Creating a mobile app to help young professionals land their dream job
Transforming a career coach's expertise into a scalable digital product
Archer's founder wanted to turn her decades of career coaching expertise into a digital business
The Archer Career Checklist, winner of the 2023 EdTech Breakthrough award.
Over 20,000 users and growing with partnerships at over 50 colleges and universities.
“It is hard to feel that a service provider cares as much about your business as you do. Without question - Highland did. What set them apart for our project was that they absolutely worked to create the deliverable that exceeded our expectations.”
Archer Career Services works to solve the challenges job seekers face by simplifying the job search process and providing helpful resources, with a particular focus on master’s degree students and highly competitive career paths.
The team at Archer approached Highland for help turning decades of career and job search coaching expertise into a digital business. We worked together to harness the expertise of their in-person career gurus and launch a digital product that would help them scale.
The digital product we designed has now been used by over 20,000 alumni at over 50 colleges and universities. The Archer Career app was named the Career Readiness Platform of the Year in 2023 in the EdTech Breakthrough Awards.
Testing if an in-person service is desirable in a digital format
We began with a design sprint involving the kinds of masters-level students Archer most wanted to reach with a digital product. This initial sprint generated the first product prototype in less than a week, an allowed us to get clear on questions around product desirability, to see if career searchers would actually be interested in the kind of digital product Archer wanted to build.
Designing for simplicity in a highly complex journey
Having established that students did find a digital product desirable, we were able to narrow down our questions and focus our testing.
We created a series of rapid prototypes exploring how to best organize the complex set of advice, guidance, tasks, and measurements that made up Archer’s expertise in career guidance and job search services.
By building and testing every 3-4 days, we were able to learn and adapt quickly, emphasizing designs and ideas that worked well and discarding those that didn’t.
Generating enthusiasm from future buyers
Archer was able to use the final prototype to generate enthusiasm and interest from major universities–who had no comparable service to offer to their students–even before development of the digital product was complete. This early enthusiasm set the stage for the rapid growth to come.
Scaling to tens of thousands of users and beyond
Archer has established partnerships with prestigious schools across the country, and has now been used by over 20,000 alumni to prepare for their career search and land jobs at top-choice employers. Archer’s college and university customers include Harvard, University of Chicago, Babson, and more.
