We’re starting a new section on the blog that brings focus to HRTech, Start-Ups and STEM. If you have a product, start-up or technology relating to the fields of HR and/or STEM that you would like us to cover, email me at jprice@jumpstart-hr.com and I’d be happy to check it out!
In our first installment, I wanted to share with you a cool project by the name of Resumator3000 that students are working on at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Now, as a University of Maryland, College Park alum (Go Terps!) I’ll admit that my friends at UMBC and I were friendly rivals, but it’s a new day and I really wanted to expose this fascinating group! Here’s the scoop:
Joey V. Price: What is The Resumator 3000 (and how did it get it’s name)?
“Resumator3000 is the name of our Senior Project at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Our project is a culmination of the education that we’ve acquired during the four years of attending the Information Systems program here on campus. The big idea of our project is to assist students with the creation of resumes for submittal to companies prior to graduation. Through our research we identified a weakness in the resume process that our product seeks to bolster and with proper follow through on our design should enable students to acquire higher close rates on job opportunities.
The name came to mind from the idea of 1950’s sci-fi and futurism. One of our members has this idea that we haven’t quite achieved the promise of flying cars, space travel and direct information download to human brains. So, in order to make everything seem as though it’s futuristic, all of his products have some sort of -ator at the end. Not sure that’s actually going to help make the promise of technological future speed up; but it’s fun and really if you’re not having fun while developing why the heck go through all the work?”
JVP: What problem/s are you looking to solve with The Resumator 3000?
“The key aspect of resume writing that we seek to solve is the creation of a first resume for folks who don’t have a ton of history. What most students don’t realize is that they are performing many valuable tasks which provide skills that are marketable. However, they don’t take the time to capture these details or don’t know how to format their resume in which to showcase these types of talents. Our system will assist in this process of collecting data over time and providing a method in which to leverage it for the creation of their resume.”
JVP: Who is the intended user and why is it beneficial?
“The initial intended users are college students. However, we do foresee an opportunity to grow with our initial users as they develop their careers. Ideally, we’ll be with our students throughout their careers; providing a method to keep their resume current, fresh and marketable in an environment that is constantly shifting.
We feel our service is beneficial to the user because all we intend to do is focus on the resume and data that drives a resume. We are not trying to be a social network. If we become successful in creating resumes that are of high quality and allow our users to land the job they seek upon graduation; then we will have done our job.”
JVP: What’s been your biggest challenge in the implementation process (and how are you overcoming it)?
“Since we too are students in the process of learning. It’s been difficult to understand what implementing a real project truly entails. While taking classes the process is broken into small chunks with examples that aren’t always clear as to why you would want to use such a system. When you have a real project that you’re getting into the nuts and bolts of; it opens a whole new perspective on the Software Development Process (SDLC). Overall, the process is an amazing construct in which to develop a system. All of us learn something new every single day; some of which was never discussed in classes.
We’ll actually start the coding process during the middle of April. We have some assumptions that the coding challenges that await us will be great. Although we are planning to a great deal of time in which to iterate through several designs and coding methods. Yet, if there is one thing to take away from the whole process is that you can’t plan for every possible way to fail. We hit walls all the time and take great pains into finding solutions that we never even thought of during our planning phase.”
JVP: What advice would you give to HS students interested in STEM in college?
“For any High School student, regardless of being directly involved with the STEM fields, we would recommend taking a class or classes in Computer Programming. Just to be exposed to what goes on behind the pretty interfaces that are presented to users. One of the most eye opening experiences one can have is to begin to realize that what is in front of you while clicking away on your computer is that a human being has been thoughtful, purposeful even, in the design of software that allows us all to connect, communicate and carry out our daily lives in a digital society. It’s powerful and all High School students should have some ability to code at a basic level.
Also, just for the record, work hard and learn as much as you can before getting to college. You will be exposed to so much new information that if you haven’t taken the time to understand the fundamentals of English, Math, Scientific Method, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving (really the basics); you’re going to spend a lot of time having to learn stuff that your peers may have mastered. Spend as much time as you can learning what you’re being taught now so you don’t have to do it all over again when you get to college. Believe us when we say that you’re going to have a ton of great new friends to meet when you get to college; don’t focus on being popular or a clown. The world that we’re getting ready to go into is highly competitive, it’s probably going to be even more competitive when you graduate in 4-6 years from now. The employers want smart people with skills that contribute to the success of their companies. You need to acquire those skills.
We’d highly recommend that anyone who is interested in their future to watch the video on http://www.code.org and start to work towards a better future for themselves – today.”
Meet the Resumator3000 team:
Connect with the team:
Twitter: @Resumator3000
STEM Careers – Think. Learn. Create.
By Joey V. Price, MS-HRMD, PHR
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlhbFsUVerQ
