REAL HIRE
A video-based "human-first" hiring platform connecting candidates & employers beyond the resume (B2C/B2B)
(Top 10 at Startup World Cup Miami 2024)
Founding team: 1 CEO, 1 CTO, 2 Engineers, 1 Sales, 1 Social Media, 1 Design (me).
Timeline: 2 years, 4 months
Role: As the 1st design hire, I led end-to-end design & research across iOS, mobile & web. Beyond core product, I established brand identity, defined KPIs & PRDs, landing website and a user-centric design culture.
Impact:
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Insight to action: Translated 40+ interviews, 4 surveys, 50+ usability tests, user analytics into product changes
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Alignment & clarity: Lead weekly design meetings, cross-team feedback sessions & eng walkthroughs
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Culture shift: Fostered a user-first culture by facilitating UX workshops that made research a core to product decisions.
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Scalability: Built a design system scalable across iOS, mobile & web and prototypes that enabled engineers to ship faster
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Adoption & growth: Shipped 6 major iOS + web launches, scaling to 500+ users & 4.7 App store rating
RESULTS
⏱️ Recruiters accessed fit signals 10x faster (1-2 min vs 15-30min), resulting in more targeted phone screens & projected 30-40% phone screen volume reduction
⭐ Save 4-6 hours per role
🎯 Reported better quality conversations with candidates
📈 Increase phone screen -> interview rate by 25% by surfacing signals earlier / improving funnel quality
PROBLEM
The resume is a bottleneck.
It captures credentials, but masks character. While soft skills like communication, empathy & drive determine success far more than bullet points ever could.
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Candidates feel unseen and forced into a rigid format that hides their real potential.
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Recruiters waste hours on identical resumes & repetitive phone screens searching for basic fit signals.
76%
of hiring managers see soft skills as MORE important than hard skills
(LinkedIn Global Talent Trends Report)
25 hrs
a week spent on phone screens gauging fit that could've been visible earlier
(2024 survey)
64%
of recruiters admit resumes fail to capture the full picture
(Society for Human Resource Management)
BUSINESS
CONTEXT
Inefficient screening costs time, money & talent.
Each wrong hire loses thousands of dollars and countless recruiter hours. Yet, traditional resumes are still being used to screen out 90% of candidates...
OPPORTUNITY
How might we help candidates showcase their full potential beyond resumes, while enabling employers to identify human best-fit signals earlier?
Reduce phone
screen volume
Increase candidate visibility
Improve quality
of hire funnel
SOLUTION
Real Hire.
A video-based "human-first" hiring platform to connect candidates & employers beyond the resume.
Recruiter sourcing portal | Web
allowing employers to discover & screen video profiles that show rich human signals
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Post jobs
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Source candidates
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Connect to ATS
Candidate video profiles | Web, iOS
that showcase the human behind the resume, sharable as a hyperlink on your resume
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Create video profiles
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Apply to jobs
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Connect with recruiters
PROCESS
User surveys
User interviews
Competitive analysis
User synthesis
Problem definition
Problem validation
Ideation
User journeys
User flows
Wireframes
Goals
Info architecture
Lowfi prototypes
Concept validation
User flows
Brand identity
Design system
Hifi designs
Prototype
Usability testing
Design handoff
User stories & specs,
Design QA
Feedback surveys
User analytics
DISCOVERY
No existing tools reveal communication, presence and personality at scale.
Competitive
analysis
I analyzed direct and indirect competitors:
-> Networking/job fairs: unscalable
-> Social video tools: unstructured
-> Job boards/resumes: impersonal
Opportunity: Real Hire creates a structured way to showcase soft skills and identity - a scalable alternative to networking.
DISCOVERY
43% feel unseen, 52% say resumes don’t show who they are.
User surveys
To validate our assumptions on the current candidate & recruiter experience, I surveyed 110 US job seekers and 100 hiring professionals to discover tools, challenges and perspectives surrounding traditional resumes.
Key Insights:
DISCOVERY
User interviews
The human signals of fit are invisible until late-stage phone screens.
After validating a clear gap, I dug deeper into survey themes through user interviews with 15+ Candidates, 10+ Recruiters & 10+ Hiring Managers.
From the interviews, I used AI (ChatGPT) to extract 100+ qualitative data points, used affinity mapping to identify patterns and then visualized themes in a Venn diagram to discover overlapping pain points.
Key pain points:
#1 Overload: Recruiters are time-pressed and forced to use shallow heuristics (qualifications, hard skills, school names) & their gut to decide if a candidate is worth screening
#2 Timing: Recruiters rely on 15-30min phone screens to uncover fit signals. Yet during the screen, they know within 1min if the candidate is a fit.
#3 Trust: Early candidate signals are unverified. Resumes exaggerate, written answers are polished, communication/presence can't be verified until the phone screen.
DISCOVERY
User
Journey
The resume screening stage is the biggest bottleneck.
To uncover where the hiring process breaks down, I mapped candidate & recruiter journeys.
Opportunity: Real Hire could humanize early evaluation by helping both sides see fit sooner through video.
Depth of user pain revealed in user journey + lack of alternatives + business opportunity confirmed our focus areas.
DISCOVERY
User
Personas
College students have limited experience and professional networks, yet bring immense soft skills & potential.
How this informed our design goals..
Tech savvvy -> modern, relatable & intuitive
Limited network -> show ways to expand reach & build new authentic connections
New to work force -> provide guided structure to articulate their strengths
Limited experience -> help showcase potential through early internship/informal experiences
IDEATE
Design
goals
I defined principles to make hiring more human and efficient.
Using research insights, I identified 3 key goals that addressed core user need/tensions uncovered between human connection and system efficiency in the hiring process
#1: Showcase authentic presence
#2: Bring accelerated insight to recruiters
#3: Build a transparent & human process
IDEATE
Feature
Storm
I facilitated structured ideation with engineers, CEO & marketeers to define a human-first MVP direction.
#1 I started with high level concept brainstorming that generated 40+ ideas mapped to pain points, encouraging unlimited creativity.
#2 Then I introduced a weighted concept prioritization matrix to balance user impact, feasibility & differentiation
-> Video profiles emerged as the top solution concept.
#3 I then facilitated feature-level brainstorming and collaborated with engineers to define MVP features vs future integrations/AI features.
IDEATION
Wireframes
I ideated a range of info architecture concepts that focused on balancing both candidate expression and recruiter scannability.
A
B
C
TESTING
Concept
Testing
Greyscale interactive prototype
To validate the solution concept, I conducted early concept testing using greyscale interactive prototypes with 10+ candidates & 10+ recruiters. This gave us validation & critical feedback on our solution concept:
Testing insights showed that recruiters liked the authenticity of C, but the scannability of A.
CANDIDATE INSIGHTS
#1 Video was intimidating:
-> reduce friction via guidance, prompts, example videos.
#2 Dating app concept felt casual:
-> redesign as personable but professional
#3 Employer buy-in is critical:
-> utilize testimonials, video views, success stories
RECRUITER INSIGHTS
#1 It could slow processes down:
-> design for scannability
(captions, transcripts, video interactions...)
#2 Needs to integrate with existing tools
-> integrate with ATS & embed seamlessly
#3 It needs to build credibility before replacing resumes
-> position as a supplement to the resume
ITERATION
I redesigned the profile info architecture to be more scannable for recruiters, while preserving authenticity.
85% of recruiters preferred the new design after testing.
An architecture that mirrors the resume, with better hierarchy & scannability
Video reels consolidated into one scalable & organized hero section
DESIGN
Design system
I built & scaled a design system with reusable tokens, styles & components for consistency across iOS, B2C web, B2B web.
I partnered with developers using Figma Dev Mode, shared tokens & responsive prototypes to align on spacing, color & interaction behavior. I documented constraints, variants, edge cases directly in Figma.
FINAL
SOLUTION
Mobile platform (Candidate)
Candidate profiles that showcase personality, communication and character through video.
Employer video profiles that feature teammates & culture
Explore jobs recommended by AI based on fit.
Dashboard to manage multiple profiles.
Website platform (Employer)
ITERATION
User testing
I redesigned a focused onboarding that increased profile conversion by 34%
PROBLEM
I noticed from user analytics that only 22% of users completed profiles and 1% shared them.
RESEARCH
I analyzed the funnel data for drop off points and conducted 10+ user testing interviews to discover set of barriers that were blocking activation:
INSIGHTS
#2 Emotional friction with video: Users were intimidated or paralyzed not knowing what to say (emotional barrier)
#3 Unclear next steps: Once on the platform, users were distracted by the range of features & final steps (usability barrier)
#1 Lack of product clarity: 9/20 users confused the profile with LinkedIn & didn't understand the user case or end goal (value barrier)
GOAL
Build trust and communicate value -> higher onboarding completion
ONBOARDING SOUTION
I designed a simple & focused onboarding that provided guidance at every step, focus on key steps & clarity on the product's value.
