From Zero to 3rd in Revenue
Indeed Hiring Events
I led the design for Indeed Hiring Events; it began as a ground-up initiative and grew into the third highest revenue-generating product at Indeed.
Read on to see how it happened.
Problem & Hypothesis
Problem
Hiring events are great for high volume hiring, but coordinating them and getting people to show up is hard.
Hypothesis
We can expedite the hiring process by structuring and advertising hiring events for employers. Allowing them to skip screening and scheduling and go straight to interviewing and hiring.
We had solid problem and hypothesis
Now it was time to align as a team on the MVP. After running a 1 day brainstorming session we had a good idea of what we wanted to build. A simple event style posting with an action to RSVP. We would record the user’s name and email to send them reminders.
The pilot
Engineering started investigating what would need to be done to make our event and RSVP style posting happen, but we were not committed to building anything just yet. First we needed to answer a very important question:
Can we get job seekers to show up to a hiring event?
To answer this question we worked with a sales partner to find 3 customers to pilot this idea for free in the Austin, Texas area. We secured our 3 pilot customers and used Indeed’s internal targeted ad system to advertise the events to job seekers and we sent email reminders the day before the event.
I attended the pilots in person to observe user behavior and interact with hiring managers and job seekers. Through these observations and conversations, a clear expectation gap emerged: job seekers perceived the process more casually than hiring managers desired.
Employer
“I expect candidates to show up, resume in hand, dressed to interview, and be ready to speak with me.”
Expectation Gap
Job Seeker
“I expect to walk in, talk to a manager, and maybe hear back in a day or two.”
Pilot to MVP
Refining our MVP
Building on my observations at the pilots, I started to design what our Hiring Events event page and RSVP would look like. I conducted a lightweight analysis of other event apps, and explored what information and interactions they had. Then I sketched out different ideas and concepts.
MVP Launch
We collaborated with the sales team to launch our Hiring Events product. As we hosted more events, I continuously refined the product based on user feedback. I conducted surveys and one-on-one phone interviews with job seekers to understand what they wished was different about their experience or why they chose not to attend the events.
Through my in-person observations, review of other event apps, and ongoing research, it became clear that we needed to prioritize closing the expectation gap between employers and job seekers. This meant gathering additional, event-specific details from employers before posting the event.
Initially, my PM was not on board with this idea. However, I presented multiple examples of feedback from job seekers, all requesting the same information to feel comfortable attending an event—details like what to wear, where to park, and who to talk to. It was evident that attending these events required more than just bringing copies of a resume and certifications.
MVP Event Page Iterations
Hiring Events MVP Flow
Sales pitched our new product to their clients and manually input the details for the event page into a google form. Once we had the details for the event, we generated a simple event page, job seekers who RSVP’d to the event got an email reminder the day before the event and a text reminder an hour before the event. After the event, they were sent a post-event email survey.
Feedback from employers was collected through a post-event call with sales.
Scaling and Beyond
Adding features to scale
As Hiring Events continued to grow and show more promise, we started to automate different parts of the client intake and day of event services
Sales budget estimator
As we scaled, the sales team began struggling to get proposals out to clients quickly enough. The initial process required them to reach out to their NPS rep to propose a budget. The NPS rep would then calculate the price based on location, role type, and number of desired hires. This process hindered the sales team’s ability to pitch, price, and close deals swiftly.
Outcome
We created a tool to calculate the cost of the event on the fly for sales reps. This tool enabled faster role out to entire sales org, resulting in ~$2.6M revenue that same quarter it was released.
Check In Sheet for Employers to use at their event
After it was optimized for mobile, employers found this tool to be approachable and important for running in-person events. Allowing them to track attendees and move people through interviews.
Improved employer intake form
Scaling also meant scrappy things like our google form for client intake no longer functioned well enough for our sales reps to quickly close and get employer’s event details up. We knew we wanted to make a self-serve intake form to further alleviate the burden on our sales reps, but we also did not want to slow the momentum of our scaling efforts.
We released an in between client intake form that was more robust than our google form we had been using, but not quite the self-serve piece we were building in the background.
Outcome
This simple change allowed the sales team to scale from 1 person managing client intakes to 15, and gave us the runway we needed to work on the self serve tool.
We also continued to optimize the RSVP page
Adding RSVP count
Reviewing my ongoing research with our APM, I noticed another blocker for job seekers. A fear of being the only one at the event.
I hypothesized that adding an RSVP count (in some form) would increase RSVP’s, leading to increased shows. An A/B test was ran and the results were positive!
Outcome
8% increase in RSVPs
Outcome & Learnings
Hiring Events found its niche
Leading the design for Indeed Hiring Events was an incredibly rewarding journey. Starting from a basic idea, we transformed it into one of Indeed’s top revenue-generating products. Our primary goal was to simplify and expedite the hiring process for both employers and job seekers by creating structured and effectively marketed hiring events.
Overall, this project reinforced the importance of user-centered design, continuous iteration, and the value of being scrappy to move fast and learn quickly - waiting until it’s almost too painful to no automate for scaling . It was a profound learning experience that highlighted the value of empathy, collaboration, and strategic thinking in creating impactful products.
Job Seeker Personas
Project Details
Notable Research
Event Page user testWhy did you show surveyWhy did you not show surveyCheck-in SheetPre and post event moderated interviewsThe Team
- 1 UX - myself
- 1 Product Manager
- 1 APM
- 1 full-time Engineer
- 1 to 2 rotating Engineers
Timeline
14 weeks - Ideation to launched and selling MVP
4 quarters - Iterate and scale product
1 quarter - Graduate product out of Incubator