Yehuda Beller, co-founder and CRO at Worklik joins the Chad and Cheese podcast for a session of Firing Squad. WorkLik is a video-based job platform that aims to improve the candidate experience and connect job seekers with employers. They focus on hourly workers and Gen Z job seekers who are tired of the traditional hiring process. They've raised $2.5 million in seed funding and are planning to raise a Series A round soon. They offer a pay-per-match model, where employers only pay when they match with a qualified candidate. Sounds familiar, but do they have something unique enough to make it out alive?
Gotta listen.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel Cheesman (00:20.335)
Let's go. What's up everybody? It is the Chad and Cheese podcast and this is Firing Squad. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always Chad Sosch is in the house as we welcome Yahuda Beller, co -founder and CRO at Worklick. Yahuda, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast.
Yehuda Beller (00:30.08)
Thank you.
Chad Sowash (00:34.553)
Excuse
Yehuda Beller (00:42.016)
Hello, hello, hello. Good to be here. What's
Joel Cheesman (00:45.137)
Good to have you. Good to have you. most of our listeners won't know you or the company and work like is more or less a good Saturday night for some people. So give us a little Twitter bio about you before we get into the
Chad Sowash (00:45.469)
Very nice.
Chad Sowash (00:57.04)
on OnlyFans.
Yehuda Beller (01:01.346)
So I guess at the top of my bio, I'm a loyal chat and cheese podcast listener. Never missed a session.
Joel Cheesman (01:07.749)
Yes, yes, way to butter us up.
Chad Sowash (01:11.015)
Sucking up right out of the gate sucking up right out of the gate. Okay. Okay. I see where this is
Yehuda Beller (01:14.337)
In all seriousness, yeah, now I'm 33 years old, born in Israel. My mom's from New York City, Queens. My father's a rabbi from England. And after the military service, I went to work in retail abroad. I ended up building and managing a very large retail company in Southeast Asia, where after a decade, I came back to Israel after learning the pains of recruitment. And I just got married to a beautiful young Jewish lady a few weeks
And that's my second full -time job.
Joel Cheesman (01:44.134)
Hello.
Chad Sowash (01:47.965)
Right after the honeymoon, they get the Chad and Cheese honeymoon. Okay, here we go.
Joel Cheesman (01:52.731)
Geez, Chad, tell him what he's won. Tell him what he's won by being on today's episode of The Firing
Chad Sowash (01:59.389)
Well, you're welcome to firing squad. This is how it's going to go at the sound of the bell. You're going to have two minutes to pitch work. Lick at the end of two minutes. We're going to hit you with about 20 minutes of Q and a be sure to be concise or you're going to get the crickets, which means that tighten up your game at the end of Q and a you're going to receive either a big applause. That's right. Video killed the radio star, but it gave work. Lick rocket fuel golf clap.
Worklick will need more than video to get to the moon on this one, but you've got a chance. And last but not least, the firing squad. Much like every other Buggles hit that never made it on MTV, nobody will be paying attention to Worklick. Fail fast, shut it down, start something new. Are you ready for firing
Joel Cheesman (02:32.677)
it
Joel Cheesman (02:48.811)
I want my MTV.
Yehuda Beller (02:53.014)
Let's do it!
Joel Cheesman (02:54.407)
Pitch us in 3 -2.
Yehuda Beller (02:58.766)
So how come with all these new solutions and products that are coming out that are supposed to solve hiring for the employers, we still see a ton of open roles and it never seems to be like there's available candidates or at least not quality runs, right? So that's exactly the problem. Most of these products and the solutions that we're seeing are actually aimed at the employer and they overlook the most important part, which is the actual job seeker. And so Wrklik took a very unique and different approach and we zeroed in on the one thing that's been overlooked for far too
which is the candidate experience. Now, just to illustrate that, imagine you're a job seeker, Gen Z, you're 20 years old in New York, you're looking for a job, and you have to go and create a resume. And the first problem is you're 20, so you have nothing to put on your resume. And the second problem is resumes are dying, especially when we talk about Gen Z, particularly amongst hourly workers. And finally, you have to create this resume. You go on one of the boring, unrelatable...
that haven't changed in years, job boards, and you apply just to get lost in the ATS black hole. So this holist experience isn't suitable for this generation of workers. Work click, very different, right? The candidate signs up, it's super easy and quick. You don't need a resume, resume free environment, and you basically get on a dating app feel, right? It feels like dating app. You answer questions about yourself that create your profile. And the second step is where the magic happens. Over here, you create a short video intro of yourself.
which allows you to showcase your personality and your soft skills and allows you to actually be seen by the employer and not just screened by any system. And finally, our matchmaking algorithm kicks in very similar to the way a dating app works. It matches you with a perfect job based on criteria and not just key search words like what happens on a job board. And when you apply, the application is direct and the interaction is almost live. So the application is actually relevant and fresh.
This type of job matching is significantly improving the response from candidates and it means that they're showing up to interviews, they're getting hired and ultimately all that good stuff like high recruitment success rate and very low hiring costs.
Joel Cheesman (05:05.127)
All right, breathe, Yehuda, breathe, take a breath. I don't know how you did that. That was, was, Hey, hey, that's a, that's a long elevator ride. You should have that pitched down. No, no problem. All right, man. Let's, let's get, let's get to the obvious, the name. All right. Work lick. So many jokes I could make, but I won't. why work lick? was the C not available? by the way,
Yehuda Beller (05:07.95)
You only gave me two minutes. I think it was like two out of five.
Chad Sowash (05:08.828)
Ooh, he practiced it. He practiced, he practiced.
Yehuda Beller (05:17.806)
Loved
Joel Cheesman (05:34.951)
worklick .com, the way you spell it, is available for about $2 ,000, which seems to me like not a big deal. And someone listening to this could go by just to screw you, screw with you. So why the name? Why don't you have the .com? Please, please help me with worklick.
Yehuda Beller (05:57.238)
Yeah, well, it's dot com. like the way the Kelly L. A. K. Look like with just the case. At the time.
Joel Cheesman (06:03.269)
All right. It's .com, it's W R K L K. Like it's not okay. You got the .com, but kinda drop two grand and get, get the real .com. Go
Yehuda Beller (06:11.138)
Yeah, it looked nice with the five letters.
on it, on it, on it. They like the way the five letters look, the WRKLK, the branding team, so we went with it. Pretty self -explanatory, it's work and...
Joel Cheesman (06:24.155)
What's the relevance to video resumes? Is there any relevance I'm missing?
Yehuda Beller (06:29.77)
That's not our, I mean, no, it's about work is self -explanatory. It's more about the click, you know, the click between the candidate and the employer, the click on the mouse, the click on the button. That's more what we're focusing on, the speed.
Joel Cheesman (06:36.583)
click.
Joel Cheesman (06:41.38)
Okay, okay, all
Chad Sowash (06:42.476)
to really like work click.
Yehuda Beller (06:45.144)
or click or clicking.
Joel Cheesman (06:45.319)
That's not how you know I read it. At most 20 years, years, year olds I know probably won't read it that way either. Let's talk about funding. You've been around since 2020, according to Crunchbase. You've raised a pre -seed round of undisclosed money. Are you guys profitable? Do you not need to raise money? Are you looking to raise a real seed round? Like talk about the funding.
Chad Sowash (06:48.251)
No, that's not how I read it either, but go
Yehuda Beller (07:10.638)
We launched at the end of 2021. I'm not sure. I mean, crunch base, thank you. we raised around, we raised about two and a half million dollars in seed, I guess, a little bit of pre seed as well. And so that's what we've raised so far. And that went into building our sandbox market and expanding into the U .S. And we're looking for series A towards the end of the
Joel Cheesman (07:15.985)
Call Crunch Base.
Joel Cheesman (07:37.095)
So the 2 million was part of the 2023 round that was the undisclosed round. You're now disclosing it. No, it's not. All right, it's disclosed. All right, good to know.
Yehuda Beller (07:44.148)
Yeah, is it on Disclose and Crunchface? It's disclosed. Okay, there you
Here on the show.
Chad Sowash (07:51.613)
It's disclosed. Yes. So yeah, give me give me some background, your background. I understand that, you know, you had a problem, you're in retail, one of the reasons why this company came to be. But give us your background in this space with with regard to talent identification, process methodology, technology, those types of things. And then also the rest of the leadership teams
Yehuda Beller (08:19.502)
Yeah. So myself and the CEO, we met in the retail world and the company that I sold before getting into this, I sold my part at least is a 450 retail location business in Southeast Asia and Australia. So it's large enough to really experience the pain points of recruitment hand on. And I built it from the scratch up, including recruitment departments and HR departments. And I've tried every job board and every staffing agency on the planet. So we had enough experience from both our sides.
understand hourly hiring hands -on and that's where I was born and then internally I mean we have on our advisory board we have some very smart people that we consult with on a weekly basis people like Tony Fogel who has Tri Search Company or Colin Day who built ISIMS or Anthony Petraco and they work with us very closely so we always have the resources and the expertise to give us the comprehensive solutions we
Chad Sowash (09:13.531)
Yeah, that was a coup to get Colin Day, by the way. The guy has been in the space for a very long time. Is he also an investor as well as an advisor?
Yehuda Beller (09:24.064)
He's not an investor at the moment, just an advisor. But,
Chad Sowash (09:27.291)
Gotcha. So digging into the technology, there's a mandate to register, which is a friction point, right? But how many downloads of the app do you have? Because I could see this actually working much better on on mobile than on a desktop. So talk a little bit about desktop versus mobile and the amount of app downloads that you currently
Yehuda Beller (09:53.518)
So up until literally this month, we've only been web, just very phone friendly, right? So it's been a web app and we have thousands of candidates signing up every month and iOS just approved the app and we're just ready for download now. So it's in like the sort of test and trial era at the moment. So the numbers on the downloads of the app are not interesting
Chad Sowash (10:22.383)
Okay, okay. So I mean, this seems like the this would be more app forward just because a lot of this data is gonna be held by the candidate, right? It's going to be the candidates data. So why did you come out desktop first before really going app forward? Because I mean, that seems like that's really where the market is on the app side.
Yehuda Beller (10:48.202)
Yeah, I I think it was just a matter of convenience. That's what we started with when we developed it and it worked well. And we were growing very, very fast. And so we didn't want to spend more time, resources and money on building another marketing initiative and marketing campaign for the app. And it worked well for us. We managed to grow with the web app and we're now ready to expand with downloads.
Chad Sowash (11:15.855)
Okay, so how many individuals do you have currently set up, account set up within the web app itself? How many users?
Yehuda Beller (11:24.334)
So with job seekers, have around over 40 ,000 job seekers signed up.
Chad Sowash (11:30.385)
Okay. Is that just in New York or is that nationwide?
Yehuda Beller (11:34.286)
That's nationwide. It's not nationwide. It's globally. And then New York specifically is where we're expanding now. Every candidate is basically a unique user. So we don't scrape from other job boards. And also every candidate, if they're not active, they get deleted for user privacy. And so we can build ourselves to be GDPR compliant and so that the data stays fresh and relevant.
Chad Sowash (11:39.589)
Okay.
Chad Sowash (12:00.349)
So is that every six months you just wipe it if they don't use
Yehuda Beller (12:04.492)
Mm -hmm precisely
Chad Sowash (12:05.597)
Okay, okay. So on the process side, users have to create videos right out of the gate. Do you expect me to give an employer my rundown? Okay, I'm not a 20 year old, let's say, but you know, I want to have a side hustle. Shut up, Cheeseman. I want to have a side hustle, right? So do you expect me to give my entire work history on video when I start?
Joel Cheesman (12:17.776)
You are not.
Yehuda Beller (12:32.458)
No, it's supposed to be a short video intro. There's like guidance when you sign up, when you create the video. The idea is to talk a little bit about your experience and some of your soft skills. Typically, people make like candidates make like a one minute video, maybe a minute and a half. Like the ones who extended are going into two minutes. And I think it's just consumer behavior to make a short video anyway. It's not going to replace a full blown resume. And then you don't have to break every single step of your history down.
But for a 22 year old looking for work, it's
Chad Sowash (13:05.831)
So you're literally just focusing on early 20s as opposed to somebody beyond that because you keep referring to younger, younger individuals as opposed to the rest of the world. So is this really just specifically targeted for the Gen Z's and the Gen Alphas when they finally get into the workspace?
Yehuda Beller (13:28.686)
Look, we're candidate centric, so our talent pool is diverse because we're creating a platform that is creating opportunity for anyone. It doesn't matter how sexy your resume looks or how much experience you have or even if you had a six year gap in your resume because you're a single mother and that's what happened and your resume probably wouldn't fly through an ATS. And so here, the video gives you an opportunity to showcase your personality.
and talk about yourself and show your communication skills and so on. And so the idea is that it creates opportunity for everyone. But naturally we attract a younger generation of job seekers because of our messaging and because of our user experience, which is Gen Z friendly, but it's also just trends in terms of technology. And that's where everyone's going.
Chad Sowash (14:16.039)
So do you think that video might be a problem for individuals? Again, we're talking about risk, risk assessment for companies. Do you think video might be an issue that early in the process?
Yehuda Beller (14:33.13)
It's where a lot of the conversion rate drops, obviously. That's obvious. Yeah. But what we're trying to do is we're trying to create a preliminary interview style process. So we want every single candidate to be seen by the employer and every single candidate to get an opportunity to be sort of interviewed. I'm not going to call this a full interview, but we already have quite a few use cases with hospitality groups that
eliminated their preliminary interviews. watch these video interviews and if they're impressed they send them directly to the store manager, restaurant manager for the final interview. The difference is over here you don't have to be screened, Your video gets sent directly. And yeah, of course candidates are going to drop. That's part of it, definitely. But we want the serious ones.
Joel Cheesman (15:19.803)
Let's talk about the competitive landscape. Loyal listeners of our show will know the cavalcade of people who are trying to do recruiting without a resume, whether it's chat, whether it's audio, whether it's just no resume at all. Like where do you guys fit in into this world? Because it is so cluttered. I'm sure customers are confusing or confused.
Yehuda Beller (15:44.664)
I don't know any platforms that complete directly with us because we're the first of our kind and we're the only matchmaking app that connects job seekers and employers in the way we do, similar to a dating app. We're not a job board and we also know that today's customers are not satisfied with job boards and pushed out ATS job postings. They're getting old stale data and because we prioritize the matchmaking experience, it
that the data is fine and live and fresh. And so every application is personalized and fresh. And it means that we're prioritizing through a new category. And so that's the way we're competing. We're prioritizing quality over quantity. And we'll continue to outpace the competitors if we go fast and aggressively. It's also not our first time. Second platform we've built. I sent you the first one.
Joel Cheesman (16:23.985)
Mm -hmm.
Joel Cheesman (16:35.879)
Yeah. Uh, we could probably dispute it's never been done before. Uh, but maybe we'll save that for a different podcast or chat could obviously bring it up. I'm curious about this algorithm, this dating matching thing. Um, we're talking about young people that you yourself said have no resumes. How are we matching 20 year olds that have no prior experience to a job that has specific, uh, you know, requirements and explain to me how your algorithm is so magical.
that it takes a 20 year old with no experience as matches them with a
Yehuda Beller (17:11.086)
The matchmaking algorithm has two components to it. So it has the core criteria. So for example, when you're a recruiter, let's say you're looking for a bartender and you have to have a bartender who A, has experience as a bartender and B, they have to be available within two weeks. Obviously I'm simplifying it, but imagine that's your core criteria. If the candidate
Joel Cheesman (17:31.303)
Mm -hmm.
Yehuda Beller (17:35.074)
has the bartending experience and they're available within two weeks, then and only then it's what we call an instant match. And anyone else will be filtered out automatically. They'll be able to request an application, but they won't be able to apply directly, which is unheard of. The way resume matching works today, it's the majority of the solutions, they just use key search words, right? Keywords. And so that's at its
At the back end, we've got a whole system set up. It's an AI, it's our own language that we've built where it basically continuously learns and boost jobs to the top of your list as a job seeker based on what you've been looking for, what answers you've given the questions in your experience throughout the platform. And that's another layer too.
Joel Cheesman (18:18.129)
So are you, are you mostly matching hourly seasonal, those kinds of jobs or these I just graduated and I'm, I need an entry level accounting position. Like which one of those do you play in more than the other? I assume it's the, the hourly work seasonal that kind of part -time jobs.
Yehuda Beller (18:33.228)
We're focused on hourly. Yeah, we're focused on hourly work. Yeah, it's hospitality and retail, it's hourly work, it's restaurants and hotels, those types of jobs, exactly.
Joel Cheesman (18:46.536)
Okay. So I mean, bartender was a really specific, you know, that's pretty specific, like, most of these jobs are I just need someone that can have a has driver's license and can show up or I need someone who can lift 50 pounds or I need someone who can, you know, flip a burger or at least learn how to do that. So the I'm confused at the matching, it feels like a lot of the resumes that I would have to look at would be
Chad Sowash (18:59.281)
Heartbeat.
Joel Cheesman (19:13.061)
they're, it's the same people. kind of like, don't have specific requirements. And then my next question is, know that most recruiters take six seconds or less to look at a resume. I've always thought the problem with video resumes is no one wants to sit through and watch a video that's longer than six seconds when I can really scan a resume really quickly. So talk me through how this is easier for a recruiter than just looking at a quick resume or an application in this case, because we do still have applications for people who have resumes.
Why is this better than like the old school way of looking at applications or resumes?
Yehuda Beller (19:47.626)
Yeah, so first of all, you're right. Like the huge chunk of the job seekers that are looking for work don't necessarily have a specific type of experience. And so the video intro, the video resume would be a huge advantage for them because their experience is less impressive. And so the video would be an opportunity for them to talk about whether they're a team player or if they're hardworking and talk about other soft skills they have. And for the employer,
Again, it gives an opportunity to get a real glimpse of who the candidate is instead of sifting through a resume that we both know that if the person doesn't actually have real experience, it's either not a helpful resume, right, for the candidate. And if it is very helpful for the candidate to land a job, you know, in some cases it's been fluffed up by generative AI just to make it look better. And so the focus is on human connection, making sure that humans are seeing humans, that a job
will be seen by an employer. And in terms of the time consuming, resumes take more time because you have to go through more. And so we're focusing on quality over quantity. So our recruitment success rate today is anywhere between 11 to 15 % because we're not pushing huge databases of old stale data. Typically what happens when you push out jobs from ATS or on a job board, we're not scraping users. Every candidate is applying and they're applying live.
Joel Cheesman (21:04.135)
Mm -hmm.
Yehuda Beller (21:12.558)
And one last thing that happens, which does save time because the quality of the applicant is so fresh, we limit the amount of times every candidate can apply. So they can only apply three times or to three roles within 24 hours. If they get rejected, then they can apply again. After 24 hours, they get extra credit. So they get very picky. The candidates are very picky about where they're applying to because they're limited. It keeps them focused. They don't rage apply, something typical to job boards. But the employer is the real winner because you're getting fresh, relevant data.
in comparison to the experience on a job board.
Chad Sowash (21:46.971)
Love that because that kills obviously the bot apply issue, right? I that. One thing I don't like though is some of the messaging that you had in your video that actually said, you know what, screw the employer. Screw the employer on this. But the question is, Yehuda, who pays for this? Is the job seeker paying for this or is the employer paying for
Yehuda Beller (21:46.99)
So you save
Joel Cheesman (22:10.779)
What was this messaging? I missed
Yehuda Beller (22:14.99)
No, I understand what he's saying too. I understand what you're saying. No, I understand what you're saying. We don't say screw the employer anywhere in our messaging. Of course not. But when we created the product, when we set up
Joel Cheesman (22:15.771)
They literally don't say, the employer.
Chad Sowash (22:18.919)
Lee.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (22:29.711)
You did too. It was on a video. I can pull it for you. I can pull it for you. It was with Colin Day and you said to start the whole process, we had to say screw the employer.
Yehuda Beller (22:33.684)
No, no, no.
Joel Cheesman (22:40.213)
Yehuda Beller (22:41.076)
Exactly. To start the process. Exactly. So to start the process, first thing we have to say is why aren't employers getting enough relevant candidates? And so in order to understand why, we went into the job seeker. And because we wanted the employer to win, the first step is we have to make sure the candidate is winning. So screw the employer means we're not going to make another ATS. We're not going to make another
Chad Sowash (22:45.181)
Okay.
Yehuda Beller (23:07.756)
SaaS platform that will connect to billion job boards and give you all data. We're going to go in and create the perfect candidate experience for hourly workers, for the type of job seeker that don't get enough attention, for Gen Z that are tired of the traditional way. And once we win the candidates over and we have fresh relevant candidates signing up, both because of our messaging that is very candidate centric and our user experience that is candidate centric, the employers will win as a result
So screw the employer, it's for them. We're doing it for the employers.
Joel Cheesman (23:40.667)
These are not
Chad Sowash (23:40.935)
Because the employers need screwed. so not so much as it's very Gen Z forward. I mean, don't get me wrong. Right? No, I mean, that is very Gen Z Gen Z forward. Gen Z is like screw the employer. And, know, Yehuda is like, hey, we're with you, screw the employer. Although the employer is going to pay us to get to get to
Joel Cheesman (23:47.941)
He tried some ninja Jedi mind trick shit on
Joel Cheesman (24:00.583)
These are not the droids you're looking
Yehuda Beller (24:01.686)
No, the solution for the employers is amazing, by the way. It's super intuitive, it's super easy. It takes two seconds to create a job post. Everything's automated. have an automated interview scheduling that's been launched this month. It's a super easy interface. could be VSB or enterprise. We put a huge focus on that, but the first step was to win with the candidates.
Chad Sowash (24:27.847)
So in the same interview, you said the human connection, WorkLik drives the human connection between the job seeker and the employer. Is that just because you have video or explain that to us?
Yehuda Beller (24:43.768)
There's a lot of components that go into that video, as you mentioned, is one of them. So making sure that every candidate gets interviewed, right? Every candidate is seen, not just screened by an applicant tracking system. We are very, very cautious with our algorithms to make sure that nothing is discriminatory. And we make sure that we're creating opportunities for all job seekers. And so that's the being human part. You know, the experience in the last decade
many layers of ATSs and algorithms that are created these screens between the job seeker and the employer. And it's not working, obviously. There's a gap. There's open roles and not enough candidates. And so we want to bring that back together. And there's a few ways we're doing that. The video is one of them, but it's also the live interaction. There's a chat that it's automatically bringing up notifications from the employer to the candidate.
There's one other thing we took a lot of inspiration from dating apps like OkCupid. And I think it was Bumble or Hinge where you can the girl gets to send the message first, right? We did that here as well. If you have a match, if you're not a match, can't send a message. But if you match with a job, you can send a message to the employer against something that doesn't typically happen with the traditional job boards. There's there's like the screen and you can't get past it. And there's small automations within the statuses that make sure that the candidate is always engaged. And
We're making sure that there's engagement between the candidate and the employer at any given time, hence human connection.
Chad Sowash (26:13.031)
How are you ensuring that you're not blocking qualified individuals from actually seeing jobs and applying to jobs on your platform? Because that one part was a little bit risky for me because I might not say the right thing on my video. I might not give you the right intention, although I might still have the qualifications and I could be blocked.
from actually seeing the job and the company. I mean, how do you rectify that? As an employer, I don't want
Yehuda Beller (26:48.654)
I'm not sure I understand. Are you asking if the employers see a video and they don't want that candidate?
Chad Sowash (26:51.451)
You just said that you just know you just said that the candidate can't apply unless they match, right? What's to say that you're?
Yehuda Beller (26:59.246)
No, no, they can. They can apply. They can't send a message in the chat. They can apply. Everyone can apply. Not only that everyone can apply, everyone can apply with a video resume. So, yeah, just to clarify.
Chad Sowash (27:09.105)
Gotcha. Okay. No, perfect. I appreciate the clarification. Let's talk about total addressable market. Are you focusing on SMB, enterprise, geography wise? Where's your focus? Tell us a little about the total addressable market.
Yehuda Beller (27:13.197)
Norse.
Yehuda Beller (27:25.11)
Yeah, so we started off with a global platform where the goal was for employers to use our platform to hire candidates from Israel. There was a huge demand because everyone loved the IP and they loved the way it was matching them from employers in the US from all local. And so we started expanding on that. And so now our key focus is hospitality and retail. We work with a few other sectors, but mostly hourly work.
And the majority of the customers we're focusing now is mid -market. So small, medium businesses anywhere from like three to 30 location type of businesses, a few hundred employees to a few thousand.
Chad Sowash (28:05.799)
So what's your go to market with regard to that? Because being able to go mid -market is not as easy, obviously, as going after the Marriottes of the world. Being able to, prospectively, go to the mothership and kind of come down from the mothership at Marriott, mid -market and small market is much harder. So how are you trying to address and target those types of organizations to use Worklic?
Yehuda Beller (28:30.252)
Yeah, mid -market marketing is hard. Our two main channels that are working very well for us at the moment is number one, partnerships. Partnerships is the way to go. We have a lot of synergies with other companies in the space, whether it's companies that are serving hospitality and retail or other companies in the HR space. So could be, you know, in payroll or new Gen Z or employee focused type LMS tools, which we have synergies with them.
So we've been signing partnerships on a daily basis and those are very, very helpful mutual partnerships agreement which bring in referrals. And then we have a few other tactics that are working. We do a lot of interviews, like user interviews, which turn into sales and we set up a lot of design partnerships.
Joel Cheesman (29:19.207)
Let's stick with a marketing for a little bit. I saw something on the site about the partnerships and who you're partnered with. So we'll just take that for face value. I, but I can look at, at some of your social media footprint and everyone's telling me that, these 20, 20 year olds that you're targeting love the tick and the talk, right? They're on tick tock all the time. So I would expect that you would have a large fan base that loves this product that are on tick
Uh, well, unfortunately you have a whopping three followers on tech talk. Um, your Instagram isn't much better at 148 followers, et cetera. So you're a product for young people, but young people don't seem to be embracing you on social media, which apparently is where they hang out all the time. above the partnerships, like, aren't we seeing traction on their favorite place to hang out social media on a marketing standpoint?
Yehuda Beller (30:13.66)
Yeah, the partnerships are for the employers. That's for our paying customers. Our strength is in bringing in candidates. And we built a huge talent pool with our sandbox market, which I mentioned earlier, where we built a huge presence on different digital assets. So we're very strong on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, and we convert beautifully there with very smart messaging.
Joel Cheesman (30:17.959)
You gotta have both though.
Joel Cheesman (30:28.615)
Mm -hmm.
Yehuda Beller (30:39.214)
very relatable, it's all about Reels and UCG. And we just started expanding our socials in the US. So that's new for us. The majority of our talent in the US up until now was coming through Google. And we have a very smart Google team behind us. And that's where we're converting the majority of our job seekers up until now. And we've just started setting up our accounts on TikTok and Meta. And we're starting to see traction from there. And we're extremely confident because it's our second
Joel Cheesman (31:04.849)
So walk me through, I'm a, I don't know, I'm a small mom and pop restaurant in New York and I need people and I want to post my job or get traction from your solution. What happens once I post that job? How are you getting candidates into their, into their funnel?
Yehuda Beller (31:23.15)
So once you post a job, define the type of... First of all, you post a job, it takes about a second. It could add the media for you automatically. There's an AI component that can create the job post for you. And then once you're up, you define the criteria. So could say, like we mentioned before, I need the server with X experience and X availability and so on. And from the job seeker side, they reach our platform, they sign up, they answer the questions and
platform will recommend jobs to them based on the criteria that they've answered. And then when they apply, the employer will get a notification. They'll open up the profile, see the video, see the details. And if they're unimpressed, they could deny. And if they're impressed, could talk to them in the chat and invite them for an interview. Does that answer the question?
Chad Sowash (32:10.043)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (32:11.364)
It's an answer.
Chad Sowash (32:13.347)
It's an answer. Okay, so let's do this. There are huge issues with high volume. First and foremost, it's attrition. We're seeing, I mean, you're filling a leaky bucket, which is incredibly hard. So how can you actually help provide a solution if literally all you're doing is throwing throwing people into a leaky bucket? Number one, number two, ghosting is a huge issue. How do you just showing up for the first day, you can get hired.
Right? But there so many opportunities that a lot of times those individuals don't show up for the first day because they took another job somewhere else. How do you keep them engaged? So those two areas, attrition, you can't, how do you fix a leaky bucket and ghosting? How do you stop the
Yehuda Beller (32:59.466)
I'm not sure I understand the first part of the question. I can answer the second part and then we can go back to the first part.
Chad Sowash (33:03.535)
attrition turnover is turnover. So their biggest problem isn't identifying new talent. It's keeping the talent they already have in house, right? It's not an issue. Yes, turnover from their side. Sorry about that. So turnover from their side. And then again, obviously also on the ghosting part.
Yehuda Beller (33:13.102)
Okay, you're talking about turnover from their side.
Yehuda Beller (33:26.702)
So for the ghosting part, again, I'll give you an annoying answer first. And that is that from the point of hired, okay, it's almost impossible to control the market. And so what we've done is two things. The first thing is we've tried our best and we're doing a very good job at it so far with fitting the right candidate for the right job, right? And so we're seeing that our retention rates has grown from five months to around eight months. So there's a longer retention.
Are we going to change the way J and Z behave and the new types of this generation of workers behave and in hourly work behavior? That's almost impossible. And with time, you see people moving from workplace to workplace at a higher speed because this generation prioritized their own happiness and they're more mindful about their mental health and they prioritize experiences over just a career. And so we're embracing that. We're not trying to change that.
but we do see better fits of candidates to the right job, which helps with retention and helps with turnover. So that's regarding that. And with ghosting, again, if someone's already hired and they don't show up, that's one problem. But what is happening on our platform is A, automatic interview scheduling will help reduce the amount of time spent, right? And it will allow the recruiters to spend their time on other things instead of chasing candidates.
And because the interaction is live and because the application is so fresh, the response rates are higher and more relevant candidates show
Joel Cheesman (34:55.941)
Alright, let's get to some pricing because this shit sounds expensive. know Chad's rolling money there in Portugal, but for me, I'm a regular guy. This sounds really, really pricey. Talk to me about the revenue model. How do companies pay for this? What are they going to pay for it? Break it
Chad Sowash (35:11.663)
regular guy.
Yehuda Beller (35:16.557)
So you post completely for free because we've taken a pay -per -match approach, which is a model that was created again out of our own pain of paying tons of money to advertise on job boards and compete with the Marriottes that you mentioned before. And basically you could post your job for free and only pay when you match with a candidate that meets all the criteria that we mentioned before. And the match is around $19.
It can decrease based on the amount of prepaid credit that you spend. So you could buy 50 or 200 upfront and when it depletes, it renews automatically if you want it
Joel Cheesman (35:50.503)
So if your secret algorithm matches you, I'm going to pay 19 bucks for that. Is that what I'm hearing? Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, you Huda. That is the bell. That means it is time to face the firing squad. Are you ready?
Yehuda Beller (35:57.108)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Yehuda Beller (36:09.504)
I am. Let's do it.
Joel Cheesman (36:10.729)
All right, Chad, what do you
Chad Sowash (36:14.109)
All right, me first. OK, so I love me some Colin Day. He will definitely be the cornerstone of your advisory group. I also love that, you know, you're capping to three applies a day. Everybody is worried about this mass bot avalanche of applies. You guys have figured out, you know, that you can you can at least cap that. That's awesome.
SMB sucks, although partnerships are the only way to go. They are a huge, huge force multiplier for many different areas, obviously not just for employers, but also to be able to get, you know, penetration into the market for candidates. So hopefully you'll move that way as well. But let's face it, high volume roles are hard. It's extremely competitive. mean, we we actually
have had eHarmony, you might have remembered those guys, they actually started a jobs arm and they shut it down because the dating jobs thing just doesn't work. The Tinder for jobs, we've had several of companies say that they are the Tinder for jobs. Yeah. And they've all died. They're pretty much laying in the alley, in the back alley, HR back alley.
Joel Cheesman (37:19.505)
Switch. Jobber.
Chad Sowash (37:33.711)
Attrition is generally high, reaching talent, identify all these things, right? So we have several tries from data apps, but this is a very hard to capture market, right? It kind of feels like you're riding the TikTok bandwagon, which is not a bad thing.
I do think that you're leaning in incredibly hard on the young millennials and gen Z's, which could be your sweet spot, especially if you stay in that specific tam that you're in.
Chad Sowash (38:13.541)
At the end of the day, I appreciate all of this. I think you've got a hell of a lot of work to do. Not just a little bit. You're gonna have to lean hard on your buddy, Colin Day, and any advisor that's out there. But I think you have a chance, and I'm gonna give you a golf clap, because at the end of the day, this is something that we need. We need these great ideas that are out there.
The question is, you have the discipline and do you have the right advisors to be able to make you go where you need to go? So good luck with that, Yehuda.
Joel Cheesman (38:45.263)
All right. A little bruised, but you're still alive. You're still alive, you've got to face me next. And, and what can I say about work? Like that hasn't really been said already. yahoo to congratulations. You've, you've effectively combined three of the things I hate the most, in companies in this space, you are video, you are small business and your kids. I hate all of those things for businesses that target those and you've targeted all three. So congratulations.
Yehuda Beller (38:46.754)
Thank you, appreciate that.
Joel Cheesman (39:14.855)
on making your life, making your life a living hell. so, um, video is like this thing. It's sort of like, um, referrals or getting paid to like refer all your friends, like on paper, it should be a good idea. It was less of a good idea in 2006, 2010, but now we have five, I mean, we have high speed internet everywhere. Everyone has a phone. The kids are posting this stuff on a regular basis. So in theory, it should work.
Chad Sowash (39:16.025)
Okay,
Yehuda Beller (39:16.44)
Hahaha.
Joel Cheesman (39:43.931)
We have no historical evidence to say that it will. Chad talked about some of the sites that have done it and are gone. I think to say that you are the first to do it or don't have competition is either a real good spin or you're really just blind to what's going on because you have some really well -funded competition that are doing things for the kids, if you will, that's popular, whether it's texting or talking or whatever.
Yehuda Beller (39:53.845)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (40:12.347)
Hopefully you're just trying to spend that because you do have competition and some well -funded competition. This magical algorithm that you're talking about is that's a tough one for me. I do think most of these kids, they just want a job, man. They don't have like specific skills. They just want to get in the door. Hopefully they have a good attitude. They can be trained. I'm not looking for somebody with really high skills. the limiting limiting applications, I think that becomes challenging actually.
Maybe, you know, maybe a company can have more if they want. I don't know how that would work. Um, your pricing is pretty cheap. Um, if the, or if your algorithm is that great, people would pay more, think, for, for these matches. Um, you haven't raised more than the 2 million, which is great. Um, and I, I love the call and day thing. Um, it's just, none of it is enough for me to look at this historically and say that the
three of the things I hate the most in this space that you were doing can really get, can't give you anything else but, but the guns go back to retail, go back to retail or whatever you're doing, because this, this is just like going to be kicking yourself in the nuts every day for the next few years. Sorry, sorry. Get off my lawn. God damn it. But, but I do kind of like the name. The name makes me laugh. I do appreciate the name. And with that, that is another.
Yehuda Beller (41:11.656)
You
Chad Sowash (41:19.648)
Get off my lawn.
Chad Sowash (41:28.679)
Get off my lawn.
Yehuda Beller (41:30.382)
We won the name.
Joel Cheesman (41:38.403)
episode of the firing squad. hope you're still going to be a listener to the chat and cheese podcast, Yehuda. And I hope that you prove me wrong. I hope you and Colin come back on the show in five years and give me the middle finger salute and tell me how much you sold the company for. until then, Yehuda, let our listeners know, let our listeners know where they can find out more about you and maybe buy the
Chad Sowash (41:44.765)
At least my side.
Yehuda Beller (41:52.718)
I'll give you a hug, a hug, a hug.
Yehuda Beller (42:03.71)
Yeah, you can check us out on LinkedIn, search for work like there or wrklk .com. That's
Joel Cheesman (42:09.243)
and soon to be worklick .com because he's gonna go out and buy the domain today. All right, yahoo -da. All right, Chad, that is another one in the can. We out.
Yehuda Beller (42:14.924)
Yes, sir!
Chad Sowash (42:20.135)
Get off my lawn, Cheeseman. We out.
Yehuda Beller (42:20.44)
Thanks guys.
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