DGB Jobs Is Going To Get A Refresh

DGB Jobs has been going for a few months now. I initially launched it as a trial to see if people would actually use it. It’s fair to say that it went very well, with dozens of job vacancies uploaded in the first few weeks. Because of that, I kept it live and declared it a permanent feature on DGB.

Since then, it has continued to grow still, with a steady stream of new vacancies, being uploaded for free by various companies in the UK window and door industry.

However, it has grown quicker than I thought it would, and it has overtaken me a little. I fully intend to keep it a part of the wider DGB ecosystem, but if it is to continue to be useful to people and companies, I’m going to need to make a few changes.

Tweaks and changes ahead

I need to really update the user experience (UX) of DGB Jobs as it grows. There are going to be more and more job listings on there so I need to make it easier for people to navigate through the listings. The listed way I display them at the moment won’t work for too much longer.

So, I have been looking into a slider system. A way for people to either swipe or click their way across the job listings in similar fashion to an image slider like this:

If I can get individual job listings to be displayed on the page like this then I think this will make navigating through the various listings much easier. The one downside to that is that it won’t display every single live vacancy like it does now. I risk older vacancies that are still live being relegated to the back, risking never being seen. So I need to find a way to make sure all live vacancies get a chance to be shown.

The newest jobs will always appear at the beginning of the new format, whatever that ends up being. And for now I am going to hold of monetizing the service. I said at the beginning that I am not doing this for the money, rather, to try and help at least one or two people and companies get the word out there that they need people.

I am also going to try and set up a system where people can create an account on DGB Jobs where they will get access to upload new vacancies, take down old or filled positions, edit current ones etc. I did try to do this at the very start however some of the systems I experimented with caused havoc in the back end of DGB so I opted for the more labour intensive option to manually upload the vacancies as they sent to me. Not ideal, and something I can get behind on if work gets particularly busy. I am going to look at this area once again to see if I can create a solid user system.

One other new feature I am thinking about but have not yet decided on is an area where people can advertise themselves as looking for a job. So it would be two-fold. DGB Jobs could in the future advertise live job vacancies at companies, but also advertise people who are either out of work in our sector or are looking for a new direction in UK fenestration. I have not yet decided on this yet as I still have to look into ways to make this an engaging part of DGB Jobs and one that can be run well and efficiently.

Generally, my task is to improve the UX and management of the system to help it grow further and become a useful tool to those who decide to use it. I have been surprised at how well used it has been in the early months, which might have caught me off-guard a little. But it’s all good, and I’ll be implementing some of these changes in the coming weeks.

Of course, all feedback and comments are very welcome via the section below.