The User Experience of looking for a job – 2018

I wrote this after going through a bunch of job applications and getting fed with the bad experience. I believe that every problem is a design problem and can be solved by thinking about the various players: business, tech, users.

I’m in the middle of a big transition: moving countries. It’s done by thousands of people across the globe every year, but it’s daunting nonetheless. There is an inordinate amount of planning and admin to be done; sell the house, get documents in order, research schools and homes, etc. But by far, the biggest issue I’ve had is finding a job. You see, there are loads of jobs on offer in my field (UX design) but the actual hiring process is a UX nightmare.

I have a LinkedIn profile, a CV, and an online portfolio. I’ve spent a lot of time curating work, polishing it up, writing dozens of cover letters (specific to role types), and preparing myself for interviews (btw, if you’re a junior in the UX field please take my advice and document every step of every process for every project- you’ll thank me later). But, regardless of how prepped you are, the process is hell.

I’ve been scouring various job sites: LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, etc. But there are 3 main issues that I’ve found:

For every new site, you need to create a new profile… and CV.

Ok, I’m gonna say it: this drives me mad. I don’t really mind the fact that I’ve got to create a username/password for each site (I’ll delete them later), but having to re-enter my details, experience, skills, etc. each and every time is really annoying.

Some offer a CV plugin — where you upload your CV or resume and it populates the form with your details. This is an abomination unless your CV is written in a very specific way, with no formatting, bullets, or subheadings.

Some sites go further and offer to populate your new profile with your LinkedIn details — sounds great, magical even, except it also doesn’t do it correctly. So you end up spending more time fixing your profile than you would have just populating it in the first place.

UX recommendations:

• If you really have to have your own CV section (and I challenge you to think about this one long and hard): use a commonly accepted norm (like LinkedIn) for your format. That way you reduce potential user mistakes and increase the quality of profiles (and therefore, submissions).

• Go further: Skip the CV part of the profile and focus on better integrating with common data sources (LinkedIn…). This means, instead of hanging onto proprietary formatting, you can focus on the task at hand: attracting the best candidates for the job and submitting them to employers.

Even after you’ve created a profile, you often can’t apply on the site.

After signing up to at least 6 sites, and creating profiles (with accompanying CVs) I browse through jobs. If I’ve looked at a position and it sounds like a good fit, I hit the “Apply” button and get… redirected.

Not only is that deceptive (“Apply” is a verb, and typically implies the actual action) but it’s annoying. Being handed off to a company website and having to create yet another profile (with yet another CV) is just poor planning. It’s put me off of more than a few jobs that might actually have been great (for me and the company).
Remember, your service offering as a recruitment/jobs website is to facilitate applications — wouldn’t you want it to be as easy as possible?

I realise that it’s probably a payment model problem; companies likely pay more to list their jobs and receive applications through the website or pay less to simply list. But if you want high-quality applicants, you want them to buy into your service — redirecting them unnecessarily isn’t the way to do it.

Some companies distinguish between different kinds of applications: Easy Apply, In Apply vs. Apply. This can be helpful, but only if there’s a key. Each listing has its options, but you don’t see which options are not available, only the one that is. Understanding the difference is a learning curve and not one that adds any value.

If you clicked Apply Now — what do you expect to happen? Spoiler alert: it’ll redirect you.

Easy apply sounds great — but what does it do? Without context or a key, it’s not as useful as it initially seems.

As an aside, why do so many companies still have their own recruitment portals? Isn’t it easier and cheaper to outsource the listing of jobs to companies that focus solely on this, than to have sections of your already bloated website needing constant updates? I’m sure there are some lessons from syndicated media to learn here.

UX recommendations:

• As a jobs website, insist on in-house applications. Offer it as part of your basic package. Use your payment tiers to add other value (like ranking of candidates, or background checks)

• If you really can’t change that… then change the button. Make it say “Apply on company website” (some do this already) — at least the expectation is reasonably set.

• As a company, think about what the user journey of a prospective employee — are you creating the best impression by forcing them to sign up (yet again) with you when you could be paying for an outsourced service?

Updates, communication, and feedback are poor.

This is a broad statement; I am bundling a few issues into this one.
The first issue is that when the dreaded redirect happens, and you think you’ve found a great job on the (company) website — you click Apply (again) and you get something like this:

I had just come from a jobs website, to the company website to click apply and then saw this. Arg.

It’s really a matter of hygiene. In the above case, the job was listed on both a jobs website as well as the company website. It’s disheartening and doesn’t build trust or confidence in the company. If they can’t remove a job listing once it’s filled, what else aren’t they doing on time?

Secondly, having applied for many jobs over the last few weeks I can soundly conclude that only about 20% will get back to you — at all. I quite appreciate the automated mails that say “we’ll get back to you if we want to pursue your application, if not: sorry”. At least they’re honest and they set my expectations. For those companies that don’t even acknowledge an application, shame on you.

Even worse are companies that respond saying something like “great, we’re very interested — let’s schedule a call” and then never do that. As a job-seeker, this feels very dismissive. Not the way I’d like to start a working relationship. Be honest and transparent; it’s ok if it wasn’t a match! It means I can move on instead of wondering if something is going to happen or not.

UX recommendations:

• Clean up your listings regularly — daily if you must. Outdated links and dead ends do not reflect well for your company.

• Acknowledge your applicants, even if it’s with an automated email. Set the right expectations upfront: if you have an 8-week hiring process, let them know. If you won’t get back to them to say they’ve been unsuccessful, let them know what the deadline for a response is. It’s a matter of decency.

There we go. My recent experience of looking for jobs and how I think it can be improved. If you have any stories to share or tips to add, leave them below.

Link: https://medium.com/@thandi.guilherme/the-user-experience-of-looking-for-a-job-b4df6dab4810