Process-related issues / Webservice
It is necessary to anticipate – and provide solutions for – process-related issues.
Some, which I could anticipate at this stage are:
→ Online Registration (as a Subscriber) & automatic “Activation”
Although we will give lots of demos on the ground, I presume, a subscriber would need to register ONLINE only, where/when he would be allotted a UNIQUE Customer No. (online).
Since we do not at present envisage online payment mechanism, all that a customer can enter in the online registration form is:
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Cheque No / DD No / Wire Transfer No & date
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His bank details
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Our bank details (downloaded)
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Amount: (option → Indian Rupees [chosen] → US Dollars)
We may decide to “activate” the account as soon as – and as long as – above-mentioned details of payment are mentioned, without waiting for confirmation from our bankers.
If we do not receive the confirmation from our banker within 10 days of activation, we could always “de-activate” the account with an intimation to the client.
An automatic email would need to go out to our banker as soon as an account/customer no. is allotted online. This email would contain payment-details mentioned above, asking our banker to confirm within 7 days. This would work in case of “wire transfer.”
In those cases, where a client sends cheque/DD directly to us through courier, we have to deposit ourselves in the bank.
If we do not receive the cheque/DD within 7 days, we should send an email to the client (in addition to phoning), saying: We are deactivating the account and that we will reactivate it as soon as we receive the cheque/DD.
(Of course, anyone can use our webservice, for 1 month (or so) without entering payment details when he clicks on “DEMO” version [after filling rest of the Registration Form]).
→ Payment Options & Transaction Tariff
We shall permit a client to make payment in Indian Rupees or in US $, by clicking on appropriate “option” button in Registration Form. Depending upon option selected, corresponding “Tariff Table” will get displayed, so that he knows how much he would be paying for each transaction, in Rupees or in dollars.
US $ payment option will enable us to keep track of “Foreign Exchange” earned by our webservice at any point of time, for any given period, from any given country. Our ADMIN TOOL / STATISTICS TOOL shall keep track of these (and of course, display whenever we wish to see).
These statistics will be a very useful info/data for a future IPO / strategic investor / VC funding / foreign listing, even claiming Income Tax exemption (currently 100% of revenue) by saying that this (service) is “SERVICE EXPORT”, very much like deputing software engineers abroad.
AND that this SERVICE was actually rendered beyond the shores of India (in case server was located abroad?).
→ Database residing on Client’s Server
We have decided to offer this option to those clients who so decide. But even in this case, the basic revenue-model shall remain the same, viz:
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Prepaid Service
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Pay-per-Use
There should be no exception to this, because we simply will not have the manpower to raise invoices & then chase clients for “outstandings”! We would end up with huge outstanding/collection and go bust! We would rather forgo such business—no matter how big the client. If our product/service is extraordinary & vastly improves client’s productivity/profitability, then “prepaid” condition will not pose any problem.
That means, technologically, you will need to figure out a solution that is not only completely “transparent” but also “acceptable” to the client, which does not compromise the integrity of his database.
→ Commission / Brokerage
Provision would need to be made for payment of commission/brokerage, to any no. of companies/agents. Again such % commission will differ from Agent to Agent.
I can anticipate following scenarios:
# Worldwide “Marketing Rights”
If companies like Microsoft / Oracle / BAAN / SAP / PeopleSoft, get interested in:
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Marketing our Webservice as a standalone serviceOR
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Integrating our service as an integral part of their own “product offering”
From our point of view, this would be an ideal solution as far as marketing is concerned, which is, in any case, not our “core competence.”
# Regional “Marketing Rights”
This would be a subset of earlier proposition. Eg: MonsterIndia may want to market our “service” within India, since 600 corporates already “advertise” their vacancies regularly on their website and therefore receive thousands of email resumes daily. These 600 are already their existing clients & it would be easy for Monster to promote RESUME/RESEARCH as one more “Value-Added” service to these existing clients.
MonsterIndia may even think/feel that by offering such “Value-Added” service, they could expand their client-base to 6000 companies!
The big 600 clients may have some or other conversion/extraction/search software but there are thousands others who do NOT. By offering our service, Monster could entice them to become clients.
# Tie-ups with Trade Bodies / Professional Bodies
Trade Bodies
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CII / FICCI / ASSOCHAM / NASSCOM / MAIT etc.
Professional Bodies
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National HRD Network / NIPM / Inst. of Engineers etc.
If these “bodies” are impressed with our service, they could consider promoting it amongst their member-companies, in return for a “commission.”
Of course, in each such case, the ultimate member/client will have to be a “COMPANY” and not an individual.
# Tie-up with Consultants (KPMG / PWC / McKinsey etc.)
# Tie-up with Associations such as “PENHRYNE”
There are Recruiter / Placement Firms / Executive-Search Firms Associations in many countries. These associations of firms represent thousands of recruiting companies.
It is quite possible that recruitment firms around the world eventually become our biggest “market-segment.” Such associations may demand a commission to promote our services amongst their “member-firms.”
# Tie-up with Jobsites
Is it thinkable that Naukri / JobsAhead / Jobstreet / Jobsdb / Sampoorna etc. could also get interested in some “arrangement” with us? How would they stand to gain (read, “make money”) by promoting our service?
If we can find a way by which jobsites can make lots of money by offering our Resume / Research services, then they would certainly “bite the bait”!
We must remember that there are maybe 30,000 job sites in the world.
For the websites (jobsites), ability to offer such a “service” could prove to be an important Competitive Advantage.
Since, as of now, I cannot see someone like Microsoft / SAP taking up our worldwide marketing “rights”, we must pursue the strategy of “Viral Marketing” through a series of alliances of the kinds mentioned above. Therefore, we will not exclude:
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Competing “Jobsites” (Naukri / JobsAhead / Monster)
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Competing “Associations” (like Penrhryne / Foster Partners)
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Competing “Trade Bodies” (CII / NASSCOM / ASSOCHAM)
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Competing “Prof. Bodies” (NIPM / National HRD Network) etc.
All that we will do is to provide a “field” in our REGISTRATION FORM, where a subscriber company will enter as follows:
We decided to subscribe to this service based on recommendation/promotion by
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NIPM ⭘
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ASSOCHAM ⭘
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PENRHYNE ⭘
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FOSTER PARTNER ⭘
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Naukri ⭘
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JobsAhead ⭘
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None of the above ⭘
Such an arrangement (of self-declaration by the subscriber himself) is absolutely essential, because, it is very likely that:
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A given company is a member of both ASSOCHAM & CII, NIPM & National HRD Network, etc.
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It may receive “promotional letters” from both.
We cannot “assume” that the company acted upon advice/recommendation of X association or Y association! Once a company itself “declares,” there is no dispute.
We become completely transparent and we can permit each ALLY ASSOCIATION/BODY to view the list of all those companies which ticked ⭘ “their” name.
Going further (on transparency issue), we can/should allow each such ALLY to view:
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All payments made to 3P by those companies who ticked ⭘ on their name.
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All “transactions” values of each of these companies.
To encourage such Trade Bodies / Associations / Jobsites / Allies to aggressively market our services, we may agree to pay them their “commission-cheque” as soon as we receive our Prepaid Service Fees (– not “Activation Fees”). Commission will be % of service fees only.
Since we are getting paid (by the subscriber) in advance, let us also pay our “Agents” in advance!
This means, even though the subscriber uses our service over a period of 6 months (based on prepaid amount), our “Agent” gets paid right up front!
This would encourage our AGENT to:
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Aggressively promote our service amongst his members
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Ensure that every “member” firm clicks ⭘ against his (Agent’s) name in the registration form
This is because of our PRINCIPLES of:
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First come first served (self-declaration)
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Once a subscriber company has clicked ⭘ against the name of a given “Agent,” it cannot change/alter this later – as long as it retains the same unique CUSTOMER No. (but it can discontinue/re-register/get a new No.!)
I suppose, Reji / Deepa could be asked to develop the Registration Forms and its related software/databases. Deepa can start from Feb. 21st, as soon as her present assignment gets over.
By end of this week, I will also give you designs of:
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“Statistics” pages (separate for a subscriber / Admin Tools / 3P etc.)
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Webservice homepage
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Write-up for PowerPoint slides
After that, I will take up:
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Introduction email
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“Service-Contract”
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FAQ
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Schedule of series of DEMOS to select companies
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Draft of “Agency Agreements” (for ALLIES)
If anybody is (even) likely to fall behind his/her target/schedule, I would appreciate being informed beforehand – not after the deadline has passed!
Functional Specifications
In my yesterday’s note, I have mentioned about 3 screens, viz:
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DEMO Screen
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EDIT Screen
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VIEW Screen
I also talked about constructing these in a MODULAR way, so that we could have several building-blocks (screens), which we can re-combine as we want, to create any desired screen.
Enclosed find my suggestion on how we could try to achieve this.
You will notice that I have added one more screen called “Rating Page”. This will form part of VIEW Screen, when a HR manager:
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Conducts a “Search”
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Sees “short Display” of search-results
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Clicks on a “View” button against name of any particular candidate (record) & views resume (so we can make money!)
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Decides to email the View Screen to a colleague (or several colleagues) for reading/assessing/filling-in Rating page & return emailing (so we make some more money!!)
OR
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Finds missing “fields” & decides to email to concerned candidate (with a covering note) asking him to fill-in & return (if he wishes to be considered for this position).(So we continue to make money, every time email button is clicked!)
OR
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Finds everything (all fields) are in order/complete, but finds that the extracted resume is 3 YEAR OLD (we should highlight the “DATE” somewhere, so that the obsoleteness of the resume becomes loud & clear). And therefore, the HR manager wants the concerned candidate to UPDATE / EDIT, so he once again clicks email (of course with a provision for a STANDARD covering letter).(Some more money!)
Whereas,
We may charge only Rs. 10 for extraction & another Rs. 10 for “Search.”
Second thing which I now propose, is to remove/eliminate “COMPETENCE-PROFILE” from the EDIT Screen.
In my yesterday’s note, I said, even this (Competence Profile) will be part of EDIT screen & get e-mailed to concerned jobseeker.
Now, I would like to reserve this feature to only our own website.
That is,
When a jobseeker directly submits his plain text email resume on our website, he can see/download/printout his “Competency Profile.”
But, he will NOT get his “Competency Profile” in following cases:
① When one of our subscriber company sends (emails) EDIT Screen to him for updating & returning.
② When we convert (i.e. extract) & upload all the 80,000+ email resumes (that we have accumulated over the years) on our website and an automatic email goes out to the concerned candidate with the EDIT screen.
We may give him a hint that had he submitted his resume DIRECTLY on our website, he could have also got his Competency Profile!
Of course this (approach) throws up a possibility, that all those 80,000 (+2000 which we hope to receive daily under our Project Manhattan) may ONCE AGAIN resubmit their simple/plain text email resumes directly on our website – in order to get a copy of their “Competency Profile.”
There could be a huge amount of duplication.
Of course, no one knows for sure what can/will happen with each web-initiative. We would need to “feel” our way as we go along, and be ready to change course, at short notice.
✍️ (signature mark)
Kartavya
➤ Extraction / Mining
From unstructured email resumes, RESUMINE should be capable of extracting specified information and create a structured Database, which lends itself to search, using various Fields as “Search-Parameters.”
Info to be extracted will also contain important / critical / frequently occurring keywords. It will also extract “least frequently occurring keywords” (for the purpose of Profile Enhancer).
➤ Database Search
Webservice must have a Search Engine which can search the structured database (created thru RESUMINE), using a wide variety of “Search-Parameters.”
The search could be sequential or parallel. There should be a Refined Search feature.
It should also be possible to search the database using keywords / words (text).
Functional Exposure
➤ Competence Profile
The software should be capable of generating graphical “Competence Profiles” based on:
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List of predefined “Functions”
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List of important “Keywords” appearing in each function
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Probabilities of occurrence of these keywords in an incoming resume
➤ Display
The software should be able to display as per following screens (UI):
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“Demo” Screen
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“Edit-cum-ARGIS” Screen
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“View/Display” Screen
Demo Screen
This screen will be used for demo purpose only.
In left-hand vertical bar will be “fields”-names. The fields which cannot be captured will light up in RED, giving clear indication of Failure. For rest of the fields, where data/value has been successfully captured,
Keywords extracted & displayed in the right-hand column:
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Shall not exceed 20
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Shall get arranged in the same order in which these occur in the body of the resume
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From top to bottom, the keywords shall fill up the vertical bar one-at-a-time, in a sequence, as each keyword is “snatched” from the body of the resume.
Moving the cursor on any keyword shall light up/redden the corresponding value in the body of the resume.
The right-hand part of the DEMO screen will display the competence profile bars (horizontally).
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Name of function should appear within (inside) the bar
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% (percentage) value should appear on the right-hand of each bar, in a different colour
A maximum of 5 competence bars...
May be accommodated (in which case, we may not need a vertical scrolling feature). This will simplify matters.
The bottom of the right-side screen (below Competence Profile) shall display “Rarely / least frequently occurring keywords” found in that resume.
Resume body (text) itself may be too long to be accommodated within the screen, so it will be necessary to provide a scrolling bar.
When you move the cursor on any particular keyword (in the “Keywords Extracted” column), the body of the resume shall automatically move/slide up or down and bring up that keyword in horizontal line (level) with the keyword within the bar. (Of course, it should also turn red at same time).
Such a horizontal “aligning” of the words (in text & in column) — and that too, automatically — will make it very easy for the viewer, reducing his search effort/time.
Different colours should be added to the “DEMO” screen, without making it appear “gaudy / cheap / garish”.
The DEMO screen should carry several “buttons” at the bottom, indicating a variety of “transactions” that can be achieved/accomplished.
“EDIT-CUM-ARGIS” Screen
In this screen, all the data/fields which have been extracted / not extracted would appear in a sequence of “blocks.”
Each such block will group together fields which have a common theme/subject.
Each block should have a clear/bold “TITLE” in capital letters.
Essentially, this screen is to be used for the following purposes:
A. For “editing” of any value by the recruiter himself — in case software fails to capture such value.
B. For recruiter to forward this screen (as a small email) to the concerned jobseeker — along with appropriate covering letter asking the jobseeker to himself “edit it & return email it.”
Back to the recruiter. This process will give a chance/opportunity to the jobseeker concerned to make his profile complete/comprehensive, by finding out what fields the recruiter/company requires and fill those in (in case missing) & return email.
So the ball is put back into the jobseeker’s court!
If he wants to be “considered” for a particular vacancy advertised by the company, then he better take the trouble to edit his own structured database (including filling up of missing values / missing fields).
This will reduce/eliminate the “edit-work” from our subscriber company & transfer to the jobseeker! Recruiter would simply love this feature! And all of this should happen at the click of a button (– for which, of course, we will charge!).
This screen should also carry 3P Logo.
A jobseeker, after “editing” this screen — and after inserting missing values — should be able to:
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Email it to any other company
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Email it to any other placement agency
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Take a printout
That means, this (ARGIS) screen should also carry “Competency Profile” (graphically).
View / Display Screen
This screen will pop up when a recruiter clicks on VIEW button against the name/PEN of any candidate whose data appears in the Search Results.
Idea: The recruiter should be able to view the detailed resume (along with highlighted keywords & Competence Profile — but not the structured fields), in order to make up his mind whether to “shortlist” this candidate or not.
So, at the bottom of the “View/Display” screen, there should be a checkbox ☑️ for shortlisting.
At this stage, the Recruiter may also want to:
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Email the “DISPLAY” screen to a colleague within the organisation for his evaluation/assessment/comment & return back to him with appropriate annotations.
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Take a printout (or printouts) to give to boss or to members of interview panel (who will need while conducting interview).
If subscriber is a Placement Agency (or one of our remote franchisees), he would certainly like to forward such a “Viewed & Shortlisted” resume to his client, for a specific search assignment.
Such a Placement Agency would most certainly like its own logo to appear on each such email or printout.
So, there are 3 Display Screens (UI):
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DEMO Screen
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EDIT Screen
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VIEW Screen
Perhaps we could design these in a modular way & recombine modules to create each screen.
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See enclosed analysis of 11 resumes.
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This analysis will lead to development of further extraction logic.
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That in turn will lead to much more robust software, heading up to 95% accuracy level.Nirmit’s friend Maurice (who is in e-learning with 400 programmers & adding 40/month) thinks that in order to deter competitors to “copy” us, we must exceed 95% accuracy level. He has a point.
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It was only thru analysing what resume failed on which field that I could come up with additional logic. So, this step is important.
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Every now & then, you should give me “Summary of Failure” sheet for 10/15 resumes (along with printouts), so I can run the same exercise again & again.Of course, if Inder is free, he too can do this, once you show him enclosed sheets.
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