Before job boards were obvious, before résumés were broken beyond repair, and before “AI in recruiting” was a buzzword, Jeff Taylor was already there building Monster from a dream, a notebook, and a whole lot of pushback.

In this special live conversation, Jeff sits down with Joel Cheesman to walk through the real Monster story: the early rejections, the $4M sale that could’ve been billions, the Super Bowl gamble everyone said was a mistake, the LinkedIn deal that never was, and why résumés and job postings are fundamentally failing today.

From DJ booths to dot-com booms, from getting humbled by Facebook to getting rebuilt at Bridgewater, Jeff explains why he’s back and why BoomBand might be his most ambitious swing yet.

Big ideas. Bigger regrets. Zero nostalgia. And one founder who’s still swinging for the fences.

The latest installment of The Chad & Cheese Podcast kicks off 2026 with a skeleton crew and a surplus of snark. While Chad Sowash is busy plotting his escape to the beach, Joel Cheesman, J.T. O'Donnell, and Lieven dive into a workforce landscape that feels more like a digital battlefield than a job market.

The trio explores why today’s entry-level talent might be fundamentally "broken" by recent history and how a new wave of high-tech sabotage—involving hidden AI commands—is forcing platforms like Indeed to overhaul their defenses. Between roasts of industry giants and a deep dive into "agentic" automation, the panel questions if the traditional act of "applying" for a job is officially dead.

The chaos doesn't stop at the office door, as the conversation swerves into the bizarre intersection of professional networking and romantic snooping. From high-level CEO shuffles at Oyster and Textio to a major university scandal involving a fake Einstein quote, this episode exposes the growing pains of an AI-saturated world.

Whether it’s a "desperate" new ad campaign from ZipRecruiter or the strange rise of job hunting on dating apps, the crew connects the dots between global trends and absolute industry absurdity. Tune in to find out who’s winning the HR tech wars and why 2026 is already off the rails.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction and French Fry Debate

02:59 - Impact of COVID on Entry-Level Jobs

05:57 - The Role of AI in Job Applications

09:08 - Leadership Changes in the Industry

11:44 - Indeed's Response to Resume Manipulation

14:55 - The Future of Job Recruitment

17:57 - Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

28:32 - Leveraging Opportunities in Job Searching

29:57 - The Impact of Quiet Hiring on Job Market

31:29 - Navigating ATS and Job Applications

32:53 - The Evolution of Recruitment Technology

34:41 - LinkedIn's Response to AI and Competition

36:56 - The Future of Agentic Recruiting

39:56 - AI in Job Applications: A New Era

42:56 - The Intersection of Dating and Job Seeking

56:05 - Creative Approaches to Networking and Recruitment

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.

AI didn’t kill creativity — it buried it under a mountain of soulless slop.

The boys are back with Jim Kukral, recovering politician, cancer survivor, proud Clevelander, and Admiral of the Cleveland Floaters — to torch the algorithmic apocalypse. From Coca-Cola’s AI holiday ads to the coming “Chipotle Effect” (when robots make your burrito so perfect it finally creeps you out), Jim says humanity’s last unfair advantage is… being human.

So he quit his job and started throwing wild, screen-free boat parties on Lake Erie to prove it.

Meanwhile, Chad asks the uncomfortable question:
Are we really ready to fight back — or are we already too comfy with our AI girlfriends and digital cages?

Laughter, existential dread, sweaty dance floors, and zero filters.
This one hits different.

It's our prediction episode. What else could you possibly need to know to push PLAY?

We recap 2025 - what we and our friends got right and wrong - and get our crystal ball out for 2026. This year, friends of the show, Jason Putnam, Quincy Valencia, Emi Beredugu and J.T. O'Donnell join the boys - including Lieven - in guessing what's in store for the world of work in the year to come.

The usual suspects, like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, iCIMS and others are highlighted, as well as big trends like automation, A.I. and more are discussed. So what are you waiting for? Get a jump on '26 and hit the ground running.

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.

Chad & Cheese go full rebel mode with Kim Storin, the marathon-running, transformation-junkie CMO at Zoom, who just unleashed the company's biggest brand campaign ever: "Zoom Ahead." Featuring SNL's Bowen Yang in a hilarious workplace uprising (written and produced by Colin Jost's No Notes agency), the spot is a love letter to frustrated users everywhere—lampooning clunky competitors while reminding the world why people actually love Zoom.

Kim dishes on reigniting that pandemic-era passion, pivoting from IT buyers to everyday users, embedding groundbreaking AI into workflows, expanding beyond meetings (hello, contact centers, events, and the fresh Bright Hire acquisition for recruiting), and fighting the short-term "coin-operated" mindset with real long-term brand building.

She talks partnering with the C-suite for true ROI, the rise of "human-in-the-loop" over AI slop, empowering employees as brand evangelists, and why trust and customer-centric stories trump CEO monologues every time.

Raw, strategic, and packed with insights for anyone in HR tech or marketing—this episode is a masterclass in keeping an iconic brand human in an AI world.

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.