Author Archives: justingoodhew

Interview with E-portfolio Subject Matter Expert: Paul Cubbon

1. Is the market a slow growing one? Or is there a tipping point like the netflicks and LinkedIn of the world?

2. Why don’t people create portfolios?

   1. It is free

   2. where can MSB add value?

      1. There is a need for an integrative e-portfolio product that aggregates platforms and information together in a EASY to use place

3. Sites to look at-

   1. gapjumpers.me

   2. Faculty of Med- Pro D aggregate

   3. UBC MBA make a difference- on going portfolio that they work-on throughout their time in the program

   4. about.me

4. Employers- it is two sided, so, where are they looking, who is looking at a resume who is using linkedIn?

Bottom Line- It is an imperfect market currently- We need to characterize the spaces- find the value through questioning, interviews, analysis and testing.

We have characterized the space as a whole as: The”getting a job/personal branding” space and we have divided it into 2 parts:

• The Online space- LinkedIn, Networking, How the job application process starts

  • Channel- online, networks, online networks

• The Job Application (Resume, Cover Letter. Interview) Space

  • Channel- Microsoft word, resume builders, advisors

Our Value: Aggregating the online and Job Application together.

See our competition breakdown table here

The hypothesis we are testing with employers through interviews in the upcoming week is that: Resumes created on MySkillBase.com are higher quality than what most employers receive. We also realize, however, that this is a broad hypothesis and we want to find out what what makes a good quality resume, how they filter through their resumes, if they feel the average student resume needs improvement, ect.  So, we have identified Sub-hypotheses:

1. Resume filtering process

   • Employers first check the basics in a resume

   • Employers need to see the relevant skills and qualifications in the resume

2. Students don’t know how to show themselves off on paper

   • Popping on paper =/= good candidate

3. 9 Skills

   • Employers prefer skill-based accomplishment statements

   • Employers don’t like piles of keywords (buzzwords)

4. Online portfolio

   • Employers will find value in and take time to look at attachments and evidence in the interview

To test these hypotheses, we are most interested in learning about the process employers are using to screen job applications.  We’ve developed an interview that focuses on answering the main hypotheses and using the sub-hypotheses allowed us to identify things that we want to hear people touch on before we let them leave the interview.  Each question in the full interview relates back to at least one of our sub-hypotheses, helping us determine how important they are in the broad hypothesis.  You can read the full interview script here.

We are improving the quality of resumes

These are the Value Props we are testing with these customer segments.