Category: Week 1

Organizations may decide to allocate more resources toward marketing or product design rather than employee recruitment and selection because of the increasing emphasis on the product and brand over people or individuals. While cynical, many corporations do in fact see employees as easily replaceable and just a cog in their business plan. A good example is the US economy, wherein a large portion of the workforce could see their jobs replaced in the next 5-10 years.

Automation and technology aside, many companies often care more about selling and creating products using a consumer-based view. Apple and Nike can always hire more people because of the brand they’ve built up; everyone wants to work there. They don’t need to focus too much on recruiting the best, because a natural rise to the top will occur for them looking at results and output. Good products need to be communicated to market faster and better because more people will buy than will be hired.

By prioritizing other aspects of business, a company would benefit from better R&D and market share, continual building of their brand, or any number of factors they choose to focus on. There’ll always be bodies to work for them and they can expand and profit more elsewhere.

However, a potential weakness in not prioritizing recruitment and selection is that they do get those bad employees. Dissatisfaction is contagious and it may adversely affect productivity and disrupt other processes.

I had first heard of Kroger’s summer internship through a friend of mine who had gone through the program herself and had nothing but positive things to say about it. I searched for the position online and ended up applying through LinkedIn. I made sure to tailor my resume and write a solid cover letter that showed how interested I was as well as my qualifications for the job. I wasn’t particularly anxious during the wait that followed; I had applied to many other positions for the summer. I was however excited to setup a phone interview and then an in-person interview afterwards.

I made sure to go over what I was going to cover on my resume and prepared myself by practicing answering questions with my roommates. It really helped to have gone through a couple of classes that focused solely on the interview process. When the day came, I made sure I was dressed professionally and prepared to WOW my interviewer. We ended up getting along really well, and I asked a lot of questions at the end. From these questions and the atmosphere of the interview, I was able to get a feel for the company culture and the importance of teamwork they stressed in the office. My interviewer was super excited for me and the other applicants, as she truly believed in the company, its core values, and how fun the summer would be for us.

This, along with the technical breakdowns of what I’d be doing and how the summer was structured, painted a pretty good picture of an amazing opportunity. When I received the official offer, I was excited to accept it. Everyone I had interacted with was so genuine and passionate about their careers and teams, and I could tell this was going to be a good place to work. The professionalism exemplified by the individuals I got to talk to made me feel like this was a good fit and I truly did feel informed before I had even started.