The Rise of Good AI w/Adam Godson

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Recruitment Flex with Serge and Shelly. I'm Serge.

[00:00:10] And I'm Shelly. And we talk all things recruitment starting right now.

[00:00:17] Bonjour and welcome to The Recruitment Flex. Shelly, I'm telling you, 2024 has been the

[00:00:23] year of the best guests we've ever had and today is no exception.

[00:00:28] You are the secret weapon, Serge. It's like when you reach out to someone, they don't say no.

[00:00:32] So keep up the good work.

[00:00:34] I wish my dating life back in the day was like that because I got a lot of nose back then,

[00:00:39] but you're right. It's been good.

[00:00:40] Well, yes. So I am very honored to introduce our guest on the show today, someone that

[00:00:46] we have met before, that has some really exciting news to share. I am very pleased

[00:00:51] to welcome back to the show Adam Godson, who's the CEO of Paradox. Adam, welcome.

[00:00:57] Thanks so much for having me, Shelly. And Serge, thanks for the invitation.

[00:01:00] Who could say no to Beyond the Cloud?

[00:01:02] I don't know how that happens.

[00:01:04] So I'm excited to be with you and excited to be with the audience.

[00:01:07] It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen, Adam.

[00:01:09] So there you go.

[00:01:12] So let's start with you, Adam.

[00:01:14] I think the big exciting news is your promotion to CEO of Paradox.

[00:01:19] Because when we met last, you did hold a different role.

[00:01:22] So tell us a little bit about your journey to the CEO's chair.

[00:01:28] Thanks, Shelly. It's an exciting journey for me and honored to take the lead of Paradox

[00:01:32] and our amazing team that we have.

[00:01:34] My journey started in a recruitment seat in manufacturing.

[00:01:37] I worked at a company called Generac Power Systems in Wisconsin in very

[00:01:42] early 2000s and was recruiting engineers and on the volume space,

[00:01:46] manufacturing workers and learned a lot about the game of town acquisition

[00:01:52] and really fell in love with the space.

[00:01:53] And one of the benefits of being the new kid was you also got to sign all the technology.

[00:01:58] And so being able to think about systems and the ATS and all the things that existed

[00:02:04] in their pretty early stages, then it worked my way into additional HR roles,

[00:02:08] worked in the job board industry in the late 2000s.

[00:02:12] So got that exposure to the marketing and media side of things.

[00:02:16] And then worked for about nine plus years at Ciello and started their technology teams

[00:02:21] when it was a relatively small company and then ended as global

[00:02:26] chief technology officer of Ciello.

[00:02:28] And I tell people is actually some of the best experience to get in the 2010s in

[00:02:33] RPO, it was lovingly like having a hundred jobs at once where you used

[00:02:38] every pool under the sun and everything was there for the creative

[00:02:42] to be able to put things together to get recruiting processes aligned and get

[00:02:46] things automated recruiting work done.

[00:02:48] And then spinning out of the CTO role, I was Chief Product Officer at Paradox

[00:02:52] for the last four years, added the president title a little over a year ago

[00:02:56] and then CEO last month.

[00:02:58] I'm really curious how this whole becoming a CEO, right?

[00:03:02] So obviously you came in as the chief product officer,

[00:03:05] then you got assigned the president title like they talk to you about,

[00:03:09] hey, this is the goal.

[00:03:10] This is your career path.

[00:03:12] We're hiring you or we're bringing you in this position to become the CEO

[00:03:16] or is it Aaron came to you and said, I am looking to step away, work more

[00:03:21] on the high level as the executive chairman.

[00:03:24] Would you be interested?

[00:03:25] How does that work?

[00:03:26] Yeah, it's a good question.

[00:03:28] And so it was not explicit at the beginning about this is the path.

[00:03:32] I think, you know, Paradox was a hyper growth story that was

[00:03:36] important and growing fast before the pandemic, but like other

[00:03:39] companies in our space was slingshot in some way by the incredible labor

[00:03:44] market pressures that the pandemic created.

[00:03:46] And I think in my about a two and a half year stretch, we went from about

[00:03:50] 90 people to about 600.

[00:03:52] And so just the incredible growth that happened, the maturing

[00:03:55] the business had to do at that stage made a lot of opportunity

[00:03:58] to create changes and to create ways of working that were really

[00:04:02] important for the business.

[00:04:04] And so my growth path advice I give people is just step into challenges

[00:04:08] where there is space, step into that, continue to take on more.

[00:04:12] And as that became clear, the president title came from doing a lot of that.

[00:04:17] And then I think it's about opportunity and could Aaron run Paradox

[00:04:21] for the next five years?

[00:04:22] Absolutely.

[00:04:23] He's a tremendously talented CEO.

[00:04:25] When you've done it once, it's impressive.

[00:04:27] When you've done it more than once, it's really impressive.

[00:04:30] But I think there's also in many ways a spiritual difference

[00:04:32] between an entrepreneur CEO, someone that loves new products,

[00:04:36] new innovation versus a scaling CEO and the desire to do some of the work

[00:04:41] and to put in systems and processes and structures and things that are

[00:04:45] required to scale versus thrill of innovation.

[00:04:48] And I think Aaron knew well that he wanted to align to the former

[00:04:52] in some ways and he is innovating even more now.

[00:04:55] So he's taken off some of the work that he was doing.

[00:04:58] I've got some of those things now and spending lots of time thinking

[00:05:01] about big ideas and strategies and those things.

[00:05:03] And I think Joel Cheesman said it best where he was like,

[00:05:06] oh man, watch out on his podcast because he's got more time now

[00:05:11] to be thinking about the next big ideas.

[00:05:13] And that's a good thing for us.

[00:05:15] Absolutely.

[00:05:16] I think it's a good thing for the industry because he's got a pretty

[00:05:19] strong track record.

[00:05:20] Absolutely.

[00:05:21] Absolutely.

[00:05:21] And I think there's a lot to be said about the kind of work

[00:05:24] someone wants to be doing and the energy that comes from that.

[00:05:26] And it's been a really good fit so far.

[00:05:29] I really want to dig into what is Paradox because Paradox is

[00:05:34] probably one of the most important companies in our ecosystem.

[00:05:38] And we've seen the growth in the past three to four years.

[00:05:41] But a lot of people listening don't have a clue what Paradox

[00:05:44] is for that talent acquisition practitioner or that leader.

[00:05:48] What is Paradox?

[00:05:50] Where does it fit in the tech stack for recruitment and operation?

[00:05:54] Yeah, a really good question.

[00:05:55] And the baseline of that is conversational AI for talent

[00:05:59] acquisition and thinking about the conversational AI, it is so

[00:06:03] much clearer now than it was even two years ago.

[00:06:06] We're using chat GPT and Microsoft Co-pilot, lots of other

[00:06:10] conversational interfaces today when we said we were going

[00:06:12] to make invisible software in 2016.

[00:06:15] People said, you're doing what?

[00:06:18] And now it's a little clearer.

[00:06:19] And I think a lot of that for us is how do we bridge what

[00:06:23] is possible today with the future and where we're going and

[00:06:26] being able to connect those things so that we can help people

[00:06:30] get work done in their day-to-day jobs.

[00:06:32] We'll also be sure that they are covered for the future and

[00:06:35] there's a talent partner that they have that can help them

[00:06:38] get there.

[00:06:39] But we help with a variety of use cases.

[00:06:40] So I think a couple of things that were great at that

[00:06:42] I'll point out if I can say so.

[00:06:44] Well, one of those is volume recruitment, able to

[00:06:47] really take the short, sometimes transactional

[00:06:50] conversations in volume recruitment and automate them.

[00:06:53] Can you work these hours?

[00:06:55] Do you have this certification?

[00:06:56] Do you have this driver's license?

[00:06:58] Can you get to this place?

[00:06:59] Those basic things that in the past took a human to human

[00:07:03] conversation today, we can do that through AI and overall

[00:07:06] just being able to push on speed.

[00:07:09] And the guys maybe said last time on the show that I

[00:07:12] think speed and Canada experience are the same thing

[00:07:15] when it comes to hiring in volume.

[00:07:17] And it really is true.

[00:07:18] When we see our client, they're hiring fast with full

[00:07:20] staffing rates and being able to have restaurants and

[00:07:25] retail shops that are fully staffed versus others

[00:07:27] that are waiting and aren't able to find the staff

[00:07:30] they need.

[00:07:31] And the second thing I think we're really world class

[00:07:32] at is the hard interview scheduling.

[00:07:35] The really complex stuff.

[00:07:36] The six part interview over three days in four

[00:07:39] countries, communicating in five languages, room

[00:07:42] booking, calendar integration, those kinds of

[00:07:45] things.

[00:07:45] So we do a lot of sitting on top of the workday SAP

[00:07:48] Oracle, those kinds of systems to help automate that

[00:07:51] step at large global multinationals and answering

[00:07:54] candidate questions and automating some of their

[00:07:57] screening, those kinds of things as well.

[00:07:59] So if you just use cases that we've seen tremendous

[00:08:02] success with for conversational AI.

[00:08:04] Okay, there's a couple there that you pointed out

[00:08:06] that I want to dig in a little bit deeper.

[00:08:08] So you talked about high volume hiring.

[00:08:10] So when we're talking about anything, right?

[00:08:12] Manufacturing to retail to hospitality.

[00:08:15] And I also saw that you have built basically an

[00:08:18] ATS that you're leveraging for high volume hiring.

[00:08:22] First of all, why the ATS?

[00:08:24] Is it just because these players did not have a

[00:08:27] workday or anything that you could overlay?

[00:08:30] Or was it just you saw a big need and you

[00:08:32] saw a niche in the market?

[00:08:34] Really the first one.

[00:08:35] So if everyone had worked day SAP Oracle, I

[00:08:38] would happily overlay that all day long.

[00:08:40] And we see really successful restaurants,

[00:08:43] retailers, manufacturing, like people that hire in

[00:08:45] volume with those systems.

[00:08:46] And we plug in fantastically to that speed up

[00:08:49] automate hiring to go really fast.

[00:08:51] But all the data back in it fits with everything else.

[00:08:53] And that's great.

[00:08:55] The persistent question we get, we're asking

[00:08:57] as well, I don't have one of those.

[00:08:59] Do I have to go buy something else that you

[00:09:00] sit on top of?

[00:09:02] And that nod at us.

[00:09:03] We said that's not very convenient for anyone.

[00:09:05] And some of the genesis of our ATS, it is

[00:09:08] fairly well known, was with McDonald's in our

[00:09:11] early days where there wasn't something to sit

[00:09:13] on top of and we were able to work with them

[00:09:16] and co-create and have something that fit

[00:09:18] their unique franchise architecture.

[00:09:20] But then also work at the store level

[00:09:22] and highly automate things.

[00:09:24] And from there, we really kept building.

[00:09:26] So it was the parts that we needed to sit

[00:09:29] on top of that built some new features.

[00:09:31] And that's a classic innovators dilemma.

[00:09:34] If you're familiar with the sort of classic

[00:09:36] book of being able to start with the simplest

[00:09:38] use cases and innovate underneath people

[00:09:40] that have made it too complicated.

[00:09:42] And so many ATSs were built for a corporate

[00:09:44] use case and didn't serve the field very well.

[00:09:47] It was too complicated, too many buttons,

[00:09:48] too long to open a wreck, those types of things.

[00:09:51] And so as that became successful, we

[00:09:52] would help scale that into an ATS.

[00:09:55] And I'll tell you that we actually had

[00:09:58] the ATS for several years before we agreed

[00:10:01] to call it an ATS.

[00:10:03] Partially because I am positive you can find

[00:10:05] a podcast of me from like 2018,

[00:10:08] somewhere in there, 2020 in that range

[00:10:10] that says I will never build an ATS.

[00:10:13] The world does not be another one.

[00:10:15] But ultimately calling things what they are

[00:10:17] brings clarity to an already somewhat

[00:10:20] convoluted space.

[00:10:21] We decided to come out, call it a conversational ATS

[00:10:24] and really suited for the volume markets today.

[00:10:27] And so we find lots of clients and it tends

[00:10:28] to be places where their profits are close to people.

[00:10:32] So a lot of outsourced services

[00:10:34] and lots of retailers and restaurants

[00:10:36] where we've all been to a restaurant

[00:10:37] in the last year that's been closed

[00:10:39] because they don't have enough staff

[00:10:40] or they only open the section of it

[00:10:42] because they can't find people.

[00:10:43] And so where it really impacts their bottom line

[00:10:46] to have full staffing levels,

[00:10:48] that's where we really find great success.

[00:10:50] Shelley, I'm going to let you talk,

[00:10:52] but I have so many questions here, right?

[00:10:54] So how about you jump in next?

[00:10:56] So I wanted to come back to conversational AI

[00:11:00] in talent acquisition.

[00:11:01] And I'd like to give you the opportunity

[00:11:04] to maybe set the record straight.

[00:11:06] There's many misconceptions about what does it mean

[00:11:10] to have AI in talent acquisition?

[00:11:15] And quite honestly, in 2024,

[00:11:18] there's been a lot of fear around it as well.

[00:11:22] How does paradox address this?

[00:11:25] And where would you like to set the record straight

[00:11:27] about AI and talent acquisition?

[00:11:30] It's a really great point

[00:11:32] because the term AI in many ways is far too broad.

[00:11:36] And we need to break that down

[00:11:38] into what we're actually doing with that.

[00:11:40] As I think about recruiting, it's really about three things.

[00:11:43] If you just distill it all the way down,

[00:11:45] there are a bunch of conversations that happen,

[00:11:48] recruiter with hiring manager,

[00:11:50] recruiter with candidate all throughout the process.

[00:11:52] There are a few important decisions,

[00:11:54] reviewing a resume, making a selection decision.

[00:11:57] And there's a whole bunch of administrative stuff.

[00:11:59] And really, if you get super simple,

[00:12:01] that's what recruiting is about.

[00:12:03] And I think one of the things that's happened

[00:12:04] is people have indexed really hard

[00:12:06] on those couple of small decisions as the place for AI

[00:12:10] to say, can AI help us make a hiring decision?

[00:12:13] And can AI help us with our resume reviews?

[00:12:16] And my point of view is that most of the work

[00:12:20] is in those other two buckets.

[00:12:22] It is in all the small conversations

[00:12:24] and in all the administrative stuff.

[00:12:26] And so we've taken the position that let's get to

[00:12:29] the automation of the little conversations,

[00:12:31] screening, finding out people's schedules,

[00:12:34] reminders, all the little conversations you have throughout.

[00:12:37] Let's also automate the boring stuff,

[00:12:39] the interview scheduling, the offer letters,

[00:12:42] the basics and let's leave those decision points

[00:12:44] and those conversations to humans for now.

[00:12:48] I can acknowledge a world where someday humans

[00:12:50] may want to make those decisions.

[00:12:52] Right now there's 200-ish legislative things

[00:12:55] making their way through different jurisdictions.

[00:12:58] For me, it is if we've got a bunch of things to tackle,

[00:13:02] let's tackle the things we know we can do safely

[00:13:05] and make a huge difference now.

[00:13:06] And let's come back to the decisions

[00:13:07] and let's let the technology continue to improve.

[00:13:10] And we'll figure that out in time.

[00:13:12] I think that's the crux for me around

[00:13:14] how to think about AI is AI can be used

[00:13:16] for a whole lot of things.

[00:13:18] And that's actually the paradox for which we're named

[00:13:20] is the paradox is by buying software

[00:13:22] you get to spend more time with people, not software.

[00:13:25] And we think that's the vision for how this looks

[00:13:28] in the near term is use AI to automate

[00:13:30] and then let the decisions be made by humans.

[00:13:33] There's a lot of noise, right?

[00:13:34] In the HR tech space with different vendors

[00:13:37] and there's a lot of new people

[00:13:38] that have come out with basically AI tools.

[00:13:41] And we've met a whole lot of different vendors

[00:13:43] when you really dig in deeper and like,

[00:13:45] ah, I'm not sure about this.

[00:13:47] Do you feel all these vendors coming into the market

[00:13:51] with AI solutions is clouding people's judgments

[00:13:55] or creating confusions with practitioners of what's real,

[00:13:59] what's not and they don't know the difference

[00:14:01] between paradox and someone that's offering something

[00:14:04] they've never seen.

[00:14:05] What's your overall thoughts there?

[00:14:07] Yeah, certainly I think there is message and confusion.

[00:14:11] Look, every HR practitioner got an unwanted second job

[00:14:14] last year, which was to become an expert in AI.

[00:14:18] Yeah, they didn't ask for it.

[00:14:20] And yet their organization, I'm sure their leadership is going

[00:14:23] out, tell me about AI in HR.

[00:14:26] And they have had to go do research and help figure some of that out.

[00:14:29] And there's a lot of noise.

[00:14:30] And for us, I actually don't think that anyone wants to go by AI.

[00:14:35] They want productivity and they see AI as a way to go get it.

[00:14:39] When someone says, can I have some AI, please?

[00:14:41] That's usually sort of a red flag because that tells me

[00:14:43] you've got a solution in search of a problem.

[00:14:45] That's why we try to index really hard on hard results.

[00:14:49] So did you save labor hours, advertising dollars?

[00:14:53] Did you improve speed?

[00:14:54] Did you improve quality?

[00:14:56] And what are the hard outcomes of that?

[00:14:58] And then we mostly let our clients tell our stories of the ways

[00:15:01] they actually achieved it.

[00:15:02] And so we do a lot of case studies with our clients,

[00:15:06] with a website full of them if you check out paradox.ai.

[00:15:09] But it's indexing on those hard results and the what is not what might be.

[00:15:14] We, of course, have a lot of what might be.

[00:15:16] And we have teams of people that are working on just future stuff

[00:15:19] that who knows if we'll ever use it.

[00:15:22] But it is connecting the now to connect it to the future

[00:15:25] and not over indexing on either of those.

[00:15:28] A lot of people might think, hey, I can just use chat GPT

[00:15:31] to do what paradox is doing here.

[00:15:34] Right? What's your answer when someone comes to you and me?

[00:15:37] Like why would we spend this when chat GPT can do some very similar things?

[00:15:42] Yeah, it's a good thought.

[00:15:44] And I actually think there are many things that chat GPT will do.

[00:15:48] I think the two principles at play are one,

[00:15:51] you really do have to think about data privacy.

[00:15:53] You can't just send people's data into the ether

[00:15:57] not knowing the term to service, etc.

[00:15:58] That the world is getting too complicated for that.

[00:16:01] But even more so, it's about flow of work.

[00:16:03] How do we get the right things into the flow of work where people are working?

[00:16:08] And when we think about a tool or building something today,

[00:16:12] we have the filter of why do we have the right to do this?

[00:16:16] Why are we the right ones to create this tool?

[00:16:19] So I'll give you a couple of examples to generate a job description

[00:16:23] for some of our clients that user ATS, we are the right place

[00:16:26] for many of our clients for whom we're doing some other part of work

[00:16:28] where we're on top of another ATS.

[00:16:30] We aren't the right place because we're not in the flow of work.

[00:16:33] And so should we have a job description generator?

[00:16:35] Should you do that in our system?

[00:16:37] Sometimes it's really all about where that user lives

[00:16:41] and where they should be doing this.

[00:16:42] Because we're also thinking about things like Microsoft Copilot

[00:16:45] and Google's Bard and Gemini, other things about

[00:16:49] where will those things be done and how will that be accomplished?

[00:16:52] Because I don't want to create any duplicative tool.

[00:16:55] I don't have that kind of time and energy.

[00:16:56] I want to create new unique things that I can create a ton of value from

[00:17:00] because they're doing things in the flow of work

[00:17:03] and where people can automate things to make their lives easier.

[00:17:06] Perfect.

[00:17:07] So can I take us back to just thinking more about the other side of the screen?

[00:17:12] And that's the candidate experience, Adam.

[00:17:15] There was an article just last week in a UK based website called Personnel today.

[00:17:22] Good.

[00:17:23] I know we love the little bit.

[00:17:25] So what it talked about was the sentiment coming from those who are early career.

[00:17:30] So first or second job within the first three years.

[00:17:33] And the sentiment was that they felt that the use of technology was

[00:17:39] dehumanizing somehow or that it was impersonal and they felt that nobody cares about them.

[00:17:47] Can you talk a little bit about the candidate experience of Paradox?

[00:17:53] Because I would think a lot of your customers, especially when you think about McDonald's.

[00:17:58] Yeah.

[00:17:58] Right. They want the early career first job ever.

[00:18:02] America's best first job.

[00:18:03] How do you know that this is a good experience versus doing it the old fashioned way?

[00:18:09] Yeah, that's a fantastic question, Shelley.

[00:18:11] I think the ultimate of what someone wants when they apply for a job is actually to

[00:18:15] talk to a person that make a decision as fast as possible.

[00:18:19] And starting with that is the baseline.

[00:18:21] How do we help facilitate that?

[00:18:24] And when we can't deliver that and like companies cannot always deliver that,

[00:18:29] there are math problems.

[00:18:30] Ten thousand applicants for a single job sometimes that just isn't going to happen.

[00:18:34] If we can't deliver that, how do we make it transparent and have good communication?

[00:18:38] And so for us, the talk to a person as quickly as possible is goal number one.

[00:18:43] And so when we took McDonald's time to hire from 17 days to three,

[00:18:48] it was really that it was about reengineering the process

[00:18:51] to get the right people in front of the right person with as little

[00:18:55] batch processing as possible, taking away the waiting times of putting

[00:18:59] the paper job application to review once a week and the interview scheduling

[00:19:03] back and forth just to automate all of that and just get people in.

[00:19:05] The other piece is really around how do we be sure we get the you weren't

[00:19:09] selected piece with it, but here are some other jobs we have available

[00:19:12] and have good communication around what happened in the process,

[00:19:14] how the decisions were made, etc.

[00:19:17] And then as far as measurement, we have a few different measures

[00:19:19] that we use for conversation quality and candidate satisfaction.

[00:19:23] Most obvious thing we ask people, did you enjoy this experience

[00:19:26] of interview scheduling, did you enjoy your interview thumbs up,

[00:19:28] thumbs down and sending that to them by text or WhatsApp

[00:19:32] so that they can have some better response rates?

[00:19:35] And then we also measure things about how Olivia is doing

[00:19:37] from a conversation perspective.

[00:19:38] Is she answering the question?

[00:19:40] So we measure things like confusion rate.

[00:19:41] So other times she just doesn't really understand what this person is asking.

[00:19:44] One of our esoteric ones is we measure the times people say thank you to Olivia.

[00:19:49] You wouldn't say thank you to someone

[00:19:50] unless the other conversation was real, at least subconsciously.

[00:19:53] And so that's a measure of conversational quality for us

[00:19:55] to say that the person was interacting in a way that they subconsciously,

[00:19:59] at least were having a good conversation.

[00:20:01] So we do measure those things for both ourselves, for internal quality

[00:20:04] for our clients to be sure that they can see how they're doing

[00:20:06] from a perspective of treating candidates.

[00:20:08] But the keys for that are definitely just getting them

[00:20:11] as to a person as fast as they can, transparency and what we can.

[00:20:14] How much better is it, say, if we went back to 2018,

[00:20:18] so a couple of years to now, how much has it improved?

[00:20:22] Substantially, our baseline technology has improved substantially.

[00:20:25] As well, but even candidate experience has improved.

[00:20:28] I remember maybe the early 20 uptends winning an award for candidate experience.

[00:20:33] And all I did was send a thanks but no thanks email to every candidate.

[00:20:38] And I literally won an award for that.

[00:20:40] And I was like, this is like a new low for our industry

[00:20:42] that that's award worthy.

[00:20:44] And so there are still a lot of challenges in candidate experience.

[00:20:48] And we are making good strides for getting it right.

[00:20:51] But there's still a long way to go because a lot of the experience

[00:20:54] today is based on human behavior and what humans will do.

[00:20:59] My position is like automating a lot of that is going to help substantially

[00:21:03] with both transparency and communication.

[00:21:06] I want to go back to the ATS.

[00:21:08] I am thinking there's something going on in the whole applicant tracking system business.

[00:21:14] I think I told you this, Shelley, a couple of weeks ago.

[00:21:16] I think the traditional ATS business is dying.

[00:21:19] I'm talking about the ones that are mid level or like SMB type ATS.

[00:21:25] There is a race to the bottom.

[00:21:26] There's some great ones out there that are free, right?

[00:21:30] What's your overall thought of the ATS business?

[00:21:33] Because the work days and the UKGs are going to be there.

[00:21:36] There's going to be a lot of companies that overlay these systems

[00:21:40] because they're the system of records in massive organizations.

[00:21:43] You have to work with those.

[00:21:44] But looking at all the other ones, are we in the middle of a shift

[00:21:47] where the traditional ATS is going away?

[00:21:51] It's interesting.

[00:21:51] I think there are pockets where it is carrying significantly less value

[00:21:55] than it once did.

[00:21:56] So I think you're right to separate the platform ATS.

[00:22:00] So like if it's the frids that matches the dishwasher,

[00:22:03] and so I'm having that one because it matches all the other ones.

[00:22:05] I don't know if it's the best dishwasher, but it matches the rest.

[00:22:08] So that part of the market is going to exist.

[00:22:11] I think there's many companies that are not doing anything

[00:22:14] particularly strategic with their ATS.

[00:22:16] And I think that's the part that is commoditizing.

[00:22:18] It is not that strategic.

[00:22:20] It is a collector of applicants.

[00:22:21] They don't have particularly sophisticated processes.

[00:22:25] I think the part that we have been able to find a strong position

[00:22:29] is where recruiting and staffing is a business driver.

[00:22:34] And companies where people are close to money

[00:22:36] and at having their field staff specifically drives revenue for them.

[00:22:41] And we've been able to find some incredibly strategic clients

[00:22:44] to whom that's important and staffing their business is their lifeline.

[00:22:48] And I think as we continue to have low unemployment

[00:22:51] and high labor pressure, that is going to continue to exist.

[00:22:55] And in frontline workers, we have seen that acutely

[00:22:58] in the last several years.

[00:22:59] So I think that will continue.

[00:23:01] But I think there is a soft middle there where companies for whom their SMB

[00:23:05] is maybe not particularly strategic for them,

[00:23:08] that some of the tech is starting to commoditize

[00:23:10] if they're not going to do anything special with it.

[00:23:12] Perfect. Thank you.

[00:23:14] Shelly Jumpin.

[00:23:15] Oh, do I get to ask a question?

[00:23:17] Yeah.

[00:23:17] Thanks, Serge.

[00:23:20] He's just all over you, Adam.

[00:23:21] Sorry.

[00:23:23] So let's look at this from the recruiter side of the screen

[00:23:27] and HR professionals because

[00:23:31] some organizations like just when I think about scheduling,

[00:23:34] my head wants to explode.

[00:23:35] And so some HR people may be a little bit nervous

[00:23:39] at first of all, trusting that the technology works to schedule,

[00:23:44] especially complex scheduling and also a little bit protectionist

[00:23:48] because this is a threat to the kingdom that they've built

[00:23:54] where you've got an army of people just to do things like scheduling.

[00:23:58] So what would be your best advice to future proof your HR team?

[00:24:03] What should TA leaders be thinking about and preparing for now?

[00:24:08] Yeah, it's a great question.

[00:24:09] One that almost everyone's got on their mind.

[00:24:12] A couple of things I'll note to start.

[00:24:13] One is that automation creates fertile ground for new opportunity

[00:24:19] and not just in a way that is blasé and that like there are more bank tellers

[00:24:23] after ATMs than there were before ATMs.

[00:24:26] So everyone thought the ATM was going to kill that job

[00:24:29] and there are more of them.

[00:24:30] We work with McDonald's folks thought when they put in the touchscreens

[00:24:33] in the front of the store, there are more people that work

[00:24:35] in McDonald's after they put the touchscreens in

[00:24:39] because they're producing more food, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

[00:24:43] There is fertile ground for things to grow a new there.

[00:24:47] I don't want to minimize that there are some people that do get caught

[00:24:50] in a difficult position where certainly anyone that drove a stagecoach

[00:24:54] did not have a good period for a while until they learn some new skills.

[00:24:57] So there will be some people that are caught in there.

[00:24:59] And I think as a society, it's up to us to think about rescaling

[00:25:02] and how we figure some of that out.

[00:25:04] That said, when it comes to town acquisition specifically,

[00:25:07] I think there are really two types of jobs in the future.

[00:25:11] There are experienced designers, people that manage technology.

[00:25:15] They manage experiences.

[00:25:17] They manage agents and they are designing the experiences thoughtfully.

[00:25:22] They're sort of air traffic control.

[00:25:24] How do I push people through?

[00:25:25] How do I continue to use technology in that way?

[00:25:28] But they're mostly in the background.

[00:25:29] And I know a lot of people that will love that job.

[00:25:32] A lot of folks that do things with ATMs like tech today,

[00:25:34] they're right in that wheelhouse.

[00:25:35] They're going to geek out. It's going to be fun.

[00:25:37] And then the second one is people that are going to convince

[00:25:40] other people to join.

[00:25:41] And they are the recruiters that are a recruiters recruiter.

[00:25:44] They love to be on the phone all day.

[00:25:46] They love to talk to candidates.

[00:25:47] They love to hear the stories.

[00:25:49] And that is going to be at least, if not more so,

[00:25:53] more important in the future than it is today.

[00:25:55] Competition will make that so.

[00:25:56] People are not going to move across the country

[00:25:59] or across the world to take a job at a company

[00:26:03] they don't know about because an AI convince them to do that.

[00:26:05] There's a foundation of trust that just does not and cannot exist

[00:26:09] with AI, no matter how good the conversational interface is,

[00:26:12] that has to be done human to human.

[00:26:15] And so I think we end up with this sort of bifurcation of roles

[00:26:18] where you convince people to join or you set up experiences

[00:26:22] and design systems.

[00:26:24] What you lose is a lot of people today,

[00:26:26] which I think is true, that I wish they were talking

[00:26:29] to people all day, but are actually spending a lot of time

[00:26:31] clicking buttons in their ATS

[00:26:33] and not having a very good time with it.

[00:26:35] I think that starts to go away

[00:26:37] and we have to get a little bit more honest to say,

[00:26:39] like actually, as we design this,

[00:26:42] some of you are going to be the real recruiters

[00:26:43] and some of the other people are going to design systems.

[00:26:46] And I think that's how it will look.

[00:26:48] Thank you so much.

[00:26:49] I think you've eased fear in the heart of a lot of TA teams.

[00:26:55] I completely agree.

[00:26:57] I'm on the same page.

[00:26:58] I think exactly that's where it's going.

[00:27:01] Yeah.

[00:27:02] And I think some people fear that the recruiting part will be lost.

[00:27:06] And I guess I don't have that fear.

[00:27:07] And I think about the best recruiters that I know.

[00:27:10] The best recruiters I know tend to be in highly competitive places

[00:27:13] with somewhat undifferentiated products,

[00:27:16] people that are in college sports and being able to convince you

[00:27:19] to come to my university to play a sport versus someone else

[00:27:23] or the military, another one.

[00:27:24] My brother's a military officer.

[00:27:26] I can recall the folks coming to our living room

[00:27:28] when I was in high school trying to convince him to come.

[00:27:31] And that's ground game.

[00:27:32] And that is convincing someone to make a life choice

[00:27:35] and you do that person to person.

[00:27:37] And there's more of that in the future, not less.

[00:27:39] I agree completely.

[00:27:41] You look like a military recruiter in some ways.

[00:27:43] Like you could pull it off.

[00:27:46] Like we're keeping it tight up here.

[00:27:48] We're keeping it tight.

[00:27:49] Yeah, exactly.

[00:27:50] That's right.

[00:27:51] I want to go back to Paradox.

[00:27:53] Paradox is such an interesting company.

[00:27:55] And I think it has the potential to be the company in this space.

[00:27:59] I know that's pretty lofty goal, but I think it's possible.

[00:28:02] So you have raised $254 million your last round being a series C.

[00:28:11] That's a whole lot of money, like even saying those words.

[00:28:14] Like when you were a kid, did you ever imagine that you would

[00:28:18] have those types of dollars that you're managing?

[00:28:20] Like wow, pretty impressive, right?

[00:28:23] Absolutely.

[00:28:23] There's a lot of responsibility that comes with that.

[00:28:25] And it is humbling in many ways to know that we've got

[00:28:29] the resources to do something special.

[00:28:31] The interesting part has been we've been able to get people

[00:28:34] around the table that want to solve the problem.

[00:28:37] And then we'd be able to get the right capital investors involved

[00:28:41] that are interested in that mission as well.

[00:28:44] A couple that spring to mind, both Aaron and I

[00:28:46] are both former HR practitioners.

[00:28:47] So this is not the situation of some Silicon Valley

[00:28:50] entrepreneurs trying to start something.

[00:28:52] It's industry people trying to solve the problem.

[00:28:55] Our series B was financed by Mike Gregoire,

[00:28:57] a Canadian neighbor of yours who was the CEO of Taleo.

[00:29:00] We brought that to the company public.

[00:29:02] And we've been able to get folks like Workday and Indeed

[00:29:05] and others around the table to help with that as well.

[00:29:08] The important part of that is rather than the capital,

[00:29:10] like we have smart capital and that's been intentional for us.

[00:29:14] Well, anytime you take money,

[00:29:15] eventually investors want to return, right?

[00:29:18] In some ways, either going public or selling.

[00:29:21] What's next for a paradox?

[00:29:23] What's your goal?

[00:29:23] Where do you want to see it go?

[00:29:25] Yeah, for us it is to build a great company

[00:29:29] and one that lives by its values

[00:29:31] and one that changes the world of talent acquisition.

[00:29:34] I will admit that I wake up almost every day

[00:29:37] a little bit frustrated that the problems we have still exist.

[00:29:40] And the two of you are in the same boat as me,

[00:29:42] you've been at this for a long time

[00:29:43] and it is marginally, but maybe not substantially

[00:29:46] better than it was 25 years ago when we all started.

[00:29:49] Is there an argument that it's worse?

[00:29:51] I've talked to people I've been in the game a long time

[00:29:54] and they say the world before job boards

[00:29:56] and ATS was actually easier and a better candidate experience.

[00:30:01] There might be an argument there,

[00:30:02] I would argue it might be was easier but less effective.

[00:30:04] Placing newspaper ads and thinking to myself,

[00:30:07] I got 50 responses from my weekend ad,

[00:30:10] I guess this is the entirety of my talent pool.

[00:30:12] So I've gotta pick one of these 50.

[00:30:14] I think now the world the more sophisticated place

[00:30:16] at least to be able to match people.

[00:30:18] But the answer to the question is a paradox.

[00:30:20] Like we legitimately want to solve the problem

[00:30:23] and we think that conversational AI is a game changing

[00:30:27] technology that can help us make strides

[00:30:29] to really solve the problem.

[00:30:31] That's why we like to tell our stories

[00:30:33] the way we do with our clients is to say,

[00:30:35] how are they solving the problem?

[00:30:36] Someone that changed their time to hire by 300%,

[00:30:39] someone that saved $30 million a year on advertising spend

[00:30:43] that was going wasted, someone that is able to hire

[00:30:45] three or four times faster or keep the restaurants open.

[00:30:48] Those are the results that were after

[00:30:50] other than that on the capital end,

[00:30:52] I want to build a great company

[00:30:53] and whatever happens from there, good things will flow.

[00:30:56] One of the things we say internally a lot is,

[00:30:59] let's take care of the client, good things flow from that.

[00:31:01] And so I'm not super specific about,

[00:31:03] I want to have this outcome or that outcome.

[00:31:06] Simply know that if we show up every day,

[00:31:07] we do our job, we do that well,

[00:31:09] then good things will flow.

[00:31:11] Well, I was hoping you had breaking news as the new CEO

[00:31:15] that you're either being acquired or acquiring someone.

[00:31:18] So I guess we'll wait, right?

[00:31:19] We'll wait a little bit, but.

[00:31:21] There'll be lots of news.

[00:31:22] I can tell you that we'll have news of new products

[00:31:24] and new clients and new things coming.

[00:31:25] So we'll keep you in the loop on that, but not for today.

[00:31:28] So you have a lot of interesting clients.

[00:31:30] Like you mentioned McDonald's,

[00:31:32] there's a whole long list of clients.

[00:31:34] And having clients that are so big and well known,

[00:31:38] you also get access to see what's working

[00:31:41] and what's not working as well.

[00:31:42] If you had a crystal ball

[00:31:44] and you're looking at the rest of 2024

[00:31:46] and moving forward, like what is your data showing?

[00:31:50] What's happening in this space?

[00:31:51] And what do you foresee happening for the rest of this year?

[00:31:55] Yeah, for this year, it's gonna be interesting.

[00:31:58] There are a lot of data trends we pay attention to.

[00:31:59] So how many interview schedule,

[00:32:01] we'll hit 20 million interview scheduled this year.

[00:32:04] We see the ratio of applicants to interviews

[00:32:07] and interviews to offers and some of those things.

[00:32:09] Overall, we see the economic pressures fairly constant.

[00:32:13] I think one of the things that will matter

[00:32:14] a lot is interest rates.

[00:32:15] And so those are all numbers that we see in our data

[00:32:18] that is important.

[00:32:19] And we measure that from an experienced perspective.

[00:32:21] And when we make a system change,

[00:32:22] okay, how did that affect anything?

[00:32:24] And we do the A-B testing to help us understand that.

[00:32:27] But a lot of it gets washed when it comes to macroeconomics.

[00:32:29] So if we cut interest rates three times this year

[00:32:32] or some other choices get made,

[00:32:35] a lot of that comes out in the data

[00:32:36] about how many applicants there are

[00:32:37] and how many things happen there.

[00:32:39] I think one of the trends that is interesting in our space

[00:32:42] that we're seeing is the number of rules people are applying to

[00:32:44] and how that affects things.

[00:32:46] One of the things that we do is

[00:32:47] we use a lot of text to apply codes.

[00:32:49] So as you walk into a restaurant or retailer

[00:32:52] and you see a sign that says text applied

[00:32:54] at one, two, three, four, five, that type of thing,

[00:32:57] we see that with really strong conversion numbers,

[00:33:00] three to five X,

[00:33:01] and there's really some pretty simple reasons for that.

[00:33:03] They're probably a customer, they know your brand.

[00:33:05] Probably in commutable distance since they got there once.

[00:33:08] And then they applied to one job, not three to five jobs

[00:33:11] that they might have on a job board.

[00:33:12] And so I think continuing that trend

[00:33:14] will be important for people to use physical space

[00:33:17] and different types of media rather than job boards

[00:33:20] in places where people are doing lots of applications.

[00:33:22] That's one that I see continuing,

[00:33:24] finding other ways to take out

[00:33:26] the friction in the job seeking process.

[00:33:27] And then another one for us too is pushing out more

[00:33:30] of the content you get at a career site

[00:33:32] or somewhere else during the process.

[00:33:35] I think our data shows that on career sites

[00:33:37] people aren't reading a ton, I'll say that.

[00:33:40] And part of that is because companies

[00:33:42] have treated them poorly.

[00:33:43] They fall in the black hole, Shelley,

[00:33:44] like you mentioned,

[00:33:45] and companies aren't treating them well.

[00:33:47] They don't put a lot of time into it.

[00:33:48] And so for us being able to send a text message

[00:33:51] with the video before the interview,

[00:33:52] and here's what to wear, here's where to go,

[00:33:54] and then checking in after the interview,

[00:33:55] hey, how'd it go?

[00:33:56] And any questions I can answer

[00:33:57] before you make a decision or those kinds of things.

[00:33:59] But instead of having that sort of

[00:34:00] the transactional one time apply on a career site,

[00:34:03] taking that throughout the experience,

[00:34:05] when you know when the interview is scheduled

[00:34:06] and when you know when decisions get made,

[00:34:08] then you can influence that by texting people

[00:34:10] at the right time to help influence that.

[00:34:13] You mentioned text to apply,

[00:34:15] which obviously in high volume hiring,

[00:34:18] QR codes have resurged in the last couple of years.

[00:34:22] Are you seeing a lot of that?

[00:34:23] Big comeback, yes.

[00:34:24] Yeah, big comeback.

[00:34:26] Perfect.

[00:34:27] If anyone wants to get ahold of you,

[00:34:29] you are known as one of the nicest guys in the industry.

[00:34:34] How should someone get ahold of you?

[00:34:36] Yeah, I certainly try,

[00:34:37] but LinkedIn is a great spot,

[00:34:39] so connect with me there.

[00:34:39] I would love to connect with you.

[00:34:41] And then any questions about Paradox,

[00:34:43] paradox.ai, happy to take those there as well.

[00:34:46] Perfect.

[00:34:47] Thank you so much for joining us and congratulations.

[00:34:49] That is a big role,

[00:34:50] so I hope you're not feeling too much pressure.

[00:34:53] I honestly feel great.

[00:34:54] It's all about we have a great team.

[00:34:56] We've got a lot to do.

[00:34:57] We've got the right team to do it.

[00:34:58] Thank you very much.

[00:35:00] Yeah, thank you, Adam.

[00:35:01] Good to see you again.

[00:35:03] Au revoir.

[00:35:04] Shelly, let's face it.

[00:35:13] Texting candidates is the easiest way

[00:35:16] to hire quicker today,

[00:35:17] but your cell phone doesn't connect to your ATS.

[00:35:20] You're sharing your personal number with strangers.

[00:35:22] That's pretty scary, right, Shelly?

[00:35:24] And it's not even legally compliant.

[00:35:27] This is where our friends at Rectex come in.

[00:35:30] They've created simple yet powerful text-recording software

[00:35:33] that works with your ATS.

[00:35:35] Plus, it's designed by recruiters for recruiters

[00:35:39] so you know it works.

[00:35:41] To learn more and book a demo,

[00:35:43] visit www.rectxt.com,

[00:35:48] mention the recruitment flex

[00:35:50] and get 10% off annual plans.

[00:35:52] Do you love news about LinkedIn, Indeed, Google,

[00:35:56] and just about every other recruitment tech company out there?

[00:35:59] Hell yeah.

[00:36:00] I'm Chad.

[00:36:01] I'm Cheese.

[00:36:01] We're the Chad and Cheese Podcast.

[00:36:04] All the latest recruiting news and insights are on our show.

[00:36:07] Dripping in snark and attitude.

[00:36:10] Subscribe today wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[00:36:14] We out.