LinkedIn Jobs
Optimizing the job posting experience for recruiters to attract qualified talent.
Product Designer
April 2023
1 Product Designer
5 Stakeholders
Product Thinking
Interaction Design
Visual Design
User Research
What is LinkedIn Jobs
LinkedIn Jobs allows anyone on LinkedIn to post a job and attract qualified candidates. It’s primary audience are individuals who are hiring only a few people a year.
The current experience has areas of improvement to make job posters feel confident in their post, especially newcomers.
Enhance your job descriptions
Use the enhance tool to make your job description inclusive to candidates.
Share with co-workers
Share your posted role with co-workers to attract relevant candidates.
Empower recruiters with tips
Added tips provide recruiters with tips that can help them create a better post.
What problem spaces can I uncover in LinkedIn Jobs?
To uncover problem spaces, I conducted a heuristic evaluation and a competitor analysis.
Heuristic Evaluation
Using Nielsen Norman’s 10 heuristics, I found minor usability issues. The evaluation helped me separate my problem space into two areas.
Area 1: The process of posting a job
Area 2: Promoting a job to candidates
Competitor Analysis
I reviewed ZipRecruiter and Indeed’s job posting creation flow and identified 3 notable differences which helped develop potential problem spaces for my project.
Longer Flows
Both Indeed and ZipReruiter had similar flows to LinkedIn Jobs, however, they were longer.
Could LinkedIn's current flow make recruiters feel overwhelmed?
Could a case be made to have smaller steps but a longer flow overall?
Compensation matters
Both competitors required jobs to post compensation. They also had recommended compensations based on similar roles.
To improve transparency, should LinkedIn Jobs require compensation in job postings?
The power of visual design
Indeed uses illustrations to enhance each step of their job posting process.
Could these illustrations make the posting experience less stressful?
Do the illustrations act as visual signifiers to identify steps of the job posting process?
What do recruiters think about LinkedIn Jobs?
I conducted 5 user interview sessions; 3 recruiters from LinkedIn, 1 from Amazon, and 1 from Google.
Roadblock! My interview participants don't use LinkedIn Jobs
At larger companies, recruiters use large-scale recruiting platforms like LinkedIn Recruiter and Smart Recruiter
Now what? We pivot!
Due to my project timeframe, I couldn’t recruit new users.
So, I divided my user group into 2 groups: those with prior experience with LinkedIn Jobs (2 users) and newcomers to LinkedIn Jobs (3 users).
Understand the products your user group uses!
From my interviews, I identified 3 main problem spaces.
Compensation
Compensation plays a huge role in the recruitment process, but there isn't a direct area to add it in Jobs.
“GenZ especially is looking for job descriptions to know how much they’re making.”
Skills section is overwhelming
3/5 recruiters were overwhelmed by the skills section in LinkedIn Jobs.
“[Skills is] pretty cool, but pretty intimidating for what it is.”
Barrier to entry
3/5 recruiters wished for more guidance on features and wished there were “more safety measures” on actions.
“Some recruiters might not have the confidence to write add-ons to a template. It doesn’t make them confident.”
What are the key problem spaces that I can identify?
I created 2 “how-might-we” statements and a user persona to consolidate my findings and set me up for success in ideation.
How-Might-We's
I developed two “how-might-we” statements that narrow in on improving job posts and how recruiters feel while navigating the posting process.
How might we support recruiters in crafting persuasive job posts?
How might we make recruiters feel confident in posting a job role?
User Persona
Additionally, I created a persona to narrow my problem and serve as a reminder as to who I’m designing for.
Sketching my solutions to refine LinkedIn Jobs
I began my sketching process by sketching the 3 steps recruiters go through.
Step 1: Post a job
Step 2: Tell us about the role
Step 3: Receive qualified applicants
Next, I used post-it's to generate new ideas that would "add" to each step.
Post a job
Ideas here include extended "Job Type" options and information on what "Workplace Type" is.
Tell us about the role
These ideas aim to make recruiters feel confident and to provide persuasive content in their post.
Skill Tips
Improved Inclusivity
Compensation
Recommended Skills
Receive qualified applicants
These ideas aim to make recruiters feel confident and to provide persuasive content in their post.
Crafting prototype solutions for recruiters
It's in my control.
Currently, templates and skills are immediately added to a recruiter's workflow. During research, 3/5 interview participants found this to be overwhelming. My solution aims to give users control with whether templates and skills are added to their job posting.
Compensation
Candidates want to talk about money. 3/5 interview participants directly called out a need to include salary ranges. My solution provides recommendations in Jobs to add compensation into job postings.
Promoting inclusivity
3/5 interview participants wanted to see a push for inclusivity within the job posting process. I designed an "enhance" feature that could use AI to clean up job posts and improve it's inclusivity.
Sharing roles
4/5 interview participants share job posts with their hiring team or co-workers. They do so through external sources like email. Why not include it in Jobs? I designed a "share with co-workers" feature that appears after a job is posted.
Learning from LinkedIn employees
With my prototypes, I conducted usability testing with 2 recruiters from LinkedIn and conducted a design critique with 1 product designer from LinkedIn. Here are my broad findings.
Align with LinkedIn's design system
In both feedback sessions, we identified areas in my prototype where experiences did not match with LinkedIn's interactions or designs.
Align features like 'Share a Role' with LinkedIn's product behavior.
Empathize with recruiters
In testing, participants brought up a variety of edge-cases to consider. For example, thinking about remote roles when it comes to promoting compensation.
Revisit feature prototypes and brainstorm edge-case scenarios.
A re-envisioned LinkedIn Jobs
What I learned working with LinkedIn Jobs
There will always be more time
I can think of a number of things I want to continue doing. However, remember to prioritize what you can and execute your ideas efficiently.
Get help from those around you
The recruiting space is new to me, I thought I knew no one in the space! However, I was able to use my connections and learn from 5 experts in under 1 week.
Plan out your process
One week can fly by. However, I planned out my entire process on day one and it helped tremendously.
Think cross-functionally
Continue to think cross-functionally. While this is a challenge, I pushed myself to think cross-functionally from a development and business scope.
Thanks for reading! Looking for more?
Check out one of my other case studies!
