Senior UX Researcher
CURRENT SITUATION
We’re looking for a Senior UX Researcher to define and execute various research strategies and activities. This includes discovering a deeper understanding of users to reveal what is desirable by conducting research, working with cross-functional teams, and performing usability studies. These responsibilities involve inspiring change, delivering oral and written presentations, and evaluating qualitative and quantitative data.
Your UX research will be essential in enabling product and design teams to make informed, confident decisions. We’re looking for an eager and passionate Senior UX Researcher who will speak for our customers and engage and support in design thinking activities when necessary. This opportunity is 90% remote and does not require you to be located in any particular region. However, you will need access to our Mississauga head office once a month. We welcome applicants from throughout Toronto and the GTA.
You will be reporting to the Senior Design Lead.
As we navigate transformation and into the execution stage - every employee from mid to senior level is doing something new every day. We’ve built from the ground up different areas of the business. Cross-functional courage to work cross-functionally to go above and beyond what a 'typical" user experience researcher would do. You don’t have to have extensive user research experience but are keen to grow in this discipline.
BACKGROUND
In business since 1965, The Client is owned and operated by a not-for-profit foundation which instills in us a true purpose-led mandate of helping more students get to and through post-secondary education successfully. Our profits are reinvested in the foundation to create more programs and resources that help students prepare, stay strong, and be job-ready for their future.
We’re on a journey to create an entirely new student experience. One that is built on instilling confidence in students around the paths they are choosing and their ability and agency to achieve their goals for the future. As enablers and orchestrators of students’ success, we will create access, affordability and agency for students and their champions across our services and solutions. This will provide them with guidance and support in all aspects of planning and saving for post-secondary education - giving them a future-ready advantage and help them thrive well past their educational journey.
With over $7 billion in assets under management (as of December 31, 2020), we are Canada’s largest RESP company. Everything we do at The Company is in service to our students. We firmly believe that access to education is a basic right and pride ourselves on equipping our students and champions with the means to ensure a brighter financial future. We manage RESPs for more than 600,000 students and each year approximately 60,000 of them attend post-secondary with the help of one of our plans. There are 1.2 million champions and beneficiaries, $7 billion in assets under management and helped 60,000 students through PSE every year.
What makes us qualified to do this?
We are a diverse and passionate community of experts that firmly believes in the benefits of education, priding ourselves on helping to shape their future and empowering them to reach their full potential.
As we move forward, we will leverage and build upon our unmatched expertise in the RESP space to propel both our students and our company forward, ensuring a better tomorrow. Our vision is set, our future is bright, and we’re just getting started.
Culture
The Company’s culture has changed in the last few years and for the better. It started with CEO’s arrival in 2020, she is the visionary behind the new digital strategy and leadership team that was put in place and accelerated by the pandemic. They needed a change to navigate to where they wanted to be for their purpose. Being owned by a foundation brings more sense of ownership and accountability across the entire company. They all feel like they are a part of something bigger.
A word on the design thinking practice. The Senior Design Lead has been a big advocate to develop design thinking tools and practices across the Product Design Team and involving the management and executive teams. The practice of understanding user behaviour, gathering digital insights and knowledge about their customers has been widely embraced across the organization.
JOB REQUIREMENTS & EXPECTATIONS
Responsibilities:
Lead research activities for multiple initiatives across different channels.
Collaborate with stakeholders. Build and maintain relationships with designers, product managers, and leadership to determine research needs and timelines.
Determine, plan and recommend the most efficient and effective user-centred research approaches (qualitative and quantitative) to solve product and design needs and uncover actionable customer insights.
Recruit and schedule suitable research participants.
Independently conduct research using interviews, surveys, usability tests, and web analytics to explore user behaviours and pain points.
Analyze and synthesize research data to uncover insights and make recommendations.
Socialize research insights and findings to product managers and designers to guide product design and strategic decisions.
Help develop user journeys and personas.
Define a research roadmap by understanding product vision and priorities.
WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR
5+ years of hands-on research and product planning experience, with demonstrated skill in collecting and analyzing human behavioural data to improve plans and UX in a technology industry setting.
Degree in human-computer interaction, human factors, cognitive/experimental psychology, or interaction design.
Experience with usertesting.com or similar platforms.
Comfortable working remotely.
Strong understanding of the various tools and methods needed to do a UX researcher job, including experience creating a variety of research deliverables and artifacts such as presentation decks/reports, insights, and journey maps and using tools such as usertesting.com, userinterviews.com, Condens, and optimal workshop.
Able to skillfully conduct semi-structured 1:1 interviews with a variety of users.
Experience running remote research and workshops.
Able to work within time constraints, to move quickly from planning to completing a project.
Location
You’ll work remotely, however, the GTA is the preferred location.
Additional Company Benefits
This has been a tested and learned process. People who have joined us are here for a purpose. We are lifelong learners, and want to create a safe environment for our employees. We all make mistakes, but we learn from them and move on.
Competitive salary
95% remote work environment with 1 day a month going into the office.
3 weeks vacation
Fitness reimbursement
COVID-19 Vaccination
All employees are required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of hire in accordance with the Company's Mandatory Vaccination Policy.
Accommodation Individuals Who Cannot Be Vaccinated
The Company is committed to a workplace free from discrimination and harassment in accordance with Ontario human rights laws. Candidates who provide a medical or religious reasoning for not having received a COVID-19 vaccine, will be assisted by the Company in developing and implementing an appropriate accommodation. Accommodations will be granted where they do not cause the Company undue hardship or pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others.
Equal Opportunity Employer
We are committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible environment, where all employees and customers feel valued, respected, and supported. We are dedicated to building a culture that reflects the diversity of our customers and the communities in which we live and serve. If you require an accommodation for the recruitment/interview process (including alternate formats of materials, or accessible meeting rooms or other accommodation), please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.
MUST HAVE/NICE TO HAVE
Must have:
User research experience: You use a research-based approach to building digital products by taking the guess work out of product decisions and bringing this to the product team. You’re a strong facilitator and well versed in all areas of user research.
Digital product experience: facilitating journey mapping and design exercises. Run customers and employees through design sprints.
Self-starter: You are a self-starter, engaged, and learn on your own. You want to do your job, and you require no hand holding. You have an interest to step up and are fiercely independent.
Business strategy mindset: You’re able to think strategically and have the ability to problem solve.
Willingness to learn: You are motivated to learn, make mistakes and move forward. We want you to never stop learning.
Excellent communications skills: Ability to communicate insights, concepts, and design decisions clearly and persuasively to different audiences at all levels of the organization.
Culture fit: You’re entrepreneurial, supportive, and collaborative and you have no ego.
Teamwork sills: Works well remotely and can collaborate with teams.
Tools: Experience with Usertesting.com, recruitment and prototyping and Userinterviews.com.
Nice to have:
Experience within design thinking practices
Journey mapping experience
Financial experience
Visual design experience
PERSONALITY/FIT/SOFT SKILLS
Candidates must have the following soft skills:
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment: Quickly adapt to changing requirements and priorities.
Open and receptive to feedback: Fit into our culture of continuous and honest feedback. Egos don’t exist here.
Willingness to learn: Given the small team, we need resources that can learn on the job and grow with the team. You need to be independent to make decisions on your own, and not be afraid to take risks or make mistakes.
Sense of ownership and accountability: Believes that their job matters and take ownership of their work.
Apply Now
Apply on LinkedIn or by sending an e-mail to adrienne@ariagency.ca