Transforming hiring with AI
Reed.co.uk
2024-2025
AI-Powered
Carla Llinas
Reed.ai was born as part of the Reed Group. A bold new product vision that combined Reed’s decades of recruitment expertise with the power of cutting-edge AI.
Where Reed.co.uk helped millions of people find jobs, Reed.ai set out to reimagine recruitment for a new era.
As the UI Product Designer, I was responsible for transforming Reed.ai’s ambitious vision into a user-friendly product experience — from shaping the brand identity to delivering the final product interface.
User interviews with 15 recruiters and 20 candidates revealed key frustrations: recruiters struggled with long job-posting flows, and candidates couldn’t easily track their applications.
Analytics showed 40% of recruiters abandoned job postings by step 3 of 7. Candidate sign-up forms had a 25% drop-off between “details” and “submit.”
Heatmaps confirmed low engagement with key CTAs and confusing navigation labels.
The core innovation was flipping the typical recruitment interaction:
AI matches candidates to job specs using shared criteria.
Candidates are presented anonymously to reduce bias.
Employers express interest first and request full profile access.
Candidates then choose whether to share their details and engage.
This model reduces noise for employers, empowers candidates, and builds a more respectful, human-centred hiring flow.
Once the vision and core principles were established, we moved into rapid, iterative design, validating each major area of the product with real users.
Over 6 months, we ran 30+ moderated user testing sessions with a wide range of participants:
20 employers (HR managers, Heads of People, recruitment leads, and product owners).
10 candidates (both experienced and first-time users of Reed).
The new site positioned Reed.ai as a credible, forward-thinking brand while directly supporting lead generation goals.
+20% increase in job posting completion (from 55% → 75%).
Drop-off in candidate sign-up reduced by 18%.
Navigation success rate reached 90% - most users could find their application status without guidance.
Recruiters reported the process felt “much faster”; average time to post a job decreased by 40%.
