Home From College
Full Stack Design & Development, July 2024
The Rundown
Home From College is the Gen Z job site, connecting students with contract jobs at companies such as Aquaphor, Yahoo, and Peacock.
Role
Software Engineering & Product Design Intern
01
Motivation
THE BACKGROUND
Students want to see their voice reflected in the product
At the cornerstone of the Home From College product is that it will always be free for students to use. H\FC puts students first.
H\FC listens to students through social media, responding to DMs daily about the product. These messages range from product love to suggestions. On the company side, the sales team outreaches to brands via DM or email, sending hundreds of messages per day.
I was tasked to find a way to centralize the outreach and feedback processes within the product, with overarching goals of personalizing and improving the product for student engagement.
02
Understand
THE PROBLEM
Centralize outreach and feedback processes
I was tasked to find a way to centralize the outreach and feedback processes within the product, with overarching goals of personalizing and improving the product for student engagement.
To fully define goals for a new feature or improvement within the product, I began by understanding the sales team outreach flow, as well as understanding how to cater more to the preferences of student users.
CURRENT OUTREACH EFFORTS
Can we make the sales team's outreach process more efficient?
First, I spoke to a member of the Sales team responsible for finding new brands to onboard onto the platform.
Currently, the Sales team sends 500 outreaches daily: 250 through instagram DMs and 250 through emails. These outreaches have a response rate of about 17% on Instagram and 18% on email.
Despite H\FC’s high response rate on both channels, the response rates have potential to increase when the messages convey the capabilities of a GIG for a given company. Furthermore, guidance on brands to reach out to is helpful for the Sales team to diversify the companies that host GIGs on H\FC.
Current Student Internship Landscape
How can we better cater to student needs?
There is also need to better understand and cater to the preferences of students regarding the companies they want to work for and roles that they want to pursue.
Students look for internships based on their field of study to gain experience and understand what working in the field might look like in their future careers.
H\FC is the “Gen Z job site”–so catering to college students and their internship needs in various areas is crucial for business function.
Currently, the GIG listings range from content creation roles to brand ambassadors and product testing. To unlock new users, H\FC must include more opportunities that match students' pursuits, as well as companies students want to work for.
03
Synthesize
PAIN POINTS
Focusing on the sales team and student experience
By understanding the current outreach efforts and student internship landscape, I realized that there were two main pain points in the product that needed to be addressed:
Limited range of companies
The sales team frequently contacts companies that align with students' excitement, skills, interests, and career goals.
Limited variety of GIGs available
GOALS
Personalize outreach to brands and present more appealing opportunities to students
The following goals address both student and sales team needs based off insights determined:
04
Ideate
POSSIBLE SOLUTION SPACES
Solutions that address student and sales team pain points
To solve the pain points listed and achieve the goals of student engagement and tailored sales team outreach, I enumerated possible ideas that would increase brand and student connection and engagement, as well as provide options for feedback and data collection:
Improved search
Utilize search results from students to improve the product offerings (GIG types and companies on the platform)
Polls or surveys
Asking for student feedback directly, gaining valuable data on how the product could improve its offerings
Networking events
Improve the way that students and brands connect, inviting new companies to engage with students in person
DECIDING ON A SOLUTION
Choosing the Suggestion Box
To have the most impact, a suggestion box form would allow students to have a voice, as well as allow H\FC to easily track feedback. Using the inputs from the form, the sales team could generate leads and new realms of outreach for companies to come onto platform.
We wanted to know two things: companies and GIG types that students wanted to see on platform. Naturally, these should be the inputs to the form.
05
Execute
COPY
Using copy to create a clear experience
To ensure clarity in the form, the focal point of the project shifted to deciding the best prompts for input. I decided on the following copy:
Input 1: Companies
What company would you like to work for on H\FC?
Placeholder: Dream big!
Input 2: GIGs
What is your dream GIG role?
Placeholder: Intern, Ambassador,
Creator…
These prompts ensure that the form is open-ended but still targeted toward the responses that we wanted to have. We also did not want to tie the brand suggested to the GIG suggested directly, allowing for more flexible responses.
PROVIDING FEEDBACK AND NEXT STEPS
Responding to the user based on their suggested company and GIG
After the form is submitted, the user will be prompted with a “Thank You” screen, personalized based on their response. There are three possible cases:
Company on platform, GIG type may/may not exist: The company suggested has a GIG live on H\FC
GIG type on platform, company not on platform: There are similar active GIGs live on H\FC
Company & GIG not on platform: The company suggested does not have a GIG live on H\FC and there are no matching GIG types
To respond to the user, I devised different flows that would address each case:
FEATURES
Guiding principles for the Suggestion Box
Intuitive
Transferrable
Data-driven
Intuitive: simple form interface that makes it easy for students to submit preferences for companies and roles
Transferrable: form can be presented to the user in various situations, allowing for different placements of the feedback prompt
Data-driven: for the purpose of gaining information–collect data in NoSQL database, integrate into ops dashboard with email notifications
Improve feedback loop: update students on new opportunities that fit their interests or from brands they want to work for, use feedback to outreach to companies
INTERFACE
Design iterations
To bring the research and thought that went into the Suggestion Box to life, I created several design options based off the Home From College modal UI element.
Since this feature would appear for students only, I wanted the Suggestion Box to feel playful and exciting to use. For this reason, I selected the second design.
The next step was to enumerate the feedback screens for each scenario detailed earlier:
GIG type may/may not exist. The company suggested has a GIG live on H\FC.
Company not on platform. There are similar active GIGs live on H\FC.
The company suggested does not have a GIG live. There are no matching GIG types.
INTERFACE
Where will the Suggestion Box be triggered?
Another important part of designing the modal was to determine where and how the Suggestion Box could be triggered on the platform:
1) After student has applied to a GIG
Student submits application to GIG
Appears on screen after application submits
2) After empty GIG search
Student searches for a role type on GIGs page, no results are found
Appears as a link in text after "No Results"
3) In the dashboard
Student has no active GIGs but has applied to GIGs
Appears as a card in dashboard
To begin, I decided to develop the Suggestion Box in the dashboard. In the future, we discussed that the Suggestion Box would be helpful in the student GIG search function to relieve the pain point of not finding a GIG they want to pursue.
06
Develop
IMPLEMENTATION
Transforming designs into functional features.
I began with the concept and design of the suggestion box, so the next step was to implement. There were two parts to the development of the Suggestion Box feature:
Frontend: implement modal popup, prompt card in main dashboard in React
Validate form submissions with Formik
Backend: connect response from frontend to backend to be input into student user database in JavaScript
Collect user data and responses in existing NoSQL database for easy input into Sales ops dashboard
Set internal email trigger upon submission of form
07
Solution
IMPACT
Students have a voice & the sales team can show companies their footprint.
My end-to-end design and development of the Suggestion Box is now live on Home From College!
The feature appears in the Student Dashboard in the rotating CTA card on the top right of the screen. The logic for the prompt to suggest companies and GIGs to appear is that the student’s profile must be filled out, and they have applied to at least one GIG.
The suggestion box seamlessly flows from the form to the “Thank you” screen, relying on Formik in React to validate the information.
Within the first hour, we got excited responses from students. See the finished product here: