Make applying human
Indeed Online Events
Indeed Online Events taught me the importance of loving the problem, not the the solution.
While this project successfully launched and ran, it only lasted for 3 quarters. However, the valuable insights I acquired from it went on to shape my design approach in subsequent successful initiatives such as Indeed Open Interviews, Indeed Hiring Events, and a significant portion of my work at Job Today.
Idea to MVP
The Problem
There is a communication “black hole” in the application process for recruiters hiring multiple people for roles that tend to have follow up questions on the job seeker side. These recruiters often struggle to answer everyone's questions individually, or to fit all the necessary details into job descriptions.
Could we connect job seekers and recruiters for these roles in a more human-centered way?
We wanted to help job seekers and recruiters who were looking to connect for roles that typically hired at a large volume and commonly have questions that are challenging to address in a simple job description. Roles like mushroom harvesters, warehouse workers, trucking companies, etc.
Our hypothesis
Connecting job seekers and employers before the apply in a human-centered way would lead to higher quality applies and better transparency in the overall hiring process.
Brainstorming our MVP
With this problem and hypothesis in mind, I created and led a three day brainstorming session to review what existed, how users were solving this problem today, and to come up with a potential solution to test.
Our MVP Idea
We landed on a simple MVP - a live chat event that we would advertise to job seekers on existing Indeed search surfaces. Hiring managers or recruiters from interested companies would log onto the event, post information about the job, and respond to questions from attendees. There would be an action for attendees to apply to the job during and after the event and a job seeker anonymized transcript would be sent to everyone after the event was over.
Running tests in parallel with engineering development
In order to learn fast, we tested the first few events using GoToMeeting while engineering worked on building a home grown chat app. Through the first few events on GoToMeeting we learned that the majority of job seekers dialed in via a mobile device, show rates were low due to a required client download, and the majority of participants did not use video - including the recruiter or hiring manager. We also learned that job seekers mostly attended to either watch and learn more about the company - which was also enforced in later user interviews - or to get answers to specific questions about the role that were not addressed in the job description.
68%
Job Seekers joined on mobile
10%
Job Seekers who RSVP'd attended
This influenced how I moved forward with our MVP design. I focused on creating an easy-to-join, mobile friendly experience for job seekers, and a single or multi-host desktop view for recruiters.
User Research
In addition to designing the experience for both job seekers and employers for this project, I ran 4 pieces of research to answer the following questions ahead of the finished MVP implementation.
Did job seekers understand the service being offered? Was it solving a real pain?
Initially it wasn't clear from the ads and event page that the experience would be a chat-first experience. Subsequent iterations addressed this, and feedback following these improvements showed interest in receiving an anonymized transcript if participants RSVP'd but couldn't attend, in hopes of getting answers to their questions about the role.
Did employers understand the service being offered? Was it solving a real pain point?
Employers I spoke with liked the idea of interacting with potential candidates outside of just reading their resume, and viewed it as being a "next phase" of hiring online. The also saw it as having the potential to make their workflow more efficient, but it still seemed like a “nice to have” option, not a “need to have”.
Was our entry point engaging enough to get job seekers to RSVP for these events?
In the initial version tested, Job seekers were confused by the inconsistent interchange of the terms "chat" and "event" and did not immediately understand that they would be speaking directly with a hiring manager or recruiter from the company.
Indeed Online Events MVP
Once engineering had our home grown chat app ready, we leveraged existing experiences from other Incubator projects to quickly prop up an employer intake form, as well as job seeker and employer email reminders and text message reminders.
Employer Intake
Job Seeker Experience
Employer Chat View
Job Seeker Reminders and post-event survey
Employer Reminders
Outcome & Learnings
Revenue is not the only important indicator
While we generated some revenue during the 3 quarters this MVP ran, as a team we realized that although Online Events addressed transparency and humanized the act of applying to a job, it still did not address the true challenges in communication post-application for both job seekers and employers. This combined with an insufficient volume of market demand to sustain the service led us to sunset the project.
Project Details
The Team
- I ran everything for the first two quarters, and handed it off to a new team member as an onboarding project to run it for the last quarter
1 Product Manager
1 APM
2 Engineers
Timeline
First 6 weeks
Identification of problem, ideation of MVP, pilot, and launch of MVP
Remaining 2.5 quarters
Sold, ran events, and got feedback from employers and job seekers