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© 2026 MangoCoders. All rights reserved.
© 2026 MangoCoders. All rights reserved.
BlackNorth Connect is a web-based opportunity and career-connection platform built for the BlackNorth Initiative, in partnership with Ontario Power Generation, to connect Black Canadian students and professionals directly with corporate employers. It acts as a one-stop-shop bringing together job postings, internships, early-career recruitment, mentorship programs, scholarships, and bursaries in a single platform.
Candidates can create profiles, browse and apply for opportunities, and connect with mentors, while partner organizations can post openings and engage talent. The platform is built around a secure server with role-based access for candidates, employers/partners, and admins, with APIs powering both the candidate-facing site and the admin/employer dashboards.
The Issue At Hand
Black Canadian students and professionals lacked a centralized, equitable way to access jobs, internships, mentorship, scholarships, and bursaries, opportunities were scattered across separate employer sites and programs with no single point of entry.
The BlackNorth Initiative needed a platform that brought all of these opportunity types together, gave candidates a streamlined application experience, and gave employer/partner organizations a way to post and manage openings and engage talent directly.
The platform also needed secure, role-based authentication so candidates, employers/partners, and admins each had access to only what was relevant to them, along with an admin dashboard for managing users, opportunities, partners, and reporting, all built to scale reliably during high-traffic recruitment campaigns.
A centralized, equitable platform giving Black Canadians access to jobs, internships, mentorship, scholarships, and bursaries.
Candidate profiles and a streamlined application process for opportunities.
Employer/partner portal to post and manage jobs, internships, and programs.
Mentorship matching between candidates and mentors.
Scholarship and bursary listings with application and eligibility handling.
Role-based access control for candidates, employers/partners, and admins with secure authentication.
Admin dashboard to manage users, opportunities, partners, and reporting.
Search, filtering, and categorization of opportunities across industries.
Scalable, reliable handling of high traffic during recruitment campaigns.
Our Collaboration
Phase 1
Discover
Phase 2
Design
Phase 3
Build
Phase 4
Deliver
While analyzing the requirements, the core challenge identified was modeling several distinct opportunity types — jobs, internships, mentorships, scholarships, and bursaries — under one flexible system, while keeping the application flows clean for each. Research showed the data model needed to be normalized and extensible so new program types and partners could be added without rework.
Key Activities
Opportunity Data Modeling
Identified the need for a normalized, extensible data model capable of representing jobs, internships, mentorships, scholarships, and bursaries under a single flexible system, while keeping each opportunity type's application flow clean and distinct.
Granular Role-Based Permissions
Determined that role-based permissions had to be granular, with candidates, employers/partners, and admins each seeing different capabilities, leading to the design of an extensible access model from the outset.
Equitable Access Considerations
Reviewing the platform's goals around equitable access guided early decisions on accessibility, mobile responsiveness, clear application status tracking, pagination, and caching strategy for read-heavy listing pages.
Scalability for Recruitment Campaigns
Recognized that the platform needed to reliably handle high traffic during recruitment campaigns, informing decisions around caching and pagination for opportunity listings.
Delivered
Public Opportunity Discovery Homepage
A conversion-focused public homepage surfacing 3,155+ live opportunities, featured candidates, partner logos, and direct CTAs to find an opportunity or become a mentor.
Personalized Candidate Dashboard
A home dashboard greeting candidates by name with ranked job matches, profile completion prompts, and an activity panel tracking saved jobs, applications, and mentor connections.
Mentor Directory & Matching
A searchable mentor network filterable by skill and language, with detailed mentor cards showing experience, specialties, and a direct request-to-connect flow.
Job Search & Applications
A full job feed with search and filtering by type, language, and date posted, plus dedicated Saved Jobs and Applied Jobs tabs for tracking candidate activity.
Company Directory
A company-first browsing experience listing every partner and employer with industry, open role counts, descriptions, and location — an alternate path to discovering opportunities.
Profile Builder & Account Settings
A guided profile builder for bio, skills, and mentorship skills, paired with full account settings for personal info, security, notifications, and mentorship preferences.
Gallery
Built with:
“
This platform exceeded our expectations. The team took a complex challenge, bringing jobs, mentorship, and scholarships together for our community, and delivered a secure, scalable system that just works. The role-based dashboards for candidates, employers, and admins are exactly what we needed, and their communication throughout every milestone was excellent. A true partner in bringing our vision to life.
— Blacknorth Connect Client
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