Saturday, November 3, 2007

We smoked 'em.

BYU - 35
CSU - 16

'Nuff said.






NACin' it.


Thursday night we had the opportunity to hear from Elder W. Rolfe Kerr at the Marriott School National Advisory Council (NAC) conference dinner. The theme for the conference was Enter to Win, Go Forth to Serve. Here are some of my notes from his talk:

Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve, and Strive to Excel

Enter to Win
  • Learn more than is expected of you
  • After belief, must follow application in your life
  • Be a life-long learner and make changes along the way
  • Right now is a time for building character, knowledge and confidence
  • Know more about your families and service to the church
Go Forth to Serve
  • Do more than is expected of you
  • Mosiah 2:17: "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service ofyour God."
  • Do the job at hand better than it's ever been done and know your efforts will be rewarded
Strive to Excel
  • Become more than is expected
  • Pursue excellence in your person
    • Personal
      • Consciously succeed at home first
      • Seek and merit divine help
      • Never compromise your honesty
    • Interpersonal
      • Remember the people involved
      • Hear both sides before judging
      • Facilitate success of your associates
    • Professional
      • Plan tomorrow's (next week's, next year's) work today
      • Achieve visibility by your productivity
      • Develop one new proficiency each year
  • Paraphrasing President Hinckley: "All of us cannot be geniuses but we can all strive to be better." (reference)
  • "I'd rather see a sermon, than hear one. I'd rather get my lesson by observing you." (reference)
  • Become more than is expected of you

Career Insights

Okay, so this is a week later than I promised...but a little thing called midterms got in the way. So I have a good excuse. But as promised...what I learned from our little visits last weekend.

Black & Decker

Key take-away
*HR must be a Strategic Business Partner and should:
  • Be pro-active about acquiring the right talent
  • Consult closely with the other business areas
  • Not just be an administrative function
  • Educate the company culture
  • Give managers the tools to hire the right talent
Other insights:
  • Talent Acquisition
    • Why do they hire someone? 80% Traits and 20% Skills - Traits are innate, skills can be taught
    • Behavioral Interviewing - the best determinate of future ability to do the job is past experience
    • Analyze where are we finding the best talent and what is it costing us?
    • Also how fast can we get them and how qualified are they?
    • Build a database of candidates
      • Internet
      • Employee Referrals
      • Research Firms
      • Agencies (last option)
  • Interviewing
    • Practice
    • Never stop networking
    • Be a good person
Edwards Lifesciences
  • Be good at influence management
  • Own the project
  • Become an expert in everything related to your product
  • Use the 4 P's of marketing (product, pricing, promotion, place)
  • To increase your network, set up a lunch everyday with a different person
Final Thoughts
In discussing our trip with , one of the things we all took away from this experience was how easy it is to set up informational interviews.

Prior to our trip, my fellow travelers and I all felt a little apprehensive about "informational interviews". But everyone we met with was super willing (and I would even say excited) to talk to us and share their perspectives and experience about their personal career path, current job and how to get the right position for us. Reaching out to alumni and other people in our networks is suddenly not so intimidating and as we learned oh-so-valuable. The contacts we made and the information we gleaned will most definitely help our our internship search journey.