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