Helping candidates get the career-related skills they need to succeed

seekMAX is a product that sits under the SEEK's mobile app and accessible only to users in South East Asia. It's part of a broader strategy by SEEK Asia to increase candidate attention. As SEEK excels in helping candidates find jobs, seekMAX steps in to improve engagement and retention rates through career-related content beyond a list of jobs.

seekMAX does this by helping candidates improve their work-related skills and connect with peers and experts. The case study goes through the process of designing, delivering, and evolving seekMAX as a product.

seekMAX helps candidates Acquire Career-Related Knowledge (e.g., skills, tips, insights)—the Job-to-be-Done (JTBD). Comprising three modules—Skills, Community, and Recognise—the project was initially led by external consultants, who established the Skills module. After I joined, I've been taking the lead in designing several parts of the experience, especially the Community module.

Despite existing research insights, we found them insufficient to inform design decisions. Collaborating with Product, Strategy, and Growth, I planned and led several key research initiatives to inform both the problem and solution spaces.

Throughout product development, our research sessions were used to assess suitability, usability, as well as refine user needs and archetypes. The MVP – released in various markets – underwent successive experiments for continuous optimisation. Presently, we're continuously optimising seekMAX to further meet evolving candidate needs and hit agreed-upon key results.

A big part of my contribution to this project was to guide different teams (e.g., Growth, Product) in enhancing their decision-making with validated, user-centred insights. The extensive research sessions we did – and I that led – with candidates helped not only inform designs, but foster alignment among various stakeholders.

For example, a big hurdle was deciding on the features for the Community module. Among diverse subjective opinions, I proposed using the Kano Method to address the problem from a user lens. This helped provide an objective rationale for prioritising features, as well identify potential differentiators.

Our insights also helped us understand that while seekMAX was seen as valuable, its value proposition was deemed a bit too close to other general-purpose apps, such as YouTube or TikTok. One of the top reasons was that we weren’t solving enough Job Steps or "Sub-jobs" for candidates, namely around rewarding their efforts for learning. This gave us a direction to work on in further improving our product.

Despite tight deadlines, constraints, and challenges, we've managed to deliver seekMAX across six different markets. The metrics showcase a product with a strong foundation, with around 2M MAUs, 32% activation rate, and a 15% increase in Apply Starts for candidates who engaged with seekMAX.

We acknowledge the product needs to be further optimised, namely to address activation and retention rates. Our comprehensive analysis has identified the discover experience as a key opportunity for improvement.