Pofu.io : Redefining the Candidate Experience

Creating a seamless post-offer experience to enhance engagement and reduce candidate drop-offs.

Product Designer

HR tech

Mar - Feb 2023

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Impact & Key Metrics

📉 20% reduction in candidate drop-offs.

🚀 Adopted by organizations ranging from 100-1000 employees scaling rapidly.

✅ 30% recruiter time saved through automation.

📈 During a pilot rollout, Out of 40 uploaded candidates, only 3 drop-offs were recorded.

📉 20% reduction in candidate drop-offs.

🚀 Adopted by organizations ranging from 100-1000 employees scaling rapidly.

✅ 30% recruiter time saved through automation.

📈 During a pilot rollout, Out of 40 uploaded candidates, only 3 drop-offs were recorded.

📉 20% reduction in candidate drop-offs.

🚀 Adopted by organizations ranging from 100-1000 employees scaling rapidly.

✅ 30% recruiter time saved through automation.

📈 During a pilot rollout, Out of 40 uploaded candidates, only 3 drop-offs were recorded.

Background

On this project I collaborated directly with the CTO, product manager and a team of developers to scale this product from 0-1.

I was responsible for the end to end design process including UX research, concept development, prototyping and developer handoff.


The New Hiring Landscape Post-COVID


After the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became the new norm, increasing the demand for remote tech hiring. Companies rapidly scaled their hiring efforts, and candidates began actively exploring multiple offers to find organizations that aligned with their values and work preferences.


The Recruiter’s Challenge


Recruiters and hiring managers worked tirelessly to find top talent, yet many struggled with candidate drop-offs post-offer. Candidates would accept offers but disengage before their start date, leaving recruiters frustrated and scrambling to fill roles.


The Market Opportunity


At HackerRank, we already supported all stages of tech hiring—from screening to interviews. However, we identified a major gap in the post-offer phase where candidate engagement was weak. This was our opportunity to redefine the preboarding experience and ensure candidates remained committed to their new roles.

On this project I collaborated directly with the CTO, product manager and a team of developers to scale this product from 0-1.

I was responsible for the end to end design process including UX research, concept development, prototyping and developer handoff.


The New Hiring Landscape Post-COVID


After the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became the new norm, increasing the demand for remote tech hiring. Companies rapidly scaled their hiring efforts, and candidates began actively exploring multiple offers to find organizations that aligned with their values and work preferences.


The Recruiter’s Challenge


Recruiters and hiring managers worked tirelessly to find top talent, yet many struggled with candidate drop-offs post-offer. Candidates would accept offers but disengage before their start date, leaving recruiters frustrated and scrambling to fill roles.


The Market Opportunity


At HackerRank, we already supported all stages of tech hiring—from screening to interviews. However, we identified a major gap in the post-offer phase where candidate engagement was weak. This was our opportunity to redefine the preboarding experience and ensure candidates remained committed to their new roles.

On this project I collaborated directly with the CTO, product manager and a team of developers to scale this product from 0-1.

I was responsible for the end to end design process including UX research, concept development, prototyping and developer handoff.


The New Hiring Landscape Post-COVID


After the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became the new norm, increasing the demand for remote tech hiring. Companies rapidly scaled their hiring efforts, and candidates began actively exploring multiple offers to find organizations that aligned with their values and work preferences.


The Recruiter’s Challenge


Recruiters and hiring managers worked tirelessly to find top talent, yet many struggled with candidate drop-offs post-offer. Candidates would accept offers but disengage before their start date, leaving recruiters frustrated and scrambling to fill roles.


The Market Opportunity


At HackerRank, we already supported all stages of tech hiring—from screening to interviews. However, we identified a major gap in the post-offer phase where candidate engagement was weak. This was our opportunity to redefine the preboarding experience and ensure candidates remained committed to their new roles.

Problem Statement

How might we reduce candidate drop-offs post-offer acceptance?

Research & Discovery

After doing some market research and talking to 12+ recruiters, HR professionals and candidates. I found out that deep down the quality of engagement is what matters, and the most common way recruiters are engaging with candidates currently is through emails.

🙍🏻‍♂️What Recruiters Say ?


Recruiters found out that the major factor affecting candidates decision were better compensation / company culture leaving recruiters frustrated.

👩🏻‍🦰What Candidates Say ?


Candidates mentioned feeling more valued when companies are proactive in communication and ensure they have the best preboarding experience.


🔍What we needed to do ?


We needed to find a way to reduce recruiter burnout and provide candidates with an engaging pre-boarding experience.

Defining the Solution

After several rounds of feature prioritization, ideation, prototyping and stakeholder discussions, I advocated to have three major features roll out for our MVP.

Candidates


A detailed table view of all the candidates in the post offer stage with options to import candidates in bulk from greenhouse and csv.

Actions


Meaningful actions to delight candidates include sending them a hiring kit, personalized emails, a handwritten note from the CEO, etc.

Workflows


Workflows are a series of impactful actions to engage with a candidate with a date of expiration which can be applied to candidates.

How it works?

  1. Import Candidates

Sign in to add or import candidates individually or in bulk using greenhouse integration/csv upload. Now, you can see all the necessary information about your candidates and their happiness index which determines the chances of dropping off.


  1. Create Actions

Create an impactful action to engage with your candidates or pick from our trusted templates. Our templates consists of carefully crafted and most engaging actions such as a handwritten note generator, personalized storybook generator, welcome emails, candidate quiz, company swag, requesting documents , planting a tree and much more.

  1. Create Workflows

Build workflows from scratch or customize workflows with a simple drag and drop interaction by adding previously created actions in a chronological order. These workflows can be customized to suit different job roles and hiring dates. Every workflow and action comes with an expiry date which can be modified to improve happiness index of a candidate with better engagement.

Measuring Success & Business Impact

After our first MVP went live, we demoed pofu.io to a bunch of companies ranging from small to medium sized enterprises.

What we achieved ?

20% reduction in preboarding drop-offs through structured engagement.

20% reduction in preboarding drop-offs through structured engagement.

20% reduction in preboarding drop-offs through structured engagement.

Organizations from 100–1000 employees successfully adopted POFU.

Organizations from 100–1000 employees successfully adopted POFU.

Organizations from 100–1000 employees successfully adopted POFU.

Companies using POFU reported a drastic reduction in drop-offs (only 3 out of 40 candidates disengaged).

Companies using POFU reported a drastic reduction in drop-offs (only 3 out of 40 candidates disengaged).

Companies using POFU reported a drastic reduction in drop-offs (only 3 out of 40 candidates disengaged).

Higher offer-to-joining conversion, improving hiring efficiency.

Higher offer-to-joining conversion, improving hiring efficiency.

Higher offer-to-joining conversion, improving hiring efficiency.

Most impactful engagement actions during pilot:


  • Welcome email

  • Physical gift

  • Welcome video from hiring managers

  • Candidate introduction videos

Conclusion

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the entire Pofu team, recruiters and candidates for their enormous effort and valuable time throughout the cycle. Building this product from scratch was by far one of the best and challenging learning experience i got during my internship.



Visit pofu.io here

Pofu.io
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Pofu.io

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