If you’ve been wondering why the modern job market feels like a dystopian simulation, the latest episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast is here to validate your existential dread. Chad, JT, and Lieven are back to dissect the tech industry's latest "innovations" with their usual cocktail of empathy, candor, and plenty of well-deserved swearing.

• Indeed’s Blind Faith in AI Sourcing

• The Stanford Study: Proof You're Being Blacklisted

• Teaching Your Humanoid Replacement

• Zuckerberg Says "My Bad" (Sort Of)

"Generating assumptive qualifications or requirements is a hiring decision... If AI's doing that for you... it's the most stupid fucking non-scalable thing."

— Chad Sowash

"No job seeker should be required to give their data, not know where it's going, and not know how it's being used. And this is what got exposed." — JT O'Donnell

Are we heading toward JT's utopian dream of golfing all day while robots do the laundry, or are we just funding our own automation?

Stop screaming into the ATS void. Hit play, get educated, and subscribe to HR’s most dangerous podcast right now.

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.

Get ready for an explosive episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast as hosts Joel Cheesman and Chad Sowash welcome Jack McFarland, a 32-year DEA veteran and former Quantico instructor, to HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast.

In this high-stakes interview, McFarland bridges the gap between federal law enforcement and corporate leadership, sharing gripping stories from his rise through the streets of Philadelphia during the crack epidemic to commanding major cartel investigations and leading elite teams in the Caribbean.

He breaks down the elite psychology of hand-picking teams, the critical art of vetting human intelligence, and why managing special agents is exactly like coaching high school football.

From his old-school 1987 application process to a wild, modern-day run in the casting semi-finals for reality TV's The Traitors, Jack blends sharp humor with serious operational wisdom.

Plus, he pulls back the curtain on federal mandatory retirement at age 57, delivering a raw look at institutional ageism and why agencies are forced to rehire retirees to fix massive staffing shortages.

Whether you are scaling a company, managing risk, or navigating corporate politics, this wide-ranging conversation delivers actionable leadership principles straight from the front lines.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Jack McFarland

02:59 - Jack's Journey to the DEA

05:54 - The Interview Process for Reality TV

08:59 - The Evolution of the DEA's Brand

11:49 - Managing Diverse Teams in Law Enforcement

19:39 - Career Progression and Leadership Roles

21:02 - Ageism and Mandatory Retirement in Law Enforcement

23:12 - Financial Motivations Behind Hiring Practices

24:31 - Rehired Annuitants: A New Approach to Staffing

26:46 - Transitioning to Civilian Life After Law Enforcement

29:32 - The Importance of Networking in Career Advancement

30:01 - Managing Human Intelligence and Informants

34:47 - Actionable Intelligence and Avoiding Bias in Law Enforcement

The band is finally back together! This week on HR’s most dangerous podcast, Chad, Mo, and Lieven team up for a wild ride across dystopian corporate tracking, AI bias, and the shifting sands of global recruitment. If you thought the job market couldn’t get any weirder, you’re going to want to hear this.

Here is a look at what the crew is tackling on this week's show:

• Indeed Goes In For The Kill: Indeed’s new "changing landscape" FAQ drops a massive hint about their latest agenda. Chad explains why the platform is trying to squeeze out recruitment agencies entirely.

• IBM Tells Boomers to Pack Their Bags: A juicy new lawsuit alleges that IBM used automated hiring tech to block older, laid-off workers from returning.

• ChatGPT’s "AI Job Slop": OpenAI launched conversational job searching partnered with Indeed, Upwork, and Appcast. Lieven tests it via VPN with hilarious, glitchy results , while Chad exposes how the platform is already infected with the exact same scam jobs and candidate-harvesting schemes plaguing Google.

• Meta's Dystopian Trap: Mark Zuckerberg wants you to think Meta is saving the world with a $115M workforce training academy. In reality, the team connects the dots.

Plus: Stick around to hear about Mo's questionable obsession with a fictional hockey captain , Lieven's take on European pay transparency , and a binary dad joke.

Are we descending into a corporate tech dystopia, or can we build guardrails before the robots completely take over?

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 and Joel, drag Meghan Rhatigan (VP of Talent Acquisition Experience at Marriott International) into the interrogation room to find out how a hospitality giant survives a global punch in the face.

Marriott used to live in a pre-2020 la-la land where millions of candidates just fell into their laps organically. Then the pandemic hit, the world shut down, and Marriott was caught flat-footed trying to fill 200,000 global roles using the same old clunky tech and slow-as-molasses hiring managers.

Enter Meghan and her organizational change management background to fix a "fat funnel" nightmare where the interview process alone took two agonizing weeks.

• The "Legal AI" Secret Sauce

• The ROI:

• The 5-Million Candidate Bench

• The Loyalty Program Hustle:

Listen and enjoy!

It is officially Joel-Free June, which means Joel is off on an extended European holiday while Chad holds down the fort with two brilliant industry heavyweights: Emi Beredugo and JT O'Donnell.

From boardroom coups and high-stakes acquisitions to massive corporate grifts, the trio dives deep into a chaotic week of HR technology news.

• Stepstone's Plot Twist

• JobGet Snaps Up Ripple Match

• The Job.com Meltdown

• The Point Solution Funeral

  Billionaires, Layoffs, & Job Slop

• AI Lost in Translation

Listener Shoutout: A massive shoutout to TA champion Terry Dewey for slashing their organization's Indeed spend over the past 12 months by putting our podcast strategies to work! Keep the cash, Terry, but feel free to ship that bottle of whiskey to the studio anyway.

Don't miss Chad and Emi live at Recfest UK on July 2nd at Knebworth Park! Emi is taking over the Innovate Stage as MC, while Chad and a freshly returned Joel will be bringing the noise to the Disrupt Stage.

Get your incredibly soft The Chad & Cheese t-shirts, free beer, and free whiskey by heading over to chadandcheese.com/free.

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.

HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast Just Dropped a Big Gulp of Truth. 🥤

Think automated hiring is just a cold, heartless robot out to steal your corporate badge? Think again.

Chad and Cheese sit down with Rachel Allen, Senior Director of TA at 7-Eleven. She manages over 110,000 hires a year and automated 95% of their store recruitment.

The result? They slashed time-to-hire from 10+ days to under three (and sometimes three hours, because speed kills).

• Meet "Rita": The AI assistant so good, store managers literally asked to meet her in person. (Awkward...)

• "Help is Coming": How to drop a massive tech overhaul on your staff without causing a mutiny.

• The Marketing Hijack: How the TA team hitched a ride on product shipments to score free recruitment marketing.

• Accidental Quality: How solving for pure speed accidentally fixed their crap candidate quality and retention problems.

"Where we mess up sometimes is we lead with the technology—the shiny new thing—versus what are we solving for?"

— Rachel Allen, 7-Eleven

Whether you’re drowning in high-volume resumes or sweating bullets that a chatbot is coming for your sourcing desk, Rachel drops a masterclass on putting humans where they actually matter.

Grab your pastel shorts and a cold drink because Chad is broadcasting live from Portugal, celebrating his birthday alongside a local bar owner while Joel prepares for a milestone anniversary trip to Italy. 

In this high-energy, unfiltered episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, the boys take a sledgehammer to the current AI hype cycle, contrasting Workday’s massive earnings and $500 million agentic AI run rate against the harsh reality of Microsoft and Uber scaling back their tech due to exploding compute costs.

From Stepstone’s new EU compliance push to Indeed’s automated features, Chad drops a massive hot take on how over-engineered recruiting tools create dangerous compliance risks and automation bias.

They tie up the loose ends of the global economy by breaking down everything from the historic Indy 500 finish and a comedic eulogy for Schlitz beer, to the Pope's latest tech warnings and the EU's pivot to renewable energy as a national security weapon.

It is the perfect, loose, and brutally honest mix of global geopolitics, HR tech consolidation, and birthday banter that you absolutely cannot miss.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction and Personal Milestones

02:08 - Joel and Chad's Birthdays and Anniversaries

04:27 - Industry Conference Insights: Old Dogs vs. Disruptors

08:34 - Shoutouts and Personal Highlights

11:28 - Indy 500 Race Highlights and Experience

16:28 - Workday's Earnings and AI Investment

20:04 - AI Market Race: Google, OpenAI, and Industry Disruption

23:06 - Historical Perspective: Netscape and Microsoft's Browser War

27:39 - Top Tall's Acquisition Strategy and Market Position

30:02 - EU and US AI Regulations and Industry Impact

40:05 - AI's Cost Challenges and Economic Realities

44:23 - Public Perception and Future of AI

47:50 - Global Energy Transition and Geopolitical Implications

54:38 - US Dollar, Oil, and Global Power Dynamics

55:23 - Humorous Close and Birthday Wishes

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.