Behold! A holiday spectacle so dazzling, so insightful, it’ll practically guarantee you a promotion (results may vary, void where prohibited, don't quit your day job). We've wrangled all our favorite (and some we just tolerated) guests from 2024 to deliver scorching hot takes on the burning dumpster fire that is talent, tech, and recruitment. Think less "fireside chat" and more "dumpster fire chat."
From AI’s inevitable robot overlord takeover of recruiting (will they finally fix the ATS? Don't hold your breath) to the thrilling return of the office (aka mandatory fun times!), we've got the scoop you need to maybe survive 2025. Or at least have something to complain about at the next holiday party.
Witness the assembled brain trust, including:
Eileen Kovalsky from General Motors: Because even car companies need people to, you know, build cars.
Adam Godson, CEO of Paradox: Hopefully, he'll explain what a paradox is without causing one.
Jessica Rush, Chief Talent Officer: We're rushing to find the talent, people! Get it? (We'll see ourselves out).
Patti Tabris, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at ResultsCX: Because someone has to deal with the results.
Stefan Premdas, Director, People Experience at sweetgreen: Hopefully, they brought snacks.
J.T. O'Donnell from Work It Daily: Because you're going to need to.
Julie Sowash, Executive Director and Co-founder of Disability Solutions: Providing solutions to problems you didn't even know you had!
John Graham, the VP of Employer Brand Strategy, Humanity & Culture at Shaker: Because branding is everything, even when it's not. (He appears twice! Clearly, he's got a lot to say...or we messed up the guest list).
Emi Beredugo: We’re not entirely sure what Emi does, but they’re here!
Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze, Co-host from Europe: Bringing you takes from across the pond (probably involving better coffee).
Matt Lavery, Global Director of Sourcing, Recruiting, & Onboarding: The man, the myth, the onboarding legend.
Lord Wei, A Member of the Science and Tech Committee in the House of Lords: Adding a touch of British pomp and circumstance (and hopefully some actual wisdom).
Rebecca Carr, CEO at SmartRecruiters: Because recruiting needs to be smart, obviously.
Courtney Dempsey, the Head of Recruiting at Southern Rock Restaurants: Serving up talent as hot as their chicken.
Chloé Rada, the Senior Director of Talent Attraction at ZoomInfo: Zooming into the future of talent (get it?).
Dean Da Costa, Senior Staff Talent Acquisition at Lockheed Martin: Recruiting the best of the best to build…stuff.
Mary Battle Broxton, Leading Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing at Tractor Supply Company: Because even tractor companies need marketing.
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION (cometh)
Chad: Hey, what are you doing here? Okay, no, I'm glad you stopped by. You see here at the Chad and Cheese Podcast, Joel and I, we wanted to give you guys something special because you're the ones who make this. Listeners, our viewers, people who engage with our stuff and it's holiday season, so we're bringing you the 10 top, our 10 top topics for the year with some amazing speakers and just a lot of fun. And, yeah, we're kind of enjoying the holidays too. Again, you make the Chad and Cheese Podcast. You. And we really appreciate it. We love you guys. If you haven't signed up for free stuff, chadcheese.com/free. Free t-shirts, booze. We like to send our people stuff. So anyway, thanks so much from Chad, from the Algarve. We love you and have a wonderful holiday season. We will see you on the flip side.
Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman 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.
[music]
Chad: In 2024, the question of AI replacing recruiters was one hell of a hot topic. Here's Eileen Kovalsky, Global Head of Candidate Experience at General Motors. Adam Godson, CEO, and Jessica Rush, Chief Talent Officer over at Paradox, talking about recruitment with AI. Enjoy.
Joel: The narrative of recruiting is going away or recruiters are being replaced. It's interesting to note that I didn't hear you say that any recruiters were let go in that process. But I'm curious from your perspective, will the skill set of a recruiter in the future GM look different? And what is that difference going to look like?
Eileen Kovalsky: Absolutely will look different. Historically, our recruiters and they're fantastic, but their job was primarily posting and praying. I mean, that's what it was for a really long time. What it will be tomorrow and how it's starting to transform is we've added a significant number of recruiters that come with very specific technical recruiting experience from some big name competitors that I will not name. And they're not only on the hook for like help bringing that talent in, but also helping to educate our OG recruiters on here's how you sell to a tech candidate, 'cause the sell is different.
Joel: Yeah.
Eileen Kovalsky: They don't necessarily care about that we shut down in July and you maybe have a week off. They want to know that they can work flexibly and that they have cool tools and the technology is modern. And those are the things that attract them. And so it's how do you sell differently? And so that the role of the recruiter absolutely is changing. Again, I'm going to throw another cliche out there. They are now becoming talent advisers. They're advising managers, hiring managers and leaders on what's in the market. They're leveraging data that we have to say, "Hey, you're looking for this purple squirrel with pink polka dots." But guess what? There's five of them in the whole country. So let's talk about if we just took the polka dots away.
Eileen Kovalsky: How much does that increase your your pipeline and can we train for those polka dots? And those are the conversations that the recruiters are starting to have. And that will continue to evolve because we can't keep doing what we did yesterday if we wanna succeed tomorrow.
Chad: So we had Kevin Wheeler, a futurist, on the podcast a few months ago.
Joel: Chad likes to name names if you didn't know that about him.
Chad: It's out there. It's out there.
Joel: It is out there.
Chad: It's out there on ChadCheese.com. Anyway, so he actually said that he sees recruiters going away in the very near future because this technology is so damn good. So where do you sit when it comes to, I mean, recruiters just being flushed, being a recruiter yourself at one time, being flushed out of the entire process?
Adam Godson: Yeah, I think it's easy to see that recruiting as it's done today, there will be less of it and it'll be different.
Chad: So what do you mean by done today?
Adam Godson: Yeah, so I think there are two types of jobs in the future for talent acquisition. There are gonna be people that design processes and orchestrate automation and set up systems that maybe serve as air traffic control and they design how these things work. There's going to be a second group of people that are on the phone talking to candidates, meeting with people in coffee shops, and they are convincing them to join. And they are the real recruiters of our industry. And I think what's gone are people that wish they were doing that, but are working their applicant tracking system, clicking buttons all day, wishing they were talking to candidates. So that version of recruiting I think does go away and I think we end up in this path. And what will drive that is competition. So for a long time people thought technology would replace things, right?
Adam Godson: Back to the ATM machine. Well, ATMs are going to take the job of every bank teller. Guess what? There are more ATMs in the next 20 years after that. I'm sorry, there are more bank tellers in the next 20 years than ever before because you can run a bank more cheaply and have more bank branches. And so competition will make that work. So just like we will still have salespeople, the ability to go get the best talent, to go convince people to join will absolutely make recruiting as important or more important in the future to get the best people. But it will look different. A lot of the administrative stuff will go away. There will be system designers, technologists that do that. There will be people that really, really recruit.
Jessica Rush: I think this is like the story of time. Technology always has done both. It's taken some jobs and it's created a lot of new jobs. So I think we'll just see more of that. And our CEO Adam talks about that the future of recruiting is really gonna be two types of jobs. One that's kind of the convince connect role and one that's the experience design. And we've really been operating like that for a while now, a paradox on our talent acquisition team. And so I do think that's the way where we've got a team of recruiters that spend their time talking to candidates, understanding what they care about, building a relationship, building trust and spending time coaching our hiring managers, partnering with them to really understand deeply their needs and the market and who's a great fit and providing that information.
Jessica Rush: And then we have a team that really thinks about, "Okay, how do we use our technology and tools to create a better experience for our candidates, for our recruiters, for our hiring managers, for everybody who's involved?" So we're fortunate that we get to do that. And we're just always thinking about how do we continue to double down in those two areas? And but I really think that's where we're headed.
Chad: Joel, that's AI putting the human back in HR. AI is here, so employer branding is dead, right? Well, apparently the importance of employer branding in tech driven recruitment became a very hot topic in 2024. Here are some of the thoughts of Patti Tabris, senior director of TA at Results CX and Stefan Premdas, director of people experience at Sweetgreen.
Patti Tabris: We branded our program as Refer CX and it's a mobile app.
Chad: Oh, that's awesome.
Patti Tabris: They could go right on their phones. And that was part of what Aaron offered us when we decided to go with Aaron as our vendor.
Chad: Oh, that's awesome. That's great.
Patti Tabris: Branding it for the company, making them feel like they're a part of something company wide. It's on their phone. They could click in there and make a referral from anywhere. If they're standing in Starbucks and they're talking to somebody in line and they think they're a great fit for our company, send them a referral notice, talk them into applying. It's a great way to have people get excited about their job and their company. So something I'd love to throw out there that isn't, everybody's looking for the money savings, the time savings, all of that. But what we found is the company culture and what it added to our company culture is really exciting as well. Since we set up our referral program with Aaron, we've won five Great Place to Work badges this past year. And I think that has to have something to do with it.
Joel: I imagine it does.
Patti Tabris: They feel rewarded. They feel excited about the company.
Joel: Talk about the branding, employment branding perspective. How has the changes in the business changed the brand or has it? Are you all in on what you're doing now or are you steadfast on we're Sweetgreen? It feels like a Patagonia type brand that you stay the course. What is the new technology meant to the brand?
Stefan Premdas: It's actually an exercise that we're kicking off next year. We want to go through a full EVP. We realize that as a company, we're growing and maturing. We've just brought in a lot of new folks to the C-suite and the company's changing. The pace at which we want to grow is we're really kind of on that trajectory that we've always wanted to be in. I think our brand is... And I don't know where it's gonna land, but I have a feeling it's gonna land in. We are kind of a future first company. And if you want somewhere to grow, you can go from a team member to a general manager, our head coach, as we call it in sweet green, in three years. But then what does that trajectory look like beyond that? And that's what we're starting to figure out now.
Stefan Premdas: Our investment into succession planning is really going to be the next future. We want to get to the 60%-70% internal growth, promotion growth. So I'm not exactly sure where it's gonna land yet. We still have a lot of research. We want to differentiate. We don't want to be another Chipotle.
Chad: Diversity, equity and inclusion was under attack in 2024, and the uncertain future of DEI was on everyone's mind. JT O'Donnell, founder and CEO at Work It Daily, my beautiful wife, Julie Sowash, executive director and co-founder at Disability Solutions, plus John Graham. That's right, John Graham, VP of employer brand diversity and culture at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. They all had something to say about this topic. Give it a listen.
Joel: But Chad and I have been talking about the death of DEI and companies abandoning it and the Supreme Court. And so it's a complex issue. But this week alone, Molson Coors said that they plan to cut supplier diversity quotas and DEI-based training programs, as well as sever ties with the corporate equality index of the LGBTQ plus advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. But wait, there's more. Ford Motor Company also joined in. This joins the likes of Harley Davidson, Lowe's and John Deere, who are scaling back diversity, equity, inclusion efforts. JT, what are your thoughts? And specifically, what are job seeker's opinions of what companies are doing here?
J.T. O'Donnell: And you've talked about it here before. This seems to be so reflective of a market. When the market starts to contract and businesses are really looking at the bottom line, it gets really easy for them to say this just isn't necessary. And we've seen this before. We know it. Here's my silver lining. Here's what I truly believe as someone who works with so many job seekers and a lot of Gen Z. They were raised to look for inclusiveness. They've been exposed to this, talked about it, want to see it, question when it's not there. And I just have to believe and want to believe that as they become the next generation of managers and business owners, that that will just be organic to them.
J.T. O'Donnell: In the same way that all the women that I know will now immediately look and say, "Is there a female on the board? What's the female leadership look like?" We took a long time for us as women to pay attention to that and to call it out. And I think that these generations are going to call out that diversity, I hope. And I certainly am going to nurture that every step of the way. It's a big part of what we coach to. So hopefully that'll help on the back end.
Julie Sowash: As the winds change, companies use that as an opportunity to retract. And I know there's pressure in the market and I know I am very protective and very covetous of my brand. I built it. It's my baby. I understand. But it's sheer weakness to see these Fortune 100, Fortune 1000 brands pull back because they're scared of a little political change. You're in or you're out. And it's okay if you're out. Just be who you are. Don't try to pretend that you're into DEI. Don't try to pretend that now you're not into DEI because the political winds change. Be true to who your organization and your culture are because it's whiplash for the job seeker.
Julie Sowash: And it's this like fake hope that companies give that that fake like illusion of hope that we're finally going to get pay right. That we're finally going to build our pipeline so that it's Black, Brown, LGBTQ and disabled. And then you just pull the sheet right out from under our feet again and we start over.
Joel: Give me your take on the current state of DEI. A few years ago, it was like, yes, that's a good thing. Let's do it. It became politicized, weaponized.
John Graham: Sure.
Joel: Companies stepped back, didn't want to touch it. What's the current state of that issue?
John Graham: Yeah. So I think we're at a point where DEI is now going through its own rebranding. And if you're a student of this space, you know that for the past 60 years, there's been a series of progressions and regressions. It's just a natural ebb and flow. When you start making progress, people will pull it back. But the key is you're incrementally moving forward. I think we're at a point right now where we're being honest about what can change, what people are willing to change. And then what can we do within that construct? What are we doing within the context of employer brand recruitment marketing?
John Graham: How honest are we gonna be about our culture? What are we going to do as a company as far as what we're donating to or not anymore? And some companies have made headlines for pulling their commitments back all the way. Based on pressures from activist investors, perceived risk for their consumer bases, whatever the case may be. The challenge is that the issues for the people who are most marginalized didn't go away because a company rolled back its commitments. So they're gonna have to contend with it in some way.
Chad: So automation's effect on workforce dynamics was another big topic. And friends of the show, Emi Beredugo, Senior Manager Recruitment Enablement at Elastic, and our friend Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze, Group Chief Digital Officer in Public Affairs at House of HR, had something to say. Check it out.
Joel: Google CEO revealed this week that AI systems now generate more than a quarter, that's 25% for those of you at home that don't know what a quarter is, of new code for its products with human programmers overseeing the computer generated contributions. Does that mean current AI models are capable of generating flawless high quality code that developers can just insert and forget? Likely not. But does it mean fewer employees needed for said coding? What say you, Emmy? Quarter? 25% of all new code out of Google now is automated. Should programmers be worried?
Emi Beredugo: Oh, should they be worried? I would still say no, going back to the fact that it helps to increase productivity. It helps to speed up the process, but it won't replace a human. So I don't think tech people need to be necessarily worried in terms of their roles going. But I do think that there will be an increasing need for those people within the tech world to upskill themselves. They're going to have to develop new skills to stay competitive in the marketplace. Roles are changing. So whether you're in product management, UX design, even customer education, all of those roles are still gonna have to need a higher level of understanding of AI functionalities, particularly because their clients and customers are becoming more savvy around AI as well.
Chad: 60% of the time, it works every time.
Joel: I'm less optimistic. Maybe Lieven can talk a little bit about Europe and some of the challenges that Germany and a lot of the continent is facing. Personio was a German company. A lot of their initial clients were in Germany. They are trying to grow here in the US, which we've talked about. But yeah, ultimately, we're gonna talk about this a lot. We're gonna talk a lot about, especially public companies, headcount reduction, stock price goes up, boats and hoes, rinse and repeat. And it's gonna be a theme that we talk about quite a bit on this show. Lieven, what are your thoughts?
Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze: The whole personial thing. If people are talking about efficiency, I always wonder how is indeed AI going to impact that? And he didn't mention people are being replaced by AI. But if you read between the lines, it's kind of something like that. British Telecom, they were very clear about it. They fired 5000 people and they said we are going to replace those people by AI, first line help desk people, et cetera. So this is going to be a constant in the near future, I think.
Chad: In 2024, CEOs started forcing employers back to the office. Is it good, bad or insignificant? Well, Emi, Joel and I, we had a few things to say about this. Give it a listen.
Emi Beredugo: Worryingly, I'm seeing more and more organizations, especially the bigger ones, sending a not so subtle message to their employees. That message is, get back to the office or wave goodbye to your promotion. Now, here's the thing. Despite all the data that's supporting flexible working arrangements, I can't shake the feeling that if we are not careful, these return to office mandates might become the norm rather than exception. So why is this happening? Well, companies are thrown out all kinds of reasons, from better collaboration to improve connectivity and an environment where employees can actually grow their skills more easily. But is that actually the truth? Now, I like to think it's what I call executive nostalgia. So this is where senior leaders, they yearn for the good old days of water cooler chats, and maybe they're reminiscent about how they built their internal networks and rose through the ranks because of this.
Emi Beredugo: But times have changed. If these execs want their organizations to keep succeeding, it's not their employees who need to conform. It's actually the leadership who need to change. They need to change their mindset. They need to upskill themselves so they now know how to lead a flexible workforce. And why do they need to change? Well, first of all, there isn't enough data out there that shows that in-office work leads to better outcomes. In fact, there's loads of data showing that they aren't even leading to higher profits. And there's also plenty of data showing that forcing employees back to the office can have a detrimental impact and can actually hurt productivity, morale, retention. So who is it impacting the most? Well, carers get hit hard. Not everyone has the help to juggle caregiving responsibilities. So if you force them back into the office, this just adds unnecessary strain.
Emi Beredugo: Introverts struggle. Crowded office spaces, they just aren't energizing for everyone. For some they are actually really draining. Neurodivergent employees lose out. So many neurodivergents thrive in environments where they can manage their own time in a quiet space and work from home setups often enables their best work. Then you've got people with disabilities. Accessibility in a home setup can sometimes be far better than navigating a commute to the office and a office that even if they go to might not even fully accommodate their needs. And then you've got the commute themselves, those people who live far away from the office, that return to office mandate isn't just inconvenient. It's actually exhausting and wasteful. So if organizations know all of this, why they doing it? What's the point? I mean, surely they're not that stupid, are they? Well, if you ask loads of employees, that answer is clear.
Emi Beredugo: It is a lack of trust. Some leaders just don't trust their teams to be productive if they can't physically see them. And here's the reality. Most of the time people are commuting to sit at a desk, throw on their headphones and do exactly the same work that they would be doing if they were at home. So, make it make sense. And let's not gloss over the fact of what some people are actually quietly thinking. Some people believe that a few organizations are using return to office mandates as a sneaky way to reduce head count. And that's called quiet firing. Forcing people out the door without having to physically fire them. But if they keep doing this, if they keep eroding trust, these organizations are just gonna be running on borrowed time. So here's my message to those drive turkey companies out there who are enforcing return to office mandates. Fix up, get better, listen to your employees, change with the times. Build trust. Let go of all these outdated models of what work looks like and focus on what actually matters. The results.
Joel: A new survey by Blind shows that 73% of Amazon employees are considering leaving due to the new five day work week policy starting in January of '25, highlighting significant dissatisfaction in potential turnover, especially among senior staff. Another 80% said they know someone who is already looking for another job because of the new policy, while 32% said they know someone who has quit because of it. Chad, shit's getting deep, deep at Amazon. What are your thoughts on these numbers in this poll from Blind?
Chad: Well, there's definitely some reports saying that this is literally just trying to push people out, so this is kind of like a forced layoff without having to pay the severance. But if that's the case, do you think Amazon thought nearly 75% of staff would eject? I don't think so. So Amazon's woes where they are burning through entire populations of warehouse workers, and are also losing billions of dollars in revenue because they don't have the people in the warehouses to do the job, will now be shifting over into the Amazon office space. Amazon is really good at technology. What they're really bad at is people and being human. And this, this could shock Amazon very quickly.
Joel: Yeah. So you know when Trump won the election in 2016, and probably 75% of Democrats at least said they're moving to Canada if Trump gets elected, this reminds me of that. Of course, the number of people that actually did move to Canada was probably in single digits. A lot of people were just venting. A lot of people were mad, which is what they do on Blind, by the way. They vent. It's kind of anonymous. Like I can talk shit. I don't think we're anywhere near 70% of Amazon losing that many people. It does show dissatisfaction with like, we don't wanna go back to the way it was, and they are gonna lose people for it. Maybe they can pick up all the OpenAI people that are leaving the executive suite over there. But yeah, Amazon has an issue. They wanna automate as quickly as possible. The C-suite, like being disgruntled. Maybe it is partly they want to get rid of people because they're getting rid of people anyway with automation and robotics. And maybe this is part of that strategy. I don't know. But shit's kind of weird at Amazon right now.
Chad: Immigration was a major topic in 2024. How does it impact the economy and workforce? Well, Matt Lavery, Global Director of Sourcing, Recruiting and Onboarding at UPS, plus, Lord Nat Wei, a member of the Science and Tech Committee at the House of Lords had some pretty relevant insights to share. Check it out.
Joel: What are your thoughts on immigration as a whole and how it impacts UPS?
Matt Lavery: I'd really like it as they brought people in, if they would give them eligibility to work easier and faster. Because we're an E-Verify company, everything gets tracked. I can't hire a lot of the folks that I want to. We wanted to get involved in the Afghan peace when that came in a few years ago when that started, but they weren't eligible to work right away and it was hard to get them on board. It was a chore. So I think when we do these things as a country, we should be able to get these people jobs if they want them. Because in my mind, if someone wants to work here and earn here and pay taxes here, God bless you. Let's go. Because the amount of talent that we need, again, I'm an X, you guys are Xes, I think too. We're not gonna... We don't have enough of baby boomers for these jobs. I wish they would all retire. That's just my personal...
Joel: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And get the hell out.
Matt Lavery: But, and make more opportunity for some other folks. But we do have... We're not like Europe yet, where we have negative growth. But we're slowing down. So we need to bring in people who wanna take, quite honestly, some of the lower end jobs, but build themselves up. And again, we have a country that can do that for them. Let it work that way. Give them to opportunity to work, earn a living and create a family.
Joel: When you talk about population collapse and immigration, part of what... Part of closing the border is those folks become a drain on the system. They become either welfare recipients or government responsibilities. Are you outlying a future where can we train people so quickly that an immigrant can come in and within six months, a year, be a high skilled laborer? And is that part of the solution? Should we open the borders and just educate them much more quickly because we have these systems or do you think we're gonna continue in this death doom spiral of no immigration aging population? Is this technology part of the solution?
Lord Wei: Yeah. I think there's a need for nuance. So first of all as the son of migrants, this whole putting all migrants in the same box, there are different kinds of migrants. If a migrant comes from a village somewhere and comes straight to the UK, that might be a drain on our finances. It might be a humanitarian thing to do, but there's a lot of investment you need to put into them and their family. But you've also got migrants from other parts of the world who are amazing. They could be doctors, they could be, filling all kinds of roles that we can't ever hope to fill. And I think the way we do this sensitively is kind of go, well for everyone we bring in to do that, we've gotta train a local person,'cause often and often in the same town where we send the migrant so that the impact on the local population isn't gonna be Oh, they're taking all our jobs.
Lord Wei: No, you're benefiting, 'cause we're gonna train you both in AI and in future in the robotic AI by the way. 'Cause a lot of these jobs are fruit picking as well. They're carers. There's gonna be a shift as well, I think in future where you're gonna have automation in those physical roles as well. And so it's gonna be a really interesting world. And some of the best paid work is gonna be how you design that to work in those environments, to both be doing the work, making sandwiches and then figuring out how the robot can also make sandwiches. I was actually working on a project where they were trying to figure out how to get robots to make sandwiches.
Joel: Get sandwiches and sausages, making...
Lord Wei: Yeah. And guess, this is the really funny thing. Guess the thing they couldn't get the robots to do, which they're still, they haven't cracked, which is they can get the robot to butter the sandwich and like do this to the sandwich. But when you pick up the chicken, you need to kind of, or ham, you need to distribute it on the sandwich really quickly. And they found that the human workers could feel with their hands, the exact right proportion of chicken to put down much better than... 'Cause the robots can't feel yet. So I think it's gonna be a hybrid world where some of us are filling chickens or interviewing candidates. The robots are slapping on the bread or doing the scheduling.
Joel: The robots also don't eat the sandwich. So they're not the customers of the sandwiches.
Chad: Shocking layoffs happened in 2024. And of course, Joel and I, were not gonna keep our mouths shut. Take a listen. Layoffs.
Joel: Layoffs.
Chad: God damn it.
Joel: Some big ones this week. Some big names cut some heads recently. Intel let go of 15,000 people. Didn't they just get some taxpayer money to compete with Taiwan semiconductor. Anyway Match Group, the company behind Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid and others, which by the way, had downloads fall 12% globally, is cutting 6% of its staff, blaming TikTok, of all people. And industry stalwart, iCIMS said goodbye to 69 of their associates, which equals about 5% of their workforce if my math is correct. Chad, what are your thoughts on all this head cutting?
Chad: Yeah. Intel, when Nvidia is printing money, Intel apparently is burning it. It's been outflanked and apparently rushed a buggy product to market. If a CEO is gonna chop that many heads, he's gotta chop his own. It's all there is to it. So this is just ridiculous watching a CEO well up and say, oh, really hate to let this many people go. Well, you're the first one that should go. Give somebody else a fucking turn for fuck's sake. Tinder, wait a minute. They have live streaming services? They have live... Were they trying to become OnlyFans? Why the fuck would Tinder...
[automated voice]
Automated Voice: What are you doing Step bro?
Chad: Whomever signed off on that shit should definitely be gone. And then on the iCIMS front, major leadership changes, CEO, CPO and CTO. And one of the things I've learned in being in any organization from the US Army to Randstad, is that whenever new leaders come in, they change shit. It's all there is to it. Sometimes there are moves, and from my understanding, rumor mill says, ME is gonna get hit in the next week or two. This is, I think, just the start of the arranging of the furniture in the new iCIMS house unfortunately.
Joel: I'm glad you said House and not Titanic. That would've been very, very foreboding. Geez. That would've been very foreboding.
Chad: I'm nice.
Joel: $8.5 billion of government money went to Intel to like build a company that was gonna be world class and compete with the semiconductors in Taiwan. You mentioned Nvidia. What in the hell is going on? There's gonna be like Senate hearings. There's gotta be some accountability for that because that is fucked up.
Chad: Orange jumpsuits, baby. Orange fucking jumpsuits.
Joel: You can't take $8.5 billion from the government, and lay off 15,000 people without some explaining to do. So that's a major screw up. And we got some layoffs talk about. Well, quick update. We talked about Career Builder plus Monster, that's their official name now. Real creative. CareerBuilder plus Monster. AIM Group is reporting that the layoffs hit about 200 employees, roughly 15% of the workforce. So that was sort of highlighted. And Toptal, a company that Chad says no one knows. So anyway, this might be news for you, just the name of the company. The self-proclaimed world's largest fully remote workforce has laid off a whopping 70% of its engineering team affecting roles across software engineering, data science, and design in multiple countries like the US, Ukraine and Poland. Chad, any thoughts on updates on layoffs?
Chad: Yeah. Just a continuation of last week with Monster. That's not anything we should be surprised with, but I do have some insider knowledge that we were talking about. Whether they would have two databases, two types of tech, et cetera, et cetera. Nope. From my understanding, again, this is a rumor from the inside, they're going to go to one platform, one tech platform, and then they'll more than likely merge the candidate databases into that one search platform. So try to make it a big bad CareerBuilder plus Monster. On the Toptal side of the house, it was funny because just literally last week, one of my friends was asking me about them because they were pretty much being dragged into conversations about prospectively being on a leadership team and I was like, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Chad: They're so far behind the rest of the competition that's out there, it's just not worth it. It literally isn't worth it. And then this information comes out, I'm like, holy shit. Talk about dodging a bullet. But yeah. Yeah. That a lot of this doesn't surprise me. We're gonna see a lot of the smaller players who haven't evolved fast enough. They don't understand how to partner and build, they're gonna get flushed down the toilet. And that's where it feels like Toptal's going. Tech continued gaining velocity in 2024. John Graham and Rebecca Carr, you know her. She's the CEO at SmartRecruiters. They both had something to say about tech trends in 2024.
Joel: Jumping back to technology real quickly. 2024, what were the tech trends that stood out to you? You do a lot of vendors, so I'm sure your take on this is pretty interesting. 2024.
John Graham: Yeah. So this year it's been a lot of, Automation AI has been the buzzword in everybody's tech platform. But I think getting to candidates faster, whether it be through your recruitment marketing efforts, getting better higher quality candidates through automation, storytelling and video. A lot of video platforms and ambassadorship for existing employees to be amplifiers of the brand. So I think we've seen a lot of that this year. And it's really a circle back to maybe like 2016, '17, where that was sort of emerging. Now we're having a renaissance, technology's becoming better. But interestingly enough, I think we're gonna see more of that. We're gonna have to.
Joel: You touched a little bit about the marketplace vendors, new products and services. There are more companies that make it easier to build apps onto marketplaces. Just curious about your trends, what you're seeing, the amount of growth, any kind of cool technologies that you're seeing being built onto SmartRecruiters that we should pay attention to?
Rebecca Carr: Yeah. There's actually, some of the coolest and most interesting to SmartRecruiters are the people doing things that are workflows we know won't ever go away, but have just made that workflow a lot better and a lot cleaner for everyone else. So as a good example, we have a partner in the Netherlands that is essentially building a new agency portal. Who likes agency portals? Nobody likes agency. I have an agency portal. We haven't touched it as a product team in 10 years.
Joel: Wow.
Rebecca Carr: But agency recruiting is just what happens, especially in certain markets. So we've got probably 40, 50, 60,000 agency hires that are made a year through our platform. These types of apps and experiences are things our customers latch onto immediately and provide impactful business value and also better learnings. I think some of those are the ones that are ultimately gonna, you know, benefit from this moment of consolidation in HR tech. 'Cause someone like me, it's an easy value add. I can like sunset my code from the past that I was never gonna invest in anyway. I can give better experiences. I can drive better adoption. So in this case, this company was called [0:36:50.4] ____. They were really cool, cool thing. But there's a bunch of little ones like that.
Rebecca Carr: We're working on a lot of... With a lot of partners that use design systems to embed in our UI. So Visier is doing this with us right now. HiredScore is using some of our stuff to embed. So those people that are, again, not just saying to me, "Hey, I want an iframe in your UI, which isn't gonna help anybody. I actually wanna find a way to like funnel my data to you through a user experience that people are going to engage with." I am finding that they're getting the most attention from some of the big vendors.
Chad: In 2024, what surprised you the most? Here's some practitioners. Courtney Dempsey, Director of Digital Recruiting at Southern Rock Restaurants. Chloe Rada, Senior Director, Talent Acquisition and Operations. Dean Da Costa, Senior Staff, Talent Acquisition, and Mary Battle Broxton, Employer Branding Manager at Tractor Supply Company. They all had things to talk about. So in 2024, what has surprised you the most?
Courtney Dempsey: The great stay.
Chad: The what?
Courtney Dempsey: The great stay.
Chad: The great stay.
Courtney Dempsey: Managers aren't leaving, and those that are lifers have already expired out in our side of the business. So the influx of retail that I'm seeing right now, is about 85% to our lack of 15% of actual people that work in the restaurant industry. That was extraordinary to me.
Chad: Yes.
Courtney Dempsey: So we have to coach on how to read a resume from the bottom up now versus the top down.
Chad: So 2024, what has surprised you the most about this year, this far?
Chloé Rada: The emphasis on internal, like activating your employer brand internally and the need to partner and be in lockstep with your people success teams and your people operations teams. I really am going at this from... And this is very different from like past organizations, where we're developing our internal road show together. Not like, here is the brand, I want you to deliver it. Like how can we activate this internally and making sure that it matches the employee experience. That to me is very different. So, it's kind of like a little bit of like internal comms I'm playing here, but then also really relying on our, the people success team to help us make sure that it's matching the promise.
Chad: So 2024, what surprised you the most this year? What's happened this year?
Chloé Rada: What surprised me the most I think is the, what's the word? The false statement when AI started becoming big, that some companies were like, we got AI, we don't need as many recruiters. We don't need this, we don't need that. And then it took, what, I think just now they're starting to realize, yeah, that's not the truth. You still need, you might be able to make things quicker. Recruiter or source might be able to handle a few more wrecks. But again, AI is not going to, at this point anyway, be able to replace it. And so what amazed me is that the companies were thinking that given we've... It seemed like every seven years something comes out and they think, oh wow, we don't need as many recruiters and sources now. And then they find out they're wrong. It seemed like every seven to 10 years that happens since I've been in the industry. Every seven to, Oh, we got sourcing tools now, we don't need as many recruiters, eh, wrong. Oh, we got CRMs, we don't need as many recruiters. Eh, wrong. And that's what amazes me is that companies continue to make the same mistake over and over and over again. You would think they've had learned by now.
Chad: So we're coming into Q4, right? What has surprised you thus far about 2024?
Dean Da Costa: 2024 has been very interesting. I think we've seen a lot of change within the traditional or more of the employer brand speak. We've seen a lot of companies pivoting from things that we placed an emphasis on during the COVID timeframe. So what's been surprising to me is how companies are starting to pivot and to be a little bit more authentic about who they are in their hiring experience.
Chad: Finally, a little advice for 2025 from Chloe Rada, Courtney Dempsey and Dean Da Costa. Looking toward 2025, what advice would you have for your peers moving into next year?
Chloé Rada: Don't be afraid to build the plane as you fly it. So I always like to think about things kind of from like a process standpoint. Like don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And it's okay to fail and find a safe space where you can do some trial and error and have some risks. So I think find a place that you can feel comfortable being yourself and then also allowing yourself to fail first.
Chad: So let's look forward real quick into 2025. What advice would you give your peers, in the new year? Moving into the new year?
Mary Battle Broxton: Embrace technology.
Chad: Embrace technology. Do they have a choice?
Joel: Say more.
Mary Battle Broxton: I think there are a lot of people still fighting it. Look for companies that have open API. I cold call a lot of open API companies and I ask to beta test them and see if we can integrate their open API systems into the current system that we're utilizing, which is Paradox. I love LLMs. It's like my bestie. I like, I am...
Chad: This is your time then?
Mary Battle Broxton: This is my time. I'm a one woman show. I love...
Podcast Intro: Did you love them when they weren't cool or before they were cool?
Mary Battle Broxton: I had to teach myself. So I was Python back in the early days of that, as did Professor Chuck taught me how to follow data and I just kind of rolled with it. And I listened to your podcast and any company that talks ill of another company, I'm like, I'm absolutely 100% calling them, because they obviously don't like them for a reason and I will become their best friends. So we make sure we integrate that too.
Chad: Moving into 2025, what would that advice, that one point nugget of advice be?
Dean Da Costa: Learn. Don't accept norms. Break out of the boundaries. Don't just do the simple and easy because guess what? Everybody's doing the simple and easy. And you're looking for the same people and why? Get out of it. And I can give an example. Somebody was looking for a bunch of people that had a particular certification. They went to LinkedIn or as Stevie DV calls it, the Blue Devil, didn't work out so well, asked for help. So I went out and found a website that has listing of every CCIE certified person and sent it to her. And then I scraped it and sent her the whole list. Don't do the norm. Think out of the box. That's the only way you're gonna succeed. Great. There's AI. We'll get into that later, but you can't trust it totally. So you have to use it. Double check it, triple check it, and then you're good.
Chad: That concludes this cavalcade of industry experts and topics from 2024. Thanks again for spending time with the Chad and Cheese podcast. If you have a topic we should address in 2025, come on over to Chadcheese.com and contact us or just comment on Spotify or YouTube. While you're at it, hit the subscribe button and feel free to tell your friends and your peers. Chad and Cheese always here for you. Come get some free stuff while you're at it. Happy holidays.
Podcast Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.