Accelerating DC Government Job Discovery and Hiring Efficiency Through AI and UX Design
About: Bloomberg Philanthropies awards Washington DC with a three year grant, partnering with Mayor Muriel Bowser to leverage data and digital technologies to enhance public services and create new value for communities.
Outcomes:
Transformed Applicant Experience On careers.dc.gov through a UX audit and cross-team collaboration on a rigid software platform (PeopleSoft/eRecruit), reducing applicant submission time by 46%.
A New AI-Driven Aggregate Site Centralizes All DC Government Jobs across 15 categories improving discoverability.
User-Centered Design: Conducted user testing at local American Job Centers, gathering valuable feedback from DC residents to inform design decisions.
Staff Experience Optimization: Streamlined end-to-end workflows in eRecruit/PeopleSoft, cutting time-to-fill by 30%, boosting staff efficiency, and increasing qualified applicant pools.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Worked closely with HR, Tech, and Product teams to ensure a cohesive and effective roll-out.
Problem Statement
DC Government agencies face challenges in efficiently attracting and onboarding qualified residents due to fragmented hiring systems and complex internal processes. careers.dc.gov as an interface is difficult to maneuver usually timing out applicants before they complete their applications. There’s a lack of visibility into the status of their submissions. Internally, HR staff navigate a lengthy, manual multi-approval workflow in eRecruit/PeopleSoft, which creates delays, reduces efficiency, and extends time-to-fill for critical positions. These issues collectively hinder both applicant experience and staff productivity.
My Approach
Applicant Experience: I conducted a comprehensive design audit of the careers.dc.gov site, identifying key usability issues and areas for improvement. Using this audit as a roadmap, I collaborated with PeopleSoft engineers to iteratively deploy enhancements on a biweekly cadence, improving navigation, visibility, and the overall applicant workflow.
Staff & Process Discovery: To understand the internal hiring process, I conducted discovery research sessions with DCHR and DC agency staff, mapping the end-to-end workflow and uncovering pain points such as duplicate document uploads and lengthy approval processes.
Aggregator Site Design: Based on insights from both applicants and staff, I designed a new aggregate site to centralize all DC Government jobs. I worked closely with the web team to bring the site to life, ensuring it aligned with accessibility standards and the needs of job seekers.
User Testing: The aggregate site was tested with DC residents at American Job Centers, providing actionable feedback that informed iterative improvements to enhance discoverability, usability, and overall user experience.
Staff & Process Discovery: Select Slides
Figma Low/Hi Wireframes: Aggregate Site
Challenges
Silos Across Agencies: Collaborating with DC agencies has been difficult due to organizational silos. Information and processes are often fragmented, making cross-agency alignment and consistent workflows challenging in a public-sector environment.
Data Integration & Responsiveness: As we iterate on the aggregate site and bring in more agencies, it has been challenging to identify responsive contacts to provide the necessary data. Connecting to APIs and pulling in job listings depends heavily on these relationships, slowing implementation.
Change Management: Innovation inherently brings change. There are opportunities for DCHR to adopt more progressive HR tools, which could greatly improve both the applicant and staff experience, but implementing these changes requires careful planning and stakeholder buy-in.