A Foot In The Door
Product
Web Application
Timeline
2 Weeks
My Role
Challenge
Design Lead
Research and Design executed simultaneously
Introduction
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Seeking a job, but you just graduated.
Where do you look? -
Want a new job, but you are in this field for a year.
Where do you look? -
Have applicants without experience, but what if they have potential.
Where do you look? -
Need a candidate, but you want someone you can train.
Where do you look?
Where do you look?
A Foot in the Door is a job platform that cater exclusively to applicants with less than 5 years of experience in the field.
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The platform offers unique features and employer partnerships to help applicants showcase their potential, rather than focusing on experience.
Initial Problem
While the applicant experience is up and running, A Foot in the Door needs help creating a dashboard for hiring managers and recruiters.
Initial Goal
To create a dashboard that optimizes the hiring experience for hiring managers and recruiters.
Our Team
I collaborated with research lead Cole and product manager Ashley.
As the design lead for this project my primary responsibilities included:
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Developing site map, wireframes, user interface (high-fidelity design), and prototyping.
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I was also heavily involved in the user interviews and data synthesis.
Ashley K.
Product Lead
Cole A.
Research Lead
Chayala S.
Design Lead
Research
Research Process
To discover the unique and valuable features that set us apart from the competition.
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We leveraged a combination of research methods including business analysis, competitive analysis, screener surveys, user interviews, affinity maps, and persona development.
01.
Business Analysis
02.
Competitive Analysis
03.
User Interviews
04.
Synthesis
05.
Personas
Business Analysis
In order to understand the scope of the project from the business standpoint we conducted an initial analysis.
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We mainly discussed who our user was, the key activities to be performed on the site, and what the site's values should be.
01
Who is the user
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Recruiters
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Hiring managers
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Company stakeholders of entry level job positions
02
What is their key activities
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Create, upload and track job postings
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Look at applicant profiles and filter by keywords
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Communicate with applicants and prospects
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View data on all activities
03
What is the sites values
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Growth + Development
(analytics, talent pool management) -
Purposeful + Thoughtful
(brand page, applicant matching, marketing tools) -
Effective + Efficient
(automated messaging + job descriptions, advanced filters, collaboration tools) -
Approachable + Comforting (customization, pricing)
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Competitive Analysis
Subsequently with the knowledge of A Foot in the Door’s values and goals, we analyzed our competition’s sites to find key features and trends.
We looked at other sites like Ziprecruiter, Indeed, and LinkedIn.
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A few trends we found
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applicant tracking
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analytics
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filtering
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screenings
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templates
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job management features.
Screener Survey
Using the information from our business and competitive analysis, as a team we put together a screener survey.
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This is a small list of questions so that we can seek out users who would be valuable to interview.
Who we were looking for
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Recruiters, hiring managers, company stakeholders of entry level job positions
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Anyone touching the hiring process
Who we were not looking for
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People with no experience in the hiring process
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Job seekers
Some questions we asked
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​​Have you ever been responsible for hiring a new employee?
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How long have you been involved in the hiring process?
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Do you work with external recruitment agencies or services?
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Which channels or platforms do you primarily use to source entry-level candidates?
User Interview
Once we found qualified candidates we began to conduct interviews.
Demographics
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4 men, 4 women
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Age 25-64
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6 actively work in hiring positions
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2 previously worked in hiring positions
Interview methods
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4 zoom Interviews
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2 phone Interviews
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2 in-person Interviews
Some questions we asked
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Can you please describe your current hiring process?
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How do you manage your talent pool?
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How do you organize applications you receive?
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What are key factors you look for when searching through applicant resumes?
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Do you currently use any platforms in your hiring process?​
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Can you share a time when you hired an entry level candidate?
Key Interview Takeaways
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Business can be complex.
Need a visually intuitive dashboard to understand and track important information.
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Business moves quickly.
Need clear, efficient, and easy to use hiring tools in order to manage their talent pool.
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Great talent is hard to come by.
Need the ability to track quality talent both active and inactive hiring process
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Every business is different.
Need the ability to customize and automate hiring processes to their needs.
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We go a million miles an hour, so having something to easily look at is helpful
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It would be nice and save a lot of time if I didn't have to write each job description
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A way to move candidates along in the process and track them
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How many applicants are you getting, how long has the req been open
User Stories
We created a few stories for the users main site activities.
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As a hiring manager, I want to be able to easily create job postings, so that I can upload them to our company website and attract the most qualified talent.
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As a hiring manager, I want to be able to track job postings so I can maintain an overview of what positions we have open for hire.
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As a business owner, I want to be able to easily view data on hiring activities so that I can manage everything efficiently, in one place.
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As a recruiter, I want the ability to search applicant profiles by keywords, so that I can screen for the most qualified applicants for hiring opportunities.
Personas
In order to create a prototype that will be produced in direct correlation to our users, we created two personas.
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These personas are to be kept in mind while designing, as they sum up who are user is, what their motivations are, and their needs and frustrations.
01
02
Project Goals
Problem
Hiring managers need a concise way to track job postings and candidates because they are limited on time and resources.
Goal
To create an intuitive and customizable dashboard that condenses information into a clear and easily digestible format.
Features
We did a whiteboard exercise to look at which features were essential to our app, and which features our users could do without.
We included all of our must-have and should have features in the app.
01
Must have
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View data on all activities
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Look at applicant profiles and filter them by keywords
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Create, upload and track job postings
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Communicate with applicants and prospect
03
Could have
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Analytics
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Customized reports
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Marketing tools
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Skill assessments
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Interview question bank
02
Should have
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Talent pool management
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Screening questions
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Automated services
(job description, screening questions, applicant matching) -
Hiring journey configuration
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Applicant tracking
04
Won’t have
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Team view​
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Brand Page
Design
Design Process
To ensure alignment with business objectives and the user needs.
The design process involves creating information architecture, visual and interactive elements, and usability testing to produce a user friendly and effective website.
01.
Site Map
02.
Sketching and Wireframing
03.
Style Guide
04.
Usability Testing
05.
Figma Prototype
Site Map
I created a site map from the research and interview findings. ​
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Dashboard- see key metrics and quickly accomplish tasks
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My Jobs- manage job posts and their applicants
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Talent Pool- find candidates who did not apply to a job
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Saved Talent- saved qualified candidates that are not currently needed
Sketching
For five minutes my group and partook in a design studio. We sketched out whatever ideas we thought of for the "My Jobs" tab. Afterwards we discussed our work got critique and repeated the process.
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The following are my sketches with the feedback applied.
List of jobs and their applicants
View active or inactive jobs
Edit Job post
02
03
04
05
01
Best matched applicants under a specific job
Do you accept this applicant
yes, no or maybe
Specific applicant
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Scroll between different applicants
Applicants status on where they stand in the process
Wireframes
After sketching, I then drafted basic wireframes for the sites.
I created a layout, the global navigation, the secondary navigation, some icons, and the shape and size of the sites main components.
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Dashboard Evolution
01.
Sketch
03.
Mid Fidelity
02.
Wireframe
04.
High Fidelity
Style Guide
This is a mini style guide composed of the logo, fonts, colors, buttons and icons for the site.
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We chose to stick with the sites colors of orange and teal as they represent the brand well.
Teal promotes clarity and orange radiates security and accesibility .
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Usability Testing
Upon completing the prototype we had a chance to test it out and see what some users thought about it.
Two Tests
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2 Hiring Managers
Revisions
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Added additional Call To Action buttons
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Renamed the “Talent Pool” and “Saved Talent” to make it more intuitive
Prototype
Taking into account research, the needed features, and feedback from usability tests, final adjustments were made to the prototype.
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The end product is something that's not only useful and backed by research, but also supplies the recruiters with a smooth and understandable process of finding talent.
Prototype Frames
Key Features
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View data on all activities
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Look at applicant profiles and filter them by keywords
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Create, upload and track job postings
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Communicate with applicants and prospect
(See image and corresponding numbers)
My Dashboard
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Created shortcuts to accomplish tasks like (a) posting a job or (b) viewing new applicants
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Included customizable key metrics according to a date range, candidates, and jobs.
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Established how to track and manage a job post.
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Designed a way to (a) view applicants and (b) move them along in their process
My Jobs
1a
1b
02
03
4b
4a
Video walkthrough of A Foot In The Door prototype
Next Steps
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User Testing
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Additional Features
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Build out the boolean search
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Interview question bank
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Customized reports
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Team view
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Takeaways
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List should haves and should have nots at the start of the project
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Conduct quick sketches with the whole team to get many ideas out
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Scum meetings are important in order to know what everyone else is working on
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The design lead should make sure research is being sent to them throughout