Most people live on, on eternal hope of a better tomorrow – even those whose “past/present” has been quite good. So, you cannot blame those whose “past/present” is not-so-good, to yearn for a better tomorrow.
And that makes everyone anxious to “know” what future holds for them.
This human tendency/weakness is the “Fundamental” on which the business of astrologers & futurologists thrives.
And what technique do these forecasters employ to predict people’s future?
They rely on “Theory of Probability”.
They know that “events” recur with regularity – except that some events occur with greater regularity than some others.
Some events have a greater probability of occurrence than some others.
to accurately compute the “frequency of occurrence (probability)” of each type of event, in advance. But everyone is vaguely “aware” that such-and-such events are likely to occur in near future or distant future (if probability is low).
-
a dacoity/murder in the city
-
a bus accident
-
a boat capsizing, etc.
So, there are 3 dimensions to an event viz:
-
Type/Nature of event
-
Time period within which it will happen
-
To whom it will happen/affect.
Now examine:
-
TYPE/NATURE OF EVENT.Practically, these can
run into thousands.
Now, if you multiply these 3 dimensions, you have literally TRILLIONS & TRILLIONS of combinations, with a “probability” attached to each!
This is what makes “predicting of future” so easy!
Because, what you have just predicted is bound to happen, sometime or other, to someone or other!
Now if something that is vaguely resembling what was predicted, does actually happen to even 5% of the people who “read” your prediction, their confidence/faith in your ability to predict future sky-rockets!
They start believing that you have some god-given, magical powers to predict future (– did it not come true for them?).
Then these 5% spread the word (word-of-mouth) about your magical powers.
… them) will come true (the flame of eternal hope keeps burning in their hearts — the hope for a better tomorrow).
But these 95% never go out and tell anybody that things did not happen as predicted! They don’t want to look silly! They don’t want to appear to be superstitious persons, believing in unscientific, irrational predictions!
So only the good word spreads. Only the “positive” stories spread.
So each such story brings in more & more persons to look-up morning newspaper to (first) see what future holds for them. Forgotten within 5 minutes but remembered if something (vaguely) similar did happen by the end of the day.
What is the relevance of this long introduction?
I believe this human frailty (preoccupation/obsession to “know” one’s future) has the potential to turn our ResuMine into a “Killer Application”!
In ResuMine, when we are plotting FUNCTION EXPOSURE PROFILE,
we are merely “predicting-the-past” of a person in a graphical manner, based on what he tells us in his resume, thru “keywords”.
Now, suppose, based on the information contained in that very same resume, the very same keywords, we are also able to “PREDICT THE FUTURE” of a candidate, would it not be a great hit?
All that we must do (learning from our learned astrologers/futurologists), is to ensure that our prediction about the future of the resume-owner, is
-
Sufficiently VAGUE/GENERAL
-
Not linked to any TIME-FRAME
In such a case, it (the prediction) is bound to sound “plausible” to at least 5% of the candidates, who are able to see some “Relevance” (to themselves) in our FORECAST.
And this is not at all difficult.
For each “Function”, we have compiled a “set” of keywords (40/50?).
Some of these do appear in a resume & some don’t. We know both of these “sub-sets” for each candidate. We have also given “weightages” to each keyword.
My proposal:
Let us replace the right-hand …
Keyword-panel (where we display all keywords found in that resume), with a panel such as follows:
[Sketch of a panel/table with arrows pointing down]
Executive SWOT Analysis
-
Your “Strengths” are (leverage these):[list of top 4 keywords actually present in his resume (highest weightage keywords)]
-
Your “Weaknesses” are (overcome these):[list of top 4 keywords missing from his resume (highest weightage missing)]
-
Your “Opportunities” are (you will grow here):[names of 4 companies belonging to the same industry to which candidate belongs, preferably those which have recently advertised for a person like this candidate (Job Alert match)]
-
Your “Threats” are (watch out for these):[list not specified, note: “I cannot think of anything right now!”]
Side notes:
-
We need to use management jargon! We cannot say, here is your horoscope!
-
To sound really profound (like C.K. Prahalad?), use the title:“PERSONAL ANALYTICS” (instead of SWOT or PERSONAL PROFILE)
-
P.S.: This panel/frame is strictly meant for the candidate. Obviously this cannot be emailed/shown to a Corporate Recruitment Manager. For them, either a separate panel continues or we come up with another version which is sharply targeted to Recruitment Managers.
I get a feeling that not 5% but 50% of the candidates would CLEARLY / UNAMBIGUOUSLY identify themselves with this:
YOUR PERSONAL PROFILE (a.k.a. SWOT analysis)
It would appear quite MYSTICAL / MAGICAL, especially if, thru this profile, we are telling the candidate exactly what he wants to hear about himself!
There is no rationale. It is an act of FAITH.
In PERSONAL PROFILE (SWOT), every word need not relate 100% to the candidate. Even if 50% of the words displayed have 50% relevance to 50% of candidates, this (profile) would be a GREAT HIT!
All those candidates who receive this PERSONAL PROFILE (under our Project EGO), would want their friends/colleagues to discover these great forecasts which they have (accidentally) stumbled upon.
