Scaling Indeed Resume Services 8× through Activation, Monetization, System Design, and Behavioral Design
Project overview
This case focuses on scaling a service-based product line Indeed Resume Services in year two by improving activation, decision quality, and delivery efficiency. Four services in the product line:
Instant resume report
Free, redesigned
Automated resume scan with instant best-practice feedback
Resume review
$19, redesigned
10-minute video review plus notes for DIY improvements
Real-time resume edits
$29, 0→1 new offering
20-minute live video chat with a professional for DIY improvements
Resume writing
$89, internal→external
Professional resume rewrite
Role
Lead Designer, 12 months end-to-end strategy and execution
Outcome
  • Revenue 8× YoY
  • End-to-end conversion 0.5%→2%
  • Helped 4M+ job seekers improve resumes
Why now and goals
Why this became a real business problem
  • The product line showed potential in affecting Indeed ecosystem outcomes: improving resume quality (for 9,000 users) impacted job seeker confidence and employer engagement
  • Yet it plateaued after year one, with low throughput and purchase conversion
Core strategic judgments
Start with identifing problems and opportunities by analyzing qual and quant data.
Four strategic judgements that shaped product growth and monetization strategy:
This was not a traffic problem, but an activation problem.
Growth depended on decision quality, not just conversion mechanics.
Growth depends on throughput at scale (qualified demand × completion × delivery capacity)
Real business impact required behavior change inside the Indeed ecosystem.
Primary goals
Activate existing demand at high-intent moments
Improve decision quality across evaluation and purchase
Scale delivery without sacrificing quality
Drive downstream behavior change in the ecosystem
System-level strategies
Scale Resume Services by activating existing demand and improving decision quality—then compound impact through a repeatable growth system.
  • Restructure core services before expanding new offerings
  • Redesign Resume Services as a growth system spanning activation, monetization, and ecosystem impact
  • Build a reusable experimentation system to scale decision quality
System-Level Strategies
Why scaling required restructuring the core first
  • Expanding new offerings without a scalable core would amplify inefficiency.
  • Service complexity and information needs increase sharply from Free→$19→$29→$89.
Strategic decision
Building a repeatable foundation first enabled efficient scaling across all service tiers:
  • Build the growth system foundation on Resume Review ($19)
  • Apply it to exsiting services: Instant Report (Free) and Resume Writing ($89)
  • Then expand to new offering: Real-time Resume Edits ($29)
System-Level Strategies
Designing Resume Services as a growth system
  • There are four stages in a user journey when getting a resume service: recognize needs, evaluate options, purchase, and view resume results.
  • Key stages are interdependent product surfaces, and improvements in one stage change constraints in others (volume, quality, delivery capacity).
Strategic decision
Building a repeatable growth systems that could scale holistically across surfaces and services for sustained throughput and ecosystem outcomes.
1
2
3
4
1
Activation
Entry points
2
Evaluation
Decision support (Homepage)
3
Purchase
Information quality + trust (Wizard funnel)
4
Post-purchase
Behavior change (Results page)
System-Level Strategies
A reusable experimentation system to scale decision quality
The growth system could only scale if decisions at each stage were tested and optimized systematically.
Strategic decision
Building a resuable experiment system that could scale across surfaces and services for faster learning and scalable optimization:
  • Identify essential units
  • Test best possible variants at the unit level
  • Introduce additional units when they add value
  • Optimize at the system level through combinations, sequence, and length
Where it applied
Evaluation stage (Homepage): Essential modules→variants→additional modules→combinations, sequence, and length
Purchase stage (Wizard Funnel): Essential inputs→variants→additional steps→combinations, sequence, and length
Growth System
Activation
Align motivation, ability, and the right prompt at high-intent moments to drive reliable activation.
Activation at high-intent moments
Judgement
Motivation peaks at specific job-seeking moments, not continuously.
Evidence
The conversion rates of over 20 sources of entry points varied dramatically across holistic job seeker user journey.
Approach
  • Add and test seven high-intent, high-impact entry points across the ecosystem
  • Design prompts to improve motivation and reduce friction in the right timing with the right messaging
Result
~400× YoY traffic growth focused on quality.
Conversion rates varied across the ecosystem
B=MAP shows behavior happens when motivation, ability, and a prompt converge at the same moment.
Ideated on motivation, ability, and prompt timing based on behavioral science
Ideated on prompt messaging from quant data analysis and customer review analysis
Tested seven high-intent, high-impact entry points across the ecosystem
Growth System
Evaluation (homepage)
An example of Resume Review($19). Support confident decisions through clear value communication & differentiation and trust.
Evaluation diagnosis and strategy
Judgement
Treat the homepage as decision support, not persuasion.
Evaluation must educate value, build trust, clarify options, and reduce decision paralysis.
Evidence
Users could not evaluate value or confidently take action:
  • 80% homepage drop-off
  • Only 25% scrolled below the fold
  • UXR results showed low value perception and weak differentiation
Strategy
  • Reduce first-fold drop-offs
  • Deliver clear value differentiation across Free→$19→$29→$89
  • Drive immediate action
  • Improve holistic value communication (in modular testing)
Reducing high drop-offs: Prioritized high-impact content above the fold
Reducing high drop-offs: Designed visual cues to encourage scrolling near the average fold
Deliver clear value differentiation: Service & Pricing after 5 iterations
Drive immediate actions: Surfacing an engaging service-start question prominently
Evaluation execution and result
Execution: Apply the experimentation system to homepage
  • Modularize the page
  • Produce multiple variants per essential module
  • Add modules only when they add value
  • Test combinations, sequence, and length to maximize value education, trust & credibility.
Result (Resume Review $19)
  • 50% increase in homepage conversion
  • Stronger value perception & differenciation and trust
"They do a pretty good job of covering everything and setting expectations. It really makes it easy to understand exactly what I'm getting and how much I’m paying. The process was very straightforward." — Usability testing participant
Modularize Homepage into two goals: value education and trust & credibility. Then test combinations, sequence, and length.
Ideated on variants per essential module
Growth System
Purchase (wizard funnel)
An example of Resume Review($19). Balance information quality, trust, and mobile effort to maximize completion and delivery health.
Purchase diagnosis and excution
Judgement
  • Design purchase as a signal-collection and seriousness-signaling layer.
  • The bottleneck was information quality and perceived value, not step count.
  • Experiments should build a solid foundation with essential inputs first, then optimize performance.
  • Essential inputs must serve users, editors, and the platform.
  • Apply behavioral science to encourage actions in each input.
Evidence
  • 97% drop-off
  • Long and frustrating flows, especially on mobile
  • Low perceived value during checkout
  • Trust and payment convenience issues
  • Low-quality inputs slowed editors
Long and frustrating 11 steps on mobile
Execution: Apply the experimentation system to wizard funnel
  • Identify four essential information inputs
  • Test variants for each essential input to improve clarity, effort, and downstream usefulness
  • After stabilizing essential inputs, add steps for deeper value communication and expectation setting
  • Test combinations, sequence, and length for best performance
Trade-offs
  • Input effort vs input quality (especially mobile)
  • Friction vs seriousness
  • Input quality vs delivery efficiency
Identify essential inputs that serve users, editors, and the platform
After stabilizing essential inputs, add new steps
Test combinations, sequence, and length for best performance: I proposed 10+ test ideas
Winning variant
Experimentation gallery
Purchase result: a solid growth system foundation
Results (Resume Review $19)
+188%
Completion
+11%
Checkout (Desktop)
+22%
Checkout (Mobile)
4.6/5
Quality rating remained high
~25%
Editor workflow faster
Scaling the growth system to existing services
A scalable foundation must transfer to higher-complexity services.
Decision
Apply the system to Resume Writing, a more expensive service with high-effort information needs and high trust and value education needs.
Strategy
  • Apply the experimentation system to this service: essential info → variant tests → new steps → combinations, sequence, and length tests
  • Add a orientation step upfront to boost value communication and trust
  • Balance high input effort with input quality by allowing users to share more info after checkout
Before
After
Results (resume writing $89)
The growth system successfully scaled to higher-complexity, higher-price services while maintaining quality and efficiency.
+355%
Completion
+68%
Checkout (Desktop)
+45%
Checkout (Mobile)
4.5/5
Quality rating remained high
25%+
Editor workflow faster
Scaling the growth system to new services
A scalable foundation must transfer to new services.
Decision
Apply the system to Real-time Resume Edits, a new offering with a higher price and service complexity.
Excution
Results(Real-time Resume Edits $29)
Held ~150 sessions successfully with a high quality customer rating 4.6/5.
Growth System
Post-purchase (results page)
Turn delivery into behavior change inside the ecosystem
Post-purchase as a behavior-change surface
Purchase completion was not success; behavior change was.
Strategy
  • Design results as actionable guidance
  • Take next steps to update resumes in Indeed Profile surface
Excution
Instant Resume Report: actionable guidance + edit resume in Indeed profile
Clear and interactive guidances on improving resumes in Resume Review recorded video
Outcomes: System-level impact
The outcome was improved system throughput and ecosystem impact across four services.
Throughput at scale (qualified demand × funnel completion × delivery capacity)
  • Helped 4M+ job seekers improve resumes
  • End-to-end conversion 0.5%→2%
  • Resume editor workflow 25%+ faster
Business outcome
  • Redesigned three services and launched a new offering
  • Revenue 8× YoY
Ecosystem impact
  • 212K new account/profile creations
  • Users 93% more likely to update resumes
  • Users 55% more likely to receive employer signals
"Those tips, programs, even the professional help and advice, really goes above and beyond what I have ever seen or been offered." – User of Indeed Resume Services
"It impacted the creativity and variety of opportunities I can think of for our funnel, and the level of testing and iteration we can do." – Product leader
What this case shows about how I work
Drive growth through activation, monetization, system design, and behavioral design
Make explicit trade-offs under real system constraints
Optimize for ecosystem-level outcomes
Balance user experience with operational efficiency