Coming to the rescue of students trying to secure a job in a highly-competitive labour market is the Resumator.
The online game is at the centre of the Get a Better Resume campaign launched today by Red Deer College.
“Our main message is that by attending RDC, students can gain the skills they need to get the job of their dreams,” said Jeff Maser, corporate communications co-ordinator at Red Deer College.
The campaign, which runs until May 16, takes a humorous look at what Maser called a serious message — post-secondary education makes an applicant and his or her resume more appealing to employers.
The RDC Resumator game, which can be accessed at www.resumator.ca, attempts to showcase this fact.
Players choose three day-to-day life skills from a selection of amusing options — such as cataloguing movies by director and teaching grandma how to use YouTube — before selecting the college program that most interests them.
The Resumator then produces a mock resume that translates the daily skills into workplace assets, such as organizational and computer knowledge. More importantly, Maser said, is that the example highlights skills and knowledge that can be acquired in the classroom.
He added each program department was consulted to ensure the campaign promotes a realistic skill-set that students can expect to achieve by studying at Red Deer College.
“Our main goal is to drive people to the website to have a little fun, but then to come out with a resume that may actually be theirs when they graduate from RDC,” Maser said.
Those who play the game will be entered for a chance to win a $5,000 tuition voucher if they enrol at Red Deer College in the next two years. The draw for the voucher will be made when the campaign closes on May 16.
Various print, radio, movie theatre, online and transit advertisements will run for the duration of the campaign.
These ads feature lacklustre fictional resumes being used as scrap paper, paper airplanes and even napkins in an effort to, as Maser explained, poke fun at ways employers can get rid of bad resumes.
“By attending RDC, students will get skills so they’ll be among the top choices of employers,” he said.
Shaune Fandrey, director at the Career Assistant Network in Red Deer, is glad to see Red Deer College promoting education and a strong resume as important assets to secure a job.
“A resume is a marketing tool and you’re the product you’re selling,” she said.
According to the Canadian Council of Learning, nearly 70 per cent of new jobs in Canada will require some sort of post-secondary credential by 2015. To better the odds of landing a job, Fandrey highly recommended applicants get help from professional resume writers as well as partake in resume development workshops.
ptrotter@www.reddeeradvocate.com