How do you stand out to coop employers?

Are you preparing for a co-op term at the University of Waterloo or another co-op program?

Problem

The transition from high school to university is a steep curve that leaves many students unprepared. In your first two years, you're taking many similar classes to your classmates so how is a co-op employer supposed to pick your resume out from a bunch?

Your first two years at University will have you taking courses like physics, chemistry or discreet math. None of these are super relevant to employers, so the only way to stand out among your peers is to have the highest grades to prove that you're bright and can learn new things on the job.

Solution

My recommendation is to create side projects that can prove you already know how to code. Start building a portfolio website using ReactJS.

Most employers want to hire fourth-year students, it's really hard to stand out as a first or second year.

My experience

When I was looking to hire Waterloo coops, I looked at the applicants' Github profiles that they provided on their resumes. I shortlisted a few people who had consistent Github contribution activity.

After I interviewed all the applicants, I went back to their Github profiles and started looking at their commit history on their side projects.

Some applicants were making small commits frequently with descriptive commit names, versus others who just committed all their code at once with a lacklustre title.

Think about side project code as a form of communication with your future employers. When you're writing it, write it in a way that others can easily read it and understand what's going on.