How we compute

HappyJob is a job board that uses your birth details as supporting information alongside your résumé. We do not predict the future, do not say who is good or bad, and do not decide for anyone. This page explains where the numbers and words you see come from, so you can give them the right weight.

The data we use

• Birth date: every tool.
• Birth time (a two-hour window is enough) makes results finer. Without it most tools still work but more coarsely, and pair readings in a team use the "date only" method instead.
• Birth province adjusts the birth time for where on Earth you were born and draws the places map.
• Gender sets the direction in which the ten-year periods are counted.

All of it stays in your account; employers never see it, and you can delete it any time.

What we compute from birth details

Your element and the elements that support you

From the date and time we get four parts (year, month, day, hour), each carrying one of five elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water. The day element is yours. We then check whether it is strong or weak against the other parts: a strong one is supported by elements that drain it, a weak one by elements that feed it. That is where the fits your element badge comes from: each industry is paired with an element (finance with Metal, education with Wood, and so on), and a posting whose industry element is among your supporting elements carries the badge.

The five work styles

The relationships between your element and the other elements in your birth data map to ten roles, grouped into five styles: connector, creator, builder, commander, sage. The numbers are shares, not grades. Everyone has all five; only the order differs.

Year-by-year career timing

Each year carries its own element. We look at the role that year's element plays for yours (position, income, learning, output or peers) and whether it clashes with an important part of your birth data, combine that into a 0–100 score, and sort years into open, steady, guarded. The year in this calculation starts around 4 February.

The 10-year path

Working life is divided into ten-year periods, each with its own element. The theme of a period comes from the role its element plays for yours, and its support from whether that element is on your supporting list. The call "move / settle / steady" combines the period with this year's timing.

Hours and directions

The hour calendar divides the day into two-hour windows and space into eight directions, each with a different quality on a given day. We pick the windows that suit an activity (interview, sending an application, signing) and the direction to face. Send at a good time means the site holds your application and sends it in a window that supports you that day or the next.

Places that support you

From your birth time and place we compute several important lines across the world map. Provinces near the lines that support work come out "supportive"; that is the supportive place badge on postings.

Desk and office location

From birth year and gender we get four supportive and four unfavourable directions per person. The office location add-on uses the year a building was completed and the direction its front faces, together with the owner's directions, for a 0–100 score.

How Team fit computes

Team fit reads team members in pairs. Every pair gets two values, work (how well rhythm and working methods match) and understanding (how easily they communicate and trust each other), each 0–100, combined into the team overview: who fits which seat, who should anchor, which pairs are tense, and which seats are missing.

Each "seat" in an organisation template (sales, operations, finance and so on) asks for a different strength, so a person's fit with a seat is about "does this work suit them", never "are they good". Someone who does not fit one seat usually fits another, and the site suggests it.

What an employer sees about an applicant is a short phrase such as "fits the seat" plus one strength, only when the applicant agrees. No raw scores, no birth date.

What we do not do

• We do not predict whether you will get a job, or succeed or fail.
• We do not rank applicants by these results. There is no sort or filter by fit, and every employer commits not to use any result to refuse or disadvantage anyone.
• We do not reveal anyone's birth data to anyone, and we do not send names or emails with the calculations.

How much to trust it

Use these results like a map, not like an order. A map says which road is smoother; you are the one walking. What decides real outcomes is still skill, effort and the team you are in. Our results help you choose the road that takes less force, and give teams a language for talking about differences without judging each other.

Read on: Seeker guide · Employer guide · Our principles