Introduction
For 15 years, the enterprise recruiting systems used by the USMC went largely unchanged. What began as a monolithic solution evolved into a patchwork of eight separate applications, all shaped by operational workarounds rather than user needs.
My role began with a single system redesign. It ended with a complete design realignment of the entire enterprise suite, informed by research, structured thinking, and ruthless friction reduction.
The Recruitment Application is used by 4,000+ recruiters daily. Originally built when door-knocking was the norm, it was burdened by obsolete workflows and entrenched user habits.
The challenge: Rebuild this system from scratch. Without alienating users conditioned to its flaws and lay the groundwork for a unified ecosystem.
Key Principles
Show age, not date of birth — eliminate unnecessary cognitive steps.
Flag anomalies visibly — reduce decision paralysis.
Minimize onboarding — make functionality self-evident at a glance.
Leverage repetition — eliminate waste in high-volume interactions.
enterprise unification
My design approach is influenced by Larry Marine’s “Disruptive Research” model. It favors foundational change over incremental tweaks; built on ethnographic research, domain literacy, and questioning defaults.
We didn’t just modernize old patterns. We questioned whether those patterns should exist at all. But we did it within the constraints of military doctrine. Studying recruiting SOPs to ensure full compliance with USMC policies and secure information handling.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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