8 Jan
2004
VISION
OF RECRUITGURU
Despite
a proliferation of jobsites on the internet during last 10 years, recruitment
on the ground still remains more of an art than a science.
It is
true that jobseekers can now
·
Post
their resumes on jobsites
·
Conduct
Job searches
·
Receive
Job-alerts
·
Apply
On-line
But
there are thousands of jobsites. It is humanly impossible to daily visit even 5
jobsites. So, if anything, thousands, of jobsites, boating lakhs of
job-openings, have made a jobseeker’s life for more miserable than ever before!
Form an acute information-starvation (of
the newspaper era), a jobseeker now suffers from an abundance of information
–overload (in the internet ara).
It is
not a uch different situation for a Corporate employer. He too, can go to the
world wide web, (jobsites) and
·
Post
job-advts.
·
Conduct
resume database searches
·
Receive
candidate-alerts
·
Send
–out interview-call emails.
His
predicament is only many times worse than that of a jobseeker’s!
Whereas,
in the good old newspaper days he used to get 50 resume against his
advertisement, now he gets 500! And most of these are unstructured email
resumes which are thoroughly “unsearchable”. Posting a job-advt on 5 jobsites
simultaneously, only worsens the problem.
So, a
recruitment manager too suffers from a surfeit of information!
Neither
the jobseeker nor the recruitment manager realizes that mere information is not
knowledge! A ton of information cannot substitute for an ounce of knowledge.
What both need are Expert systems, which would shift & sieve tons of
information and come-up with “answers” to the following questions:-
FOR
THE RECUITMENT MANAGERS:-
For
–and on behalf of the recruitment managers, the Expert system will arrive at
following “decisions”.
1. How to advertise? Where to advertise?
When to advertise?
2. Which/ how many applicants to call
for interview?
3. Where to call candidates for
interview?
4. When to call candidates for
interview?
5. What salary to be offered to
selected candidates, without upsetting “internal apple-cart”?
6. What “designation” to be offered
to selected candidate?
7. Who should be the
interview-experts?
8. Whom to consult for “antecedents”?
9. What questions to ask? What tests
to be administered?
FOR
THE JOBSEEKERS
Acting
as “Agent of a jobseeker,
The
expert system will take following decisions or advice on:
1. Which job advts are best “match”
with his skills and therefore worth applying to?
2. Which companies are engaged in
similar products/services as his current employer/
3. In relation to peers/
co-professionals of same age/experience/education/designation etc, where does
he “ stand” (percentile) in respect of annual salary? What salary/designation
should be bargain for?
4. Before appearing for an interview,
what info/ data/statistics should be compile and study about the prospective
employer? Where would he find such info/data/statics?
5. How should he “customize his
resume when applying to different companies?
6. What are the “probabilities” of
his getting shortlisted/selected against a given job-advt?
7. Which companies could be in need for a person
with his background-even though they may not have advertised such vacancies?
These
are just a few of the questions to which, jobseekers and recruiters are
desperately trying to find answers-and mostly failing. The reasons are as
follows:
·
Massive
database (corporate Profiles/Job-advts/resumes etc) are lying scattered all
over internet. Some are structured but most are not.
·
These
database are not easily accessible.
·
“Decision-rules”
to convert these databases into “actionable knowledge” (with probabilities of
success of each action configured there
advanced statistical analysis), do not exist. No systematic attempt has been
reported anywhere in the world, to construct such “decision-rules” which mimic
the “logic” used by the jobseekers’ and recruiters brains.
·
Then
again, no human brain (either a jobseekers or a recruiters) can process
terabytes of data using thousands of “decision-rules” to uncover/reveal
relationship “patterns” amongst hundreds of “variables, in any reasonable
period of time!
And the situation is getting worse by the day as business
megatrends (see Annex: A) gather momentum. These have very real potential to
overwhelm and paralyze human endeavors.
Fortunately for mankind, a parallel set of megatrends are evolving in the area of
Information Technology (see Annex: B), which hold the promise of coping with
the business megatrends. These technologies are developing rapidly. The only
limitation is mankind’s ability-and willingness-to exploit these technologies.
At Recruitguru, our vision is to develop and deploy
Expert systems and provide a platform (in the form of www.recruitguru.com) where “Virtual agents” of
millions of jobseekers will search-out/interact/negotiate with virtual agents of
thousands of recruitment managers, to help their “owner-masters” reach mutually
beneficial exchange of services & benefits.
Annex:A
Business Megatrends
·
Acceleration
of services/knowledge based industries
·
Freer
movement of business resources.
1.
Finance
2.
Manpower
3.
Knowledge
(Information/Databases)
·
Unprecedented
creation of massive database on internet
·
E-commerce
becoming a way of life
·
Higher
productivity of resource-utilization
·
Much
more competitive business environment
·
Much
more out sourcing of non-core business processes, leaving management free to
concentrate on development of core-competencies.
·
Information
overload on unprecedented scale
·
Reduced
business-travels as a result of video-conferencing.
·
Remote
working from home
·
Free-lancing/manpower
on tap
·
Instead
of cross border movement of professionals, emergence of cross border movement
of job (especially information/content based jobs)
·
More
level-playing ground for developing countries under WTO.
Annex:B
·
Broadband
Infrastructure
·
Ubiquitous
coireless networks on all types of devices
·
Video
–conferencing (real time collaboration Tools)
·
Video
– conferencing (real time collaboration Tools)
·
Voice
data Video
·
Storage-Area
networks
·
Superfast
computers
·
Nano-technology
leading to pervasive computing
·
Merger
of TV & computer
·
Wireless
phones overtaking landline phones
·
AI
& Neuralnet based Export systems to replace adhoc decision making in all walks of life.
Hemen
Parekh
