Reports: Making Money from " Online Jobs Fair " [ Part B ]

PART B

Date : Tue, Oct 18, 2016

Sub. : ROBOT INTERVIEW

VS,

Following news story also appeared in yesterday's Times of India

Indian TalView has both types of offerings : Live , and : Asynchronous Video Recording ( like HireVue )

I strongly suggest that you prepare a " Compare and Contrast " type of tabulation of the features / functionalities , being offered by TalView with our own proposed " OnlineJobsFair.com "

Then only will you come to know whether our plan scores over theirs - and in what respects ; a kind of benchmarking

I do believe our plan has quite a few plus points

Do read their FAQ for , both the Employers and the Jobseekers

In the meantime , today I spent 4 hours going through my old notes and have prepared 12 files , which I will deliver to Kartavya , tomorrow morning

His senior developer may also want to take a look at TalView web site

hcp

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ROBOT INTERVIEW

Soon, you may be interviewed by a robot for your next job

{ Source : TechWorm / 17 Oct 2016 }

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Jake Rosen, a recent graduate of UCLA, was taken aback when he was interviewed by a webcam, on a laptop instead of a human being while he was applying for a job at NBC.

He recorded his answers and returned them to a hiring manager at NBC for evaluation at the company’s convenience.

So, how does this robo-interview work?

You are given a question on the screen for which you have a limited amount of time to answer.

You talk to your computer, record the responses, and send them back to the company.

At times, prospective employees get a practice question to get used to talking to a camera, while at times they may not. However, most often you get a chance to re-record your answer at the end.

This kind of interview may end up being a boon for those people who are introvert, who need not go through formal greetings or be audible enough while answering a question.

However, it may be a little awkward for many wherein you are compelled to stare at your big, nervous face as you wax on about why you want to work at the company.

Essentially speaking it is more like performing for an invisible audience rather than having a conversation. Rosen felt nervous from the first question, as he was not used to being on camera. As a result, he was nervous for the rest of his interview, he said.

“I’m not a YouTube star, obviously,” he said. “It’s such a weird experience talking to a camera. It honestly was pretty horrible.” Jamie Black, who suffered through the video interview experience for a job at a school, said it felt “more like a game show than an interview.”

With the human-free video job interview is on the rise, it seems that this experience will soon become unavoidable for many of us.

HireVue, one of the handful of companies making video interview software, works with 600 large organizations, including JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Under Armour, and most of the major U.S. airlines.

The company is expected to do 2.5 million interviews this year, which is an increase from 13,000 five years ago.

Almost 90% of those are “on demand” interviews, with nobody live at the other end.

The attraction of the video interview for a hiring manager is primarily efficiency.

“Companies want to get to know way more people,” said Mark Newman, the founder of HireVue. In a day, a recruiter can only get through so many 30-minute conversations. Further, this doesn’t include the time lost to schedule or on bad candidates.

Human resources staff members with a video interview have to only evaluate the answers, which they can do as per their own schedule and without travelling for on-campus recruiting.

Hilton got down its hiring process to 4.5 days, which is almost 20 days shorter than the average interview process by using HireVue.

This process helps companies save money. Cigna has cut travel expenses for recruiters from $1 million a year, in some cases, to under $100,000.

On the other hand, the advantage of robo-recruiting for a job candidate is convenience. Normally, a company will give an interviewee a day or two to complete the interview, which can happen anywhere. While this may sound like another advantage, but for Rosen it only added to his stress.

“You start to think about things you wouldn’t normally think about in interviews. I started thinking about my surroundings,” Rosen said. “I had to find a blank wall to sit in front of. … Should I put a bookshelf behind me? A plant?”

Recruiters say they don’t judge candidates on their performance, appearance, or location.

“Judging is an interesting word,” said Heidi Soltis-Berner, the managing director for talent at Deloitte. “I would say the on-demand interview is truly for fact sharing.”

Other recruiters said they do assess people on their eye contact and communication abilities.

The entire setup can be a bit trying even if hiring managers are instructed not to make decisions on how well a probable new employee can perform in front of a camera.

“You just see yourself and a stopwatch ticking down,” said Black, who said his answers often got cut off by the timer.

Black said that if and when he has to do it again, he would practice in front of a mirror with a stopwatch before the interview.

When the interview is taking place, it may help to have someone sit behind the computer, Rosen said, as it would be like conversing with a person instead of a screen. Just stare at the camera so that you are not distracted.

However, the best advice might be to just relax.

Scott Mitchell, a recruiter for American Wedding Group, which uses video interviews to pre-screen the 1,900 independent contractors it works, said, “It’s OK to come across as uncomfortable in front of the camera, because everyone is. We all assume you’re going to be uncomfortable. We’re putting you in an uncomfortable position.”

Human interaction hasn’t be entirely replaced by the robo-interview.

It is often used as a replacement for first-round screening interviews by many companies, which is later followed by more traditional one-on-ones.

However, this kind of interview might not be happening for interviewees who would prefer the traditional way of interview.

With the video interviews, organizations can look at more people and a more varied set of people, and also additionally save money.

“Candidates will generally say, ‘I would have preferred an in-person interview to this,’ but that’s not the right comparison,” HireVue’s Newman said. “The alternative is no interview at all.”

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Also take a look at :

https://talview.com/live-interview

Date : Tue, Oct 18, 2016

Sub. : RE: OnLineJobsFair.com

VS,

It is important to remember that in "OnlineJobsFair " , there will be 2 types of Resumes and 2 types of Job advts

Resumes > Submitted online by registered jobseekers > Uploaded from back end ( current 47 lakhs )

Job Advts > Posted online by regd Employers > Received in our database thru daily RSS feeds

As far as job advts which are received thru RSS feeds are concerned , a jobseeker will be able to search/locate online and " Apply Online " . He may even receive a Job Alert for some of these ( and apply ) , through mobile app " My Jobs "

But , for such job advts , obviously , there cannot be any online interviews thru OnlineJobsFair feature

Similarly :

For resumes uploaded by us thru backend , there can be no online interviewing thru OnlineJobsFair

But , employers can still search for these / shortlist and download ( FREE )

For such resumes , there will be no facility for the Employers to send out any Interview Calls ( emails ) , directly from our site

Of course , after downloading , employer can contact that jobseeker thru email / phone etc

hcp

Date : Mon, Oct 17, 2016

Sub. : OnLineJobsFair.com

Kartavya,

This has reference to our telecons today re development of OnlineJobsFair.com portal for CIBR ( Hyderabad ) . As mentioned , Mr V Srinivasof CIBR has been in touch with me in this regard for past 3 months . During his last visit to my office last week , he , more or less , finalized the broad outline of this portal , which , I have forwarded to you

As suggested by you , I will visit your office next week Thursday at 11:30 am , for detailed discussions on the features / functionalities of the proposed portal

In the meantime , by today evening , I will deliver to you , copies of my handwritten notes covering :

# Job Alert Recommendation System / Match Index System ( file # 258 )

# Recruitguru.com ( Screen shots / Logic notes / Tariff plan / Parsing Logic / GuruSearch etc )

( file nos 257 and 288 )

# Resumine / ResuSearch ( file no 243 )

# " My Jobs " mobile app ( file no 289 )

Tomorrow , I will try to go through several other files and , out of those , may send you some more

Since your Senior Executives are busy this week , I hope they will get time to go through these files , early next week , before my visit

Basic configuration of the portal will be :

CORE :

This will be , more or less , my existing portal , www.CustomizeResume.com ( minus some frills )

We will be in a position to make available to you , full source-code / documentation / databases etc for this . That would also include the source-codes for the mobile apps , " My Jobs " and " Resume Blaster "

AUXILIARIES :

Here , the main feature will be " OnlineJobsFair ", for which complete design / logic / UI and Page Write-ups , are ready ( handwritten ) , which , I will send to you tomorrow . Of course , these are also available on my blogging site and you can read these by clicking on the link

Another feature is ResumesExchange .

Mr Srinivas has some doubt if this can work as a downloadable tool , which carries out the parsing of the TEXT resumes offline and then upload on our server

As a result , we felt that we just revive our old / tried and tested , RecruitGuru.com , online ( as part of the proposed portal , where registered Employers can upload their TEXT resumes and get these parsed to create a Structured / Searchable Resume Database ( just like old times )

We will store such resume databases , " Employer wise " , should they want to search only within their own database

But,

Simultaneously , we will also MERGE these ( donated ) resumes into our COMMON / PUBLIC database as well , which can be searched by ALL registered Employers

" My Jobs " :

For a couple of years , this is defunct ( although , we will be giving you the source-code ) , because , it was partly " serviced " by HP , from their USA based server , which they discontinued and we never got around to revive it from our own server

We would very much like to revive this and get some Ad Network ( such as InMobi ) to display advts on it ( as they were doing , when it was working )

" Resume Blaster :

This mobile app was developed by Shuklendu and we can give you the code

But , at least , for the moment , we have no intention of reviving it

" Resume Rater " :

This offline tool is supposed to work in conjunction with www.IndiaRecruiter.net

Unfortunately , since we had de-hosted IndiaRecruiter for several years now , this tool has stopped working

But ,

we need its functionality to be built into the proposed portal ( which , I presume should happen when we revive ( really , redevelop from scratch ) , RecruitGuru parsing engine ( giving RAW score / percentile score to each resume )

Finally , it would help , if your concerned developers take a quick look at www.CustomizeResume.com , and let me know , what " Documentation " they would like Shuklendu to give along with the source-code ( due in 8/10 days )

Of course , I am sure , even a little later ( before Shuklendu's team forget everything ), he would be happy to answer any questions that you might have

regards,

hcp

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VS :

If you finalize the functional specifications by first week of November and place a confirmed order on ATIDAN , byend Nov , then , there is a possibility that you may be able to launch by 1st May

I have , thought of one more method of charging the Employers indirectly ( value added service ), about which , I will write to you tomorrow

Date : Sun, Oct 16, 2016

Sub. : RE: Phase I

Dear Sir,

In reference to our telephonic discussion, please find the takeaways listed below:-

1. Resume download/upload will be completely free. This applies to enterprises - giants, very big, big, medium, small and micro.

2. Our revenue model will be primarily based on Online Job Fair and value added services. We have to create auxiliary services like sending emails, recording employee response etc.( we can finalize the list when we brainstorm) which will be charged. For employees it will based on ad based revenue through InMobi.

3. No charge to job seekers or applicants. The whole idea is to democratize the job process.

4. You will discuss this with Kartavya and ask him to come up with a functional specification.

Regards,

Date : Sun, Oct 16, 2016

Sub. : RE: A BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY

Dear Sir,

There are 2 questions that I have in mind.

Q1: When we debut with “Jobsite and OnlineJobsFair” we will challenge the market. How much time do you think will Big Daddies Naukri and Monster will have to strike back?

Q2: What should we do that they are not able to strike back by replicating our model. We will have to factor the deep pockets they have and create similar “OnlineJobFair” model like ours.

Vidyanext recommendation service is also apt for Healthcare. I find this suggestion extremely tailor made for Healthcare too! Will discuss with Dr. Kiran today itself of implementing this in our phase 2.

Regards,

Date : Sun, Oct 16, 2016

Sub. : RE: Phase I

Dear Sir,

Good Morning!

I agree with all your points except point 4 which I have pasted below. Resume barter and “cost of per resume” has to be part of strategy from day 1. There are few reasons for this:-

a) Resume barter will help build our database which is critical for growing the database mass. I am sure employers will love this model because, they will be able to put their burgeoning resume database to good use. For employees they can earn credit points to avail some complimentary services from the jobsite.

b) You have a revenue model from day 1, which is crucial to the growth of business in long term.

c) Employers can pay for this through credits instead of actual money and this will be a USP

4. We are aiming to disrupt the current model wherein subscription fee is the barrier. This to be replaced with pay as you go service for employers wherein the cost of resume shall come down by 90% - 95%. This model can be further developed wherein, if an employer uploads one resume which is not currently available in the database then he/she can download one resume for free. This makes bartering more effective. ( We will think about this in Phase 2 )

Rest all are other points are fine, if need be let’s have a quick call to discuss this and then you can meet Kartavya to take this ahead.

Regards,

Date : Sat, Oct 15, 2016

Sub. : Phase I

Dear Sir,

Good Morning!

It was a pleasure meeting you on Thursday at your office. I always feel refreshed whenever I meet you!

As per our discussions the following are the features in Phase I –

1. Job Site + Online Job Fair

2. Resume Rater to sort best resumes as per job description. This will also be used for rating applicants for interview purposes in Online Job Interviews.

3. Resume Sync or Resume Barter to be enabled to encourage cooperative type of movement where resumes are exchanged freely.

5. Online Job interviews to be charged at highly subsidized cost for employers.

6. There will be no cost involved during any time in the process for employees or applicants. We will introduce InMobi for ad based revenue for employees. This will work based on a Youtube or a Social Media model.

7. Payment Gateways to be inbuilt.

8. Other features will be introduced in further phases.

Please let me know if I have covered everything as per our discussion. My apology I couldn’t send the email yesterday itself.

Regards,

Date : Sat, Oct 15, 2016

Sub. : TIME TO CHANGE GEARS

VS,

Here is one more proof that on internet , it is not the BIG who overtake the SMALL , it is the FAST who overtake the SLOW !

hcp

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Source : Economic Times / 15 Oct 2016

NEW DELHI: Mumbai-based mykindofjob.com, an online portal that says it’s signed up 100,000 registered users in less than a year, recently closed a round of funding worth $1million from brothers Mayank Shah and Shreyans Shah, making it the second flexi-jobs site to have raised money in the past 12 months.

The Shahs are said to have turned to angel investing after reaping handsome returns from the sale of their pharmaceutical business, Biochem Pharma, to Zydus Cadila in 2011.

The flexible employment market is attracting investors as more people opt to set their own timings and work from outside the office.

Mykindofjob.com, which says it has 800 companies on board, offers interactive web platform where registered users cancommunicate with each other and prospective employers. Users range from students looking at internships to retired professionals seeking short-duration projects.

“Funds will be used to increase our team size and invest in technology as well as ramp up our geographical presence,” said Ankit Bansal, founder of mykindofjob.com. The Shahs couldn’t be reached for comment.

Bansal, who previously managed wealth of HNI clients at Standard Chartered Bank, started the portal last year. “Investor interest in the online flexi-work space has increased due to the scalability of the model and the fact that more companies are willing to parcel out work as opposed to executing all of it with full-time staff,” said Padmaja Ruparel, president of Indian Angel Network.

Date : Fri, Oct 14, 2016

Sub. : FW: A Brave New World

VS,

I forward below , my mail concerning " Pa-Rank " that I mentioned during our discussions yesterday

You may also want to look up :

https://www.relsci.com/

After I get your email re Phase 1 , I will meet Kartavya personally and explain all the features envisaged , in detail , to enable him to give you , a rough estimate of time and cost for development.

regards,

hcp

Date : Fri, Oct 14, 2016

Sub. : PHASE 2 FEATURE

VS,

This could interest you , in light of our own plans to " predict job market in India " , based on those 2 million job advts posted on job portals over the past 7 years by some 50,000 + companies ( which , I believe , removes any biases in the dataset , considering its vast spread )

hcp

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Source : DNA / 13 Oct 2016

A recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) interview on misuse of algorithms got me thinking about whether the algorithms we use can reinforce our biases. However, before I explain why I feel that way, I would explain how machine learning algorithms work to classify data points into multiple classes. In order to do so, I will step back to explaining what classification means.

Classification is the task of classifying a bunch of objects into separate groups. Say, an organization wants to build a prediction engine that would be able to separate out the excellent performers from the average and the unacceptable.

This then, is a classification task since the algorithm is required to go through the list of employees and put them in one of three buckets, viz., excellent, average and unacceptable. Now, data scientists would use a machine learning approach. Simply put, machine learning algorithms look for patterns within datasets and learn these patterns corresponding to each of the buckets into which they need to classify items.

Hence, using our example, the algorithm would learn the patterns for excellent, average and unacceptable performers.

These algorithms then require a lot of historical data. Essentially, we need to 'show' these algorithmic examples of excellent, average and unacceptable performers. This process is known as 'training' the algorithm.

This in effect is similar to how we teach kids the alphabet where we show them the letters again and again and correct them when they get it wrong so that ultimately they are able to recognize the characters. This is exactly what happens when we train our algorithm.

This allows the algorithm to then identify 'signatures' for each of these buckets. When it is then presented with a different data point, it compares the new data against the learnt patterns and if there is a lot of similarity between the two, it assigns the new data point to the corresponding bucket.

So what can go wrong, you ask ?

To train the algorithm, we need to provide it with a lot of examples to learn from.

Let us assume that we are looking at ABC Inc, a traditional and a conservative business based out of Bangalore. Most of the people employed in ABC have come from the southern part of the country.

Moreover, given the conservative attitudes of their managers, women are under-represented in this organization in general and at higher levels in particular.

ABC now wants to build a model on the best people to hire for their organization and for this, they have made available their historical employee database.

This is where the problem is. All their biases are part of their historical dataset. Hence, any models that will be trained on this dataset will also inherit these biases.

As an extreme case, if we now have a woman applicant from Delhi, she might well get filtered out by the algorithm since she doesn't fit the typical profile that the model has been trained on.

While this is a gross simplification of the issue, it does illustrate the pitfalls associated with building models based on historic data without taking into account biases inherent in the data.

Given that most organizations will have some biases, be they about gender, age or educational institutions, how can they build predictive models if these biases are implicitly included in models built on this dataset?

There are no easy answers here. One way is to utilize publicly available datasets or pool with other organizations in the space to obtain datasets that normalize the biases. However, whatever be the approach, any data scientist worth her salt ought to be aware and look for these built-in biases before undertaking any model building.

( Author : Arun Krishnan / Founder & CEO - nFactorial Analytical Sciences )

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hemen parekh

www.hemenparekh.in

Marol , Mumbai , India

hcp@RecruitGuru.com

( M ) +91 - 98,67,55,08,08