Introduction
01
In the past few years CW—A Complete Business Solution helps retained search firm owners accelerate their success and win more work. Proven methodology and software to streamline and simplify client, team, and data management efforts; then leverage them for business development. Built by former executive recruiters, our methodology supports every stage—eight in all—of successful retained search. Clockwork’s process and software eliminate roadblocks to success. Include:
Poor client relationships due to lack of trust, process, and collaboration
Inefficient search teams resulting from poor communication and limited understanding of roles & responsibilities
Wasted time trying to get meaningful data that is difficult to access and leverage
Not being able to consistently find the right work or leverage past clients for business development
CW Supports 8 stages of Recruiting
The Trigger
It’s been a little over few months since that enthusiastic new customer sailed through the onboarding phase. By now, they should be implementing the product into their daily workflow and enjoying the first signs of business value.Instead, our core metrics are telling us there’s something wrong. The customer’s usage rates are low. They’re not regularly accessing key features. Some license seats aren’t even being used on a weekly basis.
We’ve got low user adoption.
02 Empathize with the users
The Kick-off
At the outset of the project we didn’t have a clear mission or specific goals for the recruiting experience. Without pre-existing insights, I partnered with Head of product Jessica to explore how CW Users using the product.
Some Early Insights
Emotion Map
03
Define the problem
Running regular status calls is an essential component of successful retained search. Coming together weekly with clients and team to review completed work, align expectations, and establish next steps for the coming week. This cadence not only keeps clients informed, but it also serves to keep them engaged and providing the necessary feedback need to keep search running smoothly and effectively.
This is happening on John who is a junior recruiter fresh out from school last year. He had to spend more than 2 hours every week to copy and paste information from one file to another file before status calls with clients.
In order to understand in which feature that users frustrated the most. I took look at the current application system and found after the Long List, users have the most frustrated moments.
Goal of this process: We were trying to narrow the problem.
Long List allows users to easily share potential candidates with clients in a way that displays just enough information to quickly review together and receive the high-level feedback users need at this stage of the project. There’s no need to get into the weeds at this point—just information like name, company, and current position. It sets the stage for an efficient yes/no review and recommended pivots to allow their team to move onto the Outreach stage with the confidence they are headed in the right direction.
The Long List supports our core mission: improving how users and their clients collaborate on retained search projects so they can develop the trust and confidence that leads to long-lasting partnerships and more of the work users want.
04
Ideate
When we zoom into Long List process, we found users most stuck in the process after Long List when they share weekly report to their clients. Challenges can occur when reviewing candidates who are in various stages of the search process. Some recently added candidates are still in the research phase, while others have already been contacted by the recruiter for qualification. And some may have already been qualified and moved into the assessment stage. Without a simplified, streamlined way of presenting them to their client, users’ status call can become scattered and confusing. What users really need is:
The Status Report is where you conduct Status Calls with your clients.
Organized by Status, Candidates are displayed based on the ranking of the status with the highest ranking statuses at the top.
The core mission:
Building a simple, powerful way to organize and review a wide range of candidates with your client.
Share different candidate profile information depending on status
Choose which candidate note you want to display
Take a deeper dive with each candidate, at any time, with our Candidate Panel in the same view
Conduct calls at your desk or while in transit using our mobile-ready responsive interface
Status Report Flow
05
Prototype
Wireframe
I always start prototypes on my note book, and I would list feature requirements as my first step:
User can share different candidate profile information depending on status
User can choose which candidate note
User can take a deeper dive with each candidate, at any time, with Candidate Panel in the same view
High Fidelity Wireframe
High Fidelity Prototype for User Testing
06
Evaluate
The Missing Opportunities
Too many settings
User need a way that they can easily share this report to their client
Improvement
Went to back to current design, and we made two core changes:
1) Grouping Setting
2) Adding Expire Share Links
Group Settings
There are always two levels of settings: 1) Page Settings:The Status Report is defaulted to visible for Clients and only includes Candidates marked visible. To change these settings, use the gear icon and update the Status Report visibility toggle or the Candidates included setting; 2) Section Settings: Each status section is modifiable. You can select which profile data and note type to display within each section. The Most Recent Note type is the default for each candidate but other types can be selected from the drop down (Select Note).
A Share Link
is a link to the Status Report that is limited in time. Once it expires, the link is no longer valid. This has to advantage that the link cannot be used on another site since it expires in any given time by the rightful owner of the link.
