---
date: 2017-09-01
type: ship
title: Workhiro
slug: workhiro
project: Nimble
kicker: A data-first hiring platform that read candidates as people, not as keyword matches.
excerpt: Replaced the keyword-and-format filtering of traditional ATS systems with a kanban-style evaluation flow that surfaced skills and experience clearly. Adopted by pilot teams as a model for fairer recruitment.
cover: /assets/covers/hero-workhiro.webp
palette:
  accent: "#6E7176"
  source:
    brand: "Blackwing"
    name: "Volume 56"
  role: Senior Product Designer
  pull: Most ATS systems filter resumes. We wanted one that read them.
tags: [enterprise, hr, product-systems, fairness]
---

Workhiro was built around a quiet problem in recruitment: traditional applicant tracking systems eliminate strong candidates before a human ever sees them, because they're filtering on keywords and document format rather than skill and experience.

## Context

Hiring workflows differ widely by team, role, and region. The system had to support multiple pipelines, approval paths, and data views without fragmenting into a different product per customer. The challenge was holding that flexibility inside a single, predictable interface that stayed fast to read.

![Workhiro job-position editor on the web. The left rail lists 32 open positions (Senior Rails Developer, Java Developer, Environmental Graphic Designer, SAP CRM Developer, Senior Graphic Designer, Lead Back-End Developer) with applied counts and tabs for All, Published, Drafts, Closed. A side drawer shows the active "Senior Rails Developer (Bangkok, Thailand)" with section navigation (Job Details, Application Form, Questionnaire, Promote, Scorecard) and rich-text fields for description and requirements, capped by a red "Save" CTA.](/assets/projects/workhiro/wh-job-editor.webp)

## What I designed

A kanban-inspired evaluation system where each candidate card carried the right depth of data at the right time: list view for scanning, drawer for reviewing, profile for committing. Information architecture that scaled from 10 candidates to 10,000 without changing the interaction model. Annotations, evaluations, and progress tracking all lived in one flow so teams could collaborate without losing context.

![Workhiro system overview: six product surfaces tiled together on a paper-grey background. Top row: a position editor with description and requirements; a position kanban with stage columns and stacked candidate rows; a candidate profile with summary, comments, and metadata; a company profile setup with logo upload, company name, sub division, website. Bottom row: a job listing distribution sheet pricing JobsDB, JobStreet, and others; a position dashboard with All Jobs / Published / Drafts / Closed tabs and counts per stage; a public-facing Workhiro Jobs portal with a Mechanical Engineer card.](/assets/projects/workhiro/wh-system-grid.webp)

## The trade-off

Resume-parsing AI was peaking at the time. Customers wanted automated screening, automated scoring, automated rankings. We held that line: the platform would not auto-rank candidates. Recruiters could sort, compare, and shortlist with structured data, but ranking remained a human judgement supported by the system rather than performed by it. That decision cost us the easy demo but kept the product honest about what it was for.

## What it changed

Strong adoption from pilot teams. Recruiters reported faster evaluations and better cross-team collaboration. The structured design system became a model for later HR tools, demonstrating that simplicity and data transparency can reduce bias without trading away pace.

![Workhiro candidate drawer open over the Candidates list. The drawer header shows Jackson Lee, Full Stack Rails Developer, applied via LinkedIn on 10/10/2017, with a red "Applied" status pill and tabs for Summary, Questionnaire, Documents, Scorecard. The Summary tab carries a short bio, structured fields for Date of Birth, Email, Phone, Nationality, and a Comments thread (4 replies) with the most recent comment from "Carlos" expanded, plus an "Add New Comment" footer. Behind the drawer, the candidates list shows filters (Position, Type, Status, Source, Date, Added, Last Updated) and rows of candidates by position.](/assets/projects/workhiro/wh-candidate-drawer.webp)

## Role

Senior Product Designer. Owned design direction and system architecture, partnered with engineering on data modelling.