The Chad & Cheese 2025 Holiday Show

2025 didn’t just shake HR and recruiting. Nope, it yanked the curtain back and lit the place on fire. This year-in-review isn’t about press releases and keynote fluff. It’s about what really went down when the doors were closed: job boards locking down your hiring data like it’s nuclear codes, HR tech rivals apparently confusing “competition” with espionage, private equity strip-mining legacy platforms,and founders playing 4D chess while employees got stuck paying the entry fee. From Indeed trying to own the entire hiring pipeline, to the Rippling vs. Deel spy thriller nobody asked for, to Monster France shutting its doors while exec bonuses stayed warm, to Job.com’s bankruptcy unfolding like reality TV — none of this is theoretical. It all happened. Add AI agents ghosting resumes, Slack messages turning into courtroom exhibits, LinkedIn becoming a credibility minefield, and recruiters caught in the blast radius wondering how the hell this became their job. Welcome to 2025's Wrap-Up Show. HR’s messiest season yet. 🍿

In this eye-opening episode, the boys dive deep into the shadowy world of social media algorithms with AI in HR governance expert Martyn Redstone. With over 20 years in recruitment and a focus on ethical AI in HR, Martyn unpacks a viral experiment by Jane Evans and Cindy Gallop that exposed shocking disparities. Is this intentional discrimination? Not quite—it's the insidious "proxy bias" at play. Martyn breaks it down: LinkedIn's algorithm penalizes topics common among women. This creates a vicious cycle where established voices dominate, and emerging ones—often women's—get buried. LinkedIn denies using gender as a factor, but as Martyn argues, the real issue is between the lines. From content visibility traps to calls for transparency, this discussion reveals how tech perpetuates inequality in professional networking. If you're in HR, tech, or just navigating LinkedIn, you won't want to miss these insights on building a fairer digital future.

The Chad & Cheese Holiday Clip Show (aka: HR’s Greatest Hits of 2025) We cracked open the vault and stitched together the smartest, loudest, and most brutally honest moments from this year’s conversations — because nothing says “holiday cheer” like calling BS on broken hiring. This episode delivers a full snack tray of takes from leaders who actually run hiring at scale: 🍿 Fake applicants, AI fraud, and résumé chaos🍿 Why job boards are quietly losing leverage🍿 How companies are cutting spend and improving quality🍿 The real role of AI 🍿 Why owning your candidate data actually matters🍿 Human vs chatbot: where the line really is🍿 What happens when recruiters stop playing defense From Marriott to Domino’s, SmartRecruiters to healthcare, retail, and enterprise — this is the unfiltered stuff people only say when the mics are hot. Consider this your year-end mixtape of truth bombs, hot takes, and “wait… they actually said that?” moments. 🎄 Press play.🎧 Eat the leftovers.🔥 Start 2026 smarter than your competitors.

As the curtains close on 2025, The Chad & Cheese Podcast delivers one of its most explosive episode of the year: the annual Naughty & Nice Lists. Joined by Maureen “Mo” Clough for a dose of holiday chaos, the crew survives Joel’s recent sidewalk wipeout and a round of bourbon-fueled storytelling before diving into the heroes and villains of the industry. On the Nice List, the trio celebrates a small-business CEO’s grit against crushing tariffs, a major tech platform’s "Domino’s moment" of radical honesty that led to a massive acquisition, and groundbreaking data that finally shatters ageist myths in the workforce. They also toast a legendary founder who caught lightning in a bottle twice and an enterprise giant that finally got serious about modernization through an aggressive string of strategic buys. The festive mood shifts quickly as the team unwraps the Naughty List, beginning with a tech titan’s "inhumane" 3:00 AM layoff strategy and a major industry association’s staggering $11.5M legal defeat that exposed some shocking hypocrisy. The drama intensifies with tales of corporate espionage involving a CEO fleeing to Dubai, a global staffing firm accused of stiffing its own people while taking government handouts, and the infamous "Coldplay-gate"—the viral jumbotron scandal that cost two executives their careers and defined the summer of 2025. From industry-shifting pivots to the year’s most cringeworthy memes, you’ll have to listen to the full countdown to find out which brands and leaders earned a crown and who walked away with a lump of coal.

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.

On the Chad & Cheese Podcast, hosts Joel Cheesman and Chad Sowash welcomed Alexis Meschi, the pasta-making, client-charming co-founder of Ora Marketing — not Aura, because apparently, we’re not glowing with ethereal vibes, but slinging strategic social media for recruiters and staffing agencies. Hailing from California’s Bay Area, Alexis, a former school teacher with three young adult daughters (who occasionally crave Taco Bell over gourmet Italian), dished on her “done-for-you” marketing agency that crafts LinkedIn-centric content like videos, posts, and articles to help recruiters snag clients without breaking a sweat. She’s all about keeping it real on LinkedIn, the recruiter’s digital watercooler, while side-eyeing TikTok as a brain-corrupting time vortex—sorry, no dance videos here! Alexis tackled the AI hype, warning against tools that promise the moon but deliver digital lint, offering a five-point checklist to dodge the fluff: ensure the tool solves a real problem (not just shiny candy), fits your workflow without turning it into a circus, provides actual human support (not just a dusty FAQ), shows clear 30-day results (numbers, not warm fuzzies), and boosts human connection, because nobody wants to recruit via chatbot therapy. With a nod to society’s WALL-E-esque obsession with instant gratification, she insisted humans still crave real connection—unless you’re in the U.S., where Uber Eats and Instacart are apparently our love language. Catch Alexis on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-albright-meschi-8b10a2243/), where she’s serving up marketing wisdom with a side of wit, and skip the TikTok scroll to keep your brain uncorrupted.

This week, the gang kicks things off with LinkedIn’s shiny new 100-million-strong verification army, because nothing says “I’m a real human” like flashing a blue badge that apparently gets you 60% more profile views and 50% more love on posts (fake LinkedIn influencers are sweating bullets right now). Then the trio dissects Findem’s mysterious acquisition, wondering if it's a path to riches for job boards or a one-way ticket to obselescence for the agent phenomenon. Walmart sneaks in as the dark-horse employment hero, proving even the retail behemoth can out-innovate and outsmart the market while competitors are still trying to get their own employee engagement strategies from hallucinating. Additional fireworks come when Chad, J.T. and Joel tackle AI-generated content—specifically OpenAI’s Sora. Joel wonders if we’re about to drown in perfectly polished, soulless videos, JT argues creators can finally clone themselves (hello, 48-hour workdays!), and Chad just wants to know who’s actually going to pay for all this sci-fi wizardry instead of, you know, real revenue. And, naturally, it wouldn’t be Chad and Cheese without Chad recounting his house-selling saga like it’s a Greek tragedy and Joel dropping holiday nostalgia bombs that somehow make like worth living again. Too much? Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Podcast Overview 02:01 - The Impact of AI on Creativity and Content Creation 05:00 - Personal Updates and Life Changes 07:56 - Nostalgia and Tribute to John Candy 10:59 - Women in Corporate America: Challenges and Changes 14:01 - Engagement and Feedback in the Corporate World 16:06 - The Concept of 'Enshitification' in Platforms 21:07 - Recent Layoffs and Corporate Decisions 22:39 - The Impact of Layoffs and Economic Trends 24:26 - LinkedIn's Verification Program and Its Implications 29:01 - Findem's Acquisition of Getro and Job Market Dynamics 34:11 - Walmart's Transformation and Employee Investment 40:24 - NFL Talent Management and Corporate Parallels

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.

Charlene Li joins Chad and Cheese to tackle the messy reality of AI in the workplace, stressing that while the technology is hyped, successful adoption is always about people, not tech. She exposes the painful truth: 95% of AI pilots never scale because leaders treat it like a technology implementation, not a strategic transformation. To win, organizations must form a Minimally Viable Team (MVT) that includes HR and key strategic thinkers, focused on supporting top business objectives. Before any training, leaders must address employee fear and anxiety about job loss, creating a safe space to discuss concerns. According to Li, speed is the new moat, meaning companies must move beyond pilots to adopt a rolling 18-month AI Roadmap, prioritizing clarity and continuously adapting their plans every quarter. The goal is to cultivate integrated intelligence, using AI not just for productivity, but to enhance uniquely human traits like empathy and judgment, ultimately turning employees into "super humans." Chapters00:00 - Intro & Bio02:00 - Book Origin04:00 - 95% Pilot Fail06:00 - MVT & Strategy08:00 - Fluency Mandate11:00 - Fear & Culture14:00 - Speed Moat16:00 - Superhumans22:00 - Roadmap & Messy Middle31:00 - Shadow AI Amnesty34:00 - Teen Advice39:00 - Wrap

Strap in, kids — this week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, the gang returns from skiing, globetrotting, and loudly judging their Spotify Wrapped to break down a blockbuster week in TA. First up: VONQ drops its biggest launch in years, rolling out its shiny new “Echo” platform like they're gunning for an Apple keynote. Did they finally build something the industry actually needs? Did they actually stick the landing? And is this the opening move in a coming acquisition play? We’ve got thoughts… lots of them. Then: Indeed pulls the ladder up — again. Anonymous job alerts? Gone. New walls? Higher. Data grabs? You bet your ass. We’re diving into why job seekers are about to get screwed and why employers should be panicking yesterday. We’re also hitting Instagram’s five-day RTO mandate (spoiler: it’s not about “saving employees from depression”), Australia’s crackdown on under-16s on social media, and one of the most creative protest videos to hit Home Depot’s parking lot. Plus: whiskey, fantasy football standings, union-staffing détente, and enough holiday chaos to make Santa call HR. It’s spicy. It’s snarky. It’s peak Chad, JT, and Lieven. You’ve been warned.