Month: April 2020

For me, one of my biggest strengths that I have is I am very observant. Throughout my life in jobs and just life, I am able to see the little things and act if necessary on those. I am also adaptable. I have always been a quick learner. Something that helps my ability to learn quickly is my ability to have a teachable mindset. I always ask questions to ensure I am doing or understanding something correctly. Something that I am currently working on is being able to delegate tasks to people even though they haven’t shown that they are reliable. This happens a lot in group projects but I am sure it will be different in the real world.

A good way to illustrate these strengths is from personal experience in my job as an assembler at Lam Research. To highlight my adaptability I was assigned to a more complicated, personally built tool for a customer. I was used to working on simpler models that had more quantity being built. I was used to working on the same steps for the machine and got pretty familiar with how things should be with that certain machine. However, being moved made it so I had to learn new ways to build this tool. While doing it, I noticed that the way the tool was being built, was causing assemblers to put parts on but for the proceeding steps to be done, you had to take off the part you just put on. This created a lot of wasted time. Weirdly, it was something that was never brought up by others who have worked on the same tool. Because I was observant and took initiative, I submitted a request to change the way the tool was being built. After a week, I was recognized for increasing efficiency on that specific tool 10%. This is not a creative novel, rather it is a real-life story that helps illustrate my strengths.

For the last job that I had, I was an intern for a company that has the best truck stop in the world. The role that I had was the HR intern. Solely the job title was why I was interested. At the time, I was kind of late to apply for jobs so I was kind of desperate for an internship but I had an interest in HR.

In the job description, it was a very generic HR talent acquisition type of job but it also said I would be in charge of writing a new handbook for the company. At the bottom of the description, I remember it saying that it would prefer a candidate that was affiliated with SHRM. If you don’t know what SHRM is, it is the top HR organization in the world. This organization gives out certifications for HR professionals. Fortunately, I am apart of the Oregon State HR Management Student Association which is affiliated with SHRM. With that being said, it influenced me to apply for the position because I knew I would have a head start over most applicants.

The job application and the duties that were involved were nothing out of the ordinary for an HR intern. Rather my personal situation influenced my decision to apply more than the job application itself. However, the job application was in a professional way, so it was obviously not me blindly applying for positions.

If a company that I regularly supported had been guilty of mass discrimination against people with ethnicity, race or religion that I identified with, I would most definitely stop supporting them. It would obviously be hard if a company that made most of my clothing was accused of it, I wouldn’t go out and buy a whole new wardrobe.

However, coming from a Arab-Muslim family, there is widespread discrimination towards this demographic, it is something you have to expect. I wouldn’t be surprised unless it was a company that boasted themselves because of their focus on diversity then it would be a big issue. Diversity is something I look for in the workplace and is something that is very important to me in order for me to thrive in an environment. Soemthing that attracted me a lot about supply chain is when I worked in a distribution center there were so many people that had many backgrounds and were from different countries.

If this news came out about a company that I wanted a job at, it would definitely affect my opinion about it and I would not apply for jobs there because I would know that I would be discriminated against as soon as they read my name. It takes a lot of discrimination to get a lawsuit about widespread discrimination, so it shows what kind of people built the organization and the values that they go by are absolutely invalid.

Companies can focus too hard on their product or service that they often tend to forget about the process that helps create the service and carry out what the company promises to their customers – selecting the right people. It is easy to get caught up in the success of a product or service that they see that improvement and making the service better is key in growing their business. Often this leads to more investments in marketing, R&D, finding new ways to innovate and make things more efficient. Allocating resources to these functions of the business helps the company believe that they are always trying to make their product better and when they hit a bump in the road they feel like it is what they are providing as a product or service being at fault.

Another reason companies don’t invest in good employee selection processes is because there is always a degree of complacency in companies. If a new selection process that was effective, it may result in showing that many of the employees that are there now may actually not be a good fit. Evidently, people tend to hire people who have good credentials but also hire based off if they like and connect with the person. Having a structured selection process may lead to having more people stray away from the same type of person they’ve always hired. Another reason is that companies don’t want to spend a lot of time hiring because it can be very costly and they want to get it over with as fast as possible.

Strengths of companies that prioritize employee selection as a main function of the business is the ability to create a culture centered around the goals and values of the company. If there are better and formal ways of selecting employees, having employees who respect and adhere to the values of the company will be easier. Another strength is that it will help diversify the workplace because if the selection process is good it will let people in the company who previously may not have been chosen. An obvious strength for a company would be that they are actually hiring people who are right fits to a position and is based on objective information.

There aren’t many weaknesses for companies that focus on the selection process besides it taking a long time to finalize the process. It also may lead to concern that the people who are already in the company are not good fits for their position. It may also take away the time the company has to continue to innovate and make their product or service better. Since this can take lots of time and money, it may use up too many resources that may conflict or prevent them from using in other functions like marketing or R&D.

In conclusion, all companies should focus on better selecting and recruiting practices because employees are the keystone to every business.

The last job that I applied for was for a position in a management trainee program for a company that specialized in power tools. I initially applied for the job through a career fair, so it wasn’t something I sought out and applied for. During the career fair, they made it seem like a great opportunity and a good chance to grow. It also seemed like a good place to start your professional career right out of college. During the initial conversation about the program they really didn’t mention specifics about exactly what I would be doing, but they highlighted the autonomy of how I could pursue a career in the business. After speaking to them, we scheduled an interview.

The day of the interview, I was really not that anxious about it because after I went home and thought about it more, management trainee programs did not appeal to me and seemed like a place where you needed to be there forever in order to progress. When I got to the location of the interview, the interviewer showed up 30 minutes late to the interview. This caused me to care less about the interview and think more about the professionalism of the company.

Finally, when he arrived, he brought out a piece of paper that had questions, checkboxes, and big spaces to write. Whenever he would ask me a question he would sigh and basically roll his eyes back as if it was a burden that he was interviewing me. On top of that, he would never write anything down and would occasionally check one of the boxes. When I asked questions about the business he was not enthusiastic at all either. Digging for more information about the Poisson I found out I would be working on the sales floor at Home Depot for two years and that was something I definitely didn’t want to do. After finding that out I really didn’t care about the outcome of the interview or didn’t care if I got the job or not because from my experience I wouldn’t have accepted the position.

What is even better is that OSU continues to have the same career fair with the same companies, even companies like this that waste applicants’ times. This story shows that the hiring portion of a business is also a sales position because you want to be able to convince people that this is a company that you actually want to work for.

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