HASKAYNE
CAREER AND LIFE DESIGN
MBA Job Search
Manual
“It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.”
― Anon
“The person who gets hired Isn’t the one who can do the job best;
but the one who knows the most about how to get hired.”
― Richard Lathrop
1
CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................. 4
The Job Search Process – An Overview ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5
A Career Advising Conversation ................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
MBA Career Development Checklist ............................................................................................................................................................................ 8
How Companies Fill Positions ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Career Exploration .................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Completing Career Assessments................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Other Career Assessments .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 12
15 Questions to Ask During a Career Change ......................................................................................................................................................... 13
Creating a Career Guide Sheet (CGS) ........................................................................................................................................................................ 14
Using Your Career Guide Sheet .................................................................................................................................................................................... 15
CGS Example #1 ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16
CGS Example #2 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 17
CGS Example #3 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 18
5x5x5 Exercise .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
Talents, Skills, Knowledge, and Strengths ................................................................................................................................................................ 21
The LAMP Job Search Method ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 22
Researching Employers ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 23
LinkedIn and Your Favorite Tasks ............................................................................................................................................................................... 24
Resumes and Cover Letters ................................................................................................................................................. 25
How to Write Your Resume ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 26
How Recruiters Scan Resumes ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 28
Chronological Resumes ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29
Summary of Qualifications .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 31
Resume Checklist ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 32
Job Types vs Job Openings........................................................................................................................................................................................... 33
Highlighting Relevant Academic Experience .........................................................................................................................................................34
Creating Transferrable Skill Lists ................................................................................................................................................................................. 35
Identifying a Job’s Key Skills ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Work Experience Matrix .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 37
Accomplishment Statements - Overview ................................................................................................................................................................ 38
Accomplishment Statement Improvements ........................................................................................................................................................... 39
Accomplishment Statement Formulas..................................................................................................................................................................... 40
Accomplishment Statement Examples ...................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Resume Mistakes ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 42
Applicant Tracking Systems ..........................................................................................................................................................................................43
Resume Example #1.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 44
Resume Example #2..........................................................................................................................................................................................................45
Resume Action Verbs ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 47
Suggested Resume Section Titles...............................................................................................................................................................................48
2
Drafting Cover Letters .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 49
Cover Letter Example...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 50
Marketing Yourself ................................................................................................................................................................... 51
Creating High-Impact Career Stories ........................................................................................................................................................................ 52
Your Value Proposition .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 53
Writing an Elevator Pitch ................................................................................................................................................................................................54
Creating Your LinkedIn Profile ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 55
Networking ................................................................................................................................................................................ 57
Coffee Chat Tips ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 58
An Employer’s Perspective on Networking ............................................................................................................................................................. 61
Sample Coffee Chat Questions .................................................................................................................................................................................... 62
Networking Tips for Introverts ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 63
Personality Styles You Meet When Networking .................................................................................................................................................. 64
The Fear of Rejection ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 65
Job Interviews ......................................................................................................................................................................... 66
Performing Well in Job Interviews .............................................................................................................................................................................. 67
Job Interview Tips ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................68
STAR Method for Job Interviews ................................................................................................................................................................................69
Creative Job Interview Questions ...............................................................................................................................................................................70
Salary Negotiation Tips..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 71
Salary Negotiation Templates....................................................................................................................................................................................... 73
Asking For a Raise ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 74
ChatGPT and Career Development ................................................................................................................................... 76
Using ChatGPT .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 77
ChatGPT Prompts for Career Exploration ............................................................................................................................................................... 78
ChatGPT Prompts for Job Descriptions ................................................................................................................................................................... 79
ChatGPT Prompts for Resumes .................................................................................................................................................................................. 80
ChatGPT Prompts for Job Interviews ......................................................................................................................................................................... 81
Some Final Thoughts .............................................................................................................................................................. 82
3
Introduction
Welcome to the Career Development Centre (CDC) at the Haskayne School of Business! Whether you are
looking to advance within your current field or pivot in different direction, searching for your new role can
be a daunting task. Along with advice provided by a team of MBA Career Consultants, this guide will help
you figure out what direction you want to go in and how to get there. Through one-on-one coaching and a
customized action plan, we will help you develop the job search skills, abilities, and confidence necessary to
reach your professional goals.
ELEVATE WEBSITE
Elevate (elevate.ucalgary.ca) is your campus- endorsed
career resource. Within Elevate, you can search for openings
on our job board, register for events hosted by the CDC,
explore written resources that will help you with your job
search, and book an appointment with an MBA Career
Consultant.
MEETING WITH CONSULTANTS
1.
We recommend that you to meet with a consultant at least once in your first term, if only to
understand what resources and services are available.
2. You can meet with an advisor as often as you like. Some students find an initial meeting is sufficient
until they are close to graduating. Others prefer to meet more frequently so they can remain focused on
the job search. Ultimately, you are in control of how fast or slow the journey takes you.
3. You are also able to meet with us after you graduate and are officially a Haskayne alumna/us. We are
committed to helping you achieve success and so are happy to work you even years after graduation.
4. Please remember that we customize the information we share with you based on the current economic
situation as well as your personal circumstances, background, and the industry that you are applying to.
CAREER/CONSULTING IGNITOR PROGRAMS
In addition to the information contained this guide and the expertise shared with you by your career
advisors, MBA students will benefit greatly by attending one or both of our Career and Consulting Ignitors
programs. Whether you are continuing along your current career path, pivoting into a new direction, or
starting your own business, this series of networking events, workshops and seminars will equip you with
the knowledge and abilities to achieve your career goals. For more information, please speak to an advisor
or visit the Haskayne School of Business section at elevate.ucalgary.ca.
Note: The information contained here is supplementary to the advice you will receive from your career
advisor and not intended to be a replacement for information communicated during your one-on-one
sessions.
4
The Job Search Process – An Overview
Here in Haskayne, we break down the career development process into five stages: awareness,
identification, planning, executing, and re-evaluation. By the end of your journey, you will be equipped with
a targeted resume and cover letter template, the industry knowledge to succeed in networking with
business professionals, and the skills necessary to excel in interviews.
STEP 1) Build Awareness - Preparing for a job search assumes you know what position you are targeting.
But, before you begin your search, it is important to assess your interests, skills, and values and consider
completing career assessment tools offered by the school. These can help you understand how your talents
and motivations compare to a variety of occupations. We offer Clifton Strengths and CareerLeader.
STEP 2) Identify Career Options - Attending
events, researching online, and conducting
informational conversations is key to figuring out
what field and/or organization you wish to work for.
Gathering this market intelligence helps identify jobs
and functions that might appeal to you, as well as
the skills required, ways to enter the field, and
insider information about the organization. The CDC
offers guides on specific industries (i.e. management
consulting and banking/finance) via the Elevate
website. Once you have determined the job you are
targeting, you are ready to start your search.
STEP 3) Plan Your Career Objective - Searching for
a new job can have its ups and downs. Some days, it
will feel like you are on track; other days, it will feel
like you have really lost your way. Setting an
objective will help you remember your purpose; it
serves as a vision for your job search. You will need to think about your skills, your unique talents, education,
and core competencies. You will also need to evaluate your needs. These may include the size of the
organization, job title or function, compensation, and location. Finally, you will consider your timing. Do you
need something right away, by a certain date, or are you waiting for the right opportunity? All these
considerations will drive your objective and inform your plan.
STEP 4) Execute Your Career Plan - Craft your resume, cover letter, elevator pitch, and LinkedIn profile.
Find hiring companies, build and activate a career network, research employer information, attend
networking events and career fairs, prospect and follow up referral leads. Strong relationships will open
doors to new introductions, knowledge, and opportunities.
STEP 5) Re-evaluate Your Goals - Track what you like and dislike in your new role and what you want in
the next one. Unexpected occurrences and events will arise. A job opportunity could take your career in a
surprising direction, or you could move across the country. Keep in mind that it is okay to change direction
if you can remain flexible.
Tip: Focus 20% of the time on online applications and 80% networking in order to discover hidden positions.
5
A Career Advising Conversation
MBA Job Seeker (JS): I need help finding work. I've applied to many jobs online lately, but I'm not getting
any interviews. Companies aren't even acknowledging my applications. It's depressing because I know I
have a lot to offer.
Career Advisor (CA): How many jobs are you applying to?
JS: About 10-15 a day. I heard I should apply to up to 50. I just click "Easy Apply" on LinkedIn job postings
and other job boards. Other times I spend a couple of hours working on a cover letter and resume but those
take a long time.
CA: We call this method 'spray and pray'. You apply to many jobs hoping to get one. Did you know the
chance of landing an interview from an online application is actually only about 3%? This means you need to
apply to around 30 jobs to get one interview, and that's not even an offer. I heard of someone who applied
to 1,000 jobs without a single interview.
JS: That's crazy. It’s frustrating because I have a lot of skills, so I could work anywhere. I'm hardworking, a
good communicator, analytical, and a fast learner.
CA: Recruiters and hiring managers see those phrases all the time. Your resume should demonstrate your
skills through accomplishments, not just claim you're good at things. We call it "Show, don't tell." For
example, what do you mean by being an effective communicator?
JS: I'm good at getting my point across and can communicate with anyone. I presented to an audience of
2,500 at our annual investor meeting, and my director complimented my performance.
CA: Good! But there's a big difference between saying you're an effective communicator and "Presented
corporate revenue strategy at annual conference to over 2,500 investors." Be specific and show your
achievements.
JS: This seems like a lot of work. I just want any job. I'll do anything.
CA: McDonald's is always hiring.
JS: Okay, not that type of job. I want something where I can use my brain and pays well and allows me to
utilize my MBA.
CA: Employers want specialists, not generalists. They want someone excellent at a specific field like
accounting or business development. You're competing with candidates who can explain why they are
excellent specialists. You need to customize your resume and cover letter to align with the job posting.
JS: What's the solution then?
CA: The number one challenge we find is that students don’t know what exactly they want nor what they’re
good at. This is what we’ll focus on during our meetings. So, what's your ideal job? What job titles are you
interested in?
JS: I have an engineering background and worked in energy before my MBA. I'm liking finance, maybe
investment banking as a financial analyst or business analyst. I'm good with numbers and want to develop
my leadership skills for the C-suite eventually.
CA: Leadership, quantitative analysis, and finance are good starting traits, but it's still way too broad. We
need to narrow down your preferences. We'll focus on tasks you enjoy, your skills, values, personality traits,
ideal workplace, compensation, and opportunities for promotion. We must be very specific about what you
want and then tailor your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile accordingly. Then we'll identify
companies that hire for those roles.
6
JS: It'll take forever to customize each application.
CA: Not really. We'll create a resume for each job type you're interested in. For example, one for financial
analyst that can also be used for equity analyst, investment analyst, portfolio analyst, etc. It'll be 90% done,
and you can tweak the final 10% based on the specific job opening.
JS: Okay, how about this? I want to be an equity analyst for the next two to three years max. It's a
steppingstone to becoming an IB associate where I can manage projects, coordinate with clients, and
conduct due diligence. Then, after a few more years, I aim for VP to lead deals and oversee transactions.
CA: Great! Which companies are you interested in?
JS: Goldman Sachs obviously, and I've heard good things about capital markets at RBC and ATB. A
classmate works at RBC and says the culture is really supportive.
CA: Excellent. Check to see if there are Haskayne MBA alumni working at those firms. Connect with them on
LinkedIn and ask if there are any unadvertised positions or if they can refer you when relevant openings
arise. This is how you access the hidden job market.
JS: That makes sense. It's all about networking. I found my last job through a friend's referral.
CA: Exactly. It comes down to who you know. Applying online is fine, but networking is crucial. Aim to have
around 100 people in your city who know you and your job preferences. Networking will be more helpful
than just applying. Spend one hour applying online and four hours doing coffee chats, which are
informational interviews with industry experts.
JS: What are coffee chats?
CA: They're conversations where you learn about a company's culture, pros and cons of a role, advice from
professionals, and how they got their jobs. It's networking. You can think of it as joining different
professional "tribes" and acquiring tacit knowledge. You'll learn their jargon and customs, becoming part of
the tribe. The challenge is demonstrating your understanding before getting the job title.
JS: I don't like coffee, though.
CA: You can do it over Zoom or meet face to face. The important thing is to get the names of two or three
contacts at the end of the meeting to grow your network.
JS: So, let me summarize what I've learned so far. First, figure out exactly what I want and what I'm good at
using career assessments. Then create customized resumes and cover letters for job openings. Network
with alumni or professionals in the companies I want to work for, ideally before they even announce
openings. That way, I won't have as much competition. And even if they post the job, I can mention my
connections within the company, giving me an edge.
CA: Perfect summary! Here are some exercises from the manual that will help you achieve your goal...
1)
Complete some career assessments and work on your Career Guide Sheet (CGS) to figure out what
you want and what you’re good at
2) Once you’ve competed your Career Leader assessment (ask your advisor to sign you up), tackle the
5x5x5 Exercise to narrow your list of jobs down significantly
3) Complete the LinkedIn and Your Favourite Tasks and Identifying a Job’s Key Skills exercises to
determine what core skills are necessary for your job and whether you will enjoy it. You can use
ChatGPT to help with this.
4) Use the LAMP Method to determine who hires those types of roles. Narrow your list of
companies/employer to your top 10-15. Speak to 4-5 people (or more) in each organization.
5) Don’t forget to work with your advisor on your interview and salary negotiation skills either.
7
MBA Career Development Checklist
1st year
Fall Semester











Attend Fall Orientation (new students)
Obtain a Fall MBA Career Events Calendar
Become familiar with services and
resources offered by Haskayne Career
Development Centre and CareerLink
(create login & password)
RSVP for upcoming events in CareerLink
o
Career Ignitor Workshops
o
Hear it from the Experts and
Career Connector series
o
Networking events
Meet with MBA Career Consultants to
discuss career goals/interests
Create target list of industries and
companies. Research them online.
Conduct informational interviews with
friends, family, peers, faculty, alumni, and
industry professionals
Network throughout the semester
Join student clubs
Be prepared to apply for internships (e.g.
MITACS) and summer opportunities
Build your LinkedIn profile
Winter Semester







Obtain Winter MBA Career Events
Calendar
RSVP for upcoming events in CareerLink
o
Career Ignitor Workshops
o
Graduate Reverse Career Fair
o
Alumni Panel events
Apply for internship opportunities using
CareerLink
Make a list of targeted networking
contacts at organizations of interest
Join student organizations and local
professional associations to learn more
about your area of interest
If you do not obtain a summer internship,
identify volunteer, and project
opportunities
If you are interested in management
consulting begin practicing case
interviews
2nd year
Fall Semester











Obtain Fall MBA Career Events
Calendar
Add your summer internship
experience to your résumé
Determine if your career strategy has
changed after doing a summer
internship
Meet with MBA Career Consultant to
discuss changes to your career
goals/interests
RSVP for upcoming events in
CareerLink
o
Hear it from the Experts
and Career Connector
o
Networking events
Attend Career Ignitor workshops
again if you need a refresher
Contact employers to schedule
informational interviews
Attend on campus recruitment
events
Continue building relationships with
professional, social, and on-campus
contacts
Apply for full-time opportunities via
CareerLink and company websites
Look for opportunities to network
over the holiday season
8
How Companies Fill Positions
Source: What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolle
9
Career Exploration
10
HSB Career Assessments
Choosing a career is all about ‘fit.’ After all, there’s no point in joining a company only to realize you don’t
really it there a few months later. Better to find a good role or company that fits you well the first time! So
what is ‘fit,’ and how does it lead to a satisfying career? ‘Fit’ is about both - who you are and what you do.
Below are several tests that you can complete to help you learn more about yourself.
CLIFTON STRENGTHS
Clifton Strengths is used throughout UCalgary for both students and staff. The assessment begins with a 3040-minute inventory which asks you about your preferences and tendencies in a variety of situations. After
completing this assessment, you are provided with your Top 5 Themes of Talent – five qualities that explain
what makes you unique.
Step 1: Ask your MBA Career Advisor for a code
Step 2: Visit www.strengthsquest.com/registration/default.aspx
Step 3: Complete your Strengths Inventory
CAREERLEADER
CareerLeader is the world-leading business career self-assessment program. It provides a robust analysis of
interests, skills, and motivators, and then matches to specific career paths and cultures that are likely to be
the best fit. Whether you have already formed an idea of what path you would like to take or you are looking
for inspiration, taking a CareerLeader assessment can support your decision making. MBA applicants can also
leverage their results from CareerLeader when marketing their story to employers and interviewers.
When taking the assessment:
• If you are stuck between two options, think about what is true most of the time.
• There is no right or wrong answer.
• Do not over think – go with your first instinct.
• Take the assessment when you have limited distractions and enough time.
Getting the most out of your results:
• Pay attention to your top 5-10 matches – what themes do you notice? Are there any surprises?
• Explore the career descriptions to determine why certain careers matched higher or lower than
expected.
• Pay attention to factors where you scored very high or very low.
• Research companies to ensure they possess the culture characteristics in which you will thrive.
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR
Identify your Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) using 16personalities.com or truity.com. Once
completed, review the traits of your MBTI type, and email your code to your MBA Career Advisor. They will
email you additional information to help you understand your results. You may find it helpful to Google your
type along with “ideal careers,” “best jobs,” “ideal jobs,” etc. Then visit the Career Paths and Workplace
Habits sections on both websites and copy and paste the statements that most resonate with you into your
Career Guide Sheet (in the next section).
MBA students who take the time to really learn about themselves, their skills, interests, and values frequently
find career fulfillment faster and easier than those who do not complete assessments.
11
Alternative Career Assessments
•
ALIS - alis.alberta.ca/categories/tools-and-resources/quiz
Contains tests ranging from work values and working conditions to personality traits, skills and abilities. Many of the
suggested careers do not require a university education but the tests are quick and easy to perform.
•
Big Five Personality Test - openpsychometrics.org/tests/IPIP-BFFM
One of the most accepted and commonly used models of personality in academic psychology. Complements the
Culture Factor of the Career Leader Assessment well.
•
Career Fitter - careerfitter.com/free_test/careerbuilder/test
60 forced-choice questions on personality traits, work environment, strengths and weaknesses. Takes <5 minutes.
•
Holland Code - openpsychometrics.org/tests/RIASEC/1.php
A personality assessment focused on career and vocational choice and splits people into six different categories of
occupations (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional — known collectively as
RIASEC). Test takes less ten minutes. Results indicate top three categories (e.g., EAR, CIR) which are used to
research career paths.
•
Jackson Vocational Interest Survey - www.jvis.com/default.htm
A comprehensive career satisfaction survey which covers interest scales, work roles, work styles, and top themes to
determine what characteristics best describe you. Requires payment of $22 USD.
•
O*Net Interest Profiler - mynextmove.org/explore/ip
60 questions where you are ranked from ‘strongly like’ to strongly ‘dislike.’ You can also enter in your three-letter
code from the Holland test above to research career paths.
•
CareerExplorer - careerexplorer.com
Offers a range of free career assessments, including a personality test, skills test, and values assessment. The
personality test helps identify your personality type and suggests suitable career paths based on your results.
12
15 Questions to Ask During a Career Change
1.
What is it about my current career that isn’t working?
2.
What does this new career offer that my current career doesn’t?
3.
What does this new career ignite in my soul?
4.
How does this new career align with my core values?
5.
What are the long-term opportunities associated with this new career?
6.
What skills or resources will I need to take advantage of these long-term opportunities?
7.
Who do I know who is already in this career and can give me an honest “insider’s” perspective?
8.
Will my friends and family support this new career endeavor?
9.
How long will it take to make a comfortable living in this new career?
10. Do I have the financial resources to make this career work? If not, how can I get what I need to
feel secure?
11.
What struggles can I predict in my transition to this new career?
12. What can I do now to minimize these potential struggles?
13. What specific experience do I hope to gain in this career move?
14. How will my previous experience help me in this new role?
15. Is this career move one step in a larger plan? If so, what does it need to provide to help me move
forward?
13
Creating a Career Guide Sheet (CGS)
To find a job that is right for you, you need to create a list of exactly what you are looking for. We call this list
a career guide sheet or career ingredients list. Essentially, there are three phases to the CGS…
Phase I: Copy and paste any phrases or words that really stand out to you from each assessment. If you find
yourself saying, "Yes, this is totally me," then copy and paste those phrases into the document, divided into
five sections below. You want to collect about 8-10 single spaced pages of content from your assessments,
Google, and ChatGPT (you can, for example, type in ideal careers for ENFJs and it’ll spit out various roles and
traits). Likewise, from your Clifton Strengths assessment – you should be copying about 10-25% of the
content and splitting it into each bucket. The point is to have lots of data, often which repeats but it is
phrased in a slightly different way. This is the brainstorming phase where it’s all about quantity.
1)
Tasks/Activities – Instead of using the term 'work,' which may have a negative connotation for some
people, use the word 'tasks.' Remember to think of work as an activity that you would willingly engage in
because of the nature of the task itself, even if you were not paid for it. Think about activities that would
feel like a calling to you - a mission, a labor of love, a passion. What tasks would allow you to immerse
yourself and give your best? Identify work tasks that you find fun, engaging, or interesting. Consider how
much time you prefer spending alone versus working in a team. Reflect on whether you enjoy working
with objects, data, people, or ideas. Are there specific products or services you would like to create or
perform? Determine what responsibilities you would be willing to take on.
2) Personality – List personality traits that resonate with you.
3) Values – List your top five to ten values and try to prioritize them. For example, if a high salary is more
important to you than work-life balance, make sure your list reflects that.
4) Skills – Identify the unique skills you possess. Be as specific as possible. Instead of simply saying 'working
on a team,' describe the specific skills within teamwork that you excel at, such as delegating, persuading
others, or negotiating. If you consider yourself an excellent project manager, break down the tasks that
make you good at it. Think about compliments you have received from your boss, clients, family, or
friends. What special talents do they recognize in you?
5) Work environment – Consider the type of industry you would like to work in, the interactions you prefer
with co-workers and clients, the size of the company, the physical characteristics of the workspace, and
the traits of the job itself. Reflect on whether the job rewards being detail-oriented or if there is a lot of
variety from day to day. Determine how often you would like to socialize with co-workers. Imagine your
ideal workspace and consider how formally people dress.
Although it is preferable to focus on the positive aspects of your next role, you may want to add a sixth
category entitled "Dislikes." Examining the negative traits of former jobs can be helpful. Once you know the
tasks and elements of other jobs that you don't want, you will have a clearer idea of what you do want. The
key is to spin the negatives into positives. For example, if you had a micro-managing boss, you may be
looking for more autonomy in your next role. Likewise, if nepotism and favoritism determined career
progression in your previous job, you might seek out organizations where promotions are based more on
performance and merit.
Phase II: This is the filtering phase. Reduce your Phase I document by 50% by prioritizing/ranking the items
in each category. You can tackle this in two ways. First, remove any redundancies. You will start to see, for
example, that you really enjoy working with a diverse group of people. If you’ve copied and pasted those five
times, you only really need to mention it once. But perhaps there is a part of one sentence that you really like
and a part of another sentence that also appeals to you. In this case, you would combine the sentences into a
new phrase. Second, remove any content that you have changed your mind about. You may also discover
that as you add more and more content, there are some things that just aren’t as important you thought they
were. Or they are phrased in a better, more nuanced way.
Phase III: Meet with your Career Advisor and go through the 4–5-page document together. Use your advisor
as a soundboard to explore which items are important, if any need elaboration, whether you’re satisfied with
their position, etc. Together you will then whittle it down to 1-2 pages.
14
Using Your Career Guide Sheet
Your career guide sheet contains ‘ingredients’ that tell you what a satisfying role and ideal organization looks
like for you. Below are a few ways you can use the information from it to advance your job search.
1)
Refer to your CGS when reviewing online job openings. By focusing on the types of tasks you want to
do, you will quickly be able to determine if the job aligns with your goals and talents.
2) Combine some of the elements from your CGS into an elevator pitch explaining what type of work you
want to do and for what industry. Take two or three sentences/words from each of the five sections and
combine them into a paragraph. You can then use this when talking to people in your network. For
example:
My ideal job enables me to work with a diverse group of people on a variety of projects (ideally motivated by
creative inspiration). My projects would focus on creating new products, services, or ideas that help
people/organizations. The role would allow me to be my own boss and have minimal supervision/guidance but have
opportunities to work with a mentor or small team. My ideal employer would be a Calgary-based SME of around 501,500 employees, either well into its entrepreneurial phase or just starting its “levelling-off” phase (safe – less need
for battlefield problem-solving but still room for creativity and new thinking). It would be established and expanding
but still fresh and innovative.
Then add your top three specific skills to this and what you can contribute to an organization:
I am particularly good at using technology to identify areas of improvement, working with data models to improve
operational efficiency, and leading cross-functional teams, especially in the areas of finance, operations, and HR.
3) Use a condensed version of the above paragraph when you send out a job search update to your
network every six-eight weeks. For more information, please visit ‘Coffee Chat – Tips and Tricks’ in the
Networking section.
4) A final note: you may notice that there are different categories listed in the examples below. This is
acceptable because the exercise aims to reflect on what you want in your next role, the type of
organization you want to work for, and other relevant information. The crucial principle is that your guide
is specific to you and your background.
15
My ideal tasks…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CGS Example #1
Work with a diverse group of people, on a variety of projects (ideally motivated by creative inspiration). Projects
would focus on creating new products, services or ideas that help people/organizations/companies.
Provides opportunities to direct, advise and guide others in my field of mastery; motivate people by conveying my
enthusiasm and energy for a subject that I am passionate about.
Would require me to write documents/reports/presentations 30% of the time (alone); give client/group presentations
30% of the time (this might necessitate travel in/around Calgary to client offices or to other cities, once every two
weeks or so; and for 40% of the remaining time collaborate with co-workers.
Would be with a company either well into its entrepreneurial phase or just starting its “levelling-off” phase (safe, less
need for battlefield problem-solving but still room for creativity and new thinking). Established and expanding but still
fresh and innovative.
Allows me to be my own boss and have minimal supervision/guidance but have opportunities to work with a mentor
or small team.
Allows me to see the results of my efforts quite quickly (days and weeks) as well as opportunities to work on projects
of medium duration (3-6 months).
Helps people/organizations identify and develop their skill sets and strengths through a combination of teaching,
coaching, facilitation, and mentoring. Empowers people/organizations and helps them enrich their lives/mission.
My ideal work environment should…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Have an open office floor plan but with ample space.
Give me an opportunity to work solo occasionally.
Have flexible work hours (long hours are fine).
Be moderate to fast work pace.
Be intellectually stimulating.
Encourage and reward creativity.
Not be too formal, rule-bound, or conservative.
Not focused on routine or tasks.
Encourage cooperation not competitiveness.
Provide opportunities to work from home (telecommuting).
Be less than 45 minutes commute door-to-door.
I value….
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Cooperation.
Strong authentic interpersonal relationships.
An ability to analyze and critique information.
Novelty/Creativity.
Chance to see projects become a reality.
Making the world a better place.
Freedom to inject play and spontaneity into projects.
Deep commitment to work I truly believe in.
I am good at…
•
•
•
•
•
Selling myself.
Creating analogies and communicating knowledge in different formats.
Accurately understanding people’s moods, motives, intentions.
Making group members feel welcome/included in discussion.
Diagnostic reasoning (seeing a relationship between apparently unrelated facts).
I am…
•
•
•
An innovative and dynamic problem-solver.
Charismatic, curious, and unconventional.
Empathetic; can anticipate others’ needs.
16
CGS Example #2
My ideal job/work environment…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
I like having appointments and meetings scattered throughout the day, with blocks of time to work on my own.
Does something that allows me to “make my mark”
Something that gets me excited rather than feeling trapped, obligated, and beholden to others.
Friendly, caring, supportive, wanting to see others succeed.
Not having a boss that has temper tantrums like a two-year-old and throws things at people.
Treats me like an adult, not a child.
Gives me freedom to do my job and authority to make decisions.
Not micro-managed.
Have a say in the running/direction of the company.
Building something worthwhile as a team.
I value…
•
•
•
•
•
Freedom, autonomy, independence.
Positive corporate culture – supporting people and building people up, not putting them down (i.e., when the
boss tells you directly to your face that you are stupid and there is a reason, you are only worth $20/hr while he
is worth $1k+/hr.).
Doing something worthwhile – I do not want to feel like I am just a “paper pusher” – I want to have something to
work toward.
Cooperation, not bullying, deceitful business practices.
Good partnerships – let us build something together. I do not want to worry about people stabbing me in the
back to get ahead.
I am good at…
•
•
•
•
•
Getting things done behind the scenes.
Building one-on-one relationships (I am not good at large networking events, but I am good at smaller business
dinners, personal meetings, etc.).
Once I have made the decision to commit, I commit 100%.
Analyzing all sides of a situation (sometimes I can take too long to do this).
Thinking things through.
MBA Course Interests
•
•
•
•
•
Took the real estate specialization; second guessing if that was a good idea at this point – there are so many
other interesting courses I missed out on.
Mental toughness – liked the idea of this course but turned out to be very different than what I was expecting.
Entrepreneurial Thinking – one of the best non-real estate courses! So inspiring!
Currently in negotiations and I think this will be an amazing course. Wish it were in person. I feel I need help in
this area, as I do not feel confident in my abilities to negotiate. I feel like I tend to let people “walk all over me”
and therefore people try to take advantage of me.
Whenever I try to negotiate, I feel like if I do not accept what other people offer right off the bat, they will just
say “no” and walk away. Therefore, I feel like I always must give in to others.
Career Direction
•
•
•
•
Have been in real estate thus far, however, I dislike the culture in real estate (greediness, backstabbing, dealing
with the City and bylaws, people trying to screw each other over).
Kind of looking for a new direction, but I have zero experience in anything other than real estate.
Could be somewhat interested in real estate consulting, but do not know how to go about this?
There are not many real estate consulting firms out there.
17
My ideal job…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CGS Example #3
Focus on the potential in others.
Natural leader, enthusiastic, responsible, conscientious.
Build cooperation, respect a variety of opinions.
Upbeat, Caring, Warm, Empathetic
Confident, honest, and adheres to values.
Excel at interacting with all people and drawing out those who are typically reserved.
Focus on possibilities, generate ideas, and see the big picture.
Can handle details but preference is to work with broad ideas.
Enthusiastic about projects of interest.
Multi-tasking, organizing, and making decisions.
Desire freedom and autonomy to complete tasks.
Remain loyal to an organization and its people.
Strives to create positive, harmonious, and supportive work environment.
Resist inefficient bureaucratic policies and procedures.
Difficulty working within a competitive environment.
Encourages input and considers all ideas.
Assists others in planning and working together to achieve their goals.
Look for ways to contribute to the betterment of others.
Focus on continuous improvement.
Do not usually rely on specifics unless these details can be incorporated into their grander vision.
Sees what needs to be done and will work hard to accomplish these tasks.
Knows the best time to speak, listen, advise, or praise.
Energizes others with their visions of the future.
Find satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal.
Grow increasingly unhappy with a job or assignment that fails to challenge your mind.
Being forced to do the same thing day after day is sometimes depressing.
Embodiment of the “Golden Rule”.
Preferred Work Environment…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ability to explore, investigate, and analyze different areas.
Analytical work, problem solving, and working with different groups.
Ability to create new tools or processes.
Develop creative solutions to problems on projects that I believe in and can see positive results of my efforts for
others.
Clear expectations, contributions are appreciated, and personal/professional growth are encouraged.
Active and challenging environment where I can juggle multiple projects.
Environment free from interpersonal conflicts and ongoing tension.
Exposes me to new ideas and lets me explore new approaches.
Value teamwork and can organize people or resources to achieve a goal.
Opportunity to teach and mentor.
Making the invisible visible: underlying process, relationships, key players, dynamics, critical vulnerabilities,
potential assets, tactical leverage usage.
Helps people through creative and solution focused programs and services.
Role where responsibilities include facilitating growth.
Complex, dynamic environments in which there are few routines.
I am good at…
•
•
•
•
•
Working in chaotic, high-pressure situations, performing. E.g., Acquisition projects, tight deadlines, no direction.
Financial modelling – I can build DCF cash flow analysis, full financial statements, and stock analysis in excel. I
enjoy collaborating with experts to improve the quality of modelling I am generating.
Problem solving – I can be given a high level, ambiguous problem and be able to research, analyze and interpret
data, and concisely deliver a solution.
Data analysis – I can amalgamate large quantities of data, connect or identify missing data, identify trends,
outliers, or inconsistencies and then explain the story the data reveals.
Leadership – I am naturally comfortable taking the leader role of a team as I see a leader as a servant to their
18
•
•
•
•
team and helping people is very fulfilling to me. I can effectively delegate, train, and mentor direct reports. I
create a culture that people enjoy while also delivering results supporting the organization’s goals.
Emotional Intelligence – I am naturally empathetic and aware of the feelings of others. I build trust and
psychological safety through openness, honesty, and expressing vulnerability.
Interpersonal skills – Coworkers enjoy working with me and I can interact and work effectively with various
personalities. I know when/how to speak, when to listen, and can identify relationship dynamics within a group.
Continued self-improvement – When I identify an area, I want to develop in I will not stop until I see personal
growth. I will complete any training, find mentorship, practice consistently, and seek feedback to improve.
Instill confidence and comfort – I am self-aware to regulate my emotions which gives others comfort we will
succeed at overcoming all challenges and problems facing the team. Furthermore, the consistent quality of work I
deliver built the brand of trust for me in others I am the right person for high-profile projects.
I value…
•
•
•
•
•
Fully Engaged 75% of the workday – I do not want work to feel like work.
Work life balance – I am willing to put in time at work but need to feel I have a life outside the office. Flexibility
between employer and employee is the balance I would like.
Corporate Culture – I want to be a part of a modern corporate culture (trust, autonomy, cohesive, fun).
Leadership Opportunities – I enjoy being a leader and want a role I can mentor, train, lead, and build a vision for.
Variation of challenges – I get bored after 2-3 years and need variety to stay engaged.
MBA Course Interests
•
Systems thinking, Systems Mapping, Leading in Chaos/Complexity, Change Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship,
Impact Investing, Sustainable Technology, and Financing Clean Technology.
Career Direction
•
With the classes I have taken, I found I am fully engaged with content around Social Entrepreneurship, Systems
Thinking, and Strategies for Sustainable Development. I really enjoyed analyzing a problem within our society
and applying systems thinking to diagnose the problem and work towards a solution. Impact investing has also
caught my interest as well as business analysis and consulting an area of interest. For my career, I would like to
be within an organization who works with businesses looking to solve social, environmental, and economic
problems and I act as a consultant for these businesses. I find I am not interested in one industry but multiple
and would like to stay in one organization that supports multiple industries.
•
Another avenue of interest has been professional coaching. I really enjoy mentoring and coaching other MBA
students in my class. I would like to focus on improving leadership, team dynamics, and high- performing
cultures. Any consulting role within this scope of coaching/mentoring is of interest. I do find that I can coach and
mentor internally within an organization that provides the enjoyment I am seeking.
19
5x5x5 Exercise
Once you’ve completed your Career Leader assessment, you will have a long list of industries ranked from
‘Very High’ to ‘Very Low’. The following exercise explains how to narrow down the field of industries to
figure out which ones might be most aligned with your goals and interests.
1.
Select five career paths rated ‘high’ or ‘very high’ from page 10 of your report (e.g. operations, law,
securities trading, real estate finance).
2. Use Google to learn what each of the five industries entails and then write a definition of about 3-4
sentences in your own words. One trick is to describe the industry as if you were having dinner with
your grandmother or a five-year-old (simple language with very little jargon).
3. This next stage requires the most work. Continue your online research and find approximately five
different roles in each industry, then write a one sentence summary about them. For example, if venture
capital is one of your categories, you may discover that out of the six or seven main roles, half focus on
working with people (e.g. client manager) and the other working with numbers (e.g. data analyst, etc.)
The key is to focus on jobs where an MBA is required or preferred, is close to your salary range (or the
first job in moving up to your salary range) and builds on your work experience. In other words, don’t
choose junior roles.
4. Now you have 25 job titles that might interest you. Rank them and explore your top five in more depth.
Visit LinkedIn and examine job descriptions, research them via professional organizations or talk to
people in the field. Ultimately, you want to narrow down these titles and then create resumes for these.
For example, you may discover that there is a lot of similarity between an equity analyst, a venture
capital analyst and a financial analyst for a large insurance company. You could then create an ‘analyst’
resume which is tailored slightly for each of these roles. We suggest having resumes for two quite
distinct jobs which you can then pull from to create a hybrid third type if needed.
EXAMPLE – SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
1.
One of the Career Paths ranked ‘very high’ is Supply Chain Management. Student’s definition: “SCM
focuses on helping businesses move everything from raw material to final products as efficiently and
cheaply as possible. Although most people think of logistics and warehousing as being commonly
associated with SCM, there are other key functions including purchasing of materials, transporting them
and storage.”
2. A quick internet search reveals ~70 job titles associated with supply chain. To narrow it down further,
focus on years of experience required, preferred degrees/professional qualifications, main tasks, and
salary.
•
Logistics Manager: Organize, store and monitor the distribution of goods to ensure items and
•
•
VP Supply Management: Managing, directing, and planning an organization's supply chain.
Process Improvement Manager: Develops, monitors, and elevates performance of a company's
•
Director of Global Quality Assurance: Ensures that the supply, capacity, production and inventory
•
Commodity Buyer: Purchases commodities for use in manufacturing or production (e.g. buying
resources are shipped to their appropriate destinations
supply chain systems and processes by improving issues related to cost, schedule and/or quality.
plans are aligned with demand plans and manufacturing processes to meet business needs.
grains to make breakfast cereal). Duties include cultivating relationships with the supplier,
negotiating contracts, finding new commodity sources, and developing practices for delivering the
commodities efficiently.
3. You would then repeat this data collection stage for the other four career paths and then short list the
25 job titles to your top five, then top two or three. From there, you would create your resumes.
20
Talents, Skills, Knowledge, and Strengths
IDENTIFYING YOUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION
Throughout your job search you will reflect on the strengths that you bring to a role and organization. These
will then be communicated through your resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, elevator pitch and in your
job interview. A big challenge in speaking about our strengths, however, is that we often aren’t aware of
things that make us a strong candidate. This is because we assume that what we find easy is the same for
everyone else. This page teaches you how to identify your strengths.
•
•
•
•
The first element is called talents. These are innate naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling,
or behavior that can be productively applied. They cannot be acquired since they are simply part
of you. Another way of thinking about a talent is that it’s something you cannot not do. If you
have a few talents, then these can be categorized into various themes, as identified in the
Clifton Strengths assessment (i.e. Strategic Thinking, Relationship Building, Influencing, and
Executing).
Next are skills which are the capacity to perform the functional steps of an activity (e.g. create a
PowerPoint presentation, teach a class, change the oil in your car). Functional/transferable skills are
things you do, such as teaching, organizing, persuading, assembling, supervising, computing,
researching, analyzing, deciding, operating, designing, and repairing. Skills can be learned quickly or
slowly depending on your natural aptitudes or, in other words, your talents.
Finally, we have knowledge, which is what you know, either factually (i.e. learned in a class or by
reading a book) or through awareness gained by lived experience. The distinguishing characteristic
of content or knowledge skills is that they require conscious, deliberate training and the use of
memory in the mastery of a particular vocabulary, procedure, or subject matter. Perhaps you know a
foreign language, the history of ancient Greece, the parts of a car, the politics of England, the organs
of the body, the functions of a purchasing department, the components of a photocopy machine, the
subdivisions of the plant and animal kingdom, the notes on a sheet of music, the periodic table of
chemical elements, the five books of the Torah, the parts of a refrigerator, or the rules of football.
Talents, knowledge, and skills, along with the time spent (i.e., investment) practicing, developing
your skills, and building your knowledge base combine to create your strengths. Although
talents, skills, and knowledge are important for building a strength, talent is always the most
important since these are innate and cannot be learned, unlike skills and knowledge.
EXAMPLE
Being drawn toward strangers and enjoying the challenge of making a connection with them is a talent
(called Woo in Clifton Strengths). This means that you will be comfortable introducing yourself to a
stranger at a networking event and excel in making small talk. You most likely are good at reading
body language and have the emotional intelligence to gauge someone’s comfort level (skills) as well a
wide range of topics to help you connect with them (knowledge). You can develop a strength based
on this talent by consistently building a network of 'supports’ that know you and are prepared to help
you. To build this strength, you have refined your talents with skills and knowledge.
Another example would be that, as a salesperson, you can learn your products' features (knowledge), you
can be trained to ask the right open-ended questions (a skill), and you can practice making a sale
(investment). However, the innate tendency to push a customer to commit at exactly the right moment,
in exactly the right way must be naturally occurring and cannot be learned. This would be a talent of the
salesperson. In short, the ability to sell successfully is a strength. To persuade others to buy your product,
you must have combined your talent with product knowledge and certain selling skills.
“One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy to
improve from competence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence”
– Peter Drucker.
21
The LAMP Job Search Method
IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS SYSTEMICALLY
Applying through random online channels produces a mere 1% response rate. Steve Dalton suggests a
new approach focused on reaching into companies to find advocates who can help you find your job. In
the exercise outlined in Dalton’s book, The Two-Hour Job Search, you will create a list of 15-20 companies
you want to work for.
1. Create an Excel document with four column headings: List, Alumni, Motivation, Posting
2. In one minute, write as many companies as you can think of which you would want to work for. Try to
keep the list as broad as possible and do not just focus on the famous or big-name companies that
every other job seeker is applying to. Your goal should be 50 companies.
3. Now visit LinkedIn. Type your top company into the search and hit enter. Click "see all similar
pages." This will give you a list of companies like the ones you already wrote down. Add any of
interest to your list. If you are not clear about a company you want to work for, you can start a
search by putting a functional keyword (i.e., "marketing") into the "job title" search under the
advanced search. You will see a list of people. Do not click them. Look at the companies they
work/have worked for and add them to their list. To find even more companies you may like, visit
www.indeed.com. It can highlight companies that are in your area of interest but should not be your
only technique.
4. To find alumni, use the LinkedIn advanced search/filter to narrow by location (i.e., Calgary)
and get a list of alumni who work at companies. Now populate the alumni column with a
"yes" or "no". Use LinkedIn's advanced search feature to determine if your prospective
companies have alumni working for them.
5. Now populate the motivation column. Once you have reached 50 organizations, alphabetize then
before ranking to help reduce any bias. As fast as you can without thinking about it, rank your list of
companies by motivation to work at each company. Doing this fast is key and taps into a
phenomenon called arbitrary coherence. Any individual rating is meaningless, but if you rate many
individual items in rapid succession, the relative ratings are indeed meaningful. Rate them on a scale
of 5 to 1, with 5 indicating "dream companies."
6. Populate the posting column. This is a rating of 1, 2, or 3. 1 is “not hiring,” 2 is “hiring for a somewhat
relevant job,” and 3 is “hiring for a job that is relevant for you”. You may find it is easier to write a 1 or
2 once you have spoken to people in those companies.
7. If you are looking for start-ups, check out how recently a company received funding on Crunchbase
(https://www.crunchbase.com). If a company just received funding, put a 3 in the posting column. If it
has been a year, put a 2. If it's been longer than a year, put a 1.
8. With all the data filled in, now sort first by motivation, then by posting, then by alumni. Once you see
results, use your intuition to play with the data until you are confident you have your top 15-20
companies. Reach out to alumni at those places and begin learning more about the roles and the
culture. Work your way through your list from the top down.
Goal: a list of 15 companies you want to work that are currently hiring where Haskayne MBA alumni are.
22
Researching Employers
INCREASE YOUR SUCCESS BY RESEARCHING AHEAD OF TIME
Research is an essential step in both your career exploration and job search. Employers state that the most
competitive candidates are those who have thoroughly researched the industry, company, and position. The
more knowledge you gain about your target industries, companies, and positions, the more you will stand
out as an informed candidate.
People
• In the digital world, we often forget that the best resource we must research a company is the
people we know. So, as you are looking for leads, think about who you know that might work
there or a friend or family member that might know someone who works there.
Corporate website
• This is what a company WANTS you to know about them, so know it! Especially the ‘Careers’
and ‘Culture’ pages if they have them. Great to reference cultural talking points in your cover
letter and interviews.
Google news alerts
• Interested in a company? Set up an alert for them.
LinkedIn
• You can set up job alerts.
• You can find people you know at the company (see the L.A.M.P. Method exercise in this guide)
Social media
• Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram give you a more casual look into their culture – parties,
volunteering, employee recognition, learning and development. Often the more “fun stuff.” Great to
get a feel for working there. But realize, like with all social media, they are showing the “pretty
side” of working there.
Glassdoor
• Find reviews of the company from past employees, interview questions asked previously, and
compensation info.
Haskayne Business & Finance Library
• Reference Group: Canadian Business is a valuable screening tool to identify potential organizations.
This directory includes private and public companies which you can narrow down to the
neighborhood level for any Canadian city.
• Capital IQ is another strong screening tool. You can select from additional criteria such as financial
data, business descriptions, head offices, etc.
• IBIS World collects industry reports for Canadian, US, and Chinese industries; a great place to start
when you are deciding what industry to work in.
What to research and why
•
•
•
•
•
History: what’s their story?
Core business: what do they do?
Corporate culture: how do they get things done?
Clients, products, and services: what do they do?
News: what’s new and noteworthy?
•
•
•
•
•
Financials: are they financially sound?
Industry/competitors: who do they compete
with?
Who are they in the community?
Key players: who is the C-suite?
Background of contacts: who am I meeting
with?
23
THE ‘TRAFFIC-LIGHT’ SYSTEM
USE LINKEDIN TO IDENTIFY YOUR FAVORITE TASKS
A strategic and successful job search always starts with the end in mind. You must answer the question of
where you want to be next in your job. This exercise helps you accomplish three actions towards this goal:
identify what types of tasks you want to do in your ideal role, source lots of content to draft your cover
letter and resume using the language of employers and understand if you lack any of the key requirements
for your position type. The advantage of this exercise is twofold. First, it is a quick method of determining if
a role is suitable for you. If you highlight lots of things in each job description you do not like, it may be that
the job function is not for you. Second, you now have a very good understanding of the terminology
employers use when searching for staff. Essentially, you are taking the phrases that one company writes and
using these to apply for roles at their competitors.
HOW TO DO IT
1.
Make a list of job titles based on your interests and skills. You may find that companies call the same
role different things (e.g. data analyst, data scientist, business analyst might all be the same type of
job).
2. Use online job boards (i.e., LinkedIn and Indeed) to find about 10-12 job descriptions in North America
for each of your ideal roles. Search both US and Canada since we are interested in understanding the
core responsibilities for that job type.
3. Copy and paste the full job description (including company, location, salary, tasks, and requirements)
for each role in a single document. If you have 2-3 job titles that you are interested in, focus on the most
appealing job first.
4. Now highlight three types of phrases or words using a different color for each. You should be looking to
highlight between 5-10 things for each job description.
a) GREEN for things you like. Ask yourself “What are the things from my previous roles that I would
be happy to keep doing?” This question is important to ask as you think about your overall career
and where you want to go. If you have your eye on the C- suite, make sure that you are clear about
the kinds of challenging projects you want to take on.
b) RED for things you dislike. Ask yourself “What are the tasks I never want to do again?” While you
may not be able to avoid these responsibilities, you can now at least be more mindful of them. Now,
when you are in an interview and the hiring manager requires three of the four responsibilities you
would like to avoid, you will know this may not be the job for you.
c) YELLOW for requirements you do not have. Ask yourself “What tools do I know how to use that
help me do my job even better?” These technical skills or tools can include Python, Adobe Suite,
SQL, Excel, R, or Access. This question is important because you can categorize credentials
requiring either a short or long-term commitment (for example, a 30-hour health and safety course
versus a CPA or CFA designation, which can take years). If needed, consider taking additional
courses if you notice that your skills do not align with the requirements outlined in job descriptions.
5.
Once you have highlighted each description, copy, and paste all the tasks, values, and sentences/words
you like into a separate file and begin crafting your resume, LinkedIn profile, and cover letter, using key
words and phrases borrowed from the document you have created.
24
Resumes and Cover Letters
25
Drafting Your Resume
FOCUS ON THE EMPLOYER’S NEEDS
Resumes play a crucial role in unlocking job interviews rather than guaranteeing job offers. It is essential to
emphasize your relevant skills, encompassing both technical expertise and soft skills, rather than solely
focusing on personality traits. Steer clear of using generic terms like 'highly analytical,' 'effective
communicator,' 'passionate about tech,' or 'results-driven.'
To create a resume that secures a job interview, the key is to focus on how you can solve the employer's
problems rather than simply listing duties from your previous roles. Demonstrating your value requires
highlighting specific and measurable accomplishments that align perfectly with the company's
requirements. By addressing topics and areas that hold importance to them, you significantly increase your
chances of being called for an interview. Interestingly, employers have traditionally prioritized personality
traits over skills, with a ratio of 75% to 25%. This approach is logical since employers can train individuals on
software programs and technical aspects of a role, while adjusting attitudes and teamwork abilities can be
more challenging.
However, it's important to note that if you ask 100 people what a good resume looks like, you will receive
100 different answers, with many respondents claiming their resume is the best. Hence, while the
suggestions provided in this guide are based on career development best practices and the wisdom and
experience of career consultants who have reviewed thousands of resumes, the final say in how your
resume looks and what it says ultimately rests with you. Nonetheless, we hope you consider many of these
suggestions seriously.
Understand Your Value: The key ingredient to a successful resume is having a clearly articulated value
proposition. This requires knowing what sets you apart from other applicants with similar experience. Ask
yourself the following questions:
•
•
•
•
•
•
What distinguishes you from another applicant with the same experience?
What are five characteristics that best describe you when you are at work?
What is the biggest return on investment that an employer will get from you?
What have you consistently achieved during your career?
What are you best known for?
Provide Evidence: Employers appreciate concrete and substantial resume content. They want to
know exactly how you can contribute. To boost confidence in your abilities, provide proof. If you
have increased sales, driven new initiatives, or collaborated closely with others, provide specific
examples of how these skills resulted in positive outcomes. Remember that describing your
transferable skills and traits without providing the context of performance means nothing.
Support Statements with Achievements: Back up all your statements with concrete achievements or
successes. Whenever possible, quantify facts to demonstrate the impact you made. Numbers represent
results, which in turn convey value. For example:
•
•
•
Raised $55,000 in the first month by calling alumni for a university campaign, achieving the top
student performance for four consecutive weeks.
As a brand ambassador interning at X Company, increased website traffic by writing ten blog posts,
resulting in over 240 responses and a boost in sales.
Prepared detailed Excel reports for the business development group at a fast-growing technology
company.
Use Dynamic Action Verbs: Use original and memorable action verbs to describe your accomplishments.
Examples include "helmed," "orchestrated," "launched," "accelerated," "generated," "strengthened," or
"transformed."
Avoid Common Resume Mistakes: A weak resume often includes mundane facts, focuses incorrectly on
tasks and duties by regurgitating job descriptions, confuses the reader with unrelated details, lacks focus
and fails to highlight results and value-add, and is text-heavy and verbose.
26
Craft an Impactful Resume: A stellar resume acts as a marketing material that showcases your unique value
proposition. It grabs attention, tailors content, and incorporates relevant keywords. It clearly communicates
what you can do for the employer, demonstrating your clear value. Keep the language concise and
impactful.
Formatting Tips:
•
•
•
Use either bold for position or company, but not both.
Incorporate white space to make the resume visually appealing and less dense.
Opt for clean and simple fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Century Gothic, Gill Sans MT,
Lucida Sans, and Tahoma between 10–12-point size. These fonts are designed to look great on a
computer, which is how hiring managers will read your resume.
Remember, your goal is to stand out among other applicants with similar experience. Use powerful bullet
points that highlight your accomplishments, such as "Won 'Unsung Hero Award' for behind-the-scenes
contributions to annual conference" or "Increased number of conference attendees by 20%," instead of
generic statements like "Responsible for conference logistics."
If crafting an outstanding resume seems like a lot of work, consider the potential salary you can earn if you
are successful.
27
How Recruiters Scan Resumes
A common misperception among jobseekers is that hiring managers spend a few minutes looking at each
candidate’s resume. Studies show that readers spend less than ten seconds scanning the document before
determining whether to look at it further. If the resume is hard to read, does not guide the reader through
the document effectively, or does not present the most vital information in the two circles below, there is a
strong chance it will not be read again.
Source: The Ladders: Heat Map: bu.edu/com/files/2018/10/TheLadders-EyeTracking-StudyC2.pdf
28
Chronological Resumes
There is no perfect resume; everyone has a different perspective and opinion. In this handout we focus on
common best practices in resume writing. The resume is your voice so you will decide what is best! You are
unique; therefore, your resume should be too!
29
30
Summary of Qualifications
Following the Resume Heat Map above, the key to ensuring your resume lands you an interview is to
present a summary of your qualifications (SOQ) at the top of the document and your list of job titles along
the left-hand margin. Your SOQ highlights are some of the most relevant and interesting bits about your
professional background. Just like a movie trailer which shows the funniest and most exciting moments in a
film, the goal of the SOQ is to entice the reader to continue down the page to see exactly where you
acquired these skills.
Your Accomplishment
Statements under Work
Experience should
describe how you applied
your skills in the past to
make the organization
better.
The SOQ should tell the company that you:
• Understand the industry the company is in.
• Understand the business the company is in.
• Recognize the pain the company suffers.
• Know how to solve and have solved that pain!
To determine the list of skills you can include in this section:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Print and analyze five to six job descriptions for similar positions to the one you are applying for.
Identify skills common to these postings and familiarize yourself with industry jargon.
If you have these skills, add them to your resume using industry jargon but use your own words.
Example for the Financial Industry: Compliance, Cost Analysis, Cost Reduction, Performance
Management, Financial Modeling. Skills should be presented from most to least relevant.
First SOQ bullet should speak directly to the industry you’re interested in and your experience.
EXAMPLE
1. Industry: Management Consulting.
2. Definition: The practice of helping organizations to improve their performance, operating primarily
through analysis of existing organizational problems and the development of plans for improvement
3. Their business: Development of strategies that improve performance through analytical thinking.
4. Qualification statement: Management Consulting: Three years of experience assisting companies in
identifying strategic goals and developing innovative and compelling solutions that improve clients’
performance.
31
Resume Checklist
SUMMARY OF QUALFICATIONS
•
•
•
•
•
The first bullet provides a high-level summary of your relevant industry experience. It typically describes how many
years you have in the field you’re applying to or, if you don’t have direct experience, your relevant transferrable
skills.
Review the job description and identify the most essential skills required to excel in the role you’re applying to and
ensure they are listed in this section. If the job description is vague, analyse 5-10 job descriptions for roles like the
one you are targeting, identify the most desirable skills and add them to this list.
Avoid character traits or cliché phrases such as “hard working.” “Fast learner” or “effective communicator”, which
are subjective and do not reflect your specific skills. If you need to demonstrate your soft skills, add a “Personal
Attributes” section, and ensure your soft skills are also demonstrated throughout your work experience, volunteer
experience and extracurricular activities.
In the next section, you will describe where and how you applied these five skills so keep this section general.
For technical roles, we recommend listing your software platforms or coding languages. Otherwise end this section
with a final relevant skill.
WORK EXPERIENCE
•
•
•
•
•
Use 3-5 bullets for each job, ensuring diversity among each of the roles (i.e. even if you did a certain task in every
job, do not include it more than 2-3 times).
These bullets are your accomplishment statements and should explain what you did, as well as how and why you
did it. Show impact with metrics or numbers.
Being bullets with action verbs (search Google if you need help producing unique ones); be no more than two lines.
Avoid using “Responsible for…” or “Duties included….” Impress readers with how much impact you made.
If you worked multiple roles in the same company, put the company first, then indent and list your roles.
EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS
•
•
•
•
•
•
If you are a current MBA student, put this section between Skills Summary and Work Experience.
Other relevant professional certifications or designations (e.g. PMP, CFA) can be listed here.
List both your degrees and certifications based on most recently completed.
List GPA If you want (+3.5 recommended).
Do not include high school diploma.
Do not include year started, just your graduation month and year.
SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS (OPTIONAL)
•
•
Personal preference but we recommend only listing scholarships above $5,000.
Avoid internal company awards like “Employee of the Month.” Their prestige is subjective, and you could instead
use space to present your skills and impact.
RELEVANT ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE (OPTIONAL)
• This section may be useful if you have no direct work experience for the role, you’re interested in. If you performed
data modelling in PowerBI or conducted market research for your capstone project, this is the place to include it.
VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCE (OPTIONAL)
•
•
Avoid just listing positions, instead present skills (ideally ones that relate to the position you’re applying to).
Long-term volunteering is more important than multiple short-term roles. Avoid highlighting roles from +10 years
ago (especially if they were short-term). Academic volunteering (e.g., sitting on MBA Society) is an exception.
INTERESTS AND HOBBIES (OPTIONAL)
•
•
•
Many managers find this section useful because it highlights some of your other personality traits.
You can either list a few specific unusual hobbies (“watching antique furniture restoration videos,” “BBQ
aficionado”) or talk about your accomplishments “Canadian national power lifter” or “Participated in monthly
marathons in southern Alberta.”
Be mindful of presenting religious and political affiliations.
32
Job Types vs Job Openings
A common issue among student job seekers is their narrow focus on job titles rather than their preferred
tasks or skills. By solely identifying themselves based on previous job titles like "project manager" or "sales
manager," they overlook the importance of specifying their desired responsibilities which can align not only
with their chosen job title but countless others.
Differentiating between job types and openings is crucial when seeking a new role. Openings refer to
specific positions available at a particular company, while job types encompass broader categories of job
titles. For example, the Business Analyst (BA) job type has approximately 9.8 million professionals on
LinkedIn, each with varied daily responsibilities under different titles like business consultant, process
analyst, data analyst, and more. These job titles extend across diverse industries such as IT, finance,
healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and telecommunications.
Understanding this idea is essential for your career success, for two reasons. First, students often switch
between job applications without tailoring their resumes for specific job types. Second, they miss out on
considering the tasks they genuinely enjoy. Focusing solely on one job title disregards other appealing roles
available.
For instance, someone passionate about analyzing systems and improving processes might search for a
Continuous Improvement Specialist (CIS) role, which today yielded 158 results on LinkedIn. However, several
alternative titles encompassing this responsibility include Process Optimization Specialist, Performance
Enhancement Analyst, Efficiency Improvement Consultant, Operational Excellence Coordinator, Lean Six
Sigma Analyst, Business Process Analyst, Quality Improvement Specialist, and Performance Metrics Analyst.
If a student was to search for these job titles, they would expand the list of opening they could apply to
using their current CIS resume.
By having a resume 90% complete for the CIS type, they can easily customize it for each specific job title
they apply to (that last 10% which will be heavily tailored to the role with a specific company).
33
Highlighting Relevant Academic Experience
PIVOTING CAREERS DURING YOUR MBA
For many students pivoting into a new career direction, it can be difficult to prove to an employer that you
have the skills required for the role. One solution is to highlight the relevant topics that you learned in your
MBA courses. Start with reviewing the company's job posting. Look for any key subject matter they might
want candidates to highlight. Then examine your course syllabi and find topics, projects, and transferrable
skills that you want to insert in the resume.
While employers understand that students or recent graduates may not have much professional experience,
there are ways you can still show you have the knowledge and skills to be a good fit for the company. One
way you can do this is by including relevant coursework on your resume. By sharing academic experiences
that relate to the job, employers can better assess whether you could handle their position. For instance, if
you are applying for a finance internship, list any business or finance courses you completed.
While employers understand that students or recent graduates may not have much professional experience,
you can still show you have the knowledge and skills to be a good fit for the company. Simply include and
describe relevant coursework and academic experience on you resume as it pertains to a particular position
or task. For instance, if you are applying for a finance internship, list any business or finance courses you
completed. For some employers, the simple fact that you at least understand the fundamentals and/or
demonstrated proof of being able to learn the skill is almost as good as having a few years of professional
experience under your belt.
Reflect on experiences: Only include courses that are genuinely helpful for the role you’re applying to.
Choose ones that you could talk about in detail during an interview. Remember, anything that you include
on your resume is fair game for an interviewer to ask about. Prior to an interview, think about impactful
experiences you could discuss about each course, whether it be a group project or research assignment.
Consider prioritizing technical skills learned in your courses such as software programs (e.g. Tableau, Power
BI, Python, or skills used for common programs like pivot tables, functions, and text formulas.
Bear in mind that once you have secured that first job in your new field after graduation, it’s probably a
good idea to update the resume and replace your Academic Experience section with the new
responsibilities you’ve acquired. Use keywords: When deciding what to add to your resume, scan the job
description for a few crucial terms and phrases that pop out. By including them in your resume, you can
stand out to hiring managers as a qualified candidate.
34
Creating Transferrable Skill Lists
Many students are keen to transition into a new industry or job function but are unsure whether they have
the transferable skills required for the position or how to convince a hiring manager they can perform the
role. This exercise helps tackle this problem by dissecting each of your tasks listed in your resume. It may
surprise you to learn just how many you have!
HOW TO DO IT
1)
Create a spreadsheet with these columns: Company, Tasks, Skills, Accomplishments for Employer,
Challenges, Action, Results.
2) List your jobs title and the company in the first column.
3) Under Tasks, list the bulleted items on your resume. If you have two or three tasks in a bullet, separate
them out into different rows. Now comes the hard part. For each task, think carefully about what skills
were necessary for the task. You might have three, four, or maybe even five skills for each task.
4) Do not get confused by personality traits and skills. Traits are things like patience, tenacity,
competitiveness, and charisma. Skills are tasks you can do well, whereas traits are features of your
character. You learn skills through experience in life, whereas traits are integral to you based typically
on genetics or life experiences.
5) For the Accomplishments for Employer column, focus on what impact you made in the company.
6) For the Challenges column, think of how you had to adapt or grow to fix a problem and what action you
took. Maybe it was having a difficult conversation with a co-worker or learning how to code in Python.
In the example below, we have an electrical engineer transitioning into operations management. By the end,
he had identified ~19 key transferable skills. After completing the ‘Using LinkedIn to Find Your Favorite
Tasks’ assignment and identifying ten skills for operations managers, he then compared these with his own
list of skills.
35
Identifying a Job’s Key Skills
By now, you should realize the importance of customizing your application to suit the role you’re after. But
how do you minimize the amount of time necessary to ensure your application meets the employer’s
requirements? We suggest that your resume should be 90-95% complete before you tailor it to the specific
opening. (The rest of your time should be spent crafting a cover letter that explains why you’re applying).
To do this, you need to identify what are the most common skills or requirements for the role. You would
then ensure that these are in your Summary of Qualifications section and demonstrated throughout your
resume. For this example, let’s use the case of Prisha, a geologist transitioning from oil and gas into data
analytics, ideally in the retail or logistics sectors. Here is what she would do…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Identify all the similar job titles for data analyst. These
could be called business analyst, data scientist, retail
analyst, logistics analyst, retail sale analyst, etc.
Each of these titles slightly differ in their scope and the
type of analysis carried out.
After analyzing ten ‘data analyst’ roles across these two
industries, Prisha discovers that the core responsibilities
include the following: Data Visualization, Data Utilization,
Data Manipulation/Data Quality,
Communication/Reporting, Research.
She identifies these categories by highlighting the main
responsibilities using different colors and then copying
them into a new document.
Once all ten job descriptions have been analyzed, Prisha
filters the results and eliminates any redundant phrases or
skills. In addition to identifying the most common skills,
she is also paying attention to the kind of language and
jargon used in each post, which she will then replicate in
her own application.
Prisha’s next step consists of condensing the list for each
of the categories down to 3-5 key skills and then relating
these to tasks and accomplishments from her last role.
The result should be a resume that is 90-95% ready for
most data analyst roles, especially in retail or logistics.
Prisha would then add certain key words, traits or metrics to align with the job description. For example,
if they were looking for someone with a machine learning background or experience in predictive
modeling, she would add these (presuming she has relevant experience).
Below is another example of key skills for someone transitioning into Operations Management.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Responsible for generating, monitoring, and achieving set KPI targets.
Demonstrate and promote effective collaboration and teamwork.
Identify, recommend, and implement initiatives to improve overall efficiency and effectiveness.
Develop and maintain professional relationships with stakeholders to successfully achieve objectives.
Support integration of new operations as required.
Conduct gap analysis of operations programs to achieve objectives.
Provide regular risk assessments and performance assessments of operations programs.
Provide support for the business’ critical enablers and bring judgement in management decisions.
Monitor, maintain and focus on continuous improvement of the company’s Quality System to ensure
quality standards are upheld and proactive quality assurance planning is practiced.
Make recommendations to management regarding capital requirements, personnel training
requirements, employee development needs and other expenses based on the needs of the operation.
ChatGPT is also an effective tool in identifying a job’s core skills. See the end of this manual for tips.
36
Work Experience Matrix
Your application summarizes why you are the perfect candidate for the job. You therefore need to carefully
tailor it to the vacancy ensuring you satisfy the points listed in the job description. This matrix teaches you
how to identify the key highlights from your work and education experience that connect best with what
the employer is looking for.
Job #1
LEADERSHIP
Chaired Employee
Appreciation
Committee;
TECHNOLOGY
Conducted market
analysis of Chinese
automotive industry
KEY COMPETENICES
CREATIVITY
Created colored
map showing city’s
commercial, office
and industrial zones
for real estate
brokers
Drafted 50-page
onboarding manual
for new employees
COMMUNICATION
TEAMWORK
CRITICAL-THINKING
Education
Extracurricular
Project
Leader for
capstone
project; VP
Finance for
MBA Society
Learned
Tableau and
PowerBI;
created Excel
dashboard
Created
writing peer
support
group for
fellow MBA
students
Employed active
listening skills
when
volunteering at
Teen Centre
Mediated conflict
between team member
and staff supervisor
concerning maternity
leave cover
Used SharePoint
software to
create a digital
bulletin board for
MBAs to share
job search tips
and resources.
PROFESSIONALISM
EQUITY AND
INCLUSION
CONTEXT
Job #2
Gathered feedback
from team
members on
company’s workfrom-home policy
and presented to
senior leadership
Organized
companywide event for
National Day for Truth
and Reconciliation
37
Accomplishment Statements - Overview
FOCUS ON WHAT, HOW, AND WHY
Your resume is more than just a mere list of tasks you completed in your former roles. It serves as a
powerful tool to showcase the impact you made. Unfortunately, many novice job seekers often make the
mistake of describing solely what they did rather than highlighting their accomplishments. To avoid this
pitfall, consider the following questions:
•
•
•
•
•
What initiatives did you develop/implement that significantly contributed to increasing your
company's revenue?
Did you generate new business or establish profitable affiliations?
Were you able to save your company money or enhance its competitive edge?
Did you make notable improvements in safety, productivity, or customer satisfaction?
What were the largest teams, budgets, or project values you managed?
By pondering these questions, you can identify the message you want to convey in your resume. It is
essential to state a compelling value proposition that reflects who you are and what you excel at, and then
provide supporting evidence throughout your document.
Remember, metrics matter! Facts, figures, and metrics are the cornerstones of a great resume. Numbers
provide tangible examples of your achievements and enable recruiters to grasp the impact you and your
work can have on their company.
To quantify your accomplishments, ask yourself questions like "how many," "how much," and "how often."
This approach will help you stand out from the competition. However, in cases where quantification is
unfeasible, consider questions like:
•
•
•
•
•
How do you coach, motivate, and develop a team to inspire loyalty among staff?
What was the most significant achievement of a team you directed?
Have you received special recognition from superiors, peers, or customers?
Have you taken on additional responsibilities beyond your job description?
Have you gained experience working internationally, across multiple industries, or within highly
recognizable organizations?
For each accomplishment, ask yourself, "So what?" Does the item truly reflect your abilities and potential to
contribute to the employer's success? Ensure that each statement demonstrates specific details, even if
there are no associated numbers. You might be surprised by the measurable results you can include. If you
cannot quantify your efforts, make a note to start capturing these quantitative details for future resumes.
Whenever possible, use superlatives such as "first," "only," "best," "most," and "highest."
38
Accomplishment Statements - Improvements
A satisfactory accomplishment statement goes beyond simply stating what you did. It also focuses on how
you did it, including the methods you employed, and, most importantly, why - meaning the impact you had
on the employer. Consider the following examples:
•
•
•
Captured the female market, aged 20-25, by designing a robust marketing strategy using cost and
market analysis in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
Designed a robust marketing strategy by using cost and market analysis in the provinces of Ontario
and British Columbia, resulting in a market expansion into the female market, aged 20-25.
Used cost and market analysis in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia to design a robust
marketing strategy that resulted in a market expansion into the female market, aged 20-25.
Which one is better? The answer is that it depends on the job you are applying for. Depending on the job
description, you will want to emphasize different skills and results that align with the specific requirements
of the position.
**
Legend: Bold – what they did ｜ Italics – how they did it ｜ Underlined – why they did it
OK: Developed pricing strategy for new product line
Better: Designed a robust marketing strategy using cost and market analysis which captured the shampoo
market for women aged 20-25 in Ontario and British Columbia.
OK: Created and analyzed financial statements for shareholders to understand the company’s financial
position.
This explains what they did but it could be elaborated by focusing
on the software they used or being a bit more technical.
This doesn’t show the positive impact this activity made for the
company. It’s good to know their position but the writer should go
further and explain what happened because of this understanding.
Better: Delivered insightful financial analysis by using MS Excel to create and interpret financial statements
for shareholders thus enabling a clear understanding of company’s financial position and informing critical
business decisions.
OK: Reviewed payments from business operations to reconcile cashflows with POS and ERP systems
Better: Ensured accurate financial records by reviewing customer payments and rectifying any POS and
ERP system discrepancies in order to minimize the company's financial risks and facilitate effective cash
management.
OK: Reviewed economic reports and designed short- and long-term economic targets
Better: Compiled, monitored, and scrutinized detailed economic and administrative reports by reviewing
various data sheets, fact files, and new information files and reports in order to design short/long-term
economic targets.
Better: Improved company’s financial performance by identifying
profitability leakages and optimizing net profitability by 4%; presented
comprehensive monthly financial performance report to senior leaders
which provided strategic recommendations on how to revamp
underperforming portfolios.
OK: Followed safety protocols and maintained equipment regularly
This statement connects two short ones together.
It works because the report is based on the
financial analysis mentioned in the first clause.
This statement combines to accomplishments but
there’s no connection in terms of content
between them.
Better: Implemented comprehensive equipment maintenance program by scheduling regular inspections
and proactive repairs, resulting in significant reduction in equipment downtime and ensuring safe working
environment for engineering team.
39
Accomplishment Statements - Formulas
Here in Haskayne, we typically encourage graduate students to use the WHAT + HOW + WHY formula when
creating their statements. But there are dozens of ways of systematically refining your bullets so they
accurate reflect the positive impact you made in your last role and what benefits you’ll bring to your new
employer. Below are some of our favorites. As you will see, they all follow the similar pattern by highlighting
the problem, your action(s), and the impact you made.
Situation-Action-Result (SAR)
•
•
•
Situation: Describe context or challenge you faced.
Action: Explain specific actions you took to address the situation or overcome challenge.
Result: Quantify the outcome or impact of your actions.
Example: "Faced with declining customer satisfaction ratings (Situation), implemented new customer
service training program and streamlined support processes (Action), resulting in 20% increase in customer
satisfaction scores within three months (Result)."
Problem-Action-Result (PAR)
•
•
•
Problem: Identify problem or opportunity for improvement.
Action: Describe the actions you took to address the problem or seize opportunity.
Result: Highlight the positive outcomes or achievements resulting from your actions.
Example: "Identified bottleneck in production line (Problem) and redesigned workflow, incorporating
automation and optimizing resource allocation (Action), resulting in 30% increase in production efficiency
and cost savings of $100,000 per year (Result)."
Challenge-Action-Result (CAR)
•
•
•
Challenge: State specific challenge or obstacle you encountered.
Action: Explain the steps you took to overcome the challenge.
Result: Quantify or describe the positive impact or outcome achieved.
Example: "Due to tight deadline and limited resources (Challenge), reorganized project schedule, delegated
tasks effectively, and implemented agile project management methodologies (Action), resulting in
successful delivery of project two weeks ahead of schedule and exceeding client expectations (Result)."
What-Why-Result (WWR)
•
•
•
What: State what problem you solved
Why: Explain why this was important to solve
Result: Describe how your actions positively impacted the company
Example: Implemented digital transformation strategy (What) to improve client’s telecommunications
platform (Why), resulting in reduced IT overhead by 25%, and enhanced connectivity at remote work sites
by 40% (Result).
40
Accomplishment Statements - Examples
1.
Prepared an industrial land bank for the state by coordinating with district collectors, collecting
relevant information, and compiling it into a document for state and corporate use in setting up
industrial infrastructure.
2. Increased forecasting process efficiency from 92% to 96% by collaborating with account
management and operations teams to streamline process flow and developing internal performance
system.
3. Liaised with senior leadership and sought feedback during development of a framework that
improved efficiency of company-wide communication, ultimately cutting unnecessary all-staff
meetings by 50%.
4. Managed implementation and deployment of company-wide wiki as part of an effort to improve
communication across departments, leading to sharp reduction of unnecessary all-staff meetings.
5. Initiated development of a framework to improve the efficiency of company-wide communication
after a group analysis of current business communication practices suggested areas of improvement.
6. Developed and independently initiated new mentorship program to alleviate high turnover of new
staff members, resulting in matching of 23 mentor-mentee pairs and significant reduction in staff
turnover.
7. Managed strict project timeline by coordinating virtual meetings across time zones and presenting
findings to over fifty colleagues via Zoom.
8. Grew website digital audiences from zero to 15 million visitors per month by running effective
marketing campaigns and recruiting 45 new high-performing writers.
9. Saved company $30K in five months by reviewing current technology vendors, renegotiating five
neglected contracts, and replacing two legacy vendors.
10. Increased sales by nine percent month-on-month for the seven months while supervising five-person
team, by implementing advance scheduling and friendly internal competition to improve team's
morale.
Achieved 98.5% customer service “5-star” reviews in team by rewriting call scripts and empowering team
members to make any “good faith adjustment” under $50 without escalation.
41
Resume Mistakes
AVOID THESE TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD
1. Overestimating the time spent reviewing your resume. The average resume is scanned in under ten
seconds. Many job seekers think that recruiters will digest, dissect, and read their resume over and
over. The truth is hiring managers merely glance at resumes the first time around as they whittle the
stack down from several hundred to a few dozen. They look for titles, education, companies they
recognize, longevity of jobs held, numbers, and maybe a few key words. Then they determine which
ones to read in-depth later. If your resume does not grab their attention instantly, it is put in the
‘Nope’ pile.
2. Underestimating the number of applications companies receive. It is not uncommon for a
hiring authority to receive hundreds of resumes for every opening. With the advent of the "Send"
button, companies get overloaded with resumes even when they are not looking to hire.
3. Using incorrect vocabulary. Even experienced professionals insert the wrong content and write
resumes that they understand instead of one that will be understood by hiring managers. If a high
school senior cannot read your resume and understand exactly what you have done, you are
presenting the wrong content.
4. Using distracting formats. This appears elementary, but some resumes do not get read because of
their distracting formats. Keep it simple. Let the content speak for itself, rather than fancy
formatting.
5. Assuming one size fits all. Do not make the mistake of sending the same resume to all the people or
job opportunities you are perusing. Know how to customize it for success in different environments
and roles.
6. Not executing resume- writing basics well enough. Candidates make mistakes on such things as
length, objective, summaries, dates, titles, and other basics. On most resumes, including an
“Objectives” statement will eliminate most candidates right away, and a “Summaries” paragraph
will kill your chances of being interviewed.
7. Not using enough action verbs. Avoid using phrases like "responsible for." Instead, use action
verbs which show off your initiative and increase the overall tone of your resume.
8. Highlighting irrelevant skills everyone already expects you to have. Touch typing, using MS
Word or even MS Office, and searching the web are all basic skills people expect you to know. Do
not waste space mentioning them.
9. Avoid using online resume builders. These make it look fancy but are difficult to edit or rearrange
information.
10. No need for “Objective” or “Reference Available Upon Request” – both are considered passé
nowadays.
11. Avoid having a one and half-page resume; either make it one page or increase the margins for
two full pages.
42
Applicant Tracking Systems
One question students frequently ask when discussing resumes is: “How can I ensure my resume gets past
the applicant tracking system (ATS)?”
ATS allow employers to organize large numbers of applicant resumes. They are used by companies to
automatically scan resumes to identify whether a candidate’s application meets the minimum requirements
and should be reviewed further. Some ATSs even automatically rate your resume based on how well your
content matches the job description.
Although we stress the importance of connecting with employees and managers in these large corporations
to build your reputation and access the hidden job market, we recognize that many of you will have to apply
though this human resource software.
You can improve your chances of grabbing a recruiter’s attention by optimizing your resume keywords and
ensuring your resume sections are easily identified by the ATS. The best indicator of which words they will
search is the job description.
Then notice which hard skills—learned skills based on experience and training—appear early or multiple
times in the job description. Be sure to put these terms in your Summary of Qualification section.
Recruiters are likely to search for:
•
•
Job titles like software engineer, analyst, or distribution coordinator
Hard skills like marketing, customer service, editing, or Microsoft Excel.
Job Scan (www.jobscan.co) is a great website to verify if your resume is ATS-friendly. It compares your
resume with a job description and gives you a score.
VMOCK
Haskayne MBA students also have access to a website called VMock, which uses artificial intelligence
software to review your resume. Resumes are scored out of 100 based on several categories such as format,
content, and style.
Once you upload your resume, VMock will:
• Give you an aggregate score to assess the strength of your resume.
• Provide you with resume guidelines to ensure you establish a great first impression with employers.
• Give you line-by-line suggestions to improve your resume content.
• Assess how well you marketed your core competencies to reflect your academics, experience, and
achievements.
After you receive your detailed feedback, make the relevant changes to your resume and re-upload it to see
the increased score and associated improvements.
It might be tempting to try and get 100% on your resume, but we find once it is around the 75% mark, it is
better to speak to a Career Consultant. Rather than focusing on altering your format to match what the
software considers the best style, your Career Consultant can give you tips on what to do to make your
resume more suitable for the position you are targeting.
A word of caution: VMock is designed to work with resumes across various industries but does not provide
feedback on specific job or industry standards. Therefore, we strongly recommend you speak to an MBA
Career Consultant to help you customize your resume and learn about industry and job best practices.
43
Resume Example #1
Name
(403) 900 0000 ♦ name@gmail.com ♦
PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
•
Financial Modeling – One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to capture
a summary of your experience in this area.
•
360-degree Research – One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to capture
a summary of your experience in this area.
•
Risk Management – One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to capture a
summary of your experience in this area.
•
Effective Communication – One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to
capture a summary of your experience in this area.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Company Name – City, Province
Role Title
Provide a brief introduction (one or two lines) to your role and responsibilities (optional)
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Company Name – City, Province
Role Title
Provide a brief introduction (one or two lines) to your role and responsibilities (optional)
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Company Name – City, Province
Role Title
Provide a brief introduction (one or two lines) to your role and responsibilities (optional)
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
• Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Date
Date
Date
EDUCATION
•
•
Master of Business Administration: Specialization [GPA 0.0/4]
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary – Calgary, AB
Bachelor & Master of Science: Geology
Institution – City, Province
2021 (expected)
2014
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Owner of AAA: Provide a brief description
Leadership Roles: Provide a brief introduction to your roles and responsibilities
44
Resume Example #2
NAME
linkedin.com/in/name | 204-900-0000| name@gmail.com
SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS
NEGOTIATION
· One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to capture a
summary of your experience in this area.
COMMUNICATION
· One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to capture a
summary of your experience in this area.
ORGANIZATION
· One to two lines to capture a summary of your experience in this area. One to two lines to capture a
summary of your experience in this area.
EDUCATION
HASKAYNE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MBA | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY | MAY 2020
· Awarded the Haskayne School of Business MBA Scholarship for Excellence
· Case Competitions: SMEAL MBA Sustainability
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF NEW
BRUNSWICK | MAY 2014
· Graduated with First Class Honours 2014 and Dean's List 2013-2014, GPA: 3.6/4.3
· Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (TME) Diploma completed concurrently
· Member of 4+ volunteer committees
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
PROJECT ENGINEER | TECK COAL FORDING RIVER OPERATIONS | MARCH 2015 – JULY 2018
Designed and managed $100K to $5M projects on-site utilizing contractors and Teck employees from
initial scoping phase to completion, including handover to operations. Managed co-op students and
oversaw their projects.
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
45
PROCESS E.I.T. | TECK COAL FORDING RIVER OPERATIONS | JUNE 2014 – MARCH 2015
Oversaw daily operations at the processing plant troubleshooting any issues that arose throughout the
day and implementing projects that would prevent these issues.
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
· Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
PROCESS ENGINEER CO-OP | TECK COAL FORDING RIVER OPERATIONS | MAY 2012 –
MAY 2013
Oversaw daily operations at the processing plant troubleshooting any issues that arose throughout the
day and implementing projects that would prevent these issues.
·
·
·
·
·
·
Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
Accomplishment statement here. Qualify and quantify
AWARDS
· Individual Excellence Award for Safety in the Workplace 2017 from Teck Coal
· Individual Excellence Awards for Cost Reduction, Productivity, and Innovation in 2016 & 2017 from
Teck Coal
VOLUNTEERING
· Co-lead
Women in Focus – MBA Society
2020 - Date
· Customer service rep
Calgary Food Bank
2017 - 2018
INTERESTS
· Skiing, camping, hiking, traveling, scuba diving, scrapbooking
46
Resume Action Verbs
General Verbs: Accelerated, Advocated, Amplified, Authored, Centralized, Charted, Counseled, Critiqued,
Cultivated, Devised, Dispatched, Enabled, Engineered, Expedited, Forecasted, Formalized, Generated,
Investigated, Mentored, Mobilized, Negotiated, Outpaced, Outperformed, Pioneered, Publicized, Remodeled,
Spearheaded, Transformed, Undertook, United
Leadership Verbs: Advocated, Coached, Counseled, Cultivated, Directed, Educated, Enabled, Fostered,
Groomed, Guided, Inspired, Instructed, Mentored, Motivated, Oversaw, Shaped, Supervised, Supported,
Taught, Trained
Creation Verbs: Authored, Built, Composed, Conceived, Conceptualized, Constructed, Crafted, Designed,
Devised, Engineered, Established, Forged, Formulated, Founded, Initiated, Invented, Originated, Outlined,
Produced
Teamwork Verbs: Blended, Co-authored,
Merged, Partnered, United, Wove
Collaborated, Cooperated, Forged, Gathered, Joined, Married,
Worker Verbs: Actualized, Accomplished, Administered, Completed, Developed, Enforced, Executed,
Fulfilled, Implemented, Performed, Organized, Operated, Realized, Prepared
Instead of “Led” try: Administered, Arranged, Chaired, Coordinated, Directed, Executed, Delegated,
Headed, Managed, Operated, Orchestrated, Organized, Oversaw, Planned, Produced, Programmed,
Spearheaded
Instead of “Improved” try: Centralized, Clarified, Converted, Customized, Digitized, Integrated, Merged,
Modernized, Modified, Overhauled, Redesigned, Refined, Refocused, Rehabilitated, Remodeled,
Reorganized, Replaced, Restructured, Revamped, Revitalized, Simplified, Standardized, Streamlined,
Strengthened, Transformed, Updated, Upgraded
47
Suggested Resume Section Titles
SKILLS
Relevant Skills, Summary of Skills, Profile, Key Strengths, Highlights of Qualifications, Professional Highlights,
Competencies, Summary of Qualifications
EDUCATION
Academic Background, Academic Training, Educational Background, Education History, Educational
Highlights
EDUCATION SUBHEADINGS
Additional Education, Awards and Scholarships, Honors and Distinctions, Professional Education, Related
Courses, Related Projects, Special Recognition, Special Honors, Thesis/Dissertation Title
EXPERIENCE
Work History, Work Experience, Professional Experience, Employment History, Employment Record,
Previous Job Experience,
CERTIFICATIONS
Accreditations
LANGUAGES
Language Skills, Language Competencies
MEMBERSHIPS/AFFILIATIONS
Associations, Professional Memberships, Professional Organizations
VOLUNTEERING
Community Service, Community Involvement, Volunteer Activities, Relevant Volunteer Experience,
Community Activities
INTERESTS
Activities and Interests, hobbies, leisure activities, personal achievement, extracurricular activities
48
Drafting Cover Letters
WHY THEM/WHY YOU
A cover letter is like an appetizer to a main course (i.e. the resume). It needs to whet the appetite and make
the reader want more. It also gives you an opportunity to add additional information, explain gaps on a
resume, demonstrate writing style and communicate excitement for a position. There is quite a debate on
whether you need to include a cover letter in your job applications. It has been said that 70% of recruiters
do not read cover letters. Our response is that you do not want to miss out on the 30% who do want to see
the letter.
Writing an effective first paragraph is key to drawing the reader’s interest and motivating them to read to
the last line. Using a generic opener that you could send to any company on the planet will not get you the
attention you want and deserve. Show you are interested in their company specifically – they want people
who want to work with them. Lead with success. Your letter should answer these key questions:
•
•
Why them? In other words, why are you choosing to apply at their company specifically?
Why you? In other words, what is amazing about what you have done recently that they need? Why
are you a great fit for the company/role?
HOW TO DO IT
1.
Demonstrate that you understand the company’s business.
• Worldwide demand for widgets has been increasingly unpredictable due to the everchanging global markets. Somehow, despite the Canadian economic downturn, the ABC
Widget company has shown consistent quarterly profits. As a Master of Business
Administration student, working for a company with a dynamic corporate culture is very
appealing. In a recent conversation with Bob Smith, he indicated that my volunteer
experience with Feed the Hunger, where I created a dashboard that allowed them to identify
the areas in most need of their services, aligned well with your commitment to community.
2. Entice them with some of your standout accomplishments.
• As an MBA student at the Haskayne School of Business specializing in Operations
Management, my goal has been to drive forward new and engaging initiatives that increase
youth participation in local causes. To date, the results have been impressive, including over
$10,000 raised over 15 quarterly occurring events and over 200 student volunteers working
together. With XYZ Corp.’s focus on community investment and team innovation, I feel I have
what it takes to make an impact.
3. Use keyword-rich opening lines that demonstrate fit.
• XYC Company is a leader in providing innovative solutions to industries nationwide. As a
Business Process Management intern at XYZ Corp, I had an opportunity to apply crossfunctional knowledge in emerging and high-growth corporate processes. In this role, my
focus included strategic planning, change management, and business operations, as well as
the performance improvement of teams. These skills and experiences will allow me to bring
value to XYC clients in the role of Business Analyst.
4. Demonstrate the fact you that you can meet their needs.
• Cultivating relationships to deliver results is what I do best. Whether in a national retailer or a
pledge-driven charity, I have consistently exceeded sales and fundraising targets through my
ability to develop sales solutions and drive results. ABC Sales has increased its profit margin
steadily over the last 3 quarters. With my track record, I feel that I can contribute to a
successful 4th quarter.
49
Cover Letter Example
JANE SMITH
xxx-xxx-xxxx • Email address • Calgary, AB • LinkedIn URL
This header
should be
identical to
the one on
your résumé.
Date
Company Name
123 Anywhere Street SW
City, Province, Postal
Code
RE: Job Title (Job Posting Number)
You can choose whether you want to
address the letter to a specific person
or not. There may be various parties
involved in the recruitment process.
Dear Selection Committee,
You will make a great impression if you are able to explain why you are interested in working for them
in a meaningful way. Many applicants will use the first sentence to explain the position they are
applying for, but this is not a strong way to begin as you have already shown it in the subject line
above.
Recruiters often use the cover letter as an assessment tool for communication skills and attention to
detail so it must be tailored to their present opportunity. This is a great time to mention if you
attended one of their events (on or off campus), met with a representative, know a friend/family
member/fellow student who works or worked there, or include a story about their brand and WHY it
relates to you. Show that you have done your research and that you are intentionally applying to their
posting. If it is relevant, mention your MBA and concentration (e.g., MBA with a concentration in
Finance) as well as supporting work history that is applicable and/or why you are changing your
career.
The second and third paragraphs need to focus on what you can do for the company, not what you
want from them. It is powerful to show them that you understand the position and what is required,
which can help when your resume is not very strong. Identify the most important requirements for the
desired position and provide them with strong and relevant evidence that you can perform in the role.
If you are using “I” to start most of your sentences, you are indicating to recruiters that you may be
focusing more on your perspective than on the company’s needs. Review your examples to ensure that
you have avoided using words such as valuable, excellent, various, and numerous. Replace these
opinions and generalizations with concrete facts that show the actions you have taken and the results
you have achieved.
For the closing paragraph, indicate that you are looking forward to discussing the opportunity further.
This would be the place to include information that has been requested in the posting such as
preferred locations, salary expectations, or willingness to travel. If you will be temporarily away from
Calgary, indicate the dates you will be gone and the best way for them to contact you. Include your
contact information as your last sentence.
Sincerely,
Name
One page maximum.
Use left justification.
Insert scanned signature
or print, sign, scan and
reconvert into PDF.
50
Marketing Yourself
51
Creating High-Impact Career Stories
MAKE YOURSELF MEMORABLE
One way of marketing yourself effectively when networking and in job interviews is to use relevant careerrelated stories to demonstrate your fit and aptitude for the available job. This type of narrative approach
engages an audience more deeply and is more convincing than building arguments based on just facts or
statistics (i.e. your resume or cover letter). Good stories give people a sneak-peek into your life, dreams,
aspirations, value systems, drivers, motivations, likes, and dislikes. They connect you to your audience at an
emotional level. The more you can paint a picture of yourself and showcase who you are as a professional,
the more your message will stick with them.
HOW TO DO IT
1.
Make a list of ten experiences that you would include in your portfolio of stories. If you are having
trouble thinking of stories, consider your previous academic projects and assignments, work
experiences, volunteerism, time spent studying abroad, internships, community involvement, and
even familial and personal experiences. It might also help to include the year, place, and important
people when you recount your story.
2. You should have two types of stories at your disposal.
a. Career stories (e.g. why you left your company, why you are doing an MBA, what type of role
you are looking for and why this specific role)
b. Accomplishment stories (e.g. a time when you balanced competing priorities, dealt with
conflict, had to go the extra effort, supported a team member, etc.)
3. Carefully review the job description. Also research the hiring firm’s needs and, if possible, the
interviewer’s career and background. Use Glassdoor, informational interviews, annual reports, the
library, LinkedIn, etc. You should identify stories that will have an impact on your potential audience
so you must make certain a story is relevant, reflective of the employer’s needs, and clear and
concise. It is your job to learn everything you possibly can about the company before your interview
and use that information to show how and why you will be a good fit for the role. The more you
know about the company, the greater your ability to ask truly interesting questions that will
demonstrate your fit for the position.
4. Evaluate the critical skills related to the position and the transferable skills you possess relative to
the hiring firm’s needs. Then, reminisce about your experiences to find a story or anecdote that,
when you are done telling it, will leave the desired impression.
5. Every memorable story has a plot, which consists of four elements:
a) A goal that must be achieved.
b) An obstacle that prevents the goal from being achieved.
c) A decision that makes it possible to achieve the goal.
d) A result that came about because you made that decision.
6. Practice! Practice! Practice! Keep it short and sweet. You should aim to tell your entire story in
around two minutes. Make sure you hit all three elements of the setup and all four elements of the
plot. Include just enough detail to make the story real and visceral.
52
Your Value Proposition
The concept of a value proposition is derived from various established corporate and personal branding
strategies. It is a marketing strategy and sales pitch, specifically related to your job search. During your
search, you must deliver a unique, consistent, and compelling message to effectively market and sell
yourself. This message is your “Value Proposition.” To attain the best chance of success, it must be delivered
clearly and consistently throughout your job search including in your documents, when networking with
potential leads, and during job interviews.
A powerful value proposition comprises three components:
1.
The employer’s “Buying Motivators” such as your ability to:
• Generate revenue (increase sales, expand market share, augment profit)
• Save money (enhance efficiency, boost productivity, improve cash flow)
• Solve problems (reduce errors, eliminate downtime, increase retention)
2.
Your “Supporting Qualifications” that address the Buying Motivators:
• Areas of expertise (skills, abilities, level, stature)
• Background (education, experience, credentials, accomplishments)
3.
Your “Added Value” – a uniquely individual image of you that also addresses the Buying Motivators:
• Supplementary value (unique offerings)
• Individuality (personality, style)
To uncover Buying Motivators, ask yourself:
• What value do you bring to your potential employer?
• How will the employer benefit from your abilities?
• What bottom line results can the employer expect to see?
To uncover Supporting Qualifications ask yourself:
• What experience and credentials do you bring to the table?
• What skills, abilities, and expertise do you offer?
To uncover Added Value ask yourself:
• What special talents do you have that other applicants may not have?
• How can you bring more to the job than is expected?
As your value proposition gains clarity and takes shape, practice responding to questions such as “Tell me
about yourself.” or “Why should I hire you?” Then, as your comfort level increases, work on more
challenging traditional, behavioural, and situational interview questions. Each answer should relay
appropriate information that supports your value proposition. By going through this process, you will gain a
strong understanding of what you have to offer.
If it’s difficult to answer these questions, review your assessments then meet with your Career Advisor.
53
Writing an Elevator Pitch
SELL YOURSELF SUCCINCTLY
During your transitional period, you will have many opportunities to define yourself to others. Hiring
managers, network contacts, professors, MBA Career Consultants, and your peers will want to know who
you are and what you have to offer. An effective way of providing those answers in a way that lets the
listener know that you can be an asset is through a clear and concise elevator speech. This is a short (1-2
mins) memorable description of what you do and/or what you ‘sell.’ The goal is to earn a second
conversation, not to convince the person that they should hire you or buy your solution. Once you have
developed an effective summary of your professional background and skills, you can use a version of it in
networking meetings, your LinkedIn profile, job interviews, cover letters and your resume.
HOW TO DO IT
1. Define yourself as a professional: Review your skills, experience, and Summary of Qualifications.
2. Speak in the present tense: Do not focus on the past by framing statements such as: “I was a
financial analyst for….” Instead, place both yourself and your profession in the present: “I am a
financial professional with expertise in….”
3. Keep it concise: Think of your elevator speech to introduce yourself and to make a positive
impression. There is no need to tell your whole story in a single statement. Challenge yourself to edit
the speech so you can present your core information clearly in under two minutes.
EXAMPLES:
•
I am a professional sales account manager. My strengths include business development, sales tracking and
analysis, income, and expense coordination, maintaining an effective written and verbal communication network
between sales reps and clients, as well as developing and producing sales. I have a proven track record of
successfully negotiating deals, both in terms of selling ideas to management internally, and working through the
final critical details of a customer agreement. For example, in my current role, I delivered 100% of the new deal
business for my business unit, which exceeded $300 M.
•
I am a finance expert with over seven years of experience as demonstrated by my progressive experience in the
energy industry. My areas of expertise include, but are not limited to, financial analysis, forecasting, and
international and domestic cash management. In addition, I recently completed my MBA with specialization in
Finance. Two of my proudest recent accomplishments have been developing financial models for an education
start-up, which helped them achieve profit margins of 50%, and creating a process flow system for vendor
management, which helped my company automate key processes and $16K/year in operational costs.
PROMPTS: While you will continue to shape your speech to reflect your unique professional identity, these
steps are designed to help you create the first draft of this professional introduction, an essential
employment transition tool. As you refine your statement, check to be sure it will appeal to your chosen
target market.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
I am a (professional/role)
With expertise in (key functions and capabilities)
My strengths include (unique professional abilities and characteristics)
I have worked for/with (types of organizations and industries)
My most outstanding professional results include (include your value proposition here).
My goal is to (how you plan to make a difference professionally).
Once you’ve settled on a version you like, consider altering it to suit the audience. You might start off with a
30-second pitch but elaborate on your education, where you grew up, the companies you worked for, or
your hobbies, depending on who you’re talking to. The important thing is to rehearse lots so that the speech
appears very natural and conversational in tone.
54
Creating Your LinkedIn Profile
700 MILLION PEOPLE ARE ON LINKEDIN - YOU SHOULD BE TOO
Think of LinkedIn as an extended version of your resume, where you can hone your personal brand and
present significantly more information about yourself such as publications, blogs, continuing ed courses, and
technical skills.
URL: Edit your LinkedIn URL to include your first and last name. Include this is your resume.
1. On the upper right-hand side of your profile there is a link that says: “Edit public profile & URL.”
2. Click on this link and it will allow you to change your URL to include your first and last name.
PROFILE PICTURE: You are 60% more likely to be contacted if you have a picture of yourself. When
possible, use a professional photo, preferably a headshot; however, you don’t need to pay a photographer
for expensive photographs. Using a cell phone camera and a neutral background while wearing business
attire is effective. Please don’t use a selfie or an image that you’ve cropped other individuals out of.
BACKGROUND PICTURE: Ensure your background is consistent with your brand. A photo of Calgary is a
popular choice.
PROFESSIONAL HEADLINE: Your headline is the first thing potential hiring managers see when they get
search results or land on your profile, so it needs to be strong. You have only 120 characters for grabbing
your audience. Don’t use your current job title as a headline. Instead, include these three things: how you
make a difference, the keywords people would use in the area you operate in (or want to transition into),
and zing. Zing is something interesting that makes people want to know more. If you’re having trouble
narrowing this down, look at your top five Clifton Strengths. Examples:
•
•
•
•
MBA Student | Travel Enthusiast | Connector | Recipient of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40
Senior Manager Applied AI Lab | Artificial Intelligence at WAI | Building Calgary's ML Talent Pool
Financial Analyst and Researcher | 2020 MBA Graduate
VP Sales | Revenue Growth Generator for Cloud Computing Industry | Product Development and
Sales Operations Team | MBA Candidate (2023)
SUMMARY: This is where you can get creative and build your personal brand. Recruiters do read summaries
but refrain from using the same phrases used in your resume. They want to know how you’d fit into their
culture and what makes you different. What drives you? What are you passionate about? What are you
currently working on or studying that is of interest to them? What’s your next goal and where do you want
to go? Tips:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Writing in the first person sets up the conversation between you and the reader – and everyone
knows you wrote your own summary!
Include all the keywords you want to be known for.
Focus on 70-80% professional and 20-30% personal information.
Weave together your accomplishments and accolades with your values, passions, strengths, etc.
Leave room at the bottom for AKA/Common misspellings: Then list all the ways people may spell
your name, nicknames, former names, etc. This helps people find you even if they do not know how
to spell your name.
Do not stick to the resume format, limiting yourself to just one entry per job title. If you are doing
three distinct things under one title, create three different entries with overlapping job titles and
dates.
EXPERIENCE: Recruiters will use KEY WORD searches when sourcing applicants for positions. The more
information you add to your experience, the better the chances are that you’ll appear in their search.
1. List the roles you’ve had before.
2. Highlight your experience with key success and results stories; focus on what you accomplished, not
just your duties and responsibilities.
55
3. Be selective. Do not include every detail of every job you have had – especially if they dilute your
brand message. Omit or minimize what is not relevant to your career aspirations.
4. Add any publications, articles, and key documents you can share but be careful to not disclose what
your company wants kept confidential.
5. Add technologies you have used (SAP, Excel power user, etc.).
EDUCATION: Helps people find you through the alumni feature. Include all the schools you attended.
SKILLS: These support an increase in profile views on LinkedIn. The key is to focus on skills you really want
to demonstrate. Professionals in your network can endorse these for you.
1. Mirror the skills listed in the jobs you are targeting (if you have them).
2. Search a skill in the box.
3. Select the ones you would like on your profile.
4. Avoid ones that most professionals should already have (teamwork, MS PowerPoint, etc.)
VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCE: Calgary is a very community-oriented city, so adding volunteer experiences
elevates your profile and shows that you give back to your community.
1. Search the organization you volunteered at.
2. Describe the purpose of the organization and the type of volunteer work you did (ideally with
results).
INTERESTS: This is a great area to increase your search ability.
1. Add your career interests.
2. Add your personal interests (keep it professional).
CERTIFICATIONS: Whether the certification was through an academic environment or through an
organization you worked for, these are good to add.
OTHERS: Projects, Publications, Posts and more. Again, these help your profile stand out from the crowd.
FOLLOWING: Follow companies and organizations you are interested in, especially those you might want
to work for some day. Comment on posts (professionally) and connect with other followers. This will
increase your visibility and allow you to start the networking process of a potential contact.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendations are an excellent addition to your profile. Ask former supervisors
if they are open to giving you a recommendation or other leaders and peers you’ve worked or volunteered
with. Remember to return the favour and provide recommendations!
CAREER INTEREST: Make sure your “career interest” tab is ON! This means you’ll pop up in the top of the
list for a search. No one can see this except for you and a recruiter on the administrative end.
1. Scroll down to “Your Dashboard” (this is private to you).
2. Under Career interests, turn the tab to “on.”
56
Networking
57
Coffee Chat Tips
ACCESS THE HIDDEN JOB MARKET USING INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWS
Did you know only 20% of available jobs are advertised online? The other 80% are hidden, meaning that unless
you know someone in the company, you will probably never even know about an opening, let alone get a
chance to apply.
The key to accessing this hidden job market is to develop a broad and diverse network of business
professionals in your chosen field by conducting informational interviews, also known as coffee chats. These
conversations are not about asking people for a job but about gathering information on what it is like working
in their company, their role, and industry trends which may impact your search. Note that you do not have to
drink coffee at these meetings – but you should always offer to buy one for your interviewee.
Conducting coffee chats as a job search strategy is kind of like farming. The farmer knows that if she plants
100 ‘seeds’, only one of them needs to sprout for her to be successful. Her seeds are the relationships
formed through informational interviewing. Out of the one hundred people she meets, ninety of them might
not lead to a job offer (but will still be useful in learning which companies to avoid or work for, etc.). The
other nine relationships might lead to experiences that are not a job offer but which directly relate to
gaining one (e.g., meeting a mentor, hearing about volunteer opportunities, connecting with a hiring
manager), and one ‘seed’ might be a job offer for her ideal role.
Remember: it is not about “What can you do for me, right now?” but rather “What do we have in common
and how can we help each other achieve our respective goals?” Not every conversation may have a
tangible result but each one will be valuable in some way.
BENEFITS OF COFFEE CHATS
1. They allow you to learn about the day-to-day responsibilities of roles you are interested in but might
not have any experience with, as well as the company’s corporate culture, whether the industry is
hiring or not, etc. They are a great way to decide if a career path is correct for you.
2. They will also boost your confidence level. Job hunting is very difficult and can be demoralizing (“I
worked so hard and have so much to offer! Why aren’t people hiring me?”) but after speaking with
people for 30-60 minutes, not only will you feel like you are on the right path, but some of your
interviewees will occasionally check up on you and ask how your job search is going; they’ll become
your cheerleading squad.
3. You will learn industry jargon, which you can use in a job interview to demonstrate your knowledge of
the field.
There are three goals you should have for each interview:
1. Make an excellent impression on them (they like and, thus, want to hire you).
2. Help them remember your name so that when a suitable role comes their way, they can let you know
about it.
3. Obtain the names of other contacts (ideally two). Always ask for contacts to keep growing your
network.
Set networking goals. You need to set goals just like any project in life because otherwise, you will never
know whether you are succeeding and moving forward. Figure out how many LinkedIn requests you want to
send each week, how many people you want to meet for coffee, how many hours per week you want to
devote to networking, etc. Always strive to have 100 contacts who know you are looking for work. This way
if one or two people say that they are too busy to help you, that is only 1-2% of your total network, rather
than 10-20%.
HOW TO FIND PEOPLE
1. Search LinkedIn for people doing the job you want. Do not send them a request to connect just yet
though. These are too easy for them to ignore and, besides, you only have 300 characters to make
your pitch.
2. Instead find out their corporate email address and send them an email directly. In your email explain
why you want to take them for a quick 20-minute coffee (max.). The typical success rate has been
58
about 20% on the first contact and 50% on the second. So, one out of every two people you contact
at least twice should agree to meet with you. Try three times. If you do not get a response, move on.
3. Get a former contact to introduce you to them virtually (an e-intro). Help your contact out by writing a
short intro about yourself for them to send to your new prospective contact. Three sentences max.
(who you are, what you want, and why they should meet you).
4. Join professional networking groups. Many of these you will not know about until you start meeting
people. Consider volunteering for the organization to meet people and save money.
BEFORE THE MEETING
1. Know yourself. Be very specific about the type and size of company you would like to work for, where
in the city you want to be, what kinds of tasks you would like to do, your areas of expertise, and the
ideal job you are after.
2. Research the interviewee and their company, using LinkedIn.
3. Show up ten minutes early. There is no quicker way of giving someone an excuse not to help you than
by showing up late for your own interview!
4. Wear proper business attire. Do not get complacent – you might have done ten, twenty, or fifty
interviews but this is the first time you are meeting this person so dress like you would for a job
interview.
5. Practice your elevator pitch so that you can succinctly summarize your skills to anyone you might
meet, at work, on the street, in the grocery store, or wherever.
6. For a face-to-face meeting, prepare your resume and take it along in case the individual requests it,
but do not give it to them unless they ask for it.
DURING THE MEETING
1. Start with a question like "How has your day been?" This will indicate whether they want to talk or are
‘all business.’ Ask them some of the questions you expect them to ask you, and then mirror their
behavior. For example, ask them how they decided to come work here. If they take 60 seconds, you
take 60 seconds. A question to open someone who seems to be ‘all business’ would be “What are you
working on right now?”
2. Focus on asking them about their career trajectory – how they came to be where they are now.
3. Take notes so you can remember company names and future contact names, or record the interview
on your phone. Make sure to ask permission and obtain consent before doing this.
4. Listen more than you talk. Always turn the conversation back to them. Remember this is about getting
information from them, not about selling yourself. You will sell yourself by giving your full attention
to them.
5. Be memorable. Leave your contact wanting to meet with you again or forward your information to an
acquaintance. This is your opportunity to convey your value proposition and competitive advantage!
6. Ask your interviewee for book suggestions. This gives you an excuse to reach out and thank them in a
few weeks once you’ve read it. If you enjoyed it, you could suggest the same title to new people you
meet.
7. At the end of the interview, ask if you can send them a quick email update every 4-8 weeks. In the
update, write two short paragraphs: one on who you have met, what you have been up to, and any
industry trends/news you want to share; the second on what type of role you are looking for and what
problems you can help companies solve. Then send the update out to all your contacts in one email.
AFTER THE MEETING
1. Write a summary of the most important ideas mentioned in each meeting. This is a way of keeping
track of all the very valuable advice shared. It also demonstrates market intelligence if you can insert
these into future conversations (i.e., which company bought another, whether a competitor is doing
well or not, etc.)
2. Send a thank you email/card to your contact and whoever introduced you to them. Everyone
appreciates knowing how the interview went. Create a template and copy and paste it to save time.
3. Follow your interviewee’s advice and execute it. Report back a month later about how it helped you.
Reach out for further advice.
4. Ensure that you are at the top of their mind months after you first meet them. People are busy with
their own lives so do not be offended if they do not send you a job posting the day after meeting you.
By contacting them occasionally, you remind them that you are still job hunting and demonstrate you
are serious about your chosen field. Tickle Letters (from Donald Asher’s book Cracking the Hidden Job
59
Market) give you an excuse to contact them once a month or so with a quick update and keeps you in
their mind when an opportunity arises.
5. In addition to sending regular updates, think about how you can help them, either by forwarding an
interesting LinkedIn article or recommending a colleague for a job opening they have.
6. Keep records of all your contacts in a spreadsheet detailing where and when you met them, who they
recommended to you, and who recommended them. Keeping track of everyone you met will help you
understand that it is normal to have twenty initial conversations and one potential interview.
Maintaining a list of everyone you met is also an important way of:
a. making sure you remember everyone in six months’ time when you need to re-connect
b. showing yourself all the work you have done
c. helping you to remember who did not email you back or you need to call again
NETWORKING DOS
• Be sincere – exchange information with people and help when you can.
• Focus your networking – determine gaps in your network and focus on building connections in those
areas.
• Expand your network beyond your field – the wider your network, the more effective you can be.
• Open your ears – listen for cues to find out what people are seeking and ask questions.
• Improve your memory – people are impressed when you recall details from your last meeting.
• Join groups – consider professional groups, charities, athletic clubs, or community organizations.
NETWORKING DON’TS
• Look for immediate payoffs – do not use people; networking is about building relationships.
• Think only about yourself – help others with referrals or information, they might return the favor
later.
• Be shy – networking needs practice; set small goals to help you expand beyond your comfort zone.
•
Stop networking – once you start building your network, keep building.
LINKEDIN INTRODUCTORY SCRIPT – EXAMPLE**
“We haven't met before but I'm a current MBA student in the Haskayne School of Business. I am
investigating _________________ as a possible career path and was wondering if we might have a quick
(20-30 min) coffee chat to discuss your career and current work. I would appreciate hearing any advice you
might have on my first steps. Thanks!”
TICKLE LETTER EXAMPLE
It has been a while since I was last in touch, so I thought I would drop you a quick update on my job search
for a 6–12-month contract on a change management, training or HR project. Things have slowed down a bit
due to summer, but I am optimistic that something will happen soon. Last week, I had the first of two
interviews for a research role specializing in leadership development and HR. I am on the short list and so
will be meeting one of the VP's next week. I also met with someone from a local company about an
upcoming learning/development post on Friday, so we will see how that goes.
** See the next page on different approaches you might consider when reaching out to contacts.
60
An Employer’s Perspective on Networking
THERE IS RARELY JUST ONE WAY OF DOING THINGS
The script on the previous page is just one suggestion of what to say when reaching out to employers.
Below is a real email from an employer highlighting how the same message to two employers can be
interpreted completely differently.
Dear Alma,
***
The amount of MBA students that just message me saying they are getting their MBA and ask if we would like to meet them for coffee,
would lead me to never being at my desk. We are extremely fortunate at [company name] that lots of people want to work here and
getting lots of emails and connection requests is great. The idea is right from these students, but the message is always "I'm finishing
up my MBA, would love to learn more about [company name], would you like to get coffee next week" is painful compared to the few
people who make specific requests or asks like "I'm interested in this role, because of this, do you know who it reports into and what
the key factors for hiring are". Those are easy to do and I'll always have time for them. Here are a few examples, all cold reach outs:
1.
2.
3.
4.
"I would love to get to know more about [company x] and learn about your experience as well. Please let me know
whatever works best for you."
"I noticed a lot of activity in relation to [company name] on my feed today and thought it would be fun to get a
coffee and discuss what your team has been working on. As someone that has a special place in his heart for all
things fintech, the prospect of something of this scale starting in Calgary is exceptionally exciting. If you are
interested, let me know a day that works for you and let us meet somewhere in the Core."
"I have seen [company name] is hiring a couple of position through indeed website. I would like to reach out and
see if I would be a suitable candidate for the organization. I am shifting my focus back to my financial career for
long term. I would like to have a better understanding about [company name] and opportunity it offers to their
potential candidate. Would you be open for a conversation?"
"I was wondering if you could let me know/refer for any vacancies at [company name]. Much appreciated and
thanks in advance. Attaching my resume for reference and review."
I got this a lot in my previous roles at [company 1] and [company 2]. Compare that to the following reach outs:
1.
2.
"Hi [xxx], I'm interested in working with your [dept] team. Currently, I am working with [company name] in its Risk
Management division. I have over six years of experience and I am a certified [specialization] professional. Please
let me know if we could connect to discuss my experience.”
"Over the years, I have managed and delivered multiple strategic initiatives in Customer Experience and Change
Management. I have led projects such as [long bullet list]. I would like an opportunity to meet with you and discuss
my candidacy for a role in your organization. There are a few roles I think I would be qualified for, so I would
appreciate insight into how the organization is using those roles"
I happily met with those two people. I did not take the time to meet with the first three (I messaged them asking for them to be
more specific and none of them really had a follow-up besides wanting to get coffee). Reaching out is great; it is how I got my
job, but there needs to be something for the person at the other end to interact with besides a request for coffee and the
request cannot just be some version of "I'm getting my MBA, please tell me about your company".
***
The point here is that you may have to try different angles to reach a contact. Experiment with various
drafts and find one that works for you. If people respond, then stick with that message. But if they ignore
you, invent a new approach. Also remember your strategy will vary depending on what job search stage you
are in. If you are just starting out and exploring different roles and companies, without knowing about a
specific job opening, then a generic request for coffee might be best, especially if it is focused on learning
about your contact’s career story. However, if you know what company and department you want to work
for, then a direct approach might be more appealing to them.
61
General Interest
•
•
•
Coffee Chat Questions
What type of individual usually succeeds in this field/company?
What is the outlook in this industry for economic growth and employment opportunities?
What are the major issues, concerns, or changes in the industry in the next five years?
Career Path
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
How or why did you choose this occupation?
How did you meet the person who got you this job? What enabled the relationship to
happen?
What options were you considering before you chose this path?
How did this transition come about?
How do most people get into this kind of work?
Can you give me some idea as to the career paths available within this industry?
What are the opportunities for advancement?
What are some of the problems you encountered in trying to accomplish your goals?
Position Specific
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What do you like most about your job?
What do you like the least about your job?
What are typical entry-level jobs in this field?
What competencies or skills are required for a position in this industry?
What do you know about similar types of jobs or related fields?
What are the windows of opportunity in the profession?
Can you describe a typical day on the job?
What are the typical duties of a person in this type of position?
Advice
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What do you wish you would have known prior to entering this field?
What advice would you give someone interested in entering the field?
Are there any courses I might take that would be particularly beneficial in this career area?
Given my skills and background, is it realistic to consider moving into this career area?
If you were in my situation, where would you look for a career?
Would you be willing to review my resume and suggest improvements?
Which professional journals and organizations should I know about in this field?
To further explore this career area, is there anyone else I should speak with?
62
Networking Tips for Introverts
1. Focus on quality over quantity. Networking is about building relationships, and one of the strengths of
introverts is the tendency to build fewer but stronger and closer relationships. One person who knows
your strengths well and vouches for you can be an asset.
2. Prepare open-ended questions ahead of time. Brainstorm questions such as “How did you get into
this career?” or “What advice would you give a new graduate?” Bring this list with you and review it
before entering a conversation.
3. Find other introverts. Studies show that ½ to ⅓ of the population are introverts. Find those who are also
sitting alone and break the ice with them.
4. Arrive early. It usually is more comfortable to arrive early than late and enter a room full of people.
5. Do your homework. If you really want to talk to a specific person, look up his/her LinkedIn profile or
company bio. Find something that you can relate to or ask about.
6. Bring a friend. Ask someone you know to go to an event with you and introduce you to other people.
Just be sure that your friend helps to bring you into the conversation rather than dominate it.
7. Focus your energy. Instead of trying to join many organizations, spend your time and energy on a few
that you are genuinely interested in. Dedicate your time to strengthening relationships in those few
organizations.
8. Network anywhere. Networking does not have to only happen at professional events; you can network
with your classmates, professors, friends, and family by simply building relationships with them and
letting them know your goals for your career.
9. Be interested. Do not worry so much about what you are going to say next, instead listen to what the
other person is saying and respond accordingly.
10. Take time out. Remember it is ok if you are feeling overwhelmed to take a time-out and to breath,
reflect, and rejuvenate.
11. Use LinkedIn. You can use online tools such as LinkedIn to connect with alumni, classmates, professors,
etc., but do not use it exclusively. It should be one of the many different channels to build your network.
When inviting anyone to connect on LinkedIn, send a personal note, not the generic invite.
63
Personality Styles You Meet When Networking
Once you have several coffee chats under your belt, you will begin classifying your contacts into “not
really helpful”, “helpful/informative but not enthusiastic” and “informative/helpful and enthusiastic”. Steve
Dalton, author of The 2-Hour Job Search (see the LAMP method, mentioned earlier in this manual), refers
to these as Boosters, Obligates and Curmudgeons.
Boosters (also known as Champions)
People who genuinely enjoy helping people, enthusiastically talk about their own careers, and offer
resources to you are known as “Boosters.” Engage in these chats which may benefit your future and
encourage you to pay-it-forward.
Obligates
These are people who engage in touch-and-go communications, which may eventually lead to a
conversation—or not! It’s okay to end your outreach attempts if you notice all this “back and forth” is no
longer a good use of your time.
Curmudgeons
These are people who don’t respond to you at all. With these folks, remember: their lack of response
isn’t about you! Cross them off your list and move on to the next!
When it comes to these three types of contacts, here’s the key: the more “Booster” contacts you develop,
the less discouraged you will feel if “Obligates” or “Curmudgeons” don’t get back to you. In other words,
the more outreach you do, the more chances you have of finding “Boosters.” Eventually, you will push
through the initial nerves and feelings of discomfort, begin to build your confidence, and identify
opportunities to act.
During an intensive networking phase, you may find that these groups roughly split into 10/80/10%. It’s
this top 10% that your ‘boosters’ will often derive from and which you really want to foster. You'll know
who these folks are because the conversation flows very easily, they are keen to assist you and may even
follow up occasionally to find out how your search is going. This isn’t to say that you won’t receive a useful
information (or perhaps even a few job offers) from the other two groups. This tip is important because
too often job seekers only have a few informational interviews before deciding they're not effective. But if
you are lucky enough to meet a champion in your first 5-10 chats, you'll realize they can be super
motivating and inspirational. The challenge is to keep networking until you find a few of them!
64
The Fear of Rejection
If you are like most other job seekers, the thought of contacting a random stranger and asking to have
coffee with them can be very intimidating. The fear and apprehension involved in sending out a LinkedIn
request or having a conversation with them might frequently lead you to procrastinate or solely apply to
jobs online. This is a mistake, since we know that 80% of jobs are never advertised.
When asked why they hesitate to network, many respondents say they are afraid of being rejected. “What if
I ask them and they say no? Or they ignore me entirely?”, job seekers state.
What our many clients are unaware of, however, is that most people absolutely love talking about
themselves.
By inviting them for a coffee, you are giving them permission to talk about their lives, challenges, successes,
how great they are, etc. People LOVE being considered experts. You flatter them by asking to hear their
story.
So, to be a successful networker you must therefore shift your self-perception.
You are not pestering them.
You are not an inconvenience.
You are giving them a chance to feel good about themselves.
You are giving them a gift of your undivided attention.
One last thing. If you do get rejected, it is OK. They are not rejecting you as a person but rather what you
are asking for at this moment in their lives. Do not take it personally. Besides, by them ignoring you or
declining your offer it also means they would probably never agree to help you anyway, so you have just
saved yourself a lot of time.
90% of job seekers rely on applying to online job applications, which make up only 20% of the available jobs.
Be part of the 10% of job seekers who are comfortable with networking and gain access to the hidden 80%.
65
Job Interviews
66
Performing Well in Job Interviews
BEFORE THE INTERVIEW

Review the job description and highlight the key competencies so you can prepare responses for
potential behavioral-focused questions.

Research the organization. Know their mission, vision, and values. Read as much as you can
including things like their most recent annual report.
Ask our business librarian in Scurfield Hall! They are a great source of information.
Leverage connections in the organization to learn more about the company, culture, and priorities.
Book a mock interview with your MBA Career Consultant!
Prepare questions for the interviewer. These should be well-articulated questions about the role’s
responsibilities, deliverables and future, and perhaps its impact to the organization.
Familiarize yourself with the interview location to avoid any surprises on the day of the interview.
Print copies of your cover letter and resume to bring to the interview. You may be asked for these.
Practice, practice, practice.







ARRIVING FOR THE INTERVIEW



Arrive early. 15 minutes is appropriate.
Make sure your mobile phone is turned off.
Ask for a glass of water if they do not offer you one.
DURING THE INTERVIEW








Introduce yourself to the interviewer(s) and shake hands.
Be prepared for some small talk before the interview formally kicks off (yes, small talk is still part
of the overall assessment).
Sit calmly, notice your body language, and remember, you know your stuff.
Answer questions in a succinct manner and ensure to keep your responses in the two-threeminute range.
If asked, provide copies of your cover letter and resume.
If given the opportunity, ask your interviewer(s) the questions you prepared in advance that are
relevant to the position and organization.
Make sure you understand what the next steps are at the end of the interview.
Thank the interviewer(s) at the end and leave them with a positive impression of your continued
interest in the position.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW

Send a thank you note to your interviewer(s) by email.

Follow up as appropriate if you do not hear anything based on the next steps you were provided.

Provide references when requested; ensure all your references are aware they should expect a call.


Review and negotiate the job offer if one is provided.
If no job offer is provided, politely thank the interviewer for being considered.
67
Job Interview Tips
PREPARATION IS THE KEY
1.
You get the job based on your ability to interview well, rather than your ability to perform in the job.
When you fully comprehend this idea, the interviewing process will be much easier.
2. There are four essential questions a company is trying to answer during a job interview:
a. Can this person do the job?
b. Do we like them?
c. Are they a minimal risk?
d. Are they worth the money?
It’s your job to communicate that you can do the job, that you are amicable, that you offset any risks
that you pose to the company, and that you’re worth spending however much on.
3. Never forget this is a selling situation. Your objective is to sell what you can do to the prospective
employer. Always sell the specific features and benefits that you possess compared to other
candidates.
4. Consider bringing collateral materials or additional “proof” that you are a phenomenal candidate
compared to any other candidate the company might be interviewing. Suggestions include: a
portfolio of your design or creative work, former sales or grant proposals, meeting talking points,
client/customer recognition letter, project reports, published articles, business proposition, sales
process summary, curriculum design materials, or 30-60-90-day plan (although these are typically
oriented toward sales, they can be used for just about any kind of position – administrative assistant,
accounting, finance, IT, engineering, etc.). The point is to demonstrate how much you went the extra
mile in preparing for the interview, thereby differentiating yourself from the competition, and
highlight that you have the skills/knowledge to hit the ground running if you get hired by proving
that you have done the work you’ll be hired to do.
5. Research the company and the position you’re applying for thoroughly. Cursory research won’t do.
The applicants who get the job usually know more about the company and the hiring manager than
other candidates. Set yourself apart from your competitors by finding information which others don’t
or can’t. Annual reports, informational interviews and local business magazines are often untapped
resources. You should be able to confidently answer a broad range of questions that relate to its
location, size and structure, product line, customers, mission, vision and values, history, recent
changes, and current projects.
6. Always be prepared to ask the interview panel questions that you really want to the answers to. For
example:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
I read in an annual report you plan to _____. Can you explain how the role is impacted by that?
What does success look like in this position?
How does the company measure success?
What would you expect from me when I start, after three months, and after a year?
Can you describe what my career path could look like?
Who was the most successful person you recently hired and why?
Who was a recent hire that failed to live up to your expectations? What made them so?
What do you like about working here?
68
STAR Method for Job Interviews
PREPARE FOR BEHAVIORAL-BASED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
One common method employers use to appraise whether a candidate is suitable for a job opening is to
use competency- or behavioral-based job interview questions. These typically start with phrases such as,
"Describe a time when..." and "Share an example of a situation where…." These questions focus on how
you have behaved in the past and how you handled certain work situations.
To prepare for STAR questions, make a list of the skills and/or experiences required for the job. It may
help to look at the job listing and similar job listings for indications of the required or preferred
skills/qualities and match your qualifications to those listed. Then, consider specific examples of
occasions when you displayed those skills. For each example, name the situation, task, action, and result.
•
•
•
•
Situation: Describe the context within which you performed a job or faced a challenge at work.
For example, perhaps you were working on a group project, or you had a conflict with a coworker. This situation can be drawn from a work experience, a volunteer position, or any other
relevant event. Be as specific as possible. Start with the year, the employer, the season – paint a
picture. “This was back in the winter of 2020 when I was at BDC working with entrepreneurs
who are seeking assistance on business plans. We’d just been introduced to our new manager,
who I met in one of my MBA classes a few years ago (Situation).”
Task: Next, describe your responsibility in that situation. Perhaps you had to help your group
complete a project within a tight deadline, resolve a conflict with a co-worker, or hit a sales
target. “After about a month, I noticed that there was not much traffic from tech entrepreneurs
and I figured that we could do a better job marketing our services to that specific group
(Task)”.
Action: You then describe how you completed the task or endeavored to meet the challenge.
Focus on what you did, rather than what your team boss, or co-worker did. “I initiated a strategy
to collaborate with local incubators to promote our services and drew up a marketing plan based
on a few ideas (Action).”
Result: Finally, explain the outcomes or results generated by the action taken. It may be helpful
to emphasize what you accomplished, or what you learned. “We put the marketing plan into
place this year and saw an increase of clients from the tech industry by 40% (Result).”
Many students focus either too much on the ST or the AR. They either give too much detail about the
actors or the circumstances and not enough on what took place. Or they skip right over the context and
just focus on the end. Both answers create confusion in the listener’s mind. A good answer paints a clear
picture of the situation and the task you were working on and then expands on what action you took and
the results.
PREPARING FOR A BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Recall recent situations that show favorable behaviors or actions, especially involving coursework,
work experience, leadership, teamwork, initiative, planning, or customer service.
Ensure each story has a beginning, middle, and end.
Be sure the outcome or result reflects positively on you (even if the result itself was not favorable).
Be honest. Do not embellish or omit any part of the story. The interviewer will find out if your
story is built on a weak foundation.
Be specific. Do not generalize about several events; give a detailed accounting of one event.
Vary your examples; many employers value diversity in experience and prefer candidates who can
exhibit this in the interview, so do not take all your examples from just one area of your life. Have a
few from school, a few from work and one or two from your personal or volunteering experiences. It
is OK to have the majority from work experiences but be sure to focus on different roles and
companies, not just your most recent one.
Avoid using examples from more than ten years ago. The more recent, the better.
69
Creative Job Interview Questions
An experienced hiring manager knows that candidates are often well-prepared for cliché questions such
as “What are your strengths?” or “How do you deal with conflict?”. As such, they have developed
questions that are more unusual and harder to prepare for, but still identify whether you’re the best
person for the role. Below are a few examples:
1.
Tell me about a goal you are currently working on personally or professionally.
• They want to see how frequently you get out of your comfort zone and if you’re willing to
continually learn new things.
2. Tell me about a recent project that didn’t go as planned.
• Designed to uncover how you handle failure and what failure looks like in your mind. Also,
whether you have the ability to assess your areas of improvement.
3. If you are a recent college grad, what was your favorite course and why?
• Highlights your ability to quickly reflect on a wide variety of experiences. Select one and
clearly articulate its value to your personal growth. A good question to examine how quick you
can think on your feet.
4. If you have looked at our website or social media, what would you change?
• Shows how well you prepared for the interview and whether you can deliver constructive
feedback in a non-threatening manner. Demonstrates how well you might handle a client’s
complaint.
5. Among the people you’ve worked with, who do you admire and why?
• Like the course question above, you are being asked to quickly assess and communicate your
ideas.
6. What are you good at but never want to do anymore?
• A good chance to be honest and humble. If data entry is no longer your thing, let them know if
it is not a core competency for the job.
7. Imagine yourself in three years. What do you hope will be different about you then compared
to now?
• A bit like the cliché “What are your weaknesses?” question, this is designed to uncover what
areas of your personality, skill set and professional experience you want to work on.
8. What does a company owe its employees?
• Useful for the company to understand what you want to gain from the experience and how
best to brand themselves to job seekers.
9. What sorts of trends do you think affect our business?
• Highlights your industry knowledge.
10. If you were to be hired, what do you think is a reason you may not stay in the position or with
the company?
• Informs future recruitment efforts by the company and how they can position themselves to
appeal to job seekers.
11. What risks did you take in your last position?
• Investigates a candidate’s innovation, drive, ability to think differently and how they handle the
outcomes of risk (both good and bad).
12. When was the last time you had to deliver a negative message to a client and how did they
handle it?
• Gauges your ability to handle a less-than-ideal situation and their communication skills.
13. Explain a time when you used your sense of humor to diffuse a situation
• This skill requires a great deal of emotional intelligence to gauge the appropriate level of
humor to employ.
14. What was the most useful criticism you ever received?
• Enables managers to learn what kind of feedback candidates receive from others while also
learning about their weaknesses (as perceived by others). This is a great question to
demonstrate your self-awareness, vulnerability and ability to grow.
70
Salary Negotiation Tips
1.
Know Your Value – If you are going to get the pay you deserve, you must know the going rate for
your position in your industry and geographic area. Talk to people in your network and research
online (e.g. Glassdoor.com)
2. Avoid answering the question – Many employers will ask you in the interview what your salary range
is, and then offer you a number at or below the lower number (you say $90K-100K and they offer you
$85K). Instead try this:
•
•
“Before I answer, I’d like to ask a few more questions to get a better idea of what the position
entails. That way, I can provide a more realistic expectation.”
“I’d like to learn more about the position and the duties, and what the team’s like, before
discussing money. But may I ask what salary range you’re considering for this position?”
3. Do not use a range – Never use the word “between” when negotiating. In other words, never give a
range: “I’m looking for between $60K and $65K.” That suggests you are willing to concede, and the
person you are negotiating with will immediately jump to the smaller number.
4. Ask for More Than What You Want – Always ask for more than you want. Psychology shows that
your bargaining partner will feel like they are getting a deal if they negotiate down from your original
ask.
5. Put your number out first – The anchor is the first number put on the table by you or the employer.
It’s the most important part of the negotiation since it’s what forms the foundation for the rest of the
conversation. Scores of negotiation studies show that such anchors greatly favor the person who sets
them. When your prospective employer asks you what sort of starting salary you would want, you
have just been given a gift—you have a chance to set the anchor, meaning that you should ask for the
highest salary that you think the employer could reasonably offer. Too often, we err on the side of
caution, being afraid of scaring off the employer, and thus settle for far too little. It is possible to scare
off an employer, and it’s true that employers do not like candidates to be overly aggressive in salary
negotiations, but liking is not the same as respecting or doing what it takes to hire someone.
6. Pick the Top of the Range – As you are doing your research, you will likely come up with a range that
represents your market value. It can be tempting to ask for something in the middle of the range, but
instead you should ask for something toward the top. First, you should assume you are entitled to top
pay. Second, your employer will almost certainly negotiate down, so you need wiggle room to still end
up with a salary you are pleased with.
7. Ask for a very specific number – Propose $85,750 rather than $90,000. When employees use a more
precise number in their initial negotiation request, they are more likely to get a final offer closer to
what they were hoping for. This is because the employer will assume you have done more extensive
research into your market value to reach that specific number.
8. How to Counter-Offer: If it is too late and you have already given a range and then received an offer
which is too low, say something like this:
•
•
•
I have learned a lot more about the company, the position, and the compensation package since I
gave that initial salary range. Given what I have learned, I would be more comfortable at [your
counteroffer].
Based on the current market, I would be happier with a salary closer to X.
I feel that a salary of X would better represent the value I can bring to your organization.
9. Be kind but firm – “I’m excited to work here, and I know that I will bring a lot of value. I appreciate the
offer at $78,000 but was really expecting to be in the $85,000 range based on my experience, drive,
and performance. Can we look at a salary of $85,000 for this position?”
71
10. Use “Sunshine” Lists – Many provincial or municipal governments publicly identify any employee
making $100,000 salary or higher. If you can find a person with similar years of experience to you (via
LinkedIn) you now have concrete data to support your request for a higher salary.
11. Consider the Employer’s First Offer Carefully – As a rule of thumb, avoid saying yes to the very first
offer. Most hiring managers will have an approved salary range for the role. Just like you will not give
your bottom-line salary right out of the gate, hiring managers avoid starting with an offer at the top of
their salary range. Chances are good they have left room in case you counteroffer. Basically:
employers expect you to negotiate, so take advantage! Having said this, some companies offer the
highest they can afford to pay right from the start, so it is best to do research to understand how
much room your potential manager has when trying to entice you to join them.
12. Send a counteroffer by email – This is better because you can be more deliberate with every word. It
allows you to carefully articulate your counteroffer and make your case. Also, these emails can be
circulated internally among the decision makers who might need to approve a higher salary.
13. Be Willing to Walk Away – When considering your numbers, also come up with a “walk away point”—
a final offer that is so low that you must turn it down. This could be based on financial need, market
value, or simply what you need to feel good about the salary you are bringing home. Walking away
from an offer will never be easy, but it is important to know when to do it—and powerful to be able to
say “no.”
14. State clear reasons backed with research – You will be more likely to receive a positive response if
you provide clear reasons for why you think you deserve more money or additional benefits.
Communicate your desired compensation package in the context of your experience level and market
rates for the position.
15. Emphasize your sought-after skills – Having skills that are hard to find in your industry makes you
more valuable. Be sure to mention these in-demand skills to strengthen your case for a higher salary
or better benefits.
16. Responses to “How much did you make in your previous role?” – Avoid giving the employer a
specific number. Instead saying something like “My base salary was within the typical market rates for
such a role”. If they ask for a number, you can give a wide range.
17. Other Forms of Compensation – While it’s important to focus first and primarily on your base salary,
there are other benefits to inquire about and consider during the negotiation process: company
car/phone, gym memberships, professional development/training course allowance, membership fees
or dues, more vacation days, flex days, parking costs, overtime pay, additional retirement savings
plans, equity in the firm (especially popular with start-ups), profit sharing, shares, special office or
home office equipment (ergonomic office chair, dual monitors), work from home policy, etc.
18. Remember Practice Makes Perfect – Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Write down what you want to say,
and practice to a mirror, on video, or with a friend until you are comfortable having the conversation.
72
Salary Negotiation Templates
COUNTEROFFER LETTER
I appreciate your offer of the position of Account Manager at the XYZ Company in New York. The
opportunity to join such an exciting work environment is enticing. I believe my strong background in startup management and communications will help me improve your organization’s Accounts department. I
hope to reach those sales goals we discussed during the interview! I found many parts of your offer
acceptable, but I would like to go over some of the points that I think need refining. Your suggested
starting salary of $88k is 5% lower than I was expecting. The industry average also falls 5% higher and so I
would like to propose an increase of 2.5%. I find your relocation offer of reimbursing all transport and
property-hunt-related costs to be generous and I would like to accept them. However, I’m slightly
concerned about the lack of credible pension plan option. I would like to discuss this with you further
before accepting the job offer. Your proposed starting date was on the 22nd of September, but I wonder if
we could push this back by a week, considering we’re still negotiating the total compensation package. I’m
looking forward to joining the team. I believe I can add value to the team through my five years of
management experience. You can contact me at (cell number) to continue our discussion or, alternatively,
reply to this e-mail. I look forward to hearing from you!
NEGOTIATING A FLEXIBLE OR WORKING FROM HOME schedule
Thank you for offering me the XXXXXX position. I’m excited about the position and I’m confident that I
can bring a lot of value to Company Z. Before I can accept the offer, I would like to discuss compensation
with you. The salary is fair and in line with the market value of this position, but I would like to discuss
some changes in the benefits. As you are aware, I was the XXXXXX for four years at my previous
company. In that time, I have made valuable changes for them and saved them thousands of dollars
through my innovative processes. Because of my qualifications, my value added to the company is more
than the average XXXXXX. While I am happy with the base salary, I am hesitant to accept the offer
because of the increased commute to the office from my home. Taking this new job will increase my daily
drive by an hour. To save time, I would like to request a day every week to work from home instead of at
the office. I can perform my job at home while saving time and gas on my commute. This arrangement will
also not cost the company any more money. Of course, we can discuss which day would be most
convenient for everybody. I’m confident that we can come to a mutual agreement.
NEGOTIATING A RAISE: GETTING A COST-OF-LIVING ADJUSTMENT
I’m excited to relocate to Vancouver and join a new team within the company. I see this new location as an
enriching learning opportunity. I’m confident that I will be a new valuable team member in Vancouver.
However, Vancouver has a much higher cost of living than Calgary, and I have not seen any sign that my
compensation will change for relocating. According to the XYZ Cost of Living database, Vancouver will
have a 10% higher cost of living. To maintain my current standard of living, my salary will have to increase
to $88,000 from $80,000. I will also have to incur additional expenses for selling my home and finding a
new one in Vancouver. Therefore, I would like to kindly ask you to consider a salary adjustment to account
for the difference in the cost of living and to cover other relocation expenses. Specifically, I would like to
request an 8% increase in my salary and a $10,500 additional bonus for relocation expenses. I understand
if this is not possible, but I hope that we can come to an agreement. Thank you.
73
Asking For a Raise
KNOW YOUR MARKET VALUE
BEFORE THE MEETING
1. Decide who you would like to negotiate with, your direct superior, the department manager, CEO, etc.
2. When you request the meeting, do it in a very polite and formal way, set it up ideally with the
assistant of the person with whom you wish to negotiate. We recommend not specifying the topic,
but rather keeping it secret and bringing it onto the table only once you are face to face.
3. Understand what your contribution is, present evidence and if possible, quantify it. Attain information
before the meeting to uncover the value of your contribution (increase of sales, decrease of costs,
avoidance of errors, etc.); and then determine the amount you would like to get. Calculate your
approximate contribution to the company. There are basically three types of contributions: increase of
gains, decrease of costs or avoidance of errors. Try to make a list of what you have done, grouped
into each of these categories and try to put a price tag on it. If this is difficult then refer to the
objectives of your job and see if any of them are quantified. Another key method of "job pricing" is to
talk to other people who do the same job as you to try to find out if they have been able to measure
their contribution or if they have quantified objectives to reach. Another idea is to try to find out how
much your employer would have to pay to have your work done without you, perhaps by employing
freelancers or other suppliers.
4. Create a case. Condense your contribution into a succinct pitch for your boss. This should list the
ways you contribute and should include quantitative or non-quantitative evidence, such as emails
from customers who are very happy or other positive feedback on your work from inside or outside
your organization.
5. Practice your speech, ideally with a friend. You need to first prepare a kind of script or decision tree
which shows the various paths your pay raise negotiation could take. Use this to test your pitch and
your ability to deal with objections and different answers.
ONCE YOU START NEGOTIATING
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Start by thanking your counterpart for the meeting and offering her/his time.
Have your counterpart confirm how much time she/he has planned for this meeting.
Disclose the reason/goal of the meeting.
Describe how much your contribution has financially generated.
Stop talking, remain silent and wait for their reaction.
Make sure that at no time do you threaten to quit (because you may have to if it does not work out).
INCREASING THE CHANCES OF A SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATION
1.
When is the right moment to ask for a pay raise? Do not choose the end of the year or other busy
periods. It is recommended to do it during the first quarter of the year, from the end of January
onwards, when the budgets are normally still open and can vary. If you do it at the end of the year, the
budget tends to be already as stretched as possible. Ideally, choose a moment after you have
achieved an unexpected and exceptional objective outside the scope of your contract.
2. What is the best way to negotiate a raise? Experiments have shown that when facing a salary raise
negotiation, it can be highly advantageous to start the conversation with a joke. But not all sorts of
jokes are suitable, they must be related to the topic, and should send a subtle message to the decision
maker. We recommend joking about getting a significantly higher amount than the one you are
currently receiving. So, for example, if you are paid $119,000 a year, a good joke would be: "I’d also
accept $319,000".
3. Ensure the relationship does not get damaged - Relationships aren’t damaged by what you ask for,
but by how you ask. So, if you remain polite, constructive and listen to your employer's point of view
you will be fine. Don’t assume your boss is against you. They are probably very keen that you feel well
rewarded and motivated. If you are not sure how to behave simply try treating the negotiation as you
would any day-to­day interaction. Try keeping your boss’s point of view in mind. Ask questions rather
than making demands or assumptions. Do not negotiate out of anger and never ever threaten to
leave. If you want to focus your boss’ mind on life without you then make a promise - that getting the
74
pay issue resolved would make you a happy and motivated worker.
4. Will you be happier with a raise? The answer to this question varies according to the experiences,
opinions and the personal situation of everyone. It is important to consider that your quality of life
does not entirely depend on your salary. There are other non-cash elements like bonds and perks that
could improve it. Therefore, there is a point when a higher salary does not mean increased happiness.
This then raises the question of whether you should you explore negotiating for increases in nonsalary compensation (e.g. vacation, hybrid work schedule).
DEALING WITH OBJECTIONS
1. “You do not deserve it” - prepare evidence that your contribution goes beyond what was expected.
2. “You do deserve it - but there is a lack of financial resources” - ask for a perk or benefit which does
not cost the company anything. It should represent a lot for you, very little for the organization, and
create no precedent (meaning that other people will not necessarily ask for it as well).
3. “I need to think about it” - a reasonable response if this thinking time is not completely open-ended.
Therefore, try to get a target date from your boss, which ideally should be within the following three
months.
STALEMATE SOLUTIONS
1.
Increase of your role scope. If you get stuck in the situation where your employer denies a raise
automatically, you could use the strategy of asking for an increase in your responsibilities, for example
including new tasks and taking a couple of tasks that the company should subcontract. Most
employers cannot turn this down. And this enriches your job.
2. “What do I have to do?” Get these criteria in writing, follow through and then set another meeting in
six months’ time. You can also ask “What benchmarks or skills would I need to meet/acquire in six
months in order to justify a raise?”.
75
ChatGPT and Career Development
76
Using ChatGPT
Let’s face it. If you haven’t already used ChatGPT to write a cover letter, you’ve probably been tempted.
No more sweating over what to write or what tone to use. No more figuring how to connect your values to
theirs. Just throw in a couple of key words, maybe copy the job description and voila! An excellent letter
that explains why you’re the perfect fit for the role. The problem with this method is that other job seekers
are doing the same thing, so you won’t distinguish yourself as a candidate. In addition, recruiters have told
us they will automatically dismiss applications they suspect were written by the software.
Use ChatGPT prompts as a supplement, not a replacement: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool for
job applicants in their search, it shouldn't replace your own creativity and perspective. Employers
want to hear from you. The results are meant to provide suggestions—not be copied and pasted wordfor-word.
They don’t want to read a generic text generated by a machine. They will appreciate a personalized
application that is tailored to their job requirements. They want to know about your skills, your
experiences, your qualifications, and your enthusiasm. They also need proof that you can convey your
ideas succinctly and articulate a position in a concise manner. In short, they want an example that you can
write well. So please, take the time to write your own cover letter and resume, and make sure they
showcase your skills, experience, and qualifications relevant to the job you are applying for. It will pay off
in the end. You will stand out by writing in your own voice.
Instead, we recommend using the platform for career exploration and to improve the quality of your
documents once you’ve done the hard work of creating the first drafts. Below are just a few examples of
how you might use it in your job search.
1)
Seek career advice: Ask it for recommendations on the best careers based on your Clifton Strengths
or Myers-Briggs results. This can help you gain insights into careers that align with your strengths and
personality traits.
2) Job search assistance: Utilize it to identify suitable job opportunities based on your previous job title
along with an MBA. It can help you discover roles that leverage your experience and educational
background.
3) Learn about different roles: it can teach you about various job roles that you're interested in or
applying to. It can provide you with valuable information about responsibilities, skills, and
qualifications associated with those roles.
4) Understand core skills: Copy/paste the job description and ask it to list the essential skills required for
a particular role. Then you tailor your application and highlight the skills that are most relevant to the
job you're applying for.
5) Refine job search parameters: Get assistance from ChatGPT to identify job opportunities that align
with specific criteria such as remote positions, high-paying roles, location-based preferences, industry
focus, and required tools or software knowledge.
6) Prepare for interviews: Seek assistance to identify technical or behavioral interview questions for
specific job types. It can help you practice and prepare for interviews more effectively.
7) Craft industry-specific resumes: Use it to gather insights and guidance on crafting resumes tailored to
specific industries such as finance, consulting, supply chain management, etc. It can provide you with
industry-specific tips.
8) Improve accomplishment statements: Ask it to reword your accomplishment statements using the
WHAT + HOW + WHY formula. This can help you present your achievements in a concise and
impactful manner.
9) Networking suggestions: Seek recommendations from ChatGPT regarding professional organizations
and groups relevant to your industry or field of interest. It can provide you with suggestions to
expand your professional network.
10) Enhance LinkedIn profile: Get assistance on how to develop content and ideas for the "About" section
of your LinkedIn profile. It can help you create a compelling and engaging professional summary.
11) Derive interview questions: Use it to scan your resume and job description to generate interview
questions and answers based on your background; anticipate potential interview topics and prepare
accordingly.
77
ChatGPT Prompts for Career Exploration
1.
"Can you provide insights on effective strategies for networking and building professional
relationships in the business world?"
2. "What are some key skills and qualities employers in the business industry look for in candidates?"
3. "Can you give examples of successful resumes and cover letters tailored specifically for business
roles?"
4. "What are some common interview questions asked in business job interviews, and how can one
prepare and respond to them effectively?"
5. "What are the current trends and emerging areas of opportunity in the business field that students
should be aware of?"
6. "What are some recommended online platforms and resources for finding business internships and
entry-level positions?"
7. "Can you provide guidance on creating a strong personal brand and online presence for business
students?"
8. "What are some effective ways to showcase relevant coursework, projects, and extracurricular
activities on a resume or during an interview?"
9. "How can business students leverage informational interviews and job shadowing experiences to
gain insights and make informed career decisions?"
10. "What are some strategies for setting and achieving career goals in the business field, both in the
short term and long term?"
11. "Can you offer advice on effective salary negotiation techniques for business job offers?"
12. "What are some recommended professional development opportunities, such as certifications or
workshops, that can enhance a business student's career prospects?"
13. "How can business students make the most of internships and co-op experiences to gain practical
skills and make meaningful connections?"
14. "Can you provide tips on effective time management and prioritization strategies for business
students balancing academics, extracurriculars, and job search activities?"
15. "What are some valuable resources and strategies for exploring entrepreneurship and starting a
business as a business student?"
78
ChatGPT Prompts for Job Descriptions
1.
"In laymen’s terms, describe what this job is all about"
2. "Provide guidance on understanding the required qualifications/ skills mentioned in this job
description"
3. "How can I effectively assess whether my skills/experiences match the requirements outlined in a
job description?"
4. "What are some common keywords and phrases used in job descriptions that I should pay
attention to?"
5. "Can you offer tips on identifying the core responsibilities and duties mentioned in a job
description and how they align with my career interests?"
6. "What are some red flags or warning signs to watch out for in a job description that may indicate
potential issues or concerns?"
7. "How can I research and gather more information about a company or organization based on the
details provided in a job description?"
8. "What are some strategies for tailoring my application materials, such as my resume and cover
letter, to highlight the relevant skills and experiences mentioned in a job description?"
9. "Can you provide examples of how to quantify and showcase achievements in my resume or
application materials based on the desired outcomes mentioned in a job description?"
10. "What are some effective ways to identify and address any potential gaps in my qualifications
compared to the requirements listed in a job description?"
11. "How can I decipher the company culture and values based on the language and tone used in a job
description?"
12. "What are some additional resources or tools that can help me analyze and compare multiple job
descriptions for different positions or companies?"
13. "What are some effective ways to identify the core competencies and skills that are essential for
success in a particular job based on the job description?"
14. "Can you provide advice on evaluating the level of experience required for a job and determining if
it aligns with my own professional background?"
15. "What are some indicators in a job description that suggest potential opportunities for growth and
advancement within the organization?"
16. "How can I assess the level of responsibility and autonomy offered in a job based on the details
provided in the job description?"
17. "Can you offer tips on identifying any specific industry knowledge or technical skills that are
mentioned in the job description and how to showcase them in my application materials?"
79
ChatGPT Prompts for Resumes
1.
"What are the essential sections and key information that should be included in a business
student's resume?"
2. "Can you provide guidance on how to tailor a resume to a specific job or industry?"
3. "What are some effective strategies for showcasing relevant coursework, projects, and academic
achievements on a resume?"
4. "How can business students highlight their internships, co-op experiences, and other relevant work
experiences on their resumes?"
5. "What are some recommended formats and designs for business resumes that are professional and
visually appealing?"
6. "Can you offer tips on quantifying achievements and using metrics to demonstrate the impact of
past experiences on a resume?"
7. "How can business students effectively highlight their leadership experiences, teamwork skills, and
involvement in extracurricular activities on their resumes?"
8. "What are some keywords and industry-specific terms that can enhance a business resume and
make it stand out to employers?"
9. "How can business students demonstrate their proficiency in relevant software, tools, and
technologies on their resumes?"
10. "What are some tips for writing a compelling summary or objective statement at the beginning of a
business resume?"
11. "Can you provide guidance on how to address employment gaps or limited work experience on a
business resume?"
12. "What are some common mistakes to avoid when crafting a business resume, and how can they be
rectified?"
13. "How long should a business resume ideally be, and what are some strategies for condensing
information without sacrificing important details?"
14. "What are some recommended online resources or templates that can help business students
create polished and professional resumes?"
15. "Can you offer advice on proofreading and editing a business resume to ensure accuracy,
consistency, and clarity?"
80
ChatGPT Prompts for Job Interviews
1.
"Can you help me practice answering common interview questions for business roles and provide
feedback on my responses?"
2. "What are some effective strategies for showcasing my business skills and experiences during a job
interview?"
3. "Can you provide insights on the current trends and challenges in the business industry that I
should be aware of for my job interview?"
4. "What are some specific questions I can ask the interviewer to demonstrate my interest and
knowledge about the company and industry?"
5. "Can you help me refine my elevator pitch to effectively communicate my background, skills, and
career goals during the interview?"
6. "What are some tips for addressing behavioral and situational interview questions in the context of
the business field?"
7. "Can you provide guidance on how to handle difficult or unexpected interview questions that may
arise during a business job interview?"
8. "What are some strategies for showcasing my problem-solving abilities and critical thinking skills
during the interview?"
9. "Can you help me tailor my answers to highlight my leadership experiences and teamwork skills,
which are essential in the business industry?"
10. "What are some recommended ways to discuss my academic projects and coursework during the
interview to demonstrate their relevance and impact?"
11. "Can you provide advice on how to effectively demonstrate my passion for the business field and
my alignment with the company's values and culture?"
12. "What are some common mistakes to avoid during a business job interview, and how can I ensure I
present myself in the best possible light?"
13. "Can you offer insights on industry-specific etiquette and norms for business interviews, such as
appropriate dress code and professional behavior?"
14. "What are some strategies for building rapport and making a positive impression on the
interviewer during a business job interview?"
15. "Can you provide tips on how to effectively negotiate salary and benefits if the topic arises during
the interview process?"
81
Some Final Thoughts
We hope you’ve found this Job Search Manual useful in identifying your strengths, teaching you how to
connect with employers and, ultimately, securing a role that you find fulfilling. Below are a few final
thoughts to consider…
1.
We provide career development support to alumni. The relationship with your career advisors,
just like those with your MBA classmates, HSB professors and the University of Calgary in general,
does not end after you graduate. Whether it’s help drafting a job application or preparing for an
important interview, we are happy to support you in your career development journey even if it’s
been a few years since you left the classroom.
2. Let us know which new organization you join or role you secure after graduation. Whether
we’ve met you once or many times, it’s very satisfying for us to learn how we’ve helped you
succeed in your career ambitions. Take the time to celebrate this accomplishment with a quick chat
over the phone, Zoom or in person!
3. We value your feedback. We work hard to help launch the next stage of your career and take
pride in creating workshops, events, opportunities, and products that are unique to MBA programs
throughout the country. However, we realize that there’s always room for improvement so please
share any constructive feedback with us on this manual, our advising sessions, or any events you’ve
attended either by emailing us directly or the Student Success Director, Kaili Xu
(kaili.xu@haskayne.ucalgary.ca).
THANK YOU AND GOOD LUCK!
82