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Waggoner Topgun

UX Designer/Design Lead

Role

2 UX Designers & 5 Software Developers

Team
Figma, Sketchbook, Design System Development
Tools

~Ten Weeks

Timeline
Overview​

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Waggoner Financial partnered with our Project Team to modernize their recruiting experience for both candidates and internal recruiters. The goal was to create a platform that feels clean, intuitive, and scalable—comparable to modern standards seen in tools like LinkedIn or Robinhood Careers. The responsibility my Project Team and I had was to design a complete candidate application flow and a recruiting dashboard system that aligns with the company’s brand, meets accessibility standards, and blends seamlessly with the developer team's existing front-end work. The final handoff included a full design system, candidate-facing pages, and multiple recruiter/admin workflows.

Problem​

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Waggoner needed a cohesive, modern platform that simplified the application process while giving recruiters the tools to manage high volumes of applicants. Their existing systems lacked:

  • A consistent look and feel

  • A guided candidate experience

  • A unified place for recruiters to review, track, and update applications

  • Clear analytics to understand hiring trends

  • Scalable navigation for future features

This made the hiring process more time-consuming for both candidates and the internal recruiting team.

Solution

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We designed a clean, minimal, and scalable digital recruiting platform. For candidates, we built a welcoming homepage, polished job listings, and a frictionless application flow inspired by modern career sites. For recruiters and admins, we created a structured dashboard system with analytics, job posting management, a pipeline view, applicant details, and a collaborative notes section. To ensure consistency and clarity, we built a complete design system that guided color usage, typography, spacing, and component behavior across all screens.

Process/Implementation

Research

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  • Met with Waggoner clients to understand hiring goals and workflow requirements. Took notes from Client meetings.

  • Analyzed modern platforms (Robinhood Careers, LinkedIn, Greenhouse, CRM dashboards) to guide layout and component decisions.

  • Studied various design systems to inform our color palette, spacing, typography, and UI components.

  • Conducted recurring usability check-ins with a design mentor to refine clarity and hierarchy.

RobinhoodSS.jpg
ClientNotes.jpg

Ideation

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  • Started with lo-fi sketches exploring navigation structures, dashboard layouts, analytics sections, and the candidate homepage.

  • Defined UX principles of minimalism and ease of use, ensuring both candidate and recruiter flows remained simple and intuitive.

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Iterations

  • Lo-fi: Rough sketches for structure and flow.

  • Mid-fi: Added grids, spacing, sidebar navigation, early components.

  • Hi-fi: Finalized the Design System, created polished recruiter dashboards, pipeline management, applicant views, and the full candidate application experience.

  • Integrated feedback from clients and usability reviews throughout.

WaggonerSketch1.jpg
WaggonerSketch3.jpg
WaggonerGridPage.jpg

Design System

To support scalability and visual consistency, we designed a full UI system including:

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Color System

  • Primary (Purple tones): used for CTAs, links, active states

  • Secondary (Teal tones): used for supportive UI elements

  • Neutral: background, text, section dividers

  • Success, Warning, Error: used for candidate status badges, alerts, and system feedback

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Typography

  • Clear hierarchy using Header 1–3

  • Consistent body styles for long-form text (candidate pages)

  • Emphasis on accessibility and readability

This system ensured that every screen—candidate or recruiter—felt like part of a unified platform.

DesignSystem.jpg

Candidate-Side Experience

Inspired by the layout of Robinhood’s career page, we designed:

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Landing Page

  • A modern header with a company hook

  • Large white space for visual clarity

  • Supporting text sections introducing the company and roles

  • A grid of featured cards showcasing different areas (careers, early talent, open roles)​​​​

Job Listing Page

  • Clean, readable job descriptions

  • Sectioned headers: Company Mission, About the Role, What You’ll Do, What You Bring

  • High vertical spacing for easy reading

  • Prominent “Apply” button using primary brand color

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Application Form

A frictionless “Easy Apply" experience inspired by the client requirements:

  • Field inputs for name, email, phone

  • File upload options via Attach / Dropbox / Google Drive

  • Resume, cover letter, transcript uploads

  • Consent checkbox and clear Submit action

The result is a welcoming and modern candidate experience.

Recruiter/Admin Experience

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Recruiter Login

A simple, focused login screen with blurred office imagery to create a professional, credible first impression.

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Recruiter Dashboard

  • At-a-glance metrics: Active Jobs, Total Applications, Pending Reviews

  • Recruitment analytics cards (conversion rate, total views, clicks)

  • Job listing overview with Manage + View Applications buttons

Analytics Page

  • Candidate pipeline visualization

  • Funnel performance insights (view → click → apply → hire)

  • Pipeline health metrics across all roles

Job Listings & Drafts

  • Full list of open positions

  • Ability to create new job posts

  • “Drafts” section for in-progress listings

  • Side-by-side editing panel for posting new jobs

Pipeline Management

A CRM-style table showing:

  • Candidate name, email, job applied for

  • Status dropdown menu (Pending → Interviews → Offer → Accepted → Declined)

  • Search and filtering tools

  • Support for bulk actions

Applications for a Specific Job

Tabs for:

  • Overview

  • Schools

  • Matches

  • Applicants (#) — main table

  • Job Details

  • Automated Outreach

Single Applicant Page

Two views:

  • Details tab: Contact info, application details, highlights, documents

  • Notes tab: A chronological activity feed where recruiters can write notes, update status, and tag recruiters

This allows seamless handoff across interviewing teams.

What I Learned

  • Designing for both public-facing and internal systems requires different UX considerations.

  • How to build scalable dashboards, navigation structures, and component libraries.

  • The importance of usability testing and iterative feedback when refining layouts and interactions.

  • Effective communication during client and developer handoff.

Final Outcomes

  • Delivered a complete, modernized recruiting platform with clear workflows and strong visual consistency.

  • Waggoner’s team was very pleased with the clarity and simplicity of the system.

  • The company's development team successfully integrated our designs, confirming the strength of our design system and layout decisions.

Next Steps​

  • Expand analytics and job editing pages.

  • Add enhanced filtering and sorting within the pipeline.

  • Build mobile-responsive versions of all screens.

  • Continue growing the Design System with new components.

  • Support additional recruiter tools like interview scheduling and applicant insights.

Feel free to reach out!

Sent!

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