The Chad & Cheese Podcast

On this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Chad, Joel, and Emi prove once again that corporate HR news goes down smoother with a cold Guinness and zero filter.

Before diving into the industry's latest cash grabs, the gang detours through Silicon Valley honeypots, questionable substitute-teaching methods, and why single listeners should apparently pack their bags for Finland immediately. Once they finally get to business, no brand is safe:

• Mercor: Just doubled its valuation to $20 billion by paying people peanuts to train the very AI models that will eventually make them obsolete.
• ZipRecruiter: Somehow clawed its way out of the toilet with a 50% stock surge—proving that cutting costs, killing off Phil, and riding the wave of everyone's universal hatred for Indeed is a winning strategy.
• Noon AI: Why talent acquisition leaders are allegedly pocketing $300 to shill for AI vendors on LinkedIn without disclosing it.
• Amazon, Canva, Virgin Media & PepsiCo: Slashing thousands of corporate jobs in the name of "efficiency" (and shareholders), leaving overqualified Gen Z grads stuck slinging lattes at Starbucks.
• SeekOut: Plays musical chairs with its C-suite by promoting from within, leaving the hosts wondering if recycling executives will save them from cheaper AI competitors.
• Talroo: Upgrades to a swanky new Austin office.
• Boom Band founder Jeff Taylor is back in the game and raising cash, though the crew isn't convinced his new talent marketplace is the next big thing.
• Bytes vs. Rocker: The hosts make a unanimous, slightly R-rated pick in Who'd You Rather? between frontline video-training startup Bytes and AI work assistant Rocker—followed, inevitably, by a dad joke so bad it should violate the Geneva Convention.

Hit play to hear HR’s sharpest tongues roast the industry's biggest headlines.

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Grab your stroopwafels and lock the doors, kids: Chad Sowash is loose in Amsterdam, posting up at the House of HR with Ritu Mohanka, CEO of VONQ.

In an era where job seekers are arming AI agents to mass-apply to 10,000 roles before breakfast, recruiters are drowning in oceans of perfectly polished, robotic nonsense. Enter VONQ’s grand pivot: shifting from a glorified job-distribution engine into an agentic screening powerhouse designed to weed out the hallucinated resumes and find humans who actually want the gig.

In this episode, Chad and Ritu tear into:

• The "Quantity vs. Quality" Scam
• Screening In vs. Screening Out
• The Wild West vs. The EU AI Act
• The Big Tech Savior Complex
• The "Robots Aren't Killing Us" Defense

Tune in for the tech breakdown, stay for the agency-bashing snark, and find out whether your ATS is just a digital file cabinet wrapped in buzzwords.

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America just handed out a reality check at the ballot box, but is the pain finally easing or just changing form?

On this week’s Chad & Cheese Podcast, we break down the midterm results and what the Democratic gains actually mean for businesses, workers, and the chaos of the last few years.

We dig into the wild story of the Binance engineer who thought he was interviewing for a job and instead handed North Korean hackers the keys to a $6.34 billion heist — a sharp reminder of how sophisticated job-related social engineering has become.

We also look at the latest JOLTS job openings numbers and why a surface-level gain doesn’t erase the “no hire, no fire” reality, ongoing white-collar layoffs, or the ghost-job problem.

Then we turn to new Brookings research on ICE enforcement since 2025, which shows raids are quietly destroying more local jobs than they create through chilling effects and business disruption, especially in construction and related industries.

Plus, a “Who’d You Rather” between two very different AI startups (one training agents, one matching candidates), a personal tribute, and the usual amount of unfiltered HR tech commentary.

The election’s over. The hard questions aren’t.

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

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Joel and Chad sit down with Holly Hobbs—Gen Z founder, first-job TikToker, and co-founder of uruture—to talk about how young people actually get work now.

She built an audience by posting her own rejection-to-apprenticeship story, then turned that into a business that helps employers reach school leavers instead of making kids game an ATS. "Number 10" even used that reach to talk to young people about careers.

They get into why apprenticeships and frontline jobs still fight for respect, what “authentic” employer brand really means on TikTok, and why posting a job with stock photos doesn’t work. AI and easy-apply come up too: not as the death of hiring, but as proof the old process was already broken.

Holly’s take on the mood among Gen Z is mixed—grim application stories on one side, side hustles and new companies on the other—and she argues first jobs should judge people on who they are, not a blank CV. It's a vision into the future and a warning for those stuck in the past.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Holly Hobbs and her background

03:45 - Interviewing Prime Minister Keir Starmer and her social media strategy

07:08 - Holly's journey from job searching to founding uruture

08:48 - The mechanics of job applications and the role of CVs

09:59 - How Holly's business helps young people navigate the job market

10:34 - Understanding apprenticeships in the UK and their opportunities

11:07 - The value of blue-collar and entry-level roles

12:49 - Building an authentic employer brand for Gen Z

13:44 - The importance of visual and story-driven employer branding

14:26 - Transparency about work culture and expectations

16:06 - Diversity targets and targeted job advertising

17:09 - The impact of AI on job search and applications

18:40 - The future of job boards and entry-level recruitment

20:46 - Challenges faced by young job seekers and the role of experience

22:32 - The importance of soft skills and personality in hiring

24:16 - Using behavioral data and AI to assess candidates

25:45 - The optimism and challenges among young people today

28:16 - The importance of building networks and side hustles

32:24 - The decline of traditional CVs and the rise of new application methods

33:38 - Holly's contact info and final thoughts

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Golden Handshakes, Digital Paperclips, and a Very Expensive Extinction

Chad Sowash, a rain-soaked Stephen McGrath, and Lieven Van Nieuwenhuizen log on for a dose of HR tech absurdity, corporate passive-aggression, and high-stakes market delusion.

Cue Chad retreating into the fetal position with a cold pint of Guinness to ponder the financial apocalypse.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do you tell 21,000 candidates a year "thanks, but no thanks" without accidentally convincing them to stop drinking your beer?

From Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Chad Sowash catches up with Heineken’s Head of Talent, Kobi Ampoma, to peel back the curtain on enterprise hiring reality. They break down the real cost of clunky legacy tech, why calendar Tetris is devouring 30% of your recruiters' workweeks, and the secret to getting a CRO’s attention by tying empty seats directly to lost revenue. Plus, discover how Heineken teamed up with VONQ to rethink candidate persona mapping—driving a 75% female hire rate for their commercial teams and proving that the best diversity strategy is simply reflecting the customers who actually buy your product.

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Paris is Burning, Autonomous Fridges are Hacking Back, and the "Hiring Reject Machine" is Eating Candidates Alive

Ever wonder what happens when nearly $400 million in VC cash collides with pure, unadulterated recruiting chaos? Strap in, because Chad and Cheese are back to expose the absolute circus that is modern AI talent tech.

In this episode, we unpack:

Are any of these tech bros actually thinking about the poor job seeker getting ground up in the gears? Absolutely not! Tune in for the hot takes, the rage, and a bartender who definitively understands the assignment.
Listen now before your ATS turns into a sentient overlord.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.