Upside Down Business Model (Project EGO)
In my last 2 notes, I have argued about the importance of “Hub & Spoke” model, wherein we must get 10/15 Indian jobsites (to begin with) to sign-up as our Webservice licensees.
If (assuming) this strategy is well thought-out, the first step is to get a million resumes.
Of course, all along we must remember that, in the internet-connected NEW ECONOMY, all strategies are at best, “tentative.” No one can be sure as to what will work and what will not work. This is because many strategies are “brand-new,” without any precedents, from which conclusions can be drawn!
Hoping to get a million resumes thru Project Manhattan is one strategy. So far the results appear encouraging but following questions remain:
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When we start flooding 4/5 jobsites with hundreds of job-advt’s daily, how long before candidates realize that these are fictitious advts and stop applying?
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Is it possible that these jobsites themselves may terminate the service, upon receiving complaints from jobseekers?
Or, realizing that our fictitious advts are imposing a heavy traffic burden on their servers?
Even if none of the above happens, how many job-advt’s would we need to post on how many jobsites DAILY, in order to generate ONE MILLION resumes, in 4 months?
Even if we manage to get 2000 resumes daily (average), then it would take 500 days to get a million resumes! This is nearly 1½ years!
That would not be acceptable, considering that, at latest, we would be ready to launch our Webservice commercially in 6 months.
Waiting any longer, may give away our GAME-PLAN.
So, along with Project Manhattan, we must launch another “strategic initiative” to garner these one million resumes in 4/5 months.
So that, even if Project Manhattan fizzles-out in next 2/3 months (for reasons mentioned earlier), we have something else going… something that has following characteristics:
① Low-cost solution (we are short of resources – but even if we do have resources, a low-cost solution must always remain a goal).
—of “what is in it for me?” It must also raise “curiosity.”
I believe we do have a “strategic initiative” which satisfies all the above-mentioned criteria.
For want of a better name, I would call it PROJECT EGO.
OUTLINE
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We are about to complete converting 60,000 email resumes using Resumline. Email IDs/Names of candidates are known/in database.
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To each of these candidates, we will send his/her “converted” resume back (with a covering letter) – see Annex (A).
The converted resume will comprise of following separate “attachments”:
We will need to figure out in advance:
→ Total KB to be transmitted per email (inclusive of covering letter).
→ Time it will take to transmit ONE message.
→ No. of such messages that can be transmitted in 24 hours (assuming our current bandwidth & leaving server on for 24 hours).
→ No. of days it will take to transmit 60,000 messages (automatically, of course – no human intervention at all, once started).
Once the initial batch of 60,000 messages gets over, the process will continue on a daily basis, for each & every email resume that arrives every day.
Flow:
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Jobsite → Email resume arrives
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Processed thru Resumline
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Break-up into attachments A/B/C/D/E/F/G
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Pick-up STANDARD covering letter (each must be addressed by NAME of person)
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Pick up email ID from database
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Send Message
Upon receipt of “Message” by candidate, the following will happen (– we hope!):
→ He will be delighted with the “Metamorphosis” of his resume – which Resumline has turned into a beautiful Butterfly.
→ He will edit/fill-in missing “values”/fields & return to us for updating.
(CURIOSITY factor)
→ He may show his “Butterfly” to his friends/colleagues and encourage them to email their resumes to 3P in order to get their OWN Butterflies. He is keen to compare as to where do his friends/colleagues stand (in relation to himself), on FUNCTION EXPOSURE SCORE.
(“VIRAL MKTG” factor) & (CURIOSITY factor)
→ In future, while applying for any job, he may use this “BUTTERFLY” version of his resume, to ensure that, amongst hundreds of plain resumes received by the recruiter, his Butterfly really—
“STANDS-OUT” (head & shoulder above the rest), vastly improving his chance of being shortlisted/called for interview.
(“WHAT IS IN IT FOR ME?” factor)
If our reading of human psychology/human behaviour is correct, then following should happen:
→ 60,000 candidates will show their “Butterfly” to 5 colleagues/friends each & encourage them to send their email resumes to 3P.
→ If only 2 of these 5 colleagues/friends send us their email resumes, then we get 120,000 resumes within 30 days (i.e. 4000/day).
→ If each of these 4000 jobseekers succeed in persuading just 2 colleagues, we can expect to receive (after another 30 days?) – some 8000 resumes/day!
→ This scenario can play-out again & again (much like a PYRAMID CHAIN LETTER SCHEMES – which threaten you with dire consequences if you break the chain! – except in our case, the candidate is expected to only “talk” to his colleagues and for reasons other than fear!).
So, Project Manhattan feeds (fuels) Project EGO, till it becomes self-sustaining.
Covering Letter
Dear [ ] (No Mr. or Ms. – Simply First Name)
Sometime back you sent us your unstructured email resume.
Using a datamining software developed by us, we converted this into a “structured” resume. This Artificial Intelligence software extracted skills/knowledge related keywords from your email and using these computed your
FUNCTIONAL EXPOSURE SCORE
– and even compared where you stand, (percentile) vis-a-vis your peers.
Attached find, how our knowledge-based software has managed to transform your simple resume, into a truly magnificent
BUTTERFLY
In future, whenever you apply for a job, use this “Butterfly-version” of your resume. It will ensure that you are definitely called for an interview!
If you take a few minutes to fill in the missing values in your structured database (Attachment B) and return to us, as an email, we promise to send you, when we have sufficient data, a graphical picture of where you—…stand, vis-a-vis your peers/comparable executives, in terms of:
Don’t miss this opportunity! The graphs will be emailed to you only if you furnish salary/designation data about yourself.
It will vastly simplify/speed-up your recruitment process.
A couple of observations:
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While processing thru ResuMine, we have set aside as “FAILED” some 15,000/20,000 resumes. We should include these also for purpose of sending message outlined in ANNEX A.
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Project EGO will help create a BRAND-AWARENESS for our webservice. When thousands of jobseekers start applying for jobs with the BUTTERFLY version of their resumes, thousands of companies will come to know about our webservice, when at the bottom of each BUTTERFLY resume, they read:
“From a plain/unstructured email, this BUTTERFLY version of resume got created using ResuMine artificial intelligence software developed by 3P CONSULTANTS (P) LTD.email: Ego@3Pjobs.com” -
What is now urgently required is to create fields for:→ “Salary”→ “Designation-Levels.”(Read my earlier notes)And database structure to capture the values automatically (without human intervention), when duly edited/filled-in resume gets returned.
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If we find that thousands of resumes are getting edited & returned, it will not take us too long to generate the GRAPHS of peer populations. Only when a few jobseekers (who have taken the trouble to furnish their salary/designation-level data) start getting the GRAPHS, then our CREDIBILITY will go up! When they talk to their friends/colleagues, tempo of return will pick-up.
Pending Assignments
1. Butterfly Resume (Project EGO)
Form will be ready by today evening, but, as suggested by Nirmit, we will not start “despatch” for 3/4 weeks.
This being the case, I strongly feel that we use this 3/4 weeks time to:
→ Upload Butterfly versions of all 60,000 on our website.
In any case, we always preferred ONLINE editing by candidates. Now that we have agreed to delay Project EGO by 3/4 weeks, we may as well implement this too.
Graphs which will get generated (for each candidate) using/utilizing the data entered by each candidate.
In fact, no candidate will take the trouble to submit his data, unless he is able to:
→ See what kind of graphs will get generated (seeing is believing!)
→ “Interpret” the graph (where exactly does he stand vis-a-vis comparable executives)
→ Visualize the “benefit (what-is-in-it-for-me)” for himself (better/higher annual increments, higher salary offers from potential employers).
We must show him blank graphs & say:
The more the no. of executives submitting this data, the more accurate/representative these graphs become. Everybody benefits, as database keeps growing & growing.”
also see my note dt. 13/01/03 (Pattern Recognition)
Once we have large enough database, we would provide following additional, FREE service:
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Graphs which compare your “Salary/Designation” with executives who• are same Age / Experience / Edu-level• belong to same Industry / Function• carry same “Designation-Level”• earn same “Annual Gross Salary”
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Graphs which compare the “Rate” at which your salary is growing over the years (% increase) as compared to the profile of your peer-group.
If you don’t have all the data handy right now, just download these pages, fill-in OFFLINE at your convenience on a print-out, then log-in once again & enter.
Don’t do submit, because only those individuals will get to see/download their profile-graphs who take the trouble to submit their own data first.
Regards.
PS: Graphs will be emailed to you, as soon as we have enough data.
Project Manhattan Probability Tables & Software, which intelligently decides which function/job-adverts to upload on which job-sites — and then actually goes ahead & uploads automatically.
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Project BLACKHOLE (Myriad)
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India Marketer Module (See my detailed note)
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Project CYBER (See my notes dt. 27/04/03, 29/04/03, 02/05/03, 08/05/03)
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Project HOROSCOPE (dt. 04/05/03)
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Any other?
Then, we can review the progress once-a-week and re-fix priorities/dates where needed.
(Signature mark)
Project EGO
Under this project we are to send out the Butterfly version of resumes to those who have sent us plain email resumes under Project Manhattan.
Hopefully, by July end, we should have received 100,000 email resumes — and, since we are converting these daily (batch processing), all of these 100,000 should be available in their Butterfly Version on AUG. 1, 2003.
This is the date we have fixed for launching Project EGO. On this date, we will also stop Project Manhattan (at least temporarily).
During Aug/Sept, we want to observe whether following happens (as anticipated):
Since Project Manhattan would have stopped by then (— maybe we can stop it on 20th July even), we can safely assume that whatever email resumes we are getting from Aug. 1 onwards, are purely due to this “word-of-mouth” effect.
The daily/monthly cumulative resume-arrival graphs will tell us whether our “assumption” is correct or not.
Of course, in order to get the “Multiplier-Effect,” whatever resumes we get after Aug. 1, must be converted to Butterfly same night & pushed back to concerned jobseeker (with Project EGO covering letter format) on the very next day.
If our assumption is correct, this should build up the momentum like an avalanche & become UNSTOPPABLE!
There is no direct way to know that jobseekers are actually doing so or not.
There is a very strong possibility that they would “swear” by Butterfly Version only and talk about this “miracle” to all & sundry!
IT Professionals
They would appreciate that this is no ordinary resume-construction software. By their very nature & professional discipline, these guys are “innovators” & “early adopters”. They like to experiment with any new technology. They might even send us some suggestions on how we can further improve the Butterfly.
And, somewhere on Butterfly version, we must incorporate those few sweetest words of English language, viz:
“We would appreciate receiving your opinion – and especially your suggestions re: this Butterfly version.”
But, if those recruitment managers who start receiving the Butterfly resumes against their job-adverts (print media or jobsite), get curious & phone us (– we must tabulate their details for follow-up), then indirectly we can come to know that the jobseekers have started using Butterfly version.
That brings me to the purpose behind enclosed PRIORITY CHART.
If we want to start an avalanche, we must first target the “soft snow” – the most “susceptible” group of jobseekers.
According to my perception, these are:
And should they succeed in actually getting an interview-call (after using our Butterfly version), then…
Youngsters
Youngsters are more willing to take “risk” & therefore willing to try anything new. They are deeply influenced by peer-groups, whether in college or in a company, or even across oceans (in Hollywood !).
They never want to be “left out” on any new fashion / new trend. They want to move with the crowd. They want to be considered “mod / cool / hip / whatever”! They want to remain in the forefront & to be setting new trends, for others to follow.
So, if this group takes a “fancy” to the Butterfly version, it could become a “cult”!
We must figure out how we should “package” the Butterfly which would make it irresistible to the youngsters. There has to be something in Butterfly which they can SMS / MMS to their friends (girlfriends or boyfriends).
(Download from 3Pjobs.com only / FREE if you are a member). Very simple. Talk to me.
I suppose 100,000 Butterflies can be despatched / emailed in 10 days (@ 10,000 per day). So, one can wonder whether all this prioritizing really makes any sense! Even if we despatch on alternate days, it would get spread over 20 days – or we can give 2 days gap & stretch it to 30 days.
I suppose it is not too difficult to breakup 100,000 resumes into the 8 subgroups shown in chart. Let us try in any case.
Most Important
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I would like to see / approve Butterfly forms incorporating my latest suggestions.
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Software would have to be ready for “Interactive Response Page”.
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Our website would have to be ready for “Edit” of Butterfly resume – along with extra “screens” for Salary & Designation data entry.
Project EGO
As discussed yesterday, enclosed find
Draft Covering email for Project EGO
Dear ________
Caterpillar Vs. Butterfly
Do you wish to ensure that next time you apply for a job anywhere, your resume definitely gets shortlisted for an interview-call?
Now you can.
Take a look at the attachments. You are right! It is your own resume – the Butterfly version.
Our Artificial Intelligence software processed your unstructured email resume (which …
… you had sent to us sometime back), and transformed it into a thing of beauty.
Even in a heap of 1000 resumes, there is no way a recruiter can miss it — and fail to be impressed by it! No recruitment manager has ever seen anything like it before.
You may be changing their careers in a way they will never forget!
With regards and wishing you good luck,
P.S.
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When you CLICK HERE, this message will get automatically copied/emailed to your entire MAILING-LIST.
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To know more click here: ResuMine@3pjobs.com
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In 2/3 months’ time, unless we hear to the contrary, your resume/structured database will get uploaded on our website (www.3pjobs.com), where you will be able to edit it (using your Password/User ID ?), to submit your “salary/designation” details.
This will create graphical profiles of thousands of comparable executives, with your “Salary/Designation” standing amongst them, vividly highlighted, to help you in future salary increment negotiations and re-designation issues.
DRAFT OF “WRITE-UP” on our Website
ResuMine @ 3pjobs.com
Annex: B
Dear Recruiter,
ResuMine
This is the name of an Artificial Intelligence software developed by us.
At the simplest, it takes an unstructured email resume and converts it into a structured database. For the moment, it manages to “extract” [_____] fields but many more fields are planned to be extracted in near future.
It also extracts most of the important “keywords” contained in the resume. These keywords signify the skills and the knowledge and the “expertise” of the resume-owner.
At a higher level, ResuMine is able to compute the
FUNCTIONAL EXPOSURE SCORE
of the resume-owner.
Besides computing & plotting this raw score graphically, it also computes & plots the PERCENTILE standing of the resume-owner amongst thousands of comparable professionals whose resumes we have in our database.
This vivid, graphical presentation makes it extremely easy for determining the
RELATIVE STANDING
of the resume-owner’s expertise amongst peers.
These scores (and percentiles) are developed using a vast “Knowledge Base” of:
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Dozens of “Functional Areas” of expertise
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Thousands of “Keywords” (relevant to each functional area)
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Lakhs of Resumes
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Over 10 million “words”
While creating this “Knowledge Base”, we have employed:
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Data mining
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Statistical Techniques
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Contextual Semantics (using natural language processing)
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Decision Rules
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Synonym-rings
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etc. etc.
In short, we have transferred our past 13 years of tacit knowledge of the recruitment-processes, into the ResuMine, to develop an EXPERT SYSTEM with embedded domain-expertise.
But, we have not stopped at capturing/embedding our own domain-knowledge.
We have made this “Knowledge Capture” process, truly GLOBAL in its scope and truly automatic.
As thousands of resumes keep getting processed every day through ResuMine, and as hundreds of recruiters conduct daily search of our resume database, using their own keywords, our knowledge-base keeps getting enriched continuously and automatically.
Thus, ResuMine is an ever-learning, ever-improving Expert System — a true Artificial Intelligence software for the recruitment world.
With ResuMine, recruiters can instantly know:
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The functional exposure score of candidates
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Their percentile ranking among comparable peers
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Their relative standing in terms of expertise
This makes shortlisting faster, smarter, and far more scientific, saving enormous time and cost for recruiters, while giving jobseekers a fairer chance to be noticed.
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