Methodology

How Lumo Works

Trust is earned through real professional relationships. Lumoguide turns that trust into visible, portable reputation — so it can follow you throughout your career and open doors to new opportunity.

The Core Idea

A resume tells you what someone has done. A reviews site tells you what one anonymous person thought, once. Neither answers the question that actually matters: would the people who've worked with this person choose to work with them again?

That's the one question every Lumo recognition is built around — and the answer becomes the reputation that turns trust into opportunity.

How a Score is Built

Your score combines two things: how many verified recognitions you've received, and what percentage of people said they'd choose to work with you again. Volume builds confidence. Quality determines trust. Both matter — a score can't be inflated by quantity alone.

Understanding Your Scores
Would Choose Again
% of recognitions

The most important question on Lumoguide. At the end of every recognition, the recogniser is asked one thing: would you choose to work with this person again? The percentage shown on every profile counts how many people answered Definitely — not an average of ratings, but a direct count of genuine re-endorsements from people who have experienced working with them firsthand.

Lumo Reputation Score
0 – 100

A score from 0–100 that rewards two things: how many people have recognised your professional reputation, and how many of them said they would choose to work with you again. Both breadth and quality contribute — a score built on volume alone will always plateau without genuine trust signals behind it.

Confidence
Level

A qualitative label — Emerging, Building, Established, High, or Very High — that shows how much evidence sits behind a profile's score. A strong Would Choose Again percentage carries more weight when it comes from many recognitions than from just a few. Confidence is what tells you how much to trust the number you are seeing.

Trust Readiness
Profile Completeness

A measure of how fully a profile has been built out — covering professional details like photo, headline, career stage, experience, LinkedIn presence, and more. It reflects how much context a visitor has to evaluate the person behind the score. Trust Readiness is entirely within the profile owner's control, unlike the Reputation Score which is determined solely by peer recognition.

How Verification Works

Every recognition is tied to a real, authenticated person — never anonymous. Profile owners review every recognition before it goes live on their profile. There's no free-text review field anywhere on Lumo — every signal is structured, so recognition can't turn into an attack.

Recognition Tiers

How recognition builds your tier

Lumo Recognised
3+ verified recognitions
Lumo Standard
10+ recognitions · 75%+ would choose again
First Choice
35+ recognitions · 85%+ would choose again
What Lumo Will Never Do
  • No anonymous attacks
  • No free-text reviews
  • No public shaming
  • No gossip
  • No star ratings
We celebrate excellence. We do not expose failure.
Your Journey on Lumo

Here's the full arc, start to finish.

  1. 1
    Create your profile

    Takes 30 seconds — name, role, and where you work is all you need to get started.

  2. 2
    Get recognised

    Share your link with people who've actually worked with you. You review every recognition before it counts.

  3. 3
    Nominate others

    Know someone who deserves the same? Bring them onto Lumo — they don't need an account until they claim it.

  4. 4
    Build your reputation card

    Download a one-page summary built specifically to attach to job applications, your CV, or LinkedIn.

The Research

Reputation × Economic Value

Our long-term hypothesis is straightforward: professionals with stronger peer-verified reputation signals earn more, attract better opportunities, and build more durable careers than peers with equivalent experience and credentials.

No one has proven this with data — because no one has built a verified reputation dataset connected to real compensation information. Lumoguide is building both.

How data is collected

Professionals contribute their anonymous salary data voluntarily through the Career Intel tab in their dashboard. No name, no employer, no job title is stored or displayed. Data is aggregated only.

How privacy is protected

We apply k-anonymity with a minimum threshold before any segment data is shown — meaning no individual's information can be inferred, even indirectly, from a combination of attributes. Below threshold, no data is displayed.

When and how we publish

When sufficient data exists within a segment, we publish anonymised aggregate insights. Contributors see the analysis first. All published findings are explicitly labelled with sample size and confidence level.