Skills and the career timeline

What she is best at

Layla Haddad: Karim wants to know what I'm strongest at, for our first call this afternoon.

Mariam Saleh: Then let's put it on your record, where he can see it.

Lina: Layla's fourth week. Today: what she can do, how well — and where she learned it.

Lina: Skills and the career timeline: what Layla can do, how well, and where she learned it.

The skills tab

Lina: The skills and resume tab. At the top, her education, already filled in from her hire.

Lina: Below it, two empty cards: her skills,

Lina: and her career.

Add a skill

Lina: Add a skill. First, the category: languages, soft skills — and one Northwind defined for itself, customer success.

Languages

Lina: Languages are scored on the European scale, A1 to C2 — so a level means the same in Dubai as in London.

Arabic, C2

Lina: Arabic, at C2 — the top of the scale.

David: The same thing as 'native' on the personal tab?

Lina: The same fact, in a form you can search and compare.

Customer success

Lina: English and French follow, each at its own level. Then customer success: onboarding, at expert.

David: Who decides what counts as expert?

Lina: The company. Each category keeps its own levels, written down once for everyone.

By category

Lina: Saved, the card groups her skills by category, each with a bar for its level.

By tier

Lina: Or by tier — the view a manager uses to decide who takes what.

David: And when nobody on the team has what a client needs?

Lina: Then the gap shows here first — before it shows up as a lost account.

Who can take it?

Lina: Chapter two promised this. An enterprise client writes in Arabic and wants a call today.

Lina: The team lead searches skills: Arabic, C1 or above.

Lina: Four people come back,

Lina: two of them in customer success — and only Layla in the client's own time zone.

David: And someone at B1?

Lina: Isn't on the list. The bar is a level, not a guess.

Against the bar

Lina: Put the same five people on the scale itself, from A1 at the bottom to C2 at the top.

Lina: The search asked for C1, so that's where the mark sits.

Lina: Layla, Karim, Leila and Mariam are at C2, one step past it.

David: And Nadia, at B1, is two steps short.

Lina: Nobody had to decide whether her Arabic would do. The level decided.

Lina: And C2 means the same for Karim in Toronto as for Layla in Dubai.

Her career

Lina: Now her career. The card is empty — but her record isn't.

Lina: Her application listed her previous jobs and her degree, so one click builds the timeline from them.

Built

Lina: Four jobs, newest first — Northwind at the top, from her joining date — and her degree beside them.

David: Nobody typed any of that?

Lina: Only once: when she applied.

Typed once

Lina: Follow that history, from the day it was typed.

Lina: Layla listed it once, when she applied.

Lina: Her application kept it through the hire: three earlier jobs, and her degree.

David: Mariam's share was a single click.

Lina: And the record laid it out: four jobs now, with Northwind added from her joining date.

David: So what's left for Mariam to type?

Lina: Only what the application never carried.

By hand

Lina: Anything the application didn't carry is added by hand — her customer success certification: the type, a title, the dates, and a line about it.

With her education

David: Saved — and it sits with her education.

Twelve years, in time

Lina: Laid out in time: her degree in Beirut,

Lina: four years in support,

Lina: five in customer success,

Lina: a certification along the way,

Lina: three years at Qasr Pay,

Lina: and now, Northwind.

David: Twelve years, and every one of them on the record.

Three cities, one record

Lina: On a map: Beirut, where she studied and started in support,

Lina: Stockholm, five years looking after merchants across the Nordics,

Lina: and Dubai since 2024 — first Qasr Pay, now Northwind.

David: Three countries. Does HR need all of that?

Lina: For references and for her permits, yes — and it's why the record keeps where, not only when.

More to show

Lina: And the tile picker now offers a skills tile — a record that grows gives the strip more to show.

What she can do

David: Skills always end up as a free-text list nobody reads.

Lina: Here every skill has a level, so you can ask a real question: who speaks Arabic at C2, today?

Lina: Her career timeline is built from her history, not retyped from a CV.

Lina: And when an escalation comes in at five on a Thursday, the right person is one search away.

David: So skills become something you can actually use.

A first call

Karim Mansour: Arabic at C2, onboarding at expert. I know where you'll start.

Layla Haddad: The Gulf accounts?

Lina: Next: the file — her documents, what's missing, and what expires.