The Week in Jobs: CEO Confidence Declines, Top AI Bosses Are Split, And Fraud Is On The Rise

Pete Newsome: Welcome back to the weekend jobs. Today is Friday, May 29th. Peter, how are you today? Peter Porebski: I'm good.

It's good to be back after Memorial Day weekend and uh back to talking about what's going on in the job market. Pete Newsome: It's good to see you again. You left me hanging last week. I had to struggle through alone, but here we are back together, and it's going to be a lot better show because of it.

Peter Porebski: I'm glad to be here. Pete Newsome: Well, this week, believe it or not, we are not going to talk about AI, and we're not going to talk about job cuts. Peter Porebski: I know. It's nothing uh about AI or layoffs is in the news at all, right?

Uh that's I didn't see anything. Pete Newsome: Unfortunately, that is far from the case. We will obviously be talking about AI and job cuts because there's more of it, and that's just the world that we're in. And we keep hoping that we're going to get through a week without some major cuts.

We had a couple. We'll get to that in a minute. But AI is always in the news lately. I don't think a day goes by where I don't see a news story about something to do with it.

And um, you know, is that the question is, is it good for the job market or is it bad? Have you have you changed your opinion on that in the last two weeks? Because say things are moving so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if you did. Peter Porebski: No, I mean, uh it's everything that I see, it's still I I just got an email uh the other day um talking to a manager and they were complaining about the the level of candidates coming in from it just with AI, pure AI resumes and screening that they were not putting any effort into it.

There, I mean, we've talked ad nauseum about one-click apply. So yeah, um, I I know there was a uh there was a zip recruiter survey that came out that that specifically talked about this, but it's uh AI is part of the job process. Right now, it's part of the hiring process, and um not everybody's happy about it. Pete Newsome: Nor should they be.

So we'll also talk today about fraud in the job market and share some stats and data that we have been looking at a lot recently. It's it's caused us to have to change how we recruit, how we screen. It's unfortunate. I I consider it a sad truth, but it is absolutely necessary given just the volume of fraud that is taking place.

So it's come to our doorstep recently. We'll talk about that a little bit. But before we get to that, let's start with just the state of what CEOs are thinking right now, because some interesting numbers came out on that today. The conference board puts out their CEO report on confidence, and it dipped in a huge way in the report that was released this quarter.

Peter Porebski: Was that a surprise to you to see, you know, I didn't know it went to uh 47, it was 59 was the confidence index um in Q1. So was that a surprise to see that these come, you know, leaders of these companies are not feeling great about it? The the direction, no. Pete Newsome: I I it's no surprise that there was a decline.

But what was shocking to me really was the size of the decline. I've been tracking this report for a couple of years now, and it moves a point, maybe two, occasionally three, but I haven't seen a dip like this before, and it it really jumped out. Peter Porebski: Yeah, I mean in retrospect, after what we've been talking about for the for the past couple of weeks, it's not surprising. I mean, we just see layoff after layoff after layoff.

Um, you know, CEOs talking about cutting their workforces. I know that was part of the uh the report was that there was you know, 31% expect to cut their workforce, you know, rather than I think it was 28% that wanted to expand it. That's that's not uh a great direction to be going in. You know, you're seeing the majority, almost a almost a full third of CEOs answering are saying that they are going to be laying off or letting go of a portion of their workforce.

Pete Newsome: Yeah, and you hit the nail on the head because we've seen the numbers, we've seen the cuts, but it hasn't really caught up in what's impacting the job market or in the surveys like this. And now that is right in our face. So you can't ignore those kind of numbers. You can't ignore a decline that's so steep.

Um, and so it really to me is is an indicative of what we can expect through the rest of the year. Now, today, as we're recording, potentially the war in Iran could be ending. There was yeah, Trump put out a tweet about that. But how many tweets have we seen that the how many ends has this been?

Peter Porebski: I thought the war was over weeks ago. Pete Newsome: This this might actually be the one. We might uh we might be here finally. Um, and the state of things can and will change if that happens.

The market reacts every time that there's an announcement, but we won't see the job market truly become stable until this is real. And we can laugh about it, but this impacts everyone's lives. And hopefully, hopefully, this is yeah, we're finally there. We finally can get past this and get back to normal because we've been waiting for so long for normal, right?

We wanted to get through the election, then the tariffs kicked in, then this war has become a reason for companies everywhere just to wait and see. And so we've got to get past this wait and see mode. Peter Porebski: Well, you know, it's also just the the level that or the quickness that AI is developing, um, AI and other tools, but I know, yeah, stability is what everybody wants. Everyone wants things to get back to normal.

I don't know that we're ever going to get there right now because things are just developing at such a rapid speed. Is is this, and I hate saying that, you know, the new normal, but is this the new normal where just every six months there is another huge thing that's gonna be an upset, and companies just have to learn to kind of deal with it. And the ones that are flexible and are able to kind of sail the rough seas are the ones that are gonna do good. Uh I I feel like we are not going to necessarily get to a stable like we was in the past ever again, just because of even if things in the news kind of quiet down a little bit, there's always gonna be these huge technology technological jumps that are happening at a more and more rapid pace.

Pete Newsome: Yeah, you're you might be right. I won't be surprised if you're right. I think it's unfortunate uh if you are, but we've have been in that state since COVID hit. Pre-COVID, it seemed like we we had that stability that you're talking about for a period.

And it's just been tumultuous since. We've now we've seen some positive waves, right? The all the hiring that took place post-COVID, that was good. We saw great numbers in the economy, but we're yeah, we it it seems like you can't rely on anything for very long right now because every tweet, every news report is going to impact the market and delay decisions, delay long-term decisions anyway.

Peter Porebski: Yep, that's a hundred percent right. And we got the pre-code pre-COVID world, post-COVID world, and this is just how things are nowadays. Um, hopefully it'll go, and I hate being pessimistic about it. I'm just uh, you know, I don't really see things slowing down because of the way the way everything is we've seen in the last months, you know, last six months, even the last the last year, just how crazy things have advanced.

Um, I I'll uh I'll wait, I'll be, I'll, I'll wait and see. Pete Newsome: Well, we're all gonna wait and see, right? We're gonna but we're gonna be living it too. We really this is um going to impact us on an increasing basis.

I we agree on that. I think the only X factor is how quickly it's all going to happen and and to what degree. There's a lot of debate about that. And we may as well talk about that now because we now have seen Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, go public this week and say that he was wrong about the impact on jobs that was that he predicted.

Um, and I I you know do you do you believe him? I mean, this is a guy who says a lot of things that um seem self-serving. You know, we've seen the CEO of Anthropic, uh, Dario Amade, who is the doomer in this scenario. Um, Sam Waltman was kind of in that camp.

Now he seems to be more positive, but I have a very difficult time taking anything these guys say at face value because they're making so much money. You just have to wonder what their motive is behind it. Peter Porebski: I that's exactly right. Like I don't I I don't trust anybody that I don't know what their motivation is in this, and it's very clear what their motivation is, and it's to make sure that their companies are being valued as highly as possible.

And I I can't help but feel like it's suspect timing that Altman is coming out saying he's pretty wrong. There's no, you know, there's entry-level jobs aren't going away, all of these things at the same time that you've got, you know, anthropic saying yes, it is, and and that you've got the Pope coming out with his encyclical saying that AI is a threat to like humanity, and that public perception seems to be. I mean, maybe it's not in the general populace, but uh online at least it's becoming louder that people are seemingly turning a little bit against some of the rapid AI advancement, and that hurts Altman's bottom line.

So him, it's in his interest to say, oh, everything's gonna be fine, actually. Never mind. Pete Newsome: So, so we we we broke the seal, we talked about politics within minutes, and now we're talking about religion. So we're we're just violating all of the rules of today, apparently.

But yeah, how about that? So the Pope has he, in fact, he not only came out a couple of days ago with some thoughts and comments, but he put out a tweet that I just happened to see earlier today where he was just reinforcing that message, and he's very concerned. I I in it what's what I find fascinating is that AI is still not on the radar screen of a lot of people in the workforce, a lot of people whose jobs are potentially going to be impacted in the very near future to a significant degree.

But you know, here's a leader of the Catholic Church going on record with his thoughts. So it's it's fascinating to me that it's caught his attention and he's you know, he's raising a pretty big warning right now. Peter Porebski: Yeah, I mean, and it's interesting because he's he's really one of one of, if not the biggest person that I've seen that's come out, you know, against it, where where we've had a lot of these CEOs saying, yeah, AI is advancing, it's gonna get rid of all these jobs, it's gonna, and nobody seems to be giving any like, oh, well, here's how we're gonna fix it, or here they're just yeah, it's gonna destroy the workforce.

That's that seems to be kind of the message that's been we've been seeing from a lot of these CEOs come out. And so it's it's uh only I I figured it was only a matter of time before somebody, and um, I was surprised to see that the the Pope was the first uh really big one to come out, you know, with this this very thought-out you know argument against the uh the destruction of the you know the human in the workforce, I guess. Pete Newsome: Well, you touched on something that is also extremely interesting.

So if how much of an impact AI is going to have, positively or negative, negatively, if that's a million-dollar question, the trillion dollar question is what do we do about it? Peter Porebski: Yeah, exactly. Pete Newsome: And so it's great to have these warnings. And we've seen as you as you alluded to, Jim Farley, Ford's CEO a few months ago, said that he predicts massive white-collar job loss, up to 50% white-collar job loss.

And you can't comprehend the severity of that. It's easy to say, it gets in the news for a day, half a day, a quarter of a day, and then it disappears. And if you stop and look at that statement on its own, this is this is unbelievably significant. And Verizon CEO just a couple of weeks ago, he said that he predicts up to 30% unemployment.

He didn't even uh caveat to say white collar, he just said unemployment in the next two to five years. This is we we can't comprehend how devastating the impact would be if these guys are even directionally close. Peter Porebski: Well, it's it's you know, I know we we read these articles probably more than than many people do in the average. It's it, but it just feels like a little bit like chicken little, like we're you're standing on, you know, this railroad watching the train come down.

That's gonna hit us. That's gonna, it's coming, that's gonna hit us, and nobody's like doing anything about it. Everybody's like just pointing out that there's a train that's gonna hit us, and everybody just kind of stands there, nobody makes any moves, nobody does anything about it. Um, and that's that's kind of how it's it's felt, um, at least recently, with all of these these people coming out saying, yeah, it's gonna be devastating.

Sucks for everybody else, I guess. Pete Newsome: Like, I know that that's that's where I always end up with this. So you see Dario Amade in the the message that he sent, I think it was in January, when he wrote a very long letter basically predicting uh just a huge negative impact as a um as a result of AI. Then why are you still doing it?

Why are you still building it? And he's saying, yes, we're putting in guardrails and we're trying to do our part to prevent it, but it doesn't appear that way. Claude is getting better every single day. And perhaps we're hypocritical because we're users of it, we're using it to our advantage from a business standpoint, because it would be you know, it'd be crazy not to, right?

I mean, we we would put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage, consciously. And so that that's a question, right? Why, you know, if if you think it's bad, why are you perpetuating it? Yeah, um but the people ultimately in charge, they're not inclined to stop it, right?

I mean, and it and whether they could or not is an entirely different question. And I think no is the answer to that. I I don't I don't think there's anything to stop. So maybe it's if you can't beat them, join them.

I don't know. Peter Porebski: Uh I it's yeah, I mean, I AI is a tool just like anything else, and I think that it can be used in in a correct way, but it doesn't, it just seems like that's kind of you know a secondary or even you know tertiary thought behind uh, you know, just seeing how fast we can go. And I know that you know people make the argument, well, if if we don't do it, then other countries are gonna do it and then we're gonna be left behind. And if if one person decides to to try and you know slow down be and and review these things, well, what do you do about the other people, you know, the other nine people who aren't going to do that?

And I I don't know the answer to that, but it does seem a little bit you know frustrating and uh frankly annoying when you get the you know people that are that just keep saying the same thing over about how it's gonna be you know monumentally destructive or or whatever um to the to the workforce and to the economy, and then offer, I mean, I say this as we're pointing out also, offer no uh no concrete solutions, but you know, at least I'm not in a position to uh to be any a policymaker on that.

So maybe that's an area where I don't know, govern government or regulatory. I know you you love that. Pete Newsome: Well, yeah, though they're trying, I mean, Cal, you weren't here last week, but I did talk about how California just signed an executive order to trying to protect workers uh uh against job loss from AI, trying to give incentives for companies to retain workers. So that is something that can be done.

Yeah, the the incentives for sure. Um but at the same time, Trump didn't sign the executive order that he was scheduled to sign um about AI and protecting new releases from coming out to vet them before they were released to the public for national security purposes. So it appears, at least at the federal level, they've backed off putting guardrails in place. So the things continue to run full steam ahead.

I I don't think it's gonna stop, and I don't think they can stop it. Um we're gonna have to figure out how to deal with it. But I let me say this before we move on, because I promised last week in your absence that I would find some good news. And so as it relates to AI and jobs, there's a couple things that are positive that we're seeing software engineering openings are up 18% year over year on deed, while all openings fell 4.

3%. So there is a very valid case to be made right now that AI is increasing the number of software developer openings. And I would have told you six months ago the opposite would be happening. And a lot of people think the opposite is happening right now.

So that's what what just leads to the confusion. But that is good news. And and I promise that I would deliver that. Does that surprise you?

That I mean, that's a that's a pretty big number, 18%. Peter Porebski: Initially it does, but then I think it's you know, what level are those? Are those mid to senior level software developer? Are they if they were if they were including a good amount that were entry-level software developer, I would be surprised.

Um, mid to senior level, I'm not because we're not at the level or you know, the area right now where AI can completely replace it. They it can do basic tasks, but you still need a human to review it because I know even Claude that the it can make you know easy mistakes that you need to actually understand how to code to point them out, to fix them. So we are not at the the stage where uh it can be completely autonomous without uh a human intervention. Pete Newsome: So a new Claude version came out yesterday, Opus 4.

8. Peter Porebski: The honest one. Pete Newsome: Well, I I so I I typed in how many days of the week include uh the letter D. And right out of the gate, it nailed it with three as the answer.

And it corrected itself and said, My bad, I I missed something obvious here. It's actually six. Peter Porebski: So that's you're absolutely right. I was wrong to you're right to point that out.

Pete Newsome: And it's so it it got it wrong twice. It this is just where we are right now. Um, but it did point out that Wednesday has two D's. So it at least uh maybe it subtracted one of those from the seven it should have been.

I don't know. But that and and I think this is also why some people are dismissive of everything that's happening, because they point to things like that, and it's fun to laugh at, but at the same time, not a day goes by where it doesn't blow my mind with how advanced it is and how effective it can be. So that's I I suspect why so many people still haven't bought into its potential because they just focus on what it can't do perfectly yet, and while disregarding all of the amazing things it can do.

Peter Porebski: Yeah, and and I was I was just reading uh an article um it must have been yesterday or the day before, where uh people were talking about um the psychological effect of workers with AI, is where you they're at it's actually degrading people's critical thinking skills just because AI answers everything with a very confident tone, even when it's wrong, and people just accept it at face value. And a good worker needs to understand to check, you know, trust but verify with AI and not just take it at face value.

And it's way easier to just oh, it sounds so confident, it always gives me an answer. It all it never pushes back, it never says I don't know. And you know, that's uh that's a dangerous road to go down because as we we've seen, like it'll it'll just miss easy things where if you don't know what to look for, you you might make a mistake. Pete Newsome: So, in other words, just like most humans, yeah, exactly is what you're saying.

Um, so yeah, that and and that's why I believe that at least for the foreseeable future, the more technical you are, the more valuable you you become because you someone has to know what to call it out on. And if you're a hack like me doing vibe coding and asking Claude to write programs, but you don't know how they function technically behind it, which I do not, um, I'm not gonna be able to fix what's wrong. So I I have to rely 100% on its accuracy. And we know, we know 100% is not where we are right now, not quite yet.

Peter Porebski: Yeah, that's the that's the uh the pro tip to the candidate on the market is make sure you have the the technical skills and you understand at least the foundation. You don't need to be able to do all of the coding, but you need to understand why something is wrong on, you know, at least on a on a surface level. Pete Newsome: So absolutely, absolutely. Peter Porebski: You want to talk about the uh the the zip recruiter survey that came out?

Pete Newsome: Yeah, let's talk about that. But I do want to give one more good point, good bit of good news is that LinkedIn's chief economist says AI has created roughly 1.3 million new job openings. So that supports everything we're saying right now.

We see loss, but we're seeing new opportunities. And I suspect that for years to come, maybe maybe indefinitely, we will see new titles, new positions that never previously existed. One of the new hot ones right now is a forward engineer, if you've heard that phrase. And you know, companies need people to interpret the AI as we've been talking about, to sit between the business and the technical team in a different way.

So while certainly there's opportunity loss, there's opportunities that are going to be gained for those who are paying attention. And that is always what our message is with this, as much as anything else. And one of the main reasons why we're doing this. Yes, it's a weekend jobs and we talk about news, but everyone needs to be aware of what the impact of of all of this is, and not far off in the future, but right now.

I mean, these things are playing out as we speak. So yeah, so we did get some good news. We'll take it where we can find it, but let's let's move on to uh to what ZipRecruiter put out this week with their new hire survey. Peter Porebski: Yeah, they uh they they finally are on on board with us talking about uh that AI is now part of the the hiring process um and that how you know messy it's making.

So 35% of new hires encountered AI in the hiring process. Uh, you know, 22% was in the uh first quarter. So that's a it's a it's a huge jump. I expect maybe the next quarter it'll jump even further.

You know, AI users uh received double the job offers of non-users, and then 39% of new hires in AI require rules had offers rescinded versus 16% overall, which is it's kind of crazy, you know, just just to see that. Pete Newsome: Yeah, that that is that is crazy. I'm I'm not sure what that's driven from. Yeah, one of one of the complaints.

Peter Porebski: I gotta think it's from it's just from you know post uh, you know, a combination of their survey, but maybe they're taking some posting information from their own board in there. Pete Newsome: Yeah, I I I'll be shocked if that you said the numbers going to increase in the next quarter in Q3. I it it will, it absolutely will. But I'm still surprised.

I'm not surprised anymore, but I I'm okay, I'm still surprised that not every company who does recruiting at scale is jumping on this train yet. You and I just gave a reference to a company this week with the product that we use, and they're hesitant, right? They don't know that they want to use it. And we say we hear these stories constantly.

And I we know from using this how beneficial it's been to job seekers and recruiters because we're AI is helping cut uh connect humans together faster, right? The right humans with real recruiters. Um, but a lot of people just see it and think it's a negative. You have to embrace it at this point, don't you?

Peter Porebski: Well, there's a key word in there that's 35% of new hires encountered AI. I would guess that the amount of companies using it is much higher and that candidates don't even realize it's there. You know, that there's AI sorting through resumes, do putting them into different stacks, do you know, there is a there's a ton of tools that are used that the candidate has no idea. I mean, we've we with even with our candidate facing AI tools, I have encountered many, many candidates who did not even realize it was AI until a recruiter told them it was AI after the fact.

Pete Newsome: You know, you you you I I don't know that you're wrong, but I don't know that as many companies are using it as you think. Yeah, and yes, I oh I think you're absolutely right about uh candidates not realizing AI was in the background. And that's a good thing if if it creates a seamless experience for them. But I had a uh conversation just yesterday with a longtime friend who's effectively a fractional CIO where he'll go in and do projects for companies for an extended time.

And he's working with a$350 million company right now, so I won't share any more details than that. But he said that they have zero AI use at the company. Zero AI use. That to me is just mind-blowing.

And I would love to know why, but that's not an uncommon story. I think that is more prevalent than you and I probably realize on a day-to-day basis because we're so immersed in it. We see the benefits, we assume that everyone else is, but they're absolutely not. There's still a lot of companies and organizations that won't touch it with a 10-foot ball.

Peter Porebski: You know, that that's not actually that surprising me because the company is so big. How many times have we talked about, you know, even in just you know, selling our company versus a larger staffing firm? Just be small companies are able to make those changes. They're able to do these things.

A large company putting an initiative out there, getting something changed is a huge, you know, it's a it's a giant cruise ship versus a small speed boat. And that's how many large companies are working with old, you know, versions of Windows just on their on their servers? There uh things are not updated to the to the newest, to the latest, unless they absolutely need to. And AI at a lot of these companies is just another tool.

And maybe they've got it on their docket to get around to it in a year. Uh, they've got to get the budget, they've got to get go through all this red tape, whereas a small company is they're totally fine with, or small or medium-sized company are totally fine with adding in new tools and trying them out. Pete Newsome: So that this friend that I'm referring to, the he actually built a system for a company we both worked at years ago, and we were joking about it. It was a big project, it was a big step forward for this company at the time.

It was in the logistics space. It was it was a logistics tool that took the company huge leaps forward in how efficient it could be, how advanced it could be compared to the old system that was being used. And I joked with him yesterday, I said, you could probably build that now by yourself in a week. And he kind of laughed and said, or maybe just a weekend.

And so when you know that that's what AI can do, and the company that he's working for now, they're in um manufacturing and logistics. How are you not taking advantage of AI at this point? I I just I find it fascinating. I find it I used the word surprising earlier.

I'm not really surprised at this point because the stories still pile up. But at what point does that become a competitive disadvantage that can't be overcome? Peter Porebski: Yeah, and especially in the hiring process. I mean, that's going to require somebody who is intimately involved in a in talent acquisition or company's HR, but they've also got technical knowledge.

They've also got that tech, you know, IT background, maybe, or at the very least, an awareness of things to kind of push that. And I mean, I've I've obviously met some very technical um HR managers and HR directors and whatnot, but a lot of them are not. And they're they're very much into the compliance and and HR you know space, and they are maybe not as aware of just things that are outside of it. And so I I wonder if it's just purely there, you know, you're insulated in your own department and you've got all these other problems to worry about, and that's just something that you haven't thought about.

And that could be the case in a lot of these HR because we're talking about you know specifically the hiring process. Pete Newsome: Yeah, I mean, I guess if it's if it ain't broke, don't don't go don't try to fix it. But um I I I I think it's gonna be forced upon everyone sooner than later. Um probably much sooner than well.

Peter Porebski: Speaking of uh you know companies integrating automation and AI tools, you know what do you want to talk about you know, candidate fraud that's becoming more and more of a problem with the proliferation of these AI tools that allow it to happen. Pete Newsome: So the tools are the yeah, the AI is there and some stats on that, right? So it's a good segue to talk about this on the heels of the zip recruiter survey. So candidates are encountering it.

Employers and candidates alike are encountering fraud as a result of how easy it is to perpetuate now. I think that fraud has always existed in our space uh when it comes to the job search process and recruiting, but now it is happening to a degree that it's so out of control, it's it's it's it's become a huge problem. So by 2028, according to Gartner, one in four job candidate profiles worldwide will be fake. One in four.

Peter Porebski: Yeah. Pete Newsome: It's just so that's we're talking billions at this point of fake candidate profiles. Um 83 million fake profiles already. Um in the first half of the year alone on LinkedIn, 117 reported spam or scam incidents on LinkedIn the first half of last year.

What can be done about that? Peter Porebski: So that's where these, you know, these HR departments are going to kind of need to put in to effect AI screening tools. I know there is a plethora out there of um tools that will, you know, if you you're on a video, they can match your ID, they can look for signs that you are not who you say you are, that you're cheating on your, you know, I know that that's been a thing for a little while. Um, screen reading, cheating, why they match your movements, uh, I all of that.

Um that's gonna have to become kind of instead of a case-by-case, that's gonna have to become the norm, I think, for a lot of these companies. And and the people we've talked to, I know you and me both, in the IT space, that is already a thing that's been, you know, something that they're worrying about and that they're looking at and they've put into place just because it is particularly prevalent in the high-end IT. Um, it has been for some time, but it's now kind of creeping into over into other areas into other industries.

Pete Newsome: It it has. And so we encountered that this week, and that's one of the reasons it's on our minds. We saw it in a non-IT position for the first time. It was a bait and switch, a common scam in the IT space where someone interviews for the job who is technically qualified, and if it's a remote job, someone else actually shows up to do the work.

Uh, or in some cases, someone shows up on site to do the work. Uh, if it was a phone interviews that were never face to face. Um it's it is changing and has changed for us how we screen the level uh or the depth of things that we have to do now. I I never would have thought necessary just a couple of years ago.

Um, it because we we we have to you'd love to take an approach where it's guilty until proven innocent. And we almost now have to assume guilt until innocence is proven. And that's a tragedy to me. That's really unfortunate.

Peter Porebski: It's particularly bad in remote jobs, obviously. We know that you know, with overemployment, people working multiple, the the kind of the bait and switch, like you said. Um, and just I think it's this unscrupulous candidates maybe taking just taking advantage of the fact that if a company's got three you know uh uh remote Zoom interviews, it's really easy to have a different person on mult on two of the interviews than on than the person who shows up, or it's a different person each time.

So I have to wonder though, like what's to be gained out of that. And I guess it's just having uh somebody else interview for you. Pete Newsome: Maybe you're not a great interviewer, or no, I uh it it's sort of so you you you point out something that uh a lot of companies don't think about. If if someone, let's say we're hiring someone and we have a series of interviews scheduled, one is with me, then one is with you, it could be an entirely different person showing up from one screen to the next.

So typically the way it works, or at least commonly, one person will have that initial screen. They're good enough to get past that. That's the person who's going to ultimately show up, quote unquote, to do the job if they're hired. But when it gets to the deeper interview levels, a technical screen, it will be an entirely different person who answers those questions.

And if you don't match the individual based on a government ID, you're not gonna know, right? You're not gonna know. We're not gonna, if you're doing it right, you're not talking about someone's physical appearance uh after you get off the interview. You shouldn't be.

So if we're doing it right, it would never occur to us that you know Bob who I interviewed was not the same Bob who you you had interviewed. Peter Porebski: Exactly. If you a short of like complete giant differences in in the person, if you're similar, you know that that's never gonna come up. It's never gonna come up.

Pete Newsome: So measures have to be taken now. The government's involved. That's so back to the government again, trying to stop all this craziness that's happening. So the DOJ uh busted a number of uh North Korean firms, criminal organizations that have been perpetuating this scam for a while.

The losses are in the hundreds of millions that have been piled up. So there's no question right now that there's a lot of effort being put to stop the uh put forth to stop this both at the government level, but it has to be done at the company level too. So you have to be vigilant. If you are involved in hiring, if you're involved in recruiting in any way, this should be on your radar screen and you should be taking steps to prevent it because um it's it's coming to your doorstep, whether you want it to or not.

Peter Porebski: Yeah, so that that this and many other issues, you know, on the candidate side, which we've talked about, like I said, at one click apply, all that, that is what's going to drive, I think, the implementation of uh of AI and these these automation tools in the hiring process for companies, and that's what's candidates are going to you know encounter it more and more because it's kind of almost an arms race. You know, one side increases, the other one does. Pete Newsome: Unfortunately, candidates are also seeing it.

So candidates are impacted too. There's a lot of scams there. Yep, jobs where it'll appear to be a real employment opportunity. They ask for all of the information that is needed when you're entering into a new job, all your social security number, they'll get your government documents, and the job turns out to be fake.

So there's massive fraud there with fake employers, fake job postings. We talk a lot about ghost jobs. The numbers there are staggering. And what's crazy to me is that so many companies just admit that they post fake jobs.

Peter Porebski: They'll some states are uh are trying to pass rules against it. I know California's trying to pass a law against fake job postings. Pete Newsome: Yeah, I mean it's it's you know, there's no, you know, talk about kicking someone when they're down, right? If there's a worker who's out of a job wasting their time, that's that's criminal.

Yeah, I mean, really, you you deserve to be punished in a significant way. If you're doing that consciously to waste job seekers' time um in committing fraud against him, I think that should be a punishment that is very severe. Peter Porebski: 100% agree. Pete Newsome: But uh man, we we were supposed to, this was supposed to be the good news week.

I know it's like we would now fraud and gloom and doom with AI. I mean, look, the unemployment was down a little bit this week, so the numbers came out. Um hiring was down a little bit, uh new jobs from the ADP report. We're about to see the big jobs report come out at the beginning of next month, since we're in at the end of May here.

Peter Porebski: Um, not that anyone trusts it at this point, but maybe it'll be a higher, maybe it'll be a good number and we can we can believe in it. Pete Newsome: Yeah, the estimated number this must come out as around 90,000 jobs being added. It's always a very loose number, but the trajection uh directionally that's good. I mean, it's a good trajectory if it's real.

Um, so it it is almost the same story, different day, um, lately, where some of the numbers look good. We see numbers that contradict them. That and so I think we're just overall flat, right? I mean, that's that's that's the best interpretation.

That's my scientific conclusion, is it we're just flat? Peter Porebski: Well, like you said, I mean, earlier, it whether we end up going down, I guess, a negative path, we're talking about it. We want to have this, you know, this informal talk, but where we are at least bringing these things to people's awareness because so many people just don't even realize or think about it. And it is something that they should be aware of.

Pete Newsome: Everyone needs to be, right? You have to take that um into your own hands and or just follow us. We're gonna keep informing you if you're not already subscribed. Make sure you subscribe to our daily newsletter.

We pull all the daily news, we send the highlights, we send it in really easy uh to read form. So subscribe on four cornerresources.com, look at our news section, uh, or subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter. You we're easy to find there too at four on the four corner page.

So um now we did not talk about the layoffs that occurred. Should we close without them and just say goodbye, or should we throw out because there were a couple of name brand companies that that you want to just throw the companies out there, do a rapid fire through all of them? Peter Porebski: All right, Groupon and Wix both had big layoffs. Pete Newsome: Okay, so that is going to do it for today.

Um maybe next time we'll get through a week without it. Although I just right before we got on, I did see another announcement coming. But uh maybe we'll see some really good news with the jobs report. Let's hold on to that for the moment.

Peter Porebski: Yeah, let's hold on to hope for the jobs report and we'll choose to believe the numbers. Pete Newsome: There you go. All right, everyone. Thanks for listening.

We will talk to you soon.