If last week's show was lactose free, this week is an extra cheese edition of Chad & Cheese, because Chad is away in merry ol' England and Cheese is running the show. Anyway, this week is Thanksgiving in America, which means we highlight the year's biggest jive turkeys. Industry veteran Jonathan Duarte of GoHire helps break down some turkeys too. We'll leave it up to you as to which "turkey" gobbles the loudest. Even Chad weighs in from London. Turkeys in London? Oh yeah, turkeys are everywhere. Enjoy and don't hog all the stuffing, damn it!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Joel (1s):
Time to introduce a little anarchy for the non-regular listener. I'm Joel Cheesman of the Chad and Cheese podcast. It's Thanksgiving Day Week in America, and my cohost Chad is away in London for a conference. Here's a little secret about Chad. He's a fucking control freak. He edits all of our shows. He enjoys it, by the way, but he likes to control the show. He's taking a break from the show, so I'm in charge. And that means zero editing. This show is gonna be raw. It's gonna be like a Grateful Dead bootleg cassette from 1973. The production may be bad, my dog might bark.
Joel (43s):
The ads are even gonna be off the cuff. We're likely to get canceled, especially since I've invited industry veteran Jonathan Duarte to the show this week. We'll get to him in a second. Anyway, regardless of how this show turns out, thanks in advance for coming along for the ride and sticking it through. I don't think you'll be disappointed in the Jive Turkeys we'll be highlighting on this episode, but anything can happen when chaos rains and there's a turkey in the oven. Here we go.
sfx (1m 17s):
Hey, look, sit down. Alright. It ain't cool being no Jive Turkey. So close to Thanksgiving.
INTRO (1m 25s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel (1m 46s):
Oh yeah. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Who needs Taylor Swift tickets when you've got hrs most dangerous podcast? Hi, boys and girls. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost, Joel, you need to calm down Cheesman.
Jonathan (2m 2s):
And this is Jonathan Duarte "I need more Aderall".
Joel (2m 7s):
And on this week's show, it's all about the jive turkeys as we celebrate Thanksgiving in America. Let's do this. Jonathan, are you familiar with JobAdX?
Jonathan (2m 22s):
I am.
Joel (2m 23s):
You are. Okay. That sounds really positive. Well, they're a longtime advertiser with our show, and I'm thankful for our longtime advertisers, especially ones that are from Canada.
sfx (2m 35s):
Take Off. We we're doing our movie! Don't wreck our show you Hoser.
Joel (2m 39s):
That's right. They're Canadians, so, you know, they're nice. They hail from Thunder Bay and Toronto. By the way, Jonathan, do you know how many Canadian provinces there are?
Jonathan (2m 49s):
I think there's 13.
Joel (2m 51s):
That's close. But that is incorrect. I'm sorry. I had to go back to the judges. So when I first started dating my wife, this is a side note to this advertisement. When I was dating my wife, she is Canadian, she asked me how many provinces there were. I did my best sort of atlas estimate and I said five, which also, oh, that was really wrong. So there are 10 provinces in Canada in case you're ever on Jeopardy. Anyway, let's get back to JobAdX. They're an all in one advertising for jobs platform. They're one tool to analyze and manage the entire job advertising process. Jonathan, you know, everyone is looking to leverage programmatic these days, but you need to make sure.
Jonathan (3m 34s):
Yes I do.
Joel (3m 35s):
You need to make sure JobAdX is on your shopping list if you're looking to get into programmatic yourself, you're an agency or your company. You know, look, maybe AppCast isn't quite what it used to be since being acquired by StepStone a couple years ago. Maybe that ROI is a bit too pricey these days with your programmatic job solution. If that's the case, go check out JobAdX. That's www.jobadx.com. Jonathan, welcome to the show.
Jonathan (4m 13s):
Hey, thanks for having me. It's been a long time and so great to be on with you, Joel.
Joel (4m 19s):
It has been a while. When did we last see each other? Definitely pre Covid, right? Wwere you at HR Tech?
Jonathan (4m 25s):
Yeah, I think you were drunk and forgot.
Joel (4m 28s):
Well, that's very likely the case or we were both drunk and both forgot the meeting altogether.
Jonathan (4m 34s):
That was probably true, yes.
Joel (4m 37s):
But yeah, man, you, you and I have known each other for what, 17 years?
Jonathan (4m 44s):
Probably.
Joel (4m 45s):
'05.
Jonathan (4m 45s):
Yeah. I'm not even gonna try to get back to those days. But that was, remember old SEO for jobs and before Success Factors bought, who were the guys back in the day? Nah, I can't remember
Joel (5m 6s):
Something my job?
Jonathan (5m 7s):
Yeah, somehting my job.
Joel (5m 10s):
That's Take the interview.
Jonathan (5m 12s):
I know, exactly. That's, that's how long ago it was, right? Can't even remember.
Joel (5m 15s):
It's been a while. Yeah. I remember many SEO laden conversations with you back in the day when you were rocking GoJobs.
Jonathan (5m 25s):
Yeah.
Joel (5m 25s):
Google hadn't put the smack down on everybody yet, but.
Jonathan (5m 28s):
Exactly.
Joel (5m 28s):
You're into a lot of other stuff, which we will get to after our shoutouts and our celebrations of fantasy football and birthdays. So you came armed with some shoutouts, so you have more than me. I'm gonna let you go first and we'll just alternate. So who's your first shout out?
Jonathan (5m 47s):
So my first shout out is to Will Staney who you may have met and I'm sure, yeah, many might know him. And the reason why is having been a CEO and founder multiple times, myself and you as well, layoffs are the hardest thing to do. When the economy turns down, you know, you gotta go through it, but Will had to go through this recently. One of the best, I think guys that have ever handled it. I don't mean guys and girls, but he went on and tried to help everyone that he had to let go doing recruiting, I think everyone knows a lot of the team, but just a really stand up guy and took it the best way.
Jonathan (6m 45s):
They're not easy for a CEO. A lot of people don't understand how that impacts a leader too. But Will did it in a phenomenal way.
Joel (6m 54s):
And is there anywhere that people can go if they are looking to hire some of those folks, like find Will on LinkedIn or did he have a blog post?
Jonathan (7m 6s):
Yeah, find Will Staney, Proactive Talent on LinkedIn. Probably pretty easy to find him. I think he's got a post out there that's probably pretty easy to find.
Joel (7m 18s):
Yeah, I'm guessing sales people, some marketing folks, those kinds of,
Jonathan (7m 21s):
A lot of recruiting. So they were doing a lot of recruitment tech and we'll get into another one cuz I got other ones on that same vein, if you will. Being thankful for folks there.
Joel (7m 32s):
Well, if you're looking to hire some recruiters and maybe some other kinds of folks go find Will on LinkedIn. So my, my overall shout outs this week are on the tradition of Thanksgiving. And, I really have to give some thanks to our fans, particularly this week they really stood out. My first one goes to Joe, Joe Stubbe. Joey Stubbs, you know him, you love him. He was, he was really complimentary to us on, on a, a LinkedIn share. He said quote, there's one podcast on careers in HR tech that I can't get enough of, Chad and Cheese. It's also known as HR's most dangerous podcast. And that's why I love it.
Joel (8m 13s):
We love you Joe, and you've been a listener since the early, early days. Gave us some great feedback that we did implement and we're thankful for Joe, wherever he is in Europe, probably not celebrating Thanksgiving. So he may actually be listening to this week's show as opposed to passed out on the couch from too much turkey. So, so Joe, shout out to you buddy. We appreciate the comment and we thanks for your listenership.
Jonathan (8m 41s):
Yeah. Way to go. Way to go, Joe. All right.
Joel (8m 44s):
Excited for Joe, man!
Jonathan (8m 46s):
No. Well, I mean, the last time I saw Joey Stubs doing his little walk, you know, he's got his walk. He just another late night at one of the TA tech conferences. But I saw him at HR Tech and you know what was so funny was, I think he married a Ukrainian recently.
Joel (9m 10s):
Did he? Okay.
Jonathan (9m 12s):
Yes. And just, you know, Joe's been in the space for so long, a guy who just really knows his stuff and just a great person. Which is, you know, it's not like it's a rare find in our space cuz we got a lot of really great people, but somebody who's just real and a good guy to be around too.
Joel (9m 32s):
Gee, Joe Stubb marrying an a Ukrainian woman. How am I not shocked by that? You know?
Jonathan (9m 38s):
Exactly.
Joel (9m 38s):
Probably took her on the boat and it was over from there. Anyway, we're happy for Joe and and thankful for him. All right. Who's your next shout out?
Jonathan (9m 48s):
Okay, so this is multiple. So with, you know, the slow down economy, recruiters unfortunately are again, usually the first to be let go. There is just a team of people out there trying to help each other. Katie Zucker, Hallie O'Neill recruiters at Amazon. Sarah White is an analyst we all know.
sfx (10m 20s):
Applause.
Jonathan (10m 20s):
So many people out there on LinkedIn trying to help other recruiters. This is not an easy time, but I just wanted to appreciate everyone who's spending their time to, you know, create opportunities, list them out, share on Twitter opportunities with others. That's what we need to do. Because this is, as anyone who knows listening, this is a very small community of people and it is community. We help each other a lot.
Joel (10m 52s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (10m 52s):
So. Congrats and well not, I mean, thanks for everyone who's, you know, doing their best to help each other out, because chances are at some point, I mean, the recruiting industry, it comes and goes, but that's we're here to do is just help each other out. We've been doing it for years and thanks for everyone who's helping out.
Joel (11m 11s):
Yeah. Like you and I learned in Pledgeship, little known fact. Jonathan and I are both Sigma Chis, albeit from different schools. Rising tide helps all boats. My next shout out goes to Tyler Weeks of Marriott. Tyler's a long term fan of the show. Anyway, Tyler went above and beyond. I was at iCIMS Inspire last week or the week before that and I saw that Tyler was speaking and I just said, Hey, dude, would, would you, what would I need to do to get you to wear our t-shirt on stage? And he was like, no problem, man, just make sure I get it. So I brought the T-shirt.
Joel (11m 52s):
I expected him to be in like some side room where he was talking about, you know, AI or whatever PhDs talk about at recruiting conferences. Well, turns out in the keynote part, the opening keynote with the CEO of iCIMS, the now outgoing CEO of iCIMS, he actually brings Tyler on stage with them. So Tyler comes out in a Chad and Cheese t-shirt talking to the CEO of iCIMS. Apparently they livestream this thing out to like 5,000 people. You know, the messages and stuff started coming in like, nice shirt, or I can't believe he wore your shirt, da da da.
Joel (12m 35s):
So, Tyler Weeks man, is a huge shout out!
sfx (12m 38s):
Applause.
Jonathan (12m 39s):
Nice.
Joel (12m 39s):
Nice is something else. So anyway, I know he is listening somewhere. I know he is enjoying Thanksgiving with his family, but Tyler, man, you are an Allstar dude. Thanks for wearing the shirt at iCIMS and especially wearing it at a time that you knew was on stage with the CEO. That was awesome.
Jonathan (12m 59s):
All right. And I got one last one and it's a kind of odd one. Some of you may know Rob Kelly, the founder of Ongig. I think he's a quiet guy, very smart guy. No one really talks about him. But Rob has done so much work in this space to help people understand ATSs. And he's got a monthly newsletter where people ask me all the time when I'm on sales calls and they're asked about, you know, which ATS should I buy? I'm like, who knows? I mean, there's like at least 30 variables that you have to consider before you even ask that question.
Jonathan (13m 48s):
That's a whole nother story. But Rob has done phenomenal work as far as talking about, in his newsletters, what ATSs are out there and, you know, just done a lot of data work. And so he's one of the unsung heroes in our space that I just don't think that many people talk about, cuz he's just heads down doing his work.
Joel (14m 10s):
Yep.
Jonathan (14m 10s):
But a founder and been in the space for a long time.
Joel (14m 16s):
Well, he is no longer anonymous cuz he's on HR's most dangerous podcast. Speaking of thankful, you gotta sign up for free shit, Jonathan. We're giving away all kinds of shit that you can be thankful for this holiday. We're talking about whiskey from our friends at Textkernel. We're talking about beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. We got t-shirts like the one that Tyler wore at the iCIMS event. Those are sponsored by our friends at JobGet. And if you're celebrating a birthday this month, our friends at Plum are giving away some rum. That's good marketing Jonathan. Rum with Plum every month if it's your birthday.
Jonathan (14m 54s):
Nice.
Joel (14m 54s):
But you can't win if you don't sign up. You gotta go to Chadcheese.com, click the free link and sign up. And also, if you're thankful for the podcast, leave us a review. Go to your favorite podcasting platform, give us a review. Positive or negative, doesn't matter. We just like to get some of the feedback. And that is it for our shoutouts. Let's get to some birthdays. And as some of you that listened last week, know that Chad skipped on the birthdays. So there are quite a few this week. And let's get to those. So again, if it's your birthday, you get a chance to win rum from Plum.
Joel (15m 36s):
Celebrating a birthday from the last couple weeks we got Jeff Herndon, Michelle Meahan, Kyla Fraser, Mason Wong, who actually won this month's Plum giveaway. Nichole Adamson, Quincy Valencia, the wonderful Jen Levine Reilly, Chris King, Neil Dunwoody by the way, we're trying to get a trip to Ireland scheduled to go see Neil, he just opened up a distillery. We'll see how that pans out. We got Deborah Szajngarten, hopefully I'm saying that correctly. Tracy Harmon, Frederic Pattyn, Victoria Conly, Katrina “Roman” Polanski. I put in the Roman, not her.
Joel (16m 19s):
Jennifer Sheridan.
Jonathan (16m 21s):
I was gonna say!
Joel (16m 24s):
Thomas Twomey, Anthony Scarpino, Kevin Wheeler, Noel Cocca, Michael Goldberg, De Ann Russell, Susan Burns, Jason Buss, Alex Murphy and Matt Charney. Everybody that's celebrating a birthday, that is a who's who's list of recruiting royalty.
Jonathan (16m 37s):
Yeah, that's, some real stars in there.
Joel (16m 40s):
Yeah, yeah, send 'em a note. Send him a note. Send him a happy birthday note. Send him some whiskey. I don't know. Travel is over for the year for us. Jonathan, wherever Chad is, is his last trip. Wanted to give a quick thank cuz we're thankful on Thanksgiving to Shaker Recruitment Marketing for supporting our travels and our bar tabs. Quite frankly, at many airports across the world, without them we could not do it. So big thanks to to Shaker. Next we have our foreign language shows. Have you heard one of our foreign language shows, Jonathan?
Jonathan (17m 14s):
I have not. English is about as far as I get.
Joel (17m 17s):
Well, our foreign language shows, you can listen to us now in German, which apparently is a lot angrier than the English version, which some people might prefer. We've got Spanish, French, and Portuguese because Chad is the new prince of Portugal. We gotta have a Portuguese version for that. Anyway.
Jonathan (17m 37s):
That's nice.
Joel (17m 37s):
Powered by our friends at Veritone who acquired our friends at Pando. So they're doing some fantastic things over there. Lastly, before we get to the good stuff, let's talk about Fantasy Football. All right, week 11 is in the books sponsored by our friends at FactoryFix. Here's your leaderboard from number one to the basement. Number one. 1. Chris “Rock” Mannion 2. Matt Hilltopper 3. Serge “Fading into the “Boudreau 4. Joel “Stinky” Cheesman - that's me! 5. Chad Sowash-ed up 6. Dennis “The Menace” Tupper 7. Smokin’ Joe Wilkie 8. Christy Kelling It 9. James Gilliam & The Skipper 10.
Joel (18m 19s):
Iron Mike Schaefer 11. Jason “And the Argonauts” Putnam, who by the way was last year's champion. 12. Dan Wee-Willie Shoemaker rounds out the fantasy football lineup. All right, let's get to the good stuff. Chat with you Jonathan. Let's talk a little bit. You've got your finger to the pulse of recruiting. For those that don't know you, they know a little bit about you now give us a a Twitter bio. You got some kids, you're an entrepreneur. Like give us a little bit about you.
Jonathan (18m 54s):
Yeah, so I think the easiest way to understand me is I started one of the first 10 job boards in '96 when we were on dial up modem. I built a lot of job distribution stuff in the late nineties, then built a background screening company and now I'm in building text messaging and recruiting automation. And just for years, just been trying to solve one problem that is just encompassed my entire brain, which is 'how do we make it easier for candidates, qualified candidates to talk to recruiters?' And that's just spurred me for years.
Jonathan (19m 34s):
And married, got two kids, a daughter just went off to college and a son who's 16 and out driving a car.
Joel (19m 44s):
There you go. And that is Jonathan DuArt, everybody. So my favorite story about you goes back to 2008 and you had lived through the 2001, you know, dot com crash. So you had seen like kind of what our industry does, it does less so now.
Jonathan (20m 0s):
Yeah.
Joel (20m 0s):
Because we're more diversified and more like sort of tech focused as opposed to job posting focused. But in 2008 when the world ended, mortgage crisis, Bear Stearns, et cetera. You said, fuck it, you you laid everyone off at your company, which wasn't like a ton of people.
Jonathan (20m 17s):
Yeah.
Joel (20m 17s):
You, I guess you put in like Indeed backfill and the job board and just let that run with SEO and then you move the family to Thailand or Vietnam or some shit and just said, I'm gonna put my head down, wait for the storm to pass and then I'm gonna come back. I think that's the coolest shit, that I've heard in a long time. And I always think about you when I hear your name or see you. So I don't know if 2022 is starting to look like 2008? From the sounds of it, not so much. But if you do decide to do that again, please say goodbye and turn out the lights as you leave in California.
Jonathan (20m 57s):
Yeah, it was a weird time. And there's a whole backstory and I actually love, I think at HR Tech you introduced me to someone that time and in that same vein, certainly after several cocktails. But it, the truth of the matter was, is in 2008 I owned seven houses. I literally could not go bankrupt because of a bunch of legal reasons. And at the same time I owned a ton of SEO traffic. So I was able, my wife and I just decided like, this just sucks.
Jonathan (21m 43s):
So we literally, I couldn't go bankrupt. I couldn't even, I was just stuck and we had to foreclose all our houses except for one. We packed everything that we owned into a 10 by 10 storage unit, sold everything else, rented our house to our friends, for two years. And our intent was to take our three and five year old and travel the world for two years because I could live off the SEO from Indeed.
Joel (22m 15s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (22m 15s):
And, you know, it worked okay, but the economy just kept crashing. But it was like, I read the four hour work week and many people have, cuz it's almost been like a dream for people. I'm the only one I've ever mentioned that I've ever heard of that actually implemented it. But I don't think we're even close to that now. Like the economy right now, yes, there's tightening, there's a lot of weird things going on. People are getting laid off, especially in the Valley. We'll talk about that.
Jonathan (22m 55s):
But Macroeconomically, we're okay. There's just other things that are happening that are beyond our control as individuals. So yeah, I don't think we're going into a tailspin. I think we've had some bad numbers and I think they're gonna continue for a while. But I, the sky's not falling and I think in recruiting. I was even just looking up to, cuz we'll talk about it from turkeys. I mean, people are still hiring and they're still hiring recruiters. It's just a different market.
Joel (23m 27s):
Yeah, yeah. We're much more diversified and global than we were.
Jonathan (23m 31s):
Yeah.
Joel (23m 31s):
Back in 2008. So I know that the GoJobs just sort of zombies, zombies along. You're focused much more on the go hire the go be the chat conversational ai. Like what's the state of chat right now in terms of where that is? We saw a lot of companies, the AllyOs, the Myas, you know, get gobbled up in the last couple years. Like what do you see as the landscape for conversational ai/chatbots?
Jonathan (24m 1s):
I still think, we're super early and you know, it's weird, we've been doing, I think we're now, what, eight years into chatbots? I don't even remember.
Joel (24m 15s):
Yeah. Like Mya was 14, right? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan (24m 22s):
So we're really early on, I think. So I started in this space 2016, released the first messaging chat bot for job search this week in 2016. Two days before Thanksgiving, I sent out a post on Facebook, 'Hey, here's this.' It went viral to 130 countries in 30 days.
Joel (24m 49s):
There you go.
Jonathan (24m 50s):
And so the thing is the tool works, you know, but it's the strategy around using the tool that's often the problem with implementing HR Tech. It's the engagement and how you make it work. So we're just getting there. You know, texting in the US is a phenomenal tool. People said, oh yeah, everyone's bot texting. I still don't think more than 10% of recruiters text.
Joel (25m 20s):
Really?
Jonathan (25m 20s):
And certainly don't do it in a automated way. So it's a huge opportunity. Still. The difference between what we're doing at Go Hire.
Joel (25m 28s):
That's a wild number. I'm gonna stop you there. 10%. Even though we've seen TextRecruit, Canvas, you what, you know, what you're doing. I mean these are integrated solutions into popular ATSs and you're saying it's still only about 10%.
Jonathan (25m 49s):
Yeah, and that's because even like, I think Paycom, Paycor, some of them have one on one texting ability, but the tool isn't smart. So it's a checkbox in the RFP rather than a tool that can really automate and help, especially in the hourly workforce cuz they don't read email and no one picks up the phone anymore. I always ask people this, I think the thing that, all I do on sales calls is ask. All I do is ask this. I ask clients, I go, when was the last time you answered the phone from a number you don't know?
Jonathan (26m 38s):
And I make it tangible. Because everyone has a blocker or everyone doesn't pick up the phone and because candidates do the same thing. And when you're trying to pitch a new technology to your boss to buy. When you can tangibly say no one's picking up the phone when I try to call, that's like, you know, when they say, you know, somebody moved our cheese or you know, my, whatever that book was, that's what's happening is the old tools just don't work anymore in the hourly space. Email and phone just is, they're not as effective as they used to be.
Joel (27m 15s):
Or in mail.
Jonathan (27m 15s):
It's just starting off. We're just still early.
Joel (27m 19s):
Yeah. So this is your one commercial for the show. For those that want to know more, would you send 'em to gohire.com?
Jonathan (27m 31s):
Yeah, gohire.com and it's all about just utilizing texting in what we call is recruiting automation for recruiters.
Joel (27m 39s):
Okay. Curious, you're in the Valley, which from Indiana at least looks like a shit show. Elon's doing his thing, hiring freezes, metaverse. Like what's the state of San Francisco in the Valley right now from someone who's there?
Jonathan (27m 59s):
Just like you guys see it? I mean, I think last time you were here, like, we drove by like a Tesla charging stations, like all over the place. It is a weird place. I mean, I love it cuz that's what I get off on, is like, you know, trying to find the next thing.
Joel (28m 25s):
Sure.
Jonathan (28m 26s):
But it is a shit show in the sense of what's going on with Twitter and Meta and like, I know, you're a big VR guy, which I think has a lot of practical purposes, but the whole Meta thing, like I just don't get it.
Joel (28m 43s):
Yeah. And crypto.
Jonathan (28m 44s):
Maybe I'm old, but like whatever otherwise. Yeah, go ahead.
Joel (28m 48s):
Well, cause for a while it was like all the best tech talent is going to blockchain. Do you see that? Are those people gonna exit and then find no jobs at Meta and other big companies?
Jonathan (29m 5s):
Yeah. Well here's, I was talking to somebody, the other day, an exec at LinkedIn, and I think there's two things to realize about the Valley, is that it's constantly, and it's not a valley if anyone doesn't really know that. It's an area like it's constantly regenerating itself. So, all the, you know, thousands of people that are getting laid off by Twitter and Facebook, they're going to take that knowledge and there are incredibly talented people at these companies. They're going to take that knowledge base that they learned, they're going to spread that into all these other companies that don't have that knowledge base.
Joel (29m 48s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (29m 49s):
So it's gonna keep growing that next level. And that's happened generation after generation in the Valley is you get really smart people. Like you look at PayPal, Elon Musk was there and that team spread out and then they grew the next wave and then they grew the next wave.
Joel (30m 9s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (30m 10s):
And they grew. So it's just another regeneration. It's not a death spiral and not all of the employees that got let go. I mean, Twitter had a lot of people here and same with Meta, but they're gonna get picked up and moved around. Maybe they're not gonna get a quarter million dollar paycheck for do as an admin, but yeah, they're gonna be, it's gonna solve itself.
Joel (30m 32s):
And I some of the great next startups will come from this group of people. Right?
Jonathan (30m 41s):
Absolutely. There's just a lot of talented people who are willing to, I think the difference in the Valley is that people come here or, you know, when they come in as college students or you know, post-college, when they come in, it's all about, we're not looking for security jobs, we're not looking for, I'm gonna retire here. They're looking for option packages, they're looking for, you know, it's the next runway. But I think there's a collective knowledge that it's never gonna last where you are. So it, you're always looking for an off ramp.
Joel (31m 24s):
Yeah. So there, I heard a few predictions in there. Gimme one more before we move on to our Jive Turkeys for 2023.
Jonathan (31m 33s):
Well, I think for predictions wise, I think, you know, this next year's gonna still be tough because we're still gonna be doing economic stuff, but I think it's all gonna come through. I think we're gonna see it all, you know, change. I, I don't think we're gonna see much of a true recession, where people are getting laid off as much as you would normally see a recession. Especially in the Valley. There are people gonna lose their jobs, but at the same time, people are gonna take some time off and they're gonna hang out with their family on holidays and then they're gonna get right back to work again.
Joel (32m 5s):
Got it, got it. All right, man. Let's get into the Jive Turkeys, shall we? Well, Chad can't totally disengage from the show. He sent in his own Turkey of the year, if you will. So I'm gonna play that little sound bite and we can comment or not and move on to the next Jive Turkey.
Chad (32m 28s):
All right guys, it's time for Turkeys from London. Yes. They have turkeys in London apparently. And my Turkey goes to Indeed. Yeah, I know it's a surprise. Indeed pitching pay per apply starts, as something new when it's nothing more than just 2008 PPC campaigns. Pre 2-pane obviously. Give it a new name, a higher price and watch the suckers come running. Now let me clarify. Indeed really isn't the Turkey here? Okay. The turkeys are all the TA and recruiting professionals, including the recruitment marketing agencies, that are once again turning a blind eye.
Chad (33m 12s):
Fooled once, shame on Indeed. Fool twice, shame on you. Fooled again and again and again. Well, you're a fucking turkey.
Joel (33m 20s):
Figures the first F-bomb would come from London in a prerecorded message from Chad. Indeed had a lot of turkey moments this year. Anything stood out from you? I have one as well later in the show, but what's your take on Indeed in it's current state?
Jonathan (33m 39s):
I think that people need to stop drinking from the fire hose and think about, just look, like do the deep, like you got a couple weeks now where there's not a lot of hiring going on. Just look at your process because there's other opportunities. Listen to the show. Go back and hear about, you know, PandoLogic and some of these companies that can do things a little differently.
Joel (34m 8s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (34m 11s):
But take part of your budget and experiment. Cause programmatic, to me it's crazy that companies aren't going to programmatic and I don't think anyone on this show, hasn't looked at programmatic. And if you haven't take this time over the next two weeks to figure it out, because you're gonna save money, you're gonna get better candidates and that's the end of the game. I mean, I know there's a whole bunch of things you have to do in HR and tech in recruiting, but it doesn't make any sense. It just keeps sipping, sucking on the Indeed tit and expecting something different to happen.
Joel (34m 55s):
That is good, good advice. All right. My first turkey goes to ZipRecruiter. Okay. This is from August. ZipRecruiter announced that the company had joined President Biden's call to action to address the nationwide teacher and school staff shortage. I don't know if you remember this, they were on stage or at a table with Indeed in Handshake as well. However, Zip went the extra mile. They actually launched a new online job portal schooljobsnearme.org, which was powered by ZipRecruiter. Sounds really great. Right? Sounds like something that a headline is just made for, unfortunately ZipRecruiter didn't really put a whole hell of a lot of effort into school jobs near me.
Joel (35m 46s):
There's no link from ZipRecruiter for teacher jobs or school jobs or link to schooljobsnearme.org. The only link on ziprecruiter.com that I found was their cookie policy page. There's no link in the footer, there's nothing in site map links, there's no ads on Google when you search school jobs near me or education jobs. So, they're spending no money there. There's nothing on YouTube that would highlight school jobs near me. This looks just like a real fucking circle jerk of let's get some great PR, let's get some headlines, let's get some pictures with the president and not do anything that we say that we're gonna do.
Joel (36m 29s):
To me, this was a massive Turkey from ZipRecruiter from last year. Comments.
Jonathan (36m 37s):
Yeah. I get that, you know. Yes. You're taking pictures with the president and so you gotta have some sort of PR angle, but I think I'm with you. Is ZipRecruiter's better than that.
Joel (36m 50s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (36m 50s):
And I just don't know why they didn't execute. I mean, they have a great team. They could have done something better.
Joel (36m 58s):
And maybe my comments will be inspiration to do more. All right. You gotta, turkey. What's up?
Jonathan (37m 8s):
Yeah, so mine just goes, I mean, what we've already been talking about is Elon Musk and Twitter. The whole HR shit show that's going on over there. And the weird thing about, it's not about the Valley or anything else, it's just the way you handle people. And in our space, and the interesting thing is they're hiring again.
Joel (37m 35s):
Hiring back some of the people they laid off too.
Jonathan (37m 38s):
Yeah, maybe. But I mean, you know, so if you're a recruiter, I mean a contractor recruiter, you could probably make a ton of money at the moment cuz they're gonna need anyone and everyone and from tech side and everything else. But just the way you treat people, I think that Chad's gonna be rolling over in his grave that he's not on this one. I think Elon's become the new Jeff Bezos as far as, you know, how you treat people and your community. And I mean I think he's gonna get the biggest turkey award for the next decade cuz I was talking late last night about it, which is I think he just hit his own Tesla moment, where Tesla sold, you know, gave his shares back to Westinghouse and died poor.
Jonathan (38m 35s):
And I think Elon just hit his inflection point of, he doesn't know what the shoot he's dealing with and he just screwed himself.
Joel (38m 48s):
Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen a personal brand decline outside of maybe racist or, you know, just outlandish statements, than Elon doing what he's done. And I think that to your point, there's a lot of worship, you know, technocratic worship going on that that Elon knows what he's doing. We're too stupid. He's gonna turn this thing around. I'm not sure he has a clue. I think he's bitten off. He's the dog. You've heard this, he's the dog that caught the car. And what that does from here, I have no idea. Yeah, he's a massive turkey on multiple shows. I like that. He took a spin at recruitment on that one and the talent exodus is gonna be interesting.
Joel (39m 31s):
Now what I find intriguing is, will all the other, you know, boards and shareholders look at this, if he turns around and say, oh, well if Elon did that with, you know, half of the staff or less? We need to lay off half of our staff as well because he's smarter than all of us. I hope that it doesn't become a contagion and that everyone follows suit by laying off 50 to 75% of their developers.
Jonathan (40m 1s):
Yeah, I don't think anyone, you know, if you talk to most CFOs they're not thinking that way at all. It just, yeah, I have a great quote. I can't remember it specifically at the moment, but you're just coming from the entrepreneurial side. But your company is only as valuable as the systems that you create. And it's, everyone's got dreams, but your dreams don't create a system. It's the value of the company is in the system. So you don't just destroy the system.
Joel (40m 41s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (40m 42s):
As a way, and in many cases the system is still people. In most all cases. So I don't think other companies gonna follow suit that way.
Joel (40m 49s):
How Silicon Valley of you to make the statement that you just made. All right, dude, let's take a quick break and we'll get to some more jive turkeys. All right. Right. Jonathan, I know that, you know, Sovren, the staple from many companies, but if you know Sobren, and I know most of our listeners do, actually all of our listeners do, cuz they're a they're a longtime sponsor show. You need, you need to get to know Textkernel who acquired Sovren a year or so ago. Since 2001, Textkernel has been delivering AI power technology to companies looking to better connect people at job ads.
Joel (41m 31s):
So whether you're talent sourcing, looking for a matching engine, or frankly the best resume parser in the world Textkernel with Sovren technology that they've acquired is the 800 pound gorilla in the industry. If you're a vendor, staffing firm, corporation consultancy, whoever, if you haven't checked out Textkernel, you'd need to do that asap, like as of yesterday. You love Sovren, you know, Sovren, I promise you'll love Textkernel as well. And by the way, if you haven't listened to our recent interview from Unleash in Paris with Textkernel CEO Gerard Mulder, check out our archives in Chadcheese.com today.
Joel (42m 13s):
Some great insight from Gerard, as well as some insights into the future where the product's going, where the industry's going. Check that out at chadcheese.com today. But no matter what you do after this show, go out to Textkernel.com. That's www.textkernel.com.
Jonathan (42m 41s):
I also wanna put a little note on that is
Joel (42m 43s):
Sure. Footnote Baby
Jonathan (42m 44s):
Show. Yeah, the show with Gerard, a lot of great learnings in there, especially from a CEO merging two companies, understanding the market. There's a lot of things that can go wrong in M and A, and I think that this is one of those partnerships I think you talked about it, that is gonna work for a very long time and positively affect our industry.
Joel (43m 8s):
Yeah, yeah. And if you know Sovren, you know, Robert Ruff, a bit of a wildcat, a bit of, you know, not doing business as usual, Textkernel's, building a kick ass team here in the States and building an infrastructure to really take the company to another level. So yeah, appreciate the comments. If you haven't listed that interview, go out to chadcheese.com and and check that out today. Back to the turkeys. I'm gonna give an Indeed Jive Turkey as well. They, they've had a lot to be basted for this year, but to me, going back in time with you, and because you have a historical relevance to this, when Indeed and SimplyHired and Jobster were indexing jobs back in the day, this is '05, '06, '07.
Joel (43m 59s):
I remember the day when Jason Goldberg from Jobster told me that, Craigslist had given them a cease and desist as well as Indeed and everyone else not to scrape or index their job postings. To me it turns out that was a pretty good idea.
Jonathan (44m 17s):
Yeah.
Joel (44m 18s):
Craigslist is this little company, I think they're the most profitable per person company in the world. Like that decision was something that they made. And when Google for Jobs launched in 2017 and Indeed was like, we're not gonna play. To me it harken back to that moment when Craigslist said, you're not gonna index our stuff. And I thought that it was a good solution at the time. This year, however, after five years, Indeed has decided that they're going to do the walk of shame. They're gonna bend over, they're gonna give it to Google to finally win the day.
Joel (44m 58s):
And Indeed Jobs are now listed on Google for Jobs, which to me is a major Jive Turkey moment. Now it probably is paying off. Our friend, Chris Russell recently noticed from a quarterly report, I believe, that traffic had spiked to the tune of 50 million globally last quarter or per month. Which to me is probably no small way due to Indeed jobs suddenly showing up on Google for Jobs. And now we're getting word that Indeed pricing for certain customers is going up a hundred plus percent.
Joel (45m 38s):
So all that free Google traffic is translating into real costs for employers. Congratulations back to Jive Turkey. Indeed. Comments?
Jonathan (45m 47s):
Yeah. Yeah. Back to sucking on the Indeed tit. Is, I don't know this and I think most of us don't in the spaces, like what's the actual cost per candidate? That comes out of, I know some of our, some of the co friends on the show will be able to tell you right away, but if you can't benchmark your cost, as a TA leader, if you can't benchmark your cost of candidate acquisition from your recruiting spend and you're not going to programmatic company to look at alternatives or other ways to change your, what we call like the pipeline or your process, your conversion, it's not always just buying more ads.
Jonathan (46m 47s):
It's about optimizing the funnel, the recruiting funnel. And, I think everyone listening at TA, there are ways probably to reduce your spend and convert better and get better candidates. You just gotta talk to the right people and just don't write the check.
Joel (47m 8s):
Amen. You got another Turkey. Who you got?
Jonathan (47m 12s):
So mine, this isn't on an individual or company, but, I think you guys, I know you and Chad would greatly appreciate this. The endless funding of shit companies in HR tech, from people that have no idea what's going on in the space and think that they're gonna create something new that's been failed five times over. So that's to, you know, the venture capitalists that love good business ideas, but have no reality in what we do because this is a very, very complicated space in the sense of, like when I talk to clients, I literally have to say, okay, let me understand your config.
Jonathan (48m 2s):
Like how do you run your process? There is no two processes even within the same company for the same employ, for different rounds of employees. I've worked at VC backed companies in HR tech and they're thinking that staffing and HR are the same things.
Joel (48m 27s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (48m 27s):
So it's the knowledge base of understanding that this is a very, very different area and anyone who's pumping money in, and then I just, the reason I bring it up as a turkey is HR teams just have to deal with people calling them who have, it's just nonsense that they're trying to sell stuff.
Joel (48m 45s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (48m 45s):
That is just never gonna work. Cuz they just don't, they just can't tie it out. So that just pisses me off, not only as the founder in the space, but somebody who has to talk to clients who spent money on something and it's a risk adverse space. And when you've got, you know, a great salesperson who sells you something that's just, you know, a pig with lipstick on it. It's really tough to be able to invest again.
Joel (49m 29s):
Yeah. So question in that vein, we saw a lot of companies in the last few years become unicorns based on the work from home, work from anywhere, pandemic inspired, sort of new workplace. We saw Remote, we saw Deel, we saw Oyster, we saw Velocity Global, we saw HiBob, Personio, like the list goes on and on of companies that got billion dollar valuations. Since then, we've seen companies that we know, Snapchat, Facebook, et cetera, like super declines in terms of valuations, stock prices.
Jonathan (50m 6s):
Yeah. 75 percent and then some.
Joel (50m 9s):
What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen to all these companies?
Jonathan (50m 13s):
Atom bomb? I mean, you're gonna see it's gonna be worse than Hiroshima for some of that stuff.
Joel (50m 22s):
Wow.
Jonathan (50m 22s):
Because, and they're payroll companies, right? And so here's the thing is, how could a company that doesn't have an international presence, doesn't have the systems, doesn't have the relationships? Be worth more than ADP?
Joel (50m 39s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (50m 39s):
The numbers just don't, you know. So the other thing is in VC world, so, the thing is like, they have a powder keg, they call it the powder keg, how much money they can deploy. And they're sitting on tons of cash right now the VCs are, because they had a lot of really big as exits over the last couple years. So they're throwing money at things that are less risky. And you also have private equity companies coming in really into the startups space. So there's a lot of money coming in.
Jonathan (51m 20s):
It's really tightened up a lot lately. But.
Joel (51m 22s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (51m 22s):
You know, when you can write a $50 million check, it's easier to do that than the right five, $10 million checks.
Joel (51m 32s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (51m 33s):
But your risk is still really high. So they're still doing that with these big companies, but I just don't think the math works.
Joel (51m 45s):
Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, my biggest turkey of the year goes to our friends at Wells Fargo Bank. This is from June, the New York Times. For many open positions at Wells Fargo, employees would interview in quotes, "diverse candidate", the bank's term for a woman or person of color and keeping with the bank's years long informal policy. But someone there noticed that often the so-called diverse candidate would be interviewed for a job that had already been promised to someone else. Oh shit, the whistleblower was fired. Apparently they retaliated against him for telling his superiors that the fake interviews were inappropriate morally wrong and ethically wrong.
Joel (52m 31s):
Well, no shit, but wait, there's more, Jonathan. Seven current and former Wells Fargo employees said that they were instructed by their direct bosses or human resources managers in the bank's wealth management unit to interview diverse candidates as well. Even though the decision had already been made to give the job to another candidate. Five others said they were aware of the practice or helped to arrange it. Wells Fargo, you take the stuffing this year for my biggest turkey, and you'll probably end up on my naughty list for December as well.
Joel (53m 15s):
Big Shame on Big Turkey, Wells Fargo.
Jonathan (53m 15s):
I don't, like, I know you didn't know this and a lot of people probably don't, but I built some of the artificial intelligence chatbots for Wells Fargo and it's a mess. I mean, it's really, it's truly a mess. It's just they can't get over the, you know, the stuff that happened in the past. They just won't own up to it. And, because they won't own up to, to it. And obviously it's still happening. It's a leadership problem and the company is just never going to get around it until they start chopping heads at the top. But welcome to big banks, you know, they're too big to fail, they're too hard to, you know, toss out.
Joel (54m 2s):
Yeah.
Jonathan (54m 2s):
It's a but it's a truly a cultural issue at Wells Fargo.
Joel (54m 9s):
Yep. Yep. Alright, quick break and then we'll get to our final turkey of the episode. So another longtime sponsor, Jonathan, PandoLogic. I assume you know Terry and the guys over there.
Jonathan (54m 24s):
Absolutely. Yep. Great Solutions.
Joel (54m 26s):
Yeah, I mentioned, I mentioned that they were powering our foreign language podcasts through the technology Veritone, which acquired PandoLogic last year. You already probably know Pando is a fully autonomous recruiting platform. AI empowered recruiting is powerful recruiting, which is why top employers trust PandoLogic. But I wanna highlight what Pando is going to do with the power of Veritone. The shit that Veritone is doing, and I've gotten sort of a sneak peek is pretty mind blowing. And if they start taking, you know, foreign language on the fly, video with different languages, interacting with candidates and customers, it's really mind blowing.
Joel (55m 8s):
So if you've looked at Pando in the past, if you've passed on it, do yourself a favor and connect with them again. Get a refresher on their products. If they can give you a sneak peek into what's going on. Take a look at Veritone and what they're doing and kind of use your imagination to say, if they took Veritone stuff and put it in recruiting, what would it look like? And that'll hopefully give you somewhat of a picture of what Pando's doing, but I guarantee it'll blow your mind. Go to pandologic.com today. You can also go to Veritone to find out more.
Joel (55m 49s):
Again, that's www.pandologic.com. Go there today.
Jonathan (55m 50s):
Awesome.
Joel (55m 51s):
All right.
Jonathan (55m 52s):
That's gonna be cool to see how Terry and the team pull that stuff off. That's gonna be a fun thing to watch.
Joel (56m 2s):
Yeah. And it sort of dovetails into what you're doing with conversational stuff and chat stuff. So if that becomes a video of a person in multiple languages, like it gets really, really interesting. So yeah, it's not just hyperbole that I'm saying go check out what Pando's doing and keep your eye on on them. Keeping your eye on one thing is another thing that you should do when you're in an office when someone's got a pee pee problem, Jonathan. And this brings us to our final turkey. Hopefully all that Thanksgiving dinner has digested by the time you listen to the show, because this next turkey might make you lose your mash potatoes.
Joel (56m 51s):
This, out of Houston, Texas. Charges have been filed against 50 year old, Lucio Catarino Diaz, a janitor who told investigators quote "that his sickness led him to commit reprehensible and unspeakable acts against employees at a doctor's office leaving multiple employees with herpes." Oh shit. You don't get rid of that overnight, Jonathan. How you asked did they get herpes? The janitor was infected with Simplex one and allegedly past the disease onto his coworkers after repeatedly urinating in water bottles.
Joel (57m 34s):
The jig was up when one victim removed the cap on her water and noticed that there was a yellowish liquid inside. Oh. The woman smelled it and realized that it was urine. Security cameras caught the would be peepee perpetrator. And he's now facing multiple charges and sure to see some jail time unless that insanity plea takes hold. Jonathan, this may be the best argument I've heard for working from home that I've ever heard. What are your thoughts?
Jonathan (58m 14s):
How do the guys at JP Morgan Chase feel about that?
Joel (58m 18s):
Well, you're working with them. You can ask them. Listen dude, thanks for joining us.
Jonathan (58m 23s):
Jay-Z
Joel (58m 24s):
Oh no, it's not Jay-Z. It's shit. Anyway. Anyway, dude.
Jonathan (58m 27s):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Joel (58m 28s):
Happy Thanksgiving to you. Thanks for coming on the show. We went really long. Hopefully people found some value out of it. But other than that, enjoy your holiday and yeah.
Jonathan (58m 39s):
Thank you.
Joel (58m 39s):
Yeah, it's all good man.
Jonathan (58m 39s):
Thank you so much.
SFX (58m 38s):
Sit down. Alright. It ain't cool being no Jive Turkey so close to Thanksgiving.
Joel (58m 39s):
Give me a We out.
Jonathan (58m 38s):
We out.
Joel (58m 39s):
We out. Happy Thanksgiving.
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