Citibank x HR Department

Raising the Bar for Modern Talent Acquisition

With the adoption of remote work, HR departments struggle to retain visibility on their workforce, and fall victim to operating in data silos. My redesign aims to create a holistic platform where all team members can collaborate and execute with the advantage of live analytics.

ROLE

Lead Product Designer

DURATION

10 months

RESPONSIBILITIES

User Research, User Testing and Feedback Integration, UX Strategy & Leadership, Design System Implementation

Desk Research Overview

Companies struggle in finding qualified workers

Despite some improvement, a vast majority of Canadian employers continue to struggle with hiring skilled talent, according to a recent report from the ManpowerGroup.

of Canadian companies report significant challenges in finding qualified workers, which is a slight improvement from 80% in 2024.

77%

is the Canadian talent shortage rate, which is above global average

74%

The need for better digital hiring tools that streamline talent matching

To understand the broader hiring context, I began by reviewing labor market reports and industry insights. Research showed that Canadian employers face persistent difficulties in recruiting skilled talent, particularly in IT, logistics, and engineering roles. Traditional recruitment methods are no longer sufficient—many systems are fragmented, outdated, or fail to surface relevant candidates efficiently.

https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/recruitment-and-staffing/hiring-challenges-persist-as-canadian-employers-struggle-to-find-talent-report/391710

Objective: To understand current pain points in CitiBank’s hiring workflow and identify opportunities to improve recruiter efficiency and candidate experience.

Uncovering insights for Citibank HR department

Interviews
8 in-depth interviews with recruiters, hiring managers, and HR coordinators across various departments.

Methodology

Surveys
12 responses from CitiBank employees who recently participated in the hiring process, either as recruiters or applicants.

Contextual Inquiry
Observed interviewing process of 2 applicants

Problem Space

Outdated hiring workflow limits efficiency and candidate experience

CitiBank’s current hiring system relies on legacy tools and disjointed processes that no longer meet the expectations of today’s candidates or recruiters. Its existing internal hiring portal was fragmented and outdated, making it hard for recruiters to manage postings, track candidates, and collaborate with hiring managers efficiently. Manual workflows, limited visibility into candidate pipelines, and unclear task ownership slow down the hiring process and lead to missed opportunities with top talent. This created bottlenecks, duplication of effort, and confusion across teams.

As hiring demands increased, recruiters struggled with disjointed workflows, resulting in lost candidates and longer time-to-fill metrics — the portal was no longer keeping up with Citibank’s hiring ambitions.

How might we streamline CitiBank’s hiring process to improve recruiter efficiency and better onboard candidates?

Persona

Understanding our targeted audience

Key Takeaway

Even the most experienced recruiters can’t succeed if the tools don’t keep up. When hiring speed, quality, and collaboration all matter, a fragmented system doesn’t just slow things down — it puts talent at risk. What would it take to truly empower them to do their best work?

Goals + Intention

The need to build a foundation that can grow with evolving hiring needs and faster recruitment cycles.

These were the key problems we aimed to solve:

  1. Citibank recruiters currently rely on a mix of disconnected systems and manual tracking, which leads to inconsistencies and delays. -> Create one cohesive platform that connects all hiring activities in one place.

  2. The existing process often requires redundant data entry and back-and-forth emails with hiring managers. -> Reduce manual steps and simplify how recruiters move candidates through the pipeline.

  3. Recruiters at Citibank lack a clear, real-time view of where candidates stand or what actions are pending. -> Make it easier to see job status, candidate progress, and manager input at a glance.

  4. As Citibank expands its tech and operations teams globally, the hiring platform must support high-volume recruitment while adapting to changing team structures and approval chains. -> Build a foundation that can grow with evolving hiring needs and faster recruitment cycles.

Final features

New dashboard with action suggestions

The redesigned dashboard centralizes key hiring metrics with actionable insights to help recruiters and managers prioritize next steps. From viewing open positions to tracking candidate progress across skills, locations, and vendors, the interface promotes informed decision-making at every stage of the pipeline.

Scenario

An HR recruiter logs to review hiring progress. At a glance, they can identify which vendors are performing well, which skills are in high demand but have low onboarding rates, and which positions need urgent follow-up. With integrated reminders and trend indicators, the dashboard makes it easier to align hiring activity with business needs.

Full visibility into each candidate’s progress

A centralized dashboard to give recruiters and hiring managers full visibility into each candidate’s progress from resume submission to onboarding. The design includes sortable columns and milestone timelines that help stakeholders prioritize follow-ups and stay aligned on next steps.

Scenario

Before this dashboard, hiring teams struggled to keep track of where each candidate stood. Interview rounds, resume reviews, and onboarding steps were managed manually or spread across different tools. Now, by clicking into any row, users can instantly see detailed status updates, interview outcomes, and upcoming milestones—all in one place.

Interview scheduling & candidate overview

Introducing a unified view that helps recruiters and hiring managers track candidate progress across multiple interview rounds. This redesign allows for faster communication with vendors, clearer decision-making with contextual comments, and coordination of interview availability.

Scenario

Recruiters can now review candidate details, add comments from both vendors and hiring managers, and immediately proceed to schedule interviews—all in one place. The ability to select multiple time slots with a visual calendar minimizes back-and-forth

Usability Testing Insights

The need to build a foundation that can grow with evolving hiring needs and faster recruitment cycles.

After launching the initial prototype, we conducted moderated usability testing sessions with 3 internal recruiters and hiring managers across different departments. Key findings included:

What’s good 👍🏻

  • Users appreciated the high-level visibility into the number of resumes.

  • Recruiters found the comparative week-on-week metrics useful for spotting gaps in their hiring flow and making data-informed decisions.

What could be improved 🤔

  • While resume numbers were visible, recruiters wanted richer metadata (e.g. role applied for, years of experience) directly in the pipeline list view.

  • Recruiters needed the ability to filter candidates by aging or upcoming deadlines to avoid losing qualified candidates.

We had to pause the project and wait for the scoping of Phase 2. Phase 2 will focus on addressing the above feedback and expanding functionality to better support internal efficiency and collaboration

Reflection

Reflection

This project reinforced the importance of designing for operational clarity. By focusing on real recruiter pain points, I learned how better visual hierarchy and structured workflows can directly improve hiring velocity. More than just delivering a UI, I walked away with a deeper understanding of how thoughtful tooling supports large organizations in making smarter, faster hiring decisions.