Month: April 2025

Just recently, I have gone through a couple of interviews. Setting up myself for graduation, through this process I got to see the different ways companies approach recruits and the ways they interview their recruits. I was very impressed with all the companies I talked to. However, two stood out to me. These two companies asked to meet with me in Portland and took me on job walks, showing me their projects and their day-to-day responsibilities within these projects. Immediately I was impressed by their openness to have me and others out on the job site and getting a better understanding of the way their company works. In one of these interviews, it was broken out in a round robin way. Where we were interviewing 6 different people from the company varying in jobs and time spent with the company, which I thought was a extremely effective way to interview. One of the interviewers did not come prepared with any questions for me and simply asked me to tell him about myself. Which seemed nice at first but was somewhat frustrating for me when I was prepared for some difficult questions about the job. The rest of the interviewers were well prepared and asked me the questions I was anticipating, and overall, the experience was good. It just continues to stand out to me as a sort of fluke of an interview. The only recommendation I have for that company would have the interviewers to be ready and prepared with some questions as well as maybe less interviewers as it was a solid 2 hours of interviews.

Job descriptions are used to provide people with information about the job requirements and a description of the basic responsibilities of the role. This is super important for the people applying, it can inform the person whether they are qualified for the position and what to anticipate if they are to receive the role. I expect that most of the time when reading a job application and specifically the job description/requirements, it can be discerning, especially when applying for a job outside of your comfort zone. This happened to me when  I was looking for a job while in Bend and hoping to find something to better my career and specifically get me time with a program called AutoCAD. This program is typically taught for my degree, and I was replacing the class with a different software class but thought it would be useful for me to get some experience. I ended up searching for a couple of weeks and applying for a engineering intern position at Deschutes Brewery. I was severely unequipped for this job, one of the lines that stood out to me in the job description was “proficient in AutoCAD” to which I had literally  no experience in. The first-round interview was over the phone and seemed to have gone well but I made sure to add that I had no experience with the program. About a week later I had installed the program and watched YouTube videos anticipating a quick turn around from Deschutes, they ended up emailing me and saying they’re going a different direction. This discouraged me, btu I continued to mess around with the program on my free time, looking for other jobs. About a week after the bad news, Deschutes reached out again asking for another interview, I went and we discussed how I have been practicing with the program, and I ended up getting the job. I highly suggest even if a job description seems daunting to be brave and apply and you will be surprised with the outcome.

Through my readings it was clear to me that people are most happy and feel the most valued through actions the company makes to provide additional support to their workers. Diversity, inclusion and benefits are the words used most commonly when describing their positive feedback for their companies. Hosting company-wide events and being focused on the employee are other things that stood out to me promoting the employees and their opinions on a company. For instance all of the top ten companies on the 2020 fortune best companies to work for, they all have a people first culture. This not only benefits the employees of the company but also their effectiveness when working. If I were to be a Human Resources Manager, I would take a wholistic approach. Treating each member of the company as a crucial part of the system and rewarding them for their efforts. A couple of the topics I would use to reward my employees would be paid sick time, vacation time, employee stock ownership program, paid holidays, and company parties to promote team building and working well together.  This not only improves their wages and benefits but provides them with more opportunities to grow outside of work and come back feeling and working better than when they left. I would also opt to promote work life balance by implementing flexible working hours where as long as an employee hits 40 hours a week they are able to work whenever, of course that needs to include a 30 minute unpaid lunch. Overall, I see companies that are successful implement programs that support work life balance and increase compensation through benefits.