iMac with it's time to ditch your resume website on the screen

In January 2020, three graduates from Ontario Tech University’s software engineering program — Matthew Boivin, Anirudh Mungre and Ethan Elliott — were working on a team project for their cloud computing course led by Dr. Qusay Mahmoud. 

The project involved developing an online service to assist students in creating competency-based digital portfolios to give them a competitive edge for co-op or internship placements and for career opportunities. When COVID-19 hit, Boivin, Mungre and Elliott realized that, more than ever, students would need to be competitive to gain opportunities at a time when businesses were shutting down, reducing staff size or changing their operations. To them, the answer was delivering competence.one — a solid portfolio-sharing prototype — by the end of the course.

The project involved developing an online service to assist students in creating competency-based digital portfolios to give them a competitive edge for co-op or internship placements and for career opportunities. When COVID-19 hit, Boivin, Mungre and Elliott realized that, more than ever, students would need to be competitive to gain opportunities at a time when businesses were shutting down, reducing staff size or changing their operations. To them, the answer was delivering competence.one — a solid portfolio-sharing prototype — by the end of the course.

three graduates from Ontario Tech University and Dr. Mahmoud photos

ETHAN ELLIOTT

CEO

ANIRUDH MUNGRE

CTO

MATTHEW BOIVIN

CIO

DR. QUSAY MAHMOUD

CAO

“Prior to March 2020, we developed the platform just for our school project. We mainly focused the development of the project on finding the best way to display a candidate’s information in a simple but visual format.” says Boivin, “As the news regarding COVID-19 got worse, it motivated us to develop a platform that could help individuals having a tough time finding work. We found that COVID was causing a job funnel due to mass layoffs and re-hirings, and this became a large motivator in hastening the development process.”
 
The Spark: What inspired you to create competence.one
Matthew Boivin, Anirudh Mungre, Ethan Elliott: As co-op students, we were all too familiar with the difficulties of creating a resume that stands out. We wanted to create a format that allows students to better display their highlights without making their application too long or cluttered. After interviewing employers, we found that many employers — as well as candidates — had grievances with the current format of the resume. This is when we knew we had potential for our product to join the mainstream market. 
 
The Spark: How has your day-to-day operations changed since launching competence.one?
MB, AM, EE: competence.one has become a major part of our day-to-day lives. We have weekly briefs to discuss the plans for each week of development and to brainstorm new features for the platform. As we continue to get closer to a finished product, development is taking extra priority.
 
The Spark: What have you learned about being an entrepreneur during the pandemic?
MB, AM, EE: Being an entrepreneur requires you to adapt to an ever-evolving environment. COVID-19 has forced us to rethink our original portfolio-sharing plan for competence.one and forced us to be more flexible by incorporating features to assist the employer. 

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With over 15 years of experience in content development, media and PR, Melissa Nowakowski drives Spark Centre’s communications, social media, and public relations strategies.

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