Disasters tend to showcase the best and worst of humanity, and the current pandemic is no different.
On this week's show, the boys highlight companies like Hilton and CVS who are doing it right, as well as Amazon, who continues to stick its finger in the eye of its workforce. What's more, HR's most dangerous podcast covers news from Textio, CareerBuilder and Indeed.
Enjoy, and show our sponsors - the ones who continue to support us even in these times of strife - some love (but don't get too close, social distancing and all): Sovren, Canvas, & JobAdx.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Chad: And moving to the category of how to fuck up your brand in a crisis.
Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR'S most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: All right. All right. All right. The liquor store in my neighborhood is no longer an essential business, which means you may never hear from me again. Welcome to The Chad and Cheese Podcast boys and girls, HR's most socially distant and awkward show, I'm your co-host Joel, curbside pickup, Cheesman.
Chad: I am Chad, I love Chipotle Sowash
Joel: On this week's episode, Amazon continues to behave badly. CareerBuilder has a new tagline which is guaranteed to turn that company around. And Hilton gets helpful. Grab your socks and hold your medical masks, we'll be right back after this quick word from one of our beloved sponsors.
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. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner.
Joel: The first shout out should go to our sponsors, who in these times of strife are continuing to support this stupid show. Thank you so much sponsors. Thank you so much. We question your decision making skills, but we do appreciate it.
Chad: And we love you. We love you so much.
Joel: Love you long time.
Chad: I think the next shout out has to go out to friend, listener
Joel: I know where this is going.
Chad: ... And wonderful human being, [Holland Domber[00:02:14.25]]. Hits Joel right in the chops with the tweet yesterday, which I love. Her tweet was, because Joel's always bagging on millennials, he's all about
Joel: Justifiably so.
Chad: He's always looking for the cohort. Right? He's like, "Oh, what group can I fit in?" Anyway, here's Holland's tweet, two tweets, "Joel and Chad, I caught the latest Chad Cheese and have to argue that for older millennials, i.e., me, who is used to be calling Gen Y, this is the second crisis we are living through. Entering the workforce in 2008 was rough," which I can get that. Now, this is where I think she really puts the icing on the cake. "Additionally, there are a lot of studies out there that millennials as a whole will be the first generation financially worse off than their parents, crippling student debt, skyrocketing rent, lost earnings potential to great recession, oh, and avocado toast." I love how she finishes off there with a little comedy, but just because their trials and tribulations aren't our trials and tribulations, I agree with Holland.
Joel: I love Holland. Not going to hate on her. Not going to hate on her. I'm guessing that she did not have a mortgage, kids, all that good stuff, when 2008 went down. You agree with her, it's all good. Shout out. She's a fan of the show. We love her. And they're having hard times at Delta Airlines, I'm sure, she has much bigger problems than what I think about her generation.
Chad: One of my favorite brands, by the way.
Joel: One of your favorite brands, yeah. Are you missing the sky lounge?
Chad: It is what it is.
Joel: You miss those mimosas.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I know what's up. I know what's up. Speaking of last week's show, I'm going to give a shout out to all the fans that hit me up on DMs or emails or whatever, after my rant about end of the world, on the ledge, ready to jump segment on, I believe last week's show, it was real. Sentiment ranged from you're a pussy, snap out of it, to it's going to be okay, here's a virtual hug kind of thing. To our fans, as always, colorful and I love it. Thanks for the support and all the many ways that you did it.
Chad: Yeah. We try to keep it real here and sometimes you just got to let the Joel emotions out.
Joel: I did man.
Chad: And Tim Sackett let his emotions out this week because Tim saw Tiger, and apparently he's falling in love with Joe Exotic. And I think if Trump does give Joe a pardon, which has been this stupid rumor that's been out there, Joe might actually just relocate to Michigan.
Joel: Is that really a rumor? That can't be for real.
Chad: It's rumor. It's not surprising. It's a good spin on the shit that's happening right now. Right?
Joel: One of the greatest memes going around now is Trump's face on Joe Exotic's hairstyle and body with the tiger in the background. Classic, classic
Chad: That's awesome.
Joel: ... Move by the design team out there at Photoshop. I'm going to give a shout out to Jobvite, beloved sponsor with their Canvas product. They announced this week a new hire, someone that I know pretty well from my days as a Clevelander, Jeff Rohrs. Too many will not know, but Jeff was an agency guy, 20 years ago moved over to ExactTarget, which no one knew in the early 2000s, which was then sold to Salesforce. Then Jeff moved over to Yext, and oversaw their IPO process, and is now CMO at Jobvite. I will throw in a little prediction here, that adding folks with IPO experience is sometimes a little bit of a hint that a company might be eyeing an IPO.
Chad: Ding, ding, ding.
Joel: Jobvite 2021, Wall Street, IPO, I don't know. We'll see what happens, but a quick prediction for next year.
Chad: I just saw on my LinkedIn that Jason Goldberg is starting a new company called Meetly. Anybody who remembers
SFX: That's it man. Game over man. Game over.
Chad: Jason Goldberg from the
Joel: Jason Goldberg.
Chad: The Jobster days, we'll find a little levity and we will probably also find brevity in that as well.
Joel: Is this the new, the personal trainer thing that he's doing?
Chad: No, I don't know that he's ... He might still be doing that. Who knows?
Joel: Okay.
Chad: The guy can definitely raise money. It's called Meetly and it's kind of like a production line, working with teams, online collaboration. Not that anybody else is doing this right now, but yes, it's called Meetly and Jason is the founder.
Joel: Okay. Because he was throwing out tweets and whatnot about, "Hey, if you're a physical trainer, yoga instructor, whatever, hit me up. I'm looking at creating an app where we interact at home with people." The dude's a bouncing ball of ideas, he can't settle on one thing. Let's move on with our shout outs, I'm going to go out to [Kent Kyle Kevin Kiphagar[00:07:33.23]], who has found a landing spot at Appcast, apparently.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Good luck there at Appcast. He Should fare pretty well when we come out of this downturn.
Chad: Yeah. He's been there for probably about a month or so. He's good.
Joel: We never talk anymore.
Chad: That's because he didn't like you.
Joel: He was one of those who talked me off the ledge, guys. It's going to be okay. Yeah.
Chad: You see.
Joel: The millennial hug.
Chad: You see, that was a millennial hug and you needed that.
Joel: Yeah. It's good. I did.
Chad: He looked past you making fun of him and gave you that hug.
Joel: Yeah. Holland kneed me in the nuts though, so it's a nice balance.
Chad: If you need some good news, you should go out to YouTube and search for Some Good News with John Krasinski, this week's episode.
Joel: That was nice.
Chad: Okay. Last week's episode, I put out there and I thought, this is really good. It's fun, it's cheesy, it is amazing. You just have to watch it. Then episode two came out and I'm not going to run a spoiler here, but if you do love the musical Hamilton, this will blow you out of the fucking water. I don't know how he's going to be able to top episode two.
Joel: Never seen Hamilton and I'm not sure how much desire I have to see it, but I'm sure the episodes great.
Chad: If you like history
Joel: I do.
Chad: And you like good music
Joel: And I love it in rap form.
Chad: And rap music, yes. Then yeah, it's definitely ... Julie listens to the soundtrack as she works out. I think that's her most listened to playlist right now.
Joel: I'm going to wait for the Disney original version to come out in a couple of years. Shout out to Cindy Sonya, our good buddy in the industry is now head of people at Camino, I think that's her official title now. But our buddies at Camino have added her to the roster and that's worth the shoutout.
Chad: Yeah. Good for her man. That's awesome. Last shout out from me, I have to say, shout out to us because last week
Joel: Oh wow.
Chad: Our Chartable rankings, and I know this is fluid, but at least one week we've got to throw this out there, our Chartable rankings actually showed us, The Chad and Cheese Podcast was ranked number 54 in the business segment of podcasts in the United States, which I thought, wow, this is, this is ridiculous. And then, even more impressed by our ranking of number 75
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Globally. That's ridiculous.
Joel: Now these were the business category, which is pretty impressive.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Careers, I guess you could see that, but yeah, business, top 100, both in global and US reach, that's really impressive, and it has to be a typo, and somebody must have hacked Chartable. But yeah, my 13 year old finally thinks I'm cool, that I'm on some chart, chartlist.
Chad: Our stupid cartoon heads are there, yes.
Joel: Yeah. That's great. Last shout out for me goes to David. I'm going to butcher this, but David Macciocca, from VideoMyJob, from Down Under, he just a very friendly manner, sent me a DM, I don't know if you've got one too, just saying, "Hey, times are tough. I hope you're doing well. I hope everything's going all right. We'll see you on the other side of this COVID-19 downturn." So David, man, Australians, love it. Shout out to you buddy.
Chad: A bunch of people out there heard the cry from Joel Cheesman on the ledge and said, "You know what? We've got to get this fucker off the ledge."
Joel: Yeah. I'm going to go search for the baby cry sound bite real quick
Chad: No, we're good.
Joel: Because it's never been more needed in this show.
Chad: Events. Okay. It's interesting because obviously we have called off all events, but yet there are now digital events and these are brought to you by Shaker Recruitment Marketing, our travel, that being said, by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. We got to thank these guys, because again, another one of our sponsors, damn good supporter of the show. And I remember just a little over a month ago, Joe and I were on a call and he said, "Chad, I'm your official travel sponsor, and I'm saying don't travel."
Joel: Stay the fuck home, that's what he said.
Chad: Big thanks to Joe. And he also loved my Shaker mask that Julie made me. It's pretty awesome.
Joel: Yeah. Tell the people that didn't see that, the mask thing, what she did.
Chad: Yeah. Obviously these material masks that are being made, so that we can go out. The surgeon general, actually said, "Hey, mask up." Julie's been making these in our basement when she has time and she's not running an organization for goodness sakes, she's been making those. I went down with the idea of actually doing one, an actual Shaker logo on the front, so when I'm wearing it, you see the Shaker logo across my face.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Made one of those, Joe loved it. And yeah, it got some good love on the socials.
Joel: We have Death Match coming up, which is pretty exciting. It's virtual, so who knows what the hell kind of shit's going to happen. With this round of startups coming up in front of the judging panel featuring Pontoon Solutions as our premier sponsor and also on the judging panel. I'm pretty excited. We're doing that on April 28th, so if you haven't signed up yet, go to tatech.org, and get your tickets. And we're also doing May 19th. So we have to turn around real fast, and do a North American version of Death Match.
Chad: Yeah. That travel is going to be rough. Big thanks to Pontoon Solutions, they're the reason why this is happening for your digital. They are footing the bill for all contestants to compete for the chain of champions. Usually the contestants have to pay a small fee to actually get onstage, Pontoon is taking care of all of that. The contestants, we have Daniel Fellows who's the CEO of Optimal, Alex Murphy
Joel: Get optimal.
Chad: Alex Murphy, CEO of JobSync, Nick Gray, CEO of SBOJ. I think they're actually going to have an entirely new name by the time.
Joel: Get out of here.
Chad: Yes. They're finally going away from SBOJ, believe it or not.
Joel: We can take all credit for that, obviously.
Chad: Yeah, no shit. Right? Last but not least, Mikhil Raja, CEO of SonicJobs. Those are the four contestants
Joel: Supersonic
Chad: That you will be able to, uh, experience as you watch Death Match. Then when we do the North American digital, which is happening May 19th, [Jovio[00:14:22.27]] stepped up and said, "No matter what's going on, we want to make sure that Death Match can still happen." Right? We don't have our four contestants yet, so if you are a startup and you want to participate in Death Match, this is your time for free, to be able to register for that. It's very simple, go to chadcheese.com, go down to the contact us in the bottom, and just give us a quick spiel on why we should pick you to be one of four in Death Match in May.
Joel: Hit us up. And you did say free, right Chad?
Chad: It's free. Thanks to Jovio and again to Pontoon Solutions, those guys really kicked ass and take names.
Joel: Shall we get to the news, my friends.
SFX: Hell yeah.
Joel: All right. You'll love this story, Hilton
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Th hotelier, I guess, hotels are in a rough spot right now. not a whole lot of traveling going on. But Hilton stepped up and did something really cool.
Chad: Nobody's really traveling right now, so nobody is using their rooms, so their rooms are empty. Their rooms are empty, so they don't need employees. On the first end of that Hilton and American Express is offering hotel rooms free of charge to one million healthcare professionals working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Hilton and Amex will cover stays beginning April 13th through May 31st, and that's according to the Hilton press release right out of the gate. That's a great way for a company to give back to the community and build their brand in a time of crisis. But as we talked about, hospitality is still getting pummeled by this. So what do you do for those workers that are going on furlough? That's when they pivoted and they said, let's go ahead and create landing pages, coordinate with other organizations that have like jobs. They've brought in like 40 plus other employers who have jobs right now and work from home, warehouse, distribution, grocery and retail, senior living and others, and let's start to make those connections so that we can hopefully get our workers, our employees, our people that we care for, through this rough patch.
Joel: Yeah. I think maybe people in the middle of the country don't appreciate how awesome it is that Hilton stepped up and provided rooms for health care workers. Because if you live in a big city like New York, where maybe you live an hour plus out of the city, the fact that you can stay in the city and take care of people that are sick, is a huge benefit to them. Big hats off to Hilton for that one.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And they basically created a better job board in no time at all, than most job boards that are out there, which is funny, which you can find at, I think teammembers.hilton.com/COVID-19. They also partnered with Mon Power, so if you don't fit a particular job or opportunity, you can text, talent to 44844, and they'll start giving you a process to complete your contact information, and then staffing professionals will get in touch with you to try to put you into a job that you do fit for if there's nothing on the job board that you find interesting.
Chad: Taking that next step of those 40 plus companies, I have to make reference to CVS Health, because they've built a page welcoming Hilton workers complete with a letter from Jeff Lackey who is the VP of talent acquisition for CVS. I've known Jeff for over 10 years and this type of care and handling of people and brand doesn't surprise me at all. Here's just a quick excerpt of the letter, you go to the page and it says, "Corona virus is here and we need your help. Dear Hilton team members ..." This is CVS. This is the VP of talent acquisition for CVS actually writing a letter. There's these Hilton employees who've been furloughed. "Dear Hilton team members in response to the urgent and increased healthcare needs of Americans impacted by COVID-19 pandemic, CVS health is accelerating a plan to fill more than 50,000 full time and part time positions across the country while creating job opportunities for you and your colleagues." It continues to go on, it's a longer letter, but overall, out of all of those companies, I surf through them really quick, out of all of those companies, Jeff and CVS, I think took this as an opportunity to look at the crisis and really try to inspire those individuals who are in a bad place right now. You're getting furloughed and it's like, "What the hell can I do?" How does that not make you want to go buy stuff from CVS and go work for CVS?
Joel: I was going to make that point. Remember when we talked about Delta Airlines, you know, with the revenue share with their employees and how we thought, well, if we're in this industry, we should support organizations that really value the employee and fly Delta. These are perfect reasons why when we get out of this mess to stay at a Hilton and do your shopping at CVS and any of the other companies that are stepping up that we've talked about, from Starbucks, I guess go buy a Tesla, that's a big request. But anyway, the companies that are really stepping up right now, I think we should remember them when we come out of this. I'll also add that, if you're with a big chain hotel, take some notes because Hilton is showing you how to do it right. I know our buddy, Jessica Lee over at Marriott, is probably watching this stuff, so if they haven't done anything, hopefully they'll be doing something in the near future because Marriott's a big brand as well.
Chad: Yes, it is. Moving to the category of how to fuck up your brand in a crisis. Leaked notes from an internal meeting of Amazon leadership attained by Vice News reveals company executives discussed a plan to smear fired warehouse employee Christian Smalls, who we talked a little bit about last week, calling him, "not smart or articulate" as a part of PR strategy to make him the face of the entire union/organizing movement. They're trying to look at a cat that was really making a lot of noise because he didn't feel like he was in a safe place, and not to mention all of the employees that he worked with was in a safe place, knowing that 10 Amazon warehouses had come up with positive COVID testing. Now they're looking to smear this cat because he was a whistle blower.
Joel: I was thinking thinking the other day, not just Amazon, but I don't know if it's ironic or sad or what it is, maybe you can help me with a good word, but the fact that the lowest paid, least educated in our society are the ones that we are counting on the most right now, I don't know if that's irony or what. But the fact that it's the warehouse workers that are continuing to deliver goods and services to places like grocery stores and Walmarts. The employees in those Walmarts and Krogers, the folks that are delivering food to us. Certainly, on the healthcare side, you're getting into higher echelon salaries and whatnot, but the fact that it's the heart and soul, the salt of the earth of this country that's getting us by this stuff, makes this story particularly a little bit disgraceful.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Because Amazon is taking these stances. We've seen so many Amazon stories throughout the years that we've talked about on the show, but this epidemic or this pandemic has really brought a lot of these issues to head in that people are getting sick. These people want to walk out. They want to peek at Amazon, their employer, but they continue to stick with the job and stay with it.
Chad: Because they need money.
Joel: Right. The PR effort to smear the labor movement basically, which essentially is what this is. This is capital versus labor, it's an age old fight. We'll see how this pans out. But I have to think at some point this labor versus capital movement for Amazon is going to come to a head. I think at some point, maybe this whole COVID-19 pandemic will give rise to labor a little bit because they should have a seat at the table.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Literally, they should be on the board of directors. They should have representation there, which they definitely don't. And that doesn't even go into the whole point of Amazon not having to pay taxes like everybody else. They've really gotten a free pass and the fact that they continue to disrespect the labor that runs their entire organization and keeps Bezos rich and everybody else rich is really sad. I was also disappointed to hear that Bezos was actually part of the brain trust in the meetings that came up with this strategy. This wasn't some rogue PR agency, this was actually the head of the organization, which makes it particularly naughty.
Chad: Yeah. Let's get this straight, Jeff Bezos is not a nice guy. Never has been a nice guy. We'll never ever be a nice guy. He's a devious son of a bitch.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Here's another story, an actual personal story. Friend of mine, he works at GE. He has a desk job. Okay? He was told that it doesn't matter what's going on, you need to come into the office, which is just total bullshit. It's like, I can do my work from home, and they had the capacity to actually do the work at home, although management
Joel: GE has a few resources, I think.
Chad: GE has plenty of resources, but they can get their job done at home, easy.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Well, guess what? He tests positive for COVID-19.
Joel: No. Oh, man.
Chad: Yes. He tests positive for COVID-19. And as we're having this discussion, I'm like, man, you do realize what GE is saying to you, and pretty much what Amazon is saying to their employees is, we don't give a fuck about you. Not only that, you're taking that home to your family. We only don't care about you, we don't care about your family. We don't care about your friends or anybody that you come in contact with. We care about shareholder value.
Joel: We'll segue a little bit into our own industry. Textio, who a lot of people know and probably a lot of listeners have at least demoed if not are using currently, they help provide greater value to your job descriptions, they help you write job descriptions with their tools.
Chad: Yeah. Because you suck.
Joel: They went through a round of layoffs, which many ... Well, we talked about ZipRecruiter recently and they're not the end of the story and neither is this, but they laid off about 20% of their workforce, which equals about 30 folks, they were left with about 120 employees. So, a pretty deep cut there, 20%. I hope those folks land on their feet, or at least maybe have a job when things turn around and companies start hiring aggressively again. But for Textio, all those folks are bummed and they're going through hard times just like a lot of other vendors are.
Chad: And I don't know if they have or if they haven't, but you have to wonder if the CEO, because this is still a pretty sizable piece of their workforce, if she went out and said, "Okay, I know the types of people that we're actually laying off, where can we find these people jobs?" That's the next step. I did see a tweet from her saying, "Whoever gets these guys, they're going to get some really good workers," and it's like, okay, that's great, what are you doing to help?
Joel: Yeah. There wasn't anything in the story in regards to helping these folks find work. They live in Seattle for the most part, which is obviously harder hit than most areas in the US with the pandemic. So yeah, if you know of anything, or hey, if you're listening out there in this space and are looking for employees, we're happy to make those connections. Yeah, look for folks from Textio looking for new opportunities if you're out there. And with that, let's get a quick word from Canvas, and we'll talk about CareerBuilder's new tagline. Fire up everybody.
Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text, and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent.
Joel: All right, Chad, quick quiz man. Quick quiz. Ready?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Do you know CareerBuilder's old tagline?
Chad: Work can work.
Joel: Good job, my friend. Now did you know that ahead of time or did you look it up?
Chad: No, I knew it ahead of time because it's only been around for a year.
Joel: And we talked shit about it then.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But they have a new tagline
Chad: What?
Joel: Which is, are you ready for it?
Chad: Please.
Joel: Are you sure you're ready for it?
Chad: I don't think I am. Go ahead.
Joel: I don't think you're ready for it.
Chad: I'm not.
Joel: It's so bad, I can't even remember it. Let me go check.
Chad: We're building for you.
Joel: I'm sorry. Did you say we're building for you is their new tagline?
Chad: We're building for you. CareerBuilder, we're building for you. Okay. So
Joel: Nice.
Chad: Yeah. A company launched the campaign, it's been in the works for more than a year, which is ... We'll get into that in a second. Despite COVID-19 and after launching work can work just a year ago. They launched work can work and then right after that they had to have started this, because what they're saying is, a year ago they started developing this campaign but they just put a bunch of money into work and work. Again, I don't understand anything that's going on here.
Joel: The credit is, I guess, the word build is actually in the new tagline. Although taglines should be something that sticks around for a while, there should be like big marketing around those taglines. But anyway, that aside, they have a new ad for this, and the new ad, sort of like the old one, if I remember correctly, is essentially a bunch of stock video, and I'm sure there's some cool new stock video around COVID-19. Because there's some pictures of people putting up a sign saying, we're closed, COVID-19 or something like that.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: A lot of stock footage. It almost looks like a Fiverr contractor could have put this ad together, slapped a CareerBuilder logo onto it. I will give them credit, however, in that there is a text campaign that's a component of this ad. You can actually text COVID to a short code, which then takes you to a website for COVID stuff and information, which is not that interesting. It should be an actual chat mechanism that gets you to apply to jobs, but we'll save that for another day. They do at least have a text component to their television ad, which is, I guess a step in the right direction.
Chad: I don't think the message of the ad was bad. We are overworked, out of work, uncertain of what will work, but we are resilient. Right? Then it goes into an ad where it's more of like a stronger together rise up kind of place. I really dig that. I don't know, it's interesting that they had to switch their taglines. Either way I think CareerBuilder is pretty irrelevant, but yet this is definitely a time for them to try to get their brand back out there. I disagree with you with regard to this whole text piece because I was like, wow, they've got this text. Let's see, I'm going to start a conversation via text and see if they ask me questions. Is this an automated bot? How is this?
Joel: Sure.
Chad: And no, all it did was send me to a fucking website to do a job search. If you're setting an expectation to text, the expectation is, you're going to get a text response back so that you can start a conversation. If you don't have that tech available, just send them to your goddamn website, because that's all you did.
Joel: Just all you did. I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. But at least they're doing something. Right? At least they're trying to engage, text us for stuff, but they totally fail with it not being an actual text conversation or some chat bot where you could have an actual engaging conversation with somebody. Just sending them to your website and saying, search for jobs and a COVID-19 section, was a total fail. I totally agree with that. But I do agree it is at least something in the right direction, although they totally failed.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They went in for the kiss and got the forehead instead of the lips. I don't know. They fucked up there.
Chad: Yeah. Got my ass instead.
Joel: To me the message was familiar and forgettable.
Chad: Again, we are being incredibly nitpicky. There's no question, that's what we do. The ad was okay, the text execution was shitty. I'm going to stay on par with that because that's exactly how I felt about McDonald's. That's part of what they did. Right?
Joel: Every week with you and McDonald's and Alexa.
Chad: This is the same thing though, just about. Right? So anyway. But that being said, last week you said something
Joel: I did.
Chad: And now you get to do a victory lap.
Joel: Victory lap. Yeah, last week we talked about Seen by Indeed/Indeed Prime shuttered their service going offline in July. Well, users of their job spotter app, which for those who don't know or don't remember is where people take their phone, take pictures of help wanted signs and businesses and submit those to Indeed, which I'm assuming become sales leads for their sales team to go sell Indeed.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I predicted that they would continue to shutter businesses and job spotter was the one that I highlighted. So, break a bow, I was correct in my prediction, job spotter is shutting down. But don't worry kids, if you have submitted some help wanted ads or signs, they will still honor those Amazon gift cards. So you're in luck there.
Chad: Yeah. They killed Indeed Prime AKA Seen and stopped paying publishers for traffic. They were listening to the show and they heard you say job spotter, they forgot about job spotter and they went, "Oh, uh"
SFX: Hell yeah.
Chad: We got to get back, that thing's still going on. Oh shit.
Joel: Cheesman knows about it. Shut it down.
Chad: Shut it down.
Joel: The question will be, what do they shut down next? Who knows? We'll find out next week, I guess. They also launched, I don't know if you saw this, the happiness score for companies. Basically what this is, they already do reviews, which most of our audience knows, but now they're doing fairly lengthy questionnaires to employees of these companies, asking like, do you feel like you're engaged at work? Do you feel happy at work? Really pretty general questions. And then based on the answers, they're creating a happiness score. If you go to Indeed now, particularly with bigger companies like McDonald's, Apple, Microsoft, et cetera, on their profile page, you will see the happiness score. There's a little sunshine, it's just cute, I guess. You get a little sunny thing if you have a good score, you can drop down and see where each happiness score is on different levels. Yeah, they launched that this week. What I continue to be bewildered by is they're developing stuff on the review side that's separate from Glassdoor, who's their sister company. So I don't get if Indeed's testing it, if they're just not even talking to each other, is glass door going to have a happiness score that piggybacks off Indeed's happiness score? I'm really confused about the whole relationship with Glassdoor and Indeed.
Chad: Yeah. Was it Careerbliss, this at one time. Anyway, I don't know if Indeed knows what Indeed is doing. To an extent, this feels more like a content play than it does an actual feature. We'll see. It'll provide content much like monsters, like index, bullshit index. I think it's more of a content play than it is anything else. And this just demonstrates even more to me, and I think anybody watching that Indeed literally has no focus right now.
Joel: Yeah, it feels a little bit like a 20% project that somebody just dabbled in it and said, "This is a great idea. Happiness score. Yay, happiness score."
Joel: Well, a company that hits a hundred on our happiness score
Chad: Damn straight.
Joel: ... It's JobAdX. Let's hear from them and we'll talk about investment stuff.
Chad: People got money.
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Chad: J-O-B-A-D-X.
Joel: People got money. Yup. So who's on the list? I can't believe money's still being thrown around.
Chad: Space Jam. Yeah, Space Jam's on the list.
Joel: Space Jam. Landing.jobs is on the list. Did you see this? A Lisbon company
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Mid last month, landing.jobs, yes, .jobs. It's not just for direct employers, got 2 million euros to expand their business throughout Europe and North America.
Chad: Yeah. Definitely going to out to those guys to see if we might be able to make a trip. Lord knows I need to do a market trip to Portugal again.
Joel: Yeah. Some more retirement home shopping. There might be some clearance sales over there, right around this time. WorkJam
Chad: WorkJam.
Joel: ... Your favorite. Tell us about them.
Chad: WorkJam, the leading digital workplace solution provider. Yeah. This company, I like from the standpoint of it is all frontline and it's an app. And I know because when I was actually instructing kickboxing for about five years, we had this app where you could get on and if you were scheduled for times and you had to switch out, you could actually ask other people in the app if they could cover for you or you could switch or swap or something like that. This is one of those, but it also has fast pay, messaging, it's a really cool app. The thing that really struck me was, they received 50 million in series C. okay? That's
Joel: Not short change.
Chad: That's not short change. But overall
SFX: Hell yeah.
Chad: ... They've raised 62. They haven't really gotten a ton of cash through, seed A and B, but right now they got the big payday. So they must be doing some things right. And I believe these types of apps, especially for work, I think they're big.
Joel: Yeah. And this is a Montreal Canadian company and I want to know what's in the water. You guys produce Neuvoo/Talent.com.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: Now you got WorkJam. There's something going on in Montreal. We need to invest in..
Chad: Is it Jobillico around there too?
Joel: Yeah, I think so. And Workopolis who was casualty of Indeed recently. Indeed probably has an office in Montreal for all we know.
Chad: Possibly.
Joel: WorkJam. They need to hire a WWE, WrestleMania knucklehead to market their company. Anyway, lastly, let's go local, Lessonly
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: ... An Indianapolis company, that basically does learning, online lessons, raised 15 million in a series C. They're getting a little bit of buzz here locally. So if you don't know him yet, you will at some point. Lessonly.
Chad: Yeah, they should. I think platforms like this are perfect for the "skills gaps" not to mention the constant evolution of skills for knowledge workers, you can come up with your own curriculum, and make it more customized for your people, and obviously for your organization. These types of platforms, I believe, are going to explode as well.
Joel: Yep. Definitely built for a COVID-19 world.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Good job Lessonly. And with that, we out.
Chad: We out.
Walken: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? Podcast. With Chad, and Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shoutouts to people you don't even know. And yet you're listening, it's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, Pepper Jack, Swiss. There's so many cheeses and not one word. It's so weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out.