Master of Information Management & Systems (MIMS) Final Project - Jobs To Be Done

Sep 13, 2026

Uploaded by Mason

2023 marks a highly competitive tech job market, making job searching difficult as recruiting information is fragmented across many platforms and managing applications requires extensive manual tracking, updates, and follow-ups. This project analyzes job seekers’ challenges through interviews and surveys, aiming to reduce risk and align product design with user needs. Findings validate heavy application volume, partial tracking behavior, and strong demand for automation, informing a workflow tool that helps candidates centralize recruiting content and focus on substantive career preparation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Research context

User Research

Objective & Goal

Research Method

Interview Summary

Design

Background Research

Ideation & Prioritization

Main Experience

Concept Validation

Development

Chrome Extension

User Interface

Demo

User Testing

Discussion

Challenges

Learnings

Future Work

Appendix

Interview Questions

User Interview Reports

User Testing Guide

Jobs To Be Done Master of Information Management & Systems ( MIMS) Final Project, 2023 Xu Cheng, Violet Luo, Jingshu Rui Advised by Michael Rivera University of California, Berkeley School of Information Table of Contents Introduction 3 User Research 4 Objective & Goal 4 Research Method 4 Interview Summary 5 Key Takeaways 6 Design 7 Background Research 7 Ideation & Prioritization 7 Main Experience 9 Concept Validation 12 Development 13 Chrome Extension 13 User Interface 16 Demo 16 User Testing 16 Discussion 17 Challenges 17 Learnings 18 Future Work 18 Appendix 18 Interview Questions 18 User Interview Reports 19 User Testing Guide 25 Introduction 2023 is a challenging year for Big Tech and many tech-focused startups. The continuing layoffs, hiring freezes, and other cost-cutting efforts since the COVID pause of 2020 make the job market extremely competitive-According to Crunchbase, there are nearly 100 ,000 layoffs in the tech sphere during 2022. It turns job searching into a numbers game, especially for early-career job seekers. In this environment, tracking and managing recruiting information becomes extremely challenging. Firstly, the job information is decentralized across various platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, RippleMatch, Indeed, Handshake, ZipRecruiter, and even in Notion or emails for small startups) and because of that, it’s unwise for applicants to rely on one platform. Secondly, managing and updating job applications requires a lot of manual work. For example, the current process might include collecting applications and saving them in one centralized place, updating statuses, following up, etc. The fact that the number of jobs people need to apply for in order to secure one offer is increasing exponentially definitely makes it worse. Given that the job market becomes increasingly competitive and people’s time becoming more valuable than ever, we want to build a tool to simplify the workflow, automate the process, and reduce the manual steps, so that candidates can spend their time substantively networking or preparing for the interview, such as doing mock interviews, practicing LeetCode problems, and solving product cases. User Research Objective & Goal As the first step of the project, the goal of this user analysis is to identify user personas, learn about different job seekers’ user behaviors, validate our assumptions and project ideas to reduce risk and ensure that the product design can be centered around the needs and preferences of the target audience by understanding their goals, preferences, and expectations. The findings we can get from the User Research can also translate to actionable insights to guide our feature prioritization and UX/ UI Design. Research Method Before defining the recruiting strategy and designing the interview questions, we defined our problem statement and research questions to guide our research design process. The problem statement we are hoping to focus on is “the lack of a centralized place to manage the recruiting content negatively impact job seekers’ job searching experience”. And the 3 research questions that we are addressing include the following: ● RQ1: What challenges do job seekers experience? ● RQ2: Do the challenges that job seekers experience vary based on job title? ● RQ3: If the challenges vary by job title, how do they vary? ● RQ4: What solutions do job seekers desire to improve their job-searching experience? To answer these questions, we conduct user interviews and surveys. User interview is a one-on-one conversations with potential users where we are able to get in-depth qualitative insights to understand their motivations, pain points, and behaviors. This method also allows us to ask follow-up questions for clarification. On the other hand, the user survey is a questionnaire to allow us to generate quantitative insights based on a larger group of users. It is more efficient and

FAQs

Why is a centralized recruiting tool needed in 2023?

Job postings are scattered across platforms and the process of tracking and updating applications involves heavy manual work, which makes job searching harder and more time-consuming.

How did the project research user needs?

It used user interviews and surveys, including convenience sampling and cold outreach, with screening to confirm participants had applied for tech jobs.

What did user research validate about job seekers’ behavior?

Most participants apply to many jobs weekly, track application stages, and reported that automation is the most desired improvement due to the manual effort of maintaining documentation.

Sep 13, 2026

Uploaded by Mason