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Project Brief
Indeed Check
Helping job seekers share proof of their credentials with employers on Indeed.
Project Summary
I partnered with my product manager to explore the credential verification space. I led extensive user research with both job seekers and employers. These findings led to the creation of a new project on Incubator, Indeed Check.
Role
I led end-to-end design and user research, conducting primary studies and translating insights into multiple iterations of the product.
Hypothesis
A product that enables job seekers to verify and share their licenses and certifications will enable them to put their best foot forward on a job application and speed up recruiting and application evaluation for employers.
Process Overview
In this project, I worked on a team of 2 engineers, 1 PM, and myself to define, launch, and evaluate 2 MVPs to test our hypotheses. Below is the process we followed. Click on tag to jump to that section.
User Interviews
User Interviews
To kick off our discovery research, I partnered with my PM to define research questions that would help us define a compelling user problem for both job seekers and employers. I lead user interviews with both job seekers and employers to uncover pain points
Key Job Seeker Research Questions
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Do job seekers currently verify their credentials?
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How, if at all, do job seekers share verified credentials with employers?
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Do job seekers have any privacy concerns around sharing their credentials?
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What are job seekers' impressions of a hypothetical certification product?
Methodology
I lead 5 remote interviews with job seekers who indicated on Indeed that they had occupational licenses to get a better idea of what this process looked like for them.
Truck Driver
Commercial Drivers License
Security Personnel
G, D Firearm Licenses
Fitness Instructor
Personal Training Cert
Chef
Culinary Arts Cert, OSHA Cert
Construction Worker
Forklift Cert, OSHA, First Aid
Key Findings from Job Seekers:
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All 5 job seekers listed their credentials on their resume.
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All 5 job seekers saw value in verifying their credentials upfront.
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Job seekers are not generally involved in the process of verifying their credentials.
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All 5 job seekers reacted positively to a certifications passport concept.
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4 of 5 job seekers said they expected to see jobs that matched their certifications upon uploading them.
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2 job seekers mentioned they had encountered individuals with fraudulent credentials before.
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Only 1 job seeker expressed privacy concerns when sharing their certification details.
Key Employer Research Questions
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What role do licenses, certifications, and background checks play in the hiring process?
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How do employers currently verify JS' credentials?
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How do employers conduct background checks?
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How often do employers encounter fraudulent or inaccurate information?
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How would employers feel about verifying credentials through Indeed?
Methodology
I conducted 4 remote interviews with employers who hired for roles that required occupational licenses.
Key Findings from Employers:
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All 4 employers ranked verifying licenses/certifications before hiring someone as 5 (very important).
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All 4 employers hired for positions where job seekers needed licenses as a condition of employment.
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All 4 employers needed detailed information about a job seeker's license like where it was issued, expiration, etc.
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All 4 employers stated they would preference JS with verified credentials over JS without them.
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All 4 employers monitored when their employees' credentials expired.
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All 4 employers signaled interest in an Indeed verification product with varying levels of trust.
HR
Gym / Personal Training
HR Manager
Multi-state Pharmacy
Owner
Construction Company
HR Manager
Behavioral Healthcare
Beginning to Define an Opportunity Space
There seemed to be an opportunity to improve the employer experience when it came to verifying job seeker credentials. Job seekers felt comfortable sharing this information, and employers felt their current way of doing this was slow and tedious.
Job Seekers
Are used to sharing their credentials with employers and were very receptive to a certifications passport concept.
Opportunity Space
Employers
Shared that license verification was a very tedious process for them and were eager to find a way to make it more streamlined.
Employer Survey
Employer Survey
Following our qualitative, interview findings, we decided to send out a survey to employers who hire individuals with occupational licenses to understand how prevalent our findings were with a larger audience.
Survey Research Questions
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How important is it for employers to verify job seeker credentials?
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At what phase of the hiring process do employers verify job seeker credentials?
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What are the primary employer motivations for verifying job seeker credentials?
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What information do employers look for on these credentials?
Methodology
I designed the survey questions and flow in partnership with my PM. We sent the survey out to about 40k employers along with an incentive utilizing Qualtrics.
129 employer responses
Key Survey Findings
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75% of employers either agreed or strongly agreed that they would prioritize job seekers with verified credentials over those without.
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74% of employers who verified credentials either did so before or after the first interview.
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39% employers who verified credentials before the first interview felt it was "extremely important" to do so.
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The 39% of employers who verified credentials prior to the first interview were motivated by legal compliance and ensuring candidate quality.
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On these credentials, employers were interested in verifying the issuing state, expiration date, license number matching the candidate's name, and violations.
Firmly Defining our Opportunity Space
The survey data indicated that there was a significant opportunity to help employers verify job seeker credentials before the first interview. We knew our MVP could never replace a background check, but we could at least improve the slow and tedious process employers went through after they established interest in a candidate and before they interviewed them.
Designing MVP I
Designing MVP I
After receiving funding for our project, I partnered with my PM and engineering counterparts to understand what was technically feasible and user centric.
Adding Verified Credentials to Profile
The first MVP I ideated centered around enabling job seekers to verify their licenses and certifications as they browsed for jobs on Indeed.com.
Templating Existing Interaction Design
This MVP templated an interaction that the Profile Insights team leveraged and job seekers were used to. On a job that they were interested in, they would see a small banner that encouraged them to verify credentials relevant to the position.
Partnership with Legal
After some ideation and discussion amongst the team, we met with legal to ensure our design and idea was compliant. In this first meeting, we discovered FCRA, a consumer protection law that significantly informed our design strategy and approach.
Exploring the Possibilities with FCRA
I compiled some flow diagrams that outlined potential solutions and how they might trigger FCRA. Several legal meetings revolved around these diagrams, and they eventually helped us decide to not pursue a solution that would require Indeed to become a Consumer Reporting Agency due to significant risk involved.
MVP I - A Solution without FCRA
Working closely with legal, product, and engineering, the team aligned on an MVP that scraped a link from online databases. This constituted UGC and evidence of a credential, but not necessarily a verified credential. We also shifted to an email acquisition strategy to avoid time-consuming integration work.
Employer MVP I
We worked with the Employer Home page to integrate a "View Credential" button on the application page, so it would smoothly integrate into employer's existing workflow.
MVP I Launch
Product Launch
I worked closely with my PM to define the success metrics for the launch of MVP I. We designed the KRs below to measure the job seekers' perceived value of our MVP while the engineers worked on the employer side.
MVP I Performance
Our initial MVP had some trouble with initial engagement, but outperformed and nearly met our other KRs.
KR1
2% Acquisition email CTR
1% CTR
KR2
10% credential add rate
31% add rate
KR3
85% JS select "visible"
84%
Understanding "Why" with User Research
I set out to understand why job seekers were underperforming in some of our KRs by triangulating insights from user research studies, specifically focusing on feedback in 3 areas. I put together a deck and presented my findings to the team.
Top of Funnel
HMW acquire more job seekers at the beginning of the add credential flow?
Adding Credentials
HMW align more to JS expectations when it comes to adding credential links?
Visibility Settings
HMW effectively convey the value of setting credential links to visible?
Triangulating Existing Studies
I synthesized insights from 4 different user research studies around the job seeker experience: a survey sent out to job seekers, 2 different usability studies, and a preference test with 3 different visibility settings iterations.
Limitation of Analysis
One limitation of this research synthesis was that a lot of these studies evaluated our product when it was still a verification concept, whereas our MVP was a link scraping service. Many of these insights were still relevant to our launch MVP though.
User Research Readout
User Research Readout
I synthesized existing user research to paint a qualitative picture of what might be going on in these three focus areas. I then presented the findings to the team.
Focus Area 1: Top of Funnel Key Findings
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Overall job seekers are very open to the idea of adding credential links to their Indeed Profiles (Usertesting).
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Some JS showed apprehension about Indeed "verifying their licenses" due to data privacy concerns. However, most JS found value in the proposed service (Survey).
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JS openness to adding credential links stems from their belief that it would speed up the application process (Survey + Usertesting).
Job Seeker Perception of Value
From our survey of 97 job seekers in this segment, 64% of JS either agreed or strongly agreed that Indeed Check would be helpful in their job search
30%
31%
33%
2%
2%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Motivations of Undecided JS
This same survey indicated that that 49% of job seekers were unsure, disagreed, or strongly disagreed that they would trust Indeed to verify their licenses. However, these insights felt a bit murkier when it came to our launched MVP, which didn't involve verification and allowed more JS freedom.
49%
43% feared their information would be shared with 3rd parties.
36% didn't trust their personal information would be secure.
9% didn't trust the accuracy of the verification service.
Top of Funel Hypothesis from UXR
The small top of funnel pool is primarily the result of our acquisition strategy and not the result of JS apprehension to add a credential link. With a more contextual acquisition strategy, we could leverage JS’ interest and willingness to add a credential link and significantly increase our top of funnel pool.
Focus Area 2: Adding Credential Links Key Findings
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Many job seekers expected to add their credential links manually before beginning the Indeed Check flow (Usertesting).
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While many expected to add their credential links manually, some expressed delight at Indeed sourcing the link for them. (Usertesting).
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Some JS expected to add more than 1 credential link, especially when the net was cast wider to industries outside of healthcare (Usertesting).
5 JS possessing occupational licenses
5 of 5 job seekers initially expected to add their credential proof manually by uploading a photo or file
4 of 5 job seekers expressed interest in adding more than 1 credential.
Adding Credential Hypothesis
Directly outlining an option to add more than 1 credential link in Indeed Check's UI could result in more credentials added overall by building upon user needs. Additionally, expanding the "manual add" to include a photo upload could more effectively align with JS expectations and reduce Indeed Check's reliance on links that can break.
Focus Area 3: Visibility Settings Key Findings
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Job seekers are primarily motivated to set their links to visible to speed up the application process and stand out to employers (Survey).
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JS expect to be able to toggle the visibility of their links at will and are apprehensive about the link being "always visible." (Usertesting).
Idea from Brainstorm
In a brainstorming session, some team members suggested that job seekers may not be setting their credential links to "visible" because they don't know how they look to employers.
Settings Variant Test
To evaluate this hypothesis, I put together 3 different variants of the settings page and tested them on usertesting.com
Test Methodology
I had 3 job seekers go through the 3 variants below to evaluate how the design impacted a user's willingness to set their credential link to visible.
Variant 1
Evaluated if showing JS a preview of what the employers saw impacted their likelihood to set this to "visible."
Variant 2
Evaluated if allowing JS more freedom in selecting which credential link employers could see impacted visibility settings.
Variant 3 (Control)
The current link sharing permissions page from MVP I.
Test Outcome
8 of 9 users ranked their likelihood to set their credential link to visible as "5 - Incredibly likely" across the 3 variants. The 1 variant where a job seeker voted "4 - likely" was variant 2. This suggested that JS who set their credential links to "hidden" are likely doing so for reasons beyond the UI.
Visibility Settings Hypothesis from UXR
The visibility settings KR performance primarily stems from the lack of JS control after the intake and possibly from not being able to control visibility on a per apply basis. Increasing flexibility in our visibility settings UX could result in an increase in credential links set to visible by leveraging JS’ desire to stand out to employers and speed up the application process.
Designing around UXR Insights
I ideated on how the insights from this research deep dive could affect Indeed Check's design direction for future iterations.
Add Link Manually
By allowing JS to upload an image or file, we could increase user flexibility in our product while also reducing our reliance on scraped links that could break.
Add Another Credential Link
Adding a simple CTA on our success screen could take advantage of the JS who wanted to add more credential links and increase the usage of our product.
Per Apply Toggle
Allowing job seekers to toggle their visibility on a per-apply basis could significantly expand their control over the process and increase their likelihood of setting their credentials to visible.
Team Brainstorm
Post-MVP Brainstorm
After launching our first MVP, I led a brainstorm with cross-functional stakeholders to sharpen our focus on the user problem and generate ideas for future iterations of our product.
Brainstorm Goal
After the launch of our link scraping MVP, we needed to align on the next iteration of our MVP that did not rely on link scraping (not scalable) and that also leveraged user research insights.
Brainstorm Structure
Research Download
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What user problem are we solving?
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Limitations of the link scraping approach
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User interviews with employers
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Potential paths forward
Context Setting
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Drill down into the experiences for both employers and job seekers.
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What are their pain points?
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What are their jobs to be done?
Idea Generation
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Rooted in the user's pain points, generate as many ideas as possible
Crazy 4's Sketching
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In 10 minutes, come up with 4 different ways to test your ideas from the previous exercise.
Brainstorm Outcome
Following the brainstorm, my PM and I debriefed and came to the conclusion that there was quite a large assumption baked into our first MVP: We assumed that employers would not trust "high confidence proof" like self-reported photos of licenses or credentials.
MVP II Strategy
The team agreed that our 2nd MVP should focus on testing whether or not this high confidence proof was enough for employers early in their hiring process. If this MVP succeeded, then likely a product that allowed job seekers to self report was sufficient for our use case. If it didn't, that indicated that a verification service might be necessary.
Defining MVP II
Defining MVP II
After the team aligned following the brainstorm, I began designing our next MVP that focused on the photo upload as opposed to the link scraper.
Job Seeker Experience
The job seeker side didn't differ too much from our initial MVP. We still needed the job seeker's license type and issuing state and for them to set their visibility due to legal concerns. We were able to add the "Add more credential photos" CTA to this version based on past research.
Employer Experience
This version required more design work on the employer side. We had to create a way for employers to see more than one credential photo and also a method for them to report content. To address the last version's discoverability issues, we also added a tooltip.
New Acquisition Experience
Due to the low CTR on the initial job seeker email and the discoverability issues with employers, we opted to leverage notifications for both job seekers and employers to see if that was more effective.
Job Seeker Notification
Job seekers received a notification to add a credential photo after applying to a job that required a license or cert.
Employer Notification
Employers received a notification when a JS applied to a position with a credential photo, so they expected it when logging into Employer Home.
MVP II Launch
Launching MVP II
We launched MVP II in November of 2023 after defining the OKRs below.
MVP II Performance
Launching this right before the holidays likely hampered our job seeker add rate, but we were able to get statistically significant signal that adding photo evidence of credentials improved job seekers' likelihood of a positive outcome on Indeed 🎉.
KR1
Get 55k credential photos added by job seekers.
7.3k credentials added 😕
KR2
+5% positive outcomes for JSers with photo adds
+13% positive outcome* 🎉
* in some segments
Project Outcome
We socialized our findings with our partner teams, and they were very excited by the performance of MVP II. Indeeds' Profile team decided to acquire Indeed Check and they're now working on introducing these features into Indeed's job seeker facing products.