How To Create Job Proposals That Work
This article aims to give you some insight on how to publish job or internships proposals to Computer Science and Engineering students.
I’m a student from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), a Portuguese University of Engineering. Currently, in the first year of my masters in Computer Science, my responsibility is to gather internships for my colleagues.
To achieve this goal, we publish opportunities for full-time jobs and internships in companies related to Computer Science and Engineering, whether they are in Portugal or not.
The Problem
Every company has its own method of communication, according to its marketing policies. This leads to a great variety of proposals, especially because normally they are not specific enough to the interesting parts.
Sometimes, companies lack some important information on their proposals, neglect certain aspects, or focus on not so important ones. We know the type of students we have. When we realize that the proposal might not be successful, we give some feedback about the proposal, so the company can change it. The proposal ends up changed, leading to an extra effort from both parts: us, because we should provide the same feedback every time over and over, and the company, which has to change its proposal, in order to be successful, investing more time and effort.
This article aims to provide our recommendations on how to create and direct their proposals, so they may be published them in an efficient and more effective way.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ― George Bernard Shaw
The proposal
Please, take a moment and think like an engineering student.
What would you like to see?
Which kind of information would be relevant to you, so it would be worth spending your time reading the proposal?
What is the core value of the proposal?
Why should the student be interested in working for you?
What would be your conditions while working in the company?
We can address those and more questions when creating a proposal. There is a group of topics that should be in the proposal, to guarantee that it is read, and not ignored. Remember that engineering students tend to be pragmatic: you should present only the essential, and avoid secondary information. Be assertive.
Components:
1) Introduce and explain the project, briefly. It should be descriptive enough to give some insight about the work to develop, but also not too detailed. A long project presentation can demotivate the reader, whereas a concise, focused short presentation can make the reader interested.
2) Workplace location. This is essential, since traveling costs time and money.
3) Requirements and competencies. Here is where you should be clear and direct to the point: “Competencies needed: X,Y,…”,” Competencies on Z and W are valued, but not required”.
4) Vacancies available.
5) Contact of the employer (yes, sometimes people forget).
6) An image/poster concerning the proposal. It may be a summary of the proposal itself, with a bigger focus on non-technological skills, and appealing to the company’s culture. In this element, you can be more emphatic, and promote the company. Optional, but important.
7.1) If you want a high-quality and medium file size, you can use JPEG compression. Note that this is a good format if you have a poster with lots of colors/details and you don’t have a lot of text (e.g., photographies). JPEG is not the best format if you have text, because It may blur it. Bear in mind that this format is lossy, and it does not support transparency.
7.2) If you have text in the poster, you can use PNG compression. The file size is usually bigger.
7.3) The resolution of the poster plays a big role. An image with a small resolution can be blurry and difficult to read. An image with a very big resolution will result in a bigger file. We recommend 1600x1200, where the trade-off is acceptable.
Don’ts
This section focuses on some bad habits, which should be avoided. Some of them are specific to us, GCE, whereas others are more general.
1) Do not be demanding or rude. Respect and be nice to the persons that are going to publish your proposal. Students working in groups like GCE are volunteers.
2) Do not put the whole proposal on a poster. Besides making information more difficult to copy (like contact e-mails), it ruins the poster idea. It is supposed to be a compliment, making it possible to focus on the company/non-technological part.
3) Do not send us a link that redirects to your proposal. Send us the proposal instead. It saves work from both sides.
4) Do not be too formal, nor too informal.
5) Do not write a tedious proposal. Be very clear and practical: the shorter, the better.
Final notes
TL;DR
