Frictionless Interviews: How We Redesigned the Assessment Experience for Hiring Managers at KPMG
UX/UI Design, Sketch, Web Design, Framer Development
2024
Lead Designer
Context
KPMG requested a customized portal to centralize interview assessments conducted by Hiring Managers. The goal was to offer an intuitive tool, aligned with its brand, that would allow for simple centralization and systematization of feedback.
Project Type: Professional (Avature)
Key Learning Point
Detecting blockers early and scaling appropriately was essential to maintaining project flow and avoiding critical delays. Coordinating with the client on roles, workflows, and content from the start made a huge difference in the clarity of objectives and deliverables.
“My one piece of advice on the HM portal replication is to change the way the time of the interview is displayed. The current version is terrible and causes a lot of confusion.”
Interview with Jason from KPMG
Solution Definition
Hiring managers needed a simple and secure way to access pending interviews, review key candidate data, and submit structured assessments, without having to navigate multiple platforms.
Key Features
Login with SSO and native backup login.
View of completed interviews pending feedback.
Access to the candidate profile (name, CV, work history).
Structured feedback form (rating, comments, next steps).
Evaluations that disappear once completed to maintain focus.
Collapsible elements (job description, etc.) to improve the UX.
Portal restricted to designated interviewers only
Impact & Metrics
The Hiring Manager Portal was designed to reduce friction, errors, and delays in KPMG’s interview feedback process by centralizing evaluations into a single, secure and intuitive system.
By replacing fragmented workflows with a structured and focused experience, the solution delivered measurable improvements across efficiency, data quality and process governance.
Key Outcomes
1. Fewer errors, higher quality decisions
Structured forms (ratings, comments and next steps) eliminated ambiguity and missing information, ensuring that every interview produced usable, comparable data.
2. Faster hiring cycles
By reducing the time and effort required to submit feedback, Hiring Managers responded faster, allowing recruiters to move candidates through the pipeline with less delay.
3. Lower cognitive load for interviewers
A clean, focused interface showing only pending interviews and relevant candidate data allowed users to complete evaluations with minimal friction and distraction.
4. Full process traceability for HR and KPMG
All evaluations became auditable, with clear ownership, timestamps and decision paths, strengthening governance and compliance across the hiring process.
Business Value
The HM Portal transformed interview feedback from a scattered, error-prone process into a reliable decision-support system.
This increased hiring efficiency, improved data quality, and gave KPMG greater control and visibility over how hiring decisions are made.
Conclusion
Challenges
Understanding technical limitations (for example, elements configurable from the main app rather than from the UX/UI design).
Managing client expectations regarding features that weren't feasible or necessary (such as breadcrumbs in a reduced portal).
Coordinating with internal and external teams (clients, developers, analysts) to ensure consistency in decisions.
Learnings
Anticipating blockers and scaling quickly prevents the project from being unnecessarily delayed.
Actively listening to the client to understand what they need (and don't need), even when it's not yet clear.
Constant iteration and validation with users and stakeholders improves adoption of the final product.
Documenting the entire feedback and change process facilitates traceability and strengthens the relationship with the client.
Impact
Errors in providing feedback were reduced.
The cognitive load was reduced by simplifying the interface.
The workflow became more efficient: fewer steps, more focus.
Improved traceability of the interview process for KPMG.