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 Design (me).
Role: As the 1st design hire, I led early user discovery and end-to-end design across iOS, B2C web & B2B web. Beyond core product, I established brand identity, monitored user KPIs, designed the landing website & cultivated a user-centric design culture.
Timeline: 2 years, 6 months
Impact:
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Adoption & growth: Shipped 6 launches, 500+ users & 4.7 App store rating
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Insight to action: Translated 40+ interviews, 4 surveys, 50+ usability tests, user analytics into product changes
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Scalability: Built a 0->1 design system scalable across iOS, mobile & web and prototypes that enabled engineers to 3X ship faster
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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 insights a core part of product decisions.
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
⭐ Recruiters saved 4-6 hours per role
🎯 Reported better quality conversations with candidates
📈 Increased phone screen -> interview rate by 25% by surfacing signals earlier / improving funnel quality
PROBLEM
The resume is a bottleneck.
Hiring decisions rely on static bullet points that capture credentials, but mask the human signals that actually predict success (like communication, motivation & presence).
Recruiters spend hours sifting through identical resumes, trying to infer "fit" when they can recognize it instantly in a real interaction.
Candidates send 200+ generic applications into a void with no way to differentiate themselves beyond keywords.
Both sides are exhausted before they ever have a real conversation.
BUSINESS
CONTEXT
Inefficient screening costs time, money & talent.
Every 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 create a faster & more authentic way to evaluate talent?
Reduce phone
screen volume
Increase candidate visibility
Improve quality
of hire funnel
Real Hire.
A "human-first" hiring platform that seamlessly integrates video, accelerating hiring speed & quality for candidates & employers.
Recruiter sourcing portal | B2B Web
allowing employers to quickly screen video profiles that embed rich human signals
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Source quality candidates with video profiles
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Screen short videos from applications
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Post jobs
Candidate video profiles | B2C Web, iOS
that showcase who they are, sharaeble as a hyperlink on your resume
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Create a rich & reusable video profile
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Share on existing resumes/LinkedIn via profile link
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Be guided through a seamless process
DISCOVERY
INSIGHTS
In a founding team of four, I led early user discovery to define a meaningful bottleneck in hiring.
I validated broad assumptions by surveying 110+ US job seekers and 100+ hiring professionals...
KEY INSIGHTS
64% of recruiters see resumes as insufficient for assessing fit
Recruiters spend 25+ hrs per week on phone screens, gauging basic fit
78% of recruiters believe soft skills are MORE important than hard skills
DISCOVERY
The biggest bottleneck occurs during screening.
Key pain points:
#1 Volume: Recruiters are overloaded & forced to use shallow heuristics (qualifications, hard skills, school names) & their gut to quickly decide if a candidate is worth screening.
#2 Time: Although extremely time-pressed, recruiters rely on 15-30 minute phone screens to uncover basic fit. Yet during the screen, they know within 1 minute 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.
DEFINE
With a clear problem defined, I set design goals that addressed core user tensions uncovered:
#1 Amplify authentic human presence
# 2 Prioritize speed for recruiters
#3 Design a transparent & trustworthy process
IDEATION
From early ideas into wireframes
I led early brainstorming by starting with high-level concept brainstorming that mapped ideas to pain points. Then I evaluated user goals, feasibility & business differentiation to land on a video profile concept. Finally, I collaborated with engineers on feature-level brainstorming for a scalable MVP.
Early wireframes explored a range of hierarchy & info architectures that prioritized a modular design for scalability. The final design optimized recruiter scannability (critical for recruiter adoption) by mirroring the existing resume mental model. Through user testing, it received 90% recruiter buy-in.
DESIGN
SYSTEM
Building a 0 ->1 design system and expanding it to scale across iOS, B2C web, B2B web
I built a reusable & modular tokens, styles & component libraries. This core video component allows for expansion of various 1) interaction states, 2) video states, 3) control sets, 4) surfaces (modal / profile / picture-in-picture / mobile).
I partner with developers using Figma Dev Mode to align on base tokens/styles and deliver responsive prototypes.
SOLUTION
Core candidate video profile
Two core tensions I solved that determined success:
#1 Activation barrier: Candidates feel intimidated recording themselves on video
#2 Speed & workflow: Recruiters won't adopt video if it slows down their process.
Therefore, video MUST follow these key principles:
#1: Seamlessly embed into existing workflows
Design around existing mental models and workflows, minimizing behavior change.
#2: Lower the barrier to participation
Make expression feel safe, simple, and low-pressure.
#3: Optimize for speed
Every interaction should maximize meaningful signals quickly.
PROBLEM
Core tension #1: Overcoming activation barriers (Candidates)
The success of Real Hire depends on a candidate recording a video of themselves. But for many, it was the most intimidating step. Only 15% of users completed a video (north star) and 1% shared them.
RESEARCH
Using funnel data, I discovered that users struggled to initiate & complete intro video recording, despite discovering the feature.
I dug in with 10+ user interviews and discovered 3 key emotional barriers:
#1 Emotional risk
"What if I sound awkward?"
Recording felt vulnerable. Candidates felt performance anxiety.
#2 Lack of structure:
"I've never done it before, what do I say"
Video had no clear mental model yet and increased cognitive overload.
#3 Unclear value:
"Is this even worth the effort?"
When the end result & perceived ROI to recruiters were unclear, motivation dropped.
GOAL
Build trust and communicate value -> higher onboarding completion
Breaking down one complex step into a multi-step guided journey
IDEATION
To overcome these barriers, I redesigned the intimidating step using progressive disclosure to build trust, communicate clarity and offer guidance with an AI intro script-generating feature that takes a user's resume & quick prompts to generate a personalized script.
Design principles that shaped the AI-script feature
DEFINE
Build trust through transparency
The flow surfaces the AI's inputs, structure, and logic to remove the black box & let users understand how script was generated.
Preserve user ownership and agency
AI acts only as a collaborative coach by allowing candidates to add input, skip, edit, regenerate and control output at every step.
Micro-education through structure
Embed light-weight guidance on what recruiters look for & ideal structure to coach candidates and lower cognitive load.
Protect human authenticity
The output is designed to sound natural & human, while allowing candidates to personalize & shape the final output.
SOLUTION
Before
After
IMPACT
34%
Increase in core video completion rate (north star)
60%
Decrease in drop off rate
(video upload step)
12 min -> 5 min
Time to publish first video (manual -> AI-guided)
FINAL SOLUTION
Candidate profiles that showcase personality, communication and character through video.
Employer video profiles that feature teammates & culture
Dashboard to manage multiple profiles.
REFLECT
1. Navigate ambiguity by experimenting & creating structure
Learnings
I learned to independently design a structured UX process from scratch - laying out the appropriate design workflows, creating a scalable design system and maintaining UX documentation to keep my team aligned. I learned to adapt to changing business needs and create structure for defining the problem space, ideating solutions, seeking feedback & systematic handoff.
2. Test early & often - User feedback is crucial
I saw how testing EARLY was key. It resulted in less time spent fixing & pivoting and drove deep insight that shaped design decisions at vital stages. Early prototyping & rounds of usability testing revealed insight that allowed the team to pivot towards better MVPs. When the team understood the value of feedback, there was greater buy in and each product transformation was a huge leap towards PMF.
3. Alignment is key
I learned that it is essential to communicate UX needs and align them with stakeholders across technical & business & marketing. Early on, I experienced a time when each team member had a different understanding of our product based on personal experiences, which hindered important decision-making & prioritization. I spearheaded team UX workshops to clearly define our problem, users & solutions and created shared systems to record/communicate key iterations.
4. Evangelize UX for better cross-collaboration
As the only designer, I was challenged to demonstrate the value of deep user research & feedback by guiding the team through "why" behind each stage of the design cycle. I incorporated strategies to increase team user empathy: sharing user interview snippets, leading ideation/synthesis/UX workshops, presenting user insights behind design decisions and connecting UX to business impact. I showed my team why we should challenge PMF assumptions, enabled collaborative feedback gathering/ideation, and advocated for user needs in core company meetings.
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