The recruitment landscape had a fundamental problem: companies couldn't efficiently find quality talent, while skilled professionals faced opaque, frustrating application processes. The goal was to design a platform to solve both sides of this equation.
Transparency transforms recruitment. When both sides have clear visibility—candidates into their application status, companies into their pipeline—everyone makes better decisions and has more positive experiences.
I conducted 12 interviews across both sides of the marketplace — 6 with HR managers and hiring leads at small businesses, and 6 with active job seekers in the Nigerian tech ecosystem. I also reviewed 4 competing hiring platforms to spot gaps and opportunities.
45-minute one-on-one interviews conducted over 3 weeks. Participants recruited through Goodtalent's existing client network and LinkedIn outreach. I grouped findings by theme using FigJam to spot common patterns.
Companies Needed:
- Centralized pipeline management across all open roles.
- Real-time visibility into hiring progress.
- Streamlined candidate communication.
- Data-driven decision-making tools.
Candidates Wanted:
- Transparent application tracking.
- Professional, respectful communication.
- Fair opportunity to demonstrate their skills.
- Clear understanding of where they stand in the process.
For Companies: Command & Control
- Recruitment Dashboard: Pipeline visualization showing candidate progression across all hiring stages.
- AI-Assisted Job Posting: Smart skills suggestions and compensation benchmarking.
- Profile-Rich Candidate Cards: Featuring portfolios, assessments, and video introductions.
For Candidates: Transparency & Empowerment
- Guided Profile Creation: Progressive disclosure to build comprehensive profiles without overwhelming users.
- Three-Stage Application Process: Pre-qualification questions, skills assessments, and built-in video interviews.
- Real-time Status Tracking: Keeping candidates informed throughout the entire process.
- Community Features: Referral system with transparent reward tracking and professional networking.
- Mobile-First for Candidates: Touch-friendly interfaces recognizing that most applications happen on phones.
- Desktop-Optimized for Companies: Complex data visualization and multi-column layouts for comprehensive pipeline management.
- Trust Through Design: Professional color palette and consistent patterns for companies; welcoming, approachable design with progress indicators for candidates.
Companies: Increased time reviewing individual candidates, improved feedback quality, and data-driven job posting refinement.
Candidates: Higher application completion rates, stronger community engagement, and increased referrals.
Overall Result: A positive feedback loop where better candidate experiences attract higher-quality applicants, leading to more successful hires.
- Recruitment Dashboard: Intuitive talent dashboard for monitoring active job openings, candidate pools, and pipeline stages with metrics like time-to-hire.
- AI Job Posting Workflow: Guides companies through job creation with templates and real-time previews, reducing posting time by 60%.
- Candidate Profile View: Comprehensive system showcasing expertise, experience timelines, availability, and expected rate ranges.
- Integrated Job Board: Seamless application tracking and advanced filtering that increased completion rates by 45%.
- Enhanced Matching Intelligence: Skills-based algorithms and cultural fit assessments.
- Deeper Integration: Calendar syncing for scheduling and project-based hiring tools.
- Global Expansion: Multi-language support and regional compliance localization.
I initially designed the candidate experience as an afterthought. My first round of design focused entirely on the employer dashboard. When we showed the candidate portal to 3 job seekers in our second round of testing, they found it confusing — the application status labels used internal recruiter terminology ("Screening," "Pipeline Review") that meant nothing to them. I redesigned the status system to use plain language ("Application received," "Under review," "Interview scheduled") and added email notifications at each stage change. This single change drove the 45% increase in application completion.
The AI scoring feature almost didn't ship. Leadership wanted an AI-generated "fit score" for each candidate. I pushed back strongly — showing scores without explaining the reasoning would feel opaque and potentially discriminatory. After two rounds of debate, we compromised: the system surfaces "skills match" indicators based on job description keywords vs. resume content, but deliberately avoids a single numerical score. I presented this rationale to the CEO directly.
We cut 40% of the planned first version. The original plan included interview scheduling, automated reference checks, and a salary negotiation tool. I pushed to cut these so we could focus on the core hiring flow — from posting a job to making a hire. This was contentious — the PM wanted scheduling because clients asked for it — but launching simpler meant we shipped 6 weeks earlier and could test whether the core experience worked first.
Success in marketplace design comes from building a single ecosystem where both sides thrive together. The biggest challenge was resisting the urge to build everything at once, focusing instead on core interactions first.
Key learning: Great workplace product design requires understanding the real people behind company accounts. The HR managers I interviewed weren't power users — they were often office managers doing recruitment as 20% of their job. Designing for their reality, not for a recruiter persona from a template, made the product actually work.
