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Obsidi Recruit
Obsidi Recruit
Overview
Obsidi Recruit is the redesigned recruiter experience on Obsidi, a career platform connecting employers to 80,000+ Black professionals across North America. The previous model relied solely on posting a job and waiting for applicants, creating delays and inconsistent candidate quality.
The new experience shifts to an AI-powered workflow: recruiters describe the type of talent they need, and the system instantly finds top matches from the entire talent pool, with clear explanations of why each candidate is a good fit. The new unified dashboard now gives recruiters a centralized workspace for managing jobs, suggested candidates, applicants, messages, and pipelines.
Teams
Engineers, Product Managers
Roles
User research, Visual Design, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Prototyping, Testing
Problem Statement
The legacy workflow forced recruiters to complete long job posting forms before seeing any value. This slowed down the sourcing process and limited visibility into high-potential candidates who did not apply organically.
Recruiters needed a solution that reduced friction, surfaced relevant talent quickly, and provided context-rich insights to support confident hiring decisions.
Research
UNDERSTANDING RECRUITER BEHAVIOURS & SOURCING CHALLENGES
To design a solution that matched the reality of recruiters’ workflows, I conducted research to uncover their motivations, frustrations, and decision-making patterns.
01
Recruiter Interviews
Engaged with corporate partners and internal talent teams to understand how they evaluate candidates, what slows them down, and what information builds trust in a match. A common pattern emerged: recruiters needed immediate value and clear justification for why someone is qualified.
02
Platform Analytics Review
Analyzed job posting funnel metrics and user behavior. Identified high abandonment rates on long job forms and low engagement with completed postings due to mismatch issues.
03
Competitive Analysis
Reviewed talent platforms (LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed, Hired, Wellfound) to identify best practices around matching logic, filters, candidate summaries, and dashboards. These insights shaped our match output, layout, and filtering approach.
04
Workflow Mapping
Mapped the end-to-end recruiter journey: from sourcing → evaluating → messaging → hiring. This revealed fragmented workflows and a need for a centralized view of jobs, candidates, communications, and progress.
Ideation
FROM JOB POSTING TO MATCHING-FIRST: RETHINKING THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE
The ideation phase focused on reducing cognitive load, increasing speed to value, and empowering recruiters with smart, actionable insights.
01
Talent Description Input Model
Designed a new entry point that replaces the traditional job-posting form. Recruiters can now type a quick role description or paste a job description, enabling instant AI interpretation and candidate matching.
02
Instant AI Match Results
Built a matching system that analyzes skills, experience, role fit, and profile relevance across 80,000+ members. Results include match explanations, skill summaries, and key highlights.
03
Unified Recruiter Dashboard
Explored layouts and navigation patterns for an all-in-one dashboard that centralizes Suggested Candidates, Applicants, Messages, and Job Insights.
04
Candidate Pipelines
Ideated a pipeline system allowing recruiters to save strong candidates for future roles, creating continuity even when roles close or shift.
Visual Design
CLEAN, PROFESSIONAL & BUILT FOR DAILY RECRUITER WORKFLOWS
The visual system prioritizes readability, organization, and trust, ensuring recruiters can evaluate candidates quickly and confidently.
01
Structured, Scannable Layouts
Designed modular, card-based elements that present key candidate details at a glance. Emphasis on experience, background, expertise, and skill tags to support rapid assessment.
02
Extended Design System Components
Refined and expanded Obsidi’s design system to include candidate cards, skill chips, match summaries, dashboard widgets, and filtering systems.
03
Hierarchy That Supports Decision-Making
Used clear typographic hierarchy and spacing to differentiate between actionable elements (message, save, approve) and contextual information (bio, experience timeline).
04
Dashboard and Navigation Patterns
Leveraged clean metric blocks, labeled tabs, and persistent navigation to help recruiters orient themselves and switch between tasks efficiently.
Testing + Iterations
VALIDATING THE FLOW & IMPROVING TRUST IN AI MATCHING
Usability testing with recruiters and internal teams helped refine the experience to improve clarity, speed, and confidence.
01
Clearer Match Explanations
Initial users needed stronger justification for AI matches. Added an expanded “Why this candidate is a good fit” section with structured bullets outlining experience, background, and expertise.
02
Enhanced Filtering & Sorting
Testing showed recruiters needed tighter control over match refinement. Introduced filters for experience level, skills, education, location, and candidate status.
03
Refined Job Posting Sequence
Early prototypes confused users about whether they needed to post before reviewing matches. Updated flow allows them to explore matches first, then finalize posting when ready.
04
Dashboard Improvements
Added job insights, candidate statuses, and simplified switching between Suggested and Applied views.
Solution
AN AI-POWERED HIRING SYSTEM THAT DELIVERS IMMEDIATE, HIGH-QUALITY TALENT MATCHES
The final solution transforms Obsidi Recruit into a fast, intelligent, and centralized hiring platform. Recruiters can now discover qualified Black talent instantly, review AI-generated match insights, manage candidates in one place, and move from sourcing to hiring with significantly less friction.
01
AI Talent Matching
Recruiters describe the role, and the system instantly returns highly relevant candidates from over 80,000 members.
02
Clear Fit Explanations
Each match includes a concise “Why this candidate is a good fit” summary for quick evaluation.
03
Unified Recruiter Dashboard
All jobs, suggested matches, applicants, messages, and metrics are organized in one streamlined workspace.
04
Suggested & Applied Candidate Views
Separated candidate lists allow recruiters to quickly compare recommended talent and active applicants.
05
Pipelines for Future Hiring
Recruiters can save strong candidates into reusable pipelines for upcoming roles.
06
Integrated Messaging
Built-in messaging enables direct outreach to candidates without leaving the platform.
Reflection & Impact
ELEVATING THE HIRING EXPERIENCE FOR RECRUITERS & BLACK TALENT
Obsidi Recruit transformed the hiring experience from a passive, form-heavy workflow to a fast, AI-first sourcing engine. This required deep cross-functional alignment and careful balance between automation and human decision-making.
01
What I Learned
Transparency in AI systems is critical to building user trust.Recruiters value speed, but not at the expense of clarity.A unified workspace significantly reduces cognitive load.The success of sourcing flows depends heavily on visual hierarchy.
02
Opportunities for Future Enhancements
Deeper user testing with enterprise hiring teams.Predictive insights (salary benchmark, time-to-fill estimate).A/B testing to compare match-first vs post-first performance.Team collaboration tools for multi-recruiter workflows.
03
Measurable Impact
Reduced time-to-first-value from days to under 60 seconds.Increased recruiter engagement with real-time matches.Delivered Obsidi’s first end-to-end recruiting dashboard.Scaled sourcing capabilities to support thousands of employers.Improved visibility and hiring opportunities for Black professionals.
