Exposed: Indeed Masterplan | Cornerstone'd & SkyHive'd as a Kite

[00:00:00] Are you struggling to hire diverse tech talent? After all, every organization in the world is

[00:00:05] now a tech company and the ability to attract, hire, and retain tech talent from all backgrounds

[00:00:11] is critical to their success. Enter Hackajob, a reverse marketplace that actively vets engineers.

[00:00:17] We flip the traditional model on its head, meaning companies apply to engineers versus

[00:00:22] candidates applying to jobs, with companies getting an 85% response rate to candidates

[00:00:28] reach out to, as well as exposure to tech talent that directly meets their organization's diversity

[00:00:34] objectives. Companies such as S&P Global, CarMax, and Sensor Tower are all using Hackajob.

[00:00:41] Why not join them? Go to hackajob.com slash cheese to get your free 30-day trial today.

[00:00:47] Go to hackajob.com slash cheese to get your free 30-day trial today.

[00:00:53] Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and

[00:00:59] Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with

[00:01:04] breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for

[00:01:10] the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Oh, yeah. Two guys who as far back as they can remember

[00:01:26] always wanted to be podcasters. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host,

[00:01:31] Joel, two times Cheeseman. And this is Chad. Gogglebox Sowash. And on this episode, indeed,

[00:01:38] once you're Tam, it's consolidation baby. And watch out, WeWork. Here comes Chuckie.

[00:01:45] We'll be right back. Let's do this. Okay, listener, how can you help your employees become

[00:01:55] more productive? I have answers. How about automating manual and repetitive tasks,

[00:02:01] giving meaning to data, then allowing that data to actually drive decisions? And how about

[00:02:07] matching people to your jobs quicker? Well, wait, the Chad and Cheese has a new LLM?

[00:02:14] No, Cheeseman. I'm talking about Tex Colonel. Ah, okay. That makes more sense. What I'm

[00:02:20] hearing is the groundbreaking concept of, wait for it, simplicity. Seriously though,

[00:02:28] seriously, Tex Colonel cuts through the complexities like a tortilla chip through some

[00:02:34] hot nacho cheese. Oh my God, really? Nacho references already. Anyways, Tex Colonel brings

[00:02:39] efficiency and productivity to your operations. Tex Colonel seamlessly unifies your tools

[00:02:46] and data to drive efficiencies and success. Tex Colonel is creating new opportunities for

[00:02:53] your recruitment journey, kind of like adding guac to my barbacoa burrito. Oh my God.

[00:02:59] How about extracting meaningful insights from data? I mean, that's something. Swiftly matching

[00:03:05] people with jobs, automating repetitive tasks. Who knew such advanced concepts were even possible

[00:03:13] in the land of human resources? We did, Chad. We did. Dude, wrap it up. I'm a little hungry.

[00:03:22] Imagine that. Okay, listener, get ready to use today's tech to drive efficiencies

[00:03:27] and productivity. Visit texkernel.com. That's T-E-X-T-K-E-R-N-E-L dot com.

[00:03:38] Nachos. I'm just mad about South-Front. Who's Arnold and who's Danny DeVito in this picture?

[00:03:49] Twins, baby. Twins. And it's amazing that just about every single fucking,

[00:03:54] not just Scottish, but European football big sponsor is a betting company. I mean,

[00:04:02] they've got a problem and I've got to say that now I have a problem. I don't know whether to

[00:04:07] thank the UK or curse them after getting addicted. Julie and I both getting addicted

[00:04:12] to this show called Goggle Box. Have you heard about this show? It's not Google Box or Birdbox.

[00:04:18] It's Goggle Box? No, this is I've seen memes and stuff, but I have no idea what it is.

[00:04:24] It has 23 seasons. I mean, there's two seasons per year, but 23 fucking seasons. Literally,

[00:04:30] people are watching dating shows, cooking shows, movies, and it's literally a way for

[00:04:36] pretty much the British to promote their own programming. And they're just watching

[00:04:40] celebrities watch shows, watching regular people watch shows. It's funny as fuck.

[00:04:47] It's genius and it's addictive. So I'm not sure if I'm going to lodge a complaint or not.

[00:04:52] So it's a show with English people watching English shows, commenting in English about

[00:04:59] the English shows. Yes. So it's like the old sci-fi show where they'd watch old sci-fi

[00:05:08] film and it was like a robot and a dude. Yeah, movie theater 3000 or some shit like that.

[00:05:13] Or maybe like Peterson Butt-Head commenting on the videos that they were watching.

[00:05:16] That's exactly what it is. It's exactly what it is and it is fucking hilarious.

[00:05:21] And this is high level entertainment for you and the wife.

[00:05:24] It's not. That's the problem. It was so good. It was like, oh my God,

[00:05:27] I've got to stop watching Goggle Box. And now it's on Netflix. So-

[00:05:31] The question is much like our jerseys, were they made in Scotland?

[00:05:34] Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's no Scottish, it's crap!

[00:05:38] I don't think they were, but Adam Corden, Stephen O'Donnell,

[00:05:41] Matt that British guy Alder and everyone who was at the true events, they weren't all Scottish.

[00:05:47] Don't forget Stephen McGrath. Don't forget our favorite Scott. Come on now.

[00:05:51] Give me a minute. I'm going to get there because we've got to talk about the jerseys.

[00:05:54] Okay. You're going to lead into it. My bad.

[00:05:56] Anyway, the venues were amazing. The speakers are amazing. The crowds were

[00:05:59] amazing and the sponsors, Daxter, Ashby Solutions Driven, who actually gave us these

[00:06:06] amazing fucking drams. Look at those. It actually has my-

[00:06:09] With initials.

[00:06:09] It has initials on it. Yeah, I've got that. And then we had Willow, Igd.ai and Poetry.

[00:06:15] Did you say Ashby?

[00:06:16] Obviously we couldn't pull it off without any of those guys. Yep, Ashby. I did.

[00:06:21] Much love goes to Scotland and much love goes to our friend Stephen McGrath who hooked us up

[00:06:27] with these amazing jerseys, not just us, but the girls. They got the, I think the home

[00:06:32] jerseys, which are the orange striped ones. And I think Jeremy got one too, didn't he?

[00:06:36] Jeremy got one, the stripe. All very cool. All very sexy. All very legit too.

[00:06:44] It'd be very easy for our friends, the Canadians, the Scots, etc., who give us jerseys to give us

[00:06:50] some cheap ass Walmart graphic sort of jersey. No, no. We're talking the Stitch, the legit,

[00:06:58] the real nitty gritty jerseys and I couldn't be more appreciative of that.

[00:07:04] Embroidered. Love it, love it. So thank you, Scotland.

[00:07:07] And unlike the Scots that I brought home, will last for a long time.

[00:07:11] No, it won't. No, it won't. So thanks to everybody. We had a blast and we cannot wait

[00:07:16] to return. You got some shout outs other than Google Box or Goggle Box or Brit Box, whatever

[00:07:23] it's called. So yeah, I've got a crash and burn shout out that's going to go to June Co.

[00:07:30] This from an article on SeaTek. Israeli startup Junco filed for chapter 11 last week. Didn't see

[00:07:37] that coming, did you? Junco's operations effectively came to an end last summer after

[00:07:43] Illit Raz, the former CEO of Junco left the company amid allegations from the board that she

[00:07:51] engaged in egregious, unethical and fraudulent conduct. Crunchbase lists 38.5 million in funding

[00:08:01] Junco filed for chapter 11 and their plans to distribute the remaining, listen kids, from

[00:08:08] 38.5 million to remaining 4.25 million to investors. I want to know how much of that

[00:08:18] went to the old CEO's pockets. I mean, what happened there? There's got to be some filing

[00:08:25] through the bank accounts. Yeah. Fucking crazy. And it has to happen with a diversity, equity

[00:08:32] and inclusion platform. I mean, how fucked up is that? This won't be a Hulu documentary

[00:08:38] like Uber or WeWork or Theranos. Maybe. But for our industry, this is about as like

[00:08:44] scandalous, fraudulent jail time worthy story that you're going to get. Maybe it's fortunate

[00:08:51] for them that they're not in the US. They can kind of hide out over in Israel. But yeah,

[00:08:55] this is like bad and I don't think she should do jail time, but the investors typically,

[00:09:01] there's a level of embarrassment where they just want this all to go away and move on

[00:09:05] to the next deal. But yeah, this is for our space is pretty juicy. It's pretty nice. I

[00:09:10] mean, if we're like halfway to Thanksgiving, we've got a few jive turkeys and shout outs

[00:09:15] this week that are worthy of making our year end list. So bookmark Juneco and the CEO

[00:09:22] as your jive turkey of 2024 because it's a no brainer. She was on your jive turkey list.

[00:09:29] Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. You might be a duty timer on that. I got a shout out to

[00:09:34] Major League Baseball. I know you're over in Europe and you've sort of missed some of the

[00:09:38] baseball news. I know you're a big fan. I know a huge baseball fan chat.

[00:09:42] Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Just crazy.

[00:09:46] Some Americans don't know there was a segregated league. There was the league that you think of

[00:09:51] when you think of baseball with overweight white guys running around in oversized pants.

[00:09:57] But there was the Negro League at the time, which obviously had black players that were

[00:10:03] shocking. Really, really good. And until now the Major League Baseball Association has

[00:10:08] separated the records from the Negro League from the regular league. So long time coming,

[00:10:14] I know, but it is, as you say, slow progress. Records by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb have fallen

[00:10:21] because of the likes of Josh Gibson, who at the time was known as the black Babe Ruth,

[00:10:26] Satchel Page, which actually did play a short period in the major leagues and by many

[00:10:30] accounts the best pitcher in baseball history. So a little bit of overdue props for those players

[00:10:37] and the Negro League and those records coming over into Major League Baseball as a whole.

[00:10:41] No more segregation in the record books.

[00:10:45] Yeah, I would have thought white guys running around in fat white guys running

[00:10:49] around in their living room would be more about you than baseball. But I mean,

[00:10:53] it could be them too. It could be. That was me running to Chipotle after being

[00:10:57] in Scotland where no Chipotle exists for nine or ten days.

[00:11:02] Oh my God. OK, so my next shout out goes to Wheel of Fortune. Yeah,

[00:11:06] no shit. First time on the show, kids. If you're not watching us on YouTube,

[00:11:11] you're totally going to miss this. OK, but you got to see it. You got to see it. Here we go, kids.

[00:11:15] $1000 category is phrase and off we go.

[00:11:21] What?

[00:11:39] The woman in the middle kills me.

[00:11:49] What are you doing, step bro?

[00:11:52] Right in the butt. OK, so what was funny is the first word was four letters and write is not,

[00:11:59] I don't know how he's spelling that. But anyway, yeah.

[00:12:02] You know where his mind was, right? But if you're not watching on YouTube, kids,

[00:12:05] you totally missed the expression on Tavares' face after that wonderfully wrong answer. So

[00:12:11] watch us on YouTube and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. That's good TV.

[00:12:17] No doubt.

[00:12:17] That's good TV.

[00:12:19] All right. My last shout out goes to Stacy Griner. Who the fuck is Stacy Griner,

[00:12:24] you may ask? Well, who is Stacy Griner?

[00:12:25] Daily Pay, a company that we have celebrated on this show as a trend that needs to have its

[00:12:31] time in the sun. Well, they're going through some iSims Brian Provost style CEO shuffle over

[00:12:38] there. Stacy is the new Daily Pay interim CEO on the same day that they announced that now

[00:12:45] former CEO Kevin Koop exited to become CEO of a company called Definitive Healthcare

[00:12:53] after just two years at Daily Pay. So I don't know what's up with these CEOs that take these

[00:13:00] big jobs at companies that are unicorns and then push the eject button after a couple of years,

[00:13:05] but it's not a healthy trend for the workers and the employees, which I had to go check out.

[00:13:10] I'm not a fan of Glassdoor, but it is still the side of record if you want to know what

[00:13:15] people think about CEOs at the company. And my man had a 53% approval rating. So there

[00:13:21] might be some employees celebrating Mr. Koop's exit because he was not very favorable with many,

[00:13:28] many of the employees. But Stacy Griner, yeah, you carry that interim CEO much like our friend

[00:13:35] Rebecca Carr at Smart Recruiters. I say it's time to just put the CEO label on these ladies.

[00:13:39] Let's get some fresh ideas and strategies in our space. Stacy Griner hopefully soon to be

[00:13:45] CEO, but for now interim CEO of Daily Pay. Shout out to Stacy Griner. Good luck with all that.

[00:13:53] That's right. Get rid of that interim kids. One thing that both Stacy and Rebecca can do,

[00:13:59] there's no interim here with Chad and Cheese. They can actually go register for free stuff. No

[00:14:05] interim, free stuff, just free stuff. T-shirts from our friends at Aeronapp, new, beautiful

[00:14:12] guns and roses like t-shirts. Beer from Aspen Tech Labs, sweet, loving, carefully crafted

[00:14:20] beer that's going to arrive on your front doorstep. Whiskey, oh man, we just had a whole

[00:14:26] week of whiskey and it was amazing. I still have the drams to prove it by Text Colonel.

[00:14:33] Text Colonel knows how much you love whiskey. That's why they're going to send you two

[00:14:37] bottles. That's why we love Harard and we love the team over there. And if it's your

[00:14:40] birthday, it's a rum from Plum. Go to ChadCheese.com slash free and register.

[00:14:51] That's right, Chad. Another year around the sun celebrated by some of our loyal listeners.

[00:14:56] A shout out goes to Shelly Billinghurst of Canada.

[00:15:02] That's right. James Mealy, Jeff, the job board doctor, Dicky Chasen's,

[00:15:06] Calm O'Kinahan. I totally mispronounced that, but I shouldn't after being in Scotland for a while.

[00:15:12] Jeanette Leeds, Tom Hunley, Jackie Clayton, James Anderchuck, Sean Johnson,

[00:15:19] Caitlin Phale, Travis Wineling, Adrian Villa, Katrina Collier, who shares your birthday as well.

[00:15:26] And last but not least, Chad. My twin.

[00:15:28] Ya boys, Chad and Joel celebrated another trip around the sun. Happy birthday, everybody.

[00:15:35] Little known fact, same year. Good times.

[00:15:38] Just a day apart. 27th and 28th of May, Chad and Cheese. It was meant to be. It was written

[00:15:43] in the stars that we would have a podcast, Chad. Yeah. And we don't have Katrina on this

[00:15:50] show. She would actually wrap this whole thing up, except we would never get a word

[00:15:54] in edgewise by the way. Let's talk about events. We have RecFest, RecFest, RecFest

[00:15:59] coming kids. Nebworth is coming July 11th. If you have not been to Nebworth, RecFest at

[00:16:07] Nebworth, oh my God, get out of the corner. Get out of the closet. Bring your team, bring

[00:16:12] yourself, bring your team. This is an all hands type of scenario. There were 5,500 people

[00:16:17] there last year. Don't know how many people this year, but it's going to be a blast. Joel

[00:16:21] and I are going to be on stage all day. You're going to love it. Hop on the train from

[00:16:25] London, wherever you're at or down from Scotland and come see us in Nebworth. We have Nashville

[00:16:32] is coming September 12th and 13th. I got to say it. The first year of Nashville for me,

[00:16:38] RecFest in Nashville was amazing. And not just because there were so many VIP

[00:16:45] queries happening, but the content that were on the stage. I mean, we were emceeing stage

[00:16:50] all day. That was a blast and there was great content. I agree. I agree. And by the way,

[00:16:56] Cole Cheeseman will be making the trip with me. See him for a t-shirt. That's sort of his job.

[00:17:02] Let's check on Cole real quick. What's he up to? That's his job.

[00:17:09] He's agitated. Summer break started today. So he's over finals and getting over that.

[00:17:15] He's going to be happy. A little bit of a personal note. I'm going to Singapore in June

[00:17:20] for two weeks. I'll be here next week. But then after that you get to have some co-hosts

[00:17:24] and some fun without me. But clearly after doing an interview with Matt Alder, when I called him

[00:17:29] Adam, clearly my brain needs a little bit of Asian Pacific sunshine and beaches and some

[00:17:36] foe and some good stuff. So I will be gone for two weeks. We're going to do a super shred

[00:17:43] when I get back. So Chad, you'll be sort of highlighting job case and what they're up to

[00:17:48] while I'm gone. But yeah, I'm piecing out for a couple of weeks everybody. I'm pretty excited

[00:17:52] about it. It's been a while since I've totally unplugged from the show.

[00:17:56] Yeah. I am not sure if it was your brain or the scotch that actually,

[00:18:02] yeah, I'm not sure if it was that, but it doesn't matter.

[00:18:04] Europe has a lot of countries in it. And by the way, Chad, it's the end of the month

[00:18:09] or the beginning of the month depending on when you listen to this, which means the jobs

[00:18:12] report is coming out. If you're not tuning into our monthly show with LinkUp CEO Toby Dayton,

[00:18:18] make sure you head out to youtube.com slash at Chad Cheese. Subscribe. It's a thoughtful Q&A

[00:18:24] with us and what's going on the jobs report. It's not something that you'll get on CNBC or

[00:18:29] Bloomberg. It's a totally different perspective and it's free to watch. So there you go kids.

[00:18:33] You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome.

[00:18:35] Yeah. Better data, baby.

[00:18:36] All right, Chad. Seattle startup Humanly, former firing squad participant. They're a

[00:18:46] conversational AI platform for high volume hiring in case you missed it. They've acquired

[00:18:51] San Francisco's Teamable. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Teamable CEO will join

[00:18:57] Humanly as VP of product. Humanly customers use the platform for screening, scheduling,

[00:19:01] automating, communication and running reference checks as well. Teamable had previously raised

[00:19:06] $12 million while Humanly has raised a little under $24 million. Chad, is this a match made

[00:19:13] in heaven, a shotgun wedding or something in between your thoughts?

[00:19:18] I got to say, I love Prem. He came on firing squad back in late 2020. I gave him a golf

[00:19:24] clap only because they didn't have funding. Then subsequently they got a seed round in late

[00:19:30] 2021 and then an additional $12 million Series A in 2023. So they started fueling the jets,

[00:19:38] which is awesome. Now they're expanding screening and scheduling capabilities,

[00:19:43] going up funnel, adding source and attract and further down funnel, adding tracking.

[00:19:50] This is exactly what they need to be doing. If you take a look at companies like the

[00:19:53] talk pushes and the paradox and whatnot, those guys are doing the exact same thing,

[00:19:58] right? They're not expanding, going horizontally. They're going up and down funnel. This is

[00:20:04] incredibly important for them. Not to mention now they have these assets,

[00:20:08] their valuation goes up dramatically, right? So a little inside baseball. Teamable was already

[00:20:14] acquired once by Top Funnel back in 2021. Top Funnel, the acquiring company then rebranded to

[00:20:23] Teamable. Kind of find that odd. Teamable, not a name or not a word. It's a created word,

[00:20:29] right? Top Funnel, two words that you can spell. Anyway, digging into Teamable, the world's

[00:20:38] most complete AI hiring platform. I had to stop myself from laughing too hard.

[00:20:42] The world's most complete AI hiring platform founded in 2017. They only raised 10 million

[00:20:50] funding. Five in 2017 and another five in 2018. That's at least what I saw in Crunchbase.

[00:20:56] On LinkedIn, Justin Palmer, Teamable CEO left six months ago after leading the company for

[00:21:04] eight years. So I started asking myself, how many times do you think we actually talked about

[00:21:11] Teamable over the last eight years? The world's most complete AI hiring platform,

[00:21:17] how many times? Once, once in April of 2017. What? When they received funding, I mean once.

[00:21:29] So this is obviously, it feels like a distressed asset and good on-prem and the humanly team for

[00:21:34] picking up a clearance rack asset to be able to actually again go up and down funnel for

[00:21:43] the humanly stack. So good for those guys. I can't believe we haven't seen more of this happening

[00:21:48] in our space this year. I think we're going to see more, but I can't believe we haven't seen

[00:21:54] much of that this far. 60% of the time it works.

[00:21:57] So our friend, Prem CEO at Humanly said, quote in the press release,

[00:22:02] we are making the dream of posting a job and having a qualified candidate appear on your

[00:22:08] calendar without the manual effort in between a reality. I agree on paper, this makes a ton of

[00:22:14] sense. You've built a conversational AI for lots of folks to come through the funnel while you

[00:22:19] need a top of the funnel to get more and more people through your conversational AI product.

[00:22:25] So on par, this makes total sense. And that's always been a challenge with the chat bots.

[00:22:29] It's like, yeah, we're not going to get people to the site or your jobs. We'll be

[00:22:33] there when they're ready. It makes a lot of sense to like, we'll help you get traffic

[00:22:37] into your conversational solution. I'm with you totally on this is a TJ Maxx

[00:22:42] clearance sale, clearance rack, consolidation play. If you look at the head count at Teamable,

[00:22:49] they had a 60% decline in head count over the past two years. Things are not going well

[00:22:55] with this company. I don't know how many people will move from San Francisco or from

[00:23:00] team over to Humanly. Humanly is a pretty small team. So to take on those folks would be

[00:23:07] challenged. So we'll see what happens there. Obviously, there's some people that are quality

[00:23:12] there that maybe they'll move up to Seattle or bring into Humanly. But these models of sort of,

[00:23:18] I don't know, let's call them HubSpot for recruiting plays are challenged. I mean,

[00:23:23] if you look at hire easy, we know them really well. They pivoted out of hire tool,

[00:23:28] a sourcing solution. We talked about seek out and layoffs there. They haven't pivoted,

[00:23:34] but that's a challenge business as well. Hire easy has had a 29% head count decrease in the

[00:23:40] last two years, which is roughly half of Teamable's, but it's still not exactly

[00:23:44] super hyper growth company. I expect hire easy to be consolidated acquired to your point of

[00:23:50] why haven't we talked about more of these? I think hire easy has to be on the sales,

[00:23:55] the conversation with some and many. Now, why these two got together, I don't know. Maybe

[00:24:00] investors brought them together. Seattle and San Francisco don't normally get together for

[00:24:04] stuff like this. So somebody knew somebody, they were looking to sell, making calls. I'm

[00:24:08] sure this wasn't the only one. Humanly terms were not disclosed. I'm sure it was a hell

[00:24:13] of a deal. If not just we'll take up the assets and repay any debts or pay some of your

[00:24:19] investors for their time and energy. We'll give you all jobs.

[00:24:22] I think it makes a ton of sense. Yeah, we'll give you jobs. We'll give you all the

[00:24:27] infrastructure, whatever we have, the technology, but that's about it. So for me, this is really

[00:24:32] much to do about nothing. Teamable has been a non-player. Humanly, I think can make their

[00:24:38] way up the chain. They're at risk of getting, I guess, Coca-Cola by paradox and other

[00:24:44] conversational AI players. But yeah, on paper it makes sense, but I don't think it's a

[00:24:47] huge deal. Yeah, I disagree. I think if you can get a really good pair of jeans off the TJ Maxx

[00:24:54] clearance rack and they look good on your ass, I think it's awesome. So I think this might be

[00:24:59] that. It depends on how they execute. But I think one of the things is you get a company

[00:25:05] like Paradox who literally is leading the charge. You do have to have the Pepsi's,

[00:25:10] the RC Colas, the Fantas, the big reds, right? So I think there's plenty of room in

[00:25:15] the space because to be quite frank, the process efficiency of most applicant tracking systems

[00:25:22] because of the way that the talent acquisition company set them up are shit and they need

[00:25:26] process efficiency. So who knows? This could be a much cheaper option than a Paradox. Who knows?

[00:25:33] But I think at least being able to add to the assets and then also going up and down

[00:25:38] funnel is incredibly smart for humans. I do think it's interesting that they are adding pieces

[00:25:43] as opposed to being like a really good tool in somebody's toolbox. So they are at least making

[00:25:48] a move to say, hey, we're going to go up funnel. We're going to be more a piece of the pie than

[00:25:52] we were just a tool that you can just buy, which they were, they're fine acquisition play

[00:25:57] as they are now. They're a little bit more expensive, maybe a little bit more valuable,

[00:26:01] or maybe they're taking a real, taking real aim at Paradox and Fountain and some of the

[00:26:05] others, Harry, that are doing some of these things. So yeah, it's an interesting play.

[00:26:10] We'll see. I think they might need another series of money. Well, I guess stay tuned.

[00:26:15] Stay tuned for that one. The squirt gun and the gunfight isn't probably working all that well.

[00:26:20] All right. Let's get to Cornerstone on demand. Another one. They've acquired Skyhive

[00:26:25] technologies. Cornerstone says the deal accelerates their re-skilling capabilities

[00:26:29] with predictive labor market intelligence and automated job architecture management. Prior to

[00:26:35] the deal, Skyhive had raised $48 million. They were founded in 2017. Chad, your thoughts on

[00:26:43] the Cornerstone Skyhive deal? AI powered skills intelligence platform. How many buzzwords can you

[00:26:51] fit into a shortened description? Apparently five. We talked a bit about skills-based

[00:26:57] hiring in Glasgow and what was your feeling around the companies and if they were doing

[00:27:03] it right, if they even started at this point? Did you feel like we were even on track with

[00:27:09] skills-based hiring right now? Yeah. Back to my Major League Baseball reference. We may still be

[00:27:13] in the batter's box or just entering the batter's box on this play. Yeah. Skills-based

[00:27:18] hiring is fucking hard. Why? Because tasks for a specific job, companies haven't even lined

[00:27:25] those out for the most part and then being able to assess skills on those tasks. So we think

[00:27:31] of jobs as jobs. They're not. They are a series of tasks that create the job. That's what they

[00:27:37] are. That's why I believe performance-based skills assessment systems are the cheat code,

[00:27:43] right? The shortcut. So how can you prove a candidate can actually perform the tasks of a

[00:27:49] job? What tasks are they doing well and what tasks are they not doing well that they need

[00:27:55] help with, right? This is where we actually need performance-based types of systems. So

[00:28:01] I believe that we're, as you'd said, still, I mean, we're still in the batter's box. Not even the

[00:28:05] early innings for God sakes, the batter's box and skills-based hiring discussions

[00:28:10] because most companies don't even have a list of tasks that make up the fucking job in

[00:28:16] the first place, let alone evaluate performance on said, you know, said tasks. So nothing

[00:28:22] that a little AI smoke and mirrors apparently won't help. And that's what I feel like this

[00:28:28] is. I don't feel like anybody's figured this out and for a company to be able to say, well,

[00:28:32] you know, pretty much we've figured this out. It just feels like bullshit to me. I could be

[00:28:36] a hundred percent wrong, but to be quite frank, I don't think I am.

[00:28:39] Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

[00:28:42] Here's what the recipe feels like. Company jumps on a big trend, upscaling, raises a

[00:28:48] bunch of money, creates a website with a lot of stock video footage of like nurses

[00:28:54] and you'll love the vet, like the military ones with the dog tags looking at a laptop,

[00:28:59] like creates a website, creates a ton of buzzwords upscaling AI, like all, you know,

[00:29:06] mall, if you listen to this show, there is a bunch of money that they get on a trend.

[00:29:10] And then someone realizes that, okay, we got on this trend to be on it. And this isn't,

[00:29:15] this ain't it. Like this, this probably is not the rocket ship that's going to take us

[00:29:20] to the moon. And as a result, they continue to like, you and I do this for a living and

[00:29:26] I spend a good deal of time watching the explainer videos, going through the site,

[00:29:31] like what the fuck do these guys do? I came across this skills passport thing

[00:29:36] and I thought maybe this is a blockchain play. Like they're going to like, you know,

[00:29:41] confirm identities and profiles, but I could not figure out what the skills passport was.

[00:29:47] It sounded cool and they'd actually trademarked it, but I couldn't figure out from the one page

[00:29:52] of what the fuck it was. So to me, this just feels like let's get on this trend. Let's

[00:29:56] raise a bunch of money. Oh shit, this isn't it. Let's call our VC buddies at cornerstone

[00:30:02] on demand, which was a, which used to be a public company. It was acquired in 21 by clear

[00:30:08] lake capital groups. So like there's some money to like, what should we do? And so all these

[00:30:12] people know each other like, Hey, how would you like to buy us for X? You'll get the AI shed,

[00:30:18] whatever tech we build. You can take some where people will say face. Well, you know,

[00:30:21] our investors will walk away with their head high and then this deal happens. Like this

[00:30:27] happens all the time. Whereas at least humanly and teamable makes sense on paper. I don't know

[00:30:32] if this one makes sense. This just feels like a bunch of dudes at the country club saying like,

[00:30:36] Hey, I got to dump this dog. I got a pile of dog shit sprinkled with cat turds. Like you

[00:30:41] interested. And then like over a couple of cigars and maybe a happy ending at oriental massage

[00:30:47] parlor and bam, we got us an acquisition. That's what this feels like. It doesn't make a lot of

[00:30:51] sense other than somebody knew somebody and people put money in and like, let's get it

[00:30:55] out and say face and move on to the next deal. Yeah. And cornerstone seems to be really

[00:31:02] good at one thing and that's baffling companies with bullshit. And this just feels like a

[00:31:08] continuation of that. It's kind of the whole eightfold, you know, trend. Like let's throw

[00:31:13] some AI shit, big words. Eightfold is their masters of that shit. And people buy thinking,

[00:31:17] well it's the emperor has no clothes. I see the clothes. Yeah. Okay. I'll buy your shit.

[00:31:22] I don't know what it does, but I'll buy and tell everyone that I'm really smart just like

[00:31:26] you. All right. Let's take a quick break and talk about someone else who thinks they're

[00:31:30] smarter than the average bear. That would be indeed everybody. We'll be right back.

[00:31:36] Human resources is supposed to be about humans. I mean, it's right there in the name,

[00:31:41] but when your hiring team is more like an assembly line glued to their computers,

[00:31:46] manually posting heaps of jobs everywhere they can think of that human part feels nowhere to

[00:31:51] be found. This is a new era. Pando IQ takes the mind numbing copy pasting and nerve wracking

[00:31:58] guesswork out of the job posting process. When you plan a hiring campaign with Pando IQ,

[00:32:02] you tell us who you need. Then before you ever spend a cent, we predict what it will

[00:32:07] cost to find them. Pando IQ chooses the ideal recruiting sites from thousands of options,

[00:32:12] targeting the ones your next great hire frequently visits, then fires off your ads

[00:32:16] at precisely calculated times surfacing the most relevant applicants for you to pick from. Now

[00:32:21] you're free to get to know the best talent, build great teams and take care of your humans.

[00:32:26] Pando IQ will do the rest so you can get back to doing what the computers can't.

[00:32:30] For more information on Pando IQ, go to pandologic.com. That's pandologic.com.

[00:32:40] Indeed is coming for your TAM, Chad. In a Recruit Holdings online strategic overview,

[00:32:47] CEO Chris Himes, also known as our love child, outlined how Indeed would be growing its

[00:32:52] market share in the coming years. Some nuggets include greater global penetration while

[00:32:57] simultaneously growing its SMB and enterprise customer base and increasing its quote take rate

[00:33:04] within new segments such as temp staffing. Chad, this was a video that probably went under

[00:33:10] a lot of people's radar, but not ours. What's your takeaway from Mr. Himes' commentary?

[00:33:17] Yeah, this video came out well over a month ago, I think a couple of months ago,

[00:33:22] and I watched it and I thought, okay, let's see what happens at the end of this.

[00:33:26] Wait, we were traveling, crickets, crickets. I'm searching, crickets, crickets. Nobody's

[00:33:32] talking about this and I don't get it because during the investors update, Chris Himes,

[00:33:38] the CEO of Indeed, talked about effectively monetizing the marketplace. What the fuck does

[00:33:43] that mean? Indeed's already the biggest player in the ad tech recruiting space, right? Okay.

[00:33:48] Well, you have to expand the total addressable market. Okay, where? During the update, Chris,

[00:33:54] how have I not been fired, Himes pointed out that the ad tech space in the recruiting industry,

[00:34:01] the market size is $32 billion, which is only 10% of the greater 327 billion recruitment industry.

[00:34:10] So Indeed wants to expand their TAM by 10x by going into staffing and yet we haven't heard

[00:34:17] shit from anybody about this. So Indeed has no need to be a technological innovator anymore

[00:34:25] when they are already a decade ahead of staffing agencies like Ronstadt who screwed the pooch

[00:34:32] with their monster acquisition, Adeko with their failed hire.com acquisition, and AMS with their

[00:34:42] pathetic management of the hourly product, just to name a few by the way. So the question is Indeed,

[00:34:48] how can they become a staffing company? We got to remember Recruit Holdings is their sugar daddy.

[00:34:54] They're one of the biggest recruitment companies in Asia pack, right? So Indeed makes it public.

[00:35:00] They're going full steam into staffing, but they can't eat the entire staffing $327 billion

[00:35:07] industry elephant all at once. So where do they start? Well, they already have, oh wait a minute,

[00:35:12] kids, Indeed Flex, a temp jobs platform, which represents, wait a minute, what's the temp job?

[00:35:19] That's $128 billion of the 327. It's the biggest fucking chunk that's out there. So

[00:35:27] Ronstadt, Adeko and all the other staffing companies are pretty much setting as the monster

[00:35:33] dot coms and career builders of today. They can hear the Indeed train coming. They know that

[00:35:39] they're standing on the tracks, but they're just too damn busy worrying about this quarter's EBITDA

[00:35:44] to get the fuck out of the way. The big question is what staffing companies and RPO firms

[00:35:50] will continue spending money with Indeed after this update? The answer is all of them,

[00:35:57] probably. This was fascinating. I'd love to know how many Indeed employees have watched

[00:36:03] this. It's pretty cool that they made it publicly available for meatheads like us

[00:36:08] to go check it out. But look, on the surface, well, but they don't have to reveal this much.

[00:36:13] They don't have to... Anyway, it's very cool that a company did this. It's sort of like,

[00:36:17] let's open the kimono and let everyone know what our real intentions are. Because you and

[00:36:22] I talk about Indeed- You see what you did there.

[00:36:24] From our world and our perspective, it looks like a company in disarray. It looks like,

[00:36:28] what the fuck are we doing? Let's throw shit at the wall. We're desperate. We don't

[00:36:32] know what we're doing. Then you watch this thing and you go, ah, that's some evil-ass shit. Okay.

[00:36:41] Look over here. Look over here. Yeah. It feels a little bit like,

[00:36:44] let's do some stupid shit so Chad and Cheese talk about that. Then the real

[00:36:49] evil plan will be hatched behind the doors. Yes, if I'm a staffing company,

[00:36:57] this definitely concerns me. Can they pull it off? That's questionable. I don't know.

[00:37:03] Google can't launch glasses. Apple got out of the car business. There's reason to believe

[00:37:08] that even though they say they're going to do this, that they can actually do it,

[00:37:12] that they can actually follow through and get it done. But look, it was fascinating to talk

[00:37:16] about what we do is such a small piece of what we want to do. We think of Indeed as this

[00:37:23] monolithic number one job board in the world, but in a world of $327 billion opportunity,

[00:37:31] it's a small piece of that pie. You mentioned if they just get into one of these and the ones

[00:37:36] that he talked about were temp staffing, retained search, direct hire, and recruitment

[00:37:40] automation. Job advertising is a tenth of what that marketplace is. He talks about how the

[00:37:47] 50K and under jobs are still the primary resource for companies to find people.

[00:37:53] The executive side of that is less than half of what they're getting from a monetary standpoint.

[00:37:59] If they start turning the dials on the executive stuff, whether that's through search,

[00:38:04] I don't know exactly what they're going to do. But if they just get that up to what

[00:38:07] they're getting on for companies at $50,000 and below, they're going to greatly impact

[00:38:11] their bottom line in a big way. He talks a lot about the Indeed hire and Indeed flex,

[00:38:17] how they're going to be a primary part of the future. It was just a fascinating sort

[00:38:22] of flying the wall moment where this is what Indeed's really doing. And it was fascinating

[00:38:28] to watch. I think they've got their work cut out for them. I don't think this is a core

[00:38:31] competency for them. I think just saying we're getting into executive search or we're

[00:38:35] getting into temp staffing is easier said than done. And they're more than likely to

[00:38:41] fuck it up than they are to get it right. But it's going to be fun to watch. And it's

[00:38:44] at least good to know how this is a backdrop like, oh yeah, they just talked about sourcing.

[00:38:49] No, that ain't it. It's this other shit that they're looking to grow the market share.

[00:38:54] The take rate he says a lot in that they want to take more cash from what they're

[00:38:58] helping companies do currently. Oh yeah. Going from 1% to,

[00:39:02] prospectively 5% to 20% to possibly, I mean, because if you think about it,

[00:39:08] they can undercut the staffing companies because they have the process efficiency and they have

[00:39:13] access to the actual, the candidates. Right? The thing that just blows my mind is that how all of

[00:39:20] these inept staffing companies and RPOs, they're coming for you too. Okay. They're coming for

[00:39:26] you too. To think that you are safe because you're inside a company is just, I mean,

[00:39:31] you're a fool on yourself kids. To be able to undercut all the staffing companies because

[00:39:38] you're not going to have the overhead is just crazy. The thing is these staffing companies have

[00:39:44] proven they cannot buy a tech company and turn it out like Recruit Holdings did with Indeed.

[00:39:53] Recruit Holdings, they've been able to really make this bad boy sing and they have wanted

[00:39:58] penetration into the US market and other markets too, but definitely the US market.

[00:40:03] This is their train, man. This is their train and it's going to run over all those other

[00:40:07] fucking staffing companies. They're not going to get out of the way. They're going to be

[00:40:10] worried about next quarter instead of five years down the road and Japan has your fucking

[00:40:15] number kids. It's too easy to say, hey, we noticed you posted a job for an executive

[00:40:20] position. Do you want to learn more about this product and what it could mean? We'll

[00:40:25] find the people for you. As companies reduce their recruiting headcount, something like this

[00:40:30] is really appealing. Yeah, a small business, I need some cooks or some servers. See you post

[00:40:37] a job like we'll help you place those jobs. Okay, that's cool. Indeed does that. What do I

[00:40:43] have to pay 20% or whatever it is? They can undercut that. It makes really good sense

[00:40:48] and it also makes sense of why they're doing more to go after LinkedIn with their

[00:40:52] multiple profiles. They want more of that data, more of that profile data so then they can

[00:40:59] place those folks more easily within the system. It's some evil genius shit if they can pull it

[00:41:05] off. I question if they can. It'll be fun to watch though. Staffing companies, you better

[00:41:09] stop spending money with Indeed. I think it's too late to be quite frank for some of you,

[00:41:14] but not all of you. You better stop fucking spending money with Indeed because

[00:41:18] you're literally slitting your own throat. Wise up. You are really dumb, for real.

[00:41:24] All right, moving on from Indeed. Let's take a quick break. Guys, listen to the ads on the show.

[00:41:30] There is no show without the ads and we love our sponsors so much that you should write them

[00:41:34] all blank checks or just give them your credit card number for God sakes. We'll be right

[00:41:38] back with some Chuck E. Cheese news. Bet you never thought you'd hear that on the

[00:41:42] Chad and Cheese podcast. No. Are you struggling to attract the talent you need today? Do you

[00:41:49] lack visibility into where your recruitment ad dollars are really going? There's a better way.

[00:41:54] Acquire ROI is a programmatic job advertising platform built to optimize your budget and

[00:41:59] supercharge hiring. Acquire ROI automatically manages and measures recruitment ads across

[00:42:05] job boards so you can allocate your budget based on insights, not hunches. Get to quality

[00:42:10] candidates faster and cost-effectively scale hiring across roles, all while gaining complete

[00:42:16] visibility and control over your recruitment marketing investments. Say goodbye to manual

[00:42:21] guesswork, inconsistent performance and wasted spending. And hello to optimized automated

[00:42:26] campaigns that produce qualified applicants. At Acquire ROI, we make job advertising easy.

[00:42:32] Visit us at acquireroi.com and start transforming your talent acquisition today.

[00:42:37] All right, Chad, young professionals in Toronto. Sorry, I mispronounced it. It's

[00:42:42] Toronto for the Canadians out there are using a local Chuck E. Cheese. Did you know that

[00:42:47] Chuck E.'s middle name is entertainment? I bet you didn't know that. Charles Entertainment Cheese

[00:42:52] is his full name. Anyway, they're using the Chuck E. Cheese as a remote workspace.

[00:42:57] So bad.

[00:42:58] Finding the environment, quote, surprisingly productive while at the same time being

[00:43:04] nostalgic. The idea initiated by Arve Bookbinder has gained popularity with more than 100 people

[00:43:11] showing interest in joining future, quote, fever dream co-working events at Chuck E. Cheese. Chad,

[00:43:19] your thoughts on Chuck E. Cheese going after a little WeWork pie or is that pizza pie?

[00:43:25] I think it's Adam Newman in the Chuck E. Cheese suit is what it is. This is his way

[00:43:30] to try to outflank WeWork.

[00:43:34] It'd be more successful in his other companies.

[00:43:36] Fucking Adam Newman. Oh my God, yeah. I mean, we just talked about, you know,

[00:43:40] Elia Raz from Juco and now this feels very Adam Newman-ish. He was trying to put in a bid

[00:43:49] to buy WeWork, the company that's a, you know, he WeWork Jesused. Yeah, this to me is one of

[00:43:55] the stupidest things ever. I can't imagine any professional going into a Chuck E. Cheese

[00:44:02] in working, period. And I guess it doesn't have to be, you know, quote unquote professionals,

[00:44:07] like, you know, upscale professionals that can be just anybody, just your regular old Joe.

[00:44:11] Maybe they have kids that like you are out of school. You want to go take them to play,

[00:44:16] but you got to do work. Maybe this is a good opportunity, but yeah, this isn't going.

[00:44:20] So you're a hater and I went scouring the internet for comic relief around Chuck E.

[00:44:25] Cheese. So this is comedian, this is a comedian, Nate Bargets on Chuck E. Cheese. Have

[00:44:31] a quick listen. We take her out, we go do stuff. I would take her to Chuck E. Cheese all the time.

[00:44:36] You can go there. They had COVID in 84. So you can't even survive in there. That's what,

[00:44:44] I mean, Chuck E. Cheese is rough. I don't know if you've been there in a while.

[00:44:48] They look like they're trying to go into business and they can't.

[00:44:53] They filed for bankruptcy and they're still open. They call Blockbuster and they're like,

[00:44:58] how do you get out? We want out. They're updating nothing. That Chuck E. Band is just robotic.

[00:45:09] I mean, the drummer doesn't even turn on. It just sits like that the whole time.

[00:45:15] They sell booze to parents now. They just give them buckets of Bud Light.

[00:45:19] They're drunk in a booze at 9 AM. Someone drives those kids home. I don't see a bunch

[00:45:25] of Ubers and lifts showing up. There was a Chuck E. Cheese that got caught. If people didn't eat

[00:45:31] all their pizza, they would just put it back out on the buffet. That would shut down any

[00:45:36] normal business. And with Chuck E. Cheese, they have thrived. I mean, they,

[00:45:40] I didn't even, when I read the story, I was like, I thought that's what they were doing.

[00:45:43] I thought we agreed that that's fine. I didn't know what to work with.

[00:45:45] I'm going to stand up for Chuck E. Cheese for a second. I've recently been to a Chuck E.

[00:45:49] Cheese in the last six months. The robotic band is gone. It's all digital. The games are pretty

[00:45:57] cool. The pizza is pretty good. I think they got some real ovens in there and they're like,

[00:46:02] there's no buffet anymore. Well, maybe there's a buffet with salads and stuff,

[00:46:05] but the pizza is pretty good. The games are pretty fun. No one's going to Chuck E. Cheese

[00:46:10] on Tuesday from 9 to 3, roughly. They're going at night, maybe most on the weekends.

[00:46:16] I think it's a perfect opportunity to put up some desks, put up some cubes or put up some

[00:46:21] workspaces. Get some coffee in there. You know, want to take a break? I want to play some skee

[00:46:25] ball. I want to play some Terminator. Take a break, maybe go get some pizza. I think it could

[00:46:30] work. I think it could work and leave it to the Canadians to make something like this work.

[00:46:36] So don't give up on Chuck E. Cheese, Chad. It could be an idea whose time is now. And

[00:46:42] I'm going to end this on a dad joke. You know, I would why didn't anyone laugh at pizza's jokes?

[00:46:48] They were too cheesy. We out. We out. That was bad.

[00:46:55] Thank you for listening to what's it called? A podcast. The Chad, the cheese. Brilliant.

[00:47:03] They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about

[00:47:08] nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening.

[00:47:14] It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, but one cheddar, blue, nacho,

[00:47:21] pepper Jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho,

[00:47:29] be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen

[00:47:36] to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com.

[00:47:46] Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. So weird. We out.

[00:47:57] The Jim Stroud podcast explores the discoveries and trends forming the future of our lives.

[00:48:03] Brain to brain communication, robot bosses, microchip implants for workers and artificial

[00:48:10] intelligence replacing human workers are all happening now. If you want to know what's

[00:48:15] happening next, subscribe now to the Jim Stroud podcast.