A is a 3rd year environmental design student and involved in residence life on campus. She is very knowledgeable when it comes to creating resumes and cover letters as she is very interested in the topic. She is not a typical student when it comes to studying practices (not a procrastinator) and good at creating resumes. However, she has never received formal training and it was very apparent when she was unaware that she needed to include results in her resume statements.
This is how she sized up to our hypotheses:
What are the specific pain points throughout the job application experience?
Main hypotheses: Students want a step by step tutorial to create job applications – SHE Would use the step by step guide because there were elements she was unaware of. The other main point for her was it was a place to have her master resume and cover letter with all of her experiences.
Resume Pain Points:
Accomplishment Statements- Proven
Identifying the key qualifications and skills need- Proven
Cover Letter:
Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter – FALSE
Students see cover letters as more important than resumes (positioning, priority, value, etc) – FALSE
Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for- TRUE
Online Presence:
Students update their resume and cover letter around the same frequency and time as their online tools. Why? – Thinking about it but not yet – thinks it is a good idea though
Why don’t Students use the solutions provided?
Students don’t utilize the assistance that is provided to them because…
Self-esteem / nervous – not comfortable going to talk to an advisor
Inconvenient/unfamiliar – not (like their regular habits) a part of their daily routine/pattern
Time- too long, job application ends too soon
Accessibility
ALL FALSE ON HYPOTHESES 2 – For her she had a set method – talked to her inner circle, past employers, friends and family to gain knowledge – didn’t use the formal channels that most students do. Feels like she has a good grasp and these outlets wont help her.
We’ve updated our canvas and added a 3rd segment.
Right now we are contacting HR reps at large companies and Student Development professionals at post-secondary institutions. We want to:
We know that our product adds value to those segments, now we want to know how much they value it so we can make some cash flow.
Value Prop: Less tiring / tedious / stressful / fatiguing hiring solutions
Hypotheses:
Employers are want to change their current hiring practices because….
They want less stress (Walk through/hand holding process)
emotional fatigue
wasted time
They want more time (streamlined approach)
They want to do a better job (missing qualified applicants/ accepting unqualified)
HR departments in large organizations are open to changes in their hiring processes
The initial stage (quick) of the filtering process for applications takes approx. 5-15 seconds and looks for:
Qualifications (Hard skills)
Formatting and professionalism
Keywords and skills for the position
The secondary stage (detailed) of the filtering process for applications takes approx. 30-60 seconds and looks for:
Translating (how they convert their experiences into the job)
Fit (language, passion, why work there)
Employers do not spend enough time or effort making job descriptions because…
it’s too difficult
not trained properly
it’s not valued enough
**Employers could be – HR professionals, direct hirers (not HR specialists), large companies, small companies, start ups
Week 3 Hypotheses:
Main hypotheses: Students want a step by step tutorial to create job applications
Resume Pain Points:
Accomplishment Statements- Proven
Identifying the key qualifications and skills need- Proven
Cover Letter:
Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter
Students see cover letters as more important than resumes (positioning, priority, value, etc)
Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for
Online Presence:
Students update their resume and cover letter around the same frequency and time as their online tools. Why?
Why don’t Students use the solutions provided?
Students don’t utilize the assistance that is provided to them because…
Self-esteem / nervous – not comfortable going to talk to an advisor
Inconvenient/unfamiliar – not (like their regular habits) a part of their daily routine/pattern
Time- too long, job application ends too soon
Accessibility
Takeaways from this interview:
The full interview is here.
Resumes
✓ Accomplishment Statements
✓ Identifying the key qualifications and skills needed
Cover Letter
✓ Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter
? Students see cover letters as more important than resumes
✓ Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for
LinkedIn
✓ Students know that they should have a LinkedIn profile
✓ Students either do not feel confident making or know how to make a LinkedIn profile
✓ Students don’t use any other platform besides LinkedIn for their professional online presence (doesn’t even use LinkedIn)
The most surprising takeaways from this interview were:
The full interview is here, but the hypothesis summary was:
Resumes
✓ Accomplishment Statements
✓ Identifying the key qualifications and skills needed
Cover Letter
✓ Students don’t know the correct elements to include in a cover letter
? Students see cover letters as more important than resumes
✖ Students change the tone of their cover letter depending on the job they are applying for
LinkedIn
✖ Students know that they should have a LinkedIn profile
✓ Students either do not feel confident making or know how to make a LinkedIn profile
✓ Students don’t use any other platform besides LinkedIn for their professional online presence (doesn’t even use LinkedIn)
Hypothesis: Students find making resumes difficult and stressful
We had the opportunity to interview a staff member in a Co-op office, they had a lot of knowledge about both the student and employer hypotheses.
Here is how the interview stacked up to our hypotheses:
Cover Letter-
Hypotheses 4- HALF yes- Not that they don’t know what elements it is how to write those elements correctly.
Hypotheses 5-NO- It depends on the instance- varys
Hypotheses 6- YES- Students may change their tone a little but nothing close to what they need to be doing.
Below are the key points that were identified:
Personality and company FIT need to be expressed in the job application.
demonstrating why they want to work through – personality, NOT by reiterating the company
TAILORING is very important- to the job- very specific
Process – ID what they are looking for and customize it specifically to your experiences
When Lynn coaches students she asks them to bring in the job posting – then read it over and decide where to go
Using phrases like: Have a conversation- tell me what you did here- Think about what you did at XX in a XX lens (translate)
Cover letters:
write like you are talking to someone else- lots of students write in the wrong way- write like you talk
What can i contribute and can i learn
Students don’t have enough content- knowing your background, reflective process, SKILLS MATRIX
Lots of students over complicate the issue- simple and easy, say too much. Being direct. Capture a couple of Targetted things that show you who you are.
students struggle with the transition between paragraphs flow in a quick and nice way
LinkedIn:
Great way to get info about companies
Students don’t realize what it is for- not a static page but an active engagement to network
Biggest thing from employers- They notice students have a template and the personality doesn’t go through
Posted in Employers, Interviews, Students
Tagged Coach, cover letter, featured, interview
Summary:
RC, a second year business student, has confidence in her resume writing skills. She thinks that her resume is pretty good and has effectively targeted a specific employer. In the past she has visited a career centre, but has found her new knowledge surpasses that which she gained from visiting an adviser. She is working on a resume for a job application and has based it on advice she has received from a contact already working for the company and example resumes.
She half-proved Hypotheses 1: she already knew about making accomplishment statements, but really wanted examples of effective ones to model her statements after. Hypotheses 2 and 5 seemed mostly wrong from this student’s perspective. Hypotheses 3 and 4 seems somewhat true, though she already does these things (gets her resume looked over and targets employer language in her resume) and doesn’t seem to be looking for extra help here.
She seems very well prepared, pulling out skills that employers want to see from job descriptions and brings them into her resume. Business students with more advanced training in resume writing do not seem to be in our target market, though the opportunities for help here are in providing valuable examples and allowing resume customization.
