Break Everything with Rebecca Carr

Chad is back, this time in Mallorca, and things just got real.

Rebecca Carr isn’t talking about tweaking recruiting—she’s talking about blowing it up. From underdog comeback to landing inside SAP’s $30B+ machine, this is a story of AI, guts, and rewriting how work actually works.

We’re talking:

• Killing the ATS as we know it

• AI agents running hiring in the flow of work

• Why most AI hiring tech screwed up trust from day one

• “Rip and evolve” vs. lazy tech stacks duct-taped with point solutions

• And how SmartRecruiters went from commodity… to strategic crown jewel

  
  

Plus, Rebecca gets brutally honest about leadership—how to avoid CEO flameout, why decisiveness beats perfection, and why her “flow state” lives right on the edge of chaos.

Oh—and if you think jobs still exist in 5 years? Yeah… about that.

Buckle up. The future of hiring isn’t coming it’s already ripping through your org chart.

FULL MALLORA TALKS PLAYLIST

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

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Chad Sowash: Hide your kids. Lock the doors, you're listening to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts, complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast. And we're back. So last year at this time, we were in Spain, Madrid. This time we're in beautiful Mallorca. Umm, big changes since then.

Rebecca Carr: Big changes.

Chad Sowash: So we're on stage early February, and you pretty much laid it all out that everything's changing.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Right?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: And you're, you're... It's not about, it's not about fixing old stuff, it's about breaking it and getting into a new paradigm. I know that word's overused, but still, I think it's apropos [chuckle] for this. So, and it worked.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, it did. [laughter]

Chad Sowash: Talk about that. [laughter]

Rebecca Carr: Umm, well, I, I think what you saw was a company that embraced the unknown, embraced change, ran at it with a really focused vision, some passion behind it, umm, and, uh, some real energy around just making hiring easy, which is exactly what our vision was 15 years ago, just rethought for the moment. Uh, and I, I, I look back at the last year and I think, like, what are all those movies? Like, you, you see Miracle and where, like, the underdog team comes from behind. And I realized that pushing people around, uh, one very focused objective, which is exactly what we did, umm, getting people excited to get to an outcome and doing that together as one can be a really powerful thing, even if you don't have all the perfect pieces lined up.

Chad Sowash: That's not easy.

Rebecca Carr: I, I, I, I think it was easy for SmartRecruiters because we had so much tenure.

Chad Sowash: Okay.

Rebecca Carr: Umm, I, I... And I, easy is sort of a... [laughter] my, uh, but I, I would say that on average, our engineers had probably nearly a five-year tenure, which is extremely high compared to most Silicon Valley companies, which are less than 18 months. So we had a lot of people that had been here a long time. We had a lot of people that remembered pre-COVID era where we actually had to go and sit in offices and, like, build relationships and network. Uh, and a lot of people that had started at SmartRecruiters because they believed in that vision and were frustrated that it wasn't coming to fruition and saw a window and a moment to lean in together, uh, and it worked.

Chad Sowash: What wasn't coming to fruition? What did you feel? Was the market changing in that it's just so dynamic?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: And, and it's like, wait a minute, if we don't make a huge change... I mean, 'cause that's a, that's a huge risk and that's a big bet, right? And, but you took it.

Rebecca Carr: I, I, well, I think some of it was also rooted in the fact that we are and have been a product-led company for a very long time. I mean, Jerome was a product founder, umm, I'm a product CEO. And you build products because you wanna make a mark. Umm, yes, engineers care about, you know, IPOs and acquisitions and all that, but what they really want is for them to be sitting at a bar having a beer and someone goes, "What do you do for a living?" And they say, "Oh, I work at SmartRecruiters." And they're like, "Oh, really?" "I was one of the founding engineers of SmartRecruiters." "Wow, that's amazing." that kind of impact, like, I changed the way that people operated in a very commonplace workflow is something that they're chasing.

Rebecca Carr: And I remember I was at an off-site in 2016, 2017, umm, with some engineers and they were talking about Slack. And they were one of the fir... We were one of the first companies using Slack because we are an SF, uh, startup. And they were just like, "This is so cool. This is gonna change how we collaborate." And how cool would it be to be an engineer at Slack right now? And I really do think that they look at SmartRecruiters as how cool would it be to be one of the first engineers at SmartRecruiters, a platform that's truly changing how people find work, how people find talent, how people engage in that process, umm, and doing it in a way that's so sticky that people can't really remember what life was like without it. And, uh, that's what they're building, that's what they're chasing.

Rebecca Carr: And they saw that moment now that AI has sort of introduced this, umm, element of, uh, differentiation to different products on the market, umm, that if they leaned into it more aggressively than their competitors, that they could achieve that outcome, uh, from a place at the time that was, you know, they were feeling like a commodity. So AI was like, "Oh, this is gonna be our, our silver bullet, umm, to launching us into that, that category of, uh, legendary products," so to speak.

Chad Sowash: But it was more than engineers, right? You're talking about engineers. You have the entire... I mean, hundreds of employees. I mean, so being able to get everybody bought into this huge dynamic change. How, how did, I mean, how did you, how did you get that done so quickly?

Rebecca Carr: Engineers, I, I give them a lot of credit and product managers, of course, uh, 'cause they moved so fast to get it done. But, umm, we plan our business very intentionally as here's our product strategy. This is why we're investing in these products, this is the mark it's gonna make on the market. And then here's the go-to-market strategy that's gonna support that, and then here's the budget that's gonna prop it up. And so it, it's not to say that those other functions don't play an equally important role. I mean, narrative, positioning, uh, sales, all that very important. But those organizations are motivated by seeing a product that they can sell, that they can market, that's helping them tell the story.

Rebecca Carr: Umm, I'm always really fascinated and actually I, I tend to hire sales reps, marketers, umm, solutions consultants from companies where I know their products are not very good 'cause I'm like, "Wow, they were successful in selling a not-so-great product. Wait until they get my really good product." Like, that's just going to accelerate them to the next... To the nth degree. Uh, and I think that's exactly what happened. Uh, the product and engineering team believed, they delivered, go-to-market saw that and ran with it. Uh, and together we sort of pieced together what was an absolutely incredible year, uh, for us in both our... The delivery of our revenue targets, but I mean, most notably, obviously, our acquisition, which, uh, frankly, couldn't have been a better home for us.

Rebecca Carr: Uh, I think when you're a small startup, especially an applicant tracking system amongst 800 global applicant [chuckle] tracking systems, uh, you wanna be acquired by a strategic player and there's only three. Really. Uh, so you've got three options and then your alternative is consolidation with a competitor, sponsored buys, things like that. Uh, we had Workday, we had SAP, we had Oracle. Uh, we are a very international company. I'd say, you know, well over 50% of our revenue customers... People are outside of the United States. Uh, Workday, very North America-centric brand, obviously becoming much more international. But SAP's DNA is openness, which was a big pillar of our differentiation, and, and enterprise global. So we couldn't have found a better moment, a better home, and a company that really wanted to lean into our product and our people. Uh, so the, the terms of that transaction were extremely attractive to us and it worked out very well.

Chad Sowash: I mean, but they're Goliath, right?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: They... I mean, they are a Goliath. I mean, you're talking about, what was it, 38 billion in revenues last year?

Rebecca Carr: Yes. It's high 30s.

Chad Sowash: I mean, it's, it's, it's... Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's crazy. How do you get attention from... I mean, because again, you know, we're talking about talent acquisition. This is a... I mean, we're talking a business player. We talk about SAP is, they're not... This is not human resources. This is total business suite ecosystem, right? How do you get their attention, especially when you just made this huge pivot? To me, and again, obviously, you know, you being the face of the organization, the voice of the organization, but there are a lot of people behind you pushing. Umm, talk a little bit about that.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. So, I'm... I mean, they're big, they have a lot of momentum. They're a cruise ship that's difficult to turn. And, uh, and they know that. Uh and it's, it's I mean, fascinating. First couple months here, I mean, just mentioning the name SmartRecruiters in the context of a deal, they're like, "Yeah, sure, put that in." [laughter] And you're like, "Wait a second. How... Like, don't you wanna look at the product? Don't you want to think?" But no, it's like they have... They're the snowball that keeps getting bigger. But in a moment that is so disruptive, disruptive as this one with, umm, the introduction of AI, the value that that's gonna bring, the disruption that's, that's gonna bring to global workforces, SAP needs to operate differently. Umm, and, uh, that doesn't mean that they should compromise on the things that make them great.

Rebecca Carr: It just means that a lot of the processes, programs, organizational design that they had previously is not gonna serve them well in this next generation. And their executive board has been very vocal that this moment requires new values, umm, new, like, different goals and objectives, umm, a focusing, a cross-functional focusing around certain very key topics. And we represent that in a vacuum. We are like a microcosm of the culture and the business plan that they would love to be able to implement at a global scale. And they were very vocal with us that they didn't want us to lose that. We actually needed to be their example. So that as they went team by team and started to implement some of these new programs, I mean, they... Similar to us a year ago, we rewrote our values as a business. They did too.

Rebecca Carr: And they are actually almost perfectly aligned. But they need to be able to point to an example within SAP of, "See, that's what transparency looks like. That's what ownership looks like. That's what collaboration looks like." And it's working. So, by you moving in this direction, you're gonna see the same success and outcomes. Umm, and that has gotten us some attention. And frankly, it's gotten... Uh, it's, it's, it's been... That same attention has been given to a lot of the other acquisitions that they've made in the last two, three years who have also been able to preserve their cultures. I mean, the acquisition right before us was WalkMe. Umm, they still remain a totally independent stack as well with, uh, a different way of hiring, organizing, uh, and rolling out products. And they have been protected, uh, and leveraged as an example for how certain things should be done.

Chad Sowash: Well, talk about that, because usually right after an acquisition, you've got about a three or four... Three to maybe six-month timeframe where you start seeing layoffs because there's redundancies, right? There's generally huge redundancies. But when, when you're talking about this new way of doing business that, that SAP is trying to, trying to actually, umm, embrace, what was, what was that like? And how... I mean, you've seen growth.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yes.

Chad Sowash: Not retraction, not, not, not a, not, you know, not, not an atrophy per se. Talk about that.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, no. So, uh, they actually, very quickly, with the support of not just my direct leadership but also the executive board, uh, intentionally moved SAP employees into the SmartRecruiters world and had them report into our infrastructure. Uh, so our R&D organization has already doubled in size as a result. They did it with product and engineering first because, obviously, we want to be accelerating those roadmaps. Umm, and that has been... Uh, I think they would probably call it a... They... A test. They had never done that before. Uh, and, uh, it has worked very well. Those resources have started to get comfortable with the organizational structure that we use in R&D. Uh, we've been able to accelerate our roadmap exponentially. We're rolling out more product than we ever had faster.

Rebecca Carr: Uh, and, uh, they're planning to integrate us at a deeper level over the next couple months. Uh, of course, there's going to be some level of redundancy when you start to get into supporting functions. But the reality is, at the pace that we're moving, the independent... We, we remained independent. So at the pace that we're moving to legal entity consolidation, as we start to move those bodies over into the SAP world, they're almost using us as replacements to people that have chosen to leave or have moved into other jobs without the organization versus, you know, saying, "This is intentionally a synergy and thus we need to part ways."

Rebecca Carr: Uh, and that very organic integration has been comfortable for us, I would say. Uh, now, I think that our R&D organization will likely continue to grow as more and more people within SmartRecruiters become SAP employees. Uh, but right now, there's only three of us. So we're, uh, we're still very independent and, if anything, we're just getting more from them. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So it, it feels like an aspect of... Because, I mean, the, umm, SuccessFactors acquisition was like 14, 15 years ago. It was a while ago. It feels... And you did say replay, but it feels like because tech is moving so fast right now, it... There's going to be a lot of rip and replace that's happening.

Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Chad Sowash: And that, that feels like what is happening here to some extent, right? Where there's like, look, we know that we have tech, umm, there's... You get... And you have tech that, that's old. There's a lot of technical debt that happens, especially when you... That, when it's that complex, right? So, uh, is this a scenario where there's like literally focused on orchestration, rip and replace? Uh, what is... I mean, because when you've got redundancies like that...

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: What do you... What are you looking toward? Is it an orchestration company? Is it... What, what does SmartRecruiters become?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, well, so I, I like to call it like rip and evolve [chuckle] versus... 'cause I would really hope that most organizations don't rip and replace with another core HR platform or applicant tracking system. Because the reality is that the, the construct of those platforms, I don't think exists in five years. Umm, so really the question is, what does a product and platform like SuccessFactors, obviously, and SAP within the SAP ecosystem become in the future? And the truth is it looks absolutely nothing like what it looks like today. Umm, so if you, if, if you had gone to SAP Connect and, and listened to Muhammad Alam stand on stage and talk about the product pillars of SAP's strategy, umm, you hear him talk about no-app experiences, appless experiences, seamlessly embedded agents.

Rebecca Carr: And so what I think SAP will move toward and what SmartRecruiters will lean into aggressively as perhaps one of their first movers, is an experience that is entirely AI-driven. An experience around HR that is a conversation with an agent. And that agent is orchestrating a conversation across every module of SAP. Umm, and that doesn't necessarily require rewriting a ton of the underlying infrastructure. There is some infrastructure enhancement that needs to be done, but you've essentially just eliminated all the technical debt that exits... That sits at the web layer that most users interact with, because you're changing that entire experience to be something very, very different. Umm, and frankly, rewriting it in such a way that it's much more efficient as a software platform.

Rebecca Carr: So what I anticipate users, uh, experiencing around SAP in the future is a singular conversational interface. Uh, and they will receive data from across Every single one of the SAP modules, including SmartRecruiters, through that interface, which hopefully sits in the flow of work, umm, and uh, is owned by SAP and produces data insight recommendation answers to key business problems, uh, without needing to log into any one of the SAP systems, umm, at their core. And this is my product strategy. Umm, I don't believe that applicant tracking systems will exist in the future. I believe that all recruiting will happen in the flow of work. So I'm just sending that flow of work now to an SAP experience and agent... Agent-led experience that is, uh, under construction and is you're going to see probably here in the next six months from SAP. I mean that they're, they're really moving directionally aggressive or very aggressively in this direction.

Chad Sowash: Well, talk about that experience though, because I think I heard you say that it's not about the interface, it's about the experience.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: In, in one of your presentations, umm, it, it, it feels like it's literally you're, you're, you're trying to remessage kind of like the feeling that somebody should have. And, and, and instead of... I mean the, the experience is really the feeling, right? You get into an interface, it's like a thing.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So talk, talk about that. I mean, it's, it's, I think it's, it's great for not just staff and obviously sales messaging, but what does that mean from a product standpoint?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. So there's, there's sort of like a core experience which is I'm having a conversation and as I have that conversation, I'm presented with content. What does that content look like? How... Like, what elements of that content are personalized to me versus just a static screen. So let's just say today you engage, uh, with Slack and you're having a conversation with Slack... With Salesforce through Slack and it produces you an opportunity record that tells you a little bit about an awkward opportunity. That box is actually a fixed object in its current state. Like Slack is producing the same view for every single person. Umm, the reality is that as that integration evolves, you're going to see that box be very relevant to the user that's requesting the data in the first place. Umm, and so I think the personalization of what is returned by the agent is going to make it feel as though it was built for them.

Rebecca Carr: So that, that, that's like as I go and call an agent for information, then there's the proactive agent experience, which is I'm moving through life, I'm listening to a podcast and an agent that's following me knows that I just listened to that podcast and knows that that podcast just taught me a new skill and proactively approaches me and asks if I wanna document that skill and serve it up in an employment context. That doesn't happen... That doesn't have to happen through a business application like Teams or Slack or SAP. That could be happening through WhatsApp, SMS, umm, other productivity tools that exist around the world. Umm, and uh, that is going to create and umm, educate an agent on what any one of those more direct and reactive content experiences might look like.

Rebecca Carr: Uh, but I think personalization is the key. We have that today. When we look at... When you pull out an iPhone, it is... It's built for us, it feels like our... Like, if we exchanged phones I'd probably have a really hard time finding some of the things I normally would. Because you've set it up very differently. Business applications are not designed that way today. And I think that they will become, uh, much, uh, more integrated in sort of our own flow and how we want to consume information and where we want it to be, at what pace and time and, and position. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So it, you see... I mean, because that, that's a... That's going to be a... I would assume a, uh, huge change for a Goliath, like an SAP, right? So to be able to, to be able to, to be able to start to inject some of that into the culture, number one, can't be easy. We're talking about Germans, uh, a little bit different, uh, culture-wise than, you know, uh, freewheeling, you know, uh, Silicon Valley, Americans. So how does that, how does that all come together? I mean I know everybody at this point. Any smart tech organization is looking to literally try to rebirth their, their tech, their process. They, they know that they have to and that's why I would assume to some extent they're looking at... To, to you. But again this is a huge universe. An SAP universe is just large.

Rebecca Carr: I... So where there's a will, there's a way. Umm, and if you have leadership alignment, if you have a very clear and compelling vision to give your people and they understand what role they can play in delivering that with the proper incentive structure behind it, you can move mountains pretty quickly. Umm, I think where leaders fall short is they lack a level of decisiveness around, uh, exactly the direction that they wanna go.

Chad Sowash: Why?

Rebecca Carr: Because it's scary. Like if, if you... Especially as a large public company, you make a decision to go all in on AI, uh, or to pull 40% of your engineers off core platform to completely rebuild something and it goes sideways, your stock price tanks, you know, like, it has real ramification. Umm, but if you don't do it, you're gonna be in... Like, you're also gonna be in the same position. And so what ends up happening is you go, "Okay, we're gonna do some skunkworks project on the side," or, "We're gonna, we're gonna go all in." And then three weeks later, you're like, "Oh, but that customer called us and they really need you to build that feature." You need to have the courage to say no. You need to have the courage to look at that customer and go, "I know why you're asking for that feature, but here's why it doesn't matter. And I need you to trust me."

Rebecca Carr: You need to have built a foundation of customer success that, umm, customers, uh, can believe in. Uh, and you need to give people context. Umm, I think the biggest risk you run with large organizations like SAP, and I wouldn't necessarily say that they're, they're... This is, this is SAP today, is that you end up becoming this black box. The only people that actually know the direction and understand where you wanna go are the people sitting at the top writing the strategy. Umm, so your ability to cascade information is really important. But I, uh, you know, I, I look back at when we were sitting here a year ago, and I think one of the things that my organization responded to was just the very direct and honest statement that what we were doing was not good enough.

Rebecca Carr: That doesn't mean that I don't think they do bad work or that they haven't done... They haven't been doing the right thing for the last decade. It just means that the world changed around us and it's time to operate differently.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Rebecca Carr: And, uh, I think the more that you can deliver that message with confidence, with clarity, and then not just say it, but then offer a solution. Like, "Here are our options, and I'm gonna go with option two, and that's because it's going to hopefully get us to this outcome." And then repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. Uh, people will follow and they will... And they will want to be a part of the, the success story that becomes that pivot. It can be exciting. Uh, and I think that you're seeing some of that from SAP today. You certainly see that from the executive board, despite the fact that, uh, I think nearly all of them but one is German, [chuckle] off the top of my head. Yes. But they are... They want disruption. They understand that standing still will not work for them.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Rebecca Carr: And they are, uh, trying to move quickly. Now, I think the risk in that moment is that when you operate that way, you're constantly teetering on this border of... It's... There's some complexity to that message and to the work that needs to be done because you're operating in the unknown, but you're teetering on this edge of pure chaos. So if you don't build really strong systems around measuring how that progress is, is moving forward, the success of any one experiment that you run, then people just run in 500 directions, hopefully, like, throwing a lot of things at a wall to see if they can stick. And you start to create discomfort in your employee base. So be clear, be transparent, be systematic about how you implement it, and don't go backwards. Like, even when things aren't working out well, that's okay. You just need to run a different experiment or try, uh, try a new system. Collect a lot of feedback from your employees. Like, these, these are the things that we did, did along the way, and I think, umm, it, uh, it worked for us. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Talk about trust. And I think that, uh, you, you see it in the, you see it in the news where humans don't trust AI, they don't trust agents. And then you get, uh, the Workday case, Mobley Workday. And then you get, then you get Eightfold, right? You've got all of this that's happening. And you're trying your damnedest, right, to utilize AI and agents in a way to be able to change an experience where they're not... We're not sending candidates into a black hole, where they're actually getting responses and they know where they're at in the process and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? Things that we haven't been able to do in the last 20 years for some reason. I don't know. But this is, this is the path that you're moving. Talk about trust and gaining trust in this type of environment when we have all of that happening out in the public space.

Rebecca Carr: Well, you gotta love HR. The first [chuckle] AI use case that they went for was the hardest and the most dangerous. Umm, [chuckle] like every platform on the planet immediately was like, here's the biggest problem we have. We have too many applications. So we need to be able to screen and make recommendations on who you should speak to first. It is the hardest data set to maneuver around. Umm, there's a ton of subjectivity in how people screen. Uh, it is directly impacting of the candidate. And the reality is that that screening workflow is a big piece of time. Let's call it maybe 30% of a recruiter's day. But what about the other 70%? Uh, we, we could have immediately focused on the low hanging fruit that was all around just driving efficiency and moving people through workflows, or doing like very low risk tasks like interview scheduling, and...

Chad Sowash: Which everybody hates.

Rebecca Carr: Uh, yes, everyone hates. But what the thing about AI is, everybody tries.... The second you try something new, you engage with it, you give it a shot. Comes back with a mediocre response. You're like, well, maybe I need to do something a little bit differently. Still mediocre response. Ah, this sucks. It's not ready. Rejection, pure rejection. And the problem with that matching experience is it's very difficult to get it right the first time. And it's very uncomfortable when the result paints the individual that's either reviewing it or engaging in it in a, in a negative light.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Rebecca Carr: And that's exactly what's happening with these lawsuits right now. Umm, and it is creating distrust, distrust in the market.

Chad Sowash: Well, a black box is one of the biggest issues, right?

Rebecca Carr: Well, 'cause candidates don't understand how they're being scored.

Chad Sowash: It... Well, because there's no transparency.

Rebecca Carr: No, there isn't.

Chad Sowash: Hence black box.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So how do we get to the point where we can, we can analyze gaps, we can actually ask candidates to fill those gaps, not go somewhere else and try to, you know, grab it off the web or something like that, but verify and validate what's actually happening through a transparent process.

Rebecca Carr: And, and well, and the irony is, the reason why the score isn't usually, uh, very transparent to the candidate is because most engineering and product organizations at these companies aren't confident in their score. [chuckle] So they're, they're like, if a candidate goes and engages with this application process and I, I return a 660, and that candidate thinks they're an 85, they're like, oh, not only is this just offensive, umm, [chuckle] to me, but like, wow, this tech is horrible. And why is this company using this? And there's no way for me to make it better. Uh, and thus they hold it back and they're like, we'll get there. We'll show it in the future when we know we have some confidence around our matching.

Chad Sowash: The, the, the future's been forever.

Rebecca Carr: The future has... Well, yes, because the first... These... The first matching products that came to market were in 2017. So we talk about them as if it's been the last couple years.

Chad Sowash: It was before that, wasn't it Trovix had them you know.

Rebecca Carr: Well, sure, but I think as it relates to this, like, pure assistant matching capability that was, like, highly adopted. You really saw things pick up. Like 16, 17, 18 was when though... And they were all NLP that, like, fixed answers. Like, none of them were dynamic. Uh, they've since been rewritten a bunch of times. But now that tech is better. I think there Is this, uh, one awareness. You need to tell candidates that AI is being used in the process. And frankly, you shouldn't be afraid to because they're using it in their process.

Chad Sowash: Does it really have to be AI? I mean, because we're... I think we lean way too hard on those two letters. Because from a process standpoint, it, it could be RPA, it could be, it could be a, a dozen different things, right? Just the system. And I think that just because AI is out there so much, that's the easy thing to point out. Isn't it just our job to just make sure no matter what we use, that the system is transparent and it's fair. And the only way that we can do that is to be transparent, right? And, and actually show, hey, here are the requirements for the job. You only meet two two of six. Which is why you are at a certain percentage, right? I, I...

Rebecca Carr: Right. There's... There is a way to... The way that you present and you go... Going back to your question around experience, like the way that you present the data, the candidate is really important. It's not just about saying that your score... It's about... It's about saying that this is what we're coming to. And I actually said this to umm, uh, my engineers not too long ago. I was like, pre... I almost want to show it to them pre-application, like, here is my... Here is your... Here's what we're gleaning from your information. What do you wanna add to it? You don't have these other requirements. Why don't you, do you wanna provide some additional context? Almost like when you apply to college? [chuckle] Umm, and like every... There... None of those students have resumes, they just have grades and that's essentially what a CV is.

Rebecca Carr: But how, how are they getting into these universities? They're writing an essay, they're telling us more. And how do you make the application process much more conversational? Umm, and uh, how do you allow that moment to set an expectation for the candidate around their fit for the role before they apply? And ironically it then reduces the number of applications likely. Uh, because people don't apply to jobs that they aren't qualified for.

Chad Sowash: Well, if you set expectations up front, which we don't do really, right? I mean, we, we... It's... So if you're setting, like, as you had said, we're pretty much setting expectations up front. Here's what you need.

Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash: Here's your checklist.

Rebecca Carr: Yep.

Chad Sowash: You know, and then if they meet all those checks but you're not seeing it, then being able to engage them and say, "Whoa, wait a minute. There's, there's, there's one that you missed. Do you have X, Y, or Z?"

Rebecca Carr: Now, there's one element that, uh, most organizations, if they were sitting listening to this conversation, would like immediately jump in on, and that is that fraud is a big issue right now in the application workflow. That's a totally different problem to solve, though, and they are conflated as, like, sort of one application workflow. Umm, the use of AI by candidates in the workflow be... By candidates and by companies in the application experience, is completely different from evaluating application fraud and identity. Umm, I think they should be decoupled. I think that that is a much easier problem to solve. Uh, it is one of evaluating basic skills, asking for IDs. Like, there's amazing... There's, there's amazing different pieces of technology that have been introduced that can easily OEM into these workflows and solve that problem.

Rebecca Carr: But it shouldn't take away from the fact that you should be able to have a conversation with a candidate before they even click apply, uh, that says, "Hey, this is why you're a fit. These are the things that they might be concerned about. And by the way, these are probably the questions that you should be prepared for in the interview if you receive it as a result of that." Umm, and it... The, the better that that experience can become, can become today, which, for what it's worth, it's not very good because the data that candidates give us right out the gate is not very strong.

Chad Sowash: No.

Rebecca Carr: So we're gonna need a little bit of trust, umm, from candidates in helping them build out those records. And, uh, ironically, when Jerome founded SmartRecruiters, he had a vision that was to engage with candidates more directly, uh, in that application flow. Umm, I actually think it's gonna come to life in a slightly different way than what he had envisioned before, but we'll have to, because AI is gonna become so prominent in the hiring workflow.

Chad Sowash: When it comes to process and experience, I mean, uh, it seems like Chat is, is, is best to, to some extent for, for, for many. Because, I mean, what's the, what's the percentage of applies on mobile, uh, for, for SmartRecruiters?

Rebecca Carr: Oh...

Chad Sowash: Fairly high?

Rebecca Carr: I... It's actually lower than you would think.

Chad Sowash: Okay.

Rebecca Carr: Umm, it's lower than 50%.

Chad Sowash: Because of enterprise?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Because of enterprise.

Chad Sowash: Okay.

Rebecca Carr: Uh, I mean, it's obviously very, very high in certain industries like retail, hospitality, et cetera. Umm, but I... Applications through mobile devices, I'd say generally speaking, probably like, let's say a little south of 50%, umm, on average. But then if you add applications through chat experiences, they're actually still really low, like 10%.

Chad Sowash: Okay. Sure.

Rebecca Carr: People still are going back to the tried-and-true, "I'm gonna fill out the job application." And one of the things I'm really excited about, one... Like, announcement of the year for me, was this OpenAI jobs platform. Umm, for what it's worth, I... For what it's worth, I do not think... I think they made a mistake by calling it a jobs platform. Umm, but I agree that those types of experiences are gonna be an entry point for, uh, discovery of talent and of jobs. Umm, and that them leaning into that workflow will introduce a completely new market to them that will be immediately sticky and adopted in the same way that selling people things, selling people, you know, a dress or a purse, became prevalent on Instagram. Umm, it, like, if you're in that flow of activity, why not then introduce these other assets or entities? I think the issue that I take with it is that they're leaning on the fact that the job as we know it today, the description is going to live on forever. And I think that's completely false.

Chad Sowash: And I hope not. [chuckle]

Rebecca Carr: Uh, no. It's far too static. Umm, tasks will lead the way, work will lead the way, projects will lead the way, and they'll come to you on demand based on the types of questions that you're asking or, uh, the types of skills that you know. And that [0:37:24.4] ____.

Chad Sowash: How do you change that? How do you change that behavior for companies, for the actual hiring companies?

Rebecca Carr: Oh. [chuckle]

Chad Sowash: That to me, I mean, if, if we want to change this, obviously, you know, trying to change the resume, that's, that's one thing. And we do that, I think, through interaction and gap analysis and, and being able to have literally engagement and asking questions around the actual job. But the employer, they've been really the stick-in-the-mud for a very long time, using the same job descriptions, maybe changing here and there, but not very often.

Rebecca Carr: And you're, and you're seeing it evolve a little bit because you're seeing more and more jobs be created around projects. You even see that if you go to our, our website today. We have jobs that are posted, but really it is, we need you to help with like customer migration for this finite period of time. And we need these skills, none of which come from a job that you could... You pull off like one of those standard lists. Umm, and so we are seeing companies lean in this direction. I will say that, umm, workforce planning is one of the most disruptible and interesting areas of AI adoption that I think will come to us in the next couple years. Because... And it... And if you see it in the SAP context, if agents are following a business's performance on... Like, in real time, theoretically, they could make recommendations on where capacity gaps sit within that organization.

Rebecca Carr: Umm, and they could do it on demand. And they will start to probably make recommendations around, uh, how capacity will be met with both agents and people. Uh, and the second you start breaking jobs today into agent-led and human-led tasks, uh, the more that the, the title of a job will be broken, and or have to be completely relabeled. And we won't be able to come up with that, and so we will find people to deliver tasks. And so these bundles of tasks will probably be named something. Maybe it will be the name of a project or the, uh, name of a team. Uh, but these are the things we need people to go do and thus who can fulfill these tasks. And so I think by introducing agents into the org structure, we're gonna start to break that apart or at least we're gonna reframe what a job looks like and where you spend your time.

Rebecca Carr: Where... What utilization looks like is a good example. And that, that will, that will start us on that journey. I think that partnership and ecosystem with consumer products like an OpenAI... Well, B2C and B2B products, but OpenAI is both, but, uh, people that own consumer experiences like that jumping into this game will also help to facilitate that. [0:40:18.4] ____

Chad Sowash: How long do you think it takes?

Rebecca Carr: Oh, I think we are probably 18 months away from, like, seeing it start to really, like, find a flywheel in certain industries. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So do we start with, let's say, for instance, I don't know, recruiting, talent acquisition? Umm, because we already see companies talking about, talking about using different automations and processes and so on and so forth. But being able to teach them, uh, to be able to break down... I mean, I think what it all comes down to is most the, you know, talent acquisition teams, they're already understaffed, right?

Rebecca Carr: Yes. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: And they're told to use technology, uh, to, to do their job.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: And they're kinda out there trying to do it on, on their own.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Umm, how do we help them standardize and really understand and literally, I mean, again, this is, this is, this is your realm. How do we build agents to be able to take that workload off? You've already started doing that with scheduling and, and things of that nature. So how do you lead the charge with your clients to be able to really get that wave moving?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Well, I think that recruiting as a whole will always be at least 50% human-led because the process of finding someone that's a fit for your business is wildly subjective and requires a lot of context that agents will never be able to see. Umm, and I think a lot of the reason why people don't last and within companies. Actually, I think there was a survey run that it's either because the work that was described to them the day that they applied is not the work that they ended up getting, or they hate their hiring manager. And when everybody is following the same static process in a hiring workflow, you inevitably make a lot of mistakes because you miss some of the, uh, softer signals in the application workflow that would have identified who was really gonna be successful in your organ... Organization and not.

Rebecca Carr: And so I think, uh, what we encourage our customers to do is implement agents to do all the stuff that your recruiters shouldn't be and have them spend more time talking to people, networking, building relationships, umm, evaluating, uh, fit. And that could not necessarily be fit with the company. It could be team fit. There might be certain managers that lead in different ways that could...

Chad Sowash: But is that your job to be able to help them identify that? Because if you don't, they're not gonna find time to.

Rebecca Carr: It's my job to free up the time and then it's, it's the customer's job to educate recruiters on how to go do that really, really well. And right now technology is not freeing up the time. And so if I can free up that time, then I can actually make the process of hiring much more connected. But if, if you were the average candidate in the marketplace and instead of applying to what today is, could be hundreds of different jobs, spraying and praying, you know, uh, on, uh, all of these different companies, if you were just matched to three that we already knew were 90% of the way there and this was about really spending your time and energy figuring out which one is going to give you fire and energy, then every company will get so much more out of their talent.

Rebecca Carr: And today, unfortunately, that's just not the way the process works. They're, they're all... They all go to three interviews, and those three interviews are with the same three people, and those three people have no idea how to interview people. Umm, so what, what actually should be happening is those customers should be making sure that they're matching the right interviewers with the right candidates, letting them really unpack big problems, evaluate how, how they're going to perform within the business at a deeper level, umm, and, uh, teaching those interviewers how to ask the right questions in order to know that. Umm, and that could be, uh, the role of a recruiter or, like an... We hear some of our customers call them talent advisors now, umm, talent advisors within an organization.

Chad Sowash: So, hard question. And this is very introspective, I hope. Umm, seen, uh, CEOs over the years, uh, get to certain stages and literally just kinda, like, flame out. Uh, after acquisition, before acquisition, sometimes get to growth mode, that's it. How do you... How do you not flame out like that? I mean, it's gotta be something that you, you, you ask yourself, or do you not?

Rebecca Carr: The reason why I am not flaming out right now [laughter] is because this is... This industry, this, this, this product, like, this is what I love. Like, I wanna see it through, and I, like, naturally really wanna be a disruptor.

Chad Sowash: It's getting so much bigger, though, right?

Rebecca Carr: It's, but that's...

Chad Sowash: You can't manage the same way. You can't lead the same way.

Rebecca Carr: That, that's... But that's okay. Like, you need to keep, uh, you need to keep learning and trying and experimenting. And to be honest with you, if I had been a CEO for the last 10, 15 years, I wouldn't be able to lead the same way. Like, no, C... No CEO can lead the same way right now. Umm, there's so much uncertainty around us that you need to really challenge yourself to, like, listen, listen really intently to what the market is telling you, what the customer is telling you, to what your employee is telling you, and to react, and react with confidence, and react with decisiveness. Uh, and that... I, I hope that challenge never, never goes away from me because I, I talk a lot about, umm, uh, there's this concept of flow state. And on the y-axis, you have boredom, and on the x-axis, you have anxiety.

Rebecca Carr: And every person, and every CEO, has a flow state where, like, they need to be in a certain zone in order to actually be at their best. And I, my flow state is literally on the borderline of total mental breakdown. [laughter] Like, I do really well in high-anxiety situations, and that has served me really, really well. Now, I think that as the market evolves and some of these new disruptive technologies find their place, there will be a moment where I need to, you know, look more internally, stop, be more thoughtful and intentional about how I take the next step. But for right now, that's working for me, and it's working for me in a space that I really have a passion and great love for. Uh, if I didn't believe that we could do this, if I didn't, uh, if I didn't have, like, like, see the future through... Like, I didn't have it pictured... Like, drawn out in my brain, you'd probably see me hesitate.

Rebecca Carr: That would come through in a lack of confidence in the way I communicated to my people, and it would probably show up in the performance of my business. Umm, but I, I'm not there. And so I'm gonna power forward, and I'm gonna take note of everything I learn along the way and hopefully use it as tools for the next step. But I also am, umm, very, very vocal with the people that sit above me within the SAP landscape. I mean, obviously, I... My boss now is a much bigger company. Uh, I've had honest conversations with them of, "I can't let my fire go out. The second that fire goes out, the fire will go out for my people." Umm, and so this is what I need from you in order to keep that flame alive. Umm, and I'm not apolo... I'm not apologetic about asking for that, because it's only gonna make them better.

Rebecca Carr: And I think it's been a, a very respected opinion. Now, they might look at me and say, "Rebecca, at some point in time, we can't do that for you." And then that's just a really good signal that maybe they need a different type of leader. Now, I can either choose to become that leader and learn in that moment, or I can go find that same fire somewhere else. Uh, but, uh, it's certainly not... Uh, it's, it's not something that I worry about. It's something that I, uh, I'm just prepared for, mentally prepared for when and if that moment comes.

Chad Sowash: So, being a leader means that you're also a mentor, right?

Rebecca Carr: Sure.

Chad Sowash: So, talk about your people, because this is not... Again, introspective is about you, but also, you've got a big team, right? So, talk a little bit about mentorship, talk about how much that means to you. Uh, in, in some cases, you've got leaders underneath you. Maybe they just fend for themselves and, and, and, uh, they, they grow themselves and, you know, they're big boys and girls, they know how to do it.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: How do you lead?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, I, I mean, you cannot lead every person the same way. Everybody requires a different type of need, interaction, uh, a different style of feedback. Probably the one that I've come to love the most is everybody wants to be recognized very, very differently. Umm, and so a lot of my... I make it a point to build very strong relationships with every single one of them. And when I go into a conversation, I go into that conversation with the intent to listen and understand, not the intent to reply. Umm, I don't want to always give them the answer on demand because really, the way I respond, the way that I... Umm, the, the decision that I make as a result of their ask might be very different based on how I think they're gonna show up, and I need to be thoughtful about what that is for them.

Rebecca Carr: I think, [chuckle] uh, I, I, I got some feedback from actually a peer long ago that when giving feedback to anybody, just being extremely direct is the most... He used the word humane, but like, the, like, the most humane, but also the most effective way of giving feedback. "That didn't go well. I didn't think that went well, and this is why I didn't think it goes well... It went well. What do you think?" Umm, and so I've tried to implement that strategy as much as possible. It can feel overwhelming to people the first time they hear it, but as long as I'm consistent about giving feedback that way over time, then they know exactly what to expect and they adapt. Umm, but I've also learned that there's certain pieces of feedback that aren't worth giving to certain people because I know that they themselves will, umm, uh, will know that they made a mistake anyway and will, will, will fix it on their own without me needing to drill in.

Rebecca Carr: And I, I, uh, not to go off on a horrible tangent, but I am a huge believer in the Enneagram, the personality test. I know the numbers of all of my people, and those people will demonstrate traits which tell me if they are in a healthy state or an unhealthy state. And as a result of that, I know exactly how to respond and react. And, uh, I make them take this assessment, but I also spend time talking to them about that assessment, about how I'm gonna react to that assessment, about what they can expect from me in this moment. And, uh, it has given me a framework to sort of craft the way that I lead each person individually. Uh, but I'll say finally, hire great people and you... Like, they will lead themselves as well. I spend a lot of time picking the right people.

Chad Sowash: How do you, how do you know who the great people are? That's the hard part, right?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Is that, is that a personal gut feeling? Is that what, what does that look like for you?

Rebecca Carr: Some... Well, some, some of it's a gut feeling, but I, I would argue a couple things. Well, one, I need people that have genuine self-awareness. Umm, my number one interview question that I ask people is, "Tell me a piece of negative feedback that you've received and how it's impacted you." You would be shocked at how many people go, "I don't know if I've gotten much negative feedback." [laughter] I'm like, "Really? Come on. Like, you've got to... You got some negative feedback in some survey at some point in time." Umm, so I'm looking for a level of self-awareness, umm, that is, uh, personal to them, that they deeply want to be a great leader. 50% of the job is values alignment. My values as a leader and as a, as a company, our values are to focus only on the biggest problems.

Rebecca Carr: So I need someone that will, like, intently run at one thing and be able to say no. I need someone with a... With real grit and commitment, umm, like, almost a chip on their shoulder, because what we're doing here is, like, disruption requires real courage and a bold personality. And I need someone that wants to work with other people and believes that other people are their secret weapon to delivering success.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Rebecca Carr: And so I'm constantly testing for that. Umm, and I oftentimes ask leaders how they pick. Like, what's... Like, they're gonna have a bench that's going to support them. How are they making the decision on who's gonna work with them, and how are they expecting the people on that team to hire below them? If they're not as focused on hiring good people as me, then it's probably not gonna be a great match. Umm, but yeah, if I've... I have the most incredible executive team. I would not change one of them. They all balance each other out. They all bring great strengths. They all have great weaknesses. But they're here to do this with me. They, they believe in the cause, so to speak. Umm, they work incredibly hard. And each of them has a different leadership style and a team that matches that really, really well that I kind of stay out of.

Rebecca Carr: I want them to... I want them to build their own micro-cultures, because that, that are... The unity that I create at the executive team is what's gonna create success. Umm, a great engineer should fit really well with Michal and doesn't necessarily have to fit well with Steve. And so any sort of consistent framework of measurement or testing, like, we don't do at SmartRecruiters.

Chad Sowash: I get your sphere of influences pretty much inside the organization within departments. Okay.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So, what, what's next for rip and replace? Like, beyond that, right? What is next for SmartRecruiters inside of SAP?

Rebecca Carr: Well, uh, all of the customers of SuccessFactors and SuccessFactors recruiting...

Chad Sowash: How many of them?

Rebecca Carr: Many, many thousands, [chuckle] I'll say. Uh, that you... Well, there's many, many thousands that use SuccessFactors, like, over 10. Umm, but there are... Uh, there's many, many thousands of those that use SuccessFactors recruiting are gonna be migrating to SmartRecruiters. That in itself is an interesting challenge, 'cause most people just roll their eyes and are terrified at that moment. Like, who wants to migrate tools? Uh, but the way we are doing this is, I think, some of the most fascinating work that we're delivering this year.

Chad Sowash: Migration, and it sucks.

Rebecca Carr: It sucks. But you know...

Chad Sowash: So how are you gonna do it where it doesn't suck? [0:56:08.2] ____. [laughter]

Rebecca Carr: Well, well, we're using our AI-first mindset as a starting point. Umm, integration and migration sucks because it's mostly just, like, field mapping, error checking, continuous testing, like, ugh. But that's perfect for agents. So, like, let's just let agents do that and actually spend time working with these customers and how they're gonna rethink a hiring experience using a product that's designed to do just that, to deliver them seamless, embedded, uh, recruiting journeys within their flow of work. And that's... That is in itself is a change management problem, not a technical problem.

Rebecca Carr: So I'm trying... In the same way that I'm trying to remove all the administrative work from recruiting so that people can focus on having healthy conversations, I'm trying to remove all the administrative work from migrating and integrating two systems so that people can have a conversation about the future of work and, uh, partner with me, not just on, uh, enabling the existing SmartRecruiters experience, but building the SmartRecruiters experience of the future. And there's some amazing customers and amazing brands that, uh, sit within SuccessFactors today that are really excited to have that conversation. Umm, but on top of that, we have all of SAP. You said earlier, like, they are the world's largest enterprise software company. Uh, business runs SAP.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Rebecca Carr: And, uh, those data sets are data sets that no recruiting tech company has ever been exposed to. So the level of innovation that we can start to drive, we talked about workforce, uh, planning and agent versus human-led work and capacity, like, perfect, perfect innovation for me to go lean into and one that I'm being given the opportunity to go do right now. So I think you're gonna see, first of all, a lot more customers go live on SmartRecruiters. I mean, we're expected to, over the next several years here, 5x our customer base overnight, which is a lot. And...

Chad Sowash: Which is why you need this integration tool to be able to...

Rebecca Carr: Which is why... Exactly. [laughter] Make it easier.

Chad Sowash: Flip a switch.

Rebecca Carr: But I hope what we will be known for is, one, how easy it was to do that, and as a result, how much trust we built in those customers so that they would invest and lean into the AI journey that I know they're going to have to embrace in order to be successful in the future. Uh, and, uh, we're excited to do both.

Chad Sowash: Well, knowing that SmartRecruiters as well as SAP, umm, and all the different brands, they, they interface with tons of other point solutions and... So, I mean, that type of a product could literally be its own company.

Rebecca Carr: Yes. Yes.

Chad Sowash: Because you're talking business integration.

Rebecca Carr: Business integration, for sure. Yes.

Chad Sowash: Yeah, entirely. So is that, is that something that you guys, uh, obviously right now you're really disciplined and focused on...

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: The TA space. But I mean, is that something where with a, with a big name like SAP who owns business.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Is that a journey that you could, you could perspectively take?

Rebecca Carr: Oh, 100%. I mean, we had a mission for many years of connecting people to jobs at scale, and I say to the company... I say to our company now, this is about connecting people to work at scale. Umm, and work is fueled by business applications all around the world and, frankly, partner, uh, ecosystems that we've never even engaged with before. Umm, SAP has been... Has an incredibly strong ecosystem. That ecosystem is delivering a lot of insight to SAP that they, they themselves don't have, and they're proud of that insight. Umm, we will be great at facilitating business orchestration, but, you know, for one market, in one language, for one workflow, we might not be the best. And, uh, building through the eyes of, like, openness and being okay with accepting that data and leveraging it to our advantage doesn't weaken us, it strengthens us in the stickiness and adoption of the platform.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Rebecca Carr: So I'm, uh, I'm really encouraged by their support of our open strategy, uh, our OEM strategy, our, umm, our, our marketplace and partner strategy. Over time like this has, uh, been a real reason why we've been successful and it's gonna continue on just in a slightly different context now. Instead of integrating through, you know, APIs and just exchanging data, we're going to be speaking to someone else's agent and delivering it through our, our new experiences. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: So knowing how painful integration, moving from one ATS to the next ATS is.

Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash: Today. Right. If you wanna change vendors, umm, being able to... Now knowing that you're doing that, this inside of the, the SAP ecosystem now being able to do that outside, uh, that kind of change, I mean, because you don't know how many, how many, uh, hiring companies I've talked to that say, man, I'd love to be able to go over to this ATS, but change is too hard.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, yeah.

Chad Sowash: It is too... Does this make it easier so that people can be a hell of a lot more flexible?

Rebecca Carr: Yes.

Chad Sowash: To, to go toward the type of tech that, that, that they want for the future, as opposed to literally just sitting in the old stuff till it dies?

Rebecca Carr: Yes, I think it will, umm, we're building this, this integration... Set of integration tools and migration tools so that it can be applicable to moving to SmartRecruiters as someone totally net new. Uh, and I think what happened over the last several years is you had uh, people that were on an applicant tracking system and they hated the capability. So what did they do? They added on 15-point solutions and they integrated them all. Instead of actually just just changing and moving to something different or maybe reducing the scale of their tech stack because they didn't need all of that feature bloat. They just stuck, tried and true and added on these point solutions and they've created a disconnected experience that's not setting them up for success in the future.

Rebecca Carr: I need to back them out of that moment right now and in order to do that I have to back... I need to provide them a very easy path to taking all that capability and consolidating it into one. And that can happen through very simple migration and integration tools, uh, that bring them... Each and every one of those products, uh, together and all that data into one singular experience within SmartRecruiters. And that's external. That's not just migrating people off SuccessFactors. That's, that's much... A much bigger picture. Uh, and it puts a lot of pressure on product leaders to then just build really sticky, engaging products that no one ever wants to leave, uh, versus what I think happened, which is people got a little lazy. They knew you weren't leaving because you were stuck and it was painful to change.

Chad Sowash: Exactly.

Rebecca Carr: So it lowers the bar for what you as an organ... As a product and platform need to be delivering every single year in order to continue to, to win the love and trust of your customer base. And that, uh, that, that's actually a really exciting moment. It can be a very scary moment for a lot of leaders, but for me an exciting one because it, it forces a level of accountability into the ecosystem where the people that are successful and differentiated and solving the right problems win and the people that have not been doing that, uh, don't. And uh, that is, uh, bringing out the competitive side of me [chuckle] as a, as a CEO.

Chad Sowash: So it, it feels like you're talking about the uh, Point Solutions. Uh, are we going to more point solutions with orchestration or, or point solutions pretty much gonna go away because bigger ecosystems can, can hopefully have teams to build fast and/or partner.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, I mean the pendulum always swings back and forth. Umm, so inevitably some point solutions will survive this moment. Uh, but they're gonna have to pivot the way they think about partner and channel probably in order to be successful. The most of the little guys I think are gonna struggle or they'll be consolidated either in roll ups or through strategic acquisitions, uh, and they'll be... Become part of like a bigger platform play. We call it the sweet play, but I like to think of it as platform. Umm, but I... You, you're gonna get some of those point solutions that offer an adjacent workflow that's so valuable and so niche that the, the numbers... The math won't math for the platform to go invest in that direction.

Rebecca Carr: And so they'll become very strong channel and ecosystem partners that will receive a ton of leads from those big platforms. Uh, but uh, will be able to sort of move through the moment, will have enough financing to support themselves and will be successful in doing so. But uh, there will be far fewer recruiting tech vendors in my opinion in five years than there, there are today.

Chad Sowash: It feels like we've been trying to migrate from talent acquisition, talent management to a talent organization for a very long time, right? And there's a lot of gray area in between talent management and talent acquisition where there's literally... It's like nobody has accountability and/or responsibility of a lot of things that happen, right? [chuckle] It feels like, through this orchestration, especially with bigger ecosystems like, like the SAPs, umm, we'll be able to actually build tech to make that transition much easier so that we're looking at talent in a total life cycle.

Rebecca Carr: Yes.

Chad Sowash: Right. Where we... It's, it's talent came in. Oh, we're done. No we're not. We still have to develop them, we still have to look at intermobility. We have so much that we still have to do. Do you think that tech will drive more of that transition or do you think it's, it's gonna take more than that?

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, well, so I think tech might facilitate uh, an improvement to that transition but I think what really will is the idea that right now companies own your talent profile. Umm, the moment you submit an application, they are now the controller of that data set. You get hired, they move it between systems, they add to it with their own skills and their own performance reviews and all of that.

Chad Sowash: But that's my data. [laughter]

Rebecca Carr: And that's I think the point. I think that as we talked about with umm, the level of transparency that we're starting to pull forward into the application workflow, there's an argument to be made that more and more of that profile becomes your own and then that agents use that profile which builds and evolves and grows over time as a, as a vehicle to be matched to tasks and work and projects and that, that is not something created by the company, but owned and created by the candidate. Uh, and uh, technology will facilitate that. The more you start to lean into some of these consumer experiences, it... Be it LinkedIn or OpenAI or Indeed or whatnot, the more that I think you're gonna see, uh, profiles be leveraged across organizations instead of singular and, and within...

Rebecca Carr: And one of the problems with talent management in my opinion is that group was first focused on like internal job pages and things like that. And then all of a sudden it became about skills and everything about skills taxonomies and normalizing skills across jobs and, and whatnot. Uh, and that is such a good behemoth of a project to do that requires somebody that's uninvolved and unemotional about the moment to engage. Like skills are only, only as good as what you, the candidate admit to knowing.

Chad Sowash: Yes.

Rebecca Carr: [laughter] Umm, and so because you're not the owner of that profile, you take no real pride in making sure that it's up to date and manageable and useful to an organization. But I think the more you shift to this very transparent, uh, open box kind of moment around application, the more the candidate will take back their own development, their own career profile, their own performance and will use that across every company to which they engage with. Uh, and tech will do all the normalization and all that jazz that we've gotten our minds wrapped around.

Chad Sowash: Well, with an organization as big as SAP, and then we, we've heard about talent passports and I mean all the different things forever.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Uh, I mean it seems like it's gonna take a, a united initiative through a large platform to be able to create a universal profile of sorts that, that uh, the, the candidate obviously owns. But you know, obviously agents can act like I'm, umm, finishing up a project and that goes onto my dossier or whatever we wanna call it.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Umm, does that... I mean, does that feel like something that... Because we've been talking about it for over a decade.

Rebecca Carr: Oh yeah, but we've been talking about it with independent HR tech vendors instead of with the people that control work today. Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, things like that. Like, and those vendors are starting to have this conversation with the likes of SAP or the likes of Workday.

Chad Sowash: Does that move us faster in the right direction?

Rebecca Carr: I think it does, yes. Umm, and that those are the most interesting partnerships for us to invest in right now because they, they own the most powerful and sticky relationship with the employee of anybody. Umm, and that doesn't make someone like an SAP or a Google less valuable, but it just means that you can't offer op... You can't operate on two different agendas. By aligning with sort of how work will move through an organization, you can leverage each person's expertise to facilitate change. And I think that's what's gonna happen. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Oh, Rebecca, thanks again for having me back to Spain. This is a horrible.

Rebecca Carr: Good view.

Chad Sowash: Uh, yeah, [chuckle] no, I appreciate it. And thanks for... Thanks for sitting down and congratulations. Big applause.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, thank you.

Chad Sowash: On the, on the acquisition and more.

Rebecca Carr: Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 3: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or, umm, maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the gilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.