Chad & Cheese take to SHRM Talent's Smart Stage (insert irony here) to talk about the entry of big names into the recruiting industry. Does it matter? Will one of these names become THE ONE to create ONE PLATFORM FOR ALL?
Sit back and enjoy a Jobcase powered podcast!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Chad: We're on the Smart Stage at SHRM Talent in Nashville talking about one recruitment platform to rule them all. Or maybe not. Sponsored by Jobcase.
Joel: Yo, Chad, got a question for you.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: Say I'm looking to hire hourly workers for hard-to-fill jobs. Where should I go?
Chad: Easy, Jobcase.
Joel: Okay, all right. Now, let's say I've tried the job boards, and all I'm getting is clicks, and what I really want are qualified candidates, actual people. Where should I go?
Chad: Dude, Jobcase.
Joel: Now, what if I want the team who is helping me with all this sourcing to be really, really, really smart?
Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Joel: And before you answer, keep in mind I'm talking Mensa smart, like MIT-affiliated data scientists and people who are at the forefront of machine learning.
Who you got?
Chad: Oh my God, dude, it's Jobcase. Jobcase. Look, with 100 million members in their community, active and passive job seekers, a huge team of data scientists who are experts at targeting and connecting employers with the right candidates, the answer is always going to be Jobcase.
Joel: I dig it. I'm picking up what you're putting down, but what if-
Chad: Hard stop, Jobcase. See for yourself why the answer always comes back to Jobcase for all your hiring needs. Learn more at Jobcase.com/hire. That's Jobcase.com/hire.
Joel: Jobcase.
Hype Train: 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.
Announcer: In just the past few years, goliaths like Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook have entered the world of recruitment in a big way. Traditional vendors like Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder are struggling to catch up, keep up, and stay relevant in an increasingly competitive field. Chad and Joel from the award-winning The Chad and Cheese Podcast will discuss the current landscape of players both big and small. Without further delay, put your hands together, start clapping loudly for my brand new friends, Chad and Cheese.
Chad: Hello, Nashville. It's that loud. Man, that's good. Check. Okay, good.
Joel: You know we're in the South when the Mountain Dew is more readily available than the water. How's everyone's livers doing? Are they on strike at this point ...
Chad: Totally on strike.
Joel: ... like mine is?
Chad: Coffee and water the rest of the day.
Joel: Can anyone do the floss, the dance, not the dental care? No one? Yeah, I have a nine-year-old daughter, and I really embarrassed her this past week trying to do the floss.
Chad: Doing the floss?
Joel: Apparently is not-
Chad: You should not do the floss.
Joel: ... what the kids are doing these days.
Chad: You personally should not do the floss.
Joel: I should definitely not do it. Dude, I don't know how we live up to that intro.
Chad: That's the most anybody-
Joel: So these two have no expectations, so we're bound to not disappoint them hopefully.
Chad: Excellent.
Joel: I am Joel Cheesman.
Chad: I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel: And we are The Chad and Cheese Podcast. How many of you are listeners or have heard about us? That's fantastic. Our hope is that all of you after this will subscribe through your podcast solution of choice. But we're here to talk about what, Myspace and Second life?
Chad: Friendster.
Joel: Basically.
Chad: So, yeah, we're gonna talk about these huge platforms that are popping out. But before we start there, I want you to let a few names marinate. And we'll talk about them at the end. SAP, Oracle, IBM, and ADP, okay? Those four names. Think about those.
Joel: How many of you are currently or have been customers of any one of those companies?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Have been, okay.
Chad: Yeah. So what happened to actually shake this market up?
Joel: A $26.2 billion asteroid hit the industry in the form of Microsoft acquiring LinkedIn back in 2016, '17 happened. And that created a reaction of every big software company in North America, in the world wanting to get into the employment workforce game. And that is essentially what we're talking about today, these big, monolithic software companies hoping to get your dollars by helping you manage your workforce. And this is sort of the first innings of that. And that's what we're basically talking about. But that was the incident I think that got Google's attention, Facebook's attention, Salesforce's attention, everyone's attention. And that is the world that we're living in.
Joel: Today, some of the big dinosaurs you mentioned are on their way out, I think you could argue. I think that some of the T-Rexes that we know, the Indeeds, maybe the ZipRecruiters, are trying to figure out how they survive in this new world of mammals and other animals. And then you have smaller players that are just gonna die as a result.
Chad: So who believes that Google is going to put together a full suite of services that will be able to provide to the enterprise? A few [crosstalk 00:05:31].
Joel: Who would bet against Google?
Chad: Yeah, that's a good question. Who would bet against Google? Okay.
Joel: Or Microsoft?
Chad: Yeah, how about Microsoft? Is anybody using Microsoft today, Teams or any of those pieces? Right. So that's the crack right now, right? Being able to actually utilize some of those pieces in the suite. My opinion is Google started the smart way with SMB because there's really no expectation from mom-and-pop organizations because most of them haven't used applicant tracking systems before. They're using spreadsheets or what have you. Now, they have an actual system that links together everything that they currently use, Word and Slides, I mean just pretty much everything, right?
Joel: A lot of people don't know this is Google's second shot at the whole jobs thing. Back in 2005, they launched something called Google Base. Does anyone remember Google Base? I see one head shaking. I see two. It was sort of a disaster. Basically you could upload as much shitty job content as you wanted-
Chad: Recipes.
Joel: ... recipes or whatever, rental units, and those search results would show up secondarily on Google. That came and went after about a year or so. And again, I think the bidding for LinkedIn and them coming into the game really woke up Google to say, "We need to get into this whole employment thing." Obviously they have Google Docs and G Suite. So they're really trying to garner themselves a foothold into the enterprise system. A lot of you probably use Google and don't even know it in the form of Google for Jobs. Raise your hand if you know Google for Jobs. You should all know Google for Jobs, okay?
Joel: Go do a job search anywhere on Google, and you'll see a secondary set of results that look a lot like Indeed. Indeed launched with saying they were the Google for jobs. Well, now, Google is the Google for Jobs-
Chad: Literally.
Joel: ... because when you search jobs, you see a secondary list that's basically like Indeed. And then you can go in and see all the job listings. And if your jobs aren't currently there, they need to be. Wake up call, there's about 150 million job searches a month in North America. 78% of those searches start at Google. So if you're not on Google for Jobs, you've got a problem.
Chad: And if you don't know how to get your jobs, I mean you didn't even know that your jobs were prospectively in Google or not, you need to check with your applicant tracking system. You need to be able to check with your current vendors to see if they support it, because in most cases, you're not gonna go to IT and get any of their time to be able to make that happen, right?
Joel: There's actually a URL, right this down, AmIOnGoogleForJobs.com, I believe. There's a company called Jobiak, J-O-B-I-A-K, that helps companies get their postings on Google. And they have a simple sort of service where you can plug in a job posting and see if it's on Google for Jobs or not. And if you're not, you got a problem.
Chad: So that's big to our ecosystem because where did Indeed get most of their traffic, a good amount, a lion's share of their traffic?
Joel: Google.
Chad: Good answer. We're talking about the organic side versus-
Joel: By the way, Indeed doesn't play with Google for Jobs. So if you think-
Chad: I was getting there.
Joel: ... "Well, I'm on Indeed ..." I'm sorry. I stole your thunder.
Chad: Jesus. He kills me.
Joel: It's the Mountain Dew.
Chad: It's the Mountain Dew. He's never this excited. It was the intro. Yeah, so
Indeed now doesn't play with Google for Jobs, which means they're not pushing their jobs into the actual job search on Google now. So if you were putting your jobs on Indeed, you could prospectively be seeing different and/or less traffic. They are spending a shit-ton of money on the search engine marketing part of the piece, so the ads, which they've done before. But really if you think about it, that's not incredibly sustainable.
Joel: And, Chad, why do you think they're not putting their jobs on Google for Jobs?
Chad: Can you say that louder?
Joel: Why do you think they're not putting their jobs on Google for Jobs?
Chad: I think Indeed's gotten way too big for their britches, and they believe that they can become a lifestyle platform. And that's what Google is. That's what Facebook has become. Obviously that's what Microsoft is, their suite of services that you use every single day. And that's pretty much my definition of a lifestyle platform. When I roll over in the morning, what do I check, right? I check my Gmail. I check Facebook, social media, possibly LinkedIn, use Microsoft on a daily basis. Those are lifestyle platforms.
Chad: Not everybody's looking for a job every single day of their life, right? We like to think so sometimes. And apparently Indeed believes that. That's not the case.
Joel: So the keyword there I think you said is "platform."
Chad: Yes.
Joel: So to bring it back to the whole presentation here, which is one platform to rule them all, I think it's our contention that all of these companies want to be your one-stop shop for everything. And let's agree that it's kind of disjointed right now, right? You've got multiple services. I gotta log in to multiple places. A lot of people would think, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if I could just log in to Google all day, and I've got my personal stuff, and now I've got my corporate stuff. I'll manage my candidates. I got my calendar." That's a platform to rule them all.
Joel: Microsoft, same thing. You've got your Outlook 365. Now, you've got your LinkedIn connections. You're networking with them. You're posting jobs. You're sourcing candidates. And to a lesser degree, Indeed, in my opinion, doesn't want to play with Google because they see what's happening. And Indeed wants to be your platform, right? They're an ATS now. Their resumes. Their job postings.
Chad: Shitty ATS.
Joel: Their profiles. Their employment branding with their reviews. And the reason they have shut out and built a wall from Google is they know that ultimately they might die a slow death. And by the way, they know dying slow deaths because they killed Monster, CareerBuilder, and everybody else back in 2005 [crosstalk 00:11:31]-
Chad: Because they got too big for their britches.
Joel: Right. So Indeed is getting Indeed by Google when they know Indeeding like nobody else. So they don't want to get Indeeded.
Chad: They don't want to be Indeeded. Okay.
Joel: Right. Although they own, they're sister companies with Glassdoor, who doesn't want to be a platform, from what I can tell. Glassdoor's on Google for Jobs. So I don't know what to make of that, but ...
Chad: So let's go back to those names we talked about before.
Joel: ... we don't have all the answers.
Chad: Let's go back to those names we talked about before, because this has always been a promise of acquisition. From the ADP side of the house, they acquired VirtualEdge. Oracle bought Taleo. Does anybody remember what Oracle bought Taleo for? So we know LinkedIn-
Joel: Like money-wise?
Chad: ... was 26.2, yeah, money-wise, 26.2 [million 00:12:14] for LinkedIn. Taleo was bought for 1.9, less that $2 billion.
Joel: Big bucks back then, though, dude.
Chad: Yeah, but comparatively, right?
Joel: Bought a lot of beer back then.
Chad: So IBM Kenexa BrassRing, SAP SuccessFactors also who acquire Jobs2Web. So we've been trying to build the single platform for everybody forever, right? It's not gonna happen. Not to mention when you take a look at and you go to-
Joel: I think it could happen.
Chad: ... if you go to events like this and you see all of these new startups all over the place ... And obviously they do business different. Doesn't matter if they have AI in their title or not, whether they're engagement systems like chatbots or they're sourcing systems or what have you, they're going to be different strokes for different folks. And just because iCIMS, which I thought was incredibly smart, bought TextRecruit, doesn't mean that TextRecruit is really your flavor. Maybe it is because it's a great system. But maybe you're more of a Canvas person or something like that.
Chad: So I think from an integration standpoint, that's going to be the key message for every company that's out there that's not a big platform already is where do you integrate, and do you integrate deeply into our system? That's where we need to do a lot of research, especially if you don't know if your jobs are in Google for Jobs. Oh my God. You need to do your research to better understand how these platforms play together. I personally don't believe that there's going to be one platform for [crosstalk 00:13:50].
Joel: Any Jobvite clients out there?
Chad: No Jobvite.
Joel: So the ATSs are getting into the game, too, right? They want to be your platform of choice, be a one-stop shop. Jobvite recently backed up the Brink's truck via a $200 million investment to buy three companies: Canvas, Talemetry, and RolePoint.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And we believe I think agree that that move was a swing for the fences to be a platform for everything, manage your candidates, marketing, messaging. They're trying to bring all of that into one house as opposed to just being an ATS. You see iCIMS buying TextRecruit and being at their analyst day this past year. They're trying to build that one-stop shop as well. They're gonna be unveiling stuff more for the job seeker to have a turnkey apply to all places to be one stop for the job seekers as well.
Joel: So you have this whole, this real battle waging. And I think the point of you'll have a platform that you feel comfortable with, like for a lot of people will be Microsoft and Google. For a lot of people, it'll be Indeed.
Chad: Who's comfortable with their current platform? Yeah. I don't know.
Joel: Does a platform really exist today? I think it's-
Chad: I don't know that they ever will be comfortable.
Joel: ... very tough. And then our automation AI stuff from yesterday, a lot of this stuff is gonna be automated, so it may not matter what platform you use. They're all gonna be the same in terms of where they're getting data and how they're using data and where they schedule stuff. So it may not matter in the future if someone has a platform or not, thanks to AI and automation.
Chad: Yeah. So if you're not following Google and you're not doing your research on Google and Microsoft and these big names, you have to. It is your duty as an HR professional, as a recruiting professional to know what is going on out there. And the reason why I'm saying that is because Google is making some amazing strides. It was funny because we talk to the Google team all the time because I guess they give a shit what we think. And it was funny because I actually said right out of the gate, "This feels like a 20% time kind of project." And that pissed them off.
Chad: They took it to heart, though. And they've really pulled out the stops. What we've seen from their product is really much more polished, integrated to their system, not to mention-
Joel: Consistently updated ...
Chad: ... consistently updated, yeah-
Joel: ... and enhanced.
Chad: ... and they have integrations with the Indeeds of the world, the Monsters of the world. And this again, we're starting at the ground level from the SMB standpoint. I know you're probably not SMBs, but if you look toward the very near future, we can see them going toward enterprise and building toward enterprise.
Joel: In our last few minutes, let's talk about what else Google is doing. We talked about Google for Jobs, but they have two other products that the audience may not be aware of. They have an API for job search, and they have an ATS. Let's cover the API first. So Google has an API that basically ... I think we can all probably agree that Google's the best search engine in the world, or at least they have pretty good search technology. And it's probably better than whatever job board you're using. Trust me, it is.
Chad: It is.
Joel: So Google said, "You can plug in our search technology into your job search for a small fee." And over 4,000 job boards and companies are currently using Google's API to do that. Johnson & Johnson was one of the early adopters. So if you want to see how this looks, go to Johnson & Johnson. Do some job searches. It basically knows if you're misspelling stuff. It basically can give you related searches. It's very, very smart. It knows an RN is also a nurse. It's basically Google Search on these job boards and company pages.
Joel: You can also have Google Search in your own site. And you should look at your ATS, ask them, "Hey, are we using Google's search API to search jobs?" If they're not, ask them why, or if they're going to be doing that anytime soon. But we've seen, we've talked to job boards and companies that are talking about higher retention on the site, fewer bounce rate or lower bounce rates, more searches, less customer service calls because people aren't having questions about search and, "Why am I getting this result? Why can't I find this job here? Why isn't the ZIP code search an option when I search?"
Joel: So I think the API's a small thing that Google's doing on the surface. But I also think they're gathering a ton of data about how people search, what they search, what they're looking for, what they're clicking on that also enhances Google for Jobs as well as the ATS products. So the API for me is really smart. And that's all I have to say about the API.
Chad: That's all I have to say about the API. Yeah, so the API, again, if you believe that you can do search better than Google, number one, you're dumb. But then you should really reassess and take a look at their API, right? And how many did you say job boards-
Joel: 4,000 currently is what [crosstalk 00:18:42].
Chad: So 4,000. So it's an API, job boards, and also applicant tracking systems. Again, these are things that you need to be asking your vendors, because what sucks on your career site in most cases? The experience. What's part of the experience? Job search.
Joel: Speed.
Chad: To be able to build ontologies. This is what Google's doing, right? So they have built ontologies of jobs versus profiles. So they understand how search works. Go figure. They're Google, right? They're doing searches better. And I'll give you a great example, CareerBuilder. CareerBuilder has taken nearly two decades to build search, job search. Their specialty is what? Candidates, job search. What are they using now because it's better? Google.
Chad: So, yeah, these are the things that we definitely need to as an industry we need to really focus on. We need to stay abreast of what's going on. There's so much investment that's going on, so many startups that are out there. And the big asteroid that came out of the sky and landed in the middle of our industry is what is really producing all this interest, capital, and all of these damn startups that say AI and stuff, but they're really cool.
Joel: And if you're not interested in the API, you might be interested in Google's ATS, Hire by Google. I don't know if we have time to talk about that much or not. I know most of you probably hate your ATS. If you're looking to change, you might want to give Google's Hire by Google a look. It integrates well with G Suite, so if your company's using Google for that, it integrates really nicely. The calendar system for interviews works really nicely. Google's AI is sort of slowly getting into that.
Joel: Google has a really cool auto search where when you post a job, it'll bring up resumes that are already in your database, again this is Google search, that they think are good candidates for the job you posted. So you may not even have to go far to find the candidates. They might actually already be in your database.
Chad: You might not have to spend money to post jobs because, guess what, you've already spent millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in your current database that you're not using. So that being said, can I take a couple of questions?
Female: Sure.
Chad: Any questions?
Joel: Yes.
Attendee: Can you tell me how this relates to sourcing? So we're talking more about applicant search. So tell me [inaudible 00:20:59] sourcing.
Chad: So from the sourcing standpoint, this is, I'm most excited about this because like I just said, from the candidate database standpoint, we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and some companies even more, on building a resume database over the decades, right? So being able to actually use search technology, Google's doing that now in their platform, in Hire by Google. They're doing that automatically. As soon as I post a job, like Joel had said, it's going into the database, "Do you have somebody like that already?" Okay?
Chad: The API side of the house, now that's on the SMB side, the API side is all enterprise. So that's where they provide the iCIMS and the different applicant tracking systems and also the SmashFlys for search. This candidate search swap API I'm going to say will be out within the next six months. So from that standpoint, you will have, and again this is me predicting, you will have an opportunity to go to your applicant tracking system, your CRM, whoever really powers that database and utilize this type of technology to leverage sourcing against your database and also hopefully some of the other vendors that you use.
Joel: And I think to piggy-back on that, Google will eventually I think allow you to search the web at large. They'll allow you to search your database, but then who outside has profiles or whatever? LinkedIn won't let them into LinkedIn. So that's not an option. But there will be I think a web search where profiles on GitHub or wherever’s open you can access as well.
Joel: I'll add also LinkedIn if you post a job now, they also pull in candidates from their network of 650 million people to give you options of who they think would be a good candidate for that job.
Chad: That's gonna be table stakes.
Joel: And I haven't heard anything about Indeed doesn't have yet post a job and they pull resumes from their database to show you candidates that are there. They may be doing that. Anyone using Indeed let me know.
Chad: Zip does. That's part of Zip's whole process.
Joel: Yeah, Zip has that.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So the job boards will catch up. But right now, in terms of sourcing, automated sourcing, Google and LinkedIn I think are at the forefront of that. And if I were putting money on anyone to win this one platform game, it would be Microsoft and Google. And you'll just pick which one you think is the….
Announcer: Chad and Cheese, everybody!
Joel: Aw.
Announcer: Chad and Cheese.
Announcer: Thank you, guys.
Chad: Thanks, guys.
Announcer: Dynamism, I told you.
Announcer: This has been The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. And be sure to check out our sponsors because they make it all possible. For more, visit ChadCheese.com. Oh, yeah, you're welcome.