Timeline: 24HRS (1st July - 2nd July)
Role: Product Designer
Platform: Mobile app
Constraints: Time
Collaboration with Trina Yau (Project Manager)
& Yi Hsuan Wu (Graphics & Product Designer)
Responsibilities
(Hackathon Project)
User research, ideation, sketches, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing.
There were 3 themes for us to choose from for this 24-hour hackathon and we chose the theme:
“Help us revolutionise tech hiring to make it a more fair, diverse, and efficient process”
As a group of Asian females transitioning to tech careers, this theme deeply resonated with us due to our shared experiences.
We set out to design a gamified professional networking platform aimed at addressing the prevalent challenges in tech hiring. Our platform incorporated diverse user-generated content, AI-powered CV screening, and practical skill-building quests to facilitate a seamless job-seeking experience for users and enable companies to find candidates aligned with their business needs.
My role involved solution ideation, sketching, wireframing, and contributing to the hi-fi prototype within time constraints. Collaborative usability testing was conducted to gather insights.
We aim to revolutionise tech hiring to make it more fair, diverse and efficient by dealing with the current issues:
CVs filtered out via ATS software
Lack of personalised feedback from recruiters
Delayed response
Unconscious bias and discrimination
Imposter syndrome
Our preliminary research revealed that inefficiencies plague the current recruitment process and lack of diversity in the talent pool. Noteworthy findings include:
It takes on average 87 days for recruiters for a technology position in the UK to respond to an application. [Source: Tech Nation, Tech Nation Report 2021]
Many entry-level/junior roles ask for 3+ years of experience.
Only 37% of UK developers believe that the tech recruiting process is fair and unbiased [Source: SlashData, Developer Economics: State of the Developer Nation, 2020] [Source: Robert Half Technology, 2019]
Only 26% are women [Source: WomenInTech.co.uk Survey 2022]
Career Quest - a gamified AI-powered hiring app for fairness, diversity and efficiency.
An all-in-one professional networking platform.
Companies and content creators can post relevant content teaching or informing users regarding the tech industry
Users can post their work/thinking process during challenges to allow recruiters to judge a user based on their work instead of ‘years of experience on a CV’
Creating content
Machine learning is used to recommend jobs to the users based on the filters, information provided, content viewed and most importantly, CV keyword matching.
Provides users valuable information about a company like how diverse they are and how long it takes them to respond
To tackle the imposter syndrome which unfortunately prevents users from applying to jobs, we added a profile match percentage to help give users more confidence to apply to roles. This is based on the users’ CV, portfolio and content recreated.
Companies can provide challenges imitating tech challenges in interviews
Users will be able to showcase their abilities, thought processes and work styles by completing these quests. These will be added to the user's profile to organically generate a portfolio.
This allows companies to find candidates based on their skills rather than a CV
Allow users to message recruiters directly in a more informal friendlier way to reduce pressure
AI can be used to help send that first-opening message to those with social anxiety. Sometimes a little push is all it takes to get someone to greater places.*
During our judging panel, we were asked about the AI-generated message. Understandable as the use of AI increases the more auto-generated AI messages/cover letters etc people will start receiving. These show a lack of personality and effort from the user. However, the AI-generated message in the app will only be used for the opening message used to schedule a meeting or ask for more information regarding the job/company. It is up to the user themselves to follow up with the conversation and the meetings.
To combat to the perception of unfair tech hiring practices blind hiring is used to ensure a fair recruitment process free of potential bias due to age, gender, educational background, experience and race.
CVs sent during the messaging process will use anonymisation to remove names, ages and educational institutions.
For the design of the app, we approached it from a candidate's and a recruiter's point of view with the initial idea of creating a fun gamified app coming from a recruiter we interviewed. During the interview, we were able to learn:
Early Career candidates don't use traditional platforms like LinkedIn!
Recruiters spend only 10-15 seconds per CV
Rigid CV keyword-matching process
This got us thinking:
Do we need to start using social media such as TikTok, and Instagram to attract talent?
While on the other side of the spectrum, candidates have voiced concerns over:
Being seen in such a highly competitive job market
Tedious application processes
Delayed responses and automated rejection emails lead to effects on mental health with constantly being disheartened
Lacking skills to apply to certain jobs, always feeling like they need to be better.
By combining social media concepts with gamification, we created an app aimed at reducing the mental stress associated with job hunting and imposter syndrome. Our app uses job-relevant challenges to help users ‘level up’ and gain the skills needed for their desired roles, similar to how one progresses in a game. We ensured the app is not only fun and easy to use but also effectively addresses the problems we identified, providing a comprehensive solution to the challenges in tech hiring.
Users gain points for activities such as commenting, connecting with others, and creating content. These points can be used to access AI tools within the app. The first method of generating revenue is by allowing users to purchase additional points if they want to use more AI tools. These tools include CV reviews and auto-generated CVs based on the user's portfolio and content.
Additionally, companies will be required to pay for posting job ads on the platform. They can also opt to pay extra to have their ads featured prominently.
I am very proud of what we have produced in the given time and the approach we used to solve the problem we were given. However, with all projects, it's never going to feel ‘perfect’ and especially with the strict time limit we had to take shortcuts wherever possible. If I had more time on this project I would work on the UI and make it more polished. Thanks to the many people at the hackathon we were able to do more research than expected but due to finishing the prototype with very little time spare, we were unable to do any usability testing other than between the 3 of us.
