The Chad & Cheese Podcast

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

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment.

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, hosts Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman sit down with Sonja Breuer, Senior Vice President of HR at Hamra Enterprises a powerhouse franchise group operating over 200 locations across Wendy’s, Panera Bread, and Noodles & Company.💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

The “Easy Button” for Hiring: How custom AI bots (including a talking Frosty named Sam) drastically reduced candidate ghosting and eliminated scheduling headaches for restaurant managers.

Slashing the Ad Budget: The secret behind leveraging evergreen ads and conversational tech to keep job board spending at a fraction of the budget.

Daily Pay as a Game Changer: Why instant access to wages has become Hamra’s secret weapon for recruitment (and how it saved one employee's prom night!).

Tech Meets Culture: Why Sonja—a self-proclaimed Gen X “human connection” person—believes automation doesn't replace empathy, but actually gives leaders the time to be more human.

What’s Next for AI in HR: A sneak peek at how Hamra is using AI for company-wide internal communication and video-driven recruitment.

Get ready for a jam-packed episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast as hosts Joel Cheesman, Chad Sowash, and Emi B serve up their trademark mix of industry news, corporate earnings, and unfiltered banter.

The episode kicks off with personal updates and shout-outs, covering everything from Chad’s slippery "Charlie Brown" beach wipeout in Portugal to a Harvard report on workplace outcomes, the rise of late-night interviews for night owls.

As the episode shifts into corporate strategy, the hosts put the latest financial filings and major market moves under the microscope. You will hear them break down the Q2 earnings, cost-cutting strategies, and future outlooks for ZipRecruiter, Recruit Holdings, and Indeed.

The team then brings back their signature "Buy or Sell" segment to grade recent consolidation in the space, evaluating MetaView’s acquisition of Reval (and its autonomous coworker "fillmore"), CareerMinds picking up Jobrapido, and the big transition of a long-time leader at LinkUp.

Finally, the episode tackles the serious side of hiring tech with a look at global regulatory compliance and vendor transparency involving Maki People, Mochi AI Assessments and Recruitics, before winding down with a nostalgic debate over the unexpected relaunch of MySpace.

To find out who gets a "Buy," who gets a "Sell," and exactly why the hosts are skeptical of the latest AI trends, you will have to tune in to the full episode.

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment.