Announcer:
Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. We are recording from HR Tech in Vegas, brought to you by our friends and partners at Fuel50. Here’s your host, Mark Pfeffer.
Mark:
This is PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m Mark Pfeffer, and we’re recording today from the exposition floor of the HR Technology Exposition and Conference. And I’m joined with two legends of the business, Chad Sowash-
Joel:
Legends.
Chad:
… What did he say?
Mark:
… and Joel Cheesman.
Chad:
Was that out loud? Are we recording?
Joel:
Legends in our own mind.
Mark:
Gentlemen, welcome.
Joel:
We may or may not actually be recording. We’re not in control of this interview.
Mark:
Well, I know I’m certainly not.
Joel:
This is his practice for the real interview in five minutes. What’s up, Mark?
Mark:
What do you find going on around here? What’s interesting?
Joel:
Eightfold’s gigantic booth. I think they may be compensating for something. I don’t know.
Chad:
What it is, it’s the-
Joel:
It’s the Ferrari of the expo hall.
Chad:
It’s a for sale sign is what it is.
Joel:
I don’t know.
Chad:
They’re pointing at SAP and ADP and saying, “Hey, big boy.” Won’t you come on over?”
Joel:
They’re like the Hawaiian Islands. There’s little booths around in addition to the big island that’s in the middle.
Chad:
Now, the funny part though, is if you go over in the corner, so Eightfold has about 400 million in funding, right? As we can see by the booth size. Then Deal who has about 600, over 600 million in funding has a 10 by 10 booth over in the corner.
Joel:
The tabletop with the Velcro backing.
Chad:
Yes. And Deal’s like, well, we’re not spending our money on this shit.
Joel:
Priorities. Priorities. I also love the startup pavilion. That’s always one of my favorites.
Mark:
Why?
Joel:
These little kiosks of startups, they are so thirsty for attention.
Chad:
Well, and it’s like the trailer park of the condo area.
Joel:
It is. It is the island of misfit toys.
Chad:
It is the Florida of the United States.
Joel:
You can’t walk through there without being attacked. Let us tell you about our new AIML, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Metaverse startup.
Chad:
RPA, BR. Yes, it was. Oh, my God. [inaudible]
Joel:
Sorry. I promised we wouldn’t take over his show.
Chad:
Oh, sorry.
Mark:
Oh, we just assumed you would.
Chad:
This is probably the easiest interview he’s had thus far.
Joel:
Yes.
Mark:
It’s true.
Joel:
Welcome. Okay guys, what’s your take on the show? This is it.
Mark:
All right. My sponsor wanted to talk about skills.
Chad:
Skills? Okay.
Mark:
So, what do you guys have to say about skills?
Chad:
They’re good to have.
Joel:
They pay the bills.
Chad:
They’re good to have. Yeah.
Joel:
They’re good to up… skill.
Chad:
Yeah. Well, we actually had a conversation with Guild yesterday. We were briefed and another company over 600. 630 million in funding. They are up-skilling platform. I mean I’m big on up-skilling platforms because we need it badly here in the US. Corporations aren’t going to take the time to actually build their own. This is kind of like the easy button. So yeah, I think, you know?
Joel:
It’s like, shit, recruiting’s hard. Let’s just train the people we already have to do the jobs that we can’t recruit for. So, up-skilling is a huge trend in our industry that we’re both watching very carefully. Otherwise, it’s a lot of the same remote automation, diversity play that we’ve been seeing for the last two, three years.
Mark:
We’re going back to talking about skills. Are the employees as bothered by it or as into it as the vendors and the employers supposedly are?
Chad:
I don’t know that the employees… first and foremost, we’re not transparent enough with them to let them know what a career path looks like and then that there are skills associated with said career path. Whether you want to stay on your current path, which they don’t even know what fucking path they’re on, or the next path. Whatever that path is. We need to expose those and then help them understand what skills it takes to actually get into this other department, this other position, et cetera, et cetera. So, I don’t think they understand because the employers haven’t done their job in being able to really understand themselves and then also expose it so that they can get done what needs to get done with up skilling.
Joel:
Or maybe they understand too well, which is the quiet quitting phenomenon. Meaning, this isn’t in my job description. I don’t have these skills. Oh, well, we’ll up-skill you on the job that you’ve been doing for the last three years that you’re not being paid for because this whole damn quiet quitting thing. You’re not doing the job that you’re not supposed to be doing. So, we’ll up-skill you to a new job, so you can do that instead.
Chad:
I would say if there was a union pushing for something like that, yeah, but we’ve seen such a large swath of people. Yeah, that this isn’t a hands across America kind of thing.
Joel:
Back to you, Mark.
Chad:
Back to Mark in the studio.
Mark:
What’s really got your interest here?
Joel:
Interest?
Mark:
Yeah. What’s interesting?
Joel:
Robots. Robots. I want robots to serve my Chipotle. I want robots to make my Mexican pizza Taco Bell. I want robots to bring my bag to the hotel. I don’t want to talk to someone at the front desk. I want to check in on my phone. Robots, I want the robots to come. I am ready to bow down to my robot overlords.
Chad:
That’s only because he can get his hamburger faster.
Mark:
I am sympathetic to that.
Joel:
And we’ll keep this show PG, okay? I won’t go into the other phases.
Mark:
He’s already used two words and counting.
Chad:
You’ll beep those out. That’s not our problem. We have the technology, kids.
Joel:
Yes, yes. Who edits this thing?
Chad:
The robot.
Joel:
The robots. Yes.
Mark:
You seeing a lot of robots here?
Joel:
Ask him what’s got him excited.
Mark:
Oh, okay. Hey Chad.
Chad:
Yeah.
Mark:
What’s got you excited?
Chad:
Oh, it’s a good question. Thanks for asking, Mark. I really think just the industry in itself. There is so much happening in so many different areas. There’s so many gaps from these ancient core systems that we’ve been using forever. So, all of these HCM systems, they have gaps, they have a technical debt. They have problems. And many of these small little startups, that are now exploding in some cases, are the answer.
We’re seeing the answer in pockets here. The question is what pockets, right? Is it over in the trailer park with the startups? Which I love. I love going over there and talking to them because they’re just so drinking the Kool-Aid and they’re so passionate but, so far…
Joel:
So naive.
Chad:
They are.
Joel:
So naive.
Chad:
Oh, they are. They are. But that’s, to me, is I think, always the most exciting part. But now in our age of Moore’s law and Tech, it’s crazy. There’s just so much to be excited about.
Mark:
Hey Joel, let me come back to what you were saying.
Joel:
Sure. You want to talk about robots, don’t you?
Mark:
Oh, yeah.
Chad:
Oh, he does. He wants you to expand on the robots.
Joel:
You know you do. You know you do.
Mark:
No, I want to ask you, why are you so skeptical about the startups in the startups area?
Joel:
If my comments seem to expose a skepticism, it probably comes from being in this space for 25 years. Because I’m an old son of a bitch that has seen at least three or four waves of innovation and companies that are going to change the world. And I’m still waiting for the world to be changed. So, just call it old grizzled stodginess that I get a kick out of them. Because they are bright eyed and bushy tailed and think that they are going to change the world.
But, I mean, look, the facts are 95% of them will be out of business in three to five years. So, it’s hard for me to get too excited and that’s just the fact of business. That’s not just our space, That’s any space that starts up companies. So, it’s not skepticism. Look, we root for startups. We have a show called Firing Squad that we legitimately do cheer for startups and hope that they are succeed. And if we don’t think they are, they come back in five years and tell us to off because they’ve been successful.
Chad:
It’s so hard.
Joel:
But yeah, I’ve been around the block too many times to get all that excited about a geographic job board, which is literally one of the kiosks in the pavilion. I only got about one row down because they do tackle you to tell you about their company. Because they spent so much at the FASTSIGNS to get their kiosk design and the content that they pass out. But no, I mean it’s fun. Look, I’d love to pause my old age and really believe in these companies. But until they have a booth that looks like Eightfolds, it’s hard to get too excited about them, I guess.
Chad:
See that’s, for me, that’s where I get excited because that’s where I feel all the ideas are right now.
They might be out in left field, but you are seeing so many crazy awesome ideas. Some of them flourish and get sold like Candidate.ID, which Joel gave a golf clap to on Firing squad, by the way. Adam Gordon will not allow him to forget that. But those are shining spots, right? That, I think, to me, every day is exciting.
Joel:
That’s true. I mean, Bonusly was in the pavilion one year, they’ve been successful. I think Text Recruit was actually one of the pavilion companies at one time. So yeah, there are success stories, but that’s two in the 25 years that I’ve been doing this shit. So, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical.
Chad:
That’s two he remembers. He’s got a bad memory. He’s got a very bad memory.
Mark:
As he gets older, that’s just going to get worse.
Joel:
What’d you say? Where am I?
Chad:
That’s a good question.
Mark:
We’re sort of on the way up out of Covid, more or less.
Joel:
Bring on Monkey Pox, baby, I’m ready.
Mark:
When you’re walking around here and when you’re just sort of thinking of the business, what’s the big problem that the vendors should jump on to take care of, that they’re not?
Chad:
Let me go first. So, the biggest problem that we’ve had in this industry forever, that nobody is really focused on… I shouldn’t say nobody, there are some platforms that are. But it’s that 90 plus percent rate of candidates ejecting in the application process. So, you have 90% of the people who were interested and wanted to apply for your job and they couldn’t complete the process because your application process sucked because it was so bad. They ejected, right? 90%. But yet we whine and moan and complain because we don’t have enough candidates.
Well, if we look in the mirror we’ve got to figure out why we don’t. So, I think that is, at least on the top end of the funnel, a big solution that needs to be put in place. Now some, like Paradox or some of the other platforms that are out there that are more experiential-
Joel:
Fountain.
Chad:
Oh yeah, Fountain. Experiential. They’re doing a great job in being able to try to re-engineer that whole process so that instead of 90% ejecting you have more of a 90% application rate. We need to start there. I mean it’s just the simple shit that we get wrong.
Joel:
That’s basically what I was going to say. So, I’ll try to think of something new to put in there. I mean I’ll piggyback on that. I think more or less the whole process is really broken. I mean ghosting is still a thing.
Quiet quitting, engagement. Are you coming back to work? Are you not? There’s been so much inconsistency with how we treat someone that we’re trying to hire from the time that we first communicate with them. Like Chad mentioned, people not wanting to or caring to finish the application process to the actual interviewing and follow up. I mean I have the enviable position of having a 16 year old that has been applying to some jobs in the last 12 months or so and the process really sucks. I hear about service industry can’t hire enough people and I think, well you’re hiring really sucks. It’s really bad. It doesn’t communicate to a teenager like a teenager wants to communicate, right? A teenager does not check email, right? I mean, my son has checked email only because of applying to a job. Otherwise, he’ll never check email. Text messaging and getting back in a timely fashion.
It’s just treating humans like humans has always been an issue and it still is. I mean, pay transparency we talk about a lot. I’m thankful for Indeed laying down the gauntlet saying hey, we’re going to put a salary range in your job whether you put one in there or not. Forcing the hand of an employer. We’re seeing states like New York and California trying to pass laws of where you have to put a salary in a job position.
We’re making steps to being more human and being more respectful to job seekers and candidates. But we still have a long way to go. So, that piggybacks on Chad’s, but maybe just expands on what he was saying.
Mark:
Gentlemen, thank you both so much.
Chad:
Are you talking to us? Gentlemen?
Mark:
Yeah, I’m sorry.
Joel:
Do we get a T-shirt now? Do we get a T-shirt for this?
Chad:
I’ll take a T-shirt.
Mark:
Yeah, we’ll get you a T-shirt.
Joel:
Cause we don’t read books. They have books back there. I don’t think a book is something that we’d want. No, Mark, thank you for having us, man.
Chad:
Thanks Mark.
Announcer:
You’ve been listening to PeopleTech of the HCM technology report. This HR tech series is graciously proud to you by our partners at Fuel50. For all other HR, sourcing, and recruiting news, check out www.HCMtechnologyreport.com.
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