The 'When I Grow Up' Facebook App

Divesh Sisodraker erstwhile EVP and CFO of Taleo Corporation - now with TheJobMagnet has put together a facebook application called "When I Grow Up!"

You can start by typing in a career in a box. Or, click on "Take a Test" above to help figure out where to begin. One can also "Ask For Feedback" above to have your friends, parents, teachers or anyone else pitch in.

So one can start with choosing a career of their choice. I chose "Training and Development Managers" and then I found that there is a small overview:

Plan, direct, or coordinate the training and development activities and staff of an organization.

Then one can explore the tasks that are entailed in that role:

> Conduct orientation sessions and arrange on-the-job training for new hires.
> Evaluate instructor performance and the effectiveness of training programs, providing recommendations for improvement.
> Develop testing and evaluation procedures.
> Conduct or arrange for ongoing technical training and personal development classes for staff members.
> Confer with management and conduct surveys to identify training needs based on projected production processes, changes, and other factors.
> Develop and organize training manuals, multimedia visual aids, and other educational materials.
> Plan, develop, and provide training and staff development programs, using knowledge of the effectiveness of methods such as classroom training, demonstrations, on-the-job training, meetings, conferences, and workshops.
> Analyze training needs to develop new training programs or modify and improve existing programs.

Knowledge one needs to work in that career is also available. As one can see for a Training and Development manager it covers a lot of detail and yet falls short:

Knowledge

> Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
> Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
> Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
> Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
> Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.

Skills:

> Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
> Learning Strategies - Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
> Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
> Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
> Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
> Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
> Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
> Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
> Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
> Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.

And ability to succeed:

> Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
> Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
> Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
> Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
> Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
> Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
> Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
> Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
> Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
> Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.

It also shows the salary and percentile that the salaries are pegged at. However, that's only US-centric and the rest of the world will not benefit so much :-)

$ 58770	$ 80250	$ 107450
25th	50th	75th

So the app will not be a useful tool for people starting their careers but also for folks in their careers and looking for career shifts. Divesh wrote :"Our aim was simple: create a place where people could quickly and easily explore all the dimensions of occupations that they were interested in, or find an occupation that fit them, but that they hadn't previously considered."