The RecTech monthly meetup is a discussion of the news and stories making headlines. Anyone can join and participate in the discussion. Next meetup is September 2nd.
AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 2: (00:06)
See, we got some new faces on the call. Why don't we go around and introduce everyone? Uh, so, uh, uh, Mary Beth, let's start with you. Who are you and where are you from?
Speaker 1: (00:19)
Uh, so I am Mary Beth Bursey, I'm, uh, uh, living right now in Calgary, Alberta, but I'm from East coast, Newfoundland. Um, and I heard your podcast with surgeons should show me, so I figured I'd log on and see what it's all about.
Speaker 2: (00:34)
Very nice. Very nice. Uh, let's see here. Uh, Mike, you want to go?
Speaker 1: (00:40)
Yeah, Mike Tempkin from shaker and marketing, vice president, strategic planning and development. Uh, we handle all forms of candidate, generation for our clients. So through recruitment marketing, as well as referral programs, retention, internal communications, employment, branding, all aspects of, you know, generating a good candidate and employee in your journey.
Speaker 2: (01:02)
Awesome. Uh, Adam quick word.
Speaker 1: (01:06)
Well, sure. I'm Adam Gordon. Uh, I, um, uh, in Glasgow, in Scotland, I'm co founder and CEO at candidate ID, which we describe as talent pipeline software. It's an automation product. And, uh, yeah, it's my second time on the, on the session. Looking forward to talking again.
Speaker 2: (01:26)
Uh, let's see, Simon on, are you hi everyone. I'm at the other end of the world to Adam. I'm a New Zealand, uh, and I'm having breakfast right now, but different. Um, but, um, yeah, co founder and CEO of queue jumpers, a recruitment software platform. Uh, we're in New Zealand and Australia. And also, um, I've got an office in Texas, Texas. All right. Uh Rangi
Speaker 1: (01:59)
Hey guys. Um, I'm from Fairfax, Virginia, um, from the racks group, LLC, which is a recruiting and staffing. And then the second time I didn't show up last time to, I wanna see everybody. Okay, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: (02:21)
Nice to meet you. And we just like, um, Kevin and Vanessa are well, Kevin was there. Fidessa left, I guess. Uh, what, uh, Kevin you wanna say hello? Tell us
Speaker 1: (02:34)
Kevin Cruz. I'm a trainer recruiter in Chicago.
Speaker 2: (02:38)
Awesome. Awesome. All right, guys. Well, thanks for coming today. Appreciate you taking this time out. Um, I don't know if you had a chance to look kind of look at the agenda throughout there recently. I just throw it on the, uh, the zoom meeting. So we'll kind of run through that and talk about whatever else she wants as far as the industry goes. Um, anybody looking for work at this point in transition, uh, also feel free to throw your LinkedIn URLs on the chat there so you can connect with each other. Um, but, uh, let's see here. So first up on my, uh, on my list was kind of getting a jobs update. Uh, last time we had on Toby, uh, Dayton from linkup, um, this week I'm kinda gonna read something that LinkedIn published those interesting, uh, from their hiring labs, um, blog, I'll throw the link in the chat here.
Speaker 2: (03:33)
Um, there's the link you can follow along. So the title of the report is June, 2020 jobs report. I'm going to signs beneath the headlines. So as you may or may not know, we had a report of 4.8 million jobs created. Um, but apparently that was only for, I guess, the first half of the month. Um, and, um, my first thought on this was why can't we get a better job for reports? Um, I think it's been way too long, way, way too long coming for, uh, you know, better data around this stuff. I mean, why can't they get you as government, like pull all the payroll companies in and just tell them who's getting jobs. So we'd never the easiest thing to do. It'd be a thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: (04:22)
I'm really interested in and the data is like, does everyone think that is accurate? Are there 4 million new jobs being created in America? And what does that compare to? That's wrong to me, that's a good question. It's a, it's a survey done. I don't know the whole way to go about it, but it's not. Um, and I guess it's kind of a voluntary survey overall, but let me just read to you some of what, uh, indeed says here, um, almost 5 million jobs were added, but the pace of job creation is almost certainly not going to keep up the damage done to the labor market is still staggering with plumbing still 10% below February's numbers. Uh, yes, the unemployment rate might have declined, but workers still are still losing jobs and signs pointing to points where more and more of these losses becoming permanent. Um, let's see here while it's great to see job growth in the sector that was directly in line of Atlanta with the coronavirus, leisure and hospitality employment is still 29% below pre pandemic levels. Um, with cases, biking and businesses potentially closing, once again, these gains may be, uh, not sustainable going forward here. And we've certainly seen that in some States down South, uh, overall, um, it also says in June 7.5 million workers lost a job despite overall employment going up, that number is going down from a, but still 10% higher than the peak during the great recession. Uh, an increasing share of these workers are moving directly out of the labor force when they do lose
Speaker 4: (05:58)
A job suggesting that these job losses are more than temporary layoff. I saw some stories this week about, you know, a lot of these jobs were not coming back. So I want to get the group's thoughts on just some of these jobs, never coming back. Do you guys have any, any thoughts around that? I think it's highly likely. A lot of companies are going to use this opportunity to thin the heart. There's a pretty horrible way of putting it, but everybody knows why. I mean, um, and also we structure the jobs where they're maybe not adding as much value as others. Uh, but on the other side, I think that they're probably going to, I mean, a lot of non non tech businesses are becoming tech businesses and creating tech jobs. So I'm going to be in my kids are quite young, but, uh, if they were 10 years older, they were in their mid, late teens. I'd be encouraging them to get into text right away.
Speaker 4: (07:03)
Like, what do you think we got a lot of job data you're sharing. I agree that I think that this has given certain companies, um, an opportunity, uh, to reevaluate their workforce, um, as they reevaluate their business model. Um, some maybe moving in directions that are not unexpected and, and will be making adjustments in their workforce. They had not anticipated now, you know, are we looking at what's going to be feasible? Um, you know, I think that, yeah, I think that certain jobs will not return if only because in certain industries there's going to be at least in the next few years, a lack of employment because of a decrease of companies that are functioning. Um, so therefore I think as far as the change of, you know, skills that will be pursued companies that maybe were reluctant before to make adjustments in, uh, the skills that they they had within their workforce.
Speaker 4: (08:08)
Um, and now they're adapting to certain changes, um, that they're pursuing. Um, that's going to be necessary for them to remain productive and profitable. So those adjustments may happen. Um, I wish I was smart enough to, you know, be able to say specifically which they'll be, I would, I can confident enough to say that. I think that yes, um, digital components, you know, e-commerce, um, other functions of remote working, um, are going to be advantageous, um, at least for the next few years and then possibly, um, there'll be a readjustment, almost like the swing of the pendulum, but I don't anticipate that quickly, um, of, for various reasons, both economically, as far as the durability and cashflow of companies, as well as possibly the timetable that, you know, will be necessary to really, for the country, as well as the world, really, to be confident that this virus is manageable, be it a vaccine or otherwise.
Speaker 4: (09:17)
And for that matter, other possible pandemics that may be thinking more seriously now. And because of being taken more seriously with more precautions possibly will not be as detrimental as this appears it's going to be. Um, I think that, uh, as far as the, the numbers that are coming from BLS and of course in your look at the others, you know, from ADP, et cetera, um, you know, even for that matter, looking at other, you know, components are out there, um, uh, the unfortunate aspect of the jobs in the last two months have been, you know, not high paying jobs, the high skill jobs that have come back. And for that matter, probably not, um, longterm jobs, first of all, I was, you know, some of the positions, restaurants, et cetera, retail, this, these are not positions that, you know, are in the best of times, um, high retention jobs, you know, a lot of turnover.
Speaker 4: (10:16)
And, and at this point in time because of companies, you know, before opening and closing again, um, and you know, I think we're going to see a change in the next job report this past job report. Like every job report ends. I'm sure everyone in this room knows this, but it ends on the 12th of the preceding month. So all we saw was a picture up to June 12th. And of course it was after June 12th in which, you know, basically the mayor's a very city started, you know, pushing back from what had been imposed upon them by the federal government and by some governors. Um, so I, I think that, unless there's something that happens in the next four days between now and July 12th Mmm. Is a positive influx of new jobs, new companies opening up, um, it's not going to be good. Um, and I think that, yes, the, the, uh, the accuracy of these numbers, there's always adjustments being made. Um, you know, and, and, and you say discrepancies, um, we'll say, but I mean, the last two months, a lot of the jobs have been part time they've been low pain. So therefore they really can't support, you know, forgetting even our position in the market places, you know, obviously just employment. They, they, they really can't in any way impact the economy. They're, they're not, they're not creating disposable income. Yeah. So, which of course, disposable income creates economic activity, which creates more jobs, which then impacts us and puts us
Speaker 5: (11:54)
In a place
Speaker 6: (11:55)
Being able to help companies basically hire more people.
Speaker 5: (12:01)
I want to ask Adam and Simon specifically, you guys are vendors in this space. I mean, how do you think quantum waves is going to affect, uh, businesses longterm here in the HR tech space overall, do you have any thoughts on that? Um, okay. Uh, I mean, we're already seeing, um, it's a lot harder to get in touch with people now, initially it was easier and Aaron was all excited about zoom and they didn't have much else to do. So they'll get an on all of these meetings, but now it's getting harder to contact people. I don't, I don't know what's happening, but it's like people, uh, reevaluating their situation. Um, the, you know, I'm wondering about the future of jobs in the States, you know, what is it going to look like? Um, and I think all of HR is looking at that to the future of jobs.
Speaker 5: (12:55)
What is it going to look like? How many staff do I need, where will they be? How many hours do they work? Um, what systems do I need to manage this situation? And some people are making a good use of the time and looking at new technologies and implementing systems that can help where they see their businesses going. Others are just putting their head in the sand and ignoring it and hoping that this thing is just gonna blow over and they're not doing anything I'm just waiting for it to pass. And we're seeing more of those people recently, I don't know about you, Adam, but, um, it's like the last month has been harder to get in touch with people. Is it an hour be interested to see what, what you all think is happening over there? It's like, is it now a sudden realization that, Hey, shit, the scope of thing is serious. Um, and are they, is it changing their mindset? Um, we, I mean, we're finding people are looking for different things. They are looking for different technology and that whole remote working and, um, collaboration and automation, um, are things they're looking for, but there's less people looking for them at the moment, um, from what I see. So I'd be interested to hear from Adam and on how he sees it.
Speaker 6: (14:17)
Uh, yeah. So, uh, I've got a slightly skewed, I've got a slightly skewed, um, vision from my perspective, and that is my customers are almost all in STEM industries. And so I think I made this point on the last call. There's no, exactly, you know, an abundance of data scientists walking around Boston or London or Auckland, uh, you know, saying that they're looking for, uh, opportunities right now, uh COVID or not. And so, you know, that that just keeps going and yes, of companies like maybe retail businesses, he, uh, we're hiring a data scientist to Mike, maybe Scott, you know, slew to all hiring across the board. But on the other hand, mainstream tech businesses, uh, nothing's really, nothing's really, really changed. I think there's, there's a definite change in my sales pipeline. And that is that, uh, you know, the, the kind of retail, consumer hospitality businesses, you know, they've dropped off the cliff.
Speaker 6: (15:20)
They, they don't, they don't, they're no longer in the pipeline, no matter what stage they were at. Um, th there are no, a lot less tire kickers out there. Uh, Oh, no, there's a, there is a, there are actually, no, there's a lot of tire kickers. They just didn't go into the pipeline. Uh, you know, they get you I'll, I'll, I'll do the, I'll do the 12 instead of an hour's meeting, I'll do a 20 minute meeting with them, um, to, to establish, you know, what, what type of, yeah, we'll take what they're actually doing. But, um, I, I think for recruitment technology in the medium term, meaning the next two years, this will accelerate adoption, but I don't think it will this year. I think that this is going to be a year off procrastination and stagnation on selling sophisticated recruitment tech solutions, but there's a lot of businesses looking and planning. So I think that over the next two to three years, it's going to accelerate adoption of automation solutions, uh, and machine learning power solutions in particular.
Speaker 2: (16:25)
Yeah. Yeah. Um, Hey, Hey, Mary Beth. What's, what's it like in Canada right now? And, uh, I know you're looking for work, I guess, where you let go because of coven and tell us, uh, what you're looking for as well.
Speaker 7: (16:36)
Yeah. So a lot of the people I'm networking with are looking at, I'm still looking at the hottest greatest, um, platform and automation seems to be the way the way to go. Uh, so we're now looking for people for employ implementation of new automation systems, and then that will reduce staff in the future.
Speaker 6: (17:01)
I think that there's a more general, I think that's, I think there's got to be a common acceptance that talent acquisition teams are going to be smaller, um, in terms of number of recruiters in the future, that they might not be smaller in overall head count in the medium term, but, um, in five years claim a acquisition, team's going to be 50% talent specialists and 50% technology managers. Uh, it's not going to be, you know, a talent. I did a, I did a round table yesterday for T uh, tech, uh, TA leaders and, uh, a guy from, I just say, IBM was on, he's got a team of 450, um, recruitment people in, uh, Europe and Asia. And, uh, yeah, I mean, there's no way
Speaker 7: (17:50)
That he's going to need a team of 400. I think it was 480 and he's not going to have a team of 400 people in five years. He's gonna have a much, much smaller team than that. Um, so, you know, we, we shouldn't be realistic and cognizant about that.
Speaker 2: (18:03)
Yeah. Do you think, um, with the COVID thing and everyone working from home now and automation and the tools for collaboration, um, making it easier for more people to get involved in the recruitment process, do you think it might change the recruitment structure and these organizations, do you think there'll be less specialist, talent, acquisition, people, less people managing the candidates through that pipeline, um, through to the interview stage in terms of specialist, recruitment staff, and more hiring managers being involved in the process. I kind of see the way I kind of see more candidate experience because you can focus on that cause you have technology in place to manage the influx of candidates and keep them moving along in the process. And so I see technology as a way to help really free at the time with a recruiter to do more care experience in a one on one with, uh, you know, those top cans coming in the door overall. Um, but, uh, anybody else wanna chime in on that?
Speaker 7: (19:13)
Yeah, I agree that there will be more of a focus on the experience. I do think a lot of it will be virtual. Um, but I think people are gonna want that latest and greatest. So they are less paperwork, less handholding, um, less clicks for the candidate. But I do think there will be a lot of virtual meet and greet, shall we say?
Speaker 2: (19:35)
Yeah. Speak, speaking of remote. Uh, my next topic is, uh, is about remote jobs. So I was, I was, I saw, I saw threads on Facebook group, um, and, uh, the person who was a, was a lever customer lever, the ATS, and they were complaining about the fact that, um, lever has no kind of support what unquote for remote job listings. Uh, when you go, go, go in there and put those, you know, some kind of field in there for that. And so the work ground was basically, you gotta put it in the title and maybe also in the body of the description overall. So I don't know where he goes, but I think this is a big issue. No, one's talking about, that's a pretty prevalent out there with many ATS vendors. I know LinkedIn recently made a move my last year to support remote's keyword search. You can actually do a keyword search when you use the word remotes in the location box. Um, I think indeed was doing something with hashtags. Uh, recently. Uh, Mike, you might know more about some, uh, with some of the job boards you work with, but, um, any thoughts there around this problem out there and how we're gonna fix it,
Speaker 5: (20:51)
Your Mike's off like,
Speaker 4: (20:52)
And I'm back on there? Uh, no, I think they're all, you know, basically looking at different ways of going about, um, you know, creating, you know, basically content that, you know, is some way situated outside the clutter, um, which probably is something that should have been done anyway. Um, and I think that, um, you know, there's been no, you know, busy, perfect model, you know, found yet. Um, but definitely making, you know, certain messaging, um, you know, more visible, uh, to possibly people who aren't really looking for the job, but at the same time targeting people who are definitely qualified for that messaging to receive it, that is I think a goal for most job boards, um, through either, um, you know, basically their websites or through email targeting. Um, but then I think you make the distribution of jobs, you know, more efficient and definitely, um, you know, for the, for the clients and for the candidates to, you know, make it more engaging. Yeah.
Speaker 5: (21:55)
I feel like we would need the industry standard around this. I know Google came out with something and for their data scheme, a couple of years ago around this, we could now you put a telecommute as the term they use. Um, I know on LinkedIn it's remote is the, is the, is the field entry there. But, uh, we, I think we need to, again, industry standard, uh, Sandra wide out there for every ATS, here's how we're doing remote guys. Right. But it's going to happen right from the technology point of view, um, as an ITA provider, you know, we struggle to, um, with this point because some job boards are doing it and some aren't. And so we have, you know, we connect with all the job boards. And so within your ATS, if you're listing a location, it's got to connect with location on the job boards, we've got remote and the job boards don't then, you know, we get, hear back from the job boards.
Speaker 5: (22:56)
Um, so there's, there does need to be an industry standard, um, and a way for all the job boards to connect there still needs to somehow be, um, some kind of a indication of location, not necessarily where the job is. Um, but there are a lot of fields like, um, with the employment agreements, uh, the work offers, you know, when you're feeding through to illegal documentation, you need some reference to locations as well. So you need to take that in mind. Yeah. There has to be like a location maybe, um, yeah. For, for many cases, but yeah,
Speaker 4: (23:35)
I said, I still think that basically the remote component is just one of many, as you were just saying one of many attributes, which really needs to be identified to make the messaging more
Speaker 2: (23:46)
Personalized and the delivery, you know, more efficient. Um, and therefore yes, there should be a standard across the board that some associations should definitely be able to organize and implement. Um, but it should cover, you know, other aspects besides just, you know, today's hot button of remote work. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: (24:09)
Sorry, this is a Guillermo on hi Chris, I'm the president for Mexico of Orton international. We are one of the bullet headhunting firms out there. Okay. Nice to meet you. Nice meeting you guys. Uh, I would, I would add, as I put on my chat that you would have to first start with that
Speaker 2: (24:35)
Assessing, um,
Speaker 5: (24:38)
How remote work readiness is your team as your team, you might have members in your team that are naturally fit for this, and you might have other members that are aren't. And that could be an interesting tool, whether if you are downsizing to see which ones you want to downsize first or a great tool to find out, if there are good elements in your team that aren't ready for remote work. So you can attack proactively the situation before it gets out of hand.
Speaker 2: (25:21)
Yeah. And I think it's, um, you know, I've, I've heard, I saw one study recently saying one third of all, jobs are going to stay permanent better. You know, we're technically speaking, uh, full time before, but, um, this whole new remote job listing is something that, uh, it's going to be with us for quite a while. And, um, I just see more issues coming up around technology in terms of how you, uh, how you define that, that, that, uh, typing the database and, um, help people search for that stuff. So it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 5: (25:57)
Yeah. It appears that by 2025, uh, 50% of the global workforce corporate mobile workforce is going to be remote work.
Speaker 2: (26:08)
Yeah. Yep. Uh, how's it going in Mexico? Give us a quick update on what you're saying with COVID and jobs and stuff
Speaker 5: (26:16)
And earthquakes and the terrible precedent and a government that lies on the numbers. Uh, just, uh, you know, we are the winners, I'm surprised it's so, uh, it's terrible. Terrible. Um, the situation here is it's really bad. Yeah.
Speaker 2: (26:38)
Gotcha. All right. Well, let's talk about, uh, Amazon guys. Um, so have you all seen their new commercials out there talking about their, uh, life at the warehouse? Um, Marybelle you say? You say no, um, Adam, have you, okay, let me, I'm going to play one of these. I got a cute up here. I'm going to share my screen. So the point of all this is that Amazon is fighting back on their employer brand and they are pushing these commercials everywhere. I see them all the time. Now I watch a lot of TV because it's pretty much all I have to do all day other than work. Um, and, uh, they're pretty good commercials. I, they did a really good job with these. They really, some of them tug at your heartstrings. Um, they're very emotional. Um, and they paint their pretty rosy picture of, of life in the warehouse and the jobs they're creating overall. So I have to believe as I, uh, share my screen here that, uh, this is going to work as far as changing their, uh, changing the messaging out there. So can you guys see the, uh, screen here?
Speaker 2: (27:51)
So, uh, so this is actually has no sound, so it should work on getting a call and it's captioned. And the reason is because Ricardo is deaf over here. So let's play this showing the, uh, on the warehouses and there's Ricardo and his name is Ricardo. It's got some, uh, Stuff going on here at work. He scans it and ducks packages at the warehouse. They do staging, they pick routes. If I ever need anything, he says in sign language, or want more experience, I just asked for it and they'll train me. He says, and he lives with his one year old daughter. So they're making sure to show kids in their pictures, which I think is interesting. Family means love. He says caring, sticking together always love first. Right? So it's important that he provides for his daughter and values his work. He's essential for the country to keep moving forward. So there you go. What do you guys think effective or not?
Speaker 6: (29:09)
I'm really, really cynical about advertising. I'm really cynical about it. Um, there's two, there's, there's this, I I've lost trust in companies and I've lost trust in politicians. And, uh, our feel like this is Amazon's fake response to all the bad publicity they've had about working in their warehouses.
Speaker 2: (29:36)
Yeah, it obviously is. Um, and there's another where there's a, uh, some manager at a warehouse and, uh, they show him at home playing catch with his kid, uh, talking about his job and his kids like, Hey daddy, there, it goes. One of your trucks, you know? Uh, so, uh, I think from just an app, just a purely advertising standpoint here, I'm not trying to keep the company or not, but I think it's a, first of all, things is a smarter way, Amazon, um, whether or not it's gonna work. We'll see. I think it's going to have an effect. I think the question of what will be, how big of effect that will be as far as, you know, increasing their Glassdoor rating. I have no idea. Um, but some people will be moved by these, I think here in the U S at least. Um, but, uh, what do you guys think, Mike, have you seen these before?
Speaker 4: (30:26)
I've seen it before and I, you know, been in advertising all my life, um, yeah, consumer advertising and then, you know, in 1988 and making the transfer to, um, recruitment advertising, uh, I complete very sensitive to, um, the credibility of an advertising message when you have, um, you know, definitely any short of messaging, which does not have true residents who basically delivery, um, you know, builds expectations, way beyond what's realistic. Um, it's gonna backfire, I'm talking to, you know, basically about one client that we had, you know, 30 years ago when I first came to shaker, one of the first diversity campaigns we ever did, and the company has aspired to be, have a diversified workforce, but they didn't the advertising we did, did not, you know, basically go, we felt that faker, um, beyond what was at that point, realistic. Um, but at that point, the obstacles were so deep because their workforce was, had no diversity that even when we brought in candidates too, with the diversity campaign that we had, basically the retention was an average of six months because people are going well, you know, it's not here yet.
Speaker 4: (31:40)
It's not a diversified workforce. I'm not, I'm not ready to be part of, you know, is there early adapters or experiments? So I think we're the Amazon or with anyone else. And especially in employment, there has to be very, um, very sincere, very transparent, very realistic. And, and people can see through, I think most consumers we're advertising can see through the cosmetic aspects that might be used. Um, so in, in, in today's world, uh, the most important element you can have is a actual testimonial verified testimonial, almost like taking something out of glass door, but putting into a, I'm sorry, you're putting into them, put it into a mainstream media, but that's, that's a, I think the imperative, I think that it shows sincerity and you've got to have the, you got to have the deliverables. And if people don't see that it's really, you know, how you're depicting it, that it could backfire worse if you had just not said it at all. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask you, Mike, do you think in this case it is worse for them to do ad products and have people think it looks a bit fake or to do nothing?
Speaker 4: (32:54)
I would think in this case, um, you know, in the Amazon case, it probably would've been better to work with public relations. Um, and I have to say, you know, as, as a disclaimer, we, as a recruitment marketing agency also do traditional PR for HR through broadcast print, et cetera, as well as managed social media. I would say that, that, you know, a viral campaign of that sort probably would have been better at this point because of, you know, new say Amazon getting so much, you know, basically bad publicity in some of those venues, I will say in, in, you know, basically one of the campaigns was using kind of the budget, Chris, that you recognized the Amazon spending on this campaign, um, was general electric. GE GE had to back off, they had campaigns on broadcast television, as well as, you know, digital, um, you know, encouraging women to work in STEM careers.
Speaker 4: (33:54)
Um, and you're basically confronting people who thought, Oh, you know, physically, my son's working with tools and I know it's not the hammers and screwdrivers it's, you know, it's, it tools things of that nature until, you know, general electric, unfortunately, you know, imploded and had to pull back. That was a campaign that had some tangible aspects to it. Um, but I, you know, I'm, I'm concerned that this could, um, this campaign for Amazon could, could backfire interesting. I have a new, a warehouse opening up in my town from Amazon. So about overnight next month, I'm tempted to go like, apply for a job there and just go check it out for a couple of days. I just wanted a comment saying, because I'll tell you what, that's a lot of thumbs downs on that, you know, there's 272 lights, but 63 thumbs downs comments are turned, turned off.
Speaker 4: (34:47)
Yeah, yeah. Cynical. Yeah. I would expect them to turn comments off. Otherwise I'm gonna have a shit show on their hand. It just starts to the fakery doesn't have well in a way. I mean, I don't blame them. I mean, it's, uh, um, but it means that it's broadcast. It means there's no one, it's not two way communication. I get crap on my YouTube videos, you know, just it's spam. So it's not even worth these days. It's not worth having counts out for him. A lot of stuff out there, not just employment, employment videos, but, um, that's the nature of YouTube overall. I would say, you know, another client, you know, basically there is, you know, used, you know, broadcast as well as, you know, more targeted media of addressing issues that are somewhat negative or McDonald's, McDonald's with, you know, basically saying, you know, where your first job, you know, we're not necessarily a career and we empower and encourage you to go to school and we recognize, you know, basically your abilities to achieve, you know, an education.
Speaker 4: (35:51)
So it's not saying, Oh, you know, come to McDonald's and you're going to work from, you know, a grill to a corporate office. So I think that in that sense, like I say, you know, managing expectations correctly, and that just be one example, um, uh, taking, you know, basically something that is not always, you know, looked at it in the most positive manner and saying, okay, here's the attributes that are, you know, basically practical and pragmatic that I think is, is taking, let's say what Amazon tried to address, but I think in a more realistic manner, um, yes. I mean, the Amazon campaign tries to pull at your emotional, you know, shirt, tail, um, you know, Kotel, uh, you know, you know, that's, my father's helping getting that product to their house. Um, that sort of thing. Um, I don't think that's really relevant right now to, uh, you know, basically the grievances that have been, you know, basically brought up against Amazon's to workforce in their distribution centers.
Speaker 2: (36:48)
Yeah, that's true. All right. So I got one more story then we'll talk about the funding from the month. Um, let me click on that. So this is from Josh Bersin, who did a story about, uh, the Facebook workplace. Um, so I don't know if you guys have any experience with this one. We read a few, uh, things out of this. So, um, so yes, he says there are Microsoft, there's Microsoft team, Slack and hundreds of other, uh, collaboration and learning tools for HR. But workplace from Facebook is different. It's easy to use. Uh, it's totally mobile ready and has so many advanced features for collaboration, video chat, and sharing. It immediately becomes useful to employees and the company is focused on the needs of HR. He says, um, so he explains what it is. So workplace from Facebook as a special implementation of Facebook code, uh, designed for corporate users, it looks and feels like an open collaboration tool. There's a newsfeed set of channels, chat and or phase posts to please suppose documents, articles, videos, and more, uh, it's extremely easy to use. And now has hundreds of plugins applications. It's basically a supercharged intranet, uh, on the Facebook platform itself. Um, he says that, uh, where's the number here.
Speaker 2: (38:07)
Facebook already has more than 5 million users. Um, Facebook for work, uh, in over 500 companies using workplace. And the volume is more than doubling every six months. Um, Microsoft teams by comparison has about 75 million users. Uh, when I asked why they asked company, why they use it, the answer is pretty simple. It's easy to learn. People use it anywhere. And the position for desk-less or frontline workers and have hundreds of plugins and applications, world.
Speaker 8: (38:36)
Um, anybody here on the call have experienced. We've never seen it, used it, uh, heard about it. I'm just curious. Overall, I interviewed the guy from Facebook in Paris, not in Paris Amsterdam two years ago, actually for the unleash event, they were just rolling it out. They had a booth fair, but, um, it sounds like, I mean, they had the, obviously they have the platform with a lot of the tools in place and there, what they did was provisioned privately for companies. So you don't have to mix your personal account with your business account so that it's, frankly, it's like Salesforce chatter, or pretty much any other, you know, kind of provisioned place where you can go collaborate. But you know, their premise was that it's, it's a familiar name. Um, it should be very similar experience to if you're using Facebook personally. So it's, you know, learning curves should be quicker and more adaptable or adoptable.
Speaker 8: (39:41)
Clearly 5 million users are kind of, you know, something can't ignore question is, you know, are they using it every day or did they just sign up? And then it's a ghost town. My question, which you don't want to get the group's thoughts on is, uh, you know, Google has also been in the market with HR technology. They had Google for hire, which was shut down of course, a lot last year, I have Google for jobs and they have the Google search, uh, console, whatever you want to call it to help, uh, ATSs and job boards with searching jobs. Facebook has Facebook for work and the Facebook job market, who's done a better job in cleaning HR tech 14 is free Facebook or Google. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 8: (40:34)
I'll tell you mine first, if you want. I think Facebook is, yeah, well, ironically, what I heard from others about it is that, well, they had these plugins or whatever that ecosystem, which is of course my world is the collaboration between the vendors. They have a programming, uh, overlay or something similar to what Salesforce and these other platforms have. So at least they're opening up that says, Hey, come and build it. You would think Google is that way, but in some ways they are, but with their, yeah, their HR products, it is very closed and Hey, well, you got this. And I think that's why they failed. They didn't really embrace collaboration with the rest of the ecosystem outside of, yeah. We'll scrape your jobs or even look at the overall successes of each of the companies products in HR. I would argue that Facebook is more successful. I think the jobs product a while, it's
Speaker 2: (41:34)
Not huge. It's still, uh, it's growing popularity. Um, they're starting to do, uh, integration with, uh, ATSs out there. Um, it's a very simple apply process on there. Probably the, one of the simplest ever for a job board, um, and, uh, and work place as well is, looks like it's doing pretty well here overall. And you've got Google for jobs, which is, it's kind of, you know, it's came out with a lot of fanfare. It's kind of, to me, it's kind of petered out a bit. It's kind of just, yeah, it's there, but, uh, nobody's really talking about it anymore. And, um, Google for hire is gone and the search products, I mean, you know, a handful of people seem to be using that for, for job search overall. So I don't know, just in the face of, it seems like Facebook has done a better job building tech in the space overall. So was my thoughts.
Speaker 6: (42:25)
Facebook also uses their own in house built applicant tracking system. Whereas I believe Google does not. So, uh, that's uh, one other element to it.
Speaker 2: (42:38)
Well, it wasn't Google for hire their own internal ETS at first.
Speaker 6: (42:42)
I do think that, uh, no, I didn't, I didn't, I'm not sure it was,
Speaker 2: (42:46)
It was a skunkworks project that they launched and then they bought the company actually, before they even released before they came out with any product that was their first product, the company that built it. Um, I don't, yeah, I don't think they really used it internally. It was strange. Very strange. Thank you for passing that burger. I was getting hungry from working with them. Hey, I'm workplace, I'd be interested to see how that goes and who's using it. The cons of companies, like I would assume it would be small businesses that are, that are using it. I wonder if there would be enough trust in the enterprise level market for, for a company like Facebook and the reputation that Scott with, what it's doing with all the data and security about the engagement of a typical intranet. It was always pretty shitty. Um, I would assume that it's built on a Facebook like platform. It's probably pretty high. Um, just my guess, but yeah,
Speaker 6: (43:48)
You would have thought it might have had some kind of impact on the growth of Slack, but I don't think it is. I think teams definitely will have, but I'm not so sure that a workplace has.
Speaker 2: (44:00)
Yeah. All right. Let's talk about funding guys, and then we'll get outta here. So, uh, from what I counted, it looks like about an over a hundred million bucks in funding for the month of June. Uh, actually this includes the last couple last week of July too, but, um, let's walk through some of these. So a worky, it could be out of Mexico city, actually. I don't know if Guillermo's on the call. Um, they are an HR software company that raised 3 million bucks in Mexico. You've got the mom project that was July 2nd. That was kind of the big one of the month. Um, 25 million bucks in series B funding. Uh, they're based in Chicago, if you don't have the mom project, what they do is basically help moms get back to work after they have a baby, basically, uh, they claim to have a 275,000 users now. And I believe you, when you propose a project as a company, you hire within the platform itself, you pay them on a project, non project pays the consultant or the employee at that point. And, um, uh, that brings our total funding to 36 million overall. I had on one of their execs maybe two years ago on the podcast. Um, but, uh, it's pretty good news there, uh, out of, uh, Chicago, Mike, anybody there at the long project, I'm just beginning to, uh, basically, um, you know, to them, they're definitely Saugus. Um,
Speaker 1: (45:31)
Let's see, um, funding. Okay.
Speaker 2: (45:34)
And definitely want to learn more about them. And Mike, when you talk to him, can you ask him if we can climb their platform, make the dad project, and then raised 20 million bucks? You know, the awesome know there's, there's a, actually, there's a whole series of women focused job markets where everyone got chief books. Um, there's a few other ones to women in tech. Um, but, um, optimistic though, war, to be honest, because if they're getting 25 million for the mom project for the DOD project, perhaps that's all right. I can, I can manage. I can imagine that. Well, especially if you're quoting it, it'll just go on marketing. So that's fine. Exactly how many should be for like older dads, like over 50, because while the age discrimination out there, perfect younger, younger dads under 16 Lynn need more than a million that job at that point, they need some life skills living.
Speaker 2: (46:40)
All right. Let's move on here. Uh, let's see. So work shield, uh, uh, fully full service, independent solution for reporting investigating and resolving harassment and discrimination and workplace announced close at a $4 million round. That was from June 26th humans. One's in Canada's one's for you, Mary Beth. Um, have you heard of them? Yeah. That Ken is leading all in one HR platform. It says, yeah. I met them at the HR tech expo in Toronto. And this was last year or the year before. Um, yeah, they, they definitely were doing it the right way. I think at the time, let's see SMBs with HR payroll and benefits solutions and they raise $15 in kitty in dollars overall. We've got an Aw here's another one for Canada Winnipeg, augmented worker platform lands 24 million in funding, pretty big round I'm live. Now when I say this right live stream leader stream being provider of augmented worker enterprise solutions announced state $24 million series of the capital from new and existing investors series D wow, that's a pay.
Speaker 2: (47:56)
It's a big one that they must've been around for awhile, um, for all, um, steady, which, uh, is a plat platform fully for focus on advising and advocating for workers seeking stable incomes was kind of for freelancers raise 15 million bucks back on June 16th. Um, these guys are interesting. They, uh, let me read some of the press release here. Um, Oh, and actually recruit holdings was part of the announcement there. So company Ellen's indeed Oz, it invested in steady. Uh, so let's see here. Um, they do, they, their, their mission is to improve the lives recently, challenging lives of American hourly, and gig workers. They can track their income or see personalizing come insights, guidance, the relevant work opportunities. And if there's a job board in there, get paid to improve their financial, uh, benefits, um, things like that. So it's kind of like a virtual, I guess, benefits app for, for freelance people. So kinda interesting.
Speaker 8: (49:09)
That's good. That makes sense. Cause Indeed's committed to, it seems the gig worker space by investing, you know, building buying or partnering. Right. And they don't do much partnering. So I guess I wonder if that got them a majority share,
Speaker 2: (49:25)
Maybe a trade hounds raised $3.2 million. So these guys have a blue collar, LinkedIn, it's an app only mobile app, a $3.2 million. So they're out of Boston and I think, uh, the release said they had about 650,000 people on the app. So of, since you construction workers and people like that, I think that's kind of cool. I think you're seeing a little niche market places like this pop up and I think there's, they've got some traction already. It looks like, you know, I got 3 million bucks to help fill that out as well. So, um, you've got companies like Jobcase out there, you know, in call the blue collar for LinkedIn or LinkedIn for colors. Um, this is kind of a subset of that, I guess,
Speaker 8: (50:11)
In the job case out of Boston too, right?
Speaker 2: (50:13)
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they are, uh, related at all, but um,
Speaker 8: (50:18)
Not yet till Bullhorn buys them books,
Speaker 2: (50:22)
Boom. Head is the cofounder and CEO Trey downs. Um, cause he says, it's always bothered me that trades people, skill workers who built our hospitals, schools and infrastructure don't have access to a technology platform that meets their professional needs. We set out to change this with Trey downs. We are proud to be the large largest digital platform names unite and empower the millions of proud hardhat waring workers who are building the work world around us overall. So yeah, but it launched in 2019, they already have 150,000 users. It says. So I'm pretty interesting. There is something to watch for trade hounds.com is the URL. If you guys want to check it out, a few more items in the news here, let's see a coder pad raise the some money for its technical assessment platform. Sure, exactly how it works, but they're out there. Perrin raised two point million for a, a, um, it's a technology partner for workforce government programs and education systems has some kind of job component in there.
Speaker 2: (51:30)
Wasn't quite sure what they actually do, but they got 2 million bucks, um, to help governments and they didn't, uh, schools as I, I guess, uh, help their workforce get jobs. I'm thinking, uh, you got Betty a, a fast growing provider of AI based employee verification platform for gig economy where marketplaces announced they $4 million a round that's out of New York city and uh, last but not least bonus Lee on June 1st, Scott's on 9 million bucks for their employee recognition platform and they're at a Boulder overall. So that's in a nutshell what happened during the month as far as funding goes. So it's definitely been, it's been a slower month as far as news goes. Um, but uh, you know, a hundred million bucks in funding and it's something to sneeze at, I guess.
Speaker 6: (52:25)
Can we expect that, um, summer is, uh, actually gonna do, I guess it's winter for you, Simon. Uh, but that somewhere in the Northern hemisphere, cause that, uh, it's not going to do, uh, what it normally does where the world kind of goes is on a go slow for three months. You think this year is not going to happen. I'm talking about from an investment perspective, from a sales perspective, from a recruitment perspective, you know, normally things start to go quite slow from about no through till about middly August.
Speaker 2: (53:00)
Yeah. So now that we fit July and past the July 4th holiday here in the U S um, typically the next two months are pretty slow until we get back to September. Uh, let's civically kids go back to school. Uh, people, you know, come back from vacation. August is a big vacation month in the U S um, uh, you know, last week was last week, maybe the week before I didn't do a, uh, a news update. I usually do them on Fridays. I think it was last week. I didn't do one. There was just no news out there. So I think we're already starting to see some of that. Um, overall
Speaker 4: (53:38)
I think it's going to be the same as, as normal.
Speaker 2: (53:40)
No, I think he's going to be slower. Yeah, because of the, uh, the virus is still such a prominent thing. Um, going forward now, here in Canada, I live in Connecticut and we had actually today was our first day with zero deaths. So we've done a great job in the state here for, uh, flattening the curve and we've actually crushed it pretty much. Um, if these are less than 50 people in the hospital right now, uh, with COVID in Connecticut, so everyone's ordering the masks here and our kids will go back to school in September. Um, and uh, if the other country other States can't do that in September, that's going to be an issue with, uh, just the economy and jobs and schedules and everything. So it's going to be, uh, it's going to be interesting to watch, but do you guys have hope?
Speaker 2: (54:30)
I mean, uh, do you guys have a, are you pessimistic optimistic at this point? Let's, let's end on a, what'd you think about going into the summer air and, uh, what to expect for the rest of the year wants to go first? Oh, God. First, if you want from down South and, and the winter where it's really cold, um, pessimistic a little bit in terms of, um, how slow, I think, think things are happening at the moment, but optimistic in terms of, um, it's opening up opportunities and other areas where previously we may not have looked at, and, you know, we're looking at changing technology or is my dog coming in changing, um, you know, different technology, putting out new modules, putting out new products, uh, to, um, meet the new market situation and the opportunities that are coming with it and the sectors that are still booming because of the COVID-19.
Speaker 4: (55:40)
I agree. I, I think that, uh, you know, this is going to bring in new opportunities, definitely, um, certain companies, um, that are going to be responsive to the changes and they're going to benefit, and there's going to be some companies that can't respond or can't be flexible enough, um, for work managed well. And because of that, they don't have the financial resources to basically sustain capacity and productivity during this period of adjustment. Um, I think that, um, in the next six months, till the end of the year, um, is going to be rough, uh, as far as, you know, busy the virus, um, it's still you're in certain States, definitely not as smart as Connecticut, not as successful so far as New York or even Illinois, um, where you're just seeing, you know, horrendous up surges. Um, and I'm sure there's people that travel, you know, unless there's restrictions on travel, um, that you know, is going to continue.
Speaker 4: (56:42)
Um, so I would hope that by the second quarter of next year, we'll start seeing turnaround both as far as the very, you know, basically the virus itself, as well as economy, uh, and the companies that definitely make these adjustments are going to definitely, um, do very well. I think that buying the second quarter of next year companies that are definitely S industries, not companies, but industries that are, you know, definitely, um, you know, insufficient position are going to get support from the government. I would say that, you know, this is not 19, you know, basically, um, you know, just say 1932 against specifically, but it's similar to what happened between 1929 and 1932. And I think the government's going to have to make some responses as they did to support companies as they did back then. And that won't happen until next year. Yup.
Speaker 4: (57:43)
Alright. But I also want to, uh, chime in otherwise we can call today. I think we'll see a huge re return, but I think we'll see a lot more startups than we used to. There used to be a lot in my book just because all these people laid off like recruiters. I mean, right now there's probably 500 recruiters building the next ATS, right. And you know, two, three months, you're going to start seeing press releases. Hey, the best thing since, you know, whatever. Uh, so I don't know how that's gonna, that's gonna change it. I'm saying it's inevitable because what do people do? They either go back to school, if they can't get a job, they go back to school or they try building something, you know, and
Speaker 6: (58:34)
The same at the same time, we're going to see a, uh, I use the, I'll use the unpleasant phrase thinning of the herd earlier. We're going to see a thing of the herd and, and talent acquisition technologies as well. Uh, go through, uh, go through talent tech labs ecosystem, and, you know, uh, side off about three quarters of it by December, uh, is imagined because a lot of companies will get bought, you know, they'll get bought in a bargain basement. A lot of them
Speaker 4: (59:04)
Yeah. Do think acquisitions. Yep,
Speaker 6: (59:08)
Absolutely. Yeah. A little get bought in a bargain basement and a lot of them will exit the market. And to be perfectly honest, the main apart from the tech tech tech advantages that you have, or the market positioning, uh, the other differentiates is going to be where they are and their investment Ryan. Because if you know anybody that didn't get any investment, uh, by kind of March this year, they're going to run out by the next claim. They can actually get any investment coming in. Whereas, you know, companies that have raised in the first quarter, for example, they might be in a slightly better position to weather the storm.
Speaker 2: (59:51)
Yup. Awesome. Logan did the next one in September. We'll skip, uh, August. So, uh, it's gonna be a quiet month, I think anyway, so probably around September 2nd, maybe we'll see. I'll post the link, uh, at some point and, uh, Mary Beth, Mike Tempkin and Gordon ward Chrisman range, chief and Guillermo. Thanks for joining today.
