Notes: September 2009

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

HELP NOTES

HELP 1 (Date: 26/09/09)

While selecting your "Function/skill" backgrounds, consider:

In which "function/skill" are you an EXPERT? (This is your PRIMARY function/skill)
In which "function/skill" you think you are "GOOD"? (This is your SECONDARY function/skill)
Which "function/skill" can you handle "COMFORTABLY"? (This is your TERTIARY function/skill)

Your resume should be carrying keywords which are "relevant" to the function/skills selected. Your function-skill graphs/percentile score will be based on the presence/absence of such keywords in your TEXT resume which you upload. If you are not happy with these graphs, you may want to:

Edit your Text resume
Select a different Primary/Secondary/Tertiary function-skill
Do both

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HELP 2

Your "Highest/Latest" educational qualification must be entered first (at the top) – Very Important.
Then, select [Add Degree] and add the previous/preceding qualifications, in reverse chronological order, going backward till 10th standard (i.e. high school graduation).
Although it is not mandatory to go backwards up to 10th standard, it is desirable to do so. If you do so, your Education Profile Graph will look comprehensive.

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HELP 4

During your Registration, you selected what you considered to be your PRIMARY/SECONDARY/TERTIARY functions/skills.
Corresponding to these selections, our software developed your respective graphical profiles which you see in your MASTER/DEFAULT resume.
In each of these graphs, you get to see:

Your Raw Score
Your Percentile Score [Your "rank" amongst co-professionals]

But you could have, during your career, worked in many different "Functional Areas" or acquired many different "skills".
Are you curious to know what kind of "Scores" would your text resume generate for those other functions/skills? NO problem! Simply select functions/skills and then click on [Update Percentile Score].
You may want to note down the scores generated on a piece of paper, before moving onto the next function/skill.
Obviously, you want to [SAVE] those graphs where your "Percentile Score" is respectable!

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HELP 5

During your career, you may have worked on many projects. You may not want to "list" all of these here – which is ok.
But do list those projects:

$\rightarrow$ Where you played an "important/pivotal role" (eg: Team Leader / Project Manager etc)
$\rightarrow$ Which were of "long duration"
$\rightarrow$ Where you were deputed "overseas"
$\rightarrow$ Which were executed for "prestigious clients"
$\rightarrow$ When you supervised a "large team"
$\rightarrow$ Where you deployed "cutting-edge" technologies
$\rightarrow$ Which entailed a significant "revenue" for your Company
$\rightarrow$ Which are "recent"

Your "Project Graph" is the first thing a recruiter looks at – and then decides whether you are worth calling for an interview or not!

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HELP 6

If none of the listed currency is selected, then the "local" currency in which job-advts are posted, will be shown in "Salary Offered" column.
However, if you wish, you may select any given currency (say US Dollars). In such a case, "Salary Offered" column will show salaries in US Dollars for all the shortlist jobs – irrespective of the "Salary Currency" indicated by the job-advertisers.
This feature is extremely useful – especially for American Recruiters who wish to know what kind of salaries are being offered by (say) Indian Employers to a JAVA professional with 3 years of experience!

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HELP 7

It is important that you provide an accurate/up-to-date/comprehensive profile of your Company. This could incorporate your:

Products / Services / R&D Activities
Joint ventures / Collaborators
Plants / Factories / Regional-Branch Offices
Financial Highlights
Expansion / Diversification Projects
Overseas locations
Employee strength
HR Policies
Organisational Structure etc. etc.

When you Post Job, the Company Profile submitted here will get auto-filled in the "Post Job" form. Of course you can edit it there.
When any candidate applies against one of your vacancies – and you call him for an interview – you want to know how "deeply" he is interested in a career with your Company. Ask him, if he has read your Company Profile. If he says "Yes", probe his knowledge of your Company. If he says "No", do not waste your time!
Your Company Profile is your FREE publicity / Press Release. Treat it professionally.

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HELP 8

As soon as you select any FUNCTION/SKILL, this box gets filled up with some relevant keywords.
But, since not all keywords are "relevant" to all vacancies/positions, you may select $\square$ those which you consider to be relevant to the vacancy you are advertising. Of course, you can add (by typing) any other keyword.
The keywords are arranged in the descending order of their past selection by all recruiters (frequency of past usage).
Our software will pick up/shortlist those resumes which contain the keywords selected $\square$ by you – (of course, as many as possible).

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HELP 9

Obviously, you should select the "Currency" in which you will pay the selected/appointed candidate. That is what he will expect. Of course, you can negotiate.
This feature is useful for Corporate Employers who are advertising vacancies with posting locations in different countries.

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HELP 10

This form provides separate "fields" for specifying:

Industry Background of the desired candidate
Function of the desired candidate
Edu. Qualifications/Specialization
Min Experience
Job Description

As far as "Candidate Attributes" are concerned, you may wish to write about:

Attitudes (towards colleagues/subordinates etc)
Leadership Qualities
Team-Building capabilities
Work-ethics
Social Behaviour
Political Acumen
Negotiating skills
Professional Integrity etc. etc.

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HELP 11

If you do not select any specific currency, then the "current salary" column in Resume Search Results will indicate salary in Indian Rupees, by default, no matter in what actual/local currency the candidates are getting paid.
But then recruiters from outside India may want all candidates' salaries displayed in Euro / British Pound / US Dollar. They may select a currency of their choice (we plan to add more currencies in time to come).
This enables overseas recruiters to compare salaries being paid across the world to similar/identical candidates. This is a great advantage for foreign recruiters wanting to hire Indian talent.

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HELP 12

The moment you select any Function/Skill, this box gets filled up with relevant keywords.
You may select $\square$ only those which are truly relevant to the kind of candidates you are looking for.
These would be keywords which you would expect to find in the resumes of shortlisted candidates.
The keywords in the box are arranged in the descending order of past usage (i.e., frequency of usage) by other recruiters conducting resume searches.
Of course, you may add other keywords by typing.

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HELP 13

For your convenience, we have broken up the "Submit Resume" process into several small stages.
Currently, there are 5 stages (6 stages for IT Professionals, viz: Project Details).
Registration is incomplete unless you fill in Stage 1.
The rest of the stages may be filled in at your convenience, over a period of time (after login every time).
As each stage gets completed, a relevant graph gets generated and added to your MASTER/DEFAULT profile.
Why should you complete ALL stages at one go?

If you do, your MASTER/DEFAULT resume will contain 7 graphs (8 graphs for IT Professionals).
That would enable you to generate Factorial 7 ($7!$) customizations:

$$7 \times 6 \times 5 \times 4 \times 3 \times 2 \times 1 = 5040 \text{ unique customizations!}$$

For IT professionals, this results in 40,320 customizations.

Only we enable you to project your UNIQUENESS—and get noticed by the recruiters!

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HELP 14

Actually, this link will read "Why Customize?" and it will be placed on the "Customize Your Resume" page.
I have already provided this write-up along with my note at 06/09/09.

"FREE TRIAL" page

I have already given "page write-ups" along with my note at 06/09/09—but since then the "process" is changed.
Subsequently, I have given a new write-up to Shalaka, which she has used.

Monday, 28 September 2009

APPLE FOR APPLE

Rahul - Shalaka - Punam - Alex

Weights and heights are good examples of frequency distributions which "tend" to become bell - shaped (normal distribution) curves.

But try plotting these curves for

. A family of 10 persons

. 1000 people staying in same building

. Entire population of the world.

You will find that from an extremely SKEWED Curve (For family), you more to an extremely CENTRALIZED (bell - shape) curve, as you plot world's Population.

So, the first thing about these curves is SAMPLE SIZE or POPULATION.

In the enclosed graphs, our "Co - Professionals" populations (which we have plotted) are relatively" small. If these were one million in each case, we would have got a much smoother/ more centralized /less skewed curves.

Then again, 1000 people staying in same building. Surely that curve looks better than the curve for 10 family members. Now you can make it look even better if you plot a curve for height or weight of only those people (amongst those 1000) who are

. Of same "age" (say 10 years)

It will further improve if you plot

. Only "Girls" of 10 years of age.

So, besides sample - size (population), the smoothness / centralization of a curve has a lot to do with

"Similarities amongst the member of the population"
i.e. "Apple - For - Apple" comparison Unfortunately, our "Populations" contain lots of "Dis - similar" persons !

eg. "Banking/ Insurance" Professionals

. Your population was 100,000 people and

. You plotted a "Sub - population" of

- Same Age

- Same Experiences (yrs)

- Same DEGREE

- Same Sub - Sector (Pvt. Vs. Public)

- Same Region etc.

Then you are bound to get a much smoother / centralized distribution where "extremes" of Raw - Scores have very low probability of occurrence. Given this (theoretical) background, it will take a very long time for our graphs to become NORMAL / BELL - shaped, when populations of each type of "Co - professional's reach 100,000 or more.

Till then the graphs will look terrible at least to people who do not have much exposure to statistics. It may even lead to disbelief / skepticism/ rejection of the very concept !

We cannot afford this.

May be "Cumu. Percentage Vs. Raw Score" chart drawn by you in enclosed page is our answer.

It is simple to understand (institute), which makes it ELEGANT.

No "Mean"

No "Standard Deviation (6)"

No Skew (to confuse)

Just one vertical and one horizontal drop are sufficient to tell the candidate.

. What is my Score? (Raw Score)

. Where do I stand ? (Percentile Score)

Amongst my Co - profs

. How many Co - profs. ? (Population)

This graph is not "Cluttered - Up" with several lines or tabulations showing population between +10 & -10 (- which, in any case, a candidate does not understand !)

I believe because of the concept of "Comu. Percentage of Co - professionals. Vs "Raw Scroe",

The graphs (for any function / skill / any population - size / any combination of age / exp/ education level /region etc)

Will always come out as shown by you.

It will always (or almost always) be a smooth, upward curve without "Kinks" - especially, if your RAW - SCROE DATA TABLE, increases raw - scores by 1, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ......... 100

I suppose Microsoft Chart, will automatically adjust the X axis and automatically restrict it when "Percentile - Score" figure hits 100. Y axis will always remain as shown by you.

Suggest you / shalaka quickly experiment with 10/15 other FUNCTION - SKILL populations to assure us that this concept will always work, and that we are able to programmatically generate / drop the horizontal / vertical lines as shown in enclosed sample graph.

You may want to adopt this concept also for "SALARY GRAPH" (makes sense), what about TENURE GRAPH ?

I believe, this SIMPLIFICATION (-and avoidance of statistical jargon) will attract the candidates.

Hemen Parekh

Thursday, 24 September 2009

COMPANY POPULARITY INDEX

Rahul → Poonam → Shalaka

"Candidate Registration"

In my earlier note, I have shown, at very bottom of this form:

☑ Send my resume against suitable/matching job-advt

☑ I accept Terms & Conditions

[ Submit ]

For this, I suggest following:

▶ "Suitable"/matching job-advt

whatever "matching" criteria you are currently using

▶ Job-advt

only those downloaded/posted during last 24 hrs

▶ Period → Daily

▶ Do not send a candidate’s resume to same advertiser more than ONCE-A-MONTH. This is to avoid "duplication" – since we know that many companies keep "re-posting" same advt again & again, for a few days, to attract applications.

▶ Only MASTER/DEFAULT resume to be sent, if candidate has filled-in only STAGE 1

But once he has "Customized" and made any version ACTIVE, then that version to go.

▶ Shall we send only LINK or full resume?

✍ 24/09/09

— Cont. —

▶ Next, do we capture the "Resume Forwarded" data for each candidate and show it to him on his "My Page"? If yes, to what depth of details do we show it?

Of course, simplest would be to show him one, single, Cumm. figure, as we plan to do in case of "Resume Blast", viz:

Cumm. No. of Resumes Sent

to Matching Job Adverts [_______]

Let us incorporate this in V 1.0

But,

should our planned "architecture" be such as to capture detailed data such as:

• Datewise/Monthwise/Yearwise

• No. of times sent "Company-wise" by any given candidate (Cumm.)

• No. of times sent "Company-wise" by ALL candidates put together (Cumm.)

• No. of times sent against a given job-advt. by all candidates put together (Cumm.)

How will capturing such detailed data help us?

Will this help:

▶ to make job-advertisers and candidates spend more time on our site, making it “sticky”? – to visit their respective “My Pages” frequently to see what is happening? Return visits.

▶ Will this (data-capture), help us develop a better “Recommendation System” for candidates?

▶ Can this (data-capture) help us develop a (pseudo) Popularity Index for job-advertisers? See next page: