The Chad & Cheese Podcast

On the Chad & Cheese Podcast, hosts Joel Cheesman and Chad Sowash welcomed Julia Levy, a seasoned talent acquisition (TA) leader, job search strategist, HR tech advisor, and author of From Hi to Hired: Your Insider Guide to Internships. Julia, recently departed from AutoZone, shared her 25+ years of TA experience across diverse industries, including tech consulting, staffing (Robert Half), financial services (MetLife, Fiserv), and manufacturing (Comscope). She discussed navigating the complex HR tech landscape, emphasizing the importance of identifying specific organizational problems before selecting technology, rather than chasing trendy solutions at conferences like RECFEST. Julia highlighted the challenge of distinguishing genuine AI innovations from rebranded legacy systems and shared her approach to vendor due diligence, leveraging networks and customer references. Transitioning to consulting, she noted a shift from corporate constraints to a more fulfilling role, though still receiving sales pitches as if she were at AutoZone. Her book targets college students facing a tough job market, offering strategies like being a "connector" on LinkedIn, targeting company problems, and turning rejections into growth opportunities. Julia stressed the value of internships and alternative career paths in trades or growth-oriented companies like AutoZone, noting a 10-20% reduction in internship programs due to economic uncertainty. Find out more at https://www.hi2hired.com/from-hi-to-hired. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to 02:20 Navigating the Talent Acquisition Landscape 05:21 Preparing for Conferences and Vendor Interactions 08:13 Insights from RecFest and Vendor Evaluation 11:12 Transitioning from Corporate to Consulting 14:09 The Importance of Internships for Students 17:05 Adapting to a Changing Job Market 20:05 Strategies for Students in Job Hunting 23:16 Understanding Rejection and Learning from It

Zoom just bought AI interview intelligence darling BrightHire. Chad and Joel discuss why this is a savvy chess move to stop Microsoft Teams, and if the brand will really survive the deal. Moving on, Meta says your 2026 performance review is an AI report card. We explain why every job is now a tech job and why Big Brother AI is watching. Verizon is yeeting 15,000 people. We go deep on the real, uncomfortable reasons behind their biggest layoff ever. Workday is playing Hungry Hungry Hippos on a massive M&A spree. And finally, 22% of candidates are finding work by sliding into DMs on Tinder and Bumble! Acquisitions, AI overlords, mass layoffs, and dating apps posing as job boards. Zero apologies, maximum truth bombs. Hit play!

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

Forget everything you know about leadership. In the latest episode with Chad and Joel, behavioral scientist Jon Levy tears down the myth of the lone genius and reveals why your "super chickens" might be sabotaging your entire operation. Levy, author of the new book Team Intelligence, unpacks wild stories from his own life—from shredding for a RevAbs infomercial to using a massive 421-million-match Hinge study to prove that introverts never pair up. You'll hear about the "Super Chicken Problem," learning what homicidal hens in the 1970s can teach you about corporate success and why rewarding individual superstars can destroy your team. You'll also learn about the "Too Much Talent Problem," the surprising reason teams overloaded with stars often underperform, and how a "no-stats All-Star" helped his basketball team win. Finally, get the truth about the "Airport Problem," why remote work can feel so lonely, and what managers—who have accidentally become "camp counselors"—can do to fix it. If you've ever wondered how to build a team that crushes the competition without crushing each other, this episode is a must-listen with a startling truth: Harvard MBAs might not be any different from anyone else when it comes to leadership.

Buckle up, kids, the boys are comin' in hot this week. Personio just chopped headcount and abandonded its U.S. strategy. Chad sees defeat; Joel sees a standing ovation for the competition. The bloodbath is real. 📉 Indeed's dropping its new Connect offering. Chad calls it a "shakedown with jazz hands." Joel warns there's something darker going on. 💸 What's more, Indeed has a new KPI! ARPJ - don't worry, you'll learn what it is - is up 15%, but maybe the magic trick is in the numbers, and the boys have the inside scoop on how Indeed is throttling the system. Wall Street claps, Main Street bleeds. 📈 Teen Vogue's HR chief gets ambushed on camera, and fast food is dying, along with the rest of everyone not in the 10% of the richest among us. It means more than just Joel mourning his Frosty, but maybe 50-year mortgages can save us. Not! Death, taxes, and Indeed screwing you over, same as it ever was. Enjoy!

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

LIVE from the Recfest USA stage in Nashville! David Weinstock is a modern Talent Acquisition leader who actually unlocks value by fixing how companies hire, not just adding more process. As VP of Talent Acquisition at New Story, he leads talent strategy across 16 very different companies. Before that, he built and scaled TA at Hopebridge, one of the largest ABA providers in the country supporting 7,500 hires a year across 125 locations. David’s specialty is taking messy, scattered recruiting operations and turning them into high-performing, data-powered machines. He’s led major ATS + CRM implementations, rebuilt TA org structures, refined recruitment marketing spend, and made analytics a core part of how decisions get made. Outside of his day-to-day work, David advises multiple recruiting tech companies helping shape product and go-to-market direction from the point of view of an operator who’s lived it.

In this episode, we ask if SAP + SmartRecruiters and/or Workday + Paradox can go FULL Amazon and collapse candidate friction into instant conversion, while LinkedIn and Indeed go to war over who actually owns the hiring assistant era. And Handshake? They’re pivoting into AI trainer labor like Mercor because the real money is in feeding the machines now. Watching business models shift where conversational AI becomes the UI… and the revenue engine. Hold on. This one’s bumpy.

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

High-volume recruiting is officially in its “everything is on fire” era. Applicant fraud is exploding. Screening is eating recruiter calendars alive. And scaling sourcing without torching your team? Good luck doing that manually in 2025 and beyond. So we’re bringing in the people who actually lived it… not analyst fantasy land. In this session — leaders from Rippling, Phantom, Foley and more break down the pain they actually felt, the bad solutions they tried first, and how they finally got ahead of the chaos. You’ll hear exactly how the speakers have taken a native approach in catching fraud before it infects pipelines, shrink screening overhead, and put recruiter time back into outbound sourcing where it actually moves the needle — not “spreadsheet archaeology.” Speakers include: Vijay Mani — Co-Founder & CEO, Covey Jay Patel — Sr Director Talent, Rippling (ex DoorDash) Laura Stapleton — VP People, Foley (ex Engine) Derrick Gellidon — Head of Talent, Phantom (ex Lyft, Instacart) And yes… Chad & Cheese stirring the bourbon into the chaos.

Another full serving of red meat on The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Joel unleashes the layoff bloodbath: Amazon axes 14K corporate jobs for automation, Target cuts 1.8K amid sales slumps, GM drops 3K+, Rivian 600, UPS a brutal 48K. Military.com? DOA via Valnet. Chad blames UPS pain on automation, ditching Amazon volume, and shrinking wallets; ties GM to the EV tax-credit cliff—“Trump economy killer!” Joel says companies hate chaos, froze post-election, now tariffs (⅓ each: importer, company, consumer) drip inflation, crushing spending and jobs. Amazon’s BlueJay bots are coming for warehouses. Emi (Europe) confirms global instability fuels automation through ’27; Target may need holiday humans, but HQ already slashed layers. Mercor—those zygote founders roasted for bias-free matching—pivots to AI-model eval, grabs $350M Series C at $10B. 30K experts at $85/hr tell OpenAI why outputs rock or rot. Chad salutes the “picks-and-shovels” genius; Joel dubs it the mother of pivots. AuditBoard scoops FairNow for AI-governance; Chad smells PE acqui-hire for HG’s $180B empire, Joel’s skeptical—flat headcount, no terms, RecFest whispers “smoke.” Emi loves Mercor’s 500M ARR path, reserves FairNow judgment. iCIMS wakes up: AI Sourcing Agent, turnkey I-9/E-Verify (backgrounds/assessments next), Apply Network adds LinkedIn/Veritone. Chad groans—5 yrs post-Opening.io, 3 post-Candidate.ID, rebranding old tech as “agents” in me-too panic. Joel sees ATS arms race: bundle sourcing/SEO or lose to SmartRecruiter clones. Emi hopes CTO Deepak Pandya saves the day; Chad/Joel want retention—“We’ve got agents too!” H-1B mess: White House defends $100K fee vs. Chamber lawsuits over fraud/wage suppression. DeSantis bans H-1Bs at FL universities (13.6% biz faculty gone), citing Chinese nationals teaching U.S. policy. Chad recalls 2020 Chamber suit—immigrants power innovation/supply chains. BC runs Reagan ads during NHL, fast-tracks Trump-weary U.S. nurses: 1.4K+ apps, 113 registered, 100+ hired. Joel predicts Canada-wide poach; Emi: fee won’t spawn American nurses. Bold (Monster/CB owners) drops 2007 cringe-video: wrinkled CEO, Trumpasaurus, resume subs, predatory paid services. Chad gags at “ick,” slams Jeff Taylor for cheering a flaming brand. Joel: ChatGPT could do better; Emi: euthanize the dead horse—trust gone. Trio signs off with Joel the Chicken & Agent Chad pitching iCIMS mascot gigs. Death, taxes, layoffs—baby. Chapters00:00 - Intro13:32- Layoffs21:44 - AI News30:29 - iCIMS38:23 - H-1B47:04 - Bold

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

What happens when a global powerhouse doing 180,000 hires a year gets tired of lighting cash on fire? Gotta listen to find out. In this live RecFest session, the boys sit down with Shay Johnson, VP of Strategic HR Partnerships at Compass Group USA, who reveals how his team went from 2% conversion rates and duplicate job posts to building a hiring machine. Shay drops real playbook tactics—SMS conversion tactics, re-engagement automation, database recycling, spend control, and high-volume hiring strategy that every enterprise TA leader should be stealing by Monday. This one has it all the maths, modern TA strategy, automation wins, and a guy with better hair than Joel. Grab a bourbon and listen up. Shay's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelshayjohnson/ Dalia candidate conversion - https://www.dalia.co ENJOY! 0:00 – Meet Shay Johnson1:20 – 2% conversion + dumpster fire2:44 – 5 million candidates a year?3:45 – Hiring managers go rogue.9:56 – Stop buying new candidates—reuse the ones you already paid for11:35 – Dalia + Paradox = Batman & Robin of hiring16:17 – Hiring automation so good recruiters don’t know it exists21:33 – Spending smarter > burning budget on sponsorship confetti26:41 – In-house programmatic team = two nerds and a spreadsheet29:23 – Change management that didn’t suck

This week's episode opens with a layoffs avalanche that could bury a small HR department. Nestlé slashes 16,000 jobs—mostly white-collar, as AI now crunches numbers faster than accountants can say “chocolate river.” Meta cuts 600 from its super-intelligence team (the irony writes itself), Paycom drops 500 engineers (guess the bots finally learned to code), Handshake axes over 100 (pivoting to “AI-centric tech” = fancy talk for “we’re toast”), and even programmatic darling Appcast trims 32. The hot acquisition pitch? JobGet should buy Handshake and rebrand it Handjob.com—because nothing screams “career move” like a domain that triggers every corporate filter. The bullshit meter detonates. Facebook resurrects its job board after killing it in 2023—rumor has it Zuck’s prepping AR glasses where “Starbucks is hiring” beams directly into your latte-fueled daydreams. X quietly buries its LinkedIn-killer tab (Elon’s too busy monetizing outrage). Adzuna unveils a “revolutionary” search that’s basically ZipRecruiter’s Phil minus the creepy spokesperson—half-baked, no employer-side matching, and it begs for your email like a desperate Tinder bio. Metaview’s Chicago billboard (“Who says hiring has to be fair?”) gets flayed: four-second glance, logo smaller than a South Park punchline, and DEI messaging dumber than a rock. Fix? “Effective AI. Giant Logo. Metaview.com.” Done. Stop torching $35M on ego art. Funding fireworks: Findem.ai pockets another $51M, hitting $105M total (Intello 2.0, now with agent spice—same data warehouse, new flavor packet). Deel raises $300M, pushing its war chest to $1.3B at a $17.3B valuation—enough to buy a mid-sized nation and still tip the barista. Armstrong grabs $12M for AI dish-washing robots (Taco Bell’s drive-thru is about to ghost human order-takers faster than you can say “Doritos Locos”). Jack & Jill scores $20M for conversational job alerts—talk to your laptop, get emailed Indeed links. Groundbreaking… if it’s 2001. Economy’s a K-shaped tire fire: Hamburger Helper sales spike 14% (flashbacks to salty 70s trauma: “Dad tried to fix it with more salt—burned my mouth and my will to live”). Freight rates up 20%, subprime auto delinquencies worse than COVID, Great Recession, and dot-com bust combined. White Castle flips fully autonomous in Ohio—farewell, drive-thru jobs; hello, robot flipping your sliders while you doom-scroll in sweatpants. Finale: OpenAI green-lights erotic ChatGPT for verified adults starting December (the internet was literally built on the promise of pixelated nipples—Sam Altman’s just cashing the OG check). Age-gating? Cute. Show me a 10-ft wall, I’ll show you an 11-ft ladder and a forged ID. They also launch ChatGPT Atlas, an AI browser with a sassy sidebar—because Chrome’s 2:38 median tab time and 11.4 open tabs (recruiters: double that, easy) needed a drunk-texting career coach. Google infused Gemini; OpenAI counters by making browsing feel like your browser just joined a group chat.Buckle up—2026 will be wilder than a Meta glasses app that undresses your LinkedIn connections in AR. Chapters00:00 Introduction and Recap of Reckfest02:18 Reflections on MTV's Impact and Evolution04:57 The Changing Landscape of Job Platforms07:36 Layoffs and Industry Shifts10:09 The Future of Recruiting Technology13:08 Meta's Job Platform and Advertising Strategies15:42 Critique of Adzuna's New Search Features18:04 Closing Thoughts and Future Predictions26:35 The Power of AI in Recruiting30:44 Funding Frenzy in the Recruitment Tech Space34:59 The Impact of Automation on Fast Food Jobs42:49 Economic Indicators and Their Implications48:06 The Intersection of AI, Browsers, and Adult Content

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, hosts Joel Cheesman and Chad Sowash interview Barry Wolfe, a former Fortune 500 HR leader turned consultant and author of It’s All In Your Head: Why Psychology Doesn’t Help Your Employees Deliver Value – And What Can (2025). Wolfe critiques the "bullshit psychology industrial complex," comparing tools like Myers-Briggs and DISC to 19th-century phrenology, arguing they’re unscientific and fail to predict performance. He blames executives’ desire for easy answers for their reliance on these flawed methods, even as AI risks amplifying the problem with recycled "gibberish." Instead, Wolfe’s Value-Centric Leadership model urges leaders to define business value through a “same page” document and replace appraisals with “success maps” focusing on measurable deliverables. HR, he suggests, can lead by demanding clarity on 3-5 value-added results per role. The candid, humorous discussion, peppered with banter about a Napoleon-era jacket, targets HR pros and leaders, urging them to ditch platitudes for results. Wolfe plugs a free Chapter 3 at argoshr.com/book, and the hosts endorse the book as “anti-bullshit.”

A Scotsman, two clowns and a whole bunch of TA professionals walk into a Chicken Cock speakeasy ... No, it's not a joke, it's Chad & Cheese recording live from their recent visit to Louisville, Kentucky for some of the finest bourbon around and a little industry chat with Dan Heverin, Talent Acquisition Manager at Humana and Jacqueline Carow, North America Agency Director at Havas People. Recording in front of a rowdy bunch of recruiting pros, the gang talks automation, employment branding, tech stacks, the future of recruiting and more. Grab a pour and enjoy. We're return to our regularly scheduled program next week.

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, the boys interview Malcolm Frank, former president of Cognizant Digital and current CEO of Talent Genius, a platform focused on AI-driven talent acquisition. Frank, an Ohio native, discusses his extensive experience in technology and consulting, highlighting Cognizant's growth from 10,000 to over 300,000 employees. He traces AI's rise in business, noting its "slow, then sudden" impact since ChatGPT's 2022 debut. Frank critiques CEOs for layering AI onto outdated structures, leading to poor ROI, as shown in an MIT survey, and advocates for first-principles thinking to redesign processes. He sees recruiting transforming with AI, cutting sourcing time (e.g., scanning 7.5 million profiles instantly) and improving cultural fit analysis, though human recruiters remain vital for emotional connection. Frank warns of AI scaling biases faster than humans, necessitating strong governance to avoid issues like predatory lending seen in early AI experiments. He discusses Talent Genius’s “Agent Powered” platform, which helps workers leverage AI to amplify skills (e.g., becoming “5x” more effective), drawing parallels to historical job shifts like the iceman’s obsolescence. The lively discussion, peppered with humor about Davos and Buckeyes, emphasizes AI’s potential to turbocharge talent management if thoughtfully integrated, urging listeners to visit talentgenius.io for more. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction to Malcolm Frank 01:56 - The Rise of AI and Its Impact 05:20 - Challenges in AI Implementation 09:02 - The Future of Recruiting with AI 12:53 - Investing in Employee Development 17:19 - The Role of AI in Talent Acquisition 21:16 - Big Tech vs. Niche Vendors in HR Tech 24:48 - The Evolution of ATS and Recruiting Tools 28:51 - Bias in AI and Its Implications 35:23 - AI's Impact on Blue Collar Jobs 37:39 - The Vision Behind Talent Genius

This week, the gang dives into a grim economic landscape, tackling the week's bad news with their signature candor before scraping for some silver linings. The bad news hits hard: the U.S. government shutdown, now in its eighth day, is costing $7-15 billion weekly, furloughing 1.9 million workers and delaying critical jobs data, with ADP and Moody’s signaling near-zero job growth in September, concentrated in healthcare and large firms. American farmers face bankruptcy risks as tariffs inflate prices and competitors like Argentina and Brazil snag deals with China. J.P. Morgan pegs recession odds at 40% by year-end, and tech stocks, puffed up by AI hype, teeter on the edge of a bust. Chad rants about tariffs, ICE raids, and H1B visa hikes pushing talent away, calling the economy “cataclysmic,” while J.T. laments the understated jobs crisis, with six-figure earners jobless for months. Joel highlights the plight of farmers, noting the regressive impact of tariffs on the poor and the absurdity of subsidizing competitors like Argentina. Switching to good news, the trio finds some hope: Upwork’s CEO Hayden Brown reports a 50%+ surge in demand for AI skills like prompt engineering, with Gen Z poised to benefit from freelance opportunities. A Yale study suggests ChatGPT hasn’t yet disrupted U.S. jobs significantly, and Workday’s expanded real estate footprint and Netflix’s $700,000 AI product manager role signal niche growth. J.T. sees promise in fractional work for seasoned professionals, while Chad warns AI is quietly automating tasks (like scheduling at GM, cutting 100+ jobs) and questions the longevity of roles like prompt engineering. Joel agrees, likening AI jobs to short-lived 90s webmaster roles, predicting they’ll train systems to replace themselves.The episode also covers LinkedIn’s lawsuit against Pro APIs for scraping millions of profiles with fake accounts, a growing headache as AI amplifies such schemes, and the launch of Filament, a $10.7M-funded, invite-only LinkedIn rival that Chad dismisses as redundant given existing group chats on WhatsApp and Slack. Finally, they tackle Gen X’s financial woes, with only 25% holding retirement accounts and student debt crushing the rest. J.T. sees universal basic income (UBI) as a potential bridge for Gen X to pivot careers, but Joel balks at the idea, citing their fiercely independent ethos, while Chad ties the crisis to the shift from pensions to 401ks and broader systemic failures. The episode closes with a heated debate on whether UBI or corporate reinvestment in communities could stem the tide, leaving listeners with a mix of grim realities and cautious optimism for a creative, freelance-driven future. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Fall Vibes 03:32 - Shout Outs and Remembrances 09:51 - Economic Concerns and Job Market Analysis 18:57 - AI and Job Market Dynamics 27:31 - LinkedIn Lawsuit and Professional Networking 47:44 - Gen X Financial Challenges and UBI Discussion