Design a career counseling app for students in India.

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Asked at Google over a year ago

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H P · Answer 1 · 2020-01-29T17:21:35+0000

Clarification questions:

Is this a web app or a mobile app that we are designing? - Mobile App
Is it for particular student group e.g. the group who is graduating from class 10/12 or group of users graduating from their Bachelor's degree and exploring options for masters - former

The main personas I can think of are

We'll consider #1 i.e. students seeking counselling

Now a typical customer journey and the customer need/actions would be as below

Customer Journey ->

Thought of planning about career after class 10/12

Explore different options for counsellors

Use the counselling app and get the career guidance

JTBD

Need to plan the steps ahead after the current grade/class

Assumption is that this would come after the student has appeared for the exams and even after the exams

Need to find out who's the best counsellor that can help guide in career matters

Get Career advise

Customer Actions

What is the customer actually doing throughout their experience?

1. Search the destination and the dates for the stay
2. Browse through the list of the Hotels
3. Compare the Hotel on various parameters - location/amenities/price etc.
4. Select a hotel

1. Search for different counselling options online/offline
2. Ask friends/relatives/seniors etc. and get feedback about the options
3. Discuss with parent/coach/mentor and visit/explore a few options
4. Finalize an option

1. Use the counselling option to help guide with the career journey
2. Submit tests that would evaluate interest/inclinations
3. Understand the career journey of different options shorlisted
4. Finalize one or more career options

Below would be some of the important user needs:

Need to shortlist a right counsellor option
The career counsellor (online/offline), should be able to understand the person, the exam results and be able to provide better options to build a better career
Career counsellor should help/guide in the colleges/universities option with data on admission process/fees/placements etc.
For any admission process, if there are competitive exams, counsellor should provide the details and some tutor/coaching services options
Career counsellor should be able to help/guide with the application process/SOPs etc. if there are any such requirements

We'll build the mobile app considering the above user needs

Feature	Effort	Impact/Outcome	Revenue Potential	MVP
Provide the self assessment functionality to help narrow down the career option for the user based on his/her interest/marks achieved/domestic vs international course preferences	H	H	M	Y
Provide recommendation of career choices based on the assessment result	M	H	M	Y
Provide information on what other candidates plan/planned with similar assessment results	M	M	L	N
For a selected career choice, provide colleges option based on the grade student has achieved (or anticipating to achieve)	M	H	L	Y
For a selected career choice, provide option to see top x colleges, last year's cutoff, placement figures, course fees etc.	M	H	L	Y
Provide a premium feature to chat with a person to handhold during the counselling journey, help with adhoc queries, guide with SOPs etc.	H	H	H	N
Provide language support so that all the information/features can be made available in the chosen language	H	M	M	N
Capture information from the user on what career move they shortlisted and proceeded with, to use that data to guide new users	M	M	M	N
Rating of the colleges/normalized feedback comments by the users from different sources	M	L	L	N

Based on the above, the items shortlisted for MVP are the ones that would be taken up on priority and the app would be developed