Overview

 

LinkedIn Portfolio is a conceptual tool built within the User Experience Design course at General Assembly. Eliminating the need for a separate website, LinkedIn Portfolio simplifies and streamlines recruiters’ candidate searches while allowing applicants to focus all of their work in one location. The goal of this project was to design a creative feature for LinkedIn that applicants and recruiters want to use.

Type

  • Mobile

  • Web

Tools & Skills

  • Figma

  • Hand sketching

  • Google

  • Zoom

Scope & Constraints

  • 4 week timeline

  • Working remotely across 3 timezones

  • Unable to collaborate with business stakeholders

Team

  • Eunsung Kwon

  • Karina Gashchenko

  • Kourtnee Richardson

  • Meaghan Savery

My Role

 

My role was primarily head of research and testing. I closely collaborated with the 3 other researchers and designers, and ultimately all of us touched every aspect of the project. I also took on the responsibility of finding ways to creatively share our findings and design.

Foundational Research

The current process to display a portfolio to a Linked profile involves 11 distinct steps, as seen below. Our team conducted a usability test about current portfolio options from LinkedIn.

We found out…

  • 57% of participants didn’t know they could add a portfolio to LinkedIn

  • 71% of participants gave up after about 3 minutes of trying to find where to add their portfolio

Right now, if applicants want to highlight their portfolio from their LinkedIn, it is too difficult to find where it goes.

[11 Steps to add a portfolio to LinkedIn]

Competitive & Comparative Analysis

 

LinkedIn is the gold standard for professional networking. Per LinkedIn Pressroom Statistics, every minute 3 people are hired through LinkedIn. However, applicants use a variety of different portfolio websites outside of LinkedIn, and recruiters have to be creative in tracking down third party portfolios. How does LinkedIn compare to other sites on the market?

[Competitive & Comparative Analysis]

Foundational Research (continued)

According to Kinsta’s Mind-Blowing LinkedIn Statistics and Facts, only 39% of LinkedIn users pay for premium. The premium options include:

  • Premium Career: $29.99/month

  • Premium Business: $59.99/month

  • Sales Navigator Pro: $79.99/month

  • Recruiter Lite (Hiring): $119.95/month

87% of recruiters use LinkedIn regularly, and their pricing tier is considerably higher than the career option for applicants. From a business perspective, it makes sense to focus on both the recruiters and applicants.

User Research

We broke our research into two distinct categories: interviews with recruiters, and interviews with applicants.

Some things we wanted to know from applicants who currently utilize an online portfolio outside of LinkedIn:

  • What are the pros and cons of your current portfolio option?

  • How did you choose your primary portfolio website? If not LinkedIn, why not?

  • What would an ideal portfolio builder include?


Some things we wanted to know from recruiters who currently utilize LinkedIn for hiring:

  • What are the pros and cons of your current portfolio search methods?

  • Where do you primarily view portfolios? If not on LinkedIn, why not?

  • How would you ideally like to be able to view and search for portfolios?


Compiling Interview Results

We looked for trends among our interview responses, which allowed us to identify recruiters’ and applicants’ main priorities and concerns.

When plotted on a Venn diagram the results are clear: everyone wants the same things.

User Personas

 

Using the results of the interviews, we created two personas who embody the traits of LinkedIn’s two main consumer base: recruiters and applicants.

[Recruiter Persona]

[Applicant Persona]

Wireframes

 

We designed simplified outlines of screens for recruiters and applicants, for both mobile and desktop. Our team paid close attention to our 2-sided search feature- how it works for both recruiters searching and applicants being searched for.

[Recruiter Mobile Wireframes]

[Recruiter Desktop Wireframes]

[Applicant Mobile Wireframes]

[Applicant Desktop Wireframes]

Screens

 

We filled in our wireframes with imagery to make our mockups more realistic and on brand with LinkedIn.

[Recruiter Mobile Screens]

[Recruiter Desktop Screens]

[Applicant Mobile Screens]

[Applicant Desktop Screens]

Prototypes

 

[Recruiter Mobile Prototype]

[Applicant Desktop Prototype]

Next

Conceptual Project: LinkedIn Portfolio