← All Projects

Indeed Hiring Events

Led a UX team to develop a MVP and Vision for a new interview automation product, driving Indeed's business recovery and strategy during COVID-19.

Scope: Guided UX design, content, research, and front-end engineering to create new employer and job seeker experiences for web app (desktop, mobile responsive) email, and SMS.

2020-2021 • Leadership; Product Vision, MVP, Strategy; Design Strategy

Summary

Problem

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, employers and job seekers needed a virtual solution for interviewing. Indeed wanted to streamline the hiring process on its platform.

Solution

We merged two incubator products into a new enhanced offering that automated sourcing, screening, and scheduling qualified candidates into virtual interviews.

Results

We launched the MVP in the US and EMEA in 2021 and achieved significant growth: 185% revenue increase, 56% event growth, and 430K+ interviews conducted on Indeed.

Context

Background

Indeed faced significant business downturn in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Q1 2020.

Employers and job seekers couldn't conduct in-person interviews anymore.
Indeed wanted to help employers and job seekers connect for virtual interviews on its platform. This strategy would help to reduce business losses and accelerate Indeed's strategy of enabling the entire hiring process on its site.

Problem

The UX project team faced multiple challenges, including, but not limited to the following:

Identifying target users, jobs and industries for a new automation product.
Integrating with employers' existing tools and processes.
Gaining employer and job seeker trust in automation.
Decreasing the amount of time, effort, and funnel waste in hiring processes at scale.
Merging 2 incubator products that had incomplete feature sets and usability issues.
Remediating senior leadership misalignment on product strategy.

Objective

Outcomes: Reduce the time and effort for employers and job seekers to connect in a virtual interview that leads to a positive outcome.

Strategy: Deliver a MVP and Vision for automating candidate sourcing, screening, and scheduling into a virtual interview on Indeed's integrated platform. Focus on jobs and industries with high-volume hiring needs.

Desired Outcomes:

Increase revenue
Increase platform adoption and retention (jobs, users)
Drive a large share of interviews

Process

My Role

I volunteered to assemble and lead a UX team for this high-priority initiative.

Worked closely with Product and Engineering leaders to define the scope, strategy, and roadmap for the project.
Galvanized the UX team and key stakeholders around the project's objectives and progress.
Oversaw roadmap creation and ensured alignment on priorities and timelines.
Provided guidance and unblocked the team when needed.
Facilitated research-sharing sessions with relevant product groups and leadership.

Top-Tier Team

I collaborated with Job Seeker and Employer org leaders to form a highly-skilled, cross-functional team. I recommended key individuals for specific roles, which included:

UX design
Content design
UX research (qual and quant)
Behavioral science
UX development
Product leadership
Project management

To maximize the success of the MVP and vision, we dedicated a core team to the project for 1-2 quarters, and prompted them to work closely with subject matter experts throughout the process.

Roadmap

I advocated for a dual-track approach consisting of MVP and Vision pods. Both teams iteratively shared knowledge, exchanged feedback, and ensured a cohesive product strategy for the short- and long-term.

Vision Pod

Focused on uncovering unmet user needs and exploring new ideas.
Designed and tested low-fidelity concepts with Indeed's internal recruiters.
Iterated on high-fidelity prototypes with external employers and job seekers.

MVP Pod

Focused on improving and connecting two existing Incubator products:
- Physical Hiring Events MVP
- Interview Platform MVP
They used insights from the Vision pod to create and improve key features for launch while reducing technical debt and enhancing usability of the existing functionality.

Stakeholder Interviews

To kickstart the initiative, we interviewed 17 leadership stakeholders to assess misalignment. These conversations catalyzed a shared commitment to achieving impactful short- and long-term goals.

Principles

Next, the team collaborated with key stakeholders to define principles that were mapped to user pain points and leveraged in key decision-making.

User Needs

We dove into dozens of existing internal and external UX and market research studies to collate and analyze quantitative and qualitative data.

We gained a deep understanding of the recruiting automation market and the needs and pain points of employer teams and job seekers.

Employer Problems & Opportunities

Job Seeker Problems & Opportunities

As the project progressed, these themes were refined based on new findings from the Vision pod and relevant initiatives across Indeed.

Behavioral Science

To better understand user behaviors and increase the likelihood of influencing them with automation, we brought our in-house behavioral scientist onboard.

They identified key behaviors, mapped them in context, formulated hypotheses, and proved or disproved them alongside UX research during 6 phases of testing. The insights gained were used to inform design decisions for the MVP and Vision features.

Automation Spectrum

We leveraged an automation spectrum framework created by UX research to assess the appropriate level of automation for each feature. We attached this to our jobs-to-be-done framework, assessed current and potential features, and proposed which tasks should be automated, how much, and why based on user research.

Solution

The UX team advocated for essential features for the MVP so that it would be easy for employer teams and job seekers to plan and meet in the interview in a holistic, end-to-end experience.

Employer Journey

Job Seeker Journey

Employer MVP Experience

Event Creation

Employers onboarded to the platform by going through a simple hiring event creation process which included tasks such as attaching new or existing jobs, adding budget, setting interview details, and more.

Pre-Event Management

Employers used a central dashboard to manage their upcoming, active, and completed hiring events. They could manage estimated attendees, interviewer requests, and more through the dashboard or SMS and email notifications.

Live Event Management

During events, employers met candidates in a virtual lobby and guided them to individual rooms to conduct the interview. They could access useful tools during the interview such as notes, interview questions, evaluation criteria, and more.

Job Seeker MVP Experience

Job seekers might pre-qualify for a hiring event if their profiles had the required info. Otherwise, they could go through a simple screening process to qualify and schedule their preferred interview time.

Recruiters could directly invite any job seeker to apply for a hiring event job, and job seekers would receive those requests in the My Jobs experience.

Job seekers could choose their preferred interview time or request a specific time. They’d receive a confirmation email, see the interview in their My Jobs tool, and have the option to cancel or reschedule if needed.

Job seekers would onboard into Indeed Interview, and join and complete a video or audio interview on their mobile, tablet, or desktoip device.