In this lively episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, Joel and Chad reflect on their holiday escapades and revisit their 2024 predictions, celebrating the wins and roasting their misses with comedic flair. They’re joined by a stellar lineup of guests, including industry leaders like Matt Lavery, Emi Beredugo, Lars Schmidt, and more, who share bold predictions for 2025.
The conversation dives into the future of recruitment, where automation and AI are reshaping the job hunt, and the possible demise of traditional resumes in favor of digital innovations. Predictions range from a wave of IPOs and European startups rising to prominence to shifting trends in programmatic ad spending.
Packed with laughs, insights, and tech talk, this episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the fast-changing world of work.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel (00:01.319)
We're back!
Joel (00:33.385)
Yeah, it's dry January, which means we're drinking all our whiskey without the water. Hey, boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel, 51st State Cheeseman.
Chad (00:45.336)
And this is Chad, get your hands off my tarot cards, so wash.
Joel (00:48.935)
And on this week's predictions with a little help from our friends. Let's do this.
Chad (00:52.013)
Yeah!
Joel (01:00.541)
We're back, baby.
Chad (01:00.664)
We are.
Joel (01:04.339)
You look much more tanned and rested than I do. That's all good.
Chad (01:07.374)
So much, so much more rested. Quick thanks to Sarah Gann and Tricia real quick before we start blowing past this. Those guys, those guys actually hooked you wonderful listeners and viewers up with our 2024 wrap up and our 2024 top 10 topics. So we actually went back into the archives of 2024, got the best and brightest to be able to talk about the top 10 insights and topics. So great, great stuff there. And then we took the top.
Joel (01:14.249)
Who are they? Who are they?
Chad (01:36.606)
Five. That's right. One, two, three, four, five. Top five episodes from Chad and Cheese. Got those sliced up and put together. And I mean, it did a great job. So thanks so much. Appreciate Sergey and the team, Trisha and the team. You guys do great audio, video all the way through. Thanks so much.
Joel (01:54.077)
And my local liquor store appreciates it because I was able to drink way more eggnog than I normally would because of that. Yes, I know they're listening because they have to edit this shit. yes, Trisha, Sergey, thank you so much for all you do and giving us a little bit of a break. So what'd you do on the holiday? What'd you do? Okay, I'll fire me first. Well, I think I mentioned the wife and the little guy. We took a little trip to New York, saw Elf on Broadway, did a lot of the other New York stuff that...
Chad (02:11.734)
You first, you first, you tell me. You first.
Chad (02:17.996)
Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Joel (02:23.049)
Uh, is, certainly fun. And then had some time off. Did the holidays. Uh, my 85 year old dad, you know, wheeled him in, got him a new Walker. He was very excited. Uh, was really, it's funny to see a seven year old excited about toys and a 85 year old as excited about toys. Uh, and then we took a little time, uh, hooked up with the Canadian, uh, family in Orlando, did a little bit of NASA, did a little bit of, R and R, uh, the Canadians are all fired up.
Chad (02:38.414)
You
Chad (02:48.77)
That's cool. Yeah.
Joel (02:52.091)
over Trump. It's very, it's very funny. as if any of this for 51st state should, is going to happen, but yeah, it's a, makes for fun with the Canadians when America's, pissed them off. Otherwise. Yeah. just took some time to relax. mean, we're in eight, eight years of doing this and, we've got some big changes coming for next year, which will unfold as, as appropriate, but, excited for 2025 and good to be back. How about you?
Chad (02:54.222)
Imagine that.
Chad (03:01.23)
you
Chad (03:09.602)
Yeah. We do.
Chad (03:18.894)
Damn, damn, damn excited. So we had.
Joel (03:21.481)
Oh, and Ohio State is ready to play for a championship soon. Not to jinx it,
Chad (03:24.322)
Dude, knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood. They've been knocking it out of the park and hopefully they continue to do so. I tell you what, man, I had a blast. had 10 in total people come to Portugal for Christmas. So family, family and friends, few friends came over. So we had a great Christmas here. And then we went to Marbella, South Southern Spain for New Year's.
Joel (03:38.729)
That's a basketball team.
Chad (03:53.874)
which is bougie as fuck. was funny because Adam Gordon, as probably everybody knows, friend of the show, listens to just about every, if not all of our episodes. He responded back to me on WhatsApp. was like, Cadiz, where we went a couple of months ago and had a little Spanish flag and then had Marbella and had a little UK flag. And yeah, there are way too many fucking Brits in Marbella.
Joel (03:58.109)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (04:09.53)
Huh?
Chad (04:18.402)
That's for fucking sure. So anyway, it was great. Got to check it off the box. But other than that, had a great time. Drank way too fucking much. So I've scaled down a bit. I haven't gone dry, but I've scaled down a bit.
Joel (04:29.16)
Yeah.
Joel (04:34.537)
I'm trying some alternatives, just testing. There's some CBD drinks, there's some mushroom drinks. I'll let you know after a month of how this stuff works. yeah, I'm trying, at 53, you know what mean, come on. You gotta balance it. You gotta compromise. We're not 25 anymore. So yeah, I appreciate that.
Chad (04:37.909)
what?
dude.
Chad (04:57.9)
I like, I like my two to one or one to one gummies, CBD to, to, to, yeah, to THC. Dude, it's just so mellowing and relaxing and just amazing. So yeah, I think I'll just continue to, to, to stay on that trajectory this year.
Joel (05:02.089)
Yeah, yeah, you're a gummy guy. Yeah.
Joel (05:08.552)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (05:13.769)
Yep. And, if, if, if you do two or three of really good stuff, it's a lot better than doing like six to eight of the shitty stuff. So you kind of like, yeah, it's a, yeah, this will be interesting in, uh, in 2025. Uh, yeah. I went, how can I sign up to be your kid? I get trips to Europe. I get trips to like sunny location. How do your kids thank you? Do they just bow down and kiss your feet that you're their dad?
Chad (05:23.039)
yeah.
Chad (05:28.462)
You
Chad (05:34.572)
No toys. No toys.
Chad (05:40.226)
They, I mean, they love it, don't get me wrong. And one of the things that Julie and I really wanted to do was instill wanderlust into all of them. Because one of the things, I mean, I would have never gotten out of the US.
Joel (05:48.317)
huh. Yeah.
Chad (05:54.254)
if it weren't for the military, right? mean, especially when I was young, I was 18 years old, I was sent down to Central America and they started shooting at me. Other than that, though, it was great. That's the thing, though, is that I got to actually understand that, you know, just because those people speak different languages than we do, just because they live differently doesn't make them less human than we are. And it's really great to be able to get our kids over into Europe and really just
Joel (05:56.553)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (06:12.115)
Yeah.
Chad (06:23.968)
Understand that a look we're all just people and we should have have more empathy But also, you know, it's really fucking cool when you can take into Paris you can take them to you know Madeira you can take them to Marbella, you know and so on so forth. So yeah, no, it's it's good, but no toys the toys
Joel (06:26.697)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (06:40.925)
Yeah. Well, well, viewers on YouTube will notice my Depeche Mode album in the background here. And I quote, I quote Depeche Mode and when I say people are people, why should it be you and I should get along so awfully? Yes, we are. We're all one people in this role. Well, goodbye 24. Here's to 25. I'm optimistic as hell. I know you are too. We're going to skip shout outs, but we are definitely
Chad (06:52.77)
That's exactly right.
Joel (07:06.119)
shining a light on the sponsors that generously support this show. Chad, who we got?
Chad (07:08.578)
Free stuff.
Well, mean, free stuff. I mean, we're still giving away free stuff. And if you want a t-shirt, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see this gorgeous Ched cheese t-shirt. This is the last year's edition. I love it. These are sponsored by Air Nap. You can have bourbon barrel aged syrup from our friends up north from Key Yora. Who else does syrup better than the Canadians? I say nobody. I say nobody.
beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs, craft beer from those kids at Aspen Tech Labs, whiskey, we've got a new whiskey sponsor kids, Van Hack, more Canadians, more Canadians. my God. And then, you know, if it's your birthday, you gotta have some rum with plum, but you gotta go to chadcheese.com slash free to register for all of the bounty of free stuff. Yes.
Joel (07:50.365)
more Canadians.
Chad (08:09.59)
And plum is also Canadian.
Joel (08:10.217)
That's right, Chad. We're hitting, hitting. That's right. Hitting a half Canadian. Only the good half. So yes. So 2025 birthdays. We're starting the month off right. got Muir McDonald. I wonder if he's Scottish. Muir McDonald. Okay. Zachary Larson, Steve Jewell, Cheryl Ford, Rob Arnt, Mark Katz, Peter Brooks, Mark Becker, Mark Fogel, Keith Sedlik, William Nolan.
Chad (08:15.202)
Okay, sorry.
Chad (08:23.054)
No.
Joel (08:38.075)
Nikki, don't call me Nipsey Russell, Reggie Martin, Angie Brooks, your girl, Athena Karp, and Peter Zollman. All square up the birthdays from this week.
Chad (08:47.138)
Yes!
Chad (08:50.712)
Well, and it's getting to the point where, guess what kids, we're getting ready for events. Now I've got a special little solo event that's happening in early February. Since I'm already over here in Europe, I was asked by smart recruiters, like, hey, we've got an event. It's just a little ways to the east in Madrid. Would you like to come? I was like, well, yeah, I'd love to come. So I'm going to be.
Joel (09:04.198)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (09:17.952)
early February at the smart recruiters all hands event. also going to do a simulcast. There's a gala, tons of stuff that that's actually going on and whatever else they throw at me. So I can't wait to see Rebecca and the crew there. Then the first big conference of the year is at transform March 17th to the 19th at the win in Las Vegas. And I know you love you some win, don't you?
Joel (09:42.161)
Mm-hmm. I love some wind, Steve Wynn, my boy.
Chad (09:49.25)
But that's what we've got going on thus far. We'll start solidifying much more of what's going on at those events. And then obviously we've got more events throughout the year. We'll probably won't do as much as we did last year. Knock on wood. whoo.
Joel (10:02.121)
But rest assured you'll be sick of us by November of next year. One thing I won't get sick of though, Chad.
Joel (10:12.711)
Little bit of a bittersweet moment for me. this is the, this is the final leaderboard from the fantasy football with factory fix. Big thanks to them. Great guys over there. I love working with them. feel pretty confident saying that they'll be back next year to sponsor our unhealthy addiction, but, this is your final leaderboard. I'm going to go in reverse and save the champion for last, in the, in the last spot shocker.
Chad (10:15.672)
Symphony.
Chad (10:24.76)
Love those guys. Yep.
Chad (10:36.216)
Good call, good call.
Joel (10:44.659)
finishing with an unimpressive four and 11 record. Well, all four, think he got in the first four weeks and then his, his team just went to shit. Adam, Adam Gordon, finishes in last place, followed by Jen Tharp, Sean Horton, Sean, if we, if we had another 20, 30 weeks, you might've made it up there, buddy. Jackson Dalquist, Dina Perro, year's winner, Christie Lisbon, Laura Martinelli, Keith, the commission Sonderling with a nice push at the end.
Chad (10:52.078)
think the jets have more wins.
Chad (11:13.378)
Yes.
Joel (11:14.525)
Dean the daddy Mac mackerel out of Australia, who was in the number one spot for most of the season. You took him out. You took him out. You took him out back, stuck, stuck a Foster's in his face, got him drunk. And, he was, he was no good on that last week, which made you at third place. You get a medal. That's nice. I got second place, which I'm not ashamed about, but, our champion goes to paradox employee, David Stifle.
Chad (11:20.269)
Number four.
Boom!
Chad (11:35.414)
Second and third, yeah.
Joel (11:42.697)
Nice job, David. Homie got 200 plus points in the final week. Lamar blew everyone. Everyone he had, I think had over 18 points, which is really unheard of. But yeah, that is the final week and probably not the final sound bite of this.
Chad (11:42.754)
Rock and roll. Awesome.
Chad (11:52.087)
You
Chad (11:59.646)
no.
Joel (12:03.753)
Thanks again to to factory fix for helping us out well with no further ado
Chad (12:11.086)
predictions!
Joel (12:13.907)
Prediction. So we got lots of news, which we'll get to next week, but this is the prediction show everybody. Everybody loves it. Chad, let's recap what we got right and mostly what we got wrong in 2024.
Chad (12:17.73)
Yes. Yes.
Chad (12:26.572)
Well, I'm going to go ahead and go through yours first. First and foremost, your first prediction of 2024 was that there would be no IPOs. And I think that was a win. made there, there was no, there's no IPOs out there. It was a bunt. It was, you got on base. You got on base.
Joel (12:29.97)
Okay.
Joel (12:40.849)
I got that right. You, you made fun of me because it was such a layup, but, I'll take the win. I'll take the win. Hey, Hey, my record hasn't been good. I had to, I had to get a W somewhere, had to get a W somewhere. All right. Uh-oh.
Chad (12:53.55)
Well, here's another W, no new unicorns. I mean, I actually dug in, didn't see any new unicorns. Obviously, there are plenty that are out there, but ones that did get funding didn't push them to unicorn status if they weren't already there.
Joel (13:06.569)
Are you teasing me with two wins? Alright, I had to get one wrong, right? had to get one.
Chad (13:11.822)
Again, there's a lot of bunting happening here. Death of a unicorn, which that was a big swing because most of these unicorns have so much fucking cash from funding. So that was a no. And last but not least, which deserves a big boo, is the Browns won a Super Bowl. you just took a swing on that one. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Joel (13:18.727)
You
Joel (13:24.004)
Mmm, yeah.
Joel (13:33.513)
Ha
Joel (13:37.907)
There's always next season, Chad. There's always next season. All right, I'll take two and one or maybe two and two.
Chad (13:43.791)
Yeah. So my first one, my first prediction for 2024 was two acquisitions would happen from some early stage startups because I thought some companies would really want to get in there and buy them before they became too expensive. Number one was CV Wallet and number two was Poetry and neither one of them were acquired. Saw some great lift in 2024, but no acquisition there. Secondly,
I said Twitter hiring dies, which I'm going to claim a win on because it was acquired. They acquired Lasky in May of 2023, right? Twitter slash X Chris Backe left in August of 2024. And it's basically on its own island of misfit toys at this point. I mean, there's nothing going on. So I'm going to claim a win because it's dead. Yeah.
Joel (14:18.408)
Yeah.
Joel (14:30.728)
Okay.
Joel (14:34.377)
Sonnet's Last Breath.
Chad (14:39.128)
And then last but not least, I predicted a dominant open AI like player in the space where it was actually more of an open source AI scenario that was HR's focused. And literally the closest that I think came to this was poetry being startup with Adam Gordon. But still, I don't think I knocked that one out of the park. So that's a no.
Joel (14:50.217)
Yeah.
Joel (14:57.385)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (15:05.127)
Okay, okay, pretty good, pretty good.
Chad (15:06.798)
But wait, not bad. I think I got one, But you get an honorable mention. And let me tell you why, sir. Let me tell you why. Went back to 2023. And you predicted that Scott Gutz would be out at Monster. Now, it took a little bit longer. But it still happened. It still happened. Scott Gutz, out.
Joel (15:13.795)
yeah.
Joel (15:30.537)
Well, like I say, Chad, there are no wrong predictions, just not enough time to see them happen. Don't fall for the banana in the towel pipe on that one. All right, that is our 2024 recap. Mostly right, but some misses in there as well. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll get to our guests, a very high profile, very qualified individuals giving us their predictions for 2025.
Chad (15:48.035)
to you.
Chad (15:55.565)
yes.
Chad (16:03.51)
Let me go ahead and set this up for everybody. So Joel and I are definitely looking to do less work. But seriously, but seriously, it is great to hear all of these different voices that come onto the show. They give us videos, they do a lot of stuff. And I mean, there's just so much engagement with the Chad and Cheese audience. I thought, what the fuck, man? Let's do more of this. So.
Joel (16:06.675)
Yeah.
Joel (16:10.402)
hahahahah
Chad (16:29.558)
reached out to literally reached out to about 15 different people. And I think we got like eight or nine back videos, right? Yeah. And that was during like Christmas week, right? So it was a big ask for me. And a lot of these guys came through. So thank you so much. Let's go ahead and start rolling some of that beautiful bean footage.
Joel (16:33.449)
Yeah.
Joel (16:36.873)
Baton 500. That's like.
Joel (16:42.109)
Yeah.
Joel (16:50.441)
All right, let's first get to Matt Lavery. If you haven't heard our interview with Matt Lavery from, think, September, it's fantastic. Matt is the global director of sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding at a little company called UPS. Let's hear Matt's prediction real quick.
Chad (16:55.884)
Amazing.
Chad (17:05.944)
Who? Who?
Chad (18:10.325)
Uh-huh.
Joel (18:45.512)
You
Joel (19:27.817)
Tell me your Gen X without telling me your Gen X. Geez, Matt, awesome.
Chad (19:27.884)
My man. Yes. Well, also, big props, though, to Matt big Notre Dame fan. He's I believe right now on his way to the Notre Dame, Penn State game as it is because obviously, whoever wins that hopefully will be facing knock on wood Ohio State in the finals. Yes. it's amazing. yeah.
Joel (19:37.065)
Joel (19:49.209)
Yeah. Huge fan. Have you seen his, uh, his, uh, his setup like inflatable couches? Yeah, he's, he's a major fan. Um, yeah, I, uh, I've never wanted an old style, uh, so badly. I don't know why that is. I'm a little, I'm a little disappointment there. Disappointed. There was no over under on the Cubs wins, uh, this season. Maybe he doesn't want to talk about that, but, uh, I think he's, I think he's, I think he's spot on. Uh, what do you think?
Chad (19:57.282)
Tailgate, yeah. yeah, he is the fan, yeah.
Chad (20:13.101)
More than like.
Yes. No question. No question. We talked about this in shows past and it's not just going to be paying from the standpoint of not being able to find people, but also, you know, we talked about immigrants actually push in close to one hundred billion dollars in tax revenue into the United States. So this is going to hit us in many different areas.
Joel (20:37.715)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (20:42.958)
And we just have to realize as he had said that building a wall is not gonna help Most of these motherfuckers are coming over on planes and guess what we need them. We need them America's the melting pot. We always have been we shouldn't
Joel (20:56.945)
Yeah. the headline I read recently was a Republican civil war. so you had, you have Elon and Vivek wanting to up H1B visas, which certainly makes sense to us, but you also have a Republican party or voter voter block that put Trump in to not do stuff like that. so it's, it's going to be tough. It will also, I think expedite the, the acceptance of robotics automation because companies are going to need a way.
Chad (21:13.795)
Yeah.
Chad (21:22.414)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (21:24.093)
Whether it's kiosk ordering my Big Mac or something else. Yeah. It's going to be a, there's going to be a lot of money pour into the robotics and replacement of employees of AI. Well, thanks, Matt. We appreciate that. and, and the, think that, I mean, come on, you get Penn state, the domer, if the domers can't do that, we're in trouble, but there may be a house divided if it's an Ohio state, Notre Dame, final. We'll, we'll cross that bridge and we get to it. All right, let's get to our second guest.
Chad (21:26.478)
Gonna have to go fast.
Chad (21:31.394)
gonna have to happen fast.
Chad (21:47.682)
haha
Joel (21:54.077)
prediction. this one's from Emmy Baradugo. If you listen to the show, you know, Emmy, she's going to be on quite a bit more often. We're excited about that. She is a senior, level recruiter and occasional coast on this show. Let's see her prediction.
Chad (24:18.414)
Emmy. Emmy. I agree with her from the standpoint of it's yeah, I agree. It's not going to go away. There's too much money, but I don't think it has much to do with the economy. I think it has more to do with, as she'd said, Trump's political leanings because he got money from TikTok investors. So that's what it has to do with. I don't think it has anything to do with economy. I didn't give two shits about, you know,
Joel (24:22.567)
This one's close to your heart. Yeah.
Chad (24:46.207)
content creators and influencers or anything like that. He just cares about the money that lays at his feet.
Joel (24:52.465)
This is fascinating to me. This was one of the few bipartisan bills that came through in Congress. There aren't many bipartisan bills. what I've heard is people that are on the committee on this come out of meetings and research saying that this is incredibly dangerous. But you have on the other side, Donald Trump.
Chad (24:55.566)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (25:17.907)
who is the self-proclaimed greatest social media character in history, who is part owner of a social media property.
And you have Elon Musk who has acts who would certainly benefit from Tik Tok being banned. metas getting in bed big time with the Trump administration. This is going to be one of the more, this is going to be one of the more interesting shows, side shows of, of the administration. think, I think ultimately it just gets put on the back burner. court court cases get pushed back or whatever. The only thing that changes it is if China gets frisky.
Chad (25:38.584)
Trying. Yeah.
Chad (25:44.193)
God, so many.
Chad (25:53.272)
kick down the road.
Joel (25:56.969)
If China goes into Taiwan, if China does something really militarily dangerous, we could pull the plug. Otherwise, I think it's just going to flounder around and be around and it'll be put on the back burner. So yeah, I think 2025 TikTok will still be around. I think you should call your boy, Jim Durbin, get another bet on the table, get another bottle of Eagle rare in your cupboard and, uh, enroll with that. But yeah, it'll be one of the more interesting, uh, stories this year is the TikTok saga.
the TikTok saga.
Chad (26:27.523)
We're not gonna be short of interesting stories, unfortunately.
Joel (26:30.065)
Love that. Well, at this point, this show is the smartest it may has ever sounded. but we're going to, we're going to get smarter people. We're going to go to Lars, Lars Schmidt. he's the founder and CEO at amplify talent. Just an icon in the industry. I think I can say that. And just an all around super nice guy, will miss his podcast, in the future, but Lars, let's hear what he's got to say.
Chad (26:37.198)
For the next one, let's go. Yes.
Chad (26:47.32)
Good guy. Yes.
Joel (28:06.309)
Interesting power to the people. said paradigm. think he meant paradox just for our listeners. Yeah. thoughts on, Lars commentary.
Chad (28:15.308)
Yeah, I love it. The thing I don't agree, we're not going back. It's just not going to happen. There's way too much success that's already happening. We talked to many, many enterprise companies who are already starting to use better processes, automation and AI. So I don't think we're going to go back. Are there going to be some companies from an anecdotal standpoint that have great stories around their human to human interviews at some aspects of their company?
Joel (28:29.449)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (28:43.916)
I don't think it's gonna happen from the top to the bottom, right? It's gonna happen in swaths of jobs. yeah, we're not going back, kids.
Joel (28:53.833)
Yeah, I was talking to a former Indeed exec last year, late last year. And I was talking about just what's, what's the biggest threat to Indeed? What, you know, what do you see? it programmatic? think we just talked to AppCast's Foreman, Chris Foreman, and he said the greatest threat to Indeed is paradox. And I thought that was really, really interesting. Um, and the more I thought about it, I thought he's kind of right. And it may be not paradox directly, but that movement.
Chad (28:59.405)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (29:21.801)
of companies taking over the process. Okay, won't, all right, no spoilers, no spoilers. So I do think companies aren't gonna go back. Where I do think there's risk is if we gotta have a good CAPTCHA system, we gotta have a system where you can't just get blown up with AI job seekers and deal with that kind of flow. as long as, cause there's the job seeker side of this.
Chad (29:22.619)
We'll get into that with my prediction down the road.
I agree though.
Joel (29:47.355)
And if that gets crazy, we should bring, we'll have JT on many times this year to talk about some of the job seeker stuff that needs a capture system that needs some, some, some sort of controls or else the rails could come off. But I agree. Like the money companies are saving the man hours they're saving, like the efficiency, the black hole going. I mean, yeah, I love Lars and he's a people person to the bone, but we are, we are not, not going back, not going.
Chad (29:52.034)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (30:10.606)
Agreed.
Joel (30:13.981)
That was nice. He's got a better camera than we do too. I don't know. need to win him one of those ring lights or yeah. Damn Lars. That looks like AI Lars. It's so, it's so nice. All right. Going from Mars. Let's go to Rebecca Volpano. She's the VP of product marketing at Cielo. Speaking of, of robots. Here's Rebecca.
Chad (30:17.902)
I don't want high def. Are you kidding me? I don't need high def on this. It could have been. It could have been.
Chad (30:29.112)
Yes.
Chad (31:38.712)
Hmm.
Joel (32:18.173)
My mind went to Megan Fox. I don't know about you, not R2D2, but it's just me.
Chad (32:20.622)
Ha ha!
Joel (33:05.225)
The Sydney Sweeney Bot coming soon to a Walmart near you.
Chad (33:05.602)
Love it. Cool. Love it. Love it. Well, you know what? You might as well go ahead and play Sean's because Sean's like butts up right against hers. And then we can just comment on both of them. Let's do it. Let's do it.
Joel (33:15.977)
All right, little combo action. Chad calls an audible, here we go.
Chad (33:42.135)
Amen.
Joel (34:12.681)
Hmm.
Joel (36:06.055)
That was Sean Bear, CEO and founder at Fountain. I'm sensing a theme here in our predictions, Chad. Take a side, the robots or the humans?
Chad (36:10.243)
Yeah.
Chad (36:17.102)
Well, in 20 % fully autonomous hiring, think, but I think it can happen, especially if you take a look at Fountain, Paradox, and Harry. Those are like new age tech stack platforms, applicant tracking systems, chat bots, so on and so forth. I think, I mean, I think 20%, to be quite frank, within the realm of companies that are actually using those three platforms, I think 20 % is low.
Joel (36:20.713)
That's bold.
Chad (36:44.686)
when it comes to those three platforms because I think most of those companies are really going to press what they can do because they're going to want to get people in faster, want to be more competitive and want to save a hell of a lot of money and they'll be able to do that through automation.
Joel (36:57.831)
Yeah. And, and, and Sean's probably speaking his book a little bit. it's his product, but he also, but he also has the numbers. He also, he also sees what's going on more so than, than we do. so, you know, I think what was interesting there is you had sort of two different, layers of it. had Rebecca talking about literal robots, right? Things that lift boxes and pick out products and put them on conveyor, but like,
Chad (37:02.069)
Of course, of course.
Chad (37:07.874)
Yes.
Chad (37:21.442)
Yes.
Joel (37:26.717)
That is one level of the automation. The automation Sean's talking about is the hiring and the scheduling and the flexibility there. you have automation on two sides of that, which kind of are coming together. But I think he's right on. And we'll get to JT, her prediction. I don't want to spoil that, but a lot of those frontline workers...
Chad (37:33.208)
systems.
Chad (37:47.149)
Let's do it.
Joel (37:49.929)
You know, they don't have resumes. They don't have a LinkedIn profile. They don't, you know, they don't have like a tradition. They're not going to mail their resume into the company like we did way back in the day. like this, this way of hiring people works for this, this demographic. so if the market is going to decide where this goes, the market is saying we want to chat. We want to have something that is, not this frictionless or as frictionless as possible. And that's where we're going. So yeah, I'm.
Love Sean and loved his, his, his transparency on, on coming on the show. And we will definitely take you up on, on those beers at a conference near you. All right, let's get to, Tim me hands prediction. Tim is the principal at talent river consulting and an old white guy like us. So he's gotta say something smart, right?
Chad (38:25.964)
beers.
Mm-hmm.
Chad (38:36.352)
Mmm, been in the game for a minute.
Chad (39:26.082)
Boom!
Joel (39:29.027)
He's damn cold water.
Chad (39:30.156)
Yeah, so which I love. I love I love I love so. First and foremost, candidate experience again, I think Tim is right from the standpoint of the macro. But from the micro again, I'm going to talk about I'm to keep beating the drum on Fountain Paradox and Harry. Any companies that are using them right now. They're being incredibly innovative and aggressive.
Joel (39:40.861)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (39:52.681)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (39:52.852)
And they are and that's around candidate experience because they're looking for speed because we all know speed kills, right? So they're looking for speed. And then they're also looking to we've talked to these people, Joel. And this is the fun part. Don't worry, kids, it's going to be coming out new AI sessions season. But we talked to companies that are enterprise companies who are saying, no, I don't just have a seat at the table. My seat is fucking warm because I am demonstrating business cases that nobody else in my organization can demonstrate.
Joel (40:15.123)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (40:21.218)
This is kicking ass and taking names. So these new technologies aren't just making it easier and better and more cost effective, but they're creating business cases that are allowing our CHROs and our chief of talent or people to actually get at the table and own that fucking seat. And I love it.
Joel (40:40.061)
Yeah. And I think where he's right is there, there is still a, a situation of haves and have nots and you know, the companies that we talked to are brand name companies. They're the companies that you shop for at Christmas and their companies you see commercials for and have money and sort of the resources do this. 80 % of businesses are still small businesses. And that's kind of a lot of the hiring and where that goes on. I don't know at what point the Harry's and the paradoxes
Chad (40:46.656)
yeah, it's a macro.
Hmm.
Joel (41:06.377)
cross over into smaller businesses. don't know if they ever will. Maybe there are other solutions that'll adhere to small business to give them these tools. But I'm telling you the subway franchisee down the street, who I know pretty intimately, does not have any concept of what's going on with this stuff. it'll take time, but we, for the first time in our careers, we're on the right track of job seekers, candidates getting treated like people, oddly through technology.
Chad (41:17.204)
huh.
Chad (41:29.251)
Yes.
Yes. Mm hmm. Yes.
Joel (41:35.195)
And companies being able to handle the flood of candidates, oddly enough, through technology, technology is making us more human, which is kind of the point we've kind of been making for a long time. So Tim, thanks for your, your honesty, brutal honesty, if you will. all right. Let we're rolling through these. Let's go to, JT O'Donnell. One of my, one of my favorite guests on the show. she keeps it real. She, she fights for the job seeker. Let's hear her side of the, her side of the.
Chad (41:42.146)
Yes.
Chad (41:48.31)
Love it, man. Love it.
Chad (42:00.92)
Yeah, I love it.
Joel (42:04.435)
addictions.
Joel (43:48.713)
Was she wearing a brewing company sweat pair sweatpants? Like she is, she's gonna fit in great on this show. She's gonna fit in great. Some brewing, I don't even own a pair of beer brewing sweatpants. Nicely done, nicely done.
Chad (43:55.273)
Hahaha
Chad (44:00.63)
It's because it don't come in your size.
Joel (44:04.521)
That's just mean. I thought this was a brand new Chad in 2025. Come on now. I have fat pants. They're just not brewing. Brewing fat. All right, man. Here we go. Death of the resume again. Every year. What you got?
Chad (44:07.438)
What? What?
Chad (44:17.102)
been talking about it. Yeah. I think it's interesting that she goes to video and I think that there is a new opportunity with video, especially being able to transcribe and transcribe and then also start to get into contextualization, context clues, tone, I mean, they're going to be different things. Video is not going to be the only thing. There's going to have to be a screening process upfront with verification, validation kind of pieces, which will take care of that.
And then the next part of it, the video part, you won't have to worry too much about verification, validation. That's already going to be taken care of, but you'll be able to look at those other things, context clues, tone, veritation, of like, you know, verification context clues that are for cultural fit. So anyway, I think I like it. I like it. We'll see if that we'll see if it happens.
Joel (45:06.953)
So literally we've had this conversation for 25 years, death of resume. And you and I are old enough to remember visual CV and social media tools and like the death of the resume. And it's, still here. So I'm not exactly prepared to bury the resume. think JT's living in like 2052 or something where they have beer, sweatpants readily available for everybody. But I am willing to say that we are seeing a splintering
Chad (45:16.108)
Okay.
Joel (45:36.005)
of the resume. used to be resume was the only way that you could get in the door job seeker. That was the only way or fill out this application. And it's the pendulum is swinging to where companies have to go and communicate with the job seeker on their terms. So when you talk about factory workers, essential workers, frontline workers, they don't have a LinkedIn profile, right? The job case of like we're for LinkedIn for people who don't have LinkedIn.
Employers have to meet those folks where they live, how they communicate, how they use technology. And because of that, we're seeing tools like Paradox Harry and others that we've talked about. So I do think there's an element of companies evolving to appeal to candidates on their terms, as opposed to the company saying, Hey, the only way that you can apply to this thing is fill out this application or give us this resume. I still think that people are going to have profiles.
You know, I'm still telling my 18 year old, you're going to have to have a LinkedIn profile. I don't think that's going to go anywhere, but LinkedIn is now more than that. They have video, they have short video, which no JT is also very bullish on. So we're seeing a splintering of what it means to connect with candidates. I don't think it's the death of the resume, but I'm willing to say that it is a splintering of how things have been for a very, very long time. A smothering and a splintering.
Chad (47:01.773)
you
Joel (47:01.979)
And a break in the action when we come back, we'll get to our predictions for 2020.
Chad (47:10.528)
And we are long, so let's roll these.
Joel (47:14.377)
All right. All right. Real quickly here. We've got two predictions each. I'm going to go first. My first prediction for 2025, Rippling goes IPO. So the battle between Rippling and Deal finally comes to a head in 2025 with Rippling jumping into the public market first founded in 2016. They've raised $2 billion. So they're heading into year 10 of this journey. Investors, I think are going to start wanting some liquidity.
Chad (47:40.686)
Hmm.
Joel (47:44.339)
So think the IPO market also starts to loosen up. think you're going to see more companies come to the IPO markets. On their last round, they had a valuation of $13 billion. I got to think it's up to like four or 15 billion at this point, which is pretty, I think pretty consumable or pretty digestible by the markets. In April of last year, TechCrunch asked founder Parker Conrad.
Uh, who's still a jackass, but anyway, they asked him about the IPO, uh, to which he replied, quote, I definitely think it's a bit in the distance. This was an April, uh, which means that's Latin for 2025. Uh, we're going public. Um, I think that distance is closing, uh, quickly. think deal has a little more, uh, leg room, a little more, uh, you know, head or they have a little more runway, uh, to not go public. I think rippling has less.
Chad (48:39.768)
Mm.
Joel (48:41.415)
runway to do that. So prediction number one, Rippling goes IPO. And I'm kind of excited to see kind of a company well known in our space finally go public and see how that goes. We thought it would be an ATS. I think it's going to be a platform to rule them all. And it will be fun to watch your thoughts.
Chad (48:59.768)
Mmm.
Chad (49:03.182)
Yeah, I think Parker Conrad's an asshole. Yeah, other than that. I don't know if it's going to 2025, 2026, but they're definitely going to have to have taken over a billion in funding. So I think they have the runway. Will deal deal beat them there? I don't know. I think they're pretty much they're they're in a great position right now with their you know, like 500 million plus ARR or what have you. So yeah, that will be will be exciting to watch. I'm not sure.
Joel (49:31.079)
Yeah, two billion, two billion, too big to acquire. They have to, they have to go.
Chad (49:35.108)
yeah. you're right. You're right. I'm just not sure if it'll be this year.
Joel (49:41.883)
Either way, we can agree on Parker Conrad. By the way, he's still welcome on the show whenever he wants to come on. All right, Chad, what you got?
Chad (49:46.254)
All right. Oh, yeah, I'd love it. I'd love it. So prediction number one, the dam is going to burst in 2025. That's right. Money will be flowing prediction number one. European startups will see funding that will increase 3x year over year in 2025, which gets us back to 2022 levels. Yeah. So
Joel (50:06.654)
Whoa.
Chad (50:10.392)
This from EUstartup.com. part of the Step Up Startup project, the European Commission are working toward fixing regulatory inconsistencies, funding gaps, and limited cross-border cooperation throughout the EU. They're also building an interconnected startup network, leveraging strengths of local ecosystems. To shorten it up, they're working because they understand that the startups are what's going to fuel their future. So Europe...
mainly in the EU in this case, are focused on helping startups and countries throughout the EU just to become more straightforward from a standard standpoint. what's going to be the driving force to push funding dollars to Europe, you might ask? Well, Matt answered half of it. It's going to be pain and chaos. Pain and chaos is coming to the United States. Immigration, that's our superpower. That might not be our superpower.
Trying to bully sovereign countries like Canada, Greenland, Panama for the Panama Canal. That breeds chaos. That breeds pain for Americans. And the new freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater with the newest Facebook news will amplify the chaos itself. And what do investors hate? They hate pain and they hate fucking chaos. investors want a smooth ride, as smooth as they can muster with a startup. So face it.
there's already enough risk investing in a startup. So why enhance that risk without actual reward? Nope, that's dumb, which is why many investors will start to see what you and I have been experiencing for years now. European startups are pretty damn innovative. And as America turns into a bro-logarchy where billionaires and bigger companies are just going to stamp out the little guy, it's going to be my prediction.
Joel (51:56.329)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (52:09.612)
We're going to see funding in Europe for Europe startups, 3X year over year in 2025.
Joel (52:16.455)
That's sexy.
Chad (52:19.086)
Prolegarchy. That's right.
Joel (52:19.411)
Bro, bro? Ligarchy is I like that. I like that. Well, shocking. would have a European prediction now that you're full on full on native over in Europe. I like that. And it'll be interesting to see so much of the European money is, from America. So we'll, we'll see how that flows. It used to be a time where Trump would say something about a company and that stock would tank and people were freaked out. don't know if they have.
Chad (52:26.606)
Ha!
EuroChats.
Chad (52:36.61)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (52:42.722)
I see more.
Joel (52:47.099)
A similar freak out. seems to be going after countries now more than he does companies. but yeah, it's buckle up, buckle up kids. Trump, Trump is going to be, she's interesting. All right. I like it. I like it. Let's go to mine. my next, my next prediction is I'm going to be at Chipotle a whole lot.
Chad (52:50.286)
Yeah. Chaos, man. Chaos.
Joel (53:09.253)
sorry. That's from a different show. Okay. Let's go to my real prediction. Zip recruiter goes private. Zip recruiter goes private. Okay. So from, don't have the full number numbers yet, but from 2022 to 2023, net income at Zip was down from 61 million to 49 million. And I'm guessing it's going to be lower in 24 when they, when they, when they talk in February about their numbers from the last quarter of this year.
Chad (53:17.592)
Makes sense.
Joel (53:38.985)
Total revenue in that time went from $904 million to $645 million. Free cash flow from $22 to $23 went from $21 million to $9 million. That's a lot lower than $21 million. The company went public in 2021, which was fun to watch. They closed on the first day at $26 a share. They're currently now trading under $7.
Unless recruit holdings comes in and adds them as a third leg to the indeed glass door triad. I'm predicting they go public. think there's a better chance that Apollo or someone like them comes in. Maybe it's career builder plus monster plus zip in 2025. The new brand will be as creative as that and they'll create efficiencies. They'll fire Ian finally, which you'll enjoy.
Chad (54:15.918)
possibility
Joel (54:35.497)
And they'll go private. Look, zip is a steaming pile of dog shit sprinkled with cat turds. And something's got to save it either an acquisition or private, but they can't keep going on the road that they're going. And in 2025, they either get a sugar daddy or a life, a life raft.
Chad (54:36.429)
be too late.
Chad (54:55.886)
Yeah, I agree. I still can't believe because at one time they were on the right track. And again, it just seems like IPO threw them just out of whack. they've literally they've lost their way. And I have no clue why he's still there.
Joel (55:15.603)
They lost the beef, man.
Chad (55:18.284)
meatloaf. All right, good one. That was a very good one. I'm gonna have to agree with that one too. I zip going private. My second prediction this one kids get ready to take notes performance driven aka programmatic ad spending goes flat or drops in 2025.
Joel (55:21.865)
Thank you.
Joel (55:36.457)
Hmm.
Chad (55:37.952)
So I'm going to use AppCast as a guide as they are definitely a market leader. I'm not picking on them, but they are a great example. Let me line it out for you. So at one time, AppCast ran nearly the entire programmatic job market for all of the recruitment ad agencies. Then we saw KRT was acquired by Recruiting. So KRT ejects from AppCast and so does their money. Raidency acquires Paringo. Raidency's out.
But that's okay because AppCast still had plenty of other recruitment ad agencies that they could partner with. And then out of nowhere, AppCast buys Bayard Advertising and becomes a direct competitor with all of those remaining agencies using the AppCast platform. And then this week, we see more diversification as Shaker acquires job ad ex.
I believe Shaker's move is the epitome of what the rest of the market will be doing in moving away from Abcast to gain better margins and prices for their customers and not feed the beast and or one of their competitors. So a much bigger problem that they have and we just heard from Matt Lavery, as we talked about on many episodes this year, companies like UPS and General Motors are using more advanced systems like Fountain and Paradox.
Joel (56:46.056)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (57:01.39)
And those companies are depending less and less on candidates from external vendors like Appcast. Why? Because those companies are reconfiguring their tech stacks and processes to reengage candidates that they have already bought and already reside in their applicant tracking system. So here's an example. UPS hired over 125,000 people in just five weeks last year.
Over 30,000 of those hires came directly out of their applicant tracking system, which means they didn't have to go external and spend additional cash. They already had talent in their database, so they used it. Furthermore, UPS had 35,000 additional hires who were former employees. That's over 65,000 of the 125 of those hires that happened without external help. And that
is only the beginning kids. Last year we interviewed major enterprise hiring companies who are already flocking to this type of tech and process. And as Chris Foreman said in an interview we published earlier this week, AppCast's sweet spot is enterprise. That's because performance driven ad buying is mostly enterprise companies. So quick recap, recruitment ad.
Joel (58:18.003)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (58:20.906)
Agencies will deliver lower costs and more competitive pricing solutions for their customers. That's what we're going to see out of shaker, obviously, but return on less budget, right? Great returns, less budget. Number two, enterprise companies are starting to hire through their own databases, which means less dependency on external performance vendors. And last but not least, hadn't mentioned this yet, but neither total jobs
Joel (58:28.169)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (58:40.925)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (58:50.54)
or StepStone, both APCAST sibling companies, neither have fully embraced performance and they are continuing to milk the duration-based market dry, which one of these days I think is gonna be a great case study along with Monster and CareerBuilder for innovators dilemma. But wrapping this up, I'm not picking on APCAST, but they are a market leader and I believe...
Joel (59:02.419)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (59:10.034)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (59:16.302)
that this is a microcosm of the performance-based job ad spending market. So in 2025, my prediction is, I believe we will see job openings continue to grow and programmatic revenues either remain flat or drop.
Joel (59:27.625)
.
Joel (59:36.557)
And I would add employers are wising up. The consumer is getting smarter. And we've talked about job postings as commodities for a long time. programmatic is the quintessential run to the bottom. It's more of a feature, I think, for most than not. The value was that there were so few of them.
Chad (59:43.416)
Yes.
Joel (01:00:01.213)
I'm kind of sad that shaker bought them. cause that might've been a prediction that I would've had is that somebody, an agency would've gotten into the game job at X is one of the few that are left. these are going to be features. Look, I think most, a lot of companies have figured out if I'm on LinkedIn and indeed I'm kind of covering 80 % of the market and this whole programmatic thing, I don't know. It's kind of a black box, sort of mysterious. I don't know if I need it or not. The experience sucks.
Um, go to career builder and search for a job. It's all appcast stuff. It redirects you everywhere. You have to register for everything. Job seekers have wised up, right? They know I'm to go right to the company site. This is where jobs boards are sending me anyway. I'm going to figure out where that is. I think Google for jobs has helped get people directly to company websites or get them to indeed or LinkedIn where they already have an account and they already trust sort of the experience. So yeah, I think that programmatic probably peaked.
with AppCast's acquisition of StepStone. But yeah, I like it. I like it. All right, well, I normally end the show with a dad joke, Chad, but what could be better than a dad joke? Well, obviously, hearing from our favorite Scott.
Chad (01:01:06.798)
Ha.
Chad (01:01:13.912)
Steven McGrath.
Joel (01:01:20.167)
That's right. Steven McGrath, our favorite Scott. he's the product experience manager at poetry. the dude spends way too much time in the shower. if you follow him on LinkedIn, you know this, but, let's hear, let's hear Steven's prediction to end 2025.
Joel (01:01:43.305)
You
Chad (01:01:45.39)
The great teacher.
Joel (01:03:33.467)
And we now know way more about Steven than we ever wanted to know. He's apparently a possible loofah guy, a loofah user. don't, who knew? Who knew? Man, keep drinking that chicken cock, baby. I like, I like what you're dropping.
Chad (01:03:40.769)
You
Chad (01:03:46.414)
was wondering how his skin got so soft. And now we know, now we know.
Joel (01:03:54.729)
This business is about the people, man. I say this every conference, everywhere we go, it's all the tech comes and goes, the companies come and go, but the people stay. Chad, happy new year. Here's to a great 2025. Thanks to our guest predictors. We'll see how they did in 2026 when we get together. Until then, we out.
Chad (01:03:59.566)
agreed. Yep.
Chad (01:04:16.278)
We out.