Case Study - AustralianJobFinder.com

Project

E-commerce Website Creation

About Australian Job Finder

Australian Job Finder is an online job acquisition and search facility made available to people worldwide looking for work in Australia.

The company has a subscription based model and does most of the "labour" associated with acquiring a new job such as completion of application forms and correspondence.

The main focus of the company is to "save a huge amount of time, whilst searching for a job you truly desire".

Key Features for the Website

• Unique theme with an emphasis on usability whilst remaining visually appealing
• Easy to use job search functionality, incorporating a one-click job application feature
• All user information available in one place to make the site as simple as possible to use
• Stored preferences to allow users to perform the same search with a single click
• Job progress to enable the user to view where their application is in the job acquisition process

The Solution

The website was built upon a Drupal framework (an open source CMS). The main reasons for choosing Drupal for this project were it's flexibility and modular construction, which were necessary for such a powerful and unique website.

Theming

The Australian Job Finder site uses a heavily customised version of the Dark Elegance theme. This theme was chosen as a starting point for its robust look and feel.

The main customisation was done with CSS using a colour palette of mostly black, white and maroon. This was done to keep the site plain whilst drawing attention to specific areas of interest using the strong maroon colour.

This was both to alter the current look and feel of the theme and in places to add completely new styles for certain areas of the website, not accounted for by the original theme.

Search Functionality, Stored Preferences and One-click Job Applications

This needed to be very clean and simple to use, as an initial search would be used as the method of enticing users to sign up to the service due to the sites ease of use.

The functionality implemented meant that an anonymous user could visit the site and conduct a job search (on a limited number of jobs) so that they could test the service before committing to a subscription.

Using a javascript link users were able to add the jobs they wanted to apply for to a list without leaving the page. Once the anonymous user decided upon a subscription option all jobs were transferred to their newly created account. This meant new users did not have to locate the jobs again, as with most job sites after sign up, and further complemented the functionality and simplicity of the site.

Now a registered member of Australian Job Finder the user can add all their personal information and desired job specification to their profile for use in their job applications. Note: This is a one time only data entry requirement, which meant that the returning user would now only need to click once to return a search of new and updated job listings tailored to their requirements.

Job Progress and Back-end Functionality

It was important that the user was kept up-to-date on their job applications, as the user was now handing responsibility over to Australian Job Finder.

On the user side of the equation this was simply a list of all jobs applied for by the user. Then when a member of the Australian Job Finder staff submitted the users application the status of the application would be amended. This would move the job to the corresponding list on the users account page so they had a history of jobs that had been applied for on their behalf.

For the back-end of the website it was a case of making the users data as easy to input as possible for the Australian Job Finder staff in order to maximise profits.

When a member of the Australian Job Finder team logs into the site they are redirected straight to a page with a list of pending job applications. Each user and job combination counts as a separate item. This was done so that the member of staff did not have to keep track of where they were on a list of applications in the case when more than one user applied for the same job.

The Australian Job Finder team member is then presented with the users information alongside the job application form, using click and drag fields this task became very fast and efficient. The staff member would then update the application status, which also provided a way to directly communicate with the user through the AustralianJobFinder.com site should any additional information be required.

Result

The result is a powerful e-commerce website that handles almost all of the repetitive tasks encountered by online job hunters. Only requiring staff to input critical data and also providing a way to communicate directly with users to resolve any unforeseen problems that arise in the fastest way possible.