DIGITAL SERVICES

Our final concept, LOOP is a comprehensive TA solution that connects the front-end (candidates) and back-end (HR) systems, directly serving federal agencies like TSA and the Foreign Service. Our solution bridges the gap between candidates and TA professionals through an engaging online platform.

CANDIDATE JOB PORTAL

The portal is designed for candidates to elevate their job-seeking experience by providing accurate job recommendations. In addition, it extends interaction through virtual career fairs and enhances awareness through the candidate dashboard. Candidates receive updates through an application tracker and are able to schedule interviews through calendar invites on the platform.

Onboarding

From the onboarding phase, candidates start their journey with a welcome page that is followed up by the sign-up keywords page. Simultaneously, recruiters will receive an auto-generated talent pool in their portal.

Welcome Page

The welcome page provides a narrative on how LOOP serves applicants and why it is a better job-search platform for federal government agencies. When the candidate scrolls down, they will be prompted to sign up with a word of encouragement.

Keywords

The keywords page assists candidates to build their profile. They will be asked to put keywords for three prompts: expertise, location, and skillsets. The natural language processing (NLP) of LOOP’s artificial intelligence (AI) system will provide an accurate suggestion of keywords for candidates to ease the burden of inputting each section manually.

Job Searching

From the onboarding phase, candidates start their journey with a welcome page that is followed up by the sign-up keywords page. Simultaneously, recruiters will receive an auto-generated talent pool in their portal.

Virtual Career Fair

With a single click, LOOP connects the candidate with a recruiter through a virtual career fair and enhances agency value awareness. Candidates can easily reserve a meeting with recruiters.

Application Tracking

From the onboarding phase, candidates start their journey with a welcome page that is followed up by the sign-up keywords page. Simultaneously, recruiters will receive an auto-generated talent pool in their portal.

Application Tracker

The application tracker provides transparency throughout the application process.

On the left side, it shows the duration of the entire application process, the duration of each step, and the dates when the candidates get their results.

On the right side, the results and actions candidates need to complete are shown. Candidates can schedule their interviews and contact HR once they pass the initial screening. They provide serial numbers to contact HR for further information about the interview.

Candidate Dashboard

The candidate’s dashboard is a channel that brings candidates to every function of Loop. It contains a calendar which allows candidates to check their interviews and saved Career Fairs. Under “Application”, candidates can review their application status, schedule their interviews and view each application’s progress.

Interview Scheduling

LOOP helps candidates keep track of their upcoming interviews, provides a visualized calendar, and an interview platform to streamline the interview experience for the candidates.

Interview Scheduler

Candidates can schedule their interviews and contact HR once they pass the initial screening. LOOP provides serial numbers to contact HR for further information about the interview.

RECRUITER PORTAL

The recruiters' portal works to enhance the efficiency and transparency of the recruitment workflow by providing features like the dashboard, talent pool, screening, and career fair.

Recruiter Dashboard

The dashboard provides an overview of their tasks, including key performance indicators, ongoing screening, and career fair schedules.

Talent Pool

The talent pool allows recruiters to see all the candidates who sign up in Loop. It provides resumes, referrals, and qualifications for recruiters. Recruiters can see the potential candidates under each job title and invite them to apply for the job.

Screening

The recruiter can screen qualified candidates in the portal. The system will provide an overview of the ongoing JOA.

Virtual Career Fair Interview

When the recruiter holds 1-on-1 meetings with candidates, they can leave a note and mark the candidate with referral tags. The information will be saved in the system and facilitate the further process of the application process and managing the talent pool of the agency.

TA ADVISOR PORTAL

The TA advisor portal focuses on enhancing the efficiency and transparency of the recruitment workflow by providing features like JOA monitoring, attraction strategy, automation screening, interview scheduling, and candidate tracking.

Screening

The TA advisor can see the detailed information of the candidate after they click on a specific position, and they can approve or deny multiple candidates at once.

Candidate Tracking

The portal provides a candidate tracker to help TA advisors with supervising the candidate and communicating with qualified candidates to improve transparency.

HR MANAGER PORTAL

The HR manager portal helps the manager to be aware of the performance of the department and conduct interviews with ease.

Interview Platform

The HR manager can conduct interviews within the portal. The system will also provide information regarding previous interviews. The manager will be able to rate and take notes about interviewees.

RESEARCH
Data Collection

RESEARCH
Secondary research

• The recruitment process (Specifically timeliness) has a significant influence on applicant attraction.

• Understanding the unique capabilities that machines and humans bring to different types of work and tasks will be critical as the focus moves from automation to the redesign of work.

• The site should be easy to navigate by investment in search engine optimization (SEO) and structural equation modeling (SEM), attractively designed to complement the content. It can provide the best and quickest e-mail response or customer service.

• Different characteristics of job advertisements may influence job seekers with varying levels of experience. 

• Understanding the unique capabilities that machines and humans bring to different types of work and tasks will be critical as the focus moves from automation to the redesign of work.

INSIGHTS
Job seeking experience

The goal for individual candidates when looking for a job is first, about achieving financial stability, second, gaining experience in the industry, and third, learning and making an impact. The key candidate scenarios include triggering notifications and prompts, applying post-application, interview, and verifications. To design a successful service, we must set up design requirements based on the scenarios.

The service should make the candidate think about when and how they can look for a job. When they start job searching, the service must prepare accurate searches and engagement to help them understand more of the company's values. In the application phase, the service should provide motivation. In the post-application phase, referred to as waiting for a reply, there must be timely feedback regarding checking resumes, status updates, or interviews that need to be scheduled. And finally, in the interviewing and verification phase, it's important to be informed and have a method to schedule the interview efficiently.

LOOP helps candidate keep track of their upcoming interviews, provide visualized calendar, and interview platform to streamline the interview experience for the candidates.

INSIGHTS
Current Candidate Journey Map & Case Study of USAJOBS Journey Map

To get a better understanding of the behavior and psychology of our users, we recorded our observations of their actions, thoughts, and emotions. To further optimize the process, we utilized abstract concepts to articulate each step of a job application.

DESIGN INSIGHTS

During the research phase of the project, it became apparent that applicants felt confused by the current job-seeking process. To resolve this problem,
we developed a clear and concise experience for the user.

In the initial stages of the job search, applicants tire of scrolling through wordy job postings and are unable to find jobs with a clear and concise description. In addition, they have trouble finding information about the company culture for the jobs to which they apply. Our goal is to improve the way HR representatives present both the job listing and employer brand so that more candidates are attracted to the USAJobs portal.

Once the candidate begins working on their application, they often find the process frustrating. Applicants currently prepare relevant documents without reference links. By providing an automatic checklist for all required documents and data, candidates can avoid uploading duplicate documents.

There are two main issues in the post-application phase of the application process. The first problem is the lack of transparency. Once the candidate applies for a job, they are left to wait for a response with little to no feedback from their potential employer. We plan to show them the progress of their application during the screening process. The second problem is the lack of motivation in candidates during this stage of their journey. We plan to provide psychological boosters to help them finish their application.

IDEATION

During the ideation phase, we identified key scenarios for our users in the ecosystem of recruitment. We also developed relevant features to target the problems that different users encounter during their respective processes, keeping the candidate portal as our priority. To solidify our final concept, we evaluated its functionality through user testing as well as iterating based on the feedback of our users.

Key Scenarios

To identify the most viable prototype (MVP) of our project, our team illustrated a storyboard, visually demonstrating the key scenarios of our users while testing the product.

Product Requirements

Information Architecture
To demonstrate the structure of the system, we formulated a detailed information architecture to explain the flow of activities on the portal.

Key User Flows
We crafted flowcharts to demonstrate the user flow in Landing Page, Job Search, Virtual Career Fair, Candidate Dashboard

Wireframe

To continue developing and brainstorming our solution, we create wireframe prototypes.

Landing Page

Dashboard

Profile

Messenger

Application Status

User Testing

To evaluate the usability of the candidate portal and gauge its flow, four user tests were conducted. The segments included landing pages, profile creations, uploading resumes, and scheduling interviews.

Testing Goal:
To validate our assumption of system efficiency and transparency for our users.

Process Goals & Assumptions
1. Job Searching: Candidates can seamlessly sign up and complete their job search process.
2. Dashboard: Qualified candidates can upload their resumes and edit their profiles.
3. Interview Scheduling: Qualified candidates can schedule their interviews and contact HR.
4. Final Interview: Qualified candidates can access virtual interviews.

UI Design Survey

Six UI designs were put in a survey to evaluate both their functionality and aesthetics with four keywords in mind: transparency, user-friendliness, trustworthiness, and easy comprehension.