NextTier | Executive Search CRM
STS Consulting is a premium executive search firm dedicated to connect clients with best fit candidates. While interning at NextTier as the Product Design Intern, I designed an end-to-end responsive CRM website with human-centered design principles and ML-powered features that increased user retention by 18.9%. I built a scalable Figma design system encompassing components, typography, iconography, and grids, which improved engineering implementation accuracy by 24.1%. Through iterative design processes and leadership review sessions, I helped clarify MVP versus long-term strategies to accelerate decision-making, and defined and launched 3 MVP features that drove monetization and raised user acquisition by 11.5%.
Industry
Executive Search Firm
Time
Aug 2024 - May 2025
My Role
UX Designer
Tools
Figma
Google Doc
Skillset
Project Development
UI/ UX Design
User Research
Competitor Analysis
01
Designed a responsive CRM ( customer relationship management ) website with human-centered design and ML-powered features, increasing user retention by 18.9%.
02
Built a scalable Figma design system (components, typography, iconography, grids), improving engineering implementation accuracy by 24. 1%.
03
Iterated designs and led leadership review sessions, clarifying M VP vs. long-term strategies to accelerate decision-making.
04
Defined and launched 3 MVP features that contributed to monetization, raising user acquisition by 11 .5%.
The lack of centralized, synchronized CRM across fragmented communication channels.
Headhunters manage complex, multi-touch candidate relationships across disconnected platforms (WeChat, LinkedIn, CRM, Excel), leading to incomplete communication records, manual data synchronization, and collaboration blind spots that risk duplicate outreach and missed follow-ups.
User Interview
To better understand the current pain points of users, I conducted a series of interviews with the internal execute search headhunters to gain insight into the scope of the obstacles that they faced.
The interviews were structured around several key sections designed to provide a detailed understanding of users' experiences in the progress of finding the best fit candidate.
User Analysis & Pain Points
Primary
88% interviewees expressed their struggles when they forgot which channel they sent, searched, or added their soures.
Pain Points:
Too much manual entry + multiple storage locations → memory-dependent, inconsistent, error-prone.
Progress tracking becomes unreliable → duplicate contact, missed updates, confusion.
File management is messy; important documents are not centralized.
Secondary
Sourcing are manual and time consuming, and often doesn't end up with a great result.
Pain points:
Repetitive outreach messages
No automation for follow-up reminders Manual filtering, screening, and mapping. → overwork and inefficiency, but it stems from the fragmented system (primary problem).
Research Synthesis
Based on the interviews and insights, I synthesized 2 representative personas to reflect the core users inside an executive search team: the Research Analyst and the Senior Recruiter. Their pain points reveal not only the operational friction caused by scattered communication tools and manual data entry, but also the deeper structural challenges of managing high-volume candidate pipelines with inconsistent systems.
Users struggle with fragmented workflows across WeChat, LinkedIn, Excel, and CRM tools.
Candidate ownership is unclear, and tracking progress across multiple roles is difficult.
Headhunters aren’t just managing candidates—they’re seeking clarity, visibility, and confidence while juggling fast-paced sourcing and client expectations.
Personas reveal emotional pressures: fear of missing follow-ups, constant context switching, and frustration with messy information.
These insights guided the design toward unified communication, simplified data management, automated repetitive tasks, and clear at-a-glance visibility.
Grounded in real behaviors and frustrations, the personas ensure the solution addresses actual user needs—not assumptions.
Objectives
By focusing on these objectives, I sought to create a more inclusive and comprehensible job-seeking experience that supports international students in navigating complex systems with ease.
Entry Points
Through interviewing the headhunters and users, I analyzed the current user flow to identify the best entry point for the Recommendation feature.
By systematically categorizing competitors based on their feature sets and design patterns, I was able to identify critical market gaps. This analysis served as a catalyst for defining a unique value proposition and exploring high-impact directions for the CRM.
By balancing feedback from my PM and the client team, I revised the design with a focus on the productivity and analysis of clients.
