Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 Challenge     Applying for a job is a tough process . For the applicant there are a lot of different emotions ,   creating a good application takes time and if one is chosen for interviews , they take even more   time . I ’ve been in this kind of process myself during this autumn , so I ’ve had plenty of   experience from different companies ’ recruitment processes . In the end I decided to drop off   from several different companies ’ processes I did n’t get the “ good feeling ” from the company or   some other reason . So I ’ve been an “ user ” or a recruitment process and this is my insight to it .     The topic of this exercise was born when I start to wonder that what kind of reasons lead to   leaving the recruitment process unfinished ? This is a valuable question and a real business   challenge for recruiting companies since it shrinks the pool of the applicants . In this paper I   focus on the question : Is there a way how communication could prevent this to happen ? In the   recruitment process there can be a lot or lack of communication and this affects the applicants ’   opinions about the company . There the better the communication and more alluring the   company , the bigger pool of applicants to choose from . This results to the better quality of   employers .     There are phases in the recruitment process where the applicants drop off themselves . I call   these exit points and in this paper focus on the role of the communication on voluntary exit   points : ​what kind of information design and communication is needed for the applicant   not to leave the process unfinished ?     Selection     To tackle this challenge , I chose ​the journey mapping tool​ where the applicant is the   customer . The application process includes a lot of different phases and layers for both parties   and the journey mapping tool is in my opinion the best way to visualize these . It is very   important to understand the applicant ’s different considerations because good communication   from the company side can have a big effect on these . I ’ve attached my map to the end of this   paper .     In this paper I ’ve used learnings from the Service Design Thinking course video 1 . Also I ’ve   used two books as a source for inspiration . The first is “ ​Service Design Thinking ​ ” by ​Marc 

 Stickdorn ​ . The second book is “ ​Service Design for Business : A Practical Guide to Optimizing the 

 Customer Experience ​ ” by ​Ben Reason , Lavrans Lovlie   ​ and​ Melvin Brand Flu ​ . 

 Applying the visualization     Good visualizations are clear and precise . I created the customer journey map so that every   step of the recruitment process is one column and every row describes some kind of emotion or   an action . In this case the problem seemed to be the amount of information . If there is too much 

 Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 information , the important bits of information can be lost . Once I started to map the customer   journey I realized that there are a lot of things I could add to my drawing . Should I map also the   internal company decisions for each phase ? Are applicant ’s considerations important or would   adding emotions be enough ?     At some point I was not so sure anymore if I had chosen the right tool for the visualization .   Different companies have different recruitment processes ; some have tasks for the applicant   before the interview . My customer journey map is just a model ; in real life there are sidesteps ,   several rounds of interview , negotiations of the pay etc .      Insight     What I learned from the exercise is that in a recruitment process different applicants have   different motives and emotions . In real life the recruitment situations vary a lot ; some really want   to be recruited and others are just browsing for offers . This has also influence on the effect of   the communication . If someone is looking for a job desperately , the person is much more likely   to accept poor communication than one who already has a nice job but is just searching for   something better . So if the applicant decides voluntarily to leave the process unfinished , he / she   has different emotions than someone who is very eager to go through everything .     The bigger amount of applicants , the more the company has to choose from . But information   design and good communication require a lot from the recruiting company . There are several   internal decisions that the applicant does not see but have to be made in time to have a   streamlined recruitment process . For example if the person going through the applications is   burdened with a lot of work , the process can be prolonged . This can leave a bad taste in the   applicant ’s mouth and lead the applicant towards an exit point . So to prevent the “ voluntary   exits ” of the recruitment process the company needs to communicate clearly to the applicants   what it expects and offers .     Approach     Next time I would still use a customer journey map but I would draw more than one of them .   While writing this paper I realized that there can be several different customer journey maps   when recruitment processes are modelled . In this case I should have first done an overall   customer journey map with basic steps of the recruitment . Then I could have created another   map related to the exit points . This customer journey map would have allowed me to focus more   on the reasons ​why people do not apply at all ​   or ​inform during the process that they are not 

 available ​ . If this tool would have been used in real life to solve a business challenge of a 

 recruitment problem , there should have been other stakeholders in defining the exit points as   well . Since this exercise did not include other stakeholders and it ’s the weakness of my   submission . I could have used a different kind of visualization to map the roles of all the   stakeholders , in this case various people from company ’s different departments and people in   other kind of recruitment situation .. 

 Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP : EXIT POINTS IN THE PROCESS OF APPLYING A JOB 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Maria Laitinen, Maria Laitinen, Maria Laitinen, Maria Laitinen
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 Challenge     Applying for a job is a tough process . For the applicant there are a lot of different emotions ,   creating a good application takes time and if one is chosen for interviews , they take even more   time . I ’ve been in this kind of process myself during this autumn , so I ’ve had plenty of   experience from different companies ’ recruitment processes . In the end I decided to drop off   from several different companies ’ processes I did n’t get the “ good feeling ” from the company or   some other reason . So I ’ve been an “ user ” or a recruitment process and this is my insight to it .     The topic of this exercise was born when I start to wonder that what kind of reasons lead to   leaving the recruitment process unfinished ? This is a valuable question and a real business   challenge for recruiting companies since it shrinks the pool of the applicants . In this paper I   focus on the question : Is there a way how communication could prevent this to happen ? In the   recruitment process there can be a lot or lack of communication and this affects the applicants ’   opinions about the company . There the better the communication and more alluring the   company , the bigger pool of applicants to choose from . This results to the better quality of   employers .     There are phases in the recruitment process where the applicants drop off themselves . I call   these exit points and in this paper focus on the role of the communication on voluntary exit   points : ​what kind of information design and communication is needed for the applicant   not to leave the process unfinished ?     Selection     To tackle this challenge , I chose ​the journey mapping tool​ where the applicant is the   customer . The application process includes a lot of different phases and layers for both parties   and the journey mapping tool is in my opinion the best way to visualize these . It is very   important to understand the applicant ’s different considerations because good communication   from the company side can have a big effect on these . I ’ve attached my map to the end of this   paper .     In this paper I ’ve used learnings from the Service Design Thinking course video 1 . Also I ’ve   used two books as a source for inspiration . The first is “ ​Service Design Thinking ​ ” by ​Marc 

 Stickdorn ​ . The second book is “ ​Service Design for Business : A Practical Guide to Optimizing the 

 Customer Experience ​ ” by ​Ben Reason , Lavrans Lovlie   ​ and​ Melvin Brand Flu ​ . 

 Applying the visualization     Good visualizations are clear and precise . I created the customer journey map so that every   step of the recruitment process is one column and every row describes some kind of emotion or   an action . In this case the problem seemed to be the amount of information . If there is too much 

 Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 information , the important bits of information can be lost . Once I started to map the customer   journey I realized that there are a lot of things I could add to my drawing . Should I map also the   internal company decisions for each phase ? Are applicant ’s considerations important or would   adding emotions be enough ?     At some point I was not so sure anymore if I had chosen the right tool for the visualization .   Different companies have different recruitment processes ; some have tasks for the applicant   before the interview . My customer journey map is just a model ; in real life there are sidesteps ,   several rounds of interview , negotiations of the pay etc .      Insight     What I learned from the exercise is that in a recruitment process different applicants have   different motives and emotions . In real life the recruitment situations vary a lot ; some really want   to be recruited and others are just browsing for offers . This has also influence on the effect of   the communication . If someone is looking for a job desperately , the person is much more likely   to accept poor communication than one who already has a nice job but is just searching for   something better . So if the applicant decides voluntarily to leave the process unfinished , he / she   has different emotions than someone who is very eager to go through everything .     The bigger amount of applicants , the more the company has to choose from . But information   design and good communication require a lot from the recruiting company . There are several   internal decisions that the applicant does not see but have to be made in time to have a   streamlined recruitment process . For example if the person going through the applications is   burdened with a lot of work , the process can be prolonged . This can leave a bad taste in the   applicant ’s mouth and lead the applicant towards an exit point . So to prevent the “ voluntary   exits ” of the recruitment process the company needs to communicate clearly to the applicants   what it expects and offers .     Approach     Next time I would still use a customer journey map but I would draw more than one of them .   While writing this paper I realized that there can be several different customer journey maps   when recruitment processes are modelled . In this case I should have first done an overall   customer journey map with basic steps of the recruitment . Then I could have created another   map related to the exit points . This customer journey map would have allowed me to focus more   on the reasons ​why people do not apply at all ​   or ​inform during the process that they are not 

 available ​ . If this tool would have been used in real life to solve a business challenge of a 

 recruitment problem , there should have been other stakeholders in defining the exit points as   well . Since this exercise did not include other stakeholders and it ’s the weakness of my   submission . I could have used a different kind of visualization to map the roles of all the   stakeholders , in this case various people from company ’s different departments and people in   other kind of recruitment situation .. 

 Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 Maria Laitinen   Design Thinking Innovation Final Exercise 

 THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP : EXIT POINTS IN THE PROCESS OF APPLYING A JOB
### Output: 