Job Seeker Observation and UX Research
It all started when…
Due to COVID 19 and Oil market crashing, I found myself unemployed. I hop back on to the familiar job search platforms. I noticed plenty of discomfort and distrust situation with all of them.
The Problems
1 . Duplication of the same job.
Jobs are often duplicate by different staff agencies.
Painpoints
Multiple Agencies were tasked by one company to fulfill one job role. For Job Seeker, He/She sees multiple job posting either with the same job description or not. Base on He/She eagerness that comes from his/her financial situation and personal situation will apply one or all the posts. The result of the process might be causing the candidate to be rejected due to double submission, and staff recruit's the due diligence of double-checking if the candidate already been submitted to the job.
2 . Information Gathering and Victim of Spams
Major job search sites such as Linkedin, Glassdoor, Indeed or ZipRecruiter let their priority users (Companies, Recruiters, Untrusted Sites) to post any jobs, but sometimes it turns out to be expired, link to other job sites, or just clickbait for individual information.
1 . Job Post on Glassdoor
2 . Link took me to another job site prompt me to sign up in order to apply for the job
3 . To check if that job is actual available, I visit the company career page to validate the opening.
Painpoints
To get people's hope up at a time of desperation.
To force the users to go through different job posts and then direct the user to other job sites for another round of fill in personal information, and then finally allow the users to apply for the job.
The worst of all is whenever the user finished filling the form and finally got to apply for the job, it turns out to be expired, or there is no such job available. (As a user, because of this, I validate most of the job post through the company career page.)
In the end, the user's email just full of spams from those job sites.
User Research and Interviews
Job Seeker Journey Map
Concept of a Solution
For this particular case, I am going to use Linkedin as an example since I am their premium subscriber.
I believe Linkedin's goal overall is to create a social network for the professional that including the "Job Searching" service. I think that they need to place "individual users" ahead of the "company user," especially relating to job searching. The sole purpose of the Linkedin job search platform should be painless. Showing the user list of possible job opportunities and link them to the correct job application. Not some third party platform or even at the risk of leaking the users' private information.
I believe letting Staff Agencies or Unknown Third Party Sites post a job creates an untrusted relation between Linkedin and its users.
This solution only tailors to the problem of one job to multiple staff agencies. It provides clarity to the users and offers them choices to choose which staffing agencies.
Link to staff agencies page, which including the users’ comment and recommendation, will force staff agencies to maintain it's status through customer relationship.
Conclusion
We are living in the society of modern technology, and most of the information is within reach of our fingertips. But I believe major social platforms need to do their due diligence of putting user-centric thoughts and features ahead as the priority to ensure customer loyalty. In this particular case study, I believe the problems and solutions I point out can provide the customer experience that will ensure the longevity of this job search platform.