Application Documents
Resume
Your resume is a marketing document that summarizes your professional skills, education, work experience, and other relevant information with the objective of gaining an interview. Co-op student’ resumes must meet certain requirements. Beyond those, you can tailor your resume to your specific needs.
Co-op Resume Guidelines
Your resume must:
- Include the four mandatory sections:
- Contact information including full name, address (city and province only), your @ualberta email, a phone number, and the co-op logo.
- Academic and co-op status, including cumulative grade point average (GPA), completed academic terms, completed work terms, and availability.
- This section is mandatory and must be placed at the top of page one.
- For your GPA, you may list your current (last 60 credits) or cumulative (all classes). It is recommended that you include your GPA, when 3.0 or higher. See how to calculate your GPA below.
- For students who had a work term waived, you may simply state the number of work terms completed.
- Important! Remember to update this section prior to each recruitment.
- Technical and computer skills.
- Experience, including relevant work/volunteer experience and project experience.
- Have consistent, error-free formatting, grammar, and punctuation.
- Stay within the 1-2 page limit.
Beyond these requirements, your resume can also include:
Key Qualifications
- Possible titles include: Key Achievements, Summary of Qualifications, Highlights, or Key Skills.
- This section should only be used when you have enough relevant and specific engineering experience to highlight.
- Should be in a bullet point format, similar to other skill statements.
Projects
- Possible titles include: Project Experience, Technical Experience, or Research Experience.
- Include the project name, course/club/research team name, duration, and skill/accomplishment statements.
- Class Projects should include course name and number.
- This section should come prior to your work experience if the project experience is highly relevant to the position.
- Personal projects may also be included.
Leadership, Extracurriculars, and Community Involvement
- Possible titles include: Volunteer Experience, Extracurriculars, or Additional Activities.
- These sections can highlight your initiative, leadership, and problem-solving skills
- If the role is significant, format similarly to a work experience, including skill/achievement statements and other relevant details.
Professional Affiliations and Certificates
- This section allows you to present additional formal training and memberships.
- Examples include: Lifeguard training, Safety training courses, or Organization memberships.
Awards and Scholarships
- This section can include any relevant awards and scholarships.
- Only use this section if you have 3 or more — if you have one or two they can be noted in an “Additional Information” section.
Additional Information, Interests, and Hobbies
- Use this section to capture additional content not included elsewhere, but which can help round out your resume.
- Content you may include: hobbies, driver’s licence, or willingness to relocate for work.
Cover Letter
Always write a cover letter when requested by a campusBRIDGE job posting: strongly consider writing a cover letter when applying to positions outside of campusBRIDGE. The cover letter is not a summary of your resume. Instead, it is specifically tailored to individual job postings intended to capture the reader’s interest, encouraging them to read your resume closely.
The body of your cover letter must clearly communicate how your skills and interests align with the job posting. It should also mention how your experiences bring value and benefit the company. Also, for most employers, spelling or grammar errors are employment red flags, signifying a lack of care and attention to detail. Ensure you read through all application documents carefully.
Cover Letter Formatting Basics
Your cover letter can be broken down into five main sections: header, employer information, opening paragraph, body paragraph(s), and closing paragraph.
Header: Include your contact information, including address, email, and telephone number. You may wish to use the same header on your resume.
The Employer Salutation: The salutation is the contact name, “Dear Mr. Jones:” ending the line with a colon. If you do not have a contact name, you can use the salutation “Dear Hiring Manager:”, “Dear Hiring Committee:”, or “Dear Campus Recruiter:”.
Opening Paragraph: Indicate the applied to position, where you found the posting, and an outline of your related qualifications. You may also include your general reason for applying.
Body Paragraph(s): Demonstrate your understanding of the employer and the advertised position while illustrating relevant and specific skills and experiences. Provide specific examples to show that you possess the required skills; be sure to include relevant accomplishments and achievements. Remember to provide any information requested by the employer that does not fit on your resume, such as focused answers to required questions.
Closing Paragraph: Indicate your interest in meeting with the employer, how you may be contacted, and thank them for their time. Reiterate either your Ualberta email address or your phone number.
Transcripts
Certain jobs require you to provide your transcript as part of your application. Your unofficial transcript from Bear Tracks is suitable for job applications in campusBRIDGE. At the start of each semester, upload your most recent ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ transcript, even if some grades are missing. When those grades are available, you will need to upload an updated copy of your transcript.
If you are a transfer student, you will need to upload your most recent transcript from your previous school along with your most recent UºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ transcript from , when one is available.
How to obtain Unofficial Transcripts from Bear Tracks »
Co-op Resume Logo
The Engineering Co-op Program logo must be included in the top right-hand corner of the first page of your resume.
IMPORTANT: This logo may only be used by students currently enrolled and participating in work term recruitment with the Engineering Co-op Program. Other students and alumni, including graduates from the Engineering Co-op Program, may not use this logo on their resume or for any other purpose.
Application documents review + support
Please use the resources found in the and those provided via Engg 299 to develop and update your documents. You must be signed in to your ualberta email address in order to access the toolkit.
Afterwards, you can contact us for an application document review. Please only email one co-op team member at a time. We will work to respond to your message as soon as possible.
Calculating your GPA
There are two ways to calculate your cumulative GPA for your co-op resume.
Simple method
The simpler method, which will lead to a very close answer to the method outlined in #2 below:
GPA = sum of each full course load term GPA divided by the number of terms
Accurate method
The more accurate GPA calculation is shown below. If you have uneven course loads in different terms, you must use the following method:
Rules for Computing GPA
The GPA for any period is based on the final grades, including failing grades, in all courses taken during a specified period. GPA is calculated according to the following formula:
GPA = sum of [grade point value x units of course weight] divided by sum of units of course weight
Notes
- A re-examination mark or a deferred examination mark replaces the original final examination mark.
- The revised final grade is included in the computation of the GPA.
- When a student has a deferred, incomplete, or missing grade, the GPA is not computed until a final grade is reported.
- Grades of IN are counted as numeric grades of 0.00 in the computation of any GPA.
- Grades of W (withdrew) are excluded from the computation of the GPA.
- Grades of CR and NC are not included in the computation of any GPA.
- Any GPA is rounded to the nearest decimal place using standard rounding rules — that is, it is rounded up with a value of 5 or greater in the first nonsignificant place and rounded down with a value of 4 or less in the first nonsignificant place.