Qualy
An app that matches qualified candidates and relevant jobs
2017 / Ironhack / Paris, France
Click here to try out the interactive prototype
(more fun when viewed on your phone)
A little background...
For my final student project, I worked with Shefferd Talent House, a recruitment agency in Paris, and a fellow UX design student at Ironhack. This project was one of 3 finalists chosen to present during Ironhack's Hackshow at the end of our training program.
Through their research, Shefferd had identified 2 main problems:
- Recruiters are tired of other recruiters asking them for candidate referrals
- Recruiters would rather spend time on senior profiles
They had observed that:
- The best way to find a quality candidate is through another quality candidate
- There is less need for recruitment agency involvement in junior candidate placement
- Candidates can recommend each other (anyone can be a recruiter)
The initial solution idea:
Create a mobile app that motivates recruiters & quality employees/job-seekers to refer quality candidates, by offering financial rewards for successful referrals.
My partner and I applied the user-centered design methods we learned at Ironhack to advance the project into the design phase. We had a little over 2 weeks to research and analyze user needs, design and test initial prototypes, create an original visual design, and build a high-fidelity interactive prototype.
UX research and… pivot!
Through interviews and surveys we found that recruiters and non-recruiters (job seekers) didn’t receive many sollicitations for referrals, they were happy to refer candidates to people in their network, and even a financial reward wouldn’t add incentive. They didn’t state a preference for working with senior candidates.
The recruiters’ main pain points were:
“I want to know if a potential candidate is available, what package they want, if they’ll be a good fit, if the offer will interest them”
“I want to be able to call the candidate”
On the other side, job seekers’ main pain points were:
“Job searching is time consuming”
“I can’t find a job that fits my profile”
Based on this feedback, we decided to focus on solving the users' pain points.
Our solution: qualify candidates & save everyone time
How? Through a mobile app that qualifies and matches candidates and jobs more accurately than the competition (LinkedIn Job Search, Kudoz, Meteojob), by requiring candidates to enter specific criteria that recruiters need, like phone number and availability date. Recruiters are also required to enter specific criteria in their job postings.
Every 24 hours the app displays 5 highly relevant job ads to each candidate, and 10 highly relevant candidate profiles to each recruiter, refreshed daily to encourage active use. If a candidate shows interest in a job and a recruiter shows interest in the candidate’s profile, a match is made and the candidate can contact the recruiter. Recruiters can call the candidate without having matched.
And pivot back!
Shefferd pointed out that the app could further qualify candidates by asking employers to validate each work experience. So we ended up incorporating Shefferd’s initial concept of referrals back into the app, through an in-app recommendation request feature.
Next steps
Discrete profile option — give candidates a way to use the service without their current employer knowing
Recommendation confirmation — the app will confirm the authenticity of each employer recommendation through technology like bot-checking
Website version for recruiters — recruiters create job postings on their desktop computers
Coach — an astronaut character helps candidates and recruiters with onboarding and creating quality profiles and job postings to get the best possible match
Try the prototype yourself!
Click here to try out the interactive prototype (more fun when viewed on your phone)
Methods & tools we used:
UX design:
Research: Interview template, interviews, lean survey canvas, questionnaires (Google Forms), competitor analysis, user test script, user testing (after prototype creation)
Ideation: brainstorming, mind mapping, round robin, crazy eights
Information architecture: user flow diagram, site map
UI design tools:
Visual design: mood board, style tile
Prototypes: paper prototype then wireframe and high-fidelity interactive prototype created in Sketch, Craft & Marvel
Below is my final high-fidelity design (my partner's is slightly different):
Check out a couple of our classmates’ final projects:
Guillaume Vilain (Hackshow winner) created Cocoluck, an application that aims to improve the flat sharing experience by helping users better enjoy their time together.
Amanda Basso created Travellous, an app for solo women travellers.
