Reorganizing the job search process

A quest to reduce mental and cognitive stress for young job-searchers

An Overview

CHALLENGE

College students become easily anxious about finding an internship during college or a job after college, often feeling intimidated and overwhelmed.

I aimed to find a way to help job finders organize their process in a way that is encouraging while reducing stress.

ROLE

UI/UX Designer & Researcher

DURATION

Summer of 2021

SKILLS

UI/UX Design, Figma,

UX Research

SOLUTION

Horizon is an online organizational and task management tool that helps job seekers track their job application information, gives them the confidence to navigate the process, and guides users in finding a new job.

Core Features

Job List Spreadsheet

View and organize only the most essential information regarding active job applications

Dedicated Job Details

Access information such as notes, contacts, and files

Create a schedule

Align your tasks and events to keep informed and stay on track

Easily Add New Jobs

Adding in relevant information for applied roles adds new application to your database

Get suggestions and tips in the process

Further your candidacy using advice geared towards creating a better understanding of the role, company, and associated contacts.

I interviewed college students to find out how they keep keep recruitment information organized, in both physical & mental ways. Most students used a combination of different organizational strategies.

COMMON SOLUTIONS

Spreadsheets

Data-driven

See all information in one place

Organized by company, included role title, due dates, location, and listing URL

PAIN POINTS

Understanding how people job search

Files

Information kept across different locations

Organized into folders for each company, including company-specific resumes, cover letters, notes

Calendar

Keeps track of events such as interviews and coffee chats

Often not used consistently if used for goal-oriented tasks and to-do’s

Poor Accessibility

Information was scattered across different locations causes resources and information to be difficult to locate and access

Overwhelming Layout

Keeping too much information increases stress and negativity surrounding progress of job search

Not Enough Time for Organization

Creating a strategy for organization solely for job searching was not a priority—job searching, networking, and building one’s career was the priority

Tasks or Events are Easily Forgotten

Lack of consistency in organization allowed for forgetting of tasks, due dates and events

User Personas

Newbie Winnie

  • Undergraduate sophomore

  • First time applying to jobs

  • Navigating balance between school & recruitment

Winnie has just started looking for internships, and is starting to feel overwhelmed with the process. She feels a sense of motivation to learn how to find an internship for next summer, and wants to keep organized.

Experienced Alex

  • Undergraduate senior

  • 2 years experience in applying for internships

  • Feels confident juggling responsibilities

Previously, Alex felt disorganized and unmotivated in his job search, mainly using a spreadsheet that he found too tedious to update over time. He wants a refreshing yet easy and motivating way to organize for his next cycle of recruitment that doesn’t require much time and effort to manage.

User Journey

Design Thinking

01

Brainstorm & Cognitive Models

Through a series of mind maps, I focused on generating an organizational layout and user flow with the goal of minimizing cognitive load to maximize usability, and to craft mental representations of tracked information to improve remembering.

I decided to design away from the data-like structure of spreadsheets and to simplify the amount of information presented to the user. Utilizing the general structure of what worked with existing solutions allowed me to create a design that would improve usability through familiarity while reducing the need for relearning.

02

Iteration

I experimented with different ways in which information could be entered, presented, and kept track of by the user, sketching and analyzing the cognitive demands the designs would give to the user.

​I conducted usability testing, giving potential users scenarios based on user journeys that suited and satisfied user needs.

03

User Testing

Click to enlarge

One of the main challenges was prototyping a function to be able to change the individual contents inside the rows of the “Spreadsheet”.

I prototyped and tested many iterations of this feature, improving on the visibility of the function and the ease of changing labels, while juggling the accessibility of users being able to click on the row to get into more details about the role and company.

Learnings & Reflections

Using Low Fidelity prototypes for testing

Creating lower fidelity prototypes would allow me to iterate as much as possible before committing to design choices. It becomes more challenging to alter higher fidelity prototypes due to increased complexity, and it would be more efficient to iterate at lower fidelity.

More User Testing

The majority of ideation and prototyping came from applications of concepts in cognitive science and heuristic evaluation. More user testing would allow for me to understand more of what users would experience engaging with the product itself, and allow for more iterations and improvements in the design beyond my research and concept.

Toss Away the Designer’s Ego

As a designer, it becomes more difficult to detach ourselves from our own designs the more effort we put into them. When it comes to user testing and iteration, this can become a mental block to making design choices that serve our user’s needs rather than our own biases.

Working to keep an open mind and improving my ability to detach from my existing designs would improve my design choices.