Sometimes Chad & Cheese get so far up their own asses, it pays to take a step back and look at the big picture. Luckily, there's no better place to take a deep breath and ponder than Europe, which is why the boys look at the job board landscape across Europe. Inspired by an article from show favorite Geert-Jan Waasdorp entitled “Why the European job board market is on the verge of a major transition,” we dig into the rise of Indeed across Europe, programmatic becoming more and more popular, the gig economy gaining influence and even Web3's increasing impact on employment. It's a lot to digest, so a little Buy-or-Sell is in order to relax and let off steam. This episode, CloudPay, Job Protocol and EarnHire get put under the microscope. Lastly, we end with Lieven's take on European success-story and news item Beekeeper's recent raise.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (5s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel (25s):
Oh, yeah. Russia is retreating and the European winter is forecast to be warmer than normal. Welcome to the Good Vibe Show, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe, I'm your cohost, Joel "Copernicus" Cheeseman.
Chad (40s):
This is Chad "watch out Europe, Indeed is creeping Sowash.
Lieven (44s):
And I'm Lieven "no verification" Van Nieuwenhuyze.
Joel (49s):
And on this episode, Lieven opines, buy or sell and Europe's job board Market transitions. Hey, no judgment here. Let's do this.
sfx (59s):
Europe has a bunch of countries in it.
Chad (1m 5s):
Hello.
Joel (1m 7s):
Hello.
Lieven (1m 7s):
Hello, hello.
Chad (1m 8s):
Hello. It's time for a beer. Oh,
Lieven (1m 11s):
Right. I already have one.
Joel (1m 13s):
Yeah. You guys in Europe. Happy hour here. I'm eating my chicken nuggets for lunch. You know how we do?
Chad (1m 20s):
You're silicon nuggets?
Joel (1m 21s):
No more KFC for me. You'll find out in shout outs why?
Chad (1m 27s):
Oh shit. Well, the World Cup is coming soon, and Joel, you just said that in and the good old us of a Indianapolis, Indiana, Chatham Tap is doing what?
Joel (1m 39s):
Yeah. So one of our only legit sort of British style pubs here, in at least central Indiana is called Chatham Tap. Yeah. So this year, Chatham Tap is actually selling tickets on Eventbrite to be able to go to the event, which I think is pretty smart. They're gonna sell that baby out and earn a little extra income and not piss people off in the process.
Chad (2m 0s):
Yeah. We just have a bunch of crying Americans after they get beat by the Brits.
Joel (2m 4s):
There's a lot of Brits and British fans. You'd be surprised they're all from Columbus. Probably. They all come up from Columbus.
Chad (2m 12s):
We'll be lucky to see the US get out of their group. They're in group B, so they're, they're gonna play Wales first and they've got England and then Iran. That's gonna, that's gonna be fun, Iran. Educate the, you know, ill informed Americans out there who's favored to win? What predictions? Belgium's usually good right Lieven.
Lieven (2m 32s):
Well, usually it's maybe overstatement, but we've been not too bad last time, I guess. But normally we are not that good for small country, but we've done some decent seasons.
Chad (2m 44s):
Yeah. Yeah. And group F with Morocco, Croatia in Canada. So, I think possibly only Canada should give you a run for your money.
Joel (2m 53s):
That's Belgium's bracket.
Chad (2m 54s):
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty weak. It's pretty weak.
Lieven (2m 58s):
Never underestimate Canada.
Joel (2m 59s):
I could get a team together and compete with those guys.
Lieven (3m 2s):
Do you know when I was sitting in the car earlier, I was listening to the radio and there was a discussion on the radio about, about the soccer cup, because it's going to be during the daytime in Belgium, in Qatar. So in Belgium will be during working hours. And people had questions. What's of all those people working from home are watching the football instead of working? And how can we control it? Can we put, can we ask people to put their cameras on to check if they're actually working?
Joel (3m 28s):
Geez.
Lieven (3m 28s):
For the record, it is not allowed to ask people to put their cameras on to check on them.
Chad (3m 34s):
Amen.
Lieven (3m 34s):
People can watch and pretend
Joel (3m 36s):
They're watching Belgium, Canada. Dammit.
Lieven (3m 39s):
Yeah.
Joel (3m 39s):
All right, let's get to the real shout outs, shall we?
Chad (3m 42s):
Let's do it.
Joel (3m 43s):
I'll go first. All right. My shout out is a bit of our sarcastic shout out everybody. It goes to KFC, guys, who doesn't love a good meal, a fried chicken? Who doesn't love a good holiday promotion? And of course, who doesn't love a good marketing screw up since our last show, Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC to the kids out there, sent out the following message on social media. Quote, "It's Memorial Day for Kristallnacht. Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KF Cheese" end quote. For the historically uninitiated 'Kristallnacht or the night of broken glass' was the night Nazis carried out an organized massacre of Jewish people.
Joel (4m 28s):
An estimated 91 Jews died and 267 synagogues were destroyed with many businesses. Looted KKK, I mean, KFC deleted the message and apologized blaming a semi-automated push notification system. Semi-automated? The semi part of that is a little scary. Am I right? So some element of human participation did happen apparently. I'd say the Colonel must be spinning in his grave, but dude was a well known racist, so I doubt that is happening. Our sarcastic shout out to Kentucky Fried Chicken everybody.
Chad (5m 6s):
Yeah. When AI goes wrong, kids. Yes. My God.
Lieven (5m 10s):
Do you actually believe it's ai? I can't believe it. I can't believe they let AI decide on what to send to thousands of people.
Joel (5m 18s):
Semiautomated. Yeah,
Chad (5m 18s):
But here's the thing. I could actually see that, where they just go ahead and just tap it into like the holiday calendar and then it just goes off the rails. But still, somebody's head's gotta roll for this shit.
Joel (5m 32s):
Some 24 year old that doesn't know shit about history saw that come up and go, Okay, approve boop. And that went out. And then they went, Oh shit, what's Kristallnacht?
Chad (5m 42s):
They've been crying in a hump in the corner for days now. We've got a rumor alert. We've heard about CareerBuilder going into major clearance sale mode and I have heard major rumblings about the sale of Broadbean by the end of the year. So any guesses, Joel leaving on who Broadbean, who Career Builder is going to sell Broadbean to?
Joel (6m 10s):
I'm going back to Canada with my prediction. Our friends at the artist, formerly known as NuVue, currently known as talent.com, could use a little, a little technology like Broadbean has. And we know they have a few bucks in the bank because they paid how much for talent.com. Anyway, my guess Canadian company talent.com buys up Broadbean.
Chad (6m 33s):
Hoo. Okay Lieven?
Lieven (6m 34s):
Hmm. Could be. I can only say one thing. It's not us, it's not House of HR that's going to buy Broadbean. It could have been us. I mean we bought 16 companies this year, but it was not us.
Chad (6m 44s):
It was not us and it's not going to be.
Joel (6m 47s):
So don't call us Broadbean.
Chad (6m 49s):
Okay, well all of the arrows, all of the indications are pointing at Axle Springer, aka StepStone AKA Appcast. Appcast. So there we go. Kids again, rumor alert by the end of the year CareerBuilder going ahead and lopping that off.
Joel (7m 7s):
Is it to kill it? Cuz app cast doesn't need Broadbean technology, right? Or distribution channels.
Chad (7m 13s):
Well, you gotta remember not all of Europe.
Joel (7m 19s):
Yeah.
Chad (7m 19s):
Is ppc, right? So if you wanna be able to broaden up into duration based, not to mention if you have portfolios, so you have infrastructure there, it might be a decaying infrastructure. Okay. But you do have a brands and a portfolio business.
Joel (7m 33s):
Got it. Got it. And they got it off the clearance rack at TJ Max. So there's that.
Chad (7m 39s):
Pretty much, Yeah.
Joel (7m 41s):
Everything must go at careerbuilder.com everybody. All right Levien you got a special shout out one that's close to your heart. What's up?
Lieven (7m 47s):
A special shout out for a special person? No, it's a shout out to Rika Coppens our CEO. So it's the gentle art of kissing one's ass because she's my boss. Rika became 50 last week. I'm not sure if she would like it when I'm saying this publicly, but she became 50 on November 11.
Joel (8m 8s):
29.
Lieven (8m 9s):
And my wife is actually, her birthday's on the same day. She was also born on November 11th. So I always say my two bosses are having a birthday on the same day. And it's actually pretty true, but more important not the birthday is important. Rika has been nominated to become manager of the year and she was about to decline the nomination, but her management team, of which I part said, not Rika, you're going to win. We like parties, you're going to accept the nomination. So the organizing party is tense. It's a magazine in Belgium and it's actually in Belgium. It's a big deal becoming manager of the year. The name of her website is far too difficult. So right now I'm trying to register Rikarocks.be. It was free and I think by now we should have it.
Lieven (8m 49s):
And by the time this is actually live, this should be redirecting to the right website. So I'll go to www.rikarocks.be. Vote for Rika. And I could give you tons of reasons why you should, but just believe me, she deserves it.
Chad (9m 3s):
Which just means yes she does. You'd be doing more ass kicking. That's Rika.
Lieven (9m 8s):
She does the asskicking. I do the ass licking.
Joel (9m 13s):
Yeah.
Chad (9m 13s):
Rika. R I K A rocks dot be. There you go.
Joel (9m 17s):
Isn't the 11th Armistice day? Yeah, that's a big deal in Europe apparently.
Lieven (9m 21s):
Definitely. I didn't know it was called Armistice Day in in US. In France it's called, Jour de l'Armistice so it's the same but it's Indeed it's still a holiday in Belgium and and most of Europe I think, except in the Netherlands because they didn't participate. They didn't participate in World War I.
Joel (9m 40s):
We're gonna set that one out. Yeah, it's not really celebrated here either. It it is in Canada.
Lieven (9m 46s):
Lest we forget something like that.
Joel (9m 48s):
You gotta travel to find that stuff out. Chad and travel is one thing we know really well sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. You're gonna be somewhere next week.
Chad (9m 59s):
London. London, London kids, that's right for TA Tech business accelerator. You just go to Chadcheese.com, click on the events and you can register, come on over, buy us drinks, all that other fun stuff and going to be there during Thanksgiving, which means nothing to anybody in London, which means we should be able to get a very good meal out there. So should registration should be good. Not Taco Bell.
Joel (10m 25s):
Oh, that's Thanksgiving at my place. Okay! Sorry about that. Yeah, in the rare case that you listen to this on Wednesday, Thursday of this week, I will be at iCIMS Inspire in sunny California, far, far away from London and whatever weather is plaguing it. And yeah, you and I got a little sneak peek at all the stuff iCIMS is gonna be talking about. I'm sure we'll be discussing them on the show of the future and be, I'm looking to get a couple interviews, talk to some people, soak in some sun. But yeah, I'll be in California. If you're gonna be there, stop by and say hi. I'll be in a beautiful Chad and Cheese t-shirt. I'll be easy to find.
Chad (11m 4s):
And don't forget kids. The weekly show you can now find in four additional languages courtesy of Veritone. That's right French. You're gonna want to go ahead and soak in a bath while you listen to this one. Get some candles going. German, probably not so much. Portuguese. And then also Spanish. So wherever you listen to podcasts, all you have to do is look for the Chad and Cheese and then pick your language of choice.
Joel (11m 30s):
What's your language of choice Lieven? What language do you like hearing us best?
Lieven (11m 36s):
Depends for what purpose.
Chad (11m 37s):
I don't want to, I don't wanna go down that rabbit hole.
Joel (11m 42s):
Let's kill this right now.
Lieven (11m 44s):
I wasn't talking about Swedish.
Chad (11m 45s):
Topics! Oh my God.
Joel (11m 47s):
All right guys, let's talk a little transitioning. It's not probably what you think. A recent article by our friend Geert-Jan Waasdorp, also known as GJ, that's right, entitled quote, "Why the European Job Board Market is on the Verge of a Major Transition," grabbed our attention. It has the subtitle, the European job board market is in a golden age for active job seekers in Europe. It is still the most dominant way for looking for a job, but for how long will its rain continue in a market that is undergoing change at a rapid pace? Here are a few highlights from the article. Number one, job boards losing ground to Indeed, LinkedIn and Google.
Joel (12m 29s):
Number two, growth of programmatic. Three, the birth of blockchain CVs. And number four, the growth of the gig economy to just name a few. Chad, what were some of your takeaways from our friend GJ, which you can also find that article at twotalent.eu.
Chad (12m 46s):
Yeah, I think all of his points made a hell of a lot of sense. I guess the biggest question is in their current state, will job boards be viable in 10 years? That's what I was thinking. I don't think so. But you know, if they're going to transition, what type of evolution needs to happen? Market pressures need to happen to be able to push them into this evolution. I think the biggest market pressure is Indeed creeping three years ago Indeed was number one and only one of the 40 plus countries in Europe. It is now number one in six of those countries that was three years type of progress.
Chad (13m 26s):
Now that's a creeping, and if that happens and they can continue that, they can pretty much capture the entire market. So I think that gives job boards just another reason to change. You take a look at, obviously programmatic, there's so much happening there on cost per click and you know, pay per click and then being able to also transition to that before Indeed prospectively gobbles up, you know, pay per application or applications start or wherever the fuck they want to call it this week. I think the biggest thing out of all of this for job boards to be able to transition is we see so many companies talking about the death of the CV and there are so many startups that are proclaiming the death of the CV, but how we need infrastructure to move forward.
Chad (14m 15s):
And if you take a look at tech that's coming out today, some of the startups, one of them from Richard and Beverly Collins, they just announced CV wallet. I mean there's just so much that I think job boards need to think about, but they have to transition because if they don't, I think Indeed's gonna creep and kill.
Joel (14m 33s):
Yeah. You know what's interesting so much historically and Chad and you and I have been around long enough, is that that America is typically a window into the future of Europe. Whether that's technologies or where money's gonna go or startups that that come around. And I feel like particularly since we've been doing this show that the gap between when something happens in the US to when it sort of, you know, gets to the European market is getting closer and closer. Where it used to be like, I don't know, five to 10 years before something sort of caught on in Europe, that that bridge is now maybe three to five years or possibly even less in some cases. And I think that programmatic, obviously Appcast getting acquired by a huge ass European company, you're gonna see programmatic grow tremendously in the next few years.
Joel (15m 16s):
I think with the work from home and anyone can work anywhere phenomenon is, you know, companies don't need tech talent in San Francisco to hire developers. They can do it anywhere in the world. You see the mass, you know, migration of Russian and Ukrainian developers occurring. I think that's gonna be really exciting in terms of energy, and mojo around Europe and startups and things that are created there. I think that that what's unique is because you have, instead of states that speak all the same language and it's like that's not an issue with the states. You have certain things in Europe that are unique to Europe. I'm thinking of QR codes and I'm sure you're laughing, but QR codes were huge outside of the US.
Joel (16m 1s):
They're currently sort of gaining steam back in the US. But when you mention the blockchain CV, to me it seems to make a lot of sense that in a continent with a bunch of countries, a lot of different regulations, a lot of different companies or things that could sort of change what a CV is. If you have something that's almost essentially like a passport.
Chad (16m 22s):
Yeah.
Joel (16m 23s):
Where any country, you know this QR code or this CV is gonna go across any country, it's gonna speak the language of any country. It's gonna have all of my endorsements, all of my certifications. If you can create a passport that goes across all those countries, to me that technology's gonna take off much faster in Europe than it will in the US just because it's not as big a deal here. So, the blockchain thing is gonna be really interesting to watch. To me though, you know, looking forward as well, you know, a lot of these questions that haven't been answered in the US let alone the UK are job seekers better off in this new world? I think that question is still out there in terms of has the technology really helped job seekers?
Joel (17m 5s):
Will a recession swing the pendulum back from job seekers to the employers? You know, with Elon laying off everybody, with Elon saying, Hey everybody back to work, does the pendulum go back to corporations having more power? I mentioned the flood of Russian and Ukrainian workers and how that'll impact things. Ultimately I think the things that JG outline are inevitable, but what does the future hold for not just the US but also Europe I think is really gonna be interesting to watch. And I think that the changes that happen in the US are gonna happen almost in coordination with Europe because the tech divide is so much shorter than it used to be.
Lieven (17m 42s):
Mm, I agree. But Europe sometimes is kind of different just because it's so fragmented. You know, there have been waves of disruption our business since ever, and if you look at one that the job boards came to existence was like the end of the nineties, early two thousands when print became online and it was pretty sudden then 2003 you had LinkedIn, then you had the aggregators, you had Google for jobs, it was all going very fast. But in Europe, those local job boards, they still exist and some of them are still doing very, very good. And I just did a survey at our own company, we have 52 brands in 10 countries in Europe and I checked which boards the job boards are you using and what is the inflow?
Lieven (18m 22s):
And those local job boards are still doing pretty well. I was surprised in fact. And it's mostly because you need the local approach. If you want to reach blue collar workers, the white collars, you can reach through Google Organic, you can, you have Google for jobs, you have Indeed. Those people are actively looking for a job and they know how to do it. But those blue collar workers use still different channels and they mostly go through in Belgium as a Flemish labor department, each country has its own. And those people sometimes are, I'm not going to say archaic, but a bit slow. And they still promote the job boards, which were active 20 years ago. So I don't think it's going to change that fast. It should have, it's been changing forever.
Lieven (19m 4s):
But it's not going to disappear that fast. I do think that Google for Jobs is going to keep growing. We have about 30% of the inflow is coming through Google for jobs, which is big.
Chad (19m 16s):
Wow! Yes.
Lieven (19m 16s):
Yeah. But our websites are really optimized for it. So most of our clients, their sites aren't, which is a good thing for us because for Google for Jobs is an inflow channel and it's not really a competitor. But for Indeed of course it's a big competitor and for the local job works as well. And then programmatics, I totally agree it's going to become huge and it's going to be there fast.
Joel (19m 37s):
I think two things that Lieven said, I think that Google for Jobs has been a really good thing for the niche job board, the local job board. I think that.
Chad (19m 46s):
Oh yeah.
Joel (19m 46s):
The free traffic that they're getting from Google. Whereas before they were trying to outran, you know, Indeed or LinkedIn or other big sites. I think that probably has had a lot to do with the success of those local niche job boards. And the second thing is the government sort of influence on these job sites. I was surprised when we went to House of HR in Belgium how important and how, how well trafficked those government sites are. Whereas the US they're an afterthought. Government job boards and check and speak more to that cuz that's more of his wheelhouse. But we never talk about local state job boards in terms of influence with getting people hired. So I think those two things are pretty unique to Europe
Chad (20m 28s):
I would say to some extent. And also the types of individuals that you're trying to actually connect with in the US but specific question to Lieven, what do you think about the actual blockchain CV? Again, this is something that you would own, it's portable for you, it's your app. Whenever you get background checks, you get accreditations or anything like that, they stay with you. They don't actually go into somebody else's database. What are your thoughts around something like that?
Lieven (20m 56s):
This is something we definitely need and we should have headed by now. And we're working on this WC, world employment configuration. It's working on a thing like that, on a global scale, but in Belgium we are actually taking the lead. I think House of HR is with the federation for the employers, not the staffing companies. So it's such a stupid thing that when people want to apply at let's say House of HR, they need to fill in so many forms and then they go to Adecco, they go to Randstad, and they need to do it once again and again and again. So it's annoying. So it makes sense that people have one data sets, which they can share with whoever they want. And like you say, they have to be in charge.
Lieven (21m 39s):
It's a web 3.0 thing. It's about decentralization. I'm owner of my own data and I decide who has access to it and their blockchain will be a big player. I'm sure it's difficult to get it realized because there are so many people involved.
Chad (21m 55s):
Oh yeah. Think of it from the standpoint of assessments and background checks and those types of things too. So if I've taken an assessment already, I can have that assessment in my wallet, I can have that background check, it's within the last three weeks or six weeks or something like that. So I mean, being able to carry it, this isn't just about, you know, your information and being able to make it easier to apply. Right? This is being able to ensure that those individuals do have those skills. And because we always talk about requirements and we look at a resume, it doesn't mean that person's not lying on their requirements or they're outdated or what have you. I think this, this could be a very large ecosystem that goes beyond just an easy apply.
Lieven (22m 40s):
Yeah. But it starts with easy applying, it's convenience. And also these, this data should be accessible by governments to a certain extent for pension funds, for example. How long have you been working? Where have you been working? Once it's on a blockchain, it's proven it should be right. Then it could be used by government as well. It could be used maybe by unions if they want to, if they get access to, there are so many people who could be involved and it's the hard part is getting everyone aligned.
Joel (23m 9s):
That's an interesting dynamic that's sort of European in nature, right? Chad? We were start talking like, government should have access, Labor union should have access, whereas the American attitude would be it's blockchain nobody can get to it. Like it's mine. No company. No government. Like this is my data.
Chad (23m 24s):
Unless they're gonna get paid. So if the union or you know, the government is actually looking to provide you with benefits or something like that, you're like, Oh fuck yeah, you can have my information. Yeah,
Joel (23m 32s):
Of Course. Because I don't know, I think it could be a thorn in the process. I don't know, and I'm no blockchain expert, but what would stop LinkedIn from saying, Hey, here's your LinkedIn blockchain passport and you can use your LinkedIn resume test everything elsewhere than having the Indeed blockchain verification.
Lieven (23m 52s):
And this is something we need to avoid. I mean, you could have tons of blockchains. No, no, there should be one blockchain, like all kinds of blocks, but just a single block. I mean, I've been working at House of HR for six years, this is documented and I should get a blockchain for that. But if you have tons of different blockchains, then we're back to start. Yeah. It's just a different way of doing the same thing over and over again.
Chad (24m 14s):
Yeah, I think we've had, we've had companies talk about this year after year after year, Joel, we remember being at iCIMS headquarters where they were talking about the blood passport, the passport, right? And this, I mean, shit, that was in 2019?
Joel (24m 28s):
'18 maybe.
Chad (24m 28s):
We haven't seen any of that shit happen. Yeah, it might have been '18. So yeah, no, I think it's one of those things where, first off, if Indeed comes out with a blockchain, you've gotta remember all of the other organizations that also need to participate in this blockchain. This is also for assessments and being able to drive applies and those types of things. Other job boards are not gonna wanna participate in something like that. So it's going to have to be a third party. Same thing with a LinkedIn or something of that nature. Yeah. So it's gonna be some type of a third party that does it.
Lieven (24m 59s):
I agree.
Joel (25m 0s):
Yeah. I think ideally it would be an open source thing that wasn't really controlled by anybody and how you build that, I have no idea. But it's like building WordPress for blogs.
Chad (25m 9s):
Sounds like cryptocurrency and I don't wanna have anything to do with that at all.
Joel (25m 12s):
I need to take a break to work all this shit out. Let's do something. I'm more comfortable with little buy or sell when we get back. All right guys, who's ready for little buy or sell?
Chad (25m 24s):
Yes!
Joel (25m 24s):
I know I am. You know how this works everybody, we talk about three companies that have recently gotten money or gotten highlighted. Hey, we read a summary and then each of us will either buy or sell that business. Are you guys ready to play a little buy or sell?
Chad (25m 42s):
Bring it.
Lieven (25m 44s):
Yep.
Joel (25m 44s):
All right. First up, we have CloudPay. London-based employee payroll software firm CloudPay has announced a $50 million funding round that brings total funding to $255.5 million for the company founded back in 1996. That was a good year, wasn't it Chad? CloudPay connects all employee pay processes, including payroll payments and on-demand pay through a unified platform available across over 130 countries in 168 currencies. Chad, are you gonna buy or sell CloudPay?
Chad (26m 20s):
130 and 168? That's all I needed to see. This is a fast moving sector. It it really is/ to be able to pay somebody quickly. I mean, what do people want? They want their pay and they want it now. To be able to provide that hours after they clock out or maybe even minutes after they clock out again through verification, getting that paid. This is tech of the future. It's today. This is something that we're all going to get used to. Buy, buy, buy.
Joel (26m 49s):
Yeah, so my initial thought was that this sounded a little bit like a feature that maybe HiBob or Personio, or one of the other sort of global platform that they could just sort of tap in there. You and I talked about Beekeeper on the weekly show. We'll talk about it towards the end of this show as well. But I love these companies that organically sort of grow. They put in the hard work, they get, you know, customer by customer, they raise money over a long period of time and these guys being founded back in the nineties, Summer To Beekeeper, the world has come to them. The world has come to them in that we're hiring and employing people all across the globe. We need a way to pay these people and pay them quickly. Now what what sets them apart for me in terms of going from feature to full on product is their recent partnership with Visa Direct.
Joel (27m 40s):
That partnership will enable them to connect these multiple debit accounts, credit card accounts.
Chad (27m 43s):
Yeah.
Joel (27m 44s):
They'll be able to pay people all across the globe in a easy way. They're almost leapfrogging the whole platform that might gobble them up by going right to the companies that pay people.
Chad (27m 53s):
Yes.
Joel (27m 54s):
For their work. So for me it's like the world is caught up to them. They're ready for the world. Oh, Sheila, you know how it goes. This one also, Chad I can't believe I found a way to bring ready for the world into this podcast, right? Leaving
Chad (28m 10s):
And before it even hits this, I just wanna make sure that everybody knows out there, especially in the US when they say, you know, American Express, don't leave home without it. That's only if you're not coming to fucking Europe because they don't take American Express over here people. Visa's the way to go.
Lieven (28m 28s):
Yeah, MasterCard.
Joel (28m 29s):
You can leave home without it.
Lieven (28m 31s):
American Express. I always thought it was something like eighties.
Joel (28m 33s):
It was huge in the eighties and then Seinfeld relaunched it in the nineties. Yeah, sorry. All right man, you got two buys on this thing. Where do you stand?
Lieven (28m 41s):
I like it when people pay me. I prefer when they pay me on time. I'm really not interested in the tech technicalities. It's, CloudPay is paying in the cloud, who cares? But as long as they pay me, it's fine. But the only thing that concerns me or that worries me is when I'm thinking about clouds, I think about Amazon. Amazon cloud services. I think about you have Visas, I think about centralization of data and I don't think whatever people pay me should be on their servers. So I'm going to go against the flow here now. I will sell.
Chad (29m 16s):
Lieven has all of his money in mattresses.
Joel (29m 21s):
I think Lieven is letting his adoration and love for Elon to cloud his.
Lieven (29m 26s):
I must say. Elon is screwed up a bit. He's screwed up a bit.
Joel (29m 31s):
You think the quickest personal brand destruction in history. Yeah, you think so?
Chad (29m 36s):
Just a tad.
Joel (29m 37s):
Alright.
Lieven (29m 38s):
He's gonna surprise us. I still believe he's going to surprise of a big scheme he's hiding for now. But I'm getting a bit worried.
Joel (29m 45s):
A little bit worried. Wow. I'm worried if Lieven's a little bit worried. All right, let's get to Job Protocol.
Lieven (29m 54s):
Ah.
Joel (29m 55s):
London based decentralized employee recruitment portal Job Protocol has announced a 1.5 million Euro precede round ahead of its official launched that occurred on November 8th, just last week. Job Protocol's, core service works with companies to advertise new positions with a quote, "Recruitment Bounty" end quote encoded as a web three smart contract. The startup says, after listing on a Job Protocol or listing a Job Protocol, you'll get a ton of candidates. We go through all of them and push the most relevant ones straight to your ATS or email inbox. It sounds too good to be true. And we're throwing in Web3 Lieven. You've got some strong feelings on this one.
Joel (30m 35s):
What you got?
Lieven (30m 39s):
Indeed. Because the two founders are Belgians. Those are two young Belgium guys.
sfx (30m 44s):
Sexy music.
Lieven (30m 45s):
I know, I know if it's Belgium it's got be good. But one of the founders is Jacob Claerhout. He was mentioned in Forbes 30, below 30 last year. He lives in London, but he's Belgium. And he used to be active as a venture capitalist at Bartech. And during nights, and I believe during weekends as well, he was building a platform for aspiring venture capitalists to prepare for the job. And the other founder is Boris Gordts, he's also a Belgium who used to work at Data Camp and he launched some kind of an app for students. So those two guys decided to do something, I imagine myself, that we were setting in a pub drinking beer and thinking we need to make some money for ourself.
Lieven (31m 25s):
Let's launch a company, let's do something with blockchain recruitment web 3.0. And they came up with a great idea and it's called Job Protocol. And at first I was kind of skeptical. I mean, young people launching a company Job Protocol, stable coin, blockchain, who cares? But I started reading into it because the De Tijd, the financial newspaper in Belgium wrote an article on them this weekend and they asked me for a comment. So I had to do my homework and I got really excited about it. It's really an interesting concept. So for those who don't know, and maybe in Europe still many people don't. Web 3.0 is a concept. It's like going back to, in my opinion, the worldwide web in the early days, the almost an artistic days of the internet.
Lieven (32m 9s):
It's against big tech, it's against centralization of data. Now data is mostly owned by big tech companies, but Web 3.0 is about decentralization. It's about taking ownership of your own data, et cetera. No authority but myself. Power to the people. You know, if you don't wanna be numbered, don't give your name, privacy all Web 3.0. And I'm really a big fan of the whole concept. Job Protocol they want to be a decentralized community. So they want people who are using it to be involved also in decision making. It's like almost communism, but in a good way. And it's a referral system. So they're going to use their platform to recruit people for the web 3.0 industry. So it's kind of an niche site.
Lieven (32m 49s):
They're going to use their community and people are going to get a referral fee on average 10,000 euros and 10% percent on top of that fee is going to the platform. And there will be tokens used and people can use tokens to vote in the decision making process. To raise this community heading to the process or the people will be involved in making decisions. I'm not sure how it's going to go and very detailed, but I really like the concept. They're going to pay the bounties and some kind of a crypto stablecoin. Normally I'm not a big believer in crypto, but in this case, since our aiming for people for the web 3.0 community thing, those people probably will believe in crypto and they will trust it.
Lieven (33m 31s):
I thought if I was going to launch something like that for a normal community and I was talking about crypto, people would just not believe me. And it's all about trust. If you want to give people a bounty for bringing the right candidates, then it's about trust. And in this case it's could work. So I'm definitely, as you can imagine, a buyer.
Joel (33m 53s):
That's a strong buy from Lieven. Going in the hole on that one, I felt a little differently and Chad I guess you can break the tie. So the URL is JobProtocol.xyz, which is so very web three, don't you think? So we talk about European stakes on the show and usually how bad they are, at least from my perspective. So apparently there's a stake in Belgium that will change my mind that Lieven has told us about. Anyway, Job Protocol is basically bounty jobs with blockchain and web three attached to it. Another startup called Brain Trust. And we've talked about Sir Richard's CV wallet are on the blockchain trend as well. At this point, to me, the jury is out on web three as it relates to employment.
Joel (34m 38s):
I think meltdowns like the one at FTX this week are not gonna help any blockchains cause. Only the metaverse right now is surrounded by more hype than the blockchain. Time will tell. But if I were putting my money down, I would have to pass on Job Protocol.
Lieven (34m 56s):
You just didn't get it Joel. You just didn't get it.
Joel (34m 58s):
Oh, that's very likely. Yes.
Chad (35m 1s):
That's what it is. I all I have to say is word salad, baby. Just because you use the term web three, smart contracts, you throw in crowdsourcing and then you pay people in crypto at the end right there. I don't fucking trust that in a heartbeat. Then it says candidates are vetted by Job Protocol. How? Smart contracts, I mean, again, you can't vet unless you actually have the connections and the infrastructure set up with all of the assessments, all of the educators, those types of things. What are you gonna vet? How do we actually know? So from my standpoint, one of the things that I hate is looking at organizations that are built, startups that really have no background in this business.
Chad (35m 48s):
And I'm talking about more of the recruiting and HR and talent-management side of the house. So if something new comes along, they'd better have deep experience in this. And I don't see it here again. Can't trust them. It's a sell.
Lieven (36m 6s):
More for me, more for me.
Joel (36m 7s):
Tell your buddies to call us. We'll get, we'll get a demo. We'll bring 'em on the show. They can sell us on the idea.
Lieven (36m 16s):
It's racism. You just don't like Belgium people.
Joel (36m 17s):
We love Belgium people.
Chad (36m 19s):
I don't know if you've met, I don't know if you've met Rika Coppens, but I I love that one.
Joel (36m 26s):
Yeah, but Rika Rocks.
Lieven (36m 28s):
Rika Rock. Don't forget to vote. RikaRocks.be
Joel (36m 31s):
All right. In the spirit of always bringing OnlyFans into our show. How about the OnlyFans of job candidates? That's right. Rather than assuming the value of a match to the tune of thousands of euros for intermediaries and employers. Startup Earn Hire chooses to pay the owners of a resume when their resume is viewed. Founded in 2017, Earn Hire says it's the same revenue job boards Indeed, LinkedIn, etcetera used to thrive. And that earn hire innovates job search by providing you equity and ownership in your own content. No money raised, but they were mentioned in the European job board transitioning article.
Joel (37m 13s):
Money for resume views and your chicks for free. Chad, are you buy or sell on EarnHire?
Chad (37m 19s):
I heard GJ talk about it, or at least I read him talk about it. And I thought this seems pretty interesting. So I go to the website and I click on a button that says learn more about resume profile. And I got a 404 every button that I click to try to learn more is a job seeker. I got a 404 error, not good, right out of the gates.
Joel (37m 40s):
Yep.
Chad (37m 40s):
I jumped into the actual resume profile area where the employers go. This is where they actually take a look to see if they can find any talent and then they'll pay for viewing. It was all junk test like accounts. Then I go to the about page and it talks about this company called Bintl Hire in the FAQs. So this company is all over the place. Yeah, I don't know what GJ was looking for. Plus, if you remember, job.com actually had a pay feature, right? And they had these great credit cards and all this other fun stuff and what did Aaron say they did with the credit cards?
Chad (38m 23s):
They fucking killed them because nobody wanted them. So this whole thing to me just seems like a hot steaming pile of garbage that I want to have nothing to do with.
sfx (38m 33s):
machine gun bullets
Joel (38m 33s):
Yikes. Yikes. All right. Yeah, you frankly stole a lot of my thunder. A lot of 4 0 4 errors. Just a lot of not ready for prime time. The design of this thing looks like somebody did it in 2003. It looks like a one man shop, one man show. So there's the business commentary. These guys clearly aren't A+ like level business.
Chad (39m 0s):
No.
Joel (39m 1s):
Yeah. Let's put that aside. Let's talk about the idea of paying people for access to resumes or whatever. And you mentioned job.com, which is basically like when you get hired and like it was really confusing. You had a lot of complexity of this stuff. I was gonna bring in Purple Squirrel, the business where you can pay money to talk to someone at, you know, Apple or Google. And apparently that's gonna give you the inside track on how to get a job at these companies. I think the employees that use the company brand to like make money on the side is kind of bullshit, but that's aside the point. Yeah.
Chad (39m 34s):
And then you have another company called 21.co. I don't know if you remember these guys or not. Yes, Yes.
Joel (39m 40s):
So they start out as you set a price, you email me and I promised to email you back. So this was fun for entrepreneurs or companies that wanted to talk to investors. You know, if I wanna get an email from Mark Andreson, I'm gonna pay a hundred and whatever dollars it was to get an email back from him. Well that company now in line with the blockchain theme of today, now they're a crypto company now. So, that business model didn't really take, so I think as a business it's hot garbage, as an idea sort of a business idea as well, it's equally as bad. So for me, Earn Hire is a sell and I need to talk to GJ as to what he was thinking when he touted this company.
Lieven (40m 28s):
Okay, let's get beyond Earn Hire as a company and the 4 0 4s, let's just think about the concept. The owner of Resume gets paid every time his resume was looked upon. Something like that. That is the whole concept. Sounds good, but it's so easy to fraud on this. I mean, I can just look for what skills our company is looking for the most right now. Let's say you're looking for a Java developer.net programmer as a recruiter and you're using this database and nine out of 10 of the resumes will be fake because people have been uploading them to make some money. So just because of this. I would say definitely sell.
Chad (41m 8s):
Anytime you have to try to manage whether you The applies or the candidates that you're getting are real or not, just like the whole Indeed bullshit that they're talking about right now.
Lieven (41m 16s):
YES.
Chad (41m 17s):
Exactly With the paper apply Start, you have to go back and you have to check that and you have to submit that back to Indeed. And you've gotta manage the whole process, which makes it even worse, but yet they're trying to make it better. This is the same hot steaming pile.
Joel (41m 33s):
Keep it simple people. Yes. Keep it simple. All right. That's another round of buy or sell. The one that you know and love as always, we agree on at least one of those companies, everybody. And that brings us to the end of buy or sell. All right guys, big news last week out of Europe. Chad and I covered this on the Weekly show, but wanted to get Lieven's take on Beekeeper. A little company that Chad and I were really, really high on. Here's a refresher for those that didn't hear. Beekeeper, a Swiss based company that connects the non desk workforce to operational systems and communication channels has raised 50 million in a series C funding round, bringing total funding to $146.5 million.
Joel (42m 20s):
Since 2020, Beekeeper has seen growth with thousands of frontline business locations now using the platform in more than 150 countries. Lieven, what are your thoughts on Beekeeper if it were buy or sell? Are you a buyer or seller?
Lieven (42m 30s):
No, I just, I really, I really, really, really loved it and I think I'm going to introduce it to my own company. I've never seen an app this complete. It's, wow!
Chad (42m 43s):
Makes me feel good about all the adoration I gave it last week.
Lieven (42m 48s):
Yeah, it's involving chat stream campaigns. It's about inbound outbound. Analytics. It's everything is in is involved so it's great.
Chad (42m 55s):
Pretty Fucking cool.
Lieven (42m 56s):
And something I read, my first opinion was the same as something I read on your podcast. It's like an internet but in an app accessible and that's true. And the best thing was that when I tried to start my trial version of the app, I could install it on my phone. This is something I have never seen before. It asked for my email address. I gave it and then it's suddenly it showed my email. Sorry, my, my logo from House of HR and my, color, just because I'm Lieven at House of HR. It probably went to the website. It got the logo and it got the primary colors and it suggested the look and feel of the app without me having to upload anything at all.
Lieven (43m 39s):
I've never seen something like that.
Chad (43m 41s):
It stole your css. Yeah,
Lieven (43m 43s):
Yeah. Sort of indeed. Yeah.
Chad (43m 45s):
Hijacked the CSS? Yeah. And hijacked the css.
Lieven (43m 47s):
That's awesome. It's extremely convincing that our service will be great. I'm definitely a buyer,
Joel (43m 51s):
Boys. It's been fun. Another one is in the can Chad have fun in London. I'll be thinking about you when I'm in Southern California.
Chad and Cheese (44m 5s):
We out.
Lieven (44m 5s):
We Out.
OUTRO (44m 51s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.
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