Employbridge: Job search and shift management
Role: Senior Product Designer
Deliverables: Heuristic analysis, user interviews, journey maps, wireframes, CSAT surveys
The Team: 2 Junior Product Designers, 1 PM, 6 Engineers
My Responsibilities: Lead the end-to-end design strategy for Employbridge’s core recruiter dashboard. I established the research strategy, set the UX direction through foundational wireframes, mentored junior designers through high-fidelity execution, and paired with engineering teams and PMs to ensure implementation accuracy.
Problem
EmployBridge is the leading workforce recruitment firm for light industrial and blue-collar sectors in the United States, supporting a massive network of nationwide branches. However, the organization operated at a low UX maturity level, possessing a UX team of just three people. Recruiters were bogged down by legacy, fragmented internal tools that slowed down candidate placement. Additionally, leadership lacked a unified, research-backed vision of the holistic end-to-end user journey—both for the recruiters managing fulfillment and the job seekers walking into physical branches looking for work.
Approach
Research Strategy & Foundational Evaluation - Before diving into the tools, I define the research strategy by creating a comprehensive research plan. This plan outlines our key leaning objectives, target user segments, project timelines, and the “why” behind each research method. I conducting a heuristic analysis of the existing system to map out immediate product friction points and establish baseline technical domain knowledge.
Field Research & Journey Mapping - I conducted contextual inquiries and observed recruiters to understand their real-world workflows. To broaden our scope I traveled to physical branches to conduct in-person interviews with job seekers walking through the doors. I synthesized these insights into comprehensive journey maps, identifying brand-new operational opportunities and features for our product roadmap.
Strategy, Mentorship & Iterative Design - As the design lead, I defined the overarching UX strategy and translated our research into structural wireframes. I provided direction and regular design reviews to junior designers, mentoring them as they scaled the wireframes into high-fidelity mockups. Throughout the build phase, I routinely paired with engineering teams to cross-examine technical feasibility and guarantee design fidelity.
Concept Testing & Post-Launch Validation - To de-risk the new roadmap features, I concept-tested early designs with users and collaborated closely with the marketing team to evaluate quantitative performance data. Following the iterative releases, I designed and deployed post-launch CSAT surveys for recruiters. This allowed us to measure interface satisfaction and collect qualitative feedback regarding corporate rollout decisions, user training, and overall feature perception.
Results
This initiative successfully put UX on the map at EmployBridge. By introducing structured concept testing, journey mapping, and post-launch CSAT loops, I laid the foundation for a highly visible, respected, and data-driven UX presence within a historically low-maturity organization. We successfully transformed subjective feature requests into validated, research-rooted product solutions that directly supported both recruiters and job seekers nationwide.
Learned
I learned that driving impact in a low UX maturity environment requires equal parts product design and internal advocacy. By bringing stakeholders along for the journey—showing them physical field research and connecting design iterations directly to measurable satisfaction metrics—we were able to shift the company culture from reactive feature building to an intentional, user-centered product strategy.