The discovery research conducted in October 2020 highlighted the benefits of providing a standardised application form for teachers to apply for jobs listed on Teaching Vacancies. Having a single application format would make it easier for jobseekers to apply for those jobs as they wouldn’t have to fill applications that came not only in a variety of formats but also asked different questions, which are current pain points for teachers.
Given the above, a basic Google forms application was created to explore the landscape with teachers and from there a more detailed prototype was developed and tested. This second prototype was tested with teachers during round 3, in order to refine the application process from the jobseeker’s point of view.
# User needs
User needs around applications for jobseekers and hiring staff can be found in the User needs/Hypothesis master.
# Who we tested with
- round 1: 5 jobseekers (teachers) recruited by Criteria
- round 2: 5 jobseekers (teachers) recruited by Criteria
- round 3: 5 jobseekers (teachers) recruited by Criteria
# Design assets
Applications release 1 TA
Application (Part 1)
Application (Part 2, sprint 63)
Applications research scope (Oct 20)
Application research analysis (Round 2)
Support Workshop (Sprint 74)
Applications release 1 & measures
Applications release 1 story map
Jobseeker Applications release 1
Application Round 3 Research (Jobseeker, sprint 77)
TVS notifications
Application ideation
# What we learned
Listed below are the main findings. Full details can be found in the playback decks.
Users expect to create an account to apply for a job.
“I would expect to create an account to apply, but sometimes it asks me to link it to my Facebook account which is weird.”
Users don’t understand the term ‘Quick apply’.
“I’ve seen it on eTeach, maybe it’s a way of registering interest?”.
Teachers are positive about applying through a DfE service.
“I would be more comfortable with applying through a DfE service because it feels more official. You expect that all the safeguarding things are in check, etc.”
On the application teachers expect to include their education and qualifications and other professional qualifications.
“I would want to put my first aid on there and various other trainings. I would probably put it separately from this (Education and qualifications) and I would imagine that we would go on to that.”
On ‘Professional status’ users expect to be asked a clear and precise question e.g. “Have you completed your NQT year?”
Users don’t understand what is meant by the questions asking about ‘Relevant organisation membership’. They don’t know what we are asking for and some thought it has to do with them belonging to a union, which they felt shouldn’t be asked.
“Does this mean unions? If that was the case I would leave this blank.”
When it comes to requesting where a user worked, the word ‘Organisation’ was not clear enough.
“For organisation, do you mean school or the council?”
Some users (not all) wanted guidance to write their personal statement.
“I would say - rather than ‘you may find it useful’, in the politest way possible, you should tell them they should. People do need to work it out for themselves, but you should say that they should refer to the job/person specification. You might want to say how long it should be because the employer isn’t going to want to read loads of long applications. Could be a small bit of guidance that it could be around 1-2 A4 pages.”
To feel confident in submitting their application and that it has been received by the school, applicants need to review their application and receive a submission confirmation.
“I would expect a ‘thank you for your application’ or similar. I remember once I panicked and submitted the application 3 times because it just took me back to the homepage. A copy of the application underneath would be nice, so you can go through and check everything before you click submit.”
# Next steps
Determine the application MVP version for jobseekers (in conjunction with application management piece for hiring staff) based on findings. Develop MVP version and move into production.