Jacob Boren

• What am I good at?
  • One thing I believe I do very well at is being organized in all aspects of my life. Whether it is school, work, or personal, I always am on top of knowing what it is coming up. Also, my ability to not only set goals, but to reach them is something I succeed at. It’s important to always have something to strive for and I make that a priority at all times.
• What do I value?
  • Something I value out of myself and others is being honest. I always am honest with any situation, whether it means I made a mistake or not. Having a strong work ethic is something I value over anything else. No matter what I’m doing, I want to do it the best to my ability and won’t stop until the task is complete.
• How did I get here?
  • I knew if I was going to be successful in the business world, a bachelor’s degree was going to help me. After high school, Linfield College seemed to be the place for me. Freshman year there wasn’t enjoyable, so my path veered over to Oregon State University. I liked the management aspect of business and felt that a business management degree would be ideal. All the goals I have made for myself have taken me down this path of a degree at OSU.
• Where am I going?
  • My next goal I want to reach is starting a career in the winery or brewery industry. After getting years of experience in this field, I want to own my own winery. There are many things for me to learn before I get here, but hard work and goal setting will help me along the way.

My scores were pretty much what I thought they would be, but it’s interesting seeing it laid out in all the categories. In “Extraversion,” I scored pretty low across the board with my highest score being a 56 in friendliness. This shows that I am introverted for the most part and prefer to socialize with close friends. I had an exceedingly high score in “Agreeableness,” showing my strong interest in others and how they are doing. Also, my score of 79 under “Conscientiousness” was remarkably high and this is heavily a part of my goal setting abilities and ability to pursue them.  I was pretty average across the board with “Neuroticism,” meaning I don’t react out of the ordinary with emotional problems. “Openness to Experience,” was by far my lowest scoring area, indicating a plain and simple lifestyle.

If a potential employer were to look at these results, I think they would find many reasons for strengths and weaknesses. One of the main strengths that sticks out to me is the high scoring under “Conscientiousness.” This shows an employer my ability to not only set goals but have the power to make them happen. Having a high score in “Agreeableness,” shows them that I have personable qualities about me that are great for the workplace and creating partnerships with other customers. I think one of my main downfalls is my low score in the “Openness to Experience” category. This shows a lack of creativity and the unwillingness to take risks. A major key to improving a business is to be creative and be able to take risks when necessary. There are many different ways each of these scores can be interpreted by potential employers. What may seem like a weakness in my mind could potentially be a positive in someone else’s.

This is a tough decision, but in my opinion, I would rather have Jaime working for me than Avery. Consistency is key to me in any type of situation, whether its at work or in sports. I don’t have a lot of respect for people that have a high level of skills and knowledge then just let them go to waste with slacking off. Having someone like Jaime might not always outperform everyone, but you can expect the same output each time. Avery is unreliable and lazy, which has no interest to me.

A great job for someone like Avery would be something in sales that is commissions based. This would make their earnings highly based on their effort. With having the skills, they have then they should be able to be successful when performing their best. Anytime they slack off it would make a big difference in the earnings they get each month. With someone like Avery, it is hard to motivate them in a typical job that has the same work over and over. But being commissions based, it always incentivizes them to be at their peak performance. In someone like Jaime’s case, a job such as an auditor would be great. This is a stable job that continues along the same path the entire time. There can be some busy times in ta season, but for the most part it is consistent. Someone like Jaime would thrive in this environment, with being able to have the same output every day.

Figuring out what your brand is easier coming from other people but takes some deeper thinking when doing it ourselves. I would say my overall first impression is somebody that is personable, but not super outgoing. Over the course of a conversation I start introverted and eventually come out of my shell. I’m an incredibly hard worker that will take whatever is needed to get a task done. Also, I work well with others and look forward to collaborating on projects with a team. One downside is that I tend to procrastinate with somethings. I get it done on time but cause more stress for myself by waiting for the last minute. I’m unique in the sense that I have held many different types of jobs to give me a variety of work experience. I have worked at jobs where I work up to 19-hour days and drive delivery truck, but currently hold a supervisor position through the university.

Coming up with a creative ad for a company would be very interesting but could bring a lot of benefits. With wanting to potentially have a career in the sports industry, I would want to showcase that knowledge. Playing sports all throughout high school and having overall knowledge from a lifelong love for sports would be important to show. Showing my appreciation that past coaches have for me with something such as the assistant baseball coaching job I was offered at my high school would be something else to add. I would want to show my hard work ethic off in the add as well, because that translates into any job. With social media and technology nowadays, there are many channels to get an add like this out. A sight such as LinkedIn would be a perfect starting point to post this. Posting to social media pages and tagging companies/employees to the add would also be a technique to use. If I had the contact information to any people in the industry, a simple email with the ad would work as well. There are many great sources to be able to showcase your passion and skills.

Looking back on the last job I had, the job description had little to no reason why I applied for the position. It was not that the job description was done poorly, but I had other sources that convinced me to apply for the job. The description was actually well made and gave a great insight to the position. After working in this job for the past 8 months, I believe the job description was perfectly accurate to what I have been doing. There are always going to be small details added on to most job once you start them, but that has happened minimally in my experience. The main duties were exactly how the description had said they would be. A main difference in the job description and what has actually happened is the guarantee of hours. Due to budget issues we had to cut back on shift opportunities which then cut into our available hours to work. At first, this was a big deal to my co-workers and I because we knew it could make an impact on our paychecks. In the end we worked out a viable solution to keep our hours up, but it could’ve ended up poorly for us. With the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a drastic change to our working capabilities for obvious reasons. These precautions were not in the job description and that’s to be expected. My bosses have done a great job with going over our new ways of operating and performing new tasks. Just goes to show that a great job description is needed, but a solid boss can go a long ways.

Anytime an article with these types of issues come out it’s going to make you think twice about using that company’s product or service. If this happened with a business that I used I would definitely reconsider how I feel about them. When I’m making a purchase, I want to know that whoever I’m buying from is being ethical and fair in all aspects of their operations. I would most likely try to find another company to use in order to fulfill the same needs. It’s one thing to buy from a company that has these discrimination problems, but it’s an even bigger issue thinking about working there. I would not even think of applying to a company like this knowing of how they’ve been treating their employees. It is hard to make any final decisions on any of these questions with little context to the actual situation. A lot of my opinion about this company would be based on how they react to the situation. If I felt like they make several moves in order to mitigate this problem for the future, then it helps their look in my eyes. This could be firings of certain executives, details about trainings, and other things in order to help discrimination go away in their workplace. Actions like this make it much easier to regain trust in that company moving forward. If this company decides to do nothing and make excuses about the discrimination, then it’s easy to cut ties with them. I wouldn’t want to purchase from them nor would I ever consider applying to work with them.

A lot of companies want to see revenue increases and other positive outcomes as quick as possible. If you put resources into marketing and product design, you will most likely see profits increase fairly quickly. But if you were to allocate those same resources to find the best employee that could be even more beneficial for the company in the long run. Of course, quick fixes seem like the best idea in most moments. Bosses, shareholders, etc., all love to see those positives happen as soon as possible. A hard-working, great fit of an employee could ultimately mean much more increases to these “quick fixes” than companies realize.

There are many pros and cons for not prioritizing recruitment and selection over other sectors of a business. One strength is that your resources would be going towards aspects that directly affect revenue. If you push money towards development and marketing, you’re going to see sales rise in your business most likely. A con to this idea is that you could be hiring employees that are bringing your company down in many areas. It won’t be easy to see all the time, but somebody who isn’t the right fit can be costing you money and effort for a long period of time. Another con is that you can be missing out on great potential employees by not putting resources into the application process. Maybe the job posting is weak or the posting is not advertised well, these can both be detrimental to finding the perfect fit for a company.

Applying for any job is always a little nerve-racking whether it’s for CEO or just a summer job in college. Luckily for me, the last job I applied for was just another position at a company I was already employed with. The job was a supervisor position rather than the lower-level employee position I already had. I knew I was a solid employee that was capable of the job. But I didn’t feel as if I stood out enough during the time I was already there. I knew it was going to be important in my interview to show my skills that were maybe not shown as much during my time already spent with the company.

At first, I didn’t really consider applying for the position until one of my supervisors brought it up to me. It felt good to have an upper employee see potential in me for the position they currently held. I wanted to learn more about what went on behind the scenes of the supervisor position before I committed fully to applying. Everyone was very helpful and gave great insight which persuaded me to apply. All three bosses present for the interview were very inviting and explained they were excited I applied. It was a very welcoming atmosphere that made me want the job even more. I felt wanted and positive throughout the entire process from applying, interviewing, and receiving the call about the decision. It was obvious to me that the more time I spent with my bosses and co-workers in this process, the more I wanted to be a part of the supervisor team.