2. Interviewee profile
• Name: Michael
• Age: 27
• Major: Bachelor of Government and Law (graduated this summer)
• Job status: entrepreneurial job on social innovation (a startup team
he has been working with for a year, before he graduated);
freelance magician
• Past working experience: 2 internships (through personal
connection): Legal firm, politician’s assistant
• His interests: Magic performance & Psychology, Public Speaking &
Debating, Current affairs and political matters
• His strengths: Magic techniques, Speech crafting, communication,
Experience design
• Remark: His GPA is quite low; still exploring his long term career
choice.
3. Empathy Map - Say
- Work is how you see your value in society
- How much you worth
- Work is my way to contribute to society
constructively ( I am an altruist)
- I want to do something that I am good at, can
do a better job than others.
- I want to feel I am needed
4. - Realistically, financial independence is a must
- I want to free from my parents’ help
- Finally my parents no need to take care of me
- I want to free their burden
- For short term, if it satisfied financial needs, I don’t
care what job it is as long as I am capable to do.
- Work is a means to achieve financial independence
Empathy Map - Say
5. Empathy Map- Say
- Since my GPA is quite low, I got shortlisted
away in the first round of application. Jobs are
only for the bright. There are no jobs for other
tiers of students.
- I feel I cheated because of using personal
connection to get a job
- I need to prove that I deserve this
placement/ position
6. - It is hard to systematically find out one’s
ability
- Hard to self discover own talent (only self
belief and perception from past experience)
Empathy Map - Say
7. Empathy - Think
• GPA are inevitable measurable standard for oneself, it can
reflect his legal related ability (but only legal, not other
abilities).
• Competing for jobs is inevitable. But the universities’ supply
of job choices are only favorable to the bright, neglecting
the needs of the less capable students.
• I want to go through a fair competition and formal process
of recruitment, but the current system does not let me.
• I need to justify that I got a job because I am capable and
better than others.
• I want to be secured about my abilities.
• How do I be sure about what abilities I have and
demonstrate to others so that they could notice?
8. Empathy - Feel
• Feel frustrated for being left out in the current
job hunting system
• Can only self-blame for not performing well
academically
• Feel shameful of getting a job through
personal connection
• Feel insecure/ uncertain about what abilities
he has, and struggle to demonstrate them so
that other would see.
9. Insights
• Universities has incentives to serve bright students and neglect the
needs of the less well-performing students by promoting highly
rated firms job opportunities.
• Low performing students (academically) have difficulty to display
their strengths and work capability to employers
• GPA may not be representative to prove one’s ability if the student
is not seeking for the same field of work as their studies.
• How to portray/ demonstrate the ability and value of oneself?
• GPA – work ability gap (academic vs. work e.g. soft skills required)
• The match of the ability/ type of talent needed (candidates and
employers)
10. Problem statement
• Michael, a law graduate with relatively low
GPA, who wants a non-legal job needs a
systematic way to display his non- academic
work abilities to employers because the
current university job hunting system only
allow bright students with high GPA to get the
jobs, while GPA/ CV may not represent the
skillsets and qualities a graduate has that an
employer requires.
