CHALLENGE - University of Waterloo

C A R E E R C O R N E R
JOBMINE SOLUTIONS
With the cancellation of WaterlooWorks, many students are wondering what lies on
the horizon for the co-op application process. The answer to this is JobMine. While
WaterlooWorks was in development, JobMine received little attention. However, now
the priority is updating JobMine so that it uses the most current software available.
Inside sCo-op
Presently, a team comprised of both CECS and IST personnel are working to upgrade
JobMine’s core infrastructure, addressing concerns with both the system’s software
and its hardware. There has been significant investment in this project, from both a
resource and a systems perspective.
Ronauq Sabharwal
1A environmental engineering
Johnson Trinh
1A environmental engineering
Nish Logeswaran
2A environmental engineering
JobMine Help Desk
Room 2811, Tatham Centre
University of Waterloo
Tel. 519-888-4550
Email. jobmine@uwaterloo.ca
For now, we hope that students will be patient with JobMine. To help make the applicaition
process easier, the Winter 2011 JobMine help desk assistants shared some tips.
Their names are Johnson Trinh, Ronauq Sabharwal and Nish Logeswaran and they’re
co-op students just like you.
What are the most common questions you receive at the Help Desk, and how do
you solve them?
NL: “How to upload my résumé?” To do this, you need to convert your résumé into
HTML – a webpage filter format. Create your résumé in Word and Save As ‘web page,
filtered’. Then you can upload it. Also if you’re bulleting lists, use the hollow circle bullets.
Those work best.
RS: “My résumé has weird symbols in it.” This can usually be solved by using the most
basic fonts – Times New Roman, Arial. If you know HTML, you can always open the file
in notepad, find the weird symbol, and replace it.
JT: Alignment problems are one of the biggest issues. Students like to left align or
centre align. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t. The easiest solution is to use
tables to align everything. Tables work most of the time.
Is JobMine usable for Mac owners?
RS: Yes. Although Microsoft Word for Mac and JobMine don’t work together easily, you
can easily create your résumé using a HTML editor such as Dreamweaver or Kompozer.
What are some issues that you can’t resolve?
RS: The 20 minute logout. That’s in place for security reasons. There’s a lot of personal
information on JobMine. You don’t want anyone messing around with your résumé or
the jobs you applied for. Also, do not leave your applications until last minute or the
twenty minute logout will be even more frustrating.
JT: Procrastination. Co-operative Education and Information Systems & Technology
have added hardware and optimized software to support heavy loads. But JobMine still
has to support over 100,000 applications. If most of those get uploaded in the last few
hours, the server may still crash.
Difficult Questions
RS: Sometimes we get emails that say “I need help.” No name, no student number, no
résumé. Obviously, we can’t help if you we don’t know anything about you – please,
please include all the necessary info.
NL: Sometimes there are questions we aren’t qualified to answer. Once I was asked “why
aren’t I getting interviews?” Bullets and formatting are my expertise – not matchmaking!
If you are having trouble getting interviews, consider having your résumé critiqued at
the Centre for Career Action.
JT: After I finished helping this girl, she asked if there was a way to contact me if she
had more questions. I said “sure, you can send us an email.” She looked at me and said
“do you have a number I can have?” Who knew JobMine helpdesk was such an attractive
position?
Final Thoughts
RS: Be patient with JobMine. Keep an open mind – learn from your mistakes, go back,
change them. Once you get used to it you’re not going to email us; you’re going to
forget about the JobMine Help Desk.
To prepare for your upcoming co-op job search, be sure to bookmark and review the
Co-op Important Dates calendar: http://www.cecs.uwaterloo.ca/students/dates.php.
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