprise sort of work space that they're in today, Outlook as well. Right? I think Microsoft, once they had email, they could build all this other stuff around it. And I think Slack is a new generation of communication. To me, the next phase is to start becoming a Microsoft/Google competitor.
Joel: I don't know what that looks like, but Microsoft is labeled as a competitor and a threat. I'm sure Google looks at them the same way. Why else would they be valued at five, six, seven billion dollars? To me it's because that's the vision of what they're painting for investors.
Joel: I'm super intrigued by Slack, super interested for when they go public. I think we've talked about the app, the app infrastructure that they have. That some of the most exciting small companies and startups in our space are building on Slack, and so I think they've really got something. I'm really excited about them IPOing next year, and we'll definitely be covering that hardcore.
Chad: And it's hilarious because Stewart Butterfield, who sold Flickr to Yahoo, what he's been doing is he's been trying to create an online gaming system since before Flickr. They were running out of money, so they had this kind of side product that they were doing, which today we know as Flickr, and they started to put a little bit of love into that. And they sold it to Yahoo, got a great exit. And then the same thing happened. They went back to the online gaming system, couldn't get money out of it. The messaging system that they built internally was Slack, and that's how ... They were like, "Well, we've got to sell something. Let's go and use this thing." It's fucking amazing. I mean Stewart sucks at building games, but he's awesome at photo sharing and messaging.
Joel: How many companies in our space are hitting themselves in the head going, "Why didn't we come up with that? It's just messaging on the phone." Anyway.
Chad: It's crazy.
Joel: So yeah, IPO excitement, rumors, reality, and projections. Exciting times.
Chad: Yes. It's good to know.
Joel: How do you want to work this new Canvas ad into the show?
Chad: For everybody who doesn't know, Canvas is a new sponsor, and they're slow in getting us an ad with a lady with an English accent.
Joel: They're clearly basking in the glow of their death match glory, which I can't blame them for.
Chad: Exactly.
Joel: And they're actually, because we know those guys, are actually doing real work, getting customers, getting ... shaking the tree. So, we're not going to hate on them for not getting us an ad in time. We love these guys. They're crushing it. But yeah, they can do better than us just freestyling an ad for them.
Chad: Lean and mean, that's what they are right now.
Chad: But let's talk about the world's first text-based interviewing platform, Canvas. Shall we?
Joel: Sure.
Chad: Aman, the CEO, talked about on stage, and Death Match is ... I think one of the coolest features that we've seen is that this is really ... It gives you the opportunity to have like your automated messaging, which has the human override piece. Right?
Chad: One of the things that I know you have issues with, and so do I in some cases, is that kind of human touch being taken out of things.
Joel: Too much, "Bleep bloop, bleep bloop."
Chad: But not with Canvas.
Joel: No. Not with Canvas.
Chad: The Canvas bots, which is the automated piece, but again has that human interaction where you can actually override it and start to have those conversations. It's really a cool product, not just from the standpoint of the opportunity to engage candidates. But I've been on platforms before that you use for a while, and it's like it hurts to use because it's so ugly. This thing's a hot looking piece of platform, right? And it works, and it does exactly what companies need. Community Health, I think, here in Indianapolis had like an 85% open rate for their texts to nurses. That's fucking crazy.
Joel: Yeah. But that's standard texting stuff. And Aman, being a maverick in this space back with his days at Cha Cha, understood that, and he's bringing it to the employment space. To me, back to your, "How automated do you want to be?" These guys are the Burger King of the space, right? They're going to give it to you however you want. If you want to be totally automated, be totally automated. If you want to be semi-automated, we got that for you to. If you want to take it all out of the equation, you can do that as well.
Joel: I thought you were going to talk about your love for Bitmojis, and a new product that allows employers to send Bitmojis and create a personality around their product. But you know, if you don't want to talk about Bitmojis, I'm okay with that too.
Chad: Oh, dude. My daughter just went to college, and one of the best ways to actually communicate with her is on Snapchat. And on Snapchat, they have the Bitmojis. Now I feel like I'm really a part of the Canvas family because I have a Bitmoji, and I use it in my emails
and all that other happy horse shit too.
Joel: Yeah. You do use it in your emails, and it's ... It's miserable.
Chad: Look, messaging is where everything is going. Younger folks, older folks, everyone's on text messaging and messaging. Canvas is on the cutting edge of that stuff. More and more companies are getting into the space. It's getting more competitive, and this is where you need to be as a customer. Canvas is certainly one that everyone needs to look at.
Chad: GoCanvas.io, not a great URL, but that's what it is. GoCanavas.io. Go to the right-hand corner. It says, "Request a Demo," click that bad boy, get a demo, and you'll thank us.
Joel: And if you mention Chad and Cheese, they might send you a free Koozie. I don't know.
Chad: Boom.
Joel: That wasn't too bad of an ad, right? That was all right.
Chad: That was pretty awesome.
Joel: All right. Let's talk about Amazon raising its minimum wage to $15 and then pulling a switcheroo on their commission structure.
Chad: Go ahead. You start. I've got to get the paper bag and start deep breathing. Go ahead.
Joel: This story fires you up.
Joel: So, to much acclaim and celebration by their workforce, Amazon announced that they were going to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour. Bernie Sanders got all hot and bothered, and loved this. Bezos went on stage and said, "Hey. We can't rely on government to lead the way to higher wages. We're going to lead, and bring higher wages, and force other companies to give their workers higher wages, so they won't come over to Amazon." Really warm and fuzzy story. News outlets went crazy. Politicians went nuts.
Joel: And then, as Amazon is apt to do, pulled the rug out, quietly, after the fact, and announced that, quote, "They'll eliminate monthly bonuses and stock awards for warehouse workers." This is according to Bloomberg. They say that bonuses sometimes amounted to several hundred dollars per month. This follows, of course, the wage increase announcement. Rumor has it by some workers, they're not real happy about the minimum wage increase with the takeaway of the commission structure because a lot of them will actually make less money now.
Chad: Hey, Bernie, you just got bait and switched, dumbass.
Joel: You got Bezosed
Chad: Bezosed.
Chad: Seriously, this is all politics and optics. They're trying to change the narrative of employees pissing in garbage cans because they can't take bathroom breaks because that would put them behind their quota at work. Testing haptic bracelets that buzz employees when they aren't near where they're should be. And now, I just found this out. Somebody actually pointed it out to me. There's a patent that was submitted to put Amazon human workers in cages while they're on the floor.
Chad: It's like, "Dude ... "
Joel: Maybe they can fill them with the Twitter zombies that are out tweeting about how great it is to work at Amazon.
Chad: Yeah, exactly.
Chad: I mean, it's over and over. It's like, "Dude, you aren't pushing anything. The only thing you're pushing is a bunch of bullshit, and people are going to find out about it." I mean, we're in a land of transparency for goodness sakes.
Joel: Amen.
Chad: And if individuals really wanted $15 an hour, they didn't want you to take away bonuses, which probably would level that back out to what they were being paid before, if not less.
Joel: I bet Amazon is going to save money from this move, I really do.
Chad: Probably.
Joel: Bezos, God love him, I mean the dude knows how to work the political PR angle. Because while he's launching rockets and drones into space and slave wages for his workers, he's out buying the Washington Post. He's looking really good with politicians. Because ultimately the big criticism of them was just the hourly ... the pay stub, the hourly salary. No one took a look under the hood and said, "Okay. Well, salaries are kind of low, but the commission structure is ... " You know, they can make significantly more money. Ultimately, I think he's just biding his time before this whole thing gets automated.
Joel: I also think the move to have franchisees who deliver Amazon products and saying that those folks will make, you know, six figures a year. I think that was pretty genius. I mean the guy knows how to work the PR game. I think it's sad for his workers that are going to be in cages working for slave wages and tweeting all day. That's a bad thing for America, but it's an opportunity for the Walmarts and Targets of the world to make a stand and make a statement I guess.
Chad: Robots and drones, that's the future of Amazon.
Joel: Let's talk a little bit about LinkedIn Talent Insights.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I love this. I think I said this last week or the week before. We got to HR Tech, Monster drops Monster Studios, which is kind of a quite little video thing. Careerbuilder drops augmented reality, which we both think is totally absurd, and ridiculous, and will probably be gone in six months. And LinkedIn, at the same time, drops Talent Insights, which is a culmination of all the data they have on people, activity, and jobs, data, data, data. And how they can take all that data and make sense of it to help people recruit, build their brand, predict where people are going, predict where people are going. Help predict where we should build our next factory because that's where these workers are; to predict what companies we should poach from because these are the companies that are losing folks. And actually, I don't know if I mentioned this, but in the demo that I had, we looked at Salesforce and we looked at Salesforce data, and they had CareerBuilder as losing, I think, 26 people to Salesforce in the last, whatever, six months or a year. That data point alone was worth the demo knowing that so many CareerBuilder folks are leaving for Salesforce. But anyway, again you talk about chess and checkers; Linkedin is playing chess and everyone else is playing checkers for the most part.
Chad: It just doesn't make any sense for the CareerBuilders and the Monsters of the world. CareerBuilder has talent discovery; they pull off of EMSI data, which is workforce data, so they have a ton of this stuff. The thing is, over the years they have sucked at marketing, so nobody really knows broad base that they have this powerful kind of tool, because they do have huge warehouses of data on candidates, and movement, and those types of things. They have been doing things like this, probably not in the exact same way. Monster's the same kind of scenario.
Chad: So, 100 percent right. Do we focus on actually leveraging more of what is going to sell and get you to qualified candidates, number one, or do we talk about augmented reality, Pokemon jobs bullshit, or pushing videos on job postings? That's the big game, man. How are you going to sell those two pieces versus this big data play that really focuses on talent, and qualified talent, where it's moving and where you can go start targeting it?
Joel: And one thing that Linkedin got right early on and continues to get right is that their data is more or less a living, breathing thing. When I post my resume on CareerBuilder, if I get a new job I don't automatically think I've got to update my resume on CareerBuilder. But when I'm in Linkedin, I'm like I got a new job, I've got to update my profile, as well as share it and people are congratulating me, and blah blah blah. Linkedin Insights has this living, breathing data set that CareerBuilder and Monster, with their current resume structure, do not have. So to me, it was a significant difference in what Linkedin is doing, and what CareerBuilder Insights or whatever is doing or could be doing. Linkedin has a different ... they're playing a different game.
Chad: It's so easy, though. You have resumes which could easily be turned into profiles. You can parse that out and you can field that data very simply, not to mention-
Joel: But people have to update it.
Chad: No. No, no they don't. Listen, just sit back and listen there for a second, Sweetheart. What happens is you get a Crowded Refresh or you get an Entelo or you get something like that, partner with them, acquire them, whatever you need to do to be able to constantly refresh that data. The web is nothing but data; go use it, mine it, that's what it's there for. So yeah, I get it. On Linkedin, people are better at updating their info, but info's being updated all over the place. That's why the Monsters and the CareerBuilders of the world should be focusing more on long-term strategy on targeted qualified talent versus VRs and augmented reality.
Joel: You keep defending your position there in fantasy land with what might happen or what could happen. I'm going to deal with what's real, and Linkedin is real.
Chad: It is real. I agree.
Joel: And you know what else is real?
Chad: What?
Joel: Our sponsor, Sovren. Let's hear from them and talk about Google Simply Hired, good God. Good times, and more automated scheduling stuff.
Sovren: Sovren is known for providing the world's best and more accurate parsing products. And now based on that technology comes Sovren's artificial intelligence matching and scoring software. In fractions of a second, receive match results that provide candidates scored by fit to job, and just as importantly, the job's fit to the candidate. Make faster and better placements. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N-dot-com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovren. Software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner.
Joel: Boom.
Chad: There you go. Parsing products, there you go. There's the answer, Joel. First and foremost, go to Sovren, have them do the parsing so that you have the field of data that you need, and then start to mine the web. It's so fuckin' easy. See? We even had the answer right in the ad.
Joel: That's right. Go acquire Sovren and then cancel your sponsorship with Chad & Cheese because they talk so much shit about your company ...
Chad: I didn't say acquire Sovren. I said go use their products.
Joel: Chad, do you remember the song I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me?
Chad: Yeah, Rockwell, baby.
Joel: So I thought of that ... Yeah, Rockwell with voice by-
Chad: Michael Jackson.
Joel: -Michael Jackson, of course. Which was the only reason that song was a hit song.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: But Google is watching you. We kind of knew that. But released news reports recently out, Google is going to help employers understand who's using its G Suite product and who isn't. So, employees out there who have G Suite that aren't using it, your boss is going to know and you might be in trouble.
Chad: Especially projects, collaboration projects and things like that, that's really what you're looking for. This is collaboration software. It really is, so they'll be able to actually see what you're doing, if you're doing, and if you're not. The big thing for me, which I thought was interesting from our standpoint, is what about Hire by Google? That's a part of the G Suite, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Chad: So if recruiters aren't in there actually using it and collaborating, are these same types of analytics going to be provided to hiring managers and recruiting managers or what have you?
Joel: Sure. I think there's definite room for companies to know our recruiters aren't using our products, and that's good for Google because people will use the products. It might be bad for people who don't use the product. I've got to think Microsoft and Linkedin will come out with this soon at some point. And by the way, if they know who's using and who isn't, they know who they can jack the price up on because it's so integral to their business.
Chad: Yeah. I would say to an extent, but still if you think about it as a hiring manager, if I can go in to take a look at analytics and see that my recruiter's not actually working on my fucking requisition, I can raise some hell because I need some talent. That being said, you actually found some data on Simply Hired. I don't know how anything's getting on Simply Hired anymore, by the way, but it was actually about monitoring messages and surveillance.
Joel: That's the whole thing. I don't even care what the survey said. I know it was about companies watching folks, and people are like they're reading my email. And that's great, and those surveys come out every quarter. But what I am super intrigued at is why was this released under the Simply Hired brand, which was acquired by Indeed over a year ago, and pretty much ... The site is still there. It serves Indeed ads or Indeed postings. But why in the world ... Help me figure out why did Indeed unveil a survey under the Simply Hired brand, which they should not be focused on?
Chad: No clue. I don't know what their content strategy is on Simply Hired from a SEO standpoint; still trying to drive job seekers to it for some reason. I have no clue.
Joel: Why not Indeed Survey? I don't understand, total mystery to me. If anyone out there knows, hit us up at chadcheese.com.
Chad: Or Glassdoor.
Joel: Or Glassdoor. What was interesting also was there was no date on the post. It was reported by CNBC, some major news outlets, so there was some effort to get out. There was nothing on the wire, like PR Newswire, which is usually the case. There was nothing on the site. It's a real mystery to me, and it's one of those why in the hell are they doing this, and I can't figure it out.
Chad: Yeah. It's a dead brand. Why do anything to-
Joel: Yeah, yeah. I don't know, dude. I don't know. It's a mystery. Help us out, listeners.
Chad: Yeah. Somebody over at Indeed, why are you putting shit on Simply Hired?
Joel: Writing for ERE, reputable company, Indeed usually gets back to me and let's me know what's going on. I reached out to them on this and I got nothing back. So there's some weird thing going on as to why they're doing this, and I don't know why, but it keeps me up at night, dammit.
Chad: That sucks, because I won't think about this after we stop talking about it.
Joel: I know. I probably won't, either. But it is very interesting. They have smart people over there. Why are they doing this? Why would they-
Chad: I don't even know why they have the Simply Hired brand even up and running anymore, and why everything-
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: It makes no sense.
Chad: If they were sneakily putting in Simply Hired postings as Simply Hired postings and did Google for Jobs to sneakily be away but in, be out but in Google for Jobs, which they're probably kind of doing with Glassdoor anyway at this point ... It's a total mystery to me.
Chad: All right, whatever.
Joel: Let's talk about automated scheduling.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Because I'm getting really scared about this boss watch and everything, and ages and Amazon.
Chad: So GoodTime, who is a Firing Squad alum, just raised $5 million.
Joel: They were the first one. No, no. Vervoe was first; they were second.
Chad: They were close. They were one of the early-
Chad: So yeah. $5 million, man. So what do you think about that? Seriously?
Joel: The same thing I thought last year when they got $2 million, and probably the same thing I thought when we had them on Firing Squad. I think if the goal is to say let's raise some money to get our valuation up, build the product, knowing good and well that this is a feature that everyone is going to say we need to have, and or iCIMS, somebody's going to come along and say here's $30 million, give us your stuff and we're done, I'd say it's a great success.
Joel: When they think in some bizarro world that they're going to build a standalone product that's going to be around in seven, eight, 10 years, I'd say good luck and this is an investment that's going to go down the toilet because they're going to get commoditized, everyone's going to have this automated scheduling thing. It seems like every week or month, someone's unveiling automated scheduling. Google's been doing it for awhile, Lever's been doing it for awhile. TextRecruit who we did-
Chad: Just started.
Joel: -who we did a Shred on. If you're not subscribed, you've got to subscribe to get this stuff. They've introduced automated scheduling. It's like Oprah, 'you get automated scheduling, you get automated scheduling.' And GoodTime had better build this bad boy up and sell it before it becomes worthless.
Chad: It's a part of iCIMS now because of TextRecruit, so iCIMS doesn't need to buy GoodTime, right? They've got their own through an actual texting platform that does more than just schedule. So, yeah. From my standpoint, I'd like to see what the presentation is to the investors to actually get more money for this platform. Seriously, I'd like to see ... There's got to be fireworks and-
Joel: There's got to be mad droppings of AI, deep learning, big data. They've got to be dropping all that stuff to get money. Because if it's simply like we'll help automate scheduling, that's not going to pan it out for the long term.
Chad: And everybody's doing it or they're moving that way anyway, hence TextRecruit. So if you don't sell soon, you're just going to be one of the others who do it. And the problem is that's all you do. All these other platforms, that's a part of what they do. It's just a piece of what they do, but that's all you do. Ouch.
Joel: I got nothing after that, dude. We out?
Chad: We out.
Ema: Hi, I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com.