I think it’s fair to say that the job market is pretty damn tough right now. With unemployment in the US teasing between 11-14%, there is a huge pool of candidates currently looking for their next opportunity. Some have been furloughed, made redundant, changing careers, and some are like me — fresh out of UX Bootcamp looking to break into the industry.
Candidates are faced with a daunting task of trying to find a job amidst this global pandemic, and sometimes this process can really wear on the soul. Thankfully, there are a number of aspects that employers can influence to help ease the process and make it less uncomfortable.
What are the 10 Usability Heuristics?
In 1994, Jakob Nielsen created a framework to help people design interactions in ways that are most efficient to the user. He identified ten general principles for interaction design. These principles can be used as broad guidelines to help platforms deliver seamless and consistent user experiences. They are not concrete rules that must be abided by, but they are incredibly useful when evaluating systems for usability, and initially creating digital interactions.
Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics
The Candidate Experience
It’s no picnic job hunting (global pandemic or not!), and people can often experience burnout, frustration, low morale, self-doubt — a lot of which comes from the repetitiveness of applying for opportunities, and the uncertainty around the status of applications.
As well as clearly defining the employer brand, values, and calling out the specific benefits and reasons to work at a specific company, teams should also be mindful of the usability of their career site and application process. If it’s too difficult to apply, companies risk losing out on potentially great candidates. Remember, a candidate is likely to be applying to more than one role, so if they’re feeling emotionally drained and fatigued by the process, any slight frustration might cause them to bounce.
The usability of a career site reflects a lot about a company — this interaction informs a candidates impression of a company, how they operate, and the value placed on employees and their time.
In this article, I aim to provide an evaluation of career sites against Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics, to highlight the principles of design that can contribute to a better candidate experience (and improved application rates — it’s a win-win!)
Let’s dive in!
1. Visibility of System Status
Uncertainty. The bane of every candidate’s journey. With so much uncertainty throughout the process, causing stress, frustration, and dismay, the last thing candidates need is to be unclear about their status during the application. By being mindful of the first usability principle, companies can empower candidates and offer some element of control by increasing clarity of the system status and removing doubt.
A great example is by informing candidates how many steps there are in the application process through something like a progress indicator, if the application requires a depth of information. This can help manage users’ expectations of how much time an application will take to complete, and what kind of information they will be asked for.
It’s good to keep the user informed about what’s going on, where they are in the process, how much is left to complete, and do so in through appropriate feedback and reasonable time. If a user clicks ‘Submit Application’, make sure to greet them with a Success page, so they’re not left wondering if it ever went through_._ It’s better to manage expectations than leave the candidate questioning what is happening.
#heuristics #usability #cx #ux #candidate-experience #candidates
