Resumes and Recruiting with Stephanie Ade

Stephanie Ade, BCom/13, has looked at tens of thousands of resumes. Working in recruitment for four years, she has seen it all—from blank resumes that say “call me” to high school students applying for positions.

After graduating from Sprott, Stephanie moved to Toronto, where she worked as a recruiter for a marketing agency. Her next role as a recruiter at a third party recruitment agency allowed her to learn about front-end technology and take courses in eLearning. She returned to Ottawa in 2016 to work as a recruiter for a software company before beginning at Fullscript a year later.

Since working at FullScript, an Ottawa-based startup that is revolutionizing supplement dispensary, Stephanie has transitioned out of recruiting. She helped double the number of employees before moving into a role in facilities and employee engagement. This year Stephanie and her HR team at Fullscript won the 2018 Best of Business HR award presented by the Ottawa Business Journal.

“I love that it’s different every single day,” Stephanie said about her job. “Hour to hour can be really different. There are different sides to it. I find half my time is being spent on managing facilities, down to figuring out what kind of garbage cans to buy that match our brand. Then on the flip side I run the engagement committee that we call the wellness committee here.”

The two sides of her job often intersect, like when a new floor was being opened at FullScript. Stephanie had to figure out how to make the space the best for the people who work there. Part of her job involves figuring out how to encourage employees to want to work the hardest. Breakfast is supplied every day for the staff and Stephanie plans events to encourage employee engagement. It was Stephanie’s interest in event planning in high school that led her to pursue a business degree in the first place.

During Stephanie’s second year at university, she had felt disconnected to the other Sprott students because she was living off campus. She joined Sprott Business Students’ Society (SBSS) as the events planner, where she organized the banquet and the gala. From there she became involved in JDCC and case competitions, worked as a teaching assistant and became president of the SBSS.

“Get out there. Don’t be involved because you think it’s going to look great on a resume. Be involved because it’s something that you’re passionate about and you want to learn and meet new people,” Stephanie advised.

Stephanie was able to take the theoretical class material and put it into practice in her leadership roles at Sprott. Being able to combine the theoretical and the practical while she was still in university set her up for success when she entered the workforce.

She recently came back to talk at Sprott’s LinkedIn Day, where she shared tips about how students can use LinkedIn to best communicate with recruiters. She imparted how important it is to make yourself memorable and make the connection meaningful when reaching out to recruiters or other professionals on LinkedIn.

As a former recruiter, she has a lot of advice for job searchers: use and build your networks everywhere you go, manage your own brand, keep your online profiles updated and personal profiles private, travelling does not look bad on a resume, make sure your resume reflects the position, do not fluff your resume because recruiters can see through it and be consistent on your resume and your LinkedIn profile.