JobEase; Hiring and getting hired now fulfilling

In my previous post, I mentioned the design thinking process. Now, I will share how we used the iterative process- empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test- to convert our idea to a product.

As an IFA fellow, you are expected to be part of the hackathon experience which involves teaming up and through divergence/convergence thinking, proffer solutions to problems within a time frame.

This intense period started with fellows pitching problem statements for the educational, environmental, finance, health and agricultural sectors. With a passion for career development, I was drawn to the issue of unemployment among graduates and worked with other fellows with a shared interest (Stanley Egbogbawaye, Idara Uwatt, Meshach Aderele, and Ademola Adewuyi)

Empathize

Empathy is the core of design thinking so you will be right to think that there is no design thinking if there is no empathy. In this first stage, we conducted interviews to get the pain points of our target users. Here, we noted the importance of open-ended questions so we can get a non-evasive response. In one of our interviews, we asked Emmanuel, a recent graduate and a self-taught graphic designer why he is still not employed and he said it has been difficult getting placement because of his lack of work experience. Also, he told a story of traveling from Kaduna to Lagos for a job advertised on job sites only to get to the location to realize that he was 'scammed'. Also, a startup founder narrated how he got frustrated scanning through thousands of applications he got when he advertised through a job site

. Conducting these interviews was a way to immerse ourselves in the realities of our users.

Define

Next, we defined the real problem using the pain points we got from the interviews. We also understood our user personae who were graduates then, of course, the companies that are in need of entry-level graduates. Our problem statement was defined thus to capture their pain-points:

Graduates face the frustration of applying for fake jobs and jobs that are not relevant for their skill set and employers face the frustration of applying for jobs that are not relevant for their skillset.

Ideate

After defining the problem, the team went ahead to ideate and proffer solutions. For the first stage of the ideation process, the team suggested all ideas without questioning or analyzing any. Using the "yes and ..." method was most helpful at this stage as it helped us come up with as many ideas as possible and that helped our creativity. However, at the second stage, we started to prioritize our solution and during this time, we were always going back to our users for validation.

Prototype

On to prototyping, as a team, we collaborated via Figma to create a visual part of the solution we have validated. Prototyping helped test our solution and see how it works. Click here to view our prototype on Figma.

Test Testing helped us to validate our solution some more, test our user journey and answer questions like: is our design very intuitive and straightforward? Also texting is an opportunity to reflect and implement changes based on feedback.

Reflecting on the whole process, I have learned how to validate assumptions to ensure that I am solving a real pain point of potential users. Also, collaborating with a team virtually has taught me better communication and constructive feedback and also exposed me to online tools and ways to ensure that the design thinking process is a success.