Walmart Slumps, Workday Jumps & Indeed Marketing Chumps

Live from a Portuguese bar annex, Chad and Joel crack open a cold cider and fire up "HR's Most Dangerous Podcast" to roast the absolute state of modern recruiting. Before tackling the tech industry's worst ideas, the boys review hostage-style movie clips, swap obscure band recommendations, and pitch a Spaceballs 2 sponsorship. The SaaS-pocalypse Comes for Workday: Private equity behemoth Silver Lake is eyeing a $51B buyout of Workday. Google's Resume Garbage Can: Leaked documents show Google DeepMind's AI screening tool is rejecting qualified applicants at random, forcing frustrated hiring managers to set up illegal human-only shortcuts around their own TA department. Gen Z's AI Penalty: Stanford research shows a 19% drop in entry-level hiring for AI-exposed roles. Babysitting the Machine at Walmart: Store associates are now tasked with cleaning up after Walmart's AI. Indeed's Desperate Marketing Pivot: Indeed's CMO claims targeting passive job seekers at soccer matches is a "revolutionary" new strategy. Really? Chapters 00:00 - Intro and Episode Overview 03:45 - Review of the Odyssey and movie expectations 07:43 - Changes in media consumption and radio 09:54 - New music discoveries and bands 11:21 - Music show segment and shout outs 12:26 - TA20 awards and AI professionals recognition 13:25 - Upcoming events and travel plans 20:32 - Private equity buyout talks with Workday 21:50 - Implications of PE acquisition on Workday's culture and support 23:13 - The SAS apocalypse and AI's impact on SaaS companies 24:37 - Market valuation and PE acquisitions of software companies 28:38 - Google resume dumping and AI in HR 29:06 - Challenges of AI in recruitment and hiring processes 31:15 - The puppy analogy and AI's limitations 32:13 - The importance of human skills and adaptability 37:24 - AI's impact on youth employment and highly exposed occupations 40:00 - The need for experienced workers to train AI 41:32 - Future workforce and the importance of human skills 44:34 - Adapting to AI and the importance of continuous learning 46:35 - Walmart's AI implementation and employee trust issues 49:45 - The role of human nuance in AI and workplace tasks 52:57 - The importance of understanding complex tasks in AI deployment 54:29 - Indeed's new marketing strategy and market position 55:33 - Critique of Indeed's marketing and tech evolution 57:29 - Spaceballs 2 and industry humor 58:07 - Google and Indeed traffic decline signals 59:22 - The shift to old school marketing and candidate engagement 01:00:21 - The future of job search and AI-driven applications 01:01:18 - Humor and lighthearted closing remarks

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Meet Dave. Dave's resume says he's customer centric, a point of sale systems expert and a people leader. Reality check, Dave's resume was written by AI and AI applied to thousands of jobs while Dave was on his couch binging episodes of Jackass all day.

• 0:20Speaker 00

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• 0:52Speaker 01

  Shall we play a game?

• 0:54Speaker 02

  That was dark Chad. That's, that's way too dark for a dude in sunglasses at a bar in Portugal drinking beer.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  You can tell I'm coming back to the US soon.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Soash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, just an Indiana boy on an Indiana night. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host Joel. Very good relationship with Kim Jong-un Cheeseman.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  And this is Chad, live from the snug. So wash.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, Walmart's AI slumps, workday jumps, and indeed, marketing takes a dump. Let's do this.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  It's commercial time.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Okay, face it. Recruitment marketing is broken. 70% of paid recruitment media goes wasted. 93% of candidates bounce off your job ads before they even apply for the job. And this is not a talent problem. No, it's not a data problem. It's a targeting and experience problem. The beauty of this is companies aren't trying to fix it. They're transforming it.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Hell yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  With up to 80% more high-quality applicants, 40% reduction in spend and 50% less recruiter time spent, they're realizing what's possible with recruitment marketing that actually works. So how'd they do it? Well, they chose Jovio, an AI-led, high-performance recruitment marketing platform built to eliminate waste and drive more results. With Jovio's AI agents, your job ads reach the right candidates while your career site, conversational AI and application process drive better candidates and conversions. What about those qualified candidates you've already bought and paid for and they're wasting away in your ATS? Well, Jovio also re-engages

• 3:10Speaker 00

  them. Want to learn more about Jovio? Cool. Just go to Jovio.com. That's J O V E O dot com. It's showtime.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  You shouldn't have said led by a bunch of chumps.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Chumps, pumps. I don't know. There's all, I'm wearing pumps. I don't know. I could have gone a lot of different directions.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, you could have done a lot.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Directions with that one. Well, you're living your best life as usual at the, at the snug. What's that about? You're at the snug?

• 3:39Speaker 00

  The snug. Yeah. It's literally just my, my favorite bar and they opened like this little annex to the bar. As you can see, it's got a great backdrop and I've turned it into my podcasting studio and really good friends with the owners and the managers and all this stuff. And I just, they, they love it. All I have to do is give them a yell and get into the Strongbow or Guinness and we're, we're good.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I have to give, I have to give the fans a little insight. So before the show, we, before we push record Chad and I have a little small talk. And so he's, he's there and we're talking and he's like directing the whole thing. He's like, turn down the music. Give me another cider. That one at the, the new one on the draft. Yeah, that one. I mean, he's totally directing. He's got a, he's got a staff in front of him. He's like talking to people. He's got one, an apartment above the thing to make sure all the stuff is, is good to go for the show. So Chad, Chad's basically the mayor of Portugal. He's basically the mayor of Portugal now.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Just Cabanish, just.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Just Cabanish. There are worse places to be mayor, apparently.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to have too much responsibility. Don't want too much responsibility.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Which is also part of your delegation. Like I don't want, I don't want to do too much. Like we don't need two ciders on draft. Just one. Don't make it complicated for me. Just, just one cider. Well, have you seen the Odyssey yet?

• 4:59Speaker 00

  I have not. I'm, I'm giving it a little space to breathe. Everybody's talking about it and, and just, just giving it some space, giving it some.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  So, so if you're a new listener, I, I gave my review a couple of weeks ago. I've seen it. I think I gave it a C or C plus. Like it's just sort of meh. And, and some people freaked out. Some people think it's the best thing since, since like, you know, Raging Bull or something. And so people are chiming in, well, our friend Stephen McGrath, you know, our favorite Scott. Thank God we're actually, uh, aren't we going to see him in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks?

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Yes, we are.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  I guess we'll get that to travel, right? Welcome to All Things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's no Scottish, it's crap.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Anyway, he went to go see the Odyssey and in true Stephen fashion, uh, he sent us a video. So here's Stephen McGrath's review of the Odyssey.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Excellent.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Hi everybody. So I am here to ask the burning question in everybody's mind, which is what did Stephen McGrath think of Odyssey after going to see it tonight? And I can absolutely say that I've come out of the experience completely and utterly welled. I think I've built these things up so much in my head that it's meant to be the most epic and wonderful thing that you've seen ever. And I've listened to Joel's review. I don't agree that the acting is stiff. I think that the acting is, is pretty good throughout. And I thought it stuck to the story very well. And I like a bit of myth and madness as well, but I just think

• 6:33Speaker 04

  we've just like three hour movies just kill me. Like who's got that much time in their life to just keep watching three hour movies? And I preferred Oppenheimer overall. And I think this was a decent, good movie, but it certainly hasn't changed my life. And that's really about it. So seven out of 10, welled.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  That's pretty, I mean, seven out of 10. That's, that's not hateful. That's not hateful.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Isn't that a D in school? If I got seven out of 70%?

• 7:09Speaker 00

  Seven out of 10, 70%? Yeah. I don't know. Run tomatoes though. Same one. The thing that, I mean, well, first and foremost, you know, Stephen blinked twice if he need help. That looked like a hostage video for God's sakes. Um.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Well, we're used to him having really elaborate backgrounds with the, the nature, the, the, the, the pea green. Uh, yeah. Anyway, this is, this is even worse than that.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  The, the expectations that we have as human beings that a film is going to change your life. I mean, no, no, don't, stop, stop going into films thinking that they're going to change your life, that they're going to be amazing. Go in like you think it's going to be a piece of shit and this is going to suck. And then when you come out the other end, you're gonna be like, you know what? That was pretty damn good. Probably would have gotten a C plus or maybe, you know, maybe a, a low B, B minus or something like that. But I think we expect too much.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  You know Chad, I, I, we're kind of spoiled as Gen Xers, growing up in like the eighties, nineties. I mean, I bet if you looked at the eighties, like we, the weekends of summer, I bet you'd be blown away at the movies. Like Indiana Jones, ET, Breakfast Club, like all these movies that are iconic came out like one after another. And now, if you get one or two blockbusters in a summer, you're, you're just, you're in awe. And I think that's where we are now. If we get like the movie we had Barbie and Oppenheimer, like that was a huge deal because you had two blockbusters. Now, if you get one, apparently Spider-Man is huge. I know you're a big Marvel guy, so I'm sure you'll go check that one out. But

• 8:49Speaker 02

  I, I think like it's scarcity. There's so few of these big type movies that we just make a huger, huger deal out of it than, than we used to. We used to just kind of get numb to like, oh, another diehard's coming out this week. Okay. Our next week is Jurassic Park. And like you just, just the way it was.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  It was so different for us though, because we didn't have streaming, right? And we've got all this content that's like flooding into Netflix and Amazon and so many different streaming, uh, companies that are out there right now. And they've got some really good content. So it's like, we've become numb to a lot of this. And you're right. I mean, we had, man, really dating ourselves. Uh, you know, we had like four to six channels that we would watch on fucking TV. Uh, and then, and then.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  And when a movie came out, we all, yeah, we all went to the movie. Um, I, I agree. Like we, we have so much dilution of stuff. And there was, I think it was New York Times had a story about like, no one listens to the radio anymore, which it's, you can stream, you can stream whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. But we've also lost the whole sort of, oh, have you heard the new song? Or we all listen to a certain radio station. We all learned about bands. We didn't, we didn't see them on YouTube immediately. We, it was like sort of a myth was, a myth grew around like, have we heard this band? Like what are they about? Who, where are they coming to town? Like we've lost that? Okay, fine. But there was a little bit of magic in that, that I think we've lost. And the movies are kind of.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  I think there's some effect. Yeah. I think some effect. I mean, as a guy who was in radio, I got sick and tired of the corporately churned out bullshit in the formats that everybody had to stick to. And you couldn't hear that new, that, that, that new artist that was coming out because it was just so strict. So yeah, I think, I think the radio was getting to that in the first place. Right now, I mean, like Spotify, I love it. It, it gives me new artists all the time, uh, that, that I, that I, I might not want to listen to, but I might want to listen to. And I've actually found some, some really good ones over the past couple of years. Um, what are we missing with local radio? I don't think we're really missing anything. And again, I, I miss the nostalgia of going into the studio and watching

• 11:01Speaker 00

  the DJs do their thing with carts and playing and going and get the phone and so on and so forth. It was really fucking cool. But I mean, what are we missing? I mean, we have everything, which again, we're spoiled. We got this fucking phone. I want a weather forecast. I don't have to wait till the 20 break to, to be able to hear the weather in Columbus, Indiana or Cabanish, you know, Cabanish, Portugal for goodness sakes. All I have to do is go to my phone and boom, I got that shit. So yeah, I think it's run its course.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  I got two new bands for you, by the way. This is not a music show and take this for what it's but I got two bands for you. Number one is Buffalo Traffic Jam. You heard it here first. Buffalo Traffic Jam. If you like kind of an Americana, two dudes from Montana and it sounds like Montana. If you like the band Camp, semi-newish, not really, but if you like Camp, you'll like this. The other one is Bridgette Calls Me Baby. And if you're a fan of the 80s, like alternative, this is like if The Cure and The Smiths had a kid, it might sound a little bit like Bridgette Calls Me Baby, but two bands, if you're interested to check those out, you're welcome.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Well, I'm going to, I'm gonna see yours and raise you with my two. There are two bands that I found here on Spotify that they served up to me that were really fucking good. One is called We're Still Here and the second one is called Slick Krugers, K-R-U-G-E-R-S. So slick Krugers and We're Still Here. Really, really fucking there, they are jazzy.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Give me some comparables. Okay.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  They are jazzy blues. Yeah. But I mean, with like a new, a new, a new funk to them. And it's really, they're really, really good. Yeah. It's good stuff.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Like White Stripes, rock and roll kind of bluesy or more?

• 12:48Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. We're talking about like going back into literally they're from

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Like Buddy Guy?

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, like, so they'll go back to the twenties, they'll do thirties, they'll do, but they'll like give it a new generation kind of feel. And it's just, it's just fricking amazing. Yeah. And We're Still Here, they are pretty much, I mean, just they are specific into blues and it is really like Memphis blues, so fucking good.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Okay. New music show. Here we go.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Chad and Cheese Music Show.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  A new podcast. Oh shit.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  No, I don't need another podcast. I need some shout outs.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Is it time for shout outs?

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Well, Chad, this, this segment, shout outs are brought to you by Free Bourbon. Who doesn't love bourbon and who doesn't really love Free Bourbon? Well, our, our friends at Proven Base are making miracles happen. We're sending out two bottles of chicken cock out to a lucky listener, but you gotta go to chadcheese.com/free to play. Again, that's Proven Base making miracles happen. My shout out Chad goes to the TA 20 Awards, the TA 20 Awards. Now you and I love a good list. We love a good list, Chad. This one is our friends at Alex, our friends at alex.com are going to focus or highlight 20 TA professionals and

• 14:13Speaker 02

  20 different industries that are using AI to do amazing things. If you've checked out, another plug here for the Sessions AI that we've done over the years. I think we're in season four or five of those. A lot of those folks that we've interviewed over the years, the Eileen's, et cetera. They are nominees at this point. Now, the, the judges, little, little sus, as the kids say, the judges are, are yours, yours truly right here. And our friend Tim Sackett. Yeah. So, so I'm a judge, which means I expect, I expect bottles of Pappy's and Lagavulin to be filling up my front porch here any day now, any day now. But yeah,

• 14:56Speaker 02

  this, this shout out goes to Alex AI and their TA 20 Awards. If you got someone you want to nominate, if you want to learn more, just head out to TA 20, that's the number 20awards.com. Shout out to the TA 20 Awards.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Very nice. Very nice. Well, I'm going to go ahead and push forward because we got so meat, so much meat in this, in this podcast episode. We're just going to go straight to events. So let's go ahead and hit those events up.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  I hate when you tease me with the shout outs. You got no shout out.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  So travel sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's right, kids. Are you trying to fuse AI into your, into your stack?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Where are we going, boys?

• 15:41Speaker 00

  If you are, then you probably need help because there's so much shit happening out there, so much noise. You don't know what's real. You don't know what's fake. You need the professional, the professionals at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Go to shaker.com. Talking about 75 years in business, kids. They know their stuff. Where are we going? We're going to Rec Fest. We're going to be in Nashville, happening September 23rd and 24th. You and I are going to be emceeing the disrupt stage. So go ahead and stop by. If you haven't gotten your tickets, I don't know what the fuck the problem is, people. Get the tickets to Rec Fest. Get your tickets to Rec Fest. Then on the first night, go figure, we got a party.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Going to be at Old Red's Rooftop Bar. If you want to have a drink with the Chad and Cheese, come to Old Red's Rooftop Bar. It is a bigger venue than we've had over the past couple of years because the last time it was just way too fucking packed. So we'll go to LinkedIn or chadcheese.com. We will have details on how you can prospectively get on the waitlist or actually come in.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  So you gotta know a guy. You gotta know a guy to get into this thing.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Gotta know. Well, it's, it's, it's the way we do things, man. Especially after last year, that place was fucking flooded. Anyway, then I'm headed to Cabo to stand for Chris Long and Maren Hogan as they tie the knot. And I know, and I know for a fact, you have been to Cabo. This is Julie and my first time to Cabo. What should we do while we're in Cabo?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Well, I was there with my wife who had a, like a gallbladder issue. So my take is a little bit interesting.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  You didn't get to do much.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  I did. I did get to, I did get to see a lesbian wedding in the pool. Like I was at the pool bar and then the way, that's kind of cool. It is, I assume it's going to be all you can eat and drink. You're going to be on the water. They'll have alternative items for consumption, if you know what I mean. If you're into that, that'll be down there. It's a beautiful place. Now you can't swim in the water. So don't get nuts. Like they don't, it's the waves and whatever, the tides. Yeah. It's just not a, it's not a place to do that. But yeah, it's, it's beautiful. Mexico's great. I need to go back soon. I miss, I miss Mexico. Taco Bell just isn't, isn't doing it for me anymore. I used to feel like I was in Mexico City at Taco Bell, but it's not, not quite doing, doing it for me.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  It's so much better in Mexico. That, not the Taco Bell, that is.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  There is no Taco Bell in Mexico.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  After that, well, I hope not because they don't need it. Then after, standing up for Chris and Maren, congratulations, guys. Can't wait to be there. September 29th through the 1st of October, I'm going to be at SIA's Collaboration X event in Dallas. Go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a new one for us. This is a new one for us.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  We're super excited because it's such a unique and fascinating time to be in the industry. SIA research is showing that 82% of staffing firms are now using AI to various degrees and they're being super intentional, more than 70% of boosting their technology investments. So we're bringing the industry together at Collaboration X. It's SIA's event that serves at the intersection of AI and technology across staffing and workforce solutions. We have speakers from companies like Google and Meta, Onad, Deco, Aya, Kelly, Employee Bridge, Mercore, Bullhorn, Sense, Ropes, Hercules.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  You know, you're looking for reasons to use AI because you want better ROI. So go to collaborationx.com, September 29th through October 1st, the Omni Hotel in Dallas. AI in tech and staffing workforce solutions. Be there. I will.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Better ROI through AI. Did you trademark that? That's pretty good.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  I should have, but I didn't. That is great work by our video production team on that one. That's why I wanted to showcase it. Sergey and team really knocked it out of the park on that one. Yeah, no, we're excited. Excited to go to Dallas. I'm not a big fan of Texas, but going to Dallas, going to the Omni, going to an SIA event. Should, should be a good time. You did see that pool too. You know, I'm going to be there. Then we've got the e-recruitment congress coming up in Amsterdam at the Musique Bao in October 6th. Then we go to Workday's frontline hiring event in Vegas on October 12th. And to get tickets to any and or all of these events, just head over to chadcheese.com/events. That's chadcheese.com/events.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  That's a lot of travel, Chad. I hope you're going to get some downtime during the holidays because you're, you're gonna need it, my friend. You're going to need it. Well, I can't let the shout outs and the post shout outs go without.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  That's right. That soundbite means it's fantasy football time again, everybody. Draft day's coming quick, Chad. Chad, draft day's coming quick. So our friends at Factory Fix, year four, I think now is going to be sponsoring our unhealthy addiction to fantasy football and football in general. If you want a chance to play, you gotta, you gotta sign up. Go to chadcheese.net/fantasy-football to get in on the action. It'll, before you know it, Chad, will be draft grades, will be, you know, the board, the rankings. It's pretty exciting. But thanks to Factory Fix for making all those, all those addictions a reality for, for Chad.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Chad, did you bring your, did you, did you take your jersey to Portugal? Are you going to be able to wear it?

• 21:32Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  That is very, very important.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Let's get to topics.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Private equity firm Silver Lake has held buyout talks with enterprise software provider Workday regarding a potential multi-billion dollar take private deal. The discussions, which have reportedly been ongoing for several months, pushed Workday's market value past $51 billion amid broader market concerns over AI disruption in the software sector, AKA the SaaS apocalypse. PE is coming for Workday, Chad. What's your take?

• 22:14Speaker 00

  I've been getting so excited about Workday because of all of the acquisitions they've been making, Paradox being one of them, obviously. They've all been AI focused in being able to build literally an ecosystem. So get the drummer ready because here's my top five reasons why Silver Lake buying Workday is bad for all of us. Reason number one, R and D will get butchered. PE runs on margins, expansion, not expanding on the horizon tech. Expect innovation to grind to an innovation halt. Number two, nickel and diming starts. If you're an enterprise customer running your entire payroll and financials on Workday, buckle up, kids. You are going to be a captive audience and PE knows it.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  It's one of the reasons why they would want to buy this in the first place. Get ready for price hikes. Number three, customer support takes a hit. Where do PE do their cuts first? Well, back office, account management and customer support. Gah, that sucks. Have you ever called your mobile provider and tried to get customer service?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Probably the most horrible experience ever. Hopefully Workday doesn't get that bad. Number four, it's going to be a cultural bloodbath and the talent's going to be draining. It's going to be a brain drain. Workday was built on a very specific founder-led, employee-first culture. PE doesn't care about your company culture, which means layoffs will happen and top-tier talent will jump ship to competitors or agile AI startups before the ink is even dry on the deal. And number five, here it comes.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  This one sucks the most. Drowning in debt, man, to pull off a buyout of this size, Silver Lake will have to load Workday with an insane amount of debt. Short-term financial engineering completely replaces actual enterprise vision. At the end of this, I hate, hate, hate to see this happen and I hope it doesn't because I was loving the trajectory that Workday was on. This could literally just smash it into a brick wall.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Just like that.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  So we've talked about the SaaS apocalypse quite a bit on the show. The basic theory, if you've missed it, is that AI is going to do all the software, all the, all the stuff for companies. Companies are just going to vibe code ATSs and CRMs and whatever. And all these companies, ServiceNow, Workday, Salesforce, et cetera, are going to be worthless or worth much less than they currently were because AI is going to destroy most of them because companies will build their own shit. What resulted was valuations that were totally probably overdone. Let's be honest, and a lot of those are starting to course correct now because I think people have realized that, well, maybe AI does have some limitations.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Maybe big enterprise companies aren't just going to like stop using, you know, ServiceNow because they want to vibe code their own shit. But the opportunity for PE to come in, ala TJ Maxx clearance rack and go, oh, wait a minute, that, that Hermes bag somehow ended up in TJ Maxx? Well, I'm going to get it now and this thing's going to be, you know, 100% return when everyone realizes and gets their conscious back, common sense back and realizes that AI or SaaS companies and, and software is not going anywhere. So a little, a little-

• 25:47Speaker 00

  51 billion is cheap?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, these, these people work in big dollar amounts. So a little history, recent history on this.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Silver Lake just bought Electronic Arts. It's in the game. Everyone knows Electronic Arts. That was a $53 billion deal, I believe. So Silver Lake has some experience behind these big kind of acquisitions. And Workday is obviously in the crosshairs. They also, PE also bought Dayforce recently, which is kind of a wannabe poor man's competitor to that for $16 billion.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  So do we see more of these sort of workforce companies in our space get gobbled up? I mean, time will tell on that, but this certainly is foreboding for the company. Workday quarterly earnings, I think, is August 27th. So we don't have too long to look forward to like, will there be comments about an acquisition? Will they deny it? Will they sort of make comments about like, it's going to probably happen? That'll be interesting. But Chad, you and I know a few things about private equity. They destroy these companies. CareerBuilder, iSims, maybe the only one that hasn't been yet is House of HR. They've been sort of able to effectively not lose their, their souls.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  European, I think for the most part.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, European may have something to do with it. But if this goes through, history tells us that the Workday that you know and love, if you know and love them, is going away because private equity is going to come in, cut the fat, increase profits. Innovation will cease if not die entirely. All these cool companies that they've acquired over the years, the paradoxes, all of that is over if private equity gets their hands on Workday. So just be prepared. If you're a customer or prospective customer, keep that in mind. Watch the news, watch what's going on, listen to the earnings report. But historically, this is a bad idea. My two, to sum up, the SaaS apocalypse has made this possible.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  And if it is, if it does happen, it's really bad for Workday from a historical perspective.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  It's really hard because everybody has forgotten the dot com bubble and how that fucker bursts and it was overevaluated. And it's like, this is happening, but it's going to be so much bigger. And then everybody is like devaluing SaaS. And it's like their revenues are high and there's like, well, that's not long-term thinking. It's like, no, the long-term thought is they have portfolios of companies. They're currently on SaaS, yes, but that doesn't mean that. I mean, look at Workday, they're infusing AI into the software. So it's like, it's the best of both worlds.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  The speculation of the market drives me fucking crazy because none of these people know this space. It's just, it, it drives me crazy.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's a huge buying opportunity, not just for private equity, but for individual investors. If, if you believe that software isn't going anywhere in the long term, that AI is not going to dislodge this industry, like go buy some Salesforce, go buy some Workday, go buy some ServiceNow. Cause these companies, if you believe that are going to, like, it's going to come back and these companies are going to make you a lot of money if you invest in them now and private equity is, is taking that cue and roll the dice.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Private equity buys, if private equity buys, they're going to take them, they're going to take them private.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Yeah. So watch, watch this space. It's very interesting. So from one big, one big software company to another, let's get into our next story. Google resume dumping.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  What?

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Dumping. It's not just my morning ritual anymore, Chad. A leaked internal memo, a leaked internal Google DeepMind document revealed that the company's automated HR and AI resume screening tools risk incorrectly dumping qualified applicant CVs straight into the rejection pile, prompting Google's own safety teams to create a manual human review workaround. What? Chad, getting dumped is no fun, but Google is taking it to a whole nother level. What's your take?

• 30:05Speaker 00

  This is so weird. So the, the article reads, quote, "This team set up a special form to go past the recruiter review and get their resumes direct to the people on the team," end quote, said, said the spokesperson. "But there are no shortcuts to getting hired," is what they said. This is exactly a shortcut. And to be quite frank, when hiring managers with clout aren't happy with talent acquisitions, processes or outcomes, they can sometimes go rogue and that's exactly what's happening here. So hiring managers- Aren't getting the candidates they want. So they're going around TA.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  When something like this happens, HR can either let DeepMind do their own thing, which involves adding tons of bias and risk into the hiring process, or HR and TA can find out what the real problem is and make the fucking changes for God's sakes. For example, in many situations, a hiring manager doesn't really engage in the intake process. They use the same job description as the last time without even checking the market intelligence to see if those individuals are even in the area, if they even exist, right? To hire them. Then, when they don't get the quality or the amount of candidates they want,

• 31:28Speaker 00

  it's TA's fault, instead of not understanding the market they're trying to hire in. I doubt this is about tech. It sounds more like a dick measuring contest between a high-powered department like DeepMind and corporate cops in HR. The answer, be a fucking adult and work it out. These types of bullshit tribal fights are always pissed me off when I was on the corporate side. Crazy. Be adult, find out where the problems are and fix the damn problems. This shortcut runaround is going to get Google in some major problem from a bias standpoint.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  I want to go back and be reminded of when you first said AI is like a puppy. It's going to piss on the floor. It's going to chew up the couch. You know, it's going to do things that you don't expect or want to have happen. I think it's been a while since you first said that. It would be fair to say it's been years since you probably first said that. And here we are, and the puppy is still pissing on the couch. Like, these are the most advanced AI companies on the planet. And if we can't trust their models to be effective, how can we expect our industry models to be effective and as impactful as they need to be?

• 32:48Speaker 02

  And how can you, as a job seeker, trust that the process is being fair to you and giving you a good shot at an opportunity? I've had so many people, relatively speaking, compared to, I've been in this industry for a long time, people that are very experienced, have a, just are badasses that are falling through the cracks, that aren't getting a fair shot. And they all say like, what the hell is this market? Like, what in the world is going on? And I used to think that it was, there's so many candidates coming in and AI is making them all look like the perfect candidate.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  And it turns out like what may be happening is the AI is just screening out qualified people for no real good explanation. And I think that's an incredibly dangerous thing. So in this case, I see, okay, let's get the people back involved because all of this slop is just coming in and the AI is creating slop and the human beings are creating slop. Like, one of the things they said in the story was that all the cover letters are too samey, in quotes, right? Which means AI is writing all of the cover letters, which means everyone, everyone looks the same. And when you have the sameness like that, then good people get through the cracks. Something has to happen. And this story continues with Walmart.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  Like, this is going to be a trend that we're going to see where AI wasn't what we thought it was, or AI is not quite ready for prime time yet. And it's just showcased here in Google, which, again, dare I say, the best tech company on the planet is having issues. And we expect, you know, the construction company that's using this not to have problems. I mean, this will have to get worked out either on a company level, industry level, or maybe we just go back to the humans for a while until the puppy finally grows up and gets potty trained.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's hard to go back to, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Especially when we fired most of the recruiters. We fired most of the humans that were doing the human work.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  Well, and then the flooding. So I think it can be both. I think it can be tech and the tech not being tuned the way it should be tuned. It can be the flooding of resumes. But I also put onus and responsibility in these fucking hiring managers who don't do their job. They want to make sure that they get the perfect candidate, but yet they spend no time whatsoever helping TA recruiters do some market research to find out if those people even fucking exist in their specific area, right? So I think there's a lot of things that are happening right here to blame everything on the puppy, I think is the easy route.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. If screening ends up screening out really good people and we, companies realize the AI is screening out really good people, what do we do about the screening? Do we keep using it? Do we wait for it to improve? That's a really interesting question. But what we're seeing now is the screeners maybe aren't as good as we thought they were. And maybe human sourcing these things does have value that we've missed in the past.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  We make things too complex. We make things too complex. Literally, it's like the first, the first part of screening is meeting the requirements. That's it. But guess what their hiring managers want to do? They want to put a little niceties here, a little that, little this. We have to be more streamlined and we have to be black and white instead of playing in the gray all the time. They want to bitch about getting bad results. And it's like, well, stop playing in the gray. Let's do this right.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  And how about the results you never see to say that they're wrong, right? So like, if mistakes are just invisible, oh, the perfect candidate just ended up in the filter. Well, we'll never know. There won't be an AI checking the AI to see, did we screen out good candidates? So this is a problem that we may never actually realize is a problem because it remains invisible. Unlike our sponsors, kids, if you're not, if you're not, if you're not writing blank checks to our sponsors, what the hell are you doing? Make sure you do that because they make sure that the show is possible. And if you haven't plugged into the show, check us out on your favorite podcast platform, your AM radio of choice, whatever it is, give us a like, follow, tell your closest 100 friends. We'll be right back.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Hey, boys and girls, it's Joel Cheeseman here from the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Guys, I've seen pretty much every AI recruiting tool out there. I give my time and money to a very small few. And I'm here to tell you that I'm an investor in Alex AI because this tech actually delivers. Look, if you're still drowning in automated resume slop, ghosting candidates and wasting hours on first-round screens, it's time to hire with Alex. Alex is the AI recruiter that's actually solid, which means it doesn't sound like a robot from a 1984 sci-fi flick.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Alex interviews candidates on video or phone, asks smart follow-ups, takes killer notes and surfaces the best ones so your team can focus on hiring top talent instead of chasing ghosts. If you're scaling a team and tired of the same old pain, go check out Alex right now at alex.com. That's A-L-E-X.com. And tell them Joel sent you. And right now, you can get a free copy of the book by Alex founder Aaron Wang titled The 10x Recruiter. Just go to alex.com/chefeese. That's A-L-E-X.com/chefeese. That's right, a free book on the principles of AI and talent acquisition. And all you need to do is head to alex.com/chefeese right now.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Guys, alex.com. Interview everyone. Hire the best. Chad, this next segment is brought to you by comfortable, free, awesome t-shirts that only Chad and Cheese can provide. Our friends at Aaron App are allowing us to send great t-shirts out to our fans. All you have to do, kids, is go to chadcheese.com/free, give us your address. And one of these days, a t-shirt will probably end up in your mailbox packed by child labor. When I say child labor, I mean children whose last name is Cheeseman. So it's not quite illegal. Come and get me for that. Again, that's Aaron App. Making miracles happen with free t-shirts, chadcheese.com/free.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Our next story, Chad. Stanford Digital Economy Lab reveals that while generative AI has not caused widespread job displacement, it has created a significant 19%, one in five almost, employment gap for young workers and highly AI-exposed occupations. What's more, and in a, an NPR report highlights a sharp divide among top economists regarding whether artificial intelligence is the primary culprit behind the difficulty or the difficult job market for recent college graduates. However, while young workers are struggling in the broader job market, they're thriving in subset of AI jobs, in a subset of AI jobs. And a recent analysis by Microsoft and LinkedIn reveal emotional intelligence

• 39:52Speaker 02

  and human-centric leadership have become the most critical skill set for the future of work. Chad, what do you make of what's going on with the Utes and AI right now?

• 40:03Speaker 00

  I think on the LinkedIn survey or whatever they did, that's just a bunch of bullshit. It's fucking optics. It's trying to make everybody feel better. Humans are going to be around, blah, blah, blah. It's sort of bullshit in optics. But on the, on the side of the Stanford research, we keep hearing highly AI-exposed occupations. What the fuck are those, right? They are, number one, they've got five or four different segments. Computer mathematic role, so software development, coding and data analysis tasks. Number two, legal and financial services, so document review, compliance checking,

• 40:42Speaker 00

  financial modeling and administrative analysis featuring high cognitive tasks which overlap with AI. Number three, customer service and communication roles, telemarketing, support, ticketing and first-line client interactions. And then number four, writing and translation, go figure. Content creation, proofreading, copywriting and language translation are directly impacted by generative tech tools, and they already are. So the study says, quote, "The adjustment in the workforce appears to operate primarily through reduction of hiring of the young workforce,

• 41:27Speaker 00

  rather than increased separation." So they're not firing people, they're just not hiring. Here's the contrast in finding, which I thought was interesting. While employment for young workers, 25 to 22 to 25, and these highly exposed occupations dropped 19% relative to less exposed peers. Through 2026, experienced workers show no comparable gap. Why is that? In my honest opinion, AI needs more experienced workers to flag incorrect content, hallucinations, which train the AI.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  Companies need their more experienced workers because they understand the edge cases. And AI hasn't yet experienced those edge cases. So therefore, they don't know the right answers. The AI doesn't know the right answers. They still need the experts in place, which is why we're not seeing a huge dip or firings from that aligned workforce. Here's my prediction. What we're currently experiencing is phase one. Reduced hiring of entry level positions. Then phase two happens after the AI is sufficiently trained on edge cases, which will lead to layoffs of the experienced and more expensive staff,

• 42:50Speaker 00

  meaning less headcount, less wages, less benefits and more profits. Now, edge cases will never go away, but in more traditional companies, they lessen. So the second phase will definitely fluctuate industry by industry, company by company. So we're currently in kind of like the frog boiling territory, where we're not going to see huge dips. It's just going to start to slowly happen. And the next thing you know, like after 40 years and trickle down economics, nobody has any fucking money.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  That was dark, Chad. That's way too dark for a dude in sunglasses at a bar in Portugal drinking beer.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  You can tell I'm coming back to the US.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. America Chad, America Chad is coming back, everybody. Get ready. I've mentioned a Charles Darwin quote, maybe mine's a little sunnier than yours, which is odd.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  I hope so.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  I've mentioned a Charles Darwin quote for the kids. Again, the quote is, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." AI is the honey badger of technology. In other words, it don't care. What we're learning, what we're learning is for the hard stuff that can be done by AI, you're being replaced. AI cannot, however, analyze client anxiety. It can't mediate internal team conflicts. It can't navigate corporate politics or inspire a team.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  The key to the future is learning those skills that are human skills. The old model used to be get an entry level job out of college, learn the hard shit, right? How to write an email, how to use this software, how to do some of these things. And then eventually you learn them and then you be put in a management position. And then you could manage the new crop of people that were learning these new skills. And you kind of worked your way up the ladder. The new model seems to be have emotional intelligence, learn to orchestrate AI for a future of to have a future. So what we're seeing, I think, with kids is if your model is like the hard skills that can be replaced, like you're having a really hard time.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  The story about AI, the people that are getting success in that, they have those human skills. They're able to, they know how to use AI to basically make themselves a better person. The bottom line is like, the world is changing. Some people are going to go with the flow and figure it out. And a lot of people aren't. They'll figure out their own, you know, their own road. There's a recent story in Business Tell it's like, there's a huge growth in young people buying franchises. So a lot of people have said like, you know what? Screw the job, but I don't want to necessarily build my own company. Like I'm going to get a subway franchise, which is kind of old school, but that's where a lot of people are going. And this is no new story, Chad. I mean, it used to be like, oh, I'm a, I'm great at ads in the newspaper.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  I know how to place radio spots and things like that. And then when SEO came, when the internet came, when social media came, you had to have a whole new bucket of skills to be successful for the future. This is not that much different. So the key here is to adapt. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, aside from ours, is Diary of a CEO. One of my favorite authors of all time is Seth Godin, who's a marketer. He was recently on the show, which I encourage you to listen to. But he had a little clip about AI and how to survive it into the future. I think it's worth sharing.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Number one, this is the biggest change in our world since electricity. And number two, either you work for AI or AI works for you. And what do I mean by those two things? There were companies and workers in 1890 who said, ah, I'll wait for electricity to go away. I'm just going to keep being a blacksmith or whatever it is. That did not work out very well. This is like that, but much, much faster. And then the AI thing is if you work for an AI, it's not going to treat you very well. It's not going to be secure and it's not going to make you happy. Because bosses are going to keep pushing the AI to do all the good parts and you to be a gig worker for all the parts that AI can't do yet.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  But if you can say, I use AI to connect humans. I use AI to build a network of people. We don't know how to replace networks of people. And AI is never going to be able to replace networks of people. If you are trusted and connecting and leading, using whatever AI tools you want, you're never going to have trouble making a living.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Wise words, wise words.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Your own army of agents is pretty much what he's saying.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  And having a network of people, Chad, I think a lot of young people disregard how important it is to have a network of people. And a network of products, if you're a Walmart shopper, everybody. Our next story, a Business Insider report reveals that Walmart store employees are facing a new daily responsibility, may I say, a new job, Chad. They have to act as human quality control experts by correcting training and cleaning up after AI tools, as if the mess I made in the Walmart a couple of weeks ago wasn't bad enough. They got to clean up AI problems as well. As the largest private sector employer in the US, Walmart's mass rollout serves as a major case study for the friction points of scaling AI in the workplace.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Superintelligence, my ass, Chad. Give us a hot take.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  We're just hearing over and over about the puppy pissing on stuff. I mean, it's interesting because in this story, Walmart associates are receiving task lists that are created by AI that actually don't understand the job slash list itself, right? So, and these are including edge cases, not always associated with each job. So for, from the article, for example, restocking shelves involves more than just putting up new merchandise on the shelf. Expiration dates need to be checked, damaged items need to be discarded, dust and spills need to be wiped up and sanitized. I mean, those tasks plus any host of other steps are variables.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  And quote, "It's almost like a manager who never performed the actual job of stocking shelves, guided the framework of this AI list," right? And so this escalates to the problem of AI is now creating time hacks around doing these tasks, although it doesn't understand the edge cases. Now Walmart says, well, we're not, we're not going to ding employees on this. But I say yet they will. And this is literally just a training exercise right now. Walmart surveyed over 250 associates. More than 85% of their respondents said they do not trust Walmart

• 49:58Speaker 00

  to prioritize their needs, the human needs in developing AI. And I mean, why should they? Over the past 40 plus years, corporate America hasn't paid employees fairly. Benefits are waning, plus Walmart has fought unionization of the workforce for years. And again, so why should they trust Walmart? We have a trust problem. If you're pushing AI. Into your company and you're trying to do it top down in this fashion. I mean, we don't, we have talked to so many companies who have implemented AI, but they've done it in pieces, parts in little chunks.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  They found out where the pain was. They found out where the suck was. They found out where people hated to do those tasks. And they saw if AI could actually pick up and do it for them. If they could, the people loved it. People thought it was amazing. In this case, Walmart's pretty much jamming AI down everybody's throats. This is not the way to do it. If you're going to implement, if you're going to adopt, you have to be able to work with the people and they're not working with the people.

• 51:11Speaker 06

  You're not going to fall for the banana, the tailpipe?

• 51:13Speaker 02

  Chad, have you ever been in an Uber where the GPS tells the driver to go one way? And he goes a different way? And you're like, why are you doing this? And he goes, well, construction popped up today. Or I know, I know something is going on. There's a parade that's not on this thing. This is going to be a much quicker way. And ultimately it is. That's, that's nuance. That's doing the job long enough that you know the ins and outs and the, the shortcuts and the cheat, the cheat codes, et cetera.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  The AI right now knows the GPS. It knows what historically works to put those pieces together. It does not have the nuance to know what's going on. Another example they had in this story was that the shopping list that guy, that employees would create would not put the frozen items at the end of the list, which melt, right? So, so workers were like putting, you know, the frozen peas in first, and then going to all the other stuff that's not frozen. And the freezer posed or the, the peas are frozen by the time the delivery gets to the customer. Like that's the nuance that AI doesn't know yet. And now AI is hoping that the employees will eventually teach the AI that,

• 52:33Speaker 02

  oh, the frozen stuff goes last, not first. That's going to take some time. Up until then, the puppy back to peeing on the carpet. Like, these things are going to happen. The other part of the story was like, there are alerts that come in that are totally irrelevant to like what the process of the job is. And they asked the employees, well, what do you do about that? And they go, well, we just ignore it. We just ignore the, the alert from the, so humans are learning like, ah, AI is dumb. Ignore that. Right? So we're having this imbalance of human nuance, how it's always been done. How do we train that? And we're seeing a lot of, a lot of acquisitions in our space about, how do we get more training? How do we get more stuff? How do we get into people's emails? How do we get into people's calendars?

• 53:15Speaker 02

  How do, like, the AI needs more, the machine needs more and more stuff. And this is, this is a lot of rage against the machine until the machine figures out all this stuff, if it ever does.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Totally agree. Totally agree. I mean, it is, in, hello.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Whoopsie.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Can I have another, can I have another beer?

• 53:35Speaker 00

  The, what I had said before is, I mean, literally there are companies that not adopting AI responsibly. And then you get all of these companies that are saying, we're not seeing ROI out of AI. Well, you haven't seen it because you haven't done the work. They aren't doing the work and understanding the actual processes like Walmart. They, they don't even know the tasks it takes to just stock shelves. Right? The edge cases, whatever you want to call them, just to stock shelves for fuck's sake. Right? So think of things that are more complex, you know? And then, then you want to extrapolate that out. And then you hear a CEO say, well, we're not seeing the ROI from it. It's like, because you need fired. You didn't do your job.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  You're a shitty leader, right? You literally, you literally, you need somebody to actually take control of this. And apparently you can't. So hit the bricks, bub. I mean, it's, if a company like Walmart is having these problems, many others are.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  It's interesting. The story also talks about like, the most value that it brings is sort of your daily to do list. Which to your point, isn't that the manager's job to direct you? So, yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  They want to get rid of the manager, though.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Well, they do want to, I, yeah, I get that as well. Um, I, I think if it's your first month on the job, I think it's, AI is great. It's instructive, but then at some point you get to a point where like, no, the frozen shit doesn't go in first. I'm going to ignore the AI because that's stupid. That's kind of where we are, where we are right now. Guys, we're going to talk about Indeed after the break. And that's what you come here, that's what you come here for. Some Indeed trash talk. We'll be right back.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  Imagine mixing PandaLogix AI with Broadbean's global job network to redefine your hiring process and expand what's humanly possible. Well, that's called Veritone Hire, kids. Whether you're piloting a scrappy startup or a corporate juggernaut, they've got you covered. Need to blast job postings, craft a killer programmatic campaign? Or I don't know, maybe hit those diversity targets? Veritone Hire does it all. Find, connect and hire faster with AI powered tools designed to bring people together. So you can get back to what's important, growing your damn business. It's AI that helps people find more great people. Ready to elevate your hiring game?

• 56:02Speaker 00

  Head over to veritone.com/hire and see what all the buzz is about. That's veritone.com/hire. So, ush out.

• 56:13Speaker 06

  Boy, that escalated quickly.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  Maybe they can sponsor MySpace, Chad, after our talk from last week. Yeah, I haven't heard that. It's very entertaining. Indeed is shifting its marketing strategy to target passive job seekers, aiming to build a larger talent pool beyond those actively searching for jobs. It's a story as old as time, Chad. This involves engaging with potential candidates through cultural activities, i.e. soccer games and fandoms, such as sports and entertainment, to create a supply of profiles for employers or the AI to find. Chad, what's your take on Indeed's new marketing direction?

• 56:51Speaker 00

  So I didn't think I'd have much to say about this. Because this is boring and it's stupid. No, seriously. Then I listened to the Ad Age podcast episode.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 57:02Speaker 00

  Um, now I've never heard James Whitmore, Indeed's CMO, speak before, but I can clearly say that after hearing James describe the quote unquote, new marketing, yes, I did air quote, strategy. I was left thinking, what new strategy? Everything he talked about Indeed has either done, or they've been focusing on already for years. And it never fails to amaze me that marketing types come in from other industries, have zero fucking clue what they're actually talking about. They don't understand the history, the changes in Indeed's tech from one slick and effective job search engine,

• 57:44Speaker 00

  which devolved into a fucking job board, just for starters.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  They don't, they don't understand the basics. He's talking about fandoms, sports, Indeed. They've been doing this for years. They might be doing more, but this isn't new. That maybe expansion into different leagues, it's not new.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Matching and sourcing marketplace, AKA feeding relevant jobs. They've been really shitty at this for years and they're still shitty. So carry on with AI. Increasing job seeker profile completion rates. Ever since they created a resume database, which they didn't start with, they've been focused on that. Apply starts, which is literally just someone clicking the apply button, not actually completing the job application. Just one more click to charge companies more money. The big evolution James, James is trying to sell is indeed evolving from a job search engine to a sourcing and matching marketplace,

• 58:45Speaker 00

  which again, they've tried to do over and over and they've failed. So to me, our new friend, James, is just another carnival barker slinging the same old bullshit wrapped in an entirely different package with a British accent. Anytime I hear earnings calls, a presentation, or even a podcast with Indeed leadership, it's just, they're just spewing bullshit. And anybody who doesn't know what they've done or been around, they're going to buy it. So anyway, anyway, I, I, I'm sure James Whitmore, our new friend here, is a great, is a great guy, but.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  Lovely.

• 59:23Speaker 00

  Give us all a break, man. I mean, you're not doing anything new and revolutionary. You're a fucking job board and everybody hates you. So why don't you just, why don't you just lean into the evil empire angle? Heavily and sponsor Spaceball 2. Sponsor the movie Spaceballs 2 when it comes out next April.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Your job board is as big as mine.

• 59:50Speaker 00

  Exactly. Seriously. Spaceballs fits Indeed's identity to a T. It's like.

• 59:55Speaker 04

  Mr. Bean meets Star Wars, a bunch of nitwits who are trying to take over the recruiting world.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, America Chad is back.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  All right. How do I follow that?

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  I think this is, uh, if you wanted proof that like Google, uh, is hurting indeed, or lack of Google traffic. Uh, this is kind of your, your red flashing red light. This might be a good time for a history lesson.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Here, old indeed, old indeed leveraged the hell out of free organic search traffic.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  From in, from Google, um, and did it better than anyone else. Google, Google or indeed is indeed because of Google.

• 1:00:50Speaker 04

  Um, yep.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  And like free traffic is great. So the marketing was huh? When I have a shitty day at work and I go, I want a new job. I'm going to go to Google and search Toledo jobs. Oh, there's indeed free traffic. Now indeed is telling you, uh, that's not working out anymore. We're not getting people coming in from Google searches. So they've, I'm sure they're marketing to like, still pay per click ads or probably doing stuff, people searching for jobs on socials. But what they've done is tell you like, that way doesn't work anymore. We have to go back to the drawing board. And start doing frankly, some old school marketing. In other words, we need to interrupt people.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  While they're doing things that aren't associated with job search, i.e. checking out a football game. And hope that they go to the site, check it out and put in their information. So that then we can create an agent for them to automatically apply to jobs that are posted. And that's the new model, which is not unlike the old model Chad, which was, okay, I'm going to search for a job today. I'm going to put in my information. And then I want to get an email anytime a new job that fits my criteria shows up. So we're basically trading email alerts for automated, hiring, recruiting, applying, et cetera.

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  So they're going with this time it's different. This time it's different. That is not a marketing strategy, my friend. That is not a marketing strategy. So what indeed needs and what they'd love to have is what LinkedIn enjoys. LinkedIn, better than anybody is a destination. You go to it regularly. A lot of people do. Some people don't. That's a debate. But at least indeed has a feed of content, stuff that's valuable. You can get credentialed in stuff. You can learn new things. You only go to indeed for job search and that model of go to Google and then come to us is breaking down. This is their answer. This is their answer. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not buying it, Chad.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  It's not nearly as good as a strategy of just dad jokes would be for them. Just indeed dad jokes would be.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  All right, Chad.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  You need to go take a nap or get another drink or something, my friend. Hopefully this will, this will help reduce some stress. Uh, what, what kind of vehicle does an egg drive? What kind of vehicle does an egg drive?

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  A Yokesvoggin.

• 1:03:33Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:03:36Speaker 04

  Oh, a Yokesvoggin.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  See you soon. I'll, I'll alert the, I'll alert, you know, I'll alert everyone that you're coming. Alert the authorities that Chad is coming back, everybody.

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  We out, we out. Thank you for listening to what's it called? A podcast. The Chad, the cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play.

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  Or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out.