Recruitment Agency

Reimagining Recruitment with AI and Intelligent Design

Anonymous
Client
Recruitment Agency

A global tech recruitment agency with deep expertise across the European market approached us with a bold vision. Known for their tailored, people-first approach to hiring, they’ve built a reputation for quality placements in complex technical roles. But their ambition went beyond recruitment.

They wanted to redefine the recruitment experience itself. Not just for candidates, but for recruiters and clients. The vision was clear: a fully integrated, AI-powered recruitment platform that offered intelligence, transparency, and simplicity across the entire hiring lifecycle.

The Challenge

The recruitment technology landscape is crowded with tools focused on automation rather than intelligence - often reducing complex human processes to generic workflows. The team recognised that existing solutions weren’t keeping pace with the potential of AI or the evolving expectations of users.

They approached New Icon with a clear objective: To design a new standard for recruitment technology. One that is intelligent by design, human-centric at its core, and built to support long-term growth.

Our Approach

New Icon partnered with the recruitment agency to shape the early-stage vision into a fully-fledged product prototype. Over three weeks, we ran a focused design sprint to deliver a clickable end-to-end UX prototype, complete with feature logic, interface design, and AI implementation strategies.

The process included:

  • In-depth workshops and feature discovery
  • Ecosystem mapping across candidate, recruiter, and client journeys
  • Collaborative design reviews
  • Creation of a scalable UI and design system

Intelligent Recruitment: A Three-Sided Experience

Candidate Experience

We designed a seamless, completely transparent application journey, enhanced by intelligent features that guide users from job discovery through to offer acceptance.

AI Job Matching
Candidates receive real-time match percentages for each role, based on skills, experience, education, and location. They can also see how they rank compared to others, encouraging more strategic applications.

Application Flow Transparency
Each job is shown with a live status, including:

  • Saved
  • Applied
  • Interview Offered
  • Interview Scheduled
  • Job Offer Pending
  • Offer Accepted
  • Unsuccessful

This approach reduces ambiguity and improves user confidence by giving candidates full visibility into where they stand.

AI Assistant
The platform includes a personalised AI assistant that acts as a digital career coach. It provides tailored tips (e.g. prompting candidates to update their experience), conversational support via chat, and the ability to automatically apply to highly matched roles if enabled.

Recruiter Experience

The recruiter dashboard was built to streamline shortlisting, reduce manual admin, and surface the best-fit candidates faster.

Smart Filtering & Shortlisting
AI analyses incoming applications against role criteria including skills, salary expectations, experience, and location - producing a prioritised shortlist for review.

Candidate Overview & Workflow Management
Recruiters can view CVs, profile summaries, and video intros in one place. Drag-and-drop functionality allows for easy candidate movement between hiring stages such as “Rejected”, “Interviewing”, and “Offer”.

Client and Candidate Relationship Management

  • Save promising candidates for future roles using a ‘black book’ system
  • Track client needs, open roles, and past placements in a consolidated view
  • Integrated interview calendars support seamless scheduling

Hiring Partner View

We designed a lightweight client-facing experience, giving hiring managers access to active roles, real-time hiring updates, and internal documentation without adding complexity to the recruiter workflow.

Communication & Engagement

To ensure the process stays active and responsive:

  • Built-in messaging supports direct communication between recruiters and candidates
  • AI-driven notifications prompt next steps and nudge users to avoid delays or drop-off
The Solution

New Icon delivered a clickable, UX prototype supported by detailed feature specifications, giving the client a powerful foundation to take the next steps towards building a market-ready platform.

Key deliverables included:

  • End-to-end design prototype for web and mobile
  • Modular component library and design system
  • AI integration framework and feature logic
  • User journey flows for all three audiences

The Result

The client now has a future-facing recruitment platform architecture designed to evolve with their business, not just solve today’s problems. It reflects their commitment to intelligent, relationship-driven hiring at scale.

By embedding AI into every stage of the experience, the platform reduces admin, increases transparency, and improves decision-making for candidates, recruiters, and clients alike.

This project represents a new chapter for the client and a bold new benchmark for recruitment technology.

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