Video recruiting has been touted pretty much since the dawn of the Internet. And we're still waiting for it to be the huge success it was supposed to become. No company encapsulates this more than HireVue, who was in the news this week as the boys discuss the future of video in the recruiting game.
- Is HireVue still viable?
- Workable kicks Hire by Google when they're down
- Stupid #diversity tricks
- Joblift becomes the Indeed.com of our industry?
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Tim Sackett: HI, I'm Tim Sackett, and you're listening to The Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm not sure why you are, but hey, you do you.
Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HRs most dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls, it's time for The Chad & Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Are you ready for some football?
Chad: God damn right.
Joel: Welcome to the football is back, abbreviated Labor Day episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, HRs most concussed entertainment. I'm Joel Cheesman.
Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel: On this week's show, is it time to start questioning video recruiting? Firing employees via virtual reality headsets and bots, bots, bots, and did I mention bots? Beep boop bop beep. And did I mention football is back? Stay tuned.
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Chad: Guess who we're going to see next week? That's right, Canvas.
Joel: The whole Canvas team.
Chad: That's right. Jobvite, a little Recruiter Nation Live.
Joel: Recruiter Nation Live. We're going to corner Aman Brar, and get his fantasy picks. I mean, get his take-aways on the industry, and where Jobvite is going under his leadership. Sorry man, I was in two drafts last night, simultaneously, so I'm still a little bit Fantasied out.
Chad: It is so smart to wait this long to actually do your draft picks, because those of you who actually drafted before Luck, obviously, retired. Or, most of those others who actually tore ACLs and whatnot, I mean, that's kind of the bitch, right?
Joel: Yeah. On the flip side, ZEKE signs the biggest contract in running-back history.
Chad: Yup. ZEKE.
Joel: That happened yesterday. So if you were drafting, that was kind of nice to know that he'd actually be suiting up in week one.
Chad: I have actually paired it down to just one. I usually do three or four, but this year I've paired it down to one,-
Joel: Cool.
Chad: ... because I'm busy doing this Podcast thing. You know?
Joel: Loser. I'm in two. We'd actually discussed a Chad & Cheese Fantasy, which we'll have to revisit that next season, I guess.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And, believe it or not, the Browns have some hype and might actually be good this year.
Chad: Oh, whatever.
Joel: SO, I'm pretty excited.
Chad: Yeah, no It would be good to see the Browns do well, for once, in a very long time.
Joel: I know, right?
Chad: So, back from Sweden. We're back from the robes, slippers, bikes, and swimming in cold water with your ancestors. That was a blast.
Joel: That was a blast. So, we had a list of things we wanted to do. I don't think we realized we were going to be in sort of a resort area.
Chad: Right.
Joel: But we swam in the North Sea, which technically was Kattegat.
Chad: Kattegat, yeah.
Joel: If you watch Vikings, it was extra cool because that's the name of a town that they live in, in Vikings.
Chad: Yeah. Right in that area, man.
Joel: Robes everywhere, super rich people vacation there. I mean, it the whole European Scandinavian experience. I was stupid enough to agree to eat this-
Chad: Surströmming.
Joel: ... horrid fish. It's Surströmming. It's rotting fish, basically. I assume with the cold winters, they had to figure out a way to preserve fish just long enough.
Chad: That's not how you do it, by the way. Yeah.
Joel: You smelled it.
Chad: Yes. Yes.
Joel: Underwater, it was horrible.
Chad: Oh, it was ridiculous.
Joel: So what you have to do with this thing is, it's in this tin that looks like it's from the Civil War, and you open it under a bucket of water, so all the nasty...
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Then you take... We actually got the whole fish, it wasn't the filet of fish. So, I appreciate Elin and her team making sure that we had the actual full fish to deal with. So then, you throw the fish in another bucket and then, you pour water on that. Then you cut this fish up, without throwing up, if you can help it, because you're still smelling this horrible, horrible stench.
Chad: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Joel: Then you cut up this fish that's sort of slimy and boney, and then you put it on a cracker with cheese and whatever else-
Chad: [crosstalk 00:05:22], yeah.
Joel: ... was on it. Then you eat it. And as only two people ate it,
me and another woman from-
Chad: Madeline.
Joel: And most of the Swedes had never tried this stuff. So, I feel like I get major points in the Scandinavian area, for being an American, coming there and doing that. But I will say that there wasn't enough TUMS in my room to extinguish the stank.
Chad: It stank. Dude, it stank. It was a level-
Joel: Yeah, it's-
Chad: ... of stank that I have... And I've lived in Third World countries, people. But we'll spare you, because we have a video that will be coming out, with Joel in his white robe, eating the Surströmming.
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad: That, to me, that was classic, and it was horrible all at the same time. But tell us about the '90's party, because that, that was a blast.
Joel: The '90's party. So, if you've never been to Sweden or know any Swedes, they're some of the most polite-
Chad: Quiet, yeah.
Joel: ... sort of reserved people. Which is very unlike Americans, who love talking and talking over each other. So, we have this '90's dance party, I'm in basically clothes that I actually owned in the '90's. An Oasis T-shirt and a Grunge-style flannel. You're in sort of a Beastie Boy-inspired outfit.,-
Chad: Yup.
Joel: ... and Julie looked like the lost Spice Girl, kind of, your wife. So, the beat start, right? This is some Euro-Electro dance party thing.
Chad: It was like Eastern Bloc shit, is what it was.
Joel: It was like Night At The Roxy, right? Like (singing), and the Swedes lose their minds.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: I'm trying to figure out how to explain it, but it was sort of like Sprockets, if you remember the old SNL skit. It was like Sprockets-
Chad: "Touch my monkey."
Joel: ... it was like a mosh pit where no one touched each other.
Chad: "Touch my monkey."
Joel: It was like a Kung Fu fight where no one touched each other. It lasted until 5:00 in the morning. We weren't up that long,-
Chad: Right.
Joel: ... but the party raged for like eight hours.
Chad: Dude, I was looking for great '90's music, right, and there was none of that. It was all Eastern Bloc techno shit, the entire time.
Joel: But they knew every song.
Chad: They loved it.
Joel: They knew every song.
Chad: Yup, yup.
Joel: But yeah, people lost their minds. We got some video coming your way. It was a great time, major shout-out to Sweden, and the folks at Tengai and TNG. I speak for both of us when I say we had a great time.
Chad: We had an amazing time. And a big thanks to, I'm going to say his name wrong, but at least in English it's Joachim, for actually videoing you dancing. Got a little bit of me and Julie dancing, but the show was Joel Cheesman dancing, with a beer, not spilling a drop.
Joel: By the way, the Swedish pronunciation of my name is Joele. Joele got down, at the '90's party, for sure. Hey, no shame, no shame.
Chad: And Monster, while I was in Sweden, they totally attacked my Twitter account with Swedish Monster ads. And they hit it so hard that I came back to the US, we landed on Monday, two days later I was still getting Swedish Monster ads. (singing) So yeah, shout-out to you Monster, for... Yeah, that's some shitty targeting right there.
Joel: Is Sweden a huge market for them? I'm a little confused to why that was-
Chad: The US isn't.
Joel: Go conquer Sweden, Monster. Good job.
Chad: Yeah. Big shout-out to Jonathan Duarte, who enjoyed one of our latest podcasts.
Joel: Oh, yeah.
Chad: It was entitled AI Versus RPA, where Max Armbruster joins us to talk about AI, RPA, and where his company, Talkpush, is focusing today. And last on the shout-outs is, that we, if you haven't heard the teaser for the cult brand series, we are about to hit you in the head with a podcast series, that is one to rule them all. No, seriously. We're actually collaborating with the guys over in The Gathering,-
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad: ... and also with SmashFly, to be able to bring you guys a new podcast series that is focused on cult brand.
Joel: We're building bridges, Chad, that's what we're doing. We're construction workers building bridges to marketing and recruiting. It's a beautiful thing.
Chad: We all know why, at this point, we should do this shit, now, we have to have the how. And we're bringing in some pretty big names to talk about the how.
Joel: Dude, I'm impressed with the names. People will be shocked to know the brands that we're bringing on the show.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I'm excited.
Chad: Events. We already talked about Recruiter Nation Live, next week.
Joel: Yup. San Francisco, if you're going to be out there the 9th through the 11th.
Chad: Yup.
Joel: Come by and say hi, have some Anchor Steam with us.
Chad: That's one of the things I was really impressed about with Sweden, was their beer. And the reason being, I was actually talking to a couple of guys in the bars, is they're mimicking US IPAs and beer making, because they know how well we do it. And this is a shout-out to Rob Prince, to once again... And everybody in England. Remember, you guys came up with IPA, but the US, we're kicking your ass, because we have so much better IPAs out there.
Joel: TAtech, let's talk about that real quick. We got Death Match coming, our third annual... not annual, but our third Death Match competition.
Chad: Yup.
Joel: We're talking Job.com, we're talking AssessFirst.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: We're talking SeekOut, and we're talking Pez. It's going to
be a throw down.
Chad: Yes. And we have two incredibly smart ladies, who are going to be doing the hard part of the judging, Cindy Songe from Talroo and Quincy Valencia from Alexander Mann Solutions. Those guys are coming up big as the big sponsor to this, so we're really excited. And, really excited about the "trophies".
Joel: Yeah. Let's keep that a secret until we actually unveil it.
Chad: Okay, okay.
Joel: I'm pretty excited, but I don't want to ruin that for anybody else. Quickly following TA Tech in Austin, we've got HR Tech, the-
Chad: Vegas.
Joel: ... I don't know, the 800-pound gorilla of HR conferences,-
Chad: Yup.
Joel: ... in Vegas, happening, I'm guessing, October 1st through the 4th, or something.
Chad: Yup, yup. Brought to you by Jobcase. That's right, Jobcase. The LinkedIn for the other 70%, so that's for most of the country. We're going to be in Vegas. After that, going to Unleash World, onstage with a panel, asking the hard questions, in Paris.
Joel: Oui Oui.
Chad: And that one's brought to you by our friends at SmashFly. So, SmashFly is taking us to Paris with them, so we can have all the wine, cheese, and panel goodness that anybody can handle.
Joel: I love me some cheese. ICERM is coming up as well, their analyst meeting for the year.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: We're still contemplating yoga, at this point-
Chad: Yes.
Joel: ... as one of the activities. I figure if I can eat rotting fish, yoga should be pretty easy.
Chad: I think you can do it. I think you definitely have to do the leg warmers, the head band, the wrist bands, those types of things. I think that is perfect for you.
Joel: Yeah. I know that James Ellis, our buddy, is a big Wish shopper. If he could pick me out some leg warmers, maybe a head band, and wrist bands, and maybe something glittery, that would be great James.
Chad: Yeah, I don't think James Ellis is your personal shopper, but, okay.
Joel: He's got style that I simply don't have, so, I need some help in this area. I'll also mention for Jobcase, a little shout-out, they had a big deal with the state of West Virginia-
Chad: Oh.
Joel: ... in the news recently. So, shout-out for them, for that big win in the big WV.
Chad: Yeah. And we should definitely get Fred on, to talk about that, because that, I think, is very big for platforms and marketplaces, to be able to partner with state workforce. So that's, I think, a big win for them.
Joel: Well, we love Fred and Fred loves us, so I think we could probably make that happen.
Chad: Boom.
Joel: Let's get to the news, shall we?
Chad: Yup.
Joel: Biggest news in a shortened week here in the US, thank you Labor Day, the biggest news came out of HireVue. We had talked about some rumors, a few shows ago, about some private equity coming in, buying up some of the shares of the company. HireVue, obviously, refuted those rumors, of course, they were true. This week, private equity came in, numbers were not disclosed. We know HireVue has been invested to the tune of 90+ million dollars, over the last 15 years. I have nothing to add, news-wise on that, but is it time to question the validity of video recruiting?
Chad: Well, before we get to that. I think, HireVue, we've talked about facial recognition, we've talk about all those kind of like unicorns and rainbows shit,-
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad: ... but they do some pretty cool fucking stuff. I mean, they do assessments through coding challenges and games, plus, they have an interview scheduling module. I mean, they are really an efficiencies platform. The big question is, for me, I think this to me is more of a warning sign than anything else., because if HireVue was really worth it, and they could be a strategic play for a much larger system, thinking about applicant-tracking systems and even bigger than that, they would have been bought by now, right?
Joel: Yeah. 15-some years they've been around.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: They are the gold standard, I guess, in terms of video recruiting and interviewing,-
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: ... and they're still chugging, right? They've got $90 million, and we've talked about this many times, when you get that kind of money, people want to liquidation event. They want an IPO, they want to sell the company for 10X, and that hasn't happened. So I have to wonder, is video really that beneficial, in terms of interviewing, right? No one else is doing it, they have little competition. The only video stuff we see is like branding videos out of VideoMyJob and our friends in Chicago there, Skill Scout, and others, which is beneficial. But you throw it up on YouTube and you throw it up on your site, and people are kind of done with it.
Joel: So, I just don't know what the value of video is. We've talked about it being this huge thing for a long time, we talk about the internet being over-run with videos, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, it's all about video. But it's just not happening in recruiting, and maybe it's time soon, unless some app comes around that I don't see, to maybe bury the whole technology, or just commoditize it and move on with other stuff.
Chad: I think companies like Vervoe, those guys have video interviewing in their platform, but it's not centered around that, so they give you so many options to, obviously, interview in so many different ways. So I think HireVue went big, right out of the gate, as a video interviewing platform, now, they've turned into something entirely different, although, still centered around video. They're doing all these gamification types of things, and there's a lot of money, like you said. Trying to get 10X out of 93, not to mention this new investment that's put in, that's the warning signal for me. If they haven't been bought yet, and they are demonstrating efficiencies, there is no question, okay?
Chad: They are the gold standard when it comes to certain aspects of the interviewing and being able to make the process more efficient, but still, the big question, "Why the fuck are they still not a part of a larger system?" Or, as they see themselves, and this is actually a quote from HireVue, "HireVue's market-leading SaaS platform and suite of recruitment solutions, assist global enterprises in finding, engaging, and hiring the best talent." Now, that doesn't sound like just interviewing system. So maybe they are trying to becoming their own version of an applicant tracking system.
Joel: Yeah, I just think the fire's going out on video interviewing and video in general. I mean, I remember when it was huge. I remember when companies would actually mail little web-cam cameras to people, when they weren't on every device,-
Chad: Yes, yes.
Joel: ... and the little camera would have your logo on it, and you'd connect it to the people you were interviewing. I think the coals are burning, and the fire may be going out, on videos. And I think the whole branding stuff will remain sort of a fringe little work-life balance business, where people who like video go to companies, and companies pay for that and that's fun, but that's not a billion dollar business. And it's more and more looking like HireVue is not a billion-plus dollar business either.
Chad: Yeah. I think as companies start to try to focus on that brand, and they can start having dialogue around how brand is actually impacting the bottom line, then I think there's a huge opportunity for those types of organizations, not just a dip into employment branding dollars, which isn't a huge pool by the way, compared to the overall marketing dollars, right? As soon as they can start bridging that, I think there is a humongous opportunity, but it's not just in dipping into the pool of HR dollars.
Joel: I mean, I think the platforms of, we talked about Snapchat, Instagram... I mean, clearly, people like video, they like watching it, 5G's going to make it real easy to stream everything.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I think that your Smart TV, Roku, Apple TV, et cetera, will have apps to watch job postings on video. I agree that it's a thing, I just think companies really aren't that into it, and I don't think job seekers are all that into it.
Chad: I think a lot of it, again, has to do with application, how they're using it, and not just doing video, much like we talked about before, companies saying, "I need a Chat bot, I need a Chat bot. I have no fucking clue why I need one, but everybody's talking them," same thing with video. "Oh, that looks all cool. We need video, we need video." It's like, "Okay, let's focus on the application, the actual user experience, and see where that fits in." All of that makes a lot of sense. Then, once again, I'm going to beat it like a dead horse, it's being able to bridge beyond HR, and being able to bring in marketing, in the big brand, to be able to help them understand how it actually impacts.
Chad: All these millions of people that come to your website, that are looking for jobs every year, how can you effectively impact those individuals? That's not coming out of the HR pool of cash, which is not huge by the way, compared to marketing and big brand.
Joel: Yeah. Well, I'm not ready to dig the grave yet, but I've definitely opened up the coffin, at this point.
Chad: It sounds like you're also picking out the clothes that they're going to wear, as well.
SFX: That's it man. Game over, man. Game over.
Joel: It wouldn't be a show without Google this week.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: They're in the news again, what's going on with them?
Chad: Right out of the gate, dude, this is the funniest fucking thing in the world. So, Workable and RecruiterBox are on the Hire by Google attack, right now, and this is fucking hilarious. So, in a Facebook group, and somebody actually posts screenshots of ads being run on Google, one of them by Workable, and here's what the ad says. "G Hire," Hire by Google, "is shutting down. Hire on with Workable." Then obviously, it's an ad. "Google Hire's dying," or, "Hire by Google's dying, come see us." Then RecruiterBox, "Google Hire is going away, we are their number-one competitor."
Chad: So, the body is not even cold yet, right? Workable and RecruiterBox, and I can't imagine all the other organizations that are out there, that are looking to dive into this fresh carcass. So I thought that was incredibly funny, and smart at the same time. I mean, it's a cut-throat market, no question,-
Joel: Yup.
Chad: ... but from what I understand, some of the sources that I've heard from, they've had, well, thousands of companies using this product.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: So, now it's time to jump in.
Joel: The buzzards are flocking and the sharks smell blood. Hats off to the marketing departments of those companies, because they're being creative, they're thinking outside the box, and God love you, you're using their own platform to talk trash. Got to love that.
Chad: Using Google to attack Google. That's awesome.
Joel: Yeah. And fortunately, Google has bigger problems than Workable's marketing budget for pay-per-clicks.
Chad: Yes, they do.
Joel: In the news this week, to the tune of 200-some million dollars in the EU, Google had to pay up for targeting children, re-targeting children, collecting data on children users. Not a good thing, they're writing a big check. Again.
Chad: Yes. From our standpoint, and again there're definitely more theories about why Hire by Google is sunsetting next year. Recruitics had a blog out this week, the top three things that they believe, and for me, it was number three, it was anti-trust.
Joel: Yup.
Chad: And it did have people on Facebook this week saying, "Well, yeah, that was a factor." Yeah, I know it was a factor, it was the biggest fucking factor that's out there. And this anti-trust thing is obviously big. And if you go to Google for Jobs in Europe, you'll notice that the UI is a tad different than how it looks here in the US. They have some of the competing favicons on top of the actual search itself, so that you could go to StepStone or Monster or whatever, and this is more, just to be able to defend themselves against some of these anti-trust allegations. So chopping off the Hire by Google limb to save the body, In this case, it was more of a pinky-
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: ... to save the body, was something that needed to happen.
Joel: Yeah. The screenshot you shared, and you should throw that up on Chad Cheese as a blog post somewhere,-
Chad: Yup.
Joel: ... or throw it up on the socials. It was clear-cut. Like dude, above the fold, "You could also look for jobs here." To me, that was a clear indication that Google is really concerned about anti-trust.
Chad: And once again, Google is in the search business. They are focused, keenly I believe, on defending their position on Google for Jobs, to be able to monetize that down the road. And, if they had to cut off the pinky toe of Hire by Google to be able to do that, then so what, that's not going to bother them. So I think, from all of the theories that are out there, and go figure, yeah, from a business standpoint, there's not a lot of money in HR, versus the rest of the world, and so on and so forth. Totally get that. But, from my standpoint, that is minuscule compared to this anti-trust issue that they have, that could perspectively impact their biggest line of fucking revenue.
Joel: Yeah, yeah. The employment stuff was a fly on the search businesses elephant's ass, and they decided to kill it, and life will go on for everybody.
Chad: Easy enough.
Joel: Let's hear a word from Sovren and talk about robots. Geez,
we never talk about that.
Sovren: Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job-order-intake technology in the Industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com.
Sovren: We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner.
Chad: I hope in Austin, we can possibly go to dinner, that'd be great.
Joel: Yeah, we need to reach out to the folks at Sovren, who are located in Austin. We don't talk about investment too much, but this one I love because you had a great line. Joblift got 17 million in funding. They're basically Indeed. In fact, their homepage says, "All the jobs, one search," which used to be Indeed's line, back in the day. So I thought that was amusing.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And your line, equally amusing, was-
Chad: Hey, somebody's got to do it, because Indeed's not doing it anymore.
Joel: Indeed's getting out of the game, so someone might as well do fucking vertical job search again.
Chad: Yeah, because I mean, this is pretty important for any job search or any job search kind of site that's out there. Indeed is turning into an old-timey job board with their new Ping-view model. The amount of candidates that are delivered is cut in half, and the pricing, per this new UX, has actually doubled.
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad: So, remember the day when you would go to a job board, you would click on the job, you would view the job on the job board, and then you would apply?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: You could click on the Apply, and then it would take you off to the corporate career site. Well, that's what Indeed is today. It used to be that they were a job-search engine, much like the search engine of Google. You click on it, and then you're blasted off to the job on the corporate career site, and that's how they built their pay-per-click model. "Hey, we're going to send candidates to you, on your site." Period. Now it's, "Well, your site sucks, so we're going to keep them on our UX, on our site." And really what that's done, is it's closed the loop. It's taken them from job search engine to, back to job board. They're a fucking job board. So, this is a great opportunity for organizations, who are looking to make a change, to perspectively become a job search engine.
Joel: Yeah. There clearly is a little bit of a window here, to say, "Look, Indeed is not focused. They're getting into job fair events, they're getting into staffing, they're getting into taking pictures with your phone of help wanted ads. They're getting into all this weird shit. How about if we just focus on being a really good job search engine, and doing that?"
Joel: And if Google for Jobs, ala Hire by Google, decides to get the hell out of the business, then, hello, it's game-on again, in terms of search and whatever else. And with more opportunities to market with video, and social media, and everything else, there's a little bit of an opening. So Joblift, use that 17 mil well, and it could work out for you in the end.
Chad: I think any job site that's out there, looking at the perspective vulnerabilities of Indeed, and again, they're a strong organization, don't get me wrong, but still, they're a big organization who has to actually defend many different flanks, which is why they're doing all of this. Back in the day when they were the start-up, they had incredible laser focus. They can't do that anymore. So this is your opportunity to be the new Indeed.
Joel: The Titanic takes a long time to make that turn,-
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: ... versus the speedboat.
Chad: Unless you have bots.
Joel: Bots, bots continue to be in the news. I've never really thought about shipping-
Chad: Yes.
Joel: ... like on actual water, but this is a huge, huge industry.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And there's a story thins week about, basically, robotic ships. So you have robots steer the ship, which probably isn't too tough. I'm sure pirates will love this idea, by the way. But you have robots just basically take the ship from one port to another, and you're eliminating the job of the captain, and whoever else has to be part of the ship, and I'm not a mariner by any means, But to me, this sounds like a potential real loss of jobs for a lot of communities that make their living off of shipping shit on the water-ways of the world.
Chad: Yeah. Well, these robot freighters, there you go.
Joel: They're trucks on water, basically.
Chad: These big-ass freighters. Yeah. Well, and that's one of the things they don't have to worry about, right? We're worried aby the autonomous vehicles, because of all the people on the road, and so on and so forth, it's a little bit different on the seas. And if you arm them with Terminators, you don't have to worry about the fucking pirates, right? So I mean, you've got it taken care of, and yeah, it makes it so much easier to be able to get goods from point A to point B, without stupid human friction.
Chad: What about college kids getting food?
Joel: Yes. There's a company called Starship Technologies, great name,-
Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Joel: ... basically, going to deploy these cooler-sized, like a beer cooler,-
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: ... self-driving robots to 100 US college campuses, and their goal to do this is by 2022. Some of the ones on the list are close to our heart, Purdue University here in Indiana, is going to be targeted for this. So basically, if you've seen the little Domino's Pizza little cooler-sized robot-wheeled things on the sidewalk, this is what this company's going to do. Now, I think, as cool as this is, I got to think the ultimate goal is to deliver pot to these kids, at 3:00 in the morning, or pizza at 4:00 in the morning, after they've been smoking the pot that was in the cooler at 2:00 in the morning. And I also think the number of videos that are going to come out of people beating the hell out of these robots,-
Chad: Yes.
Joel: ... is going to be unprecedented. The golf clubs, the bats, the wiffle ball bats-
Chad: It's going to happen, and that's why this is a fucking bad idea.
Joel: Dude, robotic pot delivery, that's a great idea.
Chad: No, then you have drunk kids who are going to try to break into these fucking things.
Joel: Oh, that's true too. They'll be on the look-out for coolers running down, and then trying to open them up-
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: ... and beat them down with, like, "Oh, there's pizza in there, and who knows what's in there." So yeah.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So Tengai, our friends in Sweden, and our creepy robot bust, got a really good review apparently, in Sweden, Stockholm's number one newspaper, the reviewer who is typically not very nice to technologies, was very complimentary to Tengai. Now, I don't speak Swedish, but what I garnered from the translation was, that it doesn't have a bad day, it doesn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it doesn't argue with its spouse before coming to work, it doesn't deal with kids that are being little shits in the morning. You're taking out all of these, not just biases, but human nature behavior, I've had a bad day, I'm in a bad mood, I'm out to get somebody. All of that is taken away from an interview process with a robot, and I think that those are really good points-
Chad: Right.
Joel: ... that this reviewer talked about. Regardless of whether Tengai becomes the next huge company or not, I think a lot of the things that it addresses, are really valid.
Chad: In-person interviews are always going to be a thing of our industry. We're always going to have that happen. People are going to have to come in. And I know in doing interviews, who knows how many God-damn interviews, and building teams over my lifetime, I fucking hate interviews man.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: So I mean, as a hiring manager, or as a recruiter, or to be able to make the process so much efficient, so much more unbiased if you did have a bad day, or you didn't get your pumpkin spiced late the way you like it, who the fuck knows, right, you're not going to have to worry about that with Tengai. So there are plenty of good reasons why this should work. The big question is, adoption.
Joel: How many people go into a Walmart, how many people go into a Target, how many people go into an Appelbee’s and say, "Hey, I'd like to fill out an application?" Every business like that should have some sort of automated interview system, whether it be Tengai or whatever, where they can say, "Oh, great, if you've got 15 minutes, step in this room, or step over here, whatever, and we'll do a quick interview with you with our automated system." And that saves that person from doing those multitude of interviews, and actually gives them time to do stuff that they actually want to do, which is serve customers and make money, and whatever. So the bad mood today-
Chad: Again.
Joel: ... that goes by the wayside, and we're actually critiquing people, and judging them based on their skills, and not how you feel or what they look like. And that's probably a good thing.
Chad: I think there's some great applications for some great companies who need it, and would rather not fucking interview people.
Joel: Yeah, yeah. I think we'll see it in government first, and then we'll see some retailers and bigger companies that do a lot of interviewing, start getting on the robotic train, and it'll take off from there or it won't, but it will be a hell of a lot of fun talking about it here on the podcast. Sponsored by JobAdX, and we'll be right back with men telling women what to do, and firing employees through virtual reality. Big fun, stay tuned kids.
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Chad: So this next one falls right into our What The Fuck Diversity category. The Christian Women Fall Lecture Series, where old white men lecture on subjects like... Here are the subjects, you've got to hear these subjects.
Joel: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: Okay. So these are old white men talking about subject number one-
Joel: One African-American guy.
Chad: Well, I said they're old men. Did I say white men? Sorry.
Joel: Well, then you said white guys.
Chad: Sorry, sorry.
Joel: So old men.
Chad: Old men-
Joel: Some diversity there.
Chad: Yes, a little diversity. Number one, as a faithful wife, that's a subject. Number two, as a loving mother. Number three, as a Bible class teacher. Number four, her response to the feminist movement. Number five, her role in the church. So again, let's step back here for a moment, and think of a bunch of old dudes telling women how to be a faithful wife, a loving mother, a Bible class teacher, how she should respond to the feminist movement, and what her role is in the church. If I had any of these discussions with my wife, she would smack me across the fucking face, and I would deserve it.
SFX: That's it man. Game over, man. Game over.
Chad: That's fucking crazy.
Joel: Yeah. Someone shared that with you, and I thought it was a joke. I thought it was like, someone put it together,-
Chad: Yeah, I know.
Joel: ... and they were punking us. But it turns out, yes, there's a lecture series of men telling women how to be good women in the church. So I got nothing.
Chad: I got nothing, other than, that is part of our What The Fuck Diversity category on this podcast.
Joel: I don't have a soundbite for that, but-
Chad: Jesus.
Joel: ... I'm glad we didn't find one. All right, lastly on the show, we'll get out of here with this,-
Chad: Your favorite.
Joel: VR is the future.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Let's just bow down to the VR gods. The story out last week, virtual reality is being used by companies to teach managers at companies, HR folks to fire people. And I think this is brilliant, right? So you put your VR headset on, you have animated Charlie come in the office, you tell him HR-ly, "We're moving in a new direction, thanks for your time," and virtual Charlie starts crying, gets violent, gets angry, begs you for his job, and this helps train people to deal with crazy Charlie who comes in and does all these crazy things to try to keep his job, or maybe bash your head in, or lay flames to the business. This is great training, and this is a great use of VR to help people better fire folks, as well as some other things that it's going to help you with.
Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can think of one guy, who I'm not going to name, who had to fire a lot of people, because he was probably one of the worst managers I'd ever worked beside, and he actually... He had an aluminum bat in his office, because of all the people who wanted fight his dumb ass, because of the way that he actually... he treated people, right? So this... And again, that's real life. This is kind of like a VR segment to be able to try to help with empathy, but it's also trying to numb down some of the responses, where you want to have some very inappropriate conversations with these individuals, right? But I think outside of firing people, this has a great application.
Chad: So, Farmer's Insurance needed a new way to train claims adjusters for home inspections, so TailSpin, the startup who designed this, they designed a virtual house complete with cluttered closets, leaky sinks, and the trainees could scour for evidence of water damage, and whatever. And the simulation changed slightly each time. So this allowed new hires to rack up months worth of experience in just a few days. Another module had trainees practicing on intervening, when a coworker on a virtual hiring panel, starts showing bias against certain job candidates.
Chad: So I mean, there are different applications that you can start to think of when you're talking about training, that just makes a hell of a lot of sense, and we did this when I was in the army for actual trainees. We had all this expensive gear-
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: ... the VR headsets, all that stuff, and it was good. Now, we did live training too obviously, but it's just another way to focus on getting more out of your time with your people.
Joel: And I think this is a grand opportunity for the Grand Theft Auto video game folks, to create Grand Theft Auto HR Edition,-
Chad: Ooh.
Joel: ... where you're an employee and you just keep getting fired, and then you have different ways to kill or beat up the HR folks. I think that's some violent video game gold. So the makers of that game are FortNite or Call of Duty, should be thinking about an HR angle in some of their games.
Chad: Yeah, you're sitting in front of your manager's desk, and you notice that he has an aluminum ball bat sitting behind him, right? Yeah.
Joel: Or it could go the other way, Grand Theft Auto HR Professional, and they beat up employees. I don't know, there's... The opportunities are endless. The fun will never stop, because podcast is going to stop.
Chad: Thank God.
Joel: And we out.
Chad: Because we out.
Walken: Thank you for listening to... What's it called? A podcast. The Chad, the Cheese, brilliant. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout-outs to people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one. Cheddar, Blue, Maschio, Pepper Jack, Swiss. So many cheeses, and not one word, so weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese, it's so weird.
Walken: We out.