Problem
College career fairs can quickly become overcrowded and unorganized despite all the efforts of the organizers. When half a university is crammed into a gymnasium, naturally, all order is thrown out the window. Lines to speak to recruiters can get unpredictably long, making it difficult for students to efficiently plan their career fair agenda. At the same time, it is a nightmare for a recruiter to see a queue with no end in sight.
My two teammates and I chose to tackle this problem in a 24-hour timeframe for submission to HackMIT.
Solution
Connec is a web application that helps facilitate career fairs and eliminate overcrowding by automating the queuing system.
Students can electronically join the queues of companies they're interested in (up to 5 at a time) and track their positions in real-time. When they are close to the front of a queue, a reminder is text-messaged to them.
On the other end, recruiters can create virtual lines for students to see and join. During a career fair, a specialized screen presents essential information such as student names and the queue length. When a recruiter is done speaking with a student, a mere click of a button updates the queue.
My Role
I conducted research on similar services like help desk queues. Using that information, I created a list of essential features and organized them into user flow diagrams. Then, I drew out wireframes and digitalized prototypes in Sketch and InVision. Finally, I coded the front-end of the web-app and helped to present to the HackMIT panelists.
