Tips From Tundra – Optimize Your Resume For ‘The New Normal’

The landscape of employment for job-seekers has changed dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic in Alberta. As of May 2020, the Alberta Government reports an unemployment rate of 15.5%. Combine that with experienced employees furloughed from various sectors, new graduates and those seeking a new career direction may have a steeper hill to climb than before. We continue to discover what is the new normal for Alberta post-pandemic, we revisit the topic of how to put your best foot forward when optimizing your resume for your job hunt.

Tundra Technical Solutions is a global recruitment agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Since 2004, Tundra has grown quickly, today operating offices across North America, Europe and Asia. They work with top global partners actively seeking the best talent in multiple sectors such as finance, insurance, healthcare, technology, retail, energy, utilities, construction, mining, telecommunications, transportation and government to name a few.

Ever considered utilizing the skills a recruitment agency may have to offer? It may be the right time considering the volume of applicants in the hundreds on certain job postings, as shown in the image below. We spoke with Christina Esposito, Marketing and Communications Lead and Internal Recruiter for Tundra Technical Solutions on ways to optimize your resume for recruiters in the new normal.

(Source: LinkedIn Job Search)

Should your resume be written chronologically or functionally?

The key difference here is whether or not your work experience should be written as a timeline of your previous positions or should it be laid out in the form of what experience you feel is best suited for the position you are applying for. From a recruiters perspective, Christina mentions:

“We like to see a reverse chronological order of previous work experience. We recommend placing all of your technical skills right at the top of your resume, and then go into your most recent experience.”

Should you tailor your resume for the specific job you are applying for?

Say you are actively applying to open positions, tailoring your resume can be a time consuming task if your objective is to apply to the first 10-20 open positions you find. To that point, applying to everything you see can be detrimental to your efforts when utilizing a recruiter. Keep in mind, there is a human processing your candidate profile, and their efforts are to find the best talent for their employers. Christina offers a recommendation that can mitigate time for both the job seeker and recruiter:

“ we absolutely want to see someone tailoring their resume that matches the job description. A good tip for someone who might not want to go through a whole overhaul, is to first make sure that the job you’re applying to is relevant to your experience, recruiters can see if you’re applying to the first jobs that pop up for example. It becomes clear they haven’t really looked into the position they’re applying for. So, a lot of care and detail should go into those applications if you want to have the greatest success. Ultimately you want to make sure that the job description lines up with your skills…”

What is the best resume format that can be read autonomously through recruitment software?

As mentioned above, some positions can receive hundreds of applications. If you haven’t been made aware by now, recruiters utilise software called an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or what is referred to as resume parsing, which allows the hundreds of resumes to be read and processed, thus creating a candidate profile highlighting the most relevant information to send to an employer. Say you spent endless hours on the most aesthetically pleasing resume to give that ‘wow’ factor, that may have been a solid practice in the past, but ATS systems have difficulty processing these resume formats, thus your candidate profiles could be lacking important information.

“I would recommend against a PDF format. The reason being is that Microsoft Word documents are the most legible and easiest to parse with. The way the ATS works is, someone sends in the application, the ATS picks those keywords from their resume and matches them to the actual job description. Inserting images or a lot of text can make it difficult for recruiters to look up your profile in the future.”

What should NOT be included on your resume?

Some of these you may already know, but let’s be clear, having a resume with only relevant information is your best chance of success. Working as a retail store manager I had received countless resumes from individuals seeking employment. During that time, I had encountered some of the most outrageous and creative resumes from all walks of life. By no means am I a recruitment specialist, but sticking to the basics was a winner for my new hires during that time. Christina offers the perspective of a recruiter for what not to put on your resume:

“Jumping right into things like objectives or hobbies is fine, but we would recommend against it because the longer you make your resume, you can decrease the chances of someone reading the full document. Best practice is to always keep your resume one to two pages with only relevant information. For industry veterans that have lengthy work history, you should only list the most recent and relevant experience.”

Should you include links to your social media?

Social media plays a significant role in the recruitment process for both agencies and hiring managers. LinkedIn has become a major part of what we call this ‘new normal’, with more than 20 million companies listed on the site and 14 million open jobs, it’s no surprise that over 75% of people who recently changed jobs used LinkedIn to inform their career decision. When it comes to social media, Christina offers her recommendations:

“90% of the time, recruiters are looking at your LinkedIn or Twitter. We want to make sure we get a holistic view of the applicant. 40% of our hires last year were candidates we sourced directly from LinkedIn. We have situations where we have candidates that look great on paper, but after we do some investigating. He/she doesn’t actually prove to be the person he/she was saying on paper. It’s a point of validation and puts a face to a name. My recommendation would be to keep your social media profiles clean, descriptive and showcase your accomplishments, especially if you have a public profile.”

This information should offer you some insight into how the employment landscape is changing and what best practices to implement for your job hunt. Who wouldn’t want to save time and effort on what can be an arduous task?

If you would like to learn more about Tundra Technical Solutions, speak to one of their experienced recruiters or to view their available positions in Alberta, check out their website here or message them on their Facebook below.

Facebook

Twitter

For more stories, visit Todayville Calgary

Scott McGinn

www.scottmcginn.ca

Follow Author

Looking for a Resilient Career for the Future? Keep an Eye Out for the Lighthouse

Calgary / 5 years ago

Forget the Horizon, Downtown Calgary is in Big Trouble Right Now

Business / 5 years ago

Immersive technologies are the future, so how do they benefit industry?

Business

Mark Carney Seeks to Replace Fiscal Watchdog with Loyal Lapdog

Published on November 13, 2025

Todayville

Dan Knight

After scathing warnings from interim budget officer Jason Jacques, Liberals move to silence dissent and install a compliant insider with “tact and discretion.”

It’s remarkable, isn’t it? After a decade of gaslighting Canadians about their so-called “fiscally responsible” governance, the Liberal Party, now under the direction of Mark Carney, finally runs into a problem they can’t spin: someone told the truth. Jason Jacques, the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, was appointed for six months, six months. And within weeks, he did something this government considers a fireable offense: he read the books, looked at the numbers, and spoke plainly. That’s it. His crime? Honesty.

Here’s what he found. First, the deficit. Remember when Trudeau said “the budget will balance itself”? That myth has now mutated into a projected $68.5 billion deficit for 2025–26, up from $51.7 billion the year before. Jacques didn’t just disagree with it. He called it “stupefying,” “shocking,” and, this is the one they hate the most, “unsustainable.” Because if there’s one thing Ottawa elites can’t handle, it’s accountability from someone who doesn’t need a job after this.

But Jacques didn’t stop there. He pointed out that this government has no fiscal anchor. None. Not even a fake one. A fiscal anchor is a target, like a deficit limit or a falling debt-to-GDP ratio—basic stuff for any country pretending to manage its money. Jacques said the Liberals have abandoned even that pretense. In his words, there’s no clear framework. Just blind spending. No roadmap. No compass. No brakes.

And speaking of GDP, here’s the kicker: the debt-to-GDP ratio, which Trudeau once swore would always go down, is now heading up. Jacques projects it rising from 41.7% in 2024–25 to over 43% by 2030–31. And what happens when debt rises and growth slows? You pay more just to service the interest. That’s exactly what Jacques warned. He said the cost of carrying the debt is eating into core government operations. That means fewer services. Higher taxes. Slower growth. The burden gets passed to your children while Mark Carney gives another speech in Zurich about “inclusive capitalism.”

And let’s talk about definitions. Jacques flagged that the Liberals are now muddying the waters on what counts as operating spending versus capital spending. Why does that matter? Because if you redefine the terms, you can claim to be balancing the “operating budget” while secretly racking up long-term debt. It’s accounting gimmickry, a shell game with your tax dollars.

He also pointed to unaccounted spending, about $20 billion a year in campaign promises that haven’t even been formally costed yet. Add that to their multi-decade defense commitments, green subsidies, and inflated federal payroll, and you’re looking at an avalanche of unmodeled liabilities.

And just to make this circus complete, Jacques even criticized the way his own office was filled. The Prime Minister can handpick an interim PBO with zero parliamentary input. No transparency. No debate. Just a quiet appointment, until the appointee grows a spine and tells the public what’s really going on.

Now the Liberals are racing to replace Jacques. Why? Because he said all of this publicly. Because he didn’t play ball. Because his office dared to function as it was intended: independently. They’re looking for someone with “tact and discretion.” That’s what the job listing says. Not independence. Not integrity. Tact. Discretion. In other words: someone who’ll sit down, shut up, and nod politely while Carney and Champagne burn through another $100 billion pretending it’s “investment.”

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about replacing a bureaucrat. It’s about neutering the last shred of fiscal oversight left in Ottawa. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is supposed to be a firewall between reckless political ambition and your wallet. But in Carney’s Canada, independence is an inconvenience. So now, instead of extending Jacques’ term, something that would preserve continuity and show respect for accountability, the Liberals are shopping for a compliant technocrat. Someone who won’t call a $68.5 billion deficit “stupefying.” Someone who’ll massage the numbers just enough to keep the illusion intact.

They don’t want an economist. They want a courtier. Someone with just enough credentials to fake credibility, and just enough cowardice to keep their mouth shut when the spending blows past every so-called “anchor” they once pretended to respect. That’s the game. Keep the optics clean. Keep the watchdog muzzled. And keep Canadians in the dark while this government drives the country off a fiscal cliff.

But let me say it plainly, thank god someone in this country still believes in accountability. Thank God Jason Jacques stepped into that office and had the guts to tell the truth, not just to Parliament, but to the Canadian people. And thank God Pierre Poilievre has the common sense, the spine, and the clarity to back him. While Mark Carney and his Laurentian elite pals are busy gutting oversight, rewriting the rules, and flooding the economy with borrowed billions, it’s men like Jacques who refuse to play along. He looked at the books and didn’t see “investment”—he saw a ticking fiscal time bomb. And instead of ducking, he sounded the alarm.

Poilievre, to his credit, is standing firmly behind the man. He understands that without a real watchdog, Parliament becomes a stage play, just actors and scripts, no substance. Backing Jacques isn’t just good politics. It’s basic sanity. It’s the minimum standard for anyone who still thinks this country should live within its means, tell the truth about its finances, and respect the people footing the bill.

So while the Liberals scramble to muzzle dissent and hire another smiling yes-man with a resume full of buzzwords and a Rolodex full of Davos invites, at least one opposition leader is saying: No. We need a watchdog, not a lapdog. And in a city full of spineless bureaucrats, that’s not just refreshing—it’s absolutely essential.

Subscribe to The Opposition with Dan Knight .

For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.

Business

Sluggish homebuilding will have far-reaching effects on Canada’s economy

Published on November 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jock Finlayson

At a time when Canadians are grappling with epic housing supply and affordability challenges, the data show that homebuilding continues to come up short in some parts of the country including in several metro regions where most newcomers to Canada settle.

In both the Greater Toronto area and Metro Vancouver, housing starts have languished below levels needed to close the supply gaps that have opened up since 2019. In fact, the last 12-18 months have seen many planned development projects in Ontario and British Columbia delayed or cancelled outright amid a glut of new unsold condominium units and a sharp drop in population growth stemming from shifts in federal immigration policy.

At the same time, residential real estate sales have also been sluggish in some parts of the country. A fall-off in real estate transactions tends to have a lagged negative effect on construction investment—declining home sales today translate into fewer housing starts in the future.

While Prime Minister Carney’s Liberal government has pledged to double the pace of homebuilding, the on-the-ground reality points to stagnant or dwindling housing starts in many communities, particularly in Ontario and B.C. In July, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) revised down its national forecast for housing starts over 2025/26, notwithstanding the intense political focus on boosting supply.

A slowdown in residential construction not only affects demand for services provided by homebuilders, it also has wider economic consequences owing to the size and reach of residential construction and the closely linked real estate sector. Overall, construction represents almost 8 per cent of Canada’s economy. If we exclude government-driven industries such as education, health care and social services, construction provides employment for more than one in 10 private-sector workers. Most of these jobs involve homebuilding, home renovation, and real estate sales and development.

As such, the economic consequences of declining housing starts are far-reaching and include reduced demand for goods and services produced by suppliers to the homebuilding industry, lower tax revenues for all levels of government, and slower economic growth. The weakness in residential investment has been a key factor pushing the Canadian economy close to recession in 2025.

Moreover, according to Statistics Canada, the value of GDP (in current dollars) directly attributable to housing reached $238 billion last year, up slightly from 2023 but less than in 2021 and 2022. Among the provinces, Ontario and B.C. have seen significant declines in residential construction GDP since 2022. This pattern is likely to persist into 2026.

Statistics Canada also estimates housing-related activity supported some 1.2 million jobs in 2024. This figure captures both the direct and indirect employment effects of residential construction and housing-related real estate activity. Approximately three-fifths of jobs tied to housing are “direct,” with the rest found in sectors—such as architecture, engineering, hardware and furniture stores, and lumber manufacturing—which supply the construction business or are otherwise affected by activity in the residential building and real estate industries.

Spending on homebuilding, home renovation and residential real estate transactions (added together) represents a substantial slice of Canada’s $3.3 trillion economy. This important sector sustains more than one million jobs, a figure that partly reflects the relatively labour-intensive nature of construction and some of the other industries related to homebuilding. Clearly, Canada’s economy will struggle to rebound from the doldrums of 2025 without a meaningful turnaround in homebuilding.