Workday Sucker Punches Eightfold and Beamery

[00:00:00] Hide your kids, lock the doors! You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast.

[00:00:05] Chad Soash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts.

[00:00:11] Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls.

[00:00:16] It's time for the Chad and Cheesepodcast.

[00:01:22] something like that for having them listen to Chad and Gee's. But yes, I got a video from one of our listeners and his two kids,

[00:01:27] I'd say they're probably around 10, 10 or so, 10, 12,

[00:01:30] maybe in the backseat of the minivan doing the Chad and Gee's intro.

[00:01:35] So yeah, that was pretty legit. Yeah, they're good doors. Yeah.

[00:01:38] They got to do it. And we know,

[00:01:39] we know Adam Gordon's kid has been listening to the show.

[00:01:42] Voluntary purposes seems like a pleasant young man.

[00:01:45] So maybe it's not as bad listening toSE. All right, so they face challenges in 2023 due to what Zip Recruiter described as,

[00:03:02] one of the slowest hiring markets in recent memory,

[00:03:05] end quote.

[00:03:07] Another top line head wins impacting its fourth quarter on funnel. They need more data. This is going to be about data. This is going to be about targeting. This is going to be about being able to target qualified candidates as opposed to just clicks, just bullshit clicks, which is exactly what zip and the rest are giving. Yes, zip has more of a matching algorithm, but still it's just not, it's not far enough down the funnel. What was there? What was there? AIs guy name, the guy, what was his

[00:04:23] name? Do you remember? Phil? Phil? Yes, it was Phil. Phil. Phil's, Phil's not working day or perhaps even throug CEO says digital menu boa intelligence to raise and time, allowing the company flexible with pricing. Co voicing concerns. One cla is just price gouging by

[00:05:41] Yeah. So hey Kirk buddy.

[00:05:45] is will Wendy's employee

[00:06:43] did a shitty job of like slowly boiling the frog. They just threw the frog right into the boiling pit of death and the whole world freaked

[00:06:47] out and they've walked this back.

[00:06:49] But don't think for a second that fast food restaurants, etc. are looking at ways to like

[00:06:54] increase prices when, oh, it's lunchtime.

[00:06:59] Are people going to change when they eat?

[00:07:00] Probably not.

[00:07:02] So this is kind of a built in price increase that doesn't look like a price increase.

[00:07:06] Stop going.

[00:07:07] I mean, they'll go across the street. So yeah, we'll see how it rolls out, but I don't see this. This is like gas prices, right? You pass, and then five minutes later you go back past it and it's like 20 cents more. It's like, what the fuck just happened?

[00:08:21] You may be onto something from a marketing perspective.

[00:08:24] If they would have come at this at like, to this show. Don't do it. Chipotle. All right. Since we're in the mood for playing some ads, I'm going to talk about LinkedIn's new ad campaign. They've launched their first ever brand campaign for LinkedIn premium aiming to

[00:09:43] showcase the benefits of its subscription product.

[00:09:45] The campaign running until the end of March features three videos highlighting I don't I don't see myself in that bad haircut or that bad outfit. Trying to soak. I understand it's an entirely different, different revenue stream, but trying to soak job seekers, especially when they're looking to find another job for cash is always been just filthy, just creepy, just nasty, right to me.

[00:11:00] So we actually talked about there are others who have done that right before.

[00:12:04] But what will help you stand out is free stuff with Chad and cheese. You don't have to pay $40 a month for this shit.

[00:12:07] No way.

[00:12:08] This is great stuff.

[00:12:10] New t-shirts that we're getting ready to push out design wise that we've got a

[00:12:15] new sponsor Aaron app.

[00:12:16] I love the logo on the back of the shirt, by the way.

[00:12:19] It's going to look awesome.

[00:12:21] Beer from Aspen tech labs on your door, your step right there. in Mexico. Wherever Adam is, he's having a good time. Yeah, that dude's a trip. All right, Christopher Cimento, John Turner, Becky Green, Molly Northern Warner, my niece, by the way, Boss Vonde Heterd, recording our Chad and cheese podcast does data with link up CEO Toby, Toby Dayton. The number's a little bit weird. A little bit of estimates coming out. We'll know the numbers here in about a week or so. And you and I will be on with Toby

[00:16:20] talking about the real nitty gritty about where the markets and the economy is going. Yeah. focused on the problem they were solving this entire time. HiredScore never played the we can do it all vaporware TAM expansion game, which I've always respected. I've always respected that. What this all comes down to, though, is one thing, timing. We've seen some big names rush generative AI products into the market to meet open AI and chat GPT.

[00:16:23] Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter

[00:16:25] all either launching Gen AI into the market meetings at Workday were like, where's our AI shit? Where's our AI? We need AI. And somebody said, oh, well, we're working on that internally. And finally, someone said, shit, we're not, it's not working. We need to at least buy something with AI in it. And we can announce, announce on our earnings call, which wasn't awesome, by the way, that we are now, we've

[00:17:41] acquired this, this itty bitty AI company. Does this start SAP, Oracle, ADP? Will the dominoes start to fall? And then you look at the companies that were sucker punched, in this case, eightfold. They have close to $400 million in funding.

[00:19:00] Limited vendors out there can afford them.

[00:19:04] This is one that is off the table now.

[00:19:06] This is off the table.

[00:19:07] Now they're even limited more. I think Athena's probably gonna move on after her year contract or ever long. She's she's there I don't see her. Yeah, I don't see her enjoying her time at a huge-ass company like workday Yeah, and you know look Google's Gemini. I'm sure you saw this Hit a huge speed bump with its with its graphics and you know Producing popes that were black and Vikings that were like people lost their minds. This is Google

[00:20:25] I think there's real questions about if Google can get AI right

[00:21:25] You take a look, a lot of these big companies that were big in our space were acquired by larger organizations and then they were just freaking, they were strangled.

[00:21:30] You know, in the, not in the crib by the way, but yeah, they were strangled.

[00:21:36] Acquisitions are hard.

[00:21:37] I mean, you get company cultures, you get politics, you get things that you are not

[00:21:41] used to.

[00:21:42] Look, we both applauded when Andrea sold opening to ISIMS. alleging that its AI-powered hiring software discriminates based on race, age, and disability violating federal laws. Workday denies wrongdoing, stating it ensures its products comply with laws. The case highlights concerns about AI bias in hiring. But wait, Chad, there's more. HireView has been partially relieved from a class action lawsuit in Illinois. The court dismissed claims

[00:23:02] that HireView profited from selling the house, collecting biometric data on candidates. I mean, Illinois was the first state to craft what I would like to call an anti-hire view legislation, right? And then Massachusetts, the plaintiff, Jesus,

[00:24:22] claims that CVS, this is not a claim against higher view. This have the capability to actually collect that biometric information. And that to me is the scary part if you are a CVS, not only couldn't you be taken to court because of this, but wait a minute, are they collecting data that we don't know that they're collecting and what are they using that data for, right?

[00:25:42] So then I reached out to a few practitioners

[00:25:45] and asked them about this and they you could be in trouble, we're not sure what those penalties are. But at least the government has said that's illegal. So the fact that the government cares about these issues, to

[00:27:00] me is a good sign. I don't know where right way. Until then it's still the Wild West. We're gonna talk about more and more lawsuits. More and more customers like CVS are gonna be worried about using vendors that have AI

[00:28:21] because they're gonna worry about,

[00:28:22] am I gonna be dragged into court

[00:28:23] because I'm using this vendor?

[00:28:25] Well, yeah, you are.

[00:28:26] And by the way, a lot of these terms and services deal. That's D E L a $12 billion HR business focusing on distributed workforces is acquiring Zabi, an AI based people development startup. This move aligns with deals shift towards more AI integration and expanding its service portfolio. Deal plans to make its HR tool

[00:29:41] free for all existing customers. Terms of the sounds like get out there, get the tentacles out there, and then boom, they're going to have some paid versions. I can almost guarantee you. Let me also quickly point out that the tech crunch article also said, quote, originally deal

[00:31:00] approach Xavi with a partnership proposal before what deal is looking for. But look, these Apex predators, we've talked about it.

[00:32:20] It's clearance rack time at TJ Maxx.

[00:32:23] These companies are looking to sell.

[00:32:25] The runway is shorter than it used to be. things. It doesn't matter. It's fucking worth it. Portfolio penetration, not to mention also opportunities like this. So no matter how early you are in the funnel as a startup, start having those discussions right out of the game. Yeah. And by the way, you know, we talk a lot about the companies who take too much money are the ones that are usually the ones on the short end of the stick. Yeah. Zabi

[00:33:42] raised $4 million. That's a really nice place to be new entity focusing on AI. Tell me if you heard that one before, driven automation and growth opportunities. The deal values each share of sterling check at $16.73 a share. That's a 35% premium to its previous closing

[00:35:00] price. Chad, what are your thoughts on these two mega, mega dons getting together and creating

[00:35:06] one huge ass background check database somewhere. It's what we've been talking about. We've seen European legislation, GDPR, and even the US signaling that the days of building resume databases and housing personal information are nearing their end. So knowing all of this, this market segments will be disrupted,

[00:36:22] much like the little old open AI

[00:36:25] leaped over big names like Google.

[00:36:27] And that was just nobody was better off. Fortunately you had a disruptor like you mentioned and indeed at the time. Job postings aren't sexy, but they're not going anywhere. Background checks aren't sexy, but they're not going anywhere.

[00:37:40] This is a commoditized business.

[00:37:42] It's a brace to zero.

[00:37:44] But when you have two companies that are valued at $2 billion,

[00:37:47] they come together. Well over half of their employee base are in India, which is basically sweatshot for background checks. So if they can just eliminate 40% of that workforce, like they're gonna be more profitable and take a lot of the duplication out of the business. So this will be a nice deal, but look, background checks are still boring. They're still a shitty business.

[00:39:01] It's still a race to the bottom.

[00:39:02] And now you'll have less,

[00:39:04] as a consumer you'll have full for all of our listeners. It seems like your Indeed resume subscription will be replaced by Indeed Smart Sourcing starting on April 2nd. There are some changes to pricing and features such as a price freeze for standard subscriptions,

[00:40:20] but an increase in additional contact purchases to $5.

[00:40:25] Professional subscriptions will see a price increase to $400 per month with unlimited get tech and then you're charging me more for all of this. No, no thank you. I want to go back to the cheaper version, which is not going to be available, right? So the question is, will this quote unquote pilot actually be kicked to the curb after all of the, all of the people are like, no, fuck you. I don't want that. I want what I had. Yeah. It's easier to get under the radar

[00:41:41] when it's part of your like terms and service

[00:41:43] or sort of a, you know, terms and service still.

[00:41:46] Yeah. Look, this to me get to, I hope you get to field a lot of phone calls asking about this new pricing model, this new indeed smart sourcing product. Tell them Chad and she sent you. Don't never learn. I just won't. They will never learn. They will never learn. So, so evil. All right, man, let's take a quick break and close them with what they want.

[00:43:01] A little OnlyFans news.

[00:43:04] All right, Chad. like that out of this. Well, it highlights the power of OnlyFans and how many just horny dudes are out there ready to spend some money. If you don't know her, she was in Sons of Anarchy. She was the girlfriend or sort of the mistress of the main character, but she was also in Joey. Really?

[00:44:20] The spinoff from Friends. Do you remember Joey? I do not. I never watched it. No.

[00:45:27] throw stones. Dre, like you said, Chad is our age. Yeah. 52. Looks great, like us. So if this is an assign that Chad and she should finally launch our highly anticipated Only

[00:45:31] Fans page, then I don't know what is. I mean, come on, man. I got three kids still at home

[00:45:36] and you got a blossoming real estate empire in Europe. Let's do a Thelma and Louise. Let's

[00:45:42] hold hands and jump off this cliff together. What do you say, lover boy? No. Oh, shit.