GradsKey is a platform where your contributions get converted to weighted points called "GradsKey Points".
Contributions can be done through Discussions and Activities. Discussion is an informal way to discuss subject / domain-specific topics. Guidelines can be found at "Skills for Engineering Students" and at "How to Showcase your Skills in GradsKey" .
Weighted points are based on the ratings to your Discussion and Opinions. Depending upon who gives the ratings, the weight of the rating varies. For example, If a subject matter expert gives a rating, the points would be multiplied with a certain X factor, depending on the level of expertise of the person who rated. Also, weighted points are directly proportional to two factors (a) how your discussion is getting traction, and (b) how far it gets propagated to more and more peers and experts.
GradsKey Points are used by recruiting companies to filter candidates for Jobs, Internships, and paid-Projects. Consistent contribution for a certain long time (minimum of 3 months) would give good domain knowledge traits and also based on the visibility of your contributions, you get more GradsKey Points.
There are three types of Skills that you can define in your profile.
First is your core skills - your strength or field of interest, in the current year of study, or current domain of work. You can think about it and choose up to the top 5 core skills to highlight in the profile. Recruiting companies, your connections and others who see your profile would understand your core academic/domain strengths and interests from these skills.
Second is your soft skills - your personal strength. It could be a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, career attributes, social and emotional intelligence quotients. You can choose up to the top 5 soft skills to highlight in the profile.
The third type of skill is called "shadow skills" - You might have more than 5 core skills and 5 soft skills. You might have gained them over the years. So, some of the skills that are beyond 5 current skills or have been gained in the past years can be marked as shadow skills. You can choose as many of these skills in your profile and keep them turned off - so that it will not be visible in the profile page (that's why it is called shadow skills), but it would help in gaining points for shadow skills. How? read "How to gain skill points".
All the skills are to be self-rated with your proficiency level on a scale of 1-10. The lowest is represented by 1, and the highest is represented by 10.
Guidelines on skills for different set of members are given in the below links:
Gaining points for Core and Soft Skills:
Every discussion or activity is tied to one skill. When your discussion/activity is rated by the person having similar skill, you get points.
Similarly, when your opinion to a discussion gets rated by the person having similar skill, you get points too.
Gaining points for Shadow Skills:
When you give an opinion to a discussion that is tied to your shadow skill and then get ratings for your opinion, you get points for the shadow skill. It would be visible under the heading "Others" in your points table.
Topic | Discussion Module | Activity Module |
Purpose | Informal discussions on the core/soft skills. To clear doubts, share learnings/understanding, seek more clarification/details. | Formal skill-showcasing of the core skills. Evaluation of one’s ongoing stuff or achievements with the expert skill network. It is mainly for core skills. Additionally you can also select what attached soft skills you would like to earn points for. To showcase skills - Projects, presentation, group study, group experimentations, etc. It can be protected by limited sharing to relevant persons. |
Functionality | Ratings, Opinions, Opinion ratings. | Ratings - mainly for core skill. Relevant soft skills also can be rated. |
Propagation | Always to the skill network, in addition they can share to some people on the platform. Based on the number of opinions and ratings, it gets propagated / displayed to more and more people. | To skill network - by default, it propagates only to good nodes in the skill network. You can also choose to share only to some people on the platform or propagate it to the skill network, or a combination of both. Based on the number of reviews and ratings, it can be propagated to more and more good nodes in the skill network. |
Points | Weighted points. | Weighted points. |
The profile is the face of your skills and points. Recruiters, after shortlisting you, might visit your profile page for your photo, objective statements, achievements, experiences, education qualifications, etc etc. So, keeping the profile up to date would give a good impression to the viewers.
Also, you get points based on the profile value. Certain minimum threshold points for the profile are used as the first level filter for presenting your GradsKey Points to the recruiters.
Stay up-to-date with the latest skill technology news and analysis. Feeds will deliver updates whenever someone publishes something new in your area of interest (Skills). It enables you to view the most recent content from hundreds of websites under a single tab.
Visiting the Feeds tab every day for about 10-15 minutes would help to keep yourself updated about the industry happenings in your skill area.
Under Connections, in the Invite tab, you can add the email of the person whom you want to invite into GradsKey. Invite mail would be sent to that person and from there they can sign up.