Building Hatch from scratch
Since last century job ads & CVs have led candidates & teams to connect or reject each other based on false impressions & assumptions - preventing people from navigating to fulfilling work.That was the problem Adam (Founder of THE ICONIC) and Chaz (Co-founder of Zip) and I set out to solve when I landed at Hatch on day 1 - to reimagine the way people find meaningful work.
Product vision
Product design
Hatch's first journey map in Adam's Kitchen
Design workshop for our applicant matching MVP
I was tasked with leading product design from concept to execution of an innovative student jobs marketplace that gave access to a new category of paid jobs for students & on demand hiring for hiring mangers. In my time, Hatch went from 0, to connecting a community of 20k+ candidates with hundreds of top employers for meaningful work experiences.
Discover: Building the MVP
From day 1, designing the Hatch MVP in the founders kitchen - I led 100s of interviews, & dozens of focus groups with employers & students. With no existing funnel to speak of, the core of Hatch’s design strategy in the beginning was community, co-designing Hatch alongside those that lived & breathed the problems we set out to solve.
This approach had the added benefit of accelerating our go to market via student communities, and helped us beat the marketplace chicken or egg / cold start problem.
A lifetime before covid, at a time where process dominated by real time digital collaboration & video calls was but a blip on the horizon - we burnt through 100s of sharpies, a skip bin worth of post its - and shipped the most minimum of viable products I had the stomach for.
Unlocking hiring manager demand
The MVP revealed that well-known brands significantly boosted candidate acquisition and activation in the marketplace & enhanced employer trust. I conducted in-depth research on hiring challenges at top employers and lead the design of lean strategies that facilitated a steady influx of Hatch roles from top Australian brands like Westpac, Qantas, and Woolies X - seeding the marketplace with reliable supply.
This included custom landing pages, in app approval processes, onboarding guides and automating background checks - enabling managers to navigate internal red tape and hire Hatch students more quickly than any other resource option they had access to.
Hatch students came to be peppered in the hundreds through Australia's top businesses on paid contracts. Our innovative tech-based labour hire MVP generated over $20m gross revenue with a team of less than 10 people.
Design: MVP to scale
Hatch's MVP validated a new data-driven approach to hiring, connecting candidates and teams based on genuine fit. Partnering closely with our lead scientist & org psychs, I lead the transformation of an unstructured, form-based MVP into a data-driven matching platform, integrated into the recruitment tech stack.
Below are some of the core features I designed as lead designer. I collaborated with 2 other designers to bring the marketplace to life in an 80/20 execution to management role on the team.
Create a role
Every great match starts with well defined requirements. I lead the design of an effortless job creation flow, powered by our work taxonomy to help managers define what they're looking for & generate a job page in minutes.
These structured requirements made up the backbone of our matching engine driving invites & recommendations - bringing managers top, diverse candidates without the recruitment effort.
Candidate application
Without many years of experience to go by CVs often fail to differentiate early career candidates - leading hiring managers to miss out on some of the best, diverse talent.
I lead the design of a candidate application that brings candidate’s motivation & skills to life with videos and real work examples tailored to the role - helping hiring managers see beyond the CV to identify the best fit candidates for the job.
Applicant review
A big pain point for junior roles is the time it takes to screen through high volumes of applicants. I lead the design of Applicant review with recommendations powered by structured human assessment - to save employers countless hours reviewing candidates while reducing bias in selection.
A unique challenge of designing this feature was partnering with our lead scientist to ensure the data gathered from candidates & managers enabled a good match - requiring the UX to balance user friction with the needs of the model.
The matching service delivers data driven recommendations of the best fit candidates for a role, based on motivation, transferable & technical skills. Managers were able to save time & direct focus to the highest potential candidates.
Some notable achievements
Hatch has since connected a community of 20k+ candidates with hundreds of top employers for meaningful work experiences. Along with my core role from day 1 leading & executing end to end product design, these are some of my notable achievements building Hatch from scratch:
Human centred at the core
I fostered human centred, design thinking practices across functions - bringing customer context & voice to strategy & product execution. I established always on customer discovery & feedback mechanisms across product, sales & customer success.
Design direction
I established and stewarded an accessible & honest brand direction, and design system - that enabled us to move quickly, with consistency - while differentiating with a helpful, "Hatchy" tone & presence.
Science partnership
I played a key role in partnering with our internal science team to develop our data driven approach to matching on genuine fit.
Product leadership
I navigated complex business & market environments to evolve & constantly communicate an inspiring product vision to steer the team forward with conviction & unwavering focus on who we are building for.
Cross-functional team building
I lead the establishment of a high performing, cohesive & joyful cross-funtional product team & culture, that attracted truly top talent across design, product, data & engineering, & even better humans. Our output expertly balanced UX quality with a startup pace.
Always be executing
I lead product & design delivery against the roadmap week to week stewarding our rituals, unblocking the team, & leading by example executing high quality, end to end user experiences.
I’m incredibly proud of the impact our mission has had on our customers & community, specifically young people: We built a jobs marketplace that connected thousands of early career candidates to jobs at Australia’s best employers (Westpac, Atlassian, QANTAS, Spotify, Canva) — creating new inroads to high-value digital careers for the next generation.
I'm excited to see the Hatch team continue to expand the vision, integrating AI to help the next-generation find meaning in work.
Hatch team in lockdown
Selected Works
Redesigning Kinephonics for teamsKinephonics
