User Tutorial
The Bloomberg Terminal of the Staffing Industry — a complete walkthrough of every page, metric, and interaction in the platform.
Understanding the Core Concept
THE DON is built around a single idea: labor markets behave like financial markets. Supply and demand shift, pressure builds, and windows open and close — but most staffing firms are flying blind with annual surveys and gut instinct.
Every number in this platform maps to that financial-market analogy:
| DON Metric | Stock Market Equivalent | What It Tells You |
|---|---|---|
| Labor Pressure Index (LPI) | Volatility Index (VIX) | How tight / competitive this market is right now |
| Supply Score | Float / available shares | How many qualified candidates are accessible |
| Demand Score | Buy-side volume | How many employers are actively competing for this talent |
| Trend Delta | Price change (pts) | How fast pressure is accelerating or easing |
| Ticker Symbol | Stock ticker | Shorthand identifier for a profession across the platform |
Color language is consistent everywhere:
- Green (#00C48C) — low pressure, healthy supply, favorable conditions
- Amber (#F59E0B) — moderate pressure, watch closely
- Red (#FF4D4F) — high pressure, tight supply, urgent risk
Dashboard — /platform
The starting point. The dashboard gives you the 30,000-foot view of the entire labor market before you drill into any specific profession or geography.
KPI Cards
| Card | Value | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Professions Tracked | 20 | Full breadth of the platform's coverage across 6 tech categories |
| Markets Monitored | 50 | All US states, plus 140 metro-level breakdowns |
| Avg Labor Pressure Index | ~70 | National average LPI — your market temperature |
| High-Pressure Professions | ~13 | How many of the 20 professions are at LPI ≥ 75 (critical threshold) |
Highest Pressure Professions Table
The main dashboard feature. Shows the top 8 professions sorted by LPI, descending. Each row contains:
- Ticker symbol (gold monospace) — e.g.,
MLE,GENAI,CYBER - LPI progress bar — color-coded green/amber/red
- Trend delta — points gained/lost in the past 30 days
Clicking any row navigates to the Talent Ticker with that profession pre-selected. Start here every session — any profession showing LPI ≥ 85 with a positive delta is actively deteriorating.
Talent Ticker — /platform/ticker
The core analytics tool. Go deep on a specific profession. Modeled after a stock analysis terminal — one instrument, all its data. Defaults to ML Engineer (MLE) on load.
Labor Pressure Index Gauge
A radial half-circle gauge (0–100 scale) giving an immediate visual sense of market tightness.
| Zone | Range | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Green | 0–49 | Low Pressure — healthy supply, accessible talent pool |
| Amber | 50–74 | Moderate Pressure — competitive but manageable |
| Red | 75–100 | High Pressure — critical supply gap, aggressive market |
ML Engineer sits at 91 — deep red. This means there are nearly 3× more job requisitions than qualified candidates currently accessible in the market. Any firm placing MLE talent is in a bidding war.
Supply vs. Demand — 12 Month Trend Chart
An area chart showing the historical trajectory of supply (green) and demand (red) over the past 12 months.
- The gap between the two lines represents current pressure. A widening gap = a harder market.
- A narrowing gap = pressure easing — new supply entering or employer demand softening.
- Hover any point to see exact supply and demand values for that month.
If demand has been rising steadily for 6+ months while supply is flat or declining, that profession is entering a structural shortage — not a seasonal blip.
Skill Availability Index
A horizontal bar chart showing the six key skills for the selected profession, ranked by availability score. Bar colors: red = scarce (<30), amber = competitive (30–49), green = accessible (50+).
Skill tags with blue borders (>30% YoY growth) are breakout skills — demand is surging faster than supply can respond. Example: for ML Engineer, “Vector Databases” shows +91% YoY growth at availability score 19. Candidates with that skill command significant premiums.
Top Metro Markets Table
The five highest-demand metros for the selected profession. Cross-reference LPI (how tight) with job req count (how big). High req count + high LPI = a large market that's painful — and profitable — to serve.
Geospatial Labor Map — /platform/map
The territory view. Visualizes labor pressure across all 50 US states. Defaults to ML Engineer (MLE) on load.
The Heat Map
- Deep green — LPI < 50: supply is adequate, market is accessible
- Amber/orange — LPI 50–74: competition is building
- Deep red — LPI 75+: critical supply shortage
Hover any state to see a tooltip with its exact LPI score. Click a state to open the State Detail Panel.
State Detail Panel
When a state is selected, the right panel shows metro-level breakdowns — up to three metros per state, each with:
- Metro area name + job requisition count
- Metro-level LPI (may differ significantly from the state average)
- Supply score for that metro
A state might show LPI 71 on the map, but a single major metro within it could be at 78+ for tech roles. The metro data reveals where the actual battle is happening.
Buyer's Benchmark — /platform/benchmark
The competitive intelligence tool. Answers the question every staffing operator asks but rarely has hard data for: “How are we actually performing compared to our peers?”
Time-to-Hire
A three-row horizontal bar chart comparing:
- Your Avg (blue) — your firm's average days from req open to placement
- Industry Median (gray) — the 50th percentile across all benchmark firms
- Top Quartile (green) — the 75th percentile (top 25% fastest firms)
Pay Rate Comparison
Three tiles: Your Rate vs. Market Rate vs. Top Quartile. A delta line below shows your rate vs. market as a percentage — green if above market, red if below.
Firms paying below market lose candidates at the offer stage. If your rate is -3.4% below market, you know exactly how far to move to stop losing placements to the competition.
Skill Investment Trends
What skills top benchmark firms are actively hiring for, ranked by adoption rate.
- Blue bars — adoption rate ≥ 70%: near-universal focus
- Gold bars — adoption 50–69%: mainstream
- Green bars — adoption < 50%: emerging or niche
Performance Scorecard
| Panel | Metric | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Time-to-Hire | Your days vs. median | Green (↑ Above average) if you're faster than the median |
| Pay Rate | Your $/hr vs. market | Green if at or above market, red if below |
| vs Top Quartile | % gap from top performers | Green only if you match or beat the top quartile |
| Labor Pressure | Market LPI vs. 65 | Green if LPI < 65 (favorable market), red if above |
Placements — /platform/placements
The transaction feed. A real-time stream of staffing placements being confirmed, started, or onboarded across the network — updated live every 10 seconds.
Live Feed
Each row in the feed shows:
- Ticker badge — the profession (e.g.,
GENAI,CYBER) - Candidate ref — anonymized ID (e.g., C-4821) + primary skill
- Metro + state — where the placement is located
- Pay/Bill rate — candidate pay and client bill rate in $/hr
- Duration — contract length (8w, 13w, 6mo, 1yr, etc.)
- Status badge — Confirmed (green), Pending (gold), or Onboarding (blue)
New placements are highlighted with a blue flash animation and a NEW badge for 3 seconds after injection.
Use the status filter tabs (All / Confirmed / Pending / Onboarding) to focus the feed.
Aggregation Panel
The right panel groups placements across three dimensions — toggle between them using the Skill / Profession / Geo tabs. Ranked bars show the top 10 in each category by placement volume.
30-Day Volume Chart
A stacked bar chart at the bottom of the page shows daily confirmed + pending + onboarding transactions across the last 30 days. Useful for identifying placement velocity trends and seasonal patterns.
Key Metrics Reference
Labor Pressure Index (LPI)
| Range | Label | Interpretation | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–49 | Low Pressure | Healthy talent supply, favorable for buyers | Standard operating mode |
| 50–74 | Moderate Pressure | Competitive market, monitor closely | Sharpen sourcing and pay strategy |
| 75–89 | High Pressure | Significant supply gap | Increase sourcing intensity, review pay rates |
| 90–100 | Critical | Structural shortage | Premium rates, pipeline investments, geo expansion |
Supply Score vs. Demand Score
Both scored 0–100. Read them together:
| Supply | Demand | Market Condition |
|---|---|---|
| High | High | Active but manageable — both sides of the market are moving |
| Low | High | Crisis — undersupplied market, LPI will be high |
| High | Low | Buyer's market — talent is available but clients aren't hiring |
| Low | Low | Quiet market — not a strategic focus area |
Skill Availability Score
| Score | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| < 30 | Severely scarce — premium compensation required |
| 30–49 | Competitive — active competition for candidates |
| 50–69 | Moderate availability — accessible with good sourcing |
| 70+ | Widely available — standard recruitment process applies |
Placement Status Definitions
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | Placement is locked — candidate accepted, client signed, start date set |
| Pending | Placement is in progress — offer extended or awaiting final sign-off |
| Onboarding | Candidate has started — actively onboarding with the client |
THE DON is a prototype for demonstration purposes. All data is simulated based on realistic labor market patterns. For production deployment, data would be sourced from live job board APIs, staffing firm integrations, and third-party labor market providers (Revelio RPLS, Lightcast, Randstad Digital).