As part of VONQ’s Hiring API (HAPI), there are two methods for finding and selecting a respective board/channel. There is a direct Product Search function, and a Recommendations search function. The difference between these is that the former will return direct match results, while the latter utilizes categorizations to return recommended products/channels to the user.
Product Search
When the Product Search is utilized, the HAPI endpoint takes the user’s input and returns direct product/channel matches based on the name or description. This allows the user to have an experience where they can quickly search for a specific board or channel and add it to their cart.
Product Recommendations
Recommendations, on the other hand, require Job Function and Location information to be entered in order to produce channels that are good fits for the respective role being advertised. This is how HAPI can push new, high-performing boards to the user that they previously might have been unaware of.
Why are there both options?
Our approach for these two alternative paths is to provide options to the user. By providing a method to find a specific job board or channel via a search bar, while separately offering recommendations based on more broad categorizations about the role, our HAPI endpoints can fulfill users’ needs for the situation at hand without over-complicating their experience.
How to best implement?
Keeping this in mind, it is our recommendation to make it clear how each of these search methods works independently in order to simplify and streamline the user experience. Separating these into individual sections can make it clear to the user that utilizing the Product Search bar will return direct match results that do not take into account the categorization criteria that might be selected. This will result in a better utilization and eliminates some potential confusion that the user might experience should these search functions be combined and placed next to each other.