Improving Wavely’s chat feature to create more value for employers on the platform
Wavely is a job board with the mission of keeping the job hunt human. A job board that uses AI to connect talent with employers via chat.
I’m passionately leading Wavely through the journey of creating a product that is changing peoples' lives through direct connections.
Employer Chat
The Employer’s Chat feature on Wavely is a tool for employers to use for connecting with talent and to have exploratory conversations to understand if they will be a good fit for further interviews.
Problems
The major problem with the chat feature was that there were many bugs, the chat was functioning like an interview room instead of the intended use of a 1:1 message relay.
Developed as an MVP
Many bugs
Migrating the codebase from Vue to React
Role
I was the Lead Product Designer working with 2 PMs and the front-end team. At the start of the project I worked closely with the PM to discover past research, metrics, and get a clear understanding of Wavely’s business goals. I wanted to ensure we were going to try to solve the right problems for the right reasons. I kept the developers informed with bi-weekly meetings in the research phase and weekly meetings in the design and testing phases. I enjoy making sure there are no surprises and keeping clarity and alignment on what we were thinking and planning along the journey of the project.
Company Goals
Wavely yearly goals
54 Weekly active employers. (+20%)
2k Weekly active talent.
June 2021
45 Weekly active employers.
857 Weekly active talent.
Project Goals
Because the project tied closely to Wavely’s yearly goal of increasing weekly active employers by 20% and the target of 2k weekly talent. The objective was to improve existing features to bring more value to the employers and increase the employer’s activity on the platform.
OKR
The objective was to improve existing features that increase the employer’s activity on the platform.
One of the key results was: planning/ design/launching Employer Chat 2.0.
Constraints
This project was a part of a code refactor and the feature parody had to be kept to as close as possible with minimal feature bloat.
Success Metrics
The the project would be a success if we could release a version of chat that could replace the current by the end of the quarter.
The PM initially determined this version needed to be built for scalability.
Employer could have 100 jobs
Employer could have 1000s of chats
Employer could have 100 message templates
Research
I worked with the PM to gather links and analyze the existing data. We had a look at what data was currently available and the PM then created a loose PRD that I used to create a research plan to dive a bit deeper into how the chat feature was being used.
We needed to better understand how the current chat features are utilized by employers, what was the most valuable to them, and why?
Research Goals
Understand a hiring manager's top goals.
Top goals with chat.
What do employers look for in a chat profile vs a full profile?
Understand employers overall thoughts on these chat features:
Messaging Templates
Resume Request
Information on talents Wavely profile
Interviews
Research Recap
I interviewed 5 participants to get a baseline understanding of these 3 features within the employer chat feature.
Messaging Templates
Resume Request
Information on talents Wavely profile
NPS Score: 40
Message Templates
Quick messaging is a valuable feature that needs a clearer indication as to what it is and how to use it.
Testers didn’t really know what it was at first. Would like an explanation of what it is.
Resume Request
The majority of the participants would use this feature. They would also expect to view the resume in order to determine if the candidate meets the role requirements before initiating a chat.
“Why would I reach out w/out knowing their background?”
Information on Talents Profile
This is expected to be a recap of their resume w the ability to download the resume from here.
Instead of having to guess to click on name to view profile. Why not have a view profile button?
Dev Alignment
Features that will not require heavy dev lift:
See chat histories of both 1 on 1 message and group chats, render chat messages on page open.
Request Resume.
Block, report, delete, pin chat.
Remove functionalities from the Vue site.
Layout changes.
Top features to focus on, due to heavy dev lift:
Being able to display chats of all types.
Message templates.
Displaying and replying to group chats.
Prototype
Findings
8 participants(5 web, 3 mobile) test a Figma prototype to get a baseline understanding of these 3 features within the employer chat feature.
Messaging Templates
Resume Request
Information on talents Wavely profile
Web NPS Score: 50
Mobile NPS Score: 45
Message Templates
This was well received by everyone. Saving time and having a standard message was a common response.
“It's sterile and impersonal. It also puts the onus on me to ask questions for information that should have already been provided.”
Message Templates
At first most employers didn’t know what the icon was. After using the feature the ability to learn went well.
“I’d use this if I could pre-populate my message.”
Resume Request
Positive response by everyone.
All participants expect the candidate to have already uploaded their resume to Wavely. Everyone expected to download it w/out asking.
All participants would want to see the resume before chatting.
“I wish LinkedIn had this feature.”
Resume Request
Participant didn’t really know what it was at first, after ruling out other features she choose. (still only took 1-2 seconds)
“It was pretty easy to use, I would want to see profile or background/ resume before interating.”
Information on Talent Profile
Majority of participants understood the summary was a snap shot of the full resume, almost all wanted the ability to dive deeper.
The summary should have brief key attributes relevant to the role applying for.
“What I'm seeing is what I'd expect and what I want. If there are more specifics around salary I would like to see that. More details around software/tools she's used.”
Information on Talent Profile
The resume is a chance for candidate to show their personality and a chance for the employer to get an idea of their style/ attention to detail.
“Chat profile should be brief with the most important stuff - education, experience. Full profile should have a little more detail and maybe our history with the candidate. Resume would be their full work and education history.”
Information on Talent Profile
Almost all had a different vision of what should be included.
“I would expect to see basic bullet points about the individual in the chat profile. I would expect the full profile and resume to be fairly similar, with the addition of a photo in the full profile.”
Chat Telemetry
How We Did
Wavely yearly goals
54 weekly active employers. (+20%)
2k weekly active talent.
June 2021
45 Weekly active employers.
857 Weekly active talent.
December 2021
66 weekly active employers.
1.87k weekly active talent.
July 2022
144 Weekly active employers.
2.88k Weekly active talent.
51.71 Average daily two way chat count
Reflections
This was a great opportunity to dive headfirst into our chat feature and help the team deepen our understanding of how employers use our platform.
It was successful in the fact that I enhanced the user experience, by updating the UI and some feature workflows. Improved how employers communicate with talent by making key features more prominent and now that we have telemetry on the chat we can now better understand how employers are using the chat features of the Wavely platform.
If I could go back in time, I would test each feature more comprehensively with more target users. Build out better workflow visuals to help make it easier to align the team on goals of the employers and value that each feature brings.