SUMMARY
As ambitious international design students, we came to the U.S. seeking career opportunities but found it challenging to break into New York City’s competitive job market. The issue wasn’t our skills—it was the lack of platforms to showcase our work and connect with opportunities. Through research, we found this struggle common in the creative industry, where networking and collaboration often fall short. Resultantly, we created Talentloop to facilitate the networking and connection building process throughout every milestone in a Gen Z’s creative journey
challenge
By researching Gen-Z creatives and freelancers through surveys, interviews, and journey mapping, we uncovered major pain points: lack of trust in existing platforms, overstimulation from inefficient networking, limited collaboration experience, and difficulty forming connections that lead to opportunities. From here, our insights included that Gen-Z creatives often set ambitious career goals, strongly value peers’ networks, and rely on schools or friends for connections. Our competitive benchmarking revealed gaps in areas like portfolio display, real-time collaboration tools, and cross-discipline networking, which we began to explore.
Outcome
Through research, testing, and feedback, we developed Talentloop—a platform that combines all the essentials for Gen Z to create, connect, and collaborate, whether they have zero portfolio items or a million LinkedIn connections. Features like cross-collaboration hubs, AI project prompts, interactive portfolios, and creative matchmaking empower users at every career milestone. Talentloop uniquely blends the professionalism of LinkedIn with the playfulness of Tinder and Instagram’s aesthetics, offering a familiar, engaging, and functional networking experience for Gen Z creatives.
MEET THE Designers:
Khadija Gamal
Nil Yalman