Notes: JOB SEEKER'S REPUTATION CAREER PROFILE

Abhi

22-09-04

Career-Growth Profile

(Tenure-cum-Salary Profile)

This is further to my yesterday's note on this subject, enclosing 5 graphs prepared manually based on Image Builders given to me.

5 was a very limited sample and cannot cover all or even nearly all possible combinations/situations. But with this limitation, in the enclosed graph, I have tried to figure out the "LOGIC" that we may need to build into the software.

DESIGNATION-LEVEL AXIS (Left Y Axis)

This will always remain SAME for all candidates — since these 8 levels are permanently "frozen." A candidate is forced to select one of these — next to his "actual designation" — and must click.

ANNUAL SALARY AXIS (Right Y Axis)

Here, we must first select

bottom start point (min value)

top end point (max. value)

Then divide the gap uniformly to arrive

at the appropriate "scale."

Bottom start Point

From "Experience" table, we pick up the minimum/lowest annual salary value and then subtract Rs. 20,000 from that value.

The resulting figure becomes the bottom start point.

Top End Point

Again from "Exp." table, we pick up the maximum/highest annual salary (which in all cases has to be his current salary — if he is currently employed or his last drawn salary if he is out of job at present) — then add Rs. 200,000 to get the top end point.

YEAR AXIS (X Axis)

Left hand starting point

Just take the earliest year mentioned in "Exp." section and then subtract 2 years to arrive at this point.

Right hand End Point

2004 + 2 = 2006$

next year

2005 + 2 = 2007$ etc.

Then select appropriate scale for uniform division.

Although "Designation-Level" Axis will not change,

X Axis (Year Axis), and

Y Axis (Right)-Salary Axis

will change from person to person.

Not only these axis change from person to person, but even for the SAME person/candidate, these 2 axis will change under following situation — and, therefore, software will have to figure-out, on-the-fly:

A) As soon as Imagebuilder gets extracted and the Candidate sees his "CAREER GROWTH PROFILE", he realizes that the graph is either incomplete or inaccurate or both, and decides to go back at once and EDIT/COMPLETE his "Experience" section right on-the-spot and then once again click button

REDRAW/REFINE CAREER CHART.

Now, the Software will need to use the "new" values from "Exp" section & redraw the graph with revised axis.

B) A candidate might come back after 6 months and EDIT his "Experience" section, because he might have

changed job
got a new designation
got a salary-rise $\dots$ etc. $\dots$

Here too, software will need to re-compute those 2 axis and replot.

Question:

Should we build "human-like intelligence in the software to spot/detect following "anomalies"?

Salary erratic despite increase in Exp.

Higher Salary followed by a "drop" in salary — and may be rising once again.

In a normal course, Salary is supposed to "RISE" only (not drop).

"Designation-Level" Erratic

In a normal course, with rising years of experience, "Desig. Levels" are supposed to go UP — never down.

But this does happen quite often in real life, viz

A person may be a V.P. in a very small company (say Rs. 5 cr. sales) but may get a designation of only a "Sup." in a Rs. 500 cr. company, employing 5000 persons.

A person can get ANY high designation in an Uncle's company — even at a young age but when he moves out to an organised/professionally managed company, he may get only a junior designation.

I feel the software should blindly "plot" whatever "values" it finds — and not try to correct such anomalies on its own.

In fact, we want that such "anomalies," if any, gets "highlighted" graphically (as shown above).

When rendered/displayed — graphically, these anomalies become too "visible," to get ignored, either by Candidate himself or by an HR manager who sees this graph.

But such anomalies can get easily hidden/overlooked in a tabulation of "Experience" section. This is THE advantage of graphical presentation — you cannot hide/gloss over anything.

For X axis (Year Axis), we can plot the horizontal lines (of job-duration), quite accurately, without having to do any approximation. This is because, software has no problem in calculating the exact length of horizontal job-duration, based on

Starting Date:	5/89	4/92	3/84	etc etc
Leaving Date:	7/90	6/92	9/95
Exact duration	$\square$	$\square$	$\square$

22/09/04

DESIGNATION-LEVEL AXIS (Left Y-Axis, divided uniformly):

Mg DIV

President/Exec Dir

V.P./CEO/CFO

Gen-Mgr

Manager

Off/Executive

Supervisory

Trainee/Apprentice

YEAR AXIS (Bottom X-Axis):

Lowest year mentioned in "Exp." section - 2

Current year + 2

Select appropriate scale to divide uniformly

SALARY AXIS (Right Y-Axis):

Select appropriate scale to divide uniformly

Top of Salary Axis:

[Highest salary mentioned in "Exp." Section] + 200,000

Bottom of Salary Axis:

[Lowest salary mentioned in "Exp." section] - 20,000

[A horizontal line is plotted on the graph, indicating a tenure/salary point.]

ABHI

21-09-04

TENURE - CUM - SALARY PROFILE

Ref: My earlier note dt: 16-09-04

("A Race Horse? or A Mule?")

In above-mentioned note (pg. 2), I had drawn, a graphical presentation of a candidate's

PROMOTION HISTORY

There were 2 questions:

Would such a graphical presentation of a person's "Career History" enable a HR manager to grasp the question = Is he a Race Horse? or is a slow-plodding Mule? $\equiv$ in matter of seconds?

Here, the precise accuracy of dates/exact durations/whether designation pertained to beginning or end of a particular job-tenure etc. is NOT important.

Even if presentation lacks accuracy and even if we have made many "assumptions" / "approximations", question is, "Is this candidate on FAST TRACK or a SLOW TRACK? Will he stick

around with us long enough — if offered a job? Does he seem over-ambitious? Would he upset our internal apple-cart?"

The main purpose behind such a graphical presentation is to raise such questions in HR managers' mind — questions which are not so apparent in a tabulation.

By placing facts of "Designations-Levels" or "Annual Salaries" in the CONTEXT of "Time" (i.e. years/dates), a few anomalies become apparent.

# 2

From the data furnished in "career-history" section, could a software be able to construct such a graph — without any manual intervention?

Take a look at the 10 Imagebuilder you gave me 2/3 days back.

5 did not seem to be even VALIDATED!

So, in their cases, plotting graph was not possible.

For the other 5 (which seemed to have been validated — although

With some "errors" — like wrong chronology (in case of PEN 308 -), I managed to plot the graphs — as enclosed.

I even combined the Salary data onto same graphs.

In fact, it is because of showing both Tenure-duration and the Salary on same graph — in juxtaposition — that the meaning of the graph, gets enhanced. NOW the graphs make more sense.

Of course, Oversimplifications/approximations/ assumptions remain.

If & when we attempt to write a software to plot such graphs, on each graph, these "assumptions" must be printed clearly.

Next Question:

Could Concerned candidate "EDIT" the graph, once it appears before his eyes? — If so, what about the field-values contained in "Career-History" section? Obviously, these too will need editing...

The correct sequence for edit, should be

First edit "fields/values" in "Experience" section

click "RE-SUBMIT" button

Summary of Documents:

The documents detail the "LOGIC FOR CONSTRUCTING CAREER-GROWTH GRAPH [TENURE-CUM-SALARY PROFILE]" for a software application, likely for HR/recruitment purposes.

Goal: To graphically present a candidate's career history (tenure/designation/salary) to quickly identify if they are on a "FAST TRACK or a SLOW TRACK" and to highlight anomalies not easily seen in a table.
Axes:

Designation-Level Axis (Left Y): Fixed/Frozen with 8 standard levels (Mg DIV to Trainee/Apprentice).
Annual Salary Axis (Right Y): Dynamic, calculated based on $\text{min salary} - 20,000$ and $\text{max salary} + 200,000$.
Year Axis (X): Dynamic, calculated from $(\text{Earliest Year} - 2)$ to $(\text{Current Year} + 2)$.

Anomalies: The software should plot blindly (not correct) but highlight graphical anomalies like a drop in salary or a drop in designation-level, as these are critical for HR managers to see and are easily hidden in tables.
Accuracy: Precise accuracy of dates/durations is NOT important; the overall trend is. Assumptions and approximations used must be clearly printed on the graph.
Editing: If a candidate edits their "Experience" section, the software must RE-COMPUTE the dynamic axes (Year and Salary) and REDRAW/REFINE the chart "on-the-fly."

Would you like me to summarize the key rules for calculating the dynamic axes?

This would automatically re-draw the graph instantaneously...

In fact, our write-up, just above the graph, should read,

"Dear [Box for Name]

Here is your Tenure-cum-Salary graph. This got constructed, using values entered by you, in the

"EXPERIENCE" SECTION of your ImageBuilder.

If you find/feel that this graph does not truly reflect your Career-Growth (both designation-level wise and Salary-wise), then you could edit/correct it, by going back to the "Experience" section and re-enter all factual data, correctly and in proper/contiguous chronological order (without any breaks) for your entire career, starting with your first job, (Current/Last job at top & going backward till your first job).

Once satisfied that you have re-constructed your entire "Experience" History, properly & accurately, click

REFINE CAREER-GROWTH GRAPH"

Of one thing I am convinced.

On their own initiative, and thus self-volition, nobody would take the trouble to draw-up

Career-Growth Graph

(Salary cum-Designation).

But the moment, you draw-up and show them a graph which is

WRONG/INACCURATE/MIS-REPRESENTATIVE,

then, they will take ALL the trouble required to see to it that it stands corrected!

To motivate people to speak-up, make some false statement about them and they will immediately provide all the "facts" to prove that you are wrong!

Our objective gets served!

[Signature and Date: 21/09/04]

TENURE PROFILE

Mr. Anand Babu

PEN 398

[Graph shows]

Trainee (TR): Starting around '93, salary 100K. Duration (2) indicated.
Sup (SUP): Transition around '95, salary 255K. Duration (9) indicated, ending around '04.
Off (Officer) and Mgr (Manager) levels are also on the Y-axis.

TENURE PROFILE

Ashish Ganda

PEN 251

[Graph shows]

Off (Officer): Starting around '01, salary 450. Duration (1) indicated.
Mgr (Manager): Transition around '02.

First Manager period: Salary 750. Duration (2) indicated, ending around '04.
Second Manager period: Salary 1000. Duration (1) indicated, starting around '04.

Mgr and VP (Vice President) levels are also on the Y-axis.

TENURE PROFILE

Mr. Sanjay Khanna

PEN 377

[Graph shows]

GM (General Manager): Starting around '93.

First GM period: Salary 180K. Duration (9) indicated, ending around '02.
Second GM period: Salary 228K. Duration (2) indicated, starting around '02.

Mgr (Manager), VP (Vice President), and GM levels are on the Y-axis.

TENURE PROFILE

Amitabh Banerjee

PEN 308

[Graph shows]

Trainee: Starting around '91, salary 100.
Sup (Supervisor): Transition around '93, salary 200.
Off (Officer) (A): Transition around '94, salary 150. Duration (A) indicated, ending around '95.
Mgr (Manager): Transition around '95, salary 425. Duration (10) indicated, ending around '05.
Off, Mgr, GM, and VP levels are on the Y-axis.

TENURE PROFILE

Gangadhar Tambe

PEN 206

[Graph shows]

Off (Officer): Starting around '90. Salary 144. Duration (7) indicated, ending around '97.
Mgr (Manager): Transition around '97, salary 600. Duration (7) indicated, ending around '04.
GM (General Manager): Transition around '04, salary 700. Duration (1) indicated.
Mgr, GM, and VP levels are on the Y-axis.

ABHI

PERSONAL ANALYTICS/

JOBSEEKER REPUTATION SYSTEM/

IMAGE BUILDER

16-09-04

A Race Horse? or A Mule?

When a HR manager is looking at a Candidate's resume, one "Aspect" which he is trying (may be even sub-consciously), to decipher is:

"Is this guy a fast-track executive or a slow-track? How has he been rising in his career? - in absolute terms and relative to executives at large, belonging to same FUNCTION?

If his past track-record shows that he has been getting a promotion, once every two years, would he fit into our company culture of a promotion, once-in-four years?

Once, after joining, he discovers our "Promotion Norm", would he start looking for another job (at a higher designation level, of course) - and quit the moment he finds one?

Does he seem inclined to join us, only because the vacancy advertised by us, [rest of thought continues on scan0019.jpg]

is at a higher designation-level (as compared to his current level) - and, would, therefore, mean a "promotion" to him?

In his present job, he has held his current designation-level, for just ONE year. If we take him at a higher level, would it upset a lot of our existing executives who are "stagnating" at the same level for last 4 years? Would taking him "upset the apple-cart"?

No matter, how hard a HR manager tries to find answers to these questions in the plain text resume of a candidate, he rarely finds - and even then, inconclusive.

No candidate shows his "promotion-history" in his resume, graphically as follows:

[Graph: Designation-Level vs. Time]

Note:

Promotions (re-designations) need not be in same employer-company. could be at time of job-change.

Y-axis shows Sup, Offcr, Mgr, GM, VP, Post levels.

X-axis shows years from 1970 to 2000+. The graph shows steps representing designation changes over time.

Nor does any executive, attach to his resume, an organisation-chart (mine enclosed) showing his RISE within the organisation hierarchy, over the years. Of course, this is possible only if that executive has spent many many years in same Company.

If an executive provides data in the ImageBuilder ("EXPERIENCE" section) of all the jobs held by him since graduation, it is possible to construct/display, a graph as shown on preceding page, since, for each job-tenure, he has furnished

Date of joining

Date of leaving

Designation-level (presumably corresponding to his actual designation at time of leaving).

If you give me 8/10 actual validated ImageBuilders, I could try to plot these graphs manually. This would teach me what "assumptions" I need to make, in order for each graph to "make sense".

And, if these graphs do "make sense", then it is not difficult to write a simple software which incorporates these assumptions in its logic.

So, pl. do send me 8/10 ImageBuilder (validated), where a person has entered 8/10 jobs.

One other alternative, is to plot/display an executive's CAREER PROFILE as attached.

Once again, we have to use the data provided by executives in the "EXPERIENCE" section of ImageBuilder.

Here, in CAREER PROFILE, we are trying to "Compare" an executive with his PEERS - i.e. other executives belonging to SAME function.

In the illustration given, I have assumed 438 executives belonging to SALES function, as PEERS.

But, it is quite possible that these 438 "Sales-wallas" are currently distributed as follows:

At "Sup" level $\longrightarrow 43$
at "Officer" $\longrightarrow 94$
at "Manager" $\longrightarrow 148$
at "GM" $\longrightarrow 105$
at VP $\longrightarrow 38$
at President $\longrightarrow 10$

And the Candidate, whose ImageBuilder (i.e. "Career Profile" page) we are trying to construct, is only at "MANAGER" level?

No problem!

In his "Career Profile" page, in the Second graph (for "General Manager") Third graph (for "Vice President" level), there will be no arrow to show his position on the distribution curves concerned.

[Image showing a distribution curve with "Myself" indicated at a low point on the x-axis, suggesting the individual has not yet reached that level.]

Nor will there be any data about himself, in the third column of tabulation:

	It took Me (yrs)	My Peers Median Fastest Slowest
Mgr	GM	$\bigcirc$
GM	VP	$\bigcirc$

But we may still show all 3 graphs because, these profiles are still of considerable interest - to both, concerned candidate and concerned HR manager, looking at ImageBuilder

Being able to plot these graphs depends upon being able to extract/pick-up/derive some numbers/Values against each promotion. Once again this may require us to $\rightarrow$

make some "assumptions". We may make invalid/wrong assumptions but this does not matter, as long as we consistently apply the same assumption to all candidates/all records, uniformly.

A Wrong/Invalid assumption,

(e.g.: To link designation-level with the starting/joining date or with the leaving date),

would only $\text{shift}$ the graph, either to the "right" or to the "left" by a couple of years but it does not alter the "relative positions of the 438 sales executives, WITHIN the graph! Hence "COMPARISON" of an individual Vis-a-Vis group-profile, still remains Valid.

Earlier, I have sent you notes re: developing of Salary Profile Tenure Profile

To those, we now add Career Profile

( Function Profile already exists in ImageBuilder. )

Behind development of all these profiles:

Our Immediate Goal Persuade HR mgrs to insist on ImageBuilders ONLY
Our ultimate Goal To make ImageBuilder THE INDUSTRY-STANDARD

[Signature at the bottom]

CAREER PROFILE

This is how I have grown over the years (Data As on)

From	To	It took me (yrs)	My Peers Median	Functional Fastest	Slowest
start	Manager	4	3	1	8
Manager	Gen. Mgr	5	4	2	7
GM	V.P	3	4	1	6

My Current Function (Primary) SALES

My Current DESIGNATION LEVEL VICE PRESIDENT

Peer-population (Same Function) 438.

To reach: MANAGER level

[Graph 1: Distribution curve showing "% of Peers" vs. "Years taken". An arrow points to "Myself" at the 4-year mark, slightly ahead of the median.]

To reach: GEN. MANAGER level

[Graph 2: Distribution curve showing "% of Peers" vs. "Years taken". An arrow points to "Myself" at the 5-year mark, slightly behind the median.]

To reach: VICE-PRESIDENT level

[Graph 3: Distribution curve showing "% of Peers" vs. "Years taken". An arrow points to "Myself" at the 3-year mark, significantly ahead of the median.]

ORGANIZATION - SWITCHGEAR FACTORY

LARSEN $\&$ TOUBRO

GEN. MANAGER (1977)

DY. GEN. MGR (1977)

R & D	TOOL - ROOM	PRODUCTION MANAGER (1970)	QUALITY CONTROL
PRODUCT ENGINEER	PLANT ENGINEER	ASST. PROD. MGR (1969)	COST ACCOUNT
		HEAD PROD. PLANNING (1964)