B2B SaaS
Dashboard
Requirements Engineering
In short — How I implemented employee referrals for construction companies to support employee-based recruiting in a labor-short market, in my role as Product Designer at Crafthunt, by designing a dashboard that enables B2B end users to monitor employee referrals, referred applicants, and bonus payouts directly within the existing applicant tracking system (ATS).
Problem Context — The construction sector in Germany is facing a shortage of skilled workers.
One contributing factor is a skill mismatch, where labor supply and demand do not align qualitatively. While academic career paths are overrepresented, handcraft and technical professions remain understaffed.
This situation is further exacerbated by a demographically driven labor shortage. Fewer young people are entering the labor market, leading to noticeable recruitment gaps in the construction and skilled trades sector.
As a result, many vocational training and entry-level positions remain unfilled. For construction companies, this creates the need for alternative recruiting incentives beyond traditional job postings.
Design Process — To define the functional requirements for an employee referral integration, I facilitated a structured workshop with a partner construction company. My responsibility included workshop preparation, facilitation, synthesis of findings, and concept development.
During the workshop, we identified both core and advanced system requirements. Core functionality focused on the creation of referral cases, including the relevant data inputs. Advanced requirements addressed the need for a continuous overview of referral performance and user-relevant metrics, such as referred applicants, successful hires, and bonus payouts.
A key internal constraint was that the referral functionality had to integrate seamlessly into the existing ATS. This constraint required a solution that extends current workflows rather than introducing a separate system.
The concept was developed within a focused design sprint and iterated in close alignment with product management and the development team to ensure feasibility.
Outcome — At the core of the information architecture, each referral is consistently linked to a specific applicant and application. As a result, the referral creation flow was integrated directly into the job application context.
The dashboard for overview and tracking of employee referrals follows a clear information hierarchy:
High-level KPIs such as referred applicants and bonus payouts are presented at the top.
Customizable charts provide insights into referral activity per employee.
A detailed table view enables tracking of individual referral cases and their current status.
The final design allows construction companies to manage employee referrals directly within the existing ATS and to track referral performance at a glance while maintaining transparency at the operational level.