Re-thinking hiring with Checkr’s CMO Prachi Gore

Hello, thanks for joining me today. I wanted to jump right in and ask about how you’re integrating AI into the Checkr platform. How are you using AI to assist with your background checks?

Great question. So, Checkr's always been AI-native in many ways. For us, it all started with a lot of machine learning, language processing in the early days.. But with the advances in generative AI, we are very quickly adding layers to our product. It’s all about the impact that even the little things can have. For example, we have a feature where we offer candidates to share their stories and explain what one might see on their background check. Many of the candidates are not native English speakers, so we use an AI partner to help them write these stories. It’s little features like that that make a big difference to our candidates and customers.

The other major impact we’ve seen is by looking inward and applying AI to several business processes. How we operate as a company has transformed very rapidly over the last two years. We started this journey in mid-2023. Since then, the biggest transformation we've seen is on our operations team. This team is customer-facing, and they have made a lot of improvements by leveraging AI to serve our customers quicker and better, and we see that positively reflected in our customer satisfaction already.

We’re leveraging AI in literally every function at the company, from engineering, where the team can use AI to help build out code or validate things. As well as in our go-to-market our marketing, and sales processes. AI right now is allowing us to unleash programs that we would not have done otherwise.

What kind of programs?

Programs that we just didn't have the resources to create before. For example, programs in marketing like delivering a win-loss analysis on a regular cadence. We've done those types of programs ad hoc in the past, but now with AI we can implement call listening and layer on AI to derive insights from all that data so much faster than a human review and we can do it more consistently.

We have an AI agent that can help with RFP responses. We have built a co-pilot for our internal teams to assist them when a salesperson is on a call. Because the world of background checks is very nuanced, there are county laws, state laws, and there's just so much information out there, and no one sales rep can know everything. They have solutions engineers with them who know a lot, but every once in a while, they are on a call, and the customer asks something, and if they don't know off the top of their head, they can use this copilot to search for an answer in real time.

Of course, things are evolving all the time, But what are your plans for the next six months as the CMO?

Six months is the right time frame to plan for in the world of AI. We are trying to figure out how we can leverage AI to become hyper-relevant and hyper-personalized in our customer communication. We want to offer them the right content at the right time based on their engagement and behavioral patterns. This requires a lot of communication between different tech, our marketing tech stack, and then, of course, testing that it's triggering the right comms at the right time - for example, when you get an inbound email, a form fill, or an engagement on a webinar or event follow-up.

We have automated some of that previously but automation can lead to cookie-cutter responses and everyone would get the same response. That's no fun. The value of AI is in personalization and sending hyper-relevant information at the right time. And so that is our big experiment right now. It's very much in testing phase. We haven't conquered that vision yet, but there are a lot of good early signs.

So that's one big piece. I think the other big piece is figuring out if we can get enrichment around an engagement. So let's say we meet someone at a trade show and we get some information about them, who they are, etc. Can we capture more information that's out there in the ether about their software tech stack, what they're looking for, and how many hires they have? All this stuff then feeds into our sales reps' outreach. So then it can be just so much more useful for them, whether they're calling or sending an email or doing something with this prospect. So those are some of the big things we are taking on right now. And then in our web user interface, we are trying to do even more relevant personalized journeys with the use of AI. Here's just a lot of cool stuff in the plans there.

You were at SmartRecruiters before Checkr. What have been some of the biggest challenges in HR tech in the time you’ve been working in this area?

Yeah, I think there are a few themes. HR tech has been on this amazingly fast digital transformation journey. I was at SmartRecruiters for about four years. It was a newer kind of tech when I started there, about 10 years ago, give or take. At that point, many companies were just beginning this transformation. Many of our international customers were still using on-prem software, not even in the cloud, and were undergoing this transformation.

Now, you layer AI on top of that, and the pace of innovation in HR tech is incredibly fast. I think it’s faster than what I see in marketing and sales software.

Another thing is that it’s been a candidate market for a really long time. I know in the tech industry, we don’t feel that as much right now, but in industries like retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and healthcare, there’s a shortage of talent. There are more jobs than there are people to fill them, which makes it interesting, exciting, and hard if you’re in the recruiting seat. For HR tech companies, it’s an exciting challenge to help enable faster hiring of great talent.

I read that you feel Checkr has a very people-centric culture. What do you mean by that?

People-centric can mean different things to different people, so I’ll clarify what it means to me.

For me, being people-centric means creating a culture where personal growth, the desire to learn, and pushing boundaries are celebrated. In marketing, for example, it’s about thinking outside the box, experimenting, and taking big bets. Of course, we have to stay on course for some things, but experimenting and trying new approaches is key.

I remember in 2021, we ran a brand campaign at 11 airports. That wasn’t a small experiment—it was a big, bold bet to see what it would do for brand awareness. Who’s our audience? Where are they? What works?

I don’t think I would have been able to do that without a highly growth-oriented CFO and leadership team. Everyone here is incredibly growth-minded, which I love. So, when I say people-centric, it’s about giving people the freedom to drive business impact while also learning and growing themselves.

How does flexibility fit into that equation?

Flexibility is really important to me. I have two little kids, and I always say, if I look at the last five years of my life, I’ve had a good work-life balance overall. Every day might look different. Some days I have to be on the road traveling for days, but I can also make it to every string concert or play, or game/ match that my kids are playing. There’s a lot of flexibility here. If I need to take some time, arrive late, leave early, or take leave, it’s all fine as long as I am delivering what is expected of me (and hopefully beyond ;)).

Our CEO sets the tone for this. He’s currently on parental leave—his second since I’ve been here—and that sends a clear message. If he takes that time, it gives everyone permission to do the same. It’s a great place to work, where you can grow, do your best work, and focus on the things that matter to you outside of work in life.

I also read that you recently took a sabbatical. How was that experience?

Yeah, I did. And I should add that we have all these other perks that contribute to a people-centric culture. The sabbatical program is a very generous one. If you’ve been with the company for three years, you can take a one-month paid leave. At six years, it’s two months, and so on. We have people here who’ve been with the company for six years, and someone is coming up for nine years. Checkr is only 10 years old, so they’ll get three full months of paid leave, which is very rare.

I took my sabbatical last December. I’ve been here almost five years—four and a half years at that point. I took a month off, traveled, took personal time, went to wellness camps, spent time with family, and spent time with my kids. It was the best break ever. Startups are hard, and you can burn out quickly. The sabbatical was a great reset to come back energized and give it my all again. I love that program.

How did you end up in the tech world in the first place?

I’ve been in the tech world for a very long time. I have an engineering undergraduate degree, so I’ve been a techie for a long time. As an engineer, I knew I loved the tech industry and technology itself, but I didn’t love building it. I liked the product, selling, and strategy more. I realized some people could build things better than I could, but I wanted to explore other areas.

I sampled a lot of different classes to see what I liked. I enjoyed finance and marketing the most. My mentor at the time told me I should sample a few more classes at a business school. I sat through some business school classes, loved it, and decided to do my MBA. That’s how I transitioned into tech marketing. I’ve been doing tech marketing ever since.

What is it about working in startups that excites you?

My first job after my MBA was not at a startup—it was a big company. I learned a lot when I was there, and then I moved into a smaller public company. Since then, I’ve been at startups, and I think the biggest reason I love startups is the direct impact.

Especially in leadership positions, but I think this is true at any level, any decision I make or anything I do, I know I can see the direct impact a few months out on the business trajectory. I love driving impact. I’m not going to be an entrepreneur—I don’t know that I’m going to found my own startup, at least not right now. We’ll see. But that’s not who I am. I love supporting big visions and great ideas, and chasing them to make them a reality. And you can see the impact of your work—the direct impact—and that’s rare.

There’s also this feeling of everyone being in the trenches together, driving toward the same outcome. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun. That makes it fun, and there’s so much learning and growth that comes with it. The two things that motivate me are how much I’m growing every day, because maintaining something would not be fun for me, and whether my work is directly having an impact. Both of those things are happening. And if you layer on top of that a great social responsibility program, like the fair chance initiative we have, that’s just the trifecta I’m looking for. So yeah, I love startups—the energy, the excitement, the pace. I love it.

What do you want to do more of right now, either in your personal or professional life?

I think personally, I would love to spend more time outdoors. I don’t feel like I get enough of it. I try to optimize and maximize, but my daughter is now three, so she’s a little bit older, and we’ve started getting her on hikes. For the last few years, it was very hard—she was in a stroller or a back carrier, and my husband and I were very limited in how much we could move. Even now, she did her first three miles, and I’m very proud of her! So, if I could do more, I’d love to spend more time outdoors, hiking, and just enjoying nature.

Professionally, I really, really want to experiment more with AI in my job. I’ve already been doing a lot with AI on my personal side. Over the past one and a half years, AI has planned all my trips—we’ve done Spain, Japan, Sri Lanka, and more recently, we’re going to Florida. I just feed in all the things we like to do and tell AI to build my itinerary—where we should stay, everything—and it just puts something out, and then I book it. I hope some tool eventually does the bookings too! I even use AI for my weekly menu. I just tell it all the things we like to eat, and it says, “This is what you should make this week.” It’s like having a co-pilot assistant for everything in my personal life. It’s low risk—what could go wrong? Maybe I’ll cook something nobody likes, but that’s normal. My husband is an excellent cook. I do the grocery planning, which takes time.

On the work front, I’ve just started using AI as a co-pilot and am trying to stretch its limits to see how much it can do. I love it. Right now, I make it read all my documents and say, “Critique this, tell me what I could have done differently.” We’re doing strategy docs and things like that, and it’s been interesting to see what it can do. It’s pretty good. We’ll see how far it can go. Our teams are also actively using AI for research and all sorts of things. So, I’m very bullish on AI, and if I could, I’d just spend more and more time integrating it into other areas.

With both you and your husband working quite high-powered jobs, how do you find the balance?

We have to work as a team. We’ve assigned areas based on who’s good at what, so we know who’s going to own what in our life management, I guess.

We also have to be very planned. When do I need him to cover for me? When does he need me to cover for him? It’s all about planning, being team players, and owning what you can while letting the other person own what they can. Giving up control is also important.

I’d also say friendship plays a big role. I’ve known him for a very, very long time—he was my friend first before we started dating. We’ve been married for a gazillion years, and I think keeping that friendship alive and knowing that the intention is always right keeps things going really well. Our life is a long-term plan. So, in the short term, sometimes he has to give, and sometimes I have to give. But as long as we know where we’re both headed, we’re able to make good choices. Is it easy every day? Not at all. It’s very hard. But we make it work, and it’s been enjoyable so far.

Do you have your family in the U.S. with you?

We don’t. My husband’s parents are in India. My sister is in Austin, Texas, but that’s still quite far, in a different state. So yeah, we don’t have a lot of family here, and we miss that a lot. But we visit, and they visit every year, so we get to see them often.

Your support system becomes your friends over time, especially if you’ve lived away for a long time. During the pandemic, that became very real for us. We were in lockdown, in a different country, unable to meet anyone. It was just the three of us, and no one else. That was an interesting moment in our journey.

You started at Checkr right in the middle of the pandemic, didn’t you?

Yeah, I quit my job in the middle of the pandemic. I thought, “I just need to get a sense of what’s happening in the world right now, what’s happening to us.” Then I joined Checkr shortly after, during the pandemic.

What are your top three achievements, personal or professional?

My goodness, it feels like an easy question… but I think I would give a successful career transition as my number one.

I thought I was going to be an engineer. I studied to be an engineer and worked as an engineer for some time, and I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I think making that transition—and enjoying the journey since—feels like an achievement. By success, I don’t mean the title or anything like that—just successfully finding something I enjoy and feel passionate about.

I would also say that every decade, I set goals for the next 10 years—what I want to achieve personally and professionally. I’m 42 now, and I feel like I’ve tracked pretty close to where I’ve set my aspirations, which feels like a great achievement. I love planning and working toward big goals. The next one I’ve set for myself at 50 is very stretchy, so we’ll see how I get there. So far, it’s been a slow start, but pretty good thus far.

And then I think the third one would be my kids and our health—my family’s health. Being able to maintain that and keeping it a top priority for all of us feels like an achievement. It’s something we actively work toward.

It’s not something that just happens to us. We try. We eat really healthily, we work out, we spend time outdoors, and we teach our kids the same values. There’s effort involved, which is why I count it as an achievement, but there’s also a lot of blessing in there, too.

Thank you so much, Prachi. Thank you for your honesty and openness.

Thank you, Robin! Looking forward to staying in touch!