In this episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, hosts Joel and industry veteran Emi Beredugo discuss various topics including LinkedIn's new features, the impact of layoffs in the recruiting industry, and the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. They also delve into the recent merger of CareerBuilder and Monster, and Indeed's decision to remove free features from company pages. The conversation is filled with personal anecdotes, industry insights, and a light-hearted approach to serious topics. Ya' know, like always.
Takeaways
Emi is the senior manager of Recruiting Enablement at Elastic.
LinkedIn is launching new features to enhance user engagement.
The importance of DEI is being overshadowed by RTO policies.
Indeed is removing free features from company pages, which may alienate smaller companies.
The merger of CareerBuilder and Monster may not significantly impact the job market.
Layoffs in the recruiting industry are affecting many employees.
LinkedIn's verified job feature aims to improve job seeker safety.
Video interviewing solutions are becoming more common in recruitment processes.
The podcast hosts emphasize the need for inclusivity in hiring practices.
Personal stories and humor are integral to the podcast's appeal.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel (00:24.709)
Joel (00:29.291)
Yeah, did we just become best friends? Hey boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co -host, Joel Dickens Cheeseman.
Emi B (00:40.33)
And I am Emi Kuroboa -Numolayo Beredigo. So have a go at saying that.
Joel (00:47.159)
Well on this week's episode, LinkedIn's been busy, Jamie Dimon loves black people, and we asked the question, how many yachts can indeed water ski behind? Let's do this.
Joel (01:03.241)
I'm sorry, your middle name is what again?
Emi B (01:06.2)
yeah. So Joel, I'm Nigerian. So like every Nigerian, have a million and one names, but I'll just kind of break it down for you. it's Ikiyomoyemi. So can you say that? Ikiyomoyemi? Yeah. Kind of almost. Yeah. So, or you could just call me Emi for short. And then you've got the middle names of Kuroboa.
Joel (01:12.597)
Yeah, okay. Akeelio Mimmi. We'll work on it. We'll work on it.
Joel (01:27.489)
Corbois.
Emi B (01:28.49)
Yeah, almost good, good. 'ou moulayon. Bére digoy.
Joel (01:31.349)
Numelayo, Baradigo. I'll just call you Emmy. How about that? Well, welcome to the show. Thanks for filling in for Chad, you know, between Nashville and heading to Vegas next week. He needs a little recuperation time. So we thought it'd be a great opportunity to have you come on the podcast. Our listeners more or less don't know you. Give us who you are and kind of what you do.
Emi B (01:35.806)
Yes. Yeah, that's absolutely fine, y 'all.
Emi B (01:59.064)
Sure, no problem at all. as I said, you can call me Emmy for short, but I am the senior manager of Recruiting Enablement at a tech company called Elastic. So for anyone who doesn't know, basically what my team does is make sure that the people in hiring have everything they need to work better, faster, and easier. So that could be improving our recruiting processes, making sure we've got the best tech.
supporting recruiter learning and providing recruiter analytics so you can make better data -driven decisions. So that's basically me.
Joel (02:31.189)
huh. And you're also an advisor for a little startup out of Scotland called Poetry, is that correct?
Emi B (02:37.386)
I am on a couple of advice reports.
Wow, where did that come from? I love that.
Joel (02:44.267)
I do have, yeah, I never heard that one before. you're to hear all of them on the show today. So I'm curious, you work for a company called England Touch. What does England Touch do?
Emi B (02:56.426)
So it's basically, now don't kill me for saying this, but it's basically the better version of American football. So you know like how in America, you know, you're on the sports, know, okay. No, honestly it is. You have to watch it. It's absolutely brilliant. So I've been playing touch rugby probably for about, probably about five years after I got injured playing contact rugby and then needed a softer kind of sport.
Joel (03:20.748)
OK.
Emi B (03:24.322)
So I got into Touch Rugby. This was back in Dubai where I used to live. And then when I got back to the UK, somebody reached out to me from England Touch, said, would I like to get involved? And I said, absolutely.
Joel (03:35.415)
So basically touch football, if you will, roughly. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a less aggressive contact form of football or rugby. Okay. Okay. That's not where my mind went when I read, England touch, but you know, you know, you know how I am. Well, I know you're a fan of the show and I, and want to give a quick story is to the day I met you. I don't know if you remember this, cause I think we were both little intoxicated, but it was at rec fast.
Emi B (03:38.688)
Okay, we can say that.
Rugby. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I have no idea.
Joel (04:03.255)
And I was with my then I think 16 year old son, Cole. We're getting on the bus or the shuttle to go back to the hotel. And you heard my voice apparently and turn around and said something like, are you the cheese? Are you the chat and cheese podcast? And I said, yes. And then I think we hugged and it was great, but it was so awesome for my son to see how famous his dad is, you know, that I was recognized in England. So I appreciate you for that. You made the whole trip worthwhile for sure.
Emi B (04:11.832)
Yeah.
Hahaha!
Emi B (04:23.329)
You
That is so cool.
Jo, I have told everybody that story, but I didn't actually think it was going to be online. was like, my God, you need to see what I was like. I think I've just like disgraced myself in public, but I don't care. I love them.
Joel (04:32.257)
Worthwhile for sure.
Joel (04:37.26)
Ha
Joel (04:42.743)
Well, that's so funny. That's so funny. Let's get to shout outs.
Emi B (04:45.688)
you
Emi B (04:48.888)
Thank
Joel (04:49.793)
That's right. Our shout outs are now sponsored by Kiara. The techs recruiting solution made easy. All right, Emmy, my shout out goes to a redhead coming to Ireland. I know that sounds a little weird, but are you familiar with the fast food restaurant icon in America called Wendy's? Okay. Have you ever had Wendy's? Have you ever had a double stack and some spicy nugs? No. Okay.
Emi B (05:02.284)
Okay.
Emi B (05:10.008)
I am. I think we have one here. No, never.
Emi B (05:17.281)
No, I'm missing out.
Joel (05:18.071)
So, so the news part of this is, Ireland is getting Wendy's in 2025. and I want to share here a tick tock, of an Irish Irishman giving his comments about, about the move.
Joel (05:50.537)
even as veterans mess up.
Emi B (05:52.065)
No.
Emi B (06:42.901)
You
Emi B (06:53.624)
That is brilliant. I love that.
Joel (06:55.477)
There we go. A shout out to a little bit, make you feel at home. A little bit of an English Irish accent there to make you feel like you're at home. All right, my shout out to Wendy's. What do you got?
Emi B (06:59.379)
absolutely it's close to home.
Emi B (07:06.52)
Okay, so I've got two, one personal and one industry. So my first one, the personal one, I've got to say, because as I said, you know, I was very excited about coming on this show. My team knows all about it. So I will get in trouble if I don't mention their names. So big shout out to my team. So I work with a fabulous group of ladies. So Elisa, Lara, Izzy, Anastasia, and my manager, Arpi. Hey, I made it. I'm on, I'm with Joel.
Joel (07:31.479)
Nice. Nice. Shout out. Shout out to the team. Well, hopefully the team is signed up for free shit at Chad and cheese, because if you go to Chad cheese .com backslash or forward slash free, fill it out. We're talking free t -shirts from our friends at Aaron. We're talking beer from our friends at Aspen tech labs. You get a selection of bourbon from Chad and myself that's sponsored by our friends at techs court at techs kernel slash bullhorn.
And I mentioned before, Kiora is now sponsoring maple syrup, Canadian maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels. And if it is your birthday, Emmy, if it's your birthday, you might win some rum from Plum. That's right. Our friends at Plum are giving away a free bottle of rum. If it is your birthday and celebrating, celebrating another trip around the sun of our listeners includes Jim Lowe, Eli Carstens, Ava Zills.
Betsy Norris, Robert St. Jacques, Michelle Palermo, Joe Cereo, Wendy Dodd, David Anglikowski, Becky Rand, Leslie LeBlanc, Zach Martin, Katrina Kibben, and Kelly Robinson all celebrate a birthday, which leads us to our travel, travel section of the show. I mentioned we were going to be at HR Tech next week in Vegas. That's going to be big. We've also got a trip planned to Phoenix.
for the Paradox user session or customer event. And then we have HR Gumbo down in New Orleans. I love me some jambalaya in New Orleans. Emmy, are you traveling for work or doing anything that you wanna mention?
Emi B (09:15.246)
Wow, I am very excited by this. So I probably in about, I think it's 10 days from now, I am going to Ibiza for the first time. Yes.
Joel (09:28.599)
That is awesome. I've never been, but it looks like fun on the social medias.
Emi B (09:32.12)
on this.
Emi B (09:36.214)
It looks awesome. Joel, I can tell you an Ibiza boy. I cannot wait. I'm looking at the pictures. I've got my bikini ready. I have got my outfits ready. I am partying like I'm in my 20s. So just watch out for the Instagram pictures.
Joel (09:49.283)
Okay, watch out for that. Well, that sound is, know, also leads us into fantasy football by our friends at factory fix. Let's write, let's get to the leaderboard board going from first to worst. Number one is Dean, the daddy mackerel, David, don't call me Goliath stifle, Jen, the hammer, Tharp, Adam, the poet Gordon, you know him well, action Jackson, doll quiz.
Emi B (10:15.704)
day
Joel (10:17.473)
Joel, it's all good at Cheeseman. That's me. Sean Diddy Horton, probably not a name he likes to carry around. Laura, Laura Liza Martinelli, Dina Perro for Pyros, Keith the Commish Sonderling, Chad, this isn't Foochieball Sowash in the 11th position. And bringing up the rear is Christie Yamaguchi -Lisbon. That is our leaderboard for this week in fantasy.
Emi B (10:23.096)
Mmmmm
Joel (10:45.345)
Football sponsored by our friends, Factory Fix.
Joel (10:54.443)
You missed the topics. We'll do it again. Ready? All right, here we go.
Emi B (10:57.666)
Let's do it again!
Emi B (11:03.393)
Coffee!
Joel (11:04.567)
All right. Well, before we get to topics, there was some, layoff news. That's right. Layoff news. appcast conducted another round of layoffs, reportedly affecting 18 employees across a variety of roles, including marketing, customer service, and sales appcast employees, a little over 500 people. So it certainly sucks for those impacted, but, it wasn't a huge, decrease in head count unless of course you're one of those laid off.
Obviously that sucks for you. Quick shout out to our boy, Kyle Hager, who is now open to work based on his LinkedIn profile. He was at AppCast. I'm assuming he was one of them. so, if you need somebody, Kyle is the man. Michigan grad worked at highrology. He was almost five years at AppCast. So give a, give Kyle a shout out on LinkedIn. you're
If you're looking for somebody, but, any, any, comments on appcast? Do you use it? Any, any friends that love it, hate it? What you got?
Emi B (12:06.786)
To be honest, I can't comment too much on appcast. I don't use it. I've never used it in the past. So I'm going to stay mute on this one.
Joel (12:13.195)
No worries, no worries. programmatic is still sort of new over in the old country. So at some point you probably will. They were bought by step stone recently. so you will be running into them. Let's get to the news news. Shall we? LinkedIn has been really busy lately. here's just a few of the headlines from this week. LinkedIn launches in feed video carousels. The LinkedIn games are fun. Actually that's from tech crunch. LinkedIn unveils verified filter for job search.
Emi B (12:18.702)
100%.
Emi B (12:25.292)
Okay.
Joel (12:42.827)
And the last one, LinkedIn starts training gen AI on users personal data without notification. Okay, Emmy, lots of stuff coming out of LinkedIn. What caught your attention? What do you think?
Emi B (12:55.384)
To be honest, I've got comments on all of them, you know, and especially if I start off with the games one, you know, I didn't even realize they launched games until recently. And it really made me laugh because I, know, Joel, you probably remember this back in the day when you worked in the office where, you know, if you wanted to take a little bit of a break, you wanted to go online, play a bit of solitaire. You had to hide that shit, you know, you couldn't have your manager seeing you working.
Now LinkedIn are saying, no, it's good. Get online, get onto the games. And in fact, when you do these games and it's that three different options, all of that I was actually rubbish at, they're saying get online and actually post about it. So tell your colleagues that you're actually taking a break during work. Now, okay, I get why they're doing it. They're saying it's good to take a bit of a break. A mental health break is gonna, if you take that mental health break, you're gonna be a little bit more productive when you go back to work.
But I don't think LinkedIn is actually really thinking about our wellbeing in that way. The way I see it, and I think it's pretty transparent, is an engagement kind of functionality. If you're getting into the daily habit of waking up, getting online, playing one of the games, then you're probably gonna stay a little bit longer, check the content, check your newsfeeds. And I can see where they're going. I think most people can see where they're going. Will it work? Maybe.
You know, but you might be distracting away from the actual intention of the tool, which is a professional networking platform. Let's see. So those are my thoughts on the games. Yeah. verified jobs. So there's a lot of like, I know there's a lot coming out in terms of verified features with LinkedIn, you know, that's coming out with that came out a couple of months ago with the personal users. Verified jobs is all about making the platform safer for, you know, job seekers, particularly.
Joel (14:21.249)
Okay, that's games.
Emi B (14:42.668)
You know, it's tough at the moment. You know, people are desperate for jobs in certain countries. They like really find it challenging and is even more challenging when they're fake jobs online. So this is linked with LinkedIn's way of saying, yeah, look, we're making that process safer for you. Fantastic. You know, you can now go onto LinkedIn. You can search, verify jobs much in the same way that you do with like Instagram, you know, see the badge with the shield. And then you can have, you know, kind of confidence in knowing that.
that job is a real job from a real company. Only issue is that I found when I was playing around with it to try and find that feature is really hard. You have to go on to the advanced searches, scroll all the way down to the bottom, find that search functionality. What's the point of hiding it? If you're to have a feature, let people know about it. Let make it easy for people to find. So again, we'll see how that works. And then last one, Gen AI. obviously,
Joel (15:30.071)
Yep. Okay.
Emi B (15:39.094)
Important topic for me. This is what we talk about day in day out in my day job. I'm super interested in gen AI. Not necessarily what LinkedIn is doing at the moment though. So their new thing is, okay, we're going to use, we're to take users gen, so users data, use it to train our gen AI models, but we're not going to tell you about it. We're going to automatically opt you in. That is not right.
You got to give people the, you you got to let people know that this is happening. You got to give people the choice. That is not the way to go about it, especially in a day and age where people are still trying to come to grips with, with GenAI, still trying to feel confident with how people use their data. So I think LinkedIn may need to rethink that strategy.
Joel (16:18.711)
Mm
Joel (16:25.183)
Yep. And what do think about the video, the tick talkification of a LinkedIn? Any thoughts?
Emi B (16:32.27)
50 -50. Don't get me wrong, I love TikTok. I'm the person at night, kind of starting, let me just watch one video and then three hours later I'm still watching videos. But it's an interesting feature. I think it's all part of their model of becoming more of a social platform, becoming more like the Metas, the Instagrams, the TikToks of the world. I think it could work, that short, sharp,
Joel (16:36.78)
Yeah.
Joel (16:42.635)
Hahaha!
Emi B (17:01.74)
vid content, you know, delivering information. Yeah, it could work.
Joel (17:02.839)
Yep. Yep. Okay. Sounds like you're kind of split on a LinkedIn's new features.
Emi B (17:09.036)
Yeah.
Joel (17:11.275)
I don't play the games. I'm not a game guy. I wasn't into candy crush back in the day. Like I just don't do it. tech crunch saying that the shit is fun, I guess says something. And I know my wife loves wordle and playing some games just to kind of pass the time. So it's great. Engagement goes up. Time on the app is up. Like that's all, all good stuff. I'm scared to the, I'm scared for the day when indeed launches like job or like job games or something fun like that.
Emi B (17:40.322)
You know that's coming.
Joel (17:40.491)
Terms of the video, terms of the video, like I like it. think, I think LinkedIn had stories for awhile. I don't know if you remember that you could put a story and then they're like, we're not very good at that. We're going to get rid of it. And then tick tock blew up and then we're like, maybe we like pull the plug on video too soon. And I think they've done a good job of improving video, but I, I, I started watch like tick tock for the first time. It was like, you can, I watched a video.
Emi B (17:47.81)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel (18:07.393)
And then had a little thing saying like, you can scroll up and see the next video. Next thing I know I'm like scrolling up again. And all the content is employment, business, SAS marketing stuff, which is, don't know how good their algorithm algorithm is yet, but it was all content that was interesting, but it wasn't. Tick tock. Like I felt, I didn't feel like I needed a shower after watching, necessarily like I didn't get bug fights and big booty Latinas on LinkedIn when I, when I scroll up now. So
Emi B (18:26.904)
Yeah.
Joel (18:36.043)
So I like their move into video. think they should do more of it. I think people should get used to the format. Like typically on LinkedIn, it's sort of a landscape video, but now you need to do more like TikTok, right? The phone sized video. So I think they need to do more of that. And companies will embrace it. I will job seekers embrace it? That's interesting as well. So I'm down with the video. on the verified job search. Love it. I think that's great. I know you didn't.
Emi B (18:48.44)
That's cool. Yeah.
Joel (19:02.773)
You didn't see it. I think they're, rolling it out. said they're piloting the program. So think you'll see more of it, but you will start seeing little badges, kind of like you see check marks on social media or something that says this person is who they are or they are real. I mean, look with AI spam is going to go on is on steroids. Job seekers are using lazy apply to apply to thousands, tens of thousands of jobs. Like we need something to verify that this is a real company or this is a real person.
Emi B (19:06.978)
Yes, they are. Yeah.
Emi B (19:21.101)
Mm -hmm
Joel (19:32.901)
it's not going to be perfect, but it's going to be more perfect. I think than anyone else can do certainly more perfect than indeed zip recruiter steps down, like name your job board who isn't doing those things. So I salute them, for the verification because that is one of the, if they get that right, that's one of the best things that they've done in a long time on the, on the LLM and using your data, to train their models. Like I totally get that defaulting to, we're going to, we're going to take all your shit.
Emi B (19:49.966)
100%.
Joel (20:03.071)
sounds bad. I also don't know if people give a shit. really like privacy. I hate, I hate GDPR. I hate that every site I go to it's like, Hey, we got cookies. Are you cool with that? And it's like, yes, fuck. Yes. And then every site, I like, if I go to a site again, and I know I've said, yes, I'm fine with it. They don't know it's me again. So I got to like keep every time I go to the site. Yes, I'm cool. And this is bit, and if it's on mobile, it's like this
Emi B (20:18.96)
Yeah.
Joel (20:32.501)
half the screen, got to like, so I'm, I'm okay. I'm okay with molesting my privacy. Like I'm, I'm on a, I'm on a platform. I'm like, this isn't my bedroom that they're, that they're listening in on. That's a whole other issue with Alexa and everybody else. So it would be really easy to say like, Hey, FYI, we're using your data. Like click yes to like stop or
Emi B (20:35.512)
So maybe the experience just needs to be better, but I still think it needs to be hard.
Yeah.
Joel (21:00.415)
Never see me again and click and I'm gone. So I don't think people will care. Yes. Should they do it? Yeah. But I don't think people really care. I don't care. Cause I'm too boring to really, really matter. Anyway, I'm, I'm just, all right. Speaking of, speaking of dumb ass, let's go to zip recruiter. they've officially launched zip intro. Ooh, that's zippy, huh? a new solution designed to accelerate face to face connections.
Emi B (21:13.778)
care Joel, I want to know.
Joel (21:28.801)
Zip Intro aims to streamline the hiring process by facilitating quick video screenings and enhancing the overall efficiency of matching job seekers with employers. your thoughts on Zip Intro.
Emi B (21:43.35)
call them a dumb ass. This might work. So for people who don't know, the way Zip Intro works is that, like you said, it's designed to speed up the process and it's all through video interviewing. So what they do is use AI to match candidates with roles faster. then it's, so only the best candidates go through for recruiter screening. Recruiter jumps online, they can ask specific questions to the candidate which they can respond to.
Like I said, the whole idea is to speed up the entire process for, you know, the entire hiring process. I think it might work, you know, it's something different. It is something different people. And, know, if you look at their feedback, you know, and it's obviously this is their feedback. Survey says that, you know, 90 % of candidates are bought in. They'll use that process again. And hiring managers have said, yeah, it works. So, you know, they're just rolling it out. We need to see how, you know, what it's going to be like over like a period of time, like, you know, one to two years.
to have a real answer on that.
Joel (22:42.849)
Yep. No, no, you, you know, lot of recruiters and your own experiences, like this sort of video, a synchronous video interviewing solution, fan, not a fan, like in real life used it effective. What are your, sort of your takeaways using products like that?
Emi B (23:00.832)
Okay, so one way videos, I personally don't really like too much. And that's me as a candidate, because I remember applying for job and, you know, I was looking at myself in the screen, you know, that's like, okay, I brush my hair. Okay, my makeup's done. Interview questions, answer to interview questions are prepared. And then I froze, you know, I froze in the one way interaction. And I must have tried to record myself about a million times to before I was actually comfortable with it.
Joel (23:27.893)
okay.
Emi B (23:28.45)
You know, so those are the pros from a candidate perspective. It's really hard to get the candidate experience right. When it's a two -way interaction, kind of like zipping tray, you know, sometimes you're talking to another person, so it's a little bit easier. You know, you can shine a little bit more. You know, you can bounce off the other person. So it's a delicate balance. But where it works for an employer point of view is really when you've got those high -volume roles.
You know, where you've got hundreds and hundreds of roles to recruit for and are limited exactly. It is 100%. You've got limited amount of time to interview people.
Joel (23:56.663)
Yeah. Speed dating, right? Speed dating. Interesting. All right. Well, your, your, your opinion is a little better than better than mine. by the way, Zipper recruiter stock is down 25 % year to date. just thought I'd throw that in there. It has nothing to do with zip, zip intro, but, zip, zip recruiter keeps playing catch up, little, little known, fact, maybe because it's, wasn't that exciting.
Emi B (24:13.536)
Joel (24:25.015)
then it's not that exciting now. Indeed has had this since 2020 and even LinkedIn added video to recruiting in the same year, by the way, 2020 pandemic COVID, everybody's on video. Everyone's launching a video product. Zip Recruiter didn't do it then, but they're doing it now. So they're a little bit slow on the, innovation side. The, marketing around this caught my attention because it's, it was
Emi B (24:38.188)
Yeah.
Emi B (24:45.506)
Get behind.
Joel (24:54.871)
two dudes chatting on video, having a good old time. And I thought, who doesn't like video? sex, I put myself out there, but a lot of Zoom calls I'm on, the women black themselves out. They don't want to be seen, right? And I don't know that sucks this, there's less so than men that I've noticed want to be on camera. And how about
Talk about inclusivity, people with speech impairments, visual challenges, just are awkward, have mental challenges and disabilities. There are a lot of people that don't want to do video, that would rather do text or email or messaging. I wonder if the whole video thing is really bad.
Emi B (25:26.061)
Yeah.
Emi B (25:29.646)
Mm -hmm.
Joel (25:48.587)
from an inclusivity and diversity side of things. Now that's not zip recruiters fault, but I think all video products have that have that challenge. you know, zip promises to match you with only quote new active and engaged candidates. I don't know what that means. I know new, maybe I don't know how new new is new. Is it six months? Is it six weeks? I don't know. allegedly their, their fill algorithm is so magical that they can now
match you with these people and get video interviews set up. most companies can't get AI right. ZipRecruiter, I don't know. Let's see if they can get it right. Their testimonials, I love this. On the site, their testimonial, this is ZipRecruiter. This is a public company with big brands who use ZipRecruiter. You think they get some good brands to be a pilot for this and test if, yeah, so their testimonials are from Artage Portraits.
Emi B (26:18.67)
Mm
Emi B (26:36.239)
God, what did I put?
Emi B (26:42.318)
Good. I haven't, but I feel like I need to.
Joel (26:44.023)
Have you been to artage portraits yet? Who knows? Ameritech staffing who looks like their logo was built in, you know, windows 95 and then ADMA bio centers. I don't know any of those. Like they couldn't find a middle like middle of the road brand that people might know anyway. So if they can't get a good known company to to vouch for this thing, I just I can't I can't buy it. I think it's I think it's a lot of nothing man.
Emi B (26:57.898)
All
Joel (27:15.849)
Alright, let's take a quick break and when we come back we'll talk about more news in recruiting.
Joel (27:24.885)
All right, Emmy, let's talk some DI and RTO. Big company CEOs were in the news this week at a recent conference. CEOs like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, one of Chad's favorites. He's sad he's not on the podcast to this Jamie Dimon. He reaffirmed a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, emphasizing its business benefits and moral importance. Interesting. While over at Amazon, another big company CEO, Andy Jassy issued a memo.
to all staffers this week that said they will be required to work in the office, quote, the way we were before the onset of COVID, end quote. All right, Emmy, let's talk a little DEI and RTO. What are your thoughts on the news this week?
Emi B (28:04.928)
I'm going to repeat that again. Boo. What the hell were they thinking? Yeah.
Joel (28:08.887)
we got a sound we got a sound bite for that one for there we go. There we go
Emi B (28:16.014)
I what they were thinking. Why would they enforce this RTO? This is literally ridiculous. And do you know what? I think it's a bit of a, a trend that I'm seeing at the moment, because I think post, you know, around 2020, obviously everybody was like, yeah, DID, DID is important. know, it improves the bottom line. It's the right thing to do. It was on everybody's company's page. People were openly talking about it.
But I think what's happened over the years is that slowly companies are retreating. People are not focusing on it anymore. People are becoming silent or they're just kind of diminishing their voice when it comes around DEI. And that's despite all the data that's out there, all the benefits, all the reasons why it's good for a company to actually focus on this.
And I don't really know why this is happening. I don't know if this is because people are just bowing to pressure from like real conservative kind of strong kind of viewpoints. I don't know, but it's wrong. And so when we're talking about RTO and how that, the return to office, a lot of companies are using the argument of the, need in -face interaction and that's where the ideas flourish and this is where we can build a company culture.
You don't need to be in person touching the person next to you to build the company culture. You know, we proved that we proved that over the last four years. You know, what they're doing is forgetting that by forcing people to come back to the office, they are basically alienating, you know, certain groups of people, you know, they're making it harder. For example, people with parental responsibilities, you know, people can't drop off their kids or they're going to find it harder to drop off their kids and get to the office at nine o 'clock.
They're making it harder for people with, you know, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds because perhaps their office is in a prime location. And maybe over the last couple of years, they moved out to a, you know, a cheaper neighborhood because they could work remotely, you know, they're either that you're, you're disavowing those people, you're disavowing people with disabilities, you know, not all offices are set up.
Joel (30:16.982)
Mm -hmm.
Emi B (30:29.048)
for people with physical disabilities, for example, or even like non -physical disabilities. And even if you're just, even if the offices are set up in that way, what about that commute into the office? You I think about London and I can use a personal example. My dad had a disability. For him to get into central London, that is impossible. We have to like in the wheelchair, get him up and down stairs because our local train station doesn't have a lift.
What are your disadvantages in those people as well? So I am really against this.
Joel (30:57.717)
Hmm. Yeah.
Joel (31:03.179)
Well, well said. Well said. I love when you say people with marital challenges, you mean mothers, right? Like, let's be honest. All right. I know there are a few dads, but women, mothers thrived during COVID when, and, work from home. So
Emi B (31:04.078)
Thank
Emi B (31:10.702)
Absolutely
Joel (31:24.661)
In America, DEI has been politicized to death. I don't think Europe has had a similar situation, but it's unfortunate that companies that are embracing this have to rebrand it. It's the same thing under a different name. know Shurm, it's now D &I. And when we were in RecFest recently, Tornellis, who I'm sure you know,
Emi B (31:29.336)
Hmm.
Emi B (31:46.274)
Mm -hmm.
Emi B (31:53.645)
Yeah.
Joel (31:54.375)
a champion of diversity, it's called it D and I as well. And I asked him about that and he said, well, we're all going towards the same thing. I don't really care what you call it. so take that for what it's worth. I do think that if you're going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. And if you go to JP Morgan's leadership page, it's not exactly a rainbow of diversity. It's not exactly, especially the executive suite. It's a, it's a lot of, it's a lot of vanilla.
Emi B (32:05.549)
All
Emi B (32:10.989)
Mm -hmm.
Emi B (32:20.053)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel (32:21.943)
there aren't quite a few women applaud that. now if you go to their board of directors, I think they do a pretty good job of, of representing a lot of, a lot of different people, but I think you have to walk the walk and they're by no means the worst. even companies like Nike, you should be definitely a champions adversity back in the day, had a hard time doing that. But what I think you, you kept encapsulated beautifully is it's hard to be pro diversity and inclusion.
Emi B (32:37.07)
Better, yeah.
Joel (32:48.363)
but say, get your ass back to the office because all of the, all of the elements you talked about mothers, disabilities, less fortunate, commute, abilities to commute. I'm, I'm shocked that your, your father didn't have like a government lift to get him. Like that's not a cost to government, right? And in England, that surprises me, but
Emi B (32:50.2)
Mm -hmm.
Emi B (32:57.944)
Socio -economic, yeah.
Emi B (33:12.355)
Yeah.
Joel (33:14.089)
All of those things are true. And if you're going to be pro -diversity, it feels like you need to be a little bit of pro ability to work from home and bring people into the sphere that way. So I can't say it any better than you did. But being RTO and DNI is a little bit, I don't know, it rings a little hollow to me. I don't know.
Emi B (33:38.446)
Absolutely.
Joel (33:45.909)
All right, which brings us to Indeed. Indeed has a message for customers who enjoy free company pages. Let me see if we can get the, we have some hidden footage from Indeed's call with customers about company pages. Here you go.
Joel (34:07.659)
That's right. And an email to customers this week indeed said they'd be doing away with free features in their company pages, like a header image. That's right. No free images, no free, no free images on your page. custom links on the why join us page, social media links on the why join us page and custom content on you guessed it, the why join us page. I mean your take on indeed being against freedom. mean free.
Emi B (34:35.47)
My take is, I think they're trying to kill their company. I think they're trying to get rid of customers. And if that's their goal, they're doing an amazing job at it. Because they're already not great. They already don't have that many customers. They're already bleeding customers. So doing this, well done. I applaud you. Will indeed be around in a couple of years time. I doubt it.
Joel (34:43.766)
Mm -hmm.
Joel (34:49.366)
Yeah.
Joel (34:59.115)
Wow. You just painted a grim picture for indeed. Yikes. Wow. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm not going to dig a grave quite yet, but, this is, okay, this is what happens when you let the number two review site by the number one review site. You basically, I don't want to say monopoly on the whole employer brand thing.
Emi B (35:04.536)
Sorry indeed.
Emi B (35:18.126)
You
Joel (35:27.541)
but it kind of is now you can argue and say like, well, a lot of people have company pages. Here's where indeed is, is uniquely fit to, to stick it to customers. Okay. Indeed, as you know, used to own the SEO game, used to own search rankings. Glass door was right there in regards to when I do a search, what is it like to work at Nike? What is it like to how, you know, what's it to work at a company? Those, there are a lot of those searches done.
can still today. And if you do those searches, more or less, the only companies you see are indeed in glass door. Hopefully you see the actual company page, but nobody cares about that. Cause it's just the company jerking off to itself. No job seekers don't give a shit about that. So as long as indeed in glass door have you buy the short and curlies, you're going to have to have a presence as a company on these sites. And you're gonna, they're going to pay because
SEO and Google, still have a place there. They may not show up for jobs as they used to or, you know, job searches, but they are still the primary way on Google that people find what it's like to work at a company. So I think for a lot of companies are going to feel like I have no choice. I have no choice. I got to pay, I got to pay the tax, the indeed tax that I'm sick of paying that keeps going up, but I got to do it because I have no other options.
Emi B (36:42.697)
Yeah!
Emi B (36:48.12)
What happens if you can't afford it? What about the smaller companies who can't afford it? They don't have the budgets of the big corporates. What are they gonna do? They can't pay for it.
Joel (36:58.155)
They're out of luck. They're out of luck, Emmy.
Emi B (37:00.942)
poor smaller companies. Wow. No, that's harsh, Joel. Joel's so harsh.
Joel (37:03.031)
They're probably out of business. They don't have an image anyway to put on the site. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I know. I know. All right. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back and talk about career builder and monster.
Emi B (37:24.568)
You
Joel (37:28.745)
All right, Amy, a story I'm looking forward to not talking about ever again, hopefully. Career Builder and Monster have announced in a news release. That's right. There was no press conference because press didn't care, but they had a news release that their merger has been completed. The new company will be called, ready for this, Career Builder plus Monster. A little plus if you're in math. Yeah. I wonder how much they pay the ad agency to come up with that one.
Emi B (37:41.347)
Yeah
Emi B (37:50.51)
That is amazing.
Joel (37:58.305)
CareerBuilder plus Monster and both, both websites. Yeah, they probably paid a hundred grand to get a focus group to run that name by everybody. So both websites will be maintained. We have reason to believe that the same jobs on CareerBuilder are starting to be the same jobs on Monster Shocker, right? So job seekers aren't winning in this relationship. At least for now they're separate. My money's on Monster is the brand, but
Emi B (38:00.204)
I reckon a lot. That's really creative.
Emi B (38:07.331)
Yeah.
Joel (38:26.795)
The press release came out of Chicago, which is where CareerBuilder is headquartered. The current CEO of CareerBuilder, Jeff Furman, will be leading the new company. The executive team consists of four CareerBuilder executives and three Monster executives. What could possibly go wrong? Emmy, what are your thoughts on CareerBuilder plus Monster?
Emi B (38:41.795)
Mm -hmm.
Emi B (38:50.744)
My thoughts, they're not really positive. Like, you know, these two kind of dinosaurs, can I call them dinosaurs in a game? You know, coming together, I'm not sure if it's gonna make much of a difference or much of an impact. People are not using these brands. I'm pulling into, you know, putting them together. I don't think people are gonna be really flocking so much, like to say to Monster, you know? So, yeah, I'm not convinced.
Joel (38:57.793)
Sure, we do. We do, yeah.
Emi B (39:19.552)
There's better people out there, even Indeed's doing a better job than these two people. So yeah.
Joel (39:24.233)
And Emmy says they're dead in a year. So nobody's going to be around now. It's definitely monsters, dinosaurs, the, the, meteorites coming now. Monster is still a thing in Europe. No, I mean, it's, it's still kind of hanging out. Not really. Career builder. No.
Emi B (39:32.419)
You
Well, really. Yeah, not really. It's a dying brand. It really, really is. They're better brands. LinkedIn's kind of dominating Europe. There are other brands, like competitors to LinkedIn, that dominating Europe. Monster, Career Builder, they're way down.
Joel (39:47.595)
Yeah.
Joel (39:55.381)
Actually, this just in there is there is a press conference right now going on. Let's let's cut right now real quickly to the press conference.
That's right. Not much going on there at the press press conference.
Emi B (40:04.38)
You
Joel (40:10.667)
These, you said it correct, dinosaurs. It's like if two dinosaurs cuddle together, can they survive longer after the meteorite hits the earth? Like maybe, but they're still going to die. Private equity has come in. They're going to cut the hell out of staff. They're going to cut everything that's, that's duplicitous. they're going to suck all the profits they possibly can. And then they're probably going to go by a zip recruiter and then do the same to them and just have all these job boards get sucked into private equity hell.
and be sucked for every nickel dime and profit they can possibly get out of it. So I really hope we stopped talking about crib builder monster because they really don't matter. But a lot of our listeners are old school people and still love hearing about monster, which brings me to Emmy, our dad jokes of the week, with talking about monsters. All right. It's Halloween. Halloween is coming. Halloween is around the corner. so let's, let's get to some.
Emi B (40:50.286)
Please.
Emi B (41:06.318)
Him with it.
Joel (41:08.971)
Quick dad jokes. All right, ready?
What did the grandfather werewolf say to his grandson after not seeing him for a year?
Emi B (41:20.824)
God, what did the grandfather well first, well will say to his family? Yeah.
Joel (41:23.457)
What did the grandfather werewolf say to his grandson after not seeing him for a year?
You grew some. Get it? You grew some.
Emi B (41:31.032)
I want to say something like, my God.
No. No!
Joel (41:36.055)
All right, what did Frankenstein turn on during the summer?
Emi B (41:44.416)
No idea.
Joel (41:45.557)
The Scare Conditioner.
Not air conditioner. Get it? They don't have those in England, so you might not get that joke. This scare conditioner. All right. Well, we'll close with this one. On what day do monsters eat people?
Emi B (41:49.772)
I, I, no, no, no, that wasn't good.
Emi B (42:02.936)
Thursday?
Joel (42:04.471)
Tuesday, get it? Tuesday. boy. Emmy, thanks for hanging out with me today. For any of our listeners who want to connect with you, where do you send them?
Emi B (42:06.094)
lord.
Emi B (42:16.652)
You can find me on LinkedIn, so not under my full government name, but look under EMI, so E -I -B -E -R -O -D -U -G You can spell that phonetically. Yeah, hit me up, send me an invite, and I will accept and get back to you.
Joel (42:30.891)
Love it. And with that, another one is in the can. I know you're excited for this part. We out.
Emi B (42:34.862)
Did I miss it? We out! We out!
Joel (42:38.529)
Say it!