Saturday, November 3, 2007

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.

No comments: