Author Archives: justingoodhew

Online ‘Interviews’ – 33 Users in a week

Posted on November 25, 2013 | 1 comment

Over the past week we have been learning about how to receive feedback through our online channels to receive more volume. Through this we have discovered that they are lower quality feedback but wee get a lot more this way. This round was just asking for general feedback, trying to find the users that are most interested in our product.

We received 33 out of our 200 person user group to provide feedback on their experience of our product.

We Validated through the responses that:

This is issue is a clear pain for users – stress and difficulty writing job applications is not currently satisfied by the current market.

We also learned about some features that wil give us a competitive advantage and features that are just necessary to have:

1) The ‘Analyze Me’ section was a huge hit. Had about 6 people specifically say they really appreciated that part and it was very ‘interesting’

2) Resume builder – needed to compete in the space

Lastly, we also tested willingness to pay – this test is still on going but from the initial responses we have learned that:

1) Robust Product needed: Students will need a VERY seamless experience to pay

2) 50% said they wouldn’t pay for our product

3) The others would pay for it ranging from $5-20

If you would like to see this report please email – justin@myskillbase.com as it has sensitive personal information on it that I cannot release.

 

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Week 3 Student Interview with A

Posted on November 15, 2013 | 1 comment

A is a 3rd year environmental design student and involved in residence life on campus. She is very knowledgeable when it comes to creating resumes and cover letters as she is very interested in the topic. She is not a typical student when it comes to studying practices (not a procrastinator) and good at creating resumes. However, she has never received formal training and it was very apparent when she was unaware that she needed to include results in her resume statements.

This is how she sized up to our hypotheses:

  1. What are the specific pain points throughout the job application experience?

    1. Main hypotheses: Students want a step by step tutorial to create job applications – SHE Would use the step by step guide because there were elements she was unaware of. The other main point for her was it was a place to have her master resume and cover letter with all of her experiences. 

      1. Resume Pain Points:

        1. Accomplishment Statements- Proven

        2. Identifying the key qualifications and skills need- Proven

      2. Cover Letter:

        1. Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter – FALSE

        2. Students see cover letters as more important than resumes (positioning, priority, value, etc) – FALSE

        3. Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for- TRUE

      3. Online Presence:

        1. Students update their resume and cover letter around the same frequency and time as their online tools. Why? – Thinking about it but not yet – thinks it is a good idea though

 

  1. Why don’t Students use the solutions provided?

    1. Students don’t utilize the assistance that is provided to them because…

      1. Self-esteem / nervous – not comfortable going to talk to an advisor

      2. Inconvenient/unfamiliar – not (like their regular habits) a part of their daily routine/pattern

      3. Time- too long, job application ends too soon

      4. Accessibility

ALL FALSE ON HYPOTHESES 2 – For her she had a set method – talked to her inner circle, past employers, friends and family to gain knowledge – didn’t use the formal channels that most students do. Feels like she has a good grasp and these outlets wont help her.

See her notes here.

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Week 3 Employer Hypotheses Revised

Posted on November 13, 2013 | 1 comment

Value Prop: Less tiring / tedious / stressful / fatiguing hiring solutions

Hypotheses:

  1. Employers are want to change their current hiring practices because….

    1. They want less stress (Walk through/hand holding process)

      1. emotional fatigue

      2. wasted time

    2. They want more time (streamlined approach)

    3. They want to do a better job (missing qualified applicants/ accepting unqualified)

  2. HR departments in large organizations are open to changes in their hiring processes

  3. The initial stage (quick) of the filtering process for applications takes approx. 5-15 seconds and looks for:

    1. Qualifications (Hard skills)

    2. Formatting and professionalism

    3. Keywords and skills for the position

  4. The secondary stage (detailed) of the filtering process for applications takes approx. 30-60 seconds and looks for:

    1. Translating (how they convert their experiences into the job)

    2. Fit (language, passion, why work there)

  5. Employers do not spend enough time or effort making job descriptions because…

    1. it’s too difficult

      1. not trained properly

    2. it’s not valued enough

**Employers could be – HR professionals, direct hirers (not HR specialists), large companies, small companies, start ups

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Week 3 Hypotheses

Posted on November 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

Week 3 Hypotheses:

  1. What are the specific pain points throughout the job application experience?

    1. Main hypotheses: Students want a step by step tutorial to create job applications

      1. Resume Pain Points:

        1. Accomplishment Statements- Proven

        2. Identifying the key qualifications and skills need- Proven

      2. Cover Letter:

        1. Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter

        2. Students see cover letters as more important than resumes (positioning, priority, value, etc)

        3. Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for

      3. Online Presence:

        1. Students update their resume and cover letter around the same frequency and time as their online tools. Why?

  1. Why don’t Students use the solutions provided?

    1. Students don’t utilize the assistance that is provided to them because…

      1. Self-esteem / nervous – not comfortable going to talk to an advisor

      2. Inconvenient/unfamiliar – not (like their regular habits) a part of their daily routine/pattern

      3. Time- too long, job application ends too soon

      4. Accessibility

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Interview with L: Subject Matter Expert- Student career coach

Posted on November 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Hypothesis: Students find making resumes difficult and stressful

We had the opportunity to interview a staff member in a Co-op office, they had a lot of knowledge about both the student and employer hypotheses.

Here is how the interview stacked up to our hypotheses:

Cover Letter-

Hypotheses 4- HALF yes- Not that they don’t know what elements it is how to write those elements correctly.

Hypotheses 5-NO- It depends on the instance- varys

Hypotheses 6- YES- Students may change their tone a little but nothing close to what they need to be doing.

Below are the key points that were identified:

  • Personality and company FIT need to be expressed in the job application.

    • demonstrating why they want to work through – personality, NOT by reiterating the company

  • TAILORING is very important- to the job- very specific

    • Process – ID what they are looking for and customize it specifically to your experiences

  • When Lynn coaches students she asks them to bring in the job posting – then read it over and decide where to go

    • Using phrases like: Have a conversation- tell me what you did here- Think about what you did at XX in a XX lens (translate)

  • Cover letters:

    • write like you are talking to someone else- lots of students write in the wrong way- write like you talk

      • What can i contribute and can i learn

      • Students don’t have enough content- knowing your background, reflective process, SKILLS MATRIX

    • Lots of students over complicate the issue- simple and easy, say too much. Being direct.  Capture a couple of Targetted things that show you who you are.

    • students struggle with the transition between paragraphs flow in a quick and nice way

  • LinkedIn:

    • Great way to get info about companies

    • Students don’t realize what it is for- not a static page but an active engagement to network

  • Biggest thing from employers- They notice students have a template and the personality doesn’t go through

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Employer Interview with P

Posted on November 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Interviewed someone that works for UBC and hires a lot of students for work learn positions.

Interview key points:

  • Highlighted the importance of the candidates “fit” into the office culture/space

  • The resume is more quantitative- talk about your experience in the least amount of words possible- similar to a list.

  • The cover letter is qualitative- Story telling about how they got to where they are now.

Hypotheses

1- Yes- This Hypotheses always goes really quick- it is a standard that everyone uses

2- Half- Domestic students over inflate their experiences (in general) compared to international students who are too modest

3- Yes- Same as students- both side ID as very important

4- No- Not until the interview- during interview for sure

Here is the link to the script

 

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Week 2 Student Interview Script

Posted on November 4, 2013 | 1 comment

Please see here for the full interview script

Here is our refined hypotheses and questions for this week.

Hypothesis: Students find making job applications (Resumes, Cover Letters and LinkedIn Profiles) difficult and stressful

Resumes:

  1. Students want a resume review process / tool to prevent being “tossed aside”

  2. Students struggle to identify the important qualifications they need to highlight for the job

  3. Students want step by step tutorials from finding the job to the interview

Cover Letter:

  1. Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter

  2. Students see cover letters as more important than resumes

  3. Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for

LinkedIn

  1. Students know that they should have a LinkedIn profile

  2. Students either do not feel confident making or know how to make a LinkedIn profile

  3. Students don’t use any other platform besides LinkedIn for their professional online presence

INTERVIEW

We are students and entrepreneurs. We’re working on a product for students to make better job applications, so that they have a better chance at getting the job that they want.

What do you find is the biggest challenge in the job application process?

Cover Letters:

We want to know how you make cover letters. How did you make your last cover letter? (and what sucked about it). Let them talk first.

  • Method:

    • Starting point: Open up a word document

    • Elements: What elements do you include in your cover letter? (4)

    • Format: Do you use a specific format? Where did you get it from? (4)

    • Review: How did you review your cover letter? Did you get assistance? (?)

    • Tailoring: Did you customize it for that employer? (6)

LinkedIn

Do you have a LinkedIn account?

Yes →

  • Why did you sign-up?

  • Tell how you made your profile.

  • Are you confident in the quality of your current profile?

  • What do YOU get out of using LinkedIn?

  • Do you pay for LinkedIn? Did you even know that was an option?

  • Have you had any training related to creating online profiles or networking online?

No →

  • Why not? It sounds like it addresses X problem you mentioned earlier.

Do you have any other online profiles or websites for professional use?

 

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Employee Interview 1- F

Posted on November 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

The interview with F was very informative and helped us gain some very valuable but still only initial insights into the hiring process for student employers. Fred is a CEO and a serial entrepreneur that hires students and recent grads. The 2 most important points I pulled out from this interview was:

  1. Employee/Company Fit- The most important piece for Fred to hire any individual

  2. His process- He uses recruiters within his own company to look through resumes and cover letters- from there he will call about 10-30% of the students resumes that get through the recruiters

This is how the interview sized up compared to our hypootheses:

Hypotheses 1- N/A- he doesn’t do this step- recruiters do

Hypotheses 2- Yes- most resumes don’t show personality and they don’t take stock, or importance in the cover letter

Hypotheses 3- Half- Only cares about skills to get past the first set of screening for the resume process.

Hypotheses 4- No- Maybe in the interview but not until then.

Please see here for the full interview notes.

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Week 2 Plan – Our Refined ‘sub-hypotheses’

Posted on November 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

We have refined our value propositions based on our interviews from last week. We’re also ready to add some new value propositions (posted on Friday).

Students:

We want to ask very similar questions this week about cover letters and LinkedIn profiles as we did last week with resumes. We find that the open ended, ‘let them talk’, approach works very well. Our questions will be based on these hypotheses and will be posted tomorrow. Here are the sub hypotheses (reminder: our main hypotheses is that students find creating job applications stressful):

Cover Letter:

1. Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter

2. Students see cover letters as more important than resumes

3. Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for

LinkedIn:

1. Students know that they should have a LinkedIn profile

2. Students either do not feel confident making or know how to make a LinkedIn profile

3. Students don’t use any other platform besides LinkedIn for their professional online presence

Employers: 

We’re continuing with the same questions as week 1 because we have only interviewed 2 employers and don’t have enough data yet to revisit our hypotheses.

 

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What we learned in Week 1

Posted on November 3, 2013 | 1 comment

Even with only 1 week finished, we have already learned a lot! We completed a total of 7 student interviews and 2 employer interviews. So far we’ve learned that:

Students:

Hypotheses 1 – CORRECT- Students have difficulty taking value from jobs (skills) and putting it into bullet points – Our 9 skills and Accomplishment statement tutorial will be useful tools here.

Hypotheses 2 – HALF CORRECT – Students need a faster way to tailor resumes (they want to do it for every application) – Students want to customize resumes but don’t really care about the speed though. Customization is a feature we need but not a unique selling point or value proposition.

Hypotheses 3 – INCORRECT?? (Not 100% solved yet) – Students want a resume review process / tool to prevent being “tossed aside” – From the interviews students tend to think that their review process is good enough. We will see what employers think, however, which could change the result of this hypotheses.

Hypotheses 4 –  HALF CORRECT – Students struggle to identify the important qualifications they need to highlight for the job – Unlike hypotheses 1 where everyone said it was a pain, only half identified it as a pain. The other half identified ass something they do already but weren’t 100% sure if they get it right. 

Hypotheses 5 – CORRECT?? – Students want more guidance creating a resume than the generic resources available today – We are still not 100% on this one, and will look to confirm it this week. But students do find it difficult to start resumes and to write out a new experience from scratch.

Employers:

Not enough info to make insights yet – only 2 employers interviewed – hoping to have 5+ by Friday and more meetings booked for week 3.

In General:

We have learned that Cover Letters go hand in hand with resumes.We received a lot of feedback about how we should be asking about that process as well.

We also got some questions about how to create a LinkedIn account. We would like to pursue that as well as a possible pain point in the market that we can solve.

Check out the game plan for week 2.

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