Co-op employer panel notes

[Earlier this week, I went to a panel hosted by my university’s co-op program. A handful of employers agreed to come talk to students about how they hire at their company. Interestingly, it was fairly skewed towards programming/engineering employers, but then again, about 75% of the audience was in the engineering department. At any rate, I took notes on paper for my own benefit, but I figured I may as well post them and free myself from a few pieces of paper. Assume any errors in, say, last names or job titles is my fault.]

Participants

Shopify - Doug, recruiter

  • Interns at Shopify are put on par with all the other developers

Smart Technologies - Jennifer

  • Located in Kanata
  • Make interactive whiteboards, historically for educators
  • Actively hiring sales reps, but also software engineers

Adobe - Tia Murphy

  • Moving towards Software as a Service
  • New job postings every quarter, which last for three months

Immigration Services (Federal government) - Jacquelin Cote

  • Handles employer outreach and research on the part of immigrants
  • Event coordination and management of programs with non-government employers

Solar Logics - Calvin Adams

  • Hires a lot of engineering students

Teldeo - Casey Li

  • App developers for two-way radios, used in places where cell signal is unreliable
  • Use C, Java, and Ruby on Rails for development
  • One of several incubator startups in a group

Q&A

What are dealbreakers for you on a resume?

  • 5 page resumes for someone in university - stick to 1-2 pages
  • You should be specific about any experience you have that’s relevant to the job you’re applying for
  • Spelling and grammar mistakes are pretty much disqualifiers
  • You should try to find out “to whom it may concern” actually refers to, and address the person who will be reading the letter
  • Follow the directions in the job posting, don’t send in the wrong document format
  • Have someone review your resume
  • List all the skills the job posting asks for directly on your resume - don’t make the employer infer your skills from job descriptions
  • Think about what your “unrelated” jobs may have taught you
  • Use LinkedIn, or something like that, to look up the people who will be hiring you - then tailor your resume to them
  • Prove you can do what they’re hiring for, or that you have the passion to learn how
  • Try to give more information than just a list of bullet points
  • Don’t assume your employer is familiar with your school program - tell them what relevant courses you took
  • Consider the culture of the company you’re applying for, and what level of formality they expect

Should you stick exactly to a one page or two page resume, or can you have a page and a half? Answer: A page and a half is fine

Submitting the classes you’ve taken and your grades (aka your transcript) with your resume is helpful

  • However, they may not go looking for details on the classes you took
  • Providing class descriptions (at least, for every class) is probably overkill

Listing bursaries and other testaments to your skill is worthwhile, as it helps make you stand out

  • But beware the generic bursaries you automatically get for, say, having a certain GPA - these aren’t exactly prestigious, and their names mean nothing

Being bilingual isn’t needed in most co-op positions, but it is necessary for government jobs in the long run

  • For languages other than French, the government has professional translators
  • In addition, if two people have the same skills but one is bilingual, the person who is bilingual will likely get the position/promotion

Regarding objective statements, they can help illustrate where you’re headed in your career

  • This kind of detail may be better placed in your cover letter
  • If you’re putting it in your cover letter, you can give it a bit more breathing room - you can provide a paragraph about why you want to be hired and how it fits into your overarching plan
  • Include one if you can find a single sentence that completely summarizes you, and you’re really passionate about it

You should absolutely tailor your resumes to each job posting

Highlight your student projects and why you think they’re significant - the project itself may not be important, but it probably taught you a lot

Try to build a story that leads from your personal history to the job you’re applying for

  • This is part of where you want to go and how the company can help you get there
  • It helps to have a history of work that’s relevant to the job

You should highlight things you’ve done outside of class - things that other students might not have learned

  • Personal projects say a lot about you - the things you do in your spare time for your own benefit say a lot about your personal character

Don’t stop at saying “took a course in Java,” describe the things you learned from the course

Having worked for a company’s competitor is still a significant achievement, don’t take it off your resume for fear of offending someone

Be picky about what jobs you’re going to take

  • On the other hand, taking an imperfect job is still good for networking and may help to build the skills that will take you where you want to go

Investigate the employer, in particular the people who will be involved with hiring you

  • “Tell me what you know about us” is a common question in interviews

Say you’re willing to relocate on your resume, they may forward your resume to another branch and give you a chance there

Non-family member references are your best bet, but if you’ve only ever worked for a family business, look for some non-family members in the organization to give you a reference (if possible)

  • At the very least, you want them to be specific about what you did on the job, rather than saying how smart you are or some other generic thing

On letters of reference:

  • Opinions were divided on whether letters of reference would actually be read
  • A letter of reference is usually written under duress, so their value is suspect
  • A list of references on your resume is good, though, because they can contact your references if they want to hear from them
  • Personal recommendations from people have a lot of value
  • Generic letters of reference will probably only hurt you
  • Getting a reference on LinkedIn is really valuable to recruiters who use the service
  • Include letters of reference only from professors who actually know you well - the key question is “Will you give me a good reference?”
  • Another option is to provide a list of professors who could be contacted, rather than including a bundle of letters of reference - this is even better if your program is closely related to the field and your professors are well-known
  • Let people know in advance you’re using them as a reference, and provide them with your resume and the job description
  • You can also coach them on what they can say about you, but this could backfire
  • If it’s been a while since you worked with them, you can remind them what you did for them
  • Character references are useful, but it’s better if they’ve worked with you/for you/were your boss
Carleton