Imagine for a moment the 1980’s classic, “Goin' Back to Cali” by LL Cool J. Now imagine the music video, and replace LL with Chad & Cheese, and you have a pretty good picture of our week with Veritone and iCIMS. Quality time with some quality people. Of course, news travels west too, so in addition to our Cali adventures, news from Hirevue, LinkedIn, Google, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Wendy’s and even Dice fill our show with tasty content. Enjoy … and pass the sunscreen.
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions connects jobseekers with disabilities with employers who value diversity and inclusion.
Intro: 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.
Intro: Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the The Chad & Cheese Podcast.
[music]
Joel: Oh yeah, happy International Nurse Day. Studies say over 50% leave the profession within two years, so similar to people who start a podcast. You are listening to The Chad & Cheese Podcast. This is your co-host, Joel "Rather Be an OnlyFans Star" Cheesman.
Chad: And this is Chad "It's Time to Hydrate" Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's episode, HireVue goes shopping, LinkedIn bids adieu to China, and Bard cozies up to Indeed and Zip. Let's do this.
Joel: Clearly, a little sleep-deprived.
Chad: Yes, yes, yes.
[laughter]
Chad: That was an amazing trip, but definitely have to hydrate. I did well hydrating, but there was so much alcohol consumed during this trip. But I gotta say, ending up with a delayed flight last night.
Joel: Both of us.
Chad: Both of us, yeah. You got up even earlier than we did to have to hit the airport. But yeah, we were supposed to go through Atlanta. That flight wasn't cancelled, it was just postponed, which means we would have to stay the night in Atlanta, so they flew us to LAX, and then my head didn't hit the pillow until 07:00 AM this morning. So I got a few hours sleep, feeling good, hydrating.
Joel: Trust me, no one feels sorry for us, Chad. No one feels sorry for us. We had a fantastic week.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: In Southern California. Let's talk about that, shall we?
Chad: Oh god, yeah. So Veritone, dude. So you came into John Wayne.
Chad: Yup.
Chad: Julie and I came into San Diego, we got a car. And we drove up. Always love doing those little trips, right?
Joel: John Wayne is Orange County, for the kids out there that don't remember who John Wayne is.
[chuckle]
Chad: Shame on you if you don't know who John Wayne is. Shame on you. On the way up, it's hilarious though, we pass an In-N-Out Burger. And I look at it and I said, "I bet you... "
Joel: You gotta jump right to the In-N-Out joke.
Chad: "I bet you on the way back, on the way back we get a request from Cheesman, he's gonna come back with us, we'll get a request from Cheeseman, we will hit an In-N-Out Burger." [chuckle]
Joel: It's like predicting the sun will come up tomorrow, that's like the easiest prediction in the history of predictions. "Cheesman will want In-N-Out Burger." Yeah, good for you, Chad. Good prediction. Good prediction. I like that. I like that. Much better than your usual predictions.
SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time.
Joel: So you finally, you made it in. I was there first.
Chad: Yup.
Joel: Got some seafood. Some listeners will know my wife hates seafood, so whenever I'm in a locale with good seafood, yeah, that's where we were. The seafood is a-flowin, so we're talking sushi rolls, we're talking shrimp cocktails, we're talking...
Chad: Everything.
Joel: Clam chowder. We're talking everything.
Chad: Everything.
Joel: In my belly.
Chad: Yes. So Veritone hooked us up, they invited us up. They're like, "Hey, you're coming to, you're coming to Cali. Come a few days early, we'll hook you up at the Lido House," which is posh as fuck, guys.
Chad: We're hanging out at the pool. We go on Ryan's boats with Terry. Amazing food, amazing company. Not only Ryan Steelberg and Terry Baker out on the boat enjoying the bay and the ocean, but also we hooked up with Kelly Robinson and Don Barton as well, so.
Joel: A little UK love in SoCal.
[laughter]
Joel: By the way, we used to be a podcast of the people. Now we're just two douchebags on a yacht.
[laughter]
Joel: I don't know what the hell happened to us. I need to go roll around in some nachos to feel better about myself now.
Chad: We're gonna fix that in Nashville at RecFest.
Joel: It's true. Yeah, yeah.
Chad: We're going back. 'Cause we're gonna do a pontoon booze cruise, right? So we're gonna fix that, 'cause we are a podcast of the people, my friend.
[laughter]
Joel: We're gonna make it up in Nashville. That's nice, that's nice. I do think one thing that was interesting is big tech used to not give a shit about employment, whether it was Google or do you name it. But a public company like Veritone, kickass AI and solutions. Work tech, work whatever you wanna call it, is a major part of their future.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And that's a major change in what we've known for the last 25 years.
Chad: Yes. And their tech is so much more advanced than anything that we have in our space. Let's just go ahead and put that out there, okay? They've cloned our fucking voices, guys. They've translated our voices into four different languages. And that's just the tip of the fucking iceberg. It's pretty amazing. The generative AI that they play with, not just with voice, but also with avatars, video. It's fucking crazy.
Joel: Yeah, I mean, what we were able to see and hear about under NDA. Sorry, kids. At some point you'll know as well. It just blows your mind that some of this stuff is coming to employment. A little bit scary. A little bit scary. But...
[laughter]
Joel: Little bit scary, but still awe-inspiring nonetheless.
Chad: Well, then we went south, which is when we actually got to have the prediction come true.
[music]
Chad: We were in In-N-Out Burger for Joel Cheeseman. Oh my god, I was so stuffed with all the fish and seafood that we'd have that day.
Joel: Who goes to In-N-Out and gets nothing? Chad Sowash, that's who.
[laughter]
Joel: That's who goes there and gets nothing.
Chad: I tell you who was happy though, Julie Sowash. 'Cause she wanted some In-N-Out Burger, that's for sure. But we make it down to Coronado beach, iCIMS hooked us up, we were at the Loews, the resort. Again, first thing we do is throw our stuff down, go to the pool. It was a good time.
Joel: By the way, if Julie Sowash says that she's bringing sunscreen, don't believe it. Bring your own sunscreen.
[laughter]
Joel: I was a bearded lobster by the pool for most of the time.
Chad: Oh dude, Lido House and Loews both had their own, self-serve. Freakin shut up. Shut up, whatever.
Joel: Fortunately my Mediterranean skin soaked up the...
[laughter]
Joel: Soaked up the sun nicely. Thank god we're on video now. You can go check it out for yourself, how savagely tan I am now.
Chad: I've got a nice base. I'm ready, I'm ready for this next coming few months. So iCIMS hooked us up, Carlee did... I mean, I gotta give it to her. She was like, "Look, I'm gonna make a bet on Chad & Cheese. They might come up in here and fuck some things up, which is not good for me. Or they might just blow it out of the water." Which we did.
Chad: So big thanks to Carlee. Super fans Will and Brooke. Megan, for helping us with the T-shirts. And just a long list of people that took care of us. I literally felt like royalty. It was a good time.
Joel: I gotta say, so the T-shirts, Carlee at iCIMS said, "Hey, we love your t-shirts. Let's get some exclusive ones made for the show." I was like, "Cool." So it's our shirt with featured iCIMS and Spire. I think had a 150 made. Probably about 200 people went to this thing. I thought, "Man, we're gonna have a lot of shirts left over, no one's gonna want these things."
Joel: They were gone before the first day was over. By the time we did our thing, I looked out and it was like they were gone. I looked under the table, nothing under the table, they were literally gone. So people ordered these shirts, loved 'em.
Joel: I can hear Stephen McGrath right now. "Gone? Where's my t-shirt?" [chuckle]
Joel: If Stephen's not happy, we're gonna have to do something to cheer him up a little bit.
Chad: One of our favorite, probably our favorite Scot, who will definitely get a T-shirt, if not more, when we see him at RecFest. I promise.
[chuckle]
Chad: We had Christy Spilka and Loree Porter on stage with us. This is a very exclusive group of practitioners who were in the room. Great content, great parties. Joel, I thought you broke a hip on stage, but that was on purpose.
Joel: The roll, we're calling it the "roll" now I think. The roll got a lot of attention.
Chad: How could you not?
Joel: All I did was I thought... It was a snap decision, I engaged with my inner Chris Farley and Chevy Chase, and I did like a roll on the stage. Someone got video of this. People thought I really fell, they were concerned. You were like, "He pulled a muscle." I'm glad 911 didn't show up.
[laughter]
Joel: But the roll got a lot of attention. If you haven't seen that, go to social media and check it out.
Chad: And you got right up, grabbed a t-shirt, threw it into the crowds. So everybody's like, "He's okay, he's okay."
Joel: "He's alright. He's alright." And then you forgot to mention Loree brought us some beer from Nevada.
Chad: I wanted to get to that, 'cause that was... That was amazing. Loree Porter, she knows us, right? I feel like she's our people. Okay? She brings us four different beers from Nevada. IPAs, most of them hazy juicy IPAs. It's almost like we were in the same mind, it was beautiful.
Chad: We asked Carlee, it's like, "Hey, we wanna take these on stage so we can drink during our thing?" And she throws up, "Huh?" [chuckle] And then she asked... She asked Ari, and Ari is like, "Yeah, of course. What else did we expect?"
SFX: Alright, alright, alright.
Chad: Christy did though. She had champagne on stage. So we...
Joel: She's fancy.
Chad: She is fancy.
Joel: She's fancy.
Chad: You know what also is fancy? That fucking iCIMS hoodie. It's so soft, and it feels like a hug from Brian Provost.
[chuckle]
Joel: Yeah, who made those? Aviator. I never heard of those before.
Chad: They are like... They are like custom made, they're like 200 bucks a piece.
[music]
Chad: They're like 200 bucks a piece. Soft, light, embroidered. That was great. Great. I love seeing the swag game just get leveled up.
Joel: Yeah, in my house we keep score between yeti giveaways and hoodie giveaways, and it's pretty close now.
[chuckle]
Joel: It's pretty close, it's about even. A lot of yetis and hoodies getting sent out. By the way, when you think about free stuff getting sent out, Chad. Our listeners, if they sign up, can get a chance at some free shit. Who doesn't love some free shit?
Chad: Unless you're Stephen McGrath. [chuckle]
Joel: Unless you're, unless you live in the Highlands. We don't deliver to the Highlands, unfortunately. We're talking about t-shirts, we have the custom that were made at the show. But you can have your very own t-shirt. Just go to chadcheese.comfree or click the free link. We got t-shirts from JobGet.
Joel: You can win whiskey, my friend. You get a Chad and Cheese selection. That's from our friends at Textkernel. Aspen Tech Labs is helping us send beer to people. And our friends at Plum, if it's your birthday, you have a chance to win a fine bottle of rum sent to you on your birthday from our friends at Plum.
SFX: Really? Could you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I could feel it the all way down on my plums.
[chuckle]
Joel: Alright. That brings us to the birthday celebration. Last episode was a really long list, this is a really short list, so whatever was in the water back in the day at this time of the year, I don't know what it is. It's the early May or something.
Chad: Taurus.
Joel: Anyway, so celebrating another trip around the sun, we got Amy Butchcoe, good friend of the show. Michelle Bier. Maria Similton, Christoph Foley, Ward Chrisman. Jenny Rutt and Ed Neumann.
SFX: Happy birthday.
Joel: Happy birthday, everybody. Happy birthday.
Chad: Yeah. And guess where we're going next, kids? It's RecFest. Holy shit. Early July, Knebworth Park. Just north of London.
[applause]
Chad: Joel and I will be MCing the Disrupt stage. It's all tech, all day. Beer, love, friends. Packed house. Guarantee you people.
Joel: Nashville hot chicken all day. All day we'll...
Chad: No, before that. We're going to Knebworth first, then we're gonna go to Nashville.
[laughter]
Chad: You were so excited about the Nashville hot chicken.
Joel: I am. RecFest is everywhere now. Shit, I can't keep up.
Chad: Yes, yes. So we do have, we have the RecFest in July, but we also have RecFest coming to America finally, in Nashville in September. All of these, you can find. Go to chadcheese.com, click on "events" in the upper right hand corner, check out where we're gonna be, register. Especially the RecFest Nashville, listen up kids, hey listener, 50% off discount code. No shit, 50%.
[applause]
Chad: So if you're new to RecFest, let me give you a little something here. It's much different than any of the other conferences that we go to. This is like an all-hands time for you and your crew.
Chad: So if you're VP of TA or you're director of TA and you wanna have an all hands meeting, this is the place to have it. It's like, it's like the easy button, you go to Nashville, you bring the whole gang, and that's what this whole event, this carnival of TA master-ness... Master fullness? Whatever.
Chad: That's what you have to do, right? So again, chadcheese.com, go to "events". Go get your 50% off tickets, bring the whole goddamn crew, man. It's gonna be a blast.
Joel: Am I the only one that thinks the RecFest leadership team wants to spend a night in jail in Nashville?
[chuckle]
Joel: I feel like that's where this thing is going. And yes, as you see, Chad is sporting the Shaker Recruitment Marketing swag. All our travel is powered by the good folks at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. And for what I understand, Joe Shaker had a happy birthday.
Chad: Happy birthday, Joe. Happy Birthday.
Joel: The Cubs still suck.
Chad: Last but not least, though, kids, guess what? That's right. Chad & Cheese have gone video. Yes, we're starting off, we're working with our friends over at SkillScout who can actually do this stuff and make us look good. Or at least try to make us look good.
Chad: What did you need? More Chad & Cheese and our ugly mugs on YouTube. Video snippets coming. It's gonna be off the chain. We're gonna have a blast. And if we look bad, it's not our fault, it's SkillScout's fault.
[chuckle]
Chad: No, just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. Elena and Abby over there, they are fucking pros at what they do, and we're really excited to partner with them to actually get this done.
Joel: Yeah, if anyone can make us look competent, it's them. But I can tell you the early shows will have some F-ups, so if you wanna get a real entertainment, watch the first few episodes of us on video.
Chad: But it will not be as bad as our first podcast, I can guarantee that. [chuckle]
Joel: Oh god, yeah. Yeah.
[music]
Chad: Topics.
Joel: Talk about a meandering hour and a half of nothingness. Yeah, go listen to the first ever episode. Alright, here we go, kids, we got some topics to cover.
Joel: HireVue has acquired Modern Hire. They intend to use the acquisition to accelerate the growth of both companies' technology and create new solutions to help organizations to understand and activate a candidate's potential beyond their background and experience.
Joel: Modern Hire's CEO, Karin Borchert... Or is it Borchette?
[chuckle]
Joel: Said the combination of the two companies provides, " A tremendous opportunity to rapidly expand hiring solutions for customers and their candidates alike." Chad, what's your take on the HireVue news?
Chad: Little back story, first and foremost. HireVue, around since 2004, okay? 93 million in funding, which seems like a pittance compared to the Eightfolds of the world. So you gotta give them some love because they are making money, 'cause they haven't gone over the edge with funding.
Chad: Montage, that was what Modern Hire was. We'll talk about that in a second. They came around in 2007, about 28 million, 27.7 million in funding. Montage merged with Shaker International and then re-branded to Modern Hire in 2019.
Chad: From my sources in the rumor mill, the merger didn't go very well. The cultures clashed, they were pretty diametrically opposed from a team and a culture standpoint. So you have the drama and then the drama doesn't play well to production goals, focus, sales vision, anything like that.
Chad: Then in July of 2020, Modern Hire acquires Sonru, something we've never heard of before. Another interviewing tool. So a bigger fish eating a smaller fish.
Chad: One thing that we did see, kind of like side bar, Modern Hire always did a wonderful job at conferences, showing a little leg, teasing to perspective buyers. "Look at my booth, come demo my product." It really felt kind of like an Eightfold's luring of the buyer strategy, just on a trailer park budget.
Chad: Anyways, congrats to Modern Hire. It's a fucking hard game. And to be out there and knowing and hearing that they've been on the sales, I don't wanna say clearance rack, I think they ended up the clearance rack, but they've been looking to be sold for a while now. To me, HireVue, bigger fish eating a smaller fish, which a couple of smaller fishes in the food chain.
Chad: So that's what we're saying. Consolidation, which we talk about all the time.
Joel: Yeah, so Montage was kind of a cool brand.
Chad: It was, yeah.
Joel: They were sort of hip and cool had kind of a cool name. Shaker was this kind of weird Cleveland company that I knew from my time there, and they did like job testing, like you're on the site, they tried to pre-screen you for jobs.
Joel: And these two got together, I'm not exactly sure why. I thought that was kind of a weird thing. And then they did the dumbest of all dumb things, they trashed Montage brand, and they create this ridiculous Modern Hire. When you have the show Modern Family, you have David Bowie's Modern Love, it just did not make any sense to me. They come out with these black and gold colors, which weren't the colors of any of the businesses that just paired with each other.
Joel: I think there was this definite culture clash, if you will. I think that the tech was very different on both ends. I don't think it worked. I don't think consumers ever really embrace the Modern Hire brand. I think if... They should have remained Montage, bought Shaker, put in the tech as much as they could, benefit their current clients.
Joel: But they created a lot of confusion in the marketplace. I don't think it ever worked. We made fun of them at their first HR tech, 'cause it looked ridiculous. Even the font was stupid, the font look like they were trying to launch a Hollywood production company or something.
Chad: Or a furniture store.
Joel: Pandemic happens and really... Pandemic video solutions. They should have thrived.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: They did not. And they lost real estate to startups that we've talked about on the show. I think they've lost some leadership and some people at the company over the last few years.
Joel: Along comes HireVue, you know the story, two dinosaurs cuddle up to hope that they can withstand the meteor shower. HireVue clearance rack, great, sure. HireVue has been around a long time. If they would have... If they were gonna explore, they would have exploded by now. I think they just kinda chug along, found a discount, get some people, get some sales people, whatever.
Joel: But to me, this is a big... This is a big old nothing burger. That's about it. We're not even talking... Let's just throw in the whole AI legal problems that HireVue has as well, and then it's just a whole recipe of why acquire another company and blah, blah, blah. It just, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Chad: Well, I mean, the market is just way too noisy and competitive. There are way too many cost-effective and viable options for interview, like BrightHire, Wedge, Honeit, our boys over in Scotland, Willow. Harbor, Qualifi, Interview.io. And even platforms like Woven, HiringBranch, and those crazy smart Israeli ladies over at TaTiO, that test for competencies, which allows you to skip interviewing entirely for some of those high volume roles.
Chad: So I believe in some cases, companies know they are filling roles, just the process is way too long and they're losing people. So with the latest flurry of startups which we're starting to see with chatbot interviewing, or as I had said earlier, cutting out the interview process entirely for high volume roles, HireVue is going to have problems gaining market share.
Chad: So how are they gonna get market share? They're gonna have to buy it. They're gonna have to buy. And as we talked about, they're also going to have to do one thing. One or two things. They're gonna have to get acquired, something's gonna have to happen there. And/or they're gonna have to get acquired or just die. [chuckle]
Joel: Throw in the towel. Just cash it in. Take the money and run.
Chad: Yeah. Because now, Modern Hire clients are gonna be, they're gonna be transitioned, I guarantee you, over into HireVue and then they're gonna see the bill and it's gonna be at least 2 to 3x that of what they were used to paying in the first place. So it's gonna be interesting, it really is.
Joel: Everyone was driving a gas automobile, and then EVS came out and everybody said like, "I want some of that." Modern Hire, not so modern, they're more of a jalopy at this point that got acquired. We hardly knew ye. We hardly knew ye, Modern Hire.
[chuckle]
Joel: So from one fading company to arguably, another one? I don't know. LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs, roughly 3.5% of its workforce as part of a wider restructuring plan. The company will also shut down its local jobs app in China. LinkedIn has been the only Western social media platform to operate in China since 2014.
Joel: On the jobs front, LinkedIn is testing a new feature that uses generative AI to draft personalized messages that candidates can send to hiring managers. The feature uses information from a user's profile, as well as the hiring manager's profile, job description and the company of interest.
Joel: The AI will create a personalized message that can be sent to the hiring team. The feature is available to the platform's premium subscribers, so no freebies, kids. Chad, your take on some of the news out of LinkedIn this week?
Chad: So first and foremost, here's the quote from the article, 716 roles will go as a part of, "Changes aimed at responding to economic conditions." Economic conditions. "And making the business more agile." More agile.
Chad: So classic CEO spin, blaming economic conditions and not addressing sub-standard product built on 20-year-old tech. We're seeing this from CEOS everywhere who are trying to create bullshit narratives to save their multi-million dollar comp packages. 716 people. That's about 3.5% of LinkedIn total head count. 3.5% will not make you more agile.
Chad: At 20,000 employees, LinkedIn is an incredibly bloated organization, and 3.5% will not move the needle. Especially when it's the tech in the products that need to be more agile. The amount of tech debt they are paying on a daily basis, it has to be enormous, I can't even fathom.
Chad: But the big story here, and you definitely touched on it, is the continued failed efforts in China. We've seen many companies try to crack into China, either by introducing products like we're seeing here with LinkedIn, or acquiring Chinese sites like Monster did back in the day. China looks like an amazing opportunity until you start throwing cash at it and it doesn't come back.
Chad: On the generative AI side of the house, this is an easy plug for Microsoft. This is I think an easy bridge. Do I think that this is gonna save the archaic platform itself? No. I think there's gotta be something that they do to be able to change who they are for the future.
Chad: They can't be the six degrees from Kevin Bacon focus, they have to be more fashion forward, and they're gonna need new tech to do that. I just don't know how they get there.
SFX: Layoffs?
Joel: Layoffs at LinkedIn again, 3.5%, 26,000 employees. Not a big story. I'm just surprised it wasn't more. Why they don't just take one big cut at it and get it over with? I don't know.
Joel: So to me, that's not a huge story. I think like most tech companies laying off people is just par for the course. Replacing those folks with more AI solutions, which by the way, LinkedIn has the inside track. They're owned by Microsoft, who's a big investor in OpenAI. So that's much to do about nothing.
Joel: I do agree that the China play is really interesting. Some history, Google got out of China over 10 years ago, I think. Just because China wanted so much control over the algorithm and the search results and who's searching what, and Google is just like, "We're out, we're not gonna play that game." Baidu obviously has taken over the search market there.
Joel: Facebook never got in. I remember Zuckerberg over in China and palm pressing and playing nice. Never happened. Twitter never happened. LinkedIn was really the only social network, and they were basically LinkedIn as you know them, until I think 2014, they were the only player in town. Since China was being China and like, "Okay, we wanna know who are the dissidents, who's sharing stuff about China's government," or whatever.
Joel: So then LinkedIn said, "Okay, we're just gonna be jobs, alright? We're just gonna be jobs and that's it." And I thought, "Well, how would... " That's okay. That's pretty safe, right? Well, apparently not. So now they're totally out of China.
Joel: I think the regulations, the government, I just think it became too much of a headache. They probably weren't posting a ton of jobs anyway in China. I'm guessing most Chinese companies are encouraged to post their jobs on Chinese sites and not American sites.
Joel: The TikTok drama, I think has some play into that. I think maybe LinkedIn is seeing like, "Look, this whole app banning censorship thing is gonna happen, we might as well get the hell out now while we can and not get caught up in the whole TikTok thing."
Joel: So that to me is really interesting, and it goes to our division of like you're either on Chinese or team like Western democracy. Team authoritarian and the world is splitting up, and this is sort of indicative of that.
Joel: The AI stuff for job seekers is pretty cool. I think making it only paid users, and I think we talked about this previously, like if you made it free, employers would freak out because of all the AI generated whatever applications they would have to deal with.
Joel: So if you keep it to the paid members, it's a little bit under control, bots aren't creating profiles to spam companies. And I think the more that LinkedIn gets to monthly sponsorships by individual users, I think the better the business becomes.
Joel: Because as you and I talk about, companies that don't love necessarily being on LinkedIn and are looking for an alternative, like it's smart to have more diversity in where money comes.
Joel: So as far as I can tell, the Kool-Aid is still tasty. It maybe not have as much dim sum as it used to have in it. I don't even know if that's a Chinese thing or not, but it sounds like a Chinese thing. So less Chinese flavor, but I think the Kool-Aid is still tasty at my buddies at LinkedIn.
Chad: I think they could easily put a cap on the usage, but I'm gonna go back to again, Monster, when they acquired the 6sense search back in the day. And then it was really cool, it was revolutionary, it was amazing, but then they made you pay for it. So it never got adopted.
Chad: And it just didn't get... It didn't reach the adoption level that it should have quickly. We're talking about job matching that was really good, and it was ahead of its time. But they put that layer of you had to pay for it bullshit in there. This is another thing that LinkedIn, you've gotta understand history and how this shit works.
Chad: Allow everybody to touch it, taste it, feel it. Put a cap on it, and allow those other individuals, right? You got this freemium model that's happening.
Chad: And if you take a look at Microsoft's Copilot, some of these videos where it's actually embedded into the Microsoft Word, all the different Office products, and you're working with the Copilot to be able to generate PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, etcetera, etcetera. Imagine what you could do with that generative AI with all of my information?
Chad: I've said it a million times, there's more information on LinkedIn about me and my job history than anywhere else on the web, okay? Imagine grinding on that data, being able to really have a search that could prospectively match me with jobs that makes sense, instead of trying to throw bullshit at me because their current search and technology is shit. But to be able to pivot into those types of things.
Chad: I really believe from a strategic standpoint, this is all flash in the pan, because they're not taking a look at what OpenAI actually did. Had a freemium, "Come, everybody. Come in. Taste it, feel it, touch it. How is it? Okay, great. Here's your monthly fee."
Joel: Freemium models, Chad, are the wave of the future.
[chuckle]
Joel: Yeah, either way, Microsoft and OpenAI, shit's gonna get bonkers. I wonder what Google is gonna do? We'll find out when we come back, everybody.
Joel: Alright, so we're talking AI, which I know our listeners are gonna be shocked about.
[chuckle]
Joel: So we have a few stories to address here. So details are little sparse, but Google's answer to ChatGPT or Bard, apparently is coming to some clarity, if you will. They had a big presentation yesterday outlining what Bard was gonna do, what their plans were to integrate it with search, blah, blah, blah. You can google that if you wanna learn more.
Joel: But interestingly, they talked about an integration with ZipRecruiter and Indeed. Not real clear what is gonna happen here. I did a search on Bard 'cause I am... I'm in the test group. I think more and more are. But I searched "sales jobs near me", it just gave me, "Go to CareerBuilder," which was interesting. One of the answers was like, "Go to Monster, Indeed or CareerBuilder."
Joel: And then I said, and I did like "ZipRecruiter: Sales jobs" to see what happened. Nothing really happened there. So I'm not exactly sure how this is gonna play out, but the fact that they listed Indeed and ZipRecruiter as partners is certainly interesting. Chad, what are your thoughts on where Google is going with Bard and our job search brothers?
Chad: Well, thanks to Rob and Alex over across the pond at Talent Nexus for actually turning us on to this. This to me is the antithesis of what should be happening with generative AI.
Chad: Over the years with Google initiatives, we've seen incredibly lazy and uninformed moves in the job market. From Google Base to the initial launch of Google For Jobs, Google Hire, the Google Jobs API, and then the Military Crosswalk job search that they had, which was a fucking disaster.
Chad: If Google has done anything in the space, it has demonstrated that it doesn't understand this space. So no matter how many PhDs they throw at it, it's just not gonna work until they start to get people who understand the actual industry. We're so much different than every other industry.
Chad: So in this case, we shouldn't be training off of duplicative data points. We should be training on driving users to actually the actual source of the job. Is this a political positioning move for Google to try and build a defensive case and try not to get into legal hot water like they did in the EU? Maybe.
Joel: Maybe.
Chad: It's somewhat of a mirage though, and detracts from Google For Jobs. It's also a very lazy effort to consume jobs, because it's not going directly to the source. And Google For Jobs already has feeds that are marked up. So why are they doing this instead of just using what's already available to them?
Chad: Once again, with Google initiatives, and we've seen this over and over and over, I remember back in the Base days, Google is so fucking big, they don't... The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. At all. And that's exactly I think what's happening here.
Chad: So I think whatever we see out of this is literally just going to be... It's gonna be just trash.
Joel: Yeah. It's really strange, and I was spending a lot of time on the flight or waiting for my flight more or less, thinking about this. So when Google For Jobs came out, Indeed was like, "We're not gonna play. We're not involved. We're not doing it. Fuck it." They obviously have since changed course and they are putting their jobs on Google For Jobs.
Joel: So the fact that they would be sort of an early adopter or early partner in terms of this was really interesting to me. Also, what does this mean for the future of Google For Jobs?
Joel: They just launched pay-per click, like they just started monetizing it. I don't know if they said, "Hey, we're not monetizing it enough, or there's not enough interest. We need to change course." So that was weird to me as well.
Joel: I think what the real fear of Google is, is having their search leap frogged by ChatGPT. So if you even just say, "Hey, Google or Bard," or whatever, "I need a reservation at such restaurant on Friday night between 07:00 and 08:00. Can you do that?" And it just goes out to Opendoor, makes a reservation, and like you're done, it syncs in with your Google account or whatever, and that's done.
Joel: So we've had news before about Apple being concerned about ChatGPT leap frogging the app ecosystem. I don't need an iPhone with apps anymore, I can just do it with voice or talk to my AI assistant and it'll just do it for me.
Joel: Well, an obvious sort of thing to do is classifieds, and jobs is one of those things like, "Hey, Bard. I need a job, I need a sales job in Milwaukee that pays between 75 and 100 grand a year," dah, dah, dah. Okay, bam, it goes in there and it gives it to you. And it needs trusted sources to be able to deliver that stuff to you, because if Bard starts delivering stuff that's like Joey's Lobster Cabin...
Chad: It's more like LinkedIn today.
[chuckle]
Joel: Yeah. It's from a job site called joelslist.com or something, and you're like, "This is bullshit. I'm not gonna use it." So to have these trusted sources where it's Opendoor or Zillow or whatever to search these things, I think that is where Google has to go.
Joel: So maybe it has less to do about job postings and political stuff, it's just, it's fear that search itself is at risk. And if we don't create these collaborations with brands people trust, they're not gonna use us. And to me, that is the bigger picture for what Google is looking at.
Joel: Now, how do you get in the door? And how don't you? Do users select, "Hey, I really love this job site, this local site, I want that part."? I think that'll be determined later. But to me, it's a real threat to the actual business of search that Google is making these partnerships, but it's very, very interesting and we're both excited to talk about it on the podcast.
Joel: More of Google to come, but we don't talk about Dice very much, Chad. So let's...
Chad: There's a reason for that. [chuckle]
Joel: Let's throw them in the mix here in our AI block. Tech job board Dice has launched Dice AutoPen. AutoPen, an AI-powered tool developed on OpenAI to help Tech professionals generate cover letters when applying to jobs on the Dice mobile app.
Joel: Chad, your mind is blown, I can see it. What are your thoughts on the news from Dice?
Chad: Cover letters? For tech? Fucking cover letters?
[chuckle]
Chad: You wasted tech assets, PR and marketing assets on fucking cover letters. Dude, I got nothing. Art and the team have literally dug the hole and they're starting to throw dirt on themselves. I mean, cover letters? Dude, I got nothing. This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard for the tech market. Cover letters? That's the best you got, Art? Yeah, fire yourself.
Joel: You're saying they didn't go deep enough?
SFX: Just the tip.
Joel: And they branded it, which is the funny thing, Dice AutoPen. I got nothing.
[chuckle]
Chad: Again, they wasted assets on something that is this fucking worthless.
Joel: I have to assume AutoPen will be a suite of features, one is cover letters, one is resumes, one is like a total auto-pen.
Chad: For the tech community it's really not even necessary. The thing that they're missing are the testing, all of the things that bring community together. They just don't... It's much like Google, as we're talking about our space, Art and team, Dice is one of the oldest job sites in the world, and guess what, they just don't fucking get it.
Joel: How many recruiters hiring tech folks bitch about, "Gee, the cover letters just aren't what they used to be. We need better cover letters on our tech, our tech applications."?
[chuckle]
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Oh god. Dice, Dice, Dice. Alright, let's go to our third story in the AI block. About 35% of US workers believe that their job will become more reliant on workplace automation in the next few years, while almost 10% have already been impacted by it. According to a survey by our friends at SHRM.
Joel: Additionally, 23% of workers are concerned that automation will replace their jobs in the next five years. That's almost one in four, Chad. Women were found to be less concerned about job displacement due to automation compared to men. I don't know where to go with that one.
Joel: But Chad, what are your thoughts on all this concern about jobs being replaced by the bots?
Chad: I think the last place I'm gonna go to try to do research on generative AI and replacement and all that other bunch, is SHRM. Okay?
SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time.
Chad: They do a survey. Come on, man. This is... Again, one of the things that we have way too much of these days is shitty content, worthless content that just presses a narrative that doesn't even fucking exist yet. Right?
Chad: If we start to talk to people who actually get it, and there's data that goes along with that, then let's have that conversation. But this is just SHRM trying to get into the AI conversation, trying to look cool so that Johnny can get another really expensive suit or some shit like that. Who the fuck knows. I mean, it's just crazy.
Joel: Oh, that's a red alert, Chad. My spidey senses have gone off on this story. What I wanna know is, with things like this, you got up-skilling companies, how many companies in this... I wanna know what companies is SHRM now going to invest in, that this data will support to make these companies more profitable? That's what I wanna know, Chad.
Joel: Because you know deep down, we're gonna make more money because we're gonna be an education source for all these HR people who are scared of being replaced, and we're gonna make money on these companies that provide services for all these people that are scared to death, and SHRM is gonna look like Duck McScrooge on Duke Avenue in Old Town, Alexandria. And Johnny Taylor's gonna be cocaine and... Cocaine and hoes and boats and whatever. I got nothing. This is some funny shit.
Joel: Anyway, let's talk about productivity. That is the end of our AI block, everybody. So the United States has experienced five consecutive quarters for year-over-year declines in productivity, which has never happened before, since the data was first collected way back in 1948. The low productivity is creating compensation pressures and pushing up unit labor costs.
Joel: Research suggests that the current low productivity environment is due to the constraints that the pandemic has placed on the economy, such as supply chain constraints, labor constraints and capital constraints.
Joel: Increased productivity would alleviate each of these concerns as well as cost pressures. Experts are optimistic that numbers will trend towards normal again this year.
Joel: Sounds like a work from home scam to me, Chad, but what are your thoughts?
Chad: Well, first and foremost, we put out a podcast episode this week with Andrea from Visier, that is focused on turnover contagion. And it's fucking hard to keep pace with when your positions aren't filled. Or new employees are onboarding, in training, and just not up to snuff with their predecessors.
Chad: So this isn't a work from home problem, it's a continued workforce problem, and it won't be fixed until companies start changing the ways they're doing business, by focusing on employees first instead of just the outcomes. The outcomes will come, if you put the time and the effort into your people. Come on, this is basic shit.
Chad: So when the employee trust the company, they commit to the company, they stay with the company and productivity happens. Morale won't increase with more beatings, iron fists, and less focus on humans doing the job.
Chad: So the article says, EY's Gregory Daco, "Acknowledged hearing from clients that remote work could be making employees, well, work less hard." And that's completely anecdotal and builds a false narrative to divert away from the real problem.
Chad: Again, one of the things that we have to do, and I'm glad that we do this podcast weekly, is we have to cut through the bullshit. Period. Take a look at the market, take a look at what's happening, what is actually impacting it? It's quitting, it's turnover, it's this turnover contagion thing that's actually happening.
Chad: It's still happening. Okay? It is still happening. It's not remote workers. And if it is, it's a very, very small, small fraction of the problem.
Joel: Sounds like another billionaire scam, Chad, from where I sit. So your buddy, Johnny Taylor...
Chad: Oh, good god.
Joel: From SHRM, he was a presenter at iCIMS.
Chad: If what you wanna call him.
[chuckle]
Joel: And his take on this was that all the productivity news at the beginning of the pandemic, we're more productive working from home, or at least we're as productive as we have been. His take was, there was nowhere to go, everything was closed, everything locked down. All you had to do was sit home with kids that probably hated you and you were mad at them. So all you had to do is like close the office door and work. And now that we have places to go, everything's open, that people are doing stuff outside of that.
Joel: I have no doubt that people were really productive at the beginning, maybe are taking a few more trips to Chipotle, the Dairy Queen, the Orange Julius at the mall, I don't know where it is.
[chuckle]
Joel: Or what they're doing in their local markets. But they're willing to be as productive as you are willing to lead them on the projects and things that the company needs to get done.
Joel: I've had coaches, yes, I used to play sports, Chad. I know looking at me, that's easy to understand. But the best coaches out there were the ones that say, "Look, if we're not performing, if you're not doing what I need you to do, if you aren't producing at your highest level, it's not your fault, it's my fault."
Joel: And the best coaches are willing to look in the mirror and say, "It's the buck stops here. If we're not doing what we need to do, it's on me. And I need to motivate you, educate you, get you in the right spot, get you on the right position that you need to be in."
Joel: So to me, this is a failure on the part of leadership. Maybe there's a learning curve, may be learning to motivate in remote conditions is something we'll get through. But to me, to blame the workers is just short-sighted and really lazy.
Joel: Just like the best coaches in the world, they look in the mirror and say, "It's on me if we're not producing," and the best managers out there and need to look at themselves and say, "If we're not producing, it's on me."
Chad: Yes. Agreed. Well, it's funny too, because we just did a show a couple of weeks ago, I think it was, where Johnny's talking about the prospect of remote work not working.
Chad: Well, that asshole actually outsourced, fired somebody who wanted to go remote, and then outsourced the job to India so he could pay 40% more. That's still fucking remote work, asshole.
Chad: Again, it only makes sense to the CEOs 'cause it's in their brain as they're getting ready to go to the country club on Friday, and you should be home working.
Joel: We'll be right back.
Joel: Just in time for lunch, Chad. Let's talk about Wendy's. They're set to deploy an AI-powered chatbot to automate its drive-through service, powered by national natural language software from Google.
Joel: Wendy's aims to streamline the ordering process and avoid long lines in the drive-through lanes from turning customers away. The AI chatbot is trained to understand the various ways customers order off the menu, and includes unique terms and phrases specific to Wendy's burgers, fries and other items. Can I hear someone say, "Frosty." Amen.
Joel: Wendy's has been working with Google since 2021 in areas such as data analytics, machine learning and cloud tools. The customized language model is built and fine-tuned on top of Google's own large language model.
Joel: Chad, the drive-through is about to get a lot more interesting. What are your thoughts?
Chad: We've got McDonald's who, they're launching human-less stores. No people work at the stores, right? This is just a step toward that. And I remember being a kid working the drive through, that was probably the best job. Working the fire was not the best job. Right? [chuckle] So being able to actually talk to people, give 'em their food. That kind of thing.
Joel: Get numbers from girls. Yeah, I know what you're saying. [chuckle]
Chad: I mean, yeah, it's one of those things. But it just makes sense. And if I don't have to be on the mic and have to go through all the bullshit and I can just, again, take some of those tasks off and just interact human to human through the actual drive-through, it's interesting. But then that human's gonna be taken away from the drive-through and there's gonna be a robot that's handing the bag out sometime soon.
Joel: Yeah. So you remember when we talked about the Walmart robots stacking shelves, and how long would it take for someone to pick up a Louisville Slugger to one of those robots? [chuckle] And so my mind, as awful as it is, goes to the games people are gonna play with AI at the drive-through.
Joel: So a little story, one spring break, I went down to Texas, South Padre Island, with a bunch of friends. And one of the friends got kind of cute with ordering at whatever restaurant we're at. He ordered Paul smokes. Paul smokes, and I'll let you use your own mind in terms of what that is a metaphor for.
Joel: So anyway, the cashier didn't know what that was, and he went on to say like, "Oh, we have them in the Midwest, you don't sell them here." She asked the manager like, "Do we have Paul smokes?" He got the joke and laughed, "Ha, ha," and then whatever.
Joel: So anyway, the things are gonna happen.
Chad: Seymour Butts.
[chuckle]
Joel: Yeah. So I'm really hoping for the day that I can go to the McDonald's near me and order my barber cold ball. That's what I want.
SFX: Oh my god, I love Chipotle.
[chuckle]
Joel: It's time for a nap. We out.
Chad: We out.
Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok.
Outro: No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't took away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either.
Outro: We out.
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