Optimizing job application flow at StartMonday

Getting familiar with the product

There was a giant white wall next to me as I sat down to my desk the first time and I immediately knew that this wall was going to be my best friend.

I spent my first few days going through all the steps, printing out the screens and putting them up on the wall. With masking tape, I indicated when there were multiple paths to go on and underneath it all I put up all the emails and push notifications that were built into certain steps of the job application process.

Finding the problems

With different colored post-its, I started putting up (1) questions and uncertainties in orange, (2) serious issues in red and (3) ideas how to make things better in pink. That’s almost like a backlog! All we needed was the probable impact we could make with fixing those changes.

Since it’s a long process — which includes recording a video as a part of the application — I wanted to know where are the biggest dropouts and which screens are engaging enough to continue.

First big dropout point — having to register

The widget with the job posts was skinned to match the style of the website it was embedded into. However, the register/login form was to a StartMonday account, inside the widget.

Why do I need to register? Who is StartMonday? Do I have an account already? What do I get if I register? Obviously none of these were answered, the whole screen was just a login form.

Second big dropout point — having to pick how to add video to the application

What video? Is it mandatory? Why did no one tell me about this? Can I finish it another time? So much frustration! There were only 3 buttons (upload, record, download app) and a small skip link, that’s all. This screen needed a lot of love.

Barrier — how can we make all the future improvements skinnable and customizable to the partners brand?

The question is: do we need to? If yes, in what level? We all remember myspace and the outraging custom designs with moving gifs everywhere. That’s what happens if you let people create their own designs. It won’t reflect professionalism we’d like to deliver.

Discard the full skinnable experience, detach the application from the jobs list widget, and everyone wins. The experience can be optimized when not restricted to a tiny widget and the process will be clearer to complete, there’ll be more applicants. And having to support only one version of the application will reduce development resources significantly.

Time for solutions

I started with low-fidelity wireframes, where I wanted to make sure that we are targeting the issues on the orange and red post-its. I added a sense of progress, meaningful names for the steps, descriptive “next” buttons to set expectations and tried to simplify the type of data we asked for in the process.

The video screen

For applicants it was important to understand the role of the video, and that there’s already an amazing app which guides them through the video recording. Since the webcam recorder is not reliable and very few people have pre-recorded intro videos, it was clear that putting the app download into the focus made the most sense. Of course, with a clear and easy way to the alternatives.

The CV upload screen was after the video screen, and it was not clear that they step was coming up, that is why many people dropped out on the video step. Why not bring the CV upload before the motivation?

Yes, the unique feature of StartMonday is the video application. Which is innovative and daring, but are the applicants ready for it? I decided testing switching the two steps. And the result? A significant increase in CV uploads and no decrease in video submissions. That’s a good first step.

The final design

The separated application flow has StartMonday’s branding but also has the visual elements from the employer, such as logo and background. The sense of progress and the expectations of next steps is a lot clearer. The form elements are simple and intuitive.

On the video screen, the order of the items are different on desktop and mobile devices, to embrace the context.

When the video is easy to skip, it’s crucial to follow it up

Employers love the short video applications as it reduces their time screening applicants. The more videos the happier the client is. I conducted a research to find out the main reasons why applicant didn’t submit a video, and these were (in order of frequency):

• didn’t know about it up front, not good timing to record video when applied, but wanted to try later
• didn’t want to add a video
• tried but couldn’t upload video
• has added video but error happened

The first group was the biggest, so I composed a reminder email to applicants who haven’t submitted any videos for 24 hours after starting the application.

With the “incomplete list” design I tried to make them complete the set with 2 items already collected. The closer a collection is to being complete, the more we desire collecting all pieces.

I composed the reinforcement as an opportunity to express their personality or feelings, which people seek for, in general.

This email increased the submitted videos by 10%. The next step is to send a reminder on the weekend, when people have more time.