Jake's Blog

I believe that the most important thing I learned through this course that will be important in my future is how important overall the recruitment and selection process is for companies and how much time and money they put into trying to find the best possible employees that they can. It has made me realize how important it is to take potential jobs seriously and how prepared you have to be if this job is something that you really are passionate about. I’ve had several job interviews in the past that I’ve gone into not really caring about and in the end really just wasting the companies time. It may not have been something that had a potential to build a career out of but I never looked back and thought about how seriously some of the people there may have been about their hiring process and possibly how much time they actually put into getting things prepared and really being interested in what all the potential candidates had to offer. Even if I wasn’t that interested in these jobs if I could go back and take the process more seriously I most definitely would.

I believe that this has also really prepared me for my future in the sense that I really know what it should look like to be prepared for a job interview any research I want to do before hand. One of the thing that still shocked me more then almost anything else in this course was the amount of money that companies spend just trying to find the right employees that would be qualified and a overall good fit for their company culture. A lot of what I have learned may not have come directly from our class work but also from doing some outside researching and juts having an overall better understanding of how the recruitment and selection process works and what it all entails. Overall I can definitely say that I have benefited from this course and will be using a lot of the things I have learned in my future.

I think the most prominent thing that I would say I am good at is staying true to myself and my word. It took me a while to really think about this question and what I believe I excel in the most but staying true and honest I believe is a very good trait for all people to have and that all employers love to see. I wouldn’t say this is something that I have always been good at but over time from growing up and learning a lot more things in life I have really started to work on this and it has now become something that I am proud to say that I have become good at. I think ti also goes both ways in the sense that since I am true to myself I also value seeing this characteristic in other people. I also value those who hold their most important relationships close but also hold these people accountable for anything that they do. In my recent job I have grown close with a could of my coworkers and I’d honestly say we’re becoming friends and I think it is my job to hold them accountable for anything that they may be doing that isn’t honest or just overall right.

Getting to the point that I am at now definitely was not easy. It definitely took a lot of dedication and effort to change my old habits that may have been more on the toxic side. Going through college has definitely helped me get to where I am now and especially beginning to work full time while still being a student full time helped as well because it greatly improved my time management skills and overall made me a more responsible person. I’m hoping I can continue going in this direction and continue to grow as an individual. Although I am mostly content with where I am in life right now I know that I still have room to grow and hope that I continue to do so.

For extraversion, I was described as being mostly extraverted but not super out going or almost looking for people to talk to and spend time with. For agreeableness I was described as having some concerns for others needs but generally not very willing to help others. For conscientiousness, I was described as reliable, self controlled and organized. For neuroticism, I was described as being fairly typical for the general population but stressful situations tend to get to me more then others. For openness to experiences, I was described as being practical and preferring things in more simpler terms. Overall I am fairly surprised by my results but a lot of the descriptions I got do make sense in certain situations.

I think my higher score in self-efficacy is one thing that employers would look at as a very positive aspect. Being confident in your abilities is something that I believe to be very important and something that employers like to see. I think employers would also see my eagerness as a positive because I’m always really for new challenges and I am not afraid to take something on that I might know is going to be difficult for me. Being very friendly is another positive trait that would look good to employers as well as being modest because friendliness is something everyone likes but also being modest means although friendly you’re not arrogant or overly friendly to the point hat it could make coworkers uncomfortable. I think a lot o the things described on this test also depend on the types of jobs you’re applying for. Some jobs may prefer you to be more straight edged and set in your ways while others encourage individualism and creativity to an extent that other businesses would never go. I think overall companies would see my strengths as my ability to work hard an stay focused on the tasks at hand as well as the competitive edge I also display. I think my main weakness would be that I had a higher anger level then most and also can get stressed out very easily. Although these tests do tell a lot about you I think it is important for employers to judge these characteristics first hand through more traditional types of interviews.

Being a business owner I think that this can be a fairly difficult but for me personally I see it as a very easy choice. Avery obviously has the potential to be a great employee but lacks the motivation needed to be the very best that they can. When choosing between these two employees I think it would be best to choose Avery because although they lack motivation and can be lazy I believe that with the proper training, incentives, and challenges that Avery could reach their full potential and be a much more effective employee compared to Jamie who would still have a lot to learn.

I believe a j0b that would be better for Avery is something that involves much less risk. With someone that has poor consistency you can never depend on them when you need those consistent results. I think an ideal job for someone like Avery would be something at a higher level that requires a certain intelligence but is also simple enough that it is unlikely to make very mistakes.

As for Jaime, having low potential is going to mean they likely won’t be advancing much in their field so a position that that can be steadily maintained and never put someone under an immense amount of pressure would be ideal. While Jaime’s results are consistent you cant expect them to perform as well as someone like Avery so you still would not want to put them in a position that involves high risk because when the time comes for them to have to perform at a level higher then they are us to it is unlikely that they will be able to do so.

As a potential employee I believe that what really makes my brand is my determination and willingness to give my all in every aspect of the job. I’ve been complemented in several jobs for my strong work ethic and it is definitely something that I take pride in. Along with my work ethic I think another aspect of my brand is my ability to take on new challenges well and also retain new information very well. In my current job I was told that it would take me 6 months to reach a certain point of my training and it’s not even three yet and I have already past what they didn’t expect from me until 6 months.

I believe the most important part in presenting yourself in a wanted ad is to make sure you’ve put an emphasis on your strengths. Whether this ad be comical or completely serious you want to make sure that you are getting your point across that you are capable of this position and if it applies also well qualified. Going along with that as discussed in the video lecture the presentation of your ad is also very important as you want something that is going to catch peoples eyes and be very appealing. I think the way that I would go about this would be to start of by using some type of short slogan that puts an emphasis on my strongest characteristics and find an image that could match up with the slogan that I found. Being the type of person that I am I would likely incorporate some kind comical effect into this to help draw more attention into it. Lastly I think I would try to use some, but not too many, brighter colors so that this add stands more then others and will be noticed anytime sometime comes near it.

Unfortunately I do not have a copy of the job description available mostly for the reason that the job I currently have was more casual since I already worked for the company and I was simply applying for another position within my current company. I was given a job description to read and I knew for the most part what I was getting into so I didn’t think to keep a copy of it or anything and I don’t believe it was posted online. After reading the job description it did actually include some information I was not expecting but this only got me more excited for the position. I had some experience that aligned with what the position was asking for but this was also a few steps above where I currently was so there was also things that didn’t entirely match up with my current experience. I expect this to be common for a lot of jobs especially when they are more entry level position and not something higher up that does take a lot of experience to be qualified for. It was similar in the way that a lot of the more simple things it required matched up with a lot of the daily tasks that I was completing in my previous position. It differed in the way that although some tasks were similar they were much more specific and detail oriented which is not as similar as to what I was doing in my previous position. It ended up being that my employer believed I would be a good fit and I got offered the position shortly after my interview.

If a company was even in a lawsuit in the first place due to discrimination it would begin making me question those who are higher up in the company and making any of these hiring or promoting decisions. In a general sense I think it is fairly easy to avoid discrimination but there are some people who believe strongly in what they believe in and will likely never change their ways until it’s too late. A lot of these major lawsuits over discrimination are very serious issues and show the true colors of the employees that are making decisions within a company. In terms of supporting the company, I wouldn’t make a final decision on whether or not I want to support them until I either see obvious signs that they were discriminating in the workplace or if they lost the lawsuit. I think it would also give someone an interesting perspective to speak with employees from the company who were not involved in the lawsuit t all but what their take on the whole situation was. I’m sure there would be some that were clueless but likely others that could see it on a daily basis. Lastly, if I had already made the decision to not support a company then it is also very likely that I would never apply to that company no matter how good of a situation it would put me in. I believe all people should have certain moral standards and supporting companies that have gotten in trouble for serious discrimination in the work place shouldn’t be something they want to do.

One organization might choose to allocate more resources towards market or product design rather than using those same resources in employee recruitment and selection because they believe that they may already have a good employee recruitment system or believe that it is satisfactory enough for them to get by and still profit as a company as a whole. Another reason could be that although they may understand that their employee recruitment isn’t the best they think their company would be better off focusing on another standpoint that could help make their company more successful. I think one of the most obvious weaknesses in not prioritizing employee recruitment would be that you could be hiring employees that are not trustworthy and could end costing you thousands or even more by the time you correct any mistakes that a faulty employee has made. One strength of focusing attention on something outside of employee recruitment could be that a company has already spent a large amount of money focusing on employees and have decided to put more attention towards another aspect of the company. Once you have a solid base of employees to the extent that they also understand how to hire the correct type of employees then I believe it is only right to move funds out of employee recruitment and begin focusing on other aspects of the business.

In this first blog post I will be talking about my own personal experiences from the last job I applied for. The last job I applied for is the company that I currently work for and I couldn’t be happier where I am. Although I am happy now, this is not where I would’ve expected to be at this point as my first impression with this company wasn’t fantastic. I currently work as a Project Administrator for a General Contractor. I’ve always wanted to end up in construction but when first meeting with this company I wasn’t sure it was going to be a good fit for me. From the initial interview I didn’t get the impression that this company cared much for their employees as they were asking me very few questions about myself and really only focusing on what I knew. From my understanding it is always good to know or at least understand someone you’re interviewing on more of a personal level so you can understand the type of individual that they are. Blindly hiring someone solely based on how qualified they are for a position is never promising.  Back to the point of this post though, I came out of this interview with a job offer but genuinely had no intention of accepting the position as I got the feeling this company didn’t truly care about their employees and that I would end up doing mindless busy work that would never get me to my end goal in the time that I had hoped.

Man was I wrong.

I’ve been with this company for 6 months now and can’t imagine there is anywhere else I’d rather be working.