Nicole Hammond: [00:00:00] All right, everyone. Today is very, very, very special, and the theme is believe. This is a woman that I truly believe has not only disrupted the industry, but has made an amazing career for me and future of our company, SmartRecruiters.
So she is a forward-thinking, product-obsessed, people-first leader in the HR tech space. She is someone who actively reshaped how companies hire, a champion of AI and automation to help enterprises recruit faster and smarter at the same time when most talent acquisition technology hasn't caught up, true story, to the demands of modern organizations.
She's leading this approach at global scale, turning future of work ideas into real execution. True. She built her career across HR and tech, leading product teams at Jobvite, BranchOut, and Plaidum, before spending a decade at SmartRecruiters across SVP of Growth, VP of Product, and VP of Solutions Consulting, with a [00:01:00] tiny stint at Checkr as GM of Checkr Pay and chief of staff to the CEO in between.
Today, she is shepherding SmartRecruiters through its acquisition by SAP, a major, major milestone that she describes as building the future of work together, all while keeping the entire team intact and the product vision laser-focused on AI-powered recruiting. CEO at SmartRecruiters, please join me in welcoming Rebecca Carr.
Welcome.
Rebecca Carr: you're so good at introductions. You know I hate introductions. It's like my least favorite part of a meeting. Not because I don't like to get to know people, but because I hate introducing myself, and I really hate the voice of God when you're on stage. Like, just puts so much pressure, so much pressure on the moment.
That was
Nicole Hammond: I can't take credit, but I might just record it so you have it, and instead of saying, "I'm Rebecca Carr," just
Rebecca Carr: push play.
Nicole Hammond: Play.
Rebecca Carr: Just push play. Exactly.
Nicole Hammond: , today's gonna be so fun because, well, one, I know you, and this is just gonna be real fun because everything you say I'll be like, "Oh, I [00:02:00] remember that.
I remember that." And I'll probably learn a few things along the way. But, um, I wore a hat, not because it's Friday and I have bad hair, but only because there is a theme to today's. There is a huge theme around belief and just you taking us on this journey. Um, and I said it to you, and I'll say it again, like- Nobody else could have done this, Rebecca.
So I'm really excited for you to share, you know, part one of your early career and how all this came to be, and then part two, so listen in listeners, for, you know, that transition as a CEO, um, and the acquisition. That, you know, minor, minor detail we, we talk about daily.
So let's get right into it. Um, I think that listeners are listening with their ears open because they love to hear more about you, and this isn't the usual podcast because a lot of the times you're talking about a theme.
Um, you're talking about the world of work, et cetera. And it's not that we're not gonna talk about that, but we're gonna fo- focus more on you, um, you know, the Rebecca Carr of the world. So let's start with the, you know, uh, industry question, [00:03:00] and I want you to share with our audience what your hiring happy hour is as we think early career pre-CEO.
Rebecca Carr: a lot of my journey has taken place at SmartRecruiters. In fact, it feels like a very short period of time, but it's been a very long period of time, and that's when I think about my career in its totality, it's been about half. Um, and so when I say early career, I'm gonna go with like the first three q- like 75%, 'cause I still feel like I'm in my early career. Um, when SmartRecruiters first got started, I remember I kinda took a le- leap of faith, and I came, and a lot of it was actually very accidental how I ended up at SmartRecruiters. One of the, the folks that was at SmartRecruiters was demoing the product, and they accidentally sent out a real referral link, uh, via LinkedIn.
And I was like, "Oh, that's so nice. Bill's asking me to apply to this job. Why not?" Like, it wasn't intentional.
Nicole Hammond: that.
Rebecca Carr: actually applied to the demo account, which is how I got [00:04:00] connected to
SmartRecruiters. my gosh.
Think about just how crazy that is. But when we s- we were getting started, obviously we were still trying to define our identity and- figure out sort of where we wanted to play SMB, enterprise, all the above. And, uh, I- we decided to move up market. And I remember this crazy analogy where we were all sitting in a room Brett Queener, who at the time was our COO, said, "I feel like instead of invading the castle," this is like the analogy he used, "Instead of invading the castle and, like, crossing the moat and going in, uh, to the enterprise like everyone else does," with the assumption that, like, the, the journey up to finally breaking down the doors was this, like, long march from SMB to mid-market to enterprise. Uh, we're just gonna helicopter in, and we're just gonna land ourself right over the top of the, uh, uh, of the castle. So we decided to do that, and we were like, "Well, we need to go find a crazy [00:05:00] account that's gonna be that thing." And interestingly enough, the same moment, we got this inbound from, uh, Bosch, uh, obviously huge German company, crazy big, private, but, like, still, like, a just unbelievably valuable organization, very
Nicole Hammond: Yes.
Rebecca Carr: Came in and they're Totally. to San Francisco, and we're gonna do a day-long workshop with you." And I thought that that was a little odd because usually we do a Z- like you do a Zoom or like a virtual call. Bosch showed up at our offices in an alley in San Francisco, like very startup, mind you.
Nicole Hammond: Green bean bags. I remember.
Rebecca Carr: And we were, like, sitting in this little conference room
Nicole Hammond: The fishbowl, all glass.
Rebecca Carr: The f- it was the fishbowl. Like, it was k- surrounded by glass. And we did this whole workshop, and so it, so started this journey with Bosch. Um, but throughout the whole thing, [00:06:00] they'd leave the room, they'd leave the conversation, they'd leave the follow-up call.
And I remember us all just looking at each other like, "There is zero chance these people pick SmartRecruiters."
I was like, "What a, like, career, like, just torpedo this poor man will..." Because we were so little, and we didn't have an enterprise customer, and we had a lot of passion and power around the space, but we certainly were not there. And, um, I remember this, this little evaluation went on for several months, and then they called me for, like, the fifth time to Stuttgart to present. And this time I was gonna meet with G13, which if you don't know anything about big German companies, like, and especially
Bosch, they, their leaders are all assigned numbers at Bosch.
And, uh, in the case of HR, the 13 was the number. And simil- as I understand it, similar to, like, a, a sports
Nicole Hammond: Oh.
Rebecca Carr: if when they retire they, they retire the
Nicole Hammond: [00:07:00] Okay.
Rebecca Carr: so like no one ever gets to be G13
Nicole Hammond: Lucky number 13.
Rebecca Carr: and so now I guess the head of HR is not 13, is my understanding. So they, they kept referring to him as G13. By the way, to this day, I like, I think I could maybe recall his actual name, but like, I, like they never actually called him by his real name. And so they called me into this office they, for two hours, they prepped me on this, this, this meeting with
Nicole Hammond: What?
Rebecca Carr: They would almost like interview. So I would, I would sit there and they'd ask me a question and I'd provide an answer, and then they'd say, "Oh, I wouldn't say it that way.
I'd say it so..." And like this, the, like the project team was like very, very focused on prepping me. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is very, very stressful." They then like walk me to this other building where they said that he was coming, but then they said like, "He's coming in a helicopter." Is crazy that we're being asked to do this. he was in a helicopter. [00:08:00] He ca- comes in the room and all I remember was this man had the most epic alligator shoes on, like epic alligator shoes.
, And I just like looking at this guy's shoes, and he comes up to me and I go, " Hi, I'm Rebecca Carr. I run product for SmartRecruiters. Um, I'm really excited to meet you." And he go- he doesn't, he says, "Hello." And then he goes, "Why do you think you deserve to win this over the greatest software platform of all time in SAP?"
Nicole Hammond: Oh, the irony.
Rebecca Carr: Oh, the irony, right? And I provided an answer about flexibility and partnership and our willingness to learn and build with them because that's where we were in our journey, and my excitement around the team, and I had all these different things. And he goes, that'll work." A- and, and I was like... He left. Then he left. And I, and I remember going, "Oh my God, I think we just did this." I [00:09:00] was like, I was like, "Wait a second. Did we just do this?" And I got on the plane. We did. We, we won the account. Um, and for the next, my God, how many years?
Nicole Hammond: There's--
Rebecca Carr: you and I
Nicole Hammond: Yeah, we went all over.
Rebecca Carr: On
Nicole Hammond: Germany, India, everywhere.
Rebecca Carr: it was a blast and we were successful in deploying them on time and with all the capabilities. And to this day, they're still a customer of
Nicole Hammond: Still a customer.
Rebecca Carr: So like, uh, people ask me all the time, do you think was one of the inflection points of SmartRecruiters?" Like, if you could like pin it on one thing.
And that, that deal was it.
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Rebecca Carr: I don't think we would be here today without it.
Nicole Hammond: Oh, such a good blast from the past to just going down this, this path with you and remembering moments like that where, I mean, Queener was amazing, but very visionary and big visions, and he wasn't wrong, right? Like jumping straight to enterprise was not [00:10:00] easy, but I think it was the testament of working with a company that's so strong in their process, like a German-based company of Bosch with workers' council and like exceeding rules world.
Think about like any country in the world that has the most rules and additional layers of complexity, that's Germany. And not in a bad way, because I think that set us up for GDPR across the world. All these things that we are able to do confidently and then spread to other enterprise customers. Um, so you are absolutely right.
That was an inflection point for Bosch. But I want you to share more about those early months, right? That first go live was how many months after, and how many hiring processes did Bosch go live with?
Rebecca Carr: I think they had a side one
Nicole Hammond: Oh.
Rebecca Carr: they, they a- they anchored at one. But they, they had a couple like nuanced things here or there, but we deployed a bunch of different countr- countries. It was 94 days, give or
Nicole Hammond: Yes, it was
Rebecca Carr: take.
Nicole Hammond: three [00:11:00] months. Yes.
Rebecca Carr: Like 110,000 people were in the first go live. Uh, uh, I mean, they have over 400,000 people that work for them today, so that like it was about a quarter. But very, very
Nicole Hammond: Yes.
Rebecca Carr: It was the craziest couple months personally 'cause I was never home. Uh, but it was really fun. Uh, I have, like, some of the best memories of work, just with the people that I worked with at SmartRecruiters, but to build that kind of rapport with a customer, to be around the world, to experience all these different things with them, um, to trust each other, you realize how important that connection is to success.
Um, I then think about what happened during COVID and how we all retreated to our own homes. Like, a, a lot of our early success was because we were sitting in the same room with people. We were, uh, we were going to different places. We were learning and [00:12:00] experiencing the culture and processes of these organizations, and were able to adapt them really quickly.
And we've obviously found ways to still continue that success in a remote world, but it was really, really powerful. I think that, uh, we wouldn't have been able to do it other, any other way if we hadn't spent that kind of time
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. I think we hear often that it's the people and the trust that you build at SmartRecruiters that truly differentiates us from other technology in the market, and I think that's still tried and true.
And I mean, there were rocky times, right? You think enterprise customer, there's going to be product needs that we didn't have yet, and they had your ear, right? You were right there as the executive sponsor.
You, um, were a product leader. And so
Rebecca Carr: Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: very collaborative, but not everything came the next day. And so I think having that people connection, that trust, they trusted we would get there with them. Um, and they also got to throw in their, you know, list of, "Hey, I would like this."
Rebecca Carr: But, but [00:13:00] we, we, we did our part too. Like, I really do think that partnership is very bidirectional, and I think one of the mistakes a lot of make when they-- and when they decide to invest or take a bet on a startup like that, is that they throw around their own power and
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: because they are
Nicole Hammond: Sure.
Rebecca Carr: these organizations a lot of money, um, with this, like, list of expectations that they absolutely need, and they get angry, and they threaten when they don't do it. Uh, Bosch wasn't like that, though. They, um, they wanted me to push back and tell them no, and they wanted, uh, to have a healthy debate around why they thought they were right, they wanted me to offer innovative new perspectives that might make them better. And so did we deliver features for Bosch? Uh, of course we did. But, um, we did that because we knew they would serve a
Nicole Hammond: Totally. [00:14:00] Yeah. uh, in the SmartRecruiters customer base. And equally so, they tried to, to, to do things differently, uh, way outside the Bosch comfort zone that we had made recommendations toward. And the hiring processes is actually a really good example of that. We thought standardization was important because Bosch was on a
Yep
Rebecca Carr: toward productized software and, like, real SaaS, not just, like, custom on-prem infrastructure. Uh, and, uh, they took that to heart, and they compromised, that I think just strengthened sort of our ability to, um, to, uh, get through it.
So yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. I think the other piece that we also built out after that was the change management. And yes, you know I love change management. But the whole thing of having these rules for design of candidate first and coming back to that, right? They were really, really, um, religious about doing that and ensuring that was the [00:15:00] priority, and I think that helped to build the design to support that.
But then there was also the standardization with global flex. And so all of this, like, methodology for us came out that we could then replicate with other customers with hiring success.
Rebecca Carr: which we
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: did. I mean, we talked about that all the time. I-- Your, your point on candidate experience is really important. Um, always asked themselves in every choice they made, what will be the impact on the candidate? and i-if it, if it-- the candidate experience was gonna be awful because they wanted to fis-fa-facilitate some crazy back office
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: they told the people on the process side no
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Rebecca Carr: And they just like held the line there.
And I think that they, they were probably one of the first customers that actually had that as almost like a checklist item. Will the candidate be Yes. Uh, and, uh, I think we, [00:16:00] we did. We encouraged a lot of that same questioning, a lot of that same templatization, that, that 80% global consistency, 20% regional customization.
All those things became part of like the manual on how to deploy s- uh, SmartRecruiters and, uh, their fingerprints are all over it, and they've made a lot of other people very successful, uh, because we were able to, to really partner with them on that documentation and
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Rebecca Carr: that
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
you've seen Swathi in the past months, years. Uh, what are the, like, remember whens or like, "Oh my gosh, here we are, and look how far we've come," kind of moments that, again, make this amplified in just how we continue to partner?
Rebecca Carr: first of all, it's always so lovely to see her and anyone on her team. She has now-- like her own
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: has accelerated because of the success, and I'm so proud to watch her own more and more around this, uh, [00:17:00] this process. I think when we get together, we talk a lot about how hard it was in the moment, but how great-- like what real grit and determination can do to drive outcomes on the personal and professional level, not just the organizational level. Uh, and so we tend to talk a lot about that because our journeys have both gone up and to the Yeah.
Uh, but we also talk about the funny stories, the, the crazy things that happened to us in certain cities, the lunches that we had together. Last time I was with her, uh, Eva was
Nicole Hammond: Aw.
Rebecca Carr: Uh, Eva was one of the consultants that worked on the project and now works for Bosch and works with
Nicole Hammond: Oh, wow.
Rebecca Carr: So she ended up, going and transferring to Bosch and, uh, I was talking about how when we went to Shanghai, I, uh, was at the top of, uh, like the second-- Shanghai Tower. It's like the second largest building in the
Nicole Hammond: Oh, wow.
Rebecca Carr: And I went with a bunch of the Bosch people to go to the top, but [00:18:00] one of them was deathly afraid of heights. like, he was-- the-- his back was like against the elevator wall, and he was shuffling along the side of the, like the observation deck, like wouldn't go near the window. But the other ones like kept walking like right up to the edge. enough, there was an opening in the edge and no rope. So I remember thinking like, "That's not safety standards
you tell a lot of personal stories about Uh, those trips and, uh, they live on and they had impact on them too, and that makes me feel really good. I'm not the only person r- that remembered the moment. They did as well because it felt like an inflection point to them in their early careers and has accelerated their own journeys.
Nicole Hammond: And Bosch is an SAP customer as well, and so now they get the best of both worlds, right? Because they have SR as part of the SAP family. What has been the sentiment from Bosch around this? What are they [00:19:00] excited for us to amplify within the SuccessFactors SAP world?
Rebecca Carr: Well, obviously they're big SuccessFactors, uh, in like f-full stack customers. Um, uh, actually a lot of the same members of the team, Michael, uh, ended up deploying SmartRecruiters and then SuccessFactors.
Nicole Hammond: Oh, wow.
Rebecca Carr: yeah, so like they, they, they had a lot of the same project people. I mean, now the, the, the sheer access to data and insight that our mutual integrations have only makes the other half of that party successful.
So if I know a lot about their employees and their talent mobility strategy because I can now read and be integrated into SuccessFactors, I can bring that into the recruiting experience. I can bring more candidate data into the front end of the process, and that's a very valuable workflow for Bosch, especially since they're so committed to talent management and mobility. And equally so, recruiting data and recruiting experience can feed how they, [00:20:00] uh, catalog skills, how they create jobs, how they think about what the job means to them, um, how they match internal-- do the reverse matching of internal candidates back to jobs they have, um, how they do capacity planning. All of these things could be highly valuable to them, and they are, I would say, on a very accelerated journey around AI.
They've been working on it for a very long time and have started to think about how they're gonna integrate their own innovations. I mean, Bosch as, as a, as a, a product company is themselves very Yeah. and they've built a lot of stuff themselves. I think SAP and now SmartRecruiters offer them this really interesting ecosystem that they can plug their own custom agents into. Autonomous Enterprise just announced at Sapphire not too long ago. Uh, one of the big themes of that announcement was just how open we wanted to be, not just to industry-leading LLMs and products, [00:21:00] but to what customers, um, bring to their own
Nicole Hammond: Sure.
Rebecca Carr: And so Bosch can, can play into that as someone that really believes in that approach.
Nicole Hammond: And it's crazy to see such a large organization be on the forefront with us for this, but I think that, you know, as much as Bosch did for us, we probably did a lot for them in the world of SaaS, in the world of now agentic to help them to have the processes and roles to support this going forward, to be able to move as quickly as innovation is happening.
So that's super exciting. Okay. Now, I don't love the word regret, but I'm gonna ask. As you look back on the years of Bosch, what's one thing that you wish we did or did differently, um, that would have just amplified things?
Rebecca Carr: . I think the way that we worked with Bosch was, like, important to us in the moment. I think what we built for them was all the right things. Um, I think that [00:22:00] you go-- Implementations become this moment, and they usually last for, let's call it like, nine, 12, 18 months max, depending on if you phase or big bang or things like that. what ended up happening is, like, we did that with them, and then we transitioned them into a fantastic customer experience. We had CSMs and account managers and folks like that. Um, I think the level of feedback loop, the d- the depth of the feedback loop, though, that we created in the implementation helped us move faster, and we lost that in that transition.
And a lot of what I've been thinking about with my own product organization today is how do you keep that level of, like, really high touch alive in an agentic
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.,
Rebecca Carr: We used people to keep that feedback loop tight. But, like, how does one now, um, stay in front of, uh, the adoption of a product, um, how people are using products, engaging [00:23:00] with users as they're giving feedback to the product, both in writing or otherwise, and then immediately implement that like, a really, really tight loop.
A lot of organizations do this very well. Um, there's a lot of people that we're starting to experiment too with how do you give, uh, like, UI feedback on demand and then actually use agents to build and deploy that feedback so that people can engage with it and give you subsequent feedback. Um, I wish we had had that opportunity with them because what we delivered was so powerful in those 18 months that, uh, I wouldn't say the relationship changed, it just, uh, we didn't have in product as tight a connection to them ongoing, um, because we
Nicole Hammond: Wow.
Rebecca Carr: And I wish we had because, uh, I think we could have kept learning with them even more. Um, but they moved off the projects, we moved off the projects, new people all came in. Um, and I'd love to kind of keep that customer [00:24:00] experience consistent through the life of a contract, not just the first, like, critical
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I love that. I think it's a great point, and we talk often about how quickly agentic is moving, and innovation, and
feedback loops. And, you know, right now there's that spreadsheet and this spreadsheet, and that person with their own spreadsheet, and it's like, how do you centralize? How do you execute in an effective manner?
Um, so pretty powerful.
All right. We are gonna move to more about you personally outside of this wonderful world of work. And
Rebecca Carr: Okay.
Nicole Hammond: Rebecca, right? Like, what has made Rebecca Rebecca as we think of outside of work? And so as you think about your personal life, as you think about everything, um, what's your happy hour outside of work?
What brings you bliss? What de-stresses you?
Rebecca Carr: As you were just saying that, I was thinking what makes Rebecca Rebecca? My mom I am like the-- [00:25:00] I am the perfect balance of my parents. I don't know if when you got older you realized like, "Oh yeah, I, I can see my s- my parents
Nicole Hammond: Oh, yeah
Rebecca Carr: um, and their parents in me."
But my goodness, my mom is like the sharpest, like most emotionally intelligent, like just j- like judgy in a good way, but like also like unbelievably high bar. Um, I mean, she sits at the dinner table now with my kids and I hear her in the background being like, "Why are you gonna do it this way? 'Cause you're a winner."
And I'm like, "You're not allowed to say that anymore. We're millennials." But, but like, uh, but like it-- my mom, and then my dad, who's like the most responsible and ethical person of all time. But, um, no, r- what makes Rebecca Rebecca is, is Rose, Marie, and Walt. I'll tell you that much. But, but, um, to your point, what do I de-stress?
I-- So I was an athlete in college, and, uh, being f- like getting like that time to be physical, be [00:26:00] outside, uh, not have music on, not be in front of a phone is really important to me. Uh, and in the years when I was first-- with SmartRecruiters, when I first met my husband prior to that, I was really into triathlons in San Francisco.
I've-- Since I've had kids, I, I haven't had as much time to be a triathlete, but
I did Ironman. I love long distance
Nicole Hammond: You're crazy.
Rebecca Carr: Um, and so I did a lot of Ironman, uh, 70.3s, fulls, the whole gamut. Uh, and it was funny, everybody would always say when you're training, when you're working out, like- What do you listen to?
Do you, do you digest podcasts? All of that. Uh, no, never.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: would just think. I would just, like, be in my own head and, uh, it brought me a lot of joy to do that, and a lot of personal success to say that I actually had conquered something that big. But, uh, it's funny, my, my [00:27:00] tactic...
For anybody that does this, is, like, very quiet, like, likes peace when they're working out. If you ever do, like, a marathon or a long distance event, I used to, um, for the Ironman, for miles on the bike or miles on running, I used to come up with a list of 26 people in my life. You were actually one of those people at one point, Nicole, by the way. Uh, 26 people in my life, and I would memorize in order their names, and then as I would run and I'd see the mile marker, I would think about that person for just that
mile. my gosh.
And then, and then the second that I got to the mile marker, even if I was in the middle of a
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: I would just change to the next person. And I'd think about conversations I had, what I wanted to tell them, what I wish they would do more of, which I wish they would tell me, um, how much I enjoyed being with them, what I, what I hated about them. Like, it just
Nicole Hammond: Wow.
Rebecca Carr: everything. I would just think only about that person, and it helped move the miles [00:28:00] faster.
Nicole Hammond: incredible
Rebecca Carr: If I were to do a marathon today, I'd do the same thing, for sure.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah, that's insane. Wow. Oh my gosh, that's so powerful. Well, we know the stats with athletes, right? Especially women athletes and CEO status, C-suite executives, like, it is no joke that you c- overcome trials and tribulations, you have methods to your madness, you live in a world where, you know, you can always do better.
Um, and so that is pretty powerful. And you rowed in college, right?
Rebecca Carr: I did. I was a rower. Also the most peaceful and amazing sport of all time. Uh, like, I used to call it the ultimate team sport, and I loved it because no one was the superstar. Like, I really liked that you had to, you had to win as a
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: and no one... Yes, inevitably there was somebody that, like, had an amazing erg score, but the world didn't
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Rebecca Carr: And without the other people around them, they couldn't have
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Rebecca Carr: [00:29:00] And so I just like the camaraderie of that, the, the equity of
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Love it. I'm seeing indirect leadership skills just with the individual sport, the team sport.
Okay.
Rebecca Carr: Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Third part, which is my favorite, and I'm really excited 'cause we get to do this twice, and they'll be different, but we're gonna go through some this or thats. Have you played?
Rebecca Carr: Well, I've played in other contexts, but I'm... This... Yeah, you're-- This will be fun, I'm sure. You're good at this.
Nicole Hammond: this first one is more around just the industry, um, questions around your thoughts around TA, world of work, et cetera, and then of course, personal ones related to sports and maybe some other topics.
Rebecca Carr: Okay.
Nicole Hammond: one that I ask everyone, resume or LinkedIn profile?
Rebecca Carr: LinkedIn profile.
Nicole Hammond: Love it. Uh, AI efficiency or human connection?
Rebecca Carr: Human connection.
Nicole Hammond: matters or potential matters more?
Rebecca Carr: Ah, potential matters so much
Nicole Hammond: Love it. Love it. Human potential or process perfection?
Rebecca Carr: [00:30:00] Human potential, but I-- like, that's actually very hard. I, I don't like the word
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Rebecca Carr: I think process agility is
Nicole Hammond: Okay. And you can choose both. This is a choose your own adventure.
Rebecca Carr: Yeah. I-- like, I would say that you need great talent with a lot of grit, belief, potential to execute well-defined processes, but be unromantic about holding to them.
Nicole Hammond: Unromantic. I'm gonna take that one with me. Okay. Reward or recognition?
Rebecca Carr: Oh, recognition.
Nicole Hammond: World of work as we know it or rebooting work entirely?
Rebecca Carr: Oh, rebooting work entirely.
Nicole Hammond: I threw that one at you. building technology or building confidence in people?
Rebecca Carr: Well, building confidence in people. Like, tech is an enabler of people's success, not the driver of it.
Nicole Hammond: Agree.
Rebecca Carr: Um,
Nicole Hammond: Love
Rebecca Carr: yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Okay, this is a three-part. Swim, bike, or run? All the parts of an Ironman.
Rebecca Carr: [00:31:00] Swim.
Nicole Hammond: I would...
Rebecca Carr: I loved the
Nicole Hammond: Wow.
Rebecca Carr: I loved
Nicole Hammond: Wow. And they say Ironmen, uh, individuals that are really, really good are strong in the swim,
Rebecca Carr: do you know why,
Nicole Hammond: No
Rebecca Carr: so it's a-- So I- I liked the swim because I swam in high school and I was good at-- Like, the swim itself is not that long if you've ever been a swimmer. It's like this, it's the same length as a warmup at a swim
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Rebecca Carr: So like, you don't... But the reason being, and a lot of professional swimmers become triathletes afterwards, um, it is not, it's because you're not tired going into the
Nicole Hammond: Huh.
Rebecca Carr: Like swim itself is like, takes a lot out of
Nicole Hammond: Sure.
Rebecca Carr: lot, and then you go into the bike
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: If you had just done a warmup, you feel
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Rebecca Carr: and so then you take off in the bike as a result. But the biggest barrier to [00:32:00] entry in becoming a triathlete is that a lot of people don't know how to swim and they can't do the swim. So, uh, that's why a lot of people don't get into it. Uh, but if you're good at it, you're usually very good at being a
Nicole Hammond: Yeah, I would... I could see that. I've, I've done a sprint and I'm like, "Okay, yeah, good." But I was tired after that swim, which totally not even close to a warm-up. I'll stick to running. Um, Pilates or rowing?
Rebecca Carr: Pilates now. I love Pilates. Oh my goodness. I do Pilates every
Nicole Hammond: Love it.
Rebecca Carr: I have my own reformer.
equipment. Go through your names and do that again, or do you have a new thing that you go through when you're doing... This was my Pilates move, by the way, the...
um, no, I don't. I actually, uh, I take virtual
Nicole Hammond: Oh.
Rebecca Carr: that are Oh, that's... So I have like a TV in my Pilates room, and I, uh, use this woman in Atlanta. She's fantastic. And, uh, she do- she comes out with weekly programs [00:33:00] I w- I-- almost as if I'm in a live class in a
Nicole Hammond: Love it. Love it.
Rebecca Carr: Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Uh, cook or eat out?
Rebecca Carr: Eat out.
Nicole Hammond: Uh, but now with gardening or working out?
Rebecca Carr: Oh, I love
Nicole Hammond: So I've learned.
Rebecca Carr: I know. I-- So I bought this house last year and it c- the previous owners were crazy garden people. And actually, it's one of the things I loved about the house. I was like, "Oh, I would love to have great gardens." Turns out it's a ton of work, like a lot of work. But have like a beautiful vegetable garden now and like pretty flowers, and I, it's like my pride and joy.
And when the grass gets mowed, it like gives me like peace.
Nicole Hammond: last one. Vacation or staycation?
Rebecca Carr: Oh boy. I like vacations.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: I do. 'Cause I'm always here Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: you know, my r- my bedroom is like below us. Like, I'm never leaving[00:34:00]
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Rebecca Carr: little roof
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Rebecca Carr: So I wanna get out and I like to... My kids, I like lo- are great when they travel, and so I'll
Nicole Hammond: That's important.
Rebecca Carr: explore.
Nicole Hammond: Oh, Rebecca, this has been so much fun. Um, for all of you listening, you know where to find Rebecca. Uh, she's on LinkedIn, she's all over the world speaking, um, and she is the CEO of SmartRecruiters, an SAP company. Thank you for being here, and thank you for, again, continuing the belief as we go through this next chapter, which, for those of you that are listening, stay tuned for part two with Rebecca.
Rebecca Carr: Of course. Thank you.