VP Education, reporting for duty! Hey everyone, there are some pretty important changes and updates coming your way and this report should clear many of them up.

First of all, I would like to tell everyone about a very special update coming to Jobmine: an automated email system! In today’s Jobmine environment, you have to log on multiple times a day to ensure you don’t miss signing up for an interview (especially important during the continuous round as you might get scheduled for an interview at 8 am the next morning). The email system currently in development will inform you when you get selected so you can stop trolling your application or interview page. This update is coming sooner than you might think! If all goes according to plan, B-Soc will have this functionality when they arrive back to campus (which in turn means that A-Soc will be able to take advantage of the new email system next fall). There should be little to no downtime of the Jobmine system required to implement these features.

There is also the possibility of PDF resumes coming to Jobmine, possibly as early as this August. Please be aware that this is currently NOT a promise, but rather something that is more and more likely to come to fruition.

After all this talk about Jobmine, I’ll drop this little tidbit: the university is still trying to find a Jobmine replacement. The real issue is that no “off-the-shelf” product or other available system fulfills all of the needs of the University of Waterloo. For this reason, many different solutions are being investigated, including two possible “off-the-shelf” products (which would likely need sizeable custom alterations) and a system currently in use by the University of Ottawa.

There are possible upcoming changes to the co-op evaluation form. Very early steps are being taken to evaluate the evaluation and determine a more comprehensive method of rating students at their co-op jobs. There are steps being taken to allow the individual ratings in the different skills to affect the final evaluation; there would be a connection between how you performed and the final “grade.”

Also, do you remember the Co-op fundamentals course you took in first year? I NEED your feedback on what you feel SHOULD be included in this course. I would like feedback from all levels of students, as each of these student groups may have different priorities in what they feel should be learned prior to starting the first co-op job hunt. Current ideas include showing first-years a mock-up of the Jobmine application process, from creating an HTML Resume right through to applying for a job. Please email your comments or ideas to vpeducation.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca.

Finally, Jobmine’s continuous round has begun! Keep checking and applying for jobs as many new ones are posted regularly! Good luck to all of you!