Job Market Tracker
recruitment status
Present whether company hiring, layoffs, or offer rescinded.
live updates
Information updates based on users continually contribution
user generated
Allow users to contribute their companies recruitment information
goal
Provide a better detailed and updated job market information during the special period (COVID-19 outbreak).
duration
20 Days (March. 2020 - April. 2020)
Tools
Drafting Tools, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop. Adobe XD, Sketch, I-Pad Sketchbook
introduction
After the outbreak of Corona virus, the economy is keeping suffered by the effect of the pandemic, almost involves every industries, which comes with the lowest unemployment rate in the history. How to create a efficient platform and provide live-updated information? These are main reasons encourage me to design this job market tracker App.
Research
Background
Unemployment rate
PROBLEMS:
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Due the corona virus crisis, The US unemployment rate jumped to 8.2 percent in April 2020, the highest since August 2017
UNEMPLOYED POPULATION
By the end of March, 2020, the number of unemployed increased by 1.35 million to 7.14 million, while the number of employed declined by 2.99 million to 155.77 million. And these numbers are going worse and worse.
JOB MARKET
A lot of firms layoff employees or freeze hiring, but there are still firms do hiring. There’s not an efficient tool for public to obtain this information.
SOLUTIONS:
JOB TRACKER APPLICATION
A platform that providing the recruitment information.
USER GENERATED
Information from users contribution based on their current firm situation or interview experience.
LIVE UPDATES
With the continually users’ contribution. the collected data is being keep updating.
Interview
There were brief interview with 12 people and 56 surveys I had conducted from different industries. Questions include industry type, current employment status and hiring information, etc.
“Me and most people in my restaurant got laid off, I have been looking for a job for the past two weeks. Not much information and don’t know where the best place to get the updates.“ _Jason - Bartender
“Currently I have several interviews ongoing, hiring process is really slow and I’d like to get learn some hiring updates from others. “_Amy-Computer Engineer
“Last week, our office started laying off and everyone is in panic. I’m now looking for the potential opportunities and need to know the updated news where is hiring, to avoid unexpected layoff happen to me.“_Chris-Civil Engineer
“I don’t have plan to change my job now but I just wanna keep tracking of the recruitment market, which I believe it will be great assist for my future job hunting after the virus dismissed.“_Meredith-Accountant
survey
Respondents' occupations
Respondent's job status
Personas
Based on the collected result from respondents, I find there are 4 types of basic personas.
PERSONA - A
Unemployed, activity look for jobs. Need more information of recruitment and openings.
PERSONA - B
Employed, potentially look for opportunities. Prefer some updates of hiring market.
PERSONA - C
Employed, but currently interviews with new jobs. Want to learn hiring and recruitment updates from others.
PERSONA - D
Employed, not seek new opportunity but plan to do later. Would like to track job market movement and updates.
According to the research result, it brought the following conclusions:
Most respondents are concern about the job market recession.
Large portion of respondents prefer getting more news relates to the hiring market.
Users prefer to see more accurate and live-updated news and information.
Almost everyone wants to actively to get as much as possible information in a single platform.
analysis
comparative analysis
The result from survey suggests that filtration feature is highly demanded. Then I investigated popular food delivery services existing on the market - Facebook and Twitter, with their similar filtration features.
Glassdoor
Company
Website
Indeed
PROS
Interview questions
Compensation and benefits
Reviews from employees
CONS
Some questions are outdated
Not many job opportunities
Censorship for reviews
PROS
Easy apply (LinkedIn feature)
Easy for reaching out
Connect hing staffs
CONS
Paid membership for more functions
3rd party hiring
Some job openings are outdated
PROS
Directly apply for jobs
More job details and description
Track application status
CONS
No company reviews
Some openings without updating
No interview feedback from others
PROS
Company reviews
Salary information
Customized job searching
CONS
Not much reviews like in Glassdoor
Too much 3rd party hiring
Interface not well organized
Research and analysis have shown that current job resources platforms cannot match users’ need of applying experience. Plus there are other features like live updated and user generated are also needed. With all the design implications above in made, the decision is to build a Job Market Tracker app that provide better service to users with current job market information.
ideation
brainstorming
Main Functions
I started the brainstorm of a series scenarios and storyboards of users interacting with the job market app. Based on the requirement, it will offer five different types of functions as following: recruitment status, live updates, user generated, well-organized information and others. Plus more features under each of these functions. I tried to make all features match the previous analysis and research, to bring enough information to successfully engage the user in a better job tracking environment, that can provide a better assistance for user to obtain job information.
Feature diagrams
Recruitment Status
Recruitment status provide hiring status of companies, such as hiring, hiring freeze, layoffs and offer rescinded. It’s clearly present to users about each company current hiring situation.
Live Update
Live update function provide on time update information, like last modified time, information post time and so on. This offers users more accurate and useful hiring information.
User Generated
All hiring status come from users and in turns serve back to users. Users can report their own company hiring status, or the one they interview. These all come from users’ contribution.
Well-Organized Information
There are different filter options for users to customize the information they would like to browse and be more efficiency. Like the newest first, only company who’s hiring and so on.
Others
Besides all mentioned functions, there are also other resources like employment chart, news, interview tips so on. The app is not only provide hiring information, but more other related areas.
prototype
Wireframe
Based on ideation brainstorming for next development, here are wireframe study and interface sketches. All these based on functions and features were discussed before, then combined together as organized interfaces. For example recruitment status, user generated, live update and so on.
user flows
interation
high fidelity interfaces
Based on the ideation and storyboards, high fidelity interfaces were designed by using prototype tools. These interfaces not only present the aesthetic value of the design, but also reflect the details that creating the better interaction experience for users.
Logo
Special designed logo with corona symbol.
Welcome Page
Clearly present logos and App name.
Home Page
Main interface of the app.
Detailed hiring Status
More company information by click the name.
Company Name Filter
Customizing the sequence of company name.
Status Filter
Customizing the sequence of hiring status.
Notes Filter
Customizing the company notes presenting.
Dates Filter
Customizing the sequence of company by time.
Menu Page
Show user’s information and other functions like setting and contact.
Notifications
Users can be notified by the content they interested and following.
Searching Bar
Allows users to search related information such as company name and so on.
Resources
Employment news, interview tips and others that help job hunting experience.
Chart
According to the data from users, clearly shows the hiring situation in different industries.
Report
Users can provide their job hunting experience, and submit to the system.
evaluation
user testing
I conducted 4 heuristic evaluation sessions and 3 usability testing sessions for each interactions. The improving System usability scale (SUS) scores demonstrated that our design iterations are more and more intuitive, efficient, and able to meet users’ needs. Besides, I also collected some data by conducting more user testing sessions, which would help refine the design and flow in the future.
SUS Score
WIREFRAME
89.365
HI-FI ITERATION
95.815
Afterthoughts
Consider all stakeholders
Design always involves input from all different perspectives. To be a better UX designer, our job is not just bring skills and approaches that balance complex requirements from users, yet design and improve the solution to meet these needs. It’s extremely critical experience that users are able to choose and filter what they see and browse instead of being passively fed.
future development
By the time I’m writing this afterthoughts now, some states are already planned to re-open soon, and job market is suppose become better later. This job market tracker app should not only be utilized during this corona crisis, but also in the regular days that offer job seekers a more efficient and useful platform. I hope this app will be a critical part for job seekers like other successful apps.