Set up a complete hiring process and push a test candidate through every stage. The point is finding the places where a real person would get stuck.
What to do
- Design it on paper first: stages, who moves candidates, what has to be true to progress.
- Set it up — stages, rejection reasons, permissions, and the five day-one automations from Lesson 1.
- Publish the job from your Module 2 blueprint to a careers page, with the
JobPostingcode. - Apply to your own job, on a phone, all the way to the end.
- Move that test candidate through every stage, to both endings — hired, and rejected with a reason.
- Create one talent group and add three near-misses from your Module 4 shortlist.
What to hand in
The design, a screenshot or export of your stages and rejection reasons, the job page passing a structured data test, and a short list of everywhere the test candidate hit friction.
How to know you have done it right
| Check | Good looks like |
|---|---|
| Stages are positions | No stage describes an activity or a waiting state |
| Rejection reasons | 8–12 of them, meaningful, no "not a fit" |
| Permissions | A hiring manager cannot see other jobs' candidates |
| Page code | Passes a structured data test with no errors |
| Applying on a phone | Under three minutes, no account creation |
| Both endings work | Rejection sends the right message with the reason recorded |
The friction list
Write down every point in your own application where you were even slightly irritated. Retyping something you uploaded. A field you had to guess at. A required question with no answer that fits. A confirmation that never arrived.
Every one of those costs you candidates, and costs you most among the people with other options. This list is the most valuable thing this exercise produces.
Check yourself before Module 9
- Could someone else run this process without asking you what a stage means?
- If a candidate asked to be deleted, could you do it in one place?
- Does every rejection reason match something you actually assess?
- How long did your own application take? Compare that with how long you expect candidates to spend.
Without a full hiring system
Most of this works on a free trial of any hiring system, and the paper design at step one costs nothing. If you cannot set one up, do steps 1, 3 and 4 — design the process, publish a job page with the right code, and apply to your own job on a phone. Those three produce most of the value.
How long to spend
Sixty to ninety minutes. The paper design saves the time — teams who set up the software first usually rebuild the whole thing within a month.