You’ll want to start with your name and a brief summary. Two to three sentences is best. The companies where you worked, the school or schools you attended, and major projects or products you worked on. If you are a professional engineer with the relevant accreditation, don’t hesitate to put that after your name.

Reverse chronological is the best order for your experience section. The most recent is the most relevant, but there are always exceptions. Education should come after experience. It’s important but it’s rare that electrical engineers are self-taught.

You may have worked in power generation, you may have worked on transportation, medical, hardware, or other commercial products, or possibly both. You want to define this in your resume. Being vague tends to lead to being ignored.

Be specific about the amount of power moving through the system. Try to use the same scale throughout the resume. If your most recent jobs describes your work in kilovolts, use kilovolts through the rest of the resume. If you are working on small scale electronics using less power, kilovolts might not be ideal.

The tools you used on the design side are important to some employers and managers. Some managers and employers are more concerned with projects/products. You can mention both. I’d recommend more detail around the projects/products. You can briefly mention team sizes and budgets. You want to be specific about your role on the project or product and avoid generalizing.

Having a person who comes from outside the engineering world read your resume can be helpful. You want to make sure that the experience is conveyed simply and effectively.

Feel free to review these two different templates I created below. No Skeletors consulted in writing this post.

Here is a template for power generation/construction experience

Name —

City/Province or State

Summary —

Electrical Engineer with X years of experience. Worked on projects Y and Z. Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from University A.

Experience

Company

EPCM/GC (optional, not needed if working direct at company)

Fulltime or Contract

Month/Year to Month/Year

Worked on X power generation project (you can list the specific power plant, transmission, or distribution project). Responsible for Y designs and Z segment of power generation project. Working with up to [blank]kV. Part of team of A number of people, and a budget of B.

Tools :

Second Company :

EPCM/GC (optional, not needed if working direct at company)

Worked on X power generation project (you can list the specific power plant). Responsible for Y designs and Z segment of power generation project. Working with up to [blank]kV. Part of team of A number of people, and a budget of B.

Tools :

Highest or most recent Education first— list institution name, institution city and province/state, degree, and year of graduation

Previous Education

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Here is a template for product experience

Name —

City/Province or State

Summary —

Electrical Engineer with X years of experience. Worked on products for Y industries and Z companies. Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from University (be specific about school).

Experience

Company

Fulltime or Contract

Month/Year to Month/Year

Describe what the company does briefly. Describe the product you worked on with more detail. Describe what you did on the product with the most detail. Responsible for Y designs and Z features of Product X. Can describe the team you were on, whether it was a mix of designations or all electrical. Identify the voltage used in the system.

Tools : describe the tools used

Second Company

Month/Year to Month/Year

Describe what the company does briefly. Describe the product you worked on with more detail. Describe what you did on the product with the most detail. Responsible for Y designs and Z features of Product X. Can describe the team you were on, whether it was a mix of designations or all electrical. Identify the voltage used in the system.

Tools : describe the tools used

Highest or most recent Education first — list institution name, institution city and province/state, degree, and year of graduation

Previous Education next

You don’t need to include high school experience.

Recruiting agencies are given roles to recruit for by our clients. We rarely have the opportunity to market individuals for a company that doesn’t have an active role we are engaged on. If a team has a full roster, their GM doesn’t need to hear from agents about potential new players.

There are exceptions where a company is looking for someone earlier in their career, but it is rare. Most of the jobs available through a recruiting agency are for individuals who are senior and can share their knowledge with a team.

Reaching out to agencies earlier in your career is less likely to land your next role. Here are some things to do in addition to reaching out to recruiters that will help you.

1. Make sure you are tracking everywhere you apply and when. This information is crucial if you are going to engage with a recruiting agency. If you ask an agency to submit your resume to a company you applied to 2 months ago, it can negatively affect all parties. Best practice is to keep an Excel or Google sheet.

2. Make a circle on a map of where you live. The diameter should be as large as you can reasonably commute. This will vary based on the density of your city, your access to a vehicle or transit, and your level of fitness and daily steps. Make a list of all the companies within that circle that can hire you. A company that can hire you is one that has hired people similar to you in the past. Cross reference with LinkedIn for people with a little more experience than you who were hired 1–2 years ago.

If you reside in a major metropolitan city, this makes most sense. If you live in a smaller place, it might make less sense but is still a good exercise. If you can walk there, the company has an incentive to hire you over someone farther away, and it’s convenient. This is a win for both.

3. Have a resume that is clear on your location, experience, and education. You must be specific about the city and province or state where you reside. You need to list your experience from most recent to least. You should list any co-operative education experience in your resume but make it separate from your experience from after graduation. You may list the month/year you graduated; you don’t need to list the start.

4. If you are looking to relocate to another city, make sure to have a plan you can easily describe. If you are “open to anywhere in North America”, it suggests you haven’t done enough research. A company is more likely to hire someone that can easily commute to their location.

5. Be flexible and patient. Not all recruiting agents can help you at this point in your career. Recruitment agents are a resource to be used.

A recruitment agent can best help you move into a lateral role. If you are in the first few years of your career, they are less likely to be able to help. As you move into intermediate roles and then later senior roles, a recruitment agent becomes one of your best options.

The project or product you worked is arguably the most important. Your resume should identify the specific software projects or software products you worked on. It should also identify the part of the project or product that you tested. In a soccer (football) game, many players kick the ball. When a goal is scored, one person is last to make contact with the goal. Be specific about when you had the ball, thinking of the ball as the software you tested.

You’ll want to identify what you tested manually, and/or what you tested with automation. It is difficult for a project or product to be tested exclusively with automation. Make sure to be specific about you used automation. Did you code out the framework? Did you run test scripts?

The specific tools you used are important. Some hiring managers are more concerned with tools than with software or industry. Some hiring managers are the inverse. It is more effective to present your experience as accurately and specifically as possible. This will allow you to win an interview over someone who writes their experience vaguely and without specificity.

AI and LLM’s can be an effective tool. They can also be a detriment. You may be disqualified for using AI. You are unlikely to be disqualified for not using AI. Be cautious. A resume that is vague and contains many percentages is not ideal. Having a mistake in writing or grammar is usually OK. Having a mistake in the accuracy of your experience can be a problem.

The size of scope of the projects and products where you worked is important. Testing a massive piece of software used by a government agency or multinational corporation is different than testing brand new software at an early stage startup. Try to make this clear.

If you graduated from university/college less than 5 years ago, in 2022 or thereafter at the time of this writing, you can have your resume start with a summary, then education, then experience.

If you graduated from university/college 5 years of more, in 2021 or beforehand at the time of this writing, you can have your resume start with a summary, then education, then experience.

You may add a technical skills section to the resume. Anything mentioned in the skills section needs to also be in identified in specific jobs in the experience section, or in specific product or projects you worked on in your work experience.

You do not need to add personal hobbies or interests at the end of the resume.

You should not attach a photo to the resume if you are seeking a job in Canada or the United States.

The resume should have little to no formatting. Just the specific experience written in simple text. You may use a different font for the titles of sections — summary, experience, education-or use the same font throughout. Any borders, columns, pictures, or text boxes make things complicated for people or machines to read.

Your resume will be evaluated by people when they receive the resume, before the interview, and after the interview as people discuss the interview outcome. ATS systems rarely rank candidates and do not have scores. The person who reads your resume is the person to think about.

People are all different and this is what I believe to be best practice from my 12+ years of experience recruiting quality assurance persons. Some hiring managers may look for something different but this is what I recommend.

_________________________________________________________________

Here is a template

_________________________________________________________________

Name

Email, phone number,

City, Province/State

Summary — write 2–3 sentences summarizing your experience

Experience- most recent, reverse chronological. If you graduated less than 5 years ago, can lead with education

Current or last job title

Company, month/year to month/year (or present)

Write the product or projects you worked on. Identify the specific features or modules that you tested. Discuss the size and scope of the products and projects.

Tools : identify the tools you used, either specific to each project/product or specific to the job

Previous job title

Previous company

Write the product or projects you worked on. Identify the specific features or modules that you tested. Discuss the size and scope of the products and projects.

Tools : identify the tools you used, either specific to each project/product or specific to the job

• continue experience back for 10 years or to graduation from school

Education

Name of school, degree, and major. You may include the year of graduation and you may also withhold.

Who pays for the service?

A recruitment agency is a 3rd party that works in partnership with private companies, government organizations, or partnerships to assist with hiring. They are paid by the private corporations or public sector clients they are hired by. Recruitment agencies follow the directives of their clients. It is the clients’ who define the interview process, compensation, and policies.

What’s in it for me?

While agencies are paid by their clients, they also have a vested interest in the candidates they work with. One cannot exist without the other. It is in an agencies best interest to provide excellent assistance to the people who their clients are seeking to recruit. Sometimes, there is a mismatch between expectations, and the recruitment agency is a buffer between the two parties.

Working with a recruitment agency generally does not change the compensation one is entitled to when selected. Some angry portions of the internet will disagree with this. In large organizations hiring contractors, there may be minute differences in rates between agencies, but the rates are mainly driven by clients and industry standards.

In organizations hiring staff into full-time roles, there is standardized compensation whether you apply directly or through an agency. Modern employment legislation in British Columbia, Ontario, California, Colorado, and other areas has enacted laws around salary transparency to ensure compliance.

Is it a separate process?

Recruiters can advise clients on best practices. I am always glad to share insights with my clients when they are defining selection process. Sometimes my clients are glad to ask me to focus on recruitment and not share insights.

Regardless of process, people move through the same interview workflow whether they are a direct applicant or put forward by an agency. If a company wants 3–4 interviews and a tech test, the successful proponent will almost always have to complete the 3–4 interviews and the test.

In many cases, recruiters engage in regular communication with their clients and this back and forth allows them to gain insights their companies and how best to interview at said company. They may recommend to wear little black stretchy pants to a company that sells little black stretchy pants. They may be more of a used car salesperson and be generous about the tires they have or have not kicked. Asking the recruiter about their relationship with their client can be beneficial to seperate those who reveal the truth, like little black stretchy pants.

Is it exclusive?

An agency working with multiple companies in the same space will have more opportunities for candidates and be able to garner a wider selection of candidates for employers. Companies do not interview exclusively and you do not need to be exclusive to one agency. Try not to use more than 3 agencies, it may become redundant and stop scaling.

How do different sized companies use agency?

Early stage companies may not have an internal recruitment function and lean on agency partners to assist with hiring. Hiring and recruitment is a core part of most managerial positions, and many early stage companies do their own hiring.

Public sector companies, large multinational corporations, and late stage companies are more likely to hire contractors through an agency, consulting firm, or system integrator. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these solutions. Larger companies usually have their own internal talent acquisition functions.

When do companies use recruiment agencies? What are the alternatives?

Recruitment agencies provide a people based solution. They find the best person for the role. This person may be a direct hire, someone who is hired by the company as an employee on salary, or a contractor who is paid hourly through the agency. A consulting or managed services firm will have people available (or occasionally available!)to do the role. System integrators will handle a project from end to end and provide their own people while being responsible for the solution. Many consulting firms and system integrators use recruiting agencies. Recruiting agencies are unlikely to provide people through consulting firms or system integrators.

Recruitment agencies increase competition, their internal agents usually compete with one another to fill roles. Companies will often hire more than one agency to maintain competition between two to three agencies. Very large organizations may have dozens or hundreds of vendors in competition. Competition is natural in business and mandated by law in Canada and the US.

What’s the number one rule?

For better or for worse, they find people for jobs, not jobs for people. They are mandated to solve the needs of their clients.

This advice is geared towards product managers who work with digital software and complex hardware. It might be applicable to product managers outside those areas, but this the path most likely to succeed based on my 10+ years working with digital software and complex hardware.

1. Defining the products you helped bring to market is most important. How they were built, agile vs waterfall, is less important but still important. Make sure you clearly identify what each product you worked on previously.
2. Be specific on product stages. If you managed the release of certain features of a large product or suite of products, make sure that is clear. If you worked on a product solution that integrates several products, make sure that is described in detail. Product management and product ownership are terms that are often used interchangeably. Be specific on both what you did and what you were called.
3. Product managers are evaluated based on the products they managed. Was it the flagship product of the company? Was it a proof of concept? Did you manage the team beneath you? What was your budget? All these details matter and can help delineate your experience.
4. When listing work experience, you want to be clear on dates. MM/YY to MM/YY is ideal. Working on a product with a budget of 2 million dollars over 8 months is different than working on a 2 million dollar product over 4 years.
5. Be specific on team size and team designations. Did you manage a group of vendors, contractors, or employees? Was it a mix? Were they all engineers? Did you manage the product marketing? Was it a mix of product and project persons? Did you manage a product with people who reported into their own department managers?
6. Use as little formatting, pictures, graphs, and dashboards in the resume as possible. Present the facts in writing. A resume is a written document. Having accompanying documentation with graphs, pictures, and dashboards can be helpful, but don’t include in the resume. The resume will go through applicant tracking or procurement software and will be read by many people. Having a document that describes your experience through text is ideal. People, machines, and I appreciate direct language.
7. You may be disqualified for using AI. You are unlikely to be disqualified for not using AI. Use AI with an abundance of caution. Resumes are often screen for plagiarism and AI use. If you use AI, be prepared to defend the use.
8. You only need one version of your resume. The products you previously worked on are static. You can edit the resume when a tailoring it to a new role to highlight something mentioned in the job description or by your recruiter. This may be ideal if a company is changing methodology from Agile to Safe Agile, Waterfall to Agile, or Agile to Waterfall.
9. our resume needs to match your LinkedIn and website. You may have less details on LinkedIN or your website, it is public information. Your resume is not public information and should be more granular.
10. The number of pages is less relevant than the quality of the content. Including products in detail for the last 5–8 years is great. Can be less detailed for products/projects 9–15 years ago. No need to describe products older than 15 years in more than one line of the resume. The 2 page rule refers to the 90s when people would carry two pieces of paper into an interview room. The future is now and your resume is shared through emails and software.

TEMPLATE

Name your name

Location, email, socials (where you work, how to contact you, your social media, phone number is optional)

summary (two-three sentences specific to you)

Experience (chronological, most recent to least recent)

Company 1, mm/yy-mm/yy (or present)

job title (product manager/product owner, or director or scrum master)

product 1

definition of product in as much detail as possible

product budget, product team size

product 2 (if applicable)

definition of product in detail

product budget, team size,

product 3+ (if applicable)

summary of product, budget, team size

Company 2 mm/yy-mm/yy

title

product 1

definition of product in as much detail as possible

product budget, project team size

product 2 (if applicable)

definition of product in detail

product budget, team size,

product 3+ (if applicable)

summary of product, budget, team size

Education (list all post-secondary education, chronologically)

Certifications (list relevant certifications, chronologically, with CSPO or CSM first)

Make sure you are specific on what you built and how you built it. What the software does, what industry uses the software, how a business uses the software, and how you built it are all important.

There isn’t an industry standard when it comes to hiring, there are vast differences within the industry. The largest public companies want people who have worked on complex projects and can be language and tool agnostic. Companies selling software used for finance often want people with both finance and tool experience. Some SaaS companies are flexible and want specific tool experience. The hottest startups tend to want people who have worked with similar tech stack and industry.

Your summary can be 2–3 sentences, and try to make it specific to you.

You don’t need a tool section at the start of the resume, but many engineers include one. The most important thing is to be certain that any tool you describe at the top is described in your experience below.

Your professional experience is the most important part of your resume. The more recent the experience, the more relevant the experience. The exception here would be for a new graduate, you might want to list your degree first. If you are annoying and went to a school “just outside Boston” feel free to put that before experience.

When describing your experience, be certain to give context and specificity. Company name, month/year to month/year. Describe the team/product you worked on. If you worked on multiple products, you may break up your experience between products.

If you worked on a major feature or service, that can be really powerful to list. There is a difference between

• used Java to develop software
• built out multithreading with Java for efficient memory management on a high-performance systems handling thousands of daily concurrent users and traffic.

Software engineers are more likely to have their resumes rejected for lack of detail than for too much detail. At the same time, listing tools and technology that you worked adjacent to but didn’t actually touch, can create issues in the interview. There is a balance.

Describing the tech stack you worked with in the body of the job description is fine. Having a section beneath the description of your recent work is also fine.

Your experience should be detailed for the past 5 years, with the most detail on the most recent work. Your experience does not need to be detailed beyond 10 years.

When it comes to titles, you have a choice to make. If you have an unclear title (SDE5, SDE27, Member of Technical Staff) you may want to adjust your title for the reader. Listing senior software engineer doesn’t make your experience senior unless you describe senior experience below. The most important thing is the person reading your resume.

After your experience, list your education. Whether you were educated in the country where you are looking for work or not, be specific about where you went to school. There could be a hiring manager, HR person, or team member that went to your same school and that could help you get an in!

Personal projects, side projects, open-source projects, these are all great to list at the bottom of the resume. You can list hobbies and personal interests if you wish, they rarely make the difference getting someone hired. It is best to avoid listing anything political or controversial.

Do not use any extra formatting. Do not put things in boxes, add columns, or add logos. If you are a front-end engineer, better to include a link that to include formatting.

Here is a template that you may choose to use below

Name put your name that you use, full legal name is fine

Location, contact, and socials — city and province/state, email, phone number, and LinkedIN. If you include your phone number on public sites, expect to be called

Summary — 2–3 sentences specific to you

Tools & Technology — you may list the tools and technology you use most often. This is optional. Best when applying to a company that is looking for specific tool experience. For whatever the acronym for the largest 7 American companies is now, this is not needed.

Work Experience — must be chronological, most recent job first

*unless you graduated in the last 3–5 years, then put education first*

Company name, your title

location of office you worked out of, month/year to month/year

• describe the product/team you worked on. describe the biggest thing first.
• describe the part of the product you built (ignoring the rest of the team), be as specific as possible
• you can describe the tech stack and tools in the description or below each specific job

Second company, your title

location of office you worked out of, month/year to month/year

• describe the product/team you worked on. describe the biggest thing first.
• describe the part of the product you built (ignoring the rest of the team), be as specific as possible
• you can describe the tech stack and tools in the description or below each specific job

*NOTE* If you started as a junior or intermediate at a company, describe both roles and the progression. Hiring managers like progression and advancement.

Education — list the schools you went to, chronologically and be specific. After schools, list any certifications you hold. No need to list any certifications that are expired, but if you do, just mark them as expired

*If you graduated from university less than 5 years ago, or went to a top school, you might want to list education first*

Personal projects, open source work, side projects — list at the bottom. A side project working on AI could be relevant for an AI company. Best to differentiate between paid and unpaid experience.

The timeline, team size, technical tools, and work style are important but secondary to the crux of the project you did for the client. Still important, but not most. The project and client are what is most important. Be sure to include the details of the client, domain, and industry to help the hiring manager understand the context.

You may not have all the details for the project if you were brought in for a specific part. Defining what you implemented or fixed is key. Giving context on the project as a whole helps the reader understand what your part was, and allows you to highlight that part. Achievements and outcomes are important, be careful with percentages and statistics. They can be difficult to back up. The resume helps you get the interview and you will be asked questions based on your resume in the interview.

There is nothing wrong with repetition in your resume. If you are a subject matter expert in something, you will likely be doing similar tasks on different projects. This is another reason why defining the project and your technical expertise sets you apart amongst other applicants.

Your resume should be as long as it needs to be. Be concise with the broad strokes; the definition of companies and teams. Be precise with your tasks and work. Don’t try to contain the resume in less than 2 pages, but a great resume can be 2 pages. Don’t allow the resume to be more than 5 pages, but if you have a story to tell, spill it. Having 10–15 years of experience executing projects related to ERP, CRM, or cybersecurity doesn’t need to be contained in a small package.

As a general rule, jobs in the private sector require shorter resumes. Public sector contract positions will have a resume cross-referenced against a matrix, often by more than one person. The latter requires more detail and should be longer. Neither situation is absolute.

A hired gun needs to be quick on the draw. When your resume gets you an interview, you need to be able to speak to anything and everything in the resume. It is folly to mention things you were adjacent to or exposed to.

Here is a rough resume template that I have recommended in the past for technical consultants. The words in parentheses are my opinions and recommendations.

Name

Location, email, socials (where you work, how to contact you, your social media, phone number is optional)

Summary (two-three sentences specific to you)

Experience (chronological, most recent to least recent)

Company 1, location, mm/yy-mm/yy (or present)

title

project 1, client,

definition of project in as much detail as possible

project team size, your role on project, what you worked on, what new things you built/implemented, what you maintained

tools used :

project 2, client (if applicable)

definition of project in detail

team size, your role on project, what you specifically worked on

tools used :

project 3+, client (if applicable)

summary of project, team size, your role on project

tools used :

Company 2 mm/yy-mm/yy

title

project 1, client

definition of project in as much detail as possible

your role on project, what you specifically worked on

tools used :

project 2, client (if applicable)

definition of project in detail

project budget, team size,

tools used :

Education (list all post-secondary education, chronologically)

Certifications (list relevant certifications, chronologically)

This advice is geared towards project managers working in technology and engineering. This is what I have seen to be the most likely path to success for the past 12 years.

1. What your projects accomplished, what domain the projects took place in, and what the subject of the project was are more important than how you accomplished the project. Whether the project was agile or waterfall is less relevant than what software was implemented or developed. How you tracked a construction project is not as interesting to the reader as what the final result of the build is. Be as specific as possible about what the project was. How you led the project also matters, just less so. Signal over noise.
2. Be clear on project stages. If your role was managing a project that was part of a larger program, identify how your project fit into the program. If you managed a project end-to-end, it would be great to describe that to the reader. If you led a project that was handed off to someone else, same again, worth noting.
3. Project managers are evaluated on the budgets of projects they managed, the industry, domain, and complexity of said projects, and the size of the teams. Spare no detail while being concise.
4. When listing work experience, you want to be clear on dates. MM/YY to MM/YY is ideal. Only listing the year is limiting. You have nothing to hide.
5. Define team size and team designations. For example, project X had 1 business analyst, 5 software engineers, 2 Devops engineers, and 2 quality assurance testers. This is more beneficial to the reader than project X had a team of 10.
6. Do not use any formatting, pictures, graphs, or dashboards in the resume. Present the facts in writing. Accompanying documentation with graphs, pictures, and dashboards may be helpful, but don’t include in the resume. The resume will be read by many people and may go through applicant tracking or procurement software. Having a document that describes your experience through text is ideal. People, machines, and I appreciate direct language.
7. Use AI to check your resume, do not use it to write your resume. You can speak to your experience better than you can prompt a machine to speak to your experience. Prompt the machine to review what you wrote not to write pulled from average resumes online.
8. You only need one version of your resume. The projects you worked on previously are static. You can edit the resume when a tailoring it to a new role to highlight something mentioned in the job description or by your recruiter. Tailoring a suit changes the fit, not the fabric.
9. Your resume needs to match your LinkedIn and website. You may have less details on LinkedIN or your website, it is public information. Your resume is not public information and should be granular.
10. The number of pages is less relevant than the quality of the content. Including projects in detail for the last 5–8 years is great. Can be less detailed for projects 9–15 years ago. No need to describe projects from greater than 15 years ago in more than one line. The 2 page rule refers to the 90s when people would carry two pieces of paper into an interview room. The future is now and your resume is shared through emails and software.

TEMPLATE

Name your name

Location, email, socials (where you work, how to contact you, your social media, phone number is optional)

summary (two-three sentences specific to you)

Experience (chronological, most recent to least recent)

Company 1, mm/yy-mm/yy (or present)

job title (program/project manager or director or coordinator)

project 1

definition of project in as much detail as possible

project budget, project team size

project 2 (if applicable)

definition of project in detail

project budget, team size,

project 3+ (if applicable)

summary of project, budget, team size

Company 2 mm/yy-mm/yy

title

project 1

definition of project in as much detail as possible

project budget, project team size

project 2 (if applicable)

definition of project in detail

project budget, team size,

project 3+ (if applicable)

summary of project, budget, team size

Education (list all post-secondary education, chronologically)

Certifications (list relevant certifications, chronologically, with PMP first)

I spend my time recruiting for clients. When hiring, there is usually a very specific person that those companies want assistance in hiring. Usually someone working at their competitor.

Therefore, if you haven’t worked in the recent past, a recruiting agency might not be the best option to assist. They may in fact get in the way. They can send your resume along to their client in many instances. But if there isn’t a role they have been tasked with recruiting for or you are stacked up against people with more recent experience, you are at a disadvantage. This is an economic reality not a personal one.

Pine beetles have ravaged Northern Canadian forests for many years. They can kill trees which are then left to stand. The wood is not necessarily less viable, less hardy, or less able to be used in construction. But it is not the first choice for most lumber mills. You can’t become a different tree. You can find a different lumber mill.

The higher the demand for your skills, the less your gap in working matters. The only solution to not having a job is finding a job. Here are steps I would recommend doing.

Action Items to get back to work

1. Make sure to track everything

• The companies closest to you are the ones most likely to hire you. Look at a map and make a grid of the companies that you can effectively commute to. These are the ones where you are most likely to work, reach out to them and be mindful of their open jobs.
• Track when and where you reached out

2. Check with past connections

• The people who you used to work with can speak to your competency best. It can be humbling asking for help, but they are most likely able to help. These are the people most likely to hire you
• People who you studied with can be a great resource as well!
• Track when and where you reached out

3. Check with past competitors

• “the enemy of my enemy”. If you worked with a company that had market share in a particular area, research your former competitors. They might benefit from your experience.
• Know your industry/domain, do research
• Reach out to companies and people that you used to compete with AFTER exploring your past connections and companies closest to you

4. Always apply, always track

• the hidden job market isn’t a real thing. Sure, people talk to their inner circle first, which is why you should speak with past connections and colleagues. Jobs are filled by referrals, applications, and recruiters. Prioritize referrals and applications.
• you still need to keep tracking

5. Be flexible

• you might look at consulting companies and contract roles now, if you haven’t before. Familiarize yourself with full-time employment vs contracting, check resources online.
• Look at new cities, industries, and domains AFTER exploring the area you are already in. Change can be more difficult if you additional challenges like relocation or industry change. Be open but not reliant

6. Post online

• have your resume available on sites like Indeed. Don’t shy away from a green banner on LinkedIn. Have your LinkedIn say you are not working.
• You can start a job before someone who is presently working if you are available.

7. Do not give up. On your search or tracking

• Every problem has a solution. The challenge of finding your next job is solved by finding a company that needs you. That need is based on the company and you will feed that need by providing value. You are valuable.
• Tracking is still very important and needs to be reiterated.

The conifer trees of Northern Canada are very strong but stuck in one place. You are not stuck in your job search so long as you keep moving.

I’m an agency recruiter that is contracted to Teema Solutions. I’ve worked with recruitment agencies for the past 12 years. It’s rare that a recruitment agency can help a new graduate. Companies pay recruitment agencies to actively reach out to talent at their competitors and increase competition in their interview process. They rarely ask for assistance sourcing candidates for junior roles or hire new grads through an agency.

Having co-op experience is amazing and should give you an edge over someone that has no cooperative education experience. It is not often graded the same as industry experience.

The best people to assist with your job search are campus recruiters. These are individuals hired by larger companies or rapidly growing scaleups to drive new graduate hiring programs. These are the individuals who attend career fairs at your university. They are not the same as the work placement liaisons or industry connectors that are employed at your university.

However, the individuals who are employed by your university to help you with your job search are an amazing resource. A campus recruiter is tasked with hiring new graduates for their employer. The individual at your university is hired to help you find your next job.

After you have exhausted your options with campus recruiters and the assistance your school provides, you should check all the companies most local to you. Make a circle on a map of where you live that is 1–10km, depending on your level of fitness and daily steps. Make a list of all the companies within that circle that can hire you. A company that can hire you has hired new graduates in the past. Cross reference with LinkedIn. If you reside in a major metropolitan city, this makes most sense. If you live in a university town, it might make less sense but is still a good exercise. If you can walk there, the company has an incentive to hire you over someone farther away, and it’s convenient.

While searching for your job, you should keep diligent but brief records. What companies you have applied to, and when you have applied. It is best to keep this in an excel sheet, G-sheet, or other tracking software.

Many startups thrive on the talent of new graduates. Jobs there can be more difficult to discover, they are not always posted. Looking at startups you want to work at, and cross referencing on LinkedIn if they hire new graduates, can be a great opportunity. It’s easier to rise in a smaller company. However, startups don’t often have new graduate programs or clear growth paths.

Working on open-source projects can be a way to play the long-game. You can gain demonstrable experience that is easily referenced. And if you are working with senior engineers, product managers, and experts on these open-source projects they can discover you.

Larger companies, especially those with large internal recruitment teams and campus program, do not respond well to door knocking. They have channels they want people to go through when looking for talent or selling services. “Show up with your resume” is not the most modern advice.

You should make sure your LinkedIn and resume match. You should apply to jobs on LinkedIn that are actively posted. They are actively posted because they are hiring people. The “hidden job market” is a misnomer. Many jobs are found through referral. Keeping in touch with classmates from your program can help you gain referrals. Be wary of anyone selling you services to gain access to the “hidden job market”.

Don’t give up. If you spend a few hours everyday in your search, you can beat those who give up before you.

In summary below :

1. Campus recruiters who work at large companies are tasked with hiring new graduates. They are your best option.
2. Use the resources for job seeking at your school. Your tuition helps pay for them and they have a vested interest in you finding work.
3. Check the companies closest to you. “Propinquity” is what Jeeves prescribed to Gussie Fink-Nottle.
4. Track where you applied and when you applied.
5. Find a startup that is hiring involves more research but can payoff.
6. Open-source projects and volunteer work can be ways to play the long-game. Less expedient than applying direct but cannot hurt.
7. Always apply to junior roles.
8. Don’t give up!