Notes

60,000 Candidates?

You too can add 60,000 candidates to your existing resume database – at no cost! And that can boost your revenue manyfold.

Here is how:

By participating in our “Mailing-List Exchange Scheme,” when you fill in & return attached FORM.

When we receive your FORM, first we email to you our Mailing-List (really a database in Excel) containing:

Name of the Candidate
Postal Address
E-Mail Address
Residence Phone No.
Name of Current Employer
Current Designation
Educational Qualifications

In return, your obligation is to email to us, names from your resume database:

Name of the Candidate
His/Her E-mail Address

That is all!

Of course, the exchange will be for equal numbers i.e., if you decide to send us 5000 names/email addresses, we too send you 5000.

But to prove our bonafides, we will email to you our database FIRST. When you are satisfied, you reciprocate within 7 days. Fair enough?

That is not all! To prove that we trust you, if you declare in the FORM that you wish to exchange 10,000 or more names/email addresses, we will email to you (of course, first) TWICE that number!

And we will also send you (after receiving your Mailing List) your User ID / Password. This will enable you to conduct a 30-day FREE TRIAL on our webservice at:

www.RecruitGuru.com

During those 30 days, should you decide to download our entire resume database (of 60,000+ resumes), we have no objection and you have no obligation! Absolutely FREE.

This offer is open for your acceptance up to July 20th, 2003, so fill in and email the attached FORM.

With regards,
(signed)
Abhinav Khetan
Project Manager
abhi@recruitguru.com

FORM

Resume Mailing-List Exchange Scheme

To: abhi@recruitguru.com
Date: __________

Dear Abhi:

Thank you for your email offer of July 8th. Yes, we are keen to participate in this scheme. Please rush to us your resume Mailing-List (database in Excel), as explained in your offer. We promise to reciprocate your trust. Our details are as follows:

Personal Details

My Name: __________________________
Designation: __________________________
Mobile No.: __________________________

Company Details

Name of Placement Agency: __________________________
Address: __________________________
City / PIN: __________________________
Office Phone (1): __________________________
Office Phone (2): __________________________
E-Mail ID: __________________________

The Number of Names / E-mail IDs we plan to send to you after we receive your Mailing List first: __________

(01/07/03)

Abhi
cc: Kartavya, Vicky, Inder

Project BARTER

Further to my note dt. 29/06/03 on this subject, enclosed find:

Final draft of email, “Zero-Sum Game,” along with “Acceptance Form.”
This incorporates my revised proposals.
Some NOTES:

Keeping track of daily arrival of emailed Acceptance forms & the follow-up action taken by us on each form (e.g., Date on which we sent our database CD; Date on which we converted & returned their CD; Date on which we received their CD).

We should automate this to such an extent that the software “reads” Column #7 (viz. Exchange Quantity offered) and automatically (i) prints out the outstanding ImageBuilder CD and (ii) also prints out 2 labels simultaneously — one for sticking on CD and other for sticking on Jewel case/cardboard cover before giving to courier.

Only manual operation should be to remove the CD from CD writer, stick the label, put it in a box, & stick second label on box!

Pandey/Tushar should be trained to do this.

“Manual operations” under supervision of Deepa, who will be overall responsible to ensure that:

Our CDs are sent out (couriered) to concerned placement agency within 3 days of receiving their email “Acceptance-form.” She must make necessary entry in the on-screen “Summary Tabulation” – Despatch date column – so that

no one is left out
no one gets duplicate CDs!

Once again, when we receive placement agency’s CD (containing their resumes), Deepa must make a relevant “Date Received” entry in the SAME online summary form.
Then, Deepa has to convert placement agency’s CD to ImageBuilder version. After downloading/creating a separate (sub)folder for each placement agency CD (in which resumes are downloaded), she must use same CD to overwrite with ImageBuilders & return to concerned agency. This way, we will save the cost of a CD!

Maybe placement agency will do the same by returning to us our own CD after downloading ImageBuilders sent by us onto their hard disk!!

Deepa → Image Builder (ours) → Place Agency

Plain email resumes ← Image Builder (Agency’s)

To start with we need to buy maybe 50 CDs. Once the process gets going, we will not need to buy anymore. Rotation will set in.
Label printer must be kept next to the CD writer because 2 labels will get printed automatically as soon as ONE CD is burnt. There must not be any mix-up between CDs & labels! That will be a disaster! Absolutely no goof-ups!
If required, computer with CD writer & printer should be dedicated to Project BARTER for 1 month.
Neither blank, nor “written” CDs must lie around in open. Must be kept under lock & key in the drawer of Deepa – who will be fully accountable for “faultless” operation. Abhi to make this clear to her & guide her.
I believe one CD will hold 2500 ImageBuilders at most. Pl check-out/try-out.

“Resume Database Exchange Scheme – Acceptance Form Summary” (30/06/03)

S/N No.	Name of Placement Agency	City	Executive Name	Phone No.	Date of Acceptance (Chronological)	Exchange Quantity Offered	Admin No. Offered

By looking at this column I can know at any point of time what is the total cumulative no. of resumes that we can expect to receive under Project BARTER. Must exceed 5 lakh in 30 days!!

Notes:

Excepting last, all the rest of the field values to be picked up from each “Acceptance Form” as it arrives as an email, to create Summary Tabulation as shown above.
This “Summary” creation/generation process must be completely automated – without any human intervention.
Maybe we should add 2/3 columns at the end, where values can be entered for “Date of despatch of our CD” / “Date of arrival of partner’s CD.”
What about “Date of despatch” of placement agency’s own resumes which we promised to convert & return on a CD?

Since each “Acceptance Form” has to be treated as an automatic “FREE TRIAL” registration, the following must happen automatically:

#1
Allotment of Customer No. (PCN = Permanent Customer Number) / User ID / Password, & emailing these to the concerned Placement Agency.

#2
Automatic “adding” of the Placement Agency’s “Name” (and City too?) to the “List of Early Adopter” page.

#3
Auto addition/generation of “Summary Tabulations” (for free trial) and financial screens as shown in my yesterday’s note titled “Web Service Provisioning.”

After all, a Placement Agency is also a Customer – may be of a different category – but still a Customer. As far as web-service provisioning is concerned, all rules which apply to all other types of customers also apply to a Placement Agency Customer.

Kartavya
Abhi
Inder
Vicky
29-08-03

Project BARTER

I plan to modify my email circular ZERO SUM GAME to incorporate following changes:

► Conversion

We have offered to exchange ImageBuilder resumes in exchange for unstructured email resumes. In fact, in order to create an atmosphere of “trust” we have offered to send ImageBuilder CD first as soon as we receive email FORM from a placement agency accepting our “Exchange” offer.

Once placement agency receives our CD and is satisfied, we expect it to send their resumes also to us.

Now, I propose that we convert these plain resumes (sent by placement agency) into ImageBuilder and return these to the concerned agency on a CD!

How would this help us? (in the long run!)

In short-run, this (modified) offer will become irresistible! Hopefully, this will tempt many more agencies to accept our offer.

Our additional cost could be another Rs. 30/40 (for CD + conversion + courier charges) per each agency signing up.

First CD would also have cost us Rs. 30/40. So, total cost (at max) could come to say Rs. 100/- (for 2 CDs) per agency signing up.

If all 1000 agencies sign up, total cost could come to Rs. 1 Lakh.

Even if each agency sends us 500 resumes, we get 5 lakh resumes (for expenditure of Rs. 1 lakh, i.e. 20 paise/resume).

In long-term (we hope), entire resume database of each agency consists of “ImageBuilder” (since we are offering to convert their entire database for free!).

First advantage is that such a situation where resume databases of all 1000 placement agencies of India consist……entirely of ImageBuilders ONLY would immediately make ImageBuilder as the de facto INDUSTRY STANDARD.

Whenever any placement agency sends out any resume to any of its corporate clients, it would be an ImageBuilder version. That would be one hell-of-a-lot of free publicity! It would not cost us a dime. It would create a NATIONAL BRAND – something that no company in the world has managed to achieve so far!

Second advantage:

Once placement agency has to subscribe to RecruitGuru sooner or later! Without GuruSearch, the ImageBuilder resumes are useless/unsearchable!

Again, resumes are notoriously “perishable” commodity. They become obsolete/outdated within 6/12 months.

So, even as a placement agency, if I possess 40,000 ImageBuilder resumes, what do I always do when I have to send 10 of these to my clients?

I have to ensure that these 10 are latest/up-to-date. So I check the “date”… …on top of the “Functional Exposure Profile” graphs and find that it is ONE YEAR old! That is no good!

So, either I obtain latest unstructured email resumes from concerned candidates and then get these converted on RecruitGuru (which requires being a subscriber),

OR,

I choose to send to the client, latest plain email resumes.

But if I believe that my client is already used to ImageBuilder only OR if I believe that the competing placement agencies will send ImageBuilders and therefore client may not even look at my plain resumes, then I would be highly concerned! I cannot afford to take such risk!

In another twist, let us say 5 agencies send ImageBuilders to a client whereas the sixth agency sends “plain” resumes.

What is client likely to do?

He will either take time/pain to read these, or ignore these OR (if he is already a subscriber to RecruitGuru) get these converted. So, we get business, one way or other.

So, even if we give away “FREE” a million ImageBuilders to a 1,000 placement agencies, we are creating a market for “edit/update” of these 1 million resumes, once or twice every year, year after year.

And for this reason, GurMine/GurSearch must remain on our webserver only. These must not be installed at any client’s premises as an “Enterprise” version.

FREE TRIAL

The second change I propose to make to “Zero Sum Game” is to offer 30-day Free Trial automatically to all the placement agencies who “accept our Exchange” offer.

As soon as RecruitGuru is launched (around 20th Aug), the names of all the “Accept” agencies will appear on the “Names of Early Adopters” page.

Simultaneously we will email them their User ID / Password / Customer No.

If a large no. of placement agencies names appear on Early Adopter page, that would give a big boost to our brand.

Since 70% of job ads appearing on job sites are placed by placement agencies (Monster survey), it stands to reason that 70% of all resumes are also being received by these agencies.

So, if they are offered 30-day free trial, the placement agencies would naturally want to use RecruitGuru for converting all resumes received by them in plain email form.

In fact, this desire (to convert) would be all the more strong, if, during July/Aug, these agencies have received from us, say, 10,000 resumes each in ImageBuilder version under our BARTER offer.

They would want their entire database in one consistent version only, viz. the ImageBuilder.

Those (placement agencies or corporates) who choose to become our “Regular” subscribers after 30-day FREE TRIAL would insist that whatever ImageBuilders they have accumulated on their local hard disk during July/Aug/Sept must get integrated into our webservice into their private databases. This we must agree to do.

(Alt #2 – 17-06-03)

RecruitGuru.com

Dear Sir,

Zero-Sum Game

It is a game where both players win.

A win-win situation.

Like when we send you (on a CD) 5,000 resumes in exchange for a similar number from you. We have over 1 lakh resumes of middle-level managers in our database.

You gain – we gain.

But what we send you are no ordinary email resumes. These are the ImageBuilder versions created by our Artificial Intelligent Software – ResuMine – which will be offered to Corporate Recruiters (as a Webservice) in Sept. 2003. And to you as well.

See attached SAMPLE.

The ImageBuilder resume will ensure that your candidate gets appointed by your client!

If you are agreeable to participate in this EXCHANGE SCHEME, fill in the form attached and return to us as an email.

If you are amongst the first 50 to accept our offer, you will get from us TWICE the number of resumes that you wish to exchange.

This DOUBLE INCENTIVE will apply up to June 30 only.

The resumes you send us must be softcopy on a CD & sent by courier (very important) to our postal address given below.

Our bonafides:

You can send your resume database only after you first receive our CD – and are satisfied.

Yours faithfully,

Abhinandan Khatuwane

abhi@recruitguru.com
www.recruitguru.com
B/1 Lok Bharati Complex

Marol Maroshi Road

Andheri (E)

Mumbai – 400059

FORM

Resume Database Exchange Scheme

To:
Abhi (abhi@recruitguru.com)

Dear Abhi:

Thank you for your email offer.

Yes, we are keen to participate in this scheme, and after we receive from you your resume database (ImageBuilder version) on a CD, we undertake to send to you (through courier) a CD containing email resumes numbering _______.

Our Corporate Information is as follows:

Name of Placement Agency: ________________________
Address: ________________________
City / PIN: ________________________
Phone Nos.:

E-mail ID: ________________________
My Name: ________________________
My Designation: ________________________
My Mobile No.: ________________________

Date: ________________________

(15-06-03)

Kartavya
cc: Abhi

cc: Inder

cc: Nagwekar

Project BARTER

On Friday last, we discussed my proposal to give away 1 lakh converted Butterfly resumes to any corporate who signs up for FREE TRIAL by end Nov.

I called this Project ENTYCE & my proposal is enclosed.

Using the bait of 1 lakh free resumes, our idea is to get maybe 1,000 corporates to sign up for free trial during Sept/Oct/Nov.

If we succeed, that should start an avalanche which becomes unstoppable. We have to overcome the starting “inertia” — the starting “resistance”.

Then the growing nos. will feed on themselves and we must publicise these growing nos. morning, afternoon & evening!

While discussing project ENTYCE, you mentioned if this no. of 1 lakh resumes could be made even bigger — say 3 lakhs — then the temptation for FREE TRIAL would be 3 times as strong & irresistible!

I agree with you.

The bigger this no., the bigger the temptation.

Q: How can we go up from 1 lakh to 3 lakhs in next 2 months?

Ans:
One method, I feel, is quickly implementing Project EGO in next 10 days, at the most.

When 1 lakh candidates receive their own resume in the Butterfly version, it will create a lot of buzz. There will be a lot of “word of mouth” spreading of this phenomenon.

And, if I am right, thousands of email resumes will pour in for getting converted.

But I could also be wrong!

So, we must not depend upon Project EGO alone.

And that is why I propose one more method, under Project BARTER (see draft email circular enclosed).

It is fairly straightforward.

There are 1,000 placement agencies listed in JOBNET directory. All have email IDs. Most advertise heavily on job sites & therefore receive thousands of email resumes. (This obviously is far cheaper than building & maintaining one’s own website – a lesson we learned after 6 years!)

So, on an average each agency may be holding on its hard disk 10,000 email resumes.

That takes the total to

10 Million Resumes!

Maybe many are duplicates/quadruplicates! Even discounting all these, it’s entirely possible that between them, these agencies hold 500,000 (5 lakh) unique resumes.

If we can somehow manage to get hold of these, our own database shoots up to 1 lakh + 5 lakh = 6 lakh.

That would put us on par with (or ahead of) Naukri / Monster / JobsAhead / JobStreet! That would give us a tremendous bargaining power.

Q: How can we get these 1,000 agencies to hand over their resume database to us – officially, willingly?

Project BARTER seems to be one answer.

We would be giving away – in small chunks – same 1 lakh resumes, again & again!
This 1 lakh cost us Rs. 1 lakh.

If we leverage these to extract 5 lakhs from agencies, our average cost of acquisition drops from Rs.1/resume to Rs.0.20/resume!

And we must manage to do this in July & Aug, so that, to our…

“Early adopters” (who sign up in Sept/Oct/Nov), we gift away FREE, not 1 lakh but 6 lakh resumes!

You are right. We must make it impossible for corporates to resist our offer.

Caution:

We will offer Barter to only those agencies which are listed in JOBNET directory. This is to avoid someone falsely pretending to be a placement agency.
We will follow the GAME THEORY, where both parties are trying to minimise pain & maximise profit by their own individual decisions taken at each stage of the game.

Eg.:

We will first offer 100 resumes to be downloaded (or we email).
Only if & when we receive from that agency 100 resumes in exchange, do we send the next batch of 200.

But if we do NOT receive them, the game ends there itself — and this is something each recipient agency “knows”! So trying to “cheat” on us would terminate the game.

So, a serious player would continue to play the game as long as his resume database lasts. If he tries to cheat at any stage, the game ends!

And we can decide the rules in advance, e.g.:

Each batch could be 1.2 / 1.5 times the size of previous batch.
Starting batch would be 50 / 100 resumes.
Each resume sent to us shall be unique (our word will be final in this matter).
Agency can’t return / bounce back to us the very same resumes that we send to them in the first place (which cannot happen in any case, since we would be sending Butterfly version only and not plain email version).

Shall we go ahead?

Dear Sir,

Double Your Revenue

Your revenues depend upon the no. of executives you appoint for your clients – which, in turn, depends upon the size of your resume database – and the quality of your database.

We know this because we are in the same business. Over the years, we have built up a database of over 100,000 professionals, most of them with 10+ years of experience.

No doubt you too must have built up a similar database of resumes. Despite this, there must be many occasions when you fail to locate the “right” candidate. So do we.

But, if our databases were twice as big, the chance of finding the right candidate would be twice as good.

And revenues could double too.

So, we offer to exchange our database with yours for a matching number. Of course, the resumes that you offer to us in exchange would need to be in email form (softcopy).

I enclose a SAMPLE of a typical resume that you could expect to receive from us. From an unstructured email resume, we have converted this into a structured database format using our proprietary Artificial Intelligence software, ResuMine.

So, when you receive from us say, 1,000 resumes, all of these will be formatted as per SAMPLE attached.

And to inspire trust in what we say and mean, we will permit you to search & download resumes from our website FIRST. Only if you are happy, you send us a matching no. of email resumes. If not, there is no obligation on your part.

If we receive a matching number of resumes from you, we will let you conduct a second search. And the process can repeat all over.

Our “Exchange Offer” would prevail during months of July–Aug 2003, and will be restricted to Placement Agencies / Executive Search Firms / Recruitment Consultants.

…whose names appear in the JOBNET’s Directory of Placement Agencies (Edition 4).

In the meantime, could you please send me an email indicating your willingness to participate in this scheme?

Please feel free to ask questions if any.

With regards,

Hemen Parekh

Project ENTYCE

Draft of email circular to be sent to Corporates

Dear HR Chief,

1 Lakh Resumes – FREE!

When you are given the requirement in the morning and want to send out interview-call emails to 20 most-suitable candidates before lunch, you are no doubt stressed.

And if this happens 20 times in a year, you may be, about to “burn-out”!

To some of you, this happens 20 times-a-month. It did to me, when I was HR Chief at L&T (1977–79). Since then, things have only got worse.

Do not despair.

If you sign up for 30 day FREE TRIAL of our webservice GLOBAL RECRUITER, we will gift you 1 lakh resumes, absolutely FREE – without any obligation.

As soon as you sign up, these 1 lakh resumes will be deposited into your PRIVATE RESUME DATABASE on our webserver. Only you – and you alone – will be able to access & search this private database, and generate shortlists of most suitable candidates against your “search-criteria” (no matter how stringent) – in 10 seconds flat!

Then you will be able to send out interview-call emails to these shortlisted candidates, all at one go, within a matter of minutes.

To give you an idea of the type of resumes which you will get, see enclosed SAMPLE.

This gift-offer is open till 30 Nov. 2003. But why would you want to suffer till then?

When you sign up (FREE TRIAL), you have nothing to lose, but 1 lakh resumes to gain!

With regards,

Hemen Parekh

P.S. Resume Database Search, on leading jobsites, cost you between Rs. 1.3 Lakhs to Rs. 1.7 Lakhs / year!!

(Project – ENTYCE)

Global Recruiter Marketing Strategy (Proposal in a Nutshell)

On 23 Aug, we send out an email circular to 50,000 Corporates (names / email IDs extracted from JobNet listings downloaded).
To all those who register for Free Trial during next 3 months (up to 30 Nov), we give away Free (gift-away), 1 Lakh duly converted email resumes (received under past Mailshot) by depositing these in the Private Resume Database of that company (on our webserver).
During Trial period, searching this database will be limited to 50 searches only. They can download “search-results” (shortlists) to their local hard disks, Free. During Trial Period, emailing / printing etc. will also be free.

S#	Possible Concern	So What? How Shall We Tackle?
1	Corporates may download entire database of 1 lakh resumes during trial period, then forget about becoming regular subscriber.	➤ For conducting a search, we’ll make it mandatory to give all 8 search-criteria (viz. Function / Age / Exp.). This will bring down the resulting shortlist to, say, 100–200 resumes. And, during the Trial Period, we’re limiting the no. of searches to only 50. That means at most a Corporate can download only 50×200 = 10,000 resumes. ➤ It is also quite likely that the 50 free “searches” are finished within 3–4 days. Unless these 1st time “searches” produce highly relevant data, the Manager will not get “hooked”! ➤ But once the Manager becomes familiar with the power of RecruitGuru ResourceLine, he would want to continue. He can do so only by becoming a Regular Subscriber. ➤ The moment he becomes a Regular Subscriber (even after 4 days), the Free Trial period is terminated. (30 days or 50 searches whichever is earlier) and Prepaid / Pay-Per-Use & transaction tariffs kick in. ➤ At this point Service becomes Prepaid / Pay-Per-Use, e.g. “Transaction” tariffs: – Each search will cost Rs.10/- – Every resume download cost Rs.2/- per resume (download locally) So let him avoid downloading during Trial Period. When originally gifted 1 lakh resumes, his fee Rs.20,000/-!! Even though we originally gifted 1 lakh resumes

S#	Concern	So What? How Shall We Tackle?
2	Why should we give away (free) 1 lakh resumes to Corporates? Thereafter, they may never have any need for us to process / convert email resumes.	➤ We’re trying to restrict “search-download” of 10,000 (out of 1 lakh) resumes. But even if a Subscriber somehow manages to download entire 1 lakh (during Trial period) on his local hard disk, he would need a “search-engine” to be able to search these. I suppose some freely available (or cheap) softwares can succeed to search 1 lakh on some simple search criteria (including keyword-based search) but, without ResourceLine, can he search on 8 Function / Age / Exp. criteria at once? ➤ So, if he cannot search 1 lakh resumes in his local hard disk on FUNCTION, he would need to subscribe to Global Recruiter. And, after sometime, we would add “Salary Profile” & “Designation Profile” – which again no ordinary search-engine can search. ➤ The trick is to somehow ensure that resumes converted from ResumeMine be searched only thru ResourceLine! One without the other will have very limited use. ➤ Then again, even if he downloads entire 1 lakh, how does he manage to keep these up-to-date / fresh? ➤ Once the Owner of resume database becomes our “customer”, he has to remind the candidates to update their resumes (thru Edit). If they have not done so during preceding 6–12 months, resumes become obsolete. ➤ Any corporate / agency will find it impossible to keep track of thousands of resumes. This feature is built into ResourceLine – we’ll keep these up-to-date by contacting candidates directly. ➤ This is something that Corporate manager cannot manage, or may not bother to manage. Keeping resumes up-to-date is NOT his main business. It is better left to us. ➤ Again, downloaded resumes are Butterfly version, whereas email resumes are edited daily by candidates. Candidate EDIT against email would be plain unstructured. The two databases just don’t mix well for the purpose of searching.

(17-06-03 — Project BARTER note)

While waiting for the 4th edition of the JobNet “Directory of Recruitment Firms,” the 2nd edition is enclosed.
Out of approx. 1,120 listings, ~120 have been marked “X” — leaving ~1,000 firms to target with the “Zero-Sum Game” email circular.
Email IDs needed for all.
Why 120 were removed from mailing:

Large Indian placement agencies with multiple city branches (often ERA members).
Multinational Executive Search Companies.
Together, these 120 brands have branches all over India.