Enhancing the Job Application on LinkedIn through Resume Optimization,Job application tracking, and coffee catch

A personal challenge:

While job hunting on LinkedIn, I often struggled with managing my applications, finding the process frustrating. As a result, I sometimes lost confidence in LinkedIn as the right platform for this purpose

Why did we focus on This problem?

Our team wanted to understand why job seekers were feeling frustrated with LinkedIn and turning to other apps for better connections and job opportunities. While reviewing LinkedIn, we noticed a few key issues: it was hard to track the jobs we applied for, difficult to easily connect with professionals, and challenging to find suitable jobs based on our skills. We saw potential in these areas and our goal was to increase user trust and engagement by improving search features and increasing user interaction and feedback on the profile.

Tools

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, FigJam, Google Meet

Role

UX researcher UI Designer

Duration

5 Weeks

Mentor

Marzie Nadali

Baran Masoumian

Niki Ghasemi

Forming the foundation of our approach

We first outlined initial assumptions about the problems we aimed to solve. Then after conducting desk research, we eliminated some of these assumptions and added new ones based on the data we obtained.

Relevance of Job Recommendations:

LinkedIn’s algorithm struggles to accurately match users with relevant job opportunities.

Ineffective Saved Jobs Feature:

The saved jobs feature is not user-friendly and doesn’t provide easy access to saved jobs.

Cumbersome Application Process:

Users find it frustrating to be redirected to external company websites to complete applications.

Repetitive Information Entry:

Users have to re-enter information for each application, lacking a system to save and reuse data.

Repetitive Information Entry:

Users have to re-enter information for each application, lacking a system to save and reuse data.

Limited Company Information:

Users have limited access to information about company culture, salary, and employee reviews.

Lack of Application Status Updates:

Users are not informed about the status of their applications, leading to uncertainty.

Ineffective Search Filters:

The current search filters and advanced search capabilities are not robust enough to find specific jobs.

Lack of Transparency in Job Listings:

Users distrust job postings due to a lack of verification and transparency. The current search filters and advanced search capabilities are not robust enough to find specific jobs.

A Source of User Disappointment:

easy apply option doesn’t work often and leads to users disappointment

Building the Foundations Through Online Exploration

For our desk research, our goal was to build on past experiences to uncover the foundations of our case study program. We grabbed our paper, pencil and laptop in hand, we set out on an online journey to gather the necessary information to:

Validate or refute our assumptions about target users.
Gain a deeper understanding of the target users' mindset.
Become more familiar with the platform.
Master relevant topics and trends in the field.

Looking at social media discussions showed that job seekers were...

After going through user reviews and online publications we gathered the similar ones and grouped them together.

Uncovering Platform Weaknesses and Strengths:

In this section, we took a look at LinkedIn’s strengths and weaknesses to see what it’s doing well and where there’s room for improvement. This helps us understand what new features could be added to make the experience better. 🎥

weaknesses

Users are not informed about the status of their applications.
Users have to re-enter information for each application.
Users often get annoyed by ads and irrelevant notifications. 🔔
Easy Apply doesn’t give us the right response or results.
LinkedIn's search filters are not effective for finding specific jobs.
LinkedIn's algorithm often fails to match users with relevant jobs.
Low visibility for Easy Apply applications, often overlooked among large volumes.
Some jobs listed may already be closed.🔒

Strengths

The Easy Apply feature simplifies the application process, allowing users to apply for multiple jobs quickly.
Popular platform for professional and corporate roles. 👔

Understanding the challenges LinkedIn users face in finding a job

We had the chance to meet and interview 7 awesome people 🤩 and got the inside scoop on their LinkedIn job experiences. They dished out awesome ideas 💥.

Three quotes from the interview that stayed with us

Discovered insights from the interview that shaped our perspective

😕 Lack of Flexibility and Specificity

Users need greater flexibility and specificity in the filter options, such as the ability to apply more granular filters like skills without entering a job title or simultaneously searching for multiple skills.

🤨 Fake ads, real distrust

Users distrust LinkedIn due to fake job ads and outdated postings, prompting them to apply directly through company websites.

🕸️ ️LinkedIn: Vast Community, Overlooked Potential

LinkedIn, the go-to network for professionals, connects a massive community. Yet, many users feel their LinkedIn connections could be more powerful. They often find themselves relying on other platforms for referrals and achieving better results elsewhere.

‍‍️🤷‍♀️ Results Are Aligned, But Not Precise Enough!

Users are not getting complete matches in the results. For example, the seniority level and exact location are not included in the search results. Additionally, if the search query is more than two words, the results lose relevance at some point.

🧐 Easy Apply: Good Feature, But No Results

Users appreciate the Easy Apply feature for its efficiency in speeding up the application process. However, as the number of applications increases, users often feel their chances of success decrease. Many have experienced a lack of results and need tracking their applications, knowing how many roles they have applied, and also having a clear feedback to understand why their applications were unsuccessful.

The needs and goals of LinkedIn users when searching for a job on LinkedIn

Analyzing interview results led to three distinct personas based on their behavior while searching for a job, each with unique goals.

PERSONA 1

Inbound job seekers

This user enhances their LinkedIn profile and creates content based on platform job postings to attract recruiters. They lack confidence due to a lack of feedback on their profile and resume.

PERSONA 2

Outbound job seekers

They use search filters to find relevant job postings, but often find it difficult to narrow down their search results due to limited filter options. They also struggle to keep track of their applications, making it hard to know how many they've submitted and where each one stands in the process.

PERSONA 3

Partnership job seekers

This person connects directly with employees and those who make hiring decisions at companies to find job opportunities. They rely heavily on referrals from their network to find jobs. They are frustrated because LinkedIn doesn't provide the best tools for building and leveraging their professional network.

Other apps offer more personalized experiences and foster deeper user engagement.

We explored user experience in Linkedin’s direct and indirect competitors to find out how they perform in areas where our personas experience frustration and also to find opportunities and seek inspiration.

Competitors incentivize users to contribute more to the platform, such as by sharing reviews, assisting other users, or offering coaching. This encourages greater user engagement and can lead to more valuable experiences for everyone.

Networking often involves building connections through targeted groups, such as referral groups. Additionally, there was a dedicated section designed to simplify the process of finding hiring managers and establishing meaningful connections with them.

Linkedin lacks a proper progress state (e.g., hired, invited to an interview, rejected, etc.), which fails to convey a sense of advancement.

Similar platforms provide users with resume templates, resume reviews, writing and consultation services, and mock interviews for interview preparation.

Competitors incentivize users to contribute more to the platform, such as by sharing reviews, assisting other users, or offering coaching. This encourages greater user engagement and can lead to more valuable experiences for everyone.

Building the Big Picture

Now that we have clarified our problems, we reframed them as ‘How Might We’ questions which helped us better see opportunities and made brainstorming easier, allowing us to generate more ideas.

How might we optimize the LinkedIn job search experience so users can easily find relevant job opportunities and feel more satisfied with their search results.

How might we help users manage their job applications after submitting them so that they stay informed about the status of their applications ?

How might we enhance users’ networking, offer better opportunities to partnership job seekers, and support effective and meaningful connections?

How might we make inbound job seekers feel more prepared for application by providing feedback on their resumes and portfolio so that they can apply with confidence and increase their chances of success?

Navigating the Maze: Exploring Ways to Meet User Needs

Designing new features within the LinkedIn experience required us to brainstorm not only the design but also how we would introduce them to users.
We explored different solutions and sketched out the user flows. Then we discussed and voted on the most feasible ones. 💡

Which solutions will drive the most significant results?

It’s a hard truth that not all ideas can be selected for the UI. Once the selected ideas were identified, we moved on to prioritizing the items for UI implementation using the 3×3 Impact/Effort Matrix. After narrowing down the best ones, we analyzed 👓 them to see how much effort they’d take and how big of an impact they’d make.

Bringing ideas to life

We wanted the LinkedIn experience to feel intuitive from the first click, with smooth navigation and crystal-clear details. We used plenty of white space to keep the design uncluttered, and we made sure it felt familiar by sticking to LinkedIn’s style. It was also important to create a design that encourages users to explore and engage.

Resume builder & Feedback system flow

Job Application Tracking

Coffee Catch

Collaborative Post

Filters & Search results

Categorizing Groups

Now we stand with the knowledge that...

‌‌‌‌🧍People use of these 3 main strategies to find jobs

We identified that there are three key strategies job seekers follow on LinkedIn: inbound seekers who wait for opportunities, outbound seekers who actively apply, and partnership seekers who rely on networking. By understanding the unique needs of each group, we built a solid foundation for our design decisions.

🧠 Effective design requires careful consideration of cognitive load

Our 5-second tests on resume-builder feature, showed us we were overwhelming users with too much information on one screen. We realized it's much better to show things gradually, one step at a time, so people can learn and feel comfortable with the product and not get frustrated!.

🕵🏻‍♀️ Personalizing Interview Questions

We found that personalizing interview questions improves data collection.
This helped us uncover hidden challenges and see problems from different perspectives. One of the insights we gained was that LinkedIn wasn't fully tapping into the power of its professional network. So, in our brainstorming sessions, we focused on that, coming up with ideas like "coffee catch" and collaborative posts to boost engagement.

What would we measure?

The Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Another metric we're interested in measuring is the Click-Through Rate (CTR) for "ideal job" although we know that to measure it, we need a significant number of users to ensure reliable data and access to the company's internal data panels and real user interactions.

Time to first application, Number of applications per user, Application success rate

To get an even more detailed understanding of the feature's success, we'll use the following metrics:

Time to first application

Number of applications per user

Application success rate

The user satisfaction score

If we could measure design and experience in the real world, one of the first things we'd look at for any feature would be the user satisfaction score, to see how well it's being received.

Adoption and usage

Another metric we think would give us great insights into how users are interacting with new features is adoption and usage. This will help us see where we're doing well and where we need to focus more effort.

Profile engagement

Since we've added the 'coffee catch' option to profiles, it would be a great idea to measure profile engagement before and after to see how much of an impact it has.

Thanks for Watching!