WorkWiz
WorkWiz is a career documenting tool/portfolio app that helps users update their resumes with recent accomplishments, tailor them for specific job postings, and prepare comprehensively for interviews by enabling them to document and retrieve important work stories in real-time.
Product Experience
Problem Statement
How might we assist candidates in updating their resumes with recent accomplishments, tailoring them for specific job postings, and preparing them comprehensively for interviews, so that they can better showcase their qualifications and experiences in a more tailored and compelling manner?
Problem Background
The hypothesis is that the process of updating resumes and preparing for interviews is exhaustive, poor, and repetitive. Most users often only reflect on their accomplishments during a job hunt, which requires them to retroactively fit accomplishments to their resume and recall stories for interviews. An additional challenge is ensuring that accomplishments, stories, and relevant experiences are tailored for a specific job. This was confirmed through a research study, surveying 40+ participants.
User Pain Points/Feedback
The research findings highlight that 80% of participants only update their resumes when job hunting, despite the average job tenure being 4.3 years. Furthermore, 68% rarely or never document their day-to-day experiences at work. This directly indicates a gap in documenting achievements between job hunts. Additionally, 57.5% of users struggle to recall experiences, and 70% have difficulty summarizing achievements, while 90% find it challenging to recall or emphasize past experiences during job interviews. This directly indicates a gap in the current process of job hunting preparedness.
Landing on the Solution
The solution is an innovative career management app, WorkWiz, that acts as a personal documentation tool and portfolio. This app would offer a seamless way for users to record their daily work activities and achievements, with a focus on prompting users regularly (daily or weekly, based on their preference) to document seemingly 'insignificant' events or projects. These prompts would help users recognize and document instances that demonstrate important skills such as communication, teamwork, and conflict resolution, which are often overlooked.
Utilizing AI for intelligent prompts and suggestions, the app would enable users to easily log their experiences, accomplishments, and stories, categorizing them for future reference. Additionally, the app could provide personalized insights and recommendations, helping users tailor their resumes and prepare for interviews more effectively. The goal is to create a platform that empowers users to showcase their skills and experiences in a compelling manner, ultimately enhancing their job-seeking success.
Explanation of the Solution
WorkWiz acts as a personal documentation tool and portfolio. The MVP will have 2 main features:
- Daily Accomplishments Logging: Job seekers need to be able to easily document their daily accomplishments at work, so that they can update their resume more effectively. Users will be prompted to enter all significant events of their day/week (regardless of whether they seem relevant or meaningful). WorkWiz then categorizes and stores skills/achievements. Users can review and edit their logged accomplishments.
- Experience Retrieval: To showcase qualifications more effectively, users need to be able to update their resume and prepare for interviews by having access to relevant stories and experiences. With this feature, users can access a library of their documented stories and experiences. They can search for stories based on keywords or categories (e.g., teamwork, problem-solving). The app provides suggestions for stories based on the job requirements or common interview questions
Future Steps
Future iterations of the WorkWiz app will build on the MVP by incorporating features to enhance the user experience, allowing job seekers to effectively present themselves. This includes:
AI Integration for Daily Logging
Implement AI-driven daily logging prompts for users to easily document their work experiences. Example:
- Push Notification: "How was work today? Take 3 minutes to update your personal log!"
- GPT/Chatbot Style Interaction:some text
- Chatbot: "Did you have any big meetings today?"
- User: "Yes"
- Chatbot: "What was your role in the meeting?"
Interview Practice
Enable users to practice telling their stories and receive feedback (optional feature). User can record their responses to common interview questions and receive automated feedback on clarity and effectiveness.
Tailored Resumes
Implement tools to help users tailor their resumes for specific job postings. Provide resume templates with customizable sections for different job types.
Learnings
Product Manager Learnings:
Akhil Mathur
Documentation
One of the most significant insights gained from this experience is the value of comprehensive documentation in articulating the essence of a product. In the future, this document will serve as the foundation for gaining stakeholder buy-in. It is crucial for various teams such as Design, Development, Strategy, Operations, and Marketing to understand the problem, users, and the proposed solution. Practicing documentation has been instrumental in this process, enabling me to methodically dissect the complexities of the job hunting process and elucidate the significance of the identified problem. However, the critical step lies in effectively communicating why this problem is important to a wider audience.
User Feedback/Surveys
The importance of designing user surveys that are concise, focused, and engaging to gather valuable insights for product development. User surveys are honest and brutal. If you don't ask the right questions- you'll get answers you didn't want!
Solutioning Creating a spec
One of the most important lessons learned was listing out potential solutions for the problem. While writing, I started thinking too deeply about the how, rather than the what. For example, it wasn't my job to think about how data would be stored- but rather how the solution was solving the problem. I think this will be a valuable insight as I work through design and development with a team in the future.
Designer Learnings:
Developer Learnings:
Developers Learnings:
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