Author: 林泽

The most thing important thing I learned from this class is in which way I’d be assessed as a job-seeker in the short future. Be aware of what kind of qualities would be taken into consideration, or what kind of evaluation index would be applied on general recruiting procedure is more than helpful in the term of better preparing myself.
I must confess that before this class, I thought hiring is much less complicated and mainly about assessing the profiles of candidates. A bachelor degree in related subject? Check; 3-year working experiences in the specified industry? Check. Then off you go. Yet during last 10 weeks of studying recruitment and selection, I gradually found that choosing which candidate is a much more complex decision to make that could be affected by various factors. I surprisingly found there are companies that are actually taking personality tests, which I once thought people could easily lie about, rather seriously. In fact, when I spend time in taking those tests by myself, I found those professionally-designed and subtly-organized questionnaires could actually demonstrates a person’s true character in a way that no degree certificate could.
Of course the educational background and working experience is essential, however, they are not the end of the game. Even the format of your resume could be a game changer. I especially feel enlightened by the part of why job-seekers should take job descriptions more carefully and adjust the resume accordingly before you apply for the position in week 8 job interview section. In the past I saw job descriptions as something consisted by a few basic requirements and a lot of cliches( such as being a good team-player, results-driven and capabilities in problem-resolving, ect.) that could also fit for other 100 different jobs. In the group project of developing our own recruitment system (in hiring project managers), while we try to organize the job description of our own, I found those summative requirements are actually rather specific. If a company requires candidates to have a good leadership , then there is a good chance that they do want to hire a competent leader. It is crucial that you prove yourself do have such characters in the resume in order to get the chance of interview.
Anyway, despite how very unlikely of me becoming a human resource specialist，I still need to engage myself into hiring and recruitment process as a job-seeker from time to time. There are many beneficial information I gained from this class that I would apply in the practice very shortly. Thanks for everything.

What am I good at?
I think my capability in speak multiple languages could be my biggest asset. Besides, I am a quick learner who is capable of comprehending the nature of problems in a short time and responding quickly even in a strange environment. I love challenges and tend to seek excitements during adventures.
What do I value?
I am a true believer of internationalism specially under the rise in anti-globalization during recent years. Intercultural communication is definitely one of the subjects that my enthusiasm and strength lies. I held the cultural diversity in the highest regard as learning foreign cultures are such fascinating and mind-opening experiences to me. I also believe that we should try harder in prevent endangered culture from extinction.
How did I get here?
I think as far as I currently get is mostly because of the support form my family. Despite that I would like to take all the credits and claim that I did it all by my own, as once been argued, education(especially education in overseas) is no doubt a economic proposition. I am blessed with any advantages and the biggest one is the full support from my family without reservation.
Where am I going?
Frankly speaking I am still in the stage of exploring possibilities of my life. I hope that the new college degree I am about to receive will open new doors for me, but I honestly have no clue how to make the most of it in this crazy world. On one hand, I wish to pursue a meaningful career that serves a bigger cause and contributes to people’s well-being. I was planning to spent a year on volunteering in Africa or internships in NGO after graduation, yet unfortunately the current pandemic makes it become impossible. On the other hand, the sad reality is in the next few years, I maybe too busy with earning my own livings to purse the meaning of my life.

After finishing all 300 questions, I received a thorough analysis under the 5 following personality categories: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience. Each category is consisted of 6 specified subdomains used to asses one’s certain personality in different perspectives. In my case, scores for subdomains under the same category can be rather different. For example, I was scored 95 in sympathy and 47 in modesty, which cancel each other out and make my agreeableness falls into ‘average’。By taking multiple factors into consideration, I believe it can provide a much more comprehensive profile of one’ characters.
The results are overall disturbingly accurate, especially the fact that I was rated ‘high’ in neuroticism. It reflects my current mental state of high anxiety (scored 81) and extremely high self-consciousness (scored 91), which I could not notice myself or maybe even refuse to recognize. To look on the bright side, I was also rated ‘high’ in conscientiousness and openness to experience, receiving high scores (higher than 90) in following factors: Dutifulness (90), Achievement-Striving (92), Artistic Interests (90) and Adventurousness (95). It shows that I am a creative and result-delivering individual who is always welcoming challenges.

Looking into this report through recruiters/employers’ eyes, the candidate with high neuroticism figures may be considered as a bad team player with vulnerable mindset and lack the sense of gregariousness. On the other hand, some good qualities, such as responsibility, efficiency, creativeness and assertiveness, can also be observed. Candidates with such characters can become a quick learner and a hard worker once he/she set foot in workplaces. In general, the advantage and the disadvantage are both very clear: employers may be impressed by the high conscientiousness and openness, but also may get worried by the low cheerfulness and high anxiety. In the end, it depends on the applicability between the candidate and the specific position. After all, I believe the most essential work of recruiting is to put the right person in the right position. For example, high figure in openness to experience may appeal to certain industries like cultural organizations and innovation companies that consistently encourage their employees to break the rules and think outside of the box, while other traditional companies may take it as a shortcoming. Subdomains such as imagination and emotionality might strike them as instability and unrealistic. However, given the fact that I am a new graduate with very few working experiences, most companies may tend to value my capabilities to adjust and mental stability rather than other qualities.

The recruitment choice depends on what kind of role we need in the team. In most cases, we usually need abundant team builders. To play the role well, they need to complete the work that assigned to them in time, carry out the function of their own parts, and have a smooth communication with other colleagues, making the work carried out as planned. In these circumstances, Jaime would be the appropriate candidate for the job. Consistency of good results can’t be more important in work progress, which is the main responsibility for team builders in the overall work. Generally speaking, most of the teamwork members are team builders. And applicants like Jaime would be popular at workplace.

  And there is also a role in the team as a creator, whom contributes to exploring new ideas and solving some emergent problems. This kind of work requires the key point that the explosive power in face of occasional difficult problems and the ability to break the bottlenecks. For this team role, consistency of diligent work is not that important, as the team builders has already undertaken this part of work. The number of creators in a team can be quite small, depending on the industry it works in. Creative industries such as designing, advertising and so on, may need more creators in a team, while the reliable team builders are still indispensable. And in most regular industries, one or two employees like Avery are quite enough for a team. They can make values in their high potential abilities.

As a junior employee with less experience in the workplace, I would like to build my brand on a good education background, various student activity experiences, initiative learning ability and good communication skills and teamwork spirit. In my point of view, education background is more than just an academic certificate. Qualified employees have basic knowledge and application ability in their major field. And student activity experience shows my interest points and characters, according to the specific activities I engaged in and the team role I usually played. Learning ability and communication skills are soft power that cannot be displayed directly on resume, which I may seek for friends’ assessment and other forms.
Nowadays, the internet is quite a good source for us to display ourselves. I may establish a personal website, put all my works on it, and also share my SNS accounts link there. For potential employers, it’s a very convenient way to get to know a person. You can get approach to all my well-prepared works, which displays my education background, abilities and interest points. And also, from the SNS accounts, you can find the all-around characters of mine. It helps recruiters to determine whether I am the proper applicants, and also helps myself to establish connect and friendship with recruitment managers. With an established personal website and open SNS accounts, the last step I need to do is selecting my target organizations and post my website. It’s also very important to keep updating and maintain good interactions with website visitors.

For the last several months, I have been a student training assistant in McNary. As for me applying for this job, the description plays quite a significant role. Before starting a lot of job searching, I first determined my preference for the working location and work types, thinking about my abilities and what I want to get in this job. And then I searched and selected available jobs that match my preference most, mainly relying on the job descriptions posted online. The detailed position information helps applicants to determine whether they are suitable for the job, and it also gives a positive image that the employer takes this recruitment serious and is quite responsible. The position description for McNary student training assistant is detailed and clarifies many things clear, including the job duties and the percentage of your working hours for each duty. It also gives information about the job qualification required, the working conditions, the ordinary wages and the payment for overtime working. It gives me a clear picture of what is going to happen, which helps applicants to get prepared for a new job. And as for my actual working experience there, the working content mostly matches the position information. Perhaps jobs with detailed information is less likely to differ much from its description.

Besides, job description can also give information about corporate culture and moral values. I still remember the job details for student training assistant in McNary, which includes a respect for different religious beliefs and responsibility for food safety and allergens management. This information gives me quite a good impression about the organization and it also matches my personal value very well, which just strengthened my desire to work there.

As a senior year international student, I applied for a job as a McNary student training assistant last September. In preparing this application, I checked the position details posted online, making sure that I satisfied all the minimum qualifications. Position duties and working conditions were also my focuses during browsing information about the job.

In reading the detailed position duties, it gave me an impression that is full of concern for humanity, respect for different religious beliefs and responsibility for food safety and allergens management. All of these are also views I always agreed with, which simply deepened my desire to work there.

In preparing my application materials, there were two points that attracted me to work there. First, the detailed qualification requirement established a sense of security and responsibility for me, especially for the student identity requirement and some positions’ requirement of background check. Second, as a job not that much skilled, it provided me a good chance to promote my communication skills, in responding to various customers’ demands and answering different questions. Besides, it was also a good chance for me to get to know more about eating habits in U.S., such as the most popular food, the common allergens, and also the operational solution to prevent allergens crossover.

During the interview, I learned that the working hours is flex and the final week is not compulsory, which allowed to spend more time on preparation for final exams and term papers. Taking all these factors into account, this position seem to be perfect for me as a student on campus.

 The Case for Recruitment & Selection

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?

As what is posted in mini-lectures, organizations seek for key competitive resources, in order to conduct a positive development. For defenders valuing on recruitment & selection, human resources is one of the most crucial and inimitable factor in organizations’ success. However, other significant factors such as marketing or product design, cannot be neglected, especially for technology-driven organizations and for those focus on customer experience.

First, product design and marketing are direct drivers in profit making. While recruitment & selection contribute backstage, whose influence reveals in a comparatively longer period, product design and marketing face customers directly, and impact revenues and profitability at first hand. In order to get health cash flow and adequate investment fund at present, it is a rational choice for organizations to incline resources toward marketing and product design.

Second, as the development of artificial intelligence, repetitive jobs are being replaced by computer programs. The new task for recruitment & selection is to find the appropriate persons for those irreplaceable creativity-required jobs. In this case, the recruitment will be more refined and the number of applicants will be much smaller than before. Correspondingly, organizations are less likely to make mistakes and cause economic losses in hiring. However, product design and marketing rely heavily on creativity and innovating capacity of human beings, which naturally takes a large part of the overall resources.

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?

• The strengths of organizations not prioritizing recruitment & selection in favor of a focus on other aspects of business.

Business priorities lead to different development patterns for organizations. Depending on the specific industry, emphases on marketing and branding may develop consumers’ brand attachment to organizations and enlarge the market share. Internet companies devote a considerable portion of efforts to improve technology and user experience. Supply chain and commercial channels are also crucial for electronic commercial companies.

Thus, different priorities allow organizations to develop their own comparative advantages. High quality recruitment & selection is an overall guarantee for the whole operation, while business decisions and priorities are the breakthrough points for the organizations among market competitions.

• The weakness of organizations not prioritizing recruitment & selection.

As talked in the mini-lecture, there are several disadvantages in not prioritizing recruitment & selection.

First, it will be a huge and expensive cost to correct wrong hiring. Besides the sunk costs in the first unsuccessful recruitment, there are still considerable labor cost and economic cost in re-recruitment for the second time. Not to mention the negative consequences brought by unqualified employees, including the poorly completed works leading to business loss, the time and opportunity cost in correcting those mistakes, and negative attitude toward work spread among colleagues.

Second, there are legal risks in inappropriate recruitment. Not paying enough attention, the hiring process may easily fall in the trap of discriminatory hiring practices, which causes unnecessary legal and economic problems, and could harm the organizations’ reputation and public relation images.