Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm – it is finding its way into all aspects of our lives, including our career development. GenAI can provide many benefits for individuals and companies alike. In the recruitment process, companies increasingly rely on AI to scan resumes of applicants, and use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), an AI-based recruitment software, to manage the entire hiring process. This adds a level of complexity to jobseekers as they have to ensure their resume is not only effective in and of itself, but also that it can be easily read by AI tools.

This essay has multiple purposes: first, it allows you to understand what makes a good resume, so you can implement this for the portfolio and your future career moves; second, it increases your understanding of what makes an AI-/ATS-friendly resume, which will increase your chances of progressing through the recruitment process; third, it allows you to develop actionable recommendations for immediate improvement of your own resume.

To successfully complete this essay, you must screenshot all pages of your current resume and place the screenshots into the appendix of your essay (if you do not have a resume, you must create one and provide those screenshots). You must then review the academic and high-quality practitioner literature about what makes an effective and AI-/ATS-friendly resume. Subsequently, you must compare your existing resume against the information and critique your resume in light of the literature about effective and AI-/ATS-friendly resume. Finally, you must present some clear recommendations to yourself about how you should improve your resume in order to make it more effective and AI-/ATS-friendly. The recommendations must make specific comment about your personal resume and the marker will compare your resume against your recommendations. It is important that you include some content on effectiveness and some content on AI-ATS-friendliness, but it is up to you to decide how to achieve this. This means you may focus your essay on one or multiple aspects that make a resume effective (e.g. focused on effective layout, effective content, effective word choice, etc.) as long as you also include some discussion around one or multiple aspects that make a resume AI-/ATS-friendly.

You are required to use a MINIMUM of 6 high-quality literature sources for this assignment: this must consist of a minimum of 3 high-quality academic sources, AND a minimum of 3 high-quality practitioner sources. Note: High-quality academic literature refers to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles. High-quality practitioner information refers to material published by reliable practitioner and industry bodies, such as reports from professional bodies or career experts, reputable news outlets, etc. ALL sources, which you have used in the text of your essay, need to be referenced correctly in the text AND within a reference list at the end of the essay.

This is an individual assessment. The required length for this essay is 1,000 - 1,200 words, excluding diagrams, tables, and reference list. The screenshots of your resume are mandatory, but other figures and tables are optional and should only be used if relevant and clearly referred to in the body of the essay. You must use common font (e.g. Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, etc.) with font size 11 or 12, as well as appropriate margins and spacing. A professional title page should be provided, but abstract/executive summary, table of contents, and structured headings must not be included.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: This assessment requires students to adhere to the guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence tools as specified in the Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS). Any misuse or lack of disclosure regarding the use of AI tools will be considered a breach of academic integrity. For this assessment, you must use AI to generate an interview question response. Following that, you may use AI only for planning, idea development, and research. Your final submission should show how you have developed and refined these ideas.

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice", and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level unit, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment. Your assignment will be marked on the following criteria; detailed marking rubrics are available in Moodle:

• Demonstrate understanding of resume literature (20%)
• Ability to critically assess your resume in relation to the reviewed literature (20%)
• Ability to identify suitable recommendations for yourself to improve your resume (20%)
• Demonstrate ability to relate recommendations to specific elements of your own resume (15%)
• Quality and appropriateness of references, and accuracy of referencing (10%)
• Professional written communication (15%)

Late submission and academic misconduct penalties will be applied in accordance with the university policies.

This is an individual, written assessment, in the form of a report. You are required to:

• Identify a role/job that you would like to get within 6-12 months after you have completed your Masters course.
• Use job search portals to identify two (2) current job advertisements that correspond to the role/job you have identified. Please make sure you download/screenshot ALL details of the job advertisements so you can attach them as appendices to your assignment.
• Identify the various requirements/criteria outlined in the two job advertisements. Map them out in a table (see assessment briefing in Moodle for examples).
• Critically reflect on your own current competencies in comparison to all of the requirements/criteria from the two job advertisements. Competencies include skills, knowledge, attitudes, etc. (you may ignore qualifications, licenses, visas, and vaccinations as these do not allow for reflection). To reflect effectively, you should identify specific examples of past/current behaviour relating to the assessment of your competencies.
• Compare your own current competencies to the requirements outlined in the job advertisements – establish competency gaps. Please ONLY reflect on those competencies that are included in the job advertisement requirements/criteria.
• Develop a realistic action plan for filling the competency gaps you have identified.
• Prepare a report, which includes: a short introduction that outlines the purpose of the report; the table mapping the requirements/criteria of the job advertisements; your reflection on current competencies, and identification of competency gaps; and a realistic and specific action plan that outlines how you plan to fill the competency gaps between now and 6-12 months after your graduation. The action plan functions as the conclusion - you do not need to write an additional conclusion paragraph.

The report must clearly demonstrate the reflection, not just the outcome thereof – this means specific reference to past/current behaviour must be made; please do NOT use diagnostic tools for reflection, but focus entirely on your past/current behaviour. You must present your chosen two job advertisements in their entirety in an appendix. Academic literature references should NOT be used in this assessment.

The required length for this report is 1,200 words (+/-10%), excluding preliminaries, diagrams, tables, appendices, and reference list. You must use common font (e.g. Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, etc.) with font size 11 or 12, as well as appropriate margins and spacing. Preliminaries include: title page; executive summary; table of contents with numbered, hierarchical headings; and any other optional elements (e.g. table of figures, etc.) you wish to include to make your report more professional.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: This assessment requires students to adhere to the guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence tools as specified in the Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS). Any misuse or lack of disclosure regarding the use of AI tools will be considered a breach of academic integrity. For this assessment, you must not use AI at any point during the assessment. You must demonstrate your core skills and knowledge.

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice", and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level unit, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment. Your assignment will be marked on the following criteria; detailed marking rubrics are available in Moodle:

• Ability to analyse job advertisements to identify current job requirements (15%)*
• Ability to critically reflect on own current competencies (30%)
• Ability to identify competency gaps (20%)
• Ability to devise a realistic and specific action plan to address competency gaps (20%)
• Professional written communication (15%)

*Please note: if you do not submit both job ads in their ENTIRETY in the appendix, you will not be able to achieve a pass mark for this criterion as we will not be able to verify if you are able to analyse the job ads.

Late submission and academic misconduct penalties will be applied in accordance with the university policies.

This is an individual assessment, which takes the form of a portfolio. Throughout the term, the workshops will expose you to various activities relating to professional practice and career development. These activities allow you to develop a range of artefacts (e.g. written or infographic resume, brief reflections, elevator pitch video, cover letter), which you need to collate and compile into one single Word document (a template is available in Moodle). A list of acceptabe artefacts is available in Moodle and you must ensure that TEN (10) of these are included in your portfolio - please note that some of the artefacts on the list are compulsory for all students, while the remaining artefacts are to be considered a pool, from which you need to choose artefacts relevant to you and your career aspirations.

At the end of term, you must produce a short overview introduction (700 words +/- 10%) that provides a very brief overview of your background, your short- to medium-term career aspirations, and a comment on each of your artefacts that should outline each artefact's relevance to your personal career development.

The portfolio (including the overview introduction) will be submitted at the end of term via Moodle, but it is crucial you compile the artefacts THROUGHOUT the term, not all at the end.

The portfolio can contain multimedia artefacts (e.g. ECHO360 video links; screenshots of LinkedIn page; PowerPoint slides) but any text-based documents you create yourself (e.g. reflective statements, resumes, cover letter) need to be provided in Word format within the portfolio – screenshots of these documents are not permissible. Please also note that access to any online artefacts (e.g. video or LinkedIn page hyperlinks) is your responsibility – any broken links or inaccessible artefacts will not be able to attract marks. Some artefacts require referencing - if that is the case, you should provide in-text referencing in the artefact and a reference list after the relevant artefact (this may mean your portfolio contains multiple small reference lists, each following the artefact it refers to). There is no word or page limit for the portfolio itself.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: This assessment requires students to adhere to the guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence tools as specified in the Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS). Any misuse or lack of disclosure regarding the use of AI tools will be considered a breach of academic integrity. For this assessment, you may use AI for planning, idea development, and research. Your final submission should show how you have developed and refined these ideas. 

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice", and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level unit, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment. Your assignment will be marked on the following criteria; detailed marking rubrics are available in Moodle:

• Overview introduction (background, aspirations, and clear statement of relevance of included artefacts for the student’s personal situation) (15%)
• Ability to apply professional practice and career development skills demonstrated through accurate and complete artefacts (70%; all artefacts are weighted equally at 7% per artefact)
• Professional presentation of portfolio (15%)

Late submission and academic misconduct penalties will be applied in accordance with the university policies.