Notes

Kartavya – Abhi – Inder

I suppose URL is

www.Q1Markets.com

A webservice? For buyers or for sellers?

In our webservice (starting with RESUMINE & RE-SEARCH), Recruiting Mgrs are “buyers.”

When we extend the scope/coverage of our webservice, we must keep in mind the convenience of recruiting managers, esp. – our OES is too elaborate / too complicated / too full of unnecessary features, as far as ordinary Recruitment Manager is concerned. He will simply run away! As webservice, we will need to drastically simplify the same. Best to ask a few HR Mgrs WHAT they want.

02/02/03

INTERVIEW MGMT MODULE

Abhi – Kartavya – Desi Vikram – Sasthra

These are going to be essential elements / features of our webservice.

This is because, for recruiting one executive / to fill-in one vacancy, following persons have to “interact” amongst themselves:

HR Manager / Chief of HR (for approval of vacancy)
Recruitment Mgr. (for coordinating with all persons)
Dept./Unit Manager (who will be the “boss” of the candidate. He will do a “rating” of incoming resumes / decide “who” to be called for interview & participate in interviewing / salary negotiation etc.)
Supervisor in Recruitment Dept. (He may draft the job-advt. & assist Recruitment Mgr. May also phone candidates)
Clerk in Recruitment Dept. (He will do all paperwork / send reject letters)
Advt. Agency (Prepare copy / artwork / media-plan / media-cost of advt.)
Newspapers / Jobsites (They will host the advts.)
External Interview Experts (Conduct interview / fill up assessment sheet)

I presume Microsoft’s “New Office System” will be .NET compatible. (One more reason to adopt .NET)

09-4-3

Dated: 04-06-03

Kartavya

Abhi

Nagwekar

Inder

Global Recruiter | Func. Specs

Interview Mgmt. Module

Ref.: Pg 16/18 of my yesterday’s note

On this page of my yesterday’s note, I have described Stage II (of Help), using which, a CPO/recruiter can graphically super-impose the “Gross Annual or monthly Compensation” being offered (or being demanded by a candidate), on the Company’s own internal Compensation-Profile, of Peer-Group (Executives within the company, having same designation, as the candidate).

The idea is to ensure that the CPO/Recruiter does not end up offering a compensation figure to the candidate, which would dramatically upset the internal “apple-cart”!

Whereas all recruitment managers are painfully aware that they have to offer, maybe 20%–30% MORE to an outside candidate, as compared to a “comparable” executive already working within the organization, they (the recruitment managers), want to make sure that they do not end up offering 50%–70% more to an outside candidate! That is sure to invite a “revolt” amongst comparable, existing employees!

But, this “lapse” – and consequent “revolt” – are far more frequent than you would imagine! You may also end up losing some of those unhappy insiders. At best, no one quits but the morale goes down!

What is really bad (very bad) is that the CPO causes such an anomaly / such a disruption / such a revolt, out of sheer ignorance / lack of facts & figures.

However, despite having/seeing on his computer screen, a Compensation-Profile of Peer-Group:

(Graph illustration:)

X-axis: Gross Salary (Rs/month) – 25k, 30k, 35k, 40k
Y-axis: No. of existing employees – 5, 10, 15, 20
Curve showing distribution, centered near 30k
Annotation: Peer-Group = Managers, Population: 49
Annotation: Salary offered = 32k/month to candidate

He (the recruiter) still goes ahead & offers a monthly gross salary of Rs. 32k (or even 38k) to the candidate,

then, it is a “conscious / well-considered” decision.

Now, he (CPO) knows:

→ What he is doing

→ What consequences can follow

→ who will get “terribly upset”

→ who will get “mildly upset”

→ how he is going to handle each existing employee’s grievance.

Now, armed with facts (viz: Internal Compensation Profile of Peer-Group), he is well-equipped (information-wise) to “defend” his decision.

He is much better placed to explain to his existing, disgruntled employees, the “rationale” behind his decision. He is not caught on the “wrong foot” or taken by surprise.

In L&T, I used to prepare (plot) these graphs manually & update these once-a-year (before annual increment time) – especially in case of Managerial staff.

But that was in 1977–79, long before PCs arrived on the scene!

Now, I suppose, leading (large/organized) companies must be getting these graphs as a by-product of their Salary/Payroll Software.

Or, I suppose, they could – if they wish – in case they are using any salary/payroll software.

It is possible that it may not have “occurred” to them, that using such “by-product”

graphs, during interview/negotiations, could save them a lot of unnecessary “headache” later on. Once they start using these graphs, they may wonder, how they ever managed without these!

Not only during negotiating salary with a prospective candidate, the HR managers will start using these graphs, during:

→ Annual rewards/increments

→ Promotions

→ Transfers (to other divisions/cities etc.)

→ Union negotiations

→ Compensation-restructuring exercises

→ Formulation of VRS

etc. etc.

Now you can see that this feature/functionality will re-surface, again & again, in:

→ Manpower Requisition Module (Ad-compose)

→ Interview Mgmt.

→ Employee “”

→ Organisation “”

The HR mgr / the recruitment mgr / the CPO / the user dept., all will want to “pull” these graphs, at different times, in different modules, for different purposes.

And they will expect (rightfully) that …

→ At a given point of time, SAME/IDENTICAL graph appears in all modules (when pulled).

→ There is some “in-built” mechanism, whereby all graphs get automatically updated, on an ongoing basis, every time:

A new person joins
An existing person leaves (resignation/retirement/transfer/death)
Monthly salary of any person changes due to any reason (increment/promotion/transfer etc.)
A person’s designation changes (– meaning, his data gets transferred to a different peer group)

So, automatic generation/maintenance of Compensation-Profile Graphs (for all peer groups within a web-subscriber company) is an important feature of Global Recruiter.

This is what will set Global Recruiter apart from any software/webservice available in the market.

One added advantage (a byproduct?),

is that, we will generate The General Population Profile by simply aggregating the Individual Subscriber’s Population Profiles!

So, if 123 companies subscribe to our webservice and they have, between them:

2394 Managers
569 Gen. Mgrs.
84 V.P.
etc. etc.

We (our software), will consolidate all individual salary-data and generate the GENERAL (or rather COMMON) PROFILE.

Neither we nor any subscriber will get to see/know which specific executive, of which specific company, gets what salary. We can never allow this under any circumstances!

But the aggregation/consolidation (peer group wise) benefits ALL subscribers – while maintaining complete anonymity of the contributing individuals & contributing companies.

Only the concerned company will be able to see its own profile. Of course, they can superimpose their own profile onto the common profile and …

(Graph illustration)

Y-axis: No. of Executives
X-axis: Gross Salary (Rs/Month)
Two curves shown:
- Company XYZ: 234 Executives
- Common Group: 5239 Executives

Label: Peer Group: Managers

At present, I am considering PEER-GROUPS as those falling under same “Designation-Level” (not actual designations, which vary widely, from company to company).

So, each Subscriber Company would need to “place” its existing executives in one of our 9 designation-levels. Then only, we could form “PEER” groups.

Example table structure:

Gross Salary (Rs/M)	Subscriber Company	Customer No:
Srl. No.	Name of Executive	Actual Designation

If subscribers feel uneasy/uncomfortable making available such “CONFIDENTIAL” data to Global Recruiter, they may even drop the “Name of Executive” & leave it blank! We are not interested in knowing that this data belongs to XYZ executive!

If subscribers agree to make such data available (about their existing employees), we can form PEER-groups:

→ Designation Level wise

→ Function wise

→ Age wise

→ Exp wise

→ Edu. Level wise

→ Posting City wise

etc. etc.

In return, subscriber can have a much wider choice of sub-sets (of Peer groups) to compare. This ability to drill-down to a “Niche Target Group” for comparison, would become very valuable, when COMMON POOL contains (say) 300,000 executives, of which 60,000 are “Managers.”

Question:

How can we get subscriber companies to part with this “sensitive” data?

If we say, only those subscribers who submit data about their existing employees will get to see/view COMMON PROFILES,

– then will it work?

How can we be sure that a subscriber gives data for:

→ all of its employees

→ all “columns” in the table?

To fulfill our condition, he may simply furnish data about 2 managers (all columns filled) – when he has 200 managers in employ,

15 General Managers (only 1 column filled).

I don’t think, putting any no. of “conditions” will obtain compliance.

I feel, it is only the “self-interest” which will get compliance.

And that “self-interest” is:

→ being able to generate his own company’s (peer group wise) salary-profiles.

Without his making available this data for all his employees, the profiles cannot be generated (the profile will look horrible for 3 employees!).

And without these profiles, he can neither super-impose on COMMON PROFILE for comparison (of market-standing) purpose, nor can he take “Information-based Intelligent decisions”

Dated: 26/06/03

Abhi

cc: Kartavya

Interactive Page: Usage Statistics

I refer to our discussion yesterday/today.

I am glad that you have built into the Interactive Page software, a mechanism whereby an interactive page is used by a recruiter to respond to a candidate, we would get feedback.

Using this feedback, we should compile statistics as shown in enclosed page. This compilation-process must be continuous & automated, without any human intervention.

The compilation software should also permit/enable “authorised users” to view any particular statistics, by simply clicking on any:

→ Executive’s Name (not PEN)

→ Corporate’s Name (not corporate number)

Of course, we would most certainly like to have a consolidated picture/view/statistics, at any point of time, as to …

→ How many candidates have used the Interactive Page, so far cumulatively, or during a given month / given year.

→ How many corporates …

This would tell us whether the usage is picking up or not and at what “rate.”

It is quite possible that the jobseekers start using the Interactive Page in large numbers, but the recruitment managers are not keen to use the same & rarely use it to respond!

We need to know / compile usages by both, independently.

So that, if we find that for some reason, the Recruitment Mgrs are lukewarm to this concept, then we can probe & find out why.

There is a temptation (on my part), to make available to the corporates, their own Usage Statistics in the form of Statement (B).

But, the danger is: that they would come to know that we are compiling such statistics

about them, secretly / without their knowledge or permission!

This would immediately put them off!

They will simply stop using Interactive Page!

On the other hand, as far as candidates are concerned, they would be happy to see their own statement (A), if made available, either as an email (we can decide period), or as a “Personal Page” on RecruitGum.com

(– I think this is a better option).

If I am a jobseeker, and I am told that I can, anytime, see/view a tabulated page of all my job-attempts (free, too!) in chronological order – and I am assured that no one else can “access” these statistics, then,

I may even give up altogether use of my plain/unstructured email resume in future, and always use ImageBuilder only!

Access to my own statement (B), at any time, and free, would be enough incentive to me to use ImageBuilder only!

Question still remains about the Corporates.

If they can’t see/view these statistics because,
We cannot afford to tell them that we are secretly compiling such statistics,

then, what is the use?

If the statistics do not “help” the concerned Corporate, why compile at all? What else can we use these statistics for? How & where can these help us?

How can we use individual corporate-wise statistics, to:

→ persuade/convince that company to subscribe to our webservice (again, without revealing that we have been secretly compiling these figures!)

→ persuade/convince many other companies (i.e. corporates-in-general) to subscribe to our webservice

→ persuade all jobseekers to use ImageBuilder ONLY (thereby becoming Industry Standard).

Think about these.

Dated: 26/06/03

Kartavya

Interview Mgmt. Module

ResuMine as an Interview-Aid

Dated: 27-08-03

For converting ResuMine into an interview-aid, we have thought of adding following features:

Comparing the “Functional Exposure Profile” (% score) of a candidate with “functional exposure profiles” of:
• Total Population
• Peer-Group (same Age / Edu / Exp / Desig etc.)
When you move mouse over any company-name appearing in resume, a window will show:
• Product/Services of that company
• Other companies making same product/services

This feature will help in testing the “Industry-knowledge” of a candidate.

This feature can be quickly incorporated now that we have cracked SCA CD.

Moving cursor on “Function Exposure” bar (top one only?) will reveal a list of “keywords” which are relevant to that function.

Clicking on any such keyword will open a window containing 5 pertinent “questions”, which the interviewer can ask the candidate, to test his Function-Exposure Depth

(Deep – Adequate – Shallow?)

Keyword: Data Modelling

Question	Candidate’s answer was
What are the characteristics of an optimal data model? (Contributor)	⭘ Comprehensive / In-Depth
What is the difference between static & dynamic information? (Contributor)	⭘ Comprehensive / In-Depth

(Clicking will reveal “contributor’s data.”)

(A) The clicks can be aggregated to decide the “most popular (frequently asked) questions” – which can, then, automatically rearrange in a descending order of “popularity.”

(B) The clicks can/must also be stored against relevant PEN, along with:

→ Name of the interviewer

→ Position for which candidate being interviewed

→ Date of interview

As far as (A) = Aggregation is concerned, it should be across all subscribers / all interviewers & linked to that particular “question” only. Aggregation must not link with PEN in anyway, whatsoever.

As opposed to this, (B) is a “private” affair between that candidate & that interviewer (corporate-subscriber).

(B) results/findings must not/cannot be seen/viewed at any time by someone other than that company/interviewer. This is like a Doctor/Patient relationship!

We also talked about:

→ Facility for all subscriber/interviewers to add their own new questions to our question databank.

→ Giving credit to such “contributors” thru some sort of “public recognition” of their contribution.

When an interviewer adds a new question, we should ask him to fill-in following form:

Contributor Data (Auto “Date Stamping”)

Question to be added
Relevant keyword
Name of Contributor (Last, First)
Designation
Employer / Organization
Personal email

Such a feature will enable us to “capture” the knowledge of thousands of interviewers – a knowledge base that we can never hope to build up on our own.

And “Public Recognition” term contributor hyperlink is a powerful way to motivate such “experts” to add questions!

We can even think of publishing on our home-page:

“CONTRIBUTOR OF THE WEEK”

… profile with a small photograph & a brief biodata of the Contributor! (all of which, he can submit to us online).

Having decided that we should initially focus on IT industry, we need to compile a list of:

→ IT (function) Keywords (which you have already done)

→ Questions related to these IT keywords

You have listed 300 keywords.

Suppose we pick 5 questions against each of these keywords, then we are talking of 1500 questions to be compiled.

Where can we get hold of these questions?

It would take many weeks for an expert to write down 1500 questions – even if he happens to be a genuine expert on 300 subjects/topics!

I think, it would be much simpler/easier to get hold of a few IT-related books (of the kind enclosed) – and look up the questions, listed at the end of each chapter!

There are hundreds of IT-related books – several on each subject, such as:

→ Operating Systems

→ Databases

→ Languages

→ Network Protocols

etc. etc.

Probably each such book costs around Rs. 400/500.

So, we are talking of an investment of not more than Rs. 10,000 at most.

Other alternative is to “subscribe” to some online testing services, such as:

Brainbench
Oracle
Microsoft
Boston Computer Edu. Institute website (of which we were a partner at one time)
New Horizon – (Hyderabad) (we could not agree on terms for partnering but they offer online “tests” on 40/45 software subjects)

Once we subscribe, I suppose, we can download these questions.

Apart from above-mentioned “sources” for questions, we may also explore the possibility of getting these from reputable Computer Training Institutions (– their “Test Papers”?) such as:

→ Aptech

→ NIIT

→ SSI (which has taken over Aptech)

→ NCST (Juhu)

→ CSI (Computer Society of India)

→ VJTI (both offer BE Computer)

→ IIT (Powai) / NIIT / CMC (offer MCA courses)

A retired Computer Course professor could be an ideal “expert” to compile such a databank, since he would be used to “setting” exam-papers! I will talk to 2/3 edu. institutes, to find out whether we could get such a person for 2/3 weeks.

I spoke to Mr. Nagapu (CEO – L&T Infotech) today re: our proposed demo. He said he will organise it after 2nd April since Mr. Devender Nath – who is in charge of HR – is on leave and since they are all very busy with Annual Budget exercise.

Cc: Abhi

Cc: Inder / Anjaria

Kartavya

Interview Module

Keywords/Words

Date: 30/03/03

I have sent to Dr. D.J. Shah (Principal – Bhagubhai) a list of 300+ IT-related keywords (given to me by Abhi). Against each of these, we want Bhagubhai faculty to write down/list up to 5 words which are “related” to the original keyword.

While we wait for the response, I enclose some words, picked-up from EFE Crossword Puzzle #522, along with their “meanings.” Most of these are IT-related words. Some are quite easy but a few (marked ✓) could be used to create a database, which can be linked to our ResuMine Interviewer’s screen.

When a recruiter clicks on one of these words, the “meaning” will appear in a box.

Such a database can be easily compiled by cutting out each day’s puzzle (– along with “solution” appearing next day) and then asking Pande to scan them, using scanner pen! Very little effort required.

Crossword puzzle appears 5 times a week – each having approx. 20 words. So we get 100 words/week OR 5000 words/year! Not bad & no need for an expert either!!

Pl consider this seriously. As far as possible, we should use “content created by others” rather than create ourselves.

Cc: Abhi

On second thought, I get a feeling that the “words” found in crossword puzzle are so very specific, that we may not come across these in many resumes.

But it is still possible to compile such a database from crossword puzzle at negligible cost and use it to create a Knowledge Horizon Test (KHT).

A recruiter can make use of this test by clicking on a button on the Interviewer’s Screen of ResuMine, which would display following window:

Knowledge Horizon Test (Sketch/Table)

Word	Meaning	Candidate’s Answer
		Correct
Bison		⭘
Bob		⭘
BPI		⭘

Notes under sketch:

Answers (as ticked by Interviewer) can be aggregated to rearrange words (within the concerned alphabet) in descending order of “usage” by recruiters.

We can also provide a facility whereby a recruiter can “add” words & meanings to the databank. This would be much easier than framing/loading a question, and may prompt a larger participation & accumulation of database.

No	Word	Chr.	Meaning / Clue
Across
5	Find	4	Unix file search utility
7	Avatar	6	Virtual world incarnation
8	Clobber	7	Erroneously write into an area of memory
9	BPI	3	Measure for density of data storage on a recording medium
10	Kluge	5	Makeshift program
12	Ebook	1–4	Handheld device for reading text
15	Fat	3	File system that keeps track of where data is stored on a disk
16	Jetsend	7	Technology from HP that provides direct communication between network devices
19	Decode	6	Decipher
20	Null	4	First character in ASCII code

| Down |

| 1 | Dial | 4 | Initiate a phone call |

| 2 | Warez | 3,2 | Slang for software, especially pirated variety |

| 3 | FAQ | 3 | Questions with answers on Web |

| 4 | Kaypro | 6 | Defunct US computer company which used to manufacture “luggables” |

| 6 | Debug | 5 | Correct a software problem |

| 11 | Loaded | 6 | Brought into computer memory & loaded |

| 13 | Bison | 5 | Free Software Foundation’s version of Yacc |

| 14 | Texel | 5 | Smallest addressable unit of texture map |

| 17 | Nile | 4 | A family of MIPS-R4000 based servers from Siemens Pyramid |

| 18 | Bob | 3 | Alternate Windows interface from Microsoft which never caught on |

Inder – Functional Specs for INTERVIEW MANAGEMENT MODULE

Date: 26/06/03

This article describes fully my concept of the Interview Management Module viz:

– Being able to monitor the progress of each & every manpower request, on a single screen (UI), in a visual/graphical display (no figures/alphabets/numerals/percentages).

I have in the past compared this with:

Refinery Process Plant / Powerhouse Control Room with its mimic diagrams (on a 10 feet × 20 feet screen!), showing the performance of each & every equipment/process.
Railway Control Room, tracking which train is on which track & exactly where.

BEST bus monitoring is one more concept of “visual/graphical” control.

Your task is to develop this concept into UI & all backend functional processes.

Cc: Kartavya

Cc: Abhi

Inder → Abhi → Kartavya → Vicky

TOI – 01-07

Maharashtra all set to cruise on IT-highway

By Seema Kamdar – Times News Network

(Mumbai news article about Mantralaya adopting IT systems: electronic attendance register, document journey management system, generic meeting information system, personnel information system, video conferencing with CM, V-SAT connectivity, etc. Mention of 90 lakh transactions/month target.)

Handwritten Notes

Our own “Interview Management Module” has to be quite similar to this (except more visual / more graphical / more wizard / mimic diagram type) – so that, not only the CPO (Central Personnel Officer) but all concerned, can track/monitor the recruitment process (“recruitment train”?) and can see at a glance, on which STATION it is held-up!

Clicking on that Station Name (i.e., process-stage) would: