Internship on Demand Website Extension
Client Work - Case Study
Internship On Demand (IOD) is a professional career development service that helps companies build lasting connections with students through fully-online pre-internship programs. After each pre-internship, students can be recruited by companies as full interns or even become future trusted staff.
Opportunity
Founded in 2020, IOD is still developing the future state of its services and platforms. IOD would like to expand upon its existing website to support students, IOD Staff, & company hiring managers in their tasks.
Challenge
Currently, Internship on Demand’s desktop platform only supports student profiles and wants an integrated way for company hiring managers to manage prospective internship candidates.
What is the current user experience for Hiring Managers? What could it become?
How can we most effectively utilize the 40-hour development time constraint?
What proposed features should be prioritized to best meet Internship on Demand and the user goals in the current recruitment process?
Role
My Role: UX/UI Researcher and Designer
Tools: Figma, Figjam, Google Docs, Zoom, PowerPoint, Excel, Keynote
Methods
Competitive Comparative Audit
Current & Future Journey Maps
Feature Concept Cards
Client / Developer interview and meeting
Potential User Surveys
Kano Method Analysis
High Fidelity Wireframes
Annotated Findings & Recommendations Report
Results
Based on constraints, client goals, and user surveys, I focused on developing 2 key features:
A company dashboard with widget add-ons & customizations
A candidate organization page where hiring managers can sort and track intern profiles along the recruitment process.
These two features take into consideration IOD’s current operation structure and incorporate existing user flows with new tools in an effort to make the user experience efficient & integrated as well as allow for future expansions as IOD continues to grow in services and reach.
The Results
Designs and Wireframes
With initial research as a design team completed, key client and user goals identified, and major features scoped, I had to consider all of these elements and decide on a cohesive set of wireframes. These proposed designs would have to build on the existing framework while staying on tone with IOD’s style. Through discussions with team members, It became apparent how important developing a Hiring Manager facing profile and the ability to manage and review candidate profiles is. Ultimately, the wireframes consisted of a company dashboard and a candidate organization page.
25 hours of development time
(5 hours per widget)
The company dashboard acts as a landing page when hiring managers and other company staff log into Internships on Demand’s website
The dashboard houses useful tools, links, and visualized data in the form of various widgets
As designed, widgets could be customizable and added or moved around based on hiring manager preferences
The dashboard provides
Flexibility and personalization to hiring managers
Recognition of website functions as it showcases the tools available to users
Greater user control and freedom by acting as a home base users can always return to as starting point
Company Dashboard
Showcases the progress of profile reviews for different saved groups, providing quick info and a link to saved profile lists
Candidate Organization Widget
With more time and budget, widgets could be developed for various data sets and tools like:
Search recommendations
New comments on profiles from team members
Messages from IOD Staff and pre-interns
Data on retention and hiring
15 hours of development time
Candidate Organization Page
Due to the high level of development time the dashboard required, I had to make a choice about which feature out of all the rest I would prioritize. Ultimately, I chose the Candidate Organization page because of how integral and universal the tool would be for Hiring Managers in IOD’s current user flow.
HMs will have a dedicated page to track and organize pre-intern profiles that does not exist currently
Provides HMs with greater control over the recruitment throughout the entire process, not just the final selection stage
Profiles can be tracked and accessed from this “Saved Profiles” page removing the need to keep track of a list of profile URLs outside of the website
Saved groups allow for the sorting of profiles to help manage recruitment within a company or for specific roles
Filters help Hiring Managers locate and share saved profiles easily with team members
Users can efficiently navigate a large amount of data (like multiple profiles) while learning IOD’s system of categorizing (by program, by school, by skills & values)
In the future, IOD could add more sections or functions that allow HMs to send profile links directly from this page or even mark profiles for decisions on hiring
Click and Drag functionality provides an intuitive way for users to re-organize their lists of profiles
Action confirmations after these changes help with error prevention
Due to the potential for long lists, providing reminders about which profiles have been selected is integral for ease of use
Profile Cards communicate info quickly and personalize each candidate’s profile for greater connection and identification
The Process
Initial Research & Client Meetings
Our team talked to IOD’s founder and a current developer to better understand their platform goals as well as the current and future structure of their services. A Competitive Audit was done to compare current features with other similar service providers as well as journey mapping to identify pain points and opportunities for feature implementation.
Competitive Comparative Audit
Many major competitors shared key features such as search, filters, hiring manager controls, and candidate organizing tools
While other services recruit for internships, only IOD focuses on pre-internship programming
IOD offers fully online programming that can reach students and companies outside of traditional internships
Pre-internships as a path toward internship or employment is unique to IOD’s process
User Journey
Current User Flow Vs. Future Potential User Flow for Hiring Managers
Currently, Hiring Managers are more involved in the last few stages of recruitment.
Major Touchpoints include:
Identifying need
Finding IOD’s services
Developing a program
Managing a pre-internship
Reviewing candidates
Hiring interns and completing process
Client Meeting
Hiring Managers have no presence on the website at the moment.
IOD works with companies to create specialized pre-internship curricula/programs
IOD Staff and HMs communicate through off-website methods like zoom, calls, email & sent e-documents.
Phase 2 of IOD’s website is upcoming and soon to be live
Constraints & Scope of Work
Through the research, 10 major features were proposed. These features were informed through a scoping meeting with IOD’s developer. With a time constraint of 40 dedicated hours for development, each feature was put through the Kano Method of analysis to gain insights on feature desirability and impact from actual hiring managers.
Feature Cards & Development
Feature Card Proposals
Each team member sketched 5 low-fidelity wireframes of potential features
I focused my features on developing internal tools that could relieve the mental load that Hiring Managers face when managing multiple applications
Through meeting with IOD’s developer, 10 key features were selected
Key findings:
Adding filters and sorting categories is fairly straight-forward for development
Integration of a Hiring Manager/Company profile and dashboard would take considerable time (~25 hours)
Incorporating profile cards for candidates/students could be fairly straightforward (~2 hours for layout)
Kano Analysis
Candidate Organization Kano Table
Responses were recorded and the importance rating, desirability, and level of necessity were calculated
Key User Goals
Hiring Managers want a way to quickly review profiles.
Hiring Managers want to be able to share profiles and feedback on candidates with their team members.
Hiring Managers want to be able to track and sort their pre-interns/candidates.
Annotated Wireframes
To wrap up the deliverable package, I also provided annotated wireframes within the findings and recommendations report. These annotations provide greater detail into each design choice. Looking ahead, IOD’s design and development team can compare the value of my design suggestions to see what best fits their needs and goals.
Next Steps
As Internship on Demand continues to expand its user base and the services they provide, there are 4 main things IOD can do moving forward:
Develop Hiring Manager/Company profile hosting capabilities and test for usability with a select number of actual users
Conduct further research into the tasks and goals of users like hiring managers as well as IOD staff that communicate with companies
Formulate an onboarding process for this new subset of website users (hiring managers, company representatives, and school advisors) to help them take full advantage of IOD’s new features and collaborative services
Conduct further usability tests with hiring managers, company champions, and students
Would you like to learn more about IOD’s services and mission?
Visit their website