Category: Uncategorized

As I reflect on the classes I have attended, there are so many lessons I have learnt that are beneficial to my day to day life and even important in my future life. I have had very many interesting topics but the most interesting one is about Personal network structure. Networking is the process of identifying and maintaining a relationship. This relationship is important because one is able to obtain information, guidance, influence and even support in the career growth and development. This topic has helped me learn and understand the various network behaviors necessary in the shaping of one’s personal career. Such behaviors include; initiation and maintenance of internal and external contacts in one’s organization, getting engaged and involved in professional and even community activities and also doing more challenging work assignments.

This topic has taught me that, attending of events such as career seminars, conferences and educative meeting, one is able to gain knowledge, new ideas and also interact with new influential people. This people can be managers or even leaders, therefore any interaction with them can be beneficial to your career journey. Networking behaviors helps in the achievement of valuable career outcomes such as Career satisfaction, advancement and even career mobility whereby one is able to move from one organization to the other in such of greener pastures.

This topic has taught me about weak and strong ties whereby the weak ties comprises of the people that I less frequently meet and we are not emotionally attached whereas the strong ties constitutes of people that are very close to me and we are emotionally attached for instance my family or even very close friends. The topic helped me understand that the best ties to maintain are the weak ties because from such I am able obtain untapped, unique and more diverse information and resources essential for my career growth. Finally I learnt that maintaining large networks is important because it enhances effectiveness and also increases the chances of finding new and better job opportunities and also creation of intra firm mobility. I therefore think that this class is important for my future career.

I took the personality test and my results were as follows.

On Thoroughness, I scored 5. The score means that just like a majority of the people, I am a thorough person who also pays attention to details. On perseverance, I scored 8, a score that means that I am conscientious and that I meet deadlines on time and complete any tasks assigned to me thoroughly. I scored 6 on self-control and stability, a score that reflects my ability to manage my emotions as well as any other person. I scored 6 on conformity, an aspect that means that I am obedient just as most people are. On decisiveness, I scored 7, which according to the text means that I can make decisions and conclusions quickly.

A potential employer who would be looking at these scores would first get the impression of an honest potential employee. This is because the results reflect truthfulness and honesty without exaggerations in answering the questions. The potential employer would also have a glimpse of my strengths and weaknesses.

One of my qualities that an employer may perceive as weaknesses depending on the test, is on thoroughness, whereby I scored 5. While 5 on thoroughness shows that I am a thorough person, it may mean that I am not quite thorough or keen to details. The employer would perceive several strengths of my personality. The strengths include perseverance and Decisiveness. Having scored 8 on perseverance means that I can persevere even in difficult working conditions. It also means that I work with obligation and I meet deadlines in time. This would be quite a good strength for most employers. On decisiveness, I scored 7 which translates to the speedy making of decisions and conclusions. The employer looking at the results would get the impression that I can make things and processes move on a bit faster.   

If I were the business owner and had to make a choice for the person that I would shire between the high performing Avery and the consistent Jaime, I would definitely go for Jaime for consistency purposes. A consistent employee despite not providing high level performances will always guarantee good results on a regular basis and are will provide the organization with the cushion of getting the job well done every time they embark on a particular project. As such I would go for Jaime because despite low potential takes pride in accomplishing tasks consistently rather than Avery who is high performing but inconsistent.

Supervisory role would be a perfects role for Avery who is very high performing because despite poor consistency, she would provide the best benchmark and set very high standards for the employees under her because she has clear indication of what the best result should look like. Despite her inconsistency, she has people under her who will carry out tasks according to her specifications, thus she does not need to be around every other time. She is better suited than Jaime in this regard because she sets higher standards than the average consistent Jaime, who would thrive under Avery in this role

A department managerial role would be an ideal role for Jaime because of his consistency despite his relatively lower potential. In any organization managerial consistency is very vital as lack of it could result to key functions of a department failing which could significantly affect the operations of the organization. A manager coordinate the various operations of a department and hence should be consistent, which makes Jaime more Suitable than Avery

Employers are nowadays critiquing and reviewing employee’s skills and competency to ensure that they hire the best employees who will drive an organization to success. The primary aim of my brand is presenting myself as the most qualified applicants for relevant job opening.  In this regard I seek to first be informed in my field with all the necessary knowledge that pertains to my field. Secondly, as a potential employee I seek to perfect on my communication skills so that in any interview I would be in a position to communicate my skills and capability effectively. Besides, as a potential employee I keep myself informed in regards to the information and news concerning the potential employer organization.

My objective for this blog is confirming new ideas which are already in the market for different employers but generating them with a creative approach to create fascination among the employers. My brand is designed to make communication to various employers through a means of novel as well as providing a creative situation to be more appealing. A novel design offers a more explicit and concise manner of providing a clear approach to getting more employers. For my novel, I will provide a readable content as with clear opportunity for exclusive brand description as well as creating impressive paragraphs about my brand offerings including all the information that different applicants will need to scroll through in. Similarly, creative will be necessary to add a touch of impression to my brand. One creative ad in my mind is ‘tick these boxes  for any job and you will be on your way in ensuring your applicants that are filled s with individuals that are fit for the role. Similarly, on top of my page, I will outline my readiness to help employers find the perfect match of the roles they are seeking to fill. On the flipside, lack of enough experience is my greatest challenge that I cannot solve at this moment.

Come to think of it, I easily remember everything about my last job. I saw the advertisement of the job with the post of an accountant in a local newspaper. I was definitely sure that I qualified for the job since I had a bachelor degree in Business Management and pursued the accounting option. It hit my mind that this was the golden chance and opportunity for me to grow my career. It took me less than thirty minutes for me to apply for the job, attach my certificates and testimonials and send them to the organization’s human resource manager over the provided email addresses.

After some days I received a call and yes I passed the test and from there onwards I underwent through some interviews of which I passed. The job description was sent through my email and after going through it I accepted the job. The job description which stated the job requirements and included the special qualification, requisite experiences, salary and benefits was so influential to my decisions of taking up the job. To be specific the salary and benefits offered for the job were so appealing to my eyes influencing my decision to apply for that job. The job description stated a need for three years’ working experience but my experience was only two years.

Similarity occurred in some job requirements, for instance I had the required certificates on accounting and other related courses. Secondly I also had a letter from my previous employer proofing that I had an experience of working as an accountant. The job description was closely related to my experience because the responsibilities and duties were so familiar and similar to the various task I performed in the organizations I got my experiences from. It was certain that most of the job requirements and qualifications were well stipulated in my applications. The difference comes in when the organization is not able to proof whether I have the various skills I claimed to have. Some skills can well be elaborated in the line of duty. The largest mistake various organizations do is assuming that the newly employed will exercise the skills they claim to have during the application.

I must admit that I am utterly shocked by the news of lawsuits against Atlanta Hawks on the basis of discrimination based on ethnicity and gender.  I really feel disappointed by Hawks that being one my favorite company I didn’t think that such kind of discrimination would happen in such a world class institution. For sure, despite the previous high liking and support that I accorded Atlanta Hawk i am now totally indifferent about the company. I cannot whatsoever support an institution that perpetuates any form of discrimination targeting any gender or any ethnicity. For Hawks to perpetuate discrimination based on gender and ethnicity it is totally out of order and should be condemned with all the possible terms. I must also admit that I had been yearning to work with Hawk immediately I am done with my college study. In fact I already had a friend who works there and had encouraged me to apply for a job there once I have my college certificate. However, I must state that after this news of discrimination in Hawks I have forthwith reconsidered my intention to work with this company and I will now start looking for another suitable company. I am strong advocate of a free society in the belief that all people should be treated and given equal opportunities in all sectors of the society. Discrimination in the workplace does not only reduce workers’ productivity but to make it worse racial and gender based discrimination can actually have negative psychological impacts to the victim. It doesn’t matter whether discrimination targets the whites or the blacks but any form of discrimination is bad as it even goes against the spirit of our constitution. I also believe that discrimination affects the general economy of a nation as some people ends up becoming unproductive as a result of discrimination.

Despite the very critical role that the employee recruitment plays in an organization some organization still prefer allocating more resources marketing and product design. Though an organization cannot exists without employee, in the same way there would be no need to have employees if the product was not there. More importantly, by allocating more resources to marketing and product design the organization is also fulfilling the recruitment and selection process but in a reverse way through employer branding. This is because once a company product is strong in the market this becomes a brand that attract competent employees and again once this strong brand enable the company makes profit, this overall performance attracts competent employees to the organization thus fulfilling the employee recruitment roles. Additionally the product is what defines an organization and as long as the product marketing and design works an organization can pay it employees well and attain them since it will operate as a going concern.

The potential strengths on organization that adopt this approach are the fact that it saves on the high cost involved in the recruitment process. Besides, such an organization is able to attract competent employees to the organization as result of the good performance of its product in the market. On the other hand, the weakness of such an organization is the fact that it might have employees who have a very low morale. This is because the employee recruitment process is tied up with the employee motivation process, as such less focus on the recruitment process leads to less focus on the general welfare of the employees which in turn translate to low morale and consequently poor performance. The other weakness is that such an organization could have a mismatch in linking employees to their right roles which leads to low productivity and wasted talents.

Job application experiences vary from one individual to the other as well as from one company to the other. The last job application I made was an application as a human resource intern in an insurance company. Contrary, to most common application procedures where one is required to attend an interview this application required that if one had the relevant application requirements prepare a presentation on a topic provided to present in front of a selected panel which would then ask questions. I remember how I initially tensed as my turn to present approached, however once I opened my fist slide everything else flowed. It was interesting to see experienced people even in higher ranking sits keenly following my presentation. I remember when I bypassed one slide and the HR manager could not hesitate to let me know. As I made the presentation I could see different reaction from the panel through their different facial expression like nodding as well as asking questions at the end of the session an indication that they keenly followed my presentation.

Indeed, this was a very wonderful experience especially since it was my very first time to apply for a job. The most common recruitment process is where a job applicant is invited for an interview by a panel. Surprisingly, I found this form of recruitment appealing as it gave me an opportunity to showcase my communication skills and my knowledge as expressed in the presentation content. Indeed this experience was an insight on the core objective of the Human resource department. That is the ability to listen and understand situations as this is important in addressing concerns from different employees.  Besides, the fact that even very senior employees could sit and keenly follow my presentation despite me being very green in this field I found it interesting to work in such a company that is ready to listen and respect the opinions of all employees despite the rank held.

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