An Alternate Pricing Model

I was back to India from USA in 2007. I was looking for a job change to get a better salary. So I put my resume in couple of job sites. The market was good, so I was getting enough calls for interview. I got a call from one of top job sites. He checked my qualification, experience CTC etc. He said I was underpaid for my qualification, and worth almost double the salary I was making. I was interested to know what I would do to get the salary doubled.

The consultant came up with ideas like resume writing service with Rs x, resume flashing for another Rs y, sending resume to consultants with Rs Z etc. And he will provide me the salary statistics and will forward my resume only to consultants who look at high paying jobs.

I felt the consultant was genuine. My resume could have been improved. Job search in not only search of a talent, but talent within right time. So applying at right time would enhance my job prospective. However I was not sure to invest on it without ensuring any return.

I proposed her an alternative model. I would avail her services and will only use her service for my job search. If it worked for me and I get an offer, then I would pay 10% of anything excess of 20% annual hike. In that case she gets more money if I get a 30% hike. And would have got 8 times what she charged for her service in case my salary was doubled. But she did not agree to my terms.

I got a job with a nice hike without her service.She lost an customer and I loose her service.I understand why she did not agree to my terms, but failed to understand why they do not think of an alternative business model.

I am not sure if job portals have thought about alternate pricing model, but software services companies do. Last weak I was going though a top out sourcing Company in India, and it has a pricing model based on the dollars saved in addition to fixed price and Time and Money model.

Dollars saved model works good during recession and is a win-win situation for both client and service provider. Client gets service at low cost and pays a part of its benefit. So its actual cost was less than what it would have been without the service. Service provider gets service contract order during recession.

Fallacy of Net Run Rate (NRR)

Net Run Rate plays a crucial role in cricket. Who has a better run rate always won with more runs. However it is not the case.

Net run rate = (total run scored/total over faced) - (total runs conceded/total over bowled)

Let us assume there are 2 matches between A and B in 20/20

Match1: A 200 (in 20 overs) B 99 (in 20 overs)
Match2: A 99 (in 20 overs) B 100(in 10 overs)

By looking at the result it looks B won with as big margin in 2nd match as A won in the first match. So NRR should be 0 for both A and B

Wait for a minute. Put the formula above
NRR of A = (299/40)-(199/30)=7.475-6.633=0.842
NRR of B = -0.842

Isn't it biased? Let us look at some real life picture. 2009 IPL's last league match Bangalore vs Hyderabad. In that match Hyderabad will be out from the semifinal, if Bangalore wins by 200 runs but will be in if Hyderabad bats first. If Hyd scores 100 and Bangalore is able to make it in 3 overs, still Hyd would have been in the semifinal.

When I look at the formula it looks decent, and seems like it does justice to calculating which team wins by a decent margin. However when I calculate it favors the team which bats first (most of the time).

That is because when a team which bats second does not bat its full quota (if it wins). So in winning cases, its partial over is calculated (100 runs and 10 overs as per example) where as team which bats first its full quota is taken into consideration.

So to make NRR fair to the team batting second, a team should play its full quota or calculate its score using DL.