User Analysis
IvyPlusResumes has two user classes: students who are building their resumes and recruiters who are looking to connect with the students.
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Recruiters are the other user group for IvyPlusResumes. Recruiters would like to connect with all students at Ivy Plus schools, but need an effective way to screen these candidates. One recruiter mentioned that she was "worried" she might not interview the best people for the job. These users generally have less computer experience, unless they are at a technology-focused company, and have had bad experiences with enterprise human resources software. They dedicate a large portion of their time strategizing about the best way to get in touch with students and struggle to insure that employees' limited recruiting time is used to interview the best candidates.
Task Analysis
1) Students maintain a list of experiences and skills that would potentially be included in a resume.
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Recruiters, especially at large companies, have to filter through many candidates by quickly scanning their resumes. One recruiter from a large multinational corporation said that if a resume does not look professional, she will not bother reading it, even if the candidate looks somewhat promising from a glance. She said that while she knows she turns aways some technically skilled candidates, one must look professional, and the resume is the first impression and a good opportunity for a candidate to show that she is a professional. Two of the three recruiters we spoke with find recruiting online a pain, because they do not think that there is an easy way to get promising candidates into their internal recruiting pipelines. They told us that, when confronted with a resume book, all they want is a way to filter through resumes by school and GPA in order to focus on the most relevant candidates. Speed is essential, given the number of resumes. The most common errors at this stage of recruiting are 1) letting a solid candidate accidentally "slip through the cracks" because of resume overload and 2) eliminating strong candidates with weak resumes.
Note on LinkedIn
We are aware that LinkedIn has similar capabilities to IvyPlusResumes, and we were concerned that we may be trying to do something that others like LinkedIn have already done. Multiple recruiters said that they do not use LinkedIn much for undergraduate recruiting because LinkedIn tends to be more effective for networking with people more advanced in their careers. Students who are applying to entry-level jobs right out of college not only take up the most time for recruiters, but also have the most limited experience. The recruiters noted that undergraduate profiles on LinkedIn are often sparse. Furthermore, the recruiters said that at this stage in the process, they are only looking for the ability to sort and view resumes. Similarly, a few freshmen and sophomores said that they wanted a resume builder and that they did not like the UI of most resume builders. One freshman noted that he was not “experienced enough to look good on LinkedIn” and did not bother including detailed descriptions on his profile.