As part of our Women in Tech series, we spotlight SmartRecruiters teammates who are shaping the future of hiring, so candidates can meet the people behind our mission and see our values in action.
At the end of last year, Elle Green, our Senior Marketing Manager, was featured by Women Love Tech for her expert perspective on the AI skills talent acquisition professionals need now. We are thrilled to bring her recognized expertise into our "Women in Tech" series with a Q&A and a brief recap of her featured article.
Shared Mission
Women Love Tech describes its mission as inspiring and empowering the next generation of women in technology — highlighting achievements, sharing industry news, and making tech accessible and engaging. This mission directly mirrors the goals of our own Women in Tech series: to celebrate our teammates, provide role models, and show candidates how they can build impactful careers in a technology-enabled environment.
→ Read the Women Love Tech full article featuring Elle
here.
Q&A with Elle Green
Q: How did you get to where you are today at SmartRecruiters? Was there a pivotal moment that shaped your path?
Elle: I had spent a decade building talent attraction strategies, often at a high effort and financial cost to an organisation, and seeing them go stale. LinkedIn approached me to join their GTM APAC team and suddenly a global world of tech, AI and data opened up and I was hooked!
I spent another decade helping organisations understand the power of tech and the future of work in their hiring and talent strategies, and building AI start ups. When Rich approached me to join the ANZ team I was interested but…not excited by an ATS company if I’m honest. However, when Rebecca Carr introduced me to Winston and announced her position that ATS was dead I was blown away with excitement and knew I had to be a part of the SmartRecruiters journey! A CEO who was also a product and solutions person is the sweet spot to breaking categories!
I signed within two weeks and attended Hiring Success before I’d even joined!
Q: Could you describe a typical "day in the life" in your role? What’s one project or accomplishment at SmartRecruiters that you’re particularly proud of, and why?
Elle: Oooh. A “day in the life” in my role is honestly a bit of a myth especially since the SAP acquisition. It’s less about neat routines and more about constantly switching between strategy, execution, stakeholder management and whatever urgent thing just landed in my inbox.
One minute I’m deep in pipeline conversations, the next I’m in customer story sessions, then I’m aligning with sales, product or SAP, and then I’m back into event logistics or customer conversations. It’s messy, fast, and very real.
If I think about something I’m particularly proud of, I’d go back to about a year ago when I designed and launched our Superhuman Hiring event. That was the first time we introduced Winston and AI to our ANZ community in a meaningful way. What made it especially important to me was that it landed on National Autism Understanding Day, which gave us the chance to talk about something people rarely connect with AI - how it can actually improve hiring experiences for neurodiverse candidates and recruiters alike when it’s designed properly.
That wasn’t just an event. It was about changing how people think about technology and inclusion at the same time.
Fast forward to now, and I’m deep in planning our flagship HireXperience event in Sydney. It’s bringing together SmartRecruiters customers, SAP SuccessFactors customers, and organisations who want to partner with us around what hiring is becoming. It’s much bigger, much more complex, and much more commercial, but the goal is the same.
We’re trying to show talent leaders that hiring doesn’t have to be slow, fragmented or reactive anymore. With the right technology, data and mindset, it can become one of the most strategic levers in the business.
That shift in how people think about their work and what’s possible is what I love being part of.
Q: What specific skills or qualities are most crucial for success in your area — and how can candidates start building them?
Elle: Event management is just one small slice of what it takes to lead a modern marketing function, especially in a fast-moving, tech-driven organisation.
You need the ability to look at multiple data points that often contradict each other such as pipeline numbers, brand metrics, sales feedback, customer sentiment, market trends - and still make a call. That takes analytical thinking, but also judgement. Data rarely gives you a neat answer. You have to decide what matters, what’s noise, and where to place a bet.
You also need to be genuinely comfortable with ambiguity. In high-growth environments, the strategy is never finished, the product is evolving, and the market is moving underneath you. If you need perfect information before you act, you’ll be permanently behind.
Then there’s cross-functional influence. Marketing doesn’t “own” most of what it needs to succeed - sales, product, customer success, partners, finance, execs all play a role. So your ability to build trust, align people who don’t report to you, and move a complex organisation in one direction is just as important as any campaign you run.
And increasingly, you need real technology literacy. Not just knowing what tools exist, but understanding how data flows, how AI is changing buying behaviour, how automation and platforms shape the customer experience. If you don’t understand the systems, you can’t design intelligent growth.
But underpinning all of it is one thing:
You have to deeply understand the mindset of the market you serve.
If you don’t know what your audience fears, what they’re measured on, what makes them take a risk or stick with the status quo, you can’t influence behaviour. And if you can’t influence behaviour, you can’t drive growth.
As a candidate, don’t think in terms of job titles or hierarchical structures, and start thinking in terms of problems. Work on things that force you to analyse, persuade, connect dots, and operate across teams. Learn how the commercial engine works, not just your corner of it.
Q: How do you continue to learn and grow in such a rapidly evolving industry, especially one constantly impacted by AI?
Elle: You have to be open to ambiguity and change and really embrace it. For me, I love being able to be part of leading tech in an industry I’ve been part of for so long. Learning on the job through our own product, engaging with industry leaders and keeping abreast of the competitive landscape equals a natural learning curve.
Q: What advice would you give to women considering a career in tech (or those just starting out)?
Elle: Tech gives you a seat in shaping how the world works and hat’s powerful. And the skills you build in tech are incredibly transferable, so even if you move industries later, you don’t start from zero.
But…tech is fast, relentless and not always kind to your personal life. The product shifts, the market moves, the roadmap changes, and the pressure doesn’t politely pause because you’re tired, raising kids, or trying to have a life.
So my biggest piece of advice is this - choose something inside tech that genuinely interests you. Not what sounds impressive on LinkedIn. Not what you think you “should” do. Something you actually care about.
Because when things get hard (and they will), interest is what gives you the energy to keep learning, pushing and staying in the game.
Also, don’t underestimate the value of your perspective. Tech desperately needs people who understand customers, people, communication and the real world - it’s not just code and systems. You don’t have to fit a stereotype to belong here.
You get to help design the future. Make sure it’s one you actually want to be part of.
Key ideas from Women Love Tech & what it means for candidates
The original article featuring Elle Green focused on how Talent Acquisition professionals must evolve their skills to thrive with AI.
However, the insights are universal. Elle’s feature on Women Love Tech highlights a fundamental shift happening across all professional roles: success now requires combining sharp human judgment with powerful artificial intelligence.
Below are the key takeaways from the original article. We’ve reframed them as actionable tips for any job seeker looking at modern, tech-enabled teams and preparing for high-impact roles at a company like SmartRecruiters.
- Use AI as a co‑pilot, not a competitor. AI can speed up tasks like research or shortlisting, while human judgment adds context, values fit, and long‑term perspective.
Tip for candidates: Show an example where your judgment improved a tech‑assisted decision (e.g., spotting motivation or adaptability that data missed).
- “Train the machines” is part of the job. TA and People teams guide and quality‑check AI systems so outcomes reflect standards of quality, fairness, and clarity.
Tip for candidates: Share a moment where you refined prompts, documented guardrails, flagged bias, or improved a workflow. If you’re early in your career, talk about how you validate outputs before acting.
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Business context matters as much as tools. Strong teams connect hiring to measurable outcomes (quality, capacity, impact) — not just speed.
Tip for candidates: Quantify your impact (project outcomes, customer value, team enablement). Explain how you prioritized trade‑offs and used data plus judgment to reach a better result.
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Turn time saved into time better spent. Automation is valuable only if saved hours go into higher‑impact work like stakeholder partnership, pipeline building, or candidate experience.
Tip for candidates: Describe how you automated a task, then used the time to deepen collaboration, improve quality, or deliver a better experience — with a clear before/after.
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Transparency builds trust. Clear communication about where and how AI is used helps candidates and hiring teams understand decisions and next steps.
Tip for candidates: Ask thoughtful, neutral questions about process transparency and human oversight. Share experiences where you made a process fairer or more explainable for others.
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Continuous learning wins. Tools change fast; curiosity, ethics, and adaptability are durable.
Tip for candidates: Show how you evaluate new tools — and when you choose not to use one because it doesn’t meet the bar.
Credits and links
Keep exploring
Follow our Women in Tech series on our blog to meet more teammates like Elle.
If you’re excited by human‑centered, technology‑enabled work,
explore our open roles.
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