An AI-powered B2C recruitment platform to help job seekers find the best job at startups/SMEs in the US
10 Weeks
(2023. 06 -09)
Duration
My Role
UXD, UXR,
Client Liaisons
1 PM,
5 UXD,
1 UXR, 2 Devs
Team
End to end UX/UI Design,
Prototyping,
Usability Testing Lead
Responsibility
PolarisJobs
Client
PolarisJobs. Inc is launching an AI-powered B2C recruitment platform that is horizontal sales focused, aiming to help candidates find the best job at startups/SMEs in the US.
01 | Objective
I led the design of the 'Landing Page' and 'Job Listing Page' from user research and usability testing to final interactive prototypes.
02 | My Role & Deliverables
We encountered technical feasibility challenges and prioritized tasks to the final deliverable.
03 | Challenges
The MVP product is on beta testing stage: https://www.polarisjobs.com/.
04 | Outcome
PROBLEM
Job seekers are often frustrated by manually matching their job experiences and company preferences when searching for startup or medium-sized enterprise (SME) jobs in the US market.
An AI-powered unified and personalized job seeking platform bridges the gap between job seekers and recruiters, ensuring a transparent process for job matching, applying, and tracking.
SOLUTION
01
Keyword Matching from Job Descriptions
02
All-in-one company insights on one screen
03
Tailoring your resume with a resume optimization tool
04
Tracking Job Application Status and AI Chat Bot Search
Let's circle back and review how we arrived at our solutions in 10 weeks
PROCESS
HYPOTHESIS - provided by our client
The product will enable the AI matching algorithm to recommend startups/SMEs’ jobs based on candidates’ preference input and skills sets
Using large language model (LLM) powered resume editing tool to stand out from other applicants
Leverage the application portal to apply for jobs with a single click of the button
Aggregated company information
Helping candidates improve their resume for the jobs he/she applies for
PRIMARY USER - provided by our client
MVP: Sales People - hoping to work in the technology industry (Bottom-up Approach)
Analyzed the existing products and interviewed job seekers from all experience levels to validate the hypothesis
Research
94 Screening Surveys
3
Non-binary
39
Female
52
Male
Primary Research & Competitive Research
To validate clients' hypotheses, we conducted...
3
Entry level
(0-3 yrs)
6 Job Seeker Interviews
1
Intermediate
level (3-5 yrs)
1
Mid level
(5-7 yrs)
1
Senior level
(7+ yrs)
USER PAIN POINTS
Through the preliminary research, we confirmed that the hypotheses provided by our clients are validated and meet the needs of our target users.
Our Research - user pain points
Users often experience being "ghosted" by recruiters when they reach the interview stage
Entry to mid level candidates emphasize different needs when looking for job compared to mid level and above applicants
Difficult to match their own experiences and skills from job descriptions
Users perceive the current job application process as excessively time-consuming, due to the manual fill out of the job application
How might we help job seekers find their personalized jobs in a seamless matching, applying, and tracking through an AI-powered job seeking platform?
Define Design Question
Developed a journey map to further empathize with target audiences and inform design decision making
IDEATION
Created user flow and sketches to visualize designs and presented to clients to gather feedback and ideas
SKETCHES & WIREFRAMES
Turned initial sketches into wireframes to quickly test out features desirability and feasibility
User Flow
Sketch
I led the user experience design of Job Listing Page and usability testing phase and incorporated design system to create higher fidelity prototypes
MID-TO-HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPES
Job Listing page (final design)
Conducted A/B and discovery tests to evaluate the usability (including both functionality & visuals) of the product
EVALUATION & REFINE
1. Look at the screens
2. Complete tasks on each flow
3. Openly share their thoughts/feedback
15 Usability Tests
1. Test Perceptions of Visual Design
2. 73% Satisfaction level
2 Key Insights
4 Updates
Added a short onboarding questionnaire during sign-up to pre-start the job and company preferences selection
Added product features highlight to home page
Added 'Polaris Insights' to Detail Job Description section
Redesign the job listing layout due to “paradox of choice” to ease decision making
User Flow and Concept Testing:
Intuitiveness of the overall interaction
Created more insights about the company
ITERATIONS
Iteration 2: Side filter
Iteration 1: Company Insights
Iteration 3: Job Matching Card
Iteration 4: Job Listing Page Layout
Project management and time management
TAKEWAYS
It's easy to have long discussions and flipping back-and-forth between potential solutions. It's crucial to establish a timeline and a structured decision-making process.
Pitch the story, not just the idea
A good story is key. Prioritize and do the most important storytelling to your audience's needs and interests instead of showing all the context.
Ensure the deliverables are well communicated early and often with developers
My front-end programming knowledge helped me validate the implementation of the website layout. It's essential to communicate with developers to confirm the feasibility of more complex elements, such as AI, LLM, or in-depth language training models, among others.
NEXT STEPS
Test with previous interviewees
Given the time constraints, we started off by prioritizing the time-consuming challenges as our centerpieces of our user testing, and we only had two round of user testing with new 'job seekers' users, which would have been insightful if we tested with our initial interviewees from the user research stage.