Cole's Blog

What is the most important thing that you learned in this class?

The most important thing that I learned from this class is the different laws and regulations that company human resource departments need to have a firm grasp of in order to make sure that they stay out of legal trouble when it comes to their hiring practices. This does not only apply to the hiring aspect of the business, this also applies to management and decisions that might be have to made outside of the hiring process. One example of this is making reasonable accommodations for someone who has a disability that is covered. This could range from having to adjusting their office setting to something that is out of the norm or provide a ramp for non wheelchair accessible points. This can bring unforeseen costs to your business, and it is nice to have insight on some of these points.

Another piece of legislation that really stood out to me was the Civil Rights act of 1964 that was led by Martin Luther King Jr and other members of the Civil Rights movement. This went on to be passed by the Johnson administration and prove to be a monumental piece of legislation that would make major change. This bill stated that companies could not discriminate based on race, color, sex, or religion. Especially after the tragic events that occurred in Minnesota with the police and George Floyd, this bill started something that this country needs to see. I would not be surprised to see, and I hope to see, some sort of new bill that passes as an extension of this to address this further outside of the workplace and inside of our institutions.

Step 3: Share the results of your test in a short paragraph (100-300 words) summarizing what the test results say about you on each of the five dimensions of personality.

The results of my test were that I am similar to a woman who is 60 years of age. In the extraversion category, I score the highest in excitement seeking. This was not surprising for me because I am always one who seeks new exciting opportunities. I disagree with most of my scores for agreeableness when it comes to cooperation and sympathy. I got low scores there and I do not believe that I lack in these categories as much as this test made it seem. As for the other categories, nothing was that surprising for me.

Step 4: Summarize (200-300 words) what a potential employer looking at these results might say are your strengths and weakness as a potential employee.

I think a potential employer would see both the positives and some negatives from my results based on this test. Before expanding my thoughts, I think it is important to remember that these tests do not determine who I am as a person and they are not always extremely accurate. Some of my weaknesses may include that I am can be quick to anger or anxiety if things are not going my way. I believe that these traits come out when I am placed into situations that are unfamiliar or difficult for me. These traits may also come out due to experiences that I dealt with during my childhood (I do not wish to expand on these at this time). As for my positive traits, I am always someone who is willing to try new things as long as they are thoughtfully brought about. Also, I am adventurous which may be good in the workplace when it comes to trying new ideas or taking risks that other coworkers may not want to try. Overall, I believe that this test was interesting for me to do because I had the opportunity to see what the results were and compare them to how I believe I am as a person.

1. If you were in the shoes of the business owner and had to choose which person would you hire (Avery or Jaime) and why?

There are a few more factors that I would need to know in order to make the most effective decision on this matter. Do I work for a large corporation or a small startup looking to take off? With this comes the size of my staff that would be along with the individual, how many resources do I have at my disposal, what are the types of projects, etc. Because I don’t know any of these factors, I am going to go with the safe pick and hire Jaime. Jamie is known for her consistency, and that is something that every business needs. However, if there was more content, this decision could be changed very easily.

1. Describe a type of job where it would be better to hire someone like Avery (i.e., high potential, poor consistency) than Jaime? What is it about that job that makes someone like Avery more valuable than Jaime?

Someone like Avery would be a great hire for an R&D department, or a department within the company that needs help or just that initial spark to get it going. The ceiling here is what you focus on if your in this situation rather than the consistency. If the team is already performing poorly, you need to take the risk on someone like Avery in order to stay alive. Given it is an essential position, it makes sense for the company to hire someone like this if they are in need of that spark or are in trouble.

1. Describe a type of job where it would be better to hire someone like Jaime (i.e., low potential, high consistency) than Avery? What is it about that job that makes someone like Jaime more valuable?

Someone like Jamie would be better hire than Avery for more essential, repetitional parts of the business like accounting, management, and things of that nature. You are going to get a consistent person when you hire Jamie, and that is exactly what companies are looking for when they are hiring for these positions when things are good. If a company is looking to grow, or is in trouble, consistency is something that you don’t really look for as much as ceiling and potential.

First, what is your brand? By this, I mean what is the first impression that you present to potential employers? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What makes you unique or different?

I believe that my brand is that I am intelligent and determined, but I also like everyone around me to know that I can lighten the mood with a joke or a witty comment. All of these things I would consider part of my strengths because I want people to know that I have the ability to learn and adapt to situations. I do not want people to think I am a know it all, but someone who is smart and not afraid to ask questions if I need to. I view humor as one that is actually super important because sometimes the impact of a good laugh can improve ones day, especially if things are going bad on a job site or even in their personal lives. Morale is a big part of work production, and having fun really can raise this. My weakness is that I can lose focus fast if I am not interested. I saw this in my first internship where they gave me a bunch of busy work instead of work that was for my job, and this killed my effort. What makes me unique is my drive for success. I want the best for my family and I want to take care of the people who took care of me growing up and there is a lot that I will do to climb the ladder and achieve this goal.

Second, how could this information be communicated to organizations through the means of a novel and creative situation wanted ad and how would you go about making your situation wanted ad visible to prospective organizations?

I would make my ad visible to organizations by actually going in and talking to the individual who is in charge of hiring. I would hand them over information that would tell them where they could find the ad, and I would also ask for their email to send them a physical link where they would not have to type it out or go through any inconvenience. I want to convey that this would be a similar experience to the one where they hired me, I would make their life easier and add tremendous value to the organization. In the ad, I would list my experience and qualifications and put my references in an easy to spot area so that the words of my former bosses, who I have all good repor with, would speak for me. I understand my limits and that I am young with not a lot of experience, but with having Bruce, who is the president of my current company on there, his record and him vouching for my level of work and ethic will mean much more than what I could say in an advertisement.

Think of the last job you had. How much did the job description influence your decision to apply for the position? How closely did your experience on the job match the job description? In what ways was it similar and in what ways was it different? If you have it available, please share a copy of the job description in your post.

The last job I had, like I have said in past posts, I got out of no where. I had no real intention of getting a job, but I was just asking about the general industry and what they do. I was offered and I took it because the pay was great and it was something that I was interesting in pursuing. As for the job description, I did influence me in the way that when I read it, it got me interested in the company and the industry as a whole. This use of job descriptions are extremely helpful when it comes to recruiting because if it had a major impact in me wanting to change my major, then for people who are already within the industry are likely to be drawn to it because of these.

As for the job description being accurate, I would say that it was close to being about half accurate. One of the things that I did not touch on was how much you would have to use your soft – skills, like problem solving and negotiation, which are two things that I used a lot over the summer. Problem solving is one that is assumed with any management position, which was what umbrella my internship was under, but negotiation was one that I was not ready for and had to adapt on the fly. Given these soft skills were about half of the job and they were not listed, the job description could use a little more work.

Some of the things that was super accurate was how I actually assisted with these aspects just like the description said. There are a lot of instances where someone in my position would be forced to do tasks that had nothing to do with the project at hand, but in my instance, I was able to dive right in and really learn about all of these different aspects of the industry.

Project Engineer: Assisting in controlling the time, cost, and quality of construction projects, from residential, commercial, and industrial buildings to roads, bridges, and schools. Assisting with planning and coordinating all aspects of the construction process, including hiring contractors and working with engineers, architects, and vendors.

Consider one of your favorite companies….

Would the outstanding claims of discrimination change the way you felt about the company? Would it influence your decisions to support that company? Would it change whether or not you applied to work for that company in the future? Why or why not?

Outstanding claims of discrimination would absolutely change my way I view one of my favorite companies. This is something that is so important that we as a society need to overcome, and still shocks me that it continues to happen even in this day and age. It would change my stance to the point where I would not support them as a corporation anymore. A prime example of this would be Walmart when it came out on their underpaying practices, I have not purchased from them since. This would also motivate me to never apply to work for them either. One of the first things you do in today’s world when applying for a job is look up the company on Google to see what their company culture is like. You look for average pay, benefits, and things like that as well, but culture is one of the main things that candidates look for. In today’s search, one of the first things that pops up is news stories. If a story like this broke, there is no way a majority of people looking to work at a certain place would go through, unless they needed the money or other circumstances that require the need of a job. There are some people who can get over or look the other way for a certain sum of money, I understand that, but that just isn’t me. If I would not work for them, there is no way that I would choose to support their business. Once again, I understand that if there is a low price point, people might look the other way, like in the instance of Walmart.

1. Describe your experiences from the perspective of an applicant for the last job you for which you applied.

The job that I applied for was one that was posted on an online source, but the company did not have a large social media presence. One of the main reasons for that is because of how small small the company is, they do not have a lot of extra resources to spend on developing an extravagant human resources department. We have one lady named Kim who does all of the traditional human resources work, new hire paperwork, benefits packages, paid time off, etc. and then we have Rick McMurray who was just appointed head safety director of the company. His role is to train all of the new hires for the field to make sure they are properly trained and certified in the certain roles that they have. From the perspective of the applicant for the job that I was hired for, it was a very quick onboarding process with very little training. I applied for the position in an informal way by bringing in my resume when I went to speak with the owner about the field and if I could pursue it with a business degree. I was offered a job after our meeting, but in other instances, applicants were approached at job fairs by our other project managers who would go to share their story, making it an easy way to connect to the company.

1. Explain how your experiences during the job application process shaped your impression of the job you were applying for and your desire to work there (or in some cases to not work there).

Well in my case, I did not really have to submit a formal application because I went in to meet with the intention of learning more about the industry, not to get a job. But that meeting served as an interview, as the owner later pivoted to more interview based questions for me to where I was prepared for. I was fortunate enough to be able to take a professional development class sophomore year where we practiced typical interview questions and I was able to take that and apply it to the situation I was in. He was impressed by how prepared I was for something that I did not even know was coming, which was one of the reasons I was offered a job. My desire to work at there grew after the “interview” because of the way they talked about their company culture and how everyone knew each other from top to bottom. You were not some small drop in the bucket, like I was as Resers the summer before, and people knowing you made them value your work even more. The culture and the benefits really made impressed by the company and was even more thankful for the opportunity to be able to work for them.

1. Why might organizations decide to allocate more resources toward marketing or product design rather than using those same resources to do a really good job in employee recruitment and selection?

Organizations may decide to allocate more resources to marketing or things like research development and product design because they see these things impacting consumer demand more. If you give more resources to marketing, more consumers will be informed about the value your product could provide to them. Changing the general design of the product could attract new consumers to your company and could give your existing base incentive to buy your product again because of the new features you might have added on. A lot of the time, older management teams look over things like recruitment and selection because they see that this is just a cost to the company that does not really help its profits. It is also one of the first things to be cut and last to be funded because of just that. There has been many studies and data that shows the exact opposite, that investing in your Human Resources department can lead to much better gains in the future and overall long term growth, more than just dumping money in places that would find temporary profits.

1. What are the potential strengths and weaknesses of an organization’s decision to not prioritize recruitment and selection in favor of a focus on other aspects of the business?

One of the weaknesses of not prioritizing recruitment and selection is that it could potentially put your company behind. Because of the ever changing world of technology with social media and other internet presences, companies, now more than ever, need to have good company cultures and extensive benefits. This is one of the things that almost everyone looks up to see if the company that they are looking to work for has, and not allocating resources to this could make a company miss out on a lot of great employees. One of the strengths of prioritizing this is that it attracts a lot more higher level of talented individuals to your company or organization that could make your company much more successful in the future with bigger projects and more active in day to day operations.