BeFemmee

BeFemme

A one-stop solution for empowering women to build on their skills and confidence, find access to vital resources and opportunities, and connect with mentors who can guide them every step of the way.

Role

UI Designer, UX Researcher, Visual/ Brand Design, Information Architect

Project Duration

2 weeks
(March 4th—March 19th)

Team Members

Me, Karrie Chou, Armin Kusmic, Youngwon Kim, Madhi Raza Khunt

Tools Used

Figma, Figjam, Miro, Google Slides

Empowering newcomer women to discover their dream careers and build a brighter future in Canada!

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Briefing

BCG Hack the Globe Hackathon

Context

I was one of the 300 individuals chosen from a pool of over 1,500 applicants to participate in the 2023 Hack the Globe Hackathon, hosted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). This event provided me with the opportunity to work with a diverse group of creative minds, including students from various universities, seasoned professionals, and experts, all united by a shared mission: to tackle urgent global challenges through cutting-edge solutions.

About the Project

While we were presented with multiple problem scopes ranging from sustainability, climate change, food security, and healthcare to education, social impact, economic development, and technology, our group chose to take on solving Canada's significant increase in immigration, in which we found were pursuing a target of granting 500,000 people permanent resident status by 2025. Acknowledging these heightened intake numbers has introduced new employment-related obstacles for newcomers.

Problem

Many of the newcomers possess qualifications in high-demand industries from their home countries, but their credentials often go unrecognized by Canadian employers. They struggle to find jobs aligned with their skills, hindered by the lack of accessible resources and platforms, resulting in underemployment and untapped potential.

Goal

Our goal is to empower newcomer women in Canada through a comprehensive platform, fostering community, and offering educational resources to match their skills with fulfilling job opportunities, promoting belonging and economic empowerment.

Solution

Our user-centric mobile app bridges newcomer women to the Canadian job market, featuring a robust job matching algorithm, educational resources, and a supportive community network. By connecting employers, ambassadors, and service workers, we facilitate an inclusive journey toward a brighter and more prosperous future for newcomer women in Canada.

Project Timeline

Over an intense two-week period, we tackled issues ranging from sustainability and healthcare to technology, leveraging BCG's invaluable resources and mentorship.

discovering

Conducting Preliminary Research

As a team, we took a deeper look into the commonalities among newcomer women immigrating to Canada through the use of articles, publications, statistics and documentation. From the sources, we found that...

30%

of immigrants between 18-34 years old are considering leaving Canada in the next 2 years.

25.8%

of all immigrants with a foreign degree were overqualified and working in a job that typically requires a high school education or less.

28.3%

among immigrants with a foreign degree, over qualification was higher among women than men (23.1%)

Source

Understanding the Competitive Landscape

Many existing solutions for our problem have been developed by profit and non-profit organizations, as well as government institutions and professional associations. I conducted a competitive analysis, highlighting several existing ones below, and scored them based on their relevance to our unique problem statement.

User Interviews

I interviewed a few users who were currently accessing resources from immigration and settlement resource centres in order to understand their motivations and pain points.

Newcomer women are being increasingly pushed into jobs that are not sustainable in the long term for either their quality of life or their career advancement.

"In my experience, many of us newcomer women are often steered toward jobs that might offer immediate income but fail to consider the long-term impact on our quality of life and career growth."

Newcomers possess unique skills, life experiences and perspectives which can drive equitable and scalable organizational change across industries.

"I've found that our unique skills, life experiences, and diverse perspectives as newcomers are untapped resources that have the potential to catalyze equitable and scalable change within various industries."

Solutions on the market today often exclude the niche of underemployed newcomer women and tend to address the needs of more general populations.

"It sometimes feels like the existing resources in our communities don't quite understand the unique challenges we face.”

defining

The best way to comprehend our target audience

I developed personas in order to understand what different kinds of newcomer users may want from BeFemme. One was an Oncologist specialist with two children, another was a post-graduate student, and the third was a Project Manager at XYZ Bank. Each of them has different goals — however, a common thread was the desire to find support and guidance to navigate the Canadian job market.

Priya, the Persevering Oncologist

42 yrs old Front desk dental clinic assistant

A newcomer from Sri Lanka who came to Canada with her two kids to escape political turmoil in her home country. In Sri Lanka, she worked as a specialist in oncology. She hopes to find better and higher-paying opportunities to help support her family.

Joon Park

26 yrs old Post-Graduate Student and Uber Driver

A Korean international student pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Business Management after completing a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering. Having found it difficult to find work in Toronto, Joon began driving for Uber as a way to supplement his income.

Maria Hernandez

27 yrs old Project Manager at XYZ Bank

Maria is a 2nd gen Canadian and has lived in Canada her entire life. Aside from working in various management positions throughout her career, she has also been volunteering as a mentor for newcomers for the past five years, helping them navigate the Canadian job market and mentoring their career pathways.

Determining the User Flow

The process of determining our platform's user flow was a meticulous journey. I took charge of building out the user flows, and to do this I used the principles of the Moscow prioritization framework to guide the decision of the user flows.

This framework enabled me to categorize features and functionalities into four distinct priority levels: Must-haves, Should-haves, Could-haves, and Won't-haves. It ensured that the app first focused on the essential elements critical to matching newcomer women with suitable job opportunities and building their resumes.

developing

Skipping the sketches, mid-fidelity,
and heading straight into a
high-fidelity prototype.

Keeping in mind of our user personas and their pain points, I was in charge of designing the screens for our user flows. I made sure the UI elements were consistent and populate the prototype with realistic content, such as actual text, images, and data.

Due to the tight time restrictions of the hackathon, instead of the typical design process where I complete sketches, a mid-fidelity, and then completing user tests, I went straight into crafting the high-fidelity screens. Below are the screens that I created for our prototype.

delivering

Building skills, credentials, and qualifications

The platform provides educational resources for job hunting, including resume and cover letter writing, access to specialized employment support, and offers simulated job applications and interviews to help newcomer women adapt to standard recruitment processes. It also has potential as a credential recognition platform, allowing newcomer women to validate their skills for precise employer-employee matching.

Find opportunities for you to apply skills

BeFemme offers a job board for tailored positions, accessible to both employers and newcomer women. Users can rate job descriptions for reliability and relevance to typical occupations, while also receiving recommendations for local events and activities based on their location.

Matching like-minded individuals + fostering a sense of community

BeFemme bridges newcomers to mentors, certification programs, and job opportunities in their field or related fields. Utilizing a job matching algorithm that leverages industry data and shared experiences to ensure job seekers are matched with suitable positions, mitigating bias in job selection..

Reflect

Working Efficiently

Balancing the design challenge alongside my work and academic commitments left me with minimal team collaboration time. This situation compelled me to discern which process steps warranted prioritization and develop the proficiency to execute them effectively under significant time constraints. In the end, I gained valuable insights into managing time and responsibilities efficiently.

Importance of Being Concise and Articulate

Being concise and articulate during our presentation to the judges was of paramount importance. It ensured that we conveyed our ideas clearly and effectively within the limited time we had. Conciseness helped us focus on key points, eliminating unnecessary details that might have diluted our message. Articulacy ensured that we could express our vision with precision, making it easy for the judges to understand and connect with our proposal.

Don’t be afraid of being criticized

Engaging with BCG Consulting mentors was instrumental in guiding our team to step back and strategize ways to enhance our product. They gave us very insightful feedback, but sometimes their honest feedback hurt. Their insights broadened our perspective, preventing us from getting overly entangled in superfluous details while honing our focus on what truly matters.

next steps

User Testing and Feedback

Conduct thorough user testing with a diverse group of newcomer women and stakeholders to gather valuable feedback on the app's usability and functionality.

Potential Expansion

Create a community-centred forum that will allow people to give and take advice based on their experiences after finding a job – similar to guidance/tips from people who’ve gone through the same challenges.

Refinement of Matching Algorithm

Continuously refine the job matching algorithm to improve accuracy and relevance in recommending job opportunities.

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