ZipRecruiter: Vision Sprint

ZipRecruiter: Vision Sprint

I had the privilege of leading ZipRecruiter's product design team in an ambitious design sprint focused on reimagining the future of finding work. As the sprint leader, I set the strategic direction, worked closely with each designer, and orchestrated the final presentation delivered to our executive leadership, including the SVPs of Product, COO, and CEO.

Our Vision Sprint challenged the status quo, proposing a shift from our traditional ad-based model to a state-of-the-art matchmaking experience. Our new approach addressed critical pain points for employers and job seekers in our marketplace.

What follows is a comprehensive case study showcasing the innovative work of our eight-person design team. It represents the culmination of this intensive sprint and encapsulates insights from my twelve-year tenure at ZipRecruiter.

Super-Talented Amazing Team

  • Blake Crosley

    VP of Product Design

  • Jihye Woo

    Senior Product Designer

  • Meghan O'Donnell

    Senior Product Designer

  • Hyunji Jo

    Product Designer

  • Ari Daley

    Senior Product Designer

  • Samara Miu

    Product Designer

  • Yutong Feng

    Product Designer

  • Aaron Amador

    Product Designer

Finding a job/hire hasn’t changed much the last 100 years

The process looks something like this: It’s a manual process with too many steps and much back-and-forth, often leading to frustration for both participating sides.

There has to be a better way!

If we match based on the intersection between employer requirements and job seeker preferences, both sides would be compelled to connect.

Understanding Wants & Offers

With natural language processing we can dynamically understand exactly what job seekers care about and use those vectors in our matching.

Using LLM embeddings, we can understand you in a holistic and multi-dimensional way that today’s structured data can’t attain.

Simply answer some questions about your qualifications, our voice AI will turn this conversation into a robust profile that showcases your unique experience.

You don’t have to be good at this. We’ll assist you every step with every question. After the system understands you, it will represent you perfectly.

Jobs aren’t this boring. The company, the role, the team, etc. are more interesting than a wall of text. Job seekers want to know what it’s really like to work there.

Wouldn’t it be great to showcase the role in a way that gets job seekers excited about the opportunity?

Connect Compatible Matches

Let’s face it, this absolutely sucks! Who wants to do this over and over again just to not hear back from 100 different employers? Pain.

And dude… trust me, I’ve reviewed 10,000 applications in my time. As a hiring manager, there are countless other things I could prioritize.

What if we like, didn’t do that anymore?

Using our collected natural language requirements and preferences, we can match based on their connection likelihood.

Checking in. How are we doing? You’re half way through the case study.

Note we’re pulling the parts the hiring manager told us they care about to the forefront on the left. Simply express interest in connecting and we’ll do the rest.

When it’s a match, we’ll help you connect and start the conversation.

Facilitate the Conversation

Getting ready to talk to an employer, if you’re preparing which you should, takes time.

Our fine-tuned LLM can help you prepare for interviews with specific companies. You can even switch to voice mode to practice in a real-life situation.

From our user research, job seekers often have a difficult time expressing who they are in an interview situation.

No worries, we’ll assist during the call to remind you to mention key aspects of your qualifications that are specific to the interviewer’s question.

Super Quick Recap

No search, no applications, just compatible two-way interest leading to what both sides want, a quality conversation that could lead to a hire.

Outcome

The Vision Sprint was well-received by leadership. We implemented cutting-edge features like LLM-based preference collection in our eLLMo project. However, the high-level experience of no search and no applications was rejected due to our reliance on ad-based revenue.

Before leaving Zip, I warned that failing to disrupt our own business model could lead to falling behind. I drew a parallel to Kodak, who failed to embrace digital cameras to protect their film sales, ultimately leading to their downfall. This cautionary tale emphasizes the critical need to innovate, even at the risk of disrupting our current revenue streams.

Thanks