Make each design decision to drive meaningful impact for the end user.I have designed collaboratively and I have designed individually. Each approach and each project brings its own unique challenges, as well as its own rewards. But one thing that never changes is my dedication and drive to improve the lives of my user and communities through my designs and creations.
CONNECT is the culmination of hundreds of designs, thousands of hours of internal and user-facing discovery, and countless iterations of development and refinement. What started as a tool to provide job-seekers with a clear path to job qualification, eventually became the job-seeker empowering and employer enabling supertool that it is today.
Starting in 2020, the first iterations of a job transparency and alignment solution began to form. Beginning as individual instances of learning academies geared toward individual companies, user research and market testing would lead to what would eventually become CONNECT.
Evolving from an academy-style upskilling tool, we learned we were missing the mark by simply providing job-centric upskilling. After speaking to countless employers and recruiters, it became clear that the cost and challenge of making poor hiring decisions made based on the skills assertions of applicants wasn't going to be fixed with our current solution. We needed to transform our current approach and move toward candidate metrics and objectivity to assist the employer in making quality hires.
Additional user testing and market analysis showed that neither the academy-style upskilling tool or the employer empowerment platform were the correct solution. That is, they did not solve the problem individually. What we came to realize was that our users were not just job-seekers, and not just employers. In actuality, the market we were aiming to assist is comprised of both persona types. This realization lead us to understand that both solutions were not only required, but harmonious in addressing the needs of both job-seekers and employers as it pertains to finding quality employment and hiring qualified candidates. It was from this undestanding and validation from the market that CONNECT came into existence.