HeadRace is a venture-backed startup building a recruiter marketplace for high-growth companies that need to scale headcount fast. The platform connects employers with pre-vetted, specialized recruiters, replacing the opaque, fragmented process of finding external recruiting partners with a transparent, data-driven experience. From searchable recruiter profiles and role dossiers to candidate tracking and earnings dashboards, HeadRace brings the entire recruiting workflow into one platform. I was brought in before launch as the founding Product Designer to build out the design organization and own the end-to-end experience across both the recruiter and employer sides of the marketplace.
Within six months of launch, HeadRace drove $1M in ARR and transformed key workflows from manual processes into self-service experiences. Average time to placement dropped 50%, from 2.5 months to 1.25 months. Contract completion went from 3.5 weeks to just 4 days. On-time recruiter payouts improved from 82% to 93%. What began as an MVP requiring heavy team involvement shipped as a fully realized platform where recruiters and employers could independently search, connect, agree on terms, submit candidates, and track earnings.
The platform is essentially a two-sided marketplace with recruiters and employers. The goal was to pull the initial brand aesthetic and design system I put into place to build a consistent UI across the platform. With a team with expansive knowledge of our users, aligning user needs was a core first need. I did this my conducting a journey mapping workshop with the entire team.
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