Blogs by Ryan

The thing that I have taken away from this class more than anything else is the preparation that is required before going through an interview process and researching the company. When you are looking at companies to apply for it is very important to do research of that company and to find out what that company is actually about and how they operate. It is very important for you to do this because you will be able to find things about the company on the internet that will be useful information. After you gather all of this information you need to dive into and see if it aligns with your own beliefs and values. It is important that you find a company that fits your values the best because if you are in a company that doesn’t fit your views it will be a hard time to enjoy that job. Along with this, you want a place that is a respectful place that takes pride in diversity and equality. You want an equal shot with everyone else and be able to really make a difference in the company. I think this is one of the most important things I have learned in this class. I will always use this to research companies that I want to work for in the future.

Another thing that is important that I have learned in this class is how to make a proficient hiring process in a company. This is very beneficial because if I plan on starting my own company I can use these processes that we have done for our final project and get great candidates for the job posting. I will also know the associated costs with them and what are the best steps to do. For instance, I will have all of my candidates take the Wonderlic test because there is so much information you can gain from someone that takes that test. I also have learned about the benefits of different types of recruiting and when to do a college recruiter or not.

I would say I am very good at talking with people and making them feel comfortable talking with me. I think this is one of my best strengths that I have. I also am very talented at video games. I love to play video games with friends. Another strengths of mine is working in teams a communicating with people.

I would have to say the thing I value most in my life is family. In my opinion family always comes first. Second I value honesty and being true to who you are. I think being authentic is very important to me and it something I value a lot.

I got here today because of my parents and other family. They have thought me everything I know and I am very thankful for them. Another thing that got me here is my hard work and determination. When I set my mind to something I will commit to it 100% and do my best to achieve that goal.

I am going into the workforce to hopefully make an impact on my company and also be able and start making money. I hope to be going in a good path and learn a lot on the way. I will still be known for my hard work and for being a family man.

After taking the test I got to see what the test results said about me. Of the five models that they gave me the first one was Extroversion. I would say I agree with this. In the facet section, it talks about the different makeup of this and how they came up with the results. It talks about being friendly and being gregarious which I later had to look up what meant. The second one was the agreeableness. I think this sums me up pretty well. I always like to find common grounds and try to avoid conflict when it isn’t needed. They said this one fit me 89. The third one was conscientiousness and I feel like this one fits very well. I always like to think of what my actions will cause other people. I think this one is important to me because I feel that people need to be more conscious of people’s feelings then fewer bad things will happen. My score for this one was an 86. The fourth one was neuroticism and I got a low 35 for this one. I feel these results should be lower and that I feel that I don’t have a lot of cravings at all. I remember putting very inaccurate for most of them so I am not sure how it says that I have a lot of cravings. For the fifth dimension, it was openness to experiment and I score lower than expected in this. I don’t believe this is accurate because I feel that I am pretty open to experiences and like going places to experience new things.

I think if an employer was looking at this information then they would gain information about me and some of my strengths. It would say I’m good working with people and am very friendly. I personally would not like it if an employer got this information because I feel that it is slightly off. This could be because I took the shorter version. I think if employers did start to look at this information is could be tricky because people could lie about there answers which could make them look better. This could show fake results that could cheat your way on getting hired. I do believe that this test could be beneficial for higher if done right. They should see how the person does on some of the important categories and make sure they still go through the interview process and make sure that they still talk with each person. I believe nothing beats getting a face to face conversation with each candidate so you can see how they are with talking to a person. I feel you learn more about them.

Given the two candidates and a lot of thinking, I would hire Avery but under the constraint that I would watch over her for her probationary period and try to help her want to be her best version of her self. I believe her potential is too great to pass up and think with good management and having her work on herself, can bring out the potential in her.

I believe consistency comes with experience and hard work. A job that would fit this is soccer. Teams will pick players that they see to have a lot of potentials and will work and train with them to boost their consistency and make them reach their potential. The reason it makes her more valuable than Jaime is that the potential is higher and that they can expect bigger things to bring Avery if she works hard. This is a common occurrence in a lot of sports. Teams will go out and find players that are struggling and or arent “tune-up mechanically” but have a lot of potential in there ability. They aren’t afraid of them not being there best self yet because they want to help them become it.

I think a scenario where it would be better to have Jaime rather than Avery I in a grocery store or maybe a generic desk job. The reason for this is because these jobs need consistent work that will just do there job. They don’t offer a very high level of decision making. Also, their potential may be limited because of the current position and there isn’t anything above really what they are doing. She is better in positions where all you need is someone who is consistent and gets the job done.

What is my Brand? I think my brand or the thing that separates me from others is my job experiences along with attitude and work ethic. Something that I have a lot of pride in is my work ethic. I make it a goal of mine to show up early every day to work and to make sure that I am asking questions. Along with this, I always make sure to keep a positive attitude under any environment. A lot of my current skills have to do with previous experiences I had in sports/work that has shaped the way I am. I would say one of my weaknesses would be my writing skills. I have a hard time getting writing assignments started.

The way that I would create a novel is by making an ad that shows how all of my experiences with the Special Olympics and other work-related experiences that have shaped me. I would have them portray me as a very helpful hard worker that is there for all of the people at all times. It would give a brief introduction to me that detailed my strengths and weaknesses. The novel/ad would fit with the company’s values and mission statement. Along with this, it would tailor me to fit in with the current role that was posted for that website. This would allow me to gain a competitive advantage because the ad would be presented with my resume and cover letter. I would also display the companies logo and name so it would be specific for that company. I think the important part of the novel is that it is to the point and providers’ facts about you. Everything must be trustworthy because that ultimately will make you have a better chance to succeed when getting the opportunity.

The last job I had was for an Internship for Hoffman Construction for the role of a Project Engineer. Before applying for the job I remember to look at the job description for the company and was surprised by how detailed it was. For people that don’t know, project engineers have a very long list of tasks that they have to perform and it’s very hard to list all of them. I knew this prior to reading the job description and was very surprised by how detailed they made there’s. It made me feel good to apply for the position because it showed that they were very particular in detail and thorough in there work. When having my first day it matched up pretty well with how the job description was laid out. They said that there would be a lot of training and posting RFI’s and submittals. This is pretty much would I did for most of the Internship. There is a lot of training the engineers have to go through in order to be ready to be given tasks. The reason for this is because our jobs are very complex and need a high level of confidence in order to do your job good. You are also in charge of managing billion-dollar contracts and you have to make sure all of the structures are to code. Some things that were not in the job descriptions that were in the job that surprised me were how they did there breaks and lunches. In construction, things are going constantly and you never know when you will have to talk to the contractors and have meetings with them. This makes it very hard to have set breaks and lunches. A lot of the time you don’t get any set ’15 min breaks’. This is because of how everyone days fluctuate and there are a lot of times that you are chilling and not doing much in between meetings and during the day. After the internship was over, I was very pleased with how it went. I was fortunate and received an offer at the end and happily accepted it. With them providing a very descriptive job description I knew exactly what I was going into which helped me prepare for it.

After reading the article about ABC Company, I learned about the lawsuit against them regarding a widespread discrimination claim. Prior to reading the article, this has been a company that I have looked up too for many years and always had a dream about working for them. After reading the article/claims against them, I can so I no longer want to work for that company. This is because company culture and work-life is the most important thing to me when looking into companies. Not only that, but their ethical standards and how they hold their company from an ethical view is also equally important. I want to align myself with a company that fits my own personal values. With this lawsuit company out, I now know that this company doesn’t fit with my values and or ethical standards. Working for a company that you are proud to tell people about is something that is important to me. With them making major news with this huge discrimination is something that would completely shift my views on the company and not make me want to align myself with that company. It is one thing if it’s a single case by a single employee. It is another thing if this is a company-wide problem. This reflects very poorly on that company and employees, making me personally not able to support that company anymore. This would completely stop me from applying for this job opening. Like I stated earlier, the company values and ethics are something that is very important for me and with this huge discrimination lawsuit coming out against this company and now know that they don’t hold themselves to as high of a standard that I am looking for in a company.

Innovation within a company is something that will make them very successful and be able to strive in the future (i.e Apple). This is because of that company constantly being able to offer a unique product or service to the market. Most of these innovative ideas come from there R&D teams and then are sold to consumers by the marketing teams. This is why companies tend to spend more money in these areas and lose track of making sure that they are spending if not as much money in the recruiting and selection. A lot of companies that do this are to focus on finding a new innovation they can come out with that could make them a lot of money. Companies are so focused today on finding ways to differentiate themselves and make their products unique. They believe allocating more resources in those areas will result in these products being made and sold. They forget that recruiting and selecting these employees that are on these teams is just as if not more important. Each employee needs to be highly qualified and fit in with the companies culture. It is also good to have a diverse group of people to bring different perspectives while collaborating. This is something that companies will lack (weakness) when they shift there focuses too much on R&D and marketing. This could also result in high turnover rates and not qualified employees being in certain roles where they shouldn’t be. This could result in lots of problems within the company and would be the biggest weakness of spending too much money on R&D and marketing.

The last time that I was applying for a job, I did a bunch of stuff prior, to researching the company and to make sure they are a good fit for me. The first thing I did was go on the companies webpage and browse through it to see what current projects they had going and to look and hope to read about company culture. After seeing what the company looks like through there webpage I then research the company on Glass Door and Linkedin to see reviews about them and look at salary estimates. I then will go through the application process on their website and fit out any information that they require besides my resume. I then went to my resume and checked it to make sure it fits the company and made any changes necessary. I then posted my resume and submitted my application on the website. When I was the last applying for a company I applied for many in that same day. To be honest, when I was first applying, I wasn’t very confident in the regards of hearing back from any of these companies. I figured I would have to apply to many companies in order to hear back from them. The last application I did was for Hoffman Construction and it was the place I wanted to be the most. It is the top construction company in the NW Region and they are in charge of doing some very famous headquarters and buildings (Nike, Intel, Space Needle,.. etc). After doing my research on them I knew they were a company that I would love to work for and could see myself working for them for a long time. I then did research and saw they paid a good salary, based on the average salary for project engineers. They also had great reviews about company culture and what they believed in. This was very appealing to me which made me more excited about this company and applying for them. I had a good letter of recommendation to get me in the door with my application and emailed them in order to remind them. I remember after submitting the application, I was still unsure if I was going to hear back from them our not. Due to previously not hearing back from a lot of companies, I was worried that I wasn’t going to hear back from them. I ended up doing a follow-up email a couple days after submitting my application and they responded to me the same day. They then schedule an online interview. Throughout the whole process, this company made me want to work for them more and more because I see they really care about there employees and offer great benefits.

Welcome to blogs.oregonstate.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!