How can the retention rate be increased on a web/mobile job portal app?

Clarifying questions:

• Is this web/ mobile job portal app part of a bigger product or a separate product? (Consider Naukri.com)
• What feature of this job portal do we need to focus on for retention purpose? (across product)
• Any particular user persona that we need to target? (You can prioritise)
• Any specific geography? No across India)
• Are we willing to add features horizontally in addition to the job portal? (Yes)
• Any specific budget or technical constraints? Mo

About the product & Goal:

For the purpose of this exercise, I am considering Naukri.com where we have a simple USP of having a job portal where recruiters post job vacancies with the necessary fields and applicants look at these vacancies and apply respectively. Applicants can also create their profile on the portal and recruiters can view candidate/ applicant profile and reach out to them via an inbox.

Our goal is to boost the retention rate of the job portal.

Users:

There are 2 user segments:

• Recruiters / Agencies that hire
• Applicants

Recruiters are the most likely user segment to be retained because they are always on the lookout for candidates and will stay on the platform for a longer time. Higher chances of them to get resurrected as well as filling in vacancies is a periodical job for them, meanwhile applicants have a once in a blue moon requirement of finding jobs and once an applicant has successfully converted, he is likely to churn.

Candidates who have been able to convert to a job from the platform are also likely to come back the next time around. This user segment will also have a high attrition rate.

Prioritised user segments:

• Recruiters on the hunt
• Applicants who were able to convert into roles from the platform

Painpoints:

What are the painpoints that Naukri.com is still not solving for these 2 user segments:

Recruiters on the hunt

• Recruiters are not able to verify whether a profile is genuine or not
• Recruiters are not able to do any screening of skills apart from manual resume screening
• The candidate to job matching algorithm is not accurate
• They don’t hear back from candidates
• Have too many options to choose from / overwhelmed

Applicants who were able to convert into roles from the platform

• don’t see any value in the platform any more, have achieved their end goal of landing a role.

Features:

#1 Screening candidates on the basis of tests (P3)

Creating/ Partnering with third party tools where recruiters can create screening rounds like tests (coding tests / self recording videos) of the candidates that they have shortlisted to further fine tune the list of candidates. Partnering with other apps like Loom, Hackerrank, Hackerearth etc. We can create our own screening platform.

#2 Credibility building features where the applicants can link their Naukri Profile (P2)

Users should get an option to showcase their rank/ performance in other competitions/ coding rounds/ case study rounds on their Naukri Profile. They can link these certificates / accounts to Naukri so that recruiters can reach out to these profiles.

We should also be ranking these profiles basis the credibility / achievments of the profiles so that recruiters can look at top-ranked profiles of a role and reach out to these candidates.

#3 Recruiters don’t know whether a candidate is actively looking for roles / hibernating (P1)

Tracking a profile’s history to see if a user is active or not and track hibernating accounts. This can be done basis data on:

• when was the user last active
• how many messages has he/she sent
• when did he/she last apply

The profiles that we identify via this algorithm, we can send reminders to them and hide them from recruiters so that they don’t waste a lot of time.

#4 For startups specifically, who struggle to source good candidates P5

Many times users don’t apply for roles where they don’t know the company, we can give recruiters an option to showcase their company profile along with the job description so as to build company trust:

They can upload introduction decks/ pitch videos

They can build credibility by adding details like awards, no. of employees, certificates, funding received. etc.

To tackle the problem of applicants attriting because they have landed a role, we can launch additional features for them so that they are retained:

#5 Mentoring candidates who are on a lookout for roles P4

A platform where successful applicants can be onboarded as a mentor (this can or cannot be monetised) where they coach other candidates as to how can they convert roles.

• Interview prep
• resume guidance
• Naukri Profile optimising
• career counselling

Success Metrics:

D 30, D90, D180 retention rate (North Star Metric)

DAU of screening platform

No. of users who have integrated third party apps / products

No. of users with these badges who convert into a role

No. of profiles who are hibernating