Background

‍

With the recent growth of the tech industry in Hong Kong, it has become more apparent that there is a need for tech talents that also suit the needs of prospective employers.

‍

I joined Xccelerate as a UX designer into a small product team of 1 product manager, 3 engineers and 2 designers. Due to the other designer being occupied by other responsibilities, I was the lead designer for this project. I've been incredibly fortunate to be part of this journey and have grown tremendously during my time at Xccelerate.

‍

Throughout ideation to launch, I worked closely with the product team and stakeholders to shape the product vision and strategy of Xccelerate Jobs. Although the product is still in beta, being able to see how much we have grown as a team and startup is truly gratifying.

‍

Understanding the problem

‍

As a recent university graduate, I understood the pains of not being able to secure a job due to a lack of experience. As part of my initial research, I browsed online forums and job social networks to see if others had also experienced similar problems. I found that a large majority of job seekers online were also frustrated at the job hunting process. However, despite the data from my initial research not being culturally valid to Hong Kong, I believed that local jobs seekers also shared similar frustrations so I conducted interview sessions with 24 students at Xccelerate, given that they would be the main users of this job board. 

After listening to these students I gathered insights from the interviews: 

‍

Insight #1

Lack of communication

‍Job seekers were not receiving any communication regarding their application for weeks or months on end  even after contacting the employer/recruiter for updates. They also want some sort of closure, if they had been rejected for the job and wanted to understand where they were lacking in their application.

‍

Insight #2

Unrealistic expectations

Job seekers felt hesitant to apply for entry-level jobs that prescribe unrealistic criteria e.g. ‘X number of years experience’ or 'Needs to have A-Z skills'. This leaves students in a vicious cycle of chicken and egg  where they are unable to gain experience due to lack of experience.

‍

Insight #3

Lack of information

Most job listings don't disclose the salary that they offer and job seekers usually only find out only during the later stages of the interview process. This frustrates them because they would have saved time had they known that the salary offered doesn't match their expectations.

In addition to the insights, we discovered recurring behavioural patterns of how job seekers search and apply for jobs. 

• Some seem to think with a 'quantity over quality' mindset where the more jobs that they apply to, the more likely that they will get a call for an interview, irrespective of whether they are a good fit for the job or company. 

• Most tend to use the 'Quick Apply' feature which allows them to apply for jobs quickly and does not require them to thoroughly read the job description/requirements

• Due to the large number of jobs they apply to, many of them do not recall or research any information about the company when they receive a call from the company.

‍

‍

We then sought to understand what frustrated the employers so we interviewed 20 representatives from SME companies working in different roles who are integral in the hiring process (CEOs, hiring managers, recruiters).

‍

After conversing with the company representatives we found that:

‍

Insight #1

‍Shortage of quality candidates

‍Recruiters and hiring managers find a lot of applicants who apply to roles that do not possess any of the required credentials to work in the position.

Insight #2

Lack of time

‍Companies receive a large influx of applications for each job post and employers/hiring managers do not have enough time to review applications in detail and be able to provide follow up to unsuccessful candidates.

‍

Insight #3

Inefficient candidate review process

As a method of reviewing candidate profiles, many of these employers tend to use costly applicant tracking systems (ATS) or manually create local folders on their desktop to shortlist candidates.

‍

Insight #4

Rigid tools

‍Current job boards in the market don't provide many customisable features to suit their hiring requirements.

In addition to the insights, we discovered recurring behavioural patterns of how employers post jobs and review candidates. 

• Some employers do actually want to provide feedback to candidates but most do not have time to do so. 

• Many candidates "stuff" their resumes with skill keywords but employers would rather see the candidate's familiarity than the quantity that they know. 

• Employers want to show more of their company culture and the benefits that potential employees can enjoy. 

Defining the problem statement

After gathering the findings from the research, I worked with the team to define the problem statement. 

Job seekers and employers are frustrated with their matching process because they have little empathy for each other and thus do not engage in meaningful interaction. 

‍

User Personas

Based on our research, we recognised that there were 4 key user types that our product tried to solve problems for. I referred to these personas throughout the design process to better empathise with main user groups and prioritise goals according to their needs.

‍

Defining the MVP

‍

As a product, we wanted to position ourselves as the leading job platform with 3 key focus areas.

‍

#1 Tech roles

‍ We want to help Xccelerate graduates and individuals to achieve their goal by breaking into the tech industry. 

#2 Focus on Culture

We want to emphasise company culture as both job seekers/employers found it to be an integral component in the candidate/job searching process

‍

#3 Free of cost

‍Many existing job boards charge a fee for using their services. We believe that by making our platform free, businesses will be more incentivised to join our platform. 

‍

Brainstorming

‍

We then came together as a product team to create a list of features we wanted to prioritise based on our research.

‍

‍

‍

Information Architecture

‍

‍

‍

User Flow + Wire Flow

‍

‍

Design System

Xccelerate already had a main website but only consisted of very few design components so I developed this design system from scratch with reference to the existing branding guideline.

‍

‍

Bringing it all together

‍

Design & Prototype

We created low fidelity wireframes, and got down the clickable prototype for validation testing. In each iteration, the product's functionality was streamlined to the point where assumptions could be tested and allowed time to implement testing insights.

An example of the mid-fidelity's evolution can be seen in the design of the search results page. Originally I thought the page layout should be side by side for easier navigation, but a new row layout proved a better option for more thorough reading.

‍

Trying it out in the real world

‍

User Testing

We invited 10 job seekers and 10 company representatives to test the prototypes. Participants were able to complete their tasks easily and found that the process that a job seeker and employer would go through respectively was simple and straightforward.

‍

There were two main adjustments needed.

‍

‍Change #1- Job seekers

Providing information

Job seekers felt that seeing so many empty text boxes on their profile discouraged them from filling them out. As a result, I divided each section further and added an interaction where users can switch from edit mode to display mode in order to hide text boxes.

‍

‍

‍Change #2- Employers

Providing more customisation

The Kanban board candidate manager initially had a separate page to customise columns however, users had trouble locating this button. As a result, I added an icon where users can drag and drop columns to suit their hiring pipeline and moved the edit button to the action bar.

‍

‍

An unexpected roadblock

Due to development constraints, we were unable to produce the kanban candidate manager for the first release. So I had to come up with a simpler feature in the meantime that could be interchanged with the kanban board. After discussing with our head developer on feasibility, we settled on creating a list view where users were also able to switch to the kanban board when it could be developed. We tested this version and found that users found both versions equally valuable and easy to use.

‍

High fidelity designs

The team decided to launch the product publicly in beta so that we would not only receive feedback on bugs and performance issues but we believed that it would also help build brand loyalty with our users.

‍

‍Landing Page

I wanted a landing page that would be easy and straightforward for our users to get started looking for jobs.

‍

Profile

Ultimately the goal of this job board was to create a good fit between employers and job seekers. This required job seekers having the ability to catch a glimpse of the company's working culture and benefits, whilst providing employers an understanding of a job seeker's personality and skillset.

‍

Applying for a job

Once a job seeker decides to apply for a job, they are able to review their profile to make any edits to tailor their application to the company and answer mandatory screening questions. The intention of the screening questions was to not only provide employers an idea of the applicant's thinking process but also prevent 'quick applying' and to encourage candidates to consider why they are suited for this job/company.

‍

‍

Applicants

Employers have an overview of all the candidates that have applied to their jobs and are able to refer back to unsuccessful applicants for future openings.

‍

‍

Collaboration (Employer)

Users can invite their colleagues in other departments to collaborate in posting jobs and selecting applicants. Users can create groups based on departments and select which jobs they can edit/receive email notifications for.

‍

‍

Application updates (Job seeker)

Once users have applied for jobs they will receive notifications on the status of their applications. Users will be able to see if their application has been opened, moved on or rejected. Users that are unsuccessful are sent automated or customised feedback on why they aren't successful, this feature was aimed to reduce the employer's manual workload and also provide closure to candidates.

‍

‍

‍

Final thoughts

Working in a startup was an incredibly steep learning curve. It was an eye opening experience that taught me about being lean and knowing where to focus your energy and efforts. To be able to turn an idea into something tangible is both exciting and rewarding. I worked closely with the product team and stakeholders to shape build the product vision and strategy of Xccelerate Jobs. Although the product is still in beta, being able to see how much we have grown as a team and startup is truly gratifying.

‍

Some key takeaways from this project:

‍‍

Focus on building an MVP

‍In a startup, there is only so much time and effort that you can invest so it's important to focus on the features that can deliver the highest value for your users.

‍‍

Don't worry too much about the detail

‍Earlier in my journey, I made the mistake of worrying about the look of the UI. Taking a step back and reassessing the user flows helped me to reprioritise the UX.

‍‍

Focus on the problem

‍At the end of the day, it is your users pains that you will be solving for so keeping that front of mind is important as it's easy to lose sight of this when you're bogged down in the day to day.

‍