Decoding the C-Suite: Part 4 - The Product

0:17Hi there and welcome to Decoding the C-Suite, a five-part mini-series from Recruiting Future about how leadership really thinks about AI. Throughout the series, I'm in conversation with five senior leaders at Smart Recruiters, seven months on from their acquisition by SAP, exploring how each function around the leadership table sees AI and what talent leaders can learn from it. Today, we turn to the product. The technology is moving faster than any buyer can absorb, which creates a genuine design problem, because building for the boldest customers means losing everyone else, while building for the cautious means falling behind.

1:00Shefali Nekke is VP of Product Design at Smart Recruiters and she lives through this tension every single day. We talk about designing for a spectrum of readiness rather than an average user, why she refuses to keep designing for the old world and how her team stays ahead of a field that changes daily. There's also a very human story in here about what it takes to merge two teams from two very different companies. This is Decoding the C-Suite, Episode 4, The Product. Tell us a little bit about your role, but also the scope of that in terms of the integration between smart recruiters and SAP. Yeah, absolutely.

1:42I'm our VP of product design at Smart Recruiters, and my team handles everything user experience related within the product, and a big chunk of that recently has been integrating into the SAP world, which has been, you know, a really great journey. And we've learned a lot in the process. And a big part of that has also been combining some of our teams to make that happen. Let's talk about that because you've integrated some of the SAP team into your smart recruiters team, haven't you? What does that mean? What does that look like? How has that happened? Yeah, absolutely. So from a broader R &D perspective, we brought over 100 engineers, many PMs and designers as well into our group, which I think has been fantastic.

2:25Because when we're looking at integrating the two systems that are both quite complex, having that expertise come and sit in us, in our teams, has really been invaluable. And we integrated those teams right away. So particularly ones working on integration, migration, data sync, reporting, all of this, they've come together and blended. And that way we have the expertise, you know, right in the team. and we're able for both sides to understand the complexity, understand the context and blend those together better. And then even from a cultural perspective, right? Like ways of working, because there's nuances that go just beyond the technology and product as well.

3:06I think that's really interesting because there's a real sort of human perspective to this, isn't there? I mean, what have been the challenges with bringing humans together from sort of two very different sides of this? Yeah, it's interesting. So I would say, in a really great way, big picture, everything is very aligned, right? Both groups are very curiosity-driven, very innovation-driven, high willingness to learn, very open. So I think from that perspective, culturally, we blended really well. It was more of the smaller things that get you, right? The tools, the little ways of working, the rituals, remote versus in person.

3:44There's all these different combinations. And I think the day-to-day complexities are the ones that we had to work out a little bit and figure out versus the bigger picture alignment was actually much easier because we have this common vision that we're driving towards. What was the most challenging part? What was the most difficult thing that you had to overcome? I think the changing of some defaults, probably. So, both, whichever team you are coming from, you're used to a certain way of working. And I think we had to go through sort of like a, everyone had to do a bit of onboarding again, right?

4:21Even though no one had left a company, you know, those SAP folks were coming over into the smart produce world, but we also were very much so coming in to the SAP world at the same time as sort of this like layered approach. And because of that, we're all onboarding. And I think that part was challenging in a way that we all had to come with that mindset of being new to a lot of spaces and just accounting for what that looks like and a ton of overcommunication. Because when you have your default networks, you can kind of get used to those cadences. But when that changes, have to overcommunicate so much because things initially were getting lost in the different channels and ways of operating.

5:04It's interesting because humans are just humans and people sort of like to hold on to things and ways of working, as you say, over communication, it's probably a big part of fixing that. How else do you deal with that when people are mourning a previous way of working? What's the best way to bring everyone into the same place? Yeah, I think one thing that really helped us was we did our company kickoff in February this year and brought everyone together. So for us in R &D, especially bringing all of those USAP joiners into our group. And we as an organization celebrated together, right? This is a win for everyone.

5:43We're coming together. What does that look like? And being able to celebrate that moment, take it in, realign for the year together, and then just have human moments, right? Like being able to get on the dance floor, like, you know, or have dinner together. And, you know, even for me, it was as simple as one of our team dinners. Every single team dinner, we would get all the chairs together and make sure all 20 designers could sit together. And there's just something around, you know, being able to all sit around the same table and have a conversation. And I think being able to do that in-person connection just a few months into merging the teams made a massive difference in how we could bring everyone together.

6:22And it's interesting in this world of AI and technology that we don't talk enough about the humans that kind of sit behind this and build this. So it's really interesting from that perspective. Talk to us about the vision a little bit. What is the kind of vision driving all of this? What's the North Star that you're all aiming at? Yeah. So when we brought the teams together, we did a very intentional sort of vision, vision typing exercise, right? So there was already a lot of anchors around the vision as a business, where we wanted to go as a product, but most people are visual learners, they need to see what it can look like.

6:58So we did a few sprints around bringing to life what true integration looks like with these products and what that could be. And we built out a really like wonderful experience that we could actually showcase at the company kickoff. And we showed that to the group and they were able to see, you know, end to end, it was maybe like a five or six minute movie where what it could actually look like and showing them, you know, the art of possible, what is our North Star? And, you know, even if it takes some time to get there, giving people a solid visual of this is the future this is the potential of what we could be together rather than just talking and you know maybe more general phrases or presentations I think that was like a really big anger point for folks and to digest that together in this like theater space with your teammates beside you and right after that being able to turn to someone be like oh can we like how do we make that happen yeah or how do we connect or maybe we could do it this way And I think it sparked a lot of ideas.

8:01And that in particular, just that like visual Northstar has been really impactful. Previously, you've obviously been working on those smart recruiters products, but you have the whole SAP context coming into that, their products, their technology, their approaches. How's that changed the way you're thinking about the design of everything to get to the vision? What has it brought to the party? take? There's a few different elements at play. So initially, I got a lot of amazing outreach from the SAP design team and community, which is fantastic. So they started sharing some of their world, their design system, how they think about UX and a broader perspective.

8:41And they also have a great central design team that manages across their whole suite. So that was really interesting to see how they scale it, you know, just within one line of business, but then beyond as well. So starting to understand what it looks like in their ecosystem. And then when it came to our product, some of it is tactical, right? Like how do you fuse these experiences together and keep the ease of use, keep the cohesion, make sure it's smooth across the board. And then from the other side, I would say it was more about how we anchor folks and tell them the right story for how design can evolve, because there's a lot of different directions it can go.

9:25And I think also being able to iterate on that and being open to it. So not getting set in a specific way of doing things and starting to recalibrate. And I think the biggest shift for us from a smart group's perspective was now thinking about how we play into the larger suite experience, right? Versus maybe like a certain part of the process. We've always been quite expansive, but it's very different sitting in the broader SAP ecosystem. So there's this like ongoing theme of like unified suite, unified experience. And that I think has probably been the biggest shift in thinking for us. One thing that I'm really interested in is speed because smart recruiters start up, scale up, used to moving very, very quickly.

10:10SAP, much bigger business, bigger product set by its very nature moves a lot slower. What happens when those two things come together? How does that work? Yeah, I actually think we get the best of both worlds with this approach and we're able to go much further together. So with smart cruders, our biggest strength has been innovation, right? And like you mentioned, speed. We push the boundary. We want to go further. We think as big as we can. And with SAP, one of their biggest strengths is that foundation and scale. So what we have been able to do and unlock is take that innovation and scale it, right?

10:51So what may change sometimes is if we need to adjust the innovation path in order for it to scale and to have more of that impact, that's great. Because then instead of just being able to walk through like one or two doors of opportunity, we actually get 50 as a payout, right? Because SAP can open that world for us. And I think that's been the really amazing balance there where we can actually keep that piece of innovation and make sure to, you know, not lose the pace, but adjust the approach so it can actually scale to unlock much bigger opportunities overall. Looking externally, the market where the employers are, it's kind of a very strange position at the moment because the technology is moving faster than any of us can keep up with.

11:35It's just incredible to see how quickly things are changing. At the same time, we're talking about large enterprise organizations who can't really change very quickly, however hard they try. How do you sort of factor that into what you're designing in terms of what the clients, you know, not just what the clients need, but how to kind of push them forward? Yeah, I think when we're talking about any sort of technology leaps, there's always a spectrum of folks, right? Folks who are maybe more risk averse, not quite ready yet. There's people who are ready to jump and are, you know, super innovative and more risky.

12:13And then a lot of folks fall in between where they're curious, willing to try, but don't want to bet all their tips quite yet. And when we think about it from an experience perspective, we want to make sure we don't keep designing for the old world. Right. And we don't want to fix, you know, just small things that keep you rooted in old experiences or old ways of working. But we also recognize we can't just totally jump over because we will miss all these folks in between. However, if we don't start aiming further ahead, we will also fall behind. Right. So I think it's a bit of a balance in this zone between the folks who are pretty like ready and the folks who are ready for that leap.

12:53And I think we've been operating in that space where we try it in different areas of products in different ways. And it's something that we've seen with our customers as well, where maybe they're more willing to try it first in a specific region or with a specific team, prove it out and then go from there. And I think in the same way with our product, we have some that, you know, we've intentionally leapfrogged ahead and have been pushing really far. And then some of our more like core workflows and foundations, we're starting with more of the middle approach where we can take people on that journey because they have a lot of anchors to what it's supposed to look like.

13:31And I think there's a good mix there of actually how you infuse AI into a product. You don't have to go the full jump. I think there is something to that experience and people who are comfortable with it. But there's a lot of ways to actually just weave AI into the experiences and start teaching folks that behavior, because there's a huge piece here around AI fluency. And I think sometimes in tech, we are in a bit of a bubble where maybe we assume everyone knows how to use this or like we tend to be power users. And the reality is a lot of people aren't ready for that. Or maybe they are ready, but it's intimidating or it feels risky or maybe they feel like they don't have time to learn it yet.

14:12So how do you make sure you're staying ahead while still giving good entry points for folks who do want to learn and start upskilling as well? Diving into that tech bubble, talking about it being challenging for employers, but as a tech company, it must be incredibly challenging to keep pace with everything that's going on and then try and interpret that and then interpret it into something that employers can understand. How do you keep innovating? How do you make sure you're up to date with everything that's going on within your team? It's a lot of information, I will say. I find it very exciting.

14:44So I like digging in, I like learning, but it is still, it can be a bit of an overload. And there is also a lot of noise that you need to filter through. There's new releases daily almost now. It used to be monthly, weekly, and now every day something has come out. Things get outdated super fast, right? Something happens, you learn a workflow, and then it's, you know, next week there's a better way of doing it. And I think with the pace things are moving now, you can't really afford to wait either because it will just, you will fall behind from a learning and skills perspective. And I think it's been a big part of how we've changed our approach this year, which is how do we make sure we are augmenting our own workflows and the ways that we're building to make it more powered by AI.

15:35And that's something we've been really intentional about. and we're not trying to do everything at once also, right? Because you don't want to just completely upheave. But we're questioning our ways of working and seeing, is there a better way to do this? What are different pieces? And I think what's worked best for us is we've had a few sort of like champions come up naturally. Folks that have really leaned into it are willing to keep the daily updates and like really be in that stream of inputs. And then what we did recently, actually, is we ran a really intentional AI learning workshop for our entire product org.

16:14And the two things I was hearing the most are people saying that they don't have enough time to dedicate to learning or it's too big of a initial step to get into it. So we said, okay, you know what? Two days, we did it remotely. Three hours every day, just come in, you're excused of all your other meetings and we'll just dedicate it to learning time. So we brought in an external speaker, we did some workshops, sort of like a mini hackathon approach. And at the end of that, we came up with some pretty cool ideas. The point wasn't necessarily the ideas, although we actually did implement some of them, which is great in our practices, but it was just to get folks started.

16:52And I think giving people an outlet or some sort of structure to just get started with their AI learning, it's easier for them to then maintain that momentum. And then it becomes more about providing them with the structure to keep it going, the right resources and things like that. But I think the tough part for people is that initial step because it's very overwhelming right now. Everyone keeps telling you, like, you need to learn AI, like, do more in this. But how do you actually start that and do it? But once you do, it unlocks so much potential. It's interesting because the employers have exactly the same problem with all the noise.

17:28How do you filter out that noise? What is it that you look for to say, do you know what, this is actually something we should focus on. And this is just something that's going to disappear by next week or it's just been made up. How do you do that? I would say a lot of trial and error, probably. Whenever there's a new tool, just try it out and see. we have some like I have probably like three or four folks who are like always very eager to try it and we'll dig in and we sort of give each other signals like how's this looking should we push it to the team or not and I think that is a way to start doing it and I think once you're really in that stream of testing you start to get a good sense of what will last and what won't And then I will say any of the learning and the tools, none of it ever feels like a waste.

18:18Because even if that particular tool or flow doesn't last, your way of thinking, getting better at prompting or thinking about context, all of that definitely stays with you. It's just different ways of applying it. So I would say, yeah, just trial and error for the most part, but then also recognizing where, okay, this really works. We should double down and really do this. And then keeping that cadence going and saying, okay, this is the next point where we should really like make this one structured and continue to do that. I think what you want to avoid is constantly telling people, okay, now this one, now this one, now this one, because then it becomes noise to your teams where it's like, are all of them really that great?

19:01What does that look like? You said earlier that this is a journey heading towards a vision. Let's kind of look out into the future 12 or 18 months. I mean, what do you think the biggest opportunity is in bringing the two together? I think that smart recruiters brings a really strong innovation arm in our way of thinking, our way of operating, the way that we are always like reaching pretty far out. And then we dream big, we think big, we try to execute in that way as well. And I think that's probably our biggest strength that we bring to the table. And then from the SAP perspective, they have that at a larger scale, and they're thinking about it in terms of the entire sort of like business ecosystem from a data perspective, from a structure perspective, and the framework and scaffolding to make that happen.

19:57And I think if we bring those two together, it unlocks a lot. And we're starting to see that with the way our visions are combining the direction it's going. I think the overall combo is leveraging the data and the foundation that comes with this massive business, but unlocking it in more innovative ways. and essentially sort of like building this layer on top where we can drive businesses in very different directions. And I think also seeing a willingness from both companies to think differently. And I think that's happening across the industry where we're challenging what recruiting looks like, what HR tech looks like, and starting to let go of some of the older workflows or ways of working and starting to jump ahead to do things.

20:52And whether it's agentic work or, you know, there's a whole spectrum of what that could look like. But I think that everyone is realizing now that this is the way of the future. And if we can bring those two visions together, I think there's really like amazing potential there. Final question for you. What does leadership look like in an AI-driven world? I would say probably leading with curiosity. curiosity so not taking what you know for granted or your ways of operating or working like having a very open mindset of how things can change what it could look like and also encouraging curiosity with your teams so if they you know suggest a new workflow don't feel attached to it it may be if you were the one that implemented it right like encourage folks to challenge and try new things.

21:43And I would much rather have folks experiment a lot and then maybe need to pull them back in terms of implementing or getting it structured rather than them feeling like they can't go out and explore and are, you know, hesitant from the start. So I would say overall being very open and curious. And then I would say the other part is being able, as you're doing that, you get better at distinguishing the signal from the noise. Because as powerful as AI is, it doesn't have to be in everything. And remembering where, what are the key elements where we really do want human interaction and involvement.

22:23And I think that's also a key piece of staying grounded while you're, you know, leading in an AI world. So I would say balancing those two. So being curious and open to what it can do, but still like keeping that anchor of, human experience and human emotion and empathy and all of this. Shefali, thank you very much for talking to me. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Pat. That was Shefali Nekke on building products in a market that can't keep up with his own technology. Next time, it's the final episode of the series, and we'll finish by looking outwards at the market. Everything is now AI-powered.

22:57Every vendor makes the same claims, and buyers are finding it harder than ever to tell them apart. Steve Hardy leads marketing at Smart Recruiters, and he's refreshingly honest about which parts of marketing are broken and what actually builds trust now. Subscribe or follow wherever you listen to your podcasts, and I'll see you for episode five.

23:34Thank you.