Cy van der Spuy | Tackling unemployment through better data

Tackling unemployment through better data

Problem

South Africa’s youth unemployment is at crisis levels; 37% of 18-34 year olds can’t find work. SA Youth Partner Network lets employers advertise jobs on sayouth.mobi and shortlist applicants for free.

But there was a gap: Employers weren’t reporting hires back to the organisation, making it hard to prove impact to funders.

Design value

In working with leadership and business, I optimised how employers provided hiring feedback in order to prove the platform’s value to funders and secure future support.

600% increase in employers providing hiring feedback in the first month after launch.

2000+ employers

use SA Youth Partner Network to advertise jobs to entry-level talent.

5 million+
work-seekers

see jobs on sayouth.mobi—where you don’t need cellphone data to apply for jobs or get work-readiness skills.

Before

The critical feature was buried under table rows and tab filters. Internal jargon like “placement outcome” described the function to external users. Providing feedback was confusing and laborious.

Role

Lead end-to-end design: workshops, Figma flows, design to developer handovers, and to support QA.

Key learning

Prototypes helped people across different teams understand the vision.

Helping product leaders & developers see the vision before launch made our goals tangible.

After

A focused space to report who was hired for a job with three ways to provide feedback allowing single and bulk entries.

Systems thinker