Recruitment Central

Revolutionising recruitment for tomorrow's talent

Client

A Nasdaq-listed global SaaS company offering digital tools for project management, team collaboration, and software development.

Product

Hiring resource tech solution that streamlines and accelerates hiring.

Stakeholders

Recruiters, Hiring Managers, FP&A

 

Year

2021

 

My Role

End-to-end UX/UI Designer (Research, Wireframes, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Hand-off to developers)

Background

The project aimed to expedite the hiring process. The primary objective was to hire 1,000 staff globally in FY24 while planning for 5,000 by 2026 in preparation for the launch of its new office in Sydney’s Tech Central.

My Contributions

  • Led the end-to-end experience design process, from research to prototype in cross-functional team (project managers, developers, business analysts, and stakeholders).

  • Conducted user research and workshops to gather insights and define requirements.

  • Designed wireframes and prototypes, ran usability tests, and iterated on solutions.

  • Delivered developer-ready wireframes, ensuring a seamless handover and implementation.

Discover

Key Challenges

  • Communication silos between teams made it hard to track candidates’ hiring status: Different teams and departments, including recruiters, hiring managers, FP&A, and other HR agencies, operated in isolation. This hindered collaboration, caused delays, miscommunication, and led to inconsistencies in the hiring workflow.

  • Using disconnected tools created inefficiencies in hiring: The current process relied on multiple disintegrated tools like email, Excel sheets, Slack, Workday, Tableau, and ICIMS. This resulted in lengthy, complex procedures and sometimes led to losing potential applicants to competitors.

  • Limited access to salary data made offering competitive compensation difficult: Without comprehensive and reliable salary data, it was challenging to determine competitive compensation packages. This lack of market insight made it harder to attract and retain top-tier talent

Activity

  • Facilitating user story workshops: Structured workshops are held to define user requirements using the format, "As an [User Role], I want to [Action] so that [Benefit]." This ensures the team fully understands users’ objectives and motivations.

  • Conducting user interviews to define features: I followed with in-depth user interviews with each user persona to understand their actual needs. Insights from these sessions guide the definition and design of features, ensuring a user-centric product that serves a wide range of stakeholders.

Key Findings

  • Recruiters:
    Recruiters engaged in talent acquisition demand expedited compensation approval from FPAs. This is essential to ensure prompt responses to prospective applicants, preventing them from exploring opportunities with rival organisations.

  • Financial Planning Analysts (FPAs):
    FPAs need a quick way to check if compensation packages fit budget limits and a streamlined process to efficiently approve recruiter requests. They necessitate access to real-time insights into the prevailing market compensation rates, vital for maintaining competitiveness in the talent market.

  • Hiring Managers:
    Hiring managers face the challenge of not having real-time visibility into the status of candidates within their purview. They require a comprehensive understanding of where candidates stand in the hiring process.

Define

Problem Statement

How might we employ top-tier talent by making our hiring process faster, more collaborative, and data-informed?

Key features

  1. Offer Calculator:

    Equipping recruiters with the capability to assess candidate compensation while concurrently displaying salary benchmarks for the same job title within the industry, this tool streamlines the comprehensive evaluation of whether the proposed compensation aligns with budgetary considerations. If adjustments are warranted, recruiters can promptly initiate approval requests with FP&A.

  2. Comprehensive Compensation Bands:

    Providing recruiters the capacity to evaluate candidate compensation while concurrently presenting salary data for the corresponding job title across industry competitors, this feature simplifies the process of assessing whether the proposed compensation adheres to budget constraints. In cases requiring adjustments, recruiters can efficiently initiate approval requests with FP&A.

  3. Hiring Status:

    Offering users a valuable advantage by providing real-time insights into the current applicant status, this feature eliminates information silos. It promotes seamless collaboration among all relevant stakeholders, including recruiters, hiring managers, and applicants themselves. This heightened transparency and cooperation significantly enhance the feasibility of the entire recruitment process, ensuring its smooth and efficient operation. 

  4. Offer Approval Settings:

    Serving as a communication conduit between recruiters and FP&A, this functionality enables recruiters to request FP&A's input on candidate compensation, expediting the approval or rejection process. This not only accelerates communication with applicants but also addresses recruiters’ concerns about extended decision waiting times.

Develop

Early Flow and Wireframe Sketches

I begin by mapping the user flow to understand how users will navigate the product. Early wireframe sketches visualise key screens and interactions, focusing on layout, hierarchy, and functionality rather than visual design. These wireframes go through multiple iterations based on stakeholder feedback. Following this, I conduct usability testing with end users from our target audience to gather precise feedback, which is refined through further iterations

Deliver

Recruiter Dashboard

The recruiter dashboard streamlines job requisition management and candidate offer calculations, replacing the previous Excel-based process and expediting hiring workflows. It also enables offer comparisons with the broader job market to ensure hiring competitiveness. In cases of budget exceedance, the dashboard allows a recruiter to make urgent approval requests addressed to FP&A.

FP&A Dashboard

The FP&A Dashboard streamlines the review and approval process of candidates for FP&A. When a recruiter sends FP&A a job offer for approval, FP&A has the option to “Approve” or “Send Back” a job offer with comments. The dashboard allows FP&A to view all outstanding offers and their details, ensuring swift and informed decision-making. The dashboard empowers the client to swiftly execute the hiring process and secure top talent before they consider exploring opportunities with rival employers.

Results

  • We tested the solution with direct users (Hiring Managers, Recruiters Team, and FP&A), about 10 users in total. The feedback was very positive, with an average usability rating of 4.5/5, highlighting improved efficiency in the hiring process.

  • The project successfully progressed to the development phase, a strong indicator of impact and feasibility.

  • The company’s growth reflects the long-term value of this work. In 2021 they had 6,000 employees, and by 2025 that number has doubled to 12,500, aligning with their scaling targets.

Personal Takeaways

Some key personal takeaways from the engagement included:

  • The importance of collaboration
    I learned how to better manage responsibilities across disciplines to avoid overlapping work. Managing overlapping responsibilities strengthened my communication skills and highlighted the importance of clear role definition in keeping the project on track.

  • Contributing to Australia’s leading tech company
    It was a privilege to play a role in the growth of one of Australia’s most prominent tech companies. Being part of its success story has been both meaningful and rewarding.

  • Lifelong learning and innovation in UX design
    The dynamic nature of UX design demands continuous learning and adaptability. Staying current with emerging trends and technologies is essential to creating impactful user experiences and driving successful outcomes.