Robin is a recruiting platform concept that enables engineers to showcase real-world abilities through practical assessments, allowing recruiters to evaluate demonstrated skills instead of relying primarily on resumes.
Design a platform that helps recruiters identify qualified engineering talent faster while giving candidates meaningful ways to demonstrate their abilities through practical assessments instead of static resumes.
As Lead Product Designer, I led product strategy, UX, visual design, prototyping, and design systems for an eight-week Lean UX engagement. The work explored how practical assessments and skill visualization could improve matching quality while creating a more engaging hiring experience for both candidates and recruiters.
Sourcing technical talent is difficult. Talent that could excel on the job is often overlooked. Traditional platforms prioritize resumes, keywords, and past employers over demonstrated ability — Robin bets on evidence instead.
Robin is a recruiting platform that lets tech candidates prove their skills through practical assessments — coding challenges, hackathons — instead of relying on a resume.
Shift hiring from resume-first to skill-first evaluation.
I joined the project after initial user research had already been conducted, and led everything from there: synthesis, concept, information architecture, UI, visual design, and a clickable prototype.
I synthesized existing user research with a competitive audit to uncover the underlying opportunity:
Research revealed three recurring themes:
Candidates struggle to stand out
Many talented engineers felts resumes failed to communicate practical ability.
Recruiters lacked reliable signals.
Identifying qualified candidates required significant time and manual review.
Hiring created friction for both sides.
Applicants invested time without knowing if they'd be noticed, while recruiters spent time validating technical ability.
Rather than optimizing another job board, Robin focused on helping engineers demonstrate capability through measurable skill-based interactions.
Three strategic principles guided the product:
• Demonstrate skills instead of resumes
• Reward participation through meaningful progression
• Increase confidence for both recruiters and applicants
Connecting both the Applicant and the Recruiter makes it easier on both ends for companies to find the right talent quickly.
Recruiters will gain quality hires and reduce time...
Recruiters can quickly see top skills on Applicant Profiles with Badge icons and save time by matching talent quickly
...while engineers will find the right company faster
Applicants recieve badges from assessments to show recruiters their skills and get noticed by the companies they are interested in
Research shifted the problem definition.
Rather than optimizing another job board, Robin focused on helping engineers demonstrate capability through measurable skill-based interactions.
Three strategic principles guided the product:
• Demonstrate skills instead of resumes
• Reward participation through meaningful progression
• Increase confidence for both recruiters and applicants
Product Direction
Several concepts were explored before converging on a skill-first hiring model.
The final direction combined:
• practical assessments
• skill visualization
• recruiter matching
• gamified progression
into a unified experience that motivated participation while surfacing stronger hiring signals.
To maintain consistency across applicant, recruiter, and company experiences, I established a reusable component library including navigation, cards, assessment modules, achievement patterns, and profile layouts.
This accelerated iteration during the eight-week engagement while ensuring consistency across evolving product flows.
The gamification of practical assessments and and interface with badges and points challenge board was chosen to make this platform stand out among other traditional job boards.
Design decisions were guided by four principles.
• Demonstrate capability before credentials
• Reduce recruiter evaluation time
• Reward continuous learning
• Make progress visible
This project reinforced that successful hiring platforms require balancing recruiter efficiency with candidate motivation — and that gamification cuts both ways.
Done well, it turns a flat evaluation process into something applicants actually want to engage with. Done carelessly, the badges and points become the point, and the skills they're meant to represent fade into the background.
If continuing the product, I would prioritize:
• Validating engagement through usability testing
• Measuring recruiter adoption
• Exploring recommendation algorithms for assessment matching
• Evaluating long-term effectiveness of gamification
