Cornering The Job Market

The Week in Jobs: A Startup Offered Interviews for Tattoos & AI Is Actually Growing Jobs

• Pete Newsome

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Pete and Peter open with the strangest hiring story of the year so far. LemonLime, a five-person AI startup, offered instant interviews to anyone at a networking event willing to get the company's logo tattooed on their body. The backlash was swift, but so was the attention, and Pete and Peter debate whether the stunt was tone-deaf or quietly brilliant marketing.

From there, two weeks running of actual good AI news. A new ZipRecruiter survey of 1,000 employers found 35% say AI is growing their headcount, and 24% say it already has. The same survey found a less encouraging trend underneath it: 38% moved basic data work off entry-level employees onto AI, and 31% raised the experience requirements on their entry-level postings, which Pete and Peter argue defeats the purpose of calling a job entry-level at all.

Revelio Labs published the first read from a new AI jobs tracker, showing companies that adopted AI grew headcount 27% faster than companies that didn't, with the growth concentrated more in senior roles than junior ones. Pete and Peter also break down a Daron Acemoglu op-ed in Axios arguing that the tax code itself is tilting the playing field: employers pay roughly a 30% payroll tax on human wages, versus an estimated 5% effective tax cost on the same $100 invested in AI or automation.

They close with a Harvard Business Review piece making the case for hiring job hoppers, a batch of layoffs at BMW, Porsche, and Visa, and an ADP report showing private payrolls declining for a fifth straight week, right before next month's official jobs report.

Visit 4cornerresources.com for hiring and job search resources.

Welcome And Week Ahead

Pete Newsome

Welcome back to the weekend jobs. Today is Friday, July 31st. Peter, it's been a quiet week, the calm before the storm with the jobs reports all coming out at the beginning of next month. But we had some interesting stories. How are you today?

Peter Porebski

I'm good. I'm good. And yeah, it's uh it's been a little bit more of a quiet week, but we found some interesting, interesting stuff to talk about. So uh so it shouldn't be too uh too boring.

Pete Newsome

It's always going to be an interesting week when there are companies offering to interview candidates if they're willing to get a tattoo. That was in the news this week. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Peter Porebski

Yeah, no, that was uh that was uh definitely an interesting story to read about. Um, and I mean I I guess it worked and that we're talking about them maybe a little bit uh maybe a little bit infamous instead of famous.

Pete Newsome

That is a question. Is any press really good press? I don't know in this case because they're getting a lot of backlash over it. It's all over the place, but their name that we otherwise wouldn't know who they are is all is all over the news now. So maybe it is a good thing.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, it was um the the story itself is kind of, I think, woke people up to maybe a bigger issue. So I think it it triggered a lot of uh strong emotions in uh in the people who read about it.

Pete Newsome

Now I I we we're gonna save this till the end since it's kind of kind of funny to talk

Tattoo For An Interview Debate

Pete Newsome

about, but here we are. Let's go ahead and get into it. So uh this AI startup decided that they did what they said was gonna initially be for fun, but they offered job seekers an interview if they're willing to get a tattoo with their logo. I how much how much hard time should they really get for that? I mean, if anyone's stupid enough to get a tattoo to get a job interview, maybe you deserve uh yeah, maybe you deserve what you get. I don't know. What what's your take on this?

Peter Porebski

Yeah, it's um so it was my understanding is it was a network party, like a just kind of meeting people type deal. And yeah, they offered uh tattoo, uh anybody who would get a tattoo of their company logo, their startup, would uh would instantly get an interview. Now, that first of all, the funny thing to me is like you don't even get a job, you just get an interview for getting a tattoo. So you might not even end up working there. Um, but yeah, uh I can see people being um you know it being received poorly. Um I don't think they should be given too hard of a time. It maybe it wasn't thought of, you know, in that light at the moment, and ultimately it is up for the job seekers to find, but it kind of speaks to the greater feeling of the job seekers have where it's a tough market. It's it's doubly tough if you're entry-level trying to break into maybe some of these companies, which it seems like maybe some of these people were. Um so it I guess it's uh it's being perceived as being tone-deaf by the by the founder to to offer these things and then desperate people who are getting them where you know they they might or not otherwise.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, Lemon Lime is the name of the company. Again, we would have no idea who they are.

Peter Porebski

They're five, yeah, five-person startups.

Pete Newsome

So we wouldn't be talking about them, but here they are in all kinds of major uh publications. We're talking about it, it's all over social media. And while they're being given a hard time, I you know, after thinking about it a little bit more, and as we're talking about it, maybe maybe it is sort of a brilliant thing. Maybe they knew what they were doing um in getting their name in the press. I I bet their searches have gone through the roof, right? Looking at limon lime. And would you really hold that against a company? You may not want to do it as a job seeker, and you probably shouldn't. But if you're a potential customer of Lim and Lime, why not hold it against them? I mean, a lot of people will, or why hold it against them? I wouldn't. I I think it's uh uh I think it's kind of silly, but it seemed to work, it seemed to get them a lot of attention.

Peter Porebski

I mean, hey, listen, they're a startup, and at this point it's kind of I kind of view it as like they're like, well, we got nothing to lose. Like, why not try something crazy and it's backlash and they apologize, but yeah, they're now they're being talked about and they've got all these articles out there, whereas there's probably still gonna be lots of people applying to them who maybe some of them think it's funny, some of them are you know not taking it too seriously, but I don't think it's gonna necessarily hurt them in the long range, but it is kind of uh, like I said, the there what what was the quote that they they had in there? The the job market cannot be this cooked that kids have to get permanent tattoos to get interviews. I guess that's the that's the sentiment, is just that this is the place we're at. Now, I don't think that they have to, it was obviously a marketing stunt, but um yeah, maybe this is just how job seekers are feeling that this is this is a step down the road to dystopia where you're getting you know KFC tattoo to go work at KFC.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, but how how many people are getting uh New England Patriot tattoos? And I'm pretty sure the Patriots are never going to interview them.

Peter Porebski

So that's true. Well, here I guess if they're a fan of the company, then go for it. But uh I mean you know, if you have to do it to to work there, maybe, maybe not so much. I don't know. I don't know. Don't don't get a tattoo to get an interview. Don't be don't be that yeah, unless you truly do not care, then you know, maybe there are tons of people out there who don't and you know have lots of sillier tattoos anyway, so maybe, but uh, I think that it's uh it's definitely a uh a strange avenue to go into if you know for some of these people. They're like, well, you know, we're gonna you're gonna put a permanent thing on your body to go like get a chance to work at this company, not even get a guaranteed offer.

Pete Newsome

See, this is this is definitely a first leading with a tattoo for interview story. Never thought we we would do it, but but here we are.

AI Reports Signal Job Growth

Pete Newsome

Not bad news, right? Not bad news this week overall. It was mostly positive in terms of some AI reports that came out. So that's two weeks in a row for us where we're seeing AI news that is not gloom and doom in any way. It's uh some of it's a little bit contradictory. We'll get into that. But it the the overriding message from a couple of reports was that AI is actually leading to job growth. And specifically, there's a zip root recruiter report that came out that said 35% of the a thousand of the thousand employees employers that they surveyed said that AI is growing headcount for them, and 24% said that already has. So it doesn't get much more positive than that for AI, AI's impact on the job market.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, it seems like we're seeing kind of a shift uh, you know, from when we start first started talking about this, you know, all the companies, and I, you know, part of me is almost like I wonder if it's just a tone shift because of the backlash where you had all these, you know, CEOs and everything talking about how it's gonna, AI is gonna take over, AI is gonna change the job market, and then the job market, the job seekers, started to get a little bit worried about it. And they started to, you know, this is not good for and so now the tone is shifting that all these companies are coming out, it's actually gonna be great, it's actually gonna be good, it's actually gonna help things. I I mean that's maybe that's just the skeptical part of me, but it is it is nice to see these articles coming out where companies are saying, hey, we have not seen this level of disruption and is not necessarily a bad thing for us.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, a couple more data points from this survey. 38% who took it moved basic data work off of entry um level onto AI.

Entry-Level Requirements Keep Rising

Pete Newsome

And now here's where it gets weird. I said it was a little contradictory. 31% raised experience requirements for entry-level roles. So let me repair.

Peter Porebski

That's my favorite part of this. Yeah, like that's getting in there.

Pete Newsome

You raised the requirements for entry-level roles. That it means they already had requirements for entry-level roles. I'm not sure what those could be. And now you've raised them. And that has been such a chief complaint for young job seekers, people new in the in the workforce, that companies are claiming that jobs are entry-level when they're anything but I don't know what the hell is going on with that. It it's a trend that's been increasing for a while. And according to this survey, it's only getting worse. So uh what can you even come up with a good basis for why that would be happening?

Peter Porebski

Uh the only thing I can see, and I guess that my my pessimistic view will be that it's just a way to pay people less for these roles. But there are companies that are, yeah, I've I've seen it where if a role requires two years experience with X, that's not entry level. They have already worked for two years, you know. So I think that a lot of these companies are categorizing entry level so that they can pay more, they can, you know, treat them less well. Or, you know, I I I really do not, it's it's confusing to see some of these job posts. And, you know, there's always the jokes where it's like requires five years of experience in this and ten years experience, this entry level. So seeing that that companies are increasing entry-level requirements, yeah, that that's particularly in a in a spot where we are right now where we know that entry-level roles are suffering more than anything else. You know, students are having issues finding work. Um, I don't think that's a good thing.

Pete Newsome

It's it's offensive to you know, it's offensive to everyone's intelligence, it's offensive to job seekers that are highly motivated, in some cases desperate to get a job. It's more offensive to me than asking someone to get a tattoo for an interview in a way, because you're just insulting their in in intelligence by calling a job entry-level when you put requirements on it, in this case, increasing requirements. So now, maybe, maybe the the exception could be well, if it's an entry-level physician role, you had to have gone to medical school, you had to be an MD to get the job. But that's not really what this is about. These are not doctors that are being hired for these entry-level jobs. They are truly entry-level. And I think you nailed it by saying they want to offer entry-level pay for experienced workers. And it's just, it's, it's a bad trend. It needs to, it needs to stop.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, we're seeing mid-level roles shifted down to if a role requires anything more than, I'll even say I'll be super generous and say a year of experience. Maybe they've got part-time or they did it in school or something. If it requires anything like beyond that, it's not entry-level. Entry level means it's your first job. It's your first job in that area. So you can't have prior experience except for maybe an internship while you were in school. And unless that's what they're counting, which I highly doubt that's what a lot of these roles are doing. I I feel like we're getting anything lumped five years and under into this entry category, whereas, you know, in in years past it used to be that was mid-level. That was that was where people were advancing in their careers, their second, it was their third job.

Why Job Boards Reward Volume

Pete Newsome

So you know, this so this is from ZipRecruiter, and ZipRecruiter is a a job board where companies put place their job advertisements, candidates apply to jobs through ZipRecruiter. You should be policing this, don't you think? I mean, why why let uh job posting be called entry level if it has excessive requirements to it? As you said, years of experience, call it junior, call it anything, but but don't call it entry level.

Peter Porebski

Uh I mean I would love for that, but it all I mean at the end of the day, zip recruiter is if you pay to put your job on zip recruiter, zip recruiter is going to take your money and they will post your job. They're not going to be the moral police of whether you should or should not put an entry level. And it, I I wish it wasn't that way. I wish ZipRecruiter or and Indeed and all these other ones would have some sort of requirements. And I guess the the the uh the penalty is that your job isn't gonna do as well, maybe, or you're not gonna get as many applicants. But as long as there's desperate people, they're going to apply to it. And it's just gonna get to the point where even if, and I've I've I have talked to HR people who say that you know these are these are their best case scenarios. We put we put two years on there and we'll we'll take one year, or we'll even take you know some experience. But then that just means the job description doesn't mean anything and that people are going to apply to any job anyway, knowing that more than 50% of the requirements on there are made up. And we know that to be the case for most jobs anyway.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, you you said that the the job boards won't police it themselves, but I I think they should because it would make their product more valuable, it would make it more usable and and and beneficial for all. Because if the job, as we know in the job market today, candidates using software, using AI tools, just using the one-click apply uh ability, they regularly will apply to a lot of jobs they're not qualified for. And they see it as a volume game. Whether they should or not is is irrelevant to this point. But that is what is happening. And so it seems like companies are trying to counter that by playing a game. Now, I don't know why you counter counter it by saying entry level when it's anything but make it sound more senior to discourage people from applying. But it seems to me that the the job boards would benefit by ensuring that the requirements uh match the job title matches the requirements. If you're gonna call it senior, if you're gonna call it junior or entry level, make sure that the position really is that. And then enforcing that candidates can only imply to job apply to jobs that they're qualified for. So what I'm saying is if they had a structured system, consistent, consistent nomenclature, a naming convention that makes sense that everyone can adopt, then their product would be significantly better. Make sure that companies are posting job descriptions that accurately represent what they're hiring for, and make sure that candidates can only apply for jobs that they're actually qualified for. Where's the flaw in that? Because to me, that's just logical.

Peter Porebski

It would be great. And I know that you know that's a lot of these companies, there, that's their goal, but ultimately the company is their customer and the candidates are their product. So if they can get more applicants to a job, I know in indeed charges per application to a role. They charge the company. If you get a hundred applicants to the role, they're gonna charge you for all hundred of them. Whether they're amazing candidates or just borderline candidates, they're still gonna charge you for all a hundred a fuck more.

Pete Newsome

Right. I mean, you so that's the answer to my, I guess in hindsight, somewhat of a rhetorical question. But it you they they make money based on volume, but it they would be able to charge more and have a better, create a better experience for everyone who uses their product if it wasn't based on volume, but it was based on accuracy, because that's what everyone needs in the job market. You don't need a lot of resumes to fill a job, you need the right one. You need the your qualified candidates who can actually do the job you're posting, but there should be an obligation on the employer side too to create job postings that uh are consistent with what they're actually hiring for. So it's a big mess. We're not gonna solve it, but um, it looks like it's getting worse, not better. That that's my takeaway from this survey.

Peter Porebski

I mean, if we could, yeah, that that's that's basically what I what I get out of it as well. Yeah, if they could have um, if things could be more efficient and the right people were applying and and all that, that would be amazing. But we know there's a lot to unravel there. How many managers have asked you for three candidates? And you're like, you only need one. There's only run one role. So that's a common, you know, miss managers think that they think more is better. Um jobs, you know, job boards obviously want to want to push volume. So until we get there, until there's competition, maybe that gives better quality. I think it's uh there's a there's a couple things that need to work out first to before we're fixing that that issue.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, so I I I've told you this story probably before, maybe I haven't, but there was a position that I recruited for years ago where the it was a very unique role. It was a very, very specialized skill set, very few candidates in the market could uh in by market, I mean all of Florida, the state we're in, could potentially be a fit for this role. And we delivered a candidate who fit the bill exactly. This was an ideal fit. And the the senior leader who was hiring for it said, send me more candidates. I said, not happening, no chance. There are no more candidates. This person is an ideal fit. You like this person when you interviewed them. And she said, Well, I need to see more. And I could not get a reason why out of her because she couldn't defend it, she couldn't articulate why, other than she actually said to me, Pete, I'm an old southern woman, and this is like shopping for shoes for me. I don't buy the first pair that I try on, and I'm like, Well, this is not shoes, and I'm not your shoe store, and you're not gonna use us.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, yeah, window shopping here.

Pete Newsome

We've delivered the candidate. You go find someone better if you think you can elsewhere. It's not gonna come from us. Fast forward, they ended up hiring the candidate we send and never even had another person to interview. And so, as you were saying, too many times people think that it should be about volume, whether it's candidates who feel forced to do it because of the mess and the job search process, or people who are hiring it. It shouldn't, it should all be based on accuracy. All the tools should be built with that in mind. And so there's there's the solution. If if if there's an organization out there willing to solve it, I guarantee you that they would be the job board that everyone wanted to use and would put the other ones out of business ultimately, because that um it would just create an entirely different experience and outcomes for everyone who used it.

Peter Porebski

That's what I was gonna say. There needs to be competition, there needs to be a better option, and then that would force the Indeeds and the ZipRecruiters and whatnot to maybe put those kinds of parameters. But until there is another alternative, and ZipRecruiter and Indeed and LinkedIn are the biggest and aren't if they're not really you know pushing these things, then who else is gonna compete with that? The the companies are gonna go where the candidates are. So that's it.

Pete Newsome

Um so that's what's happening with the ZipRecruiter survey. The other interesting AI, potentially seemingly, I'll say, positive impact on jobs came from Revelio Labs, who published

AI Adoption Correlates With Hiring

Pete Newsome

their initial AI jobs tracker that they're gonna put out either monthly or quarterly. And what they found that they reported this week is that firms that adopted AI grew headcount 27% more than non-adopters. That's a significant number.

Peter Porebski

So if you're Yeah, I mean that's a that's giant. And and it's interesting to see also that senior roles were the majority of that, 31% versus what, 66% for junior. That kind of goes into what we talked about with entry level and and whatnot. So it's it's definitely good to see that these companies that are embracing it are are growing. And maybe that's because that's the kind of company that would embrace that is a forward-thinking company, is a company that's doing well. So it kind of goes hand in hand. Um, again, it's still disappointing to see that you know we're we're still having the same issue with the entry level with the junior roles, but um I'll I'll take any good news compared to you know where we were a couple months ago.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, I mean, this is good. And what it says to me is that companies who are adopting AI, just on the surface, is my conclusion would be if you're adopting AI, you're succeeding more as a business, therefore having a need to hire more people. That's a win, and not something that I necessarily anticipated, as I've already gone on record saying I expected adoption to be faster, and I did expect it to uh create greater job displacement. I still believe we're gonna see significant job displacement in the years ahead, but it it makes sense now that I look at it from a different lens. These companies are having success because of AI against their competitors who aren't adopting as fast. And it's creating a need to hire more people. That's a good thing. It's a big to me, it's a really positive AI story.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, it's um, I mean, I know we talked about this before, um, that the rate of replacement is not, I don't think it's gonna be very, you know, it's not gonna be overnight and it's definitely slower than we thought it was going to be. Um, it's good to see that AI is not supplanting these people and that it's just supplementing people who are already there and they're adding, you know, adding more workers to help these companies grow and just make their workers more efficient. Um I think that uh any sort of replacement, like you said, that's gonna, it's gonna happen over years and it's gonna be a lot, it's gonna be a lot slower, and it's gonna be something that maybe people have a little bit more um, I guess the silver line, the people have a little bit more time to react to it. It's not gonna be, you know, here's jobs are here one day and then next month all of them are cut. So that's that's good to hear.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, so it'll be interesting to watch this tracker over time uh and see what they what they uh report on AI's impact on jobs. So more to come on that as we go forward in the

Tax Policy That Favors Automation

Pete Newsome

months and years ahead. But other um, you know, there's another interesting AI story this week that caught my attention was published in Axios. It was it was written by uh Darren Asamoglu. And I've talked about him before. We we've talked about him. He's in uh you know, he he's an MIT, I don't know if he's a professor, he works for MIT, I believe he's a Nobel laureate. This is a guy who's a very respected economist. And the point of his article was that AI is has an unnecessary impact on jobs potentially because of the way taxes work. Where if you are taxed, if an employer hires an individual, they're paying a 30% payroll tax, roughly, up to however you want to want to look at it. But that's an average that he points to. So for every $100 you pay an employee, it costs you $30 as an employer. But if you invest in an AI tool or system, that $100 is only costing you $5 in taxes. So what he's saying is the system is flawed, but it doesn't need to be if they change the tax rules. How much do you think this could change over time? Because it's very clear, this is objective, it's it's it's it's cut and dry. What happens with that going forward is companies have a choice. Do I hire a robot? Do I hire a person? The robot is going to cost me significantly less from a tax standpoint. Inadvertently, it seems the government is incentivizing companies not to hire people. That's a problem.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, I mean, you said it the government is incentivizing equipment over people. And I don't think that was necessarily, I don't I don't say necessarily. I know that was not on purpose because AI did not exist when a lot of these tax codes were written. So it was people were the only way. But now that you're able to automate away tasks from humans, these companies are going, especially public companies that have stakeholders, we can't rely on companies to do the right thing and say, oh, well, humans need to have work and they should they should value it. They're going to go with the path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance is the cheaper one. And so if you can what was the number? So five dollars on uh you know every hundred that you spend for AI, even if you double that, it's still less than the tax burden for for uh a human. So why would they not double down on on the cheaper cheaper alternative and have even if there you say that AI is not as you know, it's not a one-to-one, it's not quite as efficient as a human that can make judgment calls on whatever, it's still the cost is there, the savings are there. So there's going to need to be policy changes in the tax code if we don't want to, like you said, incentivize these companies to move away from the more expensive thing, humans, which we know are also unpredictable, and you have all these other headaches with them, to a known quantity that's cheaper, also.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see the evolution here because uh many people say think that the the fear of AI isn't really tied to manual labor, to blue-collar jobs, to things that require dexterity and certainly the software functionalities ahead of what robots can do today. But that's coming. And we need to be prepared for this. If you can hire a robot to do the physical task, or I said hire a robot, if you could buy a robot.

Peter Porebski

You can own a robot to do the physical task.

Pete Newsome

To do this physical task versus a human, not only does the robot not come with the potential limitations that you alluded to that a human has, but it the tax savings is not even comparable. It's not even in the same ballpark. The problem is, there's many problems associated with this, but one is that the the payroll taxes generated each year is a huge piece of our overall budget. And so I I I don't think most people realize that employers pay so much to write a paycheck each week. They see the taxes that come out of their own paycheck. Anyone who's an employee does, and you should have your own feelings and thoughts on that about whether it's too much. It is. But employers also pay a significant payroll tax. It's really invisible to the individual workers, and it's gonna become more um, I think, more talked about over time as as people realize. So it's good to see an article like this written because it's it's raising an alarm that I think is very much needs to be raised.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, that's um, I mean, I've read a lot about this and and seen watched a lot of videos and and and just seen a lot of this. So it's interesting because people talk about, oh, well, you know, data centers have all these tax breaks be built, and the companies have all these tax breaks to use it. So yeah, we are we're we talked about while we're incentivizing it. They say, okay, well, come, you know, this is something that the US needs to do to keep up with, say, China. But something that people overlook is China has a very a lot stronger, you know, authoritarian government that is able to control companies and force them to hire people. And for, like, you know, you know, if you look at some of the projects that have been built, you know, from China, the government has a lot higher level of control over these things. So unfortunately, I don't think we can just trust in a true free market to the for companies to do the right thing. It can't be a moral issue where we should hire people because of, you know, because they're humans and and whatnot. We have to make it a lot more black and white if we're not going to have the government effectively taking control and forcing companies to do it.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, um worth monitoring. We'll we'll we'll be talking about this a lot more in the future as the robots come. The robots are coming, Peter. They're they're coming, they're coming to your house. I saw another one uh this week that is a cleaning service being offered in a city, I think in Los Angeles, where you can hire the robot maids to come in and clean. And they I saw them climbing out of the car, and it's

Robots Move Into Real-World Work

Pete Newsome

cheap. It's it's it's inexpensive.

Peter Porebski

So how are they gonna get they're gonna get to the nooks and crannies in your house?

Pete Newsome

Maybe. I mean, they're gonna bend over easily, they're gonna reach high, they're gonna they're gonna be pick up heavy thing. I I looked at the case.

Peter Porebski

You see the fire, the uh the the wildfire fighting one in the news, the one that looks like a centaur.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Porebski

People are like, yeah, okay, but why does it have to look like a demon centaur in the woods?

Pete Newsome

I I saw another one that it was on Ed Wheels, and it was going down this rocky mountain terrain, and it was it was going like I don't know how fast it was, but it looked like it was really fast, like a cheetah going down. I'm like, man, these things are these things are coming, they're gonna be in every aspect of our lives. I don't know how quickly, but it's it it is something we should all pay attention to. Um 100%. It it's coming. Now, one one more kind of interesting story, and then we'll get into the data for for this week.

The Case For Hiring Job Hoppers

Pete Newsome

Of course, we had some layoffs, so we'll talk about those briefly. But uh there was an article in the Harvard Business Review that was making the case for hiring job hoppers. And that's been a dirty word in staffing and hiring. A lot of managers will quickly rule out a resume if they deem them a job hopper. But I think that's faded over the years. I uh whether it's COVID or so many people lost their jobs or other reasons there's been big layoffs. I don't think it has the same stigma that it has historically has. But this article goes an even step a step even further and says you should look to hire job hoppers because there's value in that.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, it's interesting. I definitely agree. It's it's not nearly as stigmatized as it used to be. And I think that's kind of gone. I mean, the the the working at a company for 30 years and retiring with a gold watch has kind of gone by the wayside pensions and all that, all of that. So if you're gonna go that that route, you know, what's the other end is people having to change jobs frequently. And so it it's it's a necessity in a lot of people's careers. So it's it's something that's not necessarily looked down upon. But yeah, this this is it's interesting because it's basically saying that job hoppers, because they start new jobs so much, are actually better at acclimating and getting up to speed really quickly. The ramp up time is is shorter. Um, I think I would I would argue that's a person to person. I've definitely met some people who job hop who don't grasp things that quickly, but I've also met people who who've worked at companies for a long time who are just really sharp. So um it's an interesting angle to look at. I do think that it's that companies should not be ruling people out based purely on the amount of jobs they've had in X time, um, unless it's something egregious, like they have a new job every month and they can't explain it or something.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, and I mean every situation is unique and different. It's really hard to put a you know blanket statement on this, but I so my answer and feelings on it is it depends. It depends on the job you're hiring them for, it depends on the situation that the person is coming from. Um, but I agree, generally speaking, you shouldn't rule out someone because they've had a lot of jobs, and it and that sometimes that can be to your benefit, right? We're in the we're in the contract staffing business. Of course, we think there's a benefit to hiring people who have a lot of jobs for certain roles. It it makes a lot of sense. But for others, yeah, you you do need that longevity. And especially if there's a ramp up time, if they're gonna be deep within the company and processes and operations or sales, that's where you don't want to see turnover in a position. And past performance is an indicator of future success, whether we like it or not, when you look at a candidate's history.

Peter Porebski

Well, you said it. It's it's you have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. Um, I don't think it should be like the first thing that knocks somebody out. There shouldn't be auto screeners that say X amount of jobs in you know, X years, rule them out. But if a per so if a person can explain and say, hey, here's why, here's why I moved through through these things, and it's a good uh explanation, fine, move them forward. I don't I just don't think it should be something that is a first level hurdle. But as you go into an interview with somebody or as you screen their resume, um it it's it's uh becomes a factor like anything else as part of that.

Pete Newsome

Yeah, you you mentioned auto screeners. You you have spent a lot of time on these. Uh is that a thing? I because I think of it more as the human screener is the one ruling out the job uh hopper, but not not not something a software would rule out. AI can do it, at least not that I've heard of.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, the AI can do it because you can say, um, I mean, I've used job screeners where that's that is an example. Say, I don't want job hoppers, no less than three jobs in you know two years, and it can read a resume and screen people out like that.

Pete Newsome

And yeah, again, if if you're hiring sales is an easy one that comes to mind because many sales jobs require a ramp up period. So if you do see someone that had three jobs in two years, there's a reason to be skeptical. I I don't know the reason to rule them out um on the surface, but yeah, that's a that's a job where a track successful history and track record is is important in in many cases. So um, but yeah, it's good to I I just I think we agree on this. It it just doesn't have the same um stigma that it used to is being an automatic thing. Not that I've heard I don't I used to hear it all the time from managers. I don't want job hoppers, I don't want job hoppers constantly, don't really hear that as much anymore.

Peter Porebski

I think you said like, I mean, COVID made, for better or worse, made the jobs market a little bit more transactional where you're paid while you're here and you're gone, and then there's not they're not expecting any loyalty. And as soon as you know the next highest bidder comes along, the person's gonna jump. Um, maybe that's shifted back a little bit more. I don't think that that's something that we should go down the extreme for. Um, but we've seen all these you know companies having layoffs, and I think if is as long as it's not the norm for an employee to expect a company to be you know necessarily loyal to them, at least any large corporation, um, the the reverse should also be true.

Layoffs And A Cautious Data Preview

Pete Newsome

All right, so you gave us a segue to touch on layoffs, which we keep saying we hope for a week where that's not the case in invariably every week. There's some big ones, and they're big name brands. BMW this week. Yeah, Porsche, Porsche of all place, Porsche. That hurts.

Peter Porebski

You got the auto layoffs, yeah.

Pete Newsome

One day I'm buying a Porsche, Peter. One day. Um, I will check that box, but Porsche 5,000 cuts, BMW 8,000 cuts, uh, one out of five white-collar jobs, BMW are going away, and then Visa. Visa's haven't cuts. So big names, big cuts. That's that's it. I mean, there's nothing to say about that that I have anyway, because it's almost just what we're used to seeing at this at this point.

Peter Porebski

You know, and and uh thankfully, I guess it you know, it could be worse. We have seen weeks that are a lot worse. Um, the BMW and and the Porsche kind of in my mind, they go along with VW. Does does Porsche and V are Porsche and VW even associated anymore? I know they they used to be. Um, so I believe so.

Pete Newsome

I believe so.

Peter Porebski

Like VW had their had the huge you know, largest amount ever. So that's kind of maybe that maybe that rolled in together um as part of that. So all right.

Pete Newsome

Well, I like seeing Porsches on the road, so hopefully they keep they keep making them. Um last data point this week, because we're it really it next week's gonna be all about data. We're we have as I said at the kickoff, we have the jobs reports coming out. I am really looking forward to seeing what that tells us. But the ADP weekly update showed a decline for the fifth

ADP Softness And Closing Thoughts

Pete Newsome

consecutive week. So bad trend there. We just saw big job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics a month ago. We will see, we will see how they revise them.

Peter Porebski

Fingers crossed, it's not too much.

Pete Newsome

We'll talk about that for sure. We'll go right to the bottom of the report, uh, the press release, and disregard the top line number. We'll go and see what uh the revision was from some of the big numbers they uh talk uh they published earlier in the year. But um, yeah, it's a it looks like a slowdown, but again, it's it's we see a little slowdown, we see a little increase. The flat job market rules a day for for me. I I just see we're just stagnant. That that's a word that that comes to mind because while we see some some these swings, it they just all seem to even out lately. And I think that's just where we are. I think that's where we're gonna be for a while.

Peter Porebski

Yeah, that's uh exactly right. It's it it sucks if you're at one of the job seekers because it seems like the companies aren't hiring, but we're not getting too many, you know, layoffs, so we're just kind of flat.

Pete Newsome

But it but that's okay because we're not seeing uh the job, the size of our job market increasing. It's going the other way. So flat like flat is okay. It as you said, it's not gonna feel like that to people who are having trouble getting a job. And of course, we know it's not flat across all occupations and levels equally, but the job market is is healthy. Now, inflation and what's going on there, that's an entirely different subject. Not so good. We with the numbers we're seeing there and interest rates, not positive there. But the job market as a whole is is is fine. How about that?

Peter Porebski

That's what I'm that's that's yeah, we we look at this one thing, but like you said, yeah, with the inflation and and all of these rates going up, and the fact that people are used to maybe a couple years ago, with the like I said last week, the comp companies aren't hiring, and so people feel like the job market isn't doing great. That's it. And so that's it.

Pete Newsome

Well, there we are. And so will we get fireworks next week? We'll talk about it next Friday. Be sure to to check back with this. But there are there is there are your weekend jobs. So thank you for listening.