In this episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, Chad and guest Joel Lalgee tackle everything from Euro 2024 and upcoming events to the staffing world being rocked by Indeed. Nvidia is now king of the public companies, and Bullhorn just gobbled up TextKernel. They jabber about AI in recruiting and retail, including McDonald's drive-through robots and retail's eternal misery with low pay and turnover. Buckle up for a snarky dive into the future of work!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION (blame AI for errors)
Chad Sowash (00:24.097)
Yeah. Welcome back to the Chad and cheese podcast. That's right. HR's most dangerous podcast kids. I am Chad past the chaos. So, on today's show, a staffing expert predicts doomsday McDonald's backs out of AI. Bullhorn says “Not so fast indeed”. And Joel is back. Well, no, no, not that Joel, not that Joel. Let's do this.
Chad Sowash (00:59.617)
Okay, kids. So welcome back. Yes, Cheesman is gallivanting around Singapore this week, but I have another Joel in store as a special guest host. So Joel is back. Just not the same Joel, right? It is actually let me share this because you got it. You got to see you got to see the the the juice here. Joel Lalgee. I say that right? I said it right.
Joel Lalgee (01:21.55)
You got it. Yeah, you got not many people can get it right. So well done.
Chad Sowash (01:25.409)
Nah, I have that. Thank God for LinkedIn's little little audio clips. that's freaking awesome. Yeah, so for literally first time on the show, welcome to the show. Really appreciate you coming on. Do me a favor just for all of those listeners who don't know who you are. Give them a Twitter.
Joel Lalgee (01:31.15)
I still got that recording on there. That is awesome. I love it. I don't know why more people don't use that thing. It's helpful.
Joel Lalgee (01:49.486)
Yep. Joel Lalgee been in a recruitment space for about a decade and I do a lot of content around the recruitment industry. Also, as you can see, host a podcast called Recruiting is No Joke and doing live events, getting, helping tech brands get their name out there. So I love social media. I love recruitment and I'm happy to be here today.
Chad Sowash (02:11.393)
Excellent, man. We are definitely, definitely happy to have you. Not to mention you've got great fashion taste. I mean, look at that. Look at that. Portuguese, baby. Nah. You knew I was in Portugal, so I was like, why not? Why the hell not? So yeah, so they didn't come out of the chamber hot, but they still won.
Joel Lalgee (02:18.574)
I mean, come on. We definitely, we didn't even plan it, but we kind of planned it.
Joel Lalgee (02:28.558)
That's right.
Joel Lalgee (02:33.998)
now. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:36.609)
I've got to say that, again, kids, we're watching the Euro 2024, which is happening. Portugal probably has one of the most talented teams that are out there. The question is, can they put it together? Spain is red hot right now. Germany is doing incredibly well. What do you think?
Joel Lalgee (02:57.006)
I think Germany already qualified there at home. They are looking solid and the last like three tournaments they just bombed it. So I think they're looking good. I really like Gundaland who's like their captain. I think he is out of out of like all the leaders out there. He's humble. He's just a hard worker. He's a really, really good guy to have. I think England not doing well. I think Italy is looking strong. So my it's between me. It's.
Chad Sowash (02:59.953)
yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:04.193)
You
Thank you.
Chad Sowash (03:17.633)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (03:25.582)
My thought is Italy, Spain, Germany, because I mean Belgium, they're not looking good. So those are my three. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:32.801)
No, they're not looking good at all. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sticking. I'm sticking with the home turf that I'm on. Definitely go Portugal. Again, they've got a strong. it's amazing. It is. It is amazing. And I mean, there are a lot of there are a lot of Brits that are down here, too. So I mean, the bars, the bars are full no matter, you know, you know, the the.
Joel Lalgee (03:42.318)
How wild is it in Portugal, like, during the Euros? Just wild? Yeah, I bet.
Joel Lalgee (03:52.718)
Hahaha!
Of course.
Chad Sowash (03:57.697)
England's playing, Germany's playing, Portugal's playing, it doesn't matter. The bars, the bars are packed. So it's good. All right. Let's, let's get to business.
Joel Lalgee (04:01.518)
Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, I watched that. Did you see that? You see that Netflix? yeah. Forget it. Forget Netflix.
Chad Sowash (04:08.385)
No, Netflix what?
Joel Lalgee (04:10.734)
Did you see that Wembley documentary that's out there right now about, man, go see it. England fans just getting wild and Wembley in 2020. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy.
Chad Sowash (04:14.017)
I haven't seen that one yet now, huh?
Imagine that. Imagine that. Alright kids, if you're not watching Euro 2024, check it out. Also, Copa's happening. But it's time for a little business. Let's do a shout out. So Joel, you gotta shout out who you gotta shout out for.
Joel Lalgee (04:36.75)
Yeah. So I'm going to shout out job pixel. We've actually got an event coming up with job pixel. So if you don't know job pixel video platform helps with recruitment. I'm hosting an event with the one and only Chad. and we're going to be doing, I think we're going to be just talking about basically video hacks as recruiters that you can use, to get more candidates, get your name out there. So I'm going to be doing that free event Thursday, June 27th.
Chad Sowash (04:39.553)
yeah. Nice.
Chad Sowash (04:50.945)
What?
Chad Sowash (04:57.889)
Mm.
Joel Lalgee (05:04.238)
If you're interested in that, just go to my profile on LinkedIn. You'll see it register, get the team there. It's going to be a good time.
Chad Sowash (05:10.465)
Yeah, should be fun. Should be fun. I mean, I'm a an advisor to job pixel. Love those guys love what they're doing. I mean, the validation with the you know, isims acquisition acquisition a little while ago. I mean, I think that really put them on the path and they're on fire right now. So I can't wait can't wait to join in have have that discussion. I'm gonna go ahead and give a shout out to Nvidia. You might have heard of these guys. They passed.
Microsoft to become the most valuable public company in the world kids Jesus chipmaker passed the three trillion market cap in early June. The company is a fucking rocket ship right now just had a 10 to one stock split. Thank you. That was good for me. And there's no sight of slowing down Nvidia has about 80.
Joel Lalgee (05:44.334)
Wow.
Chad Sowash (06:03.265)
percent that's eight zero percent of the market for AI chips used in data centers and the Fang companies are gobbling them up Faster than than freaking Nvidia can produce them. I mean the waitlist it's like candy for these companies man So what what do you think is AMD or is Nvidia gonna get some competition sometime soon? Are they just gonna continue to skyrocket?
Joel Lalgee (06:29.198)
It looks like they're, I think they're gonna continue. I mean, I'm thinking about, you know, still investing in Silicon itself, because I think that'd be a good gamble. But yeah, I don't, the amount, how quickly they've grown and I think AI just becoming the forefront as well, you know, the last 18 months, it'd be hard to keep up with them at this point.
Chad Sowash (06:37.601)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (06:52.673)
Yeah, about 18 months ago on the podcast and this is the kids don't listen to us for investment. Okay, don't don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Every now and again, we get lucky. But about 18 months ago, I think I actually said on the show, I'm like, if you're not buying Nvidia, buy Nvidia. I didn't buy it then I waited like six months. I was so pissed at myself.
Joel Lalgee (06:58.286)
Hahaha!
Joel Lalgee (07:12.59)
How did you calculate like how much more you would have made if you don't do that?
Chad Sowash (07:15.777)
No, no, I don't do that because I'm going to piss myself off. But there's one thing that you can never lose on my friend and that's free stuff from Chad and Cheese. You get t -shirts from ERIN App, beer from Aspen Tech Labs, craft beer delivered to your doorstep, whiskey from TextKernel who we're going to talk about today, two bottles of whiskey again delivered to your door. And if it is your birthday, you can win.
Joel Lalgee (07:25.422)
That's right.
Chad Sowash (07:46.369)
bottle of rum from plum. But you can't you can't win if you don't play. So you got to go to Chad cheese .com slash free or just go to Chad cheese got .com click on free in the upper right hand corner and register to win free stuff from Chad and cheese.
Joel Lalgee (08:07.598)
Can't beat for you.
Chad Sowash (08:08.929)
Can't beat free man, especially that kind of stuff. We're talking high quality stuff. Not to mention the t -shirts. It was funny, I brought a bunch of t -shirts here to Portugal with me for my friends who are in Portugal and every single one of them were like, wow, this is high quality stuff. I'm like, yeah, it's like a hug from Chad and Cheese. And we'll be distributing some of those. Get ready kids, at events that we're going to, we are going to RecFest, RecFest, RecFest, RecFest in July at Nebworth Park.
and then Wreckfest September 12th and 13th in Nashville. Joel, you've been to the Nashville Wreckfest. What do you think?
Joel Lalgee (08:49.102)
I loved, I mean, that was the first conference I'd gone to in years and like four years. So definitely my, my type of vibe, definitely festival feel people, people having a good time, a lot more relaxed, get really good conversation, good networking. I had a, I had a real good time. Nashville is amazing as well. yeah, I, I want to, I'm looking forward to this year as well. I'll be hosting a, one of the stages in the morning. Excited about it. Yeah. I love it.
Chad Sowash (08:53.025)
Yeah. huh.
Chad Sowash (09:07.649)
yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (09:15.873)
Sweet! Yeah, that is...
Joel Lalgee (09:18.606)
Hosten is best, right? Hosten versus speaking is way better in my opinion.
Chad Sowash (09:21.505)
Hosting is pretty awesome. It can be tiring, but it is pretty awesome. Yeah, I mean, so kids, if you're not like Joel and I and you've never been to a RecFest, get to a RecFest. It's literally an all -hands staff meeting in a big field under circus tents. It's literally recruit -a -palooza. I mean, whole recruiting teams come to learn, bond, connect with peers, check out new tech.
standardized procedures from experts in the space. And if your team isn't learning about new tech and the velocity of the tech today, then get to RecFest ASAP. Love these guys. There's no other event that's out there that's like it. All the events have different feels, different characteristics, culture, that kind of thing. Nothing, nothing, nothing compared to RecFest.
Joel Lalgee (10:14.542)
Yeah. Well, what other conference can you go to where you can just shorts and a t -shirt and then smash some White Claws in between and you're, you're just, you're normal. And so I love it.
Chad Sowash (10:18.593)
Hahaha
Chad Sowash (10:24.961)
You're smashing white cloths. I love it. Okay.
Joel Lalgee (10:27.406)
White Claws. Hey, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta keep the hydration going during the day. I don't want to get too out of control, but it's, yeah, it was last year. I thought it was great and, looking, looking for a bigger one this year as well. So pumped.
Chad Sowash (10:37.921)
I'll do.
Yeah, yeah, network, network is probably going to have close to 6000. Nashville, I believe, will double this year. So 2500, obviously, the US very, very big. So, yeah, I just can't wait. And you know what else I can't wait for?
Joel Lalgee (10:50.958)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (10:56.654)
What's that?
Chad Sowash (10:59.841)
Topics. That's what baby, because this week, I mean, we've been talking about it for a while, but I got a recruiter on the show. I also got have some some footage that we're going to play. And a few weeks ago, we pointed out something big. Now, it was you know, it was it's fucking enormous, to be quite frank, that nobody was talking about during recruit holdings investor meeting, which is available via video recording to the public kids.
So during that meeting, Indeed formally announced launching into staffing, not just playing around, but applying the necessary resources to disrupt the staffing industry. We have recorded a couple of different podcasts that dig into the topic, including this Monday's episode with House of HR's chief digital officer and staffing leader, Leven von Lievenhausen, plus a great roundtable with Jim the Indeed whisperer Durbin.
Lieven, myself and Sara and Viktor from Adway. You can find that on Adway's YouTube channel. I have a quick video I want to play and this is from Tim Meehan, a staffing pro who spent time at a Deco, 11 years at Kelly and was their VP of Global Solutions.
five years at Kelly OCG, where he was VP of Global RPO Center of Excellence, and five years at PondToon Solutions as a VP and Global Head of TA Innovation. Tim has the experience in this chop, so listen up, kids. I was glad that he hooked us up with this, so give it a listen.
Chad Sowash (15:30.305)
Okay, okay man, so you're a recruiter, you understand the staffing industry, so what do you make of all this?
Joel Lalgee (15:33.774)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (15:38.478)
I look, that's a, that's a one of the strongest predictions I've heard. Usually it's recruiters are going to be okay. So to hear a complete decimated is crazy. I think for me, when I, when I look at it, I look at all the data, like indeed has obviously they've got, they've got tons, but it's all user generated. And this is where with resumes in general or LinkedIn profiles or indeed resumes, it's all user generated. So I think.
Chad Sowash (16:04.161)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (16:07.79)
As long as users are updating things and they're putting their right skills and they're putting the right information on there, then it's possible. But I don't, I don't really know how you get that unless people do a good job with updating that information in the first place. And second thought around it is I am going to, I'm super interested to see how they go to market with staffing services and how much of that business.
Chad Sowash (16:34.657)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (16:37.102)
our staffing company, like, do you just eat, you eat that, or, you know, staffing company is still going to buy big contracts. Same with LinkedIn. That whole business is basically recruitment agencies. So you really want to kill your biggest clients, business. I don't, you know, I don't know about that. And, yeah, I, I, I just be, I'd be also interested in like, how do you sell or change your brand into.
staffing versus I feel like all of their marketing is around candidates and can't, you know, we'll help you get a job. That's what I think of when I think of indeed, I think it's candidate play. So I, how are they going to shift that branding around?
Chad Sowash (17:05.857)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (17:20.129)
I so indeed from day one has always been one of the bullies from a sales standpoint, direct to companies. They always have. I was a VP at a direct employers association and we literally were kind of like the the guardian for major fortune 500 global VPs. And they would come to me and say, hey, can you tell the guys over to indeed to back the fuck down? I mean, so they've always been aggressive there. And I don't think that that's gone away.
I think staffing was their biggest business. Then the next thing you know, they've been able to, I mean, pretty much take the leads that staffing are putting into their system and they're going direct to clients and they're also going to industries, right? So, or not industries, to agencies. So they're doing, you know, a couple of different things to be able to go around staffing so that, again, they can get to this point where staffing's making 20%, maybe even more.
they can go half of that 10 % and that's still 10x what they're making today. So yeah, I do agree though, the data that they have, the actual candidate data, they're going to have to have enrichment that happens. And I would want it to be first and foremost, user enrichment where they're just nudging users to come back, hey, here's a job that you might be qualified for, by the way, update your information, et cetera, et cetera.
Here's the thing that really gets me. I've received direct messages from listeners that are still inside major staffing organizations, very high level and major staffing organizations that have reached out to validate those staffing organizations are not ready for the shift from the traditional model. And usually I'm not a fan of Indeed, but this disruption,
Joel Lalgee (19:07.694)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (19:13.025)
forces those old stodgy staffing organizations to evolve or die. So even though it's not going to be easy, I hope Indeed Flex starts making progress quickly because only the nimble will survive and only like really crafty and more nimble and evolved recruiters, the best recruiters are going to be at staffing companies, right?
And that's what I think the market needs, nimble and fluid. And that's not where staffing is today. It's not where it's been for a very long time. So, you know, I really think that if you bring tech to bear, which Ronstadt tried with Monster and failed miserably, Deco did with hired and veteran failed miserably, AMS, they're more RPO, but still they're not going to be safe. They did with the creation and really just
bad management of the hourly platform. So I think most of these staffing companies are trying to run their tech like traditional staffing organizations, which means to me, they got to get rid of leadership. You have to have new leaders who can evolve with new models. And it doesn't feel to me, and you tell me what you think, it doesn't feel to me like they have the capacity, the capability to actually evolve.
with the models and the velocity of technology today.
Joel Lalgee (20:42.574)
Well, I mean, I, a hundred percent agree. And I think even just even at an individual level, you know, speaking from individual recruiters is why it's so important to, like you said earlier, if you are not up on what tech is, is coming into the market or you're shying away from it, which I think a lot of largely, you know, a lot of large company leaders, I don't think they even have the time to see what is out there and how things were evolving. You've got to stay up to date with it.
Chad Sowash (20:48.129)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (20:57.601)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (21:09.697)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (21:11.598)
And, you got to make those changes. I think what's interesting is like, indeed with those examples that you gave, it's like, they're almost doing the reverse. So it's like, they got all the traffic. They got all of the, the job board traffic, the job ad revenue coming in and to add staffing on it. But I'm, I'm curious with, with indeed flex, like what they've been around for like a year. How is that? What's, what's that business like? Cause I don't really see too much about it.
Chad Sowash (21:26.273)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (21:33.409)
No, they were acquired in 2019, the SIFT out of the UK. And they've been kind of like doing these skunk work projects with a lot of different staffing, indeed staffing orgs. And this one, obviously, which was one of the biggest segments of the TAM was 127 billion. And that's more, it's lower level, it's easier, right? Because once you start getting into the more complex jobs, it gets much harder to be able to really quickly discern whether people are qualified or not, right? When you when you have very little requirements, heartbeat, you know, being able to lift 50 pounds, yeah, you know, show up on time, those types of things, it becomes much easier. And that temp staffing side of the house, the Kelly services side of the side of the house that that Tim used to work for. That is that's the low hanging fruit for indeed. And it's $127 billion versus the 32 billion in recruitment.
Joel Lalgee (22:10.19)
sharp on time. Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (22:31.489)
marketing, right. So I think that's that's the foundation that they build on. And then they start to kind of like, they grow from there in with, you know, daddy warbucks being recruit holdings, not to mention, you know, they're in staffing one of the I think top five or at least top 10 staffing companies in the world. They they know that they want that US market. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (22:53.326)
They know, they know how it works. So you think they're just going to hire a ton of salespeople?
Chad Sowash (23:00.225)
Yeah, no, I think they will. I think they will. And I don't think it's going to be much different than the old Indeed model. All they're going to do is say, look, we're going to leverage tech to be able to staff your organization and do it for half the cost of Kelly, of Ranstad, of Adecco. What do you think?
Joel Lalgee (23:22.83)
Yeah. It's, and then it's, you just gotta play it out, right? Three, six, nine months. They get the results and then, that's what every other staffing company is going to hope that they don't get the results or they just, you know, they, they're overlooking something. Only thing, the only thing I could possibly think about is at an enterprise level, I see, I see that I still think there's some, one of the things I've noticed with staffing companies is release relationships and.
Chad Sowash (23:27.649)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (23:38.049)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (23:48.513)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (23:52.334)
If they're old school, a lot of the relationships they have are also old school. And I would imagine that they're less likely to even be looking at a technology as well. So that would be the only thing is like the relationship management of it, right?
Chad Sowash (24:04.609)
Yeah, I think though.
Yeah, I think from a velocity standpoint, all that's going to go away. And this is going to become more transactional than anything else, especially on the temp side, right? We're not talking about management. We're not talking about management that's going to senior management. We're talking about temp. That's $127 billion. So yeah, I think I think the relationship side of the house, it's going to turn more into transactional. And that, again, is because of the power of technology today. I think that's where we're going to go.
Joel Lalgee (24:18.766)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (24:36.526)
So I'm almost like an Amazon model for hiring where it's like, hey, hire now, add to your cart. You like that?
Chad Sowash (24:39.041)
Yeah, to some extent. Yeah. Boost. Yeah. Yeah. Boost, right? All right. So this conversation is not stopping because we have more news in this segment. We will be right back.
Chad Sowash (24:59.681)
All right. Okay, so this is a pretty big one. This week Bullhorn acquired TextKernel, an industry leader in sourcing AI solutions, better known as one of the biggest vendors in the world for parsing and matching, which is not an easy fucking business. Plus, longtime sponsor of the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Textkernel's HQ is in Amsterdam and they power over 2000 customers globally. And these customers for the most part are big vendors that we all know and love that we think are doing the parsing and the matching. They're not. Textkernel's, the ones who's doing it behind the scenes, including eight of the top.
10 staffing agencies worldwide. We were just talking about staffing, a long time trusted partner to the staffing and recruitment industry. And one of the companies who have performed the heavy lift for many of the biggest tech platforms in the industry. So before we get into comments, Joel, let's welcome back the staffing and tech leader, Tim Meehan for his thoughts. One second.
Joel Lalgee (26:26.414)
Yeah, no volume again.
Chad Sowash (26:30.369)
Alright, let's try this again.
Joel Lalgee (26:42.318)
He's going to tell me I'm, my job's destroyed again. I got a feeling.
Chad Sowash (26:51.521)
Thank you. son of a bitch.
Thank God we have a great. There we go.
Joel Lalgee (27:00.878)
desktop has a lot of files on there.
Chad Sowash (27:02.145)
Thank you.
Chad Sowash (28:10.081)
So there's a choice, Joel. There's a choice. You can continue to stay with Indeed or you can go with Bullhorn. Sounds like, you know, they're going to have tech. It could help out. What do you think?
Joel Lalgee (28:23.502)
I mean, as a former Bullhorn user, I feel bad for all the people who are going to have to have to use Bullhorn with that prediction. Cause I look, I think how you add on these AI tools and integrate is huge. I just in general, I think any AI tool, it all comes down to adoption and how people use them. And that's always a big question for me. Like anytime I hear AI conversations,
Chad Sowash (28:25.985)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (28:49.889)
Yes.
Joel Lalgee (28:53.582)
I don't, I don't even know if people are aware, like the difference between automation and an AI, how do you, how do you use, how do you use tools, how to use these tools anyway. but I think it seems like a great move for bullhorn. I, I, you know, and obviously for the text girl, it's gonna obviously open up more clients as well. but I don't know. I feel like bullhorn is kind of has a better deal out of that one. What do you think?
Chad Sowash (29:03.105)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (29:14.624)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (29:20.129)
Well, first and foremost, I gotta say congrats to Harard and the TexKernel team. This is the type of tech that has performed, as I said earlier, some of the heaviest technical lifts in the history of recruiting, which is why there aren't many successful companies in the space. A quick and brief history of TexKernel, in 2015, CareerBuilder acquired 60 % of TexKernel, and they liked them so much.
that career builder then owned by daddy warbucks apollo went all in and they acquired textkernel in 2019. Then apollo started selling off bits and pieces of career builder and textkernel was sold to main capital in september of 2020. Then text kernel expanded their footprints into the US by acquiring parsing and matching powerhouse sovereign in november of 2021. Now,
I'm saying all of this because it's obvious that Tex kernel tech is appetizing for many companies. The question is, can Bullhorn pull off an acquisition and technical execution of this size when the when players like Career Builder and Apollo just fucking fumbled the ball. The execution will be fucking massive. And I'm not 100 % sure that Bullhorn can pull it off. But I hope they do. To Tim's point.
And our earlier Indeed staffing conversation, if Bullhorn isn't positioning themselves as an Indeed killer, they're doing it wrong. Staffing organizations spend tens of millions of dollars annually to attract candidates. And many of those candidates are already in their goddamn resume database. So now, again, if Bullhorn is smart, they will...
Use the parsing and matching in every resume in a staffing firms database As soon as a rec is posted They'll match it to those candidates with a high degree of match Should then they should automatically be invited to apply through email text or whatever messaging they choose That will then lessen the need for indeed the indeed of the world plus bullhorn can reach out to candidates
Chad Sowash (31:33.633)
that are going stale to nudge them to add skills, expertise, and just build up their profile. But like I said, it's going to be a massive undertaking. And I'm just not sure. I'm sure we'll talk to Bullhorn, but I'm just not sure they're up to this task. It is big. Not to mention, will they make TextKernel
a bullhorn under bullhorn or will they keep it as a separate product? Because they already have a humongous portfolio and part of that portfolio or other applicant tracking systems, right? So it's gonna be an interesting dance. What do you think?
Joel Lalgee (32:18.51)
So you're saying then, so Bullhorn basically uses all of their resumes in all of their clients databases as well. So then when you open up a rec, it will match from not just your own database that you have, but like everybody's, right? Is that what I'm hearing?
Chad Sowash (32:34.305)
I didn't go that far, but that would be smart if staffing companies, especially smaller staffing companies, could work together to actually build pools like data lakes is really what it is. But yeah, I don't think the Deco's or the Randstad's out there would do something like that. I think they have big enough databases where they don't have to. It'll just be forced to be able to go into their database and the candidates authority have their.
Joel Lalgee (33:02.03)
Yeah. Well, look, I just, I won the one thing I wonder with every everything right now is in general, like just outside of even staffing and recruitment in general, everybody's mailboxes are being blown up. Like I just, and, and candidates are the same way they're getting the same, they're getting all of this. So I just wonder if the challenge coming up is recruit like actual recruitment and how do you stand out?
Chad Sowash (33:06.721)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (33:29.934)
Right. Cause I think finding candidates to me, let's it's you're finding data nowadays is kind of easier and you can do it. You can do it pretty quick, but it's like reaching, reaching people at getting good with messages. Like you said, texting, calling, like it's that to me is just, I don't see how we, how we don't create a big problem with just candidates in general, or like what happens when, when candidates who will already, like I do a lot of social media content, one of the biggest,
Chad Sowash (33:42.785)
Mm.
Joel Lalgee (33:59.982)
One of the points that goes viral all the time is if I bash particularly LinkedIn and indeed, if I say, are you sick of LinkedIn and indeed here are three other platforms, those videos always go viral. So I'm like, does this just compound? Do these kinds of tools, they just compounding that. And then how do you, great, you found the person. How do you really even get ahold of them nowadays? That's, that's what I'm wondering over the next year, 18 months.
Chad Sowash (34:05.313)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (34:23.937)
Yeah. So I think at the end of the day, first and foremost, ZipRecur had it right years ago. And then they just went off the rails when they went IPO way back in the day. Not not not lately, not lately. What they did was they they actually had this model where they would go into their database and they would literally they would invite individuals who matched up against the the the requirements of a requisition. Right. Made a lot of sense.
Joel Lalgee (34:32.27)
Zipracuda had it right.
Joel Lalgee (34:37.87)
Ehh...
Chad Sowash (34:53.793)
what they were looking to do and they never did was just create slates, the ones that are higher match in quality than just deliver 10, right? Instead of delivering 30 or 50 or 300 to a recruiter, which is not manageable, I really think that if...
you get a really good score match up against the actual requirements and the what the skill sets that you need. What can happen at that point is a recruiter gets more time to actually focus on interacting with that individual, right? One of the things right now is way too much in ministrivia, not to mention candidates are going into black holes because recruiters don't have enough time to respond to all of them. And in this case, if you get if you get
you know, 10 or 15, you can actually take the time to be more human with those individuals. So yeah, I think they've already applied for a job within, you know, your portfolio of companies. So more than likely you have contact information. And if they're smart, they're getting phone number, they're getting, you know, messenger, whatever, whatever their chosen form of communication is.
and they're going to be reaching out to them. Then you've got, then you've got, and this is the fun part, to get into the chat bots of the world, the talk pushes, the paradoxes and whatnot that can actually help nudge candidates, not just for the interview, but also for that first day at work.
and to get feedback and whatnot. And from my understanding and talking to Adam Gottson when he was at Cielo, not just now he's at Paradox, but when he was at Cielo building these systems, their ghosting went down dramatically just from those little nudge messages, which is pretty amazing. So I think there's great opportunity here.
Joel Lalgee (36:50.19)
I want to know with this validation of skills, because I know the skills -based hiring keeps on coming up. But I'm like, this is the other issue which I see is you've on the other end, you've got candidates now that have tools as well that can make perfect resumes. They can match up to the job. There at some point, where's the skills validation and then.
Chad Sowash (36:54.817)
That's hard. It's hard.
Chad Sowash (37:06.561)
Mm.
Joel Lalgee (37:16.686)
How are you defining what skills are for jobs? How do you, how do you actually, yeah. But for some of these jobs, you really need skills as well. That's maybe, maybe that's it.
Chad Sowash (37:24.609)
Well, these, yeah, these, these companies have to understand they've been talking about skills based hiring forever and they don't know what the hell they're talking about because first and foremost, they don't know what skills it actually takes within that job because what they haven't done is they haven't actually taken a look, taken a look at the tasks that are performed by that job on a daily basis. When you do that, you understand that a job is literally just a, just an amalgamation of tasks, right?
Joel Lalgee (37:33.614)
Now.
Chad Sowash (37:55.009)
Can the individual perform those tasks? And then what are skills that are tied to those tasks? There's tech out there today that can do that. Tadeo, which again, I'm an advisor for just to be transparent out there, but they are more performance driven. You have to demonstrate that you can perform that task in a simulation before boom.
you get that skill, right? So, you know, it's becoming more readily available and understandable, but the companies have to do the job upfront of even understanding what the job looks like for the person who's doing it task by task by task, and then they can understand the skills. Until then, they're literally just bullshitting everybody, I believe.
Joel Lalgee (38:38.382)
So I got defined skills and then they need it. I think right now they got to get buy -in from candidates to get that data even. And I like the idea of inviting people to jobs. I liked it. Like you said, when it first, when that idea first came out, I get invited all the time by LinkedIn to do different things. And it's so off every single time. So I think they got to figure out a way of how do we gamify getting the right data even from candidates.
Chad Sowash (38:49.441)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (38:57.633)
Joel Lalgee (39:08.558)
Otherwise you're just going to end up with just wrong matches on both ends. And then, then people go, yeah, it doesn't even work.
Chad Sowash (39:13.185)
LinkedIn, LinkedIn's matching tech is shit. I mean, they have more data. They have more data on me than anybody does. They should be able to match me up very well. They should. And they do a shit job. So. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Joel Lalgee (39:17.07)
It's so bad.
Joel Lalgee (39:26.414)
I get, I get host of like Olive Garden because I have podcast host in my, in my bio, my host, I'm a hostess at Olive Garden, but that's, that's what I was at. And this is where I think one of the things I noticed with any kind of AI tools, one of the things, one of the things I've noticed really quickly is you have like one shot with users like myself recruiters. And if they don't see saves time money or it works, you miss in that one shot, they will, they just write you off as it not working altogether.
Chad Sowash (39:44.897)
huh. Yeah. Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (39:56.526)
And so this is where it's like, you have to, you've got to deliver on that. And, so.
Chad Sowash (40:01.313)
Yeah, you do.
You've got to remember though, AI is a puppy. I mean, it's going to piss on the carpet a few times. You got to give it a little grace. But here's where TA leaders need to stiffen their spine. And all of these processes are going to be happening behind the scenes and they're going to be delivered up to the recruiters. So this should not be a decision made by the recruiters. It should be made by leadership, right? Now recruiters should be a part of the process to ensure
Joel Lalgee (40:06.158)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (40:33.121)
that it actually becomes more fluid. We get the best data to be able to train on the right data for the right jobs in the right positions, in the right regions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But at the end of the day, we can't, and I'll just give you an example. At Randstad, we had so many people who had LinkedIn seats, who weren't even using LinkedIn seats, and we were pushing them off. we almost had a fucking riot.
Joel Lalgee (40:56.11)
crazy.
Chad Sowash (41:01.761)
And it's like, look, you guys aren't even using this and money's being spent, right? Yeah, so it's just like, you have to stiffen your spine. And I was there and I was like, fuck those guys. I don't care. We can find new recruiters. If they can't use the tools that you're giving them and then they bitch when you take them away because they're not using them. My point is leadership has to lead, right? And they're not leading today, period.
Joel Lalgee (41:04.598)
Crazy.
Joel Lalgee (41:28.462)
Yeah, no, I agree. A hundred percent.
Chad Sowash (41:31.361)
On that being said, I got to say. Yeah, so who who likes Swedish meatballs? Everybody likes Swedish meatballs. Well, this from the Dallas Morning News, Ikea, the Swedish retailer lost 62 ,000 workers in 2022, equating to about a third of its workforce, which cost the company millions in loss of productivity and retraining. I guess the free Swedish meatballs just wasn't enough of a perk.
Joel Lalgee (41:40.398)
Got it.
Chad Sowash (42:01.249)
What did Ikea do to stop the bleeding? Listen to this, this is gonna blow your mind. They boosted pay, they increased flexibility for frontline employees, and they used emerging technologies to make things easier on workers and their customers, which dropped them from losing a third of their employees down to a quarter of their employees. Now, it does get worse when you look at retail industry numbers.
Joel Lalgee (42:17.454)
Wow.
Chad Sowash (42:28.705)
McKinsey and Company Research cites that retail jobs are often marked by low pay, go figure, erratic schedules, and irate customers, which helps explain why the quit rate for retail workers is more than 70 % higher than all other US industries. So Joel.
Does working in retail have to suck? I mean, unions are, they're having, the unions are having a moment right now though. So could having a union in retail actually help? Talk away, I'll be right back.
Joel Lalgee (42:59.246)
It does. It's a rite of passage. It has to.
Joel Lalgee (43:10.67)
I've, I've, I've honestly never thought, thought of that and why I think the problem is that with retail jobs is you just view them as when I think of retail and I think of how most people think about retail jobs, I would imagine it's seasonal. It's usually you're taking the job because you've got something else going on. You're a college kid in summer. Maybe you're going through a job transition and you're just taking the job. I think it's a, it's a, it's almost like a shift in mindset.
Chad Sowash (43:31.649)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (43:40.782)
with the job as a whole. I can't imagine too many people going, yeah, I want to be a cashier. That's my career, right? It's I can't imagine that. So I'm like, how are you going to be? It becomes it does become a career for some people, for sure.
Chad Sowash (43:45.601)
No.
But some people it is, some people it is though. I mean, yeah, yeah.
Joel Lalgee (43:56.366)
I mean, look, it's to me, this stuff, sometimes it's just like common sense of, of like, I'm like, at what point do you become disconnected to just normal people that you don't see that making people's lives easier in a job, paying them well, and then flexibility, like when you get disconnected that you don't get that, like, that's what people are looking for. This is where it's like, you got a group of executives off.
Chad Sowash (44:02.433)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (44:13.921)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (44:25.038)
And they're not even looking at what most normal people would want. And then they're like, yeah, we figured it out. And then it works. And I'm like, is it just common sense? That's what I just don't get.
Chad Sowash (44:35.265)
It's ridiculous and I gotta say, hey, human resource professionals out there, when this happens, it's your fault, okay? The C -suite needs to understand attrition impacts revenue. Waiting on positions to be filled, being short staff, impacts revenue and increases the likelihood of others leaving, which impacts revenue. Underpaid workers are not happy workers.
Unhappy workers create unhappy customers unhappy customers don't come back which impacts revenue Unhappy workers means low productivity which impacts revenue so all of these things Will happen if you don't have systems training and processes in place to make happy employees yeah, and Pam. Well, by the way, find your problem fall in love with that problem
Look for products and services to help you fix the problem and then go confidently with a stiffened spine to ask for more fucking budget because guess what? All of this impacts revenue. So don't be happy with a broken system because you have quote unquote limited budget. That's a total and complete cop out. Do your research and understand how your problems impact revenue and the C -suite will listen, especially.
if you can demonstrate the problem and present solutions, ask for the budget. Amazon reported, I shouldn't say reported, a letter, an internal letter popped up that actually showed that they lost $8 billion in revenue due to a attrition alone. Attrition alone.
Joel Lalgee (46:07.406)
same.
Joel Lalgee (46:26.03)
I read, I think it was maybe a year and a half ago that they are to the point in some, some locations that they've hired like 80 % of people, in, in town. So.
Chad Sowash (46:36.861)
yeah, they're out of the workforce. They're literally burning through the workforce.
Joel Lalgee (46:43.854)
And I think that one of their solution, I mean, I know a couple of people who own those Amazon delivery businesses and it's, you talk to someone who owns one of those businesses, the delivery isn't the business, you're a staffing company and it's like, they've gone, it's so hard to find delivery drivers and this, people who own these businesses, they spend 90 % of their time trying to staff reliable people on razor thin margins. And I think at some point, again, it's flexibility and,
Chad Sowash (46:49.473)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (46:58.081)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (47:13.71)
pay right now or on the top of everyone's mind. And if you are not filling those jobs, you have, you've got, you've got to think about, I, I mean, I love that technology piece. Like I'm just thinking in my head, like what kind of AI could help people in retail and make their jobs easier? you know, my mind goes to like robots and things right away. And like having, having, having that as a help, like imagine that a robot to take care of anger customers, that'd be amazing. But like you said,
Chad Sowash (47:30.049)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (47:42.894)
This guy, and the guy I read to, the founder of Ikea is like the eighth richest person in the world. So I'm like, come on, don't tell me that you're hurting in any way. It's crazy.
Chad Sowash (47:48.049)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (47:56.673)
Money's going up top, man. Money's going on top. We talked about Walmart the other day who maxed out bonuses for somebody who was working there for one to five years at $350 a year. Are you fucking kidding me? I mean, they have over $158 billion in profits for a year. And yet, and yet, I mean, it was just, this is the ridiculous stuff. So, TA, again, this is your fault because you are not going to the C -suite.
Joel Lalgee (48:09.07)
What?
Joel Lalgee (48:14.894)
Ridiculous.
Chad Sowash (48:25.057)
and helping them to understand that all of these things are negatively impacting revenue or will, because it doesn't happen all at once, right? You don't burn through 80 % of a workforce all at once, right? But when you do, holy shit, you're screwed. So you've got to focus on the losses and the perspective gains. And as we're talking about losses, how about IBM's recent AI loss? We'll be right back.
Chad Sowash (48:56.897)
All right, supersize this, supersized AI, I guess, I don't think so. This one from The Verge McDonald's will reportedly remove, yes, you heard that, remove the AI from over 100 restaurant drive -throughs after partnering with IBM, you might have heard of them, in 2021, although it's not clear why Mickey D's is ending the IBM deal. It told Restaurant Business Magazine,
It was testing whether the voice ordering chat bot could speed up service and that the test left it confidence, left them confident that a voice ordering solution for drive through will be a part of our restaurants future end quote. But it sounds like IBM's chat bot got stale under the heat lamps. Joel Mc.
Joel Lalgee (49:49.742)
Hahaha!
Chad Sowash (49:51.137)
McDonald's reportedly has 14 ,000 franchise locations in the US alone. So 100 locations was really, you know, kind of like a sample size, small sample size. Do you think there's another AI powerhouse waiting in the wings for this this contract?
Joel Lalgee (50:08.398)
Honestly, I wouldn't surprise if they were just building in house at this point. Like, I mean, I like, like, you don't think so? But like a small McDonald's AI, AI business. Now, this is...
Chad Sowash (50:12.129)
There's no way.
Chad Sowash (50:19.745)
They're gonna have a vendor do it, I guarantee you. There's no way that McDonald's, the burger place, is gonna be doing AI.
Joel Lalgee (50:24.43)
Yeah.
They've switched from focusing on Big Macs to just now they're an AI company. No, I look, I mean that technology, I mean, even in that article, it said the technology is not going away. It makes, it makes a lot of sense. So, I wonder if they just tested it out. Maybe they're getting some of, some of the glitches out of the way, but yeah, I mean, it's, I can't imagine that they're, that they're not going to roll out.
Chad Sowash (50:32.417)
hahahaha
Joel Lalgee (50:54.702)
another vendor or someone, someone else is going to take that business. I, I, I just, I haven't been in McDonald's for years, but I do remember the last time I went, the AI would have done a lot better just with the whole process. I just, there's no doubt in my mind. you know, so I, I'm excited. I love that. But I love the voice technology too, with, with AI, like some of, some of the emergence, you know, use it, use cases for it are great. And I think, this one makes a lot of sense.
Chad Sowash (50:58.209)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (51:24.737)
Yeah, no, it's really cool. I remember working the Burger King drive through when I was a teenager and compared to all of the other jobs in fast food, I fucking love that job. So it kind of sucks that the human interaction is really gonna be taken away because that's what that is. You know, that, I mean, I don't know.
I think it's gonna happen, there's no question. You take a look at McDonald's, they've gone to the touch screens and you order from a touch screen and then you go pick up and who knows, they might have a Flippy in the back doing fries and burgers and then they have AI doing that. I mean, that's really what they're looking to do is come to a self -contained, automated restaurant where you have very little human interaction whatsoever, which to me,
Joel Lalgee (51:51.566)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (52:12.481)
is not a great experience, but it's fucking McDonald's, man. I mean, it's not a great experience anyway.
Joel Lalgee (52:17.134)
It's, I think it's, I think it's, it's sad in some ways, but what I have noticed across the board is I think because of those other things we were talking about earlier with like low pay and all, you know, all of the things that come with retail, I think you end up with just nowadays a better experience when a lot less headaches and,
Chad Sowash (52:34.881)
-huh.
Joel Lalgee (52:44.814)
then you get with a real person. Because I think in those jobs right now, people aren't taking ownership. And I think this is just something that's just shifted in society. And when you look at people who have a lot of the jobs, unfortunately, that burned out, they're not getting paid a lot of money. There's inflation going on. It's usually just a crazy environment. And I think as a customer, it makes a lot of sense. So even though it's sad that you have that human interaction, at the end of the day,
Chad Sowash (53:13.057)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Lalgee (53:13.358)
I don't know if I'm necessarily going to McDonald's for the human interaction anyway. I'm going there for the quick food. It's just that's there. Whereas like a fine dining experience, a whole different thing, right? And yeah, I'm just, I'm going there to get fat. That's why I'm going, but it's, yeah, it's, I think it makes a lot of sense. And this is where I think, you know, recruitment industry as a whole, like I think we've seen, if you can, if you can take orders for food,
Chad Sowash (53:18.593)
Ha!
Chad Sowash (53:24.801)
Trans fats, baby, trans fats. That's what it's all about.
Joel Lalgee (53:43.15)
Maybe there's some things in recruitment that some of this voice AI technology can do as well.
Chad Sowash (53:48.513)
yeah, yeah, no, it's coming out and it's coming out fast. I gotta say, Joel, thanks for coming on to the show, filling in for Cheesman this week. If somebody wants to find you the podcast or wherever, where would you send them?
Joel Lalgee (54:02.958)
Yeah, yeah.
I just go to my website, therealistrecruiter.com, podcast pops up right away, and then on my socials, a link to that as well. So come find me, guys. Thanks for having me on, and yeah, I'm excited to see you guys too at RecFest coming up soon, so see you soon in real life again.
Chad Sowash (54:14.593)
Excellent. You got it, man.
Chad Sowash (54:22.209)
Can't wait. Can't wait. Hey, well, and listener, next week, Joe will be back behind the mic with, I'm sure, a Chipotle burrito bowl and a smile.
Chad Sowash (54:41.633)
We out.
Joel Lalgee (54:43.278)
See you guys.
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