Skillay
Duration
6 months
Project Type
Product Design, UX Strategy, UX Research
Contribution
UX Researcher, Strategist, and Product Design
Tools Used
Figma, Miro, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator), Notion
Overview
Skillay is an advanced job-matching platform designed to reshape the traditional hiring process by focusing on candidates’ skills rather than their experience. By implementing skill challenges, assessments, and AI-generated performance insights, Skillay provides a deeper understanding of candidates' abilities for employers, while empowering job seekers to demonstrate their true potential.
We aimed to cater to job seekers from all backgrounds, whether fresh graduates, career switchers, or experienced professionals. Our platform targeted both small-to-medium businesses and larger corporations who struggle with finding the right talent using traditional resume-based hiring methods.
Challenges
Job seekers often struggle to effectively present their skills using traditional resumes. These documents emphasize job titles, previous experience, and education but don’t offer a clear picture of actual abilities, especially in technical or creative fields. This creates frustration for both job seekers and employers, with the former feeling overlooked and the latter missing out on qualified candidates.
Employers often find it challenging to evaluate candidates based on resumes alone, as they provide limited insights into actual skills. This leads to longer hiring cycles, inefficiencies in the selection process, and potential hires being missed due to a lack of demonstrated skills.
Solution
Skillay redefines how job seekers and employers interact by introducing skill-based assessments and challenges. These assessments allow job seekers to showcase their expertise in real-world scenarios that mirror job requirements. For employers, AI-generated performance insights provide a clear understanding of each candidate's strengths, personality traits, and potential fit within the company.
By leveraging AI, Skillay offers personalized feedback and skill analytics, presenting a detailed profile for each job seeker. The system assesses performance in specific tasks related to the job, creating a deeper, more actionable understanding of their abilities. Employers can focus on candidates who have demonstrated success in these assessments, rather than relying on keyword searches in resumes.
Research
User Insights
We conducted multiple rounds of surveys and user interviews with two primary groups: job seekers and hiring managers. The research showed that 78% of job seekers felt their resumes failed to accurately reflect their skills, and 84% of employers reported difficulty in evaluating candidates solely through resumes. Job seekers expressed a desire for a platform where they could actively demonstrate their abilities, while employers wanted a more efficient way to assess candidates beyond interviews.
Competitive Analysis
Through a detailed analysis of existing platforms like LinkedIn, Adaface, and Mettl, we identified several gaps. These platforms largely emphasize networking (LinkedIn), technical skills evaluation (Adaface and Mettl), or general pre-employment screening, but lack a comprehensive and diverse skill-based assessment system tailored for creative professionals. Skillay is positioned to address this gap by integrating real-time skill challenges, personalized feedback, and expert evaluations, offering a solution that competitors do not. Unlike these platforms, Skillay targets entry-level and internship roles across creative industries and provides a recorded assessment process to ensure transparency and skill validation.
Persona
Emily: A 23-year-old recent graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design. She has experience as an intern at small design agencies but has yet to work at a large company. Emily is eager to secure a job that values creativity, and she uses Skillay to showcase her skills through challenges.
Sarah: A 35-year-old HR Manager at a mid-sized tech company, with over 10 years of experience in recruitment. Sarah is responsible for hiring entry-level candidates and ensuring the hiring process is fair and efficient. She values transparency and wants to assess candidates' real skills quickly.
Implementation
Ideation
During ideation sessions, the core focus was on creating an intuitive flow that allows job seekers to quickly complete skill challenges and gain feedback, while enabling employers to efficiently assess these challenges. Key features such as AI-driven reports, skill challenges, and interactive onboarding emerged as essential elements to keep users engaged and motivated.
Wireframes/Prototypes
We developed low-fidelity wireframes to establish the core user flow for both job seekers and employers. Feedback from early-stage usability testing was instrumental in refining the interface. We iterated multiple times based on testing sessions, adjusting navigation and challenge completion flows for better usability.
Design
The final platform design was focused on simplicity and ease of use. For job seekers, it provided a step-by-step guide to completing skill challenges, receiving feedback, and refining their profiles. Employers benefitted from a comprehensive dashboard that consolidated performance insights, skill ratings, and suggested candidate matches.
Testing
We conducted multiple rounds of usability testing, focusing on both job seekers and employers. Initial feedback indicated that users found the challenge submission process overwhelming, which led us to streamline the steps, add clearer instructions, and break the process into smaller, more manageable parts. Employers found the initial dashboard too data-heavy, prompting us to simplify the display and emphasize the most important metrics.
Key Takeaways
Learnings:
- User Engagement: Simplifying the challenge submission process and providing real-time feedback increased user engagement by 35% during testing.
- Data-Driven Hiring: Employers valued the AI-generated insights, leading to faster hiring decisions and a more focused candidate review process. The integration of skill-based assessments provided a clear advantage over traditional resume screening.
Challenges & Solutions:
- Challenge: Initial user feedback indicated that the challenge submission process was complex.
- Solution: We simplified the user flow, added progress indicators, and incorporated clear instructions to guide users step-by-step.
- Challenge: Employers found it difficult to interpret the vast amount of data generated by the assessments.
- Solution: We redesigned the employer dashboard to prioritize key metrics and used data visualization techniques to make insights easier to interpret.
Live Prototype
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I appreciate you taking the time to read through my first billion dollar idea, Skillay.
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