Ladders UX Research

Ladders is a premium job site helping people find jobs paying $100K or more. Ladders Recruiter is where recruiters source top talent and are provided with direct contact information and exclusive candidate insights.

My role: Product designer on the recruiter experience team

The goal: Understand why e-commerce sales goal had not been met and make a product experience change to increase revenue (Please see the original monetization flow on the right)

The outcome: Refunds decreased by 80%






Old User Flow

My process

In order to design the best experience for Ladders users and revenue streams for the business, I initiated user research sessions following these steps:


1. Observe users

Watch users navigate the site to inform design problems and assess usability.

2. Make connections

Group observations by frequency to find themes and identify opportunities.

3. Apply Findings

Explore and implement product changes to impact user and business goals.

1. Observing Users

I recruited users to participate in a screen share conference to observe their behavior on site with the goal of gathering feedback on efficiency and effectiveness of the platform to understand what was holding people back from purchasing.
Email & Script

The outreach email & questions asked during my sessions.

Notable Findings

While many comments from users were valuable and brought back to my team, a number of comments about not having enough visibility to the full site or being restricted by price spoke directly to the goal of this project.

Basic Search

Related to purchasing behavior and our e-commerce goal:

  • Some recruiters I spoke to are on a budget
  • Several recruiters remember Ladders was a free resource

To keep in mind for future initiatives:

  • Boolean searching is popular with recruiters
  • Searching candidates by industry is crucial
  • Recruiters go where the candidates are, candidate database on Ladders is not as strong as others

2. Make Connections

After assessing the sessions I conducted with Ladders users, I summarized my findings and shared them with my team: Product Manager, Recruiter Site Engineers, and Ladders' CEO.

  • Some recruiters I spoke to are on a budget - Those on a budget are less likely to make an expensive purchase without research
  • Several recruiters remember Ladders was a free resource - Those who used Ladders in the past do not see changes made on site because the changes are all behind a pay-wall

How might we...

allow users to see what is new on site and empower recruiters to purchase a search license?

My hypothesis

If recruiters are given the opportunity to use a more advanced version of Ladders, then they will realize the site’s full potential and feel more confident purchasing a level of access.

Proposed Solution

Based on my findings, I wanted to allow recruiters to have a trial of Ladders before they would be charged.

New User Flow
Sketch
Sketch

3. Apply Findings

The screen below was designed to be inserted in the "Post a Job" flow. This allows the user to choose the level of access they'd be most interested in trying for a week to decide if it is an effective tool for their needs.

Plan Selection

This side-by-side visual layout is easy to scan and understand the differences between the two plans, and the pricing modal specifies the price to be charged after one week.

The user would also be reminded by email that they are running on a trial period and alerted before their paid access begins with the option to opt out.


Pricing modal

Results:

This experience ran for 30 days as an test against the pre-existing control flow (free job posting, but paid promotion and paid search access). The metrics we are paid close attention to were:

  • Jobs posted - We did not want the credit card entry to deter recruiters from posting jobs as that would negatively impact job seeker experience.
  • Refunds issued - The number of refunds requested allowed us to gauge customer satisfaction.
  • Revenue - The revenue generated was a business goal that directly related to the e-commerce goal.

Results

My thoughts

Though revenue and jobs posted are down, the difference is slight and with fewer refunds recruiters seem to be having a successful trial period and are more likely to stick around!

This test was completed toward the end of 2019 and will be implemented in early 2020. I will continue monitoring a number of factors including how many recruiters choose lite vs. full access, how many recruiters cancel before they are charged, how many recruiters stick with their chosen access, and how they use the site over time.