Hira Jamshed Portfolio
Handshake is a platform that connects students to employment opportunities both on and off college campuses across the United States. Their mission is to give all students the chance to build the career they want, no matter where they’re from or what school they attend.
A student profile is generated on Handshake during the onboarding process. It is observed that majority of the students do not have an updated profile. This makes it difficult to match students with employers as employers require up-to-date profiles. Handshake wanted to know why undergraduate students minimally interact with their profiles.
Questions from Handshake
This research focuses on the student profile through the lens of the following: how are students engaging with their profiles, and how does this determine the efficacy/longevity of their Handshake experience in connecting with employers?
Through qualitative research methods, I also aim to uncover pain points in the desktop and mobile app in both the set up and maintenance of the profile. These pain points will inform our suggestions for improvement for current and prolonged engagement between students and Handshake. (We will also keep in mind the ways competitors are establishing and maintaining a relationship with their clients.)
8 weeks (March - April 2022)
Immersion
Competitive Analysis
In-Depth Interviews
Usability Tests (Mobile Platform)
Strategy | Recruitment | Competitive Analysis | Survey | User Interviews | User Testing | Data Analysis (Qualitative and Quantitative)
Qualitative UX Researcher
Cross-Functional Collaboration
1 UX Project Manager: Caron Garstka
4 (other) UX Researchers: Denise Dicks, Insiyah Jawadwala, Suyash Ekre, Divya Merchandani
Lead UX Researcher @ Handshake: Carmen Broomes
Senior Product Manager @ Handshake: Brenda Ghai
1 week
2 weeks
2.5 weeks
2 weeks
Outline research methodology
Justify research methods
Gantt Chart
Create investigative survey
Conduct competitor analysis
Debrief session
Identify gaps and opportunities
Immersion excercise
Recruitment (10) + Scheduling
Test script
Interviews (9)
Qualitative data analysis
Identify opportunities
Recruitment (5) + Scheduling
Create Test Packet
User Tests (5)
Debrief session
Prioritise major pain points (8)
Things I Contributed to
Through this qualitative research, we were able to bring surprising and fresh insights from undergraduate students to Handshake. We were also able to shed light on some additional good-to-have questions that Handshake was curious about. As a result, Handshake has made changes to their platform and are currently observing the effects.
To summarise:
Students expect to expand their network but find low social engagement on their profiles
Students face difficulty in parsing through the many different services the platform provides
Students find a lack of consistency in functionality between the mobile and desktop application
“I am not sure what value updating my profile will bring to my job applications”
- Participant
“I don't quite understand how Handshake is organized”
- Participant
“I didn’t know Handshake had a mobile app!”
- Participant
When first planning out the project plan, I had a very calculated and continuous stream of UX methods to support the research questions put forth by handshake. However, I was completely unaware of how many breaks can come when conversing with stakeholders: document approvals, setting up time, meeting collaboration expectations. All of that takes time.
But I still made it work!
Original Timeline During Week 1
Final Timeline
To carry out an immersion exercise, I created 5 different permutations of new/returning, grad/undergrad, international/in-state, internship/full-time, and app/mobile. I embodied a returning undergraduate student searching for full-time roles on the desktop platform.
To familiarize ourselves with Handshake’s competition and understand user preferences, I conducted an investigative survey with 40 people and performed an analysis with 5 competitors.
It was also reported that Handshake's top use was for searching job posts, with no attention to the other services provided such as chats with recruiters or career office help. Instead, LinkedIn was used more actively for networking and finding recruiters.
It was interesting to note that participants don't necessarily act on their beliefs. It gave me an angle to focus on during interviews: why is their a disconnect between the belief and behavior?
As opposed to its competitors, Handshake seems to focus only on job posts. While it has other services such as messaging, events, profile, and career services, it is not able to highlight their utility. It also does not provide a consistent mobile and desktop experience.
To answer Handshake's requirement of student perspectives and personal experiences, I conducted 2 out of 9 interviews through a semi-structured interview with open-ended questions. Most of the participants fit the requirements of Handshake: a balanced mix of male and female undergraduates looking for full-time opportunities in the US.
INSIGHT #1
Handshake serves as a credible and reassuring resource in building a connection between the students and their school resources + community. Examples of supportive services include: “Career Center”, "Career Fairs", "On-campus jobs”, etc.
“Handshake feels exclusive to your university; this is reassuring”
INSIGHT #2
Establishing personal connections is what truly motivates students to update their profiles. Due to a lack of engagement via the platform, students are unsure of how their profile governed their job applications and prospects.
"Since there is no two-way connection on the platform, I don’t see the importance of keeping an updated profile"
INSIGHT #3
Students mostly use the platform for browsing job postings, applying for on-campus opportunities, and connecting to the career center, without exploring further. They are unaware of potential motivators for interaction: a mobile application, ability to connect to peers, look who has visited your profile, contact recruiters, etc
"Handshake has a steep learning curve and I am not sure what value updating my profile specifically will bring to my job applications"
To evaluate if users' understand how to use the profile feature and identify usability issues, I conducted 2 out of 8 user tests on the mobile platform. The task scenarios were designed to test whether users can: login & review application, update profile, and interact with privacy settings.
What we did:
Identify user’s thought process and gather their feelings toward the website
Participants were asked to rate if they understood the next steps, understood the presented information, and overall experience
The team collaborated during user testing to help in data collection and supplement test quality
After the tests, I carried out an affinity mapping exercise to code themes and identify opportunities
Participants were unable to find a 'projects' and 'courses' section on the mobile platform as these were not present in the mobile application. This discouraged students from using the mobile application as they consider projects to be a crucial part of their application.
Participants expected to find such options near the 'find jobs' pages but found it inconspicuously placed within the profile section. There were also different names referring to similar functionalities. This adds to the overall counterintuitive mobile platform, which further causes students to avoid using Handshake altogether.
Amidst other recommendations and findings, we figured Handshake would benefit the most from:
Students spoke of their trust in Handshake’s efficacy in connecting them to opportunities on campus. This unique trust can be further developed in the form of personalised home pages based on their profiles. This would not only encourage students to update their profiles but also encourage relationships both on and off campus through additional features like connecting with other students and alumni or connecting to recruiters.
Handshake should adopt a mobile first approach for their platform as students prefer to access all school related information via their smartphones. Consistency between the two will promote engagement with the app as students will be encouraged to familiarise with multiple features, stay connected with each other, and encourage community building.
Through this project, I realised my ability to take initiative and my problem-solving skills.
If I would have to this again, I would:
Plan for communication gaps: the most trickiest thing in this project was to go at the pace of 5 teams, and collaborate with the whole class in addition to the project manager and stakeholder. I learned to be mindful of the time it takes to communicate and being open to consequent changes.
Keep everything documented: towards the end of the project, our team needed some data from another team to triangulate our findings. Delayed responses and inadequate documentation from their side unnecessarily delayed things for us. I realised I could have avoided all of this if I had asked for such data on the go.