Everything people and workforce—recruiting, marketing, technology, talent management, and workforce economics—delivered with biting sarcasm and unapologetic snark. Industry misfits Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman bring their no-holds-barred opinions to dissect news, trends, and the occasional dumpster fire. If you’re a hiring company, staffing firm, or vendor looking for insights (and a thick skin), these two won’t just tell you what’s happening—they’ll tell you why you’re probably doing it wrong. Buckle up, buttercup.
The Great Resignation. Heard of it? Of course you have, and that's why you're hoping you can find a way to keep your best employees from jumping ship and going to your competition. Never fear, WorqDrive from industry veteran Tracey Parsons is here. But they have some stiff competition from the likes of Eightfold, Gloat and Fuel50. Can this little engine that could make it up that hill and survive the Firing Squad? Gotta listen.
The industry remains as hot as ever, which is good because there's some Halloween weight I'm trying to burn. Anyway, Indeed leads off the show with the kind of tomfoolery that would even make 2007 Monster blush. (Yes, they're still who we thought they were.) Greenhouse marries a sourcing solution you've likely never heard of, and Fiverr tells LinkedIn and Upwork, "Hold my beer." A scorching round of Buy-or-Sell follows, as well as a look at how Sam's Club is crushing the retention issue plaguing so many organizations, and a mathematician teaches a masterclass on marketing: Sex sells.
We're usually pretty skeptical about company-sponsored surveys. Not surprisingly, the data usually turns out to be a self-serving pile of hot garbage or a half-assed attempt at getting some love from the media. And then there's Talent Alpha's new global talent report, "The A3 Work Revolution: Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere." We dug it so much, we had to have Talent Alpha CEO (and Firing Squad alum) Prez Berendt on the podcast to highlight some of the survey's finer points and nuances. After that, we dig into a recent acquisition out of the Nordics, claiming to be the most important thing to happen in Scandinavia since the Viking Age. Skol, um, maybe. Then what Chad & Cheese show is complete without something about strippers, porn stars or gun-toting robots, so we have one of those stories too... this time, out of the UK.
The Shred is a bite-sized bit of recruitment news to help make sure you’re in-the-know, even if you’re on-the-go. The Shred is brought to you by Recruitology.
What's scarier than ghosts and goblins on Halloween? How about LinkedIn looking to slice up Fiverr and Upwork, The Great Resignation heads to a Denver airport and - horror of horrors - Not one, but TWO Canadian startups in Buy-or-Sell w/ FloCareer, SkyHive & Bridgit It's a razorblade hidden in an apple headed straight for your eardrums, boys, and girls, as we also cover robots in your McDLT and your buffalo wings. Witches get stitches on the latest podcast, featuring your two favorite warlocks! Boo, indeed. Er, I mean, boo Indeed (yeah, we torch them too).
The Shred is a bite-sized bit of recruitment news to help make sure you’re in-the-know, even if you’re on-the-go. The Shred is brought to you by Recruitology.
Technology has been a great thing for recruiting, but there's a dark side. Namely, artificial intelligence. A.I. has made companies more efficient and effective, but it's also been a roadblock for job candidates and a hindrance for hidden workers to get ahead. EEOC commissioner Keith Sonderling joins the boys to give a high-level education on the current state of how the government is dealing with the questions around tech and employment.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: HR tech company gets buckets of money. Well, the song remains the same this week, as companies like BetterUp, Deel, and Wonolo keep ringing the register. Also, Cornerstone OnDemand goes private (that always works out well, right?), and a little buy-or-sell with Continuum, Interviewing.io, and Reejig. And if you thought robotic dogs that could open doors were scary, how about ones with guns attached to their backs? Yikes! Listen before civilization checks out for good.
Did you know bathing in beer is taking Europe by storm? Yeah, that's the kind of show you can expect as you push Play. Volonte CEO and founder Daniel Masata join the Euro crew to discuss beer bathing as well as two continental unicorns that just got funded. Then they dig into more funding as record amounts of cabbage flood the industry. If it's Facebook news you want, we have that too, as the social media giant has announced Europe can expect thousands of new jobs over the next five years ... but is Facebook just playing PR and bribing the Old Country? Maybe. Gotta listen to find out.
Believe it or not, a lot of ad agencies that don't target recruitment do recruiting marketing work. One such agency is Point to Point out of beautiful Cleveland, and we invited CEO Megan Kacvinsky on the show to talk about a recent campaign they did for Ferguson to help attract more young folks to a trade profession. The social media of choice to get in front of this audience? Gotta listen to find out!
If you're numb over unicorns, well, get over it. This week, the boys highlight two more newly minted members of the Billion Dollar Valuation Club. Yup, welcome Hibob and Karat to the unicorn party. Also on this episode: Canvas and Luma, er, Pillar are in the news (or suffer growing pains, depending on your point of view). Snagajob says "Everything Must Go!", LinkedIn unplugs from China (kinda), and back by popular demand: Porn! Stop watching The Squid Game and enjoy another riveting episode of HR's most dangerous podcast.
The Shred is a bite-sized bit of recruitment news to help make sure you’re in-the-know, even if you’re on-the-go. The Shred is brought to you by Recruitology.
The boys welcome Namely CEO Larry Dunivan to the show to talk industry history, leadership, issues of diversity and inclusion, as well as a growth strategy and whether or not an IPO is in the offing. It's rare to find a CEO who has worked from the bottom to the very top of the HR software industry ladder. It's even rarer for a CEO to have industry experience combined with the ability to understand software, systems, sales, marketing, and infrastructure since before the days of mainstream internet adoption. Larry Dunivan is that rare CEO. Corporate leaders, wannabe leaders, DEI proclaimers, and every HR and recruiting industry vendor should have this interview on a continuous loop. You're welcome!
The weather is getting cooler in America, but we can lucky still stay warm with the hot embers of the ongoing CareerBuilder dumpster fire. This time, our favorite old-timey job board is rebranding with a new logo and ad campaign. Mmmm, toasty. We also dive into the new investment at The Mom Project and play some buy-or-sell with a couple of internationally focused companies and one "Salesforce for recruiting" wannabe. Watch out Gem! To end the show, we take a break from porn and prostitutes to focus on the growth of Africa and Big Tech's continental invasion, featuring Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Germany's new chancellor is named Olaf, which is also the name of the snowman from Frozen. Where are we going with this? No clue, but this episode of all-things-Euro is packed with goodness, including France's Freelance.com going all-in on growing operations by gobbling up everything in sight, apparently. What else? Rich companies in the EU are leveraging government policy to get cheap and free labor from poorer countries to join their ranks, while the EV business is set to dislodge some 500,000 auto workers from the European workforce, which makes re-skilling that much more important. Or maybe apprenticeships, powered by unicorn-in-training Multiverse, has the answers. Hard questions. This calls for another round. Prost!
The Shred is a bite-sized bit of recruitment news to help make sure you’re in-the-know, even if you’re on-the-go. The Shred is brought to you by Recruitology.
The last time we brought Tracey Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas - authors of "Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out." - on the podcast sparks flew and listeners couldn't get enough. So we're adding to the Move Fast and Break Shit hits with COVID Workplace Whiplash! Check out more information and their free e-book at catalystconstellations.com
Love unicorns? This episode of your favorite podcast has two, baby! That's right, Gem and Andela have joined the ranks of the $1 billion club. And by the looks of a few others on this week's show, more could be coming with Syndio raising $50 million this week and Cocoon getting a plump Series A. We also ask whether or not chatbots are all the same, or are some just posers in life's big taco stand? Then we welcome October the right way with Amazon scaring the hell out of us for the low, low cost of $1,000.
The Shred is a bite-sized bit of recruitment news to help make sure you’re in-the-know, even if you’re on-the-go. The Shred is brought to you by Recruitology.
Think your pandemic policies and practices were a lot to deal with? Try cat-herding a 30,000-person company. That's just what Commscope faced and Head of Global TA Julia Levy is on the show to talk about just how they did it, and shares a lot of the questions still unanswered. It's a candid discussion on a challenge a lot of companies are facing, but are too afraid to talk about. Julia puts it all on the table and it's a discussion anyone in the world of HR and TA should not miss. Brought to you by those texting fanatics over at Nexxt. Do you need better engagement and deeper penetration into your talent pools? Call Nexxt!
We throw the kitchen sink at this one. Three IPOs, five startups in rapid Buy-or-Sell, a new unicorn, LinkedIn taking on Upwork and Fiverr with its evolving gig marketplace, and the People's Champion is apparently a former Walmart employee. “F**k management, and f**k this job, I quit.” Power to the people, powered as always by our sponsors Sovren, JobAdx, and Jobvite .
The Shred is a bite-sized bit of recruitment news to help make sure you’re in-the-know, even if you’re on-the-go. The Shred is brought to you by Recruitology
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Sweden has been an outlier, hoping that bypassing lockdowns and instead, bracing herd immunity would win the day. Well, it hasn't worked out very well, and the country is grappling with next steps. That's why we've brought Sweden's Elin Martenzon, Tengai Unbiased CEO, to discuss the state of her country. You'll learn why Sept. 29 is such a big day. Then we travel to Italy, where the continent's first COVID passport mandate is about to be implemented. The answer to whether or not the rest of Europe will follow suit may surprise you. You want acquisitions? We got acquisitions, covering Amsterdam-based Impraise getting gobbled up by San Francisco-based unicorn BetterUp.
Matching is hot, but no one has cracked the SMB market. Enter The Sieve. Yeah, we know, horrible name, but how's the tech, strategy, and team? COO and co-founder Michael Yinger, an industry veteran who's done time at PeopleScout and Randstad, thinks he's got some good answers. But listeners know Chad & Cheese will have the final word on this startup that's looking to face the Firing Squad unscathed. Does he come out alive? Gotta listen to find out. Firing Squad is brought to you by those crazy programmatic geniuses over at Pandologic. Get better results with a more targeted approach to attracting candidates? Check out Pandologic.com!
You want some PPC? How about Porn, Politics, and Canvas. Boy, this week's show has it all. Firing Squad alums Canvas (no, not that Canvas) and Humanly grabbed some investment money and some juicy new valuations, while Glassdoor makes a fishy acquisition that Chad compares to Dice's dumb stake in The Muse. A battle is brewing between traditional ATS's and the bots of the future. Who ya' got? Chad & Cheese sound off. Also, Salesforce messes with Texas and gets political, as they have a tendency to do. Of course, we had to end on a story we're describing as revenge porn 2.0. Creepy? Oh yeah! This cornucopia of goodness is brought to you by Sovren, JobAdx, and Jobvite!
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