Transparency
Our sources
& methodology
Every career profile on Xamos Lamos is built from research across official, professional, and on-the-ground sources. Here's how we work — and what we're honest about not knowing.
Where the data comes from
Career data on this platform is drawn from a range of sources that are reviewed and synthesised by our team. We want to be straightforward about what that means in practice: some data points are verifiable from official publications, and some are informed judgement. We distinguish between the two where we can, and we are working to increase the proportion that is formally sourced.
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MoSPI Periodic Labour Force Survey
India's national household employment survey (PLFS 2025, ~2.72 lakh households) is our primary source for sector-level demand signals. We use it to identify which sectors are growing, stable, or contracting — and we note where a demand label is based on this data versus our own judgement.
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Official qualification frameworks
For regulated professions — medicine, law, chartered accountancy, civil services, engineering — qualification requirements are drawn from the relevant statutory body or recruitment notification. These are verifiable and we treat them as hard facts, not estimates.
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Professional associations
Membership bodies for fields like accounting, nursing, law, and engineering publish competency frameworks and career guidance. We reference these for skills and qualification data where available.
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Job market and recruitment data
Active job postings, recruiter-reported salary ranges, and fixed-cadre recruitment notifications — such as UPSC, PSC, and state board notifications — inform our demand labels and salary ranges. Fixed-cadre roles are sourced from recruitment notifications directly.
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Academic and curriculum references
Qualification pathways are cross-checked against university syllabi and course structures from institutions operating in Kerala and nationally, to ensure what we describe reflects what students will actually encounter.
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Occupational competency mapping
Where official competency frameworks exist — such as the National Occupational Standards — we use these to build skill profiles. Where they don't, profiles are built from a combination of job description analysis and practitioner input.
What we're honest about
Our career database currently covers hundreds of careers across more than twenty domains. Of the demand labels applied to these careers, a portion are grounded in official sector-level labour data, some are based on verifiable fixed-cadre recruitment structures, and a significant number are informed judgement — because national labour surveys report sector employment shares, not individual occupations. We note this clearly in our internal data, and we are working to reduce the proportion that relies on judgement alone.
Skill profiles follow a similar picture. A majority of careers have role-specific profiles built from official references or competency frameworks. Some — particularly emerging and niche roles — are built from domain-level templates where role-specific data does not yet exist. We flag confidence levels internally and continue to improve specificity with each update pass.
Salary ranges are indicative, not guaranteed. They represent the realistic range for a well-qualified person based on available data, and vary significantly with employer, city, specialisation, and individual negotiation.
The honest version
Not every data point on this platform has a citable source behind it. Some of what we publish is research-backed. Some is cross-referenced inference from multiple inputs. Some is the best available judgement of people who have studied these fields carefully. We work to be clear about which is which, and we never present a judgement as a fact. If something looks wrong or outdated, we want to know.
How we build each career profile
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Define the qualification pathway
We map the formal route from school-leaver to senior professional — entry exams, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, mandatory registrations, and advanced certifications. Where a qualification is legally required, we mark it clearly. Where it is commonly expected but not mandatory, we say so.
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Research salary ranges
Salary figures reflect three points — entry-level, experienced mid-career, and senior — drawn from multiple sources and anchored to the Indian market with Kerala context where data is available. Figures are presented in lakhs per annum and reviewed when we update a career profile.
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Assess Kerala-specific demand
Each career includes a note on how it plays out locally — whether Kerala has strong demand, whether most opportunities require relocation, and which sectors or employers in the state are active hirers. This is one of the things that makes Xamos Lamos different from generic career guides.
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Map the skills required
Academic knowledge, technical tools, and personal traits are drawn from official competency frameworks, job descriptions, and practitioner input — then standardised so skills are comparable across careers. Each skill belongs to exactly one category per career.
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Grade our own confidence
Every career profile is graded internally — High, Medium, or Low confidence — based on how well the data is sourced. High confidence means the profile is built from official references. Medium means cross-referenced inference. Low means the profile is a domain-level template pending a role-specific rebuild. We prioritise Low-confidence careers for the next update pass.
How we stay current
Career requirements change. Examination structures get revised. New roles emerge. Salary bands shift. We run regular update passes across the career database — checking qualification requirements against the latest notifications from statutory bodies, refreshing demand signals when new labour market data is published, and rebuilding career profiles where the existing data no longer reflects reality.
We track changes through a structured review process: every profile carries a "last reviewed" date, a confidence grade, and a source note. When something changes in the field — a new examination cycle, a revised licensing requirement, a significant shift in hiring patterns — we update the relevant profiles before the next release.
This is ongoing work, not a one-time exercise. The career world does not stand still, and neither does our data.
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Found something out of date or incorrect? We read every message and follow up on every credible correction. Reach out via the Community section or contact us directly — accurate data is the whole point.