Design U and Guide & Seek

The Challenge

Job seekers are increasingly overwhelmed with the complex nature of today’s job search

The average job seeker coming out of a two or four-year institution is faced with the harsh reality of competitive job markets upon graduation. Often, they resort to online job boards, which have a 0.4% success rate in actually employing job seekers.

Many of these graduates need help developing networking, resume, and interview skills but don’t know where to turn to. Through traditional coaching, they could receive professional training and guidance; however, it is far too expensive for the majority. Therefore, a unique career coaching model must be developed to service the needs of this market.

Job Seekers | See interview questions →

Key insights:

• To find jobs, job seekers commonly use online job boards, job fairs, personal networks, and online assessments

• Challenges they face include a general lack of skills involved throughout the job search process, “entry-level” jobs requiring professional experience, lack of response from companies after applying, and marketing themselves

• Job seekers use networking opportunities through online profiles (LinkedIn, Monster, Indeed), school resources (networking events, company visits, alumni), personal relations (family, friends, staff and faculty at school), and social circles (honors society, greek life)

• When looking for jobs, job seekers measure the following criteria: work/life balance, location, promotion opportunities, work environments, and benefits

• For Guide & Seek to benefit them, it needs to be accessible, easy to use, provide timely responses, and offer a wide range of availability to accommodate their schedules.

Career Counselors | See interview questions →

Key Insights:

• The higher education career counselors that we interviewed had job descriptions that consisted of working with students, staff, faculty and leadership administration, 1:1 appointments, and giving class presentations

• Most career counselors that we interviewed said their advisory services were underutilized and that could be because students generally trust faculty more than counselors due to their close position to specific industries versus a general training

• One of the career counselors we spoke with mentioned that the department had tried to create an app for their students to book appointments and chat with advisors online

• Guide & Seek would be helpful to career counselors if they were able to team up in making their services more accessible for their students

Employers & Recruiters | See interview questions →

Key Insights:

• Most employers that we interviewed said there were so many individuals applying that it was difficult to parse out the qualified, quality candidates

• Many of their resources were wasted in the application review process that could have otherwise been allocated to departments focused on their products or services

Considerations Moving Forward

Takeaways:

• What is the biggest pain point in the job search process?

• Should users, career service departments, or both be paying for this service?

  • How much?

  • Subscription cost or at-time-of-use cost?

Resumes and Cover Letters

Although a common service provided by Career Services at colleges and universities is resume review, we found that career services are underutilized and not seen as helpful to students on campus. From speaking with career counselors, it’s clear that student job seekers don’t find their services accomodating to their schedules. To alleviate this pain point, the team recommended that Guide & Seek pursue a resume and cover letter help and support feature. Users can gain access to free online resume templates and paid services such as resume review, cover letter help, and other insights on this process. We also recommended that Guide & Seek include a free feature that allows users to pair up with other users in their network to assist each other in reviewing resumes - a great tool to use within classrooms.

Interview preparation

While there are many services that can provide “smart” recommendations based upon career history in addition to the hosting job listings, we found that no service currently exists as a cross between job aggregation, recommendation, and career counseling.

The ability to receive services once a job seeker has scheduled an interview is critical to their success at getting a job offer. An example of an interview preparation tool that Guide & Seek can offer would be video and call features for mock interviewing. This would enable a coach or peer to comment at certain points of the recording so that the user can get immediate feedback. By including a playback feature, users could watch their own interview and to work on feedback they received through coaching.

Communication

Accessibility

Having access to on-demand career coaching is a crucial component of the job coaching process. Throughout interviews, the survey, and focus groups, job seekers emphasized the importance of having the ability to speak to a career coach outside of working hours. Job seekers are leaning away from traditional career counseling hours due to their demanding schedules. Appointments with traditional career counselors are often booked in advance and are not conducive to the time constraints and meeting times of a modern job seeker. To combat this challenge, Guide & Seek can implement a chat service that is available to users that extend the normal hours of traditional career services.

Networking

Respondents listed “networking” as one of the key ways they found their current or previous jobs. When asked about this, we found that most students did not have a formal networking strategy or a drive to network, rather they had an informal network that they had built up through family and friends. While this informal network is good enough for some, it is hard for job seekers looking outside of the careers of the people they know. 

A key area where Guide & Seek can assist its users is by allowing them to properly network with alumni from their respective schools or people in their fields. Making contact with someone in a company increases the chances of getting an interview and that job. By adding features that recommend users to one another, allowing LinkedIn connectivity, promoting collaboration on resumes and the job search, and recommending that users network, Guide & Seek will be a far more successful platform and will see increased success rates in its users.