Bringing scheduling & messaging closer together at Indeed
Vision planning and experiments
Overview
After ramping up on the schedule team, my product partner and I set out to define a long term vision for our scheduling tools. We looked at the many qualitative research sessions that were done with employers and jobseekers over the years, ran every data query we could possibly think of, and looked at survey feedback from users.
Problems
Confirmation rates for interview requests were surprisingly low
Interview no-shows happen too often
Scheduling interviews is a paiiiiiiiiiin
Discovery
We started to hypothesize based on all of this syntheis, but we wanted to be more confident in what we do next. Instead of solutioning, we put together loads of questions to learn everything we could about their scheduling process.
Wait, no-shows aren't an issue for everyone?
The more hands-on employers were with messaging candidate, the fewer no shows they experienced
Most people don't know about our scheduling tools
Some participants were describing tools they wished existed on Indeed, not knowing that those features already exist!
Candidate availability would make life easier
If employers already had the candidate’s availability, they could confidently grab the rare open windows that work for everyone.
3 year vision
My product partner and I put our heads together after everything we had learned and decided to focus on a long term vision of bringing scheduling and messaging closer together. We believed that if we can push the scheduling process to be more conversational, both sides will be more responsive and we would have more successful interviews scheduled on Indeed.
Go from this
To this
My product partner and I put our heads together after everything we had learned and decided to focus on a long term vision of bringing scheduling and messaging closer together. We believed that if we can push the scheduling process to be more conversational, both sides will be more responsive and we would have more successful interviews scheduled on Indeed.
Basic modules
Goal: Set the foundation
These were already designed by the time I joined the team, but it was the first important step into integrating scheduling and messaging. Interview events would now be reflected in the messaging timeline for employers.
Improve the jobseeker suggested new times + reschedule module
Goal: Fix a dead-end experience
Improve the jobseeker suggested new times + reschedule module
Goal: Fix a dead-end experience
Prior to this, when the jobseeker would request a reschedule or suggest new times after the initial invitation, the only place the employer would be able to see those times was in an email.
I worked closely with one of our devs to bring that data into this module, as well as the scheduling modal. This saves the employer the pain of keeping two tabs open and fixes a dead end flow for them.
Auto-detect scheduling intent
Goal: Bring awareness to scheduling tools
The vast majority of messages sent between employers and jobseekers are trying to find a mutual time for an interview, and as we learned in research, there are quite a few employers that don’t know about Indeed’s scheduling tools which could simplify the process for them.
We worked with data scientists to build a regex that would detect words and phrases such as “tomorrow at 1” – “Tuesday afternoon” – “anytime Friday”. Once we detect scheduling intent, we created a module to nudge them to use Indeed’s scheduling tools (to make their lives easier by simplifying their scheduling process….. and to help us hit our goals 😜)
Hypothesis
Turning small sustainable actions into everyday habits will encourage people to take bigger actions and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle
Long press to complete daily habits
To ensure that users only complete the tasks that they intend to, I’ve decided to require a long press for those buttons. The screen may get long depending on how many habits the user has selected, so this will avoid any accidental presses while scrolling
Long press to complete daily habits
To ensure that users only complete the tasks that they intend to, I’ve decided to require a long press for those buttons. The screen may get long depending on how many habits the user has selected, so this will avoid any accidental presses while scrolling
