Project background

Despite being Pennsylvania’s largest employer, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) often struggles to find great candidates to fill its non-clinical professional roles. My team and I worked together with the UPMC Human Resources department to propose a design solution to this problem.

Client: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)

Timeframe: 4 weeks, Spring 2015

My role: UX/ UI concept generation and prototyping. Visual design.

Team: Judy Han, Jay Kumar, Susanna Zlotnikov

Outcome

UPMC Shortlist

UPMC Shortlist is the web based digital tool that promotes transparency and collaboration in hiring process between hiring manager and recruiters. The increased collaboration between recruiter and hiring manager expedites the hiring process, and therefore shorten the waiting time for the applicants. Integration with different platforms (such as LinkedIn and People Soft) also helps recruiters manage passive candidates easily in one platform.

01

Research

First, we tried to understand why it was so hard to fill non-clinical professional roles at UPMC. We conducted interviews with six individuals who had either applied to or worked at UPMC, sent out surveys to gather information on applicants' experience, researched competitors in the market, and participated in a site visit to UPMC HR to get a better understanding of the relationship between recruiters and hiring managers. From our research, we created a stakeholder map, journey map, competitive analysis, and service blueprint to explain the current recruiting process at UPMC.

Based on the stakeholder map, we realized it was crucial for the HR department to leave a positive impression on passive and active candidates because the candidates are also potential customers of UPMC.

Through the journey map , we realized that more transparency was needed between applicants and recruiters during the hiring process. It was also evident that the UPMC application website wasn't communicating the benefits of working at UPMC.

As you can see in the service blueprint above, very little coordination existed between recruiters and the hiring manager during the hiring process. As a result, UPMC lost a lot of applicants due to excessive waiting or doubled interviews for applicants.

UPMC is well known as a provider of healthcare services, yet they also need to fill professional positions in non-clinical roles. Many top candidates don't think to apply or actively seek employment at UPMC because they don't realize there are opportunities at UPMC in their field.

This makes it even more difficult for UPMC to recruit passive candidates (those not currently seeking employment or a career change) because it is difficult for them to sell themselves as the right employer.

The competitive analysis above shows that the current hiring process at UPMC is unpleasant when compared to that of other companies, mostly due to their uncommunicative application website and lack of transparency during the hiring process.

We summarized our research into these 3 problem statements:

UPMC HR has no formalized process for managing passive candidates.
Recruiters don’t have branded materials that showcase UPMC as an employer for non-clinical positions.
There is little coordination between hiring managers and HR while seeking candidates to apply for positions.

02

Ideation and prototyping

Prioritization exercise to narrow our scope

After brainstorming and developing some ideas, we created storyboards for our top eight designs based on feasibility and importance and conducted speed dating interviews with UPMC HR employees for feedback.

The design that generated the most positive responses was a Pinterest-style tool that organized and managed passive candidates while significantly increasing the transparency in the hiring process between hiring managers and recruiters.

User Testing

We sketched out the idea into wireframes and conducted several user testings with UPMC recruiters and hiring managers to refine the concept.

03

Proposed Design

UPMC Shortlist

UPMC Shortlist is the digital tool we developed to help UPMC recruiters and hiring managers work together to recruit passive candidates.

A. Staying Organized with One Platform

Recruiters can keep everything in one place by integrating the current platforms that UPMC uses for passive recruiting. Information is accessible and organized by making usability a top priority.

Shortlist board for recruiter is organized by pipeline. Recruiters can pin passive and active candidates from the UPMC official career page or from LinkedIn into pipeline boards and can assign/tag jobs to passive candidates.

On the Hiring Manager side, Shortlist is organized by job postings rather than pipelines. Each job tag HR adds in a candidate detail page adds candidates into the corresponding job boards.

B. Simplifying Passive Candidate Management

Recruiting passive candidates requires extra attention to detail and strategy. With UPMC Shortlist, recruiters can easily keep track of correspondence with every candidate and note what positions they should be considered for within any job pipeline. UPMC Shortlist includes the ability to create tags for candidates related to their skill sets. Based on a candidate's qualifications, recruiters and hiring managers can also rate applicants in terms of how good a match they believe a candidate to be for a job. This creates an organized job board for each position where the most desirable candidates are pushed to the top of the board. The rating system is designed to emphasize a candidate's compatibility for a specific position rather than his or her overall skill set, allowing recruiters to save candidates they believe show promise for future openings.

Pinned candidates in each pipeline board are organized by a 5 star rating and their position in the hiring process. Recruiters can invite hiring managers (HM) into the board and have conversations about candidates with HM individually.

Recruiters can pin passive and active candidates to the pipeline board. Shortlist works seamlessly with existing platforms such as Linked In, Google, and UPMC career sites. When creating a new pin, HR must identify a star rating and where the candid… — Recruiters can pin passive and active candidates to the pipeline board. Shortlist works seamlessly with existing platforms such as Linked In, Google, and UPMC career sites. When creating a new pin, HR must identify a star rating and where the candidate is in the process.

Recruiters can pin active candidates directly from the UPMC career site. HR can choose a pipeline board they want to pin the candidate to, rate the candi- date, and identify where the candidate is in the hiring process.

Hiring Manager Side

The HM job board is also organized by 5 star rating and hiring process, but it is focused more towards active candidates. HM can also see passive candidates HR has shared. Candidates who are no longer in consideration remain on the job board, but th… — The HM job board is also organized by 5 star rating and hiring process, but it is focused more towards active candidates. HM can also see passive candidates HR has shared. Candidates who are no longer in consideration remain on the job board, but the background color for their tiles are grayed out.

C. Hiring Process that is More Transparent and Collaborative

UPMC Shortlist offers a window into the recruitment process and an opportunity to weigh in on candidates early on. Recruiters and hiring managers can also start a thread within each candidate's detailed profile to discuss whether or not a candidate is a good fit for the job. Often, recruiters are not sure what exactly hiring managers within each department are looking for in an applicant based solely on the job description. UPMC Shortlist improves communication on both sides so that hiring managers are aware of how recruiters are doing in the hiring process, as well as the kinds of applicants they are finding.

HR and HM can collaborately work on each candidate on a candidate detail page. HR can tag multiple jobs and skills to the candidate, add a personal note, view the timeline for each candidate, advance a candidate in the hiring process or rating, and … — HR and HM can collaborately work on each candidate on a candidate detail page. HR can tag multiple jobs and skills to the candidate, add a personal note, view the timeline for each candidate, advance a candidate in the hiring process or rating, and have secure conversations with individual HMs about a specific candidate.

D. Putting UPMC on the Radar

The UPMC Innovations page offers a way for recruiters to effectively communicate why UPMC is a top choice for starting or growing a career. The page is designed to increase UPMC's presence in the technical field and highlight the advancements and impacts UPMC is making in various disciplines to a broader community, drawing more interest from applicants to fill technical roles.

The UPMC Innovations Page offers a way for recruiters to effectively communicate why UPMC is a top choice for starting a career. The page is designed for professional audiences who want to know more about what UPMC does in addition to providing worl… — The UPMC Innovations Page offers a way for recruiters to effectively communicate why UPMC is a top choice for starting a career. The page is designed for professional audiences who want to know more about what UPMC does in addition to providing world class medical care.

Passive candidates can also learn about a project contributors, and may realize UPMC is not only for those with a background in clinical care, but also for those with a variety of backgrounds and skills.

E. Service Blueprint Comparison

With UPMC Shortlist, the UPMC passive recruitment process will be more fluid and provide transparency to HR, hiring managers, and candidates.